One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy

American Psycho Playground
0524: I am in what seems to be a school playground in the middle of nowhere. Sandboxes, grassy areas, pull-up bars, chain-link fences, and so on. Christian Bale from American Psycho is here, chasing me and other people. Somehow he gets stabbed and falls to the ground. He calls an ambulance. The rest of us run and hide behind cover. He can't move but he's still throwing sharp things like knives and and pencils. One almost hits me. He is covered in blood. I'm not very afraid though. Just cautious to dodge the projectiles.

short WBTB, just long enough to drink a glass of water with a B-complex supplement

fragment
In bed, notice the nearby electrical outlet. It's making a noise like running water. I remove the plug from the top outlet and move it to the bottom, thinking that will somehow help.

fragment
My mother is in the next room. I overhear her talking to herself. She says that I was talking in my sleep.

Vivid Lucid With Some Tasks
Method DILD (prospective memory), DEILD
Lucidity B
Vividness A
Control B
1134: Begin recall in my bathroom. The light is off and the door is open. Dim morning light coming through my bedroom window. I remember my own advice to look at my hands and count my fingers. At first they appear normal but I stare at them for a moment. A finger on my left hand starts to look distorted and wavy. Bingo, I must be dreaming. I also notice the orientation of the bathroom is backwards compared to the real one.

I walk out the bathroom, through my bedroom, and on into the living room. There I see my father laying on the ground between the couch and coffee table. He's wrapped in a robe, like he's sick. I ask him a question, but move on. I peek in my roommate's room, but he's not there. I haven't stopped to think of a plan, so I'm just wandering aimlessly.

I exit the front door and find myself in an unfamiliar stairway. I go down one flight and pass by two young women. I think I said to them: "Oh, you're pretty, and so are you." They are carrying piles of clothes. I reason that they are moving in to the building. I stop on the landing of the floor below. It's covered with boxes and more clothes everywhere. I say aloud: "Wow, this place is really messy." Then I think: Wait, this is my place. It is my own dream in my own mind. Maybe the mess is symbolic. I pick up some of the clothes to get a closer look. They are actually neatly folded. I say aloud: "I guess I like my place like this." I'm not sure what I meant by that.

Now I exit the building and find myself in yet another unfamiliar setting. The building I was in is at the top of a rather steep hill. I am looking down a narrow street that goes down the hill with buildings, trees, and alleys on either side. It's only wide enough for foot traffic, no cars. I'd guess it looks a bit like San Francisco more than Los Angeles. Anyway, it's bright day and many people are on the street, going in and out of shops and sitting at cafe patio tables.

About half way down the hill, there is an awning that catches my attention. I think to fly and land on it. I start to fly but sputter and lose height. I land under the awning. I sit down at a cafe patio table. Also at the table is a young man with dark brown "bedhead" hair and a scraggly beard. In a hip way, not an ugly way. He's holding an Amazon Kindle. He's talking to a nearby waitress. Neither of them see to notice my presence.

Dream fades. I DEILD back.

I'm back at the same cafe patio. The man with the Kindle stands up and walks away, never having noticed me. I stand up and now have more lucidity and control. I walk to the middle of the street and look around, thinking of what to do. I'm a bit distracted as I notice a older woman standing at a podium nearby. Maybe the hostess of a restaurant. Or maybe she's selling something. I snap back into focus and remember a few tasks. Meditate. Hmm. Risky. I decide I'm not ready for that. Laugh. I can do that. I enjoy a big loud "HA HA HA!" in the middle of this busy street. Everyone stops and turns to look at me. The noisy chatter turns dead quiet. Am I embarrassed? No, surprisingly.

Now I have everyone's attention. What next? Cry and pick a fight. Not sure why I thought of these two things together. I look around the crowd and pick out the biggest, meanest guy. He's a tall, wide, Samoan-looking guy. I look up at him and taunt him with a childish "Boo hoo!" crying gesture. Then I punch him in the face with a right hook. He punches back but I block with my left arm and counter with another right. He tries a few more times but I block and counter-punch again and again. He swings once more, loses his balance and falls. I place one leg on him, like I'm posing on top of a mountain.

