non-lucid

I haven't been paying attention to dreaming much lately. Life has been getting busier. But last night I thought, "I'm going to lucid dream." And I did! It was a little different from other LDs I've had; there was no point at which I consciously thought, "I'm dreaming!" I just gradually became more aware. It was a very long dream.

I was part of a group of people who had to recapture some kind of relic from an underground place. It was being held by enemies of some kind, maybe orcs. I see it--a small glowing thing--on a ledge about 50 feet away. We manage to sneak by the orcs and capture the relic. Suddenly Sarek of Vulcan appears. I say something like, "Sarek, it's an honor to have your here." He replies, "Your name is no less esteemed." (Seems like a very Sarek thing to say.) I get the impression that we are doing a good job on our missions vs. the bad guys.

We casually walk out of the place without anyone stopping us. We might've had disguises; I don't remember. Just as we're going through some large double doors, there's an uproar behind us. One of the group, a white woman, shoots up in the air and starts flying. I think for a second that, "Whoa, she just did that. Maybe I can too." So we leave all our bags behind and just shoot up in the air. It was around this time that I became lucid. I was thinking that my dream-flying was different from any other time I've done it, that I was more "floaty". I was really enjoying myself. I thought about how I was really lying in bed, and I knew I was starting to wake up. I focused on the face of the woman beside me, in an attempt to stabilize the dream. I don't know her face. The stabilization works, and I stay asleep!

Later we are in a shopping area, a cute strip mall or something. I think, "I want my backpack." (The one I left behind.) I hold out my hand and make it appear beneath me! This is another 'first' for me. I felt like Q from Star Trek, making something appear just by willing it to happen! Later we are in a different shopping area. I remember the pumpkin challenge for October. There's one pumpkin right in front of me, but it's already broken open and there is trash inside. I go looking for another pumpkin. There's a nice orange one. I plan on using my hand to cut it open, but then I think, "This isn't my pumpkin.. maybe I should ask if I can cut it open." I smile at this person, a black woman. I ask if I can open the pumpkin and she says yes. But at that time the dream abruptly ends.

I have some funny dream logic. What do I need with bags in a dream, anyway? And do I really need permission to open a pumpkin in my own dream? Silly brain.

Had my first lucid in a long time two nights ago. I don't recall very much, other than it was night time outside when I became lucid. I then flew around for a bit, and I decided to change the time of day. I used the "force" if you will, to pull the sun into view, and it became day. The weird part was that when I turned around it was still nighttime behind me, but it was day on the other side. That's all I remember.

10.21.14

Last night bed around 8:30pm - 1 am

Night shift 3am - 8:30am

nap 9:45am - 4:15pm

Last night lots of dreams, mostly work related.

Nap DR:

I'm riding a bus. We are approaching Florida. Coming down a very long hill. To the left, nice vista opens. There is a valley with some jagged mountains running through the middle of the valley, parallel to the road. They are getting smaller as we travel. They are just dry rocks, like california or nevada desert.

As we go on, I start to see some lakes. Some water is tropical blue, and I'm thinking it's actually ocean already, not a lake. Like a bay, or something. Then I see a shorline behind the mountain range.

I scramble for my camera, and I think I have the exact same one as IWL. The waters are so blue and drop dead gorgeous. I'm getting all emotional, so happy to see it. (I was looking at pictures of cancun and Isla Mujeres yesterday IWL.)

We get out of the bus and bus drives away. Looks like we have some time to explore, even if this is not our destination. So we start walking. Now it's dark, no street lights, just a dirt road to the beach. There are some houses, it looks like an abandoned village. I remember I wanted some icecream. We walk into the shop. They are closing. The icecram is already out of the bins and it looks bad. As when you have old icecream in the freezer. It's covered with plastic. Every kind has strawberries in it, they are just cut up differently. I say I'll pass, but a friend of mine tells me I could just get a chocolate one. At first I don't wannu, but then the desire for icecream comes back and I get one.

We continue to walk towards the shore in pitch dark. I hear some guys ahead, and also on the sides of the road. I shine a huge flashlight at them and the 4 guys standing on top of a rusty car with AK47s suddenly act all shy, as if caught doing something. I tell them to relax, they don't have to be scared of me, lol.

