martakartus

I was in my bedroom, lying on my bed, and a friend of mine was lying on my sister's bed. We were in a zombie apocalypse. There was one sitting down and leaning on the wall, but it didn't see us, so I told my friend we should rest, because we had found a safe spot. She was pointing a gun at its head and I tried to convince her not to shoot it, because the sound would only draw more zombies. She listened and we tried to rest.

During a few moments of peace I had, I thought of how frustrating it was to be in the apocalypse, because there was no way of escaping. Then, it hit me all of a sudden: "wait, but I can escape this, because this is a dream. There is no zombie apocalypse in waking life. This is just a series of recurring dreams I'm having about zombies and I can end it now". Then, I looked at my hands to do a RC. I thought I had to see more than five fingers in each hand. At first sight, I could only see five, but when I checked again I saw six or seven in my left hand and about eleven in the right hand. I got up of the bed and saw Michelle Knight (I don't know why it was her) standing there. She wasn't exactly a zombie, but looked scary. I knew I had to talk to her, she was like the embodiment of the bad feelings of the dream. As calmly as I could, I said to her: "why do we hurt each other? Why can't we just get along?" Her complexion changed at once. Suddenly, she looked calm, her skin was soft and she looked at me intently with big bright beautiful blue eyes. At the same time, all feelings of fear and frustration vanished. I walked around the room, admiring the vividness. I would say this is the most real dream I've ever had.

Then, I got out of the bedroom. There was no apocalypse anymore. I went down some escalators and, as I did, I imagined the neuronal pathways involved in lucid dreaming getting stronger the longer the dream lasted (sorry, I know this is weird ). But also, I thought (and it was a big mistake) that if the dream lasted for too long, I would forget about the details, but I didn't want to wake up yet.

Eventually, I made it to a playground. I sat down on a thin mattress to think of what to do next. I thought it'd be a good idea to make some affirmations to myself. I made two: the first one I can't remember and in the second one I asked to become lucid more often. We'll see if this last one has an effect.

Finally, someone called my attention from inside a car and the dream finished.

I've had this strange false awakening today. Well, like every other false awakening, I found myself in my bed. Still lying down, I tried to recall the dreams I had had. There were at least four of them and one of them was a lucid. I remembered quite some details about all of them, but when I woke up for good I was unable to recall anything more than this. I wonder if the dreams I recalled within the dream actually were dreams I had had during the night or just mere projections that appeared at that moment.

It all started with a false awakening. My bedroom looked weird and I became suspicious at once. I had a look at the corridor and I knew something wasn't right, that had to be a dream. I went back to my bedroom and closed the door behind me. I did a nose-pinch RC, but I couldn't breathe through my nose. "This can't be possible, I'll try something else". The room was quite dark, so I put my left hand up towards the only source of light (the window) and I counted my fingers. Six in total. Okay, I'm dreaming. As I was heading for the door to leave the room, a fat man with a yellow T-shirt opened the door and jumped on me. My bed is quite close to the door, so he easily pinned me down to the bed, holding my wrists by my head. I quickly reacted and said "you are just a dream". My voice sounded very weird and it didn't make any effect on him, so I shouted "clarity now" twice (this seems to be the magic sentence for me to bring vividness and awareness to my dreams). I then closed my eyes to calm myself and decide how to deal with the situation. I am reading one of LaBerge's books and the chapter I'm in right now is about how to treat violent DCs. Since his advice is to approach them friendly knowing they can't hurt you instead of trying to flee from them or make them disappear, I did just that. I opened my eyes and told him: "this is a dream, so you can't hurt me". He looked surprised and let go of my wrists. Ideally, I would've tried to engage in some kind of conversation, but the dream transitioned into another one.

I then found myself walking into a very nice living room or dining room, sort of. Many things in it were made of wood, including a table at which three people were sitting in silence. It looked like a fairytale house, and the whole setting was brigther than the first dream. Still lucid, I went near one of the round windows and looked outside, to see other fairytale-looking houses surrounded with flowers, trees and grass. The colours were extremely vivid. I then went to the table and sat down with those people. I was curious as to what level of lucidity I might be experiencing, so I asked the DCs to see how they reacted: "I'm very curious, were you guys already here before I entered the dream or did we all appear at the same time?". A girl answered me: "since this is your dream, you created it all at the same time, the fact that we were already sitting here is because you appeared outside the room and then came in". Nice, high level of awareness, I thought. I then sensed the dream was about to change again, despite there weren't any vibrations or anything. I wanted to keep lucid, so I focused on this.