I start to think what to do next, but the dream fades.

So I'm trying to get back focused on my tasks. My lucid rate has been ok lately but they have all been kinda aimless and accidental. I want to get into my fun and rewarding tasks. Didn't actually succeed in any this night, but it was a good effort so I feel good about it.

First Cycle Randomness
0755: B. First cycle. Bunch of randomness here. Not sure of the order. I'm in an airport, picking up lots of loose change. I think there was just a party of something and there's a bunch of change left. There are also pushpins with people's names written on them. I think the one I read said Bill. I am careful to keep the coins and pins separate. Then my father is here and he's haggling with a man to buy a coin sorting machine. I really want him to buy it to make my job easier. The fact that he's haggling over the price makes me think he is cheap. Then I'm talking to my father about the pushpins and the names on them. They were part of some party event where each person is given a pin and you're suppose to find the person whose name is on it. Or something like that. My father and I are talking about the psychology of it. Something about how people's anticipation always leads to disappointment and therefore people's happiness is always going down. Weird. Then I'm at another party or maybe back to the party that started it all. A group of people are sitting on couches around one guy. He looks like a frat boy with a backwards hat and t-shirt. They are talking about the pushpin game. He's bragging about how good he is at these party games. Last time, the game was to annoy people and he won four times in a row. He also has his own internet video feed on him all the time called "HD Hale." Then I'm watching a TV commercial for MetLife with a statue at the top of a building. The voice-over is talking about how they have solid investments on Mars. The statue is of Abraham, Jesus, and 4 other monks holding torches. But then the commercial turns into a comedy skit. Jesus is now Robert Downey Jr. and he's talking to the Abraham statue, who is played by someone named Carmack. He's saying, "Hey Carmack, why do you always get to be the father of God?"

Street Fighter Documentary
0927: C. Hugh is watching a documentary about Street Fighter. The original stages were in an underground hideout of a gang called the Panthers. But they abandoned it because it was radioactive. Then it talks about the possibility of a sequel and what will happen to the characters after many years. I see an older Ryu with his face starting to wrinkle and his hair starting to go gray. It says Blanka won't be around because he can't have children.

Counter-Strike, Lucid
Method DILD (spontaneous)
Lucidity B
Vividness B
Control C
0949: Very quick time from the previous dream. I'm in a game of Counter-Strike. I must be T because all my enemies look like CTs. A guy is camping upstairs in a building with the Para machine gun. I sneak in through a window and kill him. I take his machine gun and start camping the same building. I'm at the top of a stairway, overlooking the front room of the building which has a front door and several broken windows. Many CTs try to attack me from this front door and windows. One has a shield. But I mow them all down with my machine gun.

As I'm doing this, I sense that I'm narrating the action in my head. It's as if I'm trying to help myself recall this later for my dream journal. Now one more enemy comes to the front door with a flashbang in his hand. He throw it up the stairway and it goes off near me. This sudden flash combined with the self-narration makes me lucid. I stop fighting. I walk down the stairs and outside. I still see the CT enemies around but they are just standing still doing nothing.

I look at the scenery. Vividness is pretty good. It's bright day. It seems like a small town in France or Italy with cobblestone streets and stone buildings. I'm in a large city square or courtyard, with impressive buildings on three sides and a street lead up a hill to the north. I've been walking up the street on the slight incline of the hill. I start to remember my plan. I rub my hands and look at them to stabilize. Feels pretty good. Next task: summon music. For some reason, I think I should be indoors for this. I turn around and see one of the buildings. It's an old stone church with stained glass windows. Think Notre Dame. It's beautiful and vivid. I start walking toward it, but the dream fades.

