SCPantera's Dream Journal

I had a very bizarre dream that I'm compelled to document. It wasn't quite lucid, but...well, read on.

Early as I can remember, I was in heaven in what looked like a cross between a mall and a cathedral. It was very crowded. By chance I found the man who had murdered me in heaven also. I declared that I was going to kill him (smite his soul or whatever) and that the Angel of Vengeance was on my side. After this short monologue I was about to attack the guy, but before I could do anything he stabbed me, killing me. After a short delay I was reborn as an angel of vengeance, called a One (Something--I can't quite recall what, it wasn't "Winged", I think it started with an M) Angel, and not just one--it seems as I had spawned as a squad of armed angels. It seems that this rebirth had taken some time, since after returning the man had been long gone. I searched heaven looking for the man but could not find him. Instead I returned to Earth and, running out of patience, I began to kill anyone who looked like the guy (from the start of the fight to here, the dream passed as some sort of weird top-down camera strategy RPG). It seems that to end my rampage I was returned to Earth with no memory except the name "One (Whatever) Angel". The dream then seemed to follow me on a search to find out what this name meant. I began by asking clergy or people who seemed religious; they all either straight-faced denied that they exist or looked at me in shock and horror and told me to get away from them. As my search went on with no answers I began just asking random strangers (my search took me to a drink stand just as it was closing in what was some in-dream deja vu, as I'd recognized this even from a deep early part of the dream that I don't now remember). Early on in my search I'd come across a girl who had overheard me asking questions at some point and had taken an interest in me. She eventually explained to me that she could help me remember everything through a process that involved dreams (vaguely Inception-style); I seemed to have a vague understanding of this process already and was firmly against it for a while. As time went on and my search for answers grew more desperate I eventually agreed to try it. It was to take place in what looked like some sort of park. As I entered, I came in behind an old, black lady accompanied by a young child. I recognized the old lady as someone I had previously asked about the angel who was disturbed by my question. The child stopped ahead of her and turned around, he asked, "Are you sure you want to do this? It could be the last time..." to which the old lady responded with something about helping these troubled young folk. I followed them to where the girl was waiting for us (I'm going to give her the name Ashley, it seems to fit my memory). In addition to the old, black woman (let's call her Oracle, since she looked like the latter version from the Matrix), Jon Voight was (apparently) helping us. They explained that Ashley would have to sit/lay on top of me in order to merge our dreams and gave me a large bag to put over my butt since apparently the process had several unpleasant side effects (supposedly most people shat themselves upon coming out of it). I sat down on a bench and they gave me some sort of injection and then immediately I was in the back (left) seat of a car, with Ashley sitting to my left, the others in the front (Jon Voight driving). I explained to them that I was once an oneironaught myself and briefly described my first lucid dream. As if to reply and boast of his own lucid dreaming skill, Jon Voight turned his head into an inflated version of Ashley's head. We all laughed, but I noticed that the situation was rather strange so I did a reality check that failed. I quickly exclaimed, "Holy shit, we're dreaming already! That's amazing." Then I looked over at Ashley, who was looking at me also, however she appeared out of it or drunk. I noted here that despite the reality check failing I didn't seem to be able to exert any lucid control; at the time I attributed this to the process occurring in the overarching dream storyline but now that I think about it after the fact it seemed kind of weird. At this point I had a very brief false awakening (I only remember because I awoke to a lit room before actually awakening) which was followed quickly by an actual awakening.

I'm not going to count this among my lucid dreams being as it fit into the context of the dream that my reality check would fail (maybe this also explains my apparent lack of dream control). It was a curious experience. I'm a little disappointed I didn't get to see the end to my search for answers.

As any astute follower of this journal would notice, I haven't quite followed through on my recent resolution to resume dream documentation, however I do like to come back to this journal time to time to document particularly notable dreams (eg the previous post). The following is actually a dream I had a few nights ago and have been toying with the idea of writing down; it was a very haunting, powerful experience that I keep thinking about again and again.

