task of the month

This was a very vivid, DC-heavy lucid from this morning. I finally remembered to do the "ask a DC about the meaning of life" Basic Task of the Month.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #134: The Dream Fairgrounds

I'm driving on a freeway with Wife and my 4-year-old son "E". Traffic's heavy and I'm in the middle of making a difficult merge but Wife is insisting that I adjust the air conditioning while I'm in the middle of this. I look down, quickly fiddle with a knob, then look back up to find that we're now driving backward down the freeway!

I gibber some kind of complaint about how this is why she shouldn't bother me when I'm driving, and the car turns back in the right direction again. This has to be a dream. Now that I'm lucid, I want to get up in the air and start figuring out how to accomlpish my goals. I feel weird abandoning Wife and E, though. I think about grabbing onto them and kind of phasing through the car with them, but it sounds intimidating. I wonder whether I could just fly the car itself around, and as soon as I think about this, it works -- our SUV is flying high above the freeway!

The city looks vivid and enormously detailed. Most of it is dominated by a huge fairground that stretches off as far as I can see. The fairground is a mixture of tents, stadiums, amusement park rides, golden domes, and even out-of-place landmarks like the Hagia Sophia. Scattered among these are more mundane buildings like banks. One of the rides is a looping starship ride that I remember from my childhood.

Everywhere I look there's something new. I'm overwhelmed and pleased by all of the detail and I laugh at the sheer quantity of images being thrown at me. The car flies quietly over the fairground for a while before I decide that we should land and look around. I look down at one of the rides and my perspective "zooms" down to that level.

The car is gone now and Wife and E are walking beside me. I feel excited as a little kid by this fair, and I'm amused (and dismayed) to see that every adult DC is a bored, miserable-looking parent with their face buried in a smartphone. I work my ass off at lucid dreaming to spend a few minutes a night in a place like this and you DCs couldn't care less!

We walk past the rides and attractions for a while and I see a lot of familiar people from my life, including my little nephew, my sister-in-law Sissy, brother-in-law Muppet, as well as The Schwartz and his wife and kids. Eventually it occurs to me that I need to get moving if I'm going to accomplish one of my goals, and I think of the Australia Task of the Year. I'm just about to jump up to fly off for a new scene, but luckily I remember the "ask a DC about the meaning of life" task.

I walk back over to E and say, "Hey, buddy. What's the meaning of life?"

He lays the side of his head down on a nearby crate and says, "To not die..." I'm not sure that I heard him right so I ask him to repeat that. He says, "Not dying." (He's been having anxiety about death lately, which is probably where this comes from.)

Wife's nearby, so I ask her too. She looks pensive for a moment. "To see the best of living."

Satisfied, I turn my attention back to my other goals. There's not much left of this dream, though, and before I can do much else it ends.

Dream 1:

I was in my home city at night and with this girl, I didn't know her but she said we could go and look around this place even though it was locked up. I was a little scared of getting caught and getting in trouble with the police but then the girl said something strange; "You are the master of time and they will obey and bow down to you". Didn't make me lucid strangely enough even after we went inside and saw this dummy in a waistcoat come over from nowhere and open the door for us. Inside was a sight to behold, a huge pocketwatch looking clock was on the wall opposite me, it must have been at least 100ft tall and it had people all over it. I could see they were working on it and polishing it. The girl had disappeared and in her place was a young, tall, slim man with a bit of a beard on his chin. He had fairly short slicked back hair and told me that if I was the master of time I needed to look the part. I glanced to my left and saw a rack of clothes, on it coincidentally was a waistcoat I'd seen irl a few days ago. But before I could put it on the girl came back, I can't remember what she said but we ended up walking through a red door at the end of the hall. We came out into a pub of some sort and we had to keep a dog inside. Unfortunately it escaped from its enclosure but I stopped it from going out of the front door. After that I left.

I bumped into my girlfriend and since it was evening she suggested we get something to eat on a boat. I agreed and started to walk with her. We kept passing one of my other friends, she was visiting all of these strange meat shops and I asked her why, but can't remember what she said nor what happened after that.

Dream 2:

This one I tried to WILD. It worked however it was very very light sleep.

