task of the month

Current Supplements:
Fish oil 1000mg 2x/day
B complex w/ Folic Acid and Vitamin C 2x/day
Vitamin D3 1000iu 2x/day

Techniques:
ADA/mindfulness

Night before last:
I dreamed my ex boyfriend and I piloted steam-powered mechs across a post apocalyptic desert landscape, think Fallout New Vegas style. At one point, we stopped at a ruined rest stop.

Last night:
1. I was in a crowd in a movie theater like setting. It was very crowded and I was trying to find a seat without disrupting peoples' view of the show. It wasn't dark, though - the seats were all outdoors.

The theater became stadium-like. I was moving through a large crowd. The dream became blurry, and then I was hovering over the crowd and the building, which was amphitheater like with a strange roof-like structure that had muticolored terra-cotta tiles.

I suddenly realized that I was flying, which caused me to realize that I was dreaming. All of the colors intensified as I mentally ramped up the vividness of the dream. There were sparkling, vividly hued, multicolored chunks of glass and shiny black, hard pieces of coal suspended in the air around me. I was carrying a stack of tax forms and medical paperwork. As soon as I realized I was dreaming, I tossed them into the crowd below. I watched the hundreds of papers flutter to the earth like falling leaves, glad to have let them go.

I reached up and grasped a shiny black chunk of coal. It was smooth and hard, and despite being black, it shimmered. I brought both hands together and imagined immense pressure and heat. I imagined that the entire universe was exerting pressure on it. The coal between my hands began to feel hot.

I opened my hands. The coal had fused somewhat into a yellow piece of glass, but it wasn't a diamond yet. I wasn't bothered by this - it was a process, after all. I closed my hands, pressed them together around the coal/glass, and imagined the immense pressure and heat again. I imagined that all of existence was compressing around this single object. The dream rippled around me. I heard a sound like a shock-wave, or sub-bass.

I opened my hands and looked again. There was an almond-shaped yellow diamond in my hands, roughly the size of an egg. The surface was polished and smooth, and I could see into the translucent diamond and see all of the facets and the inner structure of the diamond catching the light. I gently released it and it rose into the air, joining the suspended pieces of coal and shards of glass, sparkling brilliantly in the sunlight.

I woke up. For whatever reason, I just wasn't excited about what I'd done! I just rolled over and went back to sleep... d'oh.

I dreamed that I was petting a tiger. It had been brought over to my apartment by a different ex-boyfriend. Its stripes were made of paint, and they got all over me.

I dreamed several dreams, and woke between each.

*side notes
*gaining lucidity
*lucid

#1 - I was having difficulty doing something. That's all I remember. Dream fragment.

Woke. Did Reality Check. Attempted WILD; failed, fell asleep.

#2 - I am in a house. I'm looking for a bathroom. There's no bathroom, because I didn't have enough in-game gold to buy an expansion. I discover that some of the red and white scented candles I've been buying were made by my cousin. He's been lying about having a regular desk job.

Woke, used bathroom. Reality Check. Attempted WILD; failed, fell asleep.

#3 - A wife and husband are fighting over their finances. The husband is unemployed or doesn't make much money, and the wife is burnt out and tired of working overtime to completely support them. The wife decides to make adult videos, and her best friend offers to help her. Her husband finds out and is extremely upset.

Woke. Rolled over and fell asleep.
#4:
I dream that I am riding a bus through a sweeping countryside. It appears that I am somewhere in New Zealand. The landscape is mountainous and verdant. It has just rained, the sky is full of gorgeous, radiant clouds, and it's is very beautiful (note: sweeping landscapes after a storm are actually one of my dreamsigns)

It begins to storm violently, and I'm up in the mountains. I am both riding and driving the bus. It's storming like crazy, and the mountain road is winding and dangerous. I'm high up in the mountains now, going over a narrow bridge. The choppy water has risen to the very bottom of the bridge, and it churns dangerously. The bus hydroplanes, loses control, veers off the bridge. The bus is now an old cadillac. The bus now disappears from around me as I enter the water. Frigid water envelopes me as I sink, and places immense pressure on my body; I debate fighting it, or merely letting myself sink. I allow myself to be pulled under and away with the current.

I wake up on a bus. I don't wake up on a bus; I am driving a car. I'm going to pick up a friend's dad. My friend is a chubby blond teenager wearing a Hulk Hogan shirt. We pick up his dad at a fast food restaurant that looks like McDonald's. He jokes about us being a software development team. He is actually a developer, himself. He looks really tired, and I ask him if he's been pulling long hours. He says, "Yes, and driving is a challenge. I'm practically cross-eyed." He decides to check his voicemail and starts swearing; apparently, his boss/team lead is asking for a whole bunch of ridiculous stuff that he can't possibly do on such a short deadline.

