Nazrax

Snack around 2200
Quick shower
Bed @ 2235


Waiting for the Sparkfun tour
I'm in a large room waiting for a Sparkfun tour to start. The room has some kind of partition going most of the way down the middle, and there are a pair of counters and a door on the other side of the partition from me. A line has formed at one of the desks and at the door; I'm leaning against the wall near some other people waiting for the line to get shorter. I'm being careful not to wait too long; I don't want to lose my change for the tour.

Now I'm standing at the counter further from the door checking out with some electronics. The first thing I hand over to the cashier is a box with a multimeter, though I tell her to put it to the side, since I'm not sure if I'll actually be buying it. I see that it's $35 and am surprised; I thought it was $25. I'll only need it if I can't borrow a battery tester from someone else. I need to test the batteries of something my daughter has, but this is Sparkfun; I expect you can't go more than a few feet without tripping over someone's multimeter.

I look over to see how my wife is doing; she's still feeding the baby, and it looks like she'll be a few minutes. Hopefully the tour won't have gotten far before she's able to catch up.

Now I'm in the parking lot outside Sparkfun. A few cars are scattered around. The building itself is a huge off-white cube which isn't remotely attractive.

Bug book
I'm looking through book of common garden insects. Most of the pages look like they're coloring pages, with simple, bold line drawings of each insert accompanied by a short paragraph describing it. Some of the pages have odd white-on-black icons in one corner. I'm currently looking at the page for ladybugs. The text mentions that there are actually two main families. The icon in the corner of this page seems to be indicating that they're a hazard to humans and animals, but that can't be right; there's no way a ladybug could hurt anything. I must be interpreting it wrong (but someone really needs to come up with some better icons).

Now I'm looking at the last page, on water snakes, and it's done in a totally different style: it's a huge block of text along with a smaller grayscale photo. Now I'm watching video of them. First, I see a clip taken from a reedy bank into a body of water. The snake swims by, and it looks nothing like what I expected. It's about 6" wide, at least 10 feet long, and has a ridge running along its back. It's kind of a muddy green color, and it's got a very smooth, dull skin. Now I'm seeing large rocks jutting out of the water just beyond a sheer cliff, and I know I'm seeing footage from Hawaii. This must be the snake's native habitat. Now something is describing the snake's attack: it likes to bite a leg and hold on for about 20 seconds before actually injecting the poison, since this increases the heart rate and helps the poison spread through the body faster. Once it lets go, it waits for the victim to instinctively slap a hand down on the wound before going after the hand for a second bite. The information continues, saying that even with quick medical care it's rare for victims not to start to show symptoms of paralysis. Normally, people can keep their arms synchronized to within a third of a second (that seems way too long), but that'll quickly deteriorate to seconds between movements; they'll start drooling; and typically one side of the body will be affected more than the other.

Dangerous race
I'm in a strange car race. We're all going down a gentle incline on a straight street, driving normal cars - except that every car has a large, heavy-looking blade mounted to the roof spinning dangerously. Now I'm quickly pulling left into the small parking lot of an anonymous business to avoid an oncoming bigrig.

Packing up after vacation
I'm in the kitchen (lots of white) of a vacation house, packing up to leave. The owner (a blonde woman in a red sweater) comes in an outside door, thanks us for being such good renters, and offers us a larger place next time if we want it; but she's got the next set of renters with her so we need to vacate quickly.

Now I'm in the garage loading the gray van. There are riding toys everywhere (scattered among other things), and I'm having trouble sorting through them to figure out which belong with the house and which are mine. I keep seeing toys that I think are ours out of the corner of my eye, but when I turn to look straight at them they're not what I thought they were. Now I'm in the gray van pulling the seats up into their normal positions. Now I'm watching my wife pull down the driveway with a fully-loaded gray van when I notice the tailgate isn't properly latched. I know she's going to wait in the street for the rest of us, so I'm not in too great a hurry, but I jog down behind her and, once she stops, fix the tailgate.


Party infiltration
I'm doing some kind of spy thing. I'm very well dressed, wandering through an upper-crust social event in a huge mansion. All the colors are very rich. At one point, I'm on a walkway above some kind of ballroom. At another point, I'm coming down a wide spiral staircase into a small sitting room. I see my wife, wearing an evening gown, sitting catty-corner to a guy, talking him up. She looks a bit tipsy, but he's much more so, and I can tell she's getting the information we were sent to retrieve.

Now John and I are dressed in street clothes, and we're getting onto some kind of train car. As the doors start to close, a guy jumps in. Out of his line of sight, but within mine, you pull a very large weapon from somewhere and hold it in readiness. After a moment, we both recognize the guy and we relax, you putting the weapon back in a duffel bag. He explains why he was rushing, and everything's OK.

Now I'm in a different car along with this guy and his family. I'm working with them to set up a whole bunch of Pack 'n Plays, but I'm having trouble keeping things straight. I'm having trouble keeping track of which kid is which age and size, and what their preferences are. Some of the Pack 'n Plays need a "strengthener rod" placed under the mattress layer, but there are different strengths depending on how firm the child would like it; and one child (who, based on size I think is the oldest, but it turns out he's 4) doesn't want a rod at all, but just wants 2 small pillows.


Fragment: Something about being in a doctor's office.

