One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy

Wow, what a crazy weird night. I recalled 5 dreams from all 5 sleep cycles, all non-lucid. This is the second night ever that I've recalled a dream from the first cycle. Maybe I have broken through that barrier.

These dreams are irregular for me. They have scenes and characters that are familiar but I've never recalled dreaming about them before. It must be because of the book I'm reading "Dreamgates." And there's more weirdness that I'll note along with each dream.

0155: Sleep. Before falling asleep, I was in a very imaginative state. Zeo reports 20 minutes of wake before dropping into light sleep. It wasn't a dream and I don't think it was hypnagogic hallucinations. I didn't see any sensory imagery, just internal visualization. I was just day dreaming but it was very easy maintain the dreamplot. It seemed to flow on it's own. I imagined other characters and they seemed to speak and act without my influence. I was looking for a path or portal into the dream world. I met two French girls, Juliette and Maire who I invited to follow me into the dream world. We wandered around, asking people where to find the portal. But we didn't find anything. I remember I was still awake when I changed positions in bed and I no longer felt I was in the daydream.

0350: B. First cycle dream. It was blurry and jumpy but extremely personal and emotional. This is the first time I've ever recalled dreaming about Jen (ex-girlfriend of two years) which is odd because she was such an important part of my life for so long. And there's the whole father drama. I work for some company. The workplace is a house. It reminds me of my godparents' house. My sister, Dave work there and also... Jen?! I don't think I even saw her but but I strongly feel her presence. I am slacking off from work. I show up late. I'm unreliable. Dave is sitting in a wide hallway with a big laptop on his lap. He's waiting for my father but he hasn't arrived and everyone is worried. I feel disgusted. So typical. I think it is because he is unreliable too. Then I learn my father is a key witness in a criminal case and the criminals are hunting him. I still feel no empathy. He's in a car chase. My sister is listening to the radio or TV for news updates.

I go to the kitchen and lay down on the tile. Two cats (or dogs?) come near me. I grab food out of their bowl and pour it on the floor in front of them. Jen's workstation is in the kitchen but she isn't here. I sense she is out to lunch. I look over some papers laying on the floor that she was working on. It looks like geometry homework. I see a bunch of triangles that are paired in twos to form quadrilaterals.

My sister says my father wants to get into police custody. I think "Good, so he can go back to prison." But he actually wants their protection. Mel warns me that he may have been killed but that hasn't been confirmed. I wake up but it takes me a while to realize where I am. I'm feel strong emotions. It feels like the dream happened hours ago and I've been in bed thinking about it for all that time, but it was actually only moments ago. This is the first time in a while that I had to remind myself that "it was just a dream" to calm me down.

0520: Back to sleep after begin awake since the last dream. I got up and read "Dreamgates" for a while to get my mind off the last dream.

0630: C. I'm in a war that looks like Vietnam-era. We are fighting against our own people in two teams with real ammunition and death. It's like capture the flag. Each team is defending an old warehouse in an area that seems like an improvised airfield. The warehouses are full of crates, barrels, guns, ammunition and explosives. Hugh is on my team. The other people on both teams are familiar but I can't put names to them. Some a definitely women. I feel upset because our team is losing. The other team keeps raiding and retreating our warehouse, killing a few people at a time.

I grab a rifle and load it with explosives rounds (but later they don't explode). It's a bold-action clip-feed rifle with just four rounds per clipl more of a WWII-era gun but whatever. I start kicking ass with Hugh's help. We kill everyone on the other team. Only Hugh and I are left. We stand over a dead body and look at a black and white map. It looks like the US with some states shaded in pencil. I distinctly remember the shape of West Virginia.

0810: D. I don't remember where I am. Two groups of friends compete for my attention. One group is drinking Scotch. The other is going to meet Hugh's work colleagues. I choose the Scotch. Something illegible about email? We ditch the other group by stopping the elevator and getting off on a different floor.

0850: B. Zeo shows a short sleep cycle for this one. Maybe it was kind of a DEILD from the previous REM period. Either way, this was a long dream. Some very unusual characters in this one, especially Megan who I've been trying to dream about for several weeks in a different scenario. I start out at work. I'm generating some codes. Then I go to help some girl with her computer. Chris finds me and says "You need to file an AC-10 expense report for those codes." I say, "OK, I'll do it first thing after lunch."

I exit the office. Outside it's suddenly a school yard like my junior high. It's crowded with people. An old friend from middle school (can't remember his name) comes up and hands me a wad of cash. He has short spiky hair and wears braces. He wants me to launder the money by generating codes at work. I tell him it will be harder now because of the expense reports. The crowd disperses as people go to class. The bell rings. I'm late for class but I'm not worried at all.

I walk up some outdoor stairs and walk through a covered hallway. It's suddenly raining and this part of the school is under construction. There are clear plastic tarps everywhere covering stuff. I walk through this towards my classroom. I walk past a group of cheerleaders in the hallway. They are wearing white shirts with the sleeves rolled up and black shorts. The one talking is Megan from high school. She's saying that she didn't have a cell phone all summer and it totally sucked. I walk past them and enter my class room.

The room and teacher are like one I remember from middle school. I'm very late but no one cares because I'm always late. In the row of desk near the door, I see Britney Spears and another female singer, maybe Beyonce. I play it cool and walk past them to my normal seat in back, next to Britney. Chris is sitting at the far corner of the room and I'm reminded of the AC-10 expense reports for work. The teacher hands out kevlar vests to everyone. I have no clue why. He also passes around a slip of paper with two rows of numbers handwritten on it. It's a secret code to activate the kevlar vest. The paper gets pass to me by Britney next to me. I look at it. It's long. Part of it looks something like 1120621. I say obnoxiously and playfully loud: "Holy shit. How am I suppose to memorized this? It's got all kinds of one's and two's." Britney and the other singer laugh and look at me. I look at them and say playfully: "Holy shit, Pop Stars. What are you doing here." I notice they are wearing the same outfit as the cheerleaders outside. They are cheerleaders and are only sitting in this class to be out of the rain.

