side notes

00:00 Thursday 2013-11-28 (LD #10)

00:00 ? bedtime

03:06

1) riding on a skateboard down a wide, flat, smooth street. I'm going pretty fast and I really enjoy this sensation. Up ahead I see PJ in the distance. I'm on the very front tip of the skateboard. Visuals are very bright, vivid. I see my father walking under some trees up ahead, he seems young and happy. See also my mother off to the right.
04:25 no recall (recorded 03:00 waking dreams at this time, fell asleep at 03:06)
can't return to sleep. after 30 minutes get up to rocking chair, for about 20 minutes. Visualize parent's house and neighborhood, reinforce "I'm dreaming." Move to kitchen, make and drink warm milk. Sit there massaging jaw. Do some relaxing breaths. Decide I feel sleepy, return to bed and fall asleep in not too much time.

06:00 BTB

07:36 (alarm)

2) movie theater taxi driver money tatoo kicking buying snacks at table don't have enough cash in the store there's a security guard can't get by, think about eating it and putting it back on thes shelve, at a table with young people they're laughing I don't have enough change to buy the snacks, I empty my pockets including a chestnut, I say this chestnut is awesome it's worth lots of stuff, I'm missing just a few cents to buy the snacks, I have to back.
I'm at the top of a sandy hill, I turn around and see my wife is coming up behind me, I jump down the face of the sandy hill and slide/ski all the way down to the bottom near the water it's lots of fun, my wife laughs behind me watching, it feels awesome. Arrive on the beach near the water, my wife is behind me, I think it will be awesome to live near the beach and come here every day. There are strange plants around. Two inspectors arrive and are asking for paperwork I think they're after me because I haven't paid yet for the snacks They're harassing my wife I leave quickly to go pay and get receipts, I'm on the way back, I'm in a starnge tilted room, I see a very dirty priest walking from left to right behind me.
I go fowards now in a car open to the sky (like a top-down convertible), there's a bus, at an intersection, I'm in a hurry to get to pay for things, there's lots of traffic, the busses I see are very ornate, old 1950's style A/C transit buses, I'm confused/surprised by this.
I'm in a taxi with a bunch of other people, they're laughing, I'm in the back seat, some guy is pushing through to the right I'm trying to protect my place but he gets there. There are a bunch of movie theaters all around. I think what am I going to do at this movie theaters I should have stopped at an ATM. The driver starts driving and passing the theaters, I call out "stop stop let me off here." Driver makes some comment. I think I have no money for food how can I pay for the taxi? It turns out the fare is only a dime because it's the olden days. I think what sort of tip to give: nickel or penny?
I imagine the taxi driver takes these pennies and puts them in his pocket, and there's a hole at the bottom of in his pocket and the coin rolls down his leg into his shoe. The pennies are safe there but If he's really rolling in the dough the coins will make a lot of noise when he walks.
You don't mess with taxi drivers because they'll kick you so hard it will stop your development. I'm thinking about kids who have strange facial features because they're development is impaired and their different parts age at different rates. Taxi driver has tatoos all over his leg in green/blue, words.

Concentrated on relaxing: relaxing breaths, doing deeper and deeper into relaxation on every exhale, releasing tension, keep doing it, keep eyes relaxed and unfocused, and got back to sleep.

09:00 BTB for nap

10:12

3) in a dorm building looking for my room. I'm on the wrong floor because I've been in a different room. I'm studying with some loud (classical? opera?) music playing on a stereo. There was another guy in the room complaining that guys in the hallway were too noisy (playing violin?) he says he'll never be able to sleep he has to get up early. I'm in this room becaues I need to get up early, too. He asks me to go outside to talk to them and quiet them down. I say sure I put on my shirt and my shorts, he starts to go out, I say hey I'll do it but I have to put on my shorts first, he talks to them they say something about OK, I realize I'm playing loud music myself, I approach and old looking CD player and look for, find, and press the stop button. I'm flexing my muscles, in my underwear, windows open wide to the outside, I imagine girls in other dorms could be looking in.
Go into hallway looking for my room I want to tell my roommate where I am. I was in this other room for a night maybe two. I look into a room, there's an older guy and girl, they're RAs probably, older, he says, "Oh, Hi (my name)", and I'm amazed he knows my name, I'm not on his floor, he must know the name of everyone in the building. I say "sorry, forgot I was on the wrong floor," I go down some stairs still looking for my room, I pass an attractive girl going up the stairs, (I helped her with something?) she says something, make a brief connection, but continue on. Farther I see a french-looking female student with goggly eyes and I think "nah, not my type don't want to pay her any attention."
End up in a place with a weird old woman I think is my mother (no resemblance to real mother) and some other guy, "I don't like how things are around here, I like things the way I like them." Then she gets upset and starts saying "Oh, this is not the time to have this conversation not with this guy (our friend's name the man) over." I get a close up of her lower face and mouth. She has a weird thick beard on the neck under her chin, a thick bristly dark hitler-ish mustache under her nose, and is chewing a massive pile of gum in the left side of her mouth which is open. The gum looks like a piece of a cotton mop with individual strands. It's quite a disgusting sight. It's yucky.

12:14 Lucid Dream LD DILD #10

4) ... fair amount of prior ND detail I felt, but couldn't recall
Approaching a building, want to enter to get something, it has security. The security guy had blown someone else's head off with a shotgun that looks like a water cannon the kind that you extend out, fill up, then push the parts together, but this was a shotgun. Security guard is shooting at me, I'm leading him around corners , I try to time it so I go around the corner and wait for him to turn the corner so I can surprise him to shoot him.
I'm in a room, it's dark/night-time lying on a bed, there's a spider wafting towards me on a strand of web, I try to blow it away, blow blow blow it doesn't go far away, it climbs rapidly up its web towards the ceiling above me. Then there's another spider, and soon there are many rapidly multiplying juicy puffy-body squishy nasty spiders. They were freaking me out, I didn't want to squish them with my hands I was looking for something to over my hand like a glove so I could squish them they were everywhere and multiplying, more and more and more were appearing. They're growing to the size of large snails, sitting on the wall in lines. I get up to leave the room, and as I leave the room I stop in my tracks and do a double-take, and say "Wait a minute, this is like a dream, I must be dreaming" and I am lucid. It felt very realistic. I looked back into the room, it's day-time/light, there's a window looking outside. the spiders may be all gone, but I thrust my left hand forward and willed a bolt of fire from my left hand on to the floor in the room. It appeared and was 1/2 translucent and made nothing burn but I saw the bolt. I tried to shoot lightning bolt but nothing happened. Did another fire blast. Went back in to the room and thought "stabilize." Rubbed my hands together, counted to 5, then patted up and down my body with my hands: chest, stomach, legs. I looked down at my body and I saw my naked chest and stomach. I saw my underwear and reach down to have a look inside, "It's going to be big" I think, it turns out to be normal sized. It seems a bit greasy like there was lotion on it. Everything is *really* realistic.
I'm in this bedroom, then I go outside. It's like a garden path in an apartment complex, lots of tall plants off the path. Lush vegetation. A swimming pool complex comes up on the left. Some people (3 girls?) are leaving it. I think "oh don't leave the pool!" (I'm looking for a hottie). There's a gate, I enter the pool area. I'm looking for a cute female, everyone I come across is not attractive / old. I tell myself "I'm dreaming, remember, you're dreaming, I'm dreaming." I walk more into the pool area. I do a RC at this point because I start to wonder if I'm dreaming because everything is so life-like, the people and the grounds. Check hands, they are not bizarre like last time, fingers were stable but longer than in life, and a little bit translucent. I'm pretty sure I'm dreaming and nose pinch confirms it solidly. "OK, I'm dreaming" I say. Looking at a woman off to the right, look at some people in the pool off to the left, I go and look at them, I'm not finding anyone to my taste, then I think "Hey what am I doing? Just summon!" So I did a hand-behind-the-back summon of PT. I put my right hand behind my back, say "PT, take my hand!" wait a few seconds, and slowly pull my hand around to the front (didn't feel a solid hand connection), and there is PT! I looked at her and said, "Yeeeeaaah, you're PT!" Face may not have been precise but height/age/general look was right. I tried to kiss her, she didn't want to. I look into her face and say, "You want it!" Then move to kiss her. Her face became flat and her lips were thin/unsatisfying/unresponsive, I must have closed my eyes, and I fade to awake.

