memorable

The day before yesterday I had zero recall/too lazy to remember to write it. Last night however I did remember a dream:

I'm in some sort of church with my buddy Phil. It's very empty and there's only a few of us per pew sitting around. We're all kids. A man is walking up and down the aisles telling us to perform some sort of psychic test. Our first test is to lay back and go to sleep while staying conscious (Ie: lucid dreaming! I don't know why this didn't kickstart me to being lucid.) and in my dream I do it and I get super excited.

Flash forward to Leah and I walking down these steps into a sort of greasy basement/kitchen. We walk around and as we are doing so I'm trying to put the moves on her. Needless to say: I am rebuffed.

I've been scrapping around for ideas to begin some creative writing and I had this dream last night and it was awesome and actually gave me some ammo to start writing again.

My dream opens up with me playing football in my living room. I keep going out for passes but dropping them. Finally I demand one grown to me and I go up for it and get destroyed but almost catch it.

I dreamt that Leah and i were hanging out in our house when Caleb and Sasha came over. For some reason when they knocked Marc answered and told them I busy. I ran past him and let them in.

Immediately i could tell something was wrong. Caleb looked agitated. He asked me immediately why I hadn't been taking his companies phone calls or emails or paying my bill on the new grill I bought. I told him I hadn't bought one and that I don't know what he's talking about. He seems reluctant to believe me but he eventually seems to. Sasha leaves and I head back to the bedroom to explain to Leah what happened. Caleb says he is going to use our restroom but I don't hear or I ignore him.

So then for some reason I start explaining to Leah the issue and that something is very wrong. I'm suspicious of Caleb and I tell her so, loudly. I hear the bathroom toilet flush and curse at myself thinking he may have heard me. So I walk out to the living room with a small bat in my hands and nonchalantly confront him. He ends up leaving but I know it isn't for good.

And then I know that I have to do something. Some sort of test or the consequences will be terrible. Leah walks into the dining room and sits on the floor only to cut herself on a toothpick. She insists it's no big deal.

There's a dream time jump and suddenly I'm with a group of people but I know we are in the alternate world. I know that while here we have to perform a certain number of tasks before we head back. If we head back without finishing them then people will die. One of these tasks is for a man to slowly flip cards on a wall. I watch as he does it and I'm struck by a flash of images. In an other world every time a cars flips this demon gets stronger. I demand he flip them back. As he flips them back the images flash again but it's of the demon turning less and less dangerous.

I then turn around to keep track of the other people with me and it's then that I realize the double edge sword of having more allies with me. With more people there's a better chance of failure. While I'm looking around I'm trying to keep track of where Caleb is. I'm sure he has something to do with everything going on.

For some reason I'm holding a saber and I realize that it truly isn't real so I set it aside. I see a scimitar hanging in the air and I snag it. It feels pleasantly heavy. Real. I put it through my belt loop and continue my rounds. I return back to this big conference room and ask of everyone if they are ready and absolutely positive they finished their tasks. I'm sweating and freaking out but everyone says yes.


And then Mike and I are pulling up to Kyles house. He is the drummer for SIB. I pull into a gravel road that splits the collection of houses down the middle. It's dark out. The lights are on in the house but something feels off so Mike agrees to go check it out while I wait in the car. He does. I wake up.

I've pretty much figured out that I'm able to have my most clear dreams within my last two hours or so of sleep. So perhaps I should WBTB then...

Last night I had a dream (after WBTB) that I had gone into the restroom. Once in there I go to the urinal and behind me I notice two guys just sorta watching me... Whatever. I finish my business and head out of the bathroom and as I round this dividing wall (that separates the bathroom from the hallway to the door) some dude jumps me and starts beating the crap outta me. I wake up and I can't move for a split second and then suddenly I'm throwing myself up and almost off of the bed as the SP loosens.

Trippy stuff.

I don't know what I did right last night but I woke up three separate times and each time I had a really lengthy dream recalled. Lengthy at least for me, that is. I hope this is a precursor to things to come. I would love to experience my first LD.

I come to in the back of some truck on some highway. We are speeding down it and I notice we are being chased by another truck. This one has a yellow cell in the bed of it and it says "jail" on it. A friend of mine with black hair (who I've never met) is driving. We race away in an awesome chase and manage to pull over and we both jump out and run.

Now we are in some sort of cafeteria and my friend looks depressed. I'm trying to explain to him that they chased us because we don't belong in this world and that it isn't the normal one. He keeps getting more and more mad even though I'm trying my hardest to be nice.

He finally eases up on me and we make some sort of amends and before I know it we are driving back on this highway. This time we aren't fast enough and we get caught by the people driving that yellow jail truck. Once caught I demand to know what we did and they tell us we are an abnormality and we don't belong here and it's their job to catch abnormalities.

So we are thrown into a weird yellow prison and locked there. I don't know how it happens but some woman comes and helps us break out. We steal the jailers truck and speed back off on the highway. We pass by one of the big jailers and he knows we aren't real jailers because of how fast we are driving. He says the speed is irregular. We pass a semi with him in pursuit and pass one that's laden with tires. As we pass it we slam into it causing it to unload it's tires on the people chasing us. The dream fades.

I'm in some sort of underground cavern. Again Pastor Li is there and he seems to be running everything. There are crowds of people there and a bunch of kids about my age. Lawrence is there and I go join him.

It looks like Pastor Li is hosting some sort of summer event where the kids all play games. This event has a bunch of kids partnered up in doubles and staring at a row of big statues with televisions on them. Each television has an album cover and a song and artist name.