The transition was neat. I was at a street walking with my boyfriend. I wanted to know if I was still in a high level of awareness (for some reason, I seemed obsessed with this, maybe because I had never experienced transitions like these before). I thought of how to approach him properly and I finally said "hey, do you know this is a dream?". He looked around surprised and said "I didn't know... but it could be, I guess". Before I could word anything else, he proceeded: "and you, have you ever thought that in waking life you could be part of a big dream and unaware of it?". "Yes, I have", I told him. In fact, I've been toying with the idea of the so-called 'collective consciousness' for a while, so he basically voiced my thoughts. I wish this conversation would've gone on for a bit longer, but I transitioned into another dream and finally lost lucidity.

It was a pretty interesting experience. Specially because these last two weeks my dream recall has fluctuated quite a lot and I haven't once come close to lucidity. Yesterday night, I did a WBTB along with SSILD without results. Today, I involuntarily woke up at the same time the alarm had gone off the day before (very like me). It was the early hours of the morning and I had a hard time falling back asleep, so I just watched my breating to have something to focus on (this helps me with my insomnia sometimes). So, Breating Induced Lucid Dream, maybe? (Does that even exist?)

Well, regardless, I'm very happy to have been able to have such an experience. Looking forward to the next.

I've been having pretty disturbing dreams about my ex these last few nights. See, we were in a healthy relationship for three years and a half, but we started going out when we were almost 15 and we simply grew apart. I broke up with him over two years ago and we haven't kept in touch since, even though it was a clean break-up. Now I have been happily in a relationship with another guy for a while. Thing is, I bumped into my ex last Friday and we had a two-minute interaction, the typical "how's it going". The next day, sacred coincidence, I bumped into him again at a concert, but we didn't talk much either. Both times it felt quite awkward because we never meet anymore and we hadn't even seen each other in almost a year. Then the series of dreams started.

They started two days ago. I dreamt he sent me a Fb friend invitation (he removed his Fb profile some months ago and made a new one just recently, so we're not friends) and left me a message asking why I avoided any chance of talking to him. Yesterday, I dreamt he tried to cut off my legs with a chainsaw. And today I had a dream which involved him and his mother in a pretty nasty way (sexually, somehow), but I can't quite recall the action, I just remember I woke up feeling quite disgusted. Seriously, unconscious mind, what the hell are you trying to tell me?

Of course, all of them were non-lucids. Had I been lucid, I'd have tried to find a way to figure out what was going on.

I've had a brief, yet curious lucid tonight. I had set an alarm 4.5h into sleep to do a WBTB+SSILD. I got up and read a few pages of one of LaBerge's books, which I started reading a few days ago. Then I went back to sleep and did the SSILD normally. I managed to be more focused than other times, so I was quite sure I would succeed. Some hours afterwards I was woken up by my mum, who was trying to get my sister out of bed. The awakening was quite confusing and I lost details of the dream as a result. But anyway, I think I remember the important part.

In the dream I was having a drink outdoors with someone, I think it was my brother. I even remember the position I was sitting in. It hit me right away... "I am dreaming". Unlike other lucids, I didn't do any RC. Instead, I thought to myself: "if this is a dream, then it means my body is fast asleep in my bed, which means I can do anything I want". I felt I had a high level of awareness and the dream was quite vivid and stable. The sky was a bright blue and I remember clearly the moment of the realisation. Then I recalled what I first wanted to do in a lucid, following LaBerge's advice to have a clear goal, and I went shooting up the sky, flying vertically and gaining height quickly. Unfortunately, that's all I remember. I assume at that point the dream transitioned into a non-lucid, because none of the other dreams I recalled after this were lucid. But it's the first time I was aware of the actual state of my real body at the time of dreaming, so I find this satisfying enough.