18th October 2014:

Note: These entries are ripped straight from my personal dream journal, so if any descriptions seem odd, it's usually something to help me personally remember what I'm referring to, not to easily describe it to others

Tonight's was a very intense and unusual dream. Though some of the first details are (at current) a little fuzzy, I will do my best to record them. The first thing that happened was a panoramic view of a large stone cliff, like a massive slab of rock layered with green lichen, against a blue sky with soft, fragmented clouds. My Dad was there, and was, I think helping me around; the old red Polo may have been there too, perhaps with Dad driving towards the cliff edge (with me inside it, in the back seat).

Next I saw a brief scene of Raziel running with his energy-sword attached to his arm, through a grey-tiled kitchen with wooden doors that reminded me much of the crudely rendered doors from Soul Reaver; he was running through a kitchen with massive old metal ovens, which filled much of the room to either side of him, and seemed to be of a 19th Century design. A few apples rolled off the counters of the ovens and onto the floor as he ran, making his way to the door to the right at the opposite end of the room.

In the next scene, I was in a dimly torch-lit chamber in a castle, standing, the dream camera focused on my face, against the wall with my hands in shackles; I was still Tyrion Lannister, and I knew Peter Dinklage's character to be "me". Cersei Lannister screamed something at me, her eyes squinted in fury and her red dress, flowing as she moved, was embroided with gold, the Lannister colours. An official, male stentorian voice asked me (or words to this effect) if I pleaded guilty, and I believe told me that I had a chance to escape my fate. However, I pleaded guilty to whatever the charges were that were placed against me, and looked to the other end of the square chamber, where an identical dwarf to myself was standing in ragged linen robes, and I admitted to being the same person as that dwarf, a dwarf called "Scar"; some instinct told me that he was me from the future or something, and that we were one and the same person, as identifiable by the fact that we were both Peter Dinklage. The guard by the door, a noble looking sort with white stubble dressed in extravagant armour of gold and crimson with a crested, arching helm (he looked a little like Barristan Selmy beneath the armour) banged the tip of spear on the ground and said something along the lines of "Tyrion Lannister; you had the chance to free yourself from this fate, however you have pleaded guilty, and you are sentenced to death."

The next scene was by far the most memorable. This scene (as it seemed to be part of a continuous story, so I'll call it that), took place in a massive, lava filled circular arena; in the middle was a raised circular platform with a mesh-floor border, and then, in the centre of the circle, wood. A shaped slab of rock serving as a table sat in the centre, which I can only describe as "Christmas-Pudding shaped"; it reminded me of the larger slab of rock at the beginning of tonight's dreams. I was sat on (I think) a smaller slab, and next to me was Renly Baratheon, though for whatever reason, I thought that my name was Tyrion Baratheon , and that he was my brother. He sat resplendent in his green and gold battle armour, a great helmet with curved horns sat above his head; technically it should have been antlers, but the dream didn't seem to get this detail correct. Set before us were two plates with biscuits on them: A couple of cookies and a shortbread. A wavery-voiced announcer, Pycelle, I think, said over some kind of loudspeaker system (there's no other way his voice could have been as loud as was) announced that the convicted had been given meals to reflect where they had come from, I, from the Dornish Marches apparently, (perhaps I had been helping out in Dorne or something), which I for whatever reason agreed with. Apparently light, crumbly biscuits also passed for Dornish cuisine. As for Renly, I don't remember where the dream said he was from, so I'll just assume it said Storm's End.

We had a frank chat before our impending deaths; I offered Renly one of my biscuits (three light, crumbly biscuits were to be my last meal) but he refused. I only remember a few actual snippets of the conversation, but I'll record them as best I can. The scene gradually shifted to my bedroom, but we were still sat on the stone chairs before the stone table. I said "You know, we Baratheons have Targaryen Blood." Renly had looked astonished, and asked how far back that was. There was a tiny wise-woman on my bed (Tiny; she was probably about the size of a rat), wearing a frayed blue-grey robe and walking with a gnarled stick (or should I say twig). She seemed to be portrayed by Rosemary Harris. She told us that our ancestry stretched all the way back to "Fingers Targaryen"; I asked her how many children he had had (I presume to get an idea of how much the family line could have branched out between Targaryen and Baratheon), and she told me that he had a great many sons. I grinned and replied "He must have had his fingers in all the pies." This provoked a great laugh from Relny, and I smiled; we felt close as our impending deaths approached. The wise woman disappeared, and I finished my biscuits. I think I then asked Renly something along the lines of "Didn't you already die in 2010? What was it like?" however, I don't remember the answer. Eventually, as the hour of doom approached, I found myself hugging him, weeping, and crying. "I love you, man!" I had said. He then slumped backwards, his legs bending back behind him below the knees. I ran to him and shook him, pleading with him not to leave the mortal coil, and picked up from next to his corpse a small black-bordered console with two knobs, its main body coloured like fire. It had a small, dim display with red lettering on it showing the amount of time I had left to live: It was not long. I pleaded with him "What's it like?! What was it like?! Will I see you there?! What do you see?!" but there was no response.

