false awakening

I'm on a big amphitheater having some kind of advanced math class.
I solved one of the problems earlier than most, but I'm not really sure if I cheated or something like that.
I run down the stairs to the door and glance at a table on my left where's at least two or three guys that work with me.
I reach outside and I'm on a beautiful fishing port. Without stop running I dive into the water and swim back up to the port and enter the room again.
There's a friend of mine (R) sitting in my spot and we discuss the previous problem. He's really good and we spend some time there.
My alarm rings. It's 04:30am and WBTB time.
I went to sleep at 23:30 and scheduled my WBTB after 5 hours of sleep.
I got up in the dark. Noticed one of my cats around me. I should go to the bathroom but I'm too lazy.
I turn my office's light switch on (that's were most of my WBTBs are) but the light it's still dark.
I'm confused. That's not normal.
I realize I'm dreaming. (This is the 3rd FA in 4 or 5 days).
It's all dark. I go to my kitchen and start screaming lights, clarity, clarityyyyyyy!!!!
Things are clearer, but there's a round blurry and circular thing in the center of my vision. I go to the window and I don't know what to do.
Things are unstable and I'm pissed.
I'm about to fly or jump trough the window but I suddenly remember that I promised my girlfriend that would always start flying from the ground and not from a window
I start to feel my real body and sure enough I'm awake.
Damn I'm a noob.

1. I was in some kind of house. It was really gloomy and all of the paint on the walls seemed as though it was faded and dull. I was walking around the house with two people in particular, though I do not remember who they were- besides the fact that it was two women.
We walked down an empty, quiet hallway and the women began telling me about how this house was haunted, and how many people had seen ghosts in here before. We came to the end of the hallway and there was a few closet doors. The women, walking carefully behind me, said that they felt scared and that there might be something in the closet. I walked up to the closet door casually. I told the women, "There is no need to be afraid of something that cannot hurt you." I grabbed the door handle and opened it. Inside it was almost pitch black, but I could see a dark black shadow standing about halfway in in this closet. The closet was quite big on the inside. It wasn't wide but it was very long in length. I looked at this figure, whatever it was, and became curious. However, as I turned around to check on the two women I found out that they had disappeared. This is what startled me. I closed the closet door and went downstairs.
The downstairs portion of this house was ALOT more vivid than the upstairs. Everything had a blue tint to it, as though it was almost night time. The next thing I remember was being on the edge of a wall, and it was really high up. I had a small whale like creature in my arms. It had the head of a whale, and its body had the texture of a whale as well, and it had legs. I was trying to get down from this ledge safely without hurting this little guy. I held on to this small whale creature with one hand, and with the other I slowly climbed down. As I did, the whale creature turned into a baby kitten. The kitten held on to my shirt with dear life. As I got off of the ledge, I grabbed onto some sort of brown cabinet with glass windows. I grabbed onto its door knob and jumped to it. Now I was on the side of this cabinet, and only about 2 feet above the ground. I let go of the knob and landed safely on the ground.

2. I was in school, and some old lady(she looked around 70 years old) was teaching the class. I was doing something in the class and it made her mad. Later after the class had ended, and I was just leaving, a cop had showed up and wanted to go into the classroom. The door was already half way open, so we both walked inside. The lights were off and it was getting dark. The officer had told me that he came in to test something, or check on something. He then walked up to the projector in the classroom and tooled around with it, as though he was trying to fix it, or salvage something from it, I was not sure.

3. I was in the mall with my family.(fragment)

4. I was in a restaurant and I noticed drawings on the booth seats.(fragment)

5. I was inside some kind of old, rusty prison. I got the feeling that I was in another country because the guys in charge here were saudi arabian. The guy that had put me in this prison room was also Saudi Arabian. I stood in this big cell, not wondering why I was here, but only how i was going to get out. I tried climbing out through a small pipe, but I couldnt fit inside of it at all. I looked around and noticed this entire room had a rusted texture to it. I looked at these cutted slits in the wall that were supposed to be windows, and could see that it was bright and daylight outside. I walked over to the east side of this room and started trying to escape. I had found something and was starting to tear apart a window, when all of a sudden I heard the prison warden that had put me in here coming to my cell. I stopped doing what I was doing and acted normal and hid my work in progress.

6. It was daytime, and I was riding with my close friends, patrick, dylan, and trey inside of patrick's dad's truck. Patrick's dad was driving, but he looked entirely different, nothing like he does in real life. The inside of this truck was huge, it matched the inside to a huge suburban. It had 3 rows of seats along with the driver and shotgun seat. The truck had a red paint job as well. I was sitting in the very back row with my patrick. I had found a bag of beef jerky on the seat and starting eating it. Patrick took the bag from me and took some beef jerky as well. I took it back again and continued eating. Pretty boring ride. I had no idea where we were going, and at the time I didnt even care to notice that we were just driving for this entire dream. I looked out the truck windows and saw a blue dune buggy just parked outside in the grass, next to what appeared to be a farm.
After that I continued chilling in the back seat, and my friend Trey had moved to the back with us. I moved to the far right position of the row and saw a poster or Ariana Grande. It was a poster of her wearing a pink dress, and in a kind of seducing position. Trey had noticed this as well and told me that he, "wouldn't mind giving her anal." Patrick's dad got mad when he heard this and told patrick to "shut the hell up", even though patrick didn't even say anything. At this point, we all got really quiet for the rest of the ride.

7. I was on a football field with my close friend Dylan and his brother Jordan. We were passing the football around. Whenever I got the ball, I tucked in my side and ran across the field. Dylan ran with me and I told him, "Wouldn't it be nice if the entire stadium was filled and was roaring for us?" He agreed. As I ran with the ball back to where we were originally chilling, I looked at my arms and noticed that my work outs were paying off, my arms were really muscular and I had really nice biceps. Once we made it back to Jordan, I threw the ball to Jordan. He told us that we were about to play a real game.
We started making our way to the 50 yard line and on our way, we came across my old friend from daycare as a kid, Travis Richie. He had gotten a haircut too. I asked, "hey man, its been a long time, whats up?" He said something and then I brought up how the olden days back in day care were good. We got to the 50 yard line and started assigning positions. I wanted to be a Wide Receiver but instead the quarterback wanted me to take his place and be quarterback. Since I hadn't thrown in forever I declined the position. The quarterback really insisted on me taking it, and he really didn't want to be it anyways. He forced me to be quarterback, but I didn't trust my throwing skills yet so I headed to the sideline. As I did, I noticed that more guys had showed up out of no where to play with us, and they were already lined up behind the offensive line as WR's. I decided to stay and play wide receiver anyways, because it was a long walk to the side line. As I faced forward, there was still some arguments going on- all of which were created by the guy who didn't want to be quarterback. I decided to sit out of this conflict until everyone had figured out what was going on. I looked to the side of the field and noticed other guys were doing this as well. I went over where they were and chilled with them.
Once everyone had found out what was what I got back onto the field as a wide receiver. Our new quarterback decided he was going to throw a deep pass. The play started and our QB threw the ball deep. One of our guys had caught it, and I was right next to him guarding him. We almost made a touchdown, but about 15 feet before we reached the end zone, our guy who had the ball tripped and broke something. Me and Dylan had mistaken our teammate who had just fell as his brother Jordan, but Jordan was on the sideline so it wasn't him. We still didn't know who this guy was. Soon, some medic's came over and treated him and told us he wouldn't be able to come back in for the rest of the game.

