mishmash from the last several nights: + tried out a (male organ) extension kit that involved tubes and splicing in "extra segments," it really worked, wanted to try out "the new me" with the wife, thought that all the extra tubing though would get in the way and be cold on her skin if it touched her. Definitely longer and wider with this kit, I'm impressed with the results. + [LD #265 DILDD] observing demonstration, I'm standing at the railing of a high balcony area overlooking a lower (15 feet) large open paved area, looking down, there are people walking around waving a flag, they call a question to me but I'm not sure how to answer. I feel a tugging at my pocket and immediately grab my pocket where my wallet is, in doing so I grab the han of a kid which is reaching in to my pocket I think to steal my wallet. I back away from the railing still grasping my wallet through my pants, I can't open my hand to get a better grip because I'm afraid I'll lose my wallet, and call out "HELP!". I walk through some rooms, fairly richly furnished, wood paneled walls, look out the window to see the people in the parade/festival, look to see if there are any hot chicks there, see some, wish I had more privacy. Walking through the people outside, there is a bunch of them gathered at one point, I try to move through the group but a man shifts his position blocking my path, so I have to go around. I notice a woman prostate on the ground with (her daughter?) riding her on her back. I move forwards. For no particular reason (I feel completely awake) I do a nose pinch, and do a double take because some air leaked out. It wasn't the usually completely free flowing of air, but I know that any air at all is a dream sign, I try again with a similar non-definitive "stuffy nose" result. I decide to test gravity by jumping up, and indeed I am a bit slow in returning to the ground so immediately determine that I'm dreaming. I turn around and head back along the path I was walking, as aI wanted some "fun" encounters with the ladies I had passed earlier. I soon come across one dressed all in green [?], engage a bit with her, her face/body are distorted. I jump up to phase through the ceiling, get a little bit stuck but make it through, and I'm in a large sterile corridor of some large building. I look into one of the rooms I find and it is a sort of staff break room with vending machines and billiards tables. I decide to try out some elemental control so try to shoot out lightning from my hands against a wall, the effect is weak but definitely something is there. I will it to be more lightning-shaped (it was more like straight grey line segments), then I say "be yellow" and a tinge of yellow worked its way into the coloring. There is a DC enemy that I need to fight, so I belt-summon my lightsaber and turn it on, I'm a bit surprised that the blade comes out a jet flat black color. I swing it through the DC imagining that it's slicing him to bits but as usually I seem to meet absolutely no resistance and it seems not to be doing him any damage. We go back and forth (he's on a flying Green Goblin-like scooter/board?) for a while, then I turn to make a run for it along a roadway over a fence, frequently looking backwards to see if he's still following, I think he probably still is... + (dark/night) checking out the smashed wing windows of some cars, there were small, sometimes triangular shaped breakage patterns on the glass + riding elevator in large building, someone else is in there with me, the elevator tilts fairly steeply to the left (30 degrees) for a moment and I feel us moving sideways. I explain this to the other passenger as being the horizontal movement of the elevator from side vertical shafts into the cental main vertical shafts, and think / say that this is a very efficient way to manage the limited space of the vertical shafts. It's fairly dark in the elevator. This happens a couple more times, then with a large jerk we're ejected from the building backwards into the air high above the ground, and begin orbiting the building. We're being swung around wildly like an amusement park attraction. I'm fairly nervous about this. I can hear the yells from the car near to us, they're enjoying the ride, hooting and hollering things like Oh, Yeah!" and "Woohoo!". I wonder what is holding us in the air, at first I think it's nothing, but I look outside the window and see a very thin and weak-looking wire attached to the elevator car running back in the direction of the building. The whole thing is like one of those "multiple wheel ferrous wheel" like this: Suddenly I'm on the ground, looking at some scraggly cats with someone else. (I see a stack of old line printer printout?). I walk back to the base of the tower, to an elevator, this elevator is to the (apple? oak?) area which is not where I want to go, a young couple gets on, I go around to the other side of the building, and there's another young couple that jusut wants to make out and they move back around a corner for privacy. + a priest is using a holy hammer (large, like a maul) to stamp symbols onto some (famous) blessed mushrooms growing miraculously between boulders + walking along the shore of a clear-watered lake, looking into the rocky shallows and see crayfish scuttling around [dreamsign] + [f] need to ride an airplane home, visiting someone in a large industrial workshop
Oh no? Dream I went to find Jamie, wound up in some Toronto like apartment. A friend of her's said Jamie had gone away recently when she "Slipped into a coma." I meant to ask then if that meant Jamie Had died? FA I'm Jamie and All i can see is my legs and water. with little spots of blood in the water. woke up for real and was real concerned. I know I've dreamt things about her before that turned out to be true. Jamie, if you read these and planning on leaving this world please see me first in Jesus' name... Family Was visiting family and we were in a car? I was sicka nd started snotting everywhere . My family kept getting mad because I was sick. I was upset because I couldn't help it.
