false awakening

24.07.2010

Small Fragment (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Well. This is my lowest night since several, several nights. I went to bed very late and woke up very early, I sleep only around 5 hours and I still managed to grab two dreams. One is a small fragment, and the other one, a lucid.

First:

- Something about a principle.
- FA in my room.
- I was trying to recall dreams with no success.

Missed dream signs:
- The FA.

What I would have done if lucid:
- Unknown.

Yesterday, I put my alarm clock to 6 o'clock.
I wake up, wash, eat breakfast, and zonk out again. I hear an alarm again. Look at the time. Wtf? 6 o'clock. Oh well, false awakening, I think. I go out of bed. Go to the washroom, wash my face, eat another (unsatisfying) breakfast, and then pass out AGAIN. Now guess what happened? I hear an alarm bell once more. I look at the time. 6 o'clock. What THE hell? I check my hands. Five fingers. Then, I pinch my nose. Can't breathe. Dang!

After I woke up from that dream I fell back into a continuation of it. This time I faded into the black and white dream and stayed there . The dream pretty much left me at the climax of the frag right where Lil Wayne was supposedly going to shoot me. I propped my head back up to face the gun again Weezy took a huge hit from his cigar and blew it in my face. My vision got distorted for a few seconds but went back to normal right before he cocked back his gun. He kept mumbling things I just couldnt understand so I just close my eyes and waited for the big finished. He pulled the trigger and a little white flag came out and so did some black and white confetti. I was scared half to death and I jolted up from the couch I was sitting on (more than likely the flag had the word BANG! on it but I couldnt really make it out cause I was zoned out -_-.) He started laughing hysterically so I punched him and he stepped back but he was still laughing. I turned around to lay back down because I felt really tired and I saw myself still laying on the couch with my head bobbed back. It was so crazy like the copy did all the things I did right up to where I closed my eyes in anticipation for the gunshot. I was so weirded out I woke up again and stayed up.

07/19/10

I contemplate world domination/destruction. Fortunately for the planet, I still can't teleport.

Note: As of July 21, this is no longer true. Watch out, world.



I look down at my right hand and count my fingers. "One. Two. Three. Fourfivesixseveneightnine." I get distracted and start counting off random numbers, but I'm lucid by this point, and looking around.

Dream goals... right. I wanted to go to Walmart and open a portal to hell. No reason, I just thought it would be fun.

I try to shift to a new location, attempting to bring my companion along.

I wake up in bed. Except for the part where I'm still dreaming. I know it automatically, but I still do a quick count of my fingers. The ring and pinky fingers are alternately multiplying and fading out of existance, so that's normal.

I "wake up" again, but I still know I'm dreaming. I go outside and decide to along the sidewalk at a sprint, just to see how fast I can go. I run up a hill that doesn't exist in real life, surprised that I can actually feel a physical drag slowing me down.

I consider the possibility of using running as a reality check.

Fragments: I'm driving a Bentley. I'm either Crowley or Aziraphale from Good Omens. Something about one-ways and suburbs. Or maybe that's Suburban (the truck). I can't read my writing.

I find my keys. They're hanging from the doorknob of my bedroom.

False Awakenings. Scare Factor: 1.

I wake up. My keys are still missing. Damn you for giving me hope, Id.

Ok so I thought that today would be a great day to start my dream journal because I had a really unique experience last night. I've been putting this off for like weeks so i'll be adding a couple dreams i wrote down after this too. I've waited all day so I can't remember all of the dream but before bed, we got a call from a family friend who is a self-proclaimed psychic. She said that my grandfather that she never knew personally, (and who died 2 weeks ago) had been bugging her for 4 days. She asked a lot of questions and said a lot of things but what's important is that she told me i'd be getting a visit from him in a dream. Lo and behold, it happened. I remember thinking i had woken up (on the top bunk which is contradictory; would have been a great time for RC. Oh well.){Is there a word for falsely waking? can't remember} and seeing a piece of paper taped to the ceiling. It had a poem on it in grandpa's handwriting and on the back it had a small personal note signed by him. During the dream I could vividly make out the writing but I have since forgotten it. This is funny because I had sort of told my grandpa (spoken out loud to the air) that I didn't really wanna see him personally in a dream because it would freak me out. He was always so considerate...

The Amazing Christmas Lights

I was driving down the street leaving my parents' house when I look up and notice there is a tree that's about 400 feet tall with Christmas lights all over it. They're LED lights, not just your normal old school lights. I know this because I drove into the neighborhood and found what street it was on. All down the street there were more trees like that one, just not as large. I must have gotten out of the car somewhere along the way because the next thing I know I'm in someone's backyard on their deck overlooking a lake sitting in a chair talking to them telling them about the lights. Then I look up in the sky and there is a beautiful fireworks display. I told the people I was with to look out on the lake to see the reflection of all the fireworks.

