false awakening

I'm looking at some kind of travel ad with a picture of a bridge and a quote calling it magical. A woman's complaining about the misuse of the quote - apparently it's a line from the end of a long poem about a more literal variety of magic, and the way the ad is using it is going completely against the spirit of the poem. She summarizes the poem, saying something along the lines of 'magic's one and only purpose: getting us outta here.'

As I think about what that means, I become lucid. I'm floating above the bridge from the image in that ad, high over a river, surrounded by trees; I fly along the road, over the trees, flying higher until I can see that this is an island, and I fly out over the water. It's all very beautiful, but I'm still thinking about what that woman had said, and I associate it with a quote from Tolkien in defense of escapism. (The quote: Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home?) Thinking about Tolkien, I think that while I'm lucid, I'll go find some elves. But suddenly I feel a desperate need to, as the woman said, get outta here - rather than flying peacefully over the water, now I'm thinking of the sky as a barrier I have to break through; I'm very worked up about it. I fail completely.

When I stop trying to break through the sky, I find I'm now flying outside my IRL home. I land in a tree. My IRL neighbor's on the steps outside with some people I think of as her cousins, and she sees me. I feel embarrassed, a grown man climbing trees. The branch I'm sitting on breaks with a very loud crack, and although I don't fall very far at all, they run over to me. She scolds me for climbing trees when people are trying to sleep. We go inside. I'm still vaguely aware that I'm dreaming, but I'm thinking that I'll have to wait for these people to leave before I can do anything very interesting.

I 'wake up' on a bus. I think about the lucid dream I just had, but am distracted when Danica Patrick starts making out with the woman sitting next to me. (And yet it doesn't occur to me that I might still be dreaming...)

I'm in an office, talking to someone about the android I've been monitoring. The guy I'm talking to is the same model, and I'm asking him about some of the skills he was programmed with; I think there might be something wrong with the one I've been observing, she seems to have let some of her skills decay. He hints that maybe I've got an ulterior motive here, and he's right, but I insist I'm only concerned about my employer (their manufacturer)'s reputation. I'm thinking I'm going to have to download a training program so I can pose as a servant and infiltrate her owner's household.

(Woke up. Had an unusually difficult time getting back to sleep, I was up for at least an hour.)

There's two men sitting in front of a fireplace, a young man and an old one. The young man's saying, "Don't you want to help me?" There's a long pause. The young man isn't aware of it, but the person he's speaking to is his father-in-law; his wife, the old man's daughter, has recently passed away, and for some reason the old man thinks it's to his benefit to keep that connection secret. Now the old man says, "Your wife... Very sweet creature."

(Woke up. Back to sleep without difficulty this time.)

I'm on a train named after a greek goddess; I've just changed from a train called Autehna (which is meant to be Athena - my dreams have mixed up that name in a similar way before, again pronouncing it with a 't' instead of 'th'), and I'm thinking of the naming of the two trains as pleasantly symbolically appropriate. I'm writing in a journal. As I write, I see an image of what I'm writing about: a very powerful and morally dubious man offered me a position, and I turned him down, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. In the journal, I write that I must have learned in another life to refuse to get tangled up with the wicked and powerful.

Continuing as the same character from the train, I find my wife and children asleep around/under the Christmas tree.

Still the same character, I'm standing on a dock next to a rowboat full of men in red uniforms, casting off. I'm in the same uniform, as is the man beside me, but the two of us aren't going back to the ship with the rest. I'm thinking about that position I'd turned down, and the possible ill will resulting from that refusal, and I start to feel suspicious about the guy next to me. When I look at him, he takes off running down the dock, reaching for a rope. I reach for the weapon I've concealed in my false leg, and as I remove it I hear someone say "mon dieu!" I'm thinking about the various bits and pieces of myself that I've left behind.

(Woke up, once again couldn't get back to sleep and eventually gave up on it, even though I'd gotten only about 5 hours of sleep. Unusual.)

A note from an earlier wakeup that I no longer remember: "Rescue mission. 2 people ready to bodily drag this guy away from the queen, not realizing he has his own plan."

