false awakening

Working Recovery:

I'm at work, outside, on the garden path between buildings.
NH from high-school marching band is there.
He has some kind of injury to one arm and to one leg.
The injuries, are exceptionally gory, like stumps where the hand and foot should be.
NH seems like he is in a good mood regardless.
...
I'm on the production floor, but the office cube area is reversed from left/right and under construction.
There is a tarp that goes over all the cubes, indicating that they are inaccessible.
...
Later I'm with NH at a back-area of the production floor.
His injuries seem to be lesser now, with just bruised limbs where the stumps once were.

WBTB:
I woke up after about 7.5 hours of sleep (11PM to 630AM) and then stayed up for about 45 minutes before going to sleep on the couch for a morning nap.

False Awakening:

I'm at home and taking out the trash. I notice that there are a few more trash/recycle cans than there should be. About 4 or 5 against the expected 2.
I do a nose-RC and become lucid. I recall the 'pre-flight check' from Daniel Love's book, so I decide to attempt that.
I say outloud "this is a dream, nothing is real, nothing can hurt me."
I look around the yard, trying to interact and stabilize the dream.
But this only lasts a few seconds or so, and the world fades.
I vaguely recall trying to fit my hands into some kind of gardening pot by the front door or side of the house.
...
I 'wake up' on the couch, and my family is there. Dad, sister, brother, and my friend DR.
We are taking turns playing a VR game, where the perspective of the person playing the game shows on the TV.
...
Later I'm in a different room, with pillars on four sides and 'open concept' entry ways.
I'm struggling with some straps on the VR setup for my arms.
There were also two different sizes for the VR goggles, and a smaller one fits me better.

Recorded at 940AM.

The Bulldog:

I'm sitting on a patio chair looking out to a sunrise. I'm high up, a few stories above the ground.
The patio is made of large wood pieces, similar in style to Frontier Land from Disneyland. Within the lore of the dream, we had just built it (my Dad, sister, and I).
I looked at my left hand and noticed that it had three fingers, and I looked at my right. It had four.
I become lucid. The very next thought is that I want to learn more about my dreamworld, to serve me better later.
So I decide to keep looking at my hands. They keep changing in finger count wildly, not fast or as if morphing, more like my brain kept trying to convince me that they had 'always been' said count.
It was more like my perception was in flux than the actual visuals. Tough to describe.
This activity doubles down on the fact that I truly am dreaming.

I decide to get up and look around. I see a man down below in a pool, he's singing on a platform in the middle.
Also, across the way there is another man singing. I listen to them for a while, but I can't recall the tune now.
I noticed a bulldog down by my heel. I feel a massively comforting presence. I don't recognize this dog but I feel the comfort anyway.
He is wearing some sort of skin(or should I say fur) tight dog-shirt.
I remember that I should be stabilizing the dream, so I run my hands across the wood railing a bit.
I notice that the patio is missing some pieces, and get concerned about the stability of the structure.
I decide to go the the side of the house, and once I turn the corner, it represents the side of the house I'm living in now.

The bull-dog is sitting in front of the gate that leads to the front yard. I go up to him and start to pet him.
"Are you a bulldog?" I ask.
"Yes, I am!" the bulldog replied with a British accent.
"Can you tell more more about you so that I can find you in my world?" I ask.
"Ohhh you shouldn't do that...because I have...my issue." the bulldog replies ominously.
I notice he is drooling a bit.
"Well, what is the issue?"
"I....tend to wet the bed." the bulldog admits with some shame in his voice.
I start to comfort the bulldog, but then I begin to lose lucidity.
Instead, I start telling the bulldog a story of a recurring dream. It's about not making finals for marching band back in high-school.
I try to recall the name of the girl who was our drum major who broke the news, but I can't remember her name (just her face).
This isn't actually a recurring dream.
An Asian girl appears behind him as if in response to the story, but she doesn't resemble anybody from it.
At this point I seem to get my bearings, and I start to narrate what has happened up to now, to the bulldog.

"So I've spent a lot of time in this dream letting things flow on their own, observing, doing RCs, keeping it low-key. Do you think it is OK if I try some dream control now?" I ask the bulldog.
"Yes, that seems reasonable." the bulldog replies matter of factly.
I walk forward and open the gate leading to the front yard.
It's night-time over here.
I remember that I want to try the teleport-sprint from another dream, so I position myself on the street with plenty of runway space in front of me.
But there is a festival happening on the street. Lots of people. This prevents me from having space.
I get the impression that the dream characters are not fans of what I am about to try, slightly hostile.
They don't stop me when I went to find a new position, but one guy did bump me as I passed.
I don't visualize a particular place. I break out into a sprint with the night-road in front of me and close my eyes.
I feel my body shake, similar to the first time having a WILD transition. Feels like going through a wormhole.
When I open my eyes, I see blackness. I assume I have woken up.
...
I'm back on the patio with the sunrise, but this time I think I am awake.
"Wow! What a cool lucid dream, I'd better go record it before I forget!" I think to myself.
I enter the house through a doorwall and go to a computer.
This home does not resemble one I have lived in.
The computer has three or four monitors all setup, and looks super cool.
Dream-me has a program setup that will record my dreams as audio, and then auto-tune them.
So I narrate the previous dream as it happened in its entirety.
I mess up the recording so I have to start and stop a few times.
As I recorded it, the computer generated an animated movie, with the audio, as a musical.
The graphics resembled Final Fantasy VII: Remake's.
I'm invested in making the video good.
...
I'm back in my actual bed. My girlfriend is by me, and so is a dog. It may have been a german-shepherd.
Strangely, my sister is at the foot of the bed.
We're awake because we are concerned that there is an intruder in the house.
I felt safe, because the dog would be able to alert us if there was a problem.
My girlfriend tells me I should give my sister the larger pillow, and I tell her that she is already asleep so there is no point.
I reflect that the dog with us is not giving me an allergic reaction, so maybe I can have a dog after all.
...
I'm back at my childhood home, and I'm talking about the intruder with my Dad.
I look at the thermostat, and it reads '60 degrees'. I think it is low, but my Dad tells me that this is how it has to be.
I look over to the living room and see my Mom playing a video game. She's losing so she calls me over to help and I do.

I was waking up from a dream and found myself in my bed. I tried to move but was struggling to. My body began to feel sharp pains and cramps all over. My breathing begins to become shallow and increasingly more difficult with each few seconds that went by. I immediately realize something was wrong as I tried to yell out in pain. I was unsuccessful in managing to open my mouth as the pain seep all around my body.

I began to think to myself what is happening? That's when something threw me out of my bed and to the floor. I was now at a distance to my bed. I now knew for sure I was in a dream but still had no control of any of my movements. I was then lifted up in the air and smack against the wall. That happened a few more times before I lost lucidity and woke up.

I actually meant to publish this yesterday but couldn't finish I hate school.

Night 9

Dream #1 (Non-Lucid):
An anime boy and I were steering clear of a grizzly bear. At some point my dad rolled down a hill with a cat and they landed directly in its warm embrace.

Eventually the anime boy turned into Z, and he fell and got a scratch on his foot. Nile sniffed it and I pushed him aside, intending to put blood in the wound (literally), but Z put on his shoes before I could. Then he said something unclear, and I told him, "You should communicate better."

He started getting emotional about some (false) time I didn't tell him about a cliff edge. My mom sided with him but I laughed in their faces. She was so distressed about my bad attitude she got up, backed me into a corner, and slapped the "camera" while screaming. It woke me up. Unknown time WBTB.


Dream #2 (Non-Lucid):
Plot1: I was reading a book in the hallway between my room and my dad's when some random guy came up the stairs. He must have opened a door because I asked him to close it, but he left without saying a word. My dad came out of his room and closed it, then brought it to my attention that S was spamming me. Something about a dolphin show and slippers.

The book I was reading looked like a CD App [I remember the book but idk what I meant]. I had read it before and knew the whole story. The main character was on a quest to obtain some sentimental candy... and at some point a creepy old guy got involved.

Plot2: A bunch of anthropomorphic animals were illegally climbing a building. They got caught and scattered, a young koala hiding inside a sewer drain. He felt depressed about the whole thing, and when his brother found him and sighed, he fled deeper into the sewer in shame.

At the bottom was a splatter of blood, and in the corner of his eye he saw a creepy girl standing above him. Quickly he ran back up and told his brother. A floating, pale face came around the corner and they ran out of the sewer, grabbing a bottle of face lotion and a slipper on their way out.

The brother suggested they speak gently to it, and while they did so they shoved its severed foot in the slipper and poured all the lotion on it. By then the face had disappeared.


Dream #3 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
I fixed a graphic design.


Night 10

Dream #1 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
Dream about music… I was good? Played a "combo…" When I woke up at 4:07 my mom was in the room and Z was leaving for his club. WBTB.


Dream #2 (Non-Lucid):
I was swimming in a pool by myself, repeatedly sinking to the bottom and considering drowning myself. The water looked only slightly off, and everything was vivid.

At some point Z came in and we messed around, but he took it too far so I left. He followed me out and I said, "You might not remember this, but I came here to be alone, _not_ with you." There may have been a background track screaming "OHHHH" but I'm not sure.

