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    Lucid Dreams

    1. Talos and the Military

      by , 12-25-2017 at 06:25 PM
      Morning of December 25, 2017. Monday.



      I am with my wife Zsuzsanna in a white skiff of which is moving slowly over the beautiful ocean in late afternoon. She is facing me, seeming very cheerful, sitting at the opposite end of the skiff. Behind her, in the distance, I see a mountainous rocky cape. I vaguely anticipate the eventual appearance of Talos (the giant automaton made of bronze, from the 1963 “Jason and the Argonauts” film) from behind the rocky region ahead and on my right, closest to our heading. Becoming semi-lucid and recognizing this as the RAS factor with no attempt to modulate it, I decide to will the skiff to turn right, into a narrow estuary bordered by high hills, with the idea that Talos will not see us. Eventually, the water is shallower and we slowly pass, on our right, two military jeeps with about seven men in total. At first, I am wary of them, as I suspect they have weapons, but then I decide that they must be here to fight Talos and are not interested in us. The general impassively watches us as our skiff approaches an area too shallow to continue, but there is no sense of threat and they remain in their positions.



      In a dream, being in a boat is autosymbolism for vaguely discerning the physical body in sleep, more so when muscles are more relaxed. Water is the absence of emotion and the essence of sleep and this dream begins with the common water induction. I anticipate RAS mediation as a possible threat. The RAS modulation precursor and potential emergent consciousness factor is rendered as Talos, though Talos is only seen briefly in the distance. There is semi-lucid mediation (not modulation) which seemingly results in the transference of Talos to the army general and WLWS (Water Lowering Waking Symbolism, which is common for me). Right-side oriented waking symbolism occurs (while sleeping on my left side).


    2. Race to the Treasure (with Laverne & Shirley)

      by , 12-17-2017 at 06:00 AM
      Morning of December 15, 2017. Friday.

      Dream #: 18,624-02. 3 min 20 sec read.



      Cubitis (irrelevant since 1978) is the first location of my dream, but snow and ice cover my Cubitis home's front yard. My dream self does not hold a recognition of this place, and snow and ice would have never been a feature. Cubitis occurs as an incidental setting rather than having associations with my childhood and teenage years.

      I am vaguely aware of my conscious self's identity but not my current address or status. I am involved in a treasure hunt but not as a recognized participant. Laverne and Shirley, as the television characters from the original series, are key participants.

      A vivid segment occurs with a life-size version of the Matchbox car Alvis Stalwart BP Exploration Vehicle. It approaches from the northwest and is functioning as a snowplow. It is nighttime. I am amazed by its size and power, though I am unsure who is driving it. (I know they are one of the treasure hunt participants.) The loud yet soothing noise it makes is vivid. I know I have to get to where the treasure might be before it catches up, though I am only walking fast. Despite the snow and ice, I do not feel cold. I walk briskly through an area toward the south, south of the front yard of the Cubitis house, and the headlights of the vehicle shine on me twice. I try to dodge their beam, yet I feel little concern. (This is a factor of being vaguely aware of daybreak and not wanting to wake yet.)

      Eventually, although I am still outside, I arrive at a place that looks like a large hall of a house, though the implication is that it is an outside area. (Using a real-life comparison, it is about where the south neighbor's carport would have been.) I notice fast-food wrappers and some papers amidst piles of books and other items to my left. Laverne and Shirley seem confident about finding the treasure at this point. There may be a letter from someone, or another clue, revealing where it is.

      I realize we are nearing the end of the area designated as part of the treasure hunt. I wonder if the exploration vehicle is still somewhere nearby. My dream's setting, which is still part of the outside treasure hunt, is now a bedroom, with at least one wall and part of the ceiling missing.

      Laverne and Shirley become annoyed that the treasure may not exist. However, I soon notice an A4-size transparent plastic envelope that is full of shiny gold coins. It is vertically upright and pressed against the south wall just behind some other items. They look like Australian two-dollar coins, but I know they are twenty-dollar coins. Laverne and Shirley are sitting on the bed at this point. I give it to Laverne and soon notice another container of more gold coins. It resembles an A4-size plastic box that we keep documents in, though this one is more transparent. I ask Laverne if I can have some of them, not considering that they should all be mine, as I am the one who found them. She cheerfully agrees I should have some of them. I awake while looking at the supposed twenty-dollar coins sliding out of the first container onto the center of the bed, ready to be counted. (The bed's orientation is from east to west. Its association with where it would be in the setting from where my dream started is unknown.)

      The "Laverne & Shirley" influence is mainly a metacognitive association with dreaming from hearing the opening theme song so often. It mostly corresponds with the lyrical line, "got a dream and we just know now." "Reaching a bed" has been a fundamental ending to my dreams since childhood, for the self-evident reason I am a metacognitive dreamer.

      Coins have often featured in my dreams since childhood, from summoning somatosensory dynamics. (It is from wanting to enhance or stabilize my sense of touch while in the dream state, but I also had a silly belief when I was very young that I could pull a coin from out of the dream state). Noticing the sense of touch is one dynamic when emerging from REM atonia.

