non-lucid

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

I did a tiny bit better last night...came close to being decently lucid again! In other words, I was lucid, but I got it through WILD at the very beginning of the night, and it only lasted for about 1 second...I knew I was in a dream and I saw a tiny bit of my surroundings, but there was hardly time to do anything before the dream ended...so note to self: don't bother WILDing at the beginning of the night anymore

I did have a decent non-lucid dream later on, though. Again it was split in half by my WBTB alarm which I somehow disabled very quickly and re-entered the same dream...I'm gonna have to get a different alarm

I was a 'secret soldier'...not a spy, really, but a scout. I think the idea was for soldiers to be common people for part of every day so as to bridge the relational gap between soldier and civilian. At any rate, I was placed in this one town that I forgot the name of, given a small, furnished house and some money, and took orders to live there from early morning to early evening. I had to use some of that time to sleep, since I reported back to the Colonel at night and kept up with my real job.

Since building relationships was the point of my mission, on the first day I was on this strange kind of occupation I went to an outdoor restaurant for breakfast. The air was fresh and the food was good. I had intended to strike up conversations with people, but it turned out I was so early that no one else was there. I chatted a tiny bit with the waitress (who I discovered also owned the place and cooked the food), but ended up simply enjoying the solitude; the only sound being that of birds. When I left, the woman told me about the following day's special and asked me to come back in typical business manner. "Maybe I will." I said with all honesty. After that I went to look around town and meet up with other people...but the place was deserted of any walkers. Cars drove by, but obviously they were of no assistance to me. I ended up just going back to my given house and checking all of it out. I'm not sure what happened for the rest of the day...I think I went to sleep for a while.

Eventually it was night time, and I headed to the secret army headquarters, where the Colonel and other scout-soldiers like myself were waiting. We each reported on our day, and I wasn't surprised to hear the others have similar stories to my own. When that was done, the Colonel gave us a long talk about how we'd totally missed the point and needed to do much better the next day. "There is a military agenda here." He said. "The point is not to expose ourselves, but to build up trust with those that we can so that we'll have the trust of the people on our side when we finally do come out in the open. All it takes is for each of you to build up one or two meaningful relationships...we want quality here, not just quantity."

The next morning I did return to that restaurant, and again it was too early for anyone else to be there. The colonel's words echoing in my mind, I decided to try and have a conversation with the woman who ran the place. I can't remember her name, but in case you were wondering, she was definitely not the Maria that keeps popping up as of late. I'll just call her W. "No one else is here...do you have anything you need to do right now?" I asked. "Oh, not really." W replied. "Why?" "Just wondering. I'm new to the place and all, so I just thought it would be nice to have some company, if there's any to have." "Oh! Of course." W said, picking up a cup of coffee and sitting down at my table. "Is there something around town, someplace you need to go, I can help you find?" I thought a moment. "Honestly...nothing that I can think of." "You have a job in town?" She asked. "Well that's...complicated, and honestly I'm not supposed to talk about that." Obviously, things moved slowly at first, but eventually we got to talking pretty normally and pleasantly, and even discovered we had a lot of common interests.

Next thing I know, it's the night again, and I'm heading to the secret headquarters. This time the Colonel was a bit more pleased with how we'd done; just about everyone had properly focused on having one or two meaningful conversations than just trying to talk to whomever was available. Then the Colonel informed us of our real objective: to locate a spy hidden somewhere in that very town. We had been informed that they were trying to lay low and just live a normal life, and it was up to us to do the same in order to discover the spy and bring them to justice. Nobody questioned who the spy was from or what their goals were.

The next couple days went by uneventfully (and incompletely, actually...the dream sort of zipped through time) until after a few days I went to the restaurant again as usual and W came to me and said she was in trouble. She looked very scared and made it sound like she was going to die or something if I didn't help. When I asked what was going on, she said, "It's not safe here. How do I get to your house?" "My house? Why, W?" "Because I think even my own is bugged." I gave her directions and drew the route on a map, and then W told me when she planned to drop by. "I'll be there." I promised.

When she arrived at my place a few hours later, she closed all the windows and made sure no one would be able to find her in there. "What's going on? Aren't you going to tell me?" She turned and looked at me very serious. "There's something I must show you." W said. "I trust you...but you have to trust me." "I do." W nodded after a moment and then held out her arm. With her other hand, she rubbed very hard into her skin, which wiped away to reveal blue skin beneath. "I am a Na'vi." She said. "Soldiers are here in secret to capture me. They want to study me and interrogate me until they find a weak spot they can use to kill my people. I fled here and put on a disguise, but they've tracked me down, and now I need your help to escape." "Alright." I said, not mentioning that I was a soldier. "But I can't be found out, either, you know. You have a plan?" She ignored that question. "I have trusted you. Now it is time for you to trust me." With that, she grabbed my arm, rubbed, and revealed blue skin on me, too.

After that, it was really weird. I split into two people, one a Na'vi form of me, and one a soldier form of me. It was suddenly night, and the solider me told the Colonel about what happened, while the Na'vi me helped W escape the town. It was a very close call, but the Na'vi me escaped with W after the soldier me finally did the right thing and distracted the other soldiers.

That last part was so strange. Not only was I two people at once, but they were diametrically opposed to each other, even though in the end I was in control over both.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

I'm not sure what happened last night. I woke up a couple times, thought about my dreams, and silenced any thoughts about anything else...and yet I still couldn't remember for the life of me what it was I dreamed about! After giving it a lot of thought, I was able to recall two scenes. In neither one was I lucid, or even present! I was just spectating...honestly, I think in this case it was the dream that was unclear and not my recall, hence my lack of a body for all but a few seconds.


First thing I knew, I was looking at a crowd of people that I know IRL sitting on the ground. All of a sudden, one of them, a girl, stood up and said loud for all to hear: "Kyle, you and I are going to start dating." The dream 'camera' wooshed over all of their heads until Kyle was the focus. He didn't look shocked...very slightly surprised, perhaps. All that he said in reply was: "ok." As the dream began to fade, I got this sense that I knew that they really did start dating, and seriously, even though I didn't actually see it happen.

