The Labrynth of the Mind

Animals in the building

I am in a big building of some sort. On one floor, there are a whole lot of animals. It is like a pet store or a dog show. There is a short hallway, with one room containing the animals and a room behind a wall next to it where there are cages and a wide open space. This seems to be a kind of Green Room for the animals, I guess.

There are dogs in a small tubs on the floor, where people can pet them. The dogs are rather odd looking, like a cross between a dog and a ferret.

Somebody tells me to go to another floor. Their friend or relative is on floor 2, I believe. I am supposed to go to floor 2, walk straight down a hallway, make a left, and make a right and I will find him. Or something like that. I have a hard time following what the directions are.

I get to floor 2, which is rather chaotic. There are animals there, including a gorrilla, a cheeta, and a lion. There are people walking either on stilts or carrying people on their shoulders, so that they appear to be giants. Like you see sometimes at the fair or a circus. I follow the directions, but I can't find who I am looking for. I begin to think that the person I am looking for is a famous animal trainer or zookeeper. I go back to the elevator I came out of, and go the other direction down the hallway.

I come across a bench with about 5 or 6 dark skinned men of African desent sitting there waiting for something. Then a crowd of flashily dressed people flood the hallway (which was alread crowded with strangely dressed people). A parade is forming, with people in middle eastern/ancient Egyptian costumes carrying a large banner in the front. The parade is led by King David, who leads the parade singing praises to the Lord. Behind him are a lot of people carrying some kind of stretcher with food on it. Not wanting to be left out, I join the crowd and grab on to part of the stretcher. We advance down the hallway, and I notice a lot of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies in front of me. I begin to eat one, although I notice that another person doesn't like something about how melty the chocolate chips are. I like that the best.

My focus has shifted to the cookies, and now comes back to my surroundings, which have changed. Instead of a parade I am now in my brother's house. Some family shows up and they go into the basement. I can hear partying going on but am preoccupied with something. Finally I get a chance to go down, but the part has mostly broken up. There are pieces of PVC pipe laying around, which apparently was part of something everyone was working on together. They were also listening to a rock and roll band, which is still playing, I think.

Phone call

My family and I are getting ready to go on vacation somewhere. I am going to spend a night somewhere to the south of us, having some obligation. It's a bit fuzzy here, and I'm not sure but it seems like I shouldn't go on vacation but am skipping some other obligation to do so.

We are outside and my cell phone rings. It is a lady that I am aquainted with, but don't know too well. I don't know why she would be calling me. I answer the phone, but the voice is too garbled to understand. She repeats her message, but I still can't understand her so I laugh and hang up.

I have been experimenting with peanut butter, of all things. In previous night I was taking vitamin b-6 as well, but last night I decided to just try two tablespoons of peanut butter before bed. I may not get a chance to journal for a long time today, so here are some quick notes.

Successful WILD?

I was attempting a WILD here. Realizing how fast I slip into a dream after the first hints of HI, I decided to forgo counting, relaxation techniques, or mind alertness methods and focus on myself in a dream. At some point (I don't remember exactly when, it may or may not have even been part of this but for some reason I thought it was) I wake up. Or I think I wake up anyway. I look at my hand as a RC. I have 6 fingers. A classic RC.I realize that I'm dreaming. I sit up in bed, and things look completely normal except that I know it's a dream. I throw off my blankets, but I can't remember anything else.

A series of false awakenings, and some lucidity

I have some long involved dream with gangsters. There are fish in the back of a car, and I make it seem like they have been dead a long time. Kind of weird, but it seemed vitally important at the time. After a while, the adventure takes us to an old building with stone steps. I know that if one of the bottom steps is removed, another set of steps will show up leading down into a passage in the ground.

Somehow I find myself back in bed. The gangsters are in my bedroom. I don't know if I thought I woke up or not. The light is on, and think I had better turn it out. I turn it off, but one gangster tells me I had better turn it back on again. I try, but it won't come on. I think it must be because I turned it off and on so fast, and the bulb is burnt out. I try the switch on the wall. Nothing.

