DarkestDarkness

Just some short dream fragments. Woke up but didn't get out of bed for a while and got distracted so didn't retain many thoughts.

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Dream Fragment:

Something in space. Felt a bit like Freelancer but I think I could command ships that weren't my own? I remember an asteroid field and an asteroid space station. The system looked like it had a light source coming from underneath but was mostly black space with stars with some blue-ish nebulas on the lower hemisphere. The system felt "sunny". Omega/Sigma/Tau type system. Earlier I had a clearer idea of which it reminded me most of.

Dream Fragment:

There's a bridge that I'm trying to place somewhere. I sort of have some kind of visual interface to move it around and rotate it but I struggle for a while to get it to a position I'm satisfied with. One of my siblings (T) is in the dream somehow but I think only in some form of chat. I remember having a conversation about the bridge and how it wasn't quite working out. I remember I then had to add some extra support pillars.

The bridge location was some kind of crude game-like valley. It looked like the type of terrain/landscape I might roughly make before having worked on any detail for it. The area seemed to be covered in shadow, like there were other objects above.

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No notes.

Some fragments from last night.

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Fragment:

I was in some kind of starship, not unlike one from Star Trek but there was a mixed feel from several space stuff, including a bit from Starpoint Gemini. I was captaining the ship and we were headed straight for a blue-ish planet, covered mostly by water than anything else. I could see the system's star just left of where the planet was, much further away.

Some four or five other green-coloured ships appeared, intercepting and following us closely. I suggested to an officer to simply activate the cloaking device ability and could see in a third-person view from outside the ship as the field enveloped it and the other ships disbanded in separate directions. (Expectable AI behaviour if it were a game)

As we got very close to the planet, I could see everything in a sort of cinematic view and then the ship started getting close to the ground to land somewhere but for whatever reason it had to be at an airport, so the ship kept making really wide loops closing in and away from the planet surface.

Every time we got close, I could see on some disembodied interface some information about the local surface structures. I did see a fair few airports, but many of which had tractors lining up vegetables in the runways. This annoyed me slightly.

There is a transition and I am now on my own at some sort of Japanese-looking castle. It's night-time but I can see the moon and everything looks bright and blue-ish. There are some sort of holographic security features. (This part of the dream vaguely reminded me of Starbound)

Fragment:

Just a small part of some other dream, I was in a town with some friends, not sure who. We just came out of a restaurant that was closing for the night and then two of us went one way, and I wondered where the third member was. I asked my friend, who only vaguely suggested the other might have gone looking for something.

I remember wandering streets, there was a lot of light, from glowing signs and lampposts. I could see people sitting at cafes and so on.

At some point we went into some shop and I wondered again about the missing friend. The friend that was with me was fascinated and excited by rediscovering some sort of cardboard packed plastic ketchup sachets.

The next bit I remember, stuck in some sort of traffic at a four-way junction, with three lanes on each direction.

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Side notes:

• The first dream was a bit more unusual as I haven't had many dreams that take place in space, even though I've played a lot of games that do.
• The view-point changes were sort of frequent in the space dream and they felt a bit like they were made through a keyboard I couldn't quite feel. I suppose this sensation is quite similar to when I'm actually playing or writing something, where the keyboard sort of just becomes an extension of awareness, rather than existing as a physical obstacle, in a sense.
• Most of these dream fragments I am getting lately are written quite a lot later from when I had the dreams, so it's a sign that recall is improving somewhat and I am also noticing more pre-lucid thoughts at a sort of "gut feeling" level, where I am not expressly thinking in spoken words but rather getting feelings or intuition about the dreams' content.

Non-dream stuff - woke up a bit before 9 but didn't recall any dreams. Woke up again around 10 recalling some non-lucid stuff.

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Fragment 1:
I was playing the game Freelancer, it felt as though I was "in" it; I was in a system that doesn't exist in the game, though I've dreamed similar systems before. It was like the Omicron Alpha system and some of the Sigma systems.

It was a high level area but for some reason I was in the starter ship, and all the NPC ships were showing up red (hostile); despite this, they weren't actually attacking, more like they disliked me rather than hated me (which wouldn't show up as red in the real game).