Half-hearted attempt to DEILD back in but don't make it, didn't really try very hard. I may have moved. Wanted to record because I felt like I started to forget, in fact I at first didn't recall the body-pat stabilisation and dream body inspection.
Elapsed time: ~4-5 minutes. Longest or tied for longest LD so far. Definitely most visually vivid/realistic. No dream fuziness at all, this is first time I had a touch of doubt in the middle of the dream because of realistic visuals. Maybe also because it was a bit longer than the others. Patting the whole body, bringing my dream body into my vision, produced very stable and vivid visuals. Didn't look around as much as I had planned to. First time see dream body. Dream body is a bit leaner / in better shape than now . My younger self.
Dream in S2's bed, LD on right side.
My relaxation technique works! Relax, don't try to WILD or force sleep, relax, unfocus eyes, release tension from body on every exhale, go deeper and deeper into relaxation on every exhale, don't "come back up higher" on inhales. The drowsiness/sleepiness feeling came on immediately upon the exhale of the relaxing breath at both the 09:00 BTB and 10:12 waking. Probably could have kept on dreaming but it's Thanksgiving and I had to shop for dinner.
Happy that I performed most of practiced new stabilization: body pat, look at body, count to 5.

I had some success returning to sleep last night that I'd like to share and comment on.

I had bedtime at around 00:00, and wakings at: 03:00 (recall), 04:25 (no recall),
At around 04:45 I realize I'm not making progress back to sleep. I don't feel drowsy at all. There's no "sleepiness" waiting for me at the exhale of relaxing breaths. I think that's an important signal that sleep is not near, or I'm mentally "holding on too tight" and need to do something to change up the situation and shake this hidden tension loose. Just lying in bed and continuing to relax is not going anywhere.

At about 30 minutes of not sleeping I decide to follow the advice given in several places: get out of bed. You do not want your mind/body to associate being in bed with being awake. I decide to do a "proper" WBTB. Sit in a rocking chair about 20 minutes with eyes closed, working on incubation and visualisation. Move to kitchen, warm some milk & drink it, sit there (all the time in the darkness as much as possible). Massage my jaw muscles (typically the major tension holder in the body). Do some relaxing breaths and find some drowsiness there on the exhale. Decide I'm feeling a bit more drowsy, if not super sleepy, so I go back to bed at 06:00. My alarm is set for 07:30, in the past this knowledge would keep me awake but I ignore it and do not sweat it. I don't "try to sleep", I just try to totally relax more and more deeply on each exhale. Try to maintain the relaxation on the inhale (it seems to receded a bit on the inhale for some reason). I'm sure I can make one more sleep cycle with dreams before the alarm sounds.

back to bed at 06:00 slept fairly quickly, waking at: 07:36 (alarm) (recall)

Back to bed (not main bed, alone, cooler room) at for nap at 09:00 (not too long falling sleep, surprisingly lots of drowsiness on exhale), wakings at: 10:12 (recall) (also not long getting back to sleep after 5 minutes of voice journaling in bed), 12:14 (recall + lucid dream!)

What do I mean by "relaxing breath?" Well, an inhale/exhale that is just a little bit longer than sleep breathing. Not really a big deep breath, just a little bit longer than a normal breath. Inhale as normal, but when exhaling try to imagine all tension melting out of everywhere in your body and mind. Try on each breath to go deeper and deeper, becoming more and more relaxed. I even tell myself these words sometimes (a form of sleep hypnosis induction). Sometimes I constrict my throat a bit to provide a little bit of resistance and sound to the exhale.

This is very encouraging: I'm having more and more success with this technique. With each success come more confidence in my ability to go back to sleep, reducing back-to-sleep stress. For those times where nothing works, get out of bed for a while to shake things up. Sometimes, your body / mind just may not be able to sleep, just know that this won't last forever. As a last resort try something like melatonin. Traditional techniques like warm milk can really help, too.

Eat a small snack if you've been up for a while, it's hard to sleep when hungry.

Make sure the temperature is comfortable for you, this is very important for me I've found. Keep a thermometer by the bed and record temperature at bedtime and waking time and record in your dream journal how well you sleep for that temperature.

00:00 Saturday 2013-11-23
00:35 bedtime.
05:31
1) In a car on a city street driving towards downtown O. Not sure how I got here, a bit surprised, did I take a wrong exit from the freeway? I see the tall buildings a mile or two directly ahead of me. I want to get to B, so I turn right on S. avenue, because S avenue after all is a cool street.
I'm eating some stuff and getting full. I see a Jack in the Box up ahead on the left, and think "Oh man I have to get myself a monster taco, and maybe a strawberry milkshake" but I know it will be too much food. There's another fast food place right next door to the right of the JIB but I don't recognize it's name/sign.
I pull up to the drive-through and there are a lot of people standing around, employees taking orders. There's young boy writhing on the ground in pain by the drive-through menu on the grass. Liquid is spurting high in the air out of his back. There's an EMT tech is rolling the boy on the ground, (like a rolling pin), not trying to treat him, until he dies. They put him in a body bag and take him away.
There's a show with Sen. John McCain he's talking about this boy and how outraged he is, he says "you think your children are safe and they'll try to save them but they don't actually try to save you they'll do a million different things that could be wrong." He says "I saw that liquid spurting out of the boy and I didn't know what that stuff is, maybe it's some sauce I put on this piece of bread here (and eat it), or what?" The audience explodes in uproarious laughter to this. I'm outraged because it's a horrible thing to joke about.
I'm walking with my wife, she asks what the laughter is all about, I say it's just John McCain making a terrible statement.
Long time getting back to sleep. Eventually focus exclusively on relaxing, not "getting back to sleep." I let go of my frustration about distractions from sharing a bed with my wife, start spooning with her, and cultivate feelings of love, warmth, and comfort. I then fairly quickly fall to sleep and have the next LD while still holding her in my arms .
07:39 LUCID #9 DILD
2) TV park, old neighborhood. I'm standing on the middle level, with my back to the swings, near the foot of the hill. There's a low coffee table in front of me on the ground. I notice a cloaked figure at the top of the slide by the street, back facing to the park. "I'm dreaming," I realize immediately. I hop over the coffee table, facing towards the merry-go-round. It is half dark, twilight. I say "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" with my arms raised upwards. Visuals instantly vanish, and I'm left in a half-lit void, kind of like insides of the eyelids in a light area. I call to "NN" to pull me out of back into the dream but it doesn't work. I slowly wake up.
12:30 BTB nap
14:23
3) Golf
Watching some guys play golf. We're on a hill, the players have to hike down a bit to the tee below us on the hill. He hits a ball and it flies towards the green in the distance. There are helpers on the green, they mark the landing place of the balls. This guy's ball lands just inside a small sand trap off of the green. A later shot goes to my mother who's in some water like a tub or pool in a different place, she's sitting in an innertube that also holds the hole for the golf ball, as the ball rolls towards the hole, some guys shake the inner tube and the ball misses the hole and my mother is upset about this, she says "if you're going to do that, (other stuff)".
4) graffiti
In the mountains, around my favorite lake (U), I notice graffiti on some rocks. I look at it closely, it is made up of unrecognizable glyphs in multiple colors and they morph shape as I look at them. There is a tag right in front of me, and another one way up a steep slope that is very dangerous to climb, a large promontory with a far drop all around the edges. I imagine we'll have to rig a rope somehow so that someone can climb up there and clean off the tag.
F1) Video gaming console, it lets you play basketball, there's a special external attachment of a hoop and sensor, it measures the baskets you make. I imagine setting it up in a backyard, it would have to be set up securely with a wooden platform so you could shoot basketballs at it and it wouldn't fall over.

