lucid

FryingMan's silky hand
Lucid #28

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I am hiking through a beautiful forest and suddenly hear a barking. I look to my left where I heard the noise coming from and see a steep slope. Nevetheless the dog doesn't seem to care and comes at me. I fall to the ground and he bites me in my arm and I realize I am dreaming..
I find myself in my house. I stabilize and do the 5-senses technique and also try to remeber my waking life my goals and what it means to be dreaming. Well the first thing I remembered is summoning FryingMan. I shout FryingMan and grab behind my back. I dont know what kind of hand I should exept, but then I feel a hand probably wearing a glove made out of silk. (Thats how I pictured him before in WL, because of him saying he would look like Santa, and Santa certainly has gloves) It feels very warm but kinda just lays there in my hand without really holding on to. I turn arround but I get too exited, also due to the extremely realistic dream and wake up..

My friend and I are in the middle of this class tour of an old castle, and I have an app on my phone that tells me if a ghost is around. My friend and I sneak off from the group and go up to this small, dark, cobwebby room near the top of the castle. I pull out my phone and check the app, and it says that there is definitely a ghost nearby. I'm not really sure if I believe the app, so I call out. Nothing happens. My friend and I decide to go to sleep there, and maybe some activity will wake us up. The next morning, there is a framed painting lying on the floor. It shows my friend, asleep with her blanket covering her face and with a very large man sleeping on top of her, and it shows me, my back turned to the "camera", standing and facing a female figure with a very large head standing in a doorway bursting with warm light.

I show this to my friend and tell her that it obviously means that I met the ghost that night, but she didn't because her face is covered in the painting, even though I can't remember meeting any ghost during the night. I expect her to be frustrated with me and say that I was being very liberal with my interpretation, but to my surprise, she seemed to accept my explanation.

Later, I'm in a car, and I check my app to see if it acts differently in a setting which obviously doesn't have a ghost. It does, telling me there are no ghosts around.

Later, I'm climbing a long, long ladder up a cave tunnel. There are two ghost/cave experts with me, one behind me on the latter and one on the floor of the cave looking up. They're both giving me instructions on how to climb the ladder as I struggle to do so. The cave floor is a long way down. Frustrated, I tell them that I've made this trip plenty of times before with no trouble at all, but now that I'm being watched by them, I'm suddenly finding it difficult. I know that we're going back to the room where my friend and I had detected the ghost before, and I don't notice that the previous castle setting as morphed into a cave setting.

I remember a small fragment where at some point, the 10th Doctor and I are talking to a woman who seems to know quite a bit about the future, but won't let us in on anything. When she says she has to leave, we follow her and find that she's a human who's traveling with a time lord of her own. I wake up then.


That was last night. I just took a nap and so...

I dream that Red Vs. Blue, the machinima, is a sort of visual novel-type video game (different from the halo game lol). I'm at the counter of a store and I'm trying to talk to Tucker about something I want to buy, but he's too busy talking to Caboose, who is actually just Charlie Day wrapped in a dark blue blanket. Caboose is intently mimicking everything Tucker says and does, because here, he thinks Tucker is his best friend instead of Church.

At some point, I'm in a maze made out of that type of wire fence that has the diamonds in it? And I see an animated puppy who looks upset and in pain, and then I go a little further and see the same thing but as a full grown dog. It's a dead-end though, so I turn back. When I do, I find myself being gassed by some sort of sleeping gas. Rarity from My Little Pony comes into view and says she's sorry, but she has to do this. I can see the other ponies in the background. I struggle to move around until I fall to the ground, looking up at them as I fall asleep..

Later, Russia and Ukraine are launching a joint attack on the US. Left and right, I hear of people dying. I move to go downstairs, but I get a text from my mom saying, "don't worry, it's just a B2" (which is a type of bomber airplaine). Just a B2? I think, then i hear a loud plane noise from overhead. For some reason, because of these things, I abandon the basement and instead search for higher ground.

Eventually, I do find higher ground. There's a skyscraper near the place where I was talking to Tucker earlier. In one of the top-most floors, there's an arcade. I play a 16-bit arcade game about an anthropomorphic rabbit and his friend, whose species I can't remember. At some point I get a powerup that turns my character into a frog. I meet a lot of species along my adventure, and I'm having fun, when suddenly the game shuts down, and someone hauls the game away, as they tell me that it's being relocated to be shot at in a paintball game. I'm fairly mad about this. My friend, C, arrives and asks about the game, and I tell her the news. "Aw," she says. We turn to see that the wall facing the outside is gone, and instead we can walk right out of the building and jump into this small pool that is filled to the brim, so you can go right to the edge and look over it to the ground, far below. My mom is in the pool, relaxing on a floatie.

I try to tell my friend about the Russia/Ukraine attack, but she acts very somber and says something like, "Please, I really don't want to hear about that." I understand.