non-dream dream semi-lucid lucid FA / AP Staying with my mom at her house. For some reason we're sharing her bed. It is already uncomfortable and then I find that she has small stones and cristals under the sheets, for healing. They just hurt like hell. I remove all of it and clean the bed. Then my mom is no longer with me, supposedly she died. Someone comes over to talk about my inheritamce. I say there isn't much to inherit, just the house and her clothes. They suggest there is something more and that I have to find her will before someone else does. I don't get it, but I do find some letter in a drawer. Other people arrive, I hide it. I am attending college and currently working on an urgent work for the Portuguese class. I think I have enough time to finish my part, about 2 weeks, but turns out I hugely miscalculated the amount of work I still have to do. I have been procrastinating and the teacher reminds me how crucial that work is and I realize how late I am compared to my colleagues. I am still studying the sources and started witing one page. I find that my colleagues are actually mostly working in groups and I join one that I had supposedly previously left. Ana S. is in the group and I feel she is a bit suspicious at first about me wanting to redeem myself, but then she accepts me back in the group. The paper we are putting together is about some historical issue and then needs to be translated into a theathre play. I have a secondary role as a beautiful maid which marries a lord and gains power. Finally comes the day of presenting the paper and the concept of the play to the teacher. Everyone is in costume and I look in the mirror to see mine. I don't just look like myself in an outfit, I am actually a different girl. Also fair skinned with big dark eyes but my hair is black, long and curly. The room has couches scattered and we sit on them as the group leader introduces our work to the teacher. Some colleague then turns on a tv and shows a video, but it has no sound. I come closer to the tv to try to fix it and then accidentsly look through a window to my right. There is a hill going down until a small town on the valley. There is a rumble and what seems like an explosion and a cloud of dust spreads up in the air above it. Everybody in the room hears and sees it and runs to take cover behind or under something. The shock wave hits us and the dust cloud is expanding rapidly towards us. At first I think it is a volcanic eruption, but then I go look again and I notice that the space is distorted. The city did not blow up and instead is divifing and multiplying, like a cell. I notice the air seems distorted around it, like a gravitational anomaly. It seems to have opened a space-time breach beause then I see more people wearing old time clothes and riding horses and some old school war going on. It seems as if the time about which we were making our presentation, caught up with us and now we're geting involved in whatever war that is going on. I see a bunch of men on horseback coming towards us. Some of us go hide and others say since we are wearing epoch appropriate clothing, we should just mingle and see what happens. I am not so sure. I get some binoculars and observe the men coming. I see a pile of bodies of dead villagers they left behind in the valley. I feel horrified and feel they'll do the same to us. The others don't listen to me, they just stay behind and wait. I decide to run the opposite direction and just hide somewhere. As I start running, I wake up with a dog howling outside.
One hour long dream. I did V-WILD but decided to just pay a lot of attention to the process, feeling it, being present. I've been running lots of tests like this lately to try and get a better idea of how it works. After doing V-WILD into my bedroom, I climbed out the window. I noted how a lot of things were different in my neighborhood like lighting and rearranged buildings. I decided to test out waking myself up in a way where it’s more dream body instead of waking (trying to get a better understanding for the difference between dream and waking body lately). I tested to see if I can trigger a false awakening. Yes! Maybe? I woke up back in my bedroom. I assumed this was either a dream, or I woke myself for real. I did a reality check with finger through palm and it didn’t work. I was pretty sure it was a dream anyway though. I didn't take the failed RC too seriously, since I know that happens sometimes. I plugged my nose and breathed, that worked. I proceeded to practice false awakenings a few times. Knew I was still dreaming each time, got a better feel for it. Most of the time I was with my dream character version of SO. She watched me do all this nonsense lol. Most times I told her it was a dream, she acted mock concerned like half-heartedly gasped. I responded “Yeah, I know if you were my rl SO you would be rightly concerned about me thinking everything is a dream, but since we both know it’s a dream, you’re fine. No need to act all shocked haha." I eventually woke myself up for real when it felt it had been an hour. My timing guess was right (I seem to still have a good sense of RL time in dreams).
