side notes

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...

Went to a big music festival Saturday night and I ended up staying out until 3:30 and not falling asleep until past 4am. I got up at 9:30 and couldn't remember anything but I'm not too surprised or disheartened. I feel like any given night could be the night

Last night I didn't really even bother trying to recall my dreams. It was my last night with my wife before she left to go on vacation with her parents for a week so I just didn't bother. I had a small fragment that I did remember enough to jot down on my iPod though.

Hopefully this next week, as I'll have the bed to myself, I'll make some great strides.

So I woke up this morning and had a faint idea of a dream I had... But I just never got up and wrote it down. I got lazy, no excuses. I also noticed I'm getting a little lazy with my reality checks. I've been trying pretty hard to make progress for the last two months and I haven't lost hope. I just wish I had experienced even the tiniest thing to, you know, help me keep my spirits up.

I found this LDing app on iTunes called "Dream Sign" and I'm toying with it. Basically what it does is send you alerts while you are sleeping prompting you to "do a reality check" while you are in your REM sleep. We'll see how it works.

I'm inside of some sort of game that I was told to play by some guy. Chris plays too. It's some sort of rts mixed with action. All I remember is that part of the game requires buying and reselling and everyone is trying to swindle you. Especially the guy that invites me to play. I get chased around the game bring called "little twit" and all I try to do is hide. I end up so tired and scared of being chased I quit and as soon as I did I woke up. It was an interesting variation on the "being chased" dream.

For some reason I'm bowling with my buddy, Austin, and we're going back and forth throwing strikes. He has a house ball, I notice, and I know to think that that is odd because he has his own equipment. I'm using my old bowling ball. He throws a great strike and then I'm up and I roll my ball and do it poorly but somehow still get a strike. I remember shaking my head in my dream and knowing I got lucky.

I'm in some sort of gas station and it seem like I work there. Crizza is there. He's showing off some ring tone the Angels were giving away. It sounds lame but has Autotune and doesn't even mention the team. Alex is there too and I bring my guitar for some reason to try and learn while at the gas station.

So, I'm at an impasse. I've been faithfully DJing, as you can see, for the last 50 days. Nearly two months, now. My ability to recall dreams is much better than it has ever been before. I can say that I have progressed that much, at least. Lately my DJ activity has dipped (in terms of # of dreams per night) but mostly because I've been too lazy/tired to write them down during whenever I wake up. I feel like if I were to read over my entire DJ I'd see that I'm way too scatterbrained in terms of my efforts and attempts at induction techniques. The only thing I've done consistently is DJ and RC during the day. I think it's time for me to quit messing around and finally pick a technique to work on.

So I've strained all of the excess techniques and left my two favorites: The CAN WILD technique, developed on this forum, and the MILD technique by the big man himself, LaBerge.

Pros of CANWILD:
-LD at will, essentially.
-Seems like it'd get concrete results quicker.

Cons of CANWILD:
-Sleep Paralysis. I don't like the idea of the hallucinations. Though my fear of SP may create a self defeating mindset. If I quit fearing it and just rolled with it I may be OK.

Pros of MILD:
-No sleep paralysis.
-Seems more organic.

Cons of MILD:
-A bit harder to actually do consistently with all of the steps through the day that are required.

Suggestions?

And my fragment from last night:

I dreamt about this remnant that had been passed down a million different times abs touched a bunch of different times. Each time it got touched the person touching it imparted some sort of detail upon it.

A little bit better of a night of dreaming. I got two decent recalls and I suppose that aint too shabby in the long run. Here they are:

I am witnessing this dream in 3rd person. There is this woman and she's a new employee in some sort of office environment. Everyone works at computers and I THINK it's some sort of call center. Anyways. She's massively disrespected by this one guy who seems to be the leader of the group. He's almost 30 years old, I remember him saying, and pretty disappointed with his life. Anyways. this dude is sort of a dick to this woman but she wants to be the best so she doesn't just give up. There's some sort of competition coming up, I'm not sure what they're doing, I just know that the man has a day or two head start on her because he cheated somehow. Somehow she evens up the score and manages to catch up. And then I flash forward in the dream to find out that the woman was tricked AGAIN and somehow still lost.

