false awakening

Can anyone spot a common theme in my dreams from last nigh
Night of March 20th 2015. Bed from 22:00 to 06:00. Before going to sleep I asked my guardian angle/helping spirits/spirit guide and totem animals to review themselves to me in my dreams in a way I would recognize and understand.

Did not record first 2-4 dreams.

My mum had come up to the city to help me out with something. Towards the end of her visit she asked or I offered to accompany her while she drove out of the city or all the way to her home.
On the way out of the city she often asked for directions. What I felt she was really doing was abdicating responsibility for taking such and such a road or exit.
I then answered only once when asked by her which way she should go. This made her panic resulting in her driving down the wrong side of dual carriage way at night. I spotted this and told her she need to get off the road. She insisted she was going the right way until we were caught in the headlights of a large truck coming towards us. She curved and drove the wrong way up a slip road to get off the dual carriage way.
Next we found ourselves in a service station on the outskirts of the city. We'd stopped for something to eat.
While queuing up I noticed a person who had recently passed away standing in the queue. When I told my mum who I saw she said that was impossible as that person was dead. Then I thought is this what its like to see a ghost or spirit. e.g. 100% normal if you choose to believe other 'worlds' exist outside of the physical.
I then returned to my old mood asking mam if she would be able to drive home from here by herself or if she would like me to accompany her. She didn't answer so I told her I was going home and left.
Outside I just missed the first bus. Luckily another bus came quickly after this. Buses didn't stop unless people were at the bus stop waving them to do so. However buses did slow down at which point I called out to see if the bus was going to my town (where I no longer live but were I rent out my apartment). It was, stopped and I got on. The collector told me to go ahead when I offered to pay the fair because of my nationality.

My thoughts/attempt at interpretation:
I treat my mam like that in real life because a large part of me feels she does abdicate responsibility or rather I feel she did so in the past. Maybe its now time to acknowledge this and just accept her questions with the view that maybe if I adopt this approach she will come to see me as more relaxed and open.
As for the dead person apart from wanting to see a ghost! While I acknowledge the person gave me employment when I was young I felt they were nothing more than a slave driver.

03:00
I found myself at the gym having not been there for sometime either due to injury or because I had been attending to other higher priority stuff. I sensed that maybe in my job I was a police man.
Not sure where to start I lay on an inclined bench and picked up some loose weights that were there. I then put them behind at head level and straight up by straightening my arms. When I put them behind my head and tried to straighten my arms they rubbed off the wall. I thought they would fall off and then observed that there was nothing holding them onto the bar.
While lying on the bench an ex female president also attended the gym and took a spot to my right. She was surrounded by a few companions.
Next a gym attendant a middle aged woman who I felt knew my from before by the way she approached and asked “if I could help her”. I replied 'sure'. My 'sure' was how I would answer a friend or 'sure' in a genuine way, not in a 'sure, just let me put your request on my to do list and I'll get to it sometime'.
I accompanied her to her room/office/work station. She asked me if I had travelers cheques. I said 'of course'.

My thoughts/attempt at interpretation:
I never like police and at my age I won't be joining! In saying that I can sense what it would be like to be a guardian of order / justice but served with compassion.
As for the gym I don't use a gym but felt how good it feels to return to an old or totally new activity.
Regarding the travelers cheques I need to travel but at the moment I don't have any money. Perhaps had I been mindful enough in the dream I could have told the woman I don't have any but that I would like some.

In another dream I found myself on the road beside a fence behind which was a large factory or institution. All of a sudden a helicopter approached from behind and spotted a name on the tail. Brian Cox. Then the helicopter was blown violently backwards. It then proceeded to land safely. A group of children disembarked. They were on school project to move fish to a new location. They have a fish each. One fish I saw was a turbet.
When I saw this I became irate because I automatically assumed they have not consulted with the national fishing body responsible for maintaining eco policing.

My thoughts/attempt at interpretation:
When ever I think of the name Brian Cox I think of someone who attained a top job but who always flew under the radar – excuse the pun.
Regarding fishing, I like fishing and I do get angry when I think of how non native species are allowed to be introduced without any governance what so ever.

In my final dream it was morning and I was at work/in collage in a very large institution in the Netherlands. An communication was sent out that every worker/student would receive €31 in their next pay packet due to a surplus. Surplus was the result of over charging or business having been good. I wondered why the institution had not decided to reduce next years registration fee by this amount but then I thought maybe increasing moral in the present moment was more important.

My thoughts/attempt at interpretation:
I worked in the Netherlands as a general operative when I left school.
I need financial help at this time.

Shortly after I began trying to fall asleep, I noticed some specks in my vision. I imagined the specks being some suburbs at night and I imagined myself flying over them. I was now flying over the lights without a dream body. Gradually the lights converted to ocean waves. As I was flying closely over the ocean in the night, I noticed the sky was overcast which looked good for rain. I finally dove down into the ocean and glided closely along the ocean floor. Once I saw it drop down sharply to a depth of about 20 feet, I looked up, hoping to see rain on the surface. It was raining! It looked like rain falling on the windshield of a car. Satisfied that I completed my dare, I tried to transform into a dolphin. I began to swim very fast and could feel my body changing. I took time to observe my body and could see my tail, dorsal fin, and pectoral fins. I forgot to do the beak, though. After a bit more swimming, I woke up.

I found myself semi-lucid around my own house. I can remember flying around. I was fighting this fat DC who looked like Gluttony from Fullmetal Alchemist. I remember I was trying to mimic alchemy and convert the atoms in the ground into weapons, blades and rock pillars that would attack him.

At one point, I made a giant cannonball and covered it in spikes. This seemed to kill him. I think he vanished, and I realized that I was fighting. Then my alchemy powers stopped working but I was still able to fly around. I thought about flying to space, I saw the moon in the daytime sky and thought about going there. I remember thinking about how there was an old shared dreaming group who had a building there. I thought that I was supposed to be meeting with her (Dawneye11) in the shared dream there.

Just then the moon exploded. Bits of the moon flew outward, but the core of the moon remained, and became a black hole. Then, a gravity wave came out, first hitting the pieces of the moon and pulling them back in. It then hit the earth.

It felt like a really strong wind was pulling me toward the moon black hole. Houses and trees were pulled up and sucked in. I thought that I should try to escape the black hole. If I can't NBD, it's a lucid dream, and I'll see where it takes me.

I started flying away, but I wasn't going nearly fast enough and I was getting sucked in. I tried to go faster and managed to stop myself relative to the black hole. at one moment, however, I must have twitched my arm too fast because I woke up and moved my arm IWL.


-WBTB-

I was in my old high school with Manei. However, I was for some reason a ghost. (You know how for Halloween there is always that one person who goes as a bed-sheet ghost. Well, I was that ghost, but I wasn't a costume, I was just a bed-sheet.)

I remember at one point (though not very clearly) I was able to phase through walls. Manei was very impressed.

At some point, my ghostly bedhseet was replaced with a Victorian dress.

At the end of the dream there was this big wall of questions. It was something that my high school was doing in the dream. I remember reading one of the questions that somebody else had posted.

"Why do dentists write on our teeth with a dark blue crayon? Wouldn't dark green be on a better wavelength?

While I'm at it, how many dark blue crayons do they take away from small children who need them, after all it has been scientifically proven that little kids like the dark blue crayons?"

I looked through most of the other questions on the wall. Most of them were long and complex like that one, but I didn't bother to read all of them.

Manei said that she wanted to put a question on the wall. There was a bin of cards. She used some kind of power on it and it began rapidly cycling through a large number of words and phrases until it landed on one single word.

'why'

She posted that up in the middle of the wall.

"Why is a beautiful word because you can always ask 'why' something is the way it is. Sometimes you will arrive at an answer, and others you will not. But you can always keep asking questions. Why does this school exist? Why do I exist?"

"Why does this dream carry on even though the core message has already been conveyed?"

"Exactly."

