memorable

Hehe I woke up like "aw I didn't dream anything" and then it all came back to me in a flash yo. Hmm I liked this oonee...
Let's see, I want another color for low-level lucidity, 'cause I do neato things when I'm like that and I wanna encourage it. Uhhmm.
Testing.

The Dream In Question (Lucid #2)
Yo okay this is gonna be loooooong. Also I know I'm forgetting some details but the durned things won't line up so screwit.

Basically I dreamed humanity was in some vast war with these frickin' space dinosaurs. The space dinosaurs also had those tan, humanoid Star Wars droids on their side, which they'd built and programmed. I was the son of the general who led the entire human resistance (though I think at the start of the dream I either was, or wanted to be, just another regular soldier). We were positioned behind two massive walls, with a fairly large gap between, occupied by shells of former buildings on either side of a vast street, very post-apocalyptic; the dinos would pour over the first wall and we'd light 'em up as best we could to prevent them from reaching the second wall. Directly behind that wall was the general's (and my) house, which also functioned as a sort of meeting place for the media and government. My dad kept them all close as a necessary part of the war effort. He had all his bases covered, it seemed.

So that day there were two waves of dinosaur attacks I think. Oh also I could fly, despite not being particularly lucid. I guess I was sort of lucid but not enough to plan anything or go for dream goals; just enough to try to manipulate the dream a bit and perform unrealistic shenanigans such as flight. Good times. (Flying wasn't a normal thing in the dream either, it was just how I chose to get around.)

So the first attack I remember flyin' my way towards the middle of the map, and oh man it was great flying. I remember drifting down like it was slow motion, skidding a few feet along the ground despite my light landing, and the physics just felt really really GOOD. I don't even know what the deal was but it was amazing. I'm gonna figure out how to fly like that it felt fantastic.

Then I presumably did some dinosaur fighting, though I can't recall the details, which is a real bummer. I DO remember the way the dinosaurs would approach: the frickin' pterodactyls gliding in ranks overhead, the brachiosauri looming in the distance with smaller dinos in the lead. Fairly picturesque, I just wish the quality had been a bit better. But a striking image all the same.

Hmmm we held off that attack fairly well. The next one though, I started behind the wall again, but this time I couldn't find a weapon. I made my way to the building on the far side of the first wall. There were media peeps in there I think, despite it being a shell, walls and windows blasted out; I guess that was where they shot footage from. Also had weapons right under 'em on a lower floor. I tried to get a sniper rifle from there (I remember another soldier making off with one) but I couldn't seem to get one. I thought it might've been because I was the general's son.

Notwithstanding this problem I headed out into the battle and probably accomplished just absolutely nothing at all. Absolute zip. Then the general noticed I was there (close by the first wall) and pointed out a droid that was about to cross the finish line tower-defense-style. I tried to sprint after the thing so I could take it out, I was gonna snap its skinny neck with one hand (dream powerrrzzzz) but I couldn't even catch up to the dang thing before it blooped through the finish line. Then the general pointed out ANOTHER one, a bit closer but still just a bit too far away (how had these singles droids gotten through everything?). I sprinted after it, and this time looked away from it so I could sort of catch up to it, like sneak up on it more quickly than I could if I were staring at it the whole time (dreeeaaam poweerrrzzz), but I still couldn't catch up. The general was equal parts angry and disappointed, but I was pretty mad at him myself. I told him if he'd let me have a gun, I would've been able to stop them easily. He didn't deny it, so mystery solved.

Then it was nighttime and we'd all retired to the house behind the wall. The general was keeping tabs on the media and strengthening his ties to the government, making sure he had their support and all that. Meanwhile I was wandering around, went into a bathroom and stumbled upon a girl taking a bubble bath. I didn't leave right away, 'cause I was looking for somethin' (and you'll never know what it was), and meanwhile she gave some speech about how our sense of privacy was, in these times, only an illusion. Something to do with the changes the general had put in place. I could sort of see her point but I didn't feel like dwelling on it too long.

