side notes

I don't remember much from the first dream I can remember from last night. I do remember being at a museum where supposedly the first "selfie" from the year 1010 could be found. It wasn't taken with a camera, of course, and it was actually a complete accident. Apparently a family had gone skydiving and the imprint from where their faces had hit the ground became fossilized, so this "selfie" was just a fossilized impression of people's faces. I was disappointed when I saw it, though. It was just a chalk outline of where the people had fallen, and someone had actually drawn these people on the piece of rock, which I thought was kind of wrong because it was in a cartoonish style and therefore inaccurate.

After that, I recall talking with some guy about Cruisin' USA (an old N64 racing game I used to have; I eventually traded it in a few years ago because, every time nostalgia told me to play that game, I was let down by the awful graphics and the cars' terrible handling). We then heard music from that game coming from somewhere nearby, so we started wandering around the floor of my residence hall trying to figure out which room someone was playing it in.

I woke up from that and had another strange dream when I went back to sleep. My parents were both visiting me at college, and I recommended that they see the Rocky Horror Show (my school's theater production this semester). I haven't seen it yet, but I've heard it's awesome. At some point, I remember noticing that my parents had left, so I started looking for them to see if they were still around. I ran out through the back door (I was in my house now for some reason - technically my old house, but my family just moved this summer, and I've hardly spent any time in the new house because I left for college a few days after we moved and have only been home for one weekend since). When I didn't see my parents there, I ran out the front door and saw my mom's car still in the driveway... packed full of my fraternity Brothers. That was confusing at first, but then they all shouted, "Thank you for helping your mother!" It turned out my mom was in the car too and had recruited them all to say that for some reason.

I woke up again but went back to sleep again. In this next dream, there was a floor event in my residence hall. I saw Jackie, one of my fraternity Brothers (we refer to everyone as a Brother regardless of gender), which surprised me because I didn't know she lived on my floor or even in my building (in reality, she does not). Anyway, the "event" was that everyone would be given a big crossword puzzle to take with them and do throughout the day, and whoever finished it first could return it to get a prize.

For some reason, at some point, we ended up outside by a road intersection off-campus. I decided to leave early and return to campus, which is when things started getting strange. By the time I was back on campus, I found it really hard to walk forward. There was some slight wind at the time, so I thought that could be attributed to the wind, but the wind didn't seem strong enough to interfere with walking. I thought it was strange, but I saw that everyone else was affected in the same way, so I figured it was probably just the wind after all.

When I got back to my dorm, I realized I'd forgotten to take a crossword puzzle from the event, so I decided to text Jackie to ask her if she could bring one back for me, but I didn't have her number, and I didn't know who else I could ask. I also remember getting a bunch of texts from my boyfriend throughout this dream and the last that I felt kind of bad about not having the time to reply to.

The dream suddenly because a Sims 3 game, and, since time can be sped up in the game, I accidentally fast-forwarded time (on the fastest setting) to a couple hours later before finally pausing it. I knew for sure now that I wouldn't be able to ask Jackie to get me a crossword puzzle because there's no way that "event" would still be going on. I also felt bad about not replying to my boyfriend's texts now that even more time had passed.

I realized after awhile that something didn't look quite right about the game interface, though I couldn't quite pinpoint what it was that was different. I did an RC when I noticed that and counted six fingers. I was dreaming! I counted again just to make sure. Seven fingers. Definitely dreaming! Instead of being all clueless as usual when I become lucid, I said out loud, "Now, this is where the fun begins."

Since I had no plan for the dream, I ran around, looking for something fun to do in a dream (I was no longer playing Sims anymore). I found a buffet table. I could eat! No, no, that's something I can do while I'm awake. Then, I spotted an empty glass and an empty silver pitcher on the table and decided now it was time to learn to exert some control over the dream. I decided that, if I poured the "empty" pitcher into the cup, I'd be pouring a drink out of it instead of nothing. I decided it'd be "something like eggnog" (the first thing that came to mind), but not quite the same, because why drink something in a dream I can drink in real life? The drink that came out was white and a little thick, but it didn't taste at all like eggnog. It was creamy, though, and kind of sweet, and... fizzy? I was actually surprised when I tasted something that was slightly fizzy because I wasn't expecting that.

I realized while I was drinking it that I was wearing my retainer, and my reaction to that was my one fatal mistake. I decided I should take my retainer out, but, instead of doing something quick like tossing it on the floor (who cares what happens to it if it's a dream and not real life?), I decided to find the case for it and put it back in its case. That was my big mistake because everything went dark, so I realized I was waking up because this had torn me away from what was keeping me occupied. Once I started to feel myself lying in bed, I knew that was it. I opened my eyes, disappointed I'd caused myself to wake up because of something so silly but also proud of myself for having had some control over not just myself but the dream environment itself.

