CanisLucidus

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

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #21: Technicolor Thomas Jefferson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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