00:00 Monday 2013-11-25
00:00 ?? bedtime
04:49
1) helping a little girl to play the piano. fingers 1-2-4 of the right hand. She's playing with a single flat finger, I'm trying to get her to use proper hand position and to keep her entire hand in position and to hit the notes using fingers 1, 2, 4. Her mother is hovering over her to the left. I'm trying to get the girl to answer a question: "So, pieces usually go by....?" (I'm trying to get her to say "fast"), "so if you want to play well, you can't play with a single flat finger, you have to put your hands in the proper place, so that you know where your fingers are" Her mother is bending over more, I say "Look Out!", the mother knocks over a glass of orange juice with her hair/head and it spills all over everything.
2) Outside dark night scene, going in to a bar from a street corner/intersection, some black guys are trying to pick a fight with us, we manage to dodge them and get inside, once inside we think what are we going to do in here, more anad more gang members are meeting up outside, I think we could make a run for it, but there's a guy standing guard so we're not going to be able to get out.
F1) cleaning up a mess after some kind of event, tall tables, a group of young people.
F2) going through a bunch of letters, showing them to MR's sister, he doesn't want her to see them, I'm holding through this pile of letters and shuffling through them. His sister is very interested in them she's looking for an important letter, like a response to her loan application.
F3) Baseball game
Got back to sleep! Hurray! Wasn't fast, but wasn't hours long, 20-40 minutes perhaps? Focused just on relaxing, holding wife, imagining I was breathing "lucid dream gas" that will put me to sleep and lucid dream in just a few seconds.
07:19
3) indoor shooting range, very small like a convenience store, 4 young boys are grouped at a single non-divided counter shooting guns at targets, one boy is standing back from the counter and I'm concerned he's going to hit the boy to his right who is standing up at the counter. I shoot a small revolver outside, at nothing in particular, about 6 shots, then I open the cylinder so the spent cartridges can fall out to the ground and I notice that they are made with a strange spring-loaded re-usable mechanism, a base and a "hat" attached to the base with a spring. I imagine you can use a recording of a gun firing to trick a criminal in to thinking you're out of bullets, then you can save the girl.
08:58
4) on a road trip, there are guys in the car, I say through the window I'm going to go get some ice cream. In the gelato shop, different extremely colorful very strange flavors, about 8. One has very bright purple in it and is a mixture of grape with something else. One is "liquid filled peanut butter cups." The serving guy gives me a "taste" that is a huge portion, more than a regular portion, and it quickly falls out of the cup all over my (right) hand.
5) in a small home drama show, in someone's living room, the room is filled with people following the actors around, there are a lot of lesbians there. I'm sitting on a couch watching. I recognize one of them sitting next to me, a colleague of my sister's, I slap her leg with my hand and say "What have you seen?" I know that her partner has been in town for a while, but she was new to town. One of the female performers starts laughing while reciting her lines while walking/running through the room to the right, I think that's unprofessional.
6) outdoors in a park at an asian/chinese food snack stand, I ask about the ones with the water chestnuts. The cook is going on and on about the different thickness of the skewers: Very thick and tapering like a carrot, or very narrow like a toothpick, the thickness of the skewer determines how much meat to put on. He asks "Have you ever been to Peking?" They have great snacks there.
7) watching a drama theater presentation in R, but the language they're speaking is English. My wife is translating for me which is ridiculous because the show is in English. We had earlier met some annoying gay guys outside on the steps and now we're sitting right next to them, one is immediately to my left and one other is behind us. My wife is continually whispering "translations" for me I say "what are you doing? Be quiet! I already understand" The guys are saying "shush!" I tell them I'm sorry about the noise. I'm surprised that the program was presented in English.
8) In an office-space, cubicles. We're trying to arrange my work place with office helpers, trying to get my monitors arranged for my computer. There's a young woman whom I share a cubicle with, she has a (in my mind) really stupid idea of combining the monitors and computers so that they're all squished tightly together, I think it wil be very uncomfortable sitting side-by-side with her in that small space. The bookshelves are very high to the side mounted way up on the cube walls. The arrangement is my two monitors turned long side up vertically arranged next to each other, then a stack of cubbies holding cables on the side, and I decide "ok I guess that will work." But then I don't like the cube is wide open to the hallway behind us, I don't want to move to this new position, where people can walk by and see what's on my screen.
10:43
9) Watching a TV news program, I'm sitting down in an armchair to my left, the TV is to my right, the ancorman introduces himself, then the camera switches to the anchorwoman who says "Thank You." and starts in on the story. MEO. A guy is being interviewed. The guy is wearing a multicolored (blue and red)? thick striped sweater. They're talking about a problem in houses, something about ice in the water lines, they're making fun of the story, they don't believe it, they say sarcastically "Yeah, because we know how long ice can last in hot water pipes!" The camera view drops down to the man's chest, can't see his face any more, and the guy has man-boobs visible through his sweater, I think this is very bizarre.
F4) teaching children how to do backbends on a gymnastics balance beam. A little girl is bending all the way over backwards, she's supposed to get her hands behind her, the teachers are on each side of her helping.
F5) sitting in a chair, there's a very attractive young lady sitting next to me, a little in front, in a slinky black dress, we make eye contact but I don't pursue it. Short blonde hair. I think I'd really like to get with her!

