non-lucid

January 12, '11,
Sometimes I remember dreams that I don't even know how to describe.
Like last night, it started out with me playing with a female dog with puppets on my hands. A male dog showed up and was trying to mate with the female dog. I thought that I was probably suppose to keep them from mating, but I didn't do anything about it. The owner of the girl dog appeared and I was afraid he would be mad. But the girl dog was wearing something around her waist to keep her from getting pregnant.

He stuck his finger into a hole in the dog's belly, and pulled out some of her intestines. They were really long and thin. And then this is when the dream gets hard to describe.
I was helping with operating on the dog, but it didn't look anything like a dog anymore. It was like a two-dimensional representation of part of the dog's intestines, laid out on the ground, big enough for us to stand inside. We were trying to move a string/chain that was somehow suppose to go inside the intestines, but was partially hanging out. Sort of. Even that isn't a very accurate description of what was going on. I was standing in the way and the string/chain was caught behind my legs.

Then I had a ball of some sort, like a small basket ball, and I had to find an empty place to put it with all the other basketballs on the ground, in a large field. There were also people sitting in chair and tiny frozen animals in the grass that I had to be careful not to step on and break. This was all still part of the operation.

I grabbed onto someone's leg and slid down a hill, still holding the ball and trying not to touch the ground.

And that's all I remember. What the heck was all that?

Non-lucid Partially lucid

January 11, 2011: I went upstairs in my Grandparents' house (the non-living ones). There was a ghost up there that started talking to me.

I don't remember everything that happened while I was up there. I got increasingly creeped out and went a little crazy.

I chased a noisy vacuum cleaner around, trying to turn it off. The noise was really bothering me.
Then I somehow ended up back home. It was dark in my room. There was a glowing blue light coming from a digital clock or something. I was still scared of there being ghosts.

I said "Let's do something else until we forget about it and it goes away. Because this is a dream and that's how it works."

But I did not become fully lucid. The dream continued for a few minutes longer and then I woke up. So that was kind of disappointing.

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID FALSE AWAKENING PRECOG SHARED

00:40

Loafs for the poor
I’m at the office where my mom used to work. It was a strange building with office rooms along two parallel corridors and I’m going back and forth on these corridors, looking for something, I think the kitchen, because I’m hungry. I encounter Beta, a lady from my childhood, but I try not to be noticed by her. I go after her, quietly and she eventually leads me to a lobby where a huge pool with bread and cookies is set to be delivered to hungry people. Well, I’m hungry so I think it’s ok to take a loaf of bread, which I do, but then some young guy also decides to do the same and he is picky, sorting the whole grain bread, sliced bread and so on, to chose one he likes. I think maybe I could also choose a nicer bread, but in the end I feel bad, because I'm not supposed to take anything at all.

Giant parasite wasps
Then I meet my friend Top Gun who offers a ride somewhere. I accept and he drives me while we talk. I find out he is now father of a baby girl, but when I ask about her mother, he says they aren’t together. He still has a crush on me and is not in love with her. We’re going uphill and we cross a funny bridge made of lava, over a river. I fasten my seatbelt when I see we’re entering a strange and rough terrain. On top of the hill, on the other side of the bridge, we then go through a stone paved road with a steeply sloping downwards. The environment here is completely different, moist and warm, and I spot exotic animals all over, like giant orange butterflies and strange birds. In common they all seem to have one thing: they all have giant wasp-like insects parasitizing them. The poor butterflies have to carry around a bug which is their own size. Unfortunately one of these wasps decides to parasitize me to. It flies into my face and nails itself to my nose, almost like a piercing. It hurts and freaks me out. I wake up.

