side notes

Friday 5/3/13

Last night bed 12 am. Couldn't sleep, got up till 3am. Slept till 8:20. Nap too late, 12pm. Fell asleep, woke up right away and got up.

I had another one of my kidnappers try to snatch my kids nightmares.

They tried to snatch my kids while the kids and I were running for the safety of a building. I managed to somehow fend them of. I don't remember how.

In general my awareness in this dream was fuzzy, which is why I did not recognize my dream sign: the kidnappers.

Had this dream around 3am this morning. It was long and complicated.

There were these brothers, I think three of them, and they were criminals. And their sister who was an Olympics athlete of sort was being unfairly discredited from winning with false accusations of cheating, and they were using their criminal abilities to try to save the reputation of their sister. And the dream kept switching back and forth between different scenes where the different brothers were, but I had some sense of a cohesive though convoluted plot (but that sense may have been wrong). One of the brothers was at a doctor's office out of some reason throughout the dream. The other two were elsewhere dressed in masks trying to break in somewhere. I think they needed to steal evidence that she was framed and had won based on her own abilities.

In one scene I was somewhere up high with one of the two brothers. While for most of the dream I was watching it like a movie, but in this part I was involved. So I was up high with one of the brothers, and he was going to fall, and I helped him fall more gracefully. He still got hurt very badly and could not call for help himself, so I called for help for him. While his ribs were being mended they discovered why he was there (breaking in to steal the evidence).

Meanwhile the brother at the doctor's office was telling the female doctor about it, and he had a nosy audience of a small group of people listening.

That's all I can remember. None of the character's were known to me, nor does the plot ring any bells in my mind: it does not remind me of anything that happened nor any movie or book. Just a really weird dream.

I have my small dog on his lead we come to a gate, the gate is enclosed by two large Pines on either side.
We have to really squeeze and climb through, it feels similar to what i think it may be like in an old fashioned car wash. I get a few pine needles in my mouth.
Struggling for new beginnings, cleansing of thoughts, words, actions and deeds.

*link removed

Colin Moulding was the bassist and a songwriter for the band XTC and some time in the last two weeks I had an earlier dream about him after watching an XTC video; It went like this:

I was in a Walmart and someone said "Colin Moulding is dead. You have my sympathies." Or something like that. (As of this writing in waking life, His name hasn't shown up in an obituary that I know of.)

Now for the dreams from today.

An earlier dream involved me seeing drawings or such of Pony characters from MLP: FIM, I particularly remember seeing one of Lyra Heartstrings. I used to be a Brony. (Edit, July 21 2013: I later browsed Pony sites after this initial post but the whole fandom just isn't at all what it seemed to be at first. I also had a dream saying something like "MLP: FIM has been cancelled in your area. If you wanted to see it, You should've said something!")

Another dream - And I'm not sure when exactly this one happened but it was before the park - Involved me driving my Dad's van and a dog came onto the road and I tried to slow down to the point where I wouldn't run it over. I may have or may have not run the poor thing over.

After the sun came up, I had this dream:

I was in some forest/park place and there were people playing music at the ends of certain paths. I went toward the end of one path and I saw the rib cage of someone which seemed to be fossilized into a rock. I saw it from the right side of the rib cage and something was mentioned about the person having eaten four apples and twenty berries. After that, I went to the left up into a shed.

Later, I went into a building nearer the park gates and parking lot and I saw some fruit and tomatoes, I think. I ate a dark purple plum after I got it out of a basket and I looked at some very peculiar-looking foods which I think were tomatoes that were dried but they looked more like a type of winter squash. Then as I was in the building, I went outside for some reason and I saw a man or teenager on a hill side with a cat or dog; I may have thought he should get inside because I knew what was coming. (Also, I think the park was for people and cats/dogs to walk in.)

