non-lucid

I was at a high class resort of sorts, and I was not me, though I don't have a a good sense of who I was.

The most memorable part of the resort stay was the tutorial they did mostly directed toward men of "How Do You Dance With a Lady" when there is a wine bottle involved. It appeared to be a formal evening dress code event, with classical dancing. So the men were given a multiple choice quizz:

Do you "Dance with a Lady" and a wine bottle
(a) by renaming your wine bottle "lady" and dancing with her
(b) try to pour or drink the wine while simultaneously trying to dance
(c) you enjoy your wine while the lady dances
OR and this was the "correct" answer
(d) you pour the wine for your lady and yourself, you both enjoy it, then put down your glaces, and then you dance together

A later scene at same resort (this one woke me up):

I was sitting on the veranda or a large balcony of the resort, and I was not paying much attention. All of a sudden I hear this terrible looming noise, and a loud voice saying something from a loudspeaker that sounded like "Ally Action" though I could not figure out what they were actually saying. At first someone else blocked my view, but then they moved, and I realized that a helicopter was the source of this noise and loudspeaker too. Then I realize that the helicopter was going to land right where I was sitting/lounging. I moved quickly to avoid being squished. In fact this was so vivid and realistic that upon waking up, I immediately sat up in bed and got out of the way.

This was not a lucid dream but it was vivid and detailed and long with more than one scene.

And upon waking I remembered a previous dream also which I shall record separately.

I believe I remembered the dream that I forgot earlier tonight, and I remembered the Significant Insight that I had reached before. This dream is actually about dreaming even though it may not appear to be!

In my dream I was an actress in theatre, just starting out. And an experienced actor had taken my under his wing and was showing me the ropes. During a break in rehearsal I had been chatting with another less experienced actor. My self-appointed mentor saw this, and afterward took me aside and reprimanded me, saying "Why are you wasting your time with that nobody? To succeed in this trade, It matters who your connections are. It matters who you are seen with, and he is not someone you want to be seen with." I rebutted him with "I am not in this for the usual reasons: I am not in it for the money nor for the fame, and I choose who I hang with."

While analyzing this dream after it happened it occurred to me that this dream was about why I am putting this effort into dreaming now, why I want to lucid dream, why I am here at DV:

I am not doing it for the usual reasons. Or maybe these are the usual reasons for some people, who knows. An important motivator for me is to regain my self-dignity and self-respect, to regain control of my dreams so that I do not do what my subconscious tells me to do. I get to choose who I hang with. For me the an important motivator for lucid dreaming this time around is moral reasons: I want to do what I perceive as being right (which of course does not mean I won't do something like shoot someone in a lucid dream because it feels right to do so , I need to do empowers me, and I need to not let those more experienced than me dictate what is right for me. This is what attracts me to DV is because it seems to be a place where people generally support this kind of attitude, and do not try to impose their way on others.

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Friday March 1 2013 I took NyQuil for my cold, and went to bed early. Around 8:30pm I woke up. I remember having some profound insight into my dream recall or something like that. I remember feeling very self-satisfied with my progress and how it was not just a fragment this time. After all this patting myself on the back, I almost fell back asleep without writing anything in my dream journal. I startled myself back awake in order to write it down, and it was all gone, except for this.

I have been struggling with basic dream recall, but I am up to at least remembering a fragment every time. This one made me grin.

First some background: my other hobby is Fishkeeping, and in Fishkeeping there is a practice called "culling" which is the euthenizing of fish that for example would die any way (putting them out of their misery).

In this dream, I was culling dreams. I was evaluating and sorting them to figure out which are not worthy of recall, etc. this was definitely not a lucid dream, and I just remember a fragment of it, but it made me smile, and hope that my mind is on its way to re-embark on this lucid dreaming adventure.