3:00

Magic battle I
Can’t recall the beginning but I’m inside some castle which is under attack and I’m someone important, like a princess, because everybody is protecting me as I am the main target of some evil forces who breached the castle. I am being escorted by maids and body-guarded by some knights. When going down some hallway to a safer place, we’re attacked by some warrior mage holding in his hand a narwhal’s horn as a spear. He pierces through a knight that puts himself in front of me to save me. Me and a maid are cornered and trapped between the dying knight and this attacker, and he is trying to push the horned spear deeper through the knight, trying to pierce me to. He almost gets is way, but this brave knight is using his last bit of energy to pull him away from me so I can escape. I manage to escape that corner and I fight the guy and steal his narwhal spear. I use it to kill him. It is so sharp that it cuts through flesh as if it is butter. The guy dies but with an evil grin on his face, as if he found some delight in the way I surprised him and killed him.
The maids and knights are again escorting me down this hallway when we sense a dark energy above our heads and we run before it attacks us. They then push me up some spiral stone staircase that goes up to some more private chambers, where I should be more protected, but as soon as I arrive up there, I find an Hawaiian witch (don’t ask me, I just knew she was Hawaiian) who tries to kill me with a curse. Luckily I react pretty fast and I throw back the curse at her. After all, I don’t seem toned that much protection, I can protect myself very well. The witch runs from the reversed spell and flies out of the window on a nearby balcony. She is a bit disoriented, so she falls down on the ground below the balcony. I run to the edge of the balcony and I attack her, pointing my hands at her and using some magical powers to hold her down and inflict excruciating pain on her. I’m pulling her body parts in all directions (that must hurt) but without ever really breaking it apart, so she doesn’t really die, ‘cause we must interrogate her. When she is finally under control, I leave her to the knights.
I turn back to see my maids all looking at her. They seem scared with my powers and I feel maybe I’m not such a good soul, if I can inflict so much pain and suffering to someone. But they all smile timidly, trying to show me it’s ok, because it was self-defense and they are the bad guys, not us. I guess...

5:30

Magic battle II
I’m walking up some village, holding two tiny bottles with some potions on my hands. I pass by some old guys sitting on some church stairs and they seem interested in the bottles, so I hide them in a pocket and decide to fly back home and avoid exposing myself longer to the outside dangers. I fly high so I spot my home – it’s a fortress by the sea. When I arrive there I see strange pot-like structures floating in the waters around it. I grab one or two and they don’t seem threatening, instead they look like beautiful works of art, some raffia pots with contemporary shapes. I take them to my maids and they love it, they want to put some plants inside it. Then we keep taking strange objects from the water, like a never ending knitted thread that reminds me of Joana Vasconcelos’work of art.
Then I have a gap in my recall, but soon after we’re under attack again. We run to inside the castle and we try to lock the gates. Some warlock with an army has come to try to kill me again. Man, they really don’t like me for some reason!
The gates are barely holding and some brave knight is holding it shut with his own arm strength. I try to help him but he tells me to go away and save myself. But the warlock outside sends a shot of electricity through the gates and the knight is being electrocuted in front of my eyes. He holds the gate for as long as he can, but he eventually falls. I then see this warlock with the army breaking in and about to start killing any person they find on their way. I think I must stop it and I try to shoot fireballs from my hands. I then remember I just read and discussed on DV about this during the day – how rationalizing too much blocks it from happening successfully. Of course, by now, I’m lucid. I then concentrate, but not in the actual design of the fireballs, but on the gut feeling of wanting to shoot them and I form the most amazing fire blows I’ve ever been able to shoot. I feel their warmth and their power and I see the army and the warlock burning into flames. It’s a resounding success.
Free from the immediate danger, we all go up the ramp behind the gates that lead to the main entrance of the fortress on highest ground. I fly to pass all the maids and knights. We’re then looking over the castle walls to see if there’s any other imminent attack but we see no one, so people celebrate.
I think my work is done here and I should try to do the ToTY while I’m lucid. But in the hurry I forgot to make it very clear in my mind. I simply jumped from the castle walls to the ground below, wishing to dive in the ground and exit on the “other side”. But when I was going through the “wormhole” I realised I hadn’t yet formulated my destination. I tried to think of a yellow brick road and Dorothy’s red shoes but it was too late.

