task of the month

.../I'm taking the trash out when it starts playing in the background the D.R.I. song "Enemy Within". I start thinking to myself that when I was a kid, I pretty much liked the music style but I've never paid attention enough to the whole lyrics, and start wondering about what exactly it says. When I see an unfriendly guy walking in the opposite direction. I suspect he's the guy who's ruining the place and notice he's trying to be dauntingly hostile with me, that pisses me off. I push him back, hold him from the head and take him to have a walk on an abandoned place to teach him some good manners. I'm walking through a street passage, when I want to squeeze his head against the wall, I notice this feeling could be a dream sign, then I realize that I have no body, it's just like I'm visualizing all of it!I focus on walking and start paying more attention to my surroundings. I feel like I'm holding a long branch in stead of the guy, I can hear how I drag it on the ground. Slowly I start to feel my body in the dream while I slowly walk. Yeah! I feel the weight of the branch and lift it to my front to see it's a leather jacket. I put it on, completely amazed of how I entered the dream this time. I'm in the middle of an abandoned yard of a country side house in ruins. There's no roof, and just the walls stand around. Some vegetation has grown here and there. It's illuminated like there's street lighting around but I don't see any source of light. My sex drive starts to take over. I don't have idea about what could I do, but I feel excited about the possibilities. I see my shadow is blurry and turning into a female shape taking a shower. As a first step, I decide to take off my clothes which are pretty close to that in my profile picture. When I'm starting to loosen my pants, crossing a doorframe, I see my shoes and I remember the related TOTM. I think I'll find a pair of shoes in the next space. Crossing the doorframe, I turn to my right and see a pair of velcro shoes, for men this time, next to a waterway. I don't waste my time and sit next to them to take mine out. I start with my right foot and just pull the shoe out. The laces just follow the motion, like it was not tied. I do the same with the left foot and see that the laces seem to be tied around my ankle again. I just pull it harder and goes out with no problem. I put the velcro shoes on and stand up to see the tapes are not properly adjusted. A minor detail I think then I turn and start walking somewhere when I remember the Expecto Patronus task! I want to do this one since it seems to be pretty easy. I hold a stick from the ground thinking that it may work wood for a wand. point it to the front and say the words. I see a bit of smoke rising from the tip like it is an incense stick. I go to the next space and repeat it again more confidently. More smoke rises from the tip. The place is still empty, no animal, no bug, nothing. I turn and see inside a mirror hanging on the wall of what apparently was a room. I see a blurry reflection of me, and remember that I must feel specially happy to do this task. My first thought is sex! Ok, I think about the good feeling and say the words louder. My throat hurts a little. More smoke and I start looking around to see something, when I see the shadow of an eagle moving on the floor. I turn to the skies to see it, but it's a dark night sky. Then I hear it screeching, like it's flying away. I don't know if it counts but I decide to properly adjust my shoes when I start feeling the whole dream is fading.

* Woke up after that.

Dream
Lucidity

I was playing a combination of Dishonored and counter strike when some girl told me it was time to leave. Me and her and another guy started walking out and I subconsciously remembered about fortune cookies. I told a man to open me one and read it. He said it said "This bitch". I knew it was referring to the girl since she was being bossy. We went through an elevator and landed on the basement, which was also an airport. I talked to a girl knowing she was part of my dreams. Eventually, I got teleported to my old apartment in Venezuela. I decided to do a reality check but kept it a secret from the person I was with, who was watching tv. I checked my watch but it was normal but I knew I was in a dream.
I left the loud room and entered what was my grandma's old room and flew out the glass window. I saw a man talking to a demon and when I landed on the other side of the fence, they both looked at me and ran towards me. I ran backwards and yelled at the demon, asking what it represented, as it turned into a demonic dog. It wouldn't reply to me and it kept trying to hurt me. I knew he couldn't hurt me and I said "I give you the ability to talk!" Still, no response from the dog. Slowly, it started turning into Lucy. Its ember filled eyes turned into black eyes and Lucy was sitting there. I petted her and she played with my hand. I kept asking her what she represented but no reply came. I worried that something might have happened to her. I heard sounds coming from Victoria Avenue and grabbed a chain Lucy had on, which was attached to the gate. I went to investigate the sound and zombies were coming towards us. I yelled "Firewall!" as I moved my arm towards the zombies. I started running away but was woken up by my alarm.

Ritual: WTB 1am, woke 4:20am, got up and read, drank spice lassi (yogurt, water, turmeric, cumin, salt), did 12 minutes seated meditation incorporation SSILD technique before returning to bed at 5:50am. Before going to bed I affirmed several times, "I vow to lucid dream," reflecting on how a vow is much more serious than an intention, a little nervous that I might inadvertantly break my vow, but reminding myself that I didn't dare, failing to go through on an intention is one thing, but you're never supposed to break your vows. I wanted to avoid supplements for the most part as that hasn't helped much lately, but I did use a few drops of Calea Zacatechichi tincture, because although I can't say for sure if it actually works, I thought the distinctive taste might contribute a useful placebo effect. I lay on my back in bed and did a series of tension-relaxation exercises, then cycled in random order through several affirmations ("I am aware / I do / I dream"). Drifted off, woke up a little, realized it was getting too bright out and my mind felt sufficiently wakeful that this might be an obstacle to sleep, so I put on my sleep mask (a device of last resort as I don't like wearing it), turned on my left side, and continued the affirmations until I fell asleep. I got a lot of distinct hypnagogic imagery and sounds every time I started to drift off, but I did not feel the physical signs of transition.

WILD, Part 1: I woke up again, thinking I might have transitioned successfully, and got out of bed. I could still distinctly feel myself wearing the sleep mask so I wondered if I was really dreaming, but realized that since it wasn't obstructing my vision, then I must be. I was tempted to rip off the mask but decided to just ignore it, and soon the sensations disappeared for the duration of the dream. Now that I was sure I was dreaming, I wanted to get started right away on my tasks. I reached behind me for my wand, a gesture familiar from a few years ago when I had been playing a lot with Harry Potter style magic. I got used the idea that my wand was sheathed just behind my right hip, so I could just reach back there at any time to draw it. However, this time I came up empty-handed. I realized that this was probably because, having just gotten out of bed, I wasn't wearing any clothes. Nevermind, I can work on that task later. By this time I'm in the kitchen, so it should be an easy matter to procure some fortune cookies!

I walk toward the kitchen counter, expecting to find a bag of fortune cookies ready to hand. Sure enough, there is a clear plastic bag right where I expect, but as I reach for it I see that it contains... what are those, pierogies? I laugh because they look almost like fortune cookies and are anything but, and it is just like dream to bait and switch this way. I pick up the bag and reach into it anyway, focusing my expectations around pulling out a proper fortune cookie, and by the time my hand closes around something, I can tell that it is falling into line: it has the dry smooth surface, distinctive shape and ridges of a fortune cookie. I pull it out and break it in half to get the fortune. I remember that I'm supposed to eat the cookie too, so I start nibbling at it while extracting the fortune, which was wedged inside the cookie in a crumpled up wad. As I smooth it, I see that the little strip of paper is covered with what looks like dabs of herb butter mixed with little shreds of nori seaweed, a kind of east-west fusion of ingredients. I'm disappointed to see that there is no writing on the paper at all, just the seasonings.

No problem, the bag contains several cookies. I'll just get another. I try again, and fortunately the next cookie contains a larger slip of paper, one that comes out properly this time and contains actual text—quite a lot of text actually, four or five lines of it. I start to read it, murmuring aloud to help fix it in memory. It starts something like: "And earth her allies rift..." It goes on from there, not making much sense, and worse, by the time I get to the second line the first one is already changing, now "her allies" looks like it has been replaced by something in German, "die Beile."

(Weird, according to my German dictionary app "die Beile" means "axes, hatchets." I've studied a bit of German, which is why I have the app, but I'm not aware that I've ever learned that word and didn't even know if it was a real one until I looked it up.)

