lucid

Morning of August 19, 1972. Saturday.



I am deep within an amazingly vivid lucid dream state and in my Cubitis home’s backyard. It seems to be late morning. Being in this state and knowing I am dreaming, I decide to go and visit Lisa in the house next door, to the immediate south. However, when I near the southeast corner of my house, on my way to cross diagonally to her front yard, a large orange dog, which looks sort of like a Labrador Retriever, emerges from behind the corner and growls menacingly and starts to pounce upon me, waking me up with a bit of stress and frustration, but not quite a full-on nightmare due to the lucidity it was not “real”. For a few years, on and off, many of my lucid dreams as a boy were “interrupted” by black or rust-colored dogs attacking me and it annoyed me more in the long run than bothering me in other ways. I did not experience any trauma with dogs when younger and I was not afraid of them in reality. It was only later when my brother Earl owned a black Lab named “Gypsy”.

Morning of August 13, 1972. Sunday. (Online entry extensively expanded for additional background and clarity and resupplemented on Friday, 1 September 2017.)



This dream, from age eleven and during summer break after completion of fifth grade on June 2nd, occurs in the state of apex lucidity, where my dream self is fully corporeal, including in weight and momentum, with all the physical dynamics and augmented senses as in waking life. In this state, full control can be maintained by the conscious self identity. Since age four, I had been involved in my own continuous experiments with the dream state, including, on some days, several hours of specific affirmations (and other types of preparations) prior to sleep.

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In reality, I am sleeping on my back, my feet southward. The foot and right side of my bed are against walls with tall jalousie windows with the head of my bed being open into my room. The entrance to my room is to my left, on the opposite side of my room. Although it is daylight, my eyes are covered with a pillowcase (of an additional pillow than the one my head is on) from behind my head.

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Surprisingly, there is still some vivid hypnagogia, where I am still able to willingly return to the dream state. The hypnagogic virtual “slideshow” is slow enough to eventually choose the setting that I want to “step into”. However, because it is morning and circadian rhythms dictate that most of my sleep cycle is over, most of the settings (cycling at about one per second) display primarily featureless fields, though there is still the residual essence of water (which symbolizes sleep dynamics and the metaphorical tidal aspects of dreaming that seem to be based more on the glymphatic clearance pathway rather than always correlated with Earth’s tidal dynamics). I step into a setting without surrendering my conscious self identity.

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I step onto slightly damp ground, somewhat marshy and squashy. The grass is nearly up to my knees, though sparse in some areas. I decide to see what would happen if I run with my eyes closed. Would my dream change?

I start happily running barefoot and I feel as if I have a lot of energy. I keep my eyes open for a few minutes. The open field is slightly less marshy over time (the “water lowering” waking symbolism precursor, which has been documented hundreds of times since childhood and still works as such over fifty years later).

I continue to run, now with my eyes deliberately closed, through the slightly muddy grassy field. The marshy ground is bordered by drier ground with denser and shorter grass as I run joyfully, with an incredible sense of freedom and appreciation. The sound changes slowly over time, from my footfalls producing shallow splashes of water (which I find wonderful) to the slaps of drier ground. There are no buildings visible anywhere, including in the distance.

Eventually, I decide to open my dream self’s eyes to see where I am now. Despite the continuous vivid perception up until now of cheerfully running through an open field in mid-afternoon, I now suddenly find myself at the top of a tall ivory tower, looking out over mostly featureless grassy ground. (The tower mostly resembles the Sather Tower, which I have never been inside in reality.) I puzzle over this change. I do not recall running up a winding staircase (or changing direction as such, which would have been required in the implied smaller area) which my present location would seem to indicate (though I do not know what the inside of the Sather Tower is like).

My puzzlement increases and I decide to leave my dream (though remaining curious about the results of my experiment), which I do deliberately by phasing out of my dream self’s body, phasing through the wall of the tower behind my dream self’s body, and flying up and out of my dream (a recurring way I deliberately left the dream state by way of my conscious self identity, more so in my childhood and teenage years).

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In post-hypnopompia, I realize that the tower was the rendering of my emergent consciousness, the symbol of my growing conscious self identity (which is sometimes personified as another character just as the preconscious sometimes is though I was the only dream character in this case), watching over the dream state, which relates to the experiment analogy (just as a person would look over the setup of their experiment). Additionally, there was an influence from Cathy Carr’s recording of “Ivory Tower” (from 1956). I actually feel as if I had been running for a long time, as my legs feel slightly tired (though there is no evidence I had been moving my legs or moving at all in reality).

