Awake to take in the view...

Aaah it has been hard for me to lucid dream lately. The last two semesters at college (winter semester and spring term) almost killed me. There were a LOT of nights of 4-5 hours of sleep and even though I got all As and A-s, the end result of that - fatigue and exhaustion - was NOT pretty. So once I got home in June I kinda went into a funk, mostly oversleeping without LDing, playing Pokemon, and reading a ton of books. It wasn't good, although I did read some pretty awesome novels.

Now, I'm trying to get back on track with my goals.

The night before last night, I actually slept better than I have in about a month, even though I was at my aunt and uncle's house sleeping on an air mattress. The only dream I really remember from that night was riding down a bunch of water slides, which makes sense because that is what I did for the majority of that day.

I also had an LD a few weeks back in which I was on a spaceship as an astronaut, something I've always wanted to do, but the thing was about to crash. I became lucid spontaneously, but I freaked out that I'd lose dream control and have this terrible nightmare, so I forced myself awake. -_- I really hate it when I do that. I am such a pansy sometimes.





But now for last night's dreams! No lucidity, but that's because I've been a fat lazy slacker pansy.

Dream 1: I had to go back to college, and I was back early for some reason. (This seems to be a common dream for me during the summers). The date on my watch said 7-29. The annoying thing is that checking my watch is usually my main reality check, but this time I didn't get a clue. I was in this class for my major. I don't remember what it was, but I DO remember it was basically like a second art and drawing class, which was super exciting for me. I also got to have the same art teacher, which made me really happy.

I also had the exact same Spanish teacher, and he was super excited to see me. Lots of the girls in the class recognized me too. Interesting because I was considering dropping my Spanish class - not because I want to, but because I may not have enough room in my schedule to take it. But I really want to take it, so. :/

Dream 2: Enter the Magic School Bus. I was on this random vehicle. In front of me, there were 3 or so elementary school aged girls. Some guy told them we were on the Magic School Bus. They freaked out, whereas I was super excited. c:

I've had dreams about the Magic School Bus before, which is funny. Last time the dream was all in cartoon, though. Despite having not watched the show in many years, I seem to think about it a lot and how I want to get back into it.

I've been reading a lot of dragon-related fantasy novels lately, so I'm surprised I haven't been having any dreams with dragons in them. Lame sauce.

Incidentally, I need to get an avatar for this forum. I will find a cool one. I need to log off before my dad comes and tells me I'm wasting my time. See, as much as I love the guy, everything I do is a waste of time to him, with the exception of school and work.

Well, that's all for now. I hope I can be more active on this thing. It'll be the hardest thing to do when fall comes around because computer science major - animation emphasis is a crazy intense major at my school. All the intense programming and math, plus hard art classes too. It's hard to find time to get enough sleep. But that's the thing about goals you want to succeed at. You might slip up, even after a long period of success. You just have to keep persevering, and then you will get there. That's what I believe, anyway, so here goes for working hard at this once more.

I haven't had a lucid dream in a long time, and it's quite frustrating. I used to be so natural at it. :/

This semester at college has kept me up until crazy late hours (sometimes 3 or 4 AM...) doing homework and working, and it has really screwed up my sleep schedule. Thankfully, it's almost over - just 3 more finals - and I'm trying to get myself back on track. I've been doing more reality checks, and trying a lot harder to get enough sleep each night.

Thus, last night's dreams! I actually got about 8 hours of sleep last night. Unfortunately, my recall isn't as good as it used to be. None of these were lucid. I'll get back where I used to be, though!

First dream: I was walking through this forest on a trail. It was at the edge of the forest, by a cottage. This wilderness guy who lived in the cottage was walking with me. He said that we couldn't stay out too long in the forest, because there would be wolves. o.o I woke up after that.

Second: There was a boa constrictor and another animal. Apparently, they were doing some sort of mating ritual. But the boa started attacking whatever the other animal was.

I had to study this for an art history test: http://instappraisal.quadrixit.netdn...oto%203_36.JPG which is probably where it all came from.

My DJ also says "laundry guns girl and I flew a bit" but I don't remember what any of that means. Yay for half-asleep hazes!

Dream 3: This is where the multi-headed crocodile comes in. I was in the bathroom of some house, and we were attacked by two crocodiles. One was normal, and one had tons of different necks and heads coming out of it. It was the most bizarre thing ever.

Dream 4: I was playing my Pokemon Omega Ruby, and was catching a bunch of different new Pokemon, heh.

That's all I remember. I'm trying to take some good steps in the right direction lol
but now back to STUDYING FOR FINALS :/

I had two very intense, albeit short dreams last night...

