false awakening

Hypnagogia: I was prompting AI to do something. Don't remember what.

Dreams:

• I had Disney Vacation Club Points -- a total of 10736. I do not do any of that timeshare stuff IRL so I have no idea if that number even makes sense.
• Lady had cargo (???) can't read it
• We found bulls. We were in a crowd, and I was worried about them charging. Suddenly, we were in our house that I grew up in and my parents still live in. I hopped on a fence to stay safe from the bulls, which also had teleported there. My mom said something...illegible. The cart (?) has term lodging (?) 44 (?)
• False awakening in which I checked the time on my bed as 4:35 AM
• Dream of Lagoon amusement park and (illegible) days

No lucidity, but hopefully I will keep up my journaling and other practices up even after the competition.

I missed posting yesterday. Or, more accurately, I was so tired that I couldn't bring myself to sit at my computer and I just passed out instead. Ope.

I'll crank this one out as quick as I can, as I still have a few more things to do before bed tonight. But there's a lot. SO

NIGHT 6 (4/19-4/20)
1. Dream fragment: There was a show called Tigers and Tiaras.
2. Attempted DEILD; was not successful.
3. (full non-lucid) I was in some place that looked vaguely like a Japanese restaurant, fighting some monsters. Some had dangerous spit that would make you go off the rails a few hours after getting hit by it. I grabbed a large poster and almost knocked over some candles with it -- according to my knowledge in the dream, they were my mom's candles, though why my mom had brought candles into a restaurant I can't say. This was because I was in such a rush to get the monsters out of my way, but it made me nervous, as I did not want to start a fire.
4. I was at a carnival with rides near -- you guessed it -- Disney World. The mouse is plumbing the innermost depths of my subconscious with a fine-toothed comb.

I won a choice of gifts from a game or contest. I wanted to use the Fast Lane privilege at the carnival. Another alternative prize was a sock, and another alternative was a collection of Christmas-themed gear. I don't remember which one I selected, but probably the Fast Lane. We (me and who? I don't know) were then eating breakfast and watching the carnival rides warm up for the day. Then the announcer said my name, pronouncing my last name incorrectly, announcing that I had won.

The announcer seemed chill, but very tired.

I had to get some stuff done -- fun or work, I'm not sure -- before a plane flight out of Florida that I had at 4 PM that day.

5. False awakening! I had one of my classic "Writing in my dream journal" false awakenings. Unfortunately, I didn't go lucid. I think it would be smart to just do a reality check, and really question everything, every time I go to write in the journal. When I woke up, whatever I had written wasn't there, just the recordings from the earlier dreams listed above.

NIGHT 7 (4/20-4/21)

1. Hypnagogic imagery, in which I listened to the Easter piece we had performed in church choir that day.
2. (Non-lucid, but on the cusp of lucidity) I was lost in a creepy world, trying to save a bunch of princesses, including Elsa from Frozen (like I said, the mouse is deep within my brain -- !!!!), using a magic necklace to get past obstacles. We were inside some sort of vast, sprawling building.

But, they all ditched me, instead siding with the evil organization that trapped us there in the first place.

So I was left betrayed and alone by Elsa my beloved. Sad day.

Oh, and there was lava on the floor. Green and with the properties of honey. I couldn't tell you which properties -- don't remember; journal doesn't say. There were different chambers within this room that served to connect people to ancient princess powers.

Then, wishing for a safe space, I immediately found a chamber that actually led me outside, and holy crap. Beautiful night sky with stars and pine trees, and chirping crickets. I sat there in some random swivel chair, spinning myself around to calm down and relax. It was also nice and cool out there. Very hot inside the building. Lava will do that.

I was being protected then by some nice guardian ladies, but I was afraid that they would be overtaken by the now-evil Disney princesses.

While I didn't become fully lucid, I did have a slight influence over the outcome because when I wanted a safe space, it appeared. I really think I was just one more piece of introspection away from lucidity, in retrospect.

Instead i just kept twirling around and watching that starry night sky.

Who knows what happened to that necklace. Must've still been wearing it, but my brain forgor.

3. (Non-Lucid) I got my own backpack with fandom related merch in it! OK, so in addition to Mickey Mouse, the upcoming SDCC is also permeating deeply within my subconscious.

4. Hypnagogic imagery again -- Gaming-related, as I sat there half-awake 10 minutes before my alarm. Man, if I had been able to sleep another 30 but with that wakeup, I probably would've had some lucids. I experienced some buzzing as the beginning of SP and a sensation of vibration, but I was unable to launch into a WILD/DEILD due to the time constraint. Dang it!

I wrote in my dream journal a lot this week, but did so in poor lighting, with poor posture, and while half asleep so I can't read most of it now.

So this is what I can gather, from this week. I had quite a few vivid dreams for some reason.