Bed @ 2230
Woke @ 0540

Leaky ceiling
I'm in my master bathroom relieving myself. As I start, I notice that there's a drop of water on the ceiling. This concerns me, but I figure that maybe there's an explanation that's not terrible, though I'm not hopeful. My first guess as to a cause is that something is wrong with the weather sealing around the window. I'm surprised by how full my bladder is, and as I keep going, I notice more and more wet drops hanging on the ceiling. They seem to be popping up constantly. By the time I'm finished, the entire ceiling is covered with large droplets of water. I'm saying something like "no no no no no" and call out to my wife "Honey, we've got a problem!!!" As I continue trying to find out what's going on, I notice a place where the ceiling changes levels. Inside, I see some small pipes and immediately jump to the conclusion that they're the source of the problem.

Missed meeting
I'm sitting at my computer in my office. I realize it's eleven thirty and that I didn't dial into the daily meeting earlier; but then I look at my daily calendar and see that it's been moved to five PM. I hate it when my team lead does that; the new time is after I'm done for the day! Now I'm on the phone with someone. Now I'm closing browser tabs, trying to get things organized again. I'm really confused by the contents of the tabs - there's lots of gaming stuff. I keep closing them and finally notice a stylized blue E at the corner of the window. Oh, of course, I'm in Windows, which I only boot up for gaming. When did I boot Windows?

Contaminated food
I'm at a party with some people I know. Everyone else has food, but I don't. Now I'm in the kitchen to see what's available, but all I see is a half a rolled-up something on a cutting board near the sink. I try to nonchalantly look around to see if there's a plate I can grab to get some, but I don't see anything. Suddenly, weird stuff starts happening. Little statuettes start exploding and everyone starts behaving very very oddly. I realize their behavior has something to do with the food and am thankful I didn't have any. Somehow I manage to talk to some of them and snap them out of it. Now I'm listening to a group of them talk afterwards (mostly older women I don't know, though Jen is also in the group). Someone is saying that the stuff in the food is pretty nasty, that even touching it will let it enter your DNA and make changes to your aging process, and that it affects women more than it does men.


Lucid in the lab
I'm watching the opening credits for a TV show which takes place in some kind of laboratory. In the footage, a lot of shining stainless steel and a variety of fancy-looking instruments are pretty constantly in the frame. Now the credits are showing a character who's young, strong, and not quite all there. He's used for simple manual labor, moving stuff from one place to another; but really he's used for comedy relief, always banging into things and messing up the other characters. Sure enough, he comes through a door pulling a giant metal cylinder that's much bigger than he is, acting as if it's nothing, but as he makes the turn he swivels it into another character who gets stuck between it and the wall. I recognize this guy from something he did much later - I hadn't realized this is where he got his start. Now I see another guy in what looks like a glass elevator, but he's rotating slowly around. When his capsule lines up with the door he has a brief moment to connect something, but he keeps missing his opportunity and having to wait until it spins around again.

Now I'm walking along a hallway in the building. Strangely, many pieces of equipment have handwritten signs on them with very strange, humorous (to someone) instructions written on them.

Now I'm walking down another hallway with a group of people. Over the PA, someone announces that they're going to drop meat on our heads. What kind of lab is this? What kind of experiment is this? The ceiling starts to open up, and something starts to fall out. People start screaming and running for the far end of the hall, but balloons are already falling out of the ceiling. Balloons? Strangely, they pop the moment they touch anything. At first, I'm relieved they weren't really dropping meat on us, but then I look behind me and see that the balloons did actually have stuff in them, and that the floor is now littered with unidentifiable bits of red chunks and red stringy stuff. Ewww.

Now we've entered an area with some other people. A woman dressed only in white bra and panties starts swaying her way towards my group. I don't make eye contact and try not to stand out, hoping she'll ignore me. She ends up fixating on the guy right in front of me and starts making out with him. Somehow she ends up sitting on my chest (she's very soft) while she's kissing him. I'm repulsed and try to think of a way out of this when I realize I'm dreaming. I shout out "This is a dream!" and wonder if any of the DCs will try to argue with me, but they just ignore me.

Now I'm standing again, and I'm by myself. The dream is rather dull, and I know I need more vividness. First, I look at my hand. It's got four fingers and a thumb, but all my fingers are too long, and the thumb is pointing almost straight downwards. Colors are better now. Now I start to go through my memorized list. First, to help activate the logical side of my brain, I calculate the first few numbers of the Fibonacci sequence. Getting to 13 is easy, but the jump to 21 takes some effort, and I stop there, not wanting to focus too much and lose the dream. Next up, I try to activate my creative side by singing Mary Had A Little Lamb. I manage to sing one verse, though it somehow gets muddled together with B.I.N.G.O. I know it's wrong, but I don't care - I sang something and that's good enough. Now, onto the real tasks. I know I need DCs for both basic tasks, but I haven't seen anyone since right after getting lucid, so I'm a bit worried that I won't be able to find anyone. I turn around (I'd been facing the hallway) and find that I'm now in some kind of cafeteria area. Tables are scattered around haphazardly along with large ornate pillars, and lots of people are milling around.

