false awakening

Interestingly, this was my second lucid in a row that hit very close to the onset of sleep. I woke up to write this down around 1:15 or so in the morning after being late to bed. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it's definitely encouraging me to continue my pre-bed MILD work!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #192: The Shadow of the Pagoda

I’m sitting at a table with some random people, working on something with pen and paper. My mind’s wandering and as I recall my intent to have a lucid dream, I almost immediately pass into one.

From here, I fall quickly into the void. I rub my hands together, expecting a new scene. Before long I emerge into a false awakening in early morning, sort of seated at the edge of my bed. Some kind of suction is drawing me away from the bed and toward our closet. This worries me for some reason and I ask Wife to “Pull me back in…” in this thin, weak voice.

She kneels on the bed and strains forward to reach for me, whimpering and fretting like she wants to help but doesn’t know how. I recognize that I’m starting to get caught up in this sense of powerlessness, and I let go, falling into the void again.

I make my way forward and emerge in a fancy-looking house, facing a set of glass doors that open to a veranda. For reasons I can’t recall, I decided to head deeper into the house and wandered through a series of rooms. The house is attractive but large and confusing and I start regretting my decision to stay inside.

I wind up in a bedroom with a simple but comfortable-looking bed that has a large stuffed teddy bear laying on top of it. Wife is standing off to the side near one corner and I remember to ask her for her middle name (for Task of the Month.)

When I ask for her middle name, she responds, “Ba ba!”

“Your middle name is ‘Ba ba’?”

She laughs. “Oh, sorry! I actually meant ‘Ba ba ba ba’.” I’m amused but I consider asking her a third time. The teddy bear catches my eye for a moment and when I turn back Wife has vanished. I think about asking the teddy bear for its middle name but decide instead that it’s time to move on.

I leave and walk through a dining hall where my son “E” joins me and starts to follow. I say something to him that I can no longer recall and we walk through more confusing rooms. At one point I’m in a dimly-lit kitchen and notice that my vision has gone blurry. I stare at my hands to draw out the detail and it works pretty well, though not as completely as I might have hoped.

I walk through another dining hall with E and as we’re exiting, the door shuts automatically behind me, cutting me off from him. I see him through the door as it closes and I feel a moment of concern that I’ve left him behind. No, let it go. I continue to a series of glass-panelled doors at the rear of the room and phase through, with some minor difficulty.

I emerge from the phase in a shady courtyard. Towering above me is an immense pagoda, stretching far away into the sky. Even in a dream I’m amazed by how tall and broad it is, far out of scale with everything else surrounding it. It’s at least 500 feet tall and dominates the landscape.



Two women walk by at the other end of the courtyard, casually chatting. They look like they’re from the 1900s, each wearing a large hat and carrying a parasol. I contemplate taking off for some flying and exploration, but the dream ends.

One notable thing about this dream was that I had it very close to the beginning of my sleep. Burke's MIT article gave me the idea to do a really determined MILD before bed and it certainly paid off here!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #191: Enjoy the Silence

I’m sitting in an airport terminal, waiting for a flight. A few seats over I spot Kurt Klimanski, a guy who did some lucid dreaming youtube videos several years ago. I think hey, great opportunity to talk about lucid dreaming with someone while I pass the time.

As I’m getting out of my seat to approach him, I notice the dreamlike way that I glide out of my chair and question whether I’m having a lucid dream right now. Hey, turns out that I am!

I move toward him but the chairs are all in my way. Mildly annoyed, I float past the chairs and land next to him. “Hey, the guy from the video, right?” I say. Kurt Klimanski looks up. “I’m actually having a lucid dream right now.”

“Oh, okay… cool, man,” he responds, bobbing his head up and down.

He starts talking about something LD-related but I feel myself slipping into the void. I grab for his hand but miss and wind up scrabbling at the carpet. He’s still talking, seemingly oblivious to how hard I’m trying to hang onto the scene. This goes on for a bit but eventually I fall into the void.

I’m relaxed here, though, and adopt a swimming motion to move silently through the darkness. I get the sense of motion and catch imagery that looks like I’m swimming past a series of huge, slowly turning pages in a book.

Then I’m pulled into a false awakening. It’s super realistic, but I have a strong sense that I’m still dreaming. I open my eyes and even feel the sensation of them opening, but I still know it’s all an illusion. I should still have my sleep mask on but I have relatively clear vision of the darkened room around me. Wife sleeps silently beside me.

I look up at the ceiling and see two large, projected circles filled with stars there. The two star circles slowly rotate in opposite directions. The effect is hypnotic and beautiful.