The Pastor explains that the point of the game is for him to play a song and we have to guess who's it is. Whoever does it the fastest wins that point. The first song is clearly by The Who but we have trouble matching it up with the title. Literally as soon as it starts playing Lawrence mouths the artist name to me. I raise my hand to guess and I'm wrong. This goes on for a little while with each group guessing until finally I get another chance and I nail it. The next song is some sort of heavy metal song and I have no idea. My team guess all of the album covers with heavy looking fonts.

Eventually this part of the dream fades and now I'm separated and somehow upstairs in a different room in the cavern with different kids playing different games. I don't like it because I miss people that I know. So I leave and try to find my way back. On the way I stumble by a staff bathroom that has all of its info written in Spanish. I go in anyway and go to a very narrow stall. It has someone else's name on it and there's a man in the one next to me. I don't feel like getting on trouble so I leave and find my way back to Pastor Li and everyone else.

He is underwater with about 18 kids and they are playing some sort of game involving some sort of religious dance underwater. Julie walks up and notices this and says mockingly "Are they really doing a holy dance?" I turn back with anger in my eyes and say that they are and of it bugs her she can leave. Now she looks mad and asks me angrily why she would want to.

I watch for a little bit until Pastor Li notices me and invites me to play. The dream fades from there.

Pastor Li buys a Borders for 14 mil
--says he can make 14k a day with it

Lawrence and I want to buy the Borders
We drive over make an offer
-The place is under renovation since my Pastor had just purchased it. We walk up, through the doors, and see Li there overlooking the process.

Larry says he wants to offer
They act shocked and say just by virtue of owning it they've made 10000 bucks in a day.

We leave with a crowd of people down cement steps. It's sunny out. I make a zombie noise and everyone laughs and runs. I catch a ride with Lawrence but he doesn't wanna drive me cause he's nervous around me cause he's shy or something. I don't get it.

Good nights beget good nights, maybe? This is my 51st entry into this DJ and I can say, proudly, that I've had over 100+ dreams recalled since starting it up. That's pretty wild. No LDs yet--not liking that ratio :/. My wife is leaving for a vacation with her family for a week so I'll have the bed to myself. I'm going to go all out in trying different techniques I normally wouldn't be able to try, then. Til then here were my dreams from last night.

I'm at some sort of rest stop and I seem to be staking out some guy. I'm in the bathroom and I see his clothing hanging on the knob. He has a pair or black pants and a fell phone inside of them. As I'm in there the phone loudly goes off with a rock n roll ring tone.

Now we are in the parking lot to some business. It looks kind of like the shogun lot. An Asian man comes out of the building being tailed by police and reporters and me as well. The Asian man, Randy, had just used his inside information to lock away someone I believe is innocent. So I catch up with the man in the lot and demand to know how he came to his conclusion. In a broken American accent he tells menus refuses to answer.

We reach his car and at this point I get angry and throw the man against if and get in his face. He finally tells me what I need to know and then two men, who had been hiding in a car and watching Randy, open fire on the two of us. I sprint off and Randy tries to as well. The men get out of the car and mutter something about how they can't believe be thought they'd let him live. As Randy is almost free he gets hit in the hand and in the back. I wake up.

I'm watching this guy as he's pulled over. He has a beard and glasses. He's on the phone with his lawyer and in the background i see people going through his car. He tells his lawyer that the people that pulled him over found out that his new song has stolen rhythms in it. The lawyer is telling the guy angrily to cooperate in anyway possible.

I'm talking to Phil about his curfew when he lived with his friends and how he had to be home by 10 if he expected any phone calls. We also talk about this other song that I had been working on prior.

And what I mean by that is I'll routinely wake up an hour or less before my regular alarm clock and realize I remember something. So I'll write it down. It's usually short. And then I'll fall back asleep and in that last 30 mins or so I'll have my most vivid and detailed dream of the night. It's something worth looking into, I think, and I'm going to look into maybe doing an alarm every half hour for the last two hours of my regular sleep. Maybe I'll couple that into the DEILD if I can remember to do it.

I am in Brew and Grow and the rest of the crew is there we are chilling out behind the counter like normal when some guy in glasses comes in. He's a few inches taller than me and going bald. He has a beer gut so he looks like a typical customer. He walks over to me and asks for a "20 amperage setup". I'm annoyed because that isn't the normal lingo we use in the store for figuring out what people need. So I ask Mike to take over for me and he does and ends up grabbing the guy a 150 lumatek. The guy says that was the rig he was looking for and he needs a bulb with 150000 lumens. I tell him there's no way he is gonna get that kinda power out of a 150 and I lean down and pull out a 1000w Hortilux Blue and crack it as I stand back up. I grimace and he laughs. I tell him I accidentally broke it but he's gonna need a bulb similar in power.

I go to the computer and I ask my manager what I should so about the busted bulb. I tell him I don't want to tell Jenny (our inventory girl) because the bulb I broke is super expensive. He tells me just to throw it away and I tell him that I don't want to lie to anyone. I throw it away though.

Now some other guy is here. He comes in and slaps a black computer tower in the counter and I'm immediately annoyed. I tell him flatly that we don't fix computers. But I know what it is. It's one of those secret growing containers. I refuse to help him because we do not help people doing illegal things. So I let someone else take care of him too. He leaves and I notice that he goes walking away with the first guy and I also notice that he left the tower. I ask why and Mike says he is gonna try to fix it.

I then see Julie by the computer and she is wearing a big coat. I then realize it's cold in here and she says she is going to turn the fan off. At the same time Alex starts playing some odd music and looks at me with Antrim and says "From the party!" but I don't recognize it. Mike apparently does because he walks by and says: "How do I know what this is?"