We went into the bathroom and his thermos spilled all over the floor. My body looked disturbingly different, but I didn't know how to react so I said nothing. 6:05 WBTB.


Night 11

Dream #1 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
J&L and I were playing guitar. There was something about a "small Am chord" in "real life" vs "earlier"? 4:00 WBTB.


Dream #2 (Fragments, Non-Lucid):
Frag1: Person played guitar. Was considered an amateur "because of graduation," but was actually good. Played "G2" chord.

Frag2: Took up a huge portion of the dream. J and her mom and I were going out somewhere.


Night 12

Dream #1 (Non-Lucid):
Interesting setting, a museum of some sort. Felt underrepresented by (illegible) and then not. J and I passed the food court, and I really wanted milkshakes but we were already in the checkout line.

Somehow I ended up in my school, and the person in front of me was wearing a hoodie with pictures of famous rappers carrying bunnies. Some snuggled up to them, some placed them on their heads, some held them by the scruffs of their necks with a disgusted expression. It depended on their personality.

Later A.M. was questioning me, calling me "funky" while I skipped. I stopped and said, "That's galloping! Are you a horse, A.M.?" as a joke and she and K and I laughed. Then S and I ended up in the "woods rainbow" somehow. 4:20 WBTB.


Dream #2 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
People dancing. Someone said, "There's no way that silly little figure is Willy Wonka!"


Night 13

Dream #1 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
Guy pretending to (illegible) with Ms. B. I "acorded" her in the valleys.


Dream #2 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
Flashes. "Sis Dore." Middle school. Mr. N. Something about bears as a nickname.


Dream #3 (Lucid):
Boy reassured people that "they were not split," in response to a girl's question. Later watching some weird BL anime about guys training to be actors/mages. At the end Ash Ketchum flew in on a broom, and Ginga from Beyblade was involved somehow.

Random false awakening. I started writing down the earlier part of the dream, when I heard my mom say my name. I assumed it was a hypnopompic hallucination, but for some reason I felt unsettled.

I sat up, the motion feeling unusually floaty and robotic, and looked out at the rest of my room. It seemed off somehow, and there were two dark orbs hovering in the air, small enough to mistake for a trick of the eye. I thought, Wait a minute, could this be a dream?, did a nose-plug RC to make sure, and it worked effortlessly!

Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I sensed that I didn't have much time. I flew down from my bed, in this weird, conveyor-belt style of flying. It was hard to maneuver myself in the window's direction, and I nearly flew through the wall out of impatience, but eventually I managed to orient myself and phase through the window.

What's next? What's next? Controlling a DC? I looked around for one, but couldn't see very well. Then I woke up.

It felt short and uneventful, but at least I gained a decent amount of points for the competition


Night 14

Dream #1 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
There was a club for silent people, and another for another type of people, which were the main focus, but I can't remember what it was.


Dream #2 (Fragments, Non-Lucid):
Frag1: "Clueless girls" were watching a romance show. In response to one line they squealed, "Oh, that was so good!" Another girl agreed but was a bit disappointed, since she was rooting for the GL couple.

Frag2: In a bookstore like Barnes & Noble, looking for the Owari no Seraph light novels.



Points:
Night 9:
WBTB - 2 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Dream (x2) - 2 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Fragment - .5 points
Added: 4.5 points
Previous sum: 90.5 points
Sum: 95 points

Night 10:
WBTB - 2 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Fragment - .5 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Dream - 1 point
Added: 3.5 points
Previous sum: 95 points
Sum: 98.5 points

Night 11:
WBTB - 2 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Fragment - .5 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Dream - 1 points
Added: 3.5 points
Previous sum: 98.5 points
Sum: 102 points

Night 12:
WBTB - 2 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Dream - 1 point
Remember a Non-Lucid Fragment - .5 points
Added: 3.5 points
Previous sum: 102 points
Sum: 105.5 points

Night 13:
WBTB - 2 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Fragment (x2) - 1 point
DILD - 10 points
Reality Check - 1 point
Fly - 5 points
Fully Phase through Big Solid Object + Second Chosen Task - 20 points
Added: 39 points
Previous sum: 105.5 points
Sum: 144.5

Night 14:
WBTB - 2 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Fragment - .5 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Dream - 1 point
Library Theme (a bookstore counts right?) - 5 points
Sum: 8.5 points
Previous sum: 144.5 points
Comp total: 153 points

That's all, folks!

Based on this and the last WBTB attempt, it seems like 6hr/10m might not be the optimal WBTB configuration for me. I think I'll stick to it for experiment #4 to finish out the original plan though.

Went to bed at 11:30PM.

Pre-WBTB

Fragment
I'm at the Darkmoon Faire from World of Warcraft.
I'm playing as a Night Elf. I'm bragging to the other players around me about something.
Recorded at 5:30AM. Near the end of sleep cycle 3.

Scorpion Trap
I'm at some sort of manor, and I'm together with my ex-girlfriend H.
I find it strange that we are together again, but not enough to make me question it further.
We are standing in the front yard and it resembles the side-entrance from highschool (P) but with concrete steps going up.
There is a man up a story telling us about a device.
The device is a way to capture or deal with scorpions.
I remember looking back at H and thinking she looked kinda hot with her short blue dress on.
Recorded at 5:30AM. Near the end of sleep cycle 3.

WBTB
Woke up 6 hours after going to bed as planned. Felt very well rested. Almost decided to just stay awake. But I want those points. So I took the Galantamine 8mg to stay consistent with my experiment parameters and reviewed my go-forward for the lucid. After 10 minutes I went back to bed.

Post-WBTB

False Awakening
I wake up in my bed and do a nose-plug RC out of habit.
I'm lucid now. I try to move my hands forward to do a hands RC, but they feel very heavy.
I struggle against this weight, but I can't overcome it.
Recorded at 7AM. Early in sleep cycle 5.

Pre-WBTB

Fragment
I can faintly remember something Dragonball Z related.

WBTB
I'm very tired but force myself out of bed. I spend the 10 minutes similar to how I did last night: going over my plans, and reviewing the advice friends on DV gave me regarding teleporting and visualization.
I lay down and spend a long while trying to get to sleep. It's possible that 10 minutes WBTB wake-time is too long for me (twice in a row now I've struggled to sleep). More data will tell on that.

Post-WBTB

False Awakening and Fade
I wake up in my bed and remember to do a nose-plug RC, and I can breathe. It takes a couple seconds to realize but...
I'm dreaming!
I get out of bed and make my way to the hallway, thinking about how best to start stabilizing.
I rub my hands together, and also my barefeet on the ground.
But, unfortunately, before I know it, the dream has faded.
I don't recall recovering from this.

Tree Arena Fragment
I vaguely remember a big circular arena.
It may have been inside a large tree trunk. Maybe non-lucid me made it to the EFF™ after all
I can also recall some pirate ships circling the area. The main combat section was raised and the lower section was filled with water.

Finally got time to type this up. Great news, a couple days ago I was telling my friend S how to have a lucid dream, and that very night they had their first one! I feel so accomplished

Night 3

Dream #1 (Fragments, Non-Lucid):
Frag1: Taking something similar to IB tests, but all of them combined.

Frag2: Screenshotting A's (illegible) vdeo a bunch of times. Laughing really hard.

Woke at 3:10 and WBTB.


Dream #2 (Non-Lucid):
Incredibly stressful dream. I was doing the SAT again, but it was online at home and I couldn't log in. I was very distressed over this for some reason, screaming and crying and hitting myself, but no one cared. In fact, my parental units scornfully dismissed and perhaps even blamed me.

I continued crying until 8:00 pm when time was up. The distribution of my time spent on each section popped up on the screen, even though I had been stuck on the sign-in screen the whole time. I screamed that my parents didn't care about or understand me and my mom was like, "Oh, you think you have misunderstood problems? Do you wanna hear my problems?"

I said yes and she grabbed Nile's ear and stabbed her fingernail into it [I actually saw a mark there IWL the day before]. I shouted in shock, grabbing her wrist to stop her.

Later I posted online about my "panda" in Japanese and someone was confused; I explained that Nile vaguely resembled a panda. 4:20 WBTB.


Dream #3 (Non-Lucid):
I was telling people about my SAT dream, in an apocalyptic world with J and some random guy and eventually my ex. The random guy kept messing with my Chromebook, saying it was "cruel" of me not to charge it for him. He was annoying but manageable, so we didn't get rid of him. At some point we went out to find something and left a note so he wouldn't freak out.

Later texted a Japanese friend on LINE, who said he would show me his "last place" in volleyball. 7:35 WBTB.


Dream #4 (Fragments, Non-Lucid):
Frag1: Post-apocalyptic world where I was worried about my dreams. Grades were involved somehow. Talking about someone's mom and the difference between two things.

Frag2: Got an ad claiming Wattpad caused hair growth, tiredness, blurry eyes, poor posture, et cetera. Drugs "more prone to coffee-vomit," according to Wiki. Searched something up on YouTube. This dream was so unhinged. 8:10 WBTB.