It was then that I remembered I had to tell everyone of my impending death; during this time I saw a brief image of me scrabbling for my phone in the dim back section of the caravan, the light of day streaming through the open door, but a moment later, I was back to the feeling of scrabbling for my phone in the world I had been in previously with Renly; I had to tell everyone that I was going to be dead in the morning, and began to write the lines, something along the lines of "When you all wake up tomorrow, I will not be here...", however I did not finish, and snapped awaked, shouting "No!" as I realised my death was approaching. It took me a while to shake the feeling of the dream, and it was one of the more vivid ones I've had since restarting this journal. That was everything I can recall of tonight's dreams.

Non-Dream Dream Lucid

Dream 1:

I am at a Target store buying gear for a home run derby. I have a bat and a Mike Trout ball that is oddly shaped. Trout is there too. Now I am at the home run derby in the stands. The crowd has to pay per pitch. Therefore the popular / well-liked players get more pitches because the crowd is willing to pay.

Dream 2:

I am at a restaurant with my friend/coworker GM. I am teaching him how to play a video game and the subject of lucid dreaming comes up. I become lucid. Not too sure how it happened - I guess the just talking about it made me become aware. I tell GM about all of the different things that I like to do when I am lucid like flying and eating. I cook some hamburgers and we both eat one - it tastes amazing. I am bored so I decide to trash the back of the restaurant where the cooks are. After this I go outside and decide to do something constructive with my lucid opportunity. There is nobody outside of the restaurant - which now looks like one of the outside eating areas at UCLA (above the bookstore). I yell out "why am I so anxious all the time." No answer and nothing happens. Then I yell out "show me something I am afraid of" so maybe I can conquer some of my fears. Still nothing so I yell it out again. Suddenly a man appears from behind one of the buildings and walks toward me aggressively. I know he wants to fight me. Apparently I am afraid of confrontations. He starts punching and kicking and I block all of it. Not just normal blocks though - I actually catch his fists and feet with my hands. Then I proceed to thoroughly kick his ass.

After the ass beating I do my favorite lucid activity - flying. I fly over the football field at UCLA. There are people playing so I join the game. I make several great catches while flying and I shout out that I am the greatest football player ever at UCLA.

Dream 3:

I am having amazing sex with a very petite woman. At times during the sex I can see us from 3rd person view.

Spoiler for Sex details:

We are having sex with me standing and holding her by her ass. She is riding me for about 5 minutes. Just as I am about to cum, I pull out and spray allover her face and in her mouth. I feel like I am finished ejaculating and I put my dick in her mouth. Apparently I am not done and I keep going in her mouth. It starts pouring out and covers her entire body. Once I am finished we start making out like crazy.

I stay the night and we have sex again the following morning in the shower. We head out to the backyard to do some gardening and I think her parents are there with us. It is very awkward. I am trying to stake some pepper plants but I am out of string / tape. I try to find an Ace or Home Depot store driving through the Culver City / Inglewood area on Sepulveda. The area looks like one giant mall towering over the street. I step into a Home Depot store and find the string - the store is very ghetto. I go to the outside section of the store and find myself in the army doing drills.

I go to bed at 10:20, wearing my mask, with my alarm set for 6:30. I wake naturally at 1:30 with no dream recall. I quickly fall back asleep and wake again at 3:30.

At work at night
I'm in my cube at work building a new computer from new parts. Now, I'm walking through the office without any real destination; I'm just going for a walk. It's getting onto evening now. A number of us are going to be spending the night at the office, and I see sheets and blankets already laid out in some cubes. Now it's night. There's very little natural or artificial light, and I have to be careful as I walk around not to bump into or trip over anything. I'm still enjoying my walk, since I've never walked around the building in the dark, especially not with a bunch of people sleeping here.
The office layout is pretty true to life.

