The Fourth Factor

I seem to be staying with a large group of people in a sort of vacation rental house. It’s late night, early morning, and having woken up, I’ve checked on the cats to make sure they’re still here, where they’re supposed to be. (I notice at some point that I’m not wearing pajamas, but an olive green cargo vest over a multicolor shirt, which strikes me as a little odd.) The cats are fine, but it looks like other people are up and about as well – the other young people there seem to be gathering together in an unused room, and there’s an atmosphere of anticipation, as if some spur-of-the-moment plan is being put together. I don’t really feel like going in to see what’s going on, though – I walk past to the bathroom down the hall.

After that, somebody actually comes along to invite me to join them, and there’s a jump to another location, this one outside, along a street of what seems vaguely like a small city. We’re near an ice cream vendor and his cart, and somebody has apparently managed to get a really good deal on a large quantity of ice cream. The man scoops different kinds out and hands it over to the people who are also out here now. An older man explains to me what’s going on: everybody is planning to travel together to Prague to see the Pablo Neruda museum. (This places the location firmly in Dream-Prague, as no such thing exists there, as far as I know.)

He has a picture of it, like a newspaper clipping in black and white showing the front of the building, which strikes me as familiar. There are four odd statues out front, roughly human-shaped. One seems to have a head the shape of a crescent moon. The man states that the museum is located in the Place of Right. This confuses me for just a second. Then I tell him that the name would probably be something more like “Law Square” or “Legal Plaza” translated into English. My memories of the place suggest that the association with the law comes from a former era and is not representative of the present-day location, that it’s located near the Mala Strana area (possibly by association with Nerudova Street) or a bit south of that, and that there’s a Gothic tower in the square as well as the museum.

All of us are in Croatia, and I’m not sure if I feel like traveling all the way to Prague, especially since I visited the museum relatively recently. But it would be an interesting experience in its own right, traveling there with all these people. And maybe they could use someone who knows their way around there. Somebody brings me a cup of ice cream, white with flecks of chocolate or cookies in it. I take it. I don’t really like ice cream that much, especially not first thing in the morning, but it would probably just sit there and melt if I refused.

-12.5.22

I am in what looks to be some kind of large home improvement store, having travelled here to meet up with some people. It is a very large store: towards the back, the aisles actually turn into streets, which is where I need to go. I’ve been this way enough times to where I’ve got the route memorized, and when I reach the signpost with a number of street signs, I take a left onto Montaigne Street.

Montaigne street has a rather sleazy vibe, with a sort of over-the-top neon-over-historic-district aesthetic. But it seems completely confined to this particular street, and then it’s back into plain downtown area. However, something is strange: the street I’m looking for doesn’t seem to be here. This is an area full of little winding streets, so I look around for a bit to make sure I haven’t missed it, then head back out to where the store begins and go along Montaigne Street all over again. But the street really seems to have gone now.

I go back to the store area and browse the stationary near the front as I consider what to do next. Maybe I forgot to check something, and the meet-ups aren’t happening right now. It’s going to be a few hours before I head back, and I need to figure out what I’m going to do for dinner at some point. I also decide, in a moment of latent lucidity, that I’m going to change the name of Montaigne Street to Montero Street, as that seems to fit it better. In the end, I just decide to look around the store for a while longer.

Towards one corner, I find a series of furnished rooms. They’re a bit like display rooms you might actually find in a home improvement store showing off appliances or furnishings, only these ones seem to be set up as miniature haunted houses. I enter the room on the far end first, one that’s almost completely dark. This one seems to have a “pet ghost” theme. As I explore the various furniture and parts of the room, certain things happen, triggered by my presence, such as noises or motion, and even the visible ghosts of cats. But I don’t find the place scary at all. It’s actually rather relaxing. I lie on the bed in the corner for a while listening to things rustle and thinking about dead pets from times gone by.