The closest person to me is a really cute, impeccably dressed (sweater vest, long sleeved shirt, slacks) little black kid. I ask him what a good task of the month would be. He very clearly enunciates something, but it's not a task. I go to a nearby woman and ask her, and she also says something that's not a task. I round one of the pillars and talk to an older man, and he says something that, again, is not a task. Oh well.

I move onto the second basic task: I throw back my head and do my best mad scientist laugh (Mwa ha ha ha ha ha). The guy looks at me like, did I really just do that? But off in another part of the cafeteria I hear an answering high pitched cackle (Eeeee hee hee hee hee hee). Score!

Onto intermediate one. I pull out my phone and will that Frank will call. Nothing happens. I decide that I'm going to count down from five and that it'll ring when I reach zero. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero. The moment I count "zero," the phone starts buzzing (it's quite a strong sensation in my hand) and the notification light starts blinking white, but the screen doesn't come on. I press the power button and it turns on to reveal an RPG. In the dream, I recognize that it's a smashed-up mess of at least two different games, and the city names shown on the map clue me in on what they are though I can't remember them now. Flush with excitement over successfully completing both a basic and an intermediate task in one dream, I wake up.


Fragment: I'm walking through what I know to be a college campus. My wife is with me, and she mentions going to visit a place on campus "now that she can put the baby in the Ergo." I don't understand what that has to do with anything, but whatever.

Purple dinosaurs
I'm sitting at my desk in the office. I'm scrolling through a web page full of pictures of a purple dinosaur-like creature laying eggs. I'm confused by the order of the pictures. *

Side-scroller novice
I'm watching the screen of someone playing a side-scrolling video game. Now the player's character has dropped into a new area (falling through some kind of portal) and has become a small frog. As it hops along to the right it runs into a number of flies, which it eats, then it runs into something larger which eats it. Whoever is playing is younger and rather inexperienced with gaming, so I give some tips on how to survive longer.

In System Shock
I'm physically present in a first person video game. I'm standing in a white hallway which extends off into the distance to my right and to a dead-end about 10 feet to my left. In front of me is another hallway, but this one is filled with some kind of laser traps and has a platform at the end which moves up and down. I think it's going to be tricky to time things right to get to the platform and ride it up without being touched by a laser. To the left and right of the hallway are large floor buttons. I step on one, expecting some lasers to turn on, but nothing happens. I reason that nothing will happen unless both buttons are pushed at the same time.

Now I'm watching a woman under the platform. The platform is moving down towards her, and I look away, not wanting to watch her get squished.

Now I'm in the next hallway, except it's totally different. There are shelves full of junk everywhere. I'm looking through the stuff on the shelves looking for anything useful, and I'm especially keeping my eye out for cyber modules. I know John and the woman have already looked through here, but I'm pretty confident they missed something. I'm trying to move quickly, because I feel bad holding them up - I should have gone through here with them instead of behind them. I hear the woman I'm playing with speak over the in-game voice chat saying how glad she is that she spent the $20 on System Shock 2, that she never would have thought she'd enjoy it as much as she is.

Bed @ 2245 - took a B multivitamin
Woke @ 0245

Transcription problems
I'm watching events, hearing a narrator describe them, and transcribing them. There's no 'me', yet I can feel the keyboard under my fingers. At first, I'm keeping up with the narrator completely. Now I'm having a lot of trouble keeping up. I'm only able to type a word here and there; it's taking me multiple seconds to type out each word. The narrator says "Saudi Arabia" and it takes me ages to figure out how to spell it. I start just typing random words he says, not even trying to capture complete sentences or key words - I'm just trying to get something, anything. Now I'm seeing lots of school buses driving around. My perspective is high enough that I can see their roofs and the words written there. I start 'cheating' by copying the words I can see so I don't have to process what I'm hearing. Each bus has words written in various different spots, each one in a different orientation. Finally, I tell one of the kids to pause the video; I just can't do this any more.


Missing hymnals
I'm in the sanctuary at church looking at the hymnals. I've realized that some rows only have a couple of them, and that's just not enough. I'm kind of confused that there seems to be a Psalter at every seat - I thought I remembered that we had enough hymnals for every seat but only enough Psalters for every other seat. Oh well, clearly I remembered incorrectly. I consider having my kids look around the church for the missing hymnals and then put them on rows that need them, or perhaps even redistribute them from rows that have enough, but then I figure that there must be someone tasked with doing something like that during the week - since every Sunday things are laid out well - and I don't want to do something that would mess them up even further. Now I see Alex one row over holding a hymnal.

Fragment: I'm in a fairly dark room. My mother-in-law has lined up half-gallon Mason jars along the counter. They're all filled with something syrupy.

BTB @ 0300
Woke @ 0600 (alarm)

Fragments:
I'm driving with my youngest daughter is in the passenger seat. We cross a small intersection in a city. It's dark.

I do a nose-pinch RC. A little air passes through, and I assume I didn't pinch right. I adjust my grip and try again, and I'm satisfied that I'm awake.

No alcohol before bed
Alarm @ 0200
Bed @ 2235

Woke @ 0015

Home life
I'm in the living room getting ready to move out some old chairs. I've turned off the stand lamps so that it's less likely a bulb will break if we knock it over.

Now I'm in the kitchen with Jeff and another guy. We're slowly tossing an egg between ourselves to practice being in zero-G in outer space. The egg floats slowly between us, bouncing off a wall when someone fails to catch it. I briefly wonder if the egg is hard boiled - a broken egg in zero-G would be messy. The jars behind Jeff rattle.