And then a large group of women walk into the store and stand there quietly before turning around and all leaving at once. Creepy

I am on some sort of website for a game I, in my dream, used to run. However in my dream I had given it up and handed it over to this member of my forum. I read this news post where this new owner mentions how hard of a time she is having getting the game ready to go and there is a bunch of sad and upset replies in the thread. I skip ahead to the last page and see a bunch of screenshots of the game. It's 16 bit and mapped out similar to Pokemon. I'm walking around the town as if I'm playing it and i start to like it. I see this wifi battle building several times though.

And finally..

The dream begins with me, Julie, and Mike pulling up to this gorgeous tropical island. Instead of docking the boat a guide, Matthew Mcconaughey, asks us to transfer over to a smaller boat so we can paddle ashore. We do and as we do it starts to rain.

And now we are all swimming in the water and Matthew leads us through this crystal clear water around the island. This group of girls next to me goes diving under water to explore. Everything is crystalline. There is a school of fish swimming around. It's gorgeous.

Now we are on shore and I am in some sort of kitchen with an open view of the ocean and way we arrived. There is a urinal to my right and a few people talking about stuff behind me. I go to use the restroom and the I put my laptop on the kitchen counter. I almost set it on top of Mikes laptop but instead I put if on top of a cutting board. I see a book on the counter with the initials EoT and I read the first little bit. As I read it I am suddenly transported into the world of the book. It's sine future world similar to Pandora but darker and more advanced.

I get a hold of my friend and we talk about how cool the island is when suddenly I get suspicious for some reason. I pull Matthew aside and tell him I think we've been tricked. I don't think he's in on it and I think he'll try to help us.

So I decided to go ahead and give the DEILD method a shot. I wasn't sure how I'd go about attempting it because it involves reflexively keeping my eyes shut when I wake up and, to be honest, I've got no practice doing that. So I go to bed at about 12:30 with an alarm set around 4 o clock. I wake up a few minutes before 4 o clock and turn on my iPod to play some Solitaire. I want to get in the habit of working out the logic center of my mind while I'm in bed at night. I think this will help me out a lot. I go back to bed. About an hour later I wake up because I have to use the bathroom and lo and behold I've got quite a long dream ready and recalled:

Leah and I are driving home from seeing some comedy in theaters with my parents. In the movie I remember it being sorta creepy because the main bad guys were crazy tall and white and really scary looking. During the move in fighting myself to stay awake. I am sitting by Leah. As I watch the movie it sometimes takes on a first person view. The evil looking characters on screen get into a bunch of fights over turf. They remind me of smart zombies. I slowly start to nod off. Towards the end of the movie i go and stand at the front of the theater and watch the last of the movie standing.

After that we head over to a laser tag and my mom makes my brother and I play a game. The women running the place charges five bucks per person. I overhear my mom and sister buying our tix for us. The clerk suggests me and my brother just share a gun to save money until we decide I'd we like it. My mom gets us each our own. The suits have a mouth guard bracket built onto the front and i put it in my mouth without thinking and immediately regret it. In my mind I'm positive I'll have herpes now or something. I glance over and my brother is sitting slouched against a wall on a black bench. He is spaced out. He looked dejected and bored.

Then Leah and i are driving home. We are both tired. I'm using the gps to get us home but I want to stop at a hotel to sleep but we can't because of the dog waiting at home to use the bathroom. Leah mentions that my parents are leading us home a different way than normal. I follow the gps.

Not bad at all for having a few off nights this week. So I go back to bed and I wake up AGAIN. This time I come startling myself awake but the world is in blackness. I can't see anything! You guessed it: I managed to keep my eyes shut. I'm not sure if it was reflex or the fact that I was actively thinking about it before I go to bed. So I'm laying there with my eyes shut. I feel a tiny bit heavy on my back and I feel mostly numb. My toes randomly spasm every once in awhile and my heart starts to race. I know I'm in a good position for the DEILD technique. But of all the things that could happen I start to hear birds singing LOUDLY outside of my window and when that happens I KNOW it's day time and, I'm not sure how, but I KNOW my alarm is about to go off. I hear a faint buzzing sound that is very distinguishable from all of the other noises. Is this part of my HI? I don't know. All I DO know is that I'm suddenly hypersensitive to sounds.

So I stay laying there for a few more minutes when lo and behold the alarm does go off. I get out of bed and grumble my way to the shower. And then while I'm in the shower I'm hit like an epiphany with recalls of "four" other dreams.

I'm in some sort of giant church like structure. My friend Phil is there and so is Lawrence, Chris, and Jake K. We are sitting in the big room where I assume the Pastor is going to preach when somebody starts handing out stacks of bacon as a snack. I say 'Hey, why not' and grab a huge stack and absolutely stuff my face with it. I then go ahead and sit down for the sermon. Time passes, I'm sure, because I'm running out of the room and towards the stairs. I jog up these stairs and turn right to where a small bedroom is. And there are all my friends! Skipping out on the sermon to play video games. I'm mad immediately... Not for skipping the sermon... But for not telling me they were so I could too! I remember in my dream, as well, to be kind and polite around Phil. I know I think to myself that he's a good guy.

For some reason I'm up stairs in some house. I "know" it's my parents house. I walk down the stairs and outside to see some sort of dog out there. My parents had just left to go see a movie. I'm sure of that for some reason as well. So I've been left to take care of the dog. The dogs name is Asimov (Yes, as in Isaac Asimov). For some reason the dog gets hurt or gets killed and my parents return and I tell them what happened. They mention how at the movie they spent the whole time looking for "Asimov" but couldn't find him because he was under a different name. Don't ask me. It doesn't make sense over here, neither.

