Hyu's Adventures

I arrive in Haven with the hopes of plotting against the Templars.
Although I have no new ideas on how to approach the situation, Silver might.

He joined us just a few days ago, because I put off asking him until then.
After attempting to make Ifrit join our cause, which failed quite dramatically,
I did not have the confidence to ask Silver.

Silver had done so much already, not to mention his horrible childhood.
He deserves to rest... to enjoy life a little. I shouldn't burden him with my issues.
But I ended up visiting him anyways, because I felt lost completely.
I'm not sure what I was expecting when Yuya and I got to the place he lives at now.
Talking to him again ended up being a little awkward. I wasn't really sure what to talk about.
Right as I managed to muster enough courage to address the topic of the Templars
I saw something that completely threw me off.
A woman entered the house holding a baby. She nodded at us and continued upstairs.
I realized Silver had a family now.
I made up an excuse to leave. I could never ask him to join us,
not after knowing Silver was finally at peace with himself.
But as we left he told us to hold on.
He ran upstairs and shortly after returned with his katana strapped to his back...
It turned out that he had read in my eyes that I needed his help.
I tried to talk him out of it but I failed.

So here he is now, standing in Yuya's garden next to a table, a place where we like to sit down
and discuss tactics. He is talking to Yuya and another person I don't think I have met.
Yuya's expression worries me quite a bit.

"What's wrong?"
"... It's about Vega."

Given the way she said it, something terrible must have happened there.
Vega is a small village which we often visit to go to a Café called Serenity.

It's situated on top of some sort of structure extending over the village.
An amazing place to stargaze whilst under the influence of some kind of psychedelic drug Vega is known for.

"What happened?"
"It's gone."

It is clear to me now that the other person with us is a messenger who informed her about the terrible news.
He tells us that I need to go and see. Yuya draws a portal and we enter it together with Silver.

The remains of Vega are in flames. They are small in numbers, they must have been burning for some time.
A man points towards Café Serenity, which still sits on top of the structure which appears to have withstood the fires.
He doesn't say anything though, he just walks away. Did he live in Vega?
We rush towards the Café, finding both of its owners outside.
Although the building still stands, it is heavily damaged and no longer in a usable state.
The owners tell me not to worry. That it is not my fault.
I enter the Café. Across the walls is written in burned wood:

"For as long as the dragon remains hidden, those that help protect him shall share his fate"

Templars... they've done this. Yuya hugs me in an attempt to console me.
They have killed these people because we are hiding from them. To show that if I do not reveal myself they will kill those that I know.

"They are right you know. This is not your fault..."
"Yet I feel guilty"

I know that she's right. I couldn't know that they were going to do this. And even if I did, what was I supposed to do, sacrifice myself?
The owners of this Café were honest when they told me that they do not consider this my fault.
They know who I am and what I have done. But somehow the fact that they do not consider me guilty makes me feel even worse.

One thing is clear to me now though. The goals of the Templars have indeed changed.
Back in the old days they were attacking other worlds in order to steal something I have long forgotten.
They did not know who I was, and it was me that got in their way because I wanted to protect these worlds.
But this time they are not after the belongings of worlds. They are after me specifically.
This is very odd, considering that Templars have no concept of campanionship.
Yes, I have indeed killed one of them a long time ago, but they would not hunt me in an attempt of vengance.
They know no such thing. They see each-other as assets, not as brothers in arms.
Until now I assumed that they are attempting a pre-emptive strike. So that I can not interfere with their goals again.
But in that case I would be a secondary objective, and I am clearly not.

That is exactly what the voices said...
Recently, when I slept in Haven, I would hear voices during my dreams.
They would whisper things suggesting that "they" were after me only. That it was because of time? And that I cannot surrender.
The messages were rather cryptic, and I didn't pay much attention because until now my dreams whilst in this realm have always been
very abstract and not really meaningful. But now that I think about them I get a feeling that they might help me find a way to deal with the Templars.
...
My hopes lie with abstract and cryptic dreams I had within a dream. That is how desperate I am.
No. It's worse actually. If the Templars were here it means they are on the right track.
Surely they were able to force someone into telling them that we are hiding on Teraluna.
It won't take them long to find that place, even though Haven is heavily shielded and we are masking our auras.

"They will find Teraluna..."

Both Yuya and Silver look at me rather depressed. I am the one who always comes up with the plans. They are relying on me for a strategy to save Teraluna... to beat the Templars once and for all.
And I've got nothing.

"Silver, knowing only the name of the moon, how long would it take you to find Teraluna?"

He's unreasonably good at finding things.
He sighs.

"The location of Teraluna is a rather well kept secret. The library is of great importance, protecting it is easier if its location is not known."
"Unfortunately there are many stories about it, some of which hint at its location."
"If I would try hard enough I'd probably find it in less than a week."

Less than a week? How am I supposed to do anything within that time frame?
And it's not like evacuating Haven and going into hiding somewhere else is a solution without removing the Templar thread.
They would manage to hunt some of the inhabitants down somehow.
Not to mention the library. It is of great importance, and they would burn it to the ground.
And then there are other things... even more crucial things.
Teraluna cannot fall.

The three of us combined aren't able to deal with a single Templar, yet there are 12 of them left.
Even if I had my dragon spirit and the phoenix essence back, it would be utterly hopeless.
And besides Ifrit I don't know anyone remotely as strong as us, yet I would need an army.
Perhaps death is catching up with me.

"Don't you dare even thinking about surrender."
"... I won't."

Silver is looking at me, probably expecting me to reveal some kind of backup plan I had all along.
Something insane enough that it might just work. I've got nothing.
In my desperation I recall the voices I heard in those dreams.
For some reason I reach out with my aura, attempting to locate anything that reminds me of these voices.
As I catch myself doing this I ponder about how ridiculous this is.
That's not how scanning for auras works. You need to at least be able to guess how it would feel like to be
in proximity of a person in order to find someone through aura tracking.
But for some reason that is beyound me, at that very moment, I do find something.
It doesn't feel like a person though, and the feeling is very weak.

If I wasn't hiding from the Templars, I could probably pin the location down near instantly.
But that would involve releasing an amount of energy that cannot be hidden.
The Templars who are actively scanning for my aura would find me immediately.
That goes for all of us. The templars know all of our auras.
But there is someone else I know, who is rather talented in aura tracking.
He might be able to help me find... whatever this is.

"Okay..."
"So I might have..."

Silver and Yuya open their eyes wide in hope.
Oh boy...

"Listen. This is a longshot... no, I wouldn't even call it a longshot."
"I have a lead alright. A lead to maybe find some sort of way to..."

They are euphoric. Are they not listening to my words? I don't have shit.

...
Fuck it. This is all I've got. If it turns out to be nothing then that's it.
They are relying on me.

"I need to visit an old friend to help me track someone down."
"Until I do, I won't be sure on how to approach the situation."
"I assume there will be a grand battle though, so prepare yourselves accordingly."

They both nod.

"I'll be back within less than three days."
"In case I should fail..."
"Bullshit! When you come back you'll have a plan."
"You always have a plan."

No pressure...

"We'll evacuate Haven in case we need to make a last stand."
"Yes."
"And I'll have my mother talk to Ifrit..."

Somehow I doubt that'll help.

"Hyu?"
"Yeah?"
"... Don't you die on me, alright?"

I smile.

"Working on it!"

That extinguishes the last worries in her facial expression.
I summon my phoenix wings.
Time to go annoy the hell out of an old friend of mine. Time to meet a talking bird.
I take off into the fabric of space.

I promised I would write something about persistent realms, and also some other techniques I use when lucid dreaming.
Took me a bit longer than expected because I have a difficult time finding the right words to describe my thoughts.
I quite frankly have no idea if these techniques will work for anyone else,
so this is by no means supposed to be a tutorial, or anything like that.
I'm merely explaining how I do something and what my thoughts about it are.
Maybe, if you are trying to do something similar, there's an idea or two you might find useful.
Basically, I'm giving you a "behind the scenes" look on a dream where I "created" a persistent realm, explaining when I use certain techniques that are not apparent just by reading the DJ entry.
I highlighted important stuff and techniques in bold in case this is too much text and you simply want to skip over it.
Anyways... here goes.

What is a persistent realm?
It's a term I use to describe certain kinds of dreams I have.
Dreams that are persistent, meaning where your actions have consequences, dreams you can resume each night where you left off.
So why do I call them "realms"?
Well, for me these kinds of dreams are a bit more than just persistent.
There are a few more unique characteristics to them:

• Persistence - When you "enter" a realm, you "resume" the dream where you left of last time. (more or less)
• Consequences - Because of the persistence, every action you take has consequences. If you change something it will remain changed forever. For example, people will remember you and the conversations you've had with them.
• Laws & Dream Powers - A realm has a set of laws of physics (fitting the setting of the realm), which may be different from waking life. There may be ways to cast magic for example. You can learn, understand, use (and abuse) these laws, but you can never do anything that violates them. (Such as using dream powers) If a character does something ridiculous then it means that there is a law enabling him to do so, and you most likely can learn to do the same thing.
• Realism - Those dreams feel pretty damn real. I assume the main reason behind this (besides the technique I use) is that all dream characters are intelligent. You won't encounter the typical "derpy" DC who seems completely lost. DC's are intelligent and follow their own agenda. Their actions can be completely unexpected.

How does one create a persistent realm?
It took me some time to come up with an idea for that one.
As I mentioned earlier it's not really a technique.
It's more of a state of mind kind of thing... it's difficult to come up with an explanation.
I guess the best way I can explain it is by fully elaborating on my train of thoughts.
That unfortunately means a LOT of text, but I really don't see a better way of doing this.

I am fully aware that fully persistent dreams are possible because I have experienced them for many years.
The realm containing Teraluna is definitely persistent and my basis for any ideas I've come up with.
The issue is that I've never knowingly created it. I've been dreaming about it ever since I was a young child.

But then I realized that this isn't the point.
The point is that it still works.
I can still go there. The persistency is never broken. I still can't use dream powers.
Why is that? Why does this never fail?
I believe the reason behind this is very simple...

Say for example you want to summon an item in a lucid dream. You need a key to unlock a door.
What do you do? You use some kind of summoning technique:

I'll just search my pockets. I might have it on me? Why else would I come to a locked door if I wouldn't have the key?

This is a trick of course. One that works rather well.
Just searching your pockets is a common and easy summoning technique in lucid dreams.
Guiding your thoughts towards believing that the chances are high that you have that item on you will futher increase the summoning chances.
So guiding your thoughts is an interesting technique to keep in mind.
But something more important first:

When you succeed and find the key, something very obvious happens.
Something easily overlooked.
Once you find that key and you hold it in your hand... it won't disappear.
I mean, why would it? It doesn't make any sense for an item to just vanish.
So what's the reason behind that?

The key won't disappear because I know that it won't disappear.

Is it really that simple?

The realm of Teraluna is persistent, because I know it to be persistent.

Is that all there is to it? Is the answer that simple?
But there's another thought anchored somewhere deep within my mind

I know that creating a persistent realm must be extremely difficult.

Such a train of thoughts is toxic to lucid dreams.
It's there because of many reasons.

• I've never managed to create a persistent realm at will, so it must be hard.
• Creating entire realms feels like an overwhelmingly big task.
• You don't often hear people claiming to have done this so it must be hard.

The list goes on.
While some of these deeply anchored thoughts benefit you, others, like the ones I just listed, disable you.
In my opinion they are absolutely crucial to lucid dreams.

At this point it is clear to me what the technique to create such a persistent realm must encompass:
1) Bypass the I know that creating a persistent realm must be extremely difficult. thought, create a new realm and access it.
2) Make yourself "know" that his is a persistent realm. You can go back whenever you want.

But you cannot just selectively remove ideas that are so deeply anchored within your mind and insert new ones.
That just doesn't work. You can't just decide to "know" something.
You can think about it, educate yourself on it, discuss it,
and eventually it might change. But you cannot consciously edit something you "know".
If you think about it, it happens all the time though. Your ideas, beliefs and even knowledge changes, in the blink of an eye.
It just happens.
And I argue that this process happens sub-consciously.
I also argue that you are able to interact with your sub-conscious in different ways when you are dreaming,
albeit in no way that I think anyone fully understands.

Think about the example with summoning a key I used earlier.
I guided my thoughts towards believing that I already had the key on me.
I never directly thought that the key must be in my pocket.
I merely started a train of thoughts and let my sub-conscious finish it for me.
This is something extremely powerful in dreams, if you can do it.
This doesn't always work of course, but it is such a versatile and powerful tool, albeit difficult to control.

Expectations, hope, fear, they all play a very important role during dreams.
When you first learn to fly, you do so by trying to do it over and over again, thus increasing your expectations that it will work with every small success you have.
But creating entire realms is not really a process that can be learned like that, it simply takes too long.
A more instantanious method is required, like the one used in summoning the key.

Understanding this, I was able to come up with a technique that works for me.
Creating, or rather going to a new realm is pretty straightforward, all I need to use is a teleportation technique.
Making myself believe or "know" that this is a persistent realm is the tricky part.
I need to guide my thoughts towards believing this, without actually thinking that I am guiding my thoughts towards this goal, and without finishing it consciously.

I hope this makes sense...
Anyways, here are some DJ snippets from an entry where I tried to do this very thing,
with my current thoughts on it.

Creating a fully persistent realm
I get out of bed and rather quickly become aware that I am dreaming.
Going through my usual routine of rubbing my hands and remembering my current dream goals,
I eventually remember that I wanted to try the whole persistent realm thing again.
Last time ended in a disaster, but after my recent reflections on the topic I'm somewhat confident
that I'll manage to do it again. And maybe this time I won't die like an idiot half an hour in.
This is a difficult task, so I further increase my lucidity until I feel it has reached a sufficient level.

I do this using a technique I use both for stabilization and increased lucidity.
I have found that for me, the stability of my dreams and my level of lucidity is strongly (but not exclusively) related
to how clearly and reasonably I'm thinking.
By forcing myself to solve rather complex problems, using mostly logic, and verifying that I have solved them correctly,
I manage to assure that I am indeed thinking clearly.
Knowing this I am very confident that my dream will remain stable, and that I will maintain a high level of lucidity.
This is somewhat crucial for this task, because it all revolves around a rather complex and entirely mental technique.

I breathe in deeply and exhale, whilst stretching to prepare myself for the task at hand.
I am amused by the realization that stretching a dream body makes little sense, but quickly focus on the task at hand again.
I try to relax myself as much as I can.
I imagine myself standing inside of a bubble containing the current dream.
A bubble created solely by my sub-conscious.
I need to push myself out of it in order to go to real worlds.

This is important.
If you want to experience an entire world or setting (Hogwarts, Middle-Earth...), never try to create it right in front of you.
There will be inconsistencies, DCs will go out of character, forget what they're supposed to do...
In my experience, it just doesn't work right.
Instead try to go there.
Don't create Hogwarts, instead go to the real Hogwarts.

I do this by leaving my dream bubble (just a bubble containing my current dream), and going to an entirely new place.
Doing so I have an easier time believing that I am in a real place, and not in a dream controlled by my own sub-conscious,
which renders dreams much more realistic.

I drift away from my dream body, quickly reaching the limits of my small dream bubble, which only encompassed my house.
As I gain distance, I find myself in a place that resembles a galaxy. My dream bubble is a very faint star, quickly becoming invisible within
the sea of bigger and much more vibrant stars.
It is cold and dark out here.
I understand that these stars are other realms, which I can probably visit.
This time I won't just pick one at random though.
I would love to have a persistent realm in a sci-fi universe.
I float from star to star waiting for something to indicate such a sci-fi universe I suppose.
Whilst I don't receive such a sign, one star catches my attention for no apparent reason.
I nearly dismiss the thought before realizing that I might as well go with this one, as nothing special is happening.

Intuition is another powerful tool in lucid dreams.
When you are lost, or if you need to take a decision without knowing which one is beneficial to you, go with your intuition.
It manifests itself in different ways, but most often as no more than a faint feeling, which you'll usually dismiss
unless you consciously look out for them.
Obviously, your intuition isn't always right, and it is difficult to tell it apart from your own imagination in dreams.
But when you have nothing to go on, intuition is always better than nothing.

I approach the star, which is considerably increasing in size as I get closer, pondering on how I entered a new realm last time.
But I have no time to finish that thought. I am drawn into the realm by a superior force and loose vision for no more than a split second.
A new scene pops up instantaneously, as if someone had punched me in the face.
There is no blurriness, no transition period as is common with scene changes in dreams, nothing like that at all.
The new scene is just there.

