side notes

The 27th of December is going to be my lucid anniversary, from now on. This is because, from 6:30 to 6:50, I had my first lucid dream. I sacrificed a fresh full english breakfast (heated it up instead, tasted mediocre) for this dream.

Key:
Dream Lucid Semi Lucid Non-Dream

I woke up at about 4:02-4:22am, and sat around on my iPod until about 6:10. Then, I have no idea what happened between then and the dream, wether or not I fell asleep or tried WILD, but I went in to the dream. I had several dream fragments.

Fragment 1: Non Lucid
I was in a fancy looking restaurant, reminiscent of the local steak house. The walls were cream colored stone, with fancy red decor everywhere. Wooden chairs and columns were there too. Windows showed a road with some grass, outside. I was sat on the edge of a table with the kid from outnumbered and some other famous people (I don't remember who, exactly). I had the feeling that we were hiding from someone (unsure why), so I got down and went prone. After crawling along the floor for a bit the dream faded.

Fragment 2: Bipods with iPods
I was walking in what I think was the car park of my school, with my iPod in hand. I saw two extremely tall people swinging their own iPods around like clubs, and I decided to put my iPod away and walk off just in case the worst happened. In the middle of putting my iPod away, my hands went right through each other, and I realized I was lucid. I was kind of aware before, but I thought I was just tripping out. I looked at my hands go through each other and then the dream faded out.

Dream: Beginning of an era
I got out of bed. My hands accidentally went through each other again. I was lucid. I wasn't as shocked or excited as I thought I would be, but I felt both of those feelings anyway. I got up. My house was dark, but my room was exactly the same as normal. I think there was a purple, space-like void outside. I walked downstairs, then back upstairs. I had so many ideas in my head. I settled with the lucid crossroads (http://www.lucidcrossroads.co.uk/), because I figured it would be the easiest way to get to a clear, daytime environment. I reached in my pocket like the website says, but I didn't pull out a badge like I thought I would. I pulled out thin air. Disappointed, I walked to my room, saying to myself "there will be a girl behind the door. There will be a girl behind the door." That didn't work either. I sat back down on my bed trying to think of what to do next, but I woke up out of a variety of emotions.

And that's how my first lucid dream was. As soon as I woke up, I hit my iPod's music button and the credits theme from misfits came on. That coincidence made me feel like I was in a movie. I went back to dicking around with my iPod and then fell asleep until 2:53pm. Yeah, I was catching up on christmas and boxing day. I didn't sleep much on those days.

I hope to have more, vivid lucid dreams. I hope I obtain more power and time, with every dream I have.

Supplements in the past day:
1x Hot Chocolate
1x Glass of apple juice
1x Chicken curry
1x Burger + Bun
0.5x Fishcake (it tasted bad)

Hi there! I'm GMoney, and I'm going to be using this Dream Journal to record my dreams from now on. I've been recording them for the past year, but I'm not going to go through the trouble of copying every entry, so I'll just put the number of dreams I recalled each night for statistical purposes:

12/24/09 - 2
12/25 - 2
12/26 - 5
12/27 - 1
12/28 - 5
12/29 - 2
12/30 - 5
12/31 - 10
1/1/10 - 1
1/2 - 2
1/3 - 2
1/4 - 1
1/5 - 0
1/6 - 2
1/7 - 0
1/8 - 1
1/9 - 6
1/10 - 6
1/11 - 3
1/12 - 3
1/13 - 2
1/14 - 2
1/15 - 1
1/16 - 9
1/17 - 7
1/18 - 4
1/19 - 3
1/20 - 2
1/21 - 7
1/22 - 2
1/23 - 10
1/24 - 10
1/25 - 0
1/26 - 5
1/27 - 4
1/28 - 6
1/29 - 1
1/30 - 5
1/31 - 2
2/1 - 1
2/2 - 2
2/3 - 3
2/4 - 2
2/5 - 1
2/6 - 7
2/7 - 7
2/8 - 0
2/9 - 1
2/10 - 7
2/11 - 4
2/12 - 0
2/13 - 2
2/14 - 3
2/15 - 5
2/16 - 6
2/17 - 5
2/18 - 3
2/19 - 9
2/20 - 4
2/21 - 8
2/22 - 1
2/23 - 3
2/24 - 0
2/25 - 0
2/26 - 0
2/27 - 5
2/28 - 5
3/1 - 9
3/2 - 6
3/3 - 4
3/4 - 4
3/5 - 1
3/6 - 2
3/7 - 0
3/8 - 2
3/9-6/9 - 0 (didn't record)
6/10 - 4
6/11 - 5
6/12 - 2
6/13 - 4
6/14-6/26 - 0 (didn't record)
6/27 - 4
6/28 - 2
6/29 - 4
6/30 - 3
7/1 - 3
7/2 - 0
7/3 - 3
7/4 - 2
7/5 - 0
7/6 - 4
7/7 - 4
7/8 - 2
7/9 - 5
7/10 - 0
7/11 - 8
7/12 - 2
7/13 - 0
7/14 - 6
7/15 - 0
7/16 - 1
7/17 - 3
7/18 - 5
7/19 - 0
7/20 - 2
7/21 - 5
7/22 - 3
7/23 - 3
7/24 - 5
7/25 - 2
7/26 - 2
7/27 - 3
7/28 - 3
7/29 - 2
7/30 - 4
8/1 - 6
8/2 - 3
8/3 - 3
8/4 - 5
8/5 - 4
8/6 - 2
8/7 - 2
8/8 - 5
8/9 - 6
8/10 - 5
8/11 - 4
8/12 - 5
8/13 - 2
8/14 - 4
8/15 - 8
8/16 - 4
8/17 - 2
8/18 - 4
8/19 - 3
8/20 - 5
8/21-8/29 - 0 (didn't record)
8/30 - 4
8/31 - 1
9/1 - 3
9/2 - 1
9/3 - 4
9/4 - 1
9/5 - 7
9/6 - 5
9/7 - 3
9/8 - 2
9/9 - 2
9/10 - 1
9/11 - 0
9/12 - 3
9/13 - 3
9/14 - 3
9/15 - 6
9/16 - 3
9/17 - 3
9/18 - 10
9/19 - 3
9/20 - 1
9/21 - 4
9/22 - 1
9/23 - 2
9/24 - 4
9/25 - 1
9/26 - 3
9/27 - 6
9/28 - 0
9/29 - 3
9/30 - 5
10/1 - 1
10/2 - 6
10/3-10/9 - 0 (didn't record)
10/10 - 3
10/11 - 0
10/12 - 0
10/13 - 9
10/14 - 0
10/15 - 12
10/16 - 4
10/17 - 2
10/18 - 3
10/19 - 2
10/20 - 7
10/21 - 0
10/22 - 0
10/23 - 1
10/24 - 2
10/25 - 8
10/26 - 6
10/27 - 0
10/28 - 12
10/29 - 1
10/30 - 6
10/31 - 3
11/1 - 2
11/2-11/5 - 0 (didn't record)
11/6 - 2
11/7 - 1
11/8-11/10 - 0 (didn't record)
11/11 - 6
11/12 - 0
11/13 - 5
11/14 - 6
11/15 - 0
11/16 - 5
11/17 - 0
11/18 - 5
11/19 - 0
11/20 - 3
11/21-12/8 - 0 (didn't record)
12/9 - 0
12/10 - 3
12/11 - 1
12/12 - 12
12/13 - 3
12/14 - 1
12/15 - 3
12/16 - 1
12/17 - 1
12/18 - 8
12/19 - 3
12/20 - 0
12/21 - 4
12/22 - 3
12/23 - 1
12/24 - 2

