Verre

As I was falling asleep last night, at one point I became aware that I was just below the waking threshold and was able to take some control over the hypnagogic imagery. I wanted to try a TOTY and decided to attempt sledding again. I figured my problem last time was that I had gotten fixated on looking for a mountain to sled down... wouldn't it be more sensible to establish that I was on the mountain to start with? Then all I would have to do is go downhill. And find snow, of course.

I successfully turned the hypnagogic imagery into a scene of sliding down a mountain slope. Initially it felt more like imagining than dreaming, in part because I was not yet fully embodied in the scene, only seeing it in my mind's eye. But already it was manifesting some of the ornery characteristics of dream and resisting my attempts to imagine snow, so I was sliding over bare earth. I let the scene play along and pretty soon I started to feel physical sensations: the bumps along the ground (I thought wistfully how snow would smooth out the ride!) and the surprisingly realistic smack of low hanging leaves against my face as I passed under trees. I was on a round metal saucer sled, barely big enough to seat me, but by concentrating I could prevent it from spinning out of control (unlike the similar sled I have in WL!)

Before long it started to feel like a real dream with physical embodiment, but I was still lucid enough that I was not concerned when my sled went over a steep embankment and into freefall: I just applied some mental "brakes" and came down gently, landing in the yard of someone's farm. The farmer was there, so I realized this would be a perfect opportunity to coax some snow into existence.

"Can you believe the weather we're having?" I asked the farmer. "Such thick snow! Hey, where is the snow the deepest?" I tried to make my tone convincing, despite the fact that there was still no snow in sight. Apparently this worked, because the farmer pointed into the distance, and when I sledded off in that direction, soon I was surrounded by snow everywhere!

I was back in the mountain forest, but there was a slight problem. I looked around and saw no way down but steep rocky cliffs, rather than slopes that looked suitable for sledding. I figured I should just pick a cliff and sled off it anyway, since freefalling posed no real danger. But at that moment, for no good reason, I felt a subtle pang of anxiety about completing the task, and this woke me up.

Dreams are a wonderful laboratory for discovering all the ways that our own minds can get in the way of our intentions!

Train—open—more and more crowded—trying to stay secure.

Earlier, plane—everyone had kissed the screen, identical lip print.

Bangkok—know the route from having taken many times.

Scenery from the train amazing, began photographing—tall earthy brown cliffs on the right; later on the left forest, enormous trees, figures of other beings like bas-relief in bark, then we were zooming through a city on the water, buildings alternating from Renaissance to modern faux-vernacular shopping plaza style.

Reminded myself to actually look at the photos after I took them, because when I woke up, they would be unlikely to still be on the camera. Some were amazing, and I was sorry they wouldn't last. Others not so great—we were moving fast, and I couldn't always capture the best angle.

"This is the clearest dream I've had in a long time." Happy because for a while dreams have been distant and dim, frustrating. How did I accomplish this? All I could think was that I had finally wanted it enough. But how did I get lucid? Thought back and tried to remember the moment—this actually destabilized the dream and began waking process, but it was gradual enough that I could think back a bit first—realized there was no "aha!" moment, the lucidity had dawned gradually, probably because it was right before I'd been planning to get up anyway—only genuinely lucid for those last few moments when I started thinking critically about the pictures and the dream itself. At the time, though, I felt not an alteration of circumstance, but a sense of continuity with what had gone before. To be aware that you are dreaming is not unusual; to be aware that you are aware that you are dreaming is to be lucid.

Was the lucidity that which allowed me to appreciate and experience the clarity of the dream? But an appreciation must have preceded lucidity because that's what prompted me to start taking the pictures, before I realized they wouldn't last. And even after I knew they would not persist—I couldn't help hoping that this time would be different from all the others, this time they might cross over, through some miracle.