non-lucid

Morning of October 1, 1989. Sunday.



This dream was not really a nightmare, but there was some residual discomfort and annoyance. The first section, which is much longer, takes place at night - perhaps around midnight. The house which is easterly across the street (Tenth Street) from my King Street boarding house has all the lights on. I am near the southernmost window (my apartment with the rocket-like cupola on the northeast corner) when it inexplicably explodes and tiny particles of glass go flying inward everywhere. I am not seriously injured, though, but there is an unusual “accelerated” physical awareness. The dream seems to reset several times, but there is an unusual aspect where I seem to be going north into different locations and buildings and yet somehow still in the same place. The “same” window explodes again and again in “different”/“same” locations.

I also seem to be traveling north because of this. That is, there is some sort of pattern whereby all the windows explode in sequence from south to north. Again, that is rather incomprehensible due to the seeming continuous “resets”. I do not think the houses east of me have any sort of exploding window anomalies.

Later on, it is in the afternoon, and I am in a large area that is mostly like a field with shorter grasses. There is a highway and a road that turns off and comes back around in a square shape - there are no buildings or other features to the landscape. I think about going south again. There is a younger (unknown) businessman in the area. There is another man with him, but something strange happens. There is suddenly a large dark form in the sky, almost like a very large black kite but moving on its own as if alive. It moves south. There is a strange sense of my body “swaying” at a sharp angle from ground level as I watch it fly off. I am not certain if it was the man who changed into the form or if the form picked him up to carry him off. It is some sort of “creature” or perhaps some sort of alien, but I am not certain what it is other than seeing that it is somewhat bat-like yet more like just a diamond-shaped black form but eventually creating the impression of a “V”.

Morning of July 2, 1989. Sunday.



I had been painting the larger bathroom on the second floor of the King Street boarding house for my landlady. It is a sort of greenish lighter teal color (much the same as in reality).

After I finish painting, a large crane fly suddenly appears and lands on the north wall near the sink at about shoulder level and with a sudden splat (creating the impression of very small droplets of paint flying out from the surface of the wall), creating a strong focus on tiredness. There is also a sense of disgust that is close to literal nausea.

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Induction factor: water (man-made; bathroom sink). The setting is known and realistic and somewhat public (shared boarding house bathroom). There are no other characters. I seem to have a physical body as I had been painting. Return flight factor features as a crane fly. The mood was primarily of a sense of annoyance and disgust. Additional coalescence factor: paint (fluid), coalescence (as crane fly hitting wall) undesired; seemingly “blocked”. Possible explanation: being subliminally aware of something on my face, possibly my own hair. I also tend to dream of insects in a negative context when being too warm or too cold in addition to being overtired.

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Morning of October 9, 1988. Sunday.



This was one of those dreams that did not seem to have me as the dreamer or the main character (though I do not quite feel disembodied in-dream).

I am in an unknown house where a girl lives with her pet cat (and at least one parent, it seems) in a small town in either the UK or Australia (not sure of the accent in regards to this one - sounded almost Scottish). Although it does not seem to be a stronger or clearer version of the “mystery girl” - she did have a long-haired male whitish cat of the same breed (a silver chinchilla) when I made contact with the girl who was to become my wife in real life a few years later (in Maryborough). I am fairly certain that the town in my dream even ended in “borough” (I think it was “Landsborough” though, or something very close, not sure of anything else) but I do not know (or seem to know) the girl’s name.

The cat’s name is “Spitfire”. Mostly, my dream solely involves the cat spitting fireballs at mice and burning them up before they are eaten by the cat. As I said before, fire is a common feature in my dreams, but not as common as cool, clear water.

Curiously, “Landsborough” is actually the real name of a small town in Queensland near where we live now , but I did not know it was a real place at the time, or if I did, it did not “register” - plus, it was also very close in sound to my sister’s married surname at the time anyway.

Also, at the time, I apparently did not know (or at least think about) that one definition of “spitfire” was “a person given to outbursts of spiteful temper and anger, especially a woman or girl”. That does not seem to have any personal connection, though.

Coincidentally, my wife had a pet cat named “Sparki” when I first met her.

Morning of October 1, 1988. Saturday.

Dream #: 7,957-03. Optimized 2 min read.

My dream concludes briskly. Its foreground is defined by rich imagery and lively movement but without adequate realism. (Its content is unrelated, but the outcome has a similar essence and momentum as a childhood dreaming experience in which Toby and I rescue Brenda from a fire.)

