LiveInTheDream's DJ v2.5

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 can recall a bit from last nights dreams, but I don't want to remember them, to be perfectly honest. Therefore I won't write them down anywhere, I'm just making this post so that I stay in the habit of keeping a DJ.

No lucids anyway, if you hadn't guessed.

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, you might have noticed I haven't posted in this DJ for about a month...this is because I've been kind of taking a hiatus from attempting to lucid dream. My success rates were ridiculously low, and I had the feeling it was because I had so many different methods in my head that I couldn't stick with just one, and I probably wasn't doing any of them correctly anyway out of a lack of motivation.

Basically, I'd lost my appreciation for lucid dreams because all of mine were a bunch of very hard-earned crap. I read back through some of the earlier entries of my DJ, when the concept of LDing was new to me, and I was kind of inspired by my enthusiasm from back then, so I figured I should just start over.

I had no real 'return date', just whenever felt right...and I guess that would be now, since I had a lucid dream after relearning MILD and focusing only on that method for a bit. However, it didn't quite succeed the first time, so I'll put down that non-lucid dream as well, for the sake of recall and finding more dream signs.

Dream 1: I was at work. It was a pretty normal day, except for a lot of little behavioral abnormalities in all my coworkers. The differences weren't big enough to make me realize I was dreaming, but they did get me thinking.

Then I went to stock some music that had just come in, and I noticed a poster that had a rather big difference: the band name didn't seem familiar at all. I recognized the album cover, but the name just wasn't right...although...I couldn't really...remember what the right name was anyway.

Suddenly this fact became like taking a blow to the head. I stumbled back, my vision suddenly fuzzy and dizzy. After a bit my confusion grew to the point where I couldn't remember that I was confused, and so all this ceased and I came back to.

Once my vision had cleared, I still couldn't recall the proper name for the band, but this time the name I was seeing sank in. The poster read: "The Lucid Dreamers"

Next thing I know, the dream has gone to me being on a train with a bunch of other people, and eating Pizza. I was annoyed that my sense of taste was so weak. I could taste the Canadian Bacon, but everything else was very bland, like a distant sound is to an ear.

Then I woke up.

Of course technically my MILD hadn't yet worked, but it sure had gotten me a long ways. I had seen and recognized differences in multiple senses and circumstances, and my mind was obviously thinking about lucid dreaming due to the poster. It happened to be early enough in the morning for me to go back to sleep and try again, so I wasted no time. I repeated my MILD a couple more times and was out once again.

Dream 2: The dream began with me as a soldier in a futuristic city that strongly resembled what you see in the movie Minority Report. I was part of a squad that was taking down a group of Koreans that had invaded the place. (no offense if you're reading this and you're Korean, of course, I just play Crysis from time to time) Suddenly, however, I realized something...I was in a sci-fi city, firing a weapon, and wearing a suit of armor. All of this was cited in my MILD as dream signs to watch out for.

I smiled to myself then, looked through the scope on my weapon, and picked off all of the remaining enemies as if I were an aimbot. Precision and accuracy was 100% all the way. I threw down my weapon then and flew up into the air to get a good look at the place. The thought occurred to me that I should reality check, but I decided against it.

"I already know that I'm dreaming, and usually if I nose-plug RC when I'm like this it wakes me up." I told myself as I glided over the vast expanse of the world.

Below me, everywhere I looked I saw cars speeding along multi-level highways, rotating 90 degrees and then plunging straight down to reach other levels when need be. All of the buildings they rushed in between were shiny and steel; cold, clean, and sophisticated.

It was also all fading away.

"No, this dream can NOT end now!"

I rubbed my hands together furiously, but things were still fading out. So I tried spinning then, still rubbing my hands together. The city only spun about me as it finally faded into blackness.

"Rats...I failed." I thought.

But after a few more moments, I still hadn't woken up. I looked around me again, and now I saw a grid of white dots everywhere in the blackness, increasing in clarity every second. I rubbed my hands together again, and one by one each of the white dots became a building, every one more detailed and clear than before. It wasn't long until the whole city was back, and I was ready to head out on an adventure.

Unfortunately, this is where my memory begins to fail me, thanks to the unpleasant way the dream ended. I just know that I did go on many adventures and they were thrilling and satisfying to say the least. The dream tried to fade out multiple times, but I was always able to bring it back without problem. Somewhere along the way, that girl from multiple previous dreams was back again and we went on a lot of the adventures together. It was great.

But then the dream transitioned, and although I was still lucid, I decided I was done for the night because those adventures had ended so well and I didn't want to mess up such a great ending by doing something else, so I allowed myself to become non-lucid again and just watch the last few minutes of the dream.

