task of the year

No Memory at all from last night. Guess I'll just write down my frame for attaining LD's.

• Bed time
Normally 10:50pm to 6:50am
Actually 12:00pm to 7:10am

So 7-8 hours of sleep on the avg. - Will have to work hard on that one.

• Supplements
I supplement daily with Zink 30-50mg and Fish oil caps 3-5.
I heard they have a positive effect on vividness & "strangeness" of dreams, but that's not my primar reason taking them.
Occasionally noopept 10mg/day.

Few supplements I am eager to try out:
Aniracetam + Choline

• Mantras, RCs, ADA
My daily RC's are every hour to ask myself "Why am I not dreaming right now" and find a logical reason for it. I.e. "I woke up this morning" either that or I try to push my right hand trough my left.

• Stress level
My daily stress level may be quite high, because I work in a architects office as construct. draughtsman and it gets pretty wild sometimes.

• WBTB
Will try to actually wake up when my alarm rings at 5am.

Slept over the last few times..

• Recall Quality
IF i can recall any dream, the quality is high and i can recal feelings, sounds, emotions and so on.

• Level of control
None yet, hope to be able to control my dreams troughly.

• HH
None yet, hope to get as as vivid and real HH's as they can get.


I'm convinced this will get me somewhere in the next few weeks/months.

Green = Dream
Blue = Lucid

Alright, as far back as I can remember I was staying at a hotel. I went out to my car to get my laptop and found that my passenger door was open, and the car was still running. I automatically assumed that someone had broken in and stolen everything but all my stuff was still there. I had trouble turning off the car and it kept rolling backwards. The emergency brake didn't seem to quite work so I ended up just finding a big tree branch and blocking the rear tires.

When I went back inside I had a hard time getting back up to my room. I kept getting distracted. I remember there being lots of art shows and a group of women who were learning how to use a spray to conceal their bald/thinning spots (It basically just dyed their scalp the same color as their hair). For some reason this was kind of embarrassing to navigate (I got the impression that the women didn't want a man to see this going on), so I tried to get out of there as quickly as I could... which involved flying.

So there I am, flying around the room and on my way out I grab a balloon. So now I'm flying down the hallway with a balloon and people are trying to get it from me. Several people offer me money for the balloon, but I won't accept. After a few such attempts, a cute blonde woman offers me a kiss on the cheek, which most certainly is worth a balloon and I hand it over to her.

At this point I'm floating in the hallway, wondering where I should go next, when I become lucid and remember the task of the month. Seeing as how I'm in a long hallway, I decide to try walking on the walls and ceiling.

I fly over the nearest wall turn sideways and land. I stand there fore a while to get myself accustomed to this orientation and then begin to walk down the hall on the wall. It was more difficult than I had anticipated and my feet kept slipping. Oddly, they weren't slipping down, they were slipping backwards as if they couldn't get a very good grip on the wall while some other force kept me in place. A few more steps and I was walking like a pro, so I decided to move it on to the ceiling.

The transition from wall to ceiling was a bit tough at first. My first attempts resulting in slipping and swinging around. So I stood there on the wall again, took a few deep breaths, and reminded myself that when I fly I can go anywhere in any orientation. This was no different. I take a short "hop" and now I'm standing on the ceiling. I remember thinking that the stamped tin tiles on the ceiling looked a lot like floor tiles, the realization of which made it a lot easier. I took a few wobbly first steps, then a few confident steps, then I sprinted, jumped out a window, and flew off for some acrobatic flying fun.


Commentary:
Well, that was quick. I did this task first for several reasons, foremost was probably the availability of walls and ceiling right there. Next was that when I read over the tasks I saw this one as the easiest because it would be a lot like "flying with my feet on a surface" which it was. I might try this different ways to see if other methods produce different and/or better results. For instance, I imagine using TK to "pull" myself towards a wall might be easy enough and work well. It might be difficult but altering gravity might also work. I might also be able to roll the entire building over on its side and then top... which might be funny.

Long dream! I think that in all this dream may have gone for about 30 minutes. It's got me excited about the Great Pyramid Task of the Year again!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #139: Kunoichi

I have a false awakening in some kind of luxury hotel suite, feeling frustrated that I failed to have a lucid dream. All of the lights are on, and a digital clock on the kitchen counter tells me that it's 4:45 AM. Okay, I still have a little time left to have a lucid dream.

Suddenly I realize that Wife isn't here and I panic. I have a false memory that she went out just as I was going to sleep and I start freaking out that something has happened to her. Two men walk into the suite from the adjoining balcony and I run at them, demanding that they tell me where she is. They look bemused by the intensity of my reaction and I wonder whether this could all be a dream. I try the nose pinch reality check and become lucid.

Ignoring these two random guys, I phase through a glass door out to the balcony. Rather than go leaping off, I float up a few feet first (just to be safe) before flying out into the early morning sky. I'm about 80 feet up, and I swoop down toward a park that I see below me, landing near a tree. I notice that the tree looks amusingly pixellated and I remember my goal of trying to maximize dream vividness. I focus on drawing out the detail of the tree, feeling its bark and studying its needles until it becomes extremely vivid.

I follow a dirt path toward a mall, scooping up a handful of reddish dirt and (for some reason) popping it into my mouth. (It tastes about like you'd expect.) At this point, there's a long segment of the dream where my memory gets a little hazy, but I recall that it was fairly long, involved me travelling through a shopping mall and flying around a bit between levels. I remember flying close by a harried-looking mom struggling to manage a pair of kids and a pair of shopping bags, a bright central area, and at one point a black guy in a purple dress shirt gives me a thumbs up when I fly by.

Finally I leave the mall through an emergency exit and emerge in an alley. A man slouches lazily against the wall and farther away a dark-haired teenage girl is sitting on a stack of shipping palettes. I look at each of them in turn and they immediately return my gaze. I'm struck by the subtlety in the way their faces move, blink, and shift so realistically.

As I'm deciding which way to go down this alley, I remember the Africa Task of the year (fix the Great Sphinx then ride her to the top of the Great Pyramid.) I decide that the Great Pyramid is just at the end of the alley, imagine it in detail, then turn around with the image still firmly in my end.

I'm shocked by how well this works. I walk out of the alley onto a windy landscape of sand dunes. In the distance I see an enormous version of the Great Pyramid dominating the horizon, probably four times larger than the real thing. Dark storm clouds roll violently above the Pyramid. At the top of the Pyramid, the wind is so strong that I see stones rolling off of the top and tumbling down the side.



I run over the dunes toward the Pyramid and as I get closer I see not just one Great Sphinx but probably a dozen of them scattered near the Pyramid's base. Some of them are in a horrible state of disrepair, but this doesn't worry me. If I can fix her nose, I can fix everything else too.

As I'm approaching the top of one dune, a pair of female ninja dressed in red appear and come racing toward me, each wielding a pair of sai. The first one leaps at me and I force-push her to the side so that she flies past me. The second I force-push directly forward and she flops onto her back on the dune. I walk past her and I watch over my shoulder as the two of them regroup for another attack. I hold out my hands toward them and jokingly say "Now kiss!" They glare at me like I'm a huge pervert and I feel a little embarrassed. (This is a nerdy reference to this meme.) One ninja gives the other a quick peck on the cheek and then they return to glaring at me.

