false awakening

This was a fun little WILD and attempt at Advanced Task of the Month. It's been a while since I've had to navigate my house and I'd forgotten how challenging it can be. Darkness seems to lurk around every corner and I'm always trying to just get out. Couldn't do that for this Task of the Month -- had to head further in.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #78: The DreamViews Drive

I'm getting consistent hypnagogic imagery of the den of our house, so I feel like I'm getting close. I focus on staying aware, and after a few more flashes of the den, a fully three-dimensional picture emerges. I will myself to roll off of the couch, and my dream body complies. I check my hands and feet and everything looks normal. No extra fingers or troll feet. The carpet feels very realistic as well and I mentally confirm that there's no reason I would have fallen asleep downstairs.

I give the coffee table a little shove with my foot and it glides over the carpet. Okay, now I'm really sure it's a dream. I walk through the den past my computer, stepping on a bunch of the kids' toys as I go. Strangely, there's a laundry basket in the middle of the floor. I give the laundry basket a hefty kick and it goes sailing into the air and flies straight out the window. I'm quite amused with myself.

Outside there's just a hint of light, like it's the early morning. I don't think it's possible that the sun's up yet, but it makes me feel more urgent and focused. Since I'm in the house, I want to find the note that I left for myself for Advanced Task of the Month. I have to get back up to our bedroom. I wonder whether I'll find myself there. The thought of my sleeping body makes me feel a little wobbly, so I imagine instead that Wife is lying in the bed by herself. I wonder whether Wife's DC will be interested in "victory celebrations" if I can complete Advanced Task of the Month. (Menthol, is that you?)

I walk through the kitchen, dining room, and den, past the pool table to the stairs. For a moment I think about trying a pool shot, but decide that I'd better stay focused. I'm pleased that the baby gate is missing from the bottom of the stairs. Halfway up, though, I see that this dream house has the baby gate installed in the middle of the stairs. "That's not real," I think, and phase through it.

The upstairs looks really, really dark. I notice a light switch on the wall next to me. I try both of the switches several times, but each of them just controls the air conditioner instead of the lights! Every time I flip one of them, the air conditioning rumbles to life and I feel a light stir of wind.

I'm not sure what to do, so I just charge ahead. The darkness starts to get really bad, and I realize that I'm about to lose the dream. I grab onto the banister as darkness sweeps over me. I produce a gladius in my right hand and start swinging it around in the void, still clutching the banister. I stay like this for quite some time, not losing the dream but also not going anywhere. It feels like at least 30 seconds. I fail to formulate a good transition to a new scene (or a way back into the existing scene), and I either fade to black or lose lucidity...

It's a clear morning. Wife and I are in a car, pulling up to a two-story brick house to pick up my best friend F. F greets us at the door and comes out to inspect the car we're driving, an amazing classic car that looks a bit like a '55 Chevy Belair. Wife goes inside the house and I tell F that he and I should go for a ride. I hand him the keys and he drives.



As we start down the street, I tell F, "Man, I just had a lucid dream before we came over here. I've got to enter it into DreamViews." He says cool. There's something like an old-style typewriter embedded in the car's console. I know that if I type the dream into this typewriter it'll automatically get posted to DreamViews. I marvel at how convenient this is. I congratulate myself for renting such a wonderful car.

While I peck randomly at the keys, I ask F whether he's had any lucid dreams lately when he's commuting on the train. He says no, and we talk dreaming for a bit. I say something about dream signs and I mention that one of mine is "really bad driving." He laughs and says, "You mean like this?" He hits a quick 3-point turn and floors the accelerator, sending us streaking back toward the house.

"It's a rental!" I whine. "Be careful, man!" It's a residential street and he's doing 60 mph, easy. We're almost back to the house now and he hasn't slowed down one bit. I'm distracted, too, because I'm still trying to type my DJ entry into the car's typewriter-thing. Now I realize that I don't have a seat belt. I alternate between blubbering "It's a rental!!" and "There's no seat belt!!" As we hit the driveway, I throw in, "I don't want to die!!"

F cuts the wheel hard to the left. There's a squeal of rubber and the car stops a few feet from the house. I'm relieved to be alive. I'm not angry because I assume that he just didn't hear my complaints. "I was trying to tell you, man. I don't think my side has a seat belt!"

He laughts. "Nothing's going to happen to you, man!" I get out of the car and see that it's turned into a convertible. I get it now. "F! This is a dream, isn't it?" He's walking inside the house and I hurry after him, the dream growing dark. Fade to black...

I entered this menthol lucid via an in-dream WILD but never picked up on the fact that I had entered from a dream. I also got completely fooled by a false awakening, not waking up for real until long after the dream had ended. Because of that, a lot of the LD is pretty scrambled, including a couple possible Task of the Month attempts. Still, this one's filled with amusing little tidbits.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #71: Fooled

I am wandering in my house during the day, thinking about lucid dreaming. I decide to visit DreamViews (on my Kindle?), starting with the Task of the Month thread.