I went back into semi-lucidity and we sat down in the back of the class that was sitting in the gym. One of the teachers was giving a presentation, but I paid no mind to what he/she was saying. I decided that this would be an opportunity to try blobularwindmils dare of drawing something and making it come to life. But somehow I remembered the dare wrong and thought that I was to draw something that was already alive.

I was looking at Manei trying to figure out how to start drawing her face. She looked over at me and gave me this big goofy smile. I told her to hold that pose for a moment. I lost the dream and woke up.

-WBTB-

Some weird nonlucid bits. I was a member of this tribe who live in a wasteland. I was looking out over our village that we were building. The dream was strangely very clear here.

I remember we were living in a sand gully. There were these huge gray mushroom structures all around. They were miles tall and clouds wrapped around their bases. It was a strange, alien world. I was considering starting a farm/garden to grow food for our people and had found a nice area of land next to the village.

Just then, like magic, the leader of our villiage approached me and asked me to do just that, start a farm and grow food for everyone. I told him I would get right on it.

...

The dream somehow gave way to a dream about this Star Wars game where you would create a team of Jedi with different skills and weaknesses and they would battle one another or other opponents.

In the game they were chasing this big cyborg guy through this space station.

...

I found myself fully lucid once more in the living room at my aunt and uncle's house. Manei was there in one of the chairs. She said something to me that I couldn't make out, like she was mumbling or something. I kept moving closer and ask her to repeat herself.

By the fourth or fifth time, I was practically leaning in her face. She had her headband on. Also, for some reason her hair was really shiny. Overall the experience of seeing her was vivd. (Much more than it had been in the last dream.) She just looked like a completely real person.

"I want to hear you call me 'Kitten'"

*tries not to laugh* "Okay, whatever you say, Kitten..."

"And your nickname can be Jaylen!"

"Why 'Jaylen'?"

"I don't hear you coming up with a better one."

"Why not 'Jade', like my Dreamviews profile name?"

*giggles* "Okay."

She then decided to give me a hug. I hugged her back and the dream blurred out and I woke up.

-WBTB-

Spoiler for Carry on at your own risk:

The fourth dream consisted of le sexytime. The clarity and sensation were terrible, and I can't remember much of anything.

I false awoke in a giant puddle of blood on my front lawn. I was naked, and I wondered were all the blood was coming from. Turns out my *ahem* manhood had been removed. I wasn't in any pain and I didn't really seem to care though.

I went inside and told my mom that this is why you shouldn't get sexy with dream characters.

Had an intense nightmare after drinking mugwort tea. My spirit was flying in whiteness and there were weird sensations. I then collapsed on the ground and "woke up" but it was a false wake up. I was in grass or my bed I think. Later in the dream, I was on choir tour with my church, and I was in a store, and wanted to buy a violin. I walked around saw instruments asked a man about if they had a violin I could buy. I awoke to my mom and talked with her. I awoke outside in the cold by a tree and I was crying and happy and it was raining. I started to walk home I knew where I was, but I had never been there before. God and the devil was in the dream, and it was like I was dying and awakening to spiritual truths that made no sense to me, from evil spirits and I don't remember them anymore and am glad that I don't. At the end of the dream my mom was present but not visible and there was a fierce bird alive by me, it might have been an eagle, its eyes were fierce and it was awake and its wings were scary. Other things happened in the dream. I'm afraid to go back to sleep. It was intense but I forget most part of it, but the bird image (my mom has a bird, a cockateel, but this bird was definitely stronger, maybe an eagle) resonated for about a minute or two before I woke up. I was sort of inside the bird and the bird was all I could see. Strong but scary dream. Definitely a result of the mugwort. What do you think? Later in the night i had a dream where I was fishing illegally with a friend and caught a sick shark, it was blackish gray.

I had several lucid dreams while on vacation in Cuba. Here’s what happened:

Mar 5, In this dream I was at my parent’s house moving some chairs from the dining room to the kitchen in preparation for supper. When I picked up a chair I noticed that the left and right sides of the seat back did not match. The right side was squared off at the top, whereas the left side was rounded. I said to my wife, “Honey, I know that I’m dreaming because the seat backs are not symmetrical!” The dream started to fade, so in an effort to stabilize, I began to swirl, but no luck.

Mar 5, In this dream I was in a dimly lit large machine shop. I became lucid for no reason whatsoever, just as a man ran past me. His skin was glowing white with a slight iridescence. He ran up to a locker and opened it, and a flood of light poured out illuminated him brightly. I ran around the lockers to the other side and I tried to levitate him, but he didn’t budge. Then I walked up to him and pushed on his shoulders with both my hands. I wanted to see how strong he was. He put his hands on my shoulders and pushed back, but I easily slid him across the floor. I said, “I’m stronger than you.”, and he replied, “Don’t push me.” He was less than impressed (I was misbehaving again).

Mar 6, In this dream I was walking down the street in my home town. Suddenly, packages of butt wipes started to appear in people’s hands, and a package also appeared in my hand. I instantly became lucid - Dream Induced Lucid Dream (DILD). All of us walked into a community center with a stage at the back. I decided to have some fun with this lucid dream, so I walked up on stage and raised my package of butt wipes up into the air! Everybody stopped what they were doing and watched. I said, “Butt wipes! These things are amazing! When your butt needs a wipe, what do you reach for? Butt wipes! When you’re out on a date, and things are getting awkward, what do you use? Butt wipes!” People started to laugh, and then I stepped off the stage. My dream guide walked up to me and said, “Ohhh, that was good! Everything turned out okay.” I replied, “Yeah, you have to have fun sometimes when lucid.” We walked out the building together, and then I woke.

Mar 7, In this dream I became lucid because the man beside me had glowing red eyes (DILD). I asked to him to help me find my daughter, and in return I would give him my truck. I reached into my pocket, pulled out the keys and gave them to him, and I said, “The truck’s outside, it’s yours!” He graciously took the keys and left. I then woke into a false awakening (still lucid). I was holding my daughter in my arms, as my wife was talking to her. I told my daughter I loved her, and then I woke.

Mar 8, In this dream I was holding a wood carved jewellery box (Cuban made). We had actually been looking at these the day before in Havana. My dear mother in-law (passed Y2001) came up to me and said, “Ooh, what do you have there?” Boom, lucid again! She was very interested in the jewellery box, and she had a huge grin on her face. My wife was standing beside me, and I asked her, “Can you see your mom standing there?” My mother in-law instantly replied, “Of course she can see me!” I then woke.

Mar 9, In this dream I was coaching soccer. The field was covered in water, so I told the boys to swim to the far end of the field and touch the white line. The assistant coach became upset with my drill because the boys were supposed to be playing soccer, not swimming. I thought about what he said, and then I became lucid (DILD). I remembered my dream intent to meet up with my daughter, so I started to call her name. The water vanished from the field, and then I slipped into another dream where I was driving a Suburban down the main street of my home town. I lost lucidity. I saw my daughter walking down the road towards me holding a fishing rod. There was at least 10 fish dangling from the pickerel rig. I pulled over and asked my daughter where she caught them, and she replied, “Down the street at her friend’s house. We should go there!” I then woke.

Mar 10, Wake Back to Bed (WBTB) lucid dream. I entered this dream in a fully lucid state using tactile visualization during meditation. I was standing in a bungalow, and my son was sitting at the dining room table. He said, “Dad, have you seen the backyard yet?”, and I replied, “Not yet, but I’ll take a look!” I walked out backdoor and onto a concrete deck. The entire backyard was a gigantic fish pound, and it was surrounded by forest! Fish were jumping and sending small ripples across the mirrored, pond surface. I called for my daughter to come, and I instantly heard her giggling and talking to my son inside the bungalow. She then came out the backdoor and faced me with a huge smile and I said, “I’m lucid!”, and she replied, “Great dad, you finally got it!” My son then came outside and joined us. I gave my daughter a huge hug and told her I loved her. I then asked the kids how they were enjoying the Cuban vacation. My son looked totally confused and didn’t know what I was talking about, but my daughter knew. She said, “I’ve enjoyed it, but I’m getting really frustrated because nobody has given me a sip of their drink. I keep tapping people on the shoulder when they’re ordering drinks, but nobody feels it.” The dream quickly faded and I woke. The following day we ordered my daughter a Pina Colada for lunch (her favorite drink)! How could we forget?

