task of the month

No techniques used. Only lay awake for some time and set an intention to do the TOTM in the middle of the night.

At first I got lucid at my parents' house but didn't get anywhere before waking up. A non-lucid dream about being at a scientific congress followed. In a break I went outside and got lucid again, immediately remembering my intention to ask a DC about the dream's origins. I felt the dream slipping and focused on my surroundings, touching the ground and everything nearby. Like this, I was walking down a rain-soaked street with a lot of trees. The dream stabilized and I saw every branch in great detail and in amazing colors. Noone else was around. Typical, if one wants to find a DC, not one is here.
I left the street and started walking down a slope leading to some gardens. Still no DCs. I pushed myself off the ground and glided down, looking around.

Finally, I got to a path leading somewhere else and found a young boy, maybe 10, walking there. "Hey", I shouted. He turned and waited for me. I got closer, as if I didn't want anyone around hearing us and asked "Whose dream is this?" "His", he said without hestitation with a matter-of-fact tone, pointing to the left. I followed his gesture and found... A small bird. A blueish canary sitting on a fence.
?What? I was completely taken aback. I looked back at the boy, puzzled. He was grinning slightly.
Behind him I noticed a plump woman, about my age, with dark hair. Maybe she can tell me more. I walked towards her as she looked at me openly. We got close together and looked straight into each others eyes. Somehow, I was overcome with compassion towards her. I felt the urge to hug her but it felt out of place. I had so many questions running through my mind. Yet, I didn't know where to start.
"Don't worry. You've got strength in your head and in your legs.", she said, smiling.
This confused me even more. The three of us started walking along the path. Suddenly, I understood. "If you say that I've got strength, you mean you've got strength, too, right?" She considered this for a moment, and nodded.
They are all me, everything here is. It's all one. It's the bird's dream as it is my own.
We continued walking until the other two left me at something that looked like their camp. The woman looked back at me, inquiring, then smiling broadly and said "Princess Leah will be pleased!" [no, not Leia ]
Slowly, I walked away, feeling utterly content and warm after this encounter.

Next, I got to a strange structure with a high bar and a trampoline. I jumped on there, doing somersaults and whatever I could imagine in mid-air. It got totally euphoric until I was crying out of joy.
Then, I wandered around again, now through an amusement park, admiring the incredibly vivid surroundings and enjoying the hustle around me until I woke up.

Woke up after 6 hours of sleep, short WBTB, some SSILD but wasn't fully focused and fell back asleep. Had a long, vivid non-lucid dream in which I was travelling along a deserted dust road when I suddenly went lucid without any obvious reason. It felt as if I decided to not follow the predefined dream plot passively anymore - a sudden feeling of freedom overcame me. I got up and walked to one side of the road, being strangely aware of my whole body and its movements. I took a moment to simply marvel at my surroundings which included some houses with neat front gardens on this side of the road.

Then, I remembered my plan to shapeshift into a bird and I began to flap my arms as if they were wings. At first, I was somewhat sceptical if this will work because normally I initiate flying in a different way. But then I felt myself leaving the ground and flying high into the air - with the typical rush of excitement. Looking down I had a clear view of the landscape, and I noticed my shadow on the ground - which had indeed the form of a large bird of prey! I realized that I didn't have legs anymore, instead I could somehow influence my flight with my ... tail (was probably not very realistic but whatever). Excited I looked down to see if I had indeed wings now, only to find my seemingly normal arms still in place. I concentrated on my arms/wings and found them changing form and place all the time. This was a little confusing and with me being distracted my surroundings decayed into gray nothingness. Can't remember what happened afterwards, I guess I lost the dream to a false awakening.

No techniques used. Woke up one hour before having to get up but went straight back to sleeping (with the slightest thought of LDing). I was dreaming a lot and quite intensely the whole morning.

When I was just following a person into a dark tunnel, I suddenly thought: "When I know this is a dream, I can as well go lucid" (great logic, I know) - and well, I did. I opened a heavy steel door and crawled on my hands and knees into the tunnel. It was pitch black in there and (not surprisingly) I 'woke up'. After confirming the false awakening I crossed my bedroom to leave through the window. I jumped outside but awoke once again in my bed. This time I wasn't sure of being still in a dream but I went to the window again and put my head against it. It dissolved right in front of me, so I could get outside through what felt like viscous air.

