DarkestDarkness

Non-dream stuff: A very long non-lucid dream. I only remember one part of it, that I held on to loosely as I was quickly forgetting everything, deciding this was the most important part to remember.

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Dream sequence:

I was in my native country, in the dream context it had been explained why I think but I can't remember it. I was in a small town and it was day, looking to soon be sunset, as everything looked a bit orange.

This was just a typical town and I was wandering around and there was an old brown-stone church, with one of its doors wide open. I walked in, and I remember I was looking at the floor just before doing so and seeing a roach type bug, but small. In the dream context there was something about going to visit local landmarks. When I entered it wasn't like a church at all, but a community centre of some kind. It was deserted. All the lights were on, but there were many many webs... and spiders, weird ones, some almost as big as my hand. I was very wary, but something compelled me to continue and I kept my instinctive fear in check, wondering why I was fearing them, they were just stood there on their webs, undisturbed for years, clearly.

I wandered through the first two rooms, and the second room was at the "back" and had large modern glass windows that were letting the sunset light in. Everything had that orange light bath, as expected. I used my boot to clear away some webs I just couldn't avoid if I wanted to move further. After having a look around in this room, where there had been some displays of some kind, I turn back a bit and again have to carefully remove some webs from the way, feeling extremely wary of the spiders on it. I remember being in a room or common hall that connected other rooms and there was a bag of some kind on a swivel office chair. On topof the bag was a black leather wallet. Everything was absolutely covered in webs and I looked at the wallet with the intent of seeing what was inside and taking it, but I saw a slightly open door and could sense something. It was a very small room, a cupboard of some kind, and I couldn't fully open the door in, because of an object inside. The light inside the tiny room was also on, oddly. I reached with my left arm into the room and felt something stony and as I touched it, I saw the wallet and bag disappear and heard a female voice saying "You have resisted temptation. You are blessed with protection." I could "see" an interface icon showing a "buff" as in a game, but the context of the dream felt all too real.

I remember exploring a little more but there were some areas that didn't have lights on and were getting on for darkness. It is implied in the dream that I went into these areas, as next I remember being at a doorway in the same building and walking into my the room my mom uses as an office at home in waking life, except the view through the windows was part of the dream context. I found it odd to find this room, but didn't question it much. I looked at her computer screen. It was on, something about this feels emotional though I have no idea now what was on the screen, other than the fact that on some timestamp it said the date was "2013". It was 2018, I knew this in the dream context. I took a photograph with my phone of the screen, and I thought something but I can't remember what. I seem to remember that at some point before this in the dream I'd found something else pertaining to my mom, from the past also. Even in the dream I couldn't help but wonder, are these things I'm finding related to her mental health?

I know I went out of that room but I cannot remember more details, even though the dream sequence didn't end there.

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Some notes ^{(spread out because they'd be too dense to read otherwise)}:

• The sunset is a dream-sign. I hadn't realised this before. It is distinctly different from all other times of day, and in my dreams it always represents "the end" (of time, in some way).

• Even in the dream I thought everything in that light looked beautiful.

• As I saw all those spiders, I was about to react instinctively and let out some reaction of fear, but the fact that in the dream I had strongly intended to go into this building and that I somehow felt compelled to go further in, made me remember my practice of trying to keep my fear in check. This is the first time in a dream that I have truly suppressed such a basic and intense fear, as far "consciously" as my dream mind would allow. Keep in context that I have been an arachnophobe almost all of my life until very recently, and that in dreams basic fears and instincts are much, much stronger in my behaviour.

• In the dream context I remember being told by someone to look at the local points of interest and landmarks because I could be interested in them and because they needed people to do some tourism around here. That's the context I had for the "church".

• The bag/purse under the wallet was magenta. The office chair was a deep blue, I think.

• All I can remember seeing on that computer screen was a few different windows open, and maybe an image as one of the windows, which is what had the timestamp. In my dream, I knew that my mom had not been in this office for a long time. It looked just as the rest of the community centre.

• I do not know why even out of the dream now I feel some strong emotion thinking about the date and the screen. As far as I remember, 2013 was no different for my mom, if anything, her mental health has improved greatly since then. But considering it now, it was also when I moved to where I live now, away from my native country.

• At some point in the dream I understood the sunset feeling like "end", though I'm still not certain what about.

• The community centre (which was actually the church, after all) corridors and rooms looked, actually, much more like a very stereotypical office building and some doctors offices I've been to.

• As for the context of my mom's mental health, she suffers from bipolar or something the like, but has it very well controlled by medication these days.

Non-dream stuff: Got up at about 9:30 and then had to help my partner for a while so I've forgotten most details but held on loosely to a few non-lucid fragments.

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Fragment 1:

I remember having an A4 notebook, the paragraphs lines were red and the edge guides were another colour, probably blue. In the dream this was a dream journal, though at least a few of the pages were torn, as if they had been bitten off, by a big animal, I though. I still tried to write on a torn page, either with a pencil or a pen. There were still good and intact pages, but for some reason I did not choose to try to write on them.

