non-lucid

I went to elementary school where I, because I apparently kicked over their drinks at one point, kept getting beaten up my this group of very big and strong men. This would occur every lunch break for weeks and I'm pretty sure people ssw me get beaten up but we're too afraid to interfere. At some point I was considering getting my strong friends to become my bodyguard and help me. I was sitting at home on a rainy day, about to have to leave for school when I told my parents, who looked like Boards of Canada for some reason, slowly what was going on, I was building up slowly to that part when I suddenly woke up.

Dream was in English

Another long lucid! Even if it was split in the middle. And a TON of dreams overall! Though they took forever to type. Slept at 12:30.

Dream #1 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
Something about driving and LGBTQ. Woke up at 4:00 and WBTB.


Dream #2 (Non-Lucid):
I was reading about a closeted gay eighth grader, and of course since it was a dream the scenes popped into my head like a TV show. MC was in a warehouse with his friends, goofing around, when he looked in the mirror and said, "You know what, guys? I'm going to go do it, I'm just gonna do it, why am I waiting for high school? It doesn't even make sense."

He was talking about doing the nasty with a girl, but he didn't really want to. He was just trying to prove to himself and everyone else that he wasn't gay. When he headed for the door, my feelings of opposition seemed to affect him. He stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. I physically typed out the words I wanted him to say: "You're not gonna stop me?!?!"

Then I wrote out his friends' response: "No?"

One laughed in confusion, another scowled. I remember crossing out a comma and replacing it with the question mark, then being sure to emphasize that one of them was scowling.

MC said something about "three men," and the angry friend became even angrier. "Of course not," he snapped.

After that MC was tempted to say the same thing about "four men," but he chickened out because there were four of his friends there and the risk of them catching on was too high. I accepted that, just glad that he'd changed his mind, and he left the warehouse.

The plot changed. I was now actively in the dream, as myself yet not myself. I lived in a big house with my "grandma" and brother Z. He and I were in "our room," and when I gazed out the arched window into the night, I saw a peculiar black cat rummaging around, eating trash. I was fascinated by its strange appearance and wanted to interact with it.

It was past midnight, so I waited for "Grandma" to go to the basement before sneaking downstairs and opening the front door. I whispered for it to come inside and eat something edible. It obeyed, but the granny was coming back upstairs so I fled to my room.

She definitely knew I'd been down there, despite Z trying to cover for me. (He was not himself either.) However, she let it go and sat down with the cat at the table, saying that they had to have a long chat regarding me.

At one point she called sweetly to me from the kitchen and snapped at Z when he spoke up. He was holding a "full" glass of regurgitated yogurt (it reached the fill line, but that line was barely one fourth of the cup). It was not abnormal in the dream, but I was disgusted all the same.

———

Woke up at 5:00 and, after journaling, sat up and really focused on becoming lucid. I explained what it meant, quickly performed MILD, and upped my awareness of myself and my surroundings. Then I went back to sleep, lucidity the last thing on my mind. (As in, the final thing I was thinking about, not something I didn't care about at all... I hate English.)

———

Dream #3 (Lucid):
First thing I remember is tagging along as a man led Harlequin down a flight of stairs. We were in her dream. Once we reached the bottom of the steps, we could see an oasis-like place at the end of the hallway. But when we looked back up, we realized we had descended 2000-feet-worth of stairs, and Harlequin's family was screaming her name at the top of their lungs as if she had died.

Trying to keep things under control, I asked, "Are you going to go to the oasis?"

She frowned and scoffed, "My brain drew that with MS paint." Then she left the dream. [I don't remember what she looked like because I wasn't paying attention.]

What a waste, I thought, and went to check out the oasis myself. It was really just a small room with a pool of water, cabinet, window, and carpet, but I sat down on that carpet and became lucid.

I attempted to increase the vividness and thought it was working, but when I woke up I couldn't remember how it looked so maybe it wasn't. I also believed myself to be more clear-headed than I really was. To my credit, I was able to remember the Task of the Season and decided to complete a basic task: asking a dream character what will happen tomorrow!

I phased through the window and emerged a couple stories above the ground, a tree swaying in the wind below me. Everything was a bit unstable so I grabbed a leaf and tried to focus my attention on it as a stabilization technique (as Oneirin suggested), but it didn't work very well.

Somehow I got out of there and ended up flying down a street, chasing after people in cars and trying to get them to answer the question, but every one of them just flashed weird looks and drove faster. Finally I peered into the passenger window of one car and saw a one-year-old baby strapped into a baby seat in the middle. Next to him, on the far side, was a 12-ish-year-old blond boy.

"Hey!" I yelled to the baby. "What do you think will happen tomorrow?"