I was on a pirate ship at sea, the dream wasn't really stable and there was no clarity. But the one thing I remembered to do is one of the TOTMs. So I ran up to quite a young boy on the deck and hurriedly asked him what the meaning of life is. He instantly replied "Blue banana whale in time" .......wat? O.o Before I had time to question him further the realisation came that I'd just completed the task of the month, I got too excited and woke up.

What a weird response though, certainly wasn't expecting that. Oh well, it gives me something to wonder about

Date: 6th Aug

Pre bed: gingko, 1 capsule p. oil (200mg)

Total sleep time: 9 hrs

Natural wakes: 2?, I was way too sleepy to do a proper WBTB and actually attempted to convince myself to forget about lucidity and just sleep.

Dream quality and recall: due to my extra sleepiness, I didn't care too much about recalling, and I'd say recall for the ld was more challenging as it was quite long and also interrupted two times.

Dream length: It felt very long and at the end of the dream I started forgetting some details.

Pre ld dream: I am in grandma and auntie's place with 3 friends and we are preparing to go to grandma and auntie's? I am very slow packing, as I can't find my hair brush. There are lots of hair brushes around the place but none of them is mine. I go to the bathroom and look in the mirror, I have just dyed my hair but don't like the hairstyle. I focus on my teeth. One tooth looks very wrong and not like a tooth at all. I get some pasta/tortellini out of my mouth and into the sink, turn the water on and hope it disappears before my friends come to check on me.

DILD: The earliest event that I remember is that we, maybe 3 of us, are being chased by these guys riding horses. Therefore, we have to flee. The narrator of the dream (or my mind) says something about one of them having to cross a bridge. While this happens, I cross the bridge. Interestingly, it is more like a street covered in water going to yard-like greenery.

So, I cross this watery bridge and end up in a section with water and lots of green grass and trees all around me. The problem is there is something that is preventing you from normally moving there, there are desert type of mice, very small but dangerous. I think this is where I become lucid, but since I am very sleepy, my thinking is not at its best, so I go along with the dream. The mice look cute, but keep on biting me and I have nowhere to go. As I stand there, slightly desperate that I am stuck in this place, I remember that I can modify the dream and escape the water/bitting mice trap. I simply turn to my other side and see where I can go.

There are strange ropes arranged into I have no idea what. Other DCs are using them to get out of there and safely cross (possibly over the water). The ropes look too thin to be able to carry our weight (yes, my brain is very asleep), but I still go balancing on these strange ropes, and also there are wooden beams below them on which we walk while holding to the ropes. As I do that, I notice small insects on the beams below, but they are mostly ladybugs and other harmless ones.

My memory is really bad, I know there were two blackouts, but I can't remember at what point the one occurred.

I am in the middle of the hill with the greenery and my initial goal is to move away from the biting mice, but then I just want to go down the hill. The sight gets more beautiful as I see a fantastic beach with clear green water at the end.

If I am not mistaken, I try flying to speed things up, but after ascending a bit, I quickly land in some sporadic water that appears along the way. As I do so, my body submerges in the water, I try swimming but have a void-like moment and as I emerge above the water my sight disappears. No! It's totally black around me, but maybe because it was so unexpected I can still feel the dream around me. I think that I am blind like Xanous, and remember to just relax and wait. I hear a woman talking next to me, so I concentrate on her voice and hold on to it. I may have said something to her as well. Soon the dream comes back and my sight returns, things are back to normal.

I am now inside a small house on the same hill and this DC woman is with me. I look around but the only thing I remember is some sort of pillow with the name of bf's high school on it. Then I examine the DC woman, maybe in her late forties or early fifties, with short ginger hair and brown eyes. I say something to her and look her in the eyes, expecting an answer. As I do that, she freezes in place, and her eyes are like those of a scared pray animal. I think that I don't want to cause any more distress so I let go of her and just leave her be. She then animates again and with expectations I make her laugh, so she laughs. All good. If she wants she can come with me down the hill. But I am so concentrated on the landscape, I forget about her.