Almost automatically I started floating some feet above the ground. I thought of flying high into the sky but decided to first look around. All around me there were fields of strange crops. This made me think of the TotM (Eat an alien mushroom...) and I looked in more detail. On the right there were large bundles of green plants; on the left glass covers with small light and dark brown pebbles(?) stacked beneath them. Everthing was nicely arranged with hedges etc. I moved on, looking for something mushroom-like. I came to a large shelf with precious looking objects in it. Being sure to find what I'm searching for in there, I soon spotted something looking like a small alien's head. Almost laughing I realized that my subconscious obviously interpreted the word 'alien' a bit too literally in the meaning it is used in my native language - for extraterrestial creatures. I took the 'alien mushroom', broke off small pieces and tasted them: They weren't delicious, rather stodgy and dry. Then, I paused a moment to see if something weird would happen: Nothing extreme so far, but everthing was vibrating slightly. I proceeded to eat some more but unfortunately my alarm clock went off and I lost the dream.

Spontaneously got lucid when I was walking down a corridor with a dark carpet (can't remember what happened before). From the distance a well-known person from my field of work was talking to me, offering a closer collaboration on one project. As I got closer I came into a large, strange room like a foyer but all surfaces were glossy white with only some brightly green accents. My colleague was standing there, looking different than in reality. I thanked her for the offer and agreed on her plan, then I walked on towards the entrance.
I went down some white stairs and thought of trying to meditate in the dream, with the TOTM in mind. So I sat down cross-legged but I hadn't considered the slippery, tilted floor that made me slither towards the doors. I moved a little to the side and tried again, simply sitting down and focusing on my breath. As soon as I did so, things got intense fast. My surroundings dissolved almost immediately and I started spinning in all directions through space and time. Next I focused onto my feelings, and all I felt was a strong sense of certainty.
Then I was back in bed, seemingly awake as everything was far too real. Of course I was still dreaming.

After some weird non-lucid dream I found myself lying in bed with the radio playing in the kitchen. That was kinda suspicious as I don't have a radio in the kitchen. So I figured this must be a dream and got up. The room was only dimly lit and the dream started collapsing but I remembered to stabilize by interacting with my surroundings. I touched everything close by (floor, walls, a blanket, a suitcase) which felt utterly realistic and listened to the radio (there were commercials). Thinking that jumping out of the window on the third floor would probably still wake me up I decided to leave through the door. I went there, still touching the walls on the way. As I've done this before I wanted to pass through the door without opnening it but both my body and the door appeared to be too solid. I was determined to make this work, so I went back a few steps and focused intently on the door. By doing so, everything became much clearer and my lucidity increased, too. Then I jumped through the door though I got stuck a bit and had to fight my way through. On the other side I got into the staircase.
Walking down the stairs I remembered the TOTM, stopped and imagined a rope before me. As soon as I grabbed it, it appeared before my eyes. It was just a thin string but that didn't bother me and I started climbing up (forgot that it shall pull me somewhere). It was well fastened so I got quickly up to the roof. Suddenly the rope loosened and I fell back down onto the stairs. I pulled on the string; it got longer and longer until the thin part changed to a thick rope. Then it was stable again and I started climbing up once more. I got to the roof which was dome-shaped. Somehow I thought the rope would just reach higher into the sky. But when I climbed outside through an open window in the dome I saw that it was stretched in this height across the landscape, all the way I could see until the horizon.
I grabbed the rope again and climbed along into the distance. Soon I got to a meadow in front of a forest. Looking down I realized it was crowded with small living creatures. Of each kind there was a couple so I was reminded of Noah's ark (btw I'm not religious). When I looked even closer I realized that these were some strange creatures. There were two oversized brightly yellow ducks, a pair of raccoons with christmas caps and a couple of garden gnomes amongst many others. All of these were clearly alive. Over this astonishing sight I forgot about the rope, sank down to the meadow and felt the dream fading.