lucid

1. I am walking on a bridge that is a part of some huge castle. My friend Dylan is walking along with me. We come to the end of the bridge and see two baby dragons, gold and black in color(75% black 25% gold ratio). We go up to them with zero hesitation or worries that we could be killed. We begin to pet them, and they seem to thoroughly enjoy the affection. Though I somehow "knew" these dragons were babies, their size was equivalent to a full grown medium sized dog.
Without warning, Dylan suddenly hops onto the baby dragon that he was petting. The dragon goes crazy for a moment but then calms down. Somehow Dylan controls the dragon and gets it to start flying while he is on the back of it. I watch in amazement wondering how he did it. "Just get on the dragon dude, but you have to believe!" he yells from above. Immediately I got onto the dragon, attempting to treat it with respect, and I try to take off. The dragon goes for a running lift off, but it does not work. "Remember dude, just belieeevvveee" I hear Dylan say once more from way off in the distance.
The dragon and I give it another go, and this time I am fully believing in a solid successful take-off. Sure enough, off we go into the air. Seconds later after becoming airborne the dragon disappears into thin air. I am now flying by myself. "This is a dream, I am dreaming" I say out loud to myself. Now lucid, I take in the moment and concentrate my awareness. I look around for Dylan but he is long gone. I am now flying around the castle and it's courtyard. I realize just how massive the entire castle is. As I continue flying around in a quite graceful manner, I look down and see a huge crowd of people completely taking up an entire bridge.
They seem to be having a party considering everyone is socializing, music is playing, and huge breen and white beachballs the size of a small car are being thrown about. Unintentionally, I crash land. Luckily nobody got hurt. I start making conversation with the people around me and even hit one of the beachballs once. As you can tell, I've now gotten distracted.

Note: The dream continued on but I don't remember the rest due to an abrupt awakening by an urgent need to pee.

#514

This dream is from a last weekend. I don't recall the day or time.

I am walking in town on foot trying to use my phone to call my wife to come pick me up,but, of course, it's not working. There all kinds of strange phone issues typical to dreams. I see my wife drive by several blocks away down a main street. I see my son in the window. I want to run to them to flag them down, but they are so far away. There is a strange zooming morphing effect and I am right there behind, but too late for them to see me. All of this weirdness triggers lucidity, but I still really feel the need to meet up with my wife and son. I decide I can just teleport right there in the car with them. I focus and relax and try to visualize being in the car. I get the physical sensation riding in a seat but the visual environment doesn't change. I slowly wake up.

Created Tuesday 12 September 2017

Got a dream and a DILD to note.

Dream 1 - Summer-ish Lucid Dream Competition 2017 - Day 11 - Part 1

The visuals were clear. I was walking within an unknown communal structure. Concurrently, I was playing a space-themed roguelike without any device whatsoever. Eventually, I landed in a planet in which my dream guide, E, was imprisoned. If not freed within an allotted time, E would break free herself in a frenzy, and would not only chase the player's ship, but the actual player themselves. Real-world knowledge was required to succeed. So, I visited a library located within the building, where I did some research on an old CRT computer. Time wore out quickly, making me resort to save-scumming to avoid catastrophe. Some guy conversed with me for a moment, though I just barely forgot what that was about.

On a whim, I looked up on Hurricane Jose's current whereabouts, only to discover it had, against all odds, gone on a direct course to my town! Suddenly, I found myself riding on a passenger plane (not inside; literally atop of its fuselage), an oddly map-like view of grassy hill-lands visible below. Noticed my brother, Giovanni and an old black guy were there as well. When passing isolated farms, my brother mused on how long it would take that population below to multiply beyond sustainable levels. This gets the man to mention owning a gated community not too unlike what he saw down there, which he bought as part of his father's last request.

Not much else happened until the dream ended.

Dream 2 - Summer-ish Lucid Dream Competition 2017 - Day 11 - Part 2

The visuals were clear. I was walking down a forest road at daytime, accompanying both mom and a dark haired, tan skinned Hispanic woman in her 40's. All of us were dressed formally. We eventually arrive at a mansion. As we stepped inside, the woman offered to guide us through a tour. She ardently explained how the structure was supposedly a model for proposed renovations to the local highschool in my town. The doors opened to the spectacle of piano lounge music reverbing within gleaming marble hallways. At each moment, the woman would stop to point out a fancy carpet, a large chandelier, a bronze candelabrum, or some other extravagant piece.