After a while, I move on, going into a couple more rooms I can no longer remember before heading into what’s clearly set up as a haunted nursery. This room has a lot more light coming in, so it’s easy to see the furnishings, most prominently, a young child’s bed – not actually a crib, but something that seems made for children about that age, maybe from an earlier era. The bed is dishevelled, and there are several piles of feces either on it or on the floor nearby, hinting towards neglect. It doesn’t really look real and definitely doesn’t smell real.

As I examine a chest on the side of the room facing the store, I suddenly see a large group of ghosts standing together, looking in my direction. One of them, an older gentleman in a suit, gestures that I should come over to them. I do, and they lead me to a long table set up for a meal. It seems that the store has staffed their haunted rooms with real ghosts, and now that they’re off-duty, they’re closing up the rooms and inviting me to eat with them.

It’s only once were seated and the meal begins – tea and pastries – that they begin talking, or possibly that’s just when I become able to understand them. The older gentleman is seated on my left, and we have a conversation in which I distinctly remember telling him about my cat, Thomas, who died 12 years ago.

At some point, the scene changes – the implication seems to be that time has passed, and I’m travelling somewhere with three or four of them. One opens the back door of a black car, and another climbs in. I realize I’m supposed to get in as well. I notice I’m wearing a smooth black coat coming down somewhere between my knees and waist and a pair of black leather gloves.

The scene changes further after that to a completely new setting – and while the store, at least, was almost certainly located in the U.S., this place has more the vibe of a developing country, possibly in the Caribbean. The man showing me around takes me past an area where many small boats are docked. He seems to feel this is a touristy area, not really representative of the place itself.

At a clothing market, somebody comes up to him. It seems he’s needed somewhere immediately, so it looks like I’m going to be on my own for the next couple hours. We agree to meet back up here in that general timeframe – this doesn’t seem to be a place where people make appointments more precise than that.

15.7.21

In the earliest part of the dream I remember, I'm stepping into an elevator. I seem to be able to see through its walls, into the shaft and the mechanism it runs on, and the rough, dark area around it. I want to go up a floor, but after getting about halfway there, the elevator stops. Then it goes back down, past the floor I got in on – down and at an angle as it follows the track. It seems to be headed down to the basement floors, which annoys me. I hate it when this happens.

I think it must have dawned on me around then that the earlier experience I was thinking of took place in a dream, and that this too was a dream. But it’s hard to remember exactly because once I’m out, the dream turns out to be one of those lucid ones where my senses don’t seem to be working properly. I can’t control the dream; even moving around is laborious. But, knowing that these are problems that often goes away on their own, and that I rarely experience them in outdoor areas, I keep going, trying to make my way up to the surface.

Eventually, I do make it up. I’m in an unfamiliar house with large, light rooms, including a sunporch, visible through a glass window. Since the problems from before don’t seem to be affecting me anymore, I step straight through the glass to the sunporch, then through that glass to the area outside, where there’s a small lake.

There’s ice on the lake, which gives me an idea: I could try ice skating in a dream. But the ice is breaking up and thawing even as I watch, and it doesn’t seem quite right to freeze it again. But this is a dream, after all, so why shouldn’t I be able to skate on liquid water?

I step out onto the lake, surrounding my bare feet with a slippery layer of air, and kick off. It works perfectly, a bit like self-propelled jet-skiing. It’s an exhilarating experience.

The lake is long and irregularly shaped, with small, rocky islands, purple and green with lichens, and beds of rushes and lily pads. It’s bounded by a stone wall too tall for me to be able to see over, not far past the lake’s edge in some places. And there now seem to be a number of cats around, sitting on the rocks – watching me, perhaps. Near one of the wall’s corners, I see one that looks like the feral cat my household took in but who died of cancer the previous week. I reach out and pet him – something he would never allow a human to do – and he responds affectionately.

After making another round of the lake, I’m starting to get curious about that wall. What’s on the other side of it? I circle back, pick up speed, and jump towards it with the intention of going through – and suddenly find myself bodiless in empty space. I guess there was NREM on the other side.

I prepare myself for maintaining awareness in this state – but it only lasts a minute or so before I wake up.

