lucid

Morning of October 3, 1976. Sunday.



I travel in a car with good friend Johnny C as the driver (same car he had in real life and this scenario being similar to real life to a point), best friend Toby T, and three girls including Tina L (so I guess the car was apparently crowded but did not seem as such). There is a recurring idea that was very common in dreams of this time period. The idea of moving through time or into “alternate worlds” based on a series of directions alone. I am semi-lucid but not “take full control” lucid, as I did not seem to want to be at this stage, just so I could passively enjoy things.

I am in the back seat on the right side. We are going north at one point. There is the idea that we should stop near my Cubitis home to see how it has changed. We decide to make my house the main destination through different “alternate worlds” or “alternate times”.

Upon our first stop, we find the house has changed into a laboratory but it has seemingly been abandoned. I see a beautiful painting on the east wall in my room that shows strange birds. They look like ordinary birds except that they have “sideways beaks” that I realize are exactly like the mandibles of a stag beetle. I feel a very strange awareness upon seeing this, an unusual feeling I cannot quite relate. I also notice a few pinned-up diagrams and scattered papers with various complex equations sitting on a desk. For some reason, I think of them as “byrds” with understanding of the different spelling.

We leave and come back into a different “time”. This time the place does not seem abandoned and one man is there to say that we are allowed to look around but not to touch anything. Going onto the carport, we see cages on the left. There are about three larger cages with strange creatures in them. One is like a peacock with snakelike features and it hisses and “strikes” at us but only succeeds in hitting the bars. I notice that our chicken shed is still there but built up a bit.

Once again, we leave and “come back”. This time, the house is abandoned again. We look around and mostly only find dusty ground and rusty pieces of metal. As there is not much to see, Toby T suggests going “as far as possible”. Johnny C seems hesitant, but we are on our way.

There is a strange sensation of moving very swiftly. We seem to be thousands of years in the future. We look out and see a strange sight. The house is very different (or likely a different building) and there are some strange creatures. It seems a “mother creature” is communicating with her “son”, who is standing near an upper-section-opened Dutch door to what looks somewhat like a barn (upper half open). They are somewhat human in form, but also a bit more like mostly white, living ceramic chickens with a Chinese appearance and with very small but defined simple geometric patterns (in mostly red and black) all over the large heads and smaller thinner bodies. They are making a sort of higher-pitched crunching noise to communicate by moving their “beaks” which is not really a beak but like some sort of small sliding door that varies in sound to how far it is open at any given time. The “mother” is somewhat wary of us, which is why she wants to get her “son” (about half as tall as “her”) and go inside.

We decide to go back. However, we end up taking a wrong turn, it seems (seemingly based on something Toby said), as the car goes flying westerly over an embankment and into Lettuce Lake. We all escape, but Johnny is annoyed at having lost his car. (There is also an idea that the land features may have changed when traveling through different time periods rather than solely misdirection.)

Notes on the bird relevance in this dream: Firstly, the living ceramic chicken (somewhat anthropomorphic) in this dream is perceived as being an incarnation of me (as the dreamer) at the “end of time”. It is curious how it is near the Dutch door. As a door represents the waking point (or shift in awareness), but here has only the top half open, it is a very curious reference to a false awakening (as well as a seeming invitation to be above as opposed to below - possibly suggesting rising from the end of the dream rather than the usual “falling”), which does occur, but still with continuation of seemingly the “same” dream. (Johnny’s car ends up in the water, which, even though water is often induction, is more relative to the “falling” waking transition here.)

Addressing the two other odd bird forms here, the serpentine peacock that hisses from the cage is a form of “captured flight” (restricted emotional, sexual, or spiritual freedom in the dream state). Even though the dream is very vivid, I do not become viably lucid. It may also be an association from when I heard that people thought that a peacock feather was an “evil eye” which may be linked to the fact that the peacock also had snakelike aspects. This of course is an absurd idea that I never considered as having any merit, but dreams utilize anything and everything (including the nonsensical beliefs of humanity) to teach viable focus and discernment. The other odd distortion, a painting of flying birds (which may otherwise be implied to be sparrows) with the sideways “beaks” (mandibles) of stag beetles, is relevant to the greater understanding of dream composites in general. The fact that these flying birds and beetle composites are only in a painting is a giveaway relating to the two other nonflying bird symbols and the failure to become lucid or resolve the concept of freedom. My dream self is not able to resolve why these birds are “wrong” either, only that they are somehow unusual. I even think of them as “byrds” rather than “birds” while in the dream state.

Night of September 9, 1976. Thursday.



One of the worst nights of pain based on the operation on my right thumb (on the 25th of August) and wrist (and much tissue removed), a cobra strikes me on my thumb in my dream, extraordinarily vivid and bright in the backyard (Cubitis), seemingly in early morning.

Finally, my mother gives me a stronger painkiller again and I slip into an extraordinarily vivid and lucid dream. I am rolling down an embankment head over heals, along a grassy hillside, doing “perfect” somersaults with no physical discomfort whatsoever, and in fact, feeling quite peaceful and blissful. I roll into a river of mist. It looks like a normal river and in an otherwise normal meadow-like area, but instead is made of flowing foggy tendrils instead of running water. I am heading into a “bottomless” domain, much like Alice on morphine, I suppose, and am completely free from all discomfort and concern.

