non-lucid

Morning of July 7, 1976. Wednesday.



Along with “falling” as simply waking (though it also can be dream induction and also relate to partial awakenings between dream immersions), there are thousands of other dream features and events that are so easy to decode the real meaning of, I can only say “Occam’s razor”. A bed symbolizes…a bed. (Wow, that was difficult was is not?) In fact, even if you are not sleeping in a bed as you are dreaming, it still is a real-time dream sign. A lake, the first level of dream induction. (I have probably experienced thousands of water-based dream inductions, but that is irrelevant here.) Junk simply represents random threads of subtle conscious awareness linking to the dream self perspective. (This was validated by a lot of my childhood dreams, which also contained real-time bedroom-related dream signs associated with dumps and junkyards.)

There have been several versions of this dream with different additional scenarios throughout my life.

---

In my dream, I am in bed “sleeping” at first. I soon find myself in the middle of a (unknown) lake as if the bed is floating, though it may not be floating after all, but perhaps attached to something. I do not realize that this is typical dream induction (that is, the flow of water coming into dream state awareness). At any rate, I do not become lucid. There are mountains in the distance (which represent the presence of emergent consciousness or subtle threads of conscious awareness).

I am also aware that there is old rusty junk in some parts of the water. Some of it is protruding from the surface, though not that much. It looks like part of a car (a typical dream “symbol” for dreaming itself, “in a car” and “in a bed” being closely related as such, driving a car being analogous to moving through the dream state), but since my dream is primarily induction only, not much else, only the waking transition comes into play, which is water getting lower over time, and in this case, reveals more plants emerging from the surface than anything else. Fun and easy.

---

Morning of June 19, 1976. Saturday.



I am in the southwest bedroom of the Cubitis house where my father is present. We are in the southeast area of the room, near the doorway. I am facing the south windows as he is sitting on a chair facing me. He has taken a very rare species of (assumed as fictional) phosphorescent earthworm and is holding it by one end, saying that it has the ability to communicate with people. After a few minutes, the worm curls to form actual vertical handwriting with its entire body, first spelling the word “loam”, then the word “vex”. This is all that it does before my dream fades. (I consider that it is a glow worm, as one of the many songs my father sang publicly was called “Glow Worm”, though that is not actually what it is.) I sense that the worm is annoyed by people trying to get messages from it, when it probably wants to sleep.

The earthworm is a real-time dream state symbol. Attempting to read it as it is spelling words is the emergent consciousness factor, as thinking skills for sustained reading are only viable when conscious. As such, it seems that a part of me does not want to get up for the day yet. Additionally, trying to get feasible “messages” from the unconscious is sometimes futile, as it is just that…unconscious. (I suspect that this dream may have also been influenced by the “Sesame Street” short “Mary Sunshine”, though related to counting, with the lyric, “I head eleven worms yawning”.)

---

Morning of June 12, 1976. Saturday.



At the beginning of my dream, I find myself walking north on a known back road between Arcadia and my home in Cubitis. It seems I am returning home from somewhere, possibly school, although it is the weekend in reality. (My dream self often does not know what year it is let alone the day, though walking home here symbolizes my imminent return to consciousness). It is possibly late morning or early afternoon. The weeds on each side of the road are higher and denser than in reality. The road seems older or less-maintained (which may be an indicator of the presence of prescient threads, of which there are two known of in this dream). I am walking on the right side of the road, close to the roadside.

Stepping out from the roadside and from my right is a hippie (at least two years older than me, possibly about seventeen) with long blond hair. He is apparently selling GRIT newspapers. He seems like an unlikely older hippie version of my otherwise soft-spoken friend Johnny C—-y, but the hair color is wrong. He is otherwise unknown.

Even though he is selling GRIT newspapers, he also seems to be selling illicit drugs (a very rare dream scenario). He offers me a free sample pill called “Snakeskin” (which I first also but only vaguely consider is a reference to American dollar bills, followed by vaguely considering if the pill is actually made of skin from a snake), which is a large green oval tablet. For some reason, I take it (which is something I never would have done in real life).

As I continue to walk along, I have a strange feeling of being pulled into the air and thrown to the opposite side of the road, which causes me to wake with an unusual but vague sense of motion sickness, though it is very brief.

