side notes

Been pretty sick lately and my dream recall hasn't been very good.
I had quite a few dreams, some lucid, but the lack of details made them feel unworthy of posting.

I'm walking on the promenade in Haven on Teraluna.
Enjoying the fresh air, I walk towards one of the main streets on my way to Yuya's place.
On the main street I go up a level, ending up one level below the topmost one, with all the houses and apartments.
This level features mostly shops and restaurants, I sometimes come here with Yuya for dinner.
It's dusk, so the city is quite lively.

I pass a shop that sells flowers and I wonder if I should buy some for Yuya.
They're all on display outside, so I wander a bit around having a look at the different kinds of flowers.
Some don't look like flowers at all, and some are clearly alive.
They're all very beautiful and they have a distinct smell.
I suddenly realize that I have no money, how am I going to pay for these?

Wait, what? WTF! I'm on Teraluna! How did I not notice that I'm dreaming?
This surprises me quite a bit and it takes me a few seconds to settle down.
The dream feels very stable and vivid, but I still rub my hands and try to feel the presence of my surroundings to make
that the dream remains perfectly stable.

Looking back at the flowers I see one that is immensely beautiful.
The colors somewhat match those of Yuya's eyes, I feel they would be an appropriate gift.
I ask the lady selling the flowers:

"Would you be willing to trade something for these flowers?"
"Haha, of course young man, what did you have in mind?"

I summon my phoenix wings on my left arm and remove one of the smaller colorful feathers from it.
They fall out occasionally, it'll grow back.
I hand it to the lady.

"How beautiful! Please, take the flowers, thank you!"

That went well.
I take the flowers and continue walking towards Yuya's place.
I think about how this dream started on Teraluna, even though I was non-lucid.
Then I realize I'm wasting time.
I can see a bridge crossing from this street to another one on the level above me, I'll be able to see Yuya's place from there.
I blink on top of it, and from there I blink to Yuya's place.

Yuya greets me, telling me that I'm right on time. Did we set a meeting?
I hand her the flowers.

"They're for you."

She seems extremely happy. I am yet again surprised by the way she shows her emotions.
She simply doesn't hold back at all. It feels so pure, I've never seen anyone with such a happy expression in waking life.
Yuya puts the flowers in some sort of vase.
I notice that the dream doesn't feel as stable anymore, and I attempt to re-stabilize which succeeds.

"Alright, I promised you we'd visit the library, let's go!"

The library? Did we talk about this in a previous dream?
Maybe a dream that I cannot remember?
Clearly, I can't recall such a dream, but I am convinced that we did indeed decide to visit a library somewhere on Teraluna.
It must have been a lucid dream I do not remember.
I get ready to draw my wings but Yuya interrupts me.

"Let's fly there! We shouldn't teleport into the library, we might disturb someone."
"Sure, lead the way!"

I take off and fly next to Yuya, trying to keep up.
She's accelerating fast, I can't keep up without summoning my wings.
I remember that in my last big fight I managed to summon my phoenix wings on my back, in full size.
I wonder if I can do that again and use them for fast flight, just the way I've been using my dragon fire wings until now.

I try to accumulate some of that pure energy and manage to draw the wings on my back.
They're very beautiful and very large. They feel somewhat oversized for my body.
It is VERY easy to fly at high speed with them, much easier than with the dragon wings.
We quickly break the sound barrier and everything becomes very calm.

This is the first time I'm really exploring other parts of Teraluna, usually I just stay in Haven.
It is beautiful!
There are very high and complex trees growing directly out of the sea.
They must be over a kilometer high each.
We slow down and fly down, through the crowns of the trees.
It is difficult to navigate them due to their complexity.

There are waterfalls in the crowns as well, I wonder where they come from, are the trees emitting water?
We go lower and lower and finally fly through a maze of waterfalls leading to a spectacular entrance.
The entrance is absolutely huge. Fortunately it opens by itself.
Inside there are the same angel statues as in the entrance to Haven.
As I pass under them I feel myself passing through a forcefield.
Makes sense, the library must be protected as well.

I enter the library in amazement, the bookshelves reach into all eternity.
There is literally no end to them. Even zooming in they seem to go on forever.
The library is very well lit, everything is very bright and white.
The shelves are mostly made out of glass.
Materials feel very modern, but some shapes remind me of the Victorian era.

Yuya explains what the different kinds of books are and we wander around a bit.
She shows me quite a few things which I unfortunately cannot quite remember.
Then we come to a rather special shelf.
Yuya tells me there's 1001 books in this shelf.
They all seem very old, and they are huge.
Nearly 1 meter high and very thick, probably 1000 pages each.

They feel very special, there's is something about them that really intrigues me.

"Are we allowed to touch them?"
"Of course, just be gentle, they are very old."

I pick the first of them, it's very heavy.
I gently deposit it on a reading table and open the first page.
The pages are so old... they feel like papyrus, and you can actually see how the paper was weaved.
Everything in them is hand written and hand drawn. They are not printed copies.
It feels sort of amazing touching such an old book, plus the smell is very nice.
The title of the first page is in a language I do not know.
The letters are formed by geometric shapes, but somehow I am able to understand it.

This book is about the beginning... the beginning of... everything?
They all are! Those 1001 books, is this the story of this universe?
The story of the dream plane?

"Yes, they are, are you able to read it?"
"I'm not sure. I cannot understand the individual words or letters, but somehow I understand some of it."

I randomly try to read the first few lines at the beginning of some chapters.
The first one talks about there being nothing but energy.
Some chapters further they talk about the first gods.
I honestly have no idea how I'm understanding any of this.
The numerous images and illustrations help though.

The language used to write these is very powerful though.
A single word carries much more meaning than any languages in waking life.
Considering this, needing 1001 books to describe the history of the dream plane...
it just feels impossible like any single person could ever know the whole story.

"True, but it's not finished yet."
"Not all books have been written yet, after all we're still living the story written in these books."
"Then why are there exactly 1001 books?"
"Because exactly 1001 books are needed to tell the story."
"But, does that mean the dream plane will end once you reach the 1001st book?"
"Not only the dream plane, the planes cannot exist on their own, they all exist together."

I'm very surprised, it is known when existence will end?

"Hyu... the dream plane has existed for eternities, long before Earth was created, long before your universe was formed."
"That being said, we've barely filled 400 books."
"We cannot even comprehend for how long things have existed until now, so there is no reason to worry about any ending."
"True..."

I browse through some more pages in amazement.
Somehow I understand that this language is very ancient and was meant to be universal.
I think I am able to interpret some of it due to the divine phoenix powers, but I'm not sure.
I end up getting lost in thoughts and wake up...

I'm properly sick. I have a massive lung infection combined with a cold and some other stuff I won't go into.
This greatly affects my dreams.
My recall is remarkably good though. I suppose this is because I wake up about every 10 minutes because I have to clear my lungs.
My dreams are quite random, they usually combine multiple different scenarios that clearly do not belong together.
Pretty much all my dreams are about my sickness, it is always represented in some rather clear way.
I often return to the same dream after waking up, especially this one:

I'm in a tall building, sort of like a skyscraper.
Somehow I know that this building represents my body.
The building is being infested by some sort of bio-goo with tentacles and other biomass/insect kind of stuff. (think deadspace / alien etc)
Eggs grow in the goo, hatching all sorts of monsters which try to further spread the goo over my body.

I'm not really sure what to do at first, I feel a bit helpless, but then suddenly I realize that I am (the one and only) Duke! (Duke Nukem)
I grab some Devastators (Dual rocket launchers) and start going to town on the monsters in the room I'm currently in.
Whilst doing this I use typical Duke phrases such as "Hail to the king baby" etc.

I quickly realize that there seems to be a near infinite supply of monsters though.
I can't possibly take them on all on my own.

I have double vision at this point. I can see first person, pretty much like in a first person shooter,
but at the same time I can also see the current room in a top down view, much like a real-time strategy game.
I move the top down view all the way to the top floor, trying to find my main base.
I find a (starcraft2) Hatchery with a few mineral patches next to it.
I decide that I should build some Infestors, because they are very cost effective, and since my body is being
infested, I'm obviously pretty low on resources.
(This makes perfect sense, right?)

I control the Infestors from the top down view, casting fungal growth for crowd control and to keep those nasty monsters in place,
whilst at the same time causing havoc in first person with all sorts of guns, but mostly the Devastators.

On each floor, there is some sort of queen, which I have to defeat in order for the infestation to clear on that floor.
The queens look like infested women. (Not like in Duke Nukem... more like Infested Kerrigan in Starcraft, except more infested and less human.)
I spot the queen for this room and fire my Devastators in the approximate direction.
Not exactly precision weaponary.
The smoke trails from the rockets quickly block out most of my vision.
Suddenly, I notice that the queen is now behind me.
What the fuck? can that bitch teleport?

She spits some kind of green liquid onto me, eww!
She's too close to fire rockets at her, so I quickly change to a pump-action shotgun.
(I do this just like in a first person shooter. I move my current weapon to the bottom left, out of my vision,
and when I move my hands back up I'm holding the new weapon.)
I keep shooting straight into her chest, but she doesn't appear to be taking much damage,
even though every time I hit her she has to take a few steps back.

*click* What the fuck? Empty?
The queen slaps me in the face, and I am thrown across the room against a wall.
What is this shit? I have to reload the shotgun?
I'm the fucking Duke! The Duke does not need to reload!
I drop the shotgun, replacing it with double-barreled shotguns. Two of them!
Knowing that I no longer have to reload because... well, I am the Duke, I start shooting relentlessly at the queen saying:

"Eat shit and die!"

After emptying a good 50+ shells into the Queen she finally drops to the ground, with green goo leaking from all sorts of holes.
Meanwhile I've cleaned up most of the monsters with my Infestors, this is working out rather well.

I suddenly hear a voice, as if I was on skype:

"Dude, you micro like a Grand Masters, but your macro is fucking Silver at best."

What is he on about? I change my top down vision back to my hatchery, and notice I'm now completely mined out.

"I'm fucking mined out you idiot, how do you want me to macro? there are no more minerals!"
"Eh, I guess you're fucked then, just remake."
"Remake? Are you fucking stupid? This is my body! I can't just remake!"

What an idiot.
I drag his Skype window into my vision and end the call.
I also set myself to busy, I can't afford distractions right now.

