lucid

^(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!

Well, after a day full of reality checks and a watch of Avatar before bed (you know, for lucid dreaming inspiration ) I was decently set up for some good dreams...except for recall. It still stinks after going so long without working on it. Oh well, I'll get better again.

I'm actually not sure if the RC's helped me out any last night or not. I know they will as they become habitual, so I'm not disappointed, but to be honest, I can't remember any of my regular dreams. So maybe they did help and I went lucid and totally don't remember it; I don't know.

But, at 6:00 I woke up to my WBTB alarm, and that's when things took a turn for the better. I went for a WILD this time, and it half-worked. I went right into a dream, but I wasn't completely sure of if I was dreaming or not. I was looking for confirmation either way, but never once remembered to RC.

Before long, I was caught up in a group of DC's comprised of both people from real life and fictional characters. I cannot recall exactly what they were doing, but I believe they were looking for something very important, and although they weren't enemies, there was a lot of competition to see who would find it first.

I only had to go with them a very short while for it to sink in that this was a dream. The terrain was weird, for one thing. We had moved along from a very realistic looking place to something like a video game from the late 90's. And then of course the Na'vi in the group were kind of a dead giveaway

Knowing it was a dream, the DC's bore no weight on me anymore and I didn't care to stick around their group any longer. I just stopped and took some time to feel things around me, and before long the realism of the place increased tenfold and I grew more lucid as well.

What happened next is mostly uncertain. I feel like I did something first, but at any rate, I ended up in a false awakening and lost lucidity. I was back in bed, lying down. I thought the lucid dream was over and I had woken up, so I got out of bed to get ready for the day. But no sooner had I opened my bedroom door than I was standing back amidst that group of DC's, and it hit me again that this was a dream. Unfortunately, this time I didn't think to even feel things, so my lucidity was pretty low. I never thought to leave the DC group and do more interesting things. Instead, I just went along with them and showed off all the things I could do while knowing that physics didn't exist.

It gets really hazy after that...I remained lucid for a very long time and did a lot of stuff, but eventually I lost it again and the dream continued on non-lucid for the remainder of the dream.

When I woke up I had been asleep for over two hours, and I'm sure about an hour of that was lucid...too bad it wasn't very high lucidity, and my recall wasn't so great. But at least I'm making progress again!

Well, I had a crazy thing happen last night. I finally lucid dreamed again (!!!) but when I woke up, I had attempted to type it out in a word document...in my sleep!

Here is what I wrote while asleep. I'll write a proper explanation of the dream and update my sig and all that later (I'm at work right now).

"I started out last night determined to lucid dream.I convinced myself that despite my lack of practice, I would have a lucid dream the following night, as well as a new method-ish thing , a theory perhaps, to aid in other lucid dreams. Tpdau. Today, I have both.

I realized last night (to begin with the theory of induction) that if I repeanough, my mind would try to alter t it patteni eveempted to think it out, the patern would fight hard to change, but I would resist this. Fight hard to change, but I would resist this. After a while, I audibly heard muswas on to something..

That was when I knew I hypnagogic audio, So I began repeating a sequence of images in my head, begarepenough, before long, my brain . Ied fought er ts e pg so, which then immediately resulted in a flare of very visible images. Ately resulted in a flare of very visible images.

Unfortunately, I never got a chance to see if this could be useful for WILD. It sure brought me into the sleep stage pretty quickly, though.

So I fell I don't remember where, but there wasbuilding. Still, the red flags waved in my head, and I sud nlye sure wwas raoing to be a devent lucid dream, I real ty c world.

“Yes, I'm finallly lucidTGH THE CEILINGLAND OUT INTO THE OPEN (which happene to be just a black void)I didn't let tuld still feel my weightlessness from flying, I could still feelthy dream.body alone. I was stilll fullly in the dream.

“Ok, where should I g to ind, to
FT ISOWHERE I decided to go.

The moment I thought aboutre I decide light appeared in the distance, a beacon for the location of my destination.ance, a beacon forn the direction of that red light, and tried nd, everything was still black all There are a bunch of gh of this. There are a bunch of walls all around me.””FULL COLOR>
“....a floor, a ceiling AM ! The walls are lined with products. I am in a gif shop.”n

ABLAInessk andvbefore long my environment was fully solid. Atiking to myself about how awesome lucif.dreams are, when I saw my vieo camera on assible idea. But since I wasrationally. I epicked up the camera and turned it m. T
“ K GUYS<” I sa I narrated, “this is my lucid doiam.to be so cool to watch once I wake up.”

I don'have known that the camer. Was couldn't possibly be linked the dream.-life version, or record real videos of the dream.

Stptl, cording. I showed who all was there (mostly family members or people from Shaytards)) and I filmed around and other stuff.aytards) and I filmed around and other stuff.

TaMy family anough, since they were in “but guys, this me@H! I don't wante to go no else, like fly?”

“No.” they said. “Let's go home and have tea.”

I didn easily upset by lucid dr amerthat I needed to use the bathcrem ed a bathroom in the nearast wI really did need to I ust ent to pee in the dream and hoor the dream to go on. It woralls and I had to levitate to use them

After that, though, I aiti g: “You cango on ahead, I'm right behind you.”

Aore interesting, and away from all e they were going to go into. Onlyoset IVITY WAS ORIENTED SIDEWAYS FOR ME> I did a recording on my camera about it and tioen was to shock the DV's inin a lucid dream.I was serious abbout them being in a lucim.ream. Instead, the stunt din't d o anything for them either, alhough it did make for some interesting recordings.hough it did make for some interesting oughr and gravity reorien my iicelf and sontards.the DC's as well; namely, my nices, and sontards. They fell up to tpped open the window. Sontard feul upsave him. One of my nieces almost and pulled her back inside.ce grabbed her in time and pulled her back inside.

Ore in a dream, right? Nope. I fixed gra vity to be normal again and everyone fell to the ground. Be normal again and everyone fell to the ground. Be normal again and everyone fell to the ground. Be normal again and everyone fell to the ground. Be normal again and everyone fell to the ground. Be normal again and everyone fell to the ground. Be normal again and everyone fell to the ground. Be normal again and everyone fell to the ground. Be normal again and everyone fell to the ground. Be normal again and everyone fell to the ground. Be normal again and everyone fell to the ground. Be normalfagainmeone to comment ed stething else.