I see brief glimpses of the beach, and then more trees and greenery, but at least I know it's there and am very close now. I continue my way down the hill and reach a part where it is very high, but I am almost there as I see the shifting beach/houses/yards. Here a habit from my non-lds comes in very handy. I see lots of trees in front of me, so I just hold on to a branch, and move forward with it. My desire to reach my destination makes those branches swing way beyond what they are supposed to and there is always another branch waiting for me to get on to. Swinging from one branch to another, some of which extremely fragile and with flowers on them, I make it down to the beach.

Somewhere along the way, I remember the advanced TOTM which I didn't plan of doing, but may as well try. I briefly think that this dream has been going on for quite a while and I am already starting to forget it. I look to the beach in front of me, but now instead of the yellow sand and light green water, the sand is grey and the water is dark. I try to change the color of the sand, but it remains grey. I notice how violently the waves crash and the water moves. Never seen anything like this and I have no intention of going in and trying to turn into a shark under these conditions. So, I decide to wait until things improve, and find a spot on the beach where by the way the sand is turning more yellowish. I lie on the sand and think about how I am going to turn into a shark and then maybe go in the water. I try to feel my fins and my shark body (kind of big and bloated) but the dream ends.

Comment: Now that I think about it, the location was also very good for Angel Falls or China...

Fuck my new format I'm lazy. I'll just make it easy on myself.

Red-NLD
Blue-LD
Black-Awake

I find myself amongst many classmates in someone's living room. The living room turns out to be my English teacher's house from this past year(I've never actually been to it or in it IRL). He is teaching us very angrily about something no one could give a damn about. He finally gives up and just makes us watch a movie. After class is over, everyone rushes to leave the creepy rundown home and get to our own homes. I leave through the garage as the door opens and the teacher's wife pulls into the garage after me. I go outside to see a very urban city setting(I live in a suburb IRL). I see many of people out and about as I begin to make my way home. But then, I do ADA and I become lucid! I turn around and a woman with half a face walks past me. Kinda creeped out now, I continue walking and contemplating what I should do. I now decide to do the hug a DC TOTM. I realize when I wake up it will be August, so there's no point really, but I still would like to try it. So I now walk over to the nearest DC and give her a big hug. She now begins to squirm and struggle to break free. I try hold the hug, when suddenly we are now both naked.

Anyone can guess what might've happened next, but I was doomed to soon awake.

I fly near a gas station. I land there and think that I don't want to spend entire dream flying. So what to do? I remember I can accomplish TOTM. Well there are lot of DCs around the station, so it should be easy. I see truck driver and ask him: What is the meaning of life? I don't know is his answer. I try to ask 4 other DCs during the dream, but everybody say the same answer: I don't know. One of them say after I don't know: Maybe you should... but i forget the rest. Then I practice move through a wall and doors. On the first attempt the doors stuck in my body, it was an unpleasant feeling.

Non Dream
Dream
Lucid

I don't remember how I got lucid (probably MILD) but I did. I was in the kitchen of a house with my brother in law and my crush. I tried to change things up a bit so I went into another room to summon another girl using my usual behind the hand trick. I couldn't summon anybody. I went back into the kitchen and went to my brother in law. He's real intellectual so I thought he would provide a more interesting answer. "What's the meaning of life?" I asked him. He said he knew and seemed confident. He started by saying "It's all about the pretty things" before talking about random stuff I couldn't understand. Then, he started talking about the anatomy of the earth itself. In the end, the final answer which I confirmed with him was that was the meaning of life is the earths core, mantle, crust, and all of the things on top. After that I decided to have a thumb war with my crush which she won with her small, quick little thumb. After that, I lost lucidity as indescribable nonsense and chaos (I won't bother) ensued before I woke up.

Date: 5th Aug

Total sleep time: 7 hrs<

Pre bed: Calcium&Magn, 100mg B6

Natural wakes: 6x, vivid dreams after each, lazy to record, also mislaid notebook

Early dream(+3 hrs?): a memory of a lucid, where I didn't do anything in particular? We were gathered on street around a fountain/pillar?

Dream: An emotional personal dream with a rather unpleasant outcome. Sadness and anger.

Dream: Sitting on the table of a local cafe. My high school classmates smoke cigarette after cigarette. I am thinking about that, blowing out clean air in front of me.