And now I'm shopping. I've been sent downtown by my wife to go check out this resale shop. I'm assuming it's some sort of 'Platos Closet' because as I walk up to it, it is in an underground mall, the woman at the door goes: "Are you Randall? Leah shops here all the time." I say yeah I am and that I'm here to look at jeans. She asks if I need any help finding anything and I decline. It's at this point she points out that they are closing in 5 minutes. I let her know that I'll hurry. I hate when customers linger in my store. So I look around at the jeans and there's a woman back there as well waiting to help. I don't see anything I really like and end up hoofing it back towards the front to leave. It's at that moment that, for whatever reason, an explosion occurs and I'm sent flying. I land back on the ground and my leg is very clearly broken. The women are freaking out and blaming eachother but none of them seem hurt.

And now I'm sitting in another basement. This time in front of a nice bass stack. My brothers friend, Marc, is there. And I'm pretty sure the other guy is Rob. There's a smaller Asian kid that I've never seen but he has black hair combed over and he plays the guitar. I'm obviously in this band. We shoot the breeze for a little bit and plan to practice when the Asian kid says that this is their last show. They just can't do it anymore. He is kind of a dick. So I ask him, gesturing at my leg, 'Is it because I broke this?'. He shakes his head and says that there's no money in it. I tell him: Well, hey. Once you guys hit 18 you'll be able to play shows every couple of days and make plenty of cash. I tell him my band is playing Marys Place (which we are, in real life! I'm plugging my own band in my own dreams) and that we're bringing in about 20% of the door. I envision what the place looks like so he can see it. I show him a bunch of elegant tables set up in front of a nice stage. Everyone is well dressed. This seems to change his thought process because he's suddenly backpedaling and saying things like 'Well, actually we had plans to...' and then that's all I really remember.

So I got back into doing the WBTB function and my recall was much better. I remember three different dreams. The final one I had during a fifteen minute nap which is pretty wild, honestly.

For some reason I own some house that an old acquaintance, Zeb, used to own or live in. It seems fairly run down but in the basement there is a large collection of band promotional stuff. I'm talking: posters, albums, stickers, shirts, and whatever else you can think of. Somewhere down the line I invite him and a few friends over to my new place and I tell him about the stuff I found down there. He looks at me, very seriously, and tells me not to sell any of it or make any sort of money off of it. I tell him he can have it all back and that, at most, I had just been giving it out for free.

This is just a fragment.I remember seeing some sort of promotion for an album that my buddy Tom is a part of. It's getting rave reviews.

I'm in a dark and gothic looking version of New York City. I work at a grocery store and I look like a younger Brad Pitt. For some reason an epic chase scene starts up and I'm suddenly on top of a moving van fighting for my life to get something or take something from somebody. The car I'm clinging to is swinging this way and that until finally some other person, an older man whom I know somehow, drives along side me and starts bumping me and demanding what I've got/am trying to get. I fight him but eventually he causes an accident and I am thrown from the car. I flash forward to the next morning working at the grocery store. I'm sitting down slumped against a wall when this beautiful woman comes in. She's white with long brown hair and dark eyes. She comes over to me and we begin talking. I don't really know what we talk about until finally I say: "You don't know what it's like. I have no ambition. I'm going with you."

And now we're outside of some large castle looking place and we're talking in a hushed whisper. She says the place belongs to her father, Tsuonga. We walk down these concrete steps that are overgrown by dead trees and arrive in front of a large black and brown polished door. For some reason I can suddenly see a glowing yellow receptacle similar to the one seen while playing Oblivion. I make a little joke about it and she nervously laughs. And then the door swings open. We slowly walk in and as we do I warn her that sometimes, in Oblivion, you can get invited into a room and then attacked for no reason. So she needs to be careful.

We're in this building now and everything about it is gigantic. The ceiling is arched and appears infinitely high. There seems to be several different levels all displayed above us, sort of like a mall, and everything reeks of opulence. But everything is still very dark. So we crouch and start to slowly make our way forward. She mutters something in my ear about keeping a lookout for her dad and I nod and we continue. And then suddenly we hear him jogging down the stairs and to the bottom where we are at. He looks odd though. Like a mix between the Mars Attack Aliens (without the helmet) and the Green Goblin and his movements remind me of an NPC in any RPG you've ever played. One minute he's far away and the next, like framerates skipping, he's mere feet away. He jerks towards us and then back up the stairs. My heart is hammering and I motion for her to slowly move forward. So we do. And then suddenly he's descending upon us and obviously furious. We start to fight back but he's absurdly strong. For some reason I try to use some form of magical lightning but my power is low and I'm unable to hold him with it. I run up a set of stairs as and grab him from behind as he closes his arms around some person that is suddenly there. It appears to be a girl. I scream to the girl that I arrived here with and tell her that I'm going to pull his face away from the woman, as he is gnawing on her neck, and that she needs to be ready to shoot power into him even if he is her father. She says OK.

So I grab hold of his chin and grimace as I feel the wetness of the open wound and his saliva and I pull my hardest to get him away from the womans neck. He's biting furiously like a zombie and I'm struggling to even keep him still. And then I wake up.

Wow. Five good recalls in one single night. A new high for me! They were decently vivid too, at least the longer ones were, and a few of the fragments were literally flash in the pan. What makes me really happy about this is that I did not perform WBTB. I simply remembered that many different dreams upon waking. Hopefully I'm getting close! I'm RCing about 10 times a day, on a guess. As well as perusing the forums occasionally. Every time I RC I repeat to myself "If I'm dreaming, I will become lucid" and I look around the room for any signs of dreaming. Does that, coupled with my daily DJ, seem like enough to incite a DILD?

Anyways: onto the dreams.

