task of the month

Backlog: 28 Feb

On the whole had a very restless night, trouble falling asleep, followed by emotional nlds. Later got woken up and ended with insomnia.

My wakefulness increases to daily levels and I am ready to get up, seeing no point in being in bed anymore. Yet, I know how groggy I will feel later on so have one last effort to catch some sleep. I try the classical wild plus relaxation tips with the sole purpose of falling asleep at this point. There is a specific pleasant sensation in my stomach. I try not to move but have to change positions several times due slight discomfort.

Finally, a bright scene flashes in front of my eyes so I know sleep is near. I even concentrate and make another one appear, whilst still having awareness of my physical body. It's like being in two places at once. The scene is fanstastic. I find myself flying high above the sea and green lands. The water looks fantastic. I can feel my dream body flying while being in bed and as it floats and is about to flip over the scenery.

The sensation is cool but difficult to maintain and input from my physical body takes over and I find myself back.

I continue to do my best to fall asleep. I find myself in another dream looking at a mirror. I am happy to ascertain that I have made it to the dream. "I'm in", I tell myself out loud while looking at my reflection in the mirror. My reflection doesn't quite move in synch with my words so I make some efforts to synch, but not to much avail. Then I notice my breath and just feel the need to breathe as if I am having some difficulty doing so. I spend some more time breathing in and out and watching my reflection as the dream interrupts and I find myself in bed.

Asleep, some short nld part, then another dream scene on the playground.

On the playground, which bears resemblance to this real life place before it morphs. I climb onto a playground structure and look around. There are a number of DCs as well as dogs mostly immobile at this point. I slowly move my gaze from one DC to another and then from one dog to another examining them. Everytime I do so, they turn and pay attention to me to. It's like I can feel my attention as a gust of wind animating and being reflected in each DC. This is quite cool. At this moment, I also notice that there is a warmish wind that also connects all of us and is gently blowing from direction or another. It feels really pleasant.

I try to remember any tasks and recall the basic for March - find a house and get inside. I look over to the street and see an old entrance door to this building. It looks far away but I decide to give it a try despite having some doubts about dream stability at this point (due feeling). To reach it, I have to first get down from the playground thing I am on. I jump and try to slow down my fall not to cause extra instability. It works somewhat but also rotates my vision introducing slight instability. At this point a classmate comes down to help me, looking rather concerned. Her face is reddish on some places as if from mild sunburn.

I look ahead to where the street is, where I need to cross to get to the entrance gate. The place morphs and now I find myself on an elevated fence looking over the street, but the edge of the fence is out of reach due to there being trees in front and also lots of thorny shrubs. This infuriates me and I decide to cut straight through everything. I find myself in the midst of all the shrubs piercing me and causing overall pain as the twigs are everywhere. This looks super realistic and I take a moment to examine myself. It just doesn't feel right me pushing through all of this vegetation at all costs, seeing an old cardigan of mine being torn in the process and all this pain. I conclude it's against my philosophy and decide to take the side road to reach my goal.

I gently move away from the thorns that block the way and turn to the other side, which has once again changed and is now a nicely looking forest. It's a dark green vivid color and the trees are close together as not to allow any sunlight through. I notice some interesting looking plants to the side and wonder whether to investigate. Still having my goal to find an alternative road to the house though, I look around the forest. "I almost lost myself in a forest in a dream", I think. The forest now reveals an invitingly looking path that stretches all the way ahead. I examine it with curiosity and excitement, trying to see what is at the very end - looks like a castle very far away. At this point I recall CL and how it could be a good moment to zoom in right over there, but before I could do anything, the dream ends.

I stay still and deild.

Find myself inside a house and a store at the same time. There is some political scenario going on and posters on the counter in front of me. The lady DC behind the counter is unhappy with the actions of the local supermarket.

While walking around I try to recall some of the totm tasks. I wonder if having ended up in a house now would count for the basic but I discard the idea and struggle to remember other tasks. After some effort, the mirror task finally comes to mind. Ok, need to find a mirror, didn't I just pass one by? I go back to where I was a moment ago and face a man-sized mirror. It changes from being clear to being covered in vapour just like it would in the bathroom (first time this happens in a dream, probably because I am trying to do a task!). This irritates me, but I go ahead and wipe it up a bit to at least see my face clearly.

Then I stand in front of it and slowly prepare to move inside. Being a bit apprehensive due to wall phasing experiences ending up in the void, I keep my eyes open and keep staring at its surface as I take a plunge in. The moment I do so, the mirror swallows me letting out a loud underwater like sound "Blop". It's pure liquid and shows no resistance. I quickly emerge on the other side, looking around to see where it has taken me. It's overly dark but I can make out the contours of objects around me and they become clearer to finally reveal that I am in a pantry sized room. It looks exactly like a pantry with shelves and all sorts of objects being stored around. I make a mental note of it, soon the dream fades.

This felt like one of my longest lucid dreams yet. I went to sleep at around 11:30 PM, after taking sleeping pills, and woke up at about 4:07 AM the next morning and stayed awake until about 5:10 AM using the internet, printing a sheet, and trying to figure out what to do next before I go back to bed. I went back to sleep at around 5:20 AM and performed the WILD technique, I think. I'm not sure if I'm doing it right. This is how it turned out.

I woke up in sleep paralysis, after desperately attempting to move my body up out of bed. It took me a while to realize it, meaning the demons, or whatever it was, would come in to the room earlier. I was laid on my back under my covers(even though the blankets were not actually on me). I closed my eyes and began visualizing myself escape the current paralyzed state and imagine myself leaving the bedroom. I never actually imagined going anywhere else but inside the home I was already in. The harder I thought about myself going through that levitating phase, the harder I had to keep it in my mind. I ended up losing my train of thought the first time, but the second time I tried imagining myself moving freely away from my dream bed, I immediately flew out of this levitation mode and quickly flew through the closed door in my bedroom, in hopes that whatever else was in there would not catch me.

After making it out, and already becoming lucid, I decided to walk outside the home. I didn't really have anything to do so far, but to save me the sensations of bordem, I decided to go ahead and summon Sydney again, out on the parkway(which was all empty). I extended my right arm back and summon her. I pulled her out in front of me but I didn't actually sure what to do with her. Once we walked back in to the house, I noticed that two of the televisions were on inside the house; one in the living room and one in my parents' bedroom. My father was inside the living room and my mother was inside their bedroom. I also saw two kids walked in to the scene at the same time I did(they somehow where already in the house). One of them was a boy and the other one was a year, one who looked so suspiciously familiar.

Me and Sydney followed the little girl and when she walked over to my mother inside her bedroom, I then realized that it was one of the children I helped back at a preschool a few years ago. She didn't look exactly the same, nor did it look like she had any of her traits come to think of it, but while dreaming, it really felt like we were finally meeting each other again after a long time. I'm not sure if I hugged her or not.

Me and Sydney then walked back out of the house and walked around the front steps of the house for a small bit. I saw my dog there, along with his lover, at least that's what it looked like. They stuck very close to each other, walking around me and Sydney. My dog had a tendency to lick me every time he had the chance to. I didn't like it, but then again he was my dog, so I could never neglect him. He also had a tendency to drink water from anywhere, including the dirty brown water that was inside a small fountain next to the front porch. He drank it and didn't even care how dirty it was.

After hanging around with my dog for a while, him and his lover left. Me and Sydney were now alone with each other. This was the best time to try and talk to her, especially since our waking life communications don't exit, they never did. I walked Sydney over to the wall next to the parkway and turned towards her. I looked in her eyes, closely observing her facial expressions and attempted to ask her a question hoping she reply with a somewhat real answer.

"I like you, Sydney." I said.

"I like you." she repeated.

I continued telling her how I felt about her but she kept repeating what I said. After a couple times, it got annoying. I asked why she was copying me and eventually told her to stop copying me. She didn't want to listen to me. After asking her so many times, she did manage to tell me something irrelevant, but I forgot what she said. I then decided to leave Sydney here while I went venturing out the street I was in.

Before I walked in to the street, the dream started to turn on me by fading away. I believed the sky was adding to it. It was so dark that many of the homes in the city looked haunted. I raised up both of my arms and imagined the skies to be lit with bright stars. After several attempts, all I did was turn midnight in to late evenings. The dream was practically blind by now. I resorted to the spinning technique as a last motive. I turned my body and turned it as much as I could, so I could feel the vibrations of my dream body move along a strong, consistent pattern to assist in achieving a better vision for the world. It surprisingly worked. Everything, including the skies, were clear. I was not only shocked, but amazed.