Dream 1. For a brief IRL context...I got an MRI yesterday, IRL, for my injured knee. The sports medicine doctor I saw thinks I tore my meniscus. In the dream, the guy who did the MRI was telling me I moved too much during it, and I would have to redo the entire thing. If you haven't had an MRI, they are NOT fun. You can't move at all for about 20 minutes straight, and it's extremely uncomfortable.

Anyway, the doctor had a screen with the outline of my body on it, and there was some yellow marking around my chest area (I think). He told me that was where I had moved too much, and I was like...nooooo D:

Dream 2. So this one was religious, heh. And quite unlike any dream I've ever had before. I mean, I go to church and all, and I enjoy it, but I don't usually have religion based dreams. I had this dream that...Christ came back to the earth and was judging everyone. O_o I was standing with my dad and my tulpa, and a few other family members and friends, and some other people I didn't know. We ran with him as a group and then stopped and stood. There were probably 14-20 of us.

He asked us if we obeyed all these commandments, and I remember everyone said "YES!" because I guess we were all really righteous people, or something. xD And I was partially nervous, partially excited that my life was over and I was going to go to HEAVEN and all those good things. Then I woke up, and was incredibly disappointed, because I've got to, well, wake up and live normal life and things. xP It's all good.

IRL, next semester's gonna be rough....If I get into all the classes I need and the job I want, it may not leave much time for sleeping. :/ But I'll do my best. It'd be nice to at least get 7 hours of sleep a night. I'd also like to post around these forums more, but I guess that all depends on time. I'm swamped, but I'm sure I could get on at least once a week or so.

Well, I missed a few days on here, but I did record them in my paper journal. :3

As for last night!

The Evil Bearded Man...

I don't remember the entire dream. But I do remember running and hiding inside of this small cottage in the middle of this field at the edge of a forest.

I was running from this evil bearded man. He had a dark complexion, glasses (they were rimmed with black on the outside), and a long gray beard. In retrospect, he actually looked kind of comical, but in the context of the dream I was scared out of my mind. I can't really remember why.

The guy cornered me and said that my dad wasn't here, and that there was nowhere to hide now. We were defeated, he said.

But then some lady showed up who in the context of the dream I thought was my mom. In terms of physical appearance, there is no way that woman was my mother. She was a fair-skinned, brown haired and blue eyed lady. My mom is Filipino and doesn't quite look like that. But yeah. She tried to fight this evil man.

I immediately decided to try and get out of the house (instead of helping my own supposed mother...???). So I hit behind a curtain in the windowsill, but the curtain was see-through. I was trying to pry open the window and get out before the guy saw me, but the window wouldn't budge!

And then I woke up. It was about 4:44 AM or so.

I probably would've realized that I was dreaming had I stayed awake! D: I took 3 mg. of melatonin the night before.

And that's the only dream I remember. :c Yep!

...Not that I was ever really active here. But I want to continue working on my journal and become active too. I haven't had any lucid dreams in a while, and I think updating this is going to help. Besides, this is a cool community and all.

I only remember 1 dream from last night.

Dream 1: I think I was outside of a house. Under the house there was this toy chest, and the toys in it were singing and talking. Now I don't remember what we were talking about, but it was apparently a good conversation. Then, two adults (probably in their 30s-40s) came by, and I remember closing the lid to the chest so that they couldn't see the talking toys. xD

My problem was when I wrote this dream down, I was still pretty much half asleep. So I think I fell asleep before I could write down the rest of the dream. I know there were more details initially than what I recall now, but of course after waking up they slipped my mind. :/ I'm sure with practice I'll get it down.

I forgot to mention I took melatonin last night. Going to keep track of when I do and don't take it in order to see if there's any correlation. I don't think there is, but maybe.

According to my notes, I had a dream where I was writing my name on the sand. I don't recall this though.

I also had a dream where I had been voted "member of the month" on another forum that I go to. At first, I thought it was someone else, but it turns out that person was just congratulating me. ^^ Some girl I knew IRL was interviewed, and she started confessing her love to me and talking about how she kissed me or something (she never did Although I suppose I thought she liked me for a while. Implying that a girl would actually be attracted to me. -_- ) Also, an online friend had changed her personality type from ESFJ to ENTP which was odd. I spend too much time on psychology forums.

Then I woke up and saw a bit of the dream still; I thought I saw a large bug running up the side of my shelf. It wasn't scary, just cool! :3

Yes, I remembered nine dreams from last night. I think it has to do with it being a Saturday and being able to sleep in - I remember dreams better that way.

I can't remember the entire order though.

Dream 1: Hypnagogic imagery. It had something to do with a car. That's all I remember.