My WBTB alarm went off then, but I didn't stay awake very long...it would have been a DEILD if only I had gone lucid. My alarm has to have two buttons pressed at the same time in order to turn off, which I usually can't do until I'm fully awake, and thus it is quite effective for WBTB, but somehow I disabled it quite quickly and re-entered the same dream.

I was fading in and out of a dream body; as far as everyone around me was concerned, I wasn't there at all. I saw a TV turned on to a game show. The girl from before was playing it, and won. Then they brought out the prize...covered by a cylinder wireframe with a curtain strung all around it. When the cart it was on stopped moving, Kyle burst out of it in a shiny blue graduation gown

That's all I remember...I think maybe I'm in an LDing dry spell

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Ok, it's a bit late in the day for me now, but hopefully I can still remember everything decently.

Last night I made dream recall my focus. I figured, if I go lucid, great, if I don't, at least I'll be able to remember my dreams.

I ended up recalling 3, all of them non-lucid, but one of them very close.

Dream 1: I was not on Pandora, but I had an Avatar that I had designed for personal use. I had my computer moved to right next to my bed, where a very techy-looking device (presumably a brain-wave scanner or something like that) was attached at the head of the bed and connected to my PC. I turned on the computer, (see, electronics CAN work in dreams!) and opened up a program on the desktop. The interface was pretty basic, but it had very complex readouts all over it; frequencies and temperatures and a bunch of other measurements for me, my Avatar, and the computer hardware. I guess all of it had to be in equally working order, or else none of it would work, so it makes sense that all three things would need to be checked and logged. After confirming that everything was set up and ready, I clicked a few buttons to start the Avatar devices up and then laid down on the bed. As I listened to the machines begin to whir and chirp, my vision went blurry, and soon I was in a different room lit by a single, small lamp built right into the ceiling above me, making just about everything except me and the bed I was on look very dark and shadowy. Once things were fully clear and I was confident that the transition had been complete and successful, I sat up and looked down at myself. My skin was blue with exotic stripes of slightly darker blue all over it, I was several feet taller, I had a tail, and certain parts of my body glowed in the dark. A nearby mirror quickly confirmed that I was really in an Avatar! The bioluminescence thing really is cool, too! Well, as I had expected, I was in a trailer that was tilted about 30 degrees, with the open door on the side down into the ground, so that nothing could possibly get inside and harm the Avatar when I was away. Only inside the Avatar could I possibly be strong enough to lift the trailer while standing on the ground so as to let myself out. Once outside, I briefly took in my surroundings. It looked to be very early morning, as there was no hint of sunlight--rising or setting--anywhere. On the side of the trailer was a gun built for someone my size. I picked it up and started walking through the tall grass and the woods until I woke up.

Dream 2: I found myself at my house, and all was normal...except there was this girl there that kept insisting she was my girlfriend. I completely ignored the comment the first time, but after five or six times of her approaching me and saying that, as well as telling me of past times we'd supposedly spent together, it started to get my attention. I mentally started comparing what I knew to be true with what I was seeing. This girl was telling me about things I didn't remember happening at all...so I began to think about what I remembered. On the one hand, I remembered not having her as a girlfriend, and something told me I didn't remember doing the things with her that she said we had done. On the other hand, I remembered her name (Maria), and I distinctly remembered having done something with her before...in a dream. We were on the Maid of the Mist so that I could accomplish the task of the month. The wheels started turning, and I slowly began to think: "If all this is true, and I only remember her from a dream, then maybe I'm in a dream now?" It wasn't a realization, it was another question...a question I always follow up with a pinch-the-nose reality check. I was just about to do it, when I heard an explosion from the lower level of the house. I ran down the stairs to find the microwave exploding and with the door gone, microwaving the entire room as well as the people in it. Maria was running away just in the nick of time, but I could see a blast of flames was about to come around the corner, so I tackled her also just in the nick of time and got us both out of harm's way. Everything was instantly calm then (other than Maria, who was crying and shaking with fear), so I went into the kitchen to see the damage. All the walls and floor and ceiling were burnt gray like a radioactivity bomb had gone off. Colored puddles were on the floor in the place where people used to be. No one else had survived. I took Maria outside and tried to calm her down as I woke up.

Now I for one find that interesting. I don't know anyone IRL named Maria, and yet this person has come up twice now. She has always acted differently than other DC's, and the nose pinch RC caused her to realize that she was in a dream the last time we met up. She had memories of me in that previous dream that I remember of us together, but also in others that I do not remember ever having. Have I stumbled across a real person in shared dreaming without even trying?? If only I could go lucid again and ask her for an email address or something solid that could confirm that...oh well.

Dream 3: I was in my Avatar again, lying in the bed in the trailer. A big lightning bug flew up to me and started telling me to wake up. At first I told it to leave me alone, but it insisted that I had an important mission, so finally I got up and paid attention. I can't remember what the mission was, but I apparently agreed with it that it was important. I got out of the trailer, grabbed the gun from the side, and ran off into the woods. It gets a little unclear after that...I had a gunfight with a bunch of people, the big firefly alerting me of their locations. After everyone was taken care of, I just went back to the trailer and climbed in and went to sleep like nothing had happened Then I woke up.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Ok, well I'm not supposed to say too much about this, but I've been on a secret mission with LDing lately, but for some reason every time I try to do it, if I'm getting near lucidity I get kicked out of lucidity, and the dream always ends up a nightmare

Last night's nightmare was particularly memorable...I think if I get the chance I'll even turn it into a movie scene.

