non-lucid

I wannttt mMOOOORE SLEEEPPPP

Dream
OK so a lot of things happened but again recall is tricky
but I DID happen to remember that my brother and I were playing Roller Coaster Tycoon 2. It functioned like a multiplayer game, where the two of us could work on the park independently of the other. This really only worked out well because it was a dream, so we didn't end up doing something like putting down two of the same ride by accident because I always intuitively knew what he was doing.

we put down a bunch of small, thrilling rides, and I can distinctly remember the struggle to get the entrances and exits and queues and paths all properly laid out, owing mainly to the dream's apathy for consistent game behavior. This seems to be a trend in my dreams, that something will be working not quite as well as the usual, because it's a dream, and I'll get a little annoyed but fail to connect it with the fact that I'm dreaming. I want to turn that into a reality check but it's something that only happens in dreams so... maybe I should just do some visualizations and have myself reality check in response? I'm not suuuure.

Anyway once we had all the thrill rides laid out I was ready for money to start pouring in, because people were queueing all over the place. Like, all the rides were very popular. And yet. We failed to get rich. In fact, it looked more like we were actively losing money. I was like, what the heck, game? And then it turned out that since we'd put down only thrill rides, we were missing out on potential profits from the pansies of the world. The game flat-out showed us where to put down a merry-go-round, like that was the one thing we were missing. So we did. But I feel like I might've woken up shortly after so ohHHH WELL.

Something else about fighting large humanoid bugs.

oh whoops I forgot to post this ooOOPPSSS

hhaaaaa

Dream
Dreamed mom was telling me about this like, cross-country runner guy who'd been converted to Christianity. So I'm like okay hold that thought and we're at this strip mall place at night (kinda feels like I've been there before in another dream) and I get outta the parked car and make my way over to an ATM that gives me the deets on this guy.

So it shows a nice lil illustrative graphic video of him running all over the place in West Virginia, complete with little numbers showing how very far he's gone, and then he runs into this Christian dude who's got a pamphlet. And he's just kinda standing there in the path in the middle of nowhere waiting for the guy. And then the Christian dude says something challenging like "Jesus died for you, how can you be allowed to have your own pamphlet when you haven't-" and I feel like the cross-country runner guy and I both get the same thought like "...if the runner guy hasn't jumped off this cliff and died...!" like, y'know, to show his dedication and stuff, except then the Christian guy finishes his thought and it's something a lot more mundane.

So I'm like, unconvinced by this display, and then I have to eat a big bowl of cereal so I'm tryna hurry up and do that so I can get back to mom. Except then she just pulls up while I'm walking to her like yup here I am! And I'm like cool.

Once again I feel like there was somethin' else cool goin' on but apparently my recall is not THAT good so oohhhhhhhhhh well

aaaaaa
this is really tricky to try to remember

Dream
okay so there was this queen and I was this worker dude, really more like a peasant, who wanted to be all subversive and it's hard to remember more details than that? But I know at one point that like, I was uselessly messin' around with bales of hay on a long cart (which was my main purpose, it seemed), and out of nowhere a couple of arrows whistled right past my head from below me. There was this guy hiding in the corn right next to the cart who was, I think, angrily posting to his twitter account about how he didn't like the queen so he was taking it out on her workers, which maybe inspired me to start posting on MY twitter account about the "literal" (I made very sure to note that these were literal arrows and not, say, metaphorical ones) arrows that some madman had just fired at my head because he hated someone else entirely (surprisingly I did not then attempt to hunt down the perpetrator in question, who I'm pretty sure was still RIGHT THERE in the corn posting on his twitter account).

And there was something earlier about how I was a gay dude looking at a guy on the front of a magazine and it was like, my favorite magazine cover of all time. Which reminds me of other things but honestly this dream does not translate to reality very well at all.

I don't feel very aware in my dreams, which bugs me because instead of encountering something weird and going "Oh, maybe this is a dream," I just accept it. Guess I should practice my reality checks. Probably something like "what if this right now is a dream?" and then giving everything a good hard look would help. And also being like "wait maybe this is a dream" and doing a reality check every time something weird happens.

ANYWAY.

