LiveInTheDream's DJ v2.5

Sooo...I know I kinda got behind on the dream journaling and MILDing over the weekend, but hopefully I can get things back on track here...

1) I went into work, fairly normal day, but far busier than usual. Eventually amid all the craziness, one guy came in and started to mildly cause trouble. He wasn't doing anything so obnoxious we could put him out of the store, but he was bothersome. I went into the back room to do my job in there, and came back out a bit later to see that guy still there, and talking to people in a very strange way...he was brainwashing them. I spoke to some other people he had already brainwashed--people I knew before--and they were completely different. In a daze, unable to hear me, repeating bizarre phrases, and quickly turning to displaying aberrant moods and behavior. Before long, these people had turned into zombies, and all my coworkers with them. Since I had been in the back, only I didn't get the brainwash treatment. I ran back to the stock room and locked the door. My boss was in there, too. "What are we going to do? Have you seen what's going on out there!?" I asked in a panic. "Yes...I...I don't know." I'd never heard him sound so discouraged before. We looked all over for a place to hide before the zombies broke through the door, but there was nowhere safe enough for us to plan on surviving for more than 30 seconds. Eventually my boss gave up. "I'm sorry." He said, just before a bullet went into my head. It didn't kill me, but after I turned and saw my boss holding the gun, I fell to the floor like I was dead anyway, to keep him from shooting again. As I lay there, I heard another gunshot go off, and this time my boss fell to the floor. I guess he would have rather died by his own hand than by the zombies. After a minute, I recovered from the wound and picked up my boss's gun (which strangely turned from a pistol to a shotgun when I picked it up). The zombies were close to breaking through. I quickly went out the back door and locked it, but it did little good. All around me outside things had turned into a wasteland covered with zombies. I had little hope of survival, but I didn't give up so easily. I went everywhere looking for a safe place, taking out zombies with my shotgun all the way. I woke up before finding anywhere.

Dream Signs: highly unusual events, being at work, zombies

My sleep schedule the past few nights has been weird and so my recall hasn't been all that great as a result. Last night I finally remembered a dream again in spite of a lack of a normal amount of sleep.

1) The dream began fairly realistically with life as normal. But then suddenly I watched as my brain generated pages and pages of text spontaneously. I wasn't fully lucid, but I understood that I was asleep well enough to be impressed. I didn't take the time to read through everything, but what I did read made sense. A DC told me that I was reading my next dream at its base level, but that I had two other choices besides this first, basic option. It and one other DC created a variation on the first dream, leaving me with three slightly different dreams to choose from. I tried out both of the DC's variations, but found them to be very dark and creepy; as soon as things proved they weren't turning for the better, I left those dreams and went to the normal one. It was the best of the three.

Dream Signs: highly unusual events, being around people

Kinda weird if you ask me. It's like my brain was telling me the best dream is the unaltered dream...almost as if it was kicking against full lucidity. Hmm....

While I still may not have had any lucids from MILD yet, my brain is definitely starting to incorporate the visualization part directly into my dreams. The other night I visualized beginning the dream on an airplane because I could either skydive and land wherever I wanted to, or just make the plane land wherever I wanted it to. Easy transition either way. I didn't go lucid, but the dream did begin on an airplane. Last night, I visualized being back in Israel because that's where my previous dream was. And again, while I didn't go lucid, the dream did begin there. I think I'm getting on to something here...

1) As I just said, the dream began in Israel, although it quickly left that behind and turned into something big. Huge. So much detail I can't even begin to recall it all; there was an entirely unique world all around me with a deep story of its own to tell. Keeping things simple, there was a giant corporation that was getting too much power; it acted as the government, but due to its business nature, it was more corrupt than even the average government. I, along with a small team of others, sat down and planned how we could get inside and blow up the entire facility that was at the heart of the whole problem...realizing we would likely die in the process. (Yes I know, IRL that would be an act of terrorism, but this was a dream, ok? ) Our plan was highly detailed, but proved effective. We had unexpected complications along the way of course, but we improvised and still barely made it to our objective after hours of constant work. We had silently (for the most part) taken out all the guards going about the place, and all that was left was the CEO himself. We set up the bombs and then dove out the windows as our only shot at survival. Surprisingly the fall didn't hurt at all. However, once outside, a giant tree burst up out of the ground and revealed itself to be a tree-machine AI who was very angry at our work. We started to fight, but soon the machine recognized us as friends and stopped before he did any real damage.

