dream fragment

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

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

Had bad recall from last night. I barely remember anything. The only thing that sticks in my mind is a fragment that began with me being flung through the air in some futuristic city. But this wasn't a clean, coldly-efficient kind of place. It was a big, cyber-scum heap...and by 'scum' I'm describing both the environment and the people there. As I continued through the air I passed by multiple Minority Report-esque advertisements, all of them sensual, furthering the feeling of the place being full of low-lives.

I can't remember what happened to me once I landed, but I know that at a certain point in the dream, it would restart at this point when I was flung through the city. Then it would all happen the same up to that one point, and restart again. It did this for a dozen times or more before I finally woke up.

Something about that dream messed with my mind today, too. In spite of all my reality checks and awareness boosters I still feel kind of like I'm still in that dream...like at any moment, everything could restart to an earlier point in time again. My sense of time in general has been distorted somewhat...ten minutes will go by in what seems like an instant, I have difficulty remembering what day of the week it is, etc.

I probably just didn't sleep that great last night. Maybe I can take a nap this afternoon and have another lucid dream and set everything right.

So I finally saw Inception last night, and to say the least it has really kind of redirected me in my lucid dreaming and put me back on the right path. That's not to say that everything in Inception regarding lucid dreams is 100% accurate, but it really put the joy back into the act of becoming lucid for me, making it an achievable goal rather than a constant frustration.

Of course, Inception being the last thing I saw last night, I had a lucid dream, and it was very Inception-themed. In fact, I spent the whole time in the hotel from the movie. I was in there for a few dream hours and did quite a bit, including testing out Cobb's totem (which I found on a table in the hotel hallway) and indeed it did spin indefinitely. Unfortunately, all else is very unclear due to my rude awakening...there was some loud noise outside that jolted me awake and absolutely destroyed my recall. I have only bits and pieces of the dream in my head still, but I know I was lucid.

Since the totem thing worked for me last night, though, I've started using a real one. It's much different than Cobb's, and has several different details that I can watch for and try to find inaccuracies with in the dream. Let's hope having a physical reminder always with me will get me to do RC's during the day again. I MUST get back into this 100%! I've missed having decent lucid dreams...

I kept on with MILD last night, but didn't see the same success as I did the night before. Not only did I not realize I was dreaming, but my recall was really bad as well...I remember one tiny fragments of a couple dreams...

I was holding some small, rectangular object in my hands, looking it over, amazed by its capabilities to do...something...

I was back in time a few weeks when I was building my computer. "Now lets see, where was that screw...no, that's the thumbscrew for the case...that's a mount for the motherboard...ah, here we go!"

Not terribly good, but it might give insight into a dream sign to look out for: the computer!

Well I feel stupid for not going lucid last night...I thought about lucid dreaming multiple times, but I never thought about doing a reality check or even just questioning my surroundings' authenticity...even though I was in anything but normal places all night long.

Even so, my dream recall is improving once again, as I can remember three different dreams this time. None of them can I remember in full, but it's definitely progress! And actually, as far as detail was concerned, there wasn't a whole lot to remember...strangely enough, all of my dreams last night were very simplistic in colorization and geometry. Buildings were flatly-colored boxes that occasionally took upon a bit of a texture when I got close. Vast fields were flat planes with little shading, never mind individual blades of grass. There wasn't even much of a sky to speak of; just a solid hue that eventually faded into existence somewhere off in the vast expanse of the dreamworld.

Anyway, on to the dreams.

Dream 1: I found myself to be Peter Petrelli in a city that was in big trouble. Huge mechs with guns were approaching the city boundaries, and it was clear what they intended to do: wipe out anything that got within ten feet of them. I used my various powers to rally up soldiers and pedestrians alike to help in preparing defenses for the place, but the mechs struck before we could finish putting the last reinforcements in place.

Rather than let everyone be crushed with fear from the apparent failure, I used Mohinder's power (which false memory told me I had acquired) to jump across rooftops and freerun in impossible ways in order to reach a wall that was hanging in midair by a crane. In one motion, I jumped, pulled out a knife, cut the crane's cord, and then hung on to it as I watched the wall collapse on top of the approaching mechs.

That did raise people's spirits for a while, but it didn't exactly change the tide of the war. It took a long while, but eventually everyone had been killed...soldiers and regular people alike. They just couldn't survive without powers like I had.

So it was just me and the mechs. I refused to give in, even though it felt as if there was nothing left to fight for. Somehow or another I took out one of the remaining mechs, and eventually I got around to another. Then it was down to just one mech and me. But this last mech was the biggest one of them all. I hid around a corner and tried to peek around to watch its movements. All I got was a bunch of bullets nearly hitting me in the side of the face. Its reactions apparently were incredibly quick, too. I hid for quite some time, always dodging its presence...but sooner or later I got tired of waiting, so I jumped up onto the roof of the building in front of me, ran across the top, and then jumped for the mech, crying a vicious war cry all the way. We collided, and...