Many levels of such continued before finally reaching the top floor. Several steps lead to platform further above, of which the sole musician and his piano occupied. Bored, I teleported around the area for the heck of it. That's when I noticed a familiar tune sounding. Can't recall what it was, though I was sure it's something Giovanni plays as a practice song. "Giovanni, that you?", I called out. I approached the pianist, yet couldn't see much aside that he's wearing a tux. Either way, I knew it was indeed my brother, and reasoned that I must've been dreaming.

I made further short-ranged teleports. My actions visibly concerned both women, so I excused myself and rushed off. The unknown woman made a snippy remark as I left, but I ignored that. I made my way down a drab, concrete stairway. Halfway through, I stopped to collapse half a wall with one punch. Then, I continued along with inhuman speed and footing. Soon, I arrived outside to a night sky. Things began warping around me. I tried producing fire from my hand, but couldn't manage before the dream deteriorated.

9/10/17
A monster hurricane was forecasted for the east coast. For southern New England, snow. I don’t remember anything else.

9/12/17 (L)x3 L2x3 DILDx3 WBTB
I recall very little about the LDs, other than the dominant the color in one of them was gray.
-1-I was driving a blue van in Egypt when I heard the possibility that 3 of the Pyramids were going to be removed due to the nature of their origin. Since only certified people could drive in the place I was, I got a cop behind me. I turned left at the light, and tried to pull over, but the brakes were stiff, as if the vehicle was off.
Lucid Time: 3-4 minutes

Created Monday 11 September 2017

Got a WILD to note

WBTB, during which I meditated for 15 minutes, then stretched for a bit. Hours of sleeplessness followed before I could finally get a transition.

Dream 1 - Summer-ish Lucid Dream Competition 2017 - Day 10

WILD transition in bed. Frustration from previous insomnia clouded my judgement for most of the dream. I spent several minutes trying to move around. When I could, I tried rolling off bed, only to get reanchored back, making sure to rub my hands each time that happened as a contingency.

At one point, I noticed a gang of punks breaking in and making a mess of things. Wasn't gonna let that slide. While having "Attack the Barbarian" from Streets of Rage playing in the background, I flew out to fight them, striking them with enough force to knock them off their feet. They were each easily taken down in one or two blows. Something similar occurred later, but when I fly off to confront the miscreants, they'd already vanished, leaving me attacking nothing but air.

Various poorly remembered scenes, some of which occurred in other location along with an occasional loss of awareness some of the time. There was something of being in a school, then a beach. At another point, I was wandering the city with my brother, Leon, accompanying him as he looked for a buffet. I'm sure I sounded some other song to do some other fancy dream ability, though I can't say for sure.

Eventually, I lose patience with my efforts, causing the dream state to slip from me.

DBZ Battle:
The dream begins at my apartment. For some reason, I'm an old man and there are Dragon Ball Z characters fighting outside in a team battle. Goku and Vegeta are in the same team fighting an unknown character who got paired up with me. I'm in my building's corridor, watching them fighting below, from a sort of balcony. I'm lamenting the fact that I can't fly or use Ki and I'm weak, so I can't really fight with them. Suddenly, I remember about Gohan teaching Videl and Goten how to fly and a try flying and suddenly I start floating up a little. I them realize that since I can float, this must be a dream.

I got back to the floor and think about how to get stronger. I take a stance, flex my muscles and begin screaming really hard, like a DBZ character powering up. Suddenly, my muscles grow and I become really buff. I climb up to the balcony and think I should get another power up just in case. I think that since I'm not saiyan I have to use Kayoken. I imagine myself activating it and I get a transparent aura around me. I prepare to jump down but get scared since I’m afraid of falling in dreams, so I take the stairs instead.

When I arrive down there with them I immediatelly attack them, doing all sorts of cool moves like punching them and grabbing them and throwing them back down, cracking the ground. There was also a moment where I launched a ki blast at Vegeta from behind, altough it felt kinda weak so I went back to physical attacks. I was completely overpowering them. I even hit my teammate by accident at some point! Unfortunately around here my memory gets kinda hazy and I’m not sure when the dream ended, but it was sometime during the fight.

