side notes

Foreward
I have only recently, started recording my dreams, thus far it has only been approximately three weeks. I immediately started recalling at least three dreams per night once I made the conscious choice to do so. I haven't practiced any lucidity techniques; though lucidity is, in part, my primary goal; I have found the process very rewarding and entertaining so far. My dreams are often fantastical or in settings that would seem oddly constructed, or vast and otherworldly, and I have found it odd that it would not be enough for me to realize I was dreaming. I am certain of a couple lucid dreams over the years, but if they truly were while I was aware I was dreaming I always acted them out; only once or twice making brief use of fact I was actually dreaming.

I believe this dream was in the first cycle of REM sleep as it was short and the time in the night would support this.

The Dream

I opened my eyes...
I was kneeling inside a dim room, in the far left corner facing forwards. The floors were wooden and there was a large rectangular mirror affixed to the wall in front of me, the mirror just off to my right hand side, it's base sitting roughly half way up the wall. I felt safe, familiar... yet not.
Still kneeling where I had came to, I looked in the dire the mirror and saw my father's reflection. He looked back at me, then it occurred to me I was alone in the room. It was a ghost staring back at me.
But then I realized my father was still alive this couldn't be, and that is when the feeling of panic washed over me.
Simultaneously it occurred to me I was dreaming, but the panic had set in and I could feel my body weakening and the world was growing dark around me. I had felt this feeling before... when I was only a child... I was about to pass out... my body began to fall forwards and the world grew darker still but I was now calm; I was going to hit the wall and there was nothing I could do.
I waited for the impact of my head against the wall, but it never came. Enshrouded and cradled by the darkness I had passed through the wall and awoken lying in my bed staring at the ceiling.

The ceiling above me was the stars, the universe, and I wanted to see it all.
My body started lifting off the bed, up into the ceiling of stars after which I willed myself fast through the cosmos. After, what was probably only a few seconds of travel I decided I wanted to go back to Earth; and experience this amazing feeling of lucidity there. I looked back towards Earth, it was nowhere to be seen; but I knew the direction and slowly my body turned around and started travelling back towards Earth.

This is when I truly awoke in reality, having glimpsed if only for a moment something extraordinary.

'Ello.
Starting the journal since I find that my dream recall lacks details, meaning that while I usually recall an acceptable amount of dreams every night, most tend to be short / I don't remember most of it, or don't remember the details. But when I share my dreams with someone else I find myself writing more, trying to explain things, and while doing this I recall things, and if I start sharing my dreams, then it will also work to empower my self-suggestion of wanting to remember my dreams in a detailed manner.
I'll start by adding all dreams from the past few days, and keep adding my dreams as the days go! Hope someone can find some sort of enjoyment or interest in some of my stuff

Very light, semilucid dreams about League Of Legends fights, all night long from what I can remember. I didn't sleep well, but it made for some wacky dreams. I was just watching RTS battles from birdseye view for hours on end, and at parts I felt like I could take control of my characters. I feel like when I start lucid dreaming, the only way I'll be able to control things is from League of Legends perspective, since it's the only game I play right now. Kind of cool I guess..?

Color-coding: Non-lucid, Semi-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]
Bold text indicates a “dream within a dream,” meaning any dream scenes that followed after I dreamed of falling asleep

I wake up in my current bedroom. I can hear the couple who lives downstairs in the master bedroom arguing. The woman says something like, “I have to get up now and get ready for work!” I can't sleep with them arguing, so I decide, “Okay, I guess I'm up for the day now, too.” I get up and start trying to take a shower, but the hot water keeps turning cold because the woman downstairs is taking a shower at the same time. After I'm done, I'm still feeling so sleepy that I decide to go back to bed and try to get some good sleep while I still can. It's still only 4:15 AM, after all. So I get back into bed and go to sleep.

[All of the above paragraph was a completely convincing false awakening that I failed to catch. I've never heard the couple in question argue like that, plus, in the dream, the residents of the master bedroom were the parents of the girl who actually lives there in real life, and I thought nothing of it. :/]

I'm visiting EM and SM's house in Omaha [something I did in real life recently]. It's morning, and we're all getting ready to leave the house for the day. They have a gigantic, elaborate house [way bigger, fancier, and more high-tech than their real house]. While we're in the kitchen, SM says something like, “You haven't had a chance to eat today.” I answer, “I know. That's why I always keep bananas in stock.” I show her that I'm carrying a banana with me, which I intend to eat for breakfast. SM has an eyepatch over her left eye socket, with a cool outer-space vista on it. It's embedded into her skin, and I can see muscles twitching underneath it. It's kind of creepy.