The overarching premise of the dream was that I was dead somehow and in heaven. I want to say that the earliest part of the sequence was me living ordinarily in an area that seemed to be a common room with a bunch of offshoot dwelling rooms adjacent to a hallway that led directly to a hospital where I worked (I'll get into more detail in describing both later on), but I also suspect these may be memories within the dream (I'll clarify this later as well). Anyways, the earliest clear part of this dream took place as I somehow came to be outside the gates of heaven. I was apparently well aware of a conspiracy to keep people out of heaven, and that the primary methodology of this conspiracy was a complex maze system outside heaven's gate with a long line of people that were queued to enter heaven, and it was so constructed so as to keep people trapped, slowly moving nowhere in circles. I was at first able to see a narrative overview of this maze; people in single file line, slowly shuffling forward, many branches and loops ensuring that the people (who seemed completely ignorant of their situation and complacently moved along) were trapped. There were "employees" who seemed to be party to the conspiracy directing the flow of the lines so as to maintain things. As it were, I was just near what I knew to be the actual, true entrance to heaven, which was blocked off and guarded by a line of "employees". As I stood there trying to determine how I was going to get back in, I by chance noticed a bellboy carrying a platter of dirty dishes (I seemed to understand they delivered food to people in line). I watched as he entered an adjacent hallway marked employees only. It was unguarded, so I looked down the hallway; it was tall and wide and reminiscent of the grand hallways at a hotel convention center. The hallway went a long ways back before ending in a group of employee rooms (I assumed one of them must be a kitchen), but I also noticed a hallway branched off to the right some distance down. I looked to my right now towards the entrance to heaven and noticed another hallway opened on the other side of the line of sentries, so I decided I'd try to sneak through that way. I happened to have my messenger bag with me, so I decided I'd pretend to be a writer. I began to walk quickly down the hallway, repeating the phrase, "I'm a writer" constantly in my head as though I thought it would somehow prevent me from being caught. As I turned the corner to the right, I found that the hallway continued for some time before coming to another hallway parallel to the first. I turned another right and headed towards the exit. As I continued down this hallway I came upon a black man in a suit who waved at me in a friendly way and offered to shake my hand. As I shook his hand I only said, "I'm a writer" and then kept walking; as I passed him I could see the look of confusion on his face. I seemed to understand that he wasn't a guard, but that his job was to simply stand there and greet people. I exited the hallway into the hospital area (note this was not the area I'd seen from the other side of heaven's gate previously), which was comprised of square rooms, all hallways, some of which resembled normal hospital hallways and some of which resembled patient rooms with through paths. I knew my way back from here by memory; from the hallway square at the exit of the hallway I turned right into a room square, then left through three more squares and then right to the exit of the hospital area into my living area I'd mentioned previously. As I arrived, I slowly walked further into the room, examining my surroundings. Like the hospital area, the room was familiar to me as though I'd been living there for some time. There was a dining table in the middle of the room along one wall that was cluttered with papers and there was a television suspended on a thick pillar adjacent to the table. It occurred to me later that the layout of the main common room very vaguely resembled the living room at my grandma Isabel's old house in Halstad, and to that theme everything seemed dusty and slightly old as though the furniture, paint on the wall, decorations, and even the television were from the 80's. There were a number of people intently going about there business in the room also. As I examined my surroundings I became increasingly distressed with my disposition. I then lashed out verbally, asking if this was all I had left now in heaven, that I'd spend eternity trapped in this dusty room with some other people from the 1990's (a woman nearby in earshot glanced at me and rolled her eyes as she continued doing something), complaining that there wasn't even much of a proper internet yet. I continued, suddenly realizing that I was due to take the MPJE tomorrow but now couldn't because I was dead, meaning that I'd never been successfully licensed as a pharmacist and thus the last several years of my life spent training to that end was wasted. This angry diatribe was cut short by the realization that I'd left Laura behind and could not be sure when she would arrive or if she'd arrive at all (at least we'd already returned to her hometown, I hoped she'd find happiness again, etc.). In this strong emotional mix of anger and sadness I realized that my situation could not be real, but I could only think of ending the dream quickly instead of allowing it to continue post reality check and instantly managed to wake myself up.

When I fell asleep again I had a short continuation of this dream where I went to a buffet for food (I was aware I was still in heaven). The restaurant had many people but wasn't too crowded. It reminded me of the restaurant at Bill's gambling hall.

As I mentioned at the start of this entry I mentioned how haunting this dream has been the last few days. The reason for that is that afterwards I've been left with the haunting thought that I may have peered into the real heaven (a chilling thought given the "conspiracy", how drab the environment was, and my emotional observations towards the end). I don't genuinely believe this now (the fact that heaven is historically described as more paradise in nature, consideration that this may represent hell rather than heaven, and my ultimate awareness that this was a dream all heavily discount this notion), however I believe it does represent a phenomenon I referred to previously as "dream bleeding", where elements of the dream have remained strong in my consciousness long after the dream has ended.

By chance I happened to have a pretty decent length lucid dream, so I'd like to be sure to document it.

