No recall.
[I've switched to 24-hour timestamps, just in case my schedule gets really bizarre.] School Play I'm trying to find the showers, but there are a lot more people running around the hallway than usual. Pulling back a curtain, I find the place I was looking for, but all of the stalls are taken. The one nearest me is taken by Lord Voldemort himself, judging by the face. That's weird. Some of my friends drag me out on stage to take part in the auditions. I'm stuffed into the head of a dragon costume. My job is to move the jaws and tongue in front of a light to create a lifelike shadow puppet against the wall. After we read a few lines, though, we're shooed offstage. I don't think the show's director was impressed. At least this explains why someone was dressed up as Lord Voldemort. In the audience, I spot the actor who played Bilbo in "The Hobbit." It takes me a minute to recognize him, though. By the time I realize how cool it is that he's here, there are too many people between us for me to catch up to him. I find my roommate in the hallway. Earlier I lent him my toothbrush, but he's had it for a few days now and I want it back. His reply to this request is pretty confusing. I'm not sure what he's saying, and I suspect he's trying to evade giving a straight answer. What a bum. Number Puzzle My grandpa's been helping my group of classmates by making a number puzzle, similar in layout to sudoku. When I take a close look at it, though, I'm confused. How is it supposed to work? I start counting the number of numbers per column carefully. Most of them have eight, but I find one with nine. That must be a mistake. I call over someone to point out the problem, but I'm still confused. Here's a column with seven. So if I just shift one number over, that should fix things. But this box has some commas and periods in addition to numerical digits. Am I supposed to count those as well? Probably I should, since they must be there for a reason. I'll have to count everything again. . . . Self-Haircut As part of a deal, a girl is using electronic clippers to cut her own hair. The idea is just to go for it and see how it turns out. As she goes along, though, I notice she's taking a bit too much off of the sides and not enough off of the top. If she keeps going the way she is, eventually she'll have to get a buzz cut in order for the haircut to be even. So I try to get her to cut more off of the top. I'm not sure how well it's working, though.
Correctional Facility [There's a bit of sort-of-lucidity right at the end of this dream, but not enough that I'm willing to call it lucid.] One of my housemates lends me one of those red-light scanners through the bars separating our cells. I try to use it to give her ID card administrator access through the prison. From the instructions on the scanner's status display, I'm supposed to scan her card first, then scan the device that will grant her access privileges. Suddenly I notice that a guard is coming down the hall with some new prisoners. I have all sorts of illicit papers and devices spread on the floor of my cell, so I just try to lie casually on top of them as the group passes. Thankfully, the administrator doesn't notice. I scan a few more cards, but then I notice I've lost track of my friend in the confusion. I get up and walk down the center aisle of the bus, looking around at the people in the seats. Eventually, I find her [though she's a different housemate now], but the seats near her are taken, so I just grab a random empty seat a few rows farther back. I'm nervous. This bus is taking us to a correctional facility, where we will atone for our crimes. I know it is the morally correct thing to do, but I'm worried that my time here will interfere with my studies at college. The bus pulls to a stop in front of my old elementary school. It's almost dark out, and it's drizzling. Everyone seems to be heading around the side of the school, so I follow them. Then I realize there was a fork in the sidewalk a few steps back, and not everyone went the same way I did. But then someone shouts at those other people that they're going the wrong way. We're led into a nearby building with modern architecture (i.e. lots of windows) and up to the second floor. In the hallway up there, I see a number of doors with slots for access cards, and I'm very tempted to test my card on it to see if my earlier experiment worked. But there might be guards nearby, and I'm not sure I'd even be able to recognize one if I saw one. Maybe I'll get a chance to test my card sometime in the next few days, when I have a moment alone. But what if they chaperone bathroom trips? I might never get a chance! I realize that I'm not carrying my backpack of stuff. What happened to it? Looking around, I notice one of the plainclothes guards is carrying a lot of luggage for the new inmates, including my backpack. I wonder if it would be polite for me to volunteer to take it