lucid

WELL WELL WELL.

Lucid Dream #1
Note: I've had lucid dreams before, but only a few. I'm starting at 1 anyway.

It started off with a false awakening, which are rare for me.

I wake up in the 1319 house (J room) and start getting ready for my morning (not even remotely realistic for a false awakening). The first thing I do is take a bath in the 2nd floor bathroom, and it's sort of strange and scary; the water is oddly dark and near both edges lengthways (how 2 describe ??) I can feel an uneven edge in the floor, some sort of precipice, little rough bits that threaten to cut me. I can't see anything, though. I'm also wondering whether a bath is really how I start my mornings, wouldn't a shower be faster? Don't I usually shower? Or I suppose it's usually a bath. My mentality seems to be present-day, despite the surroundings.

I may have spent a brief amount of time getting ready in my (J) room post-bath, but the next thing I remember is sitting next to Ben (he's wearing a grey t-shirt) in the living room, on the blue couch. There are some hints towards present-day reality, such as the fancy computers he and I are using, BLEHEHH. I'll write this part later it's too frickin' sad. (My brother was home over spring break and yesterday he headed back on a train so yeah he's one of my favorite people ever)

*SIIIGH* so at first I'm just brushing skin foundation over someone else's artwork in a big notebook, I'm not sure why. They used some sort of wet clay marker or something, so the skin foundation sticks to the art but not the paper. I'm havin' a good time just brushin' it everywhere even though on some level idk if I'm just hurting their art. The feeling was pretty cool though, very realistic. Nice detail.

Then I'm showing Ben some kinda audiovisual webcomic, or more that I'm just letting it play on my computer and he looks over sometimes. I don't remember the storyline very well, although I do remember it was kinda urban and at one point four guys were in a car, and the driver guy suddenly passed out or something, maybe he pulled over first, they were kinda just waiting for him to wake up. One of 'em gets out and takes a phone call from their boss, tells him the situation, gets his orders, and then leans down, sticks his gun in the car, and shoots the driver. The perspective was from outside the car so you couldn't see anything violent.

Lastly... ;-; I said something to Ben like "did you miss your train?" in a sort of awkward teasing voice, and he looked at me like I was crazy and said no, he didn't. I said "So you're in [college] right now?", and he said yes. This all came as sort of a shock. I considered the implications of this, that I must have been talking to him over Steam while interacting with a hologram, except that explanation wasn't a way to cling to reality; it was more that, because this was a dream, that sort of thing was possible. I did the nose-plug reality check, found I could breathe, and fully realized I was dreaming. (sry for tense change)

I get up from the couch and say "I'm dreaming" out loud just to confirm it. Everything feels very real. I walk towards the front door; I'm standing in the living room doorway when I hear Ben on the couch behind me. I look back half-expecting him to have changed somehow (something I'm worried about in dreams, you'll see later with the lifeguards), but instead he's completely gone. Dad's grey blanket is piled up where I'd just been sitting.

I focus on trying to get outside. My first thought is to phase through the glass; it seems like glass would be the easiest thing to phase through, but I find myself pressing my hands up against it instead. I'm sort of frustrated by this. I try for a bit longer, and then I decide to simply break the glass.

I slam it with my fist and manage to break it somewhat. The door is actually split into two sections of glass, top and bottom, separated by a wooden bar piece. I figure I'll have to break both, though the logic isn't all there, and continue punching the glass and broken edges (sustaining no pain or damage). At some point, because it's not really working either, I stand back, hold out my right arm, sort of brace it by putting my left hand on top, and try to summon some sort of concussive blast to shatter all the glass, thinking of Mega Man or perhaps Kadaj with his materia. Nothing happens. Then I try breaking the lower section of the glass with my eyes closed so it'll be easier to crawl through (logic ??). (My eyes-closed view was sort of interesting, because it was all dark except for a mental picture of the broken edges of the glass around the hole.) Finally I just stand up and try the (old, loose) doorknob like a normal person, and it comes off in my hand. Underneath is another one, slightly larger but also very old and sort of ugly. I try that one and finally manage to get out the door, opening the next door after it easily.

Now I'm outside in the 1319 area, in the daylight, taking in how real everything feels. I start flying up to the roof, thinking about the dreamviews competition (#17), and have no problems getting to the roofs of the townhomes. There are some smaller townhomes on top, minis. One of them has sort of a colorful beach house design, with a sign out front explaining that it was designed by a 6-year-old and is up for auction. There's an open house going on inside.

I get the idea to summon Ben back, and start calling his name, then turning around expecting him to be behind me. That doesn't work, so I head into the 6-year-old-designer house, still calling him. He's sitting on the stairs inside (green shirt now), which are so small no one else can get by, and I hear people on the second floor. I come sit by him, a bit lower on the stairs.

There's a sort of odd brown mug with a cover/lid of some sort on a convenient wooden platform (there's a better word) in front of us. I decide to try passing my hand through it. I hold my hand out palm down, fingers together, and try moving it horizontally through the mug. At first it doesn't quite work, and then I find my fingers passing through it rather slowly. It seems to be solid all the way through, not really a mug. The sensation of moving my fingers through it is like passing them through slime of some sort. One successful pass later, neither the mug nor my fingers are changed in any way. I try it again, a couple times, and while I'm trying the last time I say "it's like air!" out loud, in the hopes that it'll be a more "professional" sort of "passing through", more like a ghost. It doesn't work, though. At least I'm optimistic.

I go outside next, and, still on the rooftops, head up the street towards the mall. (I think, for the sake of convenience, I'll designate the direction I'm currently heading "North". The houses I'm walking on face West.) I see some sort of Stone Harbor-esque structures in the distance (Northeast) and go towards them; there seems to be an ocean or perhaps a bay on the East side up ahead. There's also a weird metal structure that I'm interested in flying to the top of, for no particular reason.

Now I'm walking North-ish down the street in the Stone Harbor area, no longer on rooftops. I start thinking about whether I can turn this into some kind of chase dream (or more specifically, "being chased"). As I'm thinking this, I notice five-ish lifeguard guys behind me, reminiscent of some sort of gang. I wonder if they're going to chase me, and decide to keep a low profile for a moment. I go around a corner and then busy myself admiring the detail of the dream, peering very closely at the white-washed wall, which has some ugly yellow spotted stains on it, while they walk by to my right. Then I investigate another wall (slate gray?) so my back is to them.

