First Dream I don't remember much but I remember a Asian man,who was famous in the dream, told me to get in the picture. But the photographer didn't want me in it so I stayed to the side and told him I was o.k.. Second Dream At first I was with my grandma at the supermarket, helping her shop for things. Than I was inside a school with escalators. I started looking for my younger brother but they said he left. So I tried going down the escalators but noticed that I had shrunk. I waited till I grew bigger than jumped. Suddenly the escalator looked like a bungee jumping hammock. I tried to get pass it but a random girl Dc kept telling me to move. So I beat her up. Before I knew it the scenery changed to my house and there was a person knocked out on the floor with the head of a electronic. I ran outside but i was getting slower. As I dodged people and random people playing melon ball I went up the hill. I went with a boy and started singing to change the scenery. It turned to sunset but than to night really quickly. The last thing I saw was a crowd and a anime doctor talking about a bald patient he had. Third Dream My family was around me talking to each other inside our house. I knew I was in a dream and did some exploring but so suddenly a character grew violent. It was a little boy or little girl. I recall trying to call Dawn from downstairs. I ran down when I saw no one and kept calling till he appeared. But he had a evil smile on his face. I tried to run in the bathroom but I was being pulled out.But I was able to get away with my slow running. Dawn was distracted by three starbursts he thought I saved for him.I felt the dream mood slowly influencing me so I went out the window and jumped off the balcony. The scenery was really different this time. The house I came out of now looked like a church building and I was on a smooth stone platform that kept me above the huge body of water in front of me. I noticed my family around and decided to ask what kind of dream this was. My dad laughed and said "This is a movie". I was offended and said I didn't want to think of it like that. I asked again, "What does this dream represent or show me?". My mom walked up to me and showed me to the front of the water which looked like the dirty ocean or lake. She said it was a dream that taught me how to escape from danger. I started floating and held onto a black rock to keep myself from falling into the dirty water. As I was floating through the water and around my mom told me that back in history people used to use a ignite or igneous rocks to escape from danger in the Hudson river. She said they would quickly jump on the floating rocks to safety. I was intrigued by that dream fact and noticed my rock was gone. I did my best to float about the dirty water. I saw leaves and shadows of something in the water. I found it even creepier when I heard a chorus humming like there was mystery in the setting. I tried to hold onto a canoe front of me but the dream changed super fast. I woke up in the dream in a school and the teacher was asking us what we had a dream about. A girl said a dream about a vacuum cleaner. Than I rose my hand to answer and the teacher called on me. I said "I had a dream I asked the characters what the dream mean't and my dad said it was a movie. Than my mom told me it was a dream lesson of how to escape from danger. She also told me that people used igneous rocks to escape from danger'. The teacher was happy with my answer and told me that she knew my dream characters were interesting. Than a guy answered saying he had a dream he was trying to vacuum his house at a speed of 10,000. I felt thirsty and went to the water fountain in the room to drink water. But found myself throwing up some dirty ocean water from my mouth instead. I was surprised and told my teacher I was throwing up mud. Than tried to clean my mouth with clean water from the fountain and woke up.
