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Tired driving

I’m driving down the road south of my grandparents’ old house, heading toward the town where my former workplace was located. I’m pretty tired as I drive, I think, but also there is something about the vegetation that is dazzling my eyes and making it difficult to watch the road. It’s a kind of purplish shrub* which looks kind of like wild aster. As I drive, and especially as I make turns, the movement does something with my eyes. I think (or so I have a vague memory of thinking) that it might be a good idea to do a reality check, but since I’m already having trouble maintaining control of the vehicle it seems like now is not a good time for a reality check. Apparently I have to drive south to this town, and then turn around and head back past my grandparents’ place and north back to either my place or where I used to live with my parents. I think it’s already getting late in the day, and I think what I should do is stop somewhere and get some supper and wake up a little. I somehow end up back at the town outside of which my grandparents’ house was located, and am walking around with my Mom. I still have to make this drive south and then back north. Mom wants me to do something, maybe stop at my grandparents’ house to eat. I feel like I would rather just stop while I was on the road, that it would make me feel less like wanting to sleep. We walk through town a little bit, and I see a gold prospecting store, which is more like an Army/Navy type surplus store.

*I think this is the third time that the color purple has figured into my dreams recently. I wonder if that's just a coincidence.

12.9.2022

Pizza Problems

I go to a pizza place, I think. While I’m there, it is noticed that a dog has urinated on the floor near someone’s chair. I go to clean this up. This process seems to take longer than anticipated, and I’m at the pizza shop longer than I meant to be. I think my Mother eventually shows up, and is not particularly happy that I have been taking so long and didn’t get in touch with her. She might have even tried to call me and I didn’t answer. She says something to me like “does the number [her phone number] mean anything to you?”, sarcastically getting after me for either not answering her call or for not calling her to tell her that I was going to be late. I think I try to defend myself in some way.

Fragments:

(1) A “mummy”. A guy that looks normal, and probably attractive to women, but he turns into a mummy and/or zombie kind of thing. He also gets really mean, I think. There is a woman. For some reason, he catches her, ties her up, and hangs her from a tree. He might wrap her in some kind of animal skin, too. There is a bear, or some other vicious creature around. I think the man is enticing the animal to attack the woman. There is a skunk involved somehow.

(2) There are two people walking down a street. Something about money, I think. One guy pulls some money out? Somehow, it is related to a guy having a pair of pants under another pair of pants, and pulling the other pair out.

12.8.2022

Bedtime probably around 3:00. WBTB around 5:54am. I don't think I planned to do a WBTB, but one of the following dreams ("Gorku") was so interesting that I wanted to record it. I think it also kind of scared me and made me turn on the light.

Fragments:

(1) Something about a guy, outside walking around something? Sharp pieces of wood. He’s worried that something or someone is going to catch him. He is talking to someone else. Something like taking over a business? But the thing pursuing him makes him not want to take over the business any longer, or maybe he thinks the thing will catch him? Smashing at things (wood, like brush and/or downed tree branches) with a sharp piece of wood.

(2) Singing songs (old west saloon songs?) while washing a strange knife in the sink. Instead of a cutting edge it has a flattened bit that runs around where the sharp edge should be. Something about how I can sing all the songs now that the kids are gone? (Implying that at least one of the songs is not appropriate for children to hear).

(3) Someone singing a song from My Little Pony? While I do something with a toy lion?

(4) Circuits, or pieces of circuits, talking about things. Bits of meat, or something, that are supposed to work like some cellular or electronic process. But it doesn’t seem to work properly.

Trying reverse blinking?

Mom’s Presentation

Walking down a street. Two people jogging by – a man and a woman. I wonder if they are raising awareness about some neurological disorder or something. Something about kids going to school. This also involves plastic tubs. Lots of kids in the streets, transitioning into the aisles of a store. I make my way to the front of the store, avoiding the large numbers of kids by taking aisles to the side. When I get to the front, Mom is preparing to give a talk. A woman is talking first, but doesn’t seem to want to let Mom talk. It’s like this first woman just has a speech that she wants to read and won’t listen to anyone else. Then my Mom starts talking. She references things that the audience won’t necessarily understand, and doesn’t seem to be doing a great job in this presentation. This then kind of transitions into looking at children’s toys that make sounds (?).

