non-lucid

I just woke up, and in my half-awakening I was in a combination of frustration at my mini dry spell and thinking about news footage of Yo-Yo Ma's death. Fortunately it occurred to me that Yo-Yo Ma was neither dead nor yet elderly.

The dream apparently consisted of what seemed like security/surveillance footage of a very old Yo-Yo Ma and another old woman who was apparently his wife, overlaid with what was either my own inner monologue or some sort of news commentary (or a combination thereof). The story centered around the fact that they, both wheelchair bound and frail, had entered separate hot tubs to relax, however once they wanted to leave, nobody would help them out of the hot tub (which seemed to be just a pit in the ground with no stairs or anything to exit). Yo-Yo Ma had apparently already died from being trapped in there with no help, which was what warranted the media buzz. Most of the imagery I remember was of his wife now having the same problem. Several people were standing outside the hot tub, refusing to help the old lady out. The hot tub had been drained and her wheel chair was there. She had a younger handmaiden with her, but she too refused to help the old lady out, though she would occasionally help her back into her wheel chair.

Inspiration for this dream seems to have come partly from the fact that we were working short-staffed at the retail pharmacy I'm on rotation at now last Friday, so I was able to hijack the radio for some classical music. Sometime during the day they played Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, featuring Yo-Yo Ma. For readers who don't know who this is, Yo-Yo Ma is a Chinese cello prodigy and, while I was still a classical musician, was considered to be the greatest cello player in the world.

I have a vague memory of what may have been a larger/longer, more complex dream, but all I really have of it is the memory that it may have existed.

Edit: Added that little explanation of who Yo-Yo Ma is for the curious. Also, taking this edit opportunity to add here that following this, since it woke me up fairly early, I tried to do some WILD (this would make it attempt #3, with the previous two being during late afternoon naps) but with no measurable success. I gave up after my wife shifting around a bit broke what focus I had left and just fell asleep normally, where I put a huge dent in my "dry spell" and experienced the following entry.

Okay so I was thinking about a person(let's call him Tom) before I went to sleep .

1.
My memory isn't 100% accurate since this is the first dream , but it was something like me and Tom were with our friends in a mall I think(or maybe school, can't remember) and there was some heavy flirting going on between me and him But then I also had a dream-boyfriend and I was about to break up with him . I think I did . So then me and Tom were talking and flirting at the same time when suddenly we started arguing about something stupid . I can't remember what that was . And then ,I think, my friends picked sides or something . I can't remember the rest of it.

2.
Then I had a false awakening and suddenly I was somewhere with my friend.We were drinking smoothies I think , and were in a mall(again) . And then we went outside and suddenly , we were on a field (it wasn't really a field , but it was very similar and it had all kinds of stingy plants and a forest around it) . There was a big heavy book on the ground so I picked it up . There was also a little house and then a waiter came out of the house and me and my friend tried to hide behind a bush, although he probably saw us.Then we stood up , I was still holding the book and decided to drop it because it was kinda heavy . Me and my friend started walking and before I realized I was in another field . This time with the two of my other friends . I was searching for something , like a flower maybe . And then a wasp was following me and I started to walk a little faster until I was out of the field and on a sidewalk and there was like an alley of trees that bordered the sidewalk . And we were walking there with my friends and they asked me if I had eaten the berries already and apparently I had (I had a bowl in my hands that was filled with berries that I had previously gathered) . Suddenly I was in my kitchen , and I wanted something to drink and decided to go with water . But for some reason I took milk instead of water and the milk was kind of warm too . Then out of the blue I start hearing a song in my head (the radio was on while I was sleeping and the song was Lady Antebellum - Need you now) and I start thinking that maybe I should write a song like that . Then I drink the milk and look myself in the mirror . I look normal except for a milk streak on my forehead . Then all of a sudden I hear an alarm going off . That's when I'm like ugh great it's nine am , gotta wake up . So I wake up .

My imagination is running away with itself.

