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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.

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.

I was with a friend of mine at a girl's house, in the garden. I don't remember exactly what we did, but the girl suddenly started chasing after both of us. She had a sort of spray can and threw a gas against us. I feared the gas could be toxic, so I tried my best not to breathe it. As we started running, I noticed it wasn't so hard for me as it normally is in a dream. It's a common dream sign of mine to be chased after and not be able to run because I feel my body is really heavy, and I may even see myself crawling on all fours. This dream sign made me have my last lucid, and in this particular dream, it almost did as well. I thought to myself "it isn't such a struggle for me to run in this dream", but somehow I didn't become fully lucid and the dream just followed as a regular non-lucid. Anyway, it's good that I noticed, at least.

After a stupid mosquito woke me up this morning I thought I had lost a quite detailed dream. I had it on the tip of my tongue but I couldn't remember a single bit of it. A while afterwards, it came back to me like a bombshell.

In it, I had just been watching a play with my uni friends at a theatre. It was like a circle theatre and we were sitting on one of the upper circles (sorry for my vocabulary, I'm not sure I'm using it the right way, I hope I make myself clear). When the play finished, we went down the stairs and towards the exit. Then, we went past an aisle and into another dark theatre, not in use at that time, and the exit was at the other end of this one.

When we were there, I remembered I didn't have my bag with me and I didn't know what I had done with it. Suddenly, I saw a couple of my other uni classmates making their way back to the first theatre because one of them had forgotten her bag there. I assumed mine would be there too, so I followed them. When we arrived, we found the theatre was being prepared for the next play, there were ushers, who were wearing a funny outfit, showing people to their seats. I went near one of them and asked if I could check if my bag was there, but he told me the theatre had been emptied and there was nothing left. The other girl asked another usher who told her she could have a look, so I did the same. She found her bag quickly, I spent a little while but found it in the end. Finally, I made my way to the exit, where my friends were waiting for me.

Now that I'm working on my dream recall, I found interesting that the surroundings were so vivid and realistic and that they didn't change throughout the dream. I drew a map of the place in my dream journal, but I really wish I knew how to draw properly because it's almost impossible to describe it with words.