There is a pool on the ground that is right beside ours, and my friend, to my objections, jumps from our pool all the way down into the pool on the ground. I thought she would then go into the building and take an elevator back up, but instead she climbs up the side of our pool, which now has thick cloth in a woven pattern down the sides. I scold her for being dangerous and doing such a thing. She shrugs lightheartedly. After that, things get stressful. I can only swim around the middle of the small pool, because if I go to the edges, I have a danger of falling off. I have to be very careful because I also have to prevent my mom's floatie from going over the edge. For some reason, getting out isn't an option until later.

Later, a little girl climbs up the side. I am surprised/stressed/panicked that Chelsea had caused this little girl to follow in her footsteps and do something so dangerous. I yell at the girl and she takes no head of me, and my mom does and my friend does, but to no avail. I tell them that we should all shout the same thing at the same time. It works, and the girl looks at us with a sad face and says a quiet "sorry". I then soften and tell her that we're sorry for being harsh, and to please be very careful when going back down. She gives a soft smile back and thanks us for our concern.

Lastly, I'm standing in a room with my mom and her friend. They're telling me to do something that I strongly don't want to do, and I think I might have found it a bit morally wrong as well. Thinking that this can't possibly be real, or at least hoping that it's not, I do a reality check, and find myself to be dreaming. I think back to a post from here about how to maintain the dream/lucidity, and I remember that one of the things someone said to do was to NOT be afraid of waking up. Of course, thinking about waking up did not help things. I tried to focus on the dream and to stay in it, but I woke up fairly soon.

non-dream dream semi-lucid lucid false awakening

... I meet a beautiful exotic lady and she is hitting on me. I feel flattered, a bit excited, but an alarm rings at the same time. I seem to sense something beneath the appearances. I reject the seduction. So her face morphs indistinctively and becomes monstrous. I recognize the demon, Lord Mara. He asks "maybe if I'm a handsome man instead?" and he starts shapeshifting into a hot guy, but I know who he really is, so I reject his seduction. I've already seen his true face! So his shapeshifting doesn't hold and I keep seeing his real monstrous face underneath. I tell him I know we're in a dream, but even so I won't succumb to his temptations. He gets mad. He summons some bad guys with big guns who start shooting in my direction. I'm hit by some bullets, but I repeat that nothing is real, I feel the certainty inside me growing and so the bullets just stop hitting the target. Like Neo, I don't have to dodge bullets Mara gets really furious. He reveals his true self and comes like an explosion towards me with his sharp teeth and claws, threathening to shred me into pieces. But I stay put, I hold my ground. I feel a bit scared deep down, but I keep reminding that he is just my mind. He stops just milimeters from my face. I grab it and make it melt, like I can do to walls and anything else. Melting and angry, he grins at me and says that I may win this battle, but that he will keep coming back, as I know. I do. But I also know it is up to me to stop him entirely, that's enlightnement. But what am I missing? I melt and make disappear the entire dream. I stay for a few moments in the emptiness, then I wake up.

Exploring my house
Lucid #8

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I am at the beach and see a huge tsunami, I get lucid.
I find myself in my room and stabilize a littlebit. I really doubt dreaming first because of the realness of my room. I touch the cold wall and it feels really amazing. I decide to go downstair but instead of taking the stairs I jump down a floor. I glide through the air slowly and like through gel. I go into the bathroom and look in the mirror but nothing seems off. I go downstairs but the dream gets hard to keep stable so I decide to attempt a DEILD and ly down on the floor, ready to wake up.

Drifting
Lucid #7

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I am in a big field. I have a lot of brothers who all have big beards. We are all driving in our cars, old trucks. It seems to be snowing. Suddenly I drive my moms a-series but cant seem to get up the hill. A little boy keeps running infront of my car and I get mad.
I am on a journey with Gandalf and have to crawl through a small pipe. I get lucid and I am back on the field in a shed. My dad is cooking something and I try to stabilize by touching the ceiling and looking at it, but as soon as I let go I wake up..

I had this lucid dream back in February. It was my first WILD!

I am practicing a relaxation exercise and mantra during a WBTB session. I feel slightly dizzy, then hear a roar in my ears. I then experience intense sensations of my body twisting and turning in space. I see darkness, but as I continue to hold into my awareness, I begin to see a vision of a tunnel. The physical sensations slowly translate into a feeling of shooting through the tunnel at hyperspeed! The feeling is almost overwhelming but I stay focused and conscious.

The speed finally slows and I feel like I land on solid ground. It is pitch black. Slowly, the scene around me starts to materialize and I focus on my hands. I am wearing black gloves. It is night time, and cold here. I keep thinking I DID IT but remind myself to stay calm. I look around and see lights far off in the distance. It appears I am way outside of town. There is a creek or canal to my right, and a path ahead. I am in awe of what I just accomplished and what I am seeing, but I don’t feel the dream is very stable. I know I need to stay engaged with the dream to keep from waking up so I start walking. I then see a small hut ahead with lights on. I decide to follow the path to the hut to see who might be waiting for me.