Then, I saw a weird combine harvester coming by; It was painted green and it had no thing to store anything in. Colin Moulding was driving it not with intent to harvest grain; I think he wanted to harvest people! I went up to the machine, Got on it after/as he ran over a cat with it and I took control of it while/after damaging his bifocal glasses so he couldn't see. (FYI, I don't know if he actually wears glasses. He never did for the videos or pictures I saw his likeness in but they're all at least six years old.) I then steered the combine harvester into a river and Colin somehow managed to make it fly out of the water as if I was playing the video game Crackdown with the Keys To The City mode on and I was driving and spawned a ramp truck in front to make the car fly in the air very quickly; I don't mean to just get a slight lift, Think like 55 miles per hour slanted in the air! I then asked "How the hell did you do that?" If I remember right, To which he said "I've had practice" or "I've had a lot of practice".

A mother of a grown daughter who wanted to control her daughter too much came to me to change her name to one of the mother's choosing. I realized that it did not matter what I did, so I said to the daughter. "You can do whatever you like. You control your own fate. You can choose your own name." The daughter's eyes opened wide - she was very surprised.

I believe this dream was almost lucid:
(1) I realized that it did not matter what I did. Why? One possibility is that part of me realized that there would be no negative consequences of my defying the mother. Why? Could it be I realized it was a dream on some level? I think this was not lucid because I did not realize it consciously not that I recall, but this was close. Interestingly, when I realized that "it did not matter what I did", I chose to do the right thing.
(2) What I told the daughter is what you would tell someone to help them become lucid: You can do what you like. You are in control here.
(3) There was a sense of empowerment to this scene which was almost like in a lucid dream.

Dream sign: This was not my only dream about the power of a name!

Prebed: 1 1/2 glass of soy milk

Total sleep time: 8 hrs

Recall method: none, woke up briefly after each dream but was so sleepy, I didn't bother to write anything. Did not attempt WBTB either. Everything is so fragmented now, good thing I still remember although with much less detail the short DILD I had.

Dream1: We are back to high school and as usual we have to do an extra year. Everybody should be in class soon, I wonder again how are we going to do that. I am waiting for a friend of mine to show up as usual, I don't think he did.

Fragment2: One of my classmates, her features are a bit strange and now she also has a sister that looks very similar to her. (She actually has a brother)

Fragment3: On the beach, I am watching the waves. I think somebody, it kind of looked like a documentary and I was part of it, said that here the waves are just the right size to swim and maybe surf?

Dream4 mini-DILD: The background is grey and a number of DCs that look like zombies are walking towards me. I become lucid. I remember my recent resolution to freestyle during the next lucids and see what I can make out of the situation. I decide that I will use this one to train my reactions. Ok, so they are walking towards me, I don't care at all. I am just consciousness, no material substance, they can't hurt me. They are still advancing, and one comes so close that it actually touches my hand. I feel and see my hand and this destroys my concept of non-materiality. I brace myself for the impact. The dream slowly fades and I wake up.

Note to self: Maybe I should spend less time thinking and more time acting in LDs?

Fragment5: I go to the kitchen to look for the bottle of water I bought for myself irl and find that one of our guests has opened it and now holds it in her hand. It is too late to say anything, I just wish this hasn't happened.

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April Review

Number of ld nights: 9 (3 with double lds)

Number of lds: 12 (2 WILD, 2 DEILD, 8 DILD)

Quality: Good, with few exceptions, a few fade away issues and changing the scene is still a challenge

Recall: I am getting used to having a roller-coaster type of recall. I am not sure if I should place additional demands on that at the moment.

Things to work on:

- I think I might go for some flexibility on task completion and work more on stability. (But who knows in what kind of mood I will be?)

- I also want to go back to a more decent WBTB schedule after meeting all kinds of relatives and friends is over.

- There are other issues (like changing the scene) to work on but will see how it all goes and deal with them accordingly.

I got more than I expected in April, so I won't be expecting more than I can get in May. Just keep dreaming...

We had let our kids go out in the woods alone, and I was tracking their GPS on my phone, and could occasionally zoom in to look at what they were doing.

At some point I noticed that my four year old had become a proficient swimmer. I knew he had it in him! I thought proudly.

However, then the GPS signal of my four year old started to get confused and when I zoomed in a different kid would show. I could see my seven-year old climbing a tree, but that was not my younger son beside him.

My husband said that it was ok, just a glitch, but I told him that I had a feeling of dread like something terrible had happened.