I walked out on to the street and I already saw someone walking it. It was a stranger, someone that kept walking down this street consistently in the dream. They wore a pink/black decorated hoodie, so I had a little trouble recalling if they were male or female. I followed them out on the side of the street. I was walking behind them and felt the urge to do something I knew. I extended my right arm back and pulled out in front of me a metal hammer. What I wanted to do to this person was obvious, and I was going to do it whether or not there were people watching. Unfortunately, that person walked in to an area I did not want to walk in to. I decided to walk away and try my luck someplace else.

On my way walked off to other houses on the street, I saw a police car driving off in to one of the parking lot of someone's home. I saw another one opposite of the same of the same home. The first one was going down in flames, which I'm not sure what happened, and the other cop car(and whoever else was in it) didn't seem to care that one of their pals' car was burning out.

I walked over to different house on my right side of the street to see who I could kill in a discreetly manner. I noticed several mothers on the front lawns of their home working and taking the trash out. I focused on one that lived in a darkly lit area, followed by a lonely backyard parkway. I trespassed in to their home and walked up in to the shadowy trees and bushes. They were walking closer up to me and I waited for them to walk up in front of the shadows I was in. Once the got close enough for me to touch them, I swung the hammer heavily on to their forehead and unintentionally broke the hammer. The woman then started laughing at me for not being able to kill her. I gave up trying to kill someone else, so I decided to do something else with my lucidity.

This was where things got interesting. I flew over near a small food market on the corner of the same street I just came out of. As I was flying on to the parking lot of this place, I summoned someone I didn't really intend on summoning before I went to bed. It was Madison, one of Sydney's friends. I held her hand until the both of us were on the ground. The reason I landed on to the parking lot of this small store was because there was going to be a special event taking place her in just a few more minutes. There was coincidentally two chairs already laid out on this parking lot. I sat in the left one and Madison, on my right. We were seemingly the first ones here. There were still a lot more people left.

As we waited, I decided to go ahead and summon a bag of chips(seeing how you don't gain weight in dreams). They were my personal favorites - Cheddar Ruffles. I grabbed some of them to munch on and then handed the bag over to Madison. She ate some with me. The taste felt almost the same, but not vividly. It wasn't strong enough for me to actually set one of my intentions to summon them before going to sleep some other night. Me and Madison both sat there as people quickly started piling up.

The seats began filling up quickly. Many of the seats in front of us were already filled. Some of the individuals attending this ceremony were young and some were old, but not too old. As me and Madison were eating our food, I noticed a young male staring at the food we were eating. This guy looked a lot like my best friend I used to hang around with during high school. I'm not sure if it was him, though. He never bothered greeting me and I never bothered greeting him. I assumed in forgotten all about me.

The parking lot was full by the time the one's responsible for this ceremony put up the red/white decorations scattered all over the place. I turned over towards Madison and gave her a small kiss on the lips, which was a little tasty seeing how she still had the cheddar Ruffle powder taste on them. Madison was my date for the night, but I'm not even sure if she knows it.

Eventually, the staff presenters walked up in front of the large crowd of audience in the parking lot. They went on talking about whatever it was they meant to talk about. I don't have any recollection of what they were trying to speak out. That wasn't the purpose of this perfect moment I held in delight as I sat there that night with Madison. As I sat there, surrounded by so many cheering individuals, most of which were strangers, I felt it'd be the best time to expand my relationship with Madison to something intense. I extended my right arm back and summoned a small black case holding a valuable item inside. I pulled out the box in front of me and held it discreetly in both my hands as I got down on the ground with one left knee in front of Madison. I held the box out in front of her and opened it up as I spoke out those four dazzling words, Will you marry me?

The audience cheered with "awes" and applause. Madison was caught by surprise. I waited for her reply but after the audience began cheering less, Madison then went on to say something along the lines of, while smiling, It's too early. I was shocked, but as long as the two of us could keep together for a little while longer, it'd eventually be a possibility. The ceremony was over by now and everyone started getting up out of their chairs and walking towards the exit. Me and Madison both got up out of our chairs. I held her in my arms in front of me very closely. At that moment, I just noticed she wore a red. glittery dress. We then both walked out towards the exit, after being escorted, and walked in to what seemed to be a casino.

Me and Madison departed ways once we entered this new scene. At the beginning on this small hallway, the one we were escorted to, I broke out a few dance moves behind some of the girls I was walking behind with. I think I was dancing to Uptown Funk, but I'm not quite sure. I followed these three girls until we reached the bigger part of the casino - the lounge. This area was big but not too big, and not too small either. There were slot machines on my right side, a set of tables just outside the small hallway I just walked out of, and a small bar to me left, one where Jay-Z happened to be in. Perhaps Jay-Z enjoyed bar tending more than making music. That is what I thought. I also saw two older men sitting just outside the hallway near the tables. I remember summoning a Berreta to see if it couldn't fire actual bullets this time. Instead, I fired off one plastic bb and I also had to reload the gun, which would eventually become harder to pull, at which then I decided to better yet throw the gun at the hairless man who didn't mind me throwing it at him.

I saw a few others things in the dream. I tried setting the place on fire by using a small box of match and throwing it in small cups of gasoline(what I thought) scattered around the room. The fire would sometimes extended as far as where I was holding it but didn't feel a thing.

I had this dream in the middle of the night, no supps. Some of the details have went away but it was an interesting one none the less. I was in some house, I don’t think it was mine. I remember being stressed that it was really late and I had to be somewhere the next morning and I hadn’t been to sleep. Whatever house I was in I was with a DC, not sure who it was now, the house had a huge window out to the country side. The sun started to come up and I was even more stressed since I hadn’t been to sleep. I then started to look at the sunrise and I was in awe how awesome it was. It was really amazing how the light crept over the countryside and the different colors emerged. It was just green fields and green trees as far as the eye could see. I was so moved by this in the dream I thought it might be too amazing and this might be a dream. I did a quick RC and continued looking at the sunrise, I thought something was off with the RC and did it again focusing more on it and became lucid. I instantly thought of the mirror task and I don’t remember how I got to where I was at the mirror at. I want to say I went to a bathroom but not sure. At the mirror I pressed my head to it, it was hard as it should be in WL but I remembered what CanisLucidus said to just keep pushing. I kept pushing my head and I began to feel my head bend into the mirror. I tried to think of different places I wanted to end up, cool places that I can’t recall right now, but remember picturing them in my mind. As I was looking around me while going through the mirror the place I was began to warp a bit and change. I kept pushing and finally felt it give and I was on the other side. I don’t know if I slightly woke or was in the void at this point but it was pitch black, I just waited and finally a scene formed around me. It started in 1st or 3rd and moved to 3rd or 1st person, I can’t remember which. There was a huge spiral staircase but the stairs were very short and it was hard to traverse. The stairs went around a tower that was very high. Only darkness was around the tower and nothing else. I don’t know if the person traversing the stairs was me or another but I remember the eyes were strange, like they/I only had pupils with no iris. Very strange but a cool experience.

Backlog: 18 Feb

Yet another time where I couldn't make myself do a wbtb. Went to bathroom and took some lecithin in the least.

Slight alertness and not immediately falling asleep, but not quite a wbtb.

Fragmented recall:

At some very low level of lucidity, I see these DCs walking backwards, in a way I am playing the forward and backward in time by thinking about it, it's kind of subconscious (but I can relate my attention to that). Then, I decide I want to control back my own movements and go in the middle of the street to jump back and in time. My back jump doesn't quite follow the right trajectory so I jump forward and try to reverse the movement. Some cars are coming but I know it's ok.

Other stuff happens and get distracted and lose my lucidity. I then have major issues with gravity, in the meantime my awareness goes up. It's super strange it's like I am weightless, floating up and can't stop the movement, so have to hold on to a street pole. For a while, I am like a balloon going up no mass whatsoever. I get lost in thoughts about posting about gravity in lucid dreams and that I am having this weightless problem. Thinking seems to distract me from the issue and I acquire normal weight and am back at street level.

It's a nice day in some foreign looking town. I remember the candy store task, but at the same time feel that am running out of time. There is a street store with an indoor as well as outdoor section just ahead so I hurry towards it. The outside section has all sorts of nice sweet stuff like sweet rolls, mini panettone, etc. The indoors section sells more candy-like things. There's a DC working there and I tell her to quickly give me the strangest candy and she hands me a pack full of roasted coffee beans with sugar. Not exactly what I was hoping for, I make a mental note and wonder about the taste. Just about to consume them when I wake up.