---

Flying a Helicopter:
I’m inside a military helicopter along with some waking-life friends. I think we are heroes and are going to a mission or something like that. I’m scared while riding the helicopter because it’s really high up. Somewhere along the way, the helicopter runs out of fuel and we have to land on the middle of the street. We get off the helicopter, trying to figure out what to do now.

I suddenly get lucid and think about flying and taking the helicopter with me using telekinesis but then I have another idea. I use a power from a manga called My Hero Academia. It’s a gravity cancelation power which allows the user to remove gravity from objects it touches. I touch the helicopter with one hand, making it weightless and now I can carry it easily.

I fly around carrying the helicopter and my friends inside it and I stop somewhere because I want to try fusing the helicopter with something. One of my friends dares me to fuse it with an airplane but I’m more interested in fusing it with a car. I try to fuse it with a small car nearby but I can’t get it to work. I even make up some magic words but nothing works. This is the last part of the dream I can recall.

7 Sept

Quite vivid last period REM, with me following the storyline actively in both non-lucid and lucid portions, which probably were 50/50. That resulted in more info that I could consciously absorb and later recall. To make things worse, I only wrote down key words. Nevertheless, it still makes good lucid practice and experience.

The non-lucid portion includes me watching a version of our first home, but from a new floating space home. We now live in this space home, which isn't really a space station, but more of a floating home, yet highly technological and much closer to the ground. There's a few issues with gravity and balancing the whole thing. I move down different floors, encounter witches that sell herbal remedies along the way.

The dream is constantly transitioning as we end up on ground, exploring ever changing cities and stores. I run into a special girl from Brazil, with whom I seem to have important things to discuss.

The whole REM seems to be with an elevated awareness but after this portion, I cross over the edge to full lucidity. I spend quite a bit of the time observing all possible items, walking around, trying to stabilize as things eventually begin slipping away, becoming overloaded with details to remember.

At some point in time, I recall to try to score a few points for the competition, so I make all DCs around euphorically sing a Metallica song. The performance lasts a while. Another DC appears to the side making comments about this. After that, I continue walking around staring at different objects, thinking that I've already forgotten a lot of details.

I decided to try the dreamleaf product and see if that affected my ability to lucid dream - suffice to say last night was at least a success.

I took the blue pill before I went to bed, then 4 hours later I woke up and took the red pill. It took a while for me to fall asleep on account of having checked my phone for a minute. I dreamed that I was floating through the sky while beneath me small clouds passed by. I could see a snow covered mountain where I spotted a bearded man climbing. I floated further and eventually the land beneath me was obscured by denser grey clouds. I realized I was dreaming around this point, I could just tell it was a dream. I felt that the dream wasn't very strong, not surprising since I haven't practiced lucid dreaming in a long time.

I was still floating through the sky and decided to let myself go with it, the dream seemed too delicate to mess around with so I wanted to try edge the dream-path towards something gradually. I got about 30 seconds of lucidity before waking up without much happening. As an added note the atmosphere of the dream seemed a bit sinister which is also why I didn't want to mess with it

Got a short, tired LD to note. That's about it. Woulda last longer, though some things woke me up abruptly.

30 minute WBTB during which I meditated, stretched a bit, and tried relaxing. Discomfort kept me up for a long time, or perhaps, anxiety. Eventually, I pull a transition.

Dream 1 - Summer-ish Lucid Dream Competition 2017 - Day 8

REM Atonia transitioned dream. After various forgotten occurrences, I return to bed with awareness. I levitate myself around for a bit, but couldn't keep up. Later, I see a game forming before my eyes, some rail gun shooter set in a gator-infested bayou. I shoot a few of the beasts, when I'm warped back to bed again. Then, I tried contacting my guide, E, but she wouldn't respond. Various interruptions woke me abruptly afterwards.

Created Tuesday 04 April 2017

EDIT: Whoops. Left this in draft mode for the longest. Time to publish it fully.

Oof. Feels like forever since I last posted here. Anyway, I've got two or three DILDs to note, and got this month's bonus task done. There's a large non-lucid portion I can't recall for the first dream, and I generally don't have much to go on for the last two dreams.

Spoiler for kinda long:

Dream 1 - April TOTM 2017 Bonus Task

Scene 1 - From Cosmos to Cabañas
The visuals were mostly clear. I was riding around in a seaside highway during late afternoon, water surrounding the path on both sides. Not certain how, but I eventually realized dream.

