CanisLucidus

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #241: Not Quite Movie Night

I wander into a still-lit movie theater and see my cousin “SU” sitting next to one of his close college friends on his right, his two children on the left. How cool that they’re here! I’m looking forward to joining them for the movie, and the positive emotions remind me of dreaming, making me lucid.

Even though I’m lucid, I still want to walk down and join them for the movie just the same. As I’m about to head down, though, I realize that I’m not wearing a shirt. This bothers me, so I turn around, expecting to find a shirt on the seats behind me.

And there it is, a black polo shirt! Unfortunately, there’s also a discarded condom lying next to it. It doesn’t look obviously “used” but still, eww. I force-push it away with a wave of my hand and it sails out of sight. Unfortunately, even though I don’t physically touch it, I still feel it slap the back of my hand. Gross, glad that’s over!

I grab the shirt and put it on over my head. It’s getting hung up on my big head and just generally twisting around and seeming to go on forever no matter how much I pull it down. I remember my intent to perform a Task of the Month with Dreamer and start getting really antsy that I’m stuck doing this silly errand instead.

I address Dreamer, saying something like, “I can’t believe this! I’m really trying to find you!”

I flail around in the shirt and Dreamer’s voice responds: “Relax, stop struggling…” Yeah, she’s right… I relax my mind and put my arms up in a confident show-off pose and the shirt slips right on! The theater is still the same, but feels a little less stable now. I lunge for the back of someone’s seat, feeling a little worried about how stable the scene is, and the dream darkens into the void.

I open my eyes and see a dresser with a strange shape on it. Even closer to me is Wife, the two of us lying on our stomachs, facing one another during the nap. (I’m still dreaming, but this is precisely how we fell asleep together for this nap.) Wife looks completely lifelike, but I know I’m still dreaming and that this is a false awakening. I try to move my left arm, but I can’t... my mind has even simulated REM atonia! I marvel for a moment at the deadened feeling of my left arm before attempting an OBE-style roll out of my body. The dream doesn’t hold together through this, though, and I wake up.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #240: Voices

I’m relaxing in a cabin with Wife and my kids E and R. I step outside through a wooden door, catching a view of a beautiful, placid lake. It feels dreamlike, and when I consider my situation, I realize that I’m dreaming.

I decide that I want to attempt the patronus task again with Dreamer to once and for all answer the question of whether I’ll produce a magnificent mythical creature… or the dreaded “pootronus” that she has promised me. “Dreamer, you’re here!” I call out, but she’s nowhere to be seen.

I walk around the edge of the lake and see a distant wooden fenceline. “Ah okay, you’re right behind that fence!” I say, and a woman steps out from behind the fence and begins walking away toward a large wooden building in the distance. She’s got purple hair, so I’m sure that it’s Dreamer!

I hop and fly after her, ending up in the wooden building with her. She’s still somewhat distant so I call out something to her about wanting to do the patronus task. She turns around and calls out, “First say something in your accent voice!” I take this to mean that she wants me to say something in an Australian accent.

“Let’s see how my accent voice sounds,” I say, sounding totally Aussie. Way better than waking life. I kind of talk over Dreamer saying something about “singing”, which I don’t catch.

She grins. “Oooh, how about something in your noise voice?” I’m not sure what she means by a "noise voice" but I notice how precisely her voice matches her waking life voice. I move closer to her, thinking what a “noise voice” could be, and as I’m lost in this question, Dreamer disappears.

I look around, calling out for her until a woman in her late 20s with glasses and dark, curly hair emerges from nearby a stack of hay. As she walks toward me, I say, “What am I worried about? You’re right over here.” She seems to be somewhat agreeable to getting transformed, but when I get close, she’s trying to say something that I can’t quite hear. I reach out but my hand passes through her shoulder.

I keep looking, calling out here and there without much of a plan, but no DCs appear this time. I say a rather pathetic, “Come back, I miss you!” not long before the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #239: Patronus, Part Two

I’m reading a comic book with Wife about spies on a dangerous ocean voyage. There’s a lot of discussion about an acronym MBME and what it means. The meaning keeps changing, which makes me feel vaguely suspicious, but I don’t become lucid yet.

Somehow we become a part of the story and wind up in an RV that we decide is a classroom for my son E. We meet with one of his teachers for a while and at the end of the meeting I start gathering up all of my stuff. Stack of papers. Backpack with my work laptop. Our test iPad from the office. I’m exasperated that I brought so much stuff and left it lying around everywhere, and the whole thing overall feels strange. As Wife and I duck out of the RV, I consider my situation one more time and I become lucid.

