memorable

05.03.2010

Fully Lucid Zombie Pwnage (DILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

This dream led on from the previous one. I definitely woke up in between and fell back to sleep normally.

I was with a group of about four people, walking along a rocky lane in the country. There was a rickety wooden fence at the side of the road, and a field going uphill at the other. There was one other man, a middle-aged woman with browny/red hair, someone else I can't remember, and my friend Darren. It was late evening, and getting quite dark when I heard sirens coming from behind us. I turned to look. In the distance I saw a crowd of people running down a hill onto the road, persued by several police cars. Darren panicked, automatically assuming the police were going to arrest him, so he took off running. As the crowd reached us, I stepped aside and sat on the fence to make it clear to the persuing officers that I was not with them. Right as they got to us, the crowd collectively changed direction and headed into the field. Then they stopped. The police cars drew level with us and stopped. They got out and looked at us. I felt very uncomfortable because none of the officers or indeed the crowd were making any noise, just staring at us. Then, all at once, their eyes went completely white, dead-looking.
"Fuck!" I yelled. "Zombie trap!" The crowd jumped out of the field and together with the police officers, advanced on us. Our group hopped over the rickety fence and ran downhill. I hoped everyone else would keep up and stay together, as I kind of felt responsible for their safety. We came to a tall, barbed-wire fence, on the other side of which was what looked like a prison. We started to climb, but it was slow going as it was difficult to hold on to. The guy with us (whose name escapes me) said,
"Is it possible these people are just yanking our chain and aren't actually zombies?" I looked down at the baying hordes trying to get a grip on my ankle and said,
"Not a chance." The top of the fence was particularly spikey, but my self-preservation instinct was much stronger than my desire to not cut myself on it, so I grabbed it and hauled myself over. It was then that I realised I wasn't hurt at all. I felt no pain when grabbing the viciously sharp wire. I did a hand reality-check, and said, "Of course it's a dream! Come on!" I gestured to the group to follow me. We ran across the grass towards the prison, and then locked ourselves in the first out-building we came to. Every building looked like it was made of rusty iron. I made sure the door was locked, then made sure everyone was still with us.



Right here I woke up. I wasn't done there by any means, so I went for a DEILD. I visualised myself going over to a table where the browny/red-haired woman was sitting. I paid close attention to the pressure of the ground on my feet. Then I picked up a sheet of paper and slowly ripped it up, listening closely to the sound, and feeling my arm muscles moving. Overall, it was probably the least effort I've ever put into a DEILD, and was the easiest yet.

The scene solidified, and became "real". The woman looked up at me strangely.
"I'm back," I said. "That was a dream-exit induced lucid dream. Good eh?" She grinned. I immediately got to work trying to find weapons of mass zombie destruction. The little building didn't have much to offer, except a gas canister. I'd seen Dawn of the Dead, and now had a plan in mind. I picked up the canister and went to the door. There was a window on the door's top half. I looked out to see that most of the zombies were congregating on a grassy area in the middle of the facility. It looked like morning. A female zombie was searching for us, looking round corners and squinting through grimy windows. As she approached the door I burst out and clunked her on the head with the canister. She looked to be dead. I strode purposefully to the centre of the zombie crowd and held the canister high.
"Hey everybody!" I yelled. "Food!!" Every single undead head in the area turned towards me as I threw it on the ground. Incredibly, they fell for it and started piling on. I took several steps back and waited. From the sidelines, I could see cracks appearing in the canister, and gas hissing out in liquid and gaseous form. Then I realised I had no way to make it explode. No matches, no gun, nothing. I would have to use some dream powers. I concentrated hard on the barrel, imagining it to be incredibly volatile and delicate. I held out my arm slowly and snapped my fingers. BOOM! Combustion! The force of the blast knocked me off my feet. Any zombies who weren't now minced by the explosion were thrown back too. I got up faster than any of them, ready for some hand-to-hand combat. The first woman I came across had already been badly damaged by flying shrapnel, and I clotheslined her head off. A large man came charging at me, and I rock-bottomed him onto the bonnet of a brown car nearby. His head smashed through the windscreen.

I can't remember exactly what happened next, but I decided to have another go at time travel. I wound up back in the suburban neighborhood from the previous dream, and asked the old man if I could try his time machine again. He agreed, and I sat down in the green chair once again. I noticed that my legs were very uncomfortable for some reason, and I shifted position many times. Turned out, my legs were sore in real life, and woke me up!

05.03.2010

Supernatural Investigation and Searching for a Time Machine (WILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Lately, I've been watching a lot of the TV show "Supernatural" online. This dream was structured not unlike an episode! I might not have been lucid from the very start of this dream, but I can't remember that far back, or the transition into the dream.

I had teamed up with Sam and Dean Winchester, and we were conducting an investigation in a small rural town. Whatever/whoever we were hunting was holed up in a petrol station, and we were on the roof- ready to enter through a vent and kick some ass. It was a cloudy, drizzly day, and as I silently opened a hatch, I was glad to be getting inside. I lowered myself carefully into the vent with both hands, and positioned myself on my knees, hunched over and gun ready. As soon as my full weight was settled, the vent collapsed around me and fell into the shop. I ended up sprawled on my back on top of a counter, surrounded by men with guns. Luckily Sam and Dean immediately opened fire from above, distracting the guys who would otherwise have plugged me. I did a backwards roll off the counter and took shelter. I had lost my gun in the fall. Bullets whizzed past my head in all directions, and the blasting of gunfire so close to me was disorienting. Finally, the shooting stopped and I poked my head up.