I “land” softly in a hallway after moving downwards through the mist for a seemingly long time, which appears to be the set for some sort of avant-garde movie called “Hello Harry”. It is about a young businessman who dies at an early age on his birthday (late twenties, I think). All of the other workers at the business, both male and female (but mostly male) benefit only from his work (and do little themselves) - yet he is mostly disliked by his business associates. This seems to imply that the business will now fail since he has died (though he is not the manager - there may be some sort of very subtle connection to “Gunga Din” by vague implications), without the other associates knowing or acknowledging his role in keeping the business going, possibly as the best or most dynamic salesman (and may actually come in part from having read “Death of a Salesman” at an earlier date, as I did read the 1949 play sometime during this period). He only has one good friend who mourns him. I “float” into a room with concrete walls and floor and see that the man who had been his friend is drinking too much from a bottle of gin and “celebrating” his friend’s birthday while wearing a multicolored cone-shaped cardboard hat (with red “V” or boomerang shapes) and a red tinsel lei. The remains are in a coffin in an adjoining smaller room. The rooms are mostly featureless and appear to be part of some sort of large basement, but possibly in the commercial building where he died. (It is possible he may be cremated in the business’s furnace, but I am not certain.)

The man (name unknown, I only know the dead man’s name is Harry - the other man could be Willy) goes into the smaller room and places a cocktail glass of gin on the coffin and takes one final drink from his cocktail glass and slowly and mournfully sings (to Harry) “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…” (obviously not expecting an “answer” of any kind, as he is the only one there and the other man has died the day or so before).

However, a clear voice comes from the closed coffin and it is supposedly Harry (even though he has actually died) also mournfully singing…“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me…”

This is the last scene and it seems to have some sort of science-fiction-like theme as well as the avant-garde movie essence.

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Morning of August 21, 1976. Saturday.



This very long dream event came about after falling asleep again before eleven o'clock in the afternoon, with the sun streaming through the windows but not directly near me. My parents were not in the house during this time. My more nightmarish dreams happened mostly in daylight, sometimes with the sun’s rays shining in through the curtains or windows as here and perhaps triggered by the body’s need to get up and do things, thus the dream state seems to become “hostile” to the dream self.

This one started out during the longest sleep paralysis I have ever had, about thirty to forty minutes, and it was during this time that I partly woke several times, going back into a very lucidly aware dream state. My head was “buzzing” at different times, but there was no “out of body” perception at any point. I was asleep on the couch in the middle of the living room, facing east, my head to the north. (Normally, sleep paralysis is enjoyable for me.)

The main events involved two pieces of furniture that the sun’s rays had been shining upon now and then in real life, but somehow also creating a nightmarish shadowy gloomy effect in the room. One was a kitchen chair, looking much the same as in real life and starting to “walk” from the same position from near the partially open curtains in real life at the time. The other was the small green metal typewriter table on wheels, with the built-in bendable lamp, with the conical green metal lampshade. (See photo; it is the same as I had). As the sun went behind the clouds now and then, but still keeping the room light enough to see all the details as I drifted in and out of lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis, either the chair or the small table would “walk” towards me in an ominous, menacing way at a particular time. What came the closest to me was the small green typewriter table, its lamp being the “head” and the bendable part being the “neck” of some sort of miniature surreal “giraffe” as it moved towards me, appearing to “study” me (with the light bulb “face”) and I was hearing its groaning and clacking “legs” and “feet” upon the tiled floor (even though it has wheels). As the last energies of sleep paralysis wore off, I finally caught myself staring at the chair in the room in real life (although when it was walking, it did not have as much a menacing presence as the small table). It did not move of course, yet still looked the same as from my dream, facing directly towards me in perfect perspective and still having a creepy essence before I was fully awake. This was fascinating to me after being fully awake for a time. It was almost like a game, where I would open and close my eyes to check whether or not the furniture was really seemingly alive or potentially menacing.

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This is obvious sunrise symbolism with the related dawning consciousness event. A light bulb (especially if on) is also analogous to getting an idea, used as such in various newspaper cartoons and comic strips. It is also a sunrise metaphor (logic related to daytime wakefulness and being “bright” as in contrast to a “dim” person or akin to the phrase “the lights are on but no one’s home”, indicating the dreams self is aware and active but not fully awake and conscious). It is fairly common to have unusual dreams when sleeping in a different location and here, the bendable lamp stretched towards me to create an aggressive sense of sunrise (the yellowish glow) and the need to fully wake. It was as if my conscious self was annoyed by me still being asleep.

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My lovely wife Zsuzsanna has also had a lucid nightmare with this theme, yet she was watching the upright electric floor fan “walking” towards her on its otherwise flat-to-the-floor four “legs” and moving its “head” (the motor and fan) in a very similar way as the small table with the bendable lamp (in a seemingly menacing “observing” way) as in mine.

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Night of August 18, 1966. Thursday.



This is probably one of my first more precisely documented dreams over time. It was recurring and lucid in some versions. One might think this would be a nightmare, but not even close, just a sense of childlike awe and wonder and likely my first tulpa-creating attempt within a dream state.