First steps in a new world
I am quite disorientated. It is very loud. There's people talking all around me.
Apparently I'm queuing for something. I try to look around to get an idea as to where I am, but this proves
rather difficult as there's people all around me, most of them a little taller than I am.
I need to get out of the crowd.
Fortunately, it looks like I was next in line for whatever people are queuing for anyways.
I pass a man and faintly hear him say "Passport please!", but it barely registers.

Whilst I did hear him say that, the thought never registered.
I immediately forgot about it, and was only reminded of it a few seconds later:

I need to see if this place is real or if I ended up my own dream bubble.
Someone grabs onto my shoulder and stops me rather unexpectedly...
I just keep moving because whomever that is is of no importance to the dream.

When I know that a DC isn't important, and I decide not to interact with them, they will always disappear.
This is somewhat crucial, because without this the following wouldn't have surprised me as much as it did.

"HEY!"

I can't seem to shake myself loose and turn around rather annoyed.

"What?"

The man who stopped me is wearing some kind of uniform and is looking at me rather angrily.
He's resting his right hand on what appears to be a holstered firearm.

"I said PASSPORT PLEASE."

Huh? What?
He's slowly moving his gun out of his holster.
Finally it strikes me.
This is not my dream.
This is real.
I'm in trouble.

There were a lot of thoughts shooting through my mind at that moment.
No dream character would ever behave like that. I never investigated that thought any further, because it all seemed so obvious.
I realized at that moment that I had succeeded. The realm was real.
Fortunately, due to the trouble I was in, I never followed up on that thought, so I never questioned the conclusion I came to.

"Wow, I'm so sorry, I was completely lost in thoughts there."

That should buy me a few seconds. He rolls his eyes and pushes his gun back into the holster.
He holds out some kind of tablet device to me, clearly expecting me to do something with my passport.
Fortunately, a quick glance to my side reveals a person in another queue wiping something credit card sized over a similar device, and attaching it to her belt.
I quickly search my belt, hoping that I have a similar card and I get lucky.
I mimic the motion of the other person, which is followed by a rather friendly beep from the device I swiped the card over.
That sounded like it worked.

"Haha, sorry about that."

He couldn't care less. He has already turned his back towards me.

At this point I was completely absorbed by the dream.
The thought that this might just be a normal dream never occured to me.
I knew that this place was real, which in return means that it is persistent and that I will be able to go back to it.
It worked, and it did so rather quickly, without taking much of an action at all.
I didn't actively guide my thoughts much, besides the teleportation technique I used.
But I didn't have to, because my state of mind about persistent realms carried over into my dream.
My sub-conscious solved the problem for me.
It came up with a scenario that would trick itself into thinking that I was a visitor in another realm.

Orientation
If in your lucid adventures, you ever find yourself in a situation where you have no idea where you are and what you are doing there, check your pockets!
It might sound obvious, but in dreams you often don't think about doing the obvious.
Realize that it makes no sense for you to be anywhere with empty pockets.
At the very least you should have your wallet on you, but more importantly, you might have something on you indicating what you are here for.

I get away from the crowd and find myself in a very large hallway.
There's windows on both sides, revealing that I am in orbit around a planet.
Holy shit I'm in space!
Spaaaace station~

But I'm completely lost. I have no idea where I am or even who I am.
Alright... one step at a time.
I start moving towards the end of the hallway, but draw my focus towards the contents of my pockets.
I empty them both, whilst still walking, and investigate their contents.

I have on me:

• The passport thing
• Some kind of crystal, consisting of rectengular shapes. It might be a key.
• A small package with another credit card looking thing attached to it.

A key? Oooooooh.
I might have a spaceship!
How awesome would that be? Yeah. I definitely have a spaceship.
I put everything back into my pockets and check where I currently am.

I find myself in front of hangar 4, which is of course a spaceship hangar.

See what I did there?
I solved 2 problems at the same time. I didn't just investigate the contents of my pockets.
Before doing so, I started walking into a direction that took me away from where I previously was.
Putting my focus on something else put my body into auto-pilot.
You know, like when you're gaming with your friends late at night, and you quickly go downstairs to grab something to drink, but your thoughts are entirely focused on the game?
Sometimes you find yourself back in front of your pc with a cold beverage, without really remembering the process of getting it. (Or maybe my gaming addiction is just out of control )
You can abuse this in dreams if you want to go somewhere, but you don't know how to get there, or if you simply have no idea where to go.
It can be tricky at first, because you can't stop thinking about it, but you'll quickly get a hang of it.
In this case I got the idea of the key being for my spaceship mid-way. (Spaceships use ignition keys, just like cars right? *cough*)
My body automatically walked me towards where this spaceship is, even though I did not know where it was.
Somewhere deep within my thoughts I knew that I had gotten to this space station somehow.
If the key indicates that I own a spaceship, then I would have arrived in this spaceship, and I would also remember where I parked it.
Putting myself in "autopilot" I can walk to locations that make sense for me to know within the dream plot, even if I don't consciously know where they are.

There's quite a few small spaceships in here.
All sorts of contraptions, reaching from luxury boats to things that are close to falling apart.
Is one of them mine? Which one is mine?
I go deeper into the hangar to get a better view of all the ships and then I spot her.

Yeah... there's no doubt whatsoever. That must be mine.
She's reasonably sized, bigger than a jet fighter, but smaller than say the space shuttle orbiter.
And she has... uh... let's say she has seen some better times?
It seems like there used to be a layer of paint on it, but that's nearly peeled off entirely.
There are many dents on the outer hull, surrounded by dark dust.
Probably projectile impacts, judging by the consistent size and patterns.
There's quite an abundant amount of scratches on it as well.
And... is that a heat shield?
Oh god...
The heat shield is mostly pitch black, but you can clearly see in some spots that it is supposed to be a red / golden color.
Might have had a few atmospheric re-entries at optimistic speeds...
There are a few hull plates of inconsistent size that are clearly newer than the rest of the hull.
A few patched up holes...?

What a piece of shit...
I absolutely love it!
I wouldn't have it any other way. This is so me. This feels right.
And compared to the other ships in this hangar it clearly has the largest engine to ship ratio!
I get a bit of a Han Solo esque vibe.

As I approach it a large chunk of the hull plating slides itself forward, revealing an airlock.
A ramp extends just in time so I can get to it easily.
The airlock opens automatically as I get close enough and closes behind me as I go through...

Your sub-conscious has the unique ability of shaping your dreams in such a way that you can experience something beyond your expectations and your imagination.
However, things will not always go according to plan, and may even seem unpleasant at first.
But given enough lucid dreams you'll find out that you can find enjoyment, even in things that do not seem pleasant at first.
The best example I have for this is pain.
Obviously you wouldn't want to experience pain in your dreams right?
I thought so for a long time, but I realized I was wrong after a rather epic fight, where I could feel every single cut and bruise on my body.
It made the fight feel so much more real and important, it increased the experience as a whole.
If you've ever played a pen&paper rpg, you probably know that it can be more interesting to play more of a "normal" character.
You don't always need to be the hero with the best equipment, who is destined to save the world.
In dreams there's joy to be found everywhere. It will find you, all you have to do is accept it.

Survival
I wasn't sure at first whether or not I should mention this, due to the toxic thoughts I wrote of earlier.
But yeah, the whole persistent realm thing comes at a price: it is persistent.
Well duh, of course it is.
But in my case this means that my life is persistent as well.
If I die in a persistent realm I can never go back to that realm.
I've lost 2 of them due to death, and I tried getting back to one of them for quite a long time, but eventually I gave up.
I guess it is better this way. It makes the other realms feel more valuable and my decisions more important.
Regardless, I suggest that you value your life, should have similar persistent dreams.
However, in order to progress in your dreams you will occasionally need to make a leap of faith.
Make sure that you take them sparsely, and that intuition is on your side.

Going back
This is rather straightforward. I just teleport with the intention of going back to the realm.
I do this as soon as I can after creating the realm (next stable lucid), so my thoughts about it are still fresh.
I try to visit it as often as I can during the following days, so that everything settles in.
Once I've gone there a few times my confidence is so high that I can't really imagine loosing the ability to resume the realm whenever
I desire to do so.





In case you want to try to do something similar to my persistent realms technique, here's a few suggestions:

• You'll need a teleportation technique. As I mentioned earlier, creating is bad, going to is good. There's no need to copy my teleportation technique though. Any technique should work fine, use what you feel most comfortable with.
• Don't actively try to find something that indicates that the realm "must be real". You cannot force the issue. The realization has to strike you unexpectedly. Having the correct state of mind in waking life, and simply intending to go to such a realm should be all you need to do.
  If the epiphany doesn't happen, just try again.
• If something is completely off (DC's are retarded, something clearly violates the law of your realm...) just consider this attempt a failure, and try again next time. Never attempt to fix it using dream powers.
• You need good dream recall with a good lucid rate so you can go back multiple times over the course over the next few days.
  You also need a high level of lucidity, so that you can quickly process complex thoughts properly.

Anyways, that's more than enough text for a single entry.
If you have any thoughts or questions about persistent realms and/or other techniques I use, by all means, post ahead.

I figured it was about time to post something again.
Sorry, no dreams though.
I'll try to get back to that soon...

*Ramble*
I'm still having issues with headaches, but after finally finding a doc who actually seems to have some motivation to help me, my situation has improved a lot.
It got pretty bad at some point, where I spent most of my time in bed, mostly because I couldn't stand seeing any light.
But fortunately that's all over.
For some reason I had the discipline to at least take notes about my dreams, which let me tell you, is not a pleasant thing to do if you wake up every morning with a massive migraine. >_>
I'm really glad that I did though, because even though my dream recall deteriorated a bit, I immediately managed to recover as soon as my head got better.
Now that things are better, I'm trying to get this bloody thesis over with.
I'm about half way done... hopefully I can finish it within the next few weeks.
But enough about that.


So erm... usually I put music here.
Oh well, I suppose I'll just link what I'm listening to right now.




Biphasic sleep!

I always wanted to try it. The concept sounds really cool.
So much more room for activity! And those naps will surely help with lucid dreaming?
At the time I got my headaches under control I had completely lost any kind of sleep rhythm.
I figured that was as good a time as any to try to get myself into a biphasic rhythm.
Since I am of course a fucking genius (read idiot), I didn't bother looking up how you're supposed to set that up time wise.
It's called biphasic. A main phase and a nap, how hard can it be?
Well, maybe if I had read up on it I wouldn't have failed miserably at my first attempt.

I tried 7 hour main sleep with a 30 minute nap. That sounds about right?
Nope. Completely wrong. Didn't work at all.
That made me tired in the morning, yet I wasn't able to nap. Just couldn't fall asleep.
After reading up on it I quickly realized that this was way too much sleep.
You're supposed to do 4.5 hours main sleep with a 90 minute nap or 6 hours of sleep with a 20 minute power nap.
Holy shit, that's a lot less sleep than what I'm used to.
But imagine if you could gain nearly 2 hours of extra activity each day!



I decided to go with 6 hours main sleep and a 20 minute power nap.
After some more reading I figured the easiest way to get into the new rhythm would be sleep deprivation.
So I only slept for 6 hours the first day, then again for only 6 hours the next.
Woke up feeling like shit. Well, no surprise there.
I remained awake long enough to reach the time where I'm supposed to take a nap.
I was worried that I would fall asleep for too long, so I set myself an alarm for 30 minutes, taking into account the ~10 I would need to fall asleep.
Fell asleep immediately, but I needed the alarm to wake up, feeling very tired.

I tried to keep it up, but it didn't work.
Waking up after 6 hours of main sleep is sort of okay, though I certainly was feeling a lack of sleep after that.
But that 20 minute nap...
My body just refused to fall asleep at the correct time.
I only got tired like 4-6 hours too late for the nap, and then I would sleep for too long, not getting tired when it was time for main sleep.



I decided to switch to the 4.5 hours main sleep with a 90 minute nap instead.
4.5 hours was a pain at first.
Woke up feeling like shit the first 2 days, but the naps worked!
I got tired more or less around the correct time and woke up naturally after ~90 minutes, though a few times I overslept.
After a few days the new rhythm started to stabilize and I felt refreshed after both the main sleep and the nap.
It's a really weird feeling waking up after only 4.5 hours of sleep and feeling perfectly fine.
Well, I suppose for me this is a new feeling altogether.
I'm the kind of person who usually can't get his ass out of bed in the morning, but on a biphasic rhythm this is no longer the case.

I had a few more issues with not getting tired at the correct time for taking my 90 minute nap,
but I found out that this happens when I am concentrating too much beforehand.
If I'm working (on my thesis mostly) I simply do not get tired.
This sort of makes sense, so I decided to instead relax 30 minutes before nap time.
Listen to music, watch some tv, something like that.
This works brilliantly.



Lucid dreaming with a biphasic sleep rhythm
Turns out you don't magically have more lucids on a biphasic rhythm.
Or at least I don't. But it is incredibly easy to recall at least one dream after the 90 minute nap.
I often wake up straight from the dream which is pretty cool.
According to my DJ, I recall less dreams per day now that I'm on biphasic though, but more of them are lucids.
I regularly recall 2-3 dreams after 4.5 hours main sleep and another 1-2 (though mostly 1) after the 90 minute nap.
On monophasic I recalled 2-8 mostly. It was pretty random.
What is interesting though is that the last dream I have during the nap always seems to be a long dream with decent to good recall.

Once I had a stable biphasic sleep rhythm I felt confident to try to WILD during the 90 minute nap.
My success with WILD has been rather random thus far. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I never tried to do it consistently until now though.
And right off the start it worked really well!
The biggest difference to a WBTB WILD for me was that I wasn't as tired.
I could actually prevent myself from going unconscious pretty easily.
Transitioning... it sort of just worked. All of the difficulties seemed gone.
I've always had trouble transitioning until now.

The only issue I had and still have with this is that it is really difficult to tell when I've actually fallen asleep.
Usually I don't simply enter a new scene. I start out in the exact same spot I fell asleep in. (In bed)
This makes it difficult to tell when I've actually fallen asleep, and often introduces movement problems.
I always get confused because I think I can't move because I have an SP episode, even though it usually turns out
that I'm simply dreaming about not being able to move.
I usually manage to shake myself loose after a few minutes and go on lucid adventures.
Sometimes I have difficulty falling asleep when I try to WILD. I think in these situations I'm just not tired enough to do it.
I just let myself go unconscious if it takes me more than 5 minutes and hope for a DILD.

Here's my sleep log for the past 7 days: (Times indicate going to bed until waking up, NL = non-lucid)

Code:

21.08 - (4:00-8:45)(1 NL + 1 DILD) -  (17:45-19:20)(0 NL + 0 WILD + 1 DILD)
22.08 - (4:20-9:00)(3 NL + 0 DILD) -  (18:00-19:35)(0 NL + 1 WILD + 0 DILD)
23.08 - (4:30-9:15)(0 NL + 0 DILD) -  (18:15-19:50)(0 NL + 1 WILD + 0 DILD)
24.08 - (4:30-9:15)(2 NL + 1 DILD) -  (18:15-19:50)(2 NL + 0 WILD + 0 DILD)
25.08 - (4:50-9:30)(1 NL + 1 DILD) -  (18:30-20:05)(1 NL + 0 WILD + 0 DILD)
26.08 - (4:50-9:40)(7 NL + 0 DILD) -  (18:40-20:15)(0 NL + 1 WILD + 1 DILD)
27.08 - (5:00-9:45)(1 NL + 1 DILD) -  (18:45-20:20)(1 NL + 0 WILD + 0 DILD)

28 dreams ->  4,00  dreams / day
 9 lucids ->  1,29  lucids / day
 
lucidity  ->  32,35%

As you can see times are sort of shifting a few minutes day by day.
But I think I figured out why that is.
What I currently do is:
15 mins to fall asleep + 4,5 hours of sleep + 9 hours awake + 5 mins to fall asleep + 90 minutes nap which leaves me with ~8,6 hours to be awake instead of 9.
I think my mistake is going to bed when it is time to sleep. I should fall asleep at that time, not go to bed and wait another 15 minutes or so.
If I take that into account, and go to bed 15 minutes earlier for main sleep and 5 minutes earlier for the nap I think I can stabilize it.


