J.D.

27.02.2011

Shark Hunt (DEILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I was waking up from an unstable dream. I was almost completely awake, but didn't move. I ignored all input from my body (which was too warm) and concentrated on whatever I could visualise. I found a beach came easily. It was a beach I used to spend a lot of time at as a kid. It occurred to me that this could be a good opportunity to do the Jaws part of the task of the year- kill the shark. But first I had to struggle back into a dream. I imagined that I was barefoot. That way I could feel the sand on my feet, and could dig in with each step- giving great sensory input with which to fool my brain into a dream.

I got to the huge concrete pier at the end of the shore and climbed onto it. I paid close attention to how hard the concrete felt, and jumped around on it for a few seconds to anchor myself. The dream wasn't quite solidified yet, so I was able to force a boat to appear in the water beside the pier. More anchoring techniques. The boat was roughly the same size as the Orca, but was in slightly better condition. As I got close to it, I saw that it was captained by none other than Samuel L. Jackson. His first mate was one of my lecturers, Prof. O'Hare. I put the presence of SLJ down to having seen a particular .GIF which I'll link here if possible, but I couldn't figure out why O'Hare was here.



I stepped on board and the boat rocked dangerously. I sat down in a small tin bathtub which I judged to be near the centre of the deck and waited. Samuel L. Jackson unhitched the boat from the pier and started the engine. O'Hare offered me a dry cracker from a packet he had been munching from, which I accepted. We sailed out to sea, and the sky quickly got dark. It started to rain, then became cold. Next thing I knew, SLJ was shouting something (containing "motherfucker") and backing away from the side of the boat. O'Hare shouted for me to get "on the gun", and indicated a large harpoon-turret on top of the cabin, which I was sure hadn't been there earlier. I climbed up on the roof and looked down the sight of the turret just as an enormous shark reared its ugly head above the water. It was gargantuan. The mouth alone was about three metres across, and it wasted no time in chomping down on the front of the boat. I lined up a shot and pulled the trigger. There was a whoosh noise, the sound of something being hit and a shout of "Aaaaaarrghh!" I looked up from the turret and saw that the harpoon had gone disastrously off course, and was now stuck halfway through O'Hare's upper arm!

The boat turned violently, and I was thrown off the roof of the cabin into the water. As I fell, I saw Samuel L. Jackson at the wheel, dripping with sweat, trying to get the boat to speed up. It sped off, and the shark began to follow. I grabbed its fin as it passed. Strangely, the shark was oblivious to me, an easy meal, clinging on quite close to the side of its mouth.

Some frantic music started to play as the shark persued the boat at high speed. I looked around under the water and was amazed. We were in an area I knew. It was a coastal town, but it was now completely submerged. We were swimming around shops and houses I knew well. I tried to mess with the shark, and tugged its fin. This sent it off-course dramatically, and several times I was able to steer it directly into buildings and archways. This chase (with me as shark-saboteur) went on for a while, then the music stopped. I worried, thinking this might signal the end of the dream, and I hadn't yet killed the shark! I let go of its fin and rose quickly to the surface. I held out my arms and telekinetically brought the shark with me- pulling on the dorsal fin. When we rose above the water into the air, I threw my arms wide apart and the shark exploded into a thick red mist. I looked around and heard a buzzer. It was my alarm, waking me up in time for a driving lesson.

Or so I thought. I woke up, but my body barely worked. It was like all energy had been drained from my muscles. The feeling was familiar from older dreams, so I checked my hand. But my vision was so blurry in general that I could barely see it!

03.02.2011

Try Jaws (WILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I was exhausted and had the oportunity for a WILD, so I went for it. I lay on my back, head to one side, with my hands on my front. Before I drifted off I reminded myself of the task of the year. The part I wanted to try was to kill the shark from Jaws.

There were a few strange noises as I lay there. Bangs and whispers that were far too close to have been real. Sleep paralysis came on from my legs. It spread out in a wave over my whole body and receeded a few times before it stuck. My head felt like it leant back an inch or so, my right leg lifted of its own accord. I feared I might wake up because my left arm slid off my body. However I suspected it was just a very real hallucination. It was. The hand was still on my stomach when I woke up again later.

I "woke up" at the top of a street near my house. It was night, but the roads were busy. Looking downhill, I could see Belfast Lough. The first thing to do, I reasoned, would be to find a boat with which to go shark hunting. I jumped into the air and flew down the street hoping to find one. I did. It was attached to the towbar of a big 4x4. Unsure how to get the boat to the water (about a mile away), I got on board to look around. I tried to levitate it, or push it in the right direction, but nothing was working. Looking back now, I think I know what went wrong. I was too lucid, and being too ambitious. I knew too well that nothing around me was real, which caused it to take on a blurred quality. From there, my stability and control went down the shitter. I should've taken it more slowly and done some stabilising techniques.

The dream went on for much longer, punctuated by several false awakenings. I tried to get to water or find a boat many times, but always ended up having the same problem.

When I was exasperated for the last time, I very deliberately looked right and left a few times to try and replicate LaBerge's signalling from within the dream experiment. Although, I had to way to measure to see if it worked.