Despite this dream being a result of apex lucidity, I can relate it to some waking life elements, one prescient. I began sixth grade August 28th (which was to be held in a different building), about two weeks after this dream, thus there may be a “testing” of seeing myself in a higher position. However, there is ambiguity with that concept in that, although my three middle school years (fall 1972-summer 1975) took place in a one-storey building, my earlier grade classes took place on the second floor (though that relates to physical dynamics, not emotional).

In terms of prescience, the specific date marker (which remains unexplainable in terms of what people understand about the perception of time, as same-date prescience occurs far too often to be coincidental) was based on never having been in a tower in real life until much later during a middle school summer break, with my sister Carol (older half-sister on my mother’s side) and her husband Mel, which I had never expected. (I did not even know they would be coming to Florida until about a week before their visit.) This was a journey to the top of the Lake Placid Tower in Florida, which was a wonderful day for me.

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Morning of April 9, 1972. Sunday.



Whenever it starts to rain, or especially hail, I feel a bit strange and then notice it is not rain, but a volcano erupting in the distance (always south of my Cubitis home) and little bits of lava or perhaps small volcanic rocks hitting the roof. This volcano seems to be in a similar location as another later volcano dream - “Heart of a Volcano”. I leave the house and start to run north (I almost always ran north in dreams when living in Florida, even though the main town itself, including schools and stores, was to the south, because I think I was somehow aware that Florida eventually came to an end if I went too far south though I had moved from the north as well - though there are exceptions regarding dreams where I was looking for a partner of the “mystery girl”). I suddenly find myself stuck inside a tumbleweed-like bush and cannot move much (no bushes or larger plants were anywhere in that area in real life). I just somehow sort of “popped” into it, as if I was just suddenly there as I was running. Later on, I am designing a coloring book (with me as the main character on many of the pages) with this scene as one of the pages (recurring), the line underneath reading “trapped in the bush”. The threat from the volcano at the point is almost nonexistent.

Morning (and afternoon) of February 14, 1972. Monday. Valentine’s Day. (Last resupplemented for clarity on Friday, 1 September 2017.)



A stomach virus had rendered me very ill. I had severe stomach pain and my dreams were, as can be imagined, rather unusual.

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My main dream involved me being in surgery at an unknown hospital. A bright light overhead sometimes seemed to make my head hurt slightly. Over time, there were at least six doctors of both sexes working on me from both sides of the cold metal table I was lying on.

Over time, I seemed to be “pregnant”. I am not sure how I, as an eleven-year-old boy, could be pregnant, but this seems to be the case or at least the association. The surgery I am undergoing seems to be related to my apparent “cesarean”. I am somewhat wary of what is to come as I lie on my back hoping the pain will ease off.

Later, I look down at my navel as I feel my pain defined more densely in one area of my abdomen. From out of my belly button emerges a large mole cricket. (Mole crickets were common where I lived and I used to pick them up a lot and let them tickle me by trying to “dig” between my fingers though it was never painful). As I watch, there is a bit of blood and sand around my belly button as it crawls out. Apparently, I will not need surgery now, as the “birth” unfolded without a need for a cesarean. I am not quite sure what to make of it all. Congratulations to me, I gave birth to a mole cricket. Intriguingly, the pain was gone in real life after this dream.

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An earlier part of another dream of this date was also odd. It involves some sort of thin wooden female idol about eleven inches high (somewhat African in appearance, but also somewhat Maori-like) that is continuously moving about, rotating and bending (vaguely reminding me of mosquito larvae in water). It seems to only be able to bend at the waist. It seems to be “dancing” to a reggae instrumental version of “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, sometimes with an “uh uh uh” human chorus. (It was at least partly but loosely based on the “Sesame Street” cartoon “Water!”, which, at the time of this writing, has the YouTube ID of LEoy_Kaglxc). It soothed me over time, almost like a healing ritual. (There was an association with the “Water!” cartoon possibly due to being partly dehydrated, though I seem to recall an additional similar short film which I cannot trace.)

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In another previous dream, there was also a concern for the imaginary loss of my father (who seemed to be missing but actually was there when I was ill), who actually did die on Valentine’s Day, though years later in 1979. I had also been thinking a lot of my sister Marilyn who died on the 13th but Valentine’s Day in 2014 in Australia where I live now. (I had an unlikely idea all my life that my sister Marilyn and my father would die on Valentine’s Day but probably in different years and this idea became oddly enhanced when it was her that first told me of my father’s death in the middle of the night, waking me from sleep, though I had certainly never told anyone about this idea.)

