CanisLucidus

This was the first of five lucid dreams from last night/this morning. It was a crazy night!

I've got until the kids wake up from their nap to get these all journaled. Go Canis go!!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #106: The Terminator Locker

I WILD into a long, empty gym locker room. I'm unsure whether I'm in the locker room or an observer. I sense the presence of my friend "Conan" but I don't see him.

Conan says, "What's it like to have a lucid dream? Is it like in Limitless?"

"No. Not like that. He was smart in that movie. In a lucid dream, I'm stupider than when I'm awake but I can do really cool stuff. It's more like Inception or The Matrix."

"Really?" he says. "I want to be like the guy in Limitless. But I guess it's better to be in The Matrix if Terminators came crawling out of those gym lockers."

The moment that he says this, a skinless T-800 smashes through one of the gym lockers on the opposite wall and starts running toward me. (Us?) Almost immediately, time slows down, the color in the scene shifting slightly toward yellow and a faint heartbeat sound playing in the background like in Max Payne. I want to be armed, and right away there's a Dirty Harry-style .44 magnum revolver in my hand.



I fire once, blowing a hole the size of a silver dollar in the T-800's forehead. As it crashes to the ground, three more Terminators break through the wall of lockers. Time slows further. I fire three more times, and this time I can actually see the bullets fly through the air. As the three T-800s fall, I wind up in the void.

I expect to transition into a new scene, so I plan to reach my hand out for help. I still feel the revolver in my hand, so I toss it away. But the moment that I do, I feel my real hand jerk and I'm awake.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #105: The Souvenir

I'm walking along the sidewalk of a street near the neighborhood where I grew up, contemplating a job opportunity. I've been offered a job as muscle in a mobster casino. The pay is less than what I'm making now but it's all "tax free", if you know what I mean. I feel like this is a strange thing to be thinking about, and when I also notice that gravity feels a bit different, I become lucid.

It's early morning and the sky hasn't hit full daylight yet. I decide to head for my childhood home, making my way quickly along the street by jumping along in 30-foot segments. I take a right, proceed for a bit, then a left, all along familiar roads. I know that my old home is just the next block over, so I fly over a couple of houses and land on the next street over.

My childhood home is here but it's different. It looks almost dilapidated and the windows are all dark. The parts of the house that were brick are all siding now. I prepare to go inside but then I stop myself. What am I looking for in there? I can't think of any reason to go inside.

I try to remember what I wanted out of this dream. I remember that I'm trying to meet Art at the Alamo. Then I remember how NyxCC teleported by turning a model of a scene into a true, immersive dream scene. I decide that I'll try conjuring a model of the Alamo and then attempt to teleport into it.

Reaching my hand behind my back, I imagine that there's a model of the Alamo sitting in it. But my mental image of what a "model of the Alamo" would look like is very vague and keeps changing. First it's a small ceramic, then it's a larger, hollow tin thing with no bottom and sharp edges, then it's tiny and solid stone. I check my hand but see nothing but an insubstantial outline that evaporates the moment that I look at it.

Okay, no good. Hand behind the back again, and this time I envision a ceramic souvenir, rough and unfinished on the bottom. I feel it taking shape but as I'm trying to focus, a strong wind picks up and tickles my hands and forearm. The souvenir disappears from my hand before I can look at it.

Frustrated, I gaze up at the sky. It's growing darker, like a storm's approaching. I think that this could be a fun time to try flying, but the dream ends before I get up into the air again.

Another swing and a miss at meeting Art at the Alamo. But the good news is that I managed to remember (and execute) Basic Task of the Month!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #104: Reservations

I have a false awakening at home and stumble out of bed. I'm disappointed and slightly grouchy that I failed to achieve a lucid dream. Feeling unmotivated, I wander aimlessly through the house, contemplating how late for work I probably am. I think that it's Friday, though, and I'm looking forward to ordering pizza with the guys at the office and shooting the breeze for a while. (Nope, today's Wednesday!)

I wind up in the exercise room but the power rack and dip station are completely missing. It's halfway converted into an office and I see the guts of a half-built computer on the floor. I kneel down to work on it, seeing that the RAM is missing and that the box is full of dust like it's been sitting there for years. I finally grasp how dreamlike this all is and become lucid.

I rub my hands together and assemble my goals. Two come to me fairly quickly: 1) meet NewArtemis at the Alamo 2) go water-skiing. (Oops, Advanced Task of the Month is actually parasailing.) I move into the master bedroom where I see Wife standing nearby as my two young children E and R run around the room. I announce that I'm having a lucid dream, eliciting an "Okay!" from Wife. I phase through the external wall of our house. I'm on the 2nd story, so I drift down to the driveway below, lightly brushing the branches of our oak tree with my fingers as I pass.

It's a bright morning outside and I'm preparing to fly off for the Alamo when I hear the voice of my son E behind me. "Daddy, wait! Daaaaaaddy!" I think that it's probably smartest to ignore him but I can't help looking back. Somehow he's followed me outside and I see him standing about fifteen feet away, looking so small. He looks at me with enormous, pleading eyes and says, "Daddy, can I go with you?"

I start feeling all melty-hearted and I know that resistance is futile. It'd probably be amusing to see E and NewArtemis' DCs interact anyway. "Sure, buddy," I say, scooping him up and placing him on my shoulders. I hop up into the air and we fly together over the neighborhood, heading vaguely northwest. The city's different in this direction, and we pass a park and a block of tall buildings. I decide that the Alamo is in the next block and I tell E this to cement it further in my mind. "Uh-huh!" he enthusiastically agrees.