I honestly have no idea how that dream ended. Seriously, that's all I remember. I know there was more to it; I didn't wake up right then, but what happened is lost on me.

Dream 2: Had a false awakening. And a flood of false memories. My brain told me that I had been in a science test lab for a couple days and that they had developed a machine that could record your memories in full audio and video as you went to sleep. When I got out of the test bed and unhooked a bunch of sensory cables from my head, I went to the machine and started to replay the video from the beginning. I could hear my thoughts wandering and see a few minor images fading in and out of the blackness that began the sleep cycle. At first the thoughts made some sense, but then, gradually, they began to make less and less sense, and be less disorganized. Before long, my thoughts were all very scattered. Then things went silent, and the dream began to appear on the monitor.

What was really interesting about that one is that the video was accurate to real life. As it 'replayed' everything for me, I honestly did remember thinking some of the things it had recorded. I think I honestly did tap into some deep and hidden memory of what went on as I fell asleep, and was able to bring it back in full detail in the form of a monitor inside another dream. Fascinating, actually.

Dream 3: There was a huge family get-together. We went all over the place; restaurants, parks, possibly even a movie theater. And then we decided to go on a joyride in a big plane. Except as it turned out, only my dad and I were on the plane once we got on board. Other than that, it was totally empty. The plane took off and I looked out the window, and suddenly this great frustration grew inside me.

"Flying is so much more enjoyable in a lucid dream." I said. "You don't need an airplane to fly, then. You're just free. It just feels frustrating to need an airplane; to be flying, but not out in the open."

At first I tried to just enjoy the ride anyway, but I couldn't. I told my dad (who was also the pilot) to land, and I got off, angry at my inability to fly how I would prefer to.

Dumbo...if you'd just realized where you were, you could have flown!!! Argh...

Wow, first real entry into the new DJ system! As you surely have noticed, I've moved ALL of my last DJ into this one. If you want to read those, just look for posts tagged 'archive', or that have 'ARCHIVE:' as the beginning of the title. I've also made a new 'welcome' page, but unfortunately it has already been lost amid all the other posts...I was kind of hoping I could set it to appear as the first page everyone sees, but it doesn't look like that is possible (yet). Anyway, for what it's worth, feel free to visit the welcome page!

Unfortunately, I don't get to start off with some big, awesome post. But since my dream recall is getting quite shabby I need to write what I remember and start building that back up. Next time I have a lucid dream I don't want to forget all the details!

The beginning of the dream is a blur. I didn't stay in one area or storyline for very long; even though it was all one dream, without any level of lucidity whatsoever I was subject to the whims of my sleeping mind, which seemed to take me all over the place. One moment I was in a futuristic setting, the next a medieval, and the next something like real life. I can't remember what I was doing in the first two settings...I can only vaguely remember the face of another person in each one.

However, I do remember something of what happened in the FA-ish place. I was looking at pictures from the medieval place I had just been, when the phone rang. It was a woman I shall refer to as Jane Doe. (she's from real life, and in real life I care about her a lot, hence my mind put her in the dream) She was returning a call I had made to ask if she wanted to go out together with me. Said she was free on Monday at 3:50 (don't ask why that exact time; I don't know). Fine and good, right? Almost. Her father was also on the phone, and apparently yanked it out of her hand and started yelling at me for taking his daughter away from him. She quickly grabbed the phone back and told me not to pay attention. That didn't really help calm down her dad, though. Eventually she had to just assure me that it would be alright and she'd be there at 3:50...and then had to hang up.

After that I walked off to do something...and next thing I know, I'm waking up.

Definitely not the best dream night ever.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Very little dream recall. In fact, all I remember is I was trying to torrent something with my PDA, and I had to leave and take it with me, but I didn't want to lose my wireless internet signal and stop the torrent. Somehow I got it to connect to my car and then drove off.

I should have gone lucid from this...

#1 my PDA only has bluetooth, not WiFi, #2 my car doesn't supply internet, #3 I can't run a torrent program on my PDA, and #4 if I could, I would just have paused it and left rather than worry about it messing up

I'm getting pretty tired of missing so many obvious things...sooner or later the RCs must start bleeding into my dreams.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Dream recall wasn't the best last night...I remember a couple dreams that came late in the sleeping part of the morning, but the early dreams are totally lost on me, which isn't good because that's usually where my lucids are.

But oh well, here's what I remember:

Dream 1: I was running on a track and jumping hurdles, like in an olympic competition.

Such a boring and pointless dream, IMO...I'm not a runner, and I don't have a desire to be, so why I would dream this is beyond me

Dream 2: I was running (lots of running last night...that must mean something) from someone. I don't know who or why I had to run away, but I was. And I was in a suit and wearing a top-hat. A midget DC told me to hurry and follow him down a hole because it was the safest place, so I followed. Immediately I started to slip and slide and fall down the pit. Tt was too dark for me to see anything, but fortunately I was wearing infrared goggles all of a sudden, so I switched them on. (They really made things look like infrared goggles in real life do!) What I saw through the goggles was like a cave made out of membranes...at first I thought I was being swallowed by some huge alien, but then I slid down onto rocks and figured otherwise. I switched off the goggles because it seemed I was unable to stop my descent, and I honestly would rather not know where I was going, considering I'd probably be dead when I hit the bottom. The darkness caused me to lose my sense of direction, then. Down was up and left was right and...it was so confusing! And I was always sliding. Fast, but in a constantly changing direction. I turned the goggles back on a couple times just because I couldn't fight curiosity, but it didn't really help me reorient myself. It kind of made it worse to have a visual disorientation too, actually.