I don't think there were any planets in this system and there was one star and I could see some asteroid belts in the distance. The "sky" had some blue nebulas and bright stars but was mostly dark.

Dream 2:
I remember being in a small and cramped kitchen, the ceiling was kind of low, especially for a kitchen. There was a fluorescent light that lit up the entire room. In the kitchen were myself, my partner (H) and our friend (M).

Can't remember what we were initially talking about, but while we all talked I crouched next to the fridge and opened it to have a look inside; the fridge didn't seem to have a light inside, and as I opened the door I hit M with it by accident. I said sorry and he said it was ok. I hadn't realised he was standing just there, somehow. I couldn't find anything I wanted really but I can't actually remember what was inside the fridge.

I got up and closed the door and saw the time on some red 7-segment display: 17:09. M mentioned he was going to go to bed in a few seconds, I showed some surprise and asked "shouldn't we be having dinner then?" and we apparently hadn't had lunch yet, as H said "well, make it be our lunch too then".

I think M was considering whether to eat before bed or not, and I think I asked what time he was getting up at, which he said would be 7AM or something. I walked in the opposite direction from M, past H, who was sat on a chair, and on a counter there was a pile of stuff under a tea towel. I took it off and underneath were some ready-made food packs, like chicken with noodles and vegetables. I grabbed one that was open, implied to be leftovers, and grabbed a nearby fork and ate some of the chicken. It tasted a bit... bland. I was disappointed and the rest didn't look that appetising; in fact, the rest of the chicken in this pack looked a bit pink and like it had a few white spots. But I knew it was cooked properly because these packs come pre-cooked and when I tasted some, it didn't taste raw. I nearly questioned all of this but the dream ended.

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Some notes:

• When I used to play Freelancer, going to higher end systems in a low-level ship wasn't too uncommon for me; the dream hostility implication being that most of the factions I'd want to ally with are ones that you start off as being hostile towards, and the other thing is that if I was starting a new game, because I was good at avoiding shots, there were good wreckage and freight piracy spots in some of these areas, giving a quick boost to being able to get to a higher-end ship sooner.
• I mostly remember seeing Outcast and Lane Hacker factions in the dream. The appearance of Lane Hackers in the dream is strange because they are allies of the Outcasts but I almost never interacted with them.
• In the second dream, M seemed a bit sad or upset and not really up to talking. This is probably residual from his current real-life situation.
• The pink bits on the chicken looked odd because they were on the outside, where the chicken did look cooked; because of the small white spots, I think I probably would have concluded it to be some sort of bacterial or fungal growth, had the dream carried on. I should remember to do a RC when food tastes funny or bland in general.
• Although I remember arriving at the kitchen from outside, I don't remember an outside or a previous dream.

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Scoring thus far:
+ Previous score: 34.0

+ This DJ entry score (breakdown below): 8.5
++ Recall a non-lucid fragment: 0.5
++ Recall a non-lucid dream: 1.0
++ Recall any non-lucid dream over 7 consecutive nights: 7.0
Though I could probably consider that "fly" happened in the first dream, I don't remember enough sensations to consider it valid.

= Total score thus far: 42.5

Non-dream stuff. Woke up at about 9, only vaguely recalling a non-lucid dream fragment and a nl short dream.

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Fragment:
I was playing some sort of strategy game, possibly a space strategy game, and I was in a lobby menu and my partner was going to play with me; then one of my siblings (T) joined the game lobby too. I remember discussing the game with T too.

Dream Sequence:
It was night time, I was in some sort of rural backroad and there was a little girl, blonde I think. Some snakes started coming out of the hedges and going toward the girl, but very very slowly. There was a car some 100/150ft away with headlights on; the dream implied it was mine, and I went to get inside the car to drive over to the little girl and grab her to take her in the car (why didn't I just do it in the reverse order?). The whole scene happened in third person view. I entered the car and drove up to the girl and got out again; the girl got confused because of the strong headlights on the car and squinted and covered her face and was confused; and I was about to grab her to get her into the car but dream ended.