When we hit the next city block, though, I'm disappointed to find no sign of the Alamo. There's a river running east-west with a simple stone bridge crossing it and a walkway on either side. I shout down to the DCs milling around below: "The Alamo's supposed to be right here! Which way is it?"

A blonde lady walking with her daughter points westward toward the bridge. "It's that way, just past the bridge!" I thank her, land, and walk under the bridge with E still on my shoulders. We emerge to see the Alamo up ahead but there's some kind of enormous line out front. I feel the urge to get in line and patiently wait but remind myself that this is my dream and it is therefore okay to be a bit of a jerk. I stride to the front of the line where I find a restaurant host holding a clipboard. It's apparent to me that the Alamo has been converted to some sort of amazingly popular restaurant.

The host asks me whether I have reservations. "Of course," I say. "Check under [CanisLucidus]."

"Ah yes!" he responds. "Party of fifteen. Your table's almost ready."

Fifteen people? "[NewArtemis] is in our group, isn't that right?" But the host wanders off, saying that he'll "be right back."

I decide to give him a moment before prodding the dream plot onward. I remember Task of the Month (speak gibberish to a DC and see how they respond.) A sour-looking girl of about eight with brown hair and freckles is waiting nearby, sitting on a piece of luggage. "Ooooooga booga booga!" I exclaim.

She looks very annoyed. "Can we please just skip the whole 'Mess with DCs' show?" I hear her fine, but her response shocks me into just saying, "What?" She sighs dramatically and repeats herself: "I said can we skip the whole 'Mess with DCs' show? Have you seen how long this line is? I am not in the mood."

Amused, I turn away. Good enough for me. I want to keep things rolling, so I announce to the unseen host, "So my table's ready then, right?"

The host scurries back into view. "Sorry for the wait, sir. Mr. Graham was napping and needed to be woken up. Who schedules a lunch for a nap?" he says with a laugh, even though I haven't the faintest idea what he's talking about or who "Mr. Graham" is. "Right this way," says the host, and I follow, now holding E by the hand. We're moving through a wood-paneled hallway into the restaurant interior when the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #103: Morgan Freeman

I'm in a library, laying down by some bookshelves and wearing nothing but some boxer shorts. A young, rather wimpy-looking guy with dark hair and glasses is looking through some books about thirty feet away, pretending not to notice me. I quickly throw my clothes on. I have no idea why I was unclothed, but I feel like I should explain myself to this guy.

I throw together a cover story, approach the guy and explain, "Don't worry! That part of the library is just where I like to recall any sexy dreams that I recently had." He visibly cringes. I cringe too. What in the world made me think that this was a good "explanation"? I feel very confused, both about my own dull-wittedness and the whole situation.

Embarrassed beyond belief, I mumble an apology and just sort of slink away into a different part of the library. After stewing in my shame for a few seconds, the strong emotion feels weird to me and I realize with great relief that I'm dreaming.

No longer so defensive and inwardly-focused, I examine my surroundings. This part of the library is broad and open, with a floor of pure white marble, and a high, vaulted white ceiling. About fifty feet away is some kind of railing that surrounds a view of a lower floor. I walk toward the railing to check out this lower floor, but I'm distracted when I find myself walking next to Morgan Freeman. He's much shorter than I'd imagined (no taller than 5-foot-6) and moves slowly, as if decrepit and unwell.

"You're Morgan Freeman," I say. Astonishingly, I speak these words in Morgan Freeman's voice!

"I am."

"Heeeeyyyyyyy," I say, testing out my amazing new voice. I do a theatrical hand-wave and really pile on the dramatic reading. "All of this... is a dream!"

He nods, smiling faintly. "Very nice."

"Everything sounds a lot better with this voice," I say. "How's this work? Is this dream teaching me how to talk like you? Am I still going to be able to sound like this when I wake up?"

He stops, giving me a cross look. "No."

I think for a moment about my goals. I can remember my primary goal of getting to the Alamo to catch up with Art, but I forget the Task of the Month and don't think to talk gibberish to Morgan Freeman. I'm planning on phasing through a wall in order to get outside or enter the void.

Morgan Freeman seems to sense that I'm about to leave and turns urgently toward me, suddenly speaking very rapidly. "Wait! Before you go, I need to tell you something that you have to do. You need to find Patricia [??some last name??] and you need to tell her about..." His voice becomes garbled and the scene breaks down. I expect to enter the void and transition from there to the Alamo but instead I wake up.

(I do know one Patricia but the last name had more syllables than hers does. I'm still stumped by this last part.)

Looks like I need to go back to my "stop falling for false awakenings" and "stop missing dreamsigns" fundamentals. Still a fun dream, and got to try out a new teleport method (with mixed results.)

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #102: El Camino Real

I'm at a lucid dreaming camp with lots of people from my past. Throughout the day, we swim and boat in the lake, walk by the lakeside, and do various crafts. I tell everyone that "it's too late for me. I took galantamine and it didn't work. Let's get the rest of you lucid." I teach them about dreamsigns, awareness, and even supplements. I'm frustrated that I've failed to have a lucid dream but I figure maybe I'll feel better if some of the other camp participants can have a lucid.

This goes on for a really long time and eventually I run across Britney Spears eating a blueberry muffin in one of the hallways. She complains that her career is in a slump. I suggest that she would be a perfect spokesperson for blueberry muffin sales. She's thrilled with the idea. In celebration, she takes a staggeringly huge, very unladylike bite out of the muffin, paper and all. I feel incredibly savvy and very proud of myself.

