non-lucid

It's been a while since I've written in my DJ, since 2011 to be precise. The reason being that I lost the fire, and a series of failure led to me giving up since the efforts I put in didn't seem to be worth it. However, I have decided to reprise my role as an intermediate-level oneironaut. I actually waited before I start to write in my DJ again to see if I get any results, and I sure did.

For the last few days, I have had increasingly better dream recall, but it was last night that I got a full LD.

It all started when I left my house to go to the library. I recall being in a building made out of rocks similar to the ones in Star Wars. I encounter a girl from my school then find myself inside a mix of a library and Archambault (bookstore). My mom texts me to find out where I am. The dream begins to crumble and I become lucid in the process. Lucky me, I get an FA but I am not fooled for a second. I quickly RC, stabilize the dream and leave my house by the back door. As I walk through the door I feel spider webs on my face. I am briefly frightened but soon they disappear and I regain control. This is where my memory gets a bit foggy. I decide the fastest way to leave my house is to fly away and I manage to do so. I see a small cartoonish bird in the sky and land at my school. There I decide to fly around and to try transforming into a cat. While I feel I did manage to transform in a decent way, I am not quite sure since I was in 1rst person. I slowly start losing lucidity and wake up shortly after.

I am very satisfied as it had been a while since I had LDed. Now my goal would be to try to achieve better dream control because I sometimes feel even though I am lucid, the dream decides what I do and not the other way around. But for a start this was very good

Three dreams tonight, and two fragments.

Dream 1: I was outside a school, apparently mine, except it was in a completely different location and appeared completely different.

It was about...five to ten times longer than it was wide, and had a complicated network of small flights of stairs and small rooms instead of reasonably large hallways and classrooms. The color scheme was a beige color for the walls, floor and ceiling, with a brown for the doors. Everything was also a mess. Chairs were randomly placed around rooms and such, and there were no tables. I wandered around for a bit, finding the aforementioned information, talked with a few DCs (though I do not recall the conversations), and the dream ended.

Dream 2: I was playing some kind of third-person stealth shooter with a friend, and I cannot recall any details about him. There are a variety of scenes I remember, such as a wooden bridge spanning a cliff in a desert, with a guard at one end. There was also something about a dragon, which I cannot fully remember, but it was green and resembled a plushie, to an extent.

At one point, we were infiltrating the enemy base or some such, and it had overly-large hallways, as if they would move tanks around or something. The color scheme was blue. For anyone who has played Lost Planet 2, there was one level that resembled this. There were windows and guards everywhere, but we were somehow not detected. There was one part in particular where there were two paths - one forward, turning right, and an offshoot to the right, which led to some kind of security room to the left, and a lounge/bathrooms to the right. Proceeding down the hall and turning right, there was some kind of dual-gate security checkpoint.

At this point, it was less "playing a game" and more "controlling the character directly from a third-person perspective." I knew there was a guard on the other side of the door, but I thought I could take care of him. I closed the first door I passed through, and went to open the second one.

In retrospect, as I am recalling this, I distinctly remember never actually having any weapons of any description. I also apparently referenced the Metal Gear (Solid) series when referring to the guards - though I have only played MGS4.

So, the second door closes. I am facing the second door, and turn to the right - there is a window looking out into the corridor. Of all things, I see...a Heavy from TF2 run past, and it starts opening the door. The door opens and the Heavy kills me.

I woke up briefly at this point, did a RC, and it was not a false awakening. It was about...5:30AM.

Dream 3: I was driving to school. The route is completely different. There was someone who looked like he was wearing three traffic cones (one over each leg and one over his torso), and he was jumping back and forth on the road...at 60kph. Another driver and I passed him by driving into the oncoming traffic lane over a divider, then ran a red light.

Note - this is definitely not an accurate representation of my driving skill.

