non-lucid

Winter Competition Night 4

Finally a full dream!

Fragment: I am living in some cheap area and know some weird fashion folk. I have a boyfriend and live in a small dark apartment. I talk to a friend about a manga and say slice of life seems to be fashionable lately - there are loads floating around with similar art style.

Then I am on a canal boat with my family. We're going along the canal and the boat is rocking a lot. The water is rough. I see a great blue wave splash up and hit the front window (which narrowboats don't have) with a lot of force. The boat rocks and all the passengers gasp and scream. Boat is a bit red and green on the inside. The water rises up again as we go under a bridge. There seem to be quite a lot of low bridges rather too close together.

We reach our destination and get off the boat onto the towpath. The canal seems much wider here and its layout makes less sense. It's more than twice as wide and on the far side only there are more bridges cutting off that area of the water - as if it is splitting into pipes. I see a man moving quickly through the water with only his head above the surface, grinning widely. This makes perfect sense to me. We are here to go kayaking - except that in this dream it's a bit different. The kayak along with most of the body (and the paddle) sinks under the surface of the water and you can paddle around at high speed with only your head and neck above the surface.

We get onto the water and I immediately set off, paddling fast and hurtling around in a spiral across the canal. I don't notice a thing until I open my eyes and see I am about to crash into the brick wall of one of the further tunnels, but I manage to pull myself back with my paddles and rush straight into the tunnel instead. Looking back I can see the instructor laughing at me. The way I'm steering the kayak doesn't feel realistic, looking back - I've kayaked before but this feels more like steering in a video game than paddling in real life

As I turn back and come out of the tunnel, I come almost face to face with a blonde seemingly middle-aged woman. Evidently I can see a bit more of her - seems her body above the waist is out of the water since she's wearing a lanyard and plastic name tag. It says "My name is Bridget B[can't remember]."
"I talk like this:"
Underneath that line is her name rewritten with an odd alphabet composed of smiley faces. They are squashed and warped in different directions to correspond to letters of the alphabet. I remember examining this a bit more closely, comparing these to the English letters of her name - I decided it made sense.

She might be an instructor too. I look back at her and see her name label shows even more information now, about her life. I'll paraphrase what I can remember:

"When I was...,..." I can barely remember any of the first column. Something about her mental state and how she ended up writing with smiley faces when she was younger. The second column says: "Now, I'm 63. I spent time at X hospital and got much better. Now I teach kayaking here and blah blah." There was also a third column but I don't remember a thing about it. But I do remember reading this whole label and I remember how it looked: perfect English and the lines were spaced evenly. That wouldn't have helped me become lucid...

Hand-drawn artwork:

I did a drawing but right now the drawing is at home and I'm not... And I want to publish this before it gets too late. I'll add the drawing later. For now please give me the benefit of the doubt and let me claim the points.

Excellent RCs 2pt
NLD 1 pt
WBTB (failed) 2pt
Hand-drawn artwork 2pt
Night 4 total: 7 pt
Competition total: 15 pt

Went to bed 9:56 PM
Attempt START 10:18 PM - FAILED

Bridget, by the way, did not look 63

Winter Competition 2024 Night 1

Fragment: In a clothes shop, I am talking to someone - either a shop assistant or a fried - about ready-to-wear and designer clothes. I say I prefer RTW over high-end labels. Meanwhile I'm looking for a gift for my mum - I want to choose some nice clothes for her. Curiously the clothing racks are all empty and I can only see two in the whole (large) shop - though I'm not conscious of this at all in my dream. The shop is gently lit with pinkish-gold light from side lamps for a comfortable atmosphere. The floor is of smooth, square, cream-white tiles polished to a shine, and the walls are a pinkish/rose gold colour.

Went to bed at 10:58 PM. Lucid attempt FAILED since I fell asleep.
Awoke at 5:30 AM.

Fragment: I am inside a certain (named) church with some family, looking at some old coloured maps of it. The interior reminds me of a regency building from a period drama, the walls are freshly painted white and I can see in the corner of my eye an antique-style sofa with green upholstery. The exterior is like a Greek temple with columns (the front at least) - which actually looks a lot like said church in real life. Which is surprising since I have never been there. I look back at my sister and it seems we are both wearing regency dresses. Looking out from the entrance at the side of the porch, the church is surrounded by green fields as far as the eye can see. They look like they've never been weeded or mown, the grass is growing up tall and I see many clovers popping up amid the grass. The field is dewy and a light mist obscures the view further out. The weather is fresh and chill, and we are leaving.
Maybe this is because I watched Sense and Sensibility recently?