This TOTM's bonus task was fresh in my mind. So, I flew out the vehicle, and warped into space. Had to take a moment to restabilize things, and then enjoyed just sailing the cosmos for a while at high speeds. Watching countless stars flowing past my view is always greatly amusing. Anyway, I erroneously looked around for a portal at first, but remembered it had to be a black hole. So, I thought (again, in error) to search in the emptiest point in space. After some more exploration, I found it, a void several hundred yards away, no larger than a hoola hoop in diameter. I stopped, and planned on how to enter safely. But it was too late; I was dragged inside in no time at all.

I found myself flung into a twisting wormhole, its silvery, fluid walls reflecting on pure nothingness. Ah, this again. I cheerfully let this trip run its course.

Finally, I arrive submerged in water. On surfacing, and reorienting myself, I see I'm swimming in a beach during twilight. Several family members were on the shore, including my brother Pedro. We wandered around a shopping district. Had to restabilize, and almost got distracted at someone questioning my actions.

Later, I try recalling some more tasks, but drew a blank. I couldn't think of anything else to do, for that matter. I settled on summoning Eddie, a shapechanging shadow demon from Guilty Gear. I made dramatic commands to have it form into a buzzsaw, and had it spin around for a while. Beside's Pedro's sideway glance, no one paid any heed.

We then arrive at a run down park. Some tour guide handed us chicken empanadas. These were pretty good, though did have a whole wing bone. Not something you'd want in a meat pie. Soon, we're seated a in a fairly large restaurant/bar resembling a cabaña. Got bored. I eventually imagining E, my dream guide, showing up as a waitress. A row of such workers did appear promptly, but none of them seemed to be her.

The meal (or lack thereof) ended quickly. Mom stubbornly took the tab, yet she was clearly distraught with the price. Pedro felt guilty, and urged we do something. That's when I pointed out the whole thing being a dream. I imitated Rick from Rick and Morty (actually Doc from Doc and Mharti), repeating "It's not real, Morty! This isn't real, Morty. None of this is real, Morty!", in a feigned maddened tone, all while unfitting heroic music played in the background.

The scenery collapsed instantly. Transition.

Scene 2 - On Pain of Property Damage
The visuals were dim. I false awakening in bed. I get up to record dream, when I overhear booming noise outside. Some punks were playing music full blast and flashing strobes on their ruined modified white luxury vehicle.

I approach them, and asked the hooligans to keep it down. They pretended not to listen. I repeated various times, until eventually, I lost patience. Got lucid, though I still wanted revenge. So, I erupted flames from my hands to get their attention. Then, I coerced them to do what was asked or leave on pain of property damage. Through heavy accents, they stammered what I believed was compliance. But they took too long fumbling around, and the music had grated on me long enough.

I started to count down from three. The group pleaded to me, but I didn't listen. Two. They rode backwards haphazardly, but only in circles. One. They managed to get to the corner, though still too close for my tastes. Time's up. In a panic, those punks all jumped out of the vehicle. Good on them. With a simple clench of my hand, their car ignites, and promptly explodes. I left them to wail.

Back inside, I locked the front door, and telekinetically did the same to a fictional garage door. By now, I was exhausted. So, I lied back to "sleep", and the dream ends.

Scrap Group 1
At home. My old programming teacher from way back in highschool was giving a lesson right in the lounge. A similar dream occurred later, save for replacing the entire class with unknown women. In at least one of these, I realized the dream. I morphed my hand into various shapes before the dream collapsed.

Spoiler for Media References:

Eddie:

Pink Energy

Hrmm...From what I can recall I was talking to someone in my family until I was told to escort someone into an elevator. While in the elevator i felt the floor collapse a bit so I quickly got off. Others who were old famous Nickelodeon actors stayed so they could get to their destination quicker though. Unfortunately the elevator ended up taking them to the woods where they got lost and were apparently not seen for hours.

I became lucid when I was about to go help look for them and jumped off the stair railing to the floor below. As I continued moving around the place I ended up in a mall where a group of monsters had appeared. "I dont like how I ran from my fear in my last lucid. So I'm gonna take the opportunity to do something better". I made pink energy come out of my hands and flew towards a monster to grab it with the energy. Once I had the monster I shocked it than continued fighting the others. I woke up after that.

