side notes

Dreams from 14th, 17th and 18th. Mostly just copied directly from any morning notes I made for each day. Some notes in-line with the entries.

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14th:

Dream Fragment:

First dream? Some Egyptian place, a big outdoor temple. I remember detailed stone and all the shapes I normally associate with ancient Egyptian architecture. I remember night time but also day time. It was a fairly long dream.

It was a game like world or something. I was Link from Legend of Zelda? I remember fighting winged obsidian statues (likely "borrowed" from WoW). I remember the feel of a controller in my hands though. Maybe a Gamecube or Nintendo 64 controller, but could have just been a Wii one, since the joysticks have remained fairly similar over the years.

Dream Fragment:

A dream I'd travelled to my native country but with my high school class, and some other classmates from childhood. I remember we were in a coastal area visiting something. I forget all the details. This black I knew, Milt, was messing around some exhibit area? And then we were burying smoe ancient and withered corpse that had not received any funereal service. We then surrounded him with rocks and then placed larger boulders on top of him. The corpse was on a small dirt incline, about 20 or 30 degrees steep.

Then I remember a room, indoors but nearby. It was dark inside, but I can't remember what happened there.

Dream Fragment:

Last dream that I woke up with, a WoW dream. Was playing rogue as usual and I was together with a raid group in Orgrimmar. We were in a different version of Thrall's throne room, it was more like a mix of Stormwind in a way because there was a lot of white stone and it was well lit.

We were all bunched up in a corner, waiting for Horde players to come. I remember we didn't want to attack Thrall until we'd dealt with most of the nuisance players that would appear. We had already attacked Thrall before? I remember feeling surprise at the fact that none of the Alliance players from the raid group were messing around.

17th:

Scraps:

Something about trains? Vaguely recall the dream took place outside and that it was day.

18th:

Dream:

The dream was a bit of a mix of Freelancer and other space games I've played over the years. I was avoiding some large blocky asteroids while flying a ship, and when I got clear of the asteroids I noticed a planet in the distance. I kept my course which was already on approach to it and noticed a gas cloud/small nebula formation appear. It was a green-ish dark mustard colour and mostly surrounded the planet. Like a smog coming off the planet.

I remember the descent down into the atmosphere in some detail. There was some virtual interface element somewhere that, combined with the structures I saw, made me understand that the planet was mostly covered by factories and dense cities comprised mostly of narrow but tall skyscrapers. It looked like most of the surface area was being maximised for industrial output space, not for living. I landed somewhere and went to a bar of sorts, typical of Freelancer-like gameplay.

People didn't look well off. There was a stereotypical North American "Trucker" feel to the place and there was an overall air that this entire place existed in a state of bare subsistence. I remember talking to some of these people but I don't remember exactly about what. It was night time both through the descent and while I was at the bar place.

Dream Fragment:

Some underground place, very well lit. There was a feel to the dream like some of the more dark and serious anime type stuff, such as full film-type productions. There were policemen with gas masks and they threw some sort of stunning gas grenades. I try to escape with two other people. We were doing a heist or something? The police looked like the Secreta from E.Y.E. but with typical blue and white colours instead of gold and black.

Some transition or outside? A rail track of some sort. The dream was quite long but I was a bit too tired and I've forgotten most details. I remember two groups of people, and Auron from FFX. There was some cart carriage thing that went on the rail track...

Had a lot of dreams this past night and while recall in itself was decent on waking, didn't make note of anything at the time because I felt too tired.

On a slightly different note, lately I have been continuing to try and incubate the dream about painting; but again not really had any luck with actually dreaming it yet. Last night I did try to add the visualisation of a guide-type character, such as the black lizard dream character or the researcher from a short story I wrote a little while back. I tried to visually include other characters first, such as people from waking life that might be related to painting in some way, but I ended up feeling like I wouldn't connect with them in a dream sense or that some of them would be uninteresting/cliche, which is why I ended up picking these characters from within myself.

---

Scraps:


A lot of the dreams I had were about travelling, especially by plane. There was a relatively long dream sequence that had something to do with my old high school class and going on a school trip of some kind, but also something about me being famous in some sense?

In some form my high school class is related to painting, but the associative link is so deep that it goes beyond being related to just that. A lot of these dreams seemed to be more about the social aspect of life, and also about adventure in some sense.

Dreams from March 10th and 11th (today).

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10th:

Dream Sequence:

The last dream sequence started out with me playing a female gnome on WoW. Though I had rogue abilities my character's portrait indicated "level 49 warlock" when moused over. The character had a pointy dark purple hat and matching dress.

I used my stealth ability because I was in some distorted version of Tirisfal, mixed with Ashenvale, making me feel an imminent danger of being attacked by other players. I could see trolls riding around on raptors, a few level 60s but otherwise mostly around my own level. I was afraid that this approaching 60 hunter might spot me or become aware of me long enough to then start attacking but somehow, despite the level discrepancy, that didn't happen and I was able to get past him, down a natural slope with a path; as I did this the hunter was entering a dungeon with an entrance like Stratholme's service gate (the back entrance).

Then I saw other horde members, mostly between levels 17 and 29.

There was a river (more like Ashenvale this part), and this low level female orc warlock was swimming in the river, doing some quests by the looks of it. I realised I had a quest here too, to grab some dried up flowers floating in the water. I forget the item names now. Five items of one type, one of another, and some extra item that I already had on me anyway according to the quest log. While writing the initial note for this, my mind sort of suggested that the elf music from Ashenvale was playing, but I don't really remember that in the dream in itself. Probably the effect of a strong associative relationship between the dream's construct and the real memory archetype.

I got out of the water on the other bankside after collecting these items and I made the quest show me where to go. It started to display dashed paths on the parchment style user-interface map that the game has.

The paths it displayed were leading me through another quest first; there was this big, half hewn tree stump, here on this side of the river and inside it there were three sections where I had to speak to some kind of spirits? Doing this would activate something, and then when I was on the way to speak to the third one, I passed by an open area with bright light on it, not inside the tree stump area, but I had to go this way to go around to the third spirit.