From there, I have a false awakening: Wife and I are starting our day and she switches on the TV. (She never does this in the morning.)The music video for Madonna's "Like a Virgin" is playing on the TV. Her love interest is the guy who played the mummy in The Mummy movies. After the first verse, the TV switches to a 3d rendering of The Killers performing in front of the university Wife and I attended. "That's The Killers," she says. (She doesn't know what they look like.) We're sitting in a cafeteria now, watching people order food while I complain about how I failed to realize I was dreaming just a moment ago when it was so obvious. Some guy carrying a tray of food totally wipes out and gets spaghetti all over himself. Wife laughs when this happens, which seems cruel and out of character. (Big dreamsign. She thinks the part in Karate Kid where Daniel-San spills spaghetti on himself and everybody laughs is super mean.)

Now I'm staring out of a window in some kitchen, feeling sorry for myself that I didn't get lucid. I think that I could be dreaming right now, but everything is just too vivid. And yet... it finally dawns on me. I look over at Wife preparing food at the kitchen counter and it's so real that it almost costs me my lucidity. I decide that I'd better get moving.

The next room is a darkened dining room with an elegantly set table and an unlit candelabra. It's dark in the room and I decide that it would be best to leave the house, so I head for a wall and phase through it. There's no scene beyond the wall, and I wind up in the void.

I quickly rub my hands together and keep walking, thinking that I'll try a new teleport method out of the void, building on an idea that PennyRoyal had suggested. I place my fingers in front of my eyes and imagine them gently wiggling. Pretty soon my hands take shape in front of me and I begin to imagine a new scene behind them -- the Alamo, the arranged meeting spot with Art. Once I feel like the scene's ready, I move my hands aside and find myself in...

... Silicon Valley, walking along El Camino Real. There's even a roadsign marking out the intersection of "82" (El Camino Real) and "93" (unknown road.) It's a beautiful day, typical perfect weather for the South Bay. I jog up a residential street, and a lady power-walking with her dog gives me a friendly wave. I wave back. I know that I have tasks that I'm forgetting, but they refuse to come to mind.

Moving a bit further along the street, I pass my old friend Wang. I ask him how he's been and he says, "I can't talk right now. I've got to be careful not to catch a cold." When I accept this, he breaks into a laugh like he really pulled one over on me. "I'm just kidding!" he says. "I know that you're dreaming this!" He shouts across the street to a lady who's watering her lawn. "Do you know he's dreaming all of this?" I'm a little distracted by how hyper-realistic Wang looks. His lips move flawlessly with the words he's speaking. I wonder how it's possible for all of this to fit inside my head.

The woman is dark-haired, mid-40s, clad in sweat pants. "Oh, like that 'lucid dreaming'? I've always wanted to do that." I respond with a few encouraging words and jokingly say something along the lines of "better make sure that you're not dreaming right now, too." She and Wang laugh and I say, "You know what? Let me show you guys a couple of things." With that, I hope onto the trunk of a parked car and leap to to top of another parked car, intending from there to take off in flight. For some reason the flying doesn't happen, though, and I wind up hovering face-first a few inches off of the ground. Fortunately, this is still cool enough to impress.

"Guys," I tell them, "I'm going to try another teleport. It was good talking to you." They say goodbye, and I put my hands over my eyes again, trying once again to imagine the Alamo. I give it a little longer to incubate this time, waiting until I can "see" the structure fairly well in my mind. But when I remove my hands, I'm somewhere else near Palo Alto. I can see the Stanford Foothills. The vision out of my left eye looks odd, sort of like I have one messed up contact lens. I ignore it, take to the air, and fly just a bit before the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #101: Choke

I'm sitting in a car with Dad at a place that's a cross between Sonic and a Chinese take-out restaurant. We're pulled up next to one of those mic/speaker combos where you place your order and I'm debating whether to order sweet & sour chicken or just get a giant bucket of tater tots. (I don't actually eat like this. )

A guy who looks like Mako Iwamatsu sticks his head out of the main restaurant building and shouts something about "three orders of sweet & sour chicken". I get out of the car and approach to hear him better. Then Mako makes some remark about our order and something about dreaming. It's semi-amusing, so I chuckle politely and look up at the night sky. The stars look artificially bright and the moon has been replaced by a flying saucer! "This is a dream," I say, and immediately start walking.



I leave the restaurant parking lot, moving through an alley that dead-ends at an open door into a house. I go inside, exploring the house for a bit. It's nicely decorated and very realistic. I'm pleased with how vivid it looks -- classy carpeting, great lighting, really tasteful decor. I wonder why I suck so bad at decorating IWL if I can imagine scenes like this. It occurs to me that no matter how many LDs I have, part of me always thinks They can't really look that good, right? But they can and they do.

I'm a bit lost in the house and as I turn down one hallway, I suddenly find myself in a noisy European street scene. It feels like Germany. The fast transition surprises me and before I can think to speak gibberish to these DCs for Task of the Month, I round another corner and wind up back in the house again. Well that was weird.

For some reason this reminds me of my intent to get to the Alamo and meet up with Art. I decide getting outside will be the best way open up the map and get where I want. The closest internal wall of the house is brick (oddly enough), and without hesitating, I phase through it. There's nothing on the other side of the wall, though, and I wind up in the void.

Rubbing my hands together, I continue walking through the void. I imagine that I'm walking along a street outside. I can feel the roadway underneath my feet (which feel like they're in nothing but socks.) I keep walking forward, waiting for the new scene to form. After a while, I see a pattern of squareish lights that coalesces into the window of my darkened childhood bedroom. I leave immediately, phasing through the window into the street.