I become lucid. (I no longer remember what was happening before this, if anything.) I'm standing at the bottom of a short flight of steps leading up out of a shop, onto a street, and there's two guys I'm with who are heading up the stairs, and if I want to follow the storyline of this dream I should head up those stairs with them. But given that I've just become lucid, I'm not sure the lucidity is stable enough to last through a scene-changing doorway, so I decide to abandon the storyline. I look around the shop instead, looking at the wooden pillars and ceiling, wondering what I'd like to do. There's a guy working the register who's grumbling, in a bad mood, and we start talking. He's attractive.

The scene changes; we're elsewhere, having sex, and I can feel everything I do to him as if it were being done to me. He's aware of the sudden scene change, and he's confused, but up for it. His appearance gradually changes, and I become aware that without consciously deciding to do so, I'm changing him to better suit my tastes; now that I've noticed I'm doing it, I consciously encourage specific changes. Everything I change alters gradually, but then suddenly his whole appearance changes in an instant, now a goth/punk look, pale and with half his head shaved; I hadn't intended to do that. I'm thinking that all the gradual changes I was making must have pushed him to some tipping point, and I'm a little annoyed with myself. He's now becoming distressed; I don't think he's aware that he used to look very different, but he's aware something's off. The dream disappears, and I'm in darkness, no visuals, no body, thinking over what went wrong.

I become aware that I'm lying in bed. (False awakening.) I open my eyes: I'm in a dorm, I think of this as a place associated with dreaming. The room's filled with many bunk beds, reminds me of hostels, and although I should have this room to myself, there are a bunch of people here now, new students who've arrived in the night. I try to go back to sleep, although they're very noisy, and I overhear something about framing someone for something as a joke, and something about cats and bad luck. Eventually I remember that I don't live in a dorm anymore, therefore none of this is real and I don't have to be here, so I get up to leave. One of the students tries to stop me, referencing cats and bad luck again, and I get really, irrationally, over-the-top irritated by this - by the idea of a DC standing in my way and wasting my time. I put my hand around his throat - my hand has long claws as I do so - move him out of my way, and walk out the door. (And then woke up.)

Part of a castle has been blocked off to the public for a photoshoot I'm working on. There's a woman hanging around just outside the blocked off area, watching us; she's very pretty, with long red hair under a hat. It starts raining a little and we take a break, and I go over to smoke by the entrance. That woman comes over to me and we start talking. After a while, she tells me she's the daughter of someone I know, someone I watched die in hospital just yesterday. Thing is, in the present, that daughter is just a young child; I have a mental image of seeing her, as a child, in the hospital. There's something to do with timelines or the dead going on. I don't believe her. She tells me she's wanted to see me, and implies that in her own time, I'm dead. Some other people from the photoshoot come over then and distract me for a moment, and then the woman is no longer there.

I can't get a couple light switches to work, and realize this is a dream. (Noteworthy: that's a common dream sign for me, but up until now, it only happened if I went to sleep so early that it was still dark IRL, usually around 5 AM. This time I went to sleep at a normal hour, after sunrise.) I have a false awakening: I'm in my IRL bed, but am fairly sure I'm still dreaming. I wonder what to do with this - I look up at the ceiling and consider removing it and going flying. However, I'm distracted by the sound of a crash, and I see my computer (an old desktop model which I don't actually own IRL) has fallen over and broken. I forget about dreaming and get irrationally stressed about having to replace the computer. (I suspect there may have been an actual noise IRL that affected the dream.)

Based on F/SN, a bunch of photos showing the future of various timelines. I focus on one showing Saber in a park by a lake, with skyscrapers in the background, and it becomes the setting of the dream; someone who I at first mistake for Archer is teasing her, and he winds up falling in the lake. He's wearing some sort of uniform that I associate with the Mage's Association, and which I think of as being 'Saber's colors' (it's blue and gold), marking them as partners; then I realize he's an older Shirou, not a version of Archer.

I'm approaching a dance in the woods together with someone I know, and I recognize the song playing - Bottom of the River, Delta Rae. We walk over to three woman sitting around a fire, to speak with them. I think of the Fates and the Graces.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm Shirou, and Tohsaka's just walked away from those three women from the previous scene, and before I follow her, one of those women says to me, "Nothing like that to make your magic full of fear." I'm thinking that I have just enough awareness of Archer's memories to know there's something I don't want to remember; remembering it would cause me to repeat the same choices he made, and that's not what this timeline's for.

