lucid

The dream begins like it's some kind of videogame. It's a game where I roam a big city and I think I'm some kind of gangster, I remember shooting some guys and driving a car. Even tough it's a game, it's like I'm inside the game, but at the same time playing it. Most of my videogame dreams are like this.

After messing around I suddenly decided to be a nice guy and do nice things . This was probably influenced by mer playing Infamous: Second Son before sleeping in waking life, a game where you can gain good or evil karma depending on your actions, and be a villain or a hero. Anyway, I was walking down the street and I saw a litte boy in some tattered clothes. I offered to buy him new clothes and we entered a store. The dream got less videogamey at this point. I remember he picked some clothes that were all the same and I told him to get a little variety. As he chose stuff I was kinda worried about how much it would cost but remembered I had a lot of money. At some point we were picking a shoe but I couldn't find the right size for him. Later we went outside and I was supposed to take him to his home. We walked for a bit and I tought about stealing a car. We were back to being in a videogame. I stole a car and tried to drive safely but messed up and ended up in a car chase, crashing the car horribly in the end. The kid was still alive, tough.

At some point I was in real life (as in, not in a game anymore) in the city I actually live in. I was just walking along the street at night when I realized I was dreaming. I flew a bit while crossing the street. At some point a little chubby girl came up to me and I was struggling to remember what was my objective. I told her to give me the dimensional scissors I'm looking for to open a portal, at that moment she looked at me with a grim on her face and took off. I was ready to give chase, but the powerpuff girls showed up and threatened my with some kind of weapon. I gave up, frustrated and began walking along the streed again. Eventually my vision began to fade and I tried staying still to get back to the dream, but I had a false awakening.

I was laying in bed and could hear my brother talking on the phone to someone. I opened up my eyes and tought I lost the dream, then I just rolled to the side and tried to sleep. I then woke up for real.

15-Jan-2017 - 2xND +2xWILDs - Fly rocket to Mars, build and animate red dust man, fly saucer to Pluto, fight aliens, sink into black hole, meet PvsZ plants, make hotel hall tables and guests fly and disappear

ND#1: (3:10AM) I am playing with my son, I sit, he's laying on my legs, I spank him to make him laugh. Do WBTB

ND#2: (est.5:30AM) Fragment; something to do with military aircrafts, and also money exchange between Russian and Hungarian currency (?).

Wake up 6AM, attempt WILD, success

WILD#1: (6 AM ~1hr)
Poor recall of beginning. I meet a nice blonde girl who is very keen to have fun, who am I to refuse it ?
After that, I am in my tower. On the right wall I notice two paintings I didn't remember. I focus mostly on the one on the left. I memorize its details, very white skin girl, red lips, brown hair, blue dress; looking left, surprised by something not visible in the picture; brown blurry background. Also the right picture is a girl, skinny, I did not capture much detail.

I exit the room, which is now the girl's room at my uncle's house. I cross all the house, go outside, see the house, garden, tank, go out of the gate. I take a cableway up the mountain, then a lift down to the main crater. Lift has glass walls. When it reaches the magma lake, I open the door and walk on the lava, it's very liquid.
After this, I decide it's time to focus on tasks.

I am looking for a spaceship. I find a rocket like THIS , near a platform. I use the walkway to enter it. I take the seat; it's looking upwards, to a black sky spotted with stars. The rocket leaves, I see the movement of the stars around me. After some pretty dull space flight, we land on Mars.
I descend the rocket, and see the red planet around me, lots of dust, rocky mountains few kms away; it's totally deserted.
I take some red dust and create a red-dust-man, complete with red-rock eyes and nose.
Then I use some white light power with both hands on it, it becomes alive.

I ask the red-dust-man, since he knows the place, where can I find anything interesting. It points to a nearby area.
I reach what seems a "cars cemetery", although cars are very new, I notice some big white SUVs, and more.
All of them are parked nose-down in the very short slope of a large depression.

Then I notice a partially buried white disc. I know it's a flying saucer, although it's very small, like 30 cms. The top is made of white metal, bottom is black plastic. The bottom has few mumbered buttons and the instructions to make it normal size. I press the buttons in sequence, the disc pops open, it's now a proper saucer, 15-20m diameter. I use the catwalk to get inside.
The interior has many instruments, monitors, button panels, "flying" touch screens and more.
I notice a twisted violet / black basin, from which I pick am object having same color patterns. It envelops my right arm. I understand it's a kind of armor. Since it looks cool, I put my other arm in it, and I get both my arms and my shoulders covered by it.

A guy comes inside. He's wearing a sort of space uniform, light gray, I notice a small crescent moon drawing on his chest so I now he's a teammate.
I ask him to take care of this room, while I look for the pilot deck. I notice two curved staircase going up, I use one and find it.
The pilot panel has many cluster of buttons and instruments, I click random stuff and we take off.

Another space travel, this time I am heading to Pluto. To quicken things up, I activate hyper-speed. The black starry space becomes blurry for some seconds, then it turns back normal, we arrived at destination. We descend on the planet, it's dark and grey and empty.
Once I take few steps on the gray dust, from the ground emerge 4 or 5 grey Alien-like monsters.
I use the purple alien bracer on the closest one, three tentacles fly straight into its body, which shrink, like sucked by the inside, evidently dead.
I use my left arm on another alien, which dies in the same way, plus tentacles emerge from my shoulders, killing a third one.
The remaining aliens disappear, most likely they dug back into the ground.

I say to myself that this was too easy, and my dream immediately proves me wrong.
An enormous crab-like monster comes out of the dust. I imagine it has been called by the survivors.
The giant alien crab immediately attacks me with its legs, I evade its attacks and jump on one of its leg. I draw my sword and thrust it down deep into the leg, cutting part of it away.
I avoid another attack, jump on another leg, this time I thrust my sword at the junction between the leg and the body, severing the entire leg.
I jump on its body, it's very hard and bumpy. I use pirokinesis with both my hands on its body, which hurts it.
Then I somehow get stuck by my back on the body. I free myself, get up and attack it again.
I can't recall the end of the fight, but I survive, so I must have won

I return inside the flying saucer.
I want to get sucked into a black hole, so I fly in space looking for one. I find it, it's a dark mass of black. I observe it for a bit. I see things getting sucked in and disappear leaving no trace.
Then I decide it's time to receive the same treatment. I lower engine power, and the black hole starts sucking us in.
When I get on its border, everything becomes black (of course!)
I also become bodyless.
In the blackness in front of me, I notice some patterns. Small speckles of light start appearing. I recognize in one of the light patterns a couple of eyes. Then another set of eyes. I think I may be seeing phosphenes for the first time.

Then another dream scene forms around me. I am in a PvsZ garden, with square grass tiles and plants, peashooters, sunflowers, coconuts and more.
I am where the house is, so I see them from the back. I want to look the plants from the front, so I walk among the plants, then turn around.
It's nice, the plants are staring at me. I plant some, like an exploding jalapeno, which leaves a trail of fire, I remove some others.
I also plant a smiling green jalapeno which stays there.