More Gunfighting
1108: B. It starts a bit like the end of the last dream. I'm in a quaint European town, but now it's near the ocean. I'm in a large courtyard again. In one direction there looks to be a shipyard. In the middle of the shipyard is a futuristic airplane that looks like a giant green and purple hornet. Hugh is here and I guess it's his plane. He's sort of like Batman and the hornet plane is like the Bat-Mobile. Hugh says he just got all the armor upgrades for it. He gets in and it flies way.

Skip. The scene is now similar to the beginning of the previous dream. I'm in an old building that feels like a church. I'm on the second floor balcony that overlooks the large room below. I'm alone with a machine gun and I'm fighting off enemies below. This time, I think they look like marines from Starcraft. After a wave, I am reinforced by my friend H who leads a small group of his own marines. He says we need to move out. Before leaving, I pull out my dream journal, lay on the ground (still in the dream), and start writing in it about this dream.

Bus Station, Failed Task, The Moon and Mars
Method DILD (false awakening)
Lucidity C
Vividness C
Control C
1201: I think I am in a suburb of New York City. I am near the river at a bus station. It's early morning and it's mostly light but the sun isn't fully up yet. I'm looking around for someone or something, not sure what. There are a few DCs around and in the booth selling tickets. I walk all the way around the building and give up on what I was looking for. I am wearing a black sweatshirt and sweatpants but white shoes. I exit the bus station through a chain link fence. I get on a skateboard and start skating away toward a residential neighborhood.

False awakening. I'm in an unfamilar bedroom with very little furniture. I'm sleeping on a cheap cot. There's just a bit of morning sunlight coming through a window to my right. This is all wrong so I become lucid and back it up with a nose-plug RC. But for some reason I question whether I am really dreaming. I nose-plug several times, each time confirming that I am indeed dreaming.

So I finally accept that I'm dreaming and try to remember my plan. Rub my hands. Ok, I do that but I bit rushed. Summon music. The song I have in mind is "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I imagine it in my head for a moment and expect it to keep playing on it's own. No. I try to will the universe to play it for me. No. I gesture with my hand, as if pressing a button on a remote control toward a stereo. No. Hmm. Not working. Discouraged, I abandon the rest of the plan.

Instead, I hop out the window and hover and land on the street. It's a quiet residential neighborhood, like in the scene before the FA. The street is framed with big trees whose leaves have turned orange and brown for the fall. The sun is just rising in the distance and the sky is still a bluish-black with stars visible. I can also see the moon and Mars, which is right next to the moon and almost as big. The colors are so rich and it's a beautiful scene. I think to fly to the moon or maybe fly to Mars instead. I run and jump and get some height but then halt. It's like my rockets ran out and I slowly drift back down to the ground. Now I'm stuck and I start the feel my physical body. I can feel the sleep paralysis and so now my dream body can't move. Even my neck is stiff but I'm still looking up toward the moon and Mars. I know I'm waking up soon and I can't move, so I start bring the moon down to me! I pull the moon closer with my mind and it's getting bigger and bigger. It's about to fill my view and crash into the Earth when I wake up.

Zerg, Driving, Bar
1247: C. Was patrolling for Zerg (Starcraft again). I found some but forget to write down where on the map. (I think that was a false memory in the dream and I didn't actually experience it.) Anyway, I'm beating myself up for that mistake. Now I'm driving home in my car. The street looks like the area around my real office. I want to stop at a bar. I have to make a left turn into the parking lot and I have to wait a while as other cars are pulling out of the lot. I think I cut someone off. I walk into the bar and it's very small. Everything is wood paneled. I accidently bump into a guy near the door. He's with a group of rowdy people. They must be college students and I want to avoid them. I walk to the bar area. The stools are all out of place. I pick up one and place it at the bar and sit down. I'm sitting next to a middle-aged guy to my right. I think he says hello to me. There are two bartenders which I think is weird for such a small bar and only a few people inside. They are both young guys with short black hair. One says hello to me and asks what I want. I think for a moment and order a Corona Light (which I though was weird because I'd probably never order that in a real bar). Dream fades.