Updated 01-12-2023 at 07:53 PM by 99032
This is an older dream. I was in a world that had crumbled. Everything was surrounded by a white void, and the remains of the universe floated in fragments through space. There were mountains, roads, cars, buildings, and fragments of asphalt and other materials floating around. The universe was still in the process of being consumed. In the distance, I could see the edges of the mountains being dissolved by something that looked like a wall of blue electricity or dust. In my dragon's form, I flew around in search of remaining life, and spotted a woman standing on a fragment of the remaining road. The brunette woman stood at the edge of the road coming off of a driveway. There was a house nearby that I presume was her home. She stared out at the dissolving mountains. When I landed next to her as my human self, she didn't look at me, but spoke. "This is the end, isn't it?" I turned and watched the mountains with her, and nodded. I could feel my body waking. It was morning. "I have to go soon. Do you want to come with?" I asked her and she looked at me in surprise. It took her a moment to respond, but as soon as she agreed, I turned back into my dragon and picked her up, carrying her as I traveled straight into the void. I woke up in my bed. When I looked up, I saw the figure of the woman standing at the end of the bed. "Thank you." she said and then faded away.
Updated 11-29-2022 at 11:48 PM by 99032
Failed dream stabilization in DILD I am on my way home, carrying groceries on the sidewalk of the quiet street passing by the house I live in on a cloudy day with a darker lighting of the environment suggesting that the time of day is soon to be or already is dusk. I'm not sure if my mother is with me, but she could be. Suddenly, I become lucid. It might have been a random thought about lucidity which triggered this. But I immediately start slipping out of the dream but try to rub my hands and to look at them to stabilize the dream, but I am already on the threshold of waking up, strangely controlling both my dream and real body at once, but apparently my stabilization attempt soon failed and I find myself having waken up. I got too stressed to journal again. I'll probably continue for real once summer holidays come around in nearly exactly a month. I actually chanted a mantra and used a special thought technique I can't really explain to kind of bypass the way you'd usually have this only incubate a fake lucid dream instead of actually causing awareness, and I guess it worked. It's like I went "behind" the normal thought? Only I really know what I'm talking about with that, I guess, at least I hope at least I will if I rediscover this some time. Nobody ever understood the way I explained how my brain worked. People tend to think these are metaphors, but I feel like I physically navigate my thoughts. While that's not what happens, of course, that's the input I'm getting and doing the same "movement" produces consistent results. It's weird like that. Also, I'm tired so I'm rambling about this, probably mostly as a big note to self so that I can reproduce this, since this is the first time a technique just straight up worked first try to that extent. I do wonder why the stabilization didn't work, though. And I tend to always find myself kind of "blind" in dreams, I've noticed that here as well. It's like my whole vision is covered by a blind spot, like how your thumb disappears if you move it into the right location, it makes it hard to stay in a dream. I feel like I only know some of the visual information because I just kind of know without seeing it, and that's annoying me. But I can't say reality is a whole lot different, honestly. My perception is always weirdly "blind" like that, like a very insidious form of tunnel vision. Enough rambling now. I still think this was probably the closest I've ever gotten to stabilize a lucid dream, so overall, this was a success. Good.