The dream then begins to collapse; everything goes fuzzy and gray. I recently read about LaBerge's spinning technique, so I decide to try it. I spin around as fast as I can. The scene fades to total darkness. When I stop spinning, my vision becomes clear again. I am in the same place, but now it is daytime and it feels like summer. The sky is incredibly blue! I admire a tree next to me and enjoy how bright the leaves are, as though they are alive. I look at several other plants along the path and notice some strange discoloration in the leaves. I wonder if the plants are malnourished. The dream then collapses and I wake up.

The reason I'm talking about all of these together is because they're all short and not super noteworthy, lucidity is somewhat questionable in all but one.

First off, something that isn't a dream but happened.. I guess?

As I slipped off into sleep I heard my mother say "Goodnight." or something along that line.

Anyways, off to the actual dreams!

First off, I had a dream (which may or may not be lucid) where I was wondering outside my bed. It was a fragment but suprisingly vivid for what it is. There was some sort of video game interface, think as if you were using the interface for Populous minus the big minimap. I've never even played a game of that genre so i'm puzzled. Perhaps I was wandering outside a sleeping body (In which case it may have been an OBE) or I may have just had a dream that started in the bedroom. But this did prove to me dreams could be in the third person.

Secondly, I had a dream about a minecraft server. Someone with the nickname 'Surge' was on there. That's about it.

Probably most interesting, however, is the one lucid dream I had if that OBE-type thing wasn't lucid.

As so often happens, I was just in my house, and reality checks said I was awake, but the sky was yellow, which may be how I became lucid. Anyways, after this, I explored my house a bit. Dream control powers wouldn't work, and a sixth sense told me I had to leave, so I closed my eyes and left the dream. Also, we had a butler and a really old air conditioner that for some reason squirted water on the carpet.

I think I had two others I didn't remember after I woke up, I still don't care because at least I had a lucid dream.

Blue: Non-Lucid
Bold: Lucid
Black: Awake

This is a dream where I did the advanced task of the month by going to another planet. This dream was extremely vivid though so I can't recall very many of the small details. It's all a blur to me, but I still remember the main details.

I am standing in the middle of a city, but I don't recall what I was doing exactly. As I'm standing there I realize that I'm dreaming. I immediately think about how I should partake in doing one of the tasks of the month, and I decide to retry the planet task. I see a friend is with me, so I ask him to join me. We both jump up into the air and start to fly. I stop for a moment and I send extra below myself to accelerate my speed further, and I begin to rocket into the sky. It only takes about thirty seconds and then we're in outer space. Me and the stranger(I guess he was my friend in the dream but I don't know him IRL) begin to fly across space very quickly and spot some planets. I turn around and see the Earth, and it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in a dream. I turn back and fly off towards the planets. There is one that looks similar to Earth, with large continents and huge bodies of water. My friend suggests we visit this planet, but I don't agree and fly to another planet not far behind it. The planet is an interesting blue color with a blue aura surrounding it.

I begin to descend down to the planet, and my friend follows behind me. We land on the surface and take a look around. There are many odd plants and trees on the ground that don't exist on Earth, and a few critters. I look ahead and spot a oddly-designed house and two very small blue people(they looked nothing like Smurfs trust me). They are wearing strange yellow jackets and hats, and tan cargo pants. They are definitely intelligent life forms. Suddenly, they both come rushing at my friend and I. One jumps up and bites my left arm, and I knock it off of myself. My friend and I say we are friendly, and they suddenly become calm. They have us follow them into their house, and we look around. It seems like any normal Earth home on the inside. I quickly become bored of the place and I decide to go travel around. As I'm about to walk out I see two human-looking women in the house, and it turns out they are the women of the planet. Let me tell you, the women of this planet looked pretty attractive. They now lead my friend and I to a closed door, and we both walk in. There are around ten people inside who all looked scared and very malnourished. Just as I'm turning around to do something about it the door slams shut, and I hear it clink. I pull on the handle desperately, but it doesn't budge. I turn back and look around the room, and I realize these people are all humans from Earth. It's my mission to save them now, because I'm a good guy. Maybe they are just figments of my imagination created by the faces of strangers I've seen, but I won't let anyone think they're powerful enough to overcome me in my own dream. I step up to the door and clench my fist. (The following conversation is a rough memory so the dialogue isn't verbatim).
"Do you really think you can break that door down?" one of the prisoners asks.
"Yeah, I've got the power to do that." I reply. I then punch the door full force, but nothing happens.
"That worked really well." the prisoner said.
"Hey sorry! My powers take a lot of faith to work. I wasn't ready!" I snap back. "Now everyone move out of the way, I've got a better idea!"
All the prisoners move clear of my path, and I cup my hands. I decide to pull of something I haven't done in awhile: a good old Kamehameha. Just as I cup my hands the door swings open with the homeowners at the door. Everyone suddenly rushes through the door and tramples the little blue man under their feet as they flood out. I run out and see the other blue guy coming to attack, and I summon and handgun behind my back and pull it out. I shoot the blue man, and blue blood spurts out of his chest. Looks like some justice has been served here today. I decide to leave and go do something else now, but as I'm doing so I awake.