“You see this camera?” I asked.

The DC's nodded.

“Well, camera?” I asked.

The to function properly, right?ld require a battery to function properly, right?”

They nodded agais camera still workd again.

Sust took out the camera battery and kept f abin the significance of the gesture.

N caringt guys, well, I realjust going to have to leave.”

“F el! > Don't you want to be with your nieces? These are your family! Why wetld again. I knew it wasa just a dream.

“Actually, I don't care.” I said before walking out the door.

Unfortunately, I ned up somewhere other than England. Everything around me looked like a quilted pattern. Gravity was irrelevant, since up and won looked the exact same.

And guess what? The DC's were there, too! I got out the camera and filmed/narrated my disbelief.

They crowded around me and begged me to go back home with them, and just because I thought it would make for an entertaining video to watch when I woke up, I agreed to go back with them.

It gets fuzzy from here on, but I remember quite clearly being at a party back at the house. I guess the DC's were throwing it to celebrate me coming back. I wasn't in the mood, though. I sat in a corner with my video camera, watching all the recordings I had made and marveling that everything was actually recorded onto this thing inside the dream. It was seriously playing back to me all the stuff I'd heard and seen without changing anything.

I did a bunch of other stuff after this, but I can't remember it any more. It wasn't the most exciting lucid dream ever since I was focusing on recording it all (epic fail there) but it was a nice long one and I was very lucid; no issues with dream control.

Confidence is key, people! I got this lucid dream simply from believing I would have it. Can't wait for tomorrow night! "

Wow guys, sorry it's been so long since I last posted a DJ entry...or much of anything at all! I haven't given up on lucid dreaming or this forum yet; don't worry. Life has just been so freaking crazy lately that I seriously haven't had time to write anything down!

I still don't have time to write everything out, actually...so you're just going to have to trust me that since my last entry I've had 2 DILDs and 1 WILD, and they were quite enjoyable.

I won't spend a lot of time on the first part of the dream, as it was pretty unimportant.

Basically what happened was that several DC's were introduced into the story, but other than that, the beginning served no real purpose. I just went around with my friend (who I will call John) and did stuff pretty much like we'd do IRL.

Where the important part begins is when we decided to stop by QuickTrip for something to drink. We were on our way in, when I saw a girl (whom I care about very much IRL, and will refer to as Jane) walking to her car further down the parking lot (it was a huge lot, nevermind we were just at a gas station). My mind raced.

“Jane!” I thought. (Well, actually, I thought of her real name, but in case she happens to read this somehow, I'd rather not list it here). “Oh, she's too far away to hear me...I can't stop her to talk...if only I could run up to her and...”

Then the non-reality of it all suddenly began to hit me. Just in time, I figured out that it was all just a dream!

“...wait, then. I can run after her!”

So that's exactly what I did. I abandoned John and forgot my drink so that it ceased to exist and I ran as fast as I could (which was pretty fast, being lucid). I was so eager not to miss Jane that I accidentally got to her truck even before she did. So I just waited there a moment.

When Jane caught up, she seemed a bit surprised to see me there, but made no comment about my super-human speed.

“What are you doing here?”

I hadn't actually planned on answering a question like that, so for a moment no words came to me. I knew I couldn't tell her the truth that I was dreaming, though.

“Oh...” I began, desperately fumbling for a way to put a positive spin on the situation. “Just...thought I'd open the door for you! Yeah...that's it.”

I reached back and opened the door. Jane just stood there a moment and stared. Not fully sure what she was thinking, but I got the idea that she just didn't know how to respond to me going so far out of my way to do something nice for her.

“Oh. Well...thanks,” said she.

Then Jane started to get in, and I realized she was going to try to leave. This was a lucid dream! I couldn't let her go like that.

“Uh, Jane?”

“Yeah?” She hesitated on the step of her truck.

"Come here."

I reached over and wrapped my arms around her, picking her up off the truck and setting her back down on to the ground. She half-tried to resist at first, gently pushing back, but it was only because she was worried about the time.

“I don't have time...I need to go.”

“Need to go?” I replied. “There's nowhere you need to be more than here.”

She smiled, and then put her arms around me as well, and leaned her head up against me. I remember thinking she seemed somewhat shorter in the dream than in real life, or I was taller, but whatever. I didn't let that bother me. What mattered was that Jane was there, and I was holding her in my arms.

We stayed that way for a very long time. That was all I wanted. There was nothing else I needed to use my lucidity for more than that. She was totally worth it.

Eventually she insisted that she really had to go, and I had to let her, then. Even if she wasn't physically present, I care about her too much to not respect her wishes. But, she assured me we'd see each other again soon and that we'd spend more time together.

Then, an interesting thing happened. The girl from a few previous flying dreams (who is also from real life and will be referred to as Janet) came up to me and I could see in her eye that she remembered all of our flying times together. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jane watching to see what would happen. In Jane's presence, I reached out and hugged Janet, but not very closely and for a very brief time, as if to declare who I truly loved, and who was just a good friend.

After that, Jane smiled and left, I lost lucidity, and the dream went to a weird thing where John had turned into this huge blob. At first all I could see was his head sticking out of the covers on his bed. Then, suddenly, the covers flew back, revealing that the rest of his body was just hundreds of pounds of blubber--no bones, no muscles. He wobbled out of bed and across the floor, and I could see little protrusions that served as 'arms' and 'legs', but they also had no bones, and there were no hands or feet, so they would have been useless anyway. Then he suddenly jumped into the air and twirled around, which caused physics to stretch him out and flatten a bit. John landed on the floor and turned into a rug, and then the dream ended.

I swear I wasn't on drugs...but that last bit was REALLY weird.

Well, that was a frustrating lucid dream! I tried my RC-MILD method again, and it worked like a charm, but I guess having not been lucid in a while made me forget a few details about dream control...

I was at a huge party; people were everywhere, and the place was crowded despite the fact that we were in a mansion. It wasn't long before I simply said: "I'm in a dream!" and then just from looking around me found it to be true. Unfortunately, I didn't take time to do a nose-plug RC, so I never was quite as 'there' as usual. But I did remember my dream goal: to share a dream with a friend by utilizing the dream room from a previous lucid.