It's been a while since my last success. This is mostly due to my sleep schedule going to shit, but I'm getting back into it. Man, even though I understand WILD enough to actually use it, it's still so hard for me. It'll get easier with time, sure, but I can't wait for the day I no longer have to do attempts just to get lucid. Anyway, I've come to a new understanding as far as stabilization is concerned. What I feel I've been taught is happening is that by stimulating your senses, you are stabilizing the dream. I now feel like you are stabilizing yourself within the dream rather than the dream itself. I say this because I've been reflecting on my previous Lucids, and I noticed something interesting about my last one. I described the dream as Vivid but also Not Vivid. I described it this way because while the dream was visually clear enough to get me to double take, (vivid) I still felt like my other senses were dull.(non vivid) This would suggest that the dream itself was fine; it was I that was unstable. This would also make sense because people sometimes describe the process as Grounding themselves, or Deepening. It's now my understanding that stabilizing is just part of a larger activity: immersing yourself within the dream world. Stimulating your senses helps you become immersed because you're interacting with the things of the dream, deepening your connection to it, kinda like a WIFI signal. With a stronger connection, you can do more things, and you feel your real body less and less. This distinction is important to me because I was always looking for some kind of notification from the dream that it was stable when that was never going to happen. It makes more sense to me that it's your connection to the dream that must be strengthened, and this is why you do things to stimulate your senses. But there is one way of stabilizing that is kind of weird: just shouting "stabilization" or something like that. Why does that work for some people? My guess is that it's a dream control thing. Anyway, I'm still hard at work trying to get WILD to work for me. I keep falling asleep :/
allweek only 2 dreams about jamie.first Iam looking for her but I can't find her or she was there and not talking to me. 2nd dream she is sweet talking a boyfriend that is a lot like me but isn't me, like a chubby much more cringey me? idk. either way I'm not happy with any of these dreams..
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.
I’m at a beach with what seems like some of the family. It is definitely a beach on the ocean coast. It looks like Hawaii or the California coast. The sand is long and also very deep, sloping down to reach the water. The waves come in large but not violently. It is dim out but the scene seems to be lit with some glow, maybe twilight or moonlight. I’m in the water now, with Dad and Stella. Stella swims after something - a toy?, not an animal. She dives down quite a ways after it. I’m apprehensive at first but then relax when I see how well she’s doing.
They have reimposed a mask mandate. Immediately, most people have started wearing them. Walking around, there are a few that aren’t. I’m among the few and more confident about my decision this time around, seeing how they didn’t change anything. I think I’ve driven somewhere with Melissa, but she won’t be driving back with me. I see the area, it looks like Central America, as if on a map. It zooms in at times as I think about places I could stop to see.
Today is wednesday, last tuesday I have moved. Since I got here, I'm sleeping well and having what I feel are cool dreams. But I didn't remember them until last night. I am standing at a scanner, like they have at the airport. Others are at other scanners and waiting in line. Based on a scan we are let through or taken for "exam". I'm told I need an exam and to follow someone. I ask if I can go to the restroom first and I'm escorted by an attendant. There is something strange going on. As I go to restroom again later, I see things I'm suspicious about. Rooms like in a hospital, people in white lab coats and chopped up pieces of people. I hide from them as I make my way through. I come to the room where normal people are looking at packaged "meat" on the shelves to buy it. I find my way out. Then there is something going on outside which I don't remember. Lol I just rememberd. I'm leaving through the street which is blocked off by some junk and a truck brings even more junk. Then there is more but I don't remember that. Thank you for my dreams and for the recall. I want to continue with mindfulness, meditating and APing.