Dream: A bit like a FA, or was it a dream, this was more hearing the dream than seeing it. Mom is talking with dad that she regrets not noticing the details of her dream, because this is the third time she actually has a lucid.

LD: After trying to fall asleep for a while after the natural wake, I catch myself in the midst of a dreamlet. I see my bf already in the dream on the street, but I am still there more of a side spectator than an in-dream presence. My bf starts doing repetitive movements with his hands as if he is entering the dream as well. I concentrate and soon my hands and body appear in the dream. I have a little trouble moving, feel my body slightly paralyzed, but am relaxed about it and just wait. Bf gives me a hand and pulls me closer, which helps me become more solid. He is very friendly and nicer than most of his DC appearances and I wonder whether this could be a shared dream. I walk on the street for a bit, but things destabilize, then the dream is possibly back again. Memory gap?

I have no idea what happened but now am on the roof floor of a building with lots of kids around. I think I lost my lucidity or am quite distracted at this point. The kids are playing with two balloons, one red and one blue, and I am getting closer to the edge of the building as they almost throw one of the balloons too far. I have worries about falling down. Then I go over one of the kids and tell her to turn off/change the music. Here I regain my lucidity as I try to go down while I get a strange fear of heights. I conclude that when people feel this fear they enter a similar to the dream state while awake. Some sort of exaggerated anxiety mood.

I am now one floor below, with my bf and a number of DCs next to me. I decide to ask my bf about the meaning of life. Again, he looks more like himself here. At first he answers something about "going forward", which I very much like. I tell him to repeat it again but instead he says "I like going back and forward" and then blurts out "Money". This disappoints me a bit. I want to get more and better answers so ask another DC. This guy looks falsely familiar and initially gives me the impression I might have encountered a real dreamer as he begins to ponder the question. But then he just keeps repeating "mmm" and "mmmhum" and doesn't say anything. I am annoyed and feel the dream is slipping away as I have been waiting too long. The dream stops but instead of going through the void, I lose consciousness. It takes maybe about 10 seconds and I am back in the dream.

I was in some sort of a corridor before and now I go into the next room where there are a lot of DCs from my class. I want to ask once again, so I organize those DCs which are now around 20 to gather in front of me as if I am about to take a picture of them. I then make an intro and ask them what the meaning of life is. Lots of my classmates raise hands and I select K. who is smiling to answer. She starts a long speech about happiness. She doesn't say anything exciting, just tells me about her life. I have no more interest in getting the question answered. I then address the whole class and ask them if they know what a lucid dream is and if they have had one. A few try to say something, but it is really hard to concentrate as there are too many DCs in the room. I tell them that this is a lucid dream, but then begin to worry that I might actually be having a shared dream with someone and they might think I am crazy. I leave them to talk with one another. I lose consciousness again, the dream is back in a few seconds. (no void)

I am trying to think of more tasks when I see this pretty Asian girl maybe around 20 years old. I start having distracting side thoughts and want to get close to her but she looks scared and tries to run away. I relax a bit and so does she. She lies on my lap as I marvel her beautiful hair and caress her. When she stands up, I notice she is wearing a knee-length dress. I know it is a bad idea to do it temptation-wise, but I just can't resist and start licking her leg. (Yes, I have a problem!) I notice how super real her leg looks, feels and tastes (a bit salty). I am still considering whether I should fully indulge or try to remember and do other tasks, when the dream suddenly ends. I stay still, but am too wakeful to DEILD or fall asleep.

Comments: I did some quick reading related to neurotransmitters and noticed that B6 plays a role in the synthesis of five: serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine and GABA. So, after the intake of B6 it is likely that my levels of these increase.The usual effects for me are earlier onset of memorable dreams (today first wake was at plus 3hrs), emotionally loaded dream contents (often aggressive DCs, sometimes me running away, i.e. fight or flight response, also some sexy moments), reduced sleepiness/increased alertness. After thinking about the effects, it looks like one neurotransmitter receives a significant boost and influences the overall mood of the dream - dopamine. I feel that this information finally coming to my attention is important as it increases my understanding of dream intensity and may help me eventually achieve better control during lds.

So the dream starts out with me walking home. Some guy pulls up in a truck. He looked sort of shady and he was carrying a gun. I then started trying to wake myself up.

