side notes

[Friday, August 24th, 2012]
(Shaky recall.)
I remember driving a lot, and worrying about running out of gas soon.
(The rest has faded from my memory as the day passed. I should have written it down sooner...)

[Thursday, August 23rd, 2012]
(No dream recall... lots of dreams, but no memories of them. Could be due to overstonage...)

[Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012]
(No dream recall. That's what happens when you get drunk and stoned before bed. AND stay up too late. Like always, I'll try to nap later around 5-6PM.)
(Gonna try to use 4 dream signs today...)

[Tuesday, August 21st, 2012]
I was in a multiple faded dreams that were set in a labrynth metropolis city of stone and metal that was built into the side of a supercliff, an empty ocean trench. I could see the sky most of the time, and it was the deepest blue you could imagine. Me and a group of friends were exploring the city and trying to find treasure. The funny thing is, the city wasn't abandoned. One fragment I remember was being on a flat metal surface with patterns of criss-crossed steam lines that went on and off... they were dangerous so you either had to time it when you were to walk, or jump over them carefully. I tried timing my walk and burned myself... Frustrated at the rest of my group's ease of travel over the steam, I tried jumping and somehow managed to do it perfectly...

The very last thing I remember, was crowding around an elevator that led to an off-limit room. We were debating whether or not to go in, since it was probably off-limits, but I pushed myself in without hesitation. Me, two girls, and two guys. On our way up, the guys vanished. Suddenly the elevator reversed directions and headed down... I said, "Well... we can just tell them we were looking for the bathroom." One of the girls agreed, knowing that it was a half-joke. Once out of the elevator, I sprinted ahead to the left saying, "I'll just use that bathroom over there! BE RIGHT BACK." I followed the open labrynth toward a bunch of rusty-white metal platforms, suspending high up against the rocky wall. There were ladders, but I jumped up and scrambled myself up the side of the platform. (I really had to pee...) The guy who had dissapeared earlier was sitting lifelessly to the right. He phased in and out and appeared as colored metal rings for a moment. I think he had stolen something... or hurt himself... Just then, the other guy appeared, and he was muscular and shirtless and resembled my WL friend, Nathan... he picked up the injured man and began walking the direction I was headed. "Hey, I'm gonna go to the bathroom real quick, when I get back, I'll carry him for awhile."
My dreamscape faded to reality. (I was in an extremely uncomfortable position in WL and had to pee REALLY BAD. I emptied my bladder and here I am. I'm not skilled enough to jump back in my dream.)*

*(I'd like to add, that around 7:00PM, me and my friend Nathan [the buff character from the dream] were sitting on a bench around town in WL, after smoking some weed stuff... I looked up at the sky and saw the EXACT blue sky as in the dream. It was impossibly blue, and was getting dark fast. Just as I mentioned all of this to Nathan, another friend of ours called and asked if we could give him a ride. Come to think of it, the lifeless guy from my dream looks strikingly similar to the one we were about to give a "ride" to, his name was Kyle. Kyle's a pretty weasley/stingy guy sometimes... Maybe he did steal something too!)

[Monday, August 20th, 2012]
(No dream recollection. Most likely due to the small amount of sleep, and not effectively getting to REM. I'll try a nap later tonight if I can and report back...)

[Thursday, August 17th, 2012]
No recall today. Just faint dream "fragments" and "residue" that have faded from me.

This post is not a lucid dream or anything. I am writing this to 'get my mind back in the game' and to hopefully increase my recall. How it will work is just following the movements of the past and refining on old techniques. By posting in my dream journal, it may help with improving my recall in general since I look forward to the next post. I will also start posting my current goals in order of importance:

1) Increase recall
2) Regain lucidity
3) Find dream guide
4) Work on stability

I will be setting 4 personal tasks of the month for now on, with these counting for September. Hopefully 3 and 4 will work hand in hand. Yeah, the goals are a bit bland and obvious. (especially number 2) I say regain due to the fact I have had more lucid dreams in the past. I will also be setting code names for each month which I will be incorporating into lucid dreams. Sort of a theme so to say. And this month (September) will be Phoenix. A bird reborn from it's ashes. I lost my recall and sort of 'died' in my ability to lucid dream. This will be the rebirth. Well, I'm off to bed. I will post again tomorrow. Good Night!
p.s.: After writing this sounds sorta dumb to me. Geekish maybe? Lol, I don't really care this in some way will help.