      The ambiguity of dream settings and their countless composites of unrelated locations, their continually transforming attribute, and consciously unresolvable indoor-outdoor ambiguity (perception of being in an indoor and outdoor area simultaneously), and partial renderings in otherwise undefined space, is wholly unlike waking life or any factor of reality or memory.

      The Matchbox car I dreamt of yesterday (the flatbed truck with a house on the back, listed as "Truck with Site Office," though there were two in that dream of different colors), and the Matchbox car appearing here as a life-size vehicle (listed as "Alvis Stalwart" BP Exploration Vehicle), are number 60 and 61 (appearing in my dreams on consecutive days). The sequence may be coincidental or residual thoughts of a dreaming experience from the previous day, integrating into a new dream.





      Updated 07-25-2021 at 10:17 AM by 1390

      Categories
      lucid , non-lucid
    3. Shorncliffe Pier Romance

      by , 12-13-2017 at 11:51 AM
      Morning of December 13, 2017. Wednesday.



      My beautiful wife Zsuzsanna and I are sitting together on a wooden bench at the end of the Shorncliffe Pier (formerly known as Sandgate Pier), looking northeast towards the ocean’s horizon. The time of day is uncertain, but it seems to be late morning in the final stage of my dream.

      We are under the shelter at a later point, undressed, and being intimate. My semi-lucidity (partial awareness of being in the dream state) results in a lack of concern about several unknown members of the public, both male and female, being present, but not paying that much attention to us.

      Later, we are closer to the shoreline (now about ten feet out on the pier). I observe what I first assume to be six North Korean males (perhaps in their thirties), waist-deep in the water. As they are walking towards the beach, they are guiding, in pallbearer formation, a damaged half-submerged wooden boat; a shellback dinghy; with a visible jagged hole in the side facing us. I am somewhat wary of their presence, but only for a short time. They gaze at us as if very annoyed.

      Looking back again, I come to realize (though this was an actual transformation, not a presumed error in my original discernment) that they are Australian SES (State Emergency Service) volunteers. They are not looking in our direction now and their emotions seem informally neutral.

      The water is lower, revealing a number of large stones. Zsuzsanna goes to look for some plastic toys between them that are still muddy from the storm (emergent real-life association, unrelated to my dream’s backstory), and to wash them, and I slowly realize we are now in our house, though our porch is erroneously perceived as being a rock pool (ambiguously perceived as being indoors and outdoors at the same time). I then wake.



      • Dream self mode: Corporeal with enhanced physicality
      • Conscious self identity: Viable (although we have not been to Shorncliffe in real life in years), although perceiving myself as perhaps 30 rather than 56
      • Induction symbolism: Water as symbolizing sleep
      • Induction buffer: Shorncliffe Pier over ocean
      • Dream state indicators: Being undressed and fully intimate in public (first-level dream sign, based on the subliminal awareness of being in the dream state, though I am semi-lucid here)
      • RAS mediation symbol: Presumed North Koreans, seemingly defeated but presumed unpredictable
      • Vestibular system symbol: Outer edge of Shorncliffe Pier
      • Preconscious symbol: (Personified) Presumed North Koreans (precursory; transmuted by way of semi-lucidity in acknowledgment of waking being a biological necessity; preconscious does not initiate conflict when dream self recognizes or triggers waking symbolism or circadian rhythms factors)
      • Emergent consciousness symbol: Boat leaving water
      • Interconsciousness symbol: Australian SES workers
      • Exit symbolism: Half-submerged boat being carried from ocean (illusory physicality “leaving” dream state)
      • Waking transition symbolism: (Liminal transmutation) North Koreans to Australian SES workers
      • Waking symbolism type: Water Lowering Waking Symbolism (WLWS); getting closer to the shore over time also symbolizes waking and circadian rhythms factors
      • Additional personal notes: Our (present) porch as symbolizing the waking space is ambiguously combined with WLWS.


    4. Chekov

      by , 12-09-2017 at 12:12 PM
      Early Evening of December 9, 2017. Saturday.



      I am sitting in the front seat of a car in an undefined location. There is not much light. The car seems to be parked. Pavel Chekov, as on an early episode of “Star Trek”, is apparently the driver. He is dressed in his Starfleet uniform. (We have not watched “Star Trek” in quite some time and I had not really been thinking about it either.) The driver’s side is on the left, so it is apparently meant to be of an American setting or association.

      There is an implication of speaking, yet no one actually speaks other than the audio I hear seemingly from outside of the scene. I soon view the scene from the front of the car, facing it and seeing myself on the left. The voice, seemingly my voice, says, “Sometimes more, sometimes less”, with only a vague response from Chekov as a slight turn of his head towards me in acknowledgment. He then looks back to his left, seeming somewhat puzzled about where he is. From here, the scene shifts to where it seems I am looking at two 1940s detectives (wearing black suits) sitting in the car in the same orientation and I quickly wake.



      This dream can easily be typified and decoded as “return flight waking symbolism” (most common type) even though RAS and the association with falling or flight is not directly perceived. This is due to the association with Chekov and his role in the television series. He is a passive form of the precursory preconscious.

