dream fragment

WAKING LIFE DREAMING LUCID
BOLD IF IT FEELS PARTICULARLY SIGNIFICANT

From 4/24/11


I woke with Drown by Stuart Davis playing in my mind.
Only remembered that I had changed my mind about something and shifted my body with that change.

This was the song looping in my noggin.

"Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ruh roh.

WAKING LIFE DREAMING LUCID
BOLD IF IT FEELS PARTICULARLY SIGNIFICANT

From 4/22/11

Computer screen
Trying to do something important
Black screen with white lettering popped up. A warning. A long, deep warning.

I’m not sure if I felt very concerned about the warning, it may have seemed superficial emotionally. I’ve waited too many days to look back on it though, to really remember.

WAKING LIFE DREAMING LUCID
BOLD IF IT FEELS PARTICULARLY SIGNIFICANT

*This is a very rough draft*


Waves and Child

in the ocean, swimming around for a while
a ways out from shore
looking below, at the sea floor
Then after a time, I head back toward shore

Jen’s (high school friend) old car in the ocean closer to shore
I got in
a large wave hit it
Jen came
she was upset

I went back to shore, the waves getting higher
a child there too
with me
standing in the water together
i feel protective
of the child

the child says they (boy or girl?) see an octopus wrapping around my foot?
I get scared though I love octopi
think I see it a ways off under the water
I walk fearfully out of the water
the waves getting larger
I'm wondering how large they’ll get
(Often in my dreams the tidal waves grow to become inescapably vast)

the child and I go to higher ground
watch the waves
getting higher
splashing past where we’d been

going to even higher ground
my dad is there with us
a beautiful, panoramic view of the ocean from where we are
we are atop maybe a 300 foot cliff
houses below closer to the beach
water rushing past them in a thin sheet, curving and splashing up the cliff far below us in a big sheet that splashes at its far reaches
my dad is concerned about the waves, scared and determined to do things he knows he has to do about the waves, to help other people
I think he leaves us

WAKING LIFE DREAMING LUCID
BOLD IF IT FEELS PARTICULARLY SIGNIFICANT

From the night before last
*This is a veeeery rough draft that I may or may not get around to cleaning up*


A Boy to Include?

a blond boy joined us
cheap necklace/pendant
I had one in the same symbol too (on reflection, i don't recognize it)
ashamed? that mine was a weak metal
it looked somewhat interesting though
I didn’t mean to make a wet towel hanging high on a hook on the wall fall. caught it and the wrist watch that had been laid atop it, tried to put them back as they were.
I wondered at the dampness near the watch
I was 13-17
the boy was maybe 11
we debated over if he was too young

WAKING LIFE DREAMING LUCID
BOLD IF IT FEELS PARTICULARLY SIGNIFICANT

From the night before last

A friend of mine from waking life was with me. (He was someone I had feelings of being in love with which had been returned to a tentative extent. It was not explored more than mentally and somewhat emotionally. The timing was not right for ethical reasons. We explored each others’ minds, to the extent I could at that time and it was exhilarating.)

We were outside, in the large front area of an old looking house. The house had perhaps that pinky colored brick (which inspires me with a deep feeling of beauty in waking life) used on two ends to create rounded walls, like they were slightly punched out of the house like columns, their windows facing us. Something about that shape was important. I felt a connection to family past.

Outside, where we were, was beautiful and warm. Like a cool summer day at sunset, when the colors are deep and warm and have the feint feeling of being lit from the inside. We were standing under an umbrella-ing tree. The greens and oranges and browns infused around and through us, as if it was a time when the smells come alive to flow slowly through the warm air.

There was some specific reason (the architecture, I think) that he didn’t like it. I told him I thought houses like these were beautiful! Told him about when I’d been in another one like it, I think with family, and how wonderful it was. Though I didn't feel angry or scared, the feeling of my awareness of his (sometimes pushy) tendency to criticize was with me.

I was exuberant about the love I’d experienced in that house, though I could feel something darker inside this particular, extraordinarily similar house as we stood outside. I didn’t feel very threatened by the darkness, more just aware and happily reliving parts of the joyful memories inside the other house. The memories were infused with a sense of family and connection and freedom of expression. Curious, I want to call it almost doula-like love with a lot of feminine energy.