I decide I want to fly, I jump up in the sky, and fly above an autumn landscape, many yellow trees.
Recall stops here, but dream may have continued a bit.
Wake up 7AM

WILD#2: (7 AM ~20 min)
I decide to attempt WILD again, it goes through, I enter a dream almost immediately.
I am in a hotel room, door is open and I see two happy girls with light colored dresses walking from right to left.
I decide to just follow whatever the dream will present me.
I get out of the door, look right, just a short empty corridor, so I follow the girls to my left.
After awakening I notice this hotel looks like a Marriot I've been at in Nov

The girls enter an elevator, doors close before me. I phase through the wall and door into the cabin. We go down.
Elevator doors open into the lobby. There are many people sitting, drinking and talking. I decide to do the same and just have a seat.
I look around me, everything looks very stable. I decide it's time to spice things up a bit, and I make some tables, chairs and people lift and float up in the air. I also decide to make few of them disappear, just for the fun of it.

Poor recall after that.
A fragment of a warmly lit dining room with a Christmas tree, and some big plastic (LEGO-like) french playing cards on the ground.
A fragment of rubbing hands for stabilization in an industrial environment.

Then me kicking something / someone, my WL right leg does the same and I wake up, 7:30AM

I am in a library walking with 3 other guys when one of them pointed at me to come over to this specific shelf. I come over observing and expecting books but instead it was a bunch of video games piled up all over the shelves. I began thinking one of these guys must be rich since they have thousands and upon thousands of games all stack up in this place. Either that or quite the obsession, however one game in particular caught my eye. It was a naruto game that I had played before sometime ago. As I held it in my hand and started focusing on it, I notice something odd about it.

I was having trouble reading the title of the game and the box cover was different. The more I tried to focus on it, the more blurry it would become. This isn't right I thought and I became lucid. I notice the people around me was someone I've seen at work a lot. I then continue to walk around the library so that I could follow him as he had been waving at my direction for awhile. Couldn't find him and due to feeling dizzy in the dream I woke up.

-Fragment: Something called a “Stugelblitz Tower”. (funny how this is 2 letters away from Kugelblitz, which is a black hole formed from light. Also, Stugelblitz is apparently German for "Lightning flash" according to google.)

-I was in/watching a movie where Vin Diesel was the antagonist in a futuristic sci-fi. He was armed with a normal shotgun, bossing around the crew of a small ship. He forced them to travel to Mercury. The camera was positioned above and well behind the planet, with the close, orange sun in the background. Mercury was covered in cracks filled with lava. As the spacecraft descended toward the previously installed platform, temperatures heated to 36,000°F outside. This was due to high-speed entry of Mercury’s new, thin but dense atmosphere. The average temperature was 3,000°F.

Finally, the ship landed on the platform. The floor was a metal grid, and there were hexagonal tubes filled with a specially heated liquid, used for mining. Vin Diesel yelled at the crew to get out of the ship. Luckily, they were already wearing Quantum Heat Suits. They could withstand very high, even star-level temperatures. However, they required energy to run, so such high-level heat shields could only protect the user for so long. The higher the temperature, the less time the user had before vaporization.

After the crew left the ship, Diesel followed, shotgun in hand. He was fine, even without any sort of protection from the extreme heat. Next, he forced a male crewmember to grab a rope and repel down the central heat chamber to retrieve something. Suddenly, after the sound was muffled from entering the chamber, the time left on his suit dropped from 6 hours to 15 minutes, indicating a very high temperature.

[Switch to first-person] I was now the guy. I noticed that some skin was showing on my wrist, so I covered that up to prevent inefficiency. Aside from being in danger, I felt warm and cozy. Also, only the surface of the liquid was opaque—the rest was transparent. The walls of the chamber were a metal grid surrounded by superheated material.

[Switch back to third-person] Eventually, the guy returned to the surface with the thing from the bottom. Diesel grabbed it, while the crewmember struggled for his life to get out of the chamber and into the ship. He failed to even climb out of the chamber, because Diesel shot and killed him. The only female member successfully returned to the ship. The entire platform was about to be destroyed, so they had to get off the planet immediately. The other member outside didn’t make it. The ship took off, leaving me in first-person, and in my old house. This concluded the dream.

-Fragment: I was inside a green building, looking at a sign hanging from the ceiling that said, “Loth and Luna Forever”. It referred to some kind of bonding. I wondered, “Who is Loth?” Suddenly, a grayish-blue alicorn with a green mane appeared. He/She (couldn’t tell, probly female) looked quite derpy in the eyes.
[New Scene]
Fragment: I was on an NCIS ‘adventure,’ trying to find the cause of death of a guy in 1980. I don’t remember much except for a golf course(I thought that a thrown golf ball might have hit the guy), and a baseball-sized, metal sphere.

(L)-I spawned in a bathroom unknown to me, and I forgot to perform my routine, so I grew a simple tail with a middle finger at the end of it.
Lucid Time: 2-3 minutes

Not a bad start to the competition. My lucids were fairly fragmented though, and I spent like 30 minutes just lying in bed trying to put the pieces together in my mind.

I'm in a car with a couple friends, studying for an upcoming spelling bee. The word I'm given is “sicaid”, which means to get sick. After I guess, my friend just keeps telling me what the word means, without ever telling me whether I'm right or wrong. I end up telling him “This is a spelling bee, not a knowledge of words bee.”

After my WBTB, I find myself in some scientific lab of sorts. They're running tests on me and a few other people. We all have to wear latex suits, which they pump full of some kind of super-buoyant helium-like gas to test the effects of pressurized flight on our bodies. As they inflate my suit, their machine breaks, leaving me just suspended in mid-air while they try to figure out what went wrong.

I’m now in some show like the Walking Dead. Somehow, I have a tablet that still works, and shows a map of the infection progress. I notice that all the countries have weird shapes and names, which makes me become lucid. I zoom in on my current location on the map - apparently somewhere in India. There’s actually three different strains of the virus around us, marked with red, yellow, and blue coloring. I look up from my tablet and notice I and my party are on top of a roof in a fairly big city, trying to decide what our next move should be. Suddenly, two of the members pull out pistols and start threatening the rest of us with them. I don’t remember exactly what their reasoning was, but they decided they no longer needed us. They announce that they’re going to execute us off one by one, starting with me.

One of the two, a woman, gets in front of me, while the other, a man, gets behind me, and both point their guns at my head. I start trying to reason with them - how we need the entire group in order to stay alive. I then remember that I’m dreaming, so I look back at the woman. “Did you remember to take the safety off?” I hear the guy behind me pull his gun back to check, so I take advantage of the distraction to grab the woman’s arm and knock the gun out of her hand. The guy rushes to get his gun back up, but I manage to kick it out of his hands while I’m wrestling with the woman. I finally pin her to the ground and continue to punch her in the face until she’s unconscious. Meanwhile, the guy runs to get his gun, but one of the other guys in our party rushes over and kicks it away before tackling the guy to the ground. I get up and grab the guy on the ground, swing him around over my head by his ankle, and then launch him over the edge of the building to his death.

