Matt1

February 23, 2013 - 6 hours in - 3 minutes - WBTB, SSILD, MILD, FA, RC

Woke via alarm after 3.5 hours and did about 6 SSILD cycles of gradually increasing length, doing the cycles the same every 1.5 hours after that. Afterward I fell asleep to a mantra of "1, I'm dreaming, 2, I'm dreaming, 3..." while trying to visualize each digit. The mantra only was done on other natural awakenings.

I wake up in bed. I plug my nose to see if I can breathe, but at first I can't tell. I try a little more and it seems like some air is getting through, so I try harder and I can definitely breathe. This is in fact a dream, only problem, there is no vision. I don't open my eyes right away so I don't open my real eyes and wake up. Somehow I eventually see, perhaps by opening my eyes slowly, and it is rather light in my bedroom. (This time, in reality, it is actually pretty dark.) I can feel the sheet on my body. I reach for my cellphone, to do some experiments which I had been hoping to try. The phone is pushed up against the headboard by a pillow, and grab it carefully so it doesn't fall down behind the bed. I pinch its (hard in reality) plastic skin somehow and hold the phone in my hand while I periodically rub my left hand on my wrist to stabilize.

I turn it on and the background looks normal, but the two rows of apps are made of random colorful icons and names I have never seen. I look for one called "Gallery" and tap it. Like reality, there are three categories of pictures, but they have the names "MILK," "GREEN ONIONS," and something else along those lines. One of them shows a picture of a cartoon milk carton. I think I tap on one but forget what is in it.

Then I go back to the home screen and look for an app called "Maps." I tap it, but it displays something like a game intro screen with a cartoon guy in a green shirt in a cartoon city. There is a message that pops up that I think had to do with setting it up. I give up on this and go back to the home screen, and I want to activate the Siri-like voice assistant, but before I can do that, the phone displays an error message with technical jargon and turns off.

I think at this point lucidity also disappeared. Then I think outside the window some people I know are wanting me to come outside, so I tell them I'll be out soon. I wake up shortly after this.

February 22, 2013 - 8.5 hours in - 30 seconds - WBTB, SSILD, MILD

Woke via alarm after 3.5 hours and did about 6 SSILD cycles of gradually increasing length, doing the cycles the same every 1.5 hours after that. Afterward I fell asleep to a mantra of "1, I'm dreaming, 2, I'm dreaming, 3..." while trying to visualize each digit. The mantra only was done on other natural awakenings.

Me and a friend are driving at night down a street with a traffic light ahead and I see a kid in a white jacket with hood who looks like he is running away from home. I suggest letting someone know about this, but then I notice 3 or 4 duplicates of this kid walking at regular intervals down the road away from us. I get out and see the kid is actually looking backward somehow, with a blank, lifeless expression.

I find this creepy, but also then realize that this is all a dream. I plug my nose and breathe, then I run up to the next kid, who has the same expression. This creeps me out again, ending this dream scene and putting me in my dark bedroom in a false awakening.

I plug my nose and know it is still a dream. I can see the low light from the window. I don't like how it is still dark, so I shout "Light!" but it does nothing. I try to reach over for my phone to try stuff on it, but the dream ends and I feel my right hand making a plugging motion, not on my nose, but on a pillow. I open my eyes and see that it is dark only because my head is under the blanket. I have woken up for real.

February 22, 2013 - 5.5 hours in - 30 seconds - WBTB, SSILD, MILD

Woke via alarm after 3.5 hours and did about 6 SSILD cycles of gradually increasing length, doing the cycles the same every 1.5 hours after that. Afterward I fell asleep to a mantra of "1, I'm dreaming, 2, I'm dreaming, 3..." while trying to visualize each digit. The mantra only was done on other natural awakenings.

I am standing there with someone in a hotel when a thought about lucid dreaming runs across my mind. I suddenly realize that I am in fact in a lucid dream and I rub my hands together and plug my nose and breathe. The decor is very red - the carpet is red, but not a solid red, but based around that color. The walls are paneled with a red wood.

The impulse comes over me to run and explore and I do so. I want to run down a hallway ahead and to the left, but before that is a row of pillars parallel to the wall, and each pillar is made of the same wood as the wall, in a similar shape to a two-by-four. I think I will have to run straight through this and then left, but then I see there is nothing in between the pillars and I cut the corner.

Running down this hallway, I run right into a large room. There is a large green leafy potted bush that is too big to jump over in reality, and I decide to try it in the dream. I do it, so then I jump with the expectation of flying through the air (like a long jump, but unrealistically long). I fly past a chandelier but then the sensation of motion ends and it blacks out. I spin around which I feel but then the sensation of laying in bed returns to my body, but from the legs up, not all at once.