I continue reading the fortune, and by the time I get to the end the first line has changed again even more, and I'm pretty sure so has everything else. I realize this is somewhat hopeless, the fortune was so long that it would have been hard enough to remember even if it were static, much less track all the changes, so I just determine to remember the part that I read initially, since I think I can keep at least this much in working memory: "And earth her allies rift."

By this point the fortune has transformed into a large plastic wrapper like the sort that might have wrapped a whole box of cookies, and as I continue to look at it, I'm surprised by how much additional text is written on the side in small print: mundane details like the address of the manufacturer, etc. I see a date, "1945," and note that the place of manufacture is San Francisco, which makes sense (wasn't the fortune cookie invented there?) but by now the date has already changed to "1929."

FA: Around this time I wake up and grab the notebook I keep next to the bed to start writing things down. Something's wrong, though: even though I normally open it to a blank page before sleeping, it is now open to a page wholly printed with graphics resembling some type of manga. I don't remember the notebook having graphics! I flip through to find a blank page quickly while my memories are fresh, but all the white pages are already filled with previous notes, and they are interspersed with the manga pages, like a cross between a notebook and a graphic novel. I find a space of blank color on one of the manga images, just enough room to scribble, "and earth her allies rift," but then I feel guilty about spoiling the drawing. I don't even remember what the story is, but if I write all over it I might end up regretting it.

While I'm still trying to figure out where to put down the rest of my notes, my husband comes into the room carrying two boxes wrapped in paper, like presents. Apparently this is some new game that has just arrived that he wants to play together, a console game. I remember him telling me about it earlier: the plot has something to do with cartoonish kids and their gorilla allies. It seems that the game can only be played in two-person mode, so he has come in to try to wake me up. I'm still lying in bed, so he sets the two boxes down right on top of me and starts to rip off the paper wrapping. The boxes are cubes measuring about a foot on each side, and at first I wonder why they are so large, but as he tears off the paper I can see from the box art that they contain individual devices like Playstation controllers.

Although I do want to play the game at some point, I'm annoyed at this disruption because I was in the middle of a lucid dream attempt! After jotting down my notes I had been planning to try to re-enter the dream state. However, I already vaguely suspect that this might not be a real awakening because everything seems so exaggerated, from the problems with my notebook to my husband's rude attempt to wake me. He may not share my hobby, but he's aware of it, and would be unlikely to disturb me while I'm still sleeping, much less set boxes on me! This remains only a suspicion, and I don't become fully aware of the fact that I'm still dreaming. Rather, I conclude only that I'm still on the verge of it, since I can still feel the heaviness and tingling in my limbs that lets me know that I can probably re-enter the dreamstate once this distraction has diminished. So I quietly grumble at my husband until he leaves, careful to keep calm and not lose my temper since that could wake me up too much and make it impossible to to return to the dream. After he goes out of the room, I get myself settled in the bed again and prepare to re-transition. This is amusing in retrospect because evidently I was fully dreaming the whole time—I had the impression that I was DEILDing back into the dream, but obviously if this had been a real awakening DEILD would have been impossible after such a chaotic interlude! When I felt confident I was dreaming again, I got back out of bed.

WILD, Part 2: Having done fortune cookies, I thought I should put all my focus now into completing the Patronus TOTM. Once more I reach for my wand and once again come up empty-handed. No matter, I've used a chopstick as a wand before with great success, and I keep a jar of those right on the kitchen counter, so I walk up to it and pluck a nice sturdy one. Although the jar is mostly full of delicately-pointed Japanese chopsticks, I choose a sturdier one of the Chinese type, cut half-square and half-round. It looks just like one of my real chopsticks, from a simple and practical set I acquired many years ago in Nonthaburi because I didn't know I was supposed to give them back to the door-to-door noodle vendor, and it feels comfortable and familiar in my hand.

I figure that it would be most appropriate to summon a Patronus if there were a real threat, but I don't want to over-complicate things by going to look for one. I reason that since my husband was annoying me just now with the boxes and almost woke me up, this could serve as a sufficient stand-in. So I find him in the living room, point the wand toward him and say firmly, "Expecto Patronum!" I hear an audible "pop" like something bursting but see no change in the visual field. I try again and nothing happens at all. I strengthen my resolve, try a third time, and... what is that?... I look closer... it's... moths! The air between us where I was aiming the wand is now occupied with a cloud of small shimmering moths!

I'm delighted with these results because they were so unexpected. I figured my Patronus would turn out to be something predictable like a type of animal I like, maybe a cat or an owl or a raven or even a horse, but moths had never crossed my mind! However, I had intentionally left the form of the Patronus unspecified, because I was hoping the dream would collaborate with me creatively and come up with something interesting and unanticipated, and in this respect it fulfilled its role splendidly.

Moths! I would never have consciously arrived at this solution, but now it makes perfect sense: I am very much a night person, after all, and these are definitely night moths. I watch them for a few moments, entranced by the glitter and sparkle of their silver bodies in flight. They are relatively small, with wingspans of roughly three-quarters of an inch, but there is a whole cloud of them, many dozens filling an area several feet on either side. Although we are indoors, they appear to be illuminated by moonlight. It is incredibly beautiful. And they've fulfilled the function of a Patronus, it seems, in that they have averted the "threat" (such as it was) and completely defused the tension in the room. My husband is watching them too, and appears just as enchanted with them as I am.

After admiring the moths for a while, I notice a rabbit on the living room floor. It is wonderfully well-articulated, closely resembling Dürer's famous drawing of a hare. (Probably WLR because I briefly saw that drawing yesterday.) Since I'm still holding the wand, I figure I might as well try out another HP spell. I recall that there's one that ends with "leviosa," and although I can't remember the first word, I figure it is unimportant because clearly "leviosa" is the operative term. So I point the wand at the hare and say, "Leviosa!" Sure enough, it rises right off the ground into the air. I set it back down and pet it fondly.

I now feel satisfied that I have accomplished both the tasks I had intended, and I know I should wake up now and write promptly before I forget any details. But the dream is going so well, so clear and stable and responsive... it would be a shame to leave it so soon... I give in to the temptation to take a quick look outside, just for a minute, before coming back in to wake up and begin my report.

Walking back through the kitchen, I open the screen door to the back patio. Sometimes my WILDs become more unstable after I leave the house, probably in large part because I've developed the expectation that this can happen, but in this case I plan to wake up soon anyway, so I walk outside without hesitation.

It only takes a step or two before the environment no longer resembles my backyard. I encounter a group of four DCs, a mix of men and women who appear to be in their twenties. They begin to approach or accost me in a vaguely threatening manner. I try the Patronus charm again, but it is not as effective this time: the cloud of moths is much smaller and the DCs appear unimpressed. I'm not sure if I actually see them holding wands, or only rationalize that they might be, but I figure this would be the perfect opportunity to try another HP spell. "Expelliamus!" I shout, aiming at the guy on the far left. Sure enough, his wand jumps right out of his hand toward me, and I catch it neatly. You'd think this would give the others enough warning to prepare their defenses, and indeed they seem to be scrambling to try, but I promptly disarm them all using the same technique.

I walk on a little further, and encounter a few more DCs sitting on a low brick wall and chatting. The initial four have followed me, and I get the impression that the new ones are their friends. I wonder if they are going to retaliate at me for having taken all their wands, so try the Patronus charm yet again: "Expecto Patronum!" This time only a scattering of moths appear, a half dozen or less. I feel a bit embarrassed at this poor showing. "It must be out," I muse, wondering if the wand can only conjure a limited number of moths in a given interval.

Nevermind, I've got more tricks in my arsenal, and I want to intimidate these DCs so they'll back off. I wonder if I can levitate the whole group of people? "Leviosa!" I command, trying to make them all rise in the air at once. It doesn't work, and I speculate that maybe this is like game mechanics, where it is easier to perform such effects on simple creatures like animals, but harder on a more intelligent creature like a person, since they get a free roll to resist. I think it over and decide, well, maybe so, but... I have all the wands! Their combined power should be enough to counter any resistance. Is it possible to use more than one wand simultaneously to cast a spell? Only one way to find out!