We eventually come to some kind of mall or some such - which is full of those large cargo containers you find on trains and the large cargo ships. We park, and I suddenly find myself outside the car. This "mall" was open on two sides - "open" as in "did not have an exterior wall" - something that would definitely never happen in Winnipeg. Maybe in Hawaii. The roof resembled the interior roof at one section of a place I worked - a greenhouse, though not the "greenhouse" part. My mother apparently buys me these two magnets, with an odd shape - an oval, with a name of some university, then a connecting bar, then a rectangle. On one of them it said something about preferring yellow silk over black gold.

While silk is nice, oil is somewhat important, dream characters....

Anyways, at one point I look up, and seem to briefly drift into something of a daydream/fantasy/what have you - one that occurs in real life from time to time, and I speak to this other character (specifically, Lucina from Fire Emblem: Awakening), and mutter something about "being home." (Note - I use these "daydreams" for lack of a better term to interact with whatever characters are present in whatever game I'm playing to pass the time, or to relieve boredom). We get up to the "school" which is an incomprehensible mess of what looks like oddly-shaped vehicles and buses parked together. I'm looking around for an entrance, and see some of my (IRL) friends.

We chat briefly, and I ask where an entrance is - one of them says that they are waiting for people to get out of the way, as all of the entrances were blocked. So we wait about five seconds, and walk up some stairs. We enter this "bus" for lack of a better term, and I sit down next to them (not noticing that they are already sitting - and they were definitely behind me). Another friend of mine sits down next to me. I notice a third friend on the other side of the "bus." The second friend goes over to her. I look across, and I see something about free lunches, with a cost of "5" "10" "100" (no currency given), etc. and they were denoted by traffic cones of three sizes and shades - not much difference between them, they were all orange.

At this point I noticed I had no shirt on, but before I could do a reality check, the dream ended.

I think, at this point, I'll consider stairs and traffic cones dream signs until proven otherwise, and perform reality checks as normal.

Dream 4 (fragment): I was playing some kind of turn-based grid-based strategy game resembling Fire Emblem: Awakening. There was a level involving clouds, and I was apparently levelling up the character Morgan (...also from Fire Emblem: Awakening). I also was apparently going to recruit another character on this level, but there were special spaces (which resembled wooden posts) where if I attacked them large sections of the level (which looked like a circle about 6 tiles thick, with a ~5 tile thick bar on the top) would cease to exist, obliterating any non-flying unit beneath them. I accidentally obliterated the character I was going to recruit with Morgan, despite Morgan being on the other side of the map, outside of movement range and such.

I'm not sure whether or not I should play more Fire Emblem or less. Having the characters as DCs should be entertaining, if nothing else.

Dream 5 (fragment): This one was a false awakening, though I forgot to do a reality check - I apparently woke up, and walked over to my closet, which had a white, sliding door on it. I open it up, and walk in. While my closet is a walk-in closet, this one was smaller and wider, and had a peaked ceiling. There was a second sliding door, also peaked, and somehow worked. Opening it, there were several shelves with towels. Dream ends.

All of these dreams were...rather vivid, actually. A shame they were not lucid. I do know which friends of mine were present in Dream 3, I am simply not mentioning their names.

Angie is a friend of mine whom I have not seen in person since we were eightteen, and we really were close friend when we were sixteen. She lives in Europe, I live in the US. We are Facebook friends.

In my dream I had been invited to Angie's birthday party, and was eager to go. However, I kept getting confused: when is the party? Is it today or tomorrow? Check on phone. Tomorrow. When is it? Am I in the car now because I am driving there? If so, I don't have a present. No, the party is on Friday, and today is Thursday (in my dream).

Will I even need to drive there? Couldn't I just walk? But it will be late at night, and the party is barely walking distence. Could my mother drive me there? As long as she stays in the car: it would be awkward if she came in, unlike for that other party of another friend where that was ok.

I am not entirely sure whether I was an adult or a teen in this dream. I think it may have switched from adult to teen in mid-dream.

I was not aware not even a bit, even though with all that confusion I should have questioned that something was wrong. I kept not remembering from one moment to the next when that party will be. When I thought of walking at night, I briefly visualized that, too, but it did not raise any weirdness flags. The dream was quite vivid however. A prime example that vividness and awareness are so separate.

