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I woke up in a bed in parents' bedroom. The house looked like in the old days, long before any renovations. I felt like going to toilet. I went through kitchen which looked just fine, then trough a hallway and to doors leading to small room (basement and attic access) before toilet. I opened doors and saw that attic hatch was open, violent streams of opaque pale blue water falling down. By the basement hatch I saw a ducts opening closed with grates, our dog, though zombified, desperately tried to get out of the ducts. It's body looked like that of a mummy, anger in it's eyes. I quickly closed doors and upon hearing my grandma saying "I'm done, toilet is free now!" I repoened them and let her pass, then finally got to the toilet. It looked horrible, the bathtub was moved to the middle of the room and looked really old. I sat on the toilet seat and thought "Wait, is that a dream?" I made a nose plug RC and confirmed that it was a dream, just when I finished what I started doing on the toilet seat. I looked around, and thought "Give me toilet paper." and it instantly appeared on a small shelf nearby. I finished everything and washed up hands, then thought "What should I do now?" when leaving the toilet. I went to kitchen and saw grandma sitting on a chair, somewhat sad. Then I got an idea and said in my mind "I know! I'll just make my grandma happy!". I started with tidying the house, waving my hands and everything tidied on a whim. Then I thought "Wait, I should wake up!", and so I did.

I was chased by an Alien (from the movie Alien), no doubt a result of playing "Alien: Isolation" a week ago. I remember running, together with other people, as it chased us through the countryside. I somehow remembered this happening before, as if I knew the plot of the dream before it had happened. I also remembered that it would chase me through a forest, and that we would then battle the beast in a sawmill of sorts. The final battle of the plot. I ran into the forest, and avoided the site of the sawmill. In another scene I fled from the beast in an industrial harbor, zigzagging between the legs of gigantic loading cranes. It was dark (night) and once again raining. Then we were in a supermarket, still being chased by the Alien. There were once again a few of us now. At one point I knew I could not escape, and the Alien would get me. I kind of "gave up" and turned around instead to face the beast. When it approached, I attacked it instead. I gave it a good whack in the head. Then, I had its head in my grip. I held its mouth (which looked more like a bird's beak than an Alien's mouth) with both hands to keep it from biting. As long as I could hold it like this, it was restrained. The other people showed up. One of them was a giant, who made it clear he would fight the beast to keep it distracted. We made a run for it. I ran out of the supermarket, back into the rainy night. I ran as fast as I could, towards two people who were just getting into their car. They turned out to be former colleagues. I pretty much begged them for a ride, and they agreed. They completely failed to see the reason for my panic. I tried telling them, but they just ignored my warnings... like stupid characters in a horror movie. I told them that if they saw something weird on the road ahead, to definitely NOT stop the car. I somehow knew I was in a horror movie, and I was afraid all the cliche tropes would actually happen. I was even afraid one of the men would turn out to be body-snatched by the monsters or something. While they drove away from the harbor (taking their time, much to my annoyance), one of them asked where my car was, and said he would never want to sit in a car like mine. I used to drive a crappy 1990 Opel Corsa (and clearly subconsciously feel insecure about that). We kept driving, and they kept talking. Much to my surprise, it looked like we were actually going to get away! I chose to end the dream there, as I was afraid that in the next chapter (!) the beast would show up again.

In the next dream, I was inside a wax factory. I think I worked there, in a pretty high function. I remember taking a bite from a honeycomb. There were other employees in the warehouse with me. Later in in the dream, I was in an office upstairs (overlooking the factory through a large window). Night had fallen, and the other employees had gone home. I was there alone. There was something I needed to do downstairs in the warehouse... but something felt wrong. I again "knew" I was in a horror story and this was going to be the first time I run into the monster (not the Alien this time). I do recall a monster from later in the dream, a beast that looked very different from the Alien, but still scary.

