memorable

A particularly long dream. I had other dreams from earlier awakenings, but again I did not make any notes because of how tired I felt, it felt like too much effort. The other dreams weren't as vivid as the long one anyway.

Edit: Self-memo: The original dream notes for this dream are not as extensive because I stopped writing them when I started writing this DJ entry to try and get as much detail from the lingering dream memories.

---

Dream:

Starting from the end back; when I was woken up by H placing their hand on my head and speaking to me in waking life, I was walking with some determination towards a parked yellow car in the distance, at an earlier location that was prominent in several parts of the dream earlier; beside the car were shows, yellow too and this was important to me in the dream for some reason. On waking up I had a slight annoyance that I couldn't get to them now that I was awake, but this lingering feeling passed quickly.

This place was a distorted version of the area immediately outside my old home. It was day time, early morning with beautiful sunlight and the cul-de-sac was three or four times longer than it should be, somewhat wider too but not half as much as that. The whole area also sloped up gently on the more distorted side (the side that I never had much reason to be in). There was a zig-zag of pavement with cars parked along it, many of which were red or yellow, many being a mix of the two, like a VW type van which was mostly red but had a yellow boot door.

I had just been at a door to a shop of some kind? I was with Ni and a kid from my childhood, but I don't remember exactly who it was, possibly P, short dark hair, spiky? At this door, Ni asked if my shoes could be painted yellow there and some voice or something decided "no". At this point in the dream or earlier I remember looking down and seeing I had some sort of fabric shoes, like those that we often used for indoor gym classes in my childhood. The shoes were white, as they would be, but for some reason, I had yellow sweat pants, the same tone of yellow as every other yellow that had shown up so far in other dream elements. I remember thinking the white and yellow matched fine, but for some reason this wasn't enough to stop me from wanting the shoes to be yellow too.

Before we got to the shop and we were walking "up" the cul-de-sac, there was a more normal layout. There was a truck double-parking behind some cars, all too common, but it supposedly had dye or paint of the colour I wanted but it had been at this point that Ni and the other one appeared and "guided" me toward the door. I was a bit disappointed because I was sure the truck's paint would be fine, though after they appeared I got the impression maybe I was going to be stealing from the truck or something.

Up to this point I had been running around and faffing about on the more prominent dream location immediately in front of my old building. It was like a room but not. There were sofas and other things typical of a living room I think, but there was this big group of kids, mostly teen girls and some teen boys. I was annoyed with them because of what they'd done before, and because they were being passive-aggressive to me now too. I was looking incessantly for a laptop that I knew I had left on a table in the middle of these sofas, but these teens had moved everything since I had last been here in the dream, everything was covered in their stuff; bags, coats, etc. I remember looking through many laptop-bag like bags but it wasn't in any of them. I even looked in a bag that had a multi-bag tag* to it. After looking in that bag I remember something about a text command which may have been why I couldn't find it, but at that point I got distracted by someone and then the whole yellow shoes thing began.

Before that, I remember going through a wide hall, the exit for which was on the wall of the building and lead to that sofa area. The hall was dark, with an impression of night time to it despite being indoors. There were two of these teen girls doing some kind of work out on some bars on the ceiling, practically twisting themselves around the bars in some kind of pull-up exercise. They looked at me with mocking faces, I was very annoyed with them at this point already.

Before that part, I remember being in a forest on the other side of this hallway-tunnel. I think I was heading toward it when I had tripped and the group of teens, who I was walking together with, started to kick me. The girls were especially mean, kicking me very hard and then when it was over I remember feeling like it was all going to bruise. I felt angry that they abused me as a group and I could see some sort of interface thing that showed me their avatars, their nicknames and how many times each of them kicked me. I told myself I was going to keep this to report them and to show at a hospital when I got there for treatment. At this point I was convinced I was going to go to a hospital, as soon as I could, because I was afraid of massive bruising over my body, especially my face and head. Maybe I was concerned about internal bleeding too or something. Although in the dream I don't remember pain as I would from waking life, I still had a dream perception of having been extensively hurt.

Before this, I remember a fairly peaceful forest, day time, possibly afternoon judging by the yellowed colour of the light. It was a specific type of pine forest typical of my native country, the ground was dry I seem to remember, despite a number of ferns here and there or grass. There had been something about socks and the laptop at this early point of the dream but unfortunately I'm having difficulty recalling anything else; I have the feeling there was a transition of scene before this that put me in that forest, but I can't remember details before it.

---

Notes:
- When I was 8-10 is when I knew Ni and potentially some of these teens.
- I remember at that age there was someone I knew from school who had some gold nike shoes or something. I remember liking the shoes, especially because of the gold colour, as I've always been partial to gold.
- The main reason I can think of for the antagonism in the dream is because at school I had a very difficult time getting any of the girls from my classes to like me, even when I was being nice it'd often be the case that I was ridiculed, something that I think was partly driven by boys that these girls did like.
- In the dream I think the yellow shoes thing was something about making a point.
- Although the dream heavily featured things from my teen life (11-17 mostly), I didn't have the perception of being any younger than I am now; I think a lot of these types of situations in dreams for me are always with me being my current age because I don't particularly feel any different now than I did from 5, 10, 20 years ago, aside from my pain problems.
- More of a passing thought: At school I was almost always the youngest in a class, or amongst the youngest. In my family I am the youngest too, and interestingly Ni (who basically tried helping me in the dream) is one of the younger ones in his family, too.
- The contents of the bag that had the "multi-bag" tag were "quantic" and could be accessed from other bags too, a feature I've often used in modded Minecraft, incidentally a game I started playing in my late teens before it was even popular or had such extensive modding.

Some non-lucid stuff that I can remember from this morning. Only made note of the first dream in my initial morning notes.

---

Dream:

I was with dad, I think at a mall. It was like the one close to home but it was different somehow, though I had the same sense of familiarity. We were walking through the large and bright halls and as we turned around a corner we stopped, because I spotted this shop that sold ice cream and other stuff, like some pastries typical of my country and cotton candy. I wanted some of these deep fried things they had, even though I didn't feel all that hungry. I think it was just because it's been so long I had any. Not sure what dad wanted, but ice cream I think.

We approached the counter and two other people were being served. There were two guys behind the counter too, so I thought one of them was available and I pointed at something and asked about it. Before there was any reply, dad said "let the other people get served first" but for some reason, in the dream's context I had the ability to snap my fingers to toggle how busy the dream location was. Doing this had a completely intuitive feel. I did snap my right hand's fingers and the people being served simply disappeared, as did many other people walking by around us.

Now I asked about the food thing again. He explained they were long deep fried "waffles". Some were flavoured banana, strawberry or vanilla, with the possibility of a crusty looking chocolate topping, although I think it was more like icing.

I asked for one of the vanilla waffle things. While I was being handed my waffle and then tasting it, I think dad was getting something for himself. The taste was somewhat overly sweet, and bland at the same time (dream characteristic which didn't phase me), but it didn't taste of vanilla very much at all. My problem with the taste however, was the texture, as I was expecting something nice and crunchy, but it was completely soft. I felt disappointed and the few bites I took made me feel full really quickly anyway. I don't remember what I did with it and I don't remember either of us paying.

Then we continued walking through the mall, but into a different section which wasn't as open or light. In fact it felt pretty dark despite there being lights on. We walked into a supermarket inside the mall and I remember wandering around looking for something, but I don't remember what anymore. Eventually, empty-handed I went to the checkout area. I'm not sure it was dad that was with me anymore at this point.

But at the checkout there was a couple, they were buying a desktop computer oddly enough and they wanted help from an attendant because the computer "weighs 24kg and we can't carry it", I thought to myself that despite my weakness, this couple was just being pathetic or lazy. I did think about the effort of carrying it all the way to their car in the parking sub-levels, but I also thought it wasn't really fair to ask the attendant to do that.

Then the man from the couple started being weird, handling the computer case with relative ease he swung it around and it hit the checkout counter, on which I was sat. For some reason I was just sat there and observing. As he did hit the counter with the case, the attendant didn't even flinch like she hadn't noticed. He did it again a few times, harder this time. Now the case was visibly damaged and warped. At first the damage seemed passable, but for whatever reason I was able to look inside; I quickly told them that the circuit boards were cracked because of the metal plates pushing in and that it was no good now. The man started being upset and demanding compensation or something. Again I didn't think this was fair and either I said or thought "you break it, you buy it". The attendant seemed to be handling it though, but it made me feel no respect for this man.

There was a transition then. I don't remember where I was now, but I had some kind of interface. I could select worlds or something?