I did not record the dream until later however, so this was either a false awakening or I went back to sleep to wait until the next WBTB alarm.

February 13, 2013 - 5.5 hours in - 2 minutes - WBTB, SSILD

5 hours in I wake up and do 6 SSILD cycles of gradually increasing length.

I am riding in a car at night with houses being passed. I could tell the dream was ending, evidently spontaneously realizing it is in fact a dream. I felt I could tell from the feeling in my stomach, and I complained about this out loud to the others, but I don't know what if anything was their reaction. (It's also possible the feeling was just the hunger I felt before going back to bed.) I try to increase lucidity by performing simple addition. Despite rubbing my hands together, the visuals fade to black from the outside in.

I spin around, which I feel (despite the fact I was sitting down moments earlier) and the scene comes back. I look at my hands, but through my left eye some fingers on the left hand are invisible, and through my right eye the right hand is totally invisible. The car comes out of a tunnel into daylight, and this seems to correspond with the car and tactile senses disappearing. What remains is the visuals of following a narrow ledge curving right - too narrow for a car - on a sandstone cliff with the sound of a car driving over a bumpy road. I look right and my view is flying through the air (with no feeling of flying) while curving left. I see irregular sandstone cliffs, much like you would see in the Southwest. They are all the same color, but the cracks and irregularities are detailed and I marvel at the scenery. I do however note a street sign on a post standing at the top of the cliff. As the view is flying along, it blacks out and I feel myself laying in bed.

February 11, 2013 - 9 hours in - 5 minutes - WBTB, SSILD, FA

I wake up after 5 hours via alarm and do the full set of SSILD cycles, then I wake up earlier than the alarm, every 20 to 90 minutes, doing a few cycles each time as I fall asleep.

I am in a preexisting dream that I find extremely undesirable, although I don't remember being scared per se.

I realize on some level that it is not real, possibly because of the emotional reaction involved. I blink rapidly and shout, "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"

I am laying in bed in my dark bedroom. (In reality at this time it should be rather bright.) I plug my nose and amazingly, I can breathe. Somehow this false awakening ends into another, with the same action performed by me. I get up out of bed quickly and try to feel the wall, and I feel my closet door and then the wall, and then I feel the light switch. It is already up, and I flip it down and there is still no light. I open the door and run down to another part of the house.

J. is here and in front of her I plug my nose and breathe deeply. I say that is physically impossible and ask her how I did that. She says something like, "It only sounds like you did that." Then I look at my hand and start counting fingers out loud - "one, two, three" - but then I realize my hand actually looks normal. So I give up on showing her my hand and leave.

Now it is light everywhere, sort of blue-ish. I explore the house at this point. Unlike the last lucid dream, this time I realize a lot of it looks different from reality, but I don't recall most specifics. I am able to run from place to place, which I do a lot since it is tireless and fast. I go in the basement and am surprised the door is open. Downstairs the walls and ceiling are finished, with them and the floor all having paint like the upstairs walls. The ceiling is mostly flat but slopes downward slightly near the long sides. The overall shape of the basement looks like reality. On the floor I see a black dead centipede broken in a few pieces that is about twice the size of reality. This make me apprehensive of what I might find down there, like spiders, but it looks clear and I proceed with the stairway to my left. On the right wall, some dirty insulation is strewn on the floor, with dirty water on the floor there. I look at my hands (this time there are extra fingers) and shout "Clarity now!" but this only seems to make everything blur temporarily, each time I tried it.

Back upstairs, I see a white bookshelf with some of my books on it. I take one and start reading randomly. It talks about vaccines (which this particular book very well may have), in detailed technical jargon that I try to comprehend without focusing too much, but cannot. I glance at the rest of the pages open and various medical treatments are mentioned, with each one named in small caps. The book, font, and paper are very realistic.

Next, my idea is to get my car keys and drive away.

It seems at this point my bedroom and the dining room are arranged in the manner of the old house, but I don't notice this in the dream. In the dining room, I see the loop the keys are on hanging on a horizontal door handle. They look fake to me, but I figure they'll work anyway, so I try to take them. However, the door handle is attached on both ends, so it is impossible to get the keys off. I give up on these and head towards my closet in the other room (which is like the closet of the new house but in the position in the room of the old). I evidently feel the dream fading, as I plug my nose and breathe to try to keep it going, as I head towards the right door. Before I can, however, I wake up.