At some point as they walk by, I think about the way that things can change easily in dreams. It tends to surprise me how stable dreams are, given that when I try to imagine things IWL, I can't get anything right visually and it can't seem to hold steady. At this point, thanks to my thought process, one of the lifeguards abruptly doesn't have a head; only a sewn-up and scarred neck stump (thx Outlast). He keeps walking just fine, and I think his head may have returned after a moment. idk if that counts as a dream power so much as a mistake.

Next I fly around a bit more, maybe up to the metal structure, and then land next to a tide pool with minnows inside. On closer inspection, however, I realize they're actually small piranhas (some are still actively switching to being a mini piranha). I say something surprised out loud about piranhas. Then I hear a sound nearby, and look down to see a small frog/toad-looking thing sort of snuggled among the wet stones. I wonder if my dream wanted me to throw him to the piranhas, but decline to and move on. I think I probably woke up shortly after, without my alarm going off.

Re: the WILD attempt.
I woke up after 6 hours, tried to remember dreams but only got fragments, decided to write them down anyway, briefly reviewed BillyBob's WILD tutorial, set my alarm to wake me up in an hour and a half, and then laid down, on my back, to sleep. Then, for a while, I could feel myself slipping closer to sleep by degrees. I was trying to monitor how exactly it felt: the heaviness in my chest, the deepening layers of almost-sleep, my mentality. I could feel it when I slipped down another layer, and realized this was the closest to sleep I'd ever been while WILDing. However, at some point I rolled over onto my side; it's more comfortable. I should probably just start out there.

Eventually I started getting the hallucinations, and this time I tried to simply observe them, smothering my impulse to tense up. I was surprised to realize that I'd felt this sort of thing as I was falling asleep before, where I would hear-without-hearing someone's voice or some noise close by my ear, although the visual hallucinations were less familiar. First they were quick, flashing images, and then, a bit later, some static and fuzz. I kept trying to focus on clapping my hands in the front office of the 1319 house, and when I fell asleep I woke up in the 1319 house. I wasn't lucid, though. Could still use improvement.

1. [Non-Lucid] [Long]
I'm in a room full of people using PC's, I'm sat at the door, Emily is there and she wants to use a PC so the IT guy shows her to a PC and picks it up and carries it out of the room with Emily.

My old college tutor is there, she wants to go spy on them too see what they're up too, I join her (I'm worried I'l get caught though due to my wheelchair not being very quiet).

Now back In the PC room, Emily is now using the PC, I'm kinda trapped in the corner with my cousin Matt and a random guy in a wheelchair blocking my way out. I decide to start watching Matt, hes using a Mac and is scrolling through his iTunes music, I then comment "Pfff Macs, PC's are better", he then grabs my and starts punching me softly in the ribs while I am repeating "Get off, your gunna hurt me", he eventually lets go.

I'm now sat at a round table in the same room eating something off a plate, (forgot what exactly) It doesn't seem very appetizing, then Emily grabs my attention so I go over to her and she has found a secret passage and so I follow her in, Now were in Minecraft and I cant really see her because its foggy, then we exit the passage into a room, the room is filled with things made of Lego, it was pretty cool.

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

Fragments:
1. In Minecraft looking around the big dark house looking for chests to loot.
2. Looking for a drink or something.
3. We run into a trap while in the army in Afghanistan I think.
4. Mum says I haven't eaten my chocolate orange, I look down at my desk and theres a bowl full of chopped up chocolate orange.

possible dream signs:
Emily, Matt, Tutor, Minecraf

Side notes:
Successfully WILDed but didn't actually enter a dream.

3/16/2014

Note: I started taking magnesium, B-5, & Chorine supplements, on 3/15, hoping to enhance dream recall. So last night was the second night of taking them.

I got to bed late last night, shortly after midnight and fell asleep easily.

Dream 1 (Fragment): I remember searching for Lorene (The mother of a girl who plays on my daughter’s soccer team). We were in an astronomy class and I had to tell her about light pollution.

Dream 2 – LD #56 “Bed in the middle of the street?”: The first thing I remember was being at a house that resembled the house I lived in with my ex-wife. In my head I knew I currently lived there with my current wife and daughter. I am standing in the driveway. There is a latter that extends up to the first of 3 balconies (one above the garage which is the first floor, one on the second floor, and another on the third floor (In real life there are no balconies, and the house only has a first floor). I am very annoyed that the latter was left out because it is a danger to my daughter and her friends. My daughter is there and I ask “Where is mom?” I know that my wife left the latter up and I am very annoyed with her. **Jump** I am at school (which I know is high school). The building is huge and actually resembles a casino I’ve been too in the past. At one point I am walking around with friends. I find myself sitting in a folding chair in the middle of a hall. I am waiting for my wife to bring me my suit because I have to attend a funeral. The funeral is for someone close to me and I am very upset (I suspect my father has died, but not 100% sure). Ashton Kutcher comes up to me. He is trying to cheer me up. He shows me his fake ID which is a picture of a ID on a coffee mug. I tell him to leave me along. I realize my wife has forgotten to bring my suit to the school and I am very angry. I get up and start walking to class. I see the principal (who is actor Tim Russ), who is reprimanding some kids for hanging around in the hall. I hear the bell ring and know I am late for class. I further realize I don’t know where the class is located. The principal comes over to me and starts reprimanding me. I collapse to the floor sobbing from all of the emotional stress (father died, wife didn’t bring me my suit, can’t remember where my class is located). He begins to rub my back and tell me it is ok. I shut my eyes tight. **Jump** I open my eyes and I am in bed (False awakening?), except it isn’t my bed. I am laying on a mattress in the middle of a street. I pull back the blankets (white sheet and bright red blanket). I notice my wife sleeping next to me, snuggled under the blankets with her back to me. I also notice that I was sleeping on the wrong side of the bed. I stand up, and can feel the rough pavement under by bare feet. I know something isn’t right and do a reality check. I look at my left hand and count my fingers. I count to 7 and more fingers keep appearing between the ones that are already there. I’m Lucid! I remind myself to stay calm. I look around and see it is a beautiful summer day. The sky is blue (I did not see the sun), the trees are covered in amazingly green leaves, the air is warm. The colors and details are so much more vivid than real life. I am on a neighborhood street, with lines of houses going off to my left and right as far as I can see. There is a house directly in front of me and it resembles the house I used to live in with my ex-wife, but isn’t exactly the same. I begin to walk through the yard of that house. I try to remember what I’m supposed to do, then I recall I need to engage all 5 senses. The yard is very overgrown with grass and weeds, but they are all beautiful. I begin touching the plants. I start talking to myself out loud for hearing. “I need to engage my senses.” I lean in close to a group of weeds. I say “This is amazing!” The leaves were light green with streaks of pink. I say “I’ve got sight, sound and touch…I need taste.” (I have completely forgotten about smell) I remember what I need to do. I say, “I will just taste those blow pops that were dropped here last Halloween.” I then turn around. There is a low cement wall behind me with long grass on top. Among the grass are two blow pops, one is green apple flavored and the other is strawberry (I know this by the wrappers). I pick up the green apple flavored one. I can see the front door of the house, which leads out to a small porch. My ex-wife walks out (she looks just like she does in a recent picture of her I saw on Facebook – she hasn’t aged well). She says “Hi!” She seems excited to see me. I say, “I’m dreaming!” She responds, “Impressive!” as she turns to head back into the house. I am walking backwards down a low grassy hill to another street. I remember my goal for my lucid dream (to fly into space and view the earth from orbit). I yell, “HEY! Come out here!” She turns and comes back out onto the porch just as I step onto the street (again I can feel the pavement under my bare feet). I say, with a huge smile, “I’ll show you impressive!” I am just about to take off at supersonic speed (Man of Steel style)…the dream ends abruptly and I open my eyes. I do a quick reality check, by looking at the clock and looking back (the numbers didn’t change – 6:28 am). I was too excited to go back to sleep. I took my notebook and left the bedroom to write some notes (I didn’t want to wake up my wife).