"Must have blown a fuse," I think. But I also remember that lights not working right is a dreamsign. I plug my nose and try to breathe. At first I am confused, because I actually can still breathe but I could swear I was awake. I pinch my nose harder, but I can still breathe. I realize I am dreaming. I walk out into the livingroom, and look around. Things are fading a bit, but I hang onto some things to try and stabilize it. I keep saying "increase stability" over and over. I hang onto an open door, which helps a bit. But when I let go, the dream almost ends. I become dangerously aware of my body asleep in bed. Trying to forget that, I try a technique of slowly spinning and looking at all of my surroundings. This helps somewhat.

The dream is still threatening to break up. I pace up and down the living room, shouting "increase vividness" and "increase lucidity" over and over. I walk into the kitchen, and think maybe some excitement would help. "Create monsters!" I shout, but then think better of it and say "well, maybe no monsters." I walk into the living room, and try to summon someone but it fails.

I find myself in bed. I get up and walk out into the living room, remembering my dream. Things are decorated for Christmas, which they are in real life but not as much. I look at the computer clock, but interestingly it seems normal.Somehow though I realize this is a dream. I can't quite remember what I did in this dream (I'm losing recall the longer I am awake) but it wasn't much anyway.

I find myself awake in bed. I get up and walk into the living room. My mother is sitting there, and I tell her about my dreams and false awakenings.

"I just kept thinking I was awake!" I say. I make a joke about an alarm clock, and how it would be good if I had one set in case this was a dream also. How would I ever know when to wake up for real if I thought I was awake already? I don't seem to doubt that I am actually awake this time.

I realize I need to get ready for school. I have to leave by 6:00 or 7:00, but I can't remember exactly when I have to be there. I thought for sure I didn't even need to get up until 8:00, but my mother thinks differently.

I wake up again. There is a single mother in my room. For some reason, I don't know anything about this woman but I know that she is a single mother. She is also a pillow. It's kind of weird. I don't even know if I'm lucid or not at this point, things are a bit confusing.

Eventually I wake up again. Unless this is also a false awakening, which RC's tell me isn't the case, I actually do need to leave. Needless to say, I woke up again from that last false awakening, and no reality check has failed so far.

Once again I was unable to journal when I woke up this morning. I had a lot of dreams last night, but I can't remember so much of them.

Food

I am in a big building, which I think is my former college. I go to a little cafe to buy some supper. I get a pizza or something. It seems to be a big decision.

More food

My family and I are somewhere, in a hotel or something. My parents want to buy a trailer/camper. They spend a lot of money on something, and we go to check it out. It turns out that what they buy is a little box, or a microwave, or something like that. Meanwhile, we look at a girl's pickup truck. The paint job on the pickup truck is weird, and has a strange texture that looks really weird close up.

We go to a tire store. In this store, there are cookies for sale. The cookies look really good to me, so I pick a few up. We go to check out, and the person behind the counter starts to add up the total. With each cookie (I only bought about 4) the price gets higher. The total comes to about $30, at least. It may even be more like $100. I get a little annoyed, but there isn't much I can do. I don't have the money, so I leave the cookies at the counter until I can come back with it.

I ate some peanut butter last night before bed, for the tryptophan content. I also took about 75mg of vitamin b-6, hoping to convert some of that tryptophan to serotonin. I had many dreams last night, but my recall is still terrible. I know I dream a lot, but I can remember only a little.

Chased by Nebuchadnezzar

I am somewhere, being chased by Nebuchadnezzar. He is animal-like, although I don't recall if he was in one of his animal phases. He is chasing a lot of people. I crawl under a couch to hide, which seems to be a clever thing to do. At times, it isn't Nebuchadnezzar but somebody else (the police?). One of my tactics seems to involve holding my breath and counting. There is more to this dream but I can't remember it.

Dream journal

I am in a library somewhere taking books off of shelves. One of them is my dream journal, and I realize that I should write in it. I dream something about lucid dreams, but don't become lucid.

I don't remember much from last night. It may have been that I didn't get as much sleep as usual, or because I took cough medicine before bed.

Fragments

There is a baseball game going on. A famous pitcher is having some trouble, or is disliked by the manager of the team, or something. The manager will not let him play, but instead has him in the bullpen the entire game. The pitcher is warming up by pitching balls to a virtual reality type animation, like a large Wii type video game.