A time travelling dream scenario with semi random elements. I see my friends as their younger selves and pay attention to one of them. His present self now appears in front of me and I tell him what I saw.

Fragments. Awareness gradually goes up as I discuss another time related change of personal in this cafe ahead. What's notable is I see myself in the mirror as a completely different person.

Can't remember more details but as my awareness gradually increases I detach myself from the situation and just continue walking around with no goal in mind. I end up in some sort of underground/tunnels that look a bit game like (think dwarf city, castles). The tunnels are averagely lit. My eyes tell me I've taken the wrong fork but I become more confident continuing ahead. I feel I am losing lucidity so just for the fun of it, decide to self assert and shout out loud that my body is asleep at this moment. I continue down the tunnel.

Slight apprehension as I feel something coming - just round the corner is a DC with two weird looking creatures much like wyverns. I pass right between them, they pay no attention to me. At some point in the tunnels I remember the candy store task again. Right ahead is a closed retro door and I think: "Why not, a candy store could be just behind it, think about this purposely and go ahead". I am happily surprised to find that the room indeed turns out to be a magically looking candy store. It has lots of colorful items, gemstones and candy, looks very fairy talish. No DC is working here, so I just grab the nearest weird looking small glass bottle full of gem-like looking candy.

Cute little aquamarine opaque pieces of this gem candy mixed with some sesame/flax seeds. I quickly pour them down my mouth making sure to empty the whole little bottle (meanwhile wondering did we have to consume the whole thing, remembering the bottle of wine task). I feel relieved at this point that I am able to properly chew them, taste them and not wake up. They taste really nice, like a caramelised sesame bar. I enjoy the moment a bit longer before the alarm wakes me up.

Think there was other cool stuff but can't recall.

Journal Entry Lucid Dream,Lucid, (Comments)
Background: It was a dry LD week for me. I am stressed out about school. I manged to get one lucid dream with ToTM. I kept doing RC and if I was next to a mirror I would try and act like it is a dream and reach out to it. I laid on my bed for a long time hoping to get a lucid dream, maybe 30-40min passed before I fell asleep. The monster part could have been some inner psyche stuff. I been feeling a little down lately.

ToTM: March 2015 Advanced I

Lucid Dream #Unknown, day: 03/05/15, time: -5:03am" Monster & Mirror":
I am walking around the house. It is fairly dark. There is a man in one of the rooms. He goes to the light and he flicks it on then off. He said to me, "the light is not working you know what that means?"I jumped backwards as the reality hit me.

(Monster):This is a dream. I wanted to get out of the darkness so that I won't fall into the void of darkness. He rushed out and closed the door. I followed him. I am in the dinning room, and it is a little bit bigger than usual. I am trying to keep my awareness. I touched my hands, I touched the floor and I try to hear my environment. That is when he starts to hit the wall. Bam bam bam. I told him to stop. He stopped for a split second and he turned around smiled and said, "I am trying to help you out". I felt like he was distracting me. I tried to use telekinesis, but I was powerless. He grabbed me and threw me against the ground. I struggle to find my strength. He is a tall large man. I manged to get him off.

He started to circle me, he said, "let my monster be, I like it. Aren't you happy that you are in a lucid dream? I don't want to be free". I thought, "does he represent my monsters, my demos?" I get ready to fight him again. My shoulders felt stiff. It felt like I have a backpack on or something. I removed it and my shoulders felt lighter. I then removed jacket. We spared, I got some few hits, he got his. Ultimately he took me down, but I found my strength and pushed him off. I am now in my parents room. I look at my hands and I imagine bright light since I have done that in a different LD. Instead I got pitch black hole spiraling on my hands, it looks as though it is eating up my skin. I said, "hopefully this works". He was on the floor and as I reached to put my hands towards him he screamed. Once I touched him, he became mummified, his skin is glued to his bone and he is boney. I got up i felt satisfied but I knew that I would wake up if I don't have another task to do. I remembered ToTM.

(Mirror): I walk into my room. I have a huge mirror. I look at my reflection. It is surprisingly realistic. I look closer and I noticed that my eyes are pitch black with a silverfish reflection no white part. In movies that meant I am possessed.


I ignored it. I got on the counter top and went inside the mirror. I felt my skin get pulled from me. I walk out of the mirror and it is an exact replica of the room I was in, my room. I look back at the mirror. I am white! My hair is brown curly and kind of long to my neck. I have a beard. I was amazed I look at my hands, the dream is still consistent still white. I walked out my room. My sister laughs at me for being too white. I see that I am in some sort of reception. People from my church are there. They ask me what my name is. I told them. They looked at me weird and said, "what a strange name for a white man". I laughed it off. I gave one of the lovely ladies a kiss to the hands, like a real gentleman, as if to ask her to dance with me. I woke up soon after.

#419 - DEILD - 5:25AM

WBTB @ 4AM 2TBS Coffee grounds, 3 TBSP Sugar, 1/4 cup milk

I feel pretty wide awake after drinking the coffee as if the caffeine takes effect right away. I have a hard time sleeping and the goddamned cats keep making noise in the other room. I spend the next hour or so in fitful dreamless sleep until toward the end. I have an upsetting dream where I am overly upset that my wife is keeping me awake and didn't set the alarm.

I wake up and notice that I am in vibrations already. I go ahead and do some phase cycles and when I get to the rolling one, I fall out of bed. I still feel some attachment to my waking body as is some kind of super stretchy tar is clinging to me. I hit the floor and let out a yell of delight. I don't recall the exact order of events during this initial phase, but I basically spend a lot of time enjoying the feeling of being a disembodied spirit floating around the bedroom doing various, random things. Everything is way too dark, but at one point I float to my closet, open the door and scream into hoping for something scary to be in there. Nothings shows up so I close the door and float back up. During most of this I am overly aware of the feeling of the silver cord holding me close to my physical body though I don't bother to visually confirm this — I really don't want to give it too much attention. I eventually make it out the front door in a blind rush, but feel a pull back to my body by means of the cord.

I do another quick DEILD and this time I am able to get up fairly easily. I think of the mirror TOTM and head to the bathroom. The dream starts to clarify and lighten up as I turn to look at my reflection. I look mostly like myself but I have my son's eyes and my hair is much longer. I spend a moment taking a long close look while chuckling to myself then dive right on in the mirror. There is some resistance, but I get in fairly easy. To my disappointment, I have entered the void. It's not that the dream has gone dark because I can hold my hands up and can see them just fine. I rush forward and grope around for something 'physical' in the void. My hands come across a strong feminine jawline. I feel the lips and kiss them as my hand works down to other parts. After a second I can clearly see this woman and she looks strangely familiar yet not familiar. I later realize she is a compilation of all my past lovers. I continue to make out with her/them, but I feel no real sexual stimulation and it all seems so wrong. However, I continue just for the purpose of stabilization. It's not long until something external wakes me up.

March 05, 2015

---

I was with my parents, and we were talking about the Doctor. I was longing for him, and later got to meet up with him (he was apparently someone we knew?) after babysitting some kids, and he gave me a simple string necklace with an orb on the end. I thought it was just a silly trinket he would give to a child, so I was a little upset about it all. When my mom saw me wearing the necklace, she looked concerned and immediately tried to call him. They either told me, or I had a strong hunch that this necklace was something special after all, and that maybe he had strong feelings for me. This thought excited me, but my parents seemed to be treating it with caution and concern, like a baby tiger or something.

Then, they both told me about a dream people had been having. They said it might be connected with the Doctor somehow, so I decided to try to incubate the dream, whatever it ended up being. Like, they told me a sentence to think about, though I can't remember what it was. I ended up falling asleep in the chair I was sitting in with my parents.

In this dream within a dream, I was a worker or resident of some sort of working commune of sorts. We lived and worked in a long building of maybe five stories. But it was on a cliff face, so on that side, the ground floor was below the cliff wall. That whole side of the building, on all floors, was lined with a large wooden balcony looking out into the canyon. There was a sloped road into the canyon next to the building so I liked to watch cars go by.... except cars never seemed to actually go by. All of us in this commune were basically paid to live there and basically just do small odd-jobs all the time. Like, we'd get paid to move these large picnic table-type tables out to the balcony for dinner, or for indulging our hobbies. Some of us were trained doctors (I was one of them), and we would care for people when they got hurt or sick, though it didn't happen often.

On the other side of the building, in the center, there were a set of double-story glass doors leading into a prairie backyard with a terraced garden at the other end, and horse/sheep/cow stables above the garden terraces. It was so beautiful, but kinda utopian (as in impossible and slightly darker than it seemed). Like, on the surface it looked like a perfect little community... but there were whispers.