I don't remember much from last night, just a couple fragments. In the first, I found Cookie, a stuffed animal (a black-and-white cat) I've had for as long as I can remember, in my basement. I picked her up and hugged her really tight because I was glad that I'd finally found her (she went missing maybe a couple years ago IWL).

In the second, I was on some website where there was this competition going on. It was some sort of video game competition. People could vote for their favourites in different categories (favourite character, favourite game, favourite genre, favourite moment, etc.).

I was playing Spirit Tracks. It was at the part where Link and Zelda play the sacred duet before the final battle. Afterwards, instead of going onto the final battle, I was taken to a map screen (not the rail map). I had to choose one of three places - stay and fight Malladus, go to some place I can't remember now, or go to some strange tower (not the Tower of Spirits). I selected the tower.

When I entered the tower, it turned into a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon-esque game, though battles worked the same way as in the main series games (judging by the graphics, I'd say G/S/C). I can't remember what my main Pokemon was, but I ended up entering a battle with 1 HP left. I was afraid I might have to switch out to Zubat, which I really didn't want to, as I only used Zubat as an HM slave (I suppose I was on a one-Pokemon challenge).

Just as the other Pokemon had started to attack, I yelled out, "Stop!", pausing the battle. I searched desperately for any healing items I may have. Nothing. I reluctantly allowed the battle to continue. The wild Pokemon finished its attack, causing mine to lose its remaining hit point. However, it wasn't defeated, despite its remaining HP being displayed as "nil". It also gained a new move in the top slot (overwriting whatever was already there, I guess). I can't remember what the move was called, but it was a special move, only usable by Pokemon with no HP remaining (kind of like how Struggle can only be used by Pokemon with no PP on any move). I used this new move to restore more HP.

After the battle, I found myself in Vermillion City (you know, I think this may have been Pokemon Blue - there was little variation in colour, save for a bluish tint on everything now, and it had 8-bit graphics, of course). My Pokemon forgot its new move, which was replaced by Clamp.

Some point soon after, I woke up. I looked at the time - it was already 11:00! I got up, and, in the living room, I found a book that read "Oracle of Ages" on the side. I picked it up and looked at the cover. It appeared to be some crossover between The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and... Star Wars. I decided that was ridiculous and not worth reading.

I woke up again and looked at the clock. It was actually almost 7 AM.

I went back to sleep and had another dream in which I was in the car, thinking about another Zelda game - Minish Cap this time. This one happened to be a crossover with Vocaloid. I was trying to remember who I'd decided to play as (since I'd only borrowed the game, so I don't still have it). I had a feeling I'd picked Len, but then I thought I may have chosen Rin instead. I knew I'd picked one of the Kagamine twins.

Soon, we arrived at home. Inside, I saw my cat, Princess, sitting happily inside a large cardboard box (she loved boxes). I remembered that Princess died last fall and, realizing that it couldn't be her, asked my mom where this cat had come from. She told me she'd taken it in; it was a stray she'd found on our porch.

Next thing I knew, there were now two of these cats. At first, I thought that Princess had come to see the new cat, but, like before, I remembered that it couldn't be her because she was dead. Again, I asked my mom where the second cat had come from. Before she answered, I decided it would be a good idea to do a reality check, given the strangeness of the situation, but I woke up before I could.

I figured it was about time to post something again.
Sorry, no dreams though.
I'll try to get back to that soon...

*Ramble*
I'm still having issues with headaches, but after finally finding a doc who actually seems to have some motivation to help me, my situation has improved a lot.
It got pretty bad at some point, where I spent most of my time in bed, mostly because I couldn't stand seeing any light.
But fortunately that's all over.
For some reason I had the discipline to at least take notes about my dreams, which let me tell you, is not a pleasant thing to do if you wake up every morning with a massive migraine. >_>
I'm really glad that I did though, because even though my dream recall deteriorated a bit, I immediately managed to recover as soon as my head got better.
Now that things are better, I'm trying to get this bloody thesis over with.
I'm about half way done... hopefully I can finish it within the next few weeks.
But enough about that.


