The Lab Notebook

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm descending slowly through the levels of a house. When I realize what's happening to me and that this is a dream, I decide to stop in the third level down and explore it. I will myself to stop moving downward and to be standing on the floor, and achieve both of those desires. I begin walking through the rooms, concentrating both on the action of walking and on the scenery around me, knowing that my concentrated attention will keep the dream stable. There are some steps down into a large living room. I think, This reminds me of some of my friends' houses. Well, of course it does. That's where my mind must have picked up the images that this dream is made up of.

I turn around to take in more of the room. While I'm doing so, I think, I need a mirror. When I look back at a particular section of wall a second time, a large, tall, rectangular, frameless, wall-mounted mirror has appeared there. [Cool! I guess I'm getting better at controlling the features of the dream environment.] I come up to the mirror and stick my hand into it. My hand goes right into the mirror and is obscured by silver mist, but I feel nothing at all. I still don't particularly want to try to go anywhere else that way, though, so I don't. However, on the floor to my left, I see a large, freestanding flatscreen TV [the same size and model we have in my real house], and decide to try to go through that. As I crouch down in front of it, I think briefly of a couple of specific places from my past that I would like to find on the other side of the screen. I then start going through it. I feel the screen snap when I start pushing through it, and feel the edges of its two halves dragging against my body as I climb into the TV. There's nothing inside but darkness. I ended up just waking up. [I failed to choose a single destination and truly believe that it would be there on the other side of the screen.]

I went back to sleep and had another dream. I'm in a room with a bunch of computers, and someone is directing me to complete a series of questionnaires on one computer, which is on the aisle that goes down the center of the room, between the rows of tables. One of the questionnaires involves looking at frames from an animated TV show and identifying what show they're from. I recognize them as being from the Garfield and Friends TV show.

From there, the dream shifts, putting me in that episode of that TV show. I'm standing right behind the protagonist, watching him/her [not sure] have a conversation with another character just outside the gate to a town. The setting appears to be a medieval fantasy story. I recognize that I'm dreaming. The conversation is finished, and the second character admits the protagonist and me through the gate. As I pass the gatekeeper character, I say to him, “It's good to see you again.” I start walking along through the open space in the center of the town, again concentrating on walking and on the scenery around me. As I walk, I cover my mouth with both hands and whisper into them, “I was actually talking to the town.” I can actually feel the warmth and moisture of my breath on my hands, which impress me with their realism.

I pass by a shop building with off-white walls and a window, and go, “Oh, yeah.” I remember that I still want to try to walk through a wall. I turn to my right, walk right up to that wall and keep on walking. I can only get a little way into it. It feels like walking into a flexible, but thick, strong, and semi-solid piece of rubber. [That's the last I remember.]