side notes

I'm working on the prototype for a video game I intend to create with a good friend of mine.
The game will require fast AI pathfinding over dynamic terrain for a large amount ( >1000 ) of enemies.
My current navmesh/A* approach is working fine, but I'm a little worried that it's not going to scale well if we want to add even more enemies.
I remember that one of my friends did her masters thesis on swarm AI,
so I decide to call her on Skype to get her opinion on my situation.
Unfortunately I'm having trouble navigating my contact list.
The names don't seem to be sorted alphabetically...

I hear the door bell go off, so I go downstairs to check who's at the door.
A man in his early 20's offers me a package addressed to "Hyu".
Huh? Did I order anything using my nickname? Why would I do that?
I accept the package and the man just leaves without asking me to sign anything.
What the hell?

I go back upstairs and open the package.
OH MY GOD. It's the Oculus DK2 I ordered!

I am so excited!
I unpack everything as quickly as I can, tossing the empty package into a corner of my room.

Once I've plugged everything in I notice that my computer is now running Elite: Dangerous.
That's not right, I was working with Unity3D before...
hmm....
I try to increase my awareness, going through the last few minutes in my mind.
Yup, I'm definitely dreaming.

I'm so disappointed. I got all excited for nothing.
Then again... I wonder what happens if I...
I sit down and hold the device in front of my eyes, trying to see if the displays in it are showing anything.
The device just straight up vanishes from my hands as soon as the screens cover my entire field of view.
I'm left completely immersed in the game, sitting inside the cockpit of a Sidewinder, which is the ship you start out in in the game.
Huh, that's kind of a neat trick.


Also I'm in a spaceship. Did I mention I'm in a spaceship?
I'm super excited and get going immediately.
Fortunately the controls are identical to the joystick setup I use in waking life, so I have no trouble maneuvering the ship.
I use the lateral thrusters to lift off and to get to the center of the station.
The moment I let go I immediately feel the weightlessness, which makes me feel a little sick initially,
but the feeling quickly subsides.

As I maneuver out of the station, I notice for the first time how tight the entrance actually is.
You don't really get a sense for it on a computer screen.

Unfortunately I don't really remember much else.
I faintly remember feeling the heat of a sun radiating into my cockpit as I dropped out of frameshift, but that's about it.


The experience got me thinking about how virtual reality is going to affect dreams though.
I wonder if it'll make it easier to incubate dreams about video games.
I imagine it could also make such dreams more immersive.
Usually when I have video game dreams, it feels like I'm merely an observer.
I'm not really in the dream, it's more like I'm viewing it on a monitor that happens to cover my entire field of view.
Perhaps this is going to change with regular usage of VR.

(I have false memories of having moved to an English speaking country recently...)
I'm returning to my apartment, carrying some groceries.
As I exit the elevator I stall for a few seconds.
I have completely forgotten where on this floor my apartment is...
So I just go to the first door and test if my key fits.
It does, and I decide not to worry about why I would have forgotten where my apartment is.


The apartment is quite roomy, and very modern. The entrance leads directly into a large room,
which is sort of divided into 3 areas. One for tv viewing, which has a U-shaped couch,
one for sleeping, and finally one with a computer desk for work.
I find it a bit odd that the bed is in the same room with the tv and desk.

But my attention quickly shifts towards the people that are in my apartment.
There's a guy with white hair watching TV and a woman who is using my pc.
I feel like I know these people. It doesn't seem too surprising that they're here, but I'm not really sure who they are.
The woman approaches me and gives me a hand with the groceries.


I notice that she has purple eyes. It all makes sense now: This must be ~ Dreamer ~!
She is very curious about what I bought for dinner, and begins to unpack the groceries immediately.

"Ooh, shiny!"

She is cheerful and full of energy.

"When do you want to have dinner?"
"Hmm... I don't know. I'm not really hungry yet. Canis?"

Oh. The guy watching TV is CanisLucidus. Makes sense I suppose.

"I'm starving!"

They banter on about when to have dinner. Meanwhile I try to figure out what time it is.
This proves to be rather difficult. I'm unable to read the time off the task bar on the computer. The digits keep changing.

"Hyu?"
"Yes?"
"Hmm... how do I put this? ..."
"Hyu, where is your kitchen?"
"Well, it's right over..."
"Uuuhm..."

... There's only one door in this room, and it leads back outside.
So, this is all there is in the apartment? I don't have a kitchen? Not even a bathroom???
How on earth did I manage that?