I was in my room, and at first, everything was normal. But then, I noticed something strange...there was a worm on the ground. Then I turned around. There were a few more. Turned and looked around again, more worms, and even bigger and thicker now! "Well that's weird...how are they getting in here?" I said. Then I felt a sharp pain in my leg. I pulled the leg on my pants up so I could see, but quickly wished I hadn't. About 5 of those huge, thick worms had bitten into me and were now entirely in my leg, eating away at it, visible through a top layer of skin. The other worms were coming near me now, too, and I was surrounded. I dashed for the door, but multiple worms got into me after that, all eating away at my legs and arms from the inside, not to mention the disgusting sight of having a worm bulging through your skin. I may be a guy, but I still screamed. The door slammed behind me, I ran for the nearest person and begged them to help me get the worms out. "You're going to live," they told me, "but there's only one way to get those worms out." "Well do it already! please!" They reached down and pinched one of the worms on my leg. It let out a little, sickening cry and then rushed up through my leg towards my head. It felt so weird and disgusting...but not nearly as much as what happened next. After the worm got up to my head, I started choking and gagging, and then I coughed really hard, and blood came out along with the worm. Then I looked down and saw how many more worms were all throughout my body. There were easily 30 left for me to cough up that way, and then I still had a whole room full of them to deal with! Or so I thought. I turned and looked and saw a million more of them flooding into the house from the outside. There was nothing left to do but run! So I ran for the closest windows and tried to smash it and get outside. But I couldn't. The worms were coming closer, getting into the room, devouring the person who had just helped me. I had only a few seconds left...

...and then I woke up. Man that one really freaked me out! All day long I've felt like I'm feeling those things getting into my legs and arms, even though I know they aren't there...it was just so creepy!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

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

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

I started to not feel good last night, so even though I tried to LD, I ended up just sleeping all night and not having any lucid dreams. I can only even remember one non-lucid to some degree.

There was some evil woman going around, for what reason I did not know why. But she was secretly following me, and eventually I figured it out. One day I caught her eying me when I was mowing in my backyard. I hid behind a big piece of cardboard that was suddenly there, and knew I had to escape.

Suddenly I was Eragon, so the plan of escape was obvious. I called for Saphira with my mind and this tiny dragon flew over the fence. "What?" I thought. "That doesn't make sense. How can Saphira be that small?" But as she got closer, she got bigger too, so that worked itself out ok and I was able to fly off, the wicked woman shouting curses at me as I fled.

We landed at a train station, I believe, and Saphira became small enough to fit inside. When I was in there, I saw a bunch of my friends, and they seemed to be waiting for me. Somehow they knew about the woman following me and that she wanted to take my dragon. "If this was a lucid dream," I said, "I'd just annihilate her." The first time, it was funny. Now, it's just annoying. Why do I keep talking about lucid dreaming in my dreams and not get that impulse to reality check?? Anyway, I was informed that we had been followed all the way to the train station, and that we had to leave by train as soon as possible. "Why not fly?" I asked. "Because that would be expected." Came the reply.

So we got on a train (which turned out to be a two-story hover train) and hoped we had made our escape well enough. The witch-woman had made it onto the train as well, though, and wasn't going to let us get away. Suddenly in third-person, I saw the witch release a robot drone and send it inside the hover train. The drone flew up around one of the passenger seats and picked Donald Duck as its victim. It sucked Donald up into its main body, so only his head was sticking out the front of the hovering drone. But apparently this totally possessed Donald and made him want to kill me, because I went back into first person and saw the drone coming. Saphira tried to breath fire on it, but apparently it was fireproof. Nothing else seemed to present itself as an option, so I grabbed it with telekinesis and sent it flying out the back door, totally breaking it down. "Woah, how did I do that!?" I didn't have time to figure it out. As the door was blasted open, we all saw the witch outside, being knocked off the back of the train. Everyone ran outside and just looked down at her as she hung on by her fingertips. Of course she begged for mercy and a second chance and promised not to ever do anything like that again if we let her go, but I wasn't convinced. I picked my foot up to step on her fingers and finish the fight, but because my friends were against that, I helped her up instead. But there was a button next to me that would open a door to the lower deck...a trap door in the floor right where the witch was standing. So I hit that button and watched her drop down, and then I closed the door, trapping her.

I don't remember what happened for a while after that, but when we reached our destination, the witch was able to get off the train and come after us again...as I expected she would. We were in some house when she tried to come to the door and get inside. Whoever was guarding the door didn't let her in, of course, and told her that she had her second chance, and she better leave before we changed our minds. Eventually she managed to get inside and somehow we killed her this time.

The dream went into third person again, this time showing the drone flying into a restaurant and releasing Donald Duck. Donald fell from pretty high up, but just bounced off of several things until he landed right in a chair. The robot drone flew down and landed in the other chair, paid for dinner, and tried to convinced Donald to help him avenge the witches death. Donald just got his finger stuck in a hole on the arm of his chair. The drone started getting frustrated with him, but I woke up too fast to see what happened.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Last night I half-intentionally didn't go lucid. I just needed a break after that last one. I didn't even try to remember my dreams in case they would be similar to the previous one and not something I would want to remember.

But at any rate, I'm feeling much better now and I'm ready to dive right back in!

Here's the one dream I do remember from last night:

Everyone was at a huge pool party. Friends, family...tons of people. And I don't just mean a huge party, I mean a huge pool, too. The pool was way bigger than the little one-story house next to it, complete with water slides and all kinds of other stuff.

After a while, everyone got out to eat some hamburgers. Eating in dreams is always enjoyable, since there are no health concerns whatsoever, not even for over-eating. I remember talking to a couple people over the meal about dreams. One of them posed a fun question. "Hey, what would you do right now if this turned out to be a dream?" We laughed at the idea, totally not believing it could be a dream. I had the impulse to do a reality check, but I decided I didn't want to know, in case I would accidentally repeat the previous night's dream. "Well I know what I would do," said another at the table. "I'd pick you up out of thin air and throw you into the pool headfirst!" Everyone laughed again. "And then it would probably end up being a shared dream." I said. "So he would feel you do that and give you a call the next day, all like 'what the heck was that about?'" And we kept going like that for a while before heading back out.

Weird thing was, when I went back out there, the pool was set alongside a river, and I was in Pandora. "Oh, cool!" I said, still not becoming lucid. I paid no attention to everyone else running inside, grabbing their things, and leaving as quickly as they could. I stopped one of my friends as he ran past, though. "Hey, c'mon!" I said. "Dude, are you NUTS!?" That of course had me puzzled, so I turned around to see what was making him leave the pool. I found my answer not in the water, but in the air. It was a Samson; a helicopter from Avatar. My friend ran away, but the wind from the propellers knocked me down before I could. A soldier riding on it jumped off, grabbed me, and somehow I was suddenly in an RDA uniform. He told me that I had to get a couple samples of plants for him, and then sent me off into the jungle on a Gator (the RDA's water craft). I found the samples and brought them back to find the soldiers shooting at viperwolves or something...I didn't get time to see for sure before I woke up.