We’re outside in a grassy field. I still have the goal of summoning my patronus with Dreamer, which I misremember as wanting to summon the patronus with Wife. “Come here, let’s summon my patronus!” I tell her.

“Oh, okay!” she responds. I take her up in a hug and kiss her for a moment. Then I extend my left arm out and expect a patronus to form.

There’s nothing at first, but I say, “Look, there’s something,” and now there are wisps of silvery, smoky mist flowing from my fingertips. The wisps coalesce into some little critter who leaps to the ground behind a passing DC. I lose sight for a moment and start looking around to see where the patronus has gone.

“Look, he’s so cutie!” says Wife. I turn to find my patronus, a silvery, wispy little bunny, hopping around in the grass under the RV. He turns back to look toward us and his little nose twitches. He returns to nibbling at the grass.



Wife says a couple more things about how cute he is, and I notice that the ground is becoming insubstantial. I think that maybe I rushed around too much in this dream, and it soon ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #238: Patronus Interruptus

I'm standing in a busy hotel lobby thinking about how I need a mini-USB cable to charge my phone. I reach down and dig one out of my backpack but realize that I’ve actually just stolen it from this other guy crouched nearby. “Sorry about that, dude!” I say, clapping him on the back. He turns to me and smiles politely. He’s an Indian guy and I recognize him as a random guy from the shopping area where I met Wife for lunch earlier in the week. I realize that I’m dreaming.

I’m excited to be lucid and the overreaction starts pulling me out of the dream and into the void. I rub my hands together, determined not to lose the dream. My hands feel stiff and oddly angled and I start tumbling forward over and over. I keep at it, though, saying something like, “I am having this lucid dream!”

After a bit of a fight, the scene resolves itself into a room on the second story house with two windows. I move toward the first window, attempting to phase, but the window feels stiff and resistant. I move to the other window and attempt it again, once again having trouble. This irritates me and makes me stubborn, so I head right for the wall this time instead, saying out loud that “There’s nothing there, you know.” I cut cleanly through the wall this time and float down to the front yard.

I remember my intent to summon Dreamer and say, “[Dreamer], yeah, you’re just… you’re right over there!” and gesture at the front entrance of the house. Dreamer steps out from the shadow of the front entrance. She looks like herself apart from her hair being pink rather than purple. She’s wearing a purple jumper that looks like fleece.

We approach one another and I realize that something seems off about her personality. She seems not to have much personality at all yet but I feel relaxed about this and that if we keep talking she’ll get set right. I give her a peck on the bridge of her nose and she reacts with surprise, smiles, and runs off down the street. I jog along behind her, and start telling her about her appearance in a previous non-lucid from that night. “Hey, in this last dream, you’d written a book!”

Dreamer stops. The area we’re in looks abandoned and urban. Now she has a huge smile on her face and seems like herself. “Tell me about this book!”

“Oh, I almost forgot!” I say, and give her a hug. It’s nice and I remember how she used thoughts of our friendship to produce her patronus. I also remember her words of “encouragement” a few nights ago for my own patronus attempt:

“I wonder if your patronus will be a giant turd!”

Chuckling a little, I extend my left hand out while continuing the hug with my right arm. Dreamer and I are both watching my outstretched fingers with anticipation but when I try to shout, “Expecto patronum!” I do a choking gurgle instead. I get antsy and lose the dream.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #237: I Melt with You
I'm standing high up on a viewing platform, looking over a view of the sparkling ocean below. Wife and my son E are standing nearby, looking silently out over the water. I realize that this is a dream.

I look back and E has disappeared. Wife doesn't react, and I tell her, "Don't worry. This is a dream."

She nods, smiling slightly. "Mm-hmm..."

I look out at the ocean again, resting my hands on the metal railing, which is cold to the touch. The sand of the beach down below has been replaced by a formless gray. I look back. Wife is still there, but a big chunk of the ocean is missing now.

I move toward Wife, cutting my eyes around the scene, more and more pieces falling into gray. Even the platform goes to gray. Soon there's nothing left but Wife and a vertical strip of ocean and sky to her left.