I did one final RC just to ensure I was awake. Five fingers. I counted again. Five fingers again. Yep, definitely awake this time.

I haven't updated my dream journal in ages, whoops.

Anyway, I FINALLY had another lucid dream last night!

It started out as a false awakening; I don't remember what made me realize I might be dreaming, but I remember I was standing in the kitchen at the time. I counted my fingers, and I was PRETTY sure I'd counted six. I wasn't entirely sure I'd counted correctly, though, so I decided to check my other hand just to make sure. However, before I could count my fingers, I noticed something else that was a dead giveaway - my Hylian crest ring (which I wear on the index finger of my left hand) had a different symbol on it, and a larger version of that symbol also appeared across my index, middle, and ring fingers (think like a henna tattoo, but golden and slightly illuminated).

My mom was in the kitchen, so I started talking to her, since I knew I had to try to keep talking or actively focusing on something (I wake up within moments otherwise). After a moment of talking, I suddenly said, "Did you know this is a dream? This is how I know." I showed her the ring and the image across my fingers, which changed each time I looked at it. The last time I looked at it, I remember that the ring had a picture of a tree, and on my fingers were the mountains behind it. It was actually really cool.

I knew I needed to come up with ideas of things I could only do in a dream, and I knew it would be best to start with simple dream control techniques as practice. I announced that I was going to try to phase through the door (a skill that might come in handy in a later dream, right?), only to end up slamming into the door and not passing through. Oh well, I tried.

I asked my mom if she had any other suggestions of things I could try, but she asked me to leave her alone for a moment because she was busy cooking. Normally, this would have been fine, but, since this was a dream, I had to find a way to keep myself in the dream in the meantime.

I remember chattering away to myself for a moment before stopping and accidentally waking up.

I had a dream that my boyfriend and I went to the airport so he could catch his flight back home (he lives in Mexico; I live in the US). After we said goodbye and he left, I went looking for someone who could tell me when the next flights to Mexico were to have an idea of when we could get together again. Not too long after we went our separate ways, I turned around and saw him behind me. I was surprised to see him there, as his flight had already begun boarding. Surprised, I asked him why he was still here, but I woke up before he had a chance to reply.

After going back to sleep (I don't know what time it was when I woke up, but it was still dark), I had a dream that I was at a party. I saw a girl there who looked familiar; I recognized her to be Ashley (my tulpa Link's girlfriend, who has a different host). I thought that I should tell Link that Ashley was there, since he'd be happy to see her, but then I remembered that tulpae can't see other people's tulpae (somehow, it didn't occur to me that I shouldn't be able to see her, either).

This is being directly copied from my tumblr. If you don't follow my progress with my tulpae, or if you don't know about tulpae in general, parts of this entry may not make much sense.

This post is about a dream I had last night.

First of all, let me give some background information. Last night, Link and I were on the IRC. He was talking with Ashley (his girlfriend, for those who don’t know), and he explained to her how he still wants to go back home to the forest, how he knows he should stay here, how he hoped she would understand (she did), etc. At one point last night, he told her he’d be right back (since I had to go for a few minutes); when he came back, she had logged off. One of the other users informed him that her host had had to go. We ended up going to bed shortly after, but he did say he still needed to speak to her.

Anyway, on to the dream…

I was on the IRC, and I got a PM from Ashley with a message clearly meant for Link.

“I’m so f*cking done…”

I knew right away what she meant. Last night had been the last straw. After all, last time he left, when he came back for a quick visit, she got mad at him for leaving (and not intending to stay). They ended up getting in a huge argument over it, which resulted in her refusing to speak to him. It wasn’t actually too surprising that she’d finally had enough.

I wondered how Link would react. I knew he wouldn’t take it well. After all, she was essentially breaking up with him. Of course, my mind immediately jumped to the worst-case scenario, which I really hoped wouldn’t happen…

I decided I should stop worrying about how he MIGHT react and just show him the message. Next thing I knew, I was lying awake in bed, in the dark, at 2:30 in the morning.

I was SO relieved that it had only been a dream.

I really need to start updating my dream journal more often again... and stop being lazy about it because I'm only bothering to write down the LD I had last night and not all the other dreams from last night. >.>

Okay, so I was in this small movie theater with my family. I recognized one scene as being in a familiar location from an earlier dream that night (unfortunately, I can't remember that dream now, but I do remember it was from another dream I actually did have) and exclaimed that I recognized it from the dream I had last night. This seemed like a bit much of a coincidence, considering it was a place I'd never seen before, so I did a quick RC and counted six fingers.