What a mistake that was!

I was still in the same city, but I walked home, and everything there was still normal, further convincing me I was not dreaming any more. Then I got a phone call from that girl I mentioned, and she said she had to see me. I told her to come on over, but it turned out she was already just outside my door .

"What is it?" I asked as I let her in.

"I just had my first lucid dream!" She exclaimed. "It was amazing...I know you've told me about them before, but I didn't realize how incredible it really is! I even wrote it down in a dream journal just like you said you do. Here, look!"

She handed me her dream journal and I read it. It was the lucid dream I had just been through, but all from her perspective.

"I know." I said, handing the journal back. "I had this same lucid dream!"

That really blew her away. She was so excited she hugged me, and I thought I'd never let go. But...then I got another phone call. It was another friend of mine, asking if he could talk to this girl. She took the phone, but I could hear the voice on the other side saying:

"That guy is a moron! I know you care about him, but I just need to warn you. He's seriously messed up. I've got his dream journal open on my computer right now; he talks about a lot of really weird stuff and he actually believes it. I'm telling you, he says he found a Dream Room and can enter other people's dreams, and there's even these posts about using self-hypnosis for lucid dreams, or the theory that ghosts are lucid dreamers..."

I couldn't have been more annoyed. Or scared. I saw tears enter the girl's eyes as she slowly sank against the wall and slid down to sitting on the floor, and I thought she might try to run away, so I sat down as well and put my hands on her shoulders so she'd look me in the eyes.

"I can explain everything!" I said. "He's twisting the truth to make me sound crazy! I promise!"

The tears receded, but she didn't seem fully convinced, since she kept listening to this guy verbally murder every aspect of my reputation.

I woke up in a sweat and with my heart pounding...for a moment I still was afraid that that relationship was in danger, but of course I quickly realized I had woken up and all of it was not a real problem.

But aside from the unpleasant awakening, I'm quite happy with this MILD technique! I think I'll focus on it for a while longer now and see what I can do

Yay! Two lucid dreams in one week thus far...looks like my VERY long dry spell might actually be ending? I hope so.

Anyway, I'm not exactly sure what I was doing when the dream began, but eventually I noticed that as I walked through the dreamworld, the faster I went, the higher I'd lift off the ground. Well, that was a dead giveaway and I instantly recognized myself to be in a dream.

First thing I did was just see how high I could go with this weird walking/levitating thing. It was very different than flying, because my forward motion was the same speed and orientation as walking...I just vertically would move up or down based on how fast I moved my feet.

And of course, in my delight over succeeding to lucid dream again, it was extremely enjoyable to go super high, let myself fall, and shout: "I'm lucid dreaming!" on my way down, just because I was doing something impossible that proved such a statement to be true. I do that a lot in my LDs

After a couple such landings, however, I found myself to have teleported to the middle of some sort of gathering. It was rather dark inside, but not so much that it was hard to see details. I found a couple familiar faces who greeted me and I would reply with something that hid the truth (i.e. that it was all just a dream) from my friends (who may or may not have really been present there).

But then I got stopped by someone different. I didn't recognize this man, but he certainly recognized me.

"Care for a drink?" He asked, handing me one of two glasses filled with glowing green liquid, which he had carried with him.

"Sure." I replied, taking the glass as if I weren't suspicious.

Of course, in reality, I was highly suspicious. This was a DC, after all...a creation of my mind. I could know him better than he knew himself. And I knew something was up with him.

At first he talked nice, telling me how impressed he had been with my work in the film and gaming industries, but eventually he got around to his real purpose for being there, and it was not just to compliment me on my achievements.

"What I have here," he said, pulling out a small stack of papers from a shoulder bag, "is some material my boys picked up from various sources."

"Materials?" I asked. "Like what?"

"Scripts, mostly. We have the chance to produce the most popular media before the authors ever get the chance. Oh, but fame is not all that there is to it. There's always money involved, eh? Let's say...two million in earnest now for your help producing these films and games, and more by the hour you work with us. How does that sound?"

"Sounds to me like you're crazy!" I shouted.

All heads turned to look at this man and me. The attention scared him, since he was still holding the stolen scripts, so he turned and ran for the nearest exit. I ran after him, but lost track of where he was for a short while, giving him just enough of an advantage to jump in one of his gang's two cars and drive off, the other criminal car shortly behind him.

Me, I just kept running, staying close behind the two criminal cars, and slowly gaining on them. I didn't think about the speed at the time; it was as easy for me to run at 100mph as 10. Unfortunately, it was only a two-lane road (and reversed from real life), so while the criminals advanced on the left side, I had to run against oncoming traffic on the right, jumping over each car that drove towards me.