I see a post from PennyRoyal and suddenly remember that I'm supposed to be making him a fake ID. I remember that he badly needs this ID and I'm way, wa behind on producing it. (Needless to say, this is not true!) Being on DV and getting reminded of this task I'm putting off makes me feel like a slacker and a procrastinator, so I close the site.

I sit on the floor of the living room and pick up a strange comic book with moving pictures. The hero, a billionaire similar to Bruce Wayne, does a parkour safety vault over a railing onto the front porch of his mansion. I watch the move replay over and over, thinking about how I should find a spot to learn the safety vault near the house or the office.

Eventually I decide that maybe I should just practice this vault myself in a lucid dream. I lay down on the floor of the den to attempt a WILD and instantly emerge standing in the living room of my house! I gloat to myself about what a stud I've become at WILD. I rub my hands together and walk into the kitchen.

There's a man standing in the kitchen and after conversing with him, I learn that he needs a sword. I conjure one into my right hand. The sword is awesome and looks just like the one He-Man uses. I give the sword to the DC, but he looks disappointed. He complains that "it's not a magic sword." This annoys me, so I tell him that if he wanted a magic sword then he should have asked for a magic sword. He hurls himself on the ground and throws a massive tantrum, bawling, rolling around, and kicking his feet like a toddler. (This may have been me granting a DC a wish, but I do not remember properly asking the question, so I will not count this as a Task of the Month completion.)



Annoyed, I walk away from the DC. I look for the note that I left myself for TotM. I don't know whether I find it, but the dream destabilizes somewhere inside the house and I have a false awakening that puts me back lying on the floor of my den. I think about writing the dream down, but I'm distracted when I look over at our couch and have sexy thoughts about doing stuff with Wife on it. I'm surprised by how vivid my imagination is right now. I vaguely remember consuming menthol, but when? (I had peppermint tea at WBTB.) Is menthol why I'm thinking about happy happy fun time?

Then I have another memory of recently eating popcorn. (Also true, right before bed.) I realize that I have one of those annoying little popcorn hulls stuck between my two front teeth. I absentmindedly conjure a box cutter into my right hand and use it to pick the hull out of my teeth.

I finally remember to write the lucid dream down. I open up some sort of notebook to write the dream down but it's just filled with Wikipedia pages. These Wikipedia pages contain hyperlinks that respond to my touch, so I surf around for a while reading about stuff. I think about how much you can learn these days without even talking to anybody. I wonder how we introverts used to learn before the internet. Oh yeah, I think, there were always books. I happily surf Wikipedia for a while, and I remember nothing after that.

I doubled up the menthol at WBTB and I think it definitely had a strong effect on the early dream content. Also, it was cool to finally bring a DV member into a lucid dream! Reading DV during WBTB was a huge help, I think.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #68: Losing My Grip

I'm in a long bedroom, and immediately I realize that this is a dream. Wife is reclining on the bed in her winter pajamas, reading her Kindle. On the opposite side of the room is a large window with its curtains open. Sunlight pours into the room.

"Hey," I tell Wife, "I'm having a lucid dream!"

She looks up. "Good! Have fun." She returns to her reading. I know that I'd planned to go to Angel Falls for Task of the Year, but my head is buzzing with sexy thoughts. I look out the window for a moment. The sun's too bright to see outside and the window is consumed by a warm, yellow glow.

When I turn my gaze back to Wife she has changed. The Kindle has vanished and she's gone from lounging in flannel pajama pants to laying over the bed in a negligee and booty shorts. My urges are going crazy. I decide that I'm not getting any of my goals done this dream. "What did you just do?" she says, looking amused.

"It's the menthol," I tell her. "I had 6 bags of peppermint tea. I think it's making me frisky." She raises her eyebrows and tilts her head forward, looking skeptical. "It sounds like an excuse," I admit. "I make too much out of these drugs. Kind of like how I think galantamine gives me magical powers." For some reason, I turn and force-push a clock off of a nearby dresser and shout "Galantamine!!" (So embarrassing. What a dream-dork. )

I join Wife on the bed and start to kiss her. The sensation is incredibly vivid and I start getting caught up in these really strong fantasies about what's going to happen. (These were crazy, cosmic fantasies that involved space, time, and dreams-within-dreams. Sadly, most of the details got scrambled up.) The fantasizing quickly runs away with me, and I'm close to losing lucidity. Before we can start doing anything, I hear the sound of little feet on the floor near our bed and a little voice say, "I see Mommy!" I freak when I realize that our two boys are here and lose lucidity. The sexytime mood leaves the room as quickly as it arrived. Wife is now back in her flannel pajamas and it looks like nothing was ever happening. I'm relieved that she's so good at acting normal.