Then I realized, wait, I'm trying to wake myself up? I tried to imagine the guy turning into some sort of a gummy bear. It worked, but it was more like a pile of green mush.

At this point I'm really exited, I start to remember the task of the month. Which is teach a DC something you don't know how to do. My thoughts were, my mom was a DC, so I would teach her something. I flew over to her work, then realized it was night time. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the world being light out. It worked! My mom was pulling up in her van.

I stopped her at the door and said "I'm going to get you a better job, you hate your job." This was true, she complains about her job a lot. She smiled and said OK. We both got in the car and she started driving. She passed her grandparents on the street, and said "I'm going to be a flutist ". So then the problem of finding out something for her to do was over. I don't know a clue about the flute.

As we were driving down (it seemed like a short time) she veered off into the woods. I started freaking out but she remained un-phased as we flew through trees.

Yes. Through them.

I closed my eyes, for no apparent reason, then opened them just as quickly. We were in a new place! I had teleported! I then tried it again, only ending up at the same spot we were at 5 seconds ago. I tried it one more time, this time imagining a music place...

And then I woke up.

Damn it.

I guess I learned my lesson about how NOT to teleport.

But hey! I did:
Transform someone
Fly
Dilate time
Go through things
And teleport!

Oh, and fail at a task of the month.

Seems pretty good to me.

Dream, Lucid, Comment

We (my family and I) were in a house that wasn't ours. It was more like a mansion, actually. Everyone was busy exploring the place and playing with stuff. My mom brought me this weird item that supposedly was an ear bud; the part that was supposed to go in your ear was a flat electronic chip. "Take it", she insisted, "it'll help you." I wasn't sure how, exactly, it was supposed to help me, but I took it from her and put it in my ear, and suddenly the dream became way more vivid. I thought to do a reality check, but instead of counting my fingers, I counted my toes.
I realized it was a dream even before counting; my foot looked normal (five toes, by the looks of it), except for those two extra thumb-like toes that were sticking out of the side. Next thing I know, I was sitting in my living room, along with my sister. I tried to remember what the ToTM was, and then asked her something along the lines of "what does life mean to you?" I was kinda hoping she would say 42. I'm not sure what she said, if she replied at all. What a bummer.
The rest of the dream isn't very exciting to read, and I'm too lazy to type it. So yeah.

test to see what the dream will look like

At the end of one of my dreams a man who has been chasing me finally caught me and when he did i realized i was dreaming and appeared in a different dream with little awareness. I am in a Neighborhood similar to my own but the roads are all water ways because his neighborhood is built on water kinda like the place in Italy with all the water ways. I am on a front porch of someones house and I decide to fly onto the roof to get a better look around. I jump into the air but I just fall back down and fail to fly. I then close my eyes and raise my arms in the air and start to float to the top of the house where a woman grabs my hand and pulls my onto the roof. I then give her a giant hug for the task of the month and I get a feeling like I want to have sex with her. Then waiting for her reaction, she turns into my dog and I wake up to hear my dog scratching and barking at my door.

This is my first lucid dream without any supplements, so this is a HUGE milestone.


Something had happened which had killed me, and I suddenly realized I was dreaming. I went inside a house which exploded as soon as I went inside. I went to another house which windows broke as I got close. I saw someone in there, and I had to tell them that I was dead, and they had to find out who killed me.

The guy was in a panic and about to leave, but then I told him to stop. He started to run down the street but I easily kept up. I forgot what I had been saying to him, but he calmed down. I proceeded to explain how I died and how he as to find out who. (I still knew I was dreaming, I just wanted to have some fun.)

After I told him, I decided to leave and stabilize the dream a little bit. I remembered the advanced task, and decided to try it. I was pretty doubtful but I did it the way CL did and held me hand out, saying something along the lines of "Hello Mr. President." I felt a hand grab mine and I looked back. The first thing I did was laugh cause I was lodging onto an arm coming out of a 15 foot pitch black Obama's calf. I had trouble keeping up with him cause he had a big stride, so I shrunk him (the first time I've ever done anything like that). He soon was the size he should be, and the color. I went in front of him and he for some reason had garbled Obama speech. I pulled my fist back and slammed it into his face. I tried to punch him a lot more but the dream started to glitch up and wouldn't let me. He reacted by making a small little "Hmph" noise and looking like he was about to cry.