So erm... usually I put music here.
Oh well, I suppose I'll just link what I'm listening to right now.




Biphasic sleep!

I always wanted to try it. The concept sounds really cool.
So much more room for activity! And those naps will surely help with lucid dreaming?
At the time I got my headaches under control I had completely lost any kind of sleep rhythm.
I figured that was as good a time as any to try to get myself into a biphasic rhythm.
Since I am of course a fucking genius (read idiot), I didn't bother looking up how you're supposed to set that up time wise.
It's called biphasic. A main phase and a nap, how hard can it be?
Well, maybe if I had read up on it I wouldn't have failed miserably at my first attempt.

I tried 7 hour main sleep with a 30 minute nap. That sounds about right?
Nope. Completely wrong. Didn't work at all.
That made me tired in the morning, yet I wasn't able to nap. Just couldn't fall asleep.
After reading up on it I quickly realized that this was way too much sleep.
You're supposed to do 4.5 hours main sleep with a 90 minute nap or 6 hours of sleep with a 20 minute power nap.
Holy shit, that's a lot less sleep than what I'm used to.
But imagine if you could gain nearly 2 hours of extra activity each day!



I decided to go with 6 hours main sleep and a 20 minute power nap.
After some more reading I figured the easiest way to get into the new rhythm would be sleep deprivation.
So I only slept for 6 hours the first day, then again for only 6 hours the next.
Woke up feeling like shit. Well, no surprise there.
I remained awake long enough to reach the time where I'm supposed to take a nap.
I was worried that I would fall asleep for too long, so I set myself an alarm for 30 minutes, taking into account the ~10 I would need to fall asleep.
Fell asleep immediately, but I needed the alarm to wake up, feeling very tired.

I tried to keep it up, but it didn't work.
Waking up after 6 hours of main sleep is sort of okay, though I certainly was feeling a lack of sleep after that.
But that 20 minute nap...
My body just refused to fall asleep at the correct time.
I only got tired like 4-6 hours too late for the nap, and then I would sleep for too long, not getting tired when it was time for main sleep.



I decided to switch to the 4.5 hours main sleep with a 90 minute nap instead.
4.5 hours was a pain at first.
Woke up feeling like shit the first 2 days, but the naps worked!
I got tired more or less around the correct time and woke up naturally after ~90 minutes, though a few times I overslept.
After a few days the new rhythm started to stabilize and I felt refreshed after both the main sleep and the nap.
It's a really weird feeling waking up after only 4.5 hours of sleep and feeling perfectly fine.
Well, I suppose for me this is a new feeling altogether.
I'm the kind of person who usually can't get his ass out of bed in the morning, but on a biphasic rhythm this is no longer the case.

I had a few more issues with not getting tired at the correct time for taking my 90 minute nap,
but I found out that this happens when I am concentrating too much beforehand.
If I'm working (on my thesis mostly) I simply do not get tired.
This sort of makes sense, so I decided to instead relax 30 minutes before nap time.
Listen to music, watch some tv, something like that.
This works brilliantly.



Lucid dreaming with a biphasic sleep rhythm
Turns out you don't magically have more lucids on a biphasic rhythm.
Or at least I don't. But it is incredibly easy to recall at least one dream after the 90 minute nap.
I often wake up straight from the dream which is pretty cool.
According to my DJ, I recall less dreams per day now that I'm on biphasic though, but more of them are lucids.
I regularly recall 2-3 dreams after 4.5 hours main sleep and another 1-2 (though mostly 1) after the 90 minute nap.
On monophasic I recalled 2-8 mostly. It was pretty random.
What is interesting though is that the last dream I have during the nap always seems to be a long dream with decent to good recall.

Once I had a stable biphasic sleep rhythm I felt confident to try to WILD during the 90 minute nap.
My success with WILD has been rather random thus far. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I never tried to do it consistently until now though.
And right off the start it worked really well!
The biggest difference to a WBTB WILD for me was that I wasn't as tired.
I could actually prevent myself from going unconscious pretty easily.
Transitioning... it sort of just worked. All of the difficulties seemed gone.
I've always had trouble transitioning until now.

