• Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views




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    Night Vision

    I think other people's dream lives are actually very interesting, and I hope you enjoy reading about mine!

    1. Backstage

      by , 12-25-2024 at 05:14 PM (Night Vision)
      Part of a longer dream - I can only remember fragments of the earlier parts. It seems to be some kind of a school setting where I’m a student, and everybody is going to watch a play in the auditorium. I head there, with some people from the earlier part of the dream not far behind me. Not many others have arrived yet, so there are plenty of places where we can find seats together.

      I find an empty row and sit down. On the stage below, I can see that there are a couple large wooden shelves set up on the right (relative to my position) and a larger set piece on the left with a very large fan in front, blowing onto it. But the fan is clearly causing some problems. The shelves don’t seem to be secured very well, and they start rocking back and forth. As I watch, they both fall over forward. Since everything on them is just fastened-down props, it doesn’t look like any real damage has been done. However, they seem to have been attached to the structure on the left, and having broken loose from it, it now looks to be in immanent danger of being blown backstage by the high-powered air, where it could cause some serious damage.

      A friend of mine is in the play - his first time doing this - and I’m concerned for him, and for the situation in general, so I hurry down to the stage. The structure is being braced in front by a long, flat metal strip attached to it by metal pieces on either side, so I stand on that. It’s holding steady so far, but I was kind of hoping other people would also come down to help once I made the initiative, and while a few have made it as far as the stage, they don’t seem inclined to get any closer. More people weighing it down would be better - but if I pressure them to help and things end up going badly anyway, that would just make for a complicated situation. I’d rather not do that. It’s better that they freely decide to take on the risk themselves.

      That’s where the situation stands when the dream shifts into some video game-like situation where some others and I are tasked with going around a massive backstage area and solving puzzles to collect everything that was blown back there so that the play can begin.

      25.12.24
      Tags: school, stage
      Categories
      non-lucid
    2. Evolution

      by , 12-23-2024 at 04:38 AM (Night Vision)
      The basic scenario of the dream seems to be that because one of the classes that JT and I are responsible for is on a trip to a nearby city for a week - one about an hour's drive away - we have to go there as well. There are some scenes of travel, with last part of the journey seemingly being via helicopter. There are some interactions with the guy piloting it that I can no longer recall.

      While there, we meet up with a number of other people who belong to our organization - not based on real people, but in the context of the dream, they are supposed to be people I usually only see a couple times a year, for training and such, since they’re based in a different region. One of these is a young man with blond, spiky hair and tattoos all over his arms, including some that depict Baby Mario’s origin story (making this the third inexplicable Mario reference in not very long, especially inexplicable in this case since I don’t actually know the story, and it was probably just something my dreaming mind invented). We've apparently gotten along well on the occasions we’ve met previously, and at some point, he says that if I’d like, I can stay over at his place for evolution sometime.

      I am initially confused by this and run through a couple possibilities of what he could mean until I “remember” that Evolution is the name of a party with a somewhat notorious reputation that happens around here. “Let’s talk about it later,” I say. (In the dream, there are clearly no romantic implications to this exchange.)

      The classroom where JT’s and my students are is in a large building, on an upper floor. It seems to have been made to be difficult to find, with a number of entrances camouflaged into an ornate wall. Inside, it looks almost like some kind of laboratory. The students are already there - mine, anyway. JT and his are in an adjoining room. There are a number of scenes here where nothing very definite or memorable happens, although at some point, JT comes by in a wheelchair. I’m concerned and ask him what happened, but he seems brusque and doesn’t acknowledge that anything is wrong. OK, so he doesn’t want to talk about it. I won’t push it.

      21.12.24
      Tags: travel, work
      Categories
      non-lucid
    3. It's Me

      by , 12-19-2024 at 08:26 PM (Night Vision)
      I’m walking down a dirt road at night in some rural-looking, semi-wooded place. It’s very dark, maybe lit only by the moonlight. A car is coming down the road, from the direction I’m headed. It stops nearby, and a woman opens the driver’s side door slightly and asks me whether I need a ride. I tell her no, I’m just out for a walk. She drives off, and I keep going.

      I’m only going as far as the end of the fence before I turn back - a wooden one on my right - and I’m almost there now. Actually, I’m not surprised the woman stopped, since I’m carrying some pillows with me, and that probably made it seem like I wasn’t just out here because I want to be. Why am I carrying these things anyway? I’ve been doing it for a while this way, and it’s not like I’ve ever done anything with them. Maybe I should just leave them behind next time.

      Then it’s as if the scenario repeats itself, but with changes. This was a dream from early in the night: I went to bed a little after midnight, and woke up to record everything around 2. Perhaps because of this, even though the setting seems fully realized, the dream is unusually full of sudden shifts - or else I’m unusually aware of them - and I’m also aware at times of other less imagistic mental content taking place simultaneously, influencing the dream from without. This time, there’s a restaurant by the side of the road that I walk past - one that’s clearly still open, as I can see and hear people out on the terraces. As I turn around, I see a man a little ways behind me. He explains that he just happened to be walking the same way, as if he’s reassuring me that he’s not actually some kind of creeper.

      The scene shifts. I’m in a hallway full of closed doorways where moving shadows pass by me on their way from one end to the other. A sense of unease. Major liminal space vibes here.

      After what feels like a short time, though, the setting changes again. I’m once again outside on a moonlit night, but this place has a different feel to it. Also, I’m now aware that I’m dreaming, although it isn’t clear what led to this realization. There’s still a sense at times of parallel mental content happening, including awareness of a dream plot being imposed, but there are also some short segments where I seem to be imagining how things play out before they actually do.