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Some notes:

• The game in the first dream fragment will again be a waking life echo of playing something like Homeworld again.
• In the dream, I don't remember feeling threatened by the snakes, nor do I remember thinking they were a threat to myself; but they were clearly distressing for the girl.
• Only when writing the journal entry now did I realise it was an odd order to go about things, when I could have just grabbed her before getting to the car, especially given how slow the snakes were.
• For some reason, as I recalling the short dream, the snakes made me think of hares, and then the October competition. (Do snakes hunt hares/rabbits?)

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Scoring thus far:
+ Previous score: 10.0

+ This DJ entry score (breakdown below): 2.5
++ Recall a non-lucid fragment: 0.5
++ Recall a non-lucid dream: 1.0
++ Help someone in need: 1.0

= Total score thus far: 12.5

Non-dream stuff - Woke up between 8 and 9, few details recalled of some non-lucid fragments, but some of those also lost due to writing this much later.

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Fragment 1
Was in a spaceship of some kind, remembering traveling through a star system that had a gas giant planet that had a smaller planet lodged on its surface; I remember approaching the smaller planet and entering a blue sky atmosphere and I remember feeling both forces of ascent and descent, but always going very close to a horizontal parallel, so the forces weren't that strong.

Fragment 2
Some sort of transition with the first fragment where I was a giant and going through a city. Few details remembered now but I distinctly remember feeling like the perspective wasn't quite accurate (the field of view seemed too small).

Fragment 3
Doing something "naughty" with my partner, in a large concrete room; there was a bulb hanging from the ceiling, tungsten. There were a couple of computers that we weren't supposed to be using or something. The room had a door but it was more like a barred door, so it could be seen through. I remember feeling like somebody could intrude at any point.

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Some notes:

• The first dream (fragment) has probably originated from recently playing Homeworld again a bit. Another game I used to play from the same era was Freelancer, which was another space game. Often, using a system editor in Freelancer meant you could do weird things like the two planets in this dream fragment.
• Though normally I would consider the second fragment to be a possible dream goal (like for the October competition by KarlaB18), I do not consider it detailed enough to actually have achieved that goal. The fact that it occurred is a positive for me because I rarely dream of subjects I'm very interested in or want to have fun with.

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Scoring thus far:
+ Previous score: 3.5

+ This DJ entry score (breakdown below): 6.5
++ Recall any non-lucid dream over 3 consecutive nights: 3.0
++ Recall a non-lucid fragment: 0.5 * 3 = 1.5
++ Fly (1st fragment): 1.0
++ Transform/Shapeshift (2nd fragment): 1.0

= Total score thus far: 10.0

Non-dream stuff - had a couple of non-lucid dreams I remember in some detail. Chronological order slightly forgotten.

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Dream fragment:
I was playing some sort of space game, I could see in third-person view the ship I was controlling. Though I distinctly remember being "in" the game, I know my partner was watching me play, and I was in a system that had 3 jump gates to other stars; the jumpgates looked a bit Stargate-like, but two were coloured red and one was green. I wanted to go in one of the red ones. The system was very dark, there was a red giant star at its centre and when I arrived at the gates (that for some reason were clustered together) there were 2 ships, which were part of local military.

I remember using the jumpgate, though I don't remember the transition special effects, and when I got to the next system, it felt like it was a bit more dangerous. Visually it was confusing, I was struggling with the controls all of a sudden and the field of view adjustment kept changing for no reason. There was a blue giant star, and a regular yellow star; I remember some nebulae, blue, too, but there was something odd about the "skybox"* for the system.

In my controls struggle I accidentally started warping, backwards, somehow. The warp got faster and faster and I could see a "ul" units measurement at the bottom of the interface, going up quickly from 0.x to ~700. I managed to stop it and was now in a different system. I remember commenting to myself "oh, I forgot that worked that way", regarding the system travelling feature of the warp. It reminds me now of the warp mechanic in Eliteangerous.

Then I used it again and went forwards this time but steering at the same time, but when I warped out, I was in a planet with my ship, in the middle of a mega city, so I had to quickly try and maneuver up through openings I could see.

I remember getting past the atmosphere though I don't remember what happened next.

