lucid

Yesterday I made nap with WILD intention. As anchor I used history podcast about soviet BTR armored vechicle. I entered in to dream after 30 minutes of lying in bed and for first seconds it wasn't so obvious for me if i'm already in dream or not. I didn't experience hipnagogs nor paralyze. Ofc I felt a little bit different that usual but I would not call this hipnagogs. Anyway when this weird feeling stop then I opened my eyes.

LD
I woke up in my bed. Nothing special for first look so I just stand up and I made positive RC. "Nice" I thought, but what to do? My bad I didn't prepare any plan for LD so my ad-hoc idea was to explore my inner senses. I mean how I'm feeling my own body in dream.
In first part I was changing my haircuts and I checked it in mirror every time. My face looked normal and I felt my new haircut like in real life as well. After few minutes I woke up but it was FA so I made another positive RC.
In second part I was focused how I feel myself with new clothes. My wear was really nice in touching. Despite my experience was similar like in real life I really was enjoyed. Usually I feel pain in my LDs if my touch sense is working.
In entire dream I was in hurry. I tried to do everything as fast as possible. In second part of my dream I told to myself „It is pointless to be hurry because it is stressing me. I have no power to make my dream longer so if my dream will end that’s okay. No more rush, only peace can help me”

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I woke up and immediately noticed that the light in my room looked kind of dark and bluish like the sun was rising while it was really cloudy. [COLOR="#008000"]I knew I was in a dream because the light coming in through my window never looks like that. I rolled off my mattress and decided to look around my house. I walked to my bathroom and there were feces everywhere. I got some on my shoestrings, even though I know they're not real, they're still gross. So I go down my hall and into my living room, and I see that the Christmas tree is still up. There's a white shoe box under it, so I open it, and there's some gray sneakers in it, so I start replacing my shoes, but my mother sneaks up behind me and stops me from moving.I tell her to let me go but then I wake up.[/COLOR]

I was in the stairwell of some hotel or apartment and I had to go up a couple floors to retrieve some groceries or something. Walking up the stairs was very tiring for some reason, but I eventually reached the room. It was had just some toys, a bay window, and a note where the floor slanted down near the wall. I looked out the window, and I could see a city below like I was as high as an airplane. I went up to the piece of paper in the wall floor ditch, and I turned it over. It said something about burning in hell.I woke up around there.

I don't remember much from this one just that[COLOR="#008000"]I was lucid and my eyes were closed, an I was feeling carpet or something and then I heard a rooster,[/COLOR] because one of my real roosters was crowing.

Another short semi-lucid, this one a bit more fun than the last. It was my third dream of the night, and during WBTB I tried to mentally explain to someone why I wanted to become lucid, as per Harlequin's suggestion. I thought, Well, you see, lucidity is just cool... I mean, you can do so many things that you can't in waking life... why wouldn't you want that? I think I have a good chance of becoming lucid in this next dream, you'll see, I can feel it.

Yeah, I'm not too good at it Did SSILD afterward and went to sleep at 4:30. (Forgot the entire beginning of the dream, but it started out non-lucid, so it wasn't a WILD.)

First thing I remember is walking down a path by the lake with my brothers and mom. All of us have been attempting dream control for a while, and I've failed to fly multiple times.

I run ahead of them and for no real reason flop down in a patch of grass. A specific type of anticipation comes over me, like I need to concentrate, yet at the same time avoid focusing too hard on what's happening. Suddenly a gust of wind pushes me into a sitting position, and with minimal effort, I begin to hover in the air.

A grin spreads across my face and I unsteadily fly higher, cheering and showing off to my familial unit. My brother records me as I spin and flap my arms and make little circles in the air. I land in front of them, and my mom asks how I did it. I tell her about the gust of wind and think to myself that this kind of "external assistance" is typical in dreams.

Later my brothers and I, along with their friends Ethan and Marcus, are lying on a picnic blanket watching the video Z took of me. I apparently do another cool thing at the end, and halfway through Z says impatiently, "Why is it taking so long?"

I wonder why he doesn't just skip ahead, and wake up.

You can tell this wasn't a high level of lucidity by my reaction to the flying. I've done it countless times, and it usually comes naturally to me, even in non-lucids. This was closer to role-playing. But still, it was pretty exciting.