Went to bed at 8:45 Pm, and woke at 2:30 Am (WBTB). Stayed up for only for 5 minutes, which is not usual for me when doing Wake Back To Bed (WBTB), because I usually stay up for at least 45 minutes, but I was too tired. I decided to meditate while lying in bed on my back. I started to feel uncomfortable after about 15 mins, so I rolled onto my right side for another 15 mins, and then onto to my left side. Soon after I found myself in the altered state where your mind is awake and your body is asleep (even my hearing had stopped). The hypnagogic imagery was crystal clear. I saw a poster with lots of writing on it, but it disappeared before I could read it. People were gathering around me and talking.

The vibrations started, and I could hear electrostatic popping and sizzling. This was my queue to leap to my feet out of bed, leaving my body behind. I was expecting to end up in my bedroom, but instead I was in my childhood bedroom at my parent’s house. I immediately started to count, because this helps to stabilize the experience, and helps to keep my mind focussed. Off I went to try and find my daughter.

I ran down the stairs to the first floor, and into the living room. There was a transparent man standing there, and I ran right through him towards an older woman who was standing at the back door. I didn’t recognize the woman, so I continued past her to the back door. She then spoke in my dad’s voice and said, “No, don’t go out there, stay inside.” I turned around to face the woman, and I replied, “Okay, where’s my daughter?” She pointed towards a soccer ball size object that was morphing about 3 feet off the floor near the basement door, and she said in my dad’s voice, “Right over there!” It was very strange that this woman had my dad’s voice, so I asked her, “Who are you?”, and she replied, “I’m your dad.” I quickly stuttered, “But dad, you look like a woman?”, and dad said, “Yah, I know, but that’s just how it is.” By this point my daughter was almost materialized, and I got too excited, and instantly I was back in bed, consciously awake, with my body asleep.

Once again, the vibrations and the electrostatic popping and sizzling started, so I leapt from my bed to my feet. My bedroom looked so real, and felt so real, that I momentarily thought I had physically jumped out of my bed, but then I could see two transparent people standing in my room (definitely dreamin’), so I walked right through them and out my bedroom door. I then realized I was totally naked! Yikes! This is odd, because usually I have at least my gotchies on. I also still had my CPAP mask on, so I ripped it off my face. Top of my list was to find a blanket to wrap around me, so I went looking for one in my daughter’s room. I flicked the light switch on, but it didn’t work (of course), then I tried her lamp, same thing. The room magically became softly lit, and that’s when I noticed something was different with my daughter’s calendar. I sat on her bed to take a closer look.

At the end of each day my daughter would always draw a line diagonally through each calendar day, to mark its completion. She did this right up until she passed in 2013. In this OBE, the calendar looked different, because it was covered in brilliant green grass and red flowers. The diagonal line through each date was no longer present, but rather there were pictorials and hieroglyphics, right up until her passing date. I was totally enthralled with the amount of effort and detail that went into each day of the calendar. Very unexpectedly, I heard my daughter giggling beside me. She was lying under the covers in her bed. “Dad, every time I see you, you look older! It’s seems so strange.” She sat up in bed, leaned over, and gave me a huge hug. I replied to her, “Yeah, I’m getting older and older. Every day when I wake, I’m one day closer to being with you again.” She laughed and said, “Yeah, I know.” Then I said, “You still look the same, young and beautiful!”

Boom, back in bed again, consciously awake, with my body asleep. The vibrations started once again, and I tried to do a third exit, but no luck. I woke myself up and immediately voice recorded the amazing and memorable experience

After sending goodnight message to my friend i put telephone under the pillow and was falling asleep. I had a strange feeling, was so relaxed, when suddently i noticed that i couldn't move. And i realized that i was about to experiance sleep paralysis (I knew what it is from young age, it was happening to me all the time).

I remember the noise. Loud, unpleasant buzzing sound that was causing disturbance. Vibrating. Struggle to move was strengthening senses. I felt like someone opened the window. I couldn't turn around and look at it because i was unable to move, but i think even if i could - i wouldnt. I felt cold wind, and i heard that someone (It sounded like it was a person) climbed through the window and slowly came to my bed. I heard the steps. Breathing. I felt like my bed sligtly rises as interloper lays behind me. So close. I could feel how he touches my back. My eyes were open, staring at one point and being completely powerless. Then i sow how that person puts his hand around me as if he wants to hug me. And we were laying like that. For a while.

Creepy.

I notice another part of the scene I was in change. I found my self in Father room waking up however a part of the room look different. Though this change was familar to me and I soon recalled I've been here in a lucid dream before. My brother who I now notice ask I have? That means I'm dreaming right now. My brother said we are? I said yea are you aware?, my brother seem shock that we're both were lucid. Stay calm I told him. My brother said lets go through the window as he made an attempt to slide pass it.

It didn't work and he was push back. I told him it will take a bit more experience to accomplish that. Also the confusion may make you lose lucidity. I suggest it's better we take the back door. That's when we both agreed and left father room and enter the living room. I told my brother to watch what I'll do next. Saying that I'll make the lights switch work in the dream and that's when the real fun begins. My brother watch as I cause a dim blue light through apart of the house.

Shall we go outside I ask my brother? My brother decline saying he wanted to see more of what could happen inside the house. That's when someone at the door open it. It was a woman that resemble an anime character. I told my brother look they are really here. I jog and quickly approach her. I then greet and welcome them inside. I then pointed my finger saying hey it's another anime character outside. My brother said really? I waited for him to come and see.

We both saw a man with a huge sword knocking on near by peoples houses. I then told my brother we should go outside, there's a lot of things that happen out here. It was night as we begin to walk the streets. I however lost lucidity a long the way. Lucidity Time: 6 minutes

This WBTB chain was courtesy of OkmAR on the chat. He explained to me that counting is key in WBTB. Hopefully this isn't a one-off and I can repeat this in the future.

I was flying some kind of small aircraft or hovercraft down a highway in a populated area. I was trying to get into space and also keep track of how much fuel that I had left. (I had quite a lot.) I needed to get into space and rendezvous with a space station.

I became lucid and jumped off the vehicle and started flying. I remember cars on the highway started beeping and swerving when the drivers saw me. A couple of guys actually got into an accident.

I flew under a couple of overpass bridges, then decided to carry on with the original plot of the dream, to go to space. I pulled up. As I pulled up, I could see where the highway ran off into the countryside. There were farmlands, houses, roads, barns. There also seemed to be an over-abundance of these large trees with yellowish-green leaves on them.

The sky, though mostly cloudy and hazy, had a nice spectrum of color too it, and looked very clear and realistic.

I then realized that I wasn't going up anymore. I was about halfway between the cloud layer and the ground. One of the things that I was thinking about as I flew was how its supposed to get colder as you go up. I did notice a chilly breeze at this altitude that seemed to be knocking me around in different directions.

I tried pushing higher, but for some reason, I couldn't fly much higher than the halfway point between the clouds and the sky. I decided that instead, I would interact with some dream characters.

I came to the ground outside one of the farm houses. It was a modern looking flat. There was a large zen-garden area out to one side of the house, but it looked as though it were dying. The flat looked a little bit worn-down too.

There were a man and woman, probably in their 30's getting ready to leave to go live with their parents. (I don't know how I knew this, but I did.) I touched down by the front door in the dying garden, where the woman was.

"Hey, is Manei around?" Expecting her to reply with something like 'she's inside'.

"No, sorry, she isn't."

"Oh okay." The woman started carrying a duffel to the truck that her husband was waiting in.