Dream (this is also quite vague and fragmented):
I am inside the school common room. The space feels much more enclosed and cosy than it is in real life. It feels warm and welcoming. I am sitting working on something when I get up and go outside. Outside the school is a wide grassy field, much like the one described above - except there are trees here, too.

There is a high wooden table standing on the grass where two of my friends sit on tall chairs. One is a real friend of mine but the other I don't know - a dark-skinned boy with dark straight hair. They are talking over (I think) her current sewing project, and I mention that I do some sewing, too. We show each other some photos of our work and talk for a while longer.

After some time I begin to feel like I'm being called - there's somewhere else I need to be. Then I remember - I've got to go now. I take my phone and rush away from my friends but leave my bag behind on my seat.

Next thing I remember, I'm boarding a plane, though I only remember seeing it from the inside. The plane is very long. The low light level compounded with the grey-black carpet, upholstery and even walls make the interior extremely dim. I hurry past rows of seats (all facing to the front of the plane) until I reach in the middle of the plane two rows of fold-up seats facing one another. All the rows behind are also facing the front of the plane - only these two are strange.

A music teacher is standing in the aisle telling some other students where to sit. She mentions my stranger friend (who is not with me) and says there is room for him, too, pointing to where I am standing in the backwards row. Then she tells me to sit down. I hurriedly fold down the seat nearest the aisle and sit, clutching the edges of the seat for balance - since there are neither armrests nor seatbelt. I feel uneasy. My friend hasn't arrived yet and the plane is about to take off. Then a real-life memory comes through: I remember that my phone has only 30%, it won't last long and I've forgotten my bag and portable charger. Frantically I tell the teacher about my bag, but she turns away and ignores me. I jump up and am about to turn and run out of the plane to get my things. But...

I glance to the side and am shocked to see trees rushing past the window, blurred. The plane is already racing through the field and I didn't feel a thing. It tilts up, about to take off.

Went to bed at 11:14 PM; began lucid attempt at 11:37 PM. Lucid FAILED and woke at 6:20 AM.

This is the last dream this month. I've been slacking. Oops...

From the street I walk into a shop with a person I know from school. The shop front is about two bays wide and completely open, no doors, one single storey. It reminds me of the entrance to an underground car park. The name of the shop is four letters, beginning with A and lowercase. I've forgotten what it was.

We enter and I see that the shop is wider on the inside and stretches far, far back. We begin walking through a section filled with clothes on racks seemingly grouped by colour. As we get to the edge of the clothes I reach out to feel a turquoise skirt with a yellow daisy pattern between my fingers. The fabric feels slippery and textured. I let go and keep going past several clear stands of hairbands and sunglasses and trinkets. There aren't even any paths or open space - the floor is chock-a-block with racks and stands and rails. I can barely see ahead and have to shove and squeeze to make my way.

We step into a big square area of open space. It's broken up by barriers of the kind you see in airport security or any long queue, into several straight lanes each leading towards a till. The tills are along a long, shiny counter - its sides are white and the top is black. The tops of computer monitors peek over the counter at each station. I can't quite be sure, now, whether this area was filled with orderly and motionless queues or completely empty.

We continue straight through the till area and into a mass of white shelves piled with coloured goods. Shelving units facing in all directions fit together like Tetris. There's barely any space to push through. I look up and the ceiling is white and shadowy, starkly bright lights suspended from it on twisted cables and the vented openings to air conditioning pipes. The ceiling is crisscrossed with narrow black beams. I look down and the floor is grey lino flecked with white, and tiny scattered triangles in red, blue, green and yellow.

It seems we are nearly at the back of the premises (though I can't see a wall ahead of me - the view fades to black not far off) when we abruptly turn left instead. Several large, black openings to food kiosks can be seen with rows of screens advertising their menus, like you'd see in a shopping centre food court. Directly ahead is a burger place. Above the kiosks is now an upper floor with full-length tinted windows, up there I can see padded booth seating and faces pressed against the glass. There's a new path right in front of all the kiosks which leads away behind the shop floor and tills. I can't see far down it until the hall becomes enclosed and completely dark.