We get outside the front door when I realize that I don't have any shoes on. I say to EM, “Could you unlock the door for me, so I can get back into the house? I'm not wearing shoes, only socks.”

EM takes out a door key and uses it to unlock a lock in a wall, which opens the front door. “The front door” consists of a zig-zagging wall of metal panels that cross a wide, concrete courtyard. The panels that are parallel to the house swing open, toward the house, when the key is turned; they're the doors. I go into the house and run up the stairs to the room where I'm staying, to get my shoes.

When I come back outside, I find SM sitting on something in the middle of the tall, light-green grass on the wide front lawn, waiting for me. She doesn't have her eyepatch anymore; both of her eyes are normal. [This is the case in real life.]

“Wait just a ding-danged minute here...” I say. This discrepancy has caused me to begin to suspect that none of this is real. To test whether I'm dreaming, I turn to face a low rock wall nearby and start walking toward it, willing myself to pass through it intangibly [something I know very well that I can do in dreams]. I find that I can't pass through it; I just bump into it normally. In the moments that follow, I'm very acutely and vividly aware of the world around me, of my own self-consciousness, and of the fact that I'm not sure whether I'm awake or dreaming at this very moment. [I finally started watching the TV series Awake a few nights ago, and this is what the protagonist experiences all the time, a fact which is reiterated at the beginning of episodes 2 and 3. That is so cool, that I got to experience that personally in one of my own dreams! ]

After another moment or two, I do realize that I am dreaming. [I don't remember specifically how or why.] By definition, that means that I am getting some good sleep now, I reflect gratefully. I smile and decide to enjoy myself here while I'm getting that restorative sleep I needed so much.

As usual, all I want to do is explore the dream world, so I start flying up and away from the house. I see SM's car driving away below me, and wave goodbye to her. From up here, I can see the entire city spread out below me, covering the gently rolling hills like a blanket, and it's very beautiful. It's also very windy up there. I think to myself: I've got brains in my head, I've got feet in my shoes, I've got levitation powers in my mind. I can steer myself any direction I choose. [This is a reference to the Dr. Seuss book Oh, the Places You'll Go!, from which one of my contacts in Omaha read a passage to a graduating class while I was there. Hmm. No idea why I thought of them as “levitation powers” instead of “flight powers.”] I try to fly into the wind, which is coming from my left, but can't find the strength to fight against it. I decide to fly with it instead. I think, Why not? When you're going bicycling, you'll probably choose to ride with the wind, if you have a choice.

I end up flying through a neighborhood filled with lots of cute little houses that line narrow, old, little streets that wind around every which way. [Just like in the real Omaha, or, at least, the neighborhood where EM and SM live.] Every front yard has big, tropical-rainforest-looking trees in it that reach across the street, forming the beginnings of a canopy, but not a very thick one. There are exotic, tropical birds in every tree. [Um... not at all like in the real Omaha. ] I fly along, following the streets and admiring the beauty all around me.

[Dreamskip - I don't remember getting from one locale to the other.] I'm still in Omaha, but now I'm in a gigantic, elaborate, multi-story library and bookstore. It has lots of glass walls and ceilings that let in the sunlight, and they're arranged in a square geometric pattern, just like this library. It's filled with lots and lots of shelves of books, and there are plenty of people walking around. I'm still flying to get around, instead of walking. I fly up from one level to another, in search of the section where the most popular books are kept. I want to check one of those books out, but I don't have a library card yet, so I'm limited to buying it. I definitely intend to get a library card when I move there, though. [True in real life, too.]

When I get to that section, I land and start walking. I'm looking for the second book in a series I'm reading. I have to think about it to remember which one it is. It's not the Twilight series; it's the Hunger Games series. [Which I haven't even started reading in real life, but I would like to.] I look through the neat, white, bright shelves and find the book I'm looking for. I pick it up and start walking away with it, reading it. There's a computer kiosk that beeps at me as I walk by. I look on the screen, and it has a written message directed at me, chastising me for cracking the spine on my book. Doing so somehow disrupted the operation of a pacemaker of somebody in the immediate vicinity. [I don't recall seeing that somebody there, though.]