Dream 2: I was indoors, in a bedroom of some sort. I was with a kid who looked kind of like my brother and kind of like a friend I had in middle school (I think he kept changing). He was wearing a black sweatshirt. There was a spider hanging down from a web next to him as he sat on the bed. The spider kept moving around; it was scary and disgusting. Apparently the kid wasn't sure if he wanted to kill it or let it stay alive. It was red and black and changed from mostly red to looking like a black widow. It was really creepy.

Dream 3: I was at a restaurant. There was a girl who was in love with a guy that were sitting at a table either with me or near me; I honestly can't remember. I was at the restaurant and saw a group of friends along with the two people who were in love with each other. I think the girl was blond and the guy looked like Orlando Bloom or that one character from the Princess Bride with the black hair...but I can't remember fully. -_- I had chicken nuggets on my plate. I was around people for a while, then suddenly I was at a more solitary table, and I felt a bit lonely. Then I went to the bathroom or something, and when I came back, almost all the lights were out. Everyone was silent and the doors and windows of the restaurant were shut; you couldn't get out. For some reason my brother was there, sitting at a table. I asked him what was going on, and he told me. I don't exactly remember what he said, but I think the restaurant had been taken by an evil group or something.

Why must I have so many nightmares? D:

It must've been right around this point when I realized, although sleepily and hazily, that this was a dream. Which leads me into

Dream 4: As soon as I realized I was dreaming, the scene fell away and shifted to something nicer. I was with a girl and I wanted to travel with her into a place where we could fall in love. I was lucid at this time, but my awareness was kind of low. We looked at a few places: a foggy city, a beautiful urban city with black buildings and yellow/multicolored lights (reminiscent of LA), and over a nebula thing in space. Yes, we were flying. However, for some reason, I got scared (this happens a lot when I get lucid, which is dumb because it's a dream; what is there to be scared of?) and I woke up.

Dream 5: I was chosen to be in a piloting class, with only 3 or so people in it, for whatever reason. The instructor asked if we had read the assigned textbook material. I hadn't, but flipped to the back of the book, where there was an astronomy section. Then we went outside in some sort of hover vehicle to go around town, and that's when I looked out the window and saw a shooting star! I've never seen one before (I've caught glimpses of them, but was never sure if it was just my imagination or not), and in the dream I couldn't remember if I had seen one once before or not. Anyway, the meteor was a giant gray rock with little pieces coming off of it, and it glowed this beautiful shade of electric blue. IT WAS SO COOL! When I saw it, I yelled out "WHOA!" because I had never seen one before and because it was so enormous. My friend and the instructor, who were in the craft with me, were so happy for me.

Dream 6: I was on this psychology forum that I go to. One of my friends' profile said that you must tame the beast and it will choose you. And for some reason, I thought I was getting a dragon. XD Instead, I got a creature that looked like Barney. My subconscious is so bizarre. O__________O XD

Dream 7: Someone was telling me I was addicted to the internet, and I got (understandably) very mad at them. That's all I remember.

Dream 8: We were supposed to be driving somewhere, even though that day was apparently going to be "Carmageddon." (This has its basis in reality, because my brother went to a cross-country race on that day, today.) I figured that (for some reason) there would hardly any cars in the morning, so we should just go then. But we weren't going...for some reason.

Dream 9: My mom got interested in personality theory! And I think she was looking at a typology forum. I highly doubt this would happen in real life - I've tried to tell her about it - but you never know, I guess.

That took forever to type. xD

I was at some sort of tourist attraction. It was a bay connected to the ocean. The water was a weird shade of turquoise, but a nice warm temperature. I was in the water, swimming or treading water or something, when my dad and mom floated by on this tiny little boat thing and told me to hop on.

Oddly enough, the boat was tiny, and I barely fit in. I had to lay down sideways in order to fit. It was also made of rubbery material, which was weird. My dad said something. I remember that the ocean was beautiful and that my brother was in the ocean too, trying to find us. But it took him a long time.

Then we were on a pier, walking. When we reached the end of the pier, there was a pirate ship show and my family joined the crowd to watch it. I wasn't that interested, so I pulled out my mini sketchbook and was about to draw something when suddenly they came out and forced me to be a volunteer for the show. They just said something along the lines of "Any volunteers?" and then grabbed me (even though I didn't say anything) and dragged me on board. They said I was going to be a volunteer, but didn't tell me what I was supposed to do, so I was really, really irritated. And also scared, because I would be standing in front of a bunch of people without knowing what I was doing. IRL, this wouldn't have happened. I'd have forced my way out of the ship.