08/20/10



The setting is a town in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The few remaining adults are being picked off one by one, killed by things they can't even see. The surviving children are being drawn towards the town hall, where a dark force promises them protection.

I follow the point of view of a little girl whose father is killed in front of her. We don't see what kills him, but his arm explodes suddenly in a fountain of blood, and she's running, tripping, looking for somewhere she can be safe.

She crawls through the wreckage and finally finds them. A dozen or more children are gathered, underground, in a circular concrete bunker. In the center of the group is a demon, an inhuman little imp that looks especially pleased with itself.

It calls itself the Devil.

- time skip -

The children are running.

I materialize in the first person, cornering the creature as I do. It cowers as I place my hands on the concrete wall, one hand on each side of its head, boxing it in.

"Do you know," I ask conversationally, "How many lives I've been through? How many times I've done the same things over and over again?"

- faces i'm too close to fighting a war that doesn't mean anything hand to hand combat a peaceful mountain landscape and i'm teaching them to kill -

"You don't have any idea," I say, meeting the thing's terrified eyes and smiling widely, "What Hell is."

End recall.

Scare Factor: 4/10
Rating: 6/10

The quote's more or less verbatim. I get a bit too caught up in my characters sometimes. Also, flashbacks can be incredibly freaky.

08/17/10



I'm in a nightclub, laughing at something a woman is saying. We have to shout to be heard. There are strobe lights, black lights, and coloured lights changing in time with the music. It's great fun, and utterly normal. There's a lot of alcohol involved.

I spot the tattoo while I'm sitting at the bar. A woman walks by, wearing a top that reveals her torso. There are Chinese characters tattooed above her navel and to the side, which translate in my mind to "Transformation". I leave the club.

The tattoo represents a group that I belonged to in a previous life, a school of martial artists. I need to find out what the hell they're doing here, in my city.

It's daylight. The group has rented out the local campground, and set up a temporary building. When I step inside, I find that the interior is open and airy and entirely out of place. It's set up like a dojo martial arts studio, with hardwood floors and paper windows along the back. The students are lined up, practicing their forms. An old man stands at the front of the classroom. I step into the midst of the group, beside a young woman whose hair is pulled into a high ponytail. I flow through the familiar movements, as easily as I did centuries ago.

We come to a stop, and I turn to the woman beside me. "Master Lin," I say, inclining my head respectfully.

She laughs, and the rest of the group files out of the room, following the old man. "Am I a Master?" she asks, eyes twinkling. "You are here to see Princess ___, yes?" She says the name of the princess, but my mind automatically translates it to the English "Blossom".

I meet her in front of a waterfall. She's on the other side of a narrow stone path, caged on one side by a raging river, and on the other by a treacherous fall. Her long hair flies free in a gentle breeze, and her silk gown flows with the air currents. She turns to look at me, smiling, and I read trickery in her bright aura.

End Recall.

Scare Factor: 2/10
Rating: 5/10

Hey, Subconscious! China =/= Japan.

08/15/10



I stand on a narrow walkway, facing off against the creature I've been hunting. It's been hiding among the humans, wearing the face of a beautiful redhead. Right now, she's snarling, defensive, and her fangs are in full view. The Doctor, meanwhile, is hovering over my shoulder, looking like he might intervene.

I'm distracted for just a moment, and the vampire turns her back and jumps off the landing.

I glance back at him. Wordlessly, we agree on a course of action. The Doctor moves away from the edge, goes back into the main building to save the day.

I survey the area, quickly. It's a six-story drop, at least. It dimly registers that I'm dreaming, and before I can change my mind, I'm jumping after her.

The ground rushes up to meet me. I hit the tile floor, narrowly missing a set of wooden pews. I look around, noting that I'm in the sanctuary of a large church.

End recall.

Scare Factor: 2/10
Rating: 6/10

1. I'm reading articles on the internet, and see that the University of Kentucky has a sophisticated oil-cleanup system. I stop reading that and read about a local college's study abroad program. One is to Kenya, another to another African country where the girls are very fat. Also on the website is the college's opening ceremony, where a Christian singer's voice is beautiful enough to cause chicken eggs to hatch.