      The shift to the offset dream is based on the liminal space cessation trigger, which is that which causes the dream self to subliminally (depending on the level of lucidity if extant) ponder the nature of being between sleeping and waking. This is what “sometimes more, sometimes less” means, relating to the level of awareness during the waking transition and likely also a reference to the degree of lucidity. The detectives “replacing” us relates directly to the puzzling state of liminal space and the implied “mystery” of being unconscious without fully realizing it (though I am semi-lucid here, probably about 50% lucid towards the offset scene).


      Categories
      lucid
    5. A Near Mystere

      by , 12-07-2017 at 07:59 PM
      Night of December 6, 2017. Wednesday.



      Fading into semi-lucidity after typical hypnagogic lucidity, I go beyond a stream surrounded by rock faces into an open area. This shifts into an idea to manifest a perfect combination of sensuality and eeriness. I decide to integrate Zsuzsanna into the role of Mary Medina as in the Grimm Fairy Tales 2017 Halloween Special, but I mostly let it flow on its own without in-dream control (by way of spoken affirmations by my dream self as in some apex lucidity states). There is a sustained event with an incompetent makeup artist. Zsuzsanna ends up with only white face paint on her forehead. This scene seems to repeat after a reset.

      Although some of the setting looks somewhat like a sketchy version of New Orleans, some of the buildings appear as if they are cardboard facades about a block or two away. I ignore this feature and focus on intensifying the nature of my dream. Ghosts wander about, but there is not much eeriness or plot.

      The outcome is in a large dining room. About seven ghosts (in Victorian clothes) play Musical Chairs with six gold chairs with red velvet seats and backs. As they are ghosts, there can be no winners or losers as they just phase into and out of each other when trying to sit and stay on the chairs (and for example, two taking up the same space on the same chair). This scenario is so amusing, it pulls me out of the dream state with an almost audible laugh.


    6. The Culling of the Kraits

      by , 11-25-2017 at 01:26 PM
      Afternoon of November 25, 2017. Saturday.



      My beautiful wife Zsuzsanna and our children and I are living in a trailer in a trailer park in an unknown location. It is mostly in a field of low grass and not many land features, not even a discernible city in any direction, though there does seem to be a road in the distance. Thus, the only extant conscious self threads are of my present marriage status and nothing else, not even a focus on what country I am in, yet with my dream self (personified subconscious) ridiculously accepting the setting as legitimate (even though our large family could certainly not fit in a trailer).

      After some brief generic activities with my family, I step outside the trailer and notice a Belize guerrilla grinning at me and holding a rifle diagonally across his chest. He is standing about ten feet away from the trailer’s entrance.

      While all the other members of my family are still in the trailer, I lift my hands into the air while I am standing just outside the doorway, indicating my submission but only mild surprise.

      However, the guerrilla, an unfamiliar male of about thirty, points down at an area of ground with his rifle. I notice no less than twenty dead kraits in a cluster, the outer perimeter of the cluster being less dense with krait bodies in various curvy positions.

      Apparently, he has done us a big favor in having killed the surprising number of snakes, now strewn about lifeless on the ground near an isolated cluster of rocks to his left (my right). Lucidity comes in at only the last second prior to waking and I immediately recognize this common component and its core meaning.



      In approaching this dream with truth and understanding over superstition and the fallacy of “interpretation”, it is seen to be very basic. Some very basic knowledge about dreams is required; one, that this is an isolated dream during an afternoon nap, of which has entirely different symbolism than dreams of other time periods or during longer sleeping periods (due to the nature of circadian rhythms having the strongest influence over the dream state); two, that it was during a very light sleep with minimal REM; three, that this dream type is basically of waking symbolism only, with no relationship to real life.

      The personified preconscious (the Belize guerrilla - based on an unconscious confusion of Punta Gorda, Belize with my birthplace of Punta Gorda, Florida), typically linked to the reticular activating system (RAS) actually subdued it rather than augmented its dynamics. This is because RAS symbolism is only needed in extended sleep. My brief thread of lucidity is all it took to transmute the preconscious into the emergent consciousness. When one is ready to wake (especially during a lighter and shorter sleep), there is no need for aggressive preconscious mediation.

      A snake is the very epitome of RAS due to its “primal fear” status in the majority and bound to be the most inherent waking alert in many imaginary dream environments, yet many people persist in pointlessly bumbling along with imaginary “interpretations”. Being the oldest waking mechanism (other than the falling sensation linked to inner ear dynamics based on the shift in unconsciousness to consciousness), it is apparently even the origin of the Christian myth with the serpent (RAS) in the Tree of Knowledge (human brain in unconsciousness).


      Categories
      lucid , non-lucid
    7. White Moth (and Shopping Cart)

      by , 11-24-2017 at 09:05 AM
      Night of November 23, 2017. Thursday.



      I am near full lucidity and aware of my conscious self identity. I find myself in a parking lot at nighttime. A shopping cart is moving in front of me. Although I am implied to be pushing it, I seem incorporeal.