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It is late morning in La Crosse. Without evidence, I assume an accident has occurred in the factory where my brother-in-law Bob is working. The mentation does not infer any details of the accident. I remain standing near the street, about half a block from the factory (probably Machine Products Co. Inc. - where Bob works in real life, though lacking its correct appearance). The rest of the setting is a featureless lawn. There is a sense of urgency, but I do not interact with my dream’s surreal content. There is awe but no concern regarding Bob’s fate or how he might recover.

An ambulance suddenly arrives off to my left, but I do not focus on it. The ambulance crew rushes into the factory. Immediately (with my dream not including any intermediate details or realistic timing), I see my brother-in-law lying on a stretcher, being quickly carried into the foreground by unfamiliar young men in white. Bob is oriented with his head away from me, though partly at an angle oriented to my right. One man holds the end of the stretcher near Bob’s feet, though grips it from behind him while running forward. The second man is supporting the other end.

Bob is on his back, with only the right side of his body remaining. His left side is missing as if he was vertically cut in half, yet there is no blood or gore. Even so, he seems to be alive but semi-conscious. The exaggerated stride of the two interns is vaguely reminiscent of a Mad Magazine Don Martin panel. The impossibility of the scene does not register with my dream self as such.

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This dream is merely a waking trope, correlating with the absence of mind-body connectivity resulting from sleep. Its self-evident causation is immediately recognizable.

Half of Bob’s body on the stretcher is an atypical feature caused by anticipating vestibular system correlation, feasible mobility, and viable physicality in emerging from in-dream sleep paralysis (of which I usually am only instinctually aware other than when I navigate the hypnopompic state). Bob is this dream’s sleep simulacrum, a fundamental factor of my dreaming experiences each sleep cycle for over 50 years.

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A lifetime of experience has taught me that waking tropes usually do not have a real-life meaning or significance. Why would they? They are fundamentally the result of navigating dream space or emerging from sleep. Whether sleep simulacra appear as deceased, sleeping, in suspended animation, or with surreal or impossible injuries as here does not have to correlate with anything other than my depth of sleep and my anticipated transition into mind-body reconnectivity and wakefulness. Even the sense of urgency is often irrelevant, sometimes triggered by an insignificant sound in the environment.

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Morning of March 18, 1988. Friday.



This was a long dream, but mostly uneventful and primarily involving forgotten conversations and some sort of board game at first, possibly Monopoly. The plot centers around friends coming to see me in Cubitis. They mostly sit in a circle in my bedroom, both girls and boys. It seems I may be around fourteen years of age or older. I am seated in the circle and facing due east.

Eventually, a spider monkey, which seems to be very active and intelligent, starts talking profusely, as if he is in charge of everything. He mostly remains on my right, sometimes standing in the center of the arc of the semicircular formation of friends on my right (if left and right sides were divided into even half-circles). He talks about his “career” which I think is relative to music and radio as well as politics. It also seems that he is a prince of some kind, seemingly of a large country. At one point, he is wearing a gold crown and a red robe. Oddly, I do not question the fact that a small spider monkey is talking so clearly and with such authority in my dream (it is very vivid but I have no idea I am dreaming). At one point near the end, he is more and more articulate, eventually holding a banana, and I believe, talking about politics and mentioning “Washington”. My friends do not seem to think it that strange to see a talking monkey.

I think about producing an epic documentary detailing his life and times, but that thought soon fades. My dream is very vibrant prior to losing cohesion.

I get the impression he is the “Duke of Swing” (vaguely reflecting on “Duke of Earl”), which is eventually replaced by “Sultan of Swing”, which seems to be his actual title. The Dire Straits song, which seems directly related in afterthought, did not cross my mind at all when in my dream, and only at the waking point did I remember the song title, which seems to somehow have “created” my dream from the start.

Morning of November 23, 1987. Monday.



Even though it makes no sense at all, there are (at least three) sharks under the floor (under the carpet in most cases) of the second story apartments of the King Street boarding house, mostly “swimming” north to south and back somehow just out of sight under the floor (and the floor is supposedly only water in some areas under the carpet where they can come up through), and even though there seems to be no flood or anything resembling the ocean this far inland. Regardless of the utter absurdity of the scenario, there is no hint of lucidity or dawning of even basic common sense. I am somewhat angry and frustrated over paying rent ($25.00 per week) under such conditions. I can walk down the steps and outside into the front yard or onto the front porch with no danger.