8. I was in my house, downstairs in the living room. I only had my boxers on and a towel around me. I was about to sit down in our recliner chair when I noticed that it had a picture of Squidward's face from spongebob on it. I looked at it closely and written below his face was a conversation between spongebob and squidward. I remember reading the word "thanks" somewhere in the conversation, but not much else of it. Out of no where I started getting a random erection(WTF). I decided it was time to go back upstairs to my room because I felt uncomfortable, especially since my dad was in the kitchen, and my mom was watching t.v. I looked at the time and it was 1:25 p.m. As I made my way upstairs I noticed that my mom had moved the couch to where it was DIRECTLY in front of the t.v. There was no floor between the couch and the t.v., and my mom was only 6 inches away from the screen. I asked her what she was doing and why she was so close and she said, "Watching t.v. because I dont have my contacts in." I walked upstairs into my room and put my towel down. I also put down a random drink that had gotten in my hands without me noticing. As I put the cup down I noticed that my mirror was gone, but I didn't care. My room was really lit from the sun outside, and I had my bedroom lights off. I remember hearing random music playing as well.
This is were it gets weird, really weird.
I looked down at my junk and freed it from the confinement of my boxers. I noticed that lights were coming out from inside of my junk(wtf). The lights were changing from red to blue to pink and whatever else. This freaked me out alot. I then "remembered" that I had put something in my junk somehow. I tried getting it out by applying pressure to my junk, but it didn't work. Whatever it was was stuck. I thought about how I was going to have to tell my dad, and "what would he think about it", and that I would have to get surgery to get whatever was stuck inside my junk out, and how the surgeons were going to have to rip open my junk, and how it was going to look afterwards. This was a nightmare. Finally I got so terrified that I woke up, and my heart was pounding. Sorry you guys had to read through that, I thought about just leaving it out, but I am really trying to make my recall better. Once again, really sorry and I know that it was really disgusting lol.

I think I will use StephL's method to bold competition points so that it is easier for me to add them up.

8/3/14** pre-bed lazily ask my subconscious to look out for any of my dreams signs and I guess one dream sign was part of my first LD and quite a few dream signs were part of my second LD. Several theories worked on tonight: startle induced, clenched eyes vibrations telling me how close I am to sleep, sex IWL and LDs, more simple dream sign alertness. / touring a home converted from a funeral home (casket showcase area looked odd converted - like two odd wings near the entrance. we hurry through like Halloween maze. I joke that I saw something move...then there was...was security in few spots. Last room had a line to next section or home maybe 15 people not bad. / price of corn syrup at a big discount (political/economic/health statement?) / ~30 minute wbtb.. DILD#1 someone won a lot of money and gave me a stack of money(money/treasure dream sign). I look the gift horse in the mouth and this seems to be a good thing for catching signs that you are dreaming. I flip through it and see not all big bills like top one. $300 total I seem to determine. I see a $30 bill! (no such thing in US currency) Aha! I'm dreaming. I will explore this. One bill changes the color picture scene (no unlike NZ dollars) on it each time I look at it, very cool (could possibly fit the photoshop TOTM - BUT not specifically thinking of that). One was a mountain scene, another a forest scene, and then a futuristic city scene. Then I look at signatures that show on US currency. Wife's maiden name was part of name, first name Robert I think, not far from her father's name. I look again...completely different name and it is harder to read and in cursive and I wonder for a second if it is one of the actual names that shows on US currency. Very cool, but goal time! But I get an FA where I am crawling to foot of my bed where phone is charging to record dream but then wake for real. / shorter wbtb the 2nd time, back to sleep with mantra. Too long, shorten it to "vivid..... lucid"...lots of old houses try to find right one (that is our home). Armless monkey looked to be hanging from a poll thingy but closer examination reveals wood carved arms and hands and the monkey attached some other way. he bites me kind of hard and is now loose on the ground.. Warn the monkey that I will have to hurt it if it does that again. Also around house is a temperature box that maintains hot or cold either way - 2 pizzas inside..feel heat from it (I used to have a tiny mini-fridge that also doubled as a food warmer, so there is such a thing). / 2 section amusement park. Sit and wait for a group of four to leave so we can enter the other section (done when full/busy). Lady/worker says you can go in now...stuck in crowded midway area. Watch (son) so he doesn't get crushed. He's younger? / D back already? hmm.. crayfish / dild 2: dreams signs: taking wrong turn/driving, vehicle out of control, parking lot, boldness, security or police, on trip. Although I only got two steps of my longer plan done I was able to mix in some other points. I had planned to also get to step 3 and an attempt at a task of the year and my personal goal (those last two are planned to transition smoothly and quickly between) if I had an epic long LD. But pretty darn good and my best night of the competition so far. Hopefully not too late to get going here. Driving with son in a truck. We take a wrong turn and the truck is going fast and a little bit out of control and my son is concerned. I am NOT concerned and I feel as if I'm already semi lucid at this point, possibly due to a couple of dream signs showing up already. The road becomes a parking lot without driving the truck into the parking lot. The road leads incredulously to some stairs into the mall and I am bold and drive right on down the stairs realizing completely that I'm dreaming now. We get to the bottom of the stairs and get out of the truck and there is a security guard or mall cop and I use my trusty pocket watch to freeze time (&step 1 and Lucid challenge) on him. (I have only used it once before to freeze time specifically but I say I "trusty" because I try to use it to stabilize my dream from the beginning and almost always use it at the beginning of my extended RCs in waking life practice.) I examine the guard a little bit and his uniform looks a little cartoonish and unrealistic. My son says what if you get arrested? I say no worries this is my dream I can make sure I do not get caught but then I start thinking that I guess it is possible to get caught in a lucid dream. It could cause some challenges and I would just have to escape. Sure enough handcuffs appeared on my wrists. My hands are out in front of me. I blast my wrists apart from each other in a feat of super strength and I feel exhilarated! I fly up in this mall and decide to do step 2&mass telekinesis. My first attempt moved a few things rolling forward like a good gust of wind pushing them but not impressive. So I reached back and pushed my hands out in a big shoving motion down towards floor and many things(trash can, stroller, unidentified items) and the entire floor were slammed forward revealing dirt below. The scene goes dark and I remain patient like I have been doing lately. I feel myself laying back in bed but it still feels quite dreamlike and I remain still and patient and I hear couple of knocks to the left of my bed. I decide to do the glottal motionless RC. It is not conclusive it sounds kind of like what it would sound like in waking life if I am not doing it properly. I do the one where I clench my eyes, normally to nudge on the vibrations, and the vibrations are strong which I take to indicate that I'm still quite firmly in dreamland. And my wife starts to move but I assume that it is part of my common false awakenings. I roll over and I can feel that I'm still dreaming and fool around with my wife a little bit . I then start to wake up for real at least partially I think. Perhaps mostly awake this time but I do the clenched eyes again and the vibrations are much lighter but still noticeable like I have found many times when I'm starting to wake up or at the early stages of going to sleep. I find this fascinating and feel as if I discovered an important factor within my transition in and out of dreamland. I will have to experiment some more but basically after a while trying to go back into a dream my bladder got the best of me and I had to get up to urinate and when I came back and lay down I couldn't get any light vibrations at all from clenching my eyes softly or mentally, seeming to confirm that this is a way to indicate closeness to sleep along with heavy vibrations indicating fully asleep or at least at the doorstep of REM sleep. I think that I read someone else mentioning something very similar here on DV.

