memorable

Well, due to life getting extremely busy I had to take off a week of keeping up with my DJ, and last night being the first night of the weekend, I got to try again to lucid dream...and boy did I!

1) & 2) Just fragments of the first couple dreams of the night. Can't remember a lot of what I did, but I do recall quite clearly finding a mirror, looking at myself in it, and telling myself that I was dreaming until it sank in that I really was. I went lucid this way in both dreams and then went to do stuff, but sadly lost lucidity again fairly quickly.

3) I was keeping a DJ (yes, in the dream) of the previous two dreams in the night. Suddenly I realized I was still dreaming though, and so I happily marked a third lucid dream for one night...just before waking up.

4) By this point I'd finally gotten enough sleep for dreams to be fairly clear, and so I was wandering through some futuristic facility, unaware that I was asleep, when out of the corner of my eye I caught my reflection in a broken sheet of metal that was dangling from the wall. As I approached it, I began to marvel at how realistic the reflection was...which clued me in that I was dreaming and subconsciously knew it. I repeated the process of looking at myself in the mirror and telling myself quite firmly that I was dreaming until I really did gain lucidity...and this time held onto it! When I looked away from the mirror I was suddenly Adam Jensen, which I found cool and decided to stick with. I was on the basement level of the facility, and I decided there would be a villain at the top level, and I had to get there to stop him from some evil plot. And of course in Deus Ex style, that also meant I had to do a lot of sneaking around to get there. Well, I didn't do the best job at being subtle so security guards caught onto my presence very quickly, but a single punch to the face took each and every one of them out so easily it was almost disappointing. So I let two guys wake back up from the knockout punch and start chasing me, this time with the fun being in finding a way to hide from them. I began to half-fly-half-freerun all over the place until I rounded a corner, expecting to find a door to a crazy room on the other side. I did. Once inside, I was in a room that had its geometry duplicated on the ceiling, making it vertically symmetrical. I flew upside down and stood on the ceiling as the two guys ran inside on the floor, which was upside down to me, now. They couldn't figure out how the heck I was doing what I was, and it confused them enough for me to fly up some upside-down flights of stairs until I reached a pillar jutting sideways out of the wall. I stood by the pillar now, at yet another orientation different from the floor. The DC's were totally confused by this point, and so when they came after me, I simply kept myself on the opposite side of the pillar from them, and eventually they gave up looking for me. Just when they were about to leave though, one of them saw me, so I took them both out and kept going towards the top. Sadly I lost lucidity and woke up before I could get there, but it was still a pretty epic dream.


Here's a basic illustration of the crazy geometry I built into that room on the fly. Just goes to show the creativity the sleeping mind can have! I'd never think of this while awake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So last night I had a brief, but very highly lucid dream. First one in a while; I haven't been able to put much effort into lucid dreaming, so any that I have right now are random and unintentional.

Someone was hunting me down, for reasons I cannot recall. I had been on the run from them, but now I was back in my house. All I knew is that I had to get out of there before they caught me, and before I got out of there, I had to get a very important email from my computer. It held in it some form of proof that would end my problems (details of the contents are vague). So I sneaked upstairs to my computer, and tried to turn it on so as to get the email, but my pursuer was too smart. They cut the power to my house which of course immediately caused my PC to shut off as well. I suddenly got a feeling that I only get in dreams--a feeling of being utterly trapped by some power that I cannot see, but that I know is there, without any possibility of escape.

That triggered lucidity, and I instantly realized that I did not have to be trapped any longer. I recognized completely that I was in a dream and could control it how I pleased, so I held out my hand towards the computer to channel my energy properly, and with minor effort was able to power it up with Electrokinesis. I had hoped that once the power got stable I could draw my hand back and the PC would continue to operate without further active control, but unfortunately it did not. If I retracted me hand and withdrew the effort, the computer would immediately shut down.

