Awake to take in the view...

Sleep: About 7.5 hours. This seems to be optimal for me. It's generally harder for me to fall asleep when I'm getting enough rest every night. BUT, this is a good thing. Because of this, my brain is significantly more awake once I do fall asleep, and therefore my dreams are more vivid and memorable.

Also, I think my brain is hard-wired to keep me up late. Like, ideally my body seems to want to go to sleep at around 12:30-1 AM and wake up at around 8:15 or so. I feel the most refreshed in the morning this way. However, this doesn't generally tend to work with modern-day American society, so I will have to see. Maybe I can adjust accordingly, to the friendlier schedule of sleeping from like 11:00 PM to 6:30 AM, and it will have the same effect. I will make some plans this weekend hopefully and try and figure that out.

DREAMS
Dream 1: I was talking with my brother and some other people, in the family room of my parents' house. There was a Slowpoke (the Pokemon) just chilling on our bench, so I guess Pokemon were real, too. Somebody sitting with us compared the Slowpoke to a really smart person who is just really lazy. I don't know if the Pokemon felt insulted by that or not. :O

Then, outside in our backyard, an insane amount of rocks started flying around in the air, and I think the room started shifting too. We all freaked out, but I woke up before anything disastrous happened!

Dream 2: I think I had a false awakening. Didn't trigger lucidity though. I thought that I had woken up extremely late, and now I was super far behind with my schoolwork.

Dream 3: Warning: this one gets a little bit PG-13. I was on some sort of train. I believe that the train was magical in some way, but I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, I talked to two separate women while I was on the train. I remember one of them was this nice blond-haired lady, maybe in her 30s-40s. She wanted to talk to me and do some sort of study or experiment, which required me to, um, take off my shorts. I can't remember what the, er, study was, but I remember removing my shorts that I was wearing and sitting around chatting with her in my underwear and T-shirt. I think I liked that a little bit too much. ._____________.

It was weird also since we were in a crowded train. I bet if I hadn't woken up, I would've become lucid in this one.

The exact same thing happened with the other lady. I don't remember what she looked like though.

Dreams are so weird. Especially when they're non-lucid. Like...dang. :O

Not much remembered from last night. I have in my dream notes "Creepy thing, plus white fluid, plastic bottle." I don't remember what was creepy, but I do remember waking up with a scared feeling. And I do remember a plastic water bottle filled with some weird white fluid.

Cursed fragments. That's all I've got for today. D: And now I'm going to bed! Slept 7 hours btw.

Last night, I only slept about 6 hours because I had to leave at 4:45 AM to catch a 7 AM plane flight.

So the only dream I remember was some guy asking about tuplae.

I also took a nap for pretty much the entire plane flight in order to make up for lost sleep. I had a (not particularly vivid, but ok) dream that I was going through airport security again. I realized that I had already gone through security, so I had to be dreaming! I then tried my new telekinesis reality check suggested by someone on here, and it worked quite well. I think I walked through security without finishing, saying something like "screw you" to the guard (I promise I'm a nice person irl c: ) and then used telekinesis to throw some random toy guns around. It worked great!

Didn't realize that it's almost the deadline in Eastern time. Let me write these out really quickly. I have been visiting my parents and also recovering from the effects of finals, so my sleep has been very deep lately. As a result, I haven't had lucidity these last few nights :/ Oh well. It's a work in progress and I can't give up, right? At least I have been sleeping 8 hours a night, which feels AMAZING. But tonight I will be getting around 7 because I have a super early plane flight.

Dreams from April 28-29:
- Some lady I know (can't remember who) was telling me that Britney Spears was in a romantic relationship with another woman. She was living the boring life of a housewife. I accidentally rubbed against her while I was flying (I have NO IDEA what this means, but it was in my note about my dream that I wrote in the middle of the night), and I realized the lady (Britney Spears' significant other) was actually the lady I was talking to.

- I had to take a test in band for some reason (my band class doesn't have tests). It was really hard because the pictures and the notes kept changing. Normally this would've clued me in to the fact that I was dreaming, but my sleep was too deep.

