non-lucid

a
March 1, 2011

I think this peanut butter I am eating for increased vividness is not only working very well it is helping me increase my recall. This first dream is very long and is chaotic which is characteristic of dreams earlier in the night which usually are not remembered. Nothing lucid though.

Dream 1 : Train of Destruction
There was some random stuff going on before this.
It was dark at night and I could barely see things happening. This was a place like Alaska in the summer, rural, tons of pine trees, and small town feeling. Me and some of the malcontents of the small rural town created a crazy rail-mega-truck thing. The center was a rail car that had old trucks connected to it on both sides, it was huge and we got it to go really fast and then burst off the track into the woods busting itself and anything in its way to hell. This was done just outside of town and may have killed people but we obviously didn’t care, the town’s people were scum. I felt bad at this feeling after thinking about it, ‘would I feel OK if there was a little girl killed in there?’ I decided to get away from what we had done and the jerks doing it by leaving town.
Under the few street lights I saw police cars looking cars over looking for the people that created that crash in the woods. They saw me but let me pass so I figured they didn’t know me or my car yet.
I am now in the dark metal like room and there is a guy there trying to calm me. He says something about “it taking effect soon” and figure I have been drugged somehow. There is a metal chair that looks like people could be strapped into it and I have to wonder if I have been made to talk about what happened before.
Then I am in a New York suburb in an empty lot. The lot is surrounded by apartment buildings and a typical chain link fence. There is an oldish guy looking like a retiree sipping iced tea in his lounge chair on his tiny back porch. I went over to him and he said something like he was impressed with my progress. Then I feel that he and others have “made me” like I am some kind of clone. I plan to escape. Figuring he may know what I would plan to do I do something totally random and ad lib and I run to the other side of the lot and then hide down under the very tall weeds and crawl to the other corner. When I come up there are 2 women looking for me frantically. The leader of the 2 says regretful “we were stressing him” to make me better. I ran out of the lot at inhuman speeds and out to the street. I had no idea where this was even though the lot I just came from seemed oddly familiar. I took a right and ran up the street than I started walking fast to not attract attention. I knew I had to get more distance between me and those people in the lot. Passing some shops and pubs to my right there was a street corner just up ahead. Then I recognized the guy on the corner [Charlie Sheen], could he be one of “them?” He was talking to other on the corner and turned to see me and nodded at me knowingly. His nod was one of ‘I got your back’ but I was too paranoid to care and ducked in the door I was at when he nodded at me. It was dark in here I could barely see anything but rushed down the hallway. Then at the end the light was visible and I recognized this as what I call ‘proximity light’ which is light that is only visible at a certain distance, a dream world invention and a little extra vividness entered the dream, I was more clear now. I hurriedly opened the door at the end of the hallway and slammed the door shut but it didn’t close but I didn’t care too much I had to get to the phone. There was a guy standing there reading the paper like he was minding the place [he was dressed in 1930s brown pants and suspenders and vertical stripped dress shirt] he just moved out of my way. There was a box on the wall that held the phone I pulled out the one piece ear piece to the old phone and was worried that I couldn’t say something into the phone and put it to my ear and looked for the piece you talk into. Before anything else, I heard a voice on the other side say in acknowledgement “I got the car”. I knew I get my way out and instantly calmed down.

This was in a wooden wall box.

Darkness

Dream 2: 2 Pink Fro’s
I was looking at 2 strange looking guys all in pink. They where white guys with huge pink afros, pink shirts, pink pants and shoes. There faces were made up to look peach colored in an artificial way. They just stood there looking like there was a camera watching them, posing.

Darkness

Dream 3: Washing a Boat
I was washing a boat in a dream world that was very familiar to me. I had some friends that came into a lot of money but never showed it too much but this was a dream world created to express their desire to flaunt their riches. In their driveway they had a Cadillac and an expensive boat up on the trailer thing. I was washing it and getting paid of course but it was ridiculously easy and fun to be around so much wealth. Then the father of this wealthy family came out to see a friend of his [I have no idea who this guy is] and after saying pleasantries,
Friend: “how’s it going these days?”
Rich guy: “not bad, just have some gambling debts to pay off.”
The friend didn’t answer knowing that there was probably going to be a mention of money.
Rich guy: “You wouldn’t mind loaning me some money would you?”
Friend: “No I really don’t have any money after my family.”
Rich guy: Smiles, like a mob boss, knowing that now he knows he can lightly threaten the “friend’s” family to coerces him to give the loan.