There was no time to fool with that, so I tried to keep the computer powered on with my left hand while navigating to the email with my right. Now, my PC is rather powerful, and requires a lot of energy to keep running. It was draining my own energy very quickly, and I was having to put more and more effort in all the time. (Pause here for a moment: I know it doesn't sound very epic, but picture what all this was really like: the room was dark from lack of electricity, I had someone drawing nearer trying to kill me, and I was forcing myself to do something potentially 'fatal'. Not to mention that sparks were falling from the ceiling as lights and other nearby electrical objects were picking up on the current and breaking. It was a very intense, epic moment )

I had just gotten the email to open, and was about to read what it said, when suddenly the effort grew to be too much for me. The electricity overwhelmed me, resulting in a shock that hit from the inside out, as if coming from my brain, which threw me backwards onto the floor, bringing my chair with me. At this point I knew I would be defeated by the dream if I remained inside, so I just tried to break the dream into a million pieces, and I was awake instantly (that trick always works for me).

It's been far too long since I've had lucid experiences like this one. Call me an adrenaline junkie, but I love intense circumstances like that where lucid dream powers come particularly in handy

(SIDE NOTE: I'VE OFFICIALLY BEEN INTO LUCID DREAMING FOR A YEAR NOW! )

Well, I've kind of been absent from this DJ for a while again, but hopefully this time I'll really for real be coming back. I keep on saying I'm coming back but then stuff comes up, I know

Anyway, last night I had a really vivid lucid dream, that, although not very epic, was rather interesting. For one thing, it's the first truly lucid dream I've had in a very long time...one where I actually stopped what I was doing and examined my environment, amazed at how realistic it was, but fully aware that it was all completely non-existent.

The dream began as a nightmare-ish experience. I was in my house, but everything was darker than is natural for just being night-time. I could hear screams and the sounds of what I knew would be hideous-looking beasts in the distance. Watching. Waiting. For me.

But then I looked down, and saw that I was not myself, either. I was one such creature, with leathery, tar-black skin, and a voice that mutated and sounded creepy when I spoke. Instantly I realized it was all just a dream, and I decided I would get the heck out of there before something attacked and woke me up. Besides, I didn't like being an ugly monster anyway . I walked up to the nearest wall and tried to phase through it. Having been a while since my last lucid dream, I didn't immediately have enough sense of dream control to move through, but eventually I managed to force my way through the wall and out to the other side, where I suddenly was caught up into a vortex and sucked away from the house into pitch blackness.

I wasn't waking up, however, and I knew it. I was simply moving to another, better place in the dream world. I watched as the leathery black skin peeled away, revealing my 'real' self beneath. My voice returned to normal as well. Next thing I know, I'm falling into a large gray box of a building, and it was basically empty to begin with. I tried creating a few things in it, but I was frustrated to find that I could barely control anything. Whatever I changed would erase itself and just fade away to the way it was before.

"What's going on here?" I asked myself.

My answer was approaching fast...literally. My sister flew up overhead, creating things to fill in the space around her as she went.

"Oh great!" I called out. "How'd I end up in your dream?"

She just laughed and kept on flying.

"I don't know, but have fun!"

I shook my head and began to fly off, wishing I had a totem like the one in Inception that I could use in other people's dreams. All of a sudden, though, I fell to the ground.

"What was that?" I asked my sister, who was still flying around.

"I just made a rule." She said. "To fly in my dream, you have to be in a sitting position."

"That's stupid! Why'd you do that?"

"If you're going to be in my dream, I might as well have fun with you."

"Yeah. Real funny."

I flew off (in a sitting position) and basically just explored the area and talked to the DC's in my sister's dream. It was interesting to carry on a conversation with DC's that weren't from my own subconscious. They spoke very differently than I'm used to having DC's speak, and often didn't make any sense to me at all.

In spite of minor annoyances it was an enjoyable night, overall. Plus I think I've got something going with MILD now, so hopefully my lucids should return to being much more frequent.

Just what the title says. No, I haven't already quit. I just had to take some MORE time off from lucid dreaming unexpectedly thanks to getting sick. But now that I'm 99% better, I can start again with documenting my average dreams and work towards making them lucid once again.