Eventually the oncoming traffic grew more heavy, and I slowly began to fall back from the criminals. That was NOT going to happen. All in one moment, I completely stopped running, stepped to the side, and grabbed hold of the next car that drove towards me. I spun around from the momentum of the car and then released it into the air. It flew right into the criminal cars and caused all three to explode. Of course the force of the explosion threw other cars into the air, even in my direction, but they bounced off of me like toys, leaving me completely unharmed.

Mission accomplished, I flew off as I had before, descended, and when I landed...woke up.

If that car scene hasn't been done in a movie...it should be

Well, I've been having some trouble sleeping lately (not stress or anything, I just haven't been tired, so it's weird ), so I never would have expected to lucid dream...especially through a WILD. But after not initially getting to sleep until 12:30 in the morning and then waking back up two or three times, staying awake for half an hour, and then falling back asleep, I found myself wide awake at 6am or so, unable to go back asleep at all. At least, not for a very long time. I just lay in bed and tried to not think about anything, and after an hour and a half or thereabouts, I realized I couldn't raise my right arm to scratch an itch. At first I just tried harder to lift it, but suddenly it clicked in my head: "Oh! I'm in sleep paralysis!"

I started to hear a buzz, and I felt like I could separate from my real body and get into my dream body. I was quickly able to succeed at doing so, and then as I felt real life fall away, everything around me went white.

For a short while I lost all sensation of any body, but when the buzzing grew to an extreme, raging frequency, I found myself physically present in that whiteness, ready to transition to a dream, but unable to do so. I ran all about in the whiteness, knowing I had only seconds before I'd lose the dream, but still I was stuck.

"How do I get in the dream!?" I finally shouted in desperation.

"Just...jump down." A voice calmly replied.

I acted like I was jumping off a ledge, and sure enough, I descended from the whiteness and landed right on the floor in my room.

First thing I did, of course, was pinch my nose and try to breath in, so there would be no mistake about my state. I could only breathe out of one side of my nose with it pinched, but of course that was still enough. I then began to examine my environment. The realism astounded me...if I looked out the window, I could see for miles and miles, even though none of it was scenery from real life. I noticed a fishtank (which I got rid of years ago IRL) was in my room, and I could see my reflection in it with perfect accuracy.

Since I had something to work with, and needed something to do, shape shifting came to mind. I succeeded in shape shifting, but my control over it was very bad, so I ended up just distorting my face to a degree that felt very strange. Giving up on that, I decided I'd just go outside and fly to wherever the wind might take me.

Once I was outside, takeoff was easy, but I thrust my hands out in front of me, which I don't usually do for flying, and it threw off my balance and sent me to the ground. I tried flying a bit more, but couldn't get off the ground for more than a second, now.

Then I had another idea: why not just run somewhere really fast? But...now that I thought about it, I had actually been moving really slowly the whole dream. Running at all was a challenge. Running fast...well...that woke me up.

Not the best LD ever, but it's good to know that I'm coming back.

<Click here to read Part 2>

I had the sensation of time passing, although it was an instantaneous transition from the zombie attack to what was presumably days later. My friends and I were gathered around in the apartment building to discuss what had happened. The closet door was still shut and had remained so since the zombie attack because we knew that the portal to the zombie homeworld was still open behind us. Something had to be done about that, and I also mentioned the little girl that had tried to escape them.

"We don't know how many prisoners they're keeping or why," I told everyone, "but it's up to us to get them the heck out of there. We've got to take the fight to the zombies and wipe them out once and for all."

Jane Doe looked up at me with a hint of admiration in her eye. I suddenly had the sensation that our relationship had grown over the past few days as well.

As it turned out, this would become more than just a sensation. The closet room had been converted into our battle station where we could enter and exit the battle zone at will as long as we controlled the door (which was guaranteed since the room was outfitted with other defenses now, as well). There were a few tiny rooms (just a bunk and a wall in a metal box for protection, nothing more) that we could rest in, and we did so every night to keep ourselves sharp for the next day's warfare. Even though we had proper weapons this time, it was slow going to raid the zombies since we had to filter out who was dead and who was alive, because there was no external difference that we could perceive.

Anyway, one night after about (what false memory said was) a week or so of battle, Jane and I had a little talk in one of those rooms. We'd been growing closer that whole time, and although I don't remember exactly what transpired, but we concluded that we loved each other and had to be together. So rather than sleep that night, we simply stayed inside that little room and talked or just sat in silence with our arms around each other.

