side notes

School trip to a distant, abandoned mansion
I am on what is seemingly a school trip to a mansion. I don't remember much, except that I wasn't quite interested in anything. I went to some friends, but I just watched them do things. We also went to an attic. For some reason I needed an asthma inhaler and something else I don't remember. I think some person, maybe a teacher or maybe some owner of this house came up and sent us out because some things are private, but I forgot my stuff there, including the inhaler, but for some reason I hesitated telling a teacher. At some point apparently I was unconscious or dead, and I was watching some insane doctor do something with my body. Apparently he needed to cut my clothes into shape, but for some reason he cut it to girl clothes.

Creepypasta image
I was searching for something on Google images, but then I remembered that this could be the name of creepypasta things, and I was right. I saw some very disfigured thing that was horse-like, but very big and stretched and entirely pale, and it's face was just an evenly oval-shaped hole, as if it was cut away. It was in a tunnel, that looked like some tunnel from Need for Speed: Carbon on one of the canyon levels, probably the first level when you start out the career.

---

Second day where I remembered my mantra. I guess school being cancelled for now is relieving some of my stress.

Strange creepy gaster dream
It was sort of about Undertale, but not really. The only real character from Undertale was Gaster. They were sort of travelling worlds, but I don't know if it'd be permanent or not. I was happy for them, though. But then Gaster told me something unsettling. He said that the darkness was coming. My happiness faded away immediately. I tried asking him what he meant, but he didn't reply, and then they were gone. I saw that they were flying away, but something was wrong, they were only flying into a void, everything around them was the blackest it could have been. I tried warning them, but they disappeared. In the evening in my home, with my parents doing stuff around the house, I heard some documentary saying "Imagine if it was entirely dark and you couldn't see anything." or something, since apparently this darkness is like a natural disaster. I looked out the window, and no light was there. I was afraid of the window not being closed, and I didn't remember how the handle of it looked when it was closed, so I thought about opening the window and closing it again, but then I thought that'd be a bad idea. I don't remember anything else.

---

This time I remembered to do my mantra when I went to sleep. Now I just have to keep it up and I'll have some lucids again.

No techniques used. Only lay awake for some time and set an intention to do the TOTM in the middle of the night.

At first I got lucid at my parents' house but didn't get anywhere before waking up. A non-lucid dream about being at a scientific congress followed. In a break I went outside and got lucid again, immediately remembering my intention to ask a DC about the dream's origins. I felt the dream slipping and focused on my surroundings, touching the ground and everything nearby. Like this, I was walking down a rain-soaked street with a lot of trees. The dream stabilized and I saw every branch in great detail and in amazing colors. Noone else was around. Typical, if one wants to find a DC, not one is here.
I left the street and started walking down a slope leading to some gardens. Still no DCs. I pushed myself off the ground and glided down, looking around.

Finally, I got to a path leading somewhere else and found a young boy, maybe 10, walking there. "Hey", I shouted. He turned and waited for me. I got closer, as if I didn't want anyone around hearing us and asked "Whose dream is this?" "His", he said without hestitation with a matter-of-fact tone, pointing to the left. I followed his gesture and found... A small bird. A blueish canary sitting on a fence.
?What? I was completely taken aback. I looked back at the boy, puzzled. He was grinning slightly.
Behind him I noticed a plump woman, about my age, with dark hair. Maybe she can tell me more. I walked towards her as she looked at me openly. We got close together and looked straight into each others eyes. Somehow, I was overcome with compassion towards her. I felt the urge to hug her but it felt out of place. I had so many questions running through my mind. Yet, I didn't know where to start.
"Don't worry. You've got strength in your head and in your legs.", she said, smiling.
This confused me even more. The three of us started walking along the path. Suddenly, I understood. "If you say that I've got strength, you mean you've got strength, too, right?" She considered this for a moment, and nodded.
They are all me, everything here is. It's all one. It's the bird's dream as it is my own.
We continued walking until the other two left me at something that looked like their camp. The woman looked back at me, inquiring, then smiling broadly and said "Princess Leah will be pleased!" [no, not Leia ]
Slowly, I walked away, feeling utterly content and warm after this encounter.

