CanisLucidus

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.

This was the second of two lucid dreams from last night. I'm excited about this new Great Barrier Reef teleport, even if it is very glitch at this point!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #131: Oceanfront Property

I'm walking through a university when I encounter the same male twins from my previous dream. They're dressed just as before and again they stare wordlessly at me. I remember this from the previous dream and become lucid.

"Who are you?" I ask them.

The twin in glasses only says, "Be careful out there," and together they walk off down the path behind me.

I immediately remember my intention to explore the Great Barrier Reef and leap up into the air to fly. I soar over a few buildings toward a shipping yard filled with shipping crates and huge cranes. I know that I have to be close to the ocean. Somehow the dream loses cohesiveness for a moment and I'm thrown into the void.

Rubbing my hands together, I think of what my fastest way to the Great Barrier Reef will be. After giving my dream body a quick probe, I pinch my nose shut and flop backwards like I'm plunging into water. This works incredibly, and almost immediately I'm swimming through clear blue water again, similar to the prior dream. But as I look around, I see that I'm swimming through an underwater version of my bedroom!

I swim out into the hallway, so surprised to be swimming through my house that I have no idea what to do. I keep colliding with random objects like boxes as I swim and I'm generally nervous about my navigation, so I decide to return to the master bedroom to phase through the window. Hopefully that'll be something like the open sea. I swim back to the window but when I get to the shutters I just bounce off of them. I'm having trouble believing that I can do it or imagining what it will feel like. I make another attempt at it, bounce off again, and worry that I'm going nowhere and that I'll just wake up. Inevitably, this leads me to a false awakening in a darkened version of our bedroom.

Wife has a little "dream checklist" that she's trying to go over with me. "Did you get to the Great Barrier Reef?" she asks, poised to check something off.

"No," I say, disappointed.

She frowns. "Did you ask about the meaning of life?" she inquires hopefully. It goes on like this for a while, but I don't remember what else happens afterward.

This was the first of two lucid dreams from last night, and my first serious Great Barrier Reef attempt.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #130: The Turtle

I'm swimming in a shallow cove with my 4-year-old son "E". I tell him that he's helping me practice for a planned dream about the Great Barrier Reef and he seems excited to help. We come across a cave just under the waterline, swim into it, and emerge in a cavern where all these other kids are hanging around. I wonder whether all these kids are helping their moms and dads prepare for a Great Barrier Reef dream. This feels strange to me and I become lucid.

There's either a scene change or a memory gap at this point, because my next memory is of walking by myself through the grounds of a university. I pass two men who stare silently at me as I walk by. They're both in their late 20s and look almost like identical twins, except that one is dressed in a suit while the other wears glasses and a flannel shirt. I think that there's something I need to ask them, but I can't remember what it is. (I think I'd meant to ask them the meaning of life for Task of the Month.)

Nearby is a plaza with a tall stone column at each of its four corners. Perhaps a dozen DCs are walking around this plaza, looking happy but aimless. I exchange a glance with one tough-looking DC as I walk across the plaza, and something about him just rubs me the wrong way. I take a half-hearted swing at him, as if I'm trying to slap him upside the head. He ducks out of the way, and immediately I wonder why I would do something like that.

The DC moves aggressively toward me and I move to dissolve this problem that I've caused. I hold up my right hand to the DC and walk casually away, saying, "It's cool." The tension abates and he walks away. Whew.

I remember my intention to get to the Great Barrier Reef. I hulk-jump high above the Earth, knowing that I'll see water nearby. Sure enough, there's a sparkling blue ocean to my right. As I descend, I notice a cute DC standing in the water, waving at me as she watches me come back down to Earth. As I near the water, I realize that she's Wife!

Before I can say anything, I plunge into the water. This is one of only a handful of times that I've been underwater in an LD, and I'm pleased to see that I can breathe normally. I try my voice, and it's perfectly clear: "[Wife]! Can you hear me?" There's no reply and I don't see any sign of her. Okay, focus. I need to ride a sea turtle, find a great white shark, and bite it. Without dying. The task feels really intimidating to me but I start searching.

I swim in random directions for a while until I finally catch sight of a turtle. The turtle has no interest in my company, though, and speeds away from me underwater. I don't have any plan as to how I'm going to catch him, so I just try to swim faster. He kites me along like this for quite a while until I have a false awakening in some kind of hospital.

Wife and I are here trying to improve our dreaming abilities. I'm astounded but pleased that she's interested in dream work now. She tells me that she's trying to hit her REM cycles by setting alarms that correspond with the take-off times for airplanes. Skyler White (from Breaking Bad) walks into our room and starts speaking to Wife in a husky, almost male voice. She's apparently a researcher at this hospital. This all seems strange to me and I briefly become lucid before the dream ends.

I had this short lucid dream during a very brief mid-morning nap. Lucid napping is a first for me. I didn't perform at my best in-dream and I allow the dream to end much too soon. Also, I get beat up by a little kid. But hey, lucid is lucid! Always learning.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #22: Unwelcome Houseguests

I'm holding hands with my two toddler-age sons, preparing to go outside for a walk. Before we reach the front door of th house, twin boys with curly blonde hair open the door and scurry inside. They look to be about eight years old and are complete strangers to me. This feels strange, and soon I'm lucid.

