Verre

Ritual: I've had a bit of a dry spell lately, and even worse than the lack of lucid dreams has been the sensation of diminished overall awareness: my sleep lately has been distressingly ordinary. I'm still waking up frequently during the night, but now I can't even tell what time it is—usually I can guess accurately within ten minutes or so. When sleeping properly I always wake up a few minutes before my alarm, no matter what time I set it for, but lately the alarm has been waking me. I've been having an ordinary number of dreams, but they too are lacking even in rudimentary awareness. In the past, stressful periods at work have boosted my LDing, but I feel like maybe I'm getting a bit burnt out, so I've started using sleep as a form of escapism, instead of an opportunity for more interesting kinds of work. I've become a lazy sleeper!

Probably because of this lack of awareness, this time even when I started wondering if I was really dreaming, I continued to find the environment and events extremely persuasive and followed the plotline to its end. Only then did I take the time to deliberately RC. The only aspect of this that isn't disappointing is the fact that, once having noted I might be dreaming, I did manage to hold that thought and then come back to it, instead of just forgetting. I also felt as though my rational mind was functioning well in the way it recognized the dream sign, something that hasn't always been reliable.

The dream plot was based on waking life residue. Last night (in WL) around 1:30am we heard the sound of someone going through our trash bins outside the house, even though the bins are through a gate which, although it has no lock, clearly demonstrates a property boundary. Unfortunately there is no window through which to observe that area, and by the time I went out with a flashlight the person was gone.

The same thing happened in the dream, except that the person had left behind bags of newspapers, and I was worried they might contain criminal evidence. I wasn't sure if I should call the police, as I had already moved some of the bags, so my prints were now on them too. There were many more minor details and events that would only be tedious to record here, so I'll skip them.

Later the garbage-pickers come back, and I realize I can see them if I get the right angle through a window (not true in RL). I want to take pictures for evidence, but I have trouble pulling up the camera on my phone, normally a very simple operation. Even when I do get the camera working, it is too zoomed in and I can't frame the shot properly. I recognize these technical difficulties as dream signs, but at the moment I'm too caught up in events to RC.

The garbage-pickers leave before I can get a good shot, so I go around the front of the house for another try. The camera is still giving me trouble, and once again I notice how much it resembles a dream sign, even though this doesn't feel like a dream. After a few more minor incidents that plotline wraps up, and I now realize that I can give my full attention to checking whether or not I am dreaming. Everything has felt very real and convincing, but I know well how little that sensation can be trusted.

I jump... inconclusive. I came down quickly enough, but the jumping itself felt easier than I think it should, as though I am not lifting my full body weight. I jump a couple more times, trying to draw out the moment at the apex. It might actually be lengthening as I focus on it. My suspicion grows, I jump a bit more, and then sure enough, I find that I can pause at the top, hovering in the air. That clinches it. It was a dream all along.

What now? It's been so long since I've been lucid that I just want to explore and enjoy the environment. I look out the glass wall of the living room and see an expanse of snowy fields and pine forest stretching to a distant low mountain, utterly unlike the RL scenery. I feel satisfied with this prospect, so I fly through the glass without hesitation and start soaring over the landscape, looking down and enjoying the clarity of visual detail. I'm reminded of a recent conversation with a WL friend who also turned out to be an LDer, who mentioned that he prefers not to do tasks but would rather just fly around and enjoy the environment. Today that feels just fine.

I fly to the top of the mountain and land, hoping to explore on foot. There is a problem with scale, however: I am huge in relation to the mountain. My feet cover its entire upper surface. I take off into the air again, hoping I didn't crush too many trees and little creatures. The distorted scale now makes everything feel artificial, and the dream destabilizes. I exert will to remain in the dream state as it deconstructs, and for a moment I find myself flying through a black boundless space marked with thin white lines running horizontally and vertically in three dimensions. It strongly resembles the conception of virtual space in the movie Tron. I recognize that this is unconstructed dream space, and try not to let it disconcert me that the dream has faded, and I feel very close to being awake... I remind myself that if I should be able to enter a new scene if I can just be patient and maybe suggest something.

