DarkestDarkness

2022 May 9th

Some in-line notes.

7:50
Fragment:
(woke up sweating, vivid long dream)
Some build-up or something; there are aliens and we are fighting them off as a whole, but only just barely so. It's revealed these aliens are just a scouting party and they are part of a larger conglomerate of alien species. During the dream I see several different scenes just as an observer.

Meanwhile, there's chaos as a human leader, a woman with short hair, declares that nobody has rights anymore, and that we are moving into a new era beyond our conventional conception of rights. She sounds or seems delusional in some way. I think I saw her give this announcement on some TV thing, but just as an observer.

Then I'm in a town, outside. There's a modern feel to the area and the previous announcement had been broadcast on the radio, though I didn't hear this myself as a character.

There's an RPG element to reality but it feels absolutely real in every other way.

I survive an attack and fight my way into some place. I am constantly chased by aliens or possibly their machines. Eventually, I use some fast-travel mechanic. Once at my destination, I meet up with a friendly robot. It explains that this worm thing has moved to the edge of reality, it looks like a Combine alien. (In retrospect this whole bit makes me think of the original Dune film)

Normally, reality moves independently of what's in it. But being at the edge curves reality and causes this high pitch noise to be heard throughout the entire dream. And now, in it's current state, reality moves with the contents. This means there's a very big danger to existence itself and all this chaos makes it worse to deal with. (This segment made no sense at all after waking, but during the dream everything seemed to make sense; there were implied laws of reality that were taken for granted and the whole thing had a semi-mystical aspect to it)

10:15
Fragment:
(most of recall lost for needing to answer door)

In one bit, I'm this woman, a diver, and I'm coming out of some water into a house or apartment through the floor. It's night time or the house is dark, some lights are on. I'm sort of on the floor, tummy down. A TV is in front of me. I think to myself, "am I actually myself?" and then, just as I'm about to do a reality check with my hands, this other woman with curly hair comes out of a doorframe, smiles at me and we start talking. We know each other as characters. At this point I think to myself that I like her body. I still try to do the reality check, but because of the conversation and social setting, I end up not focusing enough on my reality check.

17th June 2021

Mostly going from end to start.

Dream (DFLN):

I'm in a city, I'm walking outside with MoonageDaydream, HumbleDreamer and another woman that I don't recognise or recall anymore.

The dream ends when we are walking down a hill on a paved bit. It's cobbles and it mostly follows the hill but becomes stairs at some points where there's too much incline. Just before, I'm thinking out loud about how it reminds me of my native country, thinking that it looks to have more buildings however. I am beside the unknown woman, possibly slightly from behind and touching her shoulders, "It's funny, I don't remember getting here" and then I look at my right hand and begin counting the fingers from the back. The count seems normal at a glance but I feel self-conscious trying this RC in public. I think about M/M themes in this city but nothing manifests or changes.

It's about near sunset and there's a sea visible from this hill. I start thinking about an airport and the name of the town, feeling dumb for not remembering and then I wake up.

Just before this part, the four of us were crossing a road. It's a busy place and there are loads of people (or so it feels). We're somewhere in the USA supposedly and people are generally amused by my presence, seeming to think I'm British despite having no such accent. We have just come out of a store and as we cross this road with crossing island, I think about how there's Covid but nobody is wearing any face coverings. I also think to myself about how I've had my first jab, on my right art. (In reality I haven't yet)

HumbleDreamer seems moody or perhaps overly serious for most of the walking around, but he doesn't really act that way. I am afraid that I have done something to upset him. At one point he says he got here from France and there's a segment where he's making a video for YouTube in a mostly white room, I forget what about.

Back to the store, it's like an airport shop come to think of it. It's very generic and enclosed, at the end of a corridor. People interact with me and the group and this is the main reason I end up thinking about Covid. The person behind the till, a white middle-aged American woman, with short hair, kisses my hand or something and another woman offers a bite of a pizza slice to the group but we decline politely. Just before we get to the till, I'm talking to the unknown woman about snacks and such and how they're much cheaper here, because we saw a vending machine in the corridor leading to the shop. It's dark in the corridor except for some strong hue lights, reds and greens mostly. The drinks are like little cartons of apple juice and so on and cost about thirty cents, making me think I could buy about three or four versus the cost that I'm used to. The snacks are mostly potato stuff.