There was a crazy (sick) girl who attacked me with a knife (in an underground lab?). I used my sword, which kind of functioned as a lightsaber (it lights up a second after drawing it). I hacked her in the neck, but there was barely any blood, and she didn't even flinch. She didn't stop coming at me, and appeared not to feel pain. I injured my hand slightly, because she attacked with a knife. The dream ended mid-battle. I know there was a guy behind the whole thing, he had done something to her, drugged her or something. Another woman had lured me down there and trapped me with the sick girl (hoping she would attack me).

Somebody handed me a letter, written by an aunt (?) in Texas. It contained euros and a written note. I speculated it was intended for different person with my name, I decided to find him.

Third dream I forgot.

I was going on a solo trip to London. When I went, I got a facebook message from a friend's dad asking me that I pranked an old bar in London by painting it green. It is red.

I got to the bar, and spent the whole night trying to figure out escape routes and strategies, but never actually managed to start painting it even though I had the supplies in my hands.

...And the secret was getting 7.75 hours of sleep, apparently. I'm going to try and continue this trend. Regardless of how intense the week is, I will do my best to get enough sleep on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Which, for me, will be hugely beneficial I think.

So here's a list of all the many dreams I have recalled from last night:

Dream 1: Non-lucid; experienced during first 20 minutes of sleep. I fell asleep at roughly 12:10 AM, and had a dream about hanging out with my sister, my brother or friend (I think?), and a friend of my sister's. My sister went to use the bathroom, and the other guy I was with was talking with me and her friend. We were talking about her, but I don't precisely remember what we were talking about specifically. When she finished using the bathroom, she came out and said "You know I heard you while I was in there", because IRL my sister really does have good hearing. So maybe it was something embarrassing, but I don't really know for sure. I woke up and it was only 12:32 AM, so my brain had apparently launched me pretty quickly into REM again for some reason.

Dream 2: Non-lucid, but very close to lucidity. Good vs. evil! A giant snake was trying to kill me and two other people. However, my stuffed snake, Snakey, my tulpa, and I were destined to save us all! (I actually do have a stuffed snake, and he is actually named Snakey. He is the coolest. However, he is at my parent's house right now. :p In the dream, he had become real.) We prayed that we would be able to triumph over the snake. Then, we felt like we should just will it away, because -- get this -- we recognized that it was only in our heads and wasn't actually real. This one was SO CLOSE to being lucid, because of that realization, but not quite! We willed it away, and it worked!

Dream 3: Non-lucid. This is a fuzzier dream that I experienced during what felt like deeper sleep. Arguably it would've been significantly harder to become lucid during this one because of this fact. This one occurred in the middle of the night, if I recall correctly. IRL, I work part-time as a computer science TA at my university, helping students debug Java and Android programs. In this dream, the other TAs and I apparently "did not want to stop believing OR coding". I believe some malevolent individual was trying to get us to stop believing in God or something and also stop programming. Someone said that he would kill us all if we didn't do this. He had an army of supporters to back him up. Then, it faded and we were in a theme park. I dream a LOT about theme parks. Anyway, we were on the rides, but I was watching from a distance despite being on a ride technically myself. (?) Some of my fellow TAs were riding on a white roller coaster. The evil guy's plan was to hack into all the rides while we we're still on them, and somehow harm us. Maybe shut them down. I don't really know. I was worried for the others. Then, it faded again, and we were on a revolving turntable, much like the turntable by the roundhouse in Thomas the Train, but indoor and stark and depressing. I got onto it, and the evil guys had surrounded us. However, I somehow knew that we were going to be safe, and we were saved. I don't remember how.

Dream 4: Non-lucid. I was in a lecture hall of some sort for artists. The lady teaching was trying to tell us that 3D artists should NOT learn to draw or digitally paint, because apparently it would actually make us worse, since it would take time away from learning how to model and render a scene. I was really ticked because I definitely disagree with that philosophy, and I believe that the general 3D community would agree with me.