December 2009: 32
January 2010: 109
February 2010: 89
March 2010: 28
April 2010: 0
May 2010: 0
June 2010: 28
July 2010: 82
August 2010: 81
September 2010: 93
October 2010: 99
November 2010: 35
December 2010: 46

Lucids: 12

12/28/09
1/3/10
2/6
7/11
7/24
8/1
8/5
8/9
9/1
9/18
9/19
11/6

Total dreams: 722
Total days: 365
Dreams per day: 1.978
Dreams per month: 60.1667
Lucids per day: 0.03287
Lucids per month: 1
Days recorded: 218
Dreams per recorded day: 3.3119
Lucids per recorded day: 0.055

I haven't given up again, I've just switched back to hard-copy dream journaling. It's easier to do at school first period then. I'll post here if I have a lucid.

I got a book about lucid dreaming for Christmas (Lucid Dreaming by Robert Waggoner) and I'm reading it right now. I'm thinking that concentrating so much of my time right now on the subject will make an LD tonight much more likely.

Anyways, Merry Christmas!

Real life Dream Lucid Nightmare Dream sign
For me to remember, dreams are #067300, and lucid dreams are the color below blue, #4169e1. Nightmares are dark red, #8b0000, and dream signs are the light purple, which is up one and left one from blue, #483d8b.

More lucid dreams. Upon becoming lucid, I need to always increase clarity and lucidity right away, then remember my dream goals. This isn't happening yet...

Trains dream
I was alone, walking down a "hallway" of dirt. It was like a 12 foot deep, 8 foot wide rectangular trench that was very long and had train rails going down it. I passed a red train car, and became only slightly lucid, the least I've ever been. I blew up the train with a sleight of hand and became much more lucid.

I kept walking and passed a glossy deep green train. I accelerated the train with a movement of my hand until it was gone. I kept walking until I passed a large bald man with a wide head. He was wearing a white shirt, and I sensed he had a slightly negative air about him. He was about five feet away from me I remembered to stop and increase the clarity. I said, "Increase clarity," softly but confidently.

The world around me focused like a camera and became crystal clear, like real life. I could see the textures of the dirt and grass very well, like real life. Out of curiosity I lifted my hands and saw that they were very blurred. I felt a strange sensation in my fingers, like they were pressed together. My fingers split and shifted. I believe I gave too much of my focus towards my hands because I sensed the world around me blurring, much like my hands.

I desperately yelled, "Increase clarity!" to no avail. I tried gently saying it, like before. It worked; the world around me gained focus again. The large bald man took a step towards me and said, "I don't like what you're doing," which frightened me a little. He started walking towards me. I sensed he was about to hurt me and choked him by raising my hand towards him. He fell to his knees and I woke up.

Strange dream
I was in a green cafeteria. Lots of other people were there, talking. I talk with a bunch of people for a while. I become briefly lucid and fly around by flapping my arms. I show off to a bunch of people.

Moody from Harry Potter came over and told me we have a mission. (I am not Harry Potter in this dream; I'm still me) I followed him, until we met up with our group: Two Slytherins led by Snape, who was dressed with thick leather straps going around his shoulders crossing to his waist. We also had one Gryffindor. I immediately objected to doing the mission with the Slytherins, but Moody replied, "Put up with it, boy!" in his gruff voice.