The only issue I had and still have with this is that it is really difficult to tell when I've actually fallen asleep.
Usually I don't simply enter a new scene. I start out in the exact same spot I fell asleep in. (In bed)
This makes it difficult to tell when I've actually fallen asleep, and often introduces movement problems.
I always get confused because I think I can't move because I have an SP episode, even though it usually turns out
that I'm simply dreaming about not being able to move.
I usually manage to shake myself loose after a few minutes and go on lucid adventures.
Sometimes I have difficulty falling asleep when I try to WILD. I think in these situations I'm just not tired enough to do it.
I just let myself go unconscious if it takes me more than 5 minutes and hope for a DILD.

Here's my sleep log for the past 7 days: (Times indicate going to bed until waking up, NL = non-lucid)

Code:

21.08 - (4:00-8:45)(1 NL + 1 DILD) -  (17:45-19:20)(0 NL + 0 WILD + 1 DILD)
22.08 - (4:20-9:00)(3 NL + 0 DILD) -  (18:00-19:35)(0 NL + 1 WILD + 0 DILD)
23.08 - (4:30-9:15)(0 NL + 0 DILD) -  (18:15-19:50)(0 NL + 1 WILD + 0 DILD)
24.08 - (4:30-9:15)(2 NL + 1 DILD) -  (18:15-19:50)(2 NL + 0 WILD + 0 DILD)
25.08 - (4:50-9:30)(1 NL + 1 DILD) -  (18:30-20:05)(1 NL + 0 WILD + 0 DILD)
26.08 - (4:50-9:40)(7 NL + 0 DILD) -  (18:40-20:15)(0 NL + 1 WILD + 1 DILD)
27.08 - (5:00-9:45)(1 NL + 1 DILD) -  (18:45-20:20)(1 NL + 0 WILD + 0 DILD)

28 dreams ->  4,00  dreams / day
 9 lucids ->  1,29  lucids / day
 
lucidity  ->  32,35%

As you can see times are sort of shifting a few minutes day by day.
But I think I figured out why that is.
What I currently do is:
15 mins to fall asleep + 4,5 hours of sleep + 9 hours awake + 5 mins to fall asleep + 90 minutes nap which leaves me with ~8,6 hours to be awake instead of 9.
I think my mistake is going to bed when it is time to sleep. I should fall asleep at that time, not go to bed and wait another 15 minutes or so.
If I take that into account, and go to bed 15 minutes earlier for main sleep and 5 minutes earlier for the nap I think I can stabilize it.


Thoughts on biphasic sleep

• I like it.
• I pretty much have a guaranteed lucid a day, whereas on monophasic it was a lot more random. (though I did average a lucid a day)
• I spend ~6,3 hours in bed, 6 of which asleep.
  On monophasic, I slept for 8 hours a day and took at least an hour to get my ass out of bed,
  so that's ~3 more hours a day for activities.
  It may not sound like much, but it feels like a LOT of time.
• Even though I sleep less I feel less tired.
  I feel refreshed after sleep which I never did on monophasic.
• A biphasic rhythm feels odd, possibly because wake time is split up evenly.
  A single day feels sort of like 2 shorter days.
• I still eat at the same times as beforehand. (12:30 and 22:00)
• I need an alarm clock to wake up from the main sleep phase on time. (Sometimes I wake up 5min before the alarm)
• I do not need to set an alarm for the 90min nap.

Persistent worlds
(DJ snippet)

Persistent worlds. I've thought about this topic quite a bit lately.
The whole realm around Teraluna is what I'd call persistent. It's more than that.
All my actions have consequences. I cannot use dream powers. It feels real.
I am limited to understanding and training myself in the abilities that are native to this realm.
But the question that's often on my mind is: "How does it work?"
And more importantly: "How can I repeat it?"

After a lot of messing around I have sort of figured out a way how I can create (or access?) such worlds.
I wouldn't call my method consistent, nor would I suggest that it is a proper technique.
I might explain how I do it and my thoughts behind it though, maybe it'll help someone do something similar.

Well, I have successfully completed my first week of school as a junior. It has really been messing up my dreaming schedule though THis weekend, I was so tired that I didn't really focus on dreams at all and just slept a lot. So ya, I am really hoping I can find a way to work dreaming into my schedule because I really enjoy it. I did have one more lucid experience but it was only for a few seconds cause my alarm clock went off.