Sam and Dean were now downstairs with me, pointing their guns at a pile of rubble next to a freezer, where the last guy was hiding. I got up and picked up a sawnoff shotgun from the floor.
"Come on out!" I said. The guy nervously stood up with his hands in the air. He then treated us to a whole monologue about not measuring up, and finished by telling us he was going to kill himself by lethal injection. He produced from his pocket an injector-gun, which had about seven capsules attached to the side. He shot himself up three times before I wrestled the injector off him. After a quick examination, I somehow inferred that it was "Hulk Juice". One dose was apparently enough to turn you into The Hulk! I could see the dude was already bulking up and turning green, and by the time he reached nine feet tall, I decided on the only possible form of defense. I shot the remaining four doses directly into my chest. I reasoned that, having taken more, I would be a stronger Hulk. Right away I felt the serum reacting with my body. My chest felt tight, but I could see that it was in fact bulking up at an alarming rate. It felt like I was made of rocks. The feeling quickly spread to my arms and legs, all the way to my fingertips- which ended up the size of baseball bats. I realised I had an enormous armspan, like four metres- and I could stretch even farther. I punched the slightly smaller Hulk in the top of the head to begin the fight. I can't remember much about what happened next, we broke through the wall of the petrol station and I remember chasing him up a narrow street.



The next section of the dream played out like another investigation. This time I was on my own in suburbia, investigating a case of a dog which was actually a human in disguise. There was one particualar chihuahua which I reckoned looked particularly human-like, so I kept an eye on it. I was sitting at a kitchen table talking to a homeowner who was making me tea, staring at the dog. It noticed me and ran out the back door.
"Hold that thought," I said to the woman and ran after it. It ran along the street and jumped over a very noticable pothole, filled with water. I made a point to stand right in it. The water disappeared to reveal a bottomless hole. I deduced that the dog was leading people to their deaths by making them fall in. I became lucid after doing a hand reality-check out of the blue. I was extremely aware, and even remembered the task of the year on Dreamviews. The remaining six parts would all be much easier if I had access to a time machine. It's really hard for me to teleport or change scene on my own, so I reasoned that letting the dream do the work might work better for me.

I took a running jump and glided up onto the roof terrace of the first house I saw. The residents were having a barbecue with some neighbours. I landed among them, and was tempted to just sit down and enjoy some ribs (they smelt fantastic), but I'd been neglecting the tasks lately. I greeted the guy I assumed to be the host, and asked him straight out,
"Have you got a working time machine I could use?" I asked him in a serious manner, in a way that showed I expected it to be a realistic request. He said,
"No, sorry, I don't. But my nextdoor neighbour does, why don't you go ask him?" I was pleased with this response. I hopped off the roof and into next door's back garden, where I saw the neighbour in question. He was an old man tending his garden. I asked about the time machine, and he seemed very pleased that it was going to get some use. He explained that his family rarely made use of it. He led me to the garden shed, against the back fence.
"Go ahead, knock yourself out," he said, gesturing at the door. I opened the door and stepped inside. It was very small, and what little floor space it had was taken up by a thick green armchair, sitting at a desk. Below the desk was an enormous old desktop computer. It had a few purple lights on it, and was connected to a dusty monitor on top of the desk. I pressed the only button I could find, the main "power" button on the computer. It booted up instantly and started to work.
"Where or when do you wanna go?" the man asked from behind.
"Back," I said. "I want to go back 65 million years."
"Say whaaat??"
"Don't ask," I chuckled.
"Okay, input here," said the old man, handing me a number pad. I pressed the "minus" button at the top, then six, five, zero zero zero, zero zero zero, enter.
"Good luck!" he shouted, and shut the door. The screen came to life. It displayed a weird animation I can only describe as several coloured balls rolling through a black tunnel. It looked a bit like guitar hero in reverse. I concentrated intently on the visualization, but sadly I woke up!

15.02.2010

Being a DC (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I've often wondered about the nature of dream characters, or DCs. Are they manifestations of subconscious desires, real people you meet on the "astral plane", artificial intelligence created by our mind but nonetheless "real", or simply meaningless characters like those in a video game. My personal view lands me somewhere between those last two options.

This was an peculiar dream which gave me a greater appreciation of and interest in DCs.

A man who I vaguely knew (not in real life) was going to die, and his doctors had decided to put him in a coma in order that he could live out his remaining hours in a "lucid dream" state. I was at his bedside with a few of his friends when they put him in the coma, and I then shared a taxi home with them. Before we left, the doctors told us that he would not wake up again, and it was an absolute mathematical certainty that he would die in a couple of hours. We were driving past (of all places) my old school, when I thought I saw him outside on the footpath. I made the driver stop the car, and the three of the man's friends and I got out to look. Sure enough, it was him. He was standing at the side of the road, just staring as if deep in thought.



We were about to go over and talk to him to see what was going on, but I put out my arm to stop the others.
"Wait," I said. "Didn't the doctors tell us that there was no chance he was going to wake up, the condition is irreversible et cetera? Logically, if he is here, seemingly fine, then this must be his dream!" The others thought for a minute, then slowly came to the same conclusion I had. There was no room for shades of grey in this dream, if something was stated as fact, it was. So using the facts I had been given, I formed the only logical conclusion. I was someone else's DC. I checked my hand, but it seemed normal.
"Of course it's normal," I thought. "Dream characters aren't supposed to be able to tell they're only part of a dream, but some of the smarter ones do work it out." I may have been on the cusp of a major epiphany about life here...

I also concluded that my entire life, memories, experiences had not really happened, except to me- and that my life was basically meaningless. This was not the depressing thought I expected it to be. I accepted it, and wondered whether I should inform the man that he was dreaming. In the end I made up my mind that I should. If he was lucid, he would have a much better time, I was sure of it.

It is true, dreams can have a profound effect on how you view life and reality. -Even if it's just an interesting thought exercise.

10.02.2010

Ice Ice Baby (DILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

This was an odd dream, where I was lucid from the start and just kind of went with it. The earliest part I can remember is emerging from below deck on a sailboat. It was a clear night, and I was alone on the boat. Looking over the side, I could see that the boat was moving extremely fast. There was no wind, and the boat left very little disturbance in the water behind it.
"Who's steering this?" I thought. Right then, the boat veered off course and headed straight for a mysterious rock wall in the middle of the sea- which rose up out of nowhere. I charged back to the steering wheel and spun it hard to the right, just in time to avoid the rocks. Unfortunately it then went into a spin, and by the time I had lined up the wheel again, I had crashed into an ice shelf.

