CanisLucidus

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #159: Bears

I’m in a restaurant fashioned like a log cabin, talking on the phone with my friend “Dragon”. He’s telling me about the new job that our friend “AJ” just got and he’s chiding me because I know so little about it. We finish talking and I wander outside to find myself on a wooden deck high up in the mountains.

Now I feel like I’m part of a video game and I’d forgotten to do something important. Three pale bald men in dark trench coats (sort of like the guys in Dark City) come floating toward me. I turn to run, but one crashes into me, pushing me off the side of the mountain. I fall, unharmed, to some rocks far below. I want to get the hell away from these guys, so I duck into a little cave and wind up in some kind of white-walled room that looks like a lab. I wonder whether I’m actually playing a video game or just dreaming and realize that yes, I’m dreaming.

There’s a bed in the room that I’m in and a few other people milling around. Their identities don’t seem to be all that stable, but for much of the dream, one of them appears to be Anna Kendrick. I feel like they’re all trapped here, so I say, “This is all a dream. You don’t have to stay here!” I head for the doorway and they all follow.

When I get close to the door I remember my goal of cranking my dream vividness up before anything else. I decide not to let myself get in too much of a hurry. There’s a weird section of carpet by the door so I kneel down to touch it, telling everyone with me to do the same. “This is my lucid dream. None of us have to believe that this is real.” (I’m addressing them, but mostly reminding myself.)

There’s a box of toys on a shelf to my left, and I rummage through it, intending to bring myself even more into the scene. I’m surprised to find a stuffed bear that I gave to Wife when we were teenagers! I pull it out and take it with me, sort of hugging it to me the way a little kid would.

We emerge from the lab into a chamber with hallways in four different directions. I try to remember my goals, but all I can remember is the Great Pyramid. I know there’s another one I’m not remembering but I can’t figure it out. I start to feel pretty stressed about my memory and get worried I’ll wake myself up if I get too wrapped up in this. (I was forgetting Great Barrier Reef!)

I walk down one of the halls until we step out into an amphitheater filled with apparent worshippers. They're performing some kind of sinister chant and at the bottom of the amphitheater, a huge crackling ball of dark purple energy is taking shape. Everyone’s participating in the chanting except me now, including Anna Kendrick and the rest of the companions from the lab.

I become sure that they’re summoning some kind of dark god. I know that I shouldn’t worry about stuff like this, but I just want to get away before this causes me a problem. I turn around and decide to ignore their evil ritual before it becomes a nuisance for me. Slightly annoyed by my own fear, I clutch the stuffed bear to me again, hugging it roughly as I flee up a set of stairs..

There are a couple of guys sitting near the top of the stairs as I emerge into daylight. One of them, a black guy in a checkered shirt, asks me, “What’s with the teddy bear?” I explain that I’m using the bear to help keep myself anchored into this dream. I hand him the bear just as a crush of people come trampling down the stairs like it’s rush hour. Pretty soon I can’t see the guy anymore through the crowd.

Rather than get frustrated trying to recover the bear, I move on. At the top of the steps, I see my son’s green Beanie Baby bear, so I scoop it up and hold it as a replacement. I walk onward, passing by the front entrance of a hotel. A couple of guys come up to me and offer me a $1200 discount on a Hawaiian Airlines flight. I think that this sounds like a great deal but I tell them, “Sorry, I’m having a lucid dream, though. So maybe offer that to someone who can use it.”

I lose the dream, wake up, and hold on for DEILD. The DEILD works and I emerge back into a second-story bedroom. I grab onto the bedding, kneading it with my hands, focusing on making the scene super vivid. It works, and I keep doing this for a while until I realize I’m sort of afraid to let go. Stop being a weenie! I force myself to let go and take a flying leap at the window, intending to phase through.

The phase gets stopped cold, though, and I bounce right off the window. I will the window to come down, which it immediately does… and behind it is another pane of glass! I lower that one as well, seeing a third pane. I’m starting to feel slightly irritated by this, and fortunately when I lower this pane, it’s a clear shot to the outside.

I scramble through the window, catching my reflection on the outside of an office building across the street. Even though I’m crawling through the window, my reflection is walking upright like there’s nothing in the way. My reflection and I both laugh at the error.

When I drop down to the street below, I feel the sun bright to my left side, which I believe is west. I feel slightly nervous about heading into such bright light, so I turn eastward. I know that the Pyramid is somewhere ahead of me. There’s a slight wobble in the dreamworld, but it stabilizes as I walk on. I take to the sky, and with one final wobble, the dream collapses for good.