non-lucid

1. I'm at a football stadium in the desert. The Cincinnati Bengals are playing a game against an unspecified team, and I'm on the field as a Bengal's lineman pushing against the enemy offense. I actually do an OK job, and as the downs progress I get teammate support in a kind of military, "Hoo-ah!" way

2. I'm watching what seems to be a fight scene from an X-Men comic or movie taking place in a desert. The choreography is stunning, as is the skill of the mutants. The fight ends with Jean Grey drawing all the combatants towards her in a massive display of psychic power, then throwing them apart in a sphere of blue light. The Silver Surfer rides by, quipping, "And I thought I was overpowered!"

1. I'm trying to hack around in Facebook to find a way to see V's profile again (after she's blocked me IRL). Soon, however, I don't have to hack, as she re-adds me just long enough to send a poorly written but very painful letter (I fail the text RC).

2. I'm biking with E and C from the research station in a upscale community, trying to make a lunch date with the rest of the crew. In retrospect, the community has been a dream location before.

1. The whole family is going on a visit to the King's Island amusement park. We pull into a far away parking lot shared by a strip mall and several megachurches. My mom expresses concern about all the black men loitering in the lot, but my brother and I don't care and start to wander. We pass a local music shop, which seems to be having a going-out-of-business sale. Outside of the store is a row of basses with prices (failed RC), and I give them a good examination. As I look at them, one of the office ladies from my high school walks by and says "I know you and who's with you!" Cut to my high school's office,, where Mom and the lady are talking. It's the last day of school, and she's complaining about how only one student has wished her a good summer. PV, who she's nicknamed (appropriately) Big Chunky," is that student, and he comes from the back of the office to greet my mom and I warmly.

2. I'm watching a suspended roller coaster that seems inspired by a fight with a dragon. There's a lot of flat preparation at the beginning, followed by a crazy drop and a series of loops. Some bullies from my grade school are riding it, and when they get off of it they start to make fun of me.

1. My research station colleagues are heading to a lecture on the different layers of the sun, but I am too busy to go. I need the information for a future test, so I manage to get a handout with lecture notes on it (failed RC). I work for a good bit and get tired, so I take a break. I get on my computer and go to YouTube, where I start to watch videos from Renaissance festivals.

I find a video from the start of the Ohio Renfest, taken from the Queen's box for a panoramic viewpoint. An old man delivers a witty poem about mortality and time, then the crowd separates into four factions grouped by color. At the man's signal, they begin a massive LARP battle, and after the dust clears the blue team is victorious. The old man then continues his poem, ending with the line "Watch out for that grandfather clock!" He then roleplays his own death very convincingly.

Somewhere in all of this, my viewpoint has transferred into 1st person on the grounds of the Renfest. As I walk away from the old man, I run into MB. She's dressed in blue, but her face is very red and I can see she has been crying. She greets me sadly but without any great surprise, even though I haven't seen her in many months. I ask why she's crying, and she says "We were supposed to meet at 6:30. It's 7:30." She then walks away, saying she isn't OK.

2. I'm in an alternate-universe Chicago university, where my band is preparing itself for a benefit concert. It's something to promote world peace, as in this universe the Cold War is still boiling. The concert doesn't help, and soon the Cold War erupts. My band escapes from the city as radio reports tell of millions dying.

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.

1. My brother and I, both living at my research station, have started a band called "Acid Warning." We're preparing for a big concert and are trying to recruit as many audience members as we can before the show. We take a break from practice to go watch TV with our dad. The first show is Jeopardy, and after we finish, Alex Trebek himself comes by the room and just laughs at us. We are nonplussed and continue watching, this time seeing Dr. Who.

Afterwards, Mom joins us, along with a professor from the station and his wife. Subtle, barbed insults are exchanged between the adults, making my brother and I feel very uncomfortable. We exit, but soon the parents follow us. Dad orders us to leave, saying that he can't stand to spend another day here.

2. My brother and I discover a website with every N64 game ever made. We hook up the computer to the TV and start to play; I start off with Pokemon Snap, but he soon changes the game to Star Wars Battlefront.

1. My brother and I are at a theme park that seems to be based on world War II. As we walk along, our eyes are caught by what looks like an indoor mini golf course. When we enter, however, the attraction is a kind of real-life platformer. Fiendish puzzles of moving boxes are suspended above pits of water or water colored to look like "lava." It takes a lot of time and creative thinking, but we clear a bunch of levels together. Eventually, however, we reach the final stage, presided over by a cigar-smoking wax statue of General George Patton. In this stage, we have to carry a box of supplies over a very unstable path of floating and sinking boxes. I empty my pockets, knowing that I'll probably fall. They have my real-life every day carry in them, including my wallet, cell phone, keys, and Swiss Army knife. My brother and I then start to carry the boxy, but soon we simply give up.