Dream: "It's Not the Actual Her"
Dreamed that various relatives had gathered for whatever reason, which was fine by me except that one of them was my recently dead Granny. She seemed to be acting pretty normal, so it wasn't as if the doll-looking thing that served as her corpse in the viewing had been cruelly reanimated. It really was like she'd somehow come back to life. And I was like, what, this is impossible (because I do have SOME dream awareness, I guess). I said as much to my sister, who scoffed and said that of course it wasn't the actual Granny. And then something like, "It's like if they made another one of you. It wouldn't be the actual you." So then I was thinking, what, like a clone? They grew a clone of Granny in that little time and now it's here? They could make a clone of me? And I was just, like, confused. But I didn't think it was a dream. FOOLISH ME

Then there was a bit about Granny being casually psychic her whole life and not wanting the ability to go to waste, so sometimes she'd inform us of stuff she knew. Like, okay, to describe it more fully, I was in some building, and when I looked out one of the windows I saw a younger Granny driving her car and boasting of her never-wrong ability to just know things, viewed from the perspective of the front seat. So I was like yo, cool, if she's 100% psychic then maybe I'm like, 25% psychic?

Then I was in the 1319 house and saw these two black cats outside in the rain, so I let one in (the other was still away from the door for some reason) and got a towel to dry it off with. And it was very well-mannered about this, snuggling into the towel to make things easier, and I was like yo this cat's pretty smart. But again, even though I got this mental ping like "that's weird" it didn't translate into a reality check. I needa practice these things IWL aaaaa.

Eventually I let the other cat in and toweled him off as well, and it was pretty vivid. So that was cool. Tryna dry off these cats. Man, they were really soaked.

I woke up and I was like ehhh I could use more dreams, maybe I could WILD? And then I just fell back asleep like normal so whoops.

Dream: Chillin' with the Bae
Then I dreamed the bae and I actually lived within walking distance of each other, which I then got totally confused with waking life. I was like, dude, we live so close to each other, how come we don't hang out like this all the time? So I was a little confused. Also I was going to college, and although we didn't really go to the same college we'd walk to class together. It was super nice tho. Bein' able to hang out with him.

Ugh I am too lazy to remember much more, but there was some part where I think the bae and I went to some kinda welcoming seminar to welcome me back to college, and it was pretty hella boring. Oh right, and then I met Mang0 the melee player which was rad. He was super chill.

Dream: ???
Whatever occurred in my dreams last night was so abstract and unmemorable that it translated to a big foggy mess this morning, so I have almost nothing to contribute to my dream journal at this time. However, I do remember some fragments.

Something about me making things for some girl.
My sister getting freaked out by a spider and pointing it out to me, and me getting really close to it and recognizing what kind it was (for the record, the type was a sort of small, spiny spider that had a tendency to tuck its legs in very close to its body and hold very still, which are some attributes that real spiders have but not necessarily combined like that).

Better luck next time, me.

No lucidity but my dreams had some nice detail to them. Maybe I underestimate how vivid they already are?

Dream: AAAHHHH DREAMSIGNS
So my dreams weren't entirely interesting except for stuff like this:

My boyfriend and I were riding around on the Metro and he told me about how he'd once been sent to some kinda adolescent jail for stealing a handgun with a little bayonet on it (Borderlands 2!). There, they put him in cryosleep for a few months. In the dream I'd just learned about prison cryosleep, so I knew it involved the person being layered in some strange fluffy white substance by a big machine, sorta like a giant 3D printer, and then idk they cryoslept. So then I was seeing this happening to my boyfriend and I was like... bummer. But it really seems like something that would happen to him, I mean not the part where he stole something but the part where as usual bad things are happening to him so points to my dream for being realistic.

Then there was some Metro riding and at one point for whatever reason we got separated and then we reunited and it was great because reuniting with him is the best #longdistancerelationship.

Then I rode trains with my sister and it was pretty chill, except that I didn't really have a working Metro card so I kept having to try to dive through when my sister would swipe HER card and it worked out pretty well. Like, sometimes the Metro peeps would notice and sometimes they wouldn't, but either way they let me get away with it. But what sucked was that "doing things I shouldn't be doing" is a dreamsign for me, like, I should've been thinking "maybe it doesn't matter, is this a dream?" And like, I gotta practice having that reaction to things. In real life. I gotta be like, well, normally I wouldn't be able to steal this car and go for a joyride, but... is this a dream? And then do a reality check. Oh man I love that idea it's so stupid.