Fragment 2:

I was on a low tier of a canal or something, but not in the water bit. There was one of those tall concrete bridges across to a higher tier on the other side. Where I was, there were some chunky metal fences, one was crumpled and the others were stacked against each other. In the dream they were relevant to the dream's context, though I don't remember how.

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Some notes:

• The dream dream-journal was not like any DJ I've ever kept in real life. This journal I'm writing on now is digital, as was the last one I had. The physical journals I had were not books, but loose collections of blank A4 sheets that I wrote on.
• I really can't remember if I had a pencil or a pen when trying to write, but I know that it felt odd either way when I pressed on the paper. The feedback was not as I expected. This, and the fact that there was such a unique (and oddly torn) dream journal should have been a good prompt to do a RC, as I've just done now, thinking about whether I should do RCs when writing on DJs or not.
• The second fragment's area looked like typical city/town scenes I've seen from Japan, though I've never been there. I've recently been playing a game with such typical towns.
• The fact that I was somewhere so foreign should have been a good RC prompt, but in the dream I did not think about why or how I was there.
• Both fragments were linked together by some sort of plot/story, but I don't remember any detail.

Non-dream stuff: Woke up and got up at about 9:20. Remembered a few segments from the last dream I was having.

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Sequence 1:

I was looking at an interface for picking a map in a real-time strategy game, for some sort of Command&Conquer game. I remember my partner being next to me and as I generated a random map with a "continental" style, I thought it looked a bit different and too small compared to most, but my partner said "no, have a look at the preview, it will be fine", so I clicked on preview and then my vision went into the screen and the map thumbnail image; as it zoomed in, the map became detailed and I viewed it from above but my vision kept zooming in closer and then there were 3 player factions, one being mine, another being my partner's, and the last one being someone else or an AI. We all started with some vehicles specific to our factions and the cars were racing through beaches and roads, with my vision still zooming now on a car I had, which looked a bit like something out of 1940s Germany, with white/grey colours and chrome accents. The AI had some military trucks, including one with a mounted gun, and they were chasing me and gaining speed, but I overtook my partner's cars and they blocked the chasing trucks a bit.

I remember now seeing in first person, and the car was stopped near a road tunnel that oddly enough was just after an intersection with a main road and a road that went around a bend behind a hill. I remember it was a clear sunny day and there were tropical forests.

Sequence 2:

Then I was at an area with pavement in a town, this was an open area on or near a quay and was reminiscent of my native country; there were subway entrances and this was all still part of the game somehow, I felt. In one of the subway entrances some gangsters were running up the stairs with sub-machine guns and I threw grenades and rockets at them, watching them not blow into pieces but fly around with wonky physics, just as one would expect with most games. Their "AI" was also poor; they ran against walls and corners sometimes and just idled even though I was being aggressive. Then I noticed I had a toolbar thing on my interface and picked a massive plywood plank item, and placed it over the entrance; for some reason it was steady standing on its own and was large enough that nobody could pass; I read a little tooltip on the interface saying I'd recently placed a blocking barrier and could not do so again for 15 minutes, but that I could upgrade any existing ones to increase their duration; this barrier I placed was going to last for 1 hour, apparently. The people that showed up the steps from behind the barrier, that I could still see just over the top, looked a lot less threatening, and in fact some were complaining like "hey I gotta get to work, come on!". I pretended to not care.

The dream ended at some point soon.

---

Some notes:

• Although I separated both sequences into their own parts, they were part of the same dream, I just can't remember what went between them exactly; I don't remember a sudden transition from one to the other.
• The RTS map interface looked a bit like C&C:Generals and Warcraft 3; I remember the players had assigned colours and numbers, like for teams.
• The other generated maps were more representative of real Earth continents, picked at random, but the one I thought was odd just looked like a coastal section of a place.
• The fact that the whole of the sequences took place in a game context makes it very difficult for me to remember to question reality. Even when I am playing games in waking life and remember to do reality checks, it is difficult for me to pick good moments, i.e. weird ones, because games are generally very predictable and the only "weird" things that ever happen are bugs, the frequency of which depend solely on the specific game.
• The vehicles in the RTS were supposed to be base-starting vehicles, so in a way I should have remembered to do a RC over this, because in the dream context, the dream-awareness indicated something different from what actually happened.

A few non-lucid dream sequences/fragments. My dreams felt very long and the places I was in felt vast.

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Sequence 1:

One of the last sequences; I remember being driven by my partner to a small white building. It was the lobby for some sort of research complex. I went in and it was decorated with white and black inside, and there was a receptionist, a slim black-haired woman with her hair tied in a knot and she was wearing a black suit with skirt and a pair of glasses. She was speaking to someone else, both of them were standing up, though her desk was at a normal sitting height. She was explaining something to this other guy. She noticed me as I approached and I said I wanted a job there or something, she asked me what relevant skills I had; I answered truthfully (in waking life context), that I had not had many formal jobs. I also said something else random like I was good at blasting things or something.

She then said "let's see what you got then". And then I simply remember being in another area that looked like an old or ruined town, and what looked like trenches or canals. She was there and in a different outfit, with a sword; I had a sword and a shield and I could see myself in third-person now (so it had become like a game), wearing a similar roman-era battle outfit. She got a few blows in first but I bashed her with the shield and she fell on the floor and I struck her with the sword in long swipes; sword swipes left a glowing trail behind them.