"Don't tell me you forgot to get a kitchen..."
"... I might have?"
"And a bathroom?"
"..."
"See, this is what happens when you're on the PC all day long!"

I don't know what to reply. This really is a rather colossal fuck up.

"Okay... don't worry about it. I'll sort this out."
"I'll go get you a kitchen and a bathroom."

What??? How? ...
I suppose, since this is a modern apartment, it must be modular in some way, and you can annex additional rooms to it?
I try to talk ~ Dreamer ~ out of it, because I feel that since this is my apartment, and I messed up, this is something that I need to fix on my own.

"Nonsense, I'm going right now. I'll be back in an hour or so."

She leaves the room before I manage to come up with a reply.
To be honest, I'm kind of relieved that she is helping me out.
I have no idea where to get additional rooms for my apartment...
I definitely have to make it up to her somehow.
I end up talking with CanisLucidus about game engines and the Oculus Rift for a bit. (Through unfortunately I remember nothing specific)


I feel like my overall awareness has been improving over the past few days, and it has had a positive effect on lucidity.
But this dream for some reason, even though it was absolutely cluttered with dream signs,
I managed to remain completely oblivious to the fact that I was dreaming.

I'm a bit disappointed in myself for managing my time so poorly lately.
Somehow I have picked up a really bad habit of procrastinating.
And because of this I end up spending much less time on LD activities than I intend to.
I'm seriously considering to block reddit/youtube like sites for a few days a week...



I find myself on a beach. It is quite late, the sun is going down.
I should probably walk back to the hotel before it gets too dark...
Unfortunately I don't recognize any of the buildings alongside the beach.
Am I lost? How does that even happen?

Realizing that the situation is somewhat out of the ordinary I try to increase my awareness.
However, my thoughts feel scrambled. I am unable to come to a conclusion.
Now what? Am I dreaming or not? This does feel pretty real...
I decide to fall back on a more robust technique, the nose plug RC.

I can breathe normally through my plugged nose. This is a dream.
Wait really? I look at my hands and they seem perfectly normal.
I walk over to the first person I find, which is an elderly man, whom I assume is walking back to his hotel.

"Excuse me."
"Yes?"
"Am I dreaming?"

The man seems rather confused by my question.
In retrospect, that was probably not the most intelligent thing to do.
I decide that the answer to my question should be behind myself.
I turn back towards the ocean.

This is no longer the beach I was on previously on. This is my beach!
I must have changed scenes during the short moment when I was turning.
Sweet!

I try to remember my dream goals, and for once I actually manage to remember them!
My only dream goal at the moment is to "calm the fuck down".

(Lately I often forget to properly stabilize my dreams when I become lucid.
And then to make up for it, I rush through the dreams out of fear that they might end prematurely,
which is of course the worst possible thing to do.)

I slowly walk towards the ocean, taking all the time in the world.
The sound of the water is very relaxing, and I love the contrast between the warm sand and the refreshingly cold ocean breeze.
Eventually I take a few steps into the ocean, getting my feet wet. The water is very cold.

As I look at the stars, I feel a familiar presence.
It's Yuya! This is going to be a great night.

Ever since I found this picture and felt that it reminded me of her,
she's been playing around with hair colors a lot.
Today it's mostly orange and blue.
She can change it simply by shaking her head.
She's smiling at me the way she always does.

"Come out and play?"

At first I find it a little amusing that she phrases her question this way.
But then it reminds me of when I was very young, and I'd go knocking on the neighbours door to ask them to come out and play in the street.
Back then there was nothing to worry about, no important decisions to make.
I'd ask my friends to come out with the sole goal of having a good time.
Perhaps what I initially found a little odd, was after all the perfect way to phrase it.

This starts off a series of DEILDs.
I've written down the fragments I remember.
Unfortunately I don't remember them very well.
The last few moments before I woke up are quite clear, but everything before that is a bit of a blur.

Fragment 1:
I help Yuya prepare dinner at her place.
I'm not of much help though, given that I don't know any of the herbs and spices she has, nor the meat that she wants to prepare.
She is very patient with me, and explains how to prepare everything,
even though she knows that I probably won't remember any of it.
It takes us a good hour to prepare everything.
Liv joins us for dinner. (And there was someone else as well I think.)
Everything tastes absolutely wonderfully.
Later, I help Yuya to do the dishes.
She knows that my dream time is limited, and I can feel that it makes her really happy that I spend it with her,
even if it means doing something as mundane as doing the dishes.

