non-lucid

Morning of June 14, 1975. Saturday.



This dream scenario takes place mostly in the living room in our Cubitis home and everything is mostly the same as it is in reality. My father seems to be the only other character in my dream. (I believe there is a subtle association with Father’s Day, which would be the day after this date, though I am the one who gets a gift.) I am on the couch - and this was the time when visitors used it for sleeping. It is in its normal place in the southwest corner of the living room, lengthwise to the south wall.

I have been given a plastic model kit from Revell, I believe. It is a cobra, the snake kind, not the car model. It is black and has a couple interchangeable pieces for the final version. (I have not seen this kit in real life if there is one like it.) The finished plastic model has hinges in one section that allow it to sway side to side like a real cobra. I do not think I have finished putting the model together before my dream finally fades.

It is possible that my dream self in this case associated the Cobra Car with the cobra snake. However, I had a very early childhood dream of a cobra in the hayloft and deliberately trying to “create” it within my lucid dream in one clearer version, which can also be found in this journal (Link). There may be a connection or association, in this case, “creating” a cobra with a model rather than as a tulpa.

In real life (prior to this dream), I had gotten a large number of plastic model kits from sister Carol, for my birthday (December 20th) and Christmas, that were of animals such as a bear, deer, a couple horses (including a rather large black stallion), and so on. My mother had gotten me mostly only car models, but also a few dinosaur models later.

Morning of May 25, 1975. Sunday.



Background information: This dream seemed to relate to simultaneous associations of seeing razor blades as primarily dangerous combined with a concern about becoming ill from mosquito bites as well as leeches. There was also a brief incident at Lake Katherine where a few other teenagers (at least one wearing a razor blade as a pendant), walking by when our class was on a field trip, made threats about using a razor blade to slice up our backsides. The female teacher looked worried but did not react and the others just kept walking. I am not aware of anyone being killed in this dream, though the idea seems very plausible. My concern is possibly minimal due to wearing a repellent (such as “Off”) of some kind, though I believe it is a special type of “cologne” in my dream (and even this potential was possibly influenced from a television commercial about “Off”).

This is not a more pronounced nightmare (I am not fully active in it nor emotionally bothered in any sense, although I am actually fully in-body in my Cubitis front yard for the most part, near the culverts that are about one-third filled with water), but it is a somewhat negative dream about a type of “giant flying one-celled animal” like a protozoa (though they are about the size of large moths and likely not one-celled relative to real-life logic), that attack and supposedly somehow eat people when rising out of culvert water and flying in groups of twenty or more (and it seems they live mostly in the water of the culverts or ponds as well as slightly flooded areas of parts of lawns). They have one maneuver where they tip sideways, mostly on the diagonal and moving about in a horizontal semicircular arc as such.

I am not entirely sure why I decided to call this dream “Diamond Crawlers” back in the mid-1970s in my original dream journal entry, as they never crawled anywhere much; they mostly just rose from shallow water (when people were around) and flew around in a diamond-shape formation and were vaguely reminiscent of a diamond in form and body appearance. They resemble a transparent leech, shaped somewhat like a rounded-off truncated plus sign, but longer along the length than the winglike protruding sides (which is akin to an airplane having very short wings and is not realistically feasible), with the mostly translucent pattern of a glass-like razor blade in mid-body. Calling this dream “Razor Blade Flyers” would have made more sense, I suppose, but sounds ridiculous in afterthought. It is possible I was thinking of diamondback snakes at the time and just threw that absentmindedly into my dream’s title.

The new image I made does not do justice to their transparent nature, but is fairly close otherwise.

Morning of April 18, 1965. Easter Sunday.



I am lying in my bed in the morning, seemingly just prior to dawn, but not certain of the date, thinking it may be a day or two before Easter. The Easter Bunny (not seen directly but mentally perceived as an ordinary brown rabbit) had somehow brought me a glass of root beer and heart-shaped cookies with pink frosting. (My unconsciousness is confusing Valentine’s Day with Easter to a certain extent. This has happened in other dreams.)

