non-lucid

No lucids last night, but I wasn't actually trying that hard for another one yet, anyway. I need to get my recall fixed up first and foremost, else there's not much point in going lucid, since I won't remember the experience anyway

Again, I didn't remember more than one dream, but the clarity of that memory has noticeably improved. All the same, since I don't have a ton of time and the dream was a pretty simple concept, I won't go into much detail about it.

I was sitting in my basement with a dissected Wii remote laying on a table before me. I was messing around with all the parts, modifying them, attaching them in new ways, etc. When I was done, I had created a motion-based controller that relied only on hand motions. I strapped the device onto the back of my wrist like a bulky watch and then was able to use it just by pointing different fingers or moving my hand around.

I'm very tempted to do that IRL. Like I said, the memories are pretty clear, so I remember how I did it in the dream, and I'm confident it would work. The creativity of the sleeping mind is rather cool

Well, my crazy summer is finally over, and I have the time and motivation to get back into lucid dreaming. I'll be doing reality checks all day long and thinking up new goals to get me motivated, and hopefully they'll work out here real soon

But of course one of the most important parts of all this is...my DJ! Gotta start recording those dreams again so I can get my recall back up...so without further ado, here is what little I remember of last nights dream.

I was in California with a friend from real life that I presently only know through Skype. We spent a lot of time planning how to rebuild our website and add new features, and then we got down to actually building it...physically. We went into her room and cleared it out to make room for work. I began by setting a huge PC monitor in the middle of a long desk that ran from one end of the room to the other. I never connected a computer to the screen, or used a mouse or keyboard to navigate to the website on the monitor, but this didn't make me go lucid. I just kind of thought of what I wanted to have happen on the screen and it did.

Once the website was called up, we started to build stuff on the desk all around the monitor. It was a bunch of random stuff...inhumanly big boots, picture frames, food, and even Legos! But as we built all around the monitor, the website was built on the screen. We were just about finished when there was a knock on the bedroom door. My friend opened it and her brother was waiting. He saw the desk covered with stuff and looked horrified.

"What are you doing, sis? I need to sleep there. I'm dead tired!"

He walked over and cleared the desk of all our work and handed me the monitor. Then he pulled a mattress out of nowhere, put it on the desk, and went to sleep on it.

"Oh well." I said.

We did some other weird stuff like that afterwords, but I can't really remember anything else in detail.

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

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

Anyway, on to the dreams.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Again, no lucids to account for, but at least this time I got a couple dreams recalled, and I remember them clearer than most dreams lately. Glad to see the recall issue is heading back uphill!

Dream 1: I and a few other people from my family had decided to change churches. We went to this one new place to see what it was like. It was...interesting. There were several very weird people there, and at first it seemed like I wouldn't fit in with that group at all, but then I started to meet up with people I could identify with better and my opinion about the place gradually changed.

I sat through the Sunday School lesson, evaluating the teacher's perspectives/beliefs, and he seemed ok. Funny thing was, I didn't hear real words; the volume sounded close-up, but for some reason the guy's voice was muffled the entire time, to the point that he was completely unable to be understood IRL.

The location of the first class was far away from the main service, so everyone had to freerun through Wal Mart to get there. When they saw some of my moves, I instantly gained the friendship of several others who had just started freerunning.

The main auditorium was hardly less strange, though. There was a huge pile of books that formed a sort of staircase all around this one tall platform in the back of the black room that would be unreachable otherwise. Rather than sit a ways back on elevated platforms ourselves, so that we could see the preacher in front of us, everyone sat on one of these big books, and only those in the first couple of rows could actually see the guy who was speaking. I noticed, however, that there were some catwalks above us, so I got up, found my way around back, and came out on them to watch instead.

Afterwards everyone gathered together and just talked more. The rest of my family thoroughly disliked the whole thing, but I was more positive about it. "Not everyone here may be for me," I told them, "but the ones who are for me can be those really close kinds of friends...unlike the church we just came from." That didn't really help them out any, but I didn't worry about it. I'd found my place, whether they liked it or not.

Dream 2: I was talking with some random DC about my work schedule. I couldn't remember if I had the day off or not. I don't think he ever responded with any useful information...just slight nods as I spoke to show he was listening. I kept going on about it, trying to logically deduce whether or not I had the day off, and if not, what hours I'd be working. Finally, the DC grinned rather wickedly and just said: "Why don't you wake up and find out!"

And of course I did wake up, then. Who needs alarms when you've got dream characters?

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

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

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

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

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

Definitely not the best dream night ever.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

A friend of mine was dead.

That's what the phone call that started it all was about. Of course I rushed to the scene of the crime as soon as I could so as to learn more about what happened, but it honestly didn't do me much good. All anyone knew for sure was that one moment my friend was alive and well and the next he was laying in a pool of blood, several knife wounds all over his body.