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In real life, my teacher came by after school (I had not gone due to my illness) and gave me a large cardboard box full of Valentine’s Day cards from nearly everyone in the whole school (including from schoolmates of whom I am sure did not even like me).

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2 minutes 12 seconds to read.

Sunday morning, 6 February 1972.

A Rose Encased in Glass

Dream # 1,875-04.


I am standing at the front of my fifth-grade classroom in the late morning, to the left of the teacher's desk and facing the seated students. My classmates are gazing toward the front of the room. However, no one acknowledges my presence or seems to see me. There is a sense that it is the last day of school. Danny Hollingsworth is standing on my right, closer to the other students. He seems very happy.

An unfamiliar male teacher gives him an award for an unknown accomplishment. It is a red rose in a rectangular prism made of glass. Despite his gratitude upon receiving the award, I recognize that it is an act of mockery. I sense a couple of classmates (including John Cavas) snickering at Danny's "award."

"Thank you," Danny cheerfully says.

"It's dusty," he says without changing his happy mood.

He blows on the top of the rectangular prism. An overpowering wind carries dust that covers the other students. Time seems to flow rapidly, 50 years swirling by in a second, to present a scene of old business people (seemingly close to death) seated around a large rectangular table (still in the classroom but with a sense of bilocation). (They eventually seem mummified.) The event had not affected me. I am only a spectator. I sense Susan Cavas had been a real estate agent.

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Dream Content Errors:

Danny was not in my fifth-grade class, only in previous grades.

The rose and prism were of an unrealistic size, at least a foot high, perhaps caused by a zoomed-in superimposition that my dreams often provide.

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Causality and Meaning:

Wind often implies the passage of time and a "glimpse into the future" (as here), depending on other content.

The rose encased in glass; and the immobile business people are indicators of intuitive, metacognitive, or lucid associations with REM atonia (the natural paralysis while sleeping that occurs throughout all dreaming). This fundamental causality of dream narratives occurs whether or not there is any other related factor.

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Influences:

One influence was the joke where a teacher asks a student what their favorite flower is. They respond with, "chrysanthemum." When the teacher asks them to spell it, they say they like "roses" more. Another dream integrated this gag and included the ending line without the joke's inference.

Danny had a feminine personality and manner, and other classmates sometimes teased him for it.

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Enigmatic Content:

In the next grade (in middle school in a different building), a female classmate, Lorilee, mocked me by giving me baby blocks and other baby toys tied together with string for the classroom's Christmas gift exchange (where students had randomly drawn names). (It was because she was obsessed with my "oversized baby teeth," and ironically, she was in dentistry years later.) When she was about fifty, she claimed to have no memory of her life until recently (though because of trauma and drugs, apparently). To read a strange news story regarding that classmate, use the Google search for "A dilemma carved in wood" in quotes.

Years after this dream (after I had lived in Wisconsin for years), I learned that Susan (who remained in Florida) had become a real estate agent.

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Night of November 13, 1971. Saturday.



Yes, I know, stupid title. It was originally “Haunted House 2” and I think the first title (before copied over into another book) was “The House” (wow…such imagination I had…).

The actress Jocelyn Lane appears as a child around my age, but in the first part of the dream there is a newspaper article that she has gone missing, possibly kidnapped. There is not much to this dream other than wandering around in a mostly featureless house, but it had a very vivid atmosphere and sharp awareness. It copies the “Tickle Me” (1965) scene, though it is me singing through the window (not Elvis) and she is not actually annoyed or scared at any point but hopeful of escaping the house since I am there with her. I do not see any supposed kidnappers at any point.

It turns out that she was taken by a giant hairy white monster, the creature from “I Was a Slave of the Living Titan!” from Marvel’s “Monsters on the Prowl” number 11. What is a bit odd, though, is that the orientation does not make much sense when the monster’s face appears in the window. We are supposedly on the first floor of a building, yet the monster’s face appears directly in the window (as big as the area of the larger sash window) as if he is standing in a deep hole just outside (though this is not implied by the location). Eventually, the house is on fire, but we had already escaped by then. When going back to get something the girl said she lost, there is just bare ground.