Gorku

Oscilliscope thing to do something. Supposed to make them do something in response to light. I have some ulterior motive for wanting them to go through this, and actually am disinclined to have them do it. But there are some people, or another person (a doctor(s) or scientist(s)?) and they think it should be done. When they are subjected to the device, it makes the girl see something – “Gorku”? Some alien-like thing. Causes the person (not necessarily a woman anymore) to go into some kind of fit. Hands get distorted. Bloated. The arms are twisted back behind the person's head, palms facing behind them, I think. I think something is also wrong with their mind. We try to get it back under control but things won’t settle down. Putting a pillow on the back of their neck doesn’t help. We want to do something. The person is deranged now, and gets up saying that they prefer to “crack and pierce and crack and pierce”. By this, they mean attack and eat people, I think. Ripping them apart with their teeth, or maybe with their own bones.

It took me until probably at least 8:00 to get back to sleep. I had a snack and a cup of tea in the meantime. The following were recorded after this.

Aunt at the University

At the University? Walking down a covered walkway, kind of like the Roman villa type. My Aunt is there (the former wife of one of my Uncles – I don’t see her very often). At least it looks like her. Whoever it is, I’m a bit afraid that they will recognize me for some reason. She is walking the same direction as me, and we both turn around at some point and go back the other way. I try to hide my face from her so that she won’t see me. I also walk closer to the wall, partially hidden by some pillars and I think more in shadow. There is an opening in the wall ahead of us, and I think she turns that way. Somehow, we get close to each other up here, and even talk briefly I think. She doesn’t recognize me though.

Giveaways

This might have been the same dream as above, so I’ll count all of this as one dream for the competition.

On campus at the University. I have heard that they are giving out free things, including free money, not far away. I decide to check this out. I go to where this giveaway is going on. There are piles of things on the ground, and some people at a table being given free “money”. I go up to this table and try to figure out what’s going on, expecting a catch. Someone explains to me that they are giving us coupons that can be redeemed for money, but however it works out the coupons are only worth a few cents each, it seems. It looks like you can get as many as you want, but even then, someone tells me about another person who did this for hours and only got something like $30. It doesn’t seem worth it to me.

There is another table where someone is either giving away or selling electronic devices, or watches, or something. They call me over, and try to sell me a fancy watch/phone thing called “Andromeda”. It looks pretty nice, and I fiddle around with it a bit. It has lots of dials and controls, and doesn’t look like a watch or a phone at all. I think at first it has something called a muffler, but then I see that I read that incorrectly. It has an adjustment knob, and they hand me a special wrench that you use to turn this knob. I turn it a bit, but it seems to be pretty tight. There is something about a button too.

Fragments:

(5) A house with “ghosts”, or things that are pretending to be ghosts. They are talking together about how to get some kind of treasure, like gems and gold, and such.

(6) Driving somewhere. There is a guy standing at a curve in the road. I think he might be going to ask me for money as I go by, but he doesn’t say anything. I pull into the parking lot of a grocery store. There are one or two people walking around that want to avoid, and do so. I go into the store. There are a couple of blueberries on the floor, which I pick up. After a while they become cherries. I look around for more of these, because they look pretty good and I want to buy some. I don’t see any, though. I come across some woman and we talk about the fruit selection, I think.

(7) Coming back into my apartment from somewhere and sitting down. I have a drink of something, with ice in it. I also want to write, or use the laptop, or something, and pull out a large slab of ice to rest the notebook or laptop on.

(8) Writing a list of the things that I have dreamed about. This includes the giveaway and the ghosts, and a bunch of other things. Or maybe I’m looking at a list of things that I dream about and notice that these things are on there.

