Recent DJ Posts

…Doing archaeology somewhere. I dig up some artifacts, which include some strange round things. I don’t think people are impressed by that. There is some other stuff too though. Also, there are holes that have been dug and filled in again, and I am looking through some of the filled holes. I find some metal artifacts associated with one of them…

…In a large building. I go up some stairs to the second floor, which has a kind of mezzanine surrounding the first floor on one side and another section off to my right. There is a picture of C-- here, a girl I recently met…

…In a large building, going up and down stairs. The building reminds me of one of the administrative buildings on the campus of IUP. There is a girl going down one set of stairs, and I am going down another. I want to be the first to reach the bottom floor…

…Watching the new Dr. Who. I had speculated in waking life that I dream more about the classic Dr. Who than the new version, and in my dream I wonder if that is true. I don’t become lucid though…

Awake/explanation
Normal dream
Lucid dream

There's a weird thing that happens to me sometimes that, last time it happened I made a mental note I would realize what's happening: sometimes I guess my eyes aren't shut all the way when I'm sleeping and when it begins to get light outside, I have a false awakening where I'm lying in bed staring at my lit up wall, or can see the light from the window, and I can move my body, but my vision won't change. I can 'close my eyes' and move my body, then open them again and it will still just be the same sight. I'll be stuck in that one position, because I can't move in real life, so all I can see is what my eyes are seeing.

This morning I was having a dream where I was riding a school-bus that a dog got onto, and I helped to get it off because people were being impatient/mean to it. When I got it off I walked it up to the house it came from and knocked a couple times and opened the door, and it went inside, and out came a very pretty girl I went to school with in high-school who seemed happy to see me. I stood there talking to her for just a second about an art show or something that was happening, when she said, "Is that your bus?" and I turned and looked to see the schoolbus I had been riding was driving away without me.

I jogged after it for a little bit thinking it would stop again, then it rounded the corner and I jogged through someone's yard trying to catch it on the other side, but it passed and was long gone by the time I got there. At that point I simply turned around and started walking the opposite direction again, thinking, "I'll just walk home then." I was in kind of a rough neighborhood and other kids who had just gotten off school were roaming around looking to make trouble/have fun outside. I tried to avoid them mostly and get home as soon as possible.

Almost before I knew it, I was home, it was dark, and my dad was in the kitchen making dinner. I explained to him I had missed the bus, and had to walk home, and that this was something that happens in my dreams a lot so it was strange that it had happened in real life. Next I commented, "you know, I got home very quickly, maybe the bus thing was a dream and now I'm awake." My dad sort of encouraged this thought process, and for some reason I didn't reality check but simply played along-- but all the sudden my eyes opened and I was met with a familiar sensation as described up top: I was lying on my side in my room and seeing the light from the window, and went to stand, but my body moved and not my sight.

I stopped for a minute when this happened. Sometimes I get caught up in the confusion of this feeling like I have gone blind somehow, or at any rate feeling something is wrong and wanting to wake up. I felt this urge again but stopped for a moment, and had a thought: if I can move my body, even if I can't move my vision, I can plug my nose and reality check to ensure that I'm dreaming. So I did.

"Okay," I thought, "so I'm dreaming, but I still can't move..."

I began trying different things. I closed my eyes moved around viciously and opened them to the same sight again. I closed my eyes and imagined being somewhere else and opened them and saw the same thing. Eventually I simply imagined myself getting up and walking out of the room. At first this was a very faint imagining that seemed to happen purely in the dark, but occasionally I would notice the light from my window again and 'shut my eyes' in the dream once more. I imagined walking into the kitchen, and soon this became a real dream. As I went into the kitchen, I noticed my dad was still there, and he was facing against the wall-- the lighting in the room had gone somewhat spooky also.

I didn't like this and knew this was going to set a bad precedent, and I told him, "I just realized I was dreaming the whole time, and I want to wake up." He didn't respond to this but simply turned around and rushed across the room with inhuman speed towards me. I pushed him away and headed outside, thinking to just ignore the ominous feeling the dream was taking on and simply focus on waking myself up. Once I got outside, I walked across the deck and turned back and looked and my father came rushing out after me again, gliding across the floor almost as if in stop-motion, and grabbed me by the neck, turning his face this way and that, not saying anything.