I have a FA of sorts, and I’m now riding in a car on the interstate with a friend of mine and her parents. Apparently the whole thing that just happened was a virtual reality attraction at Busch Gardens, and now me and this family are driving back home. I have a sudden realization that I didn’t ride with them on the way there, and that my car is still parked at the park. The dad (who looks suspiciously like Hank Green) seems fine with turning around, even though we’ve been riding for about 30 minutes at this point. Suddenly though, he realizes there’s a ton of cars driving on the wrong side of the road, heading directly towards us. He quickly throws the car into reverse and backs up at a high speed, before slamming on the E-brake and whipping the car around to face forward. Then, as soon as he can, he gets back over onto the correct side of the road, right as 4 or 5 police cars come out from behind us to chase the reckless drivers on the wrong side of the road. I remark something about how I wish my dad was as good a driver as that.

We’re now walking through some kind of jungle place, still on the way to go pick up my car from Busch Gardens. We eventually come to a creek about 40 feet across. The water is crystal clear and isn’t moving very fast, so the people with me start wading through to get to the other side. However, I somehow find myself floating above the water to get across. I originally dismiss it as just a side effect from the helium-suit testing from earlier, but then I remember that I’m still dreaming. I continue to fly over at a faster pace until I reach the other side. Then, I find a large boulder, about the size of a minivan, and use telekinesis to put it in the water, which (somehow) helps everyone to get across faster.

3 NLDs - 3
WBTB - 2
2 DILDs - 15
Use Electronic Device - 5
Interact with DCs - 2
Super strength (picking up the bad guy) - 5
Fly (+1st step) - 5+5 = 10
Mass Telekinesis - 10

Night 1 Total - 52 pts

Well.

In waking life, I generally have neat handwriting. However, when writing in my dream journal in the middle of the night, I write messily. This time, it was largely illegible. I really need to fix that.

Slept about 7.5 hours last night.

Dream 1:

During my hypnagogic imagery (so WILD I believe), I very quickly became lucid! I was standing in a green field. The dream was a bit hazy, and I forgot to demand clarity. I remembered my first goal for the three-step thingy, to use technology. I figured I'd use an iPad, and made one appear in my hands. For some reason, my hazy brain decided to use Numbers, and a spreadsheet appeared. Then I figured that that was pretty boring, and tried to boot up a racing game. I was able to play it for a few seconds, and then the dream faded and I woke up.

I wrote down some non-lucid dream fragments, but they were so messy that I can't read them. :/ Due to a lack of recall, I will only count the 2 that I can actually read:

Dream (Fragment) 2:
I saw the Dark Mark, or something similar, on a piece of paper. I don't remember anything else.

Dream (Fragment) 3:
My family had gotten cast out of...civilization? Our hometown? Can't remember, but I think it was out of some sort of fictional civilization that we had been living in. We were placed out into the bitter cold. And someone got bitten by something.

14.01.2017

(DILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I'm walking through a city in ruins. There's chaos everywhere. I'm being chased by something. I know I can't die, people depend on me. I turn around. It's Frieza who has been causing chaos and chasing me.I realize I'm dreaming. I plug my nose to make sure. I jump in the air and fly above him. I charge a Kamekameha and throw it at him. There's a big explosion.
I'm in my room now. I walk towards the door and keeping my eyes open and phase through it. I think of what the next step is and it destabilizes.
I lose lucidity and find myself playing Super Smash

14-Jan-2017 - 4xNDs +2xWILDs - Three transforms, fly car, telekinesis house, gift LEGO, more...

ND#1: (est.2AM) I am placing plants from PvsZ, and carpets as well

ND#2: (3:10AM) I am with my wife abroad, it seems Korea. We are in a small hotel room, there is more people with us (colleagues?) We discuss something with those people, then they go away; when me and my wife remain alone, we love.
We go to the airport, there is a dark central corridor, light turn on when we approach; I look for the sensors, and don't see them. Near walls there are many metal frames depicting rockets and spaceships, with relevant space mission names. My wife comments about huge fuel consumption.
We stop by a gate, there is noone else around.

Wake up 3:30, do WBTB and write above dreams

WBTB/WILD#1: (3:30AM) Failed - I do not succeed in directly entering a dream, but manage to get lucid afterwards

LD#1: (OBE-like, 4-6 AM) I am standing in my bedroom, wife is sleeping. I don't want to wake her up, I pick my phone from the high drawer and go to dining room. It's dark and even if I wish more light, everything stays dark. I turn on the phone and do something with it, can't recall what

ND#3: (4-6 AM) I am driving my car, I have passengers, most likely my parents, surely my uncle R
I recognize the road, before a uphill I strongly accelerate and feel the pressure against my chest. After the uphill, I turn right

LD#2: (4-6 AM) I am in a city, a dark road. On a wall, suddenly a light appears. I notice a woman wearing just bottom underwear, entering a secret door rotating. I run towards it, and manage to get in through the breach before it closes.
I find a square room, strongly lit, many work benches at the center, seems like a laboratory. The woman is working at one of the benches. I approach her naked body, and molest here. She does not oppose resistance, so you can imagine the rest. Details snipped. Lucidity fades afterwards

Wake up 6AM, do another WILD

WILD#2: (6:30 AM) I put more effort and focus in this one, I successfully enter a dream
Since it's a very long LD, I've split into sections

Part I - Lucio Dalla - Caruso
I am in a hotel hall, I recognize it's the beginning of Lucio Dalla / Caruso song video (his most famous song perhaps; listen it, it's a wonderful song ) I have watched couple of weeks ago.

As in the videoclip beginning, "Bad boys" is playing, LD enters from the right and approaches the hotel reception desk.
Unlike in the videoclip, though, I get close too, and turn off the radio playing the song.
LD gets room key (a classic metal key), for room number 410, I ask him if I can accompany him in his room to talk (important precisation, as he had made outing as gay). He unlocks the door, I open the door and let him pass, I enter the room.

I sit in a chair. We talk about himself, I compliment him for his great music, he goes to the bathroom, from the door I see him washing his hands while we talk. In the meantime I pick up two cherries from a bowl on a nearby small round table. I tell him I am sorry he's dead, he looks sad too.
Then I ask him if he can sing "Caruso", he does, and I undergo an incredibly strong emotion I cannot describe in words, I shiver violently and for long time while I listen him sing. Interestingly, as much as I like the song, it has never provoked anything remotely like that IWL, but I know it's going to be very different from now on...
To thank and greet him I kiss him on both cheeks, I am sensibly taller then him

Part II - Transform into a squirrel
I approach the window, the sun is setting in the bay. There is a tree near the window. I jump and grab the trunk with both my arms, and legs too. Then I climb on a branch. I attempt squirrel trasformation. My viewpoint slowly descends closer to the branch, then I feel my legs get bigger. It has worked. I start running and jumping on branches, even belonging to different trees.

I find a hole in a tree, I enter it, there are many walnuts inside, it's a true squirrel lair. Inside the hole, I think that it would be funny embracing my own big, soft tail, I do it, it feels good ! Then I pick a walnut and I ponder that I am clueless on how a squirrel would open it.
I use my big middle tooth on the central fissure, and I manage to open it. I eat the nut inside, chomping it happily (no taste, though)

Then I think about the "phase through object" task, I pretend knowing there is a branch on the other side of the trunk, then walk through the trunk. As a small squirrel, it takes some time in the blackness to exit on the other side. When exiting, something strange / new happens. I feel like my eyes get "stuck" in the trunk for a split second and get farther away from me than normal, then come back normally with the rest of my body.