Eventually I woke up from that, but I can't remember where. Another dumb dream, anyway. I wonder what's up with all the running, though...

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Wow. I don't know what happened last night. All I remember as far as dreams go is 1) Winning an iPod shuffle from MacDonald's, and 2) Watching the Matrix, or at least it was supposed to be the Matrix, even though it was actually nothing at all like it. No lucids, no complete dream memory...and I remained still and calm when I woke up each time! Somehow I just really messed up with that one...oh well, I guess I'll just keep plugging away. Sooner or later a dry spell ends, right?

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

(Sorry there was no entry yesterday...really there was nothing to report, but what really happened is I just totally forgot )

Tried to WILD last night...it was my first attempt to do so for a little while. I figured that by taking a short break from trying, I'd increase my chances of success. I was right.

It wasn't long (about half an hour) before I was in SP in full, seeing tons of increasingly vivid HI, and feeling myself slipping into the dream state, still maintaining the proper level of consciousness. But then something weird happened. My eyelids started to quiver, and then they nearly opened--for real, not in the dream, like I was expecting--I successfully stabilized them, but not without losing the HI, and weakening the SP a bit. I tried just waiting for more HI to come, but when it did, I never reached the dream state, and it just disappeared within a few seconds.

When I opened my eyes and admitted defeat, it turned out that a couple hours had passed in this dreamless sleep paralysis, which felt really strange, because even though I had been conscious the whole time, it felt like I had actually slept for a while. I mean, it was kind of cool, being conscious while being asleep, but I'd much rather have lucid dreams than spend all night just waiting for the night to be over!

It was doubtful that WILD would succeed after that, so I tried just to DILD. Problem was, my sleep schedule was so messed up by that point that it took me a very long time to get into a dream state; I kept just slipping back into that waking sleep. When I finally did dream, it was like my vision was blurry and my hearing was bad; all that I could get out of the dream was a couple people standing in front of me, telling me things that I couldn't hear well enough to understand. I couldn't make out their faces, either. But suddenly, one of them put their hand on my shoulder and turned me to face a holographic image. In that moment I saw that I was in some science lab like the one from Avatar. "I suppose you're one of them, now." The person said, pointing to the image, which I saw was a group of Na'vi. "You better get in your body."

That's all I remember. I guess I've officially jumped on the bandwagon of Avatar dreaming...maybe I can actually go lucid and visit Pandora again sometime

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Woke up and forgot my dreams too quickly to write them down. Should have written some simple notes...I remembered the dreams for plenty long to write them down, but I had to go to church, so unfortunately my dreams got lost this time

I tried to WILD again this afternoon, without aural aid, but rather keeping my mind focused by going "[breath in]...1...[breath out]...I'm dreaming...[breath in]...2...[breath out]...I'm dreaming" and so on and visualising the numbers and letters of the words. It was working, and I was having a ton of side effects (which I thought of as a good thing, since recently I've been having very little, proving how far away I was to getting it right)...when suddenly, several noises erupted in my house, caused by the TV being turned on in the livingroom, cooking being started in the kitchen, etc. which woke me up immediately. I didn't move or open my eyes, but the focus was lost, the side effects gone, and even though I kept trying, it was far too loud for me to succeed, and even if I got earplugs or something I'd be moving and thus exiting the attempt, therefore I called it quits again. Yes, I did reality check to ensure that I wasn't in a false awakening.

I got closer, though! Soon I'm going to get this WILDing right again!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Semi-successfully WILD/EILDed this afternoon, for a nap. Used "The_Ultimate_Lucid_Induction.mp3" as my aural assistant. Came VERY close to fully entering the dream state, but there was a flaw with looping that particular MP3 during a WILD: at more than one point, the voice would not blend with the music and this difference would wake me up. Therefore, though it very successfully induced several different dream scenes, each only lasted for a few seconds, never fully encompassing my field of vision, before the song would reach a point that would jerk me out and back into the blackness of my eyelids. They were very definitely legitimate dreams, though! I would have kept on trying; each dream lasted a tiny bit longer than the last; it seemed that eventually my mind would have been able to tune out the song and finish off the WILD. However, all of a sudden, my eyes just opened of their own accord. I didn't want them to, I didn't try to make them, they just did. I thought maybe I was in a false awakening, so I reality checked, and discovered that I really was awake. Really odd situation...

Anyway, getting that close with a lucid dream inducing MP3 is encouraging. Perhaps I'll find a better one for me or be able to edit the one I used today so that it loses the parts that wake me up.