1052: C. This is a crazy absurd dream which is weird for this time of night. It jumped around a lot too. Usually my weird dreams are in the first half of the night and the second half are more literal. I'm caring for a child. Maybe he is my own son. His name is David. He grows abnormally fast, like the movie Jack. He's a 5-year-old boy in the body of a 30-year-old man. He wants to learn about lucid dreaming. I send a post card to my mother telling her about this interest.

I have a strange encounter at a doctor's office. The doctor, male, says he isn't going to treat David any more. There's also a female nurse in the room. I have to take David home.

Now I'm with a bunch of high school classmates at a miniature golf course. There is also at least one work colleague there too and some unfamiliar faces. I think David is there, but I'm not really watching him. Everyone is playing golf, but instead of golf balls and clubs we use pinecones and dice that we roll with our hands. Of course, these things don't roll very well. There's about 20 people playing at the same time on the same hole, so everyone is blocking each other and also people are playing out of turn. But I'm pretty good with the pinecone. On the last hole, it's my turn to roll and everyone watches with anticipation. But one extremely hot girl is bent seductively over the hole. She is unfamiliar. She is brunette with a tight red tank top over a killer rack. Maybe she's wearing sunglasses. Of course, I miss my shot. I say "I was distracted."

Notes: I forced myself to have good bedtime habits and it paid off with a good night's sleep. Snacked on only carbohydrates in the evening and watched some boring nature documentaries. I waited until I was very tired before laying down to sleep.

0155: Sleep.

0600: B. I am at home with my sister. I have my cell phone receiving work emails. My phone is acting weird. It shows the emails but everything is plain black and white. There's no color in the UI. I try to close all the running processes. For a moment, my phone is playing video of a football game. I get a "You've been invited" alert. I try to find the email message but the phone is still not working right. My sister wants to reset my phone. She tries to grab it away from me. I tell her I will take out the battery. Also, I'm sitting on the couch with the cat Oreo on the armrest to my right. At one point, she lays on my lap. She is facing me. My sister asks if she came there herself. I say yes. I feel annoyed with my sister. I also feel anticipation like I am expecting someone to call or email from work on my phone.

0727: A series of lucid dreams that I'm counting as one (cuz I'm so humble). I am laying on a couch, about to go to sleep. I t was like my childhood home. I was having trouble sleeping. A woman in the room starts talking to me. I don't remember about what. She sits on the couch next to me. She is middle-aged, but not bad looking. She turns seductive and straddles me and grabs my crotch. That doesn't happen in real life so... I'm dreaming. I'm not very lucid though. I just go along with what's happening. I think to do an RC but my arms are around her so I'm a bit busy. The excitement makes the dream fade.

I lay still and re-enter the dream. I am in an amusement park. It's dusk and there are few people. I nose-plug-check, good! I finger-check too which fails, but whatever. Rubbing my hands anchors me and now I'm ready to have some fun. I start flying and practice my skills of turning and looking around. I'm pretty good, except I have trouble climbing. I think about some goals. Hmm. Throw a fireball? Easy! I swing my arm like throwing a baseball sidearm and a fiery red-orange ball flies to the ground and explode a lamp post. I hover over a parking lot full of freight trucks and I blow them up with my fireballs. Then some hover tanks attack back and I blow one up. I fly away and land. Now I'm being chased by dogs. They are black and mean, like pitbulls. I try to make the dogs disappear my waving my hand over them, but no luck. I run into a building. I try to fly and smash through the ceiling, but no luck. The building I'm in is in on a college campus. I think to summon a DC. I walk outside and around a corner, expecting to see Lance. There he is! We go into another building; I open the door expecting to find a party, and there it is! I was expecting someone in particular but don't see them. There is a girl behind the bar or DJ booth with bright red hair. I ask someone where R is. I walk to the bathroom, hoping to find her there. I walk down a few steps and see one person waiting for the bathroom. Two girls are coming out of the bathroom with their arms linked. I grab one and head her back in to the bathroom while the other leaves. It wasn't the girl I was looking for but I'm not unhappy. I back the girl against the wall. She has on a skirt and bikini top. Her body is all oiled up. I remember staring at her belly button. She has short hair. I tell her how pretty she is. I'm about to go farther with her but the dream fades.

False awakening. I'm back on the couch at my childhood home. It's like we have cousins in town. A man (my uncle?) is sleeping in the other couch near me. My sister is also in the room. I get up and they get upset and argue with me. I try spinning to a new scene, but no luck. I leave out the front door. It's night and the starry sky is beautiful. I start flying. The dream fades.

I've had several weeks on no lucids. Even tonight my recall for the first two dreams was poor. But I finally had a lucid:

I had a false awakening to find Hugh outside playing games. I hear him playing and also tap dancing. Then he comes in and reads a note from my sister about giving me a hug. He hugs me. I think, "Am I dreaming?" I say it aloud twice. I look at the clock and it's 40:28. I'm dreaming! I become lucid. I kick Hugh out of my room, literal, and he sails off defying gravity. I used the commands "stability" and "clarity" to stabilize the dream. I look at my hands and feel my dream body. Then I meet Hugh on the balcony and ask if he has Sidal's phone number (mistake, I know). He dials and hands me the phone. I wait while it rings, then silence. It's like someone picked up but says nothing. I'm so focused on listening and the emotion of the situation that I loose the dream scene and I wake up.