Darkness

Dream 4: Gold Tea Strainers
I am seeing gold tea strainers that look a little like little globes of vertical lines. I can feel they are 99% gold and like looking at them and moving them in my hand.

Wow didn't know these existed till I Googled them!
I knew what they were but kept thinking they look like earrings. Getting a good look at them again I can see why.

There were 3 more very short dreams which I didn’t feel were worthy getting up to record.

a
Feb 26, 2011

Dream 1: High tech bullet
nonlucid
I have a gun and I am thinking what would happen if I shot it in my garage which is where I am holding this 22-like rifle. The bullet flies out without sound hits the ceiling and bounces off the ceiling and falls to the ground. I think it must have been a BB. I bend down to look at it and I see that it is a plastic and metal bullet (not the casing) made of many parts and even screws back together. The very pointy tip is hollow and has a little clear plastic window underneath on the flat underside. I think about how expensive this bullet must be and how secret its use must be.

Dream 2: The Bank & Brown Wasps
Nonlucid
I am in an area I remember being kind of like a church grounds or old British university grounds. I go into a bank, I’ve been here before. The last time as this time, they are setting it up but are doing business. “I’d like to see my safe deposit box” I show the teller a key. I put something into one of the boxes. Then went outside and I ran across the grassy campus to a small quaint stone bridge. There were fall leaves all over everything, just a bit like fall was starting. Looking at the bridge I see a toy frog, or something, and picked it up.
I walked off the other side of the bridge and I met up with a group of friends (a couple and a girl as I have had in a few dreams now) She was talking about some stuff that was not at all important and was a little aggravated that I was not even listening. I thought about how some things can alter the path of your life and they can be just a small event. I looked off into the sky near the far horizon and say it was getting dark there and then I saw a shooting star! Surprised I dropped what I was carrying which was now a dime. The girl pulls me along like a little kid “but I dropped my dime!” I was a little kid now and I ran off from the group, I could feel the girls radiation of “what now” frustration but did not look back.
Nearby there was a guy picking up little broken honey boxes. The honey combs where in little wooden boxes. I ran over to see and I noticed all these brown wasps on the honeycombs, I knew they packed quite a sting. The guy was one of those DCs that doesn’t recognize you so I picked up a comb. The guy did the same and chucked it to his side which is where I was and got hit on the back by the comb he threw. “HEY” I said, no recognition from him but I could feel wasps on me now and some fell down into my underwear! I could feel wasps on my butt and between my legs frantically crawling around, there was no move I could do now that would NOT aggravate them! I decided to jump and rip my shorts off in one motion. Crap that didn’t work, they are going to be pissed now! Then I think ‘this is too intense I go to get out of this dream!’ I woke up feeling the feeling residue of wasps in my shorts.

a
Feb 28, 2011

Dream 1: The Queen
Nonlucid
Me and a young woman were kneeling on the floor helping out this old lady, the stereotypical small gray dressed in dark blouse with lace on the collar type. “would you like some tea” the lady said “yes thank you.” The old lady replied. She was so polite I started to think she was the Queen of GB. After she took a sip she said “can I be alone” and the woman said “of course.” We got up and went outside to a deck area and sat on its floor. I thought about helping the Queen and how I had no experience for this job but it was a rare honor. After a moment she came outside too walking unsteady and slow. She felt appreciative and patted my shoulder, at that moment I saw her hand on my shoulder and it was like DING and a halo of light around her royal hand. Then I thought of how some people are fanatics and would go crazy for this sort of thing maybe say they’d never wash their shoulder even! She then walked off.

