LucidJordan

My recalling skills this morning were nowhere near as sharp as they were yesterday, and one particular dream this time around was quite disturbing. Before I went to bed I did some physical awareness tasks whilst lying down on my back with my eyes closed, and I went through the process of feeling each part of my body. I felt the feeling of each foot, and then concentrated harder on each toe, then the calves, knees, then all of those parts together, and basically I went through every possible separate joint/bodypart I could and tried to put them into different group and feel them together.

This lasted about 20 minutes, afterwards I rolled onto my side to go to sleep in hopes that I might have a Dream Induced Lucid Dream. After trying to sleep for a while with relaxed breath, something strange happened. My breathing in and out felt like it became one motion, this feeling was very strange. The best way I can describe it is quite limiting: If you have ever been in hospital and put to sleep on the operating table whilst counting to 10 with your eyes closed, well that vague taste/smell/numbness that overcomes you and your breathing is what I felt. My heart started racing as this happened to me, I didn't expect it to happen so as soon as it did I was excited. Immediately though, and I fear this might be detrimental to my lucid dreams when I get good at getting into them with ease, is that I instantly thought about my physical body in my bedroom, and then I thought about seeing nightmarish things, and I knew I shouldn't but I couldn't stop myself. The feeling died down after about 20 seconds of trying to maintain it, and then it stopped completely and I felt like I was just trying to sleep again. I think the full physical body awareness process is important for letting go of all tension in the body and was responsible for this experience, I will continue to do this before sleep each night I'm practicing.

Now onto the dreams... they were vivid, but short-lived. After my first awakening 6 hours into my sleep I had no dreams to recall, this was very disappointing. I tried hard to think, but nothing was there. My alarm woke me up in a very shocked way, and I remember reading yesterday (I think it was Puffin's DILD guide) that sudden shock alarm awakenings are awful for recall, so that was probably the problem. I will have to find an app that is good for gradual noise build up with the alarm so I wake up more settled. My other awakenings were natural too, and I had stuff to recall after those. Evidence!

Time of sleep: 2:00am
Time of first awakening: 8:00am | Reason: Alarm

No dreams to recall here. Damn you, alarm!

Time of sleep: 8:00am
The rest of my awakenings up until my alarm final alarm at 11:00am were random throughout and I forgot at the time to log the times I woke, but I did remember to tag recall my dreams.

Dream 1 - Joni Mitchell &the mysterious hula hoop
Me, my friend Tom and an old friend Steven were walking up some stairs in a building. As we walked the steps, Tom said from the back of the group "Have you ever listened to Joni Mitchell?". I replied saying that I have, but I knew that I hadn't really listened to her (I have been meaning to though, I forgot until this dream actually, so I'll have to get onto her now). I remember saying that I have listened to her in such a way that it was embarrassing to not have listened to her. In a "Of course I have, what do you take me for?!" kind of manner, but with a subtle "I have." I used to lie about a lot of small things like that throughout my teens, like talking crap for the sake of it, but over the past years I have tried my best to iron that kind of thought out, what's the point? Though I know a lot of people, young and old, who still do this all the time. Anyway, as we got to the top of the stairs we were all coated up, the atmosphere seemed like we were in a very cold location, somewhere that suggested snowing. Steven sat down at a table with me, and he had a hula hoop around him. I can't remember much else.

Dream 2 - The disturbing one
This one was very unsettling. I was lying on a bench, my feet and hands were bound so I couldn't get off of it, this was in some kind of lit up dungeon/surgical room. What was truly horrifying however was the fact that Phillip Seymour Hoffman (RIP) was fondling some naked girl against a wall whilst all creepily pushed up against her. There was definitely a great feeling and knowing that this was wrong, I can remember wanting it to stop as it played out in front of me but I couldn't stop it. The dream ended after a short while of this, it felt like it lasted about 1-2 minutes.

Dream 3
This dream was more fun. I was around a merged version of Liverpool and London city (England) and I can remember walking into a big public hallway that was half interior half exterior, like a big open space with walls surrounding it and a glass ceiling, that had no doors, the halls just leaded into the open. I sensed an ex-girlfriend was approaching, but I couldn't be sure if it was her. She looked distorted in facial character, like someone else, but I sensed it was her. I fled the area to avoid her and ended up inside some hospital place, and I sensed I had to keep running away from something that was coming for me. I felt like I knew I could fly, but I was in a position of thinking about how I do it. Then I ran down the hallway and sort of just took off, and I was flying, but it turns out even my unconscious didn't think I could fly AND go through walls, and I flew straight into a wall and fell to the ground. The next bit is hazy, but I'm sure there was a portal to go outside, and I went through it. I remember flying past a bus in the daytime and everyone on the bus watching me go by. That's all I can remember here!

Dream 4
In real life my cat has been sleeping in my room lately, and my brother and I were talking about this yesterday. He said he thinks the cats might have caught fleas, and reassured him they haven't (they were very recently flea'd, and when there are fleas about, they LOVE my skin. Well this conversation gave me one last disturbing (albeit much less disturbing than the last) dream.. I woke up and I was in my bed, everything looked like it usually would any other morning, but all of a sudden my cat got up and moved and my focus went straight to a flea that was walking across my bed sheet, then I noticed another on my pillow, and I jumped out of bed and the dream faded to nothing.

Time of final awakening: 11:00am
Total time slept: Roughly 9 hours
Total alarms used: 2
Total awakenings from alarms: 2
Did I do a waking journal recall of my day before I went to sleep: Yes
Did I do any awareness concentration: Yes - sound and physical feeling

The reason I'm logging sleep and alarms etc is so I can try and perfect what works best for my dreaming states and recall.