I'm walking through some sort of in between that goes from rural Illinois to downtown Chicago. The goal is to meet a bunch of friends as well as my wife's dad at a place to eat dinner. We are trying to decide where to eat when i decide that a steakhouse sounds good. So I go through this in between and end up in a little long room with two wide red couches and two wide tvs. It doesn't say it anywhere but I know this is a Blackhawks fanclub.

I wee Vern there and we decide to go on ahead. He asks me where I want to eat. I think a moment and decide on this steak house. With my steak knife with me for some reason we set out to walking out of the club and down the street.

And now for sole reason I'm doubling back. I've walked back through the in between to go get my friends. I'm looking for Jake Chris and Lawrence. For some reason I know they have begun to cross the I'm between, which now looks like a corn field, so I head back to cross it.

I try to wade through it but it is too thick now. I decide to walk along side it instead and i soon make it halfway across when suddenly Chris, wearing dress pants a button up and a tie, emerges and greets me. Jake is right on his heels. We have a short discussion about some rapper before I tell them what's for dinner.

Nate Phil and I are hanging out in the basement of what I assume is my parents house. There is a punching bag hanging from the ceiling and the other posts have wrap around them for more martial arts.

Phil and Nate are hanging out when I come in with my laptop and a fresh recording of one of our songs but this Time with drums on it. I start to play it and Phil is instantly annoyed cause he is tired of hearing that song over and over again.

I play it anyways and he says it is actually pretty cool outside of the timing issues. As he is saying this I am tending to a small hydroponic garden in a tent. The floor of the tray in the tent is covered in a milky orange substance. I start cleaning it out when the guys decide they want to go outside.

So we do and it's really late and dark out. I bring my laptop with me but through the walls I can hear the music we were blaring. It's avenged sevenfold. I go back inside a few times to turn it down.

Eventually my mom comes out for a minute after we head back in and says she will wake me up at nine. Phil is closed to passing out when he, alarmed, asks if they have to leave then as well. I tell him no and not to worry about it and to enjoy sleeping in.

Randall Cropp


show details 8:37 AM (6 hours ago)

Fragment. I'm with some group of people when this creature called the Machi appears. It looks like a monster of the Seachen People out of the Wheel of Time series. It looks like a dragon but the size of a horse. Someone kills it and I remember getting very sad.

Leah and I are watching some sort of talk show with Keanu reeves on it. There are a bunch of kids that he starts to play fight with. We are watching the event from overhead and at an angle. Keanu is diving around and throws a marker at this little girl. It nails her in the forehead and she drops like a bag of rocks. I remember laughing in my dream. This happens to three kids.

Fragment. I dream I make myself admin on Militate.

I dream I'm driving up some road at night and turning on corners. I'm out in the country. There is a car right behind me. I have my laptop out and am trying to catch a WiFi signal. I finally do catch one and I pull over. The car behind me passes.

So I woke up this morning and couldn't remember any of my dreams. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wake up a little bit and then suddenly I remember two VERY long dreams (for me) in vivid detail. And they were very different from eachother. How awesome is that? So it isn't an LD but it's still something. My dreams are picking up which has to be a good sign.

This was an epic dream. I come into the dream as a guy who lakes vaguely like my buddies dad (Jake k) invites me to come to his sons wedding. In real life I would never go because the son in question is an asshole and has Been horrible to me. But I follow the guy anyways.

He leaps onto an electric scooter and I guess I do too be because we take off on the pavement towards a turnpike once there I see a small replica scooter in the sand. I wonder to myself if I should grab it.

I don't because I decide he'd tell me if I should or not. We continue on and suddenly we are no longer on the scooter. In fact we are running. To the wedding. But first we slide to a stop under another sandy overpass and i see a bunch of bottles in the sand. The man next to me glances at a piece of paper and says I have to collect them. I glance at them and see that they are cologne vial looking containers of a coffee mixture. I realize to myself that these must be wedding favors and I am instantly disappointed because I was hoping my party favor would be a job offer. I try not to let it show and I continue to follow the man until we arrive at a beach where there is this gigantic boat in the water. It has a giant anchor to it's side and it appears that the captain of the ship, who is the brother I realize, is fishing for dolphins by shooting the anchor forward and slowly pulling it backwards.

And wouldn't you know it. Suddenly I am in the water and caught on the anchor. I struggle to climb up the giant mechanism until i come level with the boat from the anchor side. I am still underwater somehow and breathing through a giant blow off tube. I make my way nervously over to his boat and leap on board unsure as to how I'd be received. I glance into the water and see fins caught in the anchor.

And then we are walking down the sandy beach and my wife is there. So is my buddy Phil i realize. I start to tell Leah we need a vacation near a beach but she doesn't quite understand what I mean somehow and I storm off.

For some reason I'm in a co Ed shower and there is this totally hot black woman there. I'm minding my own business when suddenly she pulls me close and I think we have sex.

Next thing i know I'm at where I assume is my house. I walk up the stairs and go into my room and get on my computer. Shortly thereafter my irl wife shows up and we start fooling around a little bit. I try to go to this website that has adult material but I have problems accessing it because it has a specific and very inappropriate password on all the boards.

So I don't know why but I'm suddenly outside of an old looking wal mart. I drive up to the glass doors and park my car there. I give a wary look behind me at a crew of messed up looking beggars and then go inside.

All I remember from being inside is seeing the same woman from the shower. She is with who i assume is her friend and also her boyfriend. She sees me and asks if I remember her because she is pregnant. I freak out and say no and leave.

Outside of the store again I have to get around the beggars. Their faces seem to be peeling off and they seem to want my car. I run to my car and throw it open and hop inside. I glance in the back to make sure nobody is hiding and realize I'm in the wrong vehicle. I roll outta the car and sprint to whee my car really is. I repeat the process and that's all I remember from that dream.