Dream 2: Huge Screen
Nonlucid
I am fooling with an iPhone trying to figure it out and get it set up. There is a TV screen next to me that is a huge 7 feet at least and it has a few selection buttons I can press when I configure the phone at certain stages. I am standing right next to the huge screen and push the screens touchable buttons and look back at the phone but it isn’t working correctly for me.

a

Feb 25, 2011

Dream 1: Paris

I am riding my bicycle in the area I lived as a kid. It was a boring ride and I thought how I could be doing other things. I saw a vision of being in a part of France. I thought this at least looked promising and chose it and then was there. Me and some DC friends walked around. I walked away from them up to a theater looking place and a guy came out and told me how we could walk around and my friend could be safe. A force-field could be extended from the theater and balled around my friend but he couldn’t go too far like that. The guy was waiting for me to answer him so I looked off in the distance to my right before answering only to look back and see that he had vanished. I realized he was a DC and taking your attention from them they vanish; no prob. I ran off to my buddies who were still there. They were by a wide river like the Seine of Paris looking around and a couple were looking at a map or something. In the distance over some buildings I saw a tower and a little something that looked like the Eiffel tower but a lot shorter.
We looked around and found a sandwich shop. You made sandwiches yourself like a salad bar. I made an egg omelet sandwich [hey this is actually a great idea]. The guy behind me was a local and was going crazy with all the different condiments he was putting on his huge submarine-like sandwich. He showed me all the things and ways to put is all on a “fixin” like this.

The dream ended but I refused to wake up and…

Dream 2: Purse Throwing Contest

I was in a Caribbean country and the locals were betting on the hotly contested local favorite pocketbook throwing contest! I saw a tall skinny guy throw a purse at this big white painted board and then go pick it up, he had just finished the round. Then they all set their bets again and the pocketbooks started to be thrown one at a time, each guy trying to hit this big white painted piece of plywood with black numbers painted on the top from 100 to 170. The numbers were out of order making the game harder. The guy I was watching threw a big pocketbook that was white with yellow, red, and green floral patterns on it, it looked so out of place in his hands. He hit 120 which was right next to the 170 and he and his supporters all went “OH!” and he slumped down with a smile disappointed, while his opponents and their supporters laughed.

a
2/18/2011

Mall Hospital

All one long dreaming marathon, I'd conservatively guess at an hour in duration.

Its night and I am flying around over some highways. [I find myself doing this often, I fly following the highway, this often turns into a driving dream.] I see a shipping port off to left and for some reason think that Superman's evil friends are coming into town. Then they are supposed to be in the car I am in. Then I imagine they are shooting lasers out their eyes at the under part of the over pass but I know they aren’t really here at all.

I am exploring in a building. There is no one in there but imagine there is and I am fighting them, almost like how a kid imagines that his action figures are real. I hide behind this and that and throw a flask of exploding oil. I feel that I would have won at this point and leave through the double doors.
I am in a mall like place with a lot of different people, hundreds, of all ages. I walk around and see some places that look like hospital rooms and those hospital desks where the professionals sit and do their work.

This huge mall hospital had a children’s section which I found after much walking. I saw one boy looking up at a hanging mobile. It was a colorful fish I thought. I saw water dripping from it and thought it might be the air conditioner moisture dripping down or the boy has a secret stash of liquid explosives up there dripping because of a leak! I liked the second idea and started looking around for a bomb. Bored, I walked outside after a little walking around looking in potted plants and stuff.

There was a large parking lot out here. I walked onto a grassy median and saw a penny on the ground and being a penny collector I bent to pick it up when I saw 2 more, then 2 more. They were covered in dirt and I could feel the grains of dirt between the pennies and thought I could clean them later. There were some teens boy and girl talking and flirting by their car who were caught off guard by me. I hoped I didn’t look like a dork picking up pennies off the ground.

Dreamy Feelings
Napping

I closed my eyes to rest a bit but did not want to become fooled by the deception of dreaming. Each time I would start to dream I'd catch it and come back to just being in darkness. I came to see that I really liked the feeling of letting go and letting my dreaming entertain me. This became the feeling I was fighting. It would be like being in a really good movie and trying to avoid it dragging you in. After about ten minutes of this I woke up surprisingly refreshed.

I am feeling there is a big entertainment quality to our dreams, that we need to some extent, this may be what is so refreshing about sleeping. It felt like my consciousness was a heavy load that I could put down and rest from. This feeling is in opposition to the euphoria of LDing. Its like saying you can't enjoy the play if you're its director. Still I will find a way to reliably become the regular director on a regular basis. It may just take denial of the seductive pleasures of letting go and letting the dreamy feeling entertain you.

a

2/17/2011
There is some kind of indoor fair and people are setting up tables. I have no idea how I got here or where here is but IO figure to go along with stuff and set up a table too. When I go to help set up another table I feel chilly and realize I am wearing a thong bathing suit!