---

Familiar dream state components and meanings:

RAS symbolism: A snake often serves as the main trigger of RAS and is likely the oldest biologically (and probably serves as such in the dreams of all primates, including lemurs, lorises, monkeys, apes, and man). Here however, the association is with its skin, for the subliminal realization of the shedding of it as releasing the fictional dream self to return to the conscious self identity. The pill, as an emergent consciousness precursor (in contrast to the alternate choice of reading the newspaper), symbolizes the shift in consciousness that occurs with waking. My dream self however, seems to subliminally perceive it as reinduction potential (though just as in waking life, some pills are known to bring one closer to unconsciousness, while this dream ultimately utilizes the opposite inference regardless of how my dream self views it).

Vestibular system symbolism: The rising upwards and flipping backwards to the other side of the road is the resolving of ambiguous vestibular system dynamics in rising from unconsciousness. This is the same waking symbolism as in dreams such as “The Pole Vault Event” from 1970, though in that one, the dynamics were transmuted to another dream character.

Premonitory hypnopompic precursor: My entire dream seems based on potential control (though based on passive choice in this case) of the waking transition and the nature of RAS. This is because I had continuously been working with dreams in this way since I was around eight years old (to induce apex lucidity). However, prescience always has curious potential despite the dream type or its core symbolism and inherent meaning. In fact, prescience seems far more likely to stem from known core symbolism, which has always puzzled me.

Personified preconscious: Newspaper boy. The personified preconscious is rendered for waking mediation of a softer transition than “raw” RAS, though often with conflict if there is real environmental noise (and a need to wake and identity it) or biological need (for example, a need to use the bathroom, drink water, or change sleeping position).

Emergent consciousness factor: The newspapers and the pill, relative to apparent choice. The role of the preconscious here is in making me aware of thinking skills (reading) that are only viable when conscious. Additionally, it introduces the choice of exiting my dream with vestibular system consolidation (the pill), of which I subliminally associate with flight and thus prefer in this case over the softer choice (though which sometimes becomes abstract and annoying since printed text is difficult to understand or stabilize in many states of unconsciousness).

Prescient threads: A boy (unknown to me) selling GRIT approached my mother after this dream. She purchased the newspaper for about a year and a half prior to our move back to Wisconsin. Additionally, I needed to take both penicillin pills and painkillers after the surgery on my right thumb about two months after this dream. (I had never taken pills on any regular basis before.) The prescient nature of the latter seems to be validated by the preconscious in this case having similarities (in appearance only) to my real-life friend Johnny. Although the pills in this dream are presumably illicit, Johnny had told me a few times in real life that he wanted to be a doctor after finishing high school.

Real-life influence seems to have come from a GRIT advertisement, though with altered associations.

Additional notes: In this dream, the original vague association of “Snakeskin” being a reference to money was probably based on the altered association with the GRIT advertisement. The waking symbolism is oriented to my right as is most often the case. The preconscious is rendered to my right as the newspaper boy, who steps out from the weeds from my right. This seems mainly due to sleeping on my left side (as real environmental factors are more intrusive upon my right side, which is more exposed to the real environment I am sleeping in, and its ambiance - whereas unconscious factors, even when personified, are typically oriented on my left). In contrast, flying and being suddenly aware of the left side of my body (on the left side of the road) is the final waking dynamic, as it correlates exactly with my real physical orientation and sleeping position.

---

Morning of May 11, 1976. Tuesday.



Yes, this is, after all, the original unimaginative dream journal title from age fifteen.

I am at my high school in Arcadia in the lunch break area near the “chuck wagon room”/food purchasing area and I soon see that someone (unknown) had drawn an abstract life-sized asymmetrical picture of a “girl” on the outer wall facing east out into the main open area with the benches, with possibly black chalk on the lighter-colored wall, but the drawing of which is mostly only made up of triangles, rectangles and lines (and likely even distorted handwriting - perhaps implied to be the artist’s signature), but still suggesting a human form overall. Later, it comes to life (after beginning to look a little more like a human form) and I want to catch “her” to get to know her (and perhaps even make love as perhaps she will become more realistic now that she is in the “real” world) but “she” has vanished after running to the north for a time and just as my dream-self starts to attain a clarity bordering on lucidity.

