lucid

What I did was direct self-suggestions for a while upon a late natural awakening - "I will ... when I ..." with using a bit of future tense, but varied and on the spot, not in the form of mantras. And I dreamed of what I had expected to dream, it's so practical that this house and garden of my youth show up so often, and that I can relatively easily activate accessibility of that fact, that it's not existing any more.
If I don't incubate - I lately dream of it in the shape of: "Ah! I was only misinformed - somehow the buyers didn't rip down the house, and blablabla" - but I do acknowledge in the dream, that the mere existence of it is something unexpected, something to be explained.
I also get it correctly in some dreams, and I was already fearing, that I might lose it as a dream-sign, but no - it's still good old faithful. Seems it really is a pivot motive for me, with a bit of pre-raising of expectancy - I'm able to decipher it. It was funny - I stood there thinking - if I wouldn't know, that it is still there because of *forgot the confabulation* - then now I had a chance to become lucid.
Mooooment!!?
Yep! Gravity isn't working properly - here we go...


From: Lucid Dares:

Soo - finally lucid again, and thanks to the dares!!

:pillowfight:

I started out with trying to get my lightning storm conjured up, but only made it to a medium-intensity rain and twilight, the bolts just didn't want to show up this time. Maybe because I've tried incubating them too extremely with this picture Box77 posted a while ago:



So then - giving up on the big drama, I thought of Percy's dare and I went on my knees and tried to convince myself of a huge watch on a chain being hidden in the shrubbery. What I found instead was a chocolate bunny in pink-golden wrapping and with a little bell around the neck, it looked like these classical Lindt ones, well here in Germany they are famous. But it was alive and hopped away. So I followed, crawling through wet bushes, but couldn't find it and then - my classical problem - it felt as if I needed to go to the loo soo urgently. And while the last two times I've been just lucidly going for it and good was - this time fear for the bedding took over and I woke myself up.
And like usual - it really wasn't needed - I've been talking with my husband and making coffee and starting the computer etc. before I eventually went. Sorry for these details - but I've been reading about other people with similar problems, and so I thought, I wouldn't hold back on that.

Buut - it's been a really long time - and I'm very, very happy about it!!
Thanks everybody for this lovely thread - esp. Dreamer of course and Maxis, Percy and Xanous for giving me something to be motivated for!



Such a one.

I am on vacation with my family I cannot recall many of the details but we are riding on a school bus that has been re-purposed as a tour bus. I am sitting in a seat with my mom acting very childlike. I am complaining that I am very tired and never get a chance to relax. In the dream I feel very tired, and this is the reason for my behavior.
Anyways after some time, I recall sitting up and watching the bus driver and the scenery from the front windshield. We are driving through very mountainous country. It is a beautiful clear day and there are huge pine trees and beautiful mountains. We come to a long curving descent that looks very dangerous to drive down, and the bus driver takes it at full speed.
I think at this moment, I may have noticed an empty bottle of whiskey on the dashboard.
This road is a recipe for disaster; it descends the mountain at a roughly thirty degree angle, while gradually curving. If you fail to turn sharp enough, you go off a cliff! There is no guard rail or anything.
And sure enough the bus is starting to go over the edge. I start to become lucid at this point, and try to phase the bus away. It seems to be working. Just as the bus loses traction, I phase it out of the dream and use the momentum to begin flying. I think to myself that I should probably land and stabilize. But before I get a chance to do so the dream ends.

I am floating in a black void for a few moments where something strips me of my lucidity. A new dream begins.

I am driving with my dad in his old van. It is late at night, and snowing. For some reason, the pedals are on the left hand side, but the steering wheel is on my side. Also, we are driving down the express way.
He tells me to turn down a road (the name of which I cannot remember.) But I make the wrong turn. I tell him I cannot read the signs. We make a series of wrong turns very rapidly until we find ourselves on a service road. The road comes to a cliff, a drop off, not unlike the one that the bus rode off of in the previous dream.
I tell my dad to hit the brake, but he is unresponsive. Our van doesn't have a console and I am able to slam on the brake with my left leg. We come to a stop about four feet before the cliff, but even with the brake to the floor it still seems to be in idle speed. For some reason I thought it had something to do with the fact that the van was a manual transmission car.
Anyways, I couldn't stop it, so I jump back into my seat, put my seat belt on, grab hold of the wheel and try to steer the car down. As we tip over the hill, I see that we are driving over into ski slope. I became vaguely lucid, because ski slopes are one of my dream signs.
The car begins barreling down the slope. It's a bumpy ride, and I am doing my best to steer us around obstacles. Then came probably the funniest thing I have ever said in a dream.
"Dad, since we're probably going to die in this, I want you to know..."
No response.
"I think you're crazy!"
Yes, I actually said that.
My POV got taken out of the car and I watched it crash into one of the chairlift poles. I can feel someone else there with me.

I am in the void a second time. Lucid this time. I can feel that someone else is there too. I also feel like I might wake up. I get stripped of my lucidity once more.

I am in my own front yard. For some reason there is a swing hanging from one of the trees and I am swinging. I see five kids from my neighborhood. The youngest being about 10, the oldest, about my age. They come into our yard and open the garage.
They get out a number dangerous of power and hand tools and begin various forms of destruction and dangerous play. I became mildly lucid here, thinking that for some reason I 'just don't care' because there won't be any long-term repercussions. One of them finds an extra ceiling fan in the garage (for some reason.) He runs a wire out and turns it on below me while I am swinging. I stop and get off as to not be chopped apart by the blades.
I then yell at everyone to get their attention. They all stop, and I tell them that they must clean up this mess and put everything back in the garage. They all listen. They start cleaning up. It doesn't take long, and I help direct them and put things into the right place.
Just as we are finishing, the oldest boy goes into the house to go pee, and I hear a drilling sound.
I yell to him to stop playing with the drill and put it back into the garage. He then comes out into the garage. Two other boys grab me from behind and the boy with the drill comes forward and points the drill at my chest. For some reason the drill has four drill bits on slight angles toward the center.
I get struck with fear, seeing the intent in the boy's eyes. But he sure takes his sweet time to do it. He seems to be savoring the moment. Then, something snapped.
"I'm lucid dreaming!" I yelled.
I broke the grip of the boys behind me and my hands swung around. I crushed the drill between the palms of my hands just before it could touch my chest. A sonic wave went out.
Then, all of the boys vanished. The broken bits of the drill were still there and they dropped out of my hand. I turned around, looking out the open garage door. The dream became clearer.
Manei is sitting at the end of my driveway at a card table. She gestures for me to come over, and shows me a sheet that she was marking up.