He glanced at me and started lifting his arms out of the harness straps. I assumed he wanted to get closer to the window, but if a car struck them from behind and he was unbuckled I knew he'd be dead.

"Uhh, no, no, don't do that," I said, and suddenly a horde of skinny, black-bodied, white-headed, Bendy-like creatures rushed toward the car with their arms outstretched. Altogether they resembled the Wall of Flesh in Terraria. I was kicked out of the dream and replaced by a fourteen-year old anime girl.

She flew through the car and grabbed the twelve-year old, sending them tumbling out the other side into an alleyway. The car was destroyed and the boy watched his baby brother get ripped to shreds, one layer at a time. But he wasn't fazed at all! In fact, when the girl held out a hand to him (third person POV), he blushed and took it!

She was a dream superhero of some sort, and there was the sense that she had saved many people from those creatures many times before. She wore red gloves and a short red skirt, black sweatpants, and a black sweater.

At some point they were hiding in the "|" part of a "T"-shaped alleyway, and the boy was able to keep the creatures out by stretching his body to disturbing proportions. Even as the nonexistent observer I was very confused.

Once the creatures cleared out, the boss of the girl appeared. With a smile they said, "You must be [name]'s reincarnation."

[Name] was a very powerful Dream Hero, the most legendary of them all, but the girl was not her reincarnation. No, that was a different girl, and she was back at the lab undergoing testing. MC reminded me of Akko, and the reincarnated girl reminded me of Diana (though she looked like Neiru from Wonder Egg Priority).

MC was having trouble keeping her face stable (it was actually glitching) and started to deny it, but cut herself off. "Is- is Izzy here?" (Another Dream Hero.)

Don't remember if anyone responded, but somehow it was revealed that the boy had "done this before" and was actually a member of their organization. When she heard that, MC flushed with rage and grabbed his collar.

"Say that sooner!" she shouted. She was embarrassed because she'd been under the impression that she'd saved a helpless civilian, and now felt stupid for being so proud.

She stormed out of the room (the alley had gradually morphed into a hotel room) and I returned to the dream, lucid again. I had very little memory of what had happened and zero awareness of having switched with the girl. But I realized I still hadn't gotten an answer to the TotS question, and ran back to the boy. He was being carried like a sack of potatoes by an invisible person.

"What should I do tomorrow?" I asked. (Phrased it that way because I thought he might not respond to "what will happen tomorrow?")

He glared at me, and the vividness of his voice increased tenfold as he spat, "I think you should die."

I actually got goosebumps from how clear and angry his tone was, but brushed it off. The style of the dream had become cheap and pixelated, and I turned to see Mafuyu lying flat on the ground.

I sat next to her. "Mafuyu, what will happen tomorrow?"

She probably assumed I was asking her out and responded, "Saturday is sad day." (Both she and I were under the impression that tomorrow was Saturday.)

"I see. Sad day, huh." I sat by her a little while longer before standing up.

Each hotel door was themed to match a Project Sekai character. Kanade's was first, light blue and decorated with solid circles and hollow triangles. I cracked it open and found her wrapped up in blankets like a burrito. Sensing that I would wake up soon, I decided it wasn't worth interacting with her her.

I hurriedly moved on to Mizuki's sparkly pink door, but for some reason, I knocked this time. I called her name, excited to hear her response, as she and Mafuyu are my favorite characters.

After a pause, a very accurate voice responded, "Yeah?"

I asked the question, but before she could answer the dream faded and I woke up! Nooo! But at the same time, yesss, to this amazing lucid!

———

I was surprised to find it was only 6:25, but it took me an hour to finish writing, so I didn't get back to sleep till 7:30-ish. I wasn't very tired, so maybe that's why I kept waking up and had all these dreamlets.

———

Dream #4 (Non-Lucid):
This was on the border between a hypnagogic hallucination and a dream. I was in the kitchen and one of my parents dumped milk and acid in my head. Then I was in a dark void, walking down a floating runway and smashing open doors with an axe. I found my dad in one of them. He had murdered my mom. I raised my axe and killed him. Woke around 8:00 and WBTB.


Dream #5 (Non-Lucid):
I was being driven somewhere in the middle of nowhere to tutor a kid my age. I was very confused, saying that A was the tutor, not me. But they didn't listen. We nearly ran over a fallen tree and had to get out of the car. It was foggy outside and there was a lake nearby.

When I demanded answers, my mom grilled me in return about how I got my voice recorder. [Answer: I biked to the store and bought it without her knowledge.]

"I told you, I just found it in my stuff!" I protested, speedwalking away.

I came across my brothers and a group of old friends, the only one I could see properly was a kid named Blake. He was holding a football and I asked if he was copying me, as I was playing catch with a football for two hours a couple days ago.

Don't remember his response, but I took the football and asked if I could punt it. He refused because there was a lake in the distance and he didn't want it going in.

