CanisLucidus

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #190: Menthol and Marriage, Part Three

I have another false awakening in bed, but I quickly realize that it's a dream. I hop up immediately and phase out through the wall onto our street. The scene is dark, and after I’ve taken a few steps along the street, it collapses into the void.

I rub my hands together and keep walking forward. No scene takes shape, so I start thinking of directing where I want to go. For some reason I remember my personal goal of traveling to the Taj Mahal. I imagine that it’s in front of me, but can’t quite seem to get anything to take shape.

Suddenly, there’s a hard transition and a feeling of backward acceleration like I’ve been yanked back hard by a long cord. I think “Hell yeah” and get excited about where this will take me. But I’m super disappointed to find myself back in bed in a false awakening.

The room looks just like waking life, so I assume that the dream blew up on me. It feels very “obvious” that this is a real waking, but I try a nose pinch reality check “just in case”. I’m shocked and pleased when I inhale a rush of air past my pinched nostrils.

Immediately I start floating upward toward the ceiling, OBE-style. The room seems brightly lit now. I marvel at how convincing this feels, and as I roll over in the air, I see Wife laying in bed right where she’d normally be. She looks really hot to me so I float down to the bed beside her, feeling very amorous. I say something super cheese like “Hey girl, you know what I want.” Even in-dream it dawns on me that I sound like a doofus and I chuckle a little bit.

Fortunately she’s not repelled by all of this and we get to enjoy a little bit of sexytime before the dream ends.

Very close call on Task of the Year! I'll definitely have to go for this one again.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #188: CL and the Beanstalk

I WILD into a scene filled with fleeting hypnagogic imagery which quickly fades into the void. I start waving my dream-hands in a repetitive motion, waiting for a scene to form. Nothing happens right away, though, so I start licking my fingers for a while to see if that works.

Nothing’s shaping up yet, though, so I try seeing how far I can stick my tongue out. I can feel it extending outward from my mouth seemingly on and on, and after a few moments I can vaguely see it extending away from my face into the distance. Curious how large I can make it, I will the tongue to expand and it balloons out in a huge, rectangular shape as large as a room. After a couple of seconds, I can see that yes, it actually is a room…

Now I’m standing high up in an office building, looking out over a city skyline through enormous windows. It’s late afternoon. I enjoy the sight of the skyline for a moment, rubbing my hands together.

As I’m doing this, a helicopter rises into view from below my line of sight, turns itself directly toward me, and opens fire with dual-mounted miniguns.



The office windows shatter and I feel myself being pelted with glass and bullets. There’s no pain, but each impact feels like a definitive hit. I know that it’s a dream but I can’t stop myself from shying from the window, crouching down, and nearly cowering. I hold my hand out toward the helicopter then swipe it quickly to the right, flinging it away from the building and out of sight.

The wrecked office is filled with random debris now, and I make my way past it to stand at the edge of the now-empty window. I recall Task of the Year (find and plant some magic beans, climb the beanstalk, and defeat the giant at the top.) My immediate goal is to get back to ground level, so I instinctively point to a lower rooftop perhaps 7 or 8 stories down and will myself to float to it. It works and I’m pulled smoothly down.

Now I’m really enthused about this pointing thing, so I point at the street below, once again pulling myself down. I’m filled with confidence after this, so I just start knocking out Task of the Year steps as quickly as I can.

I need bare earth, so I scoop the roadway aside, leaving a bowl-shaped hollow for my seed. I close and then open my hand, expecting the seed to be there. It is! (Looks like a pine nut.) I stuff the seed in the hole, cover it over with dirt and pat it down. A stalk immediately starts growing out of the ground and I jump onto it as it goes by. The stalk’s growing fast and since I hitched a ride so early, the plant’s doing the climbing for me.

I streak past the nearby buildings and head into the clouds. Immediately a shirtless, ape-like giant with a long beard comes loping toward me, about 100 feet away. I’m preparing to do something violent and decisive to make absolutely certain that I nail Task of the Year, but excitement gets the best of me. The scene collapses into a false awakening back in my bedroom.

I need to use the bathroom, so I get out of bed, head in there, and start peeing. My aim is terrible and I keep hitting the seat, the floor, the tank, everything but what I’m aiming at. This really frustrates me and I assume that I must be super tired.

Just then I notice a strange, robotic laundry machine sloshing water onto the floor. Its label indicates that it’s some kind of diaper-washing contraption. Our kids barely use any diapers these days so I wonder why we have it and why it’s here flooding our bathroom.