Fragment 2:
In my scribble DJ I wrote "Dance" "Leaf in the wind" and "Happy".
I don't remember anything about this fragment though, and I don't recall taking these notes.

Fragment 3:
We're at a Café, sitting outside, enjoying the good weather and some amazing drinks.

Crow joins us. He felt my presence so he came by to say hi.
Since there's drinks and Yuya and Liv are here, he obviously decides to stay.
He ends up ordering something that isn't on the menu.

They bring us a plate with very small pipettes on it, all containing a small amount of a yellow liquid.
It's quite fun really, you use the pipette to place a single drop of the liquid onto your tongue.
It immediately gives you that cold chill / frisson feeling all over your body.
It also tastes rather sour. Perhaps a little like lemon juice.

Fragment 4:

Crow, Yuya and I are on some sort of airship.
It looks more like an old sail ship though, nothing like an actual airship.
Does fly rather well though, even though I'm sure this violates a few laws of physics.
According to Crow, there are very few of these, and it is very difficult to get a ride on one.
It is quite late and we all sit on the front deck watching the sun go down.
Yuya leans against me because she is really tired.

Crow is telling a very captivating story about love and betrayal.
It is quite an emotional story.
Usually his stories are about himself, and he exaggerates... a lot, I'm pretty sure he even makes stuff up on occasion.
His stories are quite amazing though, I'll give him that. Plus, he's a fantastic story teller.
I don't mind that he does this, we all know that it's for entertainment.
But this time around he claims that it is a fictional story about another person.
And then there's the way he narrates it. It is quite different. More serious, and seemingly less exaggerated.
I'm convinced that this time, he's actually telling a genuine story from his past.
The story eventually comes to an end. (It was a little sad, but I recall that there was a silver lining)

"Say, aren't you supposed to wake up or something? You've been staying for an awfully long time."
"Oh Crow... you're not supposed to remind dreamers about that."
"Why not?"
"Waking up is not something you want to think about."
"Why?"
"It could make you wake up."
"It can?"
"Unfortunately, yeah."
"That is rather inconvenient."
"It is."
"Seriously though, isn't it bad for you to spend entire days asleep so that you can be here?"
"Haha, I appreciate your concern Crow, I really do, but fortunately it doesn't work quite like that."
"I assure you, on the other side I've been asleep for a few hours at most."
"Huh, that is quite fascinating. It is good to know that I don't have to worry then."
"I'll make sure not to mention anything about waking up in the future."
"Thanks mate. I appreciate it."
"Sure... mate."

(There was a joke earlier in the dream about saying "mate", but I cannot quite recall what it was.)

"Anyways, I'm afraid I have to get going. I'm running late."
"Take care."
"So long."

Crow charges forwards and disappears in a cloud of colorful particles.
I think that's the first time I've seen him do that.
The dream is slowly becoming unstable.
I can no longer see beyond the airship.
The airship itself has also become somewhat blurry and desaturated.

Only Yuya I can still see clearly.
She seems to have fallen asleep, resting her head on my shoulder.
I can feel her chest expand against me as she breathes.
Even if it is just for a short moment, perhaps for just a fraction of a second,
it makes me really believe that she is out there somewhere, and not a construct of my own mind.
Sometimes I wish I could entertain this thought for longer, because I find it quite beautiful...

I'm at university attending a lecture about the basics of OpenGL.
The teacher doesn't really seem into it, and none of my classmates seem interested.
To be honest, neither am I, but for a different reason.
The other students are not interested in graphics programming,
whereas I'm already quite comfortable with both Direct3D and OpenGL.
Why am I attending this class again? Perhaps for some easy credit points?
That doesn't sound like me though.

Once class is over, I hear some people discussing that they wouldn't come back
and choose another course instead. If that many people leave, this course is
going to be cancelled, and I'll have to find another one as well.
I'm mildly annoyed.

Eventually, as the lecture comes to an end, I suddenly realize that I am dreaming.
I'm not sure what gave it away.
I touch everything in close vicinity to assert that the dream is stable.
There is some initial numbness, but eventually my senses appear to be working properly.
I leave the classroom, trying to remember my dream goals...
It's not working, I can't remember anything.

I'll go visit Yuya. It has been a long time since I've seen her because Faye is messing with my dreams.
But then, just as I want to teleport to Riven, I spot a familiar face.