"What happened to your garden?"

"White Spore. Fungal infection." I observed all of the plants and saw that the ones that were dying were covered in a fine white powder substance.

"Oh. Sorry to hear that. I hope your garden is better soon."

I get down on one knee and put my hand on the ground. I close my eyes and said something or other, a dream control phrase that intended to fix the woman's garden. When I opened my eyes, it looked like all of the plants were healthy and some new ones were added as well.

I started to become nonlucid here. The woman was very happy that her garden was fixed, and now she could invite all of my friends over. I can remember the scene actually changed to an inside area made out of brown cobblestones and having a large glass dome on top. There was a circular moat pool around the garden that had remained the same. I looked in the pool and saw all of these strange aquatic animals.

The woman was talking with her friend about the animals she chose to put into the pool.

"So what do you want for your medium sized animals?"

Spoiler for I'll censor this line just in case...:

"I want all of my medium-sized animals to be men with balls."

At one point this giant Manatee came out of the water and started dancing behind me like some kind of joke. Everyone thought it was really funny because he would dance behind me and they thought that I wasn't noticing. Every time I tried to move, he would follow me. I was more confused as to anything else.

Then my cousins and my uncle showed up to go swimming with the sea creatures in the moat pool. He took of his shirt and he had this weird plastic grate in his stomach that made it look like he had a 6-pack abs. He was bragging to everyone that he had the best abs.

The Dancing Manatee accidentally kicked me in the back during one of his dance moves. (I know Matinees have flippers, but this one had arms and feet, and little black claws in his feet.) I had a little puncture wound in the back of each leg that was bleeding where the claw went in. The woman who owned the garden apologized and shamed the Manatee as if he were a small child. He started crying. She then went to get me a bandage.



WBTB

I was at my mom's work. I was watching TV and eating ice cream out of the tub.

...

I was moving around the work when I noticed that I had some dry/dead skin on one of my hands, about the size of a fifty cent piece. It was between my thumb and index finger on my right hand. I started to peel it off. It was hard like rock and when I tried to peel it off, I saw there was no new skin underneath it, and it started bleeding.



Wait a second, can't I head this since I'm dreaming.

...

I'm not dreaming, am I? I am!

I tried wiping my left hand over the dead skin patch and I told myself that it would be gone. It was completely gone. Bonus, I was lucid dreaming.

I wanted to stabilize. I looked at my hands to get a better picture of them. I seemed to have the correct number of fingers on both hands. I tried to do the 'push finger through palm' RC but it didn't work. My hands in dreams, are sadly, very normal.

"Heighten Lucididty!"

I looked around. I could tell I was no longer in my mom's workplace. I was in what felt like my old middle school. I figured I should make my way outside. I tried to fly, but it failed, and I ended up falling down one of the stairwells.

I remember falling flat on my butt when I tried to fly that time.

I then saw somebody had left a silver travel mug on the stairs. I went up to it and felt it. It was warm. I looked inside and saw it was full of tea. I looked at the label on the end of the teabag.

'Lucidi-Tea Company'

That pun hurt my soul.

I looked up and saw that the doors at the bottom of the stairway were closed. But they had two little windows. I saw Manei walk by, look at me through one of the windows and walk on.

I lost the dream and woke up.

WBTB

I think the first dream was sort of repeating. I was again flying some kind of aircraft. This time it was a small black stealth fighter jet. Somebody was boasting about it's capabilities. It might have belonged to Marcus. He was explaining how it was able to fly into orbit and back since it used [a special type of engine]

There seemed to be some kind of malfunction though, and I was flying really low over a tropical archipelago.

...

I somehow found myself in town with S. I was talking with him about how air pressure changes as you go up. I remember telling him that after you go up every mile you lose half the air pressure. (This is probably inaccurate...) So at sea level its one atmosphere. At one mile up, its .5 atm. At two miles up it is .25 atm, etc.

I told him how the plane that I had been testing was able to fly at 100 miles up, so imagine how thin the atmosphere must be up there.

I then became lucid and decided to fly. I saw that the town we were in was surrounded by mountains, like in Puerto Rico. There was a radio tower and I decided that I would fly to the top of that. I started to focus on my intent and lifted off the ground.

Some DCs in the town looked at me with the typical amazement and shock-and-awe. S said he wanted to come with me. I tried to lift him into the air with me, but he was really heavy, and unable to fly himself.

The farthest I was able to get us was the roof of a parked car. We sat there. Manei came and asked me what I was doing. I lost the dream and had an FA.

I FA'd on the couch in my living room. I decided it was time I end my WBTB chain and enter these all on Dreamviews. I got up, booted up my computer and sat down at the kitchen table.

My dad was working. He asked what I was doing. I told him that I was going to enter the three lucid dreams that I had into my DJ.

He got really upset since he had been secretly trying to lucid dream for years, but was always too prideful to ask for advice. But since I had three lucid dreams in one night, and he had none he felt it high time he asked me for advice.

I told him to tell me about his technique. I woke up for real.

I was actually really tempted to go back and try for a fourth lucid dream in one night.

I wake up in my bed (false awakening) and see someone walking down my hallway. I'm cautious, but I get up and pursue this person. He has already walked out the front door. I go out too. The yard is not my yard. And houses are being torn down. A few yards over I see a creek, the one by the house I grew up in. The sight of the creek makes me believe I am dreaming. I keep checking my hands and I can't get them to distort like usual. Finally a couple of them look stuck together, so I shout to everyone don't worry this is just a dream. They don't believe me so I start flying and admiring this incredible architecture that I created out of my subconscious.

Ritual: WTB 1am, WBTB 6-7am recording NLDs, woke 7:45am with DILD + FA.

NLD, "Sparked": Walking home at night. Someone drives past in a dark vehicle and I say, "Turn on your lights!" Then I feel embarrassed when I notice she is actually walking. She enters the apartment two doors ahead of mine. The door next to her place is open, and there are people just inside it who give the impression that they are workers, not residents. My bed is the first thing I see when I open the door of my apartment, and I'm pleased to see a large box on it. Oh good, that thing I ordered has arrived.

After looking through the first box and strewing its contents, plastic wrap and styrofoam all over my bed, I open a smaller box that has also arrived. It contains a speaker that I ordered. When I first pull it out of the packaging I am disappointed: the surface is surprisingly dirty. Is it just shelfworn, or did I get a refurbished one by mistake? I'll be annoyed in the latter case, since I thought I was ordering a new one. There is some molded styrofoam that seems like the original packaging, if that's any clue.

The speaker weighs almost nothing, and I remember that this is a special lightweight system. It's portability is limited by its size, however, at about 8x10 inches. The back of it consists of flaps are supposed to fold together in a clever way. As I go to remove the last of the styrofoam supports, something unusual happens inside my head, like an electrical disruption.

I remain calm and think I'd better tell my roommates about this in case it incapacitates me and I end up needing medical attention, so I say aloud: "Hey guys, something weird just happened to me. I felt a "pop," saw a flash of white light, and now in the back of my head I hear a tone that is steadily increasing in frequency."

"You need more sleep," someone suggested. He could be right, but I didn't see the relevance. I do want to go back to bed but I'll have to clear all the box mess off it first.

What was happening to me? I had a contextual clue, at least: "It happened when I touched the speaker for the first time." Perhaps the device had built up some kind of strange electrical charge that I had triggered?

All this time the tone was whining to higher and higher pitches, and I waited with curiosity and slight anxiety to see what would happen next. When it seemed like it had become so shrill that it would soon pass beyond my auditory range, all that happened was that I woke up.

Note: The other day I read about "exploding head syndrome." This might have been a minor instance of it! The "popping" sound and flash of light are apparently classic symptoms. This is only the second time I've experienced something like this.