But the night always has to end eventually. In the morning was another day of battle. When it was time for everyone to get up, Jane and I went out to brief everyone on the day's mission. We sat next to each other in the circle of our friends, and I moved up close and put my arm around her. The relief of being able to do that instead of refrain from it in order not to offend Jane (as would have been the case back when we were just friends) was phenomenal. I'd never felt like that before.

"Thanks." she said, as if to say 'it's nice to feel secure and have something happy for once in this bad situation.'

I briefed everyone and then we all started to head through the closet door. However, I stopped Jane before she could get through, pulled her around, and gave her a long kiss.

"I love you." I said (intended connotation: 'be careful out there')

"I will." Came the reply (intended connotation: 'I get your connotation')

And then we went out to battle. Since by now this is incredibly long, I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say we won with heavy casualties, and those who were alive were beaten and worn out. We had freed as many prisoners as we could, but some were killed in the action. However, most of all, I was just glad the fight was over. Still...there was one last problem that found its way to me right after I killed the last zombie. A baby that had been imprisoned there lay on the ground, crying. I picked it up and ran out of the portal back to the closet room just before the portal closed up, sealing us off forever from that dreaded zombie world.

Next thing I know, I'm in the streets of the steampunk city again, several areas in ruins from the zombie attack of a few days ago. My little army of friends passed by me in line as they exited the apartment, all of them dirty and bruised. I waited anxiously for Jane, as I intended to give the baby into her care, but she never came through the line. Frantically I ran to find someone in her squad.

"What about Jane? Where is she?" I asked.

"Jane?" They replied. "I...well...she...I never saw her come out. I'm sorry."

"No." I said firmly. "She's alive. Where is she?"

"I can't help you there."

Determined, I walked back to see if I could find her myself. But just as I did, down the stairs walked none other than a very beat up Jane Doe. I ran up to her, put the baby in her arms, then let her collapse against me as we kissed and I supported her. I knew people were watching, but I didn't care. This was my Jane; nothing was going to stop me from being with her now.

"We have to go now." She said after a long while and lots of 'I love you''s were exchanged between us.

"Go where?" I asked (intended connotation: 'I don't care where as long as we're together')

"No, I mean we have to wake up. We're all dreamers here, remember? Now just...wake up."

And I did wake up. I know that doesn't seem all that exciting now that it's written down, but trust me, the love in that dream was real and strong enough to make it incredible a thousand times over. The cool steampunk/sci-fi environment was just a bonus. And the intense battles were neat, too. Unfortunately, all that doesn't translate into plain text very well...oh well. This is an experience I know I shall not forget.

<Click here to read part 1>

Once inside the upstairs room with the closet, I reached over to the nearest lamp and hit the switch. The lights didn't come on. I hit the switch again. No good. So I went to a different light and tried it, but got the same result. "Oh, that means it's a dream!"

Now if you know me, you know that I like to use doors to teleport places in lucid dreams. But my lucidity was not strong even now, and so when I opened the closet door, I did nothing but shatter everything...and lose lucidity.

All the lights and lamps in the room (which were many) flickered strange colors, as if there was an electrical issue. I didn't know what was going on, so I decided to just grab the gift boxes and go. There was an eerie blue light inside the closet that was good enough for me to just barely be able to make out what was inside. However, one step further inside, and the whole place shook as if from an earthquake. I stumbled and fell, expecting to hit the back of the closet...but instead I fell right through where the back wall should have been.

When I looked up, I was flat on the ground of a vast mass of red, mars-like sand. It was dark in the sky, so I couldn't see far, but I could feel in the air that something was wrong about this place. My feelings were confirmed when a little kid ran up to me screaming for help as she apparently fled from something...just before hands reached out of the darkness, grabbed her, pulled her into the darkness, and then...instant silence.

And now all the attention was on me.

"The portal!" A rough voice shouted from the distance. "It's open! Move, now, let's GO!"

I tried to get up and run, but I ended up being carried back through the closet by the oncoming flood of bodies that rushed through it. Once they'd gotten through and changed their course, momentum flung me into the air and into the middle of the forest of lamps that stood in the closet room. Because it was dark and there were too many lamps to comfortably navigate, nobody paid attention to me, and I watched in horror as dozens of 7-foot tall, burly, rough men rushed into the room and down the hallway right to where my friends were. Many of them brandished weapons...I knew that no one would stand a chance against them.

As soon as I found my footing, I got out of the lamps and threw myself at the closet door. I managed to shut it, but in the process cut off the finger of one of the tall men as he stuck out his hand to try and stop the door from closing. I was surprised at first to see that there was no blood...it was just a skeleton and dried up, gray insides in that finger. But then it all made sense. These were the living zombies I had heard about; those who were internally dead but externally still strong as ever. Fully mindless, ruthless bodies.