We talk about how there's not a lot of importing around here, for some reason.

Before the corridor and some dark halls, we are in a church yard of some kind. It's all mostly paved, gritty or gravel. There's a dry fountain in the middle, made of stone? It's MoonageDaydream's school workplace apparently. We came all the way here from wherever we came from to give her a donation, but I'd forgotten my hundred and twenty five dollars that I was to give her. I fear the group is disappointed with me but suspect MoonageDaydream is fine with it. I decide to give it to her as soon as I can.

The church/school building itself is very grey and looks a bit like Gaudi's style, very bulbous and round shapes and some mini spires. I remark on this and comment on how it must be Spanish in origin, therefore. The outside of the building has a render made up with large smooth stones that can fit in a hand's palm. I talk about the building style with the group but I don't recall their comments.

There was more recall but I felt too tired writing my initial notes.

---

Notes:

- When I woke up, I thought about how some of my conclusions during the dream were a bit hasty and I thought about how I could have become lucid at the end.
-- In a way, it's unusual that I thought about how I got there, I just found myself trying to think of the trip there and the airport and finding I couldn't remember, partly attributing it to tiredness from the trip.

- Unlike the other dream where I'd only heard MoonageDaydream, in this dream I could see her and HumbleDreamer clearly. Their details as characters seemed accurate to how I remember their profile pictures here.

Really bad headache last night, but had some semi-lucid dream as I fell asleep. Haven't been making note of dreams very much in the last few days on account of going through a phase of being too tired on waking and too many mornings having their routines disrupted.

Edit: Somehow nearly forgot an important detail here; While I was in bed trying to fall asleep I did try to incubate dreams about working on my paintings again, my thoughts on this passed fairly early on and I got distracted with other thoughts, getting somewhat vivid music and other sleep cues instead but I suppose the lucid dream did relate directly to the incubation intent. I thought I'd try working on the incubation anyway because of my headache, and it did help to distract me from it.

---

Lucid fragment (on falling asleep):

I didn't notice the transition from wakefulness to dream imagery but I was in a bigger version of our front room. It was day time, my paints and the table I keep them on were there and I remember the big window. I don't think the canvas I've been working on was there. I half realised I was dreaming and walked or ran forward into the room, towards the opposite wall, which is a corner where I keep a bunch of my stuff for painting, but in the dream context it's like there would be a door there or something, even though I couldn't see it yet; I carried out some hand checks as I moved even though I was already in a type of lucidity but the stability started to go pretty quickly and I lost my half-lucid state. Sort of faded away in terms of recall after that.

The only thing I remember after that is a gap of nothingness and then some dreams from the morning, that again I didn't turn into notes.

Non-dream stuff - Woke up at around 8, not recalling any dreams apart from a very vague visual fragment, lost it and decided to sleep more, waking up again around 9 recalling a single long-ish non-lucid.

---

Dream:
Me and my partner (H) arrived by car at some pizza restaurant; I remember H backed up to park near the building, but he was parking towards some plastic tables and chairs. He was aware of them and stopped a couple of inches away from them. There was a small bump noise and when I got out there was a waitress from the restaurant asking "is everything ok?" and I looked closely at the chairs/bumper and said to her it was all fine, and she accepted it.

It was night time... H was going to sit outside (unlikely) and I was going to order the pizzas, in the dream it was implied we usually did it the other way around; I walked through the entrance doorway, which had no door as I remember. It was a dimly lit restaurant (probably contextual residue that far too many bloody restaurants are now, I'd like to see what I'm eating) and I walked towards the counter to make our order.

There was a guy at the counter and a waitress on my side and she said she'd take my order; she looked happy and not just for the job, she just seemed happy. I said I wanted two pizzas, one would be the bacon and cheese melt or something (for my partner) and she said "oh I'm sorry but that will be double because of (?)"; she then showed me a menu trying to explain why, because in the dream memory this was implied to be new at the restaurant. She explained they were changing how some pricings worked and that all the outside was going to be reworked by AI over the next few days. We concluded the pizza I was ordering would still be the same price (9 something came into my head in the dream but no figures were spoken). She said OK and I said the next pizza would be with "some (?), cheese and some onion", thinking that I would like something salad-y with or on it. As if she knew exactly what I was thinking, she asked if I wanted some rocket lettuce or something but she said that I couldn't have any because they were out, so very oddly the choices instead of that were some sort of beetroots or cubes of lard... The stuff was all shown to me in the counter, which had become one of those with glass and the food in it (like at ice cream shops and sandwich bars).