The Lucid Beach

I was at the beach looking out into the ocean. There were people there in the water and I see sharks coming. I thought to myself that's unsafe. So I changed the sharks into dolphins. The waves were crashing and the dolphins were jumping in and out of the waves. I raised my hands above my head and the waves grew really tall! I put my hands down and it wasn't like my other beach dreams where they get out of control when they crash. They just kind of shrank back down to normal. I raised my arms again with emphasis this time and the wave grew as high as the sun was up in the sky. I put my arms back down and the waves went back down again. That's when it hit me... I'm making this happen... I'm dreaming this!!

So I thought of everything I had read on DV and tried to stay calm. The first thing I did was rub my hands together. I could actually feel myself rubbing my hands together. It was bizarre. Such a different feeling than anything I had dreamed before. I had never felt something like that. I looked around and I was still on the beach, it looked a little bit more stable and a bit more clear. I really felt like I was standing on the beach. I wanted it to feel even more real, so I said, "Clarity now!!" Never before in a dream had I felt and heard myself say something. I just kind of felt dialogue, but this felt like I was awake hearing myself say something. But, it didn't make anything that much more clear. I think I was too excited about how it felt to be lucid. I remembered one more thing I wanted to do. I tried to spin. I closed my eyes and thought not about being somewhere else particularly, but just not being on the beach anymore. The first thing I came up with was kind of a construction site, but I didn't want to be there, so I tried to spin again and I ended up back at the beach. It was then that I lost lucidity. I think I was either too excited that it was actually working or frustrated that I ended up back at the beach. I probably should have just stayed there anyway. I can't wait to try again!!

I just remembered.... I felt at some point like I had woken up and Andrea came into the bedroom from the living room where she said she was looking up recipes. I was sleeping at the bottom of the bed instead of at the top. When I actually woke up I asked her if I said anything in my sleep and she said she didn't hear anything and I was never at the bottom of the bed. I wonder if that's a false awakening. I'm going to read about that now.

Non dream|nonlucid|lucid

It's just barely my birthday. I decided to take a short nap.

I lay for a while, body starts twitching, vibrating all over. I start seeing random partial scenes, still unsure as to whether I'm 'far enough in yet' to start building. I try, just a little, to move my body. I'm in SP. Feel like my fingers weigh a ton. Okay, I think, so I'm good to go. I stare into the darkness. Ask myself what I should be doing. Show me something useful. Remind me what to do. Ah! A lightbulb comes over my head. I've never flown. I guess I'll try it. I'm not sure what else to do with myself. I've tried 'flying' before but I just ended up jumping really high, wasn't trying hard enough. Well, here goes. I stand straight and insist that I'm 'like a bullet fired up from the ground'.

Well, I flew alright- STRAIGHT UPWARD. I start SHOOTING into space, weaving between asteroids and past planets. I see Jupiter and Saturn go by. I start going faster and faster, and I'm starting to freak out because the speed is causing 'wind resistance' as I cut through friggen space, and the roaring of it is making my ears hurt really bad. (Wtf.) I say to myself hey, it doesn't matter. It's just a dream. It's not like my ears 'actually hurt'. I try to ignore it. The pain just ramps up.

I feel my head start lolling to the side, sliding down the pillow.

The pain has gotten intolerable. I sigh and stop, floating in space. The ROARing in my ears still continues like I've got the meanest invisible earbuds playing static on max volume. It's like some kind of glitch is happening and I'm still 'hearing wind resistance' even though I'm stationary- and what's worse, it's *in* my ears, not coming from somewhere else.

I feel my hand now also begin to slide off the couch. My body begins to follow it, slowly rolling down onto the floor.

I try to do my usual 'hand crank in the air to turn down the volume'. The volume won't go down. I begin to wonder if something in WL is causing this. The pain doesn't stop. I start to lose my concentration. I feel my center of gravity get all jacked up, like my body is being flipped over.

I hear the halfglass of water and box of tissues get knocked off the foot of the couch by my feet as I roll over and fall, on my back, onto the floor. I lay there for a while, completely still, wondering if I can just keep dreaming regardless. I keep my eyes closed and focus on the planets I'd just seen move by. No dice. I open my eyes and start trying to move, but I'm still coming out of sleep paralysis. (For me, trying to move during sleep paralysis feels BADONG and uncomfortable- like a turd going back up your ass when you're trying to pinch one off.) I lay there for a while with my eyes barely open, unmoving. I look over and see that I've somehow overturned the couch while falling. Sigh.