I watch for a good while, surprised that I’m able to maintain this much stillness without the dream falling apart. I almost feel like I’m getting away with something by just sitting here watching. I feel like my dreaming brain still believes that it has me fooled. I lay there for a while enjoying the experience until the dream ends. This time my eyes open to the pitch blackness of my sleep mask.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #190: Menthol and Marriage, Part Three

I have another false awakening in bed, but I quickly realize that it's a dream. I hop up immediately and phase out through the wall onto our street. The scene is dark, and after I’ve taken a few steps along the street, it collapses into the void.

I rub my hands together and keep walking forward. No scene takes shape, so I start thinking of directing where I want to go. For some reason I remember my personal goal of traveling to the Taj Mahal. I imagine that it’s in front of me, but can’t quite seem to get anything to take shape.

Suddenly, there’s a hard transition and a feeling of backward acceleration like I’ve been yanked back hard by a long cord. I think “Hell yeah” and get excited about where this will take me. But I’m super disappointed to find myself back in bed in a false awakening.

The room looks just like waking life, so I assume that the dream blew up on me. It feels very “obvious” that this is a real waking, but I try a nose pinch reality check “just in case”. I’m shocked and pleased when I inhale a rush of air past my pinched nostrils.

Immediately I start floating upward toward the ceiling, OBE-style. The room seems brightly lit now. I marvel at how convincing this feels, and as I roll over in the air, I see Wife laying in bed right where she’d normally be. She looks really hot to me so I float down to the bed beside her, feeling very amorous. I say something super cheese like “Hey girl, you know what I want.” Even in-dream it dawns on me that I sound like a doofus and I chuckle a little bit.

Fortunately she’s not repelled by all of this and we get to enjoy a little bit of sexytime before the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #189: Nice Throw

I have a false awakening in bed, but there’s something very static about the background and my hands look hyper-realistic. I know that it’s a dream. As I think this, a small statuette appears floating in front of me. I turn it with my hands and it floats serenely in space, unaffected by gravity.

I get out of bed and the scene starts to get dark. There’s a window on the wall to my right that’s usually not there and I decide this’ll be my way out of the house. I pick up a padded foot stool (that looks just like one from my parents’ house) and chuck it at the window. My throw is utterly puny, though, and the stool falls to the floor. The lame attempt kind of embarrasses me.

Instead of fooling with this any further, I phase out of the window into the side yard between our house and the neighbor’s. Everything looks realistic but way too dark. I run out into the street and decide to fly.

I remember the pointing technique I had used in the previous lucid and I employ it again here, pointing into the air and expecting to fly that way. Again it works great and I take to the air. I enjoy some flight for a while but it begins to feel like the dream is fading even more. I rub my hands and things snap back into focus.

I look out to my left and see a fairly vivid industrial cityscape. Bright fire is pouring out of the top of one of the buildings, which looks like some kind of processing facility. I fly toward it to investigate but the dream ends before I make it there.

Very close call on Task of the Year! I'll definitely have to go for this one again.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #188: CL and the Beanstalk

I WILD into a scene filled with fleeting hypnagogic imagery which quickly fades into the void. I start waving my dream-hands in a repetitive motion, waiting for a scene to form. Nothing happens right away, though, so I start licking my fingers for a while to see if that works.

Nothing’s shaping up yet, though, so I try seeing how far I can stick my tongue out. I can feel it extending outward from my mouth seemingly on and on, and after a few moments I can vaguely see it extending away from my face into the distance. Curious how large I can make it, I will the tongue to expand and it balloons out in a huge, rectangular shape as large as a room. After a couple of seconds, I can see that yes, it actually is a room…

Now I’m standing high up in an office building, looking out over a city skyline through enormous windows. It’s late afternoon. I enjoy the sight of the skyline for a moment, rubbing my hands together.

As I’m doing this, a helicopter rises into view from below my line of sight, turns itself directly toward me, and opens fire with dual-mounted miniguns.



The office windows shatter and I feel myself being pelted with glass and bullets. There’s no pain, but each impact feels like a definitive hit. I know that it’s a dream but I can’t stop myself from shying from the window, crouching down, and nearly cowering. I hold my hand out toward the helicopter then swipe it quickly to the right, flinging it away from the building and out of sight.

The wrecked office is filled with random debris now, and I make my way past it to stand at the edge of the now-empty window. I recall Task of the Year (find and plant some magic beans, climb the beanstalk, and defeat the giant at the top.) My immediate goal is to get back to ground level, so I instinctively point to a lower rooftop perhaps 7 or 8 stories down and will myself to float to it. It works and I’m pulled smoothly down.