I might have woken up here. There's a bit of missing time, but the next thing I remember is chronologically right after the previous paragraph.

I climbed down the front of the boat onto the ice. It was now daytime, and the reflection of the sun on the ice was making everything seem very white. I stumbled on, and lost lucidity after a bit. I soon arrived in a small town. One minute I was in a frozen wasteland, then I glanced up and there were wooden buildings all around me. It looked a bit like an inuit settlement. I saw a vending machine through a frozen shop window, and went inside to take a look. For some reason, the vending machine sold not food, but DVDs. I "recognised" one of the movies (which, when I woke up, realised did not actually exist), and tried to buy it unsuccessfully. The machine was full of ice. The shop attendant walked up beside me, and we had an interesting conversation. I can't remember the details, but it turned out he was some sort of demon/vampire fellow. He explained that (whatever he was) were very misunderstood, and proceeded to show me some of his special abilities. He could phase through solid objects, and levitate himself as well as things around him. The demon guy spotted a friend of his pulling up outside in a black truck. We went outside to talk to him. I was introduced, then the friend began to tell us something important. Right as he started talking, a huge angry cop came out from behind his truck and shot him with a strange kind of tranquilizer. It fired a tiny needle (which found its target in the truck-owner's neck) which injected a freezing agent. The man froze solid from an expanding area around his neck. He tried to run away, but the slowing effect of the ice eventually stopped him dead. The cop laughed cruelly and turned to the demon guy and I. He said something terribly offensive to me (which I cannot recall now) and shot me with the freezer gun. He got me right in the chest, and I quickly felt the tight, slowing sensation of the ice spreading out to my limbs. Then I realised that the very idea of a "freezer gun" was absurd. I was still icing up, so I used all my strength to get over to the cop and grab his arm. I forced all the coldness in my body down that arm, transferring it to him. He froze like an ice cube in a couple of seconds, his face frozen in anger. Free of the slowing effect, I used my newfound strength to punch him in the stomach. He snapped in two, then the two pieces hit the ground and shattered.



The demon guy looked at me strangely.
"I guess you must be a demon too!" he laughed. "Follow me." He ran up the street lightning fast and I found I was able to keep up with him. Next, we took off into the air. It started raining. The rain was quite warm, and made of small droplets. We flew around in the rain for a few minutes. The feeling of the droplets hitting me was incredibly real. I looked down, and saw that all the snow had melted. The snow's absence revealed grass and bright flowers.

10.02.2010

End of The World (MILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I was thinking about the task of the year before I went to sleep, particularly the "End of the World" part. I wondered how I could logistically get to the future and have the world end. This caused my first (uninentional) MILD. I couldn't think of anything lying in bed, but luckily my subconscious did the work for me.
The earliest part of the dream I remember is watching the planets revolving around the sun. They were nowhere near to scale- all the planets were far too big and far too close to the sun, but what the hell. I looked at the Earth, and out of the corner of my eye (if I had eyes, I can't recall any sort of body), saw a huge chunk of rock drifting closer and closer. It wasn't a conventional comet- what it reminded me of was a shot of a Star Destroyer from the start of one of the older Star Wars movies. It was that kind of flat-ish shape and very long. Far larger than the Earth. I became very alarmed.
"Didn't the people on Earth know about this? How could they miss it? Ohhhhh..." I became lucid when I realised what was about to happen and remembered the task. From my vantage point, I watched with a kind of morbid interest crossed with dread. To my surprise, instead of obliterating my beloved planet, the Star Destroyer-shaped comet glanced off the Earth's atmosphere. It hit the atmosphere at an angle of about 10 degrees, and just "bounced off", now floating in the direction of the sun. A strange side-effect of the near miss was to knock the Earth out of its normal orbit. The "bounce" effect had some sort of recoil. It didn't make an enormous difference to the Earth's orbit, it was now just circling a bit closer to the sun.

I vaugely wondered,
"If this is the end of the world, what's going on?" I glanced over at the sun just in time to see it envelop the comet. I felt that something awful was about to happen, and right then, a solar flare started to form. Its arc covered the entire face of the sun on the side the comet had just entered, and built in intensity until it formed a circular shape larger than the sun itself. Then it was released. The wave of orange light flew directly at the Earth in its new orbit. As it hit, my POV zoomed in on Australia, of all places. I could see Sydney's distincive opera house, and the sea beyond. The wall of orange light blasted into the sea in sections. One blast would hit the sea, instantly vaporize all the water, leaving a gaping chasm surrounded by water. These chasms were only visible for a split second before the surrounding water filled them in. On land, it was a similar story. Buildings, roads and uninhabited areas were obliterated, entirely burning off the outer layer of the Earth's crust, bit by bit.



For the rest of the dream, I lost lucidity and became one of the few people left alive on a deserted island East of Australia.

08.02.2010

Gladiatores Pugnant! (WILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

This one was actually made up of the initial WILD, then countless DEILDs, but for the sake of neatness I'll keep them all in the same entry.

I was sleepy this morning, so I tried to WILD. I lay on my back for, I'd say, 25 minutes before switching to my right side. It was only about 5 more minutes after that before I got into a dream.

I had a FA in my old house. It was a sunny day, and the curtains were open in my bedroom. I went straight to the window, opened it, and climbed out. Standing on the roof, I looked up and down the street, just taking everything in. It really amazes me sometimes. I was still wearing my dressing gown, so I took it off, then floated down to my front garden. I got distracted by taking a detour round the side of the house, finding it strange that the side gate was open. I floated back onto the roof, and sat down with my back against the chimney. I could feel the rough bricks against my back very clearly. After some pondering, I remembered the task of the year. I had been thinking about it before I got to SP. With a gladiator fight in mind, I thought about a way to change scene to Ancient Rome. I jumped off the roof and landed in the back garden. A big red plastic bucket (about 3 feet in diameter) I used to own was sitting in the long grass near the back fence. I approached it, trying to convince myself it was one of the pipes from Super Mario which would drop me out in the sky above the Colloseum. There was water in the bucket. Without hesitation I dunked my head in, and the rest of my body followed. It was (as always) a bit surprising to find I could breathe underwater. On the bottom of the bucket were some stones. I focused on one which was vaugely Colosseum-shaped lol and tried to imagine that it was the Colosseum- I was just far above it. I tried to think of all the other stones as buildings and the spaces between them as roads. I wasn't getting anywhere, so I shut my eyes and did a somersault, hoping that when I opened my eyes, I would be falling towards the Colosseum. As I did this, I shouted,
"Rome!" Unfortunately, I woke myself up.