Then a Metro lady approached me while I was looking at the Metro map and talked all about what working at Metro was like and p much offered me a job on the spot because she liked me so much and THANKS BRAIN BUT WE'RE NOT WORRYING ABOUT THE JOBHUNT RIGHT NOW SO SHUT UP.

And then outside my sister and I met up with my mom and I found a baby squirrel on the ground and just snatched it right up like YUP I'LL BE TAKING THIS. Then it tried to bite me and I waited to see whether that would hurt but it turned out the baby squirrel had no teeth! Its dumb gummy face just slid right off my finger and I was like "This baby squirrel has no teeth!" 'cause I was so excited about being able to hold this thing without getting covered in bites. Grabbing up small harmless animals is another dreamsign so I need to remember to start doing reality checks when I'm snatching baby animals away from their homes and stuff. Ugh, so much work.

Oh boy look at me being all proactive and trying to get back into the swing of things LET'S DO THIS

Dream 1: Terrorism + Mom
So I don't know why I have these dreams where I'm trying to protect my mom in life-or-death situations but it's always stressful as hell. Here we go.

I dreamed there was some maniac flying planes into buildings on something like an hourly basis, in the area where mom and I were out and about doing I-have-no-idea-what-or-why-we-were-out-there-when-there-were-planes-hitting-things-so-often-and-so-close-to-us. But anyway, we were doing stuff. And I was very much focused on the task of trying to keep mom alive. I didn't get the sense that there was much danger to myself. It was entirely an escort mission.

And that escort mission paid off when I happened to find the perpetrator, an old, somewhat emaciated white guy with a long beard. Who I then promptly drowned in the river. It was something like, I tied a rope around his neck and stuffed him in a box and idk the rope was connected to the box or something, and then I threw the box in the river and made sure it was entirely submerged, just under the surface. And then tried to forget he was actively drowning in there, because the idea was unpleasant.

But anyway, that took care of the threat to mom's life. I'm not sure what happened next, but I do recall checking back on the box and finding that yes, it was still there, and he must've been thoroughly dead by that point, so +1 to my peace of mind.

Dream 2: Hella Long Library Visit
Next I dreamed that I was driving my brother and I to the nearby library. I grabbed three-ish books and was ready to go, and then Ben was like hold on... let's chill here. And I was like oh, okay, good time to get some reading in. And then we just chilled, and idk there was a really nasty beanbag to chill in, and then later there was a bed, and at some point Jess showed up and eventually it was dark out and I realized that mom was probably worried about us. I was like, oh no, I hope she doesn't think all three of us tragically died in a car accident. I checked my phone and saw that I had a new voicemail, and I decided to just text mom that we were all good, and then she showed up at the library saying she wasn't worried and there was no need, or something.

That was the gist of the dream, but I'm pretty sure it was pretty vivid and detailed in some ways. Like, I think I remember running my finger along the library card barcode, and another bit where I was trying to scan my library card and I kept doing it wrong and having to flip the card over.

Anyway it was kinda cool. Just chillin' in a library with my siblings and reading books 'cause there's nothing else to do when you're in a library without your computer. It was an oddly realistic and chill dream.

wow Im back

Dream: Three Friends Aw Yeah
So I dreamed I was in this big building with three friends, which is more IRL friends than I've ever had at one time. And unlike most dreams where I'm, at best, just part of an impartial group, this time it was just these three original characters who really didn't have much in the way of defining characteristics, but were nevertheless chill friends of mine. It felt nice.

Anyway, one of them, for whatever reason, became a robot assassin who couldn't control himself. So next thing you know, he wanted to kill me and another friend. But the last friend stepped in and proved himself to be a capable fighter, able to go toe-to-toe with assassin friend. This was especially impressive because robo-assassin friend could turn invisible and was armed with a fairly long sword, but nevertheless fighter friend did a good job of taking him on.

So most of the dream was me and normal friend just kind of running around from place-to-place, either hiding and wondering if we were gonna die together, or checking in to see how the fight between robo-assassin friend and fighter friend was going. I don't know that one friend or the other ended up winning, but I do remember thinking that if this were a dream, it would be a prime opportunity for me to present myself to robo friend and see what getting stabbed with a sword felt like. Like, a really good opportunity. But I was loathe to actually try such a thing, mostly because I was pretty well convinced that if he stabbed me I would die, and if I died I'd be dead for good. So I didn't go for it.