In another fragment somewhere, I am looking at dogs. Maybe I am buying a dog. I don't quite remember. It is a little terrier or Scotty dog, or something.

I took 100mg of vitamin b-6 before bed. I also took some cough medication before bed, which may or may not have had an effect.

Job interview

I have an event going on on the same day as a job interview. The interview is at 3:30, and I want to be sure to leave the event (archaeology dig?) by 2:30 to get there. It is just across town, but it will take about a half an hour to get to where the interview will be.

When I arrive at the place where we are having the event, I find my grandmother baking something. Or at least mixing something in a big bowl. She tells me that what she is making required $1000 worth of maple syrup. She points to the bowl.

"$1000 worth, and this is all I got for it," she says. I look at all the bottles next to her.

"How many bottles did you get for $1000?" I ask.

"Twelve," she says. I see that there is some syrup left in some of the bottles, and suggest that she add some more, but she explains that the syrup has to be specially prepared in order to be used. You can't just pour it straight from a bottle. And apparently she doesn't use all of the syrup in each bottle. She asks me to pick up a new bottle from the store though.

I go out to do something with the other people there. One of the people is my former supervisor/co-worker. After we are working for a while, I remember that I have the job interview. I look at the clock, which I think says it is just after 2:00, but it really is after 3:00. I work for a bit longer until I realize it is about 3:30. I have 10 minutes until the interview, and I hop into the car and start driving.

I don't exactly know where I am headed, but I have a GPS. I try setting the GPS while I am driving, but I can't see what I am doing very well so I pull over. I still can't see what I am doing very well (because it involves reading and entering words and numbers in a dream, but I don't realize that). I think that perhaps I should call the place I am going to try to set up a different interview time, or push it ahead to 4:30. I look for the telephone number of the company, but I have a hard time finding that as well.

Light up night

The small town that my cousin lives in is having a light up night. They were lighting up a Christmas tree, which only had one or two bulbs on it. They light up other things, but in the end only a few bulbs are lit for light up night. I am talking to my cousin about this later.

Writing a book

We are in some kind of a big barn. My family and I are upstairs, and I am trying to drop down to the bottom floor. I remember going down that way before, but I think somehow that I just jumped down. At first it doesn't look like too far of a drop, but looking again I see it is about 20 or 30 feet down. I decide not to jump, but to have my family lower me down with a rope instead.

I am also writing books. Actually, what I am doing is re-writing books that other people wrote. I wonder if people will accept the book, and if so I know I will make some money.

Bank Robbers

I am part of a group of bank robbers. We hold up a bank, and I think somebody gets shot. Later, we are laying around discussing our crime.

"What do you think," somebody (possibly our leader) says "about 30 each?"

"What, $30,000 each?" I ask.

"No, 30 years each. Maybe 30 to life. We did shoot someone after all."

"They'll never catch us." Another gang member says.

"Yeah they will," says our leader, "we shot somebody and robbed a bank. You think they'll just forget about us?"

Our leader thinks we should just sit around and wait to be arrested. He doesn't seem to think we even have any hope of getting away. I vaguely know that this is not real, and I am not really a criminal. But instead of becoming lucid, I just think that I ought to run away rather than go to jail for something I didn't do.

The police at this point have told us we are going to be arrested, but have left us alone. Maybe we are out on bail or something. It is understood that we won't run away, but I consider doing it anyway. I go outside, and think about running off into the woods. Again, I vaguely remember something about this being a dream, but I don't become lucid. I just remember that in previous dreams I can never run away, and it is just a frustrating experience because I can never run fast, or climb over obstacles when being chased. I don't want this to turn into another annoying "chase" dream. Besides, since I'm innocent, I think the right thing to do is probably just be honest and go to trial.

Well, this is embarrassing. I can't remember a single thing from last night. Not one image. Nothing. That hasn't happened for a while. I remembered something when I first woke up, but the memory was hard to focus on. Now it seems to be gone. Maybe I was too tired last night. I was out late.

