lucid

Lucid! at last...

I'm wandering around the school, I phase through some doors and walls and do some reality checks. Seems like it's lunch break.

I am trying to follow someone, maybe he is a teacher? He has short brown hair and a stubbly beard. He's gone outside and I, in an empty classroom, decide to follow. I jump up onto the sill of the round window and hesitate, then remind myself I'm dreaming. I do a reality check (which fails) and then purposefully leap through the window glass and float down to the street.

There's a building in front of me, an abandoned-looking office building made of beige stone/concrete with dark brown windows. I wonder how to get in - I know I want to explore the right side of the building which I am standing in front of now. I try to fly up, but it takes me a minute to get the hang of flying. I take a jump and at first flutter my fingers by my sides, imagining where I want to go. It doesn't really work so I flap my arms instead, slowly, powerfully wheeling them down on the wind like a bird's wings. I propel myself upwards - too far upwards. I don't want to be above the roof of the building so I stop moving my arms. Then I fall rapidly. I start to flap once more but I can't control my direction - I am careening towards the ground and the wall. I collapse to the ground and quickly get up.

I look for another entry point to the building. There are no doors but a big window above me - from the right distance, I could take a big leap and get right through the window onto the first floor. But now, somehow, I'm worried about people in the school seeing me do that. I walk around a ways and stop in a sheltered area (maybe for parking cars?) under the building, there is a stretch of rough stone wall to the side. I could just walk through it. But, I think, this a bit far from where I want to enter, and once I'm inside I might not be able to find the right room. I pace around the building pondering my dilemma when I turn to see the man I was after returning up the road towards the school. I know it's time for class to start again so I follow him up the exterior stairs (these are new) into the school building. Alas, next time.

Fragment: some kind of superman action, leaping between office buildings in the city and stopping on a windowsill to talk to people inside.

Maybe this was just semi-lucid? I was lucid enough to know I was dreaming, I knew I could do some superhuman things and did a few RCs, but was also dragged into the plot of the dream. I never asked myself why I had to explore that building. I wish I had gone in though! Also, 4th LD, yay!

What do you think? I know lots of you have many more lucid experiences than me. What's your usual level of awareness and self-control?

I'm climbing a staircase - I quickly realise that I'm in my primary school. The steps are smooth, angular concrete, and so are the walls - I remember that in reality, they were brick walls painted white. There is no artwork on the walls as I climb; the stairwell is cold and empty and my footsteps echo off the walls. It rises up a great shaft through the square school building.

I step onto a landing and turn to a set of grey double doors with small windows, to the nursery. They have no frame and are flush with the wall. I push open the doors and enter the nursery. Straight inside the door is a narrow hallway, the staff bend over tables on both sides of the wall. The space feels narrow, crowded and chaotic. I make my way through them and the hall opens into a much wider, clearer room, lit up brilliantly from all over. Half-height bookshelves double as partitions between different areas of the room, coloured beanbags are scattered about and children mill throughout the room. I'm not sure if I'm one of the children or not.

At the back of the room is a wall of narrow cubbyholes. I search for mine; I know whereabouts it is, but someone has let their coat hang out of their cubby so that it covers mine. I fumble around for a bit before finding my cubbyhole, only to discover someone else's stuff inside. I pull it out: it's a black drawstring bag, almost empty so that the fabric sags when I pick it up. I'm wondering what to do with this when I feel a tap on my shoulder.

I turn around. The girl standing behind me is someone who went to my school, but left before Sixth Form. We used to chat from time to time. "Sorry," she says, "that's mine - I'll take it. I just left it there for a moment." I hand her the bag and notice that her hair is darker and shorter than I remember it. "Did you get a haircut?" I ask. When she fully turns to face me I'm stunned to see that there's nothing left of her hair but sparse, thin and wispy curled strands; I can see clearly her near-bald scalp. I know she sees the shock in my eyes as she looks away with a regretful smile. She tells me that she was diagnosed with lymphoma ("lymphomatic") recently and is being treated. I don't know what to say. A crowd throngs around us of girls trying to collect their belongings.

I leave the nursery. As the doors fall closed behind me, something compels me to open them and look inside once more. Every teacher in the hallway snaps their head towards me, terror in their eyes. Each wears a plain dress, a crisp white apron and a cloth bonnet, and they bend over to tend to babies wriggling and squirming on the tables. Left speechless by their reaction, I slowly close the doors again and leave.