Recap: This is the first LD I’ve intentionally had in several years. I am glad I had a planned goal to keep me focused. I am also happy that I remembered to engage my senses prior to fly. But, I forgot about the sense of smell. I also note that is was strong emotions which lead me to realize something wasn't right, which then lead to a reality check.

00:00 Sunday 2014-03-16 competiiton #17 night #9, LD #25

00:56 bedtime, ugh, got lazy, stayed on computer. Bad FryingMan, bad!

05:44

1) Empire plato computer key combinations. I (or I'm watching someone else operating the keyboard) am hitting strange key combinations, at the beginning of key combinations special screen pops up, and there's an interface for selecting which special key you want selected. This goes on for a while, selecting different special keys.

2) see my old car, I look at the license plate to confirm it's mine, I recite the license plate out loud, and look at the car's license plates but the digits aren't quite clear and not quite right. I see a new style of california license plates, they look very different. Ask some woman at a desk outside about the new plates, she condescendingly explains that yes CA has a new license plate numbering scheme, you get a number at first, and then the numbers change a few days later to the permanent license plate.

3) at work sitting at a long table, I have computers and papers propped up in front of me along the row, I have a paper I wrote propped up in front of me, group of managers come and stand behind me, they start reading my paper out loud, at first in a foreign language I don't understand, and then in English. They ask questions about it. Manager asks in front of everybody why I didn't sign up for the monthly bonus/commendation. I think I didn't because it takes more work. He says "everybody here ALWAYS signs up to get the commendation," he's waiting for an explanation. I'm sitting there in silence for at least 15 seconds trying to salvage the situation and make myself look not so bad thinking of what to say. I eventually say I wanted to work on so many other things I didn't have time.

The subject changes to meat. I'd rather work on regular kinds of meat. I see a cart filled with many, huge, long, sliced salamis.

4) At a work secretary in human resources. I was there for a company credit card, she takes out a pile of temporary company cards, snaps one off and hands it to me. I ask her what's going on in the world. She shows me a newspaper article that a young high school guy had killed himself. Then it appears that it was a teacher who was accused of a crime and he was so ashamed he killed himself. I see the face of the teacher, as if on an ID card photo. He was about 40 with a light beard, dark hair.

There was a public service television commercial put together by all the people who defended and supported him because he was a great teacher. The camera swings around through the crowd and shows the faces of the people lined up along the walls. I "recognize" the face of one man in a spotlight as a celebrity/famous person, even he supports the teacher. The speakers say something good about this teacher and that there was no proof of any wrongdoing.

A sport team is running down the hallway by the camera, shouting "woohoo!" There were football players, and a little badminton player waving his racquet quickly back and forth. Then there are a bunch of sports players lying down on the ground, I'm one of them, it's the badminton team, I'm lying half on top of the (team leader?). with my elbow on his waist. The leader is asking about different birdies. One of them is flying around the coach asks me to hand it to him. The birdies used are oranges and lemons. I say "I didn't think lemons were the default birdie, I thought it was oranges" we were joking.

BTB

07:30 wife's alarm

Wife says something, I'm annoyed she's talking to me while I'm trying to sleep. Eventually drift back into sleep, and dream!

08:00 ?? not sure

5) At work, sitting on desk talking with coworkers. Someone behind me is asking about the schedule for a project we're working on, there's a deadline coming up. We're trying to figure out what to do, we're talking about a benchmark, I say "we could always just check for the executable name being <something>.exe!" and we break out into laughter for a while, this is a well-known traditional benchmarking "cheat" for device drivers.

I turn around and look behind me and there is a row of computers at a long table. I see on the screen of one of the computers the remains of the game I was playing there, an ASCII based dungeon game (angband, super fun game: Home of Angband - rephial.org). I think I should clear the screen to hide the evidence. But another coworker goes on that system (a Sun Microsystems workstation) and brings up his game with little graphical buildings and little characters, the whole screen is sort of animating up and down.

I'm a bit farther down the row of desks, I'm trying to walk forwards, but my body doesn't move forwards. I keep trying to walk forwards, pumping my arms and legs, and then I start moving backwards, I feel like I'm being pulled. This is a very comical situation, I"m exaggerating my motions and people are laughing. I think someone must have attached a rope around by waist and is pulling me backwards, I look behind me to see who's doing it.

08:37

6) FA: I wake up in our old rental duplex. My wife gets up and goes to the dining room/kitchen to do something, I'm lying on the mattress on floor level and looking at her through the doorway, I see just her head, I hear her reading something out loud. Someone then starts talking about the name of a child that was born, my wife says the name is <my name>, Junior. We had a child? They're saying that if the name is mispronounced at birth it cannot be correct later on the birth certificate. I hear my name with the incorrect vowel being used, then I hear "Karen" mispronounced/spelled as "Karan".