In retrospect I should've done a reality check and then tried to make myself invincible or something. That would've been cool.

whoops I thought it'd been like two days since I updated this thing
whoops

Dream: War is Hella
aren't you proud of me for coming up with that awful title
yes

So the dream started off with some Dragon Ball Z shenanigans (I'm more of a Dragon Ball Z Abridged nerd myself). Sort of an apocalypse setting like History of Trunks (the only official DBZ thing I've seen), except Goku didn't die and it wasn't androids and Gohan was still a little kid.

Goku flew off to get something done and when he got back Gohan was sitting on the ground glowering intensely and looking like he was about to cry. I completely misread the mood and pointed at him to someone else and went "Look at Gohan! " and they were like uhhhh... it might've been my sister.

Next it turned out they were working on engineering something that would make them stronger. Goku had got what they needed so now it was up to Gohan to donate blood and he went ham on that. There were like, these odd needles with glowing blue orbs, and he had like 10 or 20 of them sticking out of him. The impression given was that he was stepping up to donate out of some kind of eagerness and sense of duty but also it seemed like everyone else was dead ?? and couldn't donate ?? so whatever ??

Goku took the medicine or whatever and the two of them sparred and they just frickin vanished into speed lines. I was like :000 because it was the fastest (dream-canonically) they'd ever been.

So that was cool. At that point I think they ceased to be relevant.

Then it was time for some war shenanigans. Same apocalypse setting, we were in the city and buildings everywhere were empty and decrepit and enemy soldiers were flying in on these massive airships. I was my rad lucidnerd self, not totally consciously aware it was a dream but flying around exactly as if I were. Like it was second nature.

So then I had a laser which I could point at explosives to make 'em blow up. I tried to use these as anti-air vs the airships but it didn't particularly work and they dropped loads of army men on me. Like the toys. Various sizes, all weak as kittens. I swept 'em off the ... bed I was on. I mean, I was on the roof of a building, but when they air-dropped it was suddenly a game of "get off my bed," so whatever.

After sweeping those nerds I went back to playing with the laser, pointing it at some TNT that was strapped to a rundown building. It was just one corner of the building, 20 floors up, so when it blew up the building didn't collapse. Oh well.

Next I started flying around and ended up on the roof of some building where a flag was supposed to be. It was like, get the flag and you get lots of points. Two other guys showed up, not related to each other but both seeking the flag. I got in a little pointless gunfight with one and the other nabbed it. Oh WELL.

Then I was sneaking into the building we were on. It turned out to be a hideout for both soldiers and schoolchildren (!?!) as well as their teachers. I had fun wandering around, all psyched by the thought that if someone recognized me as an American they would all totally go after me. So that made just walking around there exciting.

Then I ran into Ben, of all things, starring in the dream as an exhausted dirty soldier. I was like "Ben! " and then I was like wait maybe I shouldn't approach him. But it was sort of too late and I was like oh well.

We hung out for a bit and then I wooooke uuuuuuuuuuuup.

Y'know, I would almost call this "automatic lucidity" 'cause it's a cool name but too late, I already named it "low-level lucidity" last year.

huurgghhh

Dream 1 - Shootout
Dreamed I was back at the 1319 house in DC just sitting in the backseat of someone's car, and then these two plainclothes cops hopped in. I thought they were just a couple of gang members 'cause I'm a racist, and then it turned out they were part of this massive police vs An Actual Gang shootout that I was now unwittingly a part of.

So they pulled out, got to the end of the street, and u-turned back around, and now suddenly I had a gun and was tasked with trying to shoot the various people who were now shooting at us. I was like okay, these guys totally deserve this, and fired a few times... and every time there was just no effect at all. I fired my last shot at some guy in front of us, yelled something like "I'm out of bullets!" and hurled the (sort of heavy) gun through the shattered windshield at the guy. Which didn't seem to have any effect either.

So then the gang leader guy had become king of the street, and the two cops and I were chilling in the garden of the house next to mine, surrounded by armed gang members. The younger one seemed like he could use some cheering up, given our situation, so I picked up a heavy something-or-other to use as a club, and set my sights on a particularly stupid-looking gang member who happened to be bald. And then I just kept whacking him over the head. He would make vague attempts to come at me, and get whacked over the head again for his troubles. By this point, everyone was just watching this little white girl hit one of their guys over the head like, a dozen times.