The large empty house that this dream supposedly took place at had already burned down in real life (I did have a precognitive dream of this). It was north (by about four or five implied lots) of my Cubitis home and on the other side of the two-lane highway. It was a very strange morning when that happened, watching the huge flames go into the sky while waiting for the school bus in the dark. I used to wait for the bus to go to school (usually with the S family - Lisa M went to a private school - SCA) during one period, just prior to dawn, which, now, seems quite intriguing to me, because in the region I live in now, it is already getting light at 4:30 and fairly bright out by 5:00.

Just out of curiosity and marching on with my meticulous notes on the thousands of childhood dreams I had documented several times over (with the older copies on hand for accuracy), additional research revealed something I was not as aware of when younger in how comic books, television shows, and even movies (though I was aware of some “duplicate” movies which were only different in title and a few edited scenes) were released again in a slightly different form - I am somewhat amused by how often they did this. (See image.) It is funny, because dreams have a tendency to do this as well.

Morning of October 3, 1971. Sunday.



“The Staged Bull”, regardless of its nightmarish essence (though I felt no direct threat as a result of being in the state of apex lucidity) was one of my most fascinating childhood dreams and also of which contained intriguing redundant symbolism (or “multiplicity” of the type which many dreams have). The level of extreme vividness was nearly indistinguishable from wakefulness, even my body awareness and sense of weight and movement as well as the incredibly realistic ambiance that many dreams lack.

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At the beginning of my dream, I am in my bed in Cubitis and the time seems to be around nine o'clock in the morning. During the process of a false awakening and “getting out of bed” (in my dream), I enter the state of apex lucidity and as a result I am already astounded by my fully aware perspective before I even make my way into our living room to go out the front door, into the carport, and into our front yard, and from there, I expectantly contemplate intimacy with the neighbor girl which basically, as young as I was, reflected my real-life attitude (though our relationship was mostly innocent; that is, mostly only hand-holding, hugging, spooning, and kissing at this time).

In my dream, the setting was a very nice and sunny day and I could even feel the fresh warm air on my body and in my lungs, and the distance orientation to other areas of the yard and orange groves was all perfect, as were the smooth walking movements and an almost overwhelming joy and sense of freedom, but there was soon something else, some sort of “higher authority” perhaps, and a menacing presence in my dream (a preconscious thread most likely), almost as if I was being stopped from exploring beyond my large front yard. There were three menacing dogs growling at me shortly after that otherwise beautiful feeling of freedom, my sense of freedom lowering somewhat, but I was not attacked in any way. The dogs never moved from their positions on the front lawn.

There was also another vivid but surreal menacing presence, which was an animal that was moving about in our yard looking much like a bull ready to charge. His front legs and feet seemed a bit too thin. He was mostly facing towards my home and near the largest tree between our front yard and our neighbor’s front yard. My first thought was that it was a bull that had somehow gotten a puppet stage stuck on his head (and in the back of my mind I was contemplating what could have happened to the teachers and students watching the show and although I am fully lucid I still do not consider that an outdoor puppet show near my home would have been highly unlikely, though bulls have gotten out from nearby farms) and as a result was likely very agitated by not being able to see where he was. Upon looking more closely though, it seemed that the bull’s head actually was a puppet stage, with a small, red, velvety curtain continuously swaying outward and inward to where the bull’s face would have been. I clearly hear the strange breathing. puffing, and snorting as he moves one front leg about (reminding me of a chicken scratching for food), and I feel a sense of augmented awe and potential danger, but nothing threatening happens other than an eerie feeling that my dream is not really my own, which causes me to decide to just wake up on my own, albeit frustrated at the missed opportunity to explore a dream of this “impossible” level of clarity.

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Important key points, including multiplicity; that is, two or more symbols that represent the same concept:

Firstly, the three aggressive dogs represent an invitation to control my dream, as dogs typically symbolize obedience. Their positions on our front lawn symbolize my physical day-to-day reality. Standing, sitting in a chair, and lying in bed. Dream-self role: potential dog-trainer (analogous to dream control).

Secondly, the bull also represents an invitation to control my dream, the red curtain symbolizing that the bull, on some levels, is already under my conscious control (though I unfortunately do not realize this while in my dream) as it is apparently preventing him from seeing me and thus knowing where to charge (and, although he is directly pointing towards our open carport entrance, does not change his position when I walk past him and more towards the highway). (One of my vividest recurring childhood dreams of a much earlier time period than this dream involved a bull crashing through the wall of the living room of our house near Mohawk Valley.) Dream-self role: potential bullfighter (analogous to dream control).