I'm trying to stay relaxed, so I imagine lying in a bath of warm water. This makes me realize that my flying feels like swimming so I use the idea. I am swimming underwater in a pool of water that is no different from my body temperature—that's why I don't feel it. And of course I can breathe underwater, because why not? These thoughts in mind, I now think I can see the glimmering underside of the water's surface just above my head, so I fly up and break it, preparing to find myself in a new scene. I notice how seamlessly my breathing remains the same as I transition from breathing water to air, and again this feels too artificial for my liking, but I try not to let it disrupt the dream.

I am in an empty tiled space containing a pool. The lining of the pool is made of identical square beige tiles as the walkway around it and the low walls bounding the space. It appears to be outdoor because the walls don't go up all the way, but there is no impression of any surrounding environment, much less sky or weather. It is still very vague and plain and artificial; perhaps it could be described as "semi-constructed dream space." I look around for something notable, perhaps a DC, and I begin to hear music. It is a simple melody on a plucked string instrument, like a medieval lute. I don't see anyone else, but vision isn't perfect now, so I keep listening and looking. The song ends, and a woman's voice says, "Thanks, I really enjoyed this one song." There is a kind of parenthetical remark appended to the sentence in the same voice that I perceive simultaneously, though I don't seem to "hear" it as literally as the words just spoken. The parenthetical remark is: "...after a moment's reflection." In ordinary text one could write it as:

"Thanks, I really enjoyed this one song (after a moment's reflection)."

But that wouldn't quite convey the effect that the parenthetical part was not spoken aloud, and that it had a kind of simultaneity with the statement itself.

Feeling confident that I will momentary see the singer, I keep looking around... and feel paws on my face, my real face. The cat has chosen just this moment to come back to bed, waking me. Damn!

Ritual: wtb 1am, woke 5:45am, wbtb about an hour, take supplements (piracetam, bacopa, choline, alpha-gpc, l-theanine), lay on back, doze off, turn to side, woke 8am to record dream.

DEILD: I half-wake from an unremarkable NLD and realize I can DEILD. As I transition I can distinctly hear a woman's voice speaking, though she wasn't saying anything memorable. After a while I hear a new voice a man responding, and figure this is a good sign, suggesting that the hynagogic state is deepening toward dream. As soon as I feel like I am fully transitioned, I get out of bed. I remember the task I had intended: the storm TOTM. I go outside, intending to summon it, but the dream does not yet feel stabilized and my surroundings become vague. I retransition and realize that there's no reason I should feel constrained by concepts like "inside" and "outside," and decide to summon the storm from right in my bedroom. I look up at the ceiling and it becomes transparent, so that I can see the sky overhead. It is half-lit, with faint stars and gauzy clouds: I will the clouds to thicken and darken.

After another spell of vagueness, maybe a retransition, I go back outside to see if there is evidence of a storm yet. It is working! There is a patch of very heavy dark clouds overhead. It it not yet a full-blown storm so I work on it a little more. I raise my hands and shout, "Wind!" I am modeling this on the scene from the film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) where he conjures the clouds so it will get dark faster. I decide to add a little more panache: "WIND AND FIRE!" I yell, still gesticulating at the sky. The clouds are roiling and I do see patches of fire, so when it is sufficiently apocalyptic, I fly directly up into the cloudbank.

The effect is disappointing: I have no real sensory impressions apart from sight, and the visibility is very poor. It is hard to distinguish the greyness inside the clouds from the greyness of unformed dream, except that I notice that the fire has coalesced into vaguely anthropomorphic forms that resemble elementals or demons. Although they are distant and none moves to threaten me, I feel vaguely anxious and start singing to reassure myself. The dream destabilizes and I retransition.

I go outside again, and find myself on a slightly elevated walkway; just below is a middle-aged white guy who seems to be gardening. He looks up at me and says with an air of disappointment: "You can do better than this." I feel as though he is chastising me for summoning the storm, and feel a pang of guilt, although there is no rational basis for this. After entering a building, I look down and notice that I am carrying a phone. It is not a contemporary model but resembles those old Nokias with the small monochrome screens that can render text but not graphics. Distinctly legible on the screen is the word: "SmarKu," a mix of lower-case and capital letters as though it were abbreviated from something. The word intrigues me, so I ask:

"SmarKu, what are you?"

