lucid

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.

I'm in a house in The Meadow and I'm standing by the peninsula dividing the family room from the kitchen. A dream character is standing there. He's a male who appears to be in his mid twenties with black hair, a black t-shirt and a slender build. I get the feeling that something is strange. I raise my right hand in front of me instinctively and it looks slightly darker. I suddenly realize I'm in a dream and I'm lucid.
I ignore the DC and head toward the island in the kitchen. I begin thinking of some dream goals. I think of summon an animal dream guide as well as meditating. I decide to meditate as I haven't done that in a while. I float up to the top of the island in the kitchen and sit down cross-legged for zazen. I begin and my awareness is pretty stable. I see the DC beginning to approach. I continue meditating and my dream body slowly slides to the edge of the island. Once I reach the edge, my dream body slowly glides to the floor and I stand. I decide to try to summon my animal dream guide. I imagine that when I turn it'll be on my shoulder or behind me. I turn my head but nothing is there, so I decide to move on to exploring. But first I decide to grab something to eat from the kitchen area. I look at the cabinets above the fridge, open the right one and see a box of Honey-Nut Cheerios. I grab a handful and begin chewing - they taste pretty similar to regular Cheerios but a bit more muted in flavor. I head to the front of the house and begin flying toward the front door. I fly through it and higher into the air outside. I'm continuing to chew and taste the cereal. The dream begins to black and I resolve to maintain awareness through it. I maintain awareness, but it continues for a bit so I begin visualizing to begin the next dream scene. I begin with turning my visual field yellow - nothing happens. I begin to try more visuals, but I slowly come back to my waking body.

I'm lucid in what appears to be the hallway of a hotel. I get moving right away and phase through a wall to my left. My vision goes black temporarily as my head moves through the wall and I think about how this would be a full ten points in competition. I emerge on the other side in what appears to be a typical hotel room on an upper level. There are white bed sheets and pillows on the bed against the right wall. I don't want to waste any time and think about some dream goals. I decide not to go with the sanctuary idea. Meditating comes into my mind, but I decide not to do that either. I then remember that I wanted to try summon and decide on trying to summon a small dragon companion. I make my way to the end of the room and onto the balcony. I imagine that a small dragon will be perched on my right shoulder when I raise my hand and turn my head. I turn my head and see very faint wisps of a dragon figure. I decide I want something more solid, so imagine that when I turn back toward the main balcony there will be a solid small dragon. I look toward this area - which extends further past the balcony via tan concrete terraces - and see a small figure which resembles a tiny red dragon without wings. It looks almost like a very small red dog. I want it to be a bit more vivid and the dream complies, making it a bit clearer. I float closer and say that it still looks a little strange. I continue to fly forward just ignoring the figure for now. I continue past the tan concrete terraces and into an area on the edge of the building complex which overlooks a descent of about eight stories. I see two black cars making their way from the left into an intersection and hear their engines revving. I jump and begin to dive through the air toward them. The dream becomes unstable and I wake up.

Dream starts out, I think I am riding my bike through my old hometown somewhere. I think a scene may have taken place at my father’s parent’s house.

I go to visit an apartment and the dream shifts to a fully otd scene. I am sitting at a counter made of bamboo or some kind of wood and it is shaped to look like a surfboard. There is a small glass jar with bamboo growing in it. I have come to discuss lucid dreaming with him and I am waiting for him to get us drinks.

I say to myself “Okay, I am not stupid, I know enough to properly get lucid here.” And while I was properly lucid this go around, I was still not the most clear minded or focused throughout the dream.

I then notice that the apartment is empty. I walk through a sort of living room area with high ceiling and a big light gray curved couch. I tell myself that when I go through, Manei will be on the other side.

I am now in a different apartment or condo, though it feels like a similar location. I come through to new apartment. This one seems to have plants everywhere and be on the beach, though the design of it is still very fuzzy. There is a tall DF who due to the general instability of the dream seems to be rapidly cycling through different appearances. I kid you not while I looked at them and heard slot machine sounds while they morphed rapidly through different appearances like someone who kept pressing ‘randomize’ on a video game character creator. Their height is the only consistent feature.

“Are you Manei? You’re tall enough to be her.”

The dream figure settles on a form that looks sort of like her base form. Though it appears to be middle aged and appears somewhat pallad and sickly. Regardless I sense that it is her and we embrace and kiss then walk over to the window. The scene outside seems unstable. Directly outside I see a road runs paralell to the ocean and perpendicular along the side of the apartment building. I see the road is below sea level and the sea/ocean is spilling over a small waterfall on the coast, about the meter and flowing down the road. I see a large cumulus cloud (or volcanic ash plume) and small debris raining down from it.