Woke at 8:27 and WBTB.


Dream #6 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
Forgot everything when I opened my eyes. Something about flowers. 8:46 WBTB.


Dream #7 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
(Illegible.) 9:06 WBTB.


Dream #8 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
Lifting weights. Later I was in a store and Harlequin was there, asking how to get home. I directed her to a staff member. 9:19 WBTB.


Dream #9 (Non-Lucid):
I was driving to a therapy session, though not doing a very good job. In the end I had to lift it up like a chair and force it into a parking spot within the building. Switched the parking brake on and it finally settled down. A girl next to me was doing the same. Some time later people were watching the dream on a screen, admiring the "perspectives" and skill of my "internal camera." I was a little uncomfortable.

Plot change. Someone had filmed a TikTok of me saying, "Do you want your madlad chicken? -goes off-screen and returns a couple seconds later- Sorry, they aren't allowed in the café but here are some french fries and ketchup."

It had 12K likes and I was wearing a dark blue plaid jacket and mask. It repeated a few times before showing the aftermath. S was grabbing me and pointing to a bundled-up customer.

"Merlin," they said. (Not my real name but that's what they called me in the dream.) "You have to figure out their identity. Once you do, you'll be shocked."

But I could already tell that the twist was that they were gonna be my doppelganger.

At some point I had a false awakening and when I was writing down the dream I added, I was covered in leaves (thank goodness I remembered that!).

Woke at 9:47 and got up for good. Kinda sad that none of them were lucids, but oh well.

Pics of the dream scenes, and a map of the third dream (yes I am totally copying Harlequin):

I'm in the car with my dad and we're driving into the town that I grew up in. As we're driving down the streets, I look around and notice how much it has changed. The school I used to go to is all new and so much bigger than it used to be, the roads have been updated, everything is so much flashier than it used to be. There are new shops and houses all over the place that I've never seen before. We park in the parking lot of the shopping centre my dad and I used to go to every week, and we enter in through the back way that we'd always use. For the most part, it looks the same.
I'm excited to see the people that I grew up with again, considering its been about 3 years since I'd been here. In the grocery store, each aisle is littered with teenagers talking and messing around with each other, but there isn't a single kid I used to play with. I recognise some of the faces, being kids who live in my new town, but none of the ones who went to my old school. None are kids who I'd shared classrooms with. I realise it's been so long that I've forgotten the faces of everyone who made my childhood what it was. I go back to my dad whos in the self checkout and dejectedly tell him none of my old friends are here.
We walk back through the rest of the shopping centre to the car park. I look around, the shopping centre is the same. The neighbourhood and the school and the people might've changed, but this mall is the same as it always was. The $2 store, the fish and chips shop, the spices store, it's all the same. And then I woke up.

Also, tomorrow is my birthday

My dreams have been pretty fragmented lately so I don't have any full dreams but I thought I should share anyways.

Teen Titans 10
I remember yesterday dreaming that I was Dick Grayson as Nightwing again. Jason Todd was killed so I agreed to team up with Batman again and return to the mantel of Robin and go back in time to save Jason.

Star Wars Battlefront VR
I put on my VR headset and am totally imersed in the Metaverse. There is a new Star Wars Battlefront game where you get to be different characters from the movies and I go on an adventure playing through the game. When you choose your character you walk up to these statues of the characters to choose. There are all sorts of characters to choose from both sides. I start out as a rebel and save Princess Leia. Then I am her and I am starting to help organize the rebelion. Then I switch to a Jedi in a bar. There is a place for target practice with blasters but three Sith women notice me use the force to pick up a blaster. Their leader has a bow and arrow and I duck under a table only to find someone else is already hiding there. The Sith come down to find me and I try shooting the blaster at them but the trigger is nearly impossible to pull. There was a lot more to this dream but it is so fragmented now from sleeping in.

Almost WILD
At about 11:45 AM my partner K starts moving around and I realize I am half awake and I feel that the arms of my dream body are in a differnt position than I left my real arms were when I left them last which is a sign I'm about to get a WILD. I can't maintain it because my K is moving around so my WILD fails. I get short bit of dream I am in a Runescape trying to sell some stuff on the Grand Exchange. I see people wearing adamantine armor before I wake up.

All the most interesting dreams from this week involved music in some way. These included:

-Applying a temporary tattoo of the notation for the amen break to my face, apparently for some event I was going to attend.

-Working on a piece of music. As the dream progresses, the different parts become associated with characters, and a story plays out among them. The characters all travel somewhere special, like the moon, a number of times. I think it ended with everything being absorbed back into the composition again. Unfortunately, I can’t remember many of the details as I woke up to one of the cats getting ready to cough up a hairball and had to immediately turn on the lights and make sure she didn’t do it on my bouzouki.