Dream 5: The DILD! Sort of. I didn't have a specific reality check that worked this time. But when I sleep 8 hours or close to it, my body starts waking up more and more as my actual wakeup time approaches. I will often physically wake up to use the bathroom or get a drink of water, and then go back to sleep for a while longer. This is the most natural thing for me. As I do this, I have more and more dreams, and more and more REM sleep. Then, I am much more likely to recall dreams, and also much more likely to become lucid. Hard work pays off, guys!

First, I was on the internet. Some girl said that she had recently had a week-long paid internship with Disney, where they were basically paid to ride rides all day long. They were supposed to observe the culture of theme parks, or something. Then, I suddenly found myself on a cart or truck thing going to a theme park. It was presumably Disney, but there were a lot of rides that Disney definitely doesn't have IRL. All these other people were on the truck, too, but they were official interns and wore brown vests. I was there, but I didn't have a vest, so apparently I wasn't an official intern. I was worried I'd get in trouble for being on the truck despite not being officially hired, and wasn't sure how I even got there in the first place. My mom and my brother were there, too. And neither of them had vests. I went to go sit by my mom, but as I sat down beside her, she disappeared. I felt that she was still there, but had no idea why she had just randomly become invisible. Also, the seats were tiny, so my butt barely fit on them. We were in the back of the truck, in the open air with just a pavilion thing over us. So if it would have been raining, we would've been sheltered, but we still got fresh air.

We kept riding in the truck, looking at the rides that we would soon ride. I then realized that I was dreaming, because Disneyland does not look like that IRL. Too many thrill rides. Well, that and my mom randomly disappearing.

So I sat by my brother, and told him, "I think we're in a dream right now." And he said something like "We definitely could be. Is everything out of focus?" I said that yes, everything most certainly was out of focus. So he said that it probably was a dream. Suddenly, instead of being inside of a truck, it was just me and him and the (inferred) driver inside of an SUV or a Jeep Cherokee or something, and there were suddenly windows. So I clambered out the window, which was partially rolled down, and flew towards one of the rides!

It was a water ride with boats that looked like Perilous Plunge, an old ride from Knott's Berry Farm that I never actually went on. It went inside of a brown artificial mountain, and it was super cool. But just as I was about to reach a boat to get on it, I woke up. D: NOOOOOO!

The dream was still fuzzy, too. I wish it was more vivid, but mentally I was so close to awakening that I did accidentally wake myself up. -_-

Also, my notes read "still had sizzle". Nope, no idea what I meant by that. o.o

Dream 6: I tried to re-enter the previous dream, but to no avail. I do have a note that said "she knew I wanted it lol." Don't recall what that means, but I can guarantee you that it was not appropriate.

Dream 7: I had a dream. There may have been a girl but I can't really read my notes. This was more like a fragment. My alarm woke me up before I could get any further.

And that's it.

Ritual: WTB around 2am. Drank a lot of wine last night, so woke up many times to rehydrate. Just before dawn I felt the slightly anxious insomnia that often helps me get lucid, so I decided to confirm my intention with a little piracetam. For years I've been trying to come up with a good dream mantra/affirmation but never found one that stuck. Since I got lucid in a recent dream from seing the word "awaken" I decided to start with that. I wanted it to be longer and have good rhythm, so I tried "Awaken into (seeing) dream," where the word in parenthesis could be varied with any other two-syllable verb with the emphasis on the first syllable: seeing, hearing, feeling, being, dreaming, etc. I liked the versatility and hoped the variations would help keep my mind active. It seems this mantra was actually successful because it was still going through my mind well after the dream had started, although, curiously, the words had changed (see below).

WILD, "No Snow for Sledding": The transition was very smooth, and I think the mantra actually served as a good anchor this time. At one point I was inspired to see if I could move my dream limbs, and felt that familiar ambiguity about whether it was dream movement or real movement. I was 65% sure it was dream, so I kept at it until I gently 'flumpfed' in a loose heap right off the bottom of the bed, and then I knew for certain. This dream version of my bedroom was remarkably accurate to WL.