Spoiler for Dream testing sheet:

ao97ihe tp4oa inpo4ilq3kuy5 98 apoi56htp oiqh3poit aopihtp64oiq 3poi5u

k adhfp oiahe

[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][/]

[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][/][/]

aoitha topioiaj3 i5poiq3jf qpo qpi5nqi3

Then I 'remembered' the whole thing was just a lucid dreaming test of some kind. From the looks of it, usually this test is a lot longer, but Manei said we were done now.
She looks at me with that characteristic smile.
"Two out of three ain't bad..." She says.
She also shows me an old testing shees where I went 6 lds and 8 nlds. I don't remember that test...
I wake up.

Upon waking I realize that she used orange and blue marks because those are the colors for I use in my DJ.

*Sorry if i wrote the dreams in a weird way. It was just so random.

Third Dream
I waited till I fell asleep to have my third dream and appeared in a ocean. I felt like i was drowning so i tried to fly up but couldn't. I kept swimming up and trying and eventually ran into a shark. I was seeing from a upper point of view angle and decided to just run and sink the water with my mind. Eventually the water disappeared and I arrived at a desert island. I kept walking and eventually found myself in a secret hideout spot where kids were jumping around. I tried to get the attention of a few DCs there than left. As I was walking I noticed i was on a ship. Maybe like a star wars aircraft or something. The door was open and there were boxes around. I didn't know if i should get out or leave but eventually i found it hard to move cause of the boxes. After a while though my family and Dcs appeared. My dad gave me a orange popcorn bag and i noticed it was open. I wanted to exchange it but just ate a few and appeared in my house.
In my house I thought about a Dream guide/ favorite DC I wanted to see and used the letters on the phone to mark his name. I put it than waited for someone to answer. Eventually a British sounding man answered the phone and asked who was calling. I was going to say its me when i noticed i couldn't speak. I tried speaking again and heard a British woman and man talking. She was telling the man something about a flower than it got quiet. I gave up on that phone and tried using another phone but the phones wouldn't come to me and i appeared in a city. It looked like there were people from the olden days walking around, mixed with modern things. My younger brother was there and i noticed there was a door opening and closing next to him. I grabbed him and started walking and started calling out Dawn's name. But no one answered me in the crowd. That's when my brother grabbed me and was taking me somewhere but got distracted by a hat. I was like noooooo than woke up.

---

Fourth Dream

I was at my house with my cousins,arguing over a pizza and eventually me and my cousin got so mad we tried squishing each others hands to see who was stronger. It was weird but after that I left and appeared in a place where a girl needed my help but i think it was a trap. I tried to escape by using a rope on a super high wall and threw it up like a attack on titan character. Than I started running up while i used the rope to deflect a bomb thrown down at me. The Dcs were amazed and tried showing me to others they knew in a house. I saw a weird Dc there though hiding under a cloth and it looked like he was stranded on a island for days. After that I appeared in a room where people could choose what level monster they wanted to battle. Someone suggested for me to try a level 80 monster who was highly difficult. but I didn't feel like battling a monster that high level even though i knew it was a dream.I ran into some weird Dc's after that. A old man tried flirting with me and a girl dc bit my butt cause she thought it tasted like lemon heads candy. O.o There were a few Dcs there trying to do a family competition too.
After all the craziness i had a False awakening where i appeared outside a building and thought there was a fire inside. I wanted to go in so i went inside with a girl. I noticed there were gangs of kids in and out the building and thought it might be the cops and not the fire fighters. Than a strange girl tried persuading me to go with her but other girl dc's pushed her away cause she was just trying to trap me. We kept running until we ended up in a snowy ski place where kids and adults were throwing stones at us but we just kept running. Suddenly the scenery changed and I was looking for warm slippers in the cold. I heard kids around looking for something warm with their parents too. But the fuzzy animal slippers were all wet and made my painful icy feet worse. Than i woke up.

Well this is what happened, none were "attempts" per se:

Intro:
----------------------
I had 3 LDs last night, assisted by galantamine and Alpha-GPC.

At 4am I took the supplements, along with a banana and a piece of rye bread for "dreaming fuel" (and to help get the 300mg alpha-gpc capsules down, those things are horse pills!)

I spent the next 4 hours or so in a brain-busting battle to fall back asleep.

The HI (only blobby shapes and colors) were bursting in front of my eyes like fireworks most the entire time -- if only I could get to sleep I knew those would be awesome dreams.

My only goal was to get to sleep unconsciously and DILD.

After about 4 hours (having been in bed for 8 hours) awake, both my hips were getting sore and distracting me (I'm a side sleeper), so I decided to try my back (I don't think I've fallen asleep on my back in years, but I was desperate not to have a wasted supplement night)

At one point I think I had a near-WILD. I thought I saw before me a small portion of a concrete floor (I interpreted this to be the floor of a garage), it became a bit clearer, but stayed as within a black frame, which did not extend to fill my vision. I thought about rubbing my hands but it didn't seem that I had any dream hands yet, this vision of the concrete patch of floor stayed about 10 seconds and then faded away. I tried to relax and let it form but it just didn't turn into a dream.

Later I found myself seated in a room and "felt" the dream feeling, I guess that was a start-of-dream DILD, I later flew through a stunningly beautiful dream landscape.

I "woke up from" (transitioned out of) that DILD and was lying in bed on my back in darkness. I was thinking lightly of the awesome scene that ended that DILD, then all of a sudden:

It felt like the foot of my bed was suddenly heaved 5 feet in the air, leaving the bed at a 45 or 60 degree angle with my head pointing down, and that I quickly shot out of my bed head-first on to a steep wide slide: head first (pointing down), on my back, going fast down this slide with no visuals. I was fully conscious and thought this was great fun and wondered when the dream was going to begin.

After maybe 10-15 seconds of this I wondered if this was the dream, or merely a transition and I had to work to make a dream begin. I thought about turning over to my stomach, then I imagined I was in a dark room at the end of the slide, and cut my way out, and began the dream (I lost lucidity or forgot the lucidity, and was non-lucid at the finish of that dream).

I found myself awake back in bed again on my back, and again in just a few seconds I experienced the SAME transition all over again: foot of bed raised up, I flew out headfirst on my back down the dark tunnel. I do not recall if I simply fell out of the tunnel into the dream or if I willed it, but I found myself in a courtyard and continued lucidly for a minute or so before waking and worked on recalling all 3 LDs and the non-lucid parts.

As best as I can figure the two tunnel experiences were both DEILDs. I have never experienced anything like that and greatly look forward to it happening again as it was a real hoot.

I'm wondering if the tunnel experience was a dream or just a transition (or "noise?"). It's conceivable they were FAs instead of DEILDs and it was all a single long dreaming sequence into and out of lucidity, but looking back it seems most like DEILDs.

edit: I remembered: during one of the trips down the slide I very carefully lifted my dream hand to my dream nose and did a nose pinch, both arm and nose felt fairly insubstantial, not solid like in "full dream" -- proof that the tunnel wasn't just "noise?"

Interested in any thoughts/comments about these experiences.

And I'm wondering if it's possible to experience all this craziness without galantamine+choline. Maybe it just takes being awake for 4 hours starting in the middle of the night?