The earliest part in the sequence I can remember was some sort of fake Harry Potter movie (during the dream I seemed to think it was the third in the series, but couldn't remember the name), only it starred the cranky-professor-guy-with-the-eye-whose-name-I-don't-remember (that guy from the Goblet of Fire). Anyways, it seems he was going away and people were giving him various going away presents but he was being extra cranky about them. I recall the second to last one vividly; one person (seemed to be a young adult) held up this large, ornate deep green crystal cross with silver metallic edges, stating that he was offering the professor a chance to examine it and that it was a magical artifact that had belonged to his family for many years (it seemed to imply he was some sort of royalty). However the professor cut the student off from his speech angrily, exclaiming that he knew several good men who died in the name of that worthless, magic-less artifact. After that people started to disperse, and an older professor picked up another going away present that looked like a chest and looked as though he was about to leave but then decided to offer it up (saying that after what had just happened he thought the professor wouldn't be interested but thought he might try offering it anyways). They open it, and the chest is empty except for a small recess near the top left that contained a brass metallic pentagram. The older guy asked him if he knew what it was, and the professor replied dramatically that he did indeed know. The camera seemed to look into the box and zoom in ominously on the pentagram; as it got closer you could see that there was a different place on the other side. As it zoomed through the camera shifted to my vision as I saw a group of people walk by and I followed them into what I seemed to think was a hospital. We were talking about some project I was going to work on (it seemed like a job interview?). Inside, we entered some board room through a set of doors and then went to another set of doors along the same wall to let two other people in (I was already with two other people). One of them was Dr. Werremeyer, whom I was happy to see after so long. At some point it transitioned to me at my car at what seemed to be the gas station on University Drive in Fargo that we used to always get gas at. I seemed to think for a moment that my brother was joining me. We got into the car and were waiting there for a while. We amused ourselves with the two extremely short old ladies in the car next to us. At some point he asked me what we were waiting for, I replied that I wasn't sure, that I'd started with 5 professors and now had 0 and that if this was a dream it was kind of a shitty one, which prompted a reality check. It didn't pass (I remember thinking it was going to and being initially surprised that it didn't). I managed to keep focus but immediately getting to work. As I was doing this I was looking across a street corner and there was a lot of Hispanic people walking across the corner towards me. I decided since I didn't like this dream that I'd clean it up a little bit, so I mentally ordered the wind to blow everything away. It became quite a bit windier (as I could notice in the trees in the background), but it wasn't enough to blow the people away. I tried ordering it again and was able to blow a few people off their feet. I incidentally noticed I had a bottle of lime slushy stuff that I was drinking from. I also recall thinking this dream was going on a while (my temporal perception seemed awry here in retrospect) and I should come write about it. Since my current efforts weren't working I tried to get out of my car but somehow got my head stuck in the door and in trying to get myself out I accidentally woke up.

Observation: as I'd previously noted, during a failed reality test my breathing becomes noticeable as the kind of nasal breathing my waking body would experience. This time I discovered that maintaining this nasal breathing sound helped hold lucid focus. I seemed to think this lucid dream was longer, but I can't seem to remember much going on. Anyways, good stuff.

Had a handful of sequences tonight, but I can only recall one:

I was on House's team; we had a patient with some condition that had us stumped. We were all off working various tests and I was discussing the case with Chase when I suggested the patient's problems may be the result of a genetic condition that's caused by an extra X or Y chromosome. We took this idea to House and for some reason testing this idea required us all to go down to an elaborate cave system below the hospital. We explore the cave a short ways in and talk about stuff, and at some point I went back up to the hospital to retrieve something and as I was about to go back down to the cave I noticed several suspicious looking people with guns enter the hospital through a back entrance. As I got back down to the cave I heard a PA announcement that the hospital was being taken over by terrorists. We discussed how we might hide from them in the cave, but House was convinced they'd search every inch of the cave and find us.

Short sequence this morning. I was playing some sort of (seemingly aged) RTS game that felt like a combination of Total Annihilation and Frozen Synapse. I seemed to think I was playing against my brother or someone I knew well, and I massed up a giant attack but it was crushed by my opponents entrenched defensive position. This was followed up by what seemed like a video montage of several WoW-esque dungeon/raid sequences, except that it seemed as though there was some competitive component to what was going on; I recall it would have occasional text overlay narration explaining things such as "EVO prefers encounters that involve unusual mechanics like canons" as though WoW instances were something that would be at EVO or some other gaming convention.

Two fragments retained tonight. First was a sequence that I could only identify as some sort of combination of an RTS and Terraria.

In the next sequence I was an exiled prince of some nation. I was evidently staying with some island nation, however I knew they were evil or had bad intentions and had to escape the island to the main continent, which I managed to do with the help of some other characters. After there, I traveled a ways inland until I came upon some ruins in a forest. There I found a small army unit of some other kingdom. They asked if I would join them, but after thinking for a short while I declined and headed back the way I came. After a short while I met Aragorn and some of the people who had helped me escape the island country on the trail. I remember thinking that I was glad Aragorn was my ally and that he was the sort of king I hoped to be someday. The group of us started back the way I was heading originally and got back to the ruins. We headed further into the ruins to find that it was actually the site of a now-destroyed (night?) elf settlement. They told us that they had been attacked and ravaged by the army I had met earlier that asked me to come with them and I remember thinking I dodged a bullet by not going with them. The last memory I had of the dream was exploring a tower in the back of the ruins.