No one ever saw the killer. He didn't even leave fingerprints behind, so there was no good way to track him down, either. This, of course, made the last person to see my friend the primary suspect: Zachary Quinto. He was literally dragged to the scene of the crime and the police attempted to identify any sort of evidence with him.

They discovered the cuts on my friend's body matched the width and length of a knife owned by Mr. Quinto, but when they produced said knife, Zach didn't seem to recognize it. He didn't appear to be bluffing, either; he was genuinely shocked that a long, brown knife had been discovered on the floor of his home, caked in blood.

Quinto was promptly arrested, and I was asked to leave while further investigation was carried out. I was by no means satisfied, though. The next day I paid a visit to the police office to inquire about their discoveries. They told me that evidence against Quinto was insufficient and they would be letting him go later on that day, and also that the knife they found belonged to a mysterious killer known only by the alias "Knife-baby". The killer's targets seemed random; just whoever was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And this time, chance had it so that the Knife-baby killer's choice was personal.

I set out on a quest to find out just who this murderer was and bring them down myself, or otherwise set them up for arrest. It didn't take long before I met up with Quinto, who was planning to do the same thing in order to clear his own name.

We went all over the globe together, following the tiniest and most confusing trails of clues, hoping that sooner or later we'd find our guy. Sadly, the biggest help we got was the frequent news reports of the Knife-baby killer's latest victims. After enough people had been killed, we were able to line up their locations on a map like a 'connect the dots' picture and plot a line to predict where the killer would be next. The location? A research building in the Amazon jungle.

Quinto and I approached the building from a ways off, not wanting to alert anyone of our presence by the sound of a vehicle. After hacking through security at the back door, we began to make our way through the hallway, keeping our eyes peeled in all possible directions.

Suddenly, all went black. I heard a noise like a muffled explosion followed by the feedback of a thousand echoes. It hurt my ears, so I put my hands over them while crying out in pain...and as I fell to my knees, the light came back on, and I was on my knees before the dead body of a scientist who worked in the facility. Blood was everywhere, and knife wounds were clearly visible in the corpse's back. It was then that I noticed my hands were wet, so I pulled them down, away from my ears, and was horrified to see that my own hands were also caked with blood, and I held a long, brown knife in my right hand.

Quinto was unharmed, but backed up against the wall, and breathing hard. He was clearly freaked out by the whole thing. When he got his breath back, he stared at the body, and at me.

"You...you...you're the Knife-baby killer!" He said angrily, charging at me and pinning me up against the wall.

"What? Think about what you're saying! Why would I have killed my own friend, framed you, and then come all this way with you just so I could turn around and show you that I was the one all along? Do you really think I'm that stupid?" I replied.

Quinto let go and backed off, huffing with frustration that we'd missed the killer again.

"So how does this work?" He asked. "Does the killer ever actually kill anyone? Or does he just use us as proxies?"

"Wait a minute, so you're saying you did kill my friend?"

"You know that's not true! I saw what you just saw! Blackness, then that noise, then a dead body sitting at my feet, and a long brown knife and blood in my hands. But I got rid of the knife; I got rid of the knife!! The killer obviously wanted me to be framed...that's why he put the knife back in my house! And now he wants you as well. Maybe that's how he handles people who have leads on his location. Puts them in prison by false accusation."

"Then let's follow him, before he gets away!"

We turned back to the door we'd come in, and found it still wide open. There was a moment of self-hatred, thinking we'd just created the killer's escape route. That was the final straw. We charged outside just in time to see a black figure running into another building a short ways away.

"There he is!" Quinto pointed.

The chase was on! We smashed through the door to the building and kept running, absolutely determined not to let this guy get away. We were gaining on the figure, who was still black as a shadow even up close, and then we followed him around a corner...only to hear a scream and see the Knife-baby killer throwing himself over us, knocking us both to the ground.

When I got up, I was no longer in the building, Quinto was no longer there, and the Knife-baby killer was completely out of my memory. The dream continued on as a rather typical false-awakening.

Still no lucid dream, but it's cool non-lucids like this that make me not mind so much

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Once again, it's been far too long since I last put an entry in here. I'll try to start updating more frequently again, but...no promises

I seem to have developed a weird mental block about lucid dreams. You may remember my post about how we can become unsuccessful with lucid dreams simply because we subconsciously believe them to be difficult. Since this realization, my amount of naturally-occurring lucid dreams has sky-rocketed to nearly 100% of all recent lucid dreams...but I haven't had as many lucid dreams what with not putting a lot of work into a particular method, so that percentage is really not so impressive as it may initially seem.