I don't recall my dreams from last night, but I do recall an interesting dream from the night before, so I'll summarize it now.

The dream began as a false awakening. I got out of bed and was about to begin my daily routine when I decided to go back to sleep for a few more minutes. So that's just what I did; I got back in bed and lay my head down and I was out.

Now I was in a dream within a dream (notice the darker text indicating a deeper level?). I found myself standing on the edge of a vast canyon and exploring the surrounding area. Something didn't feel right, but I couldn't tell what. After about a half hour of looking around and finding nothing interesting, I decided to lie down and go to sleep.

Now in layer 3 of the dream, I found myself at a friend's dorm at the college he goes to...only the actual layout of the place was nothing like the real-world college. The dream explained it away as remodeling, and I never caught on that it was a dream. My friend was asking me about dreams, particularly lucid ones, and if it would be possible to share dreams.

"Sure it's possible, I've done it before." I said. "We could do it right now in fact, if I can manage a WILD."

"Well, want to give it a try?" He asked.

I agreed to try, so we lay down and went to sleep.

I was now in layer 4 of the dream, aware that I was dreaming, and in a white void. All around me all I saw was white. I couldn't move anywhere or speak, and when I tried, it simply woke me up into the previous layer of the dream.

"Did you do it?" My friend asked.

"Yeah, but I couldn't stay in for some reason."

In another moment, I woke up from that dream and into the layer before it. I was only at this one a split second before I shot up into the air as the dream faded out into the first layer, and I sat up in my bed.

"That was a crazy dream!" I said to myself as I climbed out of bed.

Then I woke up for real, and was totally disoriented from all the waking up

Ok, so I just woke up, and I think I finally discovered the perfect time for me to do a WBTB. Before, I was doing them at 5:20, because it had worked a couple times and gotten me great lucids, but the problem was, I often would just remain awake in my bed at that point rather than fall back asleep. It was just too late in the morning. So last night, I tried going to bed an hour earlier and getting up for WBTB at 4:00. Same amount of sleep beforehand, but it was still so early that I would fall back asleep easily.

Before I get around to those dreams, though, I want to mention something that happened at the beginning of the night. Now, when I first began to lucid dream, I would always see this eye staring at me when I'd close my eyes. I'm not sure when that stopped, but I just realized as I was going to bed that I hadn't seen it in a long while. So I closed my eyes and began to look for it. It didn't take long for it to appear. But what was weird this time was that it didn't stay just an eye forever. Pretty soon, it took on a 3D feel to it, and an entire face appeared around it.

"I am your dream guide. You have been looking for me."

Then the eyelashes on the first eye I'd seen began to grow longer and longer until they became almost plant-like vines extending out and encompassing me. Then the DG said:

"Embrace eternity!"

And all went black.

Then at 4:00 I woke up, went to the bathroom, and, as I said, fell back asleep easily. A bit too easily, perhaps. I had only started my mental preparation to get me ready to RC and recognize when I was dreaming when I fell asleep!

Dream 1: I was in a very rainy world. It looked as if it had been raining for quite some time, since there were floods everywhere. The only reason my house wasn't flooded was because I was living with several DC's in a house that was high up on a platform, just off to the side of an electrical tower.

Nowhere to go...pretty boring right? Well, it was, but then things started to get interesting. All of my DC friends and I were standing below the highest part of the tower where it was dry and we could see for miles, when we suddenly heard this deafening, sickening creak. It came from the structure we were standing on. And then...

*SNAP*!

*FZZT*!

We all looked in horror as to our left, a smaller tower that was connected to the main one fell down right on top of our little house! The house was not professionally made; it was just a bunch of plywood, really. The thing was totally smashed, and as if that weren't enough, the cord tied on to the top of fallen tower got enough of a tug (I guess it was caught on something under the water below) to pull it--and much of the house's remains--over the edge and out into the flood.

"That's...not good." Said one DC.

"We'll...we'll be ok." Another said, hopefully.

