lucid

So as I was tired and a little down on myself while I was sitting in a lawn chair outside I decided to take a nap just to get some rest. I found that I entered a dream consciously without even meaning to.

I was standing in a kind of dream like those fake happy dreams they always portray in the movies - There was just a flat ground covered in grass, and you couldn't see too far because it dropped off into a peaceful white fog. I was not wearing shoes and I could feel the moist grass under my feet and in between my toes. I was wearing a white floral dress and I was walking around in this happy, blissful trance. After I walked for a bit I came to a white stone wall, and found a full length mirror on it. When I looked in it it really helped improve my self image, because despite my usual feelings of inadequacy about my appearance, in that moment I just felt absolutely beautiful. And the image of me in the mirror seemed pretty accurate to my real features, so the good feeling lasted quite a while after I woke up from the dream.

I started skipping along and I decided I wanted to try to summon a dream character. I found myself expecting a hill with a tree to appear in front of me, and it did. I didn't really know who I wanted to appear on the hill. In fact, I think I was expecting a boy to come out and greet me. But when I got to the hill I met with an old friend from high school whom I hadn't seen in a few years, and she was wearing the same floral dress as me, bare foot in the grass as I was. We were so happy to see each other we smiled and greeted each other and hugged. Then we played around on the hill like little children, chasing each other around and using a tire swing that was attached to the tree on the hill. Now I really want to see that friend again and talk to her.

This morning I found myself at Gyeongbokgung palace again. When I got to the entrance I realized I was just in street clothes, and I remembered that I was going to try to show up in hanbok from now on so I crossed the street and found the store from my first dream about the palace. Luckily everything was the same and I was able to get the same dress without paying for it.

As I waited in front of the palace I lost my lucidity. Eventually some girl came up to me and asked if I wanted to go shopping. I said yes, and we went into one of the palace's museums and starting looking at and buying souvenirs. Somehow I had a purse that I didn't have in the beginning of the dream, and inside it I had a lot of Korean money. The money was really detailed and accurate looking. I bought some hanja writing pens (basically pens with little paintbrush tips), a cute notebook, a puzzle, and some multicolored chopsticks with Korean written on them. I don't know what the other girl bought.

Note for members of DawnEye11's shared dream experiment: I know that it is still Saturday morning over here and you may not have successfully attempted the experiment yet. Be warned that this dream contains accurate details about Gyeongbokgung palace, as well as other details such as the symbol I chose.

Before this dream started, I woke up remembering that I had woke up in the middle of the night writing down an awesome dream in the notes on my phone, so I wouldn't forget. Apparently though, it was a false awakening because when I woke up this morning and checked my phone there was no such note. ㅜㅜ I had focused so much and tried so hard to participate in the shared dream experiment but I hadn't even remembered any of my dreams, except for the false awakening I suppose. I went back to sleep and did a WILD as a last ditch effort. Maybe I should try WILDs more often, they seem to work better for me than DILDs.

I recognized my surroundings as I stood on the sidewalk of a busy 6-lane street in the midst of skyscrapers. I had been here before, and I was sure I was near to Gyeongbokgung palace as I had focused on it for my WILD and I was pretty sure I knew the way from the street I was on. It reminded me of how busy a city with ten million people can be. It was a nice sunny day, probably early fall. There were a lot of cars and a lot of people walking the sidewalks. As I made my way around the block I saw the main gate to Gyeongbokgung palace in the distance across the street. Before I got there I noticed a hanbok (traditional Korean clothing) rental store on my left. It is common for tourists, especially women, to rent hanbok as they tour Gyeongbokrung palace. I had always wanted to try it on but had never done so. I walked into the store and said "한복 하나 입고 싶어요" (I want to try on a hanbok).

A middle-aged Korean man behind the counter asked me, his hand lifted to a rack with several different colored dresses, "어떤 게 마음에 들어요?" (Which one do you like?). I chose a hanbok with a blue top and red bottom. He handed it to me, and without asking me for money simply let me leave with it on. I changed into the hanbok. It didn't come with shoes, so I was wearing sneakers underneath the dress. It didn't look too weird, though, since hanbok is a full-length dress.


