KonchogTashi

I arrive at a large tan colored warehouse building. There is a high chain-link fence around its perimeter. Inside the fence is a paved area all around the building. I am on a bike or motorcycle? I notice several small green peacocks strutting around. I admire them and think they are quite beautiful. One takes notice of me and starts coming in my direction, after just a moment I can tell its pissed off. I notice another heading my way, and then more. I get my vehicle moving faster and they start to fly, swooping in toward me, I'm scared, their beaks look very sharp. I am surprised by Their speed. I make it to the warehouse enter able and there are some other people standing around. The dream shifts and I am riding passenger in my new car, an old friend is driving I warn him to slow down and he looses control, Narrowly missing a series of deadly obstacles, fire hydrants, trees, and parked cars. We are off road and the car is sliding and spinning full rotations. It comes to a stop on railroad tracks. I look out the back window and see a train coming. I warn my friend and he pulls of the tracks just in time. The train is red and silver, a passenger train.

Fragment 1: a girl I knew from high school is at my house conducting a survey or completing some report. I consider asking her out?, but notice huge diamond rings on every finger. I assume she is married.

Fragment 2: another new car dream. I spin a complete 360 and come to a graceful stop at the top of my driveway

Recall Goal: 45 dreams (this is an 11% improvement over previous month).
LD Goal: 5 between 1/2 and 2/2.
Activity goal: complete task of the month for January.

My goal deadline is today. My goal was to log 30 dreams and 5 lucid dreams. I gave myself one month to do this. During this month I was able to exceed my recall goal, I logged 40 dreams. However, I did not meet my goal for Lucidity; I was only able to get lucid 3 times. However, the last lucid was easily my best ever, so I'll take the quality improvement over the quantity. I am revisiting my goals and will update them in the next day or so.

Upon recognizing the dream state, I will perform item #1 followed by any of the subsequent items.

1. Look around and repeat "this is a dream"
2. Recite the Vajrasattva mantra.
3. Make offerings to the Buddhas
4. Listen to the grateful dead
5. Explore my surroundings
6. Walk through a mirror

Progress update nights of 12/17-18

Daytime:
keeping up with the state testing and intention setting. I have been doing more tests involving digital clocks and text. Text is never a big component in my dreams, but I think the more I use the test, the more text will appear in dreamland. Getting in 10-15 tests for each of these two days.

Nightime:
Wednesday night was a bust. I had a later than normal bedtime which gave me only 5 hours total sleep. I woke in the middle of it with no recall. I woke in the morning for the final time and struggled, but came up with nothing. This was a bit frustrating honestly.

Thursday went better. I had some difficulty falling asleep so I probably only got 6 hours total sleep. I woke in the middle of the night for recall but had nothing. I got frustrated by this, but looking back it was needless as typically I don't have any recall in the middle of the night. I think this was just "sleep confusion" playing dirty tricks on my rational mind. It was difficult to fall back asleep, but I managed to and had a weird short lucid which kind of straddled the line between WILD and DILD.

I am aware, but there is just blackness. I "look" down and see my hands, they are pale and translucent, and my arms vanish just before the elbows. I instantly know that I am now dreaming. I clap my hands together and vigirously rub them, feeling the "friction." I do this for a few seconds, then pat down my dream body, waiting for visual elements to develop. I start to move around, feeling the motion of my dream body, but still without visual elements developing. Lucidity fades and a detailed dream develops (I think).

I think the dream I recalled (it was long and recall was very good with many clear details and dialogue). arose immediately after this brief lucidity as I was only asleep for about an hour. I am not counting as as an LD, but still is is encouraging!

I will probably update somewhat sporadically over the next two weeks as I will be off work and finding time to sit down at a computer will be more of a challenge. Don't think I've thrown in the towel though as I will be practicing carefully each night with WBTB and MILD as I will have the ability to sleep in and rack up 7-9 hours of sleep a night. Many LDs await!!

I have never had much luck with recognizing dreamsigns, even after noting them and consciously resolving to do so. Most of my few lucids seem to spontaneously arise or occur after some random thing triggers a suspicious state of mind. However, I thought that perhaps there might be some profit to putting the effort into writing down a list. Perhaps the extra effort involved in writing them down might trigger recognition in the dream state.

The following are reliable dreamsigns, that is, barring extremely unlikely situations they would only appear in dreams, or would be impossible in waking life.

_High school girlfriend
_High school home (the farm)
_Impossible skateboarding tricks
_Extreme Acrobatics
_Haunted house

The following could appear either in the dream state or waking life.I try to to a state test whenever I encounter them. This has yet to transfer into the dream state.

_Bodies of water (lakes, rivers and especially the ocean)
_City streets
_Tibetan Lamas
_traveling
_forests
_mountaintops

May we all reliably recognize the dream state and use it to train in virtue!

In the last 30 days I logged 20 "dreams", 17 "fragments", and 2 LDS.