Updated 09-18-2014 at 01:04 PM by 67570
This dream was long, not very vivid, and pretty glitchy, but stuck to the higher levels of lucidity for me. Anyways, I recall being on a small tropical island. There is a large mountain made of a tan-colored rock in the middle and a wavy coastline of coves and peninsulas circling the island. There are a large number of palm trees, of course. The sky is clear and the sun is coming down on us, but the sky had this kind of yucky yellow tint. I am sitting on the beach, talking with Manei about many different things. I can't recall most of them, but I remember (and this is very strange) one of us was talking about programming an MMORPG game, something like World of Warcraft, and we were talking about the creatures that you could mount on in the game. The only mount was this huge eagle, like the ones from LOTR. But the creature has customization. You can change different aspects of it such as the wings and the head to make it look more like a dragon or another creature, but no matter what you do the graphic model is the same and the mount always looks like a bird. I can recall this one option for the creature that makes the wings look distressed. Some of the bird's feathers will be missing. This is supposed to be a very rare option to unlock. At this point, one of the large bird creatures comes down and lands on a large rock on the island. It has the distressed wings and looks like some kind of zombie or demon because of the other options that have been picked. ... I tell Manei I want to explore the island. It seems rather small. So I start flying, but hover no more than a foot or two across the ground, and float along the beach attempting to circle the island. ... The dream glitched and I recall telling her that I was leaving to explore the island, and actually leaving twice. The second time I nearly circled the entire island. I recall there being another, smaller island offshore that I wanted to go to. I also recall looking in the water. There were thousands of these smooth brown round stones just out past the shore. Each one was about two inches across. They all looked the same. For some reason, I thought that they were actually eggs of some kind. I also recall there were huge wooden chairs on the island. They looked like sculptures that somebody had built out of fallen trees and bamboo found on the island, and tied together with vines and grasses. Some of them were overgrown by other plant life and collapsed, or had sunk into the beach due to erosion. ... Just as I was going back to ask Manei about the giant chairs and what they meant a huge dream glitch occurred. I was now in a completely different location. There was a huge home made out of dark red bricks in front of me. The front end of the home was built into the top of a steep hillside. Manei followed me through to the new dream. Marcus was there. (Hey, long time no see...) and he seemed thrilled to see me. He told me that this was his latest work. It was a dream house for me and all of my dream characters to live in. He told me that he has a tour all planned out and wants to show me everything the house has to offer. So we follow him in. The front room goes through two floors and doesn't seem to be decorated at all. It also feels like the front room of my grandparent's house. Marcus states that he isn't quite done building the house and the interior still needs some work. He then states that the house has (between 4 and 8, cannot recall now. I think it was 4 at the time, but was supposed to be 8 in the future) robot butlers. One of them is in the front room and it looks as though he is getting ready to paint it. There are a couple of human workers in here too. He then shows me the kitchen. It is huge, with a walk-in pantry and refrigerator. It feels like my friend K's kitchen. He says that there are three floors above this and five floors below this. (it was a huge house.) Marcus then took us downstairs. There was a huge three-story deep room here. There were two levels of walkways circling around a huge multilevel courtyard. On each of the three levels there are ten doors. He states that this area allows room for thirty people to each have their own private bedroom and bathroom. I ask him if perhaps this is a bit much, given I only have three two recurring dream characters and they are both right here. Perhaps a more modest dwelling would suit us better. He doesn't really respond. We actually get into a bit of a scuffle here. I tell him that having such a huge house is wasteful. He tells me that this is just a dream and there is no such thing as wasteful. Well I suppose the only way it could be more wasteful is if we didn't live in the space. I see where there must have been an error with construction. There is a place where the walkway doesn't connect and some of the bedroom doors open out over nothing. I use dream control to construct the part of the walkway. Marcus thanks me. We continue downwards. There is a saltwater pool down here, and the room lets out onto the lower side of the hill where outside there is another pool. There are two hot tubs, one outside and one inside. There is also a sauna. The entire room is covered in tiles save for one corner, where a robot butler is hard at work tiling the wall. This one is actually wearing a butler's clothes and I think that it looks funny. Marcus tells me that the bottom most floor is where the laundry room is, along with most of the utilities, and that the robot butlers work down there. Then I see that my parents are swimming in the pool there. I 'remember' that they are visiting to see where I am living. My dad gets out of the water and stands next to me. He starts giving me this big grumpy lecture about living on my own and being responsible. I just ignore him, because I really didn't get enough of that in WL. ... Yet another dream glitch. We are back at the front of the house. I notice three very sporty looking cars parked in the drive. One of them has large wheels, no top and is black. Another is a large white hummer limo. And the last one is a sports car that was either orange or yellow. There were a couple other massive houses nearby, some even dwarfing mine. I recall one made out of tan bricks next door. I recall there is a stepped waterfall running between the two houses that leads into the outdoor swimming pool on the low side of the hill. ... The rest of the tour happens very fast. I almost feel as though the information is being 'downloaded' into my memory. I see flashes and am bombarded with loads of information before waking up. Basically: Spoiler for Giant House Recap: Basement level: Utilities, Robot Butler housing unit in a sealed room that won't let anybody besides Marcus or the Robots in. There is also a bunker down here. 1st Floor: Tiled room with saltwater pool and hot tub leads out onto the low side of the house where there is a large outdoor pool and another hot tub. There is also a gazebo, outdoor kitchen, and a small zen garden. I think there was a gaming room, but I did not get to see it. 2nd-4th Floors: Each floor has ten bedrooms connected to a private bathroom. 5th Floor: Main entry room, Kitchen and dining room with walk in pantry, fridge, main bathroom. There is also a balcony connected to the kitchen and a living room with a huge TV. 6th Floor: Library, Computer room, Second Living Room, Two more bathrooms. 7th Floor: This is Marcus' private floor, there is only one stairwell that leads up to the top floor that is not private. The rest of the floor has a master bedroom, master bathroom, private library/study, miniature kitchen, and a workshop. 8th floor (Attic): Parts of the roof have skylights, making a green house. There is also a part of the roof that can open revealing a pair of helicopter landing pads. There is even a small radio room for an air controller to work in. The house has a garage that I do not recall seeing with a bunch of high-end cars for us. One of the cars, cannot recall what it looked like was for me. There were two elevators in the house that I did not see before, running from the second to seventh floor.