      A white moth seems to fly from the front of the shopping cart. It rises in the air about three feet in front of the shopping cart before I awake with a lighter hypnopompic kick.



      This dream is a typical though interesting example of the type in which the symbolism and its inherent meaning is solely premonitory of the hypnopompic kick during the waking transition, and as such, is unrelated to waking life or so-called “interpretation”. Self-contained biologically premonitory dreams of this common type often utilize a flight symbol as here. This is because of the nature of inner ear dynamics and the ascending reticular activating system. (When one is unconscious, one does not usually viably perceive one’s real physical body, which often creates a sense of floating, falling, or associations with flight.)

      The parking lot represents the transitional state between dreaming and waking and is usually unrelated to conscious self factors.

      The white moth, inherently a natural biological symbol rather than an “interpretable” feature, relates to the circadian rhythms of the sleep cycle in three different ways. One, its whiteness is associated with the moon and sleeping at night (especially as it is airborne as an analogy to the moon being in the sky). Two, its nocturnal nature (most moths, but not all, are nocturnal) is also relevant to sleeping at night and being in the dream state during a specific time in the sleep cycle. Three, the flight symbol aspect has already been explained in the third paragraph above. This type of dream occurs at least once during every normal sleeping period (and has for over fifty years), though more often involves walking through a city at night and tripping over the curb and “falling”, also directly biologically premonitory of the hypnopompic kick or waking start, as well as spontaneous muscle tension and release, and unrelated to real life.

      As fully explained in numerous past entries, the hypnopompic waking mechanism (waking start) and its biologically premonitory dream-related events leading up to it by way of the waking transition (and the ascending reticular activating system) are more vivid and intense when I have done a lot more walking prior to sleep, which proves that this dream’s symbolism is based on biology and anticipation of waking, not some sort of nebulous occult “symbolism” as found in so-called dream dictionaries or other nonsensical publications.

      The shopping cart’s appearance is a literal remnant (though its perceived movement symbolizes the real-time waking shift during unconsciousness), not an “interpretable” feature, similar to a bed as a literal dream state indicator (as is being undressed in public as one does not typically wear clothes to bed), as I had been pushing a shopping cart around for about two hours prior to going to bed. In fact, walking a lot while pushing the shopping cart is why this dream’s symbolism is as it is concerning the specific nature of the hypnopompic waking start and the spontaneous release of muscle tension in unconsciousness.

      This dream lacks the personified preconscious common to other dream types. As the hypnopompic waking start is the waking mechanism (and as a result has more energies linked to the physical body), a personified preconscious is not needed to initiate waking (for example, from such as imaginary conflict, perceived “intrusion”, or being chased by the preconscious waking function). Also, when lucid, the dream self obviously takes on more threads of the conscious self identity, thus is already closer to viable consciousness.

      This dream renders and utilizes “exit flight waking symbolism” in incidental contrast to “return flight waking symbolism” (both very common types of waking symbolism) as in dreams such as “Kite or Bird? Self-Breaking Window?” from November 9, 2016 (though there are thousands more in my personal database). There seems to be no difference other than the factors of circadian rhythms dynamics, that is, the white moth flying away from me symbolizes associations with nighttime becoming more dominant in my semi-conscious state and the dream self to continue to sleep and experience additional dreams, while in the other dream, the white bird flying towards me is more about the cessation of the dream state (and its coalescence “back” into the unconscious) towards morning, especially regarding the window-breaking symbolism (the increase of neural energies eliminating the illusion of the dream state), the bird related to the “return” of my conscious self identity in that case (and despite the fact that some birds hunt at night, a bird of that appearance is more associated with daytime). Such symbolism has been inherent to my dreaming history since early childhood in the same context but usually with unique scenarios and elements. I am fully familiar with its meaning and virtually infinite variations and have zero interest in the popular fallacy of “interpretation”.


    8. Usual Induction; Atypical “Snowmocopter” Waking Transition

      by , 10-31-2017 at 01:40 PM
      Morning of October 31, 2017. Tuesday.



      The dream state induction symbolism here is water flowing in (most common). The waking transition symbolism here is water lowering over time and “return flight” waking symbolism (most common; over twenty percent of regular dreams and about ninety percent of all dreams). Dream state induction symbolism and waking transition symbolism are inherent to the dream state itself based on the real-time dynamics of going to sleep, being unconscious, and waking, and is unrelated to real life or the inventive untruthfulness of “interpretation”. These forms of induction and waking transition factors have occurred at least once per day for over fifty years. The water induction and reduction is biologically based on the glymphatic system and the flight-related symbolism is based on the reticular activating system (RAS) and inner ear dynamics during sleep (especially as a factor relating to the fictitious dream body as being upright while the real physical body is lying down, which is what causes most falling dreams and is unrelated to the deception of “interpretation” or cruelly fabricated “meaning” to negate someone’s livelihood under the oppression of disinformation - in fact, if you watch a baby sleeping and a noise occurs in some cases when they are in the dream state or when air blows on them, especially their face, they will throw up their arms and automatically briefly maintain a falling position - not to mention the common term “falling asleep” - how could people miss this?).



