One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy

Stove Fire
0424: C. This was early in the night and my notes aren't clear. Talking to a family of Italians in a kitchen. We're talking about food. One guy is sitting on the edge of the stove even while all four gas burners are lit, each cooking a small pizza. I try to warn him that he should move to another seat. Sister walks away very upset. He brags that a 9-inch pizza is 5 pounds of food. His clothes catch fire. Everyone is yelling at him to move but he seems paralyzed. Father puts out the fire with a fire extinguisher. Sister comes back with an "I told you so" attitude.

Backyard Ninjas
1100: A! Last sleep cycle of the night after 30 minute WBTB with MILD auto-suggestion. This might have been an unintentional WILD because of how the dream started. My plan was to practice teleporting, but I went off the script.

I start in bed, trying to fall asleep. I don't really know if I was really awake or dreaming INRA. Either way, I open my eyes and can see something through my sleep mask. I can still feel it around my head but it's like a hole is cut in it and I can see a blurry scene of what looks like a grand piano from far away. Now I know I must be dreaming but I still feel like I'm in my physical body. I'm not in the scene, I'm just seeing it without a dream body. So I just stay calm and don't try to move or control anything. I just watch what's happening in the scene and gently suggest that the "camera" move and zoom in. Gradually, the scene starts to look like a room with sunlight coming in a sliding glass door. This reminds me of the Daisetta house.

Then, WHAM!, I'm in the scene with my dream body. I'm not sure if this was a sudden change or a gap in my memory. It's the most vivid lucid I've had in a while. I phase through the glass door and out into the backyard which is a fairly faithful recreation of my true memory. There's a swimming pool, a concrete patio, a patio table with a giant umbrella and steep incline of dirt. The yard is surrounded by a tall fence and trees. I just look around a appreciate the vividness for about a minute. It's so calm and peaceful that the dream starts to destabilize and I wake up.

I remain still in bed to DEILD back. I imagine myself spinning in the same scene. And I'm back in the same spot. Phew. I figure I'd better do something but I forgot my plan so I think of any random task from my list. First task, I run and skip across the surface of the pool water with ease. I'm thinking of what to do next but my memory and vividness aren't as good as before. I figure I should stabilize a bit. I see a long garden rake laying on the patio table. I reach to grab the handle but I can't move my arms! I don't panic. I spin and recover my arms. I rub my hand and then grab the rake. All this improves the stability and I decided I'll just do something silly and fun.

I hold the rake like a bowstaff and assume a fighting posture. I suggest to myself, "Uh-oh... ninjas!" I look around and see four ninjas perched on the tress and fence around the yard. They are all in black with hoods and black sunglasses. The pounce off their perches to attack me with short swords. I fend them off with my rake and fight back for a few minutes. Eventually, all four are beaten and laying on the ground. I walk up to one, and snap his neck. Blood flows from his nostrils.

I walk up to another and realize it's a woman. I instinctively tear off her clothes. But I realize that I'm losing control and this will end the dream. I stop myself, stand up, and turn away. I'm now in the side yard and I can see a glimpse of the rest of the neighborhood toward the street. I think of all the houses with their doors and I'm reminded of the lucid dream from the night before. I begin to remember that my plan for today was to practice teleporting through doors. But before I can move, the dream fades away.

Experimenting with some dream titles to break up the wall of text a bit.

0230: F. Two sentences of illegible notes.

Birthday Girl, Bro Code
0337: C. Even in a dream, I obey the bro code. I'm at a girl's birthday party. I came with Lance. It's indoors at a house. There are about a dozen people there. It's dark outside and mostly dark inside. Lance and I pull the birthday girl aside to give her the gifts, so the three of us are alone in a dark room. Lance forgot to bring a gift, but luckily I brought two. I say they are from both of us.

The birthday girl has short black hair. She's tall and pretty. She's wearing a dress. She opens the presents. One is wrapped in purple, the other in yellow. Yellow is her favorite color? I don't remember what the gifts are but she really likes them and is very happy. She starts making out with both of us. (Not the arrangement I had planned for my first threesome, but whatever) As things get heated, it's clear the girl is more interested in me. She pulls off my pants and ignores Lance. Lance gets up and paces around the room upset. He keeps saying "That's not cool." I stop her and get up. She wants me to come back. I leave with Lance.

Hell Is An Amusement Park Line
0510: C. I need to raise half a million dollars, fast. Maybe I'm in debt to a loan shark.