Eventually, when I was supposed to go onstage, they realized that I had no idea what I was doing and so replaced me with some other guy. But I couldn't leave the ship. Then I got really angry when the guy did it and it wasn't anything that hard at all. I don't remember what he did, unfortunately.

Then everyone in the ship started partying and coloring - yes, they seriously got out activity books and started coloring - except me. And I had a really hard time forcing my way out of the ship. Luckily, it was still docked, and I was heading out when either I woke up or the dream stopped. Ugh, I hate how many of my dreams involve me getting captured and forced to do things. ;___; And everyone having a party without me. Not cool, man. x_x

This entry should've been written on Wednesday, but I got lazy. >: (

According to my hastily scribbled notes on my bedside bookshelf, "Looking photos family." I can't remember this, but apparently it happened, so I'm recording it now. xD Now for what I actually remember. It may have been two dreams, but I'm uncertain; they sort of blurred into one another.

I was at the beach with my family. I was trying to take a shower, because there was a building with a bunch of individual shower rooms there and I wanted to get cleaned up. The building was brown with a lot of different doors on it. The day was sunny, and I remember the sand and watching people come in and out of the rooms. But I think all of them were taken, because I didn't up taking a shower, and I was uncomfortable because I was all sandy. It was really annoying.

Then this is where it turned into a nightmare. Ugh. Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to forget these...:S

We were having a campfire outside. It was nighttime. I think all my family was there. We were in a pine forest, and we had just come out of this cabin thing to go out into the woods and have the fire. We were sitting on picnic blankets, and then suddenly I felt this really hot sensation on my legs and rear end and I realized that the ground under my blanket was on fire. It was on fire under all of our blankets. Then it caught a nearby pine tree on fire, causing it to fall over. I tried to warn my mom, because she was right by the tree, but before I could it fell and hit her on the head. :c Thank goodness it was really skinny and didn't crush her. Of course it was just a dream, but it still freaks me out.

Then - get this - my dad looks around the forest and started laughing. I think it randomly changed to daytime or early evening, but the fire was still burning in random patches throughout the forest. He yelled out something like "THIS IS HOW NATURE WORKS!" as everything was catching on fire. This is NOT how my dad usually is, I promise you he's a lot less...spooky? Then this creepy oversized yellowish-brown frog thing was staring at us, with blank green eyes, and by this time I was reaaaally freaking out. I wanted to go back into the cabin (as though that was actually going to save me, lol )

And I woke up after that with significant relief.

I wake up a lot during the night, which is actually quite nice for dream recall. This time, I remembered four dreams.

I need to get better paper to write my dreams on at night. Because writing it on my bookmark or inhaler box is rather inconvenient. -_-

Dream 1: This wasn't actually a full-blown REM dream. It occurred during the hypnagogic (is that the correct term?) stage, in which I generally have a bunch of random images, sounds, and so forth being broadcast into my mind.

All I remember is seeing this weird spiralish creature that looked like an old toy I used to have. Someone was telling me its name, and it was an odd name, though I can't remember it now. It looked very, very familiar to me in the dream, although I'm not sure why. Woke up shortly afterwards.

Dream 2: I honestly can't remember much about this dream other than I had it. It wasn't too far into the night. I think it involved a log ride, and the prevailing emotions were fear, apprehension, and excitement...but I might actually be mixing it up with an earlier dream. A lot of my dreams are about amusement park rides!

Dream 3: I was on the peak of a really high mountain with a bunch of relatives. This included my uncle, my mom, my dad, my aunt, and my grandma. It was really steep, the peak was small, and we were near a cliff on both sides. Some of us were sitting down, on rows of oddly-shaped rocks - cylindrical, strangely enough. Cylinders on their sides. Others were standing. I was sitting, and terrified that I was going to fall off of the mountain.

Someone - my dad? made a joke along the lines of, "Don't back up too far! You might fall off!" and for some odd reason, everyone except me found this funny.

Even though we were high up, my brain seemed to forget that, because I looked down in front of me and saw a beach. My cousins were playing in the water, which was an absolutely beautiful shade of turquoise. The waves crashed and traveled back and forth along the shoreline at the base of the mountain. I wish I had touched that water, to see what it felt like. If only I had become lucid.

Why all these family dreams lately? I think it's because as of late I've been slowly pulling myself out of my bubble of antisocial-ness and depression and starting to interact with them again. And trust them. But I'm not sure.

On the second part of this dream, there was some sort of transition into a new scene, and on the mountain there was a conveyor belt with a gutter on top of it. Basically, it was like a narrow open-top fish tank with a moving conveyor belt as the floor. For some reason, me and some kids were putting fish we had caught onto the conveyor belt-gutter thing.