Now I'm talking to someone about using SSH keys and their ability to force specific commands to run. I wonder if there's a tool I can use to list every SSH key and command set up for a single user.

BTB @ 0025.
Woke @ 0200. No recall. Took a B multivitamin.
BTB @ 0220. Did some SSILD before getting back in bed. It took a while to get back to sleep.
Woke @ 0500. No recall.
Woke @ 0700.

Visit from Chris
I'm outside my house near the garden boxes. Chris has come over and we're both lounging next to the boxes, talking about things. Given the craziness of the last few weeks, it's been a while since we've really talked. My wife and some other woman are doing yard work along the left side of the house, nearby but out of earshot. Now we're all standing together near the corner of the house. Chris says he's moving his son's crib into the boy's room as his son's birthday present. He'll be excited to get to sleep with his brothers. To make it even better, they've also built a tunnel connecting the boys' room to November's room. Everyone else is talking about how neat it is that they'll be together, but I pipe up and ask who November is. I had a suspicion as I ask the question, but Chris' eyes twinkle as he says she'll be their newest baby. Everyone goes silent for a moment and then starts giving congratulations.

Futuristic campus
I'm walking around a large campus on a beautiful day. The campus somehow has a "futuristic" look to it with lots of sleek slightly curved white structures. I'm on the phone with Steam tech support about one of my games which won't properly sync. I'm hoping she can just give me instructions to fix the problem, but I have TeamViewer running in case she needs to take control. The woman I'm talking to ends up conferencing in another woman from another group, then says she can fix my problem if she acts as a representative of <company> instead of Steam, and it'll only cost me $16. I pause, unsure whether I've just heard her correctly. I repeat back to her that she wants me to pay her $16 and she'll fix my issue and she confirms that, yes, that's what she said. I think that's crazy and just hang up. I consider calling back to try to get another tech who'll actually help me, and I acknowledge to myself that this is partly my fault since I've let his problem go on for so long, thinking I could solve it myself. Now I'm inside somewhere. I decide that I'll go ahead and open an email ticket - much less pressure - when I get a call and a female voice asks to speak to me. I say "Yeah?" and a recording from the two techs starts to play. The main tech is apologizing for the way in which she sprung the $16 fee on me, and the other one is making the occasional side comment, as if she doesn't realize that she's being recorded too.

Now I'm walking along another outside path. I see a small group of people standing around where the sidewalk abruptly ends and I know that they're waiting for an elevator. In a couple of seconds, it touches down near them. Its doors open and they get in, and I follow them. Now I'm inside the elevator. It's a fairly large room, maybe ten by fifteen. The front and back walls are glass, and there's a hand rail going all the way around. The doors are on a long side near the corner - behind me and to my left as I look out the window. We're going down. I'm getting off at the ground floor, but I didn't push the button myself - someone else pushed it. I suddenly realize that this place has at least one floor below "ground," and I think that the button pushed was for the lowest floor, not for ground. I turn around to look at the control panel, and sure enough, we're just passing the ground floor on our way to the floor below. As everyone else files out, I push Ground. I realize there's one guy who was going to come back in but wasn't quick enough, and that he's somehow ended up hanging on to the outside of the door as the elevator lifts off and starts moving. Part of me wants to watch him to see how he does, but part of me doesn't want to see him get killed if the elevator passes to close to anything and squishes him. My squeamish side wins out and I turn away. As we're flying over the campus, we pass terribly close to some large stuff, including a huge dark-gray rock, but eventually we land. I turn to see that the guy is safe.

Fragments:
Something about a little house, sleeping, and dreaming.

Something about being inside a sleeping pod.

Alcohol: 1.5 oz port before bed.
Alarm @ 0400
Bed @ 2210

Woke @ 0150 due to baby. Took B. No recall (on the tip of my brain ...)
Woke @ 0230. Woke @ 0300.

Defending from shape shifters
I'm in a small house defending myself (and maybe others) from some shape-shifters. I'm in a small hallway facing the front door; the kitchen is to my left. Now I'm squeezing some kind of translucent brown goo I got from the kitchen into the lock to stop them from squeezing through and getting into the house. Now I'm somewhere in an airport doing something similar. A bunch of people are around me. This time it's not going so well - there are too many entry points and I'm not going to be able to save everyone.

Fragment: I'm at "home" trying to find the source of a sound. It seems to be outside. As I'm hunting for it, I step on something sharp.

BTB @ 0330 (killed alarm). Woke @ 0800 (a full two hours after I'd expected to be woken by my wife's alarm)

A trip with Ben
I'm being driven through a city by Ben. We're at a traffic light trying to turn left. We have a green arrow, but other cars keep coming across the intersection. By the time they finish, we've lost the arrow. Now we're in a convenience store looking at a rack of random products. I'm not sure what this next part means ...He says that cars for 2 are always bad, but 3 are OK. Now I'm near the store's exit, where I find a large platter of weird cheap sandwiches. I call attention to them, thinking that they're kind of amusing, but Alex actually likes their look more than I expected. He calls over Bob; but by the time we get there, others have taken them all and alerted the staff that they need to make more. Oh well.

