The Fourth Factor

In a forested area by a wide, shallow river with a large group of people. I’m not sure exactly what’s supposed to be going on, but at some point, it looks as if there’s some kind of attack on us. People are gathering at a couple of large pavilions nearby, so I go there as well. It’s now dark out, lit only by a couple of large bonfires.

Someone is heading towards me. They lunge, and I see that they have a knife. Reflexes take over, and after a brief struggle I’m standing behind her, pinning her to the ground with the knife at her throat. I can see it’s a woman now - physically larger than I am, but younger, maybe early 20s, with sandy blonde wavy hair down to her shoulders. I really don’t want to do this. But if I let her go, will she just go and attack someone else? No. I don’t think she will. She looks terrified.

“Are you scared?” I ask her. She says yes. I let her go, and she runs off, past the groups of indeterminate fire-lit people. I continue towards the pavilions.

—

I’m moving into a new flat - possibly at the beginning of a new university semester. I look around at everything: there seems to be a main area, with kitchen, dining room, and a living room area in an open-floor arrangement, then a bedroom/office separate from that. Someone else, a woman, seems to be there with me. I’m thinking about how I want to arrange the furniture here - everything seems to have come with the space.

At some point, it looks like a new room has appeared, so we go in to check it out. This appears to be a dedicated bedroom, meaning I can make the other one into just a study space. Apparently, we can’t leave again until I’ve checked out this new space and made sure that everything is in order here. But even though I can’t find anything that looks off about it, I seem to have gotten hold of the wrong end of the lucidity stick or something because I can’t shake the feeling that new rooms aren’t supposed to appear out of nowhere, and I should not be taking this in stride. Possibly I’m also still a little on edge from the whole someone trying to kill me thing from earlier in the night. No matter how many times I check the room and find nothing wrong, I just can’t convince myself that everything is OK, and so the whole thing just keeps dragging on.

At some point, though, I wake up in the bed there from what feels like a long and deep sleep. No one else seems to be around. What ended up happening? I try to remember, but the impressions are too confused. Some other people were here at one point, I guess? And I feel as if I should at least remember falling asleep here if that was what happened, which I don’t.

I get up and go into the main area. Maybe now I can move that table somewhere else. I’m sure I’ll never use it for anything there if I have an actual study. But it’s such a weird shape - where else would I even put it?

I wake up.

8.9.24

I am in a large room where many people are gathered, where the wall I’m facing is almost entirely windows, and a forested area is visible beyond. A woman sits in a chair in the middle of the room. She is in bad health, and seems to be the center of attention. I have the impression that everyone here is family.

Through the glass of the windows, I see a shadowy figure appear. I shout at it and make gestures, trying to “catch” it. I can’t allow it to come any closer to her - although I’m quite aware that nobody else here can see it, and this probably looks pretty weird right now. Not that it’s there, in any kind of objective sense. But I can only perceive using the senses I have, and so it’s got to “be” somewhere. But whatever. I’ve just got to make it go away - that’s what’s important. I finally manage it, at which point the thing splits into two and vanishes.

It isn’t over yet, though. I see a disembodied arm very close to the glass, grabbing for a necklace. I run over and grab the arm, which is extremely hairy, and pull. I tell the others that they need to pull too, holding onto me, for it to work. I’m not sure if they’ll believe me and do it, but they do. One woman reaches out to try to feel the arm. She can touch it, as I thought she'd probably be able to, although it still isn’t visible to her. It actually seems to be working.

7.7.24


I’m in a museum with my aunt and uncle. It seems to be a museum of techno. Various displays are set up in a large, open space, but the different music playing at each one seems to be the focus rather than anything visual. The default language here seems to be German. I want to go off to explore on my own, but if my uncle also decides to go off alone, I’m not sure how my aunt will do by herself.

Later, I’m on a train. I didn’t manage to find a free seat, but I really don’t mind too much. In another part, Nina approaches me, holding a bottle of hand soap she found in the bathroom, showing me that it has some kind of punny train-related name.

—

In another dream later in the night, I seem to be a university student. A group of students approaches me, having discovered that I’ve taken classes in “the French room”. They have apparently heard stories about this place and want to see it for themselves. I say I’ll take them there, although it isn’t clear to me what’s supposed to be so special about it.