I was crawling at first, and from that low perspective had a good view of my two cats. They looked a little different—shorter hair I think—but I could still tell them apart. Dream logic made me wonder if I could somehow better communicate with my anxious cat in a dream. I crawled over to her and put my hands on her head, reaching toward her with gentle thoughts and telling her that she didn't need to be so anxious. It didn't work: she bit my hand! After that she went into the hallway where I was surprised to see our older cat chase her, an inversion of their usual relationship. I moved toward them and noticed a third animal, a remarkably lifelike grey squirrel—even more vividly rendered than the two cats. [Source: I had recently remarked to my husband how odd it was that I had never seen any squirrels near our house here, but he said that he had. Then just two days ago I glimpsed a grey squirrel outside.]

I thought I had better remove the squirrel from the house, so I picked it up by the scruff of the neck—it was so realistic I thought I had better handle it carefully lest I get bitten again. I peered down to it, wondering if it might have anything to say (this being a dream and all), but no, it just twitched its nose like a regular squirrel. So I opened the window on my side of the bed, the place where in WL I toss out the miscellaneous bugs that stray into the house, and tossed it out.

Around this point I noticed that my mantra was still going through my head, though slightly changed from what it had been as I fell asleep. It had taken the form: "Awaken, dreamer, I am dream." It occurred to me that once I was already lucid, the word "awaken" was no longer useful, and in fact might be detrimental. I thought about how the meaning of the word depended on its context: from non-lucid sleep one can "awaken" into lucidity, but from a state of lucidity, to "awaken" is to wake up. With the precarious thought of waking I felt the dream begin to destabilized, and hastily altered the mantra to: "Dream on, dreamer, I am dream." I managed to restabilize, and with the natural musicality of dream found myself adding a bit of melody to the words.

After this my thoughts turned to more practical ends. Wasn't there a task I wanted to do? Right, the sled ride. I thought over the details. I would need to sled down from the top of a snowy mountain and then through a crack in the earth into... who knows? Finding out would be the fun part. It was snowy outside, like it is in WL, so I thought that would make a good start. I just needed to go outside and find a sled and a mountain.

I opened the window again to fly out, but now there was a pane of what felt like transparent plastic covering the opening. I was annoyed because even in WL this is one of the few windows in the house that has no screen, so there should not be anything barring my passing. I decided to shatter the barrier with my mind, concentrated, and... nothing happened. Disappointed that I could not resolve this more stylishly, I manually peeled aside the flexible plastic panel and slipped out onto the lower roof. (This part was not quite accurate to WL: although there is a sloping side of another roof to the left, there is no level area just below the window where one could stand.)

I willed myself to fly, but nothing happened initially. I kept focusing until I began to float up and across the yard. There were a lot of random pavilions scattered below, and I reminded myself to be observant so I would remember the details later. I flew over to the roof of a small outbuilding—the environment no longer bore any resemblance to WL—where I found two sleds. One was child-sized, the other larger, and I noticed approvingly that they were the old fashioned kind on runners, much easier to control than round saucer sleds.

I picked up the larger sled and looked it over. The details were wonderfully vivid: it had a painted metal superstructure consisting of thin round bars painted white, and flat wide bars painted green. These encircled a small rectangular seat of heavily aged and distressed wood. I noticed an odd detail in the very center of the sled, a transparent glass sphere about four inches in diameter, half full of water. I peered closer, wondering if it was some sort of gyroscope, and saw words printed on the sphere: "FAST WATER." I decided that this was a device for boosting speed, and that I would name my new sled "Fastwater." I felt very pleased with it.

