side notes

I catch glimpses of the faces of those around me as I move through the hallways. Sadness, happiness, apathy. Mostly indifference. The faces of those simply cycling through the motions of life. No soul, no purpose. Am I any different?

Out the corner of my eye I catch sight of a face. That girl. I know her. But from where? The face is uncanny. Green glasses, strawberry blonde hair. Who is this?

She looks at me. A smile.

The motions of life continue. Hours go by. I move through these hallways unaware of where they lead. One of the crowd. Destinationless. Faceless. Then I see her again.

In that moment we remember everything. The life we've known each other, the memories we've shared. The lives we've descended on through the wheel of time. The cycle of Samsara experienced over and over and over again. Tears flow from our eyes.

"How could I ever forget you?" she says.

Reality sheds its skin before our eyes and we gaze upon the vast and beautiful jungle before us. The immense garden of beauty, one only to be found within the collective dreams of all mankind. We dangle from the branches of trees. Two serpents. Entwined in an act of ethereal love, one with the phantasmagorical sights surrounding us. My rich blue body glide across the deep purple scales of hers to produce a radiant swirl of colorful energy, spiraling outward from the center of our entanglement. Our bond is electrifying.

This is life. This is truth. This is where we are and always have been. This is real.

______

I awake and dust of the crust from my eyes. Back in this reality.. How unfortunate. What the hell just happened? Who was that girl? I pick up my phone to text D about the dream that just occurred - a morning tradition. I speak of the girl, the snakes, the forest - the total experience.

".. she kind of reminded me of you, actually, but healthier and with more vitality," I tell her

"I had strawberry blonde hair and wore green glasses back in about 2008, before my health problems. That would be amazing if that was me."

And then it clicks. Was that her? Have we shared previous lifetimes together? The bond we share and the synchronicities we've experienced are already extraordinary on their own. Is this possible? There may never be a way to find out the truth. This life we live in is a mysterious one. This reality - is it but a single world, or is this but one of many?

Lucid February ToTM Attempt

I was driving a boss in my truck down the highway. The windshield fogged up, so I rolled down the window a little. I started having trouble staying in my lane, but I got it together. I felt as though I was drunk or tired.

Then I got off on the wrong exit. I started trying to work my way back onto the highway. I got over one lane and started going back onto the highway, but then the road took me a different way. I was afraid it was the wrong way on a one-way street. I kept going until the road ended when I realized I was dreaming.

I then drove off the road, phasing through a chain link fence. Then I wasn't in the car anymore. I was afraid I was going to wake up, so I closed my dream eyes and started floating in blackness. I settled back into a deeper sleep, but then I was afraid I would lose lucidity, so I started saying, "Task of the month. Task of the month."

After two repetitions of that, I was ready to begin. What was the task of the month? Look for a dream flower and give it to a DC. Great! I started flying around looking at a WINTER landscape. Mostly everything was brown, but I did find very small flowers.

First, I found small blue flowers that I'd seen in another dream. I thought this was unoriginal--almost cheating, or simply boring and not really trying or something, so I continued to look for other flowers. I found some more flowers of red and white like Candy Tuft. I picked some white ones. I still wasn't happy though because I thought that I should give a more substantial flower. A tulip or a day lily or something like that.

Then I woke up.

As I tried to go back to sleep, I heard my phone alarm which I just set yesterday to give me subliminal messages. "Reality check. Reality check." Louder and softer. The phone was on WAY too loud, but it was in another room, so again, I don't know if the alarm infiltrated my dream, or if my new friend SSILD worked.

I've spent more time on SSILD than I have any other technique, and I've gone lucid 2 days in a row. I simply don't know which stimulus is kicking me lucid. Oh well. That's the right problem to have.

Germany
I was just inside the border of Germany, looking up a hill at a little city or amusement park inside its own walls. buildings were all gold, or looked like gold. There was a place next to it that was also inside a wall. For some reason, I wasn't able to go any farther than just inside the border of Germany.