Night 4

Dream #1 (Fragments, Non-Lucid):
Frag1: Someone hated bubbles, tried to be eco-friendly by discovering them online(?), but got mocked instead. Pre-K teacher with 76 students tried to defend them, and the one doing the mocking said "Scary." (She was kind of a Karen).

Frag2: I was sifting through worn-out books from my dad's generation to find the meaning of life. 4:00 WBTB.


Dream #2 (Fragment):
Person was trying to share their interests but kept getting shut down. 5:00 WBTB.


Dream #3 (Non-Lucid):
Dramatic story about a kid who was separated from his mom at a very young age and never grew taller. He made friends on a snowy mountain by grabbing their sled and hopping on. Later he found out his mom was alive (I, as the NEO, was unimpressed with this development). They exchanged souls for a short time; hers resided in a horse tail, and his in a candle.

A day passed and I became him. I'd grown taller, but she couldn't even tell! Z also invited me to play Minecraft to grind for something, as it was the last day of an event. 5:30 WBTB.

After that I kept drifting off and waking up again every 10 minutes. Had multiple dreams about alarms (there were none) and false awakenings. In one of them Z forced N to get up and come downstairs with him, but when I woke up N was in bed and Z wasn't even home. It was incredibly realistic, so I was surprised. Had to get up for school at 6:15.


Night 5

Dream #1 (Fragments, Non-Lucid):
Frag1: Featured a celebrity named Awami, whom people were absolutely obsessed with.

Frag2: Left my my books in a classroom.

Frag3: I was in a class doing activities, one of which was to make new friends. I joined a group of three, and another person came over to ask questions. When they left I said, "Sayonara and congrats, you now have three friends." 4:20 WBTB.


Dream #2 (Fragments, Non-Lucid):
Frag1: A girl was writing a positive energy book.

Frag2: In my house but more apocalyptic. There was a strange dog on the steps, and I encouraged it to sniff me. This dream was really long but I couldn't quite remember it Woke at 6:15.


Night 6

Dream #1 (Fragments, Non-Lucid):
Frag1: A and I had different (illegible). I tried to show how the traits we shared should mean we shared that too but (illegible).

Frag2: At some point we were sitting in class, and at another point J and I were in a car, and there was some BL plot, then it was my (illegible) and I was like "I don't needa park I'm a safe driver" or something and J called me an idiot.


Dream #2 (Lucid):
Plot1: Was in something similar to a program I did over the summer. Some girl put makeup on me, much to my discomfort, and for some reason there were clothes on the table. When I got home, two nerds were in the process of leaving when my mom asked them about signing up for colleges not listed on Common App. In response they gave her a HUGE booklet, like the size of It by Stephen King.

Plot2: L sent a pic of me floating upside down in the air on my bike. I assumed she edited it and responded with something vaguely depressing.

Plot3: There was a tick on my stomach. I asked my mom to get it off for me, but it crawled off, apparently not having bitten yet. (Though it was engorged and there was a dark spot on my skin). I chased it in the dark, asking, "Should I kill it?!"

She said yes, so I raised a fist, but then she shouted for me to stop because it would run away (it was surprisingly fast). The whole time I had been wondering why she was acting so weird, and right before the dream dissolved from stress, I thought, "Oh, I see. This is a dream." Unknown time WBTB.


Dream #3 (Fragments, Non-Lucid):
Frag1: Was looking at a painting of a girl about to punch another girl, but deciding not to because she didn't want to bloody her fists.

Frag2: The world was ending. That's all I remember. Woke at 6:15.


Night 7:

Dream #1 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
When I woke from this dream, it felt like I had been asleep for years. Doctors were murdering part-time workers, lighting their hats on fire. One seemed particularly without empathy, and I liked her.


Dream #2 (Non-Lucid):
Possible side plot about boy and girl riding a train.

Main plot: I was doing SAT work. My mom said I had to finish it in one day; she kept nagging me. Walking home from school, I saw a bunch of Ramune marbles and picked them up. My car passed by, my familial unit going on a trip without me, so I had to run after them by foot.

When I finally caught up and found them in a cave-like area, I yelled, "Why do you always drive away without me?! I had to run to catch up!"

Z just made fun of me, so I turned around and left without saying a word. I hopped some stones across a river and climbed a short rock wall, my mom chasing me from behind.

"You need to do your work," she said when she reached me. "What you're doing right now doesn't look like work. If you score in the top 10, you can go to a good college. Why is a passing score so low… 3.5 GPA is acceptable in this country!!!" With a manic smile on her face, she started banging her head against the wall.

"Stop! Stop!" I yelled. "There are 330 million people, of course the average isn't going to be that high! Stop banging your head!"

She turned around and started talking about work again, and I sobbed, "Why do you hate me?!" trying desperately to control her with the NEO, but it wasn't working. It's only with this tyrant version of her that it is completely ineffective.

She grinned sweetly. "Because you inspire me [to hate you]."

Woke at an unknown time. After that I had another dream, but I don't remember it at all.


Night 8:

Dream #1 (Non-Lucid):
I don't know how, but I went to sleep at 12:00 a.m. and woke up at 12:20 a.m. with a dream. I would think it's REM rebound, but it's not like I'm sleep deprived. Well, I guess I am compared to the amount I was getting over the summer. I don't know.

I was in the basement with Z, and he mentioned something that made me want to watch a horror movie. With a grin hiding his fear, he said, "Leave, then!"

"You leave!" I shot back. Woke at unknown time and WBTB.


Dream #2 (Non-Lucid):
Plot1: I was with K and J. Something they said upset me, so I went quiet. They were trying to (illegible), so I went to S's house, perhaps planning to do work. I stood there not intending to go in or even knock, but I was spotted and they opened the door. Nile ran out for some reason, but I caught him.

In the parking lot a little girl was being bullied by an older boy—I think he had stolen her basketball/football. Nile was barking at them so I let him go. (Actually, it was only implied I let him go; this scene instantly changed from one to the next.) He barked at the boy and freed the ball, then lay down all cute for the little girl.

Plot2: I was a writer for some weird publishing team. S was in a different one and I found their book online. It featured me committing suicide and was rated "the least printed book of the year."


Dream #3 (Non-Lucid):
Not apocalyptic, but there was some "vegetable disease" going around. We also had another dog who looked exactly like the beanie baby Spunky (which J gave to me a couple days ago); it was really attached to me. I think there was a third dog as well.

At some point my mom came home and got a scratch on her finger which I could feel (it hurt), but she didn't seem to be infected.

Somehow our room caught on fire so I ran in to grab my valuables, then came back downstairs to get Spunky. My mom picked it up by the nose, which I yelled at her for. I wasn't allowed to go to S's house but I think I went anyway. On the way there I heard a radio show about covid and illness myths, that it's not your fault and that washing your hands isn't counterproductive.

It was about 8:00 now, and until 9:30 I would keep waking up every 5 to 15 minutes.


Dream #4 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
I attended a meeting for aromantics.


Dream #5 (Non-Lucid):
Searched up information about the veggie virus, apparently it was a specific plant from India that could only kill you if you touched it. So, if I wanted to, I could safely walk around outside. (Was asleep for 15 minutes.)


Dream #6 (Non-Lucid):
Apocalyptic world, we were in a strange house watching an enormous floating keyboard blot out the sun. Went inside when it got dark, I sang a song to "fill" the room.

Someone started knocking on the door and I knew it was a killer (vaguely lucid?). He was trying to stab through the door, so I stabbed through it as well, impaling him multiple times, but he kept recovering. I NEO-summoned Omori and the killer "accidentally" hurt him and, devastated over it, left.

Suddenly I woke up (FA) inside another strange place, wondering if it was a double illusion and I had hurt someone on my side as well. Then I woke up for real. (10 minutes.)


Dream #7 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
Searching the library for books on the veggie virus. [I don't know why the veggie virus was in so many of this night's dreams.] (7 minutes.)


Dream #8 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
Someone invented a device that improved circulation, with numerous other health benefits. (5 minutes.)


(Another fragment, but it's completely illegible so I won't count it.)


Dream #9 (Non-Lucid):
False awakening. Rooted through my bed, which was cluttered with boxes for some reason. I found three missing headphones and a bunch of Nerds candy, among other things.


Dream #10 (Non-Lucid):
J and I went to our old teacher Ms. B for advice; something about our birthdays. I only remember her saying that parents should use both punishment and reinforcement techniques on their children.



Points:
Night 3:
WBTB - 2 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Dream (x4) - 4 points
Previous sum: 43 points
Sum: 49 points

Night 4:
2+1+.5+1
WBTB - 2 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Fragment - .5 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Dream (x2) - 2 points
Previous sum: 49 points
Sum: 53.5 points

Night 5:
WBTB - 2 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Dream (x2) - 2 points
Previous sum: 53.5 points
Sum: 57.5 points

Night 6:
WBTB - 2 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Dream (x2) - 2 points
DILD - 10 points
Previous sum: 57.5 points
Sum: 71.5 points

Night 7:
WBTB - 2 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Dream - 1 point
Remember a Non-Lucid Fragment - .5 points
Previous sum: 71.5 points
Sum: 75 points

Night 8:
WBTB - 2 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Dream (x7) - 7 points
Remember a Non-Lucid Fragment (x3) - 1.5 points
Library Theme - 5 points
Sum: 15.5 points
Previous sum: 75 points
Comp total: 90.5 points

Pre-WBTB

Fragment
Frieza from Dragonball Z is at a Home Depot store.
Recorded at 5AM, at the beginning of sleep cycle 5.

