task of the month

Took a nice nap this afternoon. There was an interesting start, as I had some trouble transitioning, and I kind of got stuck between the real and dream worlds - distinctly hearing my roommate typing away on his keyboard but also interacting with my DCs at the same time. I kind of went back and forth in and out of sleep, until I finally got a nice long dream.

I don't remember exactly how everything pieced together, but I had three distinct scenes. First, I was at work, working the support desk at my college's computer lab. An Asian girl and her 2 friends walked up and asked for help with her computer. I tried to take a look at it, but she suddenly came around the desk, leaned her head on my shoulder, and started flirting with me. I asked her to back up, but she moved in closer. I remembered that it was just a dream, so I shouted at her "You're not even real!" and ran away.

The next scene was in some kind of warehouse. I was in the back trying to figure out what to do in my lucid. I remembered the TOTMs. I decided to start with the Expecto Patronum one. I first tried with just twirling my hand in the air and shouting "Expecto Patronum", but nothing happened. OK, maybe I need a wand of some kind. I happened to find a plastic straw. Well, gotta make do with what you've got. I spun the straw in the air and shouted the words, and this time I saw a trail of smoke run in a line across the floor. I tried once again, and this time the line of smoke was larger and more noticeable. I tried one last time, this time moving the "wand" in the air until I saw a blue aura around it. "Expecto Patronum!" The blue smoke shot to the ground, and suddenly a long snake appeared along the smoke line on the ground. The snake was about 15 feet long and started to move toward me. I tried to go around on the other side of it, but its mouth suddenly turned into the mouth of a crocodile and snapped at me. I dodged out of the way and kept walking.

Finally, there was a scene where I was looking for a fortune cookie for another TOTM. Well, I'll probably find one in this kitchen. I walked through a door into the kitchen at my old house. I walked to the sink, and sure enough, there was a fortune cookie there. I opened it up and ate half of it before reading the inside. I pulled out the paper and unraveled it. All it said was the word "Help". Help? That's it? I looked inside the cookie to see 3 more papers bunched up inside. I took out the first one. "Me." And the second one. "I'm." Finally, I read the last paper. "A cookie." Okay, genius, you got me... I then proceeded to rip up the papers and eat the other half of the cookie before eventually waking up.

Non Dream
Dream
Lucid

I wake up from a dream and look at the blackness behind my eyelids. There is a web of lines. I focuse on it and try to make it more clear and vivid. The web becomes a solid, vivid, white color and starts to spin. I'm at an outdoor theater and could see my Dad and Step Mom trying to talk to me. I can't understand what they are saying so I lose interest and turn away. I reach into my pocket and pull out a fortune cookie. I open it up and try to read the fortune. It reads "It's been known for ions that..." I struggle to read the last part but it's faded away. I try to flip the paper over to read another fortune but all of the fortunes are incomplete or too hard to read. The paper becomes bigger as I flip it over a few times. Suddenly, I see clearly on the paper a color advertisement for a rapper named Goo-Goo Giddy who is going on tour. I show a random DC this, feigning excitement, to see if they are interested. I don't see any interest. I wake up.

I'll work on my new-found DEILD technique, hoping it works with consistency.

12:02 AM: I am back in high school, in a hallway. I am walking to class but need to pee really bad. I see a toilet in the hallway and begin using it. Some guys have their backs to the toilet so I use them as cover. They turn around, see me peeing, and start laughing at me. I suddenly realize I am dreaming, so I step back and raise my aim a bit to start peeing all over them They are super pissed , and I am laughing. I pinch my nose. I then say:

"Guess what, boys--I'm dreaming." I look at their wet shirts. "Not sure if you guys are, but I sure am." I am really celebratory about the whole thing. One of them looks down at his soaked shirt.

"I took it like a champ," he says.

I congratulate him and head off. In my mind, a goal appears: find Haruhara Haruko (from FLCL):



I set off to find her, but then remember that I did not actually plan to do this (though the goal is awesome and I may do it very soon ). I decide to try anyway. I set off in search of her, or DCs I could turn into her. None of the kids in the hallway look very close, and some of them are young kids. I suddenly remember that I wanted to do Dreamer's suggestion for TotM September (don't think I'm going to wait for that one ). I begin looking for the necessary implements for the task. As I jog down the hallway, the school turns into a mall. I am looking around in stores, but don't see anything helpful.

I then see my wife seated at one of those make-up kiosks. I run over to her. This almost turns into sexy time, but I manage to keep it together. I notice that the dream seems unstable. I rub my hands together. My wife then asks if I want pictures or something else. Sweet, I think--pictures! I could use those. She pulls out some cool-looking cards of some DBZ-style fighter. The cards are about the size of a Tarot card. I use some stretching dream control to enlarge and expand the picture. Unfortunately, I get so caught up in how neat the card looks that I forget about the task. Meanwhile, my wife is talking to me about the history of this particular card--how it has gone through several different printings due to popularity. The dream now destabilizes a final time and I wake up.

Early morning naps = long vivid WILDs

The dream started much like my last lucid. I was in my bed, while some of my friends were in my room talking. I was lying down, but I had a hard time moving. I was basically moving like a sloth, as my arms felt like they were 500 lbs a piece. I wouldn't call it SP, as I was lucid in a dream. I slowly reached for the handrail by my top bunk. As soon as I grabbed it, I started floating, and me and the bar were transported to into this fairly dark "void", for lack of better term. I was being pulled up, so I held onto the bar to keep from flying away.

At this point, I'm pretty sure I woke up, but then DEILDed back into another dream. I was on my bed again, and my friends were talking again. I was able to actually get up now, although I was kind of helplessly floating around the room. I finally managed to gain my footing on the ground. I then tried to head for the window to get out, but as soon as I hit the window, I woke up and DEILDed again.

Again, I was in my room, although this time my friends were gone and I started on the floor. I tried for the window again, and this time I actually got through. I found myself in this alley, with a good view of the moon above me. I wanna go up there, I thought to myself. I squated down to prepare for a fast takeoff, and then jumped with all my might. I instead moved about 2 mph towards the sky. I got back down and tried again, but still no luck. I changed my mind and instead flew around the corner of the building, but then I woke up and DEILDed again.

I was now walking down a hallway of my college. Maybe I should start doing something productive now. I remembered one of the TOTMs that I hadn't done yet. I walked up to some random guy. "Hey, do you know any other languages?" "Yeah, I'm fluent in German." "Cool, can you tell me a word?" "No." He walked faster to get away from me and turned into a classroom. I followed him in.

There was another group of guys standing around talking. I walk up and ask if any of them know any other languages. They all in turn reply no. Why do my DCs have to be so American? Then, a girl walked over to me. "Do you know any foreign words?" "Oh yeah, I know lots of them." "Cool, can you give me an example of one?" "Well have you ever heard of 'juh-kan-uh'?" "How do you spell that?" "Jicanon." "There's a silent n on the end?" "Sure, why not?" "Okay then, what does it mean?" As she walked away, she turned back and shouted "It means armed with a laser." A laser, huh? Sounds like a pointless word to me. Little did I know just how applicable that word would be.