Thoughts on biphasic sleep

• I like it.
• I pretty much have a guaranteed lucid a day, whereas on monophasic it was a lot more random. (though I did average a lucid a day)
• I spend ~6,3 hours in bed, 6 of which asleep.
  On monophasic, I slept for 8 hours a day and took at least an hour to get my ass out of bed,
  so that's ~3 more hours a day for activities.
  It may not sound like much, but it feels like a LOT of time.
• Even though I sleep less I feel less tired.
  I feel refreshed after sleep which I never did on monophasic.
• A biphasic rhythm feels odd, possibly because wake time is split up evenly.
  A single day feels sort of like 2 shorter days.
• I still eat at the same times as beforehand. (12:30 and 22:00)
• I need an alarm clock to wake up from the main sleep phase on time. (Sometimes I wake up 5min before the alarm)
• I do not need to set an alarm for the 90min nap.

Persistent worlds
(DJ snippet)

Persistent worlds. I've thought about this topic quite a bit lately.
The whole realm around Teraluna is what I'd call persistent. It's more than that.
All my actions have consequences. I cannot use dream powers. It feels real.
I am limited to understanding and training myself in the abilities that are native to this realm.
But the question that's often on my mind is: "How does it work?"
And more importantly: "How can I repeat it?"

After a lot of messing around I have sort of figured out a way how I can create (or access?) such worlds.
I wouldn't call my method consistent, nor would I suggest that it is a proper technique.
I might explain how I do it and my thoughts behind it though, maybe it'll help someone do something similar.

I haven't posted in a while.
It's kinda difficult to find the time to do so with my current health issues. (It's nothing too serious I think, but it impedes me from doing activities that require a decent amount of brain power)
The few moments where I feel alright and I'm motivated to write, I spend it trying to somehow finish my masters thesis in time.
It's quite frustrating to know that it is going to take some more time until this will be resolved, because apparently it's perfectly normal to have to wait 10 weeks to get an mri done in this country. :/
Then again, we got fantastic healthcare, so I shouldn't complain.

Anyways, I don't really have the motivation to properly write down things that have happened in relation to the Templar story arc, but I figured I'd at least post something.
Something that is much easier to write.
So here's a random dream from last night which I thought was really cool, though I now realize that I'm going to have a hard time explaining why.
It's weird how that works, sometimes a seemingly normal event can be very emotional in dreams.



I'm in my bed, trying to fall asleep, when I notice that something is off with the lighting.
Normally my room is really dark at night, there's a few very faint green and blue lights from a switch and a file server in the room, but that's about it.
You really have to navigate the room by memories (if you don't turn the lights on), because it is too dark to make out anything.
But for some reason I can distinguish everything clearly, even though it's all pitch black.
What a contrast!

Fortunately I know this look very well.
Dark dreams! In my dreams darkness is usually compensated by a ludicrous amount of contrast, so I can see very clearly, even though it is really dark.
It is rather astonishing how many shades of black there really are, and how easily they can be distinguished if you aren't limited by the human eye.

I get out of bed and start exploring the house.
I don't bother thinking about my current situation or dream stabilization because I'm under the impression that I'm fully lucid.
This is however not the case.
I'm not thinking clearly, as I would in a "fully" lucid dream.
Yes, I'm aware that this is a dream, but I'm not thinking about doing cool stuff. No epiphanies or anything.
Just a mindless zombie strolling through the house, hoping to catch a glimpse of something extraordinary.

Once I am downstairs I notice that the scenery outside has changed rather dramatically.
This is not where my house is in waking life at all!
I go outside to explore more, and find that my house is now placed right next to a rather large lake.
It is perfectly still and reflects the sky like a flawless mirror.


Cool!
I start walking over it, something I often do in dreams.
Walking on water is really pleasant, if you do it barefoot that is.
The water is really cold and I get chills up my spine during my first few steps.

The sky is cloudless. It is perfect! There is no light pollution whatsoever. What a sight!
But then I realize that I'm not really lucid.
Or rather, I realize that I'm not thinking.
Exploring your own thoughts is an amazing thing to do in dreams, and has become my favorite way of stabilization.
If you're thinking clearly, dreams receive a huge boost in stability.
It's also a good way to calm down if you are easily excited.

Anyways, after some thinking I feel like I've gotten my brain to work adequately.
But oddly enough I'm not in the mood to leave this place, even though I am now fully aware that I can.
There is something very special about this scenery, and I'd like to stay for a bit longer.

I take off my t-shirt, noticing that it's a bit odd that I'm wearing one.
I never wear shirts to bed, especially not in the summer.
I lie down on my back.

It feels sooo good. My back touches the extremely cold water surface, which carries me easily.
I feel very floaty and stretch out my arms.

But even though this sensation is very enjoyable, blissful even, I cannot help but feel sad.
Because in this sky I can see so many stars.
Billions of them. And beyond them are billions of galaxies, containing billions of stars each.
And I'm here, on this rather insignificant piece of rock: planet earth.
Insignificant. That's really all I can think off.
In comparison to the size of planet earth we have explored less than a single grain of sand.
I feel alone. I feel stuck. I want to leave this planet.

I stretch my right arm out and grab onto the stars in my field of vision with my hand.
It's odd how I feel compelled to make this gesture even though nobody can see it but myself.
I want to go there one day. I want to go within my lifetime.
I want to explore this seemingly endless space.
But I realize that I have most likely been born too soon.
Why could I not have been born later, in an age where we are space explorers?

...

Well, that is just fucking depressing.
What is wrong with me?
I'm dreaming. It's all about experiencing the unimaginable. It's about having fun.
Yet here I lie, acting all melancholic.


But then one of the stars becomes slightly brighter.
For some reason I know that this is a super massive star that has just reached the end of its lifetime.
Its core has collapsed, releasing a massive shock-wave. A supernova!
During its lifetime it has fused hydrogen into heavier elements.
Helium, Lithium, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen and many more.
And now, as its final act it is launching all of it into the vastness of space.

But these elements will inevitably find others. They will attract each other and slowly but surely clump together.
Some of them will turn into planets over the course of millions of years.
And with a lot of chance, one of these planets will be at a certain distance from a sun.
Maybe another smaller body will orbit it. A moon.
And maybe, if everything goes right, some of the elements this planet consists of will combine in a certain way.
And then there will be life... there will be another earth.
Because that's what life is.
That is what we are.
We are all made from stardust, forged within the cores of super massive stars.

And that is a really beautiful thought.
Because even though we might appear insignificant compared to the vast size of the universe...
we are special!
I mean seriously. What are the fucking odds?

And that makes me feel really great and I cannot help but smile.

Too much conversation.
Some things are going to be phrased incorrectly etc, I tried to patch it up as well as I could.
Usually I use pink and brown to color code female and male DC voices, but there's 2 women this time,
so I'll use pink and green, pink being Yuya.


There's no more messing around.
Going anywhere but Haven feels dangerous.
Whenever I'm on the plane I can feel the Templars scanning for my aura.
It is inevitable that they will find me if I linger for too long.
Haven is one of the only places I feel safe. The barrier prevents them from locating my aura when I'm here.

But I cannot remain here forever.
Not only am I imprisoning myself here until I tackle the Templar issue, I'm doing the same to Yuya.
The Templars are after her as well.
In fact they're probably after everyone, the whole team from back then... back when lucids still came naturally to me.

There is only one solution.
I will fight them.
But not alone; that would be utter suicide.
I will gather the old team, the team with whom I fought the evils of this world back in the days.

I feel like a hero, about to embark on a long and difficult journey.
First I will gather a team capable of surpassing the strength of the Templars.
And then I will have to come up with a plan to beat them.
Because this is what I do. This is what I have always done.
Regardless of how much more powerful my enemy is, regardless of what it takes, I will beat them.
Because I am dragon.

"So... who will we find first?"

It is scary being in company of a serious Yuya.
I'm used to her playful and innocent self.
Not the one capable of carrying the weight of a world.
The whole atmosphere has changed.

"Silver?"
"... No. We will find Silver last. I'm not sure how to convince him to join us yet."
"Will he not want to join us?"
"I'm not sure. Back then he fought with us to pay for his sins. But he has already given back so much to this world."
"True..."
"I will convince him. You know I have my ways with words."
"Yes. If there's anyone who can motivate him it is you. You're the only one he listens to."
"So, if not Silver..."
"Shinave"
"..."
*sigh*
"You're making me meet her again huh?"
"Yes. We will meet with the goddess of ice."
"Alright then... I know where she is. I sure hope you know what you're doing."
"Probably."

I most certainly do not. Why is Yuya somewhat reluctant to meet with her again?
Did we part on bad terms?
Meh, it will come to me eventually.
These memories have a habit of popping up whenever I need them lately.

Yuya opens a rather odd looking portal and it seems to take her quite a considerable amount of energy to do so.
Right... we'll mask our auras. It should buy us enough time for a meeting and to get back before the Templars find us.
We hop through the portal and end in a rather odd looking place.


It's an old temple of sorts. Parts of it are covered with rather beautiful ice crystals, but most of them are broken.
Right. The goddess of ice. Or rather the person who used to be the goddess of ice.
Back then two gods fought together with us.
The goddess of ice: Shinave; and the god of fire: Ifrit
Yeah... there was 6 of us I think.
The 3 gods Shinave, Ifrit, Yuya, and Silver, Selene and myself.
I will reunite all of us... somehow...

We walk through the old temple, searching for Shinave.
I have a feeling that she's here somewhere, even though I cannot sense any aura besides Yuyas and my own at all.
I can feel the Templars scanning the entire plane though.
Their searching pattern reminds me of that of a computer rather than that of a sentient being.
They are perfectly coordinated.
But it will take them hours to track me down with my aura masked.

"You have some guts to show up here after what you've done."
"Indeed..."

The voice coming from behind caught me by surprise, but I'm not showing that I was off guard.
I turn around slowly and full of confidence.
Shinave.


Her eyes look young, but she's clearly older than Yuya or myself.
She has long white hair, deep blue eyes, very similar to Yuya's, and a rather pale skin.
A wise woman, once one of the most well known gods.
But now she lives in a seemingly abandoned temple.
And somehow I get the feeling that it is my fault.

"How are you?"

She answers me with a small hand gesture that's not really saying much.
Is she mad at me? Is she mad at us?
I feel that she is in some way, yet it also feels like the complete opposite.

"And how are you... Yuya?"
"I'm alright... mother."

mo... Mo... I... wait what?
Nonono.
Oh shit.
Fuck my life.
Goddess of ice, goddess of water... yeah. Am I fucking retarded? How did I not remember that.
And I have... with Yuya... oh my god...
Yeah, I might be screwed.

"You haven't talked to me in a long time."
"I have not. Not after you suggested that I shouldn't try to bring Hyu back."
"It was a bad idea."
"Yet here I am."
"Yet here you are."
"I guess I should be impressed that you managed to find your way back after what happened."
"I should also kill you for what you have done."

She approaches me without changing her facial expression.
I'm at a complete loss. I can't tell if she's serious.
Well. She is. But there's something more. Something she isn't telling.
She stands right in front of me and stares into my eyes.
I don't blink.

She hugs me tightly.
What?

"I hate you Hyu. I hate you so much."

She starts crying and grabs more tightly onto me.
I'm getting mixed signals here.
But somehow I understand. She wants to hate me, but she can't. She cannot help but love me for whom I am.
She looks deeply into my eyes again.

"You've sent my daughter towards certain death you know."
"Stop! It's too early."
"No."
"Yes it is! It is too early for him to remember!"
"Maybe. But there's no choice. He must remember."
"And then what? What if he does remember?"
"What if he realizes that he has cheated? Then what? What if he dies if he remembers that?"
"If he abides by the rules then yes, he will die."

... yeah.
I don't like everything I'm hearing, but I do want to know.
And I am so close. I can remember parts on my own. The puzzle is fitting itself together as we speak.
A tiny nudge in the right direction and I'll remember everything.
I look at Yuya and say reassuringly:

"Am I the type who abides by the rules?"

She can't help but smile for an instant, but then quickly puts on a serious face again.

"It's too soon."
"Yes. And bringing him back is impossible, yet here he stands. And yet here you stand."
"..."

I'm beginning to remember on my own.
Because I need to remember.
Because now is the time to remember, even though Yuya suggests otherwise.

"We all fought together. We fought many evils. But there was one we simply could not beat."
"... the Templars."
"13 of them there were, and only 6 of us, but that was not the issue."
"The issue was that one of them was a true immortal, and the 12 others had their lives linked to him."
"All 12 of them were unkillable as long as the 13th was alive. And he had perfected the art of combat."
"He was supposedly unbeatable. And even if he would be killed, due to his immortality he would just resurrect."
"Yes..."
"So I came up with a plan."

"You did come up with a plan."
"You always did, regardless of how hopeless the situation was."
"But this plan I did not like."
"This plan I did not like."
"But it was yours."
"It was mine."
"I didn't choose it because it was a good plan, I chose it because it was the only plan."
"Indeed..."

... what a horrible plan it was.
I have trouble saying the words, but they must be said.

"... Yuya would give her life to allow Silver to cast the ultimate spell."
"I would hold the Templar in place."
"And Silver would kill him with this spell, and the both of us in the process."

...

"This would send the Templars soul to hell. Because that's where immortals go."
"But immortality means you only have to spend a single minute, and then you are reborn."
"And I have the phoenix wings. I can move through the realms. I can go to hell once I am dead."
"Even after dying, my soul should have an afterglow of energy, enough to go there and challenge him."
"One minute to do the impossible. One minute to kill the soul of the only one who ever perfected the art of combat."
"And all of that without any energy left."
"But if I would kill his soul, he would truly die. You cannot be reborn without a soul."

"The plan was ludicrous. All of you would die for certain, for a glimpse of a chance to do the impossible."
"But it would cripple the Templars for years."
"It would... And it has."
"But things did not turn out according to your plan."

"Fortunately they did not. If they did we would be dead."
"So how did you kill him? And how is my daughter still alive. And how are you?"

...

"How I won the fight in hell... I truly do not know."
"I do not believe in miracles. But if they do exist, then this was one."
"We were joined in hell by our swords, and fought for a full minute without any energy."
"A true old-fashioned sword fight."
"I didn't stand a chance of course. He had figured out the perfect technique."
"But for some reason beyond me, as we danced in the fires of hell with our swords clashing..."
"..."
"I stabbed him in his chest."
"He never made a mistake, there was never any opening. I never figured out the perfect technique."
"Yet it happened. Neither one of us did understand. And I released the last bit of energy I had left in me into my blade..."
"And his soul evaporated. He died the true death."

"And then...?"
"And then I died."

...

"But how?"
"If you die you have to pay the price. Unless you are immortal you have to pay your soul."
"That is what dying is."
"But I never had a chance to give my soul."

Shinave's expression changes. She understands.

"The dragon within me. The dragon soul I shared my body with."
"He gave his soul before I had a chance to give mine."
"And with the price paid, I was no longer bound to the world of the dead... so I left... so I came back."
"And then I approached Yuya's lifeless body. And I summoned the true phoenix wings, and I brought back her soul from the dead and resurrected her."

"So you did use your one resurrection."

She sighs.

"So not only is the dragon soul, the one who taught you the ways of the dragon, no longer with you; but you also sacrificed your near infinite source of energy. The phoenix catalyst."
"That is the price the phoenix must pay to perform a resurrection, and the reason why he can perform only one."
"But these were the reasons why you were so strong. The dragon soul and the phoenix catalyst. And now you have none of them."
"A small price to pay."
"A truly huge price to pay."
"Perhaps, but the choice was an obvious one."
"It was not. You could have used the catalyst to destroy the remaining templars."
"And let Yuya be dead?"
"..."
"It would have been the logical choice."

"Pff... logic. Yes, I might have noble goals, some people may even have called me a hero."
"But I truly am a fool and you know it. I do not regret having made that choice."
"And I love you for having made that choice. You saved my daughter."

"We all paid a huge price back then. Selene died. Silver managed to get back for some reason which is beyond me."
"The council of gods was destroyed."
"But the Templar died. And now they are mortal."
"And they are after you."

I shrug.

"And I am after them."
"You're mad."
"I am Hyu."

Yuya has been awfully silent.

"I understand how you were able to come back and revive me."
"Your soul is taken when you die. But for you, 'a' soul was taken, but not yours."
"But still. After that you should never have been able to come back to this world."
"You are supposed to be dead."
"You have tried quite intensely to bring me back though. Surely you must have believed that it would work."
"Maybe... but what now that you know that you are supposed to be dead?"
"Nothing."

"But... what if death comes for you."
"There is only one thing you do if death comes for you."
"... give up... ?"

I give her a disapproving stare and raise my voice.

"You look death straight into its eyes and you say: 'not today'"

Shinave smiles for the first time.

"It is good to know that you are still Hyu. It is good to know that you are still the fool I remember."
"Can he do that... just like that?"
"How would I know? Do I know anyone who has tricked death itself?"
"What I do know is that he is Hyu."
"He is..."

