SCPantera's Dream Journal

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.

Hit quite the jackpot on dreams this morning. This is made somewhat ironic in that I'm in the nadir of an annoying upper respiratory tract infection, so I didn't put any effort into dreaming for the night. Finally, since our alarm didn't go off this morning, I didn't have time to fully write these up in the 10 minutes I had to get ready and arrive at work. Also, splitting the rest into two entries to make room for plenty of tags.

Second sequence (note that this is #2 following the short sequence in the previous entry): I was driving in a car with my family again. We were turning onto University Drive from 19th avenue north. For some reason we were discussing Oblivion/Morrowind mods. We were apparently headed to the Fargodome for some reason. We parked and got out to go inside. Inside I spent most of my time at the food court there, ate a meal and loitered about. When my mom was ready to go we went out to the car and then pulled up to the entrance to wait for my dad and brother to come out. They came out just as I was getting impatient. As we turned back onto University Drive the dream transitioned into me physically playing in one of the mods we were discussing earlier (everything seemed real and not as though it looked like video game graphics). I enter some random house. As I walk in, a thin, thugish looking man comes to see who entered and meets me. Surveying the room, I notice he has a desperate-looking woman naked and tied down (I'm not sure if I realized it at the time, but I recognized after the fact that she strongly resembled my wife). Inferring that the man was about to rape her, I immediately slew the man. I turned and was about to leave without untying the woman when I figured I might as well not waste an opportunity and stripped down to have sex with her. At this point she didn't resist as though I was going to rape her, but she was very inviting and willing and quite turned on as well. It was very sensual and amazing sex; I entered her slowly and completely at first and then held it there, feeling her around me. She reached down to play with her clit as I held there, which was very erotic. After a short while we begin to have a good old aggressive, animalistic fuck.

Unfortunately it ended before it reached a climax. I have a reflex I've developed over the years that wakes me up from some sex dreams before they finish in order to avoid having to clean up the aftermath. This time it was mildly disappointing, but not in that it at least left me with the memory. Though the dream wasn't lucid, it is a memory I enjoy recalling and it's something I need to remember to perhaps emulate in lucid dreams in the future. It's also worth noting that my dream avatar is much thinner, allowing for some unrealistic actions during sex.

This was an unusual one: my wife and I decided to go to IHOP for breakfast. When we got there, we noticed there were only a few cars in the parking lot, so when we got inside and found several dozen old people seated and eating we were surprised. Also, there were apparently no waiters or any other staff. More people slowly collected at the front of the restaurant. I watched Barry arrive on a bike, only it wasn't quite Barry; he was shorter and a bit thinner but had a chubbier face. Just as I was getting annoyed enough to leave, Laura and I were suddenly on a city bus with the old people. Angry and confused, I asked my wife why we were taking the bus home when we drove there in our car. I pulled the string to signal for a stop, but a man standing at the front said, "Sorry, we only stop at the nursing home." The bus then did this sudden turn to run up on the sidewalk, where it narrowly passed by another bus parked at the curb. I realized that this was clearly a dream since normal buses don't do that, however I didn't go lucid, I had a false awakening upon which I described this dream I just had to my dad.

I was at what must have been a Taco Bell. There was a DDR machine against one wall; two guys were showing off and there was a crowd of people watching. Someone said, "I'm gonna get some food then play some DDR." I replied, "Should play first, it's harder to play when you're weighed down by tacos." (This and the way the setting looked suggests it was a Taco Bell.) Several people agreed. There was a TV on nearby, the news was on talking about a black man (I seem to want to think his name was Leeroy) who was just elected the head of the "Memory Party". Leeroy was in a suit, but acted very ghetto and was apparently rather dumb. He was giving a press conference in which he announced that he was going to run for president. His jaded opponent for head of the Memory Party was in the audience and said something about how a candidate for president should have a name like Leo (his name). Leeroy replied with something about how that'll happen when the white man calls black men white and Asians call them white man-san, and then paused like what he had just said was the wittiest thing anyone had ever said ever. He went on to say something about now he was able to his kids "chains and brains and gems and jew'ry". There were a handful of supervillains watching from their evil lairs, and they were all thinking about how they had to steal Leeroy's evil stupid powers.

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.

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.

Edit: This is a partial entry with one dream sequence omitted. See file 0813-0814; recall note: fast food restaurant, black coat.

Just laid down to get a little more sleep when I remembered some more details of what was either a separate dream or a long segment before the previous one (if so, I was myself at this point and not Bruce Willis).

-

And even just now I recall another separate sequence. At this point I'm not sure where in tonight's overall sequence it belongs.

I was riding a bike (with a helmet even, I remember checking--successfully within the dream--a few times to be sure I was wearing one) up 10th street, I think I was on my way to work (noting of course I don't work anywhere going that direction). I turned left onto 19th avenue and decided I move to the sidewalk and stop taking up space on the street, only before I was able to do so I fell into a small crowd (maybe 6-7) of people walking (apparently I was biking really slow?) west down 19th avenue. They were talking to each other about something I wasn't paying attention to. I decided to go along with them as they moved onto the sidewalk and started moving behind some beige-colored buildings where the strip mall would be on the 10th street/19th avenue corner. We kept going and the crowd sorta slowly grew larger; I was still on my bike (I checked for a helmet here for sure at one point). As we reached the end of the buildings heading west still, someone pointed out that there was a large wooden fence blocking further passage west as well as one to our left blocking passage south. The north-south fence was slanted slightly diagonally southwest to northeast, so we turned the corner of the building to the north and kept going. The fence and the building reached a point where the formed a small passage at the building's northwest corner.

I volunteered to go in first and check it out (at some point after turning the corner I'd gotten off my bike). Inside the passage it was very narrow, made out of wood planks like the fence outside, and the passage was uneven (ie not straight, the walls zig-zagged slightly at random intervals, mostly small but with interesting patterns, for instance there were small alcoves where people would be sitting). It seemed like it was not longer outdoors somehow, but there was a really high ceiling. It sounded crowded, like there were a lot of people outside the wooden-fence-passage area that I couldn't see, and even the passage was fairly crowded with random people just loitering of passing through in the opposite direction. It was slanted slightly downhill, so I remember thinking it felt like I was moving out of a mountain passage amusement-park-log-chute-style. My memory of this sequence ended at some point as I was navigating this passage.