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    CanisLucidus

    Flurries on the 58th Floor

    by , 12-07-2014 at 06:15 PM (1034 Views)
    Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

    Lucid #259: Flurries on the 58th Floor

    I’m an operative infiltrating an office building. My enemies have seen me before and know my face, so I have to enter as stealthily as I can. I enter through some side entrance high up on a section of rooftop, and I have a vague memory of arriving by helicopter. There’s a huge “59” written on the wall -- this is the 59th floor.

    I run up, but it’s a dead end that leads back out to another roof. Okay, down instead. As I arrive at the 58th floor, I hear a door open nearby and a security guard steps into view. He looks like an easygoing family man, black, mid-40s, naturally cheerful face. But I can’t let myself get found out. “I’m sorry,” I say, and I rush forward, punching him in the face and then kicking him in the chest.

    He somehow bounces away down the hall and I lose track of him. I run down the hall after him, and it twists and turns confusingly as I go. This all seems so strange and I remember that I must be
    having a lucid dream. In preparation for this dream, I used Dreamer’s goal-chaining technique, and as I become lucid, the excitement of lucidity is followed by the sense of cold, and I remember my intent to summon snow for Dreamer. (She’s never seen snow in waking life!)

    I walk through the hall, spending a little time examining my surroundings and narrating out loud that “this is a lucid dream.” Once I feel settled, I tell Dreamer that she’s here in this office building too. She doesn’t appear right away, though, so for now I focus on summoning some snow. I imagine myself smushing up snow in my hand to form a snowball, and as I do that, snow begins gently falling around me as well. The snowball is a little too small and rock-like to be fun, so I discard it.

    I walk into an office enclosed by glass walls, and a group of 4 or 5 women follow closely behind me. One of them is Dreamer! She’s pushing a stroller! She looks like herself but older, maybe ten years older than she is now, and she’s wearing a purple head scarf like she came prepared for the cold.



    The other women are close friends or relatives, and they’re all here on some kind of important business to do with the baby in the stroller. Amazingly, I don’t look to see who or what is inside the stroller! I say to Dreamer “You’re here!” and do a little ta-daaaa with my hands. “I’m having a lucid dream!”

    She laughs like I’m joking and says no, she’s got to focus. This meeting is really important to her. I insist that this is a dream, saying something like: “I was infiltrating this place and then bam! Lucidity! I used your goal-chaining technique, just like the last lucid!”

    “Ah,” she says, “like when I had the [???] series!” The other women nod and smile at the apparent memory. “We had some fun with that one!”

    “Yeah!” I tell her. “I wanted to show you this!” And the snowfall begins again.

    Dreamer looks up and smiles. “Is that snow?” She looks excited and torn between enjoying the snow and following through with the story behind the dream plot. She looks like she's toying with the idea of opening her mouth toward the ceiling and letting snowflakes fall onto her tongue.

    I see a handful of people dressed in suits waiting at a desk for the meeting with Dreamer and her posse. I ignore the suits, focusing my energy on the snow, and hoping they’ll fade into the background. There’s a bit more quiet snowfall before
    the dream ends.

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    Updated 12-07-2014 at 08:24 PM by 57387

    Categories
    lucid

    Comments

    1. DawnEye11's Avatar
      I can't imagine my life without snow. : D Its awesome how you used your lucidity to see how she would react to something she's never experienced before. I wonder how snow feels like for her in her dreams even though she's never been around it.
      CanisLucidus and ~Dreamer~ like this.
    2. Xanous's Avatar
      Nice indoor snow, but the initial plot would have been fun. I like how made this happen and didn't bother making things 'believable'. I would be trying to get outside first; I usually forget about such short cuts and end up wasting time.
      CanisLucidus and ~Dreamer~ like this.
    3. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      @DawnEye11 - Thanks, that was a fun thing to see! Ah, good question, too! I remember that I'd been curious about this too but I think that we got off onto some side tangent or the other when we were talking about this and I never found out!

      @Xanous - That's true, the initial plot was certainly shaping up to be interesting! I was so much cooler than IWL, ha ha...

      I like how made this happen and didn't bother making things 'believable'
      You know, you are absolutely right! This is a huge tendency of mine as well. I always feel compelled to make too many things perfect when it's just not necessary. Things tend to fall into place if we can just let them. It's so hard to do in the moment, though, because even if you're lucid, the experience is so powerful and lifelike that it's hard to escape the compulsion to make it all be just so.

      I wonder whether one side effect of Dreamer's goal-chaining tech (since it relies on feelings vs. visualization) is that it creates a less rigid mindset as far as all of the visuals needing to be 100% like I expect...? Still too early to tell, but something I'll have to take note of as I go.
    4. Xanous's Avatar
      Heeeyy! Yes. This has a lot to do with dream control in general. I feel on the verge of an understanding, I just can't think exactly what. Maybe we are too visual and literal, but letting emotions guide you instead makes it easier? Interesting.
    5. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      Heeeyy! Yes. This has a lot to do with dream control in general. I feel on the verge of an understanding, I just can't think exactly what. Maybe we are too visual and literal, but letting emotions guide you instead makes it easier? Interesting.
      @Xanous - Agreed, I think that's just it. The visuals are interesting, but if anything they are a side effect of our state of mind in the dream.

