false awakening

I took a nap this evening starting around 5:30-6:00 and just woke up a few minutes ago (around 8:00). I seem to have been having a decent amount of dreams, which I will try to recall here. I had been more or less successful in catching myself either having FAs or entering dreams. I think at least one of this developed into a decent lucid dream.

Making Food

There is someone that keeps asking me for things. I'm going to make her a sandwich. I have some awareness that this is a dream, or else I only have an idea that some of the food is dream food. Anyway, I decide I'm going to give my friend dream food, since it's not real anyway. I also duplicate a sandwich using dream control (lucid or not). I try to make another one appear, but seem to be having difficulty. I possibly close my eyes in the process, and then think that I shouldn't have done that.

Mystery

Either as a false awakening or a true awakening, I find myself laying facedown on the couch. But am I awake? I notice that there is something on my back. It feels like a person, but as I explore this I find that it is an automobile. I'm laying under the back of this automobile, which has gone off of the road and wrecked. Both of the people in the car are dead. I don't remember what happened, but it looks like the car swerved off of the road and hit me, possibly dragging me for a few feet. I'm worried that I caused the accident somehow, by being a distraction or something.

This seems to develop further into a more complex plot. There are other characters. I'm taking pictures of the scene so that I can try to piece together what happened on my own. The police are there too, doing an actual investigation. My phone battery is wearing out, and I'm having trouble getting decent pictures. I think to myself that I might be able to get "crime" scene photos from the police later.

I photograph some tracks I see on the ground/snow. Somehow I get involved with other characters. A late-middle-aged couple are there. They go off together somewhere. I am later sent to look for them. I have a wet wash cloth for the woman. I find her later, and it seems that her husband has died...

Awake or Not?

My friend M- is calling me. We're talking through a video chat I think, but I suspect that I'm not really awake. To test it, I get a harmonica from a table and bring it back to the couch with me. My thought is to see if it's still there when I wake up later. I also blow a few notes, and my friend (who lives in Africa) mentions something about it sounding like "American music".

Arabian Nights

...Some bad guys (and maybe a woman). They have me captured. It has an Arabian Nights kind of feel to it. At one point I think they are forcing me to pull them in a chariot? I'm trying to talk to them about something - maybe complimenting the eyes of the woman?

They want something from me. Also, they used to be my friends. The sad thing is, I would have given them what they wanted anyway. There was some unfortunate events that happened that made them try to hurt me instead.

But now they're standing at the top of a set of stairs. This is an opportunity for me, so I push them down the stairs together. It seems that by the time they reach the bottom they are just toys, and about the size of large action figures.

I go down to the bottom of the steps. My mother is there. I feel a bit silly about playing with toys at my age. I pick them up, and set one (which is like a robotic Genghis Kahn or something) on top of the bookcase next to us. My Mom asks if these are driven by an internal spring or by something like "the room behind the chimney at the top of the stairs". I ask her to repeat this a couple of times, because I don't understand what she's saying. Finally I get the idea that she means a room in my grandparents' old house that we used as an attic. In the dream, there is some kind of clockwork mechanism that could be used to drive a clockwork toy like the robot thing I have. I laugh at this, because obviously if I had plugged it in there, then there would have to be a cord attached to the toy I have downstairs!

My Friend (Lucid)

During this nap, I kept dreaming that I was waking up. I have been expecting a package to be delivered, and wanted to check outside the door to see if it had been. So at least once or twice I found myself getting up, only for it to be a dream. This time I find myself getting up. It's kind of that fuzzy half dreamlike feeling where I'm not sure if I'm dreaming or just "daydreaming". I do a couple of nose pinch RC's, I think. I also try to engage with my surroundings.

I reach to the stand by my couch and pick up a mug. It's so dark I can barely see, but I can feel it. I pick the mug up by the rim, and take a drink. I think it's tea. I think this helps me anchor into the dream a bit, even though I worry that tilting my head back to take a drink will cause me to close my eyes which can be detrimental sometimes. I then look at a picture above the electric fireplace that shows some family members, and am able to recognize some individuals. I think I might do another nose pinch, and after waiting a moment or two find that I am able to breathe a little (this doesn't always work right away for some reason).

I decide to do a bit of flying, partly to help anchor the dream I think. I'm inside, but I try to fly up through the ceiling like I did at least once before. Not having a lot of success this time, so I decide to go outside. I'm a bit concerned that I might lose the dream or lucidity in the meantime, so I do another nose pinch RC. Things seem to be going OK. I go outside and try to fly. I will myself to levitate, and kind of narrate to myself something like "I go up and up". I rise up to the level of the roof of the house. There I see C., one of my colleague/friends (she stopped by in the lab to see me during waking life today). She is standing there, and I join her. She says something to me about not having been to the lab for real yet. I get the idea that it hasn't ever been the "real" C. that has been to the lab, and her true self is yet to show up.

In waking life, I find this girl to be attractive, but due to a difference in a deeply held conviction it seems unlikely that she and I could ever have a romantic relationship. I reflect on how it's kind of nice to be hanging out with her in a way where this wouldn't necessarily be a problem. Somewhere around here I either wake up or have another FA.

Parking Garage

I’m leaving the University (I think) and walking into a parking garage. I can hear someone behind me, and act as though he might be chasing me (he probably isn’t). I try to lose him by taking a set of stairs to my right. I jump down these stairs pretty quickly. I think I hear another person behind me too.

Fragments

Maybe part of the parking garage dream – maybe it’s how that one started? I’m walking somewhere. I see another person approaching me across a walkway...

...Something about being in my grandmother's old house. People walk through one door of the sunroom and out the other sometimes during the night...

Lucid Diving

I am watching something that one of my friends posted on social media. It is a video of herself talking about how you should not limit yourself to just one boyfriend or girlfriend. As long as you don’t do anything to make the other ones jealous, you can have three of them or so until you get married (three at once, that is). She makes an analogy to buying a car. This speech surprises me and kind of upsets me, because I didn’t think she was that kind of a girl. I think about making some reply to her…

…I am sitting somewhere looking at a picture of a house on the internet. I realize that this house looks just like the one that is in front of me across the street. What a coincidence! Then I think that perhaps I should do a reality check. Sure enough, it’s a dream.

I go down to a pond (or river, perhaps). I decide that it would be interesting to go under water. The pond is kind of dirty and murky, but that doesn’t matter too much since this is a dream. I dive in. It is difficult to see, so I call out for more clarity or visibility, or something. The water lightens up and it is easier to see. I think I also do another reality check to reinforce my lucidity. I dive down to the bottom. I think it would be neat to see how far down I can go, even through the bottom, so I kind of start digging into the sediment. Then I think I have a false awakening…

…(Not sure if this is the same dream. I feel like it was.) Instructing students in a lab. Part of the lab involves using a microscope (in my dream it’s called a laser scanner, or something). I don’t really remember how to use it, and I try to get someone to show me…

Fragments

…There is a mem about some political figure. I look for this online, in the context of Star Trek…

…Something involving a scene that, earlier, I was supposed to remember and sketch for some reason (I think). There is a stop sign hanging from the ceiling, and some tough superhero-type guy there. I know at some point he is going to knock the sign down…