We go downstairs with the kids and start going through a semi-normal morning routine. After a very long time spent doing mundane morning stuff, the boys are helping me bake bread in the bread machine. As I'm taking the bread out out, R (my 1.5 year old) climbs up on the counter. Before I can stop him, he burns himself on the bread, bonks his head on the bread machine, and tumbles all the way to the kitchen floor. This scares me but the accident is so comically absurd that I regain lucidity.

The boys run off and I see that Wife's looking at me. I tell her, "Don't worry, that whole thing with the fall was just part of this dream." She says okay and joins the boys in the den.

I notice that the living room is filled with a strange darkness. I catch figures moving in the darkness but I can't make out who or what they are. They don't seem hostile, and I somehow decide that they're DV members and that I want to pull one of them into the scene. NewArtemis, Alyzarin, Xanous, and OpheliaBlue are in there. I catch little flashes where I sort of "see" their faces without seeing them. (It's a little hard to explain.) I choose to bring Xanous in. (Even though the sexytime mood from earlier is long gone, I feel like it's a really bad idea to bring a female DV buddy into a menthol dream.)

I turn my head away from the darkness and extend my hand for a handshake. I expect Xanous to walk into the kitchen and shake my hand. After only a second or two, I'm gripped by a firm handshake... I turn to look, and hell yeah it's Xanous! He's in a gray t-shirt with some logo and he's laughing about something. Before I can say anything, he rapidly shrinks down until he's about a foot tall, but somehow I'm still shaking his hand.

My vision goes black but I still have a hold on the handshake. I ask Xanous what he thinks I should do but he just says something unintelligible in a weird robot voice. The handshake slips away and I fall back to the gladius trick. This doesn't do anything, and I alternate between swinging a sword and slapping myself in the face. It doesn't seem to get me anywhere.

After a bit, I wake up, staring straight at a wall. Wait, Wife should be where the wall is. Still dreaming. I try to move but I'm totally frozen. I start contemplating an OBE exit before I wake up for real.

This was a fairly short little lucid, but I did get some phasing in and felt really happy throughout. And I guess I really like galantamine. LOL.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #60: It's Just a Phase

I'm walking around in my childhood bedroom, practicing lucid dreaming skills. Somehow, though, I'm not actually lucid. (This was a strange feeling.) I'm trying to fly around the room but keep bouncing off of the walls and ceilings. I try shouting "L-dopa!!" like in my previous lucid dream, but even this doesn't do much.

After a while, I feel discouraged. I'm standing by the window wondering what to do when I realize that I wasn't really lucid yet, and everything that had gone before was just me robotically acting out some sort of pseudo-lucid script.

I'm suddenly on the bed again, and everything now feels really vivid. It feels like an OBE except that I'm getting up out of my childhood bed, not the one my physical body's actually occupying. I move to the window again and look out into the street.

The mini-blinds are partially closed but I decide to phase through both them and the glass, get outside, and go play. I push myself through the window, right hand first and pop out in the front yard. It's pretty dark out but when I look at my hands, they're clear and detailed. (Undistorted, too, just like the previous lucid dream.)

I start running, overcome with joy. As I race down the empty street, I gush without a hint of irony: "Galantamine, how I love you!" (That is so freakin embarrassing to type now! ) Darkness descends before I get very far, I don't properly prep for DEILD, and the dream ends.

This lucid was fueled by pure desperation. I've never fought this hard to save an LD that was going bad, but it paid off. I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this gladius thing.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #58: Generosity and Giants

A young woman named "Crystal Fleming" is collecting money for a charity, and I've pledged $33.13. I'm proud of my "generosity" and totally thrilled that I've found exact change down to the penny. But now I can't find Crystal. It's night, and I trudge across a snowy field to a picnic table where I think she might be waiting. But rather than Crystal, seated at the table is my friend W.

This is unexpected, and as soon as I question whether I'm dreaming, I know that I am. I tell W, "Gotta go, this is a lucid dream." His face is harshly lit, stony, and expressionless. I realize we're in a small, dark room now, getting darker by the moment. I head for the exit, but the scene fades...

Now I'm in the dark. I'm desperate for a lucid dream, though, so there's no way I'm letting this one go. I start swinging a gladius (ancient Roman sword) and willing myself to be in the Colosseum for Task of the Year. On top of this I shout, "This is still a lucid dream!"

I hear Wife muttering and rolling over nearby, and now I'm scared that I'm really yelling and waving my arms around in the bedroom. I want a lucid too badly to stop trying, though, so I jam the index and middle finger of my left hand into my mouth and start chewing on them. This all feels totally real, but I decide to ride it out to the end. If I look like a psycho, I look like a psycho. I'm not dropping this LD.

Suddenly, a sharp new dream scene forms: I'm standing on our bed, fingers in my mouth, swordless right hand swinging madly. The scene's extremely vivid, but there's a slight motion to everything that I see, like I'm slightly drunk. I hop down from the bed and run out into the hall.