I look down at it and try to act like I am not looking. Then I am like "well I am going to act like I want to so I don't seem like a fool. And maybe the ladies will like it."
I walk around and there are other rooms just like this one with fold out tables with nothing on them. Then I am outside in a fake looking park, it looks like a computer generated picture of a park. There is a tree which I think is nice and then a female lion jumps out of it but she is nice but I still jump up on a table just in case. I walk around some more.
I wake up
but do not move and I am fast asleep back inside the table place. I think about this place and what is here since this place is pretty boring. Then the female lion is back and I jump up on the table. She is aggressive to me and I think “what could defeat this lion? A bear.” Then my hands are huge bear paws and I knock her half lunge away with a swat. They look too strange to me having bear paws attached to human arms. Then I am becoming a whole bear, like a huge black grizzly. The lion lunges again and I hit her, and though it only feels like a slight slap, it sends the lion flying to the ground hard, she looks up hissing at me, beaten.

a
2/16/2011

Nonlucid

There is a black van speeding then abruptly stopping in front of a store in a mini mall. The store looks out-of-business with no signs in the windows. Out of the van jump a few members of a swat team and the local Mayor [no mayor I have ever seen]. The portly Mayor runs with the team into the store and leave the driver out in the van. Once inside the police go into a smaller room like an office room and the door closes behind them but the Mayor is out in the larger part of the store turned warehouse. There are washers and driers inside like its all in storage. The Mayor now by himself starts pacing and wiping his face in fear of it all. There is some kind of hostage situation he is being protected from. The Mayor in a panic starts talking to himself but without making any noise while the police are in the room listening to their radios.
Outside in the van the driver fears one of the bad guys may be scoping him out and calls for backup over the radio.
The biggest cop (nearly 7 feet tall) comes out catching the Mayor silently talking to himself an gives the Mayor a big pat on the shoulder as if to say "It'll be OK, don't worry so much." then he goes outside.

This whole dream was very random and very vivid. I attribute the vividness to the peanut better I am eating. I've heard this works from one of DVs threads and it sure is for me.

a
Feb 13, 2011
Nonlucid
Dream1: Egyptian Honey

Some other dream stuff happened but I was in a parking lot next to a large field. There were random people around doing stuff. A girl in a white shirt and white sorts runs to get a tennis ball that has gone over the short fence. She runs to the fence and bends over it. This is a little sexy so I watch to see how this develops. She bends way over now obviously teasing someone, I am pretty far away. Then I see that I can see somewhat through her shorts, just a blackish area under her shorts where white underwear should be. I wonder if I should be watching so obviously but I did’t care.

Then she runs to some friends and I sit with them too. There is an older woman about 30 with about 4 tweens sitting around like she is talking about something. She is talking about Egyptian honey and is showing everyone the jar of it. I realize she has no shorts on and her privates are showing! Again I wonder if I should stare but this time the girl across the way sees me and gives me a glare so I listen to this story. The lady says about the honey it is “so dry one taste and you’ll have to drink water nonstop!” In reference to how drying this honey is I said, “They used this to dry out mummies.” They all looked at me like “who said you could contribute stupid comments?” Feeling this I doubted my comments and said, “oh I think they used salt.” They all looked at me like that was just as unlikely and were going to ignore me now.

Upon awakening I realized I was right though. The Egyptian did use honey in some of their embalming but primarily used salt.


Dream 2: Star Trek

Nonlucid I had enough lucidity to realize this was a dream but not enough to control anything.

I find myself I a room with a group of people that see themselves as all dear friends and there was just some kind of toast to this friendship and the journey. I then decided this was all nice but I should leave. I walked out to the big wooden double doors. As I started to push a door open another guy in a strange Star Trek like clothing was also doing the same and said, “Excuse me” with a big friendly smile. He reminded me of Riker from Star Trek but it wasn’t him. I thought maybe they were all there after a long space mission and this was their welcome back celebration. I thought of how great it would be to have memories of such a great thing. Once I wished to have these memories pictures and emotions of me with various people on a Star Trek type bridge and in hallways. It was all very intense and shocking, I staggered as if sick or hit with a gunshot. The emotions were happy, friendly, and had a touch of reminiscence to them. I was overcome by these emotions and started to cry profusely, it was the sheer power and number of emotions. Crying my eyes out I had to sit down and sat at one of the finely decorated tables. Some guy in a tux or something came over to see if I was OK I said “sure I’ll be OK.” Then I took a moment to think about what just happened and if I wanted to “remember” any more.
I drifted off into a grayish darkness and shortly woke up.