I continue exploring the library, and decide I want to go down one floor, but I don't want to fly because there are lots of people around, and I generally try to avoid using any of my dream powers when there are people around to see me. [Yes, they are just DCs, but I always think like that in my lucid dreams anyway. I don't know why, but I do.] I see a wide, steep, carpet-covered ramp leading down to the level below me, and decide to roll down it.

[Dreamskip. I'm not 100% certain that I was still aware that I was dreaming in this scene, but I may have been.] I'm walking along a city street and see a restaurant that is closed. I'm disappointed to discover this, because it had belonged to my friends. I wander through it, looking at all the debris left in the abandoned building. I walk to a side entrance and go out through the patio, where I see that people have begun seating themselves at the patio tables. I realize that they must have seen me walking around inside the restaurant, assumed it was open, and sat down. I feel bad about it, but I start telling them, “Sorry, it's closed.” They get up and leave.

[Side notes: Heh. I love how my subconscious has turned Omaha into this perfect tropical paradise with an awesome library, a place where everything I saw around me was incredibly cool and gave me nothing but happiness and joy. Omaha really does have a gigantic central library, although it doesn't have that cool architectural design. That part came directly from the library at UC San Diego. I didn't go to school there, but EM did - a fact which I had consciously forgotten about until I told my mom about this dream later in the day. Hmm. Omaha also has a zoo that I didn't actually see, but that everyone tells me is pretty awesome. Okay, subconscious, I get the message: Don't give up on Omaha yet. You may still be able to find happiness there.]

So last night I went to be quite late for a college night (11:30ish) and woke up at 7:15ish, and whenever I do this I seem to have pretty crappy recall

On the plus side, it's been a lovely summers day today here in England! I've been sticking to my one fag a day, which is proving much nicer. I hated being addicted to smoking! I'm aware many people probably would say that if I'm having 1 fag a day then what is the point in not fully giving up, but I disagree personally! To me it's like a coffee :-)

I started my second year of college today, which was pretty good! I have a new, amazing philosophy teacher who has proved very helpful already, and I'm doing an extended project qualification on Buddhism which will be fun too!

Last night, my friend showed me a wonderful video on spirits and chakra, and it's changed my life. Generally, I'm a very happy guy at the moment - it feels strange being this happy after so long of being down!

Tonight, I'm going to set my alarm for 5 hours after I go to bed, as that's proved pretty successful for consistent lucids recently!

Much love to you all, stay happy and love everything!

Calum xx

non-dream dream semi-lucid lucid false awakening

Some months ago my dream activity was mortally wounded. I went through a lot, I was depressed, lost, unfocused. Meditation went down the drain, dream recall followed suit. I think I regressed to where I was some 5 years ago. I may have gone too fast, too deep, too soon, into the dream warrior world, without enough prep. I probably fought battles which were too tough and encountered dark forces which drained me out of my energy.
So, I'm rebuilding.
Lately my dreams have been a lot about feeling safe in a house. For many, many years, I had recurring dreams about living in a house that was falling apart, whose windows and doors would not close when I most needed its protection. Now the dreams are different. This house where I am now recovering, is big, strong and has amazing doors and windows that seem impenetrable. I feel there's a darkness outside it (still is) but I feel completely safe inside it. I'm rebuilding my dream headquarters and it is a cozy fortress

My parents and I were going on vacation to Alaska. A man—a guide presumably—was planning our Alaska trip, but he was not a professional. Then my dream replaced the trip to Alaska with China. We were in a park with a lot of water or fountains. My dad and the guide were walking ahead, leaving a small girl behind—a female relative, I assumed she was my sister or cousin. She was left behind because, though she might have been full of energy at that moment, she’d be too slow or tire out quickly later on. I picked her up and carried her with us, but carrying her around was rather uncomfortable for me.

We were supposed to go to Star River in China, but we went to Star River on the moon instead. We could breathe on the moon, which confused us. We saw astronauts in space suits, and a pile of poop. I poked it before realizing it was poop. The river was dried up, and had been dried up for years, but the erosion was still etched into the moon’s surface. The guide had intentionally misled us there. Other tours were led to the moon’s Star River instead of China’s Star River, it was a tactic used to waste time. We were disappointed that we were not at China’s Star River. We went back to China, and waited for our turn to take a tour of Star River. We waited in a cafeteria.