I pet one of my Infestors and we start marching downstairs to the next floor.
As we walk down the stairs I start humming the Duke Nukem theme.
The Infestors seem to enjoy it...


I wake up plenty of times, but I usually fall back asleep very quickly and I end up back in the dream, usually where I left off.
Sometimes I get a bit scared, feeling like this dream is going to turn into a nightmare.
But when that happens I become lucid for a very brief period of time, and I can prevent that from happening.
I never stay lucid for more than one or two seconds though.

I had to get up early this morning to see a doctor because I hurt one of my toes and it got infected, so I only got ~5 hours of sleep last night.
After getting back from the appointment, I was just lying in my chair watching an online stream of someone playing SC2.
I was really tired, to the point where I was unable to really focus on the stream, plus my toe was still hurting which was annoying.
I just leaned back and started dozing off. I noticed the sensation of falling asleep and randomly decided that I'll try to WILD...

... I start seeing through my closed eyelids, I must have entered a dream.
I get up and notice that I was sitting on the couch, even though I was on my chair when I was awake. Weird.
I look at my toe because it is still hurting a bit, but the pain is different.
There is no longer a bandage around it, in fact, it looks perfectly healthy.

I investigate my aura and can clearly see that there are repairs going on in my toe region.
It looks really interesting, like broken stings that are webbing themselves together again.
I hold my left hand over my toe, summoning my phoenix wings, to see if I can somehow accelerate the healing process.
Some energy is flowing from my hand towards my toe, but in all honesty I have no idea what I'm doing.
Sure, I know that phoenix abilities includes healing, but I have no idea how to do it.

Not really sure what to do, I decide to summon Faye.
I call out her name, but nothing happens.
I realize that just calling out her name is not enough, I have to actually mean for her to appear.
I do it again, this time wishing for her to come to me, and she appears in front of me.
She looks different yet again.

"Hey!"
"Hi Hyu. I brought you your Yo-yo."

Right! The Yo-yo!
She gives it to me and I look at it closely, touching the wooden surface.
It looks very simple and old-fashioned.

"Does it do anything?"
"Of course it does!"
"So, how do you use it?"
"I suppose just like a normal Yo-yo."

Makes sense.
I attach the string to my right middle finger and launch the Yo-yo towards the ground.
It remains at the bottom of the string, spinning wildly and making some noise.
Nothing special happens, which surprises me a bit.

"Huh? What does it do then, it doesn't seem to be special."

She replies with a serious attitude:

"Well, it spins Hyu. It spins."

I look at Faye. She starts laughing hysterically.

"You're such a troll!"

After that I wake up.
What's up with the trolling lately? oO

I am walking aimlessly over a big field.
Something feels completely wrong.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but I am a bit scared.
Somehow the whole experience is a bit frightening even though it shouldn't be.
I have a feeling like the color is being drawn out of the world.
I don't like this at all.

Fortunately I then realize that I'm dreaming, but that scares me even more...
Usually whenever I get that sort of nightmare feeling, which I have right now,
it goes away immediately after I become lucid, but this time, it doesn't.

Suddenly, I feel a very scary presence behind me.
I am nearly too afraid to turn around to face it, but I end up doing it.
There's a man. Even though he's dressed in white, he's dark... so very dark.
It's his presence, it is his urge to kill me, I can feel it... so strongly.

He's wearing a white and silver armor with a white coat and he is wielding a very large polearm.
He approaches me slowly.
Why am I so afraid of him?

He calls me by a name that I do not know, but it is clearly meant for me, and I have no doubt that I am the person he is looking for.
He also calls me a dragon and a dream warrior and claims he is a paladin himself.

"You shall die by my hand in the name of the lord."

I am so fucking scared. I don't know what to do, I feel completely helpless.
He takes his polearm and charges me. FUCK!

Somehow my body reacts by itself.
The dragon within me awakens, or rather explodes. I have never powered up even remotely this fast.
I instinctively summon my katana trying to block the inevitable hit.

I black out for a second as he hits me...

The land is on fire. I am fully charged up. My aura burns, the sky is red and the clouds are burning.
I am so afraid, afraid to die. I don't care if I use too much power, I just want to survive somehow.
He keeps attacking me relentlessly, and I am only barely able to dodge and block his hits. Everything happens so fast.
The moves I use are not my own, my body reacts instinctively, and I know if I interrupt this I will die, if I think, I will die.

"Do you know how we kill dragons?"

He activates some device on his polearm and my katana dematerializes in my hand and rematerializes in a holster attached to his polearm.

"You dragons are helpless without your weapons."

Fuck... FUCK!
He walks towards me slowly. He knows without my katana I don't stand a chance, there's no need for him to rush.
I'm so afraid.
In my desperation I call out into the fabric of space and scream as loudly as I can:

"YUYA!!!"

He's getting closer and closer, just a few more steps.
Finally, he strikes, slowly...

But right before his polearm hits me, I hear the sound of a metallic collision.
I look up. Another man is standing in front of me, blocking the polearm with his sword.
He looks at me over his shoulder.
I know this man. I know him so well...

Silver! It is Silver! A man from my childhood dreams, a friend in combat, just like Yuya and Selene.
Then I see Yuya, she is here as well. They must have arrived at the same time.
However, they clearly appeared independently, because Yuya is quite surprised to see Silver and even calls out his name in amazement.

Silver looks at me.

"Fight!"

What a simple word, but such complexity behind it.
Suddenly I am no longer afraid. I am no longer alone.
The nightmare feeling disappears and the paladin takes a few steps back.

"You're friends of the dragon. All of you will die. No one opposes the lord."

Silver puts a hand on my shoulder:

"He's a paladin. Paladins kill dragons."
"Now take back your sword, you have the power to cast it into the void."

I order my katana to be cast back into the fabric of space and summon it again, and sure enough I'm holding it in my hand.
The paladin doesn't seem too surprised, he's confident that he can take on all three of us at the same time.

"Well done dragon. By asking your friends for assistance you have signed their death warrant."
"Dragons are horrible creatures. How you are able to make friends is beyond me, all of you must die."

I am angry. He is blinded by his beliefs, he has no idea what it means to be a dragon.
He is committing genocide without understanding anything.

"You are but a fool following a false god."
"A man who only believes but does not try to understand is nothing."

The paladin seems furious because I called his lord a false god.

Even with the power of all 3 of us combined, we only seem to be on even terms.
But it feels just like old times, like in my childhood dreams where I would fight together with Yuya Silver and Selene.
We fight together so well, like a perfect choreography.
Silver and I both use our swords and direct energy attacks, whereas Yuya uses her water magic.
But somehow, it just isn't enough.

Yuya is clearly struggling, and I am very worried for her. If something happens to her it will be my fault.

"First I will kill your girl. I will kill her slowly. And I will make you watch."

I can see fear in Yuya's eyes after hearing that.

Suddenly, my mind is blank.
I am calm. Perfectly calm.
It is the calm you experience when your anger is so strong that somehow you drop back into a state of calm.

"Stop."

Silver and Yuya stop, not doubting my request for a second.
I drop my katana to the ground and cancel all of my dragonic energy.

"You fool. Are you sacrificing your self?"
"There is but one fool here."

I power back up, but not on dragonic energy.
I use the same energy I use to summon my phoenix wings, a much more pure and divine power.
My phoenix wings appear, but not on my hand this time.
They appear on my back and they are huge and colorful.
This power is so very different from the dragonic one.

I look into the paladins eyes and take a step forward.
For some reason I am right in front of him now, I have no idea how I managed to approach him so fast,
and clearly neither does he.
With my right hand I reach into the body of the paladin and grab onto his very soul and pull it out.
It feels like an ability I can only use if I truly believe that a person deserves to die, if there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind.
His body drops to the ground dead.

I look into the eyes of the helpless soul I hold in my hand.

"Wherever you may go, let it be known that if anyone in the whole of existence threatens my love again, I will hunt them down."
"I don't care if they are paladin, I don't care if they are king or even if they are god. I will hunt them to beyond the planes of existence and I will crush them with my bare hands."

I watch his soul burn away in purple flames as I crush it with my hand.
My anger finally disappears.
I can't believe how angry I just was.

I hold out my hand to Silver and he shakes it.

"Thank you."
"So long."

He turns around and vanishes.
He has always been a man of few words and I have a feeling I will not see him again anytime soon.

The rest of my memories of this dream are quite foggy.
Why did I call Yuya "my love"?
Was she really my lover, or did I love her as a friend I trust with my life?

This was also remarkably scary for a lucid at first, but it turned out quite amazing.

A few months ago I had to design an "innovative" game as some sort of homework.
Even though I had a good idea, I couldn't figure out one of the key elements in the game.
I thought about it a lot and randomly ended up having a lucid dream where I actually was in the game I designed.

To my surprise, the problematic element in questions was already fixed in a rather brilliant way, which I thought was absolutely awesome.
Since then I've been meaning to test if I can actively use lucid dreaming to sort of overcome similar hurdles, where I'm lacking the creativity to solve a certain problem.


I wake up.
I try not to move and close my eyes, trying to remember any dreams.
Oddly enough, my mind is blank, I feel like something is preventing me from thinking clearly.
I find this rather weird and decide to get up.
Grabbing my dream notebook I notice that the currently open page is not empty.
Did I write something down during the night? I can't remember doing so.

I have a hard time deciphering the text in my notebook, which Isn't very unusual since I often take notes with the lights off if I wake up during the middle of the night.
Suddenly the text seems clear. It says:

"Fireflies in the Sky. Wake up!"

It's written in very beautiful old fashioned style.
I can't have written this! My handwriting is horrible!
What does this even mean?

Then I get it... I'm dreaming!
Fireflies? Huh? Oh well, the wake up note was useful.

I rub my hands.
For once I try to remember if I set myself any goals for lucid dreams, which is something I always forget to do.
I try to think of the current task of the month, but then I remember it's already June and I haven't checked what the current Totm is.
Then I remember the dream where I solved my game design issue and that I wanted to try if I can do something like that voluntarily.

I decide that I want to create a game right now, but I want my subconscious to design it for me.
An exploration adventure type of game in a mysterious world, that's what I want to create!
Something sort of like a modern Myst game.

I summon my Phoenix wings and try to teleport, thinking of these key aspects, but it doesn't work.
I strongly feel like this type of teleportation only works if I have a specific location in mind.
Maybe I should try another form of teleportation.
I think about opening the door in my room, hoping for the finished game to be behind it, but decide against it.
I know what lies behind this door too well, I doubt it would work like that.

