false awakening

1. I somehow manage to get myself into the tour pickup truck for the cello rock band Rasputina. Their frontwoman, Melora Creager, is utterly emaciated and is doing a large quantity of cocaine. I get dropped off a block from the venue in which they're playing, and walk to the venue confused and dejected.

2. I'm in a Wal-Mart, being rather foolish and clumsy. I kick a chicken cage, with a chicken in it. It seems that I only break the front of the cage, which is glass, leaving the rest intact, but when I look at the cage the chicken is dead. An employee demands that I pay a ridiculous price for the two items.

3. No details other than subject matter about cello playing and a double false awakening.

5 separate entries? Good night of recall...

1. I'm watching the Simpsons, where Moe and Barney are the only two in Moe's Tavern. Both are fairly drunk and feeling vulnerable, and after a bit of dialogue they exchange a single kiss. Moe admits he was curious, and as soon as he does the bar begins to collapse around him. Dream cuts to "South Moe's," recast as an upscale drinking spot. However, pots of a black goop bubble behind the surface of the bar. Drinkers are littering the floor with their empty bottles, and as they do so the goop reaches out of its pots to grab them. The drinkers seem to dissolve before my eyes; Milhouse (dressed as Admiral Ackbar) screams "It's a trap!," while his mother's head lulls sickeningly on a bleached-white spinal column. Eventually Moe is the only one left in the bar, and he angrily tips over the pots. All the drinkers emerge, unharmed, and Moe orders them to clean up the mess as a lesson in environmental stewardship.

2. My high school friend S.M. has asked me to text him on Facebook, but I ignore his request. The next day, he and M.B. show up at my house bearing Magic cards, and as we play they both admit that they've been crushingly bored. I false awaken, then go to the computer and log on to Facebook. I see his text request again and ask myself, "Is this a dream?" I fail the reality check miserably and fail to go lucid.

3. I'm reading about Tarot readings I've done in my journal, only to realize that I've forgotten the staff portion of the Celtic Cross.

4. I'm at a flea market with the family, and we enter the main building through a sort of farmer's market area. Most things are reasonably priced, but bananas are $8 a pound and my mom flips out about it. Dad, fed up with her, enters a room containing clothes and life jackets. My brother has a smartphone with him, and dad wants to use it to check prices. The internet at the market can only be accessed through a medieval themed game interface, which costs $35. He buys it, but finds it very hard to enter web addresses, as letters change after entry (failed RC). Eventually he succeeds, and sees that his parking can be validated if he goes to the student union at my new graduate school. As he logs off, the game reports his session as a "royal history."

5. I'm at college, where I'm taking "History of Baseball." I get destroyed by the first test, and walk out dejected when I meet my old roommate, J.L. He carries a Whiffle bat and ball, and we play a little.

Ah, horrible recall last few days finally broken.

1. My friend P.M. is renting a camper from a couple of Russian guys. He drives me to it, but when we arrive it's really a dump. He brushes it off and says he has something more important to show me. He's apparently invented a time machine! The dream transitions to a futuristic room, containing a machine with five chambers. In one chamber, a man in Renaissance garb is sent to his native time. In another, an alien that looks like a dolphin is sent into the future. Yet another chamber contains a single banana, which is sent somewhere unknown. I crack a smile at that absurdity. Finally, two quarreling lovers are sent somewhere. I false awaken and start to dream journal about it, then actually awaken (big failed RC, and screw you subconscious).

2. I'm a journalist, currently skulking around an abandoned African city. I go through the corridors and stairways of a dark factory, looking for the focus stone of a changeling child.

1. I forget under what circumstances it happens, but I do the nose pinch reality check and realize that I'm dreaming. I do the standard hand rub to stabilize, then see a window to the side of me. I have nothing better in mind, so I jump through it with ease and emerge on the other side into a winter scene. I start to fly and surge upwards through a cloud of snow. I realize that it's really rather cold, so I focus and summon a pair of gray wool pants. They appear in my hands with proper texture, and when I put them on they feel very soft and warm. I think about going into space, and as I look around I see a balloon ship. I fly over to it and fire up its engines, continuing to rise all the time. I try to change my clothes into a spacesuit, but I feel myself losing control...