The Shobijin (miniature twin girls from the 1961 movie “Mothra”) walk across my bed towards where my head is (left side). (I have a sheet over most of my body.) It seems as if they think that I cannot see them. Still, they soon look directly at me and warily watch me drink my root beer and eat a cookie, which tastes sweet.

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For some reason, since early childhood, the appearance of miniature people usually creates a vivid and very lifelike level of awareness (compared to other non-lucid dreams), despite the impossibility and how it does not trigger lucidity.

The Mothra egg (as an underlying influence which did not appear in this dream) is likely associated with Easter eggs. I had seen the movie in February of this year, on the sixth according to research.

My father had a rabbit farm, although rabbits are also associated with being unconscious and dreaming (as in “Alice in Wonderland”) due to most species living underground in burrows. Thus, they can be typified as an induction factor (as here in being the foundation of the apparent backstory) and a second-level dream sign or dream state indicator.

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Although Mothra is a flight symbol, I have not typified the waking symbolism as such despite the appearance of the Shobijin. Still, that is the primary connection of the shift back into consciousness (which is otherwise directly flight-related in over one in five of my dreams, based on RAS and inner ear dynamics while returning to consciousness).

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Morning of April 4, 1975. Friday.



Stanley Livingston, some sort of explorer (relative to my dream, fictional, but more likely influenced by the actor name) and archaeologist, is traveling in an “unexplored” land (with at least four other people including me), which, in my dream, happens to be the area behind the large shed of my Cubitis home and near the railroad tracks, but on the eastern side of the tracks. The area is a bit different. I am traveling with him, but mostly as a seeming secondary character of no direct influence.

Instead of the railroad tracks, there is a shallow river in that area in my dream (an interesting changeover, I think, but which has occurred before) running south to north. Stanley finds several unusually shaped stones with interesting textures. Over time, he concludes that they show signs of being some sort of “message”, as they have tool marks, although one person says they are some sort of arrowhead.

Oddly enough, Stanley determines that each stone is about half a letter of the English alphabet (as seemingly some edges perfectly fit together), although one seems like a complete uppercase letter “E”. A member of the team says that it is probably the remaining part of a fork-like tool, as it has a hole in the main stem that indicates it could have been used as a sort of fork if a stick had been inserted.

Stanley insists that the stones were left there for someone to purposely find. He arranges the stones in order based on subtle color variation and size. It turns out that they seem to spell “HELP”. He then feels it is the duty of the exploration team to cross the river and find the person or persons apparently in need of help even though it is not known how long the supposed message had been there.

Eventually, we are confronted by menacing human-like apes on horseback that resemble the gorillas in the original “Planet of the Apes” movies. Their clothing looks like that from “Planet of the Apes” as well. They are angry that we are in the “Forbidden Zone”, which was supposedly why the stones were placed there (which had since shifted from the flow of the river), the original pattern being “HELL”. They take us to some sort of building that looks like an old abandoned warehouse (liminal space), but which may be implied to be in the location of our Cubitis shed (though the distance orientation based on the first part of my dream would not be correct as such), though not much happens after this.

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Last update Friday, 16 September 2016: This dream has features that have appeared in other dreams, mainly the explorer or archaeologist in the beige safari outfit in my backyard as well as the idea of the area near the railroad tracks (especially more easterly) being “forbidden” (as with the “Forbidden Land” dream from 1973 that featured a giant horse). Other subliminal associations with this could be related to “living stone” and “Chip Douglas” (as in “chipped” rock).

Morning of February 9, 1975. Sunday.



The original 1975 title for this was “It Didn’t Work”. This is the first time I have changed the title since then to be more descriptive.

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I travel with a friend and schoolmate, Kenneth Hill, to find my “mystery girl” who I am supposed to marry in Australia in a couple months. I keep going as far as I can to the southwest, thinking it is a short walk from my home, sometimes going southeast, such as towards where the train tracks and farms beyond are in real life (although some scenes and changes of direction seem like typical dream “resets”).

Along the way, his foot gets stuck under a railroad track rail, but I save him by pulling on his arms to help him get free prior to the train arriving. It seems to be afternoon at this point. (This actually seems to be just beyond my backyard, though I pull him westerly back towards the backyard, so our implied direction keeps changing.)

