side notes

I came across a 2015 post by Sensei about active versus passive control:
https://www.dreamviews.com/dream-con...esson-1-a.html

In there, he makes an analogy about walking to the fridge and how that is a simple learned behavior for us, but challenging to his son who was taking his first steps. In a similar way, confidence and skill to achieve lucid dreaming goals can be attained.

Memory control is a similar idea, but has an obvious flaw: when one is doing something new there is no memory to pull on. Sensei suggests (if I am understanding correctly) to essentially pretend there is a memory of yourself achieving whatever goal that is.

My idea to execute on that is to visualize myself practicing something like Firebending from Avatar: The Last Airbender while meditating normally. This can then serve as the memory needed to achieve actual dream control in a lucid dream.

Thanks Sensei!

Woods Mansion Nightmare
I'm walking in a heavily wooded area at night. Grass is above my ankles and wet. I come across my best friend D. He has a bed just outside the window of a mansion with lights shining on the grass below. We talk for a bit and then decide to go into the mansion.

I'm running sideways and side jump through an open window in the mansion. It is well-lit and makes me think an older person might live there. Meticulously clean, lots of furniture we wouldn't be allowed to sit on, bookshelves all over. Then a woman with big 80's hair appears. It is blonde and straight up. Her face reminds me of older photos of my Mom (rest in peace). The woman runs into the room frantically.

"DO YOU REMEMBER ME?!?!" the woman yells at me.

I don't reply. At this point I'm in fight or flight mode. I'm running sideways again, and I do a side jump out a window. I fell as if I'm being chased but I don't look back to check. My escape route takes me back into the mansion. I'm running inside it again. I tried to change my path and leave through a window I previously came in from, but now there is a wall there.

I had a thought as I stared at the ceiling, since I couldn't sleep after this dream. The way she said "Do you remember me?" was aggresive in the context of the dream (nightmare) but the actual content of what she said wasn't. I was thinking that if my mom was actually in some kind of collective unconscious in the afterlife, maybe she was trying to reach out and the message got scrambled by the context of the dream? I'm not normally so much the "hand wavy" type of guy. But I still find stuff like this interesting to think about.

Fragment
I'm in a more casual setting now. It reminds me of Grandma P's bathroom from a few houses ago. My mom is there, but her skin looks older. I don't recognize/recall that she passed some years ago. We spent some time together but I can't recall much.

I've had some similar dreams with her showing up like this. We were close when she was alive, so I like to think she is just dropping by to say hi.

Adding this to my DJ as a reference. Found it in a 2016 post in the attaining lucidity section. Below is from FryingMan. Thanks for putting this info out there FryingMan! I've been trying to connect meditation to my lucid dreaming practice and this helped me understand a bit more:

I think the best meditation for lucid dreaming is maintaining mindfulness during everyday, complex waking life experiences. In dreams, we do not sit or lie quietly in a room with only our thoughts for company. We are usually active in the dream world, interacting with objects and beings, noticing things moving into and out of our visual field, feeling emotions and reacting to our experiences. We are "living" just like (or similar to) we do in the waking state. In "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep," Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche writes:

"This is the sequence: awareness in the first moment of experience, in response, in dream, ..."
In other words, in order to get lucid in dreams (regularly), we must first master awareness in the first moment of experience and response to experience! We must practice this while awake.

Rinpoche continues:

"One cannot just start at the end. You can determine for yourself how mature your practice is: as you encounter the phenomena of experience, examine your feelings and your reactions to the feelings. Are you controlled by your interactions with the objects of experience or do you control your reaction to them? ... can you remain in steady presence in diverse situations?"

I believe this, right here, is the crux of lucid dreaming practice.

Sitting mindfulness meditation (I prefer open eyed, with visual input, not sitting stock still or focusing only on a single object, but looking around experiencing my environment) can be helpful to get started. Start in a quiet location, like on a bench in park (there's still usually plenty of activity if you open yourself to experiencing it!) Then gradually move up to more and more complex, hustling & bustling environments as you master remaining mindful in relatively quiet situations.