Shinave inspects me from top to bottom.

"You have aged."
"You are weak."
"And you come to me now, which means..."
"I will ask you the impossible."
"After all that has happened, you really dare ask me?"
"Yes."
"And what do you suggest we do if I agree?"
"We will be a dead man walking and 2 gods that are no longer gods up against the Templars."
"How is that going to work?"
"You're forgetting about Silver and Ifrit."
"Ifrit? You are more insane than I thought."
"But even then. That's 2 dead men walking and 3 gods that are no longer gods. My question remains."
"I will come up with a plan of course."
"Because you are Hyu."
"Because I am Hyu."

For the first time in what feels like an eternity I put on a certain smile.
It is a somewhat dark smile. A smile looking forward to a battle that seemingly cannot be won.
A smile that challenges all beliefs. A smile that says that we can do the impossible.

"Will you come with me, oh goddess, and fight with me again?"
"..."
"Of course I will."

She looks at Yuya, then at me, back at Yuya, and back at me, clearly understanding what is going on.
Then she faces me and says:

"Back in the days the gods would have killed your for this."

But she doesn't say it in a serious way. I'm not sure if she approves, but I do know that she does not mind.

"I wonder what Ifrit is going to think about this."

I turn around and start walking towards the portal and shrug.

"I'd rather not."

We laugh, even though it isn't really that funny. He's one of the very old gods. He can never know. He would indeed kill me.
I stop.

"As long as we can still laugh like this, the world isn't lost."

That puts a reassuring smile on Shinave and Yuya's face.
Ha. I still have it in me.
I am still a leader.
And I will do this.
I will end what I have started 15 years ago. I will end the tyranny that is the existence of the Templars.
I just have to figure out how.
Preferably without killing half of us in the process this time.

I was visiting weird planets with Yuya as I often do in a rather deep dream that had been going on for multiple hours.
Then this happened:

There it is, a feeling all too familiar that I have not experienced in a long time.
I am scared... so fucking scared.
Fortunately my body reacts on its own, powering up and thus protecting me from the overwhelming pressure off the aura that has just appeared.
I know this feeling all too well, even though it has been such a long time since I've last experienced it.

This is very unexpected.
I have lately gone out of my way to get into trouble, because there is nothing like the fear you experience during a fight where your opponent is actually strong enough to kill you.
But in such fights, it is more of a mixture of fear and excitement you are experiencing.
The feelings of a true fights are difficult to explain, but there's a very special vibe to them that is oddly fascinating.

But this... this isn't.
There is no excitement, there are no feelings associated to those of a good fight.
This is pure fear.

Usually I gradually power up during fights, trying to find a good balance so that I am on a similar level to my opponent, because that makes things most interesting.
But this time I'm not. My body instinctively powered up all the way.
And I will need every single bit of strength if I want to survive this.

Fucking Templars who hunt me down because the god from their delusions told them so.
If only they weren't so ludicrously strong.
I can't afford anything less than a perfect level of concentration.
The first time I encountered one of them, I had both Yuya and Silver with me and I still came close to dying on multiple occasions.
To top it off I only managed to win the fight by using an ability that I can only use once every few years.
And that was a stray Templar, possibly weaker than the one I'm facing right now.
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/hyu/...dragons-18805/

The second time I was in a room full of portals, and managed to make a run for it.
This time I won't have a choice. We'll have to fight.
They are so fast that I won't be able to draw my phoenix wings without creating a very short opening, inevitably resulting in my death.
Yes. They are that fast. There is zero room for errors.

"The true lord demands your death Anassasi."
"I couldn't care less about your delusions."
"Oh but you should. Your death is inevitable, regardless of how much you try to resist us."
"The Templars will hunt you for all eternity."

He plays with his staff in a taunting manner.
It's odd. Regardless of how much hate there is during a fight, if both parties have considerable strength, there is always a certain degree of respect. Even if it is only the respect in your opponents strength.
And an element of excitement, because only rarely do you have the opportunity to go all out if you are this strong.
But with Templars there is none of that.
There is only the urge to survive.
And them? I'm not even sure if they have feelings at all besides hatred for certain dreamers.

I know that WakingNomad has encountered them as well. I used to call them Paladins, but after reading that he calls them Templars, the term has somehow emerged into my dreams.

Yuya has casted her water spheres and her aura is clearly on edge. But even like this there is an inexplicable beauty to her aura, even if she is ready to kill.
If only our truly overpowered abilities would work against them.
They are immune to both my dragon eyes and Yuya's water extraction technique.
I'm not sure if they have any water in their bodies.
They have a certain artificial look to them. Maybe it is because they never show any emotions besides hate.

"Today the dragon will die."

I grip my katana tightly. It is fully of energy and vibrates strongly in my hand.
I am perfectly focused on him. I am waiting for the slightest of changes within his aura.
There is is! A small twitch... and he is gone.

He appears right in front of me, but I was perfectly prepared for his blink and am already midway in my own blink, bringing me only slightly out of reach of his staff.
It hurts!
I had forgotten that any proximity to their aura causes a feeling of pressure so strong that you think it could burn off your skin.
But it doesn't feel like the heat of fire, it is what I assume it would feel like if you got an acid burn.

It's go time.
I charge towards the Templar and clash my sword into his staff.
I cannot comprehend how their staffs can deflect such power. It doesn't feel like they charge any energy onto them.
Any material should easily break in such a situation if you don't.
Yuya is throwing her spheres against him, and occasionally casting high pressure water beams into his direction.
But they are simply deflected by his armor in the same manner his staff is deflecting my sword.
It is so frustrating.

My aura is right at the edge of hurting my own body. The vibrations are only barely bearable.
I see the sky red and the clouds burning. My blood is boiling.
In such a state I need to be careful not to accidentally damage my own body.
Yuya is pushed slightly outside of the battle my various pressure attacks.

"Do you know how we kill a dragon?"

A device on his staff activates and my katana is teleported and trapped against it.
He smiles and charges at me with his staff.

"The last Templar who thought so is long dead you fool."

This trick may have worked once, but I'm not falling for it again.
I cast my katana away and re-materialize it in my hand.
He didn't expect this. Maybe I can force a small opening.
I skillfully bring myself into a better position.
Yes! This is perfect, I got him at a dead angle.
I charge all the energy into my sword that I can manage and swing it against the right side of his abdomen as he passes me.
I can feel it clashing against his armor and releasing all of its energy. A perfect hit!

Coldness. Shudder.
I blink instinctively, but slightly too late.
A sharp pain emerges from my left shoulder.
How did he manage to reposition himself like that?
He was to my right and I clearly hit him hard.
How did he manage to cut into my left shoulder?
And why the fuck does his staff have retractable blades?

The situation calms down as we all got some space between us.
Fuck, I have to fight on my own for a split second and I'm already wounded.
I feel blood slowly streaming down my arm.
Usually the dragon aura would naturally take care of it and close the wound, but there's something about a Templars aura that prevents such in-combat healing techniques.
I cast fire onto the skin surrounding the wound and burn it shut.
It hurts, but I have so much adrenaline in my body that it isn't as bad as it sounds.

Then I notice that Yuya is wounded as well, though only superficial.
She has a small cut on her left arm, and she appears to have frozen the wound shut.
This is not going well.

I inspect the Templar in the hopes of spotting some serious damage dealt by my last attack.
There is a dent in his armor.
Are you fucking kidding me? I landed a perfect hit!
I hit him so hard that the changes of air pressure around him caused extensive damage to the ground surrounding us.
But his armor? A fucking dent?
How are we supposed to beat him?

The fight continues, but it quite frankly isn't looking good for us.
He manages to land near-hits on us with nearly every try, whereas all of our attacks bounce off his stupid armor.
If only Silver was here. But he isn't, and he won't come.

I'm starting to become exhausted.
Templars don't seem to suffer from this issue. The longer this fight will drag on the worse our situation will become.

Alright. Time for more risky tactics.
I lower my katana slightly, giving the Templar an opening if he charges me head on.
And sure enough he comes right at me.
Time nearly stops. I see him slowly approaching me during one fast leap.
He's moving so fast that pressure waves are building around his body.

Yuya's aura is clearly alarmed. She is very worried about me... and... so am I.
Was this really a good idea? What was I thinking?
I haven't used this ability in years, I can't even remember it properly.
It's to late to question it now... just go with it.

I slightly lower the dragonic energy in my body. Any hit now and I am most certainly dead.
I shift all the energy into the right side of the blade of my katana.
Then I rapidly focus phoenix energy within my body.

This is a horrible idea. It is so dangerous to do this.
Dragonic energy is demonic in nature, whereas phoenix energy is divine.
Like fire and ice. Matter and Antimatter.
Any mistake will rip my body apart.
I do not have the experience I had a few years ago, and even then, as mad as I was, I respected and feared using both energies at the same time greatly.

My eyes and my dragon tattoo begin to hurt intensely.
They are being attacked my the divine energy.

I increase the phoenix energy until it reaches the same level as the dragon energy.
Then I funnel it into my blade as well, but on the other side.
I now have two independent energy circuits running through my blade and body.
But they draw their power from the same source: my aura.
I need to divide my concentration.
Half of it to make sure I do not kill myelf.
The other half to coordinate my attack.

My katana begins to vibrate heavily.
I turn the dragon energy into heat. A heat greater than that of suns, probably only matched by the pressure within a black hole, something only a dragon can do.
With my phoenix energy I do the exact opposite. Absolue zero. The temperature at which everything stops, an ability exclusive to wielders of divine energy.
Both touch only at the edge of the blade.
This causes the laws of physics to break down.
Such opposing forces cannot occupy the same space, yet they do at the very edge of the blade.
An intense pressure vortex forms around my blade because the air surrounding it no longer has any idea how to act.

I swing my katana at the Templar, who is now only centimeters away from me.
The intense pressure emerging from my sword closes the opening I gave him earlier.
This has to work. This is one of the most powerful techniques I know of, and I am risking my life to perform it.
It is not a dragon ability, nor is it a phoenix ability.
It is my ability. Mine alone. A combination of powers only I could use on the most extreme level.
If this doesn't hurt him nothing will.

As I swing my katana towards him. I no longer manage to contain the force within.
Some energy leaks out, causing intense vortexes around us.
It emits a pure, blinding light.

And then, they finally clash.
My katana and his staff.
The explosion of energy is beyond anything I've ever experienced.
My senses shut down to protect my body from the intensity of the situation.
It is like witnessing the big bang. The emergence of a sheer infinite supply of energy from a tiny point in space.

My senses slowly recover...
The energy in my body is completely unstable. Both the dragonic and phoenix circuits have completely shut down.
As my vision normalizes I can see the disaster I have caused in front of me.
The entire landscape is partially frozen and partially on fire.
A huge crack in the landscape, starting at my feet, reaches kilometers into the distance.
At some points it is multiple meters wide.
And that was caused by nothing but the side effects of my technique.
The energy released by the attack was all directed perfectly towards the Templar, none of it touched my surroundings.

I turn around, still in slow motion.
He must be dead. Please be dead.
As I turn I notice my katana burning in a bright blue flame.
It is vibrating at an immensely high frequency, emitting a very high pitched tone.
No other material would ever have been able to contain the energy needed for this attack.
It was forged using parts of my dragonic and phoenix energy,
designed specifically to be able to hold these forces for short periods of time.

And then I see him, turning around as well.
Our eyes meet.
He is not dead.
And he is angry. Properly mad.
He swings his fully intact staff back into an attack position.
We are so screwed.

But then, a flicker of hope.
The chest plate of his armor shatters and drops to the ground revealing a long cut reaching all the way from his shoulder to his abdomen.
But even though the wound is deep, no blood is coming out of it.
He is clearly wounded though.
But so am I.

My aura took quite a hit. It wasn't him though.
Even though I controlled both energies perfectly I still damaged my aura.
But the damage is low and mostly superficial.
Small arcs of lighting are shooting across my body because of it.
I'm still operating my aura at the absolute maximum. The arcs are caused by energy leaking out of the tiny damaged spots.

But then all the hope I just gathered vanishes.
A second Templar emerges from a portal.
And the first one doesn't even seem to be in that bad of a shape after my attack.
We need to run. We need to run now.
But I don't know how.

Energy emerges from below the ground. Yes! There's still a chance.
During the short downtime Yuya managed to collect a huge concentration of water below the ground and cast her Leviathan.
It bursts out from below the ground and both the Templars disappear within it.
An attack of truly godlike proportions.

But this won't be enough time. It'll buy us maybe a tenth of a second, not enough to cast my phoenix wings and get us out.
I need to buy more time.
I blink towards Yuya and summon the huge phoenix wings on my back, and focus as much phoenix energy as I can.
I will block a single attack.
This should provide enough time for Yuya to draw a portal.
Maybe portaling will buy us enough time for me to use the phoenix teleportation, which they cannot follow.
This is one of the situations where it is truly advantageous that we share our thoughts.

I stand strong before her, surrounding us with a divine energy shield.
I'm putting all the force that I have left into it.
Yuya is casting a portal on the ground in the mean time.
Point one of a second... come on!

A beam of light breaks the Leviathan body and hits my energy shield hard.
A purely energy based attack.
The ground around is disintegrates under the force.
Only the parts within my shield remain intact.
But I won't be able to hold this for the tenth of a second we need.
It will collapse too early.

I start shrinking it to conserve energy.
Right now it is encompassing my huge phoenix wings. I won't need those to survive.
I shrink it all the way down until it only protects our bodies.
My wings burn to ashes as they touch the outer limits of the shield.
It hurts. It hurts so much.
How long can a tenth of a second last?

My wings are nearly completely gone now.
We are kneeling, the shield diameter is down a meter and a half.
And then finally the portal forms below my feet and we fall through.
We enter the wormhole created by the portal.
Blood from my broken wings streams into it.

It goes far... very far.
Yuya casted a portal towards a location much farther away than I've ever been.
This might buy us the time we need.
We emerge from the other end of the wormhole, onto a barren planet.
I immediately summon the phoenix wings on my left arm and try to make us enter the fabric of space and get us home.
Yuya nearly collapses under the exhaustion of having casted this portal right after the Leviathan.

The wings materialize and I can sense our bodies shifting into the fabric.
Both Templars appear out of nowhere closely in front of us.
But this will work. This is enough time.
The wound I caused on one of them is already in the process of healing.
What the fuck? How... ?
The other one smiles at me.

"Run little dragon! Run! We will get you soon enough!"

Followed by a maniacal laughter.
Finally we disappear into the fabric of space and are transported to Haven.
As we emerge, we drop to the ground exhausted.
My entire body is shaking, either from fear or because I pushed my body too far, I'm not sure.

"I'm sorry. I thought we had more time."

I knew it would happen. Somewhere deep within I knew it would happen after I fought the first one of them.
He was weaker, sort of a run-away or something, no longer obeying the Templar collective.
I never imagined that the others would be so much more powerful.

"I need to become stronger... much stronger."

She looks at me in a very sad way.
I have never seen her sad before. She is always so happy and full of energy.

"I'm so sorry. I did not bring you back for this, I don't want you to have to fight again."
"Of course you didn't. But it is inevitable. I will have to fight. I will have to fight again."
"If this is what it takes to be here again then I will fight... "

I look at my still shaking hands.
I am so strong already. So immensely powerful.
Yet, I still stand no chance against them, no chance whatsoever.
Not even in a two on one fight.
I think about the journey ahead of me.
I'm going to need help... I'm going to need a lot of help...

I can't really keep up with my DJ, which is sort of a good thing I guess?
I've stopped journaling non-lucids entirely and I'm skipping unimportant details in my lucids.
For example I skip details such as becoming lucid or doing mental stabilization etc.

I'm pretty sure this is the longest dream I've ever had.
It definitely felt "deep", which is how Yuya describes it, which is oddly enough a term WakingNomad uses as well.
It feels very rewarding to have such a dream after spending dream time "training" to achieve this.



Day 1: Barfight - Earth from Space

... It takes longer than usual to locate Yuya's aura.
Where... what the hell?
Is that a bar?
I also vaguely feel a demonic presence near her.

I decide not to teleport straight to her, but instead teleport to outside of the bar.
I'm not really sure what's going on and I don't want to cause a scene.



I end up in front of what appears to be a bar from an old western.
It's on top of a cliff with nothing but desert surrounding it.
The demonic presence is more clear now.
There's multiple instances, but they all seem weak.
I decide to mask my own aura after I notice that Yuya is masking hers.
That's probably why I had trouble locating her.