back, or if he's carrying it because I'm actually not allowed to have any of my stuff right now. I decide not to ask. After a bit more walking, I reach a big auditorium, where everyone is taking a seat. I sit towards the back. Once almost everyone is seated, the facility workers start explaining things to us. They start going through a list of attendance. One heavyset man with glasses and salt-and-pepper stubble names a person who is supposed to be here, because he was summoned no less than 351 days ago. The auditorium takes a collective gasp at that. There's no set time by which you have to answer a summons, but waiting that long is shockingly rude. Perhaps that person doesn't intend to answer for his crimes at all. They start going down a list of attendance, but they are interrupted only five names in by one of the new inmates. "None of those people are here; we're all from Bus 84." Apparently Bus 85 got delayed somewhere. Clearly most people here know much more about this process than I do; they must have been committed here before. Suddenly, people start pointing at the ceiling, which is made of glass. Looking up, I see some indistinct dark shapes flying overhead. Is it an air strike? Are we about to be dragged into a war? It's hard to see clearly enough to say if the shapes are dropping bombs, or indeed if they are airplanes at all. Then one of them flies almost right overhead, then dips downward and out of view under the floor. It was shaped a bit like the Millennium Falcon in miniature. No one in the auditorium is moving, but I think we're all wondering whether we should be running for cover. The ship shoots upward again past the windows on the opposite side of the room, as if it has looped underneath us. It arches over the ceiling, then drops below view on the other side again, closer to the building than it was before. Has the pilot lost control? What's happening here? The ship shoots into view again, loops over the ceiling--and crashes straight down through the room about fifty feet from where I'm sitting. One of the wardens shouts, "Good lord!" but they still don't seem to be moving. I guess they're just shocked. Well, damned if I'll be waiting for them. I run for the doors as the building begins to shake underneath me. Some other inmates are ahead of me, but when I reach the exit, there's no hallway: it's just a straight drop three or four stories to the ground. And the entire room is tilting, sliding, falling towards the concrete below. If this were real life, there's no way I would survive this. I jump out of the door and land on the highway with traffic coming toward me. It's daytime now. I jump on top of the first car, then jump to the second, and continue jumping my way down the line. This is ridiculous, though, so I obtain a motorcycle from somewhere, mount it, then activate the jet engines. This is fun, but I still have to dodge traffic coming straight toward me. I bounce the motorbike into the air and activate the transformation into a sort of metal hang glider. [Interestingly, I don't think the transformation sequence had any visuals, I just sort of imagined that it was happening in an abstract sort of way.] Then the glider's jet engines kick in, and I shoot above the treetops and continue on my way. Now that I'm out of danger, I pull out my cell phone and dial 911 to report the incident at the correctional facility. As I wait for the dispatcher to answer, I'm gliding over a grass field between two roads. There's a cute girl walking across the field. Tall, with wavy blond hair and freckles. We smile at each other. I'm about to fly onward when I remember that making out with someone is one of my dream goals! Letting go of the glider, I stumble a bit as I land on the grass behind her. This is a bit of a risk because there might not be enough action to sustain the dream--but if dream goals weren't risky, they wouldn't need to be goals. "Hey, wait! Come back here!" I call. She stops and watches me, looking a little defensive. I'm a bit thrown off by the fact that she's a little chubbier than she was before. It's like she's a different person, cute now in a different way. "Um, hi," she says carefully. "I just want to make out a little." She just stares at me. "Please?" She's still just staring at me as the dream fades to black and I begrudgingly wake up. [IRL: Last night, I finally took out my dreaming goals sheet again to pick a few lucid dreaming goals. "Make out with a girl" was NOT one of them, though. Also, I would give a lot to know what crime I committed to be sent to that correctional facility . . . but alas, I cannot remember.]
Homework Stress Today is July 1st. One of the first things my [old] chemistry teacher does in class is ask for the homework. It was our choice exactly which assignment to do, but we were supposed to do 50 points' worth of homework. I haven't done it, because I forgot to check the syllabus. Frags: "alien invasion" [??]