As we walked down some steps I started arguing with the Slytherins. Moody pulled me and the Slytherins in with his staff and took out our soul orbs by force. Soul orbs are these glass balls everyone carried that influenced our personalities, which were four inches in diameter. Moody heated a metal rod via magic and melted in two dents to each of our orbs so that all of us who were arguing had matching dents, like compatibility.

Instantly, an overwhelmingly powerful warm, giddy feeling of pleasure and happiness rushed into all of us who argued earlier. It was the best feeling ever. We who were five minutes ago arguing about our differences were giggling together as friends, deeply influenced by whatever Moody had done to our soul orbs.

I don't remember what else happened but we finished our mission.

That dream where Moody changed our soul orbs so that we would work together gave me the best feeling ever. In future lucid dreams (if I ever happen to remember my dream goals, which never seems to happen) I will use soul orbs to influence myself and other people. By asking to borrow people's soul orbs and changing them, I can easily bend people to do my will, as well as give me warm trippy feelings in dreams.

This isn't as much of a dream journal as it is a document of an attempt to lucid dream. I was lying in bed, ready to DILD. I had performed the following RC's on the same day:

• Pressing my tongue against my teeth
• Counting my fingers
• Looking at the clock
• Pushing my finger against my palm

When I was falling asleep, I noticed the darkness of my eyelids get darker with every few seconds that passed, darker than my surroundings (I was in a room with no lights. I started falling asleep at 1AM.) and it was like I was slowly blacking out. At some undiscernable point I had a picture form in my head (not a hypnogogic hallucination, it was...weird) where I was in the point of view of a soldier, holding that one rifle from ARMA 2 (I've been playing it for like a day straight, so that came as no surprise). My vision floated above the gun and the field of view went all botched and stretched and I felt like I was floating up. "I'm going lucid! I thought. But, I wasn't. After a little floating I realized I was still in bed, so desperate to dream that I'd somehow faked a lucid dream when falling asleep. Disappointed, I went to sleep, hoping to reality check and realize I was dreaming. I had Really's Ultimate MP3 on as well, hoping I'd do an RC by reminder if not by habit.

I woke up in the morning disgruntled. It was 12:01, and I was trying to remember a slice of dream. But I couldn't. I couldn't remember anything which happened during my sleep. Now here I am, angry and irritated. If you can think of something which would help me to remember my dreams, go ahead and comment with that information. I'd love to hear it.

Hi. This is my first dream journal. I'll be detailing a dream from a few months ago, however it was only around a minute long. But I figure, by writing it down, I'll improve my recall.

Blue = lucid
Orange = semi lucid
Black = non lucid

So, I woke up standing on some form of platform (I'm unsure what) suspended by thin air in the sky. I jumped down from this platform with my legs ridiculously static (like a video game) and plunged in to an area very similar looking to garry's mod's construct map. I hit the concrete hard, and this is where my memory gets clearer.

I jumped up high in to the air, and landed on top of a short, red and white building. The weather at this point was overcast, blue, stormy and generally depressing. I stood up and realized I was lucid. Thoughts rushed through my head, but unfortunately, the immense feeling of "oh thank the lord I finally did it" got me so excited it woke me up.

I have no idea why I remember that dream so vividly, and I have no idea what I was wearing or what I was standing on at the start. I'm hoping I can have even clearer experiences like it, because it felt awesome when I woke up.

Thanks for making my day even better! I hope I stay here for another year

Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

[I dreamed for a subjectively really long time last night, but my recall is a bit fragmented. I don't really remember the transitions between most of the scenes, which is reflected in the absence of flowing transitions between paragraphs in this entry.]

I'm lying in a bed that I'm sharing with a man I know. It's not sexual; he's asleep. He rolls over onto me, apparently completely unaware of my presence. I struggle to get out from underneath him, and succeed, standing up.

I'm now in a long, wide, rectangular space with white walls that serves as the entryway to our church's offices, which are within a really big building. A long, straight hallway leading to other offices on the floor forms one of the long sides of the rectangle, and the doors into our offices are on the other side. The center of the rectangle is filled with a row of wide, square, dark-colored, upholstered seats. I'm lying on one of them, with my knees bent over the front edge of it and my feet on the floor. Several people from my church walk by, coming in and out of the doors. They see me, and I say, “Hi.”

I'm in another room in the same really big building. It's being remodeled. There's a couch that's completely wrapped in newsprint, because someone is going to paint this room. I'm standing near the doorway, and I see L.M. [a teacher from my real high school, whose class I was never in] walking by out in the hall. I introduce one of the other people who's in the room with me to her: “This is L.M. She teaches biology.” L.M. is wearing a name tag that says “Sakura Lily [Something-or-other beginning with M],” in Roman characters. I think, I didn't know that was her real name.

I'm looking out the wall of the really big building that's make up of one really big window, at a sky filled with pink and orange clouds. I realize that it's already 3:00 in the afternoon, and I've already wasted most of the day. I'd better hurry up if I want to do the studying I still need to do for my final. [In the dream, I actually remembered having experienced most of an entire day in that really big building, including lunchtime.]