In this brightly lit and grassy area, was a massive wooden frame, around a screen of sorts. An image appeared, symbols showing in sequence, once. First, a slightly rounded triangle, then a super simplified four-legged animal? And then, two other more complex symbols I can't describe or remember accurately.

After the symbols, a blonde girl, aged no more than ten or so I'd say, appeared on the screen. She was smiling and spoke to me directly, thanking me for finding her. She asked me a question, about myself, but I don't remember what it was. I do remember an interface popped up with some choices, three primary choices and an extra choice;

- "A sailorial heart."
- (I can't remember the second option.)
- "(Full control.)" :: This was the 'extra' option.
- "Full naval!"

For whatever reason, I felt that none were true to me at that time, except "full control", but I wasn't sure what it meant either.

Then, I could see my character from the girl's perspective; the character was giving the answer, but wasn't a female gnome anymore, but some sort of mix between Wolverine and something more feral.

I woke up soon after this.


11th:

Dream Fragment:

Diablo II. Playing a sorceress, or druid? Playing with H? Remember using the glacial spike spell.

Dream Fragment (part of a sequence continued in the next fragment):

Someone being racist about some fictional game races. Me and some girl investigate rumours and who it could be. We were part of some class on a tour or whatever. Susie from Miss Maizel was our teacher apparently. The girl with me accused Susie of being the racist. I defended her, saying Susie just thinks everyone is equally an ass. In the dream, I remember a dream memory about her giving food and being charitable, and I retell this to the girl.

Something happens, not sure what.

Near the end of my dream, I am aware that I had been wearing shorts; now I was changing into my camo shorts but they have a rip or hole on the front of the right leg, which I didn't realise until putting them on. But I want to change back to the previous ones and then I can't or something.

Dream Fragment (somehow related to previous):

Getting on some kind of cruise boat with H. We were the last two to get on board, even though many more people were still waiting and queued.

H carried on through some corridor. Everything was nicely carpeted and felt cozy I suppose. But then before I followed through, this girl appeared from the same corridor and she was saying she wanted to give up her place on the cruise to someone else, but a crew member (like a flight attendant but not?) stopped her. Apparently the girl was a windows svchost.exe process. I seemed to have some sort of meta-physical view of the dream reality but remember too little.

Then I remember being in our private quarters with H, unpacking or settling in. In the quarters there was some weird dedicated 8 volt and 19 volt power supply, apparently meant for modern turntables and cassette decks. We thought it was odd, and wasteful.

Dream:

With H in a city of some sort. Underground? Looks dirty and rusty. Waiting for this team of people to fit some modular concrete block things, with huge power cables coming out the back. Really heavy-duty looking stuff.

Someone shows up? Or there's a nun, but she's actually a shape-shifter. Turns into a black guy that looks like Zimos or Ruby Rod. He then pulls up two high calibre sawn-off shotguns. He shoots a bunch of people from this team and there's a small panic of sorts. Then more people come down from a ramp on the opposite side from where I was. The shape-shifter pretends to be one of them, but doesn't transform? And then he runs up the ramp to get away. Me and H follow.

H's van is up here, outside. It's night time and fairly dark, but there are street lights. We want to help the shape-shifter escape and grab him, trying to get him in the van. He doesn't want to get in though, and transforms into a white tiger, running off. We follow him closely, to a cake shop. He goes in and morphs into a chef but the other woman following him with the intent of catching him doesn't notice.

We then confront him, stopping him from getting away from us and ask him to come with us, reassuring him about safety.

Then H is no longer H and is a mix of Gibbs, Auron and Riddick, and then I'm not there anymore. There's a cut and I see a scene of telepathic dialogue between the shape-shifter and the other character. The shape-shifter mentions his "fury" and the other character asks the shifter if they know anything about his "Furya".

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No notes, maybe some later.

Dreams taken from phone memos from today and yesterday. Will try to arrange chronologically and make notes for each day separately.

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7th:

Dream Fragment:

There's a high school context to the dream. Vi from my class back then, he was walking around with me, near my old home. We were headed towards the main square or the subway?

In reality we'd never spoken a lot, but in the dream we were talking non-stop for some reason. I was telling him about a god of war? And about a dark goddess.

Not sure where this fits into the dream but I remember some other part, relating to this goddess. There are strange cliffs, rock looks sedimentary; and there are scattered graves but I don't remember what they look like anymore. I spoke to the dark goddess I think.

Other stuff happens in between and all I have left is a fragment from the end of the dream. I was gigantic and a ten story building was only about ankle height for me. I was running somewhere, taking long strides over cities and hills. I avoided excessively mountainous areas. It was quite sunny and clear.

Some areas were under mass floods, because of the dark goddess? Something about her being angry. There were craters or abysses which the water spiralled into.

Notes:

- The irony of the last part of this dream is that this is one of my current lucid challenges.
- I don't remember what I was wearing, or if I was wearing anything at all in the last part of the dream, but in the early parts of the dream I was wearing my old cream hoodie, except it had a front pocket thing, which it actually doesn't.
- I don't remember actually seeing this goddess in the dream, but I have an archetype appearance in mind visually, where she appears sort of half-naked and has somewhat messy but long black hair. Has red iris eyes.

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8th:

All sort of a continuous dream, but transitions and details are highly fragmented:

Inside some structural complex. My family is here, primarily siblings and parents. I remember L talking and showing me a few things around the place. I think this place was like a house L and S were building?

There's certainly lots of concrete to the structure, and some sort of carpeting thing going on. I remember a diffused sunlight from directly above. At this point I was in a concrete tunnel overhang with huge glass panes to the side. I could feel that the sunlight was coming from a diffusing rectangular skylight much higher up.

Then after seeing into a few different rooms and going a bit dark, there was a transition of some kind.

I was just outside the building I used to live in. It's daytime but not sure what the sky is like. Colours are semi-vivid. H is here in some form and I feel like I'm a small girl or something. I play around the cobbled area and then there's something about money. I was making 100 an hour by just moving some small 1kg bags of flour? But because there was limited demand, then I wasn't needed anymore, which made me disappointed.

Transition or cut.