a
Feb 8 2011
I was in a Lowes like store shopping mindlessly. It was a sad day as it was increasingly nearing the end of the world as we knew it. An old lady coughed a few times, she was sick like all the rest of us, we will all die from this disease one day. Then I had to cough too. I coughed twice, I felt something in my throat coming up into my mouth, and it was a wad of shredded paper, the classic symptom of this fatal disease. Then I coughed up a second wad of shredded paper and it felt good to get that paper out of my mouth as it was dry paper and scrapped my teeth and roof of my mouth with a dry papery feeling.

I am thinking this is an allegory told by my subconscious. I think it is saying this is the end of the world and times of the paper-world and it is. This is the computer age and the times where we where just about choking on paper is coming to a slow but inevitable end.

a
Wednesday Feb 9 2011
I find myself in a stage like place with red stage curtains. I looked around and notice the feelings of the place, it’s a strip club and everyone is getting the place ready for the coming night's business. They quickly leave at the end of the night, sleep, and clean up later in the day when it starts all over again. I knew I didn't work there and was partially lucid and just decided to try to fit in so I started looking for things to do. I saw a lot of sweeping, washing tables, and even one of the girls holding a plastic box where she kept her dollar bills, a few dollars and her pocket change was in there at this early hour. The place had only one traditional stage, not the polls and stages.
I remember enjoying the very different psychic energies of some of the people in this place and just standing there soaking it in and thinking “I’m not usually around people like this, this is good stuff.” Their energy felt rough and edgy and iconoclastic. I tooled around some more, not really doing anything, surreptitiously soaking up the extra energy in the room like psychic sponge. No one noticed anything strange in me and when I felt I had enough (enough being their energy was starting to make me become like them a little) I decided to get out of there.

a
I have plenty of unimportant dreams then...

I wake up an hour before I need to and have some resolve to change dreams up a bit.
I am visiting a former work place to tell them about how great my new career path is. Before I see anyone I see Scott my old manager and work buddy. He looks at me harshly and I see that he has died his head and face hair blond! He looks so strange now! He glares at me while working his crummy job and I walk off to think about why this is not how I planned it. I was supposed to come back and tell them how great my life was and they were supposed to gush with happiness! Now I saw this blond Scott again and he gave me a very angry look as if to tell me I was not wanted here.
This seems like a warning dream. Strangely I did think going back I would be greeted by gushing happiness but now after this dream I can see no way! That job sucked on an epic level, so much you tend to hate life and even happiness. There is no way that they would be truly happy to see me. I have worked there and been the one working in hell and watching others comer back and prance around in happiness and I felt like strangling them. How could I have been so consciously blind? Thanks dreams for putting me on the straight path. BTW the job from hell was WalMart.

a
Previous to this where various other unimportant dreams.

Nonlucid
I was seated at a table, a man was on the other side and I the other. I was being asked by him selling some kind of insurance what kinds I wanted. This scenario reminded me of something just like it [I did have this same "kind of" dream the other night but the guy was hiring me for something]. Then he said, "well with this you could have double indemnity and life insurance too." I thought that life insurance isn't health insurance and who is this guy anyways. This realization caused me to pull out of the dream and woke me up. I didn't move at all and pictured the same thing happening but this time I was going to find out what was behind the veil that covers us from the knowledge of dreaming.
Soon I was back at the table and he was still rattling off insurance terms and questions. When he took a breath I asked him "where were you before you came here?" He looked like he was thinking but couldn't remember and he was a bit disturb by this. "How did you get here?" He turned his head thinking on this new puzzle yet still not knowing. "Where did you park your car?" He sat back in the chair a little worried and dumbfounded that he couldn't remember such simple questions.
These are the sorts of RC questions that I should have been asking myself to see if I was in a dream.

a
Yesterday I was having a dream about some guy interviewing me for a job I didn't want and was not qualified for.
Anyway...
I slipped into a passive observer mode (POM). I have never been able to do anything to mess with a dream in POM. Soon some guy crawled on his hands and knees over to another guy looking at his crotch. I was NOT going to watch this! It is time to end this dream but I was in the POM. Then I started to debate whether I should be aware that this is a dream! This lasted for a few seconds then I thought about the paradox about asking myself in a dream, if I should be aware if this WAS a dream! I woke up thinking WTH was that???