I tried to leave the main party room so I could find a door that would lead me where I needed to go. However, on my way out, a DC tugged on my arm.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"I'm lucid now, I have to leave." I replied.

"What? You can't leave now!"

"Yes, I can. Let go of me."

"No! You're staying right here!"

"Alright then, VANISH!"

As I shouted that last word, the DC faded away into nothingness and the grip on my arm disappeared with it. "Problem solved," I thought. But after going no more than two steps closer to the end of the room, another DC cried out.

"He killed him! He killed him! I saw it!" A woman screamed, breaking out of the crowd and running towards me.

"Quiet down! It's just a dream, you idiot! He never existed! Do you want to get this whole place in an uproar?"

"Yes!" She replied before starting to scream.

"Ok, enough of this. You can just vanish, too!"

And she did. But this time I had the attention of everyone else, and they all thought I was a killer. The party music stopped, people put down their drinks and food, and slowly advanced towards me.

"I don't have time for this..."

My next thought was to try flying. I made it up to the ceiling and about half-way through, but for some reason at that point I was sucked back down in and I couldn't push through anything. I was also distracted enough that I fell about fifty feet to the ground. Of course it didn't hurt, but it further convinced everyone else that I was demon possessed or something. So I ran, then, going from room to room, just looking for a door, without success. Hundreds of DC's were always in hot pursuit.

Eventually I came across a staircase, so I jumped down and found myself in a cement basement. There was an alcove not far away, so I teleported myself there to throw off my pursuers and then peeked around the corner to see if it worked. It had. They were all gathered around the spot I had teleported from, scratching their heads and wondering where I could have gone.

I slowly backed down the alcove, hoping to find something I could hide beneath until the DC's gave up. Instead, I bumped into something on the wall. When I turned around to see what it was, I saw a door staring me in the face!

"Finally!"

The DC's heads all snapped in my direction when they heard me say that.

"Get him! Quick!"

"When I open this door," I frantically commanded, "the dream room will be on the other side!"

I threw the door open, DC's just feet away, and then slammed it shut behind me just before they could get to where I was. I locked the door and then turned around. I wasn't in the dream room, for sure. I was in some vast darkness...and then, there was this light. And I realized it was the light from the window...and I had woken up

At least I scored another point for RC-MILD...

I DID IT!! I finally was able to WILD from a fully awakened state!

I went to bed last night at about 11:30pm. Woke up (due to awesome dreams about being in love with this incredible girl) at 5:47am and decided to try a WBTB and WILD so I could visit that girl again. I stayed up for about 10 minutes, fully awake. I even splashed water on my face. But at the same time, I stayed away from things that would make falling back asleep a difficult thing to do (i.e. screens).

After that, I lay down on my back on the floor with a t-shirt wrapped around my eyes and ears to encompass myself in total blackness and silence. I was very alert at this point, and concentration was easy. I consciously relaxed everything, starting from my toes and moving up to my head, and then counted down from 10, telling myself that I would be very close to lucid dreaming by the time I hit 1.

It almost worked. I felt that beginning sensation of disconnection with the conscious mind, and knew I was close. But I still needed some help. So I visualized a hand reaching down out of the blackness and pulling at the center of my brain. That went far better than expected. Instantly, the hand drew back, but the difference was, now I was moving along with it! My eyes started to move rapidly; I was entering REM, the place of lucid dreaming. Unfortunately, my heart rate increased very dramatically at the shocking success of the visualization, and it was like I fell from the height the hand was holding me back into my real body, and my eyes stopped moving so fast.

I tried to just go back through everything again right there, but somehow I just couldn't. The hand wouldn't pull me back with it anymore, my eyes would never move very fast...I didn't even see HI anymore.

So then I got up (or at least I attempted to; one of my legs had lost its circulation, so it was like rubber and I couldn't stand on it, so I had to pull myself into bed with just one usable leg ) and tried the same thing in my bed. By now it was 6:30. Time was running out. I thought the change of location might be enough to get me in. But after a couple minutes of no luck with that, I just thought: "How often do I fall asleep on my back? Almost never!" And then I just got into the most comfortable position I could, re-relaxed (which was a bit more difficult to concentrate on this time, but I did it) and then watched the oncoming HI and waited.

In a very short time, things started to shake, I felt myself slipping away, and next thing I knew...

I was sitting up in bed. I didn't really need to RC; I knew where I was. But I didn't want to take any chances, so I did a check and found myself to be dreaming. I jumped down from bed and started going around the room slowly. I felt the walls, I looked out the window, I looked down and could see myself standing there...it was all incredibly realistic. I ran all over the house, then calling out for this girl, hoping to find her around a corner. But I never did.

BLACKNESS!

I was back in bed, wondering if I had woken up. Did a reality check, and tested to still be dreaming. This time I flew outside, doing a corkscrew simply to see if the dream world would continue to function realistically if I were upside down. To my amazement, it did. Once outside, and with my orientation corrected, I hovered in the air, looking around me. I laughed with pleasure when I saw how realistic everything was...there was even a road construction crew out in the distance, just like in real life. I was going to fly off to the girl's house, then, but...

BLACKNESS!

I was back in bed, and wanted to get back to work, so I did an RC as I threw myself over the edge of the bed and on to the floor. I remember thinking: "The people on DV are going to have a fit when I tell them my reality check was throwing myself on the floor to see if I fell through!" I did fall through, however, and attempted to teleport as my body passed through.

Where I ended up was not at all what I had intended. It was some kind of restaurant with old-looking wooden rooms. Many of my friends were there, and even some family members. One of them was asking me to go fill up three drinks. For some reason, this temporarily caused me to lose lucidity. I tried to get the drinks for them, but the soda fountain was made from obsolete equipment, the cups were difficult to find, and the method of payment was so strange I never did figure it out. It was something like this: you'd put a couple coins into a slot on the desk, and then there was this tube with rings around it. You'd slide all the tubes to the right to correspond with how much money you paid, even though it wasn't sufficient to cover the cost of the drinks. Everyone around me said that was all I had to do; they never compensated for the extra cost. I got annoyed with them for not understanding my point that it was a bad system, and for their annoyance with me for not being able to figure it out.

BLACKNESS!