Short sequence where me and H were about to play some board game. Not sure where we are, but indoors. Then all of a sudden, MB appears. I feel really apprehensive and tense, but oddly enough H is fine with his presence. I remember what I told mom some days ago in waking life, that we don't let MB hang out anymore, and yet here he is.

We play a test round of the board game and then I start putting it all away, in the hope he'll get the hint and go away. I am confused as to why H hasn't told him to go either. I feel on edge and like I could become aggressive.

Transition.

Some weird sort of library. Reality physics mixed with game-type physics. There's a very short farclip plane. H is here and talks to me about something. I remember a purple and orange haze and some bookshelves. I walk around somewhat disorientated. I remember going into a room that I could see clearly and there were rolled up bits of paper, or scrolls?

Transition again.

I was on the computer, looking at a reddit link from some support group forum for people with my illness. The reddit link had an embedded youtube video that had some furry characters on the preview.

The first line I remember either from reddit or the video description was "The inner drunkard voice of the characters we draw ghandara macrophylla". This doesn't fully make sense even in the dream and somehow I also feel the video will likely have someone with a really annoying voice, so I don't think I played it anyway. Passing thoughts about drawing.

Notes:

- I had to look up "ghandara", and the closest word I could find is "gandara", which means wetland(s) in Galician. Though it's a fairly familiar language, I didn't know this word specifically. "macrophylla" I know from plants, meaning large leaves or so. So that would make it "large leafed wetland" or something in a more literal sense, but it still doesn't link directly to the rest of the description text. I think in the dream the "macrophylla" was just a misspelling of "macrophilia" but it still doesn't explain the other random word.
- Perhaps the oddest thing about the video link was that I have neither used reddit nor any online support group for my illness in a long time. The rest of the fragment's context seems to relate more to the fact that I haven't been drawing lately, mostly because of how I've been feeling, but also to the natural feelings of jealousy that seem to crop up in me sometimes when the art of others is on show.
- In the weird haze library area, the purple and orange may have been a bit symbolic, as I associate purple to myself and orange to H, who was also there.
- When MB was playing this board game with us, he was being as irritating as ever, all the more reason I wanted him gone.
- Although I remember S was in the first part of the dream, I don't remember hearing her speak, which seems unlikely. That first part felt like the longest and the second part felt like the shortest.

This is the DJ entry I’ve been wanting to make for a while. Though I forgot to mention it in xcv I did try to incubate the dream about my clouds painting last night too.

Lately I feel that I’ve made some progress in regards to dreaming overall but at the moment my biggest impediment feels wholly out of my control, and that’s the issue I have of taking between 60 to 90 minutes to fall asleep, regardless of the time of day/night.

Falling asleep does feel easier when H is in bed at the same time but likewise I seem to lose focus of any thoughts about dream techniques much more easily. Even so, trying to incubate this dream about my painting has been helpful in that regard too since it’s helping me practice to stay in that focus even when H is in bed too.

The dream incubation visualisations aren’t particularly imaginative but do go into all the minimum details I think I’d need to have in the dream anyway. I also try to insert personal dream signs into the visualisations.

—

About a week ago, I tried that thing of half-dreaming while listening to a full soundtrack again; and what I’ve noticed combined with my previous attempt is that generally it takes half an hour to start getting into that state (half the soundtrack roughly). This last attempt’s first half was preoccupied with those self doubting trivial thoughts that show up sometimes, but eventually I got over it.

Though the half-dream state didn’t go as far as last time (poorer visuals and weaker sensations this time), it did work. Unfortunately, because of how it was a weaker immersion, it did take more conscious effort to stay focused on the sensations and so it felt a bit forced.

The loudness or intensity of the music paired with the isolating nature of this particular set of headphones feels extremely important for achieving this, since it forces whole-body sensation while “disconnecting”, in a sense, from external input. My view on this is that the disconnect facilitates the half-dream state because it’s more like being asleep already even while still awake and semi-focused.

The other factor of note was that this time I was more preoccupied about the outside world too; since I was home alone this time I ended up feeling very vulnerable while doing this (in a tense way). As well as that, the previous time I also did this when I was already starting to get sleepy at night time, but this time it was done during the afternoon. Overall I attribute the smaller success to these various factors and the fact that I was simply more distracted from what I was trying to do anyway.

—

The last note I think I’ll make is that my pain and tiredness have been bad for months, even on waking up, so a lot of times when I want to make note of dreams I really do feel incapable of it because of how tiring it feels. Still, this is all the more reason that I feel I’ve been fairly diligent and like I’m making progress about dreaming since I started being more active about the DJ again.

Woke up at around 6:30 in the morning from a dream. Had other dreams later but was too tired to make even small mental notes of the details, so no recall for those dreams.

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Dream and awakening:

I woke up in the dream, I was apparently sleeping on a bed with dad. It looked like some version of my bedroom in the old place but it looked like my parent's room a bit too. I was too hot and the covers, the bed, etc, everything felt too hot. I got up and saw this big red fan heater H has, it was on the floor next to the bed.

I woke dad up and asked him why the heater was here and why it was on. I thought of turning it off but for some reason didn't. I concluded from looking at the heater or something else that the room was at 49C. I felt particularly unwell and remember shortly walking about the dream room before I woke up in reality. I don't remember sweating, just exhaustion really.

In reality H was pressed a bit too much against me and I felt that the bed was far too hot. I thought we might have left the heated blanket on through the night, but seemingly it was off. I went for a wee that I didn't realise I really needed, after H also got up because of the noise I had made stumbling around.

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Notes:

- This type of dream is very typical for when I need to wake up for some biological reason, in this case needing a wee.
- Being in the same bed as dad was common when I was a child; I'd often get into bed with my parents in the middle of the night, usually sleeping between them. But I can't really remember why I did that anymore or what made me wake up in the first place. I don't recall any negative emotions from back then.

Two dreams this morning, made notes soon after waking up. Need to make a little in-between DJ entry at some point with notes on how things have been going and to make note of what type of thoughts I've been having, so I can look back later and have an idea of how I was framing things at this time.

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Dream Fragment:

At a computer somewhere. Visuals feel narrow, a bit of tunnel-vision, kind of? Also not really aware of my position, feels odd, like maybe I'm slumping but not.