I wrap my arms around Wife and start intensely kissing her. Before long my vision goes entirely gray but I can still feel the sensation of kissing her. I run the fingers of my right hand through her hair, following the moment through until the end of the dream.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #236: Chrome

I'm standing outside in a grassy field. I'm in front of a car that looks like a blue 50s Chevrolet. I'm marvelling at the chrome bumpers when I realize that I'm dreaming.



I take in the details of the Chevy for a moment. It's a beautiful car and looks either completely new or freshly restored. I rest my hand on the hood and to my surprise it crumples like paper, leaving a large indentation.

I rub my hand on top of the indentation, trying to bend it back into place. This works, but it sends ripples of motion throughout the car's hood. The car starts to move, and I step back as it rears up onto its tires as if they were hind legs! Now the car's standing over me. The front grille and headlights stare down at me like a face. The chrome bumper is turned up in a half-smile.

"What are you?" I ask. No answer, so I continue: "What do you represent?"

The Chevy moves its lips as if to speak, but no words come out.

"Are you Dad?" More movement from the bumper, but no more words before the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #235: Plush

I'm walking through an opulent hotel room, excitedly considering the idea of lucid dreaming. I take a moment to consider the idea that I'm having a lucid dream right now… and realize that I am!

I'm standing on a fancy rug, looking through the marble-floored living room out of a picture window that offers a view of the sky. There's another hallway further on and I see a couple of DCs milling about. I want to see what's outside of the room, though, so I open the door to the hallway outside of the room.

Before stepping through, I think to get myself really pulled into the scene by plunging my fingers into the plush rug. I love the way that it feels on my hands, so I dive into it face first and give it an experimental lick.

I crawl out into the hallway on my hands and knees, and the carpeting out here is just as plush and and nice as the rug. There's a group of children playing out here, all of them in the 6- to 8-year-old range. "I'm having a lucid dream!" I explain. One of the girls giggles.

I turn away from the kids and crawl down the hall, delighting in the feel of the carpet. I faceplant again and enjoy the feeling of my tongue on the carpet as I move forward like a snowplow.

I hear the kids laughing behind me and I get up, turning to look. All of the children are trying to imitate me, crawling along on the carpet feeling it with their hands or licking it. I say something like, "You don't really have to do that in a lucid dream." I wonder if I'm teaching them to emphasize the wrong stuff in their own lucid dreams. I move away from them down the hall and the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #234: Tavern

Wife and I are standing across the table from another couple, a guy with brown hair and a lady with blond hair. The table is covered with a messy array of partially consumed peanut butter jars and jelly jars, which we’re examining in order to do some kind of inventory.

The guy and I are talking about how hard it is to find time for important non-work related activities like this jar thing. He says how impressed he is with his wife for finding time to run and that she wears “SXN 400 running shorts”. He says something about how hot Wife probably looks in those.

For some reason, I don’t find this impolite. Instead, I turn to Wife and tell her she’s beautiful, and compliment her for staying in such good shape even with the challenges of having and raising two kids. She accepts the compliment without awkwardness (tough for her in front of people), scooches closer to me and begins a long monologue. She’s switching rapidly from subject to subject and I’m having a hard time understanding her. I realize that I must be dreaming.

I grab on for a nose pinch, remembering to calm myself and just breathe in and out. Wife’s speech becomes even more rapid and confusing. I tell her that I’m having a lucid dream, but she’s talking over me. I walk around the room, continuing to calm myself and breathe through the nose pinch, but my vision goes dark, like the void. Wife’s voice is still there, though, and I just keep walking, having faith that the scene will right itself.

Now a doorway with a stairwell appears in my vision. Good. I walk forward, enter the stairwell, and walk down to a nearby window. I phase through the window and lower wall, my foot getting slightly stuck on the way out, but no problem. I’m outside on a street again, and now I attempt to fly. I have some trouble with this, so I do a quick Hulk-jump to regain some confidence.

I remember my intent to summon Dreamer and take her… somewhere. I’ll have to figure that part out later I guess. “Dreamer, youuuuu… are right around the corner!” I say, just before turning the corner.

When I turn the corner, there is a young woman there! She doesn’t look all that much like Dreamer. Hair is blond rather purple, and her overall appearance is different. She's plainer, younger, shorter than Dreamer, but I don’t worry about that. I figure that she'll become herself after I just spend some time walking around with her for a while.

“Dreamer!” I say. “It’s you! Hey, purple up for me!” (meaning “change your hair to purple.”)