Maybe tonight I can go back there and stay awhile...on the Na'vi side!


SIDENOTE: This is officially my 100th post on DV! :bravo:

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Well, that was a weird experience...last night, I mean.

The first dream I had, I went lucid. I didn't have time to do anything, though, because there was a man standing in front of me. "I am The Guardian, and The Guide." He said. I tried moving...and found myself unable to. "Listen to me, because this is very important: you will not be able to dream again tonight. If you follow my instruction, there is a chance you will, but you have to do everything perfectly." He then went on with his instruction, but being unable to move, I gradually lost lucidity and eventuallywoke up.

Weird, weird experience. Especially because...he was right! After that, I couldn't enter SP for long enough to dream. Whether I went into it intentionally or unintentionally, the SP would simply break after a few moments, and I could never hold on to any of the dreams that began to form . I couldn't even remember what the guy had told me to do in order to successfully dream. When it reached 6:00 or so, I managed to dream, but it was another dumb one, and not lucid.

I applied for a job at a cookie dough factory. I didn't get the job, but all of my would-be co-workers really wanted me to get it. This one odd girl especially wouldn't give up on me. She said it was just because I didn't know baking well enough, and that if I created an original recipe to sell to the company, they'd hire me in no time. With her minor assistance, then, I did just that (yep, right in the factory...no one told the manager I was there). It was late in the day by that point, so she told me that she'd keep the first batch of the new recipe in a safe place so I could show it to the manager the next day. That sounded fine to me, but when the next day came, I arrived at the factory to find everyone cheering on this odd girl for her new recipe...which was actually mine! "Oh, you gotta be kidding me!" I said to myself as I turned and left.

I don't think I'll ever understand how some of my dreams can be super-awesome and some can be super-stupid...like that one...

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

AVATAR FANS: Even though this one isn't lucid, you'll probably want to read it.

Blast! This morning I got woken up by someone knocking loudly on the door, so I didn't have a chance to work on dream recall. Fortunately, I woke up earlier and recalled my first dream of the night, but that's all I get this time.

So here's my one dream:

I was a Na'vi (well, a human in an Avatar) in a Na'vi camp. The odd thing was, I, along with several other Na'vi around me, had tan skin at first. Also, Pandora looked more like New Zealand than Pandora, but a short walk fixed that. Everyone's skin turned blue later on too; I'm not sure when.

We were preparing for war, and it fell to me to scout out the land and set up a few traps designed to stop the initial wave of human ground attack. I did so by running across the thick tree branches like pathways. I had to jump between them and maintain good balance, but somehow it was very easy to do. When I had a good idea of the surrounding territory and good, defensible positions, I went about placing traps. As I placed the last one, an exploding plant they called a 'hermit bud', I heard the footsteps of someone approaching from behind. "Oh no! He heard us!" A Na'vi voice said. It sounded like they dove behind a bush then, so I had a good idea of where to look. When I found the two runaway Na'vi, I grabbed them by their braids and threatened to cut their neural connectors off if they fought back (capitol punishment for a Na'vi). They were cowards, which is why they fled the fight in the first place, so my threat kept them quite cooperative on the way back to the camp.

The Na'vi chief was very impressed with me. I had scouted out the land and set the traps in the best possible places as well as captured and returned two deserters. As the deserters were tied to a post to await punishment, I was given a promotion, effective immediately to...well, I don't know what the Na'vi word for it was, but basically a general. This was great news for most people, but one general, who hated the Avatars, did not take so well to it. He was willing to fight with me as a subordinate, but not an equal. This general happened to be watching as he sat on his Ikran, so in his fury he simply took off and proclaimed he was going to join the humans. The Na'vi chief ordered the archers to take him down, but they were so shocked and flustered that they couldn't get armed in time.

A sinking feeling hit my stomach as I watched the general ride out of sight, unharmed. I imagine everyone else felt it, too, because the chief put a hand on my shoulder and turned me to face him. "You are both human and Na'vi," he said. "Only you can save us now." I didn't like it, but I understood his reasoning. Without their best strategic leader, they would need someone who understood well how human machines worked--and therefore how to break them--to balance out the gap in military strength that was left behind.

"My Name is Lincoln" started playing, as if it were a movie. I was suddenly in red general armor with warpaint (and blue skin now), leading a Na'vi team on Ikran. The sound of hundreds of approaching aircraft rang loud in the air, and it was only a few moments before what we were all dreading appeared: a Dragon Assault Ship, with a swarm of Samson fighters shortly behind. We had little time to think of what to do, as the Dragon's forward guns began picking off Na'vi and their Ikran. Most of us managed to get past the guns, but there was no way we would be able to defeat all of the aircraft with what weapons we had. Thinking quickly, I jumped off my Ikran, drawing my dual blades at the same time, landing on the back of the Dragon, near the back propellers. My blades couldn't instantly pierce the metal of the ship's hull, but they could dent it, and so after several strikes to the propeller's joint to the ship, I was confident I had a weak enough spot to do some damage. I raised both blades over my head and thrust them down, piercing the metal and the machinery beneath, disabling one the propeller. The Dragon lurched, suddenly losing its balance, but I knew the pilot was skilled enough to keep it in the air as it was. There was no more time; we were beginning to near Na'vi ground defenses, and if I took the ship down, it would kill too many of my allies. In a desperate attempt, I ran to the front of the ship and did a flip off the end, throwing one of my blades through the cockpit window and into the pilot inside. My Ikran flew by at just the right moment to catch me as I fell, and then flew away before any damage could be done to us. I looked over my shoulder and watched as the dragon lifted upward and tilted due to the imbalance in propellers, forming a wall for the Samson fighters. The bulk of the fighters couldn't get out of the way in time, and either collided with the Dragon or other Samson's. The few remaining fighters soon found themselves caught in the flames of the resulting explosion, finishing off the human air support with one blow. All airborne Na'vi let out a cheer, but our celebration was cut short. Through the smoke came the defective general, both his Ikran and himself clad in RDA armor. "Go help the ground troops!" I ordered my Na'vi subordinates. "I'll take this one myself!"