Ritual: Went to bed 1am, woke at 2, too early to do anything, woke again at 5:40 with fresh NLD, so forced myself to get up and do a proper WBTB. Returned to bed at 6:15, did hybrid of SSILD and counting, but kept getting disturbed by environmental factors. Hard to sleep, eventually dozed off without awareness, finally woke at 7:20 and declared it a failed attempt. I could still squeeze in another hour of sleep though so I figured I'd just try FILD as a last resort.

After this things get confusing. My best guess is that I did FILD, then fell asleep and into a NLD, then... I woke up, or thought I did (might have been an FA), and did FILD again (possibly in the dream state). Then I noticed that my arm was lying free on the bed rather than tucked under my pillow as usual, so I thought, "Fine, I'll do the stupid nose pinch RC," and what do you know, I could breathe! So I knew I was dreaming, but I was very perplexed. I had just been doing FILD and hadn't observed any kind of transition or even a momentary lapse of awareness in which the transition could have occurred. How could I have fallen asleep and not realized it? In retrospect, I really do think that this started as an FA that I mistook for a real waking, so I did FILD without realizing that I was already dreaming. Hey, whatever works.

So I sat up, and immediately became more perplexed. I was in a bed, but it was not the one I had gone to sleep in, and the bedroom also bore no resemblance to mine in RL. I got up and started looking around, but then I realized that I recognized the place after all: hadn't I been having a non-lucid dream here, just before I woke up and tried that FILD attempt? (This also argues for the FILD-during-FA hypothesis, and it wouldn't be the first time I've had a "WILD" that was initiated from within an ongoing dream—a DIWILD?)

This is hard to confirm because I always have a hard time putting dream events in their proper sequence, but there were events I remembered taking place in this building that don't seem lucid and don't fit into my memory of the lucid episode, so I think that must be what happened. That is, all the previous events took place downstairs, but the entire lucid sequence took place upstairs in what I took to be the same house.

NLD: Earlier when I was downstairs, there had been some complicated narrative I don't recall, but it resulted in me opening the front door several times to let cats into the house. At one point there was a really big one, an orange tabby, both large-bodied and very plump. When I saw him sitting on the doorstep I thought he was the biggest cat I'd ever seen, and I invited him in and closed the door. But there had been two or three other orange tabbies of normal size sitting with him, so I relented and opened the door again to let them in too. "Okay, fine, we'll just let them all in." I knew we didn't have room for them all, but figured it wouldn't be fair to turn them away after I'd already let in others. We could sort it out later.

After this I stood in the entry and watched the extra-big cat ambling away down the hall. Now it was even larger than it had seemed at first, with a lean, bony frame that was not at all cat-like. In fact, I thought I recognized what it was, and said to someone standing nearby, "That cat looks an awful lot like a moose. You know, I think it might actually be just a moose with no horns." Only it was still orange, which seemed a very odd color for a moose.

DIWILD: So apparently this all happened earlier, before the FILD attempt, and afterwards I was convinced I was still in the same house. In the wall facing the end of the bed was a doorway to another room, and when I went inside, I encountered someone that I immediately recognized as the moose-cat from earlier, although now he was a human-looking man with orange hair. I was still curious, so I asked him, "Are you a cat or a moose?"

"I have three types of glands," he answered, and I had the impression he was suggesting that he was both, and something more besides, a protean type of creature.

The two of us sat down on the couch, and for a moment my dream libido took over, and I started making out with him. But as things got more intense I recognized that this was a distraction and would accomplish nothing useful. Didn't I have tasks to do? I remembered that last night I had been on DV looking over the monthly tasks for August, and there had been one that I particularly wanted to try out. This seemed like the perfect opportunity. So I disentangled myself from moose-cat-man's embrace and said firmly, "Tell me a word in a foreign language."

It was hard to make out what he said at first. It sounded like "Arab mormon."

"What?" I wasn't sure if I had heard him correctly.

This time he distinctly just said, "Mormon."

It didn't sound like a word in a foreign language, but whatever. Run with it. "Alright, now tell me what it means."

"A married man."

I wasn't very satisfied with this result and wanted to try again. Another DC was in this room, sitting on another small couch further along the same wall, so I went and sat down next to him. This time I made sure my instructions were more explicit from the start: "I want you to tell me a word in a foreign language, and then tell me what it means."

"Sprenn," he said promptly.

"Spread?" I repeated what I had thought I heard at first.

"Sprenn," he clarified, and helpfully spelled it for me. "S-P-R-E-N-N."

"Okay, what does it mean?"

At this he smiled coyly, as if embarrassed. "I'll... tell you later."

I had the impression it must be a word for something naughty, but I needed to find out. "Please?" I wheedled. He shook his head.

I decided to be more forceful. "Come on, you have to tell me!" I tried to think of how to back this up, and added, "It's my homework assignment."

He tried to explain in a roundabout way: "It has to do with the city of Myrkbalik, and the laws of Garibaldi."

The two names he mentioned sounded complicated, so I wanted to make sure I had heard them correctly. "What was the name of the city? Mrkbalik?" He nodded. "And the second name? Garibaldi? Garifaldo?" This reminded me of a name I had heard in waking life, so I tried to remember, then joked with him, "The laws of Janeane Garofolo?"

He laughed, though it wasn't clear whether or not he recognized the pop culture reference, and repeated the name for me. It still sounded closer to "Garibaldi" than anything, though I had so much to remember at this point that I didn't dare ask him to try to spell it. Already in the back of my mind I was cycling through data points "mormon... married man... sprenn... mrkbalik..." trying to make sure I would be able to preserve them through waking.

Mrkbalik... that's how it sounded, and I didn't ask him to confirm the spelling of that one either. But he had said it was a city name, and to my ears it sounded Russian or Eastern European. I had a sudden insight about this DC, and asked him, "You majored in Slavic studies, didn't you?" He confirmed this.