I decide that I don't want these weird kids running around in my house so I start ushering them out the door. They seem to cheerfully accept getting kicked out so my thoughts turn to lucid goals. I remember that I wanted to do the Task of the Month and replace my head with a pumpkin. But what was the other one? Ah yes, get a vampire, werewolf, or zombie to bite me. Now I remember.

Just as I'm thinking this (and probably because I'm thinking this), the twin on my left suddenly lunges at me and bites me hard on the left pec, right by my armpit. He snarls like a dog, whipping his head back and forth. I'm taken completely by surprise, both by the suddenness of the attack and by how much it actually hurts. I try to shout some kind of command at him but all that comes out is this pathetic yowl.

I blank out for a fraction of a second and my perspective switches to the top of the stairs, looking down at the scene of the attack. I have no dream body and everyone (me, my kids, the twins) is now gone from the scene. My view is turned on its side, as if I were lying down. I try to move, try to RC, but with no body there's not much that I can do.

I imagine that I'm lying here because I passed out and I'm just waking up. This seems to work! I have hands and a body again and I slowly get to me feet. Just then, I hear the sound of my alarm clock and voluntarily wake up. But when I wake up, it's only been 15 minutes since I laid down! The alarm wasn't anywhere close to going off and I fooled myself into waking up for no reason.

This was easily my wildest, trippiest lucid dream of all time. A big first from this one was meeting my doppelganger. Confusion, chaos and questions of identity reigned in this LD and what little control I had amounted to very little in the end. Very different from my usual LD fare but fun nonetheless.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #21: Technicolor Thomas Jefferson

It's nighttime and I'm standing in the shadow of a deserted overpass, talking on a cellphone. I'm some sort of drug dealer or smuggler, talking to one of my scumbag smuggling associates about when and where our next deal will go down. The conversation ends, and I start walking back across a parking lot to my car, a silver Mercedes Benz.

As I'm walking, I get that familiar feeling of recognition and think, "This isn't me. I'm not a criminal. Am I just dreaming this?" I become lucid and look for the nearest piece of usable scenery. Before I can get anywhere, though, darkness begins pressing down on me and I feel the dream fading. I look at my hands but they're vague and insubstantial, with wispy ribbons of skin hanging off of them.

My vision goes completely black but I keep repeating, "I'm still dreaming" and refuse to wake up. Jumbles of random letters fall slowly from the top to the bottom of my field of vision. I reach for the letters, trying to feel them, turn them into some kind of new dream scene. Even though I can't see my hands, I finally manage to grab a letter and squeeze it. It feels like a squishy piece of felt. The letter suddenly squirts out of my hands and floats away. I flail for a new letter.

Now I'm back in bed and my hands are thrashing in front of me. Out loud, I'm saying "I'm still dreaming", although I no longer believe it. Wife rolls over and says, "What are you doing?" I look over at the alarm clock and see that the numbers are flashing at random. Still dreaming, indeed. "It's okay," I tell her. "Go back to sleep." I get out of bed and walk toward the bathroom, planning to go for the "pumpkinhead" Task of the Month using the bathroom mirror.

Before I make it to the bathroom, the image of a huge, hissing black cat is stamped across my vision. Behind this cat I still see my first-person perspective but much of it is now obscured. Then another stamped image over that, this time of a woodworking bench covered with tools. Then an old woman pushing a cart. Then another, and another, and another each new image papering over the last.

Finally, things settle onto an image of Thomas Jefferson reading in a comfortable-looking chair. He's super-saturated with color, just like the boldest Technicolor films. Think Wizard of Oz but with the saturation even more intense. I remind myself, "I'm dreaming" and a banner reading "I'M DREAMING!!!" appears over Thomas Jefferson's head. He glances up from his book, sees the banner, then stares straight at me in surprise.

Suddenly, I'm in the passenger seat of a car, heading west on a road near my office. It feels strange, so I try to remember how I got there. I remember Technicolor Thomas Jefferson and I'm immediately lucid again. I look over at the driver of the car and I realize that the driver is me. Only it's not really me but a Dream Character version of myself. I can hear my double's thoughts but I can't influence him and I see that I'm a disembodied observer with no dream body of my own.

I hear my double think, "I've got to go back to where it started. Back to where I became lucid. I have to make it happen again." My double pulls into a parking garage and we're soon wandering the halls of an office building. My double visits each office that he finds, and in every one we see friends and old coworkers. Finally, my doppelganger steps into an office shared by two female twins (IWL friends of mine) and a woman who calls herself Susan.

The twins greet my double and welcome him to their office but Susan isn't buying it. She shakes her head and says, "That isn't your friend. I don't know what that is, but your friend is there." Susan points, not at my double but at me, the spot from which I am observing with no dream body. The twins turn to look, not comprehending and I wake up.