Finally I get to avoid checking the "fragment" box

I dreamed I was swimming underwater. I can't remember using any breathing devices or anything. My friend Lawrence was leading the tour along with a few other people. Everything is tinted hazy blue.

We come to a narrow hallway with a large door at the end. The guys start moving towards it when I see a glowing parrot looking fish. I'm immediately told not to touch it because if I do it will kill me. So I evade it and we are helped through the gate.

Once through we are in an even larger area. There is a fairly narrow hallway sort of area that leads up s set of shallow steps and those steps lead into the wide open reef we came to see.

As we walk up the narrow steps I am stopped all of a sudden and someone points out a little hole in the base of the steps bi am told not go touch it because if I do it will come unplugged and suck me backwards and shoot me outta the room. That's good enough incentive for me to be careful.

With that in mind I continue forward and am constantly on edge not to touch anything. I see s semi large floating egg, about 12" long float by and I ask one of my guides If I'm allowed to touch the dragon egg even I'd just to save it from floating down the stairs and outta the room. The guide says no and as I watch the egg float by it flashes back and forth between the image of a fish and then back to the image of the egg.

For some reason Lawrence ends up getting way ahead of us and it's making the guides nervous. I tell them that I want to go back and they point towards the door at the end of the steps. I go to it and open it and then immediately I see the red parrot fish that kills on touch. It is alone in the vast blackness. I change my mind about leaving and turn back around.

I dream that a small group of people and I are heading down this steep forested hill. We reach the bottom and realize there is no true way out except climbing back up the other side of the bowl we climbed into. Before we do I take time to notice these absolutely gigantic trees that seem to tower over everything and while I do that I notice the spiders.

The spiders are gigantic and they have weaved a giant web around the entirety if the forrested bowl we walked into. I scream bur our leader ignores it and begins to climb up the side and past the enormously fat spiders. I'm frozen with fear and decide to follow too late. They take the spiders by surprise and manage to make it through a tiny hole in the web. The fat black and bulbous spider crawls over to the hole and seals it up. I am stuck.

I can't really remember these two dreams in vast detail, like I hoped, but I can remember a decent amount. I remember two dream fragments:

#1: I was in some sort of foresty valley with a bunch of other people to celebrate my friends wedding. My wife was there and so were my other friends. It was Whitneys wedding we were celebrating. I remember seeing Whitney in pretty vivid detail and Brian as well. Then for whatever reason I'm walking through the middle of nowhere, still at this wedding, to another town to use the bathroom. Gotta love dream logic. And then, for whatever reason, the fighting begins. Inspired by Dragonball I, for no reason whatsoever, have to begin fighting my relatives in Dragonball style. But for some reason my relative is Tien from DBZ. So we start fighting and I remember throwing energy blasts at him and I seem to hold my own pretty well. For whatever reason another person joins the fight and I remember vividly trying to perform my kamehameha attack but nothing comes out of my palms. However, Tien still stumbles backwards as if hit by energy. It was a really cool feeling. I also remember sneaking into a small house, crawling past a small bedroom with a TV and a video game on, to go use the bathroom. But I couldn't find the bathroom and, from one of the darker closets, a cousin of mine grabs me and scares the crap outta me.

#2: And now I'm in some giant kind of superstore stocking shelves. Mike, my buddy from work, is there too. We're both working hard. I remember Jason and David, the owners of the company I work for, being there as well. For whatever reason I have to go out of the store and down to a ditch where there is a big pump moving water. So I get down there and there the pump is. It is blue and rectangular and sitting inside of a box which is in the water. However; the box only has three sides. No fourth side. I remember this sorta making me extremely confused. Because, without the right wall of the box, how is the water staying in there? I shoulda done an RC because I'm pretty sure I would have become lucid if I thought about it. My confusion, even though the dream isn't that vivid to me, was really strong and I remember it VERY clearly. So anyways I fiddle around with the pump by moving it around. I'm afraid of the water getting low and the pump sucking up air and dying (gotta love it when your work invades your dreams). So I move it outta the box and higher up this muddy slope. It begins to pull less water. OK. So I move it back down towards the box and suddenly it's shooting all of that water again. It's at this point, while fiddling with the box and pump, that I see two gold coins just sitting in the mud. I pick them up. My first thought is: I should give these to Leah to show her dad (who is a coin collector). I look at the coins closer and see that they look similar to the 2010 US pennies at one side (with the flag like shield) and on the other side is a pair of large trees that cross at the very top and in the middle is a couple of giraffe standing in some tall grass. I think to myself: "These coins must be currency in Africa!" And then I'm walking back into the "superstore" to show them off.

Whew! For two "fragments" I sure did remember quite a bit. I love it when that happens. I think that, with my new routine, I'm going to be making great progress. Last night I forgot to do my meditation/mantra but I did the rest all day. Today should be more effective, I think, because I was up too late last night.

So I went to bed a few hours ago and decided to try a little bit of the MILD technique before I went to sleep. Basically I repeated "The next time I dream, I will perform a reality check, and realize I'm dreaming."

So I dreamed that I was in some sort of giant maze with a bunch of random people who were randomly transported there. We were all running like mad back and forth. The maze wasn't one level. It was multi level. There was the main level which was gigantic, like a closed of basketball court, and covered in a padded like substance. At one end of this padded level, about a hundred feet in the air, was this tower looking area with a slit for a door.

