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    CanisLucidus

    The Great Wall of China

    by , 08-23-2013 at 09:41 PM (1188 Views)
    Asia Task of the Year! (Vandalize the Great Wall of China and battle the authorities with kung-fu.) This was the second of two lucids from last night and the level of vividness in this one was incredible. It was literally more vivid than waking life, which is such a difficult experience to describe or recapture. Pretty amazing stuff.

    Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

    Lucid #137: The Great Wall of China

    I have a false awakening in my childhood home, wandering into the dining room to find that my parents are hosting a breakfast. Wife is walking beside me, my folks and brother-in-law "Muppet" are seated at the table, along with Mom and Dad and a few other strangers standing around nearby. As I approach the table, I realize that I am not wearing a shirt and feel embarrassed. Then I see myself in the mirror and I look really in-shape. Now I feel better. Still seems a little inappropriate but I sit down, hoping nobody will make a big deal out of anything.

    I'm waiting for the food to arrive when something tips me off that this might all be a dream. I nose pinch and
    breathe in and out 2-3 times. I announce to everyone that I'm having a lucid dream, get up from the table, and phase through the window to the street outside. I hear Mom and Dad telling me to wait, that I'll miss the breakfast, asking me whether I'm sure that I'm dreaming. But yeah, after phasing through the window, pretty sure.

    I take a moment to make the scene as vivid as possible, looking over all of the detail that I see around me, the sound of my voice, the way that the morning air feels (chill and humid.) Thick, spiral-shaped clouds hang in the street, totally immobile and so thick that you can't see through them. When I touch them they literally feel like cotton balls pushed together and just floating in mid-air.

    I walk down the street for a while, checking out my hands for inconsistencies. They look completely lifelike, with the one exception being that I can't extend my left ring finger. Every time I try, it resists me and just winds up bending again. The street is still foggy but it's a more natural-looking fog now. The other strange thing is that every tree on the street is decorated with dozens of dreamcatchers that sway in a gentle breeze. The vividness is stunning.

    At the end of the street is a house with a huge wall safe mounted above its front door. The safe keeps blowing apart in an explosion, reforming, and then blowing apart again, over and over. I pass by my college friend "Bear" as I turn the corner and then come to a roughly ten-foot stone wall that blocks me from going any further. I try to fly over it but end up just doing a weak jump and having to scramble over like this was waking life. From there I enter a mall area where I announce to the passerby that "I'm having a lucid dream." Some of them look at me with some interest, but nobody verbally responds. I find an exit and imagine that the Great Wall of China is right outisde.

    I exit the mall and find myself in front of a six-foot tall replica of the Great Wall of China. Now we're getting somewhere! I walk a little further down a covered walkway and see a sign that reads "Joy's Toys" and under that "Great Wall". DCs are walking into a brick building near the sign that looks like a gift shop. I decide that this is a souvenir shop that's located right by the Great Wall, meaning that the real thing is... right behind me.



    I turn around and there it is! It's much taller, easily 50 feet, imposing, and really ancient-looking. I vault over a random pile of building materials to get closer. There's a small crowd of DCs gathered near the base watching as three terra cotta warriors perform some kind of odd, stilted dance performance. The terra cotta warriors take no notice of me but I figure they'll be the ones coming after me when I vandalize the Great Wall for Task of the Year.

    Advancing right to the wall, I haul back and punch it once, hoping that this will break a piece off. Nothing much happens. I grab at the wall with my fingers and manage to break a tiny piece off, but this doesn't feel like the serious vandalism I was going for. I decide to go with my premeditated plan of tagging up the Great Wall with spray paint. I summon an aerosol can into my hand and start spraying out some letters:

    "DV 4 LIFE"


    The paint runs and blurs a lot and generally looks like a mess, but I'm still incredibly pleased. Okay, the final piece of this dream is to defend myself against the authorities with kung-fu. I turn around, expecting an enemy... and find myself face to face with a pale, doughy guy in his 40s. He's wearing glasses and is dressed in brown slacks and a rather tight white cardigan that emphasizes his belly and spindly arms.

    "So you're 'the authorities'?" I ask, trying to lead him to say yes.

    "Certainly," he says curtly in a British accent. He stares proudly back at me.

    Immediately I try to do some "kung-fu" on him. I do this atrocious little low kick that clips the side of his left knee. Then I throw another little kick that misses entirely. This time I scream something like, "A-GOCK!!" to make it seem more like I'm doing kung-fu. It comes out really shrieky but the effect is kung-fuey. My opponent does an awkward little hopping kick that misses by a mile. We both kick at the same time and kind of clash feet. We keep throwing these terrible little kicks at each other and I keep shrieking "A-GOCK!!" Finally my awful little kicks get the better of his awful little kicks and he seems to lose interest, and after a moment wanders away entirely.

    I take another self-congratulatory look back at the Great Wall and then let myself
    wake up before I forget anything.

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    Comments

    1. fogelbise's Avatar
      Whoa! Awesome! I gotta start checking out those tasks for inspiration but in the meantime you're lucids are inspirational!
      CanisLucidus likes this.
    2. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      Thanks, fogelbise, I'm glad that you liked it! That's a really nice thing to say. The tasks are a great thing to check out for motivation and pushing the envelope on your skills. When I first joined up at DV I tried and tried for Task of the Month September 2012. I never did manage to pull it off, but having a goal kept me really focused.