Now I’m really enthused about this pointing thing, so I point at the street below, once again pulling myself down. I’m filled with confidence after this, so I just start knocking out Task of the Year steps as quickly as I can.

I need bare earth, so I scoop the roadway aside, leaving a bowl-shaped hollow for my seed. I close and then open my hand, expecting the seed to be there. It is! (Looks like a pine nut.) I stuff the seed in the hole, cover it over with dirt and pat it down. A stalk immediately starts growing out of the ground and I jump onto it as it goes by. The stalk’s growing fast and since I hitched a ride so early, the plant’s doing the climbing for me.

I streak past the nearby buildings and head into the clouds. Immediately a shirtless, ape-like giant with a long beard comes loping toward me, about 100 feet away. I’m preparing to do something violent and decisive to make absolutely certain that I nail Task of the Year, but excitement gets the best of me. The scene collapses into a false awakening back in my bedroom.

I need to use the bathroom, so I get out of bed, head in there, and start peeing. My aim is terrible and I keep hitting the seat, the floor, the tank, everything but what I’m aiming at. This really frustrates me and I assume that I must be super tired.

Just then I notice a strange, robotic laundry machine sloshing water onto the floor. Its label indicates that it’s some kind of diaper-washing contraption. Our kids barely use any diapers these days so I wonder why we have it and why it’s here flooding our bathroom.

My 2-year-old son R walks into the room, followed soon after by a sleepy-looking Wife. Her hair is standing up in all kinds of crazy directions, including one nearly two-foot spike that’s going straight up. “Your hair is pretty awesome right now,” I tell her. She giggles and checks herself out in the mirror. We have a good laugh about this until the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #187: The Hybrid

I have a false awakening in a strange bedroom that I think is some kind of condominium. Wife is here along with my two young kids E and R. I wonder whether I can go back to sleep and try to have a lucid dream but then realize that I’m having one right now.

I charge toward the window but feel someone short grab onto my arm. “Who is that?” I ask, looking down to find my 2-year-old son R clutching me. “It’s [R], Daddy. I want to go with you. Daddy, let me go with you!” For a moment I consider it, but once I think about my Task of the Year goal (turning into a fish-man and acting out The Little Mermaid), I decide no way. I’m way too nervous about bringing one of my kids’ DCs into the ocean.

R’s grip slips off of me as I phase through the window. I feel a little guilty for a moment, but I remind myself that this isn’t really him. I’m wound up in my backyard during what looks like mid-morning. I jump up into the air, imagining that there will be an ocean where my eastern neighbor’s yard ought to be. But when I get up there, it still looks like waking life.

I have some momentary flight trouble, but I psych myself up with a few phrases until things are going the way I want them to. I fly west for a bit, slowly turning southward and expecting to see water until… I see the ocean just ahead of me!

I pop up into the air and then plunge straight downward into the water, happily swimming about beneath the waves. The water’s darker than I’d like, but I try not to get too nervous or worked about this. I imagine my lower body turning into that of a fish, swim around that way for a bit, then look down to check my handiwork. It’s close, but not quite right… each leg is still there but all scaly like a fish’s body with a fin on the end.

I look away again, swim around a bit more, trying to make it all feel natural. I check again and it’s looking better, just about right, but now I’m feeling paranoid about my breathing. I feel like I can’t breathe underwater and need to surface. Panicked that something is wrong with my breathing in waking life, I push for the surface and fall into the void. I keep doing repetitive swimming motions, though, trying to hold onto the dream. After a while of this, I wonder if I’m making swimming motions in bed. This finally transitions me into...

… a false awakening where I’m lying in a large bed next to Wife. The room’s not my own, though. I recognize this as the condominium from the beginning of the dream, and realize that I’m still dreaming. I roll over to Wife’s side of the bed and start getting frisky. She murmurs sleepily but when I tell her that “this is all a dream”, she becomes more engaged. We make out for a little bit, but the dream hits the void.

After a moment, though, there’s a transition into an office environment. Wife’s still here with me so we continue making out.

Spoiler for Sexytime:

I notice one of the office workers, an attractive Hispanic woman in her late 20s, holding a stack of papers and talking to another employee. I tell the woman that she wants to join us and she responds, "Okay, good idea," and begins to undress while still sort of continuing to work. I guess my attention wanders, though, because after a moment she walks off to do some work thing, still partially undressed.

