J.D.

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.