The dream begins, once again, in my grandmother's apartment. Seems like its been a common theme in the past few dreams. I remember being in my grandfather's room and he's having trouble with the computer. Later in the dream (there are a few gaps in my memory of this dream) he is in my brother's room, using his computer. I observe him and he is furiously downloading different things (as he does in waking life, however it was exaggerated in the dream) and installing many dubious programs, with pop-ups showing up all over the place. I'm really annoyed while seeing this.

The dream skips some more and I'm in the bathroom. I can hear my stepmother outside talking about how her cellphone stopped working and I shout asking something about how can they have so many problems with technology. After I get out of the bathroom, I get lucid.

I begin flying towards the living room and my aunt is sitting on the couch. She asks me to get a cellphone battery that's in the other room. I decide to go fetch it because I think "Complete a DC's task" is one of the tasks in Spellbee's competition. I fly over to the room where my father is lying on a hammock while watching TV. While floating all over the room looking for the battery, I wonder what my father thinks about me flying around. I find the battery and go back to the living room.

I give my aunt the battery and she thanks me. I think she explains to me what she was gonna use it for, but I cannot remember what she said. I fly towards the balcony and have a moment of heightened lucidity. I have practically waking-level lucidity and memory, and I stop to remind myself of my goals, however I think the dream ended shortly after or I lost lucidity because my memory of the dream stops there.

Finally i manage to get lucid again. i really started to worry about the fact that i just dont get lucid at all. the break i had really seem to erase most of my skills. but tonight i finally had a proper lucid like old times where i manage to do things and remember my goals. so here we go:

i ride a bus. i seem to notice i am dreaming because i want to change some numbers on a busstop. i wink an older woman.
i ride a bicycle and wear sunglasses. i see a friend and drive in his way and block him. he dont recognize me. i make a fun out of it and say random things in a different voice. after some time i put away the glasses and show him who i am. he tells me he didnt recognize me and thought i am a random girl. i remember that i was dreaming and do a nosepinch and yes still a dream. i tell him i have stuff to do. first i want to finish my 3 step tasks. so i turn around and see some trees. i approach them and run straight thru them. good now some fire. i turn my hand several times until finally i see a small but steady flame in my right hand burning. i throw it on a group of people but the flame only reflects and falls to the ground instead of burn them. well who cares. i turn around and see two women. i want to make on of them disappear. i wave my hand in front of my sight as if i want to erase her. but the other one disappears. good enough i think. i want to make her appear again but i cant do it. i guess because i dont know her or her looks. i move on and see a fire alarm box in a building and make it also disappear like the woman before.
i enter a building i want to summon someone in my field of view. i pick up a piece of newsletter or commercial or something where a woman is printed. i look at the picture and want her to materialize. a random guy is standing around and irritating me. i tell him to go but he refuses. i go to him hold his shoulders and gently but firmly push him in the direction of a wall and push him thru until i dont see him anymore. i go back and look at the picture of the woman. i focus my eyes on the picture and wave with my hand until i see the woman materialize infront of me. i feel like everything is blurry or pixelated but i guess its because she is from a magazine. i thinking about having sex with her but it feels to early i still have stuff to do and dont want to go caveman and wake up. so i try to summon myself the same way but it wont work. i turn around expecting to find a picture of me and i do. i pick it up and try again but again no success. i look at the pictures. there are some folded into each other. i seem to remember the pics of me. i think about if this is really like accessing old memory or false memory. i wear a tophat. one girl especially seem to feel familiar like if i had something with her. [it was false memory]. i want to continue and turn around. i dont think about the woman anymore and approach the first room. i make a fireball again. it is small. i see my thumb ring. it is black. with my left hand i turn him and the flame gets bigger and seem to drain energy from the ring. i put both hands together and make the fireball even bigger. i throw it on a box with wood and paper. it burns. also does the table nearby. i leave the building with the intention to make it rain outside. but its already raining. i feel very powerful. i cross a street and point on a cardriver and demand him: bring me a magic lamp. he honks and starts driving. i demand him to do fast and he honks again and disappears. i walk over the street and point on some cars driving in my direction "STOP!" and they do a full break. i see a woman standing around with an umbrella and tell her to put of her cloths and she starts undressing but i keep going and dont even look there. i point into the sky and command to stop the rain and it stops raining. some dropps here and there like from trees still fall down and i feel them i again command "stop completely" and the sky gets brighter and no rain at all is there anymore. i move by two women standing next to a car. i approach them and tell them "hey in your car traunk there is the magic lamp right? she denies but the other one seem to want to open the trunk and i open it and she points at the lamp. i pick it up and tell the first woman to not lie again to me. she explains that she understands something else. i start rubbing the lamp but no genie comes out the lamp.
i sit at a table with friends and talk. i do a nosepinch " i am still dreaming.... excuse me i have another totm to do" i stand up and want to go to the next room and play some pinball or something but i notice there is a computer in this room so i approach it and see that there is a game active. it has some similarities with mario and another game i played once iwas small. i start playing there are a lot of options but i skip them all. i spawn in a forest. it is more or less 3D. i only can walk on given ways up and left. it seems very simple. i am inside the game but still i notice a girl stands next to me and tells me the game is boring. i run a way and even tho i only can run right the character leaves the way and falls down a cliff. i think i loose lucidity shortly.
i find myself in a floor. i am semilucid and i still want to do the bonus task of the month but first i seem to want to go to a toilet. i sit down and think about the task and wake up shortly after?