So ya, I am really hoping I can find a way to work dreaming into my schedule because I really enjoy it. Also, this weekend I have got really into this game I am working on, so that is going to occupy a lot of my free time. (it will NOT interfere however, with my dreams. )

See ya.

I had a dream last night that involved collecting pieces of candy (Smarties - the American kind - to be specific) and making note of which ones we found on a chart. The candy was all hidden in my living room, and the chart was on the dining room table (we have a combined living room/dining room/kitchen area, all as one big room).

In the next dream, I was watching some weird TV show, in which a school nurse went crazy and killed one of the kids.

I woke up after that but soon went back to sleep and had a dream that I was checking Facebook and saw that one of my friends had spoiled the ending to The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (ironically, he's never played Skyward Sword IWL). I can't remember what he'd said, but I kind of wish I could remember, so I could see how close it compares with the actual ending when I finish the game IWL.

The next dream... I don't even know where to start with this one. I remember it. I can't recall anything I can really put into words. I can hardly even recall any images. I can barely even remember anything that happened. Yet I know that I can just... remember it - this feeling of acknowledgement of having dreamt it, I suppose.

I guess I'll try to write what I can remember and put into words. It was kind of dark. It was also a video game - and a rather frustrating one at that. I remember the mini-map in the corner. There were four dots on that map - two red and two yellow. The red ones were me, and the yellow ones were the enemy. I can't remember who/what I was, though, just that I was represented on the mini-map as two red dots.

Woke up on 8/18/2012
*Only remember fragments of first dream

Successful DEILD

1) I’ m at a zip lining place with my sisters and there are three difficulties. There is a small body of water and the zip lines zigzag across it. They are only about one-and-a-half body lengths above the water and they are made up of one very long zip line which is hooked on to pieces of the rocky wall surrounding the water to make the zigzag pattern. We are at the side of the easiest one and I complete it with ease. As I approach the end of the first line I quickly pull the pulley up somehow and land it on the next line. As I reach the end of the medium difficulty zip line I prepare to jump the device to the hard difficulty zip line, but I start swinging wildly as I approach it. I decide not to let go and the pulley slides back to the beginning of the medium difficulty zip line. I try to regain my balance in order to try again. When I reach the wall I try to kick off and keep my momentum straight forward. I swing wildly again as I approach the hard zip line and slide back to the beginning once more. After failing twice, I decide that I need to jump diagonally towards a ledge that is next to the hard difficulty zip line. I reach the start once more, kick off as hard as I can, and slide quickly toward the ledge. I let go of the pulley and leap off the zip line hoping that I will have enough momentum to carry me to the ledge. I reach out, but I am not able to grab the ledge. Instead, I end up on a huge blue bucket with no lid which stands in the water next to another bucket. I have a firm grip since my elbows are hooked over the edge, but the tall bucket begins to lose balance and I’m sure I will fall. I hear my sister say something along the lines of “Aw! Well, falling in the water doesn’t mean you lose”. Then, I try to shift my weight upwards and bring my arms further into the bucket and, miraculously, it regains balance and I’m able to climb up on the rocky ledge with some difficulty (I kind of wanted to try the hard zip line though).

DEILD
I am slightly awake in real life, but I am very sleepy since I had woken up in the middle of the night. I was probably half asleep because I don’t remember any real life images since I probably never opened my eyes. Somehow I was still able to think clearly and I seized the opportunity to attempt to imagine a dream scene, though I didn’t think about the fact that I was DEILDing. I didn’t have any specific dream scene in mind but I just told myself over and over to imagine a lucid dream scene. Almost immediately, the dream starts to fade in and I am fully lucid.