WBTB

During my 10 minutes of wake-time, I planned what I would do if I had a false awakening at my home. After taking the 8mg Galantamine and using the bathroom, I walked down the hall doing my series of reality checks. Then I rubbed my hands together. I also decided I should interact with the environment in some way, so I licked the wall. Yep. Gotta commit man. I wander around the house a bit, and decided I should find ways to teleport to the forest (step one of "The Plan"). I decide that I will summon an image of a forest on the living room TV and then step through it. Path forward established and my 10 minutes spent, I was content to lay down in bed. I tossed around for awhile and thought about just about every current life problem I have. Maybe I was too awake. After what felt like forever, I finally drifted off. No WILD though unfortunately.

Post-WBTB

Seeking The Elusive Fantasy Forest™
I'm waking up in my bed, and I immediately think to check for a false awakening.
I can breathe through my plugged nose.
I'm dreaming!
I decided to cycle through some more RCs just in case.
I look at my hands, and I have far more than five fingers on each hand. Yep. Dream.
I tried to see my nose on the left and right sides and I can. So according to that check I am awake.
To be fair I've never done that RC before so I didn't really know what to expect.
I default back to another nose-plug RC and I can still breathe. Definitely dreaming.
I recalled my plan from the WBTB prep, so I rubbed my hands and licked the wall. Yep.
It tasted like the real wall. Like paint.
I then find myself back in bed. Another false awakening.
I repeat the RCs, but this time my vision isn't quite coming to me.
I try to will my eyes to work. Nope.
I say "Heal my eyes!" It works a little bit. I say "HEAL MY EYES TIMES 1000!" It works a bit more.
This goes on for some time, and I'm getting annoyed.
I recall another technique where I "take off glasses I didn't know I was wearing".
I do this and clarity improves a lot.
Eventually my vision stabilizes to the point where I can focus on other things. Like my goals.
I can recall "The Plan" in it's entirety. Step one is to teleport to the fantasy forest.
I wander over to my living room, which now resembles a mixture of my actual living room and my friend M's.
My girlfriend S is there on the couch. I decide to play it cool and not tell her this is a dream.
Instead I say "Oh hello! How are you? I'm going into the TV now!"
I don't recall actually going through the TV, so I may have wandered away.
...
I find myself lucid in the garage later. I'm looking around for the Elusive Fantasy Forest™.
I look down, and hope that when I look up, the forest will be on the other side of the open garage door.
Nope.
Vivid green grass and neighborhood. At least that is consistent. It looks similar to how it did in my previous lucids.
I checked around the garage some more, looking for a door or something else I can use to teleport.
I find a storage cabinet and try to teleport Narnia-style, but no luck.
I lose my focus for a bit, and I end up walking out of the garage door and preparing to fly.
I kick off the ground hard and take flight. I specifically notice that my right leg doesn't hurt as I jump (In waking life I am recovering from surgery so jumping is normally out of the question).
I zoom around and enjoy the view. The grass looks even more vivid from up here. It takes on a pastel-like painting aesthetic.
As I take in the view I come to a realization.
There is nothing other than vivid green grass and dots of homes that look like legos from this high up, for as far as my eyes can see.
Maybe the reason I can't find my forest is because this entire goddamn dream-plane is a neighborhood.
I zoom around some more, and find myself using air-swimming to control finer turns. Haven't tried that before.
Also unusual, I land without losing lucidity. I remember that I still need to try this stupid teleporting thing.
I'm back at my garage now and I remember reading a tutorial somewhere on DV about "scrolling the world".
So I raised my hand as if I was about to swipe the world like an image in my phone pictures gallery, not really expecting this to work.
Except, against dream-rules, it does work despite my negative expectation. The entire world, my current view of it anyway, swipes to the left, and a new image slides in from the right, teleporting me somewhere new.
But of course, not the elusive Fantasy Forest™.
I see a big, vivid, blue ocean in front of me. The waves are almost caramel-like. They move too slowly. In other words, their viscosity is higher than it should be. They crash down lazily.
My family may have been there too, I can recall my Dad being present for sure.
I briefly consider exploring the bottom of the ocean because who knows what my brain would put there!
But I ignore the ocean and my family: I am on a mission dammit!
I turn to walk away from the ocean and I notice it is raining behind me, and there is a forest in the distance.
But then a car drives by in front of it. IT ISN'T A FANTASY FOREST! IT'S A REGULAR PRESENT DAY FOREST!
I start to think about other ways to reach the forest. In particular, I imagined it might be easier to seek out a campfire and go from there.
But despite my best efforts, before I reach the Elusive Fantasy Forest™ I find myself waking up, thinking I should try to record before I lose memory of this dream.
I wake.
Recorded at 7:45AM.

Legend

Colors: Lucid, Semi-lucid, Non-lucid
[comment from waking] in angle brackets
(comment / clarification from dreaming) in parentheses
Abbreviations: DS = dream sign, CH = childhood home, S1/S2 = sons, S/O = someone, S/A = something about, [f] = fragment, b/r = bathroom trip, Wn = waking #n, BT = bedtime, OOB = final out of bed time in morning, DO = Disembodied Observer

Summary of the Night

• BT: ~23:35, OOB: ~07:39, fitbit score: 86 (7:05 asleep, 0:47 awake, 1:14 deep, 1:15 REM), med right before bed
• Wakings:
  
  1. 01:59 b/r, no recall
  2. 05:05, b/r, recall, Super long BTS. Probably 1-1.5 hours. Possible light sleep, but felt awake. Took off blanket, cooled off, put it back on later. Physical relaxation pretty simple, but mental relaxation harder. SSILD cycles to direct the relaxation help somewhat. Need to find a way to release the mind faster.
  3. 07:27 final waking, excellent recall

---

W2: Camouflage Cars
Outdoors, I see what I think are army cars driving by me. I notice that they have white and black spotted camouflage. I think they blend in well to winter. I watch them drive by me. Then I see a large field of people walking towards me, hundreds of people. Many are carrying a Ukrainian flag. They walk towards me and past me as I stand in their midst.

W2: Political rally
Observing a political rally. They're talking about their plans? They're rallying against a new law? [Vague/forgotten]

W3: Boat cruise [vivid, fun, interesting, decent presence]
Inspecting the naval vessels

I'm outside on the water (on some ship?) observing a large vessel sailing from my right to my left, I'm quite close by. It is colored naval green/gray, and I think this is a naval / military ship. There are others. Then I see that they are moored all together, I'm looking at them all from the stern, they are sort of knocking up against each other. Then I have a close up view of the stern of one of the vessels. It is covered in military equipment. I'm looking for gun emplacements but don't see any, what I do see are very intricate guidance systems (that are used for aiming missiles/guns?). There are a lot of wires leading all over the place. The guidance system looks sort of like a gun emplacement but there is no barrel, but what seems to be two long telescopes or microphones set in parallel about 2 feet apart upon a swiveling stand. I imagine (see/hear?) that there is a female black navy guard who's job is to say "don't touch things" or "get off the boat", and that she is located in a high place so she can see everything going on at ship level.

Cruise Begins

I'm standing on the back of a medium sized boat. It is a boat taking people on a cruise to nearby sights on the bay/ocean. I am a sort of stowaway, I don't have a ticket. I'm standing on the rear left corner of the ship on the "bumper" that is right at water level. There are other people (official passengers) standing to my right on the bumper. I look down as the ship is moving, and I see the churning water from the propellers right there next to me. I think it's quite dangerous, and that anything that falls into that water would be sucked in to the propellers from the (Bernoulli) forces and chopped up. A girl wants to go by me around the perimeter of this bumper so I step aside, and she goes around and there is a bar there and she makes a drink (?), then comes back?

White Sand Lagoon

Then I'm observing the water: we're now motoring through a narrow channel, just a few yards wider on each side of the ship, and it's very choppy, like a rushing river, I have some thoughts about this scene. Then we're located in a large, calm lagoon, the water is still and clear. The bottom of the lagoon, about 20-30 feet deep, is shining bright white sand. I didn't know that there was any white sand like this in this part of the world. A girl (same one from earlier?) says: "Let's jump in" ("Let's do a cannon ball?"). I'm a bit hesitant, but I decide what the heck, and I jump in. I think, this is ocean water, so it will be salty. I open my eyes to look around, I see a small sea creature (like a jellyfish) and I again admire the bright white sand on the bottom of the lagoon. I surface and spend about half a minute trying to brush my bangs out of my eyes. No matter what I do they keep falling back immediately, obscuring my sight. After this goes on for a while I sort of laugh, I think the situation is amusing. The girl is still there.

Buffet Party

Inside the ship in a large party room, there is a party going on. A lot of people. There is a buffet of various food dishes there. I go to one with the girl and look at it, it is something like chunks of turkey meat with a lot of toothpicks on top. I'm studying this for a while, I'm trying to decide which toothpicks are new and which ones have been used and placed back. I say it's always hard to figure out which ones are new. The girl says it's easy: the ones lying horizontally are used, the ones standing vertically are new. I pick up a vertical one and take up a piece of meat and eat it. A (small boy?) criticizes the dish as being non-vegan (?), and I answer by saying "it is excellent protein!"