After that Wife and I enjoy some sexytime before…

… the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #186: Michael Scott Vs. the Zombies

The cast of The Office is sitting around in a big room that looks like a warehouse with a random bathroom stall stuck in the middle of it. Michael Scott is attempting to give a rousing speech to cheer everyone up but instead just makes everyone feel really uncomfortable.

“Cheer up, gang,” says Michael, flashing a toothy grin. Everyone slinks down in their seats. Stanley looks back disdainfully. “Everyone, you are about to experience one of the best things about my youth… the 1980s.”

The scene changes into a video game where I’m now playing as Michael Scott from a first-person perspective. I see some cash lying on the seat of a toilet. As I gingerly try to pick up the money, I realize that I can’t take it because my cash is already “full” in this game.

There’s an abrupt shift into the front of a restaurant. An unseen female voice narrates: “In this scenario, Michael must act violent and unstable so he can gather information about <something something>...” I see a zombie shuffling around at the base of a short set of nearby stairs. I vault over the rail and kick him in the face mid-leap. This is great fun. I remember my intent to have a lucid dream, so I decide that I can’t get too into this video game or I might forget. And it finally hits me that I’m dreaming right now.

A huge, balding zombie comes shambling toward me and I punch him in the face. I leave the room and move into another hallway, relaxing my mind until the zombies stop coming toward me and instead just pass harmlessly by without paying me much attention.

I reach a bend in the hall, rub my hands together, and move toward a large, open area. Just then, a female zombie puts a hand on my shoulder and groans. I’m relaxed about this and say, “You,” (I point at her), “are a dream character!” She smiles, her face changing until she looks like my high school English teacher. Then she walks away.

The room I’ve entered is a huge atrium with a glass roof, 5 or 6 stories high. Two young women, maybe college age, are seated at a table handing out some kind of literature. I’m mildly curious what they have to say but I see a nighttime street scene just through the door. I’m having huge trouble remembering my goals so I think it’d be better to get outside.

I get outside, start to fly, and then abruptly have a false awakening back in bed. I’m staring at the alarm clock. Oddly, rather than showing the time, it’s counting down from 9. I have no idea what this means. I hear Wife whimpering in her sleep next to me. She says, “If people look into my brain, they’ll steal my ideasssssss…”

The alarm clock hits 1, goes dark for a moment, and then starts at 9 again. I realize that I’m still dreaming, but it’s just a moment before I wake up for real.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #185: Kaleidoscope

It’s morning time and I’m preparing to give my 2-year-old son “R” a shower. This strikes me as strange because R usually takes baths and Wife’s the one who usually bathes him. I dimly recall my intent to have a lucid dream and after thinking for a moment, accept that I’m having one right now.

The layout of the room’s exactly like waking life (so far as I can tell) and there’s a window high on the wall near the shower. I hop up to it, plant my hands on the sill, and phase my head and shoulders through to the outside. It’s morning, just after dawn, and the sky glows reddish-orange.

As I’m preparing to fly off, R says, “Daddy, I want to go with you but I don’t know how to do that.” (I take this to mean that he doesn’t know how to phase.)

“That’s okay, buddy,” I respond. “This is a dream.”

For some reason I have a surge of anxiety that the dream won’t stay stable and of course my vision gets a little crazy. I leap the rest of the way through the glass and fly for just a moment before I freeze in mid-air. Seconds later, my vision goes black and I’m in the void.

I rub my hands together for a moment and then decide to change scenes by plummeting downward to the ground that I imagine is still outside. I go rocketing downward but as I hit what would be the ground, there’s a “whomp!” sound and a puff of air as I pass right through. I continue accelerating faster and faster until I crash into…

...my bed. I’m lying on my stomach, my head turned to the left. My eyes are closed and it completely feels like I’m awake, but I’m suspicious, so I try to see through my eyelids. This works and after a few seconds I’m looking out at my bedroom. The center portion of my vision swirls and blends together like a kaleidoscope. I wonder if the effect will change if I open my eyes, but I decide not to mess with anything just now.

I will myself to roll out of my body and transition into an OBE, but I can’t seem to make it happen. The kaleidoscope vision effect continues for a while until the dream eventually fades out.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #180: The Dome of Stars

I have a false awakening in my house where I’m trying to do something as quickly as possible. What is it? Oh right -- I’m trying to get out because I’m having a lucid dream.