Jane Doe was the first thing to come to my mind. No matter what happened, I just couldn't let the living zombies get to her. She didn't know how I felt about her, but our relationship had a lot of potential that I intended to take advantage of when the right time came, and I wasn't about to lose my chances now.

Suddenly I had knives on my belt, so I pulled them out, ran for the stairs (which was where the zombies were by now) and with expert handling began to lodge the blades into the zombies' dead bodies. It wasn't exactly one knife = one kill, but it distracted the zombies long enough for my friends to get weapons of their own.

The battle raged for what seemed like hours. It was not an easy victory, but we did eventually destroy the zombies' bodies bad enough that they really and truly died. I remember the last zombie's death in particular...I was running out of knives, when I had gotten backed into the closet room by one final zombie. I had a couple minor wounds, so I was being cautious--not to mention this thing was huge and mighty and had brass knuckles. I landed one knife into the zombie's shirtless chest, but it merely groaned in pain and kept coming my way. I threw another one and it landed right next to the first knife, but still it didn't bleed and it got close enough to land a blow that threw me back several feet.

I was out of knives. Frantically I searched my belt, but there was none. However, after a glance behind me, I saw a blade sticking out of a dead zombie's back, grabbed it, and hurled it towards the live zombie, expecting a triumphal, last-minute kill.

It didn't happen. Despite three knives in its chest, the beast was still as alive as ever, and heading my way. I really thought this was the end...

**BANG!**

A bullet shot echoed through the halls. The zombie collapsed onto its knees, two holes through it in addition to my knives. It cussed and swore in pain, but still didn't die.

"Finish him off!" I called to the one with the gun (who was on my side, obviously).

He emptied out his clip on the zombie, but it wasn't until easily two-dozen bullets later that the thing finally died. Still...it was over. We'd fought off the zombies.

<Continue to Part 3>

^(yep, I started a new, more descriptive title format )^

(Ok, I noticed that this one is going to be really freaking long, so I split it up to make things easier for you all)

Last night was one of the best dream nights I have had in a loooong time. It was one of those dreams that you wake up from and you just lie there and don't know what to say but..."woah." I mean this was a truly awesome experience. The level of detail throughout the whole dream was so intense that it was my biggest obstacle to lucidity. There were other things that should have convinced me of my dreaming state, but I'm actually rather glad I only stayed semi-lucid the whole time, with short bursts of true lucidity at key moments. I think things wouldn't have been as imaginative had I just tried to think things up on my own, but I had a good enough idea that I was dreaming to not be afraid of anything.

Anyway, enough rambling about the dream; I'll start from the beginning. Pretty much the whole thing will be teal this time, instead of trying to figure out everywhere I wasn't lucid and everywhere I was and where I was in-between.

Remember that girl from my first great WILD, and that rather romantic flying dream, not to mention some others? Well, she's back, and was in an apartment building with me and a ton of my other friends from real life when the dream began. (Actually, she's been in every dream I've had this past week, though none of them were so memorable as this one) I'm not exactly sure what we were doing all gathered together there, but it sure was a cool place to have a party. The apartment building itself was a very sci-fi-looking place; everything about the building spoke of sophisticated technology. The walls were metal and doors were automatic, etc.

However, once outside this building, the world transitioned into a very steampunk environment. In sharp contrast to the bright interior of the apartment, things trended towards darkness except for all the lights of the city, which was large, but mostly inside one big structure of glass that sheltered everyone from the continually harsh weather outside. The atmosphere of walking through that city was incredible.

At first in the dream, that's about all I did...just walk through the city and explore. There were certainly plenty of things to see and places to go. I started out a couple stories up (walkways wound all through the city) and walked down a blue-lit spiral staircase to the ground level. Along each side of this walkway were lines of businesses--major and personal and everything in between. It resembled a street, except no cars drove on it. In fact, I don't recall ever seeing a car anywhere.

As I first began my walk through the amazing city, my awe was interrupted by a merchant lady running a personal business about ten feet away from me.

"Excuse me, sir." She said. "Would you like to buy some cupcakes?"

"Hm? What?" I replied as I turned around to see where the voice came from. "Oh. No thank you."

And I proceeded onward, putting on a steampunk-ish cloak to avoid drawing more attention. The city was amazing, but darkness still was its most prominent feature, and you could either be in constant fear of it or use it to your advantage. I chose to do the latter.