In this dream some parent I did not know was bragging about their children that they napped better, stood taller, progressed better than other people's children, and that it was due to special nutrition.

This dream was rather lengthy and vivid, however, due to the way I was woken up, I could not work more on retaining the memory.

This dream was supposedly about work, but I did not recognize the other people. Throughout the dream I was trying to establish whether a record in the database was a real production record or a fake test record. I went from one set of people to another person. Finally I found a guy who said that it was fake test, and he was sure of it despite only barely looking at it. I said "How do you know?" He: "Because this record is about 'killer potatoes' and there is no such thing." I looked at the data, and yes it was about killer potatoes. I felt so bad for not having noticed that before.

I tried to then establish who had entered this fake record into the production system, but I could not narrow it down to an individual only to a department.

Recall from today's naps, bunch of confusing false awakenings once again and fake sleep paralysis.
The first nap was weird one though, i am not sure what i was trying to do there.

Nap #1(fragments):

Can't recall much other than that i was WILDing and the room was different.
Then i woke up in my room and i exactly knew that i was dreaming, i got up from the bed and spontaneously started trying many kinds of dream control and failing... i probably didn't had full control over myself either. Shortly dream faded out and i woke up.

Nap #2:
Dream 1(fragments):

There was some kind of theatre and i was behind the scenes, where people were making a movie. Then later i was using subway to get somewhere, then i was in some other place and there was movie like cutscene. Finally i was back at home and i was doing WILD, family was watching movies and distracting me but i continue.
I wake up back at my room, and i can't move, i try to break out of it, but chandelier appears and everything gets filled with lamps. Dream fades out and i wake up again, i take off headphones and i still can hear binaural beats, but before i can do anything else dream fades out again and i wake up distracted by family watching movies, can't recall much after that other than some dream skips.

Dream 2:

I was back at home again, and again trying to WILD.
I wake up again in my room, can't move, and chandelier again is here, i attempt to break out of paralysis and this time i barely manage to get able to move to take off headphones, binaural beats still heard. Then suddenly dad appeared out of nowhere, grabbed me and thrown me out through the balcony door, while shouting 'Thanks!'. Outside i am able to move normally again, i feel wings and fly, i respond to him "No, thank /you/" since for once family member helped me in lucid dream, usually they were more distracting me.
Dream, however is not very stable, so i rub hands and quickly stabilize it. Then i look around and outside... is weird. It looks like outside area near the house is surrounded by same walls that are in my room somehow? I fly higher into the skies and do decide to attempt to do transformation into a dragon again. I give it a few tries, using various commands and visualization, and during one of attempts, i start feeling bigger... but my visible body is the same size, not changed at all... that's weird, also my voice gets more booming. I fly around some more and i somehow get into some kind of tube, walls of which are made of screens with blue ads on them...
At the bottom of the tube there's room with wooden floor, i fly there, by the time i reach it the feeling of bigness vanishes, i also notice that walls are white and cyan. I am now inside some building and there's janitress, as i fly closer she throws a bucket at me, i feel the hit but i take no damage of any kind. Then she disappears while i look confused. I look around some more and see a group of schoolmates from my past. I fly closer to them, but before i can do anything dream fades out and i wake up.

Yesterday:

I was being held by a woman along with a few other people, before I get taken into a room. There’s a bright light shining on glass tiles inside, and then I’m made to leave after the women tells me something. I later tell the others what I saw.

“[...] before she turned me around and pushed me out.”

I was trying not to smile as I explained for some reason.

Today:

I was running away from a big monster. I was in World of Warcraft and ran up onto a ship(?) then jumped across to another area of it. The monster followed, so I took a chance and jumped off into the distance. I almost landed on a solid area but I just missed it. I fell down, and down—and then I woke.

Note: I think the ship was golden like the one in Homestuck, and the monster was like a demon in Dragon Age.

Saturday 4/13/13

I was so tired yesterday, went to bed at 8:30pm - 7:50 am

Had a ton of long, detailed dreams. Wrote down only keywords and by now, don't remember much.