The problem is, I'll find myself thinking with two minds in a dream. There's my 'dream mind' which is caught up with the bizarre events of the dream story, and there's my subconscious mind that clearly realizes I'm dreaming, but due to being asleep, illogically thinks: "Oh, I'm dreaming! Too bad this isn't a lucid dream..." often resulting in a dream where I have all the powers of lucidity and I understand that I cannot be hurt and things like that, but without really ever understanding why.

It's starting to become quite annoying. If I could get myself to make the right conclusion at the moment I realize I'm non-lucid dreaming, I seriously could have multiple LDs every night without putting any more effort into it than simply reminding myself about it before I go to sleep!

Anyway, I guess fixing that starts with maintaining good dream recall, so here's what I remember of last night's dream:

I was in some party house, and I was preparing (you guessed it) a party. The interior of the place resembled my real house in layout, but everything about the rooms was vastly different. All the walls and many ceilings and floors were painted black, with brightly-colored symbols and images painted on top in random places. Under a black light, they looked quite cool.

At first, everything was going smoothly. I got disco balls and club lights mounted, music started playing, food and drinks set out...and then at one moment, I slipped on a ladder and caught the palm of my right hand on a sharp point as I fell.

When I looked at the damage, my entire palm had been split, and now my thumb and a large piece of skin from my hand were dangling loose, nearly to fall off at any moment. With my other hand, I tried to pull everything back together, but multiple attempts proved unsuccessful for one reason or another. My first try, I managed to get the skin lined up correctly, but I hadn't fit my thumb bones back into their place properly, so my actual thumb was hollow and the bones for it were being pinned down beneath the skin of my palm.

I tried pulling the skin back then, which hurt like crazy, but I knew it had to be done, else I'd be without a functioning thumb. I slid the bones and muscles back inside the hollow skin of the thumb and then tried replacing the skin. For some reason I had difficulty lining it back up this time, and so it pulled too far, squishing my entire hand together into a shape much thinner than it should be.

Finally, one of my friends arrived and saw the trouble. The solution we ended up with was that I would get the skin into place, and then hold it there while my friend wrapped tape around it to hold things together long enough for me to see a doctor. It seemed to work.

"It's too bad this dream isn't a lucid dream." I said to myself.

The party went on, but the pain in my hand increased, and eventually the tape wouldn't hold any more, giving me the same issue as before with my thumb potentially falling off. At one point, the pain grew so intense that I collapsed on the ground. That sure didn't help anything! I landed wrong, which made the bones and muscles in my thumb rip right through the skin, making things worse than ever before. I rolled over, writhing in pain, and grabbed my hand, now awake IRL.

Strangely enough, it did hurt around my palm and thumb. Not sure why. But of course it wasn't cut open and about to fall off

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Still no luck with the shared dreaming experiment, but I came close to being lucid last night.

I was in my livingroom, practicing my kicks and the like. All of a sudden, however, I had this impulse to do a backflip, and the knowledge of how to do it right just came to me. So I gave it a shot, and succeeded!

"Woah, I can do backflips!"

I tried again, and succeeded again. Now confident of my jumping ability, I began to think through the Matrix fight between Neo and Morpheus to see what else I should try.

I got a little running start, then jumped, triple-kicked, and then landed with plenty of time to spare.

"I've never been able to get three kicks in before...only two, and that was cutting it close!"

After that I further discovered I could lay on the ground and roll straight backwards, springing off my hands onto my feet, do wallflips with multiple upward steps, and a number of other cool things.

That's the part where I almost went lucid. I should have known to reality check then, but I certainly recognized the situation as not being normal, every day life. It didn't continue, though.

Next thing I know, there's a world-famous runner taking on the most dangerous course ever. I showed up to the race as a competitor, totally unknown by the crowd watching, and the subject of the champion runner's mockery. Even famous people weren't as fast as he was...so he was sure I wouldn't come close to matching his speed. I just smiled and let him bash me with his words, knowing I had a secret he was unaware of.

As soon as the race started, I took off running. Since I was a late entry, I started dead last, but within thirty seconds I had cleared all opponents other than the champ himself. It was just the two of us on the cameras that followed us down the track.

Very soon the paved part of the track ended and we were in a canyon area. Rocks were everywhere...it would have been easy to trip. The champ and I were neck-and-neck, and he decided it was time to lose me, so he began to run to the side to push me into the rock wall. I just took a step up the wall, did a flip, and landed on the other side of the champ, still running at full speed. He was so surprised that he tripped, and I took the lead for a long time.

From here it gets hazy, but there was a lot more to the race. The champ caught up eventually, but not enough to win. The track also involved a lot harder stuff, like chasms that had to be crossed by swinging across bars, rock walls that had to actually be climbed, etc.