I'm playing this side-scroller game, a graphic novel of sorts. It looks half sketch/half digital paint, and seems to be focused on furry themes.

I'm concerned when my parents would walk in, in turns, to ask me questions about something else. I worry that the game might show something indecent at those times. I have a vague recall of the art from the game, but it was all a bit jumbled anyway, like a weird collage of sorts.

Dream Fragment:

I was in a city area of some kind, similar to old home. I was walking around with scattered groups of people. Mostly people from high school I think, some friends, some teachers. Most of them were the ages from around the time I knew them, I suppose because I haven't seen them since school.

I remember crossing some bridges, with fantastic views. Some cyclist event, had to watch out for them, my friend Da was there and he was trying to help us as a group be aware of the cyclists.

Then there was a more park-like place after that. Still night but I think this is around where it starts to change. At this point I had thoughts of being sick of walking slowly, hence I started to want to separate from the group (this feels like a metaphor somehow). I also started cutting through the grass and rocky bits between the paths. I'd jump down some small ledges too. I remember seeing both JCs there. JoCo and JoCa.

I had the feeling of a backpack on me, but faintly. I did notice better that I had my modern boots on, and I could feel and hear them whenever I jumped from those small ledges. But I was also afraid that my ankles would give way when I did the little hops, as it has always been a problem for me. I was also concerned I was being stupid like having my hands in pockets or whatever when jumping, again, bad experience of needing my hands for balance or catching myself at the wrong time.

The dream went from dark night with street lights to orange sunrise morning by the end, and unlike many dreams it was just very gradual, there wasn't a super sharp change.

Then I was mostly separated and ahead of everyone. There was this car parked on the pavement that went down to the left, around a corner. At this point in the dream I remember having thought that I was starting to memorise this place and that I could find my way around better. In the dream I remember very clearly I had been in this area before. Then, I got into the car, Yuna from Final Fantasy was there. We were waiting for Auron, who in the dream was supposedly a summoner.

I woke up soon after this, with one of Vivaldi's four seasons in my head. Spring or Summer I think.

---

Notes:

- The first dream probably relates to a lot of aspects of my life despite how short the dream seemed to be; there's a few key notions there:
-- The idea of parents frequently nagging/interrupting something. Something I'm glad to be free of now.
-- The idea of a disconnect between me and them as child/parent. Something I often wonder about if I had a child of my own.
-- The idea of wanting to belong inside a realm of fantasy; in the most childlike interpretation of this idea and of the word "fantasy".
- The other notion is this recurring issue I have with all my artwork, where I sort of just "drop it", even when it's nearly completed. I often leave projects half-baked and forget about them or feel like it's too difficult to return to them because I don't know what I was doing anymore. The half-sketch/half-painted nature of the drawings in the dream feels very much linked to this. Very recently I've had the thought of coming back to some paintings I made months ago and trying to add more detail, especially one that I had hoped to sell but that didn't manage to actually sell.

- A lot of the content in the second dream seems to be directly connected to teen years and life as a child. Primarily, the whole "walking somewhere in a group" thing was very familiar to road trips but also to walking back home from school.
- Most of the locations in the second dream were very interesting. Makes me think of the places I might build myself in the city building game I've been playing. But also many of these places were similar and familiar to places from my childhood.
- Last night while I was playing Final Fantasy, I had a passing memory for no apparent reason. I think it was a location in the game that triggered it, because my cousin used to play this Final Fantasy and other ones quite a lot. I remembered being on the highway, headed back home from the North, after visiting my cousin. This had triggered a sort of chain of memories. This entire dream felt very closely related to that cluster of memories.

Two or three dreams. Initially didn't hold on to details so recall is a bit fuzzy overall.

---

Dream Fragment:

I was in dad's scenic, sat at the back. Someone else, too, maybe my sibling T? Mom was on the drivers seat, which was on the wrong side for the car.

We're in the middle of some city. It feels like a familiar place but doesn't seem to be anywhere specific; it's sunny and I remember green trees. We're close to some parking spaces. Mom gets a call on her phone and has to take it so for some reason she gets out of the car.

I step out too and with a gesture suggest that I can park the car. She gestures back a "sure, whatever", obviously concentrating on the conversation on the phone; I then get in the driver's side.

At first I drive forward a bit and then start reversing and turning into one of these parking spaces that was free next to some other parked cars. I get it nearly right, smack in the middle on the first try but I remember feeling the pedals and that reversing felt a bit jerky, so I tried to take care. Still, I managed to let it jerk at the end of manoeuvring, making the back hit a stone wall that ran along behind the parking spaces. I could feel it was a small impact and only the plastic bumper would have touched the wall.

Then dad appeared, walking across the front and commenting something? I sort of proudly told him about how I did or something.

Dream Fragment:

Some other dream. I remember being at my old home, in my former room. It's dark, the curtains are closed. I'm uncertain about what version of room layout this is in the dream. I was looking at texts on a phone, my first phone maybe? It was a red phone. I am my current age, however.

I was checking a text from my childhood and school friend, Di. Looking back on texts before his reply, I had apparently messaged him, ages ago.

He was now finally replying, saying he was sorry, but that he was now pan sexual or something. That didn't make much sense on its own, but I understood it to mean that he had become trans (similar sound?). Further, he said that he wouldn't be able to meet with me [ever again] because of [two letter acronym?].

I forget the rest of the text exactly but I remember feeling disappointed somehow. I had a number of passing thoughts about potential replies I could give, or whether it would be worth bothering at all. Other passing thoughts about how I used to remember him, and about how I could mention some funny memories in a text reply.

Dream Fragment:

There was a third dream but even though it was the last one, I don't really remember anything except that it was a city-building sim game of some kind.

---

Notes:

- In the second dream, I remember I felt overall sad and disappointed. I was happy that my friend had moved on or something, but I suppose I've never really let go of how our relationship as friends just evaporated over a number of years, for no special reason that I was ever able to discern.
- In the first dream, while mom did use to drive, that was years ago before I was born. My mom hasn't driven since then at the very least.
- Mom's distraction with the phone somehow feels related to how she's been behaving lately when she speaks to me on the phone; it's not that she's distracted from me, it's more that she's distracting herself. Some element of worry present here.
- I and H have been playing a city-building game quite a bit lately, which is probably what the third dream was based on.