We reached the woods, and found a group of kids tied loosely to a tree with some cable. They lay there as if in a stupor. I still had not found my son. I heard the voice of the evil man who had done this saying something over a loudspeaker. I don't remember all he said, but it included "it does not matter." I could somehow know that the tree cables or something there was boobytrapped so I could not free the kids. I also somehow knew the evil man could see me.

I still also had not reached my older son yet, even though I had seen him on GPS phone video, had not lost him.

I woke up from this nightmare after this, quite shaken.

I had to look in on my sons, and found them safe asleep in bed of course. Despite risk of waking him up, I kissed my younger son on cheek - I would have kissed my older one, but he was harder to reach not being near the edge of the top bunk at the moment.

In hindsight, even before my conscious self was aware of it that this would turn into a nightmare, the setting was clearly there. We are watching kids over GPS and phone while they are alone in the woods! They are engaging in potentially dangerous activities such as swimming unsupervised without lifeguard or lifejacket for my younger son and tree climbing on very high tree for my older son.

It is interesting that the nightmare again goes to kidnapper theme. I thought I had successfully vanquished those kidnappers in my previous dream, where I felt so much empowerment due to having rescued my boys and preparing to fight bad guys using my superior martial arts skills. Well apparently they are back with a vengance and this time there is no empowerment for me. Of course, due to the GPS and leaving them alone in the woods, it is all my fault this time. Also i do not even get the relief of seeing my boys before the dream ends, making sure that they are alive and well in the dream. Fear of kidnappers in waking life is one of those cultural irrationally blown out of proportion fears: I know that in reality the odds of boys being kidnapped are miniscule, and I did not think that I really feared this in waking life that much to give me nightmares (perhaps it is not so much the likelihood as what would be worst case scenario - fear of kidnappers and boogieman), but of course I am as a good parent worried for my sons safety, and that of course is the cause of these dreams.

Total sleep time: 7 hrs, still tired

Dinner: 2 Eggs plus other stuff
Prebed: 1 1/2 Glass of soy milk

Fragment1: I am some kind of adventurer, like Indiana Jones, a man as well. I am about to enter a bunker, when the doors begin to close. I don't want to be stuck inside so I roll on the floor and escape through the exit door just before it closes sliding from above.

Dream2 short DILD: I am in a familiar yard and there are loads of mattresses all stacked together, a pile as high as the third floor perhaps. I am initially sitting on top and trying to balance. I then get down and on the ground there is some red liquid which is toxic and contagious? A Rottweiler is under the influence of this red liquid, he is ranging mad behind a glass window, people are watching him, he is deadly dangerous. I try to quickly move away, pass by it, and find myself on the street. I go in the wrong direction, the street looks slightly familiar in the dream, I have no idea where I am, but confidently go in the direction which I assume is the right one. I begin to speed move on the street and become lucid. I continue speed moving, trying not to hit some people and two German shepherds in front of me. Memory gap...perhaps I woke up?

Dream3: In a store and have the feeling I have been here before. I want to pick up something I have ordered, but it looks like they couldn't deliver because they don't have my address. The old lady behind the counter takes out a piece of paper and shows me that the address is missing. As I am trying to fill out the address, it begins to change, but I am filling out a non-existent address anyways and that does not seem odd at all. I then see that they are selling a special tea to make you lucid. I am so happy they are finally selling those things and want to buy a pack. I also want to get a fancy facial lotion but become distracted, so I forget about it.

Fragment4: Another store, this time I am looking at coffee mugs, wondering whether to buy one. There is also a beautiful teapot and a guy is trying to pour water in the tea cup, but it doesn't quite work. One of us is actually biting the teapot, can't remember who it was.

Dream5: In something like a museum, similar to a place I have been before in another dream. It also resembles a bookstore and they are selling drawing materials, I wanted to buy these so that I can begin painting with color. Further ahead there are two guys wrestling. They are playing a strange game, as if they are anime characters, and one pretends to hurt the other and the other pretends he gets kicked in the butt. I think of how good they are at doing this whole thing, this requires a lot of skill.

