side notes

For the last 20 days, since seeing the film "Inception", I have been cataloging my dreams in my dream journal. And through this I've grown to be able to recall my dreams in pretty decent detail every night except for nights where I don't get much sleep. That, in itself, is pretty awesome. I've also been doing my reality checks throughout the day (whenever I remember, I'll go ahead and perform them). Now I'm ready to take the next step. Here is my plan to become a lucid dreamer:

1. Maintain a Dream Diary.
2. Randomly throughout the day perform reality checks. Truly questioning my surroundings.
3. At least four times a day take a moment to truly study my surroundings. Waking awareness and attention to detail, I think, should carry over to the dreaming world.
4. Write a big letter "A" with a question mark on my palm. Every time I see this, do an authentic reality check.
5. Before bed, meditate. I call it "finding my void". I'll focus, in my mind, on a tiny flame in a vast black emptiness. All I well think of is how it flickers.
6. When I'm done meditating repeat my mantra: "I AM dreaming." until I fall asleep. I'm hoping this will carry into my dream and, when it does, I will become lucid simply by stating (subconsciously) my mantra.

Outside of that I'm really just going to immerse myself in the idea of lucid dreaming (LaBerges book, the forum, movies..) and try to enjoy the journey. The harder the journey the better the arrival, I think.

Another night another entry.

I come into my dream and I'm taking care of a few dogs in some house. A corgi puppy that's chilling out in a big cage sorta like the one my cats live in and a dog from my childhood. I go outside and there are people walking around. I don't know why but every pregnant woman in the city is congregating on the hospitals for some reason. I can't remember why. For some reason I go outside and somehow run into a small group of people. I can't remember what/who/where they're going/why but I decide to join up with them. Behind us some pregnant girl seems to be trailing us. But then some guy, who looks kinda like Adam Morrison, comes striding down the street and confronts this one woman and pretty much tells her she's not pregnant enough to waste the hospitals time (I think he means: she's not far enough along in her pregnancy) and the woman freaks out. He tells her that "she's more drunk, sober, than with alcohol in her." And she calls him a pretty derogatory sentence about how he's just a big mexican. She goes marching off again obviously upset.

I also woke up in the middle of the night from my previous dream and decided to try to WILD. So I lay perfectly still and repeated my mantra to myself: "I will fall asleep and then begin to lucid dream." I don't know how long I did this, awhile I think, and then my entire body started to tingle and my heart started racing. I was too full of energy/nerves and I couldn't stay like that for too long so I moved and woke myself up. Was that sleep paralysis?

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.

Another night and I couldn't remember a single dream. I was up pretty late, didn't sleep enough, and I was drinking a little bit...But it's disheartening.

For the first time since starting this journal, last night (the 24th), I was incapable of recalling a single dream or even a hint of a dream. I guess I didn't sleep too well. I'll update this again in a few hours, hopefully, with a better recall. Wish me luck.

I'm going to try sleeping with binaural beats on..

Hey guys,

You can call me Jason. I'm a 21 year old guy from Illinois. To keep this short (it's time for bed) I'll just let you guys know a little bit about me. I work in a gardening/brewing store as an Assistant Manager. I'm married. I love playing all sorts of sports and I love playing music (I play the drums). I'm a gigantic Bulls/Bears fan and I can shoot the breeze talking about things I like all day. I'm a dreamer and that bleeds into every facet of my life: writing, writing music, playing escapism heavy video games, and my love of roleplaying. I love anime and I really love feel good anime. I am a ridiculously big movie nut and could go on and on about good cinema.

But anyways. I'm here because the idea of having even a semblance of control while I'm dreaming and having the ability or, at least, the option to do new and amazing things...greatly intrigues me. I want to do so many cool things. But first I realize I have to work hard for it. So with that said: wish me luck! I hope to keep this regularly updated.

Thanks,

Jason.