Then I remember a cutscene of some kind, it was in space. I could see several planets in a star system, and before it happened I knew the star was about to explode, and it did, in a green supernova, the planets burning away in a green flame of sorts. Strangely enough in the dream it was like I already knew about this cutscene (but it's the first time I've seen/dreamt it) so I was using some camera control tools or something to see the scene from different angles than it would normally play through.

I don't remember much else from this dream other than some vague memories of night sky and stars.

Dream Fragment:

At my old home, in my old room. I think what brought this dream on was some thoughts I had before bed about how my old room's balcony has never felt safe, and how I always fear mom may slip some day, or that I may somehow feel compelled to jump out of it (in madness or some other irrational state).

It was a sort of night time, a twilight of some kind. I walked into the room a bit further and saw my sibling T in the balcony. He had a top on but was otherwise naked, this was odd and bothered me on some level but I ignored it and we talked about something. From the balcony, below, I could see my other sibling was arriving with S in a white smart car. Then the doorbell rang and I walked out of the room and went to answer it, I already knew it was going to be L and S but I still picked up the intercomm set and asked who it was. I felt like I was being like dad for doing this (even though I don't remember dad ever doing this type of thing). L replied at first and I asked "who?" because I couldn't understand, then S spoke and her voice made it clear who they were and I pressed the button to open the building door.

Dream Fragment:

Driving, or being driven? With H. Not sure what car, but the landscape and town was a mix of my native home areas and some other places. I enjoyed the view of the nearby mountains in the dream. I remember we went over a bridge or two and there were two towns next to each other. It was day time, but sort of dark despite everything looking bright? Like I was seeing everything through heavily tinted glass, but I don't think the car's glass was tinted at all.

---

Notes:
- Last night as I had the thoughts about my old room and the balcony, I did think that it might cause me to have a dream about it. It's a shame I didn't take the opportunity to think about becoming lucid should it happen, as there were plenty of cues in that dream that could have resulted in some state of lucidity, but didn't. Keeping intention of noticing dream signs seems particularly poor for me, but I really think my sleep quality doesn't help.
- The thing with the dream-controlling finger snapping is typical of something my dad does in his non-lucid dreams too, so either that knowledge has created some kind of bias on me, or it's a trait that can be developed because of our personalities, or perhaps simply hereditary somehow. A point of note about it is that I play games a lot where "control" comes easily, so it may simply be a reflection of how there's a lot of self-agency in that type of context.
- The pastry type thing I wanted from the shop was more like a churro or something, but the thing I was given didn't really look like one. I actually remember they had some churro looking things locked up in a clear plastic chest that was hung on a wall on the customer side of the counter. I remember feeling like asking about it but like it would be too much bother to get one.

Some dream fragments. There was a third one but I have such a faint and vague memory of it, not even sure where I'd start. I practically lost the other ones while getting up but made sure to keep my eyes closed as much as possible until I could write here, which helped.

---

Dream Fragment:

I remember being at some sort of concrete structure. I'm not sure if I was "me" but a couple of other people were here too, I think one of them was that Torres guy from NCIS. This place was dark and there was a massive abyss right in front of us. Across this abyss was another flat area made of concrete and there were some soldiers there. They were holding us here or something and they shouted that we should stay put.

The soldiers got on a platform and it started moving down very fast. They disappeared from sight. Somewhere down there was some light, but it must have been a literal mile or more away. Then some more soldiers appeared but this time they didn't wait for the platform and just jumped down where the platform shaft area was. I was intrigued but at some point in the dream I simply "knew" that at the bottom was a special fluid that would break any fall, no matter from how high.

Torres like the idea of just jumping across and into that specific area. I felt it was too risky. It was a long way down and there was no way to aim ourselves properly and the gap between the two concrete areas was quite wide. But he got on some sort of pole hanging from our side and got closer to the other side, hanging just over the middle. Then some soldiers came back up on the platform and noticed. They started shouting at him and warning him to stop. He ignored them and now he grabbed onto some rope that was hanging from the ceiling. That's as much as I remember clearly for this fragment.

I do remember there were no light sources. We were very deep underground most certainly, but somehow we had a light radius of our own, like in RPGs where the characters just give off light...

Dream Fragment:

I don't remember how I got there but I arrived at a small lab/office place. This dream was somewhat vivid, more than the other one. There were two researchers, wearing labcoats, and one of them greeted me. He seemed a bit uninterested at first but then he saw my boots. They were covered in some sort of pale golden sand. I realised I hadn't noticed this myself until that moment and he became very interested. He went over to a counter and showed me some tins with rounded caps.

The caps were all a shade of gold or tan. He asked me to see which one I thought was closest. I selected four of the tins first just as a guess. Then I held them and made their coloured cap be over my right boot in my vision. The first wasn't it, too orange. The second and third one seemed similar, the fourth one was too dark but the right hue. I compared between the second and third against the sand and decided the third one was the closest. He seemed happy with this and I felt somewhat happy to help. I made a comment saying "well at least I can definitely tell that my skill at recognising shades correctly has improved". I genuinely felt this was true in that moment and realise now that it was indeed a very accurate test of my skill in this.

The other researcher was just doing something on his own over on another counter but I don't remember what. Oddly enough, despite looking at my feet, can't be certain what the floor was like. Some sort of plastic tiles? Maybe wood. But square shapes. The counters were an off white on the top and a light stained wood on the cabinets. There were a couple of windows to the outside and I made note of the fact that it was daytime outside, but the room was quite brightly lit anyway with some fluorescent lamps that actually gave off a warm colour for once.

This whole dream bit felt like it was in sequence of the previous one or another one between them.

---

Side notes:

- It could possibly be the first time while dreaming where I had to use a skill that I'd use for painting in waking life. For me this is a particularly good sign because for a long time I've wanted that context to come over into dreams in some form.
- The researchers wearing labcoats were clearly dreamsigns that I missed. The labcoat is a dreamsign I successfully managed to insert into my dreams as a dreamsign a while back, I think last year or the year before.
- The dust on my boots reminded me very much of gold powder in the dream. In the dream I had a much clearer notion of where I had been previously, which was relevant for that context.
- Despite looking at my boots and remembering them very clearly as the black leather army-type boots I have in waking life, I only vaguely remember my trousers and can't really say which ones they were. It seems odd that my boots are the only detail I remember clearly from looking down, despite the fact that in the dream everything was the same level of vividness.
- I do remember I was wearing some sort of dark hoodie in that dream. I remember it because I remember the sensation of having the sleeves pulled up, something I often do if I'm indoors.
- Don't have much at all to make note of from the first dream since many details are vague now, but the fall-breaking fluid definitely made me think of stuff from Portal and from Satisfactory.

Recorded the majority of these dreams early on in a vague form on my phone on waking up. Had to go somewhere in the car; while I was waiting in the car for an hour, typed everything out in more detail, which I'm now putting on the DJ here.

---

First Dream (Some detail missing):

Fairly long dream. Can’t remember the start now but I would recurringly go for a swim with H but also alone. When I started, I felt weak and slow. I can’t remember the water's temperature.

We were on some sort of cruise ship but it was mostly empty, and I don’t think it was ever moving. I started to become strong at swimming, when I was back on the decks I can remember feeling like I my chest was sort of almost puffing out from all the swimming workout.

At some point I was walking down some wooden decking stairs and I could see my parents lounging on some patio type chairs on a higher level. I could hear dad make some sort of mock bird call. I remember then seeing some birds. Seagulls? Dad laughed. H asked from some place below, “is that your dad?” I said yes and then remember continuing down the stairs and losing sight of them.

It was daytime for most of this dream but I made note of the fact that it was sort of cloudy and grey. I remember a horizon of water. It may have been windy but I don’t remember the sound of it.

I remember a few times I’d take my boots off, but at no point do I remember what I was wearing.

When I went swimming, after a short while I’d usually arrive at this sea floor base of some kind. This place did have a lot of people. I remember lockers, the inside of this place almost felt like some swimming pool changing rooms but with a more modern and futuristic feel to it, a bit more like the base from Ocean Girl or the sea city from Bioshock.

Before this dream or through the middle of it, I was stuck in some sort of void like limbo with H for a time. It was like being in an out of control perpetual fall, and there was a strange light and distant but dark cosmic background. This void was filled with ancient structures and artefacts from unknown civilisations, a lot of the stuff looking like it was from some sort of classic period.

I remember interacting with some walls and pillars from a distance, with some kind of telekinetic ability, and cutting them up into smaller chunks. As I did their lighting would change, usually to some dramatic purples and yellows.