On the day this dream took place, we had moved the tables out to the balcony for lunch. It was a special day because it was the day a Canyon Horse spirit did a yearly run down the road into the canyon. But for some reason it started early. It had always been in the evening, when the sun sets, and the windows were always boarded up and fastened, and we fasted for the evening, or something. But this year, it was starting in the middle of our lunch. The sky darkened and men came in to shutter the balcony openings; but I just barely spotted the spirit streaking by through the closing shutters. It was a deeply spiritual moment, and afterwards, I was so excited, so I didn't notice the tension around me. Something was happening.

We found out why the doors and windows were always boarded up for this event; the horses in the stables out over the terraces were going mad. The stable men who had been tending them were being trampled or turned mad themselves. One horse was on its back, but still somehow galloping, as if it had legs coming out of its back; it was super creepy. They all, men and horses, started charging the building, trampling the gardens and prairie. People in the house panicked and tried to shutter the doors, but it wasn't working. So we started running. I was running along the building in the direction of the end of the canyon, because there was a town in that direction. I stopped at one of the side doors and looked down the country-lane-ish pathway it opened into, to see which way the horses and men would go. I thought they would all just go straight into the house to get people, but they fanned out and changed direction as soon as I could see them. It was now too late to change my mind, and I wished I hadn't waited, and had just run when I got to the door.

I ran through the streets until I reached a small neighborhood and started turning down streets to try to loose the mad people chasing me. I felt like they were after my flesh, wanting to tear my heart out or wear my brains as headdresses....

I came to a small house, but it had a divot of sorts in the layout, with a bush in it. I ducked into the divot, thinking I would be safe there and no one would be able to see me. But you could see me from the other direction, so it the men ran past and turned around, they would see me and I would be cornered... It was a risk, and I took it. Right when I settled there, a man, I assumed the owner of the house, came from the other direction and spotted me. I thought he was going to call out in alarm, but he must have seen the pleading in my eyes, because when he looked ahead of him and saw the madman who was still chasing me, and pretended he didn't see me as he walked to his front door. The madman passed, kept going, and then the new man beckoned me quickly to go inside, while he kept watch for the madman coming back.

I was so grateful I would have cried. but when I got inside, it was MY house. My parents were there, sitting where they had been sitting when I had fallen asleep. I had a moment of lucidity and realized they were themselves, not DCs of themselves. I sat down in the seat in which I had been sitting before, and stared at them, dumbfounded. "Well, that was trippy..." I said. They told me that people who dreamed after thinking that sentence they'd given me all had nearly the exact same dream. They asked me to describe my experience. They were a little surprised, because most people experienced the dream through a man's eyes, even if they were women IWL. I had been a woman, and when I thought about it, most of the people in the building had been women. My parents said this meant something, but I don't remember what that is, or if they even actually told me. I started to feel myself slowly slipping from sleep to wakefullness, but there was no breaking apart of the dream, because I was sitting exactly where my waking body had been. Nothing about my vision or consciousness changed, except that I slowly felt myself waking up.

(this was the weirdest FA I have ever had)

"Whoa," I said to my parents. I asked them if I had just been actually talking to them. I had; they had inserted themselves in my dream or something. It was all very weird, so I stood up and walked around, not really taking in the fact that my house was now a hybrid of my actual house and that building from the dream. There were a series of small moments; One in which one of my best high school friends was visiting, and we were standing on the top of a hill outside this new hybrid house, looking down a stairway path to the bottom. She threw her phone out over the hill, toward a beach at the bottom, and then ran after it giggling like an idiot. River Song came through some double doors at the side of the house (opening to a balcony eerily similar to the one from the dream) and I was suddenly a young girl, and ther ewere sort-of two of me. We ran up to River Song and hugged her, yelling, "MOMMY!!" I was me again, looking through a storehouse of sorts which had been lost to humanity for ages. We were looking at all the priceless objects inside it, and picking which ones to take home with us. I chose pieces that reminded me of figures my Oma has, because I wanted to have some like them. I forget what mom picked.

Then, I was me again, and sitting against a full-body mirror that stood in the middle-ish of a large room. I smiled, because suddenly I knew I was dreaming. I didn't even need to RC, I just knew it was a dream. I was in a very laid back lucid mood, so I took out my phone and looked at it when I touched the on button. There was a 3D-ish sphere on the top right corner, a moving metronome to the left of that, and some lines below them, which waves and wiggled. The DC sitting diagonal to me laughed and commented on my metronome thing, and I said, "Hey, this is MY dream. You're not allowed to see things you can't possibly see. That's MY job." I stood up, and went to find my parents.

I found where the large room connected to the hallway that was actually in my house, and walked to the end of it, looking at my hands to stabilize the dream and just for shiggles really; they were frozen in this spread out position even when I moved my fingers. Like they were glitching. I turned around and, expecting to find my actual living room when I went back, headed back. I did indeed find my real living room when I returned, and my parents were there. I took hold of the trim on the corner of the wall, and slowly floated myself upward so I was horizontal. I slowly floated up to rest on the ceiling; I was chilling on the ceiling as if I were underwater, and gravity was flipped. My parents just smiled up at me. I thought about attempting another ceiling portal, but remembered the Advanced ToTM about pushing yourself through a mirror as a portal. So I instantly turned off this weird gravity and landed on the ground, and went down the hall again, and turning around with the intention of finding that large room with the mirror again. I did find it when I returned, and sat against the mirror again. Everyone was gone from the room now, so I closed my eyes, imagined that I was going on a mystery journey, and just let myself sink into the mirror. I slowly phased through it as I fell backward, and I let myself tumble out into whatever new place I had discovered. A rainbow passed through me, and then it was crazy; I was in a strange cave-like place that wasn't actually a cave. Where ever I looked, my eyes were like lasers that sprouted flowers and rainbows and stars would shoot out and spread around the area. It was fairly dark but where I looked would illuminate to reveal a dark blue rock-face thing. I liked this so far. I found a small star chart on a podium, and investigated it. The first thing that caught my eye was a rubber chicken. WTF, I thought, and then found a telescope next to the podium. I wanted to get a look at this for myself, so I looked through the telescope, pointing it where the rubber chicken would be. I had been assuming it was a constellation made by weirder people than me, but when I spotted it in the viewfinder... it was ACTUALLY a huge rubber chicken in space. Like, I could tell it was light years away, but it was as big as a huge planet. I felt the dream fading, and let it go because I was happy with the results.

Ritual: WTB 11:30pm, WBTB 5–5:45am. Took supplements (l-theanine, alpha-gpc, piracetam, bacopa), did about half an hour of relaxation/breathing/counting on my back. Toward the end had brief series of vivid hypnagogic images (close up of eagle's head, view of a forest) then snapped back to full wakefulness. Not worried, this always happens. Turned on my left side to fall asleep. Woke with dream at 6:30am, so I had probably been asleep for about fifteen minutes.

DILD, "Time Stop": I've just finished a multi-course meal at a nice restaurant and I'm standing a the bar afterward, where the proprietor is offering me a special drink. While she prepares it, I notice that I can barely stand, my legs are crumpling under me, and I stagger as I try to regain my balance, hoping no one will notice. I kneel at the bar, which is low enough to accommodate this, to disguise my inability to stand. This is so embarrassing... am I drunk? I think back and don't understand how that could be, since I've only had ordinary wine pairings with my meal. Then I realize the truth: ohhhh... that incredible heaviness in my legs, that's just because I'm falling asleep!

I'm relieved to understand what is going on, and also impressed that I can think so clearly about the fact that my real body is falling asleep in bed without disrupting the dream. I decide to go on with the narrative that is playing out because I really want to try this drink. The bartender sets an unusual glass in front of me. It is shaped like a particular wooden table made by Isamu Noguchi circa 1941, but with a semi-circular indentation on top for the drink. It is made of hollow light blue glass and the interior is full of crushed ice, to keep the drink cool. The whole thing is very small, like a sake cup, and the indentation looks like it holds less than an ounce of liquid.



I try the drink, which is a clear liquid, pleasantly bright and floral in taste, in flavor a bit like St. Germain but lighter-bodied and not so cloyingly sweet. I complement the bartender and ask what it is made of. "Catfish liqueur," she replies. I'm impressed! I wouldn't have guessed, as the taste was not the least bit fishy. Another girl asks how the drink is made, and narrates as the bartender shows her: "So you mix it with that blue stuff, then top with..." I look at the bottle she's indicating. It is a gallon-sized jug made of translucent plastic containing a clear liquid. It reminds me of those extra-large bottles of Heinz white vinegar, but the shape of the bottle is more like that typically used for laundry detergent. There is a graphic of naturalistic forest trees on the front of the bottle which makes it resemble the cover of a nature magazine. The brand name clearly reads: "Gesuckt." From the name I assume it is a foreign import, probably German, and wonder if I can buy it at any of my usual grocery stores.

