side notes

I haven't updated my dream journal in ages, whoops.

Anyway, I FINALLY had another lucid dream last night!

It started out as a false awakening; I don't remember what made me realize I might be dreaming, but I remember I was standing in the kitchen at the time. I counted my fingers, and I was PRETTY sure I'd counted six. I wasn't entirely sure I'd counted correctly, though, so I decided to check my other hand just to make sure. However, before I could count my fingers, I noticed something else that was a dead giveaway - my Hylian crest ring (which I wear on the index finger of my left hand) had a different symbol on it, and a larger version of that symbol also appeared across my index, middle, and ring fingers (think like a henna tattoo, but golden and slightly illuminated).

My mom was in the kitchen, so I started talking to her, since I knew I had to try to keep talking or actively focusing on something (I wake up within moments otherwise). After a moment of talking, I suddenly said, "Did you know this is a dream? This is how I know." I showed her the ring and the image across my fingers, which changed each time I looked at it. The last time I looked at it, I remember that the ring had a picture of a tree, and on my fingers were the mountains behind it. It was actually really cool.

I knew I needed to come up with ideas of things I could only do in a dream, and I knew it would be best to start with simple dream control techniques as practice. I announced that I was going to try to phase through the door (a skill that might come in handy in a later dream, right?), only to end up slamming into the door and not passing through. Oh well, I tried.

I asked my mom if she had any other suggestions of things I could try, but she asked me to leave her alone for a moment because she was busy cooking. Normally, this would have been fine, but, since this was a dream, I had to find a way to keep myself in the dream in the meantime.

I remember chattering away to myself for a moment before stopping and accidentally waking up.

My dreaming mind wants to know why bother with dream fragments. My waking self is shocked that this is not clear.

Too groggy now to type.

EDIT:
This dream fragment indicates that my subconscious mind is becoming impatient with dream journal and dream recall, and would like to cut some corners. My conscious mind says "No!" First of all right now most of the dreams I remember are dream fragments, and it's still way too early to take dream recall for granted and not to work on it as hard as I can. Also a lot of my dream fragments have been gems in my opinion: I greatly enjoy and treasure them, so not focusing on recalling and writing down all dream fragments would be a bad idea.

I remember a dream I had earlier tonight:

I was a teenaged boy (so definitely not myself). I had runaway from home, and had started being part of a bad crowd. The people I hung with appeared much older than me, and hardened criminals. I had a sense that they would not stop short of murder. I felt that I was I over my head, but a self proclaimed mentor tried to persuade me that I was where I belonged.

Interesting re-occurrence of self-proclaimed mentor idea

Oh this is so fustrating. I just had it! And it was cool, and kind of a combination of previous dream fragment, but different. I thought I had stabilized it, but then when I shifted and got IPad it was gone!

Definitely airplanes, this time military ones (after the fragment earlier tonight the mental image I got was of a large commercial airplane). Definitely also standing in for dreams.

Well since I can't remember what, I will improvise: dreams are like airplanes because ...

Flights of fancy
Flying is common in dreams

Why military airplane this time?

Getting ready to fight? The enemy? Myself? My low self-esteem (which is not nearly as low as it was two weeks ago)

I don't know, don't remember. Argh!

In this dream I remember discussing with someone about dreaming. He or she (don't remember) was saying that they need more dreams of X (unfortunately forgot what between wake up and writing). I remember saying that I have lots of that in my dreams, and suggesting they borrow some from me. Sort of like someone borrowing sugar from a neighbor.

Upon waking I found the concept of borrowing dream elements from others to be an interesting fancy that my dreaming mind came up with. The X could have been airplanes I think because whenever I try to recall what I get a mental image of an aircraft. Though in my dreams I do not actually dream of air planes, so it would be hard to lend my dreamed air planes to someone else. LOL

Upon waking my iPad brightness wouldn't adjust, so I did an RC but I seem to be awake. Still feel very groggy though.

I haven't had a lot of sleep and I'm up watching the Matrix. I'm just wondering if whether I would take the red pill or the blue pill.

I decided to take a nap because I am home and I can, and because I am still tired after my sickness.

Before going to nap, I had sent a friend request and a pm to gab.

As ai lay there, I decided to try to WILD since I have not really tried before, even though I before did not think I wanted to. Changed my mind.