Pissed off for being (falsely) awaken
I feel myself waking up and I try hard to stay in sleep. I hear someone knocking the door and my BF getting up to open it. It’s really early morning and I wonder who it is. It’s my mom, aunt Lisa and my dad. What do they want? My BF left the door open, so the cat comes inside as he always does in the morning and tries to wake me up. I still fight to stay asleep and go back to LDs. But they are talking loud in the corridor and my mom and Lisa eventually come inside and sit on the bed, trying to wake me up. I feel pissed. I give up and open my eyes. They are fired up with conversations but I feel grumpy. My aunt decides to leave again to speak to my father and I stay with mom. I tell her please not to do that again, because she knows how my sleep is sacred and I tell her I was just having LDs and they interrupted it. She says she is sorry, that she didn’t remember that but she knew how important it was for me, so she would be more careful next time. OK. Now I’m getting up to dress myself and I listen my father and Lisa outside the room talking. He is happy to explain her his theories about killing ants and eliminate this plague from her home – he has not been successful convincing me, ‘cause I don’t want to exterminate the ants in my home...
Then I really wake up and I am truly surprised that before I was still dreaming.

8:00

I remember my mother telling me to go outside and play in the rain. I argued that I'd look silly and if I saw someone I knew I'd be embarrassed.. Anyways.. I ended up frolicking in the front yard. Until Paige, Kali, and Lance walked by.. I froze until they were out of sight. There was about half a foot deep pool of water covering the entire surface. And the rain was soothingly warm? It wasn't very well lit either.. At the time I was sort of obsessed with Paige..

-Kali
-Paige
-Lance
-Rain
-Dark

Jan. 11th-12th*
There was a school in my dream and a flag pole...can't remember much else about the dream at all...I've been staying at my mother in laws the past two nights due to snow storms and sleeping in a strange bed. That could be the reason for the lack of dream recall

"How little it takes to make life unbearable: a pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a woman's laugh"
Henry Louis Mencken

I have an important project that I will be presenting at my school, and it's not done yet, even though it's due relatively soon. It's a Powerpoint presentation. I think that this is enough background information. I was in the south-east wing of my school, almost ready to do my project, when I noticed that I didn't even finish it. I'm so silly sometimes.
I went to the east wing to go to the computer room and finish the project. Time skip and I finish. I didn't notice the skip. I need to take not of when this happens in real life. Wait... I headed back to the south-east wing, almost went into the classroom to present, when I walked away because I had to urinate.
I was walking back towards the east wing when that loathsome female gym teacher stopped me and asked for my pass. So I took my universal hall pass out of my wallet (the good kids like me get those sort of things) and showed it to her. She asked if I had a normal one, and I said no. So she just met me on my way. Whatever.
I went to the bathroom and was appalled to see how filthy it was! Just kidding, it's like that in real life. Fine, it was a little bit more dirty in my dream, but whatever. All the urinals were taken, but thankfully there was an open stall. I dropped my messenger bag (IRL, my messenger bag was broken and I had been using a backpack. I should have noticed this) and peed, but kept seeing a cockroach out of the corner of my eye. When I finished, I found the roach under my bag, so I kicked it away. I began frantically trying to stomp it to death, but it kept slipping from under my shoe.
Eventually I went into my fear-of-bugs panic mode, so I put my hood over my head and packed up my bag. Then I awoke.

JESUS CHRIST WHY WON'T YOU DIEEEEE????

Dream - Lucid

I worked at Subway again. Kacey, my coworker and one of my best friends in waking life, worked there with me. I had just started back, and she had apparently worked there for years. 2 ladies came in, and Kacey took the register. One lady ordered a sweet onion chicken teriyaki. Kacey rang them up super quickly on the touch screen register, using both of her hands. I started to make their sandwiches. Kacey never gave me a ticket for their order, so I asked her if they wanted their sandwiches toasted. She said no, so I put the bread in the microwave to heat it up. The microwave was filthy. It had lots of crumbs and two pieces of stale bread in it. I wondered if the ladies had noticed.

Now, I'm in my room, and there's a HUGE American flag stuck through a hole in my window. The wind blows it inside.