W3: Taxi ride [fairly vivid, present]
Start the ride

I've just gotten in to the taxi (at the airport?). I'm sitting in the back seat. I see a small (like 2-seat) propeller airplane taking off on the runway, heading right for us. At the last moment it pulls up and takes off flying over us. I expect the driver will eventually ask me where we're going, but he doesn't. I have a lot of trouble speaking, I feel like I can't communicate my thoughts. I say "Can you go to Pe...ky?" He says "sure!". I know that that is not my final destination, that I have to go further. I'm wondering why I need to take two different taxis/modes of transportation, can't this guy just take me to my final destination? I ask and he says yes, of course. I was wondering if it would be too far out of his way. Might as well go with just one trip. Then we're driving through the intersection next to my CH, I recognize it, but don't say anything. I feel like I should get off here but I don't want the driver to know where I live.

Lovely trees/flowers

We're driving on a street, up ahead in the distance I see a huge rhododendron plant/tree. On either side of us are flowering trees/vines, there are many colorful flowers. I comment on how lovely they are. I think they grow so well because of the warm weather here.

End of trip

The taxi is now a mini-bus and we're pulling in to a courtyard that is the front yard (vastly expanded) of my CH. (Roundabout?) Some people get off, and I'm a bit slow in getting off and the driver closes the door and is about to drive away, I call out "Wait! I'm getting off here." My taxi driver is a middle-aged white man seated behind me and to my left. I ask him "Do you have a <business card, in foreign language>?" I also think, hey I have to pay this guy, and ask "how much do I owe you?" He says "no, don't pay me, you'll pay next time". Instead of a business card he hands be a small piece of paper with some scribbles on it. His name is "Mihu."

DJ Critics

I'm seated at a table outside (indescript location), and I'm shuffling through papers looking for a fresh sheet with room on it for me to dream journal. I can't find any places on any of the sheets. The pieces of paper are all separate. Then I find a place and write a few words (?). There are two guys there, they are critiquing the phrases I've written in the DJ. One guy says the words have "No grammar." I am a bit offended but I know that I'm writing just key words/phrases and that they are not grammatical, but I do not want them to know it's a DJ so I keep quiet.

LUCIDD LD#292 False Awakening

I find myself lying on my side in (a) bed. I do a nose pinch and I can breathe!, I'm lucid. I feel myself lying there. Then in a second I feel a "wake up buzz" (REM Atonia ending) and I'm in the same position awake in my waking bed. [very short, but it's lucid! I'm counting it. Lucid is lucid!]

Type: Lucid dream.
Lucidity: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Vividness: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Notes:
This was an immensely vivid WILD that happened near the end of REM. I tried to DEILD back into another dream upon waking, but it failed. I imagine this was because the REM period was over, and because I was too rested to fall back asleep afterwards. I spent the dream observing dream behaviour, rather than doing more intense activities.

The dream began with a false awakening. I had not experienced full-blown hypnagogic scenes during the WILD transition, and I had not wanted to manipulate the subtler visuals into an initial dream scene; this may have been the reason behind the FA. I was in the same bedroom I had fallen asleep in. The room was dark, but there was some subtle blue ambient light. I knew that my eyes were initially closed in the dream, but I could see through them somehow, as if I had no eyelids at all. My blankets were pulled up around my neck and in front of my face, which filled most of my vision. I could barely see the room past them. Then I opened my eyes, and nothing about the scenery changed.

I knew I was dreaming because of the eyelids phenomenon. However, I decided to confirm a second time by holding my hand out and expecting a random character to take it, to help me sit upright.

"Hey, can you help me up?" I asked, expecting Chris Pine to be there.

"Sure," someone said, and I felt them take my hand. The voice sounded fairly accurate to Chris Pine, but not perfect. I sat upright in bed and stood up, and the motions felt light, as if gravity was less powerful and I did not need to exert as much effort to get up. I saw Chris Pine in the darkness of the room, standing in front of me. Even without prior visualization, I was pleased to see how close he looked to the actor's likeness. However, his brown hair was longer and more unruly, like he had let it grow out and hadn't gotten a haircut in some time. It reminded me of Bruno from Encanto. He also looked a bit sad or worried. I did not dwell on this. I chalked it up to the random nature of dreams, where they sometimes filled in details I had not consciously accounted for.

I left my bedroom and headed towards the hallway that connected my bedroom to the bathroom. It seemed wider than in real life, but just like real life, both walls of the hallway had sliding doors with full mirrors on them. I had not expected to see anyone in the hallway, but I saw my mother standing off to the right. I cannot remember what she was wearing, but she looked convincingly like my mother and I didn't notice anything "off" about her.

I approached her. Wanting to see her reaction, I said, "isn't it amazing how we're in a dream right now?!"

"Yes, honey!" she replied, enthusiastic.

"Yeah, it's great. Well, I'll see you later! We can play Uno, or something," I finished, knowing full well that I would not see her again. I walked past the bathroom, paying little heed to the contents, and into the living room of my apartment. It was dark like the bedroom and bathroom. The size and shape of the living room, and the overall furniture setup, was similar to real life, but I didn't pay attention to the minor details. I headed straight for the opposite corner of the room, where in real life, there was an access door to a balcony. There was no door in the dream, though, just an empty doorway that led directly outside.

Outside, it was daytime. While the apartment should have been illuminated by the light spilling in from the doorway, this wasn't the case. There was a very stark divide between indoor and outdoor lighting.

Outside on the balcony, things were unusual. The balcony had no railings. The balcony was also much longer than in real life, reaching about 40 feet long compared to 15 or so. The floor of the balcony was incredibly smooth, and looked almost like gray linoleum rather than painted/sealed concrete. I looked out from the balcony. I saw the wall of a very tall building with very plain, glass windows. It looked like it came from a low-res video game, and the building was fairly close. Then I looked down and I saw a long, straight pathway running across the bottom of the building, below my balcony. It continued past where my balcony ended, then curved around the side of the building, to a place I couldn't see from my vantage point.

Oddly, the pathway was not concrete or asphalt. It was made of fake snow that had been compacted or glued down. There were small hills in the pathway too, and large, snowman-sized snowballs scattered here and there, all of which were made from the same fake snow.

My focus returned to the balcony, then I turned around and looked at the exterior wall of my apartment. The windows were well-defined and realistic, and I could even see the blackout curtains that I had installed in real life. Fascinated by the definition of everything, I looked down at my right hand. My hand seemed incredibly sharp and defined too. I counted my fingers on both hands, and saw five on each. This was unusual, as I typically saw different numbers of fingers, or small fingers branching off from the main ones. I looked up, away from my hands for a moment, then I looked back down at my right hand, imagining there would be small fingers this time. I saw one small, finger-like appendage sticking out of the middle of my palm. I touched it with my other hand, and I could feel it, like it was actually connected to my hand.

Then I became grossed out, so I looked away.

I turned around and noticed that the snow pathway was still present, so I stepped off the balcony and floated down onto it. The fake snow should have made noise under my feet when I landed, like crunching, but there was no sound, even when I pivoted. It was like the ground was smooth wherever my feet were. The rest of the path was still covered in fake snow. I continued walking down the path, turned the corner, and ended up at a large mall entrance. The building was massive and seemingly square-shaped. The walls were made of smaller semi-transparent, triangular glass panels, which I couldn't properly see through, but there was a large set of glass double doors that were completely transparent. I walked towards the entrance and the doors opened for me, which I found interesting.

Inside the mall, it appeared to be a single massive room. The building should have let in a ton of outdoor sunlight, because it was made of glass, but it seemed like the glass walls were completely blocking all outdoor light once I got inside, so the lighting became warmer, as if the space was mostly lit by incandescent lights instead of natural sunlight. I saw lots of glass pathways and tracks winding all throughout the room. The path design and overall complexity reminded me of the ramps during the lightcycle battle from the movie TRON: Legacy. I saw some above-ground concrete pools that were very shallow, perhaps two or three feet. There was water in them, and in the water, I saw some random dream characters lounging in swimming attire.

I decided to summon someone to see what my dream would choose, and said, "okay dream, pick a random person and have them appear behind me".

Then I turned around and saw two people. One person looked like Ororo Munroe from X-Men, portrayed by Halle Berry, and one person was my third grade teacher from school. Ororo was wearing jeans and a black sweetheart top with a black cardigan, which seemed practical. My teacher was wearing a very bizarre outfit. Her top was a 2000s Lululemon hoodie, except it was cropped. and made of a very coarse pink velour fabric. She was also wearing shorts made from the same pink velour fabric. It looked funny.

The dream ended.

