Morning of September 22, 2016. Thursday. I am in Africa on a long expedition. My wife Zsuzsanna and our children and some unknown people are on the journey. Curiously, the “vehicle” we are using to travel in is only a tent that is somehow moving over the savanna without any apparent explanation (as it does not seem to have wheels; it somehow slides slowly over the ground). I have seven pet lions, at least three being male. They walk along with us on our journey without incident. A male lion is inside the tent at one point but is not a threat. I am also in the tent for a time to “sleep” and also to look at a treasure map. As we travel over the savanna, I watch the scene from above for a time but I am eventually back in my physical form. We are seeking some sort of magical or at least special material, a roll or piece of cloth with special properties, the location of which is apparently indicated on the map. We reach an isolated outdoor market where there are several African cashiers, at least three of them females around forty years of age. They seem to be selling the special cloth we had been seeking. There are two counters set up on each side of an outside area I enter. I examine a cloth which I first feel may be what we are seeking. A cashier tells me that it is a thousand dollars for a yard of it. I am not so sure this situation will work out. I go to the opposite counter to look around a bit. One male lion walks around near the counters, being as tame as a dog, and I pat its head. Other people do not seem to be at all concerned about my lions. Eventually, I notice a piece of cloth that I expect is the one we need. It is uneven though and is not quite a yard. The cashier tells me this one is also a thousand dollars if I want it. I almost express my annoyance to her but I do not. I take out my wallet and pull out one fifty-dollar bill after another, materializing the money out of thin air just at the point my hand is in the wallet, deliberately doing this and realizing this, but without dream state lucidity. I assertively hand her the money which I just mentally willed out of my wallet, twenty fifty-dollar notes, which I know is exactly a thousand dollars. She happily gives me the material. The cloth’s design shows a repeating pattern (in mostly bright orange, yellow, and sepia saturated hues) of a scene of two lions (male and female) lying in the savanna in front of a boulder and a tree and the sun on the horizon in the background at their left. I pick up the supposed special cloth from the counter and we are on our way. Of course, this represents Zsuzsanna and I sleeping together during the sunrise, the cloth being a literal association with bed sheets and pillow cases. Lion autosymbolism has already been explained in many of my past entries, but here is a brief rundown: Factor one is coalescence (potentially being “swallowed” back into whole consciousness) and factor two is the augmented domestic cat association as being a “witness” to the dream state and the nature of liminal space (that is, the autosymbolic waking process). This dream is based on a partial association with “The Sleeping Gypsy”, an 1897 oil painting by French Naïve artist Henri Rousseau. The association transforms into the ending autosymbolism of this dream of which also represents art and the nature of sleeping and dreaming, as dreams are autosymbolic of the nature of the dream state and waking process itself. The cashiers and the checkout scenario are autosymbolic of the dream state’s implied exit point.
Updated 06-22-2018 at 12:36 PM by 1390
Morning of September 22, 2016. Thursday. It seems to be late at night and I am walking with Zsuzsanna in an unfamiliar small town. Somehow I get distracted and find myself on my own in an area vaguely similar in some ways to an area near a church in Bundaberg (though I do not consider my location or have any concern about being in an unknown place). Even though I am not lucid I try to focus on a large stone water fountain as if I am subliminally aware of the nature of water induction to increase the depth and clarity of the dream state. An unfamiliar priest approaches and seems to want me to move on or is there to tell me what to do as perhaps he does not like me being here so late at night. He tries to impress me by causing a moonbeam to create a glowing circle on the surface of the water. In a way, it seems rather eerie to me, though I vaguely recall it as a circadian rhythms factor (again, even though I am not lucid) and relative to moon or moonlight induction. “So what,” I say. “I can make the sun come out in the middle of the night.” (I say this without realizing that the sun represents consciousness or the conscious identity within the dream state and thus I am actually talking about lucid dreaming without being lucid.) The area that the priest and I are standing now seems to be a storefront. I move my hands with a level of mental certainty and expectation that the sun will rise at my command, though again not being lucid at this point. Instead, a small sunbeam reaches my feet. At least I accomplished something based on my claim. I decide to turn around and use whatever sunlight there is to mock the priest by making various shadow forms on the outer wall of the store. A circle of light (almost like a spotlight on a stage) of about a foot and a half in diameter appears on the concrete block outer wall. I lift my left hand up and make an incredibly realistic monkey shadow (after a few false starts with rabbit and dog heads), complete with legs, arms, and