I enter the bar, acting as if I belong here.
I spot Yuya sitting at the bar. She's wearing a brown coat?
Probably trying to look inconspicuous or something. (Or a firefly reference you idiot)
I on the other hand am wearing my typical attire.
But it doesn't matter. If you mask your aura people barely notice you unless you talk to them direcly.
And even then they usually don't notice any oddities and forget you quickly.
This works only on weaker minds of course, who don't fully use their 6th sense.

I sit down next to Yuya and order a beer.
A passively scan the surrounding aura's.
Yep, just as I thought, they're all kind of weak. And they are all of demonic nature?
They are all oddly similar, even though the creatures are of different species.
Most are humanoid though.
They must belong together in some way.

The beer is mediocre. It's lukewarm. Beh.

"So... What's going on?"
"Hm..."

She grins.
I hear someone drop a glass in the background and it shatters.
Then it happens again in another corner of the room.
Yuya's expression reveals that she's responsible for this.
She's controlling the water molecules in the drinks to throw them off the table.
It will take these people some time to figure out what's going on.
The bartender will probably notice first, he has the strongest aura.
I can already see it in his eyes that he has noticed that something is wrong.
So... Yuya appears to be starting a barfight.
Ha, this is kind of fun.
Since I've started time dilation training we've deliberately gotten ourselves into a lot of trouble.
Fully emerging myself into the dream allows me to stay for really long times.
I've managed to stay many hours a few times in a row now.
The only thing I haven't managed yet is to go to sleep without waking up.

The bartender looks straight into Yuya's eyes.
Even if he doesn't notice her aura, he'll be able to tell by her eyes that she's not a demon and that she doesn't belong here.

"What? Who are you?"
"*smile* Trouble!"

The bartender then proceeds to lift up a double barreled shotgun from under the bar and aims it at Yuya's chest.
I look at Yuya.

"Have a safe trip."

The shotgun blast propels her off her chair into the back off the room and she crashes into one of the tables.
A fight breaks loose.
This is starting to become very comical.
Yuya won't need any help. I do kinda want to get involved in the fight though.
But... priorities!
I still have that shitty beer taste in my mouth.
Fortunately I spot a bottle of whiskey.
The bottle is kind of dirty.
I grab it, clearly annoying the gentlemen whom it belongs to.
I take a few big sips directly from the bottle.

"HEY!"
"Wat?"

I unleash a rather colossal burp, and to my surprise I spit quite a bit of fire in the process. Oops.

"Hey Yuya, I think I just figured out where that whole 'dragons spit fire' thing comes from."
"Congratu fucking lations."

She sounds rather occupied defending herself.
They're attacking her with wooden chairs, how cute.
Guy next to me I stole the whiskey bottle from has obviously figured out that I'm not supposed to be here.
He decides to run away... and there I was hoping to throw him across the room.

My fine bottle of whiskey is shattered by some dude crashing into me.

"Yuya... did you just throw this guy at me?"
"Oops?"

I'll better return him.
I pick the guy up and throw him back at Yuya.
It's funny how that works. It feels like throwing a tennis ball.
I have only fought properly strong opponents lately, I completely forgot how ridiculous my power is compared to normal beings.
Well, not normal. They are actually halfway decent demons.
But with mine or Yuya's power it really doesn't make a difference.

I enter the fight and start throwing more people around.
This is kinda fun. I like smashing the furniture into pieces.
Some of them shoot at me with revolvers. This is adorable.
Do they really think they stand a chance?
Well, they actually might.
My aura is probably so intense and overwhelming for them that they can't feel it at all.

Mid-fight I organize myself a new bottle of whiskey, because I still have some of that atrocious taste in my mouth.
This one is actually pretty good.
Most people start running away after they realize that we're completely out of their league.
Yuya sits down next to me on the only table that is still intact and I share the bottle with her.

"So. I take it 'start a barfight' is off the list then?"
"Haha. I think this makes me a bad person."
"Heh. I wonder what the gods would have thought of this back in the days."
"Oh boy, I would have been in so much trouble."

Huh? "The gods?"
Yuya used to be the goddess of water... uuuuuh.
There were more gods obviously, but I can't remember.
I wonder if they're still around.

A slightly stronger aura emerges from the distance.
Shortly after what appears to be the town sheriff enters the room pointing a rifle at us.

"Yeah, good luck with that."
"Haha."

That poor guy. He actually catches a glimpse of our true strength.
He must be terrified. I feel kinda bad now.

"Dude, don't worry, we'll leave."
"Okay..."
"Yeah... we really should go..."

We get up and Yuya tosses a coin at the sheriff.
I draw my phoenix wings to teleport us out but I'm not really sure where to go.
Oh! I have an idea!
I grab Yuya's hand.

"I'll show you something interesting."
"Oh?"

I want to show her Earth from the ISS.
It actually takes me a few seconds to find it within all the crap that is in orbit around our planet.
And something is off, I can't locate any auras within it.
The port feels different. It feels like the first port I make when I become lucid, not like the kind of port I make to change locations later.
Am I bringing us back into my private dreams?

The first thing I notice when we emerge is that it is rather unpleasant being in space.
My body instinctively reinforces a layer of energy around itself to protect me from the cold, vacuum and radiation.
We float a few meters and sit on the ISS.



This is exactly what I wanted to show Yuya.
Earth is such a beautiful planet. And only a handful of astronauts get to see it at a time.

"Wow!"

It's difficult to surprise Yuya like this.
She's seen so many wonderful things in her life.
But it seems I have found one that is worthy to be added to that list.

"She's such a beauty."
"Yeah... I wonder if I'll ever get to see her like this in my life."
"But... surely you will? You have had the technology to go to space for many years?"
"Exactly!"
"Oh... I don't really understand why this isn't moving forward."
"*sigh* There's not enough funding because the people in power don't care about it?"
"How can you not care about it? It's fucking space!"
"Yeah it's really sad. They argue that we should first solve our problems down on earth instead of bringing them with us to space."
"That is the most idiotic argument I have ever heard."
"Yep. And many people hear that and agree with it because they don't know any better."
"They don't see how much good has come from space exploration."
"It's the only thing that has managed to unite us as a species, which is kind of sad actually."

Well shit, I wanted to show Yuya something really cool and beautiful, and now I find myself rambling about the state of our space program.

"But there's hope! Private companies are getting involved who want to get commercial programs started."
"Ah!"
"So... I'm still confused about this."
"Huh?"
"Are we in your world or in my dream space right now?"
"... How can you not know this?"
"I don't know..."
"We're in your dream space or bubble or whatever you want to call it of course."
"Right. Because the ISS doesn't exist in your world."
"Right."
"But Earth does?"
"Yes, but it's another Earth. It's another dimension entirely."
"And the Moon"
"Yeah."
"The green Moon"
"Ha. Wasn't that one of you dreamers who did that?"
"WakingNomad"
"Heh. He sounds like an interesting fellow."

I spot someone in the Cupola module gazing at Earth as well.


If this were the real world and she saw 2 guys sitting in outer space she'd probably have a heart attack.
I start to feel tired. Took me a long time to get lucid, then we had a barfight and now I'm resisting the dangers of outer space.

"Yeah, we should go to bed, I haven't slept in 22 hours."
"Does Teraluna have a 24 hour cycle as well?"
"No, it's about 28 hours."

I summon my phoenix wings and target Teraluna.

"Can you really not feel it?"
"Hmm?"
"The difference between the universes, or planes or whatever. Like, when you target Teraluna, can you not feel how it isn't a location created by your own mind?"
"Uh. I guess... I always assumed that anything I target with the wings must be in your world."
"Huh, that's really weird. You dreamers really seem to have a hard time perceiving these kind of things."

We teleport to Teraluna.
It's nighttime. We both walk under one of the many small waterfalls within Yuya's place before getting to bed.
This is how you shower on Teraluna. There is something cleansing about these things.
It's much more practical than using soap, and you can also dry yourself up with some quick magic tricks.
I simply boil the remaining water on my skin away.
We need this stuff in waking life. And also magic.
Everything is better with magic.

We get into bed.
I love this ridiculously large bed.
It got these satin-like bed sheets that are kind of cold and feel super refreshing.
They also smell really nice.
And the mattress is sooo soft.
I quickly feel rather dizzy and my vision becomes all fuzzy.
I don't have time to think about the issues I've been having with sleeping dreams, which might be a good thing though.
I fall asleep. I clearly feel my dream body turning off.
My eyes close automatically, but my vision remains very active.
I see colorful plasma clouds and a lot of pink noise.

I feel cold wind on my skin as images are coming into existence.
They're memory flashes mixed with some really odd things I do not know.
The word "Ravenclaw" pops into my head.
Then I see tribal dragons and ravens flying around...


Day 2: Exploring Childhood Dreams

... Mmmh. I want to sleep some more.
I nest myself deeper into the bedsheets without any intention of getting up.

"Uuuh, we should really get up."
"I don't wanna."
"Dude."

She starts poking me relentlessly until I get our of bed.
Everything is a bit of a blur.

We have breakfast when it finally strikes me.
I finally managed to sleep in a dream!
Holy shit!
And it feels quite odd.
The "omgthisisamazing imsuperexcited" train of thought is certainly there but I don't feel it?
That tension in your body you feel when you get extremely excited which can cause you to wake up?
It's not there. It doesn't make it feel any less of an achievement, but I perceive it as rather odd that the sensation is missing.
This is a good thing though I suppose.

Yuya's expression changes to a rather intriguing smile.

"Hyu... do you think you are ready for me to show you something about your past?"

She's excited.

"Yes. Of course! What do you want to show me?"

Part of me hopes that it might be about how we've met, but I know that's not going to happen anytime soon.

"I need you to close your eyes."

Sure. I just slept without waking up like a boss, shouldn't be a problem to close my eyes.
... sleeping without waking up. One of those things that only makes sense in a dream.
I hear Yuya approaching and she sits down on my lap.
She seems to look into my closed eyes.
I can feel her thoughts entering my head.
They feel so different from my own.

I can see a scene materializing. Just like when you WILD. I get incoherent flashes first, and then everything stabilizes.

"Open your eyes."

I open them and see both her and the scene from my imagination.
She's drawn into my eyes and after a moment of heavy confusion we find ourselves in this new place.
I look around. It appears that we're on some sort of rather huge space station.



We're standing on the outer hull. There's gravity and an atmosphere, and temperatures appear to be normal.
There must be some kind of forcefield surrounding the station that prevents the atmosphere from escaping.

And then I suddenly get chills.
Holy shit!
I know this place!

"This is..."
"Oh my god... this is..."
"Fuck, I can't remember the name... it's... there's the motorcycle races and colony and mining and..."

Ugh, too much information at once.

"Take it easy. You have all the time you need."
"This is from my dreams. These were like my first consistent lucid dreams."
"Except I didn't know what lucid dreams were..."
"Wow, I must have been like... not even in my teens yet."

My memories are vague, but I start to recall the global setting.
This is a slave colony built around a big asteroid.
The slaves are forced to harvest it, which is a rather difficult task.
There were these bunk rooms were you live with 20ish other people.
Then every day you get up, go mine.
If you find valuable minerals you can trade them for food.
I was one of these slaves.
During some event I escaped the system and was able to enter the automated regions of the station,
where there are no cameras.
I Mcgyvered myself a small sleeping compartment in between some plasma conduits.
Nobody dares to get close to them, so I was safe there.
I got my water from the automated water recycling system and traded it and some things I've built for food with people in similar situations than myself.

And then there were the motorcycle races.
Holy shit those were amazing... and scary... and... batshit insane!
There were different racing classes, much like in a video game.
Starts out at D, then goes up to C, B, A and finally S.

D is comparable to superbikes in waking life.
Then with C class you get electric downforce systems.
They produce downforce without creating drag. Something with artificial gravity or magnets, I can't remember.
But you get the idea. You have ludicrous grip with these modules, so you're able to put down
a lot more power, break much harder and later, and corner at multiple g's.

The races were held on the outer hull of the station. The outside got pressurizes for maintenance on a regular basis,
just like it is now, so you can walk around and race motorcycle outside.
The higher classes had actual race tracks that surrounded the whole station, and they were insanely dangerous.
The station owners obviously knew about this and about all of the slaves that had escaped to the automated regions, but they didn't care.
They probably made a ton of money with the races, so why would they?

Races were properly dangerous as I already mentioned.
Not only do the motorcycles go way too fast, but all of them are tinkered together.
When you win races you get money, which is useless except for buying new parts.
They make you faster, you get into higher classes, win more money etc.
You're pushing most of the components way past their limit once you get into the higher classes.
It's perfectly normal for one or two bikes to blow up during a race and people dying because their brakes failed or they cornered a split second too late.

You can get to A class on the parts you can buy, but winning A races or getting into S requires you to build your own custom stuff.
I had a few useful contacts that could forge things for me if I gave them blueprints, but obviously you can't test anything.
You have an idea, you build it, install it and hope you'll somehow survive the next race.

"This was pretty sick. And by that I don't mean awesome... well, maybe a little."
"But... this was a bit messed up though. How did I come up with that?"
"Eh, video games might have played a role."
"Maybe..."

We walk around and I remember most locations.
The world is frozen though. It's like walking through a memory snapshot.
I can move things, but nothing will act on its own and all characters are frozen in time.
Most of them have blurry faces, which I assume is because I don't remember how they looked.

I find a small hangar which I shared with another racer. Both of our bikes should be in there.
I open the hangar using a hidden button on the outside.
And sure enough, both bikes are there.
The other racer is also there, and I can actually see his face.
He played a major role in those dreams. He was also the one who got me my first bike.


(Imagine this, except longer, twice as fat, and an engine that barely fits)

I sit on my old bike and turn on the systems.
Ecu, ignition, fuel 1, fuel 2...
Xgc? No idea what that was but better turn it on.
Throttle to 2% and a strong kick to the starter.

I nearly shit my pants as the engine comes to life.
I remembered it as pretty brutal, but mother of god...
I immediately let go of the throttle.
The revs drop to about ~4,5k where the engine begins to idle very roughly.
It idles at 4500rpm? holy shit!
Further inspection reveals that the rev indicator goes all the way up to 20k.
Redline starts at 14.000 but I remember reving it to over 17.000 on a regular basis.
The cooling systems can take it just barely.

I rev the engine gently and it immediately shoots up high into the rev range.
These things don't really have flywheels. The clutch is pretty much an on/off switch.
You use it once to get going and from there on you shift sequentially.
Investigating the engine, the exhaust manifolds indicate a V10 engine.
But then I spot another set coming from below. An X20?
The exhaust manifolds feed into two massive turbochargers that finally lead to 4 straight exhausts.
Even though the engine is idling, the pipes are glowing all the way back.
The bike is huge, but the engine barely fits.

I wonder how much power this has.
I remember getting it up past 700km/h on a straight runway, and just over 900 on a few suicidal runways that had
track parts that pointed straight down for a few kilometers.
At these speeds, even if you hide your face behind the tiny windshield, you simply cannot breathe.
You just hold it in until the next corner, and hope you don't black out during breaking.
I turn the engine off... now is not the time to race it. I'll definitely come back though.

I investigate the rest of the station with Yuya and try to remember things.
We talk about the only guy I can remember mostly.
I explain to Yuya what he did, how he got me my first bike and taught me how to upgrade it etc.
During that I realize that he was a dream guide.
I ask Yuya if he's Faye without thinking, which she laughs at.
Obviously he wasn't.

"So, what was the reason for racing? I mean sure, it's exciting, but also quite suicidal."
"Yeah... there was a rumor that when you win the S cup you can buy your freedom."
"They'll give you your identity back and get you to the next tradehub with some money."
"Ah. That makes sense."
"Yeah... it was a scam though. Only people with superhuman capabilities could get into S class and actually win."
"Obviously such a person would win nearly all races once he becomes skilled enough."
"That is a problem for the station owners because if the same person wins every time it becomes boring and they make less money."
"So once every S cup, they sell 'freedom' to the best guy. It's a good excuse for making someone disappear really."
"It gives all the racers a reason to race and keeps the crowd entertained. In the end they just kill you though."

But she already knew that, she asked to help me remember.
Fuck, this whole setting was dark.
Young me had some messed up dreams.

After spending half a day exploring old dreams we get back to Teraluna, where we proceed to drink and smoke what resembles weed.
It tastes different though, but it does a rather good job at getting you high.

We go to bed where I snuggle with Yuya.
Before falling asleep I make a rather overwhelming discovery.
Except it's... well it's not.