I’ve gone to a school building to hold a chess club meeting there. It’s dark, like an early winter morning before school hours, and it’s drizzling out. The layout of the building is reminiscent of the second high school I attended. I realize I’ve left my equipment in the car, but I still have plenty of time to get it and set up before students start arriving. I’m still setting up when Coach A arrives. (He taught math there, as well as coaching track and cross country.) He’s apparently going to be here for the lesson today. The students start arriving as well, but I still haven’t got my board up. Looking around the room, I notice that I also seem to have brought my bouzouki along, in its hard case, as well as a Jolly Roger on a short staff (which, in retrospect, was maybe the first sign that things were about to get a little weird). I hang my board in the front of the room, but some students say they could see it better in the back, so I move it there instead and begin the lesson. I start with ladder checkmates, asking whether anyone is already familiar with them. Some are. I continue, but Coach A comes in with an explanation of his own which seems to be a bit of a digression. I’m not really happy about his presence, but he does work here, so I just have to work with the situation. In what follows, I give a version of the lesson which is recognizable, though a bit twisted in places, explaining how the rooks work together to trap the opponent’s king on one side of the board – I recall comparing the rooks to clumps of dough around the king when the checkmate has been accomplished. I’m aware that this seems to be taking an unusually long time, and most of the students who would really benefit from it aren’t here today, and at this rate I don’t know if I’ll have time for the rook and king checkmate, too. I then proceed to explain the checkmate again, in a different way, by launching into a long, elaborate story about a man who is walking along the street one day, minding his own business, when he finds himself closed in by an impassable wall. He tries to escape, but he is already trapped, and the walls keep getting closer and closer without there being anything he can do about it. The visual aspect of the dream is now the story’s events rather than the classroom. I can’t remember many of the details now but you can probably get a good idea of what it was like by watching a video on ladder checkmates and then reading Kafka’s The Trial. -24.5.22
Date: 22/05/2022 Bedtime: 2am Awakening: 5.53am Return to bed: 6.10am Method of entry: dream consciousness Attempt: successful Awakening: 8.15am Phase experience: The Guitar Experiment DREAM STATE I'm walking towards a nighttime wilderness in England with my former schoolmate Javed and a Sri Lankan punter from my former days as a bookie; both men are willing to have a friendly fight and I'm the umpire reminding them to play by the rules and that they are not to get seriously injured as both are family men. We jump over a brick wall and the fight is about to commence when I spot what look like a couple of Kodiak bears approaching from a distance and hurtling towards the men. Eventually, the ferocious beasts catch up to them and both faint; I hide behind a tree as I believe the would-be fighters are about to be devoured. The animals are not bears at all seen as they possess a larger and quite uncanny presence—they remind me of a cross between a lion and a rhinoceros but overall redolent of the demonic hounds in Ghostbusters. I am petrified and in awe of such creatures which are not officially known to exist. I hear fingers clicking and the beasts freeze next to the unconscious men. Not far, I see Judi Dench (the actress who plays 'M' in 007 films) standing in front of a building that wasn't there before which I take to be a top secret facility. I immediately get the impression that she controls the hellish hounds and, approaching, she snaps her fingers again. Huge mandibles grip the men's limbs and a jerk accompanied by a crunch rouses them back to consciousness. I am taken aback by this nifty trick as the men scram in a panic. It isn't Javed running alongside the Sri Lankan punter; it is now Bob Hoskins. I furtively get away and encounter my friend Lizzie Bowman in the wilderness who also witnessed Judi Dench's hounds. We run together and there is an impression that we must know where to tread because England is now swarming with lions and there is the added challenge that they move around. It feels like a precarious memory game. WAKING STATE I record what I can remember and note potential dream cues such as the social contradiction of Javed and my former customer, stark elements from my past, the unlikely situation of being the referee of an agreed upon fight in the wilderness, seeing celebrities, shapeshifting, impossible monstrous animals and the threat of lions. I also identify schematic associations by my dreaming mind, e.g., the night before I dreamt of a giant Venus flytrap similar to the one in the film Little Shop of Horrors which happens to star Rick Moranis who is also in Ghostbusters. I return to bed with the intention to induce a lucid dream and fall asleep. DREAM STATE Me and a group of people are sat around a table. It is my understanding that this is a therapy group session and it is peculiar that every male—myself included—is topless and we have to present the females with instances of child abuse and domestic violence. A male psychotherapist interrupts the session to announce that there's been a mix-up and some of us are in the wrong group—I happen to be one