Soon after I woke up from that dream, I realized that I had unintentionally entered SP. Before long I was feeling my dream body and making movements with full sensation, but my real body wasn't even twitching. Multiple times I even saw things and interacted with them briefly, but a full dream never formed. I'm quite sure that with time it would have, but it was getting late, and I knew I couldn't afford to sleep through another REM cycle, so I had to wake up.

But at least I now have a better idea of when to try to get into SP! If I could just go to bed a bit earlier so that I get the same amount of sleep earlier in the night and then WILD...maybe that would finally get me another super lucid dream!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Well, last night I went to bed trying out a new MP3 to see if it would help me wake up at the right time to WILD.

The MP3 definitely worked; I didn't wear headphones all night, but I turned the volume all the way up and then wrapped the earbud cords around my bed post and then slid the buds down into all the cord loops so they stayed in place pointing right at my head.

It woke me up two times in the night, but only on the first time did I get anything good out of it. My memory served me well enough; I noticed as soon as I woke up, but didn't rush to a billion thoughts that would wake me up. I simply rolled over, got into a comfortable position, and then went completely still. It wasn't long before I saw HI and felt SP...and yet, I must have lost consciousness at some point, because the next thing I remember is everything being totally black and me being totally unaware of my body. I don't recall ever seeing flashing lights or feeling the ground shake, which happen every time I WILD, or even just get close to succeeding at one.

But at least I regained consciousness at this point, body asleep, mind awake, and in a dreamless state. So I decided to try and make one of my own.

"A character is appearing in front of me."

Sure enough, a moment later, I saw a DC turn her head out of the darkness (yes, it was a girl). Suddenly I felt as if I were sinking, drawing closer to her. The girl's eyes shot open and stared at me as if from afar. I continued to sink inward, and as I did so, more than the girl's head faded into view.

She reached her hand out to me, almost robotically, as the sinking began to slow down. I felt as if I would lose the dream; like I was momentarily to rocket back upward and wake up. But I reached out and managed to just barely grab hold of her hand, and she pulled, breaking the opposing force suspending me in the air and causing me to freefall down into the dream.

After falling what felt like ten or fifteen feet, I collided with something, and instantly the dream was in full view. I had hit a bed, and now I bounced off and landed on the floor. The girl had been on the other side of the bed than the one that I fell on, and the impact had effectively knocked her out as well.

She was startled, like she hadn't seen me before. Maybe she thought what had just happened was a dream for her or something.

"Who...who are you?" She asked, holding up a blanket to cover herself.

"I'm..." I paused to quickly think up a title that wouldn't give everything away to her as a dream. I didn't know her well enough yet to know if she'd respond well to that or not.

"...a friend."

Her entire countenance changed immediately, then. I wish now that I had just told her the truth, though, because as soon as I ignored my connection to real life, I lost it completely.

"Oh! And you haven't even been given a place to sleep!"

"That won't be necessary. I'm...really not tired, to be honest."

"Well you must at least need something to eat or drink! Come, this way!"

The girl then hurried down the hallway, pulling the blanket around herself as she went. Not knowing what else to do, I followed. Her house was very futuristic; technology not (yet) existent was everywhere. Eventually we made it to a small kitchen with a round table to one side.

"Please, sit." She said, handing me a glass of something to drink.

It suddenly struck me how sweet this girl was...no doubt about it, I was falling in love.

"So," the girl began. "Would you mind telling me a bit about yourself?"

"Sure, but...I still don't even know your name." (funny that I would say this, since she still didn't know my name)

"Oh! I'm so sorry. My name is Avina."

After that I told her about my past, which was now a bunch of false memories telling me I had been a soldier in the Alliance Military that was sent to guard the city and I had fallen through Avina's roof by mistake.

"I feel so terrible!" Avina exclaimed when I had finished my story.

"What? Why?"

"I've kept you up this whole time! Didn't even give you the option of waiting until morning!"

"It...kind of is morning, Avina." I replied after seeing a nearby clock read 3:00am

"Right. There's another bed in my room; you may use that if you want to. Feel free to wake me up if you need anything else!"

And next thing I know, I'm in a bed beneath a large window in Avina's room, and I can't fall asleep or take my eyes off of her. Eventually I couldn't resist any longer. Slowly, quietly, I walked over to her bed and just watched her sleep a moment.

Before I knew it, my hand had found its way down, and I was stroking her hair, caressing the side of her face, and then leaning down for a kiss. Of course that woke Avina right up, but she didn't fight or anything. Rather she reached her arms around me and stood up. We continued kissing for quite a while, but then Avina leaned back and said:

"I will be yours. Always."