“Hey!” she says. Her voice is completely wrong, and she even has an American accent. I don’t worry about it though. “Normally I would, but I’m just not feeling it today!” Her blond hair instantly disappears and now she’s bald as a cueball.

With this, she races off in a run, and I run behind her to keep up. She’s really fast and I’m having a little trouble keeping up. I encounter the sign from the previous dream that reads “←Tavern→” and remember it from before.

We run down a few streets before entering what looks like a train station. I know there’s something specific place I’d planned to take her, but I’ve forgotten it. “I think I’m supposed to take you to a tavern for Task of the Month.” (wrong!)

She seems to consider this. “Whatever it is, I’ll think of it soon.” With this, she twirls once and runs up a set of stairs.

I run after her, thinking that my plan was to go to a tavern with her and do some lucid drinking. I’m not completely confident that this is right (it’s not!) but I go with it for now. As I’m partway up the steps, the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #233: Rucksack

I have a false awakening in a hotel room. It’s dark and my oldest son E is standing nearby. He asks me where Wife is and when I don’t know the answer, I feel terribly worried.

Another false awakening, and this time Wife is lying on the bed. She stirs and sits up. Confused, I complain to her that she shouldn’t have just disappeared earlier without telling us where she was going. She says something strange about the time of day and after a moment of feeling strange, I realize that this is a dream.

I walk to the hotel room window and phase through to the outside, finding myself 25 feet or so up in the air. I drift gently to the ground, finding myself in an alley during daytime. I’m behind a brick building and sign with fancy lettering reads:

“←Tavern→”

This sounds interesting, and apparently either way will take me there. I hop along through city streets until I come to a plaza at the base of a tall office building. I quite unexpectedly encounter an old friend “Rucksack”.

“Hi!” I say. I’m surprised, because he and I haven’t really talked in a few years.

“Hey,” he says. “I really like the stuff that you’re doing on DreamViews and I wanted to buy you some extra <dream control tricks?>. When you log on, you’ll see a $50 donation. That’s from me!”

I thank him, and he quickly leaves. I wonder what this new dream control could be. Unsure what to do next, I bound joyously around the plaza for a bit before the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #232: Chasing Shadows

I’m alone on a dirt road at night, and I know that this has to be a dream. The dirt road stretches forever in either direction, but that’s fine. I don’t intend to follow it anyway.

I clearly remember my intent to summon Dreamer, and I extend my right hand. “I know you’re already here,” I say. I don’t feel anything just now, but I don’t worry about it.

I look down at the road and see my shadow there below, alone. I look up and speak out loud to Dreamer about where I’m intending for us to go. I still don’t feel her hand but when I look down, there’s the vague shape of a woman’s shadow standing next to mine, her hand seemingly extended to where mine would be.

Good enough, then. I jump into the air and start flying upward toward the stars. After a few moments something feels wrong and I fall into the void.

I keep talking to Dreamer, reminding her and myself of where I’m going to take her in this dream, but I’m still missing that feel of a physical hand. I feel nervous that I’m spending too long in the void without a plan and I’ve forgotten what I’d intended to do in this situation.

I bring my hands back together and start rubbing them. It feels like I’m giving up on the summon, and I feel a little frustrated. The hand keeps me in the dream as I fly through the void. It works for a good while, but I’ve lost touch with my plans for the dream now.

I hold my hands up in front of my face, staring at them until I can make out their shape and a little bit of the detail. I’m lost, and without me driving the action forward, the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #231: Fedoras and Flatulence

I wake up feeling disappointed that I didn’t manage to have a lucid dream. Well, too late for that -- Wife and the kids are up and getting ready and my folks are here too. I feel grumpy and sorry for myself, but I get started with the day. Lots of mundane stuff happens and eventually we all wind up sitting at a cafeteria table across from a pedestal.

The pedestal fascinates me. It has the vague outline of a statue on it, which will fade from looking fully physical to almost completely invisible. It’s a statue of Artemis, and I know that nobody can see it but me because I’m the only lucid dreamer in this whole place. As I’m staring at this statue, a brown-haired woman in her early 20s sits down in the chair next to me, a little closer than appropriate. She touches me on the shoulder flirtatiously and leans in. “Hi! What are we looking at?”

I feel uneasy about how close she’s getting but also attracted and flattered. I feel like I don’t know how much information I should reveal about being a lucid dreamer, so my answer is guarded: “That’s supposed to be a statue there.”

“Well, what do you see?” she asks.