I'm holding Yuya in my arms as we fall asleep and I can feel her chest expanding as she breathes.
I can even feel her heartbeat.
Now, this is obviously perfectly normal, but for some reason I cannot help thinking:
"She is real!" as if this was some kind of proof of her existence.
This makes me think of waking life for the first time in many hours.
I question the reasoning I make in waking life but know that there's nothing I can do about it.
I think differently here.

I fall asleep and get pretty interesting visuals.
It's mostly very vividly colored plasma clouds and some geometric shapes.
It looks really interesting and makes me feel blissful.


Day 3: Yuya

I can't remember waking up, but I'm still on Teraluna.
It's afternoon and I'm coloring Yuya's back with some kind of dragon like tribal patterns.



There's a dance this evening which is why I'm doing this.
I have to be careful not to color over the tiny things living in her back, and on all the other citizens of Teraluna.
They grow up there using the body heat and Teralunas atmosphere.
If you leave they hide in a deeper layer of your skin.
When they have matured they fly away and new ones settle in in their place.
They're pretty cool because they glow in the dark.

I'm not really drawing these things myself. I just let dragonic energy slowly flow into some sort of pen and everything else just happens.
My hand moves on its own. I couldn't draw like that.
Then it suddenly strikes me.
Yuya is naked.
Well... yeah. Obviously duh. How else could I paint her entire back?

I gently kiss her on her neck.
...
What am I doing?
I wouldn't have dared to do that not too long ago.
I used to feel so shy around her, but that's gone completely.
She enjoys it, so I kiss her again, which starts a series of events leading to her bedroom.
It's very different from a recent dream with the hibiscus girl.
It probably helps that I didn't turn into a fucking animal, which still weirds me out thinking back.
I'm more like myself. The whole experience is very blissful, but even more powerful in emotions.
It's very difficult to explain. Everything is just right. I'm at peace...

We're at the party were we dance to music that bears a strong resemblance to vocal trance.
Liv is there as well, and it takes us half an eternity to motivate her to join us on the dance floor.
My vision becomes messed up because the scene is very dark, but lights are flashing everywhere.


I also start seeing the music at some point. Deep tones warp the entire field of vision whereas
high tones influence the colors I'm seeing.
At some point I loose it and wake up.

I'm properly confused for one or two seconds, thinking I woke up in a wrong bed and that I must have a false awakening.
Logic kicks in quickly though and everything is perfectly clear.
I close my eyes again and go through the dream backwards, trying to remember every detail.
Then I get up and immediately write the whole thing down rather than taking dream notes.

Before you read, be aware that this dream revolves around a sex scene.
Usually I simply write "I had sex", but due to its important role, I actually described it quite intensely this time.
I left out most of the really explicit or dirty details, but still, if this is something that
you find inappropriate or offensive, please do not read.


I'm walking towards a building with 4 armored guards surrounding me.
I'm full of confidence, walking strong and fast towards the door.
There's anger within me, I am here to set things straight.

As one of my guards opens the door for me, I remember that I am in King's Landing, and that I am entering one of Petyr Baelish's brothels.

The term "Game of Thrones" enters my mind, but I discard it, thinking it is the name of this world or something.
We take the stairs to the first floor, and are greeted by some prostitutes.
They are absolutely gorgeous!
Most of them are wearing slightly see-through dresses that reveal the shape of their bodies underneath, but leave everything else to the imagination.
It is difficult not to stare, but I know that I am in a position where it would be inappropriate to do so.

"I'm here for Littlefinger"

I proclaim, full of confidence.
But I quickly realize that this is all I know.
I am here because some sort of problem and I need to set things with him straight.
Why can I not remember something of such importance?

One of the women makes me a sign to follow her, and leads us through a corridor, presumably leading to Baelish's office.
I decide that once we reach it, I'll most likely remember, and decide not to worry about it.
Well that, and I'm also distracted by the woman in front of me.
She's walking very suggestively, clearly trying to draw attention to her butt which is visible through her dress.
She glances at me by looking over her shoulder, probably wondering if I'm checking her out.

I try to look as serious as possible. Pokerface.
She seems disappointed that I'm not staring and keeps walking.

To the left and right are doors leading into rooms where people are presumably heaving sex.
Well, not presumably, as I get closer I can clearly hear the voices coming from these rooms.
They are intense. Both men and women are screaming shouts of pleasure.
In front of the rooms other women are waiting, often kissing or fingering each other as they wait for customers.

The sexual tension is extreme, and the more I try to ignore it, the stronger it becomes.
I can clearly feel the sexual energy streaming from the rooms.
Some have not even bothered to close the doors to their rooms. I try not to look, but cannot avoid it most of the time.

It makes me feel quite uncomfortable.
It's not the sex, nor is it the women. The whole situation actually turns my on to a great extend.
But the sexual energy from the other men... I don't want to feel it, but it is shoved right in my face.

To top it off, I spot what appears to be a gnome walking into one of the rooms with a lady.
He's tiny!
He notices me and gives me that "I'm going to have sex with this woman" look.
The fuck?

"Here we are."

Well shit, I still don't remember why I'm here.
My guards wait outside as I enter the room.
Littlefinger is sitting behind his desk, and not very far away I spot Daenerys Targaryen with one of her dragons on her shoulder.

The dragon is bigger than in the tv-series.
(Yes, I actually think off the tv-series, but it doesn't strike me as odd that I'm with tv characters or that this scene makes absolutely no sense in the current GoT plot)

Baelish is clearly not happy to see me, and he asks me with an annoyed tone:

"What is it?"

If only I knew.
I decide the best course of action would be to just act all smug and superior and not say anything.
He doesn't really seem to expect an answer, so I just stare at him.
I'm somewhat superior to him right? ... Or... who am I?
Finally he stands up.

"This is outrageous!"

Daenerys steps in.

"Yes it is! Who do you think you are to refuse service to my dragon???"

Aha, so that's what's going on.
...
Wait what?

"This is an establishment that caters to men and women, and not to your bloody pets!"
"I am the mother of dragons and I demand that you show me respect!"

Oh boy, what have I gotten myself into here.
I feel that I should side with Daenerys though, after all I am a dragon as well.
And this request isn't really that unreasonable is it?

I smack my hand on the table and stare into Baelish's eyes and I say in a serious, powerful and slightly angry voice:

"Your whores do seem to cater to gnomes though."
"Are you perhaps suggesting that a dragon is an inferior life form compared to a fucking gnome?"

He is so scared. I can see it in his eyes. He is so scared that he cannot retain composure.
I still don't remember who I am, but I conclude that I'm some kind of amazing badass.

"I... I didn't mean it like that."

One of the prostitutes storms into the room towards Daenerys and offers to take care of her dragon.
She nods and the dragon climbs onto the shoulder of the prostitute and they go into a room.

"To think that I had to come here for this."
"My apologies..."

What am I doing?

"Sir, perhaps you would be interested in some of my women... on the house of course!"

Two prostitutes enter the room and take their tops off.
Boobies! They look so soft.
Wait... this is not something my character would do is it?
It is hard to resist the offer though.

"I have more urgent matters to attend to then to fuck your whores."
"Of course... again... my apologies, if you need anything please let me know."

I turn around and leave the room.
Fuck, I'm so horny right now.
Walking through the corridor filled with sexual energy isn't helping.
I'll just get out of here and get back to...
What was I doing? Who am I?
I stop.



You have got to be fucking kidding me.
I look around me. Half naked ladies everywhere.
It feels so real.
The smell of lavender in the air is doing a decent job of covering the smell of sex.

Uuh, this is weird, did I just make a prostitute have sex with a dragon?
How does that even work?
The idea of going into that room to see how they're doing it pops up in my head but I discard it quickly.
I start walking towards the exit again.
I try to calm down and mentally stabilize the dream, but I quickly notice that it is perfectly stable.
Should I just have some fun with one of the girls? They're all very pretty.

But then everything stops.
I can't feel any of the DC's anymore, except for one.
An extremely strong and vibrant aura is emerging from one of the rooms.
It is very familiar... who is this again?
I walk straight towards the room not thinking about anything else anymore.
I am drawn towards it by a higher power.

I open the door and find a very cute, attractive and beautiful woman, wearing a rather revealing dress.
The look she gives me is the exact opposite from cute though. It is so horny and dirty.
Is this... is this the hibiscus girl?
I search for a hibiscus flower. She's always wearing one, or it is painted somewhere on her clothes, hence why I call her "the hibiscus girl".
I can't see it, but my sense of global awareness tells me it is there, strapped into the back of her hair.
I glance into her eyes, and sure enough, they are those amazing eyes with infinite detail.
She has long brown hair, which is beautifully weaved together in a rather extravagant fashion.
I also notice some kind of long skin-tight silver bracelet on her left arm, which seems to have been sculpted to look like a dragon.

I close the door behind me and walk towards her full of confidence.
All of my encounters with her have been very sexual and I know this one isn't going to be any different.
Dream Journal Entries tagged with 'Hibiscus'

The sexual tension between us is extreme.
I can see in her eyes that she is feeling the same way I am. She can't seem to stand still of excitement.
Once I'm close enough she immediately hugs me and moves in for a kiss.
But I stop her just before our lips touch.
I'm teasing her, and I see a small opportunity.

"Who are you?"

She's breathing heavily. She can't stand it that I'm teasing her.
The sexual tension between us is so strong that it begins to manifest itself physically.
Arcs of lightning are shooting between our bodies where our skin is close.

"I won't say."

Her voice is shivering.
She tries to pull me closer so that we will finally kiss, but I keep resisting.

"Tell me!"

She clearly considers it, but decides against it.
Following a dirty smile she rips off my shirt.
She moves in again.
I'm not stopping her this time.
We kiss.

As our lips touch I get the most intense feeling all over my body.
It feels a bit like goosebumps, but it is so much more intense.
Colors quickly become ridiculously vibrant.
I can clearly hear both of our hearts racing.

She moves back a little and tries to pull me onto the bed.
There is no need to say anything, her eyes clearly scream "I want to have sex"
She moans as I rip off her dress and push her onto the bed.
She spreads her legs and holds out her arms towards me.

I quickly get rid of my clothes and jump onto the bed.
A few memories rush into my head.
Memories where she suggested that she is a dreamer and that she reads my DV DJ.
Is she real?
The train of thought vanishes as we commence.

She pulls on me to make me move faster.
Quickly things become pretty rough and she starts using excessive force to turn me around and get on top.
She keeps going faster and getting more violent. She is a lot stronger than I would have anticipated.
I need to use some of my dragonic power to gain the strength to get back on top.

This is so intense. Seeing the expression on her face.
She just can't get enough. And she is very vocal about it.
Magic abilities start "leaking" out of her.
She pushes me around so hard that her ethereal wings light up, which I see for the first time.
I love it, and I push back. We keep throwing each other around.
My senses go into complete overload, just like they did last time.

Some of the prostitutes are hiding behind some curtain, trying to sneak a few looks.
They have never seen something like this before.
She's an animal. She even bites me in the shoulder to get a better grip.
But so am I. We're both animals succumbing to our most basic urges.

We keep going until our muscles can support our bodies no more.
I let us fall backwards onto the bed, but as I hit the ground I feel that I've landed on grass, not on a bed.
For the first time in many minutes I bother to take a look around and notice that we're outside in a huge field.
She hugs me.
I can feel her exhaustion and her heavy breathing.
I try one last time.

"Who are you?"

But she just smiles. She's so happy, it's complete bliss.
Then she fades away.
Well, that's unfortunate.

I get up and look at the landscape.
All my muscles hurt, but I cannot help but feel profound satisfaction.

Then I realize that 2 women are standing behind me.
I turn around, realizing too late that I'm completely naked and that a specific body part is still fully erect.
They don't say anything, they just stare and their faces turn somewhat red.
I walk past them, finding the situation humorous.

"Good afternoon my ladies."

A crow far away starts yelling "peeeenis... peeeenis"
It is barely audible, but a good reminder of the randomness of my dreams.





I wake up and surprisingly I go from complete exhaustion to well rested.
I try to remember my previous dream which makes me scratch my head.
I take a page of notes to help me remember in the morning.
For some reason I write

"I am a dirty man"

at the very end.
Why did I do that?
I change it to

"I am a dirty an awesome man"

and smile like an idiot.
Then I go back to sleep.





...
Yuya sends me a signal that she's with Liv visiting some place and that I should come.
I teleport to their location and find myself on a rather odd planet.
It has a green sky, and the entire landscape is covered with what appears to be glass biodomes linked with each other by bridges.


I try to say hi but Liv takes a step back. She seems to be in full shyness mode which I haven't seen in a while.
Yuya on the other hand seems highly amused.

"What's going on?"

She whispers in my ear, with an evil grin on her face that tells me whatever she's going to tell me will make me feel really weird:

"You smell like sex."

...
Shit.

She bursts out laughing. Fortunately I don't feel too weird about it.

"Speaking of which, do you have any idea who this girl is?"

She closes her eyes and scans my memory to get a better grasp on whom I'm talking about.
Unfortunately, she immediately skips to the sex scene, which I did not expect at all.

"HEY!"
"Oh my!"

She gives me this "well done sir" look, that only guys are supposed to give each other.

"That was... impressive."

What makes it worse is that she means it.
And I can feel that she's a little turned on by it.
I feel rather ashamed now.

"Oh calm down, how often have I told you that we don't have those weird notions about sex you have in the waking world."

Yes, she has. And I know it isn't weird for her, but I still didn't want her to see that.

"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault."
"And no, I don't know who she is, but she seems to be a rather curious individual."

I try to change the topic.

"So, where are we?"

She explains to me how and why the biodomes were built.
The one next to us apparently holds a collection of the most amazing candy that has ever existed.
This explains why the room is full of guards. You can clearly see it from where we're standing.
The candy is also in the open, laid out on different tables.

"Huh? Do they only have old-fashioned guards? No futuristic or magic security systems?"
"No, just guards. I mean, how would you sneak in there?"

Exactly! How would I?
I can't blink there because there's a physical obstruction in the way.
However...

I summon my phoenix wings, trying not to alarm Yuya.
She doesn't notice.
This is gonna be fun.
I look over at the biome and immediately see that I have a short window right now where nobody is looking.

*Zap*
*Pick*
*Zap*

Yuya looks at me curiously.

"Did you just do something?"

She must have felt my aura change for a split second.

"Maybe?"

I reveal one of the candies I've just stolen in my mouth.

"!!! No you haven't!"

I grin.

"Are you mad? Oh who am I kidding, of course you are."
"So let's skip to the important question... did you...?"
"Of course!"

I hand her one of the other candies I've stolen.

"Nice!"

I also offer one to Liv but she doesn't want one.
The fact that I've just committed thievery makes her rather uncomfortable.

The candy in my mouth starts to become extremely sour. I did not expect that.
But it tastes so good... yet my tongue feels like it can't handle it.
Then suddenly, Yuya and I spot a guard walking by.

We stand up straight and try not to look suspicious.
Unfortunately, at that specific moment, the candy becomes so sour that none of us are able to keep a straight face.
The guard looks at us both and presumably witnesses the two worst attempts at a pokerface in history.
He is visibly confused but decides to keep walking.

Both Yuya and I have to laugh out loud once he's gone.
Good times.

This one is kind of old and happened right after my last entry.
I haven't really found the time to write it down until now.
My dreams are also getting kind of long, which is amazing, but also kind of a pain to write down.


The time is ticking.
I have no choice but to diffuse the bomb, there is no way we'll get out of the explosion radius in time.
I quickly grab an electric screwdriver from my back pocket and start removing the digital clock mounted on top of the bomb.
There is less than one minute left on the timer.

"Hurry up!"
"Shut it!"

Removing the clock reveals a highly complex maze of cabling.
Screw this!
I remove the electronics as well, in the hopes of finding a simpler set of cabling leading to the warhead.
Fortunately I am right. The whole electronics are wired to the warhead by only two thick cables.
I can do this!
But my short burst of confidence is quickly shattered by a rather troublesome discovery.
The warhead is nuclear.
How the fuck did this happen? How did anyone manage to acquire a nuclear fucking bomb?

A quick look at the dismantled clock reveals that I have 7 seconds left.
I decide to cut one of the cables at random.

"I know this setup! Cut the red one!"

I move my knife to the red cable, but it shifts colors with the other yellow one.
Whenever I switch, the cable colors switch as well. It's impossible to cut the red one. WTF!

Seeing the last few seconds run out, I notice that I'm not really scared to die.
I wonder why that is.
Oh...