It's late at night and I'm outside on the street where I grew up. I try to figure out which way San Antonio (and the Alamo) would be from here... and totally get it wrong. When I look out at the horizon, I see a huge observation tower surrounded by some scaffolding, like it's under construction. Was there some kind of tower in San Antonio? (Yes, it turns out -- the Tower of the Americas.)



I start to zoom-teleport to the tower but the moment I begin to move, I swallow my gum. Swallow my what?? Did I go to bed chewing gum? I try to remember, worrying that it's now lodged in my throat IWL and that I'm about to be in big trouble. I freak out and the scene goes black. I manage to calm myself at the last minute but the dream is too far gone and quickly ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #100: The World Is Yours

I'm flying high in the sky around what looks to be a computer-generated globe that's populated with little dots. I feel like I'm on a plane with Wife but I don't see a plane. It's just me and my floating perspective as we circle slowly and gracefully around this globe.

I tell Wife, "This is a music video for a Phil Collins' song called 'Julia' from 1980." (Not true.) The song immediately starts playing. In it, Collins sings of how this globe is "not CGI" and that the dots represent people around the world. He sings that the dot he remembers best ("the one I best recall") was one of him over the ocean, flying on a plane to be reunited with his beloved Julia.

As the song ends, I suddenly find myself falling downward out of the sky. I hope that this is a dream, I think, and of course it is.

I immediately halt my fall and find myself hovering over a huge, vivid cityscape -- highways, skyscrapers, cranes, bridges, traffic jams, all arrayed for me down below. I want to fly around and explore this city, but when I attempt to fly, I'm unable to move. For some reason, I feel totally confident that I'll come unstuck. Stop asking, I think.

I ignore what the dream is telling me and I imagine that I'm already flying Iron Man-style around the city. A second later, I'm flying effortlessly, cruising anywhere I like. I get briefly stuck a time or two, but I just ignore it, imagine that I'm succeeding, and immediately start flying again. Eventually, the little glitches stop.

I see a tower that I remember from waking life -- it's one that I pass during my commute. I fly up to the top and circle around it. I glide low over roadways and high above a cluster of skyscrapers, then descend back to one of the bridges that spans a piece of some unfamiliar bay.

My confidence is soaring, and I decide try some large-scale dream control. I put my hands out in front of me and then bring them apart like I'm performing the breaststroke. As I do, I rake cars off of the bridge in either direction and dozens of them go plummeting toward the water. I bring my hands back together and I watch as time rewinds and they return to the bridge, unharmed. I fly back toward the skyscrapers, select a pair of them, and then begin moving them up and down, one for my left hand and one for my right.

I look to my left and see an enormous fire ogre (a la "Orcs Must Die") stomping toward me down one of the city streets. He towers over most of the nearby buildings, at least 100 feet tall. I wonder whether maybe I'll be fighting him later. I feel no fear at all. I reflect for a moment about what it would be like to have this much control and confidence in every LD. Nothing could stop me. What sort of things would I do if I had years of this kind of power?

Leaving the fire ogre behind for now, I fly over my city for a while and just let my dreaming brain show me what it can do. I look out at the waters of the nearby bay and think about using all of this overflowing confidence for some Task of the Month parasailing, but the dream soon ends.

Although this wasn't the right location, I did at least successfully find/conjure/whatever NewArtemis. Forgot all about swapping gestures and keywords, but it's all good... dry spell broken!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #99: Walking the Path

I'm walking a beautiful nature trail. I sense that this is a place of peace and sanctuary outside of a hospital. I remind myself that I need to be sure that I'm not dreaming and I quickly realize that this is a dream.

I hear two female voices from the trail up ahead and somehow I know that this is NewArtemis and her cousin. (No clue whether she even has a cousin IWL.) Art's cousin appears first, with Art trailing maybe 15 feet behind. "Come on!" calls Cousin. "You were right! It worked!"

Cousin walks right past me, saying, "Hey! I'm [NewArtemis]'s cousin. She was so nervous this wouldn't work. She's been spinning her ring nonstop. That's what she does when she's nervous." With that, Cousin disappears from the scene, never to return.

"Hey, [NewArtemis]!" I say, giving her a hug. "Good to finally see you!" ("Finally see you" is a little weird since I've encountered Art's DC a bunch of times -- was I implying this was "the real her" for the first time? Or just flapping my gums?)

"Did you just break your dry spell, CL?"

"I did!" We continue walking in the direction Art and Cousin were going, which has me doubling back toward wherever I came from. "Dude, I'm trying so hard to remember what I was supposed to do when we met up. I remember parasailing but I don't think that's right."

She rubs her forehead or kind of scratches her head. "I don't remember anything either. Definitely not that we're supposed to go parasailing." (Art called this one right -- the parasailing thing was Task of the Month, not anything we'd talked about.)

I hear road noise from nearby and I make some kind of comment about wondering where it's coming from. The scene shifts to where we're walking through the corridor of a hospital. I remember something I wanted to ask. "Hey, is it true what your cousin said? That you spin your ring when you're nervous?"

She shakes her head. "No, that's total bullshit. My ring is kind of loose in the winter though." On the nature trail it felt like spring to me, and I'm able to remember that IWL it's summer.

Art holds up her hands to demonstrate and I see that she's wearing rings on four or five of her fingers. Then she kind of wiggles her hands and now she has even more rings, including a thumb ring. She does this ring reconfiguration trick a few more times and I think it looks super cool. I wonder whether she's got the right number of fingers but she's moving around too much for me to count.

