side notes

I was just about to type up my dream from two nights ago and I accidentally deleted it from my phone. XD

Damn.... I have no idea what it was about now. Anyway, I might as well put here that the last couple of days I've been getting some strong hypnagogia. Two nights ago I repeatedly, while trying to fall asleep, forgot that I was lying in bed and thought I was in various rooms around my house, and at one point a large, old-looking book appeared in front of my eyes and started quickly turning through all of its pages. There was more, but that's all I remember in detail. Last night the location-changing one happened a few more times, and at one point while typing a text in my phone I realized that it wasn't actually happening and just waved my hand around and stared at the screen for a few seconds, and then the whole scene melted back to me being in bed.

Strange stuff.

I stumbled on this video on youtube, and gizEdwards made a video on the Swallowing Reflex and it relating to WILDS.

The first segments are generic if you read guides on stopping the swallowing on here, but the last part of using a pillow to prop your mouth to where you don't have conscious effort in keeping it closed is definitely interesting!

I can't wait to try it out, because I do keep a conscious check on my mouth region after that last lucid where I almost choked to death (from building up saliva)

It's worth it for all you LDrs who either do WILD or go home, hahaha

Black means non lucid
Orange means semi lucid
Blue means lucid
Red means dream characters talking
Purple means possible shared dream person
Green means notes

Got it? Great! Enjoy as always.

Dream #1 an Eggcellent choice.

Im in a crowded store about to buy some chips. And i notice that there is this one Black girl with a stroller with a giant egg inside. I did'nt question it, but right here i begin questioning something. This woman walks in with a huge television set on top of her head, she says its her new hat. (Seriously subconsious WTF!?) I reach in my pocket and start rubbing my totem, and walk out of the storeand enter another store. Im looking for some sort of juice and can't seem to decide waht kind of juice to get. (Dream fades)

Dream #2 Drop the body off here.

Im riding with Natalia in some hippy van. There is a dead body in the trunk, and me and Natalia are yelling at eachother about who should dump the body. She tells me..
"You should do it, because you are the MAN!"
"Oh so now i have to get my hands dirty?" Uh-uh..FUCK THAT!
"AW..DON'T BE SUCH A PUSSY!" You done this plenty of times!
"Thats not the point NATALIA!" Im fucking tired of it though alright!?
"AW..FINE WE WILL BOTH DO IT!"
We get to a lake, and me and Natalia pull the body bag out of the trunk, and drag it across the dirt road. Its night time and it is a full moon, i look up at the moon.
"Stop fucking day dreaming, and help me carry this corpse!"
"ALRIGHT damn..stop yelling at me!"

We get to this bridge, and pick up the body bag and dump it in the lake. Me and Natalia look down at the lake then look at eachother. (dream fades)

Dream #3 Hitting Awareness at Dennys.

Im with a group of people sitting around a table at Dennys eating some food. I think i was eating some Nacho's, And Natalia was with me drinking some pop. (Soda but i call it pop)
These men walk in they look like some Mafioso guys, and Natalia looks over at them and looks at me and says..
"Hey, those men ova there look suspicious." Maybe we should follow them after they leave from here.
"Mmkay ima go run to the bathroom real quik." I walk into the restroom and look at myself in the mirror, I become lucid and put my game face on. Now wearing my usual suit attire i walk out and have a seat back at the table. "Alright how do you want to do this?"
"Whats with that look in your eye tiger?" You finally aware?
"Yea, just needed to have a look at myself in the mirror thats all."
"Lol, for a man you sure do spend alot of time in the mirror looking at yourself."
"Whats wrong with that?"
"Lol nothing tiger."

Final dream High tail the car.

Me and Natalia are in the car high tailing those suspicious men in their car. She is explaining to me, that we should follow them to their hideout. Natalia cruises so we don't look too suspicious, And i reach in the back seat to grab a shotgun. (Natalia calls her Lola)
We watch as the men pull up to this Huge building (almost like a warehouse) And we sit in the car and wait. Its night time and i can barely see anything. Natalia explains to me to write down the name on the building. (I forget the name) But a street light post was shining a little light on these numbers...i remember seeing 40815.
Dream fades and i wake up.