Scene change. I'm in purgatory. I guess I'm dead. I'm waiting in line to be judged to go to heaven or hell. The focus changes to someone else, like I'm watching the movie of some else's life. The main character is a man who died while trying to solve a crime. He's destined to go to heaven, but he chooses the go to hell instead. He hopes he can find more information in hell to solve the crime. I think that's heroic. His partner tries to stop him and says he's crazy. Our hero says he's from San Francisco. Somehow that makes sense to the partner and lets him go.

Scene change. Now it's hell. People come sliding down a big ramp into a large red cavern crowded with people. It's lit by flames and it's fairly bright. Our hero comes sliding down. The focus switches back to me in first-person. I'm already in hell when the hero arrives. In hell, everyone is standing in tight groups in little pens formed by metal railings. It's just like waiting in line for an amusement park ride. I'm standing near some elementary school classmates and they are talking on and on about boring stuff. I think, this IS torture. I think that's funny.

I yell to someone who just arrives down the slide. "Hey, I hope you can come up with the money, by the way. Just because I'm dead doesn't mean I don't have bills to pay. But it's not like I can do anything about it from down here."

Birthday Gifts, Annoying Ice Cream Girl
0716: C. I'm indoors in an unfamiliar place but I get the impression that it's my own bedroom in a house. Apparently, it's my birthday. I'm unwrapping presents. Most of the presents are children's toys like dolls and figurines. My sister gives me a new Blackberry. I walk across the room to plug it in to charge. Another gift is D&D-like role playing game. Hugh wants to play so I unfold the map across the floor. I remark how big the map is. It's about 6 feet by 3 feet.

Scene change. I'm in a outdoor mall in a food court. I'm wearing a blue shirt with faded white lettering that says "BIRTHDAY TODDLER." Everyone is gone except Hugh, but he starts walking away leaving me alone. There are other random people in the food court though. A girl from the crowd walks up to me. I'm not attracted to her. She says she want to satisfy some urges and then walks away somewhere, as if to go fetch something that she will bring back to me. I feel awkward. Another girl walks up to me. This one is attractive and I want to talk to her. She wishes me happy birthday. I ask how she knew it was my birthday. She says it's written on my shirt.

The first girl comes back and hijacks the conversation. The second girl walks away. I'm annoyed about that but I try to be polite. The girl has a variety of ice cream and she starts feeding it to me. She want me to guess the flavors and pick my favorite. I play along to be polite. The first one is dark cherry. The second is strawberry. There are two more that I haven't tasted yet. The next one is green so I'm thinking it will either be mint or pistachio. Dream fades.

0740: False awakening. I don't RC. I roll over to write in my dream journal about my last dream. I write something but I don't note the time. Then I wake up for real. I RC. I roll over to write in my dream journal. I think, wait! Didn't I just do this? Damn it! I write: "False awakening. I dream of writing in my journal."

Unstable DEILD
0811: D. Again, I'm in the food court of an indoor mall but this one is different. I'm with two friends but I don't recall who. We sit at a bench near the actor who played George's father in Seinfeld. But he doesn't say anything. A young blond girl walk up to us nervously. She says "Did you guys know there's a dance coming up?" We say nothing and she walks away.

Another group of girls comes and sits near us in the same set of benches. One attractive blond looks at me and says "Hi I don't know if you remember me." I don't but I guess just to keep the conversation going: "Did we meet last night?" She says no. "I'm on of the 'Real Players.'" I have no idea what that means. Then she starts talking about a family and farm animals. Scene fades.

I wake up and DEILD into a lucid. My view is totally distorted. It's like I'm looking at a blurry TV, off center and from an angle. On the TV it looks like Street Fighter and I struggle to recognize one of the characters is Guile. I turn my head to try to center the view. Instead, I enter a rocky tunnel. I'm floating through, like I'm being carried underwater. It's like in medical films when they stick a camera down a person's esophagus. I look at my hands and rub them. The view still sucks. Dream ends. I think, damn, another difficult scene. I guess I need to be more prepared to face anything that comes at me. Or maybe I just need to be patient and let the dream solidify before trying any control.

Good sleep habits lead to good recall. Zeo shows just three really long sleep cycles and I recalled a dream from all three. This is the first time I've recalled a dream from the first cycle. My pen is running out of ink.

I was really confident I'd have a lucid and I had a few tasks lined up to do. Oh well. Tomorrow will be even better.