Now I'm with Ben in a house where we'll stay for the night. The house is "homely." It's dark inside with older furniture, but it's well cared for. Stairs in the corner go up to the second floor where the rooms are. The place is run by a kind old woman. She has some long term residents and others, like us, who are just staying the right. There are a lot more people than bathrooms, and I wonder what the bathroom etiquette is. We tell her that we have to go into city tomorrow, and she suggests that we could sell the car for some money. Annoyingly, she says that she could actually solve our problems for us; but that if she started solving people's problems, where would she stop? How would she decide who to help and who not to?


School with Mike
I'm in the girls' room talking with Mike and Chris (over the phone?) about school work. I've been given a transparency and a dry-erase marker and am expected to write a short report/story on it. Unfortunately, there's already some stuff on the sheet, so I'm having to write above / around it. The original writing is in brown; I'm surprised to see that I'm writing in red. I ask if I can type these up in the future and just print on a transparency, but he's a bit old-fashioned and doesn't like the idea. He justifies his dislike by saying that, though most people know who I'm writing about this time, most of my future reports will be on people that no one knows about. I finish my report. It's about something Ben did 20 years ago, carrying <a guy> around while trying to figure out what present to get <the guy>. I hand it back to Mike with some trepidation - he's known to be a fearsome grader - and I'm excited when he writes A+ on it. Now I have a cotton ball stuck to my foot. There's something about a little felt house.


Fragment: I'm walking along a waterfront in a covered walkway. The water is to my right, and a building is to my left. It's a beautiful day. I have to be careful as this is a hostile area and small fights are breaking out all around me.

Bed @ 0040
Woke @ 0350.

Experimental vaccines
I'm managing a line of people who have come for experimental vaccines. I'm at the front of the line waving people forward when it's their turn. I can see other lines of other people, but I don't know what they're for. Each person in my line is getting a different experimental vaccine, and I know that some people have really bad reactions or side-effects to them, some of which are life-changingly bad. These people are being vaccinated right in front of me, and I'm afraid that if any of them have any of these complications, I might be affected due to proximity.


Alternate-reality Picard
Picard is at the back of an airplane. He's using something to appear in our reality, but it's not working right. He's mostly here, but he's very cold and having a hard time breathing. He kneels down and breaks something on the floor - trying not to be seen doing so - and starts to warm his hands over it. It seems that whatever he broke is the device that's sending him across realities, and by whacking it he made it work better.


Defense tribes
I see five small tribes, each in its own circular camp, forming a line * * * * * dividing two areas of land, protecting one area from invaders coming from the other area. I've snuck into the camp on one end and been discovered. The people who found me aren't at all pleased with me, but they're also not attacking me, so I decide to try to win them over. After all, I'm an explorer, not an invader. I decide to break the ice by getting everyone a fresh drink. Moving slowly and unthreateningly, I move around collecting their old glasses. Now I'm walking through a field full of small groups of people. I'm having to be really careful to walk right down the middle of the groups since a lot of people have their legs stuck out and I don't want to trip.


Late-night phone call
It's after midnight, and I get a phone call. At first I assume it's junk, but as I pick up my phone to hang up I see that it's actually Ronne. I realize it must be important and try to answer, but I can't - I must have waited too long and dumped him to voicemail.


Explosive fun
I'm in a tunnel system using explosives to unearth fish. They're somehow trapped in rock, and after the explosive blows the rock apart they're able to swim away. I'm amazed that they're able to survive such an ordeal. I keep going back into one area, blowing deeper and deeper back into the rock. Now I'm trying another area, but the fish are more aggressive. Now I'm watching someone try to blow up a medicine cabinet; but instead of blowing up it just gets blown off the wall. Somehow I know that a crack formed in back, that the force of the explosion found the crack, and that the full force of the explosion passed through the crack and expanded between all went through, blowing the cabinet off the wall. The wall itself is completely undamaged.


BTB @ 0400.

Fragments:
I'm wandering around with a half-broken bottle. Its neck snapped off really easily - I can't believe how cheaply it was made.

I'm wandering around what seems to be a cafeteria. There are lots of empty tables, but I'm the only one here. Somehow it has something to do with changing prisoner's gender and sending them to colonize a new planet.

I'm in a huge tent listening to my supervisor and the job foreman talk; my company has provided the foreman with something he need to complete the job here. The foreman is telling us about the risks and rewards of this project; depending on whether he finishes early or late, there are significant risks as well as rewards.

I'm at home in my family room. Some men in suits are setting up outside for someone to make a presentation. Now he's talking, but I'm getting echo; it turns out it's because I'm hearing him live as well as over a speaker phone someone turned on. There's something about my bluetooth headset battery being almost dead.

Alarm @ 0200
Bed @ 2215

Woke @ 0040: bathroom.
Woke @ 0200: took an extra multi-B.

House in the woods
I'm in a clearing in a wooded area near a large house. A small fire is burning. I take something that looks kind of like a long, hard vine (slightly reddish in color) and put one end into the fire. The outside of the vine burns very very quickly, reminding me of det cord that Mythbusters likes to use.

Now someone is making a bow. It's made out of some kind of wood that's almost white. It's fairly thin (maybe 1/2 inch diameter), pointed on both ends, and taller than he is. Someone else shows up and is rather dismissive towards the bow, saying that he really likes the modern recurved bows but has no interest in traditional ones.

