Lokoloi

Last night’s dream was all over the place.

One of the things I remember trying hardest to hold onto was a character I identified as me. They were cartoonishly drawn, I think in the style of *Cookie Run Kingdom*, which makes sense since I’ve been playing that game lately. The character had red skin and green hair. I can’t remember if they were dreads—with some dreads green and some red—or just really long locks with alternating red and green strands. Either way, they had a distinct look. The character also had a red right eye and a green left eye.

I was trying to remember that part the most, but I forgot a lot of the details. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s just my desire to try again—rather than remember the dream, I feel like I try to relive it in a new attempt. There was also a part where I was playing a *Destiny* expansion that I apparently made up. Something about "The First and Last"—not entirely sure. The dream felt familiar, like I’d had it before. I think I dreamed it once already. In this part, I was trying to start a quest. Oh yes, I *definitely* did have this dream before. It was the same style of dream, involving *Destiny*, but the last time I dreamed it, I was doing a raid I’d never seen before. It was this really cool, techno-futurist raid that kind of looked like what you’d see on Neomuna, which didn’t even exist at the time I had that dream.

Anyway, in this version, I was trying to start a quest involving the Cabal. I had a really big TV. Some of the dream took place inside the game, as usual, but some of it happened outside of it, which was new. I was in a really large space with a bunch of kids around. It was supposed to be my room, but it was huge—everything was supersized beyond normal proportions. My monitor was like a 55-inch TV, and my keyboard was massive. I remember telling my Aunt Adele and my grandpa to keep an eye on my setup while I stepped away because I didn’t want any of the errant kids nearby messing with it.

Other than that, nothing too important.

**Summary:**

There were three main dream fragments:

1. A *Cookie Run* style dream where I had a character version of myself that looked really nice and was animated well.
2. A continuation of a previous dream involving a fictional *Destiny 2* expansion—details are fuzzy, since I’m remembering it hours later.
3. A scene with my aunt where I was trying to make sure none of the random kids around were messing with my setup.

ATTEMPT
Last night’s attempt didn’t go well. Instead of sticking to the plan I had rehearsed, I ended up doing something completely different again. This is becoming a pattern: abandoning a technique after just one failed attempt and chasing novelty instead. I can see now that this behavior is holding me back, especially when it comes to making real progress.

What I *meant* to do was wake up, walk around the house to raise my awareness, and spend a minute or two thinking about the lucid dream I was about to enter and what I would do once I became lucid and how I’d maintain that lucidity. Then, I planned to do some progressive muscle relaxation followed by a few rounds of 4-7-8 breathing. During that breathing, I would check for hypnagogic imagery. If it was behind my eyes, I’d keep going; if I saw it in front of me, I’d know it was time to dive into the dream.

The actual plan was simple: wake up, raise awareness, mentally rehearse, relax deeply, and go into a WILD. But instead, I woke up, felt too tired, and decided to just wing it. Of course, it didn’t work. I’ve already analyzed what went wrong, and moving forward, I’m going to actually follow the plan as closely as possible. It’s ironic—I skipped out on a technique that was already a shortened version of an older, longer one I used to do. I remember buying a Fitbit back in the day just to try and time these DEILDs (Dream Exit Initiated Lucid Dreams), but its REM tracking wasn’t accurate enough to rely on.

To make those DEILDs happen consistently, I need to wake up at the start of a REM cycle and fall back asleep almost immediately. That’s tricky, but not impossible—timing is just really hard to get right because REM cycles are so elusive. Still, I’m sticking to my plan tonight. I’ll shut things down by midnight to give my eyes a break from blue light, fall asleep, and aim to wake around 4:30 AM. Then I’ll get up, do the routine, and ideally enter a lucid dream. Even though the technique didn’t work the first time, that’s just one data point. I need more tries—at least three—to fairly evaluate whether it works. One failure doesn’t mean the method is flawed. I’m committing to following through this time.