2. I visit the same college's game club. I see myself playing a board game with P and others, and express surprise.

I don't remember all the deails, I waited awhile to type it up. A good dream (because of wildly distorted emotions) but a seemingly unimportant one.

Last Day at Work (non-lucid)

Everybody was rushing around trying to finish building and shipping the last few products. The building is shutting down. A whole bunch of people from different shifts were there. My parents were off to Cambodia because D got a job fixing boats there.

I wasn't doing much but sitting around watching everyone and thinking about what is going to happen next. It felt like a monumental shift in my life. The emotions in the dream were wild and distorted. There was excitement, I thought about traveling or finding a new job but I was all alone and just sort of confused, not knowing what to do with nobody to talk to.

The dream sort of parallels waking life events. A good friend/co-worker just left and future employment is uncertain.

1. I don't remember too much about the dream. It was a dark dream though. I was in this castle. I remember something about me having to electricute dragons.

I rembered sooo much of this dream as soon as I woke up! Now I don't remember anything. I never had the chance to record them in any way.

This one's not very exciting.

08/28/10



We're speeding down the river, and I'm at the front of the boat, grinning and clutching my paddle in a death grip. Spray from the river hits my face and I blink against it. We hit a bump in the water -

We're no longer in a boat. Our group - made up of my immediate family - glides through the calm water of the last stretch. We're sitting on what appears to be an oversized crazy-carpet. It's purple.

We float past the finish line and climb out of the water. I think we placed third. We have to wait for the rest of the contestants, so we go inside a cabin filled with picnic tables.

I take a beer from one of our coolers and twist open the lid. My cousins are gathering at one of the tables, so I go sit with them.

I'm holding a plastic cup. Inside is a pet - a tiny swimming thing that could be either a plant or an animal. It looks a bit like an anemone. I'm showing it to the others and it's growing before our eyes. At one point, we're playing with it, and it grabs onto a lock of my hair (that has mysteriously grown long). It's pulling on it, but I tell my cousins not to worry, it doesn't hurt.

My preteen cousin takes a knife and cuts the creature's orange tentacles off at the root. It flails and falls back into the cup of water.

"Deanna, what did you do that for?" I ask shrilly. I take a second to glare at her, then turn back to the cup and will it to start growing. The creature has to grow roots and sprout before it can swim again.

I keep doing this until the sun sets.

Scare Factor: 1/10
Rating: 2/10

Today while i was attempting a WILD, i slipped into a dream, but the dream was of me trying to fall asleep. UGH! Talk about a waste, i was dreaming that i was trying to go to sleep and i never even suspected it was a dream. The funny part is that i went to sleep in my dream, and had a dream within a dream. i have been doing this more since i found that chamomile tea triggers this effect for me.

I had some sort of game that you played on what I assume is the wii, You have a little target like thing and you lean in different directions to move it, in this case it was basically an interactive movie where your choices affected the movie, You watched a scene and then you interacted.. One level I remember took place in a volcano/lava like place.. I remember flying using hover boots and going across lava.. You couldn't land on the ice or it would melt..

I was in our neighbors yard and I looked into what I assume was the "Septic Tank" I saw a 5, 6 and 10 dollar bill and Hudson's aquatic center pass and mom's old wallet.

I read how the first 6 dollar bill was created by Satan?..

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Maybe I am pushing it too far. Just this night I woke up around 10 times, with only 1h or 1:30 of interval in between. In some of these moments I didn’t write down any dream, although I could remember I just had one. I actually can’t remember of one single moment I wasn’t dreaming. Every time I woke up I recalled a dream and as soon as I closed my eyes I resumed the dreaming, sometimes at the exact same point where I had left. Maybe I shouldn’t try so hard to recall dreams, because my mind is getting a little obsessed about it 


23:20 GMT - Sleep

Dream within a dream
Not sure what was the storyline, but have the feeling it was a dream within a dream or a dream about a dream.