I'm in another living-room-like room, similar to the one that was being remodeled, except that this one isn't. At this point, it hits me: This isn't a real place. I'm dreaming. That explains why I wasn't really hungry for lunch earlier: my real body is asleep, and I had a big dinner before I went to bed. Oh! Since I'm dreaming, it's not really 3:00. The day hasn't even started yet! I still have time to study! Strangely, thinking about the fact that I'm dreaming causes me to feel woozy, dizzy, and sick, and the whole world to tilt. [Probably because I was rereading parts of the Inception shooting script again, in which telling someone that they're dreaming causes the dream to destabilize. Dang it! I know it doesn't have to be like that.] I think, No. I have to keep the dream stable. I kneel down to feel the carpet, which, this time, is a little like the carpet in my real room, except lighter (more yellow than brown) and slightly shaggier. The dizzy, tilting feeling goes away. Standing up, I put my hands under running water. At first, I can't feel it at all, but then I feel the warm water running over my hands. Then, I reach into a fish tank on a nearby table to touch the goldfish in it with my fingers. I've done this before, I think. What did it feel like? This. It does feel pretty much like I remember it feeling when I had my own goldfish tank in reality.

I return to the room that was being remodeled, to find that they're done remodeling it. The couch has been unwrapped and all the other furniture has been returned to the room. This room will be serving as the first-aid station for some kind of event; there's a handwritten paper sign on the door saying so. I feel the need to leave this room clean and neat before this dream ends (I sense that it will soon), so I pick up all the trash and used tissues that are lying all over the middle of the floor.

I'm outside, at night, looking at a couple of brightly-lit city blocks. I think, Oh, cool! Those are the blocks just to the south of home! [What home, I don't have the slightest idea.] I start flying, this time taking off with more of an effort of will and belief than by jumping (it also helps that I'm feeling happy and excited), and go straight up, so as to admire the view better. When I get up high, I start being pulled backward again [see this DJ entry and this one], but this time, it doesn't frighten me. I think, Oh, I must be going back to my real body now.

It turns out that I'm wrong. I find myself in another unfamiliar place [I don't remember where it was]. I pinch my nose and can still breathe through it, which is a pretty neat feeling. I'm still dreaming. [I remember doing this on two different occasions, but I'm not sure when the other one was.]

I'm entering my family's house [but it's none of our real houses]. P. is waiting for me inside, and expresses frustration that I've been gone so long. I'm still aware that this is a dream, but I decide to play along with the dream plot. I enter the kitchen, and my parents are there. I look at the whiteboard/calendar attached to the side of the fridge and see that something I wrote there before has been erased, and the magnets on it have been moved around. I follow my family up the stairs in the house, and we end up in a room filled with barrels of wine.

----------------------
Side notes:

This dream seemed to go on for a really long time, especially considering that I remembered being in the dream building for most of a day. I only wrote down the most memorable moments. I think this is because time dilation was the topic I was reading the most about here on DV before I went to bed last night. I am pleased with this development, and now I'm even more motivated to learn better control, so that I can really take advantage of the time and stability I now seem to have in lucid dreams.

Ok, I guess I'm starting a new journal here. It's been a while since I've been on here and I can't figure out how to get my old dreams into the new journal format, so I guess I have to start over.


I wanted to begin by just writing down some of the re-occurring dreams that I have all the time:

#1- There's pins (like sewing pins) sticking in my body everywhere. I try to pull them all out but it seems like there's just too many. Sometimes they're covering the floor or bed so if I move, I end up with more sticking in me. Have this dreams several times a week.

#2- Usually I'm with my family for this one, either in a car or a building, I look out the window and there's a tornado headed for us. Sometimes there are like 5 of them. I crouch down under some furniture and pray that I won't die. Or if we're in the car, I'm looking for a safe place to go, but usually end up just clinging to a tree or something. The tornado goes right through me and gives me a strange feeling but I survive. Occasionally we'll be in a camper and it'll lift up into the air, I debate whether I should jump from it.

#3- I'm by a lake somewhere and I see this huge wave coming from a distance. I scramble to get to higher ground, but it's never high enough as I see the wave coming toward me. I grab onto a tree and brace for the impact, which usually hits several times in a row.

#4- My pet rats keep shrinking... sometimes they re-constitute themselves, but I'm always worried they won't come back. Sometimes they disappear completely or turn into little insects.

#5- My dad is making me go back to grade school or high school. I'm constantly arguing with him that I shouldn't have to because I've been through that already. Strangely, no one seems to notice when I'm a 30-year-old in 3rd grade, my teachers are the same ones I actually had back then. I don't get very good grades though, because I keep having to miss school to go to work. I'm worried what my dad's gonna say when report cards come. My teachers are disappointed in me.

#6- My grandma(s) is still alive, but she's very senile. Her personality sometimes gets very hostile, she's very different than she actually was. She looks like a zombie. I'm confused because I thought she'd died 10 years ago.

#7- I find my old toys at my parents' house and I'm thrilled about it. Or I find rare and special my little pony's that I never knew existed.

#8- I'm in church and feeling really uncomfortable. Sometimes the priest calls me out for not believing in religion any more. I try to defend myself but I'm afraid of being possessed by a demon. Sometimes I turn into a demon but more times an angel...epic battles with demons ensue. I'll have these dreams a few nights in a room, usually once a month or so.

#9- I'm in some kind of troubling situation and trying to call for help. But I've ended up with someone else's cell phone and I can't figure out how to use it. Or I just can't type in the number right.

#10- I'm driving a car and it's out of control. I can't seem to reach the brakes well and end up going through stop signs. I know it's only a matter of time before I get in an accident. Or sometimes I'm sleeping in the back seat and I notice no one's driving. I'm concerned, but the car seems to be going along fine, so I go back to sleep. Or Grant's driving, but keeps falling asleep and I'm really worried.