My earlier thought about "fishiness" has now taken the form of a chunk of sardine or mackerel that I discover lodged between my gum and upper lip. I reason that it must have come from a dish I ate during the meal earlier. I prod it out with my tongue and finish chewing it. Meanwhile I'm walking away from the bar toward the restaurant area. There are a lot of people in the room, which reminds me—hey! I could try the TOTM again, see if I can do it properly this time.

"Freeze!" I say loudly, but people keep going about their business. I remember the difficulty I had with this last time, and it also reminds me that I'm supposed to be stopping time, so I switch wording. "Time stop!" I command. I say it a few times, still not getting much result, so I decide an explanation is needed, addressing the room in a loud voice so that everyone can hear. "I said 'time stop!' That means everybody stops moving. Time stop! Time stop, everybody!"

I look around and find that everyone has frozen in place. Okay, this is better, I seem to have gotten the point across. Now I'm supposed to put someone in an embarassing position. I didn't plan ahead for this, so I'm going to have to come up with an idea on the fly. My gaze falls on a stout old lady in the middle of the room. I walk over and unbutton her light blue jacket and white blouse. Inside, she's wearing a pink bra, and I'm relieved to see that it has a front closure, so I unhook it and reveal her breasts. I hope I'm not being too mean, but remind myself that it's just a dream so there will be no lasting harm.

Now I have to get everyone moving again. What's the opposite of "time stop"? I try some variants: "Uhhh... go. Start. Start moving." This works, but meanwhile I had taken my eyes off the old lady to check whether everyone else was back in motion, and when I look at her again, her clothes are already back in order and no one is reacting as if they had seen anything unusual. I chide myself for not paying closer attention. I'd better try again.

"Time stop! Time stop!" This time the DCs react much more promptly, like they're getting the hang of it. Okay, what should I do this time? I look around for ideas. Among a group of people in one corner are two meathead-looking guys. I go over and start posing them really close together, much closer than a couple of straight men would normally be comfortable with. As I move and angle their bodies, I notice that it doesn't feel so much like time has stopped as that they are just playing along while I reposition them, and there's some difficulty, maybe even slight resistance, as I lean their faces together as though they were about to kiss. Finally I get it just how I want, so that their lips are almost touching. Then I step back a few paces so that when I restart time, I'll have a clear view of both their reactions and the people around them.

This time I restart the scene with more confidence, like I'm getting the hang of this too. "Okay, renew!" I command, punctuating the signal by clapping the first two fingers of my right hand into the palm of my left. It feels like being a movie director.

I watch closely as people start moving again. I was hoping the two guys would either react with comic embarrassment or, even better, be overcome by a latent attraction and really start kissing. Instead, they simply draw away from one another without any expression or commentary, and no one around them takes any visible notice. I'm disappointed with the blasé behavior of all these DCs, but I have to admit it makes sense: they're projections of my own mind, after all, and I'm fairly blasé myself most of the time.

Observing a dog walking through the room, I momentarily wonder if I should try again, but the lackluster reactions of the DCs has sapped my motivation, and I feel that I have adequately performed the TOTM. I wonder if I should wake up and write... but the dream seems stable, and I'm reluctant to end it earlier than I have to. However, I'm aware how easy it is to start forgetting the details if I don't record them promptly, so I do the next best thing and start verbally recounting my memories of the scene, to help fix them in mind for later. As I'm doing this I end up waking anyway.

Interlude: From 6:30 to 7:15am I record my notes and then return to bed, going to sleep with no further techniques. I wake up at 8:30am from another DILD.

DILD, "Sphere": The plot has been going on for a while but I don't remember much detail from before I become lucid. I'm sitting on the toilet in the bathroom of a house that belongs to a male friend I've been hanging out with for most of the dream [!WL]. I feel guilty when I notice that I've almost used up all his toilet paper. I tell myself that I should really stop giving into the urge to use the bathroom when I'm dreaming. This isn't waking life, where it actually makes sense to go if you feel like you have to. In a dream it's completely pointless, a waste of time, and kind of gross. If I'm doing this, it's because I'm too caught up in the idea of a physical body. I'm reminded of something Sageous wrote in the forum, how he doesn't really have a body in dreams anymore. I should work on getting less attached to mine.



I get up and go over to the bathroom sink, studying my reflection in the mirror. It's actually a close resemblance, as far as I can tell through the mask that covers most of my features. The mask is reminiscent of the one worn by Michio Ito in his 1915 "Fox Dance," though mine lacks the long snout and doesn't cover my mouth. Also my eyes are clearly visible through the sockets. The fact that I am wearing a mask does not strike me as odd, and instead I ponder what to do about my body. I don't think I can eliminate the idea of it all at once, so it might be best to proceed in stages. What's the most radical distortion I can think of? I know! I'll become a sphere.

I keep watching my reflection as my face starts swelling and widening. It looks disturbing at first, like obesity or an illness, and I have to focus on making my whole body expand, not just my face. Not only can I witness this happening in the mirror, I can actually feel it. As I become rounder and rounder, I remind myself that there is no reason a sphere should only see out of two frontally positioned eyes. I should try to expand my concept of vision to include the area behind me. This only partly works: I'm now getting visual feed from what seems like the opposite side of my sphere, and can perceive the rim of the tub and a bit of the floor and shower curtain, all very close up. However in the process I lose my frontal vision, and as I try to experience both visual fields at once I become disoriented and start rotating in place, which makes sense given that I'm a sphere with nothing to stand on anymore. The disorientation gets so bad that I'm afraid it might disrupt the dream, so I let my body snap back to its familiar structure, satisfied that I had a reasonable success for my first try.

I look back in the mirror to check my appearance again. My reflection looks like it did before, and I'm still convinced that it is just like waking life—although in retrospect I realize that my dream-self had a brunette bob rather than the shoulder-length brown hair of WL. I'm still wearing the mask and want to look at the face underneath, so I take it off. There are more layers of mask under the first, and I peel them off one by one, until I'm finally just wearing glasses, and take those off too. Finally my face is uncovered, and I am satisfied that it is a good likeness. I notice an unusual vividness to my eyes, which are sparkling and happy, and I am pleased with my appearance.

Stepping outside, I realize that I'm still carrying my glasses. Should I just throw them away? I feel a natural reluctance, but remind myself that it's a dream, it doesn't matter. Then I reason that I might want to use them later: this could be a good trick to improve focus if the dream gets hazy. Sure, I could always manifest a fresh pair, but that will be easier if I condition my expectations by saving these now. So I slip the glasses into my jacket pocket.

What should I do now? I'm in a great mood and have no particular task in mind, so I decide to explore the dream world. Perched alone on a grassy hillside I see a strange building, very gaudy, with red roofs under a gold dome: it looks like a cross between an old McDonald's and a sultan's palace. I realize it is a restaurant of some kind and head over there.

I'm still feeling unusually happy and excited as I walk in, so I pump my fist and go "Woo!" My enthusiasm has been making the people around me more friendly, I notice, and remind myself that I should try to be more like this in WL. The restaurant is small inside, like a cafe, with a several tables and a counter where I go up to order. Despite the counter it is not a fast food restaurant: the menu consists of about six innovative dishes printed on a small square of white paper.

"What's the tastiest thing on the menu?" I ask, then realize I have a craving for spicy food and ask, "I mean the tastiest spicy dish."

"The D-4," replies the server. I check the menu and the description lists this as a big steak dish, which sounds too heavy and will take forever to prepare, so I look at the appetizers instead. There are only three listed, but two of them sound like they consist of just three pieces of fish, served nigiri sushi style. The fish that interests me looks like langoustine, but with the soft, ribbed texture of monkfish. The server tries to warn me that it's a very small dish, but I say, "I know. It looks like someone has already left one here," pointing to the piece sitting on the menu.

I put in my order and take a place at a small table, then get up to think this over. Can I really commit valuable dream time to sitting down for a whole meal, even a small one? Shouldn't I be doing something more productive? Maybe I should just leave. But I consider that the experience might be interesting, and I can even try to combine it with a task—the circumstances are ideal to work on summoning, something I've always struggled with.