A measurable, month long goal related to this recall data:

"between 12/2 and 1/2 I will log at least 30 dreams and 5 Lucid dreams"

That allows for a 10% increase in "dream" recall and a 150% increase in the number of lucid dreams. I feel this is achievable as with "auto-pilot" LD practice and almost no effort being put into recall I was still getting an LD about once every 30 days. During this time I will also have more than a week of time during which I will be able to sleep longer than is typical and therefore be more courageous with my WBTB and MILD practice. I will re-read the sections of ETWOLD you mentioned as well.

Thursday night:
2 entire dreams recalled= 2 pts.
1 fragment recalled= .5 pt.
successful WBTB = 3 pts.
Lucid = 5 pts.
successfu RC = 1

Night points= 11.5
New total 39 + 11.5 = 50.5

Lucid dream follows:

I am climbing a very tall, tightly spiraled staircase with my wife and several other people. It is metal and painted an brown-beige color, as are the walls of the space it occupies. I ask one of the other people how far we have to climb and he replies "25 stories." we climb and reach the top. The staircase ends on a large outdoor stone platform. It is very sunny out. The platform is raised and there is a large set of stone stairs leading up to it. The area surrounding the platform is like a beautiful park. The grass is green and there are gentle hills. There are large mature trees scattered around. I get stuck exiting the staircase in some of the metal structure. I get myself free and go down the steps into the grassy area. I see my wife ahead, there is sun shining on her and she looks amazingly beautiful (just like in real life). Something about the scenery gives me pause. I jump and notice that gravity seems weak. I strongly suspect that I am dreaming. I jump again and this time I do an amazing straight legged backflip. landing, I am sure I am dreaming. I call out to my wife "I am dreaming, this is all a dream!' she does not reply. I look at the sky and it is the most amazing deep blue with fractal-like wispy clouds. I remember to stabilize and try to rub my hands together. too late, the dream ends.

Tuesday night: 1 fragment= .5
Wednesday night: 1 dream = 1 pt.
1 fragment = .5
successful WBTB = 3 pts.
Lucid= 5 pts.
successful RC = 1
Successful stabilize= 2pts.
hand through a solid object = 4 pts
move completely through solid object= 8 pts.
Total for tuesday and wednesday = 25 pts

Lucid on Wednesday:
I went to bed at 9 p.m. I woke up at 2 a.m. and fell back asleep at 4:30 a.m.
I am at a "school" which is in appearance my grandfather's house. It is fulll of people. Looking out a window,I see some threatening people approaching. I sneak out the back door and lie down in the gravel driveway, playing dead. My brother appears and tells me that we need to help the people in the school. We enter a house that is alongside the driveway, looking for something to use to defend the people in the other building. I climb a flight of stairs (the interior of this house appears like a barn). There are throwing darts (from the game) stuck in the steps. I pick them out as I climb the steps. At the top of the steps I see someone who looks as I did when I was about 12, doing something on a strange looking computer. There is something weird about the perspective. Thinking about this, I realize I am dreaming. Lucid, I state "I am dreaming" i Look at my hand to RC, it is very distorted. I have one thick central finger with little crumpled fingers growing out from each side. I rub my hands together to stabilize the dream. It feels like I am rubbing my hand on sandpaper. I feel "heat" from the "friction". I look around and the scene has changed. I am in a bedroom. One wall has blue wallpaper with white dots on it. The other walls are painted light yellow. There is a window. I remember my goal to push my hand through a solid object. I push both hands through the glass in the window pane. They pass cleanly through. I decide to crawl through the window. I bend down and push my head, shoulders, and torso through the pane of glass. When my head enters everything turns grey and indistinct. After passing through the window I am in bed. It is the guest room at my grandmother's house. I think I have woken up. I do a quick RC, looking at both hands. They are tiny, like a dolls hands on the end of my normal arms. I am still dreaming. I try to get up from the bed, but the covers are really heavy and moving is difficult. I wake up in my own bed.

One of my students has wandered off and I need to find him. He is not wearing shoes and it has started to rain. I set off to find him, walking down a nice grassy hill in the rain. I come to a street, it has no sidewalks, is in somewhat shabby shape and has beautiful mature sycamore trees planted along both sides of it. There are many branches that hang over the road. I start to flap my arms, bird style. With this flapping, I rise into the air and fly from branch to branch. I am singing the mantra of Avalokiteshvara as I fly. I recognize that there is something strange about flying, but rationalize it thinking "I am really only about 10-20 feet off the ground, its not like I am really flying." There is some manner of transition and I am back at the house where the dream began. My student has returned safely.

Below is a graph depicting the results of my first 3 months of serious dream practice. Organizing the data has boosted my confidence and given me an objective way to evaluate progress.