It's Kate! What is going on? Why is she here?
(Not a real image of Kate. Kate is an ex-gf from waking life)

She smiles. And that is all it takes to stir up old emotions, which I left behind long ago.
I'm in love again. Great... I had enough trouble getting over her as it is.
Why does it all have to come back to me now?
I reluctantly decide to ignore her and visit Yuya, as I had planned,
but something goes wrong during my attempt of teleportation...



... I'm in an apartment with Kate. I think that she is my classmate now, and that we're living together.
This is our apartment. Everything is perfect.
I am living with the woman of my dreams, we're both about to graduate,
and we have our future planned out.
It is late in the evening and I go to the bathroom to take a shower.
The water temperature knob isn't cooperating.
I seem to be dealing with something like this:


Kate joins me in the shower and she has no trouble adjusting the temperature properly.
The water is now refreshingly cold, just the way I like it.
Kate moves closer and kisses me passionately. I love her so much.
And she is so beautiful. I stare into her green eyes as we kiss...
Wait... this is not right. Those are clearly Kate's eyes, but... they feel... empty?
Oh no...
Why?
I am emotionally devastated...

This isn't Kate. This is Faye.
It feels as though I've lost Kate again. I am so sad.


Faye is now holding a rose and handing it to me.
I get the feeling that she is trying to apologize?
That does make feel a little better. Will I finally be able to reason with Faye?
I take the rose. I cut one of my fingers on a thorn. Ouch!
A single drop of blood emerges and falls to the ground.

Something is wrong...
I sense something moving through the small cut, into my hand, and then up my arm.
I get vivid flashbacks of the bee birthing blisters. Not again!
I drop the rose. But I'm too late.
Stems covered in thorns grow through my veins and sprout out of my body in various places, causing me to bleed.
More and more blood flows down into the shower. The water slowly turns red.

"Faye. Please make it stop!"
"No."
"..."
"Please! I'm sure whatever the problem is, I can fix it."
"There is no need for this!"
"I don't want the problem to be fixed."

What? Why? I don't understand.
I just barely manage not to freak out. The parasitic plant hardens in my veins making me unable to move.
The pain increases as the plant grows bigger.
Fuck fuck fuck.

"Faye! Talk to me! What is the problem?"

She doesn't reply. She just smiles, satisfied with the current situation.
I can't take it any more. I need to wake up!
I close my eyes, trying to think of my waking body lying in bed.
But I don't wake up...
Instead I begin to see, even though my eyes are closed.

She laughs at me and my inability to do anything.
Then she moves in and kisses me on the lips.
No. I don't want this.
My fear turns into anger.
I scream at the top of my lungs, wanting to push Faye away from me.
The hardened plant finally gives in under the force and breaks in many places within my body.
I push against Faye hard with both of my hands.
She is pushed through the glass shower door, which shatters into pieces.

She is cut in many places by the broken glass. She is bleeding and her blood mixes with mine on the floor.
This is so fucked up. She still looks like Kate. This is not right. I don't want to hurt her.
She again laughs at the current situation. She clearly feels like she has accomplished something.
She is satisfied. Finally, she gets up and leaves the room and I manage to wake myself up.

Well fuck. -_-
This is enough. This needs to change. Now.
I'm going to WBTB, probably do some meditation to focus my thoughts, WILD and tackle the problem with a hopefully clear head.

To mention something a little more positive, I have updated my Dream Journal Description.
I've also found this really cool painting by Sakimichan, which made me think of Yuya:

She obviously doesn't have the long pointy ears, but I thought that this painting just radiates so much energy, just as Yuya does.
There's also been a strong blue/orange theme in my dreams lately. I thought this was a pretty cool find.

I set myself an alarm to wake me up after ~6 hours of sleep.
The idea was to attempt a WILD, which is something I haven't done in a long time.
I figured with a WILD I would remember my goals more easily, and I might be able to tackle the issues I have with Faye.

I wake up from the alarm. I immediately close my eyes again and try to remember any dreams.
All I can remember is a few weak fragments. I do not bother writing them down.
Instead I get up and walk around in my room a little, thinking about my dream goals.
The most important thing would be to deal with Faye. I feel like this is crucial in order to fix my dreams.
I've also been dared to tell her how she makes me feel.
I go back to bed after roughly 5 minutes and attempt to WILD.

I quickly get some HI, followed by the appearance of random faces.
Some scenes begin to form, but they seem to fall apart before I can transition.
I open my eyes a few times by accident. I'm really not used to do this anymore.