Next, I got to a strange structure with a high bar and a trampoline. I jumped on there, doing somersaults and whatever I could imagine in mid-air. It got totally euphoric until I was crying out of joy.
Then, I wandered around again, now through an amusement park, admiring the incredibly vivid surroundings and enjoying the hustle around me until I woke up.

Walking around the city for magic
I am walking around the city with my mother for some reason. We go through houses, and in the dream that confuses me, and I also had problems recalling how we even got into the house every time we entered one (I should've gotten lucid right there, ugh). At some point, it might have had something to do with the series Charmed. In some house I saw a girl play animal crossing, and her parents watched. They also seemed to like the game. My mother told me that they're filming the trailer. In an adjacent room or maybe adjacent house they're preparing to film some trailer about animal crossing that seems to be horror-themed for some reason. I remember already seeing the trailer. A girl sits on a couch and she just bends her head backwards as if she fell unconscious or something, and they'd zoom into her face and behind her is a TV playing a video on loop. It would be framed so that it would look like her unconscious face is floating in front of the images zapping by as creepy and intense music played, like House of Leaves from Kevin MacLeod. At the end I met my friend Steven on a sidewalk
and he looked pretty different. We were happy to see each other. My mother told us something. At some point I also got home with my father, half-naked for some reason. There were also some personal parts at some point.

---

Got a bit closer to doing a mantra, but still forgot. I guess I am just too stressed, and will be for a long time, so I'll just try to do something.

Jamie 1

Only thing from this dream I remember is standing by a fridge. Jamie comes up and kisses me.

Jamie 2

I'm sitting on a couch and jamie is around. I'm nervous because I remember how upset in the dreams she seemed last week. I'm trying to get something out of a freezer. I am shuffling through things in the freezer. I find what I'm looking for and Jamie grabs my arm and says we should go. I am thinking this is the first time i've seen her in years and i am shocked she is being so nice.

Sounds like someone was trying to cheer me up :-)

9th July 2020

Fragment:

Something about talking to A in some imagined version of her home. I remember it was day time and there was a coffee table? An old style computer with a CRT.

We talked about a few things, mostly random ones, but also about my art and I asked if she knew anyone who might be interested.

---

10th July 2020

Fragment:

Dream about being on the computer and looking through one of the art sites I frequent. I remember looking at my own art and other peoples' art, but the rest of the recall is gone.

---

11th July 2020

Fragment:

On the computer, looking at one of the art sites again, and at my account page. I think I'd received some comments and I was typing up replies to the comments. I vaguely remember new dream-generated artwork, both of my own authorship and of other artists.

Something about wanting to make a second account for only certain types of posts (?) but in the end I decided it would be too confusing if I had duplicate uploads between two different accounts.

---

Notes:
- There is quite a mix within these three days, the dreams being pretty much about the same thing in one way or another; my art and how both I and others perceive it.
- At present this hasn't been manifesting in dreams quite as much but at the time of these dreams I was perhaps finding myself obsessively thinking about these things a bit through the days, more so than currently.
- The recalled part of the first dream relates directly to how I no longer have direct contacts/friendships with people who are interested in the same things, thus trying to see if a friend did know anyone and if we could basically be introduced; I've had this thought consciously a few times during certain days but since then have decided that I can't meaningfully seek this out in a natural/organic way and since then I've also had a conversation about this topic with a friend.

7th July 2020

Dream (somewhat fragmented):

Some mix of walking and racing around a city. There was a long track that lapped at a military train station of some kind and looped around through a somewhat futuristic city and some mountains and sea side cliffs. I think I lapped around a couple of times at least. The track was a mix of dirt and train tracks along the non-city parts, so the car would transform or something as it went on and off the rail tracks. The moments during which I was driving were all in third person view.

(recall gap)

At some point I was driving a tank past the check point where the race track supposedly lapped, somewhere in the city. A group of rebels appeared and melded out from the cheering crowds gathered around the city race track. The group of people had guns and they clung to me and demanded "the truth" (not of me, it was their chant?). I was not their ally but not their enemy either. I carried on moving forward and some point I'm me and not in the tank anymore, and I'm going through this cramped and small hall of a sci-fi, neon-lit mall. It's kind of dark but the neon signs made a stark contrast.