Most of what happened here was discussed in irc last night, so weird.

Anyway, I went to bed at 2am, and must have woken up around 5 because it was still dark. I was lying on my stomach, and felt the demon climb on my back. Been a while! Must have been that midnight ramen. I tried to move, but when I did, he'd growl (my fan, distorted) and my fingers would get all tingly where he was holding me down. I fell back into dreamless sleep, then woke up and it repeated. This time I thought about irc, and just rolled slowly off the edge of the bed and stood up. He was still in the bed, writhing and twisting up the covers. I just smiled and waved and said " bye bye now! " and he waved back lol.

I remembered the naked task but none of the others. So I dropped my pj bottoms and pulled my shirt off fast and was naked. Felt good! So I darted out the room down the hall and into a strange looking livingroom. Oh yeah , my sight was a little weir until I got into the well lit livingroom. Suddenly Danny appeared, looking at me and my nakedness like a hungry wolf. I screamed and ran in a circle, and tried to catch me when the phone rang. He actually left and went to the kitchen to answer it lol. I tried SO hard to remember the other tasks, but nothing. I noticed a piano similar to mine in the room, and thought of my personal goal to play something. There was no sheet music so I just started playing this simple sonata I had memorized from when I was a kid. It started out great! The. It wasn't long before I started making mistakes, and I was having to concentrate really hard. Felt like when I try to play after too much wine haha.

That's all I remember. I woke up and it was still dark. That is really early for me to WILD, and with very little sleep.

July 23, 2014

No supplements or sleep aids used.

Rating: 5/5 For first LD

Break through! First Lucid!!!!

It was short lived but great! It was also on one of the first REM cycle, if not the first. It felt so far back after I woke, and it was the first dream that happened out of a series of many. I did it without needing a reality check. I was outside my friend Jacob's house at night standing next to his dads truck when I saw a flying picture and thought to myself thats not right, I must be dreaming! I got so excited, almost woke my self up instantly but calmed down. It felt as though I was losing my grip on control as well the more the dream almost stopped. I tried to spin but couldn't so i mentally calmed it down. I walked out into the street under the street lights beam if light. Once it got a little better I immediately started flying over all the houses. I still did not have a good grip on the dream as it was my first time. I saw a lot of other houses, different than what would normally be there. The street was not there like normally, just back to back houses with yards separated by fencing, some white picket sone black steel bar. I decided to land in the back yard of one and go inside. I went in trying to summon a DC. I tried the light switch and it came on, so i didn't try to mess around with it anymore. The house was dimly lit with yellow light bulb light. It had dark brown trim and beige walls. I walked through trying to summon a specific DC but a different one ended up coming. but unfortunately, I woke up then due to excitement of finally having a lucid dream. I put all my thought into this, so I only remember small fragments of a few later dreams.

A couple more stabilization fails, but my first SP!




I'm on my way to meet my friend A when I pause across the street from a tall house with beautiful chamber music coming from an open window. Suddenly the scene darkens and shadows begin to roll down the vines of ivy along the wall. I start getting scared until I realize it's only dark because I'm wearing my sunglasses.

I take them off but then it gets dark again, and I discover I'm squeezing my eyes shut and can't open them. I recognize that as a dreamsign, and start to do the finger push RC. But even before I start, I feel this floaty sensation and I realize I'm dreaming.

I think this may send me into the void or SP, but the next thing I remember is being in a brightly lit room with my girlfriend. We're talking about something, when again I feel that happy, floaty sensation and realize I'm dreaming.

I decide to phase through the window and go exploring. I tell my girlfriend, "I love you, but I'm having a lucid dream and I really want to go out there." She seems happy for me.

Then things start to get a little blurry and I remember I have to stabilize. I decide to try NyxCC's advice and take a bite of a chair. But part of me doesn't believe it's going to work, and I close my eyes as I bend down. When my jaws close, there's nothing between them.

Then I'm briefly in the void, and I try to spin. I end up lying in my bed, hearing incredibly loud electric crackling noises. I recall having heard these before, perhaps earlier in the night, and conclude I'm experiencing SP. I attempt an OBE exit by trying to will my dream body to move. The crackling intensifies greatly and I feel like I almost escape my body, but it doesn't quite work and the crackling fades.

I decide to relax for a little bit before I wake myself up. The crackling begins to transform into creepy music and I start thinking of SP horror stories and becoming a little frightened. But I remember that SP is completely harmless and will only get nasty if I let myself get scared, so I calm down.

Then, my IWL girlfriend moves in bed and I wake up for real.



Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Took an afternoon nap today at about 2, woke up at 3ish really hot with no recalled dreams. I stripped down to my underwear and took off the covers. I had my hands crossed over my head when I began to feel a tingling sensation in my hands. This soon spread to my legs, and I began to feel a buzzing in my head. I heard a noise get louder like a large sliding garage door slamming shut. I then began feeling like I was rocking side to side in my bed. I kept rocking more and more, until I fell out of my bed. I got up and did a RC, and I was dreaming. I was wrapped up in my covers, so I tried to pull them off, much to no avail. I tried to remind myself more and more that I was dreaming, but I finally got sick and tired of it, and just teleported out from under the covers.

I was then in another room of my house. I tried going out the back door and running outside several times, but each time I kept somehow ending up back in a different room of my house. I spend so much time here IWL that I keep getting dragged back, I thought. No matter. I kind of summoned a portal in the wall and ran through it, and ended up in the sanctuary of my church. Better than nothing, I guess.

Recently, I have been catching up on Hyu's Dream Journal. His posts were really an inspiration for me to take my lucid dreaming seriously, and I highly encourage you to read them if you haven't already. Hyu has several recurring dream characters, each with a unique personality and appearance. Most of my DCs are fairly flat and don't even really do much in my lucids. So, I figured, it's about time I made some friends with some DCs and got them to show up more consistently in my dreams. The first DC I wanted to make friends with, I decided, had to be a girl. I kind of wanted one that I was very attracted to, kind of love at first sight, and had a great personality. It's a dream, I thought, so at least I have a shot...

I was in the sanctuary of my church, although the entire place had the old ugly red carpet that we had a few years back. There were lots of people everywhere, mostly older (kind of like the actual congregation of my church...). I knew the right one had to be here somewhere. I kind of called out to the dream to get everyone to leave except the one I was looking for. I stood in the doorway as everyone passed me. I kind of scanned the crowd as they passed, looking for someone - anyone - that would be good. My eyes randomly focused on a few females, but I rejected most of them. Too old. Too fat. Not pretty enough. Pretty sure that one would be pedophilia. Too short. Before I knew it, the crowd was gone, with no one left. I kind of walked around, hoping to find someone in the building, but to no avail. I walked back to the main sanctuary, where several people suddenly appeared and kind of swarmed me, wanting some kind of help. I pushed them back and walked away angrily, shouting, "Screw you guys. Y'all aren't even real...".

I walked out the door and into this hospital hallway. I walked through a couple doors, somehow ending up in the same spot as before. Suddenly, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around to see this brown-haired girl, 5'10"ish, probably 4.5/10, motioning me to follow her. She didn't say much, but instead just started to walk away. I quickly followed behind her. Well, not really love at first sight, but, meh, maybe she's got a good personality.

We walked a ways before I spoke up. "So, you must be my dream guide today, huh?"
"Yeah, you could say that, I guess."
Could I file a complaint with whoever made that decision?
"Are you going to tell me where we're going?"
"No, not really."
This is going greeaaaat...

We walked through a couple more hallways until we arrived in this fairly large room, with white walls and a tall popcorn ceiling. There wasn't really anything interesting here.

"So, what are we doing h-"
I turned around, and she wasn't there. At first, it felt like she led me to some kind of trap, but the door was still wide open, so I guess I could have left. I first looked around and called out for her, but she was nowhere to be found. Meh, it's probably for the best, I thought. Anyway, time to actually do something productive in this lucid. I took off to fly in this room, but went up too high too fast and slammed my head on the ceiling.

I woke up back in my house on the couch in just my underwear. Wait, I went to my bed for my nap, so why am I down here? I did a quick RC and found myself dreaming again. After the previous failure to connect with my DC, I figured doing anything would be nice at this point. I was in my underwear, so I figured "Off with it!". I took it off and figured I'd do the Basic I TOTM. I opened the door and ran outside, but then realized I had already done that task. I tried to remember the other tasks, but the only one I could think of was the junk food one. I went out to my backyard and found a massive, conveniently-placed bag of chips. I opened it up to find mini pretzels and Doritos (a strange combination, yes, but meh). I grabbed a handful, and almost got it to my mouth, but it disappeared before I could eat it. "Darn, I was hungry." I tried grabbing another handful, but the dream quickly destabilized.

I woke up back in my bed. I took off my sleep mask, looked at the clock, and saw it was 4:20 (blaze it... jk). I only had one thought in my head.

"I forgot to ask her her name..."