Tried to lucid dream last night. Still no luck.

I have become extremely addicted to the shooter Tribes Ascend which is a free online FPS with RPG elements like XP and leveling. I was dreaming about being in the game... I had a feeling I would because you can virtually fly in it, which sometimes inspires dream flight for me.

The initial details are all but lost. I remember having a high-tech weapon and my GF was with me.

In the middle of a futuristic outdoor daylight dream, we were suddenly transported (or entered a door) to a dreadfully unwholesome looking mansion with long corridors filled with maggots. This part I recall in fragments, but what I do recall is extremely vivid. At one point we had to crawl through these mini-halls and our hands were constantly crushing maggots into disgusting goop. My GF and I came clear of one, and came to a room with a set of gothic looking shelves stacking out of a heavily engraved desk-like piece of furniture.

On the top shelf was something like a metallic engraved pot. Suddenly, a glowing tan colored image began to project out of it. The image was very poor at first, and then a solid dark gray leathery head appeared and announced:

"I am the devil."

The face was inhuman. Something like a classic gargoyle but the eyes were large and out of proportion. My GF and I looked at each other curiously. It went on to say something very similar to this effect:

"I am the devil. There are a few matters to discuss. First, I will compliment the mathematical formula you have devised to divide any surface into equal triangles. You are commended, duly commence to share-ing-ly express this knowledge abroad." (He was speaking to my GF who is a math wiz in real life.)

I turned to my GF and said: "Weird that the devil would use the word shareingly." (I am not 100% certain this is the exact word used in the dream, it was something very similar to "shareingly.")

He continued "You both must be hungry. But as you can see, there is nothing to fill your stomachs in my domain... (I remember thinking, we could starve in this place.) Therefore, I will produce food to sustain you..."

A beige cloud formed around the desk, then quickly dissolved. Two delicious plates of food were left placed. (See: Stealing Mexican Food.) We both dove in without thinking twice. I noticed that there was something pulsing at the bottom of my plate. Thinking back, it seemed the only thing to make food from was... maggots. With a sinking feeling, I looked at my GF's plate. She only had a few crumbs left. --Then I woke up.

This is my 2nd dream featuring the devil in the past year. I don't recall any other occasions. The first was lucid, and isn't posted to Dream Views. This is the third Trickster dream posted to dream views.

The night before I decided to wake up at four in the morning without an alarm, basically just to see if I can. I told myself I would wake up at four a few times before falling asleep. I woke up during the night and was completely awake. I was surprised at how easy it was. I decided to try some meditation exercise lying down. I got started for maybe a couple of minutes and drifted back to sleep. I didn't remember the dreams from the second period of sleep, but remembered those from the first pretty well. I didn't check the time when I woke up, so I don't know if it actually was four in the morning.

Tonight I did the same. I woke up at four without any problem. I checked that I didn't feel sleepy. Then I just drifted to sleep. The dreams from tonight are scattered and I only remember images and ideas, nothing I can put into words.

I'm certainly going to do the same tonight. I probably should get up when I wake up. I also need to check the time.

Since recall is not a problem anymore, I decided to write down some goals I would like to achieve when attaining lucidity.
This just for my own purpose of writing it down somewhere (besides the pen/paper DJ).
These are what just come to mind;
- Fly
- Be a giant
- Be a woman
- Summon/revisit older dreams in my memory.
- To walk around in Soundgardens music video of Black Hole Sun
- Manipulate time, or just explore the dimension of time in dreams in general.

These are just a few of what will probably become a very long list. Well I hope this last minute entry wil have an influence on my dream cause I'm going to bed now.
If you have any goals you think are really worth it and are a must do for LDers. Please share them!

Goodnight,
Booney

Black means non lucid
Orange means semi lucid
Blue means lucid
Red means dream characters talking
Purple means possible shared dreaming person
Green means notes

Got it? Great! Enjoy.

Dream #1 Tickling Fiesta.