A woman (the name lady?) is talking with my wife, they're looking in at me, I'm trying to hide my face behind a book.

I'm talking with some guy in a building. He looks like Uncle Hank from Breaking Bad. He's telling me that people were hitting them as they were going up the steps to the hospital in order to give birth. I say we had good luck there, in mid-December so it was not crowded, we had the whole department to ourselves which we needed because both our kids needed... and the guy walks away. "Huh, I guess he's not interested in hearing about our story." I'm looking around, the halls have changed, what used to be openings to other hallways have closed. The same guy (I think a doctor) appears again from where he appeared the first time and walks away through another door and disappears the same way he did before, I sort of try to follow him and start to tell him the story again but I realize I don't know the way back to my bedroom where this started, and I'm lucid (from the location change mostly, ADA/RC-location FTW!). Very unstable, dizzy/hazy at first. Stop, rub hands for a while, start to feel my hands rubbing, and the visuals clarify and stabilize. I clap my hands a few times to finish. I think "OK, I'm going to engage my senses in the dream environment." I really look around, and it's very vivid and clear and WEIRD. The floor, walls, and ceilings are all painted with the same pattern, darkish (army green) pea soup green background, mottled with many swoops/streaks of color, blue and white mostly, maybe orange. It's like the floor, ceiling and walls form one bit pattern, it's very striking. The color seems "wet" and ooze-y like wet paint or playdough. A very "cartoony" looking scene.

I look to the wall on my left and reach both my hands up and flatten my hands against the wall, it's actually a sort of rectangular vent that runs along the wall, I expect to feel cold metal and I do. I rub my hands back and forth, left and right against the wall, and I look at my hands (RC), they're faint/transparent, and they update "at a low frame rate", they look jerky when I move them, not smooth. I turn again to my left (now facing backwards from lucid moment) and start walking forwards. As I turn I think I should summon a cookie into my pocket and eat it (one of my competition plans), but I forget this instantly after I turn. I walk forwards and think I want to hold this dream as long as I can by engaging my senses and moving through the scene. I quickly come up to a corner bending 90 degrees to the right, where there is an open air snack stand on the right. There are 3 young lady attendants there. I have a quick internal debate and "lose" -- surely a quick kiss would be fine. I turn to the right and face one of them, she's cute, slightly dark skinned, she's looking at me, I say/command "come here!" and she smiles shyly and starts to make her way to me, bending over to come out to the hallway under the counter and...I super fast buzz fade to awake. "No!" 1.5 - 2 minutes lucid.


walking the corridors of a hospital

1:00 a.m. - Go to bed

4:55 - Take Alpha - GPC 900mg

8:00
LD
I don't recall how I become lucid. I don't do RC, stabilization and anchoring, which is unusual. I don't have plan for this LD in my mind so I just decide to make some points for the competition. I try teleport back to my bed (false awakening) by spinning and it works. After that, I do flying RC when I jump at the stairs. I enter the kitchen and I Push your hand through an solid object - doors. It's easy. Then I try to move my body throught the kitchen furniture. I don't feel any resisance when I'm doing it.

lucidity 2
vivacity 2
control 1,5
time 10m

15-03-2014
I actually did something I haven't done in more than 3 years. A WTBD. Woke up for. Bit around 8:20 and went back to sleep. In my dream I was in my living room wearing my chinese gown. I think it was raining outside and it was pitch black. Outside. I did an RC and became lucid. I was about to fly outside like I usually do but I suddenly stopped myself. It was so dark I was likely to lose my newfound lucidity. I stabilised a bit and remembered my self imposed task. Summon a sword. I got into a stance and kept trying to draw a sword from my side over and over but it just wouldn't work. Then I went to my bedroom and fetched a wooden bokken. As I brought it back I saw my father creepily come down the corridor. He said "huh?" As if I'd asked him something but I figured it was just to psyche me out.

Then we fought and I couldn't use the bokken because of the close range we where in. Then He turned into some character from prison break or something just as I pinned him down and crushed his throat with the sword. After that I think I saw season 4 of Prison break about to play on tv, then I had a phone call with my friend that I recorded and listened to afterwards, then I imagined what would happen if U2 was outside in the darkness and how I would use a torch to save them( weird). This pulled me into some dream where I was with three other assassins in the middle of a mission. We where running through a building eliminating targets one after another. I think we had all turned into Bleach captains. I was Kyouraku and one of us had just died. The other two ( who looked like Ukitake and that squad 1 lieutenant whose name I can never remember) turned around and attacked me. They looked very crazed like they were powered by a hollow. At first I was being attacked from their perspective and they came across as good. But then the scene was repeated from my perspective and they were possessed by something telling them to kill me to unlock some weird sort of power.

I had one big sword instead of Kyourakus usual two. It had an even longer curve at the end which I soon learned was good for disarming an opponent. So I disarmed the one captain and flew away (because theres no way I'm getting killed for nothing right) I could hear shurikens being thrown at me and the first ones hit me but I changed my flight path so the rest would miss. I had my two swords and as I landed on a wall I focused and used shunpo. [for anyone who hasn't watched Bleach this is called flash step, just google it] to get away from the other two quickly. I hadn't traveled that far a distance but the place I was at now resembled one of the fields at my old High school. I saw captain Kuchiki walking around and knew he would realise something was wrong. Right on cue he started realising something was wrong. Suddenly I was the Head captain and I faked his voice and spoke Japanese so it would be believable. I shouted for Kuchiki to come at once. He started running towards me but then I woke up.

15.03.2014

Eating the Best Vanilla Popsicle while 100 Lemurs Come Out of a Van (DILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

It almost feels as if I'm living several lives now to the point where I don't really worry too much on the absurdities that may occur when dreaming.

The dreaming environment is in the dead of night, and I'm following random dream characters in what feels to be a huge parking lot with many stores, strip malls, and such surrounding us. There seems to be some kind of enticing event coming up, and there are several Hispanic males that are gathering an audience for this.

Apparently, they're offering free vanilla popsicles, and there’s an option to buy a Chocolate Popsicle with vanilla inside for only $1. I just stick with the free option, and realized they’re going to release 100 light brown lemurs to go about in some kind of procedural circus act or something.