After some time I notice that I can see my room even though my eyes are still closed.
Oh. I am actually already dreaming. For some reason I decide to just stand up, even though I know that I've lost many lucids by doing this.
Fortunately this time it works. My body is really heavy though.
I have a lot of trouble moving, but I eventually manage to stand up.

I shake myself, a bit like a dog shaking away water from its wet pelt. Except I shake away the weight. It works. Neat!
I rub my hands together and look around.
I'm not in my room anymore. It's really dark.
Upon closer inspection, I appear to be standing on some dark marble floor, in an empty room that is clouded in dark fog.
Another person appears in front of me. First it's just an outline, but as he comes closer he looks more and more like a normal human being.

Wait what? He looks exactly like me!
I take a step back as I'm really creeped out. I am super uncomfortable encountering myself.
He looks a bit older than myself though... maybe by a few years.

"Who are you?"
"I am Hyu"

Great...

"You're not being helpful."
"Haha, I'm a future version of yourself, of course!"

Right...
So now what? Am I supposed to ask him something?
I probably should. Even though he's still creeping me out...

"So... any future advice for me?"
"Hmm... well... not really."
"Dude!"
"Alright, alright. I can tell you that it is going to work out. Is that helpful?"
"What is going to work out?"
"You'll know."
"Oh for fucks sake, you're pulling the same shit as all of the other DC's"
"Well. What did you expect? I am a DC."
"... you do have a point..."

He starts to walk away from me, but just before he disappears in the fog he addresses me one last time:

"On second thought... maybe you should get that Unreal 4 license. Mess around with it a little you know?"

(I have thought so much about starting my own company over the past few days. Was this what he was referring to when he said that everything would work out?
The comment about getting a UE4 license seems related to this.)

The black fog suddenly starts to move in. Oh shit, the dream is falling apart.
I panic and slam my palms against the ground yelling "PORTAL!".
For some reason this works. I fall through the ground, spin around a little and then crash land somewhere in the city.
I rub my hands against each other very hard. The dream is still unstable, I need to engage my senses.
A young girl eating some ice cream catches my attention. I steal her ice cream cone and take a large bite.

"Hey! That's MY ice cream!"
"Sorry, I need to stabilize."
"Oh, okay."

After the inevitable brain freeze I feel like messing around with dream powers a little.
I don't do this very often. I try to grasp onto the clouds and squeeze them to make it rain.
It doesn't work whatsoever. Well, this is disappointing, but I'm not sure what I was expecting.


Then I notice the presence of a huge stargate. That wasn't here before!
I want to visit Yuya! I point at it and yell:

"Teraluna, Riven!"

The gate dials in and opens a portal. Well, that was easy. Sweet!
I charge at the portal, wanting to jump through.
But at the last moment someone grabs on to me, trying to hold me back.
What the hell? Go away!
...
I can't unsummon him??? WTF? This never fails!
More people run at me, all trying to prevent me from going through the portal.
Oh my god there is an endless stream of them. Hundreds of people all holding me down.

I use my dream powers to release a shockwave to get them off me.
Those who were close to me are thrown a few meters back and they pile up on top of each other.
Then I spot Faye in the middle of it all, controlling the DC's like puppets.
Her smile is pure evil.
She makes a gesture, and the stargate unsummons.

"You're not going anywhere tonight."

I am afraid of her, and angry at myself. I want my dreams back. I am sick of this Faye nonsense.
My katana materializes in my hand, even though I have no desire to summon it.

"Cute."

Faye summons an exact copy of my katana... how...?
This is not right. She can't do that. She doesn't have that power.
Are these her dreams now? Have I lost all control over them?
My desire to visit Yuya fades. I want this dream to end. I feel completely powerless.

"Aww, I thought you would put up a fight. That would have been so cute."
"And oh so idiotic. You don't understand anything."

I have no reply. I close my eyes. This will end the dream...


... I'm in some sort of japanese garden. Probably sight seeing or something? I'm with a few other people. (3 I think)
Everyone is talking about dreams, so I conclude that they must all be DV members.
But I don't understand what they're talking about. Some induction techniques involving butterflies? What?
I feel bad because I can't contribute anything to the discussion.

Then I notice that one of them has purple hair, so obviously she must be ~ Dreamer ~.
I'm somewhat proud of having figured that out all on my own!
I want to do something to impress her. I want to show her something really cool.
And then I have the most glorious of ideas! I am going to use my dream powers to piss a rainbow!
(Oh god why . By the way I'm totally blaming KristaNicole for this. XD)

"Hey Dreamer, check this out!"