Record skip.

I was on my families patio and I had a big toy recurve bow, i decided to try and spawn a quiver in my hand but the dream suddenly became unstable and I just saw a quiver floating in my FOV. I prepped myself for a DEILD but I had a false awakening into another dream.

Date: July 24, 2013
Method: MILD & WBTB with WILD
Total Sleep Time: 8-9 hours

Dream #1

Well, I went to bed extremely sleepy, so sleepy, I broke a record by going to bed before midnight! I kept waking up in the middle of night, I guess because I went to bed so early, I kept thinking it was time to get up. I would use the bathroom and every time I would get back to bed, I would say my mantra and try my best to stay awake. Sometimes, I would go to sleep, but I would be back up in a couple of hours doing the same thing all over again. (that's just how my body works, I naturally wake up in the middle of night). Well, by the third time, in the middle of a dream, I felt my vibrations and I became lucid. I was in what looked like a hotel and I was talking to someone at the front desk. I couldn't get over how the person didn't really look like a human to me (and I can't explain what he looked like either). Somehow, my super lucid senses kicked in and I heard a voice in my head say, "Stop staring and hug the damn thing...NOW!" I flew over that counter and wrapped my arms around that 'thing' and held on for dear life! After what seemed a few minutes, I let go (I guess I thought if I didn't hold on long enough the thing would vanish or evaporate). I was so scared, but I had to wait for the reaction, so I just stood there ready to be vaporized or punched in the face by that thing, but instead, it just smiled at me. I lost lucidity soon after that, but when I woke up, I wrote down the little bit I retained and laid back down trying to see if I could continue, but I think the excitement messed that up for me. I was so excited! I don't know where that voice came from that told me to hug that thing, but THANK YOU!

Dream #2

I laid back down and repeated my mantra and went back to sleep and had a non-lucid, but it was very vivid. I was in an elevator and it kept going up and down without stopping. The other DC in the elevator told me that it must be broken and soon I began to freak out. I suffer from extreme motion sickness in WL, so I guess this followed me into my dream world, so I felt my stomach start to bubble and boil..I was getting ready to hurl. The DC started moving around trying to push the buttons on the elevator and calling for help and finally, the elevator stopped. When the doors of the elevator opened, I fell out the doors like a puddle of liquid and the other DCs just stepped over me to go on their merry way. I felt like I was still in a hotel because I went up to my room and I found several people sleeping as I tried to tell them what had just happened to me. They didn't want to hear it because they were asleep and one of them told me to shut up and go to sleep! So...that is exactly what I tried to do...until I saw a live turtle stuck to my shirt !

So I've decided to do a 30-day challenge of using the SSILD technique. I have experimented with the technique before with somewhat mixed success. So this time I'm going to use nothing but SSILD for the next 30 days and record how many LD's and FA's I get. So here we go:

Day 16

(Obligatory note about how I've missed over a week of entries because my sleep schedule's been messed up when in reality it's because I'm too lazy to get up early in the morning anymore...)

So I went to bed late last night and got up early this morning, but I decided this afternoon would be the perfect time to take a lucid nap. I took 300 mg of B6 before I went to bed about 2 pm. Although I laid there until about 2:30 after doing the cycles, I finally got to sleep, and kind of had my first ever WILD, but without the lucidity (WID?). Like for the first time I watched the HH until it kind of popped into a dream scene, but for some reason I wasn't lucid right away. I guess that counts as success, but anyway...

I started out in some kind of video game kind of like Banjo-Kazooie, in that it was an open world but I had to complete missions to collect some special tokens or something. The missions had me going to various places, like my brother's apartment, my dorm room, and some weird island. After this, my boss from work was leading me to some place (my two dream signs are work and video games, and BOOM here they are in the same dream, and I'm still not lucid yet...). However, along the way, he leads me into this warp point that takes me to some secret area for some secret mission. The only problem is that I've already done the mission, apparently, so I remember mentally hitting the back button several times to get back to the main world. After the second or third time, my boss finally turns around to me and says "Maybe I should stop running into those things, huh?".