My 2-year-old son R walks into the room, followed soon after by a sleepy-looking Wife. Her hair is standing up in all kinds of crazy directions, including one nearly two-foot spike that’s going straight up. “Your hair is pretty awesome right now,” I tell her. She giggles and checks herself out in the mirror. We have a good laugh about this until the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #187: The Hybrid

I have a false awakening in a strange bedroom that I think is some kind of condominium. Wife is here along with my two young kids E and R. I wonder whether I can go back to sleep and try to have a lucid dream but then realize that I’m having one right now.

I charge toward the window but feel someone short grab onto my arm. “Who is that?” I ask, looking down to find my 2-year-old son R clutching me. “It’s [R], Daddy. I want to go with you. Daddy, let me go with you!” For a moment I consider it, but once I think about my Task of the Year goal (turning into a fish-man and acting out The Little Mermaid), I decide no way. I’m way too nervous about bringing one of my kids’ DCs into the ocean.

R’s grip slips off of me as I phase through the window. I feel a little guilty for a moment, but I remind myself that this isn’t really him. I’m wound up in my backyard during what looks like mid-morning. I jump up into the air, imagining that there will be an ocean where my eastern neighbor’s yard ought to be. But when I get up there, it still looks like waking life.

I have some momentary flight trouble, but I psych myself up with a few phrases until things are going the way I want them to. I fly west for a bit, slowly turning southward and expecting to see water until… I see the ocean just ahead of me!

I pop up into the air and then plunge straight downward into the water, happily swimming about beneath the waves. The water’s darker than I’d like, but I try not to get too nervous or worked about this. I imagine my lower body turning into that of a fish, swim around that way for a bit, then look down to check my handiwork. It’s close, but not quite right… each leg is still there but all scaly like a fish’s body with a fin on the end.

I look away again, swim around a bit more, trying to make it all feel natural. I check again and it’s looking better, just about right, but now I’m feeling paranoid about my breathing. I feel like I can’t breathe underwater and need to surface. Panicked that something is wrong with my breathing in waking life, I push for the surface and fall into the void. I keep doing repetitive swimming motions, though, trying to hold onto the dream. After a while of this, I wonder if I’m making swimming motions in bed. This finally transitions me into...

… a false awakening where I’m lying in a large bed next to Wife. The room’s not my own, though. I recognize this as the condominium from the beginning of the dream, and realize that I’m still dreaming. I roll over to Wife’s side of the bed and start getting frisky. She murmurs sleepily but when I tell her that “this is all a dream”, she becomes more engaged. We make out for a little bit, but the dream hits the void.

After a moment, though, there’s a transition into an office environment. Wife’s still here with me so we continue making out.

Spoiler for Sexytime:

I notice one of the office workers, an attractive Hispanic woman in her late 20s, holding a stack of papers and talking to another employee. I tell the woman that she wants to join us and she responds, "Okay, good idea," and begins to undress while still sort of continuing to work. I guess my attention wanders, though, because after a moment she walks off to do some work thing, still partially undressed.

After that Wife and I enjoy some sexytime before…

… the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #186: Michael Scott Vs. the Zombies

The cast of The Office is sitting around in a big room that looks like a warehouse with a random bathroom stall stuck in the middle of it. Michael Scott is attempting to give a rousing speech to cheer everyone up but instead just makes everyone feel really uncomfortable.

“Cheer up, gang,” says Michael, flashing a toothy grin. Everyone slinks down in their seats. Stanley looks back disdainfully. “Everyone, you are about to experience one of the best things about my youth… the 1980s.”

The scene changes into a video game where I’m now playing as Michael Scott from a first-person perspective. I see some cash lying on the seat of a toilet. As I gingerly try to pick up the money, I realize that I can’t take it because my cash is already “full” in this game.

There’s an abrupt shift into the front of a restaurant. An unseen female voice narrates: “In this scenario, Michael must act violent and unstable so he can gather information about <something something>...” I see a zombie shuffling around at the base of a short set of nearby stairs. I vault over the rail and kick him in the face mid-leap. This is great fun. I remember my intent to have a lucid dream, so I decide that I can’t get too into this video game or I might forget. And it finally hits me that I’m dreaming right now.

A huge, balding zombie comes shambling toward me and I punch him in the face. I leave the room and move into another hallway, relaxing my mind until the zombies stop coming toward me and instead just pass harmlessly by without paying me much attention.

I reach a bend in the hall, rub my hands together, and move toward a large, open area. Just then, a female zombie puts a hand on my shoulder and groans. I’m relaxed about this and say, “You,” (I point at her), “are a dream character!” She smiles, her face changing until she looks like my high school English teacher. Then she walks away.

