CrimsonStorm

07.08.2010

Island Hotel (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

This is one of two dreams I had from last night, both of which happened before 3:30 A.M. when I woke up for a WILD. The WILD, by the way, failed when I fell back to sleep. I hadn't remembered any dreams from the past two nights, so even this is a plus.

I am walking along a path in the middle of a tropical island. My dream-world brother is also on the path, a little ways behind me. I meet up with a woman, and we begin to talk, while still walking along the path. We come upon a tower, that I instinctively know is a hotel, and we go up to the top floor. Along the way, the woman disappears, and I find myself in the top floor room with my brother nearby. I decide to go take a shower, and I do so. The dream ends.

So, I didn't remember any dreams last night, which really kind of sucked. I'm going to go ahead and copy some of my workbook into here again, for continuity's sake. I'm also going to be sure to keep a notebook by my bed tonight.

I probably should have expected that I couldn't have two good dream-nights in a row. Ah, well, here's how it went. I went to bed at 11:00, which was a little later than I was hoping for, anyways. I then had the same problem I had the previous night: I couldn't get myself to fall asleep.

I'm beginning to think this is a common problem between sleeping in general for me and my, as of yet, failed attempts to WILD. Basically, whenever I think about 'wanting' to fall asleep, I can't. On a normal night, especially when I don't have to do anything the next day, this isn't a problem, because I just lay down and don't worry about it. However, I've noticed that, for example the night before school starts each year, I have trouble falling asleep. It's that feeling of lying there, not exactly tense, or thinking about a ton, but being just the slightest bit anxious about falling asleep that seems to make it impossible. Last night, and the night before during my actual WILD attempt, was the same way. I'm not exactly sure what to do about this one.

So, anyways, it's a little before 11:00, and I can't fall asleep. I lay there until a little after twelve, when I decide to read a chapter or two of a book to get my mind off of it. (This is what I do to relax every night before bed, anyways.) I do this, and it seems to help, because within 15 minutes or so, I fall asleep. At 3:30, I'm going to guess the alarm went off, but just didn't wake me up. Any way around it, I don't remember a thing, so I'm guessing I was pretty well asleep at this point. Anticipating this, I had set an alarm for 6:00. This was a regular alarm, not one that stopped after 1 ring like the CAN-WILD one I had set for 3:30. As a result, it did manage to wake me up. I think I tried to WILD at this point, but I wasn't very motivated, so it failed as well. I laid there waking up on and off until 9:00, when I finally got up. I did have one dream during this time, but I didn't have my DJ by my bed, so I didn't write it down.

One last thing: sometime in the night, I'm pretty sure I started to enter SP, which is a first for me as well. Funny enough, it wasn't when I was trying to WILD, even. I felt vibrations over my whole body, but I think I must have gotten too excited, because they faded away fairly quickly and weren't accompanied by any HH. I laid still a little longer, to see if they would come back, but when they didn't, I did a RC or two. They all passed, so I must not have managed to fall asleep. Kind of interesting though.

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.

To be honest, these are really two dreams, both of which occurred last night. I was attempting a WBTB after about five hours of sleep, but apparently I woke myself up too much, as I only really fell asleep twenty or so minutes before I had to wake up. I'm pretty sure both of these dreams happened in that twenty minutes.

I'm driving on a road which is under construction, slowly passing in front of a mansion. I get the feeling I've been driving in circles, watching this mansion for a good while. However, any time I stop my car, the security cameras positioned around the house 'watch' me intently. Even when I try to hide, I can tell they are still watching. So, I drive around the loop in front of the house one more time- I remember one stretch of the road went down a rather large dirt ravine in a tunnel, before sharply pulling back up. Finally, however, I park my car out of sight, crawl under some leafy bushes, and peer through a minuscule hole, escaping the notice of the cameras. There appears to be some sort of party going on in the mansion, and several nice cars are parked out front. Making a decision, I run out through the front gate and steal a limo that is parked out front. As I start to drive away, I notice two things: a man in a pink bathrobe surrounded by several other people, shaking his fist at me; and a group of security guards closing the front gate. However, there appears to be a hole in the bushes surrounding the mansion, which I drive through, making the security guards jump out of the way at the last second. I drive away, security in pursuit, and somehow manage to get my limo flung up into the air, with me inside. (This was after driving up the side of the ravine mentioned earlier.) When I land, I take a much smaller, more practical car, and drive away in it.

I didn't realize it then, but much of that last dream was probably inspired by Grand Theft Auto IV, a game which I own, even though I haven't played it in a while. This next was is relatively more simple, but seems more vivid in my mind. I would say I had this one after the GTA dream.

I'm going back to school the first day of my sophomore year. I'm taking a zero hour class, so I'm at school an hour earlier than most people. My zero hour class is chemistry, which interestingly enough I've already taken, and I know all of my classmates, but not the teacher. We do this class on computers, but I don't think we actually do much, saying this is the first day. Next, we have homeroom, but I don't know what room I'm supposed to go to. I get by the library, where the class listings are, and find my name. However, I also realize that I have no shoes on, even though I did earlier. I retrace my steps, and locate my shoes in the stairwell. I finally go to my homeroom at the guidance office, where a bunch of other kids are waiting, saying that the door is locked.