I warned him, "I know I'm dreaming: you can't hurt me, but if you help me wake up I won't hurt you for trying to scare me" but he continued looking around and holding my neck, and I repeated, "do you know how I can wake up?"

He looked straight at me, and I didn't like it, so I gave him a gut punch that sent him flying off into the distance. He landed and rushed back, and I did it again, and a couple more times, and suddenly...

I woke up-- but I still couldn't move! Frustrated, I reached up and plugged my nose again: yep, still dreaming, still can't move because of the light from the window. At this point I began thrashing my body around violently, and soon I felt hands grabbing me all over, and I swung at what I couldn't see randomly, shouting, "Don't touch me! Get off of me!" The touches subsided but I still couldn't move from my spot.

I woke up again and almost thought I was awake for real until I tried to move, and still couldn't move! I plugged my nose, breathed, sighed, and thought: maybe if I just close my eyes, and turn myself over facing the opposite direction, then go back to sleep, I'll move my body in real life and be facing the wall. I did so, and of course it didn't work and when I opened my eyes I was staring at the familiar scene of my room with the lit window. I began thrashing around again somewhat randomly, hoping that with enough activity, I would just wake up.

And I woke up again. Annoyed by this point, I expected I was still dreaming and reached up to plug my nose, only to find out I was really awake this time.

In retrospect, it's clear I actually could dream with my eyes partially open if I could ignore the light long enough. If I had just relaxed and not been so desperate to wake up and roll over or something, perhaps I could have just had a decent lucid dream, but the dream took on an eerie quality once I wanted to wake up but couldn't. The idea of being lucid in this halfway between state was eerie to me I guess, and the dream reacted as a result by being weird and threatening (my dad DC's weirdness, and the phantom touches).

I will say: I'm proud I maintained control of my lucidity well enough to not panic in these moments or be frightened by the dream overly much. I did lash out at both the DC and the phantom touches, but I never lost the sense that I wasn't their "boss" (lol), or that they could hurt me somehow in a way I couldn't control. They were being weird and I didn't like it, but I wasn't afraid they'd hurt me and I couldn't stop them.

Unfortunately I don't know what to do when this happens. I have a sleeping mask now which I actually bought partially for this purpose, and partially for WILD practice (which I have been slacking on already). Maybe I could dream, but I keep having false awakenings because of the sight of the light. If I could just shut my eyes once I knew it was happening, but I can't. It's a shame, because it's a dead giveaway that I'm dreaming, and it's probably always going to make me lucid now if I realize what's happening, but then I'm just stuck as a result.

Perhaps next time I'll try more aggressively "shutting my dream eyes", and leaving them shut while waiting to see what happens there. That did extract me from the situation at least temporarily. If I remain positive about it and not expecting anything strange to happen or feeling eerie about it, maybe I can just have a normal dream despite the light in my eyes (though I expect false awakenings still).

7th May

Dream:

Don't remember the start but was in a game doing some crop-related things while I was appearing offline or something. All of a sudden, a female character shows up and starts punching me up with some flying fists. At first I assumed it was A but then I die and respawn and notice it's someone else that I don't know.

It's a Spanish player and we mostly speak in Spanish. I realise my accent is a bit broken but that doesn't stop me so much. I tell her I don't remember knowing her, I assume it's possible I've just forgotten who she is but she doesn't really answer the question or seem bothered by this, anyway. Then she starts telling me how she used to live on some place called something "Peak". In the dream I had some vague memory of it. I ask her if she had a place nearby on K and she insists not, but my dream memory tells me she did.

In any case, she then tells me how she'd lost everything. I realise I don't care about my place so much anymore and offer to give her some stuff and tell her we need to go to my place in the game. Most of this seems to take place on K. We then start going through some portals or something, and I start carrying her on my back for some reason. I remember some other players spotting us and staring for a minute.