I false awaken, and emerge into a scene where my mom and I are baking, with flour strewn everywhere. I ask nonchalantly if she was in the previous dream, and she responds that she's skilled enough to manage her own control. I talk excitedly about the concept of shared dreaming, admitting that it's probably "metaphysical bullshit."

2. I'm with some girl in a room that seems almost like a temple. Around a central altar, where we both are laying, are twelve pillars that correspond to the signs of the zodiac. She is initially very aggressive and defiant, but I calm her down and it seems like we go through a relationship in superfast motion with stages informed by zodiac signs.

3. I'm playing a game of hide and seek (using parkour to maneuver) on the Havana map of Call of Duty. My team has my brother and a couple of professional wrestlers, while my mom's team has her old friends. I eventually manage to track their last team member down and deliver the tag in a room from my own house.

1. I'm in a bar, relaxing somewhat awkwardly at a table with my frenemy H.B. and his girlfriend J.J. The interior reminds me of a bar in my old college town, but the view out the windows is that of a bustling supermarket in my hometown. H. asks for a pitcher of water as I start texting with my own girlfriend. I turn around and notice that the bar proper is taken up by a line of sorority girls, dressed in black Playboy bunny costumes for a frat party.

2. I decide to go to my old grade school, touring it in a suit, but while doing so I run into people from all levels of schooling. John M. from high school I see in the bathroom, the high school art teacher I see in the hall (interviewing for a position here), and C.W. and S.A. from college I see on the stairs as I'm leaving.

3. I stay up very late watching some football game... then go to sleep. I FA into my own bed at 9 o'clock at night, and my brother is sitting on the chair beside me playing Nintendo DS. My mom walks into the room and starts to berate me for my lateness and asks me how I expect to eat.

I'm walking the streets of London at night in my awesome long coat, when I'm suddenly struck with the urge to break off a piece of a building. This I do, and it feels heavy in my arms as I carry it into a nearby library. There I find an excellent book on poker, which I tuck into my backpack along with the building fragment and take without checking out.

I false awaken into an apartment in Cincinnati. I wander down to the riverbank, where a festival has set up. Two massive swings are on either side of a roller coaster shaped like a snake and themed "The Garden of Eden." I choose to swing, and get massive air, clearing the top of the coaster as I flip in midair and throw the metal horns with my tongue sticking out.

My parents and I are at the Cincinnati Museum Center taking in an exhibit on history. Multiple periods are contrasted, from ancient Assyrian engravings to the civil rights struggles in America. The exhibit proper ends with a model of a very pretty African-American girl in pearls and a cocktail dress getting lynched... then opens into a gift shop. People are sitting on benches in the shop with laptops, playing poker on Pokerstars.net. My mom comments on this as rather silly, then goes to discuss some business about layaway.

Poker serves as a transition point to an outdoors scene, where I sit down to a large ring game of Holdem. My mom insists on joining me, and initially the other players are fine with it. However, she is slow at playing and screws up her deal of Omaha when it comes around to her. The game goes back to Holdem and I get AK in the hole. My mom goes all-in, and I look at my cards again (which have become AA, so missed reality check) and call. Other players are disgusted with me for some reason...

I false awaken into my room at home, then go downstairs. My brother and his friend are there and report also dreaming about poker. With some questioning I find that they shared my dream, varying in minor details. I freak out about this and wake up.

The dream starts in my ecology classroom. The teacher has just handed back an exam, and I've done particularly poorly. I start to complain, arguing for several of my answers, but the teacher doesn't budge. I become louder and more forceful, flailing my arms and even screaming. My classmates start to look at me funny, but I don't care...

I wake up into the same ecology classroom. I realize that the previous dream had been caused by me falling asleep in class, and I'm quite embarrassed. The teacher scolds me while handing back the actual test, on which I've done well. It seems that I actually moved a bit while dreaming, and I apologize. This is, of course, a false awakening, and I soon wake into real life.

1. I'm taking a trip with my college friends into New York City. We ride the subway, then get off and start to negotiate taxi prices to get to our next destination. There are 15 of us, and the lady at the counter just kind of laughs when we ask if we could get a decent rate. At this I snap, and pull out a sniper rifle. I order everyone to the roof, and they obey fearfully.