I unzip my pants, point my dick upwards at a 45° angle for maximum efficiency and commence some high pressure pissing.
The stream of piss is nothing short of impressive, but it doesn't create a rainbow.
Everyone is giving me this what the hell are you doing look. I don't understand why.
It makes me sad that no rainbow is appearing.

The WILD has helped to some extend. My dreams did contain elements from my dream goals, but I failed to act on them.
It's cool that I saw ~ Dreamer ~, even though I wasn't lucid and I behaved like a complete idiot.
I'm quite disappointed at how I dealt with Faye.

So... I've been planning on posting new entries to my DJ here on DV, but I'm not quite sure where to start.
My dreams are one hell of a mess at the moment, and they're probably not much fun to read.
It seems like many of them are centered around hurting me one way or another.
Usually this is done through Faye, a recurring DC.
They're not nightmares though. Well, at least most of them aren't.
I usually catch those when they start and become lucid, allowing me either change or stop them.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

I'm hanging out with some waking-life friends.
We're at V's place, up in his attic, where he has set up a bar and a large couch to relax.
Overall I'm having a good time, but there's something making me somewhat uncomfortable.
There's a woman with us that I don't think I have seen before.
But everyone is acting as if we've all known each other for years.
In fact, at one point, she is telling a story about her and I getting into trouble
when we were on vacation together.

What? I don't remember this woman, and we were supposedly spending out holidays together?
What is going on?

We have a few drinks, discuss some things that I cannot recall, and end up talking about what everyone
is currently doing in their lives. It's mostly a discussion about what our expectations were a few years back,
about what we would be doing now, and how everything actually turned out.
It's my turn, and I walk about making video games, and that I am not quite certain how I am going to transition
from university life to working. I haven't fully decided exactly what I want to do yet, but I do know
roughly which direction I want to go.

The woman I do not know interrupts me, and starts saying hurtful things.
I don't remember exactly how she said it, but she was basically stating that I will never amount to anything.
I am shocked. I do not understand how one of my friends would ever say anything like that.
I have a good relationship with all of my friends, nobody would ever do this.
But for some reason it really hurts. To the point where I actually consider whether or not I am a failure as a person.

Fortunately, I slowly become aware of what is actually happening.
I am dreaming.
This is a dream.

I attempt to look at the facial expression of everyone, to see if they agreed with what the woman said.
But they are all gone. I find myself alone with this woman now.
She looks pleased with herself. She has accomplished what she wanted.

I try to elevate my level of awareness by thinking about my current situation.
There is some improvement. Enough to realize that the woman is Faye.

"Wipe that grin off your face"

I am pissed.
She keeps doing this lately and I absolutely hate it.
I decide to confront her about it.

"Why do you keep doing this?"
"You are doing this to yourself. Remember, I am a part of yourself"

I remember having confronted her before, and she said the exact same thing.
Why is she my dream guide again? Lately her influence on my dreams has been purely negative...



Here's another example, where she attempts to distract me (from lucidity):

I am walking through the city together with a friend of mine.
She's rushing from shop to shop, looking at all the things.
Despite the situation being so hectic, I become lucid.
I also quickly realize that the woman I'm with is Faye.
I immediately decide that I want to leave. There is nothing of interest in this dream scene.

I concentrate, trying to leave the current scene behind and go to Riven instead.
But Faye interrupts me. She grabs my hand and drags me away.
I tell her to leave me alone, but she won't listen.

I feel anger building up inside of myself.
She's done this a few times now, trying to break my lucidity.
And usually she succeeds...

"You're not going anywhere!"

My muscles tense up from anger.
Suddenly the buildings around me begin to collapse, seemingly as a reacting to tensing up my muscles.
It's an odd feeling.
First there is some guilt from destroying the buildings by accident.
But that quickly disappears once I understand that nobody was in these buildings.
After all this is a dream.

Unfortunately Faye is having none of it.
She takes control of the surrounding DC's and makes them yell at me.

"Why did you do this? Why did you kill those people?"

Things like that.
I eventually loose lucidity...


These dreams are quite frustrating.
But I think that I can fix this mess if I manage to reach a high level of lucidity.
By that I mean, if manage to think clearly within a lucid dream, and be aware of this goal,
which is difficult with this level of interference and distraction.
Still, I'm confident that I'll manage to fix it... hopefully soon.

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.

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.

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? >_<