Saturday morning, 18 December 1971. Age 10.

Dream #: 1,825-01.

1 minute and 50 seconds to read.

Requires reading and understanding: MAPPED DREAM “Run from the Brontosaurus” in the first part of this report.

This dream is one of many from childhood that I still cherish, regardless of its usual predictable causality factors. I still view this dream as hilarious on one level.

While hand mobility and somatosensory response (often with summoning and handling coins) have occurred regularly in dreams since childhood, foot mobility with a somatosensory response in the bottoms of my feet is uncommon, though I also use my hands in this case - and it is still predictably tied to leg mobility as most outcomes in this mode.

The curious event here involves falling and breaking a window by landing on it from a reasonable height but remaining in the dream state. Although horizontal, it ties to using a door as a dream’s deliberate exit point. While my intent to exit is ongoing, it triggers an offset somatosensory dream segment instead. I had, however, deliberately jumped from a bridge to leave the dream state, expecting, if remaining in the dream, to land in the water, as with similar instances. That is what I find hilarious.

“Doubling” is a viable term for this dream sequence because I am still in the dream state for an additional vivid segment, and it combines two dream-exiting methods I have often used.

What caused this particular shifting response (rather than waking me up)? My guess is because of the lack of myoclonus in this case. (Even so, there have been more recent dreams where I remained in the dream state after feeling “the drop.”) Myoclonus most often wakes me from the dream’s physical illusions (particularly leg myoclonus at the beginning of every sleep cycle). It shifted into a somatosensory response (glass in the bottoms of my feet) but still did not wake me. A typical hand-based somatosensory response as a catalyst is an animal nibbling my fingers.

Again, the lightning (an increasing synaptic energy analogy) striking the dinosaur and bringing it to life (waking it up) was also a transition representing precursory wakefulness, though, at that point, my dream also shifted into another segment (though with my deliberate intent in the first instance - because in childhood, I learned to hold myself in the dream state even when there is an imaginary threat and now have gotten much better at it - see “Heraldic Dragon Storm” from 2023 for example).

The unrealistic stop-motion effect (movie influence) has occurred in many other dreams. These days, “bad CGI” also occasionally “corrupts” dream narratives. Animated content superimposed over otherwise realistic scenes has also often occurred since childhood.

3.4.2023

Woke up at around 6:11 and did a WBTB [+ 2 points] . Recorded the following dreams:

Music, Ricky, and Lucy [+1]

I’m going up a set of stairs, whistling “The Lightning Tree”, or trying to. I come across my friend K from the lab, and we race to see who can get to the top of the steps first. She wants to get a good view of something. When we get there, there is a musical performance going on. Some kind of politician is playing, I think. The “Superintendent”, or something. It is also very windy. The wind is blowing so hard that a backdrop is wanting to blow over. I mess with it, and reinforce it with a nearby rope and piece of something. On the other side, I think, there is a dog house type thing. Someone might be living in it...Ricky Ricardo is lighting a candle to start a fire. It is Ricky and Lucy’s wedding night. They have a kerosene heater or something. Lucy is delighted to find out that Ricky is cheap – apparently they are saving money with this candle, or something.

Fragment [+0.5]

...In a house with a lot of dogs. I’m trying to go through some doors without letting the dogs out of the house...

The rough side of town [+1]

Talking to a weird man standing behind a bush. Something about parking. The area seems a bit dangerous to me. The guy we are talking to seems shady. Fortunately, a car drives up that belongs to a company that I have done business with (an insurance company or something). They give me a ride, since I did business with them, although they want to check my credentials. The car has heavily tinted windows, so it’s a nice place to hide in while driving away. As we drive away, we see that police cars are showing up. The Amish in the area are moving to the edge of the neighborhood, apparently to avoid whatever situation might arise. We continue on our way out of there, on foot now. We come to a golf course with some kind of earthworks on it I think. It is in a somewhat intricate shape, including a chili pepper.