I've been contemplating on sharing this but screw it lol

I had a dream that I was at the third Island destination of Pokémon Ruby where the guy and his Pelipper Peeko bring you to with his boat.
We then ship back to Dewford Town where a group of men came together at the cavern entrance to cause all sorts of trouble.
As I walk towards the men I suddenly come to the realisation that I'm entirely naked, I hide in the local city theatre and put on a dress for the time being as I lock the glass door. A bunch of old girls I went to school with at some point in my life are all knocking on the door wanting to see me naked. A short girl whom I was classmates with in 5th grade enters to tell me about her birthday party where they're also getting naked. I go to the backstage area of the theatre and grab some shirt and pants to put on as I walk to my room (which is in the theatre for some reason) as I walk towards my room (which is my bedroom on my family home) I notice a girl on my computer writing down a questionnaire, she tries to run away but I angrily grab her and hold her as I ask her what's going on. She tells me about her bad experiences with her boyfriend and that she was writing a list with questions for me. I slowly let go of her and let her tell her story. We then chill as she's leaning her head on my shoulder, I them hear a voice telling us we should kiss so we do. I then ask if she wants to go further to which she consents, I lift her up and walk towards my door to lock it as I suck on her breasts and lay her on my bad, I'm about to go down on her when I hear the jingle of a gameshow with an announcer saying "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a wet dream!" as the girl slowly disappeared into my bedsheets. I stare at my empty bed before waking up for real, minutes before work starts.

Wet dream within a dream, how meta.
Dream was in Dutch and English.

Another long lucid! Even if it was split in the middle. And a TON of dreams overall! Though they took forever to type. Slept at 12:30.

Dream #1 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
Something about driving and LGBTQ. Woke up at 4:00 and WBTB.


Dream #2 (Non-Lucid):
I was reading about a closeted gay eighth grader, and of course since it was a dream the scenes popped into my head like a TV show. MC was in a warehouse with his friends, goofing around, when he looked in the mirror and said, "You know what, guys? I'm going to go do it, I'm just gonna do it, why am I waiting for high school? It doesn't even make sense."

He was talking about doing the nasty with a girl, but he didn't really want to. He was just trying to prove to himself and everyone else that he wasn't gay. When he headed for the door, my feelings of opposition seemed to affect him. He stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. I physically typed out the words I wanted him to say: "You're not gonna stop me?!?!"

Then I wrote out his friends' response: "No?"

One laughed in confusion, another scowled. I remember crossing out a comma and replacing it with the question mark, then being sure to emphasize that one of them was scowling.

MC said something about "three men," and the angry friend became even angrier. "Of course not," he snapped.

After that MC was tempted to say the same thing about "four men," but he chickened out because there were four of his friends there and the risk of them catching on was too high. I accepted that, just glad that he'd changed his mind, and he left the warehouse.

The plot changed. I was now actively in the dream, as myself yet not myself. I lived in a big house with my "grandma" and brother Z. He and I were in "our room," and when I gazed out the arched window into the night, I saw a peculiar black cat rummaging around, eating trash. I was fascinated by its strange appearance and wanted to interact with it.

It was past midnight, so I waited for "Grandma" to go to the basement before sneaking downstairs and opening the front door. I whispered for it to come inside and eat something edible. It obeyed, but the granny was coming back upstairs so I fled to my room.

She definitely knew I'd been down there, despite Z trying to cover for me. (He was not himself either.) However, she let it go and sat down with the cat at the table, saying that they had to have a long chat regarding me.

At one point she called sweetly to me from the kitchen and snapped at Z when he spoke up. He was holding a "full" glass of regurgitated yogurt (it reached the fill line, but that line was barely one fourth of the cup). It was not abnormal in the dream, but I was disgusted all the same.

———

Woke up at 5:00 and, after journaling, sat up and really focused on becoming lucid. I explained what it meant, quickly performed MILD, and upped my awareness of myself and my surroundings. Then I went back to sleep, lucidity the last thing on my mind. (As in, the final thing I was thinking about, not something I didn't care about at all... I hate English.)

———

Dream #3 (Lucid):
First thing I remember is tagging along as a man led Harlequin down a flight of stairs. We were in her dream. Once we reached the bottom of the steps, we could see an oasis-like place at the end of the hallway. But when we looked back up, we realized we had descended 2000-feet-worth of stairs, and Harlequin's family was screaming her name at the top of their lungs as if she had died.

Trying to keep things under control, I asked, "Are you going to go to the oasis?"

She frowned and scoffed, "My brain drew that with MS paint." Then she left the dream. [I don't remember what she looked like because I wasn't paying attention.]

What a waste, I thought, and went to check out the oasis myself. It was really just a small room with a pool of water, cabinet, window, and carpet, but I sat down on that carpet and became lucid.

I attempted to increase the vividness and thought it was working, but when I woke up I couldn't remember how it looked so maybe it wasn't. I also believed myself to be more clear-headed than I really was. To my credit, I was able to remember the Task of the Season and decided to complete a basic task: asking a dream character what will happen tomorrow!

I phased through the window and emerged a couple stories above the ground, a tree swaying in the wind below me. Everything was a bit unstable so I grabbed a leaf and tried to focus my attention on it as a stabilization technique (as Oneirin suggested), but it didn't work very well.

Somehow I got out of there and ended up flying down a street, chasing after people in cars and trying to get them to answer the question, but every one of them just flashed weird looks and drove faster. Finally I peered into the passenger window of one car and saw a one-year-old baby strapped into a baby seat in the middle. Next to him, on the far side, was a 12-ish-year-old blond boy.

"Hey!" I yelled to the baby. "What do you think will happen tomorrow?"

He glanced at me and started lifting his arms out of the harness straps. I assumed he wanted to get closer to the window, but if a car struck them from behind and he was unbuckled I knew he'd be dead.

"Uhh, no, no, don't do that," I said, and suddenly a horde of skinny, black-bodied, white-headed, Bendy-like creatures rushed toward the car with their arms outstretched. Altogether they resembled the Wall of Flesh in Terraria. I was kicked out of the dream and replaced by a fourteen-year old anime girl.

She flew through the car and grabbed the twelve-year old, sending them tumbling out the other side into an alleyway. The car was destroyed and the boy watched his baby brother get ripped to shreds, one layer at a time. But he wasn't fazed at all! In fact, when the girl held out a hand to him (third person POV), he blushed and took it!

She was a dream superhero of some sort, and there was the sense that she had saved many people from those creatures many times before. She wore red gloves and a short red skirt, black sweatpants, and a black sweater.

At some point they were hiding in the "|" part of a "T"-shaped alleyway, and the boy was able to keep the creatures out by stretching his body to disturbing proportions. Even as the nonexistent observer I was very confused.

Once the creatures cleared out, the boss of the girl appeared. With a smile they said, "You must be [name]'s reincarnation."

[Name] was a very powerful Dream Hero, the most legendary of them all, but the girl was not her reincarnation. No, that was a different girl, and she was back at the lab undergoing testing. MC reminded me of Akko, and the reincarnated girl reminded me of Diana (though she looked like Neiru from Wonder Egg Priority).

MC was having trouble keeping her face stable (it was actually glitching) and started to deny it, but cut herself off. "Is- is Izzy here?" (Another Dream Hero.)

Don't remember if anyone responded, but somehow it was revealed that the boy had "done this before" and was actually a member of their organization. When she heard that, MC flushed with rage and grabbed his collar.

"Say that sooner!" she shouted. She was embarrassed because she'd been under the impression that she'd saved a helpless civilian, and now felt stupid for being so proud.

She stormed out of the room (the alley had gradually morphed into a hotel room) and I returned to the dream, lucid again. I had very little memory of what had happened and zero awareness of having switched with the girl. But I realized I still hadn't gotten an answer to the TotS question, and ran back to the boy. He was being carried like a sack of potatoes by an invisible person.

"What should I do tomorrow?" I asked. (Phrased it that way because I thought he might not respond to "what will happen tomorrow?")

He glared at me, and the vividness of his voice increased tenfold as he spat, "I think you should die."

I actually got goosebumps from how clear and angry his tone was, but brushed it off. The style of the dream had become cheap and pixelated, and I turned to see Mafuyu lying flat on the ground.

I sat next to her. "Mafuyu, what will happen tomorrow?"

She probably assumed I was asking her out and responded, "Saturday is sad day." (Both she and I were under the impression that tomorrow was Saturday.)

"I see. Sad day, huh." I sat by her a little while longer before standing up.

Each hotel door was themed to match a Project Sekai character. Kanade's was first, light blue and decorated with solid circles and hollow triangles. I cracked it open and found her wrapped up in blankets like a burrito. Sensing that I would wake up soon, I decided it wasn't worth interacting with her her.

I hurriedly moved on to Mizuki's sparkly pink door, but for some reason, I knocked this time. I called her name, excited to hear her response, as she and Mafuyu are my favorite characters.

After a pause, a very accurate voice responded, "Yeah?"

I asked the question, but before she could answer the dream faded and I woke up! Nooo! But at the same time, yesss, to this amazing lucid!

———

I was surprised to find it was only 6:25, but it took me an hour to finish writing, so I didn't get back to sleep till 7:30-ish. I wasn't very tired, so maybe that's why I kept waking up and had all these dreamlets.

———

Dream #4 (Non-Lucid):
This was on the border between a hypnagogic hallucination and a dream. I was in the kitchen and one of my parents dumped milk and acid in my head. Then I was in a dark void, walking down a floating runway and smashing open doors with an axe. I found my dad in one of them. He had murdered my mom. I raised my axe and killed him. Woke around 8:00 and WBTB.