Im in a huge hotel suite with a bunch of college chicks. There are all different mixtures of women in the hotel room. There is this one girl wearing a Jason Vorhees mask, walking up to the girls and making that whispering sound like in the Jason flicks. She wiggles her fingers as she does it, i guess to let them know she is about to tickle them. She tickles this blond girl while she was on her celphone talking to someone. The girl in the Jason mask tickles her like there is no tommorrow. The blond girl begs her to stop screaming and laughing at the same time. I get up laughing from the couch and head to the kitchen to look for something to eat. After i close the fridge, The girl with the Jason Vorhees mask starts approaching me, wriggling her fingers as she walks slowly towards me.

I tell her to chill as i am getting serious and start backing up in the corner. Other girls walk in egging her on even more yelling..
"DO IT, DO IT, TICKLE HIM, TICKLE HIM!"
The girl in the Jason mask tickles me all over until i wake up laughing in my bed.

Dream #2 Wow, how did you do that?

Im now in a basement at a table with a bunch of the college girls from my previous dream.
We are all sitting around playing cards listening to music, i believe Jimi Hendrix purple haze was playing in the background. One of the girls (Who kinda looks like Sandra Bullock) asked me if i can come outside with her for a min while she smokes her Cigarette. We sit outside on the porch, its night time. She says..
"I love a good smoke and staring up at the stars." Its so beautiful up there.
"Yes it is." Hey let me show you something. I take my finger, and draw up in the night skies. I draw a man and a woman holding hands running across the Skies.
"Wow that is Amazing!"
I then take my finger and draw two birds flying off in the distance.
"Wow, how did you do that?"
"Im an artist, and i like to express my creativity. She gives me a seducing look up and down while puffing her Cigarette and says..
"Mmmhmm i see."
We stare up into the night skies and the dream fades.

Dream #3 Stoned with chicks.

Im in a clouded room getting stoned with a bunch of chicks. (Don't smoke anymore in RL) They are dancing and laughing away all while some Reggaeton music is playing in the background. (Thats all i remember from that dream)

Final dream: Sweetest Taboo.





Im in a bedroom making out with this Carribean chick. That song Sweetest Taboo by Sade is playing in the background. The woman looked carmel complexion, had long sandy brown curly hair, big beautiful brown eyes and full lips. After we both finish satisfying eachother with foreplay and sex, we both roll over and lay there catching our breaths. We look over at eachother and start laughing. The dream fades and i wake up.

Notes: Im happy that i remembered all that i did. Though i could've remembered more. The 2nd dream, i clearly was somewhat lucid..but i won't mark this as a lucid dream. Overall can't complain, its always good getting a little action with the ladies.

fjg

State of the Mind address:

Where everything is at:



Where I'd like it to be:



What I can actually expect:


Sooo, no updates for awhile longer, probably. As if that's much of a surprise. =P

Black means non lucid
Red means dream characters talking
Green means notes

Notes: Did not remember much of anything. But i guess its because my body is getting use to going back to sleep alot more earlier.

Dream 1# The mountain song.

Im helping this elderly man up from the sidewalk, and he seems to love singing about the mountains. I just remember him telling me that he would love to go to the mountains and sit a the top of one and sing how big he feels to be on top of one.

Dream #2 Why are we doing this?

Im now playing throw the bottles into the garbage can with this drunk dude.

Dream #3 Drunk antics.

Im telling this drunk man not to walk outside with no coat on, because it is freezing out there. He insist that it is good to do so, because it will give him some sort of special powers.

Final dream: Who wants to suck my pinky toe?

Im now a security guard for Kim Kardashian, And we walk into this clothing store and she yells..
"Who wants to suck my pinky toe?"
All of a sudden, a man runs up to her, peels off her leather pumps..and gives her a tongue job all across her toes.

Notes: Mmkay...not much to say except...WTF!? I went to sleep early, and i still got frags! And why so many drunk dreams? I don't even drink anymore. Ha ha...very funny subconscious. Overall, i guess my body just needs to get used to goin back to sleep alot more earlier.

Black means non lucid
Orange means semi lucid
Blue means lucid
Red means dream characters talking
Purple means possible shared dreaming person
Green means notes

Got it? Great! You know what to do.

Dream #1 Little Red Riding hood.