This is a non-lucid dream I had tonight, but it boosted my motivation.

I was at my house, sitting on a couch, reading some newspapers. Some articles published in them caught my attention. Each paper had an article which talked about studies that have been done about lucid dreaming. They all came to the conclusion that people who have lucid dreams often, see their intellectual habilities enhanced, while also being happier than people who don't have them. This was supposedly due to the fact that lucid dreamers have a higher level of awareness and self-awareness in their daily lives and this seemed to create new neurological pathways in the central nervous system. Interesting.

In the dream I was glad such things were being published because maybe it would encourage other people to take the journey, but deep down I knew mostly everyone wouldn't pay much attention to it.

I have heard lucid dreamers say they feel more intellectually capable since being into it, but I don't know this for myself. What I have felt though is that I more easily feel happier because of it. By making lucid dreaming a background thought in my mind, I always feel I'm making steps forward to better myself, so to speak. And as for the neurological pathways thing... I don't really know where I've got the idea from, maybe I read it somewhere but I don't remember. But casually, I'm studying the nervous system in a Physiology subject at uni, no perhaps it's not so much of a coincidence.

Two days ago, I was reading about SSILD and I thought I'd give it a go as soon as I could, and this time was today. This morning I woke up after exactly five hours of sleep, so it was the perfect time. I did a WBTB and read about SSILD during this time. Then, I went back to bed and put the technique into practice until I fell asleep.

In the first dream, I was flying. It was a game, like I was playing in a fake reality, so to speak. In said game I was a heroine and I had to solve whatever issue I came across. So well, I was flying around when I heard an explosion quite far away from where I was. I decided to go towards the explosion, flying over the road, and I could see at least 20 police cars, with their blue lights on. The dream was more detailed than that, but I spent more time writing what comes next.

Then, I opened my eyes and I was in my room. I thought "quite an interesting dream I've just had". I got up to pick something up from my desk (I can't quite recall what) and I noticed I couldn't open my eyes properly. I thought I may still just be half asleep. I made a noise and I heard my sister, we share a room. I couldn't make out what she said. Then, I went to bed again and at that moment I realised "why can't I open my eyes? Could this be a false awakening after the SSILD?". I pinched my nose and, sure enough, I could breathe through it. I didn't do this first RC properly, I must say, I just did it very quickly after the realisation. I got out of bed and thought a couple of times: "clarity now!", to see if my eyes would open. The reason why I just thought of it and not say it out loud is because somehow I feared my sister would hear me and think I'm weird. I mean, I was aware, but I couldn't believe I was in a dream. Anyway. I then ran out of the bedroom and up some stairs, thinking maybe the running would open my eyes. While I was running up the stairs I thought I'd be a good idea to do another proper RC, just to be sure. I looked at my left hand and it had six fingers, and my palm was larger than normal. For some reason this scared me and I let out a scream, but I stopped myself from getting too excited. Then, I did the nose pinch again with the same results, so I was entirely sure I was in a dream.

The stairs led me to the roof of the house. Just as I stepped outside, my eyes opened and I could see the surroundings with detail. The view was the same as the one we get from our real roof. I could see the neighbours' gardens and the church tower. It was cloudy and the sky was a faint yellow. At that point it struck me (I don't really know why) that I could not control the dream. Say, if I wanted to change the sky and clear it of clouds, I wouldn't be able to. But I didn't care. I was too busy admiring the detail of the view. Then, I felt a really strong curiosity to know what the chalk wall would look like close-up. So, I went very near a wall and looked at it closely. I stared at it for some seconds and I was overwhelmed by the vividness of the dream. I had read that some dreams could feel very real, but I didn't know it could look that real. At that point I thought from now on I'll see ADA, RCs and all that in a different way. Finally, I reached out my hand to touch the wall, I wanted to know if it was so real at the touch as well, and at the moment I touched it, I opened my eyes and I was on my bed again. My body felt heavy and somehow I knew I was awake for real, but I pinched my nose again just to make sure. Then I got my phone and started writing.

This morning, I was determined to attempt some kind of wake-induced technique. I had told myself that, if I was able to not move upon waking, I would try a DEILD, if I did move, I would try a WILD. As I moved before I realised I was awake, I decided to try a WILD. Just before bed I had watched a quite detailed video on the "stop, drop and roll" technique to WILD, so I did it.