-----------------
Dreams:

09:07

+ I appear in a room sitting at a desk in a chair, I suspect I'm dreaming, check the "dream feeling" for a few seconds, and decide yes, I'm dreaming. I rub my hands and look at them before standing up. I stand up and turn to the left, I feel sort of propelled forwards but I remember: slow down, engage, Sensei! I look around the room and notice a large, bright yellow stuffed pooh bear on the be to my left. I do not look as deeply as I want to my mind is not settling down. I remember Sensei, I go to the door ahead to my right and and look around the corner expecting to see him, nothing except some purple splotches briefly appear before my eyes. I call out "Cmon Sensei, buddy, let's get going!" Should I behind-the-back summon him? I decide to move on down the hallway which is out the door. I reach the next room to my right and enter it, the way is blocked by an office desk it looks like a very cluttered room, I turn to the right, walk around the desk and face the window and look out: I'm astounded at the bright vivid beauty out there: twig trees (no leaves) of brownish color, in a landscape extending into the distance. I decide to fly out and see it better. I fly out through the glass window effortlessly and am outside and I'm blown away: more real than waking, vivid, clear, beautiful landscape, maybe a city in the distance? I fly slowly through it for a few seconds before I "wake up".

+ I'm lying on my back in bed in the dark thinking about the beautiful scene I just lucidly visited, when suddenly the foot of my bed heaves up into the air and my bed is at a very sharp angle with my head pointing down, I eject/shoot out of bed onto some huge slide, I'm head-first on my back shooting down this slide and know this is a dream or a transition into one. It is a TRIP I'm whooping mentally (at least), HELL YEAH this is awesome. After about 10 seconds I wonder where the dream is, do I have to create it myself? I imagine myself in a dark box at the end of the slide and I should cut myself a hole with a light saber. I see a weak translucent thin beam waving around in front of me, I think about cutting a hole on my left side an enter into the dream and lose lucidity (or forget this part if I remained lucid). There are 4 main moments that I recall of this dream, it was fairly long with a number of diferent moments, I'm probably forgetting a lot:

I'm in an outdoor courtyard there's a large table there I see an old TV there I push/pull the on/off knob a few times.

I'm among a thick crowd of young people, mostly young women, we're standing at a door, it's a talent show, we can't go through the door because the show hasn't started, someone says there should be more guys here. I just want to get back to my table but I can't because people are blocking the door and I don't want to go through it prematurely. I'm getting anxious about getting through, I eventually decide to grab the door knob and go through the door, saying I just need to get back to my table. (Some announcer is announcing the show?)

I'm walking/flying through obscure outdoor structures, I hear a female contestant start to sing, her voice is TERRIBLE she can't carry a tune, she's singing for 20 seconds or more.
I see in the distance my wife scooting off to return to the table? I want to join her.

I'm approaching a large outdoor field flying up in the air, there are a bunch of people on t he field, I think "Ronald Reagan was insane."

+ I'm on my back in bed in the dark, and before I can think of much of anything, I experience the raised-bed-slide ejection AGAIN exactly as I did before. This is freaking awesome! 3rd lucid! This time the slide ride is short, and I'm deposited into an open area inside a building made of reddish brown bricks everywhere. (semi-lucid) I feel compelled to offer my services, so I say "I can do security work, or entertainment work." I see a man standing in front of a medieval-looking curved-pointy-top door
and I'm lucid again and I ask him, "Show me the door leading to the beautiful naked teen girl!" He just stands there looking at me. Another man appears, and I ask him "Show me the door with the beautiful naked teen girl, NO, GROUP of teen girls!" He asks me, "what age range do you want, 20-18?" I say yes that will do, I'm anticipating it and getting very excited and I wake up with an elevated heart rate.

+

Spoiler for NSFW, 18+:

I'm lying on my back thinking about the dreams, and my dream tongue seems active, oh! It seems I'm performing blind oral on a girl it feels like. I feel like I'm holding a leg in each hand, spreading her open. I try to use my tongue a bit more forcefully and it turns into my waking tongue licking the blankets.

I realize I don't remember much about the 2nd LD, and decide it was mostly non-lucid after exiting the slide/tunnel. I know I had 3 LDs and the first is not immediately on my mind I'm getting nervous that I forgot it but then it comes back to me, whew! I decide the 2 bed-ejection LDs were DEILDs (later decided they were FAs after some feedback from Sageous).

Trying to get back to sleep. Awake an hour? At some point it's 10:00?

10:00
+ I'm in a hardware store looking at a small device hung on a hook on the wall. It's a small batter-operated device and I want to place a battery I'm holding into it and watch it work. A store clerk walk up behind me and says something like "if you touch it you buy it" I wait for him to leave and continue my examination. I'm looking deeply into this device it is a battery of some sort, there is inside of it an odometer-like counter on value "75" or so. I reach for the reset button and the counter goes to zero, I flip a little activation switch and it starts working, I see the numbers on the meter start to increase again. I turn it over and there's a little toy train that starts moving forwards and backwards.

I look up and I see a young boy watching me pointing something at me (a camera? Looks like a pen?), I turn away from him because I didn't want to be observed, and realize I know him and look back at him, then a middle-aged woman is there and I recognize her she is his mother, she looks older, we start talking about something, I know her from the homeschooling park event. I say I didn't recognize them at first.

12:30 final waking, I had more dreams! Unaware and non-lucid though

+ I hear a group inside ribbing some girl, they say "You don't live in <my city>, you live in BORING-VILLE!" I arrive at a room they were waiting for me the tell that to a girl. I had been in the room earlier, I was outside picking something up (whiskey?) There was more here, forgot it.

+ young disadvantaged black boys were given hot dogs which they decorated with toothpicks and played pretend-airplane-dogfights with these toothpick-hotdog-airplanes. The man who gave them the hot dogs showed them a video about fighter plane dogfighting, he used to be a pilot. The boys were supposed to line up, raise their right hand ,and the man rhythmically placed the hot dogs into their hands (in buns) and shoot the hot dog forwards. I see several of the "planes" they're bristling with toothpicks. Two boys are playing fighter pilot, one says "turn right 3 degrees!" and makes "boy noise" machine gun sounds, I see a toothpick sticking forwards like a forwards gun.

The man went into the house and came out with a curious twirly pencil device. It was a pencil with with two broken match sticks placed half-way up broken 90-degrees and placed so that they were little rocket motors propelling the pencil around and around in a fast circle balanced on its eraser on the ground like a top. I thought this was awesome.

Then I'm standing at the back of a car with a few other guys and we're looking with great interest at the registration sticker on the back license plate in the upper-left-hand corner of the plate. We're looking at the numbers, and there's a transparent stick plastic film over the sticker and we (I?) peel this off and put it back on. I suspect this sticker is illegal. We're talking about the numbers. It's something like "243" with a small subscript 3 at the end.