Became lucid. Was unstable. Tried to open a portal to N but failed

Got that DILD and a fragment to note.

Dream 1 - Thief-Seeking Missiles

The visuals were clear. I was wandering around the streets at daytime. Eventually, I stop by at a gas station, specifically the same one I used to work in. There were some major renovations since I've been there, including the registers being in the opposite side of the store. Maurice, one of my old managers, was busy with some customers. I considered talking to him, though I backed off. It's been so long, I doubt he even recognized me anymore. Later, at an unknown site, I build up enough nerve to call there for a chat.

Time skip at night. I'm back at the gas station, this time as a worker. Three other employees were there as well. Of them, I recognized Maria. Another was an older, large African descended woman, while the last a skinny, aging, clean shaven Hispanic man. I take a look around, and find things were now arranged much more similarly to how I last remembered. There were, however, more selection of hot foods. I thought to sample some, but reconsidered when I found the pastries had long been shriveled into an overbaked husk.

I worked the register for some time without incident, besides some guy having concerns of having been overcharged out at the pumps.Then, later on, a big, loud black woman shows up to bicker with my like-skinned fellow employee. Tension builds up to the point of violence. I overheard their being "friends", though how one could tolerate such vitriol under any circumstances is beyond me. Anyway, this scene distracted me from looking around the store. Before I could react, I found that some jerk had gone on and stole something in plain sight. The bickering had finally resolved by that point.

After that, a mess of customers began piling up. In fact, this left me so preoccupied, that shoplifters came out of the woodworks to snatch something or two. I later had to deal with a drugged out woman, another of my coworker's supposed "friends". There was some confusion over the money she gave and what she actually owed. As I counted the funds, the woman ran off with whatever she had in hand, and I just knew I got the short end of things. Concurrently, some teen girl rushed in, swiped some DVDs and snacks, and ran off in one fell swoop. And if that wasn't enough, both previous madwomen returned to cause another commotion. What a night...

While that happened, I caught sight of underaged punks going straight for the alcohol coolers. And sure enough, I overheard one or two muttering about a beer run. I was, by then, infuriated enough to look for trouble myself, so I went to the front door and waited. Still, I was of mind to reflect on that unreasonable theft rate. I made a reactionary hand test, but no matter the result, I gained awareness.

Vengeance still filled my thoughts. I immediately blasted the punks with an energy blast, then followed up with an explosive beam split and directed to those two rambunctious women (of course, all with precautions to not accidentally hit anyone else). I then stepped outside the lot, hoping I'd find any other previously encountered thieves and scoundrels, though they were long gone by then. After thinking it over, I figured a homing attack would let me get even. I fired a golden ray into the sky, which I divided into a dozen or so other beams. These arced and spread out all over town, until they eventually exploded one by one at isolated, distant locations. Couldn't help but guffaw in triumph.

With that done, I tried conjuring my guide, E, imagining she'd appear standing around the sidewalk. Unfortunately, I lost focus, and collapsed the dream entirely.

Scrap Group 1
WBTB for 15 minutes to write some notes and stretch for a bit.

False awakening. Mom comes barging in the room, demanding I get those hurricane shutters installed despite not having a ladder.