My dream usually starts at the Concordia Ballroom (at 1129 La Crosse Street) where my father often performed in real life. It is fairly late at night. I danced there in reality at the time, but in my dream, things are quite different. The Concordia building seems to be oriented perpendicular to actuality. There are also a lot of cars that seem more of a late 1940s style than the 1960s.

Not only that, I end up wandering off into the darkness, yet seeing that a large barn…yes…a barn - exists just down the street a short distance from the Concordia Ballroom.

In the barn it is semi-dark. Cobras are certainly not to be found in Wisconsin (in the wild, anyway), but there is a cobra in the hayloft (and only ever one). It is mostly black with a bit of yellowish orange. In some versions (even later on, as it got colder in real life), I wait expectantly, but wake up before it appears (almost as if it had to appear before I could leave my dream with “better confidence” - hard to explain). Sometimes it seems to be a long time for me to be standing there. No drama happens. No one comes looking for me. I do not think of climbing up to the hayloft at all. The cobra is high above in the hayloft, upright, around the middle area, and is no real threat. There seems to be a mystical atmosphere over the whole time period with similar dreams.

Morning of April 10, 1976. Saturday.



There is some sort of very rare and special type of larger grouse (though more quail-like in some ways) in the backyard at Cubitis, though their size may be a typical in-dream magnification of perspective. It is supposedly “sacred” and has some sort of incredible ability to prey on humans at times as well as supposedly send human-like emotions apparently telepathically to disorient people. There are about six or seven in the yard at one point, and I am not sure if it is a good idea to even be outside.

I somehow fall down near the south side of the shed (fairly close to the carport) and feel an intense and bizarre sensation like a “deep tickle” in my side and lower back, which I have had on and off all my life, especially more recently. I am aware that I have fallen on one of these “sacred grouse” and thus may be doomed because of this. I see one of them closer to my face as it walks nearer and I feel a deep sense of awe.

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This was similar to a number of other in-dream premonitory events, including the dog with the knife-like nose, the buzzard’s beak, and several others. They all involve this intense spasm in my lower back that is like a mix of unbearable pleasure and a strange mild pain.

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Induction factor: water (man-made; birdbath made by my father for my mother). The setting is known and realistic and mostly private (backyard sometimes shared with friends). There are no other characters directly seen, though I sense my father is also in the backyard. I have a greatly enhanced awareness of my physical body, movement, and weight. Return flight factor features as a large quail or grouse with unrealistic intelligence and human-like sentience. The mood was of a growing awe and eventual mortal fear. Additional coalescence factor: ground (soil), coalescence (as my body inexplicably falling on the bird with the belief I may have crushed it) with the belief that I am dead or at least paralyzed for a long time. Possible explanation: Unknown, other than the back spasm event - but premonitory or causal? I seem to have “died” in this dream, but only my temporary dream self incarnation came to an end here. My father raised quail at the time, though much smaller than the birds in my dream.

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Afternoon of April 9, 1976. Friday.



I had fallen asleep in my father’s original room in Cubitis that he also used as a music studio (until he bought the matte silver bus he kept parked in the backyard and by this time also had the new room he built into the carport). My mother sometimes sat near the south windows when writing letters to various friends and relatives.

In my dream, I am hovering upside-down, seemingly in the fetal position, in a vast expanse of darkness, both to each side of me and at least below me. It is not quite like my prenatal memories in that it does not have a sense of being in two places at the same time and no immediate “walls” around me. I do have a sense of comfort, but also feel a bit displaced. I am trying to recall my dream that I was apparently “pulled out of”, thinking I must be awake now but am not sure of the setting I am in or why I seem to be hovering like this. My perception is about as vivid as possible for such a dream. I cannot see anything but my physical orientation seems as “real” as real life regardless of the unusual position.

Suddenly, I hear the mystery girl’s voice (long-term precognitive wife-to-be presence) calling out “Honey…honey…” (louder the second time) almost as if it is an attempt to get my attention with the assumption that I am sleeping, though again I cannot see anything. This causes me to begin to question what is going on, though my dream is too short to think too much about it. I know it cannot be my mother (especially as she has a much older-sounding voice) because I perceive myself as an adult for some reason (as well as maintaining a growing lucidity where I seem to be awake and asleep at the same time and trying to work out why the mystery girl wants me - I also feel intensely connected to a “different time”) and perhaps sleeping next to my partner while coming out of sleep because of her calling me. I come out of my dream fairly quickly (with a sudden somewhat startling shift in my physical perspective) and it is almost like the sound was actually perceived, with the residual faux echo (much as in real life when the consciousness is slightly shifted from being very tired and there is a faux echo when anything is spoken - something to do with slowed-down short-term memory, I think). This was one of my most vivid dreams during this time period as well as quite puzzling in terms of orientation and perspective. Of course, the voice matched my yet-to-be wife when I did talk to her on the telephone years later. This is one of thousands of dreams that validated who she was. Without a cue or clue from me (and although it is a common term of endearment), “honey” was the first thing my wife-to-be called me when we first started talking and even after twenty years, she is the only one I have ever heard with her particular unique accent and vocal nuances.