Now I'm walking along a path on the other side of the house. It's to our left, and there's a drop to our right. We pass a large bush with very sharp leaves and discuss the values of such plants as theft deterrents.

BTB @ 0245.
Woke @ 0600.

Guard house mess
I'm driving along a road towards a row of guard houses. There's one guard house for traffic coming in, another for traffic leaving; each guard house has one lane on either side of it. There's also a clapboard sign between the guard houses, between the two directions of traffic. I'm in the rightmost lane. Something odd is going on: cars from each direction aren't staying in their lanes but are choosing a guard house seemingly at random. I slow down to a crawl, trying to figure out what to do. I see a guard standing at the clapboard sign waving me over and head towards her.

Now I'm standing at a counter at the (what should be) outbound gatehouse. I've handed over a number of forms I brought with me pre-filled-out, and the guard has spread them out to look at them. I fish in my pocked for my money, dropping a huge handful of coins - mostly quarters - onto the table. I realize I didn't keep back any money for vending machines and hunt for 4 quarters to hold onto, realizing that might make one of my forms invalid. Oh well, I can redo it if I need to. The guard gives me a very dismissive look, as if he can't believe he has to deal with someone like me.

Now I'm getting out of my car in a dark parking garage.

Alarm @ 0230
Bed @ 2240
Woke @ midnight, used bathroom, BTB


XKCD shirt
I'm somewhere with Allan (a coworker I haven't seen for about five years), and I'm thinking about XKCD. My initial thought is that he's a programmer, so of course he saw the most recent comic, but then I figure there's no harm in asking. It turns out he's never heard of it.

Now I'm ordering an XKCD shirt. It's white-on-orange, and they have a choice of about a dozen shirts. Now it's arrived. I'm pulling it out of the package, thinking about how I blew half my monthly allowance of "do anything " money on a silly shirt just to tell my coworker about an online comic. Oh well. I pull it out and look at it, realizing with horror that I must have ordered the wrong shirt by accident. It is an XKCD shirt, but it doesn't have a print of a comic, only some kind of list. I wonder if I can return it, but I probably can't, and the return shipping would probably make it not really worth it anyway. My wife sees it and asks me about it, and I explain it's to introduce my coworker to XKCD. She gets a sort of "wow, that's weird, but whatever" expression on her face.


Woke around 0100 with a crying baby. Woke around 0130, ditto.
Woke @ 0230, BTB @ 0245.
Woke @ 0320 after feeling something on my head. After flinging it away with my hand, I did a nose-pinch which indicated reality.


Smartish watch
I see an ad for a watch on sale: a nice Casio men's watch. It's not a "smart watch," but it is a very nice digital. It's got a lot of nice features, including an mp3 player, a stand (how does that even work?), something that changes how the watch acts depending on your current activity and time of day, and a bunch of other stuff. The list is very long, covering the whole right side of the page. I see a URL on the page, something like www.move2watch.com (whatever it is, it's two words separated by "2") and visit it. I see that that all the extensions for the watch are currently on sale. I didn't realize this watch even had extensions; that's pretty impressive. I glance briefly at the list of available extensions, but none of the descriptions make any impact on me. I wonder if I misunderstood the flier - maybe the extensions are the only things on sale, not the watch. Looking back at the flier, I see that the watch itself is on sale for e$49.99. I'm not sure what that works out to, but I'm guessing about $60.

I see a note somewhere indicating that if you're going to get a law changed, please do it before commissioning a new extension. If a law is changed and it requires updating an extension, you'll have to pay a re(something) fee. Email Allison (someone) <some dept>, Allison (someone) Heating Dept to request it. Reading further, I find details about the process. It says she creates a VM based on the current law to simulate how the watch will respond, so she'll need to make a new one after a law change. Her simulation uses four units: witches, guards, citizens, and <something>. I see a whole lot of colored wooden kids' blocks stacked on the floor in a bunch of piles: yellow for citizens, blue for guards, red for witches, green for <something>. Each pile has different numbers of each blocks, but each pile has all four colors and has them stacked in the same color order with the entirety of each color grouped together (e.g. 5 greens, 3 blues, 6 yellows, 2 reds). According to the rules of the simulation, witches kill citizens, guards kill witches but lose their own lives in the process. I see blocks starting to disappear from the stacks as the simulation runs its course.

Before returning to bed, I try to set the intention that in my next dream I'll see the watch and become lucid.


BTB @ 0345
Woke @ 0530

Long FA chain
I'm in a house, in a small bathroom, getting ready to leave. My wife and family have already left. I notice that something is wet and look up to find what looks like a pipe sticking out of the ceiling and dripping - but as I look, it starts pouring. There's a whole pile of clothing on a counter under the window, and it's soaked in seconds. I try briefly to think what could be above us to do this but I'm drawing a blank. I call my wife, but the connection is terrible - then I realize that I'm not talking to her over the cellular network but instead over a barely-connected Bluetooth connection. She's a couple of miles down the road - how is Bluetooth even working?? - so I hang up, intending to disable Bluetooth and try again. I realize something is off about this whole situation and nose-pinch, finding it really is a dream.

