Exploring My Mind

This morning's recollections come to you in two flavors: Creepy and sweet.
I was in a haunted house of some sort. It looked kind of like my old house a few years back, with certain rooms being pretty much picture-perfect recreations. Most of this dream is a blurry haze to me, but what I do recall is going into the bathroom. All seemed to be normal in there, but the light switch wasn't working. I shrugged and started to head out of the bathroom, but heard a sort of sinister laugh behind me. I turned, and the entire bathtub was filled with this huge pile of towels. The pile was so huge that they were spilling out onto the floor. While this may sound really random and silly (and it is), my dream self was deeply unnerved and bothered by it. I slowly stepped towards the towels, but as I did, I heard a small hissing noise around me, as if the room was filling with some sort of gas. Before I knew it, I passed out and all went dark. The spooks are real. Piles of towels. Everybody's worst nightmare, really.
Now for sweet.
I was in a large school building that was eerily similar to my elementary school, but 5x larger and it housed college kids instead of being an elementary school. It was here that I met two Japanese friends. Sadly, I can't recall their names (it's pretty hard for me to remember DC names for some reason), but there was one boy and one girl. The boy, strangely, looked similar to Watari from Your Lie in April if you've ever seen that anime. Meanwhile, the girl didn't really look like anyone in particular. She had long, jet black hair, and a fiery air about her. Both of them hit it off with me right away, and a lot of the dream was spent hanging out with them in various parts of the school, just talking or doing random, fun things. Later on in the dream, when we were sitting by the big wall beside the stairs, I began to grow sour, as I realized I would have to go home soon. I explained it to them, and they both acted very understanding, trying to console me and saying that I'll see them again. When it came time for me to go, I headed out into the parking lot, found a bus (which had a lot of my old high school classmates on it), and rode homewards, the environments and dream scenes all looking exactly like real life, but with an ever present gray sky and a lot less busses. Glumly, I put my head against the window in my seat on the bus and thought about when I'd see those two again. I'll throw a new lucid goal on the list for future reference: Either summon or find these two DCs again. They were very pleasant people, and I was able to converse in some Japanese with them as well, since I have a basic grasp of the language. It would be fun hanging out with them while lucid.

Hit another two day snag of no recall. Whereas lately I've been recalling a pretty similar handful of fragments and small non-lucids, this morning's dream was a very long non-lucid, all recalled in a lot of detail. So, without further ado, here's the latest dream adventure:
The real world was set up as a sort of role playing game, with items, stats, levels, and magic all being just a normal part of this dream's universe. In comes me, just a humble guy from the local village, preparing a large building in honor of the upcoming arrival of a very important guest. This guest was apparently some famous girl, a girl my dream self seemed to be rather infatuated by. It was normal to be though, as everybody in the village adored her. According to local rumors, she had mystical powers. Some said she was the chosen one. Me, I was just happy to be setting up this nice place for her. According to the people who assigned me the task, the building would need prepared for her to stay in while she visited the village. I even had to go grocery shopping so there was plenty food and drink for her.
So the girl, I sadly cannot recall her name, arrived. I took her on a tour of the building, and she was extremely impressed. It's here where things get hazy. But next thing I know...
In a twist of fate, the girl turned on the townsfolk. She revealed her true evil intentions, and transformed the building into a deadly dungeon filled with traps and monsters and just all around evil crap. It had turned out that all my preparation of the place was really just a trick to get it in good shape for all the previously mentioned things. I was devastated. Heartbroken. The townsfolk held me responsible, saying that I must go deal with her or suffer the consequences. And so I did.
Heading into the building, I was surprised to not find any traps or monsters at the front door, but instead, the girl herself. She was acting more like her kind self from before, but this illusion didn't last long, and she quickly transformed into her true form, a hideous red monster with wings.
It was then that I knew what I had to do. Running outside, I quickly found a climbable pathway up the side of the tall building. I scaled it, and reached the open-roofed top, where I found some potions to help me conduct a powerful magic spell. The spell, which took quite a moment to prepare, transformed the entire building back to normal in a dazzling flash of light. As for what happened to the girl in the aftermath...nobody saw her ever again.
An explosion of detail, if I do say so myself... Let's keep it up! Also, what a dream.