1. Flight To The Clouds (LD)
I'm sitting at a circular table jotting down some notes onto white lined paper. I have a little sketch of what looks like a chair. I write "don't give up on dreaming". I'm suddenly lucid, and I say out loud: "I'm lucid". I stand up and take in my surrounding. I'm in an area in a large structure which connects to many side rooms. I walk forward to begin exploring a bit. I suddenly remember a podcast I heard the previous day with Holocek and ground my vision onto the floor in the dream, which is quite vivid with a dark cream color and dark green speckling. I then look at my hands in shout "Increase clarity now"! Upon looking at my hands again I notice that I have four finger. One of the middle fingers is a bit bent, yet the entire hand is very vivid. I raise my gaze and begin exploring. I peer into the first room and notice a vacant bedroom with white covers which are pulled back. The bed hasn't been made and the covers are a giant jumble. I quickly leave the room and begin exploring a bit more. It appears that I'm in a large house which is connected to a central hub, which is essentially a large kitchen. I head toward a wall and then think of some dream goals. I immediately think of some dream yoga skills, and slowly phase my hand into the wall, and watch it go through easily. I then think of advanced phasing and phase my whole body through. Once through, the dream begins to fade a bit, and I instinctively begin flying up rapidly to preserve the dream. I rise higher and feel that I'm not going fast enough to I decide to try some advanced flying at start traveling at what I perceive to be hundreds of miles and hour. I'm soon in an cloudy area which lacks clear vision. The dream quickly resolves to bringing me back to the large house I was just in. I approach a staircase and peer up, noticing yet another vacant bedroom with the covers pulled back just like the first. I head across the central area and toward a bedroom in the corner area. I think back to my goal of traveling to a persistent realm via The Purple Crystal. I anticipate it being in the immediate left corner when I enter, yet when I turn my head it's not there to my surprise. The room is quite messy with many items on a side cabinet. I leave this area and enter the kitchen. The central kitchen area is beautifully put together with a deep brown colored wood with a tinge of orange as well as a glossy finish. I make my way around the central island area and notice a large hood type structure above the counter top. I explore for a minute or so, then notice a large fruit basket filled with peaches on the center of the island. I consider taking one, then decide I really don't want any fruit. But I figure, why not have some chocolate! I head to the fridge, pull out a sliding drawer, and quickly find the same dark chocolate I have in waking life. I grab two packages and put one in my left pocket. I begin opening one as I continue to walk toward the back of the house. I put some chocoalte in my mouth, yet my gaze is focused on the back of the hosue and my attention doesn't return to the flavor for a moment. When my attention returns, I don't really notice any flavor. I get the sense the dream is fading, and soon wake up.

Back to Sleep

2. Waterfall Skies (LD)
I'm lucid in a dark void and slowly a dream begins to form. I'm in a hallway of sorts with light gray concrete coloring. I stop and shout "Increase clarity now"! I look at my hands and notice the vivid colors and texture of the skin. I approach a concrete wall in front of me which looks quite solid and think of some dream yoga stages. I have the slightest bit of doubt as I stick my hand into the wall to phase through it and my hand bends against the concrete. I ignore fully phasing right now and look at the concrete stairs which descend along with a slanted concrete ceiling above. I decide to phase half my dream body through the concrete and it works perfectly. Upon reaching the lower level, I see that I can continue straight or make a left. I make my way forward, yet get the feeling the dream is going to fade if I continue, so I turn left toward an area that has a warm yellow hue emanating from it, similar to a sunrise. I enter the area to my left, and it naturally curves right into a beautiful area in nature with lush green grass and a pathway extending down to the left along with a body of water to the right which curves around a mountain structure in the middle. The lake area is crescent shaped and situated on a plateau. On the left most portion is a large floating piece of earth with a large waterfall cascading off of it. I begin floating down the lake, and as I progress I notice additional, yet small floating pieces of dark earth with stone embedded in it. Small streams of water are making their way off of the floating structures and into the lake. I begin thinking of a name for the dream and my mind remembers a song named "I can hear the water at the edge of all things". I feel the song doesn't quite fit the feel of the dream however. I continue to float and notice the third floating piece of earth overhead. I additional begin seeing small bronze statute of young lions on pieces of earth that are surfacing form the lake. I curve left around the central mountain and the dream begins to fade. I make my way to the edge and begin circling my arms alternately to maintain the dream. The dream slowly fades and I wake.

Back to Sleep.

3. The Campus Game (LD)
I'm in a parking lot across the street from what appears to be a mix of my current home and my summer home as a child. I'm with my wife and we're trying to find a way home, yet we don't have a car. We ask a lady i the parking lot driving a large white truck if she could give us a lift. I get in the back seat with H. The explains that she's heading north from Tampa. I'm confused and wonder how she's heading from Tampa. I then state that my body is a asleep in New Jersey. Oh! This is a dream! I turn to the two DCs and say "I like you guys a lot, but I'm gonna go fly and shit" - in an enthusiastic comical tone -and proceed to open the the door and zoom into the sky! The dream goes into a black void and I begin visualizing some colors. The dream quickly forms into a very vivid scene of what appears to be a school campus. I'm on a concrete walkway which extends forward to the main structure which is two stories with a triangular adornment above the doors leading inside. A walkway extends to the left a few yards ahead of me, and large basketball court with several baskets as well as games running simultaneously is situated to the right. I decide to just have some fun and fly onto the court to play with the DCs, yet with the ability to fly around. I attempt to use telekinesis to stop a couple of the balls mid-air, yet it doesn't work and they continue to bound very high from the players dribbling. I fly up to a DC, steal the ball, and continue to play. I leave this group and head to another and notice that one DC is my friend N from back in high school. I steal the ball again and try to fly around him to make a shot but am having some difficulty maneuvering around the super tall players. I start cracking up and tell N that even though I can fly, he's still crushing me. The dream soon fades and I wake up.