After that things kind of blur together. My duties with the Alliance Military frequently pulled us apart, but we always made every effort to be together. Travel distance or cost didn't matter.

One point that stands out in my mind is when a huge crowd was before the Citadel Council discussing Alliance plans for the future. As it is typically with politics, everything was going down the tubes as far as I was concerned. What needed to be done seemed so simple to me, and yet everyone was bickering over complex things and not getting anything accomplished.

As I sat there, listening to all this, I noticed Avina come in the side door and take a seat next to me. She could see the frustration on my face.

"You should speak. Many people here respect you." She whispered.

"But that doesn't mean anyone will stand with me! What I say is useless without backup."

"I'll stand with you." Avina said.

That was all I needed. I stood up, interrupting an official far more important than I, and stated my opinion on the matter. The council, as expected, told me I was out of my mind and to sit back down. I continued, however, and asked for anyone who agreed with my plan to stand with me. At first, no one did. But then Avina stood, which soon encouraged another to stand, and another, and another, until the intimidation of the council was broken and the entire room of men and women was standing in my favor, opposed to the council. They had no choice but to accept my plan for the Alliance Military, then.

Gets blurry again...next thing I remember, Avina and I were arriving at her house after being married. It was late, but there was no chance we could sleep.

"Tell me this isn't a dream!" Avina said. "I cannot believe all this...it is just too wonderful!"

"This isn't a dream!" I said. "It's just us--forever!"

Then we lay down in the same bed this time and...well, you can probably figure out what.

We didn't get a wink of sleep that night, but neither of us cared. I don't think we ever even let go of each other before dawn.


Well...make of that what you will. It was an incredible experience for me, anyway. Doubt anyone else will really appreciate it the same way.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

I had no dream recall yesterday, which is why there was no entry.

Today, I've only got a bit better recall. I think I just keep falling too deep into sleep because I've been up later than usual.

In my notes I have written that the dream was like a mixture of Mass Effect and Monsters Inc., but I have absolutely no idea what that is supposed to mean. Don't remember Monsters Inc. being involved at all...but here's what I do remember.

(for those of you unfamiliar with Mass Effect, I've linked to key game elements so you can get an idea of what was going on in the context of the game)

Everyone was on the Presidium level of the Citadel from Mass Effect. The place was still a huge mess from Sovereign and Saren's attack, and I was on a team of people cleaning up a part of the financial district.

The dream was incredibly clear; like the detail of a lucid dream without the lucidity. I put on fingerless leather gloves to get to work, and the little bumps on the leather looked and felt as they would in real life. As I worked to pick things up and clean debris away, I felt muscular exertion, as if I really was doing hard work.

Even though there was a ton of work to be done, it really wasn't that bad to have to do it. Everyone was just happy for the Geth War to be drawn to somewhat of an end and for the Reaper to have been destroyed. Plus, I was doing all the work with friends (some from real life, others aliens from the game, namely a Salarian and an Asari) which kept our spirits up, since we could talk and make jokes the whole time.

But the entire day was not to go so well. After finishing up our assigned area on the financial district, we were sent down into the Wards...to help fix up Chora's Den.

There was a group of shady characters on the other side of the place, supposedly also cleaning things up. But they were arguing the whole time, apparently on a racial basis. There were a few humans and one Krogan, and I suppose having the majority made them feel confident enough to oppose the alien. But it was still foolish, as eventually they angered the Krogan enough to make him fire a weapon at them, and (big surprise) they had the weapons to fight back.

Misfires proceeded to take out my team, although we attempted to hide. They hit everyone aside from me and one other person. But the Salarian and Asari were completely riddled with holes. Angered, I pulled out a pistol and promptly took down the one surviving human from the other side of the room. Blood was everywhere; my friend had to run off to avoid throwing up on the spot.

Then something strange happened. A bunch of mice ran out from the debris and began to climb into the bullet holes on the dead Asari. Somehow they reanimated her and she stood up, now bent on my destruction.

The dream then went into third person and followed me as if the whole thing were just a video game. I tried to run away from the Asari, but it seemed everywhere I went I would reach a dead end and get caught, which would cause the dream to 'load the autosave' from when the Asari was transformed. I'd watch the mice all over again and then try to run away, but get stuck in a dead end. This went on for five or six more tries before I finally found a passage that had been partially blocked by debris, preventing me from seeing it in the past. I managed to take that passage without getting slowed down to the point of being caught by the Asari, and this time got far enough away for her to lose my trail.

Then I hid and waited for her to come my way. When she did, I pulled out my pistol again and shot her in the head. She completely exploded, sending mice flying everywhere before they scattered and ran.