On my part, the club I was wielding wasn't coming down with enough force for my tastes. I really wanted to just crack him over the head, but my attempts felt kind of flimsy. Still, I gave it my best shot, and I think he eventually crumpled. There was no blood or anything so distasteful. I turned to see if the younger cop had seen any of this, and caught him just waking up from a small nap. I was like, "You were asleep??"

Then we started engaging in various small acts of sabotage. I can't remember the details at this point, but it was something like, Mr. Gang Leader tried to come on to me, and I somehow said something that embarrassed him in front of his men. And then he was in a newspaper article, and I was casually grinding the article's photo of him under my foot. I think we were planning something else when I woke up. I mean, I hope we were planning something that wasn't just "You see this newspaper? I'm steppin' on your face ooooohh."

Dream 2 - Back at the Dorm
Then I dreamed I was back at my college dorm (which I recently beat a hasty retreat from for the sake of my mental health—or in other words, I'm taking a semester off), and my mom and roommate were there. It was kinda nice seeing my roommate again. She's such a sweetie. I'm not sure what, if anything, happened though.

Dream 3 - Rope Course Retreat
Finally I dreamed I was on my way to a Rope Course Retreat, which I guess had been set up by the college. It was reminiscent of youth group, as that's always been my experience with retreats, but it felt like I was with a bunch of other college students.

When we arrived, we saw that each member of a group all had to wear the same costume in order to keep track of who was with which group. We walked past a bunch of guys in not-too-shabby ninja costumes, which was especially impressive given that the costumes were all made out of plastic bag-esque material.

Next I found myself in a dark room where the plastic bag dinosaur costumes my group had to wear were being distributed. It was like, a slippery plastic basketball jersey, and then an inflatable plastic dinosaur head. I was on a couch kind of curled up against the armrest, and the guy passing them out came up to me and was like, yo, you got what I asked you for? I caught on like oh, he's teasing me like I have to buy the costume off him. So I was like nooo, I'm sorry, but can I have one of the costumes anyway? And he was like ok. And then he just didn't give me one. I was thinking yo, don't I kind of need one? What's with this guy grmble grmble and then I almost fell asleep on the couch. I think I ended up with a jersey but no dinosaur head.

So then I got separated from my group a bit. I think they'd moved on to Stage II: Dancing in a Dark Room, and I found myself just wandering around the building. It was pretty dang spacious and also rather beautifully made, all bright lights and clean stairways and huge windows. OK, I'm not describing it right. It was well-made, was the impression I got. And very clean.

So I had a great time wandering around, and I gradually stopped feeling like I was supposed to reunite with my group. Or at least, I mostly got used to it, but then I caught myself thinking that I should check outside to see if they'd started on the rope course. So I looked for an exit, but the first two or three doors I came across were emergency exits, and by the time I found a perfectly harmless-looking glass door that led directly to the rope course, I was too suspicious that it would somehow turn out to be an emergency exit to try it.

I came across other groups, including a group of middle schoolers. I think one of 'em threatened me with a foam weapon he had. I also spotted my brother in another group, but I didn't say hi to him. He was facing away from me, and when he turned to walk past me he somehow didn't see me. I was like yeah, that happens. I'll see him around later. And that's actually a kind of weird approach for me to take in a dream, because I used to be like "A CHANCE TO SEE BEN?? I'LL TAKE IT." and now I'm a lot more chill. I wonder what exactly is changing about me?

ANYWAY
Then I had a couple run-ins with the wildlife. I went outside and first I ran into this vampire moth (which is a real thing btw), and I was super torn between letting it drink my sweat and being paranoid that it was gonna bite me like a mosquito. I finally just took my gardening gloves off (that were very sweaty that I was inexplicably wearing) and hoped it would go for 'em, and not my flesh. It did, and there was a VERY STRANGE segment where it got a blue thread from the gloves (which weren't even blue) and fricking ate it ... by engulfing it with its body like a white blood cell. I swear I fricking lost my dang marbles watching this unassuming moth suddenly mutate into pink, churning flesh, rise up like a wave, and absorb that blue thread into its being. I fricking lost it.

Or at least, for the duration of this strange display. Once it got back to being a normal (?) moth, I resumed my previous approach of "this thing scares me, please do not bite me and suck my blood, small moth."

Then I got attacked by a fricking passing black panther. It was just strolling by and I was like oh frick, don't attack me. So it did. I was like ohhh frick, getting swatted by its huge black paw while it snarled at me, but it had no effect. I got swatted a few times, but each time it was like I was getting hit by a small house cat.