I'm under the back of this car on the ground trying to reach for something. I feel a spot of wetness on my shorts on my leg like in a pool of water. I think of some explanation (my girlfriend dropped something and i was looking for it) to give in case the owner of the car comes back and finds me in this position.

12:02 AM: I am back in high school, in a hallway. I am walking to class but need to pee really bad. I see a toilet in the hallway and begin using it. Some guys have their backs to the toilet so I use them as cover. They turn around, see me peeing, and start laughing at me. I suddenly realize I am dreaming, so I step back and raise my aim a bit to start peeing all over them They are super pissed , and I am laughing. I pinch my nose. I then say:

"Guess what, boys--I'm dreaming." I look at their wet shirts. "Not sure if you guys are, but I sure am." I am really celebratory about the whole thing. One of them looks down at his soaked shirt.

"I took it like a champ," he says.

I congratulate him and head off. In my mind, a goal appears: find Haruhara Haruko (from FLCL):



I set off to find her, but then remember that I did not actually plan to do this (though the goal is awesome and I may do it very soon ). I decide to try anyway. I set off in search of her, or DCs I could turn into her. None of the kids in the hallway look very close, and some of them are young kids. I suddenly remember that I wanted to do Dreamer's suggestion for TotM September (don't think I'm going to wait for that one ). I begin looking for the necessary implements for the task. As I jog down the hallway, the school turns into a mall. I am looking around in stores, but don't see anything helpful.

I then see my wife seated at one of those make-up kiosks. I run over to her. This almost turns into sexy time, but I manage to keep it together. I notice that the dream seems unstable. I rub my hands together. My wife then asks if I want pictures or something else. Sweet, I think--pictures! I could use those. She pulls out some cool-looking cards of some DBZ-style fighter. The cards are about the size of a Tarot card. I use some stretching dream control to enlarge and expand the picture. Unfortunately, I get so caught up in how neat the card looks that I forget about the task. Meanwhile, my wife is talking to me about the history of this particular card--how it has gone through several different printings due to popularity. The dream now destabilizes a final time and I wake up.

Woke up from a dream around 1:47, DJed, performed "gentle MILD" and returned to sleep.

3:47 AM: Don't remember becoming lucid. I am aware I am dreaming, but am dead set on not waking up, as I know I need to get up soon for work and don't want to risk an accidental (and failed) WBTB! I'm trying to think of where to go in this dream, and am running around a house. Every room I enter seems to be full of light, however, and "outside" I can see sunlight streaming through into this otherwise dark house. I turn away from this and retreat back into the house.

Next thing I know, I experience a man raping a girl. I wrestle him down onto the ground, and start to lose lucidity, but remind myself that I am dreaming as we are struggling. Not sure what happens to him. The girl is lying on the bed. She seems very vulnerable, and beautiful. She remarks that I will probably do the same thing to her. I tell her that I will not rape her. She seems not frightened at all now, and stretched out onto the bed. She holds her arms out to me (as to say, "Come here") and invites me to "memorize the guru." Not sure what this means, but I embrace her and the dream ends.

Gentle MILD, and then back to sleep.

4:11 AM: A lengthy NLD ends with a woman being seriously injured somehow. A man is laughing and celebrating over her, and he begins to chant so as to mock her. As she is dying, her mind begins to hallucinate, and she becomes a kitten in school. An older cat is teaching her how to use language. The cats transform into an Asian girl, and an older Asian woman.

I am now back in my body, and my dad is weeping and moaning about this woman's death. Apparently he was the man laughing and carrying on, but only later transformed into my old man . . . dreams I explain to my father that he did not even care about this woman, and did not like her in the slightest.

He wails, and cries, "You could have held me down!"

This is absurd, I think, and realize I am dreaming. I talk to him for a moment more, and then walk past him. An old lady is seated here. I nose pinch, absently, to be certain, and I meet eyes with this old lady.

"Holy shit!" she says. "You've been dreaming this whole time!" She then transforms with a little pop! into a cute, short-haired redhead with glasses. She asks me if I would like her to be my "DG for this session." I say yes. She gets out a laptop and starts typing. I start to initiate sexy time ; she giggles but says no firmly. I respect this. I then ask if she minds building me a "fun encounter." She tells me that is not really her thing, and that she wants me to answer some questions. This is beginning to feel distinctly like DC time-wasting behavior, and I look around, a bit antsy. She turns the laptop around to me. I start to use it, but then back away, as I am thinking using a computer will cause a loss of lucidity. She agrees to do it for me, laughing. I start to touch her again; she laughs, but doesn't rebuff me like before. I smell her hair--it smells very fresh and clean, like she just got out of a shower.

"Hair smells good, doesn't it?" she asks. Yes, I say She explains how her back is hurting from a skiing accident. "Let me rub it for you!" I say, a bit too eager. She doesn't say no, so I do. She starts explaining about her skiing injury. I assure her that she did a good job, and explain that she kept training even after she hurt herself. "I take a week off at the first sign of pain," I say (which happens to be true). Dream ends with me holding her body close, maybe an image of skiing.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #232: Chasing Shadows

I’m alone on a dirt road at night, and I know that this has to be a dream. The dirt road stretches forever in either direction, but that’s fine. I don’t intend to follow it anyway.

I clearly remember my intent to summon Dreamer, and I extend my right hand. “I know you’re already here,” I say. I don’t feel anything just now, but I don’t worry about it.

I look down at the road and see my shadow there below, alone. I look up and speak out loud to Dreamer about where I’m intending for us to go. I still don’t feel her hand but when I look down, there’s the vague shape of a woman’s shadow standing next to mine, her hand seemingly extended to where mine would be.

Good enough, then. I jump into the air and start flying upward toward the stars. After a few moments something feels wrong and I fall into the void.

I keep talking to Dreamer, reminding her and myself of where I’m going to take her in this dream, but I’m still missing that feel of a physical hand. I feel nervous that I’m spending too long in the void without a plan and I’ve forgotten what I’d intended to do in this situation.

I bring my hands back together and start rubbing them. It feels like I’m giving up on the summon, and I feel a little frustrated. The hand keeps me in the dream as I fly through the void. It works for a good while, but I’ve lost touch with my plans for the dream now.

I hold my hands up in front of my face, staring at them until I can make out their shape and a little bit of the detail. I’m lost, and without me driving the action forward, the dream ends.

Early morning naps = long vivid WILDs

The dream started much like my last lucid. I was in my bed, while some of my friends were in my room talking. I was lying down, but I had a hard time moving. I was basically moving like a sloth, as my arms felt like they were 500 lbs a piece. I wouldn't call it SP, as I was lucid in a dream. I slowly reached for the handrail by my top bunk. As soon as I grabbed it, I started floating, and me and the bar were transported to into this fairly dark "void", for lack of better term. I was being pulled up, so I held onto the bar to keep from flying away.