I return to bed around 4. It takes a while to fall asleep, and the rest of the night is pretty restless.

I had one of those nightmares where I'm back in high school again and have to repeat all of my old classes. It was only a few days in and I'd already made a habit of being late. The worst part was knowing I was repeating high school yet again. I had some level of awareness of it - I even made a "not again" comment in the dream - but still didn't gain self awareness.

I was renting an apartment with a room-mate - I hadn't met him prior to renting, but needed a place to stay. He turned out to be incredibly weird and borderline creepy, but I tried to stay on cordial terms with him. The apartment was supposed to be downtown in he city that I currently live in. I got into a brief argument with him about exactly where my rent check was going, since I was handing it to him instead of the landlord, and I'd prefer to give it to the landlord directly. When he gave me trouble over it, I asked him if his landlord knew he had a roommate. He didn't give me a direct answer.

The dream reused some locations from old dreams. For example, we went to a diner that was in a building along train tracks, that had multiple levels, and ordered cheese steaks. The cook, a stout slavic man in his late 30s, with thick black curly hair, actually remembered me. In fact, on the way there, I told the DC "room mate" that I'd take him to one of my favorite places to eat. Again, so close... but still didn't quite reach lucidity.

Dreams from previous nights:
I was in an airport. I got a box off of the baggage carousel and opened it. It was full of cockatoos, packed neatly in rows. They were sleeping. I got one out of the box, and it woke up and flapped its way up to the top of my head, and then pooped there. I was really irritated by this. I couldn't figure out what to do with the rest of the cockatoos.

I become lucid while looking in a mirror (this happens a lot). The light is pretty dim (which also happens a lot and is a source of frustration). I don't recall any sort of prior dream, I may have been lucid from the start. I examine my reflection. I'm still trying to figure out if I'm dreaming or not, so I try to put my arm through the mirror. I just bump it away. Ha, I think, not so fast. I know I'm dreaming, I just want to prove it. I push at the mirror again, and put my arm through it. It ripples like water.
I decide to change my appearance. I close my eyes and open them, and my hair is in a long braid. I close my eyes and open them again, and now I am wearing a green cloak.
Unfortunately, the dream fades (I doubt I could have prolonged it) and I wake up (real, not FA).

Dream - Lucid

Something to do with packaging out donuts. When they were all packaged (there were quite a few boxes), I was looking at them, and there were some glazed and chocolate iced french cruellers, which those aren't supposed to be chocolate iced, only glazed. They also looked really wilted and small. I remember seeing one that was small and had just a little chocolate icing on it.

Then, I was designing this roller coaster with my dad in the garage. We were picking out different kinds of track. I remember the train on it also looked very sleek, silver and thin with only one person being able to fit in each car. I was thinking about the fact that we had a roller coaster in our garage. We must be rich. The roller coaster was starting and I got in the front car.

~

I was with Dallas at the house I grew up in. We lived there. It was nighttime. His mom called. She was actually this guy I dated in the 8th's grade mom IWL, but she was Dallas's mom in the dream. I didn't really want to talk to her. She was asking Dallas if we had any mayo or mustard that we could let her borrow for something she was making. I thought that maybe we did. He put the phone down for a bit. I then went to check the fridge. We had a little bit of mayo, maybe half of a jar. I didn't see any mustard. I guess I was going to have to talk to her after all. I went to go pick up the phone to tell her. It was sitting on the counter, but was a spoon instead of a phone? I started to speak.
"Hello?" I said.
She said hello or hey or something.
"We have less than half a jar of mayo and no mustard. I'm sorry, I thought we had some! I guess we used it all!"
She said something else, like that's ok or something. We hung up.

We then, for some reason, were standing at the open front door. Before we could shut it, a blonde little boy, a toddler, ran out. He was running fucking fast, too! Dallas and I went after him. I was running as hard as I possibly could and he was just booking it. I was nowhere near him. He started to go around the house next door. I saw a little alcove with bushes next to the house with a path/shortcut leading to the other side of the house. I could cut him off! I started to run down the path. I was very close to the end, and I saw the little boy stop. I was about to get to the end and get him when this big, tall guy I work with, TJ, stepped in front of me and picked me up. He was talking to me I think, but I don't remember what he was saying. The way his hand was positioned was jabbing into one of my left ribs. It hurt! I tried to get him to move his hand, and I did for a second, but he moved it back, as if he was purposefully pressing on my rib. It really hurt!