I should use a portal!
Using my right index and middle finger I draw a big circle on one of the walls in my room.
Even though the borders of it clearly form and start glowing, the inside is still solid.
This is not working quite right.
Then I remember that KristaNicole uses portals in a different way.
She writes the name of the destination or the person she wants to meet on the portal before opening it.
I decide to try that.

I make the tip of my index and middle finger glow and use them to write onto the portal:

"Explore"
"Adventure"
"Mystery"

I rest my palm on the wall and try to push against it with some energy.
The text I've written glows and the wall within the boundary of the portal disappears.
I'm now standing in front of a portal with a bright blue/white glowing border with very dark purple void inbetween.
Sweet! I step through the portal.



I fall out upside down on the other side, in my usual fashion.
I'm really not very good at portals...
Noticing that I am now outdoors, I look around trying to figure out where I am:


What the heck, I know this place!
Of course! This is once of the worlds in Myst IV!
I'm amazed at first that what I tried sort of worked, but a bit disappointed that I didn't end up in a new game.

Another portal opens and Yuya jumps out.
I am actually very surprised by that. I usually go to her, not the other way around.
Plus, am I not in my own dream bubble? can she enter my dreams like that?
Then I remember that she's actually done it before.

"Silly Hyu."
"You gave me permission to enter your dreams a long time ago."

She's probably right. Why would I not? I love having her around.

"It's amazing what the human mind can do, isn't it?"
"Yes, it absolutely is, though this isn't exactly what I've tried to accomplish."
"Are you so sure about that?"
"Well... this is a world from Myst."

"Are you suggesting that your subconscious accessed the game data to generate this world?"
"Well, no. That would be silly."
"Yes. In other words this isn't a perfect copy of the Myst world."
"How long has it been since you've played that game?"
"Quite a few years actually."
"Yes. Do you really think this world is in any way identical to the world in Myst?"
"Well. No. Probably not. But it feels the same way."
"Exactly. But you still created this world. Your subconscious decided where the mountains go, which way the rivers flow..."

Suddenly I'm not really disappointed anymore. She's absolutely right, I created this, it totally worked.
I point my hand at a spot on the ground and try to grow a tree with my mind.
A small plant pops out of the ground and slowly grows into a fully grown tree.

"Holy shit! This is awesome!"

Yuya smiles.

"Directly shaping things is quite amazing, yes, but what is much more amazing is what your subconscious can generate using just 3 words."
"The conscious mind is quite limited. Sure, you can create any object and design any aspect of it."
"But your subconscious can create infinite worlds on the fly, with millions of objects, every single one designed down to the last detail."

"If I wanted to, could I change this world into another one?"
"Sure, if you let your subconscious do it for you."
"How do I do that?"

"You either request something very specific, a place you know or have seen somewhere,"
"or you request a world that gives you a certain feeling, which is sort of what you did to create this world."
"Yes, but how do I actually change it? Do I create another portal?"
"You can use a portal, but you don't need to, you can simply use your willpower."

Holy shit! Would that really work? That would be so awesome!

"Okay, I'll try!"

I point both of my hands at the sky, and think of the Tron movie.
I want to create a world similar to the grid!

"No. Don't try. Do or do not!"

I know that she's absolutely right, but it's easier said than done.
But I do know that when she says it's possible, it really is.
She has no reason to lie to me, I fully trust her.

I close my eyes, releasing tiny bits of energy through my hands into the sky.
I think of the atmosphere of the new Tron movie, of the lightcycles, of the Grid.
As I open my eyes again, I hear Daft Punk playing in the background, but the volume is very low.

Holy shit! I am on the Grid!
There's blue neon stripes everywhere, I can see skyscrapers in the background, some type of rocks floating in the sky.
It's just like in the movie. It's in the same style, it has the same atmosphere to it, but it's not a location that was in the movie.
I turn to Yuya in excitement.

"Did you see that??? I did that!"

She starts laughing.

"Yes Hyu, I know."

A lightcycle appears and stops right in front of us.
A women gets off, and as she takes her helmet off I immediately recognize her: It's Olivia Wilde / Quorra.


She starts approaching me and Yuya says jokingly:

"I think your subconscious likes Olivia Wilde."

No kidding Yuya, guess who my conscious mind likes as well...
This could turn into a rather awkward situation.
Olivia stops in front of us and says smiling:

"Yes, I think your subconscious really does."

I smile, and try to act unsurprised and not too excited that she is here...
But looking into her beautiful and bright eyes I have to think about how attractive she is and fail miserably at acting unsurprised.

Reading my thoughts, Yuya starts laughing out loud.
She finds it absolutely hilarious that such situations make me uncomfortable, and I find it quite silly that I do.

Olivia asks me:

"Do you want to go for a ride?"

Suddenly I get extremely excited.
Yuya says "Ha. Try to catch up!", creates her own lightcycle and drives off.
I follow Olivia to her lightcycle, getting more and more excited.
I sit behind her, and hold onto her for support.
She smells nice...

As we drive off, my vision blacks out. Fuck! I got too excited!
I desperately try to stabilize the dream. I want to ride a lightcycle with Olivia!!
But it fails, and I wake up.

A friend of mine has gotten into lucid dreaming about 2 months ago.
He's been lucid dreaming naturally before that, but only learned about induction recently.
Both his and my friends are very uncomfortable talking about dreams, so he and I talk about our dreams rather often.
He has texted me on msn before this dream, expressing that he wants to experience more "spiritual things".
Things like visiting unknown worlds and talking to "intelligent" DC's.

I'm home, programming on a project for school. Things are not going well, I'm getting all kinds of errors that don't make any sense.
I'm tired of this, I want to do something else. How awesome would it be if this was actually a dream and I could become lucid right now?
Then I inevitably realize that I have no idea how I got here, and that the code indeed makes no sense whatsoever.
I'll be damned, I am actually dreaming! sweet!

I remember the conversation I had with my friend before going to bed and decide that it would be awesome to try and visit his dreams, they are quite different from mine.
I summon my phoenix wings, search for his aura, and try to teleport to him.
The transition is not as smooth as usually, I nearly loose consciousness, but then the new scene finally appears.
The heat is strong, and I am blinded by the strong sunlight.

I investigate my surroundings. It appears that I'm at an outdoors marketplace. It is very crowded.
It reminds me of the Bazaar in Cairo, except it's completely outdoors.
They sell all kinds of items, pretty much anything you can think of, from food over household appliances to souvenirs.
I hear people speaking Arabic and English, I must be in an Arab country.

Seeing how busy everyone is is very pleasant, but I'm a bit overwhelmed by it.
It is very difficult to navigate the marketplace, it is way too crowded.
I realize that I'm getting distracted and search for my friends aura and approach it.
At first I doubt I'll be able to find him in this crowd, but his aura stands out, making it easy to track him.

The crowd clears up a bit, and I finally see him next to some shop selling handcrafted and painted household items, such as many beautiful plates.
He looks slightly different compared to waking life, but the differences are subtle.
As I approach him I notice that he seems focused on a woman browsing some clothes a few meters away from him.
I get a feeling of what he's doing. He's attracted to the woman, and he's trying to put the thought of being interested in him in her head.
He's obviously lucid.
I've done this before... I can tell quite clearly what he's doing.

Should I intervene? I don't want to interrupt his lucid.
Err, what am I doing, he said he wanted to experience new things.
I sit on a desk belonging to the shop, right next to my friend, the woman is already approaching him.

"No wonder you aren't experiencing anything overwhelming my friend, you're being distracted by women all the time."

He turns around and looks at me very surprised. He looses focus on the woman and she goes back to browsing clothes.

"I don't blame you, some women are just irresistible."
"No kidding..."
"You're Hyu right?"
"Yep, you even used my nickname, how come?"
"I don't know, you told me you're called Hyu in your dreams."
"True..."
"Fuck... this is really you isn't it?"
"Yes, I can't prove it though"
"Well, I suppose that doesn't really matter. Tell me about dreams! How to go past the limit of my imagination, how to meet dc's that seem sentient! Tell me!"

I think for a few seconds, about many things, about what to say to him, and then I suddenly know exactly what to do.
I grab a spoon from the shop we're at and hold it in front of me.

"You've seen the matrix, right?"

I start bending the spoon around with my mind.

"Yes! The spoon doesn't exist!"
"Why?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Why does the spoon not exist?"
"Because it's not real. It's a projection of my mind, and because everything in my dreams is, I can control everything!"
"Right... so... how do you define reality?"
"Err... well, some time ago I would have said that whatever I can grasp with all of my senses is real, but nowadays..."
"... uuuuh man, this is hard... I'll go with everything that directly affects my waking life."

I'm positively surprised that he's thinking past his senses, but I'm not quite satisfied with his conclusion.

"So, everything you experience in waking life is real, because it directly affects you?"
"Do you agree that every action you take in waking life will change your future, the outcome of your life, regardless of how benign it seems?"

He thinks a bit.

"Yes, any action has an infinite amount of consequences, it's the butterfly effect."
"Very good! Now, tell me friend, when you look at this spoon, when you touch it, when you bend it, does this not affect your waking life?"
"No?"
"Does your brain not save the sensation and experience of holding this spoon? Does it not form neural pathways to remember this information?"
"Aren't many of your decisions in waking life based upon the past experiences you can access in your memories?"
"Can you really in good conscience tell me that this spoon is not real?"
"Sure, the experience of holding this spoon is very benign, but what about exploring your inner self, the experience of letting your creative mind run wild, do these things not affect your waking life?"
"Fuck..."

I'm pretty sure he gets it, and I feel surprisingly wise telling him all of this.

"Telling yourself that the spoon is not real is a fantastic way to improve your dream control."
"But if you really want to explore the unknown and go beyond your imagination..."
"... If you want your dreams to affect you, you have to understand that they can do so."
"And you've stated yourself that every experience will ultimately affect you."

"I see... that does make sense, and I feel like this will help me, but how do I create a sentient DC?"
"Don't you see the contradiction? Creating something sentient? I think that is your problem."
"You think that everything right now is an illusion created by your own mind."
"Tell me, what are you basing this assumption on?"
"I... well... Yeah, I have no fucking clue."

"Now, I'm not telling you this spoon is not a creation of your mind, but if you want this world to affect you, to overwhelm you, you have to understand that it actually can!"
"And if you want to meet a sentient DC, you have to understand that they may actually exist."
"Yes, I understand."