We turn back and go the way we came, shoving past the merchandise and other customers and walking all the way until we leave the store. Outside the daylight seems blinding. The sky is white and all along the sloping street the shop fronts are single-storey and topped by huge signs. All the colours are bright and vivid. I see a green shop with lettering in a fun red font, and a black man with dreads in jeans and a bright green shirt. Downhill are more shops and cars passing in both directions, but uphill there are no more buildings to be seen beyond the intersection immediately to the right.

It's a blue, sunny morning and I am following my school librarian through the city. I don't think she knows I'm behind her. She's wearing low heels and a flared below-the-knee dress with a book pattern on it, a bag on one shoulder and no jacket to cover her wavy brown hair. Cars are driving past while the sun glints on the glass exteriors of office buildings, cafés and small shops are opening up.

We turn away from the main road and down a smaller street. I recognise it; I took a photograph of it once. The street is perhaps poured concrete and is uneven, with imperfections here and there as though it's been pierced with a fork or blown up by a big bubble. Looking down it the buildings shine and seem to merge with the sky beyond, reflecting the blue and the white clouds. At the top is a stop sign: EXCEPT CYCLES.

Some ways down the street she turns and enters through the double doors of a green-blue glass building. Inside the lobby there's a glass reception office, empty, containing a shiny black desk and a window to allow visitors to speak to the receptionist. The floor is that kind of carpet with metal ridges in it. She enters the office and sits at the desk - looks like she works here. But I realise this isn't where I'm meant to be. A crowd of girls in a dark-coloured uniform different to mine spill into the lobby from within to greet her.

I feel confused and register that she should be working at my school. I ask her about this and receive some explanation in return. The thought vaguely enters my mind that I am late to school.

Lately I haven't remembered many dreams because I've lost control of my sleep schedule a bit. Tonight's New Years but I do intend to start going to sleep at the right time again. I've begun studying some lucid techniques and will update my workbook very soon!

School pool. We are having a swimming lesson, though the person teaching us is not a swimming or PE teacher. The pool is small, two metres deep perhaps, and raised off the ground, the water is blue-green. Beside it the surrounding floor is built in something like sandstone. The floor at the right side of the room is a step below the pool, but that at the back is raised by a big step and what seems like low bollards are spaced out along its length. I look closer and each one has a name on it in slightly raised stone letters. They are memorials. The nearest name looks like 'Marjorie'.

Below the raised pool is a very shallow one, the water is completely clear.

We begin swimming, but now we're not in the pool anymore. It's like we're swimming in the air over the city. Below me I can see skyscrapers and the biggest buildings of the financial district, and lots of houses with red tile roofs. I'm in a group and we float around, laughing, every now and then stopping to rest our feet on the roofs of the buildings. They seem much smaller than us at this distance. I place my feet on a group of houses and feel the roughness of the surface on my skin.

Now it does feel like we're in water again. But we're still above the city. I don't quite get how this works but I feel that the water's surface is far above these buildings. There doesn't seem to be any water down here. It's like two spaces overlapping one another.

I swim slowly, but I keep bumping into a girl in my group. I apologise to her and try to swim a bit further away. She's laughing a lot and with her friends seems to be communicating with someone else far away, I don't know how. While swimming away I turn around and realise she - and she only - is now naked. I'm shocked, and then, I bump into her again. It's much more embarrassing this time.

We are finally back in the murky school pool. I swim around a bit more, feeling good, I can hear my teacher talking. I look up and realise I am the only one left in the pool and everyone else is sitting on the side farthest away at the front of the room. That feels awkward and I quickly get out. The small pool is between me and the others, so I slide in, bracing my hands against the bottom to avoid hitting my head. This pool is really too shallow to swim in. I get over to the other side and get out.

I didn't remember this one at all when I woke up, which was disappointing. But then I was reading in the morning and came across a scene which involved a severed head. I thought of the head and then I thought 'Taxidermy' and everything came back to me. This dream was so strange. The second part wasn't at all gory to experience but I suppose it could make some feel queasy.

Fragment 1:

I remember being in a boarding house with classmates from school. The building has two floors and is painted white or grey all over. There are no lights on and the sky outside is dim white, so inside it's shadowy. It's just us here, no host.