I wrench myself out of it and get up, to set the couch back upright again. I start clearing the table and cleaning the house like I should've been in the first place. I am grouchy now. The couch is heavier than I expected, I start putting all my weight into shoving it. HRRGHHH

Realize the 'HURGH' discomfort is coming from my body, still in SP, still trying to move. I see the livingroom light behind my eyelids now. I'm awake. I lay there for a while to make sure I'm out of it before I start moving. I get up. DRAT.

NOTES: In the FA, there were several things that should have indicated it wasn't WL, that I failed to notice: 1. I was in my exboyfriend's flannel robe. I went to sleep in a pair of shorts. 2. THE COUCH WAS SIDEWAYS. No matter how hard a 125lb person 'falls off' a 6foot couch, the couch does *not* 'flip over' from the sheer force of them falling off while sleeping. Wtf. 3. I ONLY 'fall off the bed' during FA's! I've only fallen off the bed 'for real' ONE TIME when I was a kid. How would I be 'sliding off the 'bed' during SP?! Derp. 4. The livingroom light was off, and the lamp was on- so it was dark. In WL I'd left all the lights on.

07/21/10

I try to figure out this teleporting thing. Hazel helps out.



The scene drifts into focus. I'm sitting on the cool, freshly trimmed grass outside the Ixburg Inn. My surroundings are hazy, and I feel half-asleep.

It's one of those late-morning, about to wake up dreams. I dig my fingers into the soft grass and soil. I'm dreaming, I tell myself. I'm lucid.

I stare at the yellow metal siding of the warehouse beyond the fence, trying to remember my lucid goals. I can't remember the first one, so I go down the list until something pops out at me.

#2. Find Hazel.

I feel for my phone in the front left-hand pocket of my jeans. The colours around me start to grey out, and I slowly lower my hand to the ground. I grab fistfuls of grass and breathe deep, watching the sky get brighter and bluer as I calm down. Sunlight beams down from the sky. I'm facing the other direction, toward the back of the motel rooms. There are apple trees beyond the fence.

I slip my hand into my pocket (left-hand, right-hand, there isn't any difference) and pull out my phone. I think I should try this method one more time before I give up on it.

Leaning against the red fence, I mash seven random digits into the keypad (one of them is an "8") and hold the phone to my ear. It rings twice.

"Hello?" says a female voice on the other end.

"Hazel?" I ask. "Are you asleep?"

"Obviously." She seems amused.

I shake my head. I'm still not sure this is really Hazel. "Want to try to meet up?"

"Can you teleport?"

I hesitate.

An impatient noise from her end of the phone, and Hazel is standing in front of me. The chin-length black hair is her dream-avatar's most distinctive feature, and I doubt it's what her hair looks like in real life.

We're standing on the other side of the fence, drifting slowly westward without my knowing. A DC lurks at the periphery of my awareness, and I think it's a childhood friend.

We discuss the best way to get back to her dream. I explain an idea I've been putting together, that instead of opening a portal or a door, I just need to imagine the new setting and drift slowly into it. The danger is in how easily this could trigger a false awakening.

Hazel says she wants to try something. She touches my forehead with two fingers. I fall back onto the tall grass, frozen in place. I can't move, and the scene is fading into black. I'm not worried, though. She starts talking, describing the setting of her dream.

I pop back into existence between one second and the next. I can still hear the words, but they sound like nonsense. I'm surrounded by orange wooden cabinetry, and I think I'm in a basement. The narration starts to describe the exact kind of cupboard exists across from me, and I snap, "Okay! I get it! I'm here!"

I'm sitting down on a bunk bed when Hazel appears again. The dream destabilizes.

I "wake up".

I'm in the basement of a church, or maybe my late grandma's house (she was a minister). I'm trying to find a bible, because the narrator has apparently been quoting bible verses at me.

I'm flipping through the book, but I don't remember the order. "Where was Ecclesiastes, again?

"Near the end," says Grandma.

I mutter something about having had these memorized at one point.

The dream ends.

I'm the commander of a fleet of ships, taking shelter in an empty harbour. A woman with long, blonde curly hair stands beside me, asking about the clouds on the horizon.

"Those are pure ozone," I tell her. "They're poisonous, but they won't come up onto the coast."

"I wish we could go out to them," she says wistfully.

Looking at the swirling mass of dark clouds, I almost agree with her.

Hazel. Scare Factor: 3.

Haaaazel, you're being all mysterious and otherworldly. Stop it.

Also: Facebook, guys? Really?