Date: 26/06/2023
Bedtime: 4am
Awakening: 7.30am
Return to bed: 7.40am
Method: deferred direct
Attempt: successful
Final awakening: 9.30am
The Recalling Experiment


DREAMING

It's a dark night and I'm part of a brigade searching for an unknown enemy. Next to me, armed and wary of danger lurking in the dark, is the actor Bruce Willis. Suddenly, we observe the infantry being attacked by an invisible agent; petrified soldiers begin to levitate and haemorrhage from every orifice before being dropped from an altitude of fifteen feet by a mysterious force. Me and Bruce look at each other before running for our lives. We hide in a cave-like shelter and keep quiet, hoping that the enemy won't find us. There is a mutual agreement that we are no match for the invisible enemy who wiped out the infantry. We are probably the only two foot soldiers left. We lie down on a mattress on the floor and hide under the covers. I feel hot and sweaty.


WAKING

I feel hot and sweaty as I wake up to the sound of my alarm. I get my son up to get ready for school and, exhausted after having had a bad night, I return to bed. Lying on my back and relaxing, I wonder if I'll be able to have an out-of-body experience. I keep imagining standing at the foot of the bed and looking back at myself lying asleep. After a couple of lapses in consciousness (or so it seems), I succeed in reifying the thought of being out of bed.


LUCID DREAMING

It feels like I am actually standing next to the footboard and partially facing a wall which I proceed to rap in order to deepen my phantom environment. My wife rises from under the covers and asks me what I'm doing. 'I'm lucid dreaming!' I excitedly reply and begin expatiating on why it is amazing and deserving of joint exploration before pausing at the realisation that I've been talking to a figment of my dreaming mind. Tapping the wall appears to intensify the environment and the grainy surface melts like a white marshmallow as I press it with my fingers. At this point, I remember the recalling experiment (as part of a plan of action) as well as the previous nightmare where, as a foot soldier, I witness my brigade getting killed by an invisible agent.

I make an attempt to delude myself (according to this counterintuitive experiment) by entertaining the idea that the nightmare where the infantry perished was real and that I must've been knocked unconscious and carried to this bedroom replica by the invisible agent. Not feeling confused in the slightest about what's real and what isn't despite trying to contrive a confabulation, I also feel the need to tell myself that waking life memories were implanted in my brain by the enemy. This still doesn't seem to be enough as my sceptical mind emphatically rejects self-delusion for lack of evidence, so I tell myself that the enemy is conniving, that absolute certainty of any world being 'real' is impossible and that what I need in this situation is a leap of faith.

I penetrate the melting wall to find a peculiar staircase adorned with a myriad of glossy beads (instead of my youngest son's bedroom as would be the case in the real world). The stairs appear to reflect weak sunlight coming from arched, stained-glass windows displaying complex mandalas and I scuttle downstairs with the purpose of somehow finding and confronting my mysterious enemy. Before I can reach the exit of the building I'm in, however, I suddenly feel myself to be back in bed. Refusing to give in to these dispiriting sensations, I wilfully interpret them as the enemy magically pulling the wool over my eyes before forcing myself out of bed to glide out of the window with blurry vision.

I land on paving slabs in broad daylight and begin stomping the pavement, producing echoey footsteps that help me to intensify the scene. There is a hyperreal quality to the esplanade before me as I run alongside a concrete wall—at the end of which is the looming suggestion of a beach hiding behind it. I glance at my bare feet and notice crystalline water in the gutter running counter to my direction. I look up and see a man in black watching me before disappearing behind the wall towards the beach. I feel I must reach him as he might be able to lead me to my enemy. Reaching the end of the wall to access the beach (it never occurred to me to go through concrete as a logical shortcut), I come face to face with the figure wearing a black trenchcoat and a fedora hat. He's a dead ringer for the actor Ed Harris but his eyes are uncannily blue and his gaze chillingly penetrating.

'Where is the enemy?' I demand as I display my infantryman persona. 'The wizard is in the tower,' the man in black softly replies as he points to a lighthouse on a rocky promontory beyond the sandy beach. I waste no time in gliding to the top of the lighthouse, entering an empty garret overlooking a calm sea and cloudy horizon. Where is the 'wizard' who wiped out my brigade? Perhaps he is invisible in this very room. Could the man in black at the beach be the real enemy? I leap from the lighthouse and descend on the beach next to a stall that wasn't there before. The Ed Harris lookalike is there, apparently polishing an amulet and a few trinkets are on display. 'Are you the wizard?' I enquire. The man in black appears to be smirking as he turns his back on me before vanishing into his little shop as the beach fades.


WAKING

I dash off some notes in my journal in conclusion of this experiment. In hindsight, my lucidity was solid enough to maintain the knowledge that what was unfolding wasn't real. I never came to fully believing what I wanted to believe for the sake of this experiment. The most I could achieve was entertaining a what-if scenario, which is surprising because in many past experiences what usually takes effort is countering the loss of lucidity and preventing the manifestation of ordinary dreaming. Most of the time it felt like I was pretending to be a soldier looking for answers to see how it would influence the phantom world of lucid dreaming. Curiosity of what would happen if I entertained a mere hypothesis is what drove me. Deep down I still knew that I would eventually wake up to the real world where my family and everything I care about exist.