Had another lucid-for-a-few-moments-but-lost-it episode.

It started with a longer sequence for which I only remember some. I was with a few people whom I suspect were my parents (at least one of them was my dad) and we were in a car going to what was some kind of mall/fast food restaurant combination--it had a drive through window. We ordered and picked up...something, but we forgot to order something we needed so I got out to go into the store and get it while they circled back around to pick me up. When I came out, as I got into the car my dad asked, "Do you know what 'los loco lobos' means?" to which I replied, "The crazy dog."

Cut to me sitting in a theater watching some romance movie. It featured an Asian couple from New York City. The only part of the movie I can remember was a segment where the girl went into this long-winded monologue about how her boyfriend was so awesome because he had all these manly, rugged qualities because he was such a "Minnesota man", which I recall thinking was outrageously stupid because they were both from New York City.

Cut once more to me in bed; I would wake up, my wife would tell me something, and then I'd go back to sleep. This would happen over and over. At some point she woke me up and started reciting sappy lines from the romantic movie from before, and when she did so I thought, "Oh god, I'm in a nightmare now!" semi-jokingly, then did a nose pinch reality check which failed. Had a quick "Yeah!" moment, then got up quickly (thus far I'd been thinking my last lucid slipped away because I stayed laying down) to get to work. My wife was now babbling incoherently, trying to get my attention so I waved her away since I was planning to clear out my apartment as a start to environmental control practice. I started to head to the front door of my apartment to turn on the light (since it was still dark in the room), but the dream dissolved to awakening. Reality check passed; lost it again quickly unfortunately.

It's nice that I'm still getting lucids and that they seem to be occurring with a little more frequency, but I need to find some way to stabilize them.

I was in some sort of human immune system MMO (I'm describing it as an MMO for the sake of description; the dream seemed to actually take place in vivo). I was a young lymphoblast fresh out of hematopoesis with everything to prove, wandering about trying to decide on a specialty. Did I want to live the short violent life of a natural killer, play it safe and be a long range nuking B cell, or perhaps settle on the utility of a T cell. As I was wandering there was a mission alert, and we were being sent to the stomach. When I arrived I could see what looked like a weird biological space battle; B cells were firing antibodies like machine guns at some pathogen I couldn't see because it was blocked by macrophages engaging it in melee range. Afterwards I was looking at the internet for more information on specialties and I recall being frustrated at the trouble I was having finding information that wasn't written by internet retards.

I'm evidently back in high school again, trying out for the annual play. It's some Sherlock Holmes play directed by Mr. Lucas, much to my surprise I end up with the lead role (I should note now after the fact that the fact I knew it was directed by Lucas should have been a red flag, he would never put me in a decent role). It's early in the week but I seem to think that the play will debut that Thursday so we're already in dress rehearsal and somehow I already know most of my lines (or am completely improvising them). My costume, heavily unfinished, is mostly large pieces of wool cloth held together by pins. As we get to the end of the dress rehearsal I line up at the end for the curtain call, but they wave me up to the front since I'm the lead. I apologize making my way up through the tight space--I'm not used to not playing insignificant shit roles. After my exit (I note a curious lack of Watson hereabouts), I hopped off the stage and left, eager to tell my dad about Fargo North High School's production of Sherlock Holmes.

It seemed to cut to what was either me in bed at home; I suspect I may have gone there from the school in the previous dream but it feels more likely that it was a false awakening because I recognized that something wasn't right (I awoke in a strange room that was clearly not mine) and did a reality check. I was lucid for a moment, I closed my eyes and kept my nose pinched to try to collect focus but it dissolved back to my bed in real life--my hands had clearly dissolved back to my real hands which were nowhere near my nose and additional reality check confirmed it. I guess I'll add it to my lucid tally, but it was disappointingly short.

I just woke up, and in my half-awakening I was in a combination of frustration at my mini dry spell and thinking about news footage of Yo-Yo Ma's death. Fortunately it occurred to me that Yo-Yo Ma was neither dead nor yet elderly.