- I was no longer first on the waiting list for Technical Communication. Someone had changed the time, professor, and waiting list -- I was like 4th or 5th instead of 1st (which I am in the waking world). I was livid.

April 29th-30th:
- A tornado occurred from different types of winds meeting.
- I talked to one of my friends about the programming lab we were working on, and how long it took for me to code portions of it.

...And that's it. 5 dream fragments = 2.5 points.

I slept very deeply last night. As such, I didn't recall too much...
1. I had a nice chat with one of my friends in the math building. He seemed pretty happy.
2. I was talking about expired food with some friends, for whatever reason, and one guy said that he is really bad about eating food before it expires.

I think the second dream came about because I keep cooking food in bulk to save time, get sick of eating the same thing for 4+ days in a row, and taking a break and forgetting about it and then it goes bad. I hate it when that happens :V

So my sad total for today is 2 non-lucid fragments = 1 point!

I did sleep 8 hours, and that's the first time I've done that since January, I think. My body is unaccustomed to sleeping that long, it seems, as the last hour was pretty fitful. However, I do feel amazing right now, so I'll try and continue this trend.

So I was added to spellbee's competition on the 22nd, I believe. However, I didn't log onto DreamViews because final exams suck! And I should be updating this journal regardless of whether or not I'm in a competition, but I suppose now's a good time as any to start again! Anyway, here's a quick recap of the dreams I have recalled. I still have the messy midnight handwriting problem, though. -_-

4/22-23 (Night):
1. I was in some sort of cyberspace / virtual world. A person became a giant.
2. I kept reawakening from this one. My family and I were at a nice hotel of sorts. I can't for the life of me tell if my dream journal says "waitresses" or "mattresses". But basically, someone spilled water and it either got the waitresses or mattresses wet. :O

4/23 (Nap):
1. This is what happens when you're sleep-deprived, which unfortunately was me due to final projects, portfolio work, and exams. While sitting at an uncomfortable wooden desk in the library, I allowed myself to fell asleep and went straight into REM/sleep paralysis. I was conscious of the fact that this was happening throughout the majority of it. My tulpa whispered into my ear and I could feel her breath. Didn't quite see her -- it was like a dream where the only senses were sound and touch. This all took place in about 10 minutes' time. It was really cool, albeit also a bit alarming because I realized just how much of a toll my current schedule is taking on my body. I should be getting a LOT more sleep for the remainder of this week.

4/23-4/24 (Night):
1. I was looking up song lyrics online, and apparently I had a virus or something because one of those "Hot Asian Girls Looking for Single Men" spam messages kept popping up. O.o My mom came in, and asked me if I was "pulling a [something involving a girl's name]" again. I had no idea what she was talking about. My brother defended me.
2. I was watching some films in the animation theater at my university. Some characters included a whale-like creature and some Pokemon. It was really hot in there, but at least the film was really good until the end. They must've not finished editing it, because it was really patchy/choppy.

Afterwards, I had a computer graphics class with my old professor and just one other girl.

And no recall for the last few nights.

And that's it! So that's 4 non-lucid fragments = 2 points, and one WILD = 10 points for a total of 12! These WILDs are real, but they're also cheap. This one wasn't even all that vivid. :/ But hey, it's good considering how intense things have been for me in the waking world.

(See Tues/Wed and Wed/Thurs for a description of the dreams mentioned in the title).

Sunday/Monday night

7 hours of sleep. A direct transcription of my dream journal, which has proven rather difficult to read:
Mic pix
Had to hold sisters' up; they were in boxes for some reason
And a friend of mine from IRL was there

Monday/Tuesday
No dream recall whatsoever. So sad! D: 6 hours sleep

Tuesday/Wednesday
6-ish hours of sleep. I honestly can't decipher this note either. I think I was still very much in a dreamlike state when I wrote it, because it makes virtually no sense.
"Dad, strange dry -- almost meter side (winner?)
sprinklers"

I remember this one though: I was at a zoo/aquarium (combination of the two). One exhibit had a nice animal in it (panda? polar bear? I think it was some sort of bear) and some creatures that were made out of slime! They were black with cute eyes, apparently. One snuck out of its exhibit somehow in order to talk to me. He wanted to be free in order to be with his wife and kids. Because apparently, slime creatures get married and have families. :O I guess he needed help getting out of there, even though he had already gotten out of the exhibit. However, the employer (zookeeper?) caught him. A snake friend of mine and I tried to save him, but the results were inconclusive...as in, I can't remember what happened or whether or not I woke up before the dream finished.