“Purple Lordo” Drink, the Usual Floating, Travel

3 minutes to read.

Monday morning, 26 June 2023.

Dream #20,643-02.

My dream begins with inconsistent thoughts (for no particular reason) about seeing ActionKid, a YouTuber, in an unknown restaurant. I do not focus much on this scenario, so this first segment remains without definition or an outcome. Regardless of my recall of this person and the existence of YouTube, I have no recollection of my waking-life existence.

Proto-cognizance guides my imaginary self into the setting - but without physicality. In this stage, I often read or try to read. An unfamiliar man (emerging protoconsciousness “serving” my precursory consciousness) comes to my table to see if I want to order.

While reading the menu, I had been studying the phrase “Purple Lordo,” supposedly a drink. I ask him what it is, inferring I want to order one. He tells me I need to be a club member (associated with the restaurant’s bar), but this part of the narrative immediately fades. Instead of telling me what it is, a vague hologram appears on the table, and he pretends to mix the drink in a tall glass tumbler. Although I hear “hard liquor,” which fills about one-quarter of the bottom, the rest of what he says is gibberish. The last part is potato mash, which sits atop the last one-quarter of the drink.

I order the Purple Lordo drink.

My somatosensory response to dreaming engages at the typical time. He brings my order to me, but it is not a drink. My dream becomes exponentially more vivid as I open a vinyl package. It has a gray Walkman with a cassette inside (supposedly what I had ordered) and a gray case for an iPhone. Their arrangement is lengthways, side by side.

I do not have headphones, so I cannot pretend to listen to what I ordered. Instead, the narrative fades, and I enter a different dream.

There is a Native American man (in tribal regalia) whom I talk to, along with a few other people. He talks about how he cannot recall certain parts of his youth (signifying a direct correlation with my virtual amnesia while dreaming).

The setting is like a resort.

At one point during most sleep cycles, my vestibular response to REM atonia creates content where I float upward. In this instance, I float upward and bump the top of my head against the ceiling. It happens several times. The other people do not find it unusual, though I can intuitively sense my thoughts are creating their reaction as in many past dreams.

It is time for me to leave the resort and go home (though I have no thoughts about where “home” is). I walk to Bob’s car. Marilyn (half-sister on my mother’s side and Bob’s wife) walks with us. My dream self has no recall that they are both deceased.

I get into Bob’s car from its right side to sit in the back seat (intuitive awareness I am sleeping on Zsuzsanna’s right). There are two people to my left, a teenage boy and a young girl. Only at this point, I recall I have two children (solely my two youngest in real-world correlation when there are five in total). I am puzzled by why they are not in the car instead. Marilyn mentions that someone else is taking them home.

My dream transitions into the next stage of my proprioception response to REM atonia, making my dream more vivid again. As a result, Bob is driving in reverse before I shut the car’s door. I am unwary, but I make several attempts to close the door, but it does not shut tightly, so I open it again each time (typical arm mobility response as in all sleep cycles).

I feel extraordinarily joyful (as usual with imaginary kinesthesia). Details beyond the moving side of the car on my right are wholly absent as my physicality becomes more discernible over time. (This factor is because I sleep on my left side, so attentiveness to reality - absent in the dream state in this stage - is “to my right.” In other words, the right side of the dream state illusion is undefined.)

Cars (as with all vehicles) correspond with my intuitive recognition of real-world mobility while intuitively seeking consciousness. They occur throughout all sleep cycles. Vehicles (or animals) often appear when my vestibular response to REM atonia is predominant. Somatosensory nuances typically emerge above that threshold, with auditory being the last, depending on how I respond to sleep dynamics.

---

I had two other dreams, but they're so disorganized that I'm only logging the semi-lucid here. Slept at 2:00 am, possibly very lightly before that, but I was trying out new sleeping positions so it took a while.

My phone was on a pillow and for some reason thought I was in South America. I searched something up on Google and found an article claiming that the U.S. gets the most unpredictable rainfall, with quotes from citizens like, "I was just minding my own business, eating a Chick-fil-A sandwich, and BAM! Hurricane Katrina!"

I somehow ended up at a swim center, sitting on the bleachers outside the pool, waiting for a swim coach to finish up with her students. She was a generous woman and gave out food in trash bags. After I ate mine I was still hungry, but most of the others had name tags so I was hanging around to ask for seconds. I remember one of her students came back and pooped in a bag, offering it as a present, and the coach freaked out.

At some point the bleachers filled with water, so I was swimming around in them, but the lifeguard blew her whistle at me.

"You can't swim while lessons are in session," she said. Then she sighed and leaned back in her chair. "That little kid can't tread water no matter how long she spends teaching him."

I glanced at the coach and the student she was with, my brother's friend Javier. He's not little at all, I thought. He was almost as tall as his dad in elementary school, and even body-slammed me once...