The first place I stopped at and went inside was some kind of nightclub-ish restaurant. The walls were illuminated an ominous red, but other than that, the whole place was dark. I could see only silhouettes around me. I got a drink (nothing alcoholic, mind you ) but while I was sitting there listening to the techno music playing I overheard two rough-sounding men discussing rumors that some people in the city were not actually alive.

That got my attention.

As I listened, I gathered that there were zombies that were totally dead on the inside, but still animated and un-decayed externally, appearing to have life. They were also rumored to be the most dangerous creatures in existence.

"And the worst part," the man on the right concluded, "is that you never know which they are--dead or alive--until it's far too late."

I left in silence, as undetected on my way out as I had been on my way in, and returned to the apartment. Of course, when I passed the cupcake stand, the lady again spoke up.

"Excuse me sir, would you like to buy some cupcakes?"

"No."

However, no sooner had I gotten back into the apartment than my friends (and that girl I mentioned earlier, in particular, who will now be referred to as Jane Doe) asked me to go buy some supplies for the party that we were having the next day. False memory told me I remembered what they were talking about, and I agreed to go back out.

Again I passed the cupcake lady, and again she asked:

"Excuse me sir, would you like to buy some cupcakes?"

At first I was annoyed, but then I realized that would actually make my trip shorter to just buy from her--and maybe it would get her to shut up whenever she saw me next.

"Yes, actually, I would." I replied.

She showed me the flavors and toppings and all that and I made my decisions and told her what quantities I needed.

"Ok, I'll have to make a special batch for that many," she said, "but they'll be ready tomorrow morning. If I can just get the phone number of the person the party is for I'll get started on it right away."

That kind of flustered me. I wasn't sure of the phone number for several reasons. One: I didn't really know who the party was for now that I thought about it, and two: I didn't recall seeing any phones in the city or in the apartment. I had very nearly figured out it was a dream when the DC interrupted:

"Oh, I gotcha. You don't know the phone number. Well, I'll tell you what. I'll go ahead and make the cupcakes and you can get the phone number from your friend and when you pick them up tomorrow morning you can get the number to me. Sound good?"

"Oh. Yeah, that works."

"Ok, well I'll see you tomorrow morning, then!"

"Yeah. Thanks." I replied as I walked off, still slightly confused at what transpired.

I went right back to the apartment to inform everybody of the cupcake situation. I felt like I had kind of failed, coming back empty-handed like that, but nobody else thought so.

"I can go pick them up while I'm out tomorrow morning." Jane Doe told me. "That will work perfectly! Now, would you mind going upstairs and getting some gift boxes for me?"

"Sure." I replied.

<Continue to Part 2>

Didn't have the best lucid dream last night because I didn't complete the RC-MILD before falling asleep, but I did get some of it done, and so I went some lucid in return. It wasn't the best lucid dream I've ever had, but it was most definitely lucid.

I found myself walking down the aisle on an airplane with some other people that I had false memories of knowing for a long time, but actually had never seen them before. Suddenly, it hit me that I was seeing something, which I had just told myself meant I was dreaming. "I'm dreaming!" I said in a loud whisper to myself. The DC in front of me heard it, and turned around. "What?" he asked.

I decided to have some fun with the answer to that.

"Oh, I just was wondering...do you think I could do a flip right now without ever touching the floor?"

"Sure, why not? If you touched the ground it would be a roll and not a flip anyway."

"No, I mean like I won't jump or land."

The DC just looked at me funny, so I responded by levitating off the floor, running a few steps, flipping, and then landing on pure nothingness.

"Woah dude, that's awesome!" The DC said.

"And now..." I said, "What if I did this?"

I caused the airplane's lights to dim and disco balls and strobe lights and other fancy colored lights to start shining. And then, still just in the middle of the air on the aisle of this airplane, I started break dancing. I did all kinds of cool stuff, but lost lucidity before long and the dream just went back to normal.

From then on, the dream was about me and the other DC's being shipped to some imprisonment on the airplane, but we managed to break out and find our way through the maze of a facility to finally get back to the plane and commandeer it to get out of there. It was a very interesting dream to go through with lots of details in characters and in the facility as a maze, but unfortunately I don't remember all the details of the deep plot.

Then something really odd happened. I don't yet have a text color for it so I'll just use orange. Everything went black once that dream ended, and then I felt myself waking up. I look at the ceiling above me, see what time it is, and then roll over--only to stare myself in the face. Yes, before me I saw none other than me lying down on the bed, still apparently asleep. But this was ultra realistic--I'm serious, this didn't feel like a dream. I reached down and touched my hair with an arm that I could feel very clearly, but not see. Felt like it should. I noticed my chin and realized that I had forgotten to shave. Then my eyelids shot open for a brief moment, and my vision faltered, my 'body' being sucked down towards my body. But things came back just for a moment, and I was thinking about seeing where I could go and what I could do in this state when I heard a voice. It said to me: "You have to go back. It's not your time yet." And then as I saw my eyes open I was sucked down into my body completely.