(at some point there's a transition, maybe not instant but gradual, though my recall of it has faded)

The rather large group of rebels was much smaller now. I was now in a giant cavern and this much smaller (less than ten people in total) group of rebels and their children had been following me for a while now after what I think had been quite some time walking; some of the kids kept holding on to me (in fear?) or clinging but I found this annoying at times since I was trying to move forward.

In the huge cave there was this giant reptilian alien creature and it was fighting or attacking something. I remember running past its large open mouth and throwing a small nuclear bomb inside. Somehow I made it keep its mouth closed as I moved towards its tail.

The bomb went off at this point and the light shone right through the scaly skin; there was a certain iridescence to the effect and there were plenty of vivid colour. Because I was at the back at this point, I remember making note that it was a female (based on the genitals) and the creature began to feel weak and was sort of hanging on its knees.

Then I remember being the same size as it; I sort of rolled it over on its back and then it was a (friendly) dog. I was trying to be careful because some of those people were still nearby and now they were tiny. I gave the dog some kind of pill like a tranquillising medicine, without too much resistance; the giant dog began to look a bit out of it and happy. Then there was some kind of interface to choose how to reset or reprogram the creature's behaviour. There were two columns with a few options each.

The dream ended shortly after this.

---

Notes:
- Even only after waking up I thought that the general setting of this dream was very interesting. The sci-fi type city and the scenic landscapes are generally appealing and come to think of it, are both subjects I'd like to be better at portraying artistically.
-- I remember some picturesque sunset views at some point, around the seaside cliff areas.
- This was one of those dreams that felt quite long, where I feel there are many parts of the dream that I did experience but simply could not recall solidly once awake.
- The whole thing with the rebels and the city makes me think of the Hunger Games for some reason, though I don't think I'd rewatched it recently at the time of this dream.
-- I don't remember clearly anymore what was the general emotional state of the rebels and their children when we were in the cave, but my mind says "fear" at the moment; but the way the children were hanging on to me was more playful, in the same way that as when I was a child I might have done when being playful with my parents.
- The nuclear bomb and the shiny effect were probably in part brought on by playing Borderlands 3 and using a character skill that enables miniaturised nuclear warheads to be fired, and in part probably by Fallout and its Fatman too.
- Rolling over the creature (dog at that point) was very akin to my experience of having to give my dog medication, though in this case there was actually more willingness to receive the medication.

Dragon dream
I transform into a dragon at some point, it seems like an ability I have in the dream. I was getting mad at somebody. It was sort of in this like special bar like area, that seems to be becoming a recurring location. There are some of my friends there, I think.

---

Sadly I don't remember having any sensation of my form in the dream, which would've helped in shapeshifting in a lucid dream.

Also, I have been totally forgetting to use my mantra so that I'd get lucid; it works nearly every time, but my memory is horrible.

School has also been destroying my recall. I know I remembered more of the dream in the morning, but firstly, I don't want my parents to see what dreams I have, idk why but it's embarrassing, and on school days I can't get myself out of bed so I wouldn't even have time to write down the dream.

5th July 2020

Dream:

I remember being at home with H. We were trying to sleep but couldn't manage for some reason; I remember having slept for an unusually low amount of time in the dream, one or two hours only. On re-writing this entry here, I have a vague memory of seeing the red clock display something very early, maybe around 6AM or so.

We got up and put some shoes on, etc. We went outside, it looked early but not dark, though it wasn't bright either. We had been invited to go to some neighbour's house for a dinner time meal or something. The area outside looks different from how it should. A mix of my home town and the place where me and H live now. There are some leftover and unfinished construction works.

We went down the road and around the corner over on the left side of the street. There was an open bit, like a plaza/square and it had some small concrete storage units of some kind. They had metal doors and H used a key to open one and he put in a gem, looked like a Tiger's Eye.