I say something about how I was only joking and that I drank a lot of peppermint tea before bed, and as I'm going on and on explaining myself, the two ninja start making out. I realize that all my blah blah blah is only making things worse and I'm feeling sexy and distracted. I turn back toward the Pyramid but the landscape doesn't seem stable anymore. I wind up in the void.

I rub my hands together to stay locked in and start feeling the floor, trying to turn the ground back into sand so I can return to the Pyramid. I go at this for a good while. After roughly a full minute, the floor starts feeling like carpeting and I emerge in what looks like a dormitory. I walk out into a nearby hall and run into a college friend that I've lost touch with (and is notorious for being hard to reach.) I ask him how he's been and he gives me an email address (!) and promises to respond if I email him at that address. I make him repeat the promise (which amuses him) and bid him goodbye before phasing through a glass door to a second-floor walkway.

My father-in-law is standing nearby with a few elderly Asian men and women. I jump onto the railing and start pulling myself onto the awning when I feel hands grasping at my legs and shouts of "You'll hurt yourself!" and "Are you crazy?" They pull me back down to the balcony and my father-in-law starts explaining to the other DCs that I'm "special". I fly down the walkway to provide a visual aid and the DCs react by speaking in astonished Mandarin. I think about how amazingly realistic this Mandarin sounds but then think, oh yeah... of course it sounds realistic to me. It's what I think Mandarin sounds like.

I fly off of the walkway, landing in front of an entrance to the same mall I was at earlier. I decide to retrace my steps through the mall, and I pass through a store that sells little pet sweaters for tiny dogs. Little sweater-clad dogs roam everywhere. I exit the store and it isn't long before I have a false awakening back in the same dorm room, no longer lucid.

I walk outside to find that it's daylight out. NewArtemis and her husband are standing nearby. We say hey, not at all surprised to see one another. Art lays down on the sidewalk, still participating in the conversation but also trying to sleep by curling up with this big canvas bookbag she's holding. I tell Art and her husband about the dream I just had, mentioning that I went through a store "that sells sweaters for those little yappy dogs". Immediately a little white yappy dog comes crawling out of Art's book bag, dressed in a green sweater. "Seriously?" I say, feeling like a jerk. "I'm sorry." She laughs and says it's cool.

Art seems to kind of fall asleep and I talk with her husband for a while about dogs, telling him they did the right thing by not getting huge, crazy dogs like us. I look down and notice that Art's hair has changed and become really curly and sort of red. It seems weird to me but since her husband doesn't say anything, I figure this is normal. He and I talk about other random stuff for a while until the dream ends.

Asia Task of the Year! (Vandalize the Great Wall of China and battle the authorities with kung-fu.) This was the second of two lucids from last night and the level of vividness in this one was incredible. It was literally more vivid than waking life, which is such a difficult experience to describe or recapture. Pretty amazing stuff.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #137: The Great Wall of China

I have a false awakening in my childhood home, wandering into the dining room to find that my parents are hosting a breakfast. Wife is walking beside me, my folks and brother-in-law "Muppet" are seated at the table, along with Mom and Dad and a few other strangers standing around nearby. As I approach the table, I realize that I am not wearing a shirt and feel embarrassed. Then I see myself in the mirror and I look really in-shape. Now I feel better. Still seems a little inappropriate but I sit down, hoping nobody will make a big deal out of anything.

I'm waiting for the food to arrive when something tips me off that this might all be a dream. I nose pinch and breathe in and out 2-3 times. I announce to everyone that I'm having a lucid dream, get up from the table, and phase through the window to the street outside. I hear Mom and Dad telling me to wait, that I'll miss the breakfast, asking me whether I'm sure that I'm dreaming. But yeah, after phasing through the window, pretty sure.

I take a moment to make the scene as vivid as possible, looking over all of the detail that I see around me, the sound of my voice, the way that the morning air feels (chill and humid.) Thick, spiral-shaped clouds hang in the street, totally immobile and so thick that you can't see through them. When I touch them they literally feel like cotton balls pushed together and just floating in mid-air.

I walk down the street for a while, checking out my hands for inconsistencies. They look completely lifelike, with the one exception being that I can't extend my left ring finger. Every time I try, it resists me and just winds up bending again. The street is still foggy but it's a more natural-looking fog now. The other strange thing is that every tree on the street is decorated with dozens of dreamcatchers that sway in a gentle breeze. The vividness is stunning.

At the end of the street is a house with a huge wall safe mounted above its front door. The safe keeps blowing apart in an explosion, reforming, and then blowing apart again, over and over. I pass by my college friend "Bear" as I turn the corner and then come to a roughly ten-foot stone wall that blocks me from going any further. I try to fly over it but end up just doing a weak jump and having to scramble over like this was waking life. From there I enter a mall area where I announce to the passerby that "I'm having a lucid dream." Some of them look at me with some interest, but nobody verbally responds. I find an exit and imagine that the Great Wall of China is right outisde.

I exit the mall and find myself in front of a six-foot tall replica of the Great Wall of China. Now we're getting somewhere! I walk a little further down a covered walkway and see a sign that reads "Joy's Toys" and under that "Great Wall". DCs are walking into a brick building near the sign that looks like a gift shop. I decide that this is a souvenir shop that's located right by the Great Wall, meaning that the real thing is... right behind me.



I turn around and there it is! It's much taller, easily 50 feet, imposing, and really ancient-looking. I vault over a random pile of building materials to get closer. There's a small crowd of DCs gathered near the base watching as three terra cotta warriors perform some kind of odd, stilted dance performance. The terra cotta warriors take no notice of me but I figure they'll be the ones coming after me when I vandalize the Great Wall for Task of the Year.

Advancing right to the wall, I haul back and punch it once, hoping that this will break a piece off. Nothing much happens. I grab at the wall with my fingers and manage to break a tiny piece off, but this doesn't feel like the serious vandalism I was going for. I decide to go with my premeditated plan of tagging up the Great Wall with spray paint. I summon an aerosol can into my hand and start spraying out some letters:

"DV 4 LIFE"

The paint runs and blurs a lot and generally looks like a mess, but I'm still incredibly pleased. Okay, the final piece of this dream is to defend myself against the authorities with kung-fu. I turn around, expecting an enemy... and find myself face to face with a pale, doughy guy in his 40s. He's wearing glasses and is dressed in brown slacks and a rather tight white cardigan that emphasizes his belly and spindly arms.

"So you're 'the authorities'?" I ask, trying to lead him to say yes.

"Certainly," he says curtly in a British accent. He stares proudly back at me.

Immediately I try to do some "kung-fu" on him. I do this atrocious little low kick that clips the side of his left knee. Then I throw another little kick that misses entirely. This time I scream something like, "A-GOCK!!" to make it seem more like I'm doing kung-fu. It comes out really shrieky but the effect is kung-fuey. My opponent does an awkward little hopping kick that misses by a mile. We both kick at the same time and kind of clash feet. We keep throwing these terrible little kicks at each other and I keep shrieking "A-GOCK!!" Finally my awful little kicks get the better of his awful little kicks and he seems to lose interest, and after a moment wanders away entirely.