At some nearer the “end” of the cruise ship segments I went into this too, to have a wee, but there were no toilets. In the dream my mind was telling me that there were some type of urinals but there was nothing on walls or anything like toilets. Instead there were some tables. I walked past a clear plastic box filled with what looked like cheap and brightly coloured electronic components.

At the tables were some big circuit boards with several components already soldered on, including some transformers. For whatever reason I had to have a wee on these boards, but I remember someone telling me I could only wee on the electrolytic capacitors... I remember doing it, but on a big black electrolytic cap, and then some guy appeared, who apparently owned all this stuff and told me off just for weeing on the big one. He was annoyed but not angry or shouting.

Then I remember going out of that room after a short dialogue. I went some stone stairs, in a wide spiral. It reminded me of castles and churches. There were a few murderhole windows where daylight shun from. This was a different place, it was puzzle like. As I reached some kind of landing I immediately realised that the structure was like in some games like Legend of Zelda and some modern puzzles where the paths loop back into themselves, but I could get around the issue of looping paths by taking them whilst walking backwards.

I remember a crawl space path where the same would happen and there were statues and displays scattered about like some museum. There was a warm artificial mood light and everything had a sort of modern feel to it in the areas with displays.

Second Dream (Fragment):

A different dream. I was born out of a big egg, looked mostly like a birds egg but was covered in a polka dot pattern on the outside. A sort of magenta colour to the dots.

There was some old man in this dream and I remember telling him we all had stomachs made from tin and gold. When I told him there was also sulfuric acid in there, he was incredulous.

Third Dream? (Fragment) NSFW:

A still image, as if on a computer, no doubt from a transition phase into wakefulness,

Spoiler for NSFW:

of a giant phallus in space “absorbing” planets along its skin.

One of the stranger things I might draw from time to time. But unusual for this type of thing to appear whilst still sort of in the dreaming context.

---

Notes:

⁃ Almost immediately after waking up I realised I probably had the swimming and diving dream because I spent so much of last night reading stuff on Dreamviews. It made me feel like the water was representative of dreaming in itself.
⁃ When I was reading stuff last night I had some thoughts about symbology, mostly because of the topics but I think also because of something I’d said/posted. I feel this is probably why the dream ended up being so metaphorical.
⁃ I ended up taking the whole swimming and diving experience, which in the dream made me stronger, as a sign that I may be making some progress again with dreaming. There was just a sort of clear association in my head when I woke up that all of this was a metaphor for how I was doing lately.
⁃ The void filled with artefacts etc. also felt relevant in that context because it seemed like a collection of lost and unknown culture.
⁃ This void was very similar to the Chthonic voids found in Grim Dawn, probably because I was also playing that a bit last night.

None of these dreams are complete in detail. Transitions are missing and a lot of them had beginnings that I simply can't recall now. It took me over 15 minutes from getting up from bed to write any of these down here because of difficulty getting up and slightly different morning routine.

---

Dream Fragment:

Very short fragment. There's a brand new office building of some kind. It has an odd shape, has a very 80s,90s feel to it for me. Then someone has apparently ordered some sort of bespoke building plating. A woman, I think, she's very happy about it and goes "yeah, instant bunker baby!" or something like that. The somewhat thin metal plating is plaited and somehow unfolds itself around the building and fits perfectly over every single side. I remember walking around it to see or something.

The woman then throws a bomb right at the brand new plating. It makes a small explosion, no more than a few yards in radius and doesn't break anything off, but some cracks appear on the plating and underneath it. Despite the fact that the plating is metal, it looks translucent and is a dark tan. I find it curious but don't spend too much time thinking about it. (Years ago I had some translucent plastic spoons that had an electro-plated metal finish of some sort, which gave them a translucent metallic look. The dark tan is familiar from a number of tinted glasses I remember seeing in buildings I visited in the 90s.)

Anyway, she's really disappointed now, asking how could the small blast get through like that. She insisted it was supposed to be virtually indestructible but then some sort of interface overlay appeared in my vision as if in a game and I inspected the plating and it had a little icon that when inspected stated "Highly Resistant Material". I felt she had hyped herself into believing this plating was more durable than it actually was. I remember passing thoughts of how nothing is indestructible.

Dream Fragment:

In some sort of classroom. Me and someone else, maybe H, are there first with the teacher. The teacher doesn't look much older than us and she seems familiar somehow now, but is purely a dream character. Possibly an anima-type construct. There's a chalkboard. There are small metal-legged, chipboard tables, covered with plastic veneer. The setting is very familiar from my childhood. Somehow I don't remember the chairs exactly, but they were probably fibreglass ones.

The room feels dark, but it seems to be day outside. Only a small amount of light gets in from some windows. We are at some table over by the far right end corner of the room.

Then some students arrive. I don't have any thoughts about it in the dream, but realise now that they were former classmates from when I was around 12-15. The lights are on now, I think. I remember turning back to my left and looking at someone else and then approaching for some reason. To get something of mine that was borrowed? Not sure. But then I go over to another table, more crowded, surrounded by a group, and there I grab something, but somehow my way is now blocked and instead of asking for room to get past, I crawl under the table. At this point I notice somewhat clearly that I'm wearing a hoody, a cream coloured one, that I probably would have worn back then but still have now; but I felt the age I am now.

I crawled out from under the side of this group table, somehow not getting kicked at all even by accident.

The rest of the dream's detail is missing.

Dream Fragment:

Me and H were at home, in the kitchen. The room seemed bigger than it actually is, including the ceiling height, which in reality is already over two people's height combined. The lights were on and the curtain roll was down on the window.

I don't remember what we were doing when suddenly we were stepping into the hallway for a bit and lights started flickering, out of sync with each other. They'd go really dim or completely out. H was really confused by this and I was finding it odd. We didn't have any high-power things on. One of the lights started making a loud repeating clicking noise, I think the fluorescent light in the kitchen or some other fluorescent light that doesn't actually exist. But in my mind at that point I thought it was a relay for whatever reason.

I told H to try and find out what was going on, as I was getting worried the clicking noise was actually something shorting out and sparking. He told me to turn everything off, so I went to the electric trips board and (impossibly) moved it into the middle of the kitchen, where I had a look at it with some light. I forced the RCD to trip and that turned mostly everything off except one light somewhere and H was disappointed but came over and I told H to see for himself what he wanted to do. He flicked some other trips and then everything was completely off.

Then there was some knocking at the door. We were finding this all very odd and I couldn't imagine who it was. I was about to answer the door but tentatively waited. I saw through the front room window ( in the dream more like a mini conservatory thing than the flat windowed wall of reality) a man going to next door's and knocking there. The neighbours answered and had a little chat with him, and he was saying how he was sick of all these electrical noises he kept hearing on and on for days coming from someone else's house. I thought to myself "I couldn't agree more" or something to that effect.

The man looked like Haymitch from the Hunger Games, but fatter and somewhat older. In the dream I realised he was one of the neighbours further to the left, past our direct neighbour on the left. It seemed to be daytime but rather desaturated and gloomy outside.

I think I told H about what I saw and then wondered who the hell was causing all this. I forget the rest of the dream.

Dream Fragment:

At a church, not sure who else is there exactly but Fry from Futurama was there. He was saying random things and somehow the congregation was loving him and he was getting ordained. I remember him saying "W-what? I'm not even trying to be nice at this point!", clearly upset that despite some purposefully obnoxious actions he was still being praised, when it wasn't at all what he wanted.

Remember little from this dream except that the visuals were all a bit odd, like my head was hanging low. I remember there was a pipe organ in this church.

---

No side notes, but made some notes in-line with the dream content.

Kind of a single long dream, but some bits are missing.

---

Dream:

The first part of the dream I can remember was at a somewhat accurate layout of the cul-de-sac in front of my old home. I was sitting in the driver seat of a car, which I think was my dad's car, as some of the interior felt familiar. But I had the window fully down and was sort of resting my arms against it and looking out. It was a sunny day, probably past 3PM but not sure what season. First half of the year, I think.

Where my building door was supposed to be was actually this entrance into some sort of church, but not a church, as there was a machine there like a manually operated computer, and there was a group of people running it. I think I had been in there previously in the dream, or I just "saw" this somehow. But then there was an oddity about this machine, it could be switched off by literally anyone who walked past it, as there was a button labelled "STOP" and another "EMERGENCY STOP". They both did the exact same thing. I think I remember I had asked someone why, and they couldn't explain it to me.