Thirdly, a puppet stage also obviously represents an invitation to control my dream. It is modeled after the high school auditorium stage, which my elementary school also used at the time. Dream-self role: potential puppet master (analogous to dream control).

Saturday, 26 June 1971. 1,650-M2. 48 second read.



I soar through the blue sky alongside an American black vulture, but I am unwary.

He flies on my left until he dives. I expect him to attack the townspeople below. (There is a vague association with Shakespeare’s “King Lear.”)

The mood becomes cheerful. The “palace” far below appears to be the DeSoto County Courthouse. I hear people cheering and see a ticker-tape parade.

I see people carry the vulture down the building’s outer steps in a palanquin, as he immediately becomes their king. “Pomp and Circumstance” (“Graduation March Song”) plays.

I zoom in. From the left, I see the vulture sitting inside the palanquin. The bird has knees like a human instead of bird legs and wears a crown.

I rise into the blue sky as I wake up laughing aloud.

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Note: People called vultures “buzzards” when I lived in Florida, thus my original title.

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My dream begins with the physiological influence of vestibular-motor sensations (from REM atonia). It changes from spontaneous vestibular-motor responses to controlled and more defined.

The vulture’s flying and diving transitions to his non-flight (becoming more human-like) and descending a staircase.

A crown appears with increased dream state awareness. It reveals higher metacognitive management of the dream state.

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Morning of April 11, 1971. Sunday.

Dream #: 1,574-02. Reading time: 1 min 50 sec.



My best friend Toby Taylor and I enter a castle, though it becomes a hall of our school in appearance. No one else is around.

A narrative begins, implying each of us has to choose a different door. The inference is that one of us will win a valuable prize, and the other will gain nothing and may die.

Eventually, I pick the door on the left (with the number 1 on it), and Toby chooses the door on the right (that features the number 2).

After I open the door, I immediately find myself sliding down a big pile of gold coins. I feel happy as I look to my right and see Toby also cheerfully sliding down the same hill of gold coins at about the same speed I am. We excitedly grab clusters of them as we are sliding and let them flow between our fingers.

Eventually, from below us, there is a sound like a lion’s roar. I realize we are both sliding toward what may be the open mouth of a dragon. (Even so, the element of fear and surprise is minimal.) I start to wake around this time and consider that instead of a dragon, it may be a furnace or fireplace in a basement or boiler room. I also sense it is perpendicular to the direction we are sliding rather than in our path.

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This dream interprets my status of seeking somatosensory awareness while I sleep - to progress toward either achieving consciousness or greater awareness for vivifying and sustaining my dreaming experience. My instinctual and liminal summoning of coins began in early childhood.

Sliding, usually a vivid sensation, is a typical form of imaginary kinaesthesia (caused by the lack of discernibility of my physical body while sleeping). Sliding (as with other kinaesthetic events such as floating, falling, or flying) has nothing to do with symbolism or wordplay.

Using a door in the dream state is an activity I instinctually or liminally bring about to concurrently vivify or change a dream’s narrative upon stepping through the doorway.

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There is more to the history behind the causation of this dream. It ties in with loose associations with incidental sleep apnea. I include this because I mentally summon and light a candle (a source of fire as is a dragon) when in undefined liminal space. Additionally, there is likely an association with the heater I sometimes had near the center of my bedroom. Its noise would sometimes wake me in the middle of the night.

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After this dream, I read a Harvey comic book (with Casper the Friendly Ghost) that involved characters deciding which of two doors to open and ending up as mindless servants when they touched both doorknobs at the same time.

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Friday, 15 January 1971. 1,488-N1. 36 second read.



From the front door of my Cubitis home, I walk onto the carport at midnight. The house is high in the sky inside a tornado.

A bird as tall as me flies straight through the spinning debris beyond the carport.

His appearance is that of a sparrowhawk. He lands on the edge of the east end of the carport but remains still after ruffling his feathers. I sense he is here to help me. He wears a crown. I have a deep feeling of peace and timelessness.

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Note: There was a minimal influence from the Woggle-Birds act from “Jack and the Beanstalk” (1967) and the twister scene from “The Wizard of Oz” (1939).

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My dream begins with the physiological influence of vestibular-motor sensations (from REM atonia). It changes from spontaneous vestibular-motor responses to controlled and more defined.