Ports and my DG
Lucid #6

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I find myself in a beautiful setting. I am at a port at sunset. Everything is covered in an orange glow. I have the feeling of being chased but forget about it. I get lucid. I meet a mexican looking man, not like a real mexican but the stereotypical mexican dude. He tells me that he is my DG. I tell him to inform me everytime I am dreaming in order to get me lucid. I ask him if we are in my subconcious and he answer We are at a place!. I ask him if everything is safe and he tells me that there are dangerous thing who could watch us, but everything I get worried about is that they are gonna watch me have sex in my lucids

Ritual: wtb 3:15am, last wbtb 9:15am, woke 10:38am, SSILD: WILD

Last sleep, last chance. It was already 9:15am, but since I'd gone to bed so late, and all my previous attempts that night had been without real motivation and had resulted in falling asleep before completing a single cycle, figured I could try once more. SSILD: tempted to mix it with other techniques, but if I was going test this properly, ought to do it straight up. My timing was messy and uneven, but remembered that was okay. Did maybe three cycles on my back, uneven length, afraid of waking myself up too much, given that it was already mid-morning, so turned on my side and prepared to let myself sleep. A few times I ran through the cycles very lightly and quickly, just to get back in touch with my senses. At some point in this process the cat jumped on the bed. I was getting closer to sleep but figured I could work with this if he settled down and didn't just start yelling. Fortunately he decided to sleep on me, and I was able to work that sensation into my rotation. I wasn't cycling regularly, just randomly once in a while when I felt I might be losing touch.

I must have been already dreaming without knowing it, because I thought I was only thinking, and it never occurred to me that the presence of sustained visuals suggested otherwise. I was replying to posts on some online forum made my a friend—nothing to do with DV, no one even connected with dreaming, just an old friend I haven't talked to in a while (AS). He was posting something about falling asleep a certain way and used an acronym like "TILD," and I wanted to reply snarkily with something like, "Does TILD stand for 'talking to yourself in bed'?" At the time, I was convinced this phrase perfectly fit the acronym, so I was apparently already touched by dream logic. So I was trying to type out my reply, and I simply could not type "TILD" properly. I tried over and over, and my fingers kept slipping and hitting everything else on the keyboard. Technical difficulties like this are one of my dream signs, but since I was convinced I was still awake, it didn't occur to me to RC. On the contrary, I thought I was having this trouble typing because I was getting too sleepy! This was precisely the opposite of a false awakening: instead of losing dream awareness by believing I had woken up, on the contrary, I failed to realize I was dreaming because I thought I hadn't fallen asleep yet! (If there's no acronym for this yet, I propose FFA for "false falling asleep," as it pairs well with the more familiar term FA.)

Around then the music started. I could hear a Pixies song. At the time I was sure that it was a song I knew, and it was playing perfectly down to the last note, even though I hadn't heard it in years. (I can't remember now what song it was, if it was indeed a real one.) I knew the music wasn't coming from outside me, and figured it must just be hypnagogic activity. The whole time until now I had been aware of lying in my bed, which was part of the reason I thought that I hadn't quite fallen asleep yet. After the Pixies song played in its entirety and then concluded, a new song started. This one intrigued me even more, because I was sure it was a song I had never heard before. It was lively enough to make a good follow-up to the Pixies, but the singer had an accent that sounded African. It reminded me of the song "Rise" by Seun Kuti, one that I downloaded free from Amazon and put on my running mix—but I'm not familiar with his other work. This song, like one before it, was crystal clear... like so often before I regretted that I am not more musical in waking life, because I felt sure if I were musically literate I could wake up and recreate it. But I didn't feel like rousing myself and trying to hum the melody into my iPhone when I hadn't even gotten to sleep yet.

WILD: At some point around here the transition finalized, and I realized, hang on, I think I am asleep now! I'm in my dream body! I could probably just 'get up' without disrupting anything... so I got out of bed, and even though everything felt extremely lifelike, there was a lightness to my body that I was sure meant I was dreaming. I was impressed how bright and clear everything was, and how mobile I felt, unlike a lot of WILDs where it's dark at first and I'm crawling over the carpet trying to get traction. But perhaps integration wasn't perfect yet, because hardly had I gotten out of bed when I was disturbed by a loud rhythmic noise that threatened to disrupt the dream state and wake me. At first I thought it must be the mailman knocking on the door, because I'm expecting a package. But as it continued without abating, I realized it must actually be construction on the house up the hill. How foolish it was, I chided myself, to do my dream practice so late in the morning! The world wakes up and starts making loud noises; at least during the night it is quieter. (RL: It turns out there's nothing at the door and no construction going on outside, so despite these very reasonable hypotheses about bleedthrough stimuli, the sound appears to have been largely or entirely internal.)

The sound was extremely disruptive and I felt alarmingly close to being woken by it. But I had just gotten into a perfectly good dream and had no wish to lose it so soon (like that time recently when I was woken from an otherwise fantastic WILD by my own snoring—come to think of it, this is another possible culprit for the sound!) How can I deal with this and remain in the dream? The answer occurred instinctively: dance! So I started dancing to the noise. It was a bit like dancing to the sound of hammers, and my dance was correspondingly jerky and spasmodic, but it did the trick! After a while I felt that the dreamstate was no longer threatened, so I paused and looked at myself in the bedroom mirror. Once again, as in the last SSILD, I was impressed how much like my waking self I looked: the hair was different, shorter, but the same face, same eyes. I smiled at myself and could see the smile in the reflection. Interestingly, even though it was a full-length mirror, I have no conception of what I might have been wearing. I wasn't curious about it at the time I was looking, so I have no impression of it now. If I had to guess, I would suppose it was a loose white summer dress of the sort I've been wearing around the house lately (I don't wear these to bed though).