~

I dreamed something about Kohl's, though I can't quite recall the details.

~

I was at my grandma's house, though it didn't look like it at all. I was in the guest room getting ready for the day. I was putting on my bra and underwear. My hair was also pulled back. I had a q-tip that I was sticking in my nose? I guess my nose was a little runny or something (still doesn't make sense but whatever). I had to go out into the living room for something. I walked out and saw the back of my grandma's head. She was sitting on the couch watching TV with some coffee in hand. She had on a hat as well. She turned around and said good morning to me. I then looked to my right and saw two little blonde toddlers, a boy and a girl, standing there looking at me. I wasn't sure if I should be out in my underwear, but at least I wasn't naked. I also felt silly with the q-tip, which I had left sticking out of my nose. I pulled it out.

I was then going to put these pastries, an elephant ear and a pecan crispy, on this table that had lots of pecan pastries on it. It had some white and yellow iced donuts as well. As I was looking at them, I was "remembering" what my grandma had said about how she gave birth to donuts before she gave birth to babies (like months before, very early on in the pregnancy). Apparently, this was normal. I was also "remembering" that Sarah, a girl I worked with at Kohl's, had also done that; I was "remembering" her working with me at the bakery too. I was staring at the donuts wondering how the hell your body could make donuts. What kind would they be?

I then figured I needed to put the elephant ear and the crispy into a plastic bag so they didn't go stale. I went and got one and put them in. My grandma was then telling me about how she was sorry she didn't have any plastic tupperware containers because they were all at the old house (which they moved out of 8 years ago IWL). Something about how some doctor lived there temporarily.

My mom was then there, and she asked me if grandma had told me about the donuts. I told her yes.

I am partially lucid observing a dream about a group of either four or five women who live in a monastery in Tibet and are tasked with defending it. I think this is part of a history documentary or something and an interpreter is telling us how they fight.
The sisters are supposedly all twins and are about 20 years old. They all wear bluish-grey robes and headbands with short black hair.
Each of the sisters has a long bamboo flute as their weapon. When they swing it, air rushes in one end and depending upon how fast or what angle they swing at determines the note that they play. This means that when fighting (along or as a team) they will play one note after another with each strike coming together as music. The music that they create helps them coordinate attacks.
It is basically the purest personification of the rhythm of combat.
I think I may have seen them briefly conduct a sparring battle with a monk trained in energy projection.

I am at some barbecue or graduation party in my neighborhood. There are a few full blown adults, but it's mostly for college and high school-age people like me. I can recall my crush from high school is there, even though she moved away.
One of the boys, (We'll just call him B) wants to have a contest to see who can eat the most hot dogs. I back down, but some other boys step up to the plate. B's dad is the one who is hosting the party, and he says he will cook up as many hotdogs as is necessary.
Well nobody was really talking to me or engaging me, so my Introvert powers activate.
I walk away from the party and preform a casual reality check as I walk up the street. That's how I became lucid.
...
I don't recall a great deal of what happened next. Manei manifested somehow, and she convinced me to go back to the party. Nobody really seems to notice us.
But it's time to be a lucid show-off. I grab a napkin off of the table and tell everyone to gather around; that I have a party trick that I want to show everyone. I have decided to preform the Dynamo Jack trick where he uses chi/bio-electricity to ignite things.
It works, and of course, everyone is blown away. Everyone except the boys still having their hot dog eating contest. One of them stands up and proudly proclaims that he won the contest and ate fourteen hot dogs.
Then, I see that guy quiver. He turns around and pukes all over the table. Manei and me busted out laughing at the guy before I woke up.

I didn't sleep well this night and woke up a lot of times. Also, I don't remember a lot of things.
Just that, in one of my dream, we were going to travel with my class and I was really late, so I put whatever I found in my bag and go. Maybe I woke up just after this...
I'll try to do better next time :)

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

Didn't really attempt a proper SSILD last night, turned off all my alarms so I could try and get a good sleep, which I did . Recalled 3 dreams but the last dream I had was forgotten while writing them into my DJ.