DILD, "Victorian Gentleman": I'm at a computer trying to order something online. I don't recall what it was, but the cost was over $200. There were some complicated webforms to navigate, and then after some difficulty finding my wallet, my credit card was missing. Meanwhile my stepmother-in-law comes over and offers to let me run her card instead. "No, no, no, no," I say quickly, trying to deter her, having just spotted mine on the table. Too late, she has already run her card and made the purchase. Well, that was nice of her, even if it wasn't what I would have asked for. I should show appreciation. I hug her and say, "Thank you."

Walking outside afterward, I have second thoughts. Was I rude to simply thank her? Maybe she hadn't intended the action as a gift. But even if she had, perhaps it would have been more polite of me to ask when she wanted me to pay her back, and that would give her the option to be magnanimous and say it wasn't necessary. But if she had assumed I would pay her back, wouldn't it be rude of her to create an extra hassle for me that I hadn't asked for? I had told her "no" and she did it anyway. I conclude that under the circumstances, my response was adequate and I should let it go.

As I walk back in the house, behind me I hear a man's voice, distinctively low and gravelly. It is really familiar. Who is that guy? I think he must live next door; I'm always hearing that voice. I sneak a look back before going in and spot him: he is older, gaunt, with straggly grey hair. I think he looks like an aging biker or a math professor (they can look more similar than you might think!)

I continue in the house and decide to repack my suitcase, which is in disarray, when it occurs to me... wait. I have the impression that I hear that man's voice all the time, but I suddenly suspect that I only hear it in dreams. Could this be a dream, then? I realize that it is. This gives me the confidence to go back outside and approach the guy, intending to find out who he is. I would not want to so brazenly walk up to a stranger in WL, but this is my dream so there is no reason to hesitate. As I step back through the door I find myself with handful of silver rings in my right hand that I am putting on the fingers of the left. Why did I grab so many? I'm going to have to put multiple rings on each finger to make them all fit.

Only one person is in sight now, a dapper gentleman in Victorian dress walking by from left to right. He has a neatly trimmed beard, a black frock coat, and a top hat. I've always been fascinated by that era, but in dreams I've never been successful in my attempts to meet historical figures. I wonder if he'll really acknowledge being from that time period. Maybe he's just dressing up?

I get his attention and ask, "Are you from the Victorian era?" He confirms it. I'm interested now so I start walking alongside him, suggesting, "Tell me about yourself." As he begins to reply, I look more closely at his face and realize that he is strikingly good-looking. On a whim I seize his arm and pull him off the road, then push him against the door of a nearby house and start kissing him, thinking meanwhile that in waking life I would never do this with a stranger. Though taken by surprise he responds willingly. The only thing marring the pleasure of the kiss is a little piece of fingernail in my mouth—I must have been biting them—and I try to move it with my tongue so it won't come into contact with his mouth, which would be awkward. During a break in the kissing I manage to swallow the bit of nail, and the gentleman never seems to notice.

After that interlude we continue together down the street. It's odd that I so quickly lost interest in my more intellectual inquiries and succumbed to mere erotic instinct... and annoying, in that I never did get to hear the DC's account of himself. My lucidity apparently faded quite a bit in the process (it was never very keen in this dream), because it doesn't occur to me to ask again, and instead I just walk along with little further thought.

We stop at a shop whose front opens right onto the street, and the gentleman wants to buy an unusual kind of candy that I've never seen before. It is some highly-processed, artificially flavored substance that comes in brightly colored plastic packages. The package can be activated in such a way that its contents will burst out like a foam snake. This is marketed to kids as a toy as well as a snack: they can have mock battles trying to hit one another with the candy snakes, then eat them afterwad. The girl minding the shop explains this to me while showing her a green stain spot on her T-shirt from where one of the candies had landed on her. So they stain clothes, too? I look down and am glad to see that I'm wearing something casual.

FA, "Let the Right One In": I wake up and get out of bed to record the dream. I don't notice anything unusual as I'm walking across the house, but pause in confusion as I go to sit down at my computer. Where's my chair? Why would my chair be gone? Surely I'm not dreaming? At first it feels improbable but gradually I realize that I am. Interesting... well, I want to explore this, but I don't want to lose my memory of the previous dream. It is still clear in mind, so I review the events and even recite a list of key words aloud to help fix my impressions. Then I look around to see what this new dream has to offer.

In contrast to the relative normality of the house, correct in layout but more sparsely furnished than normal, the view outside is catastrophic and extraordinary. A wide frozen river of swelling ice is flowing motionlessly where my patio should be, and cascading down toward the city in the distance. Just beyond it looms a mountain of pure white ice, with a matte, knobbly texture like that reminds me of spray-on styrofoam. Craning my head up, I can just see the narrow peak glittering in the sun. Everything looks incredibly clear and vivid, beautiful and frozen but apocalyptic.

The landscape is packed with people, whose clothes provide little patches of bright color. Bodies are frozen into the river and wander in groups along its banks. The only place free of people is the slopes of the ice mountain, steep and white and pristine. As I turn my gaze from the east, where I saw the river and mountain, to the south, the view becomes more grim. A whole crowd of people outside presses right up against the glass wall of my house, looking longingly inside, their bodies almost grey with cold and frost. I feel compassion for their plight, but I'm not sure what to do about it. My house is not big enough to accommodate even a fraction of the throngs who want to get in.

The people on the left, closer to the river, were all standing very still, but as I continue along the wall to the right, the people on this side are becoming more restless, with a few actively trying to break in. Some are attempting to cut holes in the glass. I wonder how long before they'll get through, and realize that I might need to start warding the walls against them. Then I see a segment of glass fall in, and realize that one woman has just succeeded in making a hole. It is about three feet high and a foot or so wide, in the shape of a narrow heart or mitten. Before she can slip through, I aim my flat palms toward the gap and begin to refreeze the glass (I don't seem to be distinguishing between ice and glass here). After a thin layer of glass or ice manifests over the hole, I pick up the piece that was removed and put it back in place, willing the gaps to fill in.

As I continue along the wall, the situation is getting even worse. There are already more holes. In fact, one woman has just crawled inside. I pick her up like a manniquin to remove her. The crowd is too think to restore her to ground level, so I toss her on top of the others... she can crowd-surf.

I come face to face with another woman who has made a hole in the glass. "You're not real, you're not real," I protest against her attempted incursion. It occurs to me that I should respond to her vaguely threatening presence with kindness. I embrace her and kiss her on the mouth, but she is oddly inert. It's like kissing a doll. I have nothing but a faint impression of staring blue eyes... blank eyes. "You're not real. Do you understand that? The reality of you is that you're not real."

She remains stiff and unresponsive, but doesn't back down, so I try an alternate tack. If she wants to get in the house so badly, then I will welcome her. I grab her arm and start tugging her inside. At this she actually resists, telling a woman standing near her outside, "Don't let go of my arm."

This is an interesting development. "Don't you want to come in?" I taunt. "A minute ago you were clamoring to come in." The dream ends.

The beginning of this dream was fairly foggy, but I eventually became lucid somewhere in my house. I decided to try to portal to Vi, much like I did during my last quality lucid. I used the same technique as last time, pointing to the wall and drawing a circle with my finger. I then tried to pull the portal up to size, but after I got it to the size of my hand, it became kind of stiff and wouldn’t open any more. I put all my energy into trying to open it, but then eventually gave up.

I walked back to my room and decided to try something different. Instead of a wall portal, why not a floor one? I tried the same technique, and this time it was much easier - in fact, the portal appeared just by thinking about it, instead of having to draw it. I had some false memory about someone telling me that floor portals were dangerous, and you had to have something prepared on the other side to catch you. I didn’t think too much about it, and dove in. I fell through and found myself in a purple void, falling with no end in sight. I felt a slight tingling in my body, which then turned into some strong vibrations. I stopped falling, and was now just floating. I stopped to take moment to realize how pleasant this sensation felt. The purple void was replaced for a bit with an orange and green sort of checkerboard pattern everywhere I looked. These soon faded however, but the vibrations continued for a bit.