Shenanigans and Skydiving (LUCID) [I don't remember how this dream began, but at the beginning of our tale I am lucid, I'm standing in my room near the exterior wall (with a window), and I've decided to go outside.] I consider crashing straight through the wall using a shoulder, but I think in this case something more elaborate would be safer. I back away from the wall, staring at it carefully. I'll try to use a fireball to blow it up, but in order for that to have even a chance of working, I need to have a pretty clear idea what I imagine it would look like. I concentrate on the wall, imagining it heating up. The colors start changing: the wall becomes red-tinted, or maybe purple. I thrust my hands at it, and the wall turns black and splits into triangles in an isometric pattern. As the triangles shrink and fade away, I charge through the wall. I realize the explosion wasn't very realistic, but at least I did get through. I start jogging down the road. I'm wearing clothes again [I took them off at some previous part of the dream], probably because the weird explosion made me lose concentration and the feeling of lying under the covers made me unconsciously feel like I should be clothed. So as I'm jogging, I take them off again. Since it's fairly early in the day, I pass only a few joggers going the other way, which is probably a good thing given my state of undress. There's a lot of construction on the road--so much that only a narrow path for joggers remains, going down the middle. I go down the path. At the other end, the path even narrows a bit more, just to make absolutely clear that no cars are allowed to go this way. There are three guys my age standing up there, waiting for some cars to pass. Once the cars are gone, two of them start pranking the other. I hang around for a few minutes in order to see what's going on, but then I decide that this could get ugly and I'd better get out of here. I turn around and go back the way I came, but not before I give the guys a thumbs-up to take the edge off of my departure. It occurs to me that I'm using that thumbs-up trick a lot in this dream. [I think I did it once before to my mom before I left the house.] Walking up the driveway to my house, I feel like I'm giving up on the dream, like all my adventures are over. I look over my shoulder at the clouds. They seem an awfully long way away, but I might as well take a risk and try something new! Putting my arms into Superman pose, I blast off. As the clouds approach, I wonder if they'll feel chilly or misty. And indeed they do, sort of. I fly through a few layers of clouds, looking around at the cumulus cloudscapes. Experimentally, I blow some air at the cloud I'm flying through, and indeed it seems to thin a bit in the place I'm aiming the air. Then I decide that's enough of that, and I start falling back towards the ground. At first I try a cannonball shape, then I try pretending to dive headfirst, but then I decide to adopt a spread-limbed pose as if I'm skydiving. Unfortunately, the ground is already approaching very quickly. Just a few seconds later, I reach behind me and mime pulling a parachute cord. It works, but I'm still going too fast. It looks like I will land in my front yard. Spying a tall tree, I shoot a grappling hook from my right wrist. It tangles in the branches. Then I shoot another from my left wrist, sort of jerking my arm sideways so that the hook swings around another tree trunk like a tetherball. Increasing the tension on both arms simultaneously, I'm able to slow myself almost to a stop, hanging a foot above the lawn. Then I drop the rest of the way, attempting to release the grappling hooks so I can walk. It doesn't work too smoothly until I pretend like my right pinky nail is a small knife, which I use to cut the wire. Then I walk towards the front door of the house and wake up.
Cat Surgery I walk into the basement to find an unfamiliar young man sitting with some of my parents. He's holding one of our pet cats, while my dad holds the other. [IRL: The other cat died, actually, about a year ago.] The other cat (a white one) gets away from dad, so I go after it. Evidently something is being done to the cats which they don't like, but which is good for them. Eventually I find the white cat and bring it back downstairs. Now the stranger is sawing off the cat's front paw with a hacksaw. My parents assure me that this is a necessary surgery, since the cats' paws never healed right from that time they fell from a great height. I remember that event; it was somehow my fault. [IRL: No such thing has ever happened.] Despite my parents' assurances, I still think that this operation will probably kill the cats. Which is a real shame, because I think this first cat in particular had a long, eventful life ahead of him, in spite of his limp. The man finishes with the first cat, and we give him the second one. Later, the first cat jumps up onto the couch next to me. I'm shocked to see that he has both front paws back already, and they don't seem to be paining him at all. Do cats have some kind of regenerative ability? Manual Roller Coaster Right up ahead, my sisters and I see the entrance of a big covered slide. We dive right in; I'm last. It's a sort of man-powered roller coaster: the idea is to crawl through as quickly as possible. Visibility isn't so good, so sometimes a sharp curve will take you off guard. Then suddenly I reach a long downward segment that I can just slide straight down. This is a blast! A bit later, I accidentally run into