Looking down, I notice a cartoonish-looking wolf on the ground, I chew the branch which falls on the wolf's head
It gets upset, and it becomes a normal, dangerous-looking wolf; it howls, and suddenly a pack of wolfs is beyond my tree. Now I am scared (I chose not to use any dream power to get out of this). I run and jump on branches until I get to a tree close to a small, low house with a low, fenced perimeter wall. The wolves are close, but running fast I descend the tree, climb up the wall and run through the small space between wall and metal fence. I am now safe in the garden of this house.

Part III - Materialize car, fly it. Floating island. Unwrap a Xmas present and gift to my son. Telekinesis whole house
I become human again. Wolves are not there anymore. I exit the garden through the gate. I am in a classic American residential zone with low houses well apart from each other, wide road. No one is around.
I decide to attempt "Advanced summoning": I go for a car. I look to the road close to the pedestrian walkway and wish to make a car appear at that spot. It materializes in front of my eyes almost all together; some smaller parts (e.g. headlights) appear a second later.
When the car is complete, I look at it. It looks like a Corolla-ish, it's dark grey. I don't like the color, and recolor it in red instead. It comes out a bordeaux red, which I don't like either. I wish it a bright red. Now I like it. I open driver door, sit inside and drive it.

I accelerate the car alot on the empty road, until it eventually takes off. I am flying a car on this urban landscape, slowly gaining altitude.
I see something floating in front of me. It's a small rocky island. From the distance I can only see something white to the left and a tree on the right. When I get there, I have some troubles landing / parking the car. When I can finally get off the car, I look around.
There is a small house, just a white cube basically, a tree and very little else.

I open the door and enter the building. There is a Christmas tree with several presents under it. Yay ! This wasn't expected !
I pick a 30cm gift, it's wrapped in red paper with golden ribbon and go outside. I slowly and purposedly open it, as I want to enjoy the surprise of what I fill find inside. I remove the ribbon, open and finally tear the paper. It's a mid-size LEGO set ! It has a small yellow excavator and two minifigures. I notice how the model looks small compared to box size. I wish to gift it to R, my son.
I summon him in front of me, and he appears. I kiss him and give him the box, which makes him happy. Then I tell him to go, as I have to venture further. He fades out.

I go again to the town below (how ? flying ? can't recall) and decide that I can attempt the "Big telekinesis" on a house. I point one to my right, perfectly similar to the others I saw before. It is also fenced and has some children playground, for sure a swing. I also look for an empty spot to land it on the other side of the road. (Interesting: I feel my eyebulbs move side to side as I do this)
Then I focus on my target house. I raise both my hands in front of me. As I move them up, the house with surrounding wall and all the dirt below rises up. I notice the dirt is wet below, and look at the hole I created in the ground. I take note to explore it later.
I raise the package like 10 meters above the ground and move it across the street in an arc.
Then I kinda drop it on the empty spot. The big dirt mound below the house does not allow it to lay flat, it is pending to my right. I try to adjust it but I am not successful. Then I go to the big hole in the wet ground. I explore it but I find nothing.

At this point I ponder whether to keep the dream alive or just go to sleep.
The dream environment is totally stable so I decide to go on.

Part IV - Transform into a fish
I walk around, looking for a river. I find a small torrent, with super transparent water and a rocky bottom.
I stand with my feet in it. I find my feet are naked, they feel cool.
I attempt transforming into a small fish. Similarly to what happened with the squirrel, my viewpoint descends until it's just above the water level.
I also experience something hard to describe, a sort of dizziness, as my head changes position in relation to my body.
Then I am underwater. I see the water surface above me, just below me rocks and floating algaes.

I swim forwards swaying the lower part of my body left and right. I try looking at my pectoral fin, but find it's too short for that.
I swim for some time, hoping to reach the sea, but the river is too long. So I decide to use a sort of super-speed to quickly reach the sea.
The scenery moves very fast around me, then I reach river's estuary. I follow a random branch then a small drop, then I am in the sea.
Below me, dark, bottomless water, to my back a flat rock wall going down.

I decide attempting to escape a big fish in this form, so I think it's safer staying close to the rock wall.
From the dark water in front of me, a pointy nose appears, approaching at high speed; it's a shark.
Its first assault ends up as a hit on the rock wall. Then I swim upwards, he attacks again, and I manage to fly fast enough to escape its bite.
At its third assault I see its hige open mouth in front of me, and I cannot escape. However, its open mouth hits the rock wall, and it cannot close it on me. Ouch ! That was close !

I decide I had enough. I look for a gap in the rock wall, find it and swim it inside quickly. It's totally dark inside but I can swim anyhow. The channel makes a sharp upward turn, I follow it until I see light above me. I emerge in a small pool on the ground. I jump out and become human again.

I think I am missing only the last transformation and pulling the sword out of the stone to complete my personal goal.
I open a "zip" portal to my tower, it comes out purple inside. I enter it and find myself inside the tower.

Part V - Transform into bird, pull sword out of the stone
I approach the window, and easily transform into a small bird (transformed into eagles and dragons in the past)
I fly up lighty, see a tree, land on a branch with my small legs, then hop on my legs towards a nest on that branch. I sit inside, there are some eggs.
Then I fly up again. It's a relaxing flight. I am looking for the city where the sword is

I end up flying above a big city, with yellow lights.
There is a small garden with the anvil and the sword in it, I land there and return human again.
I look around and it's looking a bit too cartoonish for my taste.
I wish more realistic buildings around me, a high fence around the garden, everything appears; two guards appear, in medieval dressing with halberds.

I say aloud that I want to extract the sword from the stone, one of the guards laugh, but some people crowd around the garden.
I go in, then use both my hands and some force to pull the sword out of the stone.
I raise the sword above my head and say "I am your king now, people !"
Then I look at the sword. It looks beautiful, with a broad blade and a golden curved hilt.
I say I will now use this sword in my next dreams. I sheathe it on my back.

Then I take some time to return to my body, wait for some dizziness to pass, then wake up and move to my side.

ND#4: Some discussion with my sister V

ND#5: Forgotten

Wake up at 8

I did a WBTB, went to the toilet, drank water downstairs, contemplated if that was a dream or not for a long time, then went again to bed. (My WBTBs duration are generally aprox between 10 and 15 mins.)
When I was falling asleep, a mosquito woke me up. I covered myself with the blanket and started performing an SSILD.

(FA) I'm sitting on my bed, there's no desk in my room, that's weird. Right, this is a dream. I instantly wake up.

I immediatly perform a DEILD.

Now I'm laying on my bed, over the blanket. Got it, I'm in the dream again. I wake up.

DEILD again...

I'm sitting on my bed again. I try to stand up, I wake up.

Try to chain again, but don't remember anything more.

-----------------------------------------------------------

(Fragment 1)
I'm stuck inside something like a tube with my GF and my two nieces.