I woke up shortly after that.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

I wasn't honestly expecting to dream last night cuz allergies have been making sleep of any sort be difficult, but I came across these great binaural beats on youtube that really did get me into a Theta frequency, and I just went right to sleep without medicine or having to sit up all night! (and by the way, I feel INCREDIBLY better today. Binaural beats FTW!)

So my recall isn't the best this time since I wasn't planning on recalling anything, but with some thought I was able to remember a couple dreams.

Dream 1: I was at the dentist's, and they were telling me I would have to get my two front bottom teeth removed. With a look in the mirror, I understood why; there were WAY too many teeth in my mouth, which had made a real problem. But the two that they were suggesting I have removed were about the only two that were actually straight, so I argued against it.

"Why not take out these two on the sides? They're just about to get pushed out anyway; they're more of an annoyance than anything!"

But that didn't work on the dentist. Actually, nothing did. I tried to come up with all sorts of other ideas, but he refused to do anything other than his own idea.

I'm not really sure if that dream ended and I woke up, or if it just changed to this next dream, but since the two have no connection, I'm separating them anyway.

Dream 2: I took a vacation to Florida and stayed with my uncle and aunt...except they were only there for about five minutes of my entire two week stay there. (Of course this dream didn't show me every moment of the two weeks; time skipped left and right and I don't recall it ever being night) I went all over the city and enjoyed the sights, but never once did I see a beach. It was all a bit futuristic, actually. The cars still ran on wheels rather than floating in the air and such, but the roads were elevated without support beams, and the buildings looked like they had been designed more for aesthetics than functionality.

Not very exciting stuff, I know, but I'll bet with these binaural beats that I've found I can figure out some way to have LDs very consistently and quickly, which will be simply awesome.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Well, all you people out there who think you may have turned off your alarm in your sleep, I have solid proof that it is quite possible to do!

Other than that, my dreams really accomplished nothing. I was too worn out to stay conscious of mind very long, and I think that continued all through the dream, preventing me from becoming lucid.

As for retelling this dream, it's a bit difficult for me to accurately place events in a timeline, since so many things were happening at once and I was in a very deep sleep so as to not be conscious of my surroundings, really. But I will try.

The first thing I remember is finding myself in a very large house with tons of stuff all around. Since I saw a friend there, I naturally attributed the place to him. Outside, there were huge trailers just filled with items of every sort. I was told I could do whatever I wanted with what I could find. Being a techie guy, I naturally headed right for the electronics. After some digging, I found one of every console system Nintendo has ever made. NES, SNES, N64, Wii...the whole shebang.

So I took them all inside and cracked open the cases. Then I wired and cut and soldered them all together to fit as one multi-platform device inside a modified Wii case. My friend and I then tested it out, and although we had controller troubles at first, before long everything was working no problem. I remember playing Star Wars Episode I: Racer for the N64 with SNES controllers

At some point, the doorbell rang. As it turned out, the person who had arrived was an online friend of mine that I've never actually met in real life, but he said he was in the area and decided to stop by. (Even though I wasn't at my own house, somehow he knew where I was ) It was great actually getting to see him and spend time with him, but before we could do too much, my watch alarm started going off.

"What's that?" My two friends asked.

"Oh, that's my wake back to bed alarm. Since you guys are here, I'll just turn it off and do it some other time."

I looked down at my watch and saw the time displaying the proper hour and minute for when it should go off. Then I pressed the two buttons on the side to disable the alarm, and it stopped.

There was a lot more to that dream...soldiers and trying to escape and relationship issues...but it's all a jumble in my head. I can't remember how it connects, though I know that it somehow did seamlessly go from one thing to another, never mind whether it made sense or not. I think what I wrote was the most important part of the dream anyway, though.

I finally remembered to pick up a new watch, so the alarm works fine now, but apparently that didn't change its effectiveness all that much...at least it's rather funny how that worked out

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Not a very exciting night last night...fell asleep too quickly to MILD very well, though I did try. I only really remember one dream, too.

It was a few months in the future; I was running around the camp that I film for during the summer. Only thing was, I wasn't filming, just running. With a quick look to my watch I found it to be Thursday.

"Oh, crap! The week is almost over and I haven't done any filming!"

I doubled my running speed to try and find some campers to film, but as I attempted to dodge obstacles, I climbed up onto higher ground just to find myself caught between a tree and the dirt. Couldn't pull through, so I pushed myself back out, but in the process my backbone bent in a way it shouldn't be able to, and it hurt. But I kept on running!

Finally I made it to where everyone was going to play a game.

"Well, at least there will be some footage for the movie."

One of the camp leaders approached me.

"Are you ok? You don't look so good." He asked.

"I can't believe it...I don't know what happened...but the week is nearly over and I haven't done any filming!"

The guy looked at me funny.

"We just got here a few hours ago."