Anyways. Suddenly we're all running around like a race had just started. I notice that, as we're running around, some people are wearing all white and some people are wearing red and white clothing. Sort of like the Assassins Creed outfit. At some point in the dream I realize I'm supposed to chase down and try and save the people that are wearing both red and white and to try and be with them because the groups of straight white are chasing us down and capturing us and doing, I'm not sure what. But every time anyone gets caught they start screaming, terrified. I remember thinking: "What kind of God or gods would make us follow one thing and then make us suffer for it?"

At this point I almost become just a pair of eyes with no arms/legs and simply watch as things unfold. I remember this one man running up to a high level and seeing three different options to continue running. It's dark up here and he sees a flash of red and white so he knows to run that way but then he sees flashes of JUST white and knows that he's been cornered. In "my" head or the narrators head I remember narrating his final actions: 'And knowing full well it would be his last desperate moments the man sprinted head on towards what he believed.' And sure enough: my narration was right. He get's tackled and I'm whisked away somewhere else.

I think I'm "me" now in the dream. I'm running up and down more of these padded stairs. I see this woman running screaming and across some sort of opening I see a man wearing white and red face paint, very vividly. I feel like I should follow that person. He feels important. So I start chasing after him and I'm running up stairs to keep up and another guy is with me running, he's on my team. We reach a point where the stairs don't go any further so we turn to run back but take a different way. I yell, "This way is no good!" and sure enough, it isn't. We near a part where it looks like the stairs are OK but in fact, at a different angle, they are all broken except for one. We turn back and run again.

And then I must roll in my sleep or something because suddenly I'm at the bottom again and there are a bunch of boxes, about 8 feet tall, that look like giant pillows set all over the bottom floor. The lights are bright and I feel like a ton of people are there again. At the middle of the room is a guy that looks like Drew Brees, a football player, and he is being interviewed by some guy with a mic. He says: "I'm not going to do anything crazy. If I could: I'd like to hit in an NL ballpark." Or something to that affect. He's talking about some sort of baseball competition he's going to have, with just himself, to show off. I then woke up and my heart was racing and my first thought is: It's kinda funny I had two dream fragments but both of them deal with "teams". Hm... back to bed. It's still only 3:22. Will edit with more dreams.

For some reason I start dreaming and I'm running the "fast break" in basketball and I do a behind the back pass to another kid with curly hair and freckles. He doesn't seen the layup coming and it goes outta bounds. I run over to him after the play ends (and suddenly we're in a cafeteria) and introduce myself. I tell him that I didn't know his name or else I woulda warned him about the pass so he coulda got it. And then suddenly my dream warps into this next one. I'm not going to post much about this fragment as it was super jagged and weird: I was Bart Simpson, or a look a like, and I was running around all over this school wreaking havoc. I would make things blow up or hide things or make mean people get in trouble. And I was constantly getting chased again. My " final moment" in this dream was when I decided to do a suicide mission. I made something blow up and then I tried running away But the explosion caught me as I was running and launched me backwards. And suddenly that dream bled into the next one.

So I dreamed that I was in some sort of sitcom where I would stage situations to make me look like a hero in order to pick up chicks. I pretended to save Emily Mortimers daughters life (she seemed to live in the same apartment complex as me) and later that I day I made myself "happen" to walk by and she invited me in to chat. She had just broken up with her boyfriend/husband (played by a guy I know, Matthew D) and everything was really tense. But anyways we get to making small talk, which I can't remember, and it seems like she's liking me when suddenly her brother (or a close friend of Matthews) comes over and sits down on the couch while she's in the kitchen. I can tell he's pissed I'm there but I act polite and say "Hey, what's up." He says not too much and is mostly polite back. I don't remember what happens next but suddenly he snaps at me. I get mad at him and almost drop an "f bomb" which he starts to grin and say: "Oh yeah? An f bomb? That's not her style at all." And I get even more angry but I hold it in and mutter that he's the kinda guy that sits at the top of the movie theatre so he can look down on everyone. He goes "So I'm some kinda class racist eh?" and starts laughing at me. Emily walks back into the room and says: "I don't need this!" and then next thing I know the brother/Matthews friend is kicked out. And then suddenly we're in a different POV, almost like a sitcom opening, where I'm following three similar looking brothers. One brother is played by the guy from Cloverfield, the main character, and then two guys that look kinda like him. And they're walking up some sorta steps to the top of the apartment building. It's sunny and it looks kinda like California. As they walk up the steps some music is playing and scenes of guys telling girls to "go to roof 7" occurs. Apparently, in this dream sitcom, when you don't want to get with a girl you tell her to go wait at roof 7. And then one of these guys shows up and "sweeps her off her feet" for a one night stand. Anyways. These three guys make it to the top of the apartment building "rooftop 7" and look around. It's all concrete with a few potted trees and benches. There are two groups of people: all guys. The brothers seem super dissappointed and then one brother mentions Emily living in the apartment and how he's going to try and get with her. At this point I realize that I am the main character (the guy from Cloverfield) and for some reason I don't say anything back. My "brother" says "it's gonna be awesome. Gettin' the second girl this week that you been with, haha" implying that they'll enjoy being with him more. And that's pretty much it for that dream. I DO remember that the one brother had one giant tooth instead of regular sized front teeth. Teeth getting messed up seems to be a theme in my dreams.

And my fifth dream in one night: I remember standing around in a parking lot with a buddy of mine, Austin. He had come driving up from somewhere. And anyways in the back of his van was a bunch of music equipment. So he comes flying across the street to where I'm hanging out at and pulls around and parks and pops his trunk. I'm super worried he forgot something we'll need but I keep finding out that he has everything. I remember, from across the street, watching him running holding my amp head with one hand and the thing dangling around like it was going to fall. It was sorta funny. So we start jamming out and I keep all of the equipment underneath the door of his trunk because I'm afraid of rain. And then we invite my friend Chris to come play with us and he shows up, too, from across the street. From there forward it gets pretty hazy. He mentions how his class gave him the day off or something but he's thinking of going back anyways. Somebody makes a joke where the punchline is "I wouldn't even show you my penis online." And that's pretty much it.