Oh well... maybe tonight

Church

I show up late to church, and miss choir practice. Or else I got sidetracked once I got to church and didn't make it. I am messing around in the basement doing something, and realize that the service is starting. I decide not to enter through the side door to the sanctuary, since I have to cross to the other side of the room to get to where my family is sitting. I go around another way so as to be more discreet.

Concentration Camp

I am in a concentration camp. It seems to be like an episode of Hogans Heroes, because although I am a prisoner everything seems light hearted. The Germans have a shipment of new machine guns coming in, and we somehow get a hold of one. They are big guns, with ammunition included.

I go into a room where there is a table. We start drinking beer, or something. Some other guy pours the beer onto the table, and we lap it up. Knowing an easier way to drink, somebody makes a groove appear all the way around the table to catch the beer that is poured onto it. There are small resevoirs cut into the table as well.

There is a code of some sort I am trying to crack. Someone says it is related to a message that my Grandfather received 40 years ago. We aren't even quite sure what the message was, but I think it has to do with something weird that someone told him. This person had said a jumble of seemingly random words. I look at the paper with the code on it, which is also a bunch of random words. I try inserting letters from the phrase my Grandfather heard into the message, but I don't get anything meaningful.

I tried 1800mcg of vitamin B-12 before bed last night. However, I did not get to sleep until late, and I had to take other medication for a cough that I have. I only remember one dream, which was kind of vivid but my recall is poor.

Bleeding disease

I am watching some people doing something. One guy has a terrible disease, which is contageous. Still, he spends time with his wife, and other people. He and his wife are sitting at a table in a restaraunt, and the "camera" focuses on the wife. There is something significant about the way that she scratches her leg, and I realize that she is getting the disease. I then see the guy, who is bleeding from his mouth. His mouth is filling with blood, and I know that this is part of the disease. The disease causes people to bleed everywhere, until they dissolve and die. Where the woman is itching, I know that she will start bleeding.

In another scene, the man has gone to visit Sherlock Holmes. They are talking, and I think the man is now bleeding from his eyes. Holmes finds out what is going on, but is he able to stop it before he himself is killed? His fingers begin to itch, and soon he is bleeding from his fingertips.

Spock Meets the Woman

I am Spock. Or at least someone similar to Spock. I am exploring some planet, or at least some building strange enough to be a different planet. I'm doing something with energy beams (?). I enter a large domed room where a woman is. The woman appears to be some powerful alien entity, which I am fighting (?). She uses some strange weapon on me that can read my mind.

"This weapon", she explains, "Will turn your world into your greatest fear".

I wonder what my greatest fear is, and if I even have one since I am a Vulcan.

"Out that door is your greatest fear", the woman goes on, indicating a door next to me. I being to realize that my greatest fear is claustrophobia (which it isn't in real life as far as I know). I open the door, and find myself in a tunnel. All of my surroundings become kind of fractured, and I realize that I will have to navigate through this world of small spaces. Somehow though I don't seem to be too worried.

Dogs

I have a new dog. It is some kind of a terrier or Scotty dog, and white in color. The dog is really smart, and I find that I can easily train her to come when I call. My family doesn't believe that she is that smart, and I demonstrate how I have trained her to not only come when I call, but to leave a dog biscuit alone until I say when.

I am eating cheesy popcorn from a bag while I do this. It isn't the best popcorn in the world, but I keep eating it anyway.

I am in a campground heading back to our campsite. When I am almost back, I see a couple of our dogs (including mine) are in the campsite next to ours. I start to call them away, but my mother reminds me that if I do so the dogs will have to cross the neighboring campsite to reach me. I wait until I am back to our campsite and call, and the dogs obediently come to me.

Former co-workers

My family and I are on vacation...

...I stop in a gas station to buy food, or a drink, or something. My former co-worker is there, and we chat a bit before he leaves. I leave after him, and see the company truck sitting in the parking lot. Another co-worker is there, and we say hello and chat a bit.

Frustrating

Well, I had typed up two dreams here, but eventually got timed out of my session. It's been a while, and I forgot that when that happens you lose everything you typed if you try to post. Now I am debating whether to type it all up again or not. Nah, here's a brief summary:

1st dream:
Colonists leave their little community for the outside world. People are on a boat in a small pond. I get in the boat also, and there is an end of the pond surrounded by a wall covered in liquor and lottery tickets.