(9?) Violent scenes that include scenes of crucifixion. It is gruesome, but I also realize that this brought about my purification (through Christ) and so I see something beautiful in it. (Not sure if this was a separate fragment though).

Taken from my offline dream journal.

12.7.2022

Dad and Guns

I go back home (my old home) from somewhere. Or maybe I get up in the morning and go to the kitchen. My Dad is sitting there. Or maybe I was there and my Dad came in. Anyway, instead of talking to him, I start talking to my friend from Kenya over WhatsApp. Then I think that I should probably talk to my Dad, so I stop talking with my friend and talk with my Dad instead. I look outside, and there is a car pulling into the driveway. It is dark out, and if it was breakfast earlier it seems to be night now. I don’t recognize the car, and I think the license plate is from out of state. A woman gets out and comes to the door. My Dad goes to answer the door and the woman pulls out a gun and points it at him. I grab for a gun that is in a box on the table next to me and point it at her. She doesn’t drop the gun, and I start to think that my gun might not be loaded. I find my Mom’s Derringer instead, and exchange guns. Then the dream seems to become more concerned with whether or not my mother has been keeping a loaded Derringer around the house, which I don’t think is safe. I’m a bit conflicted though, because I think that it might not be safe to have an unloaded gun either (in case something like what just happened happened). But I decide that I should unload the Derringer in the end. I open it up, and see two bullets in the chambers. The more I look, the more chambers there are, and they are loaded. In the end, there is something like 20 chambers with bullets in them in this gun. I work on prying the bullets out.

Former House Dream

My Mom and I go to visit one of the homes we lived in when I was growing up. At first it’s more like I’m imagining going there, because I’m looking at things and thinking that if the new owners have painted over them I could remove the paint and restore things to what they used to look like. I touch walls and trim and say things like “hello, old friend”. My mother calls my attention to something splattered on the ceiling. We discuss what we might have done to make a mess on the ceiling. Then my Mom decides that we should leave. I say something like: “that’s a good idea. I have so many dreams where we are back in this house, and while we are here the new owners show up”. Then I look out the front window, and the new owners are pulling into the driveway. We exit the house and Mom locks up behind us (she has a key to the house). We go to our cars as the new owners reach the house. My Mom says something to them, and they don’t seem to concerned that we have been prowling around their house. Driving down the road, I think something about how it would be nice to be friends with the guy who lives there now, and to be able to hang out in the house.

Fragments:

(1) For some reason I’m wearing purple lingerie (I’m a man, by the way). This includes some kind of skirt-like thing and a bra. I look at myself in the mirror and then think that I shouldn’t be wearing women’s clothes. “But,” I think to myself, “how do I know that these are women’s clothes? This might be a man’s bra.” Then I start thinking that there probably is no such thing as a man’s bra.

WBTB about 3:30am

Grandparents’ House Dream

At my grandparents’ old house. My mother and brother are there. We have to clean up some things, apparently. My Mom makes me go into the living room to pick up some things, but she and my brother disappear. Meanwhile, a big truck comes along and lowers a small crane thing into the living room through the ceiling somehow. This is to attach large items to so that they can hoist them out. It seems as though we are moving. I get kind of annoyed that I have to do all this work while my Mother and Brother are not helping. I go looking for them, but can’t find them (I think, anyway. There was another piece of this or another dream involving my grandfather. We had heard a loud crashing sound from the garage while my grandmother and grandfather were returning from somewhere. My grandmother came into the house, but my grandfather had not yet come in. After a little bit, I get kind of worried and go out to the garage to look for him. I look around, but can’t find him. This incident and the part where I’m looking for my mother and brother seem to be a little mixed up in my memory – they might even have been the same thing). My mother and brother come back after a while, and won’t say where they have been. They seem a little smug, in my opinion. Then I hear them talking about “putting a sign up” or something like that, inviting people to come and take things. I get the idea that it was a storage unit, and think that it was probably my grandmother’s storage unit that they went to. They must be clearing it out, without even seeing if I wanted anything first!