I walk back over and tell the server, "Actually, I'm here to meet somebody." I pull out my phone, wondering who to call among the characters I've tried (unsuccessfully) to summon over the years. But then I notice that someone is already sitting at my table, so I go over to see who it is. I've never seen this guy before: he looks like he's in his twenties, with straight, mousy-brown hair and thin, very pointed features.

"Hi, are you here to meet me?" He nods.

Okay, I think, rolling with the circumstances, this could work. I'll meet someone new, like a blind date. "What's your name?" I inquire.

"I'm Denny, a crass ass." He looks bashfully down at the table.

This odd term rings a bell. Didn't I, much earlier in the dream, long before I got lucid, meet a guy named Paul who used the exact same term for himself? What an oddity; I don't think I've ever heard that term in life. What could it mean?

"Did you say, 'a crass ass'?" I ask, enunciating clearly. The young man nods.

"Why would you call yourself that?" I am genuinely mystified.

"It's what my friends call me."

Unfortunately I woke up before I could find out anything more!

I had a great lucid dream this morning. I had awakened at 3:30 and was having trouble going back to sleep. I thought about trying to do a WILD, and I even starting counting and relaxing, but after a while it seemed obvious that I wasn't tired enough. The last time I looked at the clock was 6:30, and I felt myself start to drift off to sleep (this is one of the few mornings I can sleep in like this).

Dream:

I found myself looking into a mirror. I wasn't happy with what I was seeing. My stomach was all deformed and hanging really weird (it looked a lot like the stomachs of people who have lost huge amounts of weight and the skin just flops and hangs). I was trying to figure out what could have happened for my stomach to look like this. Then suddenly it hits me. The mirror. I always look different in dream mirrors. I must be dreaming.

Yes! I was finally lucid dreaming again.

I already knew what I wanted to do. So much to do...

The first thing I decided to do was to practice being Poet Anderson. I found that I was upstairs in a house that was supposed to be mine, but in retrospect, I am totally unfamiliar with it. It has never been in my dreams before. I ran out of the bedroom and saw Jeff who was just coming in. I shouted out, "Can't talk now...I'm dreaming!" I leapt down the staircase without touching a single step, and out the front door.

I was Poet Anderson. I ran until I came to a high retaining wall and flew over it and down to the street below. I jumped up again and landed one knee, pulling my gun. I totally had this. I was feeling one with Poet.

Then, the unthinkable happened. I felt myself wake up. I couldn't believe the dream was over when it had barely just begun.

I found myself talking to Daniel. I was telling him about my lucid dream. I lamented with him because he had told me how in recent lucid dreams he had been having he had been walking up too soon as well....only to find out later that it was only a false awakening. I had told him (in a recent real life conversation) that he just needed to get into the habit of always doing a reality check each time he thought he woke up.

Somewhere in the middle of this conversation with him. I realized that there was a good chance that I had just had a FA. And as soon as I thought that I knew I was still dreaming. I was excited and told Daniel that we were lucid dreaming. I said, "Let's do finger lasers." There was a poster on the wall, and we pointed our fingers at the posters. I expected to see a laser light come out of my finger. But I didn't see anything. I concentrated harder. I felt like I could hear a faint hum. I looked again at the poster we were pointing at. I could see little lines starting to burn across the paper. I felt satisfied. Even though I could never see the laser, I knew we had been able to create them because I could see the damage they were doing.

At this point I remembered I wasn't done being Poet. I ran outside again and practiced leaping about and drawing my gun. I noticed at one point that I didn't actually have a gun. But I figured it was okay. I would work on that detail later. Right now I wanted to be comfortable with the moves. I also tired to practice making myself transform, like he does in the film, when the Night Terror comes and the black wraps around his body. I couldn't quite get that right. The best I could do was turn my arms a black color. I wasn't too worried about that either. There was time for special effects later. Right now I wanted to make sure I was fast and agile.

After doing this for some time, I decided that my dream was going to last long enough to do a Task of the Month. I thought I would start with the easiest one--walk into a random house and sescribe what was inside.

I now found myself next to some apartments. I saw a door near me on the ground floor. For a second I felt a little timid. But I told myself that it was just a dream and that it didn't matter. So I turned the doorknob and boldly walked through the door. I found myself in a small living room. There were several couches that were full of people....several older Navajo women and quite a few children. One of the ladies saw me and good naturedly joked how surprised I must be about walking into a house full of brown children. But I decided to act like it was no mistake at all. I smiled and , "Hi, how are all of you doing.?" And I smiled down at one of the children that was standing near me and asked her a question. I was able to put everyone at ease. We talked a few minutes. I don't remember details of the conversation. But by the time I left, we all felt happy.

I then found myself in what looked like an alley. There were more doors in a building next to me. I decided to do this again. This time as I opened the door I found myself in an old motel room. in front of me sitting on the edge of a bed was woman who looked to be in her 60s and was either Navajo or Mexican. She was smoking something. I tried to talk to her, but I soon saw that she was totally out of it. She never made eye contact or responded to me in any way. She looked quite messed up. I also noticed that there was some kind of white plastic thing in one of her nostrils.

I kind of got the creeps just being with her, and I knew that we wouldn't be having any sort of conversation, so I left.

This time I saw that I was walking through storage units. I kept walking and found myself in what looked like an outdoor mall. I suddenly remembered that I wanted to find a radio so I could listen to new Angels and Airwaves music. There was junk laying about everywhere, but I couldn't find a radio. I could see people walking around, so I shouted, "Will somebody please turn on a radio!"

And at that I heard a radio go on. But I was just hearing voices. I figured that after the talking they would play a song. I walked on.

I then found myself inside of a very large sports store. There were bikes hanging from the ceiling. The ceiling was 3-4 stories high, so there were a lot of bikes hanging. I jumped up and hung from one of the lower bikes. While I was hanging I looked over and saw this black guy who looked to be in his late 20's. He looked at me with a little smile and said, "Let me show you how this is done." and he jumped up and grabbed a bike and then proceeded to start climbing the bikes. I got quite excited at this little challenge. I knew he had no idea who I was, and that I was going to beat him miserably. Haha...this was going to be great. I then pulled myself up with ease to the next bike. I looked over and he was slowly but quite steadily moving his way up. I was impressed. SO I picked up my pace. I started moving up the bikes so fast that I was barely gripping them. I was mostly just gliding my way up. The ceiling, I noticed was higher and there was further to climb than I had originally thought. I continued to climb. I then looked over and the guy had almost been able to keep up with me. I was only a little faster. Finally I got to the top and grinned at the guy just below me. Now I was going to show him who I was. At that, I let go and jumped all the way down (at least 5 stories). I landed confidently and took off running out of the store.

I remembered that I hadn't heard the radio. I saw that I was still in what looked like a cluttered outdoor mall. I still couldn't find a radio. So I shouted, "Does anyone here have a radio with them?"

I suddenly saw Emily, she was pulling a small radio out of her pocket. I said, "Yes, Emily!" And promptly woke up. And this time I really was awake.

It was 7:03.

Ritual: WTB 12:30am, woke ~6am and set vibrating alarm for 40 minutes. I don't have a clear memory of it going off the first time (~6:40). The second time it went off (~7:20) I seem to have experienced it entirely within the dream state. My lucidity lapsed shortly thereafter but came back when I noticed that the circumstances were suitable for one of the TOTMs. I must have dreamed for about ten minutes after the alarm went off the second time, waking at ~7:30 with 29 minutes left on the alarm going into its third 40 minute cycle.

NLD: I was on a bus traveling through a desert. Looking out the window, I saw an enormous lizard resembling an early-model godzilla. [DR: an image of a similar godzilla was shown briefly John Oliver's show on Sunday night.] It didn't look real, because on closer inspection its "skin" was wrinkled and rippling like that of inflatable parade float rather than a living creature. I concluded that it must be a world boss and looked away. Even though it was so much larger than me and very far off, I was afraid that my scrutiny might draw its attention, and I was not equipped to battle it without a raid.

Our destination was a cave, which was pleasantly cool and dark after the burning light and heat of the desert outside. I passed through the large front cavern through a door labeled "Imagemakers" that led into a back room. These "imagemakers" were literally cave painters, a studio full of artists each doing individual murals on the walls, but in a modern, Asian-inspired style. [DR: One painting seemed reminiscent of Toshio Aoki's Thunder Kami (1900), which I was looking at yesterday.]

I comment to one of the artists how pleasantly cool it is here in the back room. She replies, "It's only 25, if you're not careful you might freeze." [DR? I had reviewed the TOTMs before bed and my notes used the word "freeze," which also ended up being the task I attempted later in the same dream.] I assume she means Celsius because it's not that cold in here, and try to remember what that would be in Fahrenheit—72 or so? I point out to her that when I start to feel cold I can just put on more clothes. Outside in the heat, there was nothing I could do, so this is preferable.