00:00 Wednesday 2013-11-27
00:20 bedtime
00:35 still up, getting relaxed.
04:45 (garbled, only tiny fragment recalled in any case)
Long time getting to sleep, argment over snoring, probably didn't get to sleep until 07:00
07:45
1) Playing an old 1980's Control Data Corporation mainframe newtorked interactive multi-user space game called "Empire" (a real thing BTW). My view is filled with the screen showing my and the other ships flying around. I am very quickly pressing the key sequence that launches torpedoes and detonates enemy torpedos. I have a few dogfights with enemy ships. I think my O ship (smallest/weakest one in the game but fastest) has faster torpedoes than the other teams'. I make a kill against another ship. I am dodging enemy ships and fire frantically, constantly changing course. I then set course for a planet where I can fuel. I imagine approaching a huge space station (not in the game view any more).
Inside the space station, the aftermath of a Jedi battle, I'm a jedi and we've taken over the world. A female jedi partner and I are meeting with the former rulers of a world we hve conquered. We're then in a hallway approaching a door where we will make a broadcast presentation to the world telling about our new rulership of this world. "Great time to not have any pants on" I think, noticing I have no pants. I try pulling down a short robe which I'm wearing, it seems to stretch down to the floor. I imagine walking down the corridor with the bottom of the robe wiping along the floor. There are some colorful patterns on the bottom of the robe. My female partner says I should just tuck in the robe to my (underwear?). She says "everyone in the world is watching this (presentation) except The Force." One of the former, vanquished rulers is approaching, I'm sitting down, I think he may try treachery and try to kill me in my bad position with a lightsaber as he walks past me, I imagine him trying a fast attack and I respond by blocking with my lightsaber. I don't like that guy.
There is a presentation of an orchestrated fight sequence given by young children, about 3-4 of them diving and dodging and rolling around on mats.
09:37
2) watching a merry-go-round, there are some women there I'm watching.
stuck between a wooden fence and a building. The fence is like a ranch fence with side wooden boards and lots of space in between the boards. I can't get out, I don't fit somehow. Some woman says "don't worry just don't drink or eat and you'll get through." 3 women from the merry-go-round walk by.
10:56
3) on the beach of a beautiful very bright turquoise blue ocean. Someone says "oh there's whales!" I hear whale-sound in the air, I want to hear it in the water so I lean down over a sandy bank and put my head into the water to listen. I see the flat side of the sandy land above my head. Someone (my cousin G) says "what are you doing, you can't swim there!" But I love it and I would love to swim there, I don't care. They become killer whales, a parent and child. In some large ship with many levels. The small killer whale is a monster with a face full of teeth, dark (purple?) colored. It's following and trying to get me. I'm trying to take a picture of the whales, I have an old-style flat, wide, and long instamatic camera.
4) laying a table outside in some sort of garden for dinner. Inside there's a gathering. One narrator is a mostly naked, large white blonde-haired woman with extremely pale skin and super bright blue veins, turquoise, dark-blue-purple, all over her skin. I find it really nasty.
There is a pit set into the floor of the room under a grating, with buckets at the bottom. They need to be emptied and cleaned. I need to pull them up, it's hard because it's about 10 feet deep I don't know how I'm going to get them up. Emptying and cleaning the buckets.
F1) Caressing the arms and legs of some woman.
5) There's a woman lying in bed with textured stockings on. I start peeling the stockings off (ripping them off in strips). She's in bed with her husband/boyfriend, she likes what I'm doing, but he wakes up and starts smacking me around, I protest and say that I'm just trying to fix a tear in the stockings.

2 nights ago i dreamed something like i was in my neighborhood alone and scared of something..Keep running (small distance) untill getting home. I remember that i knew why I was running. Something chased me, it was like a demon.I runned 'till my home and then just runned all home from him because i didn't knew how to contra-atack him. After this it all was cleared, i was like in a white room,all white when like ...my inner-side appeared and told me how to defeat the demon but it was not like a fizical atack, it was more like mentaly. Anyway i was not scared anymore and after i woke up. Sorry for so less details , i couldn't quite remember all things. What does this means?

22:29 1/2 cup cold sleep tea (Mother's Wort + rose hips)

00:00 Friday 2013-11-22

00:30 ?? bedtime.

02:24

1) With DD, we had been fighting, we made up at the concert/graduation, it was a big thing that we were friendly & together again, we were being filmed. I saw my face DO and DD's face, my face wasn't my own, it was a generic young blonde face, with a dark spot under the right eye.

2) Filling out paperwork trying to get the deposit returned on a set of skis, the guys asks about (some kind of) skiing, I answer "that's the kind of skiing where you go off the trails." He says "ah, nah, forget that, I just want to go on the main streets." I say "Yeah, I know, you can go one street to another street, and you can just say, 'Ah, F*ck this, gimme a beer.'" I'm filling out the form, I draw a strange W-like character (sort of like a greek omega) but with 3-4 loops instead of 2.

06:20

F1) Young S1 and S2 are wearing University color shirts and waving flags as the train arrives.

F2) A man hosting a show about lucid dreaming, "Be Who You Want To Be!"

Crappy recall, I think that tea kills REM or something. Or maybe I'm just tired? Can't get back to sleep. AGAIN. SH!T. The night started out good with two dreams at about 2 hours, but then couldn't recall.

09:30 BTB nap

10:48 LD #8 DILD !!!!!!!!!!!!

Long time getting to sleep, did incubation scene injection (not holding hard on to visualization) of TG and JQ, and sometimes the scene started changing, like a new DC entered from off-stage, or I noticed something else in the scene suddenly that I didn't put there myself. Happened several times. Turned from back to left side. LD happened on left side. Told myself "The next thing I see is a dream" several times. Told SC "OK time to get that next LD to move along the November goals!"

3) I'm on my parent's deck it's twilight there's a beautiful view out over the city and the water, I immediately realize I'm dreaming! I get the lucid rush/feeling. I think "All RIGHT! Lucid right at the start!" I feel very aware, and I anticipate a long and awesome LD. But then vision goes black! I still feel lucid. I try prying open my dream eyes with my dream fingers, and I "feel" the dream eyes open but everything is still black. I try to imagine taking off and flying towards the water. Slowly fades to feeling my body in bed and I'm awake. Try to DEILD back in but too awake. Need to prepare strategy for the void (if that's what it was). Start rubbing hands RIGHT AWAY at lucidity!

November goals progress: 3 LDs / goal of 8. Still have a week, let's GO!

No more of that sleep tea, I get crappy recall after drinking it before bed.

00:00 Thursday 2013-11-21

00:39 bedtime

05:39

1) J. Tyn's vacation: cliff diving at the fish rock. He had the most wonderful time of his life there. We dove into the beautiful blue water. It was a cove with a tall rock (20 feet or more) in the middle. They spent the whole day diving from that rock again and again. From the water I climb up on to the top of the rock. It's kind of curved in cross section looking down from the top. I was pushed up from behind by the ocean on to the top of the rock. The magical thing about this rock is that the ocean washes over the top of it, there is a little shelf below the top where when the water recedes, food is left on that shelf. All kinds of fish. Boxes of pizza. You don't have to pay for any food, you just eat from what the ocean brings you.

2) I'm a new recruit in the army. Wake up in a room knowing I need to find where breakfast is and present myself for the lineup in time. But I don't remember know where anything is. I wil have to ask my fellow recruits. Get up into bathroom other people are around some men some women. I get a toothbrush and start brushing my teeth. The mixture of the toothpaste with some other thing falls from my toothbrush to the counter and it becomes alive and starts crawling like a snail down the cabinet and over the floor. I'm amazed by this. Other people notice and comment on it.

F1) something about wine.