(At this point, things are a bit muddled. I might have run out trying to get to the storage unit before it was cleared out. But there is another dream episode that I remember that feels like it started to pick up here. And some of this might even have been more than one other dream. For the sake of the competition though, I’ll count the following part as the same dream.)

There is a box on a shelf nearby, which contains a copy of the Myst computer game (or maybe even Myst itself). It makes sounds, and I think someone might want to take it. I might grab it or something to take it away and hide it. Then (?) I go out into the garage. There is some medieval/Middle Earth like thing going on. A villainous ruler, or something, wants to poison (?) a hero. There is supposed to be someone working to prevent this, but in the end the vial of liquid (which was vital to preventing the poisoning) is broken...

Running and Hiding

My brother and I are walking down a road. We pass a mentally ill woman who is dragging two soft drink cans behind her on strings. She gives these to me, and I start dragging them. My brother and I talk about this, and he doesn’t think I should be dragging these things for her. I decide to leave the strings on a road sign nearby (although my attempt to wrap the strings around the post fails and they just fall off). I still have one or two of the cans, which I end up just tossing into the ditch. Then the dream becomes a situation in which my brother and I are trying to hide from this woman, who is following us. We go off into the countryside, and I’m concerned that the woman will be able to track us. My brother doesn’t think that’s likely, but I’m still a bit concerned. I duck down behind some shrubbery to hide, and then get back up and keep going. Now it seems that I’m alone, pulling two wagons through the woods. I pull them over a fallen tree, but then come across a tree that is laying across the path and is too high to pull the wagons over. I look around, and find a path to the right where I think I can get the wagons through one at a time. I pull the first one through and park it near a road on the other side of the obstruction. Then I go back for the other one, but as I do so I notice that there are people around. I feel the need to hide from them, and the woods are sparse where I am now. I try to duck behind a tree, and end up jumping down on the ground to try to hide myself. Two kids come along, and eventually spot me. It turns out that I’m just playing some kind of game, or at least that’s what I tell them. Now they have blown my cover though.

Fragments:

(1) Something about Sherlock Holmes (I think this was a longer dream, but I don’t remember much of it now)

(2) A Bible school activity, or something, involving mud and shaving cream. I want to participate, but end up just having to watch remotely through some kind of screen.

(3) Fighting (?) in some woods. Also a game-like map. There are sticks (we fight with the sticks?) Kind of LOTR fantasy-like in a way. I don’t really see the map, but as I move from place to place there are descriptions of what it is like at each place. One spot is a swamp, I think. Another spot is an elevator.

(4) Swinging on a rope, or a vine, or something. I swing out over a hillside and recognize the place below me. I feel kind of triumphant that I recognize the place, almost like I know it’s a dream on some level and am glad that I identified the location. I then walk along the ground a bit, trying to make my way to the top of the hill without getting too close to people or their houses. Apparently this is earlier on in the pandemic, and people might be afraid that if I even walk near their house I might spread Covid to them. I try to stay near the river at the bottom of the hill, but it seems to be difficult to avoid getting close to houses.

(5) At my grandparents’ old house. I’m on a laptop checking out Dreamviews. Meanwhile, someone on the other side of the room starts a live stream of himself through Dreamviews. I start to say something in response to the live stream, and my voice comes through the speaker of my laptop and I think there might be a bit of feedback. I realize that they guy on the other side of the room is one of the other Dreamviews members. That’s kind of exciting. I go and introduce myself as cedwards105. He introduces himself too, but his username was something difficult to remember with a bunch of numbers and/or letters in it. He seems to be a heavier built man, with a kind of purplish scarf/beard thing around his neck.

I think I had a near WILD experience at one point. The hypnogogia was quite vivid, and I still seemed to be pretty lucid. I was looking at some words and trying to see if I could read them, but the letters kept changing on me. It might have even been a dream by this point, but I just don't know for sure.