Night of November 5, 1965 to morning of November 6, 1965. Friday night to Saturday morning.



Summary: I dreamt a television-influenced scenario in real time, with the same soundtrack but mostly different imagery.

After extensive research, I have been able to pinpoint more data on one of the most vivid (but previously less documented) dreams of the later half of 1965. I have written about it several times in the past, but will detail as much as possible here. Curiously, it turns out to be yet another “unexplained” November 6th event (of which there is at least one for every year of my life) with heightened awareness and personal links as well as a deep nostalgia relating to certain dream states.

This was mostly a lucid dream (in that I knew I was dreaming and it was almost as vivid as real life) but I did not take control at any point. Also interesting was that my dream (the on-the-couch version) seemed to last more than a day. This is even in relation to the hour-long soundtrack of the show seeming extended over that long.

My dream occurred over about an hour, with several false awakenings as well as actual partial awakenings, but then it went into a “reset” (when I actually went to my own bed across the hall) and some of it repeated the next morning with other mixed dreams. It was basically caused by falling asleep at the beginning of the “Don’t Open Till Doomsday” episode of “The Outer Limits” television series. Although I was already seriously into dream work at this time (age four, almost five), this dream alone enhanced my interest greatly. I begin to watch the show in my sister’s Rose Street apartment, sitting on the couch on my own, but I was already quite tired, starting to have heavy eyes at the line “There is nothing wrong with your television set”, firstly falling asleep during this time.

Much of my dream occurred as I was lying on my right side on the couch but otherwise facing the television. The show was in black-and-white, but my dream was in vivid color. As with many other dreams, they remained far more detailed, memorable, and clear than the actual shows they were “scripted” by in real life (and with “better special effects” and more “realistic” in general). During the days without YouTube, Internet, and so on, it sometimes took a few years to confirm how details distorted relative to the original “script”.

One of the things that struck me in-dream was the eye that seemed to float in blackness but which was actually someone looking into the box at the miniature alien-monster from his side. This was probably one of the most internally influential images of the time. In reality, the actual creature looked (to me at the time) like a pile of dog poo with one eye stuck on. I noted this especially as I was, in liminal floating, trying to work out what was a dream and what was really on the television screen.

Also in my dream there was far more drama and action than the show that was actually on at the time, though the sound track was primarily the same (but again, seemingly over a much longer time period). In my dream, the monster was actually gigantic (instead of a miniature in a box) and was also green and orange and somewhat octopus-like (but with a mostly hairless gorilla-like head). At one point, I watch the giant creature (while seemingly disembodied) move through a large city, “walking” from left to right, its tentacles moving about, sometimes destroying buildings. In this case, there is also a scene where the eye appears in the sky as if in reference to the moon or another planet.

Near the end of my dream, there is a scene where a man is trying to hide from this giant creature that is hunting him (not at all anything like the show’s actual plot) and the creature “unknowingly” destroys a skyscraper the man is in. As the building collapses, the man free-falls outside the collapsing outer wall and even though it is a fall from around the twentieth floor, he survives with no injuries. After a typical in-dream “reset” I become the character in a similar replay.

Curiously, my relevant most coherent awakening occurred at the exact moment the hand-printed note was shown at the end of the episode (which read “Don’t Open Till Doomsday”) though I was still a bit groggy. From there I went to my own bed even though I had a few false awakenings where it seemed I had already. The line “If I cannot annihilate the world, I must uncreate myself…”, even though heard in my sleep at age four, was still clearly in my mind in my later teenage years, proof of strong influence in liminal states.

Night of November 2, 1965. Tuesday.



I consider this a paranormal dream for several reasons, including the fact that it repeated exactly many years later (as a surfacing memory, but I almost passed out in the intensity - one of the only times that this has ever happened in my lifetime in this manner as I was walking down the sidewalk at night) just before reaching my sister Marilyn’s house and hearing about my sister Carol having a heart attack. There was no prior clue to this event (and in fact, Carol was in possibly the lowest risk group for heart attacks, being a younger female and having no medical history as such in the family, but she did recover), and my “vision” (second occurrence of this dream) actually seemed to “tell” me this as well (before arriving at sister Marilyn’s house).

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This was a late night dream with possibly two layers, a real-life “replay” (or composite memory) of a visit from sister Carol later at night, and the superimposition of the giant bat.

I am viewing the scene directly, but I am possibly incorporeal, as it would seem I should be sleeping at the time. It seems fairly late at night. My sister Carol is visiting my home on Chipmunk Coulee. She has gotten out of the car and is in our front yard. I believe my parents come out to see her. She does not seem to acknowledge me.

Suddenly, from out of the dark of the night, comes a giant bat. It is about as great in wingspan as a car is long. My sister Carol ducks down with a sense of fear and puzzlement. I sense her emotions but do not feel threatened myself. Still, I do feel that something may “eventually” happen to her at a later date. It moves over her from only about three feet from the top of her head. There is no clear awareness of it other than the darkness, the wings, and the movement (for example, no sight of the bat’s “face”, feet, or more discernible wing detail).

The repeat of this vivid dream (I would say lucid as I did perceive it was only a vivid dream at one point, which was why there was not a stronger fear of it) was not at all like a usual surfacing memory but an actual “replay” that almost knocked me out and probably would have if not being slightly “faster” (or “time-compressed”) than the 1965 version at one point.