I take another self-congratulatory look back at the Great Wall and then let myself wake up before I forget anything.

I was in a room, became awareness, and decided to make TOTY Bring the Great Sphinx to life and fix her nose... I tried to make a portal in the floor, but each time found myself in the room and at last awoke, but tried to DEILD.
DEILD.
I walked along the road and tried to stabilize a dream. rub arms and so on. I made a portal and found myself in the wood, but i knew, that its a place there piramids were. i went and soon saw the sphinx, but she was black and not so big and thiner. I looked on the ground and found some black stone with a blue pattern. I decided that it was her nose, took it, and flew with it to her face. I put the nose on its place and want the sphinx to live, then i sat on her back and wanted to go to the top of piramid. The sphinx was made of some black metal and went very slowly. ( i thought i would loose awarenes ) soon we went to the foot of piramid and began to klimb. And went to the top, but on the top there were workers, who ended to build a piramid and a lot of tourist. I saw feilds, hils and even a river. I had a chat with one of the workers and decided to awake.

Date: 17th Aug

Pre bed: SJW, 100 mg B6

Total sleep time: 7 hrs

Dream quality and recall: vivid, some stability issues, evading recall

Non-ld: I am in the place I used to live before. There are problems with the lock and I am trying to avoid my new neighbors. Once again, I am staying here only temporary and prepare my stuff to leave the next day...

WBTB:I got woken up, decided to use as WBTB, repeated mantra a few times, distractions again.

LD1: I finally fall asleep and find myself on the street of the same town from my past, near the post office. There is also a bear there. A bear? Lucid. I don't pay any more attention to the bear but on its place two large dogs appear, behaving menacingly. I just want to go forward and stretch my hands, as if feeling the dream/wind or whatever but the dogs bite my hand. The biting causes a strange sensation of burning pain, I struggle to get rid of the dogs. As they won't go away, I decide to ask the rest of the DCs for help. There are lots of DCs passing by on the nearby street and I start calling for help, but nobody pays me any attention. However, the moment I start asking for help those dogs get out of my sight and disappear. I look at the DCs which are like a school of fish, silently passing by, many of them having dogs on leashes, small to big ones different breeds. It looks absolutely insane.

I have no idea what happened, but now I am in a dark room, no sign of DCs or dogs. I finally remember that one way to deal with scary creatures is to transform into something scarier or at least powerful, so I decide I would do the tiger transformation. I get on the floor and first of all hear coming from me a slightly muffled but tiger's roar which I actually didn't mean to do. Then I try to feel my legs, but I kind of concentrate on my human body too much, so the transformation is only half done. I can't see much of my limbs to confirm if they are human or animal ones, just feel that I am stuck in the middle of the process and want to look in some reflective surface to check what's going on. My mood goes quite bad as I get bored doing this and wonder what to do next but the dream ends.

Micro-ld: I am on a ferry type of boat, on the upper deck that is open. It also reminds me of all these city boat tours they offer at various places I have been to with my mom. My mom is also there telling me to be careful, so I hold on to the rail. It is quite cold so I get out my blanket. I notice that the sky is covered with dark clouds which are much closer to the boat than they are supposed to be. I hold on even tighter and then see that a tornado has formed in the distance. I get a very convincing false memory that I recently had a dream about this? and now am seeing it irl. There's something about this whole thing and the tornado so I become lucid. In the meantime the driver of the boat moves us closer to the river bank and allows the passengers to disembark safely. I look at the tornado with interest and decide I will try to avoid it by going to the subway station where it has no reach. (I'd say my mind was kind of foggy for ld). I immediately reach a subway passage but before I get in, I have another look at the tornado. It is huge and partially turns into some sort of drilling machine as I stare at it. It also comes closer. I decide it's time to quit playing and go underground and figure out what to do from there.

I have no idea or rather memory what happened, it seems like the dream ended, I briefly lost consciousness then on to the next dream.

LD2: I am in the yard of our old neighborhood and bf is making some kind of sex-related remarks. I ignore him and bf just leads the way towards the street. I notice that both of us are barefoot and concentrate on the feeling, while getting a mix of false and true memories.

At this point I become lucid and we continue towards the fence. As I get there, I see some animals again. A medium size dog that is coming towards me and also a cat, then two more cats appear. I get the feeling that all these animals are attracted to/by me and think that this is becoming very similar to OB's issue with the blankets. I try to make make them go away, making funny movements with my hands. Then I succeed in turning them against each other. This is a very entertaining sight although I do feel slightly guilty doing this, now the cat has turned into a kitten and is wrestling the dog. They are more in some sort of confrontation than real fight but I am amazed that I am actually controlling their movements. After my sense of wonder/amusement subsides, I leave them and move on down the street, bf with me.

I go over some tasks but am reluctant to engage in something that will destabilize the dream too much. However, the moment I think about Angel Falls, I notice the sound of running/falling water from a nearby yard. In my mind, I know that's something else, but I think it can be used to summon Angel Falls. So what I do is I turn my back on the yard and the sound, concentrate on it and start walking backwards towards it, expecting AF to be there. Bf is holding my hands as I am walking backwards and the dream turns void-like, mostly I see darkness behind me as I walk. I am slightly worried that I might stumble upon some unexpected object but then remind myself that there is really nothing there.

I slowly turn and check the result. This is not our neighborhood anymore, but it is still the yard of some people and there are lots of watery things there. Hard to describe, two fountains/geysers, puddles of water, also water randomly springing and running over the place. The yard abruptly ends and I see small amounts of water running down the stone edge, which gives me some hope. As I look down I see that the next level is about two floors below and there is an inland beach. I also check out the surroundings and see that beyond that inland beach is a valley with trees and the sea at the end of it.

I feel that I won't have the time to go to the sea and chose to use the inland beach for the advanced TOTM. There also small kids there, something like sand and rocks near the water. It is quite high and as I finally gather the courage and prepare to jump in the water, the dream ends.

This is the second dream from a pair of lucids that I had last night.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #133: The Royal Australian Navy

I'm outside helping my friend "The Schwartz" throw a bunch of random junk into a dumpster by an apartment complex. We heave a big box of rusted old crap into the dumpster "Are you sure they'll take all of this stuff?" I ask.

"Sure," he says. "This dumpster's always moving around to different places in the city. That must mean they come to take the garbage out of it." I nod, accepting this. But when I look into the dumpster, I see a shipping pallet that I'm planning to bust into pieces next week (in waking life.) I can't understand how it would have gotten mixed in with The Schwartz's stuff. I nose pinch reality check and become lucid.

"This is a dream," I tell him. The Schwartz frowns thoughtfully and nods his head. For some reason, I decide to give him a password as if this were some kind of shared dreaming experiment. "I'm going to give you a password."

"A password?"

"Yeah." I consider explaining but decide not to. I no longer even know why I'm doing this. "The password is butterfly." He nods again, not particularly interested.

Okay, time to get out there and do something with this. I look up at the sky and see a huge, awkward bird flying by that looks like a pelican. I try to fly but for some reason I don't budge.

I notice that the pelican flew right by a cluster of very weird objects floating in the sky -- the cab of an 18-wheeler, a barrel, and other random objects like that. I focus on the objects, expecting myself to rise, and this time it's no problem. In a few seconds, I'm about a hundred feet in the air.