Dream #5 (Non-Lucid):
I was being driven somewhere in the middle of nowhere to tutor a kid my age. I was very confused, saying that A was the tutor, not me. But they didn't listen. We nearly ran over a fallen tree and had to get out of the car. It was foggy outside and there was a lake nearby.

When I demanded answers, my mom grilled me in return about how I got my voice recorder. [Answer: I biked to the store and bought it without her knowledge.]

"I told you, I just found it in my stuff!" I protested, speedwalking away.

I came across my brothers and a group of old friends, the only one I could see properly was a kid named Blake. He was holding a football and I asked if he was copying me, as I was playing catch with a football for two hours a couple days ago.

Don't remember his response, but I took the football and asked if I could punt it. He refused because there was a lake in the distance and he didn't want it going in.

Woke at 8:27 and WBTB.


Dream #6 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
Forgot everything when I opened my eyes. Something about flowers. 8:46 WBTB.


Dream #7 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
(Illegible.) 9:06 WBTB.


Dream #8 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
Lifting weights. Later I was in a store and Harlequin was there, asking how to get home. I directed her to a staff member. 9:19 WBTB.


Dream #9 (Non-Lucid):
I was driving to a therapy session, though not doing a very good job. In the end I had to lift it up like a chair and force it into a parking spot within the building. Switched the parking brake on and it finally settled down. A girl next to me was doing the same. Some time later people were watching the dream on a screen, admiring the "perspectives" and skill of my "internal camera." I was a little uncomfortable.

Plot change. Someone had filmed a TikTok of me saying, "Do you want your madlad chicken? -goes off-screen and returns a couple seconds later- Sorry, they aren't allowed in the café but here are some french fries and ketchup."

It had 12K likes and I was wearing a dark blue plaid jacket and mask. It repeated a few times before showing the aftermath. S was grabbing me and pointing to a bundled-up customer.

"Merlin," they said. (Not my real name but that's what they called me in the dream.) "You have to figure out their identity. Once you do, you'll be shocked."

But I could already tell that the twist was that they were gonna be my doppelganger.

At some point I had a false awakening and when I was writing down the dream I added, I was covered in leaves (thank goodness I remembered that!).

Woke at 9:47 and got up for good. Kinda sad that none of them were lucids, but oh well.

Pics of the dream scenes, and a map of the third dream (yes I am totally copying Harlequin):

I woke up and immediately noticed that the light in my room looked kind of dark and bluish like the sun was rising while it was really cloudy. [COLOR="#008000"]I knew I was in a dream because the light coming in through my window never looks like that. I rolled off my mattress and decided to look around my house. I walked to my bathroom and there were feces everywhere. I got some on my shoestrings, even though I know they're not real, they're still gross. So I go down my hall and into my living room, and I see that the Christmas tree is still up. There's a white shoe box under it, so I open it, and there's some gray sneakers in it, so I start replacing my shoes, but my mother sneaks up behind me and stops me from moving.I tell her to let me go but then I wake up.[/COLOR]

I was in the stairwell of some hotel or apartment and I had to go up a couple floors to retrieve some groceries or something. Walking up the stairs was very tiring for some reason, but I eventually reached the room. It was had just some toys, a bay window, and a note where the floor slanted down near the wall. I looked out the window, and I could see a city below like I was as high as an airplane. I went up to the piece of paper in the wall floor ditch, and I turned it over. It said something about burning in hell.I woke up around there.

I don't remember much from this one just that[COLOR="#008000"]I was lucid and my eyes were closed, an I was feeling carpet or something and then I heard a rooster,[/COLOR] because one of my real roosters was crowing.

After over two weeks without a lucid, I finally got one! And such a fun one, too! I'm quite happy. Slept at 11:50.

Dream #1 (Fragment, Non-Lucid):
I was at an abandoned carnival and intentionally ruined my phone with "Fn poisoning." I figured it would be fine since my phone sucks and I need a new one anyway, but I was trying to come up with a lie to tell my parental units.

Later J&L and I were talking… (illegible).

I was quite lazy with journaling this dream so I don't remember most of the details. Don't know when I woke up from it either, nor from the next one.


Dream #2 (Non-Lucid):
My childhood friend Mason was in our basement. I hid my discomfort at him being there and tried to act cheery, smiling and chatting with my brothers. Eventually I fled upstairs and looked in the mirror, smiling at myself. A circular piece of purple cardboard was wedged in my gums.

I was terrified, although I had the sense that this had happened before, and went to my mom. Much to my distress, she yanked it out and let it bleed. My dad was pretty mad at her as well. I could feel the air flowing through the wound and tried to assure myself that this kind of injury didn't matter, that lots of people have holes in their gums.

I was taken to the hospital and a doctor offered me three treatment options. One was a full face mask with the label: "Is this fabric bad for your skin? Screw your skin!" Needless to say, I quickly disregarded it.

In the end I selected a nasal spray and felt quite comforted after squirting it into my nostril a few times. (I'd forgotten that the wound was in my gums.)

Then I disappeared from the dream, and the scene switched to a group of teen boys running from the hospital, one of them jumping on the roofs of buildings as they went. The others followed along, but with hesitance, and one nervously voiced his concerns. The boy said it would be fine because they were all sick, citing a time when his poor health scored him a get-out-of-jail-free card.

At some point they were on a bridge and started making up a gay story featuring characters very much like them. One character was described as a "sick boy who plays soccer."

I re-entered the dream and ran ahead of them, toward a hill resembling the Big Hill in my neighborhood. A girl, or rather the silhouette of a girl, was standing there. She was made up of a gradient, flowing rainbow. I was under the impression that she was part of an MV, and I had entered the MV using virtual reality or something.

Since I believed I was an MV, my moves were quite dramatic as I chased the girl around, spinning and doing cartwheels and striking poses. I thought that if I caught her, something special would happen. In the background was a Japanese song with English subtitles singing a song about schizoid issues. The voice sounded like a mix of Raon, Yorushika, and Tsukuyomi's vocalist.

I kept trying to pause the video to figure out how to say "schizoid" in Japanese, which is difficult to do when you're literally inside of it. It wasn't working, but one of the "whoa" vocalizations was supposed to sound similar to it. I thought it was the most accurate schizoid song I'd heard (that intentionally depicted schizoid topics), then thought of another (false?) Japanese song that was a close second. I found it mildly remarkable that they were both Japanese.

I gave up the chase and looked at my wrist, finding a single itchy bump there. The song ended with the girl throwing her hands into the air and the lyrics reading, "The world of human connection is so large." Then I woke up.


Dream #3 (Non-Lucid):
J and I were hunting down a monster. He had been created by some god, with the specific purpose to perform evil acts and kill people. He was also a writer, Herman Hesse I think. I felt bad for him, but he said he was not opposed to killing and requested we exterminate him before he did.

Despite his request, he wasn't cooperating and made us chase him to a large field where families were having picnics. J threw a dagger at him and missed, and the surrounding people murmured excitedly. He shrunk down to plushie size and I grabbed him by the leg and took his gun.

J pinned him down and I said, "It'll be over soon, Hermann."

Then I shot him in the right side of the chest. He let out a long, piercing scream. Then he lay still in quiet agony, tears forming in his anime eyes. I sat next to him to be of some comfort and waited for him to die.

A strong wind suddenly rustled all the trees' leaves, and an ominous presence fell over the area, accompanied by the sound of something approaching. It sounded like an extremely large tractor, but I knew instinctively they were footsteps.

I worried it was the god who'd created him, or perhaps his monster buddies responding to his cry for help, so I bolted. I ran down to a different neighborhood, figuring it was okay to leave J since I was the one who killed him, and therefore the one in the most danger. I decided to stay and listen instead of running farther, but I woke up before anything happened.

When I opened my eyes I saw a cartoonish, squiggling black scribble on the wall. I stared at it for a few seconds, thinking, What a simple hypnopompic hallucination. Then I sat up and recorded the dream at 7:30, doing SSILD as I fell back asleep.


Dream #4 (Lucid):
Don't remember much about the beginning of the dream, just that there was a warrior with long red hair who was being ridiculed for being a woman and wearing a white dress. Then she used transformation magic to form a heavy suit of armor, which was apparently very high-level magic. She walked past them, scowling, and the armor changed back into a white dress.

I entered the dream later. The setting was similar to my house, but somber and monochrome. It was being used as a base for kids in training to become soldiers. I bounded down the stairs and saw chicken on the table, while someone on the intercom kept saying ミート (meat) over and over. I asked one of the kids in charge about it, saying that I thought meat was rare in times of war. He said it was, and that that was all the meat we had. I was displeased by this answer.

At some point had a false awakening. Now I was in the living room with my mom and brother N. My dog Nile was on the couch and my mom patted his chest, asking in an affectionate voice if he would eat his food now. He whined in response, and I was so amazed that he understood her that I laughed out loud.

Somehow we started talking about dreams and I jokingly said, "Haha, what if this is a dream?"

I plugged my nose and was in disbelief when I could partially breathe. You really can be dreaming at any moment, I thought.