I'm reading an article about genius, stating that long-term caffeine use has disruptive effects on the brain.

I'm trying to buy something but I've upset the woman working the counter somehow and she's refusing to ring me up, or any of the other customers for that matter. She goes so far as to call the police. I literally offer her the shirt off my back - a basketball jersey, something that's worth something to her. We strike up a conversation, and she winds up being friendly.

I'm standing by a light switch in pitch black darkness, and the lights won't turn on. I question whether this is a dream, doubt it at first, but then realize yes, it is. I have a sort of false awakening in which I still realize I'm dreaming, but now I become aware that I'm lying on my back in a bed in the guest room of my father's house (no resemblance to anywhere he's lived IRL), with his cat curled up against my legs - nothing's changed visually, it's still pitch black. I look up at where the ceiling would be and think about stars, and about a previous lucid dream where I removed the roof and floated up into the sky, and debate whether to do that again. I feel like there's something else I want to do here first. I can hear my father and his girlfriend watching TV in the next room and talking to each other. As I listen to them I forget that this is a dream.

Memory gap - some time later I'm standing in a different room, again trying and failing to get the light switch to work. I hear the sound of my stepbrother coming home and going straight to his own room. This light switch has several different switches and dials that I can't see in the dark, and this time I wind up taking out my ipod and holding it up as a flashlight. I can see the switches and dials now, but I still can't get them to work, and then I remember that this is a dream.

(Woke up at 5:30, half an hour after getting to bed. Back to sleep.)

I'm going to visit someone I owe thanks, bringing a guitar to play for them. One of the strings snaps.

At my father's house, some guy is trying to talk to my sister S., he's angry and seems obsessed, and while they're arguing he picks up a knife - not to threaten with, but it's the last straw, me and my father kick him out.

At my mother's house, one of her former students is at the door with some friends, and he's talking to her about some technique that's recently become a fad. Everyone's very impressed by his expertise, and it's driving me nuts because this technique is just a cheap knockoff version of something I've been doing for years that no one's ever taken seriously, and this popular version is much less effective. We get into a really idiotic argument which leaves me feeling frustrated even after I woke up.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm lying in bed in the wrong house, and some boy shakes me awake to tell me I have to go. I apologize and try to explain that I'm not there to do anything bad, I just got the wrong place, but I can't remember the word for 'place' in Japanese and have to fumble around trying to find a different way to say it. He gets the point but doesn't really care, he didn't seem particularly threatened by a stranger in his house to begin with, he just wants me gone before his mother wakes up. I walk out a back door that, aside from a little ledge, opens directly onto the river. The kid tries to correct me, pull me back inside so I can use the front door and actually leave, but I just step out onto the river and stand on top of the water, which is a normal thing for a witch like me to do. The kid's surprised, the water and the light are really vivid, it's all very pleasant. As I'm appreciating the vividness, I become aware that I'm thinking of this as a dream.

I walk a few steps into the sky and start floating, heading somewhere specific. As I float above the river, I pass various people, and I start to hear a song, people are singing it. I pass two brothers sitting in chairs having some fashionable procedure done, a row of string sewn above their lip, to me it looks like they're having their mouths sewn closed. It strikes me as odd, but I remind myself that this isn't my time period so I don't have the full context, not for me to judge.

I reach a roller coaster, and there's a man and a woman riding it, the people I've been looking for. They're also singing that song that's been going on, and the lyrics tell me a little about their history. She has (or possibly had, up until very recently) a life-threatening heart condition. Their song is about the possibility of fixing a heart only to get hit by a bus or something similar, and the way people think they have time. The guy, singing in English with an Irish accent, sings a verse about how if (some name, some guy he knows) died he'd be singing a toast to him.