He spoke too soon. Another smaller tower in front of us snapped and splashed into the ocean next as well.

"We have to get out of here." I said. When they all looked at me with blank stares, I explained what I meant. "With those two towers taken down, there won't be any electrical charge running through the main power line up at the top of this station. We can ride it across to the next safe area, but we have to hurry! It won't be long before this whole place comes down, now."

We ascended for the top, I in the lead. Gathering up all my courage, I jumped, grabbed hold of the wire, and began flying through the rain on the high-speed zip-line. Then lightning flashed...

And I woke up. Even though it hadn't been lucid, the realism was simply incredible. All the rain hitting my face as I rode the zip-line, the sounds and sights of the smaller towers breaking...every detail was so accurate, and there were a LOT of details in this one, particularly with physics. So now I'm pretty confident that I've found when to lucid dream.

This knowledge in mind though, and it still being very early morning, I went back to sleep almost immediately, and the dream continued:

My DC friends and I had made our way to a kingdom which had also seen its share of damage (debris was everywhere), but at least it wasn't flooding...or raining at all, for that matter. In fact, the place was rather dry and desolate. We walked into the castle and explained our situation to the king, who was more than sympathetic.

"You may have noticed," he said, "that our own fair home has seen its last days. We've suffered many attacks from the ghouls, and I fear we must move to another location. The King of the West has agreed to take us in among his people, but we'll have no support in the transition. Join us if you wish, but be wary: it is a dangerous road that we travel."

"I don't think we have much of a choice." I said, as the unspoken leader of my little group.

Suddenly, a bit of one of the stained-glass windows that lined the border of the castle walls shattered in, as if a rock had been thrown through it. Only pure white light shone through behind it. I could hear ghoul war-cries off in the distance. Soon, other holes started to appear in the shattering windows.

"What's going on!?" I asked the king.

"The dream is collapsing!" He said. "What you see beyond is the great void. You never created anything beyond this castle!"

Something clicked, then.

"Wait, you mean all this is my dream?" I asked.

"Yes!" The king pleaded. "Only you can change it! Only you can save us from this oncoming battle!"

Empowered by this thought, I marched straight up the stairs to the balcony, where I could see out the windows clearly. Then I held up a hand and ran it across my vision, intending to fill in each window that my hand passed with the proper scenery behind it. It worked. What was left of the windows stopped breaking, and behind them, off in the distance, I could see the silhouette of the other buildings in the kingdom. They too were broken down as badly as the castle, it seemed.

"What shall we do now?" I asked the king, knowing full well what he'd say.

"We must defend ourselves from the ghouls! Quick! I have swords and armor."

Suddenly every one of us was wearing a suit of armor and holding a sword. Being lucid, the armor didn't weigh me down or make me less agile. It was mostly for looks, honestly, since I couldn't be harmed anyway. We all then ran out of the castle, swords blazing, and began attacking the ghouls as they ran up to us. There were hundreds of the miserable, scrawny, gray things, but we took them all out, and not too cleanly, either. I jumped and flipped all over the place, first using just my own sword, but later using a second sword I spontaneously created. I hacked off the heads of the creatures, often multiple in a single swing. Before long, the battle was over.

Unfortunately, something about that battle had caused my mind to lose sight of the fact that it was a dream, and I returned to being non-lucid.

The king had been wounded in the battle, so everyone decided it was high time to leave for this other kingdom that was going to take in all the people. We put the king on a sort of bed that could be carried, and then started out on our trek.

I can't remember how, but somewhere along the way I got separated from the rest of the people, and as I tried to find my own way back to the path we'd been following, I came across Gollum, and asked him to lead me where I needed to go (even though I wasn't lucid at this point, something in me still knew I couldn't get hurt, so I wasn't afraid of Gollum attacking me or anything).

"This way!" Gollum said, leading me into another broken down castle. "We must follow the path of the Gol-Keep, yes we must."

"The Gol-Keep?" I asked.

"Yes! Yes! The Gol-Keep! This way!"