I DEILDed one more time. I was now in the large auditorium we have at our campus. The entire student body was there, and we each has this small black sensor on our chest with a tiny LCD screen on the top. Our provost got up on stage and announced the start of the annual Laser Games. "You each have five lives. Last person standing wins. You have 10 minutes until the starting horn. Go!"

There was a mad dash from the auditorium. I had no idea what was happening, so I followed the crowd. Outside there were boxes of laser guns of all different sizes. I grabbed both a pistol and a rifle, strapped them to my back, and took off. I met up with some of my friends at the hill by the auditorium. We quickly tried to build a fort or some kind, but before we could finish, a loud horn echoed from the speakers around the campus. The games had begun.

I turned around in time to see another group ambushing us from behind. I grabbed my pistol and fired at the guy who was rushing at me. I felt my sensor vibrate a little, marking that my lives were being depleted. After some time, the attacker's sensor let out a loud beep, and an electric shock brought him to the ground. I stopped to catch my breath and looked down at the screen on my sensor. "1 Kill. 2 Lives." Hmmm, let's try that again. I rewinded the scene, and turned around to see the ambush again. This time my aim was much better, and I brought my attacker down in seconds. I looked at my screen again. "1 Kill. 5 Lives." Much better.

I pulled out my rifle and went after the guys attacking my team. I easily took down most of them. Their last member pulled out a sword and came after me. Yes, a freaking sword. He took a big swing, but luckily I managed to dodge it. I quickly pulled out my pistol and took him down before he could swing again. He fell with a thud, dropping his sword at his side. "Hey, can I borrow this?" "Sure, it's all yours." You never know when a giant freaking sword might come in handy. I next heard another beeping sound, but this time it was my alarm, and I woke up.

This was a DEILD chain with at least three DEILDs, maybe as many as five.

I GET LUCID waking down a street in a city centre scene that feels like some parts of Glasgow. I float into the air as an RC, then try to fly higher because flying more impressively is one of my dream goals.

I notice that a DC has risen into the air with me, a dark haired woman perhaps in her early forties. I float across to her and say "I'd like as conversion with you, if that's OK" then go on to explain that I'm dreaming and that she's not real but I want to find out what she's like. She furrows her brow as I say she's not real as if she's considering whether to be offended. We share another couple of sentences of conversation that I can't remember.

I come down to ground level to think what to do next. I look at a car thinking of going for a joy ride and note that it's a left hand drive like in another recent dream, so I decide I'd rather find a right hand drive car. I floatalong the street looking at a variety of weird cars, mostly looking like concept cars, but including several just plain surreal ones (one has a shaggy coat of wires, another is a small house with wheels...)

I realise I ought to be thinking of the TOTMs, so I go through the mantra "foreign banana, eye castle, tease" (I replaced the bonus TOTM with the dare I was recently dared, because it sounded more fun!)

I look across the street to see another DC on the pavement on the other side of the street, a shabby looking blonde woman probably in her 50s. I ask her for a foreign word and its meaning, but she wants to bustle past me. I say "well I'm going to stop you because this is my dream and I'm in charge" I accost her as she's about to enter her house. When she realises in not going to let her go without my word, she says "koinu" and I ask her what it means. "Go away / go home" is the reply, which I guess I had coming...

The next task is to rob a bank using only a banana. I put my hand out palm up with a deliberate gesture to conjure up a banana. I get a tiny yellow dot in my palm, about the size of a lentil. I decide that's probably not intimidating enough, so I decide to try another tactic. I make another conjuring gesture at the pavement to conjure up a giant banana attack dog. I get a rather blobby banana-like dog who also doesn't look all that impressive. I stretch out his snout to make it look a little more aggressive with limited success. I realise I still have the pill sized banana in my other hand, so I throw it to the ground and it becomes another banana dog, this one smaller but at least a little more angular and aggressive looking.

I head into the bank and shout that everyone should keep back as I have attack bananas!

People seem suitably nervous at first, but as I go through the bank looking for a cashier to take money from, the general feel turns into one of normal interaction, as if my attack bananas have made their point and the staff are all happy to just go about the business of finding me some money to steal. At the back of the bank is a large table positively groaning with bank notes. The bank notes are tiny, about a third the size of a credit card, and very simply designed, a bit like monopoly money. I ask the chap counting and sorting the money to put as much as he could in a Tupperware sitting on the table for me and he obliges. I note that these tiny notes include some really huge denominations of thousands of pounds, so a small Tupperware of then is still a major haul. The chap hands over the cash and I head out.

I have a long interlude here with almost no lucidity during which I read a very surreal psychedelic concept art book that my dad had lying around. The story seems to mostly relate a relationship between the main protagonist and his girlfriend, who he meets when she's about eight, and they have a difficult life trying to work out how to go about a relationship when the book seems to have started too early in their lives. The protagonist (who I identify with enough that at one point I'm living the story rather than reading it) had a weird experience of trying to work or how old his "girlfriend" is and if it's non-creepy yet for him to fancy her. Eventually, she gains boobies and he decides that makes it OK. She gets pregnant and the couple split up and feel very miserable about the while situation as if they blame the author of the book for making their lives suck. I loved the book, but my dad says he never really liked it.

I start looking for a mirror to watch myself pull my eyeballs out. I see the Shire Hall in Shrewsbury, and outside is a rather pitiful Lord Hill's Column, about 18" of column and 6" of Lord Hill. I figure there might be a nice big mirror in the reception, so I start to head inside. The entrance turns out to be blocked with hundreds of shopping trolleys, which keeps me snared up for quite a while. Eventually, I find myself inside at a large mirror and stare at myself trying to remember how I was planning to pull my eyeballs out. I try poking my fingers behind my left eyeball (I'm less find of my left eye because it's crap) and try to retain my view through the eyeball as I remove it. I think the sight acts as an anchor keeping the eyeball in place as I'm so used to my perspective being from my eyeballs' customary position! I decide it might be more successful to try sucking my eyeball out with the palm of my hand, blocking my view as I do so.

After a couple more unsuccessful attempts, I pull my hand away to see that my reflection has become oddly distorted, as if made a bit ineptly out of plastocene. I do note, however, that one eyeball is protruding about an inch from my face, and the other is somehow sticking out of my temple. I decide this counts and inspect my eyes in my reflection for a bit. They both look like crappy craftsmanship, but they're definitely my eyes and definitely not in their normal places. I shove them back in and start to think about the next TOTM - find Howl's castle.

I try looking around for a giant insect like walking castle, and even try to conjure one up, but then I remember that the magic door can be a way in as well was a way out, so I look for interesting looking doors to find the inside of the castle through. I spot a door that looks tempting, it's small and characterful, so I go to open it. There are two or three street urchins lurking by the door and they keep getting in my way. I pull the door open to find shorter door behind it, then a manhole cover, then another door...