#11- I'm at a huge buffet with all kind of yummy-looking food. I always seem to be last in line though, and by the time I get up there, everything's gone. Or there's no clean plates to use, or the food keeps falling off my plate. Sometimes I set the plate down and someone takes it away. Regardless, I never get a chance to eat. Sometimes I'll be walking around a grocery store and I'll just steal the food off the shelves or freezer (it's usually ice cream) and just start gorging on it.

Ok, I'm going to leave it there for now. There are so many re-occurring dreams I have, it'll take a while to get through all of them. Hopefully I'll be able to commit to writing in this thing once in a while.

non-dream - non-lucid - lucid

14/12/10 I was in a series of dreams involving a lot of family at some sort of party. However the main plot of the storyline was me first of all ignoring a beautiful young woman's approach. This woman turned out to be my neighbour and some woman told me off for leaving her hanging there, considering the fact that I had been playing up to something more. I ended up walking to her door, my heart pounding and at the time I did not know if I would have the courage to knock. I hoped she would come out of the door before I had to and I got lucky. I mumbled something about how nervous I felt and she invited me in.

Throughout the dreams we end up dating and although we make out a lot and she continue to agree to my my sexual approaches we never get to actually do it. And although I never stop to think about the fact that I am dreaming, in the dreams I remember being really frustrated about the fact that I awake before we get to do anything. Her kiss felt amazing and I even remember running my finger under the edge of her underwear, feeling faint hairs growing back after a shave.

Reflection: Although the dreams themselves remain unfulfilled it seemed like I was learning a lesson. A lesson on how to combat a stupid amount of shyness I feel when approaching women. Lets see how it pans out.

Has simply trying to do something about my subconscious visitors done the trick? Also, Inception mind-screwed me quite nicely. Loving it.

The first thing I remember was the second level of the dream. I was dreamscaping, doing a favor for the landlord of an apartment building that was a strange hybrid of the house where I grew up and the apartment building where I live now. I never manage to dream about any building where I actually live, if I do I know it's an OBE. Hasn't happened for some time, though.

I can't remember what the second level was, but it dealt with my old dollhouse (Haha, Christopher Nolan!) and I was wrapping metallic gold thread around something, like a small spool or something but it felt like a craft of some kind. I think the small something was soft.

I was lucid on a certain level, that the second level was a dream. A phone call woke me to the first level, which was not lucid. I vaguely remember returning to the second level, because I remember playing out some of the cliches of Inception (How did I get here???). But the phone turned out to be my Dad calling to say "Hello." We chatted about what was going on, I told him about the favor, and I mentioned that I smelled an odd kind of smoke. Dad became Overprotective Dad, getting all skittish that something was wrong. I told him that it was probably just the heater (apparently, this smell was normal?) and that any tenant could fix it so the handyman neighbor would probably be down soon to deal with it.

I got off the phone and wandered downstairs to find the landlord (who was somehow Willem Dafoe...) talking with the handyman neighbor who doesn't exist IRL. I mentioned quietly that the favor was done, and the neighbor said that something was very wrong with the heater. Dafoe made a crack that he wasn't getting much of his investment back on THIS building and left without doing anything. I made a comment about him being a slumlord, and woke up.

This time I was so confused at the first level being a dream that IRL I started checking for oddities. Pinch hurts, and I'm in my own apartment, though I always think that I'm in my own home so I COULD be wrong. And Hubby's here, more evidence that I'm awake. I even broke my first rule of surreality by looking into a mirror and a dark window. Freddy Kreuger's not there. I still haven't looked too closely at the TV, though. No nerve.

It has been a while since I wrote something in my DJ.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to post something and in addition, I had not enough sleep during the last month.

But this is changing again. Next week, the courses are free thank God (or better: thank the government). So I will have enough sleep to practice again the whole lucid thing.

Well last night:

I was really exhausted because I studied all the evening long until 11p.m. I went to bed and I want to relax a bit. I instantly felt how heavy my body was. It remembered me instantly of the very beginning of sleep paralyses.
Exactly in this moment, I hear strange noises witch remind me of the sound of a fridge. It came to me in waves. I relaxed even more and I had the feeling that I was floating in the air, raising and sinking through my room. It felt very cool and didn't scared me at all, because I knew it was only in my head.
After 5 minutes or so, I tried to move in thoughts my body. I managed to move my fingers and my hands a bit. I wondered if I was already in some dream or if the sleep paralyses had already gone away.
I want to open my eyes, but I realize that my eyes are already open. It's bright in my room, but I see things blurry. My vision clears up and I realize that I'm lying in my bed. I know that I'm dreaming. I want to get up to leave my bed and to explore my dreamworld. But for some reason, I wasn't able to move. I thought:
- Damn! I feel that my real bod. I have to try moving a bit and not to think about my real body.
I slowly moved my fingers but suddenly, out of no-where ......

..... A DC appears in front of me! He's sitting on my chest! That's why I'm not able to move!

I shouted:
- Go out!
HIs answer:
- No, your chest is comfortable!

I awake. I'm pissed turn to the left side of my bed and fall back to sleep again.

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

[Another really long entry, but it's a really good one this time. Sorry for taking up so much page space again.]

I'm on the playground of my elementary school. It's dusk, and there are lots and lots of kids and teenagers on the playground, some playing games, others just milling around. I see one group of kids playing something that they call tackle football; it involves one person on the team holding a bowl of green beans and others holding and occasionally eating spoonfuls of the green beans, while the entire team moves around the field. Curious about the game they're playing, I approach the group.