12.5.2022

Apartment, Sick Girl, and Keys

At the apartment. Mom and some other people are here. This might also be my grandmother’s house. There is a little girl there, who is sick. My mother and at least one other person are going to take her to a hospital. I plan to go along, but while I’m getting ready to go they leave without me. There are two cars going at this point. This makes me so frustrated that I throw my keys out into the road in exasperation. After they have gone I go to look for my keys. There is traffic on the road, and it is raining too. This makes the search for the keys harder. I start a monolog that seems to be part prayer, part talking to myself, and part talking to the keys. I become a little crazed with my search for the keys and realize that I’m starting to talk like Gollum talking to the ring. The cars are going to be coming back soon. A woman says something to that effect (it’s going to be her last trip, or something – which means that the cars are about done with their trip).

The dream seems to shift a little bit, and now I’m rummaging through some clutter on a desk looking for the keys. There is at least one other person with me, and they are talking about how the place we are at seems like some kind of illegal strip joint. It’s as though they employ men to dress as women but pass them off as actual women to customers. Somehow the police get involved. In the meantime, I find my keys and start kissing them in celebration. There is something about closely examining the keys, which are also old coins at this point, looking at the things that are printed on them. Meanwhile, we go back across the street, and someone mentions the sausages laying on the ground (there are a few of these scattered on the ground).

I don’t quite remember where the following scenes belong. They seem to be related to the above dream, so I guess I’ll have to count them all as part of the same dream for the competition.

...I get into the car this time as we drive to the hospital. It was either that or wait around for a long while with nothing to do. There appears to be a seat open for me in the car. As we leave, I mention that I’m not really familiar with driving in the area...

In my “room” (wherever that is). I’m doing something – maybe taking a nap. I go outside, and people are doing things. I feel a bit disappointed that I have slept through what might have been fun. I don’t think I was in my room too long, but then it starts to look like I was in there for a couple of days. I don’t think I was sleeping the whole time though. I appear to have been writing poetry. This involved displaying words on the wall somehow...

...Throwing snowballs. I and a couple of other people seem to be having a snowball fight...(Yay!! Winter Theme!!)

...Someone tosses something (a snowball?) in front of a parked car, which triggers an explosive. This was part of their plan. Someone else does something similar...

...Talking to someone about a phrase like “being all alone on a hot June day”. It’s supposed to be a poetic description of something going on currently, I think. But there is snow outside...

...My neighbors are in a room playing a game. I kind of want to play too, but I don’t know if I would be invited. Also, I have to go to the bathroom. I use one bathroom, but after leaving I feel like I still have to go. I start wandering around a bit looking for another bathroom that I saw, but now I can’t seem to find it.

Fragments

(1) I’m in a space ship. Something makes me think that I should do a reality check, so I look at my left hand and count my fingers. There are six of them. I might do this check at least once more. I don’t recall what happened after that

(2) At my Grandparents’ house. Martin Luther King Jr. calls. Apparently, he is a friend of the family. Someone is having a discussion about how they didn’t like to go see MLK because of the crowds. Somebody brings up something about overly aggressive police, or something.

(3) Someone is working on a project, and needs to go to the town of Neffs to use a piece of equipment. I get excited, because I used to work in Neffs. After one failed attempt, I finally ask the person where they went, and it turns out that they went to my former workplace to use the equipment (a “joiner”, I think it was). There is some discussion about whether it is “Neff” or “Neffs”. I have the idea that there were two places, something like “North Neff” and “South Neff”. At some point they kind of merged, and are now called “Neffs”. Anyway, I reflect on how it would have been funny, but a little nerve-wracking, if I had had to go there to use the equipment. In such a case, I would end up working with my old boss and my current supervisor on the same project, and have two bosses at once.

(4) I fell asleep in the midst of a large pile of assorted objects. It’s like the junk one would have stored in their garage, but also includes “religious tracts”. Sleeping here causes me to dream about the objects around me. There is something about my brother coming along to sleep nearby, and I seem to want to hide from him, I think. When I wake up (in the dream), I am reminded of the dreams that I had been having when I look at the things around me....