I didn't say anything though, because she might have been referring to my youngest brother N. He was being taught in the other pool and was struggling to tread water at that very moment.

I looked at the sky, and, blending into the clouds, saw a huge illusion of my brother Z. He was foggy and see-through, particularly his arm, but I whipped out my phone to take a picture. The time read 3:27 am and I worried I'd get in trouble for staying up so late. I had the sense that I'd seen illusions like this before that had never showed up on camera, so when this one did, I was quite surprised.

"Finally it's clear!" I exclaimed, but slowly awareness started to dawn on me. "Ah, wait... it's only clear because this is a dream. Yeah, that must be it. Why does this always happen?!"

I was annoyed that I wouldn't be able to keep the pics IWL, but decided it was fine since I could show them off to dream characters instead. Woke up at 3:30-ish before I could, though.

The lucidity level was quite low, and it might've just been the result of my imminent awakening, but I'll take it

I'm in what appears to be a classroom and two lecturers are teaching others how to leave your body via astral projection. I volunteer and soon make my way to the front of the room. I lay down on a mat towad the end of a stage area. My vision soon goes dark and I become lucid. I'm aware that a dream is beginning to form and resolve to maintain my awareness through. I wait as a few visuals begin forming. I see white shoes and then pants as well as a wood floor below me. I begin to hear music and hum along in order to ground the dream. I carefully begin walking in the dream and sense now that I'm fully in my dream body. I think back to Sivason's intermediate skills #1, part 2, and for fun imagine a dream arm coming in front of me and actually feeling the limb moving in front. I'm already freely moving in my dream body but decide to play with it anway. I feel the movement to a degree. A continue toward the end of the stage area and walk down the edge. I begin flying around the area which appears to be a square classroom with wooden floors and wooden desks in roughly four to five rows of six desks each. I fly midway down on the right and sit next to a student working on a project for a moment. I soon get up and decide to fly out of the room, through an upper window on the right side. I quickly phase through and ascend rapidly into the clouds. The dream gets gray and blurry as I enter the clouds, but I'm not too worried about destabilization. I decide to descend thought in order to be cautious. As I come down I see that I'm at some type of campus with dark brown bricks. I fly down to a front area and land on the ground. I look up and see a three story wall to my right as well as a corridor ahead on the third floor with a two story passageway below. I fly forward and up to the third story, turning to my right and viewing long rectangular windows with a light view into classrooms beyond. I head toward the third story overhand and phase through the wall. I end up in an empty classroom with several rows of lab-style workstations. In the back of the room is a single black microscope. I exit the room by phasing through the wall ahead. I then stop and decide that I should work a bit more on phasing through solid objects and think back to the dreamviews competitions. I phase back through the wall slowly and re-enter the classroom. I try more dream control and attempt to use telekenesis to make the microscope explode. I try twice, but it doesn't work. I turn to my right and phase through the wall once again, re-enter the corridor and make my way down to the right. I soon see an elevator on my left and enter to see a girl in her early twenties along with what appears to be her mother. The girl is a bit shorter than me with auburn hair and a fair completion. I smile and nod at the two and wait for the elevator to descend. I soon enter an atrium which is crowded with many DCs. In the center I see a short, chubby DC with dark hair. I float to the bottom level and make my way through a corridor to the right. I see several DCs as well as a tall Indian girl who appears to be a student leaning back into the wall. I move on from this square room down yet another corridor leading to the side exit of a building. I'm soon at the corner of appears to be a city street with a horse drawn carriage in front of me. I decide to try some advanced summoning by creating some chocolate bars. I imagine a simple chocolate bar fairly vividly but it doesn't fully materialize. I try a more complex one with some success, but it doesn't materialize either. I decide to approach the storage section in the back of the horses and anticipate a stash of chocolate bars underneath the burlap covering on the wooden box in the storage. I pull the burlap back and there's a huge stash of two different chocolate bars with vivid wrappers! One type has a shiny silver and dark brown wrapper and looks like a wide Hershey's bar. The other has a near black matte wrapper and looks like an artisan bar. I take a handful of both and begin putting them in my left pocket. I open one bar, turn around, and continue to walk alongside the horse-drawn carriage, next to the driver. I'm walking on the left side of a brick building on the side of the street as I bite into the chocolate bar. I taste the flavors, however they're somewhat more muted than in real life. After a short moment, the dream begins to fade and I wake up.

deleted

I leave the large building and head into a parking lot. I'm standing in front of my car door on the driver side. I suddenly realize my waking body is asleep and I'm in a different reality. It feels very realistic and I wonder how long I can stay in this reality. I then wonder if I can come back to this place. I get in the car and start driving toward the entrance of the lot. Cars are fitting through metal gates that are swinging open, and begin losing lucidity. I fit my car through and get on speaker phone with a family member as I make a left asking when they're going to be home.

After over two weeks without a lucid, I finally got one! And such a fun one, too! I'm quite happy. Slept at 11:50.