At this point, I'm pretty sure I woke up, but then DEILDed back into another dream. I was on my bed again, and my friends were talking again. I was able to actually get up now, although I was kind of helplessly floating around the room. I finally managed to gain my footing on the ground. I then tried to head for the window to get out, but as soon as I hit the window, I woke up and DEILDed again.

Again, I was in my room, although this time my friends were gone and I started on the floor. I tried for the window again, and this time I actually got through. I found myself in this alley, with a good view of the moon above me. I wanna go up there, I thought to myself. I squated down to prepare for a fast takeoff, and then jumped with all my might. I instead moved about 2 mph towards the sky. I got back down and tried again, but still no luck. I changed my mind and instead flew around the corner of the building, but then I woke up and DEILDed again.

I was now walking down a hallway of my college. Maybe I should start doing something productive now. I remembered one of the TOTMs that I hadn't done yet. I walked up to some random guy. "Hey, do you know any other languages?" "Yeah, I'm fluent in German." "Cool, can you tell me a word?" "No." He walked faster to get away from me and turned into a classroom. I followed him in.

There was another group of guys standing around talking. I walk up and ask if any of them know any other languages. They all in turn reply no. Why do my DCs have to be so American? Then, a girl walked over to me. "Do you know any foreign words?" "Oh yeah, I know lots of them." "Cool, can you give me an example of one?" "Well have you ever heard of 'juh-kan-uh'?" "How do you spell that?" "Jicanon." "There's a silent n on the end?" "Sure, why not?" "Okay then, what does it mean?" As she walked away, she turned back and shouted "It means armed with a laser." A laser, huh? Sounds like a pointless word to me. Little did I know just how applicable that word would be.

I DEILDed one more time. I was now in the large auditorium we have at our campus. The entire student body was there, and we each has this small black sensor on our chest with a tiny LCD screen on the top. Our provost got up on stage and announced the start of the annual Laser Games. "You each have five lives. Last person standing wins. You have 10 minutes until the starting horn. Go!"

There was a mad dash from the auditorium. I had no idea what was happening, so I followed the crowd. Outside there were boxes of laser guns of all different sizes. I grabbed both a pistol and a rifle, strapped them to my back, and took off. I met up with some of my friends at the hill by the auditorium. We quickly tried to build a fort or some kind, but before we could finish, a loud horn echoed from the speakers around the campus. The games had begun.

I turned around in time to see another group ambushing us from behind. I grabbed my pistol and fired at the guy who was rushing at me. I felt my sensor vibrate a little, marking that my lives were being depleted. After some time, the attacker's sensor let out a loud beep, and an electric shock brought him to the ground. I stopped to catch my breath and looked down at the screen on my sensor. "1 Kill. 2 Lives." Hmmm, let's try that again. I rewinded the scene, and turned around to see the ambush again. This time my aim was much better, and I brought my attacker down in seconds. I looked at my screen again. "1 Kill. 5 Lives." Much better.

I pulled out my rifle and went after the guys attacking my team. I easily took down most of them. Their last member pulled out a sword and came after me. Yes, a freaking sword. He took a big swing, but luckily I managed to dodge it. I quickly pulled out my pistol and took him down before he could swing again. He fell with a thud, dropping his sword at his side. "Hey, can I borrow this?" "Sure, it's all yours." You never know when a giant freaking sword might come in handy. I next heard another beeping sound, but this time it was my alarm, and I woke up.

NLD fragment, early: There was a band of Thai Buddhist monks in Bangkok called "Sacred Light." Contrary to what you'd expect, their music was surprisingly harsh and experimental. A musician from another band commented about one of the group, "His music has an edge of irrancidity." I woke up and for a few minutes I remained fully convinced that "irrancidity" was as much of a real word as "rancidity" (sort of like how you can legitimately say either "regardless" or "irregardless").

NLD: (I'll gloss over this since it was tedious and contains a lot of RL details. It was a basic anxiety dream: I was performing a task at my workplace and I was ill-prepared, everything was going wrong, and a senior colleague was observing the whole fiasco.)

Proto-lucid: After the anxiety dream I half-woke and was reminded of my speculations lately about the degree to which increased stress in waking life might actually be a condition actually favorable to lucidity. I slipped from these musings into a proto-lucid event—I don't want to call it a "lucid dream" per se because it felt too superficial and unformed. It started when I transitioned from my half-awake thoughts into walking past the house where I grew up. The back door was wide open, including the screen door, and this bothered me. Was the house abandoned? Or were the people who lived there now just careless? It was not a good idea to leave the door open like that because the nearby wetlands meant that the summer air was always thick with mosquitos and biting flies.

I stepped up to the threshold and called out, "Hello? Hello?" There was no response. The interior was decorated differently than I remembered, which I attributed to the fact that other people lived there now. I was reminded of the last episode of "The Leftovers" I watched Sunday night and figured that with the door wide open like that, even a large animal like a deer could wander inside. I decided not to go in—it didn't feel like "my" home anymore and I would be intruding on someone else's space, even if they weren't present. However, the wide open door still annoyed me, so I closed the inner screen door. Then I mostly closed the outer door as well. If the inhabitants came by and found their door unexpectedly closed it might startle them, but they should know better than to leave it open in the first place.

I continued walking around the side of the house and headed down toward the chicken house and barn. I was impatient to cover the distance so I started running, and I was reminded how good running felt when I was living here in my teens. Sometimes I would just run across the grass with sheer exhilaration and excess of energy. It's been a long time since I've felt like that—especially when running! When I got to the space between the two buildings I peeked into the chicken house, but it was empty so I went into the barn instead. I had noticed some people in the pasture so I crept quietly through the barn to the lower area where it connected with the pasture and peeked around the wall. Yes, there were definitely a couple people in the pasture, about a hundred yards away. I was pleased that the dream was finally starting to take some initiative and manifest something other than the basic environment. However, I didn't want those people to see me, since I still felt like an intruder now that they owned the place, so I remained hidden.

I went back inside the lower level of the barn and headed for the stairs that led upstairs. Meanwhile I reflected on how muddy and vague the environment still was, despite the fact that the dream had been otherwise stable so far. My senses were crap. I had experienced this in plenty of WILDs—which in hindsight this might have almost been, though since it had started in a non-standard location (my WILDS typically involve me "getting up" out of bed) I simply might not have recognized it as such. But at that time I still didn't want to give it credit for being a real dream at all, because I felt that it didn't quite measure up. Maybe I'm getting too critical; on reflection it looks more like a real dream than it felt at the time. But that's probably just a trick of print: the dreamstate was not really rising to the occasion, and I felt too much like I was "working the controls," as it were.

Anyway, I was contemplating the muddy, vague environment, which I felt was being shaped almost more through my conscious memory of the place than through the independent activity of the dream. Last night I had been reading a thread on DV about ADA, which included claims that greater awareness in waking life can also sharpen one's dream senses, and I couldn't help but acknowledge that my ordinary level of perceptiveness in waking life is probably much lower than most people's—because in effect I've spent most of my life practicing how to filter things out, not let them in. That said, my dream senses are usually reasonably sharp (with the exception of taste and smell) and my recall can be quite good, but I thought that perhaps the muddiness of the environment this time had been conditioned by that chain of thought.