-Programming a couple weather patterns on something that looked suspiciously like a groovebox. I’m doing this at somebody’s request, at the shop he owns. There’s a sense of the machine making the process much simpler than it would be otherwise, just a matter of pressing a few buttons. When I’m done, I make a mental projection of the future to check that my proposed patterns won’t screw up the weather in other places, and since everything looks OK, I confirm them.

At some later point in the dream, I gain lucidity flying over a place that’s a cross between a highway and a waterway, with cars going one way and ships going the other. I decide to go back to the scene from the earlier dream, and I speak with the man to find out if he has anything else I can do there. It strikes me as an interesting thing to do while focusing on maintaining lucidity. I woke up not long after, though, which wasn’t surprising as it was actually getting rather late into the morning.

27.6.23-3.7.23

College Again (NLD) 07.02.2023

I am in the animation drawing class at my old college except instead of rows of computers there are normal desks with seats. The professor is MF and he says we have to design space craft for this assignment. I look in my portfolio for a blank piece of paper and pull one out. After I start drawing I realize there is already part of a drawing drawn in ink and it clashes with what I have drawn in pencil so I need to find a different paper without anything on it. This is when I start to question why I am back in college. After all, I already have my degree. This is a common dream sign but the dream logic keeps me from doing a reality check! Instead I walk up to MF and ask if I am on the list of students. He takes a look at his notes and says I am indeed enroled in the class.

After the class is over I go to the information desk because this just doesn't seem right. I walk up to one of the people at the desk and ask if they can tell me if I am enrolled in clases. "You see, I often have dreams I am back in school and I just want to know if I'm enrolled." They make up excuses of how they don't have access to this information. "What is my current GPA?" I ask. "You have a 2.2 from missing so many classes." I was an honors student so this stresses me out and I still don't become lucid.

I go outside and there is some sort of game where you walk around a square shape made of squares drawn on the pavement in chalk. I get hung up in playing this game where you walk around the squares and things happen depending on where you land. This part of the dream is fuzzy now and, of course, I don't become lucid.

I woke up and immediately noticed that the light in my room looked kind of dark and bluish like the sun was rising while it was really cloudy. [COLOR="#008000"]I knew I was in a dream because the light coming in through my window never looks like that. I rolled off my mattress and decided to look around my house. I walked to my bathroom and there were feces everywhere. I got some on my shoestrings, even though I know they're not real, they're still gross. So I go down my hall and into my living room, and I see that the Christmas tree is still up. There's a white shoe box under it, so I open it, and there's some gray sneakers in it, so I start replacing my shoes, but my mother sneaks up behind me and stops me from moving.I tell her to let me go but then I wake up.[/COLOR]

I was in the stairwell of some hotel or apartment and I had to go up a couple floors to retrieve some groceries or something. Walking up the stairs was very tiring for some reason, but I eventually reached the room. It was had just some toys, a bay window, and a note where the floor slanted down near the wall. I looked out the window, and I could see a city below like I was as high as an airplane. I went up to the piece of paper in the wall floor ditch, and I turned it over. It said something about burning in hell.I woke up around there.

I don't remember much from this one just that[COLOR="#008000"]I was lucid and my eyes were closed, an I was feeling carpet or something and then I heard a rooster,[/COLOR] because one of my real roosters was crowing.

Pirate Rivalry (NLD) 06.28.2023

I am in a mideval town and I am part of a crew of pirates who use this town as their hometown. I am the mage of the party, being able to specialize in telekinesis even though I am not lucid. First I pick out an outfit with a fancy hat and then we go to the market to shop. I can't remember much until the part where we run into our rivals. We get in a tussle with them and I use my telekinesis abilities but I don't remember the details.

The next fragment I remember is we are running into a concert hall and telling the musicians that the rival pirates have placed a bomb in the organ that is set to go off on the final note of the song. They inspect the organ and say they haven't found anything. However, when I look inside I am able to use telekinesis to levitate out the bomb and I throw it into the ocean.

The next fragment is me heading home. I am worried that we will be attacked by our rivals. My home isn't there for some reason! I have a scale model of the place that looks 3d printed. I think that I can use dream control to convert it into a full sized home but nothing I try works. One of the rival pirates shows up to goad me. She is a young woman with the teeth and eyes of a cat. She patronizes me to come out and play. I realize now that she might have been a dream witch.

I was too tired yesterday to practice the incubation techniques. So I didn't get a forest. Maybe tomorrow.