The hallway outside of our bedroom is totally transformed. The carpeting is bright pink and the room is decorated floor to ceiling with stuffed animals. There's an exit to the right that doesn't exist IWL, so I explore it, curious where it leads. I find myself in a new hallway with a tall picture window overlooking an early morning street scene.

I phase through the glass out onto the street. The street is wet as if it rained overnight. A few cars pass by, headlights on. It looks like a work day that's just beginning. I fly up into the air, but my confidence isn't what it should be. My altitude is low and my speed's really pitiful. There's an entrance to a mall food court nearby, and the dream seems to be ushering me toward it. I don't resist.

In spite of the early hours, this food court is packed. It's a two story mall, so I try flying again, getting about 6 feet off of the ground and doing that slow drift again. I spot my reflection in the exit door on the opposite side of the food court. Except the reflection isn't me flying -- it's my 6'8" Uncle J walking toward the door with me flying over his shoulder. He looks solid, substantial, and real, while I look like some kind of phantasm. I look down, and he's not there. But in the glass's reflection, he's solid-looking and completely realistic.

Now I can't decide whether I'm me flying toward the door or if I'm my gigantic uncle, lumbering toward the exit on foot. I switch between feeling like I'm the one flying... then the one on foot... then both...

I raise my hand to phase through the door. Uncle J's reflection does the same. The phase fails. From below, an attractive DC calls to me, saying, "Hi! Come down here." The LD's starting to feel thin and I float down. The DC is about 30 with long, dark hair, and attractive almost to the point of absurdity. I remember reading Waggoner during my WBTB and want to ask her what she represents. I feel weak and insubstantial, though, and my voice is just a hoarse whisper. She looks at me, arms crossed, a wry smile on her face and the scene fades to black.

Nowhere near a success, but at least the Task of the Year is on my mind!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #53: The Cestus

I’m in a bathroom, looking for a stall to use. I don't feel desperate, but I'm not being very careful as I swing one open. Inside I find a guy standing there peeing right into the drain on the floor. I bleat, "Sorry! Sorry!" as I try to hurriedly close the door. But unfortunately, the stall door has completely disappeared, leaving me no escape from this excruciating situation.

I’m embarrassed for him peeing into the drain like a barbarian and I’m embarrassed for me throwing open the door like an idiot. I stand there marinating in the awkwardness for a moment before it becomes so painful that I have a false awakening into...

...the same bathroom. I don't buy that I woke up in a bathroom, and I become lucid. The bathroom is empty now and I’m standing by a sink looking into a mirror. I note that the stall doors are all closed again and that I badly need a shave. I cannot handle the idea of leaving a bathroom without washing my hands, so I'm glad that the faucet works. I don't see soap anywhere but fortunately I manage to get over this.

I head outside into the hall and it looks like the hallway of a dark hotel, deep blue carpeting and flickering fluorescent lights. I can go left or right and I choose left. When I head to the left, though, I see a writhing black cloud of smoke at the end of the hall. It looks like the smoke monster from Lost. I mutter, “I’ll pass...” and head back the other way down the hall.

The electric lights flicker for a moment and then the whole scene starts to darken and press down on me. I rub my hands together and the details feel real, down to the deadlift calluses at the pinky, ring, and middle finger joints. When I do this, there’s an electric crackle and the lights come back on. I walk for a long way down the hall but somehow it just seems to get longer and longer. I want to either find a DC for basic Task of the Month or get to Rome for the Colosseum battle Task of the Year. I start to feel fretful that I'm going nowhere and the scene fades to black.

I feel it coming, though, and I relax and prep for DEILD. Another scene begins to form. I’m walking through a concrete structure that looks like a parking garage or the innards of a stadium. I’m wearing something like a cestus, a nasty-looking, studded leather wrapping around my hand. This isn’t the Colosseum, but I feel like I can turn this into the “Europe” Task of the Year. I’m armed and the location seems like something I could massage into the Colosseum with a little effort.



But I notice that I feel like I’m no longer able to breathe. The breath simply doesn't feel like it's coming anymore. I know it has to be an illusion but the sensation is terrifying. I try to relax and wait for this to play itself out but some part of me panics and I wake up.

This was the second of the three LDs I had early Christmas morning.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #49: Turtles All the Way Down

I'm sitting in a large classroom with a bunch of friends and coworkers. The teacher hasn't arrived, but it's all right -- we're seated at long desks that are covered with candy like turtles, caramels, M&M cookies, miniature pecan pies, Reese's... all kinds of goodies. Everyone is stuffing their face and having a great time.

I suddenly have a false awakening into a small dormitory room with a cot. I feel like I'm late for something so I spring right up and walk out the door, emerging in the same classroom that I just left. Everyone is still feasting.

I sit down next to my friend "Leroy" and tell him and several other friends and coworkers nearby that "You're not going to believe this, but I had a dream that this would happen. The classroom, the candy... everything!" Everyone seems happy to hear this and they plow into the turtles, caramels, and other goodies with even greater abandon. It suddenly occurs to me that this is also a dream, and I could keep "waking up" into this room of candy forever.