Yeah...
I start rubbing my hands but am interrupted by the bomb hitting zero and audibly powering up.
Well... this is not good. I might wake up because of that.
I think about quickly portaling the bomb away before it goes off, but then I notice that it is plugged into the wall with an extension cord.
Really?
I unplug it and the warhead turns off.
Lol.

I resume rubbing my hands but I am yet again interrupted, this time by the DC that was with me.
I unsummon him because I have no time to deal with DC's right now.
I need to stabilize the dream and get my second lesson in time dilation...

... I'm in Haven with Yuya and Liv.
I have trouble stabilizing the dream but eventually manage to get there.
Once stable I immediately get back to doing the awareness technique from the previous dream, sort of to show off in case Yuya tests me.
But she doesn't. There is simply no need, she is fully aware of my thoughts and how aware I am right now.
Liv is curious about what we are doing and I have a difficult time explaining it to her.
She is unaware of the difficulty of remaining in a dream or the concept of stability.

We walk along a path that I remember. I've been here before but I cannot quite remember what I was doing.
Then I see the water pools, yep, this is the fighting practice area.
Yuya starts walking onto one of the pools and I follow her.
Walking on water is second nature to me nowadays, but thinking back, it's the first thing that Yuya taught me when I met her again.

I suddenly get goosebumps and instinctively power up and take a defensive stance.
Huh? It was Yuya.I felt the shock of her suddenly powering up.

"Nice reaction!"
"Cheers. What are we doing?"

I barely manage to block her attack as she blinks towards me.
Without my recent training she would have knocked me unconscious with this.
I'm kind of in the mood to fight her now, I wonder how I compare to her nowadays.
I smile.

"Awareness Hyu."
"What? Oh, you've got to be kidding me! During a fight???"
"Why? Are you scared that I'll slap you across the face?"
"Hahaha, alright, let's do this!"

I awaken the dragon and charge towards her.
She easily blocks all of my attacks. No surprise there though.
So far so good, I manage to remain fully aware of my surroundings.
The fight is pretty tame, I don't get myself into uncomfortable positions, have I gotten closer to the skill level of Yuya?

She summons her pressurized spheres.
Well shit. I forgot about those.
The spheres are horribly dangerous and difficult to fight against.
She basically creates 5 water spheres about the size of a basket balls.
Then she compresses them down to the size of a grain of sand.
I'm not even sure how it's possible to compress a liquid at all.

The pressure of these spheres is immense. They can be used both defensively and offensively.
She moves them around telepathically at extreme speeds and can make them burst whenever she wants,
releasing the contained water at extreme pressures, cutting through anything in their way.

You really can't let them touch you unless you don't mind loosing a limb.
Fighting against them requires a lot of blinking, which causes stability problems due to the distorted vision.

It would be rather useful to have my katana right now, but I'm not using it in a practice battle with Yuya, it's too dangerous.
I don't use the dragon eyes either, because the thought on using them on a friend scares the shit out of me.
In return she doesn't use her water extraction technique, which I wouldn't know how to fight against.
I only saw her use it once in a fight.
Within a split second she extracted the entire blood from her enemy and he died on the spot.
It's a really scary technique.

What am I doing?
I'm thinking too much. I should look for openings instead and strike whenever I see one.
But Yuya is way too skilled to provide such an opening, I'll have to force one.
I create and launch spheres of compressed energy at her. Those are rather explosive and fairly dangerous.
I got the idea from her water spheres. Attacks of compressed energy have their advantages.
They are much more efficient against single targets.
The technique is also cheap energy wise, so I can cast it a lot, making it an ideal tool to get someone off balance.

She is moving 3 of her water spheres into a defensive position to cope with my relentless attacks.
Time to get serious.
I make an aggressive blink, right in front of her, and try to strike her with a fist.
This is obviously not going to work, I expect her to blink away.
I'm using a multiblink attack, which is very difficult to perform.
I try to feel where she's going to blink to to dodge my attack and blink myself to the new location simultaneously.

Blinking usually has some sort of cooldown, making this impossible, but using enough energy it is possible to force it.
The energy required to do this is ludicrous though, so multiblink attacks are extremely exhausting.
But you basically put your opponent into a position where he is forced to multiblink as well to dodge the attack.
Yuya and I are skilled enough to do it about 4-5 times in a row, but after that everything hurts.
Your aura is completely unstable at that point and takes seconds to recover, during which you cannot focus your energy at all.

The reason I'm using such an attack is to nullify an immense advantage she has over me.
She doesn't need to stay lucid. She lives in this world, I am merely a visitor.

Here she goes.
2 Blinks... 3, 4, and finally a fifth.
The energy in my fist has completely dissipated due to all the blinking, and she can now easily block it.
I land on the water surface and have difficulty remaining on top due to my now unstable aura.

I attack her again, purely physically this time, as I neither of us can focus any energy.
Whoever manages to focus his energy first will have the tremendous advantage of launching the first serious attack.
I might have the advantage on this, dragonic energy is extremely unstable by nature, so I'm used to it.
I should be able to focus my energy before my aura has fully stabilized.

I can feel my aura tingling. This should be enough!
I focus energy into the tattoo stretched over my right arm and quickly cast a fire based attack towards Yuya.
She dodges it by blinking.
How the hell can she do that???
How is her aura stable enough already to blink?

I screwed up big time. I casted this before my aura stabilized, and now it's completely messed up again.
Yuya is over me charging towards me. She's casting a spell.
Shit, I can't do anything.
The water surface collapses beneath my feet and I am dragged underwater.
She's controlling the water, increasing it's pressure attempting to hold me in place.
I see her splash through the water surface still charging at me fast.
She is wielding a trident.

But she's overconfident. She's in her element, so she thinks I must be at a huge disadvantage.
Yet, even though I do not control water, I can make good use of it.
My aura stabilizes and I create an extremely strong electric field in front of me.
Electrolysis! I split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The correct mixture is highly explosive.
She realizes what I've done too late and I ignite the mixture with a fire sphere.

Oh shit. I didn't think this through.
The explosion is huge and we are both catapulted out of the water.
Everything is extremely foggy because so much water evaporated and water drops are going everywhere.
I can barely see. This is really dangerous, the dream could collapse.
I don't even know where up and down is.

I decide to completely ignore my vision and rely on my sense of global awareness instead.
Good call! I sense 5 sources of compressed energy approaching. Water spheres!
I quickly locate Yuya's aura and blink towards her.
I catch her slightly of guard and manage to land a focused hit.
She blocks it fine, but still.
Focused energy attacks are better to avoid than to block.
They cause all sorts of vibrations in your aura making followup moves difficult.

I try to chain a few attacks together but quickly feel the exhaustion kicking in and I back up.
Most of the water has come down and my vision becomes useful again.

She performs a blink attack.
Shit! She's going to chain them up.
We blink a total of 4 times.
It hurts so much.

This keeps going for a few more rounds.
One of us performs a multiblink attack and gets us both completely out of position.
Then it's a race to the first attack and a matter of somehow defending against it.
It is absolutely exhausting.
My limbs become insanely heavy and I start to loose the ability to focus my energy properly.
We fight for maybe a total of 15 minutes, which is actually quite a long time considering the speed we're going at.

"Alright... let's call it a draw..."
"No... I win."

Oh come on. She's just as exhausted as I am, she can barely stand.

"You lost awareness of your surroundings."
"Fuck my life."
"Haha. You completely forgot!"
"..."
"And guess what? You're still here."
"Huh? I thought the goal of this was to remain aware of my surroundings."
"No, that's not the goal at all. The goal is to have deeper dreams. The goal is to remain here for longer."

...
Wait what?

"Hold on a second!"

She got that grin of her face.
That "she knows everything" grin.

"You're telling me the heightened awareness thing isn't actually necessary to stay lucid???"
"Of course not! How would you pull that off for multiple hours in a row?"
"..."
"I said your awareness level was too random, we did some training to fix that."
"So you're saying it is already fixed?"
"I am now convinced that it is already fixed."

Woah. That was fast.

"So.. what are we doing now?"
"Teaching you to let go."

Let go? Let go of waking life?
Not thinking about it all the time and rather focus on the dream?
Of course... she told me many times before...

I take a quick dip in the water to get rid of the smell.
I'm sweating like a pig.

We walk back towards Yuya's place, discussing dreaming and being awake.
I mention Dreamviews, which I haven't done very often before.
Yuya tells me to say hi to fOrceez and Dark_Merlin.
Liv doesn't say a word. I don't think she's ever seen Yuya and me fight, that must have been quite intense for her.

Damn... I'm so exhausted.
Why do you even get exhausted in dreams?

"Why wouldn't you?"
"Eh... yeah..."
"Indeed."
"So, what do I do against it?"
"... are you serious?"

>_<

"You sleep of course! Or did you think I would sleep just for fun?"
"Well... now that you put it this way."

Liv leaves us and we quickly get into bed.
Goddamn I'm exhausted. Every muscle in my body hurts.

"This is a problem"
"What is?"
"If I want to sleep I'll have to close my eyes."
"So?"
"I might wake up?"
"zzz, you've picked up a lot of nonsense"
"I have?"
"These 'dream rules'. Darkness is bad, don't close your eyes. Don't talk. Yada yada."
"Yeah, I kinda have, haven't I?"
"I know the not talking one is nonsense, I talk all the time."
"It's no different for closing your eyes."
"I know you're right. I only wake up because I'm scared that I might. But it seems hard to get over."

"Pff... hahahaha"
"What's so funny?"
"Hurr hurr, I'm a badass dragon, I can fight a goddess of water and do all sorts of shit."
"Yet I can't even close my eyes.... haha.... I'm sorry Hyu, but this is funny."

It kind of is.
Screw it. Let's do this shit!
I close my eyes.

"You know, when you exploded half of the fucking training pool you didn't see anything either."
"That didn't wake you up, so why would closing your eyes do so?"

Yep, my thoughts exactly.
I open my eyes again to sneak a closer look at her.

WHAT THE FUCK?
How am I awake? What is this shit?
I'm a bit mad, but happy to have made progress.
I take some quick notes and go back to sleep.

A similar music track played during the training part of this dream:


I'm some sort of private investigator, and I'm searching for evidence with 2 coworkers in an apartment.
I quickly realize that I don't seem to have any gloves on me and ask one of my friends to give me some.
After putting on the gloves I go to the kitchen and start opening all the cabinets.
I wonder what I'm looking for...

"Hey, what are we looking for again?"
"Are you serious?"
"Uuh... yeah..."
"*sigh* we're looking for a quantum accelerated pipe."

... wait what?

"Like, for smoking?"
"For smoking weed, yes."

A quantum accelerated... wtf?
I keep searching and end up finding the most glorious of smoking devices I have ever seen.
It seems to be made out of some sort of glass and it glows in all kinds of colors, depending on how you angle it against the light.
But then finally it dawns on me... a quantum accelerated pipe... yeah... right...

I rub my hands and further investigate the pipe.
I am sad to find out that it isn't loaded. I would have loved to smoke some weed.

I remember that Yuya told me that I should break out of the dream plot when I become lucid.
Oh! And she wanted to teach me about time dilation!
I become very excited and quickly teleport myself to Teraluna.

I end up in a flower garden. Yuya is attending to some flowers right in front of me.

"Yuya Yuya Yuya"
"Hi?"
"Hi! Time dilation and stuff!"

She grins.

"Calm down! You're going to wake up."

Right...
After attempting to get myself into a calmer state I take a look at my surroundings.
The flower garden is beautiful. All of the flowers are very colorful and they smell great.
I touch and smell some of them until I decide that the dream is perfectly stable.

"So... the thing you call time dilation."
"Yes!"
"Well, for starters it isn't really time dilation."
"I guess. I couldn't think of a better word to describe it."
"Right. So, there's quite a few ways to approach this."
"I'm pretty sure I know which way works best for you, but first of all we need to work on something else."
"Oh?"
"Well, it's sort of directly related."
"Sure, what is it?"
"Your awareness in dreams."
"I've noticed that you sometimes are extremely aware when you're here, but only for short periods of time."
"You experience awareness in short bursts rather than continuously"

I quickly realize that she's spot on about that.

"Yeah, now that you mention it, it's pretty bad."
"Good, so first of all I am going to show you a technique to hold a certain level of awareness."
"Great!"

She drops the flowers.

"Let's go for a walk!"

We walk through the flower garden and talk some more about time dilation.

"Alright, stop!"
"Hm?"
"I want you to tell me the color of each flower on the plant we just passed, without looking."
"Err, sure? Let's see... it was green, yellow, blue, yellow..."
"No, you're cheating."
"I am?"
"You're using your sense of global awareness to tell what color they are without looking, what I need you to do is to remember what color they are."
"What? All of them?"
"Yes! I want you to remember every single detail of what you experience."
"Let's keep walking and pay attention."

This is going to be hard... like, really hard.
Is it even possible to do this?

"Sure it is, especially since you're dreaming. Remember when I told you the difference between focusing on something in waking life and in dreams?"
"Oh yeah, that's right."

I focus really hard on everything I see, even the smallest of details, and try to take mental note of them.
We walk past a similar plant, with approximately 50 flowers on it.

"From top to bottom, go!"

I try to remember and surprisingly, accessing my memories feels natural and easy.

"Red, red, yellow, blue, yellow... err, ultraviolet?, red, blue, blue..."

I keep going through about 20 of them until Yuya stops me.

"Hey hey, awareness!"
"What? Was I wrong?"
"No, but you're neglecting your awareness. Have you noted the details of the things we just passed?"
"Oh... oops. Wow, this is hard."
"Haha, see, just memorizing and remembering is easy."
"What I want to teach you is to remain aware of your surroundings, even if you are focusing on something else."
"If you can do that you should be able to continuously remain aware much more easily."

This makes so much sense!
Yuya is so amazing, why haven't I asked her about this before?

We keep doing this. I memorize all the flowers including other details and try to recite them from memory without loosing awareness of the new surroundings I encounter through walking.
It's really hard at first, but then it becomes surprisingly easy.
I feel like a genius, having such amazing memory all of a sudden.

Since I focus so hard on my vision, it becomes more and more intense.
I can see beyond the color spectrum visible to the human eye.
Ultraviolet and infrared, I can see them so clearly.
They aren't red or violet at all, they are entirely different colors.
The now 5 base colors start merging together to form new ones.
Everything is so beautiful.

It is so hard not to get distracted by this beauty. I have to remain aware of everything.
But it works! I can quite literally feel my awareness leveling out and remaining strong as I go along.

Yuya keeps asking me more and more difficult questions.

"How did this plant smell like?"

I can no longer answer these question with words, so I project my memories towards her, showing that I remember clearly.
We go on like this for some more minutes.
I feel like I have just achieved something major.
I have never ever experienced such an amount of focus.

We finally reach the end of the flower garden.

"And stop!"
"Okay?"
"Yep, time to relax, you cannot possibly keep this up much longer."
"Oh, I can't? It started to feel natural some moments ago."
"Still, if you keep that level of focus up for too long your brain will just spontaneously break out of it."
"You'll either loose all your awareness or even wake up."
"So it would be a bad idea to try and do this all the time?"
"Yes. You can do it for a limited period of time, for example during a battle where you need the extra focus."
"What I'm teaching you is to remain at a constant level of awareness."
"The important part here is that it is constant, not that it is on a level where you have surreal perception and memory."
"The goal is to never let it drift below a certain threshold, this way dream stability should remain high."

I understand her so well, her explanations are perfect.

"It's just more efficient for you to learn it this way."
"Not everyone is capable of achieving such a level of focus."
"It's something you often find in dreamers that are experienced with dream battles."

Dream battling has so many uses, how amazing.

"So dream stability is directly related to your level of awareness?"
"Well, yes, sort of. It's complicated."
"It always is."
"Actually, it is really simple... like most things."
"Yeah right."
"It's the painfully simple things the human mind cannot comprehend."
"After all your mind is trained to understand the complexity of the waking world, not the simplicity of the dream world."

Wow. That is deep.
I have never thought of it this way.
Yuya never ceases to amaze me.
She just drops these mind blowing ideas on me, as if they were the most obvious things in existence.

"Should I try to do this awareness technique in waking life?"
"No. At least not right now. You said you have constant headaches."
"Yeah, probably a bad idea."

She smiles and gives me a big hug.

"We'll continue this next time."
"Wake up and write this down so you don't forget it."
"I will! Until next time!"

Wake up... Have I ever tried waking up from a dream that wasn't a nightmare?
Heck, even a nightmare I haven't tried to wake up from in forever.
I close my eyes and command myself to wake up with my inner voice.
I feel a tingling sensation all over my body.

I open my eyes.
A quick nose plug RC confirms that I am awake and I start taking notes, excited to have taken my first step towards properly long dreams.