A crown appears with increased dream state awareness. It reveals higher metacognitive management of the dream state.

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Morning of November 29, 1970. Sunday. (Last checked and clarified on Friday, 12 January 2018.)



In my dream, I had been wandering around in my backyard in Cubitis, seemingly around nine o'clock on a clear morning, becoming more and more lucid. I start to think about taking advantage of this state and enjoying physical interaction with Lisa (who is not present in my dream at any time). I marvel at the clarity of my dream’s environment, finding its realism stunning and wondrous.

I am eventually seated on the ground inside an area within the unfinished part of the large cinder block shed (which my father had built and added to over time), which does not have any roof or walls. I am seated near one of the cinder block columns that is to my right (west). As I am sitting here, facing south (looking in the opposite direction as the main part of the shed) and feeling happy and expectant in my anticipatory musings, I turn slightly to my right to look westerly towards the carport and notice an unfamiliar stray dog walking around and sniffing the ground. I believe it is possibly a black Labrador Retriever. The dog huffs upon noticing me, but does not bark.

I become extraordinarily frustrated. “You dogs are always ruining my dreams,” I bravely shout, with the tone of my frustration dominant and echoing throughout the dream space (though still with my young boy’s voice), expressing my irritation at the presence of a dream state distraction and potential virtual threat and as such, my attention drawn from my previously hopeful lucid intent of feminine contact (even though I spent a lot of time with Lisa in real life).

After a menacing deep growl, the dog teleports from just beyond the east end of our carport (a good distance away), to reappear right behind me. The dog jabs me in the small of my back with his hard nose, triggering the deep tickle spasm in my lower back, which causes me to spontaneously jolt awake. I was annoyed at having such a vivid and well-rendered dream truncated.

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Questions Answered:

What does the aggressive unfamiliar dog in this dream symbolize? The dog is this dream’s RAS (Reticular Activating System) factor. RAS is that which is responsible for regulating wakefulness and sleep-wake transitions. (I had no fear or wariness of dogs in real life and no expectation of such an encounter.) On the one hand, the dog’s assumed lack of obedience symbolizes my dream self’s expectancy of my dream’s non-compliance with my conscious self identity’s desires and potential will. On the other hand, by exclaiming, “You dogs are always ruining my dreams”, I lucidly caused the dog to serve my negative expectation of this dream’s outcome so quickly, that the dog teleported and triggered the waking jolt in my lower back.

Why did you shout “You dogs are always ruining my dreams”? The reason for me negatively addressing the RAS factor was that I was already familiar with the nature of the dream state (and its many different levels) at this time - even as a child (though had not mastered it yet as I mostly have now, though it depends on the level of unconsciousness and the particular stage of the sleep cycle). RAS had already been rendered as dogs in a number of dreams by this time, again, symbolizing my dream state not submitting to my will, analogous to an untrained dog. This sort of aggressive RAS symbolism eventually diminished as I got older and learned more about dreams. (In fact, in a number of recent dreams, a passive German Shepherd had appeared, standing near a a thin vertical pole displaying a pennant at the top, symbolizing my dream’s obedient nature within certain levels of unconsciousness.) Still, RAS does get aggressive and dominating at times (though is often personified rather than being rendered as an animal), as waking is a biological necessity.

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Morning of October 3, 1970. Saturday. (Original date validated.)



Brenda W (female classmate and friend, as well as an in-dream precognitive “stand-in” for my wife-to-be) is supposedly kidnapped by aliens. I go to find her (somewhere in Arcadia on or near Imogene Street) and “wake up” within my dream to discover that I am aboard a spacecraft and had also been kidnapped. It is apparently the one from the movie “Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster” from 1965 (often misremembered as a child as “Frankenstein Vs. the Space Monster”) but looks a little more like the one from the original “The Day the Earth Stood Still” on the outside. The “space monster” is also the same (but is somewhat orange), but is kept in a cage next to Brenda. She is still threatened by the creature as he reaches through the bars of his cage and through the bars of her cage.

The “aliens” (who appear mostly human as in the movie and are basically the “same” ones) attempt to render me unconscious again, trying to get to me when they see that I am awake and walking around. However, I “defeat” them by waving my arms about and somehow outrunning them in the fairly small room. The “monster” somehow escapes from his cage, but I chase him around in a circular comedic scene so that it is not obvious who is chasing whom (much like a scene from the little “magical” walking cane dream relating to the two escaped prisoners). Eventually, he jumps from the spaceship (which is seemingly flying fairly high in the sky above a forest) through a wide doorway. The other “aliens” have also apparently left the spacecraft. I wonder about how to fly the spacecraft for a time and worry about crashing. I look more closely at the forest below. I let Brenda out of the cage and think about jumping.