1:00 GMT

A girl uses my dreams to enter some guy’s dreams
I am inside the mind of this guy, in his own living room projection, seeing his objects and absorbing his life stories through what I find. I see his picture of him on a shelf and I pick up from the table some notes written by him. He left something written about these dreams he’s been having about this mysterious girl, how strange the dreams are and how he thinks she is real. He calls her Lilith and all that he describes in his notes remind me of a few of my own dreams. I have this impression that I have some connection to this girl – I have this idea that she is like a ghost in the machine. I’m not actually her, but she uses my dreams to enter his dreams. And he is so obsessed about her.
I then can actually sense her presence in the room, just like a ghost. Through the window I see a thick darkness outside. It’s a bit creepy and I shut the blinds to feel less goosebumps.

Mystical sunset
I am in my kitchen but outside, instead of other buildings, I see through the window-door the most beautiful and remarkable sunset ever over a sea harbour. There’s a few clouds in the sky, which is radiant in orange and purple shades. I go outside to really absorb this mesmerizing beauty. At this point my mother and my boyfriend appear by my side, also amazed at this incredible scenario. I have this distinct feeling that we are in some special place in-between dreams and sharing it. But before I make a remark about this to them, I suddenly wake up. My boyfriend is deeply asleep by my side and I don’t have the courage to wake him up and ask.

2:18 GMT

Police chasing and using a long-time-no-see friend at a party as cover
I am on a train and for some reason there’s policemen on my pursuit. I get out at next stop and mingle with the crowd, but they are still after me. I meet with these two people, a girl and a boy, in the back of some building and we are discussing something when a police car stops near us and we try to run in the opposite direction just to find more police on that side to. They go back and hide in the building and I use the policemen momentary confusion to run some other direction. I pass a construction site and go through it. But I’m a beautiful woman and my passage there does not go unnoticed. The men working there start calling me so I need to get out of there as soon as possible or I’ll be found.
I cross a street, there’s a big lawn and a beautiful tall building at the end of it. I see people all dressed up and spot an old friend of mine there (J.F.). He always had a crush on me and I’m sure he would like to see me again. I am also more or less dressed up, despite the chase and all and I enter this place. We have to pay ticket, luckily not expensive, but I don’t even know what party there is. I go downstairs and it looks like a disco or bar in a basement. I sit close to him, but pretending I didn’t see him. I do something to get his attention and then he sees me and gets frozen, staring at me, unbelieving I’m there. Then I pretend I’m also surprised and we engage in conversation. I feel safe now that I have a good cover. I stick with him.


3:45 GMT

Continuation of the party
After going back to sleep I am again in that basement party and I realise it is a party organized by a student’s association. Looking for a calmer place, I enter this back room where the organizers are doing their work, carrying stuff, ensuring the availability of food and drinks, etc. There’s lots of sound material (woofers, mixing tables, etc). At the end of the party, some guy with long hair is looking for something and he goes nuts when he sees it disappeared. Apparently something pretty expensive. Then a girl from the organization is freaking out because the student’s association will have to pay it if it’s not found. [I had more notes on this dream, but wrote it over something else and it’s illegible.]

4:56 GMT

Naked seduction attempt
I am a lady in her 50’s. I am a business woman, with a busy life, single. On that exact moment I am at this place (a house? mine?) organizing something, receiving guests. There are other people around, but then it’s all over and I’m looking in all rooms if anybody was left behind and closing the doors when I find nobody. Then a guy, also in his 50’s, totally naked, jumps out of one room and is bothering me, wanting to kiss me and so on. First I feel scared, then I recognize the guy and feel simply annoyed and disturbed. Try to call him to reason, try to get him to dress something but he just says he wants to kiss me and to make love to me. I am losing my patience and then he pushes me to a bed and is on top of me and I feel incredibly disgusted to have this naked guy on me and feeling his body parts on me. Brrr... I start battling hard but then he backs up a bit. Then I realise he is not trying to rape me. We are sort of friends and he is really attracted to me and since I am cold as stone he thought he’d have to be really straight to the point to try to arouse me. I think he managed to do it just a very little bit, like a small flicker of arousal in my mind, but in general he failed and I simply felt disgust.