The room I’ve entered is a huge atrium with a glass roof, 5 or 6 stories high. Two young women, maybe college age, are seated at a table handing out some kind of literature. I’m mildly curious what they have to say but I see a nighttime street scene just through the door. I’m having huge trouble remembering my goals so I think it’d be better to get outside.

I get outside, start to fly, and then abruptly have a false awakening back in bed. I’m staring at the alarm clock. Oddly, rather than showing the time, it’s counting down from 9. I have no idea what this means. I hear Wife whimpering in her sleep next to me. She says, “If people look into my brain, they’ll steal my ideasssssss…”

The alarm clock hits 1, goes dark for a moment, and then starts at 9 again. I realize that I’m still dreaming, but it’s just a moment before I wake up for real.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #184: Be Still My Beating Heart

I’m walking through a parking lot into a mall, recalling an earlier dream where Dad had brawled with some pellet gun-wielding high school kid in a parking lot just like this one. As I enter the mall, I recall my intent to have a lucid dream, and one begins.

I walk past a set of red metallic benches, taking in the detail and comparing it to waking life. I marvel at how completely realistic it looks. As I continue down the walkway, I turn toward a woman walking with her two young daughters and half-shout, “Can you believe this is all a dream?” They smile politely and scurry away.

I take a brief detour through a clothing store, walk past a few more places, and then exit onto some kind of outdoor boardwalk area. There’s a tattoo parlor to my left with a wood-carved sign overhead which depicts two attractive, dark-haired, pale-skinned women with intricate sleeve tattoos. The place is called “Nutjob”. I think how cool it’d be to get tatted up in a dream and start to head inside. It looks a bit more like a boutique when I get closer and I suddenly get this irrational fear that things will turn sexy in this place and that I’d better avoid it.

I head back through a door into the mall and encounter a grinning, friendly-looking British woman in her late 20s. I remember Task of the Month and ask her, “Who is my true love?” She says some stream of hilarious nonsense about waffles, and we both start laughing. I think she is super cool. “I’m not going to be able to remember that. Can you answer again?”

She laughs even harder and then starts singing “Polly Wolly Doodle” in a British Donald Duck voice. (The kids have an Easter toy that does this, but not with a British accent.) I can’t stop laughing and I try not to think about whether you can laugh yourself awake from a lucid dream.

I start thinking about what the other tasks were and she wanders off as I do so. I remember something about your heart, and then spy Wife walking in the mall about twenty feet in front of me. Still in an incredibly good mood, I run up to her, get her attention, and after she says, “Hey!” I make out with her for a little bit. This is fun, but okay, back to tasks! I’m supposed to pull my still-beating heart from my chest and give it to a loved one.

“Here, watch this!” Wife keeps looking at the nearby stores instead of me. “You really need to watch. I’m only going to do this once.” She looks back and I reach my hand inside my body. I feel something about the size of a softball pulsing very softly. The movement is a bit too weak for a heart muscle, but whatever. I pull it from my chest and when I present it to her… my hand is empty!

“What are you trying to do?” asks Wife. I explain the task and she furrows her brow. “You really don't need to do that for me,” she says before wandering away into a nearby store.

I wander through the mall some more, baffled by how long and stable this LD is. I pass through a busy arcade area where I see a mom busily taking care of 10-12 girls shouting demands during a birthday party. There’s cake being passed around which I sort of want to try but I feel like I am at enough kid birthday parties in waking life.

As I’m heading back into the hallway, an attractive Asian woman with waist-length hair passes by. We look at one another and the guy she’s with, some generic dude in his late 40s with thinning hair, seems to jealously take notice. He kind of freaks out, storming around and I say, “You want to go to the parking lot.” He obediently leaves. But when I turn back to the woman, blood’s pouring out of her nose like he just hit her. I’m confused because I didn’t notice him do this. I worry that my confusion means the dream is ending.

I pass my hand in front of her face and she’s healed. When I glance over my shoulder, the guy is back, glaring at us. “You’re not coming back here again,” I say, and again he leaves. I say something to the woman about how this is a dream and she agrees. The dream is definitely fading now but we still manage a bit of sexytime before the dream ends.

This was one of those rare lucids that I had without employing WBTB. Some pre-bed MILD work did the trick! (Edit: Almost forgot -- thanks to Art for psyching me up to have an LD yesterday! Totally helped.)

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #183: The Inventor

I’m sitting on a park bench, working on plans for an invention. It’s some kind of very high-end computer device and I’m drawing up some tweaks for making it much less expensive and bringing it to the mass market. I’m writing all of these plans with pencil on a rectangular, shiny piece of green plastic.

A woman wearing workout tights jogs by. She looks great and I blatantly stare at her. I become dimly aware that I shouldn’t be staring at people and start to wonder what’s making me act this way. It dawns on me that I’m dreaming.