I remember seeing some images: an art work vaguely reminiscent of the Mona Lisa, a very bright corridor, but at that point I was not sure yet whether I was dreaming or day dreaming - whether I had actually fallen asleep.

The first thing I saw when I was sure I was asleep already was that I had a Notification in dreamviews. Knowing it was a dream I clicked on it. Sure enough as expected it was a private message from gab. However, when I opened it, it was actually a message that I had previously gotten from gab and not a response to my friend request.

Then I woke up. Upon waking up before writing my dream journal entry, I checked dreamviews, and yes I had a message from gab replying to my friend request (she said yes). I then proceeded to write this dream journal entry and only once I had written a lot did it occur to me to check whether ai am still asleep (no I am not).

Yay, I did it! I had an LD! My first after many years.

This fragment asked the question: Is seasonal hunting cruel?
My dream answer: No.

So I continue my lessons in what is proper as I call them, or another way of looking at it is that my mind is struggling with issues of right and wrong, and checking what is right in my opinion. Not that I am ever going to do seasonal hunting myself, but I don't judge people who do. My mind wanted to verify that. Interesting.

In this dream fragment I remember looking for non-catatonic fish in the petstore, but during the dream also thinking that fish may stand for dreams (!).

Note: This was not a lucid dream, but just another example of a dream about dreaming, which I have been having a lot of.

Also note that Fishkeeping is another hobby of mine, and looking for new fish is a regular occurrence right now (about once a month), since I am in the process of slowly stocking my aquarium. When looking for new fish, one looks for lively ones, and thus non-catotonic kind of makes sense for fish, though it is an odd choice of words.

However if fish stands for dreams, and the choose off odd word matters, here is an online definition of catatonic from word.com website:

"1 : of, relating to, being, resembling, or affected by schizophrenia characterized especially by a marked psychomotor disturbance that may involve stupor or mutism, negativism, rigidity, purposeless excitement, and inappropriate or bizarre posturing

2 : characterized by a marked lack of movement, activity, or expression"

It makes sense that I would look for dreams that are non-catatonic!

In my dream my husband is out of town (as he is in real life).

In my dream I asked a coworker out on a date, and he happily accepted.

See this is a perfect example of why I want to lucid dream. This is not who I am in waking life. This is not who I want to be. This is not who I choose to be.

Yes, I am lonely when my husband is out of town I get it.
I will also admit that I like this coworker ... as a coworker, as a buddy, as someone to share ideas with and to joke with.

Infidelity is a big no-no for me, and I also get that my mind therefore decided to present me with this scenario to shock me, to tell me "See I know how to push your buttons." Here is something that would really bother you.

But we already knew that! We already knew that I am struggling with self-esteem issues and with taking control over who I want to perceive myself as and deciding what is proper.

This however I know is not proper. And I refuse to think that I "need" this, so subconscious fuck off! I am going to relearn lucid dreaming, and make sure that I get to decide what I do and what is right for me.

If I am so fucking lonely tonight, why not give me a dream of my husband instead. That would have been nice, ok? But no, my subconscious, you decided to play games with me. Well, I don't appreciate that!

In an hour I need to get up and go to work and face this coworker, and forget that my subconscious asked him out on a date.

At approximately 12:45 PM I decided to ingest 30 mg of a Rauvolfia serpentina extract, reportedly standardized to contain 30% rauwolscine. I followed this up with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, potato chips, and two trefoil cookies. (Girl scout cookies! ) Shortly after I finished eating, I decided to go on a walk.

The walk was overall uneventful. My anxious mind payed attention to a few mild things that were likely placebo, such as slightly increased heart rate and stimulation. Once I moved beyond those thoughts they seemed to mostly disappear. One thing maybe worth noting is that I yawned a lot, which I guess is a good sign if I intend to take something before bed. I didn't like how it made me feel like my chest was a little tight though, but again, this disappeared when I stopped letting myself worry about it. It's only been about an hour and a half now and that symptom isn't noticeable, and I'm guessing it was just a gas bubble, since I get those a lot. So far the only thing that's really stood out to me is increased appreciation of food, since it's the one thing I didn't think about beforehand. The fruit on the counter and some more trefoils tasted better than they did before I dosed. I wonder if it's linked to rauwolscine's 5-HT2A antagonism? This is said to increase appetite, after all. Hmm....