And then I'm in another dream. I work for some sort of grocery store but my shifts are awesome. I only work for a few hours every day and then I go to school. But my "school" is the same hours my REAL LIFE work is. Anyways I'm at work for some reason and I'm discussing hours with my manager. She looks like Sarah from Super Valu (my first job) and she's describing that somehow my hours got switched around and I'm allowed to take off whenever I want today. I appreciate that and decide to myself that I'll cut out about an hour early to give me time to eat a nice breakfast before school. For whatever reason I now am taking a tour around the store with Sarah in tow and we're going through all of these different meat sections and I'm describing them to her. We come across an aisle dedicated to already cooked bacon (that isn't in a package) and it's just hanging on different hooks. We do the same for turkey and ham, as well.

I hope I'm getting closer. Those two dreams were more vivid than I typed out but I, of course, was typing from a shaky memory as they were delayed recalls. Tonight I ate some banana before I hopped into bed and I'm taking my RCs more and more seriously. Hopefully this pans out some.

I only really had one vivid dream recalled from last night and I had a little fragment that I still remember. I'm not going to bother writing that one down but I will post the dream.

I'm working at brew and grow and I'm handling the front counter while Julie is working in back. The computer isn't working so I'm small talking a customer while I stall for time. I also notice that the light switch is not working either. So it's kinda dark.

The dude kinda looks like a real customer. He's white and probably thirty with brown hair and a beard and goatee. While we are small talking I'm making myself lunch which is chicken alfredo though it's out of some sort of powdered packet.

I look back at the computer and type in some sort of command as the screen is all black and if mostly stays that way. Julie must have said something funny to me because the customer says that what she and I have is special. I think it's ridiculous that he'd say that as I am married and also because I can tell he is jealous and I don't want him going nuts on me.

So as I'm going through my routine (reality checks throughout the day, random stops to just "feel and look" around me, WBTB) I decided to add on a "day journal" of sorts to help me clear my head everynight as well as incubate some ideas for me to dream about and realize I'm lucid. Plus: it'll be a good way to get my creative writing back into the swing of things.

Last night I had no true recall. I attribute this to the fact that I must have slept deeper then I normally do because of a certain partnered action. I also decided not to perform WBTB so as not to bother my wife while she sleeps. I think I'm going to go back to attempting Stephen LaBerges MILD technique while utilizing a day journal to help me incubate dream topics. I've decided I am going to focus on doors, primarily. Anytime I walk through a door I will stop and comb it over while performing a reality check. It'll be tough to integrate into my daily routine but if effort is my only barrier than effort I shall put forth.

As always: wish me luck.

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.

Last night I decided to forgo listening to the binaural beats WHILE I slept and instead listened to them and THEN went to sleep. I slept much better. In fact I think I was so tired from my lack of sleep the night before I probably missed most of my REM cycle. When I woke up for my WBTB method I couldn't remember any of my dreams. So I did my WBTB method (woke up for a few minutes, checked email, and then turned on binaural beats and laid back down) and listened to the beats for a good twenty minutes. I then took them off and went to sleep. I woke up a good 4 hours later (quarter to ten, waaay later than I normally get up) and had this jotted down:

My wife and I are on an airplane that apparently goes to space. I'm excited but nervous and am not sure how to react. The plane takes off and then just as quickly Leah and I warp to the airport (what they say about speedy traveling in Dreaming is true, eh?) and we are walking around. We are in a big airport that sort of looks like a giant mall. It's really white and really open. We see a line of people at the suitcase rack and decide to head over. Along the way I ask Leah how long we're on vacation for and she says 'Two days'. I'm instantly upset and go, 'What's the point of a two day vacation. Let's go for five.'. We reach the line of people for suitcases and watch as different people run over to a guy handing them out and open the bags up. Dogs keep jumping out.

I should be upset I didn''t remember much but, honestly, I'm just glad I got a good nights sleep. Two more days of Infinity. Knock on wood and let's hope for some developments.