EILD-FA: I feel the vibrating alarm and "wake up," or so I believe, though it retrospect it was obviously an FA because I was in a room with no resemblance to WL. I am sitting in bed reading a book, and after I feel the vibration I remember not to move at first, lest I break REMA. As I start to feel more confident in my dream senses, I venture to turn the page of the book. Slowly I expand my range of motion until I'm sure that I'm not going to disrupt the dream. The plot of the previous dream continues (insofar as it has any continuity, which isn't much) and I soon lose what little lucidity the alarm had prompted.

NLD: Now everyone's talking about a bride who is coming, also on a bus, and someone instructs me to go to a counter to buy a present for her, "a small dog." I had envisioned a tiny dog that was only a few inches long, but the two available at the counter aren't small by any reckoning; they must weigh 40 or 50 pounds. The clerk asks me what I want the dog to be able to do. I think this over, rationalizing that it is a gift to someone who might not be expecting it, so it would be best if it isn't too high maintenance. "Ummm.... sleep a lot?" is my first suggestion. I try to think of other possibilities. "Stand up? Lick? Can they do that?" The clerk looks at me and answers in a tone that suggests he thinks I am an idiot, "Yeah, they can all do that."

While I'm deliberating someone has come up and bought one of the two dogs, so I'm stuck with the one that is left. I think it's really ugly, with shaggy beige fur, and I hope the bride likes it or I'll be stuck with it. At least the dog has a good personality, friendly and responsive, nuzzling up to me like it wants to be liked. I go to another room and start talking with two girls. Suddenly the dog starts humping the floor, which embarrasses me. "I hope he doesn't do that around her," I say, meaning the bride. One of the girls laughts comments that the way she's been carrying on with her new husband, she probably won't be offended.

DILD: As the conversation continues, I suddenly notice: hey, I'm in a room with DCs, this would be a perfect opportunity to try the "freeze" TOTM. I mean, okay, there's only two of them, but we are in a room, so that should qualify as a "roomful."

"Freeze!" I say suddenly, interrupting whatever else we were talking about. The girls stare at me with looks that say "WTF." They're still moving normally, so I issue the command again, attempting to focus my will by tensing my body. That doesn't work either, and I realize that I have the wrong approach. I need to be focusing my mind, not my body. "Freeeeeze," I say cajolingly, drawing out the word. At this point they do stop moving, but I have the impression that they're just playing along. I decide to try the narration technique. "Your body feels so heavy, you can't move. You're paralyzed, like when you sleep." That reminds me, of course we're not completely paralyzed when we sleep, and I'd better not kill them by overdoing it. I hastily add, "You can breathe, of course, just like when you're sleeping."

The girls seem to be complying now, so I study them closely to be sure. I also remember that I should take conscious note of their names, which I had instinctively known earlier in the dream but had almost forgotten on going lucid. The smaller one on the left, with the dark hair... I think back and all I can come up with is "Calm." It sounds odd, but that's the only name that I remember for her. The plumper girl on the right, a blonde, I know for sure is called "Amy."

The smaller girl seems completely comatose now. I lift her arm and drop it, and it falls with satisfying limpness. The larger girl is also lying still, but I get the impression she's just pretending: one of her arms is in a position that could only be maintained by exerting muscle control. I lift it and it is stiff in my grasp.

Then I realize I'm going about this all wrong. I try to remember the specifics of the TOTM. Was I just supposed to freeze them in place, or was there something about actually stopping time? I can't clearly remember the wording. I decide I'd better try the latter in any case, it might work better—and I won't have to worry about the girls accidentally suffocating if time itself has stopped.

"Freeze!" I shout, now indicating not only the two of them but the whole environment, with only myself as an exception. I find that the logical impossibility of this trouble me: if I continue moving normally, then in what sense can time itself be said to have stopped? It doesn't make any sense. I remind myself that this is a dream, and I'm not obliged to work out the physics of it. I look at Amy to see if my new strategy has resulted in any improvement. No, although she is lying quite still, and her arm looks properly limp now, she's actually tapping the fingers of one hand.

"Freeze!" I shout again, looking directly at her hand. Still tapping. "Freeze!" I yell, glaring at the hand. Tap... tap... tap. "Freeze!" I insist, mustering all my intent. The hand finally goes limp. It occurs to me that at some point I'm going to need to write all this up, and the thought wakes me.

Notes: I never did remember the second part of the TOTM, not just in the dream but even after waking up, recording my notes, and going about my day... but I had the feeling that there might have been more to it, that I left something out, and on coming home from work and checking the forum, I see that there was a whole second part of the task that I skipped!

1 Mar Lucid
I don’t really remember what I was doing before I went lucid but I remember being very busy and realizing that I should do an RC. I looked at my fingers and had more than I should. I was in a mall of some place inside and I immediately thought of the task to go into a house and see what was going on. I went out of the place I was in and tried to picture houses near. In an immediate left there was just more mall and then I took another left and saw the houses across the street. I was pretty excited and noticed the wind was blowing and it was very dark outside. I was hurrying across the street. There were news papers in the street and the houses looked like they were new, I thought maybe no one lived there and they were empty, I woke before I got to the houses.

2 Mar Lucid
I took valerian and melatonin along with my regular 5htp and ginko last night and had a couple of lucids about 2 hours before my alarm went off. The first one I really don’t remember too much detail about except for that I was in some houses doing something of importance and did an RC and became lucid. I started looking for a different house but woke up pretty quick. When I woke from this I think I DEILDed and was in a house with some girls and went lucid almost right away, I pulled the pants off of a girl that was in a house I was in and then thought of tasks before I got too off topic. I left the house I was in and looked for another house. It was night and in my mind it was really late like everyone should be sleeping late. I found a little neighborhood with some smaller houses very close to where I was, I was reminding myself to remain calm. I went into the first one I could get to and as I was entering I was trying to think of something weird that the people inside might be doing. Along with that there was a worry that no one would be in the house. I went into the first bedroom to find no one, then the second bedroom to find no one, at this point I was a little erratic and panicky, in the last bedroom I was really focusing on there being someone in bed. I entered the last room and there were people in the bed. I went up to the beds and it was a small figure, a kid and the kids was made of like a grey and black marble. I am not sure if the kids were real or slept through me doing this but I picked them both up and they remained in their sleeping poses, I even made some weird shrill noise when I picked them up to try to startle them awake.

28.02.2015

Mirror to the world o' jell-o to mirror the dark realm (DILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Been very busy with dentists and literally swamped by readings and healing sessions, I have hours worth of dream in my paper journal and I need to update here... but this one has to come as it is the ToTM!

I was going to some meeting with a friend. It was some sort of meeting to do a banishing ritual in a house, as they had some evil spirits messing up with their lifes and I had to get rid of them. My twim flame was with me to do the work and we were driving to the house. Out of this, I turned lucid because I realized that it was a different car that my own or my twin's, and upon checking my hand, I was able to validate that I was dreaming.

The dream quality was okay, not amazing so I took a flight to bring more quality into it. After flying for a while, I recalled the ToTM so I landed in some suburbian area. Most of the houses were brown and white with small bushes and cacti as their front yards. I went to the house I had the closest to me. I opened the door (I believe it was like an indoors door, a regular door to a bedroom) and luckily, I was able to open it with no issues apparently going on.

Inside the house, there was a small dog, who apparently was super happy to see me. The house did not have a lot of furniture, but it did have a x-mas tree and a lot of crystals, mainly quartz. I went to a couple rooms to find no one, but furniture. The house looked like one of those model homes that you can see when you want to buy a new house, as each room was featured with one theme and it was spotless and lifeless.

Satisfied with the basic done, I looked for the bathroom (I believe there was a mirror in one of the bedrooms but did not think of it.) I placed myself in front of the mirror and pushed it with my hands and head. At first nothing happened, but then it felt like jell-o and it started to move in an odd way. I started to fly through it and I got inside of the mirror. Everything was super blurry and wavy and I almost woke up. After a while, I was in another room, said room was very old, dusty and very dark, even though I could see fine. There was a huge wardrobe that had one old school creepy mirror:



Much more creepier and very dusty but can't find a better one. This whole world was made of jell-o as all the stuff was waivy. I thought of exiting the house as it would be cool to see the world I was in, but I decided to go through the creepy mirror once more. I was able to easily get inside this one and I was in a void of nothingness... all darkness, I could feel wind in my face, as now I was flying, but it was all blackness until I woke up.