Had a fa at karas with a different house. Kelly was there asking for michaels porn collection. I knew where it was but did not want to tell them. They couldn't find it. Lindseys mom was upstairs making food. Kara was eating cereal. They had five tvs downstairs. Kara asked if i wanted cereal but i was going to go home and eat. I blacked out and was in class. Had to take a test on us states. Tried to cheat but the teacher caught me. He was about to give me a zero for the test but i convinced him that i was not cheating. Was almost in trouble. Blake tried to cheat next to me but got caught too. Test questions were weird. Some about porn. Was worried that i had to finish fast because i was at kerras house and she had to go to work

Technique: MILD
Non-lucid Lucid Real life
I havent meditated for a good couple months, although I always considered it beneficial and I enjoyed doing it. Having gotten back into lucid dreaming a week or so ago (an absence of almost a year, I used to and still can lucid dream at will), I also got back into conscience awareness and meditation. I did a basic silencing the mind meditation for 20 minutes, then fell asleep using MILD.

My dream started off with me walking out of a building/courthouse with my mom, and she said something very odd, so I did a reality check.
I did a nose RC and instantly became fully lucid. The dream was extraordinarily vivid, and I felt completely aware, and in control. I started by simply looking around and sat down in the road and touched the ground. It had tons of pebbles, like any road in RL, and I could feel them perfectly. I knew I was going to have a long lucid dream, and decided first to call someone to complete the TOTM. I was messing with my phone, but couldn't find my contacts. I didn't really feel like it was a good TOTM and couldn't remember the advanced one, so instead I decided to jump off of a skyscraper. I flew high into the air, then said "eh, fuck it I'm high enough" and just went into a free fall. I fell a few hundred feet very calmly and happily, and stopped an inch above the ground. Being done with my free fall, I closed my eyes and teleported somewhere, not deciding where, just wanting to go somewhere else.
I found myself in a car, driving down an empty highway, not liking the idea of driving in a dream, I flew through the hood and landed back on the highway. Now it was full of cars. I went on all fours and started running. I got faster, and I got bigger. In just about two seconds I was larger than most office complexes, and running faster than the speed of light. I was crushing all the cars, and decided to make my hands more crushy. I turned them into giant black masses that looked like the hammerfist transformation in prototype. I saw a large black building and decided to get off the highway, and jumped into it, midair turning into a giant beast that looked somewhat like Spidermans Venom, and smashed 1/4 of the building off, with wires and pipes everwhere.
When I crushed it I turned back into a normal sized human, floating above the wreckage, and I saw a couple police cars on the road with their sirens on. I blinked and teleported into the uncrushed part of the building.
I lost lucidity, whether cause of the police or what happened next idk. It seemed like I just lost awareness, but I was still calm. I forgot something that happened in between the teleporting and this, but next I remember I was given a heavy machine gun by some guy, looked like Price from Call of Duty. He didn't say anything (I never talk to DCs) but when he gave me the gun I had a HUD show up, showing my health, a crosshair, and unlimited bullets, and some bar that didn't seem to have a purpose. I went in, and there were two fat guys with miniguns (they looked like Heavys from Team fortress 2, they were even cell shaded, but had black shirts and a black hat/beanie, like a thief). I circled them both (Price disappeared) and whenever my crosshair went onto one of them it would turn to static for some reason. I shot them both a bit when I saw the static, but it seemed as if the bullets went through them.
Then I woke up, I opened my eyes instantly, and looked around a little, feeling the calm awareness from meditating. I noticed the lights were on, and immediately went to write down in my notebook DJ. I wrote a half a sentence, looked at it (trying to remember more) and I read up until the last word, and then it became blurry and all of a sudden
I woke up. The dream lasted at least 30+ minutes.
The fact that the Heavys were cell-shaded interests me, I'm going to eventually apply that to the rest of the dream world, and make it look like a dream borderlands. I do remember once having a non-lucid where I saw a cartoon character. It was either Peter from Family Guy, or some fat guy, it was hard to remember. Having both those experiences, I know I can have a cartoon dream, and I'm going to try to have a 2d cartoon dream eventually... once I figure out how it'd look/work...

July 20, 2010
Slept between 2am-9:30am

2a-4:30a
Woke up an hour before my scheduled WBTB, really needing the washroom Did not recall any dreams. I went to the couch and got comfy, but then I thought that maybe I should try to WILD from bed today. Jack and I had a bit of a fight last night (more like me bitching at him ). I heard my lucid weaver 90 mins later for the WILD. I rolled over and tried to think about the music I used for my anchor yesterday, but I passed out! I think my bed is too comfy for WILDing

4:30a-8a
Hungry like a wolf
There was an odd little bit where I was thinking about my failed WILD attempt in the back of my head throughout this dream.

I was at work and very, very hungry. I was working an 8a-8pm shift and only had a bagel with cream cheese my entire shift.