The dream apparently consisted of what seemed like security/surveillance footage of a very old Yo-Yo Ma and another old woman who was apparently his wife, overlaid with what was either my own inner monologue or some sort of news commentary (or a combination thereof). The story centered around the fact that they, both wheelchair bound and frail, had entered separate hot tubs to relax, however once they wanted to leave, nobody would help them out of the hot tub (which seemed to be just a pit in the ground with no stairs or anything to exit). Yo-Yo Ma had apparently already died from being trapped in there with no help, which was what warranted the media buzz. Most of the imagery I remember was of his wife now having the same problem. Several people were standing outside the hot tub, refusing to help the old lady out. The hot tub had been drained and her wheel chair was there. She had a younger handmaiden with her, but she too refused to help the old lady out, though she would occasionally help her back into her wheel chair.

Inspiration for this dream seems to have come partly from the fact that we were working short-staffed at the retail pharmacy I'm on rotation at now last Friday, so I was able to hijack the radio for some classical music. Sometime during the day they played Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, featuring Yo-Yo Ma. For readers who don't know who this is, Yo-Yo Ma is a Chinese cello prodigy and, while I was still a classical musician, was considered to be the greatest cello player in the world.

I have a vague memory of what may have been a larger/longer, more complex dream, but all I really have of it is the memory that it may have existed.

Edit: Added that little explanation of who Yo-Yo Ma is for the curious. Also, taking this edit opportunity to add here that following this, since it woke me up fairly early, I tried to do some WILD (this would make it attempt #3, with the previous two being during late afternoon naps) but with no measurable success. I gave up after my wife shifting around a bit broke what focus I had left and just fell asleep normally, where I put a huge dent in my "dry spell" and experienced the following entry.

Another fragment/short sequence this morning.

I was with my family again and we'd just arrived at a restaurant for dinner. As we got out of our vehicle we notice we'd parked next to a really cool looking pickup truck that was painted all in gold. There was a post in the bed of the pickup on which was mounted a video camera, so I figured whomever owned it was using it to shoot movies. As we walked around it, the coolness was ruined slightly by the realization that it was only painted on that one side. We went into the restaurant; there was a line of people going up to the cash register at the front where we were to order, evidently. It seemed to be some sort of continental restaurant that specialized in seafood, but I couldn't decide what I wanted to get. There was some sort of bound ghost towards the front of the line that was trying to get my attention; it appeared as a woman with long, bright blond hair and pale skin, wearing a white robe. She was blindfolded and bound by several brown leather straps. I went over to try to figure out what she was trying to tell me, but I couldn't understand or make out what she was trying to say. I noticed there was a computer in the corner then I noticed some people whom I identified as friends outside the restaurant, so I went to see what they were up to. I talked to them for a while and then we went into the restaurant. I remember recalling that the layout of the entrance had changed some (and now I recall my family was no longer there, it seems as though I had gone to the restaurant with these friends now). We were still in line trying to decide what to get when someone told me that someone was sending me instant messages on the computer in the corner. I sat down to see what was going on, some girl (a nurse maybe?) was frantically complaining about how my mom had left the hospital (she's worked there for years in real life) and was sending other weird-looking messages. I was confused and trying to figure out why she was so upset. Dream ends around there at some point.

Again, parts of this dream were likely heavily inspired by last night, when my wife and I discovered there was a Golden Corral here and went to check it out. For the record, it was alright (not top tier) and had a pretty decent selection. Might be worth a return trip in the future. Wasn't a fan of the ambient country music though.

Edit: Additional notes, it feels as though I'm in a bit of a dry spell, though I'll admit it could be worse; I am still able to get at least some material for entries still. This certain relative timing of this morning's entry (i.e. Morning of X) comes from the fact that my wife's earlier alarm this morning woke me up earlier than usual without any dreams to record, though fortunately I was able to get a little bit more sleep and experience the above. I believe in my enthusiasm earlier this week following last weekend's first lucid dream I may have been trying to run before I could walk, so I'm returning my effort to push forward to instead focus on solidifying the basics. Meanwhile, I've been at least trying to ramp up efforts to pepper in reality checks throughout the day. We'll try to remain optimistic.

A weird sequence, likely inspired with a chance meeting last night with an old FFXI friend as well as an unrequited mystery from those days as well as several related events earlier in the day.

There was an early sequence where I seem to recall a Starfox-style shmup that I can't place within the context of the rest of the dream.