Anyway then I think I woke up. Not sure though.

SO
Ugh how come I've been sleeping for like 9+ hours a night and waking up tired, every time... I think I need something to wake up for.
At any rate, here's the dreams I had. Or dream, I guess.

Dream
So I dreamed I was back at college, this time with only four classes. Looking at my schedule, three of them were on M-W-F, and only one was on Tuesdays and Thursdays... which meant only one lecture would be an hour and fifteen minutes, which I was pretty happy about. Ben was also around somewhere.

I vaguely remember wandering around some old-timey kinda place. Cobblestone paths, brick buildings, stuff like that. I think I was heading towards a building's basement.

Then Dad picked us up, I think... I think he had Jess, too, and we all went to Gram's place. I don't remember too much of this, but there was an odd scene where I was straight-up bonding with her. We were sitting together on the couch and I was showing her this game I was playing, or maybe I was just showing her my cell phone, and we were laughing and chatting. Pretty sure I was uncomfortable with this even in the dream.

Then Ben, Jess, Dad and I were all chilling in some kinda hotel, like we were gonna chill overnight before we left. One room kinda resembled Dad's 1319 back office, with computers set up and everything, and next thing everybody was playing old-timey games. Jess was playing some kinda colorful top-down thing where you had to dodge all these enemies that were just kinda swimming around, while eating gems or something like that. It was pretty cool 'cause the map was big enough that if you went to the edges, it would scroll to accommodate you. Good graphics, too.

Then I was playing some game where you were a little dude at the bottom of the screen trying to eat all this gourmet food that was falling before it went down the drain. It had a bit of a story, too, like you were proving your place in a high-class society by eating all the delicacies that the old blood were petulantly throwing at you. Or something like that. The drain was in the middle of the screen, though, so it wasn't really necessary to dodge around trying to catch everything; if you camped at the drain, it would all come to you. So it became less of a skill game and more of an exercise in feeling bad for your character, because he'd just eaten like a million grapes.

Then we were gonna play some Bugdom, except when I went to bring it up it was called "Bugmel." I didn't just accept this odd fact right away. I was like hang on, why is it called Bugmel? What changed? Sadly, it didn't make me think I was dreaming.

I played some Bugmel, which turned out to be a pretty simple game where you're an old dude on a high-up wooden pathway. You roll a dice and see how many spaces you can tuck-and-roll along this wonky pathway that curves up and down as well as side to side, and then you have the option of using a "Reward," which is a bit of magic. I was like yo. This game? Is perfect.

I don't know why I thought that considering there were no goals or enemies that I could see. The guy made a few moves down the pathway and then almost rolled off because the path just sort of ended there, and I had to make him turn around. And... that was it. That was the game.

Next, it turned out my ex was around as well. He was acting like we were still dating, which was pretty awkward for me. I started realizing I was gonna have to break up with him, which was an unpleasant feeling, but it couldn't be avoided. When he grabbed me into a hug, I found myself looking across the room at my sister like "Urgh. Help."

Finally I got ready to break up with him, which sort of reminded me that I'd already broken up with him once before. So I was like, how hard could it be? We were awkwardly cuddling, and I was leaning against him even though I didn't really want to, and I started thinking of why I was going to break up with him. And I concluded that it was because I wanted to be able to date girls. So I said that.

"Ex's name," I said, "when I'm with you I feel like a straight guy being forced to pretend he's gay." Or something like that. I followed up that I wanted to be able to date girls, so I was breaking up with him.

He was like yo, don't date girls for like a week and think it's true love. Or I mean, he said something stupid like that. That was the general idea.

I bristled, because it really wasn't any of his business and he was treating me like a kid. I was like "yo, how many relationships have I even been in? You think I'm gonna have a bunch of cheap flings? I've only been in like, three or four relationships." Ugh, none of this is word-for-word. I'm tryin', okay.

Then I was playing some other game while accepting that outside, it was actually getting bright, of all things. So I says to Ben, is Dad gonna drive us off in the morning? Are we gonna keep going? And Ben was like nah man. And he pointed outside at all the snow that was out there (no doubt a reference to the real snow we just had). I was like ugh.