The switching of positions went well, I did them at the right time. Once I had rolled over on my right side, I spent a few minutes trying to fight back the urge to move my legs and I managed well, so it finally ceased. Then, I started feeling my body was very heavy and I waited for the HI and HA to start. But apparently, they didn't come. Instead, I had the feeling I lost consciousness during (I guess) a few seconds and suddenly I would find myself in a dream-like scenario. This would last around half a minute and then I would find myself again in my bed, feeling that heaviness. This happened at least three times. I don't remember the first two of these scenarios, but I do the third. I was with two friends in a girl's car (I met them yesterday and we were sitting in the same way) and we were going to Tarragona through the highway (I did that road yesterday). The girl who was driving pointed out there was fog, but it looked like it was stuck to the ground. All of a sudden, I felt a drop of saliva tickling down my cheek and I awoke again. I started thinking about the "dream" that seemed to have started and I had the feeling I wasn't aware that I was entering a dream. "Dammit, you're not doing all this to have a non-lucid, stay aware". From that point on I kept saying to myself "I am dreaming", waiting for the next dream scenario to form. I felt my body vibrating (and the arm and shoulder I was resting on started to really hurt) and every now and then I would see a scene flashing before my eyes and vanish within seconds. I can't really tell if those were thoughts of mine, but it seemed they came involuntarily. However, not once I was able to hold on to one and let the dream form. Finally, my arm was hurting so bad I couldn't stand it anymore and I gave in and rolled over the other side. After that, I was unable to sleep anymore.

I have no idea how long this whole thing took, because I didn't look at the clock before I started, but I think it must have been 45 to 60 minutes. I felt really frustrated because on so many occasions it seemed like I was amost there, but I'm glad that I was closer to success this time than I've been in the other few attempts I've done.

After having had a shitty night due to a nasty cold, this morning I was feeling very sleepy. As I didn't have to go to the uni, I thought I would sleep more. It was 10 am when I last checked the clock in waking world.

I was lying on my bed and my mind was wandering, having random thoughts. My bed was on my boyfriend's corridor, the stairs of his house were at my left. Then I realised... that's not my bedroom, I must be in a dream. I felt somewhat strange, like I still wasn't entirely in the dream, because somehow I could still feel my waking body, it's hard to explain. It was like I had slept through the whole process of a WILD and I had awoken seconds away from entering the dream. Well, anyway. At this point I started hearing footsteps coming from the stairs at my left. I assumed that had to be an audible hallucination, but it still freaked me out. I thought I would test myself to see if I was in the dream for good or not yet. I tried turning my head towards the footsteps (my head was turned to the right) and if I could move it with ease, it meant I was already in the dream. When I did it, I felt I was completely paralysed. This scared me even more, I don't know why. Stupid as I am, instead of waiting a bit longer, I kept forcing my neck, I needed to turn it no matter what because the relentless footsteps were getting the better of me. I had never experienced paralysis or hallucinations this vivid ever before. At some point during this process, I didn't feel in the dream anymore, I felt my physical body so paralysed that even my eyelids were glued shut. And still, the footsteps were vivid. Ultimately, I managed to move my neck and when I did, I snapped out of the whole thing and the footsteps stopped. It was then when I cleared my mind and realised I had lost a golden opportunity. But anyway, I'm glad I finally experienced sleep paralysis and hallucinations with such vividness.

Last night, I set an alarm at 3.30 am to attempt a DEILD. The alarm is very gentle and I made it turn itself off after a minute. It woke me up as expected, but my first reflex was to switch it off. I quickly remembered my goal and prevented myself from moving too much. I lied on my back and waited for the alarm to shut up.

When it did, I was feeling really groggy and thought it would be easy to get into a dream. Suddenly I was worried that maybe it was too early and I would still enter a deep sleep state, therefore making the whole thing unworthy. Despite my efforts to stay awake, I soon lost consciousness and woke up at 8 am with only a small fragment of a dream in mind. And as far as I can tell, I wasn't lucid in it. Dammit.

