DarkestDarkness

Non-dream stuff - I woke up at about 20 to 7 in the morning, sweating a bit. Woke up from a non-lucid dream, right as I was starting to cry for the second time in the dream. The emotion didn't carry over. I went back to bed after writing a draft and eventually woke up again at 10:50. My alarms between 8 and 9 haven't been working of late.

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Dream:
I was walking around with my mom on the quay in the capitol of my native country. I was holding her arm sort of interlocked with mine, as we've done in the past. She was for some reason lamenting that we, as a family, hadn't accomplished much or that it could have been more, or something like that. I commented that if it weren't for the debt, we would have owned all of the factory in front of us now, instead of just part of it. It was some sort of biscuit factory. I remember we walked along until reaching a cafe.

The cafe was an odd place, very vertical. I remember my middle brother being there, with his cap and glasses. We went up and down the place trying to get something specific my mom wanted, like a cupcake or muffin from the factory.

I don't remember the details but I found out my mom had passed away from some natural cause.

Me and my partner were at home. We somehow had heard or found out that his mom had passed away too, again from natural cause, and I remember thinking that my mom passed at "64" in the dream. I asked my partner if we should message his mom's partner, to inform them, he said maybe, yeah, but we weren't sure about it. In the waking world, they have been somewhat nasty to us over the years, so we have a hard time gauging their reaction to anything we might say now.

I commented that they passed away at such a similar age, and I cried a little. I then commented "at least my mom passed away at this age and not older; I didn't want to see what she would have been like with all her medications at an old age" or something of this sort, and I collapsed on my knees from the sofa we were sitting on and I cried again, waking up.

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Notes:

• In the dream, there was a small moment during the conversation with my mom where I thought the topic was odd. Yes, my family had a factory, but that was long ago, and it was on my dad's side of the family, not my mom's. In addition, we've never had any debts as a family.
• This is the sort of dream I'll have to wait and see. Years ago I had a dream that may have been premonitory about when my dad would pass away, and this dream had the same feeling. If both dreams were correct and my parents passed away respectively at ages 83 and 64, then both events would happen 11 and 6 years from now.
• My mom had several dreams about her dad passing away several months before the event, which is one of the reasons I've never discarded the possibility of premonitory dreams like this actually happening.
• Apart from the conversation with my mom in the dream, nothing else during dreaming struck me as "odd", unfortunately.
• The cafe scene was actually kind of vivid and surreal but I really don't remember many details, certainly not enough to put to words now.

Non-dream stuff - woke up earlier than 10 a couple of times but got up at about 10:10. Was having a non-lucid but some details are missing.

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Dream:
I remember that this was the start of a transition between two dreams, and I was walking to a gravel car park. It was day, and I had a backpack, full of stuff, whatever it was. Then in the car park were two of my old school friends. At first they didn't notice me because of the distance, but I hoped they would because they were walking away from the car park in my general direction but I also wanted to leave my backpack in their car.

As I approached, I remember I was struggling with walking; it felt like it took a long time to get to them and they had at least spotted me. They walked back a few paces with me to their car, which looked like the car my dad has in waking life. One of my friends opened the boot and I dumped my heavy black backpack in there, remembering I still had some lessons that day, so I took out a couple of my pencil cases, ones which in waking life I use to keep pens and pencils separately and that I've always used.

Then there was either a transition or it was implied we walked somewhere else.
We were in an old building, ruined. There were more people, and now this was some sort of game. Me and my two friends ran out of the building first and it looked like it was some sort of hunger games/battle royale thing, so the three of us had an advantage for getting out first and we went through areas of a ruined city. I remember seeing our health numbers, 64, 40 something and another. I spotted some monkeys or something and decided to make them friendly with us; my friend asked what the point was, and I explained that as the other people came by, the monkeys would attack them and weaken them, without putting us at risk.

Then the rest of the groups started arriving in a scattered manner. I grabbed a stone and watched each person cautiously. Many of them went by ignoring me, running and looking for things to use. I went past a girl with a dog, that initially was on a lead, and then the lead vanished. The girl went one direction down some steps and the dog went another direction, where I came from.

Then there was some sort of flat area lower from where I had been, and everyone was here now. In a way it was like people had a short field of vision, like they couldn't see how close I was, like how ridiculous stealth can be in some video games. I remember the stone I held was limestone square cobble; it had a very sharp edge. I slashed a girl on her naked back and prowled away; the girl became complaintative to the rest of the people something like "how am I going to win now?!" with some sort of moody attitude.

The slash I'd inflicted on her was quite deep along the spine, but in retrospect she didn't seem to struggle or feel too much pain about it. I remember as I prowled around the area that these people all looked like former classmates or were simply random dream characters. My two old friends, I couldn't spot anywhere.

Then I remember I cut two other people, on their shoulders and arms. Not as serious, more like scratches. I seem to remember either everyone was naked or something. I think this was inconsistent in the dream.

Then there was a group of 5 or 6 older adults, in their 40s, 50s, 60s. They stood straight and graciously at one end of this area and one, a white, large lady, barked some complaints she had about something. Another, a black man, disagreed with her and said something about mental illness, and the reality of it. The comments were all related to the "game".

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Notes:

• In this dream sequence, my old school friends would probably have been the best cue for RCing. I have not seen or spoken to them in several years now.
• I think that to make the monkeys friendly with us I had given them something they could eat, though I can't remember what.
• Through the whole second part of the dream I was mostly calm but in that mode where one observes everything very carefully as if anyone could be a threat. It's a basic instinct feeling, which is not surprising given the dream's context.
• I'm not sure why I cut the others with less force than that first girl; I remember the cut on her spine looked a vivid red. I think I felt like perhaps I'd caused too much harm, even if I should be concerned about my own "survival". I could have just killed any of them, but I didn't, and I don't know why.
• I think the man at the end was making a point that conflict could make us mentally ill. That's how I felt about it, somehow.