Interpretation
The moon, Alaska and poop (it looked like my duck’s poop, which I have seen an awful lot of these past few weeks) were all residue from the day before. The little girl might have represented my mother--after all, she was only there when I did not see my mom. My mother is often left out of international travel plans because of her pain and movement issues. My father, sister and I went to China in March without inviting my mother, realizing that she’d be incapable of walking so much. She was rather depressed the week that we were gone, and I’ve felt bad about it ever since. I sometimes view my mother as a child: incapable of managing on her own anymore. I also need a lot of patience with her, like I would with someone younger. I have been offering to help her more at my inconvenience because I know she can’t manage on her own. I also try to protect her from my sisters’ judgements about her, even though my mom drives me crazy too.

Just words: no time to write more.


- Bunker (?)
- Getting "along" with an ex
- Going to buy something at a store, realise I don't have money, leaving xD
- Smoking a cigar
- Dreaming about working at a radio station
- Dicking around with the (new irl) neighbours (haven't really seen them yet in wake life though, lol)

For the first time in quite a while I could sleep in, which I did to the fullest. Slept for more than 12 hours and my dreams during the last cycles were intense, short, superlong and manymanymany. It has been hard for me to keep track of which dream fits into which and some I have forgotten during the day, even though I wrote down keynotes each time I woke up. Therefore I'm just gonna put 'em all down bulletstyle.

The first dream I'm putting down is the one I think came first; it's about this blogger girl that I've been following for a while. As I love language it is important to me that people use language well and that is excactly what she does. It just so happens that she writes alot about sucking cock. So in my dream she wanted to suck my cock while I wanted to seem intelligent to her (as that is what I percieve her as). The thing is I am not interested in women at the present, so her sucking my cock was completely out of the question. All the while I'm lying in just my underwear and a t-shirt on the floor, she has the same kind of clothing. While this is happening there is a proverbial storm of the century going on outside. The lightning flashes bright and makes everything in the room extremly bright. When it's not flashing there's thunder and the sound of rain growling constantly in the background. The location of this dream is a house I used to live in, except the fact that where this room was there should have been a toilet but in this dream it was kind of a chill out-corner.

The second dream is just an image. I'm moving to a new place soon and there I will build a sleeping loft. I'm going to make totempoles out of the legs to the loft and in this dream that was excactly what I was doing; carving wood.

The third dream I'm with my band in a city upnorth. It just so happens that a girl who contacted me and was very impressed with my writing is from this town. We were supposed to do a gig there, but we got stuck in this room which was supposed to be some sort of backstage-area (but it wasn't, it was the room where I recieved my first kiss (that I found out during waking reflection)). I'm currently off every mindaltering drug, but no one else that I know is. So there was a hunt for drugs in unknown territory, and this girl who likes my writing obviously had some connections and she said she was going to help out in the quest for finding junk. I told her that I'm currently not using and she carresed the fold of my jacket sensually and said "too bad".
That was not the only thing happening. The weather outside was constantly changing, from sunny to total-annihilation-storm. Outside the windows was a female friend of mine, hanging halfway inside kicking with her legs playfully saying she wanted to get stoned. People are running back and forth through the room and the only grounded point in the room was the girl who said she'd help getting drugs.

Fourth dream: nothing remembered except the fact that I'm being chased and I have the mother of my children in my company. I've got the first scene from one of the Bourne-films running through my head as I write this (the one where his girl dies somewhere in the desert, or something to that point).

Woke 8am

Just as the title says.

The Green and White Snake
I recall this dream starting outside, it was during lunch with everyone outside. There was some commotion, I guess some kids had happened on a snake or something. I walked over and was amazed by its colors, generally don't recall ever hearing of a white and Green snake ya know. I noticed some people decide to throw a few rocks over to which I move over to shield the snake from, eventually I just picked up the snake n walked away. I recall then being in some kind of pet store, there was a woman that worked there (based off her khaki attire) showing me this kind gel like substance, saying that the snake would enjoy the use of it on her scales (I guess the employee knew the snake was female). And that was pretty much the end of that dream

In the Bush
This one I believe started with me just kind of walking through some jungle landscape. Eventually I came upon a solo velociraptor, (utahraptor size) Fileromie scale.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I wasn't scared or anything, ended up following it to some kind of hut/in the ground kind of home. Became a little bit of an interesting dream from that point, so i think i'll leave it at that.