This is a basic idea of what it looked like but the top was blue instead of green.

So I crossed the street seeing several tourists and approached Gyeongbokgung palace. At this point the dream started to fade, but as I was lucid I held onto the dream and focused on the palace to root myself in the dream. I walked through the main gate and found myself in the front courtyard. In the middle of the front courtyard I found daises growing in the middle of the courtyard. That was strange since the ground of the courtyard is pretty boring looking uncultivated dirt. I walked through the gate to the left as I heard drums, because I knew that the guards did the march reenactment over there (although they do go through the main courtyard as well). The drum sounds were loud and perfectly synchronized, it was rather impressive. Usually the guards are all wearing different brightly colored uniforms, but in my dream they all wore purple for some reason.

I started to lose lucidity at this point, and I don't remember much of the rest of the dream, but eventually I visited the museum and looked at exhibits such as the king's meal. I love Korean food so this made me hungry. There were many foods represented by the fake set up in the museum, but what I really craved was the king's rice and stew.

So I took a nap and as I fell asleep I tried to focus my thoughts on my favorite TV show, Avatar: The Last Airbender, to get a related dream. Most of the environment and clothing, etc. was typical to that of the Earth Kingdom in the cartoon. The whole dream felt like a weird, semi lucid state, where I kind of knew I was dreaming but it never really crossed my mind.

I woke up in a small room with a bed, a hole in the wall for a window, a closet, and a mirror. I went to the closet and put on a green skirt and a white top. I found some green flats as well, they were really simple looking shoes but they had no laces. I looked in the mirror and saw myself, I was a lot shorter than I am in waking life and I was a darker-skinned asian. I started doing my hair when I heard my mom: "Misun, I made breakfast!"

That was my name in the dream. "Coming!" I called back as I did my hair and put on eyeliner. When I was finished I went out into the dining room. We must have been relatively poor, our house appeared to be made of clay or something, and there was little furniture, just a small table with some chairs. I saw my family. There was a lady and a younger girl, the lady was my mom in the dream and the girl was my younger sister. Both were similar looking to me, but mainly different in age. My sister's skin was a lighter shade than mine.

I sat down and ate toast. After I took a bite, my mother started talking to me while she washed dishes in the kitchen using a faucet and bucket. "Misun, I need you to pick up some milk on your way home from school today" (I must have been high school aged and I think my sister was probably a couple years younger than me).

"Alright, I can do that." I replied. My sister made a silly face at me and I smiled at her. After we finished breakfast my sister put on a backpack and I picked up a shoulder bag thing and carried it like a purse. It had a couple books and supplies in it. We said goodbye to our mom and left the house. Most of the houses outside looked pretty similar to our house and the street was smooth stone, about 8 feet wide. My sister and I talked about a lot of things while we walked to school together. Among the things we talked about, I remember talking about schoolwork and cooking. "Can you help me cook fried rice this afternoon? I want to learn how."

"Sure.", I told her.

"Oh, and some of my friends want to play 축구 on lunch break today. Do you want to play?" (축구 is the Korean word for soccer)

"Yeah, that sounds like fun." I said. As we approached the school we entered a gate with the earth kingdom symbol overhead, a circle with a square cut out of the middle. I parted ways with my sister as we entered different doors to the school. I walked to a locker and opened it, putting some of the books in my locker. Someone approached from behind and I turned around. It was a tall guy with dark hair smiling at me. I must have known him within the context of the dream's story because I didn't think it was weird at all. "Hey Misun, do you want to go eat at the dancing dragon tonight?"

"Sorry, I'm teaching my sister to cook tonight," I told him, "but thanks for inviting me." I closed my locker and went to my classroom.