A semi-familiar girl comes to me and wants me to be her partner in this strange game, but I can't do it, so I turn her down. She then takes out a napkin with something written on it. I just see the first few lines: DEILD and SxxEILD. So she is into lucid dreaming? I ask her what her nickname is, I am assuming she has a DV profile. She looks kind of offended and as if I have crossed some privacy line. She takes back the napkin and walks away.

Dream6 DILD, TOTM: I am with my friends and boyfriend and it looks like we are doing some laundry. We are inside some place maybe public laundry, maybe store, it is rather empty, just us there. We go out on the street and hail starts to fall. I also see some lightning. I then look at the sky and see some indescribable lights there. They take the form of many invisible airplanes. There is also some thunder-like sound. I tell my friends, " And you didn't believe about the end of the world, well here it is!". I look in the sky again, something like a small sun, looking menacing to me.

Strange things in the sky, I may be dreaming. I become aware. I still feel threatened, what if this is real? No, it's a dream! I tell myself. Ok, it's a dream, but this thing is in the sky, let me get out of there. I turn around the corner, and continue on my way but the dream begins to fade. I continue walking and start rubbing my hands, but I don't feel them so much and that worries me. They actually feel kind of numb (but not paralyzed). I see a DC woman and desperately try to cling with my mind to her, I ask her to help me, I try to engage her, but whatever she answers I can barely hear.

I think I may have quickly DEILDed at some point, but it was more like a mild dream fade and then back to the dream, no time in the void. I turn back and see that the thing in the sky is taking a lot of space now and it reminds me of the war of worlds machine. I turn my back and think that if I go far away from it, it may not notice me or just disappear. I continue on my way, it is of course a dead end street. I even stumble on some steps of this dead end street, shortly wondering how did I manage to do that? I begin climbing a fence and cross to where there are some houses. I enter one and find myself in the kitchen. I notice something interesting there, can't remember what. I go in the other room, and concentrate on a DC that is watching TV. " Tell me about the situation, what is going on with this thing outside?" I then remember that I don't need to stay here and want to change the scene.

There are now three DCs in the room. " I need to change the scene, will you help me?", I ask them. A very helpful and enthusiastic DC takes the initiative " Sure, I will help you, guide you, where do you want to be?" happily replies the man. I initially think "Angel Falls" but then I remember I wanted to finish TOTM first. So I glance at the floor and start looking for coal. I see a large black object and take a piece of it, but it turns into a backpack and the piece in my hand is useless. I turn to the DC woman on my left. " Quickly, give me a piece of coal" , she hands me a brown black pointy piece of a coal. I place it between my fingers and it feels like rubber. I begin pressing it and try to shape it into a diamond. I shortly close my eyes and the dream begins to fade. I am annoyed. " Turn to diamond, turn to diamond", I have to have positive expectations, I remind myself. I look into my hands and finally a diamond shaped crystal is there. The way it is faceted reminds me of a crystal glass my grandma had. Still holding the diamond in my hands I start thinking that I have everything I need to do the four-in-one task in this room with the DCs. Then the dream fades and so does my overall ability to concentrate.I wake up and head for the journal.



Comments: Wow! Finally got that diamond, not quite as I expected or planned the whole thing, but still... and with April almost over, I think it's time for me to relax and call it a month!

Edit: Wrote down this entry, everybody left and I decided to go back to bed because I felt tired. As usual I was taking my time relaxing in bed when bf decided to give me a call. I told him that I am tired of being woken up, and decided to get up since our guests will soon be back from their walk.

Lol! This whole situation is getting ridiculous, but then I have to ask myself "Perhaps this lack of sleep and constant disruption is keeping me on the edge while at the same allowing for some REM rebound to occur?" The truth is I have had 7 LDs since our guests arrived, so I probably should turn my coal complaining into a diamond gratefulness? Whatever the reason, thanks for the great month!

nothing again from last night, but i took a 2 hour nap around 11 and managed to pull back a decent bit. not going to record them here because all three of them were just me trying to get off - apparently i was really horny when i went to sleep >_< in any case, at least i pulled some back - even if i was only because i took a nap.

Had a number of vivid dreams but was lazy writing them down. It seems longer sleep time or WBTB is almost impossible during weekends with so many people around.