      How we feel is what truly determines how the dream unfolds. The images we see will IMO largely be a reflection of that. Thinking in terms of visuals has some positive effects, but perhaps tackling mindset is the stronger, more direct approach.

      We'll see! Dreamer has the best dream control and goal recollection that I've ever seen, so I'm excited to explore how her approaches bolster that.

      It's cool how with lucid dreaming there's always some new angle to explore, some new way to get a little more out of our dream time.
    6. ~Dreamer~'s Avatar
      Thank you for this awesome dream!

      I have always wanted to feel snow on my tongue, that is totally something I would do!

      @ DawnEye & Canis
      It's hard to imagine snow when I'm sweating in the summer heat right now.
      I've encountered snow in a few dreams, and I've noticed that it doesn't really seem to feel cold. Maybe a little cool, but definitely not freezing. I've thrown a snowball in a lucid dream before, and it was soft and kind of fluffy feeling. I wonder if my dream-snow is softer than it really is IWL. I've thrown an iceball IWL before, is that the same thing? It was at an ice skating rink, and I used my skate blade to loosen up some ice and made it into a ball I could throw. The ball was harder than I imagine snowballs being, but maybe that's how they'd feel.
      I wonder if I'll travel and feel real snow one day...

      @ Xanous & Canis
      I think you guys have the right idea! I attribute a lot of my dream control success to an open-minded approach where I'm flexible about the specific details. I rarely decide in advance exactly how I'll do a TotM, but I make sure the necessary details are strongly ingrained by imagining how I'll feel when I remember this goal in-dream. I play out that moment and focus on how I'll feel when it happens, rather than imagining exactly where I'll be or how I'll do the task (I can figure that stuff out when I get there!) A neutral attitude towards the setting allows me to work with whatever I'm given and find creative ways of incorporating the task into my current location.

      As well as goal incubation, I incubate a general mindset of being calm and confident in any situation. I think that's how I avoid getting stressed out or stuck on trying to make something happen in a certain way when it doesn't work the first time. I'll accept an unsuccessful attempt at one type of dream control and move straight onto the next attempt (often approaching it from a different angle) without letting feelings of self-doubt creep in. I am basically guaranteed a positive mindset in any scenario when I go into LDs with the intention to work with whatever the dream gives me.

      I think dreams are great at demonstrating the power a negative mindset has over our ability to succeed - it's like an amplified version of "don't think of pink elephants" in waking life. If you're trying desperately to make something happen in a dream and getting frustrated about the fact that it's not working, that negativity will affect your dream control and make a successful attempt even less likely.
      My approach doesn't really allow for the feeling of failure, because anything goes, so it's all just a fun experiment to see which trick will work in this scenario.

      I'll be happy to clarify if you have any questions.
      I can't wait to see what effect this approach will have on your dreams!
      Congrats on another successful LD, Canis!
    7. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      Thank you for this awesome dream!

      I have always wanted to feel snow on my tongue, that is totally something I would do!
      You're welcome, thanks so much for joining me for this one! =)

      @ DawnEye & Canis
      It's hard to imagine snow when I'm sweating in the summer heat right now.
      I've encountered snow in a few dreams, and I've noticed that it doesn't really seem to feel cold. Maybe a little cool, but definitely not freezing. I've thrown a snowball in a lucid dream before, and it was soft and kind of fluffy feeling. I wonder if my dream-snow is softer than it really is IWL. I've thrown an iceball IWL before, is that the same thing? It was at an ice skating rink, and I used my skate blade to loosen up some ice and made it into a ball I could throw. The ball was harder than I imagine snowballs being, but maybe that's how they'd feel.
      I wonder if I'll travel and feel real snow one day...
      Yeah, that sounds like the attempt at a snowball that I made in this dream actually! When you pack them too tight or use too icy (vs powdery) grade of snow you can get that hard kind of little ball like I got and like you got at the skating rink. Nice resourcefulness there! =)

      And see snow in waking life one day? Yes! I definitely think that you will!

      @ Xanous & Canis
      ...<excellent advice>
      I'll be happy to clarify if you have any questions.
      I can't wait to see what effect this approach will have on your dreams!
      Congrats on another successful LD, Canis!
      Great, thanks so much for the details and pointers on how you do this! This makes me really excited to keep working this method. I do fee like this could be a great way to better understand some of the magic you use in your epic multi-task lucids. And there's no need to set records with it every time... I can just use it for nice, basic goal memory and even (it would seem) to just help increase my rate of lucid dream induction.

      Very exciting not just because I have an incredibly effective new toy to play with, but also because I feel like I'm getting a much better understanding of part of how you work up those really amazing lucids where you accomplish everything under the sun. I'm still trying to figure out how you got your dream control to have such an ultra-high success rate during those dreams, but I'm hoping that with enough practice some of those answers might present themselves!

      Great stuff, thanks so much for all your help!
    8. NyxCC's Avatar
      Aww, such a nice dream!

      Fantastic application of the chaining technique. It was really cool how Dreamer appeared in line with the dream contents by wearing a scarf.

      Also, the office infiltration part was hilarious.

      Once again, excellent tips from Dreamer!
    9. Xanous's Avatar
      Dreamer that makes a lot of sense. I notice my best dream control happens when I don't try too hard and just let it happen. Getting hung up on something that isn't working kills precious dream time. It's really a zen approach to dream control, I guess.