2. I'm exploring the University of Tennessee in a kind of Space Station 13 style setup. The dream is set during a Latin convention, so the place is crowded, and I get up to a variety of hijinks. Highlights include leading a round of spiritual songs on the dance floor, climbing up recently painted ladders, tracking my friend H's little sister, and causing sonic annoyance on the football field. Lots of activity, but little in my notes.

3. A suit clad woman is driving a car of research station students back from a movie. The scenery isn't rural at all, but instead a kind of cyberpunk corporate hellhole. She convinces us to make an unnecessary fast food stop at a White Castle, and we enter the drive through. As we do so, however, she nonchalantly says "By the way, you're dreaming." I realize that yes, I am, but having a DC tell me straight up is enough to snap me out.

1. My brother, dad, and I are at the animal shelter adopting a new cat. For some reason my brother empties his pockets, but all he has in them is a large and unwieldy knife-wallet hybrid with a combination lock. An Asian man grabs the lock and starts cracking it. He soon solves it and tries to leave, but I hook my finger in the lock and pull to make him stay. We struggle for a while and he calls me racist names, then pulls out a pistol. I then proceed to knock him out with my other hand and escape with the family.

2. I'm playing DDR in an arcade with some of my college friends. It only costs two tokens, but the machine has been modified to float and is very unstable on a pool of water. My friend Q starts to bash arrows on the machine, and I try to stop him from messing me up. I lose my balance, however, and fall into what turns out to be putrid water.

3. I am watching a Tupperware container with a hot dog and a bunch of Cincinnati chili. Suddenly the hot dog grows a tiny mouth and starts to eat the chili, eventually leaving the container spotless!

4. I can see my own aura, and it is green. Someone else (unintelligible notes) also sees it and comments.

1. I'm doing my grocery shopping and wander down the frozen food aisle. Suddenly, all of the TV screens in the isle start to synchronize and launch into a 15 minute presentation about a certain brand. I watch, dumbfounded, and I remember feeling rather convinced. At the end of the presentation, I start to move, but from the end of another aisle a stage flips out. It's filled with opera singers who proceed to launch into a Handel oratorio. To my surprise it's actually rather good, full of humor and some bawdy behavior (such as men kissing) that strikes me as inappropriate for the era. When the show is over the stage folds back into the aisle and I continue shopping. At the end of my purchases, I get confronted by several employees for tipping the produce scales and trying to cheat on the price.

2. I'm at an awesome kid-focused science museum with tons of demos. I recall fingerprint powder, wind tunnels, and infrared cameras. There's also a flight harness to simulate low gravity, and I put it on to fly effortlessly around the room. I'm a little big for the apparatus, though, and I'm constantly on the verge of crashing.

3. I'm competing in the Winter Olympics, where there's now an "extreme skiing" event. This is done as a co-ed event, starting with a beauty contest where the female half of the team shows off her assets. The other part of the event is a breakneck downhill race where the course goes through moguls (and wooden stairs). I finish in second, right behind my female partner, so we win the gold!

1. I'm engaged in a 2 vs 2 duel of Yugioh. My dream body is that of Yugi himself, and I'm teamed with Kaiba against Joey and some random DC. Everyone's cards have different backs instead of the standard vortex; my own have the Cinderella Castle from Walt Disney World. The game proceeds for a while, and Kaiba eventually summons a White Eyes Black Dragon which wipes out the other players. As we clear the table, there's some confusion as to whose cards are whose (even with the different backs). Suddenly I'm not Yugi anymore, and Kaiba asks me if I want to a draft of Magic the Gathering.

2. I'm in a hotel for an unspecified reason with my friend M from college. Our mutual friend Z has died, leaving us to write grief-stricken.

1. I'm making a thrilling video-game style escape from an industrial type level. I'm not so much running or parkouring, although there is some of that. Instead, I'm solving puzzles where the penalty is falling down large pits. For example, to cross one I have to latch a carabiner shaped like a hummingbird to the right track above the pit and glide across. Below me is a horde of giants, reaching up to grab my feet and eat me. I think I may actually have failed once, but I re-spawned and took the right path. In another puzzle, I have to figure out the motion of a series of ladders and trains. I jump from one to the other, whirling almost out of control before I land on solid ground.

Finally I manage to break out of the level into a building (which I recognize from another dream after the fact). I take the wrong elevator but eventually break out into my hometown. For whatever reason I walk through a combination strip club/liquor store, then exit from there into a strip mall parking lot. I get surrounded by police, who accuse me of shoplifting and try to tase me. I start getting really scared and half-lucidly force myself to wake up.

2. I'm at a beautiful Japanese university with Dr. C from my research station. He drops me off by a riverbank and tells me to wait as he performs some errands. I dutifully wait, pulling out my laptop and playing Age of Empires II to pass the time. My mom randomly shows up, bringing hometown pizza and her homemade pie, and asks about my general health. By eating and conversation I manage to ease her worries and she goes away. I then wander off to take a leak. When I return, I see two kids in a pickup truck have stolen all my stuff and are driving away!