Standing in the center of the DCs, who form a ring around me, I levitate myself initially—partly to cement the idea of levitation more firmly in mind, and partly because some of them look like they might want to make a grab at me at any minute. Hovering in the air just above them, I arrange all the wands together in my right hand so that I am gripping them evenly, and try again: "Leviosa!" This time I am pleased to see the whole circle of people around me—about six or seven now I think, the initial group plus their friends—rise simultaneously several feet into the air until they are almost even with my own level. They all look discomfited and alarmed by this change of circumstances, so to reassure them that I mean no real harm I let them sink gently back down to the ground and come down as well myself, satisfied with the results of my experiment.

I decide to stop fooling around now and go back into the house to write my report. It seems dream logic has made me forget that I can just wake up whenever I want to, I don't actually have to go back bodily into the house and manually start writing. But as I turn to go, one of the girls who has returned to her seat on the brick wall yells something hostile and sarcastic after me. I figure she's upset over my levitation stunt, so I decide to use friendliness to try to transform her attitude. I walk right up to her and, maybe taking "friendliness" a little too far, kiss her on the lips. Although she just looks startled and confused now, I smile warmly and say with genuine affection, "See you later!"

Returning to what I think must be the spot where I came out of the building, I go back inside. Just in case the DCs are still feeling miffed and try to follow me in, I lock and bolt the heavy door behind me. This is no longer the sliding screen door to my kitchen, but a large and solidly made wooden door with numerous locking mechanisms. I'm not sure if I came in the right door at all, because when I turn around I see that I'm in what looks like a nineteenth-century boiler room: it is full of heavy, old-fashioned machinery. Nevermind, I'm sure I can find the entrance to my kitchen just a little further on, so I'll go through and look for it.

As I pass by some of the machines, I marvel at their intricacy and the clarity with which I can perceive how they are constructed. I pass one machine that has a cylindrical body like an old stove. Although it is made out of solid black cast iron, there is a primitive electric cord incongruously coming out of it, so I figure it must be from a period of technological transition in the late nineteenth century. The electricity is driving some kind of rotating grinder that is hidden in the upper part of the cast iron body under a round upper plate, and with a flash of insight I think I know what this is: it must be a mill of some kind! But what is it grinding? I look at it a little longer and see a lower basin, also cast iron, positioned below the cylindrical body to catch drippings of some kind: the drippings resemble hot slag, semi-melted metal. Whatever this thing is milling, it is definitely not flour!

I continue to make my way through the room, dodging complex pieces of shaped metal and machinery that crowd around closely on all sides, but when I get to the far wall I'm disconcerted to find that there's no door. How am I going to get back into my house? Although there seems to be no exit in the walls other than the door I came in, the ceiling is so far overhead as to be out of sight, and I observe that this is less a room than a vertical shaft filled with industrial machinery all the way up, so I begin to levitate and rise through the lattice of metal bars. When I get about three storeys up I see in the wall what looks like the worn wooden cover of a hatch, arched on the top and with a flat base. There is no handle and it looks like it would be too small to crawl through comfortably, but I figure I can make a portal in the wall here to pass through.

Aiming my wand at the wall, I intend for a portal to form in the location of the hatch. Although nothing appears that I would recognize as a portal, the wall changes, the area in front of me becoming transparent, and just a few feet beyond I see a vertical transparent sheet of glass, apparently the wall of a neighboring building, a modern glass-walled high-rise. Directly across from me through the glass, I see what looks like the interior of a cafe, the sort of place the people who work in this building might stop for coffee or a snack on their lunch hour. It is dark inside and empty of customers, as it is nighttime, but I notice with mild alarm that several cops are running through the cafe and aiming guns at me! They seem very deliberate, as though this was a sting operation directed at stopping me. If they shoot, they'll surely break the glass and then I'll be exposed.

I consider making the first move and breaking the glass myself to engage them, but I don't feel like getting into combat. I point my wand toward the cops with the intention of creating some kind of protective barrier between us, but I don't see any change and can't tell if this is successful. I decide to just get out of here. Making another portal directly in front of me seems like a bad idea, because the cops might shoot at any moment, so I get a bit creative and make the portal directly under my feet—all this time I have been hovering in the air, after all—and then I take what feels like a leap of faith and simply let myself fall directly into it. Would any pursuers be able to follow? As I fall, I decide that probably the best course at this point is to let the portal lead me to waking, and so I transition from feeling as though I'm falling through a round tunnel of undefined space to waking up in my bed and scrambling to start taking notes before the memories fade.

It's interesting how clear and stable my dream memory remains—even of such a complex series of episodes—for as long as I am still dreaming, and it is only on waking that the whole fabric begins to thin and fray unless it is captured immediately. Fortunately there were no problems with my notebook this time so I jotted down the key details quickly by hand and then spent the next hour and a half typing up my full draft of the report while the memories were still fresh in mind. I don't mind devoting the time (and sacrificing the sleep) for it when the dreaming is so good!

September 16, 2014

---

I was in some sort of large aircraft. there may have been something about an air battle at some point with smaller craft. I was fighting some bad guy. I don't remember the battle much, but I do know that it was an epic one.

After I defeated the bad guy, he turned into The Face, and we floated on this massive ship/mansion thing. He was changing the world by making is so we were floating on just water, and there were hovering land masses in the shapes of animals, covered in grass and trees. Beyond them, in the far distance, were some mountains. I couldn't tell if they were on the ground or also floating, because they were far enough away that the curvature of the world made it so I couldn't see the bottom of them.

For some reason, the floating animal-land-masses were giving me a weird vibe. I didn't like it there, I could feel something just a little off about the whole place, and so I took off flying from the balcony The Face and I were standing on. We may have been talking, but mostly he was just showing me how he could change the world.

I flew over the water and to the mountains. Once I got closer, I saw that they were indeed just on the water, not floating. I flew over the mountains (which, as it turned out, were more just large hills) and saw a large plane behind them. Beyond the plane I saw a large city (the Big City on my map). From here I could see that I was on the side that is along a river.

I flew into the city, and something made me look down at my hands. I had a weird sort of there-but-not-there second thumb, and so I knew that I was dreaming! I was already flying, and so I just sort of went up further, to the roof of the building next to me. It looked like there was some sort of fancy dinner party on the roof, and I flew up to a table. I had the Patronus task on my mind already, and didn't want a repeat of the last attempt, so instead of trying to find a wand, I just picked up a butter knife and called it good.

I turned away from the dinner party with my butter knife in hand, and looked into my own wavey, slightly distorted reflection in the mirror-like window-covered wall of the building next to this one. I yelled, "Expecto Patronum!" and there was a blue-ish purple-ish and somehow also orange-ish glow from the end of the knife. I made myself focus on a happy memory, which happened to be a time in Austria with Zukin, when we were hiking. I yelled, "Expecto Patronum!" again, and this time there was more light, and a shadow of something large on the windows of the other building. I focused on the blurry shape and realized it was Mewtwo.

Fuck Yeah.

I watched my badass patronus fly around, then dismissed it with a smile. I was pretty happy with this lucid dream so far! I thought of what other task I could try, and remembered the fortune cookie one. That was the other one I was pretty excited to try.

I fly back to the dinner party, and found the bar tender lady at the edge of the roof. I first asked for something to drink, and got some bubbly in a dainty glass with gold flecks around the rim. I landed on the roof and milled amongst the people, sipping my drink, and then I went back to the bartender lady. I asked for a fortune cookie this time. She grudgingly said, "Alright, fine," and reached under the bar, handing me a fortune cookie. I grinned and stuck it in my pocket. I had the feeling that I should wait to open it. That I should first fly down to the ground level of the building. I hovered around the front entrance, hoping to meet Zukin. Lowe and behold, I opened the door to find her waiting for me in the lobby.