1. Something about Julie Watson. No clue who it is.

2. I'm in Saudi Arabia. (watched movie Kingdom, about FBI investigating bombing in SA).
At home, I'm showing my dad an atlas with pictures of Saudi Arabian beach. Few feet from sand, there are pits dug out in the dirt with bright blue ocean water and sand. Like a mini ocean. It's for the wives/women. They can't be on beach together with man.

As we looking at the atlas, we are suddenly standing on top of the steep cliff, overlooking the beach with little private oceans, same as the picture in the atlas.

3. I'm touring some tourist attractions in national forest in Saudi Arabia. At some tree, there is a sign in russian. Picture next to it is an orthodox christian. So that explains the sign in russian.

I feel like i was aware of the fact that i was dreaming most of last night, but was too damn tired to force a more active lucidity (stayed up ~4 hours later than my body wanted to).

woke up knowing i had been dreaming of zombies (played the first bit of the walking dead game before bed), but not much else. watching a youtube video about owls flying sparked the following recollection.

I had this little motorized winged gadget that is meant to help one fly. there was a spot in the woods that had awesome updrafts - enough to get me flying unassisted (more of a gliding thing - couldn't go long distances. going up takes a LOT of effort, and the forward movement is mostly gliding/making use of updrafts). i had to go somewhere far away, so i figured stealing one of the flyers (the winged gadget) would help get me there. When I used it in the updraft place however, it shot me up too heigh too fast. it was slightly frightening, but mostly inconvenient as i couldn't see where to go. i had a male friend with me at some point. vaguely fairly like (we were)... were on someones roof - the someone else's patio - used their comp/radio/etc for music.
-
a secret base for...? abnormal people - deep underground. there is a valve like tube to get there. usually solid, but if you know how to get there, you can make it open and admit you. there might have been a fire there at some point - well contained. i thing i stole/borrowed the flying device from them. the mission was probably also from them. it was in a place way to the north - on a coast.

Current Supplements:
Fish oil 1000mg 2x/day
B complex w/ Folic Acid and Vitamin C 2x/day
Vitamin D3 1000iu 2x/day

Techniques:
ADA/mindfulness

Night before last:
I dreamed my ex boyfriend and I piloted steam-powered mechs across a post apocalyptic desert landscape, think Fallout New Vegas style. At one point, we stopped at a ruined rest stop.

Last night:
1. I was in a crowd in a movie theater like setting. It was very crowded and I was trying to find a seat without disrupting peoples' view of the show. It wasn't dark, though - the seats were all outdoors.

The theater became stadium-like. I was moving through a large crowd. The dream became blurry, and then I was hovering over the crowd and the building, which was amphitheater like with a strange roof-like structure that had muticolored terra-cotta tiles.

I suddenly realized that I was flying, which caused me to realize that I was dreaming. All of the colors intensified as I mentally ramped up the vividness of the dream. There were sparkling, vividly hued, multicolored chunks of glass and shiny black, hard pieces of coal suspended in the air around me. I was carrying a stack of tax forms and medical paperwork. As soon as I realized I was dreaming, I tossed them into the crowd below. I watched the hundreds of papers flutter to the earth like falling leaves, glad to have let them go.

I reached up and grasped a shiny black chunk of coal. It was smooth and hard, and despite being black, it shimmered. I brought both hands together and imagined immense pressure and heat. I imagined that the entire universe was exerting pressure on it. The coal between my hands began to feel hot.

I opened my hands. The coal had fused somewhat into a yellow piece of glass, but it wasn't a diamond yet. I wasn't bothered by this - it was a process, after all. I closed my hands, pressed them together around the coal/glass, and imagined the immense pressure and heat again. I imagined that all of existence was compressing around this single object. The dream rippled around me. I heard a sound like a shock-wave, or sub-bass.

I opened my hands and looked again. There was an almond-shaped yellow diamond in my hands, roughly the size of an egg. The surface was polished and smooth, and I could see into the translucent diamond and see all of the facets and the inner structure of the diamond catching the light. I gently released it and it rose into the air, joining the suspended pieces of coal and shards of glass, sparkling brilliantly in the sunlight.