In a boat, fishing with Dad. I get a fish on the hook, and can tell that it’s a big one as we pull it in. It’s so large that the fishing line almost cuts into my fingers as we hoist it up on board. I think we might take a picture of it, then Dad takes it off the hook for me and sets it down by the side of the boat (inside the boat) to set it free. The fish hops up and over the rail like a little dog and re-enters the water...

...Some people cross a stretch of water that is dangerous in some way. It seems that they are escaping somewhere or trying to enter somewhere that they aren’t supposed to be. An alarm goes off, either to alert people about this swimming, or to alert the swimmers that they are in danger, or both. The swimmers cross and go up the bank on the other side...

Note: water, boats, and fish are becoming common dream signs. Especially water. I don't know why I'm not catching these. Maybe my dream mind was doing something there by "catching" the fish.

12.3.2022

- WBTB about 3:15-3:35 -

Awake again at 5:35am. Had had the following dreams:

Some Fragmentary Memories:

(1) They have decided to play movies on the moon. Somehow, they found a way to project them onto the surface of the moon, such that they are visible from Earth through a telescope. My brother has been trying to set up a telescope, but I think he is missing a lens. I find the lens, and finish setting up the telescope so that we can see the movie...Something about working with a setup of electronic parts. Resistors, I think. We have to keep them in order.

(2) At a store. I have a jar or bottle of some kind of green tea, which I’m supposed to put back on a shelf. I don’t know exactly where it is supposed to go, but eventually find the right spot.

(3) At my apartment. I go outside. It is night. There is someone (a lady, I think) kind of slinking around out back. I put together some kind of wall, associated with the word “prohibition”. I go looking for firewood, I think. Then I go to a shed, but am a bit worried that there might be vagrants hanging out in there.

(4) My notes from the night say “sabotage, black powder rifle”. I remember being in a room, and having a black powder rifle. I was going to do something with it, and there was at least one other person involved. Pouring black powder down the barrel and trying to ram it in place with something...

(5) We have a cart with a big package on it. The package is full of body parts from a murder. We are opening it, and I can see the bones of the carcass against the plastic that is wrapping it. Once the package is opened, the body parts appear to be in cakes of some kind of gel. This is a famous collection, apparently. I remark on how we are looking at the same things that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once looked at.

Awake again by 10:00am

Looking for a Book

At the church that I went to when I was little. I have a book, but apparently left it in the sanctuary. It was up front somewhere, in a place that I had been sitting (like a choir section). I go there to look for it before we leave (my Mom is there, I think). My former Sunday school teacher from another church is there. Now it is kind of like I’m in his house. I don’t see the book, but he has a lot of other books on shelves. I look on the shelves. For a moment I think I see a textbook written by someone I know, but on closer inspection it appears that I was wrong. I look on another shelf, but still don’t find the book that I’m looking for. Meanwhile, I fall asleep. I’m woken up later by my Mom knocking on the door. She was waiting for me and has come looking for me.

...A fragment about walking up a hill on a college campus (kind of a blend of campuses that I have been on, I think). I think to myself that this is the kind of place that I often dream about, and I think I do a reality check. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what happened after that. Note: this might have been a part of the dream above, so I won't count it as a separate fragment for the competition.

Boat and Secret Bases

We are on a boat. I think we might start out in a car, actually, but our road takes us to a lake. As we start out on the water there is a sign that says “road closed”. We discuss what this might mean, since we aren’t on a road but on a lake. It seems like the lake is narrowing. There is an airplane flying overhead. The airplane dives down and then into the lake ahead of us. It goes under water and then out again, like a diving bird. It does this a couple of times. As we keep boating, we come across a fence and a gate that is blocking our way. It appears to be some kind of military base. As we approach the gate, some soldier-type guys open it for us, and then demand that we pull over to the side. They seem to not be happy with us for trespassing at this base. A man lectures us about how they have guns planted on the bridge overpass that we came through, and how they could have shot us. They are going to make us leave, or confiscate our boat, or something. I point out that the road shouldn’t be too far from where we are, so maybe we could walk to the road and call an Uber to come and pick us up. It seems to take one or two tries for this idea to get across. I don’t know if we end up taking the advice or if I just start thinking about it and the dream scene changes to us moving to land and going up a road. But we find ourselves inside a building. We walk down a hall and go downstairs. Here we come across a secret hideout for some kind of organized crime racket or corporation, or something. It is like a fancy nightclub atmosphere, but quiet and “respectable”, such as you might see the really rich and powerful villain in a movie hanging out in. I comment on how they have a secret hideout underneath a secret military base. This is amusing to me.