Wednesday/Thursday
6 hours of sleep again. I was almost lucid in this one, but not quite. I had hypnagogic imagery, and I think there was a white toaster floating in a black void. There was a creepy disembodied voice that kept repeating "Dreams within dreams! Dreams within dreams!" and it scared the crap out of me. Tess scolded me a bit when I forced myself to wake up because I could have taken control of the dream! However I wasn't thinking logically enough to do that, it seems.

Thursday/Friday

No dream recall sadly. 7 hours of sleep, but man I was exhausted. IRL, this whole week has been a disaster. Botched an important project that was worth 6% of my grade in one of my major courses. The stress of this semester is insane, and I really hope I can come out on top with acceptance into my program and all As. And not getting super fat in the process would be good too.

...And the secret was getting 7.75 hours of sleep, apparently. I'm going to try and continue this trend. Regardless of how intense the week is, I will do my best to get enough sleep on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Which, for me, will be hugely beneficial I think.

So here's a list of all the many dreams I have recalled from last night:

Dream 1: Non-lucid; experienced during first 20 minutes of sleep. I fell asleep at roughly 12:10 AM, and had a dream about hanging out with my sister, my brother or friend (I think?), and a friend of my sister's. My sister went to use the bathroom, and the other guy I was with was talking with me and her friend. We were talking about her, but I don't precisely remember what we were talking about specifically. When she finished using the bathroom, she came out and said "You know I heard you while I was in there", because IRL my sister really does have good hearing. So maybe it was something embarrassing, but I don't really know for sure. I woke up and it was only 12:32 AM, so my brain had apparently launched me pretty quickly into REM again for some reason.

Dream 2: Non-lucid, but very close to lucidity. Good vs. evil! A giant snake was trying to kill me and two other people. However, my stuffed snake, Snakey, my tulpa, and I were destined to save us all! (I actually do have a stuffed snake, and he is actually named Snakey. He is the coolest. However, he is at my parent's house right now. :p In the dream, he had become real.) We prayed that we would be able to triumph over the snake. Then, we felt like we should just will it away, because -- get this -- we recognized that it was only in our heads and wasn't actually real. This one was SO CLOSE to being lucid, because of that realization, but not quite! We willed it away, and it worked!

Dream 3: Non-lucid. This is a fuzzier dream that I experienced during what felt like deeper sleep. Arguably it would've been significantly harder to become lucid during this one because of this fact. This one occurred in the middle of the night, if I recall correctly. IRL, I work part-time as a computer science TA at my university, helping students debug Java and Android programs. In this dream, the other TAs and I apparently "did not want to stop believing OR coding". I believe some malevolent individual was trying to get us to stop believing in God or something and also stop programming. Someone said that he would kill us all if we didn't do this. He had an army of supporters to back him up. Then, it faded and we were in a theme park. I dream a LOT about theme parks. Anyway, we were on the rides, but I was watching from a distance despite being on a ride technically myself. (?) Some of my fellow TAs were riding on a white roller coaster. The evil guy's plan was to hack into all the rides while we we're still on them, and somehow harm us. Maybe shut them down. I don't really know. I was worried for the others. Then, it faded again, and we were on a revolving turntable, much like the turntable by the roundhouse in Thomas the Train, but indoor and stark and depressing. I got onto it, and the evil guys had surrounded us. However, I somehow knew that we were going to be safe, and we were saved. I don't remember how.

Dream 4: Non-lucid. I was in a lecture hall of some sort for artists. The lady teaching was trying to tell us that 3D artists should NOT learn to draw or digitally paint, because apparently it would actually make us worse, since it would take time away from learning how to model and render a scene. I was really ticked because I definitely disagree with that philosophy, and I believe that the general 3D community would agree with me.