(Fragment 2)
I'm in a room with an asian guy, he looks like my DG. On a crystal desk he has a Nintendo 3DS connected to a DJ mixer and a keyboard.

Comments blue
Lucid purple

D1 Having sex dream , was happy and playful then white bedroom door open a chink meaning other people were up in house, so went for breakfast.

D2 - Talking to some dc who was suprised at my choice of choosing to go for a run along long walkway/ path up side of mountain.
At top was a very large white staidum, where a music concert was taking place. I could hear the music drifting as I came up to the entrance way. (Music from an anime I listened to last night)
There were large viewing halls with giant glass windows on one side looking into the centre of the stadium.
Each one I entered was very crowded with dcs wearing white shirts and black tailcoats serving guests.
One room had no one in so I entered, seeing a large white bird sitting on the top of a piano. Evidently people were scared of the bird so had not entered. When I went in it took of leaving its legs behind on the piano.
A Very strange dc looking like Manuel from fawlty towers went and removed the legs
(He went very close with his face next to mine as dcs often do in my dreams, peering into my face)

Song from dream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpYgRj-R_D0

WBTB - have drink of water and go bathroom

D3 - In a dress shop with black marble walls and floor. I am talking to the owners as the shop is closed at the moment. it is very bare with just mirrors and racks plus a changing room to one side.
I use my powers to make the room bigger but have to make the whole world bigger too to fit everything in.
The doors to the store are shaped like glass flower petals and very large half dome like things.
(I have seen shapes similar to these in a hotel dream I hadj
There are two to the front of the store which I thought was a room I could stay in but turns out to be a connecting corridor at the front of all the stores, that curves round.
I go out into this corridor which is curved glass on one side.
Entering the next room/store I recognise items from anime I have watched a soldier figurine from ergo proxy and mechanoid from outlaw star. I decide it is some kind of playroom.

I am lucid and use telekinesis to move the mechanoid from a hooped area. I find it very hard remembering that it is super heavy and could only be moved easily due to low gravity.
An very old lady wanders into room, I try to change her into someone else but fail
I immediately try mind control on her and tell her to do something she obeys. As she comes closer to me she freaks me out, with her white waxy skin and appearance.
I look around room for something else to try, seeing a folded partition wall, I try to open it with my powers but it hardly budges so I give up.
I go to fly out of the room but false awaken and drink sludge from a glass of water ick! then wake up for real.

I realise red and white soldier from ergo proxy, was ignored completely by me in dream as it was in waking state. I was puzzled by its exact meaning in anime but did not enquirer further.
This deliberate ignoring, I feel relates to also to other things relating to red and white (which has been very big dream sign for past year or so). It is my need for integration.

<font color="#0000ff">

ok checked it out, It relates to a lost child from the past, that would make sense

I had a lucid dream this night! I did the SSILD method, and after a while fell asleep with a couple of sycles again. Than when I fell asleep, I apleared in the same room again where I'm sleeping, but than with a different layout, and bigger than our house normally is.

The dream wasn't super vivid at the beginning, and I could wake up pretty fast if am not careful in the dream. I did a nose RC to be sure it is a dream, and it was! I was really happy but tried to stabalize the dream to shout "stabalize!" but it didn't work very well... So I tried to spin, and that worked a little better. It was like I really was awake. Now, it was night, and I wanted to make it day. My mom woke up in my dream, and suddenly my father was there too. I said to them that I was dreaming, and I can control this if I believe in it. So I shouted, "light!!!!!" "make it day!!" at first it didn't work. So I tried the switches from my bedroom to turn the lights on, but that didn't work either. So I tried to believe more in my control, and shouted again to make it day, and that worked finally. It became a sunny day

I did a RC again, to prove that it really is a dream...becaus it's so hard to get a ld, and now I am here, just standing in a dream! I tried to keep myself aware that am dreaming, so that I don't forget it. My dream was not stable at some time, so thought of some stabalize methods I read at dreamviews. Someone said to crawl. So I tried that, but it became even more blurry. Almost waking up like. I didn't want that. So shouted, "stabalize!" again, and spinned. It was luckily more vivid. I opened my bedroom door, and saw that the wooden floor whom is normally darkbrown, turned in lightbrown. The corridor became much bigger... Our house has became bigger. It was really cool I tried to change my appearance, but that didn't work lol. So I decided to try it again later. I suddenly walked into a hairdresser, and decided to cute my hair a little there. After that, there were some weird men. Me and my sister read some weird documents, and it was probably forbidden to read them, because it where secrets. My sister continued to read them, while I already saw some shady people walking towards us. I tried to get my sister to flee with me, but she continued to read them, and it was already too late to run. They already stood before us. They took the documents from my sister's hands, and took them with them. They looked at me a bit scaryxD but I decided to leave that, and walked away with my sister.
At the end of the dream, I wanted to try flying, because I am really difficult with it. I never manage to fly. Even though other people could. So in the living room, I practiced flying. My sister sat, and watched me. I jumped and it didn't work so well. (is it really, because I find it hard to believe? But if I can turn night into day, tan I can also fly. So I believed in it as much as I could, like I did with my other things, and jumped in the air. I could fly a little, but floated pretty fast to the ground. Maybe I have to think of happiness, and a lot of believe, and than I can fly? Peter Pan said so in the movie... So I thought of a lot of things that makes me happy, and believed in it. It worked! I could fly, but....I soon woke up after I managed to fly, and it was already morning at that.

It was a fun experience, and I hope to do more in my dreams!!!❤❤❤❤❤
I defenitely try SSILD again.

Fragment about eating a lettuce sandwich.

WBTB

I WILD into a black void. I look down and see my cello. I decide to play an improvised Baroque Suite. I scream at the end "I'm dreaming!!" I stupidly remember "In space, no one can hear you scream" When I start suffocating I wake up.

Before 4.47am
Plate of stir fry type food that seemed to be mostly peppers. I don't like peppers. Yes I went to bed on an empty stomach, which just makes me dream about food.

5-6am
The dream takes place in a mansion sized building filled with hidden passages. It has the look of an old stately home. We are running away from enemies who are trying to take over the building. The group of us consists of me and co-worker TR, who is dragging along his red haired girlfriend.

Using the secret passages we manage to evade the enemy soldiers for a while, but then run straight into a room where the commander is standing with four of his pals. So much for escaping. I charge at the commander, leaping and punching the side of his head. He is taller than me, but not by much. Must have had knuckle dusters on, because after the punch the side of his face is all cut and bleeding in multiple places.

He roars in rage and I punch him several more times and kick at his legs trying to make him fall down. At this point the dream is feeling like a game rather than reality. I am on the verge of lucidity and wake up.


6.20ish- 7am
Trapped Dolphin
Think this was chained after a normal dream, but can't remember it. Starts with familiar shaking sensations that signal the onset of a dream. I pinch my nose to confirm the dream and stand up out of bed. Everything is very dark. Going to the window I phase outside.

The front gardens are full of bushes and flowers. It is still dark, pre-dawn. Children are hiding in the gardens amongst the greenery. Maybe they are playing a game. I look up to the sky and the sun rises rapidy. A man dressed as Batman exits the neighbours' house and heads off down the road. I wave to him.