My mom and brother exchanged a look, and for a moment I worried that they would turn against me like some other people's dream characters do once they become lucid. (I know this is just a schema.) I brushed off the thought, but by that point my mom had grabbed me by the legs, restraining me.

"Mom, let me go," I said, but she just smiled at me in a way that was simultaneously playful and creepy. I phased through her by imagining myself already in the location of the living room that I wanted to be. It took a couple tries, but then I effortlessly, without even thinking about it, phased through the window onto the balcony. It was so cool, there was a clear visual transition, and I may have felt an interesting sensation as well but I wasn't paying attention to it.

I flew into the air, but it was a little unstable. I wondered if my mind could not properly calibrate my body size, though some part of me knew that was silly. I touched down on my neighbor's deck, looking out at the neighborhood. It was so incredibly accurate—the woods, the path, the wall, the fence, the retirement home. I refrained from thinking about stability and took flight again.

In my peripheral vision I tried to summon a burger in my hand, but it didn't work, so I thought back to that non-lucid dream where I summoned chicken nuggets right before my eyes. I cupped my hands in front of me and visualized a burger. Just like last time, it appeared first as a dark shadow, then an outline, and then I realized I was trying to imagine lettuce and tomato on it even though I don't like veggies. Once I stopped that, the burger formed completely. I thought that if the competition were still going this would have earned a lot of points, but whatever.

I bit into it and said delightedly, "Ha! So much for 'limited meat!'" (Referring to the pre-FA scene.)

I dropped the burger and decided to find J, but didn't want to waste dream time flying all the way to her house. So I called for her, hoping she would appear somewhere. In the distance I spotted someone running down the path. I could tell it wasn't J, but chased after them anyway, for some reason tempted to shoot them down.

I followed them all the way to the road, but they wouldn't approach me, so I intentionally fell off my drone (I was now riding a drone), crying out "Ah!" in hopes that they would be sympathetic.

They were, tentatively coming over to help. It was a young girl, 12 to 14 years old, with short, curly brown hair. I quickly lost interest in killing her.

"Why were you running away?" I asked.

"The drone scared me, I thought it was an attack helicopter." (We were in war times.) "Also, I was getting a very 'predator-hunting-prey' vibe from you..."

We walked beneath a tree, and she explained that she was fighting in the war to strengthen her cheek muscles. I jumped and tore a few leaves from their branches, enjoying my lucidity.

"I thought kids and children weren't allowed to fight in the war," I said distractedly, thinking back to the first part of the dream. "Oh sorry, I meant kids and women."

She shrugged. I clapped her on the shoulder and exclaimed, "Well, good on you! I think that rule is stupid anyway, get stronger all you want! Even though you'll probably be traumatized for life, hahaha."

She smiled weakly. During the conversation we had occasionally been ducking behind cars and running around to avoid bullets and laser beams from attack vehicles.

I asked if she would accompany me to J's house, but she adamantly refused, probably thinking it was miles away. Out of nowhere K appeared, assuring her that it was just down the street. Sure enough, we were somehow much closer to J's neighborhood than before, only having to turn the corner and walk to the end of the road to reach her residence. But before we could, J came around the corner herself! We all called her name in excitement.

"How is she here?" K asked incredulously.

"Because this is a dream!" I replied, then pointed to my old friend S.E. who was passing by. "J loves shooting and killing—J, kill that thing!"

J made finger guns and shot S.E. in the forehead with a chi bullet. She went on to shoot other people, and each time she did, an itchy lump would form on the back of my right hand. I showed it to the girl and explained that it was the result of the dream characters' deaths, as everything in this world was made of my energy.

A small bump formed on my left wrist and I remarked, "Ah, she must have shot in the other direction."

We entered a building, but a black placard above one of the doors reminded me of the dream with Herman Hesse, and I was unsure if I wanted to go in there.

———

When I woke at 8:20 my hand was actually itchy, indented with clothing lines. I'm so happy though, this lucid was long and stable and chill and fun and... yeah Though I did notice all of the dreams were violent and/or stressful in some way. The one with Hermann Hesse was the closest I've had to a nightmare in a long time.

I didn't get the WILD or dream control I was hoping for, but there is a lot of recall here...so that's a plus!

Before WBTB

Sci-Fi Feeding Time
It's dark, night-time at a stable on a farm.
There are horse-like creatures and other monsters in sci-fi fleshy body bags.
Some of the horse-creatures are sitting on their backsides...and have huge upright dongs.
Like straight up into the air, 3ft diameter and 5ft high...
Someone is showing me how they care for the creatures.
They have one mature creature chew up food and spit it out.
Then they collect the mush and feed it to the younger ones.
The whole situation is very strange and I kinda wish I would've forgotten this one.

Fireshots and Frogskins
I'm in a team at Hogwarts and we are in the middle of magic combat with another group.
They are Slytherins or otherwise dark magic users.
It isn't a friendly duel, they are trying to hurt us.
I shoot some fire attacks at one of them and set their robes on fire.
I remark that the spell was meant for aesthetic uses, but very useful here.
I shoot off some stupefies and experlliarmises, and notice that I have multiples wands and they break as I'm shooting.
They sort of snap like twigs.
It feels similar to how durability works in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Later I'm in a downstairs living space or maybe a lab.
Mr. Weasley is there. He has a big frog creature. About 1ft tall.
I'm wanting the frog's shed-skin shell from him.
There is also information I'm needing. There was another person I was planning to bribe with the skin-shell.
But I realize that Mr. Weasley has the same info.
The room looks like my childhood kitchen now, with Mr. Weasley standing near the sink.
I ask him for the info, and indicate my understanding that I don't need to bribe him.
He pauses, gives me a look, sarcastically pauses...maybe a bribe IS needed...
But then gives me the info.

Cave Battle
JM from work and I are planning a dangerous trip to get treasure.
Later we arrive at the site.
I'm in an underground cave with a large rock blocking the entrance above.
Similar to a bombable wall from Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
There is a horde of orcs/goblin creatures above the wall chasing me. JM is above as well.
I'm searching the cave for the treasure. The monsters are getting closer to opening the rock.
I start to look for a weapon instead. I find a bow, but the arrows with it are dull.
They break through. I try to hide.
3 goblins make their way to the back cave chamber where I am at.
They chase me around the room and shoot arrows at me, I try to grab fallen arrows to fight back desperately.
J!!! HELP!!! I scream.
He shows up and helps me fight.

After WBTB
I head back to bed and focus on the forest I want to WILD into. I wait a long time, and multiple alarms go off interrupting my attempt. I eventually slip off to sleep without a WILD.

False Awakenings
I'm in my bedroom, thinking that I've wasted my time for the last day of comp.
Crap. I do a half-hearted nose reality-check just to be sure...
And I'm dreaming! But it fades quickly into another false awakening.
This happens a few times, but I never get real control of the dreams.
Only counting it as one dream because it all was sort of a blur.

Hey, You, You're Finally Awake
I have metal chains binding my arms together and I'm riding a cart through some valley.
I'm a prisoner, similar to the opening of Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.
My right eye is bound shut somehow and I can't find a way to move my body to free it.
I think about how maybe I'm sleeping with my eye covered...
I must be dreaming!
Despite being lucid, I can't do anything to free my eye.
When I woke up, I confirm that my right eye was, in fact, lodged into my pillow. Go figure.

Carpet Shower
I'm at my Grandma P's old house (the one with the big upstairs area and Jack/Jill bathroom).
My dad owns it now. He's talking to his friend about how great blowjobs are. I mean, I can't argue with the man.
There is a stuffed animal on a chair alone in one of the rooms. I don't see the significance of it, if any.
I'm searching for a shower and I find one in the middle of one of the big bedrooms over the carpeting.
It doesn't strike me as strange that a faucet is right in the middle of the bedroom wall.
I start to shower up, but my Dad interrupts me and I have to leave the room.

Unexpected Assist
I'm in an apartment similar to H and A's from a few years back.
We're down some stairs. H is giving me a strange look and I feel like she is into me.
Her and my girlfriend S are aware of my WBTB and WILD attempts, and are trying to help.
They set up a bed for me with a stuffed animal to help me sleep.

Panther Dinner Time
I'm in a fancy restaurant sitting outside. It reminds me of where we sat and got ice cream in Disneyland/California Adventure.
There is a large panther approaching the seating area.
It's aggressive and the crowd freaks out.
Then a man appears from out of the crowd and seems to know the panther.
He commands it, and manages to get it to jump onto a nearby brick wall and hang there.
The situation is resolved.

Conditions
Medium workout
Light dinner
Bed on time
6hr/30m WBTB
Yuschak Primary Trigger (8Mg Galantamine, 250Mg Choline Bitartrate)

Notes
So I still didn't get the result I was hoping for. There were some alarms my girlfriend had go off during the attempt, but I'm not sure I can 100% blame those for the failure. I think that given the challenge of falling asleep once again, 30m might be too long of a wake period. Intent was 20m, but by the time I had taken the supplements, recorded my dreams, used the bathroom, and reviewed my goals 30m had passed. I'm undecided if I want to test 6hr/30m WBTB one more time, or move on and try 6hr/20m in earnest.