of the misplaced ones. I am invited to leave the room for a break before embarking upon finding the right room. One side of the room is missing a wall and I use this wide gap to jump down to a dark underground sewage system resembling what I encountered under a bridge in a recent lucid dream. This is somewhat familiar! What am I doing here? I'm dreaming! PHASE STATE I tell myself I no longer need to re-enter the building behind me in order to look for the new therapy room. Everything is a very elaborate illusion. (Realism: 90% gradually making progress towards 100% as I rub my hands.) It feels like a nighttime environment but I am now in a tunnel and see light at the end. I glide towards the arched opening revealing a daytime, urban environment where I come upon a river—beyond it, near the horizon, I see a pillar-shaped mountain that reaches all the way to the clouds, making for an odd panorama. I struggle to recall the experiment I'm supposed to execute and believe I'm waking when the surroundings fail even though I strenuously rub my hands in order to heighten tactility. I'm in bed, apparently having woken up, and tell my wife I just had a brief lucid dream but failed to remember the experiment. 'Next time!' she says. I look at my hands and they look normal but decide to do a reality test nonetheless by pushing my right index finger through my left palm; the digit goes through my hand at a push! I'm shocked to discover I just had a false awakening and start deepening the phase by rubbing my hands as the realism is now only 35% that of the real world and the bedroom replica got darker since I falsely awoke. I reach for my electric guitar in the corner of the room and realise it is a lot smaller than it's supposed to be when I pick it up. The instrument is still in its case, which I struggle to unzip, so I decide to play it by pressing the strings over the nylon fabric. As I feel the strings through the gigbag, I hear the electric wailing sound of the guitar even though it's unplugged. I start randomly shredding on the fretboard (which is something I struggle with in real life) to produce a surprising classical rock sound in the style of a musical prodigy like Yngwie Malmsteen. My experience is more tactile and auditory than visual at this point. (Realism: 70%) I revel in the elaborate solo I'm producing until the environment fades and the sound peters out. I believe I have woken up. I get out of bed and walk towards the balcony door to part the curtains and check what the weather is like. It looks dismal outside: the sky is grey and overcast. Beyond the neighborhood, I make out a strange cloud formation. The more I peer at it, the more the sky turns pink and the more a fiery cloud manifests in the shape of a wide column with a cauliflower-like top. That is weird! This mushroom-shaped phenomenon looks like an atomic bomb has gone off! Could it be that I just had another false awakening? My index goes through my palm again, confirming I'm still dreaming and I open the balcony door. (Realism: 100%) I want to play guitar again but the corner of the room where the instrument is supposed to be, to my left, is out of reach. I don't want to waste time so I reach behind the curtain, to my right, expecting to find a guitar there. To my surprise, I find my old V-shaped guitar, which I sold years ago, leaning against the wall. I start playing a melody similar to the first solo in the song 'Master of Puppets' by Metallica. Curiously, each note I play simultaneously causes the now fiery sky to reverberate. I'm awed by the beauty of the sounds and the colours before me and subsequently all my senses fade, leading to wakefulness. WAKING STATE It is worth mentioning that I have some experience with music as an amateur piano and guitar but I must say that in the phase I played more confidently and easily reached the level of a virtuoso. This experience won't turn me into a great guitarist overnight, but it has, at least, inspired me greatly.
Date: 22/05/2022 Bedtime: 2am Awakening: 5.53am Return to bed: 6.10am Method of entry: dream consciousness Attempt: successful Awakening: 8.15am DILD: The Guitar Experiment DREAMING I'm walking towards a nighttime wilderness in England with my former schoolmate Javed and a Sri Lankan punter from my former days as a bookie; both men are willing to have a friendly fight and I'm the umpire reminding them to play by the rules and that they are not to get seriously injured as they are both family men. We jump over a brick wall and the fight is about to commence when I spot what look like a couple of Kodiak bears approaching from a distance towards the men. Eventually, the ferocious beasts catch up to them and both faint; I hide behind a tree as I believe the would-be fighters are about to be devoured. The animals are not bears at all as I see that they have a larger and quite uncanny presence—they remind me of a cross between a lion and a rhinoceros but overall redolent of the demonic hounds in Ghostbusters. I am petrified and in awe of such creatures which are not officially known to exist. I hear fingers clicking and the beasts freeze next to the unconscious men. Not far, I see Judi Dench (the actress who plays 'M' in 007 films) standing in front of a building that wasn't there before which I take to be a top secret facility. I immediately get the impression that she controls the hellish hounds and, approaching, she snaps her fingers again. Huge mandibles grip the men's limbs and a jerk accompanied by crunch rouses them back to consciousness. I am taken aback by this nifty trick as the men