Pete is Gone
My girlfriend has come home with a puppy. It's an aussie, the breed we've been considering for a while.
We are in the living room by the couch playing with it.
There is a particular puppy I've been watching online, Pete.
Pete is black and white, with heterochromia. One eye is husky-blue and the other is dark green.
I'd decided that this was the puppy I wanted (but couldn't get for logistical reasons).
The puppy here is not Pete. This puppy has white and grey colors and black eyes.
I'm happy to have a puppy finally, but I'm a bit sad that it isn't Pete.

Working the Earth
I'm on a grassy hillside area, tilling some dirt. It's a sunny Summer day.
The tilling tool is small. Like a kid's sand rake. I am on my knees near the ground.
I work at a monastery of some kind.
I'm with a girl that I like, but it is a forbidden romance-type situation. Will-they-won't-they scenario.
We are working together on the soil.
The temple is down the way, to the left of our viewpoint.
We're talking about our friend (waking life BP).
There is some project involving computers that we are part of with him.
DJ is also involved.

Fragment
I'm up extra early for work today.
I reflect how nice it is to experience some cool morning air in the normally oppressively Summer heat.

Reverse Gravity (NLD) 06.26.2023

I am in a building with some people when I start to feel an earthquake. At first I think it might just be a normal earthquake but it keeps getting worse and worse until suddenly it feels like gravity is pulling from a different direction. Gravity starts pulling everything in the room to the side and then up and it goes all the way around the room like that scene in Inception! It makes mess as everything in the room is flung around.

When gravity comes full circle and is facing down again the earthquake stops and for some reason it seems like a good idea to go outside. I look up and see little specs of objects in the air. Then cars start to fall from the sky... I take cover under an awning and narowly avoid the falling cars. They fall for some time.

Afterward the world is a mess so much so that my brain decides its a post appocalyptic setting complete with inventory system from Fallout: New Vegas.

I'm in a new, high-tech startup digital art gallery with a friend. It's small, with a reception desk straight from the entrance, and only a few metres of space on each side. There are fake vines hanging from the ceiling and windows, and fake plants lining the brick walls, giving a very sort of indie cafe look.
There are screens displaying impressionist artworks, mostly Claude Monet. My friend and a few other visitors in the building are looking at these works on the huge screens, and as they do that I begin to take a look around the building. To the right of the reception desk, tucked away in a corner, is a little shelf with a couple of small screens showing fan submitted artworks, each with their own paragraph long descriptions next to them. Most of the drawings are children's drawings submitted by their parents, or amateur paintings/sketches done by visitors. As the drawings cycle through every couple of minutes, I absentmindedly read their descriptions and pick out my favourites from each cycle, until one catches my eye.

It's a small, vertically long sketch with limited colour. Down the middle of the page is a sidewalk with hopscotch on it, outside of a cafe with tables and chairs out the front. On the other side of the sidewalk is lush, green shrubbery. Sunlight is streaming through the leaves and pouring onto the sidewalk in little white splotches. At the top of the sidewalk strolls a young girl in a long white lace dress, with brown hair and a white sunhat. At the bottom of the sidewalk, where the hopscotch is, is two lion cubs playing, one with a sun for a head, and the other with a moon. It is the most beautiful artwork I have ever seen.
Then I look closer at the drawing and see it's been done completely on lined workbook paper, with nothing more than a blue pen and some coloured markers. I'm stunned. Something so engulfing had been done by some student, doodling in their notes, without a thought about it.

As I stare at the drawing, the cycle reloads again, and another takes its place. I panic, I don't want it to go yet, I have to find it again. I try to find an author's name, but the descriptions have cycled out. I go to the gallery's website and find a list of all the authors that had recently been displayed in the fan corner, and find the artist's name. I'm so happy that I get to see it one more time, and then I woke up.

I was actually quite mad that it was a dream. The whole night I thought it was real, and I was just as worried when I woke up that I'd lost the drawing again as I was in my dream, even more so that I would never be able to find it because it wasn't real. But then a few hours later I realised that the artwork I was so obsessed with came from my mind, in my imagination, meaning I would be able to recreate it. I'm so lucky to have the ability to create art, I wish I could live forever so that I could dream and create and dream all over again.

After over two weeks without a lucid, I finally got one! And such a fun one, too! I'm quite happy. Slept at 11:50.

Dream #1 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
I was at an abandoned carnival and intentionally ruined my phone with "Fn poisoning." I figured it would be fine since my phone sucks and I need a new one anyway, but I was trying to come up with a lie to tell my parental units.

Later J&L and I were talking… (illegible).

I was quite lazy with journaling this dream so I don't remember most of the details. Don't know when I woke up from it either, nor from the next one.


Dream #2 (Non-Lucid):
My childhood friend Mason was in our basement. I hid my discomfort at him being there and tried to act cheery, smiling and chatting with my brothers. Eventually I fled upstairs and looked in the mirror, smiling at myself. A circular piece of purple cardboard was wedged in my gums.