~

At work with Kacey again, this time we're in the coffee shop where we currently work. She wanted to run to The Gold Rush store, and she wanted me to go with her. I didn't think this was a good idea, as I remembered a dream I had about us all leaving work to get lunch, and how we would get fired. She said we'd only be gone a minute, besides, we weren't busy. I got in the car with her, and we drove to The Gold Rush, which is a store that buys your old gold jewelry. There was a lot of beautiful items in there. I picked up a pair of ball earrings that had a sketch of an Indian-looking elephant on them with an intricate-looking sketch of an eye. I didn't have enough money to buy them, so I put them down. We left the store, and got in Kacey's car. She asked me if I wanted to eat dinner at this Mexican restaurant that was right there on the corner. I told her no, we've been gone long enough, and I reminded her of the dream that I had thought of earlier, which I had told her about before. She said fine, we won't go. We drove past it and it was closed anyway. She stopped somewhere else on the way back, and the parking lot was very crowded. We had to park on the opposite end and walk a little ways to the store. We left, and I complained about how far away she had parked. We got back to the coffee shop, and the radio had been turned off. Customers had moved around all of the furniture. One lady was sitting on one of our big, black plushy couches reading, and she looked up to glare at us.

Andrew, our manager, had been called to come in. He had a huge peace sign gauge in one of his ears, which I wanted to tell him I liked, but never got the chance. He was bringing bus tubs of dishes to the back. He asked to talk to Kacey when she got the chance to talk to him. Then, he saw me and asked to talk to both of us for "a hot second" while we were both back there. He said
"Now I know you guys don't get a lunch break...", and continued on about how we shouldn't have left the store unattended. He didn't yell at us, but was very calm about it. Kacey was on the phone and wasn't listening. She left the back, and I had to explain what happened. Basically, I had to tattle on Kacey. I told Andrew it was her idea, and I just went along with it. I started to talk in a normal tone, but it felt weird, so I whispered instead.

Then, Kacey and I closed the store and left. Then, I saw what was supposed to be the outside of the coffee shop, all cartoonish, with the sun rising in the background. You hear a voice say
"And Super Mickey comes to open!", and sure enough, I see the back of Mickey Mouse with a red cape on, walking up some stairs to get into the shop.

~

Kacey and I went to a movie. There were two men sitting behind us. Kacey got up to go do something. I sat through the movie, playing with a lip ring on the right side of my mouth. One of the men sitting behind me asked me in a very sexy Australian accent
"Excuse me, but my friend says it looks like I'm wearing makeup. Does it look like I'm wearing makeup?"
I turned around and examined his pretty face. He was gorgeous. He had short, spikey blonde hair and a flawless face. He kinda looked like he had some eye shadow on under his eyes, but it was just his natural face. I told him no, he didn't. Then, my lip ring fell out, and I had to get the Australian man to help me put it back in, because it was a very complicated lip ring. It had more than one fastener, and I had more than one hole for it in my lip. He couldn't really figure it out very well, I don't think we ever fixed it. The movie ended, and the Australian man, his friend and I all walked out together. I was so excited, because the Australian man had talked to and been kinda flirty with me, at least that's how I took it.

I found Kacey. She was in some weird, small basement room of the theater. It looked like a lounge-type area, with couches lining the walls. I was going to tell her about the Australian man, but she first told me about how he had asked her for her number. I was really disappointed and sad, so I refrained from telling her about him. My lip ring had come loose again and I had to ask Kacey to help me put it back in. We walked to her car. It was dark outside. She started to help me put it back in.

01/12/2011

The Quest for... Ice-cream? (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

This one was interesting. I don't remember most of the beginning, but I do recall that my family and all were watching some really long movie. At some point we decided to take a break so I could get some ice cream. I find myself in this large, somewhat confusing building. Right near the entrance is your standard, industry-chain ice cream place, but I decide to look a bit more.

Towards the other end of the building I find a smaller setup, promising homemade, organic ice cream, or something like that. There's a bunch of little kids in line, it being the "healthier" option, but I decide to stick around anyway. When it gets to my turn, I get stuck a bit trying to find a word, and saying, "What I want is like a shake, but thicker..." (I was trying to think of the word "flurry". A la McFlurry, etc.) The man making the ice cream responds by saying, "Well... get a thick shake then!" I figure that's close enough, and go along with it. I get to be surprisingly specific with ice cream (one scoop of chocolate, one scoop of cookie dough, with vanilla as the "base"). While I'm in the line, I take a cup and fill it with some milk, to drink as I wait. But once I get through the line I realize I only have the milk! My shake is nowhere to be found. I figure one of the kids in line must have taken it.