Back in bed, lucid once again. Threw myself on the ground as a reality check. This time I ended up teleporting to some farm where two pirates were standing in front of me. They were threatening in graphic terms to tear me apart and kill me. I just smiled at them the whole time, and then used descriptive commands to transform them into girls about my age. "Shorter. Skinnier. A bit younger." With each command, they would automatically be transformed. (This is, by the way, a method of dream control I've used ever since I was 4, when I had my first lucid dream) It took a couple minutes to get them both looking right, but the results looked like they'd be good.

BLACKNESS!

Now I was getting a bit ticked off at my frequent blackouts and false awakenings. I did one solid reality check and then tried once again to stop all the nonsense and find the girl I'd come into the dream to find. I looked all over the house, tried to call her on a phone, but I just couldn't get her to show up anywhere! So again, I tried teleporting.

This time was very different, though. Rather than be presented with a new, weird location, all I saw in front of me was a panel of buttons. There was one for each location I'd been so far. I pushed the button for the farm and was dropped there immediately. The pirates were still girls, now also in normal clothes instead of the pirate stuff they had had before. And for some reason, one of them had aged about ten years, while the other remained exactly the same. I invited them to come to the restaurant with me. I'm not sure why, but I just had this feeling that they'd help me find this girl that I was looking for.

"No thanks." The younger one said. "I kind of like it here. So peaceful and quiet. Especially at the lake! I think I'll go there right now. See you later!"

The older one was fine with coming, though. "Good enough," I thought. I put a hand on her back and prepared to teleport...

BLACKNESS!

There was the restaurant...we were there.

BLACKNESS!

There was a static image of several dream characters.

BLACKNESS!

I was in bed, I did a reality check. I could still breath through my nose, but it was partially blocked now.

BLACKNESS!

Then I sat up in bed for real. It was 7:30am now...I'd been in a dream for nearly an hour.

The blackouts sure were annoying, but I'm really glad I've found a way that I can WILD from being fully awake! This could even work in the afternoons...which would be really awesome indeed! Then I'd have a couple chances for LDs every day!

I'd say WILD has now become my focus once again. Wish me luck! I'll keep you guys posted on what happens

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Finally, another long and fun-filled lucid dream!! Unfortunately, my dream recall has been at a low point as of late, so I can neither remember every detail nor what order things go in...but I will certainly do my best.

When the dream began, I was simply walking through some store. It wasn't your average store; everything was painted black or a dark gray, and the lights were kept just bright enough to see comfortably. I'm not sure what they were supposed to be selling at this, since I never saw any products anywhere, but there was a single cashier behind a solitary desk.

As I walked through this place, something suddenly bothered my nose. Maybe a fly nearly went up into it or something; I'm not really sure. But I simply reached up and rubbed my nose with the back of my hand, which should have temporarily cut off breathing...but it didn't.

"That felt weird." I thought. "I had better check again."

This time I pinched hard and still breathed in effortlessly.

"Ok...do I actually get to say it?" I asked myself, realizing with excitement what was going on. "I'm...I'm dreaming! Yes, I'm actually aware of it! I'm dreaming!"

Of course, the first thing that came to mind then was the question of what to do with this dream.

"I need to have a Matrix fight!"

The moment I looked down, I was suddenly no longer myself, but Neo. And when I looked all around the room, doors had appeared in the walls. I took my stance and waited. Within moments, all sorts of people rushed in from them; agents, the Twins, and all kinds of other henchmen, too.

Although the ensuing fight was enjoyable from Neo's perspective, it was altogether far too short. I simply unleashed my dream body in a fury of moves that would be too fast for waking-mind reaction speeds, but as the dream itself was a matter of thought processes, my actions could apparently be just as quick as each electrical signal that formed my environment. This effectively sent people flying everywhere, and when they hit the walls, it was usually hard enough that they did not get back up.

I looked around after the last man was down, saw their bodies laying everywhere, and figured I should move on to something else.

"I should accomplish some dream goal or task of the month. Don't think I'll be doing either of those here, now."

Since I was already Neo, I bent low to the ground, which sent small waves out from under me, just before I shot straight up into the sky, phasing right through the ceiling to get there.

It was night all around me, but I could see a sea sparkling beneath a sky full of stars off to my right, and a city alive with lights in every window to my left.

"Let's see, what was that task of the month? Oh yes. Pyrokinesis. I think I'll skip on the mushroom patch...Neo just doesn't seem to fit in that scene."

I reached my hands up over my head and formed a large flame in between them. Since I had nothing better to burn, I threw it down towards the store I'd just been in and watched it explode as I continued to feed fire into it from the palms of my hands.

Shortly, however, I came to the realization that my goal had been accomplished, and once again it was far too short. I needed new territory; new people. So I shot off across the sea to my right and planned on just going to whatever place struck me first.

I ended up having much less say in the matter than I had planned on, though. For some reason, soon after crossing the sea and arriving in another city, I began to lose my ability to fly. At first I tried to just change my position a little, but that only sped up my descent. Eventually I was plummeting straight down and I could do nothing to stop it.

My fall ended at a glass roof in someone's apartment. I went crashing through, suddenly myself again and no longer neo. Of course the family that lived there was startled to say the least, and instantly ran to see if I was alright. I'm sure they expected blood and glass wounds, but I only ever saw one piece of glass in me, and as soon as I pulled it out of my arm and passed my hand over it the wound was gone.

From this point on, things get very hazy, which is frustrating, because the longest part of the dream came hereafter.

I stayed with that family for days (though I didn't see every moment of each day), trying to regain my ability to fly, and also using them as an experiment. Over our time together, I didn't just outright tell them they were part of a dream, but I slowly built up their knowledge of the world until they understood that none of it really existed and that they could bend or break all the rules as they wished. The parents seemed to have a hard time accepting it, only ever being able to do things like move pencils across a table with telekineses. The younger ones, however, caught on quite well, and when I finally did recover my ability to fly, they could easily join me.

There was, however, a LOT involved in all of that; this is one of the longest lucid dreams I've had in a long while. I simply don't remember all the details

After a while, I went into a false awakening and tried to write down the previous dream. Unfortunately, all I succeeded in was screwing up my recall, since I wasn't truly awake.