I said it was fine and thanked her and all the while we were talking she kept getting distracted by her co-workers. One of the other guys was some German guy that came from Berlin on a plane which caught fire mid-flight and landed here. They even had some pictures on a wall of the survivors? Whatever the photos were, they made me accept the story.

Then I remembered to ask "oh, do I pay now or after?" and she said "uh, whichever". I said I'd pay now. But as I did, lots of people started entering the (previously) quiet restaurant. They sat at every possible table, as if on cue for something to happen. The waitress faced the counter and started talking to the guy over the counter I think.

I waited, starting to be a little annoyed by the fact it had taken this long to do the order (it felt like a long time). I looked around and I can't remember what happened (something did) but all of a sudden everyone was singing roughly and half were clapping in a slow rhythm. I joined in the clapping and then shortly after, two people started chasing each other and the clapping stopped a moment after, but then they stopped chasing each other and sat back down.

As all the clapping and clamour happened, more people were entering the restaurant, including H, who I could see clearly from a distance, head illuminated by a spotlight as he came in.

At the same time, the waitress next to me dropped all her clothes. I was still waiting to pay, I initially glanced at her naked body but then just looked over the counter, wondering when I was going to be able to just pay for the order; I also automatically performed a reality check with my left hand after she got naked. But unfortunately I concluded the amount of fingers to be correct and I didn't remember to test the solidness of the reality. I felt like I was right in the centre of view (more than the naked girl) and felt awkward doing my RC there. Nobody in the restaurant was shocked (I wasn't either) but she started laughing and saying something to someone on a table near me; she was facing the counter the whole time, so most of the restaurant would only see her backside, as I was to her right, and to her left was a wall. Something about the "AI works" came up again at some point.

I remember being outside again, and some sort of game-like thing happening (regarding organising of the outside layout with AI) but I can't remember in detail.

The dream ended soon after. I think I still have the lingering feeling of being annoyed by not being able to simply pay.

Fragment
I remembered a small fragment while writing the long dream, something about H wanting to buy or take a car overseas. I remember a weird wooden house place with triangle glass windows and very strange layouts. It was day.

---

Quite tired so I'll leave notes for now.

---

Scoring thus far:
+ Previous score: 42.5

+ This DJ entry score (breakdown below): 7.5
++ Recall a non-lucid fragment: 0.5
++ Recall a non-lucid dream: 1.0
++ Perform a reality check: 5.0
++ Buy/Purchase something: 1.0

= Total score thus far: 50.0

Note: Technically, this wasn't a dream. Not entirely sure why I felt like putting on the DJ. Last night I was listening to the OST from STRAFE through some old headphones (80s I think) I have which make me almost unable to hear/feel the room if no music is playing, and I just had my eyes closed while listening.

The soundtrack feels a bit "melancholic" to me in general, but others might not think of it that way. I wasn't trying to think of anything in particular and some imagery formed, though with little vividness, hardly any more vivid than regular imagination. Forgot some of the details, since this was last night before going to sleep.

I couldn't recall any actual dreams today, my focus on waking up wasn't in the right place and ironically I'd forgotten about intents last night.

---

As I was listening to second half of the OST, I had thoughts come and go of "darkness". Not vivid but dream-like imagery of being pulled down by my "dream" arm into pits - swarms of spiders and insects would appear and I wondered why it was that I could never have visualised a scene like this without feeling fear or horror in the past. Though the imagery wasn't strong, I still felt some disgust at some of the insects, particularly big ones.

This repeated itself in different ways a few times mixed with other passing thoughts I can't remember, related to the imagery. I remember thinking that this probably wasn't what I was "looking for" and thinking that it was interesting that a dream-like setting had formed.