Fragment 2 [+0.5]

Someone is trying to mimic fighting reptiles with robots. I wonder if the robots (or one of them, at least) can learn how to bite. They are learning through a neural net or some type of AI. The robots turn into a fly and a melon. The fly flies around looking for the melon. The melon extends some kind of tube and moves around somehow. The fly shows off how it can look at things – like a car.

Fragment 3 [+0.5]

A man at church wants 15 cents. My grandmother doesn’t think we should give him anything. Apparently they gave him money “last time” and they don’t want to keep on giving him money. I find a dime in the front seat of the car, and also have some pennies. I wonder if I should give the guy the money. I think about going back into the building, but I’m in the car as we leave the parking lot. I think about suggesting that we stop so I can go back inside, but my grandfather, who is driving, is talking and I don’t want to interrupt him.

Fragment 4 [+0.5]

...At a restaurant place to get food...

Fragment 6 [+0.5]

...The poinsettia in my apartment looks healthy. I give the other plants some water. I look for the bottle that I use to water plants...

Fragment 7 [+0.5]

...At my grandparents’ house. TV entertainment is not what it used to be. I think about getting some snacks...

Back to bed around 6:35.

Awake at 9:37

Play and Water Danger [+1]

Helping with a play. I’m doing music/technical stuff. At one point I think I’m playing music, or doing something along with the music, that involves tossing carrots around. There is a scene in which people bring a dead baby to Moses (?) to be brought back to life. They slide the dead baby prop under a table to me, which I then take and hide, while they bring out a live baby...I seem to be at Lakeside, a family vacation spot. The play is not over yet, but my part is done I guess and I can leave. As I go, they want me to sign a book. It also comes up that I had something to do with security, because I was trying to get into the town during the season (you have to pay to get in during the season) and was stopped at the gate. They then tell me about someone that either had a big parade float or were in a brawl that stretched across town.

Down at the lake, there are some people swimming. A family with a couple of kids. There is a small whirlpool in the water nearby. They don’t think it is very dangerous, but it worries me a little. Kids keep drifting toward the whirlpool and into it, and have to be kept out of it. I realize that this is a dreamsign, and do a reality check. But I don’t get lucid, apparently. I, or someone else, wonders why there isn’t technology to rescue people when they go underwater. I then go up onto the pier. I see a woman rising to the surface of the water and clinging onto a part of the pier’s foundation below me. I signal to her that I see her, and then clamber down to her to try and rescue her. I seem to be too late, however. She lets go or loses her grip on the pier and slips into the water. But she gives me a thumbs-up as she sinks, as though she appreciated the attempt. I stand there, wondering if I should dive in and try to find her. The water is dark and murky, and I’m afraid to go in. But I do (and I seem to kind of half realize this is a dream or something like it). I let myself sink down to the bottom of the water and feel around, but I don’t feel the woman.

Interesting about the woman. In the dream, I thought she had gone underwater and was resurfacing and clinging to the pier trying to stay up. I kind of wonder if this was another appearance of a Subaquatic woman though. She didn't seem too upset when she went back under, and I didn't find her when I dove in myself.

Migraines and Money [+1]

Talking with my mother about my nephew. In the dream, he has some kind of disorder (that has to do with his knee or leg?) that can be taken care of if someone who used to have migraines but is now better donates something (like plasma). My mother has migraines, but she still gets them so she can’t donate. I mention that my grandmother used to. My mother says something about how she doesn’t think my grandmother will donate because she doesn’t like someone...I look for money, and dig up a decent amount either from my pockets or the back of a car, or something. My grandmother comes along and gives me some money as well...driving into a park(?). I look for a place to turn around, rolling down my window to say goodbye to whomever I was with (my dad and some other people?) as I leave...Looking around Nairobi, I think. I notice how there is a slum in a kind of low-lying area, but nice buildings around. If you look at the cityscape at a certain angle, you don’t see the slum. Someone seems to find a nearby house amusing in some way. I think it’s kind of a nice house.

