dream fragment

I'm back, and hopefully for a while! With the difficulties of school and busy schedules, I think I lost interest in lucid dreaming last year, but I was thinking the summer would be the perfect opportunity to build up recall and maybe start having lucid dreams again! Anyhow, I read through my dream journal last night, and did a sorta WBTB, and ended up having a couple fairly vivid dreams, the latter of which SHOULD have been lucid, had I been paying enough attention. Also, I failed to write my first dream down, so now I barely remember any of it. Oh well, you win some and lose some.

Alaska Cruise (Fragment)

At 6:00 AM, I'm pretty sure I could have gotten a good couple of paragraphs out of this one, but by now... not so much. Basically, I was on a cruise from Vancouver up the coast of Canada and to Alaska with my family. I think I was looking for someone, or exploring the ship for some reason quite a bit, but other than that, I don't recall much.

Pulled Over

This one was a little more bizarre in some ways, and I really should have realized it was a dream. I was at a party, and decided to go ahead and go home early. After saying goodbye to my parents, I started to drive back. After leaving the house, which now that I think about it was more like a small mansion, I began to drive past a small suburb in a valley. The road was one way only (or at least without any yellow lines) and was built into the side of a steep hill. To the left was a decently sized group of houses, small stores, and other assorted buildings. As I drove, I was talking to my dad on the phone (talking on the phone while driving being something I'm sort of uncomfortable with still) who was telling me to come back to the party and help clean up. I told him I needed to pay attention to the road and would call him back, before I broke through a fence into a small industrial/factory area.

This is where it gets a little weird. It's a decent drop, maybe 6 feet or so, but it feels longer, and a lot bumpier. I try to regain control after landing, swerving a few times and dropping down some other small hills, before finally turning myself around and pulling the car back onto the road. At the same time, I find a gun in my car and decide to reload it (???), and when I notice a lever outside the factory I pull that too. No idea what it actually did, though. Anyways, as I pull up onto the road, a cop is driving by, and I accidentally run into them. Predictably, they pull me over, but somehow the scene shifts back to my bedroom.

At this point, the cop is interrogating me about why I had a gun (no idea), why I was driving so crazily (talking on the phone), and why I would decide to pull a random lever on the side of the road. At this point, I express the thought that I might even be dreaming, and ask the cop to hit me to make sure. He does, and then I slap my own hand, but I think I feel pain so I decide it isn't a dream. (Stupid stupid reality test! I know better than that! >_<). My dad walks into the room at this point, and says something along the lines of, "What have you done?" I explain that I was pulled over, then the scene shifts again.

Finally, we end up in the hallway outside of my bedroom. The cop is testing me to see if I've learned my lesson. He places a red, then a green lever in front of me. When I refuse to pull them, he seems satisfied, because I shouldn't pull a lever unless I know what it does. He turns the green lever around, and tells me that if I had pulled it I would have contracted a deadly Elephant STD. (Crazy brain. ) At this point, the dream ends.

I woke up, and was all, "See, I knew it was a dream!" I was more relieved that it wasn't real than disappointed in myself for not realizing that it wasn't.

Yesterday during the day, I felt fairly normal physically, and maybe a little more awake in the morning than normal. I had a few worries and stuff that I was thinking about, but I was able to lay that aside once I was ready to sleep. However, last night was really worse with recall than the previous. I can't even really remember any fragments, and I only have a vague sense of what my last dream might have been about. Here's how the evening went:

I was working on homework and stuff until close to 11:00. By the time I was ready to sleep, it was 11:15, and I didn't really spend any time focusing on lucid dreaming. I said my mantra ("I lucid dream") and watched the images behind my eyes until I fell asleep, which only took a few minutes. Next thing I remember, my alarm was going off at 5:30. I hit snooze, to see if I could remember any dreams, but no luck. The only thing I realized a few minutes later was that I think the dream may have had to do with math, which was what I was doing right before bed, and that I was thinking about first thing when I woke up (thinking about the subject itself, not really any particular facet of it.)

It's a weekday (and a school day) so I'm not getting near enough sleep. As such, with recall that isn't the best anyways, I'm not having much luck remembering most of my dreams. I do remember a couple of fragments from after I hit snooze on my alarm for about five minutes. In the first dream, I'm playing some sort of computer game, while in my pajamas. I think it's supposed to be Starcraft, though I've only ever played the first one, and only for a few minutes. In the dream, I'm trying to hide what I'm doing, though I don't know why. In a second dream, or a continuation of the first, I'm in the kitchen about to enter the bathroom when I realize somebody spilled something all over the kitchen floor. I quickly try to clean it up, so I think that the 'somebody' may have been me. However, a friend of mine enters the room and teases me before helping me clean the rest up.