I felt as though this conversation was winding down, so I got up and crossed the room. Against the opposite wall was a sort of shelving unit, framing square cubbyholes about the size you might put a pair of shoes in, six cubbies high and six wide. It was resting on some elevated base so that the fourth row of cubbies up was equal with my eye level. I looked in this row and saw that a couple of the cubbies were inhabited by small kittens. Could the kittens talk, I wonder? If so, I might even try the task again. But as I was wondering this, the little grey tabby kitten in the cubby I was peering into addressed me first. It had a tiny creaky high-pitched voice, like you might expect of a kitten, and said something about how its eyes were damaged or hurting. I was troubled to hear this and wondered how I might help. Since this was a dream, I figured the most effective way to help the kitten would be to correct its expectations. I smiled and said encouragingly, "No, your eyes are perfectly fine!" We had a few more exchanges like this, where the kitten would say something upsetting and I tried to reassure it. I don't remember anything afterwards so around this time I guess I woke up, although I don't have a distinct sense of the moment when it happened.

I've had this strange false awakening today. Well, like every other false awakening, I found myself in my bed. Still lying down, I tried to recall the dreams I had had. There were at least four of them and one of them was a lucid. I remembered quite some details about all of them, but when I woke up for good I was unable to recall anything more than this. I wonder if the dreams I recalled within the dream actually were dreams I had had during the night or just mere projections that appeared at that moment.

1. I was on a trail at night. It was really dark, but I could still see everything clearly. I was with my friend's sister Emily, and we were both walking on the trail. As we were walking I looked back and saw a dark figure running in our direction. Immediately I started running. I cut through parts of the trail and jumped across mini islands of grass. Between these small islands(like the ones on freeways) there was water.
As I was running I grabbed my car keys out of my pocket and pressed a button that was supposed to bring my car to me somehow. My car never came, so I continued running and so did emily. I looked back again a few seconds later and saw that the tall dark figure was getting closer to us, and was catching up. I didnt give up though, I kept on running. Soon I made it to an opening in the trail that was right beside the road. I stopped and waited for Emily to catch up. She finally caught up to me and we both waited. I knew we couldnt run faster than this guy chasing us, so I was going to fight him.
Surprisingly, instead of that tall dark figure dude catching up to us, we encountered two hostile dogs. Whoever was chasing after us had disappeared. Now I had to face two dogs and try to survive. All I had to defend myself was a sharp blade of some sort, and it was relatively small. Just then the smaller dog of the two came up to me, but before it could do anything harmful I stabbed it in its side. It fell dead. The other dog of the two; the bigger one, just looked at the dead dog and walked away, he didnt try to kill us. Somehow, in my mind, I got this notion that the dog that I killed wanted to die, like a moment of some type of clarity or something.

2. I was driving with my dad near a forest. We were on the freeway before and had just turned into an empty lot. There were lots of leaves on the edges of it in general. As my dad drove through the lot, I focused on the grass around us. It depressed me(I never get depressed so this is random). I thought of how someday my dad would eventually die and I would have to face this world on my own. It scared me. All these depressing things I kept looking at, and it was only just grass and leaves. I thought of how one day I would have to face these depressing things on my own, by myself. It then occurred to me: I can overcome anything, and I will succeed no matter what. This is the part of me that showed in my dream from real life. A positive mind gives you a positive life.

3. I was in some sort of building and alot of my friends were inside with me. I was just chilling and about to go talk to one of my friends when all of a sudden, I saw a group of my other friends come inside with a girl. They dragged her into a corner and raped her. I saw it all before my eyes. These were all of my old friends from school(not my really close ones though). I couldnt stop what was happening, and I couldnt believe it. I remember trying to, and telling them to not do it, but when I did they tried grabbing me. I defended myself and was about to beat the sh*t out of whoever else laid their hands on me, but they all backed off and returned to the girl. The girl died after she was raped. I knew then, these were not my friends, these were hostile savages.

4. I was outside of a portable next to school. A lady was at the portable door begging for help. I could see that she was drunk, and even as she was begging for help she continued drinking. As she continued crying and begging for help, eventually a priest and another lady of the church came out and did something to her to help her.

5. I was inside of a really nice building, and it had marble flooring and a really decorative interior design. I went to this office area and got on a computer. My mom was with me and followed me too. I got on the computer an immediately as I turned it on, a naked model appeared on the screen and started doing some kind of sensual dance. It didnt seduce me because the model looked like a drag queen. My mom was next to me and saw what was going on and got a little upset and told me to exit off of this webpage "immediately". I clicked the X on the top right corner of the screen to get away from whatever this was, but even as I did, it didnt work. The drag queen model stayed on the screen and continued dancing. I thought it was some kind of virus and there was nothing we could do to stop it.
My mom wasn't liking this too much, but neither was I. As the model continued dancing a woman's voice started speaking out of the computer. Somehow when this woman started talking, I immediately knew who she was and what she looked like. As she was talking, I heard a lot of rolling sounds coming from inside of the desk which the computer was on. I looked down too see what it was, but I couldnt see anything, it was all inside of the desk itself. Just then, the lady talking through the computer told me that there was 100,000 marbles rolling out from inside the desk, and that I would have to wait forever for them all to come out. At this point, marbles started coming out and I contained them within a certain area. My mom had disappeared, and I decided to just leave the computer desk and walk away. As I did I ran into my sister. She was wearing a Halloween costume of the Flash. I told her, "great now you're wearing a costume too." I turned to my side and saw my cousin in a halloween costume as well.

6.I was in my room, and it was dark. I was sitting on my bed on my laptop. I decided to get off of it, and unplug it(because it was charging). When I unplugged it, I went around my bed and put the charger itself into the bottom part of my drawer. After I did this I turned around and noticed that my vision was fading. I was nearly blind. I remembered, "My vision isn't this bad when my glasses are off." As I said that and focused on my room while I looked around, my vision got better and corrected itself. I then went to my closet doors, and two of them were already open. I went to go close my 3rd closet door and did so. After that I went to go close my 2nd closet door, but I noticed it had already closed itself. My immediate conclusion was that a poltergeist was in my room. I become scared. I walked past my 1st closet door(I know, its alot of closet doors) and stood near the side of my bed. A tall wooden shelf, which was painted black was standing between my 1st and 2nd closet door. I looked at it and it started sliding towards me, and as It did I backed up, but it fell forward anyways. I fell to the ground and caught the top of the shelf with my feet, and it didnt hurt me. At this point, things calmed down. I laid on the ground for a while longer. Somewhere in here I picked up a REALLY small replica of a Supra TK Society shoe. It was black and really small and had red accents on it. It had a strap on the side of it that could be undone to take apart the shoe. This was alot different from the original Supra TK Society. The shoe was small enough to fit inside of my hands with room to spare. I put down the shoe eventually and looked up to see my sister standing in front of me, with a platform in front of her, and 6 packs of gum on top of it. She was mixing flavors of the pieces of gum to get a certain flavor. The packs of gum were either pink, blue, green, or yellow in color(Might have missed another color). She would take one piece from two packs of gum and chew them both at the same time to get the exact flavor that she wanted.