More Fragments

(6) Something about the American Revolution. We might be re-enacting it? Or somehow communicating with revolutionaries? This dream seems a bit difficult to follow. I’m talking with someone from Scotland. Meanwhile I’m trying to cook something on the stove. I have a tarp that keeps getting close to the burner and I’m concerned that it might catch on fire. It has started melting already.

(7) I have some bags of trash/junk. I’m planning to get rid of them to clear some space (this might be part of the stove dream above). Mom is there. I think she asks me what I’m doing with a couple of the bags. I plan to take them somewhere (to my room? My truck?).

(8) Something about aliens in a car. We might be chased by aliens. They end up getting under our seats, but then someone does this thing where they push the seats forward and pin them against the front of the car.

(9) Building something with dowel rods. There are holes in the sides of a box, but when I go to put dowel rods in it appears that some are bigger than the rods that I have. Then I see that there are tubes of a wider diameter. As the dream progresses, it seems that I’m making tubes. It seems like there are some tough guys that I need to prove myself to. I have a device that should make tubes of the diameter that we need. It involves a rotating thing mounted on a wheel (or wheels) that goes on a kind of track.

Mom’s new house

Mom buys a new house. I go to check it out. I think it’s sad that she is moving, but the house is fairly nice on the inside. It is also “finished”, which apparently the other house wasn’t. This includes cabinets and trim. We go upstairs, and it appears that they are still working on the floors. The floors are almost finished though (actually, they are finished in a couple of the rooms, I think). We find that the previous owners left a bunch of things behind. At first I think I see a cider press and get kind of excited. On closer inspection though, it appears to be some other gadget, like a potato planter. Then I think I see a cider press for real. On closer inspection, this seems to not be a cider press either. Instead, it’s something where you rotate a ball and it screws up inside of a glass globe for some reason. I think maybe it could be used to press grapes or something. I think as I look at it I see birdseed inside. I keep looking at the things that the previous owner has left, and now it seems that most of it has to do with feeding birds. There are bags of birdseed around. As we keep looking though, it turns out that the guy has kept a lot of things, like what you might find at a hardware store. There are chemicals, paintbrushes, and clothes. They are in aisles and on racks, like in a store. I wonder why he has all this stuff, and someone (my Mom, perhaps) says that he might have been a prepper and was hoarding things in case something happened. I think this is odd, because the things that he was hoarding didn’t seem like they would be particularly helpful in such a case.

Killer Whales

Walking along a beach. There are lots of people around, apparently getting ready for a festival. It is like a regatta, with lots of boats, but apparently there are killer whales involved. I think the boats are going out to fish for the whales, or something. There is a ring of buoys marking off an area near the shore, beyond which are the boats, I think. I wonder if the buoys are marking off a safe place for people to swim. People are out in the water, some of them swimming after the boats. I think to myself that I wouldn’t want to be out there among the killer whales...

I feel like the following was a separate dream from "Killer Whales", but since I'm not sure and the setting is similar I will only count this as one dream for the competition.

Walking along a beach with my brother. We are in Florida, or some place. We are also naked. There might be more than the two of us. There is something about the sand – I might be noticing how nice the sand feels on my feet or something. We come across a rock outcropping that we start to climb. Some other people are walking along the beach, and I hope to climb far enough up that they won’t notice that I’m naked. I get up to a high spot, but then get kind of nervous about being up so high and climb down a little. The dream transitions into a third person account of people on a climbing trip. They are climbing back down, but in order to do so properly they are supposed to trust their guide to lift them part of the way down. The rock outcropping seems more like a house at this point.