"I'm dreaming!" I exclaimed. "Now, what was the task of the month... I have to-" I was about to say I had to make it snow, but I noticed that my vision was turning black-and-white. "Make everything in color!" I shouted out to the dream instead. Suddenly, everything was back in color again.

Someone (can't remember who) asked what I meant by that (or something along the lines of that), so I began to explain. Unfortunately, I was already waking up by that point. "You see, when you're lucid-" I was about to say that it's harder to keep a dream stable when you're lucid, but I realized the dream had already ended.

Just a heads-up, if you don't know about my tulpae or don't know what tulpae are, you're going to have no idea what I'm talking about here.

Okay, so, I was on the tulpa.info IRC channel, and Kayleigh was possessing my arms so she could type. I had to try to force control back because I remembered that Link was supposed to be the one possessing me, since we're the ones working on possession IWL at the moment (Kayleigh and I haven't started yet). Then I woke up.

I have a friend whose dad shut off the Internet at her house, so she only has Internet access when she's at her mom's house. She went back to her dad's house yesterday. Anyway, I had a dream last night that I was on tumblr and saw a post she made saying that her dad turned the Internet back on again. I woke up disappointed because it was only a dream (we mainly only see each other online because we live a couple hours apart).

I went back to sleep and had a dream that I had to look after a few pets for my friend Giana (even though they aren't her pets IWL). I had to look after five various rodents (a hamster, two very tiny chinchillas, and two jerboas. They were kept in a big cage, which I was keeping in my room. The problem was that they kept escaping from the cage; they managed to squeeze through the bars and out of the cage pretty easily. The chinchillas (which were roughly the same size as the hamster and jerboas, as opposed to actual chinchilla size) especially liked to escape. One of them even tried to bite my thumb when I carried it back to its cage (again); it was kind of uncomfortable, but it didn't hurt.

In another dream, I had to select a "teacher". I chose Kayleigh, my tulpa. She started throwing dodgeballs at me, and I didn't know why, so she told me she was doing it because I had to learn that nothing could hurt me because I was dreaming and that I shouldn't be afraid in dreams. I guess I was supposed to take that advice and make myself believe that, though I still didn't really get what was going on. The dream felt rather vague when I woke up, too.

I know she was only trying to help me improve my dream control, but I don't think I really learned anything from that "lesson". It does seem like something she would do, though...

I had a dream this morning that I was looking at sheet music. I turned the page, and the next page was what it should have been. I went back to the first page of the music, and it had turned into the page of a manga. "I must be dreaming," I said as I was suddenly snapped back to my bed. Unfortunately, I could feel my dream eyes closing, which meant I was waking up. I opened my eyes and realized I had woken up in sleep paralysis. I could move my fingers a little bit, but even that was really difficult. I knew it was important to stay calm, so I focused on keeping my breathing steady to keep myself calm. I figured I'd "wake up" from SP if I just stayed calm and kept my eyes open.

Then, I got the idea to use this as an opportunity for DEILD. I closed my eyes, hoping to transition back into a dream. Before long, my ears started ringing, which I'd heard was common during SP. It'd stop whenever I opened my eyes, though.

Eventually, I just woke up - for real - instead. I was pretty sure the SP had just been a dream because it had had that "hazy" feel to it, and I was also fairly certain I hadn't been holding my Link plushie, which I would've been holding if I was awake (though I can't say for certain that I wasn't, since I didn't look down at my hand and could barely move).

I soon fell asleep and had another dream. In this dream, an old lady who looked to be about 90 or 100 walked into a doctor's office, sat down on the chair, and said, "Goodbye, humans. I'm the president's own woman."

I was in this computer game. I'm not sure how I knew, but I just knew that I was in a game. All the areas were based on personality types. The main area was for ENTJs. Since I have an INTJ personality, I looked for the INTJ area and quickly found it.

The next thing I remember, I was playing Sims 3. It was the day of the prom at the high school, and my Sims were attending. There was a full moon that night, though, and I was afraid the school might get overrun by zombies (with the Supernatural expansion pack, zombies can appear when there's a full moon, but I'm pretty sure they can't get into buildings).

I soon ended up back in what I think was the first game. This time, though, I was in this dark, basement-like area. At one point, Kayleigh, my tulpa (essentially a sentient imaginary friend imposed on reality - yes, this is relevant to the dream) appeared and wanted to lead, so I let her.