Time passes. We reach a door. Kenneth stands directly to my right. I open the door in a hallway - as it now seems as if we are still in my Cubitis home, the fictional door being on the west wall (but seemingly in a different area than the hallway closet door, more to the south) and I only see the ocean beyond, starting directly from the doorway.

“It didn’t work,” I tell him sadly as my dream fades.

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This dream occurred years before I knew my “mystery girl” existed in real life. This was also the date (in 1994) when I arrived in Australia. We married on April 9th, 1994 in the Hervey Bay Botanic Gardens in Queensland.

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• This dream is of the threshold type, which was more common in my childhood and young adult years. This type renders a doorway as a dream’s implied exit symbolism. (It may be less common now due to the fact that our bedroom does not have a doorway, being partly open to the kitchen and lounge room, though with a curtain over the kitchen side.)
• The other side of the fictional doorway in real life would have been the southwest bedroom. Although I had been “blocked” from my “mystery girl” by the ocean in other dreams (though not as a general occurrence) as an association with her being on the other side of the world, because water symbolizes the dynamics of sleep in real time, this seems like a logical ending (though typically, water lowers when waking, though the ocean being implied to be inside a house would make it not very deep other than relating to its seeming bilocated nature).
• The threshold dream type often renders my emergent consciousness as a different character or feature (though seemingly still linked to the preconscious factor). In this case, Kenneth seems to be the passive preconscious factor while it is my dream self that initiates the final symbolism. (The preconscious usually only dominates the dream’s last segment when there is no first-level dream sign or waking indicator, confirming one of the main dynamics and actual purposes of dreams.)
• Last check and update on Monday, 17 July 2017.

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Morning of November 23, 1974. Saturday.



This was not that clear of a dream (that is, not that vivid regarding dream self awareness). I wander into an area near a small city in possibly another country (possibly in the Middle East though this is not certain) and it is very narrow even though there are many tall commercial buildings. Everything, including every building and structure, is “unrealistically” narrow, almost as if it was purposely designed to be about half the size of a typical alley width. There is at least one outdoor area that seems to be selling clothes but with the seeming essence of a magazine vendor. I see a jetliner fly overhead (from my left to my right) at one point in the final moments (with even a vague awareness of white noise), and I see several people walking around. However, just on the outskirts of the main part of town, I am somehow aware that there may not be enough space for me to even walk down the street or sidewalk. I do not really feel trapped, just puzzled and slightly annoyed.

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This short dream, though somewhat unique in my own lifelong dreaming history (though there have been other settings with limited space, sometimes relating to narrowing or truncation leading to instigation of the waking process), follows the same generic pattern in meaning as hundreds of other dreams.

Typically, coming out of an alley in a dream brings on astounding vividness. That does not happen here as I remain in the same general area for the most part.

Anything relating to the selling of clothing relates to the waking transition and "preparing” the temporary waking self (even though this form is sometimes incorporeal or hybridized into unusual forms, not necessarily even human).

The typical waking sign of the airplane flight (sometimes rendered as a flying bird or other feature including a model airplane or very distorted airplane parts) is seen here near the ending.

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Morning of December 15, 1974. Sunday.



“Doom (Ab Initio)” - my original dream journal title (age 13) - was a sort of movie-like dream relating to the end of the world, as “doom” was set forth (as a “seed”) in the very beginning of mankind (whether by intent or some sort of “divine logic”) - related to the term “void ab initio” somehow, as there is a link between space and it being another kind of “void” (the original meaning being “of no legal effect” rather than a great, open, “empty” expanse - of course space is not empty in entirety). The term “ad astra per aspera” in my dream, which I think is related to the name of the rocket which friends and I travel on (and linked to a different dream from 1979 with a similar scenario), is translated as “to the stars through difficulties” (although there are numerous variations of this phrase in English, including such as “through adversity to the stars” and “a rough road leads to the stars”). Even though mankind supposedly “ends” in my dream, a type of man will exist in other parts of the universe much later on, after centuries pass. (Some sort of changed DNA?) My dream seemingly implied that modern man was never meant to be a “real” creation of God, using the term “to be treated as invalid from the outset” (void ab initio).