Went back to a half sleep after waking in the morning. Had a small moment of lucidity, the first one for quite some time. Made note of as much as I could before I had to get up to help with something.

---

Dream Fragment:

The only dream I can vaguely remember before my first awakening. Something about a character that walks around some snowy place, finds something and goes back to the past in a pretty stereotypical UFO. Lands at the same place and stumbles on the snow and becomes sort of blue? I expect him to meet himself again but he doesn't, instead meeting an old man. They talk.

They have a discussion about time travel and the past. The man is skeptical but then the other character says something that convinces him and the man states "it's 1976" and the other one says "I came from 2070" or a similar year. He tells the man about how in the future the knowledge of the past, after a certain point, is just unknown. He tries to convince the old man of this by stating facts about history, going back, up to the point where he simply didn't know anything else.

Dream:

As I fell back asleep slowly, the dream seemed to progress quickly. I was half aware of my real body at a few points and the clarity of the visuals varied quite a bit. I was with H somewhere.

There was this guy and his dad, they weren't very happy with each other. The son was dating a teacher, a woman, at his school. Then she found out that his dad was married and that mattered for some reason.

I remember walking outside, near these people. They sort of became part of the background of what was going on and I notice the area is by a large river, or sea. There are quays and the area looks like a port or dock. It's sunny and there are a few large white clouds in the distance.

Me and H, we walk towards a building closer to the dock area. I don't remember walking in, but we're inside. It's a large room, much darker than being outside but there are bits of sunlight here and there, but I don't notice where they come through. There are quite a few people here, this feels like a lobby, or waiting room, for departures?

On the right-hand wall, there's a massive hole and strange rocky formation. I approach it and notice how smooth it is. I look inside, it looks perfectly smooth and the rock is a yellowed off-white but there are tinges of green here and there. There are smaller but perfectly smooth and rounded holes on the rock. It reminds me of pumice and it made me think that lava made this hole. I visualise that happening? Not sure.

I walk outside, as there is a door or passageway next to the hole. This wall of the building was actually some sort of dark tinted glass, and I could already see from inside that this side was some sort of canyon.

There are paths along either side, but there are no connections between these paths except for the lobby place. The rock is all the same as the one from the "volcanic hole". I remember looking at the cliff tops higher than us and noticing the sky looks green-ish. But as I walk here, I realise, wait, how was that hole there? It just wasn't right. I half realise I'm dreaming and at this point I feel my real body more, but in the dream I check my hands. Although they appear normal, there seems to be little detail and I realise I'm dreaming.

The realisation is quickly overpowered by a bunch of random actions, my level of lucidity actually being very low. As if it were a game, I start placing a prop over and over again, along the canyon path I'm on. The prop is a study desk with drawers, with a chair too. H then tells me we don't need them for some reason. My dream awareness starts to go again at this point. I start smashing the chairs against the edge of the cliff and throwing the stuff down the ravine. It all hits the ground too quickly for how deep this place looks and I complain out loud to H "this is a dream, that's a deep canyon, the chairs shouldn't be dropping a metre and then smashing, that's too quick!", half with the expectation that something would change about it, but nothing did. We keep smashing and throwing the furniture for a while, after which I've lost any amount of awareness I had left and we return to the dream plot.

At the end of the path is a similar building. We go in, and it's dark. Again it also had an entrance on the other side of the canyon where the second path was. Inside it looks like someone's private office. Well decorated and tidy, the walls had a mix of plasterwork and floral motif patterned wallpaper.

The wall at the other end of the room, behind a desk and so on, seemed solid, but as we approached, it smashed or crumbled. On the other side is a lobby full of people, at a lower height, but not much. I talk to H, but don't remember what we said exactly, except that I expressed some concerns about dealing with these people. They were university students. There were a bunch of signs and notices in the room, mostly about events?

I decide that we can proceed and I step over the rubble and walk down a small ramp made by the rubble. A girl, not much younger than me, sees me and when I comment something to H she says "well we don't want you here anyway, you look like a scary punk!". I feel complimented and somehow her comment made me feel more confident. I approach her and put my hands on her shoulders and smile, in a half attempt to scare her a bit more and in a half attempt to thank her.

I then walk away towards a corridor that took a right turn on the opposite side of the room, but I don't remember any more details.

---

No notes for now, quite tired.

Over the last two days or so I haven't been able to either retain dream memories or make note of them for multiple reasons. I do still have some scraps of memories left so maybe writing those out would be a good idea.

---

Scrap, two days ago:

In the kitchen. There's a fluffy, sort of orange coloured spider thing? It's in the thing that holds loose leaf tea for brewing, maybe it's dead or not but it looked crammed in it. It's in the sink anyway, and I turn the tap on and water pours on it.

The fur absorbs the water and it gets a lot bigger. In the dream this spooks me, mostly because it was unexpected, but then it somehow becomes a bit sexual as I decide in the dream that I shouldn't be afraid of it and I show it my naked bottom, but it felt like it was partially a taunt of some kind too. I don't remember any other details except that the dream started to sort of distort, weird colours.

Scrap, one day ago:

The dream just seemed to be a Johnny Bravo cartoon or something. I just remember some really crude scene where there was a woman with her breasts bare and Johnny made a crude remark in surprise.

Scrap, today:

Lots of being outside. Day time mostly, but kind of grey. Was in a van at several points? Maybe helping H. Memory of the dream has faded more than I expected. It felt like it was a long dream sequence.

---

Some notes:

- The dream with the spider was odd. Mostly, it made me realise that while I have largely gotten over my phobia of spiders, there are still plenty of types of spider that I wouldn't commonly see in waking life, simply because they don't exist here and I think that seeing these different kinds might still make me jump a bit more than seeing the ones that do exist around here. The instinctual behaviour of getting spooked by spiders never seems to have really abandoned me even though I got over my phobia, but perhaps it's also a sign that there's still more that can be done about it.
- The sexual part of that dream probably relates to how I've realised in the past that positive emotional association can be helpful when dealing with phobia-type stuff.
- Not sure what brought on the cartoon dream, as I haven't watched that specific cartoon at all in over 10, maybe 15 years?
- Today's dream had an overarching plot to it, but I can't remember any specific detail anymore that would let me expand on the dream's detail.