"Hey Zukin! I'm lucid right now! We're in a dream!" She just kinda stared at me. "Can you remember any of the lucid tasks this month?" I asked, hoping that my subconscious mind could give me a hint on the other tasks, all of which I keep forgetting, even IWL.

She stared at me again, shrugged, and then said, "Let's go to the bathroom. I gotta pee."

I put my drink down against a wall and followed her to the bathroom (STILL not remembering the flushing task. And what a hint I'd given myself, too! I actually had to check the forum and then laughed at myself for not getting it). I watched her go into one of the stalls, and sat on the sink while she used the toilet. I took out my fortune cookie, and took it out of the wrapping. I inhaled as I cracked it open, and was surprised to see a rather large, folded piece of paper inside. I unfolded it, and there was a lot of text. First, a whole bunch of rather large numbers (large for a fortune cookie, that is) and then some random words, and more numbers. I realized the numbers and words kept changing when I looked away, so I tried not to take my eyes off the numbers and words as I got out my phone, hoping to write them down. Silly me. Lucky thing is, writing things helps me remember them, so I remember many of the numbers and words I saw. It was something like this:

87 69 899 99 99 99 56 72 12

Money
Moshy

88 54 23

Honey
Honey

And then more words and numbers. Lots of them. It was weird.

I laughed, and Zukin came out of the stall. "What's so funny?" She asked, washing her hands.

"This fortune. You know we're in a dream, right?" I recently read a book that described a method for inducing shared dreams, and this is what I was trying with her. I just found out she likely wasn't even asleep when I had this dream, which may be why it never worked... "This fortune is on crack, look at it. It keeps changing." Even as I passed her the paper, I could see that the numbers and words were changing, though the format was always the same. always the same amount of words and numbers, always in the same place and with the same number of digits or letters.

She looked at it, shrugged, and said, "huh. That's kinda weird."

We left the bathroom, and I found my drink again. I liked having the pretty glass in my hand, since it made me feel posh. I tried telling Zukin again that this was a lucid dream. She stared at me again and then smiled. "Hey, how about let's go to that place I took you before, that garden thing?"

I didn't remember the place she was talking about, or having been taken someplace by her even, but I shugged and said, "Sure, why not?" I had already done two tasks and it could be fun! And if I was going to continue trying to share the dream with the real Zukin, I had to stick with the DC Zukin.

We went out of the building, and met one of her friends. It was a man, but I don't remember much more about him, I was mostly focusing on Zukin at this point. Which I'm glad I did, because she started being a fucking ninja. She was doing back-flips over walls and climbing lamp-posts like it was nothing. I jumped to follow her, flying, but couldn't fly for a moment. I looked down at my hands again to reaffirm that I was dreaming, and this time I had a there-but-not-there second middle finger. So weird! Anyways, once again assured that I was still dreaming, I jumped again and started flying to follow Zukin. Her friend was also flying, slightly behind me. I knew this was still not the real Zukin, because she wasn't flying. Flying's her thang in a lucid dream, so I figured if it was her, she still didn't know we were dreaming.

So I am flying after Zukin as she ninjas her way to this big half-indoor, half-outdoor garden. In this garden, there is a pool-sized hot tub surrounded by tropical plants and trees, with a huge rock at one end of it. There are about ten people in the tub right now, all toward the end without the rock on it. I land on the rock, and look back just as Zukin does a flip over the edge of it to land next to me, and her friend lands behind her, and then run past us both, jumping into the water. I think he had stripped buck-naked as he ran.

I looked back at Zukin, and said, "I don't have my swimsuit on, hope you don't mind!" and winked, but then realized that, if I took off my clothes, my swimsuit was probably going to be on underneath, and if not, I'm dreaming so what the hell?

She said, "Ohhhh, skinny dipping?" and made a move toward me all seductively.

"Oh yeah," I said. I took off my shirt, and found that I did indeed have a swimsuit on. Except it was one from my childhood, which just magically seemed to still fit me. It was light blue with colorful plastic beads on it. I took off my pants, and noted a faded salmony colored bikini bottom. My body was a lot more fit than it is IWL, to my joy AND consternation.

I jumped into the warm water, and we both swam to the other end, taking a seat amidst the other people. I told her again that this was a lucid dream, but it started to fade. I let it fade, knowing that it had been a great dream. I swirled the water around my fingers a bit and dunked my head until the dream faded completely and I woke up 15 minutes before my alarm!

Date: 22 Aug

Behind with journalling as usual. These are for CL's dare about the Great Pyramid.

Pre bed: 200 val, l arg & lysine

Back to the old place dream. It seems even though I left the place, I have the dream memory that I come back and stay here every time for a while [yes, every couple of dreams!]. I feel guilty about not informing the landlord and think about packing my stuff.

At some point when lying in that room's bed, I get in touch with both realities (i.e. start to feel my physical body) maybe just waking up as everything looks very blurry now. Semi consciously, I exert efforts to bring back the dream. The room forms again, everything is perfect even the table although it is not quite an exact match.

I open the window, it's very dark and I look in direction of the neighbors to see a young woman holding or throwing some object. I look at the mostly cloudless sky and then remember an on-going goal [enjoy the night sky], expecting to see cool constellations but the stars look rather normal even too dim. I feel the urge to fly up and so go ahead and lift off.

This flying style is more like that of a bird (hands spread like wings), at any rate it feels like a bird sliding on currents of air. An unpleasant feel as I quickly fly down - it's a physical sensation rather than a mental one. I wonder about it and try to control it, fly gliding down a bit. At some point I land on the top of a nearby building. There is a DC below trying to interact with me. I remember the pyramid task but there is snow all around it doesn't quite feel right. Nevertheless, I try to summon a pyramid by spontaneously getting my hands to form a triangle and I impose it on the background, staring inside to see the pyramid. This results in a good but distant version of the pyramid where I feel like it will take too much time to reach so try again.

The outcome is a smaller pyramid, made of much lighter white greyish stone and something that looks like an entrance. As I come closer I disappointedly ascertain that this pyramid is way too small and the entrance is more like a diagonally shaped part of the design. I wonder whether this would count but dismiss the idea.

Somehow, possibly after turning around and looking for a place to do another summon, I end up inside a store. I continue with my summons here (facing the windows) and make a triangle with my hands, looking inside with squinting eyes causing blurred vision which helps manipulate the color and material of the pyramid. Alas, all resulting pyramids are a shifty mirrage and their place is taken by something like a large mosque from a nicely matching material. I leave the store to explore and see if anything can be made with the structure but the alarm wakes me up.


Date: 24 Aug

I'm in some sort cafe with couple of Asians and Emm. We are about to drink tea but I have to leave without paying as everybody evacuates due to disease alarm. On my way out I contemplate that in this dream Emm didn't quite play a positive role.

After getting out, I end up in this yard and look ahead. At this point am already lucid after the contemplations about classmate Emm. The grass and eveything else has a red tint and it looks very interesting. I remember that this was a task [add photoshop effect] but think that since it's already done it may not count. Once again I have an urge to take off and just fly ahead. I do so and end up flying between trees and bushes and towards a darker area of the woods. It doesn't look very inviting and also there is the reduction of visual stimuli that adds to the feel. Before I can do anything else the dream falls apart.

PS: Stay tuned for the next part!

September 14, 2014

---

I don't remember much before becoming lucid... I was in a room with no doors and no windows, with walls so tall I almost couldn't see the top. There were drawers all over the walls... I realized this was odd, and looked down at my hands to find that I was dreaming!


I looked around, wondering whether to try to fly out of this room or not. I remembered the Patronus TOTM, and thought, I've been so excited to try this one...!! I looked around, smiling. First, I need a magic wand!

I went to one of the many drawers in the wall and put my hand on the handle, thinking about my need for a magic wand, and that there was probably one in this drawer. I opened it slowly, and pulled out a blue and purple vibrating dildo.

I was laughing so hard I completely lost all control and woke up.

