side notes

Just pinch yourself. As a prospect lucid dreamer I find my days becoming full of these Reality checks like this; I look twice at a digital clock to ensure the numbers have not changed to symbols, and the reassurance of a working light switch is enough to send me on my way knowing that what was happening around me was apart of my “reality.” I do these Reality checks in hopes that when I am dreaming I will remember to check for signs of Reality and in doing so realize that I am asleep and everything surrounding me is only a projection of my subconscious. But the questionable “reality” of our dreams raises another question in itself. How do we know what is real and what is false? For dreams feel real when you’re in them, its only when you wake up that you realize something was actually odd. This paper will be an investigation into finding Reality and if one can do so with absolute certainty.
When I first began exploring the topic my immediate reaction was one of disbelief. I thought back to the simple act of doing Reality checks and surmised that that was sufficient to determine the validity of the woken state. However on further examination I found the term “Reality check” was in itself and oxymoron. It relied on the assumption that the woken state is in fact Reality, as all checks designed to determine Reality essentially boil down to finding out how much our current state relates to the woken state. Which my preconceptions out of the way I was able to isolate the one process at our dispense for determining what is real: the senses. It seemed the most logical place to start as all Reality checks revolve around the senses and without them there is no other viable method. So I then was able to narrow this essay into a discussion of the validity of the senses.
In determining the validity of ones senses it is critical to understand their origin. Each one of the five senses is created through the process of outside stimuli sending signals through the body’s receptors (tongue, eyes, ears, nose, nervous system) that reach the brain cortex which then reproduces a response in a split second which forms one of the five senses. However this process raises the question of the validity of dreams; how is it that in so called “unreality” we can reproduce the senses without outside stimuli? While the stimulus that forms the dream senses seems organic it is actually a reproduction created absent outside influence and transmitted to the brain. In this way one can surmise that one determines real things by he recognition between outside and internal sensory stimuli. This narrows the debate to one question: how do we determine that stimuli are real. The lucid dream experience is best summarized by my friend Jon Sussman who has been a lucid dreamer for most of his life: “Waking up from smelling a rose to the smell of bread cooking in your kitchen is a revelation in and of itself, but shortly afterwards you are still asking yourself if the rose was more real than the bread,” (Jon Sussman). In his experience Sussman has been unable to distinguish between his senses in the dream and the senses of waking consciousness. Through this one is forced to come to the conclusion that the senses cannot determine between dreams and Reality as it is impossible to distinguish senses created though outside and internal stimuli.
So what conclusion can we come to? If we cannot determine between dreams and waking consciousness than how do we know that waking consciousness is real and not a series of internal stimuli created by an alternate state? The short answer is that we can’t; at our current level of knowledge our only method of determining reality is by its inter-subjective legitimacy. Thus I propose a redefinition of the word “reality:” reality n. – a state of mind believed to be valid and without fabrication. In arriving at this definition I do not require that waking consciousness is in fact entirely fabricated, just that it is impossible to tell if it is not. As Edgar Allen Poe put it: “All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream,” (Poe A Dream Within A Dream). In this way we can hope to approach the world with a thoughtfulness that is not bound by the limitations of woken consciousness, but transcends this state and searches for answers beyond our current comprehension. It is in this way that we are truly able to search for what’s real.

This is just a general thing, though I had a dream where I flew last night.
Whenever I fly in my dreams, I always have to flap my arms as though they were wings, and it's as though I'm double-jumping like in a video game before I can actually take flight. Does this happen to anyone else?

I suppose possibly the worst way to begin my dream journal is to share the absence of a dream. I have been trying to have a lucid dream for the past two weeks and have only succeeded once for a few minutes. Since then I have been needing that feeling like a meth addict going through withdrawl

How I prepare each night for a DILD attempt is to watch a subliminal video about lucid dreaming, then to meditate on lucid dreaming for around twenty minutes while listening the theta binaural beats, then go to sleep and hope some time tonight my daily reality checks will come to something. I then wake up to 3 different timers first at 3 then at 4 and then at 5:30. Yet so far all of these dreams have been non-lucids but have been so fantastic that I feel like a failure when I forget to perform reality checks

Last night I took some advice that I have heard about on DV that involved scaling back my attempts at a lucid dream, but that still produced the results you are seeing now.

But I am committed and look forward to the period in which LDs will be prevalent. However far away that may be

The last few nights while trying to enter a lucid dream with the same techniques that has worked before, I would either be too tired to focus, or I would become too awake and not able to fall back asleep. The latter is the most annoying.

Things to work on and remember:

- Do not think about trying to fall asleep. This makes it harder to actually fall asleep.
- If my nose is congested, get up and blow it before trying to sleep. Otherwise, it will be a constant distraction.
-Use a thinner blanket. I get too hot with the new down comforter on me, and too cold with off.
- Do not try too hard. It has been difficult to get the right balance of passivity and aggression. I hope with continued, consistent practice, that I will make some progress in this area.
- Continue to work towards the goal of consistent, conscious waking without movement. This should greatly help with staying relaxed enough to re-enter a dream.