6:00 GMT

Portuguese tourists abroad
I am with my dad coming out of a subway station in a foreign country and outside we see this building right in front, with a glass façade and several names of companies and foundations on it. Me and my father are heading to this particular foundation but before we cross the street, two ladies approach us, one blond older and one brunette, in her 40’s. They ask us in French where is such and such street. We explain we just arrived and have no clue. They say they were looking for a certain foundation, not the same as the one we’re looking and that they thought was on this building but inside the doorman indicated some other building. We said again we would like to help but we have no clue. My father is trying to be nice to the ladies, but his French is quite sucky. He speaks Portuguese with me to ask me something or share some idea with me, when the ladies start laughing! They are also Portuguese and there we were speaking French to each other. So communication got a lot easier and my father who likes to impress the ladies was all of a sudden all kind to them. We say again we don’t know the place so we can’t help, but then they say “Yeah, but you have a map and we don’t!” Oh, so that’s what they are after! Since we won’t give them our map, because we also need it, we decide to go along with them and then come back. This way we can also meet them. Another friend of them appears from the other side of the street and then we go with them to a bus station, because the place is still far away. First I feel totally upset and try to convince my father to draw a scheme and just send them away. But we end up making this tour with them and it ends up being fun.

7:30 GMT

Alternative centre and wasps in a pool
Me and my boyfriend are visiting this town - I think it reminds me Berlin - when we find this strange alternative community centre. I go inside this complex and the first thing I see is this second-hand shop, really busy. My boyfriend was curious if that business was making any money, because he finds the clothes a bit too much weird and they say he’d be surprised. Then we see this room full of couples with little babies, doing some kind of yoga for babies. As we go deeper into this complex, we find a swimming pool. They explain is for the residents of this community and associates but that we could also go use it if we wanted to. My boyfriend jumped right in but I had other plans in my mind.
I’m planning to leave but there’s a guy on a ladder, close to the roof, screaming that he just found a wasp’s nest and that they are pissed. He advises everybody out, but there’s no time. A swarm of angry wasps come in my direction and I just have time to dive in the water, clothes and all. Then we have to keep under water, because as soon as we come to the surface they are there ready to attack. I swim for some time, back and forth, coming for a quick breath at the surface but the wasps are relentless and the guys outside the pool are not solving this problem any time soon.
I have taken vows of compassion towards all sentient beings and besides that, I am just unable to kill any animal, including wasps. But I decide I have to kill them, at least some of them, or people will start drown on the pool or getting seriously stung. I got out of the pool, grabbed something and started killing a few, the others just backed of. I felt awful for each one I killed – the vision of their bodies being crushed was incredibly detailed - but I also thought it was a lesser harm to protect other sentient beings, so I had to do it.

Dream architects
I then leave the pool and a girl offers me to go to her room in the community residential area, to change clothes. While I’m there, finished changing my clothes, I see a doll she has and I pick it up. The doll had really beautiful big blue eyes and dark hair. I find it a bit misplaced as the rest of her room is totally grown-up, no childish things, but at the same time I relate to it, because I also have this Barbie dolls in my room, for no apparent reason, just as a connection to the memories of the past. I guess the doll has some special meaning to her.
Then a strange guy enters the room, asks me not to say a word and he transforms the architecture of the room – I mean, like changing the dream architecture. Where there was a normal window looking over a backyard, he made appear a stone-brick wall with columns over a huge patio like one of an ancient palace. When she arrived she was so pissed off. She screamed to the guy, saying it was not funny, asking me why I let him do it. I decided to leave them discussing it and sneaked out, amazed at the fact that they were dream-architects.