Sled in hand, next I needed a mountain. I resumed floating through the air and scanning for suitable topography. I soon found myself approaching a steep hillock, but since it was at most a couple dozen feet high, I didn't think it qualified as a "mountain." After that was a second, taller hillock, but I rejected that one too on the same grounds. Then in the distance I saw a much taller hill with a massive castle on top of it. I had the impression that it was a German castle called "Schwanzstein," though even in the dream I recalled the meaning of schwanz (which, in common with many Americans, I learned long ago from the Mel Brooks film Space Balls). That seemed like a peculiar yet somehow familiar name for a castle, and I wondered why it came to mind. [Source: German castles have come up in conversation twice in the last few days, both the one at Wernigerode and another whose name I couldn't remember. I just asked my husband and he reminded me it was "Neuschwanstein." So there you have it. Sorry Freudians, you can go back home now.]

I figured that the type of hill on which one was likely to find a German castle could qualify as a small mountain, and decided that this would be a good spot to sled down from. I floated closer, noting a number of stiff and oddly sepia-hued guards standing around the courtyards, as though peopling an old postcard. I noticed a perfect straight chute for sledding that ran down from the top of the mountain, so that's where I landed. Everything was in place... except... there was no snow anymore. Could I just sled down anyway, I wondered? No, I distinctly recalled that the task specified a snowy mountain. I peered around, hoping I could at least spot a few patches of snow and call it even. But the grass was as brown as the guards—there was a hint of sepia about the whole place, like a movie scene shot through a filter—and no snow was visible anywhere.

I sat down with my sled, willing it to snow. I concentrated my expectations, imagining how the first tiny flakes would move erratically through the air. Once again the distinction between imagination and experience—which seems so improbable in the dream state—was reconfirmed, because even though I could clearly see the type of snow I envisioned in my mind's eye, the dream air remained stubbornly free of flakes. This TOTM has a lot of moving parts, I thought. It's as hard as a TOTY! A moment later I woke up and was amused to recognize my error; in waking life I would not have misremembered the category of the task, since the TOTYs are linked by a common theme.

All of my regular dreams are written in a notebook and I don't want to also type them, so I will have just a few here. Especially the LD.

In my parents' back yard.
It was not winter, I remember the green grass and leafy trees like in summer.
I do not remember what triggered me to do a RC in the dream, but I pinched my nose and could still breathe, so I realized I was awake in my dream. The first thing I knew I wanted to try was to fly. I jumped up and flew around the yard, then over to the park.

I eventually joined another dream adventure, but still chose to fly while the other DC were running. And they didn't think it was odd that I was flying. I was in the role of the helper or rescuer, since I could fly, I guess.

I was walking through fields when I came upon a building that appeared to be a school because there were many playground areas. It seemed to be the only thing visible other than the fields. As I got closer it had a chain link fence around it and I couldn't get in. I was walking around it looking for an entrance when I noticed something to my left. Through the center of the school child sized wooden chairs of different colors started floating up and out of the school, straight up and extremely slow. (Dream) I thought to myself, this one ranks up there on out of the ordinary type situations, and I was watching trying to understand what this meant. This dream is telling me something. It surely wanted to make sure I knew I was dreaming. My first thought was how beautifully strange, but that feeling quickly turned to sadness. These empty chairs felt like a memorial.
I actually asked "what does this mean"? I wanted to follow the chairs but my intuition told me I was not supposed to. I had this sickening feeling that something bad was going to happen.

Had 7-10 dreams. Every time I woke up I remembered 2-3.

Wine sellers and Deal grabbers

Shopping for 20x70 binoculars for my dad - detailed - monocular, clock on the building

(Before that there was a nightmare) I am outside of the house and I walk in the garden. There is a big gate in front of me, I jump it, grape a metal bars with my hand and jump down. I’m now in the garden of my neighbor and realize it's just a dream, their door of the house is open but it is too dark in it, and coming from a nightmare I’m scare to enter, so I decide to go out on the street. The street is very dark, but the sky is clear. So I watch the sky then the street and the street become lighter. I say to myself it’s just a dream there’s nothing to be scare, so I start walking on the street. On the street there is grass on both side and the way starts to get smaller. I see a house and I jump on the roof and I start shouting out loud(something private). After I see a small car passing next to the house, I say to myself: "should I jump on the car or not?" …