I planned to not record my dreams this night. I just wanted to get a solid night's rest. So no recall in the first half (the usual reason). And for the first couple dreams I didn't write anything down. By the last two, I realized the dreams were worth writing down so I did so.

"Do Nothing"
Lucidity: C
Vividness: C
Control: C
~0800: No written notes, so this is spotty from memory. I don't recall how I became lucid. The first thing I recall is doing a nose plug RC. I'm sitting at a campfire circle. It's dusk. It seems like I'm in the giant doorway of an abandoned factory or airplane hanger. A few other DCs are around the fire. They look like migrant workers. The scene made me think of movies like The Motorcycle Diaries and Mi Mejor Enemigo. I remember my plan: "Do nothing", practice reality checks, focus on all 5 senses.. For taste, I lick a rock on the ground and it tastes like dirt! I vaguely recall that I did things for the other senses. I think I had double vision and that frustrated me. I try to talk to the DCs but I don't recall they said anything.

fragment
~0915: C. No written notes, so this is from memory. First thing I recall is a false awakening. I sense there was more before but no detail. I'm in my own room. I get out of bed and look at the time: 1:30pm. Crap, it is really that late? I get up, take off my Zeo headband and dock it in the bedside unit. It gives me a sleep score of 42. Really? I thought I slept better than that. Wake up for real. It's only about 9. My Zeo score for the night ended up at a more respectable 83.

Unfocused Lucid
Lucidity: C
Vividness: C
Control: D
1100: Just a few notes so this is mostly from memory. I'm in a classroom. It's a art or shop class so all the students are standing at work tables. In the dream, I seem to be distracted or sleepy. The teacher is a woman and there are one or two girls sharing my table. The first thing I recall is the teacher scolding me for not paying attention. So I become aware of what we are supposed to be doing. We have a piece of paper with a drawing on it. On top, we have a piece of tracing paper and we are supposed to trace the drawing under it. The drawing is an architectural sketch of a colonial era boat, I think. So I start tracing but there is a time limit. The teacher is nearby, watching me. She thinks I won't finish in time. The other girl at my table is done and she is also watching me. I feel nervous but I act confident. I think we do two tracings like this. The next task is to trim a large piece of meat. It's really thin, more like a the hide than the flesh. The tracing paper has become butcher paper. I move to a larger table and spread this gross sheet of meat over the paper.

Skip. Now I'm outside in what seems to be a school campus but it's unfamiliar. I'm walking up a grassy hill. There are many other students around. It's bright daylight. I see a girl who I recognize as a high school classmate, Beth. I'm not sure but I think this must be what made me lucid. Her hair is weird, kinda like dreadlocks but also kinda like bananas. Anyway, her face is recognizable. Lucidity and control are low at this point. I don't RC or stabilize. I just march up to her, say hello, and demand a blow job. She starts doing it but soon turns into a weird creature and I stop.

I walk away and I'm starting to get my wits about me. But lucidity, vividness, and control are still pretty low. I try to think of my tasks. The only one I can remember is flying barrel roll. I hesitate because my recent flying has not been good. But I can't think of anything else to do so I jump and spin. It works! I'm able to hover horizontally a few feet off the ground and a spin multiple times. (Wikipedia tells me that this is actually an aileron roll, not a barrel roll) I fly around spinning for about 30 seconds. Maybe I popped out to third-person a bit. My lucidity was fading away.

Skip. Now I'm in a building. The school gym or theater maybe? Maybe I lost lucidity for a while and then regained it here. A troupe of clowns is performing a circus-style act. I am in a corner back stage, near the exit. I see a door but I want to try walking through the wall. I try a few times but fail. I try to convince myself that I can do it. I know this is a dream and that I can walk through the wall. But no luck. Dream ends. In retrospect, this attempt at control was too forced.