It seems that I lived in some unfamiliar downtown location, and that members of my old TiamatsFangs FFXI linkshell were getting together in real life to do some sort of video game-esque covert operation. We were to try to get into some kind of factory, the entrance to which was on the roof of a tall building, to demolish...something. We went in, and made our way to the end, but my partners started dying as we got ready to blow up the place. There was some kind of weird monster/alien thing killing people. As I fled out I turned and saw it grotesquely kill two people. I managed to escape back onto the roof-entrance, the only survivor. Except it flashed back to before the operation began. Since I knew what would happen I began trying to prepare an escape route, cleaning up excess ammo, weapons, and items on the floor to make picking up things for use easier, however I became frustrated that my partners were sitting around goofing off instead of preparing for the mission so I gave up and left. On my way home I realized I could use the opportunity of the TiamatsFangs' gathering to track down Jillia. I had already called and talked to her at some point during the preparation for the operation, so on my way home I called her number again but she didn't answer. When I got home to a room that looked like some sort of home office I sat down and started to think about how I could proceed. I started looking through the contacts on my phone and noticed I had a second number for Jillia, so I called it. An older woman answered the phone; I asked her if Jillia was there to which she replied yes. I asked the woman for the location of this phone number to which she replied that it was a place called "The Dungeon". I thanked her and hung up to consult the internet for the Dungeon's location; I remember that the first time I searched for it I forgot to specify the city I was in (when I corrected it, I corrected it with Fargo, ND or 58102, so evidently this dream was supposed to take place in Fargo). I quickly found it online, it was some sort of arcade. I went there; inside I met the older woman I had spoken to earlier behind a counter just inside the entrance. Also there were several teenagers there, I thought it odd that several of the boys were shirtless--and also that none of them were playing any arcade games, in fact there were no arcade games at all. The area was mostly empty except for some furniture and beanbag chairs. I asked the woman if Jillia was there again and she offered to take me to her. As we slowly made our way back I continued to observe the bizarre behavior of the children here. The woman explained that Jillia was a poor girl, having been abused and I recall ending that explanation mentally by adding "by these people" to the end. As we reached the entrance to the basement, I observed a short, ugly-looking girl and a boy getting ready to have sex, and they were eventually joined by a second boy. I went down into the basement alone. At the bottom was a large room, the room was pitch black except where it was sparsely lit by a small television in the middle on the other side of the room. There was some kind of clothing rack blocking the direct path to the television, instead leading a path around the outside of the room. In the far back corner there was a green couch that was very brightly lit. I called out for Jillia and she answered, though I couldn't see her at all. I replied, "Now there's a voice I recognize!" She sounded somewhat paranoid however. She instructed me to go to the couch in the back corner. Standing in the light it was even harder to see into the darkness, but I sensed that she had moved from near the TV to around between me and the door. She instructed me to remove my pants and shirt so I removed my black coat, shirt, and pants and set them on the couch. She then instructed me to go over and play the game. I went over, in just my underwear, and sat down by the TV. There was an old school Sega console there with what looked to be some sort of hacked old school Sonic game. I picked up the controller and hadn't even started playing when I heard the door to the basement slam shut. Alarmed that Jillia may have ran off, I quickly got up and returned to the couch to put my clothes back on and try to follow her. As I was putting my clothes back on the lights came on in the rest of the room. The floor was concrete and the walls were painted a bland white, it looked for sure like somewhere people may be held captive and I recall thinking, "Aw shit, I'm trapped down here." I immediately suspected the bizarre people on the floor above of foul play. When I checked the door, however, it was unlocked so I went upstairs to leave. The teens that were there before were outside in the rain, apparently having fun and taking pictures of each other. I quietly left, trying not to draw attention to myself. About a block away I turned and looked back, trying to think of how I could find her now. The dream ends there.

Side note: with some more effort into reality checking around phones as previously planned, I might have been able to catch this one.

I'm pretty sure I just had my first lucid dream. It seemed kind of long at the time but I may only remember some bits and pieces now, gonna try to get down as much as I can. And it's weird, it feels so foggy now. Was a very intriguing experience. There was another dream before it but I want to get down as much of the lucid as I can so I'm writing it first.