WAKING LIFE DREAMING LUCID BOLD IF IT FEELS PARTICULARLY SIGNIFICANT


Progress

I woke up a few times throughout the night and realized I was dreaming, just barely waking and telling myself I was dreaming, hoping I was still in the dream (seemed about 2 seconds out of the dream), then tried to go back in lucid. Didn’t work that I recall, though I was happy that I was so quickly thinking that thought and focusing on being at the least aware of my dreams, if not lucid.


Restaurant Fragment

I saw a previous employer [who I’d had a blow-up with and left in waking life]. I was at his restaurant, it wasn’t significantly unpleasant that I recall. Was there dark water and the sidewalks were square “docks” that resembled rafts and warehouse pallets or was that another dream? If it was then I’ve dreamed about those docks/sidewalks at least three times.

WAKING LIFE DREAMING LUCID UNDERLINED IF IT FEELS PARTICULARLY SIGNIFICANT

Spoiler for Past Related Dreams and History:

History

A new experience dreaming the other night. It gave me hope even though I woke in fear. It also prompted me to get off my butt and finally join a forum that discusses such things. First, a little history.

In the past I’ve had a reoccurring dream of family members and others trying to kill me. One repeated every year it seemed, starting at the age of about 8 and ending (at least consciously) around 18. In this dream a calm and intense voice announced to me that my family was turning into monsters. I ran from them. My father chased me (the chase scenes varied significantly, thought it seems that they were always outside of my grandmother’s house, where the dream started). Sometimes I got away, sometimes I fell, and there was one time I thought I experienced death before I woke up. The dreams filled me with terror.

Other similar dreams have often occurred, the main theme being that someone is stalking me and I am aware that they wanted to kill me. Sometimes I’d confront them. Most times it would be an endless hiding and running deep fear experience. Sometimes it was a combination of both. I’ve experienced other variations of this type of terror dream, often including sharks (in college), tornadoes, and tidal waves.
Usually when I wake the consuming fear and sadness and loneliness from these dreams is so very present, infusing me to some extent throughout the day no matter how much I process and release it. It can be exhausting. Ok, pretty much done with the history.


Recent History

A couple nights ago a terror dream was different than other experiences. I haven’t been remembering my dreams as often in the recent past (I started to type recent future, lol). I had meditated right before sleeping with binaural audio that also incorporates other meditation-inducing aspects. It was a pretty deep meditation and a lot more emotional pain than usual came up, but I was largely able to hold the discomfort in a larger awareness and release happened as well. I fell asleep.

Nightmare with Lucid Meditation

The terror dream was a series of people trying to kill me. Each chapter seemed to occur in my current home or a similar one.

One instance was a psychological death of sorts, where someone wanted me to admit something I’d done that hurt them but I knew that if they knew it would hurt them more than if I didn’t tell them. I felt ashamed. As they tried to dig it out of me tears ran down my face and I avoided looking into their eyes. I think I explained to them at one point that I couldn’t tell them or they would be more hurt. I was conflicted and I’m not sure I held my ground (I think the dream changed at that point).

The dream continued, one person trying to kill me, the dream morphing, then another person trying to kill me, and so on. They were sneaky, some trying to lull me into feeling comfortable with them. It didn’t work. I knew. I resisted. After a few chapters in the dream, I became aware that I was dreaming. In this lucid state I tried different tactics.

1. Dream Control

I tried what I now know to be called dream control. Tried to turn my stalker away, tried to make them friendly, tried to make it not be about being stalked. That wasn’t as “successful” as the tactic has been in other lucid dreams I've had.

2. Wake

I tried to wake myself. In the dream I had access to my real memories: I recalled that I’d woken myself from a nightmare as a young child, maybe 5 years old, after frantically trying to wake in the dream and having no success. This is how I remember it. I became aware of my physical body in my bed. I tried to open my eyes. Felt my eyebrows raising, my lids stretching, but they stayed together. I tried to move my arms. They were heavy, they wouldn’t move. Then my shoulders responded. Finally my arms moved. I reached up and opened my eyes with my hands and woke like that…my fingers on my eyelids, having pulled them apart manually.