I was terrified, although I had the sense that this had happened before, and went to my mom. Much to my distress, she yanked it out and let it bleed. My dad was pretty mad at her as well. I could feel the air flowing through the wound and tried to assure myself that this kind of injury didn't matter, that lots of people have holes in their gums.

I was taken to the hospital and a doctor offered me three treatment options. One was a full face mask with the label: "Is this fabric bad for your skin? Screw your skin!" Needless to say, I quickly disregarded it.

In the end I selected a nasal spray and felt quite comforted after squirting it into my nostril a few times. (I'd forgotten that the wound was in my gums.)

Then I disappeared from the dream, and the scene switched to a group of teen boys running from the hospital, one of them jumping on the roofs of buildings as they went. The others followed along, but with hesitance, and one nervously voiced his concerns. The boy said it would be fine because they were all sick, citing a time when his poor health scored him a get-out-of-jail-free card.

At some point they were on a bridge and started making up a gay story featuring characters very much like them. One character was described as a "sick boy who plays soccer."

I re-entered the dream and ran ahead of them, toward a hill resembling the Big Hill in my neighborhood. A girl, or rather the silhouette of a girl, was standing there. She was made up of a gradient, flowing rainbow. I was under the impression that she was part of an MV, and I had entered the MV using virtual reality or something.

Since I believed I was an MV, my moves were quite dramatic as I chased the girl around, spinning and doing cartwheels and striking poses. I thought that if I caught her, something special would happen. In the background was a Japanese song with English subtitles singing a song about schizoid issues. The voice sounded like a mix of Raon, Yorushika, and Tsukuyomi's vocalist.

I kept trying to pause the video to figure out how to say "schizoid" in Japanese, which is difficult to do when you're literally inside of it. It wasn't working, but one of the "whoa" vocalizations was supposed to sound similar to it. I thought it was the most accurate schizoid song I'd heard (that intentionally depicted schizoid topics), then thought of another (false?) Japanese song that was a close second. I found it mildly remarkable that they were both Japanese.

I gave up the chase and looked at my wrist, finding a single itchy bump there. The song ended with the girl throwing her hands into the air and the lyrics reading, "The world of human connection is so large." Then I woke up.


Dream #3 (Non-Lucid):
J and I were hunting down a monster. He had been created by some god, with the specific purpose to perform evil acts and kill people. He was also a writer, Herman Hesse I think. I felt bad for him, but he said he was not opposed to killing and requested we exterminate him before he did.

Despite his request, he wasn't cooperating and made us chase him to a large field where families were having picnics. J threw a dagger at him and missed, and the surrounding people murmured excitedly. He shrunk down to plushie size and I grabbed him by the leg and took his gun.

J pinned him down and I said, "It'll be over soon, Hermann."

Then I shot him in the right side of the chest. He let out a long, piercing scream. Then he lay still in quiet agony, tears forming in his anime eyes. I sat next to him to be of some comfort and waited for him to die.

A strong wind suddenly rustled all the trees' leaves, and an ominous presence fell over the area, accompanied by the sound of something approaching. It sounded like an extremely large tractor, but I knew instinctively they were footsteps.

I worried it was the god who'd created him, or perhaps his monster buddies responding to his cry for help, so I bolted. I ran down to a different neighborhood, figuring it was okay to leave J since I was the one who killed him, and therefore the one in the most danger. I decided to stay and listen instead of running farther, but I woke up before anything happened.

When I opened my eyes I saw a cartoonish, squiggling black scribble on the wall. I stared at it for a few seconds, thinking, What a simple hypnopompic hallucination. Then I sat up and recorded the dream at 7:30, doing SSILD as I fell back asleep.


Dream #4 (Lucid):
Don't remember much about the beginning of the dream, just that there was a warrior with long red hair who was being ridiculed for being a woman and wearing a white dress. Then she used transformation magic to form a heavy suit of armor, which was apparently very high-level magic. She walked past them, scowling, and the armor changed back into a white dress.

I entered the dream later. The setting was similar to my house, but somber and monochrome. It was being used as a base for kids in training to become soldiers. I bounded down the stairs and saw chicken on the table, while someone on the intercom kept saying ミート (meat) over and over. I asked one of the kids in charge about it, saying that I thought meat was rare in times of war. He said it was, and that that was all the meat we had. I was displeased by this answer.

At some point had a false awakening. Now I was in the living room with my mom and brother N. My dog Nile was on the couch and my mom patted his chest, asking in an affectionate voice if he would eat his food now. He whined in response, and I was so amazed that he understood her that I laughed out loud.

Somehow we started talking about dreams and I jokingly said, "Haha, what if this is a dream?"

I plugged my nose and was in disbelief when I could partially breathe. You really can be dreaming at any moment, I thought.