I headed up the stairs to the upper level of the barn. I wandered around a bit more but don't recall encountering or thinking anything else of note before I woke up.

On waking, I realized that the circumstances were now all in order for a proper WILD attempt, but although I went through the ritual in a way that felt like it should have been successful, in the end I just fell into a period of regular sleep without even an NLD to show for it. This has actually happened several times over the last couple weeks, which is irritating given my satisfying successes earlier this month.

Any plans to swear off dream sex went out the door for now with this DILD!!! I decided to use a little softer language than my last entry.

1045pm 425am Going to a concert to check out an acquaintance.

Virtual reality headset. Normal hi def for now until full version available. ??

#Downtown #office new setup up front, employees have cash all over the counter; I tried to warn them that it's dangerous... too close to the door. There's a U-shaped driveway out front and N from the office says that the driveway is one way and I think well robbers could go out the wrong way but as I look at it closer the exit is right in front of the building and the entrance is the other far part of the U...even worse! False memory.

There's an earlier scene in the main house with several different people, a family I think. And I'm kind of watching from the outside as one guy goes out into a smaller house and there is a girl playing and at this point it's almost like I'm watching a movie and I'm kind of urging the guy hey don't go near that girl she's weird and she will just start screaming and everybody will think that you actually did something to her. Sure enough she lets off a short little scream more like she is joking around or just doing it because she knows it will evoke a response. The mom comes and she is a MILF. She says something like "oh what are you doing down here" in a little bit of a flirty way and she lays down on the bed and opens up her blouse revealing her bra. This brings me into the scene and I moved towards her and realize that this is a dream! It seems the girl has disappeared from the scene. The MILF and I start tearing each others clothes off and eventually
she makes her way to my

Spoiler for X-rated, softer language:

"ahem" and starts licking it and sucking it

with her head at the edge of the bed and me standing over the bed and it feels so good! I move to intercourse and notice there is a blond woman in the room and I tell her to come join us. I want some of that action I got two nights ago while having intercourse with one woman and another one

Spoiler for X-rated:

licking it as it goes in and out

! She doesn't respond at first just kind of standing over in the corner with her back to us so I command her I specifically saying with authority "I command you to come over here." My focus is mainly on the MILF below me. The MILF is a light brown haired woman with large breasts. The blonde woman has arrived but just kind of flails around on the bed like a dumb DC next to us. So I command her to get up and

Spoiler for X-Rated:

go behind me to lick my shaft and the MILF

as we have intercourse and as she gets up I look at her face and she is quite beautiful. She is not quite Scarlett
Johansson but not dissimilar at all and very very pretty! I say damn you are beautiful! As I pull my focus over to her it seems as if the MILF has disappeared and I switch my focus to a third cute young woman on the bed across the room to my left and I make my way over there. She looks a little shy but willing. She gets smaller and thinner as I approach her and I mentally think stop, no more shrinking! I

Spoiler for R to X-Rated:

pull off her underwear, a cotton underwear with polka dots. I get the impression that she is a virgin and it is very tight going in.

It is not really satisfying either mentally or physically. The blonde woman had followed us over there and I lay her down on the bed and move over to her and the intercourse is excellent again! It feels so good that I think that I might actually

Spoiler for X-Rated:

ejaculate

in real life! As I think this I start to worry that I may be humping around in my real bed. 196 That brings me into a false awakening in which I'm half awake sleepily recalling what just happened and my wife nearby but I don't catch it until I actually wake up a few moments later and realize that my wife is downstairs getting ready to leave for the day. 745am I am way more exhilarated waking up from this dream and the exhilaration carries well into the morning!

First Dream
I don't remember

Second dream
Forgot

Third Dream(Lucid)

I was in a dentist or clinic and something happened that I don't remember. Than somehow I ended up in a desert tower place and Katara from avatar was doing a sand bending move on a guy. After that I thought I woke up and was seeing a small pic of a white tiger. I tried moving but I couldn't. Than my face felt like it was getting heavy so I just decided to close my eyes and wait till I woke up. But I ended up dreaming. I was flying above the roads and ocean and could see islands. There was someone invisible flying me somewhere. He was talking to me about something when one of the islands caught my eye. I thought I saw wedding decorations on the island and thought the dream island was familiar. We kept flying to a place where there was a futuristic car and a diagram of a city. He told me in the future cars will have more things added to it. Than we sat in the car and started to talk. I was thinking about how cool it was that the dream lasted this long. My sister and brothers were there too and they were discussing about how in the future there will be tornadoes in the city. After a while of more talking I noticed there was a bar near me that I thought was my life bar. I got anxious cause it got lower and started blinking. But the guy grabbed me and told me to relax cause I was. Anxious. After waiting for a bit I woke up.

I tried last night to induce my lucid dreaming. I was listening to music and letting my body fade into the bed while focusing my mind on staying aware as my body slept. I remember seeing a stair way that was glowing white, it bent through black. There was nothing but this stair way. I then summoned myself to walk up it and I did. I then thought of the solar system and space and it appeared around me. All of a sudden a man in an ice cream truck workers uniform appeared much larger then me and stood in the space beside my stair case. He grabbed the railing and it morphed into a rattle snake tail.i woke up with a gasp and a smile, realizing I was dreaming but had been in control for at least a few seconds. I had just slipped my awareness from my conscious self to my unconscious dream state with out even realizing I had done so. It was AWESOME!!!

This was a DEILD chain with at least three DEILDs, maybe as many as five.

I GET LUCID waking down a street in a city centre scene that feels like some parts of Glasgow. I float into the air as an RC, then try to fly higher because flying more impressively is one of my dream goals.

I notice that a DC has risen into the air with me, a dark haired woman perhaps in her early forties. I float across to her and say "I'd like as conversion with you, if that's OK" then go on to explain that I'm dreaming and that she's not real but I want to find out what she's like. She furrows her brow as I say she's not real as if she's considering whether to be offended. We share another couple of sentences of conversation that I can't remember.

I come down to ground level to think what to do next. I look at a car thinking of going for a joy ride and note that it's a left hand drive like in another recent dream, so I decide I'd rather find a right hand drive car. I floatalong the street looking at a variety of weird cars, mostly looking like concept cars, but including several just plain surreal ones (one has a shaggy coat of wires, another is a small house with wheels...)

I realise I ought to be thinking of the TOTMs, so I go through the mantra "foreign banana, eye castle, tease" (I replaced the bonus TOTM with the dare I was recently dared, because it sounded more fun!)

I look across the street to see another DC on the pavement on the other side of the street, a shabby looking blonde woman probably in her 50s. I ask her for a foreign word and its meaning, but she wants to bustle past me. I say "well I'm going to stop you because this is my dream and I'm in charge" I accost her as she's about to enter her house. When she realises in not going to let her go without my word, she says "koinu" and I ask her what it means. "Go away / go home" is the reply, which I guess I had coming...