My goal tonight was to go to the ocean and find an 18th century frigate (Master and Commander or Hornblower for reference. Yeah I know that's more 1800 ~ Napoleonics, the ships wouldn't have changed that much.)

I fly up into the air and head for the coast, flying at super speed. In RL my house is around 30-40 mins drive from the coast, but my flight is direct and much faster. Ahead is a beech in a cove with black rocks juting out of the sea. It reminds me more of Devon than the local pebble beaches.

The cove is filled with people playing in the surf. As I swoop down, a killer whale leaps out of the surf and then dives back underwater. Deeper than it looks! Then I see a dolphin trapped in a gully between two of the black rocks, it is trying to get back into the water but is stuck. Planting one foot on each of the rocks I lift the dolphin free. It's skin is smooth and wet. Even after being freed it lies on the surface making pained noises. I stroke the dolphin's side and try to reassure it.

The dolphin has reminded me of the DV task of the year, but it seems rude to ask this injured animal to give me a lift to Atlantis. The dream scene fades.

A false awakening has me trying to remove items from my black rucksack. Mum has filled it with fish! Also there is a pack of what looks like salmon bacon! After emptying it out I point out that this is my rucksack for college, not a bag for food shopping. (Slight confusion as to my age at this point.) Then even more items come out of the bag including cufflinks and small items of jewellery. Necklaces, ear rings. We put them into clear jelly moulds to be taken to the charity shop.

7-7.55am
Sex with a Mermaid
There are children outside the window making noise. The bedroom seems to be on the ground floor at the front of the house. I open the curtains and find they have left toys on the window sill. There is a crowd outside the front door. A couple of the parents seem to be discussing childcare arrangements with Mum. I go through to a living room where there are stacks of old videos, including one which is the 24 series feature length special.

These old videos are junk. Get rid of them, I suggest. Dad complains that they haven't watched it, and I tell them not to bother. My sister is also in the room. She backs me up and agrees that this old crap is not worth keeping. Then she tries to retrieve something from a shelf behind the sofa, and ends up straddling an unknown male DC sitting on the sofa.

There is a disconnect, probably a missing scene or two. I am walking through a town. On a brick wall there is a moving advert. It doesn't seem to be a screen, more like an animated painting. It contains a drawing of a car and unreadable text slogans. 'Great, even my dreams have adverts,' I think. Then I realise what that means, and become lucid.

The town is surrounded by mountains and forests. No ocean in sight. However, the sky could be an ocean. I fly straight up at full speed until there are clouds around me. Then I flip the world upside down, so the sky is beneath me and the distant trees and mountains above. Looking down and slowly falling into the sky, the blue expanse now becomes an ocean.

I tread water for a bit, noticing the tug of my wet clothing weighing me down. The sky has turned back from green and grey into a proper blue. It is very peaceful out here, no big waves, but also no land in sight. Recalling the last part of the earlier lucid I call out to summon a dolphin. One swims over to me. It seems cheerful. I ask it to take me to Atlantis then climb onto the dolphin's back. It leaps then dives down into the ocean.

Forgetting myself I take a deep breath and am holding it as we swim down, before realising this is not required. The dolphin swims down to a circle of metal on the sea floor. Then it starts poking at small screws that seem to be in the ocean floor. I help to remove some of the screws.

The room transforms around us. We are no longer underwater and the dolphin has grown legs and arms. There are coins on the floor. The dolphin says something about 'taking what is right.' I pick up a copper penny-like coin. It grabs a fistfull of golden coins and laughs. "The one with the most gold wins!" The dolphin-man declares triumphantly.

Ah whatever. I turn and exit the circular room and enter a domed one. It's old fashioned - like a National Trust property. Elegant wooden furniture, shelves lining the walls filled with large hardback books. There are those chaise-longues type chairs with red velvet. The room is populated with people dressed in 18th century clothing - long coats with embroidered collars and dressed with similar intricant designs sewed on them.

They remind me that to complete the DV Task of the Year I must find the mermaid, also, that the mermaid will want an offering from me. The room has several tables covered in trinkets.

My next course of action is to try flirting with one of the 18th century women, very badly, to find out what to pick as a gift for the mermaid. The flirting is just cringe-worthy terrible. Realising this, I end up shouting "fuck it", vaulting over one of the chairs, standing on a table and grabbing a small blue ivory comb thing before running out of the room.

There are several similar looking rooms. Now where is the mermaid? A young boy walks past. "Hey, kid, where's the mermaid?" He points down a corridor. I run down and go past an open door. Inside are tanks the size of double beds, filled with water. Curled up in the corner of a tank is a mermaid. She has long dark hair and a shimmering blue-green fish tail. I climb into the tank and touch her tail. It feels just like a fish, which is both cool and weird at the same time.

She wakes up and turns to me looking alarmed. I drop the comb and it falls into the tank next to her. She grabs it as it falls, seems happy, and then snuggles up against my chest. Well, hello. Somehow she ends up on top of me, lying on my chest, with my legs wrapped around her tail.

"So, uh, how do you make more mermaids?" The question I'd been dying to ask...
"We have a sort of opening." She says.
"Oh really. Well, uh, so can I put my erm, you know, in your... 'opening.'" (Well I'm on top form tonight... just so damn smooth, eh? Ha.)
"You already did."
"Wait, I thought I had trousers on!"
...Well, not anymore, apparently. She starts grinding up against me and I can feel the usual sensations down there now, although my legs are either side of her body/tail. Not gonna lie, it feels a bit weird, but we have sex until the dream fades.

I was in a forest, there was a horrible blizzard. I entered my car and drove in between trees until I reached ranger station. I couldn't get there as the road was blocked by a fallen tree. I drove further and lost a side mirror on one tree, then got to my house. I made a nose plug RC and entered my house. In one of the rooms my sister was watching TV. I touched her and swapped bodies with her. The dream became unstable and I woke up.

Ritual: After a year or so of initial successes with galantamine, back in 2010–11, it had stopped working very well for me to the point where I hardly ever use it anymore. But last night after going to bed late (around 3am) and waking up just before dawn, I still felt heavy enough with sleep that I thought I might give it a shot. (Galantamine is a stimulant, so the main risk is not being able to get back to sleep.) I took one of the red pills from a bottle of "Dream Leaf," which I had nearly given up on since it had never worked for me before, possibly because I only tried it long after I had gotten "over" galantamine. I know the red pills contain galantamine from the distinctive effects, but I must say that it greatly bothers me that this supplement neglects to identify the presence of galantamine on the label, or even on their website, much less clarify the actual dosage. In fact, I would go so far as to call this obfuscation shamefully irresponsible and borderline criminal. Galantamine is a powerful substance that should never be given to people without their knowledge. So for ethical reasons I dislike this particular supplement and definitely would not recommend it, but galantamine is galantamine, and on this occasion it actually worked. Woke and wrote at 9, so I'm a bit underslept with a slight galantamine hangover, but it's been so long since I've had this sensation that I'm almost enjoying it.