Even though this dream seemed somewhat like a “normal” science-fiction story dream (far more common around this time period, I would say) there were also other reflections on a more philosophical level, many ideas of which did not survive the journey into waking up…or maybe the forgotten bits were just gibberish.

Morning of November 3, 1974. Sunday.

Dream #: 2,876-07. Reading time: 52 sec.



In my dream, Susan R is sitting outside on a brick fence in Arcadia late at night, and I am standing, facing her. She tells me that something will eventually be happening to take me on a different path, away from her (implying destiny, with a sense of finality and certainty).

On cue, a Catherine wheel detaches, or someone throws it from somewhere unknown in the distance (perhaps three or four blocks away), and it moves high up into the sky. I think of shooting stars (even though the feature is first going upward before arcing downward). I am unsure what could have propelled it like this. Susan tells me that I will hear my name in a song relative to this event. My “dream girl” (Zsuzsanna before we met) connects to my destiny.

Though there is the essence of eeriness, it is not ominous. I watch the small and distant object on an arced curve, soon resembling a glowing pinwheel. (The scenario seems partly influenced by reel three of a “Casper the Friendly Ghost” View-Master pack, titled “The Falling Star,” where an anthropomorphic five-pointed star befriends Casper.)

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The song “Catherine Wheels” (by Crowded House, 1993) uses my first name (Claude). Zsuzsanna and Paul Hester shared a brief correspondence, and he hugged her once in waking life.

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Night of October 23, 1974. Wednesday.



I am in my middle school library, in eighth grade, the middle area of the first aisle, and it seems an atypical time for being there, perhaps even at night. There are two girls together at another large table, south of me, facing me (though I originally seemed to be seated facing north; my dream apparently “jumping” into a different orientation). I ignore their presence for a time (one being Patty A, which is not feasible, as she would have been in high school this year). I get the strong impression that the very large boa constrictor (which was killed in real life during a break-in with much other damage to my school, by continuously being struck against the wall) is in a vivarium about halfway up on a long bookcase, between rows of books. There is a sort of vague dream within a dream (more like a daydream within my dream) that I somehow indirectly protect the girls from the escaped snake and also an impression that it crawled near their feet without them realizing it. This also seems like some sort of brief “reset” in a typical dream “replay” at one level. (Regarding the antique car in the next paragraph - “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” - there is an odd association with Patty’s friend Olga, regarding the sound of the name being similar to the car horn sound “ooga”.) Nevertheless, I could not imagine what kind of person or persons would indulge in such activity regarding the real-life events concerning the break-in, especially in thoughtlessly killing the pet snake. There were also bomb scares in real life (especially in May of 1974), and evacuations that year.

From to my left on the shelf, midway up, I pull out a very large, heavily annotated edition of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” which also oddly seems to be Bible-like (possibly because of the serpent association). I get the impression that the library is also an airport - in that there is a larger airport within the library rather than the other way around. I contemplate the possible likelihood of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” actually being one of the vehicles used in flight to and form the supposed airport. Not much else happens, although I sense I am supposed to be in a classroom at the time but am not due to stubbornness and disinterest (and I am also somewhat concerned about not being dressed appropriately and seemingly wearing light blue and white vertically striped pajamas at one point).

There seems to be a lot of strange criticism of the book in the annotations (with various notes on how unlikely or ambiguous each paragraph’s events are), and implying the author (Ian Fleming) was in a psychiatric hospital at the time he wrote it as well as unable to walk or move much. I also wonder if any of the airplanes from this place would be safe to travel on, also contemplating my leave of school with no plan to come back because of the possible lack of safety, as I falsely recall that flying in a poorly maintained aircraft is how I get to and from school. I do not question any of the various errors in my dream scene perspective (such as school-library-airport composites). Supposedly “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” in-dream is considered the worst book ever written according to critics, also wrongfully implying it being solely for ages four and under. In reality, I really liked the movie (and the book was not bad in my opinion, either) though never took critics seriously in any way as it is, though as can be expected the name “Chitty” was altered to its expletive form by classmates and even kids from the elementary school.