9:30 GMT – Wake up

The dream started at some college, it was strange though in that it seemed more like I was going into basic training for the military at first. It kind of switched to just a 'normal' college afterward though. I walked to the dorms with the group I was assigned to, they invited me to a party, I declined as I had arrived two weeks late and needed to catch up. After what I knew was a few hours, though it felt like only a minute or so, of looking over notes and such I decided to take a break. I went around to explore the campus, a strangely beautiful complex of buildings, some illogically built and connected. Many of the buildings had large, open balconies with occasional benches and tables. Other students walked by occasionally, most often in groups of 2-4 only two large groups went by that seemed like classes going somewhere. I opened a heavy metal door going leading to a poorly lighted tunnel, I felt rather on edge in here though the two groups of people did not seem concerned at all that there were giant bug-like things crawling around. I felt a bit more at ease when I noticed these creatures did not actually seem to be of any threat and mostly ignored us. I came to another heavy door and found myself on one of the open balconies about 3 stories up, very illogical transfer due to the lack of any incline or stairs. A group of three students were talking quietly to amongst themselves, it had become rather dark and the campus was lit only by a series of small lights along railings and walkways, and the meager amount of sunlight left over the horizon. I walked towards a bridge connecting to another balcony, it spanned about twenty meters. Sadly about halfway there I was forced to stop by a 4 meter gap. I turned back and headed to the large door again, this time the tunnel was deserted save for the bugs. They did not seem quite as neutral this time as they screeched and approached threateningly. Somehow this made me realize I was dreaming. I stepped backwards through the door and closed it to concentrate. I closed my eyes and envisioned a large well lit room with all my friends and family at a party. I turned around while opening my eyes and watched the environment melt away and form into a large warehouse with a good portion of my friends and immediate family. Tables were laid out with food and drinks and music was playing as people talked and laughed. I frowned at the lack of good lighting and made a motion like a conductor indicating a crescendo and the lights became brighter. I felt my vision blurring a bit and stabilized by imagining myself anchored to the ground and looking at my hand s saying "I am in a clear, stable dream." My vision cleared after that and I felt more secure in the dream. I summoned a pen and paper and wrote down my goals, somehow my mind could not remember them by my hands did. I set them on a table and tried flying, I only got about five meters off the ground before falling back down. I walked around and talked to some of the people though what was said is gone now. I felt myself waking up at this point and re stabilized then quickly approached a group of my family members and two of my friends, they looked at me expectantly and I said

"I ask that next time I dream, you tell me I am dreaming, if I do not believe it tell me to do a reality check. Continue to bother me until I realize I am dreaming." They all agreed and I let myself wake up so I could remember the dream.

Notes: I'm not quite sure what influenced this dream, possibly thoughts of returning to college this winter. As for letting myself wake up, I already pushed it a bit with my poor dream recall. I am not checking off have a conversation with a DC version of my friends as I do not remember what was said. However I can check off asking DCs to help me become lucid which is a great thing for me.

This morning I dreamed I saw the Sun rising through the woods that are north of my house. I believe I had actually woken up before this dream and saw it was dawn through the glass door. In my dream I was looking through this door and I could see the Sun through the woods, as if they were transparent, as it rose above the horizon. The disk of the Sun was bright crimson and it was surrounded by perfect blackness. As it rose I gave my the solar adoration for sunrise:

Hail unto thee who art Kephre in thy rising,
And unto thee who art Brahma in thy birth
And even unto thee who are Zeus in thy ambition.
Hail unto thee oh Sun in this thy rising.

By the time I had finished the Sun was completely above the horizon.


Yesterday at sunset I meditated on the visualization of a red setting Sun, as described in the Contemplation Sutra. This might well have been an inspiration for the dream.

8-28-2010

I dreamed I could turn into a stone ghost kind of thing. So I sneaked into a castle to save a princess. I had two people traveling with me. A boy and a girl. The girl was a kung-fu master and the guy was a grapple hook user. So we rescued the princess and she turned evil. The girl I was travelling with trained her soldiers advanced martial arts. All of a sudden the castle sunk into a sinkhole, and water poured into the castle. Then I awoke.