“I see small debris raining down and we’re below sea level. What do you see?”

Manei is now a large bipedial/humanoid grayish tabby cat. She is silent.

We then arrive outside in a canoe, riding down the water which spills over from the sea and runs down the street. I see a police SUV get in the street and turn down, driving through the water my canoe is floating in. The water is maybe 10-15cm deep, barely deep enough for my canoe to float but also shallow enough for the police car to drive in. Cat-Manei is in the canoe but vanishes after I look away from her too many times. I am worried the dream police will stop me but they just go around me.

I am thinking about how I am somewhat lucid but not really. I remember something from robert waggoner's book about how a dream should in theory like to interact with a lucid consciousness over a non lucid one.

I get out of the canoe, wade through the water and go back into the apartment complex. I pick a random apartment and say to myself that “This is Mr. Monkey and Juliana’s apartment. I will meet them in there.”

I go inside. A small white robot with a square head leads me to another apartment door and I am back in the room with the gray couch and the odd high ceiling. I see two dream figures and intuitively know they are Monkey and Juliana. I also see that the high ceiling apartment/condominium has a staircase and a balcony that overlooks the main living space with a sort of firemans pole. I climb the stairs and slide down the firemans pole while I am having diaolouge. As I do, I call out for Manei again.

“Manei, can you please come in here to meet Mr. Monkey and Juliana.” I say. I am trying to arrange a dream scene with all four of us present even though I don’t really have an end goal in mind.

“In a minute I’m taking a picture!” I hear her voice very clearly project from another room. I intuitvely know its a bathroom and that she is getting ready.

Intuitively I know this is her saying “I’m trying to get my form right this time.”

“Hurry up, stop posting to dreamstangram!”

Which has the double meaning of “I don’t care if its not perfect, just come.”

I then pause and for some reason think of ‘dream’ the Minecraft youtuber, and say to myself. “Whoops that had a double meaning, sorry.”

I look at Monkey and Juliana sitting on the big gray couch together. Monkey seems fuzzy but he looks to be wearing a blue bathrobe and white breifs and nothing else. He has large mutton chops and a monkey tail and is sitting on the couch eating chips or cheez-its or something out of a plastic bowl and drinking a beer. Juliana is wearing a tank top that says on her chest “witch bitch” and has short black hair in a sort of pixie cut, and panties. When I look at her she chugs an entire bottle of beer distressingly fast, belches, and then laughs at something on the TV.

I look at the TV and see some kind of old school cartoon, like tom and jerry or something. The actual TV imagery is fuzzy but I hear “whoops” and “clangs” and other stock old school cartoon sound effects. I then notice a 3x5 cardboard case of beer bottles (mostly empty with bottles scattered around on the floor between them.)

I somehow interpret this as symbolic “this is a shared dream on some level, but they are nonlucid, just passive observers who are mentally inebriated and passively going along with a stupid dream plot. I need to help them get lucid. Then I can do my sparring goal with Monkey but in my dream.” I also make the connection to some of our visualization exercises where they are comfortable with drinking and we are not.

But the dream ends and I wake up instead.

-+-

Some dream where I am in a survival situation with my mom. There is an ice age or snow storm and we are alternating between traveling through towns and cities buried in ice and camping out in various buildings finding food and supplies.

WBTB: +2

DILD: +10

At my house.
There was a small vial of some sort of medicine. Supposedly, it was supposed to help DEILDing and general WILDing.
I drink the entire thing. It tasted.. warm and bitter, slightly cheesy. I don’t know why I’d even drink a supplement
I went into the back yard, but it was snowing.. in the summertime. Since I’ve MILDed on a similar dream before, I got lucid.
I went to the front yard, and I was planning to do something. But I don’t really remember what. I laid down on the ice-cold ground for some reason.
Shortly after, I woke up to my first wbtb of the night.

Usually I don’t have lucids pre-WBTB, but I guess this is one of those cases. Eh, well it’s free points, I’ll take it.

I didn't get the WILD or dream control I was hoping for, but there is a lot of recall here...so that's a plus!

Before WBTB

Sci-Fi Feeding Time
It's dark, night-time at a stable on a farm.
There are horse-like creatures and other monsters in sci-fi fleshy body bags.
Some of the horse-creatures are sitting on their backsides...and have huge upright dongs.
Like straight up into the air, 3ft diameter and 5ft high...
Someone is showing me how they care for the creatures.
They have one mature creature chew up food and spit it out.
Then they collect the mush and feed it to the younger ones.
The whole situation is very strange and I kinda wish I would've forgotten this one.