2) I see Bobby Lee as a realtor next to a doorway leading to a room in a house. He is in a light yellow buttoned shirt which has blurry white lines mixed into it tucked into what I believe are whitish-yellow pants secured with a brown belt. Somehow, I get the feeling that he knows I’m lucid. Though I was fully lucid, I could still feel the slightest bit of consciousness. I believed Bobby was telling me to go along with the dream story so that I could be fully enveloped in the dream and still remain lucid. He tells me to try to sell the house to two people and beckons me inside the room. I walk inside and describe the room to the old Asian couple as they looked around. To maintain lucidity, I said or did something while looking out a window to my right. Bobby peeked through the doorway and told me to describe it some more and I obliged. After doing this I was confident I was fully asleep and would not wake up so I looked out the window and prepared to find my dream object. Through the window, countless things were going on. Though there was a small field of vision, I could somehow see a zoo, a hangar (There are two hangars outside of my neighborhood in real life), tanks, school buses and trucks driving next to the tanks, futuristic planes in the sky, and roads with bustling cars everywhere. There was so much going on, yet I didn’t feel any sense of chaos. I yelled out, “I want to be guided or led to my dream object” (This is explained in the dream notes in section 2). Suddenly, I see a small object fall from the sky. It travels through the window next to the one I was looking through and landed in my room (The room in the house became my real room at this point). I pick up the object excited to see what it would be. I look at it and I become immensely disappointed. It is some kind of orange/black band made of rubber with a small screen. It almost looks like a watch or a pedometer, but the band looks like it’s meant to go around a finger (To put it into perspective, imagine a tiger printed watch meant to go around your finger instead of your wrist. Don’t imagine too many lines, though. The face of the device was mostly orange and there were a few waves of black on the edges). I knew the device wasn’t a watch or pedometer and I was hoping that my dream object would be something I could easily find in real life. I called out again saying something like, “C’mon! Give me another one!” hoping for a better result. Something else flew down and I picked it up. It was the same object and I became annoyed. I walked back to the window and, for some reason, said that I wanted something more sophisticated (What an odd word choice. I think I meant to say “meaningful”). I saw something fly past my vision to the other window. I walked back and picked up the object. It was a square version of the original object. I looked on the back to see what it was. There were letters carved out of the rubber, and since they were the same color and material as the device itself, they were a little hard to read. I see the word “yoyo” and a few other letters after it which I could not make out. I concluded that the device was meant to be attached to a Yoyo and could somehow count or judge the Yoyo tricks while you played with one. I looked out the window at all the commotion and asked what my big dream object was. I thought that you only had one dream object, but I decided it was worth a shot and that if I had a big object that I could take a picture of in real life, it would be better than nothing at all. Letters were shown in the road below. I don’t remember what they said, but after reading them I looked up towards the area where there were tanks and buses. I remember thinking it was one of those and I think I asked if it was a school bus (I may have said something else). The word “ZOO” appeared on the road and I looked at the zoo. My sister was next to me all of a sudden and told me I was looking at the wrong place and that I was supposed to look at a car near the zoo. Suddenly, I was in one of the bustling cars on the road and there was no roof or window (I was probably in a convertible). I looked at the road and I think I asked for a hint. A text appeared on the road and, though we were moving fast, the text remained in the same relative position to me. There was a transparent image of a car top sign with a moving LED text on it that said “NO TRESPASSING” and I assumed it meant that was my dream object was a car that had those words on it. For some strange reason, I thought of a Toyota. I asked my sister what type of Toyota had that and if a Corolla was the right answer. She said she didn’t know, so I decided to just guess all the Toyota cars I could until I found the right one. I looked down at the road and asked if it was a Toyota Corolla and a text appeared that said “WILD GUESSES” or something with the word “GUESS” or a form of it in the text. I got the sense that I was being told that I wasn’t supposed to randomly guess to find out and that my dream guide had nothing else to say to me for the time being. My dream faded out around this time.

Dream Notes:

2) I watched a video by ReeceJones87 on YouTube about dream bridging. In the video he said that to find a dream object someone is supposed to say "I want to be guided or led to my dream object" while lucid. He also said that your dream object could be big or small and that if it is too big or does not belong to you then you can take a picture of it instead of taking it with you. In my dream I was disappointed with the same object so I decided to ask for a bigger one in order to get a different result.

I don't remember my first dream from last night too well. I remember playing tennis, though.

In the next dream, I was at Earth Camp, and we were playing some weird game outside. One girl accidentally touched some poison ivy (which actually did look exactly the same as IWL), so I instructed her to go inside, not to touch anything with that hand (for the sake of being careful), and go wash her hands thoroughly with soap and water (if you happen to touch poison ivy, you have roughly ten minutes before it gets absorbed into your skin; you can wash it off before then and not get affected at all).