2nd dream:
My brother and I walking along a river watching out for snakes. Then we look for indian artifacts but don't find any.

I have not kept up with this journal for a while. Not surprisingly, my dream recall has really fallen. Oh well, back to it:

The Draft Horse

I am at home. My mother and father are there, and my father has a new horse in the chicken coop. He leads this horse out, and I find out it is just a colt. My mother explains that even though it seems to be full size not that it will grow to be very large. He tells me that it is a young Clydesdale. As I watch, the horse grows to full size, which is about twice the size of a normal draft horse.

Pathetic, isn't it...

Before bed I took 800mg of valerian and 0.25mg of melatonin.

Fragments from early REM period

I am walking around the halls of my university. There are a lot of people in the halls with me. I believe that I am on my way to class...

... I am part of Uru again. There is a linking book somewhere, I think...

... I am looking at a computer screen. There is a picture of something entitled "dreamsign". It looks like the logo for one of the filmmaking companies. The kind of Celtic looking thing. As I look at it, it looks more like the Yeesha symbol from Uru...

Going to my Grandparents'

I am on my way to visit my Grandparents' house. There seems to be a time constraint on this, and my mother and I are trying to figure out the best way for me to get there. In the end, we decide that I will drive part way there, and when I am almost to their house to park the car and take a ferry across a small lake along the way. Somehow I think that this will be cost effective and possibly save time. I will call and schedule the ferry while I am driving.

Former Workplace

My mother and I are at my former workplace (a toy store) looking for a specific toy. We look in a few places for this thing (some kind of military hovercraft) but can't find quite what we are looking for. Then I remember that it is probably in the action figure section. I take her over to that area, but when we get there we see that all but one of the shelves are missing. I ask one of the current stockers what happened to the other shelves. He doesn't know (he is new). I ask another employee, but he doesn't know either.

Lucid at the Fair

I am walking down the road in the middle of our county fair. It is late in the season, and there are not many people visiting. Many of the stands are closing up for the year, and I look as I walk for familiar games and people. I am in my uniform (as though I were there to staff the public relations booth as I did when I was a park ranger). I am not there as a park ranger, but I have some other reason to go to the fairs. I think how nice it is that I get to go back to these old familiar places, and walk down the road feeling at ease.

I try to think of why I am at the fair. I can't exactly remember. Then I remember that being at the fair is a dreamsign. I stop walking, and turn to look behind me. Things look OK, but I am beginning to realize that I am dreaming.
I try to justify my being at the fair, but I can't. "So this is a dream," I say.

I look up at a concession stand to my right. As I do, I become aware that the dream is losing realism. I am in danger of losing the dream, and consider either preparing for a DEILD or hoping to WILD when I wake up. Then I decide to try my Dream Posession technique to stabilize it, and attempt to summon Monk. I am vaguely aware of somebody's presence at my side, and try to take posession of their body. This is partly sucessful, and I blink a few times to try to get the vision clear.

I decide to fly, hoping this will further put me in the dream. I float up into the air, and then come down through the top of the concession stand. There is a woman working in there. She is not overly beautiful, but she is pleasing to look at. I decide to kiss her, and do so. Around here I loose the dream.

Archaeology

I am with one of my colleagues at an archeological excavation. We are back at a rockshelter where we were two years ago, and are at first digging through snow. My colleague, Dr. B., points to a birdbath in the middle of a field and tells me how much he dislikes it. Then he describes a statue that used to sit in it, and how much he hated that. I think the birdbath is kind of attractive, and like the idea of the statue.

We continue digging through the snow. We try not to make too many footprints in it, but Dr. B. seems to be making a lot. Now the snow is moss, and we are removing layers of it. Now we are no longer excavating, but pulling weeds. And now we are digging through dirt looking for trash.

There is a lot of trash in the dirt, and we move down a line sorting through rubbish to throw away. I come across a pile of items, with some electronic equipment and stacks of old records. I am happy with this find, since I get to keep whatever I come across.