CanisLucidus

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #181: Big Band

As I’m leaving a shopping mall, there’s an announcement that the mall is under lockdown because someone has stolen a baby from a stroller. This all seems too strange to me and I become lucid.

I’m in a large, empty room that looks a bit like a warehouse, a bit like a mall entrance. It’s only half lit but I can make out the ceiling maybe fifty feet above me. I remember that I wanted to make the dream as vivid as possible so I slowly rub my hands together, nothing how real they look and feel. The one difference I notice is that they leave visible streaks across my vision when I move them.

I can’t remember any goals beyond vividness, so I raise my hands to the ceiling and say, “I’ll take whatever you have to give me.” Nothing happens, so I add, “Show me something amazing! Anything!” Again I wait, and I start to feel a twinge of nervousness.

“I think we need more light,” I say, and the light comes up a bit. Now I hear music behind me, like something from a band. I turn and see a large open-air exit from the mall with a big band playing on a set of risers near the exit. I make my way over to the band, only partly able to hear the music. The risers go up about 3 levels and there are maybe 20 or 25 band members there. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to how they’re organized.

The band members are wearing these cool suits with thick, vertical black and white stripes. “Nice suits,” I say. “I’m wearing one too!” And when I hold out my arms, sure enough I’m dressed like I’m part of the band.

On the top level I spot the only female in the group, a woman with dark, curly hair drawn back in a ponytail. I can’t remember what instrument she plays, but she has a cool vibe and smiles at me in acknowledgement. I float up to her level on the riser and we briefly kiss. Afterward I probe at her temples, forehead, and scalp with my fingers as a sort of vividness-enhancing thing. She wrinkles her nose and squeezes her eyes shut when I do this.

Looking out past the risers I see the ocean. I pick her up and carry her with me, floating toward a strange beach where some huge metallic device has somehow permanently trapped a wave just as it crests. A dozen surfers stand happily atop the wave, gliding back and forth while moving neither forward nor back.

As I reach the edge of the water, the woman from the band shifts uncomfortably. “Do you want to go with me or stay here?” I ask. She says that she wants to “stay here”, so I set her down at the shoreline. I float/swim further out into the water, my feet dragging along as I go. Eventually I start swimming, and the visuals fade from the dream. The sensation of swimming continues for a while, though, before the dream ends.