Eventually I wake up for a final time and a twitch as I'm just about to attempt another DEILD spoils it for me :-(

Monday, 25th August 2014

Moon Cycle:New Moon in Virgo

Tarot card of the Day: Ace of Cups

Mayan Calender:Blue Cosmic Storm

Nostril less blocked on awakening: Right (Masculine,left brain,logical/analytical)

This dream occoured on the start of the New Moon on Monday when my girlfriend,myself and two other friends (another couple) decided to hike up one of the nearby mountains and camp out in a secluded cave for a night of shamanism and star-gazing.

As the clear,still night fell we all consumed a small amount of plant medicines in the form of a tea (San Pedro and Psilocybin).
The effects where felt, although very mild.
We made a fire and began telling stories,playing music and chanting before falling asleeping just before the crack of dawn.


Dream:

I'm speeding through a city which resembles my hometown on my black Enfield motorbike, still on the initial lucidity realization high. I feel confident and invincible...there seems no reason to stabilize the dream.
(ln retrospect I should have, as I only maintained a surface level of lucidity)

I weaved through traffic, knocking pedestrians and cars to pieces knowing that no real bodily harm could transpire.
Or could it?
I asked myself the question while taking a particularly long and wide corner and the mental doubt caused the tires to slip from under me .
I began to slide with my right leg being dragged underneath the bike.

Swiftly I jumped up and let my bike continue to slide away while i scurried to my feet.
"it's just a dream,its just a dream...",I reminded myself.

There was a feeling of angst that the dream was about to end, which caused my behavior to become erratic and crazy to say the least.
Even though I was conscious and somewhat lucidly aware,it was as if my primal male instincts took over and I was observing my dream body on auto pilot.

I saw a frozen yogurt cafe on the sidewalk where I just had crashed and sprinted into it in a frenzy.
Jumping over the counter where various cakes and sweets where displayed, i proceeded to stuff as many flavors of frozen yogurt in my mouth using the cooling dispensers which lay along the far wall.

"What are you doing?",the cashier shouts from across the other end of the room.
"Whatever I want!" I reply in a commanding tone.

I double take at the cashier and notice she is extremely attractive.
Curly brunette hair ,deep brown eyes,olive skin, curvaceous body and full lips.

My "cave-man" mentality at the time gets the better of me and I grab her by the arm and pull her into the back room.
Strangely she complied without any resistance.
The erotica that ensued was very intense,fast paced and primal...with ripping off clothes, loud shouts and groans and the collision of sweaty bodies... often being thrown around the room.

Then she uttered something in my ear...
"Remember what you are here for...."
I was struck by a sudden clarity and lucidity again.
"The dream task!"I exclaimed.
I left the sexual escapades in the back room and ran outside.

Many dream characters where sitting on the sidewalk in the sunshine drinking around round white tables.
I took a seat at one of them and asked a chubby short man to tell me a foreign word and its meaning.
He replied in something that sounded similar to Spanish.
I then asked a middle aged lady sitting adjacent to him the same question,and she replied in what I could make out to be a French accent.

Upon awakening I was unable to recall the words or their meaning...only the unique accents in which the DC's spoke.
Arg.

Almost!

I was in a cafeteria area with a bunch of different food stations and it was breakfast time. I was at one of the stations with a big cook top and an Asian guy cooking breakfast stuff. I wanted stuff for a breakfast sandwich and had gotten the eggs, bread and some other item from him. I really wanted a sausage patty but he had just given them all out. I went ahead and took ham. It seemed like I had a ton of stuff on my plate. I was going to stop by one of the other stations to get a sausage patty but when I got there I realized I had a lot of food. I was now in the seating area like a large open area with many tables, like an outside school cafeteria I guess. I had in my hands about 4 cardboard trays stacked on top of each other. They were getting very hard to keep balanced. I was looking for a place to sit and was on the outside of the seating area near a wall. I lost control of the small trays I had and a bit of my food fell out and was pressing against my shirt. I remember thinking that I didn't need all the fried food anyways. I was doing some balancing act and still looking for somewhere to sit, it was a mess. I then found somewhere and I just kind of let the stuff go onto the table. I looked down at my shirt and it was some sort of red sweater and there was like a brown grease on the front of it. I looked down at the food and it was gone, not on the table or ground. I thought this was weird and did an RC (fingers). LUCID: I did a little happy smirk and thought of basic TOTM. I turned around and there was a girl sitting there by herself. I tapped her on the shoulder and asked her if she knew any foreign words. She was very shy and quiet and nodded her head yes. She kinda muttered something 'demeck' I repeated back to make sure I heard her clearly 'demeck' and she said yes. I told her good now what does it mean. I worried I was going to lose the dream again and it seemed to falter but I continued on. She mumbled some words that sounded like 'When the book comes off soon', I had to really try to put these together since she said these very quietly and said back to her 'When the book comes off soon?' and she smiled and shook her head yes. I said thanks and picked her up. I put her to my side like I carry my daughter and began to float in the air, I got higher and higher and she stressed out a bit. She said she wanted to go down. I went up a little higher and kinda flew fast backwards but then went back down to the ground. I decided to try the advanced again and walked toward two girls and said watch. I looked at my fingers and extended two out to a curve to get behind my eye again. I began pushing in again and when I thought I was back I pulled out, I felt it actually coming. It felt like a grape I guess, I looked down at my hand and I didn't have it out. I went back up and could still feel it in my eye but separated. I went up and felt it and it was slimy now and left some slime on my finger this time. I tried a bit more to pull it out to no avail and pushed it back in. I gave up again. I don't remember what happened after that but the dream came to an end shortly after.

I had a late afternoon nap, and then WILDed into a dream. My dream recall's not to great lately, but I do remember the important parts.

I was in my friend's dorm room. I was on the top bunk, and three other guys were talking about something. I realized it was a dream, so I was not interested in their conversation. I jumped out the window (or, more really crashed through it, since it was fully closed) and flew outside. I got a ways away, just doing random tricks and stuff, when the dream destabilized.

Next thing I know, I was back. Back in the top bunk, while my friends were still talking. Okay, let's try that again. I jumped/crashed out the window again, to the same kind of scenery, except this time, there was less "rendered", for lack of better term. Just the area around my dorm was there, everything else was just black. I tried flying up until I could see all of it.

And then I woke up. In the top bunk. My friends were talking. Seriously? This is getting old. I don't remember exactly how many times this repeated, but by at least the fourth or fifth time, I was aware enough to not let it happen. This last time, I actually had great control of my flight, and the scenery was full, minus one part where I flew over one area that looked like it hadn't fully loaded in Google Earth.