Only some small fragments. Didn't make notes on getting up and the DJ wasn't the first priority after getting up.

---

Dream Fragment:

I was helping or teaching a small boy. He was from a village called Fargoth? It was South-East from wherever I was, somewhere in the North of England. I remember seeing it on a map, a mix of an online map and a city-building game map. I remember we looked at maps together too, he talked about Spain for some reason and I remember zooming in on the deserts and seeing farmland.

Dream Fragment:

I was helping a North American general, he wanted to take me and a group to battle somewhere specific. In the dream I had already been in battle at that place before. The general must have been in his fifties but had white hair for the most part. I remember he had a typical US soldier's helmet from decades past, not a modern one.

We went to the place and we were under fire from pretty much all directions. I remember it was dark and atmospheric, the sky was a certain mix of red and black and smoke. The general wanted to go after a certain Zen-Chi and so I lead him up a hill where I knew he was firing from or something. This entire location had small houses and maybe was a small fort or old castle? I remember a little market thing, in ruins.

At the top of this climb, mostly stone steps, there was a wooden shed. There were loads of woodworking tools on the outside, and other sharp implements that had nothing to do with woodworking.

The general wanted to go head in, I stopped him physically. I told him he couldn't, that was exactly how I'd lost a friend to Zen-Chi myself and so I decided we'd taunt him a little first. We shouted at him from outside to try and unsettle him; then we opened the creaky wooden door. It was brighter inside, there were some tungsten bulbs lighting the place. There were physical separations or curtains all over the inside, but before I went in, from the tool rack, I grabbed a long and heavy metal rod that had a perfect point at one end. It was like a cast aluminium javelin, it was odd.

Despite it's length I managed to manoeuvre inside with it. I motioned for the general to stay back and I crouched, seeing under the separators inside the shed. I could see Zen-Chi's feet. I approached slowly and heard him taunt back at us now, I can't remember what he said.

Then, when I was close enough, I struck his foot with the sharp point of the javelin, quickly pulling it back and then I think I got up and opened the barrier, which was a curtain after all, and struck Zen-Chi in the head with the sharp point, then his chest.

In that moment it was somewhat unsettling to strike him on the head, which made me feel as though I'd hesitated, but I wanted to be sure he'd die, hence the second strike on the chest.

---

Notes:
- The hesitation and unsettling feeling of striking someone in the head so brutally like I did against this dream character reflects well how I feel about certain situations in fighting. I feel it's somewhat foul to destroy someone's face and head, not to mention it paints a very gruesome picture in my imagination.

- The plot of that dream was pretty generic, as I have no special reason to have been on either side of the dream's conflict.

- In waking life, H pointed out that Zen-Chi seems like a pretty generic name, which may even not be a name at all, since it's just two oriental words relating to the spiritual and meditative worlds.

- When Zen-Chi was dying, he had an expression of surprise on his face. I'm remembering now that one of the taunts that me or the general shouted at him was that we'd take all his woodworking tools once we were done with him.

- The dream where I was helping the boy was much longer, but because I didn't make any notes and had it very early on in the morning, very few details were retained through sleeping again and having the second dream.

- The red, black and smoke of the second dream reminded me of Stratholme in World of Warcraft. It sort of seemed to imply that the atmosphere itself was practically on fire, but during that dream I remember seeing tracer bullets and shells flying above us, very similar to a tank game I've played recently.

Yesterday the same as usual lately, wasn't able to make notes in the morning and then forgot too much. Managed to make some notes this morning.

---

Dream:

World of Warcraft dream. I was a dwarf paladin and I remember being teleported to the Scarlet Monastery. I was next to the instance entrance doors and from there I went across the halls, down to the stairs at the other end. I don't remember seeing any scarlet troops.

I had a two-handed weapon, and directly to my right after coming down from the stairs was the meeting stone (which I think isn't the correct location for it). Across the way, where the meeting stone should probably be was an orc hunter, around level 90, sitting. I don't remember seeing or knowing what my own level was.

I walked for a bit but then decided to get on a mount. In the dream, I remembered or realised I had just bought the 100% riding skill, and then summoned a worg-looking mount. The worg looked thin and sort of rough, which seemed a bit odd, but I didn't really care at the time.

Starting to ride away, I could see with my camera rotated that the orc was getting up and then he started using his auto-shot attack. He didn't use any special abilities but each of the arrows was hitting for about 900 damage, which seemed to be about 10% of my health each time. I took about three shots in total, managing to ride away far enough but the last shot had hit me from what I thought was an unreasonable distance in the game, over 90 or so yards.

I rode the worg through the plagued and sombre woods of Tirisfal and toward the Western Plaguelands. I remember the atmosphere clearly, with its slightly dead blue-green tinge. I remember seeing something in the sky, but not sure if it was the moon or the sun. As I rode the mount through the woods, I went past a ruined human or scarlet tower, but I didn't see any enemies or creatures anywhere.

When I got to the area of Tirisfal that is closest to the Western Plaguelands, it was more like a volcanic area, more like something I'd expect from Cataclysm than a classic area. At first this bit was sandy with shrubs here and there, somewhat desert-like, but there were burnt trees and courses of lava. I remember it was day time but as I went further into this zone it got darker. It felt like it had been an extremely long ride from Tirisfal and I can't recall all the details of the journey. I do remember a number of different passing thoughts, mostly about potentially being attacked, but very vaguely.

Going along a road in this zone, I headed towards some tunnel I saw before on my map interface. To the north of the tunnel entrance was a ruined building. It looked like an Alliance fort or barracks, but it was supposed to be a hospital in the dream? Someone, I can't remember who, suggested I go there, but I said I'd already been there or something.