There's something missing in my memory of the sequence here; next I am at what feels like an underground facility, the research complex. I am in a cylindrical room, on its upper half, which was separated from the bottom by thick glass and metal beams that made an aesthetically pleasing pattern. There were researchers here on upper half and on the bottom half I saw a test subject (which in my dream-mind I knew was a volunteer, like I was for the project) walk in through a doorway, to the centre of the room, where there was a raised platform. A researcher was in front of the subject on a control panel and adjust some things and the subject transformed into a 50ft/15metre creature; as a creature, it was pink and white-ish and with flowing appendages, not quite like tentacles. It also looked semi-translucent in parts. I have a dream-memory of seeing several transformations, each with very different resulting creatures, but all large.

At some point before this entire sequence I remember seeing a similar giant creature like the one that, before I "knew" about the research complex, and it had been in some sort of combat situation. It may have been in the previous sequence.

I remember watching more of these transformations and wondering if they would do me at some point. My memory of this dream sequence ends here.



^{Edit: Made this 3D image of how I generally remember the transformations room. I didn't add a lot of detail simply because I don't remember it anymore. The grain is just because it's a quick render (6minutes).}

Fragment 2:

This came before Sequence 1, and was just as long, though I only remember fractioned details.

I remember being in a different ruined city area, which I got to by going down some steps under a mountain or something. I remember seeing some sort of interface for my health points and equipment, and my health was very low. I had no top on either, and for some reason in the dream context that made me extremely vulnerable. There were rats and other pests around, and I remember I got to a place where there was some sort of faction's base, where they were defending from another faction. One of the guys there wanted me to train first, and he had me lie down on a table of some kind where they either injected me with something or attached something; either way, something like an exoskeleton formed and my fear of being vulnerable went away. They explained something about the process, how a sodium injection was required but wasn't the only key to this. I remember there was a training room in the downstairs of the base.

Fragment 3:

In the same region as before, I remember being on a stereotypical Asian looking rooftop, and looking around and seeing the mountain where I came from, with the steps under an overhang. It was day, but the sun wasn't very high and there was cloud cover, though it didn't quite cover the sun. There were a lot of shadows. Looking around more there were other mountains to the left and then further left were plains and forests, back up to the point of seeing the steps mountain again. On the rooftop was someone else. A boy or a girl or a young-ish person anyway. They told me something about the winds that were coming and that we had to do something. I could see large, fast, clouds coming very low from the mountains. I don't remember much else other than seeing this character before in an alleyway.

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Some notes:

• The sparring match with the receptionist went on for quite a while and I remember that even though my sword would cut her to chunks, she would "respawn" and we'd fight again. The combat reminds me now of Warframe and Shadow Warrior (both of which have strong Asian themes).
• The first time I saw the giant creatures outside of the research complex I was not aware that they were human test subjects, so when I saw the transformation process I felt bad for having participated in a combat with one, especially given that I felt I'd rather be on the creature's side anyway.
• Watching the creature transformation process I remember feeling a bit envious. In the context of waking life, I know that transformations of even the smallest degree are impossible, but a part of my subconscious still desires them, which attracts me to creative content that represents those themes. The transformation theme in general is a clear dream-sign, but one that I must remember to set an intention to make notice of, due to its prominence in games, and therefore the fact that it's so well embedded into a part of my reactions and behaviours towards it.
• It is a little rare that transformation themes are so present in at least a couple of dream sequences. They were clear dream-signs and I should have done a RC.
• The researchers at the complex wore no special clothes or outfits, they were dressed casually or with suits, so a potential dream-sign did not manifest there.
• The "exoskeleton" wasn't so much an exoskeleton as it was making me "buff", I seem to remember.
• Being at the rooftop especially should have made me RC due to a fear of heights, especially taking note that being a stereotypical rooftop, it was sloped.

Non-dream stuff: Just a few fragmented memories of non-lucids. Got up at about 9:10, though I woke up briefly around 8. Writing fragments now, about 1 hour later after getting up;

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Fragment 1:

I don't exactly remember the context but the area looked a little bit like some sort of concrete/stone complex; I was either fighting something (like an animal) or getting attacked and someone I knew (not sure who) arrived with some sort of eagle mech, trapping my enemy under a metal claw, and then firing an energy beam out of its open metal beak. I remember the mech was painted blue and yellow and then later I was at a servicing bay in the same complex for these types of mechs.

Fragment 2:

Some sort of sex/sexy scene, but don't remember details other than the fact I was on top.