Song's over. Now that we've all met up in a dream, as planned, the guy asks whether we should wake up now. I'm inclined to agree, mission complete, but I think it's a little ridiculous to waste a lucid dream, there ought to be some fun we could have before we go. The guy leaves anyway, the girl stays. She says to me, "I have questions." I say to her, "I... probably don't have answers." She starts to say something else, but I become aware that I'm consciously thinking up her next dialogue for her, and that I'm waking up.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

Forever Knight-based setting, I'm Nicholas, and I'm being posed a question: between Janette, LaCroix, and an apple which represents my hope for humanity, I can only save one. What's my first instinct? I dismiss the apple completely but can't decide between the other two, which is annoying since the entire point of this exercise was only to see which came to mind first, without overthinking it.

Scene changes to an Umineko setting - Beatrice, who'd posed the question, is annoyed with the way I've spoiled it, and she retreats into the other room with aunt Eva. She says something to Eva that I can hear through the door, something about how the only hope is the "good key (name of key)."

Fragments: A guy preparing to move on, saying "Can I borrow this map?"; a gallery/cafe belonging to an art group called The Future People or something similar; a runway show based on Sleep No More; a newly-made vampire using mantras to learn dreamwalking, using it to watch over a friend, another vampire, who's being held hostage.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm with a group of people stealing some huge metal sphere, but as we're driving off with it, we lose it, and we circle back and argue over where it could be. I catch sight of myself in the rear view mirror and realize one of my front teeth is loose, to the point of falling out. I'm thinking I'm going to have to see a dentist, which annoys me. I notice all the teeth on that side are loose.

I 'wake up' in my IRL home and go to the bathroom mirror to check my teeth after that dream. I spit out long strings of gritty, bloody material, textured like sand. I'm thinking it's good to get that out.

This werewolf kid in human form is sitting in a car, tied up, with blood covering his face. There's a blond girl in the seat behind him who didn't believe his stories about werewolves until just now, as a werewolf in wolf form leans in through the door, right into the kid's face. The girl starts screaming.

I'm dropping off that same werewolf kid at this mansion, and there are three men standing on the steps out front to meet us. I'm saying to them, "Are you all Adrian's?" Adrian's the wolf kid's name, I'm asking if he turned them, which I'm hoping is not the case. And it isn't; they introduce themselves to me, and it turns out the house holds some organization of witches or magicians or something of that variety. They're all very friendly. One of them, this heavyset old queen, mentions that he's single, and I'm amused. When I introduce myself, I add, "And I'd have to be invited in," just so we're all clear.

I become fully lucid while doing my Apollo trick, and lose all visuals in the process - I have a sense of having a body, but there's no setting. (The Apollo trick is meant to get me out of nightmares, but I have no memory of any dream scene before this, except the thought that I 'lost' visuals.) I start floating close to the 'ground', although there's no ground, and a setting starts to form: the road outside my IRL home.

Memory gap. Next thing I remember is a non-lucid dream in a different setting, involving accidentally upsetting my IRL sister (my recall for this was quite long and detailed). Woke up at 5:37 AM, less than an hour after getting to bed.

Recall for the rest of the day was terrible. Vague fragments of dreams set in Being Human and Lost Boys, with a possible false awakening after the Being Human one - I don't remember 'waking', but I spent a dream scene trying to describe that previous dream. The only details I managed to remember: as Mitchell, needing a werewolf to briefly hold me down under the surface of a river, and the one I've got on hand doesn't live up to George in any way.

False awakening where I was thinking about what a great dream I'd just had and that I'd have to remember it - I then forgot it, except that it involved a demon, humanoid, sitting at a desk, wearing a scarf and hat and heavy coat to disguise his features, although his scarf's lowered so his clearly-not-human face is visible right now, rather amiable.

Dream continued from that false awakening with a trying-to-accomplish-a-simple-task-but-things-keep-going-wrong storyline, mostly in IRL settings - first about trying to record that demon dream, then briefly about trying to get some work done, then about me and my IRL father trying to meet up.

Trying to make some deal with Tywin regarding one of the men working under me, I'm seeing Tywin and Joffrey in the same place for the first time since Joffrey was an infant, and looking at them together, I'm trying to see some sign in Joffrey that he's inherited anything of his grandfather's character. There's nothing in common, except that in this light, they both have a sickly green cast to their skin.