HHUURGHHH
being sick really makes it hard to have dreams that make sense

Dream 1
So I was in a Target or something similar. Apparently it was closer to the holidays, because I remember stumbling upon some great gingerbread cookies. This lady with kids bought the good ones that had frosting and let me try a piece of one and I was like heck yeah, this is what I want. But naturally she took the ones that had frosting, so now I was stuck with a couple that were made of soft gingerbread but didn't have frosting. But I was like NO BIG DEAL; I'll buy powdered sugar and make perfect frosting on my OWN. What do I need... sugar... powdered sugar? I guess I need food coloring... wait, don't we have food coloring? Also, it felt like the gingerbread cookies might've been a bit expensive, even though I was only getting two. (Also they were just laying out, no packaging or nothing, but I didn't really care about that.) I couldn't find the price tag, but the lady was like oh, they're only about 2.97 altogether (or something like that).

Dream 2
So... Ben and I were hanging out with a bunch of college-age girls, but we were all coloring with markers so that was pretty cool. One of the girls asked me to check whether any of the markers weren't working, and lo and behold, when I tested every single marker they all worked perfectly. I wasn't too excited about this, though, because my method of testing them was to draw a line with one, and then draw a slightly rotated line with the next one, and so forth all the way around the clock, but at some point I got confused as to how the angles were supposed to line up and I was just angry at that point.

Then Ben and I got into a gunfight except the guns were actually pencils and it was confusing as heck because the pencil case I kept them in was another, larger pencil, with two compartments, and then it turned out that the pencils could also hold pencils inside them and I just got fricking lost in pencils while Ben was shooting sticky explosive clay at me and hitting me with it. It would get stuck to me and then start to swell up because it was about to explode and I'd be like frick, but I don't recall ever actually having parts of me exploding so I guess that was fine. Like, one time he shot it at me and it hit my knee and my hand, and I managed to get my hand free and then I just covered my face with my arms while I felt it swelling up on my knee. But it didn't explode I guess.

Either way, I got annoyed enough with Ben to be like alright, Imma pull out my long-range gun and shoot back (I guess we were standing on two shops so he was actually far enough away to necessitate a long-range gun), and then I just got lost in my pencil case for a bit before I pulled out the right one, and by then I was apparently so annoyed that I just fired at him like it was no big deal at all. I might even have hit him. He seemed to be fine though.

Back on the coloring frontier, I was coloring a picture of some fairies by a waterfall. I was like yo, this one fairy's already got greenish hair... guess I'll give her green skin. There was another dude in the picture who was already colored in with what looked like brown-red crayon. Whoever had done it had added some shading that actually made him look better. I took an appropriately colored marker and outlined the hair shading in neat swoops. I was a bit surprised myself by how well I did.

And man idk what else.

So uh let's see.

I dreamed something interesting, fell back asleep like "I don't care enough to write it down," and then dreamed about playing Mario Kart at Apex 2015.

The Apex 2015 Racing Champion
And I was fricking kicking everyone's BUTT. Sort of.

So first it was just Ben and I racing together, and then it turned out that the times I was getting were qualifying me for Apex without me even knowing. So then, when I showed up to watch people race, they were like yo, you're already one of the top contenders. So I was like okay, here I go, and participated.

So it worked like this. Everyone would race on a map for the qualifiers, and then the people who set the best times for that would race each other. I placed first both times for the first map, which I don't particularly remember. I just remember thinking whoa, I'm placing first at Apex, that's crazy. And then the next map was so weird that I was like yo, I don't care if I don't get first. I gave it a shot anyway, though.

It was like, this snowy map that wove in and out of a mansion, and it was super confusing to tell which direction everyone was supposed to go. So people just picked random directions and ran off. And I mean ran, because at this point everyone's physical bodies had just been dropped into the map without any cars, so it became a footrace.

I think we all gave it our best shot for the first lap, despite not quite heading in the same direction. First, there was a big pond with a bunch of like, dead plants in it. Each plant was like a bunch of curved bony sticks that were juuust about piled together enough to support my weight, so I hopped across on the plants to save time. I was like yo this takes skill, no wonder I'm #1.

Also near the start of the map was a path going to the right, and later when I headed that way there were these two deep pits by the edge of the mansion. Contained in the pits were these two crazy monsters who could flip between being icy cold and lava hot, which was pretty terrifyingly violent to be around. They were kinda shaped like those Mimics from Live Die Repeat. Also, it seemed like their seeing me was enraging them into trying to get out and almost succeeding, so after a brief stint in that direction I left it entirely alone. I think they belonged to another participant.