"A phone," it answers simply.

Well, duh. I try rephrasing my question, "I mean, what do you represent?"

"..."

Since the phone seems confused or reluctant to answer, I finally resort to a term I dislike, speaking forcefully for emphasis: "What do you symbolize?"

"A pimp and a whore," retorts the phone with an edge of sarcasm.

I can't help but laugh at the inexplicable rudeness of the reply. What is this, a dream version of Tourette's syndrome?

I retransition and go back outside, running across two gentlemen having a heated discussion. I find their conversation boring and don't make any particular effort to remember it, but this reminds me of the thread (I think it was last month's TOTM) where we were discussing the fact that it feels different to "think" something in a dream versus saying it "aloud," even though it is hard to conceptualize the difference. To test this principle, I comment inwardly on how dull their conversation is, and pay attention to how this manifests. I do not "hear" the words with my dream ears, nor do I seem to "speak" them in my dream voice, so it feels no different from thinking something in waking life. I walk over to them and think it directly in their presence, to see if they will respond: "How dully, sir!" (In retrospect it seems like an odd turn of phrase, but it felt natural at the time.) They do not react to me, so it still feels like a private thought. I decide to try a little experiment: I silently will one of the DCs to say these words aloud for me. Without a moment's hesitation, he pipes up to his companion: "How dully, sir!"

This was so successful that I'm encouraged to try again with the second guy. Mischievously, I select the same words that the SmarKu used earlier. Sure enough, the guy says out of nowhere, "A pimp and a whore." At this point I go right up to him and ask, "What do you mean by that?" I expect him to be confused or uncertain about why he said it, but instead he starts explaining himself. This is really unexpected: he is taking responsibility for the phrase as though saying it were his own idea! All I could think was... so DCs rely on dream logic? I... guess that makes sense.

There is a destabilization, and before my eyes I watch the environment fluctuate from brilliant light and clarity to hazy vagueness. I suspect this is due to my own lack of mental focus, slipping too close to wakefulness again, and I tell myself that I don't have to wake up if I don't want to. Back in my bedroom, I maintain dreamstate through a rough patch by singing again and focusing on sensual impressions. As I sing, it feels like my voice is joined by invisible others, singing with me in harmony. This reminds me of my lucid dare—from last year—which I've never quite completed to my satisfaction.

I go back outside, willing it to be stable. I frame my arms around empty air as though around an unseen person and dance, hoping the invisible owner of one of the voices will manifest. No such luck. I notice a DC standing nearby, a middle-aged black man, and ask him, "Have you seen an elf around here?"

"Yes," he replies. Okay, I realize I might have willed him to say that using my new trick, but if it conditions my expectations into manifesting the damn elf, it will have been worth it.

"Who?" I inquire further, a specific name in mind.

"Thranduil," he says promptly, just as I anticipated.

"Where is he?" I don't have an answer to this one, so I'm hoping he'll say something helpful.

He points behind me. "Right over there."

I turn and look, hoping my expectations are primed enough that he will be visible. Afraid not. As I squint into the distance, the man explains helpfully, "You can just barely see him, in the edge of the forest."

I still don't see him but I'll take his word for it. The man goes on, "If you hurry, you might be able to catch him. The best way is to go left up those stairs."

I follow his instructions, wondering I should summon a horse to cover the ground faster, but I don't want to add unnecessary complexity and figure that on horseback is not the best way to climb stairs anyway. The stairs are very rustic and appealing, constructed of irregularly cut slabs of old grey stone, with small plants growing out of the cracks, and a low stone wall on either side. They turn to the right and continue to ascend. I'm climbing as fast as I can and observe that either the steps are getting smaller or I'm getting bigger, because now I'm covering at least a dozen with each stride, but I'm still only halfway to the forest's edge when I wake up and sense that the dream state is unrecoverable.