11:43

F2) Have to meet with F. Jn. so he can go for a walk with a woman, we're going to meet by the tennis courts, S1 and S2 are going to go with me.

F3) On a steep hill, scooting up higher. I'm on an air matress. Beautiful lady to my right, she's getting ready to change/take off her top, I'm scooting higher to get into better position to observe . I see her breasts? They're's talking about some guy they're dating or had dating, one girl says "the couple of times we went out he showed up 15 minutes late."

F4) Young people are performing an advertising jingle inside, singing and dancing.

F5) In a place with people, upset that things aren't going the way I want. There's a huge refridgerator with transparent doors and revolving shelves inside. I see my microwave burrito, cold piece of pizza, and bottle of hot sauce inside. I grab all of these into my hands to go eat them.

F6) I'm laying a trap. My opopnent is like me, and can move at the speed of The Flash. I have a device with a button on it, I'm trying to hide it, I'm lying on the floor, I'm thinking should I hide it behind the door? Should I hide it over there? There's someone coming and I'm going to try to trap him by pushing this button when I see him.

Saw a dream forming? A sequence of images eventually solidifying? I woke up from it.
Oh that cursed 5th hour waking, the bane of my November! I stubbornly refuse to get out of bed or leave for the day without getting back to sleep for at least one more dream session, thus the big gap in times. Took a long time to get back to sleep, got back to bed around 9-9:15. Took a big swig of sleep tea (Mother's Wort and rose hips) around 09:00. Maybe that resulted in so many fragments instead of dreams.... may have felt it kick in to get to sleep.

00:00 Wednesday 2013-11-20

00:20 3mg tablet melatoninn

00:56 bedtime

03:52

1) playing a big tennis match, approaching court, I'll need sunscreen because it wil be hot. I was also checking my supply of water, the match may come down to to lasts longer in the hot conditions I think. Going down steps into the court area the courts are inside, the floor is red and rubbery. The courts are crowded along the fences they're full of people. The floor is covered in pingpong balls and lots of other stuff, the more I look the more I see, I'm trying to sweep away the ping pong balls and tennis balls and junk from the court. I see the corner from the court, brushing them off of the singles border up towards the net. One of the organizers (they're young boys) says "yes that's right, just sweep them away, there's some room down there you could put those balls down there on the other side. " I think this is stupid why should I have to do this. HEad back to the fence behind me, they say "we ran out of chairs because we ordered them from we forgot te tell them that this school had ramps" so they couldn't get the ordered chairs to the courts. No room for people to sit. View outside, why school with ramps, it's because it's a school for people in wheelchairs, I see young people in wheelchairs rolling towards the courts outside in the daytime. There are rolling hills outside with the paths and there are some pretty girls in wheelchairs rolling towards the courts. They're preening and making suggestive poses with their arms in order to attract boys at the tennis match.

A group of young people sitting down at a table drinking. One young man is deeply in love with one of the girls and said "I touched the lights" and laughing about it, but he was also sad. The girl just liked him as a friend.

A very drunk guy with a fat moony face. He was trying in vain to get directions from a subway cahier. It was like a scene from a candid camera comedy show. He kept asking questions and never got answers to the questions. He was there all night long trying to get the cashier to answer some question, any question, at the end he was asking about some sport from California and she answered "well I don't know anything about that."

07:02

2) touching moment, PT big hug, feel his scratch cheek against mine. Service for his parent's passing away? Down a ski path into the snow, find a buried bit with all of the T family's buried gold. I have to bring things back to them, there's a big truck to dig up the things in the pit. More detail forgotten.

F1) in a dorm room trying to choose the right bed. It's fun to be in a big room full of people, but then I realize that sleep is more important so it's better to be in a room by yourself.

10:03 haven't slept to this REM cycle in about a week or more, probably the melatonin helping

3) Old poignant memories. In my old house where children grew up. Petted my deceased dog L, I knew I could do this because it was a dream (not lucid!). He purred like a cat, and I "remembered" that he could do that. "In dreams you can even smell things" so I tried smelling him but I didn't sense anything. I walked away from him weeping and sobbing because I missed him so much. Looking through a hole in our fence in our yard blasted wide open. I was confused how that could have happened. "Realized" that it must have been the wind (In WL very windy a few days ago), I imagined going to the hardware store, buying wood planks, and sawing them to size and nailing them. I imagined stepping through the hole in the fence into the neighbor's yard and stepping on to a spider web. It was a long-deserted house.

I'm in bed with my wife. We're getting naked (I'm taking off my pants) and getting ready for sex but she didn't want to she said our son will hear us because he's coming home soon. She was lying naked on top of me. It was enjoyable. Instead of blankets we're lying under wood/lumber plank which were wet and black.

Saw my young (3-4 years old) children sitting at a table with red placemats. I thought they could do their homework at this table.

Upstairs, in another room, a strange destroyed piece of furniture. At first it appeared to be a glass topped dining table and the frame holding the glass seemed to be damanged. Looking closer at it there is a space underneath the glass and a wooden bottom. There are lots of things in there, like some mechanism, but it is damaged. I ask "what happened to the piano? How did it get like that". The table is a shell meant to hold the piano, which is a separate construct now visible just beyond the table.

In parent's house, S2 is sitting at the top of the stairs to the basement, with his back facing down the stairs, he could have fallen backwards, I say "A, don't sit like that because you could fall down the stairs bump-bump-bump-bump and fall off. You should always sit sideways." He turns sideways and places his hands in the crack between the door and the frame, I say "don't get your fingers pinched in the door."

Children are being really cute. I felt like I missed them being that age. They were running around lightly bumping their heads into things and saying "bimp! bump!" They're doing it on purpose. S2 was stretching and moving in the way of a baby. My wife starts to say "you can really learn a lot from..." and I thought she was going to say "the way a child moves" but she didn't say that.

I wanted to see S2, he said something really cute (forgot it), I say, "A, come here!", he says "Daddy, why are you sad?" I say "I'm not sad!"

Neck hurt all night long. Probably because I slept on stomach previous morning with head at bad angle on pillow.
3 wakings with pretty good recall each time.

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I’ll start in the middle, since I don’t quite know where this story began. Aislinge is not merely my name; it is the word I have chosen to describe what I am. A Gaelic word for “of dream”, though the root word aisling is also used as a female name -that is me, the girl of dreams. That is to say, I was not born female; I’ve had to learn how to conjure the experience through the magic of mind. There were other options, though I am not interested in merely changing my mortal body, instead I am working on a solution much greater. My mortal body will eventually grow old and die, but a fully realized being of the dream world can free themselves of this suffering. That is why I wish to begin a second life in that world and permanently become a part of the inner realities. Many would tell me this is impossible with current science, and they may be right, though I’ve decided long ago that if no one is going to give me the freedom then I will have to make it on my own. Even if it means evolving beyond the constraints of a human body and rewriting the apparent laws of physics, it is my dream, and I’m going to make it happen.