I turn to Leroy and tell him that this is a lucid dream, inviting him to follow along. He eagerly hops up and we stride out into the hallway. I hesitate for a moment when I realize that I forgot to try any of the food, but decide to focus on getting outside.

We get to a set of automatic doors and I imagine that outside these doors is the Great Pyramid. As I approach the doors, I catch sight of the Pyramid... it's just through the door, stretching so high that I can't see the top. But as the doors slide open, the Pyramid suddenly changes into just another generic city building. I feel a little surge of emotion but it dies out quickly. We keep going.

Leroy and I turn right and continue down the street past some food carts. I see people from my past and I explain to M who they are and why they're appearing in the dream. "That girl across the street? That's JG. I went to middle school and high school with her but haven't seen her since graduation. I still run into her brother sometimes." Now JG's brother appears. "Oop, there he is."

There's a stadium up ahead and to our left. I tell Leroy, "That's the stadium from when we were in school but it looks like I've placed it next to a side street like the one by my high school stadium." I turn to look at Leroy and see that he's trailing far behind, looking lost and unfocused. I realize that I'm not giving him much attention and it's probably time to cut him loose. It isn't long before he fades entirely from the scene.

I reach a parking lot from which I think that I see the Pyramid on the far horizon. I leap up into the air and start floating but can't seem to get any forward momentum for flight. As I will myself to fly forward, a counterwind blows against me, and I totally lose my cool. It's only seconds before the dream collapses.

A wild chain of false awakenings and DEILDs finally led me to a most interesting encounter with Wife's DC, who was even more irrepressible than usual. This was the first of two lucid dreams from last night's session with galantamine.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #46: The Blind Man, the Bully, and the Nerd

I'm in the kitchen with Wife. I'm talking to her but I'm almost completely blind. I'm embarrassed by my blindness, convinced that it's some side effect of the galantamine that I just took. Rather than seek medical attention, I try to slink up to bed so Wife won't know. Unfortunately, she keeps asking me to hand her things, and I flail around the kitchen knocking things over. "What's wrong with you?" she asks. I have a false awakening into...

...sitting on the floor of our living room as my 1-year-old son "R" runs around me. My vision is dim but I can see better than before. I'm still convinced that I'm suffering from some kind of bizarre galantamine side effect. R is sprinting around the room, pulling objects off of tables, knocking stuff over, and tossing various knickknacks into the recycling bin. I try to stop him, but he just laughs, squirting right through my arms when I try to grab him. He says, "This is so fun, Daddy!" and I briefly become lucid, remembering that he's way too young to speak like that.

I quickly wake up but keep my eyes shut and hold still for a DEILD... and I find myself lying in a bed in a room I don't know. I get up, ready to explore. A strange, gnome-like creature with a hooked nose hops off of the floor and gets in my face, waving his arms wildly about. He's about three feet tall, covered with warts, extremely agile, and very annoying. He brags to some unseen listener: "See? I can stop him from doing what he wants in this dream!"

I try to leave the room but the little gnome keeps hopping up in my face, cackling and poking at me. He jabs me in the eyeball and I get incredibly angry. I grab the gnome by the throat, push him to the floor and hold him there. He growls and kicks his legs, but he isn't able to move. Even though he's immobilized, I'm so out of control that I still punch him once, hard right under his left eye. I immediately feel terrible about this and release my grip, allowing him to scamper away.

I stand there brooding about this for a moment before the gnome walks back in. He no longer looks disgusting and infuriating, but just like a small little man. I tell him, "I'm sorry that I hit you. I didn't need to do that." He walks up to me, points at his blackened left eye and softly says, "Fix." I nod, touching his bruised skin, and the black eye immediately heals. "All right, hug it out," I say and I kneel down to hug the little dude. The dream fades...

I buckle down for another DEILD and in a few seconds I'm back in another bed room, although it's different from the last. I'm standing and Wife is here making the bed. "Hey!" I say. "This is a lucid dream. Quit making that bed and let's go play."

She keeps making the bed. "You can go do what you like, but this work still needs to get done."

I can't believe it. "But it's all a dream. You don't have to worry about whether beds get made. Come on, I've got lucid goals I want to work on."

She stops for a second, laughs, and looks at me, wrinkling up her nose a bit. "Lucid goals? What does that even mean? You better not be trying to arrange a threesome on the bed that I just spent all this time making!"

"Come on, get serious. You'll like this... I want to visit the Great Pyramid." Then I look at her, hold out my right hand and say, "You will come with me."

She laughs. "Oh my God, nerd! I can't believe you just tried to 'command' me. Is that the kind of stuff you do in these dreams of yours?"

I smile, amazed at how like herself she is and how much I'm enjoying her company. "I think I can do this, though," I say, and levitate her a few feet off of the ground. She looks amused.