It doesn't actually seem like that fun of a dream now that I write it, but while I was going through it it sure seemed enjoyable

NOTICE: This shall be the last of my dream journal entries that uses this format. From now on I shall use the new DJ Blog format. I intend to get everything migrated over there, so all these entries will not be lost in the midst of a vast archive, but for nostalgia's sake...so long, my first-ever dream journal!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Woke up at about 6:00 this morning and realized I hadn't had any lucid dreams yet. Since it was early, I still had time for another REM cycle, and I wasn't about to lose that chance, so I rolled over and decided to WILD.

Instead, I just passed out, but it ended up working out ok.

First thing I know, I'm standing on the rail of my backyard deck, looking down at the ground below. I knew I was in a dream already, so I just jumped and tried to fly off. As I flew, I also did a couple other things to improve the dream experience. First, I pinched my nose and tried to breath in so that there would be no doubt as to my state and I wouldn't lose lucididty. Then, I shouted: "Time: SLOW DOWN!" So that even if I only slept for 5 real minutes, it would feel like hours to me (just a little idea I spontaneously thought up, and it's not a bad one, if I may say so myself).

For some reason, though, in the middle of flight, I also teleported unintentionally. So as I was landing from flying, I saw the place I had flown to. But the moment I hit the ground, I was inside a building with a huge ceiling made entirely of glass. The walls and floor were of metal and not glass, but they still had a high reflectivity level, and everything looked very clean.

To my left was a teacher who was standing and giving a lecture, pacing back and forth and being very emphatic. To my right were two rows of students, obviously college-age. It didn't take long to figure out that this was a specialty class, what with the nice building, distinguished-looking teacher, and the fact that there weren't many students compared to the huge room.

Still, knowing it was a dream, I held no respect for the situation, and I walked right in front of the teacher and looked over the students to see if there was anyone there that I recognized. Eventually one girl I know IRL (whom I shall refer to as Jane Doe) waved and said 'hi'.(This was also the girl I flew around in my first real WILD, and that has appeared in my dreams a couple times since then) I figured she'd be perfect to go around with again, so I walked over to her, literally threw aside the school materials, and asked her to come with me. I was half surprised that she didn't object due to being in school. Of course...the teacher hadn't skipped a beat in his droning lecture since I came in, so apparently it wasn't that hard for people there to ignore certain things.

I led Jane to a big window at the back of the room.

"You want to see something fun?" I asked.

"Sure!" came the reply.

So in one motion, I jumped, picked her up, and smashed through the window (not that the window needed to break; I could have just phased through it, but c'mon, what's more dramatic? Phasing, or seeing a million particles of glass fly everywhere?) We then fell down for several stories, picking up speed the whole time. Then, at the last moment, I slowed down my descent just enough so that I could comfortably land without it feeling like I'd actually altered our fall.

I turned to Jane, whom I was still holding. She didn't look impressed.

"What? I just jumped out of a building and fell for like 500 feet, and you didn't find that fun?"

"It was fun...I suppose. But that kind of scared me! I don't usually jump out of buildings for fun and expect it to work out ok."

"If you were lucid dreaming you'd probably appreciate it more, I suppose." I muttered under my breath. Then, speaking up, "Well, how about this, then?"

I jumped up and started to fly again, then looked over at Jane. She was smiling this time; it just wasn't the same since we have gone flying so many times now. When I looked back in front of me, I realized we had teleported again. Now we were back to the place I had landed at prior to the first unintentional teleport. By now, the sun was setting and there was some sort of party going on. One of my co-workers was there, and she approached me.

"You realize you're going to be in this dream for four years." She said.

"What?"

"Since you slowed the time down...it will feel like four years."

"Oh. Ok. That's fine with me."

Really, it was. Things were going well. I wouldn't have minded four years of lucidity. But I still didn't believe her. Generally, don't take lucid dreaming tips from a DC. They don't know what they're talking about. I just was trying to get to the table where the food and drinks were, and not get stopped any more along the way.

So I grabbed Jane's hand and led her through the small crowd to one of the tables and picked up a couple glasses of punch. IRL, I hate punch, but who says it has to taste bad in an LD?

It gets a little hazy around here...Jane and I separated from the crowd and I asked her about our relationship...and I don't remember her answer, but she hugged me, so it must not have been too bad.

And next thing I remember, my alarm is going off and I'm waking up.

Stupid alarm clocks. Oh well, I suppose I should be thankful I don't get to work late

Oh, and I really recommend slowing down time every time you lucid dream. It really felt like several hours even though now it seems like only a few minutes

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Well, I didn't really plan on WILDing last night, but I woke up shortly before 5:00 and just rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

I didn't move a whole lot, so it wasn't long before I started to feel the loss of sensation in my hands (these always go first, for me). Since I'd gotten that far, I thought "Well, why not see if I can make it?" So I just focused on keeping my mind conscious enough to WILD and letting everything else fall asleep.

Strangely, I didn't have any HI this time. It was even a pretty calm ride as far as vibrations and other weird sensations were concerned. I just noticed after a while that I really couldn't move...it wasn't just a loss of sensation anymore, I really couldn't move. "Here we go, then!"

It was like I sank down out of my body then, but I could still feel both it and the dream body my mind had created. But being in the dream now, it was like a single wave passing across me, starting from my toes and moving up to my head, was erasing those last sensations of my real body so that I was completely in the dream.

I could already open my eyes and look around me at this point, but I waited until the wave had passed before I tried to move anything so I didn't lose the dream. I was still in my bedroom, laying down, but everything was much darker than it should have been, so I knew I hadn't failed the WILD.

Once all the vibrations had ceased and I felt I was securely in the dream, I did a reality check and tested to be dreaming, and then immediately got up and tried to fly out of my house and on to things more exciting.

I had a slight and temporary problem at the outset; I could fly no problem, but as soon as I focused on moving through a wall or the ceiling, I'd lose my flying concentration and so begin to descend. This only lasted a few seconds though, as I quickly figured out to focus on flying through the wall, a singular thing, not flying and phasing through.

And then the last wall to my house was a bit of a bugger, too. Instead of simply letting me pass through it, at first it tried to stretch out and hold me inside, like it was made of elastic.

"Oh, come on, I'm outside already." I said for the sake of convincing my subconscious to let me go.