I wandered into another bathroom, which looked like the one from my IWL house (2nd floor), except right by the lightswitch was a little screen, maybe 6 inches across, that was blaring some sort of propaganda. Not exactly the untruthful kind, though. It was showing footage of three unarmed soldiers being ripped apart, screaming, by a couple of the droids (who seemed to be having a good time). Lotta blood and guts. The lesson was "these dinosaur guys sure are the worst." I watched it rather morosely, though for me the main connection was "hm, that doesn't seem far removed from how humans used to treat each other back in the earlier wars." I was kinda cynical about that stuff. Part of it was probably just good ol' teenage rebellion against my parent (pretty sure I only had the one).

And speaking of that guy, he started makin' really awful coughing sounds and presumably dying right then and there. While a few people attended to him, I wandered outside (he was in good hands and I was a terrible person). Now I was in the front yard of the house I currently live in IWL, at night.

Just then my IWL parents pulled up in the street, lookin' a bit wild-eyed for some reason. By this time I had somehow grasped it was a dream (no reality check though) and had decided to forge my own path. Also said somethin' like "I'm dreaming" just to confirm.

I took off flying up to the roofs across the street (in the background my parents took off again) and explored a bit. Then I sensed that the house below me belonged to some meditation specialist, and I decided to try to dig my way through the roof to get inside. At my touch, the roof split into 2x1 giant foam lego blocks, which divided into even smaller blocks upon further handling. These shenanigans may have distracted me from my goal a little, as I found myself digging through several layers with no sign of getting through her presumably-3-foot-thick ceiling. I'm pretty sure I woke up soon after.

Not the most lucid I've ever been (it didn't occur to me to perform powers from the competition) but it still feels pretty good, yo. Hasn't even been two weeks since I started this journal and I'm well on my way, hohohoho *evil laughter*.

WELL WELL WELL.

Lucid Dream #1
Note: I've had lucid dreams before, but only a few. I'm starting at 1 anyway.

It started off with a false awakening, which are rare for me.

I wake up in the 1319 house (J room) and start getting ready for my morning (not even remotely realistic for a false awakening). The first thing I do is take a bath in the 2nd floor bathroom, and it's sort of strange and scary; the water is oddly dark and near both edges lengthways (how 2 describe ??) I can feel an uneven edge in the floor, some sort of precipice, little rough bits that threaten to cut me. I can't see anything, though. I'm also wondering whether a bath is really how I start my mornings, wouldn't a shower be faster? Don't I usually shower? Or I suppose it's usually a bath. My mentality seems to be present-day, despite the surroundings.

I may have spent a brief amount of time getting ready in my (J) room post-bath, but the next thing I remember is sitting next to Ben (he's wearing a grey t-shirt) in the living room, on the blue couch. There are some hints towards present-day reality, such as the fancy computers he and I are using, BLEHEHH. I'll write this part later it's too frickin' sad. (My brother was home over spring break and yesterday he headed back on a train so yeah he's one of my favorite people ever)

*SIIIGH* so at first I'm just brushing skin foundation over someone else's artwork in a big notebook, I'm not sure why. They used some sort of wet clay marker or something, so the skin foundation sticks to the art but not the paper. I'm havin' a good time just brushin' it everywhere even though on some level idk if I'm just hurting their art. The feeling was pretty cool though, very realistic. Nice detail.

Then I'm showing Ben some kinda audiovisual webcomic, or more that I'm just letting it play on my computer and he looks over sometimes. I don't remember the storyline very well, although I do remember it was kinda urban and at one point four guys were in a car, and the driver guy suddenly passed out or something, maybe he pulled over first, they were kinda just waiting for him to wake up. One of 'em gets out and takes a phone call from their boss, tells him the situation, gets his orders, and then leans down, sticks his gun in the car, and shoots the driver. The perspective was from outside the car so you couldn't see anything violent.