Fireshots and Frogskins
I'm in a team at Hogwarts and we are in the middle of magic combat with another group.
They are Slytherins or otherwise dark magic users.
It isn't a friendly duel, they are trying to hurt us.
I shoot some fire attacks at one of them and set their robes on fire.
I remark that the spell was meant for aesthetic uses, but very useful here.
I shoot off some stupefies and experlliarmises, and notice that I have multiples wands and they break as I'm shooting.
They sort of snap like twigs.
It feels similar to how durability works in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Later I'm in a downstairs living space or maybe a lab.
Mr. Weasley is there. He has a big frog creature. About 1ft tall.
I'm wanting the frog's shed-skin shell from him.
There is also information I'm needing. There was another person I was planning to bribe with the skin-shell.
But I realize that Mr. Weasley has the same info.
The room looks like my childhood kitchen now, with Mr. Weasley standing near the sink.
I ask him for the info, and indicate my understanding that I don't need to bribe him.
He pauses, gives me a look, sarcastically pauses...maybe a bribe IS needed...
But then gives me the info.

Cave Battle
JM from work and I are planning a dangerous trip to get treasure.
Later we arrive at the site.
I'm in an underground cave with a large rock blocking the entrance above.
Similar to a bombable wall from Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
There is a horde of orcs/goblin creatures above the wall chasing me. JM is above as well.
I'm searching the cave for the treasure. The monsters are getting closer to opening the rock.
I start to look for a weapon instead. I find a bow, but the arrows with it are dull.
They break through. I try to hide.
3 goblins make their way to the back cave chamber where I am at.
They chase me around the room and shoot arrows at me, I try to grab fallen arrows to fight back desperately.
J!!! HELP!!! I scream.
He shows up and helps me fight.

After WBTB
I head back to bed and focus on the forest I want to WILD into. I wait a long time, and multiple alarms go off interrupting my attempt. I eventually slip off to sleep without a WILD.

False Awakenings
I'm in my bedroom, thinking that I've wasted my time for the last day of comp.
Crap. I do a half-hearted nose reality-check just to be sure...
And I'm dreaming! But it fades quickly into another false awakening.
This happens a few times, but I never get real control of the dreams.
Only counting it as one dream because it all was sort of a blur.

Hey, You, You're Finally Awake
I have metal chains binding my arms together and I'm riding a cart through some valley.
I'm a prisoner, similar to the opening of Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.
My right eye is bound shut somehow and I can't find a way to move my body to free it.
I think about how maybe I'm sleeping with my eye covered...
I must be dreaming!
Despite being lucid, I can't do anything to free my eye.
When I woke up, I confirm that my right eye was, in fact, lodged into my pillow. Go figure.

Carpet Shower
I'm at my Grandma P's old house (the one with the big upstairs area and Jack/Jill bathroom).
My dad owns it now. He's talking to his friend about how great blowjobs are. I mean, I can't argue with the man.
There is a stuffed animal on a chair alone in one of the rooms. I don't see the significance of it, if any.
I'm searching for a shower and I find one in the middle of one of the big bedrooms over the carpeting.
It doesn't strike me as strange that a faucet is right in the middle of the bedroom wall.
I start to shower up, but my Dad interrupts me and I have to leave the room.

Unexpected Assist
I'm in an apartment similar to H and A's from a few years back.
We're down some stairs. H is giving me a strange look and I feel like she is into me.
Her and my girlfriend S are aware of my WBTB and WILD attempts, and are trying to help.
They set up a bed for me with a stuffed animal to help me sleep.

Panther Dinner Time
I'm in a fancy restaurant sitting outside. It reminds me of where we sat and got ice cream in Disneyland/California Adventure.
There is a large panther approaching the seating area.
It's aggressive and the crowd freaks out.
Then a man appears from out of the crowd and seems to know the panther.
He commands it, and manages to get it to jump onto a nearby brick wall and hang there.
The situation is resolved.

Conditions
Medium workout
Light dinner
Bed on time
6hr/30m WBTB
Yuschak Primary Trigger (8Mg Galantamine, 250Mg Choline Bitartrate)

Notes
So I still didn't get the result I was hoping for. There were some alarms my girlfriend had go off during the attempt, but I'm not sure I can 100% blame those for the failure. I think that given the challenge of falling asleep once again, 30m might be too long of a wake period. Intent was 20m, but by the time I had taken the supplements, recorded my dreams, used the bathroom, and reviewed my goals 30m had passed. I'm undecided if I want to test 6hr/30m WBTB one more time, or move on and try 6hr/20m in earnest.