After waking up in the morning, having plenty of time to sleep in, I soon drifted back to sleep. I saw an image of a landscape (on a computer screen, I think) with hills and mountains. I then looked down at the similar landscape beneath it. I switched my attention from one to the other a few times before realizing the bottom one was actually underwater.

Suddenly, I was there, as a mermaid. I looked around. The scene was breathtaking. Off in the distance, I could see the city of Atlantis. It was amazing!

I kind of followed the other mermaids. During the summer, we could swim around in the ocean wherever we pleased. Winter was coming, though, which meant it was time for us to all return to Atlantis.

Now, I wish I'd become lucid by that point, because that part was probably one of the most amazing dreams I've ever had. Once we started heading back to Atlantis, though, it just got weird.

A dolphin started chasing us, trying to eat us. This soon led to what was almost like a game; I was then trying to get the attention of a nearby shark (which seemed to take no interest in me whatsoever), so I could lure it towards the dolphin and get away.

When I finally got past the dolphin (without the help of the shark), it turned into a video game that I was now playing (2D, 32-bit graphics - think GBA game). There were now a TON of enemies I had to avoid. I did good for awhile, but then one of them got me.

Instead of losing a life or getting a game over, there was dialogue explaining that it was all a dream which was now ending. I don't remember specifically what it said, though I do remember the words, "This is a dream. It is time for you to wake up now." Of course, I interpreted this is that part of the game having been a dream in-game, not even thinking that I could have been dreaming, too.

The next part seemed like more than just "waking up", as it transitioned to an entirely different game. I was now playing Spirit Tracks. I was in Aboda Village, which, for some reason, was in the northwestern corner of the Forest Realm. I only had the engine of the Spirit Train, so I had to go find and collect the other three train cars. Fortunately, they were pretty easy to find; I just had to head east and go in a straight line.

After finding all the train cars, I decided to stop at the nearest station, which happened to be at Castle Town. Unlike Aboda Village, Castle Town was in roughly the correct place. There was a woman there who wanted me to take her somewhere new. That was the last thing I remember before waking up.

I looked at the clock and saw that only around five or ten minutes had passed. This was kind of surprising, as that dream felt like it was AT LEAST a solid half-hour.

I drifted off to sleep again and had a dream in which I was looking at questions on a math exam I had to take. It seemed really easy. I don't remember the questions now, though, except for one: "Count to your favourite number."

After waking up from that and going back to sleep yet again, I had another dream about playing Spirit Tracks. This time, I went to a house that supposedly had no one living there; there were supposedly just cats and puppets. Except... there actually was someone there. He was an Arabic man with a French accent. He asked me various odd questions about someone I'd apparently taken to the Tower of Spirits.

Suddenly, I'd somehow activated some multiplayer feature, which brought up a list of nearby players. The list was ridiculously long - surely there weren't THAT many people playing the SAME game right now, and in wireless range! Well, apparently, there were.

That's when I suddenly remembered two important things. One, I wasn't supposed to be playing any video games, since it was morning and I hadn't become lucid that night (part of my reward system for LDing), and, two, I should type up my latest DJ entry before doing anything fun. With the intention of updating my dream journal, I shut off the game, causing me to abruptly wake up.

Entry #1

I was walking down a sidewalk that lead all the way around a large circular bay. The area was an industrious kind, with average sized sky scrapers and corperation buildings. The immediate view made the dream what it turned out to be.
I knew I was in my head, but this place was too serene and beautiful to lose any surreal value. Lifting up in the air, I looked around to see a cruise ship docked in the water bellow me, and I decided to warm up with the simpler push and pull movements. I reached my hand towards the ship to direct of movement and it began to slide forward and gain speed- all until it crashed on the other side of the bay, shattering a wooden dock and part of the sidewalk it was connected to. So I flew over the clearest of layered waters I’ve seen first hand, towards a building that needed to be changed, all the while trying to figure how I was going to change it, and attempting to convince myself I already knew how to change it.
Because of the amplified thought process dreams bring, if you find a reason to believe that you are already capable of accomplishing a certain feat, you’ll be suprised at what revalations you might have in the mechanics of getting it done. Is that an answer to induction of revelation?- and is it the entrance to a unlocking a larger percentage of the brain mass we don’t consciously use?