I get up from the bench and look out over the park that I’m in. It’s grassy, dotted with trees, and maybe 200 feet further on is a brick building that looks like a schoolhouse. There’s a low stone wall behind me. To my left there’s a street with a few cars driving down it.

I’m convinced that it’s a dream but everything is so vivid that I feel a little worried. One of my contacts feels like it’s drifting in my eye and my vision shifts just as if this had actually happened. Now I try drawing on the green plastic with my pencil and I’m able to scratch out persistent lines that look completely convincing.

I wonder whether I’ve finally confused waking life for the dream world. I feel some paranoia settle over me, but I dissipate it by drifting back and forth over the grass without taking a step. Okay, yes, definitely dreaming. I cap it off with a nose pinch reality check and I feel settled again.

Now I see Wife and my oldest son E approaching me from the direction of the schoolhouse. They look completely realistic and again I fight the unsettling sense that I’ve confused reality for a dream. I hit another nose pinch to settle myself down. How can everything look so real?

A huge, lean brown dog approaches us. His head is as high as my chest. It’s the first surreal thing I’ve seen in the dream so far. Wife is focused on rummaging through E’s schoolbag and doesn’t acknowledge that the dog is here.

The dog starts to growl and bark at us, approaching uncomfortably close. Wife and E don’t react. “You see that dog, right?” I ask them.

“Sure,” says wife nonchalantly. I don’t want the dog bothering my family’s DCs so I offer him my left forearm. He bites down on my arm and whips his head back and forth. I’m sure there’ll be no pain, though, and of course there isn’t.

After a moment of this, the dog lets go, sits down, and starts panting. He seems friendly now and I'm almost glad he's there. It helps make me sure that this is all a dream. Wife finishes up with E and we walk together past the low stone wall as the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #179: The One Where I Fight Samuel L. Jackson

I have a false awakening but I notice that I’m alone (Wife is missing) and the bed has been turned 90 degrees. Right away I realize that this is a dream.

Something grabs me by the leg, pulls me out of the bed, and drags me to the floor. I look up and Samuel L. Jackson is standing over me! He says something along the lines of “You’re not going anywhere,” and starts to stomp down at me. I think that I should do some tricky/clever dream control thing but I feel too much like I’m in a fight to get it together.

We struggle for a moment until I manage to get my arm wrapped around his ankle, push my foot into his crotch, and then push up, lifting him off of his feet. He falls onto his back and we wrestle around kind of grabbing at each other’s feet to gain control. His head looks close enough to reach so I lash out, kicking him straight in the face. He flops back and stops moving.

I sit up and as I approach Samuel L. Jackson, he changes into a smallish, delicate-looking woman in her mid-20s. She looks Mediterranean and overall completely different from Samuel L. Jackson. “Help me, I’m pretty hurt...” she says, sitting up just a little bit. I feel bad for her, so I pick her up and carry her with me. I notice that she’s very cute but the fact that 15 seconds ago she was Samuel L. Jackson makes me quite uninterested.

We phase through the wall of the house out into the night. I want it to be morning, so I do a hulk-jump or two, expecting the time of day to shift. It does, and before long it’s early morning. We’re on a sidewalk outside of a cafe with a canvas awning.

I walk inside the cafe to find Wife sitting at a table with two strangers, one a heavy, hipster-looking guy and the other a pretty woman in her early 30s with short, brown hair. “I’m having a lucid dream,” I tell them, mostly to explain the fact that I’ve just carried a woman into the cafe with me.

“Ah,” says Wife, giving me a “Oh, another one of those” kind of look. I join them at the table along with the woman formerly known as Samuel L. Jackson, who now seems relatively unhurt and integrates herself naturally into the conversation. The hipster and the brown-haired woman are authors and they’re talking with Wife about their new book. The conversation is strange and it’s hard to understand details.

I’m also distracted by the food. There are little plates of small chocolate bars that I keep sampling. They taste delicious but they fade too quickly, almost as if they were so light and insubstantial that you only get a moment to taste them. At one point, Wife remarks, “He even thinks this is dream food.”

“I admit it, I do!” I say. Everyone chuckles like I’m an amusing eccentric.

Somehow the scene changes to a featureless room with three books lying on the floor. The two writers and the woman who once was Samuel L. Jackson walk out through the door, chatting about something.

I examine the second book. It’s by the writers we ate with and it’s about how early civilizations made fantastic technological leaps forward by using ideas that came to them in lucid dreams. I’m excited by the whole premise of the book. I really believe that it must be true. (I'm also partly offended that they acted so skeptical that I was having a lucid dream.)