I lean back against the cold metal door of my house, lost in thought. My digital typewriter sits on my lap, the screen glowing ghostly green, eerily complimenting the bright light of a full moon. While wind on the lake roars in the distance, chills slither down my spine from the crisp air of winters eve. I pause to light my last cigarette, and have a sip of an ice cold cup of coffee. Their bitter earthy flavours shock my mind awake from that moment of surreal bliss. Soaking in the night with a deep breath of the serene country air, I drop the barely smoked butt in a makeshift flowerpot ashtray, and head inside to the guest room of the quiet old house. After silently opening the door, I step inside and slide my shoes off. Our large tomcat curiously watches the open door as I close it, looking for a way out, then trots off defiantly in a flash of black and white to his food dish like a spoiled teenager. I begin to tip-toe through the foreboding hallway towards my temporary bedroom, and pull the handle wincing as the hinges creak like a shrieking banshee. I shrug it off then stroll in to softly lay down on the royal blue futon and continue writing.

I have acquired some unique skills on my quest; one such ability allows me to dream while awake. I often use it to create hallucinations at will, either to simulate fantasies, or project my mind into the environment like a living ghost. I taught myself this so I would be able to emulate this female body into my perception, and it has worked exceptionally well. Although as of yet anyone watching will usually only see me go into a trance like state while I am focused on the fantasy. I wish to make myself perceivable, though so far I have only managed to learn how to describe the experience through language or illustration. That’s the main reason for writing this journal, so I can record these things in detail for further study.

It is getting late, though before I leave to go home for the night I’ll give an example of this phenomenon of mine. I’m still on the bed, lying in the dark room, with only the soft glowing display of the typewriter and the dim celestial bodies shimmering through the window. I close my eyes and feel my body changing shape. My jeans are growing loose as I shrink, tickling my smooth tender skin. While my hands become slender and slight I have to reach further to find the right keys. My shirt is now tighter around my gently curving breasts, and my underwear much more empty. I open my Inner eyes and see myself transformed, feeling my heartbeat rush and my cheeks blush. While lifting myself up to the edge of the bed, I notice the fabric weave of the futon vividly pushing into my soft palm. When I stand up my pants fall down, the boxers only held up by an elastic waistband. I walk to the door in floppy socks, and my hands are nearly covered by the long sleeves of my shirt. I open the door reaching a bit higher than usual, and head to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror.

The reflection shows me with long flowing black hair, ghostly pale skin, and bright green eyes. My chin is rounder, and lips fuller, grinning beneath a slightly crooked nose. Above my socks, my slender legs blend into wide hips, and although my shirt billows around my torso it curves over the top of my breasts. With slimmer shoulders the shirt puffs loosely to the sides, and my thinner neck allows the collar to rest lopsided. I begin to prepare myself for bed; polishing my pearly white teeth and washing my cute face, then return to my room exited for the journey home. I walk in through the open door and climb onto the bed, sitting cross-legged in front of the keyboard to catch up where I left off.

The home I refer to is the world I enter in sleep, as that is where I am in my element. The world outside my thoughts is not yet ready for me to fully exist, so I have learned how to live in my mind. After all, it is in the womb of dreams where fantasies come alive and so it is there I will nurture mine until I can be reborn as an Aislinge.

I will continue using this journal for detailing my nightly practice in dream magic, with the main goal being my feminine alter ego. My study will take the form of incubating a vivid dream life by fantasizing regularly before falling asleep. This is to focus my mind on the goal, and trigger dreams with related subject matter. When I wake I will record the nights experiences here, and the more I do my mind will get better at remembering other life.

The next step I am taking in this journey is to develop the skill of lucidity, which is the ability to realize the differences between the inner and outer world, and so know which I am in at a given time. To do this I will study the records of my alternative life and look for things that signify I am in the other world. When I realize that I am in a dream, and my physical body is asleep, I will use my abilities to take my true form. For in that world I can explore my fantasies freely, practicing the technique to perfection to prepare to take it further.

I fall back onto my pillow and stretch out my legs, then pull the down blanket over me. Sliding my hands beneath the cushion under my head I start to fantasize about the adventures the night may have waiting for me. I wonder if I have been already living this life in my dreams, and have been calling to myself to remember. In many of my occasional lucid dreams, I remember meeting my alter ego as though we are two souls in a single body. In fact she was the one who taught me how to dream while awake, appearing as a hallucination and beckoning me to join her. Perhaps she is my subconscious I reason, living in the world of my mind all this time, and coming forth to guide me into her world...

23:43 bedtime

23:47 ate WAY too much too late for dinner, arg, stupid! Getting up to do some reading.

00:00 Sunday 2013-11-17

02:45
F1) In a group of people their attention is focused on something, something was trying to get in between them from the steps above.

I get wild/wacky/random dreams a lot but this one takes the cake I think:

1) In a huge open field late at night, I'm standing under a tower, I'm concerned that if I climb it I'll be hit by lightning, I start climbing up its stairway, I get blown off the stairs by wind, I'm barely hanging on by one hand to the railing over the edge, I imagine if I fall someone will come across my dead body. I get back up and climb to the top, I step on a certain place and the entire tower collapses and falls to the ground, I'm falling with the tower, I'm trying to find temporary footholds to lessen my fall on the parts of the structure that are still together, there's a brief vision (1/2 a second) of Dwight Schrute from the Office's face looking up at me from below with a scared expression, shouting "NOOO!"
When I reach the ground I start running for my house. Still on giant wide open farmland. I have to reach my home before something reaches me. A voice says the mushroom bloodhounds are going to come from miles around. They're drawn to whatever happened. I'm running, I have a set of keys in my hand, there's a number written there, ("9988?"), I look around, during flashes of lightning I see that the entire horizon is filled with little creatures running towards me. The creatures are at my ankles, I reach a door with a number matching the key, I rush inside, some of these creatures (like cabbage-sized mushrooms with big bulging Mr. Potatohead huge bulging white eyes with big black pupils, the creatures are are squishy and juicy) are coming in through the door I try to pull the door closed, and get in through another door (the first door was to an internal porch).

There's a woman there who's coming to visit, she's the one bringing all these creatures. I tell her I don't want these things, she says they're a gift, I say I don't want them get them out of here (I don't like their juiciness), she says ok she's taking them back. I look at her and she's absolutely beautiful young woman, shining and beaming and smiling at me. Very bummed to have missed lucidity that moment, she was a right proper "dream girl."

2) in a group outside, a restaurant there's a big surprise coming. (famous actor?) coming up from behind he comes up behind the guy at the head fo the table and squeezes his shoulders, it's a big shock. There's a procession (DO), there's one very odd character / thing which has empty eye sockets the eyes are bobbing around outside of the face fo the thing, which is some kind of construct, built from wires/sticks. Its attention is moving around, kind of spooky.

F2) Getting in to some kind of office, a woman says: "Will it be Asian, or Asian delight?"