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Some notes:

• The first fragment is very much one of those dreams that blend game worlds with "reality". Being attacked or seeing a high power energy blast up close from a metal eagle machine was taken for granted inside the dream, as my dream-mind simply took this to be part of the normal context, and did not question it at all.
• The livery on the mech is reminiscent of at least a couple of games; more specifically, Mech Commander and Just Cause 3. In Mech Commander, the player's mechs always have a blue livery scheme, and in Just Cause 3, friendly vehicles all have a similar blue livery. This association between the two games was not previously present in my conscious mind.
• Game-type worlds in dreams are a typical dream sign, but usually far too difficult to make note of them.
• The second dream fragment, though I don't remember much, would have been far better for noticing that something was "off", especially given the rarity of the context in waking life, due to my pain and fatigue. But the limiting factor there may have been the usual "don't like to do dream-checks while near other people", even though I've been working on this lately in waking life.
• I have the feeling fragment 2 came before fragment 1, in terms of when I dreamed them, but I can't say with certainty.

Non-dream stuff: Woke up at 8 but fell asleep again somehow, and the non-lucid dream fragment that follows was after I woke up suddenly at 9:40; I tried to not recall the dream too hard, with positive result:

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Fragment:

Was going up a small 1-lane ramp at what reminds me now of a school I've been to in waking life. It was day and as I went up the ramp I was fiddling with a box cutter ^{(specifically a black and yellow one I have in waking life)} and there was a boy, maybe 10 or 12 in front of me walking the same direction. The light was suddenly changing as I caught up to him and it became night; there were trees and fences to the right and at the immediate left some short buildings; I could see where the road would intersect ahead;

I said something like "hey, wait up", at first wondering if the sounds of the box cutter scared him, but he didn't seem phased by that. I remember he looked at me and smiled and I asked him "where's your brother? do you know?". The boy said "no, I don't know", and I kept walking along with him and we talked about something; we were getting to an intersection with a town road and suddenly he had a dog on a lead, I'm not sure what kind, but not small and with brown/light brown fur.

When we got to the intersection, the dog started tugging harder and went to the left and then suddenly it was like they were gone and I walked in the same direction as they'd vanished; I seem to remember that now I had the dog for a few minutes and it was very playful and tugging all the time on the lead ^{(reminds me of my own dog in waking life, though it didn't feel like my dog)} and I remember thinking something about the dog playing with a policeman but then the dog was gone again and as I went down the road, over a bend, I saw that some 3 story apartment buildings were damaged;

I started walking toward them instead and then I remember one of them was quite damaged, like from an explosion, but it almost looked like they were made of very large Lego. I went into a building and the first and second floor were on fire and I kept walking through, up some stairs and then saw like an "interface" notification at the top of my field of view; I mentally clicked it, and the fires nearest me simply got put out; I repeated this a few times before the dream ended. (I was woken up by the already present garbage truck coming closer and getting just slightly louder, and my partner getting up to check on his car)

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Some notes:

• The area was reminiscent of my native country. This should have been dream-sign especially considering the absence of normal context, like the absence of my partner and my aimless wandering. I was the age I am now.
• Other than me, the boy, the dog and the "imagined" policeman, there was nobody else in the entire dream sequence.
• I was walking the whole time. At first this may not seem notable and though I did not feel frightened by anything at any point (such as by the fires, I was indifferent to the situation). And even if I had been afraid, it's not likely I would have run, but instead would have walked faster. This is reminiscent of real-life behaviour where I very rarely run if I'm in a public place, as it makes me feel self-conscious and observed, though the notion was not "consciously" present in my mind at the time in the dream.
• I have the idea the dog may have been a golden retriever, but I have no clear picture in my mind.
• I don't know who the boy really was, I think dream-generated, especially as I'm struggling to think of what his face was like and instead remembering the face of a boy in a game I've recently played.
• I think that before the ramp the fragment starts with me going up, there was water and a pier or something, but I know it was related to the dream sequence that came before.

Non-dream stuff: Just some non-lucid fragments; initially tried to force recall, which I know not to do, so I quickly stopped trying to remember hard and got up and made tea.

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Fragment 1:

I remember being outdoors, and this was near the end of a dream sequence; there was grass and a dirt path, and along the dirt path was a concrete cylindrical shape jutting out, it was a sewer entrance, as it had a massive brown-looking lid on top. I was showing it to someone, I think my partner, and said something like "... and this is where we went in.", in reference to something that happened before in the dream. I remember it might have been day time but it was dark, I think the weather was overcast.

Fragment 2:

I remember yeast, of the same type used in baking; I remember seeing it, but that's about it.

Fragment 3:

I remember being in a dropship of some kind. I think this fragment was actually from before Fragment 1.

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Notes:

• The sewer lid and concrete structure were reminiscent of what they're like in my native country.,
• The first dream sequence was actually very long, but I managed to forget most of it somehow. I think my intention to make note of dreams in the morning is being neglected, i.e. I need to start setting this intention before bed.

Completely non-dream stuff:

Just making a little note here, to remind myself that the past couple of nights I haven't been able to recall my dreams, for no particular apparent reason, other than the fact that my sleep is naturally poor.

Last night I compromised with my partner and made the radio stop coming on in the morning and I turn it back on for him after I've gotten up from bed (it's helpful for him to wake up). So we will see if this helps improve dream recall, as the voices from the radio were quickly making me forget details on some mornings, if it wasn't quiet enough.

However, over the last few days, since I've started keeping this DJ and reading the dreams of others, I have started to remember to do RCs in waking life more often, so that's a positive.