January 31, 2013 - 8.5 hours in - 5 minutes - WBTB, SSILD

Every 90 minutes or less I awoke, and did a couple SSILD cycles as I fell back asleep.

I am playing around with a cellphone, but it isn't working quite right.

I then suspect that I am dreaming. I look outside. I can see the leaves on the trees clearly, although my focus fluctuates, even though I know somehow that I have no contacts in or glasses on. (Although I never remember that it is really winter anyway!) I know for sure that this is a dream.

I forget this part somewhat, I believe I just walked around the house, happy to finally be lucid for a decent period of time, and not doing anything to upset it, just rubbing my hands together a lot. I don't remember thinking anything in the house looked odd, but it probably did look different, I just didn't notice.

I look at the details in some objects. In the bathroom, the brown tissue holder looks real, I can even see the dust on it, which was a lot. I sit and close my eyes for some reason. I realize my mistake and visualize the bathroom being there when I open them, which it is, but the counter is a totally different shape and color.

I look at a book on the bookshelf. The text is in a similar pattern, but the chapter titles don't make coherent sense. In another book, the pages are stuck together a lot, and I turn first to the index, then back to the main text. Some numbers in a list are out of order or repeated.

After this I think to myself I have run out of ideas, probably due to poor memory and imagination even in a lucid state, and because it has lasted several minutes already, longer than any since the 1st lucid dream. I take an object from a shelf above the desk. Some little pieces break off and I try to put it back together for some reason (even though it doesn't exist). This distraction causes the dream to go black and I feel myself laying in bed.

January 29, 2013 - 8.5 hours in - 30 seconds - WBTB, SSILD

Every 90 minutes starting 2 hours in I set an alarm and did a few SSILD cycles as I fell back asleep.

Pre-lucidity, I am at a nice tropical beach supposedly in Costa Rica. I think how much nicer the weather is here and try to remember what it was like when I left, but I can't remember.

I converse with my friend A. and he asks me if I got a permit for the clams I was gathering pre-lucidity. This memory prompt triggers lucidity - I say, "Oh no, this is a dream!" (I had wished it to be reality!) I look at my hand and it is distorted - this time, some fingers are short but alternate between being short and their normal length. I show A. and say, 'See? This is a dream.' He says, "Wow," in a realistic manner, as though he believed me.

The scene turns blurry and I rub my hands together, and it restabilizes. I see the surface of a trash can and it is a pattern of little white pebbles, like a real trash can you might see in a park. I look up and see the sunlight coming through the tall trees. I feel it fade and shout "Clarity! Clarity! Stability!" but the scene fades into my bedroom.

This later turned out to be a false awakening however.

January 23, 2013 - 5.5 hours in - 2 minutes - WBTB, MILD, RC

Did about an hour long WBTB and then used the mantra, "Look at your hands, you're dreaming."

I am laying on a brown-patterned carpeted floor near a wall, when I think to look at my hand. It actually looks quite normal. Then I plug my nose and can breathe - this is a dream.

I turn around and I am in a hotel room laid out like a corridor, with spaces set off to the left and the right midway down. The walls are painted dark brown. The ceiling is black. I go into one of these spaces and feel a wall corner (one not on the corridor) - it feels realistic, even with both hands and the side of my arm. The room is dark towards the door, so I turn a couple lights, which work realistically.

I go out the door and go right in the hallway. The color scheme is much the same and ahead the hallway goes diagonally left while another goes straight right, then goes straight again while another goes straight left. Straight ahead are high windows looking in to the indoor waterpark. On the wall corner is a sign in red letters directing towards a restaurant to the right. I forget the first word, but the second word was Sadler's, which changed to 5tadler's when looking away and back, which then changed to Bailey's (and all in black letters) when looking away and back again.

At several points throughout I look at my hands again; each time they look real, except for one finger being shorter than normal.

Inside the waterpark the water starts shallow, and nearby is a short construction with two green bodyslides, one which curves towards me. I think I may have to climb the slide but then I see stairs going up. On top two friends are there; I consider telling them this is a dream, but it is too loud from the water up here so I decide not to. I then go down the other slide and close my eyes at the bottom by habit - oops! I realize I may open my real eyes if I do this wrong. I open slowly and still see the waterpark. I then try to breathe underwater and it works. I again close my eyes accidentally, again being able to open them similarly. I look at my hand again, but this seems to trigger motion in reality and the dream vanishes.