Non-dream stuff - a couple of non-lucid fragments and small DILD lucid.

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Dream fragment 1:
I was at a garden centre place and there was an old man that (in the dream) was a regular I came to talk to. Come to think of it he looked a bit like the kind of old man like the guy who delivers certain parcels to us. He was on a small step-ladder tending to some sort of plant colony on a pot. He was flipping a "plate" of dirt around, because of seeds or something. There were many terracotta plant pots displayed around this outside part of the garden centre, in a somewhat hectic manner, but that seems to be how it tends to be in waking life too.

Dream fragment 2:

I remember playing a game, like Path of Exile, and I remember seeing the screen. Some monsters from another game such as Monster Hunter appeared and I didn't make note of that fact. But then I got a lot of oddly lucky item drops, and the character (or my dream self?) said something odd and I remembered to do a RC as I've been getting used to doing every so often while I'm on the computer too.

I held up my hands with my palms facing me, partially blocking the screen and I realised I was dreaming because my right hand's fingers were missing segments. It felt like I became too excited, as with other times, and the dream quickly destabilised, but I also made particular note of being too aware of the waking world environment at the same time that the dream visual detail was getting lost. I tried spinning, and doing something with my hands, and also produced a chocolate bar (that I could no longer see) and tried eating that; it did taste somewhat of chocolate, though I'm not certain if it was dark or not, but the dream faded anyway.

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Notes:

• Before I went to sleep the last night, I remembered I haven't been setting an intention properly for dreaming lately.
• I initially set an intention that I might lucid dream and reminded myself that I could do it; then I realised that there was something wrong about the way I set my intention but did it again and it felt different.
• Despite not being able to see the chocolate bar, I know it was a Cadbury's chocolate bar, because I could still "see" the purple wrapper, even though I couldn't see.
• After waking up I did a RC and when I came to write this DJ entry I did a few more too. I tend to always RC in the morning.
• I may have lost some detail on the memory of the dreams overall because between looking after my partner's dad's yowly cat and needing to use the bathroom desperately, it was being a bit difficult to hang on to the memories.

Non-dream stuff - had a long non-lucid dream, but didn't immediately come to make note of it, so it's become more of a dream fragment.

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Fragment:
I was getting married to my partner, who didn't look like himself but instead looked like a woman wearing a white wedding dress. I remember a Gothic style church, though I don't remember the layout exactly. The part I was in had some stained glass and the light came through directly, though I don't remember the light being coloured. There was a lower tier with square steps surrounding it (difficult to describe) and there were candles.

There was something about me needing a suit because I only had a hand-me-down suit and I suggested to my partner that getting a new one so late would be too expensive and that maybe we shouldn't bother.

Then I remember getting in a car with my oldest sibling. The driver seat was oddly positioned at the back, and I wondered how we were going to be able to see where we were going. I think it was evening in the dream at this point.

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Notes:

• The whole dream reminded me somewhat of when I went to visit my oldest sibling for their wedding. None of the locations in the dream are familiar to me though.
• I don't particularly like wearing suits, so my suggestion to my partner was partly taking this into account.
• In waking life, me and my partner are really not interested in a wedding at all and in the dream neither of us seemed that keen on it anyway. The wedding theme has probably been brought on the dream-world because I've recently been hearing about weddings.
• There were more than a few good cues to RC, especially given the (unusual to me) context of the dream.

Non-dream stuff - this has been the pattern for the last few days. I woke up at 8:30 but somehow fell asleep again despite not wanting to, waking up two hours later. Been having long non-lucid dreams on the first waking but usually forget too many details by the second waking.

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Dream part 1:
I was playing a game like the new Monster Hunter, I even remember thinking "this game is too similar to Monster Hunter, feels a bit like a rip-off". It was day time but dim. I was playing a male hunter, walking around some marshland and there was an old ruin/structure, and there was an inscription on top. For some reason I changed character to a female hunter, and then used the grappling hook to get on top of the old structure. I was a bit clumsy about it but I stood close to the inscription and read it.

I can't remember what it said, but it was 3 sentences and was cryptic.

Details are missing here between the next part.

Dream part 2:
I remember I was hunting a large creature in the marshland with other hunters but then at some point there is a transition and I become a giant creature myself. I seem to remember the form I took was of a female reptilian biped, with creamy/dirty white scales. I then went around the world and met other creatures and either changed the type I was or simply got bigger.

Eventually I remember seeing a (in the dream context) god-like creature, which was so big it's difficult to describe with words; only the foot was under the clouds and even though I was a giant too my size was only of this creature's toes.

I climbed up the furry leg, which I seem to remember being brown or orange fur, getting past the clouds and seeing the sun; it had a skirt and I came to the conclusion it was female and kept climbing up her leg until eventually I reached her shoulder.

I can't remember what happened next other than I had a brief discussion with her; her father had made her upset for some reason.

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Notes:

• This is the very rare dream type I typically enjoy quite a lot even if it's non-lucid. Unfortunately I did not think to RC at any point, despite the "massive" cues.
• The last dream I had of a similar sort was a couple of years ago, but it wasn't half as detailed nor was it of the same scale.
• I think I'm still doing poorly in regards to setting intentions about dreaming lately.
• The "goddess" creature reminds me now of a character I've seen an artist portray, so I'm thinking that's where her visual appearance stemmed from.
• From the first part to the second part, the feeling of being in a game was gradually reduced, until it felt more "real", especially with the climbing. Maybe because of the physical "effort"?

Non-dream stuff - only a small non-lucid fragment, as I didn't wake early enough to keep track of dreams properly.

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Dream fragment:
I remember being at a dining table, with my parents and my partner. We were having something typical; peeled boiled potatoes with salmon or pollock. My partner was actually eating some of it, despite not enjoying fish in reality.