Non-dream stuff: I woke up at 8 with the auto radio which was a little too loud, got up and turned it off, as I wanted to but also because my partner asked me to; Got back in bed and forgot any potential dream recall - stayed in bed for 40 minutes and had a small dream fragment even though I wasn't quite asleep; I knotted two fingers and went and start tea for myself and my partner, coming back up to start drafting this text and then going back down to finish the tea and bring it up, at which point I remembered the second dream fragment.

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Fragment 1:

We were in my parent's house and my partner was in the bedroom that used to be my parents (but in waking life these days that bedroom is rented out). I remember seeing him get dressed. I was at the entry hall and looking into my old bedroom (again, rented out in waking life now), suddenly a I see a landline phone (the one that's right here in this room in waking life) is receiving a call, we don't answer and a message is left and plays out from the answering machine "What the hell ya playing at mate? You can't do this!". I knew the voice but the first name and last name initials were detected by the answering machine; it was my partner's sibling's partner (sorry for the confusion) whom we will just call DF.

I could see my partner's face go sort of "uugh not this" and I was thinking to myself "what the hell was DF on about". My partner came through and we went into my old bedroom with the landline phone and I remember we commented on it to each other, but can't remember words in detail.

We walked into the balcony that is outside my bedroom and I could feel some annoyance off my partner. It was day, probably mid/late morning, given the sun's position. The dream ended here, more or less.

Fragment 2:

I was playing WoW, my view being from the character perspective mostly, on a Shaman character of mine I think, and was doing this old raid by myself called Molten Core. That's kind of all I remember.

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Some notes:

• Though Fragment 1 wasn't a nightmare or a bad dream, it could have turned into a bad dream if I got too hot in my real bed; this is very typical if I get too hot in bed, which I was starting to.
• DF doesn't know our landline number, so he wouldn't be able to call it. My partner's sibling probably doesn't know it either. I should have questioned things a bit.
• In the dream, and on waking, I knew the call was in reference to giving them some furniture that we haven't given them yet. The fact that DF was having this reaction over something this small was a confirmation of a bad set of behaviours DF has.
• There seemed to be noone else at the house, not even my dog (who lives with my parents).
• Even though I could see my partner get dressed and go "ugh", this was not through direct vision. This was camera-like perception, as from the entry hall I could not directly see my partner, but I could directly see the landline. This could have been a good prompt for a RC.
• Given the general feeling of temperature and humidity in the air (given by the sunlight through the air), I'd say the dream actually took place in Spring, as things looked too green and it wasn't excessively hot. Again this could have been a good prompt for a RC but a more prominent dream sign is that we were in my native country at all, which won't happen for some months.
• The WoW dream fragment was one of the ones from when I woke up at 8, and I remember very little other than killing some bosses and getting the usual loot. Being so "inside" the game is a dream sign that I typically forget to think on during dreams. See my general notes.
• It is also worth noting for readers that when I make references to my parent's house to keep in mind that it's actually a flat in a 9 story-building. 10, if you count ground floor.

Non-dream stuff; I was only aware of waking up at about 9, but I know I was awake before that. The dream I had in my memory as I woke up, I quickly forgot, by feeling the need to sit up and crack my neck and back, yet I somehow still remembered some earlier, non-lucid, dream fragments:

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Dream fragments:
I remember being in a room, like at my parent's house, or my childhood home, but I can't say I remember the room in detail; it was one of the rooms at the back of the house and it was dark (but I didn't have the impression it was night). I was aware of a cat, black and white I think and there was a catfish or something... I distinctly remember the cat playing with the catfish and the catfish meowing; at first I was concerned for the fish somehow, and I remember turning my attention to something else and when I looked back again the catfish was gone, the implication being that the cat ate it. Suddenly it felt like the cat was aggressive and I remember trying to claw me; I think my instinctive responce was to smack it.

In another fragment, I simply remember my two siblings being present. Possibly in a corridor leading to some stairs or with stairs intersecting it.

Another fragment, I remember being aware of being back in my native country, with some sort of dream-generated friends or acquaintances in the dream and going up some dream-generated stairs, practically crawling up them, because in this dream my fear of heights seemed much greater. The stairs now remind me of something that Gaudi might have made, twisty, curly, yellow. I remember saying "I hate this country's stairs", in reference to the fact that my own native country has plenty of hilly cities and towns, with plenty of stairs.

I kept climbing the stairs and eventually reached a tier where there were floating platforms. Some sort of children were here, as if they played here everyday and one said to me "if you want to get to the other side, I'm afraid jumping is the only way". I looked around for another option, hanging close to the floor due to my fear, and indeed there was no choice.

The fall was a big one, I knew this. Someone from behind me, one of the dream friends said something like "we're 50 stories high, don't look down!" and I think I told them to shut up, that I knew, and I strongly resisted the urge to look down and simply hopped to the first small stone platform that was floating above this gap. The floating stone platforms were different shapes, some hexagons, some circles. I hopped to the next one, closest to a doorway on the opposite side of where I first arrived at this tier. I don't remember going through.