So, wow. The MILD technique really does work. No Lucids but 5 completely separate and memorable dreams. I'm going to keep this up.

I think I'm fighting myself and my recall. I'll wake up from a pretty vivid dream and be too lazy to open up my computer and take notes on it. It is sort of self defeating. I remember that I had two pretty vivid dreams. But this is the only one I can remember and, at that, I can only remember a part of it:

I was at some sort of party in a big dining room. There was a good crowd of people there and it seemed like everybody didn't like me. I remember constantly getting pointed out and made fun of or angrily talked about. I had no idea what I did. I then remember making "friends" with this crippled guy. He had to walk with walkers because his legs didn't work. It was odd. But anyways after talking to him I excused myself to go to the restroom and a moment later he, the crippled guy, comes hobbling in. I remember that I was in the stall and when I heard the door open I knew it was him and I was terrified. He opened the door to my stall and his mouth was taped shut but I could still hear him talk (that shoulda been a dream sign, right there!) but instead of waking up because of the obvious sign he goes to tackle me. Being full bodied I manage to throw him aside.

And then I'm in a hallway and trying to half crawl and half hide. I'm sitting at the corner of a tiled hallway when three women walk by. They are younger, like 19 or so, and completely ignore me when they walk by. I remember hearing them say something mean about me and I took a swing at one of their legs. They round the corner. I turn back to my edge of the hall and see across the hall a group of guys are sitting in desks and some taller man is walking back and forth by them. In my dream I realize the guy in the first desk is Josh Howard, an NBA player. In my dream I remember thinking "This doesn't look like Josh Howard." But it doesn't phase me. I end up grabbing his leg and shaking it and saying, "You're Josh Howard?!" and he nods while trying to pay attention a little bit to the tall man. But he obviously loves the attention. Then I say, "Man, I LOVED you with the Dallas Mavericks in 06-07." He grins, obviously really pleased with this, and nods his head.

And that's that as far as I can remember. An interesting dream. It had my heart going at some points. I really need to work on forcing myself to journal as soon as I wake from a dream. My recall is getting a little bit better but I know I could have so much more written in here.

I'm getting close to lucidity, I think, I can feel it. I'm starting to critically think while in dreams.

Dream Fragment:
I remember vaguely running across a parking lot of some sort
with a few friends from highschool. We're trying to catch a
movie of some sort. My friend Lawrence is with me. For some
reason I end up buying him a ticket and mine as well. I don't
remember much else from this dream.

Dream Fragment:
I don't remember much from this dream. Just that I worked in
some sort of warehouse and I helped some guy specifically
who was being talked about by people that didn't work at
the warehouse. Brad something or other.

Dream Two:
I remember coming into my dream as Leah and I are pass through
the doors of some downtown shop. It seems fairly bright out.
As we walk inside my heart starts racing and I realize we're
in some sort of adult store. We walk into a big sort of
foyer and sitting at a table is an older man and woman talking.
The woman says something like, "So do you really think I'll be able to act?"
The man responds with something, "I hear they've hired Ellen Hunt."

To the left, in the big room, is the couple. To the right is some gambling area
with a bar and a tender wearing the typical "card dealer" outfit. And next to
that is a set of stairs that lead down and to the adult section.

We continue walking down some small steps and into, what
I assume, is the actual section of adult material in
the store. I remember walking around and poking at various
materials of the adult variety. I vividly remember seeing
a lube, gun, mystic (like, special rocks) section and so on.

I spend a lot of time browsing on my own while Leah looks
at her own things without me. I remember picking up some
item, lube I think, and bringing it to the counter to check
out. I'm also holding some other little box. I remember the
checkout was this old school looking typewriter and to check
a customer out the salesman had to put a new sheaf of paper
in. He does this for me and starts trying to hardsell me on
some t-shirt. $20 bucks for the shirt and $2 for shipping.
In my dream I don't understand why I'd need shipping. He
goes on to say, "I'm not usually into shirts but for 2
bucks it's a steal." I'm reluctant to get it because I feel
like I've spent too much cash (and this is kind awesome, I think in my dream
I remember buying the movie ticket for Lawrence)
as it is but he keeps pushing
the shirt on me. The man has short brownish orange hair and
freckles.

Now I'm holding some cologne, which seemed to be right next to
the counter, as he continues to push the shirt on me. I ask him
"So, the shirt is only two bucks?" He get's quiet and says
"Well, no, it's 20." I tell him I'm going to pass on the shirt
and he says, after checking to be sure nobody is listening,
"Listen. The shirt is cheap, I know, and they fit small. But
I've worn it in situations and they aren't bad for 2 bucks."

It's at this point that some woman walks by and tells the guy
just to let me get my cologne. The woman looks exactly like the girl
from Jake and Amir, Sarah. It's at this point i realize that I don't
want the cologne. For kicks I look at the price tag, 70 bucks -yikes-, and
I set it back down. He finally seems to relent (even
though I'm not getting any cologne) and checks me out. I notice
he uses a special black pen that I recognize from my work in
real life.

When I'm done there I grab my little bag of stuff and follow
Leah up into another level of the store. We pass by a tall man
wearing a bluetooth headset as he stands at a monitor with
camera feeds on it. He mutters something like, "So he walks
in. And goes straight towards the table." as if he's security.

And that's all I really remember from that one.