And then I woke up. Thankfully, not in the top bunk again. Instead, I was in some kind of jail, right behind the metal bars. Okay, I should probably do something other than just fly. What were those TOTM's again? I racked my brain, since I hadn't even looked at the thread for like 2 weeks. The only one I could remember was the eyeball one. Okay, that one's not too hard. I pulled up my sunglasses that I was apparently wearing, and reached into my left eye. I kept telling myself it didn't hurt, and sure enough, with a little effort, it just slid out. I held it in my hand. Surprisingly, it was about the size of a baseball. I should have a little fun with this. I shifted my glance to the left, and the eyeball rolled a little to the left. I shifted to the right, and the eyeball rolled a little back to the right. It kind of looked like one of those novelty weasel balls rolling in my hand. Huh. I wonder if I can look through it too. Just then, a kind of ghost image appeared on the left side of my vision. It was facing an entirely different direction, like it was the direct feed from the eyeball to my brain. Okay, that's kind of creepy. I stuck the eyeball back in my head and went on. I somehow was transported to this large restaurant.

Story Break. There was one thing I hadn't done yet in my dream. I have been trying to create a persistent dream character through cosmodius95's incubation method, which you can find here. So long story short, I have been trying to create this guy named Bart, short for Bartholomew, a wolf-like dream guide I had in one of my older lucids. As the story goes, Bart is my best friend, and has the ability to transform into a wolf at will. He's about 6'1", has brown hair, blue eyes.

So I tried looking for Bart. The restaurant wasn't packed, but there were still a substantial amount of people, none of them matching the description of Bart. I finally asked a moderately intoxicated woman if she knew anyone there named Bart. She said yes, and brought me over to a buff, fairly intimidating looking guy. "Wait, no, this isn't Bart. That's Kevin." She brought me over to another guy who didn't look like him, and another, and another. Finally, she just shouted, "Is there anyone here named Bart?" One guy in the back stood up and raised his hand. I walked over to him. He was fairly short with black hair, so he still didn't match the description (in fact, he looked like one of my friends IWL), but apparently I didn't care. He acted like I was an old friend of his, and we did that sort of bro-hug thing that is all the rage nowadays. He asked how my dream was going so far. "Pretty good, got the task of the month out of the way." "Nice dude, about time." "Ha, I know, right?" He looked nothing like the Bart I had imagined, but he sure acted like him.

And then I woke up. In the top bunk. Screw this. I jumped out the window and flew until I woke up for real.

Very excited about having my first for sure without a doubt WILD.

I didn't take any supplements. I napped when I got home from work from about 330 or 345 to around 7 (I slept way longer than I wanted to). I tried going to sleep around 11. I tossed and turned for awhile and was really focusing here and there about lucid dreaming, I felt myself almost asleep with a nice buzz going through my body and I was picturing a dream scene, or just an object. I turned over which I thought would mean I would lose it but as soon as I turned over I entered into the buzz state again, on the brink of sleep. I had an inkling of awareness and I was focused on a table with a plate on it. I kept thinking this for a couple of minutes and then WHAM, a dream formed around me. LUCID: I wasn't sure If I could or should move yet but I moved my arm and was able to move it in the dream scene. I gave a little smirk happy that I was in a lucid dream but calm. I was in a house (none that I recognized), I was sitting at a table with a white plate and some silverware. I stood up and noticed it was dark outside. I walked out the front door and looked up at the sky. I noticed the moon and stars. I thought I would try to make the moon bigger and put my hands in front of the moon and tried to stretch it bigger. This didn't seem to work at all. I then tried to make it light outside and I think the shades changed from a purplish like a dawn to a more dark. I thought of flying up and looking for something to do but decided to go back in the house instead to find some people to do the TOTMs with.

I began to go inside but it was dark so I flipped the switches and they actually worked. I went inside and went into a bedroom imagining someone was in there. My dad was in bed and I think he was awake already so I decided to do the basic task on him (or what my stupid dream self thought the task was). I asked him where the spoon was, as I was asking him he disappeared, just vanished into thin air. I shrugged and a little irritated went into another room. This time it was my younger brother and he was sleeping, also the sun was coming up at this time and I could see it was getting light outside. One of the dogs I have currently was laying on the floor in there and he was asleep. I woke him by asking him about where the spoon was, he said he didn't remember. I asked him again and he said he thought in the dishwasher. Thinking I had finished the basic task I was going to go for the advanced task. I told him to watch this and kinda looked at my hand and made a couple of my fingers longer. I put it to my eye and began to push back. My brother bolted up and out of his room and to who knows where. I kinda followed but was more focused on getting my eye out. I kept pushing but just felt pressure and never got to the back of my eye where I could pull it out. I gave up in the kitchen and headed outside.

Outside it was now light. I looked next door in the back yard and there were a bunch of young girls standing around a pool. I kinda jumped/floated over the fence to see what all the commotion was about and saw they were all looking at a snake or lizard in the pool that was swimming around. All of the girls were in swimming suits and were about to I assumed have a lesson. I think I said watch this and I used telekinesis on the snake, wound him in a little ball and crushed it. They all said EWWWW and there was a black cloud now in the pool. I walked through the gaggle of girls and looked at them. They were all still looking in the pool. I looked back at the black cloud which was pretty big and the carcass of the snake was still there. I then grabbed the snake with my 'power' and tossed it out of the pool. I then tried to collect all the black stuff with my mind but didn't' seem to work. They were looking at a bunch of little bugs that were on the water now and they called them like skitters or something. I took a close look at a couple of them and went ahead and headed out.

I jumped over the fence again into the front and was skipping along the sidewalk looking at the neighborhood. I was in a neighborhood with really separated houses and large green yards. I began to come upon a larger house which I planned on going in, it was really big and was an old house like many others in the neighborhood. I thought this one might have some sort of business run out of it like a old folks home or the like. I also thought this dream was lasting an awfully long time and then woke up.

While I didn't get the TOTM done I am stoked at the length of this dream and the fact that this was my first concrete WILD. This was not supp induced at all either.

August 19, 2014

---

So, I didn't remember much of anything while I was on the train home from Utah...

But last night, I had an interesting dream:



I was with my mentor teacher for the fall, and we were getting ready to give a math assessment to the students. It was a weird class, because the students were all varying age groups; two of the 3rd graders I taught over the summer were there, and there were some Kindergarten-aged students, and one 6th grader. I had just finished giving the test to a random student (the tests were all either in a little closet thing or out on a hill in a desert-like place) and was calling one of the students from this summer, T, into the closet. I didn't have all the materials, though, and told him I'd be right back. I went out the door, to my right, and down a hall. There was a door at the end of the hall, and I opened it, going outside. To my immediate right was a chest-height table with some papers and materials on it. I grabbed the stuff from the table (for some reason there was a tree right behind the table, and the branches hung low over it, so I had to brush them away in order to get the papers) and headed back to the room. T finished his test, and I gave him the prize (they all got a present when they finished): a book. It was thick. I told him, "Now, don't you want to challenge yourself with this book?"

Then I got back to the classroom, and my mentor teacher and I talked about whether the other 3rd grader from this summer, J, would hit puberty this year or not. I drew a beard on his face to see what it would look like.





I woke up after this dream; it was only like 3-ish in the morning. I rolled over, and decided to try to WILD again (I've been attempting it for the past few nights).