He takes the spoon from my hand and looks at it closely.

"The spoon is real!"

We had a discussion about this today, and I told him the same things in waking life, which ended in a discussion about
how our brains are awareness factories, and what it does whilst awake and asleep.
He feels that thinking everything is an illusion and nothing affects him (which he did) was indeed holding him back.

I haven't posted in a while, mostly because my dream recall is really bad right now, presumably because I'm somewhat overworked.
I do remember dreams regularly, and the global theme of each dream, but barely any details.
This is the only one since my last entry where I was able to recall some details.


I am travelling through many dimensions.
In each dimension I have to fulfill some sort of goal in order to be able to progress to the next one.
It feels a bit like a computer game, like playing the myst series. Once I understand the challenge of this dimension and I'm able to solve it,
some sort of path opens to a new dimension.
I don't really know why I'm doing this, I only remember that I need to "get to the end" to save someone.
Even though I am aware that I'm dreaming, I don't understand the overall plot or why I need to save this person, or even who this person is.
I am definitely lucid, but my understanding of what this means is limited.

I'm progressing through the worlds, there are many of them, and I get stuck in some because I have trouble understanding what I have to do.
I remember a sand desert, a salt desert, a jungle, a Maya temple, and being on an asteroid in Saturn's ring, but I can't remember anything specific about the challenges.

I enter a new world.
It is cold. My feet are touching the ice cold ground.
I'm standing on a platform made out of stone.
It hasn't been maintained for a long time, there's grass growing over it.

It's raining heavily, I can't see far. I'm shivering, I'm so cold, and it's getting worse because of the rain.
Why do I have to be running around barefoot and without a shirt?

I understand that this is the final world. This is where the person I am searching for is.
I somehow know that she managed to solve all the previous puzzles, but got stuck in this final world and has been trapped here ever since.
For some reason this scene feels oddly familiar, like I have seen this place before.

I start exploring, but the world keeps repeating itself into all eternity.
There's nothing but the platform, and an infinity of stone fountains every ~10 meters.
They all look identical.
How am I ever going to find her? And what the hell could the puzzle in this world be? there is nothing here!
I get a bit worried that I might not get out myself, I wonder if I can freeze to death.
I'm never cold in my dreams... this is all very odd.

I start running around aimlessly, and I keep running for a long time, hoping to find anything out of the ordinary...

... after what seems like hours, I feel like giving up.
I turn around, looking at where I came from, when I finally spot a person.
She's the one I've been looking for! finally!

She's sitting down, leaning against one of the fountains, which is why I didn't see her when I ran by.
I approach her and try to initiate a conversation.
She notices me, but she shows little reaction.

I look into her eyes... they seem empty.
There is no life in them, looking into them feels so very sad.
She seems to have completely given up on everything, what has happened?

"How long have you been here?"
"Eternity..."

I feel really sad, this poor women!
I wonder if she'll ever recover... I somehow doubt it.

I can't stop shivering due to the cold... I hate the cold...
I look at the closest fountain.
For some odd reason I suddenly understand the riddle behind this world.
I grab a knife, which it seems I have been carrying with me, and cut myself into my left index finger.
I let a few drops of blood drop into the fountain.
It turns red with the 3rd drop, and the world collapses into darkness.

Nothing happens...
The women says something meaningful, but very sad.
I tell her that it'll be alright, even though I have no idea what will happen next.

I took a one week break from working on projects, and it did a lot of good to my dream recall.
Unfortunately I'm back to working now, which means no more WBTB/WILDs.
My dream recall has already suffered notably from this.
It's quite unfortunate, I felt like I was finally getting the hang of WILDing.


The 4th Dimension

I'm at uni, walking through the corridors towards my classroom.
For some reason I end up in what seems to be some sort of physics laboratory.
I question whether this is where I belong.
I remember that I am actually majoring in CS and not physics, and that this is definitely not a room I've been in before.
But as the teacher enters the room I decide to ignore this for some reason, and just go with it.

I don't know what the course is about, but I recognize elements from quantum physics.
Then the teacher talks about the fourth dimension (spacial dimension, not time).
I know a few things about that, so I'm not too surprised when she shows us a hologram of a tesseract.
But then she says she will materialize it. How on earth is she gonna do that?

The teacher approaches me and hands me.... well... a tesseract... with transparent walls.
I assume that it is some sort of model with joints that allows it to be moved similar to a rotation in the 4th dimension.
But then I remember that this cannot work, it is physically impossible.
As I touch the object, I realize that it is indeed solid. There are no joints, and all surfaces on it are perfectly solid.
But I can rotate it the same way I would be able to rotate a 4 dimensional object... at least in theory:



This fucks with my mind quite a bit.
But then I understand that I am indeed dreaming, and don't understand why I didn't notice this any sooner.
For some reason I still feel the need to figure out how this works though.
How can I even interact with this? The dimensions do not match.
But then I realize that I am somehow trapped in 4 dimensional space.
Every object in the class room is 4 dimensional.
My chair can no longer hold my body and I somehow fall through it.
As I look up and see everything appear normal yet consisting of impossible shapes, my head starts to hurt and I wake up.



Slight disorientation

I'm home, hanging upside down from the lusters.
A friend of mine enters the house.

"What the fuck are you doing up there?"

I look down... why the fuck am I hanging from the lusters?
Or maybe I am not really hanging from the ceiling?

"You mean down here. Why are you standing upside down over there?"
"What? I am standing on the floor!"
"Yes, and I'm hanging from the ceiling. What's your point?"
"Dude..."
"The ceiling is down, and the floor is up!"
"No, it isn't."
"Yes it is!"
"Why?"
"Because I say so."

Gravity inverts and he falls down onto the ceiling.

"What the fuck?"
"Told you so."
"I guess you were right."

Trance

I am sitting with a girl my age in front of a campfire.
We have setup a tent over here, and it seems we are in the middle of the desert.
But I can't tell for sure, it's pretty dark already.

I realize the girl isn't human.
Her hair is mixed with leaves... they are growing out of her head, just like normal hair.
When I look into her eyes I can also clearly feel that she is not human.
However she does look human, except for her hair.
But I don't mind, I feel like this is the way it is supposed to be.
I remember we both came here in order to get into some sort of trance with the goal to be enlightened.

Wait a second... what the....?
Oh! I'm dreaming!
She looks at me, as if she just realized something.
But she doesn't say anything, and hands me what appears to be a native american peace pipe.
She smiles:

"You need to smoke it."

For some reason I feel like something special will happen if I smoke it.
After all the goal was to get into trance right?
I take a deep breath of smoke, and I instantly feel it in my head.
I get extremely lightheaded, and have trouble not falling over, even though I'm sitting.

"Good!"

She smokes the pipe herself.
Holy shit, what is going on, I feel like I'm falling through the chair, into the sand below it.
I loose control over my body, and start to hallucinate quite vividly.
At first it's similar to HI during SP, but then it gets much stronger.
I see bright and vivid colors everywhere, intermixing with the landscape.
I see plants growing out of the sand at an insanely fast rate.
They start to blossom and fill the air with glowing pollen.
The girl starts growing feathers over her body and flies away.

This dream was bloody amazing o_o
It was so exciting!
I wrote it down immediately after waking up to make sure I don't forget anything.





I set myself an alarm for ~5 hours of sleep to WILD.
I had a hard time transitioning... I was about to give up but then somehow I ended up in a dream anyways.

I'm on Teraluna, in front of Yuya's house.
Before entering I decide to attempt to induce a "deep dreaming state" similar to here.
I grab a fruit from a bowl on Yuya's table and sit down in a meditative pose, trying to focus on each of my senses individually.
But just before I feel that I'm done, I am interrupted by something very weird.
I hear a deep growl, like in a thunderstorm, and I see the sky above me deforming.
It feels like someone is trying to break through the sky, but that doesn't make any sense.

Actually, it does, the protective energy shield surrounding Haven?
The ground starts to shake, it is so strong I nearly fall over.
The growling is now excessively loud. I am confused. Something is wrong.
A big creature smashes into the ground right besides me and debris is shot into the air.
At first glance, he looks human, but he's excessively muscular and at least 3 meters tall.
He looks at me with a dark smile. I don't like this at all, I feel like he's here specifically for me.

Yuya storms out of her house.

"NO!"

The man grabs my arm and I am dragged into a wormhole.
I fall out in a completely different place.
I get up, ready to defend myself.
This place looks dark, I don't feel very well at all.
It's a place of ruins, I feel that many battles have taken place here, and many souls have died."

"Why did you bring me here?"
"To die..."
"... why do you want me to die?"
"You're supposed to be dead."
"What?"
"Pff... you don't get it, and you won't, and I don't give a fuck that you're alive again or why you are."
"Then why do you want to kill me?"
"This discussion is pointless, I just want to kill you."
"Why the fuck would you want to do that?"
"Pointless... absolutely pointless..."

He seems disappointed.
He approaches me slowly, making a fist with his right hand.
This feels so real... I have had dreams that felt perfectly real before, but for some reason, this is even more intense.
It's not that my senses are superior to previous dreams but... I'm afraid.
I feel real danger emerging from this man, like he could really hurt me.
I don't understand why that is, and it confuses me.

My phoenix wings are not reacting, I cannot get out, I must fight... or... I could try to wake up?
No! I won't. I must fight. I do not know why, but I am absolutely certain that it is the right decision.

He charges me, and I blink a few meters back, trying to increase my focus on this battle.
But he blinked right with me.... FUCK!
I try to defend myself from the imminent hit with my arms, drawing up a protective energy shield around me, but I am still hit hard.
I feel the pressure of his hit all over my body, the energy shield makes a cracking sound and disappears, I'm not sure if I would have made it without it.
He's strong... too strong maybe. I can't feel his energy, probing his aura reveals nothing.

He charges again... I launch a sphere of energy at him, but he just blinks through it.
I concentrate as hard as I can... time slows down allowing me to evade a few hits and place myself in an advantageous position.
With all the energy I can muster into a fist, I hit him in his shoulder.
I can feel my energy resonating in his shoulder and causing some damage and he blinks away.

He laughs histerically.

"AHAHAHAHA, this is going to be SO MUCH FUN!"
"FIGHT you little dragon, FIGHT WITH ALL YOU GOT!"