I've always found galantamine dreams a bit superficial, but that's not always a bad thing. My recent attempts to force dream events to unfold in a detailed and realistic way, in the name of quality, often prove counter-productive. Sometimes a little "cowboying" is necessary to get the job done, especially in the inherent instability of the dream environment. So tonight's dreams were ultimately successful, but not exactly Masterpiece Theatre.

WILD, "Fading Gift": I was lying on my back in bed, and recognized I was in dream even as I started making elaborate sweeping gestures with my hands, but continued gesturing for a while to increase my sense of motor control. At one point I closed my eyes and scratched my scalp, and I was amazed that the sensations felt exactly like like waking life. "I am the dreamer," I murmured a few times, as if to fix the idea in mind.

I recalled how often I make unnecessary difficulties for myself at this transitional stage and told myself that if I was already dreaming, I didn't need a ton of preamble before getting out of bed—I should just get up. So I did, and it was fine. I've really been wanting to do the "finding a leftover present" TOTM, so I started looking around the room. (As has become typical lately, the room did not resemble my bedroom in WL.) I looked under the dresser, on the table... nothing so far. I felt a slight contradiction in my mental outlook: on the one hand, the best way to find the present would be to expect or even to will it to be there, but on the other hand, since it was a present I wanted to be surprised rather than force the issue. So I allowed myself only a vague expectation and kept looking. I found a wooden cabinet much like the one in my office and when I opened the door there were a few presents on the middle shelf. The first two I noticed, very small objects, I rejected as not quite right. Although they were loosely covered in wrapping, it wasn't taped down, so it looked like they had already been opened and then put back.

I kept looking and on the left side of the shelf was the perfect gift: a wide cylinder about six inches high wrapped in red and white paper with a red ribbon rising vertically on four sides to form a neat bow at the top. The paper looked familiar at first so I studied it for a moment, but it was not any pattern I've seen before. It consisted of thin white lines on a red background, but they were awkwardly curving and abstract, like an elaborate doodle.

Just as I started to open the present, I felt the dream begin to fade. I moved quickly, trying to open the box in the little time I had left. When the top came off, I plunged in my hand and felt... tissue paper. I was almost awake now, and as I reached past the tissue paper I felt like I crossed that indiscernable border between dreaming and waking consciousness. Or maybe it is not so indiscernible: what had just disappeared was my sense of touch, without which the dream had lost its tangibility. Vision lingered a little longer, and I saw my hand pull out a thick gold chain the length of a necklace, sparsely ornamented with tiny flowers that were each composed of four thin petals of white enamel. I was dissatisfied, however, not only with the gift itself (I don't care much for jewelry and this was definitely not my style), but with the fact that the dream was fading so fast that I couldn't determine to what extent dream imagination or waking imagination (not that I clearly understand the difference!) had determined the nature of the gift.

I went back to sleep, resolving to try to get lucid again and complete the task in a more satisfactory way.

DILD, "Elephant Ride": I was lying in bed but felt uncomfortable, realized I was still wearing day clothes, including a bra. Ugh, had I passed out last night? As I removed it, I noticed it was a lacy underwire thing that didn't even look familiar. I wanted to get back to sleep but the television was on loudly, so I tried to find the remote to turn it off. There were four or five remotes on top of the dresser, and I pressed the power button on all of them but nothing worked. On a couple, the image would cut out as though it were turning off but then come right back, and other remotes had no effect at all. Fine, I'll pull the damn plug, I thought grumpily, but the TV was mounted on the wall and on closer inspection it seems the wiring was concealed behind the wall. I settled for muting the volume (at least that worked) and turning the screen to the side, which accomplished little but expressed my annoyance with the device. [Possible source: I just got back from visiting my mom, where the TV was on loudly in the mornings, making it hard to read or work.]

I headed back toward the bed, but suddenly realized I must be dreaming. That would explain the difficulty I just had with the televisions, at least! And with the realization came the memory of my earlier lucid episode and my dissatisfaction with the TOTM I had attempted. I was pleased with the chance to try again.

Looking around, I soon spotted a wrapped gift on the bedside table. It was a small square box, around two inches wide and one inch high, made of that shiny gold cardboard that is common in gift boxes, and wrapped with a red ribbon. I started to untie the ribbon and realized that I was wearing gloves. At first I thought it an oddity, but quickly understood that it was just the dream's way of representing the slight awkwardness I felt in my fingers as I tried to complete this fine motor activity. I considered pulling off the gloves but recognized that it would just be a pointless waste of time, and decided instead to ignore them. At least they were thin gloves, and didn't impede me that much in my attempt to open the box. By the time it was open, they were gone.

This time I was very pleased with what I found in the box. It looked like a single confection of some sort. "Perfect, I love food!" I thought to myself happily. I pulled it out and looked it over. It was not very distinguished in shape, light brown in color and vaguely round, but a bit lumpy. There was a darker spot in the center like a piece of chocolate. [Possible source: I've been eating my mother's Christmas cookies, which have a spot of apricot jam covered with chocolate in the center. They have a much firmer texture overall than this one did, though.] The surface was dry but felt a bit pliant between my fingers, a sort of rubbery texture.

I bit into the confection and found the mouthfeel similar to what the outer texture had led me to anticipate. There was just the hint of a thin crust, and then the inside was soft but chewy. It reminded me of mochi but was firmer and easier to chew. At this point I was analyzing it with the idea of possibly attempting to recreate it in waking life. I knew that it would have to be based on glutinous rice flour. However, the overall taste was lightly chocolatey and fruity. I looked where I had bitten and distinctly saw raisins, both black and gold. There were also pieces of another fruit that was harder to identify. It had faint striations that reminded me of the fresh jackfruit I had eaten last night in WL (so that was probably the source), but this had the texture of a dried fruit. Can jackfruit be dried and baked into cookies? I couldn't say. If not, I thought that dried apricot might work just as well. The taste could have been either; it was hard to tell with all the other flavors going on. I finished the confection and found it very satisfying. If I ever do manage to recreate something like this, I'll have to post the recipe here!

I felt that I had now completed the TOTM satisfactorily, so what next? I looked around the room, and wondered if I should just leave through the door and go exploring. But somehow that is never very satisfying; I usually get better results when I am pursuing a specific idea of some sort, even when the results are not what I expected. The dream felt reasonably stable, so I wondered if I might attempt one of the TOTYs. I recalled the "riding" theme, but unfortunately, I hadn't looked at the list lately and couldn't remember the specifics very well. There was a window here... maybe I could summon a bird and ride it through the night sky? That sounded fun, but I didn't think it was on the list. The only one I could clearly remember was the elephant ride, because my studies have given me such a distinct impression of how elephants were used in battle in pre-modern Siam. I had always planned to try that one, but how do I get from my dream bedroom to pre-modern Siam?