We come to a T-junction where another hall comes from the left to meet the one that we're walking. I see my two boys E and R running off down the hall to make mischief. Art asks why we wound up here of all places rather than the Alamo. I say that I don't know. The dream ends.

Blame it on the menthol.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #98: Menthol and Marriage

I'm watching my son E perform some kind of a play with other 3-year-olds. At one point he's supposed to pretend a wiffle ball bat is a magic wand, but of course he goes waving it around dangerously close to other kids' heads. I run over to intervene but another mother gets there first. "I'll take that," she says, plucking it out of his hands.

"Sorry! Thanks for grabbing that from him," I say, embarrassed that she got there first. The woman gives me an unfriendly "where were you?" look. This annoys me, but as the father of the kid who was going nuts with a wiffle ball bat, there's not much I can say. I look back over at the play and E, laughing merrily, leaps over a low stone wall and goes running off God-knows-where. I take off after him...

...and have a false awakening in complete darkness. I hear Wife stir in the darkness and she asks me why I'm awake. I tell her that "I had this crazy dream where [E] almost hit a bunch of other kids in the head with a wiffle ball bat." I move to settle back against the pillow and realize that it's way, way too dark in here. "I'm dreaming," I tell her.

"Mm-hmm," is her sleepy reply, and I hear her roll over.

"It's super dark in here," I say. "I can't even see you." She doesn't respond but she rolls over again, leaning her head against my shoulder and putting her hand on my chest. I'm feeling really frisky and I think about asking her whether she wants to "make out a little bit."

Before I can unleash this suave line on her, she exclaims, "God, your breath!" and rolls away in horror. As she says that, I notice that the inside of my mouth feels nasty and vaguely thick, like my pre-bed dental care has totally worn off.

My confidence is a bit punctured, but I respond, "This is a dream. I can't possibly have bad breath in a dream."

"Okay, if you're sure," she says.

I move toward where her voice is coming from and try to kiss her. I wind up just finding her feet, which start flailing around when I touch them. "Why are you facing the wrong way now?" I ask, confused and a little exasperated.

"I don't know!" she responds. Holding on to an ankle, I very clumsily sort of turn her around. Since it's dark, I can just imagine that she's now facing the right way. As I do, the light in the scene increases ever so slightly until I can see her. I've managed to put my "death breath" from earlier out of my mind, so we kiss.

As they say, "one things leads to another", and the dream ends with roughly 4 minutes of very vivid LD sex before I wake up. Describing this part in detail would be a little too personal and graphic, but even after having a fair number of lucid dreams, the realism and detail of LDs still amazes me.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #97: Just a Misunderstanding

I'm walking down a dark, endless hallway. All I can make out in this darkness is that the left side of the hall is set up with this endless series of art tables down its length. I'm moving slowly, afraid that I'll run into something unexpected.

A woman jumps out at me from the darkness, teeth bared, and a raised knife clenched in her fist. I jump back, terrified, and try to gather my wits to fight or run. The woman's demeanor suddenly softens and she throws the knife onto a nearby table where it lands with a clatter. I look at it, and the knife is even more frightening-looking than I'd thought at first -- it's the shape and size of a short sword!

She smiles at me, promising that "This is just a misunderstanding." She walks past me and I see that she's wearing very revealing lingerie. She looks amazing and as she brushes past, my hand grazes the skin of her torso. My feeble mind offers no resistance. I bet it was just a misunderstanding... She grips the fingers of my right hand in hers, leading me behind her down the hall.

I'm very excited about what's going to happen next. But something just doesn't feel right, and I suddenly remember that I'm married. As soon as I start thinking about Wife, I feel weak, rotten, and guilty following this scantily-clad stranger down a dark hall. I yank my fingers out of her grip, and she just keeps walking, disappearing into the darkness ahead. What the hell was I thinking? How could I be so stupid? And it hits me that this has to be a dream. I immediately feel grateful and relieved to have figured this out.

I'm someplace different now. Some kind of wood-panelled attic. It's dark and the picture looks a little grainy, almost like I'm viewing everything through night vision. There's a little toy fan on a railing nearby and I take it, turning it on. It's the kind with soft foam blades that are safe for kids. The fan blows a pleasant breeze in my face and I can will it to move faster or slower as I see fit. My hair starts blowing crazily around as I increase the wind speed.

I'm worried about overall stability in this scene, so I let the little foam fan blades buzz against my arm as they spin round and round. Then I run the little fan blades against the skin of my right cheek for a bit, surprised at how realistic this feels.

I play with the fan for a while as I hunt around the attic for some kind of interesting scenery or exit. There's a metal grating in the floor and a soft, white light is pouring out of it into the attic. The grating is slammed shut but I know that I can phase through it. I beging working up my will for a phase, thinking There's nothing there. Nothing at all. Before I can try the phase, though, the grating swings silently open. Well, that was easy.

I move toward the light, stepping into it and... wake up, seeing that the light and grating was really just my eyes seeing a light outside our hotel room filtering through the blinds.

The second of two LDs from the morning of 05/18/2013. This was a big, big dream, and this dream and I did not always get along. This was my first serious attempt at meeting NewArtemis for a dream sharing attempt.

I also got into a big fight with a powerful DC that escalated into a me against the world situation. I could have handled this a lot better. My self-control wasn't what it should be... but it was still kinda awesome.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #96: Clash at the Alamo

I'm Marty McFly from Back to the Future, driving my DeLorean on a set of rails that stand hundreds of feet over a bay. The DeLorean starts to shake as it picks up speed and before I can make a time jump, the rails end and the car goes plummeting toward the sparkling water.