I asked to be passed the olive oil, to pour on my potatoes, and my partner made some comment about the fact that it was my the first time eating this kind of meal, which in the dream I thought it was a really odd comment, since I'd eaten this with my parents many times before.

Don't really remember much else apart from the fact that the dining room was not like any I know, and was quite large, with the table at the centre. There was a lamp that was on, above the table. The room seemed well lit but I have the impression it would be night outside.

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Non-dream stuff - woke up at about 10:45, remembering mainly one non-lucid dream.

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Dream sequence:
The first part I can remember is in an underground tunnel, with a road. It was dark and there were old sodium-type lights, the orange streetlight kind of lamps. There was also this area that joined with the tunnel.

There were no cars and I went through the joined area and there was a man; I stabbed him in the back and continued on forward, running I think.

Then my "view" changed, from the same height as him, I could see the man lying face down on the ground, with a lot of blood under him, and with his face in a state of surprise and shock, eyes opened. But then he got up. Now he was naked, and he had tattoos, he also had a 9mm type pistol and he was scared and paced backwards toward an elevator. My view followed in front of him as he got into the elevator.

Inside it was mostly chrome/steel, maybe with one mirror. It was very bright inside the elevator and the man was still shaking; he made it go up, I think. My point of view changed to be behind him, as the lift arrived.

There were some bodyguard types in a dark room and he asked them for help, they were like his henchmen; I can't remember what happened here exactly but then he walked into that room and then another, and the other guys were gone again. And in the other room was me, and the man was surprised to see me. He got a katana from somewhere and tried to cut my head off, and succeeded, but only for my dream self to disappear and another to reappear in the same place, taunting him. I explained to him, this was his dream, and he could not get rid of me (which doesn't make sense 100% and also I failed to realise it was a dream... )

He kept trying to cut my head off, the same thing happening repeatedly, and he was obviously getting frustrated.

Then the dark room was not a room at all anymore; we were outdoors in a japanese-style house garden and it was day, with a few clouds. He still had his katana but I was at a distance now, and I had a weapon now too, either a katana or a naginata. I rushed to attack him with confidence and he struggled to predict my moves.

I can't really seem to remember the ending.

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Notes:

• I don't really know who the man was, but I remember his role was that of a criminal leader or something. He had long black hair, but I do not remember his clothes, when he had them.
• The elevator is a common recurring dream-sign, though it usually involves me rather than someone else.
• As far as I can remember, most of the setting was dream-generated.
• I spoke to the man about the nature of the dream, his dream, even. But then I didn't realise the nature of my own dream; it is as though I was a dream character to this dream character man of mine.
• I did not feel pain from the beheading but perhaps remember feeling a slight pressure from the blade initially.

Non-dream stuff - only a couple of non-lucid fragments, have vague memories of more but can't put them to words.

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Fragment 1:
Remember being at a rustic village or inner area of a castle with my partner. It was a popular tourist attraction in the dream's context and it was day time.

We walked a path until we were at a place with shops, and one shop we stopped by was a wine shop. They showed us some special packs we could buy, and for whatever reason we were interested. The wine "bottles" were odd though, because they were the shape of a drinking flask, even though they were still made of glass. They even had paper labels like normal bottles.

Some of the wines were unusual; one was made from peas. I remember the lady at the counter asking if we wanted other specific ones like "homosexual (something?)" wine. Most of the wines made no sense, even in the dream. We still ended up buying 2 packs of 9 flask bottles each...

Fragment 2:
Was playing some sort of old real-time-strategy game. Remember getting annoyed by the fact that some interactions simply didn't work at all like expected.

Non-dream stuff - woke up at around 10:45 and started writing this about half an hour later. Several non-lucid dreams;

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Dream sequence 1:
I was in a game, but it was a mix of reality and World of Warcraft. I was playing with one of my siblings I think and the area was like a place called Dire Maul (DM) in the game; it is an ancient elven structure or city and the most prominent feature is a Colosseum-like area. "Me" was level 57 and the dream's context was set in the original version of the game where the level limit was 60.

We were at this place to kill some generic enemies, though in the actual game there would have been ogres here. But where we were at now there were vampires. I remember something about a quest to get infected by vampirism (this started to blend a bit with ES Oblivion) and I did by going into a dark hallway (the halls are very large in DM) and then left the area and went outside.

I approached an exit to the area and saw a dead Wyvern past the exit archway, and I suddenly felt very wary of danger, and continued approaching this archway, then going through it and looking around carefully. The area on the other side was very open but it was like it hadn't been designed yet by the developers, as there was some jungle but generally it was very bare and flat, which it shouldn't have been. There was a Wyvern master and a Gryphon master, for Horde/Alliance factions respectively. There were some shop stands under a small covered area and they were selling some crafting recipes. They looked cheap and I knew they had limited availability so I bought some.

Some sort of transition after looking at a preview item which was like a blue t-shirt with white stripes on the collar.

Dream sequence 2:
I remember walking down a pavement, alongside a road, sloping down. I was near a palace which I could see through metal fencing. I remember seeing Corinthian pillars with gold leafed tops. I was going to go in through the front, but then remembered I was carrying something for a dinner or party at the palace, so I thought I best use a servant's access lest someone complain at me for not using it. I did not feel like I was a servant, but a guest bringing something to add.

I found the access further down the road and went in. Someone from the palace was here to greet me but otherwise there was a long queue over some zig-zagging ramp upward. I went past people, as I didn't have to be in this queue, but I noticed there was rubbish on the floor and I suggested to the person that came to greet me that I might pick up the trash and they said "no no don't bother" or something. It did bother me, as I hate seeing litter.

Then maybe there was some sort of transition but now I could see a big climbing rope ladder thing, made of green plastic. It went up many many stories in height. I'd say somewhere between 6 and 8 and I started climbing it. At the top was a flat segment that then went into a tower thing. I went in there I think.