I wake up on a bus. I have stretched out across the seats, and a little girl is commenting to her mother that I'm taking up too much space. I try to pull myself up into a fetal position to free up more seats. My friend and his dad are also on the bus. The landscape is the one as described before; the sweeping New Zealand landscape.

I wake up and feel a bit irritated that my prior attempts at WILD have failed. I see light seeping in through my bedroom window and am a bit upset that it appears to be so close to morning. I'm also irritated that I didn't pick up on my most obvious dream sign.

I fail to do a Reality Check. In retrospect, my bedroom window was INCORRECT. The curtain wasn't there. I shrug it off, telling myself that it's just another chance to try to WILD again. I settle down in bed (note: I am fairly certain this was a FA and I am actually trying to WILD from my FA, which is kind of hilarious because it actually works)


#5 (?) -
I begin to see something forming in front of me, very blurry - it is a field of large, smooth pebbles. I decide that it looks somewhat like a beach, or is close enough to make into one. I try to make it solidify, but it fights me. I try to imagine it as part of a landscape, but it remains a flat plane - almost like a pattern. It is supposed to be the ground, I understand, but it takes up my entire field of vision.

I can feel it there - the dream is blurry, but it's forming. I don't want to lose it or lose consciousness, so I start actively trying to make it stabilize. I focus on the pebbles; they sharpen a bit, and then go all fuzzy again. I run my hands through the pebbles, then dive to the ground and shove my face into the pebbles. They're still fuzzy and immaterial, although I feel the ghosts of sensations from them. I enthusiastically rub my face back and forth in the pebbles. I feel like they're fading away and get upset, so in a moment of desperation, I lick the pebbles. They don't become any more material; they taste like grit and sawdust. I roll around on the ground like an idiot, grabbing handfuls of the ground and rubbing it into my face. I feel and smell dead leaves. Suddenly, there are dead leaves mixed into the pebbles.

I look up. There's more landscape forming! I see fuzzy green. I feel like this is like the edge of a lake or swimming hole. I stumble to my feet and pick leaves out of my hair.

The world suddenly solidifies, as my lucids often do - everything goes from a blurry mess to absolute perfect clarity. I am now on the edge of a small lake or swimming hole, on an artificial beach. I'm at a cook out!

There are tons of people milling around. The dad from my prior dream is grilling food, and there are a bunch of fat guys in tank tops drinking beer out of a cooler. There is a little girl in a purple swim suit playing with the sand. She has a toy shovel and those little plastic sand castle molds, and she's making a castle. She has white-blonde hair that curls in little ringlets around her ears, and blue eyes. She looks like she's maybe 3 or 4, and she's adorable. There is also a black and white Border Collie lying on a red and white checkered blanket next to a guy in a t-shirt and his kids. The dog is panting, because it's hot outside.

The swimming hole has a tall, metal slide where you can slide into the water. The sky above, unlike 99% of my lucids, is vivid blue and brilliantly clear - this is a hot summer day, probably July or even August.

I clap my hands together and yell out loud "YES! Finally!" I immediately run up to the dog and pet her. Her fur is thick and somewhat coarse. I scratch between her ears. She's very friendly, and enjoys the attention. As I scratch her behind the ears, I recall my lucid task.

"I need to destroy something right away!" I tell the dog. I had decided on Simple Task I, which was to destroy an object by any means.

I look around. One of the first things I see is the little girl's sand castle mold, but even thought she's a dream character I feel kind of bad about that. I see a plastic drinking cup with Vash the Stampede on the side of it (I haven't watched anime since the 90s, I don't know where that came from) but decide it's too solid/not interesting. There's an array of picnic stuff - plates, cookware, food, etc. I settle on the one thing that I feel is out of place: an empty carton of half & half.

I point at it and try to make it explode. Nothing happens. I get angry and pick it up and throw it, yelling, "This is MY dream!" It still does not explode. I chase after it, scoop it up, and tear it into several pieces. I begin to throw the pieces at the two fat guys who are sitting in plastic lawn chairs and drinking beer. They think this is hilarious.

I hear the little girl calling to me from behind me. She is running toward me, waving a huge syringe. One of those big, scary-looking ones they use to inject things into your rump. It's almost as big as she is (and for some reason, empty). I laugh and launch myself into the air, hovering above her. She runs around below me, waving the syringe. I rise higher into the air, using swimming motions, and taunt her. She begins to climb the ladder to the slide, which has now somehow gotten higher and scarier-looking and is turning into a bridge.

The dream fades, and I wake up. It is 3 a.m., which means that it couldn't have possibly been light outside last time I woke up.