The truth: “It’s a statue of Artemis. I can see it because I’m a lucid dreamer.”

“That’s amazing!” she says. She makes a few more comments about lucid dreaming and then stands up. Her inner thigh brushes my left hand as she gets up and I again get that mix of attraction and discomfort. She smiles. “You should call me if you ever want to talk to me about it.”

I think that I’d have no way to call her because I don’t have her phone number. I’m about to ask her what it is but stop when I realize how bad that would sound. This all feels strange to me now. I look to my right and my family isn’t here with me. It’s just me. I take the nose pinch reality check and I blow right through, becoming semi-lucid but just not completely convinced. .This feels so real, am I sure? I hit a second nose pinch and now I’m fully lucid.

I get up from the table and move into an adjacent room, remembering my intent to summon Dreamer. My go-to method has been transforming an existing DC into her, so I look around at the few dream characters wandering this scene and confidently grab the nearest one. It’s a short, pudgy Asian male, overall a really abysmal candidate for this transform into Dreamer. I want to be confident though so I go right ahead with trying to transform this dude.

I press my hands along his scalp, spreading Dreamer’s purple hair color along his scalp. He’s smiling and kind of chuckling at this, seeming to find it funny. The purple is coming out but whatever paint is coming out of my hands feels really clump and uneven. The guy’s scalp is kind of sweaty, too, and the purple paint even starts running down his face. His hair isn’t even half purpled before I get frustrated after a long time trying. Okay, maybe he looks too different, try changing the face. I start mashing on his face with my hands, trying to change his look into Dreamer. He seems to be getting kind of pissed at me for this and the whole thing just becomes awkward.

Okay, move on. I leave and walk into another room with a strange, gently wavy floor. I try the behind-the-back summon, narrating that “I feel Dreamer’s hand over here,” but I feel this doubt like I’m not doing things properly. I call out “[Dreamer]!” (using her real name) and vaguely hear a response, and I decide that she must be up ahead in some nearby room. I decide to use my old trick of demanding that the dream show me the way, and now when I call for Dreamer, a doorway glows with bright yellow light.

I continue moving through another series of 3-4 doors this way, demanding to be shown the way and the dream complying. I wind up in a large, cavernous room filled with DCs. There is a group of nuns near one side of the room that are dressed in unusual red habits. A large number of adults wander the room (more women than men) and close to the center of the room there’s a shallow pit where a large group of children are playing together. I ask the dream to show me where Dreamer is, but the glow effect always seems to be slightly out of view, frustrating me. I demand out loud that “Everybody point to where [Dreamer] is in this room.”

Every character in the scene turns toward a young, blond girl that’s playing in the pit. She’s about 6, her hair much shorter and lighter than I would have imagined, but I feel like this is her. I walk up to the child, who looks up at me with a goofy, slightly crooked-toothed smile. I place my hands on the sides of her head and say, “This is you, you’re [Dreamer].” As I say this, she grows to full height and now she looks completely like herself, apart from the fact that she has the little girl’s short, blond hair.

“Thank you for finding me!” she says. Dreamer puts her arms around my neck and we briefly hug. Almost immediately, all of the DCs in the room move toward, all of them smiling at her, greeting her, and wanting to interact with her. Some of them congratulate her. I stand by a few feet to the side, interested and amused. As each of the DCs greet her in turn, at one point a man comes up with a tiny fedora and placed it onto her head as if he’s crowning her.

The happy throng of DCs congregate around Dreamer as they all walk toward one of the room’s exits. I feel sad to see her leave the dream scene so early but all of this feels very natural to me, so I don’t resist it.

Once I find myself alone, I walk through another exit into an office scene with lots of people working at desks. It looks like we’re high up in a skyscraper. I make some mischief in here with telekinesis, throwing a plastic sign, tossing a desk, picking up one poor guy who’s just trying to get his work done. The office workers start seeming uncomfortable with my presence, so I look for an exit.

Off to the side is a platform with a waiting helicopter, so I climb aboard. Another DC tries to get on with us, and there’s a brief argument about who should get to come aboard. The pilot says (referring to me) “He can do whatever he wants,” and we take off. We fly over the city for a good while and I spy a few buildings that look reminiscent from spots in Breaking Bad. Eventually the helicopter hovers over a forest clearing near a building and I jump out. The helicopter flies off and I’m alone again.