“I really want to read this book,” I tell Wife, and she agrees that it sounds right up my alley. Now that we’re alone, I enjoy a little time making out with Wife until the dream ends.

This dream is from the morning of 1/1/2014.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #177: The Rivals

I'm sitting at a table with Wife looking through some photos when I somehow become lucid. She steps away from the table and leaps onto a nearby bed, posing and smiling seductively. I feel super amorous and move eagerly toward her. But to the side of me, I notice four other guys moving toward her, all of them looking just as eager as me. Wife looks playfully at each of us as if she's choosing.

I'm so angered by this turn of events that I punch the closest rival in the face. He crumples to the floor, his face immediately becoming a bruised mess. He shrinks into a little troll monster with a pinched, sour expression and then just sits there, not moving. Now the other men have all vanished and I leap triumphantly onto the bed and sexytime commences.

We get about fifteen seconds of fun before Wife does this strange transformation into a half-sized Wife replica doll. Total mood killer. I pick up the doll and it's light as a feather. I feel sad and guilty, wondering if my attack on the DC caused this. I walk out the door carrying the doll and it transforms into a slightly wilted bouquet of flowers before disappearing entirely.

Now I'm in some sort of indoor carnival. I walk past a vendor with curly, slightly 80s-looking hair and a mustache. I slow down and note how vivid everything is. I remember that it's been a few weeks since my last lucid and I reflect on what a shock it is to experience the realness of lucid dreaming after some time off.

I approach a circle of benches and there's Wife, sitting by herself on the right side of one. I approach her calmly, hoping I can keep her DC more stable this time. She looks up at me and we smile at one another as the dream ends.

This dream is from the morning of 12/15/2013.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #176: Chariots in the Sky

I have a false awakening in a fancy hotel room. My kids E and R are running around as I sleepily come to my senses. Wife gets out of bed first and I think that I should get up to help her with the kiddos. But I somehow “jump” to being on my feet and I realize that this is the start of a lucid dream.

I head for the window, phase out, and find myself clinging to a steeply slanted rooftop under a dark, cloudy sky. Everywhere I look are other rooftops just like this one, very steep and dotted with lit windows. The texture on the roof shifts oddly, jumping from one repeated pattern to another.

I leap to another roof. There’s nothing but dark void below. Each building is about 50 feet apart and floats freely through the sky. I make a couple of more leaps, and as I look around I note that there are flying chariots with large passenger cars flying through the sky. These flying chariots feel like my ticket to a less hostile scene, so I leap onto one.

As I crash onto the floor of the passenger car, the DCs on board look at me with surprise and shuffle away before returning to normal. Most of them are dressed in a mix of medieval and classical Greek garb.

I’m willing the chariot to encounter something handy for me as it flies through the sky, particularly something I could use for Task of the Year. I’m mainly looking for the Great Pyramid or the Colosseum. We fly past lots of cool-looking buildings (including the Temple of Zeus and a series of huge medieval castles) but they’re not quite the ones I’m looking for. I’m contemplating just jumping for one and exploring when we pull up close to an arena that looks like a shorter version of the Colosseum!

I glide off of the chariot toward the Colosseum when I see an attractive but angry-looking woman in her early 30s dragging a red-haired teenager off of the chariot by his collar. She’s dressed in what looks like a Roman toga and she’s giving the kid an earful: “Do you know how shameful it is to have a knight running around in an enemy chariot?”

I don’t know what she’s talking about, because the kid looks way too young and (frankly) wimpy to be a “knight” of any kind. It also seems like she’s a little young to be his mom. The kid’s cowering and whimpering as she drags him along. I turn back toward the Colosseum and move only a bit further before the end of the dream.

This one is from the morning of 12/15/2013.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #174: Android

I’m sitting on the floor of an apartment talking to a guy who I think is Oneironaut Zero. I don’t really know OZ, so I think this is a little unusual, but I’m happy to be talking about lucid dreaming.

As we’re chatting, Wife walks into the room with a young woman in her early 20s, blonde, petite and with a slightly vacant look in her eye. Wife explains that this is a new model of android that they’re selling now very inexpensively and can act almost like a real person.

We greet the android and she responds with a shy wave and a slightly stilted “Hi.” With that, she crouches down on the floor and starts tracing her finger through the carpet. Wife leaves the room and, as I try to say something to the android, Wife yells from down the hall, “The kids are trying to sleep! Keep it down!” I feel annoyed that I can’t talk but she’s allowed to yell.

“Did you just roll your eyes at me?” says Wife from down the hall and storms back into the room, looking irritated. I know that I didn’t and as I wonder why she thinks so, I soon realize that I’m dreaming. I get to my feet and the scene shifts. Wife disappears, Oneironaut Zero disappears, and the android’s hair goes from blonde to brown and her skin becomes paler.