The next task is to rob a bank using only a banana. I put my hand out palm up with a deliberate gesture to conjure up a banana. I get a tiny yellow dot in my palm, about the size of a lentil. I decide that's probably not intimidating enough, so I decide to try another tactic. I make another conjuring gesture at the pavement to conjure up a giant banana attack dog. I get a rather blobby banana-like dog who also doesn't look all that impressive. I stretch out his snout to make it look a little more aggressive with limited success. I realise I still have the pill sized banana in my other hand, so I throw it to the ground and it becomes another banana dog, this one smaller but at least a little more angular and aggressive looking.

I head into the bank and shout that everyone should keep back as I have attack bananas!

People seem suitably nervous at first, but as I go through the bank looking for a cashier to take money from, the general feel turns into one of normal interaction, as if my attack bananas have made their point and the staff are all happy to just go about the business of finding me some money to steal. At the back of the bank is a large table positively groaning with bank notes. The bank notes are tiny, about a third the size of a credit card, and very simply designed, a bit like monopoly money. I ask the chap counting and sorting the money to put as much as he could in a Tupperware sitting on the table for me and he obliges. I note that these tiny notes include some really huge denominations of thousands of pounds, so a small Tupperware of then is still a major haul. The chap hands over the cash and I head out.

I have a long interlude here with almost no lucidity during which I read a very surreal psychedelic concept art book that my dad had lying around. The story seems to mostly relate a relationship between the main protagonist and his girlfriend, who he meets when she's about eight, and they have a difficult life trying to work out how to go about a relationship when the book seems to have started too early in their lives. The protagonist (who I identify with enough that at one point I'm living the story rather than reading it) had a weird experience of trying to work or how old his "girlfriend" is and if it's non-creepy yet for him to fancy her. Eventually, she gains boobies and he decides that makes it OK. She gets pregnant and the couple split up and feel very miserable about the while situation as if they blame the author of the book for making their lives suck. I loved the book, but my dad says he never really liked it.

I start looking for a mirror to watch myself pull my eyeballs out. I see the Shire Hall in Shrewsbury, and outside is a rather pitiful Lord Hill's Column, about 18" of column and 6" of Lord Hill. I figure there might be a nice big mirror in the reception, so I start to head inside. The entrance turns out to be blocked with hundreds of shopping trolleys, which keeps me snared up for quite a while. Eventually, I find myself inside at a large mirror and stare at myself trying to remember how I was planning to pull my eyeballs out. I try poking my fingers behind my left eyeball (I'm less find of my left eye because it's crap) and try to retain my view through the eyeball as I remove it. I think the sight acts as an anchor keeping the eyeball in place as I'm so used to my perspective being from my eyeballs' customary position! I decide it might be more successful to try sucking my eyeball out with the palm of my hand, blocking my view as I do so.

After a couple more unsuccessful attempts, I pull my hand away to see that my reflection has become oddly distorted, as if made a bit ineptly out of plastocene. I do note, however, that one eyeball is protruding about an inch from my face, and the other is somehow sticking out of my temple. I decide this counts and inspect my eyes in my reflection for a bit. They both look like crappy craftsmanship, but they're definitely my eyes and definitely not in their normal places. I shove them back in and start to think about the next TOTM - find Howl's castle.

I try looking around for a giant insect like walking castle, and even try to conjure one up, but then I remember that the magic door can be a way in as well was a way out, so I look for interesting looking doors to find the inside of the castle through. I spot a door that looks tempting, it's small and characterful, so I go to open it. There are two or three street urchins lurking by the door and they keep getting in my way. I pull the door open to find shorter door behind it, then a manhole cover, then another door...

Eventually I wake up for a final time and a twitch as I'm just about to attempt another DEILD spoils it for me :-(

First lucid : I'm in bed (in a dream) I decide to do FILD and I stay still. I get all kind of hallucinations and white sounds and also this tiny doll that's dressed in a red-black kimono stares at me really closely. Her eyes get bigger and bigger the more I get into the dream. [COLOR="#008080"]I wake up and don't even do a RC because I was so sure I was dreaming. I look outside the window and it's really sunny and normal outside. I look back at my bed and I see a grey laptop on it. I open the grey laptop and it has information about everything I do and everything that happens in the dreamland. I say it's awesome and then I realize I could take pictures. I revert the camera to look at me. I look pretty normal. I revert it back and I go into the kitchen with the laptop to see what mom is doing. She's waiting for me. I say I'll go outside. I go to the balcony and I wanna jump but the distance is too high so I say no because I think I could wake up. I run to the entrance door and open it. It's not what I expected there to be. It looks kinda the same as the way it's supposed to look but the walls are white and there is no roof up, just some cool ass mountains and some smoke too. There is something written on a wooden wall up and I go and read it. I don't have a hard time reading it at all. One wall said (exactly like this) : Bienvenuduo a vac ances. The other wall said something in "romanian" : Bine a ti ve nit a vacan ces. I ask mom what could that possibly mean and then I just take a picture of it with the laptop. I pass the wall and jesus, that place... It had many mountains and there was smoke everywhere for some reason. I could feel the wind and it was just awesome. I look around and I see mom is still with me. I tell her to leave but she gets happy-angry and starts ranting but in the end she leaves. I wanna go somewhere to swim. I try to go up the mountains but when I look back I see this cool pool that had like, some tiny watery balls in it. I go into it and it's trying to suck me in and then I wake up (IN A DREAM). [/COLOR]

2nd lucid : I try to do a FILD again. Same hallucination ( the japanese doll) and I have success with this too. [COLOR="#008080"]I stand up, see the laptop and I get it back. There is a voice in it now that says " Well, what should we do now? Should we give you some nightmares?" I get all excited and say YES. A tiny green snake appears near me. I stare at it and it stares back at me. It then suddenly jumps on my leg and tries to crawl under my skin. I just go with it till it bites me. I get it out and throw it away. It seems dizzy and I jump out the window. Same weather, sunny as fuck. I try to go in the back of my apartment complex when this eagle with red eyes flies to me with the dead green snake in it's mouth. I say that's awesome and the eagle sits on my shoulder. It says that it will save me from everything bad. I say okay then proceed to walk more. This random guy throws some bombs at us. The eagle throws them all away and I could hear them exploding in the distance. The guy then throws a plastic ball with some blue thingies in it. It starts shining more and more and the eagle flies back to my shoulder and says that we need to leave fast. It tries to fly with me but then this huge rock monster grabs me by my leg and throws me to the ground and that's when I woke up.[/COLOR]

3rd lucid : I'm in a dream again. Do FILD again. [COLOR="#008080"]The grey laptop is sitting on my chest this time. I stand up, get it, and leave in the hall. I try to stabilize and the laptop shows me that it's successful. I look on my right and instead of the bathroom there is another bedroom. The bed is right near the door. I see my grandmother in it and a family friend near her. They both look dead so I try to get away from them as soon as possible because I fear they will wake up. But then, my grandmother starts yelling for help and it's creepy and makes me feel sad. I go to mom in the livingroom and I tell her that my grandmother woke up "again". She seems frustrated and goes to my grandmother and then I wake up. [/COLOR]

I'm a bit disappointed in myself for managing my time so poorly lately.
Somehow I have picked up a really bad habit of procrastinating.
And because of this I end up spending much less time on LD activities than I intend to.
I'm seriously considering to block reddit/youtube like sites for a few days a week...