Now there were more stairs and some more people from the palace were here to greet me, I remember an old black man with a nice smile. The stairs were not normal, neither was the inside of this tower. Everything was square. The steps were massively wide and made of thin wood, almost like they were made of veneered multi-layer plywood. I remember it was a bit of an effort to climb them and then I reached a final step, there were no more steps but the tower still went up. I looked at one of the people from the palace who was still near the entrance and they did something and suddenly the steps were moving, reorganising themselves into more climbing.

Dream fragment 3:
An instant transition, I think.

Some like a false awakening. It was dark and I was in our real bathroom, though things looked a bit off. I was naked, which matches the way I sleep, but I remember noticing I had two extra genital organs. I was either sitting on the edge of the tub or in it. For some reason I started playing with myself until I reached a climax though I did not feel any real excitement doing any of it, more just curiosity about the extra organs.

I remember putting on clothes for some reason before leaving the bathroom and then going back into bed.

There was another dream after this, though I don't remember it anymore because of the time its taken to write all of these... I did do reality checks after I actually woke up while doing regular morning stuff before sitting down to write.

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Some notes:

• The first dream is very typical and it's the kind of dream where I find it really difficult to notice things as being "odd" because of the context. Everything that's "odd" just feels normal, since it's a game.
• I'm not really certain what happened with my sibling in that first dream, as I didn't see them again after the first part.
• I've forgotten a lot of details about the both the first and second dream, but I remember that it was day-time apart from inside some sections in the first dream which were in the large, dark, hallways of DM, which were unlit in the dream.
• I don't think I've ever had vampires in appear in a dream context before.
• In the second dream, I think outside was sunny, but the road I walked down initially was covered by tree canopy, though I don't remember seeing the trees.
• The setting of this second dream was somewhere like my native country, but I'm not sure that I felt I was anywhere specific in the world. The scenes were all dream-generated, anyway.
• I think what I was carrying was a large object though I honestly don't remember what it was. Maybe a large vegetable like a pumpkin or a giant turnip.
• The third dream was quite unusual, as I rarely have false awakening dreams and the sexual side of it was unexpected.
• Additionally, I did have some coffee last night before bed. A very weak coffee, which seems to help me with dreaming, and doesn't really make me not be sleepy anyway. Coffee doesn't generally make me feel "awake" in a way that is opposite to sleepiness, it simply makes me feel somewhat more focused.

Non-dream stuff - Woke up at about 9:30 and got up to write this long non-lucid dream, that I've split into 3.

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Dream part 1:
I remember being at the place that used to be a store, on the ground floor of my childhood home. in the dream this place was just a room, like a dining room. An old school friend of mine was there and he was sat down at a table and I had been too but now I was preparing some meals, like sandwiches for a trip. I remember I made 8 buns and 4 of something else. I distinctly remember putting the buns in kitchen paper and folding pairs over themselves.

Then I remember needing to go to the bathroom or needing the attention of my dad or one of my siblings for some reason, and they were in the bathroom. I remember it was dark. The previous room was bright, it had a light on or something.

Dream part 2:
Then I remember being underground, at a subway train station. I was walking toward where I knew the platform to be in the dream. It was a long journey, it felt more like I was at an airport terminal, in that sense. I remember thinking the way was through a certain place but it was just a bread shop and actually it was a dead end full of bread stands. I turned around and went toward some stairs up that then had escalator stairs down...

I remember being at the platform now. There was a massive red train waiting at the platform but on a rail that wasn't right next to the platform, then another slightly taller but much much thinner train was arriving, and everyone was thinking this one was gonna stop and be the train to take them where they needed to go. I thought maybe it would be, too, and got closer to the edge as it was going past, but it never stopped. It was a very odd train and I wondered how it even looked inside with the shape it had.

Looking around, the platform was only one of several. This was in some sort of enclosed valley. Surrounding the platforms were walls of stone but the top was open sky. Past the closest rails was not another platform, but a cliff, and down there were more platforms in different orientations and directions. It was night, but I could see clearly, though I don't remember illumination posts.

I was annoyed it had taken me so long to get here, and I remember I was carrying a backpack, presumably with all those food things I made. I was looking at a tiny unfoldable map, which I remember being an unsaturated magenta colour, like a light pink, and it felt more like it was for a cd to be in it, but there was no cd. I faffed on with it trying to understand it but gave up and a boy came up to me and mocked me and we got into a bit of an argument and I said something like "this map doesn't make any sense!" at which point the child agreed with a grin.

I remember I was sitting down now and there were many other sitting down too, seemingly students of some kind. One was arriving now and showing people this transparent but large crystal, with an oblong shape with beveled edges. He said it was part of the research he did with some old guy. Then he addressed a girl there and showed her the crystal, saying like: "this is what your grandfather and i worked on" and she took the crystal into both her hands and examined it.

At some point I was holding a beer, like a pale ale.

Now I remember only seeing a machine of some kind. A portable machine, made of glass or clear plastic, and the machine took liquid inputs at the top and they'd go down into larger tubed areas and then down into a tiny transparent chamber, where there seemed to be a mushroom, for each of the chambers. I remember 4 inputs, tubes and ends. The mushrooms seemed to magically absorb the liquids, mostly water.

Dream part 3:
Then an instant transition as far as I remember. I was seeing like a film scene but I was in the role of what was a future sci-fi German tank driver. The tank looked high tech and the metal plating had a blue hue. The tank was being dropped off into a warzone in a city in Poland or somewhere like that by a plane or helicopter.