Im in my 2nd home fixing me something to eat, when i notice that im in my kitchen and it looks a bit odd. 1st of all i don't live here anymore..so why am i here in the 1st place? My doorbell rings before i even have time to question how i got here. I go answer the door, and what do ya know..ITS LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD!?
"Excuse me but can you please help me escape from these men who have accused me of murder?"
Uh..your wanted for murder..and...you want me to help you?
"Mmhm."
She nods her head so innocently, as if what she is saying is ok. Hmm...ok, i'll help you.
"YAY!"
Mkay, follow me. I lead her downstairs to my basement and tell her to go in the back and put on some fresh attire and i'll take care of the rest. I look in the mirror rubbing my multiplying hawk coin totem.
"What are you doing?"
Im goin to project as you and lead them on a chase.
"Wow really?" You can do that???
I can do anything in this world.

Getting prepared.

Im now putting on little Red Riding Hood's robe, And looking at myself in the mirror. Fully transformed into her now, I head to my back room in the utility closet and strap myself with guns and knives. Ok you stay down here in this basement ok? If anything happens to me, and i don't return back here in a hour, i want you to take this celphone and push the number 6 you got it?
"Why number 6?"
Because that stands for N, and N stands for Natalia.
"Ooh ok."

Dream #2 The chase.



Im walking thru this village, holding little Red Riding Hood's basket. and there are wanted posters of little Red Riding Hood all over the place. I walk into a nearby store to buy some stuff. This heavy set woman who looks russian or german looked at me, then looked up at the wanted poster on her wall. I smile innocently and ask her, "how much does this candy cost?" Lol The woman looks at me folding her arms and looks at her telephone and begin dialing. Not wanting to stick around any further to see whats goin to happen, i run out of the store. There are a bunch of men staring at me and talking to eachother whispering. I yell at everybody.. "COME AND GET ME!" And stick my tongue out and give everyone the middle finger. I begin running, I lead the men on a little foot chase and run thru this entire village, jumping over fruitstands, running under vegetable stands, and hopping over cars. I begin shooting at everyone who was chasing me then continue running.

I now lead the almost entire village thru a dark foggy forest, where you can hear frogs, owls, crickets, and other little sounds. I hide behind a tree and shapeshift into a rabbit and hide somewhere in a bush. I can hear the people chattering to eachother, saying things like.. "Where did she go? She was just here a minute ago?" Im hidden in the bushes as the rabbit and now flee thru another exit of the forest and shapeshift back into myself. I get to a payphone and tell little Red Riding Hood im on my way. I walk thru a door and mentally tell myself that i will be back at my 2nd home when i walk thru this door. I walk thru it and see little Red Riding Hood eating a bowl of cereal. Watching cartoons. I laugh and say.."Well i see you made yourself comfortable. She giggles and runs up to me and gives me a hug. "So do you mind telling me why you killed those men?" She looks down, "im sure you have a reason?"

"I don't want to talk about it."
"Alright." But just remember who saved your butt, and gave you a place to stay. "You up here eating my Cap'n Crunch cereal and watching cartoons." Just remembered who helped you. I walk over to my files and records and sit down at a table sorting thru stuff.
She starts explaining to me about how she is really a agent, and not really little Red Riding Hood. She mentions her real name to me (I forget what it was) and tells me that she is actually 18 years old. I tell her that me and Natalia can give her a place to lay low for awhile til things cool down. She thanks me, and i call Natalia on my celphone to let her know that im gonna need her assistance. The dream ends and i wake up.

Notes: Im fairly happy with my recall from last night. (Even though i went to bed at 3:30 am) Im surprised i was able to remember so much...though i only wish i could've remember Little Red Riding Hoods real name. But overall im fairly happy with what i got.

This week went by fast, quick and mundane. As did the dreams.
About halfway through the week my recall went downhill, I could still recall some dreams but they came to me later on during my first waking hours of the day.
A lot of them were like last weeks, not really exciting which is why I didn't post any dreams yet.
At the end of the week I got the recall back under controle. I really prefer waking up during the night for recall.