I believe some (or most) of the other tenants have left to find somewhere else to stay, including Leonard S, who is probably one of the last to leave. I do see him somehow fishing into his floor at one point though the floor seems mostly still solid.

How can a shark be in a house on dry land? Mental associations possibly destroy in-dream logic with the 1970s “Jaws” game, which I had, and at least one photograph exists where I have my face near the three-dimensional game’s open “mouth” in profile. I am never attacked; I just have to be wary of how I walk through my room to the door to the apartment. My large old (and loud) refrigerator, probably made in the early 1960s, sits inside the large clothes closet as in real life (which is where it was when I started to rent the particular apartment, strangely enough). Although I got along well with my landlord and landlady, as they lived in the residence below, it is possible that I viewed them as “sharks” on one level. It is also possible I had heard about carpet sharks previously.

Morning of October 30, 1987. Friday.



My dream’s title is based on having been a fan of Marvel’s “Werewolf by Night” comic book (the original series).

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I have had similar dreams as this where I am able to focus on my hands and grow claws and feel very vivid sensations of their emergence from my fingers, even though this dream is not fully lucid, as I know things are “different” yet I do not fully associate the state with being in a dream (but I do recognize its unrealistic nature). My dream colored my mood in a very lighthearted and positive way. I believe my name as a werewolf is “Sawtooth”. My becoming a werewolf is fully determined by my own cheerful desire to and not a result of the full moon’s influence. I am also aware of wolf canines growing but this is not uncomfortable, though I do clearly feel changes and pressure in that area (through semi-lucid threads of intent at one point).

The ending of my dream provides a strong state of happiness and an augmented sense of freedom, primarily freedom from the negative aspects of human society. I have become half-wolf, half-man, but I am still running upright like a human, to the southwest. It is about ten o'clock in the morning. Not that far away, to the south, my target is a very dense (fictional) forest, the trees seemingly only a few feet apart at least on the perimeter. It would otherwise be located about two blocks south of my older sister Marilyn’s house. I am blissful about living in the deep dark forest. Even though it is late morning prior to twelve, with no full moon anywhere - and in fact the sun is shining, I hear the howls of fellow werewolves from within the woods, and although there seems like twenty or so, I never see another werewolf in my dream. I still feel a strange seemingly serious kinship, even though the overall dream at this point is quite silly. There is a very cheerful, positive feeling, although I feel as if I will somehow completely “lose” myself upon entering the forest (not in a negative sense; more like being a playful child again, free as I was in the woods of Chipmunk Coulee before I went to public school), which is to be my home from then on. However, I awake before reaching the edge of the forest, the edge being east and west and almost perfectly straight across. Upon waking, in addition to general freedom, I realize that another aspect that was in the back of my dream self’s mind, is freedom from the expectations of others.

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The main influence here was “I Was a Middle Aged Werewolf” (even though I was young at the time of this dream), a “Highway to Heaven” episode, where the angel played by Michael Landon (who was born on Halloween in 1936) was also in “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” from 1957.

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Morning of August 23, 1987. Sunday.



I am with Leonard S on a fishing trip at Pettibone Park, across the bridge from where we live on the south-side of La Crosse and where we often fish in real life. I believe it is late morning. There is an idea that the authorities might soon be here to “investigate” our fishing methods even though we are not doing anything wrong. After a short time, a helicopter appears in the sky overhead. Soon, it seems to have some difficulty staying up. It ends up moving down onto the ground at an angle, close to the riverbank, so that the rotor blades hit the ground and then seem to become like some sort of digging machine as dirt flies up - and the helicopter goes farther into the ground almost like it was designed to (and the rotor blades do not break, they just keep turning and digging, pulling the helicopter deeper into the ground).

From here, for some reason, my dream then only focuses on Leonard’s profile which takes on a rather odd insect-like appearance and his eyes seem to project visible dashes (a series of short “lines”) in the air, moving out horizontally from them in an old-fashioned-comic-strip-like indication of where he is looking (as if he is extremely puzzled by the helicopter’s “slow-motion” accident unfolding before him). He is still supposedly completely human. My dream becomes vague and partly abstract at this point.

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Leonard in this case stands for my dream self and temporary waking self hybrid (present in many dream types but not all). He is very puzzled over why the waking mechanism failed as a result of the association with sleeping longer (including anticipation of the return to slow-wave sleep), the short lines that project from his eyes create a virtual highway (or an implied linear pathway), a highway (or in fact any implied pathway) being a conduit for either deeper induction or the waking transition.

