cedwards105

Walking in the backyard of my old house. I come across a garden, which I apparently planted. It has been covered to protect it from frost. I look at the garden, and it reminds me of a dream sign. I do a nose pinch RC, and find that I can still breathe. I think I do another one to be sure, and then realize that I'm dreaming. I decide to go look for Synthos, I think. I try to fly, and might even succeed in getting off the ground, but then I seem to lose the dream.

Bedtime by about 10:45. 3mg melatonin, and 4 capsules of valerian - the suggested dose on the bottle is 5 capsules. This is besides the usual prescribed 60mg of fluoxetine I take each night. Had 4 cups of tea during the day and a cup of hot chocolate in the evening.

Woke up a little after 4:00. I need to work in the morning, so the following notes are brief for the non-lucid parts. I seem to recall having three lucids, but the one just seems to be fragments. As for the fragments at the end, I don’t remember exactly where they belonged in all of this.

7:50 am – trying to add to my notes, but we’ll see how the recall goes this morning.

Steampunk Book, leading to lucidity

With a girl, talking about a book. I’m interested in her, although for some reason I express this by showing my interest in the book. I even caress it. The book has steampunk themes, and it is open to a page with some machine-like diagrams. In the book, a man has gone to some place to do something. Somehow the location of the book becomes a lakeside community that I am familiar with in waking life.

People have been tinkering with cars, in a way related to the character in the book and the Steampunk-ish thing that was taking place. It’s difficult for people to control their vehicles now. Mine seems to be fine though. I start driving up a street, although I seem to find myself walking now. This is starting to seem like a dream, so I do a nose pinch RC and find that it is! I start trying to find the Dream Base, I think (I have also been focusing on looking for a persistent realm I have been trying to build, and it might have been that I was looking for). I try to imagine the place behind me, I think, and turn around. I don’t see it though. Then I think I might fly and look for it that way – the way I got to Synthos – and look for a good place to take off (I seem to be lacking confidence in just taking off from where I am). I think about flying out over the lake...

I think I found it!

A dream episode involving an aquatic creature that turned into a beautiful woman and is trying to entice me to join her...I do some kind of dance and sing while on a narrow ledge... Dreaming about “Waking up”, I think? Something odd here, like I had been dreaming that I was writing in a dream journal but it was a dream, but the journal entry was still there. Not even sure if this part was in the same dream or was in another dream.

...Walking back into the building, I see a few displays that are reminiscent of the dream that I had been having about the aquatic creature. I do a nose pinch RC, and find that I’m dreaming! I try to go looking for the dream base, by imagining it behind me (a portal?), but when I turn around I don’t notice anything different. There is a room full of people. I call out for the Dream Base library, and as I do I see words printed in the dream world that say the words that I’m calling for. One I remember specifically is the word “library”. Where is the Dream Base? Then I remember reading about asking a DC for help. I see a girl sitting at a table near me and ask her where the Dream Base is.

“It’s over there behind Tony,” she says, possibly pointing in the direction she means.

That’s nice to know, but who’s Tony? I start calling out “Tony!” and see a man that looks vaguely Hispanic/Latino sitting at another table. That’s probably Tony. I go look behind him, and see a door leading outside. By this time, I have the idea that what I’m looking for is called a “resort”, and I see a couple of people out the window in bathing suits. I go outside to find myself in a seaside area. I think I correct myself on the “resort” thing and call out for the Dream Base (or Dream Base library). Much of this time I think I’ve been somewhat frantically calling out for the Dream Base, or the Dream Base library. I decide it would be easier to focus on just saying “Dream Base”.

I’m in a small open area, a stone street surrounded by buildings. Looking up, I see a helicopter hovering nearby, as though it’s watching me. I start to look around for the Beacon Tower. I see a large round building. Looking upwards, it appears to be a short tower, ending in a squarish pillar at the top. Then I remember the light that’s supposed to be coming from the column, and a moment later I notice a streak of white across the sky above the tower I was looking at. Upon closer inspection, it seems to be a jet trail, but I’m skeptical that it wasn’t the Beacon light considering how my dreams seem to lag a bit in responding to my suggestions. [“Jet lag”? Could be a dream play on words thing]

Lucid Fragments

...Finding that I’m dreaming, I briefly stabilize the dream by feeling the brickwork beneath my feet (I’m standing on something like a road or a sidewalk). Remembering previous dreams and my hypothesis that I’ve been spending too much time on stabilizing and not enough on engaging with the dream, I move on. I rush towards some trees...
...Another lucid confirmed by a nose pinch RC...

...Looking for the Dream Base beacon tower, I look out a window. I think I see a tall sign, of the gas station sort....

...Looking for the Dream Base, I see some trees...

Another one of those nights where I woke up a little after 4:00 am and couldn't get back to sleep for a while. This tends to be good for lucid dreaming, because I often feel too tired to get up and do a WBTB otherwise. I updated the dream journal, read some journals on Dreamviews, and read the Lord of the Rings. I also had some valerian, and a little bit of melatonin (about a quarter of a 3mg tablet, I think. I had taken a half of one before bed. It usually doesn't take a lot for me.) I eventually went back to sleep around 7:00.

