The Lab Notebook

[This is a catch-up post. This dream took place on the night of November 20-21, 2012. The title of this dream is in Japanese, and is read "Sora ni Tondeiru Yumebito-Tai." It literally means "Flying in the Sky Dream Person Team (or Corps)." The dream felt a lot like being in an episode of an anime series, so I gave it a title that would be suitable for an anime series.]

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

I'm outside somewhere, lying in the warm sun. The sun's rays are making me too hot in my flannel pajamas. I'm wearing dark-colored plaid pajama bottoms [the same ones I'm wearing in real life], and a white flannel pajama top with red roses on it [the same pattern as on a bedspread my mom has at her house].

I'm in a large department store, filled with racks of cold-weather accessories and other clothes. I'm wandering through the racks by hopping up off the floor, hovering above it for a few seconds as I float forward, and then sinking back down. After several repetitions of this, I think, Hmm, this is longer than I should be able to float like this. Oh - that's because I'm dreaming.

I fly out of the room with the clothes and winter accessories and into a larger room. It's still part of the same store, but it has a higher ceiling and has a skylight. I stop to ground myself in the dream by landing on the ground and touching things with my hands, including some packages of batteries that are hanging up on a rack. It works.

I join up with a a group of kid DCs that includes Merida from Brave and a curly-haired blond boy. We all set off from the department store together to battle some evil force. We run out of the store and come to a hilltop that overlooks an ocean bay. Some of us, including Merida and myself, jump off the top of the hill and start flying over the bay. I shout “Woohoo!” as I jump off. I notice that some of the others in the group are simply running down the hill, rather than flying. [For the first time, it seems perfectly natural to me that some DCs can fly, too, and I don't feel any need to hide the fact that I can fly, as I usually do when I'm around DCs.]

All of us, those who ran and those who flew, reassemble at our destination, which is a small house on the cliff overlooking the ocean. We realize we're being pursued by some kind of monster that will kill us and eat us. There is a newspaper article about the monster in the house. The kids all seem to be sure that the monsters have found us, that they're coming, and that we're all doomed. For a second, I'm genuinely afraid, but then I remember: Oh, yeah, this is a dream. I know what this most likely means. I roll my eyes and announce to the group: “They aren't really monsters, they're just tasks that I haven't done and that I feel bad about.” [Or words to that effect.] I think about it for a moment and come up with what that task must be - paying a bill [among other things that I don't remember now]. Everyone in the group seems to relax, and no monsters ever actually appear at the house.

One of the DCs in the group says to another, “See about adopting her [meaning me] into the practice.” They are both young men, about 17-19 years old. The second one looks at me and says, “You're [Emiko].... Roboto.” [He used my real-life first name.] I reply, “Yes, that's a name I've used here before. I don't really like it, though.” [Huh? That's definitely not my real-life last name, and I certainly don't remember using it in a dream before. It was a big part of my childhood, though.] I say something about how grateful I am to have been accepted into this group of people, even with my mismatched pajamas. I'm still wearing the same dark pajama pants and light pajama top from the very beginning of the dream, while most of the other people in the group are wearing neat, matching, school-uniform-like outfits. [This isn't surprising; I was an anime fan for a long time, and a lot of the characters in the shows I liked were high school students who wore school uniforms.]

The group of DCs and I all feel a general sense that that is the end of this adventure, but that there will be more in the future. We start flying off over the landscape, looking back at the buildings where we've just been: the big store with the skylight, and a motel [?]. There is an upbeat, exciting rock song playing in the background. It feels exactly like I'm experiencing the end credits of an anime show.

I'm now traveling along in some kind of vehicle with the two young men, watching the scenery pass by from a tree-lined road that runs along the crest of a ridge opposite those buildings. I say to them, “Also, your ending theme song kicks ass.” [I think the context for this was that they thanked me for sticking with them so long at the end of the adventure, and I replied that of course, I wanted to prolong the experience as long as possible and have as much fun as I could. I don't remember the beginning of the conversation very well, though. The song I heard reminded me a little bit of this one, except it was at a faster tempo.]

I have a false awakening in the bed I'm actually in [I was sleeping on a futon because I had family in town that week], where I can see my bare legs, before waking up for real.

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Side notes:
THIS DREAM WAS SO COOL!!!! I hadn't had a really long, fun, clear lucid like this in a while before I had this dream. I was so happy to have it!

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

I'm in an old, dusty, dark shop with gray-brown, wooden walls, a high ceiling, and lots of rows of wooden shelves. Mr. H. [my first music teacher] is there. When I see him, I tell him that I'm glad to see that he's still around and still active.

There is a sign hanging from the ceiling above a passageway that leads to another room. The sign points the way to different departments of the store. I walk through the passageway into another, larger area of the shop. This area is the grocery store. A large family with a bunch of kids is grocery shopping there. I hear one of the members of the family mention that they only ever buy produce from Ralphs [a grocery store chain in my area], so they won't be buying any here.

[The dream shifts, and] I'm playing Petpet Park. I'm controlling my usual player character from a third-person perspective, just like in real life, yet my computer isn't part of the dream; the world of the game is the world of the dream, and I'm controlling my character using only my will. [That was pretty awesome, especially for a non-lucid.] I'm walking around a spooky, Halloweeny-themed area [that looks nothing like any of the ones that exist on the real site]. I'm inside an old building. While there, I set off a quest by causing a penguin non-player character to start walking forward from his spot next to the wall. He's off on his way to make a potion. This event is the first in a quest series that is accessible to non-paying members as well as paying members. I spend some Nickcash to get into a small room off to the side.

I decide not to go through a narrow doorway into an area where I could start some other quests. Then, the spooky atmosphere of the area starts to scare me, and I decide I want to get out of there. After getting outdoors, I decide to try to fly to Celestial City. [Celestial City is another in-game area with a more beautiful, peaceful mood. In the real game, player characters cannot fly. I think the fact that it occurred to me to try to reach another in-game area by flying indicates that I was gradually beginning to realize that I was dreaming, and not playing the actual game.] I fly away from the ground [or rather, my player character does; the dream is still in third-person point of view], deliberately playing the Celestial City background music in my mind. I close my eyes [somewhere around here, the dream shifted into first-person point of view] and open them again, trying to make it daytime, instead of nighttime. It works for a few seconds, but the sky quickly darkens to night again.

[The dream shifts again, and] I'm watching a scene from a movie involving a flyover view of an airport. I can easily identify the shooting location as Ontario International Airport because of the view of the mountains rising behind the airport buildings. In terms of design, the buildings resemble the old buildings that were all there was to the airport back when I was a little kid. They're bigger than the old ones, though, and in the same position as the new buildings, although they're not as long as the new buildings.

[Dreamskip.] I find myself flying over L.A. and the ocean. I am now definitely lucid. I can feel my pulse pounding in my head. I strongly suspect that the sensation is coming from my real body, but I choose to ignore that thought and focus my attention firmly on the dream. I use the moving-my-fists-together-or-apart technique I've described in previous entries to control my flight.

I'm driving along Pacific Coast Highway. I decide I want to drive to Newport Beach. I know I've succeeded when I pass a motel that has a sign on it that says “Newport Beach.” I also pass another, two-story motel that has water slides built right into the front of it.

When I get to the street that leads down to the beach, I turn left, then peel off to the right to follow the road that leads down from the mesa and over to the beach. [This road exists in real life. The motels do not, as far as I know.] Since I've met my goal of driving to the beach, I think, I am awesome!