7. I was in my room again and looked at myself in the mirror. As I did I noticed that my beard had grown a good 2 inches from the night before. I also noticed that I had a random patch of facial hair to the right of my right cheek. This hair was brown, when really all of my facial hair is black. I then pondered on whether or not I wanted to shave it.

8. I was downstairs in the living room with my dad. It was really dark, and it was also dark outside. The only real light in the room was coming from the 70 inch T.V. I was wearing a batman halloween suit with the cape and everything, but the cape was a little shorter than I liked. As I was standing next to the T.V I saw my shadow projected onto the wall next to it. I started doing really cool fighting moves, and poses. However, when I did I noticed that my shadow didn't follow my movements. It stayed the same, still and motionless. I told my dad and he didn't really seem to care and started pushing me in a joking mood.

Non-Dream
Dream
Lucid

Lucid #4 (DILD, FA #3)
I wake up and plug my nose. I can breathe! I go outside, put my hand behind my back and call for a dream guide. I feel a hand and turn around. It's a short old man with glasses. We shake hands and I ask his name. His name is Sydney. I tell him I want him to teach me to transform. "You're not good enough for that!" he says. I reason with him, telling him maybe he could transform me into a different animal. He admits that he's able to but he's unsure about it. I wake up.

8/1/14 restaurant with a spinning ride. Trying to cut through to restroom I plan to go through ride platform but end up riding with BrM from work and barely hanging on with just my hands. First try to go through exit door and I'm stopped by waitress. / pro baseball game. Great pitcher won it for other team. I'm on field afterwards. Baseball again..? / I feel like I was not that far off from forgetting this one too: I become lucid when I am at a party in a cafeteria setting that seems to be in (a particular foreign country I will leave out for now because of the tie in to FryingMan). I see "A", daughter of M who lives about 90 minutes north and I realize it would be very odd for her to be in this country at the same time as me and that it is a dream. Everyone is speaking the national language it seems and I try to think of a phrase that FryingMan said before so I could see what their reaction would be. I am also wondering if a DC of him might have been there. I just talk to the daughter that I know telling her that this is a dream and she looked on like she was listening but not surprised or anything. There are two long tables that I go to in this cafeteria like setting, probably residue from the party I attended few days ago. I walk up to this other table with about 6 people at it. The previous table had maybe 8 people. I was trying to think of some foreign phrase to say to the people sitting there but decided to move on and went out through the exit and into a hallway and got down to the end of the hallway and the dream went dark. I remained patient and focused stabilizing the dream and soon the visuals came back up and it seemed like I was in the same hall. I decide to go back the other way and I could hear a party going on in another door to my left and I decided to check it out and it was definitely a different party. They had disco lights going with some people dancing but mostly standing around and this time it was a very diverse crowd. People of all colors. I thought about going in there but decided to go continue down the hall and was just relishing the vividness of this dream. It started to fade again but this time I found myself fading back to bed. Probably the end of my REM cycle. 180


Some notes from Night 4 where I think I got lucid but I am not sure...ugh:

7/31 11pm, 5am violent shooting scene day residue from "Shoot'em Up" movie opening sequence before bed. Mole steps out of compound to save himself. Another guy is drawn out and blinded by bright spotlight. And shot with high powered machine gun in slow motion from midsection to head with bullet after bullet tearing through his head. I slowly peel my eyes away from this scene. Survivor going through multiple surgeries is tough as nails but also affected mentally - in one scene looks in shock. /Poor recall lately. As mentioned on the competition thread... I think I became lucid noticing that I was downtown just like I told myself to watch out for as a dream sign because of train sounds. Earlier I remember riding the train and getting on the wrong train just a minute early...just a minute before my actual train came. I was trying to look out the train window to see which destination I was heading to instead but the destination was illegible. There was at least one false awakening where my wife is getting ready and I can see her naked. I remember trying to go back into the dream (I think from the beginning of the (first?) false awakening) and having vibrations. I was so happy to see the vibrations back but I think it was all in dream (maybe it always is).

Non Dream
Dream
Lucid

Lucid #3 (DILD,FA #2)
-I wake up under my sheets and do a nose plug. I can breathe! I get up to find myself in the family room of my grandma's house. I phase through the glass door into the backyard. I try to summon a dream guide but nobody shows up. All of a sudden, the gravity in the dream gives way and I start to fly. I decide I won't fight it and try to fly higher. I see some weird looking wooden ducks. I ask one how to transform into one. Next thing I know we're both back on the ground and the duck is talking to me in non-sensual gibberish. I wake up.

Me and my family were dropped on a normal island were there were people. We danced and drank together it was fun. The monster boss then came and told us that we have a lucid drammer besides us. I didn't understand a thing he was talking about.

He picked us up with a heli and threw us on a island with monster on it. When I fell on the ground I saw water(dream sign of mine) I did a RC. It didn't work.. Then I pinched my nose and still could breath through it. I realized i was dreaming. To stabilaze my dream i laid on the ground and focused. My parents in waking life didn't believe in lucid dreaming so i said LOOK AT YOUR HANDS DAMNIT. They looked at their hands and after that i said how many fingers do you have. They said 7. I said YOU ARE F*CKING DREAMING !!! They went lucid some of them woke up and some stayed.

We went creating things like big staffs to kill the Boss. He came and we said we want to het BIGGER. So we grew into the skies and then killed the boss.

It was a weird ass dream wasn't it. Post comment below please

I've been inactive for quite a while now. But, I am planing on making an effort to get back into the routine of things. Honestly, it's the off the wall (and extremely memorable) dreams I've been having lately, I think, that's pushed me to try LD'ing again. I had made some vague kind of progress prior, but not much. So, hopefully shooting for farther this time. Also, I kind of rebooted everything (deleted the old DJ posts, for various reasons) and am likely going to limit my posts on here to only the particularly interesting dreams.
Now, without further ado, the dream:

I was taking a nap. When I later woke up, I felt slightly confused for some reason. Something seemed off, but I couldn't quite figure out what exactly it was. I looked at my hands, thinking that I was in a dream. My room was very dark so I could only faintly see it, but it was definitely there. On my hands I noticed some slightly glowing writings (the kind of glow you see if you stare into a light-bulb for a while and then look away and it's kind of burned into your vision) I couldn't tell what they were but didn't care. I tried to change something in the dream and it didn't work, so although I was extremely confused as to what was going on, I went back to sleep. When I woke up again, (still in the dream, of course) I was somewhat scared now. I couldn't tell what time it was, and apparently I didn't notice that my room was slightly rearranged and I had a somewhat different desk. As usual, my computer was still on but asleep. I checked the digital clock next to my bed, it was 9 something AM. What the? I don't usually wake up this early! Hey, school is coming around the corner soon and I need to get back into schedule anyways. I'll stay up for the rest of the day and try to go to bed a little earlier than usual. Also, I was confused as it seemed to be the middle of the night. After seeing that time on the clock, it seemed to be early morning-ish from what I could tell. I could slightly recall some sort of flashing in the dream I was having during my sleep. (Dream inside a dream? INCEPTION MUCH?) As I got up, my phone notification light was blinking on the little plastic table by my bed. It was a message from a friend. (not a waking life friend, just some random part of the dream, I guess) I got the vague feeling this friend was a bit of a cocky jerk. You know, the kind who gets all the girls? Anywho, the message said something along the lines of "There's some kind of temple near you. Don't leave where you are right now." Again, no temple near where I am. What is he talking about? And besides, I wasn't going to leave the house anyways. I went onto my computer and recall looking something up about aliens. Something I can't recall must've happened because I got even more scared than I was before. The tension in the dream was on high as I got up to go turn on the light. I assumed that flash I saw in my dream must've been some kind of lightning strike finding its way into my dream, and that the power was out. I suppose it kind of made sense. I went to check with someone else in the house and see if they knew what was going on, as I was still pretty dazed. (and again, slightly frightened) However, as I walked through the dark hall, something happened (I can't recall exactly what) and I ran back into my room terrified. As I came in, I saw a black CMD box on my computer. Was I programming? I have bene learning Python lately and I got a little into C++, but I don't recall doing any of that. It was blurry from where I was though so I ran over and read it. It said "RUN RUN RUN" Each of the "RUN"s were separated by about a paragraph, and when I tried to collect my thoughts and look at the bottom line again, it said "Um" or something like that. At this point, I was just plain horrified, I screamed as loudly as I could for help and ran out of my room for the nearest person I could find. But as I got to the door, I suddenly felt the kind of crippled, dazed sensation of a violent head rush and fell partially to my knees. I scrambled to my feet, pretty much on the edge in terms of consciousness and still screaming, and ran for the other person's room. This person was naked from the bottom down, which I noticed and quickly assumed was because they slept naked or something. I (pathetic, I know) jumped up next to them in the bed and curled up in fear, crying and squeaking like some kind of scared little child. A few seconds later, I woke up. (Oh, and said person did NOT seem to care about how terrified I was acting. Which is strange because in my waking life they would likely be at full attention and asking me what's going on. Not to mention, I think most people would act at least slightly more caring if their loved one came screaming and scrambling into their room and then curled up next to them and shriveled up in fear.)

Also, I'd like to note that upon waking, I felt a bit of pain in my sides that I felt was relevant to the dream.

Id like to start off this Journal entry by saying: I just made HUGE progress with myself. I now know what a transition in a WILD feels like!


1.I was in some kind of indoor place, it was huge and was filled with all kinds of inflatable fun houses and such. I saw my cousin Mikey(at this point I was WILDing and waiting for the dream) and at the sight of him I jumped into the dream. I found myself amazed at what I just did. I patted my cousin on the shoulder and told him, "hey". I then left him and a couple. The guy in this combo was a bit heavy set and I think had a hat on. The girl was also heavy set as well. I was so happy that I think I patted the girl on the shoulder. As I continued on my journey I got a little excited. I looked at my hands to distract my emotions and stabilize. It worked. I then entered a huge arena with an enormous tower. As of right now, I was on the 2nd floor of this place. I saw my dad and sister on the same floor too. I decided I was going to have some fun, so I jumped off the ledge of the 2nd floor and as I did so, I transformed into Orion Jay. I could feel the suit covering my entire body. I grabbed onto a thick yellow pole in front of me as soon as I realized that my flying abilities weren't operating at the moment.
I slid slowly down the pole and came to a stop when I landed.
Everything was going smooth. I loved it. I turned around to see some employees working on the tower. As I looked at the tower I realized that this entire place had the color scheme of: blue, a little yellow, black, and white. I got through to the base of the tower and climbed to the top. It was really high up. My dad told me to come down because it was time for the "drinkers" to start playing on the tower. I came back down and stood on a platform next to a few adults. I found out that the "drinkers" were the people who drink alcohol. I looked down at the platform and realized that it was unstable and had holes in it. I got off of it and left the Indoor Inflatable place with my family. (This is were my lucidity level dropped and I stopped paying as much attention to everything. I became wrapped up in the dream itself more.) After I exited through the doorway I followed my family to this small area where a black guy was standing(not being racist). When we entered his little area we found out that he could not talk because he had liver problems. The lower half of his body was all wooden and it was like he was wearing wooden pants. He had a series of buttons along his zipper line which were directly on top of his crotch area. We decided to talk to him. My mom went up to him and pressed one of the buttons. Each button has a phrase on it that says something. Once my mom pressed the button the guy talked through some kind of vocal system in his body. He sounded like a robot. My mom pressed a lot of buttons and asked him a lot of questions. Usually my mom would interrupt the guy while he was talking and start saying something. I told her, "mom, let him finish his sentence, he isn't done yet." My dad agreed with me. After talking to him a bit we left his little area. As we walked away I looked at the environment around me. There was a long ditch system made out of concrete that was halfway filled with water, and the sun was setting. We eventually came to a narrow sidewalk and Mikey automatically appeared back with us. He was directly in front of me walking. We came up to a big puddle that covered half of the sidewalk and I accidentally stepped in it and got one of my shoes completely wet. Just then, it occurred to me that I now knew what a transition into a dream feels like. I became really happy and wanted to write my achievement down somewhere(usually when Im not home Ill just text whatever I want to remember to write down to myself).

2. I was in my room, and it was really dark. I was crouched down next to my drawer. I then thought to myself, "If this is a dream, patrick and all of my other friends will walk through my door. I didnt really believe that I was dreaming, so I doubted that they would come through the door, so they didnt. I remember going back to bed.

I'm on a train station platform. Am with a bunch of people like a girl like Regina and a girl who has an unzipped hoodie and who's not wearing anything underneath. We are trying to figure out something given t and m (3 and 2) and find something per sec by picking an arbitrary number and dividing (wanted it to be 2-3 but I kept getting 5 or so). I had a pencil (wooden) but dropped it on the tracks while trying to board the train. The people were going to leave but they're delayed because I need to get on with something (calculations or equipment?). There is also this black dude who also needs to get on (possibly Teal'c).

Also, recursion—kept getting a method stuck in an infinite loop so inside this thing is infinite repetition. I fire up google to show someone what recursion is and the example is different—instead of did you mean: recursion? it's like "google x = recursion y" and it repeats on the platform somewhere. I point to both and explain how it "works".

Woke up, back to sleep.