Looking back on this and considering how so many dreams were precognitive of my near-legendary “dream girl destiny” - I now consider that the drawing was additionally inclusive of distorted letters of the alphabet in a very similar way as the Gold Key comic book columns which featured drawings by readers of people’s bodies and faces drawn with a base of letters and numbers (and also inclusive of abstract shapes and “squiggles”). In fact, this now clear strong influence seems irrefutable - as we first made (waking reality) contact with handwritten letters. I now consider this dream fully resolved.

---

Night of February 18, 1966. Friday.



When I lived on Rose Street in Wisconsin, I had a few dreams of there being a large swimming pool that took up nearly the entire back lot area, and was fenced in with an unusually high wooden fence (which I doubt could exist as such in reality). Samantha from the “Bewitched” series would visit on a broom (although she did not fly on a broom much in the actual series). The moon sometimes looked cartoon-like, or rather, like a colored-in yellow crescent with no detail, and the sky a deep blue - even with five-pointed and four-pointed stars instead of “real” ones. Since I saw the opening so often, I guess it had a lot of influence.

---

Added online personal notes on Wednesday, 6 July 2016: This dream is a great example of one that holds moon induction, water induction, and a typical flight symbol. Even the fence represents a more defined liminal space.

Morning of February 9, 1976. Monday.



Nothing dramatic happens here, but my dream seems to last a long time throughout the morning. Jesus Christ, in large seemingly layered mainly white robes, seems to appear standing on our roof on the northeast area near the chimney my father built, and the concept of “rooftop Heaven” comes to mind, as well as a “Heaven” association with my dream girl (who turned out to be Zsuzsanna in every way possible, including the unlikely mixed accent of Romani Hungarian and Australian). Over time, I see miniature clouds moving through our backyard (autosymbolism for the dream state itself), not that high from the ground. It seems to be late afternoon. (Note that I am not religious and have zero interest in religious dogma despite experiencing a few miraculous healings as well as inexplicable events continuously since childhood, including my inexplicable connection to Zsuzsanna long before we met in waking life.)

---

I consider this precognitive at one level, because my real wife-to-be (and I was not to make waking-life contact with Zsuzsanna for years, until March 1991) lived in Heaven when younger, a real town name in Nimbin.

---

Morning of January 6, 1976. Saturday.



This dream’s focus is quite ambiguous and uncertain at most levels. I am not sure of the location; it seems either undefined or an extreme distortion of my Cubitis living room relative to the east side of it. Two narrower hallways, but not cramped (the entrances only about four feet apart) go off to the east but each also seems to be a type of long kitchen - I am not sure of the distance but it is quite long (longer than the west to east length of the house I would say - although again, the area other than the hallways seems a bit undefined). Each hall seems mostly the same, with sinks, a few ovens, at least one refrigerator, and so on, with cupboards along the wall closer to the ceiling for the most part. I get the impression that there may be a television at one point - farther along. There may also be a storage area for documents near the opposite end. There is no actual plot, just wandering around. The appliances are all white. One would assume a door to be on the opposite end due to the hallway’s length but this does not seem to be the case. No one else seems to be around. There is a sense of familiarity but no clearer emotions of any kind. In reality, we only had a very small kitchenette off the southeast corner of the living room.

Relative to the unusual fictional setting, see also the following dreams:

Short dream of a house of mystery

Submarine

Morning of December 28, 1975. Sunday.



“Durio’s Slave” was the original title I gave to this dream even though I did not really play the role of a “real” slave at any point other than the potential to follow the commands of the invading apelike creature. There were a couple similar dreams with minor variations. They related to an “invisible gorilla from another dimension” (or supposed alternate universe) that could somehow speak English and was similar to the style and appearance of the gorillas in the original “Planet of the Apes” movies. I later found (or later realized consciously) that “Durio Zibethinus” was actually a kind of Asian tree (where the fruit has a strange nasty scent, but is a delicacy) even though my dream vaguely implied that Zibenthinus was a prehistoric kind of ape as well as implying “primitive” male dominance. In my later (less threatening) version of the particular dream scenario, he was called “Durio Zibethinus” and he was less of a threat to Earth. There were magazines (from the other dimension with talking gorillas) that were apparently thrown or somehow lost along the wayside of a road in or near Arcadia. There were various photographs in the magazines of the gorillas with more military power. In another dream, he was “Durio Broxum”, and in another, just “Broxum”. In my first main dream, he was sitting at my English teacher’s desk and making plans to allow the other ape soldiers to come through some sort of portal (somewhere in the school, I would assume) and take over the region. At times, he is transparent. No one but me notices this creature (as apparently he is otherwise invisible to everyone but me for some reason). No one but me was aware of the great threat he represented.