The dream was kind of rambling, involving school/research related stuff, a parade, and a courthouse. At some point, I became lucid:

...At another point in time, I realize that I’m either experiencing a hypnogogic hallucination or a dream. I reach out and hold onto a cable that is running next to me, pulling myself up and also more into the dream. I’m at the top of a building, perhaps on some kind of a walkway? I make my way toward the end, where the roof of the building ends, and out onto a pole. The pole seems to be covered in a thick black grease-like substance. I lick the pole to try to stabilize/anchor myself more. I can see the ground below me, but I start to lose the dream...

This might have been a false awakening, I remember trying to get back into a dream. Something about a tube of lotion/shampoo/conditioner - something like that. I was also looking at what I thought was HI, but it seemed pretty realistic.

Notes: Frequency of lucidity is still decent. My dreams keep ending sooner than I would like though. I still have some concerns about my experimenting with silene capensis earlier in the year. It probably doesn't have much to do with it, but there is an idea in the back of my mind that it has caused my lucid dreams to be shorter. This idea itself might be causing me to lose the dreams sooner, especially if I'm just having false awakenings instead of actually waking up.

Pretzel Experiment (Lucid)

I "wake up" on the couch where I was sleeping. The neighbors are being a little noisy - at least I think I can hear them talking and/or playing music on a piano. This makes me kind of unreasonably annoyed, and I think that I will turn off the fan by my bed to be sure. If they really are making noise, I'm thinking of playing the trumpet for revenge. I go to turn off the fan, and then realize that I should do a reality check. I do a nose pinch, and find that I can still breathe. I seem to be getting more used to lucidity, because I don't doubt that I'm dreaming as much as I have before. I'm pretty convinced after that test, and I stabilize a bit by feeling the couch and then get up. I walk over to a box on my desk where I have a bag of mini pretzel sticks (I put them there for this reason). My plan is to see if I can keep myself anchored and stabilized by snacking on or just holding a pretzel stick in my mouth as I go. Somehow the process of getting out a pretzel stick is more complicated than I expected, and it obstructs my vision a little bit. This causes the dream to destabilize a bit, but I put a pretzel in my mouth and it seems to help, at least maybe a little bit. I now make my way to the door. I open the door to go outside, thinking as I do that I should have tried to expect the Dream Base to be there when I open it. When I do open the door, I think I remember seeing a bush outside or something. But the dream seems to fade after this.

Looks like I'm starting to get some of my old frequency back. I often stop practicing somewhere at this point, either getting bored or lazy or burnt out, or something. My goal this time is to keep practicing past the point where I'm starting to have decent success, and see how far I can go.

Stabilize (Lucid)

Lying in bed, I do a nose pinch and can still breathe. I decide that I’m dreaming but it feels as though I’m not quite asleep. I want to get up, but I don’t want to wake myself up in the process. I think about the “opening your dream eyes” technique, and I think I try to apply it. Anyway, I slowly try moving, and it seems like I’m still dreaming. I slowly move my arm to pull myself up out of bed. My arm feels odd and kind of tingly, as though I were sleeping on it funny. I figure that I can work with that, though. I make my way out of bed, and stand up. Things seem real-ish. It is kind of dimly light in the room, like early morning. I push my hair out of my eyes. Then I sit down on the floor and concentrate on stabilizing the dream as I had planned to do before. I repeat “stabilize” over and over a few times. Eventually, however, the dream fades out slowly. I can see a little bit of something still, but think at this point that I’m waking up and what I see is from my eyes opening just a little bit. I open my eyes all the way, but that wakes me up.

Tried to turn on the light above my bed, but it wouldn’t turn on. Neither would the lamp on the stand next to my bed (which isn’t there any longer in waking life). This is a dreamsign, so I did a nose pinch RC, I think. Then I became lucid. I remembered to stabilize, as I had planned. I felt the back of the couch that I was laying on. The dream might have faded at this point, but I think I held on to awareness and things came back. I tried the light above my bed again, but it wouldn’t turn on. I might have lost lucidity but regained it at this point. I think I felt the couch again to stabilize, but I also licked the chest by the couch that acts as another night stand. I realize that sounds weird, but licking things seems to help stabilize dreams for me. I got up off of the couch. It was dark in my room, and the lamp wouldn’t turn on. I directed the dream to give me more light, using verbal commands. I was holding the lamp as I did this, and at first I got a flash of light from the lamp. I might have continued my demands a time or two, but at any rate the room lightened up.

I decided to go outside, and wondered if I should phase through a wall. I decided to try for the door, a little worried that I might lose the dream before I got there. I made it though, and opened it after saying something about the Dream Base being on the other side (hoping it would be there when I opened the door). However, when I opened the door I didn’t see the Dream Base, as far as I could tell. It wasn’t exactly my usual surroundings though – more trees, and more parklike than the urban area I live in. I then said something like “Dream Base on the right”, and turned to look. There was a large building there, looking kind of like it was made of light colored brick. It might have just been part of the college campus or the parking garage that is there in waking life though.

I then tried to fly, possibly to search for the Dream Base or to help stabilize the dream. I picked up some gravel so that I could feel it and help to anchor/stabilize the dream. I tried flying, but was having some difficulty getting off the ground. Jumping didn’t seem to help...I think I lost the dream somewhere around here.