Aunt J’s

At Aunt J’s. My family is there. This might have been related to an earlier part in which I’m with the family in a hotel (for the sake of this account I’ll assume that it was). We are in this hotel place, at breakfast. The family is sitting around the table, and I go to get some food. There is also some coffee available, in carafes in a separate nook...At some point I decide to walk over to my cousin’s house. At about the same time as I walk in, she comes in another door. I think she might be a little disturbed to find me prowling around the house while she was gone, so I explain that I just walked in. After a bit of talking, I learn that her three dogs (which she doesn’t have in waking life) have gone missing. We aren’t too worried, it just seems like they went outside and haven’t come back yet. We go out and I think I call for the dogs. At this point, either her dogs come back or someone else’s dog comes running in. There is something about the dog seeming vicious, but me trying to get along with it. Then the dream changes into a couple of people including myself carrying heavy doors into a garage. Two of them carry a set of two doors, and I carry one by myself, playfully bragging about being able to do it on my own. I think one of the other two people is my brother, who makes some kind of retort.

At Aunt J’s, I think. I go upstairs to use the bathroom. For some reason I’m there for longer than I want to be – I think people have come back from somewhere and I’m concerned about seeming to be in the bathroom so long (or something). Anyway, I go to get dressed and go downstairs. There is a bit of trouble standing up somehow, involving pulling myself up by a railing and getting urine on a towel or something. Then when I pull my pants up and start going downstairs I find that I had a large bag of loose-leaf tea in my pants that has ripped open. The tea leaves are spilling out and making a mess, further delaying me from going downstairs to see the people who have come along.

At some point a girl I know is talking about coming back to the other place with us to spend the night.

Not sure if this was the same dream or a different dream:

At Aunt J’s? There is a device that someone (my grandfather?) is using to siphon water into a jar for me to take with me when I go somewhere. They fill the jar with water, and another jar (at least, another jar comes from somewhere). We put these into a plastic bag along with some other items, and now I have the challenge of carrying the bag without spilling the water.

Restroom privacy issues

Going to a public restroom. I’m in one stall, but people keep coming into the restroom and for some reason that bothers me so I decide to find a different stall. There is one a couple of stalls down. I walk into this one. It is fairly large. At first I notice a mannequin set up inside the door, which is positioned so that it’s staring at the toilet. I guess that’s OK. But then I notice that there is a security guard sitting next to the toilet, along with a kid (his son, I think). I don’t really want these people watching me while I use the toilet, so I give up.

Fragment

A chipmunk or a small squirrel in my kitchen.

I have been in a bit of a dry spell lately. I took a bit of a break for a couple of days, hoping that I can start with fresh energy (probably tomorrow). Last night I was close to lucidity. I did a nose pinch RC and could still breathe. Didn't really trust it, so I tried pushing my finger through my hand. It didn't go all the way through, but it looked like it was trying to. Also, a scab appeared on the back of my hand as though I were slightly wounded. But I was getting ready to do something, and decided I didn't have time for reality checks and so I stopped.

At one point, I was falling asleep with the mantra "this is a dream". But at some point it changed, and I found myself repeating something like "this is not a dream, is it?" over and over.

This isn't so much an account of a specific dream, but more a reflection on a theme in my dreams at times. Or a feeling that I get.

Sometimes my dreams seem so monotonous and mundane that they can be a little unsettling to think about going back to. I don't know as much about the internet world as younger people probably do, but yesterday I came across the "creepypasta" thing and the "backrooms" idea specifically. Not sure I understand it entirely, but it seems to match the feeling I have with some of these dream ruts. Something so boring and monotonous that it is unsettling.

Anyway, it's interesting to me because I usually try to find the artistic or poetic side of things. I like the thought of monotony itself being intriguing.

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.