Dream Within Dream
1130 C. This was a combination of false awakening and false memory that made it feel like a dream within a dream. I sense that I am out of town for work (this is the false memory). I'm staying in a hotel and I'm sleeping and dreaming. In the dream, I am in a WWII-esque battle among the ruins of a bombed city. I'm with my childhood friend Collin. I only have a tiny pistol in this big fight. I see an enemy across the way and fire a few careful shots. The gun is very inaccurate but I manage to hit him in the head. Everyone is happy and celebrates me as the hero.

I have a false awakening in a hotel room. In the dream, I think that the war scene was a lucid dream and I remember the two real previous lucids. So I congratulate myself for 3 lucids in the night.

Skip. Now I'm back in my apartment. Combining the war dream, the false awakening in the hotel, and the false memory of traveling for work, this all creates the dream within the dream phenomenon. So anyway, I'm home in my apartment but it looks totally different. I sense that, as I returned from traveling, my roommate has just left. I see that he has left a bunch of books and devices about lucid dreaming. He is just starting to pratice having lucid dreams. I go in the bathroom and see that the faucet has been left on just a drip. But over several days, the drip has flooded the room with an inch of water.

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.

Elusive First Cycle Dream
0430: D. First cycle. Once again that strange feeling in the first cycle of having slept for a long time. When I woke up, I was a bit upset that maybe I had slept through the whole night without any recall. But when I looked at the clock I realized I'd only been asleep for about 75 minutes. By this time, the vague recollection of my dream had mostly faded. This is what I wrote: No plot recall. Just feeling of missing something. Feeling of change. Chasing to recover something lost. In retrospect, maybe the feeling was about the dream recall itself, not within the dream. Or maybe the feelings from the dream spilled over into waking. Anyway, moving on.

Girlfriend in India
0630: B. This is likely some residue of a conversation I had with a friend about his Pakistani girlfriend. I'm in India living in a cheap apartment. I'm dating an Indian girl. She looks like the contestant from MasterChef. We're fooling around in the bed and she wants to go further. I don't want to or maybe I'm just teasing her. Suddenly I'm wearing my sleep mask. She pulls it off and tells me to stop acting silly. We end up just cuddling and seem to drift off to sleep.

I wake up in the hallway outside the apartment. The girl is gone. Hugh lives next door. He's exiting his apartment and locking his door. He notices me and stops to talk. He's heading off to work and he's wonder why I'm sleeping in the hallway. He leaves.

I stumble into the apartment but now it's where the girl and her parents live. I'm trying to figure out how to turn on the A/C and hang a "do not disturb" sign for the maid. The girl and her parents are talking around a small kitchen table. The mother is concerned that her daughter is dating a boy. The father is proud of the job he has done raising her. Then an air raid siren goes off. The mother tells the girl to go tie up the reindeer.

Just Weird
0755: C. I live in a house is feels familiar but isn't recognizable. It's really hot and humid. At school, there's a contest to do something with two sheets of fabric. I guess I won and I bring home two blankets. I talk with my mother and sister about where to put them. Suddenly, instead of two blankets, it's a colorful table placemat and a frozen packaged crab. The placemat is white with blue and orange stripes. The crap is bright orange and the package says it's from Mexico. I decide to put the two items in the dining room where there is a very long large dining table. But I guess we barely use this room. There's a spider web above the table and a live crab walking across the table. My sister breaks the spider web and the spider falls near her. She and I are both freaked out and run out.

Practicing Dream Control
0905: B. A short WBTB where I used the bathroom and had a few slips of water. Practiced MILD suggestion going back to sleep. I sense there was more plot earlier in the dream but don't recall, so I pick it up as I'm in a nice quiet residential neighborhood cul-de-sac. It's a sunny autumn afternoon. All the houses are two-story with nice lawns, trees, and Halloween decorations. I enter one house in the middle of the block. Inside it's a crowded house party. I walk up the stairs to the second floor, stepping sideways through the crowd. I see a guy who I recognize as Nick, a friend from high school. I'm confident I'm dreaming and I'm ready to execute my plan. I continue walking through the upstairs of the house, walking with purpose and determination. I'm looking at my hands and rubbing them.