Ritual: wtb around 12:30am. Had to get up at 8am so no time for serious WBTB, but I had been reading about FILD and how it relies on short WBTBs that allow one to go back to sleep quickly, so thought this would be a good opportunity to try it out. I was waking up naturally every couple of hours and each time did FILD as I went back to sleep, but no results. If I was having NLDs, I didn't take notes and don't remember them now.

My fourth waking occurred at 6:50am. I did FILD again. This time, as I was nearing sleep I saw a tiny white light, rayed like a star and unusually bright, appear in the darkness behind my eyelids and seem to come closer. This reminded me: wasn't I supposed to be paying attention to hypnogogic imagery? Actually I don't think that is a part of the FILD technique but in my half-asleep recollection I was convinced it was, so I focused on that white star, and for whatever reason I felt like it was actually effective in helping me transition.

I had not been doing the "nosepinch" RC during my FILD attempts, as the tutorial recommends, because it struck me as potentially counter-productive to make such a large motion—if the body is not already in SP then one would end up moving one's physical arm and disrupting the transition. Plus, I figured, if I still had the presence of mind to remember to RC in the first place, then I could probably figure it out in some other way.

As I was trying to come up with alternate RCs that didn't involve physical movement, at one point it occurred to me, "Hey, if I'm lying here with my eyes closed, how come I can see my bedside table?" What a giveaway! So then I realized I must have transitioned without even knowing it, and got out of bed.

WILD: The first thing I did was go look out the sliding door in the bedroom. In RL it leads to the back patio, but in the dream, it opened onto a wide grassy lawn that extended a great distance. The air felt very real and fresh as it came through the door. I remembered my tasks, but after botching them last time because I rushed out of the house before the dream had stabilized, I didn't want a repeat of that failure. I realized I'd better take some time first and let the dreamstate develop a bit more strength. It felt unusually "thin," even for an early-stage WILD.

As I walked down the hall, I noticed three coins lying on the floor just inside the door to the library. This pleased me immensely, because I recognized it at once as waking life residue, the consequence of a conversation yesterday, and I was glad the dream was showing a bit of initiative. I picked up the coins and then wondered where to put them when I discovered that was wearing a skirt that had no pockets. "Don't be silly," I reminded myself, observing that this shouldn't be an obstacle in the dreamstate. So without looking, I slipped my hand down until I could feel the edge of the pocket that manifested on the skirt just where I "expected" it to be, and slipped the coins inside.

Shortly after this the dream was disrupted by a half-waking, but I was able to re-transition. I got out of bed again and realized I'd better work more deliberately on stabilization, running through each of my senses in turn to better engage them. Touch always seems the most foundational, so I rubbed my hands together and over various differently-textured surfaces in the room: the fluffiness of a sheepskin, the scratchiness of the wool rug, the smoothness of the wall. My sense of touch tends to be robust even in the most poorly-integrated dreams, so the results were satisfactory. What next? I thought of sight and sound, but immediately hesitated. The dream felt so thin and fragile that I felt convinced engaging sight and sound would expose me to RL stimuli and risk waking me. I thought it might be better to do taste and smell first to try to get a little more traction. As I walked toward the kitchen I saw a potted basil plant (much like the one I had bought yesterday from Trader Joe's) sitting in the door of the hallway bathroom. "That'll do for taste," I thought, plucking a leaf and putting in my mouth. It tasted very much like real basil, spicy and herbaceous, but somehow not entirely pleasant on its own. The leaf was unusually large and now it was filling my mouth in an unpleasant limp wad, so rather than chew and swallow, I took out what was left of it and put it on the counter. Surely there must be something else to eat? Ice cream maybe? I looked in the freezer, but remembered that I had finished the chocolate ice cream last night. I considered manifesting some more, but didn't get around to it. This might have been around the time the second half-waking occurred, and I had to re-transition.

It's not unusual that I have to chain a few WILDs like this before the dreamstate stabilizes, but this time it only seemed to be getting weaker rather than more robust, despite my deliberate attempts to gain traction. I guess my REM state wasn't very strong or I was already too wakeful. At one point I had opened the screen door by my work area and was standing with one foot inside the room, one foot outside on the patio, looking down the side of the house and thinking how unusually lifelike it looked, rather than showing the typical degree of dream-like distortions. And not long after that I woke up for the third time, too fully awake to retransition. I checked my clock and it was 7:35am.