I grab the android’s hand and charge for the apartment window, phasing straight through into what looks like an unfinished street scene. The street seems to draw itself in chunks as we run along. I see a few buildings against the blank sky but they seem to raise up lazily just as I look in their direction.

We run along like this for a while before the dream seems to stop rebuilding and finally sags into the void. The android is still here and seems determined to stay in the scene. She says something like, “I want to go too” and starts grabbing onto my arms and head. At one point it feels like she’s trying to stand on my head.

Eventually the android settles down a bit, shifts herself next to me, and we make out for a little bit. After about 15-20 seconds, though, she becomes non-responsive and just sort of stops moving. This takes the fun out of it, so I start thinking about where to take the dream next, but it soon ends.

This dream is from the morning of 12/15/2013.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #173: Luxor

I’m in a hotel room bedroom talking with Wife. She has the lights off like we’re getting ready for bed but there's an errand to take care of. We need an access card for the pool and she’s sending me out to get it.

When I get to the main room of the suite, rather than our kids I encounter a guy that looks like Henry Rollins. I think he’s some kind of celebrity, although I’m not sure who I really think this is. We talk for a little bit and he tells some kinda funny but off-color joke. He motions toward our room and says, “Sorry, forgot about the wife.”

I decide that I’d better not leave Wife alone with a stranger in our hotel room so I decide not to leave. As I’m thinking through this, I become lucid and walk back into the bedroom. I crawl into bed next to Wife, planning on performing a WILD. Wait, no, I’m already having a lucid dream. I get out of bed, walk to the end of the room and phase out through the window into the void.

I rub my hands together as I fall through the void. The descent slows until I can no longer feel it and I give myself a bit of a pep talk about how “all of this is mine”, hoping to be ready for some dream control when I emerge from the void. I’m thinking of Task of the Year, and imagine that I’ll see the Great Pyramid when I emerge.

After a bit, the void gives way to a dusky desert scene. And about 70 or so feet away is the base of an Egyptian pyramid! There are a lot of smaller pyramids around the in the area as well, most of them only ten feet high or so. Everything’s covered in billboard and neon signs that say things like “Clearance!” and “For Sale!”

I make my way toward the main pyramid when I encounter an attractive brunette in her late 20s. “Can we help you?” she asks. Just as she says this, she’s joined by an identical twin. The idea of an attempt at sexytime sounds appealing, but no, the Pyramid is right here. Stay focused.

Confused about what the Pyramid task is (repair/reanimate the Sphinx and ride her to the top), I respond, “Can you show me the way inside the Pyramid?" Then I add: "By the way, you two are really cute.” (I think I was trying to impress them/myself for staying on track or something, I don’t know. )

They pose and raise their arms over their head in a “We know!” kind of gesture. One of them (the first one I met) says, “Sure, I’ll show you.” She heads off around the side of the Pyramid and I follow. As we’re walking she narrates like a tour guide, gesturing at some wares as we pass by some stalls in a market area. “Here’s where they sell Khuddush and vials.” (I’m spelling “Khuddush” the way it sounded to me, but it’s a guess since I don’t know this word.)

“What’s Khuddush?” I ask.

“You don’t know? This is supposed to be your dream. If I know something that you don’t, does that mean…?” Her voice trails off. I have kind of a “whoa” moment. (I looked up “Khuddush” and couldn’t find anything. The closest match was the kiddush, a Jewish Sabbath ritual. Kiddush - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

I follow her into a high stone chamber where a few other DCs are wandering around. We walk toward a staircase leading down and the dream falls into the void. I can’t rescue it, but before I emerge, I hear an unfamiliar female voice say, “Don’t get too attached.” The dream ends.

Major rise in confidence during this dream! Got an animal transformation, Advanced TotM, and was getting there on a Task of the Year, too. Thanks to NewArtemis for the dream control suggestions!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #171: I Am the Wolf

I have a false awakening that places me in my bed at home next to Wife. All of the lights are on and she's fiddling around with some papers in bed, something to do with my new business. "Oh good, you're awake," she says. I grumble about how unhappy I am that this is the case.

"Sorry," she responds, "but we really need to work on this." I whine that it should be able to wait until the morning and that I was trying to have a lucid dream. She turns back to the papers, not bothering me any further. I'm a little worried that I was rude and have maybe pissed her off, but I decide to just take my chance while I can. I roll onto my side and begin my mantra of "The world is yours". I'm shocked to find that almost immediately I start a WILD transition. (Obviously just an in-dream WILD, but I didn't realize it at the time.)