scram in panic. It isn't Javed running alongside the Sri Lankan punter; it is now Bob Hopkins. I furtively get away and encounter my friend Lizzie Bowman in the wilderness who also witnessed Judi Dench's hounds. We run together and there is an impression that we must know where to tread because England is now swarming with lions and there is the added challenge that they move around. It feels like a precarious memory game. WAKING I record what I can remember and note potential dream cues such as the social contradiction of Javed and my former customer, stark elements from my past, the unlikely situation of being the referee of an agreed upon fight in the wilderness, seeing celebrities, shapeshifting, impossible monstrous animals and the threat of lions. I also identify schematic associations by my dreaming mind, e.g., the night before I dreamt of a giant Venus flytrap similar to the one in the film Little Shop of Horrors which happens to star Rick Moranis who is also in Ghostbusters. I return to bed with the intention to enter the phase state and fall asleep. DREAMING Me and a group of people are sat around a table. It is my understanding that this is a therapy group session and it is peculiar that every male—myself included—is topless and we have to present the females with instances of child abuse and domestic violence. A male psychotherapist interrupts the session to announce that there's been a mix-up and some of us are in the wrong group—I happen to me one of the misplaced ones. I am invited to leave the room for a break before embarking upon finding the right room. One side of the room is missing a wall and I use this wide gap to jump down to a dark underground sewage system resembling one I encountered under a bridge in a recent lucid dream. This is somewhat familiar! What am I doing here? I'm dreaming! LUCID DREAMING I tell myself I no longer need to re-enter the building behind me in order to look for the new therapy room. Everything is a very elaborate illusion. (Realism: 90% gradually making progress towards 100% as I rub my hands.) It feels like a nighttime environment but I am now in a tunnel and I see light at the end. I glide towards the arched opening revealing a daytime, urban environment where I come upon a river—beyond it, near the horizon, I see a pillar-shaped mountain that reaches all the way to the clouds, making for an odd panorama. I struggle to recall the experiment I'm supposed to execute and believe I'm waking when the surroundings fade even though I strenuously rub my hands in order to heighten tactility. FALSE AWAKENING I'm in bed, apparently having woken up, and tell my wife that I just had a brief lucid dream but failed to remember the experiment. 'Next time!' she says. I look at my hands and they look normal but I decide to do a reality test nonetheless by pushing my right index finger through my left palm; the digit goes through my hand at a push! LUCID DREAMING I'm shocked to discover I just had a false awakening and start deepening the environment by rubbing my hands as the realism is now only 35% that of the real world and the bedroom replica got darker since I falsely awoke. I reach for my electric guitar in the corner of the room and realise it is a lot smaller than it's supposed to when I pick it up. The instrument is still in its case, which I struggle to unzip, so I decide to play it by pressing the strings over the nylon fabric. As I feel the strings through the gigbag, I hear the electric wailing sound of the guitar even though it's unplugged. I start randomly shredding on the fretboard (which is something I struggle with in real life) to produce a surprising classical rock sound in the style of a musical prodigy like Yngwie Malmsteen. My experience is more tactile and auditory than visual at this point. (Realism: 70%) I revel in the elaborate solo I'm producing until the environment fades and the sound peters out. FALSE AWAKENING I believe I have woken up. I get out of bed and walk towards the balcony door to part the curtains and check what the whether is like. It looks dismal outside: the sky is grey and overcast. Beyond the neighborhood, I make out a strange cloud formation. The more I peer at it, the more the sky turns pink and the more a fiery cloud manifests in the shape of a wide column with a cauliflower-like top. That is weird! This mushroom-shaped phenomenon looks like an atomic bomb has gone off! Could it be that I just had another false awakening? LUCID DREAMING My index goes through my palm again, confirming that I am still dreaming and I open the balcony door. (Realism: 100%) I want to play guitar again but the corner of the room where the instrument is supposed to be, to my left, is too far from me. I don't want to waste time so I reach behind the curtain to my right expecting to find a guitar there. To my surprise, I find my old V-shaped guitar, which I sold years ago, leaning against the wall. I start playing a melody similar to the first solo in the song 'Master of Puppets' by Metallica. Curiously, each note I play simultaneously causes the now fiery sky to reverberate. I'm awed by the beauty of the sounds and the colours before me before all my senses fade and I wake up for real. WAKING STATE It is worth mentioning that I have some experience with music as an amateur piano and guitar but I must say that in the lucid dream I played more confidently and easily reached the level of a virtuoso. This experience won't turn me into a great guitarist overnight, but it has, at least, inspired me greatly.
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