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This is a dream I had when I was about nine or ten years old. I have remembered most of this dream because it is still vivid in my memory even fifteen years after the fact. I believe it has great personal significance for me though I am not entirely sure in what ways. I am not sure what everything in the dream means as of yet.

The most significant aspect of this dream for me was the colours. Every colour was so luminous and vivid that it still blows my mind today. I have not since had a dream so poweful in regards to colour alone like this one was.


The dream took place on a pirate ship in the middle of an unknown sea under a brilliant red sunset. The ship was a "stereotypical" pirate ship, except the wood and metal parts of which it was made were all shades of purple. It did not look as if everything had been painted purple - rather the wood was naturally that colour, as were all bits of metal and fabric that could be seen.

The water of the ocean was a deep purple-ish black, where it did not reflect the light from the setting sun anyway. The sky was a bloody red, as was the sun, which was frozen in place just above the horizon. There was only a slight breeze and no waterspray around the ship, even though all the sails where unfurled and billowing like they were being hit with a strong gail. The ship was as frozen in place upon the water as the sun was hanging in the sky. The ocean rippled softly like any calm sea and I could move around the ship freely, as I (and other DCs) were unnaffected by the time freeze that locked the sun and ship into place.

The purple pirate ship seemed devoid of all life save for me, though my dream form looked nothing like me as I appear in waking life. I wore all bright red clothing and dark red cape and I had long flowing white hair and a red hat that had a big yellow feather in it.

Anyway, the dream starts off in the setting I just described with me on the ship's deck, wielding a long silver sword, fighting a dozen or so large flying monsters that kept swooping down on me. The creatures looked like a cross between a monkey and a fish (with bat-like wings)and they were a puke green colour, except for their huge black claws with which they slashed at me as they swooped down to attack.

I wasn't the greatest sword fighter and I had no shield, but somehow I cut a few of the monsters down. As the carcasses landed on the ship's deck they oozed a disgusting blackish fluid before burning up in a blue flame and dissapearing. The carcass dissapeared but the ooze remained and it made it harder to fight the flying monsters because I kept slipping on the stuff!

I cannot remember now how exactly I defeated the monsters but I think some flew away before I could kill them. I have always though it was interesting, though I do not know the significance, that during the entire fight I faced the bow (front) of the ship. At no time did I turn around to face the stern (back) of the ship, even when dodging or attacking, and neither did any of the monsters land on any part of the ship while they were alive. The creatures seemed to want to avoid making contact with the ship as much as they avoided my swinging sword.

When the last was dead (and the ones that escaped were out of sight) I took a moment to catch my breath (still facing the bow) and heard a soft laugh from behind me. I dropped my sword in surprise, turned around and there was a man with long black hair standing in the doorway that lead to the lower levels of the ship. He was very handsome, kind of pale and dressed in black velvet, Victorian style fashion. Up until this point I thought that I was alone on the ship.

Despite the man's vampire-like appearance I sensed no hostility from him and he just smiled at me. We did not speak to each other but there was a warm, friendly feeling eminating from him and all the worry and pain from my fight with the flying monsters was forgotten. I vividly remember the handsome man's green eyes, which sparkled like emeralds and made my heart skip. I only got to gaze at him briefly however because the dream ended there.

I am going to start with a dream that I vividly remember from when I was approximately six or seven years old. Up until I had this particular one I remember being able to fly whenever I wanted to do so in my dreams. I realize now that being able to control my flying in my dreams may have been lucidity, but everything changed with this dream:


The dream occured on the street that I live on, which is a in a quiet, tree-filled neighbourhood, but in this particular dream it seemed more deserted than quiet. I remember taking a long look at the clear blue sky and then running down the street and leaping into the air. I was expecting to just take off and fly like I had always done before without problems - but I floated for only a few seconds and then just fell back to the ground.

I became very upset and tried several more times to run and jump, but again I only floated for a couple of seconds and then returned to the ground. The more I tried the less I could fly and the more my frustration build. As I was failing at flying and becoming more and more upset, the sky filled with huge, dark grey thunderclouds and the wind picked up drastically. Everything became very cold and I remember feeling very frightened - but I continued to run and jump in vain attempts to fly. I just wanted to get away.


The dream becomes fuzzy after that, but I do remember that I never did fly in that dream and I have not been able fly, or have any such control like that, in my dreams since then.