Lastly... ;-; I said something to Ben like "did you miss your train?" in a sort of awkward teasing voice, and he looked at me like I was crazy and said no, he didn't. I said "So you're in [college] right now?", and he said yes. This all came as sort of a shock. I considered the implications of this, that I must have been talking to him over Steam while interacting with a hologram, except that explanation wasn't a way to cling to reality; it was more that, because this was a dream, that sort of thing was possible. I did the nose-plug reality check, found I could breathe, and fully realized I was dreaming. (sry for tense change)

I get up from the couch and say "I'm dreaming" out loud just to confirm it. Everything feels very real. I walk towards the front door; I'm standing in the living room doorway when I hear Ben on the couch behind me. I look back half-expecting him to have changed somehow (something I'm worried about in dreams, you'll see later with the lifeguards), but instead he's completely gone. Dad's grey blanket is piled up where I'd just been sitting.

I focus on trying to get outside. My first thought is to phase through the glass; it seems like glass would be the easiest thing to phase through, but I find myself pressing my hands up against it instead. I'm sort of frustrated by this. I try for a bit longer, and then I decide to simply break the glass.

I slam it with my fist and manage to break it somewhat. The door is actually split into two sections of glass, top and bottom, separated by a wooden bar piece. I figure I'll have to break both, though the logic isn't all there, and continue punching the glass and broken edges (sustaining no pain or damage). At some point, because it's not really working either, I stand back, hold out my right arm, sort of brace it by putting my left hand on top, and try to summon some sort of concussive blast to shatter all the glass, thinking of Mega Man or perhaps Kadaj with his materia. Nothing happens. Then I try breaking the lower section of the glass with my eyes closed so it'll be easier to crawl through (logic ??). (My eyes-closed view was sort of interesting, because it was all dark except for a mental picture of the broken edges of the glass around the hole.) Finally I just stand up and try the (old, loose) doorknob like a normal person, and it comes off in my hand. Underneath is another one, slightly larger but also very old and sort of ugly. I try that one and finally manage to get out the door, opening the next door after it easily.

Now I'm outside in the 1319 area, in the daylight, taking in how real everything feels. I start flying up to the roof, thinking about the dreamviews competition (#17), and have no problems getting to the roofs of the townhomes. There are some smaller townhomes on top, minis. One of them has sort of a colorful beach house design, with a sign out front explaining that it was designed by a 6-year-old and is up for auction. There's an open house going on inside.

I get the idea to summon Ben back, and start calling his name, then turning around expecting him to be behind me. That doesn't work, so I head into the 6-year-old-designer house, still calling him. He's sitting on the stairs inside (green shirt now), which are so small no one else can get by, and I hear people on the second floor. I come sit by him, a bit lower on the stairs.

There's a sort of odd brown mug with a cover/lid of some sort on a convenient wooden platform (there's a better word) in front of us. I decide to try passing my hand through it. I hold my hand out palm down, fingers together, and try moving it horizontally through the mug. At first it doesn't quite work, and then I find my fingers passing through it rather slowly. It seems to be solid all the way through, not really a mug. The sensation of moving my fingers through it is like passing them through slime of some sort. One successful pass later, neither the mug nor my fingers are changed in any way. I try it again, a couple times, and while I'm trying the last time I say "it's like air!" out loud, in the hopes that it'll be a more "professional" sort of "passing through", more like a ghost. It doesn't work, though. At least I'm optimistic.

I go outside next, and, still on the rooftops, head up the street towards the mall. (I think, for the sake of convenience, I'll designate the direction I'm currently heading "North". The houses I'm walking on face West.) I see some sort of Stone Harbor-esque structures in the distance (Northeast) and go towards them; there seems to be an ocean or perhaps a bay on the East side up ahead. There's also a weird metal structure that I'm interested in flying to the top of, for no particular reason.

Now I'm walking North-ish down the street in the Stone Harbor area, no longer on rooftops. I start thinking about whether I can turn this into some kind of chase dream (or more specifically, "being chased"). As I'm thinking this, I notice five-ish lifeguard guys behind me, reminiscent of some sort of gang. I wonder if they're going to chase me, and decide to keep a low profile for a moment. I go around a corner and then busy myself admiring the detail of the dream, peering very closely at the white-washed wall, which has some ugly yellow spotted stains on it, while they walk by to my right. Then I investigate another wall (slate gray?) so my back is to them.