I feel threatened, but at the same time he makes me furious, trying to kill me without even explaining what the fuck is going on.
He summons a very long katana, probably 2 meters long.
I power up as hard as I can, the dragonic energy causes strong vibrations within my body, and I feel very hot.

"AHAHA, you're gonna fight me with your fists? WITH YOUR BARE HANDS?"
"You amuse me dragon."

Fuck... the katana... if only I had my...
He blinks in front of me, trying to slice me with his katana.
I blink away, but he keeps blinking after me.
With every blink we make, he manages to barely slice into my skin.
It hurts every time he cuts me. He doesn't deal any real damage, but I can't keep going like that, this needs to stop.
I'm fighting a loosing battle, I need to do something now!
If only I had my katana... if only I knew more about these dragonic powers...

Thinking about the dragon within me, I feel anger... rage... fury!
Fuck dodging these hits!
I carefully time my next blink and manage to deflect his katana with my left arm.
I hit him right in his stomach with my right arm, releasing much more energy than last time.
But he manages to blink back before I have released all of the energy.

As he blinks back, my body reacts on it's own fueled by anger.
I use both of my hands to launch a fireball at him, it should hit him just after he exits his blink.
But my body keeps going instinctively, I form a ball of energy in each hand and launch one angled to the left and the other to the right.
He appears out of his last blink with the fireball right in front of him.
He instinctively dodges it by blinking sideways, causing him to blink right into one of the energy balls.
It explodes and he is launched against part of the ruins.

All of this happened within less than a second, the battle is so fast, and he is so powerful.
But finally I can catch a short break.
I feel vibrations in my arms from launching spells so quickly in a row.
It feels like the bloody in my veins is on fire, but it doesn't really hurt.

I feel powerful, and so angry. But... it's a bit different from anger I experience in waking life.
It doesn't feel like I am controlled by my anger at all, it feels more like the the dragonic energy causes me to feel angry,
but without loosing control, and without properly despising anyone, more like a "state of mind to battle".
The power of my dragonic energy feels a bit like a combustion engine.
The harder I rev it, the stonger the vibrations, the anger and my power becomes.
But I have no idea how hard I can rev this energy through my body, the vibrations feel like they could be dangerous to myself if I overdo it.

If have many small cuts and bruises on my body, but nothing serious, but I can still feel the pain.
It doesn't numb down the way it usually does, but I somewhat enjoy it...
I enjoy the fear, the pain, the anger, the power, not knowing what will happen next, it is SO EXCITING!
The man emerges from some debris, he doesn't seem hurt very much, just a few small burns on his chest.

He smiles

"This may become an interesting fight after all."

He's extremely arrogant, acting as if I pose no challenge against him.
He summons two large snakes and sends them to attack me from left and right.
I can somehow remember moves, as if I suddenly had conscious access to my muscle memory.
I let the anger fuel me and concentrate energy into my right arm.
The dragon tattoo on my back has grown tribal extensions over my right arm which are now detaching from my arm, forming a glowing red whip.
The end is still attached to the tattoo.
I grab onto the whip and use it to kill both snakes with ease. It immediately turns back into the tribal tattoo.

I charge at him, but he summons a lot more snakes, too many to handle with the whip.
I concentrate my energy into both of my fists and hit the ground below me with both of them, releasing all the energy in the process.
The energy creates a burning shockwave which obliterates all the snakes attacking me.
I blink in front of him. Because he's so big I end up mid-air, and try to punch him in the face.
He blocks with an arm, and hits me in the face.
I can't block it, and I can't draw a barrier in time, but oddly enough his punch doesn't hurt that much.
I land on my feet without falling over.

Blood is leaking from my nose.
I lick it, looking at him, and I smile.

"You're right, this may indeed become an interesting fight after all"

That was a very arrogant move, but all this battle emotions make me so excited.
I feel that I'm strong, and I deserve to act like that, in fact I believe this is the proper etiquette when battling other beings of such strength.

I finally manage to probe his aura. He's way stronger than me.
Then again, my aura is a lot stronger than last time I battled.
I don't know what the difference in power between us is, but I feel like he's stronger, but I'm slightly faster.

He laughs hysterically.

"That's the spirit."
"NOW BRING IT ON AND DIE!"

I power up even further. The energy revs through my body faster, I feel that I'm approaching the limit of my body.
My eyes start to burn up. I feel pressure and heat on them.
The sky turns into a dark red color, and the clouds turn into storms of fire.
I understand why this is happening:

Those who use the eyes of the dragon shall see the red sky burning, and so shall those who glance into these eyes.

We charge at eachother. He jumps up high, trying to slice me with his katana from above.
I can feel so much energy emitting from his blade. I can never let it touch my body.

I instinctively jump up as well, trying to meet him mid air, to clash our swords.
But... I don't have my katana? Why did I jump?
But then I realize why. My katana... I have been searching for it... but it has been with me all along.
It is a sword made specifically for me, to be used by my powers: those of a dragon.
This is why it was forged using a bit of the essence of my own dragonic energy.
This sword has a spirit... and as such I can hide it by depositing it within the fabric of space, which only very few beings can access.
And this is where it is... where I left it years ago as a child... everywhere yet nowhere.

We're both approaching each other in the air, closing in for the kill.
I call out into the fabric of space for my katana, and it materializes in my hands.
It is so full of energy, I must have left it like that.
We both swing our swords, time has slowed down to the extreme.
The blades clash, and release tremendous amounts of energy.
A small bit of his sword shatters, and fractures form all over the blade.
I notice a lapse in his focus and take the opportunity to blink and ram my katana into his heart.

Due to the speed of these actions, we land about 10 meters from eachother.
He's holding his damaged sword, and my hatana is lodged in his chest.

Yuya appears from a portal, ready to help me fight, but she quickly realizes just how strong my aura is right now.
She looks at me somewhat surprised. She was obviously worried sick.
The man jumps at me again, trying to finish me with his sword now that I have no blade to defend myself.
Yuya wants to act but I interrupt her with my thoughts.

"Don't be afraid... I got this..."

She stops...
I look at the man, who is halfway through his jump.
My katana is still full of energy, and lodged in his chest.
I give him a dark smile, to make him understand that he will now die.
I snap my fingers, and all the energy in my katana is released at once.
The man, whoever he was, is burned to dust by the energy, and his broken sword falls to the the ground and is shattered into pieces.
I catch my katana. It is very beautiful, but I'll have time to admire it later. I cast it back into the fabric of space.

I approach Yuya, slowly powering down. The sky turns back to its normal color, and the vibrations slow down.

"Are you alright???"
"Yes. Just a few bruises."

Considering my blood covered face and all the cuts, this may have been somewhat of an understatement.
She seems speechless.
She understands exactly how strong this man just now was.

"Sorry for making you worry, I was trapped in this place."
"It's.... it's all right... you're safe... but... how did you remember... these powers... and your sword?"
"I suppose all it took was to fight for real once."
"At least I think this was for real... was it?"

She goes back to her mysterious self, knowing that I am safe.

"Maybe... only you know the true limits of your abilities."

I feel absolutely amazing.
The feeling of overcoming such danger, of winning a fight against such a deadly opponent, the power I experienced just now.
But as the vibrations leave my body, my vision blacks out.

I wake up.
I feel extremely refreshed, full of energy, I feel like going for a run around the block right now.
But it's still a bit early for that...
I get up and start writing down this dream.
Screw taking notes and getting back to sleep, I don't want to forget a single detail...

I was taking a break from all the work I've had recently.
Just chilling out, watching some random episodes and movies. (Game of Thrones pilot, Dr. No)
Then I got tired and decided to take an afternoon nap.
I put my rather comfortable chair all the way back and listened to some ambient music with my eyes closed.
For some reason there was some Daft Punk in my playlist, I remember it because I was getting into SP whilst listening to:


The music slowly becomes muffled (I don't know if this is the right term), like if I was under water.
I know I'm about to enter a dream when I'm startled by the feeling of arms embracing me from behind.
Assuming that this is caused by SP I try to ignore the feeling, but when I notice a breeze of air on my face, I decide to open my eyes.
My vision is extremely blurry. I can only distinguish between different intensities of light, but I cannot see any shapes.

But then I feel the presence of Yuya. She's holding me from behind, these are her arms, and suddenly I feel very much at ease.
My vision sharpens and I notice I am riding a motorbike with Yuya.
We're on some sort of red planet. At first I think that we're riding in a red sand desert, but the bike has too much grip for the surface to be sand.
It must be some sort of stone with a sandy texture or something along those lines.

I don't really care much about my surroundings though, I'm very much focused on Yuya.
For some reason, even though I can't see her because she's sitting behind me, she feels even more real than usual.
I can feel her chest expand against my back as she breathes, for some reason this really overwhelms me.
She's resting her face on my left shoulder, and I can feel her breath against my neck.
I can even feel her heart pound very lightly.
I feel extremely good, ecstatic even.

I take a short look of my surroundings.
Besides the red planet surface, I see a red sky covered by some white clouds.
I'm a bit surprised, because my dreams usually feature cold colors. Blue, Green, Yellow are common colors in my dreams, but not Red, at least not so much of it.
There are weird animals flying in the sky. They look a bit like jellyfish, except they are waaaaay bigger, and well, float in the sky.
The bike I'm riding is futuristic, and definitely not of human design.
The dashboard is in an alien language, it consists of combinations of different geometric shapes.
I spot many triangles and circles.
The engine has much more torque than one would expect from a bike engine.
It's sound is also very deep and bassy. It's definitely a combustion engine.

I accelerate a bit, but not really by much. Testing out the bike doesn't really tempt me.
I just want to enjoy being so close to Yuya.
We keep driving like that for about a minute, sharing our thoughts.
But none of us really think of anything, our minds are blank and at peace.
Sharing this feeling is very refreshing.

Then I wake up. The transition out of the dream is very smooth.
I regret that these WILDs during afternoon naps don't last very long at all.
Nevertheless I feel very happy and refreshed.

non dream - lucid - non lucid

I haven't attempted a WILD in a long time because I don't get enough sleep as it is.
I woke up after about 5 hours of sleep this night, and realized that I could sleep as long as I wanted this day.
This sounded like a good occasion to try to WILD.
I was drifting in and out of split second dreams, having trouble to transition into an actual dream.
After some time I finally managed to properly calm down and transition though.