On landing, the driver looking around for targets, mostly infantry on the ground or on top of buildings. The view zoomed in on a police car that was wrecked, then on a door, and then on some rooftops, as seen from the tank's position. There was some infantry on top of the buildings and the cannon was aimed and fired at the rooftop. Then looked around for more targets and didn't find any so moved on through the road, into a parking lot. Going up the parking lot twisty ramp, met with a mech armed with machine guns and rockets, and it outmaneuvered the tank easily but the tank kept the cannon aimed at it as well as possible; then the mech jumped and latched onto a wall, and the tank was in a bit of a bad position, stuck, and the mech was about to fire its weapons, and took some shells from the tank but without really doing much damage. I remember going "no, no, no" and bailing the tank very quickly. Now I was still the driver but I had some dual machine guns and fired on the mech which quickly destroyed it.

I continued on foot up the parking lot. Then I saw some agents, and I tried fighting them and did manage to get them but there was a sort of paralyising trap that proved to be difficult during the fight. My memory on the details here has been lost a bit. Then I just remember going out of the parking lot building at a higher tier and it was night but it would be day soon, and I was walking around past the edge of some kind of military base where there were several agents.

The last part I remember was some mutated war dogs that tried attacking me, and then a worm that came out of the ground and got me. The dream didn't end there but I don't remember what came next.

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Some notes:

• The old school friend was the first potential cue for a RC. He was one of my closer friends during college.
• As soon as I was underground at the subway station, even before the platforms, it was a good cue to RC because I know that train stations are very rarely that big.
• The trains were an obvious dream-sign, one of my more common ones. Though it was the first time they had such weird shapes.
• In the third part, the dream was initially the context of some kind of future world war, like a hundred years in the future or something. The country the tank was deployed to was not an enemy, but an ally being invaded, in the dream context.
• The final context of the third part was that it was a digital thing, like the Matrix. Because of the contexts, I don't think I'd be likely to have noticed any RC cues at this point.
• I remember a music playing the last dream part. It was a mix of the soundtrack from the film "Fifth Element" and something else more dramatic. I can never remember music clearly after a dream ends.

Non-dream stuff; I woke up at 5:59 initially, then being up for a few minutes and then going back to bed and waking up again later around 7 and later at 10:30 when I got up. I haven't numbered the following sequences because the order in which they happened is really messed up in my memory.

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Fragment and intermission:
This was when I first woke up at 5:59; I simply remember music playing softly. The next paragraph is from waking life:

I woke up from the sound of torrential rain, as did my partner, and we both got up from bed to look. I realised I was still hearing the vague memory of this music very faintly, at which point it stopped completely as I also realised the rain was the likely cause for it in the dream world. After a few minutes we went back to bed, but I did reality checks because it felt like an odd situation, to find that this was indeed reality. I realised that perhaps the fact that I was lucid already by being awoken by something odd was what made me think to do a few RCs. I seem to remember going back to bed with the intention of confronting the man from the next dream written...

Dream sequence:
I was in the car with my partner and we arrived at a parking lot. It was day but it looked dark grey and cloudy. The parking lot was in front of a few shops, and my partner wanted to go to one of the shops for groceries, but closest to us as we got out of the car was a little shop, and I went in and my partner followed. It was a vintage toy shop. There were metallic scale models of WWI and WWII tanks and artillery cannons, and the shop's owner was a man. He had two children, who were also at the shop.

I remember having a look around and taking a liking to a cargo wagon model and a WWII Panzer-like tank model. I always liked the shapes on some of the German tanks. The models were all on display on some glass shelves of some kind, I think. There was a strange red mood lighting and no other lights seemed to be present, actually. This has happened in other dreams though it is uncommon.

Then I was going to buy the model of the tank and my partner was sitting on a sofa thing in the reception area, bored, getting worried the other shop was going to close (which in the dream I felt like he was right about) and then we heard some noise from the other display room and the shop man just said it was his kids.

Then we went out and my partner walked into the other shop, and I was about to too, and I dropped something and I stopped and looked to my left as I was going to pick it up and there was now a small wall close to me but a gap between the wall and the shop. There was a man, crawling forward on his stomach and making raving noises like "oooaaa oooaaa" repeatedly. He looked right out of his mind, and he took what I dropped. I got a bit angry and stepped forward menacingly, remembering now that I was scowling too.

He got up and stood tall; he was a fair bit taller than me and still had an odd expression on his face, and initally just walked forward a bit toward me at which point I threatened him in my native language saying something to the effect of "you wanna get some?!", he stepped forward again and I stepped back because he had long arms and I was wary of him being able to strike me from further than I'd be able to hit him back. Another man stood up from a seat to the left (that I had previously not noticed, in fact there was a whole row of seats and people like at a clinic) and that second man grabbed the first one and directed him toward a bathroom in the wall of the big shop building and bashed the first man's head on the toilet lid.

Dream fragment:
I remember being in some sort of game, with a lot of water. There were big naval vessels and I remember an interface with a map showing lots of dots and dots with circles around them. All of them were coloured, and I remember most of them were yellow or white, and there were some red ones too. They seemed to represent other ships and naval bases. I remember later being on land and something about a military base and my siblings being there.

Dream fragment:
I remember being in a room with a round table. The table was modern and large, but not actually very high. Around the table were myself, some random people and of particular note an old school friend of mine, which I'll call C. I didn't speak to C directly in the dream, she looked moody and was turned away from the table and she looked as I remembered her. Another girl was talking to me and explaining that C and her girlfriend broke up and that C was upset because of it and that they'd been trying to have kids. I initially thought that was a bit odd.

This other girl started having a discussion with me about a random method I'd never heard of for a woman to get pregnant, and I said something like "well, why didn't they just try insemination?" and the girl looked at me with a funny face and said "insemination?" like she'd never even heard the word. She scrawled some crude diagrams of the female reproductive system and of how this other method was going to work.

C left at some point, and that's all I remember.