I closed my eyes, relaxed my body and my breathing, and envisioned walking along a mountain ridge...



Kittens and Platypuses

It wasn't long before I had started dreaming; I wasn't aware of that fact, though. I was simply walking along this beautiful mountain ridge; the Big City was to my left, and the sky was blue with a few wispy clouds. I had the impression that I was supposed to be doing something, and then I saw a man in colorful clothing; I realized it was the Face, and looked down at my hands: I was dreaming!

I walked up to him, remmbering the TOTMs, and asked, "Where's Howl's castle right now?"

He simply grinned, pointed ahead of him (which was to my right, over the mountains), and I grinned right back at him. I jumped off the ridge and started flying in the direction he'd pointed. I passed a few landmarks I recognized from my dream map (an aspen forest and a small hut).

Then I heard the familiar sound of Howl's Castle (that clip starts with the sound) and descended to where I then spotted it. I banged on the door, and yelled, "Sophie, are you home?!"

After a few seconds, the door opened, but it was Zukin inside the castle, not Sophie. Oh well, that worked just fine.

I went inside and looekd around; the room was different than it is in the movie, but I spotted a fireplace to the left, and approached it. "Calcipher?" I asked, and the flame blinked at me.

"Yeah, what's it to you?"
"Is Sophie home?"
"No, she's out learning to fish with Howl. Romantic, isn't it?"
I grinned. "Oh. Well, can you tell me a word in a different language?" I asked, suddenly remembering the other task.
Calcipher flickered a bit and at first didn't say anything. For a moment I thought I might be losing control, because things started to fizzle out a bit, so I touched the hearth, rubbing my hands along it. I thought about putting my hand in the fire, but I figured that would be rude to Calcipher.
He finally answered: "Berzzit."

"Berwhat? Can you spell that?"
"B-E-R-Z-Z-I-T."
"Oh. Berzzit. What does that mean?"
"It means when you wake up and are so groggy that you walk into the doorframe on your way out of your room." Oddly specific, there.
"Huh."

I turned from Calcipher and looked around the room again. The door through which I'd come was closed again, and Zukin had disappeared. I went to the door, and opened it: Still mountains, where I'd entered. I closed it again, and looked at the dial. I knew what everything was supposed to look like because I've seen the movie so many times, and so I knew what to expect. There were five colors though, instead of four, on the dial. It was currently on green. There was also a black, blue, yellow and orange. Naturally I turned it to the orange.

I put my hand on the door handle, closed my eyes, took a breath, not knowing what to expect on the other side. I hoped it was be cool... I opened the door, and opened my eyes.

Boy was it cool. I stepped out into a small clearing in a forest of pines. I turned around to look at where the door was. I was expecting to see a small hut of some sort, but the door just stood on it's own.

I turned back to the clearing, and noticed there were kittens and platypuses all over the place. The Face was also there; he was sitting in the grass, playing with a kitten. "Where are we?" I asked, sitting next to him. He didn't respond, only played with the kitten some more. I picked up the nearest platypus to me, and held it in my lap. I got so distracted with playing with the animals that I lost lucidity and mindlessly frolicked in the clearing with the Face. There may have been other activity beginning with an F, but I can't remember too well.

23:18 pre-bedtime 3mg melatonin
00:00 Monday 2014-08-18

04:00 alarm, 2 x 4mg Galantamind, 1x 300mg Choline Bitartrate, 1x 300mg Alpha-GPC, 1 large rye cracker, 1 banana, immediately back to bed

(no recall, just vague impressions, not even fragments)

05:00 still awake

05-06? very stimulated, familiar body buzzing feeling on G + Ch, difficult to get mind to stay at rest, "relieve tension," BTB

fall asleep somewhere around late 05? or perhaps 06?

06??

+ I'm lucid sitting on a bus, feel unstable, turn around to my right and see a guy sitting in the seat behind me smoking, I grab a strap that runs vertically along his body with my right hand and hold it firmly and say to him, "NO SMOKING ON THE BUS!!". I'd like to stabilize and get deeper into the dream but I can't take my right hand away (like if I did the dream would end) and I can't reach the right hand with my left. I lose visuals and I'm holding both hands on the bar on top of the seat in front of me. The bus starts pitching up and down violently like a ship in tall ocean waves, I feel the bus pitch down sharply and my body lifts up off the seat, still holding on to the bar in front of me, I wonder if the bus is going to start flying into space.

Transition: I'm now a DO flying above behind and to the right of a bus that's driving on a road. The world is a flat-shaded cartoon world: a lot is white, and it's very blocky. The bus turns left at an intersection and them pulls over to a building and stops. I call out "Hey are there any cartoon girls in there?" I see a little guy get off the bus and head in to the building, I follow him and call to him "are you going to show me your cartoon <ahem>?"

+ In a house, in front of a mirror, I pick up an electric toothbrush and turn it on. The sensation in my hand gives me an idea and I place the fairly strongly vibrating toothbrush in a NSFW way in several different positions looking for the best sensation.

+ (I may have been walking through my kitchen at one point). I have a shirt with a large red food stain on it, I feel generally kind of nervous/edgy. I'm outside my kitchen (on a patio?) looking down at my shirt every once in a while, when my friend MR appears in my kitchen looks at me picks something up in his hand and says "Hey <my name> why aren't you eating these pancakes?" I'm thinking those pancakes were cooked some while ago and may not be very clean. He takes a bite and says "pancakes are great for digging out cavities!"

+ colleague JT is holding a joint press statement with the police, they've found his kidnapped son after a long search, he's calling for leniency on the kidnapper -- his wife is hot and busty I see her topless with her arms over her head, get lucid, and enjoy the view and perhaps think about leaning in for some contact for a few seconds before waking up.

+ I'm standing in a hallway (feels like a house) and am immediately lucid. At the lucidity I notice the walls change from uncolored to colored in a modern color scheme: muted warm colored rectangles, smoky translucent glass arranged in patterns. I turn to my left and walk ahead slightly, my attention drawn by incredible colors and patterns. On a (bed?) in a room there I see a pile of cube-shaped pillows (about 4-6 inches on a side) that have a mixture of many different colors in various patterns (mostly straight/triangular lines). I'm astonished at the vivid colors and look at the scene for a few moment to make sure I can remember it. I remember TOTM basic (I) (foreign word) and turn back to where I started expecting to find some people. Just ahead I see the hallway open into a large open area and DCs are mulling around there. I walk up to one and try to say "tell me a foreign word and what it means," but I can barely open my mouth and can barely make any sound. I try again with another DC and the sounds are severely muted like trying to talk under water, the DC just walks away, I try once more and the DC looks at me with a quizzical "say that again?" look, and I slow down and try to speak very clearly. I think it comes out better and the DC answers something like "fribblety-splat". I repeat it back to make sure I heard it correctly. Then I ask her what it means, and she answers "the kakashka is in the F. U." Despite the success I go on to ask a few more DCs in the area and now I can speak clearly and freely. I'm eyeing some DC girls as they walk by, like one, then pick another (long curly blonde hair),

Spoiler for NSFW explicit:

and plan an encounter that calls for her to sit down. I look and see a counter with chairs that might work and I maneuver her there and sit her down and turn to face her. I pull my pants down (with some difficulty) and reach for her head, she's pulled away some, I do a jedi mind trick ("it's my dream you have to do what I want to") and she leans forwards, and right before the magical moment

I wake up.