Then as the soundtrack got into the last quarter the thoughts went sort of into the actual in-game area that the track would play in, though the imagery was still relatively weak vs an actual dream, I could sort of feel a dream-body and started remembering the black lizard from another of my DJ entries.
I started wanting to spot him but instead I realised that I was that lizard this time, seeing from first-person, but wearing a labcoat (which is one of my artificial dream-signs) and though I couldn't visualise clearly, I tried to do hand/finger reality checks; counting wasn't possible due to the low duration of physical memory and lack of "vision" - but passing my clawed fingers through my other hand's palm worked.

Though I was fully aware of the music being outside this and the fact that I was sitting on a chair, I felt it was important to try and do a RC to see if my mind would agree with what I was wanting to do. The place the "dream" body was in, was indeed dream-like, despite being awake.

As the music progressed I remember running through the halls of Athena (the in-game area) as if it were in the actual game, getting "deeper" into the area, "looking" down at my "dream" legs, noticing that they were scaly and black and that the feet were dinosaur-like, with 3 front claws and 1 rear claw or something like that; the in-game enemies were appearing and I attacked them with the claws I had and my large reptilian mouth, eating some of the smaller enemies and making particular note of all the blood that was showering from the enemies, just like it would in the game. I wondered, was this the darkness I was looking for? I concluded it wasn't. I tried to taste the blood but the sense wasn't strong enough since I could still feel my actual mouth too. I tried using the channeling effect from Warframe with my attacks but while this did disintegrate the enemies into energy, more seemed to appear from the dispersed energy.

As the music got to the last track I had on the list, which is the music for the final room in Athena, I realised I was standing where the boss would be. There was the player character down below in the chamber; he was autonomous and attacked the boss control room tower and shot towards me too, not penetrating the glass with the bullets. For some reason I taunted him by licking the glass, noticing the tongue to not be reptilian-like but being long, with somewhat better visuals than before. Then I remember breaking the glass and crawling down the wall as a lizard would and going for the player character and killing him; the hordes of enemies that were attacking him turned to me instead and I remember fighting them and soon after the music ended and the imagery ended, as if I'd" woken" up, despite having been "awake" the whole time.

Edit: Forgot to remove private entry checkbox, so changed that. (I sometimes check it so I don't post by accident when I'm sleepy and everything is half-typed ).

Edit2: Added a name to the title of the DJ entry so I can find it more easily when I'm looking for it.

Non-dream stuff - a couple of non-lucid fragments and small DILD lucid.

---

Dream fragment 1:
I was at a garden centre place and there was an old man that (in the dream) was a regular I came to talk to. Come to think of it he looked a bit like the kind of old man like the guy who delivers certain parcels to us. He was on a small step-ladder tending to some sort of plant colony on a pot. He was flipping a "plate" of dirt around, because of seeds or something. There were many terracotta plant pots displayed around this outside part of the garden centre, in a somewhat hectic manner, but that seems to be how it tends to be in waking life too.

Dream fragment 2:

I remember playing a game, like Path of Exile, and I remember seeing the screen. Some monsters from another game such as Monster Hunter appeared and I didn't make note of that fact. But then I got a lot of oddly lucky item drops, and the character (or my dream self?) said something odd and I remembered to do a RC as I've been getting used to doing every so often while I'm on the computer too.

I held up my hands with my palms facing me, partially blocking the screen and I realised I was dreaming because my right hand's fingers were missing segments. It felt like I became too excited, as with other times, and the dream quickly destabilised, but I also made particular note of being too aware of the waking world environment at the same time that the dream visual detail was getting lost. I tried spinning, and doing something with my hands, and also produced a chocolate bar (that I could no longer see) and tried eating that; it did taste somewhat of chocolate, though I'm not certain if it was dark or not, but the dream faded anyway.

---

Notes:

• Before I went to sleep the last night, I remembered I haven't been setting an intention properly for dreaming lately.
• I initially set an intention that I might lucid dream and reminded myself that I could do it; then I realised that there was something wrong about the way I set my intention but did it again and it felt different.
• Despite not being able to see the chocolate bar, I know it was a Cadbury's chocolate bar, because I could still "see" the purple wrapper, even though I couldn't see.
• After waking up I did a RC and when I came to write this DJ entry I did a few more too. I tend to always RC in the morning.
• I may have lost some detail on the memory of the dreams overall because between looking after my partner's dad's yowly cat and needing to use the bathroom desperately, it was being a bit difficult to hang on to the memories.