I brace for impact and the DeLorean flies to pieces as it strikes the bay. Miraculously, I'm unharmed, and I thrash about for something to hold on to so that I can get my bearings and figure out what to do. One long, fin-like piece of metal from the car bobs to the surface and I grab onto it. The moment that I do, an unseen engine roars to life and takes off like a jet ski.

As I'm racing across the bay, I realize that this has to be a dream. After riding for a moment, I'm perhaps a hundred feet from shore. I leap off the impromptu "jet ski" and fly the remaining distance, landing in a stone plaza that stands at the water's edge.

I remember that I'm planning to meet NewArtemis at the Alamo for a shared dreaming experiment. I turn toward the water, raise my hands up in the air, and make an announcement to all of the DCs. Most of the passerby stop and turn to look at me. "The Alamo is right behind me! That's right -- Alamo right behind me!" I imagine it in detail, rebuilding my mental map, forgetting and scrubbing out the buildings that were there before and replacing it with my image of everything that I remember about the Alamo. I continue this until I can think of nothing of what's behind me except for this image of the Alamo.



I turn around, expecting to see the Alamo... and there it is! The stone's a little darker and the construction looks a little too new to be quite right, but it's more than close enough of a lookalike for me. I walk around past the front entrance to a courtyard. The geography is different in this dream from that of the real Alamo, and I come to a stone wall with a little alcove and a bench. There's a woman sitting on the bench and we look at each other immediately.

She gets up and approaches me right away. She doesn't look like NewArtemis' DC has in the past, but I'm not sure of anything yet. She speaks first: "I'm here to meet someone. How about you?"

"So am I," I say, studying her. She's roughly the same height as Art's DC but her skin is paler, her hair curlier, her build heavier, and her face is different -- broader, different nose, different shape... just different. "But you're not her, are you? I don't think you're [NewArtemis]."

She smiles noncommitally, but I continue. "That's okay," I continue. "Let's still do the passphrases and gestures." I speak my chosen word to the DC and perform my chosen gesture. She doesn't bother speaking a passphrase in return but she does perform a gesture. (These have been reported to a 3rd party who is not NewArtemis just in case she's able to guess them.)

"Well, I need to go!" the woman says. She walks out of the alcove and passes me. As she goes, she becomes a much older lady, blonde, mid-50s. She grows to an enormous height, probably close to 8 feet tall. She's wearing shorts and I see that her legs are covered with a crisscrossing patchwork of scars.

I contemplate following, but I'm distracted by a man who's sitting at the top of a stone wall nearby, staring at me with a malicious grin on his face. He's in his late 30s with close-cropped reddish-blonde hair. The guy keeps staring at me with that joyless grin and I know that he's looking for trouble with me. I want no part of it, so I turn and walk away.



He hops down from the wall and grips my right forearm with his right hand, twisting my arm around so that my hand is near my head. I try to pull my arm out of his grip but when I yank, it doesn't budge. He laughs, shaking his head as if he can't believe that I would bother trying to defy him. "You're never leaving here," he says. "I mean it. You are never leaving here." I yank my arm again but I feel as weak as a kitten.

I know I have to turn this around fast. I grab him by the back of the head with my left hand and begin to imagine my adversary as frail and lethargic. "You're so weak and tired," I tell him, trying to sound compassionate, even though I'm boiling with rage. "There's just no strength left in you at all." And I gently move to lay him down on a nearby table. I think of him as totally weak and barely able to move. His grip slips from my arm and he flops backward onto the table.

"And small," I say, pressing on his head with one hand and his feet with the other. He begins to shrink. His hair has turned jet black now, and his eyes close. I squeeze him together, thinking of him as so tiny, and soon he shrinks to the size of a child, then to the size of a baby, then disappears into his clothes entirely. My self-control cracks and I ball up his clothes, throw the bundle on the ground, and give it a vicious stomp. I wonder for a moment whether I've gone too far and hope for a moment that the bundle was empty. I walk through a nearby archway, not sticking around to find out more.

I emerge in a cafeteria. A table of 6 or 7 teenagers immediately looks up from their meals at me. "It's him," one of them says, and they all get to their feet and come after me. I fly through a nearby doorway and emerge in a large, empty room with a skylight. I fly up to the skylight, intending to phase through it, but something seems to restrain me from getting high enough. I run through a doorway into a drugstore that dead-ends in a frosted glass window. I vault toward it, phasing through onto a street scene.

There are police everywhere on the street. I know that they're looking for me. There are strange little ball-shaped hoverbots scanning the streets with cameras, also trying to track me down. I sprint up to one and kick it against a nearby wall. With a pop, it breaks into two smoking, fizzling halves.

Everything seems to be happening too fast for me to control. I run down the street, looking for some way out of this fear. I want to buy time to calm down, so I phase through the door of a nearby house. Cops are turning the place over while the family, a husband and wife and their little girl of about 8 are glued to the TV. One cop notices me as I walk in, but I swoop in on him, grab him from behind, and choke him unconscious. The other two cops don't seem to notice any of this, and the little family stares obliviously into their TV sets.

I watch the TV for a moment. It's some sort of political propaganda which claims that the moral code of their "great society" is built upon a foundation of classic arcade games like Centipede, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong. I'm torn -- on one hand, I find top-down, statist morality codes repugnant. On the other hand, I sure do love classic arcade games.

I phase out through the back of the house into the yard. The cops yell at me as I pass and I hear them calling for backup. The back yard is peaceful for a moment before the wail of what sounds like an air raid siren fills the air. I look up at the sky, feeling helpless, trying to find peace for a moment. But all I can think is They're coming for me. The dream ends...