I'm at a revival-meeting-type gathering and it's unclear whether they're Christians, Wiccans, or a melange of both. It's about to be my turn to get up onstage to be "read". I get a choice of lotto-game-type cards to choose from and I choose the purple one. The woman holding the meeting looks at it and says, "Forget it. You're lost. You're headed for destruction and there's no way to save you." I assume she's about to heal me from this horrible destiny, so I get up onto the podium, and then she trips and falls. She looks back and blames me as if I've made it happen. She orders me off the stage. There is also someone calling out that I use cards, which they call by some kind of T-word like "trock" (can't remember), and I say, "You mean tarot?" Everybody in the congregation gasps and looks at me as though I were the devil himself. They start to stare at me with hate in their eyes that forces me off the stage.

It's clear that I'm going to get no healing here, so I wander around the audience looking for someone who might help me. I run into an old psychology colleague who used to be a baseball coach and who is a no-nonsense wise man. He tells me this is all b------t and that they're using me to try to sell psychic readings. They know I'll see through their tactics, so they're marginalizing me to their public to try to make an example of me. I run across an acolyte, a heavy and sweet-faced woman in her 30s or 40s, with a braid of long hair down to her waist. She smiles at me and says she'll help me, but then when she walks past, her hair is jerked back as if I'd pulled it, and she falls. She blames me and everybody sees it.

I leave, convinced I'm doomed, and I come across a table full of lotto-type tickets where you pull a paper out of a paper sleeve, like in a children's book where you pull a tab and the horse's tail wags. I pick purple again as my favourite colour, and it says, "You may as well forget it. You're lost. You know how a condemned man's last meal is whatever he wants? Go do whatever you want. Have a blast for your last couple months of life on Earth." It goes on to say that some of the signs of the end days are that fruit will turn to dust. Every fruit I find turns to dust in my hands. Frantically, I start picking other colours. Pink says I may have some hope, but if I've picked purple already I'm hopelessly lost. Green finally says I have some hope - it's a deep forest green. I know bystanders are looking at me as if I'm nuts.

I wake up with a headache. It takes me a few minutes to convince myself it was only a dream.

But was it?

I had asked God and my guardian angel, and any other angels who wanted to help me, to be with me in my dreams. Is this their message to me??

If anyone has a possible alternative answer and cares to comment on this, please do. I will say that I've been going through a Major Depressive Episode (partly related to Cymbalta withdrawal) after a very difficult Christmas with my family, and I posted last night on another forum about how angry I was over past abusive treatment. I've always felt terrified of being angry with my parents or sisters, and last night I wrote out how angry I was and faced the possibility of being cut off from them in my mind. I actually did write in the post that I "might not even go to hell for this". Briefly, I got physically roughed up on Christmas Day by one of my sisters while I was in the middle of a near-catatonic depressive episode, and a lot of past abuse issues have been coming up for me. It's always felt very dangerous to let it make me angry, because I'd lose my family, be cut off, and possibly go to hell for disobeying the honour-thy-parents commandment. I'd certainly be cut off in life, suddenly without a family - even a sometimes abusive family being a safer feeling than none at all. Hate your famliy, and you're alone in an uncaring world.

But it does bother me that I made a specific request (and had made that request repeatedly) to God and the angels to be with me during my dreams, and not only are they still nightmares, but I've now had one essentially saying that I'm a lost cause and they're going to throw me into Hell. What?!?!

Jan. 11th-12th*
There was a school in my dream and a flag pole...can't remember much else about the dream at all...I've been staying at my mother in laws the past two nights due to snow storms and sleeping in a strange bed. That could be the reason for the lack of dream recall

Normal Dream Lucid Dream Side-Notes
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(I'm not sure if these dreams, are all connected or if they are separate. I'm just guessing.)
Fragment: I'm in my house and my cousin is living with us again. (He use to live with us, but then he moved out.) We're actually getting along.
Dream 1: I'm a superhero fighting a monster. I know it's my responsibility but I keep leaving to watch Avatar. (I don't know why I left because in the dream it was recording on our DVR. Also, I went back and forth lots and lots of times so this part of the dream was pretty long.) Then the scene changed and my mom, sister and I are driving in a car. We go down a one-way road that is blocked and continue through the detour. The workers say the detour isn't finished being built and we have to go back through the one-way road. Going back up is uphill and since I'm the guy I have to push our car up the hill. We make it home and watch a movie.(Not Avatar)
Dream 2: My mom wants a locker, like the ones in my school. I take her to school and as I'm showing her my locker my Spanish teacher comes up says stuff.(I forget what she says.) Then some other teacher comes up and says more stuff. The scene changes to a play. My family and I are in the back. We start talking about dreams.
Dream 3: I was a library trying to meet a guy that is a master at lucid dreaming. I decide to reality check and realize I am dreaming. The dream gets blurry. I Lick the bookshelf to stabilize the dream, it gets really clear. The guy told me to make it brighter. I tried using verbal commands but it only worked a little bit. My alarm woke me up.