Dream Signs: being somewhere without remembering getting there, highly unusual events,

Wow, I really need to go to bed less distracted if this MILD thing is ever going to work for me. My mind was working on too many things to stay concentrated on the visualization or mantra, so my dreams ended up being a direct manifestation of what I had been thinking over...and not about the mantra

1) I was in Israel for a friend's wedding. Never actually saw the ceremony; I was dropped into the dream right after it ended. As I was walking away, somehow I ended up talking to a Jewish girl and we hit it off pretty well. After we'd talked a little while I told her I had to go, and then turned and woke up...

Dream Signs: being somewhere without remembering getting there, being around people (particularly groups of people)

2) ...into a false awakening. I got up and was just about to walk out the door when I saw a big spider laying curled up on the ground. "Oh, I didn't think I'd actually killed that one last night. Guess it didn't get away after all." I was just walking past it when suddenly the spider sprung back into life and shot up into the air, simultaneously growing several times its original size. I tried to escape it, but it came down on my head and startled me awake, for real this time.

Dream Signs: FA (should have made me RC...but I didn't ), highly unusual events

3) When I fell back asleep, I was back in Israel picking up roughly where the last dream had left off. I had only one more day before leaving from my visit to see the wedding, so I was going around with a couple members of my family who were there with me and we just enjoyed ourselves (and I kept looking for a restroom in the dream because IRL I had to pee ). Somehow I ran across that same girl and her family, and we got to talking again briefly. Before I knew it, we were talking on the phone as I was heading to the airport to leave. It seemed like things might actually work out with this girl, so of course I didn't want to leave, but I was literally getting dragged away by my family, so I just had to say goodbye and wake up.

Dream Signs: being somewhere without remembering getting there, romance

Slept through the alarm this morning and had to rush when I finally did wake up, so my dream recall is nada.

Just didn't want to forget to write in my DJ for the sake of keeping it a habit. Better luck next time

Last night I came close to a lucid dream multiple times. I didn't get to MILD quite as heavily as I would have liked, but last night I caught myself as I began to fall unconscious and bring myself back long enough to use a mantra for a few minutes before falling completely asleep. All night long it was like my mind wanted to be lucid, but it just never actively grasped that it was in a dream even though it passively acknowledged that fact multiple times.

1) Fragment of walking somewhere in third person. People were talking about dreams as I passed by them.

Dream Signs: being in third person, being somewhere without remembering getting there, people talking about dreams, being around people

2) Short dream where I suddenly appeared in my class room, and this time I knew I had suddenly appeared there, because I was standing up front by the teacher instead of sitting at a desk. I half-panicked as I hurried to take my seat, as if my only explanation was that I had gone insane for a moment and walked up to the front without realizing it. But somewhere deep down something was trying to tell me it was a dream. The dream ended before that could sink in.

Dream Signs: being somewhere without remembering getting there, being around people

3) I was looking to buy a car, and I found that one guy had a special deal going on for light cycles (like the ones in Tron: Legacy). Of course I took the opportunity right away, and as soon as I got on the light cycle, the entire world turned Tron-esque with dark structures set off by glowing outlines and everyone wearing those slick suits. It was great fun to ride around the city, but unfortunately I got a little too adventurous and pulled off a rather dangerous move to take a shortcut down the wrong side of the road, and as luck would have it, the cops saw me do it. However, without ever really being lucid, I thought to myself, "I can just go back in time because this is a dream...right?" And sure enough, I was able to pull back to right before I made the illegal action and take the safe path this time.

Dream Signs: being somewhere without remembering getting there, highly unusual events

Grrr...I really need to get to bed on time. I made it farther into the MILD process last night, reaching a very decent point of visualization, but I only went over the mantra two or three times before I fell asleep

1) The dream began with a title: "Dream 06 - Israel". If that title is to be trusted, that means there's five other dreams I had last night but cannot remember After that, I found myself in the middle of a hotel shower. I got out and made my way into the world outside, and found myself in Israel. I spoke to some locals in Hebrew and they all told me about a horrible person that was coming into town that would do me great harm if he found I was there. They advised I remain hidden in my hotel room until he came and went. Well I thought that was unnecessary, so I didn't listen. Eventually I wound up in the same building as this horrible person when he arrived, and to save my neck I sneaked around, avoiding detection. I stealthily took out a couple guards, but I still got noticed by the man himself before I could escape. Turned out he was actually a pretty nice guy, though...