Goals for March: 5 LD
40 Recalled dreams

#1
I am at a long dinner table eating with people from work. We are discussing new assessments. I express thinly veiled disdain at the idea of more testing. I am worried that they will think ill of me for holding such ideas. One colleague has a University of Northern Kentucky marching band costume on. A bottle of wine is produced.

#2
I step outside of my paternal grandparent's house. It is night. I walk down the driveway into the street. Everything is dim and shadowy. I recall my previous dream and realize that I am now dreaming. Lucid, I break into a run and leap into the sky. I remember mid jump that I should RC and stabilize the dream. I try to get my hands together. I am tumbling through space. I can't control my hands. I bring them up to my face and frantically try to rub them together. No dice. I wake up.

WBTB (5 min) + MILD produced this. Second in as many nights.

I have no aspirations to fly. I have no idea why this occurred. It was almost instinctual.

#1
I am at a rather busy gas station with several other people, including the wife. There are security guards there and they have a policy that forbids taking of photographs. Those at the gas station have two options: 1. Give their phones/cameras to the security guards, or 2. Show the guards the "first and last photos" on said devices. I opt to give my phone to the guards. They disable it by taking a part off. I do not mind as I want to comply with the policy. Soon I am in the back of the gas station on a grassy hill with some unknown people. They want to smoke weed. I decide that even thought it has been 10 years, I will join them. We smoke out of some long, blue, dragon shaped pipe. I worry it will make me fall asleep. Then we are laying in the grass, which we can miraculously pull up over us like blankets. We look up at the night sky. There are beautiful stars all around. Next I am inside the station, in the stock room in the back. I am preparing to go somewhere by putting my shoes on. I notice there is weed strewn about on a shelf with other trash and debris. I pick it up. It looks like high quality. An employee peeks in and says "no talking to the security guards."

#2

I am in a car with the wife and several other people. We are driving along a wooded road. There are hills on either side of the road. Nestled in the hills are beautiful, ornate victorian greenhouses. They are all white wood framed and glass. There are small, wispy clouds around the peaks of the roofs of each. I think "it must be from the humidity escaping through the vents." The greenhouses are on both sides of the road. Each is more ornate and beautiful than the last.
The last set are strange and futuristic. They are made of rectangular glass units. The units are stacked into various strange and seemingly impossible shapes. Then the units seem to be tents, with people in some of them, people leaving others. We arrive at a dusty, desert nature preserve. There are more of the tent units on impossible ridges and locations high in the hills. People are crawling along narrow paths to reach them. We lay down on the ground for some reason. Pebbles start to tumble down the cliff, small rocks that do not hurt us. They gradually increase in size until i tell everyone we need to get up or get crushed.
I am then going to go for a hike with my wife. My parents are going to watch my children. I walk through a trailer that has been converted into a kitchen. My wife goes around the structure on the outside. I hear her voice through he windows. I see loads of fruit stacked in the trailer. There are a peaches and bananas. I exit the trailer and do not see my wife. I go back in looking for her and see the fruit again. She is not there. I go out to see if she is outside. she is not. I go in again. not there. I go out and realize as I open the door "This is strange...I am dreaming!!"
Lucid, i drop some food that I have in my hands and immediately rub them together to stabilize the dream. I call out "maximum clarity and stability please!" Everything becomes amazingly vivid and crisp! I leap into the air and fly loop-de-loops under the wooden awning. I begin to sing the mantra of Avalokiteshvara as I am flying. After 5 repetitions, the dream fades and I wake up in my bed.

WBTB: I fell asleep at 10, woke up at 2:30. I practiced MILD as I fell asleep and awoke from this dream at 4:30.

I have to wash the car, but am concerned that the temperature is so low outside that all the water will instantly freeze on the ground and on the car. In addition, I do not have shoes on.


fragment #2

I see a butterfly, which in the dream is a "monarch." However, it has far fewer black stripes and white spots. I am slightly puzzled by this and feel foolish for mistakenly identifying this common butterfly for my whole life.

1.i am a speaker at an education. Conference at a fancy hotel organized by s. Webb. It mimics northmont schedule for a day and I speak 6th period.. Second period I was missing for some reason and Susan had to cover for me in bowmans class. I decided to blow off my conference slot bug had a change of heart. Fished around in this hotel trying to get dressed. My clothes had been misplaced. I found some but soaked them beyond wearing with an iron. Had others stashed, but a cool had moved them. I was swinging around like a monkey , climbing cabinets trying to get my clothes from high cabinets. While talking to the cook. I was on my way to the conference when I woke.

2. Godzilla is coming down from the mountain to destroy the city while I am in traffic. He goes away from me, and I follow in my car. At. A gas station a business man is plotting to use Godzilla to get power over the city. Dedric Wilson wants to use Godzilla to destroy rival barber shops. I tell him my fMjly are barbers.

3. Shooting arrows into a lake with Annabelle. Aiming at floating pumpkin. I tell her to watch the window of the little shack on the island in the middle of the island.