---

Finally, some notes:

• The raving mad man was someone I perceived in the dream to be like a beggar or vagabond. Not the kind of person I would have felt like I'd be threatening with violence, but I was angry for having something taken from me.
• It was odd that in the dream my partner didn't come looking for me but I didn't think of it in the dream either.
• The lighting in the toy model shop could have been a good cue to RC. I need to add it to my list of Uncommon dream-signs, as I've had it before.
• My old friend C was someone I had a crush on during school time. This should was a dream-sign and good cue for RC. For context, a couple of years later I did talk to her about it and she said that it wouldn't have mattered because at the time I was interested in her, she wasn't intersted in going out with anyone because she was fed up, but we were still friends.
• The fact that C and whoever her girlfriend was were breaking up seemed sudden to me in the dream. In waking life I do know that she has a girlfriend now but I so rarely speak with C that I don't really know anything about her life.
• The other very explanatory girl, felt like one of those irritating people who you can't really have a discussion with. Ironically I'm fairly certain she was dream-generated.
• It is somewhat curious to me that the dream-generated woman I recently had appear in some dreams, the receptionist, was a woman that represents the black hair archetype of woman I've found in waking life, such as C and some other friends. The Anima I've previously had appear in dreams was blonde, quiet, and of somewhat firm attitude. This second dream-generated archetype seems to be a different kind of Anima, more likely to respond and talk but also being firm in attitude.

I should make note that this DJ entry marks a bit of a milestone since starting this dream journal, that my dream recall has generally improved a lot solely by having the intention of writing down the dreams and having a routine to do so. I am no longer forgetting fragments easily between sleeping and waking, though it still happens.

Non-dream stuff; woke up early not remembering any dreams in particular. Eventually fell asleep again and then woke up at around 10, then being woken up "more" by the door. Some non-lucid stuff:

---

Dream fragment 1:
I remember seeing a big (to me) naval vessel from camera-like perspective, I think it would be a destroyer or frigate-class, which I think are the two smallest classes. I remember getting the "keys" for it, but don't remember actually driving it.

Dream fragment 2:
I remember being in a car like a modern Nissan and I think I was in one of the front seats, though initially my point of view was at a low height but the car was moving on its own, as there was nobody else in it, and then I was a little bit concerned about how fast it was going to go down a hill, because it was a T-intersection and I was trying to put a seatbelt on.

Dream sequence 3:
I remember a place like a campus or open gardens for some sort of educational complex. It was day, but probably cloudy as things looked a bit grey and I don't remember sharp shadows. Probably around mid-day.
Me and my partner were walking along some concrete slabs that were the paving in this trimmed grass garden area, he was ahead of me, and I was seemingly fixed on my phone and we walked through a building and I realised I was holding an apple pencil on my right hand, to which I thought "wait why did I bring this but forget the tablet?" so I put it in my right pocket. I seem to remember I was wearing my casual pants, as it were, which I likely wouldn't have been in the context of the dream if it were waking life.

We got to a T or corner with the paving and went up some long but not very high steps, only about 3 or 4 steps, into a building. As we walked in I remember metallic catwalks and fluorescent tubes on the ceiling. There was a reception with a lady, with glasses. She was focused on whatever she was doing and I was still fixated on my phone, noticing on some level that my posture was very bad.

We went up some metal stairs on to the catwalk tier and pushed a metal door and entered a room. It had dark wooden board flooring, the walls were a similar colour, and the end of the room had 3 or 4 massive old-style industrial windows. I made particular note as we walked into the room that there were some paintings; portraits of contemporary, people, oddly enough at least one of them was a teacher from the university I went to in waking life.

Then there was a man standing in the room, I realised, as I turned after reaching a point near the windows, and he had his arms crossed but not because of us or anything, was just his pose, and some big men started to come in carrying some stuff, which I didn't make note of. The man addressed me and said "do you have an order?", to which I said "do I have an order?", realising suddenly what he meant after I asked it, I said, "no, I don't have an order", to which he replied something about it being best we weren't in that room then. I did somehow feel that we had entered a room we weren't allowed to enter. Anyway, he walked out with us from the room, as we had nothing else to look at inside anyway and the men were busy bringing stuff in.

As we walked back out into the main lobby, it was transformed from before; now it matched the other room, dark warm, red-ish wooden colours. We went down the stairs, which now were wooden stairs with red carpet of some kind, and I said something and it sounded loud, to which the receptionist, still there and now seeing to some other people, asked me to be quiet or something to that effect.

The man replied something to me and we kept walking down until we reached a window with an alcove, and the three of us sat there, as there was a red pillow thing. For some reason now I remember being sat at a table, but in any case we were having a conversation about something and the man asked something like "were you looking for the old paintings?" (I think I mentioned something of it) and he said how that other room used to have very famous paintings and started recounting which ones.

Oddly enough, my partner who is not artist, understood perfectly what paintings they were and who the painters were. I was simply confused, as I never tend to remember most painters, even famous ones, despite being an artist myself.

I remember my partner and the man were on the other side of the table now, it was definitely a table now and made of the same dark red hued wood, looking glossy. My partner started saying something about "how ridiculous it is that my phone now has to level up to increase its battery life" and as I watched them talk about whatever I suddenly noticed I was getting a bit of a visual aura. I do remember something about my own phone having recently maxed some leveling up attribute and having taken many years to do so.

There was some kind of transition and I don't remember what the context was now but I saw things in a camera-like way and could highlight people and objects in an orange-tinted interface and examine what they had on them remotely.