Dream Signs: being somewhere with no memory of getting there, being around people, highly unusual circumstances

Much the same as last night, I stayed up too late, and so I fell asleep too quickly to effectively MILD. I was just starting on the re-envision step when I fell asleep...never getting to the reinforce step. As such I didn't lucid dream or have great recall.

1) I was in Israel, with some random people. That's all I can remember for sure.

Dream Signs: being around people, being somewhere without remembering how I got there

Not such great recall last night...I was up later than I had planned on, and so when I finally got to bed, I didn't stay awake long enough to properly go through a MILD setup, and I never woke up naturally during the night for another opportunity to try, either.

1) I was running around with the characters from Inception, but I don't think we were doing any extracting business. Can't remember what we were doing, though. At the end of the dream, Eames leaned up against a rail and looked as if he was about to faint or something. I woke up as everyone went over to see if he was alright.

Dream Signs: being around people, interacting with fictional characters, being somewhere without memory of getting there

Had a monster toothache last night and didn't really have a mind to work too hard on anything, even lucid dreaming...just wanted a good night's rest

Even so, I did have decent recall, given the circumstances.

1) It was Christmas, and I was being woken up early. Strangely, even in the dream, I felt very tired at getting up so early. So tired in fact that I shortly fell back asleep into dreamless sleep.

Dream Signs: Being around people, significant time lapse

2) I was working at a large factory, and several of my friends were there as well, investigating what they perceived as some conspiracy. They convinced me of its reality and I agreed to help, but I had to keep up my job as well so nobody would notice me. It was both a scary and thrilling experience to sneak around like that.

Dream Signs: Being around people, being somewhere with no memory of getting there, highly unusual circumstances

I'm going to keep trying!

Experimented with the "Brainhack" app for iOS last night since others on this forum reported that it gave them vivid false awakenings, which they could use as a dream sign and go lucid. I couldn't sleep very soundly with headphones on (since the only position where they didn't get in the way was on my back), and therefore barely had any dream recall, none of it vivid. I remember two different dreams, but all that I can say for sure about them is another case of being around several people, and in highly unusual circumstances. Gotta keep an eye out for those two dream signs, as they are by far my most common and recognizable.

And I think I'll ditch the app, too

Ok, so I'm going to try to get back into regularly lucid dreaming again, and so that means I need to write in my DJ again. However, the reason I stopped writing in it is because I didn't have the time to write 10-page entries...so I'm going to change my style dramatically and give only a summary and list some possible dream signs to watch out for. I will maintain my color scheme for lucid/non-lucid dreams.

As a starting-out night, last night was a good one. I recalled three dreams and one of them was lucid (though only momentarily).

1) Summary: Overall this dream was unclear; I was doing a bunch of random things in unfamiliar places and somehow ended up on Facebook...and when I tried to read the nonsense text I became lucid, but I only stood up and began walking off when I began to wake up.

Dream Signs: Nonsense text (though usually text looks fine in my dreams), being someplace I don't remember getting to


2) Summary: This was a weird one; I should have gone lucid immediately. I went into the garage to find my car missing, and my boss was in there working on a tank. A Nintendo DS arrived in the mail and my boss took it and wired it into the tank so I could control it by the DS controls. I tried driving the tank to work, but it was too big and powerful to drive properly on regular streets, and I was sure I would get arrested...

Dream Signs: Highly Unusual Events, being around people (HUGE dream sign--when I go to sleep I'm always alone), video game elements


3) Summary: I was looking for something (not sure what), and my search ran me into Ashley Cowie as he looked for the Holy Grail. For some reason I thought an ancient tomb/cave place was where I would find my thing, and that's where Ashley Cowie wanted to look for the Holy Grail as well. We found a pillar with something on top, but we couldn't get high enough to look at it at first, and then when we did a glass box covered the top. Ashley distressed over how we could get in there while I broke open the glass. Nothing was inside.

Dream Signs: Being around people, highly unusual events, video game elements, looking for an unknown something