Then, while I'm in the car, some black guys show up. I realise better what position the car was in, sort of blocking in the entrance of the cul-de-sac a bit. These guys smile at me, I smile back, but I immediately know that they are there for something. They sort of huddle up around one side of the car, sort of hiding from view from where the machine place was. They look at me worried and I say nothing, quietly watching with some amusement, I'm curious what they have planned.

This one guy stops trying to hide and just walks straight up to the place. I can see that he hits that stop button out of amusement for himself and the people running the machine get annoyed and make audible grunts, but seemingly don't even pay attention to the guy. I don't remember what else he did in there, but he comes back near the car and he has this piece of jewellery, I can't remember exactly what, but somehow I immediately know it's sort of stolen or something.

Then a different guy gets up and goes in and a bit later comes out with something similar. I think this happens a couple more times and I remember the last piece of jewellery, a silver necklace. It reminds me of a necklace H has, but only the chain was similar.

I remember getting into some small talk with the guys and then saying I had to go. I think I drive away and they disband, but I don't remember how it transitions into the next part exactly. But I remember my thoughts stayed on the "stolen items" for a bit.

Then I'm walking down an unknown dream park with two people. One of them is H's sister (A), but I'm not sure who the other person is, some guy, around my age, but a friend of mine, not A's friend.

It's night time and there is plenty of green vegetation and everything's slightly wet. Sprinklers had been on, as it isn't raining and I don't get the impression it had been. There are paths through this hilly park and the path we're on takes sort of long curves around some well mowed lawn-like fields, well lit by strong cool lights.

As we're walking this path on the left-hand side there's a hedge going all the way along the curve and on the right-hand side there's this man on a short two-sided ladder. I don't look up to see what he's doing, but all of a sudden sparks and arcs of electricity go everywhere. Somehow I'm not surprised or worried, and neither is anyone else. Moments after I'd walked past, I pause, looking back. A is sort of looking closely at the ladder and some cables, which I somehow think of as being a bit foolish considering the electricity, so I think I motion for her to carry on.

We arrive somewhere and there's some kind of transition. I lose any awareness of A and the mystery friend.

I'm now at a place that closely resembles my high school, or college. But the lights are sort of dim and moody. It was still night outside. All of a sudden I find myself in the middle of a group of random people, of all ages really. And then I'm lying down, between this girl my age on the left and this old woman on the right. They're both lying down too but sort of sitting. There's a cover over my legs and this girl on the left.

People are mostly just idling around and there are some paintings on the walls. I look closely at some, finding myself annoyed that I know some of them and that they've been there for an eternity, half thinking to myself "why can't one of mine be there?". The thought passes quickly and I look at another painting that catches my attention and I quite like. Somehow this makes many other people look at it too and start discussing it.

My attention fades away from it and this girl on my left starts touching my private areas; I don't realise it's her doing it at first. I realise that both me and her didn't have pants or underwear on. For a moment I wonder if H was touching me in waking reality but the thought doesn't go past being somewhat automatic. I enjoy her touch but start to wonder why she's touching me like this. I assume that she wants the same so I move one of my hands to touch her in the same areas and this seems to completely surprise her, despite whatever pleasure she felt. I get the impression she is embarrassed now and she sort of gets up and dresses herself and leaves.

The old woman on the right makes some comments, the last bit of which I vaguely remember. "It's not easy making money that way, you know." the old woman says. I reply: "No, I didn't think so either."

Then I am left with some lingering thoughts of why she would try to make money in such a way, and why she left, but the rest of my dream recall sort of ends here.

---

Notes:

• In the third and final part of the dream, there was a fair bit of conversation between everyone and myself and other dream characters, but as I try to recall the dream I can only mostly remember silence.
• The group of black guys in the first part of the dream were nobody I recognised, though they reminded me of friends I used to have when I was younger. I have had a few recurring appearances of those groups of friends and I felt it was somewhat familiar, especially because of the dream's location, which is where they typically appear in my dreams.
• I think the jewellery was actually coming from some sort of replicating machine in the same place as the manually-run computer thing, but my memory of it is extremely vague.
• The stone hall where that computer thing was, really wasn't very different from the actual entrance hall of my old building. It was sort of just super elongated and wider.
• I have no idea now who the friend was with me and A. I don't recognise the face and seems to just be a generic construct of "male friend".
• The girl touching me in the final part of the dream didn't tell me her name and somehow in the dream I felt the expectation that she would have done, especially before leaving. Although I remember her hair as being somewhat long and curly and dark, I got the impression there was something about her that was "redhead" or that the word "red" was somehow associated with her as a character.
• The old woman in the same part had some sort of old-style blue dress, and reminded me a bit of a cartoon character in some way. Her hair was a perfect white and tied up in a sort of bun. What little I can remember of her face is that she looked youthful for how old it sounded like she was.
• The appearance of both these sort of contrasting female figures is not without some personal meaning to me; it's the sort of thing I sometimes wonder about, especially if I'm working on some art piece involving nude human figure- the old woman was young like us at some point and so wasn't at all phased by what was happening. I often wonder how I will see this type of situation when I'm much older myself, or how I'll feel about it.
• Nearly forgot to add this note: The odd mood lighting (sort of an orange-y red/purple) in the last part of the dream was incredibly similar to that of another strange dream I had some time back. I can't remember if I did have any thoughts about it during the dream.

Remembered this fragment much more clearly earlier on but wasn't able to write it until now.

---

Dream Fragment:

Was in Wintergrasp from WoW; I remember the snow on the ground felt a bit "real" and I think the atmosphere was a bit more blue-ish than it probably ever was in reality. The battle was going to begin in just over a minute and the place was more deserted than I expected; but as the timer finished the place was crowded. For some reason I got teleported to a cave like the starting cave from AV and likewise there was a large metal gate in the same style. I could clearly see outside was still WG however, and I was going to be defending. I remember the gate opening but some details are missing now between this part and the next.

The next part I remember is next to one of the east walls of the fortress. I remember fighting outside the walls for a bit but can't remember exactly what class I was playing; either a warrior or a death knight with a two-handed weapon.

I got on one of the rocket turrets mounted along the east wall and pointed it quite directly at a few enemy players fighting some of ours on the ground below. I was mostly aiming at one of the sloped areas, where most of the fighting was taking place. I don't remember seeing the siege vehicles at this point. I can remember seeing the characters in much clearer detail than would be possible in-game, especially when this area was current content - I think there was a mix of horde and alliance in the enemy forces.

I remember during the dream I was feeling a bit of allure (pre-lucid?) towards the player characters in general as I could see them in quite clear detail.

---

Edit, some side notes:

Back in WLK I did play death knight, warrior and paladin classes a lot, the latter two especially compared to the previous expansion and the original game where I mostly just played rogue.
Though the snow had a more real quality to it, as I could sort of feel it crunch like it would if it was fairly deep, nothing else about the environment seemed more realistic.
The focus I took on the player character models is not uncharacteristic of something I would do when actually playing anyway, as I always liked seeing the different equipment on all the characters, but in this case it felt different because the characters I took more note of felt like they were “zoomed in”, in terms of detail. I remember I had felt it was odd/different.

Dream Fragment:

I was at my old home or some version of it. I was at the entrance hall and it was a bit dark but still daytime, suggesting it was the time just before sunset. H was there, but H looked like this actress from a TV show instead. She was crouched up in the middle of the room, in front of the dark stained wardrobe and I crouched next to H and started to cuddle, giving her a kiss and feeling how different her body was compared to what I should remember.

There is a transition and I'm outside, it's daytime but probably more around noon now. I remember walking by a few places that were altered from how they should be, namely D's building and its entrance. There were quite a few people there and I remember making small talk for some reason, but no idea what about.

I kept wandering the streets of my home town and eventually after going through a few streets that don't exist and a wall turning into an open street, I started to become sort of pre-lucid and gained some dream-control, not consciously thinking about it. There was a square or plaza of some kind, surrounded by short two or three story buildings, as expected, and people were just going about their business. But I wanted to feel alone and solemn in this place for some reason, so I snapped my fingers and most of them disappeared. A woman and her young boy didn't.

I snapped again, wanting rid of her from the scene. She wouldn't go. She walked up to me and started becoming antagonistic and asking why I wanted her to go. I didn't explain myself (perhaps I didn't know why either) and I eventually conceded and said "fine, if you won't leave, then I will", so I walked away across the plaza and into a small tunnel lit with fluorescent lights and as I did, she paced up quickly behind me, pushing me against a corner, hurting me, and twisting my right arm and gripping my bottom.