Sadly, I can't remember the details of that fight. It was a whirl of spinning, colliding, and exchanging blows, and I was slowly losing, being in the weaker armor. I do remember how the battle ended, though. No matter what I did, I couldn't do damage to the general...until I noticed one single weak spot. I drew my remaining blade and threw it right at the defective Na'vi, cutting his braid (and thus his neural connectors) in half. He was stunned, and so was his Ikran, who now was out of the general's control. It was only a moment before he lost his grip on his ride and fell to the ground, hundreds of feet below.

I could feel my Ikran getting weak, and I myself was bleeding, so I took us back to the camp, where upon landing, I was informed that even with the humans knowing our ground strategy, we had managed to hold them off once my Ikran-mounted soldiers had arrived. That had not been in the original plan, and therefore it surprised the human soldiers and ended up destroying their whole operation. Pandora was ours! Everyone began celebrating, and I soon woke up.

It's really a shame that wasn't a lucid dream, or it would have been really awesome. However, for not being lucid, I had an usual amount of mental presence. Not being lucid is to be expected right now, anyway.

While Naiya's reality checking tutorial is good and worked for me, it only did so because I had a couple days where I had the time to give myself a mental workout. I don't have that kind of time anymore, so I'm tweaking a few things and I believe I've finally found a reality check that is both mental and physical, quick and solid. It's just going to take a few days for it to become a good enough habit to break into my dreams.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Wow, my dream recall EXPLODED last night! None were lucid, but I came pretty close a couple times. Memories from real life got in more than once, and as each dream went on I started to question how it was possible. I didn't get any farther than that, though. I think I need to slightly tweak how I'm reality checking...


Dream 1: Well, I did it. Remember the girl I had flown around in my previous dream? I saw her again, and this time asked if she would go out on a date. She accepted, and we made plans before going our separate ways. That night on facebook we both changed our relationship status, and I started to be in disbelief about the whole situation. Questions started to arise concerning the impossibility of all of this, but I just accepted it as a fact that these things always work out in unbelievable ways and didn't RC.

I woke up for a short while after each dream, but basically rolled over and re-entered the same one.

Dream 2: We were actually going out on the date now. Sadly, I don't remember much of what happened, but the restaurant was nice and the food was good.

Dream 3: A few of my friends and I decided to make a movie, and I guess my church building was the best location for it, because we decided to take a night and film there all night long. When everyone was there and we had laid all of our stuff in one of the rooms, I remember one of my friends commenting that he saw my relationship status on facebook. I told him it was true, and even talked a little about the date. Once the camera was set up and ready to go, however, I sort of put that aside for the sake of making the movie. Everything was going well and we were getting great shots, but when we went outside to do some outdoor filming, there was this weird guy lurking in the shadows. The parking lot lights were on, so we caught a glimpse of his face beneath the black cloak he was wearing. The man was a bit heavy, with a rough-looking goatee, and what looked like brown warpaint on his forehead. He said nothing, he just watched us. We didn't notice him for a long time, even though several of us made comments that we thought we heard something. Of course we decided outdoor shooting was done for the night and we ran inside, locking all the doors to the building. "That thing on his forehead looked like a clan symbol or something," I said. "Who knows how many others he's got out there, hiding? Surrounding the building, even?" It seemed best to stop filming then, so we decided to turn off all the lights and hide in the storage room. It wasn't long before I fell asleep in there. No, I do not remember dreaming in my dream. When I woke up, it was light again, and all of us were safe. For a moment I felt like sleeping had been a good thing, but when I realized I had only gotten about three hours of it, my mind changed. I felt awful; really tired, weak, even shaky. My friends and I attempted to resume filming our movie, but just couldn't act anymore. We ended up calling it a day and heading home to sleep.

Dream 4: I was back home, and apparently had caught up on sleep, because I was feeling fine now. That didn't last long, though. The weird guy in the cloak burst into my house and declared that he was from the government. He had a couple other guys in cheap gray suits with him too, but they were more for threat factor than anything. Seeing I was outnumbered, I let the guy talk. He began by handing me a paper. "You sir," he said, "have been convicted by the federal government for piracy of video game music." "What!?" I shouted. "I legally own the game, don't I? I paid for the music, and I have shared it with no-one. How is ripping it from the disk for personal use piracy?" That stymied him a bit. But then one of his buddies spoke up. "Where did you rip the music to?" "Well, my hard drive." "Oh," the cloaked man said. "The hard drive...tsk tsk tsk." "How does that make it illegal?" A third guy spoke up. "Those songs which you have ripped to your hard drive were available on iTunes for a low price. I believe this game of yours even included links to places where these songs could be purchased for the sake of personal use." "Yeah, well I don't use iTunes, and I paid for the game, which includes the music, so what's wrong with me converting it to MP3's for personal use?" They didn't answer, but just pointed at the paper. "Your court hearing is in three weeks." The cloaked one said. "We'll see you then." He smiled wickedly and then left with his goons. "This is impossible." I said. "This doesn't make any sense...how would they even know that I converted the music?"

Dream 5: Now I was at Walmart, and I just had this knowledge about the fact that I had simply given in and paid for the music to keep from going to jail over it, and that had cleared everything up. Now I was going to pick up a Wii Motion Plus attachment, go home, and use my video games in peace . I walked up to the shelf and saw that there were no Motion Plus's there. "Wait a second, this seems familiar...didn't I already do this?" (Yes, I did, IRL...other than the government coming after me for converting video game music, that is)

Dream 6: My siblings, my parents, and I were on a vacation as a sort of personal family-reunion. We went on a vacation to this weird city...the entire thing was like a massive factory. Oily smoke billowed out of the rooftops of every building there, construction didn't seem to be finished on anything, as pipes and concrete and rusty metal beams were exposed everywhere. It was really a very dirty place...but something about it was attractive, too. I can't remember a whole lot of it as one continuous memory, but I recall first driving into the city by tightly winding, one-lane roads that were mounted up above the city buildings, and then spiraled downward until they reached the ground level. We drove around a bit from there on, checked into our hotel, and then looked around for a good place to eat. The buildings were actually pretty cool from ground level. Most of them were in a style that would have been retro were it not for the pipes and metal patches that made it all look modern. Inside the buildings was pretty cool as well, since all the appliances were steampunk, and the decorations and furniture looked to be a couple hundred years old. It would have made a very cool place for a movie.