30.08.2010

Various Fragments (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

My recall has been completely shot as of late, and I don't think I've been helping it out too much, between not getting as much sleep as would be ideal at night, and not even attempting to keep a journal. But here's to me jumping back on the wagon, with a couple of fragments. Hey, you have to start somewhere, right?

I'm in some sort of field, doing a military drill. I'm vaguely reminded of the training of District 13 in the book, Mockingjay. A siren blares (my alarm) waking me up.

Sadly enough, that was my most defined dream. Other than that, I just have a couple of images in my head of things I think I dreamed about last night, which are a grappling hook and water. I also think that there was a fairly large dream that I'm not remembering, but it's just out of reach.

Commentary and Awake
Dream (Non-Lucid)
Lucid Dream

Last night was fairly restless. I attempted to do a WILD around 3:30, but failed and couldn't get back to sleep. Quote from my WILD-1 workbook:

Results: Success, sort of.

Meaning, I managed to have a lucid dream (YAY!) but it wasn't a WILD, and was lot later in the morning than I had intended. Plus, it was really really short, which was kind of a pain. So, here's how the night went: my alarm went of at 3:30, just like I set it to. I was already very close to if not awake, which makes me think I was pretty close to the end of my REM cycle. I got up, used the restroom, got a sip of water, and went back to bed. After that, I did my relaxation techniques, and settled down, ready to have a WILD. Here's where I hit the wall, like always: I couldn't get to sleep. For whatever reason, my body decided that I had woken it up, so it must be morning. I tried to stay mostly still for about an hour, and did a pretty good job, but there was no luck with entering the transition phase. At about 4:30, I decided to just try and get some sleep, however, I couldn't even do that! Part of the problem, I think, was that I was hungry, so that very well may have kept me from being able to sleep, among other things. I finally just got up, walked around for about half of an hour, got a snack, and went back to bed a little before 6:00. After laying another twenty minutes or so, I fell asleep and had one or two very vivid but non-Lucid dreams, which I'll put in my DJ after I'm done with this. I woke up, rolled over, and went to sleep again.

There was no transition, no SP that I recall, and I'm not sure if I lost consciousness or not, which is what makes me doubt this was a WILD. Either way around it, the next thing I realized, I was in my bed again in the same position I had just been in. I did an RC (pinching my nose) and I could breathe! I did a couple of things to stabilize it after I woke up, but it still ended before I could do much of anything. Very exciting, though.

Here's my actual dreams:

1: Out for Dinner

This was the least interesting and least vivid of the dreams I had last night, but nonetheless, it was a dream. I am sitting in a restaurant, chatting with a bunch of my friends. For whatever reason, the restaurant reminds me of my third grade classroom, but it is decorated much differently. I feel somewhat excluded and not a part of the conversation, which makes me sad. Pretty much all the friends that I saw in real life a few days ago at a pool party were in a dream, particularly one of my better friends who is moving out of state very soon. I have a feeling that this dream was a lot longer than I'm making it out to be, but it was mostly talking, of which I don't really remember anything.

2: Oceanfront Retreat

This dream was a lot more vivid and a lot more interesting than the last one. I'll try to recount as much of it as I can, though some of the order might overlap. I'm in some sort of an oceanfront retreat. It's a cross between a couple of places I have been on vacation this summer. First thing I can remember, I'm in some sort of large wooden building. I get the feeling that there isn't really air conditioning or much else like that, and it's very open to the outside. I decide to go walk to the beach. First thing I notice, the waves are ridiculously high- I swear, they have to be a good 20 or 30 feet. They are all a perfect blue with a white crest, really beautiful and scary at the same time. I remember the ocean is, though more rough than probably possible, extremely clear and detailed. It's kind of interesting, because one of the techniques I was using to relax was imagining floating on the ocean.



Anyways, even though the waves were so huge, I know me and all the other people watching are safe, because all of the buildings and the people are on a sort of bluff (small cliff), out of the ocean's reach. I find myself sitting on some wooden stairs leading down to sea level, next to an old friend and someone else that I didn't know. The old friend, C, is crying, and I ask her what's wrong. She says that she doesn't know me and doesn't want to talk about it, so I just try and comfort her instead. I find it a little weird that she doesn't recognize me, until I remember that I'm somewhat in disguise. Just then, I realize that C's friend is really attractive, so I start to talk to her. One thing leads to another... etc. I feel a little bad, though, that I'm ignoring C when she's as sad as she is, but I quickly forget about it.