We do jump - I go first, but I quickly and safely land on the ground - a sidewalk, actually. The forest was a small-scale miniature fake forest and the “spaceship” was only a few feet from the ground and held up near the center by a large post. I then motion for Brenda to jump out as she looks down curiously and with a bit of dawning amusement. It turns out we are near an entrance of the shared (elementary and high school) large cafeteria; the middle area near the longer covered sidewalk that extends over the school grounds. The “aliens” and “monster” were kidnappers in costume and makeup it then seems, but rather of an elaborate setup - perhaps being a part of some sort of hidden camera show, but I still sense they were criminals with intent to do harm. I do not see anyone anywhere and we are apparently safe from further confrontations as my dream eventually fades.

This was a very amusing DDR experience. Brenda was kidnapped, followed by my own kidnapping. Here, my emergent consciousness is associated with the “solving” of the alien event as a mundane fake created and utilized by the kidnappers. It was only a short jump to the ground (rather than the falling transition in many dreams). This is one I made into a story, though from an adult’s point of view, it was probably obvious from the beginning.

Night of September 21, 1970. Monday.



This is a long repetitive dream relating to a search (by unknown people, mostly) for Lucille Ball from the “Here’s Lucy” television show. This is the episode where she is skydiving and there is ambiguity in my dream of whether she is still in the air somewhere somehow (not logical of course) or had crashed through a roof.

Lucy herself does not even appear at any point in my dream. Instead, there are several scenes where I am on the roofs of buildings, somehow floating over roofs, and one scene where I am hanging from the ceiling after apparently crashing through the roof in a parachute, though this also seems like some sort of odd pretense (solely using some sort of mental power instead of by physical effort to suddenly establish the scene and setup and my placement, though without lucidity) in attempting to show others what might have happened to Lucy.

In a few segments of my dream, I am only seeing the eaves of roofs and there is also something about television antennas that do not seem to be working correctly (and a few people are even using their televisions to help to find Lucy as if a television had built-in “radar” or a way of scanning the sky). Most of the imagery of the roofs becomes a bit convoluted (almost like a flight of steps in a couple areas) but there is eventually mist and oversimplified (unrealistic) buildings as the main form of the setting.

Update Saturday, 26 March 2016: I can now look at this dream and decode it fully, as I see that it has the same basic metaphorical meanings of the dream state itself that is found in hundreds if not thousands of other dreams.

Included in this dream are:

The “failed flight” metaphor (or “something coming down from the sky”) that is not a negative implication at all but which simply represents the end of the dream (since flying itself - or in fact, contemplating or being aware of anything that flies or floats or is in the air - represents the dream state).

The mist has been a common feature in my dreams though mostly when I was younger. A mist or fog relates to the dream state itself which seems metaphorical for a dream being “not as clear as reality”.

The roofs that have somewhat of a staircase appearance in silhouette are a double play on “coming down”, as a staircase also relates to waking from a dream and whether or not you are closer to waking by going up or down depends on the dream self placement and perspective.

Breaking through a roof (or even parts of a roof being blown away as in a few other dreams) is also related to the waking stage as is breaking through a wall (more so a window) or even coming through a door (which usually creates a shift in awareness for me, though not always related to waking - but is sometimes a transition within the dream as it continues, making a dream much more vivid in many cases).

Antennas also relate to the dream state and the communication of dream self from threads of the conscious self, almost implying a dream being built in the manner of a television broadcast from the conscious self. A television is also a downsizing of the dream itself to distance the dreamer from direct involvement in a scene for whatever reason (and focus on a television seems to serve as both induction and waking preparation).

Sunday, 13 September 1970. 1,364-M1. 1 min 11 sec read.



A tornado approaches Arcadia, Florida, from the southwest in the morning. I do not consider it a threat to my Cubitis home about four miles north of Arcadia, but I wonder if it will reach my school.

At the end of the driveway of Kenny and Karen’s home; is an elevated podium where an unfamiliar dark-haired man of about 30 gives a cheerful lecture about tornadoes. He faces Highway Seventeen. A small crowd stands on the wayside. The man’s head and shoulders are about three feet above the audience as I watch from my bedroom windows. I zoom in on the scene. He uses a pointer stick on a picture of the “tornado” on an easel to his left.