I wasn't quite awake, but was back in my body seeing nothing but blackness and feeling SP. This has come up a few times before- I like to think of it as the "loading program" for DEILD's, like from The Matrix.

I had a view of a scene for a second, like I was looking through a peephole. I concentrated on the sand on the floor of the Colosseum (think Gladiator), rubbed my hands in it, and soon felt integrated enough to stand up. I was in the Colosseum all right, but it was night time, and the floor area was slightly smaller than I expected. There were people standing all around me, looking up at the crowd. They were all carrying weapons of some kind, but not much armour. The most anyone had was a helmet.



Suddenly, a klaxon sounded. It was a really horrific noise, lasting two seconds, coming from some unearthly instrument. At its sound, the gladiators in the arena drew their weapons and charged at each other. The crowd roared. I reached down by my sides and pulled out two scimitars.
"Haah!" I laughed. I was still in my dressing gown. I ran forward into the nearest bunch of fighters, slashing wildly. I don't even know if I got anybody, but after a minute the survivors ran off.

I paused to indulge in some victorious sword-twirling, but dropped one. I sheepishly threw the other one down beside it, hoping the crowd would think it was deliberate.

I had a FA then, in my bedroom. My TV was switched on, which is unusual becuase it has no aerial input, and the DVD player doesn't work. I sat up in bed, too aware of this oddity to be fooled into non-lucidity. I wanted to examine what was on carefully, to determine whether or not I was hearing the TV from downstairs or something. The first thing was an ad for PKR. The ad's audio claimed that it was PokerStars, but I recognised the sims-like graphics of PKR. It was one of those ads which makes online-poker look really cool. One female player put in a big raise, and the grey-haired dude to her left raised his eyebrow suspiciously before confidently calling her bluff to win the hand. Then Glee came on, a show I've never really been interested in. One of the main characters was sleeping on a pile of bedclothes on the floor. Her friend came in and woke her up. What convinced me that I was not in fact hearing the TV from downstairs, was that she called the main main character "Glee". I knew this to be bullshit, since the name "Glee" comes from "Glee Club"- which I understand to be a nerdy persuit in High Shool. (Thanks to Weird Al)



I half-woke up again, and visualised being back in front of the TV, drumming on the stand. I ended up a few feet back from the TV, with an awesome redhead sitting on my lap. She showed me a good time.

After another DEILD, I found myself lounging on my bed talking to some friends. Well, I tried to talk but couldn't make any noise without (I reckoned) waking myself up. The curtains were closed, giving the room an orangey glow. I skipped forward and wound up in the back seat of a car with three of my friends. I tried to get a certain hot girl I know to appear beside me, but I only managed to spawn an ugly 15 yr old girl. :S I don't think I was 100% lucid here, because I got a "false memory" implanted somehow. Apparently I had just been camping with this group of friends.

I woke up yet again, and my whole body felt seriously heavy, like it was made of stone. I think I'm getting better at holding on to dreams. To get back in again, I "felt" myself typing random words, which just formed up in my subconsious. Some of them were complete jibberish, and they certainly didn't make any sense as a sentence. However I distinctly remember typing the word "Personality".

In another DEILD, I heard a very distinctive, high-pitched whine. It seemed to be coming from my brain itself, and felt like a vibration. Hard to describe. I focused on it until it became almost deafening, and made me extremely dizzy. I found myself in the living room, and decided to go visit my friend Lucy from down the street. I ran and headbutt-dived through the front window as I did once before, and headed out of the driveway. I accidentally knocked my shin against the wall on the way out which actually hurt a bit!

I was eventually woken up by someone knocking the door downstairs. I heard it from within the dream, which made me focus too much on the waking world. When I awoke, I found a massive pool of drool under my face.

03.02.2010

Skydiving!! (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Awesome dream.

I was on holiday with about 30 other people. We were sitting around a swimming pool under parasols. I can't remember much about this part. The next thing I remember is one of the holidaymakers, who was a professional animator, knitted a hot air balloon in about 20 seconds. It was a strange design, made of wool, and it could carry all of us. We were all attached to harnesses which were then attached by ropes to the balloon section itself. (Diagram below!) In the beginning, the balloon was no more than a big flat pile of wool we were all attached to, but it lifed up from the middle, and rose up in the air very quickly.


M=Me, D=Donovan


Soon we were miles high, and I could see for hundreds of miles around. The ground was largely green, with a few small towns, and two mountains in the distance. The guy piloting the balloon was called Donovan. He was roped on at the very bottom middle, where the basket would normally be. He shouted,
"Everyone ready?" and everyone replied,
"Yes!" He pulled a cord, and the balloon split. We were in freefall. 30 of us, roped together. It was the most exhilerating experience ever. (makes me want to do real skydiving) The ground was spinning far below us. For a few seconds, I went into a head-first dive. It became scary, so I closed my eyes. Then I thought closing my eyes was a waste of the view, so I opened them again.

It was then that I realised I didn't have a parachute. In fact, no one did, except Donovan. Apparently the plan was for him to open his own parachute, which was big enough to take all of us. We fell closer and closer to the earth. I could see individual houses quite clearly.
"Donovan, NOW!" somebody shouted. Still he waited. I thought,
"This could very well be it, I might die here." The thought was strangely liberating. It looked like we were going to land in a large field near a village. Right at the last second, Donovan pulled the ripcord and the parachute opened. Since he was a few metres below me, and there was a few metres of rope between him and me, I had to fall another 7 or so metres before I felt the almighty tug of the parachute and I was saved from death only a metre above the ground. I slammed into the grass with quite some force nonetheless, but my ass took the impact. A few others weren't so lucky, as all around me people thudded straight into the ground. They got up unhurt, and I was ecstatic from the experience.