_________________________

15.03.2014

Hank Hill Gives Water Hose Advice (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

>Ants reside in the backyard
>I get annoyed by them, trying to avoid them
>Hank Hill indirectly shows me how to drown them out by using one water hose, and then connecting another to the back of it to increase the spreading distance

>I water hose like a madman

I was in "Montreal". It wasn't actually Montreal, but in my dream I just accepted it as Montreal for some reason. I know the layout of this fake dream "Montreal" very well and I get the impression I have had many dreams in this place. Anyway I was driving. I took a left at either a Tim Hortons or a Gas Station. Suddenly I am on a rooftop still driving... Driving from one rooftop to the next. By the third rooftop I run out of roofs to drive on and I think "I hope this doesn't break my car.." and I drive off the rooftop back on to the road. It is the fact that my piece of crap car survived falling off of a roof without breaking that made me gain lucidity (My car would break if I went over a speed bump). At the moment I realize I am dreaming, my car disappears for some reason.

I start walking down the road I landed on (which is cobblestone I think) and take an immediate right hand turn down the next road. My dream starts to lose color. I guessed that means my dream was about to end, Luckily at that my moment I remembered to rub my hands together and all the colors became normal again (which was amazing lol).
There are now people around but I ignore them and continue following the road which runs along side a park. I stop in the middle of the road facing the park and yell "show me something I need to know!" The sky is a brilliant blue with large billowing white clouds, sunny and warm. As I am admiring the vivid blue sky the cloud which is in the lower center of my vision begins to raise up in a way that I can only describe as AWESOME and as it raises I notice that it is turning red. It stops when its finished turning blood red and is now centered in my vision perfectly horizontally and vertically. Subtitles appear under the cloud which say "you reward yourself with F*d up things" then the subtitles say "for doing f*d up things" (but it actually swore at me lol) and then I am not sure if i woke up on purpose or if the pure WTF of it all shocked me into wakefulness.

Note: I learned I can read in dreams. (I heard you cant)
Note: It was very hard to not laugh when I woke up because the response I got seemed so trivial, Now I have the undeniable feeling that it was somehow PROFOUND (somehow...)I don't know how to explain it.

13-03-2014
I think the dream started out by me being at hime. My father randomly came to me and said I need to get dressed and go with him to a meeting. So I did, and then we went there. There were other guys my age all with their fathers. On our way back from the meeting he was bitching about how I messed up by not wearing a watch. I told him it was his fault, if I wasn't in a such a rush from having a meeting randomly spring up I would have worm one. Then he got out of the car and started raging. I got into the drivers seat and tried to run him over.

Then I did an RC and confirmed that this must be a dream. Somehow I was back in my living room and the car was super tiny like a toy. I flew out the window while rubbing my hands together and saying "clarity" and landed on the ledge of the wall outside. Then I grabbed onto a different ledge and shouted "super strength!" This enabled me to climb with just my arms with no effort at all. I got to my destination (a tennis court) and I could hear the gardeners speaking to each other outside. I thought that when I arrived I would summon someone to fight with. But there were these three witch girls there already (they looked normal but I knew they were witches). Suddenly I was a woman. I said we needed to practice our flying and started focusing energy at the bottom of my feet and letting it lift me up. They were too stubborn and said they didn't need it. Then the most rude looking one somehow became stronger by defying me and a clear Crystal ball appeared in front of her. I really don't think I was lucid at this point and there was a lot of cursing/spell casting/teleporting and visions from previous dreams I've had.

Then I was in some sort of gigantic castle. I was lucid again and figured the best place to go would be to the bottom of the castle in this weird dark sewer place. Then there was screaming, a man and a woman running underneath me (I grabbed the woman, but only because I wanted to disrupt whatever was going on) the I was flying around the castle and something/someone was flying after me trying to get the woman (who had now turned into a boy) back. The castle was like a maze and I could remember it from a previous lucid I had a little while ago. Then I lost lucidity, the boy turned into a deflated blow up doll, I flew through a trap that had a lightning barrier and I kept respawning like I was in a game. Then later on I flew into a dragons den and was burnt to a crisp. Think I woke up after that.

Dream
Lucidity

I was in a house in a rural area. We were making a big dinner and I went out. I found Darth Vader and invited him over. On my way back I noticed he had a lot of brass keys on a necklace. When I got back to the house, people were happy to see him but then they found out that he was with the dark side so they got upset. I knew something was gonna happen so I grabbed my P229 and put it on the small of my back. People started eating at the table and then started arguing. Suddenly a guy pulls out something and I know it's a part of a gun. Another person gets up and everyone starts fighting. I chase the guy that pulled out the part of the gun and beat him with my gun until he dies. This causes my gun to break. I can't pull the hammer down but then manage to fix it. I keep going but my gun breaks again. I start taking it apart and can't fix it to I tell myself to do something, either do a dream rewind or summon a new gun. My new gun has a blade under it and I test it out. I hear someone teleport behind me and I run. I go to the backyard where I see a pond, a campfire, and some dogs along with Ace around it. Ace had a broken leg. I decide to go back in the house and finish everything. I sneak through the front porch and the house is on fire. I see 2 guys and one of them starts attacking me. As he's coming towards me I realize I'm dreaming. He kicks me in the nuts and I close my eyes and say "When I open my eyes I will be in a small, dark room", remembering my objective for my next lucid dream. I open my eyes and I'm still in the same place. I do it again and nothing happens. Finally I decide to dream spin. I spin and spin and spin until I feel like I've done it. I stop and fall to the floor, dizzy and unable to stand up. As I'm on the ground, I know I'm in the same area I was before but later on in the night. I'm surrounded by cars. To my right is a white car, to my left is a red car that reminded me of my GF's car, and behind me is another vehicle which I think is a dark grey truck. I do reality checks. I push my finger to my hand but it doesn't go through but I can see a large indentation of where my finger is pushing on the other side of my hand. I pinch my nose but am unable to breathe. I notice my ears haven't popped and when I notice it, they do, like in the waking world. Everything feels so real. I look at my left hand and count fingers. 5 fingers and a thumb. I tell myself "That's all the proof I need" My objective for my next lucid dream was to sit down and learn to control and summon stuff in the environment. I single out a rock on the gravel and try to lift it with my mind. I hear a loud noise in the waking world and it transfers to my dream as a gunshot in the distance to my right. It distracts me and I notice my dream ending. I tell myself to dream spin but it's already to late. I lost lucidity and I wake up.

Did a WBTB after 4h and 3 mg Melatonin (empty now).
My recall is pretty patchy.