Not a whole lot recalled this morning, but certainly a bizarre one either way. But first...a not so bizarre one!
I was being made fun of by yet another guy I knew from high school. Accurately to real life, this was a guy who used to make fun of me back in the day. However, it appears my dream self is feeling awful pissed off and courageous lately! In the middle of making fun of me, I turn from my locker, walk up to him, and punch him square in the jaw. He fell on the floor, unconscious. All around me were hushed gasps. I turned to the head adult in the room and began ranting like crazy. "You have to understand, this has been going on for ages now, and none of you do ANYTHING about it. What am I supposed to do? Just sit here?? No! I won't! I refuse! I'm not going to stand for this crap anymore! ... I'm starting to notice a recurring trend in my latest dreams: A lot of random people I knew in my high school keep showing up, and often times it ends up being people who I really disliked back in the day, often due to them making fun of me. What's the significance? Not sure. But it definitely keeps happening! And as you can see...my dream self is SICK of it.
Now for the strange one! Guess what? It involves another high schooler I knew, only this one thankfully wasn't one I hated. AND YET. He was the cause of conflict in this dream.
I was in a pretty big town, standing outside. The sun was setting, but it was very cloudy, giving the sky a dull look. The guy I mentioned, call him N, comes up to me and says he has to stop me. "Stop me? What did I do?"
His response? Well, just what you'd expect. He shouted and grew 50ft in size. Must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. Despite the oddness of the situation, I was quite reasonably freaked out! I screamed and ran as fast as my legs could carry me, N stomping his way behind me, each footstep an earthquake. That's all I can recall on that one. It's like all my high school memories are coming back to get me...

Had a two day period of no recall, but I didn't let that deter me, and this morning I was able to recall two non-lucids. What was frustrating about the second one, however, is that I was almost lucid! Well, frustrating isn't quite right. It's more both heartening AND frustrating, nice and bittersweet. Here's the first non-lucid:
I was being chased by these government agent types; they were an army of about 10 men and women dressed up in black suits and equally black sunglasses. They were after me for reasons I didn't know, but what I did know was that I needed to hide. I ran all over the place trying to find a good enough hiding spot. Seemed like we were in a sort of hotel-like place. I ducked through a stairwell, noticing a guy as I passed by who I knew from real life, somebody from my high school, and for some reason, he was wearing a sombrero. He shook his head and looked away. Eventually I found a tucked away corner behind a column and waited. They passed me by, and the leading lady was barking orders left and right, having the group split up. Did I get caught? Well, let's hope not. Dun dun dunnnn.
The second dream:
I was in a classroom that looked like my old psychology class's classroom from high school. I was minding my own business, but the guy I recognized from high school in the previous dream was also in this classroom (no sombrero this time, a shame...) and he was ranting like crazy, to the point where it was bothering others. I couldn't take it anymore, so I slammed my hands on my desk, stood up, turned around, and shouted at him to just shut up. He gave a snappy retort back at me, and the entire class fell silent. I gave him a glare and sat back down in my seat. Suddenly, I got the strangest urge to do a reality check. All I could think was, I should probably reality check right now. ......And yet, nah...I'll do it later. Dismissing that thought, I noticed a fictional character from a game I play walk into the classroom. In this game, she's a little sister to the main character, so she happened to be my imaginary little sister here. She was bringing me cookies, which cheered up my grumpy mood a little. All I can say is...CURSE YOU, DREAM-SELF!!! On the one hand, I'm delighted my non-lucid self is thinking those thoughts. That's a good sign of progress. BUT SO CLOSE. Yet so far. In a dream that wasn't all that weird, funny enough, at least compared to the antics of the dream before it.