It is possible that the supraconscious only brought up this dream again, more “quickly” in unfolding to “match” the approaching event of learning about my sister Carol as this was the only dream I recall where sister Carol seemed to be in danger.

A “borrowed” dream to be “rewired” as precognitive? Either that, or I saw myself receiving the news many years ahead rather than an hour or so. There are different ways to look at all unexplainable events, “superstition” or “coincidence” being an unacceptable farce regarding an experience such as this.

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Induction factor: darkness of night. The setting is known and realistic and mostly private (though relatives are visiting). My parents are present as well as my sister Carol (half-sister on my mother’s side) and seemingly at least a couple other relatives. I have a very clear awareness but may be implied to be incorporeal though still perceiving everything at normal head height. Return flight factor features as a giant bat. The mood was of a growing awe but not a strong fear. Additional coalescence factor: the shadow. Possible explanation: This is an unexplainable one in how it vividly and exactly repeated in a precognitive sense (while not asleep) years later.

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Morning of September 28, 1965. Tuesday.



In my vivid dream (age 4, originally documented in detail on reel-to-reel, but written in adult grammar here), I am with all of my older brothers and sisters on my mother’s side (Marilyn, Carol, Earl, Dennis, and Jim). My parents are not present at any point. We are walking up an isolated trail on Grandad Bluff in La Crosse, though there are ambiguous associations with Chipmunk Coulee.

Without incident, we come to a large circular clearing deep in the forest where an old log cabin features near its center. I am told to see if anyone is home, so I go onto the porch on my own to look around while my relatives stand near the edge of the clearing (about a quarter of a city block away). I notice an old wooden rocking chair on the porch upon which a tasseled woven cushion sits. Suddenly, I am lying on my back, not remembering having fallen over.

An unfamiliar large white cat, almost as big as me, approaches me and is soon walking on my chest, getting closer and closer to my face. He does not make a sound at any point. Curiously, he has a very long white human-like beard, which almost hangs to the floor. I feel a bit uneasy but I do not call out right away.

Meanwhile, my siblings do not seem to think that I am in danger. They seem to be happy and are smiling and laughing. I remain wary of the cat’s human-like eyes and seemingly superior intelligence as well as its amazing apparent old age, though I am also somewhat annoyed by my physical discomfort and uncertainty of what is going on, so I attempt to call for someone to come and take the cat off me, but they seem to be walking back into the forest, though I get the impression they do not think I am in danger. I cannot call out very loudly anyway.

I am uncertain of what to do or how to respond. I do not want to annoy this “old man” by being mean to him, though he is probably too heavy to push away anyway. I am unsure of the cat’s intentions as they may be meant to be very friendly or even helpful somehow. I get the impression that a lonely old man who had lived in the cabin somehow became one with his pet cat; that the cat and the old man are now the same entity.

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Some basic dream components are rendered here. I had originally been walking, but near the end of my dream, I am lying on my back in the sleeping position my body is in in reality. A porch is autosymbolism for a specific level of unconsciousness of which is closer to the conscious self identity and the waking factor than other typical dream settings, but also hints at an attempt to go back into sleep and lucid dreaming. (This is based on personal experience even in childhood in deliberately using a porch or carport in some dreams to exit a building and enter a more vivid dream state “outside”, which has worked many times as such.)

Some people might assume that this dream was at least partly a result of being exposed to the bizarre ignorant belief of a cat stealing a child’s breath, but there is no way to verify if this was the influence. In reality, I did have a cat walk on my chest a number of times when I was both resting and sleeping. This may be why the transition of the preconscious into the emergent consciousness factor did not seem directly threatening, as well as holding the essence of a friendly old man.

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Ultimately, this remains a personal favorite and was one of many reasons my interest in dreams, including lucid states as here, remained throughout my life.

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Morning of September 9, 1965. Thursday.

Unnumbered. 34 sec read.

I wander on my own in a city in daylight after walking with my mother. I remain unconcerned about being on my own.

I join a crowd of unknown adults who have gathered in front of what may be the Madison Capitol Building. They seem to be studying “The Thinker,” a statue by Auguste Rodin. (To me, it is reminiscent of a man sitting on a toilet.)

At times, the statue briefly but minimally moves. More people arrive to see if it will move again. I believe it may stand and walk, though not until people are no longer watching. I think that is how I would react under these circumstances.

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Statues as self-evident in-dream sleep paralysis indicators have occurred in dreaming experiences all my life, and a moving sculpture is a self-evident correlation with waking and anticipation of mobility upon waking.

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Morning of July 19, 1975. Saturday.

Dream #: 3,134-02. Reading time: 50 sec.



My imaginary dream self becomes aware of being in an alternate (erroneously detailed) version of our backyard in Cubitis. It seems to be in the late morning. I am aware of my father standing near the back of our chicken shed and digging, but this is not a defined focus.

My attention is mainly on a giant onion that is growing in our garden in the area west of the railroad tracks. The top part of it that is exposed is about three feet in diameter. I do not consider its presence unusual.

