ThirdIris

There are some earlier dreams from last night that I only have vague recollections of.

1. I'm at my parent's place, and my ex boyfriend comes over to see my mom. I'm super pissed about it.

2. I'm in some self-serve cafe trying to figure out how everything works. The deserts look really good.

3. My mom has entered me in some pageant for goth kids or something. This is confusing to me as I do not consider myself goth at all. My mom and I argue about it for some time. I get up to use the bathroom. In the mirror, I see that I am myself at 14 years old. Black hair, black lipstick, black eyeshadow and all.
I go back and sit with my mom. I hear them call my name which means it's my turn to go up for the pageant. I don't want to at all. I don't even want to be here. Everyone is watching me as I stand up, and I just start running as fast as I can. I'm out the door, outside, running through the parking lot and into the nearby woods. As I am running I somehow realize that this must be a dream.

Lucid:
I stop on the path I am running on and fall to my knees. I feel dirt and chipped wood of the pathway and it feels just like it should. I look up to see a large stage coach rounding the corner up ahead and coming towards me. I don't feel like dealing with this for some reason, so I hurry off the path and start to spin. When I stop spinning, I find myself at my old elementary school playground. There are kids playing everywhere and it seems to be recess or lunch time. I walk into the playground and it all seems so real. So much so that as I pass a kid, he bumps me and knocks my bag off. Even the sounds are real. Kids yelling and laughing, whistles blowing, seagulls, everything! I see an old teacher that I had when I went to this school. I am surprised she is still here. I walk over and start talking to her. I ask her if she remembers me, and she says that she does. "But, this is a dream, right?" I ask. She nods. I ask her if she ever lucid dreams and she says that she does all the time.

I decide to go in and explore the school. I start to walk around the side of the building, and I notice that the gym door is open. I walk through the gym and it is much as I remembered it, although not quite. A few things were changed. No matter. I continue through the gym and come out the other side by the office. The secretary is young and I do not recognize her at all. I have a sudden mischievous whim and I decide that I am going to piss off the principal. Walking just into the doorway of his office, I see that he is on the phone. He looks up at me, and I make an obscene gesture. "Can I call you back?" he says to the person on the phone. He starts to chase me through the hallways, and I laugh because I know he cannot catch me because I can run as fast as I want. There's a big janitors cart in the hallway and I push it on it's side as I run past, creating a barrier. Then I start to spin again. I want to keep exploring!

After spinning, I end up on a beach somewhere. It's nighttime and it's so dark I can barely see. I am only sure that it's a beach because I can feel the moist sand and hear the waves. This is not as interesting as I had hoped, so I start to spin again.

I have a false awakening, where I spin so hard in the dream that my real body starts to spin too, and I roll out of bed. I get up and start updating my dream journal, only to really wake up shortly after and realize that I had to start all over.

I know I only explored an elementary school, but damn if that wasn't the coolest thing I have experienced in a long time! I think I am finally getting the hang of staying lucid for more than a few seconds!

1. I'm stuck in some sort of prison camp. The guards are making us take Prozac and there is a big cut on my arm. Strangely enough, the other prisoners seem happy to be there. Suddenly these large robots come in and start breaking down all the doors.

2. I'm taking a bus somewhere, but I'm not sure where I am going. I get off and go into a big house. There are lots of people inside who seem quite busy with something. A man passes me on the staircase and I ask "Hey, do you know where the hell we are?". He doesn't seem to know either. I'm holding in my hand a book of french lessons. Suddenly I notice that the book is hollow and full of illicit substances. I walk out into the front yard and suddenly it's sunny out (it was dark when I arrived at the house). I walk out into the driveway and see people that I think I might know all cramming into a car. I walk over to them and try to give them my book. They won't take it and someone scolds me. Someone reaches into my bag and grabs a sandwich that I had packed. I hear the song "Lost Highway" by Hank Williams on the car radio. I pick up a rotting tomato slice on the pavement and take it over to what seems to be a compost bin. I open it up and toss it in, but while I have the lid open, dozens of bees start swarming out and I run away.

3. I feel my rib cage and I am horrified to find that I have lost a very unhealthy amount of weight. All of my ribs are sticking out way further than they should be. Suddenly I can see myself as if I am outside my body. I see my stomach swell out as if I am pregnant, but the rest of me stays frail and skeletal.

4. I'm trying to make burritos, but I keep screwing up the tortillas. They are ripping and unraveling all over the place, and the burrito filling is getting everywhere.

5. I'm in a house that I do not recognize. There is some sort of gathering there. For some reason, Tony Soprano is there. Maybe because I fell asleep watching the Sopranos. I run into him in a room in the house where we are alone, but suddenly the scene melts away and I find myself laying on a staircase. I get up and walk around. I think that I am supposed to meet my mom somewhere. I go outside and look down the hill that the house is on. I see a crowd of people wearing academic robes. I can pick my mom out of the crowd, because her robe is bright green and the rest of the crowd wears black. My cell phone rings and it's my mom calling to tell me that the ceremony is taking a long time.