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Side-Notes:
*This was my first real lucid, I'm so happy.
*It probably would of lasted longer if it wasn't for my alarm.
*Next time hopefully my lucid comes earlier in the night.

Jan 10th-11th
Had two very complicated dreams that faded when I woke up this morning. I layed in bed too long. The dreams I do remember where complex and worth remembering, but what dreams aren't worth remembering. I do remember an apartment and dull colors. I have decided to voice record my dreams to make I easier to remember and right them down. *

No recall. Actually, I woke up once and I knew I was dreaming but it faded so fast that I couldn't remember anything.

I thought this was worth noting. I had a dream about Colm last night. We were, at one point, in the midst of the physical act. It was very vivid; I physically felt every sensation. And that was strange, because in real life, the sexual act is usually physically extremely painful to me. Here there was no pain, only love and an indescribable, beautiful connection. The one I felt with him when I was with him in Mexico. He is one of only two people with whom I have felt that kind of connection.

It's nice to be able to see what the big deal about the penetration phase of sexual intercourse is all about, even if it's only a dream. It's also nice to have a break from my nightmares. I suppose my mind needed the respite. I am also at the onset of menopause, and have likely had that in the back of my mind as well.

a
Journalizing has helped me make my dream world much more active and helped me get closer to a reoccurring short haired girl but with an unintended consequence, the power of intention. I have been thinking of the short haired girl a lot in order to pull her into me dreams more but this has also brought girls like her into my life. Usually I see maybe one short haired girl a month today I saw 4 and they were in my face too and that's not counting the blond with short hair that kept walking in front of me!


Dream 1: Telekinesis
Nonlucid
We were sitting at tables like those in a high school classroom and this guy, a table away, wanted me to pass a folded piece of paper to the girl between us. She was facing away from him. He held it up for me to reach way over and get but I realized this was not the waking world and focused to use my telekinesis (TK) and raised my hand to better focus my TK for the small movements that would be needed. Then he looked at me like “Well? Take it!” I used the TK to lift it out of his hand and into hers. He was shocked and his hand just stayed like he still had the paper note in it while he hung his mouth open in awe. The girl was like “what’s this?”

Dream 2: Remember this?
nonlucid
I was in my old job hating it.
Upon waking I realized that all the things in the dream I had forgotten while I am transitioning between careers. Now I remember all of the things that lead me to change careers in the first place! Thanks dream world!

Drank a fair amount last night so poor recall. I had some vague recollection of a dream at the very end of the night. I'm straining now to bring up just one detail but alas I just can't.

I predict a good weekend.

Marijuana Horde

LUCID

Two of my roommates had a storage unit that contained giant burlap sacks which were full of stalks of marijuana plants, uncured and untrimmed. These were huge, massive amounts of weed that I KNEW would remain unused and wasted by my two roommates, because they never smoked pot a day in their lives. I don't know WHY they had it, but they did, and they were currently 'out of town.' I decided the best idea would be to go to the storage unit, prune the weed and steal it all for myself. I managed to steal a little, but perceived time constraints I was unable to get the rest of the horde so I went home.

At home I ran into my roommates, who decided to come home early for the rest of the summer. I got worried and paranoid that they were going to go back to the storage unit... but I tried to play it cool because I would be 'found out' and busted, and end up not having 'fun,'

weirdly it was this massive paranoia that pulled me into lucidity, when I said to myself "fuck this," and took matters into my own hands.

So my roommates were driving to the storage unit, and asked me to go with them. (This is where the weird stuff starts) I sat in the backseat of the car as they drove... and I immediately shifted my awareness and perspective into the body of a police officer sitting in a cruiser off the side of the highway.

I was simultaneously in the car with my roommates AND acting as the Policeman in his own car. I took it upon myself as the policeman to follow my roommates and me to the storage unit, and 'BUSTED' the roommates and confiscated the rest of the drugs as the policeman, so that the 'me' wouldn't get in trouble with the others.

Since it was 'illegal' I managed to confiscate the marijuana and gave it to 'myself' as the police-me pushed my busted roommates into the back of the cruiser, I shifted my awareness back into the 'real me' and left with the weed.

I guess the weird thing is that I didn't smoke ANY of the marijuana at all, but I was just enjoying the company of my 'Bud'

So in the dream i was with the girl i liked and we were going places and having fun and laughing. -Dream End-

-Real Life Begin- So today I, out of no where asked the girl i like out and she said YES! so was that a vision of me and my girlfriend eventually being together?

I think I had a hypnagogic hallucination last night. It was kind of like when you think you're almost asleep and then jump 'cause it feels like you're falling, except way more extreme. It felt like my hand touched a pot of boiling water. I jerked my hand back, but I'm not sure if I did it physically or just mentally. That was the first time I tried to go lucid on purpose, and i don't remember any dreams, but that was pretty cool. I'm pretty sure I have lucids all the time, but i only remember going fully lucid once (or maybe twice?) in my whole life.