It was as though my car had broken down or something, and I was on a time limit. I forgot exactly what the problem was, but I had a false memory that this had already happened once, and it seemed like such a terrible waste that I would be there twice and not be able to see the country.

OGFJx3

I was outside looking at a park bench and there were two girls who looked similar to J. I likened that to torture. Then I realized I was with a girl who looked like J. Not exactly, but close enough. I was pretty happy.

All of her teeth were rotting, so I took out a hack saw and started sawing the bad part of her teeth off. Once I thought I went down too far and would hit the nerve, but I didn't. I think that was the point of the dream right there...now that I think about it.

Vaulting

I was holding a horse for someone. It was a female horse. She was acting up and I called her name hoping she would settle down, but she was acting wild around some other horses. Then came the good part. I was now standing on the horses rump with the reins held firmly, but not pulling on the horses teeth.

The horse bucked, but I stayed on the horse. I felt like a master vaulter. Then the horse bucked again and I stayed on, but I was now about to slide off which I eventually did, but not until people had noticed how awesome I was.

260z Maniac

I don't know how these dream frags stitch together properly, but I was unlacing a shoe because a missed one of the holes on the right side.

Then I was watching a Charles Bronson movie. A guy asked him if he wanted to be an Ace. They kind of brought up the idea of going to war to Charles, and he was game. It seemed pretty reasonable.

Then I was outside. I think I was coming out of a public bathroom...with some other people. Walking out, they stayed in a shadow. I walked out farther and into the light. I had a false memory of a 280z that really looked more like a 260z--trying to hit me. Then the white 260z did come after me.

I tried running away, but as it came at me, I ran up on the hood, went to a knee on the hood, maybe, but eventually the car was gone and I was safely on my feet again.

It turned out Evil Knievil was driving he car. Now he was in a bathroom hanging over the door. I jumped up to knuckle the back of his hands a couple times and then walked away.

I went back to "our" car with a couple other people. One person was upset about something. I noticed a medium sized turtle standing on its back legs and told the person to look at it as it was pretty cool, and maybe she would feel better.

The End

Baby Ghost

I'm playing a video game. There are five main sections of the storyline and they all have a specific name.

I've just finished a quest involving a baby child in a crib, the heir of a royal family. Somehow I start watching a trailer for the game, which I slowly realize is a cinematic retelling of a later section of this same storyline! Spoilers! But on the other hand, who really cares about spoilers, and the story is interesting. Apparently the baby later dies, and his ghost comes back to haunt the crib. I'm standing in a corner of the room at night when the ghost appears in that corner of the room. It attacks me, and I have to defend myself with a magic sword. Later on, Snape is having a conversation with someone when the person betrays him, stabbing a dagger into his side and cutting all the way around the outline of his body.


[I've decided also to add a star rating system to the titles of these entries, since what's the point of titles if not to give some indication of how interesting the content is:

*: fairly uninteresting
**: mildly interesting
***: unusually interesting (e.g. unusually long, unusually detailed, or unusually important)
****: interesting in content and impressive technically (in dream recall or control)
*****: life-changing, awe-inspiring, and the like]

Previous sleep hours:
Fri Feb 1, 2:23-8:30

No recall.

[Okay, I'm thinking now that these empty diary entries are getting pretty boring for all of us. How about I only update this journal when I have something to report? And when I do, I'll just make a list of all the sleep timestamps since the last entry. Studying abroad is fun, but it leaves almost no time to think about dreaming. . . .]

No recall.

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Frags:

• Taking a good look at my haircut in the mirror, I realize it looks completely stupid. I cut my hair for a short haircut, but I've been letting it grow long without re-styling it. My friend pointed out to me earlier today [IRL: yesterday] that it's usually pretty obvious when people are trying to grow long hair without really knowing what they're doing. I feel pretty embarrassed.

No recall.

No recall.

No recall.