In the transition state, my dream hands are grasping at something rough that's rolling by beneath me. I grasp at it and start clawing my way along. A gravel surface comes into view. It seems like I'm floating while climbing a ladder made out of gravel that's been crudely mortared together. After a bit, the scene solidifies and the gravel becomes a path. There's one more odd little jump as gravity takes hold and now I'm walking along the path in a full-formed scene.

It's dawn and I'm on a path that cuts through a park, not far from a street. Most of the DCs are dressed like it's chilly but it feels mild to me. I remember my intention to be extra confident in this dream and I start shouting my intentions at the passerby. "I can do anything I want! This is all mine!" I shout, interspersing lots of profanity and generally sounding like a total nutjob.

I remember Task of the Month to turn into a white wolf, hide in the snow, and hunt down a meal. I still feel all crazy from my mantra and the insane confidence I had at the start of this dream. I shout in a booming voice that's not my own that "I AM THE WOLF!" Immediately my hands curl into white paws. I practice running a bit on all fours and it's not bad! I kind of get the sense that I'm sort of bent over like a loping hunchback / werewolf thing but hey, close enough!

I go on a brief, profanity-laced tirade about how there's a bunch of snow to my right, and yep there it is. I hop my little wolf-feet into it and crouch down, looking to my left for some prey. Immediately I spy two potential targets: the closest is a large skunk and the other is an orange, semi-spherical alien thing with tentacles. The skunk's closer and the alien makes me a bit nervous, so I pounce on the skunk.

My teeth rip into him and I tear a big chunk away. Fortunately none of this is bloody but the skunk stares at me in shock. The skunk meat tastes atrocious. It's like chewing on a fart. I can't remember whether I'm supposed to eat the whole animal so I take another bite. This time it's more gummy and tasteless at first but after a bit of chewing, nope, this bite's all farty-tasting too. I hope this is good enough because I've had enough of being a carnivore.

I allow myself to change back into a human and walk further into the park. I come to three identical stone buildings with opaque green windows, standing side by side. I think of the Colosseum Task of the Year and shout that the building which leads to the Colosseum needs to light up. No immediate result, so another attempt, more yelly and with more profanity does the trick and the middle building's door lights up.

I move through a series of three automatic glass doors where a steady stream of children is walking in the opposite direction. I say that the kids need to get out of the way and DC parents appear from out of nowhere to pull them to the side as I pass. I emerge in a restaurant area filled with DCs enjoying a meal. An Indian man in his early 40s is playing on a slot machine against the left wall and he turns to look at me with an expression of surprise.

I push through the back door out into the early morning next to a crumbling sports arena. It's huge and looks a lot like the Colosseum apart from some weird details like the rebar that's sticking out of the top of it. I fly up toward the top and as a gust of wind carries me sideways away from where I want to be, I shout and mutter that "this is my world", and things get back on track.

I come over the top of the stadium to see that inside it looks like a grassy version of the Circus Maximus! There's even a little chariot racing by itself around the track. I know I can make this work, so I fly down toward the field, shouting that down there will be someone for me to fight. Before I'm even halfway down, though, the dream ends.

Well, a close-ish call with getting to the Pyramid and some fun play with a few new techniques. Still have a lot of refining to do!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #168: Pyramid Artwork

I have a false awakening where I wake up excited about some video game idea. I’m desperate to write it down. I grab my dream journal, deciding that’s the best place I’ve got to write the idea down. This makes me think of dreaming, though, and I become lucid.

I walk toward the window, glancing over at the bed as I go. I see Wife sleeping peacefully on my side of the bed, and my sleeping body is nowhere in sight. I’m amused by the unusual layout and note that this is definitely not an OBE. I think about saying something to Wife as I pass but decide to just leave her alone.

I phase out through the external wall, winding up in the void. I imagine the scene as it should be, though, and after a few seconds it works itself into a convincing replica of my street at night. This gives me a nice confidence boost, so I imagine that the Great Pyramid is behind me. I turn around to find that it hasn’t worked, though, and it’s just more houses as far as I can see.

I’m feeling aggressive, though, so I use my fingers to draw a triangle in the distance. The triangle isn’t perfect, but it comes out in a shimmering neon green. With some focus, I’m able to slowly change the green outline into the distant Great Pyramid!

Seeing the Pyramid gives me a target to be excited about so I immediately attempt a zoom teleport. Something goes wrong, though, and the Pyramid actually gets further away rather than closer to me. This frustrates me and I start making a half-hearted attempt to fly there instead.

The scene resets somehow and I’m in a huge aircraft hangar. Okay, starting over. Again I go for the “draw a triangle” trick and I get a decent-looking triangle. I try to change it into the Pyramid but it stays stubbornly neon and triangular.