---

Some notes:

• In fragment 2, the context within the car was a clear dream-sign, but unfortunately in that context I never seem to remember to RC because of how "important" it seems to do certain things in that moment.
• In the long dream sequence, it's odd that I was so fixated on my phone, only explained slightly by the dream with the leveling up thing.
• Normally it could be the other way around, like if we've gone shopping, my partner will be the one looking at the phone and I'll be the one leading our walking.
• The building we entered felt like a library, both before and after we went into that room with the paintings.
• The apple pencil is an item I've only recently come into contact with, so it's interesting that it has actually carried over to my dreams, but it did feel odd that its accompanying tablet wasn't present.
• I remember feeling like I could get embarrassed for carrying the apple pencil while looking at my phone which is an android phone. Somehow I felt there was some conflict.
• The fact that I explicitly made note of my posture but did not try to correct it could have been a cue to do a RC. Some physiotherapy I received recently was all about posture and it made me far more conscious of it than I have ever been before, so I will correct posture more often than not when I notice it's an issue.
• I felt like the man we spoke to was the curator of the art in that building.
• It was curious to see the receptionist, as she looked like the one from my other recent dream journal entry, and her reception desk was not too dissimilar despite the completely altered context.
• The visual aura in the dream was odd. I started to cover my eyes to check that it was one in the dream, as I would in waking life. It's the first time this has ever happened in a dream.
• Me and my dad get visual auras at complete random. There is no associated migraine or pain for them as there are for many people, and the cause of our visual auras seems to be unknown.
• The aura in the dream didn't look quite like what happens in waking life but it did bother me and obstruct my field of view.

Non-dream stuff; Woke up at around 9:45. Two non-lucid dream sequences.

---

Dream Sequence 1:
The chronological order is a bit off now for me but I think this dream started with me buying some sandstone pillars online. The pillars weren't much taller than me and they were also not very thick.

I remember I went with my partner to collect the pillars, in his car I think. The place was like the opposite of an oasis, it was a desert in the middle of valley that otherwise was pretty much green. The town here was in a raised area in the desert bit. It was day, but I think nearer the end of the day.

Initially when we got there we arrived at someone's house or something and then there were indeed some pillars there, but the seller wasn't. A couple of the seller's relatives showed up, like her mom and dad. The context of gender for the absent person was provided by the family. They commented that she should probably be back soon or something and we went around the town quite a bit and I remember seeing palms and small ponds of water and stuff in the lowest sandy areas. I remember thinking that this was in the US somewhere.

As we went full circle around town I think we went into the parents' house and for some reason we roamed it like we had been family friends for years. The layout of the house was peculiar and both that and the shanty-look it had reminded me of a house my grandmother from my mother's side used to live in, in waking life. But come to think of it, in a bit with stairs in this dream house, there was a lot of light, like the ceiling of the stairs was all a skylight. I remember in this room there were 2 or 3 wooden panels that were hatches to access some things but otherwise the walls were rough and stony.

I seem to remember we'd first gone into a room at the end of the stairs here, which was the seller's room.

Eventually we were outside again and we were just gonna set off in the car again because she never showed up, and I didn't want to take the pillars without the seller being there, for whatever reason. I remember having a number-plate on a note and reading it and comparing it to some other cars in the area and a car that had just arrived with a girl; the girl's cars number-plate was very similar but not quite it. Maybe I had the wrong number on the note but I didn't think about it. It was past sunset at this point, kind of twilight.

There was some kind of transition and I remember in very poor detail some warehouse area and a big truck that was part of someone's evil plan and I wasn't "me" anymore. I think I disarmed the truck or something but don't remember more other than some dream character showing up to get me out of there or advise me.

Dream Fragment 2:
I have a very vague recollection of playing a game like Warframe with one of my siblings.

Dream Fragment 3:
This was the last dream I had but remember little of it, other than being in that place in Lord of the Rings where there was the ill king. The dream took place before Frodo had even started the journeys.

In this room, from which I could see through a window outside a beautiful scenery with snow-covered mountains on a sunny day, there was "me" (whoever I was), Aragorn (I think) and an unspecified female character, either elven or human. I seem to remember her skin looked impossibly smooth but Aragorn spoke to her of something and she said that "something big is coming, I just don't know what it is yet", making me immediately think to myself "she means the ring, it's not happened yet...".

---

Some notes:

• The desert town did have tall buildings but everything looked like it was made of mudbrick or sandstone.
• The town looked a bit run-down overall, and in the dream context I knew they hadn't had too much trouble with water shortage but were going to in the future. I remember thinking about solutions.
• That location in general seemed to almost all be dream-generated, apart from the familiar-feeling house.
• The fact that the number-plate I had on a note was so similar to that of the girl arriving should have been a good cue to RC.
• In the LOTR dream I remember the woman had a sword sheath on her right side, so I suppose she was left-handed. I remember noticing Aragorn had a left-side sheath, in contrast.
• The woman was a brunette and she had some sort of forest-green tunic or tabard type clothing, with some tree symbol on it like some characters did in the films. She had a noticeably firm personality but was not uncaring.
• I do not know whether I was physically existent in the last dream or if I was more like a conscious bodiless entity, because of camera-like viewing.

Non-dream stuff; Just some non-lucid dreaming. Woke up at around 8:40.

---

Dream Fragment 1:

I don't remember a lot of this one, just that I was trying to build some things in what looked like a map editing world or something. I was placing concrete foundations for buildings along the side of a cliff and placing stretches of roads for what was going to be a residential area.

I remember a transition and a forest. I think the forest was in an MMO game, but it looked realistic and it was day and the trees were large pine trees or perhaps some sort of smaller variety of redwood. I remember a lake and the reflection of the sun and forest, though the lake looked shady, somehow, like the canopy was over it somehow.

Dream Sequence 2:

I was in a game, it felt like a mix of Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 and something else MMO-y. I was entering a really dangerous area and my character was a bit weak to attacks and my view of the character was top-down isometric like in D2. I had a shield spell, a spell to summon skeletal minions for a duration and some other summoning spell.

I knew at the end there was a boss, so I just rushed past the enemies as fast as I could, trying to avoid damage using the shield and summons, sometimes taking hits but never getting below half health points, every now and then opening a new town portal in case I died. I remember noticing several packs of enemies with champion enemies and felt annoyed that I was skipping these, as they give good experience and loot. It felt like it took a while, but as I reached the end I could see there was an area down at a lower level.