Here's this morning's collection of dreams, which had a sort of holiday theme going on.
I stood in a grassy field with a friend I vaguely know in real life. It was night time, and we were waiting for fireworks. All of a sudden, multiple fireworks shot up into the sky. They were abnormally huge, and all the more beautiful because of it, filling the sky with a multitude of wonderful colors. Before I could really get out a word about how great it all looked, this friend of mine kissed me. That's all I remember here. Pretty odd my friend was involved in this manner, as I don't know her all that well!
I was swimming in a pool that looked a lot like the pool we used in P.E. class in high school. As me and a bunch of other swimmers were heading out and back to the locker room, one of them collapsed by the entrance, having a sort of seizure. A guy I know IRL, we'll call him D, who I don't like very much appeared out of no where and was suddenly giving the collapsed guy medical attention. D looked up at me and held out his hand, asking me to give him my phone. I hesitantly complied. Seems like there could be multiple ways to interpret this one. Hmmhmm hmmity hmm.
I was at a Christmas party with a good portion of my family, as well as a couple of familiar coworkers and people I didn't know or recognize at all. It was a fairly nice party, with lots of tables, food, and nice music playing. We were all standing in line at a vending machine, but when it was my turn to pop in some change and pick my drink, I couldn't for the life of me figure the thing out. Standing directly behind me was an old coworker of mine, we'll call her W, who was starting to get quite angry at how long I was taking. She eventually slapped the change out of my fumbling hands, yelling about how I needed to get a move on and let everybody else go. My cousin, who was standing behind W, told her to take it easy. I slumped my head and walked over to the nearby fridge, which had a smaller selection of drinks.
I saw one that caught my eye: Strawberry soda in a very fancy bottle. I picked it up and went back over to my cousin, who was now standing next to this girl I didn't recognize. They were both drinking bottles of beer, so when the girl saw me approach, she gave a cold look at my bottle of soda and rolled her eyes. Seems everyone just wasn't having it with me at this party! Her and my cousin sauntered away, talking about something incoherently. In real life, I actually have never had alcohol to this day, and I don't plan on it. If I were at a party like this, that's pretty much exactly how it would go. I'm happy with the amount of detail recalled~

Didn't sleep too well last night. As it would turn out, I had a pretty good 2 hour nap late into the evening, so come bed time later that night, I really wasn't all that tired. Therefore, the night was spent sort of sleeping but frequently waking up, much to my dismay. Luckily enough, I was able to recall multiple dreams, but on the downside, they're all basically fragments. Here they are anyways:
I was eating at Olive Garden, when all around me the customers and waiters and waitresses all started going crazy, dancing around like lunatics, throwing things at each other. I huddled up further into my booth and continued to enjoy my breadsticks. Clearly my dream self has important priorities!
I was in this huge house with a lot of my family as well as complete and total strangers. The front side of the house was open to the outside street, where multiple houses alongside it were selling goods. Not much of note here.
I was in a small room that looked like something out of Homestuck, and on the wall, projected, was a cool looking animation of David Strider and Jade Harley. This fragment may have been a part of the same house dream just before it. Funny I had Homestuck appear here, as I've not been into it in a couple of years now.
I was on an alien world, and everything was blowing up. ......
My ex and I entered into a contract of sorts, and we were living together and going about our day-to-day pretty happily. Still learning to get into the habit of reality checking when she's involved, as she's basically the biggest dream sign I have.

Since starting back in my lucid dreaming practices a couple of weeks back, I've recalled quite a few dreams, almost one every night, barring a few days, but I've yet to put any of those in here. With that being said, here's this morning's, in which I recalled two pretty sparse fragments and one non lucid dream.
My dad was insistently questioning me about shower curtains. Literally all I've got on this one. What could it mean? Are the shower curtains symbolic of the walls we put up around ourselves? 6deep8me.
I was in a very ritzy looking cafe, enjoying a cup of coffee and browsing my phone, looking at various pictures of a girl I thought was cute. Again, just a fragment. Unlike the strange nature of that first fragment, however, this dream had a nice, fluffy, happy feeling to it. Now, for the actual full non-lucid:
I was in some sort of ruins, and could see a sort of heads up display that looked like No Man's Sky's HUD. Lately, it seems like NMS has worked its way into my dreams in subtle ways. I was exploring these ruins on some sort of vague quest, gathering up materials and items. Eventually I found my way into a big building, which looked like something straight out of the game The Witness. It even had a similar puzzle inside of it that I was required to solve. Floating above the ground was a chrome-colored monolith with a red tree insignia on it. Touching the monolith made it dive into the ground, and several huge, red trees sprouted up around me. A river of orange-ish colored water began flowing between the crevices in the floor. How would I solve this puzzle? Unfortunately you get the cliffhanger that never ends on this one, as that's all I can remember.