She said something that I can't remember word for word, which basically summed up to be about how I often am careless with caressing and cuddling H (making me cause pain by complete accident), and despite the pain she was inflicting on purpose, I laughed at its irony. In that moment, I felt a dire need to go to the bathroom, and I falsely woke up, then getting up from bed and going to the bathroom, and just as I sat on the toilet, I was in bed again, as if that was only imagined, but the urge to use the bathroom was suddenly gone.

Then I woke up truly and double checked how I felt, realising it was all just very realistic dream sensation.

---

Some notes:

• This dream wasn't particularly vivid in terms of visual clarity but the physical sensations were quite strong overall.
• The woman who wouldn't go was some sort of anima manifestation. Often it isn't so antagonistic but her look was distinct from previous appearances, mostly marked by her shoulder-long hair being black this time. Her face was more chiselled, too. It was simply a more raw and aggressive look in general; ironically enough, what I would expect from my home region.
• Though I had some dream control, it was completely non-lucid. I could feel myself having some sort of pre-lucid thoughts but they didn't rise up enough for me to start gaining lucidity.
• The woman's young boy reminded me of myself when I was younger, but his role in the dream seemed to be minimal. He seemed to be there pretty much just to characterise the woman as a mother, as he pretty much just went off playing in the street without a care for what was happening.

I've been having a somewhat better dream recall average than I normally would, but haven't been taking note of dreams enough and my last DJ here was ages ago now. This is a particularly memorable dream fragment from this week.

---

Dream Fragment:

First half is missing.

Was in my home city, or some altered version of it. It was day time and I was heading home on foot; there was a fluid transition to my arrival home but I've forgotten the detail of it, and when I got there it was dark at that point. My dad was in his car and approached me and told me to get in the car so we could go somewhere (for a meal or something?) - I was a bit reluctant, I was feeling in pain and really tired; mom was sat at the back with one of my brothers (T) and one of my cousins (R) was sat at the front, so I sat next to mom.

Dad started driving and very shortly after, we were going through some surreal highway that I've seen in some other dream fairly recently; surrounded by cliffs and 10-story buildings on top of the cliffs. It then turned into a rock and dirt road and there were dark abysses either side of the road, with more cliffs in the distance. I was a bit apprehensive too, but mom was starting to get quite worried and told dad, in the same way as I ever expect.

He reassured her with a smile, saying: "It's fine, I've driven on these roads loads of times!". Very shortly after he said that, we went over a bump in the road, but there was nothing on the other side. The car fell straight into one of those abysses, none of us seemingly very concerned by this, plunging into water at the bottom.

At first we didn't try to get out; I remember thinking "Well it doesn't really matter" but eventually we all got out and swam up. When we got to the surface of the water, some sort of root-like things descended toward us and took us to a sort of rocky area under a much bigger floating mass of rock.

At the centre of this area there was some sort of little shop. I remember going in and seeing all these small 4:3 CRT TV screens, each one no bigger than my head, sat on shelves, almost perfectly spaced apart. Each one of the screens had a landscape view in it, like a live feed, but not much was going on in any of them. It was a colourful shelf to look at.

As I walked along this narrow path between these big metal shelves with the TVs, something caught my attention on top of one shelf. A moonstone, but not as bright and vivid or even opalescent like one I actually have in reality. The gem was pale and sort of a sepia or cream colour but it was still slightly translucent as expected. What was odd about it was that it was encrusted with some sort of gold filigree and small golden spheres.

Start to remember less detail at this point. I remember dad went off his own way and so did my sibling and cousin. Mom stayed with me and we went outside, where it was still dark, although the direct area around wherever we went was always seemingly lit. More like the darkness was a fog made of black.

I remember seeing some bones or dead plants and noticing the floor was particularly arid. Eventually we found some building thing, which was very square. It had a brand new kitchen I think, but apart from that it was mostly just dark corridors. I don't remember anything after that point.

---

A note:

I remember that in the dream the surreal landscapes felt familiar but out of place. Although I did not get anywhere near being lucid, I've had more of these moments lately where I'll have pre-lucid thoughts or recognition of a feature from a past dream.

Non-dream stuff - Woke up at 8:20 or so with my alarm, waking up from a non-lucid, sweating. Slept some more and woke up again around 2 hours later with one or two non-lucids.

---

Dream 1:
I was living in a house with my partner (H); I remember it had a ground floor and a first floor. It was day time, and sunny. One of our neighbours was a couple, a man and a woman, who had two kids, two boys I think.

One of those boys started to "accuse" me of looking at him, when I hadn't been; this went on for a while in the dream and the parents themselves didn't seem that interested... Later on, this boy, the younger of the two I think, started messing around and eventually he tried to get into our house for some reason or something. I decided we should catch him and make him calm down and explain his problems.

I waited for him to be on top of our wall or fence or something and then when he couldn't see me I'd grabbed him by the legs and took him in and told him to calm down, as he was obviously upset now. I asked him why he was being left here when his parents were gone and he wasn't sure; and he said that sometimes when his parents were at home he wasn't allowed in and he could hear "pumping" noises? I understood the implied meaning of this in the dream to be his parents having sex.

I remember as soon as he calmed down and started to explain his problems I was a lot less tense too, as I hadn't wanted him to get away without an explanation for his previous behaviour at the very least.

Seems I can't remember any more detail for this dream.

Dream 2:
In a square-ish L shape room. The negative shape of the L (so, a smaller square area) was a vertical section of some sort. This looked it was all part of some sort of facility. There was a glass sliding door that would lead into a corridor. Next to the door were many armed guards, standing in a formation, they looked like stormtroopers but some with no helmets on.

By the glass around the inner part of the L, facing into the vertical section, was a woman. I can't remember what she looked like exactly but I remember something about her breasts being inflated, but then not. She was the DNA source for those clone troopers or something? But I was too or something.

I remember suggesting an idea to her that perhaps we could change her DNA a bit further, as it was ironic that the troopers were infertile and they couldn't procreate with her. Then I remember saying or thinking something about the fact that she could give birth to our genetically modified humans as a surrogate, rather than them being grown in wherever they were grown.

There was a lot more detail to this dream, but I've forgotten it.

Dream 3:
The last dream, like the rest was quite long but I only remember the last portion... I remember being in a shop, then outside at a pier... I was in Australia or something? I needed to take a boat to Europe or the Middle-East. I remember seeing a world map, but oddly Africa seemed to be missing.

The boat and some other things looked a bit cartoony somehow. The captain was the owner and they were struggling financially or something so I bought the boat really cheap off him and then I had to get some things ready and then someone else was captain of the boat and I bought it off them again as for some reason it was sinking and buying it stopped it...

Eventually I got on and there was some sort of transition. I remember seeing the map again.

The next place, in someone's house. It was like a holiday house that was let to people. I looked around for others but couldn't find anyone. It was day and I could see sunlight come through windows, but the windows themselves looked too bright (nothing but white past them).

I found some food and drinks, all prepared, for guests like myself, but I didn't take any. I looked around more for someone else and eventually entered this darker, tiny, kitchen. There was a door to the outside and it didn't look so sunny but it was still day. The door was open and there was a woman standing there with a slightly grumpy look on her face. In the kitchen was a man, about my age. He started talking to me and commenting about the house or something, and then all of a sudden he said "oh you've got a bit of a zapper there" or something like that, referring to the fact that he could see my junk poking in my pants, which incidentally were my sweatpants.

I apologised and said that this just sometimes happened and I couldn't control it (and in fact I expected him to understand since he was a man), but I got the feeling he brought it up more to antagonise his wife or girlfriend standing outside. I took a pair of my compression gloves out of my left pocket and said to him "look, maybe these were also contributing", as my gloves felt quite bulgy inside the pocket previously. Oddly, I can't remember what happened to the gloves, and it's the first time they've appeared in a dream since I've had them.

Then some transition.

I was outdoors with this guy. In some city in the US. There was nobody else here initially. I had an interface overlay in my vision, reminded me of the game Boundless and the flooring looked like a specific block-type from the game and I was inspecting it. The floor looked like limestone cobbles. Then he went in a direction and I followed him; he was saying something to me when we got to the top of a slope/stairs bit though I don't remember what. I saw a church and then to its left there was a castle. There were more people here. I remember a couple of cars and a bald man with sunglasses on, inspecting someone's papers.

The castle bit looked newer, and I asked about it and the guy said they had no old pictures or plans of it so it was rebuilt from imagination or whatever. There was an older castle/church part that had a big glass pane, and inside was a British flag like the one found on planes (the circle with 3 colours). I thought of asking the guy about it but then ended up not and just thought it was interesting.

Rest of details lost.