The wall snapped back through me and into its place then, leaving me hovering outside, looking down on my neighborhood exactly as it looks IRL. I had planned no dream goals for this WILD, so rather than go to any place in particular, I just picked a direction and decided to fly at lightspeed for a little while and just see where I ended up.

I've never flown that fast before. It was awesome. Way better than teleporting, because I actually got to see everything that I flew over, which was really impressive considering all of it was a dream. There were houses, tall buildings, cars, people, birds, trees...I saw it all for what felt like miles of nearly instant travel.

I might have kept on going, but then I heard a call.

"Hey! Down here!"

Couldn't tell who it was from my distance, but I figured I might as well go and check it out. I slowed down, flew low, and finally landed on the ground in a really strange kind of place.

Everything was tropical, and yet, industrial. There was no grass, no roads, just sand. There were many buildings of the style that you see around beaches, and they all had water features that pooled into streams which flowed all throughout the city, using the sand to form intricate pathways of their own. But at the same time, it looked planned out, since several of these little streams went into the base of a big fountain at the center of the place. This fountain's job was apparently to spray the water all the way back up to the top of all the buildings, spewing out a stream in every direction so every building was continually re-using the water.

"This would be a pretty cool place to go on a dream date in..."

After taking all this in for a short while, the person who had stopped me walked up and thanked me for coming. I could see now that it was a woman. That gave me another idea.

"I wonder if I could take over this DC's body and go on a date from the female perspective? That would be interesting..."

So I began to ask the woman some questions, like where the best restaurant was. Once everything was answered and I had a plan, I was just about to make my first attempt at DC possession when something else came to mind.

"Oh, and one last thing. How old are you?" I asked.

"58." Was her reply.

She didn't look nearly that old at first glance, but once I actually thought about it, she certainly didn't look young anymore.

"58! But...that just won't do. Would you mind if I took some of those years away from you?"

She was repulsed by the offer.

"I'd really rather you didn't. In fact, I must be going now. Goodbye."

"Ok...I suppose I'll just look for someone else, then."

Problem was, there weren't a whole lot of people around. I had to just walk around for a minute before I saw anybody, and even then, it was a guy this time. He didn't look to be old, so I approached him.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"32."

"32, not bad at all. Still, would you mind if I took off about 10 years from that number?"

"Go right ahead, those were the best 10 years of my life! I wouldn't mind living them again!"

So I held my hands out towards him and through willpower caused him to grow just a bit younger. There wasn't a whole lot of visual difference, but there was some. Enough to make one guess his age would lie in the early 20's instead of the early 30's.

"Dude, I feel great! Thanks!"

Before I could ask the guy if he knew of any young woman who might be around, I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around to see a VERY old woman standing there in front of me.

"What you just did for that man...would you do that for me?" She asked.

Now, I would have guessed that this woman was in her late 80's, and near death. Her skin was almost colorless. Hair completely white, and thin. Skin wrinkled something awful.

But it was just so crazy I had to give it a shot.

"Alright, I'll do it."

I held out my hands and began the transformation. It must have been a shocking feeling, because the instant change began to happen, the old woman grabbed onto my wrists and held on tightly.

It was a crazy thing to watch. The wrinkles tightened up, her hair grew thick and long as it simultaneously turned to a glossy dark brown, a healthy pink flooded into her pale skin, and many other such things as well.

When I was finally finished, the now-young woman brushed her hair out of her face and smiled brightly at the change. I couldn't believe how amazing she looked. I mean, this girl was a TKO! I wondered if I should simply take her out on a date myself instead of take her over...

I held on to the girl's hand and led her to the guy I had transformed a minute ago, and he immediately began to ask her out. I was just getting ready to take possession, one way or the other, when...

I woke up.

Since I was awake, I didn't try to DEILD for fear that I would fail and then not have recalled the past dream at all. So instead I went back through the dream in my memory until I had it in my mind pretty well and then I rolled over and tried to WILD again.

Once more, it was a pretty easy ride to the dream. All I felt was the inability to move, and then a wave-like transition into the dream body, and then...


Dream 2:

I was standing in a room with a crowd of people, but somehow they all seemed dull in color and liveliness compared to one person right in front of me. He seemed different than the rest of the people around. Not that his actions were spectacular; he simply was taking pictures with a really nice camera. Eventually he noticed me looking at him, but it didn't seem to bother him. He just waved and said 'hi'.

But there was something weird that happened during that short event. From the moment we made eye contact, I heard a faint whisper and saw ghost-like words scroll across my vision, both saying the same thing: "Man of Shred"

"No way, Man of Shred?" I thought. "I've got to find out!"

I tried to run towards him and get his attention, but he had seen someone else and was making his way through the crowd to get to them.

"Hey! Wait! It's LiveInTheDream!"

Yes, I woke up in the middle of that last sentence. And I finished saying it out loud, IRL. It was weird...like I had gotten kicked out of the dream. Usually there's a split-second sensation of "oh crap I'm waking up", but not this time. One moment I was in the dream, the next I was fully awake.

And I felt like I was being watched. Seriously. As in, I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if I had turned around and found someone standing right next to my bed. It was that real a feeling to me.

So now the question is...was that really Man of Shred I saw, or just an imposter of a dream character?

You can be sure I'll look further into this one. MoSh, you've got a PM heading your way...

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Hoo boy has it ever been too long since I wrote a dream in here. It's not that I haven't been having good recall, but I've been kind of working on a personal experiment to test out a theory I have as to why I don't lucid dream every night now that I can go lucid without any special method or really any work during the day. You can check it out here. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the theory!

But I'm sure everyone is going to want to hear some results, as well. Actually, I have several nights of lucid dreams that came from all this, but unfortunately I didn't always have time to write them down. I managed to get something from last night down on my computer before leaving for work today, though, so once again I will be creating a new entry in this dream journal!

Last night's lucid dream was a bit unusual in that my own dream goals never came to mind; I never once considered changing my circumstances to form a whole new story. I didn't even turn the story I was in into something supernatural, although I did do things that I wouldn't be able to IRL.

So here's what happened. A bunch of friends and I had gathered together to make a movie to raise money for something. I can't recall the details of the movie or what we were doing it for, but it was a good cause and a big deal to everyone involved. Though everyone had some say in how the production went, this one girl and I quickly rose to the top as directors.