The lucid:

I find it almost embarrassing how much a 40 year old woman dreams of school and such stuff - but there you are. I was on an excursion with class-mates, got off track, and noticed something "in the air" - happened before, that there was nothing specific to detect.
Did my nose-plug - my by far favourite RC - and started out again by mental stabilisation, if one can call it that, because while thinking through, what I wanted to think through, and again doing some maths - I lost visual clarity - and didn't get it on properly for the whole rest of the anyway short LD.
It was a bit like groping about in the fog - but it was not fog, more like my eyes didn't work properly.
Maybe I should have tried to get that in order, but I feared to loose it altogether, before being able to do anything - so I took off flying.
That made it better a bit while in the air - but it wasn't really fun - more like an ordeal to get something done. When I was down - the visual problems were worse again.
I didn't find somebody to interact with, neither did I feel up to summoning a portal - the next step in the plan. What I finally did, was eating some grass.

Now - this was pretty useless - damn - the last one was really okay..


Some disconnected fragments:

#1) The people, who could guess, where I got this from, probably/hopefully? won't read this here - ähäm..
I conducted an experiment with my colleagues, where everybody got a small glass pyramid and - yeah - what? I can't remember what they were supposed to do with it. But some of them were fake - the wrong configuration. What came out, was that they did work, the proper ones.
I woke up from this - and it was a whole dream - and I thought, course I remember it - made coffee and pooof. It was great - there was a result, and further consequences - a shame.

#2) Now - that is something, which I'd love to do lucidly - but maybe there is even an effect like this:
I got a darts-lesson by Gary Anderson!! And it was as if I hadn't ever understood how to throw a dart - there were projected planes visible - hm - maybe like with a holographic projector - but more physical - you could keep your arm like in a tunnel, definitively straight.
Also no wonder - last night we've been playing for hours.
So - I should really incubate darts for such days.

#3) An argument with a friend of mine, who lives with us for the time being, how he should get himself a flat finally. But in the end I apologized.

#4) This motive again, that I have to pack my stuff together from a hotel room - or it was actually a rented mini-flat. And while packing, it got more and more. But after a while I "remembered" that it was a family holiday domicile, and that the stuff can stay, and that actually a lot of it belongs to my father.
I came across documents - letters - between my father and a friend of his.
They were pretty revealing - but unfortunately all details are lost to me now.
But it felt, I had found out something profound about him.

#5) Police again - searching for a vandalism-culprit - and I had found a plastic covered passport and further papers and gave it to them. But I knew, it hadn't been that guy. But it wasn't me either.
Bit disturbing, this.

Related Fragments: I am at some gave development conference where you have to design a game in 48 hours. I play two of the games.

My game is called robo-hunter and it is supposed to have a retro feeling. It is rendered in 3D and in the game you are a spaceman and you travel around a maze avoiding or fighting robotic enemies and collecting coins and power-ups. Everything is done in bright colors though.
But this game has a cool introduction that shows you all of the enemy types by panning around the world in a cool way.
There are three types of robots. The weakest type are simply little walking boxes with wind-up keys and eyes. They're cute. But there are a lot of them, and they have little laser antennas on their heads.
The second type look like your classic retro robots they hold dual laser pistols and are tougher.
The third type are these big hulking tank robots. They are a complex 3-D model and have missile launchers. There is music synced up to the sound of them walking. The music or the robot alone were not very cool but together they sounded much more intimidating. I've noticed music is starting to take hold in my dreams more often.
The judges at the game making competition stopped there and didn't even bother to play the game. They simply stated that I had won right there with my opening movie.

I played someone else's game. It is rendered in 2D and has these different planets you can travel to. Some of the planets are very strange. I remember one called the algae planet that looked like a big green virus.
I asked them how they rendered the background. Was it procedurally generated or what? At that moment, the background began to glitch and I saw the stars form into orderly rows.

Lucid Dream #83

I wake up (enter the dream) and I have just arrived at school on the bus. First thing that is fishy is the fact that I am on a school bus. I get out and read the sign.
"Bicameral High School."
"Oh, SH*T I'm at the wrong high school! How did this happen? Oh man now I'm gonna be late and my parents are gonna be p*ssed!"
I start walking around the school. Knowing it's not mine, no reason to go into the school. The school looks like mine in most regards but seems to be in a more urban area.
"Oh man... I am in such deep crap. Wait... This kind of thing never happens to me! Better reality check!"
I do a nose pinch reality check. It doesn't work, I can't breathe. This was weird.
"I can't breathe... this means this is waking life! No, this can't be right! Something is up."
Keep walking, crossing streets and heading into an urban/city center area. I keep thinking to myself. I have my phone in my pocket. I could make a call to someone.
I stop and really think about my situation. I look at a brick wall and punch it. It doesn't hurt.
"Okay, I don't know of any high school named Bicameral High School anywhere near my district. This city does not look familiar. You know what, I don't care if that nose pinch doesn't work, I have to be dreaming."
I do the nose pinch one more time just to make sure, and it does not work this time either. This is freaky, but I know for sure that this is probably just a lucid dream. As I walk down the road, I notice something else. Like 80% of the dream characters in this city are females. Very attractive females.
I had some diolouge with some of the female dream characters, but cannot recall what it was. Something prompts me to start running. By this point I am getting out of the city and into a residential area on the other side. There is a small corner ice cream shop. I look and run across the street to get inside. As I am running, I affirm that my dream guide will be inside.
I get inside and nobody is there. Then, my dream guide walks out from the back room. (Bonus points for wearing the ice cream vendor uniform.) She opens the gate in the counter and allows me to come back behind the counter.
"How come my nose pinch reality check didn't work?"
"This is not a lucid dream. It is an alternate reality representative of your sexual desires. You know how you (garbled)"
She sits down under the sink.
"Does that explain why all of the dream characters are female?"
She says something but it's garbled and quiet. I feel like she's shrinking away under the sink. I grab the sink basin, the sides of it bend and crush in my hand. I rip it off. Water sprays out of the pipe and Lia is nowhere to be found.
"Hey... I wasn't done talking to you."
I turn around, the broken sink outlet is still gushing water, and I am still holding a bent metal sink basin. There are about half a dozen dream characters standing in the door of the ice cream shop. Half female, half male. Most of them look to be adults or middle aged.
"There he is!" one of them yells.
I recognize the look on these characters faces. They are "crazed" with stopping me from lucid dreaming. (Don't know why this keeps happening.)
I run to the side and punch through the glass on the side of the shop. I remember the way the broken glass doesn't cut me and just sort of fell away from me. The ice cream shop has one of those fenced-off outdoor eating areas. Some of the characters follow me through the shop, while the others surround the eating area from the outside.
I climb up onto the fence of the eating area and jump. The characters are surrounding me at this point.
Come on! Fly Fly flyflyflyflyfly!
I jump up just as the characters are about to grab me. I go about ten feet into the air and start drifting back downwards. I try to remember how to fly, cause it's been a long time. Oh, yeah!
I put my hands down to my side and focus my energy through them. I got my little blue fire jets. I angle myself out over the street and keep going up. The mob of dream characters gives me that "we'll get you next time!" look. But I have a new problem. There are huge fully grown trees in this area and my flying feels a little less controllable. I don't want to hit the trees, but I keep brushing up against smaller branches. This I don't mind. It actually helps me to stabilize the dream some.
I turn back, facing toward the urban center of the city. I am getting above the trees now, but there is a large pine tree that I am going to hit the top of. I don't try and stop flying, I just let myself hit it.
I end up grabbing onto the top of the tree and almost sort of hugging it. I just feel it and stabilize the dream some. The dream is destabilizing, I am waking up. I do my best to hang onto the tree, but end up waking up.