I now found myself back in my bed, but I was facing the wrong way, so I knew I was still dreaming. The vibrations wore off, so I stood back up, eager to try the portals again. However, I passed by two mirrors and remembered the mirror TotM. I was a little confused on the description at first, I just thought I had to interact with it and describe the effects. I grabbed the smaller of the two mirrors off the wall, and tried to push my hand through it. It went through with relative easy, and I could see my hand stretching through the back of the mirror. It stretched almost like spandex, and felt kind of funny in a good way.

I then started to grab the other mirror, but my mom barged in my room and started yelling at me again (she does this a lot in my dreams as of late, but to be fair she has been nagging me almost the whole time I’ve been back for spring break). I don’t even remember what she was yelling at me for this time. I grabbed the second mirror and tried to stick my body through it, starting with my head. However, as I stuck body parts through the mirror, they turned invisible! I had a little trouble fitting all the way through, but eventually turned my entire body invisible. This caused my mom to finally leave.

I somehow reappeared, and decided to go back to trying for the portals. I found a clear spot on the wall, but instead of the pointing and drawing, I just decided to point until a small hole appeared on the wall, and then I tried to pull it apart. Instead, I managed to pull the drywall off. Inside the wall were the wooden studs, which had little termites running all over them. I thought that was kind of disgusting, so I moved to another section of wall and tried two more times, with much the same result. Finally, I tried changing it up one more time. I pointed at the wall with one hand, and then drew a circle around it with the other hand. This actually worked surprisingly well, as the outline of the circle I drew even showed up on the wall. When I completed the circle, it suddenly changed into a large circular mirror. This one was large enough for me to actually get into, so I ran a full speed into it. It offered little resistance except a little tingling, but then the scene went white, instead of the black that it usually fades to.

I had a false memory of someone on the forum saying that running through mirrors takes you to the spirit world. As I kind of waited for the scene to reappear, I wondered if that was what had actually happened. But then the scene started to appear, and I noticed it was a 16-bit video game of some sort. It mainly showed a map of “the spirit world”, which looked a lot like a map from Final Fantasy or something. At the bottom, a dialog box appeared, and actually showed my thoughts on the screen. I was kind of weirded out by this, and decided it probably wasn’t worth it, so when the box asked me if I wanted to enter the dream world, I “clicked” no. The scene now faded to a 16-bit version of my room in 3rd person. I could see my avatar in my bed. A little health bar over him showed that he was about to wake up, but a strange lady walked over and sat on his chest. This led to a somewhat humorous Game Over screen, with the big words “Sleep Paralysis” flashing on the screen. I thought this was more funny than scary, so I laughed until the scene went black again.

I found myself in bed one more time, but everything seemed somewhat normal. I wondered if I was still dreaming, so I walked over to the mirror again and tried to push my hand through it. The mirror gave way almost like liquid, so I knew I was still dreaming. I walked out of my room and found myself in one of my old classrooms from Junior High. I became just semi-lucid at this point. There were computers on tables all over the room. The teacher was there, talking about some evil plan he had to use the computers for. I was more interested by this one girl (who, in retrospect, may have been Vi) playing a Sonic game on one of the computers. I walked over and asked her about it.

“Yeah, I just love how fast he runs everywhere.”
“You think that’s super speed? Check this out.”

I took off into a hard sprint around the room. I felt the wind whipping through my hair, even though it didn’t actually look like I was moving that quick. I somehow managed to run “fast” enough that I ran up the wall, and continued to run around the entire room on the wall. However, just before I finished the first lap, I tripped over a wire from the computers and fell flat on my face. She still though this was amazing, however. “Wow. You’ll probably be better at this game than me.” She hands me the controller.

Apparently this was the newest Sonic game, which (as expected) got horrible reviews. Somehow I knew the plot already - that Sonic and friends got stuck in the spirit world, and as such they had taken completely different forms. For example, I was playing as Shadow, who for some reason had long, Ozzy Osbourne-like hair that was dyed purple, as well as purple sunglasses like Ozzy’s. The internet had nicknamed him “Hippie Shadow”, which I thought was pretty hilarious. The level I was playing was somewhat difficult, especially since the controls were some weird combination of the keyboard and mouse, but I managed to complete it. The cutscenes were even weirder, including Tails being in a romantic relationship with a female version of himself. I found this so weird and hilarious that I woke up.

A poorly photoshopped rendering of Hippie Shadow, just for the lulz:

Ritual: Too tired to work late so WTB 12am, woke 4am to finish work. WBTB at 6:15, woke 7:15am with first DILD.

DILD, "Mirror Lake": Woke up with fragile recall... as I was getting down notes from the end of the dream, ended up forgetting much of what came before. Thought about it and some scenes came back, but there might be gaps.

I recall an NLD at my grandma's house involving lots of cats and kittens of all sizes and personalities. I was trying to negotiate conflicts between them and protect the kittens from dogs who seemed on the verge of trying to eat them. I woke at one point (though I now suspect this was an FA) and reflected, oh, those were such obvious dream signs (grandma's house & cats), I should be more attentive.

Not sure exactly when I became lucid; it might have happened around this point. I recall lying in bed, thinking it was just like my real bed but instinctively aware that I was dreaming. (In retrospect, typically, room and bed were nothing like WL.) I lay on my back staring at the complex patterns that were playing across the ceiling in black and white, complex and shifting geometric abstractions.

From there the scene changed. I recall the transition clearly, because I found it interesting how I went from lying flat on my back to sitting in a partially reclining chair in a movie theater without ever feeling as though my body had changed position. Corresponding with my new angle of vision, the patterns on the ceiling have now reoriented to become the images on the movie screen, and transformed from abstract to representational. When I was lying in bed I had the impression that my husband was sleeping to my right (odd because in WL he sleeps on my left); now he is sitting on my right in the movie theatre. The rest of the room was empty in the earlier scene, even lacking furniture apart from the bed: the movie theatre, by contrast, is packed with people.

Having experienced all this so distinctively, especially the odd ambivalence of change/no change in my position, I become curious about my dream body and feel it with my hands. How lifelike is it? I'm impressed with its solidity and the distinct way I can feel the muscles moving under my skin as I twist in my seat. (In retrospect, the muscular movement may have been exaggerated.)

Even though I'm only touching my side and hip, the attention to my body makes me feel slightly aroused, and I am reminded of the recent forum thread where the OP asked if it was possible to maintain lucidity through orgasm. Certainly, I had replied. Though I've done it before, some years ago, eventually I decided not to get distracted by dream sex so it's been a while. It now occurred to me to see if I could still do it, if only as an exercise in maintaining stability. I hesitated momentarily since I was in such a public place, but shrugged off those concerns—this is my dream, how much more private can you get?—and indeed no one around me notices or reacts as I move my hand discreetly downward.

All it takes is a few minutes of pressure with my fingers to get myself off. I watch the images on the movie screen to make sure I don't lose focus on the dream. The intensity passes and the dream remains stable. I once again marvel at how easy it is to orgasm in dream compared to the cumbersome efforts required of the physical body. After the movie ends—I don't recall the story at all—I leave the theater. I remember being impressed at how long the dream lasts and how continuous the spaces feel, though in retrospect I don't clearly remember all the ground I covered.

The next thing I remember is a scene inspired by day residue from work. I talk briefly with colleagues, mostly people that I observe have no correspondence to WL. When I get bored with this and turn to leave, a woman asks, "You're leaving already?" I go out the door carrying a large textbook in one hand. I briefly consider discarding it, but decide to keep it with me for now.

Beyond the doorway I find myself in the hallway of a university building. It's hard to say if it is dorms or classrooms, but there are lots of flyers and decorations all over the walls. I note the peculiarities of my vision: the environment is really stable, with lots of detail, but everything is a bit dim and out of focus. I'm deciding what to do next and recall the mirror TOTM. There are always public restrooms in hallways like this, and there will undoubtedly be a mirror in the restroom, so I walk down the hallway and look for a likely door.