This dream is a little embarassing to post because it is disgusting and extremely bizarre. I was 6 when I first dreamed it and it reappeared occassionally until my early teen years.


The dream takes place in a post-apocalyptic like world and there is garbage and debris everywhere. Everything is destroyed or abandoned and the world seems devoid of people save for me. In the dream I am about 5 or 6 years old and am usually wearing a blue or white dress.

I wandered the desolate streets looking for someone, anyone, because I was afraid and very alone. When I did see someone, I would run up to them and without looking at me or saying a word he or she would turn around, drop their pants and projectile crap at me. Most of the people in the dream I can not recognize in waking life but one person I do know appeared repeatedly when I had this dream and that was one of my older brothers.

It did not matter where I ran, or who I ran into, I recieved the same treatment from anybody and everybody in the dream: they'd turn around, drop their pants and projectile poop at me. Even when I tried to run away, I would turn around and there would be more people there to block my path and do the same. There was no one in the dream I could go to, or talk to, and I remember feeling very alone and hopeless.

Night of November 1, 1986. Saturday. (This would be a day after Halloween. Keep that in mind.)



Even though this dream seems primarily impersonal and I seem to be disembodied for the most part in the majority of the scenes, there is a sense of eeriness throughout (but no direct physical threat at any point). It mostly involves a colony of bats that are somewhat anthropomorphic and of which that in turn suggests a link to gargoyles to some extent. They mostly seem to come from a hidden underground area in a fictional cemetery in La Crosse. This fictional cemetery is northwest of my sister’s house on Loomis Street. This location superimposed in reality would possibly seem to occupy the parking lot in what is now the Coulee Montessori Charter School and part of Roosevelt Park.

There is an idea at one point that the bat-like creatures “escaped” from an unknown realm that people perhaps accidentally disturbed with mining activities.

At one point, I watch more than a dozen of the creatures fly out from a west-facing mausoleum (which, through extensive research, is very similar to an Oakwood one in Troy, New York). My dream takes on that eerie stop-motion animation artificial feel very similar to the original “Jason and the Argonauts” from 1963, a movie I saw a few times as a boy and which influenced many of my dreams over time, specifically, in this case, the very similar harpies. The mausoleum is vaguely reminiscent of the White House, which is a bit curious (and perhaps relevant) I think, though the columns could be modeled after the harpies scene in the aforementioned movie.

Again, I am not attacked or threatened but it seems there are other (unknown) people that are attacked and possibly killed during a picnic though I do not witness the events that closely or much gore.

This is partially like a typical movie-like dream where scenes change (or “jump cut”) completely every several minutes, but still with the overall similar bats theme and still within a non-varying dream awareness for the most part.

However, in one “reset” (where the awareness slightly increases), it actually seems as if I am one of the creatures or at least “in league” with them (which makes sense, as I, the dreamer, am their creator after all). At one point I get a very vague impression they may be robotic, but this is unlikely and my brief distorted impression as such was probably only caused by the odd stop-motion movement. There is no vampire association at any point, though there is a vague “church” association or feeling at one point, yet mostly undefined and unresolved.



Most dreams with more detail involving normal bats (and importantly, I stress “normal” here) and additional but unrelated events to the main bat theme are long-term precognitive in nature even over many years (such as regarding my extensively documented and researched “Patches” recurring dream series). This clarifies how bats represent “messengers” from the “caves” of the supraconscious, often in a positive sense or personally good outlook (only incidentally because one does not ordinarily attribute birds to exploring and dwelling in caves or dark recesses of metaphorical mysteries). People who do not know any better might associate with bats solely in a negative sense, and this example in turn was probably influenced by popular media and the popular symbols of Halloween, unfortunately (or fortunately if you like meandering “monster dreams” which are not intense enough to be nightmares or with any feasible personal symbolism).

Morning of September 21, 1986. Sunday.



This is a shorter summary. My dream was much longer than it seems by this - but a lot of the time was mostly regarding some of the same visual aspects and conversations not quite recalled (seemingly in another language at times).

I am on an unknown island, probably near Indonesia. I have no clue to what island it is as it seems very small and isolated from the rest of the world. I am not quite sure if my companion and I had been in the past and are later in the present in my dream, or started out in the present and came back to the location in the future.