One of the cleaners (who, IRL, does manage a restaurant) offered to make me something (we have a bistro in the basement). I was grateful, but he forgot about his offer and never made me any food.

Petra (co-worker/shift relief) came in and asked me if it was okay to do some shopping. I looked at the time and realized she was already 8 minutes late. I told her no, and she looked crestfallen.

[Flintstone's plane?]
I'm sitting in the backseat of a plane and my feet are hanging out the bottom. I have them held up, because we're flying VERY close to the grass. It's tall grass, mind, about 3 feet. But, we were skimming the tops of it! It grew darker outside and we passed over these tiny houses, made of felt. They were the size of dog houses, but I was told people live in them.

As we kept passing over, more houses were covered in cotton. I was told it was for insulation.

We reached the field clearing at the end. Petra said, "Let's build our mansion here!" I got a visual of a Sims-like grid and the wall tool (hehe).

I replied, "Isn't that kind of insulting? Building a nice mansion RIGHT NEXT to these poor people? I don't think we should build here."

8a-9:30a
Jack's alarm woke me, but I passed out again.

[Elevator]
I found myself in this elevator, just reaching the ground floor. I held the door open for these tons of little kids. I helped ensure everyone was on and not about to get smushed by the closing door before I let it shut.

[Lucid House]
I recognize the feeling of weightlessness quite randomly, but I don't clue in that it's a dream. I explain to myself that this is a house that produces feelings of lucidity. I push off the ground and I'm floating. This house is really cool! For some reason, I start floating around the room (I'm in a kitchen) singing Taylor Swift's "You Belong to Me." I think again about the lucidity in this house and I finally realize the absurdity at what I'm doing

I see a glass door (one of those slidey patio doors) near me. "I've never tried to go through glass before, I wonder if I can do it?" I thought. I drifted towards the glass to go through it, but my forehead went thump! against it. The glass felt cold and I felt the bump, but it didn't hurt.

I walked back to the other side of the room (which was now entirely empty, by the way) and braced myself to run for it. I quickly shot through my mind, "What if this destabilizes the dream? What if it doesn't work? Oh well, I'll give it this shot, and if it doesn't, then I'll go do something else." I ran at the glass, and I felt it give way around me! I slowed wayyyy down. The glass felt like cold, but quite viscous slime as it slid around my body. I was afraid I was going to be stuck like this, but I willed myself through the glass, and came out the other side with a POP! That was a really cool experience!

I was in the backyard. "Danny?" I said, out loud, calling out to my DG. He appeared out of nowhere. I was suddenly overcome with this really strong desire to hug him, so I threw my arms around him.

He was surprised, but said, "Hey!" to me, with a laughter in his voice. I marveled at how real this hug felt, but even still, I felt the dream sliding away.

I looked up at him. "Can you come into my regular dreams and tell me I'm dreaming?" I asked, quickly.

He smiled at me, "Sure, I can."

I went back to hugging him as I "woke up."

[False awakening]
I "woke up" next to Jack. We were sleeping in a tent in a backyard. I checked my watch. It was only 7:20 in the morning, but I was so excited about the lucid dream I had, that I wanted to blog it right away! I went inside the house. The kitchen was a disaster. I found a plate of half-eaten waffles. I didn't fancy eating those, but I did see a large mixing bowl with mal-formed, but uneaten waffles in there. I grabbed a handful's worth and stuffed it in my mouth. They were all syrupy, buttery and insanely yummy.

[Same FA, but scene jump]
I was lying down on a long couch. Jack's mum was reading a book at the end of it. She says to our DC-host (the house owner), "I love coming to your house. It's like Christmas every time!"

"Mm-hmm!" I agree.

"What part of it did you not like?" Jack's mum asked me, mis-hearing me.

"I didn't say that, I was agreeing with an mm-hmm," I explained. I woke up for real.

First dream I wake up to go and work out. After putting on some clothes I gather all of my things and realize my wallet is missing. I think that maybe I left it in my brother's apartment next door (even though he doesn't live next door in real life), so I head next door.

The door is locked. I decide that I should try the key for my door on the balcony screen door, so I climb up on the balcony and try it out. It works! When I walk in there are two guys sitting down on lazy boys playing a video game, and my brother is no where to be seen.

"Who in the hell are you! Get out of here!" They proceeded to yell at me.

"It's not what it looks like! I thought this was my brother's apartment, I left my wallet in there. I am so sorry." I say back to them.

I proceed to climb down the balcony and meet my land lord in the parking lot of my apartment. She looked pretty pissed at me.

"(My name), I am going to have to start from scratch with you regarding background checks," She says to me, "I don't know if I can trust you anymore."