There was a door closer to me. As I went through the door my perspective changed, I think to first-person, and I went down a number of stairs in some corridors with a few windows, until I reached a door; I remembered to open another town portal, but I forgot I couldn't in this area, so the last portal was a little bit further than I wanted it to be.

I prepared myself for the (I felt) difficult boss before going through another door. I opened the door and went through, I could see a cafe-like place and lots of shelves, all with tins.

The boss was a bull-fighter, except he commanded a massive demon bull. He was addressing me and explaining how the fight was going to work in terms of how to defeat him. He didn't say anything about the attacks he would use; I remember I had a laser pointer and fiddled with it, trying to get the bull's attention to no effect. Now the demon bull was enraged and his eyes glowed vivid red, almost as weak headlights on a car.

The bull was inside the cafe but carefully came out, then getting ready to charge toward me, his muscles tensed, and I waited for him to get very close and I jumped up in a sort of weird backflip. The bull was dazed, I think he'd hit a wall or something and didn't look as muscly. The boss guy had explained that I would have to open one of the many tins when the bull was weakened, and then "cook the heart on a goose's (unintelligible)".

I had a tiny tiny tiny steel axe, smaller than my hand, and I used it to open one of these tins from the shelves; I remember the paper label was orange and the tin was cojoined with another tin, as if the tin had been made this way by mistake. But I managed to pry the lid off with the tiny axe somehow, not feeling too difficult, oddly, and surely enough there was some sort of dark heart-like organ, though it was smaller than my closed fist. There were some other fleshy lumps too, but I'm not certain what they were. Testes perhaps.

I tipped it out of the tin on the floor and looked at the heart and tried to think on where I could cook it, "inside the cafe in an oven", I thought. But then remembered I'd need to cook it on the goose whatever, which I didn't have.

The dream kind of ended there.

There was some other fragment, before these two... I remember a spellbook and something about character selection/customisation... I remember the spellbook showed examples of how spells worked. In particular I remember a spell that would summon a giant skeletal hand to rake a target down into the ground, like a building.

---

Some notes:

• The bull's red eyes like that remind me of other dreams I've had where animals had red eyes in the same way. Even once in a sort of fever-dream my dog looked like that, but in that dream I realised she wouldn't harm me, she was still my friend. It's a peculiar dream-sign I hadn't realised until now that has been present for some time.
• The bull looked like a bull, but the features looked like a Baron of Hell from DOOM(2016): https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20160517180410
• I thought it was odd a bull's heart would be so small as to fit into one of those tins, but I simply accepted that it was shriveled or something.
• I thought the other organs might be testes because in my native country eating some animals testes is not uncommon, and these tins were all tinned food; oddly enough, come to think of it, the tins literally only had the organs, not any juice or gravy or anything.
• As the bull was about to charge toward me I was a little bit tense but confident I'd be able to make the jump. I actually didn't jump as high as I expected, but still more than high enough.
• The man, the bull-figher, was mostly passively observing.
• The tiny steel axe was produced from nothing but I accepted that I'd been carrying it with me somehow.

Non-dream stuff; Woke up early enough but slept again and then just stayed in bed far too long because I felt very poorly yesterday. Had a few long non-lucid dreams but let's see what I can remember...

---

Sequence 1:

I remember being at a street and walking down with my partner; it was day time and I think the sun was to the right, as we were walking in the shade of some terraced houses or the like. We were going to some rented cars we had at the moment, we had two rented cars and one was up the street and the other down the street. When we got to where the second one should have been, it was gone. We reacted a bit with "oh shit..." as some of the stuff we had was in the boot. I couldn't remember what exactly but I think my partner's laptop and some backpack of mine.

I said we should call the police and I remember "seeing" an interface that showed they'd find it in under an hour. There was even a thing where I could pay the police some more money and they'd use a jet to find it very quickly. My partner said not to bother, because (for some reason) even though the car had been stolen we'd only have to pay the rental company 100 from the deposit, which I found to be odd. But I was still worried about our stuff at the very least.

Can't remember how that sequence ended.

Sequence 2:

Still part of the same general dream somehow, I remember us arriving on foot at a house; it was night time. The place was more like a small castle or small mansion than a house, actually; a typical estate you'd find on large plot of land anyway, the building's stones were limestone, and it probably had some sort of gothic ornamentation. I remember we went in... There was a woman? Or maybe there wasn't anyone, but I seem to remember the presence of a woman.

I seem to remember we went into some rooms and dropped off some stuff we had on us and maybe sat down. The memory here seems to blend with memories of the previous sequence, so I'm not sure what chronological order things took exactly, apart from considering time of day in the dream.

Something about secret rooms... But then I remember that we somehow owned this place all of a sudden and that we were gonna change some things around.

Fragment 3:

I think this came before the first sequence, but some game where my partner was playing and he got a jet and I said "oh, I haven't seen that one before! let me try" and he wouldn't, saying "find your own" in a cheeky way even though he wasn't flying the jet too well, as I remember he clipped the nose of the plane on a skyscraper as he was doing a loop. I remember the jet had a nozzle-mounted machine gun and some rockets.

---

Some notes:

• These sequences were much longer, but only writing them down about 3 hours after I've woken up, I've forgotten most of the details...
• I think in sequence 2, there was a fireplace that was lit when we first came in.
• The fact we had 2 rented cars does not make any sense, as I cannot actually drive in waking life. And my partner couldn't be driving 2 cars at the same time, obviously. Just this in itself should have been a good cue for RC.
• The fact my partner didn't care so much about our belongings in the stolen rental was odd too. Again another good cue for RC.
• The police "interface" thing was reminiscent of something from a game, I'm not even sure "where" I saw the interface, I think just in my normal field of view.