Yepp - now I promised it mainly to myself in the title - and so I'm going to do it! Helps me to announce things, makes me feel inconsequential and lazy, if I don't then. Would be stupid to let it out for a third day after having gained wiiinx and even bonus ToTM after session #1. This night it's going to be working an my dares again! And no watching telly before going to bed... Last night. Well. I've been watching three episodes of Sherlock with my sick husband, who is meanwhile addicted to the series - same as I am. Last one was The Hound of Baskerville - and believe it or not, me, who is usually so happy about reporting no classical nightmares - I had a nasty one. Several actually, after the below I had another one with an "unholy" creature. The first was not directly connected to the episode, it was about aliens hiding in human bodies, and it was hard to discern who is who, and I was hunting them between them hunting me. What was great was that in one scene, I was swimming like a world-champion, faster and faster - and in another I was running after these aliens, hunting, and I was soo fast - was really like in a movie, where somebody is a superhero or something. Could have made me lucid, since I marvelled at my abilities and didn't produce an in-dream explanation, except that it was important to catch them before they would infest the world by breaking out of a research facility. The weird thing was, that I later on dreamt, I would be lying down to sleep, problem still not completely under control, but I did lie down for some reason, to rest. Then I dreamt, I would start getting nightmares and wanted to stop falling asleep, which didn't work. That was not at home, I fought against sleep in a side-room of a lab. So what I was aware of was sleeping in a dream, believing that waking up would put me back in that side-room. So it wasn't lucidity as such, weird phenomenon... Then suddenly I knew, I was in my room, and that my husband was in the room next door, and still I fought against sleep. I got my eyes open, I think, but what I saw was a very threatening darkness with an inexplicably malign presence. Man I was soo afraid, seriously terrified, I was feeling "sure", there were evil entities hidden in the darkness, viscerally sure. I was sufficiently awake, that the idea of SP crossed my mind, but it didn't even help against the fear to finally intellectually understand, that it was indeed SP. So then I tried moving, esp. shouting for my husband - with that I broke it after a little more terrified struggling. I went to the toilet, and suddenly I thought it frightening, that he would never hear me, he doesn't hear me when I shout full out over in my room, once he's on his re-breather and sleeping. I was somehow still feeling endangered by the rest of my sleep - reason didn't really help a lot, even when fully awake and in the light. After calming down a bit - I thought okay - you've been "hoping" for SP when trying to WILD - so go ahead and try that. I could stand it maybe only one minute. Closing my eyes and letting go brought this menacing "living" darkness back, I almost couldn't take it. And then that blasted Hound turned up - in the series it's a hallucinogen, which enhances imagination which produces the effect, one sees a monster in a real dog etc. Well - it didn't help to know it was an illusion, that even the inspiration had been such. I put the light back on and wandered about a bit, before daring to lose waking consciousness again - all the while scolding myself for being irrational. I can only shiver when I think of such an experience on the basis of actually believing in the supernatural, thank goodness I don't. What a shame, if I were a bit less of a coward, I believe I could indeed have made a re-entry of some sort into that state, maybe because I was somehow still in REM mode. Na well - as said, this is maximally unusual for me, maybe next time with some practice..? But, but... Anyway - nice demonstration that in a sleepy state, reason loses against instinct and with a vengeance. And also nice demonstration, that knowing that I sleep in some sense, in a nightmare, and actively fighting for wakefulness does propel me into a "body still asleep" in SP. Makes sense. Last time I had that in such an intensity was almost 20 years ago, trying to wake up from my first adult lucid dream/nightmare - other story. How come I was able to know, I was dreaming, but not in the least thinking about staying and doing something with it? Well - all that I wanted was getting the hell away and out of it as far as possible...