I reach a corner where the corridor takes a right turn to the left, so I continue in that direction. After turning the corner, I encounter something unexpected: the hall is much darker here, as if the lights have gone out, and the way forward is block with big stacks of boxes. Interesting... why is the dream trying to stop me from going down this hall? Curious, I levitate and cross the barrier easily—the boxes were only stacked high enough to be an obstacle to someone on foot.

A voice calls out from the darkness behind the boxes, apparently a guy stationed at a desk there to make sure no one gets past. "You can't go back there," he warns me.

"Why?" I ask, genuinely wanting to know the answer. The barriers the dream is throwing in my way are becoming more and more intriguing!

His excuse is really lame and boring: "There are books being deposited."

"Okay," I respond indifferently. I ignore him and continue to levitate down the hallway. Halfway down I encounter a door on my right. Will the guard pursue me? I have the the impression that he starts to get up from his desk, but I've moved so quickly that I have a big lead already. To further distract and delay him, I throw the big textbook I've been carrying in his direction. Helpfully, this frees up my hands so that I can open the door.

I have the impression that the door was supposed to be locked, but I bypass it effortlessly. As I twist the knob and push the door open, I can feel the distinct tickle of thick cobwebs brushing my right hand. This gives me a creepy thrill... is there actually some peril here? Why would the dream try to keep me out of this room? Just past the door is a pair of light switches on the wall to my right. I flip them but nothing happens. Typical.

Although the room is darker than the hall outside, I can still vaguely see. It is unremarkable: just a storeroom with a few boxes stacked here and there. However, one detail draws my attention: it is very thing I was looking for, a mirror! The mirror is large, at least 3x8 feet, and lying flat on the floor in an arbitrary position as though it is merely being stored here. This is great, I can try the TOTM! I've used mirrors as portals before, but they were always vertically aligned. The fact that this mirror is flat on the floor suggests a new way of using it: instead of pushing or walking through, as is natural with vertical mirrors, I should just run over and jump in as though it were a pool of water. I figure it will work as long as I can avoid any doubts or second thoughts.

I take a running jump and fall into the mirror's surface. My alignment isn't perfect—I end up on my back sinking half into the mirror, half into the floor, but I don't let this bother me. There is a momentary disorientation of unconstructed dream space, then I watch curiously as a new environment begins to coalesce, wondering where I'll find myself.

It was predictable, really: after thinking about the mirror-portal as a pool of water, that is exactly where I end up. I am floating on my back on the surface of a very calm body of water, like a pond, and I can hear a stream bubbling somewhere nearby. This is actually quite peaceful and relaxing, and I think how nice it would be to float here for a while... but I'm already waking up.

FA: There is a brief FA where I hear my husband's breathing on my right—still the inverse of our actual positions in WL—and then I wake up for real.

Interlude: From 7:15 to 8am I wake and write the notes from the last dream, then return to bed. It is hard to fall asleep, taking about half an hour. Everytime I get close to sleep, some unexpected noise wakes me: my husband's alarm clock; a text message; and finally an unrelenting sequence of pounding and clattering at the house next door, as though someone is alternately assembling and destroying a pile of scrap metal.

Spoiler for Sexual content:

DILD, "Coitus Interruptus": I find myself at home with my husband, but fully aware that I'm dreaming. I decide to expand on my sexual experimentation in the last dream, and see if I can maintain the same stability with a partner. "Do you want to have sex?" I ask, and at his affirmation, I begin taking off my clothes. The disrobing becomes tedious and seems to be taking an excessive degree of time and effort—it's a dream, can't I just will them away? But I feel like it is important to take my time and do this properly (I was probably wrong about that). Moreover, the dream is not cooperating: after getting my shirt and socks off I start to struggle with my pants, but even as I do so, I can feel myself wearing a shirt and socks again! Nevermind, I tell myself, only the pants really need to come off. I lose patience with how much effort this is taking and try to will them off, but the frustration wakes me up—

—or so I think. Getting out of bed, I have to ask... am I really awake? I can't be sure (only in retrospect does it become clear that the layout of the room was all wrong). Looking around for dream signs, I see a ceramic catfood bowl stacked within a metal one (catfood bowls shouldn't be in the bedroom at all but I fail to realize that!) What has caught my eye is the fact that the ceramic bowl is cracked. I don't remember the bowl being cracked... is this really happening? (Actually, I noticed yesterday an unexpected crack in a WL wooden bowl, so this must be DR.) I go over to the bowl and tug on the cracked area. Pieces fall to the floor, everything acting very natural and lifelike. If I'm going to figure out whether this is a dream, I have to try something more drastic. I point my finger at one of the shards and will it to levitate. Sure enough, it promptly rises into the air and floats wherever my finger directs it. Awesome! So I really am dreaming! Suspicions confirmed, I walk straight to my husband's office: "Want to try again?" Clothes are no obstacle this time since I am still nude from getting out of bed, but at the moment of penetration I wake up—

—or so I think. I'm lying in bed, but I can tell I'm not completely awake, because I'm seeing some random page of text in front of my eyes. I must still be dreaming. I'm enjoying the facility with which I've been able to detect and maintain FAs in this dream. I return to my husband's office to continue the experiment. This time he isn't there. I try to imagine us having sex in the absence of his DC, but it is not the least bit convincing, no different from "imagining" in WL. I find this odd. DCs are mental projections, so shouldn't I be able to compensate with my mind alone? Apparently it is more complicated than that.

I go back to the bedroom and find my husband there. I propose sex but he claims he is spent, apparently from our last encounters. I insist, and he goes along. This time we manage full penetration, and oddly, at the same moment I feel a corresponding sensation of fullness in my mouth. I figure the act must be triggering an association with oral sex. At the moment it feels distracting and uncomfortable, and since it doesn't go away on its own, I reach into my mouth to try to manually pluck out the sensation. This is even worse: it feels like I am tugging on my own esophagus, so I stop. I wake up—

—but did I? After that chain of FAs I wait and try to be sure. This feels more like real wakefulness, and I can feel the weight and warmth of the cat lying on me, in the position he took as I was falling asleep. I decide I'm truly awake this time, review the memories briefly, and get up to write at 9:30am. This time I notice a physical sensation of sexual arousal, which was lacking after the earlier dream. I wonder if it is because I woke up in mid-experiment or because it was not successfully resolved this time.

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

Dream 1 - Thought I was awake
I decide to get up and go toilet, everything is completely normal, I'm in my flat and the locations are all correct. I notice that my flatmates door is open (in retrospect I realized that it was the wrong flatmate) and that he must be in the toilet, so I wander down and he just gets out, I then proceed in. I take a leak but cannot aim at all >_< I just get it everywhere, I want to clean it up but then my other flatmate turns up knocking on the door, I say that I'm in there but he still comes in! He just reaches in and grabs some object and then leaves. The door is still kind of open and I hurriedly clean up the mess... I then wake up in my bed thinking thank god I didn't wet the bed O_O

Dream 2 - Lucid and then evil lanterns
I'm lying in bed after having a cup of mugwort tea, deciding to give it a try once more to see if it actually does anything. I close my eyes and roll through my SSILD cycles trying to pump up my awareness. Once finished I imagine the feeling of running, I was just lying there and then I actually started to FEEL it... Surprised but calm, I went with the flow, a few seconds later I was running down a road... I immediately decided that I wanted to complete a dream task for once instead of mucking around (saying this out loud in the dream too, a bit curious to whether I was talking out loud IRL), I had already previously decided to drink a potion that revealed the ultimate truth. I see a man cycling uphill on the road I'm on and he has a potion in his jacket, I try to get him but he's too fast. I then use my dream powers to force-smash him off the bike like a Jedi, then force-pull him towards me. I loot the potion and read it, it's some kind of olive oil, delicious . I seem to be in a different area now too, it's kind of dark and in the distance there are these bobbing lights, I'm standing in the shadow of a building and I think I destroy a couple skeletons. I consume the 'potion of ultimate truth', lo and behold I realize... that the skeletons are the helping me, it's those bobbing lights which are evil sentient floating lanterns trying to take over my dream world. I don't remember too well what happens next, but I beat up some more skeletons, kind of forgetting the 'ultimate truth'. I think I kind of follow the dream and lose a bit of lucidity, but my brother approaches me, he is a skeleton too. He tells me to do something, but I can't remember that either, I end up in the area where I first spotted those bobbing lights, there's a girl on a bridge where zombies are trying to get her. She's a beautiful redhead and no one that I recognize, I smash through the zombies and take her with me, running past zombies which are now strangely sessile and passive. Maybe the zombies were risen by the lanterns?