Dream 5: The DILD! Sort of. I didn't have a specific reality check that worked this time. But when I sleep 8 hours or close to it, my body starts waking up more and more as my actual wakeup time approaches. I will often physically wake up to use the bathroom or get a drink of water, and then go back to sleep for a while longer. This is the most natural thing for me. As I do this, I have more and more dreams, and more and more REM sleep. Then, I am much more likely to recall dreams, and also much more likely to become lucid. Hard work pays off, guys!

First, I was on the internet. Some girl said that she had recently had a week-long paid internship with Disney, where they were basically paid to ride rides all day long. They were supposed to observe the culture of theme parks, or something. Then, I suddenly found myself on a cart or truck thing going to a theme park. It was presumably Disney, but there were a lot of rides that Disney definitely doesn't have IRL. All these other people were on the truck, too, but they were official interns and wore brown vests. I was there, but I didn't have a vest, so apparently I wasn't an official intern. I was worried I'd get in trouble for being on the truck despite not being officially hired, and wasn't sure how I even got there in the first place. My mom and my brother were there, too. And neither of them had vests. I went to go sit by my mom, but as I sat down beside her, she disappeared. I felt that she was still there, but had no idea why she had just randomly become invisible. Also, the seats were tiny, so my butt barely fit on them. We were in the back of the truck, in the open air with just a pavilion thing over us. So if it would have been raining, we would've been sheltered, but we still got fresh air.

We kept riding in the truck, looking at the rides that we would soon ride. I then realized that I was dreaming, because Disneyland does not look like that IRL. Too many thrill rides. Well, that and my mom randomly disappearing.

So I sat by my brother, and told him, "I think we're in a dream right now." And he said something like "We definitely could be. Is everything out of focus?" I said that yes, everything most certainly was out of focus. So he said that it probably was a dream. Suddenly, instead of being inside of a truck, it was just me and him and the (inferred) driver inside of an SUV or a Jeep Cherokee or something, and there were suddenly windows. So I clambered out the window, which was partially rolled down, and flew towards one of the rides!

It was a water ride with boats that looked like Perilous Plunge, an old ride from Knott's Berry Farm that I never actually went on. It went inside of a brown artificial mountain, and it was super cool. But just as I was about to reach a boat to get on it, I woke up. D: NOOOOOO!

The dream was still fuzzy, too. I wish it was more vivid, but mentally I was so close to awakening that I did accidentally wake myself up. -_-

Also, my notes read "still had sizzle". Nope, no idea what I meant by that. o.o

Dream 6: I tried to re-enter the previous dream, but to no avail. I do have a note that said "she knew I wanted it lol." Don't recall what that means, but I can guarantee you that it was not appropriate.

Dream 7: I had a dream. There may have been a girl but I can't really read my notes. This was more like a fragment. My alarm woke me up before I could get any further.

And that's it.

Slept 7.5 hours last night. I've been lacking sufficient REM sleep lately, having not slept enough for the majority of the week, and I think that's why I started dreaming and woke up about 30 minutes later, then fell back asleep with no recollection of dreams for the rest of the night. Weird how that works -- I'll have to do some more research.

The one dream I remember was from that 30 minute period shortly after going to bed. I was at home home, as in my parent's house, which I only go to during breaks from college nowadays. There were spiders all over the place. I'm freaking terrified of spiders. D: The other weird thing in this dream was that my dad was nervous just like I was, when in the waking world he tells me to stop being so scared of things like that. Yet that wasn't enough to clue me in to lucidity. But it was close. Ish.

I need a new reality check. Checking my watch hasn't worked in years, and attempting to fly worked a few times, but it simply hasn't occurred to me during a dream. And I'm not doing the trying to breathe with your nose plugged thing, because the idea of not being able to breathe scares me. o.o Maybe I'll try the one where you push your finger through your hand. We will see.

Non-lucid. I was in line with my mom at a restaurant. This high school kid and his mom started acting rather nastily towards us, although I can't remember what precisely they said. The kid looked like this guy I knew in elementary and high school, who was pretty cool, so it's funny that this dream should cast him as a jerk. Or at least, someone who looks like him.

My mom and I both understandably got pretty angry at them. I also have a note about a rubber band, but I don't remember what it's from.