.../I'm in sort of a first person shooting game which name is 'Combat' or some. We're in a patrol moving across a road, we know the enemies are hiding at the left side of the road. To the right there's a precipice. We're preparing to cross an open place where it's supposed to be an enemy entrenchment. Got our weapons ready and we cross shooting everywhere to cover our run. Once we crossed it I notice there's no more road and stop just at the edge of the precipice which is now in front of me. Another guy stops to my side, and I'm like "It was really close!" When I sit to see the landscape to the front, there's a beautiful lake in the middle of a jungle down there. which most of its color tones and perspective look something like this:



although the lake starts some hundred meters to the front because there's some jungle ground between its shores and the bottom of the precipice, it extends to the sides and there's no river from my point of view, it just goes to dark green, almost black to the rear of the dreamscape. I'm amazed with this view and I want to tell my pal it looks like a dream! Now every thing makes sense, I don't need to RC to confirm it. I'm just blown away with the dreamscape. The lake looks awesome, its waters seem to be deep in some parts although it's not homogeneous. My first impulse is to jump off the cliff and start air surfing, I want to fly above that view for a while before doing anything else. I ask my partner to move on because his legs are impeding me to move and stand up and run some before jumping. It's impossible to get a proper distance so I stand up and just jump off the cliff to start surfing on the air. It takes a while before my motion turns to the front in stead of free falling, like in a wing-suit jump. There's a moment when I think I'm going to crash to the ground, I stop looking for a while but then I go on looking to the front thinking it's not good to close my eyes, finally I'm flying above the lake. I'm totally excited with it, while I start to air surf almost above the waters at a high speed, I remember the TOTM. I realize it's too late to think about it because of I'm in the middle of an adrenaline rush and it would have been better to do it before the jump. Anyway, perhaps it's not that bad, I look for some ground to land as I get closer to the surface and calm myself down. It turns in a tropical swamp with some weird plants around. I remember the shoes task. As I'm getting about to land, I see a pair of white velcro shoes with orange-yellow tapes for girls, in the middle of some vegetation. Great imagination buddy boy! Ok, it doesn't say it must correspond to my gender. I land, and look for the shoes, when I see more pairs here and there, some sneakers are good, but all are for ladies. C'mon can you put something more interesting? It's getting too long, so I pick up the first shoe I see close to me, again it's a girls sneaker, size for kids. Just one! I don't see the other one. I decide to pick up the next pair I see. Another pair of sneakers for kids, light purple with laces. Ok, it doesn't matter, they will fit, I know it. Next step, find a place to change mine. I walk around looking for a comfortable place while feeling the shoes in my hand and looking around to avoid fading away. I try to keep calmed, but I'm little bit over excited. I find some ground to sit. while opening the shoes because of the laces are too tight. I pull off my left shoe to find it's laced around my ankle. Great idea right? I look for the lace with my fingers to pull it off. Finally I got to free my foot and put on the first shoe.


* I wake up pushing my foot in the same direction

Date: 3 Sept

Mini-wbtb: lecithin

Decided not to wbtb, no latte, but had a natural wake. Didn't quite concentrate on lding, but had some thoughts about it.

LD Frag: In a classroom and I see one of the classmates that greets me. At some point my awareness increases and I realize that I'm in the room with my class and dreaming. One of the long term goal experiments comes to mind (learn to recognize DS by experience from the dream). The room is full of classmates sitting behind the desks and I start my mantras despite there being some instability "I see classmate, I know that I am dreaming, etc." and make them all repeat this with me. I list a number of classmates and stress the dreaming part. One thing that strikes me is the synchronisation between my thoughts, my words, and the words that come out of all classmates - it all happens exactly at the same time, and it's as if I can feel this invisible causality connection.

After going through a number of names in alphabetical order, I decide that this amount of information is enough for now and that no more should be repeated. An unknown DC teacher wearing grey comes closer, not a very pleasant one. I decide to change him a bit and give him a hug. He seems so touched by this that he sheds a few tears that fall down his shirt, leaving realistic wet marks.

At this point, I recall the shoe task and start looking around for shoes. The are shoes scattered around but from different pairs and sizes. The room becomes someone's apartment. In addition, again, I become too picky trying to find a pair of shoes that I like. (And we know what this usually means). Finally, I find a pair of colorful moccasins, very nice ones and get on with the task. There are papers into the first one, so I have to take them out before putting the shoe on. I grab the second shoe and as am about to put it the dream ends.

FA: I have a task of the month thread FA where I read my current dream post and another dream that includes OpheliaBlue and Schmaven.

Another fragment/mini-dream: I appear somewhere more like outdoors and realize that am still dreaming, though I have the definite certainty that am going to lose lucidity (like feeling your mental sharpness going down) and I continue forward focusing on maintaining the alertness.

Frag: It's like the same apartment again as I figure out 'dreaming, same place'. These are like wildlets in reverse as I'm in the process of waking up.

Wake up, brief review.

Frag: Only remember the ld part. In an appartment again, this time I find a pair of slippers and put them on without any issues. Wondering what to do next, I exert a great deal of effort to recall the other tasks that I didn't plan on performing tonight. The fortune cookie task finally comes to mind and I head towards the kitchen. There's lots of stuff on the counter including pieces of cookies but for some reason I decide to have a DC do the work for me and skip the cookie altogether. I look to my left and see two DCs (think they were from the non-ld part), both of them holding a piece of paper in their hands. I take the one from the nearest DC and try to read it, the words change to something like 'crazy couple'. I consider the task complete and get distracted with the dream to lose lucidity.


Shoes & Cookies Part II

Date: Sept 10

Decided to skip wbtb due late bedtime. Woke up naturally and had trouble falling asleep until couple of mins before the alarm.

LD: I finally fall asleep and find myself starring at...myself. There is a doppelgänger DC right in front of me, seated near where the desk used to be in my old room. But she looks more like doll, an object rather than a real person even though she is looking at me. I decide to ignore her and turn to the other side where under pressure (due to alarm), I go to recall immediately my tasks. The ones I had planned to try don't fit the place and current time constraints so I decide to go with basic totm instead.

I recall the shoe task and have a look at my feet - bare, the next second my mind produces a pair of shoes exactly like the slippers I had when I lived in that room. I take them off and look for another pair of shoes next to me. There are a few actually and I'm conveniently facing the wardrobe. The ones that look from the same pair and right size are orange flip flops that I put on. My attention is briefly caught by another pair of rather fancy high heel shoes that I figure belong to my mom. I'm excited to try them but at this point my feet's motion translates into physical motion...Yet, the dream still holds together despite a brief wave of instability.

Since I'm still here, I decide to do the the fortune cookie task, moving on to the place of the old desk. There are lots of items on top of it and I scan for a fortune cookie while thinking about one. There is a misshaped fortune cookie and a piece of paper coming out of it. I notice at first that there are only black and white drawings of snoopy or a simialr character but the other side of the fortune reveals a conversation next to the character. The drawings disappear to leave an ever changing text. In its last version that I try to memorize it is an old German proverb that repeats the same word three times. It looks like an old Latin proverb (dream knowledge) translated into German.

After completing the task (though later forgot the saying), I get a surge of confidence and decide to try another pair of shoes this time with laces for the bonus wings. There is a pair of purple sports shoes on the floor and I grab and start to untie one of them. It feels pretty accurate and not messy at all. This excites me that once they are untied I will put them on and tie them, no problem. As I prepare to put one on, I notice that there are papers inside again. I take one piece out and decide not deal with the rest of the paper, but rather press my foot inside. My foot presses against the papers to make space and then my physical foot moves again and this time dream is gone for good.

Disappointed but after a while with closed eyes, sleep resumes.

DEILD: I'm back into the same room, but this time it's dark as if midnight. This is not welcome as I hope to find my shoes somewhere nearby. With a touch of sarcasm I decide to order more light, though I know it's rather difficult to turn on the lights either by a switch or by command. To my surprise the space in front gets lit up as if there is a screen behind me that casts bright light ahead.