Then I am on the train, going home. It's cramped and I am squished against the wall of the carriage, arms clutched to my chest. The light down here is cold and dim, occasionally flickering. The train rattles as it rushes through the tunnel. I feel tired of the monotony, my eyelids flutter.

Soon I am walking down the high street away from my station. I compulsively check my belongings; touch my backpack strap, check. Feel my coat over my arm, check. Then I feel around under the coat and on my shoulder, but I can't find the tote bag that I always carry. At the realisation adrenaline bolts through my body and I almost feel sick. Where is it? At school? Then I have to go back. My wallet, phone and keys are in there, not to mention library books. What a pain... I'm already dreading the thought of getting back on that train.

As I'm figuring out what to do I clench my left hand and feel the resistance of something hard. It's my phone. That should be in my other bag, and it's here - but the bag isn't. All these different trains of thought and lines of reason swirl into a whirlwind of confusion. I stand stock-still in the middle of the pavement, mind racing as I begin to feel worse and worse.

Ugh I am not having a great time on the site recently... Every time I visit I get to spend much more than a few seconds 'verifying you are human' which then repeats itself after a few minutes and in the process logs me out and deletes the DJ I am editing. Drives me mad!

Long dream this time!

I had a lucid dream!! Didn't last long though.

I'm in my house's small bathroom, taking a shower. The water doesn't feel very warm and the room is dark, no lights are on. I can see dimly around me - the grey tile walls, the silver shower tray (do those actually have a name??), the small window and white Venetian blind. A thin shaft of white light comes through the blind. I fall down on the floor and wonder why I can't wash my hair. Then I realise, maybe it's because I'm dreaming.

I try testing gravity by jiggling my leg and it moves in slow motion. Then I know. I feel a rush of excitement. But I know I have to stabilise the dream. I hold up my hands to examine them, but I can't see any details of them in the dark. I held them outward under the only glow of light in the room to see a bit better. The light is golden now and in a sort of dim hovering ball. I still can't see much, so I try willing the room to light up, knowing the light switches are outside.

I woke up then. Was it a false awakening, though? I immediately tested gravity again by moving my leg, and it seemed to move very slowly. But I felt so tired that I didn't really register this, just rolled over and went to sleep. I'm wondering if I actually missed a false awakening since I don't usually wake up in the middle of the night. And if I do, I'm rarely so tired that I just go back to sleep.

Still, my first DILD! Better go update my profile's LD count!

Day 3 (Tuesday 31.10) is not one I'm comfortable sharing, and I also remember very little of it. I experienced the dream as an invisible observer and played no part in it. Today's I remember a little better, but it is still two fragments. I believe I unexpectedly became lucid at the end.

A white, pink and grey house. It's a modern bungalow. A relative (grandfather?) of mine lives here. In the large kitchen-living room is a counter, black granite on top, pink sides. A variety of kitchen utensils on top of it include a shiny silver, tall teapot. Full-length windows wrap the side of the room that faces outside. It's snowy out there, some shrubs and spiky winter plants peeking through the snow under a blank white sky. I see that there are two small steps down from the glass door in pale beige stone. I remember running in and out of the house, hiding some objects or my own self in black and grey halls and behind doors. However the dream was overall a calm one. I remember sitting curled on the floor, reading. I remember modern white metal baskets and filing cabinets, supermarket bags full of clothes, and some piles of clothes on the floor. I remember conversation and a casually dressed man with longish dark brown hair and a small beard on his chin. I remember cooking, walking on a snowy road to get here. All the other recollections are too vague to be put into words. Faint fragments of emotions, flashes of images and indecipherable, tenth-of-a-second beeps of sound and glimpses of movement. I feel sorry to have forgotten what I feel was an eventful and interesting dream.

Later. A white box room, no windows or doors. Someone is in here with me. Suddenly I become aware that I am dreaming. Elated to have achieved lucidity, I want to test the limits of the dream and see what I can do. I think: 'how about flying?' and move my arms a little away from my sides. Then I am spiralling up into the air towards the ceiling of the small square. I can look down at the same time as I see myself from above, looking upwards to the ceiling. I feel an incredible rush of joy and lightness while my companion is looking up at me. But it's short lived. As I'm about to go through the ceiling I feel the dream slipping away from me. The scene itself seems to break away from my consciousness and spiral downwards into blackness until it disappears.

While losing my dream I saw my bedroom, with lights on, appearing. I don't know now if I woke up or fell into a deeper sleep. I remember waking up later, to the sound of my alarm, in darkness.