28.01.2010

Forgotten DEILD (DEILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

this morning, I remember doing a DEILD. However, I can't remember the dream itself! I was lying on my left side, visualising a dreamscape I had just left- a grassy gnoll near my dad's house.

I was comfortably in the stage where I was actually "seeing" the scene rather than just imagining it, and I thought to myself,
"Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about," before my memory goes blank.


Warning: tangent...

This got me thinking about how the brain creates our reality. Now I'm no neuroscientist, but that doesn't stop me hypothesizing! When we see things, sensory information is sent from the eye to the brain, where the brain processes it all, allowing us to "see". But when we are recieving little/no sensory input (ie during sleep), surely the brain can still do its processing? In fact, I think the senses are not completely essential for the creation of a reality by the brain. When I was trying to DEILD, it felt like I was "seeing". Of course, my real eyes weren't involved at all, the scene was created from my imagination. The brain will still be firing the same neurons, doing the same processing as it would if it was getting the input from my eyes rather than my imagination. I highly doubt this is making any sense at all, hopefully someone knows what I'm getting at, even if I can't word it...

I guess my concluding thought would be: how different are dreams from reality? A quotation from Morpheus springs to mind,
"If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."

27.01.2010

Missed Opportunity! (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

This dream was long and detailed, but I don't have a lot of time, so I can't write it all out. One part which stood out for me was the most ridiculous way I've missed becoming lucid ever.


Idiot

My dad was giving me a lift to my friend Hugh's house, which is about a 15 minute drive away. He somehow got there after 30 seconds, having only turned two corners and gone via a town 60 miles away. Later in the dream, I was telling some friends about the ride,
"It was amazing, like magic or something!" I laughed. My own stupidity astounds me...

09.01.2010

Wreaking General Havok (WILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

WILDed my ass off today! There were about ten to fifteen short LD's, where I accomplished some good stuff.

The first thing I remember is being in a situation I didn't want to be. I'm not quite sure what it was, but I thought about myself lying in bed for a second, then rolling to my right. I imagined that once I stopped rolling, I would be where I wanted to be. I rolled very fast, so fast I was rolling about three revolutions per second. When I stopped, I wasn't in the place I planned, but what looked like a fancy hotel restaurant. There was a bar, and lots of brown settees, where suited-up dudes sat around talking. I reckoned it was like a school formal. I looked down at myself, and found I too was wearing a suit. I levitated, and floated down some stairs to see what was going on in a certain seating area. I saw a group of people I know form school, and said hello. I made some brilliant double entendre to the good-looking girl among them and they all laughed. I sat down among them, and noticed that the good-looking girl had an exact clone sitting nearby. I mouthed the words,
"Thank you," at the sky and put my arms round them both. I was in mid sentence when an authoritarian-looking woman with short, black hair came along. She said,
"Any clones of normal people better get the hell out of here quick!" Then she peered round the room I was in. I stuffed the girl under my right arm under my seat and tried to look innocent. The woman's eyes passed over my position. When she had gone, I brought the girl out again.



I had lots of false awakenings in this dream that were all either in my house, or my dad's house, where I actually was. One time when I woke up in my dad's house, I decided to try one of my goals- "pull down a skyscraper with telekenisis". I knew there were no tall buildings anywhere near my dad's house, but I wanted a second opinion. So, I went to the top of the stairs, hopped off and glided to the bottom, stepping straight into the living room. My dad was watching TV. I sat down opposite him and asked,
"Do you know if there's any skyscrapers nearby?" He looked at me like I was insane, and everything faded.

During one false awakening, I'm sure I was able to tell what was on TV downstairs. I knew my youngest brother was watching the Disney Channel while I was asleep, and had I been awake, I could probably just about hear it from the bedroom. I heard what I deduced to be Hannah Montana on TV. In the dream, I went downstairs to have a look. When I looked at the TV, the sound of Hannah Montana continued, but the picture was showing something totally different. It looked like a kind of Asian festival in progress through some streets. The picture quality was poor, and it looked like an old home video.

In another FA, I was in my own house. I "woke up" on the settee in the living room, and went straight to the mirror above the fireplace to have a look at my reflection. It was basically normal, even when I remembered about last time when it turned horrible. There was a bit of distortion around my chin, but it wasn't far off what I actually look like. I thought for a second, and remembered another dream goal, which was to "wreak general havok". With that in mind, I ran full speed at the living room window, and did a headbutt-dive through it, out into the street. I flew quickly down the street, uprooting trees and snapping lampposts, then using the huge sticks of metal to demolish a house. For some reason an electricity box in the street caught my attention. I landed to look at the diagram pasted on its front. It seemed to be a blueprint for a Death Star-type installation. It was a spherical, planet-sized energy collector. Apparently, it was supposed to take in radiation from solar flares and use it for electricity and ammunition. It all made sense in the diagram, which I might draw.


Got this online. It's not what I saw, but the same idea.

I became kind of involved in this storyline. I saw some aliens in a lab inside the radiation collector. They were the "elders" of their civilisation. They kept repeating two words over and over. The first was the name of their species. It sounded like "Romanon". The second word, I can't remember, but it had a meaning of something between regret and humility. It might have begun with "m".

In another FA, I dreamt that I was woken up by a phonecall I was expecting at some stage that day. My mobile phone rang on the bedside table. It was Dave. I answered it, and placed it on the side of my head, so I wouldn't have to make any effort to hold it in position. I was vaguely murmuring replies to what Dave asked me, but I felt like I was dropping off. I then remembered I was meant to be talking on the phone, so I said,
"Sorry, are you still there?" Weirdly, I actually said this out loud, and it woke me up for real. I was confused for a second when I found I wasn't really on the phone.