I sat up for a minute and found everything to be accurate as I had seen it. I had forgotten to shave, it was the exact time I saw on the clock, the lighting of the room had been correct in what I saw...call it what you want, but I think this was a legit OBE and not exactly a lucid dream.

Kinda weird, though...that makes the second or third time recently at night I'll feel like I'm leaving my body and I'll hear a voice sending me back telling me it's not yet my time. Am I really getting that close to dying? Am I on my way out and then being put stuck back in just at the last moment? Creepy...

Finally, another lucid dream!! Didn't come by the audio experiment, though...I'm not going to try that one again until I have finished creating my own MP3 for the job.

This time, I just decided to give my RC-MILD method another shot, and it passed with flying colors. Click on the underlined text to see the thread about it, if you aren't familiar with how it works. I went through the process right before going to sleep, also telling myself: "Next time I see anything or do anything, it's a dream, because I'm going to sleep now."

Pretty much next thing I know, I'm sitting up on my bed. But I wasn't fooled by the false awakening; all I knew was that I was supposed to reality check when I saw or did anything. "Ok," I said, "I am seeing things, and I just sat up, which is doing something...that means this must be a dream!" I plugged my nose and tried to breath in, but unfortunately I did it way too hard. The whole dream faded out, and came back a few seconds later...only now, although I was still on my bed, I was in the basement rather than my bedroom!

I reality checked more gently, and was satisfied this time with the results, although it was already obvious I was in a dream. I didn't rush around after that; since I'd already nearly lost the dream once, I started out just by feeling stuff and getting really immersed into the dream world. Once off the bed, I walked over to a bunch of pictures on the wall and looked at my reflection in them. I was amazed by the realism of the reflections; it would distort--relative to my position--to the shape of the objects reflecting me.

This made me think back to a dream where I told myself I could not have been dreaming because no dream had reflections that realistic. Being lucid, this only made me smile. I pointed at the pictures and told them: "you're not going to fool me this time!"

But now it was time for adventure. Even though my dream goals had only been thought up minutes before bed, I remembered them very clearly. Basically I just wanted to live through a couple scenes from 'Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life'. I attempted to shape shift into Lara Croft, but that utterly failed, according to my reflection in the pictures. At first I just looked like a totally messed up version of me. I managed to correct that much so that I looked normal again, but I was still intrigued by what happened.

See, when I had shapeshifted, I felt successful. In my mind, I looked exactly like I wanted to. The reflection was what told me differently. So I guess that just goes to show our mental projection of ourselves and what we actually are in the dream world are not one and the same...fascinating.

I knew I didn't have a lot of time, though. The dream was just not that stable, and I knew it. I had it as clear as could be and I was as lucid as could be, but the sleep cycle was drawing to an end. So I ran up the stairs and headed for the front door. Someone stopped me and asked me to set the table for supper, but of course that was not in my plan. "Screw this, I'm not going to spend my lucid dream setting tables!" I threw a glass on the floor to create a distraction, ran out the front door, and leaped into the air. I don't know that I've had as realistic of a flying experience as this before...I really could see forever as I got higher and higher!

For a while I just enjoyed the realistic flight, but then I teleported to the skies of Tokyo so I could find the first place from Tomb Raider that I wanted to re-enact. Unfortunately, I began losing the dream here, so no more did I land than I woke up for real.

Not the longest or most exciting dream ever, but it's been well over a month since I last had a lucid dream that was that clear and that lucid. And since RC-MILD worked so well...heck, I may just stick with this instead of the audio thing!

AUDIO-INDUCED LUCID DREAM EXPERIMENT ENTRY #6

Day #7 (NO LUCID):

~Tried a later time for the MP3 to go off in hopes that it would hit me during a clearer dream, but it wasn't late enough...I naturally awoke before the MP3 started playing, however, I fell asleep with it still running, and although I didn't go lucid, I had more control in my dream than normal.

The dream began with me on facebook, looking at a post from a friend asking if anyone would be willing to do logo design for him (a real life memory that spread into the dream). I said I could do it and asked what the logo was for. When I got the reply, said friend told me: "Oh...just BLACK MESA!"

Next thing I know, I'm in City 17, and the place is under attack. Both zombies and Metro Cops are trying to take me out, and I'm freerunning the heck out of there. I make it--barely--after leaving behind a grenade that I found on my belt to slow down my pursuers. I didn't stop, though. My brain told me to run through the 'underground railroad' that would get me to Eli, just like in the real life Half-life 2 game.