I dreamed that I was in some bigger, darker, version of my parents old house. This man and woman were there. And then it was a store, somehow. And they were shopping. I ask the person I'm working with if the two "had left yet". She says yes and I say: "Thank goodness," and as I say that I notice they are still here so I quickly change it to, "Because I needed to use the restroom." so as not to annoy them or make it seem like I'm badmouthing them. Anyways, I go back to use the bathroom and for some reason there's a woman with the guy that I wanted to leave and she's freaking me out. For some reason she's suffering from this "Alzheimer" like disease that can only be cured by this product called 'squid juice'. What it does is it (the disease) slowly makes you forget everything you love. I somehow gave it to her. Then Justin Long is somehow there and he's hunting me down and I'm trying to hide. He never catches/finds me. But I hear him saying that the 'squid juice' doesn't cure everyone. He pours some of it on his hand/face and worms start to bubble out of it and then he says, "It doesn't always get to what is inside.". And that's all I really remember.

And then for some reason Leah and I are at this really run down looking movie theater. We're on our "honeymoon" (don't ask me how I know this) and we wanted to go see a movie. So we get our tickets and, at first, have a helluva time finding our movie room. Somehow we end up like a mile past our actual room before having to double back. We find it, room 13, and go in. Immediately I'm hit by the smell of must and decay. There is a woman wearing loose sweatpants, she's a big woman, and the first thing she says when we come in is: "Finally ya made it." So we go all the way into the room. The actual silver screen is nice but instead of cozy chairs there is a gigantic white bench/pyramid that is covered in kids. We make our way over there. The kids are yelling and loud. There is a man at the front of the room by the screen trying to calm them down. He can't. So he sends in a "band jockey". A band jockey is a guy that is in the band that entertains the kids between shows. I don't know how I know this. So he comes in and asks the kids to quiet down, they don't. He gets mad and leaves again. When he comes back, again, he's dressed in some bizarre "Bashir" costume. He has a big oily black mustache and a giant wig. The kids listen after laughing a little bit. And then we're somehow back in our "hotel room" and I remember trying my hardest to get out of the clothes I was wearing and to bag them up. The smell from the theater is clinging to them and it's making my dream self gag.

I couldn't sleep well last night. I'm on my fourth day of the Infinity course (I'm at the point where I'm doing MILD and hand theory before going to bed and then waking up a few hours for the WBTB technique). But I kept waking up. I don't think I ever fell into a deep enough sleep to make the WBTB technique work. I tried listening to binaural beats while I was asleep but I think they kept me awake.

Til next time.

So I started following the "Infinity" Lucid Dreaming Course last night. Here are the two dreams I had:

We are outside of our house, my wife and I, at night.
Leah says her mom wants me to hang out more.
I get mad and say I can't and don't have the time.
She says I can visit on Sunday.
I tell her it's my only day off and I already waste half of it as it is.
I realize I'm runnin late to work and stomp off at 9:50.
I walk up a sidewalk and it seems like it's night time.
I see three dogs that look like my parents dogs and they bark at me. Leah laughs

This next dream is a bit more intense, detail wise. This singer from a local band, Kirkland is their name, is working at the gas station next door to my real life work. I remember going over to visit, it was still night like my first dream, and I was incredibly nervous. So she's walking around or whatever. And then for some reason I see her hanging out with this singer from this other local band, Matter of Fact, like in real life. And then I'm driving up from east of the gas station, still dark, and listening to a song that both of those singers did together. It was kind of trippy.

And suddenly a guy I barely know/talk to and I are going into this tiny and abandoned tennis court. It's right by the highway and fenced up as if it were a prison. Creepers and vines are everywhere and leaves cover the court. It was sort of mystical. I say to the other guy, Nate, "Man. It's been forever since we got a good tennis game in." And we start to play tennis. I just remember the court is cramped and we're trying to play, still at night, and Nate mentions something about how he "hates it when people return in that area. It's so cheap.

So nothing crazy awesome tonight. The dreams were interesting. I honestly didn't sleep very well and had to force myself to take down notes for this DJ entry. I'm moving on to day 2 of the Infinity Course. I tried willing myself into SP last night and I could get to the point where I was completely numb but I was too awake to fall asleep.

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.