At some point as they walk by, I think about the way that things can change easily in dreams. It tends to surprise me how stable dreams are, given that when I try to imagine things IWL, I can't get anything right visually and it can't seem to hold steady. At this point, thanks to my thought process, one of the lifeguards abruptly doesn't have a head; only a sewn-up and scarred neck stump (thx Outlast). He keeps walking just fine, and I think his head may have returned after a moment. idk if that counts as a dream power so much as a mistake.

Next I fly around a bit more, maybe up to the metal structure, and then land next to a tide pool with minnows inside. On closer inspection, however, I realize they're actually small piranhas (some are still actively switching to being a mini piranha). I say something surprised out loud about piranhas. Then I hear a sound nearby, and look down to see a small frog/toad-looking thing sort of snuggled among the wet stones. I wonder if my dream wanted me to throw him to the piranhas, but decline to and move on. I think I probably woke up shortly after, without my alarm going off.

Re: the WILD attempt.
I woke up after 6 hours, tried to remember dreams but only got fragments, decided to write them down anyway, briefly reviewed BillyBob's WILD tutorial, set my alarm to wake me up in an hour and a half, and then laid down, on my back, to sleep. Then, for a while, I could feel myself slipping closer to sleep by degrees. I was trying to monitor how exactly it felt: the heaviness in my chest, the deepening layers of almost-sleep, my mentality. I could feel it when I slipped down another layer, and realized this was the closest to sleep I'd ever been while WILDing. However, at some point I rolled over onto my side; it's more comfortable. I should probably just start out there.

Eventually I started getting the hallucinations, and this time I tried to simply observe them, smothering my impulse to tense up. I was surprised to realize that I'd felt this sort of thing as I was falling asleep before, where I would hear-without-hearing someone's voice or some noise close by my ear, although the visual hallucinations were less familiar. First they were quick, flashing images, and then, a bit later, some static and fuzz. I kept trying to focus on clapping my hands in the front office of the 1319 house, and when I fell asleep I woke up in the 1319 house. I wasn't lucid, though. Could still use improvement.

Fragment
Being in a room, sort of a community center thing that reminded me of a 7-11. I know Nathan was there, and probably some other people. I think before that we'd all been wandering around Rock Creek Park.

Dream - Velociraptors
Yo this was a velociraptor dream. I suppose I would call this a zombie theme, since the general idea is fending off hordes of undesirable things that want to eat me and that are very difficult to run from.

SO in this dream I was in, I think, the Cheverly house, and Ben was with me. There were also a few others, one of which being an older businessman sort of fat guy who seemed very doomed under the circumstances. Also some people were fending off velociraptors in the van at some point, or maybe that's just something I considered doing myself? Personally I didn't like the idea of being trapped in a tiny space with a bunch of velociraptors, but different strokes for different folks. I preferred to be trapped in the basement.
Actually the basement wasn't as open as you'd think, thanks to the piles of junk everywhere, but they did prevent the raptors from surrounding my brother and I right away.

Anyway I can't really remember how it got going, but I do remember that Ben and I were in the basement for a specific reason, something we had to collect, some reason we couldn't leave right away. He was attending to that while I tried to fend off the first wave of velociraptors with something that may have been a baseball bat or simply a long chunk of wood. And apparently the dream's graphics engine got a bit lazy, because the first wave of raptors consisted of rather small clear-colored raptors that were fairly difficult to spot, owing to their see-through-ish-ness. I remember whacking a few, but I had the impression that I wasn't going to be able to hold them off very well, and/or they didn't seem particularly impressed by my attack, despite being hit over the head with a chunk of wood bigger than they were. At any rate, I did seem to be managing to stall them for the moment, at which point the next wave of velociraptors arrived.
These were a size larger and featured Graphics 2.0 with full coloring, which appeared all the more striking as though to make up for the previous and more boring first wave. Their color was something like brown, red, and green, with dramatic zigzags along their backs, and very bright eyes and faces. I don't recall fighting them very much; I think their appearance was a sign that we should leave the basement, lock the door, and never open it again.