.../I'm taking the trash out when it starts playing in the background the D.R.I. song "Enemy Within". I start thinking to myself that when I was a kid, I pretty much liked the music style but I've never paid attention enough to the whole lyrics, and start wondering about what exactly it says. When I see an unfriendly guy walking in the opposite direction. I suspect he's the guy who's ruining the place and notice he's trying to be dauntingly hostile with me, that pisses me off. I push him back, hold him from the head and take him to have a walk on an abandoned place to teach him some good manners. I'm walking through a street passage, when I want to squeeze his head against the wall, I notice this feeling could be a dream sign, then I realize that I have no body, it's just like I'm visualizing all of it!I focus on walking and start paying more attention to my surroundings. I feel like I'm holding a long branch in stead of the guy, I can hear how I drag it on the ground. Slowly I start to feel my body in the dream while I slowly walk. Yeah! I feel the weight of the branch and lift it to my front to see it's a leather jacket. I put it on, completely amazed of how I entered the dream this time. I'm in the middle of an abandoned yard of a country side house in ruins. There's no roof, and just the walls stand around. Some vegetation has grown here and there. It's illuminated like there's street lighting around but I don't see any source of light. My sex drive starts to take over. I don't have idea about what could I do, but I feel excited about the possibilities. I see my shadow is blurry and turning into a female shape taking a shower. As a first step, I decide to take off my clothes which are pretty close to that in my profile picture. When I'm starting to loosen my pants, crossing a doorframe, I see my shoes and I remember the related TOTM. I think I'll find a pair of shoes in the next space. Crossing the doorframe, I turn to my right and see a pair of velcro shoes, for men this time, next to a waterway. I don't waste my time and sit next to them to take mine out. I start with my right foot and just pull the shoe out. The laces just follow the motion, like it was not tied. I do the same with the left foot and see that the laces seem to be tied around my ankle again. I just pull it harder and goes out with no problem. I put the velcro shoes on and stand up to see the tapes are not properly adjusted. A minor detail I think then I turn and start walking somewhere when I remember the Expecto Patronus task! I want to do this one since it seems to be pretty easy. I hold a stick from the ground thinking that it may work wood for a wand. point it to the front and say the words. I see a bit of smoke rising from the tip like it is an incense stick. I go to the next space and repeat it again more confidently. More smoke rises from the tip. The place is still empty, no animal, no bug, nothing. I turn and see inside a mirror hanging on the wall of what apparently was a room. I see a blurry reflection of me, and remember that I must feel specially happy to do this task. My first thought is sex! Ok, I think about the good feeling and say the words louder. My throat hurts a little. More smoke and I start looking around to see something, when I see the shadow of an eagle moving on the floor. I turn to the skies to see it, but it's a dark night sky. Then I hear it screeching, like it's flying away. I don't know if it counts but I decide to properly adjust my shoes when I start feeling the whole dream is fading. * Woke up after that.
Updated 09-18-2014 at 11:55 AM by 18736
Last night was my second SSILD attempt - plus I practiced ADA for second day- and I had an amazing LD, actually many lds chained with DEILD. In short, during SSILD I lost exact somatosensory senses, felt moving and I knew I was close... I drifted and then was in my bed again. Did a finger through Palm RC:+!! After some trial, I freed the rest of my body and was lucid with my family. Ate some strawberry chocolate (was delicious and very real in my mouth) passed through a wall, flew to the night stars and the scene fainted--in bed again. New RT:+ lifted again (and the same three more times until the end of my lucid) and tried sinking into the floor - went slowly one floor down (and my kid was there). Then (after drift+RT) asked a personal question to the dream. No answer but a strong pushing sensation (drift+RT) and through the wall again and outside running and flying over a road on the countryside. Thought about going to the great pyramid and after a while I saw it in the background. Flew towards there (discovered that flying towards a target works better) but it was far away. I was in a beautiful touristic location with many people. Run and parkoured down some path in the rocks and was at an attraction like a hollow pyramid or chimney. The great pyramid was far but I drifted again and this time REM was over: RT (-). Woke up very very happy. First lucid after 3 months of no lucidity!