Starting the competition off strong by having zero recall day 1! Guess I shouldn't have had that energy drink at 6PM! It was darn good though...oh well. Sorry Team Rabbit!

Edit: Just kidding. Competition doesn't start 'till 8PM tonight. I'm good!

Adding this to my journal for the weekend when I try my next WBTB. Last time I just barely missed a successful WILD because I didn't enter the dream when it formed. The dream I saw was pretty small (did not encompass my vision), but I imagine it would have grown or I could have willed myself to enter it. This seems to cover the gap in knowledge I had.

Found this in the WILD section from 2012. Thanks Gab! I hope I'm not breaking a rule by posting this here

Here is Gab's post:

TYPES OF ENTRY INTO LUCID DREAM
These are some of the different ways to enter a lucid dream. You normally don't have a choice in which one will happen.

1. Dream images
First type of entry involves looking at the back of your closed eyelids. At first, you will see black and grey fog swirling around. Maybe you see some colors. Then you start seeing simple objects and geometric shapes. These will evolve into more complex pictures and dreams. You may see movie like scenes. When these scenes change into one big movie screen covering your whole field of vision, the dream is ready for you. But so far you are just an outside observer.

You may either wait for it to envelop you and you suddenly find yourself inside of a dream, or you may look at the dream scene, pick a spot on the ground and say slowly and deliberately something like "I am there". This should transport you inside a dream.

2. Floating or seeing your room
This is entry with help of one of the sensations mentioned above. If you feel like you are floating above your bed, or you see your room with your eyes closed, your dream body has separated. All you need to do is stand up or roll out of the bed.

This may not work on your first try. But more you think about it, you will start noticing when this happens and believe it or not, you will remember this article and you will give it a try and stand up, although you will be 100% sure, you are awake.

So if you see your room, try a motionless RC - "If I was in a dream, I could levitate" and watch yourself lift up in the air. If this happens, you are in a dream. Stand up or roll out and go have fun.

Sometimes instead of your room you see darkness. Do the same RC to find out if you are in a dream.

3. Acceleration/falling/sinking
These are also some of the sensations described above.

Acceleration - feels as if you were flying at incredible speed, head first. Sometimes you even feel, as if you were touching some kind of a rough surface with stones and pebbles, so it can be really bumpy. Doesn't hurt at all, it's actually more fun than Disneyland. After you stop, get out of the bed and do RC, or try a motionless RC first.

Falling/sinking - feels as if you were sinking through your mattress for a long time. RC when movement stops.

4. Vibrations
You feel your body parts or whole body vibrating, something like when you put your hand on purring cat (mild), or chainsaw (strong). RC when it stops.

You can have more than one wave of vibrations. So after first ones are over, you may want to wait a few minutes to see if you get more of them.

After the last two transition types, you may not see anything. It's possible, that your dream eyes are still closed. Go ahead and pry them open with your dream hands. Or, perhaps you are wearing dark glasses, or your hood is covering your eyes. Simply remove them with your dream hands.

And my experience for comparison:

Laid in bed for a long time. GF's regular weekday alarm went off by mistake a couple times and messed up my rhythm. Eventually I relaxed enough to start feeling WILD vibrations. I got all the way through the process of "going through the wormhole", and I could see a dream in a tiny pinhole at the end. It was my childhood home. I could see my old PC monitor with Runescape on it, but the dream was black around the edges. I forgot that I needed to 'grab' the dream and I missed my opportunity.

I wrote this during the night, so I mostly just recorded the lucid part in detail. I might elaborate more on the non-lucid later. The child-man-ape things were rather creepy, and might be worth sharing.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Up kind of late. It’s about 1:00 now. I took about 2mg of melatonin a bit ago.

2:30-2:48

WBTB, read some scripture, went to the bathroom, tried a bit of meditation.