My room is on the ground floor and I step outside into a long hallway. The doors too are smooth and white, with pull-down handles. Recessed inside their frames they are dark with shadow. I walk past a pink laundry basket and up the single flight of stairs.

The upper floor is just as shadowy and plain. I pass along the hallway by closed white doors. At the end of the hallway is a dark, empty room with a window on the opposite wall and off to the side a doorless doorway into another empty space. In the wall opposite the doorway are two white doors, and one in the adjacent wall, all closed. I see two of my friends come out of this latter door. They are laughing and carrying a laundry basket.

Fragment 2:

I arrive at my street with a friend from school, we get out of the car. I see that there are two naked corpses, each splayed out face down on top of two cars which are next to one another. One of those cars - the blue one - might be mine, the other is grey. My friend has some reason for these being here. She wants to preserve the corpses so I offer to help her. I take a short scaffolding pole out of the boot of the car and push it into the anus of the nearest body. It enters cleanly and easily with a long part still sticking out. She pushes another into the other end of the body. I'm not clear about this part - in the dream I was sure this was the vagina, but it can't have been, more likely the mouth. But I'm sure it wasn't the mouth. I'm not sure these bodies even have heads. I suppose that's dream logic. At the end of this process poles stick out of both ends of the body, as if it has been impaled.

She asks if I'll help her with the other one too. I look down at the pole I now have in my hand. The pole is dented at the end and has some smudged black marks on it so I tell her it might not be suitable - I'm worried about it causing an infection. I walk up to my house leaving her to finish up on her own.

Outside the open door of my house I stand talking to my mum. She looks out and asks me what that's all about. After a moment's thought I tell her that my friend is interested in taxidermy.

Looking back I can see that both corpses have now been 'impaled'. From here they seem in a sort of spread-eagle position, toes pointed and arms stretched backwards, faces looking up.

Day 14 (Night of Friday 01.12.2023) is too fragmented to merit an entry.

Fragment: looking down a gently lit stairwell at school, sound of girls chattering below.

Me and my best friend from primary school are in a café (restaurant? Eatery?), waiting for another friend who I haven't seen since primary school. It's a small, narrow, high room built entirely of light-coloured planks, roughly hewn. There are large gaps in the wall like floor-length windows, but with no glass in them. I can see outside on a sort of market scene. There's a shop serving lots and lots of lovely-looking baked goods for pretty low prices, I can see their menu even from this far. I don't know what's on the menu of the place I'm in.

We sit at a table - also made of planks, it's what you might find in a hipster café, sideways-box seats on both sides and a white runner in the middle of the table. My friend and I are chatting while sitting next to each other. I look to my left and see a classmate from my current school sitting at a small table, on a school-style chair with a thin cushion, drinking a cappuccino. I go to the bathroom and when I get back she's moved to my table and is sitting opposite my friend. We all talk for a while before she leaves.

More time passes, I don't know how much, but it feels infinitely long as we keep waiting. He's really late. The light outside is still as bright as ever so we keep talking, discussing him, how long it's been, talking to each other.

Finally he arrives. The two of us have almost finished eating (when did the food appear?). He sits opposite, we all greet one another joyfully. For some reason he's wearing a black suit - not the most likely dress for another person my age. I'm delighted to see him.

I'm sad not to remember any of our conversation, since I know there was one. I really need to work on recalling speech! Anyway, after a short time of discussion, I get up and go to the bathroom again. When I return, he isn't here anymore. She tells me that he's already left. It's only been a short time since he came.

"But he only just arrived!"

"Well, you'll see him again. He said to say goodbye to you."

"I wanted to talk to him more. After all, he's my friend, too. And I've missed him..."

The view out of the window is different to before. I can see the back of the bakery shop. There's a bar bending around a corner piled high with giant, glistening canelés and other baked goods to be sold.

I love Sailor Moon. Does this count as a scary dream? I wouldn't call it a nightmare...

I am Tsukino Usagi (the main character of Sailor Moon) - appearance-wise, at least. It might be better to say I'm alternately watching her and being her. She has one sister and a father who is very controlling and doesn't let her go outside. But one evening, somehow, she manages to leave. As I'm walking down the street away from the apartment, I see my father outside a pub on the adjacent street. He is talking and drinking in the warm light and doesn't seem to have noticed me, so I continue walking at the same speed, head down, to avoid attracting his attention. As soon as I'm past the street corner and out of his view I run as fast as I can into town. It's dark out, and there aren't many people about, however the night this time has a dark brown sky rather than a blue one. It reminds me of an old photograph and imparts a sense of finality.