I open my eyes, and find myself in a weird bedroom.
A kings palace is what first comes to my mind, seeing the insanely big bed I'm in, and the luxurious Victorian decors.
I don't feel like wasting time though, I have a goal!
For some reason the dream feels immensely stable, I feel like I'll be able to stay for a long time.
I immediately teleport to Teraluna using my phoenix wings.

As I emerge from the fabric of space, Yuya is standing right in front of me, waiting for me.

"Ready when you are."

She knows what I am planning on doing. I remembered that Faye has helped me remember that in childhood dreams, I was wielding a very special katana.
We've already established that if I try to fight all out with a conventional weapon, the vibrations of my dragonic energy causes them to break.
I know that my old katana still exists, and that it was made specifically to withstand these vibrations.
But that is not the main reason I want it, I mostly want it because it is an item from childhood dreams, the idea of finding it again amazes me.

"How do we do this?"
"Only you can find the katana, but in order to do so, you must first remember it properly."
"Any suggestions?"
"Absolutely. We are going to venture into your past."
"We can do that?"
"Well, not exactly. We can't turn back time obviously, but we can relive your past to some extend."
"That sounds amazing!"

With no more than a wave of Yuya's hand, water emerges from a lake below us, and starts forming a portal on the bridge we are standing.
The water calms down, making the portal look like a mirror surrounded by a stream of water defying gravity.
It's quite beautiful, but it also feels weird and mysterious.
Maybe I find it mysterious because the mirror is reflecting everything besides ourselves.

We walk through it holding hands, and with just one step we are in a completely different location with no portal leading back.
I immediately get a very strong déjà vu feeling, I have been here before, a very long time ago.
We're inside an old stone tunnel. For some reason I know that it is part of a tower structure.
We start walking forwards, going through some stone rooms and more tunnels.
I note how real everything feels.
Walking barefoot, I feel the structure and humid surface of every single stone I step on, and the coldness within them.
The place smells old, wet, a bit like salty water, and I feel a light breeze on my skin.
My vision sporadically becomes unnaturally effective, allowing me to see the surface structure of stones very far away.
The place is old and broken down, it hasn't been maintained for a long time.

As we keep walking the déjà vu sensation becomes stronger and stronger.
Everything feels rather mysterious.

"We're here."

We enter a bigger room through a tunnel, and I get quite a bit of a shock.
There are three people standing in the middle of the room, but I immediately know they are not actually there, they are a projection of my memories.
One of them is a younger version of myself, probably 14-15 years old.
Then there's a past version of Yuya, although she doesn't look younger than she does now.
And the last person, holy shit! is that Selene?

Yes, I know it is her. She's only a little older than the younger version of myself, maybe 16 or 17.
She has long brown hair and is wearing some sort of leather armor.
She's also carrying two long knives.

The younger version of myself is wearing loose white pants and a white armless shirt.
He doesn't seem to be wearing the katana I'm looking for though, which I find a bit odd.

"Holy shit! Is that us and Selene?"
"Yes... let's follow them."

As we follow them I sometimes catch a glimpse of what this place looked like years ago around them.
My past self gets attacked multiple times by samurai covered up in black clothes, but he doesn't seem to have any trouble getting rid of them.
I was so confident back then, I didn't overthink things, I didn't hesitate. I just lived in whatever reality I was presented with without thinking about it.
Seeing myself like that is oddly amazing.

We enter a new room, which I identify as the center of the tower. The room has no ceiling, it goes all the way up to the end of the tower.
In the middle there's some sort of elevation. In the past version, there's a small table with a crystal on it there, but it isn't there anymore now.
My past self takes the crystal, but gets interrupted by some dark humanoid creature before he can escape.
Out of nowhere he summons a katana and cuts the creature into its face.
The creature is only barely able to escape its death.

This is the katana! this the one! It is very beautiful. It reflects the moonlight all over the room.
One side of the blade is engraved with a dragon, similar to the fire tattoo appearing on my back.
The other side is engraved with a bird, presumably a phoenix.
The illusion suddenly disappears, and I am alone with Yuya in the room.
I sense a presence and immediately power up.

The dark creature from the memory appears. He has a massive scar on his face from the katana cut years ago.

"Hyu... and there I thought you were dead."

I'm afraid, he seems to be very strong.

"You must fight..."

He teleports right in front of me and hits me in the stomach.
It hurts. The punch is so strong I am thrown a few meters through the air, right into a wall.
As I get up he is right in front of me, about to smash me with a twohanded sword.
It cuts into my left sholder, and I am barely able to teleport a few meters away.
Fuck... a split second and I would have been dead.
I need to focus, especially because this teleportation maneuvers are quite disorientating.

The wound on my left shoulder immediately stops hurting and the bleeding stops.
I focus on the creature as hard as I can. If only I had my katana right now...
He charges me again by teleporting right in front of me, but this time I am prepared.
As he tries to cut me with his blade I teleport behind him, just before he hits me, and I launch a ball of concentrated energy at his back.
It hits him hard and explodes.
The burning remainder of his clothes are scattered all over the room.
He has a massive wound on his back, but still faces me again.
He wants to keep going.

He laughs hysterically.

"It seems my end has finally come."
"Surrender!"
"I shall do no such thing. Finish what you have started years ago!"

For some reason I know he is right. I have to kill him, he needs to die.
He needs to pay for sins he committed years ago, and he knows it...

He charges me again, but this time I take the innitative.
Before he is able to teleport, I teleport myself towards him.
I slap him in the head with the back of my right hand, releasing as much energy as I can in the process.
The vibrations caused by the impact cracks his skull and most likely destroys his brain.
He falls to the ground dead and his remainders erupt into flames.

My shoulder starts hurting again, and there's a little blood coming out the rather deep cut.

"Now you remember the katana, now you know that it is more than just a memory."
"The rest is up to you."

Yuya approaches me and heals most of my wound using water magic.
I teleport us back to Teraluna...

non dream - lucid - non lucid

Ugh, what a busy week. I remember a lot of dreams, but for some messed up reason most of the good ones were on days
where I had to leave my house immediately after waking up, preventing me from writing them down properly.
This is what I remember from these dreams:


Destiny
I'm on board the Destiny, getting quite excited.
We're close to our destination, just one day to go.
My co-pilot aka first officer enters the cockpit.
We exchange looks and I feel quite weird.
I think we had sex earlier today. We've both been in this spacecraft for over 2 weeks,
so the sexual tension was strong in both of us and it must have just happened.
I remember that we decided that no-one should have sex during the mission to avoid potential issues within the team.
I feel bad for breaking a rule I was originally in favor of, but I'm pretty sure we're not the only ones who have done so.


Training with Liv
I'm on Teraluna teaching Liv how to fight more effectively with the help of Yuya and Faye.
Liv is stronger than I originally thought, but she's clearly nowhere close to Yuya or myself.
Liv's main problem is that she isn't very confident in her own abilities, and somewhat shy to use some of them.
Some of her abilities require her to dance in what I can only describe as a "sexy way".
This seems to be very uncomfortable for her.


What is a Dream Guide?
I'm hanging out with Faye. I'm having a rather interesting conversation with her about Dream Guides.
She's saying many quite complex things, but the basics I can gather is that according to her,
a Dream Guide is someone who's main role it is to help me achieve goals in my dreams.
She also explains that she is very different from Yuya.
She is mostly a projection of my subconscious and a little bit of something else.


Ice cream with Yuya
I'm on Teraluna with Yuya, at some kind of ice cream bar I guess.
I order the biggest chocolate sundae they have, and it is huge. o_o
It's served in a glass bowl shaped like a blossom.
We're sharing it, but I have no idea how we're supposed to finish this.

I eat too fast, like I always do, and get a massive brain freeze.
I am amazed that I am able to experience this pain so powerfully in the dream, so I deliberately resume eating too fast.
I get another brain freeze and say "Amazing!"
Yuya laughs and tells me that I am absolutely insane.
I say "I never claimed otherwise"


Oracle
I am in the past, in Greece I think, in some sort of temple.
Some women dressed in white tunics escort me through the temple to a surreal looking room.
There's a crack in the floor with colorful fumes streaming out of it.
I sit in my designated spot noticing that I am a women myself.
I become semi-lucid and call out to Faye asking her for help.
She appears disguised in a similar Tunic and tells me that I am an Oracle, and I need to help someone take an important decision.
I tell her I don't know how to do that, but she insists it's ok, because the fumes in this room will cause me to get high, which will help.
I indeed start to get quite high.

A women enters the room, with an extremely fancy dress. She must be very important.
She asks me something and I give an answer that feels right, but doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me, and sounds completely out of context.
For some reason she knows exactly what to do now though and leaves happily.
Then I get distracted by my own boobs and start fondling them. *cough*


False awakening
I get up, go to the bathroom, brush my teeth etc.
After getting dressed I get into my car, drive to university, and get stuck in a traffic jam on my way there for maybe half an hour...
I end up at university and hold a lecture for about an hour until I notice that something is off.
I wonder if I might be dreaming and think back and am easily capable of retracing my steps.
Nope, must be awake.
Then I notice Faye is sitting in my classroom.
I say "You've got to be fucking kidding me", realizing that I just had an insanely long FA.
Some students laugh at me. I'm pissed, and I ask Faye if I just got trolled by my own subconscious.

non dream - lucid - non lucid

I occasionally have dreams where I feel I am in the future.
For some reason in these dreams, I'm usually in LA California, even though I've never been to the US in waking life.
There is no actual indication that I am indeed in LA though, I just know I am.
This dream was extremely vivid, I haven't had such a vivid dream since I started being busy with school.


I wake up in my king size bed in my house in LA.
It has white pillows and white sheets and it feels very smooth.
The sun is shining through the extremely big window in front the bed.
The room is very bright.
I feel refreshed and get up. I'm only wearing boxers.
I go to the window and take a look.
The view is absolutely amazing, my house is on top of a hill, I can see all the way to the ocean from here.
I go into the bathroom and freshen up.
The bathroom is very big, and very modern and colorful.
I see myself in the mirror, I look good, I look happy. (and slightly older than I do now)

I leave my bedroom and go check on my pets.
I have quite a few parrots in a very big outdoor cage.
The door of a room leads directly into the cage, I go inside.
The cage basically consist of a whole room with a grid instead of a wall on one side.
There is sand on the ground and a lot of different plants for the parrots to sit on.
I can feel a fresh breeze coming in through the grid, it feels good.
I play with the parrots a bit and go downstairs.