my sisters, who apparently just ran into each other. The youngest one apparently tripped because of an unusually long, sharp turn (something like 720 degrees), and then we all crashed right into her. Still, we extricate ourselves in moments and continue the ride. At the end of the ride, there are a bunch of computers. You can type in your identification and it will tell you how long it took you to go through the ride, and how you compare to that day's other participants. I got 611th, which I think isn't too bad. Then I talk to my sisters, and it turns out the youngest one got 609th. I hadn't expected her to do better than I did! I'm a bit put out, but good for her anyway. Exclusive Buffet I'm eating dinner with some classmates at a big restaurant. We're having an important conversation, when suddenly someone comes out on the stage at one side of the room. The person talking to me has his back to the stage, so I try to shush him so I can hear what the woman on stage has to say. I realize I seem a bit rude, but surely he'll understand. A few other actors come onstage, and they start performing a play. I have only a moment to feel surprised before a bulky, intimidating man comes up to our table and starts taking away our plates, whether or not we're done with them. "I'm sorry," he says firmly, "we're closing now unless you're part of the club." He has a bit of an accent. I remember that this place serves a buffet until 8:00, when the actual fancy dinner starts. You have to pay extra to be part of that, or something. And now it's 8:00, so we have to go. On the way out, some of my classmates snag something from the dessert station at the buffet. That's a little rude of them, since technically we're not allowed to eat anything from here anymore. Good thing I got my dessert earlier. Outside on the sidewalk, I hear some other classmates complaining about not having eaten a full dinner because there was nothing good at the buffet. I'm glad I avoided that problem by eating plenty, even if the food was pretty unremarkable. First Day of Classes (LUCID) I get up later than usual and hurry to find breakfast. I pass one of the dormitory suites, where apparently someone has set up a small continental breakfast. Interesting, to see such a business here. I get some food there. Then it's time to find my first class. A lot of time has passed, so when I go back into the hallway, I see a gigantic line of people coming out of the suite's main entrance. It goes all the way down the hallway and down a staircase. I'm glad I missed the line, but suddenly I realize that so many people in line means these are probably the people who get breakfast immediately before heading to class. So I have very little time to collect my things and find my class. I hurry down the staircase, trying not to jostle the line of people too much. [about 6 classes later . . .] My next class is titled something like "Practice Session." My guess would be that that refers to a free slot for me to practice my instrument, but that doesn't make much sense, since I'm not a music major and this is not a conservatory. But in any case, I have to find the classroom, which is called the MUSIC room, appropriately enough. But the name "MUSIC" is actually some kind of alphabetical index of where to find the class. Like, I need to find floor M, then hallway U, etc. I suppose the music department thought they were very clever when they designed this room numbering scheme. I'm hurrying down a surprisingly dark corridor, feeling rather lost. I think I'm on the right floor, but I can't find "U" anywhere. Suddenly, I come upon a library, where my orchestra conductor is talking to some of her students. Well, it's good to find other live people here, but I don't really want to talk to her right now, so I avoid them. Consulting my class schedule again, I realize that my next class isn't even in the MUSIC room. I've had about three other classes in there today, but this one is somewhere else. That's a relief, until I realize that the room shouldn't just disappear if I don't happen to have a class in it right now. But I don't have time to worry about that; I have to find this other place. It strikes me that today has been an inauspicious first day of classes. I had been hoping that after last quarter (which was very stressful) I would have learned something about avoiding stress and staying calm--but alas, it seems like I have not. Especially since I seem to remember that I skipped most of one of my classes this morning because I had to finish an essay that was technically due last quarter. My map has a sort of sticker on it, labeled with the name of the place I'm looking for, but it's way out in the middle of nowhere, and the map doesn't show any route to get there. I'm not convinced that's the right place, so I wander around some more. Then I realize I'm just pretending that it's not the place because it's much farther away than I expected. I should just suck it up and go there, even if it will take a while. Looking at the syllabus for this class (which is a small, staple-bound book with a brown cover), I notice that there's even some advice printed on the back cover: the professor says we should leave for his class within ten seconds of the end of the previous class if we want to make it to his class within ten minutes of the alleged start time. I start walking, but then I realize I'm not carrying a backpack or any school supplies at all. And I have only fifteen minutes until class starts. I might make it on time if I keep