Several other attempts follow, including erasing and redrawing the triangle, chopping the top of it off and reforming it into a trapezoid, and drawing several copies at once. I can never quite make any of this work before the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #166: The Melatonin Tunnels

I'm walking along an underground tunnel that looks a bit like a subway station. For some reason, melatonin is tightly and suspiciously regulated in this world and I've just gotten the license to take some. I'm vaguely aware that I hope this will make me have a lucid dream.

I'm passing by a bunch of ticket windows where old, serious-looking men stare out at me. I'm nervous that I've done something wrong, but I'm so excited about my melatonin privileges that I don't worry too much about it.

I see Wife up ahead and I wave hugely to her. She looks a little embarrassed by how excited I am. "I took some melatonin!" I shout to her.

"Very good, sweetie," she says in a much quieter voice, cutting her eyes from side to side in embarrassment. I'm very excited about the possibility of a lucid, which makes me realize that I'm having one right now.

I say something to Wife indicating that it worked and she nods, smiling slightly. She leads me down the tunnel through a door into what looks like a cafeteria with folding tables laid out. Wife's extremely purposeful and is taking me through what seems to be a mandatory process, so I go with it. We stop at a table and there's some kind of form we're supposed to fill out. But Wife just briefly lays her hand down on the form, leaving a little Wife hand-print on there and she's apparently all done. I do the same and we move past the table.

We pass through a doorway into a room that looks a little like my new office. Waiting to greet us near a desk is an attractive woman in her late 20s, Asian, with glasses and a vaguely librarian sort of look. She says a few things about melatonin, showing us a piece of metal pipe where melatonin apparently grows naturally and can be harvested from. She's very friendly and cute and I begin vaguely wondering whether she and Wife would be interested in any sexytime.

The line moves on before I can figure this out, though, and we proceed into a tunnel of stone blocks. As we're walking along, the tunnel becomes crowded with a flood of running girls and young women, all chattering excitedly and moving toward a huge wicker basket that's sitting in the center of a nearby room. The girls elbow roughly past me as they move toward whatever's in that basket, and I become incredibly curious about what's in there.

By the time I get to the basket, Wife has disappeared into the crowd. The basket is filled with little handheld video game consoles, so I grab one. I work my way out through the crowd of girls as they continue pulling these little handhelds out of this apparently-bottomless basket, each of them running off excitedly as they grab one.

I stare at my little handheld and it comes on. There's a picture of a cartoonish lizard with its tongue sticking out. The text on the screen keeps shifting, but it seems to be accusing me of breaking some kind of game rule. The word choice is so strange and keeps shifting so much that it's hard to be sure. I assume that the problem is that this handheld is for girls and dudes are not supposed to use it. But too bad, I got one, it's my dream, and I'm playing it.

The screen shifts to the image of a handful of deer playing in a gently-flowing stream. It looks like a beautiful scene and I get the sense that it's taking place somewhere high in the hills. I remember Nyx and Xanous talking about moving into the image of a television so I bring the handheld super close to my face and try to make myself a part of the scene.

No matter what I do, though, I can't seem to get rid of the border that defines the edge of the screen. The image is up close and very vivid but that border starts driving me nuts. I really try this for a while. I feel like I'm close but know that I'm not getting some part of what I ought to be doing and the dream ends before I can figure it out.

This is the first of three lucid dreams from this morning.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #163: Indoor Swim Lesson

I’m standing in the master bedroom, thinking about lucid dreaming when it occurs to me that I’m having one right now. I hear Wife getting the kids ready for an activity nearby. My first instinct is to go see what they’re up to but instead I decide to work on a task.

I remember the Great Barrier Reef Task of the Year. I walk around the master bedroom a bit, trying to figure out whether there’s anything here I can use as an easy bridge to the Great Barrier Reef.

I wind up standing in front of our closed television cabinet, staring. I have some vague idea of watching a related TV program, but it all sounds too complex. Instead I start trying to swim my hands and imagine that I’m in the water. There’s a confusing moment where my feet float off the ground for a moment but I pretty quickly plunge into the void after that.

I try to keep up the swimming motion but for some reason my right arm is now pinned to my body. I feel very confused about this. I wonder if I’m sleeping on my stomach and becoming aware of my physical body, but quickly try to shift away from this unhelpful line of thinking.

I flail around trying to swim with just my left arm for a bit. It feels awkward but at least I seem to be in some kind of water. My feet brush along the bottom of this “ocean” I’m in and it feels like my bare feet are touching sand. My breathing starts feeling a bit choked (not like drowning, but more like my throat needs to be cleared) and I wake up.