Some time later. I can see inside the apartment while not being there. Usagi's father is there seething over her disappearance while her mother frets, her younger sister (who looks a lot like another character) sits on the floor at his feet. I get the feeling that they are all afraid of him. He vows to find Usagi and bring her back.

Usagi goes to hide in various places. I see her inside a closed shop, a single dim light overhead. Her wristband glows (when did that appear?) and some waves radiate downwards from the lamp. I know instantly that they are transmitted by her father and he now knows where she is. I feel a terrible foreboding.

I don't remember much after that. I feel that she ends up being caught but continues to plan another escape.

I'm not sure if this dream is scary so much as unsettling. It's been years since I had a proper nightmare.

For a moment I see myself: a tall man, dressed in black and with black hair. I'm not myself in this dream, I am him, seeing everything through his eyes. I don't feel like a girl anymore.

A street at night. It's wide enough, paved evenly, though the slabs vary in colour and shade. The streetlamps give off a low, cool white light that's like moonlight. The sky above is dark blue without a single star.

In the middle of the two-lane road is an industrial-looking island, a tangle of thick pipes and ducts that come out of the ground and go back in again, twisting over one another. It's confined into a strict rectangular patch of ground. In the light the curves of the metal are glinting dully. I walk with quiet but sure footsteps onward, past railings and railings and railings, black and gleaming along the length of the street and around the corner. As I near it, eerie music starts playing from one of the corner houses. The house is purplish-grey and has three stories and a basement. On the first floor only the house's corners are missing and covered with a thick dark grey mesh. From here a bright purple mist is wafting out from inside. A purple van in front of the house reads in bubble letters above the windscreen: 'Ultra Shelibatology'.

I pass the house and walk through many more residential streets, across main roads; everything is dark and cool and quiet. Until when passing a garden square I catch sight of a man inside, watching me. He has light hair sticking up in tufts and his whole face is obscured in the dark except his staring eyes. Our eyes meet. Another person walks by in front of me.

The school bathroom. I'm washing my hands in front of the mirror. When I try to enter the only stall, the door is locked, but I can hear people talking inside. Annoyed, I go into another bathroom. There are two stalls in here, but one seems to have been replaced with a blank wall while the other is also occupied. I bang on the door and hear a surprised noise from inside, so, feeling guilty for disturbing them, I turn to leave the room. But this time the door feels extremely heavy and it takes me a long struggle to get it open. As I'm pulling at it my vision seems to black out and I reel back from the effort. When I finally stumble out, I feel so disoriented, it's as if my mind is trying to pull away from my body.
Finally I enter the third bathroom. By now I feel dizzy and can't see properly. Just as I get my bearings enough to register that there is a free stall I also see that someone else has come in after me and is about to enter it. I feel a sort of sinking despair and hopelessness at this. I stammer something out about how I was about to go in there. She takes a step back and offers to let me go first, but I, feeling sheepish, hurriedly refuse and resign myself to waiting.

At no time in this dream - nor when I woke up - did I feel I needed the toilet. It's not one of those dreams that I often hear about. Strangely, this is the third time I can remember dreaming about being in an eerie and somewhat surreal school bathroom. All looked different but all of them left me with a similar feeling of disorientation and unhappy confusion.

I remember being in a place that seems like an American-style cartoon town. Red barns (like Applejack's) surround a small square and wide dusty streets. They are big, each two floors and then a high barn roof. I have a brief image of being inside one of these, on the first floor. The floor was of light wood boards and the room was large and fairly empty. I feel that there were wrought iron spiral stairs down to the ground floor - though those would be rather out of place in a barn.

Outside there seems to be a small market going on. In the square I examine goods displayed on a wooden table. There are other people milling around, as well.

I was half-asleep when this one came to me. It's mixed in with details of what I was reading when I dozed off and I can remember a bit of a story!

I am in a boarding school - the buildings are somewhat old. All are built in different colours of brick as far as I can see. I'm eating lunch at a small, square table in the large canteen - a little ways off I can see a white brick pillar capped with brown bricks, and beyond it a broad vague expanse. A girl is sitting across from me, but she's nobody I know. She's eating a hot dish - it looks to me like white rice covered with a thick layer of tomato sauce and then sprinkled with walnuts (would this actually taste good???). I notice and register that our school should be a nut-free one, but pass it off thinking that perhaps she brought her own food. I am allergic to nuts.

