Nazrax

Side-note Lucid

Talking about lucid dreams
I'm standing on my driveway talking with my pastor and MB. The kids are sitting in camping chairs on my side of the garage; my car is nowhere to be seen. All of us are talking about lucid dreaming. I say something about WILDing and I'm surprised when my pastor knows what it is, saying that he'd once done it himself many years ago. I mention that one of my long-term goals is to learn to have WILDs quickly, on demand. My pastor asks how long it usually takes to get into a WILD. I explain that a skilled WILDer can do it in under twenty minutes, but that newbies can often take more than an hour. I confess that I haven't managed it at all, yet, but that I'm determined to succeed. The conversation continues for a little while longer.

Now I'm in one of the kids' bedrooms doing something. Now I'm downstairs. Bethany is unhappy with the kids - she'd told them they could be outside barefooted or in shoes but not just in socks, since the socks would get dirty. All of the kids wore just socks while outside, so now they're covered in leaves (from the driveway) and oil (from the garage floor). Even though I was wearing both socks and shoes, I check my socks anyway. They're damp from being sweaty but are otherwise fine. I take my socks off and put them in a nearby cabinet which seems to be a make-shift clothes hamper, as it has a small (but growing) pile of colored laundry. My wife tells me that if my socks are dirty like the kids are then I need to put them in the separate "dirty sock pile," but I tell her they're just sweaty.


Gift of a hymnal
After a failed WILD, I'm trying to sleep. I'm laying in bed and remember that I just had a conversation with friends (JB and BJ) in my kitchen. I realize that that can't have happened, that I must have dreamed it. Something feels off, and I do a nose pinch RC. I can easily breath through my pinched nose, so I know I'm dreaming, experiencing a false awakening (my first!). It's pitch black. I decide to try voice commands and try to command LIGHT, but my voice is hoarse and I can barely hear myself. I try again with STABILITY, but again, it barely comes out. I realize that, even though I'm convinced this is a dream, I'm still hesitant to shout in case I'm wrong and I woke up my wife. I decide that this really is a dream, so it doesn't matter, and even if it's not a dream we'll just laugh about it and go back to sleep. I really don't want to lose the dream, so I keep my nose pinched and keep focused on the strange feeling of breathing through it. I keep trying my voice commands, and eventually the light in the room (especially near the door) "dims" up. It's dim, but it's enough to see by. I shout STABILITY and LIGHTS again for good measure, and I find that I can actually shout now.

I'd just been listening to the podcast where they were talking about extending the dream, and CanisLucidus talked about just looking at all the detail the mind comes up with. I look around my bedroom, trying to take it all in. I notice that it's larger than life, but it's decorated pretty much how my real room is. The doors, windows, bed, and dresser are all in the right place, and I think the walls and floor looked right, though I'm not positive. I notice a small shelf on one wall that's not there IWL, with some very small framed pictures of people. I walk over, pick one up, and look at it. It shows couple of people, including a woman in a purple dress. I don't recognize them, and I realize the danger of putting too much attention into the picture, so I put it down. For some reason, it ends up on face down on the shelf. I kneel down and run my hands through the carpet - it looks and feels exactly like my real carpet. I think about what to do and realize that one of my simple goals was to try the "internal nose pinch" and see if it was reliable. I tried it, and alas, I couldn't breathe while doing it. So much for that RC. I consider phasing through the wall and flying off, but I decide that that's a little too advanced for right now: I want something I know I can accomplish so that I can boost my confidence.

I remember I want to do the basic TOTM be given a gift by a DC, so I walk towards the hallway. The stairs are in the right place, though the hallway layout is odd. I remember that, to get something to appear, I need to not just casually think "It'll be there" but to really strongly picture it, almost as if I can already see it. I start trying to imagine in detail that my wife is around the corner in the hallway; but as I'm doing it, she comes up the stairs. She says something and goes back down; I follow her.

Now I'm near the bottom of the stairs. I feel like I'm in a mansion. Downstairs is a huge area, well furnished, with a very high ceiling. I'm on a grand staircase, at least 10 feet wide, flaring at the bottom, going straight up behind me to the second story. My wife is a couple of steps below me. I ask my wife if she has anything for me. She says she does, but she wants a quick kiss first. I kiss her, and she walks off towards the kitchen to get whatever it is. I realize that I shouldn't let her out of my sight, since she might disappear if I do. I go after her, following her into the kitchen (which is outfitted with lots of shiny black appliances). I don't see her in the kitchen, and I get worried. I shout a dream command WIFE, but nothing happens. I walk through the kitchen, though the dining room, and back into the living area. I pass an older, well-dressed man carrying a Psalter; I completely ignored him, but I think he was the butler. As I'm walking into the living area, my wife comes out of the kitchen carrying one of our old hymnals. She gives it to me, saying it'll go well with the hamburger.

Often, when I wake out of a dream, I'm aware of it fading first. Not this time. Poof I was awake. I tried to DEILD, but nothing happened; I was probably hampered by a strong desire not to lose the dream memory.


Fragments
I'm looking at pictures of different people. I have a program(?) that lets me alter reality by altering pictures of the reality. I'm trying to copy an aspect of a person from one picture and paste it onto a different person in a different picture, but it's not going well. The perspectives of the pictures are different, and the pasted image isn't lining up right.

I'm outside, in a park-like setting, watching people. There are nine people who have successfully done ... something ... but they need ten to fully win. They're pleased at having come in first again, yet disappointed that, once again, they failed to get the full ten.

I'm looking at Gunnerkrigg Court. Annie is watching two forest dwellers talking to / examining a boy from the Court. He's strong and somewhat puffed up, and the forest dwellers (a youth and an old man) are pondering over him. His muscles should only be about half the size they are, and they want to know how he made himself strong, if he used some kind of magic or trickery or what. The old man especially is throwing out more and more strange theories about the boy's strength. I (or Annie?) starts to wonder if there's something to it, and if this is how Eglamore gets some of his abilities.

I'm driving on a 4 lane road in the right lane. A tan van is to my left and starts to come into my lane. I stand my ground, but she keeps coming, eventually scraping against me. Now I'm in the left lane and she's in the right, ahead of me. I can see a silver line running along her driver's side where she scraped me. Somehow I see the driver's side of my car, and I see a long scuff mark but no scraped paint. I'd been trying to decide if I should chase her down and get her insurance information, but since my car isn't actually damaged I decide just to let her go.