"M'am, it isn't what you look like! I was just looking for my wallet and I could have sworn that the apartment I walked into was my brother's!" I told her in desperation.

The boys playing video games in the apartment scream down to us to make sure to do another background check on me, because they think I was going to rob their place.

Fast-forward: I am sitting in my apartment with my wallet somehow, and my roommate walks in. He proceeds to tell me "Hey, there's my wallet."

Dream gets hazy after that.
_______________________________

I walk out of my apartment (very much could have been another false awakening) that I live in at college, and the cul-de-sac from my hometown is there somehow instead of my regular apartment building parking lot. It is snowing outside, but by no means is it regular snow. Dropping from above were snowflakes the size of my head, dropping extremely slow. Along with these massive snowflakes were regular sized snowflakes as well. I remembers asking about the snowflakes to one of my friends standing with me about why they were so huge, but I do not remember what their reply was.

I was extremely fascinated by the gigantic snowflakes, and I grabbed one. As I grabbed it, it proceeded to fall apart in my arms. I remember how weird it was for these massive snowflakes were to me, but I didn't even RC at all.

After this, we all ran into the middle of the cul-de-sac and started having a snowball fight. The snow felt so cold and so real. After this, my alarm went off and I woke up for real.

Note: This second dream really pissed me off. This is because this dream in particular was basically begging for me to perform an RC. This is because snow is by far the biggest dream sign I have, and not only that, but the huge snowflakes was intuitively telling me about how weird it was. Ugh! frustration...

Day 2 of my journey and another false awakening! Here's how my first dream went.

I "wake up" in my bed at home. I go upstairs and complain to my parents that I couldn't remember any dreams from the night before. I am very frustrated because I had told myself the night before that I was going to recall my dreams. This frustration stayed with me for the majority of the dream. Then, I got in our old family truck and drove to my high school (I have already graduated). It was the first day of school and we were given a quiz. Although normally very good at school, I couldn't get one question right on the quiz. My teacher tells me she's disappointed in me and gives me a packet of practice problems to work out. Then. I start talking to a girl in my graduating class about how I couldn't remember my dreams from the other night. She tells me not to worry and that she didn't remember hers either. I was then suddenly in the weight room of the school lifting with a few of my high school friends. I was contemplating what lift I wanted to do when my friends left. I heard girls voices outside the door of the weight room and the weight coach (who I never liked) came inside so I decided to leave. Outside the weight room was a girl (who graduated a year before I did) and I said "Hi" to her and she simply said "Hi John". I then walked out of the school and it was night time. I talked to one of my sister's friends about how her indoor soccer was going and she complained about it. I then tried to walk to my car but I couldn't. For some reason I was walking like a drunk and kept falling down a running into cars as i tried to get to my car. It was as if school let out because everyone was going to their car but no one helped me get to mine. I finally get to a car with three people sitting in it, my grandma and an elderly couple. (Their lights were off so I couldn't tell who they were or if I even knew them in RL). I ask my grandma (who was sitting in the back seat) if she could help me get to my truck. She then proceeded to give me a lecture on the dangers of asking strangers in cars without lights on for help.

Second dream!

My girlfriend and I are laying in a bed in what appears to be my grandparents bedroom in their old house with my parents (very odd). We are all watching a show on a very small TV. My parents get out of bed to brush their teeth and take showers but my girlfriend and I stay in bed. We start making out when my dad informs me that we need to go upstairs. When we arrive upstairs it's no surprise that it is the upstairs of my grandparents old house. When we arrive upstairs though, there is another couple up there already. I don't know who these people were but the man was very skinny and the woman was very fat (looked like they were a joke or something). We took a long time to arrange our beds the way they "needed" to be arranged and then when we finally laid in them my dad yelled for me to come to the kitchen. I went to the kitchen and my parents are cooking some kind of casserole with tortilla chips, mac & cheese, and hamburger meat. They tell me that we are going to my great grandparents' apartment to have brunch. I ask them what time and they say 7 p.m. I ask them why eating at 7 p.m. is called brunch and not dinner and they didn't answer. I tried the casserole and it was surprisingly very good. It was crunchy and soft at the same time and had a variety of tasty flavors. I concluded that old people must just call every meal brunch and went back upstairs. When I got back upstairs though, it was no longer the upstairs of my grandparents old house. It was now the playroom of my old house. The skinny man and fat woman were still there. I saw that my iPhone was dying so I plugged it into the computer. For some reason I couldn't figure out where to plug it in so it took much longer than I wanted it to. After I finally plugged it in, a video of me popped up on the screen of the TV in the playroom. It was a video of me singing about football. I was considerably younger in the video than in the dream and I didn't like the video but I couldn't figure out how to stop it. Suddenly my mom is upstairs telling me how to turn it off. When she turns it off though, pictures of me from my phone start popping up on the TV. In frustration I just pick one picture on my phone to have on the TV so I don't have to mess with it anymore. Then my girlfriend and I walk into my old bedroom and start making out again. We are rolling around on the floor when suddenly she screams. I look at her for a second and ask her why she did that. She doesn't answer and just looks at me.