Remembering the success of this childhood experience, I attempted this tactic in my dream last night while lucid. It failed. Throughout using these wake-myself-up-please tactics,

I would think I had awakened only to find out I was still in the dream. I became identified with the dream and then lucid and aware I was dreaming (usually because I had a new stalker or less often because something else wouldn't be the same as in my home) again over and over after each failed attempt.

First I tried to wake myself by simply willing it, then throwing a large amount of the energy of my desire to wake into it.

Then I tried to feel my body in my bed, to establish a connection like I thought I had in childhood. It seemed that I could feel my body and that I woke. This was the first time I thought I'd woken up but after I “woke” myself I soon discovered I was being stalked again and had not escaped the dream.

Then I tried to not only feel my body but to move my body, however, I found I wasn’t very coordinated and I was flailing. I became afraid of hurting myself or spilling my water on my nightstand, etc.

The cycle of thinking I had awoken and then realizing I was still in the dream (I think called false awakenings?) came full circle at least 3 times, though in my not completely clear recollection it feels like it was more like 4 to 6 times.

3. Lucid Meditation

At one point I tried to meditate in the dream, hold the dream and the fear of the dream in the arms of my awareness so that I wasn’t so self-identified with it and terrified. This was the new accomplishment. A big one. I don’t think it lasted long, maybe a couple minutes.

I’ve been in different meditative states in many dreams, but this one was intentionally, lucidly, induced. Even though it was a meditation initially infused with the desire to escape from the emotions, I'm still goanna break out with a yay! I came to a place where I wasn’t hiding or trying to wake up. I was confronting in an accepting way while still trying to protect myself.

The meditation did not relieve the fear but I felt more me, more whole. At first the fear was very present and perhaps more so. It seems that the fear ebbed to some degree after a time. I remember looking down on my body during the meditation. The dream also may have gone to black and white during the meditation and got a static quality to it, like white noise. I don't remember ever dreaming in black and white, though now that I look back I don't recall any color in the dream at any point. I am skeptical of it not being in color, however, because now it is days since the dream occurred and I only remember snippets. After the short meditation is when I fuzzily think I woke.

I don't remember the sequence of the following parts of the dream. I'm about 90% sure I wasn’t lucid at the time:

I felt physical pain when one stalker was biting my lips. The physical pain felt so…well…physical. It hurt in a sharp way, just as if my dream body was a physical one. That realization is unsettling and also wondrous. Now I realize that both of the times I have been aware of physical pain in dreams was when I was being bitten. Both dreams were at some point lucid dreams, but not lucid at the time that I was being bitten. The other time was a dog biting my fingertips. Now I’m interested in this…why biting? Perhaps this similarity is connected to a pattern, perhaps not. Worth keeping an eye on it and a thought hanging around.

I tried to manipulate the people out of trying to kill me. I plotted quickly as they advanced. One of the people I offered myself to sexually to try to avoid being killed, to distract him. It worked. It was boring and rather ineffectual sex and I ended up feeling frustrated because I wanted more pleasure, even though I was creeped out and scared.

Well, that was long. I doubt I'll want to use the energy to write so much in the future (or try to refine the clarity of my writing so much, gah), but this dream absolutely fascinated me and I felt reconnected to past dreaming experiences after dry spells and inattention. It woke the inspiration.

I think a big part of why it waned was nobody I shared these types of dreams with had similar experiences or seemed to want to dive in. But after reading some of the forum, wow, some of you not only have had similar but extensive experiences. Thanks for reading, I'm interested in learning from others on this site if you want to respond! That said, I also have a very skeptical side and enjoy critical and insightful discussion, though it is tempered by many other sides.

- Souls or spirits coming to me for help or helping me, and/or trying to take advantage of me or invade me

- Terror, anxiety, and/or rushing

- Tidal waves and tornadoes

- Being stalked with murderous intent

- People and animals from my past

- Spiritual bliss / channeling / meditating / healing / overwhelming beauty and a feeling of my heart opening

-Extraordinarily (somewhat glowing) vibrant colors, especially in nature and spiritual symbols (usually when experiencing that blissful feeling, sometimes when interacting with souls or spirits)

I imagine these will change since I haven’t kept records of a lot of my dreams and these are somewhat based on the dreams that were significant enough to me to remember.

(And hi everyone, I'm new here.)