      Stepping into a beach scene in late afternoon (a very common lucid entry simply because I like the beauty of the ocean and the liminal space of the beach, which symbolizes the state between dreaming and waking), a young version of Zsuzsanna in black lingerie approaches on a black horse. The essence of beauty increases and is appreciated. Zsuzsanna is with me in an extended love-making scene. My lucidity decreases to semi-lucidity though my conscious self identity remains intact. Sexuality symbolizes…wait for it…sexuality (oh snap), at least in lucid and semi-lucid dreams, because, well, that is what I unconsciously will via conscious self identity (it is not rocket science).

      Over time, after indulging in sensuality for seemingly a long time, the usual water lowering event as a waking precursor “timer” (common since around age four) commences. (Among other analogies, this directly represents the tidal analogy of the glymphatic system.)

      We have somehow teleported, while on our sides, to a field of knee-high grass adjacent to the beach we had just been on. In the distance, I see a red combine harvester approaching, but not that close to our location. “Oh-oh,” I say, but with somewhat of a comedic mocking of the semi-lucid dream content.

      A change occurs where some of the ocean water nearest the beach is topped with ice. I see what I think is a helicopter and I assume it is the flight symbolism (end marker) out of my dream. Instead, my dream does not decay but transitions to being slightly more vivid again. “It’s a snowmocopter,” I say, noticing that it is actually a snowmobile (though was a helicopter that changed into the snowmobile).

      I sit down on the snowmobile and do some sort of kick start maneuver with my left foot as if I was on a motorcycle. As I am doing this, the preconscious (as an unfamiliar young male) sneaks up from behind me. Some sort of strange teleportation occurs again, and I am standing and watching the preconscious on the snowmobile (as I am standing on the left of the snowmobile), and he is now trying to start it. “Well, that thing ain’t gonna fly,” I say, as he looks amused, as I laugh myself awake.


    9. Batwing Doors

      by , 10-22-2017 at 04:22 PM
      Morning of October 22, 2017. Sunday.



      In the last segment of an otherwise sensual dream of the usual daily sequences, I am aware of Zsuzsanna eventually standing directly behind fancy batwing doors, inside the building we had made love in, as I am now on a public footpath. The batwing doors actually seem to have the evenly divided silhouette of a bat at the top as well as stained glass panels very similar to the Barolin Street house windows. The setting seems to be a three-storey hotel of an 1800s style, though there is not a clear essence of being in the distant past. There is a vague association with Brooklyn, though the location is otherwise unknown. She is wearing an old-fashioned but very fancy red corset. She is also wearing a black cowgirl hat with at least four diamonds horizontally across the front. She seems very cheerful.

      Even though I am not fully lucid at this point, probably just on the threshold of active lucidity (and my conscious self identity is mostly present), I still start to vaguely reflect upon the waking symbolism elements though not fully in recalling what a dream is (a common ambiguity that cannot be resolved in conscious afterthought). I recognize the doorway waking symbolism (a doorway symbolizing the exit point of a dream) and consider the flight symbol element (the “bat wings”). Red is usually the last color (or dominating color) seen prior to waking, though usually only when I have been sleeping a bit too long. The cowgirl hat with diamonds symbolizes the activation of the emergent consciousness factor. Just as I start thinking about “lights on” or “lights off” without fully realizing what I am contemplating, I wake.



      Despite my dreams usually having the same core symbolism since early childhood, they are intriguingly rendered in a virtually infinite number of combinations. For example, I can easily compare this dream with “A Bat Not a Mistletoe” (from December 2012) where, instead of the doorway waking symbolism utilizing sensuality and batwing doors, what was believed to be a mistletoe turns out to be a rubber bat nailed directly above a regular doorway.

      Both dreams redundantly synthesized the “return flight” element (that is, return flight waking symbolism, a factor of over one in five of my dreams since early childhood) with doorway waking symbolism. The flight element in both dreams is static and artificial (divided wooden bat silhouette in this dream and rubber bat in the 2012 dream), which relates to anticipatory knowledge of the waking transition as of the involuntary abdominal movement in waking rather than my more common back spasm waking event. Dreams are biologically self-premonitory this way, though the (ascending) reticular activating system (RAS) does sometimes seem a vessel for control in some cases, which I have experimented with at times since early childhood, but with usually unpredictable results, with the problematic ambiguous nature of triggering it just by thinking of it, the aspects very similar to trying to control the dynamics of a sneeze.


    10. Strange Feline Visitor (doorway waking symbolism)

      by , 10-15-2017 at 08:11 PM
      Morning of September 13, 2012. Thursday.



      I become lucid in a slow entry transition (the usual lucid and willfully manipulated hypnagogia after making love in real life) and our bedroom takes on different features.

      Of course, there is still the residual energy of wanting more intimacy and sustained harmony. Zsuzsanna and I eat strawberries (on a small yellow plate) at one point.