In another fragment, perhaps related to the last, I remember something in space, with asteroids and a space base, but not much else, unfortunately. This was one of the dreams I forgot by sitting up.

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Notes:

• Last night, when I went outside to our yard I saw one of our neighbour's cats sitting on the wall, and it is black and white and has a bell; it scurries off when it sees us, even though the cat is the one choosing to come into our yard.
• In the platform jumping area, the abyss or gap or whatever was actually quite small, as I realised by hopping to each platform; the platforms felt decidedly steady despite their floating nature. The initial apprehensive nature of my fear likely made the gaps seem much wider at first, especially considering a fall implied death, and therefore, great pain in the last seconds.
• It is of note that I hate many platforming games, as usually the combat mechanics annoy me to great deal, such as Super Mario.
• Although my fear of heights varies greatly in waking life, it usually comes before I'm at the location, because of the anticipation of the situation; whereas in the dream the onset was only sudden once I was on the stairs.
• I'm fairly certain these fragments were actually linked by some transition, but I cannot remember it.
• As the stairs went up, there were buildings to either side, but on the right there was a gap between the stairs and the buildings, whereas on the left side they were adjoined. There were no doors at all at any point. In my native country the stairs would be less steep (possibly made steeper by fear) and there would be tiers and doors every so often.
• The fact that I and my siblings were present all in one room, these days, is not statistically likely. This should have made me question reality.
• The fact the catfish meowed should have made me RC, because I realised that it was odd, that catfish don't meow.

Edit: added a very rough 3D scene I quickly made (10-15mins) of the stairs dream scene.

Non-dream stuff: Woke up at 8, with the usual alarms and auto radio. Could remember a dream fragment but tried too hard to remember it so decided instead to set another alarm for 9:30 and try to sleep more. Woke up at 9:30 and remembered a dream but was fading a little.

Non-lucid dream fragment, going backwards:

4: Starting from the end of the dream, I remember some frozen strips of pork. I know we were at some bigger and altered version of my partner's dad's house. I was going to cook them over a fire and I took a little strip off and ate it raw - very quickly I thought "Crap, you can't eat raw pork, what the hell am I doing? This is how you can get worms..." but then I also (conveniently...) remembered this was bacon, which in many cases can be eaten "raw" because of the process to make it. This is the last portion of the dream before I woke up.

3: I remember walking around the house before that, looking for my partner. It was strange, I was half-aware that this was a dream because I remember thinking that this was exactly like another time as I opened some doors and went through the crooked and narrow halls. I remember in the dream context there were some doors that unleashed swarms of spiders (dream memory someone had told me) but they were already open and my dream self knew which these were.

2: Before that, I can't remember if I was in a different place, but I think I was looking at a screen (but it feels like I wasn't) with my partner and there was a museum and a large limestone statue of someone like David the Thinker or Atlas, carrying the world. On the statue however, was an old friend of mine who I'd had a crush on in waking life; she was mostly naked apart from some (to me) weird leather laces around her limbs and pelvis; she was posing on or against the statue in a heroic pose, for a photo or something, as she was looking up and away, smiling.

1: And finally the earliest thing I can remember vaguely is that there was some sort of room. An office room maybe.

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Some notes:

• My old school friend should have been a good cue of a dream sign; not only was she someone that is simply not present in my life at all anymore, she was in a very odd situation. The leather lace stuff might have been because in waking life I remember she told me that she self-harmed. As a kid I didn't think too much about that, actually.
• The pose my old school friend was taking, was a behaviour accurate to her real personality, when I knew her anyway.
• In my partner's dad's house, I was aware of my partner being there, and do vaguely remember seeing him at some point.
• The thing with the bacon should have made me do a RC because from one moment to another I decided it was fine, when I was almost panicking for doing something so stupid initially.
• Waking life note: Must remember to, after doing something stupid, even if it's fine afterwards, do a RC.
• The spider swarm releasing doors, though I wasn't afraid of them, I was wary of them, even open. I felt like the spiders were moving around but I carried on with walking through the house.
• I remember there was a skylight in one of the corridors in the dream; in reality there is no skylight at all in that house.

Just got up, went into our computer room, kept the curtains closed and started my computer and wrote this. Two non-lucid dream sequences, mostly fragmented:

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First sequence:

In the first dream I was in a "room" that was like a garden, it was a room in the sense that it was some sort of partition; I remember something like greek pillars covered in vines and grassy ground. In this room, there was "me", my partner from waking life, a friend of ours and a slim man in a suit; the three of us approached the man, as he was here to show us something and as we did or perhaps he was already doing it, he was levitating this large latticed purple orb, made of stone or gemstone, between his two hands, one hand above, one hand below; the orb floated up and down gently.

I can't tell if it was day or night but everything looked somewhat "dark".

