non-lucid

I was in a store, buying clothes. This store was similar in layout to a sporting goods store, but instead of sporting equipment, it had designer clothes everywhere. My mom was there with me, as was my step dad. My mom kept picking out clothes for me that I didn't like, and every time I turned down her picks mt step dad would make some sort of passive aggressive remark towards me. Though strangely every time she picked out some clothes, I would snap and yell at her; this is strange because I never yell, and I'm almost never angry. But I specifically remember one of her choices being a think brown sweater, that looked like it was a medium or large in the chest and a small or extra-small in the waste (a bit misshapen). i was repulsed by this selection to which I replied: "What are you thinking?! It's like a thousands degrees outside!!" After I shouted this she recoiled and apologized. I walked around a bit and found a gray beanie, and a gray sweater (almost exactly like the one my mom picked out, but a different color); I then proceeded to put the sweater and beanie on. I walked around the store in these out of place dark duds just looking at all the displays and racks of merchandise; there were millions of clothing articles, lining each isle. Walking by a glass counter, the kind where you would ordinarily see guns or jewelry being sold, I saw an old acquaintance form school (if I remember her name right, i think it was Rachel.. idk it's been a while since I've seen her); we gave a quick wave to each other and I continued to walk by. I woke up while aimlessly wandering around this brightly lit store.

I remember standing in a shower, fully clothed, but the water wasn't running. I was wearing a nicely tailored suit and my girlfriend was sitting down on the other end of the tub, she too was fully dressed. We were answering some questions that a reporter of some kind was asking us (though I don't remember exactly what the questions were haha) Ironically, I remember the answer I gave him which was : "Don't worry, next time I'll remember to... *memory cuts out*." And my girlfriend said, "oh he's just saying that, don't believe him for a second." Looking back now that makes me laugh haha sorry DC but I didn't remember, my girlfriend was right I pulled out a wad of papers from my coat pocket and began sifting through them. They included one plane ticket, one receipt from StarBucks, and one empty gum package (Trident Layers to be exact)

Suddenly the dream scene changed and I was standing in a clearing in a wooded pine area (it looked like the area of Washington State where I used to live). I was on a wooden staircase that led to the edge of an above ground pool, which was about 30 feet tall; not only was it above ground but it was also an inflatable pool. I was seeing this new dream scene from the point of view of the reporter, and I was now interviewing myself. I (not me me, but the me who I was interviewing) was still wearing the nice tailored suit, and I (the interviewee) was holding some sort of gadget. Like the controller to a remote control car or something. I (the interviewer) asked me (the interviewee) what I did in my spare time. I (the interviewee) answered by saying: "Oh not much, just this and that, you know just balding around." That's when I noticed I (the interviewee) had a thinning hairline.

Then I woke up
*I know, that was a weird dream, talking to yourself autoscopically is always weird haha. And there was more to the dream, I'm just trying to keep these DV posts short by covering the main points of interest

I attribute this dream of sparse recollection to the extreme amount of stress that's been in my life recently. As most of us know that stress is extraordinarily detrimental to dream recall; and I've been having quite a bit of stress, making dream journal entries difficult

I remember being very upset, I remember this emotion to be surprisingly vivid. I was upset because of my concern for some sort of change in my sleep schedule; I think it was because I wasn't getting enough sleep or something, I don't know for sure (as stated earlier this dream was of very sparse recollection).
I also remember the image of Count Dracula (the literal Count Dracula that actually existed in Transylvania, not the fictional movie character Dracula), and I remember talking about him; asking somebody (I can't remember who I was talking to): "Do you even know what Dracula looks like?!" For some strange reason unbeknownst to me, we were talking about vampirism as if it was an actual disease; and if it's beneficial or detrimental to survival.

Anybody know some tips for helping with dream recall?
And if you do answer, please don't give me that obvious answer "oh you should just read the dream recall tutorial."

This is my first dream journal entry that I've ever posted to any sort of public domain, I'm a bit apprehensive about it (for the fact that dreams are, quite literally, very personal) so please any positive feedback that you feel might help me in my pursuit of obtaining lucidity on a regular basis; would be greatly appreciated.

And i'm not certain as to the appropriate length for a public dream journal entry, let me know if this is too long.

The dream began with me sitting in my classroom, where I was on the computer researching lucid dreaming (I know you may think that something like that would a clear dream sign, but I actually do that quite often in the waking world). I proceeded to get up from my computer and walk over to my teacher, I couldn't understand what she was saying when she spoke to me though. It was some sort of audio that sounded like normal English, if it were to be put in slow motion and played underwater that is.

I accepted this strange speech as normal and went back to my computer; where instead of lucid dreaming research on the screen as it was previously, there was now Latin grammar reviews and vocabulary (and I know you may think that's another dream sign, but I'm studying Latin right now too; so that's actually pretty normal for me as well). Even though they say reading is supposed to be extremely difficult in dreams, all of the text was clear and legible; even the smallest of print. For some reason I just spent a large amount of time re-formatting these documents on Microsoft Word for some strange, unknown reason. But even though I was dreaming, and many sources say that computers and their programs should not work well (or whatsoever) in dreams, all the programs and mechanics were essentially the same as they would be in the waking world.