4:30am

Dream Guide (Lucid)

Apes, and those four child-man-ape things. They want to attack me, bite me with their teeth. A monument that I think is not well constructed. Trying to sleep in the monument, then worrying about the cops waking me up. Guitar dog. Machine, which is my friend. It takes off down the road, and wrecks. I worry about someone or something being hurt. I go to see, and find that a couple of little animals seem to have been wounded. I feel it’s my responsibility to shoot them.
...I decide to hold off on shooting the animals until I look up whether or not they feel pain. Heading back out of the barn, I decide that I should do a RC for some reason. I do a nose pinch, and can still breathe. I’m dreaming! I think about how this is worth 10 points (possibly forgetting that the competition hasn’t started yet), and then think I should work on a task. What task? At first I think I try to find a place – I don’t remember what exactly. Having a bit of trouble finding it, and then I decide to try to find my dream guide. I start asking for the guide, or possibly saying something like “the guide is around the next corner”. Now I’m no longer in the barn, but in a larger building. I see someone up ahead. There is a short, but wide, flight of stairs leading to a corridor that runs perpendicular, and this is where the man is. I start chasing after him (there is something for a moment or two where there is someone else with him but I don’t know what becomes of the other guy) and catch up to him. He is a somewhat heavyset man, with a somewhat thin, sandy-colored beard. He is wearing some kind of shirt or jacket, I think, with words on the back. He has a kind of archaeologist feel to him, a bit of a cross between a couple of archaeologists I know in waking life and “Nigel” from the Jumanji movie.

“Are you my dream guide?” I ask.

“Yes, I guess so,” he replies.

My memory is a bit fuzzy here, and I might lose lucidity for a bit. I have a couple of business cards that I try to fish out of my pocket and give to him. He is looking for a site to do some archaeological work, and seems interested in a place where I worked once. I seem to regain some lucidity, I think I want the guide to teach me something. He responds by pushing me down a set of stairs. I get the feeling that there is something he wants me to learn on my own, and at this point he isn’t going to help me (at least in a micro-managing sort of way). I remember thinking that he got me out of somewhere (a backrooms type situation, or something).

Now I’m in a basement area. I seem to lose lucidity again. Someone is messing with an explosive – there is some chemical that makes people do weird things. I try to hide (with someone else?) while he sets off the explosive. Then there is something about going back in time, or trying again, to stop him. The solution is not to do something with the match as the man tries to light it. This makes him try to light it with a match that isn’t working as well (otherwise he would just start rubbing the now wood with his hand until it caught fire). Then I am able to stop him, although I think his hand and arm now look like a glowing, charred piece of wood. There is a large freezer nearby, and we go in. There is some conversation about whether or not I remember smells and such (maybe – the memory is kind of fuzzy). He seems to be hallucinating. He is also a reflection in a large mirror now, and is naked. I take the mirror out of the freezer, and out to where the burning stuff was. I think maybe the transition from the cold to the heat might cause the glass to crack, which it does. I think I drop the mirror. It falls backwards to the ground, and shatters. I worry that this might have been the only way to access my dream guide, but someone nearby says something about that not being the case.

Elaboration on the Child-Man-Apes

There were some people, possibly scientists. Actually, Charles Darwin might have been there. I get the idea that they may have been discussing evolution. They were going to do some test with an ape, involving it putting boards/shingles up against the wall of a cabin. I seem to be involved in some way. I think the ape attacks me. It is as though I've done something wrong, and as a consequence I'm now under attack not only by the ape, but by four creatures. These creatures look like a cross between large children, or sickly adults, and chimpanzees. They come after me, trying to bite at me. I seem to recall the thought of their teeth biting me was specifically repulsive. I think I go hide somewhere, also trying to sleep, possibly. But there is still that creepy thought that the creatures will find me. This might be where I come across the guitar dog - which is a sort of cross between a guitar and a dog. I really like this dog, and lay there petting it. It has some weird gelatinous thing lining the outside of its stomach. This eventually becomes a machine, I think, about the size of an automobile and with a couple doll-like pieces. I treat this like it is living. When I turn around and go back to where I had been laying, it moves away on its own and starts off down the street. I chase after, worrying that it might hurt someone. It does, in fact, wreck. When I show up to the scene, it appears that it has injured some small deer or rabbit-like things. I feel responsible for putting them out of their misery, and have a shotgun with me. I don't want to, but I feel like I should put them down. I try to catch, them, and go into a barn looking for them. This leads into the dream above...

