The Fourth Factor

I’m at the counter of a coffee shop that looks like one in a town not far from where I work. They seem to be selling small squares of chocolate cake, and I decide I’ll get one with my espresso. I’m hoping that it will be less expensive than their big slices of cake. But the total comes out to a little more than $10—meaning it was actually quite a bit more expensive. The woman behind the counter tells me that, if the total comes up to just a little more, which it would if I ordered a different kind of coffee—but actually, I can’t seem to get her to explain what’s supposed to happen and why it would be a good thing.

After a couple attempts, though, it occurs to me that I’m probably dreaming—possibly just because it was one of those rare scenarios - rare for me, anyway - that’s enough like waking life to where the differences are obvious. I look around the room. I have just enough time to observe that this is actually quite a good rendition of the waking life location before my vision starts fading.

I head for the door, and stepping outside seems to fix the problem. I can see just fine here. I’m now on a street that’s a little reminiscent of the waking life one that I’d expect to be here, but more vibrant and interesting. But I don’t stick around: I start running down the street, then flapping the wings I know will be there when I want them to be, then flying.

I rise higher, above the treetops, then make a strange kind of turn—I ought to be flying straight up, but somehow I’m parallel to the ground in a different location. I seem to be above a forest now, and above me is the evening sky. There’s sort of a natural path here, a groove where the foliage is lower, and I fly along it. I pass a lamppost on my right. It’s an interesting thing, very modern-looking—just a smooth, cylindrical pole with a vertical slit near the top that has purple light shining through it. I note that it would be completely useless from the ground—almost as if this is a real trail I’m flying along, and it's lighting it.

Was there anything I was planning to do next time I had a lucid dream? The only thing I can think of is actually looking at my wings. I never seem to think of it until—like now—I’m already in the air. Oh, well.

In the sky, above and ahead of me, I can see a red light—really, more like a small circle of lights. I figure I’ll go see what it is. That might be interesting.

I fly towards it. Pretty soon, there’s nothing in my field of vision but sky and the red light. It will be harder to maintain lucidity with nothing more solid to focus on, I know, and so I increase my concentration.

Once I’m closer to it, I can see what it is: a meteor, headed down towards the earth. I wonder if I should try to keep it from hitting. I aim myself towards it, but miss and end up behind it. I fly back down towards it, manage to catch up, but miss it that time, too. But, as I happen to glance at the fields below, I spot chunks of broken-up rocks in a few places. They look like the same type of rock the meteor is made of. And it isn’t a very big one—only about half my height. Maybe this isn’t something to worry about, then—this is something that happens all the time here.

I watch as it hits and breaks apart and then land to get a closer look. Among the fragments is a pile of colorful rocks. Some look like red and white crystals, some like turquoises, others like amethyst geodes. I gather them up.

I notice that someone’s nearby—an Asian man, maybe in his 20s. It occurs to me that he might want some of the rocks—and really, I don’t have any claim to them. I was just the first person to get here. I offer him some. He says he’s only interested in the turquoises right now and picks one out—a particularly smooth one—and sets it among a large number of others he has in a bag. I insist that he take another one, too, but then wake up soon after that.

(8.10.18)

The dream starts out with a scenario very much like the waking one I must have just left: having trouble getting to sleep. I’m initially on a thin mat on the floor of a room in a house, in a sleeping bag, but I give up and move the sleeping bag to the couch, where I do finally manage to fall asleep.

The dream I subsequently find myself in is a lucid one. It went on for long enough to where entire segments of it have faded from memory, and I’m no longer entirely sure whether I have the order of the things right. But here goes.

The earliest parts, probably, were of flying over a city at night. I’m just looking around, observing my surroundings. I spot a brightly lit area—tennis courts—and fly down. But as I’m getting close, the lights suddenly turn off, leaving me in the dark. I imagine my wings—which I’ve been doing without until now—and use them to propel myself up from just above the ground. But not long after that, I figure that it might be better to walk—there are people I’m looking for here, and it might be easier to find them down there. So I land and continue going that way.

This city seems to be a modern one, and the area I'm in is well lit. To my right, I spot a large building that looks like a hotel, and further on is another one. No people around, though. I pause to examine some graffiti carved into the gray paint of a metal pillar, possibly supporting an overpass. Most of it is illegible scribbles, but I distinctly read the name “Joseph”.

Nobody else seems to be walking around. I do eventually spot some people (specifically, four guys and a ferret) through the glass-walled corner of a building and have a brief conversation with them, but it seems to cut off partway through, and I find myself as a disembodied point of view, looking at a bunch of grapes. They’re hanging on a vine that’s grown around a tree in a forest. I remember reading something on Dreamviews about being able to play with the perspective of visual imagery—and there’s no way in hell I’m going to be able to visualize that well while awake, so I figure I’ll try it now. I find I can change the angle just by intending to, can zoom in and have a closer look. Even close, it looks incredibly realistic.

But before I can get even closer, there’s another transition, and I find myself in a house. I’m near a large window—I can’t see anything outside since it’s light inside and dark outside, and it just looks black, but I figure I’ll jump through it and see what happens.

I jump straight through the glass as if it wasn’t there and find that what I saw before was actually accurate—there really is nothing here but featureless darkness. I don’t even seem to have a body anymore. I consider the situation. I’m not worried about waking up: I recall that I spent quite a while lying awake before this—having correctly remembered my waking life circumstances rather than mistaking the dream I fell asleep in for real, which isn't always what happens in these situations—and so I’ll still be catching up on sleep.

The idea occurs to me to sing a song, one I remember singing in choir when I was a kid. I then think that it’s kind of a silly song—why would I want to do that? But no, it’s better to go with my first thought. It’s probably the right one—it’s better not to second-guess this kind of thing. And so I sing it there.

Long ago, in a far off land,
Lived a child who loved to sing.
She opens up her fragile heart,
And the song, it takes wing…

Although it’s not exactly like I’m singing it, since I still seem to be somewhat disembodied. I’m surprised by how good my voice sounds here, though. It resonates in a way I wasn’t expecting in a space that appears to be a complete void.

At some point after that, after some unknown transition, I seem to be in the same house as before, just looking around. It has multiple floors, and above one staircase, I find what appears to be a clock playing a waltz-like melody. It sounds a bit like a calliope.

As I listen, it occurs to me to try another experiment. I clear my mind, getting everything else out of the way, then wordlessly sing, improvising a melody that might come after what I've already heard. And I find that what I'm singing exactly matches the tune the calliope clock is playing. It's as if, one way or another, we’re drawing from the same source, which is fascinating. So it is just me after all.

There’s quite a bit that happened after that, most of it involving the man who lived in the house—but, unfortunately, I can only remember the very end, as he was walking out. Shortly after that, I wake up.

(3.10.18)