I remember that I have a lucid dare from Dreamer that requires me to perform a Super Advanced Fart (one which is “very long, loud, and powerful”). At first I feel like this will be impossible. My body isn’t giving me “the signal” that anything can be conjured up. I know that this is a dream, though, so I convince myself that a bubble of pressure is forming in my stomach. Once that’s there, a good push sends me into a full eruption. The emerging fart is ultra loud and super powerful, lifting me gently into the air. It feels like there’s a hand or a platform under my butt lifting me upward. I wobble around unsteadily in the air, leaning left and right and bobbing a bit. It feels like I have a jet pack on.

I’d hoped to have enough propulsion to reach lower earth orbit, but I never get more than 15-20 feet off the ground. As the “event” ends, I settle back down to the ground. Dare achieved!

I’ve still got some dream left, so I decide to find Dreamer again. I ask the dream to show me where she is, and a door glows on a nearby building. I head for the door but before I reach it, I have a false awakening at the foot of a bed. Wife is lying on the bed, completely unclothed, writing on a notepad. I feel extreme sexual attraction and I curl up next to her. The moment that I kiss her neck, though, her clothes reappear. Then she shows me that she’s making a list of personality quirks that makes her good at Jeopardy questions. I’m still trying to figure out how to turn things frisky when my dad walks by on the way to the kitchen. The mood is officially ruined, so I get up for the day before waking up for real.

I've posted the lucid dream at the bottom of this entry but I'm going to start with some non-lucids. I don't usually post my non-lucids in the Dream Journal, but this was a cool series of four NLDs all from the same night as the lucid. All of the NLDs featured Dreamer as well as some other DV folks. The first dream about the magical fox was probably one of the funniest I've ever had.

NLD#1: The Magical Fox

Lots of people on DreamViews are in a big, active study group on advanced dream control. There are 40 or 50 of on this subforum and everyone’s got workbooks that they update regularly. Definite participants include me, Dreamer, Xanous, sivason, NyxCC, and Sensei.

There’s tons of excitement and everyone’s improving rapidly. At some point, we come up with a strange plan to capture a rare, magical animal to use as a class pet. This will somehow improve everyone’s dream control even more. We come up with this awful plan to cut down all of these ancient trees in an old growth forest to drive the creature out of its habitat so that we can more easily capture it.

I’m embarrassed to say that I and nearly everyone else in the class was totally for this plan, but Dreamer is dead-set against it. She objects, begging the study group not to do this and not to destroy this creature’s way of life just to improve our skills a little bit. But everybody’s too excited about the plan to listen.

Dreamer puts a desperate plan into motion. She announces in her workbook that, “I just GASSED!” (Meaning “passed gas”.) And somehow this amazingly strong, room-clearing stench hits the nose of every DV member at same time that she makes this announcement. Everyone stops what they’re doing, horrified.

Now that she has farted her way into everyone’s attention, Dreamer gives a rousing, moving speech about how what we’re about to do is wrong and that we have to change out ways. She says that this magical creature should be free and that it should serve as an inspiration for us out there in its natural home. We shouldn’t be destroying the place that it loves.

She convinces everyone and we halt our plans to deforest the fox's home. Instead, the study group travels out to the forest to commune with the creature and learn advanced dream control this way. The dream ends with a scene of several people sitting down meditating and several others talking about how inspired we all were by Dreamer’s speech.

NLD #2: The Dreamsign
After Dreamer and I exchanged Skype messages during WBTB, I had the following dream (and a huge missed dreamsign):

I look over to see that I’ve received a skype message from Dreamer. It says, “You did wind up falling asleep, right?” I feel guilty for still being “awake” and looking at the clock instead of trying harder to get into a dream. I fret about this for a bit before finally replying with something jokey.

It never occurs to me that she was basically trying to tell me that I’m dreaming right now.

NLD #3: The Watch
This one’s a little hazy, but Dreamer and I have come into possession of a complex, advanced wristwatch that an elderly black woman constructed by hand.

From the top of a parking garage, we get into a car and ride around in the back seat, me watching as Dreamer disassembles the watch into all of these tiny pieces. I worry a bit about how to keep the pieces from getting lost in the car.

We go to some other building to do something important and possibly dangerous, but I can’t recall what was involved.

NLD #4: Hot Street Fighter II
This dream was a cross between skyping and exchanging DV forum posts, the conversation taking place entirely between me and Dreamer.

Dreamer: “I had a dream where you had these super HOT scenes with ladies from Street Fighter II.”