05:34 FA #1 LD #7!!!!!
3) Wake up in my old bedroom in my parent's house, I'm in bed with my wife. Something's not right here, something about the sound (in WL there's a fan on in the room), I suspect a LD, nose pinch, I can breathe, YES, I am dreaming, this is a FA! I see a few things from my childhood room, it's dark, a Snoopy spelling trophy, went out into the hallway (always lit), down the stairs, as I pass the front door I think I should perhaps go outside and change to daytime. Instead I go into the living room, it's dark, just can barely see the outlines of the room, there is no furniture there! Did another nose pinch, I can breathe, my nose feels flimsy, like it's not even connected to my breathing apparatus. "OK," I think, "time to get down to business." I say "BE LIGHT!" to lighten the room. A weak light hovers around my face. I will it to be more light, and the room becomes about half-lit. I think nough of this 'no female entaglements stuff,' so I summon my first highschool girlfriend, I say, "K.S., BE *THERE*!" and point at the couch (which appeared at some point). And she is there! I move on the couch with her, straddling her, now the couch has reoriented so that it's back faces the room, and I can see the stairs. I think to myself, "this is a solid lucid dream, and it is going to last a long time" (WL intent). I felt like I could stay in for a long time. I initiate sex, the feeling is more like ND sex, kind of flimsy and things don't quite fit. My wife comes down stairs, I pull KS down lengthwise across the couch, kind of squishing her against the back of the couch, trying to hide her under me, cover her with a blanket. Wife comes right up to the back of the couch and looks down at me, "what are you doing here?" I say, "sleeping..." she moves away, back to the bottom of the stairs, then she turns towards me, and annoyed, says "I don't have time for this! I have to do (all kinds of things...)" I get mad, and command her to go upstairs: "BE UP THERE!" and I point upstairs, and ZOOM she disappears becomes a brown blur zipping up the stairs, like the cartoon character The Flash. I start kissing KS, but her face is dark, I say, "K, why can't I see you?", then she is lit well again. I see her, study her face, it's not a perfect version of K.S. but she is *totally realistic*, the color and pattern of her shirt, her hair, her face, all very life like. We kiss a few more times. I feel the beginnings of a climax, I will it to happen now, and I fade to awake in bed with a fast heartbeat. Try to DEILD back in but too awake.

I think this was my longest LD to date, 3-4 minutes. Lucidity about the same as my other LDs, not very high, but succesful summon and environment control (half lit room), and DC control.

Having no earplugs in may have helped: I think I noticed the difference in sound between the fan in my room in WL and in the dream room.

11:02

4) battle with a guy on a bed it has grates with water in them, he's trying to lure me close to the grates to that his weapons will work, I'm trying to get him close to the grates and squirt water down into the grate because that will cause his weapons to explode onto him. Water grenades of some sort with different effects. There is an explosion.

5) in an internal room, with lots of little sub-rooms off to the side with poles in them, it's like a porn store, there are little cone shaped (like trumpet mutes) devices which you're supposed to roll around with on the ground especially in a special powder which will greatly enhance the pleasure. I see big sweaty black guys pumping away with prostitutes in these little side rooms, really going at it, I think I don't want to go into these rooms, there's sweat and other stuff all over the floor and they're disgusting.

F3) MR, childhood friend. Something about owing him money or getting money from him

F4) Finding a teacher so that my kids will learn how to get into medical shcool.

6) (earlier awakening). In a room below ground level in a house (I think my old house in CP). I open up a ground level window, it's painted white, there's a wooden set of bars/lattice on the window, in the lower left hand corner there's a white/pink sponge jammed into the lattice, at first I think this is a motion detector but then I think it's to prevent the rats from coming in. Look past the right side of the lattice at ground level in the backyard, there's a small wooden grating just past the window, in between this grating and the lattice hidden in some plants is a rat's nest with 3 or so rats jumping around, a mama and some babies.

At the other end of the house. Standing right outside a window, looking down to the ground, there is a fairly large and deep hole that goes under the house, there is a family of ground owls (I see them, about 3) that live there. I'm showing this to a bunch of Chinese people. A teenage girl shrieks in fear at something up in a tree, I'm annoyed because it's just a white flower. There's an attractive woman and an annoying guy, the guy says "let's go off (somewhere),", I say "yeah, let's do that!" and he goes off and we ditch him, I"m pleased with myself. I take her hand and lead her behind me to show her the rats nest I found earlier. Her hand is a bit sweaty. The nest has been cleaned up it's not there any more. We're back in the room where I saw the nest to begin with, there's a big party going on, lots of tables are set all throughout the different rooms, all the tables have glasses of champagne and wine on them. I ask if she'd like a drink, she says yes, so I sit her down at a table and go off to find 2 fresh glasses of champagne. I find one but can't find another where the glass hasn't been used (I see lipstick markings), I'm walking all around to find a glass, I eventually enter a large area where a caterer is working preparing food, I ask the caterer for a clean glass, they say "no there are no clean glasses left." I think about getting a bowl and pouring a drink into the bowl, but I think "nooo, she doesn't want to drink from a bowl." I think about pouring a drink from one glass to another one, fooling her. I don't make it back to her.

One of my worst sleep nights ever, probably was awake at least half the time from 00:00 to 11:00, but I don't care since I had a fun LD (first FA!), and lots of interesting NDs.

Okay, another ATLA-esque dream. This time I was a firebender, and rather than having some plot, I was simply going between my bedroom (more space) and my bathroom (wall mirror) practicing my powers.
After a few minutes, I figured out I could use electricity as well. After that, I got really obsessed with perfecting this one move. I can't remember what it was called, I think it was the "thunder kick", but what I would do was essentially do a kick while spinning 360 degrees around me, and the electricity would whip off my foot and hit all of the opponents around me.
I wasn't able to perfect the move, but I was able to make enough progress that I was satisfied with myself.

I had some dream about living in some city called "Green City". (Green City is the name of a fictional city from one of my comics.)
The city however had two really different architectural styles. One side of the city had red brick buildings that looked to be tall and square with small windows. They were almost like castles and fortresses. Some had smoke stacks and brick arches going over the streets.
The other side of the city had these sort of futuristic buildings with angled rooftops and glass facades. For most of the dream, I was more to the brick building side of the city, so I never really got a good look at this side save for seeing the towers off in the distance. I could tell that that was the wealthiest part of the city.
A few other notes about the city. (I remember alot of details.) For one, I was looking at the sun on the horizon, so I was either looking east or west. (It was west because as the dream carried on it got darker. West was also the direction of the futuristic district. The city was surrounded on all sides but the north by mountains covered in forest. The north side had sort of a bay.
Since the city's name was "Green City" and based off my comic, I was thinking about my comic, and in a way I was either mildly lucid or executing some sort of non-lucid dream control. I was thinking about this plot where a meteor hits the center of town. There was this big crater in one of the city blocks and bunch of buildings had been knocked over.
After a few minutes, I got bored of the plot idea, and realized that it didn't really fit in with my comics all too well. So I executed my nonlucid dream control and patched the crater in the center of town.
I walked about two blocks west, and on my left was this industrial compound. It looked like an oil refinery, but was very small. (Perhaps only about a hundred feet on edge.) The entire lot was surrounded by a chain-link fence, but a section had been bent over and I was able to walk in.
I started thinking I heard an animal, and began looking around. I climbed a metal ladder onto a catwalk about 15 feet above the ground. I was still following the animal sound when I opened a valve on a metal pipe , about a foot wide. A trapdoor on the side of the pipe opened and i reached inside.
I pulled out a cat. He/she was very skinny, and I could see its ribs through its fur. It had sort of tiger markings, with stripes and was brown and black. It had notches in its ears where it had been clawed, and was covered in grey dust that I assumed was ashes.
I somehow was immediately at home with the cat. When my mom saw the cat, she couldn't believe her eyes. She told me the cat's name was "Shipping Crate" (that's a stupid name) and was her own cat when she was a little girl. She went on to tell me that she had lost him/her in that same oil refinery 25 years ago. (I don't think cats can even live that long.)
I watched as Shipping Crate began to interact with the other cats in my house. (We have three cats.) He/She didn't seem interested in picking fights or anything. My mom went on saying she was going to get him/her some food.