When in my classroom the teacher handed out scrolls to each of us. This is the only part where I have evidence for the dream possibly being lucid, because I remembered that people speak English and write Chinese characters in the world of Avatar, and I was excited because I remembered talking with DawnEye11 about reading foreign language in dreams. The teacher started talking but it was kind of like a charlie brown cartoon where I didn't pay attention to a single word she said. I opened the scroll and found it was written in Chinese, just as I expected. Most of it was unrecognizable to me, and was probably fake Chinese since I can't read many of the characters, but I read two characters that I did recognize,中國, which I read as 중국 which means China. Funny, I always connected Earth Kingdom culture and symbolism with that of China.

After class we went outside for a break. I found my sister and we started playing that earthbending soccer game you see in the cartoon. So my sister and I and another earthbending girl played against these three boys. I have earthbended in dreams before, so the motions and the feeling of force came pretty naturally to me. It is one of my favorite things to do in dreams. It's like a whole new skillset to learn that is not even possible in reality. (although you technically could learn the martial art it's based on). We only scored once, and high fived each other, before either the dream ended or my memory faded, not sure which one.

I woke up a little before I needed to and so I attempted a WILD.

When I entered the dream, I was sitting cross-legged on the peak of a tall mountain. The peak was a flat plateau with healthy ankle-high grass growing evenly throughout the area. I had my eyes closed at first, and I simply felt the grass and the wind and enjoyed the peaceful feeling I was having. Sort of like I was meditating I guess. After a few minutes of relaxation I opened my eyes to see the absolutely beautiful scene of mountains going on seemingly forever. The mountains were that "rolling hill" type mountain that is typical of east Asia, the kind I had seen a lot in eastern Korea. I have a similar picture I might upload later, but for now I will just do a quick google search to upload an image.

I also saw other planets in the sky, it was a great view. I suddenly had the feeling I wasn't alone, so I stood up and turned around. The plateau was a circle about 15 feet in diameter. Floating about a foot above the ground was a woman in an oriental-style white and silver dress. She looked like she was in her 30's, she was glowing a bit, almost like an angel. I walked up to her and asked "who are you?"

"My name is Win Fu," she responded. "And I am the wind guardian of this mountain." Her voice sounded like two or three women talking at once. I noticed that air flew around and encircled her as she spoke.

Unfortunately my alarm went off and I woke up at this point. I don't think I have ever heard the name Win Fu, I don't know where my brain got that from.

After using several strategies to try to improve dream recall like changing my alarm sound, sleeping in, drinking lots of water, etc. I was able to remember 4 dreams last night! I think that is the most I have ever remembered.

1. Going home
This dream might have been partially a repressed memory from when I lived in Korea but it took place in a church I used to go to often in Korea. I remember thinking "I will go home soon" and I was talking to some guys about my plane trip to the United States. The two guys were not really listening to me they were just laughing and joking and playing weird music. I can't remember much about this dream, I don't even remember what the music sounded like I just remember it was strange music.

2. Games and car problems
In this dream I was at my parents' house playing a game on the computer with my dad. I remember I was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt (I usually remember clothes in a dream). I was on the computer upstairs which is strange because usually my dad plays on that computer, and I play downstairs either on the other computer or on my school laptop that I bring home. But this time it was swapped. I can't remember what the game was but I think it might have been some kind of first person shooter. Anyways I think we were winning when my mom came into the room and said that the pickup truck wasn't starting. I told her to go downstairs and ask dad because I don't know much of anything about cars, but she insisted I came too, so we all went outside. One of my brothers was already outside and he talked to us about something. I woke up after that.

3. Rice for the old man
So this dream started in the living room of my parents' house and I was sitting in a room with my mom and youngest sister. I was wearing a dark green skirt and a black blouse, clothes I don't even own in waking life, and my sister was sitting on the floor for some reason. My mom said that she wished there was something we could do for the old man (not a real person) down the street, he was very poor and his wife passed away. She took a picture of him out of her purse and showed it to us. I wonder how these strange events did not trigger a lucid.

Typical of my little sister, she suggested that we go to the gas station and buy something for him. So we all got in my mom's car and drove to the gas station. When we walked in the cashier greeted us and we smiled and said hello, but my sister and I quickly walked to the back of the store. Oddly enough we found that the gas station was selling bags of rice. My sister knows how much I like cooking with rice so she said "Julie we should get one bag for the old man and one bag for us!"