January 15, 2013 - Less than 6.5 hours in - 20 seconds - WBTB, MILD, FA, RC

Used MILD mantra, "Look at your hands, you are dreaming" every alarm awakening every 90 minutes or so.

I 'wake up' in my dark bedroom in my bed and decide to look at my hands. In fact, they are distorted and I realize I am in a dream. I plug my nose and I can still breathe. However, I feel extremely sleepy and struggle to keep my 'eyes' open. Since I feel it may fade out soon, I decide to cut right to the goal of summoning B. I look into the darkness (which is sort of purple - like the patterns seen when you close your eyes) and try to visualize them there. It is difficult to remember them and I give up. I look again at my hand in front of the meager window light and it is still distorted. Despite feeling extremely lethargic, I try to get out of bed and head towards the light switch, since I don't like it being dark, although I know the switch may not work. With this effort, I wake up for real.

It should be noted that throughout my efforts at lucid dreaming, I keep a private dream journal with all of my dreams to increase recall. I also do reality checks every 90 minutes through the day as reminded by my cellphone. It took 16 days of trying before this first lucid dream.

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Format:

Date - How much of the night's sleep had passed when I woke up - Length of time lucid - Methods involved (CAT includes when I became lucid at a time when I would have woken up for the day, the day before; WBTB is when I woke up after some sleep but before the lucid dream for even a very short time; FA is any dream in which I became lucid from a false awakening; RC is any dream in which a reality check directly caused lucidity; DS is when a dream sign motivated me to question if I was dreaming; other abbreviations are lucid dreaming induction techniques)

Description of what I did beforehand that may have helped in attaining lucidity

Details of dream

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January 3, 2013 - About 5 hours in - 5 minutes - CAT, WBTB, MILD, RC

The day before, I got up for the day at the time I became lucid today. 1 hour before bed, I take 3,000 mg of omega-3 fish oil and a multivitamin which has, among other things, 100 mg niacin, 25 mg B6, 15 mg zinc, and 7.2 mg magnesium. At about 3.5 hours in, I get up, drink water, and use the bathroom. Going back to sleep, I use MILD.

This dream is set in my house, but it combined elements of the house I live in now and the previous one, and I didn't notice this until waking up.

At some point, for an unknown reason, I engage in reality checks. Either my hands or my nose was the first one done. My hands don't look noticeably different at first, but I think something is 'off' and it seems to take slightly longer to count my fingers. For the nose check, I can still breathe through the left side. I reach my left hand up to see how that is, and I can feel the air rushing around where my finger is blocking it (in real life the finger is of course more than enough to block all of it). I realize that this in fact a dream! I can hardly believe it. I look at my hand again and the little finger is expanding for some reason. I look at the clocks nearby, and they all read differently. Some say impossible times, something like 8:68. I make a clock's digit change by focusing on it and visualizing it as the other digit, which it fades into.

After this I am in the kitchen of the old house. While here I get the idea to try to summon a person, so I decide to make C. appear. I think of them and think, 'When I turn around, they will be there.' I turn around and nobody is there. I note the front door and closet door and think of opening them to see if they will be there, but I decide to move on. While in the kitchen I note it getting a little blurry and I look at my hand. It has about 6 fingers. (Another time it has about two sets of the 4 plus ones in between. Even though these hand distortions may sound creepy, they aren't at all. The hands work normally, they just don't show up right.) When I do this things get clearer and my mind feels 'freer'. I also test blinking to see what it does. It does the same thing as real life.

On the way out I go back in my bedroom, where I was pre-lucidity, which looks like the new bedroom but is in the location in the house of the old, and there I retrieve my phone to see if it has begun working again (it broke with sparks pre-lucidity). It turns on with the lock screen background, and the words 'Darth Maul' on it. I assume this is some sort of 'cool' sounding new operating system. I take the phone and leave.

I go out the back door of the old house. It is night and snowy. I think that it will be cold but then I remember that since it is a dream it won't be bad. I do feel it a little but it goes away. I jump on top of the fence of the old backyard, and I see the streetlights and the neighborhood, but then I see that the dream has decided that I have no pants on. I consider continuing on to explore, but I decide that even though it is only a dream I would feel more comfortable with pants on, so I go back in to put pants on.

While inside I realize that I can drive my car instead to explore. I go to the garage through the house somehow and am in the garage of the new house. I see a car in the middle of the garage, which I don't recognize as my car, but it looks similar. I look at the license plate, which says, "717-CIC" (which is nothing like it is in reality). Unfortunately I am stopped from starting the car, and the tension causes the dream to disappear.

At this point, I wake up.