I move through the rooms as quickly as I can. The layout is similar, but just different enough to throw me off. I wind up in the garage and there’s a new hallway off of the south wall that wasn’t there before. I follow the hallway into what appears to be a bordello. Five or six women who look like Victorian-era prostitutes are standing or sitting near a set of mirrors. One of the seated women is reading a magazine, a couple of them are applying make-up, and some are just standing around not doing much of anything.

I feel like this is one of those LD scenarios where you’re supposed to be thinking sexy thoughts but the women mostly just seem like they’re relaxing on break. I really don’t feel like bothering them. I start asking them something about why they’re running the bordello in my house, but they start moving around and the scene feels a little confusing. I go ahead and phase out through the wall to clear my head.

Now I’m out on the street. Across the street I see a man standing under the branches of an oak. He looks Hawaiian, heavy-set with a salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. I remember the Task of the Month, and approach him asking, “What’s your New Year’s Resolution?”

He’s incredibly eager to answer, and a smile spreads across his face. “To make the most of things, <something something>, and…” He grabs one of my hands in both of his and finished triumphantly: “To cook with more cinnamon!”

His enthusiasm is contagious and I joyously shout, “Thank you for that great answer!” I pause for a moment. “But could you repeat that part in the middle?” He doesn’t seem interested in doing this, though, and wanders away.

Task done, now I just feel like exploring. I fly up past the top of the tree, reminding myself that “The world is yours…” I move up past the treetops and look out at the stars. It’s a beautiful night and I take a moment to enjoy the unfamiliar constellations. I notice one set of stars is exactly the same as a set in a different part of the sky. I laugh at my brain taking this “shortcut”. But then I wonder… did it only do this because I expect it to?

I fly up higher and higher until I can see that the sky is curving above me. In fact, there is no limitless sky but rather just a huge dome that I can reach the top of if I just fly high enough.

And I do! When I reach the very top of the dome, I see a small, glowing control panel! There’s a single flashing green button sitting there at the top of this dome of stars. But as I reach for it, I start losing altitude. I tell myself that “this is all mine” but I can’t shake the notion that I’m just not going to be able to reach that button to find out what it does. I reach up and up, trying to reach it, but the dream fades.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #179: The One Where I Fight Samuel L. Jackson

I have a false awakening but I notice that I’m alone (Wife is missing) and the bed has been turned 90 degrees. Right away I realize that this is a dream.

Something grabs me by the leg, pulls me out of the bed, and drags me to the floor. I look up and Samuel L. Jackson is standing over me! He says something along the lines of “You’re not going anywhere,” and starts to stomp down at me. I think that I should do some tricky/clever dream control thing but I feel too much like I’m in a fight to get it together.

We struggle for a moment until I manage to get my arm wrapped around his ankle, push my foot into his crotch, and then push up, lifting him off of his feet. He falls onto his back and we wrestle around kind of grabbing at each other’s feet to gain control. His head looks close enough to reach so I lash out, kicking him straight in the face. He flops back and stops moving.

I sit up and as I approach Samuel L. Jackson, he changes into a smallish, delicate-looking woman in her mid-20s. She looks Mediterranean and overall completely different from Samuel L. Jackson. “Help me, I’m pretty hurt...” she says, sitting up just a little bit. I feel bad for her, so I pick her up and carry her with me. I notice that she’s very cute but the fact that 15 seconds ago she was Samuel L. Jackson makes me quite uninterested.

We phase through the wall of the house out into the night. I want it to be morning, so I do a hulk-jump or two, expecting the time of day to shift. It does, and before long it’s early morning. We’re on a sidewalk outside of a cafe with a canvas awning.

I walk inside the cafe to find Wife sitting at a table with two strangers, one a heavy, hipster-looking guy and the other a pretty woman in her early 30s with short, brown hair. “I’m having a lucid dream,” I tell them, mostly to explain the fact that I’ve just carried a woman into the cafe with me.

“Ah,” says Wife, giving me a “Oh, another one of those” kind of look. I join them at the table along with the woman formerly known as Samuel L. Jackson, who now seems relatively unhurt and integrates herself naturally into the conversation. The hipster and the brown-haired woman are authors and they’re talking with Wife about their new book. The conversation is strange and it’s hard to understand details.

I’m also distracted by the food. There are little plates of small chocolate bars that I keep sampling. They taste delicious but they fade too quickly, almost as if they were so light and insubstantial that you only get a moment to taste them. At one point, Wife remarks, “He even thinks this is dream food.”

“I admit it, I do!” I say. Everyone chuckles like I’m an amusing eccentric.

Somehow the scene changes to a featureless room with three books lying on the floor. The two writers and the woman who once was Samuel L. Jackson walk out through the door, chatting about something.