I find myself on a beach. It is quite late, the sun is going down.
I should probably walk back to the hotel before it gets too dark...
Unfortunately I don't recognize any of the buildings alongside the beach.
Am I lost? How does that even happen?

Realizing that the situation is somewhat out of the ordinary I try to increase my awareness.
However, my thoughts feel scrambled. I am unable to come to a conclusion.
Now what? Am I dreaming or not? This does feel pretty real...
I decide to fall back on a more robust technique, the nose plug RC.

I can breathe normally through my plugged nose. This is a dream.
Wait really? I look at my hands and they seem perfectly normal.
I walk over to the first person I find, which is an elderly man, whom I assume is walking back to his hotel.

"Excuse me."
"Yes?"
"Am I dreaming?"

The man seems rather confused by my question.
In retrospect, that was probably not the most intelligent thing to do.
I decide that the answer to my question should be behind myself.
I turn back towards the ocean.

This is no longer the beach I was on previously on. This is my beach!
I must have changed scenes during the short moment when I was turning.
Sweet!

I try to remember my dream goals, and for once I actually manage to remember them!
My only dream goal at the moment is to "calm the fuck down".

(Lately I often forget to properly stabilize my dreams when I become lucid.
And then to make up for it, I rush through the dreams out of fear that they might end prematurely,
which is of course the worst possible thing to do.)

I slowly walk towards the ocean, taking all the time in the world.
The sound of the water is very relaxing, and I love the contrast between the warm sand and the refreshingly cold ocean breeze.
Eventually I take a few steps into the ocean, getting my feet wet. The water is very cold.

As I look at the stars, I feel a familiar presence.
It's Yuya! This is going to be a great night.

Ever since I found this picture and felt that it reminded me of her,
she's been playing around with hair colors a lot.
Today it's mostly orange and blue.
She can change it simply by shaking her head.
She's smiling at me the way she always does.

"Come out and play?"

At first I find it a little amusing that she phrases her question this way.
But then it reminds me of when I was very young, and I'd go knocking on the neighbours door to ask them to come out and play in the street.
Back then there was nothing to worry about, no important decisions to make.
I'd ask my friends to come out with the sole goal of having a good time.
Perhaps what I initially found a little odd, was after all the perfect way to phrase it.

This starts off a series of DEILDs.
I've written down the fragments I remember.
Unfortunately I don't remember them very well.
The last few moments before I woke up are quite clear, but everything before that is a bit of a blur.

Fragment 1:
I help Yuya prepare dinner at her place.
I'm not of much help though, given that I don't know any of the herbs and spices she has, nor the meat that she wants to prepare.
She is very patient with me, and explains how to prepare everything,
even though she knows that I probably won't remember any of it.
It takes us a good hour to prepare everything.
Liv joins us for dinner. (And there was someone else as well I think.)
Everything tastes absolutely wonderfully.
Later, I help Yuya to do the dishes.
She knows that my dream time is limited, and I can feel that it makes her really happy that I spend it with her,
even if it means doing something as mundane as doing the dishes.

Fragment 2:
In my scribble DJ I wrote "Dance" "Leaf in the wind" and "Happy".
I don't remember anything about this fragment though, and I don't recall taking these notes.

Fragment 3:
We're at a Café, sitting outside, enjoying the good weather and some amazing drinks.

Crow joins us. He felt my presence so he came by to say hi.
Since there's drinks and Yuya and Liv are here, he obviously decides to stay.
He ends up ordering something that isn't on the menu.

They bring us a plate with very small pipettes on it, all containing a small amount of a yellow liquid.
It's quite fun really, you use the pipette to place a single drop of the liquid onto your tongue.
It immediately gives you that cold chill / frisson feeling all over your body.
It also tastes rather sour. Perhaps a little like lemon juice.

Fragment 4:

Crow, Yuya and I are on some sort of airship.
It looks more like an old sail ship though, nothing like an actual airship.
Does fly rather well though, even though I'm sure this violates a few laws of physics.
According to Crow, there are very few of these, and it is very difficult to get a ride on one.
It is quite late and we all sit on the front deck watching the sun go down.
Yuya leans against me because she is really tired.

Crow is telling a very captivating story about love and betrayal.
It is quite an emotional story.
Usually his stories are about himself, and he exaggerates... a lot, I'm pretty sure he even makes stuff up on occasion.
His stories are quite amazing though, I'll give him that. Plus, he's a fantastic story teller.
I don't mind that he does this, we all know that it's for entertainment.
But this time around he claims that it is a fictional story about another person.
And then there's the way he narrates it. It is quite different. More serious, and seemingly less exaggerated.
I'm convinced that this time, he's actually telling a genuine story from his past.
The story eventually comes to an end. (It was a little sad, but I recall that there was a silver lining)

"Say, aren't you supposed to wake up or something? You've been staying for an awfully long time."
"Oh Crow... you're not supposed to remind dreamers about that."
"Why not?"
"Waking up is not something you want to think about."
"Why?"
"It could make you wake up."
"It can?"
"Unfortunately, yeah."
"That is rather inconvenient."
"It is."
"Seriously though, isn't it bad for you to spend entire days asleep so that you can be here?"
"Haha, I appreciate your concern Crow, I really do, but fortunately it doesn't work quite like that."
"I assure you, on the other side I've been asleep for a few hours at most."
"Huh, that is quite fascinating. It is good to know that I don't have to worry then."
"I'll make sure not to mention anything about waking up in the future."
"Thanks mate. I appreciate it."
"Sure... mate."

(There was a joke earlier in the dream about saying "mate", but I cannot quite recall what it was.)

"Anyways, I'm afraid I have to get going. I'm running late."
"Take care."
"So long."

Crow charges forwards and disappears in a cloud of colorful particles.
I think that's the first time I've seen him do that.
The dream is slowly becoming unstable.
I can no longer see beyond the airship.
The airship itself has also become somewhat blurry and desaturated.

Only Yuya I can still see clearly.
She seems to have fallen asleep, resting her head on my shoulder.
I can feel her chest expand against me as she breathes.
Even if it is just for a short moment, perhaps for just a fraction of a second,
it makes me really believe that she is out there somewhere, and not a construct of my own mind.
Sometimes I wish I could entertain this thought for longer, because I find it quite beautiful...