Man there was some kinda plotpoint that had to do with why we were in the basement, and maybe even why raptors were coming to attack us, but I can't remember it. Scientific research? Who knows >:U

I also remember a point at which I was talking to the fat business guy in an upstairs room.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any satisfactory conclusion to this velociraptor dream. OH WELL. I'm pretty sure there was more to it as well, like maybe their emergence from the basement as the situation worsened, but I'd hate to speculate. (I hate accidentally rhyming too but whatever.)

hhhhh. I wanted to fall back asleep and pick the dream up where I left off but I think the TV downstairs is too loud ...

Fragment 1
Somethin' about an evil villain type guy who operates mainly in this underground sewer-ish place. Tunnels, dark with red lighting, and with walkways of metal grating. There was something about how he wanted to lure a good guy or a hero of some sort there, in order to harness his ... heroic attributes.

Fragment 2
Dad's chewing noisily and I'm trying to tell him that this time, THIS time, I'm not going to just handle it (I have misophonia IWL). I'm so beside myself that I doubt he can tell what I'm saying, but it's something along the lines of "It's been four times already and I'm not going to keep handling it." I think at some point he takes me aside and explains that I am going to keep handling it. Oh well xP

Dream 1: Walking on Ice
Yayyyy an actual vivid memorable dreaaammm...
It's nighttime and there's a bridge that goes across an enormous frozen body of water to an island of some kind. There's a rather treacherous path at the very edge of the island and at the base of the cliffs, that goes all the way around the island, and tourists are told that the farther they make it around the path, the more bonus attributes they'll get. I'm not sure what these attributes were supposed to be but it kinda reminded me of an RPG or something. Except I think they were positive morality-based attributes, not power-based.

Anyway I wasn't a tourist but I decided to go around the path anyway. My sister was with me, walking along a bridge that also went around the whole island, so we were sort of side-by-side. The path itself was kind of hard to describe. Basically, at the base of the cliffs there was some white-painted wood cut in nice ribbed sort of shapes, at foot level and hand level. I forget what it's called, argh. At some points the wood formed nice flat shelves I could easily step (or leap) on, but other times I had to cling to whatever I could at hand level because my feet hardly had anything under them. If I slipped my sneakers would end up in icy cold water, so that's something I wanted to avoid, but somewhat counter-intuitively the middle of the lake was more frozen than the edges, so it was really only a danger right next to the woodwork.

My method of traversing this path was sort of daring. I wasn't proceeding at a particularly slow pace; more leaping from one foothold to another and clinging to the handholds as necessary. I think Jess and I were chatting as I went and the maneuvering was more background work. I wasn't at all worried about slipping; I think on some level I knew confidence would be enough to keep me from slipping. Low-level lucidity? 8) Maybe I'm getting there~

One interesting occurrence was when I saw a fish frozen in the ice a short distance off-shore. My first impression was that it was an "angry fish" (carnivore), and then I walked over on the ice to investigate, a little nervous as I felt it cracking under my feet. At this point I was a little fascinated by how great the ice looked; really, how great everything looked.

Upon closer inspection, the angry fish was actually only partially trapped, and it had its face pressed up against a hole in the ice. Then I had a good idea, and walked over to where I'd (earlier?) spotted a dead normal fish (non-carnivorous), also trapped in the ice. My impression was that it had been in the ice for some time, but that it would make a good meal for the trapped fish anyway. It was also about the same size as the other fish. I grabbed it at the base of the tail and pulled it out of the ice somehow, and then walked back to the carnivore fish, which I could sort of now tell was a seal, and I said as much to Jess when she called from the bridge asking what the thing was. It had its muzzle poking out the hole in the ice again and was eagerly opening and closing its mouth, and as I dipped the dead fish's face by the seal's face, it suddenly grabbed it and yanked it out of my hand under the ice.