I examine the second book. It’s by the writers we ate with and it’s about how early civilizations made fantastic technological leaps forward by using ideas that came to them in lucid dreams. I’m excited by the whole premise of the book. I really believe that it must be true. (I'm also partly offended that they acted so skeptical that I was having a lucid dream.)

“I really want to read this book,” I tell Wife, and she agrees that it sounds right up my alley. Now that we’re alone, I enjoy a little time making out with Wife until the dream ends.

This dream is from the morning of 12/15/2013.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #176: Chariots in the Sky

I have a false awakening in a fancy hotel room. My kids E and R are running around as I sleepily come to my senses. Wife gets out of bed first and I think that I should get up to help her with the kiddos. But I somehow “jump” to being on my feet and I realize that this is the start of a lucid dream.

I head for the window, phase out, and find myself clinging to a steeply slanted rooftop under a dark, cloudy sky. Everywhere I look are other rooftops just like this one, very steep and dotted with lit windows. The texture on the roof shifts oddly, jumping from one repeated pattern to another.

I leap to another roof. There’s nothing but dark void below. Each building is about 50 feet apart and floats freely through the sky. I make a couple of more leaps, and as I look around I note that there are flying chariots with large passenger cars flying through the sky. These flying chariots feel like my ticket to a less hostile scene, so I leap onto one.

As I crash onto the floor of the passenger car, the DCs on board look at me with surprise and shuffle away before returning to normal. Most of them are dressed in a mix of medieval and classical Greek garb.

I’m willing the chariot to encounter something handy for me as it flies through the sky, particularly something I could use for Task of the Year. I’m mainly looking for the Great Pyramid or the Colosseum. We fly past lots of cool-looking buildings (including the Temple of Zeus and a series of huge medieval castles) but they’re not quite the ones I’m looking for. I’m contemplating just jumping for one and exploring when we pull up close to an arena that looks like a shorter version of the Colosseum!

I glide off of the chariot toward the Colosseum when I see an attractive but angry-looking woman in her early 30s dragging a red-haired teenager off of the chariot by his collar. She’s dressed in what looks like a Roman toga and she’s giving the kid an earful: “Do you know how shameful it is to have a knight running around in an enemy chariot?”

I don’t know what she’s talking about, because the kid looks way too young and (frankly) wimpy to be a “knight” of any kind. It also seems like she’s a little young to be his mom. The kid’s cowering and whimpering as she drags him along. I turn back toward the Colosseum and move only a bit further before the end of the dream.

This dream is from the morning of 12/15/2013.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #173: Luxor

I’m in a hotel room bedroom talking with Wife. She has the lights off like we’re getting ready for bed but there's an errand to take care of. We need an access card for the pool and she’s sending me out to get it.

When I get to the main room of the suite, rather than our kids I encounter a guy that looks like Henry Rollins. I think he’s some kind of celebrity, although I’m not sure who I really think this is. We talk for a little bit and he tells some kinda funny but off-color joke. He motions toward our room and says, “Sorry, forgot about the wife.”

I decide that I’d better not leave Wife alone with a stranger in our hotel room so I decide not to leave. As I’m thinking through this, I become lucid and walk back into the bedroom. I crawl into bed next to Wife, planning on performing a WILD. Wait, no, I’m already having a lucid dream. I get out of bed, walk to the end of the room and phase out through the window into the void.

I rub my hands together as I fall through the void. The descent slows until I can no longer feel it and I give myself a bit of a pep talk about how “all of this is mine”, hoping to be ready for some dream control when I emerge from the void. I’m thinking of Task of the Year, and imagine that I’ll see the Great Pyramid when I emerge.

After a bit, the void gives way to a dusky desert scene. And about 70 or so feet away is the base of an Egyptian pyramid! There are a lot of smaller pyramids around the in the area as well, most of them only ten feet high or so. Everything’s covered in billboard and neon signs that say things like “Clearance!” and “For Sale!”

I make my way toward the main pyramid when I encounter an attractive brunette in her late 20s. “Can we help you?” she asks. Just as she says this, she’s joined by an identical twin. The idea of an attempt at sexytime sounds appealing, but no, the Pyramid is right here. Stay focused.