Anyway, when actually running the race the first time I just remember bounding over the twiggy pond instead of taking the easier path and then having to run through snow as aggressively as possible in order to keep my speed up (it was that part of my mind that's always trying to make sure I come out on top in dreams, believing that snow was too difficult for them but not for me). Then there were bits where we ducked in and out of the mansion, but I'm pretty sure none of us really knew which path we were supposed to take. There was this tiny like, rat-sized official robot that was always following the correct path, and if you felt like moving through the race at a cool 1 mph you could stay back with it and see which turns it took.

I'm not sure what else happened. That earlier dream that was interesting that I forgot had something to do with being in a large room with a dragon or gryphon or something, which I was on good terms with. What even happened. I really gotta try to remember how to write my dreams down properly...

i'm BAAAAAAAACK
so I told myself I'd get back on track and write my next dream down on here, so naturally the dream I had that night was super clear and vivid... uh and sorry if my writing isn't too lucid (PUNS!!!) right now, 'cause I'm recovering from being sick. it's taking fricking ages, it's been like, 6 days. uuurgh.

Dreamin' 'Bout a Theme Park
So the dream started off with me at some sort of in-between stage. Supposedly I was at college with Jess, but it looked more like some kind of rocky beach area at night. Rather atmospheric. There was also something about a game I was playing with her, like chinese checkers or something. Also I was trying to figure out how much money to take to the theme park, taking into account that I really wasn't supposed to be spending much money at all at this point (IWL considerations).

So I settled on a decent amount, some other things happened, and then I was at the theme park. It was still night, and I was a bit disappointed to see that some of the rides had already been shut down. The ferris wheel, for instance, had been extended into the air to put it out of anyone's reach. I didn't want to go on the roller coaster or any other particularly vigorous rides, so I was pretty much limited to the quarter toy vending machine things that were fricking everywhere. That said, I still didn't have that much money.

So I wandered around looking for something I was willing to spend a measly few quarters on, and found Ben in a back room. This was kind of interesting, 'cause when Ben appeared in my dreams before he would tend to follow me around pretty closely, but this time he was just his own guy, off doing his own thing. So I thought that was pretty cool in a character-development kind of way. Yayyy.

At some point I started flat-out just, seeing what I could get away with in order to save money. Like huh, here are some candies lying out, the carnival operators aren't around, and mom's pretty okay with it... guess I can grab one. But then at some point they came back (they were more like game devs than carnival operators) and were a bit annoyed.

And then I found this super tiny snake so I caught it and it bit me like a bunch of times. I was like I'm pretty sure this snake isn't poisonous so it's fine, but I could feel the sting each time and see the tiny bloody cuts it was leaving on my fingers.

And man I forget what else. Sorry I'm being a super lazy nerd about this. But I'm gonna stick with it so it should get better. It was suuuper vivid compared to all the other ones I've had lately (and by lately I mean the past few months); that was the main thing.

Imma write down my dream from yesterday real quick 'cause it was kinda interesting.

Dream - How About No
This one was pretty long and I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot, but there was one part I found extra interesting. I remember being in this utterly decrepit house... was sort of like an old barn made of rotting wood. I was visiting it again, it was some place from my (dream memory) past, and I had with me some female companion. Sort of reminded me of this one girl from my Psychology class who's quite nice and has a bit of a stutter when she speaks up in class... but she speaks up anyway. Gotta admire that.

Anyway we were in there, and there'd been something about how I'd had this one old friend, and then as we went towards the front door I saw the guy in question lying face-down, pretty much just rotting there. Think he was shirtless and maybe bald, and his skin looked pretty good from what I could see, but I didn't want ANY of what his face might look like. So, I came up with a new plan. I suggested to the lady that we go outside, and we stepped over him and left. Standing on a hill looking down at the house, I said that what we should do now is try to summon a meteor and flames from the sky to destroy the house and burn up everything outside. She was pretty game but it was clear I was the only one with the power to actually do that, so I made a go at it (think I was semi-lucid). Pretty sure nothing happened though.

There was also some bit about how the road to this one asylum had been made of the bodies of dead patients, so as your little cart thing was rolling along the tracks, it would roll over bones half-sunk in the dirt and junk. Gross. BLEH.

Almost done with this semester...