Even though I had come to terms with the noise, it was still loud and annoying, so I decided to leave the bedroom and move deeper into the house, hopefully away from it. It might have diminished slightly by the time I got to the kitchen, but only a little, so I keep walking through to the living room. I notice my fluffiest down comforter is heaped up on the couch for some reason. I pull it off, and as the folds of cloth open I see the dark silhouette of a butterfly within them. I am momentarily confused: is butterfly a dream figment, or is it real? That is, just as I thought the sound might have a source in waking life, it didn't seem improbable at that moment that a butterfly might have accidentally made it into the house. Dream logic prevented me from realizing that, even were that so, how would I realize it when I was asleep in my bed? The butterfly flutters up and flies into the kitchen, so I follow it. Around this time I am too distracted to notice the noise anymore, being completely engrossed in the butterfly. When I enter the kitchen, I notice that in place of the little black one I followed, about the size of an ordinary monarch, there are now two very large butterflies, their wingspans about 16 to 18 inches across. One is slightly larger than the other, a very pale greenish yellow. The other one has the same base color, but its wings have black borders.

I am reminded of the task I had been intending to work on next, "creo animál." However, it seems that the dream has jumped the gun and already created the animal for me, so I roll with it and decide to experiment with "rego animál" instead—apparently forgetting I've already done this one numerous times. I know I should try "intellego animál," as I've never tried anything with that technique, but I'm not sure how to go about it, so I decide to put it off until later. I hold out my hand and command "Rego animál," focusing on the larger, lighter-colored butterfly and intending for it to land on my hand. The butterflies flit around and ignore me. I try again. Doesn't work. What's the problem? They are "animals," aren't they? I mean, in the broad sense of the term, I'm pretty sure insects count. Do I need the "auram" sphere for this, as they are creatures of the air? But I've worked with wind before—I've found it quite straightforward to conjure all the elements directly—yet somehow this is harder. I'm forgetting all the times I have commanded animals very easily in other dreams, and am probably just making it harder for myself by all the Ars Magica rigamarole, but truth be told I like rigamarole... it's more stylish and satisfying than just making things happen in a perfunctory way. I conclude that the main problem is that I'm just not putting enough focus into my intent, and so the third time I sing the command. For some reason, I always get the best results in dreams when I sing to shape them, and sure enough, now the butterfly comes over and lands on my proffered hand.

What next? I walk the few steps back into the living room, and command the butterfly to fly up again and go land on the small table by the window on the other side of the couch. Again, it takes me a couple tries, but the butterfly finally obeys. As it lands there, it turns into a young light-haired woman. I am distracted from this transformation by a young blonde man who is now at my side. He is not the second butterfly, the one with black-bordered wings: around this time she transforms into a dark-haired woman who is standing near the closet. With all this transformation going on, I am inspired to try "Muto animál," so I direct this command to the young man, intending for him to turn into a butterfly. He stands there looking a bit obstinate or confused, so I sing the command in what I intend to be a very persuasive manner, and he finally complies—sort of. He lies down on his right side in a fetal position. He is not lying on the floor, but on some platform a few feet high that doesn't exist in RL (there would just be a wall there). He produces a bundle of red yarn that he stretches along the length of his spine. I watch, waiting for the transformation, but nothing happens. I command him again, and he respond that he is doing his best, but that it will take a very long time—maybe up to a year!—because the timing isn't right.

It's possible that the guy is just dicking me around, but he seems sincere, and he does offer that he could transform more easily into a goat. (OMG! I hadn't even realized until I wrote this that my first SSILD also involved a goat... odd coincidence, as I don't remember dreaming of goats under any other circumstances.) I say that this would be fine, so he gets back up, discards the red yarn, and transforms at once into a brown goat of ordinary size. He warns me that when he is a goat, he speaks in a strange high voice—which seems contradictory at first, because he has already turned into a goat and is still speaking in the same voice as before. However, after delivering the warning, his voice does change. From his description of a "high voice," I was expecting him to start speaking in falsetto, but instead he sounds more cartoonish, like his voice has been sped up. With his new voice he introduces himself to me, telling me his name is "Hemm." I find myself wondering how this is spelled. I imagine it with two 'mm's, but having only heard it spoken, I can't be sure. Should I ask? Well it can't hurt, and might help me remember the name better. "Is that spelled H-E-M or H-E-M-M?" I inquire. He replies that there's no way to know: he was just a blacksmith's son and never saw it written down.