First, an FA in which I think it's almost 6. Then a very brief LD? I am on DV and my username is antioa instead of antoia, but the thread name is correct. I realize it's wrong and RC. I grab my glasses from my desk and put them on and everything becomes clear. I go onto the balcony and look to the left. Everything fades into sepia there. I look back inside my bedroom. Everything is brightly lit and different and there may have been some random people in there. I remember the competition and try to fly which sort of works but not really. Dream fades.

Woke up, back to sleep.

Mars is taken over by people possessed by Goa'ulds and pokemon and stuff. Mr Z (CS teacher) is the leader of the anti-Goa'uld (?)movement (the opposition, anyway). I am possessed by a Tok'ra. The symbiote helps me become stronger and fight. Teal'c may be there. I jump around the place going to "the Court" where people are meeting because these worm things have grown really really big and are scattered all over the place and on the roof and stuff. I accidentally crash the enemy camp and they freak out. I get the hell out of there and head towards the soldiers who are on our side. Lots of arrows are flying around, and there is one part where we have to hide out in what looks like pillow forts against an attack, probably because I crashed the enemy camp...

There is also a part with t-shirts and quotes from said Mars thing and pretty cool designs. The problem is that no one will get the reference because the thing is an obscure show.

Fragments: I have a DJ app just for lucid dreaming and it's like Evernote with notebooks and stuff and it's really nice looking like an actual book and the sidebar is filled with categories like "LDs" and "For reading (secure)" and things like that.

Sometime: there are 100+ year old people recorded and birth/death dates written on paper next to them. One of them is from 10XX to 11XX. Supposed to be Japan. I comment that the Franks took over England in 1066.

Fragment 1 ,12:33 AM: Dreamer is teaching me how to WILD. A neat SL where I am "aware" that I am in a NLD. Driving in a car, with brightly-colored backgrounds to the environment. Dreamer's main advice seems to be relax and have fun. Dog bark and shout in WL from the street wake me up and out of this. Believe Xanous here as well, but not sure.

Fragments 2, 5:28 AM: Dreamer is teaching the whole DV community how to WBTB and incubate dreams. At some point I am nervous about my dream practice, but then decide that whatever I am doing is probably OK. More here but C/R.

Lucid, 8:45 AM: I am walking between classes back in high school. I am outside, and walking along a sidewalk outside. I glance at my wristwatch and realize it is 6:40 pm. I am confused, as I am not sure how it can be 6:40 at night while I am at school. I nose pinch and can breathe. I become lucid, but do not fully understand what is going on. I am under the impression that my WL body is asleep somewhere on campus (maybe I took a nap somewhere?) and that I will be late for class if I don't wake up. I try to wake up a few times (by "opening my eyes") and fail. I am surprised, b/c this has not failed me in the past.

Before I try to wake up, though, I decide to enjoy the dream a bit. I attempt to fly, and C/R whether or not I manage to do so. However, I do climb up a metal radio tower of sorts, and consciously make my body lighter in order to pull myself through the air and not damage the thing, fragile pieces of tower. In dream, I think I am adjusting gravity, lol. I try very hard to remember where I have fallen asleep, or what waking life looks like at the moment, but cannot.

FA: I "awake" from this dream into a world more populated with DCs, but same landscape. I am no longer a student at the school but am now a teacher (wtf?). I hear a PA announcement telling me to come to the dean's office. I follow, and am met by someone who demands to know where I have been. I explain that I fell asleep "up in some damned tower" and am told my picture needs to be taken. A ceremony is going on, and I am asked to partake in it. A special, heavy jacket is placed on my shoulders. However, the people involved soon find out I am not a Christian and take the jacket back! I don't care though and just wander off. Another announcement comes over the PA and says employees cannot leave until 4:30 pm.

Fragment 3: My stepfather taking family out to eat. My mom narrates this dream, explaining how he has exerted control over us using his wealth and influence (). He says something nasty to me, but I do not respond, as I am conscious of eating the roast beef dinner he has just paid for.

Fragment 4: A man is teaching children to LD. He explains that a good reality check for children to do is to stop breathing, and wait for a superhero to rescue them. He advises parents to keep a good watch on their child though, as sometimes a superhero will not arrive and the child may die. He demonstrates by saving a child who is currently not breathing (and obviously not being rescued via dream!).

Ritual: Went to bed around 12:50am. Woke naturally at 3:32. Seemed a bit soon to WBTB but my motivation was good and I recalled traces of imagery so decided to go for it. Drank guayusa tea and read Brooks & Vogelsong. Before going to bed did hybrid of SSILD/counting/affirmation while sitting in chair. Technique: counted incrementally while breathing slowly and deeply, thinking the number on each in-breath, and on outbreath rotated between senses (thinking "look," "listen," or "feel") and then adding an affirmation, letting it fall randomly between "always lucid" or "always aware." Counted to fifty in this way, though I was impressed how easily it was to lose track of the number (this is good, it means the mind is losing its focus on waking life) even while sitting upright in a chair. Returned to bed at 4:52am and continued counting up to 70 while lying on my back, then ceased the practice and turned on my left side to sleep. I soon realized that I'd overdone the WBTB a bit and was excessively wakeful, but consoled myself that I should be able to return to sleep eventually given how few hours I had gotten so far, and my chances for WILDing should be improved by this touch of insomnia.

I had made sure to fix a very clear task in mind: I had read about the "fairy tale" challenges on DV and they seemed potentially interesting, but I realized I should make a clear plan. If I did successfully WILD I would find myself in my house, so how would I go about pursuing the task? My idea was this: grab a loaf of bread from the kitchen, exit the front door, turn right and walk up the hill, where in a previous WILD I had passed through a tunnel and found myself in a deep, dark forest. I could leave a trail of bread crumbs and see what happened from there.

WILD #1: It took a long time to go back to sleep. Eventually I felt sensations I interpreted as the onset of SP: tingling and distortion of the physical body, then a sense of weight on my chest so localized and specific that I wondered if the cat had actually jumped on me, but the weight quickly increased beyond that of any cat. I was encouraged because it seemed like this transition was happening very cleanly and consciously, and turned my attention to beginning to "move" the non-physical "body." I was careful not to wiggle my fingers or adjust my limbs lest I break SP, so I concentrated on unnatural movements like full-body rotation. I could begin to feel my body swinging in a horizontal rotation but didn't yet have enough traction to "get up" out of bed. Suddenly I felt a vertical "lift" as though my body had floated up several feet, and the next moment I was standing on my feet next to the bed. "And I'm up!" I thought to myself, pleased.

I noticed right away how dark it was, and despite the clarity of the transition, I did not feel well-integrated into the dream body. I deduced that this was probably a consequence of weak REM-state, given how little sleep I had gotten before the WBTB. I thought I'd better do some stabilization, so I touched some surfaces around me and then rubbed my hands together. This felt lifelike enough, so I became too easily complacent and didn't do anything further to integrate... a mistake, as it turned out. But I was pre-occupied with performing my task and didn't want to get distracted to the point where I never left the antechamber, as so often happens, so I rushed to get started.