Aside from the obvious “Planet of the Apes” influences here, there is a possibility that the words in my dream and their distorted meanings (as well as some words being distorted themselves) related to sexuality. A durian, especially when cut in half, can have a very sensual appearance, looking much like a part of the male anatomy (scrotum), or at least implying such. “Bruxom” (also seen as “Broxum” in my dream) could be a simple distortion of “buxom” - or “full-bosomed”. This was noted in my original dream journal entry as a teenager. However, it could also relate to “broxism” or “gnashing of the teeth” (teeth grinders known as “bruxers”) - or some sort of composite of both implying oral contact with breasts perhaps. The majority of dreams are peculiar after all.

Morning of December 12, 1965. Sunday.



Summary of meaning: In the need to wake from a vivid dream state (from needing to get up and use the bathroom), my emergent consciousness is rendered as a bull crashing through the wall, as a wall symbolizes the metaphorical divisions of consciousness and the “other side of liminal space” between dreaming and waking. In this case, it seems my father was the parallel symbolism to the bull in representing my more urgent need to wake. The bull’s horn, being pointed and similar to a bird’s beak in hypnopompic physical anticipation (which is experienced as a jab in the lower back), may be a factor.

---

I am sitting with a few family members, the two closest being two brothers-in-law, Bob and Verdell, and they are apparently drinking beer. (Verdell is on my right.) I am not sure of whose house we are in (possibly my older sister Carol’s, as it does not seem like Chipmunk Coulee, but it may be a unique composite of both). There are two couches along each wall, perpendicular to each other, with a small end table towards the corner from one couch. Everyone seems cheerful at first.

There is a sudden feeling of impending danger. A bull crashes through the wall from near the corner of the room, directly from in front of me, knocking plaster and such about.

---

This dream was recurring for a short time. In one version, Verdell actually says “look out for the bull” at the moment of waking. This was before I ever saw or heard of the “look out for the bull” Schlitz Malt Liquor commercial on television and also before I grew up and worked for Ford Taurus where I was injured on my right wrist by someone throwing a sharp metal part back down the line from them not being able to keep up (though the commercial is more relevant to dream content regarding prescience).

---

Night of November 21, 1975. Friday.



In a diminishing transition from viable lucidity to semi-lucidity, I am chased by dogs after unintentionally trespassing beyond a fence in an industrial area that is adjacent to a desert with minimal landscape features, though which looks deserted. It seems to be in the distant future, though this perception was likely otherwise influenced by similar panoramas in science-fiction movies I had seen in real life.

I am confronted by talking dogs (or so it seems at first). The dogs are mostly Dobermans and black Labrador Retrievers. They seem to be some sort of task force to catch me and somehow bring me to their owners or force me to go in the direction of where their owners are. I am uncertain of the backstory. I am not sure if the dogs are meant to be owned by people who are legitimate owners of the property or if they were trained by outlaws who have taken over the industrial area. At first, I had considered if the dogs were on their own, of augmented intelligence, and in control of the area, but this seems less likely over time.

I am aware of the logo embossed on the metallic kite-shaped pendants on their collars being “K-9” as a play on “canine” (though my dream self does not seem fully understanding of this factor). It is not clear if this is the name of the industrial complex or the security team of solely dogs (or inclusive of their owners as a group). However, I start to consider if “K-9” is a codeword for the main dog and if other codes are on other collars, such as “L-10”, or “J-8”, which I seem to briefly perceive on another pendant.

Over time, I manage to escape from each situation, such as by climbing up higher in one case.

Eventually, I realize that the dogs are not talking but are being given instructions through some sort of comm device in their collars (which is what I had been hearing from the beginning), though I am sometimes addressed as well. I also get the impression that their collars also have small microphones. I eventually end up hiding out in a large warehouse, but not much happens after this other than initiating the usual doorway waking symbolism when my semi-lucidity returns.