walking there, but I'll definitely be late if I go back to my room first. I wish I could just "Accio" my school supplies so they catch up to me while I'm walking. Of course, that's just wishful thinking-- --but then I realize that I'm dreaming! Sweet! Okay, I can fly back to my room, get my stuff, and fly to class, and still be there with time to spare. So I set out to do just that. [On my way to class, I lose lucidity.] The route to class turns into a dirt hiking trail. I try going straight to the classroom, but the path leads under a giant boulder, and I discover that there's not enough clearance for me to squeeze through. Backing out, I make my way around the boulder instead. There are two young boys jumping around on the rocks, shooting at each other with what I identify as laser guns. One shouts at the other, "Mister, show me your ID card!" Clearly, they're imitating the adults from around here, the security guards that watch the entrance to the secure facility in which my class takes place. Okay, I should try to find the guardhouse so I can gain entrance to the facility. There's a small wooden cabin across the road that looks promising. Inside the cabin, I find the teacher for my class. In order to pass the gatehouse, every student has to sign a contract. All of the contracts are hand-written (by the professor), and I can't read mine at all--it's totally illegible. But one by one, all of the other students are leaving the gatehouse to go to class, and in desperation I finally just sign the contract. The classroom seems rather like an art studio. There are a lot of heavy-duty tables spread around the room; some of them are pushed against the wall like booth seats at restaurants. It is at one of these latter tables that the professor is sitting, and he invites the class to gather 'round his table while he explains what we'll do in today's class.
Cross-Dressing A guest on a talk show demonstrates his attempt to dress like a woman. Then there's a video clip showing him in the outfit that the show's hosts create in order to teach him how to do it better. The outfit is red and black with bows in various places. I'm impressed. It makes a distinct statement while also seeming to suit the man quite well. Group Project We're working on our project (which is due soon) when suddenly we get assigned a new group member. That's really unfair. We have to add a new section on "Charm" (as in charisma) in order for there to be enough substance in the presentation to accommodate a new member. The rest of the group votes that I should work on this section, and it's clear that they mean this to be derogatory (by implying that my personality needs a lot of work). We sit in hostile silence for a few minutes. I decide to give them the silent treatment and work on my own for the rest of the project. Saruman I'm working with some friends on a level in a game. In a room near my character, a wizard starts leading a ritual which we cannot allow to be completed. We try to run amid the gathered orcs and kill things, but there are just so many of them! I score a lot of hits, but I can't see the health bars, so I don't know how much more work will be required. And I'm not focusing on just one target at a time, either: I'm just running in circles and loops, slashing at everything that I pass. I pass the wizard and take a swipe at him, but then I get a better look at his face. It's Saruman. I feel scared, now--I'm not prepared to face him. Slightly Daring I'm sitting in someone's lap. Feeling a bit daring, I squirm around a bit, ostensibly in order to get more comfortable. Climbing It's the beginning of the last level of a game. I have to climb up a rocky slope on a mountainside.
Comic Book Art I'm with a friend. He tells me to come look at some of his "coolest things." He shows me an intriguing piece of comic book art: a monster flipping a coin. Somehow the art conveys the artist's desire to make the monster "challengingly" grotesque to the reader, in the sense that we are supposed to view it as an empathetic, sentient creature, but all the details are calculated to make the monster repulsive and fearsome. I immediately try to imitate the drawing on a blank sheet of paper, to see if I can convey the same feeling. Somehow, the skin of my replica monster looks much drier than the skin on the original.
Gunman I'm browsing a mid-sized room in a supermarket. A gunman comes out of the hallway and starts shooting everyone. In the confusion, I fall over. I'm about to get up and run away when I realize that it's probably smarter to play dead. The gunman is just here to kill people; he's not going to waste bullets on dead bodies. Later, I go into an office with cubicles. The gunman isn't shooting anyone any more, but he rules tyrannically over everyone in the office. We live in fear that at any time he'll come around the corner, start an apparently pleasant conversation with us, then kill someone for no reason other than a momentary desire to commit homicide. I talk to a woman who gives me some documents that I must carry somewhere. The mission is part of a resistance effort, and it is very risky. I admit to the woman that I'm scared. On the way, the gunman (now a certain YouTube personality) falls in beside me, greeting me jovially. I am terrified of this man's whims, and he knows it--he exaggerates his unpredictability. I'm not sure how to make him go away; he seems determined to accompany me wherever I'm going. At one point, we engage in a rock-throwing battle (like the one in Braveheart).