As I look out over the landscape, I expect for there to be an ocean nearby. It works better than expected -- there's a huge, sparkling sea laid out in front of me! It's packed with military vessels, probably about two dozen destroyers.

Each of the destroyers has an emblem of the American flag on its hull. I think that this flag should be Australian for Australia's Task of the Year. The flag changes as soon as I think this, switching to what I believe at the time is the Australian flag. (But is actually the UK flag, oops. )

I'm amused that the flags changed to be "just so", and I'm laughing as I fly past the ships to the open sea. I want to start the Great Barrier Reef task, so I plunge straight into the water at high speed. For some reason, though, my vision goes black when I hit the water. I can still feel myself swimming, though, so I keep paddling "underwater" in a pseudo-breast stroke. I probe at my body while continuing to swim, but eventually the feeling of water subsides. After a while, the dream ends entirely.

This was the second of two lucid dreams from last night. I'm excited about this new Great Barrier Reef teleport, even if it is very glitch at this point!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #131: Oceanfront Property

I'm walking through a university when I encounter the same male twins from my previous dream. They're dressed just as before and again they stare wordlessly at me. I remember this from the previous dream and become lucid.

"Who are you?" I ask them.

The twin in glasses only says, "Be careful out there," and together they walk off down the path behind me.

I immediately remember my intention to explore the Great Barrier Reef and leap up into the air to fly. I soar over a few buildings toward a shipping yard filled with shipping crates and huge cranes. I know that I have to be close to the ocean. Somehow the dream loses cohesiveness for a moment and I'm thrown into the void.

Rubbing my hands together, I think of what my fastest way to the Great Barrier Reef will be. After giving my dream body a quick probe, I pinch my nose shut and flop backwards like I'm plunging into water. This works incredibly, and almost immediately I'm swimming through clear blue water again, similar to the prior dream. But as I look around, I see that I'm swimming through an underwater version of my bedroom!

I swim out into the hallway, so surprised to be swimming through my house that I have no idea what to do. I keep colliding with random objects like boxes as I swim and I'm generally nervous about my navigation, so I decide to return to the master bedroom to phase through the window. Hopefully that'll be something like the open sea. I swim back to the window but when I get to the shutters I just bounce off of them. I'm having trouble believing that I can do it or imagining what it will feel like. I make another attempt at it, bounce off again, and worry that I'm going nowhere and that I'll just wake up. Inevitably, this leads me to a false awakening in a darkened version of our bedroom.

Wife has a little "dream checklist" that she's trying to go over with me. "Did you get to the Great Barrier Reef?" she asks, poised to check something off.

"No," I say, disappointed.

She frowns. "Did you ask about the meaning of life?" she inquires hopefully. It goes on like this for a while, but I don't remember what else happens afterward.

This was the first of two lucid dreams from last night, and my first serious Great Barrier Reef attempt.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #130: The Turtle

I'm swimming in a shallow cove with my 4-year-old son "E". I tell him that he's helping me practice for a planned dream about the Great Barrier Reef and he seems excited to help. We come across a cave just under the waterline, swim into it, and emerge in a cavern where all these other kids are hanging around. I wonder whether all these kids are helping their moms and dads prepare for a Great Barrier Reef dream. This feels strange to me and I become lucid.

There's either a scene change or a memory gap at this point, because my next memory is of walking by myself through the grounds of a university. I pass two men who stare silently at me as I walk by. They're both in their late 20s and look almost like identical twins, except that one is dressed in a suit while the other wears glasses and a flannel shirt. I think that there's something I need to ask them, but I can't remember what it is. (I think I'd meant to ask them the meaning of life for Task of the Month.)

Nearby is a plaza with a tall stone column at each of its four corners. Perhaps a dozen DCs are walking around this plaza, looking happy but aimless. I exchange a glance with one tough-looking DC as I walk across the plaza, and something about him just rubs me the wrong way. I take a half-hearted swing at him, as if I'm trying to slap him upside the head. He ducks out of the way, and immediately I wonder why I would do something like that.

The DC moves aggressively toward me and I move to dissolve this problem that I've caused. I hold up my right hand to the DC and walk casually away, saying, "It's cool." The tension abates and he walks away. Whew.

I remember my intention to get to the Great Barrier Reef. I hulk-jump high above the Earth, knowing that I'll see water nearby. Sure enough, there's a sparkling blue ocean to my right. As I descend, I notice a cute DC standing in the water, waving at me as she watches me come back down to Earth. As I near the water, I realize that she's Wife!

Before I can say anything, I plunge into the water. This is one of only a handful of times that I've been underwater in an LD, and I'm pleased to see that I can breathe normally. I try my voice, and it's perfectly clear: "[Wife]! Can you hear me?" There's no reply and I don't see any sign of her. Okay, focus. I need to ride a sea turtle, find a great white shark, and bite it. Without dying. The task feels really intimidating to me but I start searching.

I swim in random directions for a while until I finally catch sight of a turtle. The turtle has no interest in my company, though, and speeds away from me underwater. I don't have any plan as to how I'm going to catch him, so I just try to swim faster. He kites me along like this for quite a while until I have a false awakening in some kind of hospital.

Wife and I are here trying to improve our dreaming abilities. I'm astounded but pleased that she's interested in dream work now. She tells me that she's trying to hit her REM cycles by setting alarms that correspond with the take-off times for airplanes. Skyler White (from Breaking Bad) walks into our room and starts speaking to Wife in a husky, almost male voice. She's apparently a researcher at this hospital. This all seems strange to me and I briefly become lucid before the dream ends.

Date: 11 Aug

Pre bed: 100mg B6

Total sleep time: 6 1/2 hrs?

Natural wakes: many, got up on 5 to pee, drink water, take notes. Also lots of micro-awakenings where it took me some time to fall asleep. Noises from neighbors and early morning arrangements of others woke me up too.

Dream quality and recall: Very vivid dreams, some stability issues. Recall was challenging, forgot two lds, but then I recalled them, pffuuu. One suspicious also.

Early dream (+2 hrs after bed): I had the impression there might have been something lucid here, but sleep was so deep, I have no idea, it was quite vivid though.

Dream: some kind of tower, bf, something forbidden? (why didn't I write a whole sentence?)

Dream: this was a crazy dream, not very pleasant but interesting. The part I remember involved me getting to a window, where some kind of deadly poisonous gas is working. I am unprepared (compared to others) to deal with this gas and do some maneuvers to avoid it, while it's coming straight at me. I think I am trying to open the window as well. I notice that small wounds begin to appear on my hands from the gas. For once, they almost look ok, not too bad, but I am naturally worried about them. At the same time, I am fascinated that I feel no pain despite my exposure to the gas. (That was pretty close!)

DILD1: I go out in some kind of yard and want to sit on the stone wall. There are two teenagers there that plan to make out, so I move not to interrupt them and go sit on another fence. Soon they go back to the entrance and I hear an electricity shock. I think that a bad guy has done something to them and is now coming in the yard, so I look for a place to hide. I evaluate a few hideouts but decide I will be discovered so better leave now. The main idea is to get as far away as possible, while still able to observe the guy.