First of two from the morning of 05/18/13.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #95: The Garage

I'm backing our SUV out of the driveway. As always, it's a little tight so I'm focused on what I'm doing. I catch sight of a bearded, creepy man advancing up the driveway toward the car. He makes me nervous, so I pull the car back into the garage.

Once I'm safely back in the driveway, I look back out to find that the man has vanished. Relieved, I get ready to leave again. But now Wife's car is at a funny angle that blocks me from leaving. Come on, [Wife], why would you park me in like that? I try shoving the back half of the car so it'll spin around and get out of my way. Amazingly, this works! I'm immediately sure that I'm dreaming.

I try turning Wife's car back and forth a few more times. It spins as smoothly as if it were on a turnstyle. I think about picking it up and flipping it over but realize that there are other things I need to be doing.

I remember that I have a goal of getting to the Alamo for a shared dreaming experiment. I try to look outside and see that the garage door is closing. It's only about 3 foot away from shutting completely. Even though I should know that this doesn't present any permanent impediment, it feels important that I don't let it shut on me. I hurry to the garage entrance, flop down on my side, and log roll under the garage door.

Outside now, I get to my feet on the driveway and look around. It's a cool, clear evening and the street's quiet. No weirdo in sight. I plan to Hulk-jump to the Alamo but as I begin to make my move, the dream ends.

Although I didn't get my goals accomplished in this lucid dream, I did meet my first supposed "dream guide". Not as... competent as I might have expected.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #94: The "Dream Guide"

I'm walking down a sidewalk past a construction zone. One of the construction workers is crouched down low to measure something. I notice that he's using our diaper bag to make the measurement. I wonder what on Earth is going on but I'm in a hurry. You know what? I don't even want to know. I wait until the worker isn't looking and then just swipe the bag, throw it over my shoulder, and forget about it.

A little further on, I pass a couple walking with their daughter, a blonde girl of about 7 or 8. The girl glances at me as I pass. I think nothing of this at first, but after a few steps, I'm overcome by this feeling of being watched. I turn around to look behind me and the little girl is following me now, floating a couple of inches off of the ground. She has an unsettling, dead-eyed expression, and I hurry to get away. She's faster than I am, though, and as she seizes my hand, a horror movie "dun DUUNNNN!!" soundtrack plays. At first I'm spooked, but the effect is so ham-handed that I become lucid.

"This is just a dream," I tell her.

She smiles happily, no longer the fright figure of just moments ago. "It is!" she exclaims, dropping my hand and raising her arms over head triumphantly. "And I'm going to help guide you through it!"

Cool, I could use some help... "So that means you're a Dream Guide?"

"Oh, okay!" she says, not inspiring my confidence.

"Can you help me out with teleportation?" I ask, walking down the street with her. The road soon turns to cobblestone as we move away from the construction site. There are fewer people around now.

She shakes her head. "I haven't learned that kind of stuff yet..."

"Okay," I say. "Well, my goal for this dream was..."

She interrupts and speaks really rapidly: "You're going to summon NewArtemis and have her turn into a werewolf!" She grins, proud to show off her ability to read my mind. (She refers to Art by her DV handle.)

I smile, amused. "That's right... [NewArtemis]. The plan is to use a handshake summon. Can you help me do that?"

"Oh no," she says. "I haven't learned how to do summoning yet."

The street seems to be ending so I hop casually over the buildings at the end of the street, float over them, and land on another cobblestoned street just beyond. The little girl follows, floating just slightly behind. We're at a T-intersection and to my left is the mouth of a dark tunnel. I say, "How about I show you how to do that handshake summon?"

She nods eagerly and I extend my hand off to my right, out of sight, and repeatedly imagine NewArtemis performing the handshake. After a while, I feel the beginnings of a handshake. The little girl gasps and claps her hands. "What's it look like?" I ask. The girl doesn't answer and as I look at her now, I realize that she looks like a teenager and that her hair has lengthened and changed color. "Am I changing you?" I ask, starting to feel confused. It occurs to me how confusing it is to look at the girl while trying to imagine NewArtemis. It's like trying to remember how a song goes when something else is blaring on the radio. I feel like I might be morphing the girl into NewArtemis but I'm unsure whether I should switch to trying that. I'm becoming distracted.

I feel an insistent tap in the palm of my hand, as if the middle finger of the person I'm shaking hands with was repeatedly poking me and trying to get my attention. My mind races between the summoning effort, the tapping in my hand, the girl's shifting appearance, and my own indecision as to whether the summoning is ready for me to turn and look. Soon, the dream collapses.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #93: Rolling

I'm in an old-school first-person shooter video game. It's some sort of very metallic, clean-looking sci-fi setting, maybe a spaceship or some kind of alien base on a distant planet. I've got a numeric health meter in the lower-right of my view, ranging from 0 to 100. I don't seem to have any kind of weapon, but I'm speeding around the level, dodging enemy fire from generic-looking storm trooper-style enemies.

At some point, a laser beam starts waving wildly around the room in front of me. I'm not sure what it does so I try not to touch it. I slip up at some point, though, and the laser grazes my leg. My health instantly drops from 100 to 7. This seems unfair and really upsets me. I feel like I'd been doing well and have been punished way too severely for this minor slip.

I perform a diving roll to dodge the beam and I notice that I'm actually experiencing the sensation but that it feels different from waking life. I realize that I'm dreaming and the scene suddenly looks less like a space ship and more like a dimly-lit room with hardwood flooring. It feels a bit dark and unstable, so I perform another diving roll since that seems to be something I've got down. This goes well, so I immediately do another one.