We ended up in this room with a huge pool. There were a lot of people there; there was some sort of pool party or something going on. I don't remember much of the next part, but I do remember what happened a bit later on. Still in the pool (which was shallow enough to stand in, at least where I was standing), a little girl said to me, "I want you to bring her again," referring to Kayleigh. Then she added, "Maybe we'll all make them, and they can have their own pool party." I'm not sure exactly who she meant by "them", but she was referring to either tulpae or simply imaginary friends. I have a feeling it was the latter.

After that, I woke up, but I went back to sleep soon after.

In the second dream, I was running a race. I was near the finish when the dream began. Just after I crossed the finish line, I was suddenly in a mansion. I was upstairs and trying to find a way downstairs. For some reason, a little kid was following me (not the girl from last time, though - this was a boy). I found the stairs and headed downstairs, but, when we got to the bottom of the stairs, we couldn't go anywhere because there were trucks in the way. They weren't just pick-up trucks; they were big semi-trailer trucks. Why there were several trucks in the middle of a mansion, I have no idea.

Anyway, I was about to head back upstairs and look for another way down when one of the truck drivers offered to move his truck. Somehow, the boy and I ended up in the truck. The driver parked the truck in a parking lot somewhere. Getting out was a challenge, though. The cab was very high up, and there were supposed to be steps that would extend down.

Now, this is where it gets ten times as bizarre. To get the "steps", I had to unfold them, and they were made of this thin, filmy, papery substance. I had to somehow unfold that and actually walk down them. I'd nearly got the steps completely unfolded when the truck driver said there was no light at the bottom of the steps, so he struck a match and attempted to drop it on the bottom of the unfortunately flammable-looking steps. I pulled the steps back up to get them out of the way, but he kept trying to throw lit matches at the steps.

The fourth match he threw actually hit the steps, setting them on fire. I threw them out of the truck, accidentally hitting the truck driver and setting his shirt on fire. Not knowing what to do, I panicked and woke up almost instantly.

(Wow, I haven't updated my DJ in a while! No, my recall hasn't been failing me; I've just been getting lazy with writing down my dreams. Oops!)

I successfully DEILDed for the first time this morning!

It was actually a complete accident. I wasn’t actually intending to DEILD until I started seeing vivid hypnagogic imagery and saw it as a good opportunity. I just focused on the HI and started describing what I saw in my mind - at first, just to myself, but I guess I shifted to narrating to my subconscious at some point; at one point, I addressed my subconscious as “you guys”, only to realize what I’d just said, apologize, and say, “Well, the one or many of you.”

I soon started to become aware of where I was, but I wasn’t dreaming yet. It was more like vivid wonderland visualization during an active forcing session; I couldn’t physically see a thing, but I was well aware of where I (and everything else) was. The place I was was just this random field that I drive past fairly frequently IWL. After not too long, I crossed the road and realized I could actually see properly and must have entered the dream. In addition to the road, I saw that there was now an additional road branching off from it. I somehow knew that this road must lead to my subconscious. A couple cars did go that way; they must have been driven by dream guides/part of my subconscious.

I noticed a box on the ground. It was a cardboard box (like a package something would be delivered in) addressed to me. I knew it was from my subconscious. Before opening it, I decided I should stabilize by doing an RC. I counted my fingers but ended up counting only five on each hand (strange, that RC almost never fails me), but I still knew I was dreaming, as I’d consciously made the transition to the dream state. I picked up the box again anyway and saw that it was now addressed to my brother (accidental text RC much?). I knew it was still really for me (as it was in my dream), so I decided to open it anyway.

Before I even had a chance to open it, everything went black, and I realized I was awake. Disappointed, I opened my eyes and got up. I’m definitely going to try to go back there, though; I have to follow that subconscious road!

(EDIT: Whoa, ignore the wonderland/forcing thing if you have no idea what I'm talking about. I copied this straight from my tumblr and forgot to remove that part, oops!)

I had one dream last night that I took a shower and my hair dye washed out (I currently have semi-permanent dye in my hair IWL; it's supposed to last a couple weeks). I had another dream that there was a whiteboard with some Latin words/phrases and their English translations on it; some of the words seemed Latin-ish with weird definitions, and other words were just weird. Then, someone erased all that and started drawing the Mane Six (from MLP:FiM). They just drew the ponies' heads, but then they drew a full-body pic of Applejack. For some reason, I thought Molly (my cat, who died a couple years ago) would be jealous because only Applejack got a full-body pic.

I recalled two vague fragments from last night - one about checking my tumblr dashboard, another about browsing reddit.