I find my way upstairs, where the ice cream man had gone. It looks like he's doing something pretty important, giving a speech or something. I wave and such at somebody, since I know them. (I forget who though. My high school band teacher, perhaps?) Then, I go up to the ice cream guy and kinda sheepishly interrupt him, explaining my predicament. He generously offers to make me a new one, but I'm extremely embarrassed by now that I interrupted what looked like an important ceremony for my own needs. I quietly go, "No, it's okay, really, go back to what you were doing..." and wander off. I begin to wonder about going back to the other ice cream place I saw, but I wake up.

(I feel like this dream COULD be symbolic, but like Sylvia (author of Project Sanctuary) says, I think I'd get the meaning wrong if I try to analyze things in isolation. It's not too important anyways, I don't think...)

(Also, a bit of synchronicity, though I'm sure it's meaningless, it is kinda funny. Once I rolled myself out of bed and came out to the living room, my dad had the TV turned to CBS. And they were doing some kind of cook-off... with ice cream. Weird.)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID FALSE AWAKENING PRECOG SHARED

22:00

Seattle
Watching on TV or reading on some mag about some cute cars to rent on Seattle to see the town. I see an image of it and then I’m there walking among lots of people. Then I seat on a bench and my dad appears by my side and we discuss stuff about my trip to Seattle.

Weird souvenir shop
On some walls of a castle and I am watching scenes from the past as if they are happening right then. But there’s an off voice explaining the events and describing the place, like a documentary. I learn that these walls have secret passages inside that few people knew about and through which soldiers would move to defend the city. Then I’m inside these passages. Then I find a souvenir shop inside it and a glass showcase with CDs and DVDs as well as small figurines for sale. One of the DVDs is about some knight saint that for some reason looks like a mason to me. Then there’s also a figurine of Smith from The Matrix, although very badly designed. I also see some DVD about Tibet. I don't see what's the connection between this stuff.

2:40

Family meeting
At my mom’s with her and my cat. We go from there to my grandparents country house where we meet with more of the family. We’re already late, but not the last ones arriving. As my aunts finalize the lunch or dinner, I check out what they are cooking and find the most strange and delicious things, like some filled yellow pastries and kiwi puddings with egg white filling. Then my cousin João, which I don’t see for years, also joins us. We hug for a long long time while we inform each other about what we’ve been doing these past few years. But we don’t want to let go of each other. My father seems to find inappropriate that we’re hugging so much. I don’t care.

4:00

Meeting an alternate version of Riverstone
I get lucid when I’m in front of the mirror in my room. I cross it too soon, before formulating where I want to go, so I get lost in the wormhole/tunnel I cross and almost wake up. I hold on and find myself back in the room. I try a second time this time formulating that I wish to enter Riverstone’s dreams. I cross the mirror again and get out on a room that looks symmetrical of his real room, plus, instead of the posters on the wall, it is covered in real paintings with amazing abstract and surreal art. I focus particularly on one representing a princess with a baby, tied up in a rope and free falling from the sky with the Disney castle on the top of a mountain on the background. Creepy. I then notice that a slightly changed version of Riverstone is sitting on the bed. It looks like him, but a bit more geeky and with a very short black beard. He looks surprised, but not too much and invites me to sit on the bed with him. I accept, but his energy is a bit disturbing. I was going to ask him the meaning of the painting of the princess, but someone calls him and he has to leave the room in a hurry. I go after him and when I cross the door I find an amazing painting on the front wall, stretching to the concave ceiling, inspired on the Wizard of Oz. It has many dogs on the background, of several breeds. It’s a realistic yet naïve type of painting. I then turn to the left and at the end of the corridor I find a large hallway leading to many different studios where young artists work. I see works of art everywhere.
I see Riverstone disappearing to some basement and I follow him. It is a printing office and there’s some kind of emergency there he is trying to solve. I realise he is the boss and his employees step aside while he solves the issue. I see gigantic maps they print on a large printer and one map is being printed right now and it was coming out wrongly so he takes the matter in hands and makes it work. Besides the more “arty” work they do, they also do prints of several sizes for all sorts of clients. He is explaining me his business and then he asks me about me, who am I and what I’m doing there. I tell him about Riverstone and that I was trying to enter his dreams and seem to have ended up meeting instead some sort of alternative Riverstone – maybe one that lives inside his own mind, I don’t know. He tells me the other Riverstone is lucky to have me, but then I see a strange glow in his eyes and he starts telling me that if I choose to stay with him, he would make me even happier. I reply that it wouldn’t be fair to the other himself. But the guy is really becoming fond of this idea. I decide to leave when he is back to his work. I run to the room to enter the mirror again, but he runs after me. He changes the mirror, which now is smaller and closer to the ceiling, making it hard to jump through it. But I try. The crossing is harder and the guy is grabbing one of my arms, not allowing me to go.