At first my partner (who isn't really into any stuff like this) put his hand out toward the orb and closed his eyes and was silent; then our friend did and then I did. I could sense no special energy from the orb or the man: the orb was ordinary, regardless of any surreal properties. I stopped and walked away toward a door under a lowered roof, then I think our friend did too and I opened the door and there were two more doors to either side of a tiny partition and I opened another and went into a large room, like a conference room; there were a dozen men and women at the conference table, and they were waiting for us. I remember one of them asking what were we waiting for, why hadn't we all come in? Or something to this effect. I explained we wouldn't be a minute and I peeked out to see my partner still holding his hand at the orb and called him and he opened his eyes and walked away from the mysterious man, and the conference members were not keen on letting this man in.

I remember my partner said that the orb felt like it had the energy of the universe or some such; which I interpreted as: it feels the exact same as any ordinary object, because it did to me.

As we were all in now, apart from the orb man, one of the older men said "close the doors, lift the barriers" and some fake wall barriers emerged from some slots on the floor next to the doors, sealing the room. I remember this conference room had some windows, and had too much room even for just this single conference table. This all had a very Illuminati type feeling to me, even in the dream.

Second sequence:

I'm not sure where this sequence starts or if it carried over from the last one, but this one is temporally fragmented. I remember the last part first: I was at a waterpark with my partner and I remember thinking when I was talking to someone, I think a woman, that I always wanted to go to one. We were sort of leaning back against a wall of this single-story building, a large square-ish building as far as my dream self knew, we were waiting for something, I think more members of our group, which I think included my family. I remember as I waited, I was messing around, like lifting myself up by putting my hands against two lower walls and pushing myself up and I was also looking around the waterpark and outside of it.

I saw some skyscrapers in the city. One was probably 30 stories, and then another, fancier, office building behind it was something between 60 or 70, I guessed. I pondered as I thought it was so strange that such a small difference in stories could make up for so much more height. The sky was blue and clear and it was certainly daytime.

I think our group arrived and we walked around the square building and we were looking for a restaurant or something. We all went into this small one and as everyone was going in I could see on a digital interface (inside my head) that another nearby restaurant that was related to this one was much busier at the moment, and I walked up to one of the staff members that was headed for the loo and said to him like "want me to get some more people over from [indecipherable] restaurant?"; he looked at me approvingly but didn't answer and went in the bathroom; I turned away and walked out and headed for the other restaurant. This fragment ends here.

Another fragment, before this last one, in dream time:

I was standing with my partner in a garden at this waterpark; there were white painted wooden fences and it was a clear blue sky day, as it would still be later. My dream self knew this garden was part of an accommodation we were staying in, part of the park's premises. I remember hearing a woman's voice, she was praying, loudly, and I commented to my partner "surely she can keep her voice down a little?"; he shrugged and looked in the distance, resting his arms on this wooden fence. Her praying went on for some time, and I thought about how I had never prayed loudly in my life except when asked to, and even then, barely so. And yet this woman was praying to be heard by all, without concern of being judged or criticised for doing so.

I remember my dream self knew there sprinklers in the gardens but they had not yet been on, though the grass looked perfectly lush and perfectly trimmed.

Can't recall more fragments.

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Notes:

• I have had curiosity about going to waterparks, but I have certainly never had the open desire of "always wanting to go to one", so this could have been a thought I could have realised was odd.

• Both dreams, the whole places were dream-generated, in their entirety. The only "exception" being that the accommodation and its garden in the last fragment very closely resembled the type of thing my family used to go to holiday for, when I was a kid.

• In the dream I could clearly hear the woman's prayers but I had forgotten all of it by the time I woke up. It felt important to my dream self to remember what she was praying.

• In the first dream, the "Illuminati" conference was probably partly based off the imagined world from the first Deus Ex Machina games, as that is one of the most prominent visual culture references I have for the subject. I do not know why my dream self, which was like "me", was part of it. And if there were a dozen people in the room, with the 3 of us walking into the room, that would make 15 - in the game's world it is implied there are 12 members only.

• The floating purple orb really had no special feel to it; it felt more mechanical and part of nature than anything else, as I truly did not feel any special energy from it. The man was peculiar for mostly just standing there, firmly, in what looked like a tophat and an old style suit, simply "presenting" the orb. Perhaps he and the orb were merely part of the garden, in the same way as the grass and vines.

• Tip/Memory Note: I remember much less on getting up than what I wrote now, but because of the way memory works it's easier to remember things like a dream in sequence, so as you start from the beginning or end it becomes easier to recall more of the memorable parts if you think it out and through. This is also true for your waking life memories: if you are in a room and don't remember the recent past, you go backwards in your memory of living the last moments. If you pay enough attention through most of the day, you can recall an entire day this way, sometimes more.

Not dream: I woke up earlier than usual, woken up by our friend staying over and remember dreaming something, but in no detail, and soon fell asleep again. Woke up at the normal time and stayed in bed for 45 minutes, seeing whether I'd sleep more and dream again or not. I didn't but remembered some dream fragments and got up. I knotted two of my fingers as I've seen a friend do, to remember the fragments and my intention as I go through doorways in the house, as I first go downstairs to make tea and then come back up to write my fragments as follow:

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Fragment 1 (non-lucid):
I was playing a special player vs player mode in a game I'd been playing recently in waking life, where I'd throw bombs at other players and vice versa, with the objective of making each other fall off the platforms until only one of us was left. What was different from the real game was that I was able to use my character's swords as well in this game mode.