Now I am fully convinced the pressure and trickery to not be aware is in our minds, or at least mine, and thats where the work needs to be done. It's not biological or "natural", it seems like it is some kind of learned dream psychosis. The only other place in our lives where this kind of self imposed amnesia or self deception is used is when there is something too traumatic for us to consciously confront. Even this trama would have to be healed and the "sufferer" ultimately has to confront what they are hiding. Well at least I know who the man behind the curtain is now, it me.

aaaNega Caden aaVs. aaCaden aaaaSolo Round!!!

a
Date: January 31, 2011

Only one dream as I didn’t go to bed soon enough.
Nonlucid

I am in the living room of my childhood home [again! My childhood home!] and I look out the front living room window. [I have many dreams logged on paper about seeing big and even futuristic things out of the front windows or door of this house.] I see a cloudy bluish sky at dusk [the homes that would really be there are gone.] Then I see lights flying through the sky behind the clouds in the upper sky. [Again many UFO dreams from this place as well.] The lights move fast and shoot up over the sky in an arch, I take this to mean they are nuclear rockets. I am sure there will be a huge nuclear blast nearby soon and run with my dog under the closest thing I can get under which is a blanket. I think about how long it will take and how freighting it will be before we die.

Then there was a dark interlude that lead to a picture story with an understanding on what the story is. It was a story of how the universe was trying out different leaders and that it had found one that would not start a nuclear war because he was “the only one that would not consider using them”, and thus he was the leader in this working version of the world [there were 3 before him]. The other versions did not work because of the global annihilation.

1-23-11

Dream1: France
Nonlucid
I was on vacation in France and waiting with fellow travelers for the tour guide or someone to come get us because the trip was over.
I was seated on the cobblestone between 2 walls like this. I was sad because the trip was over. I looked around waiting I looked at people walking by and the giant concrete eagle on the wall above me. On closer inspection it was a giant pigeon. [This alone should have told me this was a dream]. Then I looked at some people and checked out the pigeon again. "Hmmm I could have sworn the thing was looking left...." I looked away then back and it was looking in different directions! Then I saw the giant pigeon head move like the stone was alive! I was relieved that I was not crazy, whew! [WTF? And I am a little disturbed to think that this is just what a crazy person would think! "no need to worry, the stone pigeon is alive!" Still no LD, amazing...] I looked around at what a nice day it was but I was getting board.
Then I was in an apartment. I looked up to see a window and it was night. I looked around to see that there was a woman there (white, black hair, mid 20's) this was a living room and I could hear rain. I looked outside and saw it was very dark outside and the rain was pouring down onto the cobblestone ground outside. "I was in Paris twice before and it was raining then too" I said. [I have been to Paris twice but the weather was perfect.] I looked to the girl and she looked back like "so?" I walked off to see what else I could find while marveling at how real everything was.
Then I was in a store a lot like Harrods. I strolled around and just when I thought everything was too boring someone said there was an alarm. I was thinking if I should leave or not when a woman came up to me and said in a heavy french accent "you should really go you know, its dangerous." Then she looked off into the store and from her I heard the word "bomb" even though she did not speak it. I looked outside for the massive bomb/anti terror squad there was sure to be but there was only one police car with its lights on and he looked like he was talking to a woman on a bicycle. "Hmmm, doesn't look like much of anything" I thought.

Dream 2: Midflight
nonlucid

I was driving on a road. Then I saw a line of people in a left turn lane, but they were people, no cars just people standing there waiting for the light to turn. This was interesting so I pulled in behind them and then I realized I didn't have a car but I was walking. The light turned green and everyone turned into a parking lot and walked into a bland white building's back door. I walked in a little after them. I felt like I was trespassing but I walked around only to see that it was a factory plant. I walked out the same door and saw a little old lady startled and then she walked off. "Oh this is really going to be boring." So I decided to fly but I was going to try the superman style take off I have been reading about. It worked! Then I realized that I still I had no idea what I wanted to do up here! Then then visionary shapes started to break apart into random lines and then darkness. I was awake, damn and had just taken off too!