Total sleep time: 6.30hrs

Fragment1: I was in my hometown, in one of the parks. I was a healer girl, whatever that means. In front of me is Antonio Banderas, I am thinking about his eyes.

Fragment2: Classmates are looking for my high school teacher but can't find her

Fragment3: Back to my hometown, talking with my mom. She is expecting me to go out and meet my wild friend. I express some concerns about that. ( I meet him often in my dreams)

Fragment4: Some game-like list with 5 scenarios

Dream5: I am in our current place. My old landlord has left some note about a girl coming. This girl is now in our apartment and is using my hair dryer. It begins to smoke and I worry about that. She then intentionally breaks a wire and the hair dryer does not work any more. I become mad and begin beating her. My hands bounce back from her, I can't hurt her, she continues to irritate me so I continue pounding on her...

Woken up. We had a noisy breakfast. Guests went out for a walk. I tried to take advantage of the situation and went back to bed. I was drifting off when they came back. Put the headphones on, tried again. I was getting nicely numb and relaxed, watching a dreamlet about dreaming and recall, when one of them decided to knock on the door. Because my drifting away has been interrupted so many times, I feel super tired now.

Just a few more days....Then I will be meeting my parents in another town for a spontaneous get together *RC* We will be sharing the same room *RC*? My father snores like a tiger. I can't believe this isn't a dream, maybe it is. *RC*

i am going to post the notes i took apon waking for this because the full thing i wrote was lost and havent had the time to rewrite it all.

Cult leader in room. Vince Vaughn and another an Irish man. Leader was like I know two of you have killed to be here and one of you has faked it. Then he make the Irish man open up his pillow case. No knife = no kill so the cult leader killed him. And a family of four pulled up to the abandonded underground fortress. He would probably kill them too. Mom and dad sent us to this camp but it was in Europe it was hardcore. We had nothing. They too us to get naked in a room with another two brothers. They have us bed ad we did it. We slept. The next day they allowed us to go into the city. We did. We found so much money over four hundred. When we got home I had to take shirt off money in all my waist. I tried hiding but main guy took it. Took four hundred. Went to bed next night he had people over. Went on like this for a while. Mom and dad finally came but they were the people. Then told us we went there a lot as kids. We were outside on the farm land scooting out on these cliffs with dirt riffs we got down to the bottom and went to this very modern art museum. Uncle ray was looking to buy a tv there. In uncle rays house. Actually while we at art thing auntie Cathy left a video cry for help on the security system. So I went over to Florida house. She took me and we hid fast bc they all came in but it was partiers. Then this witch came through the door and auntie Cathy was the only one who could defeat her. The witch made the group of partiers chant some thing that would make the house start on fire.

if you would help me in decoding this it would be of great help. it is a very important dream. thank you, -reed

Total sleep time: 8 hrs

After 3 nights of lucid marathon, it seems like my body needed to run the restore program so I got into very deep sleep tonight. I didn't wake up naturally or if I did I was most likely unconscious. It felt like I had spent more time in NREM sleep. When my WBTB alarm rang, I was so deeply asleep, I was wondering what the hell is going on. Decided I would rather sleep. Anyways, felt the sleep was very restorative. Here are some fragments I could recall.

Fragment1: An elevator and the shaft. I almost fall there, but luckily for me it is filled with junk so if I were to fall at least I wouldn't hurt myself. A girl from school that we used to mock appears near the elevator and reminds me of things we have done to her, but those things never happened in real life.

Dream2: I am in the place of a friend1, who now lives with his sister. On the TV screen is some version of an old favorite game of mine. The sister tells me it's a different game. I must leave the apartment and take some stuff which is mine. In a plastic bag with my two bottles they have put newspapers so that I throw the trash on my way out. I don't like their attitude so once I leave their apartment I take out all the newspaper trash from the bag and make a nice heap in front of their door.

The plastic bag is actually theirs and not mine? I take some stuff that belongs to his sister and his bottle of initially vodka, then white wine! I head home, but know my friend1 will be after me to get back his stuff. On my way home I see another friend who is hanging out with some young problem individuals. I am trying to run but I am so slow. Someone then pushes me from behind, so I actually speed a bit. I think it is my friend1 but it is some random DC with yellow jogging outfit. I soon see my friend1 is already on the street in front of me, he is not happy about the whole situation.