---

Morning of November 2, 1975. Sunday.

Dream #: 3,240-02. Reading time (optimized): 1 min 30 sec.



There is an electrical surge in our kitchen and additional ones through all or most outlets in our house. It creates a “haunting” as well as a “portal” in the southwest bedroom.

I am in the living room when one of the two big brass fly ashtrays my father bought at the local flea market comes to life though is still made of brass. (No one in the house smoked. They were novelty items.) It walks across the ironing board, falls to the floor, and crawls toward the hallway, but is not threatening. It is a minion of the Man-Thing (as in the Marvel comic book) that cannot leave the southwest bedroom (which is across the hallway from our bathroom.)

The ironing board’s cover becomes like frogskin as it gains an artificial life force. It is not able to walk very well. The two human-like eyes on its narrow end, facing up, do not seem alive, making it into an “irony board.”

A portal that has opened in the southwest bedroom (the door remaining closed) has brought forth the swamp creature known as the Man-Thing. He cannot leave the bedroom even though the door is unlocked. (He does not know how to turn a doorknob). Now and then, a small telescopic radio antenna that seems to be a part of his body emerges from the keyhole. (The feature is not in the comic book.) It is dangerous only when a person is near the end of the hallway or in the bathroom. The swamp creature can be sent through the portal back into the radio. Supposedly, the electrical event hit the comic book cover from an outlet and a radio speaker and brought him here.

I wonder if I should use the bathroom or replace the fuse in the fuse box in the hallway. The radio antenna juts from the keyhole a few times (and back behind the closed bedroom door). I consider that if I go into the bathroom, the antenna might get me from the other side of the hallway (even though realistically, I could easily avoid it). As the Man-Thing “feeds on fear,” I do not want to show any apprehension. I sit down in the living room to watch television.

---

Morning of October 27, 1965. Wednesday.



In this dream from age four, I had been exploring Myrick Park in La Crosse, seemingly on my own yet without concern. It is different than in reality, probably more influenced from larger zoo features (or perhaps even a jail from a Western) that I might have seen on television.

There is a brick wall that I notice has an open space, as if several bricks had been taken out. I consider the difference between seeing animals, which look like some sort of llamas combined with large dogs, seen through the vertical bars (on my left), and how the animals might eventually be able to escape through the opening in the brick wall (to my right). I consider that I should move away from the brick wall area so as not to encourage the animals to escape. There is not a feeling of fear, only wariness.

---

This dream utilizes “wall breach waking symbolism” as a sustained waking transition, which has remained a lesser but consistent type of waking symbolism for over fifty years of devoted dream study and validation. It does not always have implications of possible danger. Still, a far more intense version can be seen with “Look Out for the Bull” from December 12, 1965 (though recurring), where a bull actually crashes through the wall (near a corner) in a relative’s house upon subliminal anticipation of the waking prompt.

Doorway waking symbolism (where a doorway is naturally rendered as the exit point of the dream state) has been far more common since early childhood. I do not think there is much difference between doorway waking symbolism and wall breach waking symbolism (as the dynamics work the same way, though more so with induction by contrast, in apex lucidity and conscious control of the dream state) other than perhaps the reticular activating system functioning with slightly different dynamics, which may be based on how fast or prioritized the preconscious dynamics are, which in turn may relate to how deep (or for how long) I have been sleeping or how loud the real environment’s ambiance is in intruding into the dream state.

---

Resupplemented on Monday, 16 October 2017.

---

Morning of October 12, 1975. Sunday.

I am in some sort of movie being filmed or perhaps it is actually only a stage drama (although we do seem to be at a real location), which eventually is (or slowly becomes, or with a “reset”?) a real scenario and a real mystery a few people and I are trying to solve. I mostly work with an unknown female around my age. It takes place mostly within a large fancy mansion, but I only remember being on the first floor assuming there was a second floor. It has to do with a count that vanished and was possibly kidnapped. It has a strange and unexpected outcome. We find a message in small handwriting on the back of a painting on the wall (lower left-hand corner) in a large frame and it leads to finding the count’s body still in his bedroom and inside a mattress. It seems to be some sort of strange suicide. Although it is taking place in modern times, he is dressed in a very old-fashioned way, possibly 1700s. There may be a vague association with the Little Blue Boy painting (by Thomas Gainsborough), which my father had a print of, hanging on the west wall of his old room (for the longest period) in Cubitis, though the connection is not certain.