-27.2.20

I am on a computer, looking through files. I’m trying to find papers from an earlier part of the dream where I’d stayed after a math class drawing, and the teacher had brought over a stack of graded assignments he’d apparently been working on while I sat there. I’d just glanced at them and seen that’d I’d done really well on them before taking off, but now I want a closer look, and this was apparently where they were.

I scroll through small pictures, some of which began to move. One has expanded to fill the whole screen. It shows a house on fire, people running out. It scrolls past a small stage on which two double basses stand, one the traditional sort, another more metallic – electric by the look of it, but still a roughly double bass size and shape. It sits in a sort of flower-shaped metal pad. It catches my attention, and I’m struck by the level of detail.

I am now – not sure in what order – both present in the dream and lucid. I’m in a park-like area, a clearing with groves of trees and some woods not far off. Another stage is nearby, this one a roofed circular platform on which sits another of those big electric basses. I consider giving it a try – that could be fun. But it occurs to me that I’ve never produced frightening scenarios in lucid dreams before, and I should try it at least once.

Surrounded by demons is the first thing that occurs to me for some reason. That’ll do. I will them into being. As I focus on the intention, everything around me grows dark, swirling and immaterial. I’m floating, moving vaguely backwards. But nothing else seems to be happening. Oh, well. Maybe I’ll give that bass a try after all.

I let go of the intention. The original scene immediately returns, and I walk back towards the area I started out in. But not far from it, by a ridge in front of a forested area, I spot a strange figure. Its head looks like a skull, bovine in shape, with horns that curl around to the front and knot around each other, and it’s wearing a black and white herringbone tweed blazer with a thin purple scarf and a long grey-black skirt. It looks like I managed something, at least, although I can’t say it’s especially scary.

As I approach, it waves its hand, causing a small sphere of darkness to shoot towards me. This startles me a bit, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect. I keep walking towards it, ignoring its attacks. As I pass the pavilion, I notice the instrument sitting there looks different now. There are also now a number of cats up under the roof, lying in big cat piles that seem to extend upward into tunnels. They seem to just be waking up. The grey and orange tabbies stay where they are, but a few black cats stretch and jump down onto the stage.

As I turn back towards the figure, I see that it is now a cat as well – a small black one. I pick it up. It doesn’t look happy with being held, but it makes no attempt to escape.

At that point, I wake up.

9.1.20

I’m on a trip with my parents and an unfamiliar young man. We were all supposed to go to a casino—and they did actually go. But I didn’t care much for that plan, and so I’ve been off doing something else and only arrived back at the hotel room in time for their last trip there, late on the final evening.

I have the impression that this is a place they’re familiar with, but this will be my first time there. I’ve been told not to bring my purse with me for whatever reason, but I don’t like going around without writing materials on hand, and so I say that I’ll just take my wallet out before I go. But it seems my parents are so eager to get back that, rather than waiting the couple of minutes this will take, they go on without me, leaving the young man to drive us there.

Outside, it’s raining hard, and has been for a while, judging by all the standing water in the streets. As we go on, it only gets deeper, until the car, which is a fairly low one, starts having trouble moving forward. Some light on the dashboard has come on. He curses at the car—and quite probably my parents, who would have had no trouble handling this in theirs. I suggest that we just pull off the road onto higher ground, as some other cars seem to be doing, and walk the rest of the way there. It isn’t very far. He agrees to it.

The next part I remember clearly is being inside the casino, in a large room with a grand staircase, crowded with fancily dressed people. On the upper floor, near a restaurant area, I meet up with my parents again. It’s sort of like a buffet, with tables in a horseshoe shape, each one with an attendant behind them, offering samples of various kinds of foods to the guests. Mother is going to get a chocolate milkshake—apparently, a favorite of hers there—but my father isn’t interested. The idea doesn’t appeal much to me either, and anyways, this is all new to me: I want to try things out before I order anything.

He heads off somewhere else. I get some kind of a soup, and then head over to where they’re serving white wine. I try the sample they have there, which is pretty good—but they have all kinds of interesting drinks here, and this would be a good chance to try things I wouldn’t necessarily want a full glass of. And my mother is trying to get my attention from across the room, so I leave the table without ordering anything and head over in her direction.