---

Some notes:

• The dream with the boy reminds me now a bit of a type of novel that I hear sometimes where someone express their troubles by causing troubles, sometimes at someone else's dear expense.
• In waking life one neighbour on the other side of the street does sometimes leave their two boys outside, when they're going out, which I don't think is good, and I think this first dream was related to this.
• I was happy that the boy confessed his troubles as in the dream I then felt like I could do something about it. I think I remember getting on the phone with the police actually, I think when I first grabbed the boy, because I was concerned that his parents were neglecting him.
• In the second dream there was some residual context from STRAFE, mostly with the layout and stuff like that.
• The woman wasn't anyone I know in particular nor did she look like anyone I've seen really, but I think she had a ponytail.
• In the third dream, the guy's presence felt a bit odd all the way throughout. It felt like there was a sinister subtext, although he did seem friendly enough...
• I might do a bonus image for the second dream, for the layout.

---

Scoring:
+ Previous score: 65.5

+ This DJ entry score (breakdown below): 8.0
++ Recall a non-lucid dream * 3: 3.0
++ Help someone in need: 1.0 (the boy; although my tactic was a bit too aggressive, it seemed to get him talking which I think was very important)
++ Buy something * 2: 2.0 (the boat, twice...)
++ Invent something that's never been heard of before: 2.0 (the DNA altered surrogacy procedure thing)

= Total score thus far: 73.5

Non-dream stuff - Woke up at about 7:40, I was very hot, remembering a non-lucid as I came out of it; initially wasn't going to make note of it but did so on my phone, remembering more detail than expected but quite tired so some details missed. Then I woke up again at around 11:00, with a non-lucid dream in memory that started fragmenting but didn't disappear as I got up.

---

Dream 1:
Was dreaming I was walking through a supermarket store with my partner (H) and it was a bit busy. The shop had a weird layout and looked like it was just in an old warehouse; the floor was a mix of large tiles and bare concrete? It was day outside and some light could get in through corrugated plastic that was only partly translucent. The place didn't look all that clean.

Got to the other end and there was a tourniquet and a guy watching over it behind a counter. Somehow H had a ticket, it looked green and bulky. I asked if we should both go through at the same time but instantly I thought this wasn't a good idea with the guy watching so closely even if it was busy.

I tried asking the guy about getting a ticket and he wasn't very interested in helping me and gestured to a machine. I ran up to it as some other people were slowly getting up to it too. I got in line first and probably annoyed the others; I couldn't read the screen properly because it looked like a calculator's liquid crystal display and it was small and dirty. Background was typical dry yellow-green and black letters.

I faffed about with the controls because I couldn't see or reach properly. I felt twisted trying to use the machine. A kid with a yellow cap helped me and I thanked her and gave her a pat on the cap saying "thank you, you're a good kid" and I think she smiled.

Struggling to get my wallet out from my (left?) pants pocket. I got it out and it was the wallet I have in waking life; there was a flat bit on the machine and I opened the coin bit and dumped it over the flat area and a lot of junk came out; there was a tiny blazon thing, some rocky/gravel fragments, and other things I don't remember. The total money I had that I could use was about 1.14 or something, and I apparently needed 1.73 or so for the machine.

I put the crap back in my wallet and inserted what money I had somewhere into the machine and got the ticket and ran back to the tourniquet and H had already gone past it. I tried passing too now with the ticket but it wouldn't work and the guy at the counter said it didn't have enough money in it, I said "I know it doesn't but I don't have enough cash on me" to which he replied "you can pay with contactless...". I said "I didn't even notice any card payments" and I was hoping he'd pity me or feel sorry for me at least and be kind but I tried asking him to just sort it out with me here and now, but he ignored me and eventually told me to go walk around and get back to him.

H come back but it wasn't H anymore but a friend from my childhood M, and I asked him what happened to him, as his nose was all bloody. I remember him smiling but don't remember his answer.

I walked around and watched people in the shop getting milk and so on, and as I walk along, this black teenager has a trolley that acts like a spider or something; as he comes past me I smile awkwardly because somehow I think it's amusing and he was smiling too. I remember thinking he'd modified the trolley himself.

Going through a cheap art prints section, it's very busy, and I appreciate seeing some of the art pieces anyway. I get to the end of the aisle and it's a corner of the building, so there's only a left turn, which I take and there are some vases with big-ish plants in them, like small palms. I start heading back to the guy at the counter and the tourniquet and then this bouncy beach ball appears and is going towards the vases; I see it hit one and I watch until it's just about to hit the ground, turning my head back in the direction I was walking and it makes a thud noise, presumably not breaking, and I hear people sigh in relief.

Then the tourniquet guy accuses some youth and me as being responsible; I say I don't even know this guy and I was walking around like he'd told me in the first place and get pissed off, feeling like punching him in the face. I wake up sweating and too hot.

Dream 2 (in pieces):
I was in some unknown place, it was night and there were ancient Egyptian buildings. It was dark but I remember some creatures or some danger, and there was a pick-up truck thing, which someone was driving; they told me to get in the back and I remember climbing over in a rushed manner and sort of fumbling into the back.

We drove away I think. Transition?

In a building nearby, ancient. Dark inside, some faint blue glows. I remember previous parts of the dream where I was collecting some blue glowing stones, and here was a final one or something; this was a fourth stone.

In this building there were two tiers, the ground level and a higher level on a bridge. There was some sort of lift mechanism to go up. I went up to the bridge, made of glass and maybe some metal, and there was a door at the end; glowing blue, faintly, with 4 square sections, for the stones. Dream implied I placed them and transition, unsure where to, but maybe I remember a dark hall next. Some sort of pet creature, a cat? Dream is too fragmented at this point and there are several possible fragments that could fit here, but not enough detail for them...

At some point at the ground floor of a tall building, modern, day time, lots of glass, light coming in from outside. Some sort of levitating lift platform, my mom is nearby I seem to remember, but I break the platform trying to use it. A guy gets annoyed at me and I say "look it's fine, I can fix it" and I see there's a circuit board and I inspect it looking for an issue; it's snapped at one of the ends but it actually doesn't seem so important that it can't just be jumped with a new lead and some components moved; I do it somehow and it's fixed but the guy wasn't happy anyway.

Transition, at the top of the same building, arrived in some sort of elevator. A much smaller room, but still like a big office hall, but glass all around still. I really need a wee and ask someone to use the bathroom, they tell me to go to a horizontal cylinder near one of the windows; apparently this thing is the toilet... I get inside this plastic tube thing, it is really uncomfortable inside, and I start getting pain hypersensitivity because there are sharp plastic edges and I ask for help to get out because I can't manage on my own; I give up on the toilet idea and am annoyed by the fact that these people aren't sensible to just have a bathroom that's actually a room.

There is a big door. Reminds me now of a level transition door from STRAFE's final levels. I remember going through, different feel to this area. Isolated, darker, but still bright. There's someone else here, some sort of boss? But they're hidden, and I remember walking around at a calm pace, exploring. It looks like some sort of game level, there are conveyor belts and pick ups and dark pits. I see some glowing green panels, again, like STRAFE. I don't remember what I did next or what happened but woke up soon after.

---

Some notes:

• Dreams from which I wake up too hot I think have an inverse cause-effect relationship. I think I'm having those dreams because I'm too hot, as when my body temperature regulation goes bad I start to get a lot of mental side-effects (if I'm awake and body temperature goes awry I start getting "fever-dream" effects).
• The kid that had the cap, the cap was like ones I've seen (and worn) in my childhood, when I was very young and we went to the beach, for one example.
• Though I wasn't aware of it at any level in the dream, there were actually a lot of elements in the last part of the 2nd dream that reminded me of a mixture of STRAFE and certain malls I've been to.
• The other glowing blue stones weren't just dream memories, I had actually dreamed those bits too, but most of that was too vague and of little visual detail for me to be able to put into words.
• Overall the 2nd dream was very long.
• I've started noticing a pattern/dream sign with these two dreams, which I think has only started occurring recently; the feeling of being twisted using the ticket machine, struggling to get into the back of the pick-up truck and the cylindrical sharp edges plastic "toilet" thing. In all of these, there was a heightened sensation of struggle and pain to reach for things or to move. This may be related to something that is going outside the dream world...

---

Scoring thus far:
+ Previous score: 52.0

+ This DJ entry score (breakdown below): 5.0
++ Recall a non-lucid dream * 2: 2.0
++ Buy something: 1.0 (the ticket)
++ Ask for advice * 2: 2.0 (asking the ticket guy for help; asking for the bathroom)

= Total score thus far: 57.0

Non-dream stuff - woke up at about 9:00, remembering one long(ish) non-lucid dream. Some details lost.