As I make my way through yard after yard, I get this familiar feeling. I have been running like this in a lot of my dreams. Semi-lucid, I continue on my way, climbing fences, going far enough. Then I finally reach a block, which I start to climb as if it is a tree. No matter where I step or reach there is always something to hold on to, like a balcony, the window etc. I finally reach the top of the building, which is like 5-6 floors and sit there to contemplate. It is not very easy to keep balance as I am holding on to some unstable part of the building. At this point, I also reach a much better clarity of mind. I look around and see all kinds of junk around me. I either become worried about stability and the dream becomes unstable or the other way around. I wait and things improve somewhat and I get the weird idea that I will turn this building top into the top of Angel Falls then jump, but I feel the need to have something stable below me to start with. It's a bit like I am sitting on a wobbly chair on top of pile of crap right now.

I look to my left and see that a beautiful river is flowing through the nearby part of neighborhood. There is also a small waterfall in the middle of it, too small, but inspiring enough. I want to go down there, I have no idea how and where I but get and reach to this branch and once again use the tree branch swinging method of moving. I swing forward and land exactly where I wanted to - down where the river is. I start thinking about turning this into Angel Falls. The river starts to change and at some point I find myself right in the middle of it, observing how the now dark water flows down a slope. There are dark rocks as well, and the current is way too fast, so I feel kind of uncomfortable being in the water. Somehow though I am dry and not moving with the current? This is not quite like what it is supposed to be and I concentrate on the landscape to cut off the water and make it flow into an abyss just ahead of me. Despite my efforts the river changes just a bit. I get it, it is just not working right now and I also become tired so give up. The thought quickly flashes that I might try to turn the end of the river flow into a beach, but now lack the mood for that. I begin reviewing other tasks I have memorized but the the dream ends just as I go through them.

I am now in my bed and a bit pissed off that the dream didn't just continue into another scene, and I have so much awareness of my body. I nevertheless remain still, nervously waiting until something like a proper DEILD happens.

DILD2: The beginning of this is very vague. I think I just appeared somewhere and held on to this DC for stabilization. The next thing I know, the dream is much more stable and I am walking down the street with the male DC to my left, holding his hand in a friendly way (I think this is the stabilization residual). I am quite happy and for some reason conclude this is Xanous. I can't remember much of this part of the dream, just that we walk down the street of a European looking town, talking about something. OB is also involved either in my thoughts or mentioned in the conversation.

We are facing a closed metal gate plus fence and the male DC turns to the left to go the part where there is no fence at all. I then tell him, why don't we just phase through the fence, this is a dream after all. So, we go back and walk straight through the fence. I easily pass as if there is nothing there at all, but the DC has a bit of difficulty going through, he emerges but it looks like it has caused him some discomfort. I feel guilty for making him do this and begin apologizing. He doesn't look much like Xanous at this point - brown hair and wider face, but it's him in my mind. He seems quite independent for a DC, but that may be just me. We then continue our walk through the city.

At some point, I feel the dream is beginning to destabilize, but I don't want to share it with Xanous as not to mess his stability or something like that. I just walk further forward, rubbing my hands and hop walking for a while. The dream stabilizes and I am really happy about it. He is to my left again, this time with copper hair and tall. I start talking and notice how clear my voice sounds. But even as I talk, I almost immediately forget everything I say. The only thing I remember is "do you think this will work out" and point at me and him? Then I feel embarrassed this might be understood the wrong way and add "I mean this shared dreaming thing". I finally remember that I was supposed to do a gesture and share the passcode but before I could do anything the dream ends.

Micro-ld: I am back in a town of my past, in the place I used to live. Bf is also there. The thought that I am not supposed to be there anymore crosses my mind, but I come up with the explanation that I am now just visiting the town? I look around in the room and conclude that everything looks like it is real life and not like in dreams where there are all kinds of objects that don't really belong to this room, even though it really doesn't. I see that the windows are very dirty and this makes me think that the neighbors have been throwing drinks from McDonalds at the windows. Soon I see the neighbors throwing drinks. I want to threaten them with the police, but fear revenge, so decide just to call the cops to get them. I also complain to bf about it.

It looks like we are leaving the place next day (Sunday) and I need to take some stuff. I can't remember much detail here, but I look around the place, and there are neatly arranged flowers in the yards nearby, which look similar to dreams about the place I had and not real life.

Then I am in the city center, maybe doing last min shopping, I have no idea. On one of the familiar streets, I look inside a strangely shaped car and see a guy with semi-finished and a purple? demonic face. He gives me an evil look and I become lucid and begin to sway the car back and forth, my intention is to lift it and move it, which I do. I make it turn over and leave it like that for a moment, thinking about some more mischief. In the meantime it changes color and shape. I have the strong desire to try to lift the car as high as possible and then send it flying in the air like a balloon. I concentrate on it and lift it quite high but there is some resistance, I send thoughts that all of the people on the street are also doing this task which makes it easier. I am holding the car in the air for quite a while, until it becomes harder, but I still keep my gaze on it. It has become a round large piece of smashed black metal that is dissolving /dematerializing in the air. Witnessing the dissolution of the object is very interesting, it happens gradually and the object loses its physical properties, becoming more of an energy and I also see aura-like glow around the edges - green and red. The dream ends.

I wake up, think briefly about the ld and then fall asleep which makes me forget it. Noises, distractions and final sleep attempts.

Micro-ld: I can't remember the beginning of the dream/let. There is a very interesting sun clock in the sand of some sort of a pot in the park. I am playing with the sand, thinking about lucidity and stabilization? Then I continue walking down the lane when a DC guy looks me with some sort of irritation and I become lucid. I realize that I am finally in the dream as if just entered a dreamlet and feel very floating/unstable. For some reason, I keep repeating my DSs as a mantra and also grab the guy's T-shirt and move along with him, but he wants to move on his own so he is staring at me annoyed. I let him go and see my mom ahead of me, carrying flashlight which is on and the light looks more like the ray of sun shining on all the dust in the park. Very cool effect. The dream falls apart and I wake up.

Comments: I am happy on this occasion there wasn't too much B6 related agression with the exception of a few bad looks from DCs which helped me achieve lucidity.

An insane chain of eight DILDs, DEILDs and false awakenings from this morning. Completely crazy! I apologize for the length, but it was a ton of dreaming. I gave the dreams headings to hopefully make the breaks clear. What a ride!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #129: Map of the World

Choline
I'm standing in the kitchen with Wife as she holds our two-year-old son "R" in her arms. She asks me when I was planning to take my choline bitartrate. When I tell her that I've already taken it, R starts to wail pathetically.

"How could you take your choline without letting him watch?" she says, annoyed at my apparent thoughtlessness. "You know that he loves that!"

I'm stammering out some excuse when it occurs to me that this has to be a dream. My vision goes a bit crazy and I go more or less blind. I fumble my way around the kitchen, feeling my way from the countertop to the breakfast table and sit down heavily in a chair.

"Are you okay?" asks Wife. I really think that I'm dreaming but I feel uneasy enough that I nose pinch and blow through. Suddenly, my vision is dominated by a huge still-frame close-up of my own unshaven face shouting something. Other than that, I'm still blind. "Are you okay?" she asks, more insistently this time.

