nautilus

Monday Night, 4/27/20

I was playing in the ocean along with one or two companions. "Come on!" I said, rushing headfirst into the water, swimming as fast as I could. I was half experiencing, half simulating the ocean waves. Upon realizing there were no large waves crashing over me, I began to expect them which then led to their creation and my experience of having large waves tumble me about. The part of me that was scared was drowned out (no pun intended) by my overall sense that I was perfectly safe. A female friend came along with me past the large waves. We were then rapidly pulled far out to sea where the waters became deep and calm. My mind offered up a couple practical concerns. Aren't you worried about dangerous sea creatures the longer you're out here? How far off is land on the other side of this ocean? Won't you get tired of swimming and drown? I decided it was best not to think of dangerous sea creatures. I should simply focus on not splashing around too much. As to getting tired, I found I was able to easily swim at a fast pace with barely any effort. Later we transitioned to walking and gliding along the surface of the water.

As night approached, the Narrator said that we would need a place to rest for the night. A dark blue door with orange trim around it appeared. I knew exactly what it was the moment I saw it. I opened it and we stepped through, into my room. Inside it was arranged a little differently than waking life, with bunk beds and a couple random piles of blankets, pillows, and sheets laying around, but it was still fully recognizable. I also found there was a second door which I could open to the rest of the house. I walked around in the upstairs hallway then went back into my room again. Strange. I thought, while my friend just seemed obsessed with playing in the blanket pile and rubbing her face against the pillows. I opened the blue door once again to see that, indeed, it still led right out to the middle of the ocean. "You can change where the door leads." The Narrator informed me. I closed the door and reopened it to try it out. It no longer led to the ocean, now it led to a random room. I closed it for good this time and prepared for sleep, though I don't think I actually did fall asleep.

Spoiler for Additional Notes:

This one was so close to becoming a lucid dream. I had the awareness of dream control abilities, noticed the oddness of what I was observing, and then there was the presence of the Narrator dropping hints. The Narrator is a disembodied voice that shows up surprisingly often in my dreams and I've referred to it as my subconscious in the past. I'm starting to notice a clear pattern where it shows up when I'm either lucid already or I'm very close to becoming lucid. The ocean is another pre-existing dream sign of mine that's been showing up a lot lately. My relationship to the waves in dreams has gone through an interesting progression over the course of 20+ years of having those recurring dreams, but that's a post for another time. Apparently I'm plunging headfirst into them now.

Thursday Night, 11/7/19

I was hiking through a forest and I came out into an open field, accidentally spawning a large bear as I did so. I had to run away from it using video game controls. It morphed from bear, to wolf, to lion, to jaguar and long story short I couldn't increase the distance between me and it no matter what tactics I used.

Gradually the environment shifted from video game to realistic until I was running in my own body rather than using controls. Knowing I stood no chance remaining in the open field, I dove into the deep river to my left and swam across. I pulled myself out onto the opposite river bank and found myself back among the trees. But of course jaguars are excellent swimmers so the big cat followed me easily. As it came out of the water the jaguar transformed into a woman. She was beautiful and lithe, dressed in flowing white, with the cold expression of a seasoned killer. We came out onto a wide and empty paved road that cut through the trees. I walked backwards and shot invisible arrows at her which made her health bar go down - a remaining feature from the video game - but she was otherwise unfazed. She was slowly walking toward me holding an already bloodied sword which she didn't even bother to raise. She said, "It's always hard to kill something for the first time." Clearly she was not referring to herself. She seemed to be implying that any reluctance to kill on my part would give her the advantage.



We both stopped walking and she informed me flatly that I was out of arrows. Her health bar was only at half. I knew I would have to use my sword and hack away for my life. I wasn't very skilled with a sword. That is to say I'd never used one before. As the jaguar woman raised her own sword it was immediately clear she was in her element. My alarm went off, yanking me out of there and into a waking state.