As I entered the tunnel, which had a car-tunnel feel to it, I noticed another player riding their mount come up behind me. I think it was an undead but he didn't seem hostile and he had this orange hat that I remember from early quests in TBC. He had a strange blue mount that I can't really remember very well. I checked my character panel and it said my mount speed was 140% with all my bonuses, but this guy still managed to slightly faster, probably at about 160%. He overtook me and eventually I lost sight of him.

On the other side of the tunnel I explored a little rock island surrounded by lava courses and I heard the distinct sound of a character in stealth nearby. I dismounted and tried to find the player; it was a tauren druid prowling in cat form. I attacked and used kidney shot, a rogue ability; and before the stun ended, I used a cat form ability too and used a different stun, not really giving the druid a chance to fight back. He took a ton of damage, or what felt like it but eventually died. Oddly enough, the form effect should have ended for him at that point, but didn't, so the corpse looked like the cat form and not the tauren form. I realised while attacking that he was level 137 or something, which then made me realise I was 19 levels below that, and that was why it took so long to kill him.

Other stuff happened, not sure what. I think I used some other druid forms but the next thing I remember I'm at my old home, as "myself", in the downstairs part. Mom and other people are there, but I'm not sure who. There was this man with no top on, a dream character and I think he was injured? This part of the dream went on for a while but I've forgotten most of the details.

Dream Fragment:

Something about power going off, but in a weird way, where only a few things went off. I think I was in the kitchen?

---

Notes:
- In the dream, my character level didn’t seem to be well defined but the mixed usage of abilities could have been a clear dream sign, as well as the dream-created volcanic landscapes.

- Like with my other dreams that involve old known locations, this was also one of those dreams where the dream mind is starting to take more liberties with how the places look. This is interesting because recently I was thinking that the reason those old places were being so altered in dreams was a result of not visiting them for a long time, but I have played WoW recently enough that this theory doesn’t really seem to make as much sense anymore.

- Plenty of somewhat obvious dream signs in the last few months, but not being obvious enough for me to pick up on them yet I guess. But that and some other general things about dreams through these last few months have been giving me a sense that something is progressing in a positive way.

- The topless and injured man may have simply been a figment brought about by a show I watched for the first time the previous night, but his presence really was completely out of place in that dream, there was nothing else to tie the two contexts together.

- I’m remembering now that in that part of the dream it was a bright morning daytime, though only a small bit of it came through into the living room, where I was.

- The WoW dream was typical for a game dream, I didn’t have the sense of sitting at a desk or anything, just completely existing in the game, even despite the use of third person camera. In a way this is not too different from how I feel when playing games I’m immersed in anyway; usually it just feels like an extension of self, more than anything else. But it does make me feel that I’m almost too used to the sense of altered reality, which is maybe why I normally don’t pick up on dream signs that when I’m awake I consider to be pretty obvious.

Some fragments. Recall seemed better for the second and third dreams on waking up.

---

Dream Fragment:

I was in the kitchen. It was a bit dark but not night time. Like very early morning just after sun rise, and with the blinds rolled down. I remember standing by the fridge, naked I think? I remember seeing my feet and legs. For some reason, I could hear in my head what I thought at the time to be a theme song for the TV show called Roswell, a show I never watched myself, but I know of it. I don't actually remember what that music sounded like but it seemed familiar in the dream, in a way that makes me think that it had nothing to do with that show, but I'll have to try and find it after writing this DJ.

Wedged between the fridge and the counter it is adjacent to, I remember noticing one of the wooden grave markers H's dad was working on yesterday when we went there. The cross was upside down and it looked like we had just shoved it in there in a hurry to make some room in the kitchen. The fridge is a fridge on top and freezer on the bottom and I remember seeing the logo somewhat distinctly in the dream.

No idea how this dream went on or ended.

Dream Fragment:

I was entering some sort of supermarket, it felt like it was underground. There were quite a few people here, seemed like a popular place. Looked a bit like the cheap supermarket I go to but for whatever reason my old friend from university, R, was walking along with me. We both had a trolley.

I was very confused by the layout, first there were mostly energy drinks and then soft drinks. I think I commented on them being crap but I also felt hungry more than anything else. We continued on and eventually we got to a very odd bit, where I had to watch what other people were doing to understand. There was like a sort of circular checkpoint thing that we had to go into in queues. I grabbed some big and fresh looking pears I spotted to my right, and apparently some bananas too. I knew immediately the pears would be sweet, as I prefer them, and not at all wooden. There were some fake metal barriers to enforce queues.

I got to the centre of this checkpoint thing. There was a woman on a swivel chair? She was wearing a cap but had curled hair tucked into it or something. She was in the middle of this four-section rounded island with shop scanner things on each of the four sections. I remember giving her the fruits or placing them down on the metal/glass surface.

She scanned the fruit somehow and I continued off away from the checkpoint thing.

Dream Fragment:

Some kind of mix of GTA and other games like Deus Ex. I remember being on a completely unknown city and having a map divided into levels, like there used to be in Zelda's dungeons. 1F,2F, etc.

There were some ghoul like enemies at some point and a UDamage pickup, which when I tried getting, some quick imp or rat thing got it and scurried off.

I remember being on some sort of snow bike and using a turbo mode that activated an orange energy saw and killing some of these ghouls. This was an enclosed area, with many narrow paths and with an underground feel to it. At the end of it I found a portal marked by an inverse encircled pentagram, which was a path to hell. I decided to not go through yet but would come back to it when I felt stronger.

Then I was outside and it was night time. Everything was brightly lit. I remember fighting some guys at a bridge over a wide channel of water that looked like it had very strong currents, as it was quite foamy and uneven.

Much earlier in the dream there was an area of sort of open field but I don't really remember any details. Too tired to write much more.

---

Notes:
- I'm not entirely sure what prompted the appearance of both the cross and the pentagram (both inverted) in two separate dreams, but yesterday H's dad was making about twelve of these cross-shaped grave markers. I remember asking if they were consecrated or blessed in any way once they were done. I was told that there's no point, since they are just temporary markers. This might account for the marker's appearance in my dream, as I had some interest in them since he was basically working on them all day and we were there for most of it.