Morning of September 2, 1974. Monday.



I seem to be outside at some sort of unfamiliar park or camping grounds though logic would dictate it is somehow associated with Disneyland or Disney World. Still, the area does not have many features; mostly just a cheap-looking makeshift stage and old bleachers in a random stretch of lawn near a forest.

I hear a younger man enthusiastically say “Here come the bears!” over a loudspeaker. I also get the impression that the event is being televised. After a short time, several people in very loose-fitting thin bear costumes (most of them light-colored such as yellow or pale orange) run across the grounds of the park. They wave as they are running and the scene reminds me a lot of the end of a marathon or of the players of a baseball game running out to the field. I seem to be looking up at them from the ground as they tower over me somewhat and a bit seemingly outwards at an unusual distorted angle at one point (somewhat like a tilted camera view though firsthand from my own eyes). I seem to discern them more as people rather than people in potentially clumsy costumes.

Apparently, they are the bears of Disney’s Country Bear Jamboree (or perhaps of a cheaper copycat outfit) and they eventually start to do a musical show on the somewhat shoddy outdoor stage, although the actual ones in reality are audio-animatronic figures. Although I have seen them on television in real life, I had not seem them firsthand even when I went to Disney World.

Morning of July 13, 1974. Saturday



Most of my dream takes place in the southwest bedroom of our Cubitis house. I am not aware of my parents being present at any time. On my father’s large dresser that faces out from the east wall (just to the left of the door) sits a large greenish stuffed bunny, which, despite the fact that it is a fictional and unlikely feature, I am not at all surprised by. It sits on the leftmost side of the dresser.

Over time, I seem to understand that the stuffed bunny somehow works as a “traffic light” or more correctly, some sort of warning beacon, as it has the potential to turn different colors regarding the level of safety in the environment. I am somehow aware that it is akin to a barometer in some ways and is green because everything is okay.

Eventually, an earthquake begins. Parts of the ceiling start falling. Unrealistically, the falling debris includes broken rafters, small stones, and thin flat pieces of concrete. Through the falling debris, I see that the stuffed bunny is now red and I feel a sense of awe and wonder. Even though I sense it might be the end of the world, I am not terrified. This is the last thing I see and on one level, it almost seems like a mood I had deliberately manifested.

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After my dream, my father told my mother and I that he was thinking of closing down our rabbit farm. In fact, he did take down two sections of our rabbit shed and a few pieces of concrete, along with boards that had been used as rafters and such, sat around for a time. This is why I have decided my dream had a precognitive layer as well as being a typical real-time dreaming metaphor.

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• The bedroom setting was created because a person is often sleeping in a bedroom when having a dream. If a person is not sleeping in a bedroom in reality, it still, perhaps even more so, signifies the potential of being asleep. This is what I refer to as a “dream sign”.
• Although my father had a rabbit farm on our property at the time, a rabbit is also a real-time indicator of being asleep. Rabbits (except cottontail rabbits) live underground in burrows or warrens, which is associated with being unconscious (or exploring the depths of the unconscious mind within sleep). Therefore, a rabbit could be considered a third-order dream sign. (Think “Alice in Wonderland”.)
• Because a stuffed animal may have associations with a pillow, a stuffed rabbit becomes a dream sign on two different levels. The bedroom setting makes it a three-way dreaming indicator, yet I did not become lucid.
• Red is one of the three waking prompt colors (yellow, orange, red), red having the strongest priority, sometimes suggesting having slept for too long.
• The ceiling falling merely means cessation of the dream state and the dream self incarnation. Secondly, it is a subliminal projection of the biological falling sensation, that same level of subliminal projection that creates airplanes and birds in dreams (which represent real-time consciousness displacement, that is, being unconscious yet still aware at one level).
• We never had a stuffed rabbit in our home in reality.

Morning of July 3, 1974. Wednesday.

Dream #: 2,753-03. Reading time: 32 sec.