He finally leads me into this mall, and I find myself lost in the middle of JC Penney. There's tons of people around. I don't remember what, but something about the scene makes me lucid. I take a few moments to realize that I am dreaming, and therefore this is a dream - nothing is real (something I seem to always forget in my lucids...). I decide that I want to talk to my dream guide, so first I decide to thin out the crowd. I yell out "There's nobody here." I call it out a few times, and each time, there seems to be less and less people until soon the store is empty. I then decide to summon my dream guide, which I determined from an earlier dream is a gray-haired wolf-like creature. I call out his name several times, expecting him to be right around the corner, but he never comes. One time, however, I think I see him around the corner, so I run around to find that it's just a furry gray purse (doh, so close...). I finally decide to abandon that track and just have my first talk with my subconscious. I yell out that I want to talk to my subconscious. I yell this several times, but find no one. I see this tall shelf in front of me, so I decide to climb up to get a better view. I take kind of a Superman-ish leap and jump on top of it (that was easy...). I look out, and I see the busy mall beneath me.

Suddenly, someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around to see this guy that kind of looks like a younger, more buff Christopher Eccleston (aka the ninth Doctor, aka the Doctor that was in the only episode of Doctor Who that I've ever watched...). All he says to me is that I should get out soon as he points to a door down on the ground. I ask him if he is my subconscious, and he says something like he is my "pre-subconscious", but he can help me get to my subconscious, but first I have to run. There's this explosion on the other side of the mall, and all of a sudden water starts flowing from the source of the explosion. I was apparently not on the shelf anymore since I don't remember jumping down before I ran towards the door he pointed out. He kind of ran with me some of the way, but we got separated when I got to the door. I saw some of my friends outside, and they called me over to where one of my teachers was sitting with his car. I got in and we drove off to the beach.

I was suddenly in my swimsuit, apparently, and I walked to the water. Before I got there, though, the guy I talked to in the mall walked up to me and stopped me. He introduced himself to me as C44 (pronounced "C-four-four", yeah, I don't get it either...). He walked me over to this group of people by an umbrella. He introduced me to these other people, 2 guys and one girl. I don't remember any of their names, but they looked like partying college kids that go to the beach to get drunk on Spring Break (aka the kind of people I don't hang around with IWL...). C44 introduced me to one last guy, a guy who didn't look like the others, but kind of acted like them. He looked like a 40-ish year old guy with the hair of Wreck-It Ralph, although he was still fairly well-built. C44 told me that his name is Amplitude, and he's my subconscious (great, my subconscious has a 90's street name...). All of us just kind of hung out for a little bit. I kind of felt like I was the most awkward person in that group, but they seemed to accept me anyway, although part of me felt that it was more out of pity than actually liking me (you know that friend you hang out with just because you feel sorry for them? It was kind of like that...). I ended up talking to the girl for a while, although we just kind of had small talk about where I was from, what college I was going to, what I was studying, etc.

After a while, I think I was either bored or felt too awkward, so I told them I had to leave. C44 came over to say thanks for coming by. I thanked him instead, and went to hug him (TOTM!). He seemed okay with it at first, but I figured that wasn't the reaction the forum wanted, so I continued to hold him for a little bit. His smile slowly turned into this look of confusion, until he finally said something, so I was like, "I'm just messing with you. Thanks for the Task of the Month." He laughed. I walked away and the dream felt like it was slipping away.

I woke up on the couch in my living room. I looked at the clock and saw it was 7:00. Shoot, I didn't want to sleep for 5 hours, I thought. But, then the scene went dark.