Dream #1 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
I was at an abandoned carnival and intentionally ruined my phone with "Fn poisoning." I figured it would be fine since my phone sucks and I need a new one anyway, but I was trying to come up with a lie to tell my parental units.

Later J&L and I were talking… (illegible).

I was quite lazy with journaling this dream so I don't remember most of the details. Don't know when I woke up from it either, nor from the next one.


Dream #2 (Non-Lucid):
My childhood friend Mason was in our basement. I hid my discomfort at him being there and tried to act cheery, smiling and chatting with my brothers. Eventually I fled upstairs and looked in the mirror, smiling at myself. A circular piece of purple cardboard was wedged in my gums.

I was terrified, although I had the sense that this had happened before, and went to my mom. Much to my distress, she yanked it out and let it bleed. My dad was pretty mad at her as well. I could feel the air flowing through the wound and tried to assure myself that this kind of injury didn't matter, that lots of people have holes in their gums.

I was taken to the hospital and a doctor offered me three treatment options. One was a full face mask with the label: "Is this fabric bad for your skin? Screw your skin!" Needless to say, I quickly disregarded it.

In the end I selected a nasal spray and felt quite comforted after squirting it into my nostril a few times. (I'd forgotten that the wound was in my gums.)

Then I disappeared from the dream, and the scene switched to a group of teen boys running from the hospital, one of them jumping on the roofs of buildings as they went. The others followed along, but with hesitance, and one nervously voiced his concerns. The boy said it would be fine because they were all sick, citing a time when his poor health scored him a get-out-of-jail-free card.

At some point they were on a bridge and started making up a gay story featuring characters very much like them. One character was described as a "sick boy who plays soccer."

I re-entered the dream and ran ahead of them, toward a hill resembling the Big Hill in my neighborhood. A girl, or rather the silhouette of a girl, was standing there. She was made up of a gradient, flowing rainbow. I was under the impression that she was part of an MV, and I had entered the MV using virtual reality or something.

Since I believed I was an MV, my moves were quite dramatic as I chased the girl around, spinning and doing cartwheels and striking poses. I thought that if I caught her, something special would happen. In the background was a Japanese song with English subtitles singing a song about schizoid issues. The voice sounded like a mix of Raon, Yorushika, and Tsukuyomi's vocalist.

I kept trying to pause the video to figure out how to say "schizoid" in Japanese, which is difficult to do when you're literally inside of it. It wasn't working, but one of the "whoa" vocalizations was supposed to sound similar to it. I thought it was the most accurate schizoid song I'd heard (that intentionally depicted schizoid topics), then thought of another (false?) Japanese song that was a close second. I found it mildly remarkable that they were both Japanese.

I gave up the chase and looked at my wrist, finding a single itchy bump there. The song ended with the girl throwing her hands into the air and the lyrics reading, "The world of human connection is so large." Then I woke up.


Dream #3 (Non-Lucid):
J and I were hunting down a monster. He had been created by some god, with the specific purpose to perform evil acts and kill people. He was also a writer, Herman Hesse I think. I felt bad for him, but he said he was not opposed to killing and requested we exterminate him before he did.

Despite his request, he wasn't cooperating and made us chase him to a large field where families were having picnics. J threw a dagger at him and missed, and the surrounding people murmured excitedly. He shrunk down to plushie size and I grabbed him by the leg and took his gun.

J pinned him down and I said, "It'll be over soon, Hermann."

Then I shot him in the right side of the chest. He let out a long, piercing scream. Then he lay still in quiet agony, tears forming in his anime eyes. I sat next to him to be of some comfort and waited for him to die.

A strong wind suddenly rustled all the trees' leaves, and an ominous presence fell over the area, accompanied by the sound of something approaching. It sounded like an extremely large tractor, but I knew instinctively they were footsteps.

I worried it was the god who'd created him, or perhaps his monster buddies responding to his cry for help, so I bolted. I ran down to a different neighborhood, figuring it was okay to leave J since I was the one who killed him, and therefore the one in the most danger. I decided to stay and listen instead of running farther, but I woke up before anything happened.

When I opened my eyes I saw a cartoonish, squiggling black scribble on the wall. I stared at it for a few seconds, thinking, What a simple hypnopompic hallucination. Then I sat up and recorded the dream at 7:30, doing SSILD as I fell back asleep.


Dream #4 (Lucid):
Don't remember much about the beginning of the dream, just that there was a warrior with long red hair who was being ridiculed for being a woman and wearing a white dress. Then she used transformation magic to form a heavy suit of armor, which was apparently very high-level magic. She walked past them, scowling, and the armor changed back into a white dress.

I entered the dream later. The setting was similar to my house, but somber and monochrome. It was being used as a base for kids in training to become soldiers. I bounded down the stairs and saw chicken on the table, while someone on the intercom kept saying ミート (meat) over and over. I asked one of the kids in charge about it, saying that I thought meat was rare in times of war. He said it was, and that that was all the meat we had. I was displeased by this answer.

At some point had a false awakening. Now I was in the living room with my mom and brother N. My dog Nile was on the couch and my mom patted his chest, asking in an affectionate voice if he would eat his food now. He whined in response, and I was so amazed that he understood her that I laughed out loud.