      After our romance and intimacy, I am somewhat in a non-lucid state now. I become puzzled, more over my decreasing level of awareness (but which vivifies in the last scene) than by the fact our bedroom is rendered with the wrong layout (not directly linked to the lounge room and kitchen as it is in real life). The paint on the horizontal wall boards is peeling (yet it was not before) which I vaguely recall means that my dream is beginning to ebb, yet my lucidity is no longer viable.

      I feel an urge to see if the door is open and it is. I approach the doorway. There is nothing visible beyond. I feel puzzled by an anticipatory mood emerging from within me.

      The Cat in the Hat’s hat appears in the doorway, though with no cat. It floats in the air, tips slightly forward and I feel amused, waking with cheerfulness and humor.



      This dream has the usual dynamics as have been in the same sequential components (through tens of thousands of dreams) since early childhood, though I have grown to appreciate, enjoy, and greatly respect how the nuances are always slightly different.

      Firstly, it is doorway waking symbolism, where a doorway is rendered as the dream’s implied exit point as an emergent consciousness factor (sometimes triggered by real-life environmental noise but not always, as the reticular activating system often uses the memory of a door knock or door-opening sound to activate waking, though no door knock occurs in this case).

      Secondly, the sense of puzzlement is what causes the stovepipe hat to be rendered. Although “The Skunk” is an early childhood dream from 1965, it has very similar dynamics, where the white part of the skunk formed a question mark when I entered the higher liminal space of unconsciousness while becoming closer to consciousness (and also ends with doorway waking symbolism). Stovepipe hats represent the emergent consciousness and the concept is related to “put on your thinking cap” as analogous to waking from the dream state (emergence of thinking skills which the non-lucid dream self does not possess). They have featured as such in a number of my dreams since childhood.

      Finally, the essence of a cat is linked but not fully. Depending on the dream of course, cats often serve as a liminal space symbol. This is mainly because of my childhood association of a cat sitting on a fence, a fence being the division between unconsciousness and emerging consciousness.


    11. Cell Phone Flashlight

      by , 10-01-2017 at 01:50 PM
      Night of September 30, 2017. Saturday.



      I am sitting on our couch in the darkness in our lounge room in our present home. I am on the right side of our couch facing the north end of our lounge room.

      I feel very peaceful and in a state of well-being and bliss. I soon become aware that our oldest son has come out of his room (from our lounge room’s access door on the west of his room). He has a pale yellow cell phone with a flashlight beam coming out of the top edge of it (not an item he has in real life). He moves it around, mainly in a horizontal semicircle from his right to his left, as if searching for something or someone, apparently me. He seems very cheerful though about five years younger than he presently is (though my dream self does not consider this distortion as such). I quickly wake as a result of RAS (reticular activating system, which is what biologically controls the dream state dynamics and inherent waking symbolism), still feeling very peaceful, calm, and happy.



      I had this longer microdream while actually sitting on our couch (same position and orientation as my dream) after the power had been out this evening for over an hour (the result of a regional blackout). I was so relaxed sitting in the darkness that I slipped into a microdream within a few minutes upon sitting down on our couch (which usually only happens as I am watching television). Our son carrying the flashlight “looking for me” was simply the biological RAS activation (otherwise typified as “searchlight waking symbolism” of the passive and positive kind). The emergent consciousness factor was quite brief and the preconscious dynamic was non-aggressive as this was not a dream of a longer sleeping period. (In actuality, our youngest son had used a flashlight but not on me during the period of my dream.) The cell phone feature is present due to RAS mediating consciousness (as a type of communication with the transient fictional dream self).

      The strictly biological RAS “searchlight effect” has occurred in hundreds of dreams since early childhood, including in documented dreams online such as “Steering Clear of a Laser Tracking Weapon” from 2013, “Spacecraft in the Alley” from 1997, “Not Exactly the Three Musketeers” from 1988, “Laser-Eyed Alligator” from 1979, “The Beam” from 1977, and a number of other dreams.

      For the majority of people who have no understanding of dreams, it may be important to address why this biological RAS activation is different in this case from other dreams that utilize the same basic waking symbolism (the dawning consciousness metaphor), for example, how does this dream differ from “Laser-Eyed Alligator” or other dreams of the same type?

      The most obvious difference here is, I expected and wanted the power to come back on. In “Laser-Eyed Alligator” and “Steering Clear of a Laser Tracking Weapon”, my dream self, at a subliminal level, did not want to wake yet. This is what RAS and the transpersonal preconscious are for. It is not rocket science unless one is superstitious and clueless.



      On a side note, I talked with my lovely wife Zsuzsanna tonight about a possibility of perhaps editing and resupplementing all 4,000 or so of my dream journal entries presently on the Internet to make them more “idiot-proof”. Alas, this seems next to impossible. No matter how much clarity and accuracy I include in some of my entries, based on over fifty years of experience, there are people who do not get dreams at all (or of whom are of the unfortunate mentality to believe in “dream interpretation” in the various superstitious or pseudo-psychological ways the term is misused). There always seems to be one person (usually a male with obvious personal issues) who somehow feels the need to contradict the obvious or add to my post in various ways. I am stating that here just in case such a comment appears on an entry.