I realize that I should get the names of everyone in the room, because then I'll be able to write a more detailed report when I wake up. So I turn and ask the girl sitting on the small table, formerly the pale butterfly. She tells me her name is "Anna." She is now holding a painting, a vertical rectangle about 24x36 inches, and turns it around to show me the back. "And his name was 'Jakachibe', he was a Japanese thief." I gather that the guy she mentions is represented on the front of the painting, but I barely had time to glimpse the image before she turned it around, and now she is just showing me the back of the canvas, where something like 'Jakachibe' is written in large sloppy pencil letters on a wooden crossbar. I say "something like" because the transliteration of the name is even worse than what I've rendered here—there was another 'h' in it somewhere, maybe even a 'q', something more like "Jaqhachibe," but I can't remember precisely—and I have to bite my tongue to refrain from telling her that "Jaqhachibe" doesn't sound like a proper Japanese name and even if it were, it certainly wouldn't be spelled that way in English. I just smile and nod, then turn to the dark-haired woman who has continued to stand by quietly. She tells me her name is "Caroline." After I hear each name, I am repeating it aloud, to better impress it on my memory.

After talking to each of the women in turn, I notice that the young man who had transformed into a goat has returned to his former human appearance. He is of average height, with wavy blonde hair, short but not too short, a bit tousled, and he has a pleasant, open face. He volunteers that his name—in this form—is "Viryec." Or at least, he says something that sounds like that phonetically, but is probably spelled very differently—"Virjece" occurs to me as the most likely possibility—so I start inquiring more about it. He tells me that his name means something like "sincere effort." This rings a bell—both in sound and meaning, it reminds me a lot of the Pali word viriya, which has been on my mind lately, so I ask him if that term has any relationship to his name. Although he and his name both strike me as coming from northern European stock, perhaps there is some ancient Indo-European etymological relationship with the Pali... but before he can reply, I wake up. I don't know why my dreams so often seem to end just before what promises to be some interesting revelation, but here we are again. Still, I'm not that disappointed because I have so much to write down!

I've decided to try and DEILD from normal dreams more, instead of doing MILD only. DEILDing didn't work, but I got an awesome lucid anyways !
I got way lazy when I woke up from it though and I didn't write it down until I woke up for good, so my recall sucks.

Lucidity: 7.5
Control: 7/10
Vivacity: 8.5/10

I'm at a skate park outside, I did a little bit of parkour training. At one point an old friend of mine does a really awesome trick on his skate board. I walk up to him like "dude that was awesome !" and he answers that my stuff wasn't bad either. He gets to my side, his hand on my shoulder. An other one of my friends (which I rarely see anymore) is standing to my left, as I observe the sky.
The moon is very bright, and it's got red, glowing scars on it. I check reality.
"Guys ! We're dreaming !" I say before I realize that I'm the only one dreaming there. "Well this is a dream, anyway."
The guys are not showing great excitement, they answer like "Oh, yeah, it is."
I look around, there are a few trees around and a road in front of me. The looks of the trees makes me think that we're in fall; the don't have many leaves on.
I let my friends there, and I set out to explore the dream world a bit. I'm really happy to be dreaming.
I'm walking on the road in a place which looks a bit like a fusion of New York and Paris. This could be a false memory, but I'm pretty sure that I climbed onto a yellow taxi and took off to fly a bit.

(...)

I'm in my Dad's apartment, I think I came in from the window.
At first I find the apartment empty, but then my dad comes in with a lot of clones of himself. I automatically assume that these clones will behave like robots. I am surprised when I realize that each one of these clones behave just like my dad does in rea life. My brother comes in too with a few clones of himself.
Oh, if everybody has clones in this house and they all behave like real people, then I might as well go look for myself !
I turn to my right and open the door which leads to my bedroom, and a younger clone of me appears behind it. He looks like I used to look when I was 13, except he's about as tall I as am now. His hair is longer and straight, whereas mine are now shorter and almost curly. He's also a lot bonier than me: I used to eat a very little bit and I didn't exercise much back then then. His cheeks are rounder though, like when I was 12 or something like that. I was about to ask him some questions but I'm interrupted by my dad.
"Hey, [Higat]," he calls, "come here, I got something to show you !"
I turn around, leaving my clone hanging there.
My dad tells my brother and me that since this is a dream, we can run really fast. He starts running and I see glowing red copies of himself behind him, like in comic books or stuff like that.
Oh, the clones turned into that !
I try it out too and it's fun, but it reminds me of teleportation which seems way more fun.
"Hey dad, you wanna try a little in-dream fight !?"
He smiles like "Ok, but I'll win."
I decide to try something that I've thought of in real life: when I try to teleport at short disctances, I usually try to see myself teleporting in 3rd person. This time, I decide to go 1st person.
Now this might not seem like a friendly fight, but it was. lol
I run and, all in slow motion, I teleport next to my dad and I kick him in the ribs. I teleport in the air in front of him and spin kick him in the side of his head, and I teleport again in the air behind him to kick him in the other side of his head. I teleport back in front of him.
When I'm teleporting, I'm just willing to be at the place that I want to be at as I'm already engaging my next move.

(...)

I'm in my grandparent's front yard, and I'm showing off to DCs as I run super fast onto walls and around them with the same red glowing copies of myself behind me. At one point I notice that I'm so fast that people can barely see me. The DCs don't really care.