Highlander
I have a false awakening back in bed, still suspicious that I'm dreaming. Wife snuggles closer to me and I hit the nose pinch, blowing right through again.

Wife rolls on top of me and sits up. I feel excited about where things seem to be going but rather than doing anything amorous she starts saying strange stuff about the Highlander series of movies: "Did you know that Michael let us borrow Highlander I through XV? I didn't even know there were fifteen. He and [female name] love those movies."

The Full Xanous
Another false awakening back in bed, and I roll out immediately. My vision is very blurry and the whole dream scene feels wobbly to me. I think that I need to get myself anchored in and I remember my intention to try the technique of "making out with the dream scene", suggested (jokingly) by DarkMatters and put into practice by Xanous. I'd promised to try to test this so I could talk about it on a future podcast.

I move around to Wife's side of the bed. I briefly that I can test this method by just making out with Wife instead, but I realize that I'm just telling myself that as an excuse to get frisky with her. Instead I attack the corner of the mattress, totally making out with it. The sheets feel like t-shirt material against my tongue. After a moment, all sensation disappears, and I'm awake, my mouth kind of moving around. (In waking life, I believe. Pretty embarrassing. )

22:48
I DEILD into a bedroom scene and roll out. The computer monitor on the nearby desk is on, which it rarely is. The computer is showing the old Windows XP "Bliss" background with the grassy hill. The computer's clock reads "22:48".

I want to get out of the house, so I try to dive through the window. It feels oddly gummy, though, and I wind up with my torso stuck through the window. On the other side I just see blackness. I decide to back out, imagine a new scene, and try again. I'm about to make another run at it when I sort of fall back into...

Amazon
A false awakening where I'm lounging on a window seat in a sunlit room. A group of three women are standing nearby, laughing and chatting over stories about their kids. I nose pinch reality check (blowing through) and get up from the couch. As I stand up to my full height, I notice that one of the women is really tall (probably about six feet even) and very fit. As I walk nearby, she turns to look at me -- long brown hair, probably mid-30s, and very good-looking.

She starts walking toward me and it occurs to me that if I don't get away, the dream's probably ending in this room. As she joins me by the window, my quick internal deliberation ends in a verdict of "worth it". After about 20 seconds of making out, I wake up.

The King of the Colosseum
I quickly DEILD into a scene where I'm standing in my bedroom. It's very dark, so I let the void overtake me and start rubbing my hands together. I get onto my hands and knees and feel the floor, imagining sand between my fingers, thinking that the Colosseum is all around me. After a while, I can see the sand, and then the stone walls of a huge chamber. It's not the Colosseum I see, though, but more like a huge throne room with no ceiling. It's close, but just not quite right.

At the other end of the room, a cartoon king sits on his throne. He's a slimy-looking Jafar lookalike dressed in flowing red robes, and I think that he'll make the perfect opponent for Europe Task of the Year (the Colosseum battle.) As soon as I decide this, he lunges from his throne and charges toward me, a scimitar in his hand.

As he closes the distance, I decide to summon NewArtemis to help with the fight. "Jafar" is moving too fast, though, and he's practically on top of me before I can even start the summoning. Not even close, I'm on my own. I try to swing a sword at him, but in spite of my expectations, my hand is empty. My movement seems to surprise him, though, and as he stands there unsure of how to react, I grab his hair with my left hand and strike him hard on the side of the neck with the edge of my right hand.

His head pops cleanly off in my left hand. There's no gore involved, and the injury doesn't seem to slow him down much. The head spouts a series of angry curses at me before suddenly changing into the head of penguin. This shocks me into...

Map of the World
Another false awakening in my bedroom. I decide to get out of the house the direct way this time, running out of the master bedroom, vaulting over the baby gates as I move down the stairs (both gates higher than in waking life), and phasing through the back door into the yard. It's early morning now, and the pool has overflowed into the now-swampy back yard. Random objects like boxes and beach balls float in its waters. Floodlights are strung up in the trees all around me, shining brightly down on the yard.

I marvel at these changes before hopping over the fence. Rather than the neighbor's yard, I find myself in a construction site near a pile of steel girders. I try to fly, but I can't seem to get off of the ground. I walk for a while, moving past a cage composed of chainlink fencing where they're holding some kind of Little League practice. As I pass by, the kids and parents keep trying to talk to me about baseball, but I ignore them, trying to stay focused on the Colosseum.

As I walk further on, I somehow end up on a ledge on the side of a building, high above the city, with nowhere to go. I try to fly again, and this time it's easy. I shoot upward to an incredible height, moving all the way past the clouds, higher and higher until I can see the world laid out under me like a map. Some of the continents are even labeled in flowing calligraphy. I pick a spot below me, deciding it's the Colosseum, and fly downward. I'm shocked, though, when I land after flying only a few feet downward. Now I'm standing on an enormous stone floating through space. The "world" has disappeared entirely, and I'm walking on a painted mural of the Earth.

With nowhere to go, I suddenly remember the success that bemistaken just had with closing her eyes and mentally teleporting. I close my eyes, imagining the Colosseum. Without meaning to, I think of the possibility that I'll wake up when I open my eyes. I'm really worried about this, and I start hurrying. This flows into...

Commercial Break
A false awakening in what looks like an office kitchen. It's the early morning and Wife is here with me eating a bowl of cereal and watching a small, staticky television set. On it, two Russian men are arguing about photo editing software.

"Sorry if I woke you," she says. "I knew you'd want to see this!"

"I wish you'd let me sleep," I whine. "I was having a lucid dream."

"Oh really?" she says. "It sounded like something erotic was happening."

I think of saying something like "I only made out a little with a six-foot-tall woman" but this doesn't seem like much of a defense. So I just say, "Well, that's embarrassing."

"Ew," she says, wrinkling her nose and going back to her television program. I finally nose pinch, realizing that the teleport didn't wake me up at all! All of this was expectation. I get excited thinking about this, and the dream falls apart, finally ending this crazy chain of dreams...

#204 - 3:55AM - MILD

Long story short, I have some stupid dream about my ex showing up in the middle of the night to get the girls. There was conversation and a little boy. I become confused and wonder how I forgot about having a son with my ex. I hug him and spend time with him but I just can't understand it. I see my parents and ask them about it. They say something odd like its my older daughter's step cousin on her mom's side. I relived that I am not so horrible to forget a son after all.

I do MILD and just latch on to the part where I was confused about the boy. Instead of going into a long senario I just looped that one little bit over and over.

I find myself sitting at work but everything is moved into the parking lot. I say something to Joyce and am in deep contemplation. I am rubbing my hands and telling myself over and over that the next time I am dreaming I will know that I am dreaming. Pretty soon I just know it's a dream. I say, "I'm pretty sure this is a dream." and I stand up and walk away. I walk over a car and jump off the roof of it. Then I turn around and start punching out windows. The first one does not break and I remember to really follow through with my punches. After I clear out the front and back, I do pelvic thrusts into the doors and dent then way in. Each time I shout, "Pelvic Thrust!" like its some sort of video game super move. Then I stop myself and think, "Gee, what will CL say about this later?"