- The third dream was a mix of many, many games, far too many to actually describe in reasonable detail. But the part with the UDamage and the inverted pentagram was most definitely based mostly on: DOOM, Daikatana and Unreal (Tournament). All of these have some themes in common, but the game engines are also all quite similar in some aspects. Hell and unholy motifs such as ghouls are closely related to DOOM of course and they also feature in UT. Some time ago I was working on a cathedral level for UT, but abandoned the project due to its complexity for my current skill level. The level featured an underground hellish portal that would take players to the top of the level.

- The Christian-type symbols probably also made their appearances because last night I spent a fair bit of time speaking to H about how I have often felt, and often still feel, because of my constant pain issues. There is a somewhat subconscious link between pain and some version of hell, for me.

- In the second dream, I seem to remember R was wearing his typical leather jacket. I don't remember seeing his face much in the dream.

- In that same dream, many of the dream characters seemed to be some type or another of friends or acquaintances I used to have. My mom appeared in that dream at some point, near the end, along with some dreamed up ogre-like uncle of some kind.

Dreams that I made note of early today but that I'm only writing on the DJ here at night.

---

Dream Fragment:

Much longer than just this bit and a lot of detail is missing. Was with my family at some building, more specifically, with my parents and maybe siblings. We were there because of me, I was waiting to be given permission to use this facility's reactor-powered super-computer.

One of mom's sisters (M) was there . H was there but was a blend between himself and my oldest sibling. I remember we were waiting in some sort of lobby. It was sunny, there was a lot of glass. It was a fairly modern-style building from what I can remember. Eventually, a woman came through into the room and requested my presence. I followed her and walked through some halls and then through a large indoors space, like an aircraft hangar or an industrial warehouse. When we were in one of these larger spaces, the woman, who I remember was formally dressed (i.e. had some sort of secretarial position), said that they were going to give me the OK to use their computer.

Apparently I wanted to use this computer to "hack" some other reactor-powered super-computer of the same sort. In the dream I already knew I had permission from the owners of that second computer to do this. My reaction to when she gave me the OK was something of surprise and I felt happy. I told her I'd be right back and jogged back to the lobby quickly to grab a few things. Mostly some papers, A4 prints of the schematics for the other reactor? Looked like amplifier schematics like the ones I often see H use.

In the dream I knew that some favour I pulled was responsible for the people who owned this place to allow me to do this, though there seemed to be no animosity with anyone and there was a calm and polite atmosphere.

I remember there was a lot of dialogue in this dream but I remember very little of it in detail, usually one of the first things to get forgotten. I went back to the woman after grabbing the papers. I remember being shown into a room where I then used some sort of computer terminal and then gained physical access to the other computer's library. But it was literally and physically manifested in front of me, above the terminal.

I looked through the books. I remember chatting to this lady since she was there to supervise me, mostly small talk. I couldn't remember which of these files (the books) that H was interested in, so for whatever reason I asked for someone to go and fetch my oldest sibling (L). L arrived and immediately recognised the book. L took it and I wondered how we'd return it, since I realised in that moment this was a one-time thing but we were still obliged to return the file.

Then I said to L: "make sure you get everything you want, because we will never have access to this again." I remember thinking or feeling that the other books on that shelf were filled with irreplaceable knowledge.

The dream went on for a bit but I don't remember much. Some visions of the reactors? I told the lady about how I got permission to do all of this.

Dream Fragment:

A different dream. In space, much shorter dream. Strategy game like Homeworld but could manage planets and space stations too. Mix of Freelancer too? Don't remember the visuals anymore. Woke up after this dream.

Dream Fragment:

Fell back asleep and recalled this single fragment. Was helping T build some sort of organ console. The console didn't look right. It was askew? But it was on purpose apparently. The manuals were angled at 90 degrees and sloped on a 30 degree arc. I remember this took place in T's room. There was a light on and the room was dark otherwise, somewhat as expected really.

Mom was there, talking to T I think.

---

Some notes:
- I did remember more conversational detail when I woke up and wrote down the first dream on my phone but the memory has since long left as I finish writing this DJ entry.
- The thing with the shelf and the books being the other computer's file system was very unusual. It was like an allegory, but somewhat unnecessary.
- For whatever reason, these few dreams I had all had H, T and L mixed in some sense as if they were all the same character. Although I can draw some similarities between them, like the bookshelf thing, I'm not sure why it was almost made obvious in the dream. Normally my less conscious thoughts don't manifest themselves in dreams in such an obvious way, probably since I already recognise all these elements consciously anyway.
- The secretary figure is starting to become a recurring dream character in a sense. Feels like a sort of formal projection, as a character, of what I would consider my anima to be. Last year there were some similar appearances. Usually black hair, tidy, possibly glasses and a smooth but not perfect face. A slight bit of attitude or something in body posture, but in a relaxed way. Takes herself seriously.

- A note on the above; I have taken the Jungian archetypes into a sort of personally meaningful way as I do with symbols in general, so that they have specific meanings to myself, which are often a bit more distant from their original meanings. This accounts for why the appearance of these archetypes varies, sometimes dramatically. But the key identifier for them is usually that they are key characters in the dream and that they are not related to people I know, and seem to be more disjointed from the other characters in a dream, usually.

- T's room was more or less as I remember last seeing it. The sense of any unpleasant smell didn't seem to be there, but I remember feeling uncomfortable being in the room.

Just a dream fragment. Recall was a bit poor this past night and the night before, maybe because I've been a bit restless.

---

Dream Fragment:

I'm at an alternate version of the big square in my old home town. An older version of it, I think? I got in a car with one of my aunts (B). It was dark. We drove somewhere underground, where it was also particularly dark but there were a few lights here and there at foot level or something. There was a green hue to everything.

The underground area was like a tunnel at first, a bit like some of the subway tunnels in the town. But then it became narrower and more like a sewer of some kind.

Then I remember being on foot on my own. There were narrow concrete straits over darkness below. There was green-ish looking water coming out of cylindrical openings in some of the concrete walls.

---

Notes:

- Although I didn't realise it on waking up or during the dream, it made sense that the underground area resembled the subway tunnels, because under that square in waking life is where the station is.
- I remember having some conversation with my aunt, but can't even remember what about.