Decided to take a nap in the living room while Chris was on xbox in the same room. So I'd drift in and out, but I never moved nor opened my eyes. It was weird, it felt like it would have taken effort to open my eyes fully, but I could hear Chris's voice the ENTIRE time.

Anyway, so the 4th or 5th time I felt like I was asleep, but still on the couch, I decided to stand up and walk to the front door. I couldn't get to where I could see very well, but I knew the front door was only a few feet from the couch, so I just kinda felt my way there. Plus I could hear Chris as if from my right hear, hollering at the xbox, so I knew I was going the right direction. I opened the front door, half wondering if Chris would notice. But he didn't, so I was more sure that I was dreaming. I even waved my hands in front of my closed/blind eyes, and could see a little bit.

I walked down the sidewalk, towards the mailbox (which I couldn't see yet and which doesn't exist irl anyway, because we have those stupid group mailboxes on every block like they do now in alot of neighborhoods). I was thinking of the valentine card totm. I got to the end of the sidewalk, fully expecting to feel for a mailbox, blind or not, when I got some vision back. It was super sunny. I looked all directions but saw nothing, then when I turned around, I couldn't see any houses at all lol. Then I turned around again, and saw a little house that could count as mine. So I walked up to the porch and had a hard time seeing again. I felt along the wall by the door, thinking to myself "I know that mailbox is right about HERE" and then I found one of those little mailboxes that you hang on the wall. I reached inside and felt a few things in a stack. The first was a letter and the rest were poofy pink and red heart stickers. On the outside of the letter, it was written in pencil and clearly a child's handwriting. It was alot of letters, but it didn't make up any words. I opened it and inside was a little valentine cartoon comic. The first frame was a purple hippo, pointing to the right. The caption underneath said "The shortest time pointing ever!" The last frame was a pink dog with little red hearts all around his head, like he was in love with the purple hippo or something. Then it said "Happy Valentine's Day," but no signature.

Then I felt myself on the couch, and decided to force my eyes open for real. The second I did that, the dogs that were sleeping on me irl jumped off me and started barking at the door, because FedX had dropped off a letter haha! It's not valentine's though. But the weird thing too was: the door was open O_O And I'm pretty sure I closed it before I took my nap. I asked Chris but he doesn't notice anything when he's on xbox.

And I could hear his voice, the entire time. Really interesting lucid for me. I feel almost like it kept me TOO grounded irl, and maybe that's why I couldn't see well, idk if related.

[DILD] ToTM

Warm evening. Sun gave ererything a bright orange glow. I was in Warsaw. I was waiting on a bus stop. The bus appeared and I went inside. I took off my sweater, as it was really hot. I grabbed the handrails as there were no free sitting places, and the bus drove. Suddenly I realise that it's a dream. As an RC I pressed my fingers on the handrails, and they went through the cold, yellow coloured metal. I saw a small boy walking in the bus. He was making a nose plug RC and smiling to me. I also mad a nose plug RC. Next with slight hesitation, as I was still afraid that this could be reality, I jumped, and phased through the bus's window. I landed on me stomach, on the road. Everything weas darker, but it was still warm. I looked around and saw a mother walking with her son on the sidewalk. Suddenly I saw a car driving straight into me, but it avoided me in the last moment. I somehow couldn't stand up, so I tried to scramble to the sidewalk. Then a blonde woman parked the car right in front of me. She told me that she was looking for me. Then I told her "It's not me! It was that boy! He walked over there!" She then entered the car quickly and drove after that boy. I could stand up finally, so I decided to make another task. I jumped to the rooftops, looking at the sky. It was dark, grim and overcast. I started to fly. When I was halfway to the height of clouds I focused on summoning storm clouds. They quickly covered the whole sky. I summoned the storm cloud in the air, but losing focus on flying made me unable to fly to them. I tried to land somewhere and made it. I have flewn from Warsaw to my home, in the other edge of Poland in few seconds! I landed on the rooftop of my garage. I looked down. There was my father pushing the lift. He said "Come here, and help me push the lift!" I then pointed at it with my index finger, and moved my hand to the entrance of barn. The lift moved as it was in drag-n-drop game. Father immediately went for the lift. He haven't told me where to move it, so I assumed it was right position. I looked at the sky again. The storm clouds disappeared, and the ovarcast, grim sky came back. I tried to summon the clouds again and fly to them. When I was halfway to the clouds I woke up.

My friend is a bus driver

With my friend we took a bus to the other village. We came to the front of the bus, and I saw that my another friend was a driver. We drove to my home village. I got out of the bus, but the bus stop was in the edge of a stadium, with river just behind it's edge. I went out of bus, and grabbed handrails. My friend walked through the river, as it was only ankle deep. I saw other people I saw in school, and even some classmates there. It was some kind of a party. Everyone was standing on a small hill. The slope was so high that I couldn't release the handrails, yet no other person gathered there was holding them.

Sleeping in the bathroom

I was lying on the floor in the bathroom, and trying to fall asleep. When I couldn't I saw that some clothes appeared there. I listened to a story a weird voice told about a man whose those clothes were. I stood up, and got out of the bathroom.

Some fragments

I recall some fragments, but nothing special.

Wbtb: I drag myself out of bed, drink a bit of latte (40?mg) and take lecitin, go straight back to bed trying to cut corners on staying awake. There is like zero effect on increasing my wakefulness but feeling guilty to be skipping my wbtb I keep waking up (yet still feel drowsy). I spend the remaining sleep time in a NREM limbo, a mix of deep sleep, HI and constant wakes.

There is a brief scene where I realize that am already in and start walking around but I either lose lucidity or wake up shortly after.

Keep turning and tossing annoyed that I just don't have the right wakefulness as I didn't do my wbtb. I repeat my goals and try to concentrate on my body.

I find myself staring at some screen ascertaining that I am in the dream. Everything is very unstable at this point so I just keep swiping the screen in front of me, pretending to be involved in the dream for a few seconds. When I feel I'm ready, I move to the side, which reveals that I am in my old room again. This is a bit annoying as I wanted to do the valentine card task, so I head towards the window. There is some furniture, slightly in the wrong place blocking the way. I close the cupboard door that blocks the way but it doesn't fully close and click and keeps opening. I just don't want to spend more time dealing with it, so I sneak forward while holding it then let it go. I go towards the balcony door which is closed and I try to open it via handle but it gets stuck. I decide to pull and it opens nevertheless. The action of opening this locked door produces a weird physical somewhat painful sensation in my body of resistance and as if the object is actually touching me (bearing some resemblance to phasing sensations).

I go outside and look around. I see the flowers and wonder could I be really dreaming? It looks very realistic and close to memory but is it possible that I still live here? Initially there are no DCs in sight which pisses me off due to the task I had in mind. I have to jump again but am almost certain that a quick jump or even a slow climb down can mess with stability at this point (due to quick change of perspective and reduction in tactile sensations). I look down and see one of the two sisters. She looks nasty as usual. I recall some contemplations about dealing with people from real life in dreams and decide to be honest with her. "Hey, you know what? You are really annoying"

After that I have no more desire to talk to her and contemplate going back inside to look for people within a reaching distance (I also wonder if I should just summon one here). The dream thins out.

I do a quick review, pissed off that I couldn't find any people, then continue with my limbo sleep.

After the nth turning and tossing, I find myself in another dream. It's a bright day and I am on a very distorted version of my old street. I immediately recognize it's a dream (awareness, no trigger). There is a middle aged woman with colorful knitted clothes and I remember the valentine card task. Very aggressively and without saying anything, I expect her to produce a card for me. She holds a number of items like banknotes, little pieces of paper, etc, that I browse but nothing looks like a V-card. Disappointed, I leave her and go down the street where I see bf and one of our friends. They look invitingly at me and I quickly go to where they are and ask bf if he has a V card for me. Alas, he coldly cuts me off "No." I think about how my expectations could have influenced his answer.

Bf and the other guy continue down the street. I catch up and try again "Are you sure you don't have a V card for me? I clearly remember you were carrying one!" This seems to do the trick and he hands me the V card. I examine it to see it has a number of Chinese characters on top and some almost normal words below them. There are a few love related words that are arranged like a short poem. As I try to read the words keep changing. I even hold the card from a distance to see if this would make a difference. I remember our brain actually doesn't need to read the entire word to make out the meaning.

Bf is still here and I say to him while wondering if he could possibly be dreaming too. "The words keep changing, see? Do you know why that is? It is because it's a dream."

I wake up.