Death of meh mum
Pretty much just that, I recall that she Had died, now how, and the funural/service. The weird part of it all was that her head seemed all shrunken from view.... like it was there, but even though it was.... it was to small to see... freaked me out when I woke up back when I was so young, ended up sleepin on the couch waiting for my mom to come home from work XD

Choice (graphic, gore)
The oldest, and still kind of disturbing dream I can recall having, was way back when I was little. It was a rather dark one in my opinion, specially for being in early elementary school. It started with what seemed to be my mom, asking me, whether, because for some reason one of had "to go", which one she should choose, me, or my older brother. It was a fucked dream from the start, I didn't know what to say, I didn't want to die, I in my age told him her since he had experienced more life than I. Then I remember her asking my older brother "which one?" to which she pointed at a spoon and a serrated knife. Well I guess the means of taking his life was to be disembowelment, because I remember my brother asking if he could have something to eat, and being told that doing so would only lead to a bigger mess.

I've had someone recently suggest that lucid dreaming may be dangerous, because were not letting our mind dream as it wants to, as in showing you things you need to see, to "decompress" of which he says this is just him theorizing off of his own logic, nothing more. I'm sorry but I'd rather not decompress then, cause dreams like those leave you not in a good state when you awake, mainly because they are the True Nightmares, the ones filled with disappointed/dead family/friends. Ones within reality that you cannot see to be false during a sleep state with an untrained mind.

Even the ones of war and undead, the ones I play games of when I get bored, even those have become tiresome, because they are a waste. Sure it was nice in the one where I was with a group, despite not being able to put faces to them, that I was able to help them for the brief time I was with them. Sadly the majority of them are me by myself, just moving at break-neck speeds, stopping to grab this or that and then onward.

I just.... want to go to peace ya know. Just a nice day up on some grassy knoll, with the single tree on a bright sunny day, maybe some coconut chime in the back-round clanking occasionally, calmingly. Shit maybe even have a picnic, nice large white sheet out on the ground with a bottom-less basket filled with all the noms you could ever want. Maybe when we finishing eating well say who cares for the mess of the white sheet we've left, n just decide to paint on it, as to hang it later for remembrance.

http://bit.ly/N5CU7j - The One Tree Hill | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Just something nice ya know.

No dreams remembered last night...
As usual when I'm getting back into dreaming, i'm going through the stage of waking up and not being bothered to write them down. Gotta get on that!!!

In other news, I taught loads of people in the last few days about lucid dreaming. I love how amazed everyone is when they hear about it. I remember how shocked I was when I discovered it :') I've also been having more metaphysical+philosophic conversations without freaking out recently, which has been nice. Finally, today I decided to give up smoking! I was walking with a friend talking about LSD Fractals and we used smoking cigarettes as an example. I couldn't deal with that thought and just wanted to cut the loop. The weird thing is, as usual I said "Oh I'll just finish this tobacco pouch!" and my friend moaned at me for it - however I actually ended up losing my baccy during the 2 minute walk XD

x

[Woke 10:30am
Did a few RC's don't remember getting lucid.

Unless Everyone just starts dying, I don't think it'll get worse from here. Ended up having to fight off someone close to me literally, cat got hurt so I had to take her to the vet, from which we are now trying to deal with a 1000+ bill for..... and then after all that... I discovered someone very very dear to me had passed on.

The dreams have been fleeting, specially with staying up to feed n take care of our second kitten.... like the first its made sleeping at night not really doable for someone like me.

After the fight..... that night I had dreams of someone else, my step dad, slamming me into stuff in his bedroom in the dark, like.... a printer, computer desk.... I just remember yelling out to my mom to stop him before I start fighting back. Then that dream went to one of my actual dad, and I was in a vehicle with him arguing.

Only other dream I can recall having right now was one from last night where my bf's mom came in and asked him to fill out some paper work and he just shook his head and said "nope, don't really feel up to". Which just reminds me of how he was telling me how annoying it is when she or her family, or some friends of his always ask him to fill out disability or unemployment forms for them..... not really any kind of significant dream.... but thats pretty much it.

Been doing multiple reality checks a day now, I've a reason to go into the lucid stage now more than ever. Didn't get to say goodbye to him, never thought I'd have to, someone so nice, considerate.... giving. Regret not telling him sooner my feelings, by the time i found out he felt the same it was to late. On one hand due to the butterfly effect things could have been different, at the same time, if i'd been with him and they were the same..... I cannot imagine how I'd not follow him. So I am here, and he may or may not be somewhere I hope I can visit. Dream character or not, anything for one more memory.

Will let you all know how that goes.

Got to sleep around 2am, slept till 11am.
Going to change wake up back to 5:30am.

No recall.