So yeah, 6 dreams recalled last night, and never once did I go lucid. There's just something not right about that.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

I'm not sure how I didn't go lucid last night. My guess is that everything was just so normal, and my dream memory just barely bad enough to keep me from reality checking in full, that I never even noticed the possibility that I was dreaming

See what I mean in these two dreams I recalled (I was able to remain still when I woke up and think about the dreams this time!)

Dream 1: All was as normal as could be; I went about my day as I would go about any day. That kind of makes a long story short, because the dream was long and vivid, but hey, it was normal, so why waste time on that stuff? Anyway, at one point, I stopped to tell my brother about lucid dreaming. When I got to reality checking, he was kind of confused. "Why would I ask myself if I'm dreaming when I know I'm not?" "You want to ask that when you are in a dream. The only reason you ask during the day is so that you'll remember to in that dream." After that I had to leave and run some errands, and the normalness returned, but I kept thinking about reality checking.

So close...but not close enough.

Dream 2: My mom was telling me how she had been unable to get to sleep lately. "I don't have that problem anymore." I said. "I just put myself into sleep paralysis and I go right to sleep!" "Oh really?" She replied. "How do you do that?" "Well, it's simple." And then I went through the process, mentioning the possibility of lucid dreaming with the WILD method.

Honestly that's all I remember from that second dream...it wasn't very clear to begin with. But the fact that both dreams have a lot to do with lucid dreaming tells me that I'm close. I had other dreams, too, (I just couldn't remember them because I slept all night long instead of waking up three or four times as usual) and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they had similar content. I guess today I better beef up my RCing and see what happens!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Wow, last weekend must have messed up my LDing worse than I thought

I kept moving last night and letting my mind get distracted with other thoughts when I woke up, so I kept forgetting my dreams. I remember having at least 4, but I haven't the slightest idea of what the first three were. I'm positive none were lucid. Fortunately, with that last one, I was able to catch myself and remain still and silent to think about my dream. Not that it's much worth recalling, but hey, it's better than nothing.

I was keeping up with a house owned by a family that I know (IRL). They were on vacation and asked me to check their mail for them and do a couple other little things. Their daughter (who I have an...interesting history with) stayed behind, but she had to be out all day, which was why they asked me instead of her. Several days went by just fine, except for a strange woman who kept coming and asking if anyone of that family was there. When I told her 'no', she acted like she left, but I caught her stalking the place several times. A couple days, the daughter got home early, and actually was there when the woman (whose name, I learned from the daughter, was Maggie) asked if anyone besides me was home. Feeling a level of responsibility for protecting the daughter (if for no other reason, to help make up for our complicated and not-so-positive past), I still told Maggie 'no'. Somehow she knew I was lying; she persisted this time, but I refused to let her in. Eventually she left, but I knew there was trouble soon to come.

Finally, it reached the last day for this family to be on vacation, and for me to be at their house. Every time the daughter got home early, it was awkward between us. Neither of us really spoke. I decided to make the best of this last day. When the daughter got home, I looked her square in the eye, and cheerfully said, "Hello! Sorry I'm always at your house...I guess this is it, though!" She didn't respond as positively as I had hoped. "Yeah...I guess so." I didn't blame her, considering what we'd been through. I started to gather up my things. "Actually, I'm pretty much done around here, so I can go right now." "Ok." The daughter said. After a moment, she stopped me. "Hey! Um...thanks. You did a lot of work this week, and...well, I appreciate it." I smiled and prepared to leave. But just then, Maggie burst into the room. "What do you think you're doing!?" She shouted at the daughter. "After what he's done? You're just going to let him go? And thank him!?" and then Maggie prepared to spit out a bunch of dumb ideologies and philosophies about life. I can't remember exactly what they were, but think along the lines of "embrace your anger; make the dark side your ally." I had had just about enough of Maggie. So I grabbed a nearby PVC pipe, watched as Maggie turned to rant at the daughter, and then, when no one was looking at me, I took a swing at her, landing a blow right on the head. She turned around and glared at me something awful, then grabbed at the pipe as I swung again. She was incredibly strong, and snapped the Pipe in half like it was a toothpick. Unfortunately for her, this left a jagged edge to my half of the pipe, turning it into a very vicious weapon. We went back and forth, exchanging blows, blocking each others, and even though Maggie was unarmed, it took me a long while to land enough damage to weaken her. Eventually, though, I took a spin and plunged the sharp end of the pipe right into Maggie's stomach, knocking her back onto a nearby bed. She knew she was done for, so again she resumed spitting out dumb ideologies. The worst part of it was, that as I glanced at the daughter, I could see she was giving in and beginning to believe Maggie's words. "Can't you see he hates you for believing me!?" Maggie shouted. The daughter dropped to her knees and began to cry. I stood motionless for a moment, the PVC pipe raised and ready to finish off the strange woman. I had her incapacitated for a moment, so I lowered the pipe and carefully approached the crying daughter. I gently laid a hand on her shoulder. "I really don't hate you." She looked up at me. "I hate the devil; I do not hate the deceived." I extended a hand to help the daughter up, but it was also as a way to declare her side in the battle, and all three of us knew it. Maggie resumed her rant, but it didn't stop the daughter from taking my hand and standing up. "Go." She said. With that, I smashed the PVC pipe down on Maggie, which turned her face blue, and the next turned all of her skin blue, and the next turned everything--teeth, eyes, hair--blue, and then one last blow made a light shoot from her eyes and mouth, and then disintegrate her, just like Smith on the third Matrix. Actually, somehow I knew then that she was Smith, just in disguise. I woke up soon after that.