H. G. Wells museum and a totalitarian regime
Finally I get rid of his hand around my arm and I land on the other side on what seems to be the exact same house. But this time there’s nobody there and space-time seem to be distorted. I am floating like there’s no gravity at all (not because I want) and I can only move in slow motion. I decide to leave this place immediately so I face the mirror again to cross it. My hair is all spread out, like a medusa and my cheeks are red from the effort i have to make on every movement. I enter through the mirror again and this time I exit on some narrow street, which looks like Lisbon. I see a group of young people in front of a designer shop. They are all wearing similar yet different pieces of knitted wool clothes in very lively colours. I peek at inside the shop and the thing that gets my attention is a large basket hanging from the ceiling with some light brown knitted balls that look like beans and a sign saying “soya”. A piece of art, I guess. The group starts walking up the stone paved street. We pass under an arch. I follow them, because I’m curious to whom they are and what they are going to do. They seem to be on some kind of silent demonstration, but I don’t understand what it is about – something about non-conformity.
Then they split into pairs and I follow a couple that enters some museum. They don’t go beyond the museum shop and I get bored of following them so I decide to exit through some back door. It’s dark outside and they come warn me that it is dangerous outside. I ignore them a bit and walk through some alley, just to be confronted with armed men who will shoot first and ask later. They start shooting their automatic weapons in our direction. I think the young couple is hit but the bullets don’t harm me, because I remind myself I’m dreaming. I fly high until the clouds. They keep shooting and they hit a bomber plane whose wrecks almost hit me on its fall. I descend from the clouds a bit further away. The day is breaking. I see an amazing complex of buildings and machines, ranging from Japanese temples, to oil derricks to steam-punk machinery, etc. I go closer to check what it is. I see people walking between these buildings and machines and then I spot some tour guide explaining some machine and I find out this is an open air museum dedicated to H.G.Wells. The funny part is that when I hear the tour guide I realise this is a society under tyranny of a totalitarian regime which has no place for free will or free speech. The tour guide is trying to explain the concept of free thinking without really going into free thinking and people who listen to him seem confused and afraid that he is even daring to mention such heretic thoughts. He asks forgiveness and explains he is just trying to tell a story of how things were but in no way promoting it. I come down and sit by the side of some visitors on a bench. Then some desperate guy enters this place with a gun and shouting provocative slogans. He takes some people as hostages and forces them to shout slogans with him. People are scared of him and they do it. Then some intervention forces arrive and start shooting as soon as they step over a bridge facing the unwilling group of “demonstrators”. They don’t care if these people are innocent; they are only care about shutting them up. I get caught between them and the bullets. When they start shooting, I wake up.

6:00

Knock out
I’m going through some kitchen drawers looking for some home textiles. I find a green translucent cloth that serves my purpose and then I hang it on a nearby door, just to see if the size fits. Then I feel a strong blow on the back of my head and I fall on the floor. I feel dizzy, but I think I’m ok. I look around and seems like a wood beam fell from the ceiling and hit me. But soon I start feeling vertigo and I ask some girls I see behind a counter to call for help. Then I watch them discussing ho too call. I tell them there’s no possible discussion there, just call 112 (the European 911). They still aren’t convinced. I black out. I later wake up lying on the floor and I see my mom looking at me. She complains that they took a long time calling her because my personal contacts’ agenda is not well organized and they didn’t know who to call. I insist there was no confusion possible; they just had to call 112. Apparently nobody did. I don’t care, I feel better and I get up.
[In the morning, I thought maybe my cat jumped on my head while I was asleep and that's why I dreamed this]