The night before that, I have no recall.

And the night before that, I had a non-lucid dream in which I saw my friend whom I haven't seen in forever and began talking to him, but I was so exhausted that I could not stay awake inside that dream! We were in the math/computer science building at my university.

A third note from that night is illegible.

YAY

I remembered one dream fragment last night. YAY

I was walking towards an office building, and a little jingle was playing in the air. I'm not sure where it was coming from.

And despite around 7-7.5 solid hours of sleep, that's all I remember. Oh well.

...and the coolest story idea ever! I only remembered one dream from last night, and sadly it wasn't lucid, but it was still really awesome.

My family and I were going to the Haunted Islands (which is a placeholder name for a foreboding archipelago in my imaginational world that will be used in one of my novels at some point).

But they were significantly different than how I designed them in my conscious, waking life. For one thing, they were more of a theme park or tourist attraction. In fact, as we were going to visit, we weren't sure if the place was really dangerous or if it was just a fun attraction. We went in the evening, when the sun had already set, so it was already pretty creepy.

There were two large mountains that embodied the spirits of the island. The narrative temporarily faded, and instead I was looking at a coloring book with the mountains outlined on it. I started coloring them in with a gray marker. Then, they became real again. One had the head of a snake, with glowing eyes which switched from yellow to blue every few minutes or so. The other was another monster, more mammalian: I can't remember precisely what it was, but I think it was either a bear or a wolf or something. The snake-mountain was really cool. It was almost seductive in the way that it spoke, inviting us to the island. However, it also creeped me out, even though I absolutely love snakes in the waking world. I think I just got a really bad feeling, and so did my parents. Like we shouldn't be there.

The snake gave us one last warning: We had a short increment of time in which we could still leave. The gates to the haunted world were closing, but we had like a minute to rush out.

My sister was really excited by the prospect of exploring this haunted world. My brother usually goes along with her IRL, and he did so in the dream. However, my parents decided to leave. At the very last second, I decided to as well. A silver analog clock read 10:25 PM, and I had a lot of homework to do even in the dream. We rushed out the gates and just got out before they shut. Barely. Narrowest escape in a dream ever. xD

And then I remember vaguely something about Scooby-Doo.

This is oddly symbolic of what's going on in the waking world. Suffice it to say that my sister was doing some rather unhealthy things...think drugs and sex as a high schooler. And my brother isn't doing anything crazy., but he is losing his faith and is really struggling emotionally.

I'm using this dream as a creative idea. Either for a novel or a theme park ride idea, or -- better yet -- both! I'd like to be an Imagineer one day, but I don't think this idea would work particularly well for Disney.

Oh, and I also had two more dreams, but I couldn't remember them. I know I had them, but I had zero recollection of the content upon waking.

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...

I only remembered a tiny bit from last night.

Dream Fragment 1: There was a guy who played clarinet with the rest of us (I'm in the university band at my school, and we had rehearsal yesterday, so).

Also a note that I couldn't read.

Dream Fragment 2: Something involving a snake. My notes were rather lacking last night. :')

And now I'm off to sleep for night 13!

Only a few quick dream fragments and one full dream from last night.

While admittedly I haven't been doing spectacularly well this contest, it's still been extremely helpful so far. I mean, now I'm actually writing in my DJ regularly, and that's awesome for me.

Fragment 1: I was talking with Tess and this girl, and the girl's boyfriend was there. Both the girl and her boyfriend were true dream characters; I have never seen either of them in the waking world. Apparently, it was like a double date or something so romantic things started happening, but I don't quite remember the details lol.

Fragment 2: I recall a series of random images culminating in...Donald Trump. Yeah. I don't know. xD I guess he's all over the news these days so it makes sense that he'd find his way into my subconscious mind.

Full Non-Lucid 1: I was at my film development class with the other students. I was actually accepted into the computer science animation emphasis program in the story of the dream (now if only it were real...). The professor acted differently. I think he was super nice and not the really harsh art critic that he usually is. I think he asked me to go fetch some donuts for the class or something. I don't remember precisely. But hey, if you're going to actually accept me into your program, I'll buy you all the freaking donuts you want!