I float her over to me and set her on the ground. When I try to kiss her she doesn't resist. I feel her fingers graze my left temple but then she turns to walk away. "I still need to make this bed," she says, as the dream fades.

Interesting little converted nightmare. Producing the .44 out of thin air seems sort of like lucid dreaming techniques bleeding over into my non-lucid dreams, which is interesting.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #27: Paranoia

I'm in a false awakening where I'm a kid living in my old room at my parents' house. I sense some terrifying presence in my room so I jump out of bed, crouching down in fear. I reach under the bed and pull out a long-barreled, Dirty Harry-style .44 Magnum and hold it in front of me, searching wildly for whatever is after me.



I suddenly have no idea what I'm doing holding this gun and I'm afraid that I'll wind up shooting myself or my parents with it. I duck into the bathroom and close the door behind me, trying to figure out what to do. I try the light switch but it doesn't work. Something reaches out in the darkness and starts wrestling with me for the gun. My fear combined with the craziness of the scene is enough to make me lucid.

I gently pull the .44 back toward me, no longer believing that there's any lurking presence trying to pull it away from me. I try the light switch again but it doesn't do anything. I'm trying to think of some way out of here when the scene suddenly shifts to a cluttered basement. The basement is a roughly ten-foot cube and walls are gray concrete. There are no doors or windows but benches, tables, tools, and other assorted pieces of junk litter the room.

Seeing no way out, I float up and try to phase through the ceiling but the concrete stops me cold. I shut my eyes and imagine the Great Pyramid, but nothing has changed when I open them again. Next, I try some Stephen Laberge-style spinning but I move with an odd slowness when I spin and the scene won't change.

Just then I notice a tiny surveillance camera attached to the ceiling and I feel like the presence that I sensed earlier is watching me through the camera. I float to the camera, determined to phase through it and see who (or what) is watching me. I push myself through the lens but immediately find myself awake in bed.

This was easily my wildest, trippiest lucid dream of all time. A big first from this one was meeting my doppelganger. Confusion, chaos and questions of identity reigned in this LD and what little control I had amounted to very little in the end. Very different from my usual LD fare but fun nonetheless.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #21: Technicolor Thomas Jefferson

It's nighttime and I'm standing in the shadow of a deserted overpass, talking on a cellphone. I'm some sort of drug dealer or smuggler, talking to one of my scumbag smuggling associates about when and where our next deal will go down. The conversation ends, and I start walking back across a parking lot to my car, a silver Mercedes Benz.

As I'm walking, I get that familiar feeling of recognition and think, "This isn't me. I'm not a criminal. Am I just dreaming this?" I become lucid and look for the nearest piece of usable scenery. Before I can get anywhere, though, darkness begins pressing down on me and I feel the dream fading. I look at my hands but they're vague and insubstantial, with wispy ribbons of skin hanging off of them.

My vision goes completely black but I keep repeating, "I'm still dreaming" and refuse to wake up. Jumbles of random letters fall slowly from the top to the bottom of my field of vision. I reach for the letters, trying to feel them, turn them into some kind of new dream scene. Even though I can't see my hands, I finally manage to grab a letter and squeeze it. It feels like a squishy piece of felt. The letter suddenly squirts out of my hands and floats away. I flail for a new letter.

Now I'm back in bed and my hands are thrashing in front of me. Out loud, I'm saying "I'm still dreaming", although I no longer believe it. Wife rolls over and says, "What are you doing?" I look over at the alarm clock and see that the numbers are flashing at random. Still dreaming, indeed. "It's okay," I tell her. "Go back to sleep." I get out of bed and walk toward the bathroom, planning to go for the "pumpkinhead" Task of the Month using the bathroom mirror.

Before I make it to the bathroom, the image of a huge, hissing black cat is stamped across my vision. Behind this cat I still see my first-person perspective but much of it is now obscured. Then another stamped image over that, this time of a woodworking bench covered with tools. Then an old woman pushing a cart. Then another, and another, and another each new image papering over the last.

Finally, things settle onto an image of Thomas Jefferson reading in a comfortable-looking chair. He's super-saturated with color, just like the boldest Technicolor films. Think Wizard of Oz but with the saturation even more intense. I remind myself, "I'm dreaming" and a banner reading "I'M DREAMING!!!" appears over Thomas Jefferson's head. He glances up from his book, sees the banner, then stares straight at me in surprise.

Suddenly, I'm in the passenger seat of a car, heading west on a road near my office. It feels strange, so I try to remember how I got there. I remember Technicolor Thomas Jefferson and I'm immediately lucid again. I look over at the driver of the car and I realize that the driver is me. Only it's not really me but a Dream Character version of myself. I can hear my double's thoughts but I can't influence him and I see that I'm a disembodied observer with no dream body of my own.