But the top of the unit was smashed and rubble was visible inside from the top. This apparently didn't bother H at all but I asked him about it. I think H wasn't understanding my point and I eventually dropped the subject as we walked away. Before we went to the next place(?), H needed to have a wee or something; so he was going to walk over to the commercial estate across the way from our street/home, but it looked like a different commercial estate that I know of in the area. ^{(Note to self, refer to original entry)}

I think I wondered why not just go home since it was closer anyway. But I think H was going to do something else while there. So then I decided to wait outside this neighbour's house that I thought we were going to. I thought of knocking, but felt afraid of getting it wrong, so I didn't. I remember having passing thoughts about my boots, about how I should probably take them off as soon as we got in, so I wouldn't catch any of their stuff or furniture with my feet.

I walked back to the end of our street. For some reason at that point, I took codeine. I don't remember where I got it from, my pockets? I remember then looking towards the shops area. There were people about but not many. I didn't want to stare at them for some reason so instead I just looked up at the sky just above. Cloudy, excessively blue-ish, dim. But all of a sudden I could see clouds moving very fast in our general direction. I thought this to be strange and looked away for a while and then when I looked back it had stopped.

In the dream I attributed that as some hallucinatory effect of the dream-codeine I took. Eventually I could see H in the distance, coming back. H now had a short and bright red impermeable coat with a hood. Not unlike red riding hood but more modern, and less feminine/more unisex in appearance.

---

Notes:
- Like in another dream I recently caught up on, again, if I had this dream now and had taken codeine in a dream, this could now be a big alert that something was off, since at the moment I know that I must absolutely not take any codeine since it could be dangerous for me to do at present.
- Re-writing this dream entry here only a bit over a month since the dream, I still have quite decent memory of the visuals.
- In the dream, it was foolish of me to simply disregard the odd sky/cloud events as being a hallucination; that in itself should have been enough of cue for a RC.
-- Likewise, looking away and back and having seen such a massive change should have been a good cue ordinarily.

LEGEND:
Black = non-lucid
Grey = awake
Blue = lucid

---

Lucid fragment
I reality check and get lucid, but either don't remember what came after it or the dream faded.

Great false awakening lucid!
Discouraged from my failed lucid that I just woke up from, I decide to do an especially aware reality check and then go to sleep with the mantra "When I see my hands I will remember I am dreaming and I will remember my body isn't real." The last part of the mantra is to make me more lucid and aware, so that I'm not just a zombie.

I then heard a noise my father made (maybe be dropped something) and got startled by it, and was disappointed. But I did a reality check, and, to my surprise, I breathed right through my plugged nose and was in a lucid dream. I immediately stood up and decided to leave my home. I tried looking away and back, imagining there'd be a door. I wanted to go to a specific place, but I ended up going into a mall. For some reason I suddenly had a VR headset on my head and my lucidity slipped a bit and things started getting unclear, both since that's something that happens if you don't have your VR headset on correctly and because the dream was fading, but as I took it off it caught itself. For a few seconds, I was somewhere else, but returned to the mall without really noticing. The place might have been full of brownish sand and sort of boxed in somehow.

Now, back in the mall, I run around and explore, excited, although not as aware as in the beginning anymore, but still better than any other lucid dream I've had. I see a small (100ml volume?) box of sodium iodide and think about trying to blow something up (that's hard with sodium iodide, but, again, I had lost awareness in the VR headset segment), but I ended up not trying, both because I didn't know if they'd have any chemical that'd work out with it (forgot that you could summon things since my awareness was shit) and because I didn't want to anymore. As I thought about it, I had actually tried to grab the box of it, but I only had the lid in my hands since it slipped off, and somebody was mad at me since I grabbed it (I had a small fear that someone would notice, but I didn't really care since I was sure I could just flee). And thus, I fled.

I then decided to try some shapeshifting again. I looked at my hands and saw that I had way too many fingers than normal (about 14 on my right hand), so I tried to touch things with the hand to see how having more fingers feels like, and it felt like normal, just slightly different. It's hard to describe. But I didn't want to continue to do something else that is more personal.

I went to a sort of computer terminal and input commands and hoped for them to appear in the dream, but it didn't quite work out. At some point I did a stabilization attempt by inspecting my hands, but still nearly woke up, but ended up back at a sort of bodyless distant view that was even less aware of the terminal, which now looked like a piano/organ, and apparently dracula was playing on it. It sort of was like a comedic variation of some sort of area in a video game. I then sort of had to click on the piano to go to the terminal again to continue typing, and it still didn't work, and then I woke up.