Playing ball
I then am in the atrium of a train station and I see some kids playing ball. The ball comes to my direction and I kick it back to them. They like me and start throwing the ball at me on purpose. I play some tricks and they love it. Then some kid finds coins on the floor and he hands it to me, saying it’s 500 cents. I smile and I see it’s only 1 euro and something. I say for him to keep it, but he says that all the kids would agree that I deserve it. I find it cute. Then he starts cheering for me and all the kids start cheering and saying my name out loud. I feel embarrassed.

8:00

"Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a kitchen with my mom. The kitchen was full of boxes, though it didn't feel disorganized. The light was bright and the air was warm and humid, as if something were cooking.

My mom sat at a nice, wood desk with a stand of shelves on the desk top. She pulled a bunch of magazines out and showed them to me, as if she thought I'd like them. Something about the magazines made me mad. They were like porn magazines or women's fashion magazines.

I started yelling at my mom. Then at some point I realized that the man across the street from my mom's house was either a killer or some other kind of criminal, and that he was coming to attack us. We were, in fact, staying alert, waiting for his arrival.

I walked out of the room. I stood before a few stacks of boxes about my height. I turned to my right. I looked through a window on a door. I saw into another room, which I may have thought was outside, and which looked like a smallish warehouse full of boxes.

Dream #2

I was walking down a dark hallway, probably in an office building, on the ground floor. I ran into an old co-worker, CJ. He looked great. He was clean-shaven, and his clothes looked really well taken care of. I stopped him. We spoke for a bit before a closed door to my left.

We spoke about our old boss. Then he asked me if I liked this kind of work. I told him yes. He laughed but said he wasn't surprised, given how enthusiastically I went about it.

CJ was now gone. I was somewhere like a bedroom, rifling through the top drawers. At some point I had a brush and maybe some curlers or toilet paper rolls.

Somehow I came to realize that my boss owned a concession stand downstairs from our office. I now understood "why he left work so early" (?) every day. He had to come down here at a specific time (4 PM?) to take charge of the store.

Dream #3

Some people were testing out a mask that looked like a black wool cap t o be pulled over a person's face for doing things like spying or performing robberies. The fabric looked thick. But apparently you could see through it pretty well.

A man was testing out the mask on another man. But the man wasn't giving a clear answer on how well he could see. The first man got really frustrated and said, "Just tell me how well you see!"

I now saw from inside the mask. The view was like looking through a very thin spider web. I tried to express this.

Dream #4

I was on Dreamviews. I had posted some comment, then a picture which I'd intended people to think was me. It was a low-angle shot of a little, blonde girl in a bright green sundress, below a blue sky. Below the picture I typed in all this stuff which I thought would make people think I was a little girl.

After I'd done this, I felt some regret. I knew people on the site already knew I'm a guy. Now they'd know I was just trolling.

I was on the ice hockey team with A and S. I was very good at it. S was not so she left. Afterwards a guy I don't remember and I were sitting across from Marissa at a table. She was crying because she couldn't skate which she attributed to the fact that she was fat. Neither of us said anything for a while. Then I said "A. You're not fat, you're beautiful and B." and then I couldn't think of a B but I think I made something up. Then A and I were with some people at the mall. She wanted a slurpee so she walked faster and was separated from the pack of people we were with. I also separated from the pack, I was between the pack and A and I didn't know why I was walking alone. I felt anxious and felt like they were judging me for not walking with them. Then I recognized a guy walking toward us who had no shirt on. He was very skinny and I touched his abs. Then I was in my car driving somewhere. A was supposed to be there but she wasn't so I called her phone. She didn't answer and the message came on but it was different. It said that S had died and she was at the funeral. I was frantic and tried calling her again and then calling S but nobody picked up. I then had to go through a maze of garbage and scraps of metal and wood and insulation outside of some sort of warehouse and attempt to pick up my mom from somewhere.