Somehow we started talking about dreams and I jokingly said, "Haha, what if this is a dream?"

I plugged my nose and was in disbelief when I could partially breathe. You really can be dreaming at any moment, I thought.

My mom and brother exchanged a look, and for a moment I worried that they would turn against me like some other people's dream characters do once they become lucid. (I know this is just a schema.) I brushed off the thought, but by that point my mom had grabbed me by the legs, restraining me.

"Mom, let me go," I said, but she just smiled at me in a way that was simultaneously playful and creepy. I phased through her by imagining myself already in the location of the living room that I wanted to be. It took a couple tries, but then I effortlessly, without even thinking about it, phased through the window onto the balcony. It was so cool, there was a clear visual transition, and I may have felt an interesting sensation as well but I wasn't paying attention to it.

I flew into the air, but it was a little unstable. I wondered if my mind could not properly calibrate my body size, though some part of me knew that was silly. I touched down on my neighbor's deck, looking out at the neighborhood. It was so incredibly accurate—the woods, the path, the wall, the fence, the retirement home. I refrained from thinking about stability and took flight again.

In my peripheral vision I tried to summon a burger in my hand, but it didn't work, so I thought back to that non-lucid dream where I summoned chicken nuggets right before my eyes. I cupped my hands in front of me and visualized a burger. Just like last time, it appeared first as a dark shadow, then an outline, and then I realized I was trying to imagine lettuce and tomato on it even though I don't like veggies. Once I stopped that, the burger formed completely. I thought that if the competition were still going this would have earned a lot of points, but whatever.

I bit into it and said delightedly, "Ha! So much for 'limited meat!'" (Referring to the pre-FA scene.)

I dropped the burger and decided to find J, but didn't want to waste dream time flying all the way to her house. So I called for her, hoping she would appear somewhere. In the distance I spotted someone running down the path. I could tell it wasn't J, but chased after them anyway, for some reason tempted to shoot them down.

I followed them all the way to the road, but they wouldn't approach me, so I intentionally fell off my drone (I was now riding a drone), crying out "Ah!" in hopes that they would be sympathetic.

They were, tentatively coming over to help. It was a young girl, 12 to 14 years old, with short, curly brown hair. I quickly lost interest in killing her.

"Why were you running away?" I asked.

"The drone scared me, I thought it was an attack helicopter." (We were in war times.) "Also, I was getting a very 'predator-hunting-prey' vibe from you..."

We walked beneath a tree, and she explained that she was fighting in the war to strengthen her cheek muscles. I jumped and tore a few leaves from their branches, enjoying my lucidity.

"I thought kids and children weren't allowed to fight in the war," I said distractedly, thinking back to the first part of the dream. "Oh sorry, I meant kids and women."

She shrugged. I clapped her on the shoulder and exclaimed, "Well, good on you! I think that rule is stupid anyway, get stronger all you want! Even though you'll probably be traumatized for life, hahaha."

She smiled weakly. During the conversation we had occasionally been ducking behind cars and running around to avoid bullets and laser beams from attack vehicles.

I asked if she would accompany me to J's house, but she adamantly refused, probably thinking it was miles away. Out of nowhere K appeared, assuring her that it was just down the street. Sure enough, we were somehow much closer to J's neighborhood than before, only having to turn the corner and walk to the end of the road to reach her residence. But before we could, J came around the corner herself! We all called her name in excitement.

"How is she here?" K asked incredulously.

"Because this is a dream!" I replied, then pointed to my old friend S.E. who was passing by. "J loves shooting and killing—J, kill that thing!"

J made finger guns and shot S.E. in the forehead with a chi bullet. She went on to shoot other people, and each time she did, an itchy lump would form on the back of my right hand. I showed it to the girl and explained that it was the result of the dream characters' deaths, as everything in this world was made of my energy.

A small bump formed on my left wrist and I remarked, "Ah, she must have shot in the other direction."

We entered a building, but a black placard above one of the doors reminded me of the dream with Herman Hesse, and I was unsure if I wanted to go in there.

———

When I woke at 8:20 my hand was actually itchy, indented with clothing lines. I'm so happy though, this lucid was long and stable and chill and fun and... yeah Though I did notice all of the dreams were violent and/or stressful in some way. The one with Hermann Hesse was the closest I've had to a nightmare in a long time.

1. Sunrise Beach (LD)
I'm lucid inside a very dim room within a house. There appear to be multiple rooms connecting to each other and I start making my way through the rooms hoping the visuals will improve. After a short bit, the visuals dim more and I decide to start visualizing. I imagine some water as well as my body feeling it. Within a short moment, I find myself on the edge of the water at a beach with very vivid visuals. The sand is well textured, and there are two palm trees hanging overhead to my right. I want to play around with increasing clarity, so I look at my right hand in depth as I approach higher up on the beach. I take in the texture of the skin and notice how it looks like real life. I shout "increase clarity now!" twice. The dream maintains solid visuals. I then want to play around with anchors. I decide to get a drink so that I can hold it as well as sip every once in a while. I look to the right and see a street with several cars passing through along with what appear to be convenient stores on the other side. I figure I could just get a cocoa at a cafe. I start flying in this direction, but I wake up.