Everyone lines up along the ledge of the roof, while I take a fortified position near the back. I start sniping, one after another, and feel great sorrow when I catch one of my friends with a bullet. Soon the police arrive, but without proper backup, and I snipe several of them. I then notice a stunning woman in a white dress swinging her legs out of a nearby window. I put my scope on her, but then notice she too has a rifle. She smiles at me and starts shooting at the crowd. Eventually the police get a machine gun emplacement set up and start to pepper my position, and the concrete blocks that shield me start to give way.

I awaken into my dorm room at college, where I get up and breathe on a mirror. I start writing the salient points of the dream in my breath as my friends are playing Mario Party in the background on the N64. It's hard to get the words to stay (failed RC), but I feel satisfied at some point. I then real awaken, angry...

2. I'm playing backgammon and discussing world issues with former president Bill Clinton.

3. I go to a concert in Columbus Ohio where Avenged Sevenfold is doing an experimental set and recording it directly to Youtube.

1. It's a boring night at the research station, so to pass the time I lean my face against the window of my room and watch people come and go through the courtyard below. CA goes to do laundry, then John L and Joe C go out to find stray animals. They return to the kitchen, where my dad is present to tell tales from the hometown animal rescue. The rescue clinic was apparently so successful that it was able to "hire" concerned volunteers at a dime a pop. After this I false awaken into my bed at home. I get up to brush my teeth, but I don't spit right and swallow the disgusting toothpaste. When I look at the mirror, I see Chinese characters with subtitle translations that say "That toothpaste was disgusting." (A failed text and mirror RC if I ever saw one)

2. I'm walking through Cincinnati with P at night. We have been shooting at an Astro van with our guns to try and get it to explode, but nothing's been happening. We decide to head into a foreigner-owned restaurant for greasy fast food.

1. I'm sitting in my college dorm room, wasting time on my computer. On Youtube, I find a claymation music video for "Master of Puppets." Cliff Burton is playing the guitar lines on a bass harp, which I think is incredible. I watch and call some friends over, but they don't seem to get that the video is claymation! I notice that one of the professors from the research station whom I dislike greatly, Dr. McK, is hovering over one of their shoulders. I wake up and try to record this dream, but am too tired to do so (false awakening).

2. I'm browsing TV channels in a hotel room with my mom and brother. Soon I come across a black and white film that appears interesting. It's about a very attractive MILF who tries to seduce two young boys. One of them falls deeply for her, but the other retains his honor with great difficulty. During the film I have to leave to go to the bathroom, but I try to hold it too long and end up shitting down my jeans leg. Mom is embarrassed to watch the film with us but doesn't ask to change the channel.

3. I am inside a fighting video game set in Wisconsin. An evil mastermind has stolen a McGuffin and is holding the entire state hostage. To defeat him, I lead a three-person squad in hand to hand combat from a third-person perspective. An avatar of me is the head of the squad, and I hold back no punches in the fighting. One of my foes, a huge strongman, seems to wait until he's badly hurt before he starts fighting hard; he says this is the only way to be "fair." After I beat him, I find two magic blocks of wood. They seem to work like magnets that I can turn on and off, and they grant me the power of flight. I reach a huge elevation and see the mastermind's lair in a green tower at the edge of the horizon.

1. I'm watching an old couple do a live broadcast of some comedic radio show. They only get a couple of lines in, the last of which is "He's always so polite," before I false-awaken into my bed. I start to write it down in my dream journal, when suddenly I hear "Habenera" from Carmen blaring in full orchestral beauty. This causes me to check my dream journal, and sure enough, my handwriting is unstable! I get lucid and try to stabilize, rubbing my hands together and feeling the bed beneath me. Things are solid and quite real feeling, and I try to engage as many senses as possible. I start thinking about where to take the dream while still stabilizing, and this continues for a good twenty seconds. However, I lose control before I'm able to do anything.

2. It's after the civil war, and my embarrassed family is ordering drinks from our former slaves who are now free employees of a restaurant.

I false awaken into my bedroom in my old house. I know one of my friends is taking me to a concert later in the day, but it's really early, and my first instinct is to jack off and kill some time. I grab a porn story printout from my bedstand and go to my basement, but I can't focus due to all the the noises and creaks down there. I spend the rest of the dream trying to stop those noises, turning various switches on and off to silence the washer, dryer, and buzzing fluorescent lights. Here are about ten consecutive failed RCs, as I realize these switches seem to take random effects on the machinery.