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How to understand dreams in my online dream journal: This dream is mainly a result of instinctual sleep-wake mediation and inherently unrelated to my waking-life status other than with partial literal threads (for example, we had a garden in this location in real life but did not grow giant onions).

A feature coming out of the ground is instinctual autosymbolism for emergence from slow-wave sleep. Dreams exhibit co-occurrence with the waking transition as a preparatory function of achieving consciousness.

The top part of the onion in this dreaming experience, being above ground, confirms to me that accessible layers of memory only exist with the emergence of cognizance and consciousness during the beginning of liminality (increasing lucidity) to viable wakefulness.

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Morning of June 12, 1965. Saturday.



I am my present age in my dream (four years old), riding in a familiar car with my mother and father. My father is driving. The car windows are all down and it is seemingly a nice sunny day, around nine o’clock in the morning. There is a very mild breeze. I am sitting in the back seat and looking out the window on the left side (thus I am seated behind my father, though this is not a fixed orientation in dreams where I am riding in a car with my parents). We are going up a winding road of about a ten degree inclination, which curves slightly to the left, which seems to be Mohawk Valley Road in Stoddard, Wisconsin, not that far from where we live. However, there also seems to be the essence of the landfill near Fort Ogden, Florida that I had seen when very young.

As we ride over a small bridge made of logs (seemingly unrealistic for a car to go over) which crosses a very narrow and shallow stream, I notice an old mattress lying mostly flat along the left side of the road. It is close to the bank of the stream. I clearly see a couple large holes with parts of the material missing and part of at least one spring. There are a few other features that indicate that this may be a small landfill.

A rattlesnake sits coiled at the top of the hill to my left, though unrealistically remaining in perspective near the horizon of the slope (even though my dream otherwise seems nearly as vivid as wakeful reality). Its head and upper body move up and down slowly as there is a soft hissing and soft rattle sound which integrates with the sound of the breeze in the trees as well as the nearly inaudible sound of crickets. There is no fear; only a sense of curiosity. The rattlesnake is too large in perspective relative to distance and it is also unrealistic in the sense that it is moving up and down in more of a loose vertical spring-like form, reminding me of a mattress spring.

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Dreaming dynamics and first-level dream meaning:

• Many dreams utilize biological foreshadowing of the hypnopompic jerk. In this case, the rattlesnake is the hypnopompic jerk precursor and a “dream sign” factor (mattress spring symbolism) of my emergent consciousness. This is validated by how it is moving up and down on the close virtual horizon of the hilltop. Note that a rattlesnake moves and strikes while a mattress spring (which it symbolizes) does not. This is because the rattlesnake is alive and directly linked with the organic dynamics of a hypnopompic jerk.
• The close virtual horizon of the hilltop symbolizes the implied waking point in real time, that is, the event horizon of the emergent consciousness, though no confrontation is rendered in this case and no negative energy is perceived at any time.
• Driving or riding in a car in a dream represents the viable threads linking back to conscious self identity (reflecting the goal of the fictional dream self to find its way back to full consciousness). (The road is winding due to both my body sometimes moving randomly in sleep and as being analogous of the rattlesnake’s movements.)
• The landfill setting relates to the extraneous thoughts (“junk”) that occur during the rising of wakeful consciousness, similar to the random and fuzzy nature of various thoughts occurring prior to sleep, when critical thinking skills eventually cease.
• The rattlesnake is also clearly a visual symbol for a mattress spring in this particular case in its unrealistic fully rising and coiling upwards and downwards. Despite my dream having no negative energy, it is still seen as a warning of sleeping on a torn mattress with an exposed mattress spring (which I soon learned to be careful of and which a folded pillowcase was placed over). (This is probably because of my very young age and not fully realizing that both a rattlesnake and an exposed mattress spring could be very dangerous.)
• My dream’s meaning and message is validated by my torn mattress being seen in my dream just prior to seeing the rattlesnake on the hilltop.
• The nature of my dream is additionally validated by the shallow stream, implying a “water getting lower over time” event, which is both biological and symbolic, representing the waking transition. Note that my (presumed to have been discarded) mattress is near the stream, the stream representing continuity of sleep, as water represents my real-time sleep dynamics, while the road represents continuity of potentially wakeful emergent consciousness. This dynamic has occurred in at least one of my dreams every night for over fifty years (and with water often being the induction factor).
• A bridge is a real-time symbol for a shift in consciousness within the dream state. Note that we cross the bridge after seeing my torn mattress and then see the transmuted form of the mattress spring as a rattlesnake up ahead. Despite both being potentially dangerous, this is primarily a visual transmutation rather than implying any sort of connection based on a non-existent “dream language”.
• It might be thought by some people that my father driving the car can be “interpreted” as a focus upon the one who mainly controlled the direction of my life at the time of this dream. Even so, that is completely irrelevant to my dream’s main precognitive message. Also, I have had hundreds of dreams where the driver was either unknown or an imaginary character.
• This dream also has the “contrived convenience” that many dreams have. In this example, I am on the left side of the car looking out the window. My mattress is also on the left side, and the rattlesnake, despite the car implied to be on a winding road, is oversized and remaining on the left in direct view on the hilltop. This viewpoint would not have been possible in reality, where the rattlesnake would otherwise have been impossible to see this clearly and my viewpoint would have kept changing on the winding road.