I woke up. For whatever reason, I just wasn't excited about what I'd done! I just rolled over and went back to sleep... d'oh.

I dreamed that I was petting a tiger. It had been brought over to my apartment by a different ex-boyfriend. Its stripes were made of paint, and they got all over me.

I was in some kind of video game and there was huge forest full of items from Deathtrap Dungeon, i had to find ways to collect them all and some of them were pretty hard to get, requiring ridiculous jumping on branches, and along the way i had to fight some enemies too.

Only one dream from last night but it's certainly one of the craziest I've ever had!

Okay so I had the animated scooby doo by my side, the 3D animated one and I had to hide him from the cartoon one that was coming through a portal in a forest not too far away. We were both in this fairly open square tent and we both bolted for the open trying to get away. We both rushed through an open and very busy morning market. With blue sky above us and castle not too far off we clearly weren't in 2013. Nevertheless I glanced backwards to see if the cartoon one was behind us to see the scene switch as quick as a lightning strike. Suddenly I was in the middle of a cross-fire, not of real bullets though; nerf pellets. I instinctively ducked and looked around, as I did so the scene flicked back and I was racing through the market once more. Not giving a care to what had just happened we both raced into one market stall at the top of a grassy hill. Now I think back to it, it all felt so real and nice to have the sun on my back, blue sky and very colourful green grass. I looked around and once more the scene changed like a light coming on. This time people looked like they were in some kind of restaurant, however they were testing their nerf guns, making sure they loaded and fired properly, like they were preparing for an assault.

Looking back around I was no longer at the market, I was in a comfortable room and it was nighttime. I then heard a knocking on the window, it was my very small college friend Kathleen. She'd done something very bad and got kicked out of her house and needed somewhere to stay. Me being the kind person I am I lifted her through the window and into 'my room'. Not long after we were both watching tv on a large bean bag and all of a sudden she started feeling me up! O.o I look to my left and my girlfriend is sat right there! She didn't respond and I was shocked at what was happening. Then the dream ended.

i am in a house with M., S. and A. the house is located in a clearing in a coniferous forest. the scene is generally dark. the house has wood floors and a warm colour scheme.

then my friends and i are in my elementary school gymnasium. we are playing a game in which the goal is to guess what the other person is thinking of. the theme in this round is fetishes. i come up with an idea which turns into an entire dream scene:
this scene is in the style of a documentary and it is presented by a man whose appearance and mannerisms recall louis theroux. several muscular men wearing leather bdsm outfits sre gathered together in a field. on the edge of the field stand rows of huge metal bows (about twice the height of a person) which are anchored to the ground. "louis" interviews one of the men who tells him that this is a fetish. participants obtain satisfaction by being fired from the bow as if they were an arrow. louis chooses to undergo this process. an arrowhead attached to a short length of shaft is glued onto his forehead and he is placed into some kind of leather bondage contraption which keeps his legs together and his arms at his sides. the man pulls the bow back, releases it and louis flies straight through the air.
afterwards we are in a classroom with the lights off. some blue-white light filters through the window. we are discussing sexuality with a teacher figure who is male and in his mid-20s.

the scene returns to my elementary gymnasium but now there is a war going on. the tile floor has become bumpy and ragged, unevenly painted with blue, yellow and green stripes. i am talking to a tall, thin man in a suit who has unruly black hair about the war. i understand this man is jean-paul sartre. sartre complains that another writer's books are racist and colonialist and tosses them onto the ground.

next i am inside some kind of professional building with wooden doors and blue glass walls. a man is advertising his book on quantum physics. the cover photo of the book is a ripple in multicoloured liquid. i open the book. there is a grid on one page and each cell contains a line drawing of a person. on the opposite page the author derides all of these people, complaining that the men are "assholes" and the women are "sluts". on another page, there is a large circle labeled "A" to the left of a small circle labeled "B". the book describes how the larger circle represents the immediate effects of a quantum process while the smaller circle represents the other effects. the example he uses to elucidate this theory is that if you consumed lead atoms, you would experience mild symptoms immediately, while the rest of your family would become severely ill and mentally retarded but this would occur over a long course of time. (that's dream logic for you). when these two circles intersect, they supposedly create a ripple pattern.