Alas, the alarm rings at that very moment...

23:30 1mg melatonin
00:00 Tuesday 2014-09-09


Big night!

dream
lucid
comments

06:10

+ Shark park
I see a Ford Taurus (big wagon with bulging round back end) drive up out of a body of water, it was entirely submerged, it drives to the left up the stairway and stops. Inside is my ex gf SB, the car is entirely filled with water, and a huge shark. I have to figure out how to get her out. I open the passenger left side door and plan to extract SB to save her (no more water in there). I just see her leg, I think I will distract the shark by making a long deep incision in SB's leg from her ankle towards her knee with my pocket knife (!!). We have to get the timing right. She says do it, I ask "Now!?" I ask again "Now!?" then do it: I make an about 6-inch incision from her ankle going up her leg, I see red leg meat inside, the cut is pretty deep about 1/4 inch at least.

We're standing outside the car, a middle-aged couple (man+woman) is walking nearby there, "Help!" I call to them, to get assistance for my friend's leg. They're leery of helping, the woman ways "You know if we help them we're obligated to investigate/get involved" but the man said "Yeah well what can we do?". He starts asking me all sorts of questions about where I was earlier and did I have the knife with me before, I thought these questions were ludicrous: I had been walking earlier in the park with my dog, and had been whittling a stick with my pocket knife, DUH!

The shark is under control on a leash but LOOK OUT it can get off, it's escaped, it's huge, a great white, about 15 feet long and at least a meter or more in diameter, it lunges at the man and corners the man up against a hedge, I say "careful! That thing could eat you!" I'm trying to reach for my automatic machine gun but it doesn't work.

+ Something about a thing will cost around $200,000, that means split 3 ways we'll each end up paying around $70,000

+ In a stadium, a girl is putting on a school colors sweatshirt (mostly gold/yellow) and talking about the sports program, will the stadium be used for boys athletics only or also girls?


Almost (or do, briefly), fall asleep with my phone in my hand before journaling shark park while doing recall. Tired, don't want to get up. Dang it, cool dream, must journal it, so I do.
Don't want to get up, a bit cold and I'm sleepy. Decide if you want LDs must get up for WBTB, I had already prepared 20 drops of wormwood tincture in a shot glass to drink with some water.

Did Dreamer-MILD (incubate location, notice dream signs), Zipplord47 self-hypnosis (notice when dreaming), then took wormwood, back to sleep didn't take too long

07:xx(?) unsure, didn't journal at waking

+ I'm in a computer lab, I need to find a free station for a guy to use, I walk around down the full table and find a free one, the computer is a combination old ADM3A terminal and modern computer, I ask does he know how to login? He says he doe.

+ work/baseball
I'm arriving to work in a large open room, a girl is saying I have her music book, I doubt it but reaching my desk I see a pile of books leaning up against the screen and one of them is hers I'm sure. My station is at a desk with another person's computer, mine is to the left. There is a large scaffolding set up right over my table, workmen are up there doing something, I'm concerned about stuff falling on my computer. The workman is trying to insert some electrical cable into some slot, the slots are labelled like "I-1", "I-2", etc. My manager directs the workman to plug in the big-screen TV to the cable feed, the workman says he'll have to notify upper management about turning on the TV, my manager laughs and says she's already gotten permission, he plug it in and there's a professional baseball game on the TV, I see the players swarming over the field, it's a night game and the field is poorly lit, quite dim.

Then I'm there on the field, sitting in a large indentation/trough along the first-base line. I look up and see GMT with a big huge fat face sitting in the stands and eating, he's with his fat wife and some other friends enjoying the game, I stand up and wave to them, they see me and wave back we meet and greet.

While I'm standing nearby first base a batter hits a line drive down the first base line, I watch the ball it to see if it's fair or foul, it looks barely fair, the batter runs quickly around the bases, he comes close to me I think I need to get back out of the way, I notice his foot misses first base, nobody cares.

Another batter back in a team area starts psyching himself up out loud, "I'm going to blast a line-drive right into center field! I'm going to really wack that ball <etc for a while.>" I think he's trying to talk smack to really get himself pumped up, I think he's stupid. He gets to bat and drives one foul down the first-base line and I call out "Hah, not much of a line drive to center!" He tries again I think and misses, I decide not to heckle him because: 1) he's trying his best, and 2) he could probably kick my ass. The players are all very large and athletic/tall a bunch of them are black.

I'm looking around the field and am not impressed. It doesn't look much like a pro baseball diamond: the outfield is irregularly shaped and not very deep, and the stands can only hold about a few hundred people, quite small. I say "this is more like a playground than a stadium....it's a playground!".

+ playing chess (late in day recall), thinking about rook moves

+ lost my bridge, I'm going to have to go all day with a gap in my teeth (late morning recall)


08:38


+ LD #62 I'm walking and realize my waist bag is hanging very low down from its normal position and it's open. I get into argument with annoying girl, we're both very angry with each other, and accuse each other of being immature. Enter into a building, a store of some sort? I choose to walk a different way, my path becomes blocked by tall things, I decide to fly up over them. I fly up to the ceiling, turn around, and look down at the floor and get lucid while still floating up at the ceiling. The floor is made of industrial tiles like used in hospitals/schools. I want to land, this is cool, I approach the floor slowly, it takes a while to get there, I'm anticipating my landing and it's pretty rough, I sort of tumble on the floor and hit the floor with my arm and my leg. I stand up and instantly think about doing TOTM. I'm in a classroom, standing to the right and back a bit from the teacher's desk. I go to the teachers desk, he's an older-middle-aged man with very crinked bags around both of his eyes. I get down close and look him right in the face and tel him to give me my fortune cookies (I like this form of summon, worked for the wand, too!) he starts leading me to the right side of the room, as we're walking I tell an adult man sitting at a desk to take off his shoes and have them ready for me to wear later (DC summon #2! How's that for thinking ahead!? ).

The teacher leads me to an empty desk with about 5 regular looking fortune cookies in plastic wrappers. I open one and pick up a traditional looking fortune slip of rectangular white paper, see small faint Chinese Kanji. I turn the small white paper over and read some text which seems garbled and nonsense. At this point some more people are joining to enjoy the hilarious fortunes. There are more and more fortunes appearing on the desk building up in a pile, now they're written on paper like they were torn from crumpled brown paper lunch sacks, they are multiplying on the desk top. I pick up a large one and it's from "Leticia" who's going on and on about Jesus in messy/uneven small-child-like handwriting in different colors).

I decide to move on and cross the room to the other (left as facing the front) side, picking up the shoes the DC guy made ready for me, with laces, on my way. I'm really happy and having a great time. I sit down on the floor, put on the shoes (beige loafers but with laces) and tie the shoes. I run through the tying sequence in my mind. I then start trying to tie the laces of a a girl's shoes who's sitting to my left, and I can't untangle the laces. I then see that her shoes didn't have this lace at all, they were already tied with short fuzzy laces, and I relalize I've already tied my own and should move on. While I'm sitting on the floor I look up to the front of the room at the teach at his desk, look at the chalkboard behind him (some vague diagrams are written there) and call out "So what's the next lesson?". I'm looking all around and notice that on the wall next to the two girls (they're twins) are rows and rows of little colorful stuffed toys attached to and covering the wall. I think about touching things like the floor to engage. Someone says that it's a good thing that there are no girls in the class because they'd just cause trouble like the two twins do.

I think "Ok, what's next?" Toilet -- uh uh. Patronus! I stand up and look across the room, and I see 3 witches, male and female, old, two in front of me standing close, one standing more to my left across the room, have appeared there. They are wearing in full black robes and tall traditional black witches pointy hats they are standing and looking at me! I think for a second about a wand but just stretch out my arm, point my finger at one of them, and shout EXPECTO PATRONUM!! Some white mist shoots out of my finger forming a small cloud and there's some fizzling but no animal, it dissipates quickly. I go over to the one I pointed at (a woman, McGonagall?) and say "oh, you're the good guys, aren't you?!" and "you've brought my wand, give it to me!" (DC summon #3!). She instantly takes out a wand from her robes and hands it to me, it's beautiful: black, about 18 inches in length, tapered wide at bottom to narrow at top, covered in indentations (like toothmarks on a pencil), and some iridescent colors like blue & orange are shining as I turn it to look at it, I run my hand up the wand and am well pleased.