There's a big hole in my memory right after there...I know a lot happened, whole weeks went by (though I didn't see every moment of every day), and we got a lot done.

Then I remember talking to this girl about music. Since we were going to be getting money for the movie, all the music had to be original. She was wondering how we'd make the music anywhere near as good as a standard production's.

“Oh, that's no problem.” I said. “This is just a dream. I can whip out an instrument and just start playing.”

“Really?” She replied, apparently taking no notice of the mention of being in a dream.

To prove it, I waved my hand in the air as if I was picking up a violin, and as soon as I held the imaginary instrument to my neck, a violin materialized. At first I didn't sound that great, but within a couple more tries at playing I was doing Viva la Vida in perfect pitch. (Why that song? Just cuz it's the first thing that came to mind, I guess)

Of course she was most impressed and pleased with it, especially when I told her that I'd never really played a violin before. The rest of that night was mostly spent just playing songs for the girl as she requested them, but I didn't mind.

As production went on, I could sense something happening between her and me. It wasn't that we talked more or hung out more or anything like that...only that when we did all those things, we were much closer than before. We were more open with each other.

Then there came that one fateful night when the group was supposed to meet for more shooting, and I was at home, getting ready to leave. For some reason my mom was there, and she was telling me how foolish I was being for participating in such a project, and said I was ignoring all of life's responsibilities for the sake of that movie. I tried to reason with her at first, but being in a dream, I knew I didn't really have to show respect. So I just walked past her, grabbed the car keys, and...she tried to physically block me from leaving. I just teleported into the car and left. (Don't ask why I didn't just teleport to the meeting spot...I don't know why that didn't come to mind in the first place.)

Since I had hurried to get away, I arrived at the meeting place early, so only a couple other people were there yet. I checked around to make sure all the sets were in place and all the cameras were running, and even listened to a sample of music that I had supposedly done all the instruments to (even though I only ever actually did the violin). I laughed to myself at the obvious dream plot hole, being the only person there who understood how that happened.

Just then, I happened to look through the window and see a bunch of people arriving. I hurried to the door and held it open for the ladies. They all thanked me and then moved on...well, almost all of them.

This particular girl that I had grown fond of walked in the door last, thanked me for holding it, then just looked at me for a few seconds. The impulse to look away came, but I ignored it. Then she just winked and began to walk off. But I knew what that meant. We'd come a long ways.

I walked after the girl and grabbed her by the hand. She turned around, but now looked nervous. I put my other hand in hers, and we stood there, just holding hands. Then I started trying to move closer, but she took a step back each time I took a step forward.

“Are you sure you want this?” She asked, suddenly fumbling with words and stuttering left and right.

“I'm sure." I replied calmly. "Don't you?”

“Well, yes, but...but how do we know this is the...the right thing? For us?”

“I think we both know the answer to that one.”

She took a look behind her, but continued to step back. She was running out of room.

“I just...I don't know...I don't want to worry...”

Then she stepped up against a wall, and could back up no further.

“Oh...I...uh...” she continued.

“Don't worry. Everything's alright.”

I slowly reached up and caressed her cheek, which seemed to ignite something inside her. She jumped up and flung her arms around my neck, holding on so tightly that I was the only thing holding her up off the ground.

My memory fades after that...maybe that's when my alarm went off; I can't remember exactly.

Anyway, not the best example of a lucid dream, but it does offer some proof to my theory that the only reason I don't lucid dream every night is because I've presently trained myself to think that lucid dreaming is something difficult to achieve. The past few nights I've been focusing on consciously unlearning that, and as you can see, it has indeed worked. With time, I'm sure I'll come to better control things and become a full-fledged natural LDer

Wish me luck!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Again, work is why I haven't written in a while. So far I simply haven't figured out a way to maintain good recall on nights before work...or keep my mind from thinking about the day ahead and thus killing my remembrance to RC in dreams.

But today is a day off of work, so it was a day on for lucid dreaming!

And guess what? This time, it was another WILD.

I first woke up and I was on the floor. RC'd to be awake. Not sure how I got to be on the floor, but WILDing was on my mind, so I didn't stop to think about it. See, I had this little memory from a past dream. Someone had just told me "just relax and let your mind drift" for explaining how to WILD. So that's what I did. I didn't move somewhere else first, I just lay down where I was and stopped consciously forming thought processes.

Within moments, I saw light flashes, then images. Memories. Flashing by like lightning. Then there was this huge tingling sensation that overtook me. It was so powerful it almost hurt! And then...sounds, tons of different sounds all mixing together. Voices, mostly. I felt myself being pulled out of my body and into my dream body. Unintentionally, I rolled out of my physical self into my dream self. My eyes were still shut, though. But since I knew I was in a dream, I tried to open my dream eyes.

Instead, I opened my real eyes. I tried to just let my mind drift and relax and re-enter the dream, but nothing happened. So I stood up, shook my head a bit to wake me up enough to get fully out of the dream state, and then went back down to the floor and tried to force my mind into a dream, all within a few second. It worked. Lights, memory flashes, voices, and then the sensation of a second body all came back. My vision came to me, but I was still in my room, laying on the floor. This time I stood up in the second body, and I could see my real body laying on the floor.

It was a remarkable feeling, that transition from body to body. The dream body felt colder, yet not in an unpleasant way. Certainly not like the cold of a dead body. On the contrary, it was a vibrant chill that felt far more alive than what I feel during waking life. And since there's no dust or dirt whatsoever in dreams, the dream body felt clean in a way that's impossible to achieve IRL.

But anyway, there I was, in the dream. I was still in my room, looking down at the body I'd just left, and so I did an RC, and I could breath through my pinched nose easily. I trusted the RC to be true, but I couldn't believe how real everything around me was. It made me think about my last really good WILD, and once again I appreciated just how much more realistic WILDs are than other lucid dreams. There was simply nothing around me save reality checks that didn't feel and look 100% real. I walked down the hallway to look out the window. For some reason, walking in the dream body was a little awkward at first, but I got it figured out pretty quick. And when I looked out the window, I saw tons of snow, further confirming it to be a dream, although it was nonetheless real-looking. I tried teleporting short distances across the rooom then for the sake of practice, but strangely, I couldn't.