---

Here, I once again subliminally seek the status of my real physical body. The count’s corpse being found inside the mattress is of course an obvious dream sign. The count’s corpse is obviously a subliminal distorted perception of my sleeping body (a dream sign of the first level).

---

Morning of October 2, 1965. Saturday.



My dream contains scenes of a red anglerfish of which I mostly perceive as just below the surface of the water each time. I am walking in Pettibone Park with Marilyn (an older half-sister on my mother’s side) and her husband Bob, mostly going southeast, from the Barron Island area. They do not seem to notice the fish or show any concern. I do not feel threatened at any point, only somewhat wary of being near the particular area of water it is in at different times.

I am aware that this ugly fish is possibly a threat to nature in that it is apparently eating all the fish in a smaller pond. There is one point where it appears to be the only fish left. There is also an idea that it may be drinking all the water that it is in, although I also consider that the water is lowering naturally (though in real life, it is mostly only one main body of water in the area, though the water did rise and lower based on another area being used for barge traffic). There are scenes where the fish seems to teleport to different bodies of water ahead of us as we walk through the park, including a rut that I reason was made by a tractor, the rut having been filled with rain a day or two earlier. I also get the impression at one point that it can breathe out of water, at least for a short time.

There is a thought that it has certain human characteristics and perhaps can speak, though it never speaks in my dream. Still, I consider that it may be able to communicate by thought with its “antenna” (esca). There is an expectant awareness when there seems to be a “channel open” in a similar way as a radio being on a station without an audible broadcast (a sparsely recurring dream state awareness caused by being subliminally aware of being in the dream state). This scene occurs while we all stand on a small bridge, which is an altered version of the South Pettibone Drive bridge in that it curves upward towards the middle (the alteration being a result of biological vestibular system dynamics).

---

Key factors:

• Water lowering waking symbolism, common autosymbolism for the cessation of the dream state, unrelated to waking life. Water otherwise symbolizes the absence of emotion and the essence of sleep and unconsciousness.
• Bridge, autosymbolism for the imminent return to consciousness, unrelated to waking life.
• Anglerfish as emergent consciousness autosymbolism whereas fish and other water denizens as emergent consciousness autosymbolism is otherwise very common.
• This dream was primarily influenced by “The Outer Limits” episode “Tourist Attraction”, seen just prior to sleep. However, the fish-like creatures in “The Outer Limits” episode had arms and legs.
• Some deep-sea anglerfish emit light from their esca. While this may simply be autosymbolism for the increase of neural energy in the waking transition, it may also hint at transpersonal communication in liminal space and what later in my life became the Blue Flame Event with Zsuzsanna. This is despite the influence of “Tourist Attraction” with the fish-like creatures emitting ultrasonic pulses.
• The color red typically only becomes a factor of dream-self focus when I have slept too long.
• My original childhood dream journal title was “The Devilfish”, not because I had any concern or belief in any “devil” but because it was red and additionally vaguely associated with Hot Stuff, the Harvey Comics character.
• Obviously, there were no anglerfish in the region in real life.
• To see the location of my dream’s last scene, Google “310 south pettibone drive la crosse wi” in quotes and select “Street View”, though the area has changed somewhat since the 1960s.

---

Morning of August 13, 1975. Wednesday.



This dream was strongly influenced by a random symmetrical inkblot I made (at age fourteen) that looked much like a more detailed version in my dream’s outcome. I am not a main character and seem to be watching as if it is a movie. (Some of the inkblots I made as a teenager, as well as numerous other things I made, including comic strips and short stories, are possibly with relatives and stored away somewhere.)

Two astronauts land on a planet, which, over time, begins to shrink. Not much happens other than the (unknown and male) astronauts reacting to land features that are smaller and closer together than previously. For some reason, their rocket-ship also shrinks, apparently to the same continual proportions of the planet, but they do not. There does not seem to be any in-dream back story over why the planet is shrinking.

In the end, they are seen hanging off the planet from each side, hanging in outer space, almost looking as if they are pressing a beach ball above their heads and the image is perfectly symmetrical.