I agreed so she went to ask my mom to buy it and I grabbed the rice. For some reason the rice bags were open at the top, so I tied them shut with the loose string on the bags and took them to the cashier. The bags were pretty heavy. As we were getting in the car again I woke up. It's too bad, I really wanted to see the man's reaction when we gave him the rice.

4. Abominable Snowman village
This was definitely one of my more vivid and specific dreams. In this dream I was the adopted daughter of two Chinese parents, a taller man and a shorter woman, both of whom looked relatively old, much older than my real parents at least. At the beginning of the dream I did not know they were Chinese, I just knew I was adopted because I am white and they are asian. So I started in a false awakening and I got out of bed and looked out the window. I was in a very arctic looking environment, and there was a very small town, I suppose you could call it a village, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. I remember thinking that the place we lived was really beautiful, snow covered hills with mountains and trees on the distance, it was that "winter wonderland" you imagine when you hear the song.

I put on jeans and a red t-shirt, and I went outside of my small room into the main room/kitchen type room of our house. Our house was very small and it had 3 bedrooms and a kitchen. I don't remember a bathroom in the house haha. Luckily I never needed it so I don't know what the deal with that was. I don't remember feeling cold at this point in the dream, but we must have not had a heater because breath was visible as we each spoke. Also my mother was wrapped in a warm blanket while she made breakfast. I walked into the room and my brother (he didn't look like either of my real brothers) was already sitting down at the table with my father. Mother had made eggs and bacon with hot chocolate for all of us. We had a conversation at the table but I don't remember what we talked about at all. Eventually I decided to go outside and travel the area alone. I never put on a coat, now that I think about it.

Eventually I met up with a friend and she said that she heard noises from a nearby mountain and wanted to check it out. I went with her to the place to find a cave. She approached the cave first and a huge hairy giant came out of the cave and hit her. The hit sent her flying and she landed in the snow about 20 yards away. I remember thinking she was dead. I saw a giant animal, somewhat like a wolf, come out and go toward the place where my friend had landed. I quickly ran behind a hill and laid down, covering myself in snow so the giant and the wolf wouldn't find me. It was so cold under the snow. I waited until it sounded like they had left, and then I dug myself out of the snow. I saw them going toward my town so I quickly ran back to town.

I ran into town and noticed a lot of commotion in a building in the middle of the town, sort of like a town hall. As I came into the building I saw dead bodies strewn across the halls. Looking at the scene made my tummy hurt a bit. Anyway I also noticed that someone had been able to kill the giant wolf. The whole place was shaking every step the giant took, so I went into a big hall that was probably used for eating in large groups, and found the giant running around. For some reason I decided it was a good idea to go try to talk to him. When I got closer I realized he was crying and I told him to try and calm down, that it would all be okay. He said something about how his anger got the best of him and he got really violent, and that terrible things happened whenever he got mad because he was too big and strong. I tried to relate to him. I told him "I understand having huge feet I feel like my feet are freakishly huge and I just want to hide them. It is hard for me to buy shoes at the store because my feet are so big."

This didn't help much, I don't know what I was thinking. He said "at least you can wear shoes" and pointed to his feet. His feet had that shoe size measuring ladder you see on the foot measurers at stores tattooed on the top of his foot, and it didn't even go halfway to his toes. His feet were really ugly too which I guess reminded me that my own feet are perfectly fine.

Suddenly my brother came from out of nowhere and used this distraction to tackle the giant. I just ran out of the room and in the kitchen of the building I found my mother. She was crying and she told me that she needed to tell me something just in case she has to go away. She told me that she and my father were Chinese spies and that they were assigned to this area to find the giants. I asked her "why didn't you guys ever teach us Chinese?" This made me realize I was dreaming, as she was not my real mother, and I remembered my interest in language from waking life, and how I knew Korean but not Chinese. She responded to me but I was just thinking about how I was dreaming. At this point I woke up.