Of course, I didn't want to spend the whole dream in my house, so I went to the bathroom and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened.

"Oh, come on, I don't have this problem." I said to myself. "That's what other lucid dreamers complain about, but I've never had trouble with a light switch before."

I flipped the switch again. Still, nothing happened.

"Look, I know what this place should look like with light on, now just TURN ON!"

I flipped the switch one more time, and the lights came on...even though the switch was in the 'off' position.

"Well, that works."

Then I went inside and shut the door. There were people around the house that had tried to talk to me already, and I wanted them to leave me alone. You never know how DC's are going to react to teleporting somewhere, which is what I had in mind.

Except, now that I thought about it...there was something I had meant to do in my lucid dream, someplace I had meant to be, and I knew it, but I couldn't remember where!

When I gave up trying to remember the place, I decided to just go wherever I could go. It didn't matter to me where, since I couldn't remember any of my goals anyway. For the sake of doing things differently, I stepped into the shower and stood right on the drain. Then I imagined myself being sucked down in, and within moments, that's precisely what happened! My body swirled around, getting smaller by the second, then rushed down into the pipe like water.

I slid through pipes for quite some time, but when I finally came out, I was full size already, and so was everything around me. I had fallen from the ceiling into some sort of industrial looking store...kind of like Home Depot or Lowes. Only the stuff they had here was for anything but home improvement. In front of me was a huge display of video games, and there were better things than that around me. Guns, lightsabers, tanks, jeeps with mounted guns, etc.

Speaking of which, right at that moment someone came flying over a display in one such jeep and started trying to shoot me. I could have just stood there and been fine considering the bullets weren't real and I knew it, but my reaction was to teleport to the nearest cover, which I was able to do without trouble this time. Once the gun had stopped firing, I ran out and jumped onto the vehicle before the guy in it could drive away, also accidentally teleporting us both to some lush planet with a cool, color-filled sky and bright light on the ground even though there was no sun. I tried to reach the driver and take him out, but he whipped around a corner so fast that I lost my grip and flew over the side of a cliff as we were driving past it.

Of course I teleported myself again before I hit the ground, and wasn't surprised to have come back to the store. Only this time there was a girl there; one I know IRL. She had a camera, and held it out to me.

"Could you take a picture for me?" She asked.

I nodded and took the camera.

But then I also realized an interesting opportunity. If it is possible to bring things back from dreams into real life, what better thing to do it with than a picture? So I willed the camera to come back with me when I woke up, then snapped the picture.

Yet another intriguing thing happened, then. When I looked at the picture on the camera screen, I realized I had seen the picture before IRL. It was true to the dream, in that she really had posed exactly as the picture showed (while still remaining in life-like motion, I should add...she didn't freeze up like the picture or something), but it was also true to real life, in that even the background matched up with the real picture.

"Either I just time traveled and took this picture and I bring it back with me, or this is one impressively strong memory." I said to myself.

Obviously, I assume the latter.

Unfortunately, the dream began to fade at this point, and since I was holding the camera, my hands were too occupied to be rubbed together in time, and I didn't have time to spin or do anything else to save the dream.

It was like the dream body was somehow on a tether that my real body was pulling on, drawing them back together. I saw blurs, heard wooshing noises, and the feeling of my real body began to take over the vibrant chill of the dream one.

I woke up, and was now in bed. RC'd to be awake. How I got back in bed while WILDing I don't know. And no, neither the camera nor the picture came back with me.

But at least it was a highly lucid dream with a plot that wasn't too shabby. Could have been much better, though. Gotta work on remembering those dream goals!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Well, it's been a while...between work and an otherwise busy schedule, I just haven't had time to write here lately! Not that there was much to tell...but keeping up with any dreams will help recall, so it's a bit of a shame nonetheless.

But today I've got the time, and last night I had a little lucid dream, so here we go again!

I was working in a department of a huge mall. At first everything was normal...just work as usual. I was talking to my manager, when all of a sudden, some guy with a mask ran in and started shooting! Got my manager two or three times. Strange thing was, though, he didn't get me.

See, as soon as that bullet had fired, it was like the dream went into slow-motion. I whirled around and saw the bullet tearing through the air and was able to dodge it without a problem. This clearly upset the killer, because he suddenly forgot about everyone else and just went after me. But I worked my way up closer and closer to him, dodging bullets all the way, and then eventually I let out a punch that threw him half-way across the room!

That was when I realized I was dreaming.

"Oh, why didn't I just use some psionic ability to take him down?" I thought out loud.

With a thought, I brought my manager back to life and then walked out of the store.

"Since this is a dream," I thought, "I should try some moves..."

So I did. Right in the middle of the mall, I started doing handsprings (front and back), aerials, flips, and other fun stuff. In the middle of all this, though, I got interrupted by an older lady who wanted some packages delivered. At first I tried to just make excuses and leave, but she was persistent, and I couldn't see why it would take long to deliver packages in a lucid dream, so eventually I gave in. I flew around the mall and tried to find the people to deliver the packages to, but it was actually harder than I thought to locate them. I caused everyone's names to appear over their heads so I'd know who to find, but I still just couldn't find everyone.

Eventually I did find one person, so I landed and delivered it to her, but then she turned around and told me about something she wanted me to do. I can't remember where exactly my lucidity faded, but every time I delivered a package, there would be another mini-quest thing that I was supposed to do, and eventually the dream was more of an RPG than anything. I still had lucid powers and I retained my moves (both of which I used frequently), but the realization of being in a dream was gone.

I can't remember all that I did...but it ranged from deliveries to rescuing people out of burning buildings to taking down assassins before they could reach their target. Most of it was kind of hazy from this point on, but that burning building experience was very clear. It was difficult to get inside, but eventually I managed to rip away a garbage chute that was coming out of the side of the building and get inside that way. Once in, I could feel the heat building up, the loud rumble of the flames, the boards beneath me rotting away...the entire building nearly collapsed with me inside. It began to fall, tilting the entire place, but I used telekinesis to hold the place up long enough for me to find the little girl I was sent to find and bring her out alive.

Well, it certainly took long enough, but eventually I had all mini-quests cleared and all packages delivered. I walked back to the place I had started at, told my manager what a crazy day I'd had, and soon woke up.