Updated 01-20-2015 at 12:32 PM by 54186
00:00 Thursday 2014-09-18 way late to bed, around 1:45 or so, horrible! no night-time recording so dream times unknown. I'm woken by remee's 4.5 hour signal. At first it starts monochrome (as usual) but as I wake up I can start to perceive the red. I turn it off and go back to sleep. (early) + visit the old college rental house kitchen and back porch. In the kitchen, on the (very) cluttered floor I see an old cookpot of mine, I pick it up, it's recently been used to cook some oily pasta, I intend to take it with me. Walk to the cooktop and there's a 2nd refrigerator where the sink should be. Walk to the back porch where the 2nd refrigerator is supposed to be, and the floor is disgusting covered in garbage. I look down and see mice, rats, and even a squirrel scurrying around in the filth. I shake my foot at them several times to get them out of my way. Go to the refrigerator which is propped open and there is nasty rotten petrified food and bottles in there from 20 years ago. Transition to some scene with FG. (middle) + epic: playing Elite: Dangerous. I'm sitting at a computer playing the game, I'm dogfighting with a ship, I'm shooting my lasers at it, and afterwards I think I need to upgrade to beam lasers. I should fly to the "Harriet?" system because there are lots of gems there, I see little gems with HUD markers floating around, red, green, blue, but I must have a fuel scoop before I can pick up the gems. Walking down the hallway of the company that wrote E, I work there. My manager (old manager ToNeu from WL) is telling a woman to do something, I'm really tired and want to go home but have to work all night, ah, such is life in the high tech sector. Down at the end of the hallway is Dwight Schrute, he has received a new shipment of Cool Stuff, I can see the open box on the floor and a glowing light emanating from what's inside, he's looking down in to the box with anticipation. I join him and there are three donuts with various toppings/icings, one is like a hot dog with orange sauce, Dwight tells me the theory of which donut to eat/use in order to intimidate others. Heading towards the front door of the building to leave, I encounter Wa (R,N). We talk about golf, I complain about wilderness golf and the unpredictable rolls and obstacles, W understands. W tells me about his round where one guy got 2 holes in one in a row. W is telling me about the holes and I'm trying to remember which ones he's talking about, I picture the golf course in my mind. I turn around and a HUGE OCEAN WAVE is coming right towards us, it is taller than our heads by a little. We duck and manage to avoid it. A second wave is right behind it however and sweeps us towards the beach. I look to see if W made it out or is stuck in the water and I see him walking away on the beach. + in a car with important document, a huge pile of papers, I put the document on the seat next to me, it's dark, I see that my trunk has popped open somehow and I have to go close it before I can drive, but I realised I'm in my underwear and I don't want to go out, I'll have to get dressed first + I see a live computer diagnostic overlay of the internal systems in a car, the structure of the car in wireframe, the systems build on top of each other, I realize a car is a highly complex mechanism, who could possibly understand even the wheel/brake system? Look at all the systems there, even the wireframe for the front seat is complex. I see a computer diagnostic display of Dwight Schrute's head overlaid on top of his real head, focusing on the visual systems. Wireframe displays of the internal structure of the eye appear one after the other, I call them out as I see them: lens, retina, etc., (last) + I'm on a ship like a ferry boat, standing near the aft on near the water level, someone says something about how the bubbles from the wake of the ship break up the deeper they go (?). Vladimir Putin comes down from the bridge and accidentally meets the hijacker, they both stop dead in their tracks and consider each other for a while before continuing on their way. I rewing and consider some different possibilities, like Putin shooting the hijacker with a pistol instantly upon seeing him.