“Are those green beans?” I ask.

“Yes,” someone in the group says.

The group spreads out a little, and I see that two of the people in it are P. and Thomas[, who first appeared in my dream dated December 7]. The instant I see him, I know for sure that I'm dreaming. “Thomas?” I say, looking at him. He acknowledges me. I'm pleasantly surprised to see him again, and amazed at how completely real all the people around me look. Throughout the rest of this dream, I make a special effort to pay attention to the environment around me, including paying attention to the physical sensations of touching things whenever I can. I'm aware that if I don't, they'll stop existing and fade away.

I start wandering through the playground, heading back toward the school buildings. P. and Thomas are following me. It's now fully dark, but the playground is still crowded. I end up on the sidewalk of the street that runs along the south side of the school and passes the kindergarten before the dreamscape shifts on me.

I don't notice the shift itself, but I find myself walking through the streets of a charming, slightly old-fashioned downtown with square, orderly blocks. There's no one else around. I stop and turn around, attempting to summon P. and/or Thomas by expecting them to be there. It doesn't work; I'm all alone. I shrug and continue exploring. As I had in the previous scene, I continue to notice and marvel at how vivid, detailed, and realistic the environment around me is. Everything looks and feels exactly like reality, yet I know perfectly well that I'm dreaming. I can even feel the asphalt and pavement under my feet. [It didn't occur to me until I had woken up and was lying there, recalling my dream, that I must have looked pretty funny wandering around in public places with no shoes on. ] I remember one of my lucid goals and attempt to walk through a wall into one of the shops. I try it twice, but it doesn't work either time; I'm not surprised at all to discover that the wall is just as solid and “real” as everything else in this dream world. As I continue walking, I think, Wow, this dream is really stable and seems to be going on for a long time. What should I do here? Oh, yeah – the Task of the Month is to hit a DC with a snowball. I'll have to go find a snowball. But there is no snow in this setting, and the weather is clear and bright.

I pass a small shop front on a street corner, with a red brick facade and a walk-up window where you can buy things. I recognize the woman inside as Lisa D., a real-life friend. I stop and talk to her. I say, “Lisa, do you happen to know where I might find a snowball?” She invites me to come into the shop through the door on the side. I stand just outside the door. [I don't know why; recall is a little vague here.] The small shop is actually a short truck, which is backed up to the brick facade with the window in it with its back cargo door open, forming the interior space. Lisa starts up the truck and starts driving it away from the facade and along the street. I walk quickly along with it for a little way, holding on to the frame of the open, narrow door on the side and keeping pace with it. Then I step up into the truck through the doorway and ride in it. I say aloud, “I could float along with the truck, but when the truck is moving, why make the effort?” I vaguely remember another person being in the doorway with me, but if so, I don't know who it was.

I ride inside the truck as it drives up into the mountains. While sitting in the truck, I hold onto the handle of a plastic bucket, feeling the sensation to ensure the dream remains stable. The truck takes me to a town on a mountaintop. I'm on or near a different, fenced-in school playground [I think; again, my recall isn't very good here.] I can see buildings on the tops of nearby hills, and I think I catch a glimpse of a patch of snow on a distant hilltop, but I'm not sure.

[I think] The scene shifts again, and I'm walking around on the campus of a community college. [Day residue; I walked back and forth across my real community college campus several times yesterday.] There's no one else around. This community college campus has slightly more traditional-looking architecture than my real one does, has a different layout, and there are more plants around and they're more mature, making the campus greener than my real one. This is a pretty campus, I think. I'm still admiring how vivid and "real" my surroundings are as I explore them, and I'm still looking for snow, but not finding any.

[Dreamskip? Another scene shift? I'm not sure, but the next thing I remember is that] I'm walking through the interior of a large, recreational building. I'm in a spacious, high-ceilinged indoor space with two swimming pools in it, a large, deep one and a smaller, shallower one, at right angles to each other. There are people in this room, many of them kids, walking around, swimming, and getting into and out of the pools. In one corner of the room is the entrance to a child-care room, which is full of brightly pastel-colored play equipment with little kids playing on it. It's separated from the room with the pools by glass walls. One of the glass walls has sticky gel letters on the inside of it, so that they look backward from outside the room. I can still read them backward, though. When I first look at them, I read them as “Children Sno” and think, Yay, snow! Then I approach the room for a closer look and realize that I've misread them; they say “Children Glo.” I leave the room, walking on the path between the narrow end of the larger pool and the longer side of the smaller pool. As I walk, I complain aloud: “There's no snow here! I mean, I know I've lived in Southern California all my life, but come on! Can't I have some imagination?” [I was complaining about the fact that, even though I wanted to complete the Task of the Month, my mind wasn't creating any snow in my dream world. The explanation I came up with for this observation was that I've never spent a winter in an area where it snows, so my mind can't re-create snow very easily, because I've only experienced it in real life a couple of times, so I don't know what it's like very well.]

Outside the recreational building, there's a courtyard or patio where a large group of people are having a celebration or reception. I walk among them without speaking to anyone. No one takes any notice of me. There are folding tables with paper tablecloths and lots of food set out on them, including oatmeal cookies. [I wish I'd thought to try one! This was the first time I've had the chance to try dream food while lucid, and I missed it! Dang!] Still in search of a snowball to throw, I decide to try summoning one by reaching under a small table of food next to a wall, without looking, and expecting a snowball to be there. It doesn't work. When I look, the only thing under the table is a small, open-topped cardboard box with some kind of party supplies in it, like paper napkins. [I note that in my attempts to summon people or things in this dream, I did not have the same quiet assurance and confidence that it would work as I had at those times in the past when I successfully summoned an object. I wasn't truly focusing on it or believing in it this time, which, I think, is why it didn't work.]