2. Aurora (LD)
I'm driving a car and suddenly realize I'm dreaming. I set the car on an automatic mode so it'll get to its destination and fly out of the room. I take in the sights and notice a a vivid array of light in the far right, including a full spectrum of colors. It appears like an aurora. I decide to head in this direction as the light may help prolong the dream. I fly in this direction and soon hit a walkway. I decide to work on stabilization, so I look at my hands and take in the life-like texture. I should "increase clarity now!" a couple of times then look at both hands at the same time. This helps a bit as the tan concrete walkway ahead looks pretty vivid now. I fly down in this direction and continue to think about an anchor. I decide on a drink once again, specifically cocoa. The area reminds me a bit of the campus I work at. The pathway continues straight and I head down this way a bit further, on the right side of a brick building. Once the area to my right opens up a bit, I imagine a tumbler of cocoa and it appears in a very wispy outline around the corner. I pick it up and take a sip - it tastes somewhat similar to actual hot cocoa. Two female DCs appear by a tan concrete wall and I quickly scale up the wall for fun. I turn to my right and glide down. I soon have a false awakening in which I pretend that I'm in a lucid dream.

5/19/23
I'm standing with B in the backyard in The Meadow and something doesn't seem 100% right. I look at my hands and count 5 fingers on both, rotating them back and forth. I look once again doing the same procedure, yet they continue to look real. I get a sense that this simply isn't waking reality and my awareness begins to rise a bit more as I tend to push my awareness during waking life. I become aware that I'm in a dream. I turn to B and say "Now we're lucid" as I begin to rise up a fly with enjoyment. I start heading toward the far end of the yard where tall trees in the woods loom behind the fence. I continue to fly but soon realize that I'm risking having the dream fade if I fly into the darkness. I decide to keep the dream more stable by turning around and flying toward the house. I see a light emanating from the door on the right side and fly in that direction. I head toward the laundry room which has a door open. I see the washer and dryer with the doors situated vertically - they're both projecting a holographic image on them with a blue hue. I consider two of my major dream goals: heading to my dream sanctuary as well as asking what my spiritual path is. I begin asking the dream what my spiritual bath is - I ask twice yet get no answer. I decide to sit and practice zazen. I sit facing the wall and begin meditation. B sits to my right. I'm interested in how stable my awareness is within the dream state. I see the slight warbling effects of my visuals through my half open eyes, but my awareness is pretty steady. I meditate for about a minute, then get up. I reflect on how my awareness in the dream seems a bit more stable since several years prior. I continue to make my way to the next room an consider heading to my dream sanctuary. I take in the visuals of the kitchen and head to the family room. I hold off on the dream goal and decide to meditate in my usual spot in real life. I enter the family room and face the sliding glass doors and notice snow flurries coming to the ground outside. I see my reflection and I'm wearing the same pjs I wore to bed. I look very similar to real life with slightly shorter hair. I set to meditate and B is by my side once again. I stabilize my awareness. A thought passes through my awareness of what it would be like if all my dreams were lucid- would that just be too much time in the state? What if there are bad dreams? I come back to awareness. After about a minute I get up and return to the central area of the kitchen and consider looking for a portal to head to the dream sanctuary. I look at the bathroom door, basement door and front. I decide to just chill for a bit though, and just enjoy the dream environment. I think, hey why not get some chocolate and decide to get some chocolate ice cream from the fridge (having a giant chocolate bar was a just-for-fun dream goal anyway!). I see French Vanilla ice cream and think that would be great and grab the container. I also see a large Valor dark chocolate bar in red and gold wrapper with about 2/3 remaining and the wrapper pulled back - I grab that too. I put my hand into the ice cream, grab a big chunk and try it. It tastes pretty good! About 50% of the flavor of real life. I head toward the table with the ice cream and chocolate bar, but decide to grab a cup and spoon for the ice cream since I don't want to be messy - reflecting on making bad karmic patterns even in the dram state. I sit back next to B, and notice the edge of the cup with ice cream dripping down. I reflect on how cool it is to be in this aware state, just chilling and hanging out with my 'dream brother'. After a moment, the dream begins to fade a bit and I begin to come to back to my waking body.
Factors: Awareness practice; Illusory form practice; Mantra before bed; Reishi - midnight

I'm on a platform high int he trees on the edge of the Dark Woods in The Meadow. I realize I'm dreaming. H is next to me and I look at her and tell her I'm dreaming. I'm laying down on the wooden square platform underneath some covers. I look up and see the moon in the distance hanging above the faint view of the neighbor's house. The platform is roughly eight feet by five feet, constructed of wood, sitting about two stories high with a two foot wooden railing running around it. I feel the covers around me and think that the tactile sense will help prolong the dream. I chat with H for a short bit, but slip into a false awakening in which I'm telling a DC outside my room that I just had a lucid dream.