Needless to say, any advice is most welcome

What I found interesting about this dream was that, despite being a non-lucid, some of the DCs had a strange attitude towards me.

I was to meet at 10 am with a group of people for an excursion (which we were really going to do in real life the day after I had this dream). I was the first to arrive at the meeting point, but I had to go back home to get a couple of things. Once some of the people started arriving, I excused myself and went back to my house.

I was almost there when I found a girl who went to my school when we were little. She is a year or two younger than me and has a twin sister, but I have never really been friends with either of them. She stopped beside me and asked me what my name was, because she had seen me before but didn't remember. Without hesitating, I told her my first and last name. Then, she said something like "she's the dreamer! My sister won't believe me when I tell her". This should have triggered lucidity, but I don't remember having become lucid. I was just taken aback and went on doing my thing.

I went into my house, got a bottle of water for the excursion and came back out. Then I remembered I needed sleeping pills, which I actually only take when I am very nervous and can't sleep, and so I headed to the Chemist's. While I was in the waiting line, two women were having a heated argument about politics, but I wasn't paying attention. When I got to the chemist and asked him for the pills, I was surprised at his question: "do you dream much?". I answered: "of course I do, I easily remember three to four dreams a night". The people in the waiting line looked at me in desbelief and started whispering at each other. Again, this didn't trigger lucidity. Then, the chemist gave me a small "notebook" (it wasn't really a notebook, but I can't come up with any better name) and on the cover you could read "Dream Journal". He said I could enter a dream recall contest. I started laughing because I thought I could only fit one or at most two days worth of dreams in that tiny notebook and that it was pointless. I went out of the Chemist's still laughing.

The dream went on for a while, but there weren't any more strange behaviours from DCs. I thought it was interesting because I had never seen any DC behave like this. Somehow it reminded me of the way some of them behave in the movie Inception.

I was at my Uni. There weren't any classes that day but I had to attend to a couple of compulsory seminars. At the entrance of the lecture room were two people handing out small pieces of paper with either the word YES or NO written in them. These were the answers to a question similar to "will you stay until the seminar finishes?". When I went past one of the men handing out these pieces of paper, he only had some of the YES left but none of the NO, so I had no choice. I planned on staying for the whole seminar anyway, but he said "sorry" and handed me a YES piece of paper with a 20-euro bill under it. I pretended I didn't notice in case it was a mistake, but I had the feeling he was trying to bribe me.

After this, my classmates and I entered the lecture room, which pretty much looked like a theatre. We stayed for the whole seminar and, when we were going out, I noticed something in my hand. I looked at it to find two 10-euro bills, which had basically come out of the blue. I reached for my pocket to find the previous 20 euros I had been given and felt the bills in my hand. They felt like real money. I was amazed at how much money I had made out of nothing.

Yesterday afternoon, I watched the movie "Waking Life". The main character uses his watch to tell if he's dreaming, so I thought I could try and do the same. I always wear an analog watch and I spent the afternoon checking it for any clue that I was dreaming. Unlike all the other reality checks I've done, this one tranferred into my dreams on the same night. Only it was weird because all of the analog clocks I checked in the dream behaved normally, so I didn't become lucid. I'll put a lot of emphasis on the timing, since it was impressingly accurate. Well, here goes the dream.

I was in my Genetics class, last period before lunch, and it was almost time to finish. I glanced at my watch to see it was 1.55 pm. Now, since I live a while away from my University, I need to get the underground and then the train to get home, and because I only have a train every hour, I go out of the class a few minutes before 2 o'clock.

It was 2 pm when the class finished. I knew I had to run if I wanted to make it to the train, so I hurried. Once on the underground, I got off a couple of stops before mine, assuming I had time to go to a swimming pool there was very near. I don't know why. When I got into the pool, I checked another clock, another analog one that was hanging on a wall, and found it was 2.15 pm (the train is due at 2.18). Freaking out, I looked for another clock, and in this second one it was 2.10. I assumed the former was wrong, calmed myself down and told myself I still had time (it would've been impossible to make it to the train either way, but we all know how dreams work). I also thought if I was to lose the train, I would spend an hour in the pool waiting for the next one. I came out of the pool soon afterwards and the dream finished.

