Verre

Ritual: WTB 2:30am, after a little over four hours of sleep I strap the vibrating alarm to my wrist, set for 35 minutes. When it goes off it wakes me very definitely. I lay still and try to DEILD but can feel that REMA is broken. Turn down vibration strength to minimum, note time at 7:20am, and try again... same result. Remove alarm and go to sleep normally. Next time I wake up, try again with better success... at the time thought it was DEILD but realize now it must have actually been a DILD because I was not in my WL bed, so it must have been FA rather than real waking.

DILD-DEILD: I wake up and remember not to move. I am lying on my right side, but I am in a bed in my grandmother's house. Momentarily I wonder why I am there, but "remember" that I am visiting her. Oddly, in retrospect it feels like my lengthwise orientation—the directions my head and feet were respectively pointing—was also the opposite from how I sleep WL, and that the bed was on the opposite wall, sort of like the whole room was a mirror image of my WL bedroom. But since everything was in the same relative position to everything else, I'm not sure where that feeling came from.

I try to DEILD and at first I'm convinced I'm physically moving but REMA seems intact so I relax and explore my sensory awareness. Finally I just start to rock back and forth, until I feel confident enough in my dream body to get out of bed. The door to the hall is open, and on the other side I can see the living room, lit up by a Christmas tree with beautiful golden lights. I know it is my grandmother's house in Texas and don't realize that she hasn't lived there for years.

My awareness is fairly low all around and I don't recall my tasks either. Aimlessly I go outside and spontaneously a magnificent chestnut horse canters up to me, already saddled. I used to ride a lot in Texas so it is probably the result of mental association. I caress the shoulder of the horse and put my left foot in the stirrup, barely able to reach that high as the animal is quite tall. I start to pull myself up and into the saddle but I lose my balance and get "stuck" with my right leg halfway over. I waver there with my left leg in the stirrup and my right in mid-air, somehow unable to complete the movement. Finally I force it with an act of will and get astride the horse, but it doesn't feel right, the proportions are all wrong. The mental dissonance wakes me (although I am now convinced this too was an FA).

FA(?): On waking, I review the dream and recognize my mental error in thinking that I had been visiting my grandmother's old house and that it was Christmas-time, but I thought I was at least correct in the position of the tree, and remembered seeing in that spot one year. Now that I am fully awake, I have my doubts even about this: my "remembered" layout of the house was all wrong, and I don't think I ever even visited at Christmas time.

DILD-DEILD: I didn't think REMA had broken yet so I tried to DEILD again, and there were some ambiguous successes that I don't recall well (I still suspect the whole thing was a DILD, and that even most of the "transitions" occurred entirely within the dream state).

At some point I am back in my WL house, and I open the front door to go outside. After the stunt on the horse I wonder if the door will impede my progress and, probably in response to my thought, I discover that after I open the first door panel there is still a second one to go through, but I try not to cause unnecessary obstacles for myself and go through the second door easily.

It is very foggy in the front yard, and it is also a wide grassy area with scattered trees rather than a busy suburban street. The fog is making everything vague so I go for the tried and true, "Clarity now!" I shout it a few times and the dream responds, a bit sarcastically overdoing it. Now everything is too sharp, almost pixellated. I can see white and black birds with incredible definition in their pattern and plumage, but the focus is too sharp to look comfortably real. This is preferable to the earlier fogginess, however, so I go along with it.

As so often, I start instinctively singing as I explore the landscape. My voice is somewhat annoying this time, high-pitched and overly sweet, and there's nothing especially beautiful or memorable about the melodies I'm coming up with. It sounds like the sort of singing you'd hear in a mediocre mid-century musical. But I stick with it, hoping I can use it to influence the dream.

The landscape is pleasantly pastoral in all directions now. I am walking in an open meadow, and there are scattered trees here and there. I can't see any other figures, and I decide things would be more interesting if I could interact with a DC, so I decide to request one. I sing something about the "view," and then in the next line ask the dream to "send someone to talk to..." — and hesitate, having botched the lyrics. If I could end the with line "to you," it would have proper meter and rhyme, but obviously I wanted the DC to come talk "to me," so I tack the word "me" awkwardly onto the end of the line. It sounds so stupid that I break character and laugh at myself.

I give up on the singing and make my request again with a simple act of will. This works much better, and at once I can see a woman—of a sort—approaching me. She has a human torso but the lower part of her body is that of a large serpent, like a naga, and she resembles Medusa in having snake-like strands instead of hair. While I contemplate her unusual appearance, a second such creature shows up at her side. The face of the second one is thinner, with high cheekbones, attractive even, and her snake-hair is asymmetrically coiffed like elaborate dreadlocks. I find her appearance so striking that I want to complement her.

"I like your... arrangement." It comes out awkwardly because I realized mid-sentence that "hair" wasn't the right word and had to choose another one, but I'm not sure if she'll understand. "I mean your snakes," I explain hurriedly, hoping I'm not inadvertently being offensive by naming them as such. The naga I'm addressing studies me with a twisted expression, like she's not sure whether to be flattered or irritated.

I converse with them for a few minutes but unfortunately I can't recall what we discussed. Then they ask me for a favor: will I go up that hill nearby and tell their father that they're working on the project? It sounds like an innocent request, but I sense that there is something sinister behind it. I suspect that this is a ploy to lure me into their encampment, where I will be taken captive. As I hesitate, pondering their motivations, I can actually feel the pressure of their minds against mine, like they are attempting to work a subtle enchantment to compel me to go. I lash back mentally, and they both recoil.

Now the veneer of friendliness drops, and the two nagas become openly hostile. I don't feel like getting dragged into a fight, so I instinctively put an end to the situation. At the top of my voice I shout wordless syllables that sound like a whiplash or thunderclap—"Kuk-KAH!"—and clap my hands together at the same instant. The two nagas vanish into thin air. I am satisfied with how well that worked, but feel a faint pang of concern... I hope I didn't destroy them; I only meant to remove them from my presence!

The dream ends at this point. I wake up and start report around 8:45am.