The dream basically threw me into my memories from Half-Life 2, then. I did everything on the underground railroad just like in the game, only I was actually all there, and I felt the fatigue of always running and the danger of fighting off enemies. Eventually, I made it to a half-way point; a safehouse hidden off to the side of the canal I was taking the airboat through. Only...there was nobody there to tell me where to go next. Unsure of what to do, I found my way to a bed and collapsed on it. I couldn't rest though...not with the ever-present feeling of being watched. So instead, I got beneath the bed where no one could see me and tried to go to sleep there.

I never got the chance. Within a few minutes I heard the distant radios of Metro Cops heading my way. They were giving instructions on where to search...and two of them were coming right into my room. I looked around from beneath the bed, but there was no way out. I'd just have to be silent and hope they never found me.

Their shadows were on the wall...and then, the ominous figure of one of them stood in the doorway. The wooden floor thudded dully with each step of the cop. He looked all around the room, and then turned to the bed. The cop slowly leaned over and peered beneath, staring me right in the eye...but in desperation to not be found, I convinced myself to be invisible.

"All clear."

The cop left, and I returned to visibility with a sigh of relief. As soon as the cops were gone, I got up and left to try and complete the railroad myself. But something weird happened, then. The dream went into 3D. I mean, like the red and blue 3D. And in the dream, I put on red and blue 3D glasses and I saw everything in 3D! Like, it actually popped out at me and had depth like I rarely see in dreams! And of course, since it was a dream, the colors looked correct unlike real red/blue 3D.

That's about all I remember. It was a pretty enjoyable dream, actually...I've really got to be more creative with my lucids to beat these kinds of things!

AUDIO-INDUCED LUCID DREAM EXPERIMENT ENTRY #5

Day #6 (LUCID [ish]):

~This time I actually recognized the MP3 from inside my dream. I'm not sure what was going on in the dream beforehand, but all of a sudden a DC I was talking to stopped and looked around. "Hear that?" he asked. I stopped and listened as well. "That's..." he began. "That's your lucid dream induction MP3!" Unfortunately, the mention of it brought reality into focus all too quickly, and although I now knew I was dreaming, the suddenness of it woke me up.

I think perhaps the MP3 I'm using may have too much variance in volume. It begins fairly quietly, but then all of a sudden it gets quite loud, which means I pretty much have to give up the opening sequence (which has most of the 'you are dreaming' and 'do a reality check now') or risk waking up from the loudness of the latter part.

Personally I dislike the thought of switching MP3's again now that I just got to where I can recognize this one, but whatever...if it doesn't work, I must revise my plan and try again. Maybe the music should be eliminated entirely...revert to just a voice telling me to reality check and all that--and at a consistent volume that won't wake me up at some point.

AUDIO-INDUCED LUCID DREAM EXPERIMENT ENTRY #4

Day #5 (HALF-LUCID):

~Had a small degree of success last night. I didn't wake up during the MP3 that I had set, but I know it made it through to me in my dreams.

I was fighting a DC hand-to-hand (he attacked me for unknown reasons) and losing...he had me pinned on the ground, and he was pulling out a knife, when all of a sudden, the world around me grew clearer, and I felt empowered. I swung my legs back, landing a strike on the DC's head before he could shove the knife in my back, and then I pushed off the ground hard enough to make me fly up and land on my feet. We continued to fight, but I was the faster and more powerful one, now. I got the knife out of the DC's hand and took him out after a short while.

I had a foggy idea that I was dreaming, but not enough for me to comfortably say I went lucid. Still, I'm getting there! Maybe I should listen to the MP3 a few times during the day and train myself to reality check to it...I just know I'm going to start having lucids from this soon!

AUDIO-INDUCED LUCID DREAM EXPERIMENT ENTRY #3

Day #4 (NO LUCID):
~Right idea, wrong time. I set up an MP3 (that simply told me to do reality checks) to go off at 4:50am. Headphones were wired to both sides of my bed to preserve the stereo effect and volume was tested before going to sleep to make sure it was easily audible, but not disruptive to sleep.

I ended up waking up naturally around 4:45, so of course I wasn't asleep when the MP3 began to play, which ruined that. So I got up and reset the alarm to start playing the MP3 again at 5:50. However, in that hour, I fell asleep and woke back up...just in time to hear the audio start playing again.

By then it was too late to really try again, since I was going to have to get up early anyway. I really like the idea...I just need to find out how to catch myself when I'm asleep!