Just as a sidenote to this dream, I don't generally go around and beat people up with PVC pipes

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Day 2 of the reboot on my lucid dreaming schedule. No LD's from it yet, but that is to be expected, I suppose. It takes a while to make a habit. But the good thing is, I was successfully able to maintain decent dream recall last night, with the addition of reality checks during the day. Last time I tried doing those two things at once, working this hard at it, it took me days to be able to do one without forgetting to do the other equally as hard.

Three dreams again. So far I've had no need to set alarms; my mind wakes me up after each dream that I remember.

Dream 1: I was at my church, but for some reason the service was not in the main auditorium. Only a handful of people were there, my brother being one of them. The funny thing is, he goes to a different church closer to where he lives. All of a sudden, one of my sisters stood up in the middle of everything that was going on, ran over to my brother, and started crying. And I mean really bawling. IRL, my brother is thinking about moving to another country, and even though nobody mentioned it in the dream, I just knew that was the cause of my sister's tears. The entire service was cancelled because she was making such a big deal, and everyone walked my brother out to his car. Pretty soon, everyone but him and me were crying. He wasn't crying because he was the one that was leaving, so he couldn't miss himself, and I wasn't crying because I understood his purpose for going, and as a guy, going somewhere far away for fulfill that purpose isn't a sad concept to me.

I'm not really sure what to think about that one. Is there a part of me that feels that saddened over him leaving that it got into my dreams? Or is it instead that I see myself as the only one not feeling that saddened over it? This I am not sure.

Dream 2: I was part of some Zune hacking forums. My project: run Windows XP on my Zune 30. It's technologically possible, I suppose. Impractical, since my Zune 30 has no touch screen, but possible. It took the forum guys and me a while, but eventually we figured we were really close to success. I had to go on a trip, so I took my Zune with me and played around with the codes on-board. Not sure how I did that, seeing as there's no keyboard, but somehow I just pressed buttons and the right letters were typed in . Eventually, I actually got it to work! It booted up and loaded properly. I even opened Windows Media Player 11 on it and was able to import all of my Zune's music to it. "Yes!" I shouted, drawing the attention of everyone else in the plane. "Look, look! See! I got Windows XP running on my Zune!" I showed some random guy. I listened to a couple songs, watched a couple video clips...and then woke up.

There's not much question about my mind with that one. Yep, that's how it works, for ya. Always taking handheld computers and using them for things they were never meant to do. I haven't done anything on my Zune, but I ran Linux on my Tungsten E2, so maybe I'll make this dream a reality someday.

Dream 3: I was afraid I was forgetting my previous dreams. I had fallen asleep too quickly to take down notes, or even come up with some catchy phrase that reminds me of the dreams as I usually do. I was in my room, so I woke up my computer (which happened to be running Ubuntu at the time) and OpenOffice was there, with full descriptions of both dreams. I read back through them, and found them to be completely accurate. I finished reading none too soon, since right after I was done I woke up.

Pretty handy dream, I think. If only I could do that every night as my last dream...it would make recall SO much easier

Whelp, those were my dreams from last night! I'll keep working on dream recall and reality checking as I have recently learned from Naiya's excellent tutorials!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Well, I figure it's time for me to have a consistent LD schedule. Ever since I started lucid dreaming, it's been really inconsistent. Everything was still an experiment, so I suppose it was appropriate for the time. But now, I know how the different methods work, and it's high time for me to go for one and stick with it for a while.

So hit reboot on the operation...I'm starting over from the beginning with the hopes of enabling myself to LD more frequently and consistently.

The first thing to work on is dream recall, so I focused on that last night. Rather than start thinking about something as soon as I woke up, I remained still and thought back through my dream. When at first I felt I couldn't remember anything, I turned to questioning. "Ok, who was in my dream?" That one worked the best, considering my dreams last night had several people from real life in them. By the time morning came around and dreaming was done, I had successfully recalled 3 dreams!

Dream 1: There was a storm coming. A big, bad one. Even during the day, the sky was darkened with clouds to the point of looking like night. No one knew exactly when the storm would come, but the one thing that was for certain was that when it did, no one would be able to get out and shop for necessities. So I found myself riding from place to place, helping my mom stock up for the storm (I don't remember ever stocking up for myself, though ). The weird thing was, as we drove, it wasn't on normal roads. All of the roads were stacked up vertically, one on top of the other, and each country had its roads located at different heights. We were, of course, in the USA section of roads, but we nearly fell through a hole in the road one time, on our way to a library. "Why are we stopping at the library to stock up for a storm?" I asked. "Because if the power goes out," my mom replied, "we'll need something to do." "Great." So we went inside, and parted ways to look for books that interested us. As I rounded one corner, I saw Brad (a friend IRL) standing there. "Hey!" I said. "Are you stocking up for the storm here, too?" "No, I'm just checking out some books for a chemistry test. Doesn't matter if the whole world closes down; school's going to keep going." "Yeah, that stinks. So did you get a chance to try out the mod yet?" (I made a game mod for Brad IRL) "Yeah, that was awesome! It worked perfectly! Totally changed the way I played the game. Thanks for that!" I don't remember what we said after that, but it wasn't long before I left the library and told my mom that I would drive her back home...she hadn't driven too well on the way there, which is why we nearly fell through the hole. Didn't do much good, though, because not long after we got going, a lightning bolt struck the road next to the car and knocked it clear off the edge of the road! It fell, down, down, down, until we landed on the roads of Russia. There was no elevator that would simply take us back up to USA roads...and the Russian authorities were not too happy with us getting there without Visa's/passports/anything like that. Off the side of the road, I saw a staircase that looked like it went up to the USA roads...so I began to fight off the Russian police and make my way there, but I woke up too soon. What fight there was was pretty epic, though. It was dark, raining in torrents, and I knew Jujitsu.