I moved swiftly toward the kitchen and picked up the bag of bread from the counter as I passed through. It felt quite full, and I recalled that I had bought a new bag just the other day in waking life. Although the environment was still very muddy and vague, I could easily find my way through the house out of habit, so I headed straight for the front door. As I was crossing the threshold, I noticed that the bag of bread suddenly felt very light, as though there were only a few slices left. I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I should return to the kitchen, but didn't want to be distracted from my task, so I figured, "That's alright, I can always manifest more."

I walked out into the night, the outdoor environment no more distinct than the indoors had been, but I knew where I was going. I turned right and began to walk uphill, reaching into the bag to start dropping breadcrumbs. To encourage the right environment to appear, I started muttering under my breath: "Entering the world of Hansel & Gretel. Entering the world of Hansel & Gretel." But I only got off two recitations before I abruptly awoke. I realized my error at once: the dreamspace outside the antechamber is always less stable, and in my impatience to get started on the task, I hadn't integrated properly before exiting.

I lay for a long time in the position I woke in. Often I can seamlessly re-enter a WILD if I half-wake and don't move. But this was no half-waking: my mind was fully awoken and I soon realized that holding my position would be of no use, sleep had well and truly gone. I used the bathroom so it wouldn't pre-occupy me later and returned to bed, lying on my other side now to make a fresh start. By now the sun was rising so I got out my sleep mask from the drawer. I hate wearing it, but I could tell the light would be disruptive today. I considered checking the time but was trying not to stimulate wakefulness any further, so deliberately decided not to. It was evidently around sunrise, anyway, which occurred at 6:01am today according to Google. That was well over an hour after I had finished my WBTB and the dream can only have lasted a few minutes, so it must have taken me a very long time to fall asleep beforehand.

WILD #2: I lay on my right side and tried to keep a positive attitude: of course I can do it again! I re-WILD all the time! Not usually from such drastic awakening, admittedly, but I didn't let myself focus on the negatives. I wondered if I should rise and write a report, but reflected that there was little to report apart from the exact wording of the phrases I had thought or spoken, and these I had already scrawled in my notepad. The rest, what little there was, would be easy to remember. So I let go of those worries and focused attention on my breathing, remembering not to "try" to fall asleep but just let it happen. Eventually, it did.

Whereas the previous transition had been so vivid, this time I was surprised to find myself simply standing at the foot of the bed. I hadn't noticed the separation. But at least I remembered where I had gone wrong in the last attempt, and reminded myself: don't rush it. Get traction. Find something to do in the antechamber to better immerse yourself.

I noticed that this time the bedroom was full of books, stacked in messy piles and filling bags all over the floor. I figured that these would provide a good opportunity to more fully engage my senses in the dreamspace. So I selected a few and carried them with me as I moved out of the room. The kitchen floor was also covered with books, so many piles and stacks that was actually hard to pick a path through them. I was picking up volumes more or less at random until I noticed what was clearly an artist's sketchbook, a spiral-bound 9"x12" Strathmore, on top of one pile. "Oh, I should look at that!" I thought, and grabbed it. Finally I made my way to the living room, where I found a small oriental rug on the floor (about 2'x3', black pattern on a white background) and sat down on it to begin to peruse my books.

I chose the sketchbook first, because I was the most curious what I might find inside this one, and dream pictures tend to be easier to perceive and remember afterwards than dream text. The first picture I saw upon opening it was a portrait of what looked like a tribal chieftain, showing the upper half of his body and filling the whole page. He looked about middle-aged, with angular but weather-beaten features. The most distinctive element of the portrait, dominating most of the visual space, was the enormous headdress he was wearing. It wasn't made of feathers or any obvious RL material but seemed composed of abstract patterns with a Mayan styling to them. I took note of the colors. The headdress was all in shades of red, mostly an earthy brick shade. There were constrasting shades of muted green in the distinctive wide straps criss-crossing his body in various places. It didn't occur to me at the time, but the obvious deduction is that these straps were there to secure the enormous headdress.

After looking carefully at the first drawing, I turned the page. The next image I saw was more cartoon-like. The page was divided into four rectangular panels, each one the width of the page, and stacked vertically. There was a caption, though I don't remember if it was above or below the panels: "Doyle Oss Toss." How clever, I thought... until I realized that it didn't rhyme as well as I had thought at first, because I was aware from the start that "Oss" meant "Owl" but soon realized that the RL word had been distorted unrecognizably to fit the rhyme. My dream texts often demonstrate this tendency to favor rhyme and alliteration over comprehensible meaning.

The four panels showed the Doyle Owl being punted by a large shaggy grey wolf. The Owl was on the left, the wolf on the right, and the setting suggested the outdoors but was very plain, with little in the background to distract the eye. The sky behind them was dark. The first panel showed the Owl already in mid-air, with the wolf's head lowered, evidently having just head-butted it. The second panel showed the Owl about halfway down, in the act of falling, the wolf's head still lowered. The third panel showed the Owl having come to rest again on the ground, the wolf's position unchanged. The last panel showed the Owl lying on the ground where it had fallen, and now the wolf had lowered its haunches into a crouch and lifted its head toward the sky, howling in what I interpreted as triumph.

I think I might have spied one more drawing but I don't remember it, because around this time I woke up. In a false awakening. Which I didn't recognize. Responsibly, I immediately began to record the dream on my notepad, first sketching out the four-panel cartoon I have just described. After completing that, I started blocking out the tribal chieftain, and made some notes about the colors. I think I wrote about the green straps first, and when I started trying to describe the particular shades of red in the headdress, the dream began to evolve, and I thought I remembered dreaming that I was a sultan who had a vizier who wore a turban constructed of red cloth in various textures and shades, including a dark red kerchief. It's possible that this image relates to a drawing from the original sketchbook that I've forgotten, because as I was jotting down notes about color of his headgear a new visual appeared, where I could see the vizier from above and behind, with a clear vantage on the dark red kerchief, and I was surprised because I knew that I had not previously seen him from that perspective.

Before the FA could evolve any more, I woke up for real and recognized that I had just been writing my dream report in another dream, and I'd better get up and do it properly. In this case I didn't mind the delay because writing it down in the FA had helped cement the details in memory (this is not always the case). So I started jotting down my notes on the notepad next to my bed... only to realize soon after I'd started that even though I was more or less awake now, I still wasn't actually doing it, I was still just experiencing a kind of half-dreamed enactment of writing, and I should stop tricking myself and physically get out of bed so I could be sure I was doing it properly. So I got up and hastily sketched out the four-panel again—noticing with amusement how much crappier it looked in RL than in the more elegantly sketched version from my initial FA. I noted the time of rising as 6:56am, and recorded the rest of the dream on my laptop.