Here I enter another room which I have transformed into a habitat for my lizards.
I own about a dozen bearded dragons, and they are happy to have such a big room all for themselves.
I don't stay in the room for too long, the heat and the bright lights needed for the dragons makes me dizzy quickly.

I walk inside the kitchen / living room to grab a drink.
The room is extremely big. This house is a true mansion.
I feel like I really belong here, I absolutely love this house.
I grab a drink of orange juice and exit the room to go outside.
I am now in front of the pool drinking the juice.
The pool is quite natural looking, it looks a bit like a spring feeding into a pond.

There are a few beach chairs in front of the pool, and a bar where I keep a lot of drinks.
I often have guests over, and the bar is a huge success.
I decide to just lie down on a chair and chill for a bit.
As I approach the chair I see a girl already lying there.
She's my girlfriend, we live together.
She has long orange/red hair, green eyes and a few freckles around her nose, wearing a white bikini with a red flower drawn on it.
She's so lovely... so beautiful. I am so happy that she's my girlfriend. I am going to marry this women one day... I love her so much.
She makes me a sign to join her on the chair and turns her back to me.
I join her and hold her in my arms.

Her hair is my face, it smells very nice... a bit like lavender.

"Good morning sweetheart, how are you?"
"Great! How are you?"
"I feel absolutely amazing, like life is too good to be real."
"Like a dream?"
"Yes, like..."

I'll be damned. I am dreaming!
I feel sad at first, I wish this was real, but then I realize how amazingly vivid this dream is.
I look at my "girlfriend", realizing I don't even know her name.
I can see the pores on her skin.
I can feel the heat of her body and of the sun.
I can hear the small waterfall in the pool.
I can smell her, even still taste the remainders of orange juice in my mouth.

Wow, this feels so real!
But what does this mean? Why do I dream about a future in California so often.

"Are you... real?"

I immediately realize that this was a stupid question.

"Of course I am, Hyu."

I think about trying to unsummon her, to see if she's real, but it feels wrong and I decide not to.

"Is this my future?"
"..."
"You're not going to tell me, are you?"
"It might be your future, it might not be."
"How so?"
"Everything is possible, after all destiny is governed by chaos."
"Even the slightest change will change the course of history, no-one can look into the future, we can only look into the past."

Well... she isn't a normal DC alright...

"So all future is uncertain because of the chaos theory?"
"Yes, but even though it is, time is relative."
"Future present and past, they're all the same."

I don't understand what she means.

"But how can the past depend on the future?"
"If this is the future, then by seeing this you will inevitable change your past and destroy this future by doing so."
"That is why you cannot see into the future. That is why destiny is chaos."

How true... I'm impressed that I can think this clearly even though I'm dreaming.
It must be because the dream is so vivid.

"Who are you...?"
"A girlfriend... a wife?"
"..."
"I am what can be, and as such, I am chaos."
"You are quite mysterious aren't you?"

She turns towards me and looks me in the eyes.

"Just the way you like it."

Her eyes immediately remind me of Yuya's.
They are different but they also have that infinite detail.
I don't think that this women is Yuya, but they have something in common, I can feel it.

"Tell me your name."
"That I cannot, because my name is a secret."
"Why?"
"Because it changes everything."
"It does?"
"Everything does, every bit of information, regardless of how benign it may seem changes your whole of reality."
"Why am I allowed to talk to you at all then?"

She smiles.

"Of course talking to me changes everything."
"Every dream changes everything, everything you experience will change you for all eternity."
"Then why can I not know your name?"
"I told you, it's a secret."
"But why?"
"Because I am keeping it one."
"Your curiosity is truly endless Hyu. And that's how it should be, that is how it needs to be."
"I love you Hyu."

Saying that she loves me overwhelms me with emotions.
I am not sure what to say, but I do love this women.
The feeling is so strong that it is only barely bearable.
She closes her eyes.

"Now kiss me."

I close my eyes and kiss her.
The feeling of love is so very strong that I don't even realize that the dream is slipping away.
I just want to hold her, for all eternity.

Then I understand that I've woken up and open my eyes.
I can still feel the heat of her body.
Oh how I wish she was with me, here in my bed.
But I don't feel sad that she's gone, I still experience this feeling of loving someone.
I know that it will probably last until the end of the day.

non dream - lucid - non lucid

I've had a lot of dream fragments related to this lately.
I dream them completely out of order, but they clearly belong together.
They're all non-lucid and play a few years in the future.
This is a try to connect them and fit them into chronological order, now that I feel I have enough fragments for everything to make sense.

• Working for NASA
  I own a company specializing in all kinds of modern computer toys.
  We mostly develop futuristic user interface hardware, but recently we've gotten into the development of air plane cockpits.
  Most companies want more modern hardware than what is currently used.
  It's not like our stuff is insanely more user friendly, but it looks much more futuristic and it isn't really more expensive than the traditional stuff.
  
  NASA hired us to design all user interface devices on a new experimental spacecraft.
  It's supposed to achieve high speeds using a small nuclear reactor powering experimental Magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters.
  This would allow traveling to close planets such as Mars in much more reasonable time frames.
  We're supposed to design everything in the cockpit, and all other interfaces all over the ship.
  We're also in charge of creating a simulator where pilots can train flying the spacecraft and to figure out what the most user friendly control to operate this thing are.
  
  NASA doesn't agree with some of my ideas. They prefer designs where the pilot has little control over the spacecraft for some reason.
  I don't understand this and most of my designs feature direct user input, such as a joystick to freely maneuver the ship.
  
  Although I'm not working for NASA directly, I still get to play with their stuff and I spend many hours in the simulator I'm designing.
  After some time we get the bad news.
  The government has canceled all funding for NASA, so the project is scrapped.
  This doesn't directly affect us since we get paid on a monthly basis, not on project success.
  I feel very sad though, I never understood why most people lost interest in space exploration after the first few Apollo missions, and now
  they're scrapping the whole program.
  ______
• Back to Europe
  I get a very interesting phone call from a company in Europe.
  They specialize in the development of nuclear fusion.
  The technology is solid, and produces clean renewable energy at an extremely efficient rate.
  However for some reason there exists nearly zero funding for this.
  I'm not sure if this is because it gets grouped in the "nuclear energy" category by the media and politics, which is stupid,
  or if there is some sort of conspiracy going on.
  The energy is clean, and the reaction doesn't produce hazardous radiation or any other dangerous by-product.
  
  Anyways, they want us to design the whole reactor controls and everything.
  They want a super futuristic look to help them finally convince the media that this is indeed the future of energy generation.
  This comes in handy because I was planning to move the company to Europe all along.
  The US military is pressuring me to work on fighter jets and similar things all the time, and it makes me very uncomfortable.
  
  After relocating to Switzerland I am working with said company on their reactor.
  They finally got the permission to build it. I also work on a supersonic airplane project.
  I enjoy working with everyone, they are not as secretive as the guys in America.
  They like explaining how all their stuff works and I get an immense insight into fusion reactions and supersonic airplane designs.
  ______
• Taking things into my own hands
  The fusion reactor is a huge success. Some people are still skeptic, but most governments are buying the green and renewable energy.
  I make a ridiculous amount of money on this project and also quite a bit on the supersonic airplane.
  I talk to the guys responsible for the airplane a lot because they also work for the ESA.
  I ask them how reasonable it would be to put a small fusion reactor onto a spaceship to power Magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters.
  They confirm that it would be much more reasonable than a nuclear reactor, and would save an insane amount of weight because you don't need
  the very heavy contamination to protect the crew from radiation.
  
  I tell him jokingly that I worked for NASA before and still have all the computer, simulator and user interface designs, we should get some sort of
  new project going.
  A few days later he comes into my office and acts quite secretive.
  He asks me if I was serious about those designs.
  I tell him we never officially sold them to NASA, so I still own all of them.
  He says I absolutely need to come to some sort of ESA meeting.
  
  I have to sign the biggest NDA I have seen in my entire life to enter the ESA meeting.
  It's over 200 pages long, I jokingly say that signing this feels like selling my soul.
  In the meeting I learn that the ESA isn't messing about.
  They have developed a technology that allows traveling faster than light, or rather work around the problems associated with approaching the speed of light.
  It's very technical and I don't understand most of it.
  It involves forming a bubble around the ship, it reminds me of Star Trek.
  
  Finally most people besides some company heads and ESA directors leave.
  I am requested to stay in the room.
  More technology is presented, and it is clear that the presentation is going towards a space ship project.
  It all sounds oddly reasonable, even though most involved technologies are somewhat experimental.
  
  The final problem that is mentioned is financing, ESA does not receive enough of it for a project of this magnitude.
  They want to do some small tests with drones followed by a manned mission into another solar system, using the FTL drive.
  I say that given my recent acquirements I'd be willing to develop all computer systems for free and even invest some money into the mission.
  A few more company heads follow this movement...
  ______
• FTL
  I am now working full time at a special facility used for this mission alone.
  It is absolutely huge.
  We launch the first FTL testing drone into space.
  I am sitting in mission control overlooking most of the technical systems.
  The drone is ready to test the FTL system.
  Everyone in mission control is extremely excited as we wait for the FTL countdown to run out.
  As the drone accelerates, our information becomes more and more delayed as it approaches the speed of light.
  All connections are quickly lost.
  But this was to be expected, we don't have technology to transmit information faster than light.
  The drone is supposed to fly ~1 light day within a few minutes, then stop and transmit a signal.
  If we have a position signal tomorrow we know it worked.
  ______
• Hyperdrive
  We've tested 3 drones now, each one with a better FTL system. The 3rd one worked absolutely flawlessly.
  The engineers have dubbed the system "Warp Drive".
  I have adopted this into the user interface for the spacecraft.
  The director is complaining about it, he says Warp Drive would be very appropriate due to the connection to Star Trek.
  I suggest calling it Hyperdrive instead. He seems pleased with that.
  ______
• Destiny
  All details of the project are clear now, and the ship is being built inside our facility.
  It uses a small but very powerful fusion reactor to power a new form of Magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters.
  It can generate an artificial gravity field, making life on board much easier, and enabling us to cancel out the extreme acceleration forces of the engine.
  Without this the passengers would be crushed by the g-forces during acceleration.
  It is also capable of atmospheric flight. It will fly into space by itself.
  This is actually necessary because it is way too big and heavy for a payload delivery system.
  It is also very solid, with a thick hull. This ship is not build around value for money.
  It looks very different than anything else we've send into space so far, compared to it everything looks extremely fragile.
  ESA plans a crew of 8 people for this mission.
  