It was a rather unsatisfying WILD in that the dream started out thin and only got thinner as time went on... there was one rough patch in the third part where I felt like I was holding it together through imagination alone before my senses re-engaged. By the very end, after it became apparent that I wasn't going to be able to accomplish anything worthwhile, I think I just gave up and was indulging in libidinous pleasure—through thought alone, as it seemed too much trouble at that point to try to create a scenario.

I'll have to keep trying with FILD to see if I can get better results. On the upside, it has the advantage that it can be practiced during very brief WBTBs, so it can be used at times when other techniques that require more mental focus would be unsuitable.

Yesterday I came across the SSILD thread on the induction forum, and decided to try it out. Success!

Ritual: Slept about three hours, woke up with awareness of having dreamed though no recall of specifics, but figured since I had been in REM I might as well give the SSILD technique a try. Doing the sense-cycling delayed sleep onset more than I expected, even more than with my usual WILD technique of incremental counting, even though I kept reminding myself that I wasn't attempting to WILD. Interestingly, when I was starting to get closer to sleep I was experiencing much more vivid flashes of hypnogogic imagery than usual, which I attribute to having primed my attentiveness to it with the technique.

On the verge of falling asleep finally, when I sense that I'm in an empty room with plain white walls, and that it's substantial enough to enter as a dream space. "I can work with that," I say to myself, and close the door. The handle has a pleasing feeling of solidity and the door closes with lifelike sensations, so I know this is actually working.

WILD: What to do now? Well, I need traction, so I decide to just use my body a bit until I feel more substantial. Last night my husband showed me a video of a guy doing amazing acrobatic tricks on a pole, and that must have subconsciously inspired me, because without really thinking about it I start emulating him. It's fun because I could never do anything like this in RL (who could? It's real gravity defying stuff) and even in a dream it takes a bit of concentration, so it is a useful way to integrate myself better into this space. As I do it I remember to occasionally rub my hands in front of my face for more traction, and for some reason it occurs to me that it would be a good idea to feel my head, which I've never tried before, but the lifelike sensation of the shape of my head and texture of my hair is very helpful, they make this dream body I'm in feel more like "me." The vividness and clarity at this point is quite high, and I'm wondering what I look like. I see a mirror on the wall (the walls were featureless initially so the mirror seems to have manifested in response to my intention, though not before my eyes... it was just there once I decided to look for it) so all I have to do is position myself properly in order to see my reflection. I'm pleased with how much like me it actually looks, although my hair is different: loose, shoulder-length and with a layered, almost spiky cut. But the face looks just like mine, especially the eyes. It was remarkably like looking into a real mirror, which is not my usual experience of reflections in LDs.

Given how lifelike my body feels and my reflection looks, I decide to play with it a bit. A couple times in my LDs I've experimented with trying to create an extra set of arms, like you see on some representations of Hindu deities, and I want to try that again. I'm now standing on a sort of balance beam, looking at a second mirror that has manifested on the next wall (a little more conveniently positioned than the first) and I start waving my arms and trying to create a second pair. With a little concentration I have a partial success: I think I can see and feel a second pair, but they are moving in tandem with the first. To be more successful, they would have to move independently, all four arms moving simultaneously in separate directions. I try to get the second set to move independently from the first, but I can't figure out how to do it! I realize that I simply have no mental imprint of what this would be like. Perhaps with a little more creativity or effort I could get this going, but I sense that at this moment the strain might be close to disrupting the dream, so I give up the attempt, amused by how tricky this is, and re-stabilize.