05.01.2010

Espionage, then minor wandering. (WILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

This was definitely my most successful WILD yet. I didn't get much sleep last night, so I went for an afternoon nap. I lay on my back with my arms by my sides, which is a really unnatural way for me to sleep, but I reckoned it was probably the best for dreamin'. After a very short time I got some serious SP and rolling sensations (for the 2nd time whoop!) and I ended up in an interesting dream.

I had unwittingly inserted myself into a vampire/werewolf story. I think this was brought on by watching Underworld the other day. I was a vampire, of course, and I was walking through a town centre with a couple of my vampire cronies and a werewolf, who had defected. (Apparently the vampires and werewolves were at war). I went along with the plot, which went on around me. It was night time, and the streets were very dark, apart from the orangey glow from some low streetlights. We were on our way to sneak into a werewolf meeting at a hotel. I could see the hotel coming up on the left. It had a distinctly more reddish glow than the rest of the area. The dude beside me said,
"I thought this place was closed this late on a Saturday?" and the werewolf replied,
"Not for us." Sure enough, there was light coming from the building, but only from one side door, which looked like the entrance to a very exclusive club. There were two huge bouncers outside in black suits. We paused at a set of benches out in the street to discuss our next move. The werewolf guy warned me that there would be a scanner inside, and that they were only letting in the most elite of werewolves.
"I'll probably be fine," I told him, with a dollop of arrogance. I left the others sitting on the benches, and walked confidently over to the door. It was only then I noticed I was wearing a very nice suit. I tugged the collar slightly as I walked straight between the bouncers. My swagger was so awesome they didn't even question me. Right inside, there was a thin corridor, only about 3 feet across. A couple of metres inside was a simple ID scanner, the kind they have in some airports, only without the face recognition part. There were two girls I know in front of me (I knew them to be vampires too at the time), and a female guard at the ID scanner. The two girls inserted their fake driver's lisences, and were rejected. A red light shone from above the scanner and a buzzer sounded. Instead of being chucked out, they were allowed to merely walk back outside. It was my turn. I reached in my pocket, and found my ID card I usually use. I reckoned it might work simply because it was actually a real ID, I hadn't bothered with a fake one like the girls before me. Although it did occur to me that they would realise I wasn't a werewolf and not let me in anyway. I inserted my card, but to my surprise, the light turned green and I heard a "ping!". I was in.


Not quite what I looked like as a vampire, but hey...

The female guard stepped aside and waved me onwards. The corridor opened up to normal size. It was very dark- I thought it might almost be so dark I'd lose my perception and wake up by accident, but I concentrated on the small lights shining up the walls at the celing and made them brighter, allowing me to see ok. On my left was a glass wall. On the other side, I could see a fancy restaurant, with all tables full. I reckoned that must be the werewolf meeting. On the other side of the corridor was an enormous elevator door. There were two pot plants on either side, and some people standing in front of it. I recognised one of them as my friend Sophie, who I hadn't seen in ages. I said hello enthusiastically and gave her a hug. My friend Pete was also there. I was pleased to see him too. The lift arrived and the doors opened. I was surprised at what I saw. The interior was about the size of my living room, and there were dozens of people sitting on settees and on the metal floor. It genuinely confused me, but I stepped on anyway. I sat down with Pete against the back of a setee. I caught the eye of a girl across the lift and smiled at her. I caught my reflection in the metal wall and noticed my vampire fangs.
"Shit," I thought. "Although I am really working these fangs!" I assumed I would now be mauled by the many werewolves around me, but no-one seemed to care. Instead, the girl smiled back, and I noticed she had fangs too. We crawled towards each other, cutting a path through the people sitting about, and she leapt on me. We got it on then and there, with at least 30 people watching. Good times.

I had a false awakening here. I "opened my eyes", and felt the dream zap away, and my vision of the vampire chick was sucked into the distance, replaced by the wall in my old bedroom. I thought,
"That was sweet!" and sighed. As I sighed, I let out a huge amount of air. I was exhaling for literally thirty seconds. During that time I took several small breaths, becuase I needed air. At the time I reasoned that I had been breathing so deeply while dreaming that my lungs had absorbed an excessive amount of air, which was just being released now. When I was finished, I got out of bed and walked towards the door, ready to go downstairs and see what everybody was up to in the real world. My left arm felt really strange, like it was pointing the wrong way or something, but I stretched and it seemed to fix itself. I reached for the door handle, and noticed that I felt a bit strange, like I wasn't quite sure if this was a dream or real life. My vision was a tiny bit fuzzy, and I thought this might be from just waking up, but I did the hand reality check anyway, and was astounded to see about seven fingers! I laughed to myself that I could be so stupid to have thought this was real- I was in my old house after all. As soon as I became lucid, I had a familiar feeling of being "trapped in the dream", which I only ever had once before, in my lucid nightmare where I kept having false awakenings. Waking up for real would've been fine, and a few seconds ago, I really thought I had. There was even a vague echo of The Twilight Zone music which tormented me last time. I resolved that I wasn't going to get into that mindset, and the music petered out. I was incredibly aware here. I was so switched on I found it hard to believe I could still be sleeping with my mind still at work. I walked over to the window. It was afternoon on a cloudy day. Climing through the bushes in my garden was some naked girl.
"Jackpot," I said, and punched the air. I opened the window, ready to climb out, but my three brothers came in. They were asking me something which I can't remember now, but everything seemed so real here that I had to do three reality checks in a row, just to make extra extra sure I was dreaming. I asked them who sent them, for some reason. The biggest brother replied,
"Christine." (she's my ex) I asked him,
"What, is she here?"
"Yeah, she's in the cupboard under the stairs," he said. I went downstairs to see if she was in fact hiding in my house, but there was no sign of her under the stairs. I went inside and hoked about a bit, but quickly became claustrophobic, so I left. I wandered into the living room, where we have a big mirror above the fireplace. I walked over, and saw my reflection. At first glance, it seemed basically normal with slightly longer hair. Then the title of a thread I had read on dreamviews earlier popped into my head. It was about looking in the mirror in dreams, and how something weird always happens. Right then, my reflected face distorted itself into a horrible, demonic visage. The skin darkened, the eyes went totally black, and my head grew horns. It laughed at me evily.
"Fuuuuck that," I said, and stared it out. The longer I stared the more benign and cartoon-ish it got, until the outlines of the main features looked very much like they were drawn by pencil. Satisfied, I turned away and went out into the hall.