I frequently went to a small Italian restaurant which had a little patio outside with tables and chairs. I was walking through the patio and saw some bread in a basket on one of the tables. I talked to the people at the table for a few seconds and then took the bread and ran. The streets were old and dirty and possibly looked like Italy. One of the chubby waiters ran after me, yelling for the bread back. When he finally caught up to me he was very friendly and understanding and told me that I should come back tomorrow and sit down and have a meal but I was too embarrassed and I knew I would never come back there again.

I was in bed and there was a blackboard on the wall across from me. I was studying for a French test. Then my dad came in and asked how it was going and then proceeded to write some French on the board and teach it to me. I was uncomfortable.

I was buying new curtains for my room for college which for some reason was a slightly different room for the second semester. More of a long rectangular shape. We asked for the beds to be un-bunked and they were but now they were all in a row next to each other right next to the door which none of us liked. While I was buying curtains E was there talking and sports and I said I wanted to join one maybe. She seemed to think this idea was ridiculous and tried to talk me out of it. A kid on the baseball team was also there arguing with his mother about his room and about baseball.

12 Jan 2011

My [deceased] parents and I are on a clifftop overlooking a local beach. It's night time and the moon is very low in the sky, illuminating the whole scene. We discuss how beautiful it is. Then I find myself swimming in the ocean below with lots of other people. It's now a warm and sunny day. Suddenly, a lifeguard on the beach gets a radio call and dives into the ocean. He swims toward a young boy who appears to be drowning, and drags him back to safety. At this point I start to feel lighter and, pushing the boundaries of what seems possible, I find that by kicking my legs furiously I can rise up out of the water. Soon I am virtually walking on it, having only my feet below the surface.

Interpretation: This seems to be about gaining mastery over my emotions (the low moon, for example, followed by a rising up from the sea (of emotion?). If both the drowning boy and the lifeguard are aspects of myself, then it makes sense that I should feel 'lighter', once the boy had been rescued.

Notes: The dream also had a feeling of OILD about it (Options Induced Lucid Dream). It's a technique that I've been developing and experimenting with for a couple of weeks now. It basically works on the premise that 99% of our reactions in life (and assumptions about it) are entirely robotic (conditioned responses), and that there are, therefore, ALWAYS other options available - only we don't usually consider them. The technique, then, involves constantly observing - and, most importantly, questioning - one's reactions, especially when confronted by apparent obstacles, conflicts, limitations or fear-based situations. Inherent to this, of course, is discerning where one is. However, unlike a basic RC, the value of actually questioning one's programmed reactions (and breaking free of those reactions in daily life) is becoming increasingly apparent to me. Whilst people may not have limitless options in waking reality, in terms of being able to walk on water, etc, we certainly do have many more options than our 'auto-pilot' permits us to realise.

Needless to say, the constant questioning of one's reactions and limitations, in the pursuit of greater freedom, carries over into dreams. And this is what I got a sense of as I was flapping about in the water.

For some people, automatic and uncontrolled aggression is an aspect of their programming; their auto-pilot. For most, however, I feel that timidity is the 'problem' - that we simply go along to get along. The degree to which one may want to substitute timidity for boldness obviously depends upon the situation (and crucially, whether one is dreaming or not). But it's precisely in the establishing of this fact that greater freedom and lucidity are achieved, not only in dreams, but in waking reality as well.

A recent (unrecorded) dream went something like this:

I was back in school and the teacher began handing out packets of crisps, which we weren't allowed to eat until break-time. He then issued a stern reminder not to secretly eat them in class, which I recognized as a conflict (a limitation of my freedom), and so began considering other options. This led to the realisation that I was dreaming. And so, standing up, I confidently uttered the following words: "Not only will I eat my crisps now, but I'll also eat yours, and I'll do so right in front of your face."

Had I been using this technique during my actual school days (instead of merely going through the motions on auto-pilot), I would surely have been a lot less timid. In fact, after receiving an unjust detention (for example), I may, having questioned my options, have said something to the effect of: "Not only will I not be coming to your detention, sir, but if you ever issue me one again, I'll tell my parents that you've been touching me inappropriately." (Whilst I wouldn't have actually made any false accusations, it would surely have put the fear of God into the teacher).

OILD - Because there's ALWAYS another option!