Then there was a last bit where the seal was drifting along (free of the ice) asleep with the fish, now trailing blood, in its mouth. Somehow the fish was parallel to the seal. Actually they may both have been trailing blood for some reason. Then there was some nature narrator saying something about how, unfortunately for the fish, fishes and seals experience unconsciousness differently, so the fish couldn't really escape even though the seal was asleep. And then shortly after that I woke up. Hm.

And then I spent probably half an hour or more trying to fall back asleep but no cigar. Maybe because I was worried about forgetting all this.

yo it's 5 am let's do this *yawn*

(a hastily scribbled outline was here)

Thinking back as far as I can, the first chapter of the dream was something about me being on the second floor of a large castle. The outside was rather menacing somehow, probably because it was simply enormous, and the interior reminded me somewhat of a church I used to attend (third floor of WCF). I get the impression someone else was there and that there were some rules going on, but mostly what I remember is that my cat Moses was being super dangerous in his attempts to get from the second floor of the castle to the ground. It was something like, when he wasn't supposed to jump to the ground he'd end up falling off somehow, and when it was made totally clear to him that he wasn't allowed down, he jumped off in the most ridiculously daredevil and rebellious way a cat can manage; that is to say, it was a sort of flying leap. He seemed alright when he landed though.

There was also something about the second floor of the castle being able to view the ground floor (some open space in the floor idk architecture terms) but having prison bars, and there was definitely more structure to the whole scenario. There was a girl there, it was nighttime, and there was a bit of a Stone Harbor feel. And come to think of it there was some sort of longer scenario involving a whole bunch of other teenagers which had a bit of story and structure to it, and some clique hierarchy junk, but the best I can remember of that is simply that I, along with my female (dream) best friend, was in competition with some rude female who probably had some boyfriend arm candy, and ultimately I was victorious on some level. And I suppose it wasn't quite teen hierarchy junk as much as it was adults-and-office-related. So a bit of both.

The second chapter that I can remember ... involved something about a Roman slave type person, a rather ruefully cheerful man, and something about him carrying a plate that had recently had food on it past my (iwl) dad and some other guy, both of whom commented on it. If I had to guess, I would say the plate had just had some venetian turkey pie on it. Uhhh the architecture of the situation was a bit confusing as well. The slave guy came out of a back room sort of thing and walked by a counter which divided the short hall he was in from the room with the other two men in it, who were lounging in chairs. Man there was something really strange happening other than what I'm describing but it's either hard to remember or hard to translate to waking life terms. Basically though, the two men commented on the plate, saying something like "is there any of that left" because the food it referenced was so delicious, and the slave felt sort of awkward, and then there was something about the Bible. Or something. And a river of lava. The feel of this chapter was subordinate with a touch of outright menace and a helping (DO YOU SEE THE THING THAT I DID) of danger, compared to the previous one.

The last thing thing I remember before my alarm went off and I woke up was a dream that I was recording my dream. I was attempting to remember the different parts of the dream and starting to outline them in my head so I could remember them and write them down. But since I was still dreaming and not at all lucid, the information I was arranging was totally made-up (did not refer to any dream I had just had) and in non-IWL terms. Also I did not realize I wasn't awake and when my alarm went off I was genuinely surprised. So it would almost be impressive that I started writing down a dream before I'd even woken up and before my alarm had gone off, if the information did not look like (attempted translation):
• a person wearing a black, looseknit sweater thing
• holding a fishing rod that they are using to tease
• some third person (information not found)
or, in other words, total gibberish, even as dreams are concerned, and also incorrect.

But apparently my heart's in the right place. Also more proof that my mind sort of knows when my alarm is about to go off (since my mentality started to switch from "dreaming" to "recording dreams" shortly before I woke up), which is always very strange. I also remember that my feelings upon waking were something like "ahhh I'll remember all this when I wake up in the morning", but I decided to write it down anyway because those words really meant "I'm disoriented and lazy and I didn't ask to be in this 5 AM time-to-write-down-your-dream situation" and the fact of the matter was I was already starting to forget. Having a dream journal on here is pretty dang cool.