a tail, and moving about like a real monkey, almost as if suspended on its own. “Chee-chee-chee-chee,” I utter, happily making my version of a monkey sound. The priest seems to feel insulted as well as outdone by my miraculous abilities and thus he walks off. Even though I am still not at the lucid stage, shadow play is fairly common in certain vivid lucid dream types. Typically, the shadow symbolizes the dream self as “casting” conscious self identity into the dream state (at least when it is a human “duplicate” of the dream self though here, my dawning consciousness is apparently very playful), though this situation does not yet trigger my lucidity. As I walk, the sun finally rises fully at my subtle command and with no “glitches”. As a result, my consciousness becomes more fully integrated into the dream state in a lucid sense, though not quite apex lucidity (full automatic control with enhanced senses and full body awareness even with full weight and momentum discernment). Just as I turn left around a corner I am at full conscious clarity, which I immediately find very thrilling. I notice a young version of Zsuzsanna (probably as she was a few years before we first wrote) standing on a garden wall of about four feet high, though I do not question this oddity. Several others (all unfamiliar) are standing around, possibly waiting for a bus. Zsuzsanna may also be waiting for the bus even being up on this wall. I hover and move up to stand on the wall with her. She does not seem to recognize me yet and takes on the essence of the preconscious personification. “This is my dream, so we will get together and have some fun,” I boldly state. “I don’t care about these other people standing around.” She seems to slowly agree or at least lets me hug and kiss her passionately for a long time. Becoming more and more stimulated I indulge in various sensual events (the sense of touch augmented), though meanwhile, three times, for no particular reason, I decide to shoot large masses of spiderweb out of my right hand. One car becomes fully covered in my web, the imagery of which I find amusing when I look back. A couple people are swept back and stuck onto buildings but are not harmed. Eventually, I notice a large unusual-looking airplane flying in the sky (from right to left). Its wings are up and back almost like a butterfly form and I feel a sense of beauty. Curiously, I do not mentally register it as the “return flight” waking transition symbol even though I have experienced the same metaphor thousands of times in various dream types (though not in the majority of lucid dreams). I notice a very unusual bookshelf-like structure on the other side of town and which seems to be atop a mountain. I focus on this. Although it vaguely reminds me of “Hollywood Squares”, the platforms (or seating areas) are at different levels. There are at least nine demigods in yellow Tibetan monk robes sitting and standing within the structure. I assume they are perhaps thirty feet tall or more. The visible forward edges of the skewed “Hollywood Squares” structure are mostly cream-colored, orange, and yellow. The demigods begin singing to Zsuzsanna and me very loudly and with love and happiness. The music is very clear and rhythmic and very enjoyable (though of an unfamiliar melody which I may record at a future date). They are singing something about tilling and gardening, something like, “In the morning when you wake up, till the soil with love…” and another phrase with “tilling” in it and something about “the next morning you will find”. It goes on for several minutes and as I hold Zsuzsanna, I slip into a less vivid and non-lucid false awakening as the airplane reaches the midpoint of my perspective, over the seemingly divine structure. (Of course, this structure symbolizes the sunrise and waking as non-lucid dreams typically do in the last segment - even though I am still semi-lucid - and a cheerful conscious coloring of my day ensues.) In the false awakening I am with Zsuzsanna sitting on the floor of our present home. Our youngest son is present. He seems to have gathered seven unusual creatures (there are seven in our family). They seem to be some sort of unlikely composite of seashell, caterpillar, beetle, and chrysalis. For some reason, I point out to Zsuzsanna that they are “brains”, although I add to their number (starting with three, I think) as I notice more and more of them (though still a total of seven). Their shells are very complex in coloring, with mostly thin bands and paisley-like patterns of browns, yellows, and cream colors. There are two different shapes, the two largest being somewhat cylindrical and the others like trapezoidal prisms. I look at a magazine page that Zsuzsanna is looking at. At first, I see the same airplane as from my previous dream, though as a silhouette in a full page sky photograph. As I tell Zsuzsanna about the dream I just had (the most common false awakening scenario for me other than actually attempting to write it out and soon seeing that my writing changes or that I had written nothing), I tell her how this looks just like the airplane from my dream. I find that unusual but when I look again, I see that it is an upside-down helicopter silhouette (a second “return flight” transition that actually represents my false awakening and how one of the first things I ever heard Zsuzsanna say on her first cassette which she mailed to me being “so if it sounds a bit upside-down, it’s from down-under), which I find rather curious - and from here I actually wake.