I wander into the parking lot more and try to think of a goal but I just can't seem to remember. A car hits me and I become attached to it. I don't pay attention to it because I am so deep in thought. After a while I just decide to go for the China TOTY. I take control of the vehicle. I am in the cab of a large black truck driving away from work.

I drive crazy and see various random areas. For a moment my vision starts fading out and and I can hear the box fan. I try to ignore this and just focus on driving. Eventually the dream comes back and I am being chased by cops. I hit a sharp hill in the road at high speed and become air-born. I do flips in the air for fun but get stuck there. I see sky then ground over and over. I have to force myself to stop and the truck crashes.

Now I am hovering over the scene. I see two injured cops in brown uniforms on the ground. They appear to be injured like the truck hit them. With out thinking I move over to one and kick him in the head. I am shocked when his head flies completely off. I remember my no violence to DC's rule and apologize to him. The other cop mumbles something and crawls away. I decide to just leave the scene with the intention to still make it to China.

I enter through some invisible threshold and the area changes. I see The Great Wall before me stretched across a wilderness countryside. I float over to it and immediately begin punching large blocks off. It falls easily like a stack of child play blocks. I float up on top and begin back handed swings knocking large parapet sections off. Some areas begin to change and look like a wooden deck but I deny that I believe its all stone. I decide I've done enough damage and move to a roofed section. I imagine a large gong there and summon a large drumb stick without looking. I swing and connect. *GONG* The sound rings out loud and clear. There are some steps leading down to another invisible threshold in the middle of thin air. I can see a different and artificial light coming from it. I watch expecting the authorities to show up. At that moment I feel my physical body and the dream collapses. My dream voice shouts, "NOOOOOOOO!" I wake up.

There is a second and not so eventful LD that I'll have to post later...

Very well-meaning but flawed attempt at the North America Task of the Year. (The King Kong one!)

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #128: Donkey Kong Junior

I falsely believe that I have a young niece named Emily that's arriving by plane. I'm waiting with Dad in the airport for her and all of the passengers have gotten out with no sign of Emily at all. I'm becoming fretful. Dad isn't very worried and is loudly telling me stories about how thoroughly the new cereal he is eating "cleaned out his colon". I'm very embarrassed by how loudly he's talking and decide I'd rather go look for Emily.

It's like the old days when you could meet someone at the gate, and I'm allowed to stroll right through the jetway and onto the plane. I walk up and down the rows of seats, but there's no sign of her. But when I double back I find her waiting by a bend in the jetway. She's about 11 or 12, short, blonde, a little pale. I realize that I have never seen her before in my life and become lucid.

There's one of those little doors that leads out to the runway, and I walk through it and start flying toward a city that I see on the horizon. Night either falls quickly or I suffer some kind of memory gap here, because I land at a parking lot in a cluster of buildings. There's some sort of party going on with loud music bleeding out into the parking lot. There are a lot of people milling around in the parking lot itself, and some of them start following me.

I spot my friend "RF" as part of the nearby group and I tell him to "check this out" as I approach one of the parked cars. I decide that the car is as light as an inflatable balloon, lift it, and turn it over on its side.

RF looks stunned and asks me how I did that. I tell him that you just pretend something is the way that you want and you usually find that it is. I become sort of boastful and start showing off. "Look at this car. If I decide that it tastes like cake, it will." I take a huge bite out of one of the tires and it's pretty good! Tastes like a fairly decent birthday cake. Several other people in the crowd join in, taking bites out of the car here and there. I spot my high school friend "Alf" in the crowd, and he makes some remark about how cool this is. Pretty soon, a huge crowd of DCs has surrounded the car and started to devour it. It's cool to watch them consume the car but also vaguely disturbing. Reminds me a bit of a Walking Dead zombie feed.

RF and I walk away from the car along the sidewalk, reaching a building with the mural of a skyscraper painted on it. I suddenly remember the North America "Empire State Building" Task of the Year. The mural doesn't look quite like the Empire State Building, but I decide that I'm going to start climbing it and then turn it into the Empire State Building as I go. I tell RF this is for "Task of the Year" and he says "Go for it." I latch myself to the mural like Spider-Man and start climbing up the wall. It feels really forced at first, but the more I get into it, the more it feels like I'm scaling the side of a tall building.

And now here I am, clinging to the side of the Empire State Building, the wind pulling at my clothes and body. I'm trying to remember what the Task of the Year even involves. (I'm supposed to transform into King Kong, climb to the top, and fight with the military.) I feel a little frustrated with my memory, so I decide that I want to get inside and think about what I'm supposed to be doing. I either enter an open window or phase through a closed one, winding up in a small, quiet marble elevator lobby.

There's an elevator waiting here, and I step inside. It only goes up to "9", and I wince that this is not nearly high enough for the Empire State Building. I press "9", assuming that there will be a new bank of elevators I can take at that point which will bring me all the way up. The elevator begins its ascent and I pace nervously, worrying that I'm buying too much into the mechanics of the dream. I can't remember whether I'm supposed to be ascending normally, climbing the building, or what, so I just go with it.

The elevator doors open on "9" and I step out into a lobby that looks much like the previous one. There's a bulky, square-jawed maintenance man in overalls here. "Hey!" he shouts. "You're not supposed to be here!" With that, he winds up like a baseball pitcher and throws a large crescent wrench right at my head. It clonks straight into my forehead and drops into my right hand. My forehead tingles a bit, but there's no serious pain.

Somehow I now have a wrench in both hands. I feel angry with the guy for attacking me. "You're an asshole!" I inform him and throw both wrenches at his stomach. They bounce off of his torso and he doubles over, glaring at me but not seriously hurt. I feel a little bad and have no interest in going to war with this guy, so I dash into another elevator, stab at a button without looking, "knowing" that it leads to the viewing platform.

Again I wait, and soon the elevator opens up to an open-air room that looks a bit like a bell tower. There's a guy in a lab coat here explaining some scientific breakthrough about lycanthropy and animal transformations in general. I run past him along a plank to a balcony. Now I want to transform into King Kong. I look to my left and there's another skyscraper, even taller than the "Empire State Building" that I'm standing on. On top of this other building stands the cheesiest-looking Godzilla-style lizard monster I've ever seen, and I can't help but chuckle. Looks like all the movie monsters are out and about today.



I start hopping about like a gorilla and imagine myself transforming into King Kong. In my craziness, I manage to leap off of the building. Rather than a fall, there's an odd transition and now I'm just running along a tree-lined street below, roaring like a gorilla and pounding my chest. The chest-pounding feels a little phony but the gorilla roars are amazing. My hands and arms look big and gorilla-like, but I'm not nearly large or hairy enough to be King Kong. I feel more like a big, strong, long-armed dude with a gorilla roar.

Some DCs rush up to attack me, but they're all just regular men in casual street clothes. I shove them away, remembering that I need to get attacked somehow and win, but I'm very confused as to the details. I take a few swats at these DCs and amusingly, they go flying off whenever I hit them. I know that something's off with all of this, though, and that I need to be a lot bigger, I need to be up on top of the building, and I think I need to fight something tougher. The details are really hazy, though, so I just lumber around for a while longer amusing myself until the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #127: Hagia Sophia

I'm touring a new school for my son "E" that's exclusively available to children who lucid dream. E is in his "level 2" class, and his teacher, a short, friendly, gray-haired lady is showing me around the room. It's a large classroom with basic carpeting and lots of little beds and sleeping nooks everywhere. All of the kids are running around, and I remark that if I had the opportunity to just sleep all the time for school, I'd definitely do it. It occurs to me that I might be dreaming right now... and it turns out that I am.