My mom and brother exchanged a look, and for a moment I worried that they would turn against me like some other people's dream characters do once they become lucid. (I know this is just a schema.) I brushed off the thought, but by that point my mom had grabbed me by the legs, restraining me.

"Mom, let me go," I said, but she just smiled at me in a way that was simultaneously playful and creepy. I phased through her by imagining myself already in the location of the living room that I wanted to be. It took a couple tries, but then I effortlessly, without even thinking about it, phased through the window onto the balcony. It was so cool, there was a clear visual transition, and I may have felt an interesting sensation as well but I wasn't paying attention to it.

I flew into the air, but it was a little unstable. I wondered if my mind could not properly calibrate my body size, though some part of me knew that was silly. I touched down on my neighbor's deck, looking out at the neighborhood. It was so incredibly accurate—the woods, the path, the wall, the fence, the retirement home. I refrained from thinking about stability and took flight again.

In my peripheral vision I tried to summon a burger in my hand, but it didn't work, so I thought back to that non-lucid dream where I summoned chicken nuggets right before my eyes. I cupped my hands in front of me and visualized a burger. Just like last time, it appeared first as a dark shadow, then an outline, and then I realized I was trying to imagine lettuce and tomato on it even though I don't like veggies. Once I stopped that, the burger formed completely. I thought that if the competition were still going this would have earned a lot of points, but whatever.

I bit into it and said delightedly, "Ha! So much for 'limited meat!'" (Referring to the pre-FA scene.)

I dropped the burger and decided to find J, but didn't want to waste dream time flying all the way to her house. So I called for her, hoping she would appear somewhere. In the distance I spotted someone running down the path. I could tell it wasn't J, but chased after them anyway, for some reason tempted to shoot them down.

I followed them all the way to the road, but they wouldn't approach me, so I intentionally fell off my drone (I was now riding a drone), crying out "Ah!" in hopes that they would be sympathetic.

They were, tentatively coming over to help. It was a young girl, 12 to 14 years old, with short, curly brown hair. I quickly lost interest in killing her.

"Why were you running away?" I asked.

"The drone scared me, I thought it was an attack helicopter." (We were in war times.) "Also, I was getting a very 'predator-hunting-prey' vibe from you..."

We walked beneath a tree, and she explained that she was fighting in the war to strengthen her cheek muscles. I jumped and tore a few leaves from their branches, enjoying my lucidity.

"I thought kids and children weren't allowed to fight in the war," I said distractedly, thinking back to the first part of the dream. "Oh sorry, I meant kids and women."

She shrugged. I clapped her on the shoulder and exclaimed, "Well, good on you! I think that rule is stupid anyway, get stronger all you want! Even though you'll probably be traumatized for life, hahaha."

She smiled weakly. During the conversation we had occasionally been ducking behind cars and running around to avoid bullets and laser beams from attack vehicles.

I asked if she would accompany me to J's house, but she adamantly refused, probably thinking it was miles away. Out of nowhere K appeared, assuring her that it was just down the street. Sure enough, we were somehow much closer to J's neighborhood than before, only having to turn the corner and walk to the end of the road to reach her residence. But before we could, J came around the corner herself! We all called her name in excitement.

"How is she here?" K asked incredulously.

"Because this is a dream!" I replied, then pointed to my old friend S.E. who was passing by. "J loves shooting and killing—J, kill that thing!"

J made finger guns and shot S.E. in the forehead with a chi bullet. She went on to shoot other people, and each time she did, an itchy lump would form on the back of my right hand. I showed it to the girl and explained that it was the result of the dream characters' deaths, as everything in this world was made of my energy.

A small bump formed on my left wrist and I remarked, "Ah, she must have shot in the other direction."

We entered a building, but a black placard above one of the doors reminded me of the dream with Herman Hesse, and I was unsure if I wanted to go in there.

———

When I woke at 8:20 my hand was actually itchy, indented with clothing lines. I'm so happy though, this lucid was long and stable and chill and fun and... yeah Though I did notice all of the dreams were violent and/or stressful in some way. The one with Hermann Hesse was the closest I've had to a nightmare in a long time.

Nothing much happened, but I'll post the notable parts here Entries in quotes are things I actually wrote at the time, either in my DJ or my phone. (Rewrote most of the DJ logs because they're very messy.)

(From 0-30 hours I was at my house, 30-55 hours I was at J & L's house, and 55-59 hours I was back home.)

3:10 am (18 hours): Was paranoid that my brothers were awake, so I lay still for a while and entered a half-asleep state. Felt refreshed when I snapped out of it twenty minutes later.

??? (~19 hours): Was rubbing my ear and could've sworn I heard my mom yelling my name from downstairs. I was terrified she'd somehow heard me moving around or creaking the bed, but I didn't hear her coming up the stairs, so it must have been a hallucination/hypnagogia.