I'm trying to recall what it was that triggered the reality check. I think it was that I was laying in bed or on the phone with my wife and she said something absurd (I think it had something to do with her saying she was on her way home from class at university, and I quickly realized she doesn't go to school in reality) that caused me to quickly consider that this isn't real and pull a nose-pinch reality check. I was able to breathe like my nose was just a little stuffy despite the nose-pinch. There was an obligatory, "Holy shit, I'm lucid!" moment. To keep the dream from fading from excitement and to calm down, I closed my eyes and (for whatever reason) pictured a topographical map key. Feeling it was stable, I opened my eyes, did another reality check (marveling of course at how weird it was to be breathing through a pinched nose, and then started wandering my environment. I seemed to be in what looked and felt like my old house on Broadway. I was a little unprepared for my first lucid; I hadn't thought of anything cool to do. The first thing I did was go into the bathroom. I figured since I was lucid I might as well start playing around with how well I could control it. I went to the door of the bathroom and decided I'd summon something on the floor outside and close the door to see if it appeared; I arbitrarily chose cake, and then I sort of glanced up and back down and it was there on the floor, slightly stale and with a big slice missing--I didn't even have to close the door. Happy, I went to the big picture window out front and continued experimenting by swapping between night and day by closing my eyes for a second then looking at the sky. I noted some unusual mixed success, namely whenever I wanted it to be day or night it would literally only be just starting day or night (ie at dawn or dusk). It's a little foggy if there was something occurring between now and what happened next, but the next thing I remember was that I was quickly running out of ideas for things to do, so I thought, "Well, I've always wanted to experience sex as a woman, let's give that a try." So I went back to the bathroom (it's notable that the previous time it was the bathroom from the old Broadway house, but it was now the bathroom from my previous apartment on Oak Street), stripped down, then looked in the mirror. Quick comment after the fact, the mirror worked just fine for its purpose in the dream, but before transforming I started in my normal dream avatar--which is myself as I recognize but much thinner. I was able to transform myself by pointing to the parts of my body that I wanted to transform and focusing on them. I started with breasts, then moved on to my penis. I recall being amused/annoyed that as I was shrinking my penis my foreskin wasn't shrinking with it so I had to do that separate. I started to get a little impatient so I just waved my hand around in front of my crotch and looked up at the ceiling to try to speed things up. Eventually everything looked pretty good, wasn't perfect, and I noticed that at some point I had lost all my body hair without intentionally trying to, but it was good enough for a first attempt. I was trying to decide what I wanted to do first with my new body when I noticed I sorta needed to pee so I decided to get that out of the way first, so I did. Just that was an unusual new physical sensation. There was some toilet paper sitting in the bathtub next to the toilet, so I grabbed some to clean things up a bit (since I was planning to shortly be playing around down there soon anyways); as I was cleaning up the phone rang and I answered it. The voice on the other end was some woman trying to tell me about how there were cloths in the tub that I could use for whatever but to leave them there so she could wash them later (I noticed here that it was hard to focus on what was happening now while I was on the phone trying to listen). I looked back into the tub and the toilet paper had been replaced by dark blue cloth. I shortly regretted flushing a few of them down the toilet. I checked the mirror one last time to see if things were still good and then went back out to the living room. I'm think there may have been somewhere here where I experimented with my new body, but if so unfortunately I don't remember it. Eventually there appeared in my house (as though she was familiar with the place) a thin, light-skinned black girl. Delighted to find another person to help me experiment with my new body, I asked her if she wanted to have sex with me. She seemed apprehensive; focusing on her I first removed her clothes then, noting of course that she too was female and thus would make proper copulation difficult, made her instantly grow a penis. She wasn't very amused by this, however, and she angrily stormed off to the basement. Shrugging, and once again bored, I decided to turn my attention on mentally recreating graphic-update remakes of old school video games I love in my mind for entertainment. I started with what I assume was Final Fantasy 6, though thinking on it after the fact the action doesn't match up properly with the game (though I specifically recall Terra's appearance). At some point this was interrupted with my wife calling, when she called what had been the video game scene taking up my entire stream of consciousness suddenly appeared as though I'd taken it out of full-screen mode on my monitor on my computer at my current apartment. I even had my headphones on, so I had to remove one of side of them to expose an ear for the phone like I usually do. I was annoyed at the distraction but answered the phone anyways. I don't remember the contents of the actual phone message, but I note again after the fact that it started to break my lucid concentration. The last part I remember now was going down to the basement where I found the black girl (who had now been transformed into some sort of small Pokémon-like creature) cuddling on a table with another small Pokémon-like creature. Saying, "Oh, so you'll have sex with him but not me!" and did my own storming-off-angrily upstairs and back to the living room, where I waved my hand and did some sort of mental slash across the table they were lying on and killing them both. My memory of this dream ends here, though when I woke I seemed to think that there was more non-lucid dream that came after this. I awoke just prior to starting this journal entry and did a quick reality check that passed, officially ending my first lucid dream.

Note to self: be wary about answering phones once you're lucid; it seems to help break lucid focus. In fact, I'm going to try to make an effort to start reality checks whenever answering and/or ending phone calls. I'm going to try to remember that the next thing on my agenda for practice when a dream goes lucid is controlling the environment; this time I kind of let the environment do what it wanted around me.

There was a dream sequence either prior to or leading up to where it went lucid. There was a long prelude to most of what I remember, but the bulk of what I remember was that there was this stretch of interstate that I would drive down as though I was in a GTA-ish sandbox type game and try to score points on this segment of highway. The segment of highway was kind of a long straight section with a curve off to the right. I'm thinking I may have lost more memory of this dream out of excitement for the lucid one, so maybe more will come back to me later.