I was too relieved to think of reality checking for the strange turn of events. I ran off to start filming...

...and next thing I know, I'm at my house, and several of my friends came and we went inside. But then I turned around and they were no longer there, so I just went on with the day as usual.

Eventually I remembered that I had had friends over, so I went looking for them, and finally discovered them outside, playing on a mini golf course that was where my driveway should be.

"Where did this come from?" I asked.

"Dude, you've had this here for ages!" One of them replied.

"Really?" Was all I had to say.

Now why didn't I reality check from something in that?? Man, I'm slow...

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Well, I can't say I went lucid last night, but I'm not sure how I didn't.

Dream 1: I found myself in a chair with a table circling around me. Past that, all was black. On the table was all sorts of weird food, mostly variations of a beehive-shaped substance with a popsicle stick coming out of the bottom. They were in all different colors, some transparent and gelatin-like, some solid-colored and firmer, like a cake or something. Oh, and some of the popsicle sticks were edible as well. Plus, every one of these weird things had trippy decorations on them, too. Swirled colored icing, big balls of some sort of candy stuck all over...and it all tasted awesome.

"Haha all I've done in this dream is eat!" I found myself saying. "Can't wait to tell this one to the guys on dreamviews."

I think I was kind of waking up as I said that, because I was fully awake immediately after, and that's the only explanation I can think for me accepting the fact that it was a dream without really being lucid.

Dream 2: I was only spectating now, and there was a woman with a giant yellow squid in a hotel room. She said that since she had no children, the squid was like a son to her. I mean, she really loved the thing! Pretty much all she did all day long was talk to it and hold it (even though it was bigger than she was). From listening to her talk, apparently she was in a hotel just to get away from the people that mocked her about the yellow sea creature who somehow could survive without water.

Eventually, the hotel caught wind of what exactly was being kept in one of their rooms, and they told the woman to leave or get rid of the squid. She burst into tears. Realizing she needed mental help, they instead forcibly removed the squid from her and tried to bring in a psychiatrist, but she beat the doctor until he fled, and then just cried on her bed.

But then...the yellow squid found its way back into the room through the window! Of course the woman was suddenly happy again...and that's really all I remember.

Call yourself a dream interpretation expert? Then what the heck is a yellow squid supposed to mean? My gosh...seriously.

Dream 3: Spectating again, it was a thunder-storming night, and I saw a kitten sneaking into a closet and the door was magically closed on it.

The next morning, the couple that lived in the house discovered the kitten and were very baffled by its presence there. They had two cats (who also spoke English in the dream) but they hated each other, so there seemed to be no way the kitten came from them.

The female cat accused the male cat of rape while she was sleeping, which he denied. And next thing I know, while the people and the cats are arguing about all this, the dream 'camera' was being pulled back into a mouse hole and I saw two mice watching the argument and discussing what they thought happened.

It was disturbing enough to everyone to get a full-scale investigation going. I can't remember most of what happened because the dream's plot was so complicated, but basically the mice were the only ones to get on the right track and figure out what happened. The people and the cats just got off on a confusing trail of miscommunication and false leads so that the whole thing seemed like a bigger deal than it was. And yet somehow through all of this the two cats started to like each other.

But at the end, one of the mice came forth and declared that all the evidence pointed to the male cat having raped the female cat while they both were sleeping. "It's simple." The mouse explained. "He doesn't remember anything, and yet the genes of the kitten match up to the cats perfectly. He must have been sleepwalking when it happened, then!"

Everyone sighed out of relief that the mystery had been solved and then everyone went to bed. Once the lights were out, the female cat asked the male cat, "Did you really do that to me?" After a pause, the male cat replied: "I don't know. Do you want to do it again to find out if anything feels familiar?"

I kid you not, that's what the cat said. Scary to think that line originated in my mind I swear I don't think like that all the time!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

FINALLY had another lucid last night, short though it was. And actually, it still didn't come from my reality checks, which is really surprising to me. It used to be that if I RC'd for a week, I'd have a lot of LD's, but this time, I've only even come close a couple times!

This time I actually WILDed after WBTB, but unfortunately it didn't end up being as amazing as my last WBTB WILD.

Dream 1: There was a time during the WILD when sleep suddenly overtook me, and I momentarily lost consciousness. But then I suddenly snapped back into mental awareness, like my mind said: "Wait! This is what you were supposed to be looking for!"

Next thing I know, I'm outside in my backyard, lying down in the same position that I had been in my bed...only now I was on top of a fence. Yes, just a fence. I wasn't even laying across it; my body and the fence were going in perpendicular directions, and I wasn't falling down. There was no doubt that I was dreaming with something obvious like that staring me in the face! "I made it!" I thought. So I stood up, but my logical mind got the better of me and I couldn't balance on the fence.