Edit 2: I just went ahead and put updated goals on main Spring 2023 thread.

Edit: Just realized the goals might be different for Spring 2023 compared to Winter 2022. Will update when new instructions are out.

Wanted to decide on some goals for next week:

Dream Control Tasks
Eat/Drink Something - 5 points
Super Speed - 5 points
Basic Summoning - 5 points
Teleport - 10 points

Challenge Tasks
Walk on a wall (success if you manage to keep both of your feet attached to the wall simultaneously)

Wanted to stick with SSILD for a while (at least 4 weeks) to try to LD regularly again. Want to keep this journal in the meanwhile on DV.

First night with SSILD, went to bed at 00:15, first time woke up at around 3, watch about 10 min of tv show with phone in bed then tried to ssild. Can remember the first and a half iterations clearly but easily distracted since then. But occasionally became aware of being able to "see" some fragments of imagination visually.

Woke up again later but quickly fell asleep, even though tried to ssild and had similar fragments of realizing I was seeing some imagination faintly.

Perhaps had false awakening? Can't be sure...

Did not woke up to do DJ at around 9. Now it's 11:30 and i can't recall anything about the dreams.

Overall: good start but keep up the work! Tomorrow should aim for starting your day with DJ.

I had just typed this entry, but lost what I wrote. I don't have a lot of time, but I feel like this dream is worth recording so here I go again. This is just a part of the dream, I think, and I have approximated the dialogue as best as I can remember:

The subaquatic people take their seats in their vessel. They are seated around the outside perimeter of a circle, facing inward toward each other. Someone, a main character of the dream, is offered the chance to join them. In the end, he refuses, because it would mean becoming one of them and living underwater for the rest of his life. One of the people, a lady I think, looks at me and says:

"This one might join us."

I think about this. The scene has the bittersweet feeling to it that happens sometimes at the end of a story where people have come to love one another but now for some reason have to part. But I think to myself that maybe I actually could go with them.

"What about my family?" I ask. "Would I ever be able to see them again?"

It is explained that although I will become subaquatic like them, I could still visit the surface world wearing a type of 'diving' apparatus. So, I decide to join them.

The vessel starts to descend into the water. There is a somewhat maniacal seeming captain, who, I think, expects me to drown. The rest of the people are cheering me on, seemingly happy at my 'rebellion'. I have been promised an oxygen tank, but in the meantime I have to hold my breath. It might be a long time of not breathing, and I count the seconds as I hold my nose closed. I get up to somewhere around 30 seconds, I think. Then I either wake up, or dream that I wake up, wondering if I have been holding my breath all this time.

Side note: I had a dream in October of last year with a similar theme. A subaquatic woman wanted me to join her, possibly making me subaquatic as well. In that dream it seemed like it was supposed to be frightening, but I wasn't frightened. I felt an attraction to the woman, and thought that it might be worth the transformation.

I have been dabbling with trying to build or find a persistent realm for a while now. I have visited worlds that either I or others have "invented" (or not, depending on your theory about that kind of thing). I suspect that these might be persistent realms, and returning to one of these might be an obvious route to find a PR. I'm also thinking of focusing on finding locations that I would like to revisit.

Last night I decided that I would observe my dreams and see if there were any locations that might make a nice PR. I proceeded to dream about a series of rather nasty places. A world where people have virtually unlimited access to their favorite food - but no willpower so that they pretty much can't help but eat until they explode. A world where prisoners are kept naked and abused by the authorities. A "doctor's office" that looked more like a medieval torture chamber (nicknamed "the Spider Lab" - didn't stick around to find out why)...I think I'll keep looking.

delete

I just started my LD training again after a long break and literally got a Lucid on Night 1. Not only that, but I made decent progress.