Fragment 2 (non-lucid):
I remember talking to old friends and they were inviting me over to their estate across the river; in the dream I had a memory of what the estate was like, but I felt like something was off, as I also didn't remember this estate actually being so big. How could I remember and not remember at the same time? The "memory" was vivid, so I think that in the dream it's more like I was actually at the estate and that's what made me question it a bit.

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Notes:

• In waking life, there is a phenomenon that when you go through a doorway, your mind forgets current thoughts and changes how it thinks. I think I remember reading that it is believed this had to do with contextual adaptation, before humans made so many artificial thresholds themselves, such as going from the tundra to the plains and to the desert and so on. Interestingly in dreams, doorways and thresholds in general can have very literal scene changes beyond them. For me, anyway, they do.
• Keeping fingers knotted like this causes a good deal of pain, especially since my joints are hypermobile, but focusing on this lets me focus on the intention I set when I started doing it, even when I go through thresholds, as I've observed my friend do. I don't know the mechanic behind this, but it just seems to work.
• The friends from my second fragment are like extended family, but I rarely see them anymore, and in fact, in waking life it is impossible for me to casually see or hear about them, because I no longer live in the same country, so in my dream I was back in my native country, and should have realised this to be unusual.

Memorised the dream about 3 hours ago, when I got up from bed, but haven't had a chance until now to write it down, so some details are missing along the way. Non-lucid dream:

I can't remember how the dream started; for the first part I was in some sort of library, with two floors, a ground floor and a first floor. There were some sort of MIB agents downstairs and I was on the first floor, seeing them from behind the banisters - they realised I was there and started trying to grab me and I was trying to keep myself low but avoiding them; they were trying to get up by climbing, though none of them remembered to try and use stairs initially, I felt like they would be trying it soon; I saw a doorway that leaded to a concrete (and stone maybe) stairwell and I went through quickly and saw that the stairs went up and down.

I decided to go down, quickly going down step-by-step since I wasn't familiar with the stairs, otherwise would have done every 3 steps instead to go down quicker, and I could feel that the agents were looking for me here; I reached a point where the stairs still went further down but they were cut off by a small wall, so I jumped over it and there was a little ramp that I slid down on - I didn't stumble and kept going down for what now seems like it must have been quite a while, and finally reached a bottom, where there was a doorway to an "outside".

As I stepped outside everything had this sort of yellow-green tinge, like there was a lot of dust of this colour, and there was daylight, but I looked up and saw that the stairwell was a block of concrete coming down from what looked like an enormous black metallic machine with a central column that hung over this area I was in, with the rest of its supports, five or six of them I think, further out; the central column had tubes going to the other supports and other sections... Down on my level it was like a small city or town with dusty roads and pavements and there was nobody else apart from many of these MIB types and futuristic military vehicles, but the buildings looked fairly normal.

I can't remember exactly, but I think some of them noticed me and started chasing after me so I got into a small armoured vehicle type thing that had a gun mounted on top and here there's sort of a transition from the normal perception of things (from my eyes) to a third-person view of the vehicle, as in a game. I sped up and followed the curvy town roads and noticed a bigger military tank with some sort of cannon was chasing me, so I started trying to fire the gun on my vehicle, but it didn't seem to do anything to do the bigger vehicle; they didn't fire at me but kept the cannon pointed at me and I think I must have gotten to a dead-end or simply decided to get out, and ran into an alleyway and seemed to lose them, my perception being normal again, i.e. from my eyes, since I got out from the vehicle.

In this alleyway I remember seeing plenty of these guys just sitting around doing nothing in their suits and sunglasses, and I made particular note of one of them sitting on a wooden bench in the shade of a building. They didn't seem phased by me and weren't getting up trying to get me or anything. I stopped and looked at this guy on the bench, I didn't feel like I was being chased anymore. He was looking down to the ground, resting his arms on his knees, sort of hunched forward.

All of a sudden I heard loudspeakers across the town, saying something like "... and the winner of tonight's lottery is: Tom (indecipherable)". As this happened I saw the man change; his clothes were different, more casual, his sunglasses were gone, he looked like a regular guy, but he still had this empty expression; one of the other agents loitering about looked at him and said "Hey it's the third time you win in a row, this isn't fair!", visibly angry at this guy for constantly winning - of course, now the speakers played again, pretty much saying the same thing, more of the other guys getting angry at him; him keeping his empty expression, but I think looking at me.

I don't remember any more of this dream, so I can't say for sure if it ended here or not, but this is where my memory of it ends.

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Some notes:

• I've recently been watching the Matrix and the Animatrix again, which always gets me thinking about dreams, so I know that a lot of this dream's atmosphere and theme is around that. Other things like the military vehicles come from a different number of games.
  
• During the dream I did not feel particularly distressed or anything; I was simply running along with a situation, not thinking about it or the context.
  
• The only normal dream sign that appeared was the stairwell; dream signs related to travel (trains, stairwells, elevators/lifts, long car journeys) are some of my most common signs, but I almost never remember to think about them in dreams.
  
• This is my first DJ entry here.