I am very pleased to have more vivid and complete dreams last night. In only the second night of consciously attempting dream recall I have made significant progress. I'm beginning to discover my dream signs. I know high school is one of them. Family, singing, old houses, and friends seem to also be my dream signs. I've been able to interpret some of my dreams just by writing them here too. For instance, the first dream I had last night came from my subconscious being nervous that I wouldn't remember my dreams. Hopefully, this subconscious worry will help me to remember more and more dreams. I am excited to sleep now every day! So far so good on my LD journey!

Now the world is gone, I'm just one...

I wake up in my bed. I am naked, I wonder at the fact that it's already time for me to awaken, since it feels as though I've only just fallen asleep. I'm about to leave my room, but on the way out I lean against the wall near my door, pressing my forehead against it. 'How can I know whether I'm dreaming, or awake? It's all the same... How can I know any of this is even real... Keep sleeping to dream, because I hate my life, hoping I'll come out of it better, with some shred of something I can use, something to inspire, to move, to find an answer, an escape. But sleep just seems to install new bars into this cell. How can I even know I'm not dreaming right now.'

For the fuck of it, I flip the light switch just beneath my head on and off. Nothing happens. I look at the ceiling, the walls. Everything is here. The mask hanging from my door, the books, the silvery rays coming in through the window. I realize I'm not awake, but still asleep. I reflect for a few moments on how detailed and vivid everything is, how 'real' it is, nothing missing. Realizing this doesn't make me happy or excite me, but instead fills me with a feeling of isolation. The walls no longer real, just pictures of walls, the idea that beyond them, isn't a real city, no apartment, no livingroom, no father... Beyond these walls there isn't a home, because these walls aren't real. They're just my memory of them. And what of the real walls? Those don't build a home, either. I'm upset by the lack of comfort, familiarity, of reality, since this 'room' is just a 'ruse'. My malaise deepens as I reflect on how, 'the real thing', isn't actually any better. What was I expecting?

An anatomically correct digital rendering of someone's face, speaking, crying... The 'realness' of it isn't moving, but disturbing, soul-less. It looks so real, it's 'correct', but it isn't. It isn't comforting. It's unnerving, you become suspect of something so... Accurate, but, lifeless. A doll.

I pull on a pair of jeans and start to slide my belt through the loops. I stop partway through fastening the belt, realizing the pointlessness of getting dressed in a world that consists of only me. I think, I don't want to know what's outside of these walls. And I don't have to, I can leave another way. I open the window and remember how I'd been thinking about jumping out of it. Well, now I can. I remember how much I think about punching it until it breaks, when I'm mad. I slide the window as far open as it'll go, but it refuses to open far enough to let me jump out of it, it jams.

So I punch the window. It doesn't give. 'This is MY DREAM, and you BREAK.' I put my fist through it, it shatters, shredding my knuckles open and raking the flesh off my arm as it goes through. My arm is 'reforming' as quickly as it's being torn apart, as I need to thrust several times to knock out all of the leftover shards. Knots of scartissue creep up my arms like ribbons, replacing the gashes. I rip the frame out of the window and toss it behind me.

For a moment I question whether I'm really dreaming, or just having delusions of grandeur before I jump out of a window and kill myself. 'I'm going to fly,' and I close my eyes and rocket out of the window, or so I think. Turns out I actually just jumped REALLY HIGH. I float back down onto a building lined up right beneath my window. Looks like a warehouse. I am alone. I consider making someone to travel alongside me, consider summoning a DC. I start forming one, particles aligning in the air. I delete it before it materializes completely. There's no point. She's hollow. A shell. Like building a robot of a woman. I can't bring myself to do it. I have to just move forward and hope there's something at the end, hope I'll find someone, find somewhere.

The fastest way to the other side of the warehouse is 'through', so I slide the door open and go in. Inside is a 'panic room', the walls made of steel. I hear the door behind me bolt shut. It's silent, just like outside. Nothing, no one, is in here. I shake my head and laugh, egging on my subconscious. 'I can't be kept in here. Is this supposed to make me afraid?' I go to the far wall and sock it. It leaves a huge dent, but no opening. I take my finger and use it as a laser cutter, slicing out portions of the wall until I have a square opening big enough to step through.