23:50 bedtime, a bit late but OK

00:00 Saturday 2014-03-08 competition #17 night #8, LD #24 (FA)

05:15

1) flying in to Country1, I'm flying over landscape, I land in a large building complex up high. The Country1's have set a trap for me, but Country2's commandos have prepared a way out for me. I make my way back through Country2's front lines and clasp hands with a young Country2 officer and exchange some words of greeting/thanks.

2) Calling S2 on the phone. I'm on a tent on the lower level, and S2 is sleeping in a tent on the upper level on an out door platform. Then my wife and I are going to go to him and check on something, to check on his reading progress, I try to call him while I"m walking up the stairs with my wife to give him a head's up that we're coming to him. We reach him and he tells us the books he read are on the table under the coins. There are about 4 books on the table and a 5 inch tall stack of coins are placed on top of them. One of the books is really think. He said he'd just read portions of that one.

F1) I'm calling someone and saying that the weed was AMAZING (IWL I don't touch drugs, weird), that was some AMAZING stuff!

F2) buying a Honda and waiting for it, other people are waiting for cars to emerge from a building where they've bought them.

F3) S2 is with his friend S, S2 has his shirt off, he's air-chopping with a katana, S is telling S2 he's doing a good job.

Can't get back to sleep.

06:00 out of bed, eat breakfast
07:00? BTB

between 08:00-09:00?

3) FA LD #24. I'm in and out of sleep, dozing for a long time, seeing dream images start to work and then fade away, I see several times what appears to be a wall of bathroom tiles, so I imagine I'm in a shower or the bathroom. Eventually I get up to use the bathroom, I'm using the toilet in a bathroom where the walls are white tiles, after finishing I turn away and head towards the door at the opposite wall, my head feels really heavy/dizzy/drowsy I think I should get right away back to bed and I'll certainly lucid dream. I realize this is not my bathroom, this is a false awakening, I'm dreaming, then I'm awake.

11:44

F4) Horror Hotel -- I'm walking around a bed trying to make it and pull the sheets across, the staff are talking amongst themselves and saying that they can't imagine that I would be staying here after I've heard all the stories. I think I should go farther on down the road to the next hotel.

F5) Singing up the mountain. I'm walking up the mountain in a big group, I break out into a strong song. I think my voice is pretty good but not perfect.

4) Battling the cyber demon, sliced leg. Lightsaber trident I'm showing it off to a woman before the fight, it has a long shaft, I ignite the blades, they're lightsaber power blades curved like horns of a bull in the shape of a trident they're white. In the fight some guy slices me on my left leg on the side /back just above the knee, I reach down to feel the wound it doesn't hurt, am I bleeding? but I feel a long cut I can't tell how bad it is I look to my hand and I see blood but not a lot it's not pouring out like I thought it might be.

F6) dance with the really tall celebrity women. I have a view like standing partly up a stairway looking down. Very thin/tall women are dancing (and doing handsprings?) in a big room.

5) french crinkle fry / dinner suggestion they say what to eat, I'm on a diet dipping a crinkle fry into ketchup and eating it then want to go out I'll go to keep company but won't eat much. They decide that they're just going to order to go, and I say "no, never mind then" and I leave the group and head towards the door.

Lots of detail lost here, there's a ton more action that's just beyond grasp.

Journal Entry Lucid #13 Dream,Lucid, (Comments)
Background:I got up at 11:47pm. I went to sleep around 2:00am. I watched a video about meditation. Before I went to sleep I thought about the trend of having 1Ld/week was going to disappear. I still had hope though. I wanted a LD very much but my priorities were (dream recall > LD). I became happy and delighted about going to sleep. I laid there listening to my favorite tune in a comfortable position on my belly. I said pharse next thing I see is a dream. The song finished and it was completely quite. I kept saying the phrase with content. I fell asleep somewhere here. ( I am sooo happy that I got LD, the whole week I suffered from remembering my dream and I get this wonderful gold mine today I am soo happy.)

Dream fragment 2 from 2:20am-3:56am"":
I was skating in a middle of a busy street. I could hear familiar voices talking about me. They were criticizing me about something. I kept listening then I thought who is it? I turn and I see it was some class mates of mine. They said what's up, and I left. I see my friend LE. He is sitting eating a sandwich. I picked up my board it was a guitar that wasn't quite finished. He said, "that's your board". I said, "yeah I made it all by myself". I don't even skateboard.