08:15?
awake, recalling dreams, trying to get BTB, jerks are playing loud music outside somewhere

09:10 ? receive phone call, stand up answer it

Back to bed. I'm quite awake. Should I just get up for the day? NO! I feel I have at least one more LD in me and I'm probably still on the fumes from the G. Boy, I'm awake. OK, if you want it, you have to work for it. You've worked for this, you know what to do, DO IT!

So I do counting breathing up to about 50, that's not helping much, the counting is keeping me too aware. Do my classic sleep kung-fu: on every exhale, sink deeper into relaxation, let EVERYTHING go: mental, physical tension, on EVERY breath, let more and more go, let everything go! And in a short while .... I sleep!

+ I'm lucid in super crowded indoor space like a bookstore. I don't remember anything before this moment of lucidity. YES made it, 4th LD!, Start to to stabilize by rubbing my hands, hey, ... why not rub that cute girl's butt instead? I reach for her butt but she somehow knows what I'm doing and scoots off away from me really fast, I decide not to chase, I think it's pretty funny! Wow this is crowded, mostly young people, cute girls, push past them through a doorway and turn to the left. OK, NOW it's time for a girl! Wait...no, stabilize! I stop and rub my hands, and pound my chest with my fists a few times. At the pounding a DC who was sitting down next to me is startled, and gets down on the ground and scuttles/runs away like an insect. She was wearing a dark/black burka, like a muslim. I thought that was sort of funny/weird. Ah ha, I want to carry a bottle of water with me to stabilize! I think I'm holding a bottle of water and look down at my hands. WOW TRIPPY, my hands and parts of my arms to the wrist are not fully rendered yet by my brain, it looks like I'm wearing black translucent long gloves with bright lines circling all over and sparkles all over them, then I see the "paint" of my skin color creep quickly into my hands. Looks like a computer graphics effect! I'm now holding an empty bottle of water. I will for it to be filled with water. Wait a minute, no, Beer! Be filled with Beer! I see it fill with liquid. I upend the bottle to take a drink with my head back and my mouth open, and a few modest sized splashes of water (darn didn't get beer) hit my tongue and the roof of my mouth at the back of my mouth, the sensation is entirely realistic. I move the water bottle to my left hand. I remember my goal of chewing dream gum to stabilize and stay in the dream, I reach my right hand into my right pants pocket expecting to get some gum there, I feel a lot of coins and something like a wrapper, I bring my hand out and see some coins and an empty wrapper, ah well. I walk forwards (back the way I came) and people are still everywhere, I see a petite girl sitting in a chair

Spoiler for NSFW explicit:

and tell her to "show me your tits." I'm prepared to jedi mind trick her but she complies and starts taking off her top. I'm standing there watching and taking a drink from the water. I think this is taking too long. She gets her top off and I see her skin she's wearing a bra. I get quite excited, she starts taking off the bra and I

I wake up. I'm quite pleased that I got in my 4th lucid in one night, I'm really happy about this. I'm in a hallway in a large area and I look up and see a big analog clock and see that it shows 11 o'clock, wow I've slept quite late! Then I get a dream transition feeling and think "Hey maybe I can DEILD back in!", but I feel more awake, now I'm in bed, really awake, and realize I just missed a FA/transition to non-lucid, ARGH!

10:20 now really awake

The Eyeball
Lucid #36

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I attempt WILD (It might have been a FA because I think my curtains weren't there)
After the HI settles I find myself in my room. I do a RC and I am certain I am dreaming. I keep laying on my bed to stabilize the dream. I yell "Stability" and "Clarity" and my voice sounds like I am speaking in a slow motion video. Although the dream quality doesn't change. I look at a poster of a soccer-player I have in my dream-room and the dream calms and gets really vivid. I decide it is time for me to stand up so I start with sitting on my bed and slowly get up. The dream vividness fades a little when I move but I ignore that..
I remember the eyeball task and stare straight ahead. I take my right hand and move it to my right eye. I take all my five fingers and push it arround the eyeball and it comes out with slight discomfort but no pain. It makes a squishy sound and I have an eyeball in my palm. It looks pretty realistic and I get a little freaked out, although I keep looking at it. It is white with green-brown eyes (I have really dark brown eyes in WL). I can make out some little blood-vessels and the optic nerve is still attached it and fans out in litlle sub nerve endings leaving it looking like a red fern . I also notice some liquid in my palm but then quickly decide to throw that thing away . It hits the wall and I decide to wake myself up to journal (Worst decicision ever)...

It's been awhile since I've had a lucid, but I broke my dryspell last night! It's been awhile since I've even had decent recall of my dreams. I recently got a job and I absolutely hate it with all my heart(I'm a cleaning bitch at a Chinese restaurant). It's put a lot of stress on my back and ever since I've had this job my recall has just taken a vacation pretty much. However over the past couple of days things have gotten better and I've recalled a few minor details from my details. Last night was a huge step for me. I recalled the full length of the dream, from my non-lucid beginning all the way until I woke up at an undisclosed time after attempting a TOTM. I don't know if I completed the task, but I'll leave that judgment up to OpheliaBlue I guess. Anyway...without further adeui I present my dream:

I dream I'm hanging out around the backyard of my old house. Me and all of my best friends are having some sort of party, and everybody is having a great time. We're all spread out around the front yard, back yard and inside of the house having a great time. However there was a really strange difference about my backyard...there was a large baseball field in the back hard. Not like a MLB stadium, but like a field you'd see at a middle school or something. I can't recall if there was a game or not, but I think there was. Anyway, I was hanging out behind the fence placed behind home plate with my friends. Things suddenly took an interesting and somewhat comedic turn. My friend Logan and Frankie were standing by one another, and Logan began to approach her.
"Hey Frankie." Logan began.
"Uh, hey Logan." Frankie acknowledged.
Logan then started to tense up and become very nervous. Frankie looked at him with her eyebrow raised.
"You know how I broke up with Mia awhile ago right?" he asked.
"Uh...yeah...why?" Frankie answered.
"Well I was just...uh wondering...because I'm single now and all..." Logan takes a slight pause as he begins to shed tears. "I was wondering if you wanted to go out sometime?"
Frankie now looked utterly shocked and somewhat weirded out at the same time. Logan was an emotional wreck now as tears began streaming down his face. Me and a couple other friends quickly began to walk away and leave the premises of this very awkward situation. All I can remember is seeing Frankie's very distraught face as she dealt with the very complicated situation.
So as we left, my friends and I began walking down the street towards the intersection. I started thinking about things for a minute, and I then realized that I was dreaming, and became lucid. I immediately turned to my friends and informed them.
"Guys, you know this is a dream right?" I said.
"What're you talking about?" one of them asked.
"Here look, I'll show you," I replied. "You see I can't get hurt in a dream." I then ran into the street and jumped in front of a car going about 25mph, and I was hit and thrown several feet away. I got up, completely unharmed and walked back to them, but they didn't seem to care too much. So they kept walking along, and I decided to try doing a RC just to be safe. I plugged my nose, and I was able to breathe through it. Then I looked at the fronts and backs of my hands, and my right hand had seven fingers. I freaked out for half of a second and flailed my hand around.
I thought for a second of what to do, and I quickly remembered to try and do the task of the month. I was obviously obligated to try out my own task that was out in this month, and so it was my goal now to try and hold up a bank with a banana. I ascended into the air, and so did my friend Connor, which was really weird. I then flew across town to where I knew there was a bank in real life. I did find one, but the city looked much bigger and much more urban than it really is. I saw a Key Bank insignia in the distance, and I flew down to the entrance. I landed and made my way to the door. As I did so, I spawned a banana in my right hand, and I then hid it in my inner pocket of my jacket. I entered the bank, and I looked around. There was a bank vault to my far left, a cash register next to it, and a lot of people sitting down and eating meals. What the hell? Okay so I guess this place is a bank/restaurant. I decided to disregard how unorthodox that was, and I pulled out my banana. I looked across the room and saw my friend Michael and his girlfriend Kaitlyn eating in a booth, and our friend Fred was being a third wheel. Oh this was about to get really interesting.
"Alright everyone listen up!" I shouted. "This is a robbery! Everyone get down on the ground now, and don't try anything and no one will get hurt!"
People began panicking and they all got down on the floor as I instructed. I was surprised they listened when I only had a banana as a weapon. I now took my banana and walked down to the cash register and vault, and I noticed some people were trying to get up.
"Hey! I said don't get up or I'll kill you!" I shouted. No one was listening, and I repeated myself a couple more times.
"I SAID STAY ON THE GROUND OR I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU! COME ON I ONLY SAID IT LIKE FOUR FUCKING TIMES!!!" I screamed.
To that, everybody complied and stayed on the ground. I pointed the banana at the girl at the register and told her the usual deal, and she began removing money. Suddenly, I felt my banana be pulled out of my hand. I turned around to see Fred holding the banana, and he then began to peel it. At the same time, Michael came and tried to attack me, but I knocked him over. God damn it all, now I've gotta handle my own friends. I didn't want this to happen. His girlfriend tried to help but I pushed her back and tried to think of what to do with Michael. So, I grabbed a hot dog from the nearest table and shoved it in Michael's mouth and forced him to choke on it. I then turned and saw Fred eating the banana, and I got pissed. I lunged at him and brought him to the floor. I took the rest of the banana and forced it down his throat so he would choke on that. I got up and returned to the register, where several thousand dollars were resting on the stand, and I prepared to take it all. Suddenly, Fred got up and smiled at me. He then pulled some sort of fucking God power voodoo magic shit and everything changed. I saw Fred standing in front of me smiling from ear to ear, and everyone in the room was calm. I saw the money was still on the desk, and I put my hand on it. Fred made me stop, and he made me look around the room. Around the room everyone was holding assault rifles, and I noticed I had one strapped to me too. I may have had one myself, but I was severely outgunned right now. Knowing I had been defeated, I immediately left the bank/restaurant and started walking down the concrete path. I saw more of my friends and other random DCs down a large staircase, and I became curious. I held my rifle, a SCAR-H, and I fired off a few shots. One hit my friend in the knee on accident, but he wasn't bleeding. I quickly realized it was only an airsoft gun...I had definitely been fooled back there. Holy shit. I don't quite recall what happened after that, but I don't think I did much more before I awoke.

Ritual: Went to bed at 2am, much later than I had intended. Wanted to wake up between 4-4:30 if possible so I could make a sandwich for my husband to take on his flight. Didn't set alarm, only intention; if it didn't work, that was fine. Woke up promptly at four so got up and went to the kitchen. Then I realized if I didn't stay up to give him the sandwich he would never know it existed, so in the end I didn't go back to bed until after he left at 5. I repeated my tasks aloud a few times to make them easier to remember, using simple keywords: "eyeball, calcifer, fairy tale." Wanted to give SSILD another fair shake after recent lack of success—been falling asleep too easily. After this hour-long WBTB I arranged a ramp of pillows to elevate my upper body and settled back to do SSILD, supposing that the half-reclining would help inhibit sleep. It did—and I realized I had been semi-dozing rather than really sleeping when I got up again at 5:40 and decided to dismantle the pillow-ramp to get some proper sleep. I didn't notice REM during any of these sleep and half-sleep periods so I wasn't optimistic, but I did a couple SSILD cycles on my side before drifting off to sleep fairly quickly. It was 6:30am when I woke up for real (after FA) and began this account.

FA: "....it ignored me, and I felt silly talking to a fire."

Okay, guess now I have to start over. Wrote half of the account up in FA. Which is funny, because when I woke up I did sense that I could probably re-enter the dream state but decided not to because I wanted to write a solid report on what I'd done so far. And here I had felt so responsible and industrious! I wrote down quite a bit but only remember the last line word for word, so I reproduced it above. It's interesting that it is worded in the past tense. My dream reports often swap randomly between past and present tense but the present tense predominates.

DILD: I was in my bedroom in the half-light of early morning, and I heard voices outside the room. This confused me, because no one else should be home right now. One of them sounded like my brother, but he shouldn't be here. And I could hear another voice, a man's voice I didn't recognize. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand, thinking I'd dial in "9-1-1" and have the call ready to go if needed before I investigated further, in case it was burglars or something.

The phone wasn't working. It seems to be stuck on the calendar app, and even this is in some weird and confusing format. I keep pressing the main button to try to get back to the home screen so I can reach the page to dial from, but nothing helps. I still hear the voices and worry that the intruders might come into the room before I can get the phone working and then I'll have no recourse. Should I go outside to the back patio, so it will be easier to run away if necessary? At some point the absurdity of the whole scenario finally strikes me and I wonder if I'm dreaming. Since no one is around to see, I do a quick nose pinch. I can breathe easily. So I am dreaming! Oh good, there were tasks I needed to get done! I realize that since this was a DILD, I'm probably already fairly well-integrated into the dream state and check my impressions. A bit of roughness as I begin to move but not too bad, and the dream feels stable. I don't feel the need for further stabilization as long as I can avoid letting the paranoia of waking wake me up, so I put it out of mind and walk rapidly to the kitchen.

I've brought my phone and figure it might come in handy at some point later on, so I try to slide it into the pocket of my skirt. Trouble is, I'm not wearing a skirt. I make the "sliding into pocket" gesture a few times, intending a long skirt with pockets to manifest, but it doesn't and the phone falls to the floor. Whatever. At least the pattern is in place, so I feel confident that I can get it out of my pocket later if I need it.