Confused about what the Pyramid task is (repair/reanimate the Sphinx and ride her to the top), I respond, “Can you show me the way inside the Pyramid?" Then I add: "By the way, you two are really cute.” (I think I was trying to impress them/myself for staying on track or something, I don’t know. )

They pose and raise their arms over their head in a “We know!” kind of gesture. One of them (the first one I met) says, “Sure, I’ll show you.” She heads off around the side of the Pyramid and I follow. As we’re walking she narrates like a tour guide, gesturing at some wares as we pass by some stalls in a market area. “Here’s where they sell Khuddush and vials.” (I’m spelling “Khuddush” the way it sounded to me, but it’s a guess since I don’t know this word.)

“What’s Khuddush?” I ask.

“You don’t know? This is supposed to be your dream. If I know something that you don’t, does that mean…?” Her voice trails off. I have kind of a “whoa” moment. (I looked up “Khuddush” and couldn’t find anything. The closest match was the kiddush, a Jewish Sabbath ritual. Kiddush - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

I follow her into a high stone chamber where a few other DCs are wandering around. We walk toward a staircase leading down and the dream falls into the void. I can’t rescue it, but before I emerge, I hear an unfamiliar female voice say, “Don’t get too attached.” The dream ends.

Major rise in confidence during this dream! Got an animal transformation, Advanced TotM, and was getting there on a Task of the Year, too. Thanks to NewArtemis for the dream control suggestions!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #171: I Am the Wolf

I have a false awakening that places me in my bed at home next to Wife. All of the lights are on and she's fiddling around with some papers in bed, something to do with my new business. "Oh good, you're awake," she says. I grumble about how unhappy I am that this is the case.

"Sorry," she responds, "but we really need to work on this." I whine that it should be able to wait until the morning and that I was trying to have a lucid dream. She turns back to the papers, not bothering me any further. I'm a little worried that I was rude and have maybe pissed her off, but I decide to just take my chance while I can. I roll onto my side and begin my mantra of "The world is yours". I'm shocked to find that almost immediately I start a WILD transition. (Obviously just an in-dream WILD, but I didn't realize it at the time.)

In the transition state, my dream hands are grasping at something rough that's rolling by beneath me. I grasp at it and start clawing my way along. A gravel surface comes into view. It seems like I'm floating while climbing a ladder made out of gravel that's been crudely mortared together. After a bit, the scene solidifies and the gravel becomes a path. There's one more odd little jump as gravity takes hold and now I'm walking along the path in a full-formed scene.

It's dawn and I'm on a path that cuts through a park, not far from a street. Most of the DCs are dressed like it's chilly but it feels mild to me. I remember my intention to be extra confident in this dream and I start shouting my intentions at the passerby. "I can do anything I want! This is all mine!" I shout, interspersing lots of profanity and generally sounding like a total nutjob.

I remember Task of the Month to turn into a white wolf, hide in the snow, and hunt down a meal. I still feel all crazy from my mantra and the insane confidence I had at the start of this dream. I shout in a booming voice that's not my own that "I AM THE WOLF!" Immediately my hands curl into white paws. I practice running a bit on all fours and it's not bad! I kind of get the sense that I'm sort of bent over like a loping hunchback / werewolf thing but hey, close enough!

I go on a brief, profanity-laced tirade about how there's a bunch of snow to my right, and yep there it is. I hop my little wolf-feet into it and crouch down, looking to my left for some prey. Immediately I spy two potential targets: the closest is a large skunk and the other is an orange, semi-spherical alien thing with tentacles. The skunk's closer and the alien makes me a bit nervous, so I pounce on the skunk.

My teeth rip into him and I tear a big chunk away. Fortunately none of this is bloody but the skunk stares at me in shock. The skunk meat tastes atrocious. It's like chewing on a fart. I can't remember whether I'm supposed to eat the whole animal so I take another bite. This time it's more gummy and tasteless at first but after a bit of chewing, nope, this bite's all farty-tasting too. I hope this is good enough because I've had enough of being a carnivore.

I allow myself to change back into a human and walk further into the park. I come to three identical stone buildings with opaque green windows, standing side by side. I think of the Colosseum Task of the Year and shout that the building which leads to the Colosseum needs to light up. No immediate result, so another attempt, more yelly and with more profanity does the trick and the middle building's door lights up.

I move through a series of three automatic glass doors where a steady stream of children is walking in the opposite direction. I say that the kids need to get out of the way and DC parents appear from out of nowhere to pull them to the side as I pass. I emerge in a restaurant area filled with DCs enjoying a meal. An Indian man in his early 40s is playing on a slot machine against the left wall and he turns to look at me with an expression of surprise.