False memory told me the Gol-Keep had a reputation of being the most evil place in existence. Sounded scary...which sounded fun. Gollum lead me into a tunnel that had been dug through the old castle. It wasn't very scary, though. I was disappointed.

"This isn't so scary after all." I said. "Isn't there something better?"

"This tunnel avoids the worst." Explained Gollum. "We don't wants to go through the other tunnel!"

"Take me there."

He did, but then let me go in alone. This other tunnel was totally dark, wet, and the home of a thousand creepy voices all around me. I could hear movement and occasionally feel a hand brush up against me, but I just kept walking, enjoying my invincibility in the midst of something that usually would have freaked me out.

I made it through the tunnel quickly and came out right behind the rest of the people as they entered the second kingdom. The king had died en route, so they were looking for a new leader to represent them to the King of the West. When they discovered that I had survived going through the Gol-Keep, and without any fear, I was chosen.

When we met before the King of the West, however, he was less convinced about me.

"We must have a duel to prove your worthiness." He said. "If you succeed, I will grant you continued rulership over these people beneath my rule alone, and a place to stay in my kingdom. If you fail to best me, however, then I fear I must turn you all away."

"I'm ready." I said.

The king fetched his sword and gave me choice of my own weapon. I settled on four swords, two in each hand, and then the sparring began. We went back and forth for quite some time, but no one really gained on the other. Eventually, I flipped two of the swords around and held them backhanded, so I was essentially wielding two double-bladed swords at once. This was indeed too much for the king, and I quickly knocked his sword from his hand.

I woke up right about then.

Yay! The RC's and totem and all that are working! Unfortunately, I had to get up early this morning, so I didn't get to write down all the dreams I had originally recalled, and it's late in the day now, so I only have tiny fragments left, but you can be sure I wrote down the most important one in full!

When the dream began, I was at home, in my living room. The realism of the dream was high, so I didn't notice anything strange and never went lucid from observation. However, I did do a reality check out of habit, and the moment I pinched my nose and still felt the air go through, I came into the full realization that I was dreaming. I don't think I've ever been so incredibly aware before! For the first time in a lucid dream, I truly felt unlimited. Speed was not a factor; I could just as easily run around the world as I could across my backyard. My reactions were unbeatable...I could have won in a fight against Neo. Physics were also not a problem. I could bend or break the rules my mind would typically apply to the world without side effects.

Now, in the past, I've struggled to use telekinesis on more than one object at a time. It just required focusing on too many things for it to work. But this time I felt confident I could do literally anything, so I stepped into the middle of the room, clenched my fists, and then imagined every object in the room lifting off the ground the more I drew my fists in closer towards me. As I looked around, I had succeeded. Regardless of weight or size, everything was lifted up. The 54-inch TV, couches, the dining table, chairs...even the oven! And it was no more work to suspend it all in the air than it was to breath. I could have held it there forever or cast it all out the window with a thought, or who knows what. Instead I just set it down gently, satisfied that I was truly unlimited, and it. Felt. Great.

Sadly, though, I had breathed in through my nose for the RC just a bit too hard, and the dream began to collapse, then. Everything started to fade, and so I tried desperately to rub my hands and spin, but nothing I did could stop me from waking up.

I tried to DEILD, then. I rolled over, silenced every thought that attempted to come into my mind, and passed out again.

I found myself back in the previous dream, getting up off the living room floor, as if I had simply gone unconscious and now was waking back up...even though the exact opposite had truly happened. For a moment I had a grasp on the fact that I was dreaming, but very quickly this knowledge fled from me, and I walked off, thinking what an amazing lucid dream I'd just had...and then I woke up again, this time unable to go back to sleep so quickly.

It may have been short, but it shows promise. I'm headed in the right direction again, and that was just after a few days of putting real effort into lucid dreaming again. Who knows where I'll be able to go after a few more days? If I can manage to be that unlimited in all my lucid dreams...heck, I could perform Inception for real

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

<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...

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!