I also had a fairly vivid dream later. In that dream, I was playing my N64. Instead of being in my bedroom, though, it was set up in the living room. I don’t remember what game it was, but, for some strange reason, it was played with two controllers. While I was playing, a young, blonde-haired boy, perhaps nine or ten years old, came up to me. I asked if he wanted to play, and he said yes.

“Here’s the player one controller, here’s the other controller, and here are the games,” I told him, motioning to the two controllers and then the box of games. “And here’s the microphone if you want to play Hey You, Pikachu!”

Well, he did want to play Hey You, Pikachu! He didn’t play mine, though; he’d brought his own cartridge. It was a limited edition version in which you could also have a Raichu. I thought that was pretty cool. I’d never seen that version before.

For some reason, I got up and went to the kitchen (in my house, it’s connected to the living room; we have a combined living room/kitchen/dining room area). The sink and counter looked like it does in the bathroom, though. I grabbed two pairs of my (most recent) old pairs of glasses and several Triforce earrings. I thought it was odd that I had so many identical earrings when I’d only remembered having one pair (the glasses didn’t strike me as odd, though), so I did a reality check. My favourite is the hand RC, so I glanced down at my hand. Five fingers, normal. Something just looked… different, though (as in, my fingers weren’t quite straight, and they definitely weren’t parallel - there was a huge gap between my middle finger, leaning way to the left, and my ring finger, leaning over to the right). I counted again to make sure. I still had five fingers. I concluded I was, in fact, awake (when I replayed the dream in my mind after waking up, I literally facepalmed when I got to this part).

I picked up the boy’s other, identical limited edition Hey You, Pikachu! cartridge, went back to the living room, and returned the game cartridge to him. He thanked me for returning it - as he didn’t know where it was - and left.

I had a dream that school had already started (I don't start until Monday). I go to an online school, and the site looked the same is it does IWL, though a few of the courses had weird names (gummy, for example). I had a message from OpheliaBlue (one of my teachers, apparently) saying that these three years of high school would be hard, especially now that paigeyemps wasn't helping me with Spanish anymore.

I was ice skating with two friends I'd just met. They were both girls. One had straight ginger hair that fell approximately down to her shoulders (maybe slightly longer). I don't remember what the other girl looked like, but I think she had black hair. There were other people there, too, but I didn't know them.

The ice rink was outdoors and fairly small. Ice skating was a lot easier than I find it IWL. I was actually going rather fast most of the time. Every now and then, I'd fall over from being careless and inexperienced, but it never hurt. One time, when I fell forward and put my hands out to catch myself, I let myself continue sliding across the ice on my hands and feet (the blades of my skates were touching the ice) because I thought it looked cool.

I eventually woke up (or so I thought) and considered trying WILD but decided not to because it was already morning and I didn't think I'd be going back to sleep. After a couple minutes, though, I changed my mind. Here, weird dream logic took over, telling me that WILD involves walking around the house. I went downstairs but then realized I was only wearing a towel, so I decided to go back to my room and get dressed, but I woke up before I did.

I did a quick reality check to confirm that I was actually awake this time but soon went back to sleep anyway.

This time, I was at church with my friend Giana. There's a little room by the sanctuary that no one ever seems to use; that's where we were. I asked her a question (though I can't remember what it was now).

"Yeah, but no killing," she responded. This confused me, but then she made a comment about some game.

"I thought we were talking about real life," I said.

"I'm talking about our game," she told me. At this point, I assumed that she and Emma (another of our friends; the three of us make up our little trio) had made up some game last week when I wasn't there.

We left the little room and found Emma waiting for us. Giana wanted me to download some music and play it for us, so I did (actually, she just took my laptop and downloaded it herself). When it started playing, I asked if there was a censored version, since the music had a lot of swearing in it, but she said no.

At some point, we somehow ended up outside in a field. The music had stopped playing, switching to a slideshow of pictures instead. One of them was a demotivational poster. I don't remember what the text was, but the picture was a poorly photoshopped image of a cross between a lion and some other animal (can't remember what). I then alt-tabbed over to DreamViews and started typing up my previous dreams in my dream journal before waking up and realizing I'd have to type up my DJ entry all over again.

I don't remember much from last night, just a couple fragments. In the first, I found Cookie, a stuffed animal (a black-and-white cat) I've had for as long as I can remember, in my basement. I picked her up and hugged her really tight because I was glad that I'd finally found her (she went missing maybe a couple years ago IWL).

In the second, I was on some website where there was this competition going on. It was some sort of video game competition. People could vote for their favourites in different categories (favourite character, favourite game, favourite genre, favourite moment, etc.).