6.2.2023 Conference Lucid, and some progress with the blackout I don’t know if all of the following was the same dream, but it seems to make sense to arrange it as such and in the following order: There is a girl that someone wants to meet again. He walks through a train, looking for her. He finds her on the last car of a train. A piano player is there too. The last car seems to be where poor people sit. He looks at the girl, sitting in the corner. She kind of smiles and shakes her head at him (or something). He’s not sure what she means by this... Somewhere – in a hotel maybe. There is a conference going on that I’m supposed to be at. I calculate in my mind what time I need to leave to be there on time, and decide that I would need to leave by 10:00. I look at the clock to see how long I have, and it looks like it is just about 10:00 now. I rush out, I think to catch a train... ...I’m a bit fuzzy about whether the conference starts in an hour at 11:00 or in a couple of hours. I could walk back to the conference center, but there is also a train that I could take. I discuss the merits of each with someone (my mother?). This has to do with dining, it seems. There is a restaurant along the way if I walk. Mom and I in store dream here? I decide to take the train. I arrive at the conference center, several hours early it turns out. I wonder to myself what I’m going to do for the next couple of hours. I go into a restroom. It’s fairly nice, but it’s one of those dream restrooms where there isn’t much privacy. No doors on stalls, etc. Also, there are one or two women in there. I chuckle to myself over this, because it’s like one of my dream restrooms. Then I decide to do a reality check, and become lucid. I think the dream starts to fade... ...At some point I seem to be in this conference center (I think, though I’m not sure). I go walking down a walkway, where girls seem to be hanging out. It’s a nice place to meet girls, but I don’t think I’m really there to do that. I turn around and head back the way I came. There is a set of double doors to my left that have the name of some superhero on them (Spider Man, Iron Man, The Hulk, or someone)... ...Still at the conference center, not lucid. Walking around, I notice how unfamiliar and almost “dream-like” things seem. I decide to do a nose pinch RC, and find that I can still breathe. Becoming convinced that this is a dream, I inhale deeply with my nose still pinched. I can see a lady from my church nearby. I become lucid. For some reason, I start reciting poetry – Eldorado, by Edgar Allen Poe. This might be a means of stabilizing the dream, or maybe just something I find to be fun at the moment. I might get up onto a table and pace around while talking. The dream begins to fade, but I have been starting to suspect that this tendency to “wake up” soon after becoming lucid might be false awakenings caused by expecting to wake up, so I hang on. The imagery comes back! I think about the competition, and try to remember what I’m supposed to do. Flying was one thing, so I try to levitate. It’s a bit difficult, but I manage to float up a few feet. I get stuck at the ceiling, having trouble breaking through. I float around a bit before losing the dream, or else I don’t remember what happened after this. ...Coming back from somewhere. The conference above? I’m sitting in a vehicle, and I see what appears to be the guy driving now standing outside the car talking to someone else. As he’s talking, he starts singing a song (I think it’s the song “Tell me Why”). There are two homeless people standing there, and they sing along. We continue on our drive, and talk about how talented those people were and how the talent should be appreciated. Then we try to drive up a steep set of wooden stairs. They’re a bit rickety. We get stuck, and need to get out to push. I need to put on my shoes first though. I get out, and sit in the car and/or lean against the car to put them on. Someone gets out from the front seat, and has to put on his shoes as well. Girl Moves In, and the Toaster Oven Cooking something in a toaster oven. It’s a rolled up thing of some kind. There are two toaster ovens to choose from – a high powered one and a lower powered on. I decide to use the lower powered one. One of the girls from the apartment next to me has moved into my apartment, and I think since someone else is living in the apartment I should put the smoke detector back on the wall where it was (I had put it in a drawer in the bathroom, because it kept going off when I was cooking). I bring smoke detector back out, but then I see that the thing in the toaster oven is putting off smoke. I think I end up putting the smoke detector on the couch and cover it with a sheet, hoping it won’t go off...Someone shows up and talks about mowing that needs to be done “in Germany”. I offer to do it, and they agree. “Germany” seems to just be a neighborhood in town. "Pruners" and the Snakes People from the Cru campus ministry. R- is one of them. I had put up signs a while back (in the dream) advertising that I was interested in a ministry called “Plums”, or “Prunes”, or something like that. R- is interested in this, and it turns out that – unbeknownst to me – “Prunes” had to do with acting (I’m not an actor). She is excited to think that I am a “Pruner”, or “Plumer” or some title related to the word. We go up some stairs, I think. There is a snake involved in some way...This might flow into the following:...Some people are in a shooting game, or movie perhaps. They might be soldiers. The are in a dry, dusty place, going around a large hill on a road. They notice something moving a little ways off, and it turns out that there are very large snakes threatening them in some way. They shoot at the snakes... Singing Game My Mom and brother are talking and playing a game. I feel like my brother isn’t paying attention when I talk, and just talks over me. This annoys me, but I also feel that it would be wrong of me to just keep on talking and try to drown him out (this occasionally happens in dreams, and I get angry, but this time I make the conscious effort to show Christ-like humility). I also feel left out of the game. I join in the game anyway – it involves picking up tiles along with singing - I sing “It’s a Grand Old Flag”, or something, picking up tiles with pictures of flags and such as I come to the words in the song. One of the words has to do with the word “heart” (maybe it was the “emblem of the land I love” part) and I look for a heart tile. This is a little challenging, and I keep seeing red shapes that sort of look like hearts but might not be.