I then looked out the window were I saw ambulances and police cars circling the building at extremely high speeds, while blaring their sirens and lights at what seemed like "full blast" (I say 'what seemed like,' for i don't think there is any other setting on them other than 'on'). They just seemed much louder than they normally would be. This is when I looked over to my left and on the computer adjacent to me was my friend, who told me about a party she was having later that night and that she wanted me to come. I remember her voice, but not so much her face; I'm not even sure if in the dream she had a face, but that's somewhat beside the point. She said that her friend was the one handling the invitations, and that she would tell her to give me and my friends one each. This is when her friend, who looked of some sort of Asian decent and basically your everyday stuck up high school prep. Tossing the invitation on my shoulder (as my back was turned to her due to the fact that I was on the computer) she wrinkled her nose at me in disgust and said : "It's a formal party so you'd better dress better than everybody else!" She then gave the same look of disdain to each of my friends as she handed them the same invitations. She handed these invitations to my friends who had not previously been there; aka they must've materialized there when I turned my back or something (I'm not sure when though). These friends were strange though (apart from their materialization), as I'm not actually friends with them in the waking world; and many of them I haven't seen in years regardless of my disconnection with them.

We all just laughed as the judgmental, superficial mess of a girl walked away with her false-piousness. We each looked down and read the invitations; the text of which was morphing and changing in some strange way (even though I was looking directly at it, and from what I understand from my research it normally changes when you look away) that I wasn't able to read a single bit of it (ohhh that brought me back to my drugs using days hahaha).

Suddenly, me and all these "friends," if you'd be so inclined as to call them that, were in a desert canyon landscape; an extremely close comparison would be the grand canyon region, but instead of a large hole (as the grand canyon is) the landscape was littered with a enormously grand variety of desert plateaus. There was a single two-lane road in this wilderness, that me and this group of friends were walking along the side of; specifically, about a foot or two to the right of the road. And where the sun was brightly shining through the windows while I was in the classroom, the moon now dominated the canvas of the night sky now that I was in this desert. I then noticed that me and all these friends I was with, were wearing brand-new designer suits; as if we had just came from the store after buying them.

After walking along for a minute or so, we came to a bridge; were there was no shoulder or side walk to walk on, just the two lanes and side rails. (This next part I didn't write in my paper journal, as I didn't have room to fit it in and I've only just remembered it) When we were about to cross the bridge, a car had came across and stopped on the bridge; there were some Mexican gangsters driving it, and they were looking for a fight. Were in the waking world I would gladly stand my ground and throw fists (I train almost everyday, and I find MMA quite... fun ), in this dream world all my friends ran down into the ravine that the bridge was crossing over; seeing how five knife and/or gun wielding against just myself didn't seem like an extremely advisable decision, I ran as well.

Going further down into the chasm that the bridge was built over, we came to a gap that the only way to the other side, was to jump. And I knew that in order to get where we were going (my friend's formal party), we would have to get to that other side. This split was about six to seven feet across, and looking up the bridge was now about thirty to forty feet above our heads at this point. The first of my friends began a running start and leaped over the edge, he made it. The second friend did the same, and with a bound he cleared the distance as well. It was now my turn, I looked for a suitable place to land and saw a rock ledge that was a bit lower and closer than the rest of the opposing edge. I saw that there was something on this ledge though, it was a shirt that I own in the waking world; it's a maroon button up, collared shirt with an impressionist's style skull adorning an Indian chief's headdress on the back side. The shirt was lying on the stone in such a way that I could clearly see this image of the Indian skull from where I was standing. This seemed a bit ominous to me, so I chose a ledge that was a bit higher, and a little farther away. I ran and leaped over the chasm, and surprisingly with relative ease. The friend who had jumped after me though, decided to jump on the ledge were my shirt was; he jumped, he landed, and the ground broke into pieces as his feet hit the clothe. He fell down into the void and broke his leg, the rest of us proceeded to laugh (which is not customary as I'm a very empathetic individual). The fallen friend exclaimed from the bottom: "There was algae! I slipped on that log!" At this we all just rolled our eyes, for we knew there was no log, and that there was no algae anywhere in this environment.

We left this ill-fortuned comrade in the chasm, and proceeded on toward the party; as we refused to be late. Walking along we saw the building, we were atop a hill that, and at the bottom (about one-hundred yards away) we could see the lights and hear the music from inside the structure. We began to walk down this hill which was at about a 45 degree incline. When walking down the incline, the ground gave way beneath our feet; after which we commenced to tumble down the hill. So we rolled and rolled down the hill for approximately ninety yards. When we reached the bottom, we had reached our destination.

Once inside the building, I saw that despicable girl who'd given us the invitations and another girl who was my friend but one who I haven't seen in over a year; along with many, many other guests dancing and conversing inside. My friend (whom I'm not quite sure if she was the one who invited me, or if she just so happened to be friends with that friend as well) became angry with me and my group, she harshly inquired: "Why don't you look like us?!" Confused, I look at my party and assume shes talking about how our clothes are somewhat tattered from the tumble; but then I looked around. I noticed that everybody was wearing blue jeans and/or semi-casual clothing; that snobby prep had lied to us about the formal dress of the party. She thought (or at least I knew that she thought that while I was dreaming) that we were attempting to "out do" everyone at the party. That superficial girl from the beginning of my dream just looked at me with a satisfied smirk.

Then, my alarm woke me up.