At first when I woke this morning I thought I only had one fragment that I'd managed to maintain, but when I was in the shower I had a bit of a revelation. Since I'd awoken this morning I'd been thinking in the back of my mind, "Crap, I cheated on my wife!" But when I was in the shower and the thought crept up I immediately realized, wait a minute, no I didn't, that was a dream! And then like floodgates a lot of missing detail from that dream came back into memory.

The fragment, which I seem to recall being first, involved having a nosebleed. Oddly, it was coming out of both nostrils. I remember looking down at my chest and the blood was flowing down in two nice neat streams that curved symmetrically sideways and then back down in sort of a Y pattern.

The earliest point I can recall of the larger sequence was parking in a parking lot on the south side of a block that would be across from my old middle school, Ben Franklin. It was night. I entered the school; inside it was dark. I went into a poorly lit room where 3 people were waiting: a female teacher of whom my memory is quite blurry, Dr. Biberdorf, and another girl whom I identified Bethany P. (though she looked more like Emily G.) and seemed to think was either a friend or colleague. We were there for some sort of awarding ceremony. At some point, a fire broke out in the building and my viewpoint switched to a sort of retro-video game 3/4 view floorplan of the building and I watched little flame icons appear where the fire was and spread. As it reached my location it went back to first person and Biberdorf yelled at us to escape. I led Bethany outside and back to the parking lot, where we paused to recover. In a bit of only-makes-sense-in-Hollywood, Bethany and I proceeded to have exasperated survivor sex, complete with Hollywood fade-out and fade-in without being able to see any of the juicy details. Afterwards I offered to drive her home. I remember driving, seeing a few intersections. She lived at a building that looked like a college building, but inside was kind of a wierd mall-with-no-shops/college dorm hybrid. We stopped at some office where she had to grab some papers and some other guys came up to me and asked me if I had sex with her. I confirmed it, smug and apparently proud, and they congratulated me. A few other students (all of them in green shirts with some small, unidentified white words on them) continued to gather and congratulate me. When she came out of the office I waved goodbye and then left. I went back to the middle school, which was again somehow intact, back to the poorly lit room. Biberdorf was still there. I started telling him everything I remembered from the dream, leaving out the sex part (for some reason even now I couldn't remember who the female teacher was), when some random black kid came in. They began discussing something quietly, when I suddenly panicked as I was thinking to myself, "Crap, I cheated on my wife!" Apparently I had thought this out loud, because Biberdorf and the black kid stopped talking and looked at me. After a short pause Biberdorf briefed me on the importance of keeping this secret. He turned to the black kid and told him that if there was ever any rumor that I had cheated on my wife that he would personally kill the kid (I realize now after the fact that this is a little silly, being as there was already a mall-with-no-shops/college dorm hybrid full of people who already knew). I think the dream ends there.

Edit: This is a partial entry with one dream sequence omitted. See file 0818-0819; recall note: mall apartment, egg achievement, delivery man.

I've got a few fragments to record, unfortunately I ran into a problem wherein I woke up perfectly to remember them, thought about the dreams enough to crystallize them somewhat (or at least for sure the fragments I'm about to write down), but then I intentionally neglected to get up to write them down. This is something to work on overcoming in the future. I was reluctant to get up under the justification that it was sort of the middle of the work week and I was too tired to get up and write for a while to justify doing it. Plus some of the subject matter of the first one made me reluctant to bother to remember it at all (in fact, although I feel it's beneficial to write as much detail as I can remember, I'd still kind of rather any readers skip over this post). I would like to congratulate myself on the noticeably improved dream recall though, it's amazing what just a little effort can do to go a long way towards awakening at the end of dreams and remembering plenty of detail.

So here we go. As usually I'll try to keep it as chronologically in order as possible.

-

The next one was a shorter fragment. I was with my immediate family. Everything seemed kind of retrograde; my brother was younger and both my parents were heavier as though it was before they both had gastric bypasses. We walked through a small junkyard into the waiting room of what looked like a car repair shop, but was apparently a combination car repair shop/walk-in clinic. Everyone sat down in a chair to wait but me; I paced around the room being annoyed and angry that once again people I'd known for years had nothing but contempt and disregard for my medical opinion. At some point I noticed my mother was missing a foot, and I thought, "Diabetes." Curiously, she was still able to walk fine despite the missing/invisible foot. She got up to ask the receptionist what was taking so long, she sounded frustrated, in pain, and desperate. She then went and sat down at a different spot. She was trying to partially cover her face with her coat, but I noticed she was crying. I continued pacing around and making mental notes about my family members until the dream ended.

One last quick note: just went to start breakfast and I remembered one more super short fragment wherein I noticed that the free expired 2-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper I brought home from work a few days ago expired in 1995.