Next 'scene' in the same setting, a group of people are going out into the rough waves. I overhear them saying that they have to go save the fish. They're wearing bright orange life jackets, some sort of breathing apparatus, and a lot of other safety equipment. When they go into the water, however, the waves suddenly die off, leaving a much calmer, clear ocean. I go out to see what they're doing and maybe help, and I see a couple of them trying to fix a buoy. Somehow, I also find myself just wandering around the streets and alleys of the resort, seeing a couple of people I know, but mostly strangers.

3: Home (First Lucid)

I fall asleep laying on my stomach, which is really weird for me, because I almost always sleep on my back. It felt comfortable at the time, though. I am in my bed, in the same position I fell asleep in. I know that I've been trying to WILD most of the night, so I try to do a reality check by pinching my nose and breathing. I can breathe, and so realize I'm dreaming! I then try to get out of bed, which is a real struggle. I feel as if I'm peeling myself out of my body. Once I finally manage to stand up, I feel no more resistance. I don't look back, though I wish I did to see if my physical body was still there. I go out into the hallway outside my room. I'm a little afraid I'm going to lose lucidity, so I spin around a couple of times to try and stabilize my dream. Everything in my house is a lot darker than it should be, saying this was around 6:30 in the morning. I walk downstairs to my front door, trying to imagine that it is bright outside. I open my door, but no luck: it's still dark. I try to force things to brighten up, which is when I wake up.

So, pretty interesting night. I hope that's the first lucid of many to come!

Awake
Dreaming

So, I attempted another WILD last night, again at 4:00 A.M. I was a little unsure when I woke up and felt pretty wide awake, which usually seems to occur when I'm waking after an REM phase, not before or during. I decided to try anyways, and laid there for a good while, but eventually lost motivation and decided to just get some sleep. I do remember a couple of dreams, though: one fragment I think happened just before I awoke at 4:00, and one more full dream sometime between 4:00 and 6:00. First, the fragment:

I'm trying to hide something, I'm not exactly sure what, behind my dresser, after I wake up and see it sitting in plain sight. I guess you could call this a false awakening, but it really didn't have that feel - I never really thought about the fact that I had just been asleep, and the dream was pretty short with a small focus. Anyways, I take this object, and start to try and hide it, nervous that someone will come into my room and see me with it. However, I realize that behind my dresser doesn't seem to be the best idea, because there's shampoo, lotion, make-up, soap, basically extra supplies for the bathroom already there!

The second dream was quite a bit longer, but not really much more interesting. My mind was kind of being boring last night. Here goes, though:

I am inside a mall with several of my relatives from my dad's side: my grandparents, aunt and uncle, and most of my cousins. When I first become aware, we are in line to eat at one of those oriental style places- the types where you choose one or two meats and rice or lo mein, and they dish it all out on a plate. I remember getting chicken teriaki, which happens to be one of my favorites. After I got my food, most of the rest of my family was still in line, so I decided to explore some. Walking up the mall, I don't really recgonize it, but it seems to be a compilation of a lot of malls I've been to, but smaller. There is a food court, there is at least one department store, there are several other stores that I didn't notice, but all of these seem to be within a hundred or so feet of each other. As I walk past an empty store, I remark that someone should go ahead and start a hat store there. A little after this, right after I enter a department store, one of my cousins runs up, saying that they've all been looking for me because they want to stick together while they walk around. As I walk back, I notice that my grandfather is seeming older than normal, having difficulty walking and going up stairs. When we arrive with the main group, everybody begins to mill around and look at various items, while staying pretty close together. Besides us and the shopkeepers, the mall is empty.

Somehow, I'm at the mall again the next day. A hat shop has sprung up where I said it would be a good idea, but there's no one actually there selling anything. There are a bunch of different types of hats: baseball caps, dress hats, derby hats, etc. A store clerk holds up one fancy hat and says, "I'm not sure where the shopkeeper here went. He was really good, he sold a couple of the most expensive hats here!" Somehow, I know that I'm supposed to be selling hats there, even though I don't want to, because it was my idea to open the shop in the first place. I inconspicuously walk away, which is when I wake up.

Tonight I think I'm going to try to wake myself up closer to 3:30, see if I can hit my REM period a little better.