"I'm having a lucid dream right now," I tell the lady, and head for the exit door without waiting for a reply. I phase through the glass to find myself standing by a harbor in the early morning. There are two amphibious helicopters floating idly in the water, pontoons on their skids. I wonder whether this kind of helicopter really exists.

I remember that I want to find the Colosseum, so I start flying to get high above the water. I emerge from a light covering of fog that I hadn't even noticed, finding myself in a landscape of gently rolling hills that are covered with tightly packed buildings. I tell myself that the Colosseum is one of these buildings and that all I have to do is find it. I see a building that catches my eye, but instead of the Colosseum, it's Hagia Sophia.



"I know the Colosseum is here," I say, expecting it to glow (a trick I've used in the past.) "Show me where it is." A small site off to the side of Hagia Sophia starts to glow. It looks too small, but I fly toward it anyway. A sudden gust of wind starts pushing me in the opposite direction and turning me away from the glowing site. I decide that this wind is trying to carry me to the Colosseum so I won't get lost. It turns me all the way around so that I'm looking out over the endless ocean. I'm worried for a second that it's going to leave me facing out to sea, but it dutifully turns me around and starts moving me back toward Hagia Sophia and the glowing spot nearby.

The wind carries me all the way to the spot, and it's nothing more than a tiny plaza with a small raised platform of stone. I land, and when I examine the platform I find a small button with what looks like a glowing, golden bear's paw on it. Okay, hopefully this button will take me there. I press the button, and my vision is covered by a pop-up message like something from a video game.

The message contains two lines of text and I feel really intimidated at the thought of having to remember it. I try to lock the words in place but I feel like every word I'm not looking at is trying to change. Keeping them all steady feels like playing Whac-A-Mole and it's dawning on me that I should stop obsessing about this. As best I can remember the message says: "Use 4 parts of Vendarite to increase strength"

I'm not sure what this means, but I figure that in a lucid dream I can be as strong as I want to be (and have as much "Vendarite" as I like, for that matter), and will the message to close. I feel like something is happening to the plaza and that it's shifting in some way, but the dream soon ends.

It's been a while since I had a WILD and this one had by far the most violent transition I've experienced yet. Kinda cool!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #124: The Rodeo

I've been awake a while post-WBTB and I feel anxious "Am I ever gonna sleep?" thoughts creeping in. I roll to my side, relax my mind, and try to focus on hypnagogia while counting backward in a style like "100... I'm dreaming... 99... I'm dreaming..." Around the low 90s, I feel something like a thump in my head and then a loud crackle of electricity, followed by the sensation of shaking. My WILD transitions are usually very low-profile, so this surprises me. The whole thing is jolting but more exciting than unpleasant. I try to stay relaxed, prepared for the possibility of more weirdness.

Now everything is dark and I hear voices whispering in my ear. It's a bit creepy, but I know that this is normal and that I'm probably beginning to dream. I imagine myself oozing out of bed OBE-style. My body stretches like a piece of rubber, my feet meet the floor, and I'm standing in my bedroom. I'm wearing my orange-tinted safety glasses instead of my sleep mask, so it's really, really obvious that this is a dream.

Everything is dark, jumpy, and unstable. My body is moving too quickly and I keep crashing into things. I look at myself in the mirror and I can make out the shape of a man but visual quality is so low that I can't see much beyond that. I drift into the master bathroom and run straight into the counter. Then I float back to the master bedroom, going too far and wind up standing right over Wife. I reach down and touch her hip and shoulder and try to get myself anchored, but when she stirs I feel bad thinking about her DC waking up to see a creepy ghost looming over her.

The whole scene feels only half-painted. Okay, let's just get out of here. I run for the window. The shutters are closed, but I dive through, phasing into the void and then immediately rubbing my hands together to keep things stable. I kneel down and touch the floor, which feels like it's covered with dirty industrial carpet. I try to shift this toward being the sand of the Colosseum's floor, and as I keep touching it, it starts to feel more and more like a really dirty carpet. Hoping this is close enough, I start to imagine the arena all around me.

Now I can see my hands brushing over patterned, dimly illuminated carpet. The lighting is poor, and without thinking I look up to see that I'm inside a dark, empty stadium. I can't tell where the light's coming from but just at the edge of the light, I can vaguely make out empty stands. I remember podcasting about low light and I try to use my own advice of imagining how bright it is, but can't find any light source. I look hopelessly up at the ceiling, feeling embarrassed that I can't even make my own suggestion work.

Okay, next idea, also from the podcast: quit worrying about it. I jump up and start flying around the stadium, looking for people in the stands. There -- a group of 3 or 4 about halfway up. I keep circling, spotting more and more people. And as I look for them, the light in the scene grows to accomodate my expectations. After doing this for a while, there's a healthy crowd gathered in the stands and the scene is well-lit. Happy with this change, I land to find workers scurrying back and forth on the stadium floor preparing it for some kind of event. Everyone's in Western wear, and when I check, the crowd is too! It looks like they're putting on a rodeo in this stadium.

An announcer, a man in his late 40s with a bushy mustache and a cowboy hat, is under the spotlight and speaking into a microphone to warm up the crowd. I forget what he says, but they think he's great, and they cheer wildly at his words. I approach him and he holds the microphone up to me. "Uh," I say. "I want to turn this into the Colosseum."

He replies into the microphone, warmly but firmly: "No can do, boss." The crowd applauds. I think about forcing the change anyway, but I feel overwhelmed by the scope of the task. I just can't seem to build up the confidence that I need. I wander out through an exit hall, leaving the rodeo behind me.

I'm outside now and it's night. I walk through a narrow street, emerging near a restaurant patio. I'm close to the ocean. I see the water and I can hear the sound of the surf. Nearby a woman talking on her cellphone glances up at me, gives me a nod of acknowledgement, and walks away, still talking. I walk along the oceanside road for a little while, coming to a shopping center. A dark-haired woman in her late 20s approaches me. "Hi!" she says. I notice that she has a somewhat upturned nose. I also notice that I'm finding her very cute.

"I'm looking for the Colosseum," I tell her. "Can you show me where it is?"

"Oh, I'm really sorry! I have no idea where that is."

I feel discouraged and stuck. I tell her about my Colosseum goal and she nods along with my explanation. I no longer know what my plans are for this dream. Somehow I wind up telling her that I want to kiss her, she says go ahead, and so I do. As I'm kissing her (eyes open, dream stabilization style), I see three younger girls ranging from maybe 8-14 or so watching us with expressions ranging from horror to mild amusement. I notice that these three have her same upturned nose. Are they her little sisters? Her kids? Feeling embarrassed and a little confused, I pull away. "Bye!" she says brightly, and the four of them wander off together.

I continue through the shopping center, coming to a slightly darker hallway with shops on each side and a planter with a large palm tree in the middle of it. I hear Indian music coming from somewhere down the hallway, and as I walk toward the music, the dream ends.