And I think I've had some first hints of attaining lucidity!
I was offered a drink by someone. And in my head I started thinking to myself; I have to remember to buy her a drink later this evening.
My guess is that the thought about remembering triggered something in my head.
So as I had this thought in my dream, it slowly began to dawn on me.
Unfortunatly the realisation came in whilst I was beginning to wake up. So when I figured out I was dreaming I woke up.
I've embraced this as a good step forward and motivation to maintain a good awareness of my reality in my waking life.

So the objective of this week was to keep up the recall, and I think I did succeed in the end.
My objective for next week is to maintain/improve the recall and I'm now adding awareness to my AL agenda.
I learned focus and discipline are very important these first weeks, cause before you know it, it all slips away.
Second thing I learned, routine.
The weekends really aren't any good for my sleep patern and the alcohol doens't help recall either.

But that's ok. My vision is to explore and enjoy the waking life as much as I can, without it the dreamworld is useless.
You must really experience the waking world to get the best out of your LDs right?

Well that's what I think at least.

Also, as a side note in a side note.
I created a new thread in the General Lucid Discussion.
It's about the experience and perception of time during lucid dreams.
The thread is still on the first page so I'm not gonna bump it yet.
But I'm very interested in the experiences and opinions of you, the forum community, about the subject.
So check it out if you've got the time and are interested in discussing it.

Goodnight,
Booney

Dream One: I'm walking across my aunts yard to my Grandpa's house (same Grandpa's house pig guy tried to start a fire the other day and I blew up at K) I see a group of five people hanging out on and around the porch. The porch is like it was when I was a kid, open to the outside (they made it a closed in porch when Grandpa's cancer got bad) I get closer and see that the people are the music duo Blood on the Dance Floor, and two guys and a chic that must be their fans or friends or something. They say hey, and even though they ask my name and introduce themselves, they treat me like I belong in the conversation just as much as everyone else. I tell them it's cool to meet them, some of their music isn't too bad. I don't know their names, but the cuter, chubbier one offers to give me an autograph, but I don't have any of their cds, I download their music w/ DRM rights from my ISP's music program. They say that's cool, and just give me a cd with an autograph. Cool. Then I turn around and see a mirror. I'm wearing a tunic, belt, and green hat like Link form the Legend of Zelda. I'm really confused by this. Someone else shows up then in matching Link cosplay. I'm asking "wait, why am I in links clothes?" and every laughs and says I must be too stoned because I've been wearing the cosplay the whole time. I keep trying to tell them I've never done drugs before and never plan on it, but they are all just laughing and goofing off. That's not the end, but it's all I can remember.

Dream Two: I'm at the house my mom lives in. It's a HUGE house, and in waking life she wants my husband and I and my Grandmother to move in with us. There's a male presence, he doesn't say anything as far as I can remember, he's just there watching over me. It's got to be Vesta. I spent some time last asking that he come give me some advice since I've given up on being lucid while I'm so stressed. I can't even remember to do reality checks with everything else in my brain :/ Anyways, I'm thinking about moving there and how maybe I made the wrong choice telling my husband no. Then I try to do some magic, I want to do something with a bracelet that will help me with my dreaming. I find I can't draw power or anything. I feel like my magic is blocked or drained away by the place (not surprising as my mom is a self proclaimed psychic vampire :/ ) and I'm even more sure this option is just wrong. Things are good where we are now. I'd just gotten away from mom's stress when I had the dreams that led me to finding dream views, but then the stress started again and the dreams that helped me find interesting things stopped. If I move then I won't feel like I have any power anymore, because her and the stress and problems she creates for me and my family will only be worse. There's a reason why I avoid seeing and talking to her even though she's only twenty minutes away. Upon realizing this in the dream, I wake up.