Dream 2: This dream was just plain dumb, but for some reason I dreamed it, and I have to recall it, so here it is. Somehow I met up with the replicator man (from recent episodes of Heroes.) Somehow I also found out that he wasn't evil, and had an attraction to Claire Bennet (also from Heroes). He also was afraid that Claire would never like him in return, "Because," he said, "I've been weird around her in the past...and my room is all messy." "What?" "Yeah, I live in a loft...and there's no way a girl would like coming over there with it like I've got it right now." "Well, how about this:" I suggested. "I'll organize your room for you, and then you'll be able to convince Claire to come over and give you a chance. When she sees what's been done, she'll know that you're making honest efforts." "Except you'd be making the effort, not me." He pointed out. "Umm...yeah." "Go ahead and do it." So I did. He wasn't kidding that it was a mess. But magically, I achieved great organization skills and got the place looking really nice. When I had him come look, he pointed to his coin collection. "I had those stacked by value, and you just put them all in a jar! You call that organization?" "Whatever..." So I took the coins out and put them in a coin sorter (I guess I pulled it out of thin air). "There. Happy now?" "Yep." But then, rather than invite Claire over, he got some punk buddy of his to come and play cards and listen to junky music. I mean, seriously, it sounded awful. There was nothing musical about it. "So...when are you going to invite Claire over?" I asked. At first I had no response, because the 'music' was too loud. So I literally killed the stereo with a smash of my fist, then repeated the question. "I did this so you could have Claire over, now when is she coming?" "Alright, alright, I'll call her already...sheesh." He sent his buddy away and pretty soon Claire was there. The stereo was suddenly fixed and he had his crap music playing again. (I cannot believe how dumb this dream is...) He and Claire were sitting on the couch. "So, do you like what I did to the room?" He asked. Claire looked disgusted. "You know...yeah, I like what you did to the room, but...I just don't feel the same way about you as you feel about me. Sorry." So she left. "Ok, whatever, man." He said, totally unhurt. "Hey, turn up the music, will ya?" He said to me as he turned on the TV.

Dream 3: This was kind of dumb, but it was at least entertaining because it was funny. A bunch of extended family members were dropping by one day, pretty unexpectedly. Well, dropping by at my parent's place. I, along with a couple of my brothers and sisters, were already at my parent's house, and that's also where the extended family was dropping by. Everyone seemed pretty worried about the food situation. "All we have is meatloaf!" My mom said. "Well, why not just make more of it?" I suggested. "You just can't do that with meatloaf!" "Why not?" "Because meatloaf just doesn't work that way." "Wow, ok..." and I backed off. Everyone else started to join in on fretting about the food, and it was bugging me, so I went upstairs and checked my email on the computer. I don't remember what was there, but it was enough to keep me busy until everyone was at the table and ready to eat. When I came down, every seat was filled, so I was going to head off to grab another chair, when I heard someone comment about the lack of food again. "Just try making more!" "No! But you just can't do that with meatloaf! It won't work!" everyone shouted at me. So I just went to grab the chair. When I got back to the dining room with it, I was told there was no room left. "I'll just go to the corner...I can hold the plate in my lap or something." "No! No!" They shouted. "There's just no room!" "Oh, so it's like the meatloaf?" I asked, frustrated. "GAAH! You just can't do that with meatloaf!" my sister shouted angrily. The thing was, I found out they were right about the chair situation. I really couldn't get my chair around to the corner because I kept on bumping everyone with it trying, and that made them all the more upset (and with each bump, the dream got weaker and weaker). "FINE! I'll take my plate upstairs." "No! No! You can't do that." But I did. I walked right into the room with the TV and turned it on. "Can't do that with meatloaf....ha! That's just nonsense." When the TV came on, it was a commercial. "Figures." But I watched the commercial anyway. It was some weird thing about a medicine to fight depression in teen girls. For some reason, its jingle was "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee". Finally, the dream ended and I woke up.

The dreams were obviously nothing special, but hey, I remembered 3 dreams very well in one night of trying when lately I've been doing good to remember even 1! If I keep this up, as well as other aspects of setting a LD schedule, I'm sure I'll start LDing again in no time!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

I think trying a different method of induction every night is messing me up. I haven't done the exact same thing even twice in a row for a while, and actually, the last time I did the same thing twice in a row was the last time I had a lucid dream

So if you haven't guessed...no lucids. Again. I remembered one dream pretty well, though.

I was in some building with great architecture...it looked to be a couple hundred years old, at least. And this was a huge building I'm talking about. I went in there because of impression and because it was rigged to look like some store. But as soon as I got inside, I realized it was far different than what the outside made it out to be. I was denied exit; guards and hovering robot cameras all watched me, and if I tried to leave, they would see to it that I didn't make it out. I tried every traditional exit, and when that failed, I tried windows and rooftops as well. Still I was caught every time and forced to stay. Eventually admitting defeat, I sagged against the wall and slid to the floor. But then I felt something...the wall was giving way. After waiting for the hovering robot to pass by on its patrol, I pushed in on the brick wall, and found several of them to be loose. Pretty soon there was a hole just big enough for me to go through, so I did, and then I ran. I was in some sort of sewer system, but I just ignored the flow of...water, on the ground. Of course the robots found the whole and started to chase after me, so I hid every place I could as I went along. It took me hours, but finally I found a manhole cover that got me out of there. My first reaction to being free was to warn others not to go inside, but they either ignored me or told me I was crazy. Once, I noticed someone walking up the steps to the building's entrance, and I ran up to stop her, but she just looked angry and told me, "I come in and out of here all the time! What makes you think you have any business telling me what not to do, beggar?" "Beggar?" I thought. Then I looked at myself. Running all over the place, (and through the sewers) had left me dirty, smelly, and with holes in my clothes in several places. I cautiously followed her inside, and I noticed my dad sitting on a bench next to the door. "Dad, come on, we've got to get out of here now!" "Where have you been?" My dad asked. "I was waiting for you; I thought you were in here." "I was, but they wouldn't let me leave!" "What?" Just then, that woman walked by and straight out the door, and the security guard tipped his hat to her. I grabbed the guard by the neck, feeling as dirty as I looked. I wanted to strangle him for having stopped me, but now acting like it never happened so as to make me seem like the madman. There was a short scuffle, but eventually I was thrown out the door, and everyone thought I was crazy. I ran off, and woke up.

Very frustrating dream.

If only I had realized it was a dream, then I could have changed it! I really want to lucid dream about Pandora...a five-second non-lucid dream about it just isn't good enough for me.