I get up from looking under the table and look around at the people celebrating. I sense that the dream is about to end. I close my eyes, hoping to use that method of teleporting to get to another environment. I just end up looking at the inside of my real eyelids.

-------------------------------
Side notes:

This dream came at the end of a very bad, emotionally draining day and a late night. I was too tired to really try to induce a lucid dream. All I did was get up for a minute or two and go back to bed right before I had this dream, do a minimal amount of affirmations (maybe one or two), and wear my cardboard-square wristband on the inside of my right wrist, which I hadn't worn at all in a while. It may have been one of these things that caused such a long, vivid lucid dream, or maybe it was just the fact that I'd had a bad day and wanted to escape from it all (even though I consciously told myself before bed that that was stupid). I sure did feel a lot happier and better after waking up from my dream, though.

After waking up, I realized two things about this dream:
A) Expecting to be able to summon a snowball was stupid because, unlike the seed pod that I successfully summoned before (see entry dated October 26, 2010), a snowball doesn't naturally exist as a discrete object. You have to make a snowball yourself.
B) I was surrounded by DCs several times. I could have talked to my subconscious and asked for the answers to the questions from my exam that I missed because I had studied those subjects months ago, forgotten about them, and failed to review before the exam. (I'm not saying for sure that it would have worked, but it would have been fun to try. I'm curious to know if it can work.) I actually thought about doing that before I went to bed, but I didn't even think of it while I was dreaming. The only thing it occurred to me to do was to hit a DC with a snowball. Silly me! I will have to add “ask a DC about stuff I should know, but have forgotten” to my list of goals.

One final note: Wow. I now have a recurring, original, named dream character who is neither a pre-existing fictional character nor anyone I know in real life, and seeing him made me go lucid because I remembered meeting him in a previous dream, and here he was again, so I had to be dreaming. That's pretty neat. I can't say for sure that that officially makes him my dream guide, though, at least not just yet. It didn't occur to me to ask him if he was one. If I see him again, I'll try to remember to do that.

This night's dreams are definitely going down as memorable. I remember a great deal of them, good stuff happened, and I briefly went lucid (Not in my last REM cycle even!)

The first thing I remember of the dream is being in an underground facility of some sort. There were lots of DC's everywhere. My RL friend was with me (as a DC) and we were looking around the place. We ended up in this room with two other female DC's (Who didn't resemble anyone that I personally know). They joined up with us and after awhile it became apparent that one of them liked me, and the other liked my friend. The environment didn't change much during the exploration, but it kinda did start to resemble the interior of the northern building of my high school. The girl who liked my friend actually kinda brought me to the realization that her friend liked me (I was ignoring the signs apparently). So I went up and grabbed her hand. I'm not going to go into detail of the next few scenes cause it doesn't really belong in a dream journal Now what happened next was the girls had to go, and apparently my friend and I had to escape the facility. There was hulk hogan and guns. Alot of my memory of this dream is hazy as it did occur in one of my first REM cycles, but I remember my friend jumping through blast doors right before they closed. I went back into the facility, found a bag with a handgun in it (with 2 shots). I actually did squeeze of two rounds without the trigger jamming like it usually does in dreams. I met hulk hogan with whom I apparently had a family connection with and we forged an escape plan where he ended up doing a bunch of stuff in character to some of the guards.

Now I don't remember if that was one whole continuous dream or if it was split by when I woke up. I cannot distinguish when I woke up in terms of my dream because the entire dream is blended together in my head (though when I woke up I took about a minute to review it in my head so as not to forget it, ill keep some paper bedside to write it down next time). Anyway, I tried to WILD for about 15 - 30 minutes and after not being able to enter the dream state (though I'm pretty sure i hit SP), I gave up and went to sleep normally.

Outside of the facility was a parking lot, but the whole world was blocky and resembled the environment of the game Minecraft. There was just something not right about it and I finally did pick up on the ridiculousness of the world around me by looking at one of the trees. It was make of blocks, and I could even see the seams between the blocks. Even the leaves were in large 1x1 meter block shapes. It clicked for me and I became aware. I didn't even have to throw down a reality check, I just became lucid. Now what I should have done right then was stop and stabilize the dream. I got excited but I actually didn't wake myself or become aware of my body. I just took off in one direction determined to find my dream guide. I actually saw a few blocky Minecraft people looking at me running and jumping around (half flying). I turned a corner and saw my mother walking in the direction I was coming from. I asked her if she knew where I could find my dream guide, but she just spouted utter gibberish to me and walked away. I walked into a blocky hut that I saw in front of me, and immediately my vision faded and I had a false awakening. Bummer.

I seemed to be back just outside the facility. I was looking at a computer screen and associated my LD's clarity to just sleeping with my eyes open looking at the computer screen or something. I didn't RC on awakening like I should have, I just moved on.