Then eventually we're at my old (actual) home, it's night time and dark. I walk into the room that used to be L's and there's an extra bed like a sofa bed. There's a computer with an old CRT screen on the desk and I think about using it to give her some stuff? She asks me some questions and I answer, I think mostly about the room? I think she just looks like a person now and not a game character.

Then all of a sudden while we talk, my sibling T sits up. T had been sleeping on the extra bed all along and we somehow hadn't realised. Looked younger and not so scruffy? I apologise and say I didn't realise. I look at the screen for a moment and it has something like Diablo on it. We leave the room and go to my old room instead. But essentially, the exact same thing happens again there. I don't remember to question the dream-like nature of what just happened. Rest of dream recall is mostly gone. Scraps of being in the street and talking to this Spanish girl.

---

Notes:
- The initial context within the dream of giving my stuff away is a common occurrence anyway when I'm playing games in which you are able to hoard or accumulate stuff. I often end up giving stuff away because I have not created any particular attachment to it or feel like I might not be putting it to good use any time soon. One further note on this regard is that sometimes I feel that my kindness is taken but not appreciated, it becomes "old history" so to speak of rather quickly, with some people, while others do remember it for a long time.
- Although I wrote this dream months ago, I have the feeling that the computer screen in L's room was a CRT, but this may be a false memory now. When I wrote that it has something like Diablo on it, I think I meant that it had Diablo II just running but with nothing happening.

4th May

Fragment:

A few dreams, the last one was in some kind of hotel room with two of my cousins, from dad's side. I don't remember much furniture at all We had some backpacks, mine was nothing like I've ever owned however. It was blue, bulky and square-ish; I have seen these in the past and have wondered what it would be like to have one, often thinking they are "cool".

But for some reason, we all got naked; there was some kind of pretext about us being smelly at the end of the day or something; then the two of them went to shower. I remember peeking through the somewhat open bathroom door and seeing two walk-in shower/wetroom areas, but only one shower head/hose. C was washing herself, and then her sister in turns. I think they were giggling for some reason.

Dream:

Not sure where or how this one started but I was in a city; sunny and stray white clouds. I remember lots of cut limestone blocks in the buildingwork, so it was like areas from my old home. This place was very busy, it was like one of the town/city areas with lots of public space. R from university was there. At first I walked right past him, it took me a while to recognise him.

His hair was slightly curled rather than flat. He was sitting or leaning against a wide limestone edge and was sweet talking with his girlfriend who was practically in his face and vice versa. I retraced some steps back as I realised it was him and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and greeted me, apparently happy to see him. I remember conversation, but not its content.

A transition? I'm somewhere entirely different, I can't recall the environment very well but I can only describe it as dirty and gritty. Dominant hues in red, orange and moss green.

There was a small apartment building here, not far from a road, fourty to sixty yards. The building had a kind of trough dug around it, but not very deep, no more than a foot deep. More like a small dip really, and outside the trough circling the building, was a effectively a circular pile of guns. There were so many piled up I can't even guess at the number. Some had bright colours. Reminds me of Borderlands somehow. I remember going inside and walking through some poorly lit halls until I came to a flat that was quite small, the door was wide open. It looked a mess. There were some closed curtains and the room was poorly lit too. Outside still seemed dark-ish.

I think I was here with someone, maybe H? But I don't remember what else happened in the room. I think there was a third person, a woman possibly. Then I remember being outside the building, I'm walking over the pile of guns carefully as I assume them all to be loaded. I look to my right and there's this shack made of corrugated panels or the like and there's a gang hanging out there.

Some woman, possibly the one from before, stands next to me and tells me I should go talk to them. They've been causing havoc for some time in the region/area. I agree at first but then I look down and see some blue and red grenade launchers. I pick them up, not as heavy as I might expect. I turn to the left and aim at a tree or something which is at a similar distance to me as the gang was. I fire a few practice shots. I then quickly turn back towards the gang and start firing a hail of grenades over their shack. They grab some guns and start running towards me shouting and shooting with poor aim. I remember noticing a health display of sorts over some of them that were injured. They got quite close, but I still kept using the grenades to fight them.

Recall fades a bit but then there was a transition and I remember being in some hallways, dark and moonlit. My recall stops about here.