It's time to go bad guy hunting with my witch friends, and I run out if the room into the hallway. Unfortunately, at the last second I call back for the girl who's shoes I tried tying and she comes to me, I pick her up in my arms so that she wraps her legs about my waist, kiss her, and hold/carry her there the rest of the dream where I'm running down stairs and enter a large open area.

Spoiler for Explicit NSFW action, you've been warned:

My attention turns fully to the girl I'm still carrying/holding in my arms. I reach down with a hand behind her and up her dress, and feel all around her (ahem), she's sopping wet, and so tight that I can't really find the opening. I'm poking around a while and she says something slightly plaintively "You can't put it in that way!?" I've turned and am heading towards something in the distance that looks like a bowling alley. I say "OK well let's go from the front then!" and I grab my (ahem) and bring it to to her's and start to push in, and just as a sensation of entry begins, the dream fades.

Spoiler for Explicit NSFW action, you've been warned:

Fogelbise would be proud, I accomplished his trademark Reach Down For Moisture (there was a lot) before the dream ended.

I really wish I had avoided the girl thing because frankly the task and adventure part of the dream was so much more fun. Real incentive to avoid caveman in the future!

#363 - WILD - 7:47AM

I wake fully now and use the toilet. I am feeling really pissed off that I didn't get a real lucid this time. I actually start feeling sorry for myself. It's after 7am and I know the alarm will go off at 8am. I decide to chill myself out and really focus hard on WILD.

I enter vibrations. Oh God here we go again. Just like last time, I can't break past SP. My wife coughs and rolls over waking me some. I re-focus on body relaxation and slip back in fairly quickly. I struggle some more. I recall a semi lucid moment from earlier where I was going on about having too much negative energy lately and I need to meditate more. I may as well try that. I'm not getting anyplace like this. I clear my mind and I start to feel myself roll. Rather than try to stop it, I focus on the sensation as I meditate keeping my mind clear of all thought. I have some interesting HI but I gently push it away as thoughts.

I watch a full scene form. I am walking outside and can hear my foot steps crunch on some gravel. Is this more HI or a full dream? I look around and see that I am in a bright summer day near a Half Round Barn. It looks like the one I pass by all the time just outside of town in waking life. I look at my hands and they seem solid but a little video-game-ish. I become super happy and relieved to have finally made it into a a solid lucid. I immediately start back on my goals for the night.

As I walk around the barn, I use expectation to find Robin Williams. I notice how dry the ground is but there are high weeds along the side of the barn. Robin isn't there. I begin to call out for him as I walk. I notice how loud and full my voice sounds. I become excited again about being lucid but I push the emotions away. You don't want to wake yourself.

On the other side of the barn, I come to familiar street near my workplace. Some cars pass and I think Robin may be in one. Then, I spot some men working on a house in the distance. I shout for Robin and one of them looks. He appears to be a little too large and has a red shirt on. I wave exaggeratedly and motion for him to come to me. He stops what he is doing and beings running toward me. As he gets closer he looks nothing like Robin. I decide to try to force it with belief and expectation. I look way for a moment and really concentrate on Robin Williams face. I see it in my mind (irony) and look back at the man. He looks a lot like John Pennett now (Wrong dead comic). Oh well. Just go with it.
I say, "Hey you're Robin Williams!"
The man doesn't say anything but his body language says he's confused and he disagrees.
I give up on Robin and decide to move on. I respond, "So OK you're not Robin but you do have my fortune cookie."
The man must be a mute, because he lets out a soundless, "Ah" and throws his head back in silent laughter.
I see his red shirt is a "pocket tee" and the pocket is right at my eye-level. I spy a bulge in it the shape of what I am hoping for. I look up at his face and the man now looks a little like Wreck-it Ralph. Of course, this doesn't register with me at the time, because I really want that fortune cookie. The man reaches in his pocket with index and thumb and plucks out the cookie with his huge meaty hand. I greedily take the cookie.

I notice there is no wrapper on it and at first I am a little turned off by that. Well, I'm not going to eat it and it's not like it matters here anyway. The cookie seems a little large as I crack it open. I pull the paper out and let the broken peices fall out of existence. I try to read it but everything is blurry at first. I focus hard. First I see some oddly spaced numbers. Then I notice the random characters above that. Then a word under the numbers. En.. Ensl... En... Encaved? I want to make sense of this word but instead I tuck it way to mull over later when I am wake. Then, for some reason I try to read out the numbers to the man, "Threeee? Two?" I can't seem to read what I am seeing. The man seems really impatient with me and I decide he's right; there's no time for this. I study the paper a second more while wordlessly committing as much as possible to memory. Basically, the paper reads something like this:
-------------------------------------------------------------
%**&
2 3 4 3 5 6 3 5 4 2
E N C A V E D
-------------------------------------------------------------

I turn to the man forgetting about the paper, "OK hold on... Hey, I am going to perform a Patronus now. You can stay an watch if you'd like." I turn to hold up a wand but everything has gone dark now. I try to hold on an focus but I feel my body in bed so I let it go.

07.09.2014

Expecto Patronum at Downtown (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I had a False Awakening and noticed that my wife was waking up. It was morning, but it was still dark outside. My wife went to the living room, and she appeared to be complaining because none of the lights worked. I asked her what was going on and she said that the lights wont turn on. I figured it was the classic light fail from dreams and double checked with a failed reality check.

I jumped out of bed and I planned to go outside and fly away to make the dream stable. As I was about to leave my house I recalled the Basic ToTM to put some shoes on. So I just grabbed a pair of shoes from the entrance and put them on. Easy. I recalled that if they had laces and I tied them both, it was bonus, but my shoes had no laces, as they were the same shoes I am using in waking:







As I looked up, I visualized some laces spawning and be able to tie them, but the shoes did not change, and I did not feel wasting my time staring at my shoes, so I just flew away.

As I was flying, I tried to recall the advanced Tasks but I was not luckt at it.

I demanded a few things to make the dream stable, such as, "Clarity now!" When the dream was clear enough, I tried, "Remember Advanced ToTM" but I had no lucky.

I recalled the Robin Williams one, but I do not care at all for Celebrities and I did not feel like it. So I kept flying to downtown and landed in a busy street. Still trying to remember the advanced task of the month, I recalled Dreamer's Dare so I planned to teleport myself to the blue world. As I was focusing on this, I heard some background voice saying, "Percy is a psychic, so he ain't no muggle!" As I heard that, I instantly recalled that I needed to cast the Expecto Patronum spell. I was going to cast it but I believed I needed a wand or I would fail the task.

I tried to look for a wand and to spawn one myself with little luck, but then, I found a branch laying on the ground and I grabbed it and I would pretend it was a wand. As I held it for a few moments, the branch turned into a black wand:







So, as lifted the wand and chanted, "Expecto Patronum!" Lucky me, a white mist started to form and what appeared to be the face of an Elephant started to spawn. It floated around me for a while until it vanished. Not a very exciting thing, but oh well, task is done. No one around me seemed to noticed this spell.

As I centered myself into working on Dreamer's Dare, I woke up.

(7:39 AM): On my sleeping bag, trying to fall asleep. I hear a "meow" and see my little kitten on the bed, looking at me. I start petting her, but then ask, "How did you get out of your room?" as she is not allowed in the bedroom. I nose pinch and can breathe. I immediately remember the toilet task. I phase through the bedroom door and enter the bathroom.