5:23 am (20.5 hours): Fell into the same half-asleep state for the same amount of time, and again felt refreshed afterwards.

6:30 am (21.5 hours): "Tired. Eyes keep unfocusing, can't read. Still feel gross. Closing eyes leads to instant hypnagogia, auditory and visual."

6:45 am (22 hours): Decided to lay down until 7:00, accidentally fell asleep for 10 minutes and had this dream:

I was in a house for a swim team meeting. Kept floating and a little girl was making her bear stuffed animal float as well. I jumped down from a ledge onto the bed she was on, then bounced to the floor.

"Wow, did you purposely avoid my legs? 'Cause that was a close call!" she said. Her legs were curled into her chest underneath the blanket.

"Yeah, I have lots of practice jumping on beds," I said, referring to my brother's.

She pointed to my brother's friend Vinson and said he had a younger brother. I was shocked, and they were amused that I didn't know. She asked if I could go get him and with a sense of deja vu I agreed. I sensed that he had not come any of the other times I went to get him.

Went into a hallway/basement area, was a bit worried because I knew I was sleep-deprived, and even if it was only for 24 hours exposing myself to creepy situations wasn't a good idea. But I ignored it and went on, calling for the brother, "Arglot." (Pronounced Arr-glow.) I heard Valerie [person from swim team] calling for him as well.

Surprisingly, he appeared around the corner and said bluntly, "What do you want?"

To diffuse his attitude, I said in a casual tone, "Your friend and brother… well, just your friend, really, is asking for you."

"Okay, okay, well tell her…"

Forgot what he said. We were going up the stairs and I saw Kira, was thinking about how Arglot looked like her brother Marcus and how I didn't know she and Marcus were related till recently.

I really am clueless, I thought.


7:50 pm (35 hours): J&L and I were watching a movie and I felt pretty horrible the whole time. Wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it through the night. The feeling cleared up after the movie ended.

??? (~41 hours): Briefly fell asleep for ten minutes. J was calling my name but I didn't respond, had to be slapped awake.

3:04 am (42 hours): "Watching Inuyasha but very tired and keep drifting off, was shocked awake by hallucinating my brother's echoing scream/roar."

3:16 am (42 hours): "Keep drifting off slightly and hearing songs before an Inuyasha character speaks loudly and snaps me out of it. Cannot focus on screen, eyes too blurry and unfocused. But I can keep track of the plot."

4:27 am (43.5 hours): "Feels like I fell asleep, but it's just the plot of the anime feeling like a dream."

5:40 (45 hours): J gave up. She was somehow able to stay awake just by lying on her back and daydreaming, though at one point she hallucinated me asking if she was up and mumbled "mmhm" to the air. I was very confused.

9:37 am (45 hours): "...I accidentally fell asleep at 6:30-ish. The experiment is probably ruined but I'll just subtract three hours. Might've had a dream but not sure. Something interesting did happen, though:
"I don't know if this was a dream or hallucination or what, but when I woke up my Chromebook was open in front of me with a bunch of text-to-speech voice options on the screen. They kept playing and it was difficult to move the cursor, but I managed to close the tab. Then I logged out, closed the Chromebook, and placed it on the desk.
"I know the TTS tab was not real because I don't have anything like that on the Chromebook. But it actually is on the desk, which doesn't make sense because I didn't plan to go to sleep and must have fallen asleep with it open on the bed. Well, whatever...
"My eyes are slightly bloodshot. Last night J said they looked purple, like a raccoon."

1:39 pm (49 hours): "I'm not tired, but when I close my eyes I feel dizzy. A throbbing dizziness, similar to that boat-rocking feeling I used to get when I was younger."

8:11 pm (56 hours): "Again, could've sworn I heard my mom calling for me, but it was very quiet and unclear."

9:35 pm (57 hours): "Tired only in my eyes. When my mom asked me for help with something, I suddenly felt a strange, full-body fatigue."


And that's it. The rest of the time I felt fine, sometimes a little tired. I also got a feeling similar to heartburn once in a while, and had a mild headache. Would've done another night if I could spend it at J&L's, but doing it in my shared room with only books and podcasts to keep me occupied (plus trying to stay quiet) is agonizingly boring.

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3
I'm seeing a Nintendo Direct reveal for a new Donkey Kong Country game.
They are showing off gameplay where, based on your score, Cranky Kong will be angry or less angry.
Angry Cranky had red-colored skin and 'anger clouds' coming out of him. Typical styling.
When he is angry, you get negative modifiers, and vice versa when he is less angry.
Mechanics would be locked behind Cranky's current rating of you.
There is a level selection screen and a "Visit Cranky" option on a menu.