-I was now walking in my school parking lot in the back. As I was walking I get an idea to remember my dreams. I thought I know I should tell my life like a dream and make it as intresting as a book. I remembered the previous dream I had and I started to describe it to myself. I then started to describe my surroundings. I hear a chatter in side of a car. I kept walking I see tall grass. I walk down. The chattering has now shifted I notice that

I became lucid and I thought this is a dream. The dream was pretty stable since I just slept. I started to fly immediately. I see the girls that were chattering. One of them I knew the other one was her younger much prettier sister. I hear the younger sister complain about her sister to her mom. I then flew close to their cars. The younger sister flew with me. We went to the atmosphere. I could see the clouds and the sun. I looked at her floating and thought does she know that she is even floating, if I tell her she is would she fall. With that thought I stumbled a little but regain balance. I looked at her and she was facing away from me. I tried twisting to face her on the same level. She turns again. I kept trying, but it disoriented me. I didn't know what direction I was in up down or anything. She said females are the polar opposite to males. I said oh that is why you did that. While she was talking to me I blew some air on her face. She got blown off for a couple of distance. It also got colder when I did that. We went down and landed. She took me inside a house. She looked so independent from me that I thought about the idea that she don't realize that she is in my dream. I said to her how do you know this is reality? she laughed at me. I said everybody laughs but nobody questions. I did a cheap RC. I counted my fingers, and I plugged my nose, I did them with partial awareness. I walked through the shutters. I wanted to use telekinesis. I wanted to lift the house with just my mind. I put my hand out but then I got attacked. I see two ninjas they jumped and tried to hit me. They were extremely slow too. She told them to stop but they didn't listen. When I wanted to fight them it was like I automatically knew mixed martial arts. I punched kicked and dodged them. I stopped and I realized that I was loosing lucidity when I was fighting them. I became too involved. They launched at me again. They grabbed my hands and I tried to remove them. I couldn't rub my hands.

They let go of me but I lost lucidity. I started walking around. I woke up inside of my car. I was so happy I had a LD. I looked for my DJ. I couldn't find it. I went outside. And I started looking for it. I kept telling myself the dream so that I won't forget it. My memory was sharp. I see a car drive by. My grandmother was in the car as well. The people from the other car came inside my car and started taking my mother's stuff. I stopped them but they told me they had her permission. They recognized that I was acting strange so the women asked me what was I doing before they came. I told her that I was looking for my DJ. She became excited and asked me to tell her my dream. I thought I could tell her the LD that I had but I would have to explain LD to her, and she may not like me. I looked at her arms and I thought about how weak she looks. I wanted to tell her to make her feel strong and powerful. I stared into her dreamy hazel eyes. Mesmerized by her beauty someone else drove the car. We were now walking. She asked me if I thought it was fair what the Ukrainians did to their old president. She told me a gruesome story. We were walking in rubble of destroyed building like Syria. I responded by acknowledging what they did was wrong but it lets dictators know that when freedom is token freedom from the people, the people will rise. No amount of power can over come the will of the people, the collective.

I see a camera man recording something. He turns around and starts recording me. I tried to hid. He came to me and told me that it is already too late. I walked away. He started smoking. I started talking to an artist. He made a poster and I said nice to him. Then I see another artists drawing and i said nice to him too. The other artist said, "that compliment was for me". Jokingly I said, "what do you have it copyrighted". He said yes it is owned by (his name) which I don't remember.



Became lucid by: DILD (awareness not RC)

I'm driving through a familiar IRL location, semi-lucid - aware I'm dreaming but still just automatically following the dream storyline. While thinking about this being a dream, I go fully lucid and remember a lucid goal, one that involves traveling to a particular building, so I set out to find it. I'm at a crossroads, and I think to myself, oh look, there's the road that leads to that place! I drive down that road for a while, and the scenery gradually stops resembling IRL.

Eventually the road curves, and rather than turning with it, I drive off the road, directly through a dry yellow bush, although it gives my car no resistance at all. I drive through the forest for a while, without a road, and I pass construction crews - men in hardhats, bulldozers, and a vast number of tree stumps that they've cut down. I begin to have trouble with visuals, things start going black and I worry that I'm waking up, but I'm able to clearly see a tree branch against the sky as I drive up a hill, looking upward, and I keep focusing on that vivid image, wondering why I can see some things and not others.

I exit the forest, away from the construction crews, and am now at the top of some rolling hills covered in green grass. In the distance, I can see a blue building flanked by white pillars, and I decide that must be the place I've been looking for. As I get closer, I see that it seems to be a school - which is not what I'm looking for - but I keep heading for it anyway, figuring it'll work out when I get there. I cross a bridge, and looking down I can see some land covered by a thin layer of water far below, a sort of web-like network of tiny streams. The place I'm looking for has a vague connection with water, so I think of this as promising.

I park in a small parking lot, a good distance away from that building. You have to walk from here, this place is the official entrance. There are a few other people around heading toward that building too. I hear sea birds. Over to my left, the opposite direction from the building, there's a low wall; I walk over to it and look down into a bay. I can smell the sea air. The bay is filled with fish - some of them are on the rocks instead of in the water, but they seem fine with this, and I have the feeling it's a visual trick to allow me to see them clearly. Similarly, there are giant versions of some sea creatures that would normally be much too small to see from this distance. I think of this as something like an aquarium. I can hear triumphant-sounding orchestral music.

I walk back to the entrance that leads to the building. The 'entrance' mostly consists of a large wooden message board with various things posted on it, including a place where people have left written messages about their visit to this place. I look it over briefly and continue on the path towards the building. At the other end of that wooden board, someone's left a backpack behind. As I look at it, I realize I'm waking up.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

There's a man who's conducted a study of the languages in his country, who's so far cataloged over 300 languages and dialects. He's currently walking down a dirt road with a lot of foot traffic. Ahead of him, some people are setting up a kind of gate. A man who he's meeting here arrives through that gate, accompanied by a small escort of soldiers.

Now that they've met up, the soldiers move on ahead, leaving the researcher and this man a little separate. One of the soldiers says something to the man, and he starts to address him as 'my captain' or something similar, a title involving rank, but he catches himself after the 'my' (or the equivalent rather; this wasn't in english). This man isn't his captain (or whatever the rank was) anymore. Both the soldiers and the man are a little sad about that, though none of them show it, but walking together with the researcher rather than with the soldiers sort of rubs it in. He'd served with this group of soldiers for a long time, and he was just recently forced to resign from his post due to something that was revealed about him. It wasn't any action on his part; it was some inherent quality that he had been unaware of, something he thinks of as something like a taint, although as a disembodied observer, I believe it's not actually a bad thing in itself, whatever 'it' is.

Addressing the researcher, he identifies himself as 'language group 246' - that is, although he doesn't expect the researcher to remember him, they've met before, when he'd participated in that researcher's survey of dialects. He takes some food out of a bag - a corn cob sliced into halves - and he offers one to the researcher, who's surprised but accepts. The man is reflecting on the opportunity for conversation with this researcher now, versus with the soldiers he used to command.