I push through the back door out into the early morning next to a crumbling sports arena. It's huge and looks a lot like the Colosseum apart from some weird details like the rebar that's sticking out of the top of it. I fly up toward the top and as a gust of wind carries me sideways away from where I want to be, I shout and mutter that "this is my world", and things get back on track.

I come over the top of the stadium to see that inside it looks like a grassy version of the Circus Maximus! There's even a little chariot racing by itself around the track. I know I can make this work, so I fly down toward the field, shouting that down there will be someone for me to fight. Before I'm even halfway down, though, the dream ends.

Well, a close-ish call with getting to the Pyramid and some fun play with a few new techniques. Still have a lot of refining to do!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #168: Pyramid Artwork

I have a false awakening where I wake up excited about some video game idea. I’m desperate to write it down. I grab my dream journal, deciding that’s the best place I’ve got to write the idea down. This makes me think of dreaming, though, and I become lucid.

I walk toward the window, glancing over at the bed as I go. I see Wife sleeping peacefully on my side of the bed, and my sleeping body is nowhere in sight. I’m amused by the unusual layout and note that this is definitely not an OBE. I think about saying something to Wife as I pass but decide to just leave her alone.

I phase out through the external wall, winding up in the void. I imagine the scene as it should be, though, and after a few seconds it works itself into a convincing replica of my street at night. This gives me a nice confidence boost, so I imagine that the Great Pyramid is behind me. I turn around to find that it hasn’t worked, though, and it’s just more houses as far as I can see.

I’m feeling aggressive, though, so I use my fingers to draw a triangle in the distance. The triangle isn’t perfect, but it comes out in a shimmering neon green. With some focus, I’m able to slowly change the green outline into the distant Great Pyramid!

Seeing the Pyramid gives me a target to be excited about so I immediately attempt a zoom teleport. Something goes wrong, though, and the Pyramid actually gets further away rather than closer to me. This frustrates me and I start making a half-hearted attempt to fly there instead.

The scene resets somehow and I’m in a huge aircraft hangar. Okay, starting over. Again I go for the “draw a triangle” trick and I get a decent-looking triangle. I try to change it into the Pyramid but it stays stubbornly neon and triangular.

Several other attempts follow, including erasing and redrawing the triangle, chopping the top of it off and reforming it into a trapezoid, and drawing several copies at once. I can never quite make any of this work before the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #167: In the Game

My friend “Leroy” and I are meeting with another programmer at a restaurant to discuss a video game design decision. We’re seated outdoors having an animated discussion about some finer point of the design of a first-person shooter video game.

The dream turns from a discussion of the concept into the three of us actually in the game, all armed with sci-fi style weaponry and fighting for our lives against some kind of menacing cyborgs.

There’s one particular boss character that can warp in from out of nowhere, making him especially dangerous. and we’re debating the best way to face him down. At first we talk about hunkering down somewhere kind of back to back, but in the end decide to get to higher ground and try to ambush him.

I believe on some level that this is a video game and as the three of us storm up a gently turning ramp, I marvel at the “graphics” of the game. I wonder how the game would look with lower graphical detail, and immediately everything looks pixellated and 90s. This is enough to make me realize that this is a dream.

I continue to the top of the ramp. Leroy is still with me but the other programmer has vanished. We’re in a high-ceilinged room with organic, alien-looking walls, perfect for the setting of the game we’re in. Everything feels far less threatening now and I feel sure that the cyborg isn’t coming after us any more.

My youngest son R (2 years old) is running around here. He runs into me, bounces off my leg, and goes sprinting happily away again. A girl from my oldest son’s class wanders by with her mother. She looks like she’s a couple of years older than IWL and her hair is twisted into an unusually long braid that encircles her head.

The girl takes R’s hand and begins leading him toward a downward ramp. I step in front of them and sort of herd them back onto the platform, feeling uneasy about them wandering off into the world of a first-person shooter. Then other kids start showing up, some that I recognize, others that I don’t. They start wandering in various directions and I fretfully start trying to keep everyone together.

It takes me a moment, but I finally realize that I need to just let this go. I watch as the kids wander off various directions. The girl with the braid leads R out of sight down a ramp. It feels strange to just let this happen, but I sense that if I just relax, everything will be all right. As the kids disperse all around me, the dream transitions into a false awakening in my bed.

I roll out of bed, grab my journal, and prepare to write down the dream. Just as I’m doing this, I hear my oldest son E shout over the baby monitor that “Daddy!! I! Need! Waterrrrrr!!” I put the journal down, hoping that I can remember the lucid dream for later, and head off to help E. I perform a few mundane steps of this before the dream ends.