The Lab Notebook

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm on a dark ride at Disneyland. When I concentrate on the images that are moving vertically in front of me, I can accept and maintain the optical illusion that traditional animation is taking place right there in the space in front of me on the ride.

Later, I'm in a dream version of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. This version is two-story and walk-through, with a large, rectangular open space in the center of the house where you can see the walkway that runs in front of the entrances to the second-floor rooms. I think, They've redone this entire place again? It's actually this realization that makes me aware that I'm dreaming. I've dreamed about this attraction many, many times before, and it's different every single time, so if I'm on yet another new version, I must be dreaming. I continue to make my way through the house, being scared [in the good way] by some of the ghosts that jump out at me.

I somehow end up in the landscaped outdoor area around what appears to be a shopping mall. I look at my hands and see that they look normal [I've been doing this a lot in reality lately], but don't lose lucidity. I'm pleased to find that the dream is stable, my dream self feels real and normal, and that I'm not aware of my real body at all. I then remember my current personal dream goal and decide to start trying to walk through a wall. I see the orange-tan-colored outer wall of some restaurant and think, Maybe it'll be easier to go through if I don't know in advance what's supposed to be on the other side. [I don't even know.] I don't end up going through it, though. [If I attempted to, I don't remember it now.]

While walking around the outdoor area, I touch a metal hand rail and find that it feels real. I also try to walk through a low, rectangular concrete wall intended for seating, but it's just as real and solid to me as it would be in reality. [I think I just haven't fully convinced myself that I can walk through things like a ghost yet.]

I continue walking and find a small, amphitheater-like concrete area where there are big concert speakers set up, playing hip-hop or rap music. Facing the speakers is a picnic table with a bunch of teenagers sitting on it, all of whom are really into the music. One girl, however, is sitting on a bench off to the side by herself, reading a book. On the opposite side of the table from the speakers is a grassy lawn. Fifty or so yards away at the other end of the lawn, a live rock band is playing on another stage. I think it's kind of sad that the poorly-designed setup of the area, with the big speakers so nearby, means that no one is paying the band any attention. [What is it with me and rock concerts in my dreams lately? I don't have any plans to go to one in reality.] I think about talking to one of the teenagers there, but [for some unknown reason] decide not to.

The back of my left thigh started to itch, which made me aware of my real body again, which caused the dream to dissolve. I scratched it, now awake and disappointed at the interruption.

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm at my new church. The sanctuary is big and sort of round [more so than it is in reality]. I'm sitting on a pew near the front of the room, from which I can see both the altar and the center of the room. In the center of the room is an elevated circle with six thick, round columns spaced evenly around its outer edge. Beyond the outer edge of the circle, centered in the back of the room just in front of the main doors, is a lectern. I recognize it as our regular lectern, even though it and all the columns are festooned with decorative constructs made out of LEGO toys. A sort of mesh made of bright orange axles and connectors from a LEGO set hangs down a little way over the sides of the top of the lectern. The columns are all similarly decorated. The woman standing at the back of the room places a LEGO construct that she refers to as her “crown of thorns” on top of one of the columns. This causes all the columns to start moving vertically, changing their relative heights. I think about how cool all this is, especially the hydraulic-powered columns.

The sanctuary is filled with people. We're there for the Children's Stations of the Cross [an event that actually is coming up in just a few weeks]. There are lots of kids there, going through the stations in small groups. A group of kids walks by in front of my pew, and I hear one of the girls in it complain that there aren't enough girls in her group. I decide to join the group so that there will be more girls in it. [I was my adult self in this dream, but no one took any particular notice of me.]

I follow the group to the back of the room, out the main doors, and into the narthex. We stop at the location of the plaque designating the first station, which is hanging on the wall between the narthex and the sanctuary, just to the right of the main doors to the sanctuary. Another adult woman is operating this first station. She's ready for us with a toy that someone at the church put together to make Stations of the Cross more interactive and engaging: a pretend PASIV device. Inside the case, I see a piece of equipment from Verizon's network, a white metal rectangular box with the Verizon logo on top. I know that the box contains telephone cables on coils that allow them to be pulled out and then retracted. You can pull out the cables through holes in the side of the box, and that's what the woman does. The plastic jacks on the ends of the cables plug into matching ports on the bracelets that the kids and I are all wearing. The jacks and ports are the same size and shape as the ones used for the LEGO NXT robots and their sensors, I note. [The cables, however, are satiny silver-gray in color, not black like in real life.]

When all of us are plugged in by our bracelets and the device is turned on, the bracelets start pulsating, contracting and expanding in a way meant to simulate the sensation of an increasing heart rate. The experience is intended to help us identify and empathize with someone who is in mortal terror. While doing this, we all lie down on the tile floor and pretend to be asleep, because we know that this is what we're supposed to do when playing with a pretend dream-sharing device. [When I woke up and recalled all this, I thought it was hilarious both that my brain had created this scenario directly inspired by Inception, and that I had never realized that I was dreaming.]

After this, I walk through the parish hall [both the narthex and the parish hall are exactly like the ones at St. Mark's in Upland] and pick up some snacks. There seems to be some kind of meeting going on in one part of the room.

[Next cycle.] I'm walking on a wet, slippery stone-and-concrete courtyard in the middle of some old buildings with lots of dark-brown wood. The ground is wet because it has been raining; it's a gray, overcast day. I recognize this as an unfamiliar place and realize that I'm dreaming. This no longer shocks or startles me. I immediately start touching all the walls and handrails I pass, even crouching down at one point to lick up some of the water in one of the rain puddles. All of these actions evoke the corresponding sensations accurately.

I see a flight of wooden stairs leading up from the ground, attached to the outside of one of the buildings. I think, I wonder if I can turn these into an infinite loop. So I start climbing them, keeping track of how many segments of stairs separated by 90-degree turns I've climbed, counting them aloud. “One... two... three... now, when I get to the end of the next one, I should be back where I started from, right?” I say. When I get to the end of the fourth segment, though, I'm not back where I started from. The stairway just ends in a level, wooden, elevated walkway leading off to the right. “Damn you, astrophysics!” I exclaim aloud, expressing my disappointment that the normal laws of reality have prevailed despite this being a dream. [Why “astrophysics,” I have no idea.] I quickly shrug it off and continue exploring, walking along the walkway.

The walkway leads to the top of some steep, grassy hills. I crouch down near the top of one of them. I'm a little cold, so I try to summon a blanket to wrap around myself by thinking about one. Then I remember, No, just consciously, deliberately concentrating on it like that doesn't work. You have to know and expect that it will be there. I don't proceed to do this, though.

On top of one of the hills [the same one? A different one? I'm not sure], there is a concert stage with an amplifier sitting in the grass in front of it, to stage right. There's supposed to be a concert going on, but it's just beginning the process of being canceled. A rock band is on stage, but they aren't playing; they seem to be telling the audience at the bottom of the hill that there's no show to see, and some of the audience is beginning to wander away. They're canceling the show because the amplifier isn't working. I open up the top of the amplifier and find an AAA battery sitting half out of its battery cradle, which is itself only partially wired up to the rest of the amp. I reconnect all the wires and push the battery back into the cradle, and then the amp works. The band un-cancels the show and starts playing, and the audience stays and watches. I walk down the hill to join the audience. I notice that I'm now wearing the same two layers of coats that I often wear in real life. The dream starts to fade. Then I woke up.