Now I'm driving on a four/five lane road through a commercial area with shopping centers to my left and right. I see an ad for something, and it seems really familiar. I do the nose-pinch test and realize I'm dreaming, though it takes a couple of iterations to really sink in that it's working - I can tell I'm still breathing with my nose pinched, but at first I think I'm accidentally breathing through my mouth.

Now I'm parked in my car in the parking lot. I find myself moving really slowly so as to not disturb the dream, and again I realize this is silly - I need to intensify the dream, not move as if on eggshells. I remember my goal for intensifying is to do the first few Fibonacci numbers, so - keeping my eyes open - I count 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 - which was as high as I'd intended to go - but it seems so easy I keep going - 13, 21, 34, 65 (I think I must have accidentally added 21+44 instead of 21+34). It's starting to get hard, and I don't want to lose the dream because I completely lose focus on it, so I stop there, pleased with how well I did.

Now I'm standing on the parking lot, and I decide to fly. I remind myself that this is a dream, that everything around me is a creation of my mind, including my body (though I don't go so far as to remember that my real body is asleep in bed), then try to lift off. Nothing happens.

Now I'm in an alley behind the stores. Ivy is growing everywhere. There's quite a lot of exposed wood - something like trellises - along the side of the alley. The far end of the alley is completely blocked, though I know there's a road behind it. Again, I walk around touching everything, feeling it, yet remembering that it's not actually there. The ivy is a dark green with large leaves. I touch the ground, some wood, the leaves. I think about how I wish I had some way to record this so I didn't forget it after I wake up, and I remember my project with my DIY dream mask to attempt to record Morse code from inside the dream state and read it back later. Unfortunately, that project is benched for the time being, so I'll just have to remember everything as best as I can. Oh well. I decide not to fly back here but want to get back to the front of the store for the extra room, but the way back is blocked. Somehow I dig through a wall of dirt, but I'm not happy with the feeling of dirt clinging to my hands. I look at my hands and at the grayish dirt clinging to them, remind myself that the dirt isn't real, and mentally command it to fall off. To my immense satisfaction, the dirt does just fall off, leaving my hands almost (but not entirely) clean. I wake up.

As I lay in bed looking around the (well-lit) bedroom, my wife walks in. She's talking to John and Jenny who follow her into the room. She notices that I'm awake and asks if I've had any success with my lucid dreaming. I excitedly tell her that I actually just woke from a lucid dream, that I couldn't manage to fly, but that I did manage to get dirt to fall from my hands. They're clearly enjoying my enthusiasm, but my wife - who's always thought that the whole lucid dreaming thing is pretty silly - turns to them and mock-apologizes for me, saying something like "I'm sorry, he really is a good man." Something seems off, so I discretely nose-pinch and realize I'm still dreaming.

Details are really fuzzy for this scene. I'm walking through a field towards a small building build in an Oriental style. Getting closer, I see a patch of dirt under an overhang. Somehow I use my dream powers of dirt manipulation to dig down into it and/or toss it aside to form a path to the evil queen. I wake up.

I lay in bed with my eyes closed and try to perform a DEILD chain. I can hear the sound of the rain/ocean playing through my pillow speakers. I'm a bit disappointed when nothing happens (though not too much, since I've never gotten a DEILD to work); but then I remember that I had a false awakening just a few minutes ago and this might be another one. With my eyes still closed, I slowly reach up a hand and do the nose pinch, finding that I'm still dreaming. I have a moment of "what do I do now" since I'm in blackness; but then I open my eyes and find myself in a bedroom - to my sleeping mind, it's the one from my parents' house in Virginia.

I find myself in a house with a rather rustic feel to it. I walk over to the window and look out to see a landscape covered with snow. Trees stand out here and there, and dozens of snowmen - some large, some small - dot the yard. I think how much my kids would love to be here in real life. I have a passing thought that it would be fun to summon a blizzard. I give a brief mental "push," but nothing happens. I decide I don't really care and shouldn't spend my mental energies / focus on this. I can't really fly too well indoors, but then I remember Ophelia's story from one of her podcasts about how her eyes changed when she looked into a mirror. I head off down a nearby hallway in search of a bathroom.

I quickly realize the hallway is stretching off into the distance, and I decide I'm NOT going to lose lucidity to something stupid. I turn left, intending to try to find a bathroom that way, and come face-to-face with a mirror mounted to the wall of the hallway. Looking at myself, I'm dressed as I am for bed during the summer: wearing a pair of boxers and nothing else. Thinking back to Ophelia's story, I start out by closely examining the reflection of my face. The shape is a little off, the bottom half too triangular, the eyes too large, the skin too smooth and light, the whole impression somehow too childlike or perhaps Anime-like? I don't even watch Anime - but each individual change is fairly subtle. I turn away from the mirror to see what else I can do in the house, but I wake up.

This time I'm expecting it to be a false awakening, but I keep my eyes closed (again hearing the speakers) and attempt a DEILD chain just to be sure. After a few moments, I again do a nose-pinch, and again I find I'm still in the dream. I open my eyes, get out of bed, and find one of my kids waiting for me. I pick her up, thinking to myself that if she starts fussing about something I'll just put her down and walk away - after all, she's not real. I decide that even if I can't lift off the ground, maybe I can step into space and not fall. I get up on the bed and walk to the foot, noting (but not questioning) the nice wood chest a few feet away and the stairs beyond. Disappointingly, when I put my foot down on the air I just fall to the ground (though somehow I remain standing). Oh well. I think about other ways to start flying, and I remember people talking about baby steps, of using means to achieve flight before you just will yourself into the air. I decide to go outside, hold out my arms, get a good running start, and launch myself into the air. At the very least I should be able to glide a few feet off the ground as I have before. I go down the stairs, turn right towards the front door, unlock the deadbolt, open the door, go out onto the front path (detached garage to my right, house to my left, lots of greenery - I note the snow is gone), and wake up.