Lol, I really have to stop dream stealing things!

Fragment3: This was a very cool dream where I was communicating with a dog. Unfortunately, I don't remember much of it, just the feeling of being fascinated.

Its amazing what a few days of willfully ignoring your dreams can do for long term recall.
I've been going through the buffy series again and all I really remember from the bulk of the dreams last night was that they were about buffy and the characters on the show. As
I was waking up I had a few more snippets, but a week ago that same state of sleep/wake would have pulled a few paragraphs - vivid remembrances. In any case, from my paper DJ:

Buffy. coffee shop closed. world covered with snow, most dreamscape and not characters ((was trying to say that in the dream i was making note especially of the world around me, and that there was little if any focus on people walking around)) spike trying to skate with buffy and angel (he had no shirt/pants, but I couldn't see below the waist anyway). My mind was very busy creating the last 30 min or so. most still faded before i got to the notebook. ((entered later))There were cigarettes smoked at some point.

Our guests woke me up again, I spent about an hour trying to fall asleep, my mind was way too awake, and when I finally fell asleep I got into some WILD/OBE thing where I couldn’t move much.

Total sleep time: 6 hrs

HI dreamlet1: Some woman, her face was colored black with something like tar. She lives in the woods, in a hole under the trees. A scary story begins about the holes in the woods.

HI dreamlet2: I am an unknown street most likely in my home town, have different hairstyle

Dream3 WILD/OBE: I am in my hometown again, in front of me are my guests. I am looking at my hands, some blue pink ghost like double layer is also visible. My hands quickly stretch out, a familiar feeling, they stretch into infinity, space bends and the whole of me is quickly sucked forward. I also feel my dream body detaching. A short moment of darkness follows and then I find myself on our old balcony. It is dark, there is some light perhaps from the moon. I immediately notice my position and feel my dream body. Instead of my feet being on the floor of the balcony, my midsection is where the floor is and my feet are below it. Don’t feel the floor, I notice that my position and state is somewhat similar to when I sometimes meditate – I am physically sitting, but feel the rest of my body is standing. I decide not to pay too much attention to that because I have to stabilize. I run my fingers over the surface of the balcony, very realistic. Everything is rather clear, but I can’t move my legs. I try to but I can’t.

I decide that perhaps I should give my dream body some more time to adapt to the dream. I start rubbing my hands, now my elbows barely move! I decide to wait a bit, but black out for a second, then I am back to the dream still no improvement. I force my limbs to move, and I can feel a great force on them preventing them from moving. I try touching the wall again with my fingertips, but it doesn’t help. I look to my side, towards the end of the balcony and see many plants there, it looks like a small jungle, it is dark and there is a dark hole between the plants. Now, it is definitely not the time to expect something scary to come out of there, I tell myself. I try to be indifferent about it. I then notice that a song is playing “give me my love, give me my love”, a nice song, but then it gets stuck, the same part plays over and over again. I wake up.

Comments and Analysis: I was worried after waking up that I have finally managed to mess myself up and instead of having normal LDs, the more time I spend in the void, the more aware I become of my falling asleep and will begin to get stuck more in the middle. I really hope not! Now, I feel relaxed about the situation, but am sure I will be getting more experiences where I would need to remain calm.

The stretching hands and being pulled forward (not just the two bodies separating) experience plus ghost like layer is something I have seen before and I kind of relate to OBE types of experiences (if these can be differentiated from WILD). I can only say it is a different feeling altogether.

Such continuous dream paralysis is not something completely new, but the only memories I have of it are when I was a very young. I don’t remember getting stuck in the middle of a floor ever.

Some explantion why this happened: I am thinking that the longer time spent in WBTB, the more my mind is aware of my physical body. If I WBTB for 5 min, then I would transition to the dream much faster. An alternative explanation is that I am being increasingly aware of the void and this somehow affects me.

Future strategy: I really have to write a few key words on a piece of paper so that I don’t forget. 1. Patience and detachment. I didn’t panic today, but the situation could have been different. 2. Rubbing hands 3. Try zooming into something else or 4. Try floating up?