"Day in the Park"

I was having some internal dialogue with myself and then I was thing about my homie the other day had something in his smoothie that did not make sense like a rock or something. I became lucid in the most chill way, like, "Heh, yeah, sure dream, sure."

I stayed calm and put my training to use. I walked through a park that children were playing through. I touched this blue plastic surface that had spider webs on it. In order to help with stability, I was narrating my every action and it was working! Unfortunately, I got distracted.

I was thinking about how I was in a dream and how dream spiders could be super scary which kinda stopped me from touching the object. The dream ended shortly after because my monologuing stop too.

I also started with touch. Ideally I'd like to start with sight, then sound, then touch, lol.

Overall, I'm really happy with that dream. That was such good progress, and if I can continue the grind, it will only get easier from here. I stayed calm and began stabilizing the dream. Perhaps it would have ended soon regardless of if I got distracted, but I like to think that if i maintained my focus through the whole cycle, I could have successfully stabilized. I remember when I couldn't stabilize a dream.

Gotta remember to take a deep breath, start with sight, and definitely do more focus meditation.


Additionally, I've been thinking about just how many of the 928 days since starting my most recent DJ I've been really giving LD practice my all, and at most, about 33% of it.
about 8% of THAT was actually lucid; 31 Lucids / 347 dreams recorded. 31/928 total days. Lucid dreaming, like any skill, requires consistency. My adhd makes this difficult. I will really try this time, however. I've been diagnosed and prescribed, though my Adderall is still on delay so no medication yet. Hopefully I can hold out until it arrives though. I can't use it before sleep since it makes you too awake, so unfortunately i'll be on my own in a dream either way. That's why the meditation will still be useful.

Lucid dreaming was one of my hyper fixations, and that allowed me to focus a little bit more on it than other skills. However, as my ADHD gets more severe and depression takes a bigger toll on my life, I've found it hard to continue, much less be consistent. However, even the uneventful Lucid dreams I have bring me great joy, so that also helps fuel me to seeing this to mastery.

So, this is why, despite "5 years of trying", despite knowing so much about how to induce lucid dreams and what lucid dreaming practice entails, I have little to no actual experience in the dream world; A lack of consistent, high effort LD training and day time practice.

Dream Ten (10.11.2022)

I was at Busch Gardens again in front of SheiKra. Then I went into a vast bathroom that was completely empty. All the stalls were blue and only went up to my shoulders. I went into a stall. What's weird is even though it was completely empty, I said "everyone raise your hands" and felt the presence of hundreds of hands being raised despite no one actually being there. Then there was some "story" of a boy and a girl. I was watching the dream in third person. The girl wanted to go back in time to the 18th century. At the end of this "story", she finally made it there. There was epic music playing (a mixture of rock and choir). The boy was smiling. The girl in the 18th century was also smiling as she walked through a fancy church and disappeared into a crowd outside. Then I woke up.

Also, do you guys ever ever have indescribable or near indescribable dreams? Because there's this dream I had years ago that still spooks my mind because its hard to describe. I just remember being in a computer lab and suddenly there was this strange shot of a unnamed girl on a boat. She was in some sort of... sea that could be compared to a chunky, synthwave grid but the colors were white and the grid lines were bright yellow. A texture, almost (that undulated and shook). I got the feeling this girl was sad and literally drifting through different realities on a spacetime grid. It's so weird. And it was weird because it had nothing to do with me, I was just seeing this girl briefly for some reason. My fiancé has had these sort of dreams before too. The most notable being one where he was a speck of dust floating near the moons of Jupiter. He said it's stuck with him since. The feelings the memory of these sort of dreams give off is also indescribable. A warm, melting feeling in my chest. Not happiness nor contentment. But not a negative feeling either. Almost a "how is our minds coming up with these images and stories?"

Another dream I had like this was many years ago when I was in middle school. There were beehives made of light nestled in a storm above my house. I would love to hear everyone's thoughts!