• Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views




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    The Lab Notebook

    Like many others, I was attracted to lucid dreaming by Inception. Unlike some others, I was very quick to let go of the misconceptions it offers, and to learn and embrace the lingo, the practices, and the understanding of dreaming that are accepted by the community of real people I found here.

    I titled my dream journal "The Lab Notebook" because of the way I'm naturally inclined to write the portions of my dream journal entries that are commentary and side notes on my dreams. I always write with the vocabulary, style, and mindset of a scientist recording the observations she's made during her experiments. That's the framework in which I can best make sense of what I'm learning about dreaming.

    I always write about dreams in the present tense, because I remember reading somewhere that doing so helps the events of the dream seem more immediate and real to you, and helps you recall them.

    The color-coding system I use in my dream journal is:

    Dark red: Things I did while awake
    Teal: Non-lucid portions of the dream
    Deep sky blue: Semi-lucid portions of the dream
    Dark orchid: Lucid portions of the dream (because it's my favorite color)
    [Black within square brackets:] Commentary added by me while I was writing the dream journal entry

    1. Brief Lucidity at a Football Game

      by , 01-02-2012 at 05:56 AM (The Lab Notebook)
      Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

      I'm visiting Las Vegas. Downtown Las Vegas is made up of multiple levels of shops, restaurants, and casinos, most of them themed to a particular pop-culture franchise, all stacked on top of each other and connected by multiple layers of walkways and stairs, creating a gigantic, multilevel man-made environment. I'm walking through this environment with my mom. I walk away from her briefly to do something on my own [I don't remember what], and I'm worried for a moment that I won't be able to find my way back to where she's sitting. But I come back down the stairs and there she is, sitting on a bench next to a curved railing at the edge of an elevated walkway, waiting for me to come back. When I approach, she gets up, and we continue walking.

      Then, my mom and I are joined by my sister and a couple of our girlfriends.
      [They weren't anyone I know in real life, but in the dream, they were our friends.] While we're walking around, my mom says something to the effect of, “I thought all you girls were supposed to go see a shrink!” We just kind of laugh and say, “Yeah, we were.” [I think] We're still planning on going to see one later.

      My family and I are getting ready to leave somewhere on an airplane. I observe how airplanes operate, by catching drafts of air, and think about how fragile and uncertain this process is. Then I think that it's best not to think about this process too much, since I'm going to have to travel on one very shortly. Then, we're flying on the airplane. It flies past some elevated highways that appear familiar to me.


      [Different dream, probably in a different cycle.] I'm sitting in a typical high school football stadium, watching the pre-game activities. There is a marching band on the field. One member of the marching band has a large trombone whose bell is filled with clarinets. When he blows into the trombone, the clarinets spray out all over the place.

      I find myself hunting through the bleachers for my clarinet reeds, which have been thrown all over the place. I pick them up, looking at the numbers printed on the back of each one, looking for the 2 ½ reed. One of them says “5 ½,” another “3 ½.” Eventually, I find the 2 ½ one.

      The football players are on the field, warming up for the game. One of them throws a practice pass to another, but with a basketball, not a football. I look away from the field, and look down at the program on my lap. It's made of sheets of paper folded in half crosswise, and has lots of text on it. I read it for a few moments, and then something
      [I don't remember what] makes me stop and think, Either [something that I can't remember now], or this is a dream program. I reach up and pinch my nose shut, and feel that wonderful, paradoxical sensation of being able to breathe through it while doing so. Yes, I'm dreaming. I pinch my nose and breathe through it for a few moments more, to verify and to enjoy the sensation. While doing this, I gaze at the program, not reading it, just looking at it and appreciating the experience of knowing that this thing I'm looking at, as real as it looks, is just a dream image being generated by my mind.

      When I look up at the field again, I'm surprised to find that the scene has grown mostly dark, as if somebody turned off most of the lights. I know that's because I haven't been paying any attention to the football field for the last couple of minutes, and therefore, it's started to fade away. I'm disappointed, and wish and hope that it will get brighter again, but it doesn't.
      Then the dream ended.

      After I had woken up, I remembered that I could have verbally commanded the dream to become clear and bright again, and mentally kicked myself for forgetting about that trick.