I grab the bread from the kitchen counter, noting that it is a packet of round pita bread rather than the sandwich loaf that is there in waking life, and head out to the patio. Which task first? I love the idea of Howl's Moving Castle so I decide to start with that one. First I try to summon the castle directly, not through any special method, just willing it to approach on its own legs. It doesn't appear promptly, so I start with plan B: conjure a fire, call it "Calcifer," and feed it until it becomes strong enough to build the castle from the ground up. The first part should be easy; I've practiced conjuring fire before in this very spot. So I hold out my right hand and concentrate on creating a flame in my open palm. There's just one problem. It is raining, quite heavily actually. Typical dream perversity! I'm trying to fill my palm with fire, but meanwhile it is filling up with water. I ignore the dream's little joke, and keep concentrating on the fire.

Sure enough, I shortly begin to feel the heat and see the brightness of the flame. I set it on the ground and start feeding it chunks of pita bread, calling it "Calcifer" and trying to coax it to respond. It grows larger at first, but doesn't show any sentience, and now the rain is causing it to dwindle despite my attempts to feed it. I decide to continue this experiment indoors, out of the rain. I pick up the fire, just carrying it in my hands, go inside and set it down again on a flat stone ledge, about two and half feet in width and height (the interior of the house no longer corresponds in any way to RL). I feed the fire and continue calling it "Calcifer" to try to get a response, but it ignores me, and I feel silly talking to a fire. I go outside, careful to take the fire out again with me so as not to leave it untended in the house, and fly up in the air before releasing it. I instruct it to go seek out Howl's Castle, hoping that it might reappear at some point later point in the dream.

I return to the ground, once again in a place recognizably like my back patio, though it is no longer raining. What next? I realize the eyeball task should be quick and easy, if I can stomach it, so I ought to knock that one out of the way. I consider going inside the house to use a real mirror, but I don't want to waste time so I stand outside the sliding glass door to the kitchen and rely on the faint reflection of myself I can see there. There is nothing unusual about my reflection—much less so than usual, actually. When thinking about this task in waking life I had decided (for the sake of safety and squeamishness) to try to remove the eyeball in a more hands-off way, simply raising my palm and trying to pop it out through will alone, but now that I'm ready to go I don't even remember that idea. Instead I lift my right hand to my right eye and just start digging in there. I feel a momentary discomfort, enough to make me think, "I'd better be damn sure I'm dreaming!" before I feel the fingers slide smoothly into the socket with little pain, and this reassures me.

The eye pops out easily, but it is attached to a surprisingly thick, gross, fleshy stalk. Even at the time I realize that my experience has probably been colored by other accounts of this task I've already read on the DV thread, some of which mention similar stalks. The stalk is inconvenient and ugly so I keep pulling until the eyeball breaks free, then turn it around to inspect it. It looks remarkably like an eyeball. I had been hoping that it would transform into something cool, like an orb of glass or even a jewel. But nope. It is a disturbingly life-like eyeball, with a distinct iris and pupil and even a bit of red tattered membrane where the stalk had been attached. When I aim the iris and pupil toward me, they already look dead and unseeing, so it doesn't occur to me to try to use this eyeball to see with. Also, although I don't take note of this at the time, in retrospect I can report that there was no subjective change in my experience of vision; I was still "seeing" as though with two intact eyes.

I had meant to look at my reflection again after pulling the eye out, but I forget to do so. Instead I'm absorbed in inspecting this very ordinary-looking eyeball and trying to find any notable details to report. I do observe that the iris seems to have changed color: from the initial blue it has faded to a drab brown. It is still kind of creepy to be holding my eyeball, so without experimenting further I pop it back in. Luckily no difficulties there, and only then do I remember to check my reflection. I look normal and still don't notice any changes to my vision. I feel a momentary regret that I didn't remember to try to transform the eyeball into something else before putting it back in, but I feel reasonably satisfied with the task so I'm ready to move on.

Now I'm down to the last of the three tasks I'd planned, and I feel a bit apprehensive. In one way or another, this damned Hansel and Gretel idea has been eluding me. But I still have my bag of pita bread, so I get started: my plan is to start dropping breadcrumbs as I walk, hopefully find myself in a forest, and see what happens from there. I re-read the story a few weeks ago in my copy of Brothers Grimm, but I haven't tried to flesh out the intended scenario because I want to give the dream leeway to respond creatively to my breadcrumb trail. So I start walking across the patio and dropping crumbs, and now I just have to figure out which way to go. My original plan had been to start on the street in front of the house, which had once transformed into an ideal forest in a previous unrelated dream, but now I'm behind the house and want to get started right away rather than have my plans potentially disrupted by a detour. It's okay, I'd planned for this too. I figured the hill behind the house might be wild enough that I could start climbing it and work it into a suitable forest. However, now when I look in that direction, I see a paved concrete footpath that leads between suburban houses with neatly trimmed lawns. Dream is being perverse again. In the opposite direction is a second path, smaller, with a similar suburban aspect. Which one will lead me sooner to a forest? Both look completely domesticated. I figure I'll just start with the first one and try thinking "forest" as I go. I start off, dropping my bread crumbs, but with no warning I wake up—or out of the dream, at least. As mentioned above, I sensed that I could re-enter the dream state but decided to write my report instead, was under the impression that I had gotten up, and wrote for quite a while before waking up for real.

Grossssssssssssssssssssssssssssss....... :hurl:

Ok here's what happened: I remember being in the car with my real dad, driving down the highway. It suddenly dawned on me that I shouldn't be in California, so I bet I'm dreaming. I had just enough doubt about it though, and didn't want to just open the car door. Plus even lucid accidents can hurt. So I tried to be subtle by just poking my finger through the roof of the car, and it went through as if it were made of jello. YES! My dad glanced over at me with a "wtf?!" look on his face. I said "No time to explain! I gotta take out my eyeball real quick." I took 3 fingers from my right hand, and curved them into a sort of scoop, then stuck them in the inner corner of my right eye. It felt loose and ready to easily scoop out. So I scooped it out, but it acted like it had some pressure built up behind it, like it's been meaning to come out for a while (which it HAS.. been attempting this task for a while). So when it came out, about a foot of optic nerve and optic muscles kinda hurled out with it, with my eyeball still attached. My dad and I both screamed "Ew GROSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!" and I got a flinch of panic. "What if I can't put my eyeball back in and can't wake myself up, and have to go through this whole dream with a gross dangling eyeball?" Because let's face it, it felt real, and I was no blind in that eye. So I oh so carefully shoved the whole mess back into my eyesocket, all the while telling myself "It'll be ok, it's going in fine, no problem." It went back in fine, and I blinked a couple times and could see again. My dad was looking at me peripherally with a mixed expression of disbelief and disgust. Then I just lost it. I bent forward and howled with laughter. I mean, it was a deep, jolly LOUD laugh at all the ridiculousness that just happened, and then I woke up.