She goes on to mention that she was telling a couple of other DV friends (including KristaNicole07) about the dream. She asks, “I wanted to know if it was okay to tell them you don’t have a beard.”

I ask why they’d need to know that and Dreamer responds: “It’s really relevant to what happened in this dream.” Whatever the reason is that this is relevant, it appears to be highly amusing to her.

After I woke up from this one it occurred to me that there is only one female character in the original Street Fighter II. Maybe we can count Cammy of Super Street Fighter II. Because otherwise, the dream implied that I had a “hot” scene with Blanka or Ken or one of the rest of the crew.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #230: Bold Talk

I’m at home, walking through the master bathroom toward the gym. I’m clumsy, staggering around like I’m dizzy or drunk. Out of nowhere there’s a buzzing noise, electric and unbearably loud. It reminds me of the transition into a dream and I realize that I’m dreaming right now.

I don’t feel stable right away but I furiously rub my hands together, immediately remembering my goal to try to gain total control and confidence in this dream.

“This is my lucid dream!” I bark. “I can do anything!” The gym looks dark and I don’t want to double back. It doesn’t matter, I remember right away that the next thing I want to do is phase outside. I phase through an external wall, expecting to end up outdoors but end up in some new, relatively empty room. It looks like it belongs in my house but it’s not a room that I recognize. Fine. Again! I try another phase through the outer wall…

And wind up in a larger, more bare version of my master bathroom. I’m a little annoyed but I figure that confidence will carry me through this in the end. I hit a nose pinch reality check, breathing in and out a couple of times to cement in my mind that this is a dream.

There’s a mirror and I look over at it to see a more hulking, slightly angrier-looking version of myself. I decide to try to summon Dreamer. I say, “There’s a woman here, right behind!” There’s an uncertain stir in the mirror’s image. I remember to hurriedly add, “And it’s gonna be Dreamer!”

This isn’t working and I don’t have a DC to repurpose as Dreamer. I turn away from the mirror, intending to switch to a handshake summon, but the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #229: The Note

I’m sitting in a restaurant and something feels off to me. I stand up to find Wife standing here beside me and I realize that a lucid dream has started. “Do you want to come along?” I ask Wife.

“Sure, okay!” she responds rather happily. This is a nice change because she’s normally more involved in the dream plot and not as cooperative.

I walk outside of the restaurant with Wife, opening the glass door to walk through. Oops, I’d meant to do a phase for the competition! I try to quickly phase through it while it’s open. I phase my arm through the door and then start moving the rest of my body through, Wife giving me a very strange look. The door becomes flimsy in the middle of the attempt and starts folding in on itself. I gyrate my hips, trying to hurry through before it collapses, and I’m very conscious that it totally looks like I’m humping it.

The door becomes completely unmanageable and the scene comes apart as I fall into the void. I hand-rub for a bit to wait this out but sense that something is close to my face, something that I can chew on. I bite down on it and it tastes like a soft, very mild licorice. I usually hate licorice but there’s something about this that makes it a little more bearable, sort of like it’s been crossed with bubble gum somehow.

I keep chewing and chewing, walking forward through the void. I eat fast, consuming yards of the stuff as I walk forward. After a while, it just feels like it’s been too long in the void and that I need to do something about it. For some reason I raise both of my arms over my head before calling out, “Dreamer, pull me out!” I don’t feel any physical contact, but almost immediately find myself standing in my darkened master bedroom, no longer in the void.

There’s a piece of paper stuck on the opposite wall covered with large, handwritten letters. I interpret this as being a note that Dreamer has left for me. It looks like gibberish, so I move forward, trying to get a better look. It rearranges itself, but it’s still unreadable. Then the letters rearrange into:

“Sorry couldn’t read reply, check the”

I interpret this as meaning there’s something I’m meant to read, but I don’t know what. This is relevant for later… see the end of this entry!

I wander out into the hall, which is lit up like it’s morning. I remember my intent to phase and try to phase through my youngest child R’s door. Unfortunately the door just comes open instead of letting me phase and I see R beginning to stir around in bed. This sounds like a good way to get wrapped up in a dream plot, so I back away into the hall.

I fly down the stairs to the kitchen area to see that the breakfast table has been moved far to the side and that almost the entire area is covered with Lego pieces. The coolest part is that most of them have been assembled into these amazing, moving models of roads, freeways, machines, amusement park carousels, and all kinds of other things. It’s really vivid, so much so that it’s hard to shake the feeling that I’m viewing a scene from waking life. I think that in this scenario, Wife must have stayed up all night building this.