      Categories
      lucid
    12. Total Freedom in Lucid Dreaming

      by , 09-19-2017 at 03:19 PM
      Morning of September 19, 2017. Tuesday.



      In the first part of my dream, in the first non-lucid segment, I am in a typical scenario where I am in a bookstore (or what is firstly perceived as one) and looking at various comic books and graphic novels. This goes on for a long time as I gather a stack together to keep. The books are unfamiliar, thus new to me, though some are implied to be older (as far back as the 1970s).

      At this stage, the personified preconscious is present as a younger unfamiliar male. Curiously, he is painting, as if there was also an art studio here. It is not much bigger than A4 size and lying on the table that I am sitting at eventually. It seems to be a landscape with flowers in the foreground.

      I tell him how I had painted, with a paint-by-number kit when I was a boy, two skulls. I explain how they were two singular portraits of skeletal pirates, shown from about the chest up. (This is based on a real-life event and thus atypically, is a real memory.) He said he had never heard of them. “Oh, they were quite popular,” I reply. I then go on to describe how my older brother Earl had started a very large paint-by-number of the Mona Lisa, but had never finished. (This was also a real event, from the early 1970s.)

      Eventually, I decide to walk out of what now seems like a second-hand store. I have a stack of graphic novels and comic books at least a foot high. However, it seems confused with the free bookstore, where (in real life) there is no one present other than the patrons and one is trusted to trade books of equal value on their own. A cashier, an older unfamiliar female, stops me by asking what I am doing. She is at a counter to my right. Apparently, I have to pay for the books, possibly a lot of money, which I do not have on me, which I tell her. I also protest in that I tell her I had left food on a previous visit. It does not seem to matter to her. I still apparently have to pay for these books now.

      I take out my wallet and the contents of my right pants pocket and see that I have only coins, which I place on the counter, which has now suddenly shifted to the opposite side of the room and farther back from the entrance of the store - a subliminally willed (non-lucid dream control) attempt at reinduction, that is, I had consciously but subliminally willed the counter back from my dream’s implied exit point as well as shifting it from the right to the left, as right is more typical of waking symbolism orientation. (The checkout of a store symbolizes a specific level of emergent consciousness as a common liminal space end marker in my dreams, fully understood as such since I was very young. This does not mean every dream ends shortly after a checkout is rendered, but it does indicate a precursor to an expected shift in consciousness, not necessarily full wakefulness, though that is often the case).

      The preconscious factors had transmuted from the artist (which symbolizes potential lucidity, though my non-lucid dream self does not realize this) to the elderly female cashier, though an unfamiliar male with a beard joins her on her right (the same orientation Zsuzsanna and I are presently sleeping in). The other male looks at my coins. Three of them are unusual in that they are mostly featureless other than having an embossed circle on them. “These are tally-hoes,” he says. This seems to mean that they may not be coins for buying something but possibly for use with public transport, or perhaps of little value. (Of course, “Tally-ho”, here an absentminded association with tallying up the total price as in “tally whole cost”, is here also a codeword for the waking transition analogous as the dream self hunting for the fox, which represents the precursor to coalescence back into conscious self identity and critical thinking skills or cleverness which the dream self does not typically possess.)

      From here, my mode of non-lucid dream control increments. I decide to leave the store with the books anyway, by teleporting and phasing through the entrance door without opening it (another form of subliminal reinduction, that is, even though I do not know I am dreaming, I deliberately manipulate it, a very common state of in-dream awareness for me).

      Still, they are heavy to carry, but I do not mind that much. It seems to be late at night. I notice that the moon is of an unusual appearance as a number of unusual clouds encircle it. The moon imagery is within the blue sky even though the rest of the sky is dark. Understanding that this image of the nighttime sky is absurd, I now become fully lucid and I decide to actively change and sustain my dream.

      The first act I perform is to joyfully throw my books onto the ground, as there is no sense in carrying them (or to be weighed down by them) in the dream state. I feel physically lighter and very happy to realize I am dreaming due to lifelong understanding of taking full conscious self advantage of this state. I enter apex lucidity and decide to create a park and have a sustained and augmented sexual encounter with Zsuzsanna. After this, I will it again. Parts of my body are “buzzing” with pleasure and our climaxes are extended (probably due to the Tetris effect from so many real-life events). However, I eventually shift into a different form of lucidity, where my dream is so realistic, that my dream self starts to question if my real physical body is somehow walking around (which of course is a ridiculous thought, but this has happened in past lucid dreams of a higher and sustained form), so I decide to initiate waking to find that I (that is, my sleeping physical body) had not moved at all. Still, there is something about the bliss, freedom, and even perceived safety of apex lucidity that is hard to describe.


      Updated 06-09-2018 at 06:31 AM by 1390

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      lucid
    13. Return to the Tree of Opossums

      by , 08-30-2017 at 08:35 PM
      Night of August 29, 2017. Tuesday.