I ask one young woman why everyone is so intent on going there. She gives a couple reasons, one about it being where somebody’s finger was pricked. I don’t outright realize I’m dreaming, but the fairy tale reference still makes me take notice. I realize that I need to understand what she’s saying in a symbolic way. She seems upset - so much that I ask her if she really wants to go there, when just talking about it is that bad.

28.7.24


I’m lying on a couch, reading a book. From where I am, I can hear my aunt and uncle talking downstairs. My aunt says that she’s going to drive herself to an appointment she’s made with a doctor. I don’t think she’ll follow through or get far enough to put herself in danger, but my uncle should probably hide the keys anyway. (I’m probably thinking of my grandmother and her car crash on some level.) Sure enough, I can hear him going over to the cabinet by the door and getting them out. The keys fly up over the half-wall and land somewhere soft. I get up and go find them.

In the next part I remember, I’m somewhere else - a landing, apparently in the same house. I set the keys by the top step of the stairs, where my uncle can get them again if he needs them. He’s just downstairs, and I tell him as much, then go to get changed. I’m still wearing the shirt I’ve been sleeping in. I take it off as I head back. It seems to be the only thing I’m wearing.

The setting is once again different - it seems to be a school gym. The gym leads into an enormous cavern. I recognize the cavern as mine somehow - it belongs to me, it’s my home - and just being there makes me feel more clear-headed and spacious. I can recall previous times I’ve been to this place, and I’m already acting as if I’m aware I’m dreaming, although the realization hasn’t explicitly dawned yet.

The entrance is very wide and tall, and the area inside is vast - like an entire city with a nocturnal atmosphere. In the entry area, I see a group of people, two women with a group of teenagers. They all look a little lost. I figure I should offer to help them out - although maybe I should put on some clothes first? Then again, this is a dream - I realize - and does that really matter? I decide that I’ll offer to help, and also say I’ll put on clothes if they’d prefer - and proceed to do so.

They react as if I’ve just confirmed something they suspected, and one tells me that they can get out on their own, so I go further into the cave, going over the dream-familiar areas as I pass, now flying. There are six or seven in the front area I have memories of, which I revisit mentally, one by one. But I’ve only explored a small part of what’s here.

At some point, my parents seem to be there as well, also flying. I don’t have a strong visual impression of them. There is a fire burning here - I can see more fiery areas as we go upward, through what now seems to be an unrealistically large space for an underground area. It doesn’t spread, but it’s still not safe to get too close. They now take the lead, flying ahead, further in. More memories arise of a location supposedly from an early dream of the night, also with fire - but we’re going to put that out, and that will also make one of the larger ones in the area we passed go out. This is how it has to be, I recall - they need to be the ones to do it. By the time I land, they’ve already put it out. The air is smoky now, and I’m concerned for one of the cats, T, who is now there as well.

20.8.24


I’m walking along the streets of a city at night. My long-haired Manx cat, C, is with me, keeping pace but exploring on her own as well. There are other cats around, and even a dog, so I’m keeping a close eye on her as we go.

Inside the building that’s my destination, I start to realize I’m dreaming, and I can do whatever I want (continuing from a dream even earlier in the night where I became aware but awoke soon after.) I head back out, going through a hallway. At a doorway, I pass a large Black man in a suit - he registers to me as some kind of security guard. We non-verbally acknowledge each other as I pass. Another guard stands by the door leading outside - but I decide to go up instead. It occurs to me - not fully consciously, probably at least partly because this is still a dream from early in the night - that I’m in a state of natural creativity, and so I start to hum/sing, letting the music spontaneously take shape. It’s partway between imagining it and hearing it performed - although it’s mostly instrumental, and I’m aware of the filter automation and gating that are expressed symbolically in my inflections.

Outside, it’s dark, as before, but well-lit. I’m in a plaza with a fountain in the center, and nobody else seems to be around. Where to go? Maybe to the top of the clock tower some distance away. I fly upwards, but gaining height feels too slow. I experiment with pushing off with one leg at a time as if there was something solid under me to “jump” upwards. It seems to work well.

As I rise, I notice a tall, narrow cliff ahead of me, going up even higher. Where is it leading? It seems to be narrowing out to a point towards the direction I came from. I change my mind - I’ll go there instead. I’m curious to see what might be at the very top. I turn around and rise still further until I’m hovering a little above it, almost climbing it, and then I’m at the summit. There’s nothing there, actually. How anticlimactic. The dream seems to be unstable now, and I know I have to keep moving, so I fly away, towards other spaces, but it still turns into another nonlucid dream not long afterwards.

1.9.24