Then, suddenly, I feel a spray of cold water—and the people around me do as well, judging by how they’re crying out. It seems someone is spraying people with a hose. I move out of the way, wondering what that was about. Maybe the casino staff themselves are responsible. The whole reason this place exists is to take money from people, after all—I think it’s best not to lose sight of that—and it wouldn’t surprise me at all for one to start charging people to keep things going nicely, once they’ve got them used to it.

Once out of range, I pause and kneel down to make sure the cat is still with me. He is indeed still there and comes to get pet. He’s an orange cat, an adult, though on the small side, and has been here with me this whole time. So far, nobody has noticed him—or else they just don’t care. But it’s still a little dangerous for him to be here with me, and so I’ve been making sure he stays close, waiting until I feel him against the back of my ankles before moving on.

11.5.19

I start out in an apartment that seems to be mine, but doesn’t resemble anywhere I’ve ever lived. Hearing a commotion outside, I go out to investigate. I walk across a grassy lawn to where it overhangs a sidewalk. It seems coming from the direction of the train station, which is just down the street. I recall that today is the day the king is supposed to return from a trip abroad: there are probably many people there to greet him.

Sure enough, I soon see him walking by, just like any other person might, alone except for three dogs. One of the dogs, a large and muscular one, is headed directly my way. I’m not threatened by it, though: I don't read any aggression in its behavior, only curiosity.

It’s sniffing me over as he approaches to get it back under control. We exchange a few words. He knows who I am—I get the impression this country is on the small side, and he probably knows everyone here—and he says that he’s honored that I’m residing in his country (I am a foreigner here and not a citizen). He tells me he's happy to be the host of someone favored by the cat god. This is a chaotic, cat-like being that comes around—like any other cat—when it feels like it and not before. It appears to have taken a liking to me, and there’s now some kind of deeper bond between us. It also seems to be associated with the key of B major, whatever that means.

The king is about to leave, but the dog breaks away again to continue to inspect me. He once again gets it under control and asks in a casual way what a sky bicycle actually looks like. This odd form of transportation has to do with the cat somehow—the thing apparently has a whole mythology of its own. I reply that I don’t know, as sky bicycles only take a definite form when several people are looking at one at the same time.

(31.7.18)

Last night, I once again found myself lucid, once again without being entirely sure how it happened. It felt like the dream was close to an hour long, although it was technically two dreams since there was a brief awakening and reentry in the middle. Because it was so long and I spent the whole thing just exploring the house I found myself in and messing around, it wouldn’t make for very interesting reading, and so I’ll just include a few highlights of it.

-Finding a series of books entitled “More Than 21 Cats” on a bookshelf.

-Devoting more attention than usual to maintaining awareness and focus. My lucid dreams almost always end with no warning whatsoever, and while I used to consider this something I couldn’t do much about, I’ve been wondering lately whether preventative stabilization might help. This intention seems to have carried over, and as the dream was longer than any I’ve had for a while, I’d call it a success.

-Receiving a few gifts for no apparent reason from people who were around. I spent a good chunk of the dream opening them, resisting the urge to go off and do other things since it seemed like that would have been ungrateful, even if it was a dream.

-Moving a wardrobe with my mind. I extended my hand, interfacing with it on a mental level—if that makes sense—and then pulled. And then I pushed it back.

-Having the dream briefly interrupted by a message displayed over the scene as if it were a screen. It was a rather ominous message, but it seemed to have no immediate effect other than turning everything in the house green and shifting some of the furniture into new styles and/or positions. This may have been a direct result of moving the wardrobe as it happened shortly afterwards, and the last time I tried to control things in a lucid dream was also closely followed by something weird and threatening happening.

-Two more visits to my M--- basement, the first before the green shift, the second afterwards to see if anything had changed. It had: the second version had a closed door where the tunnel often is in dream versions of it, as well a sort of workshop behind the same wall, visible through a couple small windows.

-Lots of cats around, but probably less than 21.