I woke up at about 5.30 am. I've got used to waking at this time, whether or not I have to go to class. I wrote down my dream (so, it wasn't a false awakening) and then went back to sleep telling myself "next time I'm dreaming, I'm going to realise I am dreaming". Next thing I know, I'm startled by my sister's alarm clock. We share a room, I'm a light sleeper but it takes her forever to wake up, so when her alarm goes off, I'm always startled. After waking, I lied back and tried to remember the last dream. I only have a vague memory of being spinning around in an attempt to stabilise the dream, as if I had been lucid. But nothing else.

I only have one question: do analog clocks behave normally in dreams and so RCs can only be done with digital ones?

I had this non-lucid nightmare a few days ago, but it was so vivid and detailed I thought it was worth an entry.

The whole dream was dark, like it was night. I was walking down a street in my town, it was quite crowded, and I noticed some of the people were dressed in a strange way. Something that really caught my attention was this really big man lying on the floor, his body was deformed. I went past him feeling a mixture of disgust and shame.

A while afterwards I went back to that street walking in the opposite direction, I don't remember where I was coming from. The big man was still there and I noticed another guy, not as big as him but with an equally deformed body, lying near him. Again I went past them, only to find the whole street was full of people dressed up as any kind of scary creatures. I thought that must have been some kind of event, but still I was scared some of them would chase me.

At some point I turned to the right, trying to get away from that crazy atmosphere. To my surprise, that street was completely empty and, quite strangely, it was darker than the other. I could barely see where my feet stepped and I was asking myself why on Earth would all the lights be turned off in such a gloomy street.

All of a sudden, I noticed someone was walking after me, just a few metres away. I decided not to worry about this and instead, make sure I didn't trip into anything or anyone walking in the opposite direction. In order to do this, I let out a scream every now and then or just said words, anything to make myself noticeable. I had the feeling there was a bike coming towards me, so I made louder noises to let the rider know where I was. The bike went past just a few centimetres away from me.

Then, I had the urge to look down to my feet and saw a tube which was well over 30 cm in diametre, and I saw it just in time to not stumble upon it. At this point I noticed I couldn't open my eyes. My eyelids felt really heavy and it was like they were glued shut. I thought this was really strange and there had to be a way I could open them. I even tried it with my hands without success.

The dream finished shortly afterwards, once I was getting suspicious about everything that was going on. I guess I would've become lucid if it had gone on for a bit longer.

I was part of a game which somehow reminded me of The Hunger Games. It took place at my street, and we were a number of people divided in two groups. There was a raffle (the word "reaping" from the book came to mind) in which two names were called out, one person from each team, and these two people would fight to death. I was horrified when I heard my name being called, and I would fight against a girl who was in the same class as me in primary school. I haven't heard from her in ages, but well, there she was. She had a small sharp knife but I had nothing, so I was offered the chance to be given a weapon of their choice. Obviously, I agreed. They gave me a small sword which had a round end. I was disappointed, but I had to deal with it.

My opponent and I started running towards each other. I was almost crying and saying I didn't want to do it, but I knew I had to. When the girl was still a few metres away from me, she threw the knife towards me in an attempt to thrust it into my brain straight away. I was lucky that not the blade, but the wooden handle hit my head, and then it fell on the floor, leaving me unhurt. I turned around, picked it up and started running to her with my sword before me, and of course she started ro run away. When I reached her, I tried to stab her in the back, but because of the sword's round end, it just wouldn't get in. A few seconds afterwards, I noticed the wind was blowing against the blade, making it even more difficult. She somehow managed to escape and got into a house. I could see her from a glass window and I started trying to cut the glass with my sword, but of course it didn't work. An old couple came to the window from inside the house and told me to go away.

I went back to the starting point, knowing I could do nothing but wait. A while afterwards, she came from the other side of the street. I went near her and the fight turned into a heated argument. First, a single neighbour came out to the street to complain about the noise, then another one joined him and they both were telling us to shut up. The man who was leading the game told us we would leave it for another day, and I felt frustrated. As I went back to my house, I thought I had things to do on the next two afternoons, so it would have to be on the third day, at most.