I had a shorter than usual dream of a “flying elephant’s head” that is a sentient cloud that is also like a living creature at times. It chases a small airplane (probably a Cessna) across the blue sky. I seem to be flying alongside the plane in an incorporeal form. The pilot can get to freedom, as small parts of the cloud (almost like smoke puffs) come off in the pursuit until it begins to break up to the point that it is nearly nonexistent. The cloud creature is seemingly named “Gumbo,” which is likely a play on “Dumbo,” the animated flying elephant from the Disney movie.

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A Harvey comic book story about a big cloud “bully” partly influenced this dream. It began to break up when trying to maintain the form of a human.

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Morning of May 4, 1974. Saturday.

Dream #: 2,693-02. Reading time: 53 sec.

One of my male classmates (Bobby G) and seemingly another one, (Wayne H), seems to be in my front yard. (These classmates have been obnoxious to me in real life.)

I had a false awakening into this situation and remain unaware I am still dreaming. These two boys may be there to make bullying remarks or cause other problems.

At one point, when I look out through the open jalousie windows, I notice what may be somewhat illegible handwriting, seemingly from a felt pen, on about four or five lower louvers. I am unsure how it got there. It may be something I wrote that might cause me embarrassment, though I am unable to make out the words, only various letters. It may be writing from my dream journal that somehow ended up on the jalousie panes, but I do not recall doing this.

I see Bobby walking away from the front of the house, but I do not know if he read it. It may be that some of the writing became distorted from being wet or partly washed off when my mother was watering the flower box.

There is a reset where there seems to be an unknown dark-haired girl to the right (in my view), but I do not know if she is his friend or concerned about me.

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Morning of April 7, 1974. Sunday.



I am somehow in the distant past in my “orb” form, though not sure if the implied journey was by time machine, by mental will, or due to some sort of cosmic event (as there is no recalled backstory).

Everything has a sort of strange red glow, not all the same shade, but close. There are reddish dinosaurs such as brontosaurus (apatosaurus) and “cavemen” with red hair living during the same time period. Some of these cavemen, however, are more like stereotypical movie vikings and wearing horned helmets and carrying spears with reddish arrowheads. I have a strange impression that this shade of red is “extinct” and had only existed during these more “primitive” times. The red lava seems to pose a possible threat to this world but I am not bothered.

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Red dominating a dream’s rendering sometimes relates to having slept a bit too long and such seems to be the case here.

Morning of March 24, 1974. Sunday.

Dream #: 2,652-02. Reading time: 1 min 30 sec. Readability score: 50.



Classmates, including Steve J, Steve W, Ann L, and I, are supposedly going “into the wilderness.” We go to the anticipated location, maintaining a slow-motion leaping that is similar to slowly flying up and down in a vertical position.

We are going to my middle school’s library. I realize I am in my pajamas, but I do not feel out of place. I feel comfortable as I sit down at a rectangular wooden table to read a book. I am eventually aware I am wearing a robe, yet when I look down, I notice it is open, and my legs are bare and exposed (even though I had been wearing pajamas moments before). My classmates do not draw attention to my state of undress and also begin to look at books.

I start to realize that I am dreaming and recognize that I am not wearing clothes because, in reality, I am undressed and asleep in bed. With vague amusement, I try to maintain awareness of what I am reading but fail to do so as I am already slowly waking.

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Known causal factors:

Being undressed in a dream: Subliminal, liminal, or concurrent preconscious awareness and acknowledgment of being in bed in REM sleep.

The lack of linear cohesion and continuity is a result of correlation with the dreaming and waking processes. I am firstly thinking about exploring a forest. Then, there is subliminal awareness that I am indoors in a bedroom (though distorted into the library setting based on an emerging consciousness thread). First, I am wearing pajamas, as in response to the subliminal awareness that I am in bed, then I have bare legs to augment that realization.

Vestibular system correlation had already started (caused by the physicality of the dream self being imaginary and not representing the orientation of the physical body) with the “slow-motion leaping” that is similar to flying. Vestibular system correlation is a precursor of the waking process, which typically causes falling and flying dreams.

Libraries and reading serve as an emerging consciousness factor to hone my awareness of the dream state. It remains one of my most common perceptual triggers to initiate conscious self awareness while dreaming, though it is not always feasible (as the text often continuously changes).

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