I felt like a lot happened and I assumed I'd be able to remember most of it, but I think I forgot heaps after losing a bit of my lucidity.

Dream 3 - Lucid and god damnit chucky x2
After the last dream, I found it easy to slip straight into lucidity the same way. It's extremely low level, like I knew it was a dream but I didn't really try to do anything. I'm at someones flat, the girl wants me to crash there and the other guys don't. I get sneaked into her room or something after a long disagreement in their hallway. I wasn't trying to get laid either, it was purely friendship, we started reading a book and I saw a house, it was moving and I could see Chucky the evil doll... I don't want to see him so I try dismiss him, I don't think I had much success because as I looked out the girls window I saw several Chuckys climbing out the window of a neighbouring house. I do a wave of my hands (this has been pretty much the most common way for me to dismiss or interact with the dream world) and try to make him disappear, but it's hard because I keep thinking about him >_<.

I wake up after the dream and after cementing it to memory I slip straight back into the dream, I end up in a similar scenario and pissed off with it I just wake myself up and get up for the day.

A couple friends from school were over at my house. For some reason our water wasn’t working, so we had to use a litter box. Several of the friends got in an argument about something stupid, and my RA had to break it up once they started shoving. I went outside for some reason, and got in a conversation with some Hugh Laurie and some other British people about the strange quirks in American and British vocabulary.

Did a WBTB after 4:45 hours, then stayed up for 30 minutes.

I found myself in this white room, and instantly knew I was dreaming. After having a conversation on IRC on why Vi has been acting so strangely to me, and reading some of Hyu's DJ, I decided to change up my approach. Instead of searching for Vi, I was going to go to her. I tried summoning a portal, which in retrospect I've never actually done in a lucid before. I stretched out my hand, pointed my finger at the wall, and kind of drew a circle in the air for a few seconds. Then I grabbed in the air and pulled back, and a blue portal began to stretch out on the wall. I was pretty impressed with myself, since it felt so natural. However, I was hesitant to jump in, since it seemed to extend into complete darkness, and I had no idea where it would lead.

I decided instead that I would pull Vi through the portal to me. I reached into the portal with one hand and tried to feel around inside. I felt a few strange things, like plastic toys and wooden blocks, but then I felt a hand grab mine. I knew it was her, so I pulled as hard as I could. She came tumbling out of the portal. I fell to the ground, and she landed fairly close next to me. I looked over to see if she was alright. At first she gave me her usually disapproving look, like "Why do you keep bothering me?" But then I noticed she started to smile a bit, and then started to chuckle and shake her head. We sat there for a minute or so, not really saying or doing anything. It kinda felt awkward for me, but I didn't really have anything to say.

I woke up to my mom yelling at me, something about "the longest nap she's ever seen." I figured she meant my WBTB, so I told her that I just got up to go to the bathroom, I wasn't actually planning on fully getting up. She continued to berate me, since I had a haircut appointment at noon and it was already 1:45pm. I got up with a start and rushed downstairs. However, when I got to the bottom step, I remembered that being late is one of my dream signs, and maybe I was still asleep. I did a quick nose plug, and sure enough, I was still dreaming.

Given this lucky second chance, I decided to try the portal again. I drew the portal again, but this time it took me a little while longer before it worked. A nice round orange portal appeared (nice video game reference there, subcon...). This time, I could see a dark purple fog inside. I ran towards it and jumped in, but (or should I say butt) I got stuck halfway. I didn't make the portal large enough, so my hips got stuck in the entrance. Before I could start self-loathing for how fat my subconscious thinks I am, the portal started to close slowly, pushing inward on my stomach. It wasn't painful, but it was definitely uncomfortable. I tried to wiggle my way through, and even had considered leaving my legs behind and growing new ones. But then a hand reached out and grabbed me, pulling my whole body into the portal. However, the dream destabilized.

I felt my body in bed, but I realized quickly enough that I was able to DEILD. I tried to imagine the white room I started in. Sure enough, I found myself back in the white room, although now there were more white rooms attached to it. It was fairly dark, but in each room was a different piece of furniture that emanated a very bright colored light. They almost worked like glow sticks, illuminating a small part of each room with enough light to make my way through. It was a neat effect, and almost felt like Mirror's Edge, where the inside of each building has the same white walls but with a different accent color.

I knew Vi was nearby, so I looked around the building for her. I came across two elevators, so I pressed the button between them. The right doors opened, but instead of an elevator, there was a hallway with a metal garage door partially open on the other side. It looked like it led outside, so I decided to search somewhere else. I started to walk away, but suddenly I heard the footsteps of two guards coming towards me. I ran back to the elevator and opened it, and then ran down the hallway. I slid under the gap in the door (you know, just in case you were doubting this dream was Mirror’s Edge-related) and then continued into this new hallway, where crates and cardboard boxes were stacked on each side. I slowed down a bit, as I was sure I had given them the slip, but then a siren went off. “Intruder Alert in Sector 5. Commence lockdown.” That can’t be good.

I turned the corner to this area that had more large crates stacked up everywhere. It looked like a giant warehouse, so big that it looked like the outside world, but I could see the walls way off in the distance. There were people running around everywhere in this area. I wanted to make a break for it, but I had a better idea. I came out of hiding and started shouting at everyone. “Come on, you heard the voice! Lock this place down! I don’t want this intruder escaping!” Amazingly, in the confusion, all of them heeded my orders and took off to their stations. Once I had an opening, I ran off in search of an exit before they locked them all on me.

I hid behind some boxes for a bit, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see Vi shushing me. She waved for me to follow her, so I did. She made each turn through the maze of crates and boxes like she knew what she was doing, so I followed her without asking any questions. We finally made it to a fence on the outskirts of the warehouse, and quickly jumped over it. There was a nearby shed, so we both went into it. Vi locked the door after we made it inside, and then turned around and gave me a high five.

“You’re starting to get this whole stealth thing down, I think.”
“Thanks, I guess.” She smiled, and for the first time I felt like I did something right around her. At this point, I kind of felt a desire to get freaky with her, but I decided against it, since this was the first time she had been cooperative, and I didn't want to ruin it. I figured I better take advantage of her current mood. “So tell me about yourself.”
She started saying something, but it was so fast I couldn’t understand it. And she just kept talking. I was somewhat amazed that this was the same DC who two weeks earlier gave me one word answers and judgmental glares, and now she was talking at 200 mph, expecting me to keep up. I probably could’ve, but I was also distracted by the fact that she was kind of floating in the air. While I was sitting on the corner of a table, her body was reclined, almost like she was seated in an invisible dentist’s chair. I kind of just stared at her as she kept talking, and as a result the dream started to destabilize, so I rubbed my hands together. She noticed, and stopped talking. "Maybe we should go out. I know where we can get some treats."

We walked out the door. The dream seemed stable again, so I asked one more question. "So what exactly is a dream guide?"
I don't remember exactly what she said, but she mentioned something about an "all-seeing eye" and a "tree of life". At this point, it felt less like she was being cryptic and more like she was just screwing with me now. She then took off with a running start and parkoured over the fence. I did the same, although I scraped my arm on the way over. She kept running, and I tried to keep up with her until I woke up.