---

That awareness drop after the vr segment was annoying, but being that aware at all was progress, at least. I think I will add something to get more aware of dream control in my dreams.

Also, the first lucid fragment resulted from an extra aware reality check yesterday before I went to bed, since I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't reality check all that much because of school eating my time and stressing me.

1st July 2020

Fragment:

Long dream but recall up to this point was poor. About halfway in, I was going through a busy-ish city centre with some other dream character walking along with me.

Then a very obvious dream sign appeared, a tall woman in labcoat, walking away in a different direction, possibly wearing nothing else. She had flat and very black hair, reminding me of one of my cousin's hair or come to think of it, a sort of Cleopatra hairstyle?

I recognised the dream sign and checked the fingers on my right hand, but for some reason I didn't realise I was dreaming and I didn't make further checks. Something about my fingers seemed distorted but the number was correct. I didn't remember to do any physics checks oddly and I think I was also distracted by whatever my previous dream objective was.

Later I either had a micro awakening or another pre-lucid moment during which I automatically reflected on what had happened and how I'd been unable to realise I was dreaming, but again not realising this irony.

(Missing recall)

Different part of the dream. I was somewhere kind of dark. Some dream character was showing me something? Then some of this characters pet spiders appeared on the ground out of nowhere, individually one after another, there were only a few though. But for some reason in the dream I let my phobia sort of return and take a small hold of me, mostly because of the first spider. It was a black and yellow/gold patterned orb weaver, about the size of a large hand. Even in my temporarily panicked state I realised that it seemed more afraid of me, but I couldn't shake the feeling of unease.

(Missing transition)

Another part of the dream sequence where I was at some modern-ish looking house. I was not myself, but a character for the dream plot. I was some kind of elemental creature but I don't recall any details of my form or appearance. There were four other humanoid creatures of similar elemental nature. There was an absent character that had created us and one of the other creatures had been created right in front of me. She appeared in a cloud of white smoke within a glass room, which I was standing outside of. The glass enclosing this "room" made it more like a container or cell of sorts really.

---

Notes:

- This dream was a particularly good pre-cursor to the lucidity I had later on (4th August).
-- At this point I had been becoming more diligent with my reality checks but not quite so much just yet. Currently at the time of writing (13th August) I am far more diligent with my RCing though there are still situations under which I should be checking but still am not quite so often.

- My primary issue with my RC was really the fact that I gave up on the first try but this was made much worse by the fact that the dream itself caused distraction from my RC procedure, something that I'm a bit more careful.

- The bit with the spiders was somewhat unusual in that I haven't been letting this affect me at all in waking life but it may have been around the time when I've seen bigger ones around the house more recently.
- This was the first dream with spiders for quite some time now, I think.

27th June 2020

Fragment:

Long dream but details faded. Remember being in the mountains, by myself. It was a sort of twilight hour. I remember looking under what was a false boulder and there was money under there, a few thousand euros and pounds. There was a message saying I was to take as much as I wanted.

I stuffed it all in my shorts pockets.

Then I remember thinking about going back home or something, I felt like I was lost in an unknown country. I arrived at a hotel place of some sorts and H was there in the role of a generic servant or something.

(Transition/recall gap.)

In some kind of big store. There's only a few people around, it's day time and not much artificial lighting is needed in here as it seems to be adequately lit naturally. Then this group of guys comes in and they are a bit stocky, not fat though. They are going to rob a vault at the store. They do so and there isn't much fuss about it, apart from the odd scream from a woman. I hear them talking or something and they managed to steal 6.2 billion.

I think about how much money that is, and how it looks so small physically, as they only carried a few sacks of notes between them. I remember maybe being in the car with them and talking about their robbed loot.

---

Notes:

- Although I remember having this dream since it wasn't that long ago, none of the visual recall seems to be coming back really, so in that sense I can't consider it very memorable at this time.
- I remember there was a fair bit of dialogue in this dream, but this is typically amongst my most easily lost details.

Jamie 1

Just a flash of her putting a parcel together. Is she going to send me something?