What next? I remember my current task: "Creo vim." (I've been working through spell combinations from Ars Magica.) I anticipated this would be a fun one because I had no idea how it would manifest, and deliberately tried to avoid anticipating anything in particular, hoping the dream would surprise me. So I hold out my left hand and concentrate on the spell. Nothing happens at first. How should I do this? I wonder if I should be using my right hand (my dominant hand in waking life), but figure that since I instinctively started with my left, I should stick with it. "Creo vim," I murmur, since I've found that saying the name of the spell aloud can be an effective focus. A tiny bubble manifests in the air above my open palm. It looks like a soap bubble, and as I have this thought, it bursts like one. But I'm emboldened by the fact that something is happening, so I keep concentrating, and another bubble appears. It grows larger and slowly sinks until it is a half sphere sitting on my palm. From there it keeps growing, getting larger and lumpier and turning grey in color, but still completely weightless and seemingly inflated with air. When this mass is about a foot and a half in diameter, it lifts from my hand and sinks gently to the floor, and transforms into a small white goat.

The surroundings have changed around me while I was focused on the spell. I am no longer standing on a balance beam in a white room, now I am outdoors at night, standing on the ground, looking at this goat that has inexplicably appeared. My husband is lying next to me, asleep. Standing in front of me is a horse harnessed to a cart. I ponder the goat, wondering what it might signify. On the one hand, it is an extremely cute little goat, with long white fur and two straight horns that are only a few inches long. On the other hand, it subtly disturbs me for some reason I can't identify. I remembered a trial take of a commercial that I saw many years ago. The commercial was intended to advertise a financial services company, and was showing clips purporting to be the customers. The most memorable one was a dignified elderly gentleman who for some reason was accompanied by an equally dignified white goat. It was so random and surreal, elegantly and subtly satanic, that the image always stuck with me—though I learned later that the scene was cut from the final version out of concerns that people might be disturbed or distracted by the goat. So what to make of this little goat in front of me now? The goat itself was just standing quietly and not revealing anything, until before my eyes it abruptly transformed into a few pieces of ripe and runny brie cheese on a plain white plate. This was even more mystifying.

I wanted to ask someone's opinion about the goat and its transformation, but I looked around and couldn't see anyone else in this landscape. There was just me and my husband, but he was fast asleep and I didn't want to disturb him. Finally it occurred to me to ask the horse, as the only other creature around. I figured the question of the goat's moral status could be answered by how the horse responded to the cheese, so I picked up a piece from the plate and offered it to the horse to sniff. "What do you think?" I asked. The horse readily accepted the cheese and ate it with apparent relish. This seemed to speak well for the goat! "Want more?" I asked, offering the horse a second piece, which it consumed as eagerly as the first. I decided to try a bit myself, and found the taste and texture very much as I would have expected from a runny brie.

There was a cemetary nearby, surrounded by a low wall. I could see the tops of gravestones over the upper edge of the wall, and I instinctively knew that one of them was connected with the goat, so I should investigate it to find out more. The entrance to the cemetary was just across the lane on which the horse and cart were standing, so I walked around them and went inside. From my original glimpse across the wall I had made a mental note that the relevant gravestone was the fourth one in, so I counted the stones I passed until I reached the fourth. It was an old style of slab carved from reddish stone, only about two inches in width, about three feet tall, and with a simple curved top, unadorned except for the text that was carved on it. I knelt down and looked at the inscription. I was pleased to discover that I could read it easily, and one phrase that immediately caught my attention was "Ghast of Vail Light." I took this to be the title of the mysterious goat. It sounded a bit spooky after all, but I loved this phrase! I immediately determined to remember it. "Ghast of Vail Light," I repeated to myself several times, and even said aloud to myself, "Remember that." I wanted to get it just right. Was it spelled "Vail" and not "Vale"? I looked again at the inscription. The letters were remarkably stable, and the spelling was distinct: "Vail."

I hadn't done any tactile stabilization in a while, so I decided to run my hands over the face of the gravestone. It had the cool touch of real stone, smooth overall but a bit gritty in texture, like sandstone, and I could feel the indentations where the letters were carved in. I was still muttering to myself "Ghast of Vail Light." I didn't know how much longer the dream would go on, and wanted to make sure I wouldn't forget. But I concentrated so hard on the idea of remembering this phrase when I woke up, that it woke me up! I wasn't disappointed, though, because I had plenty to write about already.