finally I am wandering through the hallways of my elementary school. they actually look more like the hallways on the 3rd floor of the hospital but in the dream i believe it is school. the walls, floor and ceiling are flat white. the hallways are very narrow and take strange zig-zag courses, which is disorienting. someone tells me that there is a fire in the school. i am not concerned until i see brushed metal cylindrical objects careening through the hallways and spraying water, ostensibly to fight the fire. these 'robots' frighten me slightly.

Meeting of an old friend.
In this dream i wasnt very lucid but very memorable.
I was walking in georgetown with Matt, and we decide to walk into a headshop where i think it was village arts and crafts but different inside.
Then i see a different Matt from freshman and sophomore year. I went up to him and hugged him and told him its been a while since ive seen him.
He looked really stoned and i new he was stoned which made me happy.
Then he told me that i can get 1 thing that i wanted from the shop because he worked there.
i looked around, i saw pipes and grinders. But then i decided to get TNT, small white seeds in a ball of paper that pop when you throw it.

Dream 1:
It’s common for SSILD to cause a false awakening but I never expected it. I thought I was awake and my brother came in shouting: “It’s 4 o’clock!” I thought nothing of it, because I wouldn't be surprised if I slept until 4pm. I will do a reality check next time it happens.

Dream 2:
I came remember A LOT more from this dream, even though the order of the events are jumbled up a bit, it still makes sense… somewhat.

I was in Fiona McKevitt’s (daughter of my old babysitter) house. I’m pretty sure it was her house, but it looked nothing like it; it was a completely different house! In a way it reminded me of a furniture store. But everything was too similar and the room was too small for it to be that. It was odd that the chairs were the same as the old ones we had years ago (like 7 years…), I should have picked up on this and made myself lucid. I have feeling the material changed the second time I visited (I visited each location twice) but anyway my dad sat on the couch closest to the TV (directly opposite it). In a way he didn’t look happy but didn’t seem angry.

There was also sex in my dream (this is a dream sign – I should have realised!) There was a singer – who doesn't actually exist – that had a very provocative music video. It was basically him crouching down in a white background with a hard on and his back tilted down towards the floor with his hands supporting him. He looked like he came from a tanned racial background, and had a Hawaiian necklace if I remember correctly. I remember there was two boys that came up from the bottom left and right and put his his... junk in their mouth. They were basically just licking it while looking at the camera.

I was also on a bus; it was like the school bus but it wasn't. There was a boy who sat in front of me and he showed me a sexy video (it could have well been that music video). I laughed and handed his phone back to him through the side of the seat.

Like each other location I visited the bus twice, the second I was on the opposite side of the bus – front seat. I noticed my REAL SCHOOL BUS coming over the hill, and it was a narrow road. I couldn’t see anyone inside in the bus (but not in a spooky way). I was desperately putting my seat belt on in a panic. And as the bus came closer it stopped suddenly and my bus driver was calm. The fact it stopped so suddenly was unusual, should have made me notice something was up. Next thing I knew, instead of one of the buses reversing – they drove around the side of each other! The road was only wide enough for one bus! But still just like an non-solid object you could walk through, the drove past the sides of each other.

I was gasping while shouting at Donal (boy in my school that gets my bus), “Did you see that!?”

He was calm about it and was actually laughing because I was frantically putting my seat belt on earlier… that made me embarrassed.

I also remember sitting on my bed half asleep looking out the side and that teen boy that showed me the dirty video earlier was there and he did something sexy and I said something dirty back – not sure what.

The last and final thing I can remember from this morning was Bradley Dixon (an teen boy I was going after months ago) and he posted on gay teen chat sire I know: “so desperate from Newry Chat.”

But the thing is that Newry Chat was a website I owned and shut down 2 years ago. Why would my dream bring that up?

END OF DREAM MEMORY.