Jamie 2

Being on a street during the day with jamie and she is being distant saying she is looking for another boyfriend... Wait I thought she wanted to get married. I'm still waiting, pining and hoping. But she doesn't reach out to me at all.... If I wing up marrying someone else, it's because I had to settle for someone else under duress... anyway i see she is on a dating website. She then messages me through the site saying "LUV U!!!" I swear at times she is two separate people...

I'm still waiting for that message for real tho.

Last catch up entry for today I think.

23rd June 2020

Fragment:

Remember seeing Discord. I had been removed from the Nx server, as it was no longer on the list. My friends looked shorter too. I soon realised A wasn't on the list anymore and I presumed I'd been removed from their friends list. I checked my Steam friends list and saw the same again.

In the dream I remember thinking this was unsurprising, but all the same, disappointing. It made me feel as though I'd been used, and made irrelevant past a certain point.

---

Notes:
- This part of whatever dream it was from surely came about as part of my emotional processing of a few things, but primarily from a wariness so as to not let myself be lied to or used.
- In the dream I think there was some subtext of libel against me.

22nd June 2020

Dream:

Me and H were walking along a narrow countryside road, surrounded by hedges. At one point, instead of hedges there's a house. It looks moderate in size. The dream immediately establishes somehow that it was the house of our waking life neighbours, the old couple.

I just want to go past the house though, and continue on our journey. It's a humid but fresh morning and the light looks beautiful, I have a vague memory of the sun still being fairly low but high enough that it's quite bright.

H becomes distracted by the house, at first staring at some of the sandstone that makes up the house walls. Then looking in through the windows. This makes me feel uneasy. Through the first window, which looks to be tinted in some way, I see a Pioneer turntable, a silver one. We walk a few paces forward at last, but then H stops again. I turn around and I see a big cabinet style turntable station. It's sitting outside the house, directly against the wall but in the dream it still seems like it's inside the house too somehow.

It's mostly a silver Pioneer unit again. I manage to read a model number. LP-PL13. I point it out to H and he seems uninterested. We keep walking? But then we get inside the house somehow and it looks like a mix of what I know our neighbour's house to actually be like inside plus our own current home and my old home. I soon begin to wonder how their house could look so much bigger on the inside, seeing as they should be terraced houses, not realising the terrible irony that the house had initially presented itself as a detached home in the countryside.

We go through a few rooms, both wondering if the old couple is home. Their home is beautifully organised and in this version presents itself with a lot of Hi-Fi equipment. At one point I remark they seem to like Pioneer's stuff as much as H. There was mostly silver "era" stuff.

Eventually we end up in what I can only call a storage corridor. It would be dark if it weren't for two cold but bright fluorescent tubes. The corridor feels narrow only because there are metal storage shelving units to either side and they're full of stuff, mostly electronics.

I make note of a few older CRT television sets. One is a Mitsubishi and it's medium in size. Then as we continue along I remark on some of the stuff but I can't remember what I said or what H replied.

At the end of the corridor it forks, on the left is the master room for the old couple. I didn't look to see what was to the right.

At some point before this, I remember the neighbour sees us from a room? And tentatively says hello and we reply with a short hi ourselves. Now, his wife is laying in bed but looks at us too. Her husband appears I think and they ask something of us? They want us to read over some document they've written.

We are now in a living room like the one at my old home but with different decor. We sit at the dining table which has the document on it. It's only some three pages long but double sided. There's only one copy. H reads a bit of it first, then I read some of it. It's some kind of invitation for something, an event? for a club. It starts out with a page-long poem or some such. Something about Napoleon and war comes up. The text seemed consistent in the dream but I can't help but wonder if turning over the pages was making it change.

I wake up shortly after this.

---

Notes:
- The house felt immense inside, although the ceiling height was probably much lower than it actually would have been if it was actually ours or our neighbours' home.
- The house felt like a well imagined mix of our home and theirs, as ours is quite disorganised but does have a lot of electronics about, and theirs is very well organised and also uncluttered, really.
- It's interesting that I make note of the makes of things a lot more often now, even in dreams. I don't seem to recall doing that so much even just a few years ago and I'd say that living with H has been a good part of this change.
- I remember the natural light inside the house was more like my old home. Lots of dark/bright contrasts.