I leave through the back door, finding myself in a park walking along a red dirt path dotted with autumn leaves. I follow the path into a building with large plate glass windows all around its walls. I look back at the park through the window, marveling at how realistic it looks when I shift my perspective. I feel excited and happy to see this, saying, “I can’t believe my mind generated all of this.”

I remember again that I’d meant to phase, so I walk toward one of the plate glass windows, anticipating an easy phase. Unfortunately, before I get there, the dream ends.

Notes: Here’s something cool. Immediately upon waking up, I removed my sleep mask and looked over at the clock. Just as I was looking at it, my iPod’s screen came on with a notification. I popped it open and just at that moment I’d received a Skype message from Dreamer.

This was really exciting to me because of what the note had said earlier (“Sorry couldn’t read reply, check the”), and the timing was perfect. I guess that the end of the message would have been “check the iPod”. Pretty cool!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #228: The Fall from Orbit

I’m lying in bed when I sense a shift and suspect that a WILD has begun. Something feels not quite real about the situation. I rub my hands together. It’s close, but it feels like I’m dreaming this rather than experiencing it in the waking world. I feel Wife stir next to me and wonder if she can sense me moving around.

I try to speak but all that comes out is a strange, reluctant croak. There’s no doubt that it’s a dream now. The sense of being in bed becomes less and less clear and I feel like I’ve at least partially entered the void.

I wait for a while, relying on hand-rubbing to keep me in the dream but finally call out: “Dreamer, pull me out of here!” I feel the sensation of a hand grabbing my right arm and pulling me down toward where the “bed” would have been, and I get the sense that I’m rotating. When I’ve turned about 180 degrees I suddenly feel massive acceleration ahead of me and slightly downward, like something attached a rocket to me!

The acceleration halts and a new scene comes into view. I’m flying high above the Earth in lower earth orbit! The clouds look slightly pixelated but convincing enough that the effect is very dramatic.



I remember that all of my goals are on the surface of the planet, so I point myself downward and imagine myself shooting forward at top speed. I take off like a rocket, the ground rising dizzyingly fast to meet me. I’m shooting toward a bunch of buildings, headed directly for a house!

I’m prepare to plow into this house, but my fall stops short, my feet rotate back under me and I’m now standing gently on the ground next to a miniature house and a cluster of miniature buildings. What looked like a city seconds ago now looks like a bunch of little model buildings. The room is fully enclosed and dimly-lit but I can still see well enough to do what I want.

I want to summon Dreamer but there aren’t any DCs around to use. I remember my behind the back summoning tech, but I’m not feeling sure about how I executed it. It fizzles. I walk to another corner of the room and try it there. Still nothing.

I approach another part of the room where there’s a bar and a broad mirror above it. When I look into the mirror, I see myself standing there but in a completely different scene. My reflection is on some cobblestoned street, outdoors and it’s daytime. I strafe back and forth to test the reflection and he reacts as expected.

Now I spy the building’s glass front door and through it I see the cobblestoned scene I’d just viewed in the mirror. There’s a guy trying to get into the room, an Asian guy in his mid-twenties wearing glasses. Not the easiest DC to transform to Dreamer, maybe, but nothing I can’t handle!

I go up to the door to let him in and start messing with the lock. Then I realize what a waste of time this is. Why not just phase instead? I start the phase, my right arm passing straight through the glass but as I’m about to go the rest of the way, the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #227: The Dream Queue

I’m holding my oldest child E’s hand as we make our way down a crowded hallway. Something feels off to me and I realize that I’m dreaming. E pulls away from me and runs off down the hall, disappearing into the crowd.

I try to follow him but the dream feels very unstable to me, almost as if I’m drunk and can barely walk properly. I realize that the people ahead of me in this hallway are all waiting to have a lucid dream, but I’m having mine right now. I don’t belong in this line with them. I stagger to my right, crashing into a wall and fall into the void.

I rub my hands together, making my way through the dark. I can feel people passing close by me on all sides, so I still feel like I’m in the scene. After enough hand rubbing and lurching around, I finally get my vision back and find myself standing near a corner wall near a bin full of envelopes.

I reach out to touch the envelopes but ungracefully bat them onto the floor. They scatter everywhere. I flail out my arms to grab something else but the dream ends.