For several seconds I wobbled back and forth, trying to stabilize or lean so that I could jump off and land nicely. But then I had a better idea. "Fly!" I shouted to no one in particular as I lifted off into the air.

The wind was strong beneath me; I could feel it rushing up onto my hands, my face, rippling through my clothes, and even in my hair. "So real!" I whispered.

By this point I had well stabilized my flight, so I was ready to go around and see what I could see. But sadly, excitement at finally being in a lucid dream grew too strong and in an instant, I woke up.

I tried just to DEILD at this point, and it almost worked.

Dream 2: I found myself talking to a friend about lucid dreaming. Now this friend knows very little about it IRL, so I was surprised to hear him so knowledgeable about things.

"I even discovered a way to instantly WILD every single time I try." He told me.

"Really? Could you show me? That would be so awesome to LD like that!"

"Yeah, sure, it's really easy."

So he got down on his knees, leaned his head down to the ground, left his butt sticking up in the air, and then pulled a blanket over himself.

"And then," I heard his muffled voice say, "you just close your eyes and WILD."

In another instant, he was totally still, and didn't respond if I tried to talk to him. After about five minutes, though, he suddenly started shouting and thrashing about!

"Wake up! Gah! Wake up! Wake up!"

Of course he did wake himself up that way. Apparently the dream had turned into a nightmare

"Did it work?" I asked once he had calmed down.

"Yeah, of course it did."

I decided to ignore how stupid a position it was to be in; if it got WILDs that well, it was worth it. So I took the blanket and gave it a shot.

Next thing I know after closing my eyes, I'm in a huge underground auditorium with thousands of people all around. The room was a cave, really, and the stage a huge diamond that was carved into. "No way! It worked! I'm in a lucid dream!"

But then my friend decided to shake me back awake...in the non-lucid dream.

"Well, did it work?"

"You bloody well bet it did! Why'd you wake me up!? Couldn't you have waited until I finished the dream?"

Then I woke up for real. (and by the way, I'm not counting that second lucid part as another LD in my sig just cuz it was so short)

Dream 3: There was another dream I remember too, but it came earlier on in the night. I just wanted to get the more interesting dreams written first . Basically, the doctor told me that because my vision isn't 20/20, I should get my eyes replaced with a new camera device that looked like a real eye and could be fit in an empty eye socket. I didn't want to go through with it.

"My eyes aren't that bad, and what if the surgery fails? Then I'll have no vision at all!" I protested.

"But if it succeeds, you'll have 20/20 for life!"

"Through machines, though, and machines are known to mess up once in a while. I don't want to have to go through eye maintenance all the time when my eyes were nearly fine to begin with."

"But you could have 20/20!" The doctor repeated.

Eventually I just left, but then I kept running into family and friends and they all told me the same things as the doctor and really wanted me to get the artificial eyes. One of them even mentioned they had artificial lungs and the surgery went without a hitch...all just to get me to replace my eyes that are not that bad. It drove me crazy! When I still refused to everyone who told me to get my eyes replaced, they decided to kidnap me and force me to comply with the doctor.

Thankfully, I woke up from that one before they could. I don't exactly want to have my eyes removed, even in a dream. I know exactly what made me dream this, though: Immortel ad vitam. It's a movie I recently watched that has most people with artificial parts and one guy mentions his lungs being replaced...don't recommend that movie at all. It was such a waste of time. Pointless and confusing.

Dream 4: This also happened earlier in the night. Don't remember much about this one. There was a woman who was crazed...trying to take over the world or something. We heard tell of her moving through the country, taking cities over wherever she went. Eventually, she was in my neighborhood, and then, in my house. I grabbed the first weapon I could get to: my sword. (yes, I have a sword IRL, and that's the one I grabbed, only the hilt was longer in the dream than it really is)

I fearlessly walked up to the woman with the sword in my hand and shouted: "Get! Back!" The gem on the sword's pommel began to glow, and as terror overtook the woman's gaze, she crumpled to the ground onto her knees.

"You...have...my sword!"

"What are you talking about, this is my sword! And I will use it unless you give this up!"

"No, that once was my sword, many hundreds of years ago...it is where I get my power from, but I lost it once, and so I now am searching the earth for it."

I thought then that she would grab it out of my hand and turn into some monster of unstoppable power, but she didn't.

"That sword lies in the hands of a brave man, now. I can never reclaim it."

That said, she stood up slowly, walked out silently, her vast armies scattering, and no one ever heard from her again.

That one could almost be in a movie or book or something...interesting concept.

Well, not a bad night for dreaming! Four recalls, a little bit of lucidity...still room for improvement, though!