---

Sequence:
I remember being in a variation of my current home. I was in the kitchen. I remember a big man, he was a friend of ours; I think he was of some african ethnicity but he wasn't that dark - he had short hair and brown eyes and big hands; his girlfriend, who was of similar ethnicity was there too? She had long curly hair and brown eyes also. I think the kitchen lights may have been on, but it was day outside, maybe clear but very early.

I remember they were talking and then it turned into an argument and I joined his girlfriend's side of the argument for some reason. Then I asked him to leave, and I realised I was a bit angry, so I immediately calmed myself down, touched him in the arm, as he was upset too, and I said "I'm sorry about that." - then everyone was a bit calmer and for some reason he had this bag full of chestnuts covered in sugar that had been deep-fried. They looked delicious but I commented that they looked nice, but unfortunately my mouth didn't agree because of all the sugar.

I tried to make light of the situation somehow but either way, I then went through the main hall; the front door was open and as I walked out, the scenery was different from what it should be; our side of the street was still a row of terraced houses but the opposite side was just forest/green, and the road was wider (2 lane instead of single lane) and the pavement was much wider. My partner was parked up to the right in the car. To the left was some sort of factory (maybe tire factory, there is one where I live, but not that close).

The factory was not open, as all its (visitor?) parking spaces outside were empty. I thought it had closed for the day, though the dream-time seemed like morning, my assumption was end of day time in the dream. Opposite to the factory parking spaces was a wide bit where a bus/coach could stop. Then the road did a curve as it went on.

My partner was on the phone and had sunglasses on in the car. Opposite me, the other side of the road was some Korean man, he smiled a lot I think. Some children were playing too, I remember a little girl for some reason. I remember my mood outside was a driven one, I was looking for parking for the man inside the house, and I concluded there was none apart from the factory's spaces, so I walked back in and was going to tell him, but I had some doubts it was "ok" to use those spaces, but I think I could hear my partner's voice saying it was fine, because everyone had left. (another hint that the dream time was end of day, really)

Transition of some kind or missing detail...

I remember being with a group of people, my dad was one of the people but I don't remember who else, I think just dream characters. Of note was a man older than my dad. We were in a mall (this could have been a more obvious dream-sign on its own, plus the presence of my dad) and then we went up some concrete stairs and we were in an overhang tunnel, that went over some street or something. It wasn't very long but had angular corners. I walked next to my dad and as we were crossing, he pulled some sort of lever and the tunnel bridge started to rotate its middle section; I looked behind to see if the other DCs were able to get on.

We walked to the other end and there was a stairwell down. Then I remember being outside of there and it was like some sort of campus... I looked around (I can't remember my motivations or intents) and ended up going down some more stairs into a dark place, a subway. The tracks were at the same level as the platform, i.e. there was no stone/concrete lip over the tracks. There were quite a few people at this tiny platform that was no bigger than a small room. The tunnels were equally dark, maybe brighter somehow. I think I had stepped on someone that was sitting down at some point, though I don't remember apologising, for some reason. I couldn't see them, still.

Then I went down more stairs, to a similar sort of platform, also dark and small with several people waiting. I realised I was in the wrong place "that's the yellow line... I want the blue line" I thought, after seeing a yellow line along the tracks. I went up a level again and concluded that platform wasn't right either. I had the impression that each track was for the same line but went opposite directions.

I got out to the surface again, this campus place, but everything looked... fake, almost plastic-like. I walked along the pavements between the grassy bits and there were people around. I reached a point that had one of those blocks you can hit from Super Mario. The dream started to look a bit Minecraft-y, with voids in certain spots on the ground, sky visible. I fell down by accident into a small void pit but fortunately there were some stone blocks there. I climbed up the opposite side and continued walking.

Dream details are starting to go really fuzzy now, remaining memories of particular note only being one of a sword or something and of walking into a different place.

---

Notes:

• When I was thinking why I didn't want the chestnuts the reason was a valid waking-life reason, as I currently have some mouth ulcers that I really shouldn't "feed".
• It is peculiar that chestnuts appeared, especially prepared in such an unusual way. I haven't had chestnuts in quite a while, but I haven't been thinking about them. It may be an automatic craving, as this is about the right time of the year, when we used to have chestnuts at my childhood home.
• The Korean man was a waking-life remnant because a friend of ours was discussing the North Korean leader in passing conversation last night.
• The subway, tracks, etc all were very obvious dream-signs that I missed as always. As I was thinking about that part when I was writing it, I was realising that when I've seen trains recently (mostly in games) I've never remembered to do a RC.

Note: Technically, this wasn't a dream. Not entirely sure why I felt like putting on the DJ. Last night I was listening to the OST from STRAFE through some old headphones (80s I think) I have which make me almost unable to hear/feel the room if no music is playing, and I just had my eyes closed while listening.

The soundtrack feels a bit "melancholic" to me in general, but others might not think of it that way. I wasn't trying to think of anything in particular and some imagery formed, though with little vividness, hardly any more vivid than regular imagination. Forgot some of the details, since this was last night before going to sleep.

I couldn't recall any actual dreams today, my focus on waking up wasn't in the right place and ironically I'd forgotten about intents last night.

---

As I was listening to second half of the OST, I had thoughts come and go of "darkness". Not vivid but dream-like imagery of being pulled down by my "dream" arm into pits - swarms of spiders and insects would appear and I wondered why it was that I could never have visualised a scene like this without feeling fear or horror in the past. Though the imagery wasn't strong, I still felt some disgust at some of the insects, particularly big ones.

This repeated itself in different ways a few times mixed with other passing thoughts I can't remember, related to the imagery. I remember thinking that this probably wasn't what I was "looking for" and thinking that it was interesting that a dream-like setting had formed.

Then as the soundtrack got into the last quarter the thoughts went sort of into the actual in-game area that the track would play in, though the imagery was still relatively weak vs an actual dream, I could sort of feel a dream-body and started remembering the black lizard from another of my DJ entries.
I started wanting to spot him but instead I realised that I was that lizard this time, seeing from first-person, but wearing a labcoat (which is one of my artificial dream-signs) and though I couldn't visualise clearly, I tried to do hand/finger reality checks; counting wasn't possible due to the low duration of physical memory and lack of "vision" - but passing my clawed fingers through my other hand's palm worked.

Though I was fully aware of the music being outside this and the fact that I was sitting on a chair, I felt it was important to try and do a RC to see if my mind would agree with what I was wanting to do. The place the "dream" body was in, was indeed dream-like, despite being awake.

As the music progressed I remember running through the halls of Athena (the in-game area) as if it were in the actual game, getting "deeper" into the area, "looking" down at my "dream" legs, noticing that they were scaly and black and that the feet were dinosaur-like, with 3 front claws and 1 rear claw or something like that; the in-game enemies were appearing and I attacked them with the claws I had and my large reptilian mouth, eating some of the smaller enemies and making particular note of all the blood that was showering from the enemies, just like it would in the game. I wondered, was this the darkness I was looking for? I concluded it wasn't. I tried to taste the blood but the sense wasn't strong enough since I could still feel my actual mouth too. I tried using the channeling effect from Warframe with my attacks but while this did disintegrate the enemies into energy, more seemed to appear from the dispersed energy.

As the music got to the last track I had on the list, which is the music for the final room in Athena, I realised I was standing where the boss would be. There was the player character down below in the chamber; he was autonomous and attacked the boss control room tower and shot towards me too, not penetrating the glass with the bullets. For some reason I taunted him by licking the glass, noticing the tongue to not be reptilian-like but being long, with somewhat better visuals than before. Then I remember breaking the glass and crawling down the wall as a lizard would and going for the player character and killing him; the hordes of enemies that were attacking him turned to me instead and I remember fighting them and soon after the music ended and the imagery ended, as if I'd" woken" up, despite having been "awake" the whole time.

Edit: Forgot to remove private entry checkbox, so changed that. (I sometimes check it so I don't post by accident when I'm sleepy and everything is half-typed ).

Edit2: Added a name to the title of the DJ entry so I can find it more easily when I'm looking for it.

Non-dream stuff - Had a few non-lucids, mostly only remember the details for one sequence, since I didn't come to write on the journal straight away.

---

Fragment:
I was in a game and I fought two girls that were teamed up, over a wooden planks bridge or something like that; the landscape was pretty blocky in general as I remember it, and these girls had picked/were characters that were really strong together, due to the way their abilities synergised with each other. I mostly struggled to deal significant damage to them, as they recovered or blocked it and eventually I remember falling in a low pit and getting cornered and killed. I don't remember what kind of abilities or weapons I was using.