      I walk. It feels somehow more like reality than like a lucid dream - that's how it strikes me at the time, anyway - and I’m fascinated by how detailed the mist looks - little swirls of it are constantly catching the moonlight, especially over a stream I pass by, where it’s thickest. After what feels like a few minutes, I reach a house - my destination. I knock loudly on the garage door, and there’s another sudden change of scene, to where I’m now inside the garage.

      Until now, I’ve been following the “plot”. It just feels as if I should somehow. But the setting here has felt so unaccountably somber. There’s a heaviness to the atmosphere that’s getting to be a little oppressive, and by now it’s starting to bug me a little, so I yell out: “It’s-a me, Mario!” As loud as I can.

      “Don’t say that,” a voice says from right next to me. “It makes me heartbroken.” I turn to my left and see a man standing beside me.

      “Why?” I ask. His answer didn’t quite make sense to me. “Is your name Mario?” But he doesn’t answer me. He is completely absorbed in pouring himself a glass of amber-colored liquid from a bottle into a glass and then drinking it. I take a closer look at him. He’s a fairly young man, white with short, dark-colored hair and wearing a black leather jacket. I briefly wonder whether I modeled him after a character in a gangster movie or something.

      The man is on his second glass when the door leading into the house opens. A woman is there, having heard me. She’s been expecting me and beckons for me to come in. I go, inviting the man to follow along as well.

      Another sudden shift of scene. We’re sitting in a room, at a square table. Across from me is the woman: we’re talking about something, although I can’t remember any of the details now. Meanwhile the man, seated on the side to my left, seems oblivious to our conversation. His attention is focused on what looks like a primitive electronic toy of a sort that was around in the ‘90s, and maybe later too, but I really have no idea. It’s pastel blue, and it emits all kinds of little bleeps and blips as he presses buttons. He’s apparently trying to type something out but finding it rather hard going. I hear an awful lot of the two-quick-blips sound (I recognize the interval they make as a descending tritone) that indicates he’s using the backspace key.

      And then I wake up.


      19.12.24
      Categories
      lucid , non-lucid
    4. Peck

      by , 12-17-2024 at 01:12 AM (Night Vision)
      I’m driving to a grocery store with my mother. Not clear what the context is, as the environment seems entirely unfamiliar. I park the car, and in response to something my mother said, I get her a black cardigan (maybe the wrong name for it - I never know what to call articles of clothing….) that just seems to be kicking around somewhere in the backseat so that she won’t be cold inside. We go in.

      We are immediately confronted by almost bare shelves. Uh-oh. Maybe this wasn’t the best day to come here. We might have trouble finding what we’re looking for today. But most of the store isn’t quite that bad.

      At some point, we split up. The store seems to be divided into distinct sections, with different kinds of food in each, and I walk through a couple of them before I hear something strange. There’s music playing, but the melody is just one note, played in a rhythm over the changing chords. I see where it’s coming from: it’s something like an arcade game, although it seems to be specifically set up for music creation. Beside it are two women. One is a frail-looking older woman, who I think was in a wheelchair, and the other looks like she may be some kind of medical attendant. She’s the one who’s tapping out the single note over what I gather the older woman has made on the machine, apparently to help out in some way.

      How I can tactfully step in and take over, since the attendant obviously has no idea what she’s doing? I can already imagine the melody I’d improvise - a simple one that keeps the rhythm she’s tapping out, but with a better fitting, musical shape. I wake up and immediately record what I remember:



      (I put chord indications in, but I’m actually not 100% sure of anything except the cadence. For the rest, I just picked out the simplest chords that would match what I remember of where the repeated note was clashing and what I intended to do to fix it. It’s not all that interesting of a musical fragment, but the simplicity did make it relatively easy to transcribe after awakening.)

      16.12.24
      Categories
      non-lucid
    5. Tomorrow Never Knows

      by , 12-16-2024 at 04:24 AM (Night Vision)
      I seem to be visiting my parents - maybe over the holidays or something like that. The dream is set late at night, in what is maybe supposed to be their house. It’s a condo that seems very beige and nondescript to the point of not really looking like a place where people live. More like a hotel room or something.

      On this day every year, on which everything always happens exactly the same, I can see into the future. It’s all just there for me - the memories of how things will go. I try talking to them about it, my mother in particular, but although it doesn’t seem as if she actively disbelieves what I’m saying, it’s clear that she hasn’t really absorbed it, or considered the implications in any depth. I was talking to my father at some point, too - about being able to see the bad things that will happen to him, and to me as well, but already knowing saying it isn’t actually going to lead to anything. This apparently relates to dreams in a way that’s no longer clear - I actually use the phrase, “this dream I’m having right now” - although, somehow, I manage to do so without it triggering lucidity.

      Later in the night, in another dream, I’m in what’s supposed to be my room. I’m digitizing a record - “Tomorrow Never Knows,” by the Beatles. The screen is on some kind of high shelf - too high up for me to be able to read it easily, which I find kind of annoying.

      Partway through, my uncle comes in - maybe my uncle. It kind of seems like he’s my father in the dream, or some kind of half-invented composite figure. A number of people follow him in - seven or eight of them. They are apparently family, but also people I haven’t known for long, as if they’re in-laws or something of the sort. They are mostly male, and younger - the exception being the eldest of them, a teenage girl who comes in holding a small child.

      My uncle apparently had something to tell me, and leaves after saying it. I’m surprised he didn’t take any notice of the device I have set up. It was his, after all - he just gave it to me because he wasn’t doing anything with it. The others all stick around, though, as if they’re curious and just don’t have anything better to do than watch what I’m doing.

      9.12.24
      Tags: family, house, music, night
      Categories
      non-lucid