I’m living back at home. Douglas, my older brother, is too, for a short while at least. It’s late, like 2 or 3 or maybe even 4AM. I’m pacing the living room. Someone comes to the back door. I don’t know who it could be so late at night, especially since our back door is pretty isolated from the main road. I open the curtains, it’s a man I don’t know, older. I let him in. Douglas comes downstairs, probably to see what’s going on because the Man is attacking me now and looting the house. I don’t know why I let him in, maybe because he seemed so harmless... Douglas bursts into action, taking the Man on, they struggle. I grab something heavy and hit the Man over the head with it. He crumples and dies. Doug and I look at each other, eyes wide, then we both move in different directions looking for assorted items. I come back with a blanket, Doug has duct tape and cleaning supplies. We wrap up the body, and I clean up the blood. The doorbell rings. It’s the police. Ma comes downstairs in her night gown, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “What are you both doing up? Who’s at the door?” “It’s the police," I tell her. “Why are the police here?” She asks, moving to clasp the doorknob. “I don’t know,” I say, truthfully. They’re no way they know what just happened. Douglas and I look at the body still lying in the middle of the floor along with all the supplies used to clean up his mess. Obviously he can’t stay there, but what do we do with him? I pose this question out loud to Douglas. We both stare a moment longer, then he reaches down and lifts him up. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him. You hide everything else.” I nod, and grab all the cleaning supplies, running up to my room. I know its dumb hiding evidence in my room because that’s just going to incriminate me. But I don’t want Ma to get in trouble, so I think really hard about where I should hide everything. The closet? Too obvious. Under the bed? The same. In the bed? Now that’s an idea. No one ever thinks to hid evidence IN their bed so the cops won’t look there. I scamper over to my pillows and stuff the assorted items in between the insane number of plush pillows that cover my bed. Then I move around my room and straighten up as much as I can--neat people are less suspicious. I come back downstairs as mom finishes up talking with the police. They ask if they can come in do a routine sweep. Mom says ‘yes’ knowing that saying ‘no’ to a routine sweep would only bring more cops down on us, and as far as she knows, we have nothing to hide. They move through the rooms, slowly, and they don’t search with any sort of immediacy so they aren’t making a mess of things which I really appreciate. There are two of them and they wear all black with black motorcycle helmets pulled down over their heads so I can’t tell anything about them except that they look like they’re in shape. I have no idea what Douglas did with the body, only that he hid it somewhere in the garage. I probably would have tucked it up behind the water heater, but I suppose that's why Doug hid the body and I hid the cleaning supplies. The police move through the kitchen and through the garage and find nothing. For this, I am pleased. Next they go upstairs. They open the spare bedroom, it’s a bit of a mess, so they don’t bother going in. Then they search Ma’s room, nothing. Then they come to mine. They open the closest, look under the bed, nothing. I’m in the clear. They leave. Douglas and I regroup in the living room. “Now what do we do with the body?” I ask. “What body?” Mom asks, joining us in the middle of the room. “We get rid of it,” Doug says. “Go pop the trunk.”
Had a dream I was out doing something. In my grandmother's neighborhood, except everything looked different and people I know live there. It was really foresty. At one point I went to my friend's house. His yard was liked walled in and it had bushes all over the wall. Then his yard was sectored into 3, with privacy fences, but no actual gate, just an opening. in the middle sector was the entrance and all of them were foresty and there was an exit going down a path surrounded by vines, the right sector had his house which was also viny. his sister comes out and she says he isnt home so we just chill and talk, and im looking at stuff and get vines all over me, i brake free, though. Something happens, but I don't remember and now I'm in a car on an open road, a few trees line the road every now and then. I can't recall who was driving, either my mom or my friend, and my friend's sister was in the passenger seat with me in the back. Tornados start popping up, we drive past one real fast and it almost hit us, but then even more start popping up and there's tons. As we drive I'm like "I should do a RC" and I did, at first I thought it wasn't but I decided to try it out anyway. I think in my head "LIGHTNING BOLT!" but it doesn't work, no lightning came down, I look out the other window and try the same thing, but nothing, so I assume I'm NOT dreaming and fall out of lucidity. (I didn't want to yell out loud because I was worried I was wrong and look like an idiot shouting lightning bolt, and I didn't want to fly out the window--I thought about it, but once again I was worried that I was wrong) We dodge a few but eventually hit one, it sends us straight in the air and I held on for dear life, when we land (perfectly), the driver goes in reverse, I yell "NO! Stop, we'll hit another!" We do, and it sends us flying off the left side of the road, it was nuts and when we hit the ground I fell out with a regular chair, not an actual car chair. I set it down and suddenly I'm in my 6th period music class, and the class is a bandroom with all these chairs (like the one I had) in a circle, just like irl. I talk to someone but then I'm like "I need to find our car" I go around the chairs and there's a smashed up bugatti and that was our car, and then I woke up.