It opens up into a roof top. It's a beautiful day. The sun is out. Everything is clean. Deserted. I look down onto the empty streets below. I snap my fingers and people appear. Down below, their cellphones go off, chewing gum, laughing, signing each other, driving, eating, biking, unknowing. I want to believe they're real, that I can save them, have a meaningful interaction with one if I just greet with selective blindness, be the king of ants. But I can't swallow it. I snap my fingers again and they disappear.

I have to keep moving... Find something, anything, other than this horrible quiet, or the alternative- synthetic companionship. I jump from roof top to roof top, on and on for miles... The buildings slowly become more and more decayed, crumbling, wisteria growing through the old concrete and splitting it. I reach the last rooftop. I've reached the 'end'.

It's a white sand beach, with colorful shells scattered about, and then the ocean, all around. This is the land's end, the very end, and there is nothing else. I look around for someone else, some sign of life, evil, good- either, something other than just.... This. I can't stand how beautiful it is, the perfect waves, the flawless sand and sun, but my heart drained of all enthusiasm. The 'perfect day', unthinking, fills me with agony and isolation. I drop to my knees and thrust my hands out in frustration, reel back and start to scream at the sky. I want to eject this pain, vomit all of it out, be capable of feeling something besides 'empty', 'broken'.

My scream starts out as a human scream, faintly echoing back to me through the hollow corridors of the buildings behind me. I keep screaming, and the scream grows into an otherworldly roar, screeching into the perfect blue. The scream develops earthquakes, the sea shoots up around me in spikes of black water, jutting into the sky, which grows dark, and the wind begins to howl. The clouds and the waves, claw at each other, meeting in the air. Lightning snaps all around, dead sea creatures rise, cooked, to the surface. Cyclones form, hurling debris around me. The tide creeps up and fills all of the sea caves, swallows the buildings, swelling higher and higher, engulfing the land, then, crushing it in a fist of water and black ice. The sky has opened up into the sea, reaching into it, an enormous gaping maw.

I get a view of myself from within the mouth of the sky. A tight cylinder around my body upward, is the only space that is dry, a beacon of sand and light in the havoc. I'm on my knees, still screaming, long hair coiling and snapping like snakes around my head. The rest of me is frozen, fingers curled in agony and frustration, as the scream just rolls on and on out of my body. I'm trying to eject everything, purge it, but it just keeps going. I keep screaming hard and harder, waiting to 'run out' of pain, run out of the need to scream, but the pain doesn't go away. I'm trying to 'let out' something that's endless. The world is destroyed, but the pain goes on, never emptying. The cup continues to fountain and overflow.

This is pointless. I stop. The sky reforms, the tide sucks back into the sea, the sand dries, the buildings reappear, the sun peers back through the clouds. There isn't any trace of what just happened, anywhere in sight. No sight of the pain. It's hidden again. Perfect again. Quiet. It feels the same. I lay on my back in the sand, motionless, wishing my life, my dream, would make up its mind. Please start, or just be over with. This isn't living, and this isn't dreaming. It's over. It fades to black.

After reading through the website last night I decided to try some of the techniques to recall my dreams. I laid in my bed and remembered the following:

I have a false awakening and wake up in my bed at my old house. I moved out of that house 3 years ago but everything was clear and detailed as it had been when I lived there. I get up from bed, move downstairs into the basement, and find my friend and his girlfriend sitting there on the couch. They look angry at each other. Then, my friend's girlfriend comes over and sits by me instead of my friend. My friend leaves and his girlfriend says that she wants to be with me but I won't allow it. Suddenly, I am in a grocery store that is very bright. I am walking with my friend (same friend in the basement) looking for something. I don't know what we are looking for but we can't find it. Then, I am at my old high school walking with the senior class through the main gym singing a song about freshmen. I have never heard or sang a song about freshmen but this song was clear as day in the dream with clear lyrics and music in the background. As we walked out of the gym, I was suddenly in a chemistry lab looking at a circular metallic blob floating in a glass tube. I am wearing a lab coat and studying this substance for a while and then another man in a lab coat walks in and talks to me. The language is not my own but I seem to understand it. Finally, I have another false awakening in the same bed at my old house and I walk into the playroom upstairs. My friend (same friend that has been in all the other sections of the dream) is sitting at the computer playing Halo 3 and the TV is on. I ask him if he's mad about his girlfriend and he says no and that I should find her and date her. I watch him play Halo 3 for a while and when he dies in the game I go downstairs to search for her. I look all over the house and can't find her.

I felt pretty excited to remember so many fragments of my dreams last night considering I normally do not recall my dreams well. Although each dream were short snippets they all seemed to be connected somehow. I can't wait to sleep tonight to see what new dreams I can recall!