Warning, begin rant. Another night of stress and barely being able to sleep. I'm up five hour early again. Still arguing with my husband about moving, with no end in sight. Plus, I'm tacking on the added stress of realizing that dreaming has become almost meaningless for me. I don't know when it started, probably around November/December when we started having outside stress from my family and my nightmares starring my mom began... But my dreaming has shifted from being a deeper, more enlightening and all together exciting experience to feeling shallow and pointless. I should have taken note of this earlier, but looking back at my book of discovery the last few days has reminded me how my dreams used to leave me waking up feeling mystified, and yet enlightened. These days they feel like little band aids to patch all the problems I have in life, and not at all spiritual or enlightening like they did before. I rarely see K or Vesta, and when I do they're merely trying to calm me down and make me feel better. There are no more dreams that feel like lessons or tell me what to look for when I wake up. I rarely do more than mundane superficial crap in any of my dreams anymore. Even Lucid dreaming, which I had originally hoped would help me find some of the answers I'm searching for isn't working. The few times I have been lucid, I haven't actually looked for any of the answers I intended to find. I get excited and run around like a smitten puppy looking for K instead of even thinking of the answers I want to find. I know this stress will pass eventually, but right now I feel like I'm on the wrong track and need to turn around and get back on track. /Rant

Paradoxically Stimulated and Sedated [Trip Report]
L-Theanine
Date: April 21st, 2012

Dose:
T+0:00: 400 mg, oral, L-Theanine

Today I decided to give L-theanine a run after reading that it had some stress-relieving effects and reading about its pharmacology. It increases levels of GABA and dopamine and has some affinity as a NMDA receptor antagonist, meaning overall it's a sedative, stimulant, and dissociative. The bottle I bought had one 200 mg pill as the recommended daily dose, so I chose to double it for this test; the LD50 is said to be very high. As a final note, I'm feeling rather sick today so my resulting lethargy may have skewed the results slightly as far as how much energy the dose gave me goes.

I took the dose in the early afternoon and waited for it to set in, totally unaware of how long it was supposed to take or what the duration of the effects would be. Within half an hour I was feeling noticeably sedated, but not necessarily enough for me to say it definitely wasn't placebo. But by the hour mark I could feel a bit of a head fogginess that I recognize from other GABA drugs, and the music I was listening to had started sounding wider and deeper. Though this could have been from NMDA antagonism, I'm going to say it was likely at least mostly from the increase of dopamine. The mood it created was one of being paradoxically stimulated and sedated. Figuring that staying on the couch would be a waste of a dose, I decided to go for a walk in the nearby park forest.

Unexpectedly, once I actually got outside I had a good deal of energy. Or rather, my body was moving very swiftly and fluidly, despite feeling rather at peace. It was a great day outside and being in the sun and feeling the wind rush by me was very soothing. Once I reached a hill that I really like in the area I could tell that my senses were somewhat expanded. I felt like I had a wider panoramic view than normal, as if my vision had been flattened somewhat horizontally, but I believe that was only an illusion caused by the fact that I was taking in a very large quantity of visual data at once (like the opposite of tunnel vision). Among the forest wall I could easily spot several complex patterns of leaves and branches, and colors were fairly saturated in a way that was almost cartoony, but not quite. There was definitely a dopaminergic filter applied to the world, but given that I am very accustomed to this mental change and can pick up on it easily.

I ended up walking down a path in the forest and found myself feeling very connected to nature. I watched bugs fly around me and animals scamper through the trees as I just walked by. The feeling of mental calmness despite the stimulation made for a very synergistic mindset at this point. I read that L-theanine may have effects on increasing serotonin as well, though it's still disputed. I'd believe it after experiencing this, but it could have just been from the GABA increasing/NMDA antagonist effects as well. Eventually though, I started to feel a bit tired. This may be due to my sickness, like I said, but I also suspect that the dual nature of L-theanine might make the stimulation more susceptible to reduction from fatigue than the average stimulant. It wasn't really an exhaustion though, just that I had gotten my fill. I headed home and basically relaxed until the effect died out. I'm not totally sure when that was, I didn't much pay attention to it after that.

This was more impressive than I had hoped. It wasn't a very powerful effect, but it wasn't negligible either. I do think though, based on some reports I've read of people getting "drunk" from higher doses, that L-theanine's sedative effect will eventually overpower and probably blunt its mild stimulant psychedelia. This is one probably best used as a compliment to truly psychoactive doses of stronger drugs, as it seems like it could ease your mindset a bit if need be or maybe just smooth out an experience a bit, while still maintaining the same level of hallucinogenic effect. I'll certainly be keeping it on my shelf.