There is a bunch of stuff spread out on the toilet seat, so I sweep all of this away and lift the lid. It's clean inside I realize I am wearing jeans so I strip these off (though I have some issues getting them off). Finally I am free, and go after my underwear, but I am having difficulties getting my legs disentangled. I finally realize it doesn't even matter so I jump into the toilet with my underwear still hanging from my leg, and squat all the way down. I then press the flush button.

The bowl fills with water, but nothing is really happening. I try to spin my body around, to get some momentum, and I do spin now--sort of like a lazy turd. The spinning has also teleported me and the toilet to an outdoors location, on a small, wooden screened-in porch. I try to imagine one of those powerful toilets that just suck shit down with ease. No dice. The cookie task occurs to me, but I keep focusing on getting sucked down. I wake up.

I had a really loooong WBTB. I went to bed probably 1am, then woke up at about 7am and didn't go back to sleep until 11:30ish! I tried everything to go back to sleep: incubating dreams, relaxation techniques, clearing my mind, filling my mind, solo sexy time.. nothin. Finally Danny came back from working out and took a shower, and as soon as he left the room after his shower, I began to drift off and felt some vibrations.

As the vibrations cycled a couple times, I let the HH version of a fish bite my hands. I felt like it was anchoring me for some reason. Anyway, I started out in my bed lucid as usual, and thought right away of the toilet task. So I went to the master bathroom, and lifted the lid. There was a little pee and bit of toilet paper in there, np I'll just flush it. Then I lifted the rim, and there was some pee on it as well, so I took some tp and wiped it off and flushed it. But then it started backing up, and a TON of poop was coming up. I thought of grabbing the plunger, but I was like "I'm not wasting lucid time on this. Even if I plunge it, I'm not going down there now." So I walked back into the bedroom, trying for the life of me to recall the other tasks, but I just couldn't. So I messed with my masculinity for a few minutes then woke up.

Fortunately, I felt like I could go right back to sleep. So as I was drifting off and feeling the vibrations again, I thought real hard and recalled Robin Williams, fortune cookie, and Patronus tasks. I let the HH version of my cat Gibby bite my hand this time as I transitioned. (I'm trying to play with forming HH stuff so I don't have to rely on vibrations). Anyway, started out in my room again lucid, struggled with the blankets a bit with a sleeping Gibby on the bed. I got up and don't recall how I got to the living room, or some room. It was filled with toys and crap. I picked up something that looked like a long, thin cone. I thought it would work as a magic wand. As I was deliberating over it, I noticed an unsavory shadowy figure in the room. I decided to test a Patronus on him. I aimed the wand at him and yelled "Expecto Patronum!" fully expecting a Dragon Patronus like I wanted. Nothin. I need to have a happy thought too, along with the expectation. It is EXPECTo Patronum, after all. I did it again, louder, and thinking of a certain someone (KM) from college. A bunch of silvery-purple sparkles appeared in the air just in front of my wand, then dropped to the floor. I thought they were about to condense and form some animal Patronus. But all they did was turn into an army of He-man toys that started coming at me haha! I ran across the room and tried again, louder, with an even stronger feeling in my heart along with the memory of KM. I mean I SCREAMED the incantation. A silvery-purple outline of a large animal formed, studded with silvery-purple sparkles. It got denser until it took on the shape of silvery-purple cloudlike Unicorn! A UNICORN!!! Best little girl fantasy ever!!!

It was galloping toward me as it was becoming more corporeal. I just held out my arms because I wanted to pet it and hug it sooooooooo bad, but then she vanished. And I woke up.

I started drifting off again, but immediately went into a nonlucid where I was walking down the street outside in broad daylight. I got to our house and there was a huge Christmas tree in the front yard. It had a candycane like ornament on it, and I broke off a long piece, thinking that it would be good to use for the Patronus task again. I started questioning if I was dreaming, but I just wasn't 100% sure. I went into the house and tried the spell again anyway, because I wanted my unicorn lol. As I was trying and trying, I suddenly heard my son Chris in another room, saying "HAHA who's screaming Harry Potter quotes around the house?!" I was so embarrassed, was I doing this iwl? I ran into the hall bathroom and stood up on the toilet as I could hear my son barreling down the hall. I thought I would just scare the crap out of him once he walked by, which I did, and he dropped a bunch of fast food and ran off lol. I went back to the hall and walked until I ended up in the family room, and there was another christmas tree. Whaaaaat? It's not christmas. Lucid! I decided to give up the Patronus totm for now since I already did it, and thought of the fortune cookie totm. I recalled that Chris has some fast food, so I went into the kitchen, saying to myself "I'm going to look in one of the boxes of left over Chinese food that's still in there." And sure enough, there were some styro-foam boxes stacked up on the kitchen floor. I opened the first one and set it on the stove, and there were wrapped fortune cookies right inside. *highfive subC!* Some were broken, but at least 2 were in tact. I opened the first one, and at first I saw the word "Important" on the little white strip of paper. But when I unfolded it all the way, it just said "2, 3, uhhh, 4" Wow. I opened the second one, and a large square of paper was inside. Here's what it said:

So, you think you're a dirty boy?

DOODLE DOODLE TOSS TOSS
DOODLE DOODLE TOSS TOSS
DOODLE DOODLE TOSS TOSS
DOODLE DOODLE TOSS TOSS
(972) ###-####

After reading that, I just propped up my head on the stove and laughed so hard. I laughed until I could feel my eyes crying, in the dream. A true lucid cry laugh haha. Wow. I know now what my subC truly thinks of me: I'm either so lost that I can't even count properly, or I'm a dirty boy. Or at least I think I am. Doodle doodle toss toss, ladies and gentlemen.

I woke up from that still loling, and that was that.

Non Dream
Dream
Lucid

I stay still after a dream and focus on the back on my eyelids. I see some words and let the dream build from there. I see a man trying to give me some sort of anatomy lesson in my room. I get up from bed and look for the toilet in the bathroom near my bedroom. It's not there but I easily find it the next room. I put my feet in it and flush. I get sucked down. I travel downwards and make a few turns at a pretty good speed as I traverse the network of pipes, feeling a few pieces of sewage brush by along the way. I slow down and am able to look around. The large pipe I'm in is made or rotating three dimensional geometric shapes which I find interesting. I'm sucked downwards at a great speed in a huge drop for about four to five seconds. I stop and see I'm in some sort of secret underwater chamber. I wake up.

Probably because I had been thinking of the "Expecto Patronum" TOTM before bed, during one scene in a long sequence of NLDs, there appeared a phoenix resembling the one kept by Dumbledore.

NLD: I was standing outdoors talking to three men (random DCs, no resemblance to anyone from WL). At one point I noticed a very large bird flying overhead, crimson and crested, and recognized it as a phoenix. I thought this was a remarkable thing to see, so I lifted my right hand in the air as a gesture of acknowledgment and welcome.

The phoenix turned began diving toward me. What would happen if it touched my hand? I momentarily worried that it might choose that moment to burst into flames, consuming me. But I kept my hand up to see what would happen, and the phoenix flew right over my head, just low enough that my fingers grazed its soft belly feathers.

I felt honored and delighted by this contact, so when it turned for another pass I kept my hand elevated, and it happened again. When it turned for a third pass, I wondered if it would be okay if I switched hands: would changing the pattern scared it off? I raised my left hand, and it flew down to gently graze that one too.

As it readied itself for a fourth pass, I began to suspect there must be something deliberate about its actions. What was it doing? I had the impression that it was trying to protect us. But what sort of protection could be imparted this way? "Fire resistance," I thought, and in another simultaneous scene, as though the dream had split into two concurrent but disconnected spaces, I was consulting the new D&D Player's Handbook I had been browsing in an earlier dream sequence, looking up the rules on fire resistance. How much FR might we get from touching a phoenix? +1? +2? Total protection?

Meanwhile, in the main scene, the phoenix was turning for a fourth dive. "Touch it," I instructed the others, so they would be protected too. Why was the phoenix trying to protect us in this way? Were we in danger of some immanent conflagration?