Ask Her (LUCID) The party is happening at an indoor swimming pool. The building is three stories tall, and most people are hanging out on the balconies of the upper two stories, overlooking the pool. There are all sorts of staircases to climb and all kinds of ropes and structural supports hanging around the ceiling, so I'm having a blast swinging around the room and over the pool doing flips and leaps. While I'm taking a break from this, walking down one of the upper balconies, a portly, bearded man falls in next to me. "You were doing pretty well out there with all those flips," he says. "Yeah, because--" Suddenly I remember that such acrobatics are a dead giveaway that I'm dreaming. I give the man a sideways look. I bet you anything he asked me that question just to make me realize that. "Because gravity doesn't work the same here, because I'm dreaming. I bet the other dream characters are pretty mad at you right now." (Everyone knows that dream characters are in general opposed to the dreamer's becoming lucid.) I'm proud of myself for remembering the phrase "dream characters." The man chuckles. "Yes, I suppose they are." We walk a few steps while I ruminate on the favor he's done me. "You know, I come to this pool almost every night," I say. "But I've never realized before that it's a dream. So thank you." We go our separate ways. I do some more acrobatics. [I lose most of my lucidity almost right away, probably because I was determined just to go with the flow so the dream didn't fade away.] At one point I dive towards the water, only to pull out of it at the last moment using a breast stroke. I'd forgotten how useful the breast stroke is for flying. Later, I'm talking to a group of friends on a balcony. They seem to think I have a crush on one of the girls here, someone named "Anna." I don't even know what she looks like, but they're all determined that I should talk to her. "You should ask her," they say. "Just ask her!" I leave for a little while. When I come back, I see a kinda cute girl standing a few feet away from my friends, though a lot of people have left the balcony since last I was here. "Is that Anna?" I ask. "What?" says the girl I'm talking to, glancing in the direction I'm indicating. "No, that's not her. Anna's younger than that." Younger? So she's in high school? Why would they think I have a crush on a high school girl? Weird. Well, at least I proved that I actually don't know who she is. It occurs to me, though, that this might just be how I start relationships: I have to wait for the girl's friends to insist that I ask her out. That's a depressing thought. I walk back to a staircase, where another group of friends invites me to play a game. A girl produces several two-inch lengths of floss, which are flavored with a randomly-generated flavor. We each have to take one and try to describe what it tastes like. I am very impressed that she's somehow discovered how to encode a randomly-generated flavor in a little piece of string. "You all keep complimenting me on my acrobatics, but this"--I say, holding out my piece of floss--"is really much more impressive." Then we all put the floss in our mouths and spend a few minutes sucking. I'm having a bit of trouble with mine, because seemingly the flavor's not very strong. The people to my right start writing down their impressions, and finally, they ask me what I think. "You know, I think mine is just . . . lemon." I was certainly not expecting to get such an ordinary flavor, which is probably why I had such a hard time identifying it. "Oh, so you mean it was boring," my friends say, commiserating. I wait a bit for the next round to start, but it looks like that will take a while. I make my apologies to the girl hosting the game and depart. I explore some back staircases, which are deserted except for me. It takes some effort to climb all the way to the top, so I'm pleasantly surprised to find that the last half-staircase (from the landing between the second and third floors to the third floor) is only two steps long. I walk out into the hall. I hear some noises from a bathroom, and a janitor comes out with cleaning supplies. Awkward. [I have no recollection of having visited this pool before. But I suppose my dream-self would know better than I about something like that.]
Frags: I'm singing an improvised melody, trying to incorporate some fast scales as a unifying motive. One of the scales works really well, ending up on the right note at just the right time. But the next one is rather less smooth, and I stop my improvisation with a rueful grin and an apology to my listeners.A man suddenly stops talking to do a strange pose: some kind of contorted lunge. While posing, he's a naked woman.
Superpower I'm practicing my superpower. Some other people with the same superpower are doing the same thing nearby, so we're having a sort of friendly competition. It turns out that I'm better than they are, which is a satisfying feeling.
Frags: I remember no details, but . . . sex was involved [Side note: I just got home after finishing finals.]
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