Frantically I run after them and end up in the main building of the university. I find all of my stuff set up just as I had left it in a hallway of the building. I play some more, then talk to a janitor about the school's study abroad program. Soon I wander into a busy stairwell, where Dr. C passes by, then the two kids who stole my stuff. V passes by me; she then passes by me again in the same direction, and this time she kicks me into the stairs and starts screaming that I deserve the pain. Apparently she heard something I said as "I want a domestic divorce," but this was the opposite of what I meant. I panic to tell her the truth, but the dream ends before I meet up.

3. I'm in some cartoonish epic of wizards and wizardry. A white wizard (white as in race) is on the run from a horde of black wizards led by his archrival and former apprentice. He runs into his house and sets the locks just in time to have the horde crash on his door. He draws his wand, then turns to face the nemesis he knows has teleported right behind him. The two draw, and they launch volleys of magic meant to kill.

4. The scene is set in an exotic hotel, where people are exercising nasty fetishes about the Warhammer 40K universe. Soon things shift to the hotel's courtyard, where the lead singer of the band Foxy Shazam is teaching a dance class.

I am in the kitchen of my research station. V is there as well, and I finally break the awkward silence that has been plaguing us in real life. I forget the details of the conversation, but it seems to go badly, and she exits the scene without another word. I follow her out the door, which opens out into a snowy urban landscape. I catch a glimpse of her and shout something about reincarnation, and she runs away from me. I try to track her down, but to no avail. I realize that the only release from my troubles is parkour, and I start running headlong into a tall hotel that seems entirely made of glass.

1. Once again I find myself in a mall arcade with my parents. I find a DDR machine where someone has left credits, and happily I jump on and select double mode. I have a lot of trouble selecting my first song, though (and with text menu, another failed RC), ending up on a Paul McCartney solo work. The stepchart is silly, and I barely manage to pass, feeling acute embarrassment. For my next song, however, I go to my old fallback "Heaven is a '57 Metallic Gray" and rock the house. Arrows seem smaller than in real life, but otherwise the interface is fine.

2. I play the main role in a music video for one of my favorite bands, The Dear Hunter. I don't remember details, but I do remember that it ends in a passionate and particularly real-feeling kiss.

1. I finally have returned from my research station, and I meet up with my old friend W at his house. He's suitably curious, asking all about my experiences, if I got lonely or bored and what I did for fun. I show him some of the things my parents brought me to make the time more enjoyable. This triggers a question of advice for his own presents, as his girlfriend's birthday is coming up. She's a nerdy actress, and he shows me two things he's considering.
One is a portable stage light that casts a brilliant circle on demand. The other is a bath towel with a built-in calculator (numbers go crazy, so another failed RC). I laugh at both and suggest the light as better. We continue to discuss girls until my mom interrupts us. We adopt a stony silence and sit awkwardly until W breaks it with a cheesy one-liner. I laugh so hysterically I fall out of the dream!

2. I make a trip to the Louvre in Paris with the students from my research station. I wander aimlessly along the corridors of art until I find a computer lab, in which everyone is hanging out. I feel mildly annoyed that we came all this way for everyone to ignore the art. In any case we all go outside, where Paris is covered in snow. This doesn't stop me from renting a bicycle and barreling down a sick hill with epic jumps. Eventually I wipe out in a crazy fashion, landing somewhat on my neck, even though the snow cushions my fall.

3. I'm on an Amazon river canoe trip with my advisor, and tensions are running high.

1. The family is visiting me at my research station. My brother says he needs to talk, and he tells me that his friend A is growing more distant with him after breaking up with K. The dream fast-forwards to the next day, where we all go out to eat at McDonald's. The brother orders poutine (suggesting we're in Canada?) and we talk about how relationships seem to chain down from one person to another. The parents eat calmly downstairs.
When he and I go back down, a waitress (with a nametag reading Skilscience, so a failed RC) is talking in a Norwegian accent to my dad. It seems that he's been rude, and she's trying to instruct him in manners. He ignores her while asking for more gravy, and she snaps. She jumps up on a nearby table and starts shouting everything wrong with McDonald's. The cheese is fake, the beef is tainted, employees spit in the food, etc. Soon the rest of the employees join her, shouting "Down with Wal-Mart! Down with McDonald's!" The family leaves in a huff, and the dream fades out over Anti-Flag style punk music.

2. I'm a bassist in a successful rock band with a large crew of student roadies (all of whom I recognize as fellow students IRL). We're recording a new album, and in the studio other members of the band are listening to Led Zeppelin for inspiration. We start to record, but the drums just aren't working properly. We waste hours of precious studio time, and I drive away from the studio frustrated.

3. Movie-style voiceover shows an epic tale in the Star Wars universe. Two Jedi, dueling hardcore, got frozen in a block of ice; their bodies rotted, but the lightsabers still burn today. I lead a team of explorers to find them, but as we retrieve the blades one of them somehow cuts through the other. This releases a huge fireball of energy, and my crew races to escape while being pursued by ninja stormtroopers.