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2 minutes 30 seconds to read.

Saturday morning, 16 November 1974. (Reviewed Sunday morning, 28 August 2022.)

"Hot Stuff's Day Out"

Dream # 2,889-01.



My dream begins in an unrealistic version of my Cubitis bedroom. There is no west wall, so the room is open to the outside. The house sits atop a hill that overlooks a forest in an unknown region in daylight under a blue sky.

I walk to where the floor ends. Instead of my feet slipping forward with me falling backward (as occurs in the first post-hypnagogic dream of every sleep cycle), REM atonia results in vivid vestibular-motor phasing with the blissful sensation of somersaulting down the hillside over the tall grass. The event has the essence of slow motion.

After I stop somersaulting upon reaching the foot of the hill, my dream self’s imaginary body temporarily modeling my sleeping position at this point, auditory phasing initiates as one of the only “narrators” I have experienced in the dream state. (Otherwise, such a transition is typical, as vivid phasing responses often occur with linearity. For example, hallucinatory vestibular-motor phasing triggers hallucinatory auditory phasing here.)

The unseen narrator, speaking in a loud unfamiliar voice with a British, Australian, or New Zealand accent coming from an unknown overhead source, does not express awareness of my presence. He seems to be engaged in a formal voice-over for a PBS documentary. I look up and see a statue several feet away that resembles an Easter Island statue, except it is only about eight feet high. The narrator talks about “African gods.” (Yes, I know Easter Island and Africa are in different regions of the world, but dreams often render falsehoods to prevent confusing dream content with real-world aspects.)

In my dream’s final scene, I watch three unfamiliar male explorers (probably in their forties) ascend the hillside. They are wearing beige safari outfits. I am on a cliff without the implication of having climbed up (no slope navigation, otherwise regular in my dreams). I enter a cave with the men, though they seem unaware of my presence. (One of the men vaguely reminds me of Abel from DC’s “House of Secrets.”)

An adult version of Hot Stuff the Little Devil (a Harvey comic book character) walks out from a deeper part of the cave to greet the men. The men appear terrified, remaining motionless, but I find the situation hilarious. The amusing “devil” wears a diaper (as in the comic book). There seems to be no threat, only a curious comedic essence. (A demon or devil would not otherwise appear in a lucid dream or most dream states with any level of self-awareness because of conscious bias, that is because I know they do not exist.)

My vestibular-motor phasing response resulting from REM atonia has occurred throughout every sleep cycle since childhood. Managing this physiological event or integrating spontaneously into the phasing effect is unrelated to the misconception of “astral projection,” a term that a legitimate lucid dreamer would never use.

Statues are a fundamental response to my intuitive, metacognitive, or lucid recognition of REM atonia that occurs throughout all dreams in healthy people. This attribute was one of the first natural and self-evident properties I recognized about “lucid dreaming” (or any mode of dreaming) at age 4, long before I heard the term. (On a side note, someone who “interprets” dreams in contrast to recognizing causality could not be a lucid dreamer despite any claims they might otherwise make.)


In addition to statues being an intuitive or lucid response to REM atonia, caves also regularly appear. However, it is often in induction rather than an outcome (as in this instance). Caves are how I intuitively (or lucidly in hypnagogia or post-hypnagogia) perceive my entry into a deeper sleep.

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Morning of November 9, 1974. Saturday.



This is perhaps one of my funniest early teenage dreams (firstly at 13) that there were a few versions of (eventually “practiced” lucidly into a fully comedic dream ending the same way as the original) and which I also wrote a detailed story of years ago including additional elements which different dream versions manifested randomly.

The main characters are me, my best friend Toby T, and a version of Brenda W who looks and sounds quite different and seems to be a symbol of my unknown wife-to-be as with most dreams she featured in (but not all). It starts out in my bedroom in Cubitis, sometime in the morning around nine o'clock, and on a Saturday. Toby and Brenda had both walked from their houses, which are not all that far from mine but did not see anything unusual, apparently.

There is a smaller orange spacecraft that is mottled with a darker brownish orange in a sort of fancy “rounded flame” design. It is to the southernmost edge of my house, on my side (east) of the highway. The spacecraft looks much like a larger Volkswagen Beetle without wheels and is facing north. The two “aliens” that walk about, seemingly looking for certain kinds of flowers or weeds, seem very mysterious in a way, but actually look mostly like thinner “lighter” versions of the Apollo astronauts and their faces are not visible through the helmet. Looking at the “face” of their helmets, I am reminded much of the screen of an Etch-a-Sketch but with a more mysterious “glow” somehow.

The “V” of the Volkswagen symbol may be relevant here due to my life-long layered associations with this special letter (relating to higher levels or a play on “higher planes” as well as the formation birds fly in). Also, at the time in real life, I had a large orange model Volkswagen Beetle (remote-control, and which ran on real fuel - it made a lot of noise, somewhat like a miniature lawn mower) that my father had gotten me for a Christmas and birthday combo, but I had not played with it for awhile at that point.