Side notes: These dreams were only strange to me because of how my dreams have gotten so chaotic and non-vivid as of late, and these dreams seemed to be slightly more vivid and congruent that anything I've dreamt in months. The firebending dream was particularly vivid. I'm taking this as a sign that hopefully I will continue to get better, and hopefully I can begin to lucid again. (I almost had a lucid last night, there's a good sign.)

-------------------------
00:00 Saturday 2013-11-16

01:06 bit less than half of a 3mg tab of melatonin

01:24 bedtime (wife very noisy, tossing, turning, sighing, well past 02:00)

Could feel the melatonin kick in, adding a gentle push / deeper sense of wanting to sleep. Pleased with the experience will probably use again. Didn't get me immediately to sleep though because of wife noise.

07:09 earlier awakenings with recall but no will to record didn't want to bother wife.

1) in a house, my hosue, we're selling it, we're showing it, a black couple is looking at it, there is a price on a sign saying about $5,000,000. I wonder if they'll pay that much for this house. They don't say it's junky but they're not impressed, I say "it has lots of personality, the former owner changed a lot and didn't maybe didn't paint it outside for a long time but the construction was all excellent and pure quality construction. I look at the exterior walls and see some need paint badly. We're in a sort of barn-like covered but exposed to the outside area. I showed where a place had been cut with a saw line and had never been corrected (as an example of funky coolness), the lookers smile, there was alittle room outside, walked outside to garden. THey asked about the separate room, we had a separate room up on the street, I said it was fully zoned and permitted as an official extra room, it has its own hot water heater so you can take long hot showers (imagine being in a hot shower). It's up a long stairway up to the street. We're going up and there's an old woman they bump into her and say excuse me (current resident of room?)

In a room with wife going to bed, very large room with columns, she's going to bed I'm turning off lights, I'm at light switches on the other side of this large room I can't see the bed well from where I'm standing I'm flicking switches but they're not all turning off properly wife says no they're still on "it's getting too bright", she gets impatient and goes to another switch and turns them off and smirks "that's all you had to do". I say I can't see the bed from here. Go back to her at the bed. There's a dumbell on the floor, I start doing bicep curls, my arms are well-built and well-defined the biceps are bulging nicely as I do the bent-over curls. Right arm then left arm. Then S2 (current age) comes in. I say "show us your super duper biceps" dumbell is nautilus-shaped. Wife says you should take out your teeth. Son takes out fake teeth thing and it's covered with food and wife is trying to fit it into her mouth and I'm disgusted by this.

In a ChDw house, in the garden there were herbs and I wanted to have a house with a nice garden. There was a flower stand with a large fake blue bird.

In one room while walking through the house with the lookers there's a barn-like weight-room with weight sets made from
chains.

Thinking about email address of ChDw and my usual usernames at companies

2) weird exposition: Russian gala presentation like a giant float, 100 yards long and 40-50 yards wide and 40 yards tall, made up of many sections, each section very long but narrow and not very wide like a french fry. These sections are stacked about 5 high on top of each other. Each section has wire fence material on the sides and the floor. Huge things are popping up from the sections, colorful (animals?). There were children inside these sections, there were technical difficulties. Colored yellow on top? Boys in these sections talking to each other. Something is not working right. There were people coming up and handing flowers to the people inside, there was a little girl who got excited and started peeing a bit and she started crying a man comes and picks her up to comfort her.
At the beginning of the presentation there were rows of Russian girls with numbers on their backs like atheletes, I pull up these numbers over one of the girl's head.

3) at parent's house, with dad, like in the dining room, I go to give him a warm hug, he does a quick backslapping hug then gives a longer hug. Go through a door with him, like out on to the deck (but it was a room), I think a glass of wine would be nice, mother is in there (both are younger), they both start singing happy birthday, there are glasses of champagne in there, I'm happy.

07:09 MILD based off of house scene

08:42 can't get back to sleep, take 2nd (larger) half of 3mg melatonin, WBTB

10:49 voice recorder fail. don't think there were dreams? about 30-45 seconds.

12:52
4) getting my backpack, tent, orange inflatable ground pad, sleeping back from a bag / box stored in a room/closet, I'm really happy to get them, "yay!". My old baseball glove is in there. From CrLe? I put on the glove it's not my old glove, I look further and see my actual old glove. It's a bag from a sports club, there are raggedly half-chess boards nailed to the end of a platform, there are old rowboat oars. There's a strange (harp-like?) musical instrument with tons of long wire/strings, each wire has an individual tuning button and I start pressing them all to adjust all the strings, then I think I have to leave and ask someone to unpress all of these tuning buttons to return them to their original position. There's a weird version of my instrument and I realize the real version is in my parent's house so I have to go get it to give a demonstration.

Meeting with young folks to help me get my stuff but they're drug dealers so they're hurrying, they're European I say I speak Francais and Anglais (and something else) going down some steps then up to the circle, there's a car there I say let's get in car, they don't want to. The gray car starts peeling out and turning around, we have to get into the house before the car turns all the way around and the people inside can see us. We're diving for the stairs down the left side of the house on the ground, turn around as me make it to see if they see us, think we make it. There's a stoplight ahead of us. Concerned that if we stop here we'll be seen. Go through come around to other side of house think I have to get through the sliding glass door to get inside.

13:00 melatonin in the morning is probably a bad idea, I feel pretty groggy, but I was desperate to get back to sleep for more dreams later (I knew it would be several hours perhaps before REM). Didn't seeem to help much getting back to sleep even though I did feel its effects I think.

Much more time passes when I'm trying to get to sleep than what it feels like, probably 4-5x more than what it feels like. 1.5 hours feels like 20-30 minutes. It doesn't feel like I'm falling asleep and re-waking up but it's possible, as there are tiny moments of discontinuity which may be me falling asleep into non-REM sleep.

I almost forgot this dream. I had the impression I had dreamed about grotesque insects. I was tempted to not remember it. Somehow, something I saw while driving refreshed the memory.

I was in my spare room. It is mostly empty and looked like it does in real life. -Expect for two piles of dirty laundry in front of the closet door. They looked like piles of dirty oily rags. Something you would use on a car. Sitting plain as could be between the piles are two plastic cylinders filled with clear water. One was almost empty, the other was mostly full.

Escaping the mostly empty 'tank' was something like a giant albino pill bug mixed with a silverfish. Except slimey and fleshy. They scattered when I spotted them.

For some reason, I felt more worried about the inhabitant of the second cylinder tank...

I picked it up using both hands and held it up to get a close look. Floating up the surface was something very difficult to describe. It was elongated, lopsided snail-like thing fused with a clam. It had a tiny human-like face with dull black eyes. It was mostly snail brown with darker blurry stripes, and a slightly translucent shell. I had the impression two lived the tank. But only saw the one.

I recently started looking through HP Lovecraft writings. The monsters described in the lore are notoriously difficult to depict or comprehend.

I don't really recall my dreams from last night, which is sort of disappointing. I'm making an entry in order to keep up the habit of making an entry, and also in case I recall anything throughout the day (which happens).