My male companion is somewhat like a composite of a Scotland Yard character and an archaeologist. He seems dressed mostly as a businessman at times. We find an isolated village that people said did not exist (supposedly being a legend). My dream is extraordinarily vivid but not lucid. We find a village where we make friends with three younger male characters. They have food served to us in mottled wooden bowels (I believe) and we become good friends. They are mostly spending time involved in rituals to do with fire and trying to call forth spirits.

Because my dream is more vivid, the atmosphere is very intense in the semidarkness. The floor is of dirt but there are grass mats in a few locations. The random flickers of the fire eerily light up the ceiling within the one-room building. I would guess their ages to only be around twenty or so.

We eventually leave the village and they seem somewhat sad. My companion and I go to a beach-like area. We seem to travel through time while just standing in one area near the ocean - into at least their future (but again, not sure if our future or our present). We go back to the hut and the same three men are there but seemingly ninety years old or more. They are still doing the same rituals in the smokey scene. They seem amazingly happy to see us and nod their heads lightly. A lot of emotion unfolds in this dream, a little more than many others of this time, and I had labelled it as a “breakthrough dream”. It colored my mood for about a week in a positive way, somehow.

I had this dream the evening (possibly into the next day) after reading a lot of other people’s dreams in a hardcover book. There was something on “breakthrough dreams” that connected with me somehow at the time. I do not remember the book title and did not write about the book itself. I have included the link for an older interesting but nearly 300-page PDF document that was based on some of what I read, though I do not agree with the work one-hundred percent by any stretch, especially now, but I used to really enjoy such works, mostly in the 1980s: http://elk.library.ubc.ca/handle/2429/26374

Morning of June 2, 1986. Monday.

Dream #: 7,105-02. Reading time: 45 sec.



I am walking around in a strange, unfamiliar location that seems almost like Medieval times in some ways even though it is supposedly in the distant future. A boy I know, Scott R, is there and other people are nearby.

Eventually, when I look up, I see a gigantic spaceship making a tremendous mechanical noise as it “swims” through the sky. It is like a giant robotic tadpole, much larger than a 747, somehow staying up with no signs of wings, rotaries, or any other mechanisms. It has at least four sections that seem to counterbalance each side-to-side unit as its forms zigzag. It makes a tremendous amount of noise as it moves, possibly indicating rust and mechanical stress. I do not know what to think, but it causes a sense of awe and interest. Later, I float about above various stairwells in public areas.

Over time, while seemingly incorporeal, I have impressions of moving into people (coalescence) who are sitting near the bottom steps of flights of stairs. There is a wondrous essence of love. Everyone is smiling, but I do not think they are aware of me.

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Morning of April 5, 1986. Saturday.



I had apparently been “sleeping” or resting in my dream in an unfamiliar room, but which is like a composite of the front (northeast) first floor bedroom on Loomis Street and seemingly a hotel room that is on a higher floor (at the same height the airplane is flying). I become aware of a very loud percussive sound, which gets clearer and clearer and seems to be getting closer to where I am. (I am unsure if this dream event was caused by real-life noise.) Looking out the window (implied to be a fictional window open to the north when using the layout of the familiar Loomis Street bedroom), I see that it is a 1940s military aircraft of a greenish gray color (which resembles a Grumman F8F Bearcat) that seems to be shooting at something (though I perceive that it is apparently present time in my dream, not the 1940s) and there are associations with Tripoli or Tipperary. Even though it is heading for the building I am in, even seemingly shooting in my direction, it does not crash or pose any actual threat now or later. I am not sure what happens to it after this as my dream shifts to where I am then outside. I assume that there is a small war going on in the region, though I am not clear on the location. There is confusion with Germany and Turkey as well as Libya and vague terrorist associations. Logically, it is probably meant to be the Middle East.

Later, I am standing outside, still seemingly in present time. I am one of the first people in a line of several hostages, which includes mostly older men and women. I am soon well aware that I am not me, though. Instead, I seem to be a much older male civilian or at least occupying his body somehow, perhaps a journalist. A hostile male facing the line, seemingly in charge, and holding an AK-47 or similar, is possibly going to shoot us all, though this is uncertain. At this time, I feel a strange vivid sense of both fear and growing relief and quickly rise up out of this character as if I was only inhabiting his body temporarily and do not want to be him if he is killed (which seems impending at this point). I rise higher and higher, looking down on the scene which includes bombed-out buildings. Meanwhile, I feel as if I somehow legitimately had been in this situation but am now escaping and “returning” to my own body, the presumed possibility of this remaining in fleeting conscious afterthought.

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