I realize that I'm having a really good time doing these so I keep at it. I figure that I'll just keep dive-rolling until I figure out what it is that I want to do with this LD. I remember that I wanted to try NewArtemis and/or Xanous out on their werewolf transformations, but I'm having a little trouble remembering what specifically I needed them to do. I stop rolling after 5 or 6 tries to give myself a chance to think.

I'm in some kind of long, dark hallway with hardwood flooring and occasional doors leading off adjoining rooms. The scene feels very empty and I'm worried that I'm understimulated, so I go back to dive-rolling for a while. I do this for quite a while, probably another 20 rolls or so. I then decide that I should reverse directions, so I attempt a back flip. This isn't something I've actually tried in waking life, so I'm curious how I'll do. I go right over but land on my shins rather than on my feet. Still, not half-bad!

I perform a couple of other back flips, and on about the 4th attempt, land proudly on my feet. I'm in a bedroom now with a window that's letting in some morning sunlight. There's a man of about 25 sitting on a bed, his head in his hands. He looks up at me and I see that he has a goatee, a nose ring, a lip ring, and at least one earring. He sees me and tries to say something, but I'm being pulled in the opposite direction and can't hear what he's trying to say. He stands up and walks toward where I am, but I'm drifting away faster. He tries to shout something, but I don't hear any of it, and I wake up.

Last night was a potpourri of lots and lots of unstable little WILDs and DEILDs. Very very confusing night, but I was glad that I managed to tough it out and keep spooling up more dreams.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #92: DEILDs and Demigods

The WILD sticks me into a hazy, insubstantial scene. I have a dream body, but I can't tell where I am. I try to Hulk jump to someplace new and upon landing, I wake up...

I hold still for DEILD, repeating "here and now" and "I'm dreaming". Everything's still dark, but at some point, I feel like I'm dreaming. I mentally move my right hand to my face, pinch my nose shut, and try to breathe, blowing right through. I get out of bed, fall through the floor, and have a false awakening back in bed.

I'm still suspicious, so I hit the nose pinch again and confirm that I'm still dreaming. This instability has rattled me a bit, so I wait for a dream scene to form, temporarily forgetting how to handle myself in the void. Rather than take me anyplace, the dream fades out and I wake up for real.

Come on. Stay in there. I try not to worry too much about this, but I'm a little rattled. I stay still, working for DEILD, and finally a scene starts forming that looks like the inside of a cave. I try rubbing my hands on the floor of the cavern and it feels real -- I'm in.

I'm crouched on a long downward slope in a cavern of red rock. The tunnel is large and well-lit and a number of DCs in street clothes are watching me, seemingly anticipating that I'll do something. I decide to put on a little show, hopping into the air, floating gently along the slope for about 25 feet. There are gasps of astonishment and a crowd starts to gather.

"I'm dreaming all of this," I explain to the crowd.

Murmurs of disagreement from the crowd. One man walks up and says, "No. I've done lucid dreaming myself, and this is totally different." The people in the crowd start trying to convince me that I'm a demigod demonstrating my powers. I half-heartedly object, but they are unanimous, convincing, and very persistent. Eventually I'm persuaded and lose lucidity. I perform various dream control stunts like telekenesis and producing lightning. The whole time I think that they're god powers, even gratefully noting that lucid dreaming was great practice for becoming a "demigod". I do this for a while, shamelessly enjoying the adoration.

I wake up, slightly annoyed at my own stupidity. Quick bathroom trip, back to bed for a second WILD. I emerge on a street scene with several eye-catching female DCs walking by in different directions. I realize that I'm totally staring, think briefly about menthol, and then wake up.

I DEILD back into the void. I imagine that I'm swinging a gladius for a bit and eventually I find myself in a kitchen that looks a bit like my own. I'm muttering something about "sulbutiamine" (a drug I'd read a mention of recently.) An Asian woman in a business suit gives me an unfriendly look. "I've taken sulbutiamine," she says. Her demeanor darkens and her eyes turn completely black. "And I've taken drugs that made it so I never rotted in my coffin." Her face has grown pallid and vaguely zombie-like, and she advances slowly toward me.

I'm very creeped out by her but mostly I'm annoyed that she's trying to inject this nightmare nonsense into what was planned to be my cool lucid dream. I turn away and decide to just think about something else so she'll fade out. I walk over to the window and look out into the night. The dream fades and I wake up.

I go for DEILD once more... I'm on a street scene, standing next to a cute, tall-ish redhead. She's smiling warmly, and she has her arms open like she wants to hug. I feel exhausted and grateful, and I gladly hug her. She nibbles my ear and I respond by kissing her neck, coming close to losing lucidity. I shake it off, though, thinking that I need to ask her to help me back on the right track with this crazy sequence of dreams. I'm struggling to find the words, but she seems to understand, pulling away and somehow drawing up even taller. Now she's truly a giant, about nine feet tall. She reaches down, places a hand on the back of my head, and guides me toward a huge television.

My wife and kids are here playing some kind of video game and they happily invite me to join them. The interface is like a super-slick version of Steam. Soon there's a controller in my hands and we're playing a combination music and puzzle game. As I'm trying to learn how it works, I lose lucidity again, but still have a good time playing for a while. I keep thinking of great enhancements for the game and for this "Steam" interface and the ideas keep winding up in the game itself. I'm amazed by this. I feel impressed but sad that the developers "already thought of all my great ideas." We all play together for some time, and after that the dream fades to oblivion.