A teacher (who I recognise) approaches us and sits near our table. As she's talking, for some reason I decide to try a bite of my companion's dish. Chewing absentmindedly, I suddenly remember that I can't eat nuts and spit out the one in my mouth. I see it's been slightly chewed and I feel myself start breathing faster as fear bolts through my body. Meanwhile, the teacher has left some time before without my noticing. Hurrying up to my dorm room I tell myself that this is just a panic reaction and I'll be fine, since I didn't even swallow.

I arrive at the door to my room. The dormitories are laid out along open-air walkways which form a square around a central courtyard and rise for several levels, all in the same white and brown brick: the balconies are white, capped with brown. The walls of the building are brown. A blond-haired boy steps out in front of me and begins speaking, but I push past him and begin heading back downstairs - when I realise I was in such a rush that I forgot to pick up my EpiPen. So I run back, get it, and go back to lunch. But I never suffer an allergic reaction.

Later, a Christmas celebration. Most of the school is crowded into the brown-brick church. It's Victorian-style and reminds me of the chapel on the grounds of another well-known boarding school. Organ music drifts across the snowy churchyard to our ears as we wait for the service to begin. I am outside the church, skipping the service with my friends, the chilly air chafing harshly against my face, and the snow still falling.

I've been lazy about editing my journals for posting so I've got a bit of a backlog now. Four more dreams waiting to be posted - including this morning's journal! Nothing lucid yet but it looks like my recall is improving, so that's good. Perhaps I'd better move on to trying some lucid techniques soon.

I'm abroad in a different city. I'm sure this is some mainland European country, though it somewhat reminds me of English country towns. The buildings and walls are built of large irregular cobblestones while the streets are paved in the uneven way that's so common in Corsica (to the detriment of my shoes). I catch sight of a large set of wooden double doors, black, wide but not as high as those I see in Italy and France.

I'm guided to the house where I'll be staying by two men. They both wear glasses and seem nerdy, I think they are a gay couple. In retrospect, I'm quite sure the two looked exactly the same - that, or I saw only one and imagined the second. The two are friendly and I remember them talking and laughing with me. They have brown hair.

I meet two more people later on. One is a businessman - broad-shouldered, black suit, cold expression and an office full of heavy dark wooden furniture, thick books and leather upholstery. He reminds me greatly of a character from one of my favourite series. I don't remember the other.

At one point, I'm wandering the streets in the evening, light spilling out of restaurant windows which display scenes of people leaning towards one another talking, cutlery resting loosely between gesticulating fingers, red wine swilling about in glasses, unfinished dishes on the table. I can almost hear the hubbub of hundreds of conversations jostling to make themselves heard.

Not much today. I was half-asleep while noting down the dream and too tired to write much - editing it later I've almost forgotten the rest.

I dream of waking up, blissfully slowly, snug and warm and surrounded by bright golden light. It's the kind of light that makes you want to sleep. More accurately, I'm being woken by someone - a man, smiling - who? I don't feel that he and I are close. I lie in a three-quarter bed - a wrought bedstead in shiny gold metal, with sheets and covers in two shades of pink. I think that if Princess Peach's dress were a bed, it would look like this. It is in the centre of a large, bare, bright room. Although there's nothing here I feel warm and safe.

The above is what I remember now, after 10 PM - having woken up at 5:30 AM. Soon after waking I wrote this:

"I dream of two people who are waking me up (separately) at 6 and after 6. I remember they gave me gifts."

Sadly I've forgotten those other details.

I also remember a car driving along a dark road at night, the sky is a deep rich blue. None of the usual trees growing beside the road either. I have a view over a wide open space. The car is a very stylish old sort and of a colour between pink and maroon. It's open-topped and the windows rimmed with silver metal. The license plate only has 6 digits although they all have 7 over here. I remembered the plate when I woke up and now I only remember the beginning: MV0. Actually, I think the second part was BKZ. I am inside the car, seeming to view it simultaneously from several points of view. I'm not driving - there is no driver. I can feel the cool night air and the low rumble of the engine. Looking up at the clear sky fills me with calm and peace, as though I am all alone in the world.