One kid put in an anglerfish. My hand was still in the water with my fish, but he told me not to worry - the stinger had been removed. By the stinger, he meant the lure. I was really glad I wouldn't get stung but took my hand out anyway. (Funny considering IRL, anglerfish don't sting!) Some other kid had a shiny electric fish, which had little electric flashing white LED lights on it. xD All the fish were deep-sea fish. And they were pretty much all black. For some reason, the water in the conveyor belt-tank thing was starting to dry up, until the fish had hardly any water. It was odd and a bit sad, because the fish weren't too happy with what little water was left.

Dream 4: For whatever reason, I was back at college again, and classes were to start the next day. But it looked different. I was in a dorm-like building with a bunch of guys and girls in it - and oddly enough, I was feeling sad and homesick, missing my family. Which usually doesn't happen, even though I love my family. And more than that, I was scared. My head was filled with fear about the semester in front of me and it was very unpleasant. I was supposed to go to school for only part of the semester until I got called to my mission (it's church stuff) and then I would just drop my classes and go. I had a bed in the room, and a window view. I had a schedule for classes and (for whatever reason) breakfast/meals. I missed home and couldn't believe how stressful everything was going to be.

Needless to say, I was extremely relieved upon waking up. O_O

I had more dreams during the night; I'm sure of it. Unfortunately, I was often too tired to record them, and fell back asleep.

So I remembered two of my dreams last night. The first was non-lucid, unfortunately. The second was lucid! DANCING BANANA!

First Dream:

I had come back from some sort of shopping mall, and I had gotten some T-shirts. My parents had bought me some, and I had bought some myself. The coolest one was this one of a glow-in-the-dark abominable snowman. I know my parents think I'm too old for those, but I don't care. And I didn't care in the dream, either. ^^ Surprisingly enough, my parents actually thought it was cool too in the dream. That should've been a recognizable dreamsign, because they weren't acting normally, but I didn't get lucid.

We were going to go to another really cool shopping mall - apparently, in this dream world my family and I are quite the shop till you drop people O_O - and I wanted to wear my new T-shirt. You have to understand that even IRL I am obsessed with T-shirts. I have at least fifty of them, no joke. Anyway, I wanted to wear the T-shirt because 1) it was new, and 2) it was glow in the dark, and we would be driving to this mall at night. So I wanted to see it glow.

I was going to be late (as usual) so I grabbed my backpack on the way out the door. This backpack was supposed to have all my new T-shirts in it. I got in the car and looked through my backpack. It was this really cool, high-tech outdoors backpack that looked almost like a Camelbak. But I couldn't find the dang shirt. I searched a million times through all the pockets and found a ton of shirts, but not the one I was looking for. I asked my parents for help but they couldn't help me.

It drove me insane. And I was as disappointed as heck. I wonder what this means. Trying to find something that you want really, really badly, and then not finding it....this could relate to my real life.

Dream 2:

LUCID! Well, not at first. I was at a park for my brother's cross country meet. The park was beautiful. It was covered in lush grass with some dirt trails, a few fallen branches littering the ground. There were beautiful white and gray tree trunks everywhere - they looked almost like aspen trunks, but without all those creepy knot things, and they were normal sized, not skinny like aspens. There was also a river.

A group of us were standing, waiting for the runners to come by. We were all wearing sweatshirts and such because it was cold and foggy. Then we (somehow) found out that the river was going to flood, and we would have to get ourselves and our stuff out of there before it happened.

In a large quantity of my dreams, I am able to fly. This was the case here as well. It's so vivid that when I was younger, I actually got confused and thought I could fly in real life too (thankfully, that didn't end up in injury!). I decided that I could both save myself and help save our gear by flying into the air, so I kicked off and flew my usual way - as though I was treading water with my feet, but in the air. I climbed a few feet into the air. I was next to my aunt, a few people I didn't know, and a tree trunk. That was right around where I realized that I can only fly in dreams; thus, I must be dreaming. Calmly but excitedly I continued to fly. I hovered in front of my aunt, who was wearing her ragnar relay sweatshirt, and told her, "Hey, do you know that this is a dream right now?" or something along those lines. I had read that dream characters are supposed to deny that, but I didn't think this would be the case with her, and I was right. She simply said something like, "Oh no, I didn't know that. Thanks for telling me," but didn't seem all that surprised. It was surprisingly hard to talk - I don't always talk in dreams, and it was hard to make my voice work for some reason. I think when I finally did force myself to talk, I actually made a sound out loud (sleep-talked). Unfortunately, shortly after that, I woke up. My next goal will be to try and stay asleep, because as of late I've been waking up shortly after attaining lucidity.