I hear my double think, "I've got to go back to where it started. Back to where I became lucid. I have to make it happen again." My double pulls into a parking garage and we're soon wandering the halls of an office building. My double visits each office that he finds, and in every one we see friends and old coworkers. Finally, my doppelganger steps into an office shared by two female twins (IWL friends of mine) and a woman who calls herself Susan.

The twins greet my double and welcome him to their office but Susan isn't buying it. She shakes her head and says, "That isn't your friend. I don't know what that is, but your friend is there." Susan points, not at my double but at me, the spot from which I am observing with no dream body. The twins turn to look, not comprehending and I wake up.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #13: Dad's Dream Journal

My dad has started a dream journal and he's looking for my advice on lucid dreaming. For some reason, he secretly dead drops the journal to me in the back of a car. I have to pick it up late at night to make sure that nobody finds out that he's keeping a dream journal.

His journal describes a dream that he had falling asleep in a chair. I read through it and conclude that he was very close to a WILD. I'm very happy for him and attempt to place a rah-rah green check mark in the margin of his DJ. To my astonishment, it comes out as a boldfaced "left 2". I wonder what the hell is going on and decide to reality check "just in case". I use the nose pinch RC and instantly become lucid.

My sudden lucidity shocks me into a false awakening in the hotel room I am sharing with Wife. I know that it's a false awakening because I still have the nose pinch clamped down and I'm still breathing freely. I get up out of bed but the sheets are wrapped tightly around me. I flail and struggle to free myself from the sheets and finally fling them across the room.

The room's incredibly dark and I can barely see anything. I feel on the wall, expecting to find a light switch. I flick it on and rather than illuminating the room it causes a very dim light to come on outside. I feel for another switch and this one seems to turn on a dim bathroom light behind me, but this soon goes out. I'm looking for another switch when the room's air conditioning suddenly roars to life and I awaken to the sound of the (very loud) hotel room A/C.

These dark rooms can be tricky! Next time I may try just walking through doors as quickly as I can. I saw that OpheliaBlue had some success using that to escape darkness. If that doesn't work, perhaps I'll just hurl myself off of an imaginary cliff again and try my luck.

Hit my longest lucid yet this morning! It felt like it might have gone 20 minutes. Very exciting! Go go Intro Class!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #10: The Horschwager Olympics (Early this morning)

I'm at home in the master bedroom and something tips me off that I'm having a dream. Fortunately, it's daytime but I still feel compelled to leave the house as quickly as I can. (I've been getting stuck in the first scene very often lately.) After having trouble getting out of my upstairs window last time, I decide to dash downstairs and try the front door.

The second floor is a perfect reconstruction of my house, seemingly down to the smallest details. I even have to fiddle with the baby gate to get downstairs. The ground floor, though, has changed into a hot, stifling gaggle of steam tunnels with no obvious exits.

I notice a mirror on the wall and check my reflection. I look like myself but with a pudgier face and feathered, rather flamboyant 90s-looking hair. (Still dashing, of course!)

I return to looking for an exit and spy an old-school cast iron stove against the wall. I see that it has a vent/chimney sticking out of the top that I imagine must lead to the outside. It's only a few inches in diameter but I decide that I can squeeze myself up it and make my escape via reverse Santa Claus.

I crawl through the oven and start willing my way up the vent. It's ultra-confining and hot to the point where I feel some mild pain on my skin during the trek upward. What a way to travel! Why didn't I take the mirror? I operate with a noticeably reduced IQ in my LDs, I'm afraid!

I finally emerge in daylight on a coastal city on a bright, clear morning. It's like a cross between San Francisco and Nice, France. Wife jogs past me and I jog after her through a bustle of dream characters.

As we run along, Wife hands me her iPod and tells me to listen. It's playing some catchy pop number with a female vocalist. It's not my style but it's got this great hook that I can't resist humming along to. As I hum, Wife and all of the other dream characters that we pass start singing as well. The sort of thing that only happens on cheesy television programs and my lucid dreams, I think.

Eventually, the road breaks away from the coast and Wife stops to rest. I decide to go off on my own and try to compete in the Olympics (recent goal.) I walk through the door of a nearby building, expecting to find the Olympics.

A greeter DC guides me into an enormous room that's a combination locker room and ice skating rink. I'm somewhat perturbed to find myself in the Winter Olympics but figure that I can change this later. I grab a duffel bag out of one of the lockers and carry it with me. A harried-looking receptionist and "E" (IWL friend) direct me to go to the second floor via elevator. I ask them what city this Olympics is taking place in. They respond that it is in "Horschwager" this year.