My first task is to touch and pick up a few objects, which I do as I'm walking through a bedroom and then a hallway. I think I picked up an empty can of peas. I'm looking for a window that overlooks the front of the house. I find one and run and jump through. It's a small window so I hit the wall as well but I go right through and hover gently down to the street. I don't recall hearing a crash so I don't know if I smashed through or if I passed through, but it's satisfying enough to count as my task.

So I'm back out in the middle of the cul-de-sac street. I'm feeling pretty confident and ready to try my next task. I want to summon a girl from work named S and then teach her to fly. So I'm looking for a door. The house on the corner catches my eye. I walk up to the front door of the house and I think, yup, this is S's house. I picture her opening the door and then I knock. A woman opens the door but she's not right. She has many of S's features and her voice is similar, but she looks about 50 years old. I roll with it. "Hi, you must be S's mother. Is she home?" She replies: "Yes, come on it!"

The house is a bit dark inside and decorated with oriental rugs which kinda makes sense. I ask, "Is she upstairs?" I look at the stairs, expecting her to be coming down. Again, there is a woman there but she still isn't S. Again she has similar features, tan and pretty with long black hair. She looks about 35. The girl I'm looking for is supposed to be about 25. The mother says exactly what I'm thinking: "Oh, that's her older sister." I try one more time. "Could you call S down?" Once more, another S impostor comes walking down the stairs. This one was pretty close. Her age and height are right and her voice is right on. S's Turkish accent is probably the most distinctive thing about her IWL. But this girl isn't as tan and she has freckles on her face. Hmm, my confidence is a bit shaken. I talk to this girl a little, I forget about what. I give her a hug and a couple of friendly kisses. I decided to leave and move on.

I walk outside. I'm a bit discouraged. That didn't go as planned. I recall the earlier part of the dream and, come to think of it, my lucidity is probably only average. I'm thinking of what to do next. Meet Dream Guide? Hmm. I look at the house at the far corner of the street. It has the most Halloween decorations on the block. I try to imagine opening the door to see my Dream Guide, who I imagine is Yoda. But on the heels of the less than perfect summoning, I decide to do something else. I resolve to spin to a new scene. I picture my office and start spinning. As I'm spinning for about 10 seconds I still see the neighbor scene around me. Hmm. I slow down. Should I close my eyes? What if that makes me wake up. I tell myself, don't think about closing your eyes! Of course, I close my eyes and wake up. Ah! Rookie mistake. Oh well. Lesson learned.

Missed Lucid, Facepalm Worthy
1125: C. I had trouble falling asleep after the last dream so I got up and read DV for a while and then got back to bed about an hour later. This dream might as well have been a giant light in my eyes screaming "Dreamsigns!" Yet I blew it. I'm walking in a bright outdoor school yard. The buildings are familiar to my high school. It's lunch time and it's crowded with students. Everyone is wearing the navy blue uniforms from my junior high. I think, hmm, if this were a dream this would totally be a dreamsign. I look around to see if a recognize anyone. I see a group of people that I didn't like in high school that often recur in my dreams. Yup, that would be another dreamsign. I walk near them through the crowd, hoping to overhear their conversation without them noticing me.

I continue through the crowd and see a white soccer ball bouncing toward me. I think, now see if I were lucid, I'd probably kick this soccer ball. I kick it but I still don't clue in that I'm aware that I'm dreaming. I actually feel disappointed that I'm not lucid and any amount of lucidity or dream control that I might have had fades away. I decide to leave. I walk to the parking lot but I don't find my car where I expect it. I get a little worried. I wander around pressing the lock button to trigger the car horn. I finally hear the horn on the far side of the school, which now is only one building that looks like a hamburger stand with some covered benches near it. I walk to my car and recognize it. End.

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.