About here I woke up. I was shocked to find that it had only been an hour exactly since I lay down in bed!

04.01.2010

Swooping and Swimming (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I'm not sure whether to say this was a DILD or non-lucid. I kind of knew it was a dream, and I did a lot of cool stuff, but I wouldn't say I was really I, if you know what I mean.

I was in my old house, in the early hours of the morning. It might have been around 4 or 5 am. Still dark anyway. I looked out my bedroom window to see that my dad was driving off. He went out the bottom of the driveway and took a right. I climbed out my window and jumped off the roof to fly after him. I had the same kind of flight ability as I usually have, which is like that of a paper aeroplane- mainly just a glide. I wasn't quite catching up, so I tried skating on the ground, which was icy. I had a good thing going, as I skate-glided behind my dad's car. I was feeling confident so I leapt up in the air. I soared about the height of four houses and got that familiar "shitI'mfalling" sensation in my stomach after reaching the peak. I landed farther up the road, behind a chain of cars driving ridiculously slowly. There were a few people walking along the footpath to my left, so I joined them. We walked for a good while, and every now and then I would swoop out onto the road and glide over a few cars. I found I could fly a lot better when the wind was coming from behind me. When it was against me, I made my arms into a streamlined shape in front of me and I could cut through it.

It was getting closer and closer to daylight as I glided along the road, and before I knew it, it was morning and I was at my old school. It had been turned into a leisure centre. I jumped onto the rear bumper of a car and rode in. I passed a fantastic swimming pool which had massive slides, a glass roof over half of it, and enormous brown statues down the other end. The next thing I knew, I was in the pool. I was floating on my back, looking up at the glass roof, and imagined it moving up and down. Then it did. I found I could make things happen around me with very little effort. Strangely, this was the part of the dream where I was the least lucid. The other people in the pool were getting annoyed at me. I told them it wasn't my fault, I couldn't help it, but they didn't listen and kept shouting at me. Becuase I was pissed now, I made a huge statue come to life and roar at them. Its head was hundreds of metres above the pool, staring down. I concentrated on it, it shook off a bit off dust, then its eyes glowed red. It stood up to its full height (it had been bending over looking down before) and roared. Next I made the entire swimming pool become a whirlpool, which I found great fun, but nobody else did. I let myself get sucked underwater and found I could breathe. There were bubbles swirling all round me, and I thought I might get pulled to the surface again which I didn't want. I liked the quiet underwater. I made myself heavier and my feet touched the bottom.


The rest, I can't remember very well, but I think I went into the changing rooms and got dressed.

28.12.2009

Zombie Apocalypse (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

After months of trying, I finally managed a zombie dream! Good times. Only thing is, the hordes of walking dead weren't enough to make me realise I was dreaming, hence the non-lucid. I did get a little bit aware towards the end though, which just made it all the more real. Details are a bit sketchy, since it was nearly 24hrs ago I had this dream.



I was holed up in the top floor of an appartment building in the suburbs. It was a modern building surrounded by normal houses with lots of gardens and trees. I spent a long time hiding in this building, having no contact at all with the zombies who wandered aimlessly in the streets below. There weren't a huge amount, but from the large window at the front of my room I could see that the street contained about 50 zombies. This particular brand of zombies were somewhere between the classic shambling, moaning, not-much-of-a-threat walking corpses (as seen in the original "Dawn of the Dead") and the more modern, able-bodied, running, bloodthirsty variety (as seen in "28 Days Later"). They were able to run like someone who was wounded, basically.

One day I was walking past this large window when a survivor in the street spotted me. She had red hair and was about 30. She screamed to get my attention, then ran to the front door via several gardens and over a wall. Unfortunately, the zombies couldn't resist, and followed her en masse. I let her in grudgingly, knowing we would soon have to leave. The zombies were gathering at the door, moaning and banging. The noise was attracting yet more of them from the surrounding area. Luckily I had prepared for such an eventuality. There was a wire cable running from the balcony, across a few gardens, all the way to another street. We each looped another piece of wire over the cable and swung along it to the other steet. I had thought this plan was foolproof, but the wire I was swinging on made a loud scraping noise when it went over the cable, thus alerting the hordes below. They all looked up stupidly in unism, then roared. We landed, and after much swearing, ran out into the next street.

There were still a few zombies ambling inanely with mouths open in this street- most of them having been attracted to my front door previously. It was then, when rounding a corner, that I noticed a flyer on the wall. It contained "Official Instructions" on how to deal with the infestation. The redhead looked at it and nodded. I didn't look, but somehow knew what the instructions were. They had just never been carried out very well. Apparently, a purple liquid had been invented which was completely toxic to the undead, and harmless to the living. (Rather convenient!) The orders were to dispatch vats of the stuff to every street, then throw it over any zombie who came near. This would result in instant death for the recieving party. We ran round the corner, dodged the odd zombie, and found ourselves in a ruined street of shops. All the windows and most of the walls were broken down, and there was rubble everywhere. There were also buckets of the miraculous purple liquid at every building. I rejoiced, and picked up a bucket. Two zombies were advancing on me at a brisk walking pace. I turned to them and sloshed all the liquid out of the bucket. I meant to soak them both, but only got one, completely missing the other. The one I hit immediately howled in pain and collapsed backwards. Visible purple fumes wafted from him as he fell, entering the nostrils of the other. Two seconds later, he collaped as well. Apparently, this stuff was very strong.

I can't quite remember the next bit, but it involved me running round the town looking for some item I needed to give to a friend. I found it in a tiny garden surrounded by a black metal fence. At this point I was armed with water pistols full of purple stuff, and the undead were no hindrance.