The three of us talk for awhile about the possible intent of these aliens. They otherwise move and walk about just like normal men. We consider how one of us should hide on the spacecraft to see where they go from here or maybe even see where they came from. I decide to volunteer for the mission. Eventually, something interesting happens in which this dream references a past dream as if it really happened (recurring). Brenda is able to help me become invisible with some sort of witchcraft (Wendy reference likely linked to the “Casper Spaceship” series) so that I will be able to hide on the spacecraft prior to their leaving. (This comes from a much older dream where I became invisible through the power of a smaller candy-cane-shaped walking cane and was able to help her marionette play be the most successful at the school.) She is also able to somehow hypnotize the aliens from a distance as an additional precaution that they will not be able to see me at any point. She plays around by creating a simple “happy face” (eyes and mouth only) on the front of the helmet/visor of the supposed aliens in an Etch-a-Sketch-like fashion.

I eventually go outside and into the backseat of the spacecraft, on the right side. There is no fear or concern, but there is a very strange emotion of leaving my home and not seeing it again as well as an odd feeling of being ready to leave the planet itself but still with a strange sadness. (The mood and sensations of this entire dream event in the last section was somewhat precognitive in the exact way I felt in real life upon riding an airplane the first time, something I physically had not experienced but which was correctly represented in my dream somehow; emotionally, mentally, and physically; yet also precognitive to the closer upcoming time of our actual move from that location in Cubitis by car.) The two aliens come into the craft from both sides at the same time, the inside being mostly just like an actual Volkswagen Beetle with a few additional airplane-like indicators. They do not notice me. We start to ride along (somewhat like a hovercraft at first) and eventually rise into the air, going faster and faster. It is a strange sensation. However, Brenda’s hypnosis seems to have worked too well and they seem unsure of what to do. In fact, they just sort of sit for awhile as if forgetting what some of the controls are for, mostly seeming stupefied at their predicament. Although I cannot see their faces, I see them turn to look at each other a couple times (though seeing only the sides of their helmets).

Soon, the telephone lines become a potential hazard and the craft rocks and dodges them somewhat randomly with a few near-misses. Eventually the craft goes really fast but slows again, seemingly over southern Mexico or the northern area of South America (although I get the impression of Cleveland, Ohio for some reason, but that seems illogical in light of the residents and general look - although we were supposedly going north, not south or west). I notice that the two aliens/Apollo astronauts have vanished completely (apparently from Brenda’s magic being too powerful), both becoming a small pile of silvery dust in their seats (my Etch-a-Sketch had leaked silver dust in real life - I even ended up cracking it open to look inside but of course I immediately threw it out worrying about being poisoned). The spacecraft plunges downward, landing “perfectly” on the top of a merry-go-round in a playground or park (I am aware it is a Saturday) with a large number of Mexican or Brazilian children running about, some playing in sprinklers and laughing loudly at the spacecraft. I am aware that none of them speak English, yet I still feel a compulsion to ask in English (more to the implied unseen “hidden cameras”) “Hey, anyone know how to fly this thing?” A Latino boy of about nine jumps into the front looking around curiously and laughing in a cheerful way (Interestingly, I sense his name is Lorenzo, which I realize at this point is now the name of my next-youngest son but named after a grandfather). I get a slight impression of the song “Saturday in the Park” (1972 album Chicago V - another “V”). Thus it ends as a comedy farce which seems to color my day in a humorous, useful way regardless of the “failed” outcome.

There are a few precognitive layers in this as is often the case. One, the appearance of Brenda with a different personality representing my not-yet-known wife. Two, the feelings of leaving our home in Cubitis to move to Wisconsin when at the time of this dream, I did not know we would be moving and I had not even considered it (as well as the later airplane ride nuances). Three, the orange colors of the “spaceship” remind me of the U-Haul trailer my father got during that same move later in real life. Four, the recurring idea of “getting past Mexico” to continue on across the ocean to be with my soulmate in Australia. Five, the young boy named Lorenzo - my future son at the time?

Morning of September 22, 1974. Sunday.

Dream #: 2,834-02. Reading time (optimized): 1 min.



My dream self becomes aware of imaginary kinaesthesia (as a result of vestibular system ambiguity during sleep atonia) before the illusion of riding in a vehicle begins to compensate for my status of being in REM sleep. (There is no “interpretation” in this as it is how my dream originates.)

I am riding in the back seat of a taxi on Highway 17 in Florida in the late morning. It is going south to Arcadia instead of north to my home in Cubitis.

The driver is an elderly black male (who had driven the taxi I had taken in real life a few days previously except that it was to ride home from school).

The overpass crumbles and collapses when the vehicle is at the highest point, and the taxi plummets.

However, as a result of being aware I am in the dream state, I simultaneously phase through the roof of the taxi and fly above the scene without concern. As I look at the setting below, the overpass has become rubble. The landscape seems miniaturized, and the taxi is now the size of a Matchbox Car. This viewpoint is not a result of flying high above the scene, as the distance is seemingly minimal.

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PRECOGNITIVE: Despite this dream resulting from the usual sleep atonia to myoclonus compensation, they dynamited this overpass on October 25, 1988, in real life, and removed the rubble. (Construction began in 1937. See the image if available.) I left Cubitis in 1978 to live in Wisconsin.

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