0445: Sleep

0635: C. I sense that I'm at work but the building is more like an apartment. It's dark outside, maybe raining. I am sorting laundry in a bedroom. I came to the office to work on the weekend? I was hoping to be alone. I have a bottle of Jack Daniels. Hugh is there. Lucas also works at this place. I am actually an undercover cop and Lucas is a criminal. We are both using aliases. I tell this to Hugh. He's getting ready to leave to drive home. I ask to wait so we can leave together but he leaves without me. Then Dave pops in (with Laura maybe?) He is going to a dinner party or something. I also tell him about being an undercover cop. I show him two photos are me and two of Lucas and tell him the real names. Lucas looks like Wolverine in his photos. Another couple enters the office. I vaguely recognize them but don't remember their names. Dave blurts out "Hey, Michael is really Lieutenant...!" but I forget the name I used. The couple doesn't really hear this from across the office. I shush Dave and he stays quite.

0655: Back to sleep after WBTB

0916: A. This dream was quite vivid and I felt I had an above-average degree of reasoning capability (although what I do in the dream is pretty stupid). Zeo reports that this dream happened during a epic 75 minute long REM cycle. But what I recall seemed about 15-20 minutes. I'm in a house in a nice suburban neighbor, but it's unfamiliar. I'm in a bedroom on the second floor. It's night outside. I'm talking to a girl who is leaving for a house party in the neighborhood. She suggests it's going to be really wild. She leaves. I look out the window and see two plastic baggies on the sidewalk near the lawn. I go outside and pick one up. Inside there is pot wrapped and labeled in plastic wrap and in vials. There's also rolling paper and a condom. I sense that these are for the party. Someone is spreading them around the neighborhood for people to bring to the party. I take them back up to my room and look at the them, reading the labels of the strange ingredients. I hide them under my bed, go outside to get the other bag, and bring that one up too.

I open a laptop and find a live streaming video of the party. I join a live lecture. A guy is going to explain how to use the things in the bag. I feel nervous so I take the stuff down to my car which is parked at the curb across the street. I hide the bags under the passenger seat and lay down in the back seat. I see police cars rolling through the neighborhood. I pretend to be asleep but I know I'm going to get busted. A cop opens the front passenger door and takes the stuff from under the seat. Then they open the back door and I fall out. They charge me with... burglary? It seems the pot was bought with stolen money so having the pot makes me an accomplice to the burglary. I ask, "Isn't that 'accessory to buglary'?" The cops laugh and say they've never heard of that. I argue, "What if you're the guy driving the car from a bank robbery?" Then they say, oh, that's a good point. (IWL, I don't think any of that law or logic makes sense). I am walking with the cops down the street and they are friendly. It's starting to get light as morning comes. They are talking about gambling.

1135: D. I think my recall was good but I was disturbed by my alarm and the dream faded very fast. I tried for several minutes to remember because it felt so close on the tip of my memory. All that was left was a fragment. Something about cooking food and wrapping it in bags.

0/2
Note: I snoozed late the previous day and then had a Red Bull late in the afternoon that made for a poor night's sleep.

0515: Sleep

0730: B. I live with a family in a mansion. And evil genius get the building to collapse and the one next door burns down. But I catch him and everyone is happy. Then we rebuild the mansion but use it for the company office. We lay a bunch of people off so that there is room. Again, people keep getting fired and we reorganized the seating in the building. I get to keep my office but everyone else is upset. A bunch of stupid people get assigned into my department with no relevant experience. I am upset and just stop caring. For lunch I prepare a bowl of apple sauce and also a bowl of cottage cheese. I realize I don't want both so I try to get someone else to take one, but no one wants it. So I decide to try to eat both.

1033: C. At work I make a risky decision to change a distribution plan. Something about things produced in San Diego by women. I have to explain myself to the boss. But in the end they understand that the delivery must wait an extra day.

0/3 Lucid/Recall

Notes: Fell asleep drunk on bloody marys.

Analysis: Very irregular waking times for me, doubtless due to the alcohol. I usually have 90 minute cycles with uncanny accuracy. Poor recall and motivation this night. The dreams seemed rather plain and unimaginative. I observe two obvious influences from the waking day in the dreams.

2300: Sleep

0400: D. Something about new Facebook accounts and importing old friends.

0603: D. Mostly unreadable. Something about smoke alarm going off which woke me up [I cooked pork chops on the stove for dinner]. On waking up, I was disciplined enough to suspect FA and did an RC; I was indeed awake.

0850: B. I'm with a bunch of people, some from work some from high school. It's a bit like Disneyland. I have a girlfriend. She is white. I don't know who she is. We all play this game where we write personal stuff about us on these pre-made cards. I spend a lot of time in the bathroom. The bathroom is weird. People try to use the sinks as urinals [I drank two glasses of water prior to this sleep cycle]. At the end, the personal secrets are revealed. My girlfriend doesn't know me very well. At some point we're in a creek under a bridge.