  We're discussing the name of the ship.
  Someone suggests calling it "Ikarus", something about challenging destiny.
  I ask why not call it "Destiny" then? "Ikarus" has a bit of a negative vibe.
  ______
• Pilot
  I am playing around in the simulator.
  I often go into the simulator claiming to test stuff, but I'm actually picturing myself being a pilot on the mission.
  I bet everyone knows about it, but I don't care, it's way too much fun. I'm also quite good at it.
  
  The director intercepts me as I leave the simulator. He says we need to talk.
  We talk about how I know every detail about the ship, how I designed most of it.
  Then he says I have by far the best simulator scores, which surprises me a bit.
  He suddenly acts extremely serious.
  
  He offers me the position of captain on the mission, he wants me to fly the Destiny.
  My mind is blown, I immediately reply with "Yes!"
  He asks me if I'm sure, if I don't need to consider the risks.
  I tell him that this is absolutely not necessary, my decision is final and there isn't a doubt on my mind.
  ______
• Trouble
  The Destiny is nearing completion.
  All vital systems are installed, it's basically just missing the outer hull.
  But there is trouble. Some governments are voicing concern.
  The media throws some unreasonable accusations at us, that going faster than light might end the universe and whatnot.
  Telling them that we've already done it 3 times and the universe still exists does not calm them.
  I'm on some TV show defending against other random accusations, explaining why they make so sense.
  ______
• The Signal
  The director informs me that they have received a signal a few years ago, from an unknown source flying by earth.
  He shows me the data... it doesn't make any sense.
  According to the positioning of the source of the data it must have moved faster than light.
  It was broadcasting a specific position nonstop.
  The director tells me that it is assumed the signal was of alien origin.
  I finally understand why some governments are concerned with the mission, we are going to the location broadcasted by this most likely alien object.
  ______
• Lying
  Destiny is ready, so is the crew. The official launch is in 2 months, however we are actually going to launch in 2 days.
  I understand how governments are afraid of a mission that could potentially make contact with another species, but
  I really want to do this, and so does everyone else on the project.
  By faking a late launch date, and claiming that the construction of the Destiny isn't finished yet, we try to avoid the inevitable shutdown by the governments.
  ______
• Launch
  Launching the Destiny is incredibly easy.
  You just open the hangars of the construction facility and fly it out to space.
  This is why we were able to keep the launch date a secret until now.
  We haven't received any official "no-go" from any government, so technically launching isn't entirely illegal.
  We are going to get into trouble though, that much is clear.
  
  I'm sitting in the Destiny with my crew.
  I am the main Pilot, Nicole is my Co-Pilot. She had very good simulator scores and is a trained astronaut.
  She's never been to space though.
  There is an engineer on the crew to maintain the thrusters.
  The 5 remaining people are 4 scientists and a language/culture specialist.
  
  The hangar doors are open, everyone pointing a camera at the facility can now see that the construction is finished.
  We are fully fueled, ready to go, just waiting for the signal from mission command.
  The hangar is right at the end of a very long runway, so we can just roll out and launch.
  
  I'm very nervous when I get the signal to launch. Thankfully the process is entirely automated.
  We're slowly rolling out, after about 100m the MPDT engage.
  They are absolutely brutal, you can really feel how much power those things have even though they're operating below 0.1% of their capacity right now.
  They need to be though, the Destiny weights over 400 tons with fuel.
  I am really nervous as the Destiny finally takes off. It's not like I'm worried that something would go wrong, it's just the excitement.
  The ship climbs at a progressively faster rate and the thrusters become stronger and stronger.
  
  The beauty of starting to see the stars during the middle of the day calms me down though.
  I verify if everything is in order. Everything is perfect.
  We enter orbit and bring the ship into the correct position for the acceleration maneuver for FTL.
  ______
• Decision
  We're in orbit and in position.
  We have a video conversation open with mission control.
  They have just been told that we have to cancel the launch.
  We are ordered to come back down immediately. He obviously isn't pleased to announce this.
  Some official government type figure is with him demanding to comply immediately.
  They have voted a few minutes ago that the project is too dangerous... right...
  The mission director tells me to "try to cancel the acceleration maneuver".
  
  It is very clear what he's doing. The acceleration maneuver hasn't begun yet.
  He gives us the opportunity to say we cannot cancel it and continue on with the mission.
  I block communications and ask the rest of the crew if we should just go for it.
  Everyone agrees that we should.
  
  I enable the coms and tell the director that I am terribly sorry, but it is too late to cancel the acceleration sequence.
  The gov. guy gets really angry and demands that mission control remotely cancels the sequence.
  The director explains that this is impossible.
  Due to the nature of the mission, remote control would make no sense because we're out of reach most of the time anyways.
  The gov. guy is furious but accepts that he can't do anything.
  
  I activate the acceleration sequence. It is quite dramatic.
  Even though the artificial gravity field compensates most of the vibrations and the acceleration forces, it still feels extreme.
  We're being shaken violently and even though the ship indicates we are experiencing 3g of acceleration, it feels like much more, but it doesn't hurt the way more g's would.
  The acceleration maneuver lasts multiple hours. It is extremely tiring feeling such forces for so long.
  Finally, as we reach our wanted speed, the engines quiet down and the vibrations stop.
  We are now cruising about at many times the speed of light; the ship feels perfectly stable.
  Without looking outside you wouldn't be able to tell that we are racing at a mind-boggling speed.
  The outside looks very beautiful. The vision is distorted but very colorful.
  You just hear the gentle humming of the fusion reactor and the MPDT's working at very low power.
  We will arrive at our destination within approximately 2 weeks.
  Everyone is happy that everything worked out so far, and that we managed to actually pull it off.
  ______
• Travel
  I have had multiple dreams about the next 2 weeks.
  I'm either piloting the ship, which is basically just staring at instruments or doing some maintenance work on some ship components.
  So far everything is working fine, a few hiccups in diagnostics but that's about it.
  Nicole and I take shifts staring at instruments, even though if something goes wrong navigation wise, there's nothing we can do.
  You can't exactly make a course correction going many times the speed of light.
  I'm trying not to think about what would happen if the hyperdrive fails. The truth is no one knows, but it most likely wouldn't end well.
  We're all wondering what waits for us at the rendezvous point, or if there is anything at all.
  I think I'm the only one fully expecting something or someone to wait for us at the rendezvous point.
  I'm convinced that signal a few years ago was form an alien probe designed to catch the attention of species capable of FTL travel.
  
  I'm usually just sitting in my seat staring at what seems to be stars rushing by, wondering what's going to happen next.
  I occasionally glimpse at the instruments. They always display that everything is alright and that we're on the correct course.
  It's oddly boring, but the excitement of what waits for us keeps me entertained.
  I sometimes wonder what's currently happening back home.

non dream - lucid - non lucid

After the last rather special dream, I decided to WBTB and attempt a WILD the next night.
I really wanted to see Yuya again, I kept thinking about her when I went to bed.

________

The WBTB alarm goes off and I try to WILD thinking about Yuya.
Unfortunately I fall asleep...

... I'm walking... just walking... aimlessly.
There is no path, there is no ground, I'm just walking.
I get a sudden burst of awareness and my vision sharpens.
Clouds turn into objects and I can see that I am on Teraluna.
I have a hard time focusing on my surroundings, I zone in and out a few times until I manage
to stabilize the dream.

I'm talking to Yuya. She know's im stressed in waking life, so she made me special tea that will help me relax.
When I drink it, it "tastes relaxing".
I talk to Yuya about my last dream, about hovering through a galaxy full of pulsating stars...

"I want to show you something... come here..."

She sits on the ground and makes me a sign to sit in front of her.
As I sit down I feel very light headed, but also very relaxed, probably because of the tea.
Yuya takes a meditative pose and I mimic it.
I'm sitting right in front of her, facing her.
We both close our eyes and start linking our thoughts.

"Let go of your thoughts... let go of everything... I will guide you..."

Her thoughts become mine and my thoughts become hers.
Our consciousness start merging together.
With Yuya's help, I manage to free my mind of all thoughts and let go of all the muscles in my body.
My dream body is slowly falling into a state of perfect calm, like it is turning itself off.

I can feel Yuya's body touching mine, but I know we're sitting apart from each other.
Yet it feels like we are embracing each other.
After some time I realize that it is our minds that are embracing, not our bodies.
I feel my body completely turning off, it is slowly letting go of my "spirit" (I call it spirit, I don't know what else to call it... my mind? my consciousness? my soul?)
As my body turns off I completely loose perception not only of my surroundings but also of my emotions...

... I can see again, but it feels different from seeing. I am now a small cloud of pulsating energy, and so is Yuya.
I decide to call this form "spirit".
Yuya is very pure and blue, there are fine crystalline strings emitting from her center.
I am green and orange a complex, complicated, "worried" but gentle mix of colors.
My strings move around more nervously than her's.
Our spirits are touching, and we start moving into a direction.

I start seeing an infinite amount of other spirits, forming a spiral galaxy of energy.
I see many kinds of spirits. The spirit of a small bush of grass, the spirit of a tree, the spirit of a bird, and the spirits of many other beings.
They are all beautiful in their own way.
I understand that what I am seeing is the essence of life, it is what drives us, it is why we live...
We keep floating along some sort of path, our spirits are linked, we decide directions as one.

After some time our spirits detach, and I feel my dream body forming around me again.
I open my eyes and I am sitting on a huge green leaf. I am very small, and the plant the leaf belongs to is very big, it can easily carry my weight.
Yuya appears next to me, smiling like she always does.
I don't ask her any questions because there are none to ask.
What I saw is beyond my level of understanding, yet because our consciousness was merged, I caught a glimpse of it.

I am still in an extremely relaxed state and I don't feel like talking or doing anything at all for that matter.
We just sit on this leaf, enjoying the feeling of not thinking at all...


Notes:
I am not a spiritual person, but I do believe that we all have some sort of spirit or soul, depending on what you want to call it.
It doesn't make sense to me that our consciousness consists of only a neural network.
I'm not sure where those extremely relaxing dreams are coming from.
Maybe I'm longing for this relaxed state because I am stressed in waking life?