6. I'm sliding down a road on my stomach, as if I were on a luge headfirst. I am going faster than any car could go. It's kind of like half sliding, half flying. It's night time and I can see the lights of a city in the distance.

1. I'm in an apartment that I don't recognize. I know that for some reason I have to get all the way across town very soon. I have a large beer that I am trying to finish as quickly as possible. There are large bowls of ramen noodles. Someone makes a toast and they say that it is for "the most boring man in the world".

2. I'm going to class. I don't recognize the setting of the classroom. I sit down at a desk away from most of the people in the room, because I do not know anyone. We have to watch a video, but from where I am sitting, I can not see at all. Some of the dream characters notice this and beckon me over. I grab my bag and I sit at a table full of DCs. The instructor hands out some papers. I look up and notice that the instructor is my old boss. This confuses me for a minute. "But I was fired... Wasn't I?" I ask. He doesn't seem to know what I am talking about.
I look down at the papers that he has handed out. The heading of the text starts moving in a psychedelic way. This should have been a dream sign, but instead I think that I am having an acid flashback or something. I hear someone laugh, and I look up to see a girl about my own age with dark skin, dark hair, and grey eyes. She is smiling and laughing at me. "I know that look." She says and winks.
We talk for a while, and when I look back on it now, it seems like she was trying to hint to me that I was dreaming. She tells me that her name is Zenia or something similar. I also talked with a few other DCs but none of them are quite as memorable.
I go outside for a cigarette, even though I have quit in real life. I run into a friend of mine, and we wander for a bit and end up in some strange mall. I realize that we will probably get in trouble for smoking in the mall so I suggest that we head back the way we came. We pass by the class again and Zenia and her group of friends are still hanging out outside. I go over and say goodbye to them, then I run back to my friend and continue on our walk.
We turn down one street and come across a family of wild pigs, inexplicably living in the town. The babies are very cute. When they see us, they run out into the street, and my friend and I desperately try to save them from being hit by passing cars. I grab one and it struggles to get away from me, and even tries to bite me. I run and put it down on the other side of a nearby fence. As I am running around to try and save the others, I realize how absurd the whole situation is. I think that I must be dreaming. As soon as I have this revelation, the dream starts to fade. I get down on my knees and feel the ground. At first it feels like concrete, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Then it starts to feel soft like the sheets on my bed. I start to worry that I am waking up. Suddenly it feels like I am standing on my bed in the dark, holding the headboard for support. I can't figure out if this is really happening or not, or if this is part of the dream.

It was part of the dream, as I got rid of my headboard several weeks ago. Another lucid though! Even though I'm still having trouble making them last, the fact that they seem to be becoming more frequent is encouraging.

Very strange. I had some sort of book that I could enter through the pictures in it. There were some very spooky images in the book and I'm glad I didn't go through one of them...
It took me to a whole bunch of different places, including a strange hotel. I walked out on the grounds and saw a girl I have known for a few years, but not well. She asked me to follow her. I did, and we came upon a circle of chairs with people of all ages sitting in them. There were two empty ones, so we sat down. It was some sort of support group, but I can't remember what for. I couldn't understand what some people were saying. I got up and walked away...
I came to a room full of people but none were paying attention to me as if they couldn't see me. I saw a piano in the corner. I have played piano for many years so I was intrigued. I sat down at the piano and pressed some of the keys softly. Then I tried to play a few pieces but they kept sounding wrong and incredibly cacophonous. I noticed that the keys were covered in some sort of slippery liquid. I looked up and realized that the whole room was staring at me angrily. I tried to explain to them that the piano wasn't right, and that there was something on the keys. I looked behind me to see a tall girl in a Victorian dress and hat holding a teacup and intentionally spilling it's contents on the keys. I stood up and shoved her. I don't know why, but I think her name was Stephanie...
Somehow I ended up back in my own apartment. I put some leftover pizza in the oven and looked through the window. It was raining out but incredibly sunny! I ran out the door to see if there was a rainbow. No rainbow, but my backyard seemed more beautiful than ever (it's not beautiful at all in waking life). I began to sing and my voice came out beautiful and clear. My roommate came through the door and I was embarrassed because she had caught me singing. I went back inside to check on the pizza, only to find there was way more in the oven than I had remembered putting in (this should have been a signal that I was dreaming!!). Instead of two pieces of cheese pizza, there were at least six of many different kinds, and a lasagna. I assumed that the lasagna belonged to my roommate. The pizza tasted awful, and I threw most away. I got a large chunk of spinach stuck on my back molar, and I just couldn't get it out. I kept pulling and pulling at it, but it wouldn't budge a bit.

I woke up and realized that I had slept through my morning class.

There was more to this dream, but it keeps slipping away. I can only remember little bits of images. There was a lot more that happened at the weird hotel, I just can't remember what.