I tried to remember the transportation spell from Harry Potter, but the command wasn't coming to me. All I could recall was "flue" something, and anyway there were no fireplaces in this bedroom (unlike my WL bedroom, which does have one!) I decided my best bet was probably the window. I knew you needed to mount an elephant from someplace high, so if I could summon one over, I could probably just descend from the window directly to its back. Then once I was on the elephant, it would be easier to get to Siam. On the way to the window, I felt impelled to opened the middle drawer of the dresser as I walked past. It was nearly empty, with just a few stray pieces of clothing... but in the far right corner was the gleam of gold. It was a pile of chocolate coins! You know the ones, disks of chocolate wrapped in gold foil stamped like currency. These were a few different sizes. I realized these might come in handy if I ended up having to buy the elephant, so I grabbed a handful and put them in my pocket.

I opened the window and felt the cool night air. The window was on the second storey, as I had anticipated, but looking out, I actually recognized that this looked nothing like my house. To the left, I could see a garage door extending perpendicularly to the wall my window was in. The house appeared to be painted beige. Across the driveway, which ran next to this wall to meet the garage, there was a wide grassy yard bordered by trees. I looked up at the night sky above the trees to see if there were any familiar constellations, and immediate recognized Orion. Of course... it seems anywhere I go, I see Orion, even in a dream. He was at an angle, almost on his side, just over the treetops... but not exactly the same in WL. At first I counted four stars in his belt, instead of the usual three. The more I looked at it, the more stars accumulated, but only in certain areas, so pretty soon Orion appeared to be wearing not only a belt, but also a brassiere, which amused me, and a crown. The crown had spikes pointing upward, like the common representation of crowns in modern iconography, but matching spikes adorned the brassiere and belt. At this point the whole shape of the constellation was getting a bit thin and stretched, and while I'm sure these transformations could go on indefinitely, right now I needed an elephant.

I knew my husband was in the next room, probably working, and even though I suspected this was dream logic, I hesitated to shout lest I annoy him. (Though I suppose it is still reasonable not to want to annoy the dream husband.) So I tried to summon the elephant quietly. Nothing happened. After trying for a bit without results, I decided to take a more dramatic approach. I stepped through the window and jumped, setting my intention for there to be an elephant down there, so I could land on its back.

There wasn't. But the results were promising nonetheless... from unconstructed dream space, I managed to conjure something plausibly like the interior of a palace in Siam. It was a bit of a hack job, without much detail, and I confess the throne was far too low (must not have been the formal audience hall), but it was sufficient for my purposes. There were various ministers standing around (another embarrassingly inaccurate detail; no courtiers would stand in the presence of the king in early nineteenth-century Siam! Good gracious!) and the king was on the throne, but a bit vague. My initial impression was that he resembled the recently deceased Rama IX, but that troubled me because I was going for an earlier era. I tried to make him look more like Rama III, but it wasn't working very well, so in the end I just didn't look too closely. At any rate, the king was vague enough that he didn't quibble when I handed over my handful of chocolate coins and requested an elephant. I didn't feel like getting into complex negotiations; I just allowed myself assume the success of the transaction and walked away.

As I exited the interior of the palace and momentarily noticed the bright sunlight reflecting off the whitewashed arch of the doorway, I felt a flash of familiarity. Of course, I thought to myself, This must be the Grand Palace, I've been here a few times. I let my memory conjure something akin to the elephant-mounting station I remembered observing there, and walked over to it. There was no elephant there presently, so I waited for someone to bring it around... and started getting impatient. No one seemed to be doing much, or paying attention to my repeated request. They must not understand English, I considered. I'll have to try it in Thai.

"Chang!" I shouted, the Thai word for elephant. "Ma nee!" I realized how rude I must sound: while "ma nee" would probably be correctly understood as "come here," or, given the contextual clues, "bring it here" as I had intended, it was a terribly rough and simple way of speaking. It was the sort of thing you might say to call a dog. I hadn't even appended a perfunctory "kha" at the end. But then I started wondering what level of politeness would be proper in this situation. I was in the palace, which made things more difficult, because royal Thai is another ballgame altogether. But what was my own social standing here? In speaking roughly I was assuming a great deal of authority... maybe that was not so bad in this situation. Fortunately, I saw my elephant being brought around before I was able to go too deep down the rabbit hole of Thai honorifics.

It was a disappointing elephant, by any standards... not only small but kind of flabby and soft, a cartoonish cross between a real baby elephant and Dumbo. Moreover it was completely unadorned, with no harness or howdah. I momentarily wondered if the lack was due to an inadequate mental impression of what a howdah should look like? But no, I could picture it clearly enough in my imagination... it just wasn't on the elephant. I guess that's what I get for being rude to the staff. To add insult to injury, they didn't even properly lead the elephant to the mounting station—though it was probably too small to get on from there anyway—they just dumped it on the stairs, where it crumpled over weakly. On the bright side, this made it easy to clamber up on its neck, so I did so and prepared to forge on.

I knew I had to enter a battle, so we promptly exited the city. I had thought to do this properly on a magnificent war elephant with a howdah and a driver and four soldiers to guard the legs—I've seen plenty of paintings and movies of proper war elephants in action—but instead I was alone, bareback with no weapon, on the most pathetic elephant I've ever seen. But at least in dream there was no risk of actually falling in battle, so I figured I could make do.

We had barely gone past the city walls when I saw the invaders approaching from the jungle. That wasn't much of a stretch; it seemed like Ayutthaya was always under attack. (I had originally envisioned myself in Bangkok, but had already slipped back to an earlier era more appropriate for elephant combat). The invaders were on horseback, I noticed, and I was relieved to see that they were only coming in ones and twos, given that I was going to have to take them on alone. They had long black hair and Asian features, and naturally I assumed that they were Burmese... until I got close enough to swing at one and saw the pointed ears. Elves?! Last night I was playing Witcher II and Pillars of Eternity, and the portrait of Aloth in the latter game closely resembled these invaders, but I wasn't sure why they were showing up here. Also, I'm fond of elves and felt loathe to fight them. Fortunately, our combat was more play-acting than anything. I had a good mental image of the kind of long-handled glaive I should be wielding, but though I swung it toward the elves and they gamely mimed being struck, the weapon did not visibly appear in my hands—and I was thankful that it drew no blood.

So I marched forward on my pathetic elephant, going through the motions of bashing the elves (elves?!) with my invisible glaive, while they went through the motions of being knocked aside, until the jungle started to coalesce into a new kind of space, a kind of wide passage under an increasingly low ceiling. The texture of the ceiling interested me, and from my position atop the elephant I could reach up and just touch it. It was covered with a kind of thick cloth, like a yellowish patterned felt, and I reached into the seams between two pieces and felt something hard and smooth. I pulled it out and found an object streaked with yellow and brown that resembled a wild bird's egg, but it was too hard and irregular, so I thought it must be a stone. I slipped it into my pocket. The felt overhead was gaping at the seams so I grabbed it and tore it off, revealing a kind of wide hatch with a knob for a handle. I wondered what it might be concealing so I pulled it open... and found the dream space deconstructing, muffling me in a soft blankety texture. Instinctively I tried to protect myself by putting the stone I had just found in my mouth, but I was still being enveloped in the stuff. I tried to pull at it with my hands, and as my fingers sank into it I was struck by the familiarity of the texture, like coarse sheep's wool—not the clean feel of a fleece, but the dirty, oily texture it has when it is still on the sheep. That was the last thing I felt before waking.