The next thing I remember, I was all out of liquid, but had partied up with a group of survivors. We were at the top of some kind of zeppelin tower- you know, a tower at the top of which a zeppelin stops, and you get on. There was a zeppelin waiting. The leader of our group was a tall dude with black, slicked-back hair. He was carrying a shotgun, and he stepped through the automatic doors onto the balloon first. I somehow knew that both he and I were invincible- we could not be killed or infected. I think I had some low-level lucidity here, because I acted a lot more like myself. I think that's where the invincibility came from. Everybody stepped on board and looked around. We were in a kind of atrium. The floor and walls were dark wood, and a grand staircase up to a viewing platform was ahead of us. The furniture and ornamental plants in the atrium were strewn everywhere. The black-haired guy warned us that this thing was probably full of zombies. I ran up the stairs and saw, for some reason, a door leading to a dental surgery. It was lying open, and I could see the bright whiteness of the wall. I went inside to find a mostly-devoured corpse on the chair. It was gruesome, but I was cheered up when I found two weapons to arm myself with. The first was a large screwdriver with a blue plastic handle, and the second was a kind of cordless dentist's drill. It must have been battery powered, but even so, it was quite deadly.

I headed towards the very front of the viewing platform, and encountered a grandma-zombie. I gathered that she had been here for a while, because her eyes had rotted away! She had just two blackened eye holes in her green, rotting face. I got her with the dentist's drill, which miraculously sawed her head off in one swipe. I passed a few crappy-looking shops and came to what looked like the driver's seat. I approached it cautiously from behind, as I could see someone was still strapped into it, trying to get out. With my drill and screwdriver raised, I stepped round the front of the seat. It was my ex-girlfriend! She looked pretty much as she always had done, apart from badly cracked skin above her lips, and evil eyes. She gnashed her teeth at me, struggling to escape from the seatbelt, but it was very secure. Two straps looped over her shoulders, secured across the chest. I sighed sadly and jammed the screwdriver in her temple. I felt a bit of remorse, but I was soon distracted by many more attacks from zombified persons. I used the screwdriver and drill to lethal effect on lots of them as I moved along an upstairs corridor. They came out of the rooms on either side one by one, like a video game.

26.12.2009

Hallucino-fucking-nations! (WILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I was a bit sleepy on boxing day, so I lay down in bed for a nap. Now before this, I've never had any real hypnagogic hallucinations before, save the odd quick buzzing sound, and I've never been one to notice sleep paralysis. I got them both this time, and it was fucking weird!

I don't know how long I was lying there, but after a while it was like a switch had been flicked and my entire body just seemed to turn itself off. Over about half a second it became so I couldn't move a muscle- although to be honest I wasn't trying too hard in case I spoiled it. Part of me used to doubt if this bodily shutdown was actually possible while still awake- and I was still awake! I even opened my eyes a crack, but barely took anything in, just the colour of the celing with the sun shining through the blinds. After a minute, I felt as if my head had "lifted out of itself". It felt like my forehead had levitated up. I was really shocked, and it reverted almost immediately. I assumed this must be the HH's people rave about.

I then wondered what other stuff I could get my body to do. With that thought, I started "sliding" under the covers towards the foot of the bed. But I kept going. I slid maybe five or six metres before I thought of controlling this ride. I thought, "I should reach the end of this bed now," and sure enough, I felt my feet poke out from under the covers next.

Then my belligerant brother came in shouting about crap and ruined it!

20.12.2009

Duelling My Subconscious (WILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

My memory of this dream is somewhat warped, in that I can't remember what order things happened in. There were a lot of FA's which chopped it up a bit- most of which I was 100% sure were real.

FA 1: I was in my bed, really disoriented. I had no idea what was going on, and I had a suspicion I might still be asleep, so I tried to roll out of my body. First to the right, where I rolled about half a metre into my desk which moved a good foot or so. Then I did a 180 degree spin so my head was at the bottom of the bed. This didn't even convince me. By this time my various blankets were a real mess, and I tried half-assedly to fix them and went "back to sleep". What convinces me I was asleep (apart from the easy 180 degree rotation), was that I had an extra yellow blanket.

FA 2: I was in the bathroom of my old house, looking in the mirror. My vision was a bit blurry, but I put this down to having just got out of bed. I was thinking about lucid dreaming at the time, doing my ususal mental exercise, "How would I even know if this was a dream, they're always so realistic!" I tapped the wall beneath the mirror with my knuckles, just to reassure myself of reality. I was literally 110% sure I was awake, it was so lifelike. Just for that extra guarantee, I looked at my left hand. About seven fingers!
"No fuckin' way," I murmured. It had been about a week since I'd had a lucid experience of this quality and I was very pleased. I went out of the bathroom and found myself in my current house. It was dark outside, I could see through the glass on the front door, which was at the bottom of the stairs. My mum was trying to get the cat inside and lock up. I went down to help. Strangely, there were two cats which looked identical. I picked up the imposter by mistake and it scratched my face. My cat is friendly, so I decided it wasn't that one. I looked to my right, and saw a blonde guy getting into a yellow lambourghini. I wanted a go in his car, so I called over to him. He glared at me and sped off. Annoyed, I hovered up to streetlight height and flew after him. Before I even left my driveway, I was slowed by an invisible force. I turned round, and saw a guy about my age with his arm outstretched. It seemed he was using telekenisis to keep me from flying away. He was looking at me evily.

I descended to waist height and prepared to take him on. From looking at him, I could somehow tell that his name was Johnny, and he was no ordinary DC. I tried to blast him out of the way, or throw him with telekenisis, but he resisted my efforts. As I thought about what I could use next, he created a fireball in his palm and hurled it at me. I dodged it, and sent one back. The fireball looked like heavily compressed fire. It was completely spherical, and much brighter than I expected. It looked like I was winning, until he sent out his Pokémon. Yes, Pokémon. I can't remember what Pokémon it was or what move it used, but it quickly overwhelmed me. I accidentally lost touch with the dream. At the time I figured it was probably due to lack of sensory input. I was just flying around, not touching anything. Or it might just have been the end of a REM cycle.