The Lab Notebook

[This is a catch-up post. These dreams are from the night of July 22-23, 2011.]

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

I'm at a big, old house that is now a tourist site. It's a bit like Hearst Castle, only older, in a different architectural style, and not on a hill. Tourists can enter either the house itself to go on a tour, or they can enter a large theater to watch a movie about the house. The space in between the house and the theater is an enclosed, carpeted lobby. While I'm in that space, I give another tourist directions to the main entrance to the house: “Go down there, turn left, go up the ramp, then turn right and go through the doors.” The ramp is long and slopes gently upward.

In addition to the large, main theater, the complex also has a ride of some kind with seats that are suspended on long bars from an overhead track. Riders board the ride by strapping themselves into the seats when they are within small, circular, mobile theater pods. These theater pods show a movie about the era in between the heyday of the large house and the present day, that is, the house's early days as a tourist attraction, before it had a visitors' center. The pods also can move around on legs and have motion-simulator functionality. I get into one of the pods 'backwards,' by riding on one of the seats as it comes into the pod from the unloading station. Other riders also board the pod, and then the movie begins.

[I'm not absolutely sure, but I think] It was at this point that I woke up for a very brief WBTB (just a few minutes, which is about how long I usually wake up for in the middle of the night). I remembered very well what I had just been dreaming about, and focused on it while I was awake. As I was going back to sleep, I thought, I wonder if I can get back into the same dream I was just in. [Amazingly,] I succeeded in doing so.

The mobile theater pod moves out into the street that runs past the big, old house, which is part of the ride. While it's out in the street, the pod is boarded by small, roundish creatures, Expies of The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything [from “VeggieTales”]. After they've boarded the pod, instead of proceeding to attack and plunder it, they decide to go inside the visitors' center to get some Starbucks. This gives me time to escape from the pod and run for help. I escape from the pod and start walking along the sidewalk. Somewhere around here, I realize that I'm dreaming, but I don't want to interrupt the dream plot already in progress; it's interesting and exciting, so I go along with it. I start searching for the main, public entrance to the tourist site. I pass by what appears to be the main entrance and go to a gift shop. The gift shop is filled with a lot of red decorations and red objects, mainly Christmas decorations. I sit down in a chair and get into a conversation with the store attendant. While I'm talking to her, my thoughts stray and the impact of the thought, “Whoa, I'm dreaming” hits me fairly hard. I am suddenly overcome by a strong feeling of sleepiness, and close my eyes. Then I remember that I'll lose the dream if I do that, and open them again. I'm still right where I was.

I tell the tour guide about the mobile theater pod being attacked by pirates, and ask, “Do you have a security guard?” She shows me where there is one waiting behind a service counter, and sends him back out onto the street with me. When we're on the street, I notice that there are “floating” vehicles on it and feel dismayed that the sci-fi future is actually here. Then I notice that at least the larger vehicles do have tractor treads, in addition to the pink, glowing force fields I see under all the vehicles. The security guard goes to the mobile theater pod and apprehends the pirates [at least, I suppose he did; I don't really remember that part of the dream].

[Different dream.] A man has been captured and locked in handcuffs. A dog brings him a key in its mouth, so he can get out of them. He does so. Then, his captor approaches and, seeing that he's out of the handcuffs, says to him, “I expected you'd be out of those by now.” The man replies, “I already am.”

[Different dream.] I'm showing some guy how to properly arrange the cord for and use the mouse on my computer.

[I may or may not have been lucid for this one, I'm not sure.] P. and I are both making cakes with a little bit of dough, under Mom's guidance. My piece of dough is bigger than P.'s. We mix ingredients into the dough with our hands. We're in the kitchen/dining room of House #1, and the cake pans are sitting on the floor under the dining table. We pick them up from there to put the dough in them. Before I put my dough in my cake pan, I run a little bit of tap water onto it, and it shrinks to the size of P.'s piece of dough. That's good, and a relief; I'd been concerned that I'd initially taken more than my fair share when we divided the dough, and when we added the other ingredients.