- Some sort of Star Wars like dream. There was a "ghost wall" or invisible shield, and a desert on an alien planet. I was an intergalactic warrior of some sort, I think. Or traveler.
- I had a dream about lucid dreaming, which was pretty cool. In that lucid dream, I flew over the ocean. However, I had somewhat of a false awakening after that; I think into a previous dream?
- A dream about Brandon Sanderson (who I am currently taking a class from!), which involved horror, a false awakening (possibly the same one as before?) and a boardwalk!
- The boardwalk had a very cool looking thrill ride, with two huge spinning cars. A friend of mine was there, and my brother.
- I dreamt that the local amusement park had moved closer to me, so I could walk to it! I could also fly.
- something about the Little Mermaid? lol
- something about a creepy mirror
- season pass to something (maybe the boardwalk or amusement park?)
- Dreamt that I was falsely accused at work for making obscene jokes. This is funny because we do this all the time at work and no one cares.
- Two other guys I knew from the past, "Dylan" and "Maz", as I'll call them, were...working? I can't read my handwriting.

I swear I normally have nice handwriting. Just not when I wake up at 3 AM to write a dream down. D:

I'm still gonna count that false awakening one as lucid, though!

I only remember one little snippet of a dream from last night. I had a false awakening in which I woke up in the middle of the night, went to use the restroom, and then for some reason decided it would be a good idea to apply Rogaine even though it was the middle of the night, and you don't want to sleep with that stuff on because then it gets spread everywhere. xD Unfortunately, I didn't become lucid.

Dream Fragment 1: I was in a creepy house. I could sense a ghost, and it scared the crap out of me. I woke up and was still freaked for a second before I realized that it was just a dream. o_o

Full Non-Lucid Dream 2: Warning, this is a bit nsfw, but it's what happened and I was not in control. :p I was getting some groceries and talking with the cashier at Walmart, and we both agreed that everyone should just get free membership cards. Does Walmart even offer membership cards? xD There were a few people behind me -- an African American lady, an invisible lady (I could sense her presence, or something), and I think a few other women. One of them -- can't remember who precisely -- started doing something physical to me that would be rather inappropriate to mention on a public forum and which would most certainly not happen in a public setting, and my dream self rather enjoyed it. Wasn't enough to make me lucid though. The weird thing is, I doubt that I would have been attracted to any of those people in real life. They were pretty generic, standard Wally World people. THE PEOPLE OF WALMART! Dreams can make you horny, I suppose. o____O

Oh, and in that dream, I actually had a false awakening. Inside of my dream, I woke up, and thought "Hey, I remembered a dream!" and immediately began writing it down in my dream journal. I also have a vague memory of there being a Nutri Grain wrapper beside me, when in actuality I hardly ever eat inside of my room (too messy). And then I woke up for real, and was confused because I thought that I had already written it down in my journal, yet there was nothing on the page.

Dream Fragment 3 (NOT COUNTING): My last note reads "Idk I think a 3rd one but got lost on the Z" I don't know what this means. xD But it was definitely one of those moments where you know you almost remembered the dream, but it just narrowly escapes you. D: Hence, I'm not counting this for the sake of honesty.

I haven't had an LD in a while. Hopefully tonight will change that. But then again, this is first and foremost a process that requires time and hard work to achieve. So we will see how this all plays out. I'm really going to make the effort to make sleep more of a priority in my life, but we'll see if I can pull it off...

A few days back, there were two nights in a row where I was having dreams like Inception or something. Essentially, I knew that I was dreaming, but then I would have false awakenings inside of the dream. So I would think that I was awake, but I was actually still sleeping.

In one particularly memorable dream, I was part of a laboratory experiment on sleeping. The idea was a bit absurd, now that I have my waking brain to analyze it: If I drank water during a dream, when I was thirsty, would I still be thirsty upon waking? I fell asleep inside of the dream, and took a nice long draught of water. I woke up inside the laboratory dream and found that no, I wasn't thirsty anymore! The scientists were all excited, and so was I. Then I woke up for real, and realized how cool that was. Unfortunately, I was still thirsty, so I took a drink of water for real.

Experiment result: If you are thirsty during a dream, you should just fall asleep inside of the dream, and drink water within that dream. xD Or just wake up and drink water for real.

In another dream, I think I knew I was dreaming and so I flew, but I wasn't conscious enough to think of anything more than that. -_-

Last night is a bit more hazy, and I have an insane amount of homework to do today so this will be a quick summary:

- A little girl who was left behind on a haunted island (with spirits and such) finally got found, rescued, and reunited with her loved ones. I think that I helped her somehow, but I honestly don't remember. I had a degree of lucidity in that one.
- Another dream happened where I became lucid while driving a car through some mountains. Decent amount of city around me. I was singing and thought it would be a brilliant idea to practice my singing voice in my dream, where nobody could hear me. However my logic wasn't working too well and for some reason I thought I was actually singing out loud and was going to wake up my roommates. This caused me to wake up and realize I wasn't. -_-
- I was in some sort of theater, and asked everyone in the room something like, "Hey! Who here knows they're dreaming right now?" My brother was there, too. I was hoping that someone else would remember, or maybe there'd be a shared dream or something, but I honestly can't remember what anyone said...
- I was watching some sort of advertisement, and there was this girl in a swimsuit who was sort of attractive except she had one of those gross spray-on tans.
- I have a vague memory of some sort of romantic/sexual dream, but I sadly can't remember it. Maybe I'll have a continuation of that theme tonight? :O We will see. That would be awesome!

You know why this night was so successful, though? Affirmations plus sufficient sleep! The night before, I told myself I WILL lucid dream tonight, and I guess that determination worked its way into my subconscious. Plus Daylight Savings Time helped a TON. Woo!