Much later, most likely in another dream cycle I was walking outside a building. There was a tank in front of me firing down the street at another ground of tanks. I threw myself flat and crawled to cover. I looked over at the target tanks and saw men scrambling out of the top. The tank beside me put another round into the hull of the tank and I saw limbs, blood and bits of people explode out ward from the hatches. Thick oily smoked poured from the hatch. I turned away and climbed onto the side of the tank nearest me. It took me down to the wreckage where I looked around a bit. The hulls of the target tanks were crushed and their lifeless operators just sat in the street where the rain washed away their blood. It was pretty nasty. I walked down the street to a building marked 'HQ' Upon entering I received a badge with my name and military ranking on it. I was a bit confused but I just rolled with it. There was a girl i was talking to inside with ranking 11 (my rank was 4). An Asian guy with ranking 101 walked in a little later to cheers of the other DC's inside. Eventually I ended up outside walking down the street. There was also a cat and mouse. I was holding the cat so it wouldn't pounce on the mouse. I could hear the cats thoughts of "Let me at him!" But for some reason I didn't let him. Memory fades at this point.



The next thing I remember is being in line for a roller coaster. Its an updated version of a local one. And resembles it greatly. I climb on board with a few other DC's, the restraints actually close this time and the ride begins. I managed to ride this thing mostly to completion. It had tons of inversions, twists, turns, corkscrews, barrel rolls, and spins. I even got a picture in my head of a dream I had months and months ago of the same roller coaster where I had refused to ride it because it had looked so terrifying. I don't remember the train ever completing its circuit, I'm pretty sure I woke up right before it did.

TODO: RC when I wake up! I think this is what's screwing me out of alot of potential LD's

Woah.. wall of text. I highlighted the beginning of the LD in blue and the end in red just to clarify it in case someone reads it and wants to give me advice without having to read the entire frigging thing.

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

Night of December 7-8

I'm in the kitchen of House #1, looking up somebody's phone number on my cell phone. It looks like a calculator, but it has a two-line display, and the number is stored in it. Then, my dad, P. and I have a conversation via text messages about camping. I see the text messages on the screen of this calculator-phone thing. My dad says, “Want to go camping?” I say, “I love camping! Do we have to go in winter, though?” My dad says he doesn't expect us to go in winter. [There was a text message from P. in there somewhere, but I don't remember what it said.]

Then, my dad comes into the room, and he and I argue about how to retrieve the phone numbers of past incoming callers from the house phone. [My dad and I had figured this out together in real life the evening before I had this dream, but the phone in the dream had a much bigger, much more complicated two-panel display than our real house phone has.]

Night of December 8-9

There's an area where some sort of armed conflict has been taking place. There is an organization of people called “Help the Hungry” who are providing food to the survivors by parachuting in with it and by air-dropping it.

I'm in the bombed-out, roofless, empty remains of a small, single-story house that had only one or a few rooms. There is a rectangular box in the middle of the floor of the largest room. All the sides of the box are on fire, but there is a single hard-boiled egg in the center of the box, and it's not burning. I know that it was air-dropped there by Help the Hungry. Oh, a dream, I realize. I decide to go out of the house and explore. I turn around, toward another section of the house, a rectangular section where the wall at one of the narrow ends has been blown up. There's too much rubble between me and the opening for me to walk through conveniently, so I fly over it.

Once I get outside, I discover that the house is in the middle of a wide-open, flat, grassy field, lined with trees around the edges. [Now that I think of it, it resembles the one at the park closest to House #1, only the one in the dream is bigger, has more trees, and has no roads or other buildings in sight.] There is only one other person there, standing right near me as I'm flying just a few feet above the ground. He says something to me [that I don't remember now]. His tone doesn't sound hostile, but I know that he's part of the group responsible for bombing the house, so I want to get away from him quickly. I start flying straight up to escape. He makes a grab for my legs to catch me, but misses. I continue ascending, and the dream starts to fade. Gray blotches appear and spread, blotting out the sky around me.

When I found myself back in bed, I thought, No, I'm not done yet, with resolve. I didn't want this dream to be over already. I remained perfectly still and concentrated on visualizing the dream I'd just been having. I remember thinking, Please... please... please...

...and then I'm back in the sky above that same grassy field, falling toward it just as fast as I had been flying away from it. I do a faceplant into the grass, but feel no sensation at all, neither impact nor deceleration nor pain. I'm now lying on my stomach in the grass. Three or four people about my own age are crouched down in front of me, watching me as I push myself up. I try to speak, but for some reason, although my mind is sending the right commands, my mouth won't work. Instead, I smile and wave at the young woman on the right, who smiles and waves back. As I'm getting up, I keep trying to speak, and after a few seconds, I succeed in getting my mouth to work. I say something like, “Hi, I'm (Emiko). Hide me from anyone other than the Help the Hungry people, will you? I don't think they like me very much.” By “they” I mean the group responsible for bombing the house, and the reason I don't think they like me very much is that I ran (well, flew) away from them. The others seem to accept me, and we all walk away across the field as a group. [That's the last I remember.]

--------------
Side notes:

I was getting to be kind of annoyed that I'd had dreams featuring House #1, one of my dream signs, for two nights in a row without going lucid. Last night, I started to do more serious RCs again, and changed up my before-bed affirmations, making them more along the lines of, “When I'm in an unfamiliar place, especially House #1, I realize that I'm dreaming.” It seems to have worked.

Also, this is the second time that a dream has started to fade right when I've been flying upward. I think it's because both times, I was concentrating exclusively on the act of flying, not paying any attention at all to the environment around me. Lesson learned: In the future, look around more when flying. (Yay for DEILDs, though! I'm so glad I know that trick and can pull it off successfully. )