After waking up from the last dream and failing to DEILD, I notice that it is still not time to get up.
I decide to go back to sleep in the hopes of landing back in my old dream.

I'm walking on a beach.
Except... it is not really a beach.

I am in fact in one of the classrooms at my uni, and the ground is covered in sand,
and the walls are painted with ocean an palms.
Many led's on the ceiling make it appear as if there was a night sky.
It looks as if someone tried to reconstruct a scene that occasionally appears in my dreams:
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/hyu/girl-beach-12340/

Realizing that I am dreaming, I check how stable it is.
I grab a hand full of sand and let it slowly pour down back onto the ground.
It feels very real, and even though it is dark inside, the contrast of my vision is so strong that I can see everything clearly with ease.
Great!

My thoughts on where to go are interrupted by a female voice behind me.

"Hi..."

I turn around and see a familiar face.

"Krista!"

She holds out a hand to me.

"Come with me?"

Which is similar to how I invited her a long time ago:
Taking KristaNicole to Teraluna - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

I grab her hand and follow her out of the room.
There's a portal on one of the walls which I assume she has created.
We go trough it and are sucked through a tunnel, full of odd lighting effects.
There appear to be insect-like creatures on the outer walls, but they don't seem to take notice of us.

We come out on the other end, and fortunately for once I don't land on my face like an idiot.
I don't know what it is with portals, but I have a tendency of coming out upside down on the other end.


We are on what appears to be a set of floating islands.
It's beautiful, and there is some type of temple not far away which looks very interesting.

"I've been thinking about you yesterday, I haven't heard from you in a long time."

She doesn't look like she heard what I said.

"Aww, I wanted the portal to lead to the temple."

I pick Krista up, which clearly confuses her.

"... What are you doing?"

I concentrate on the temple and blink both of us towards it.
I put Krista back down.

"What was that?"
"I call it blinking, it's a short range teleport kind of thing."
"You call that short?"
"Yeah, I can basically blink as far as I can see."

"How does it work?"
"Uuh, it's kinda weird. You concentrate on the spot where you want to blink to."
"Then take a single step towards the location, but at the same time land a second step in the location where you want to end up."
"That... that doesn't make any sense."
"I told you it's weird, you basically take a single step but end up taking two."

I see Krista concentrating on a location not too far away. She is trying to blink.

"Hey, be careful, it's easy to loose your orientation and end up in a..."

I hear a loud noise as Krista crashes into a thick decorative pillar.

"... wall ..."
"OUCH"

Small bits of the pillar are falling off as she peels herself loose.
I can't help myself and I start laughing.
Krista does not seem to be amused.

"It's not funny!"
"Actually it kind of is."

On a second thought, she's finding it amusing after all, but she doesn't want to show it.

"Let's go to the center of the temple."
"Sure."

She starts walking towards what appears to be the main building.
I feel like fooling around and start hovering over the ground, and enter her field of vision, floating on my back just a few centimeters above the ground.
I wave at her as I slowly pass her.

She starts laughing.

"What the hell are you doing? You are insane!"
"Quite."

She grabs me and turns me upside down and sits down on my back.

"Much better."
"Hey!"
"To the temple!"
"I ain't no taxi service!"
"To the temple!"

Fine, I fly us both to the center of the temple.
This would look absolutely ridiculous to an outsider.

We end up in a really amazing location.
There's a pool in the middle of a platform, with a few holes in the ground, creating waterfalls that go all the way down to the surface of the planet.
The water source appears to be infinite.

"Did you make this?"
"... Yes."
"It's beautiful!"

I start walking on the pool.

"Hey! How do you do that?"
"What? Walk on water?"
"Yes!"
"What do you mean? I just do it."
"But... you're supposed to go under."
"No I'm not."
"Tell me how it works, I want to learn how to walk on water."

"You don't need to learn how to walk on water, you need to forget how to fall through water."
"What? That doesn't make any sense."
"Sure it does, think about it."

She's saying something that I cannot quite comprehend.
I turn around to look at her, but I cannot find her anymore.

"Hey, where did you go?"

No answer...
I notice my vision is very blurry, the dream is falling apart.
I wake up.

A month of near zero recall and then two cool lucids in a row.
Sometimes I wonder what goes on in my brain.

More music for no good reason:



Immediately after falling asleep, I wake up due to some noise in the house.
I look at the clock, and 6 hours have already passed, which frustrates me a bit.
I change position and try to fall back asleep, thinking about lucid dreaming.


... I'm walking to school.
There's quite a few other students walking there, but I don't know any of them.
The weather is nice.
For some reason a blue flower catches my attention and I stare at it.

I'm dreaming!
I can't help but say out loud:

"YES!"

Some of the student look at me as if I was mentally retarded, but I don't care.
I rub my hands and try to activate my other senses, but the dream already feels very stable.
A female voice whispers into my ear:

"You know, you could totally do one of the students."

...

"FAYE!"
"Haha"
"Really? Aren't you supposed to help me rather than encouraging distractions?"
"I'm just messing with you."

I shrug it off.

"You're messing with me all the time."

I summon my phoenix wings.

"I'm off to see Yuya, you coming?"
"Sure!"

She holds onto my arm and I teleport us both to Teraluna...
... We appear in Yuya's garden where she, Liv and two other people are having tea.
We join them.
It feels good to be here again, it has been too long.
We talk about various stuff until I finally bring up the topic of my recall, chronic headaches and tiredness.

Yuya approaches me.

"Move forward."

Hm? I slide forward on my chair a bit and she sits behind me.
She starts pressing against various points on my neck, similarly to what a doctor did in waking life.
Then she presses her forehead against the back of my head and wraps her hands around it.

I can feel sort of a click in my head.
I suddenly feel very lightheaded, as if I was floating.
I can sense her gradually feeling though all the fibres of my aura in my head.
It feels pretty damn good.

"Do you have headaches even when you're here?"
"No. Only when I'm awake."
"Hmmm..."
"Is there something wrong?"
"Actually no... not really."
"No-one seems to know in waking life either... I'm getting a scanner thing done in two days."
"Oh, what's that?"
"A machine that looks into your head without touching it... it's harmless."

She hugs me.

"You'll be fine, I bet it's nothing."
"Yeah, it's probably something really stupid that is just difficult to detect."

I look around. I'm so happy to be back here. I know I will recall this dream.
It'll be fantastic for my motivation.

"Hey Yuya."
"Yes?"
"You really need to teach me about time dilation."
"What do you mean?"
"How to stay in dreams for hours, days, months... years!"
"Shouldn't you worry about fixing your recall first?"
"Yes! And then time dilation!"
"Haha, alright alright. It's difficult though you know?"
"I don't care."
"You don't care?"

I shrug.

"I have all the time in the world. I don't mind if it takes months or years to learn how to do it."
"Because once I do know how to do it, making up on the time spent learning it should be pretty easy."

She smiles.

"That's a good attitude. I'll make sure to remind you next time you visit me."

We talk some more and the dream fades away.

I try to remain still to DEILD, but someone's being noisy again which is too disctracting.

Since I am still unable to recall my dreams, which I am now convinced is related to constant tiredness / headaches, I figured I'd do something else.
I remember there being a thread on DV about dream cartography and thought it would be a cool idea to try and remember the layout of Destiny and draw the schematics.

Destiny is a recurring story-arc in my non-lucid dreams: Click Me

I can recall most details surprisingly well, and it turned out quite alright.
I don't think I'd be able to do this for something like Haven though.

Anyways, here's the schematics:
- Fully pressurized / breathable sections are green
- Engineering components and unpressurized sections or sections without air recycling are red
- Fluid containers are blue
- FTL / Hyperdrive system is orange
- Deck-to-deck connections are pink
- Outer hull sections are grey


Habitation Deck: Link
Not shown are desks installed during ftl.
This is where the crew was most of the time.


Engineering Deck: Link
This is where I spent most of the time, either idling in the cockpit or doing maintenance on various components in the engineering section.


Payload Deck: Link
The lowering platform was never installed due to time pressure, and it wasn't clear what it should look like.
Ideally the entire payload bay ground should be able to be lowered.
The idea was to be able to lower big objects onto the ground after landing on other planets / moons, or deliver payloads into space.


Size compared to the NASA Space Shuttle: Link


Wingspan:
- Shuttle: 23.79m
- Destiny: 79.5m

Length:
- Shuttle: 37.24m
- Destiny: 64.5m

Gross Liftoff Weight:
- Shuttle: ~109t
- Destiny: ~470t (no payload)

I kinda feel like making a 3d model of destiny now, but I haven't modeled in quite some time and I'm not sure I'd be able to.

I am really frustrated with my dream recall right now.
I'm not even stressed or anything, which would explain the lack of recall.
Usually when I get adequate sleep, do the occasional wbtb, and try to remember my dreams when I wake up, my dream recall gets pretty decent.
When I'm doing well I often remember 5 or more dreams per night.


Looking at my recent dj notes though:

17.03.2012
No recall.

18.03.2012
No recall.

19.03.2012
No recall.

20.03.2012
No recall.

21.03.2012
No recall.

22.03.2012
In the U.S. walking through a pet shop. I find bearded dragons which I like.
One of them has a really strong green skin color, must be a rare mutation.
I then spot at least 15 pairs of eyes on him. Huh? How weird.

23.03.2012
No recall.

24.03.2012
No recall.

25.03.2012
No recall.

26.03.2012
I hear my father coming into my room to wake me up whilst still dreaming.
I cannot recall the dream though, only that I heard him come in...

Brain, why u no recall dreams? >_<

"Destiny" is a recurring dream scenario.
It is the name of the first faster than light spaceship, on a controversial mission to investigate a signal that can only be of alien origin.
Here's a summary of current events:
Recurring dream about a spaceship mission to find extraterrestrial life. - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

I have had a few more dreams about Destiny, but none of them drove the plot further.
I always find myself in the cockpit starting at instruments, but nothing ever happens.
Tonight something did happen.


We're all strapped tightly into our seats.
It is time.
A female computer voice is counting down to zero.
Once the countdown runs out we will begin the breaking maneuver to get out of ftl.
It will last approximately 20 minutes, which will most likely be rather unpleasant.
The artificial gravity system will compensate most of the g-forces, but if the acceleration maneuver was any indication
then there will be a considerable amount of vibrations.

My assumptions weren't off.
The first few minutes of deceleration weren't too bad, If I had to venture I guess I'd estimate that we are experiencing about 2 g's right now.
However, after more than 10 minutes, this gets tiring and stressful.
The skin on your face feels like it is trying to peel itself off.
And that's the time when the vibrations start.

The hyperdrive is designed to operate at a specific speed, and it turns out that it does so surprisingly well.
However during the acceleration and deceleration phase, when the ship is still at ftl but far below the optimal operation speed,
saying that it is running sloppy would be putting it mildly.
Imagine an old car engine with a rough idle and a piston not firing properly.
Now imagine that engine having enough power to propel 400 tons with ease.

It's not just the vibrations, it's being shaken around what really wears you down.
The noise of the ftl drive is phenomenal though.
It is the sound of raw power; The sound of a thousand lions roaring over the echo of a thunderstorm.

I can barely appreciate the view. My eyes are focused on the main console, expecting a warning light to go off any second.
I miss most of the spectacle right in front of me. Slowing down to the speed of light, the view gradually shifts through the color spectrum, producing all sorts of fractal patterns.
But no alarm goes off. No warning light. Not even a check light.
As we drop below the speed of light, we are shortly blinded by a flash of light.

The vibrations and the g-forces gradually decrease.
We are back in normal space, coming to a stop.
Finally! Those 20 minutes felt like an eternity.

"Initiating hyperdrive cool down phase."
"Hyperdrive will be available in approximately 20 hours."

We'd better hope so.
Without the hyperdrive it would take a few thousand years to get back home.
It is safe to say that without it, we are screwed.

Everyone's pretty nervous. Nobody knew what to expect, but we were all expecting something.
We find ourselves not too far from a blue gas giant.
It doesn't seem to have any moons.
I find this a bit disappointing though I have no idea what I had in mind.
An inhabited planet? That would have been a bit ridiculous I guess.

But then a vague beep catches my attention.
The most important beep I will ever hear in my entire life.
The HUD highlights a location close to the gas station and has it marked as "UNK_00000"
UNK stands for unknown artificial object.
Non-artificial objects are marked with AST for asteroid instead.
UNK can be anything from an unofficial or military satellite to space debris.
But this time it is none of those.

It is in fact an alien space station orbiting the gas giant.
This is the only time where calling something alien is not premature.
Who else could have built an artificial structure orbiting a planet hundreds of light years away from earth?
We plot an interception course and point all of our sensors at the structures.

Catching up with the planet doesn't take very long, but synchronizing the orbit is a more time consuming task.
You can't just point the ship into the general direction of the space station and hit the throttle.
If you go too slow you get caught by the gravity of the planet, if you go too fast your orbit becomes elliptic.

The wait is painful. There are so many questions.
Is there anyone there? If so, how are we going to communicate? How will we make contact? ...

... We sit in front of the station for a prolonged period of time, trying to find out all sorts of things with the on-board scanning devices.
The station has begun to light a path towards what appears to be some sort of hangar bay.
It is clearly inviting us in...

... We have landed inside of the hangar, which surprisingly seems to be pressurized.
There must be some sort of force field in place keeping the air inside.
The air mixture is mostly nitrogen / oxygen... just like on earth.
A single hallway leads out of the hangar.
It is again lit by lights inviting us to step inside...

... I am walking through the corridor in a pressure suit, accompanied by our language and culture specialist.
We're not wearing the suits because the air isn't breathable, we're just afraid that if we do encounter any other living organism in here,
we might be contaminated by potentially dangerous bacteria.
The atmospheric scanners on the ship found the air to be sterile though...

... We enter a big, well lit room.
It is divided into two by a transparent wall...

... We are not alone ...

On the other side of the wall, a humanoid being is waiting.
I become so incredibly nervous that the feeling becomes so intense that I can no longer feel it.
I just walk forward.
Thousands of questions answered within a split second.
Are we alone? Is there other intelligent life?
But those are immediately replaced by an identical amount of new questions.
Why would other intelligent life be humanoid? Why do they look so similar?
The odds for that are so insanely low.
Anyone who knows the basics of evolution would tell you that the likelihood of extraterrestrial life being similar to us is so low it is ridiculous.

Yet here I am, approaching this woman who looks more similar to humans with every step I take.
Eyes, eyebrows, a nose, a mouth, teeth, ears, two hands with 5 fingers each, thumbs.
Her hair is very different, it looks very organic, almost plantlike.
Her skin texture is also slightly different, but the only thing that is really obvious at first glance are her hair and her clothes.

She smiles.
I am so close now.
I look into her eyes, without any plans on what to do.
I just follow my curiosity.

Her eyes... they remind me of something.
They are so vivid. So detailed.
I need to see them more clearly.

I unlock my helmet and take it off.
I don't worry about the consequences, I don't even think of them.
I have to see.

I approach the transparent wall until I am nearly touching it with my face.
I take of my right gauntlet and press my hand against the wall.
She does the same with her left hand.
Our hands would be touching if there was no wall separating us now.

I can now see her eyes clearly.
I know those eyes.
Those eyes so vibrant and colorful that they defy the capabilities of human vision.
Those eyes with an unlimited amount of detail.
The deeper you stare into them, the more details you can see.
It would be so easy to get lost in them.

I have only met three woman with such eyes in my life.
One is Yuya, another is the "hibiscus girl". http://www.dreamviews.org/blogs/hyu/...verload-23438/

The last is a mysterious woman from the future. A "twinner" as MoSh would say... http://www.dreamviews.org/blogs/hyu/...s-women-15610/

Is is her...
Those eyes I wouldn't forget in a million years. They are so unique and the memory of them so powerful.
It is her, in the form of an extraterrestrial being.


This leads me to the obvious and only possible conclusion.
I am dreaming.
This is a dream.

I am not sure whether to be sad or amazed about this.
I feel both, so strong that I cannot distinguish between them.

She whispers something, but her voice cannot penetrate the wall.
My desire to know what she said is so incredibly strong I can only barely bear it.

The wall slides away and she hugs me tightly.
I am so confused, so full of joy, so ultimately sad.
My hands are shaking, I can barely stand. I have no control over my body.
She whispers in my hear with the most gentle voice I have ever heard:

"Soon"

The dream fades away.

I wake up still full of confusing emotions.
I can't decide whether I am overwhelmed by this amazing experience or by the sadness of the feeling that this "story" might have come to an end.
I think "This is why I dream"