Dream 1 - Obstacle course race (~4am)
Me and a lot of other people are involved in some kind of race. The scenery is typical New Zealand green bush, the track we were running along mazed around with streams on both sides. The first part of the race involved everyone running along this track, it branched off in a few directions, I decided I could try the direct route by just jumping into the shallow stream. I didn't anticipate it slowing me down so much, and eventually I climbed back up onto the track. Shortly after I reached the second part of the race, where there were rails stretching left to right along the ground, spaced about half a metre apart with tall grass and puddles between them. Everyone had to jump from rail to rail, the alternative was that you'd just trip over them trying to run across to the end of this obstacle (I seem to remember a few people breaking their ankles when they missed a rail). I leaped from rail to rail, building momentum until I had a good stride going, I became quite focused on this and nearly fell over when I bumped into a woman. We both hurried onwards, some sense of urgency kept us going in the race. I reached the end of this obstacle, and there stretched an expansive short-grass field. At the end was a playground which I identified as the finish line, to left of it I could see the corner of a fenced off tennis court (I didn't seem to really look at it, hence the corner being in my peripheral vision). Everyone that had made it to this point was sprinting off, giving it everything they had to reach the end. For some reason my running was a bit 'weird', I seemed to be skipping and flailing my arms back and forth (I believe I was trying to create a swinging momentum with each skip to propel myself further). In the dream I thought this was the best way to maximize my speed, everyone else seemed to be running normally though. I had a feeling that everyone else was worn out by now, and I managed to spot my friend M and A (I haven't seen A for a long time, he was a childhood friend who moved overseas). M was running pretty damn fast, he shouldn't have been able to since he has asthma and is pretty against exercise. To my right I noticed that it seemed like a nice sunset was happened, and the hill sloped upwards in its direction, in retrospect I wish I had gone up and seen it. I seemed to come in the top 10 or the racers, and it resets to the start of the race. I'm now standing with a bunch of others in orange overalls on the top of a hill, at the bottom of which are a bunch of police setting up the race. We're convicts. A friend is next to me and starts saying he's going to make a run for it and jump onto the race track and escape that way. He bolts off down the road and I follow, knowing that if he was to succeed he'd need a good distraction, I think my plan was to yell out I saw something in the opposite direction he was going to go.

Dream 2 - Looking after my daughter
I'm in my parents house, my mother and wife have gone out shopping and have left me and my daughter to play. It was a really nice dream, she and I were playing with her toys and I was talking to her good feels, not a particularly long or eventful dream though, but definitely memorable.

I'm at home, but something strange is happening. My backyard looks different and takes you to another place, something was wrong with the alarm, and people were coming and going.

I had a non lucid dream but didn't write it in the morning. It was creepy because I was thinking about the anime Gugure Kokkiri San and the characters are cute(Except for the violent inu(dog) and the drunk tanooki/Racoon) but to think its a real game people play in Japan...Sooo weird. In my dream there was a creepy person who was supposedly from the kokkiri San game trying to destroy me but somehow I convinced it not to and it left me alone. Than something about being in a anime tribe happened and the Kung fu panda showed up breaking a huge block of ice. Random~

Non-Dream Dream

Dream 1: I am gardening in my backyard with my dad. He is messing everything up and pouring some white stuff into all of my garden beds. My brother is there too. All of the carrot and radish seeds I planted for my son's birthday party have sprouted.

Dream 2: I am at work with my boss, RL. We have a meeting to discuss new compounds with the chemists Wednesday from 5-6pm.

Disembodied, I'm looking at a woman standing on a pier some two hundred or so years ago, facing away from me, looking out to sea. She makes a striking image, her black hair and her long dark skirt in stark contrast against the bright grey of the clouded-over sky and sea. There's music being played badly. The men she's been staying with or traveling with are having a going-away party for her, but she's stepped away from it for a moment.

The scene changes to the place she's headed - a man's riding a horse recklessly fast over hilly terrain, playing what he refers to as a game of tag with her.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

After a few other dream scenes, I'm back to that woman on the pier. This time she's turned around, talking to one of the men from the party. He has a going-away present for her, two small dark objects that he presses into her hands, something that I think of as 'artifacts.'