Dream:
I was in the same game, and with this dream I remember the format more clearly: it was a player-versus-player online game. It was night but very clear as there was a bright moon light, and many of us, the players, were on a rocky slope upward toward a castle. The castle had a gate, and it was going to open when the game began.

This time I had a power armour (Enclave-type) like from the Fallout series, and I remember I "pressed" esc and was looking at the armour's details on a menu. The menu was very plain, and was mostly just drop-down menus. The dominant colour was a cyan-ish blue, not unlike a fluoroscan.

I remember my eldest sibling being out of scene in the dream but commenting about the game and asking me what it was like. At this point, I do remember seeing the "screen" as I was pointing at something, but other than that, the entirety of the dream takes place "inside" the game. I replied something in conversation while still looking at the armour details, when I found some sliders and options I could adjust for abilities.

I noticed there was a little face icon with a number in front of it, 4300, my interpretation of which was that this was how many points I had left to spend (and some abilities took 100,1000,2000, etc). I noticed a regeneration ability that I really wanted to pick (tends to be a personal favourite in games) but then when I was looking for it again, I couldn't find it. I tweaked some other settings I don't recall, such as my max health ability but then the match was starting while I was still looking at the menu, and very quickly, someone else killed me.

Later I respawned or something, somewhere in the map, and I was trying to be sneaky through some dark areas, which remind me now of the Kuva Fortress in Warframe, and ended up running into a few different people; they didn't attack me immediately so I didn't attack them either, and one of them also had a power armour and she (a pretty faced black woman, I saw, as she didn't have the power helmet on) was asking me how I'd managed to configure certain abilities for the armour. She commented on the fact that I was killed at the start while looking at the menu and that whoever had done it was distasteful for doing so. I appreciated her comment.

I remember giving her some advice on the armour abilities, though I don't remember the details. She and a few others, a mix of young (teens?) boys and girls, were at the top landing of a small staircase, to which I walked up to as well; there was a doorway to the right, though I have a vague memory of what was through it; I can't remember it other than being a room with wooden floorboards.

---

• There was some other dream fragment I initially remembered, but ended up forgetting while remembering the big dream sequence.
• The two girls that killed me in the game in the first fragment had a cheeky playful attitude and sort of taunted me as they fought.
• The castle doesn't remind me of any particular place, but it had an Unreal Tournament feel to it.
• The transition from being inside the game, to being outside but playing and then back into being inside again was something rare, as that's not really happened before very much.
• The death while in the menu felt a bit too sudden/random; I don't remember hearing a projectile or a weapon firing, but it seemed like I got hit by a one-hit-kill explosion. And I thought the starting area would be safe until left.
• The black woman in power armour seemed to have some sort of strong motivation for being there that wasn't directly related to the game itself, she just had a sort of serious look on her face like she was looking for something in particular.
• I'm making note that while maybe it's not directly related, she was black and had a very meaningful interaction via conversation with me in the dream, and recently in my last DJ entry I've had a lot of black (but the actual colour) dream signs. Oddly enough, it is of some contrast to the last entry that the bit where we stood and talked was brightly lit by a single light from above, and I think the walls were a bright yellow, but it was otherwise dark. But generally speaking, this dream was not even half as dark as the one in my last entry anyway.

Non-dream stuff - I wrote most of this non-lucid dream on a tablet while cooking lunch, as I didn't get a chance to do so before that. Managed to remember a lot of detail, but not some missing bits from transitions and the like, unfortunately.

---

Dream:
I remember being some place outside. I was getting a big weapon. The poor memory I have of the outline makes me think of a black bfg. I had a small van like the one my partner has. It was a cloudy and grey day. I put the weapon in the back of the van.

I remember the presence of my middle sibling and I think we spoke at some point, about the weapon. It was very rare and valuable.

Then there's a transition and it implied I took it some place else. I was now in my "lair" and I was a dinosaur/monster like something out of the game Monster Hunter. The weapon was on a rock, safely secured somehow and I remembering seing an orange glow on its outline, like an item pickup in a game.

Then I looked at the top right corner of a visual interface and it said 33,000,000 or so, and it was money I had.

Another big black monster that looked like a Komodo dragon or some sort of lizard appeared and he wanted the weapon. I remember he had a deep voice but I don't remember any words. He wanted to take it by force so we fought for a bit and he tried to attack the things making the weapon secure, without much success. I think he ended up scurrying away.

I then was in a human form and in a black mustang-y type car, seeing it from third person like in many free roam games, and I drove at some speed toward a "waypoint" where I would find the black lizard. I was driving through a city and it was a bit dark at first. I got to a wide river, and I remember I could see an industrial estate type place across the way. I couldn't cross with the car and "remembered" I could summon a jet, so I summoned a bomber jet and got in and took off; the city was more like a complex megapolis now and it was a clear and sunny day.

Somewhat unexpectedly I wasn't controlling the jet too well, and had a few near-hits with buildings; there were drag forces I don't remember noticing before when flying these in games and the tall and branched buildings made it difficult to navigate at high speed but after through the mega city jungle I was arriving over my waypoint so I jumped out of the jet, landing somewhere near my waypoint, which was a bunker entrance. It became night again and there were military personnel that didn't look like they were going to let me inside but they didn't threaten me with their weapons so I rushed through the entrance, into some dark and dimly lit concrete halls. The few lights that existed were weak fluorescent lights.

There wasn't much staff inside this bunker and I seemed to have lost the guards. In this section of the dream I can't actually remember what form I took, possibly alternating between human and lizard form; but I found the black lizard in a small room behind a classroom place that had window panes to an "open" underground area. It was still very dark but there was bright blue light from the large underground area. I assumed some kind of high tech generator though I don't remember looking.

The black lizard was smaller than before, but though he was the same one as before, it was like he was younger now, hence his reduced size. I remember confronting him with more aggression and likewise back at me. I also remember thinking "why couldn't he just pay me a few millions for the weapon", also making me wonder how much money he had, which I assumed to be a lot.

Unfortunately I can't remember what happened next in any detail and the dream ended shortly after.

---

Notes (going into a bit of dream interpretation more than usual because of the dream's plot/context):
- To me, the jet, the military staff and bunker are clearly based off my recent experience of playing Just Cause 3. Other elements from games are obviously present, like the weapon.
- In the dream I did expect the jet control to be a lot more intuitive than it ended up being, but the giant branched buildings were very unexpected, because when I was on the ground I never spotted any.

- Black seems to have been a very prevalent colour in this dream.
- Black BFG, black lizard, black car, grey rocks, lots of places of darkness... Of contrast was the white van, the blue or tan jet and the shiny city buildings and blue sky when flying the jet.
- Of note to me is that I immediately referenced the black lizard as male, and the fact that I was a lizard too, of some other colour, probably yellow or orange, indicates to me that the black lizard was likely a part of my Shadow and that I was playing some sort of Hero role.

- I find that the Hero as represented by my less conscious mind tends to be too antagonistic towards the Shadow. This may just be a reflection of Hero portrayals in many typical stories. I personally see the Shadow archetype in general as a poor repressed fellow who needs attention or affection, rather than violence.
- In my childhood pre-sleep lucids, the form of choice was usually a giant black lizard/dinosaur.

- The last part of the dream has the most significance to me and follows a general pattern that my dreams sometimes take;
-- The underground bunker goes down and deeper and gets darker and darker, which is a common process in my dreams, but the presence of a bright blue light at the end when confronting the black lizard in the darkness was somewhat unusual. I do usually have meaningful interactions with dark characters in these dream stages however.
-- The fact that the black lizard was smaller and/or younger at the end makes me think that it is a part of my childhood that I've lost that I haven't been able to regain yet. As a child I was easily angry and aggressive, which was more or less the behaviour of the black lizard.

---

Edit from 2 years after having first made this entry (altered some spacings above and corrected typos too):

- As I re-read my dream and the notes, I realised that not once did I actually mention the colour of the black lizard's eyes, but I think due to some "memory corruption" I have mistakenly defined them as being blue. I think my error came from the memory of the light in the final scenes of the dream, where there was that incredible bright blue light beyond the glass.

- My only guess is that my brain linked the two things together to define that the lizard's eyes were blue of the same colour. I think I am fine with this association either way and perhaps while it wasn't the actual colour in the dream, it doesn't really matter seeing as it was my subconscious that made that association to begin with!

- Although I didn't describe it as such in the entry, I do remember that it was a semi-spherical room that the blue energy was contained in. It was a room of very large proportion, definitely based on some sci-fi stuff I've seen.