The “tornado’s anatomy” picture is only a series of sparse horizontal lines on a white background. The simple diagram suggests a tornado’s shape, but I am puzzled by its lack of detail.

I think about how the tornado will affect my school. I find myself in my school’s playground. The tornado arrives but is only as high as a single-storey house. I neither feel its wind nor sense peril. I stand on the south side of the hexagonal merry-go-round, thinking I could save my schoolmates.

I grab the merry-go-round’s metal bar and run in a circle to counteract the tornado.

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Note: The end of Kenny and Karen’s driveway is where we waited for the school bus in some semesters.

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My dream begins with the physiological influence of vestibular-motor sensations (from REM atonia). It changes from spontaneous vestibular-motor responses to controlled and more defined.

A tornado approaches, but I know it will dissipate when I spin the merry-go-round. Also, I associate the area where we waited for the bus with expecting the vestibular-motor sensations of riding a bus.

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Morning of March 28, 1970. Saturday.



One of my favorite dreams, very long and with many parts, I had at age nine and this was a time period where the color of Pepto-Bismol sometimes dominated as a main feature (dreams only, not hypnagogic or hypnopompic visions). I am not sure why; I had not actually taken it that much. I tend to wonder if we had never had Pepto-Bismol in the house, if the features in my dreams would have been the same other than that color, because all the things that did have that color would not be remotely associated with that shade of pink for the most part. In fact, in this dream, the cane actually does seem lighter greenish-blue at times.

This time it was a cane with a small sliding switch on the top that activated special powers for me. It was shaped like a candy cane and was that familiar Pepto-Bismol color. A lot of major events occur, and my dream was probably an hour long, or so it seemed (although it is possible it was a series of dreams in one night, which were linked).

In the very first part of my dream, there are two prisoners looking out through a jail cell (I eventually associated them with “Hudd and Dini” from Cracked Magazine). It actually seems to be more like a cage, I suppose, as I can clearly see the scene as if it was inside a normal jail, although there does seem to be some sort of “outside office” to the east. Other people walk about and notice the criminals. However, at the same time, it seems to be taking place in the playground in the middle area of the southern side, closer to the fence (where beyond are normal residential homes).

Somehow the prisoners escape, and for some reason, because I am right there at the time, may be after my special cane and start to chase me. However, I chant “invisible…invisible…” and I both turn invisible and sink down into the ground (several feet). The prisoners are running perfectly in step with each other, reminding me of a scene from Alice in Wonderland or a scene from older issues of Mad Magazine (or maybe Scooby-Doo), with their knees lifted comically high in the air. Soon, I am above ground and actually chasing them. They realize this, and do a double take, but I still am able to get away by going through the outside wall of the auditorium.

I notice Brenda W (female classmate) is putting on some sort of marionette show, but is having a lot of trouble with the strings, and the audience is booing her. She is sad - but I become invisible to help her, and am able to move the puppet around and perform all the actions and such of the whole play. It mostly involves animal antics, with an elephant mopping the floor in a sort of Carol Burnett-like routine mixed with a scene from “Fantasia”. The audience is amazed and marvels at her show.

Later, I am at an area that seems to be a combination of a brother’s home (in Cubitis) and the principal’s office in school. I am marching around in my invisible state and making “booing” sounds and another boy my age (sitting on the couch) is looking terrified.

Eventually, along comes Ricardo Montalbán driving a taxi. He has the two criminals of the first part of my dream with him. He is after my “magical” cane (which has a “real” technological explanation for what it does). I am worried for a little while, but I surprise him, and float up through the roof of the taxi and escape.

I then end up at an older house with two floors and an attic on “King Street”. This part was amazingly precognitive in that is actually where I was living years later (in Wisconsin), including the street name - and the mood I then had was very precise (there was no way to know my family would move to Wisconsin again at a later date or that I would feel just as I did at that much later stage of my life). Somehow, the cane stopped working and I was trapped as a “ghost” who could only walk around and haunt the place by knocking chairs over and such until someone came along and helped me. But I remained a “ghost” at the time. Not the greatest ending, but it was still a fun dream. There were several other parts that I did not originally write down. I know there was something about avoiding mosquitoes by becoming of no substance so that they just moved through me and could not bite.