      Also, the idea of trying to do a task that other people were working on and thinking about as well gave me lots of opportunity for borrowing new ideas and novel approaches to dream control. Made the whole process feel almost collaborative, which was great.
    3. Bharmo's Avatar
      Wow CL!! Really awesome dream! I enjoyed it a lot!
      And good thing that you went for this TotY, you just nailed it!
      Congrats and thank you for sharing!!
      CanisLucidus likes this.
    4. Highlander's Avatar
      Congrats on another TOTY addition. I liked the part about the aerosol can.
      CanisLucidus likes this.
    5. NyxCC's Avatar
      Wow! Congratulations! Really great stuff and I enjoyed every bit of detail you got from that dream, including the dreamcatchers and the clouds! (Shhh...actually creating low level clouds is one of my tasks that I never remember to do)

      I decide that this is a souvenir shop that's located right by the Great Wall, meaning that the real thing is... right behind me.

      I turn around and there it is! It's much taller, easily 50 feet, imposing, and really ancient-looking.
      Great job! I am sure you know how much I enjoyed this part, well done! I liked very much how you kept reminding yourself that the wall must be very close, creating your reality and then the "there it is" part was absolutely perfect!

      The kung-fu fighting was very funny too. If only I could see that!

      Awesome stuff CL, congrats again! Man, I've got to start going to bed earlier if I am to catch up soon!
      CanisLucidus likes this.
    6. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      @dreambh & Highlander - Thanks for the kind words, you guys, much appreciated! I'm really glad you liked it, too. (I certainly had fun!)

      @NyxCC - Thanks, and yeah, the detail really got my attention too! I was very surprised. I made a real effort to crank the vividness of the dream up this time and I'm trying to figure out whether it was that or some other factor. I am really going to commit to taking a moment in the next lucids to try to bring vividness up like this and see if that can give me more stable time to play... and hopefully bring in more cool details!

      I'm glad you like the part where the wall was behind me! You are going to feel exactly the same way when you turn around to find Angel Falls right behind you! That's coming!

      Ha ha, the kung-fu was unbelievable... even at the time I couldn't believe how bad it was but found it really funny. Believe it or not, I even have a martial arts background so I felt like a mega-goober with the way I was fighting.
      NyxCC likes this.
    7. Keitorin's Avatar
      I really enjoyed reading this, and laughed at the 'fight'. The aerosol can idea was really cool, a nice (albeit messy) shoutout to DV. XDD

      Great job!
      CanisLucidus likes this.
    8. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      Thanks, Keitorin, I'm glad you enjoyed it, including the fight! I hope that it wasn't too frightening/intimidating watching two experts go at it like that.

      I was pleased that the aerosol idea actually worked since that was something that I had in mind when I was planning out how to do the task. I'd never tagged anything up (in dreams or waking life) so I wasn't sure how it would turn out in the dream. Better than my "kung-fu", it turns out!
    9. Xanous's Avatar
      NICE! So it was like a sensory awareness inside the lucid. Good idea. Congrats again on the China task!
    10. Iokheira's Avatar
      Hah, awesome dream! Everything sounded amazing, I particularly liked the image of the dreamcatchers in the trees. Your Kung-Fu skills are enviable.

      Congrats on the TOTY!
    11. darknightedlady's Avatar
      Great job! The way you describe the scene, takes me right there with you! How vivid! The clouds, the humid air, and the dreamcatchers...so nice.

      I love the last bit, where you spray paint DV 4 LiFE, lol! And the kung-fu fighting! Awesome job, all around
      NyxCC and CanisLucidus like this.
    12. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      @Xanous - Yes, you've got it! That expectation of vividness and paying attention to everything around me seemed to take the experience to the next level. I experimented with this kind of thing when I was first starting out but I underestimated how much impact it has on the rest of the dream.

      I've gotten into a habit of running off right away to do whatever I've got planned! Trying to beat the clock, I guess.

      @Art - Thanks, the dreamcatchers were striking to me as well. Seeing all of that in a place that was familiar to me... it was a strange and wonderful thing. Speaking of "strange and wonderful", thanks for the compliments on my kung-fu skills. You may have your werewolf transformation, but I've got my low kicks!

      @darknightedlady - Thanks! It had been a while since I'd really paid attention to how much impact I could have on dream vividness and that so many aspects of the experience could exceed waking life. It's a hard thing to grasp. I think that non-lucid dreams are probably equally as vivid but we probably don't remember them as such... makes me much more forgiving for all the many times I was fooled.

      DV 4 LIFE!
      NewArtemis likes this.
    13. Xanous's Avatar
      @Xanous - Yes, you've got it! That expectation of vividness and paying attention to everything around me seemed to take the experience to the next level. I experimented with this kind of thing when I was first starting out but I underestimated how much impact it has on the rest of the dream.

      I've gotten into a habit of running off right away to do whatever I've got planned! Trying to beat the clock, I guess.
      Ugghh! This was tougher than I thought. I had a G night and I remembered this for like a few seconds and then rushed off. Haha!
      CanisLucidus likes this.
    14. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      Ugghh! This was tougher than I thought. I had a G night and I remembered this for like a few seconds and then rushed off. Haha!
      I know, man! It really is. Exactly the same thing happened to me in a lucid from this morning (that I haven't written up yet.) I remembered at the very end, got all excited, and wound up having the dream fall apart on me.

      I'll be sure to check yours out here in a bit.
    15. womp's Avatar
      This is priceless.
      CanisLucidus likes this.
    16. CanisLucidus's Avatar
      Thanks, womp, I appreciate that! Your comment brought me back to this entry and it was nice going back over the memories of this dream.
      womp likes this.