The elevators look dilapidated and out of service. (Doors hanging off loosely, bare shafts visible, etc.) I decide to take the stairs. The stairs, however, are a confusing maze of narrow bridges and snaking archways with sheer drop-offs all around. I wander this maze for a good while, reminding myself that "I'm in a lucid dream, about to compete in the Olympics" but the clock eventually runs out just as I reach a strange, glass-enclosed room. I wake up.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #7: doogogol.com (July 29, 2012)

Our son "E" wanders into our bedroom in the early morning. I'm groggy but I listen to him tell us about how a "big vortex" was in his room. Wife is shocked that he knows the word "vortex". I tell her that I taught him the word -- then realize I had done so in a previous dream that night. I do the nose pinch reality check and I'm lucid.

As I get out of bed, the room starts going dark again, just like in lucid dream #5. I rub my hands together and demand, "Increase lucidity!" but it makes no difference. Soon it is completely dark. I shout, "Increase <expletive> lucidity!". Wife gives me a "That's right!" but it still doesn't work. I'm in total darkness.

I "peel away" the darkness as if it is a curtain but behind it is only more darkness. Out of ideas, I imagine that there's a cliff behind me and I pitch myself backward over it (a suggestion from CosmicIron.)

I'm falling now and I don't have a destination in mind. I am thinking about searching the internet for help, though, and "land" in a web browser. Success! (Sort of.) I try to type "google.com" but it comes out as "doogogol.com". Fortunately, this works, and I wind up back in the bedroom, mid-morning.

I tell Wife that I'm going to go out and fly. I struggle to squeeze myself out of the window, noting that all of the trees in the front yard have moved around. I punch the glass out of the window but it's still too tight of a squeeze. During the struggle, I wake up.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #5: The Darkened Clock (July 20, 2012)

I am standing at the foot of my bed in the dark. I look over at the alarm clock to see what time it is but it's gone completely dark. At first I think that there has been a power failure but I soon wonder whether I might be dreaming.

I nose pinch and can breathe through only my left nostril! (More on that later.) Still, this is enough to make me lucid. The room is deeply, oppressively dark and I feel like I'm losing the dream scene. I rub my hands together and although the dream feels more stable, the darkness in the room is deepening.

I rub my hands over my arms again and again and try to say, "Increase lucidity..." But the words only come out in this weak, breathy whisper. I want to make a break for the wall, act boldly like before, but my dream body feels faint and frail.

I go on like this for a good while, just weakening as everything fades and soon I'm awake. I quickly discover the reason that I could only breathe through the left side of my nose during the reality check -- I was sleeping face down with the right side of my face smashed against the pillow!

This one was my first SSILD-induced dream. It was long (for me), going 10-12 minutes.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #3: The Forest Compound (July 2, 2012)

I awaken to a strange noise coming from outside of our bedroom. I go into the hallway to investigate but find that this swirling green energy vortex is blocking my path back into the bedroom. I walk forward, pushing my way through it, and it feels like walking through a Chicago windstorm. It slowly dawns on me that I might be dreaming and I push my finger through my palm. I'm instantly lucid and I decide to get out of the room as fast as possible so that I can fly.

I'm feeling unusually bold so I shove myself right through the wall. The scene blanks for a moment before placing me on top of an office building. I run straight for the edge of the building, leap off, and try to fly. I fail, falling several hundred feet to the empty streets. The landing is jarring but painless. This time I try jumping straight up and find that I can jump thousands of feet into the air. The office buildings shrink into the distance below me. I can't soar but I find that I can leap across the city this way, each leap ending in an awkward crash landing. Each time that I jump, the voice of my young son giggles "Again!" even though he is not here.

I do one last clumsy leap and crash into a forested area, knocking over a tree. There's a compound nearby and I run into the first building that I see. It's a long, windowed, sunlit hallway with high ceilings and teeming with dream characters. I stop an Asian lady in her late 30's (a stranger) and tell her that I'm dreaming. She looks a little reluctant to admit this but finally confesses that I'm right. I sense that talking this frankly is an awkward bending of the rules for her. She seems very real and I feel a little bit bad for putting her in this position.

At the end of the hall I find an apartment where two identical twins who are IWL friends of mine live. I barge right in, announcing that this is all taking place in my lucid dream. One of the twins laughs and she becomes very interested in how this all works, peppering me with questions like,

"So, we're both dreaming? No? How's this work then? Will I remember this tomorrow?"
"You mean, I'm not real and you are? This is your dream? That's hilarious."
"What's going to happen to me after you wake up?" I'm caught off-guard by this and left fumbling for an answer.

The three of us chat for a while before I sense that my lucidity is slipping. I bid them goodbye and run back down the hall. On the way, I run into a guy named "Robert Lamb", the host of the "Stuff to Blow Your Mind" podcast (the place where I first heard of lucid dreaming.) I announce to him that we're in my lucid dream and without missing a beat, he says, "I hope they don't have to amputate." "Yeah, lucid dreams that last for too long cause a total loss of circulation in the dreamer's limbs, limb necrosis and eventually require amputation."

"It's really terrible," he adds helpfully.

Even though I don't believe this, I'm a little shaken up at the thought. I run further down the hall, ducking into a dark bar just before I wake up.