Final decision? So far, it doesn't seem like it'd be too bad before bed. I was afraid of the potential stimulation, but if there even really was any then it wasn't any more significant than caffeine with tolerance. The only thought that really comes to mind is that this is probably best to avoid on days where you don't feel at your most physically fit, but I say that about stimulants in general. This may be worth experimenting with....

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I guess I'll include this really quick, too. I smoked myself to sleep with a friend last night so my recall sucked, but I did get this one fragment down.

Dream Fragment [Non-Lucid]

I remember being at the bottom of a mountain range and watching people climb up this big wall, and at the top there was a door just sitting there. Beyond that, I just remember that Gajeel (I think it was him...) from Fairy Tail was on the opponent team, but that's it.

Even though I was careful not to move as I remembered this dream, and I thought I had it, but when I did move, the fragment became even more fragmented.

This was another dream about dreaming. It started out with a question asked on DV. I don't remember the question but it was asked by someone experienced for the sake of helping teach beginners. It had to do with differentiation of dreams, categorization of them.

I remember thinking that the distinction was easy for me, and answering the question.

This was not a lucid dream.

EDIT: after more sleep around 7am did not remember additional dream or fragment, but remembered a bit more from this one:

Question: Experienced dreamers, how do you change entries in a dream journal to help prepare for lucid dreaming? (Note: Upon waking this question is weird to me and has no clear and easy answer, but in my dream I thought it was easy.)

My dream answer: Focus on dream signs. Do not concentrate on what makes this dream unique. (Note: I know there was more to my dream answer, but that's all I remember.)

I believe I remembered the dream that I forgot earlier tonight, and I remembered the Significant Insight that I had reached before. This dream is actually about dreaming even though it may not appear to be!

In my dream I was an actress in theatre, just starting out. And an experienced actor had taken my under his wing and was showing me the ropes. During a break in rehearsal I had been chatting with another less experienced actor. My self-appointed mentor saw this, and afterward took me aside and reprimanded me, saying "Why are you wasting your time with that nobody? To succeed in this trade, It matters who your connections are. It matters who you are seen with, and he is not someone you want to be seen with." I rebutted him with "I am not in this for the usual reasons: I am not in it for the money nor for the fame, and I choose who I hang with."

While analyzing this dream after it happened it occurred to me that this dream was about why I am putting this effort into dreaming now, why I want to lucid dream, why I am here at DV:

I am not doing it for the usual reasons. Or maybe these are the usual reasons for some people, who knows. An important motivator for me is to regain my self-dignity and self-respect, to regain control of my dreams so that I do not do what my subconscious tells me to do. I get to choose who I hang with. For me the an important motivator for lucid dreaming this time around is moral reasons: I want to do what I perceive as being right (which of course does not mean I won't do something like shoot someone in a lucid dream because it feels right to do so , I need to do empowers me, and I need to not let those more experienced than me dictate what is right for me. This is what attracts me to DV is because it seems to be a place where people generally support this kind of attitude, and do not try to impose their way on others.

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Friday March 1 2013 I took NyQuil for my cold, and went to bed early. Around 8:30pm I woke up. I remember having some profound insight into my dream recall or something like that. I remember feeling very self-satisfied with my progress and how it was not just a fragment this time. After all this patting myself on the back, I almost fell back asleep without writing anything in my dream journal. I startled myself back awake in order to write it down, and it was all gone, except for this.

Saturday, 2nd of March.

Once again I have failed to recall any dreams.. I am going to keep at this though, I don't know what's preventing me from remembering my dreams but I will find out and hopefully brake through it! Also looking for a seed to help me out (based on the Schema theory.)

-I awoke at 3 AM for a shor period of time, I considerd doing a WILD But I don't know what happend, I think I fell asleep.

-Feeling enthusiastic as I wake, trying to keep the frustration of not remembering my dreams at bay.

I have been struggling with basic dream recall, but I am up to at least remembering a fragment every time. This one made me grin.

First some background: my other hobby is Fishkeeping, and in Fishkeeping there is a practice called "culling" which is the euthenizing of fish that for example would die any way (putting them out of their misery).

In this dream, I was culling dreams. I was evaluating and sorting them to figure out which are not worthy of recall, etc. this was definitely not a lucid dream, and I just remember a fragment of it, but it made me smile, and hope that my mind is on its way to re-embark on this lucid dreaming adventure.