Dream sequence:
On a plane, with my partner. I don't think I was too happy about it; but we were landing, and we were landing in a street somewhere in France. This was the planned destination and the landing worked and stopped more than few hundred feet away from the nearest building.

We got out and I think we went to a flat somewhere, I think it was my aunt's and I remember some sort of interaction with my aunt before the dream started. But all I remember from the flat was that it was like our real kitchen and there was a bathroom. The bathroom was filthy, there was trimmed hair everywhere; there was a slight yellow tinge on things, not from urine or anything, as far as I can gather. There were no strong smells. But it felt filthy. I was trying to clean the toilet's rim with some paper, for some reason, and it was taking very long.

There was a transition and the next thing I remember is being at a supermarket in the same city, and I'm picking up what looks like a sweetener capsule dispenser thing, but instead, they have pictures of great monuments on them. I pick one that has a Great Pyramid, and I remember thinking or commenting to someone near me, "with this we can build our own pyramid... seems it takes about 3.8 acres of land, so we just need to get some 4 acres of land somewhere".

I walk to one of those self-checkout things, only carrying this little thing, and I scan it but I'm a little confused as to how things work and take a little while to understand where to place it; then I do, and I'm about to pay, but this other French guy about my age or younger starts using the same machine as I'm using, and I speak to him in English saying "excuse me, could you help me pay?" and he doesn't even look at me, which I feel to be rude. In the dream I have the distinct feeling they ignored English on purpose. I somehow manage to pay with my card, which I took out of my wallet blindly, but confirmed to be the card I wanted by the 4 last numbers, which were accurate to waking life as I remember.

I leave the shop and go down some street. Of note, I go past a man painting some sort of tall vertical canvases, in his own shop, but do not talk or engage with him. Down this street I am looking for a suitable land for this pyramid I want to build. I find some plaza and some ruins, and in the dream I think that because there are some Aztec-looking ruins I could just use them as a base for the pyramid... It's a micro steppe pyramid in its own right, this ruin, and I remember a hole that would be the stairwell. It is exceedingly dark in here, but I can see somehow. There is a different hole next to a wall, big enough for any grown man to slide in, but I do not satisfy my curiosity and walk away instead. Something felt odd but that wall opening, like it would go down forever.

I remember going up some street and then seeing some big building with a hand-painted sign that said:

"2 any artist;
60(something) (something);
214 accomplished artist"

or something to this effect. I got annoyed reading the sign. The numbers were value/money, and I felt that it was unfair to unknown artists. I commented something out aloud and realise that I'm standing next to the shop with that man from before, with the tall cyllinders that he painted. He said to me "unfortunately that's how it works; you can see how much work I have here - because it is exotic and unusual, I am not considered to be good or accomplished" or something like this. His shop was literally cluttered with all of his artistic work, some of it looked quite nice, some of it was indeed a bit unusual.

There was another dream after this but I've forgotten most of the details, apart from a teen boy being naked and antagonising me, who I punched in the face, though he didn't back down and just kept being annoying. There was a little girl but she seemed sad, she had a little pink dress.

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Notes:

• *The skybox is traditionally a scaled up 3D element that keeps the exact same position as the player and makes up the far-distance objects that can be represented either with 2D sprites or low resolution 3D models.
• The comments of the other artist reflect partly the basic feel I have about art's value in general.
• My partner was present at some points in the second dream but I don't remember the interactions between us.
• I have been to France only once, when I was a kid, and had the possibility of going again when I was around 16, but didn't.
• In the dream I just couldn't understand why at the supermarket the guy was rude to me. I was being polite and asking for help to get out of his way. But it later occurred to me in the dream that if I'd used my native language instead he wouldn't have been so rude, so it felt like it was a French/English animosity thing.
• I don't know where the 3.8 acres figure came from (it seems very specific but for no reason) in the dream for the Great Pyramid's base area; but checking quickly has revealed to me that the Pyramid's base is about 13 acres, about 3.25 times my 4 acres land estimate in the dream. I do not have any intuitive understanding of the actual area taken by an acre in waking life, so if there was any accuracy at all, it would have been a surprise.