I woke up again, this time in kind of storage shed/garage. I got up and saw Amplitude standing in front of me, which made me lucid. He didn't say much - he kind of just stood there for a bit. "Are you really my subconscious?" I asked. He nodded and said, "Ask me anything." I froze. In all my effort to just try to arrange a meeting with my subconscious, I never actually thought of a single thing I wanted to ask him. I kind of thought of a question on the spot, but I thought it was stupid and just suppressed it. He just kind of laughed. "Can't think of anything, huh? Shall we watch the tape, then?" I turned around to see this little projection screen set up in the corner. I guess I was embarrassed of watching any tape of myself, so I decided a stupid question was better than no question. "How do I know if I've found the right girl?" I could've facepalmed myself. He kind of chuckled. "I can't answer that for you. You have to find that out for yourself." I found myself backing up for some reason. There was some ambient noise that kind of got louder, so I couldn't hear the rest of what he said. The dream kind of destabilized, and I woke up in some hotel room. I realized that wasn't right, but soon I woke up for real. I looked at the clock and saw it was only 4:00, which was a relief.

This one was a nice, long, pretty cool lucid dream, but I still feel like I missed several opportunities, but whatever. Still pretty cool.

Day 16: LD - 2, FA - 3
TOTAL: LD - 13, FA - 12

Please take this with a bit slower thought than you normally might, This was a very strange dream to me.

Note: Before I had it, I let my dog go outside sometime between 4 AM and 5 AM and I fell asleep on the swing (With a coat and long pants on, Mostly so I wouldn't get bitten by mosquitoes and it also helped me not catch a cold) and I woke at about 5:40 and went back to bed. Then after the first dream I wrote here, I woke at about 7:14 AM.

#1:

I just have to say, Wow; Where was I?

Near the start of the dream I met some relatives I didn't realize were related to me; There was a man and I think his wife and child who may have been an infant. This is sounding pretty similar to some people who go to a church I attend! After that I met another me in my own room and he didn't look quite like me, I think he wore a coat that looked like the one I wore outside earlier while awake.

Some time after that, Things started getting weirder, I think I went into a deeper dream level so to speak because I normally don't have dreams like this. I may have talked about switching places with this other me for some reason.

Next, I recall going outside and the house was not quite the same as it is in waking life; There were more parts to the building on the back end of it and then I recall explaining to someone that the sun and moon didn't work in the same way where I was from. I also said to someone that I was from another dimension and I saw some people in the side yard including a neighbor I know who attends the same church as I do and also plays a musical instrument as I do, But he wasn't my neighbor and he didn't recognize me.

Later, There was some structure in that side yard and a man was in a small shack-y room with the door cracked open. There was another door behind a man who I was talking to and after I looked away from him and looked back, He had no head but was standing there with a breathing apparatus! And after looking into the red sky (And there were no trees nearby as there are in waking life) I saw some weird things in it like red licorice candy clouds, If I could describe them as such but I don't think they were edible. I had enough at that point and said the Lord's prayer,

"Our father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom, And the power, And the glory forever.
Amen."

(Note: I did not say the prayer exactly like this. But, I said it with the same meaning. BTW, There's a saying which is "There are no atheists in a foxhole" And I can't say I was as faithful as I may have believed in the Bible in weeks prior to this dream.)

Then, I thought I woke up and I was in the back end of my Dad's caravan with the back end open which was facing the house which is a bit odd given the driveway. I thought I was awake and I went back inside the house with my dog, Talked with my Father (My parent) and some time after that, I woke for real.

At times in that dream I was wondering if I would ever wake up because it was so weird and unlike the waking world.

Later, I went downstairs and slept on the couch until about 9:15 AM. Some of the next dream was as this:

2: I think there was some selection of this next part, As if it was a movie with some people deciding what to do for/with this guy described below or a video game level selection screen. A man drove a big truck in a snowy mountain pass, Parked his truck away from the bridge which was small if I rememebr right, Went up to the bridge that was closed, His truck fell off the mountain and he jumped off the cliff where it fell and found wings in the air quite far away from the mountain and flew around in places including my living room.

If you have not seen something like the first dream I described here, Can you relate? I didn't feel like I was at home, I'm not about to call it a lucid dream as I didn't "Have the powers of dreamland at my control", So to speak, But it felt like I was painfully aware I was not so close to home.

Note: How did "Nightmare" and "Task of the Month" get selected? I don't recall clicking those, I clicked "Non-Lucid" And "Side Notes" And then those weren't selected. I took so long to write this that my login session had expired and I had to log in again, So that might have something to do with it. But, The first dream was unpleasant and I imagine it is a task of the month to not have another dream like this, This month. So I left those tags there and re-added the other ones.