      As a very young child, an intriguing recurring dream, some of which versions were lucid, involved walking down a zigzagging path. It usually seemed to be late at night or very early in the morning before dawn. I would notice a splendorous tree. I would also notice, within the foliage of that tree, eerie glowing eyes.

      The eyes did not seem threatening, though I was aware they were watching me. These states were very vivid. These animals were eventually revealed to be opossums.

      In this new dream, I “return” to this tree and some sort of analogy begins. The tree is shown to represent the human brain, while the glowing eyes represent the energy of neurons presumably while in the dream state. For some reason, it seems a perfect analogy.



      One of the several reasons why “opossum” became a part of my dream-self identity, tribal name, and online dream journalist name, was because of these vivid childhood dreams and the fact that an opossum is a perfect symbol for being in the dream state (as an opossum “plays dead” as an analogy of being asleep - not meant in a negative context).



      Zsuzsanna had a pet Australian opossum when I first made contact with her. This was one of thousands of details that validated our inherent connections to each other long before we met. (She also drew an opossum in a tree as a child with an airplane flying over it, and of course, I flew in an airplane to Australia.) My life has remained miraculous and Zsuzsanna is the only person near my age I can sense as being “there” at all (through the blue flame or Blue Pearl “telepathy”, for lack of a better word).


      Categories
      lucid
    14. Walking in Northside La Crosse (Silas Weir Mitchell Appears)

      by , 08-05-2017 at 02:05 PM
      Optimized 1 minute 30 second read.

      Saturday morning, 5 August 2017.


      Walking in Northside La Crosse (features Silas Weir Mitchell)


      Dream # 18,492-02.





      There are a few repeating scenes where I walk west in daylight down a sidewalk on Sill Street, on the south side of it, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I had turned right at Loomis Street and am near the intersection at Wood Street.

      I am nude except for a blanket hanging down, wrapped around my shoulders. I feel no embarrassment or sense of displacement.

      At times, I see the actor Silas Weir Mitchell walking on the opposite side of the street, about a quarter of a block behind me. He appears to be happy, but we do not meet. I get the impression he knows I am only out for a walk to pick up something to take back to the Loomis Street house (even though my dream self does not focus on what it might be).

      I consider checking the contents of a green dipsy dumpster in the parking lot of a Country Kitchen restaurant (not a real-world setting). I wonder if it might contain something valuable someone had discarded. Instead of going near it, I circle it from a distance and return to where I was.

      Because I am "walking with intent," I sense there are many other people in the area even though I do not see them. Silas does not appear in this location.


      Causality details:

      The names Silas and Sill underlie a typical dream state hodgepodge, both beginning with "Sil." I do not corrupt this detail by pretending it has "meaning," only television influence.

      Celebrities occur in my dreams as personified protoconsciousness primarily because dreaming encompasses a similar state of sensory deprivation as watching television in waking life, with minimal attentiveness to my real-world physicality, cognizance, and immediate environment.

      Ultimately, that is also why "walking with intent" sometimes brings about the sense of having an invisible audience, associating the dream state with being in a television broadcast or movie.

      Minimal "slope navigation" occurs in the parking lot scene caused by my vestibular-motor response to REM sleep. A parking lot corresponds with a lucid thread signifying a stage of liminality between dreaming and waking, similar to what it represents in real life.



      Updated 07-27-2022 at 05:43 PM by 1390

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      lucid
    15. The Incredible Shrinking Dreamer

      by , 07-27-2017 at 01:27 PM
      Early evening of July 27, 2017. Thursday.

      Dream #: 8,483-07. Reading time: 1 min 10 sec.



      Precursory (vestibular): I enter my dream self’s imaginary physical body and find myself running. I am Grant Williams as Scott Carey in the 1957 movie “The Incredible Shrinking Man.” I am running over the top of a series of cardboard boxes on about the fourth shelf up of a metal utility shelving unit. I am about four inches tall. I do not seem to be running because of a threat, just running along. (“On the shelf” is autosymbolism that is analogous to being in bed. The closed boxes represent the inability to move my body while sleeping, yet I am running on them as I still subliminally perceive my muscularity.)

      Virtual witness integration: Zsuzsanna, appearing somewhat like a 1950s actress, is running behind me, though to my left. There is a heightened sense of energy. (This short dream occurred at about 5:30 pm AEST during a nap. Zsuzsanna was in bed with me at the time. She was to my left because she was to my left in bed, and behind me, because I was closer to waking as liminally perceived by my dream self.)

      The drop: Soon, I see the scene from an incorporeal viewpoint from the front of the shelving unit. “We” are running from left to right. Grant Williams as Scott Carey as “me,” running at an angle, runs straight off the cardboard box from off the front of the shelf and falls to the floor onto his right side and kicks. Simultaneously, I experience a mild hypnopompic kick and upper back spasm as I realize the residual imagery reflects my sleeping position. (I am looking down at my body.)



      This July 27, 2017 dream is a fictitious scene from “The Incredible Shrinking Man.” Grant Williams died on July 28, 1985.


      Updated 09-25-2019 at 06:44 AM by 1390

      Categories
      lucid
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