Again, I try to DEILD chain, do the nose pinch, and find myself in my real bed. I note that my real bed felt different from my dream beds - rougher, perhaps, providing more sensory input than the fake ones did.

BTB @ 0605.
Woke @ 0730.

Fragments: Someone is playing a side-scroller on a console, about to fight a boss.

* Alarm @ 0200
Bed @ 2200

Heated class discussion
As I'm walking through a college campus at night, I come across a large group of students holding a rather heated discussion - not quite a protest - about some recent events. It seems that some of the US states have officially accepted responsibility for whatever it is. This seems to have been a bad idea, since it A) prevents people from having a real discussion about the actual problem and B) encourages even more vitriol to be thrown at the states instead of the people who are actually at fault. Worse yet, more states are planning on also taking responsibility for whatever-it-is. Somehow, I get dragged into the mess and become a moderator of some kind of forum. Now I'm sleeping, hearing Kaleb calling my name, wondering what's gone wrong now and what I'm going to have to do to fix it.

Someone is discussing driving a wedge between different economic classes, making an analogy of a road with two lanes going in the same direction, everyone driving along happily, when suddenly and without warning the right-hand lane turns off and people who were otherwise minding their own business are suddenly going somewhere they didn't expect. Now I'm driving in the left lane. I see the cars next to me who are forced off to the right and can see the expressions of confusion/disappoinment/anger on the drivers' faces. Now there's some kind of discussion of genetically modifying the population such that the lower classes have a higher birth rate than the upper classes to help perpetuate the ruler / worker dichotomy.

BTB @ 0215. Woke @ 0540 due to dog.

Alien sphere / high school hijinks
It's night. I'm standing with a group of people in a tall, dilapidated building looking at the hazy sky. Suddenly, bright yellow lines appear in the sky in a kind of Y (or slingshot) shape and start launching glowing balls towards space. Amazingly, the balls seem to impact something, revealing that the sky is hazy because the Earth is surrounded by some kind of sphere. After a couple of shots, the balls start knocking holes in the sphere, revealing amazingly clear, bright stars beyond. After a few more shots, a huge part of the sphere falls out and reveals most of the night sky in its glory. Now I see the Earth as from space, and I know that the aliens who built the sphere are not happy that it's been breached and are on their way to re-subjugate the Earth.

Now it's day, and I'm walking down a sidewalk with a group of teens heading for a high school. A road is to our left, and the school is ahead of us and across the road. One of the girls in the group is talking about names in conjunction with the aliens. She says one name in particular, but it doesn't sound familiar to me. She scoffs, believing me to be lying, and I think about it harder. I realize it sounds kind of like Dilbert's Elbonians, and she says that's what she was referring to.

Now the group is sneaking in a balcony on an upper story of the school. The door closes early and one girl gets left outside. Someone comes back and opens the door for her, but someone in authority sees her. Now I'm in a men's bathroom near the door they snuck in. The place has a strange maze-like layout with the toilets in the dead-ends. I'm using one, taking longer than I'd like, knowing that this is a bad place to be since authority figures will probably show up soon and start snooping around to find out more about the kids who snuck in. Now I'm about to leave the bathroom, but someone comes in, stops me, and starts asking me questions about the kids. I start picking through a pile of clothes on the floor near the door, pretending that's why I'm here, pretending ignorance about the questions he's asking me.

Now I'm in a room (a dormitory?) with two rows of beds. I'm in the bed on the right side of the room, second from the end. The room is empty except for one other guy. Now I'm watching him betray us all to the administration. He's walking around the room, pointing to each bed, telling them all the dirt on person who sleeps there. When he gets to my bed, he pauses, looks kind of guilty, and admits he has nothing against me.

Now I'm watching girls in their dorm room as they play a video game on their TV. Only one girl is actually doing the playing; the others are watching. Now I'm watching girls in another room as they're playing with the ones in the first. Suddenly a group of administrators pours in, raiding the room. These girls are caught, but at least the girls in the first room will have warning (since this group is dropping offline) and won't be caught off-guard when their own room is raided.


Potluck setup
I'm outside in a field helping to set up for potluck. As I'm helping to unfold chairs, everyone is really paranoid about yellow jackets. Chris unfolds chair then gingerly holds it so I can see down the legs. I take a look and see what looks like two yellow jackets inside. He gingerly puts the chair down, we stand back, and a few moments later they both fly out, both looking a lot larger than I expect. Now we're walking to where the cars are parked. We pull out more chairs and get to work setting them up. One chair is different from the others: it comes in lots of different pieces and has 1" hooks at the end of each piece designed to hook together to hold the chair together. Given the size of the hooks, I can't see how the chair could possibly hold together, especially with weight in it.


BTB @ 0555.

No further dreams.


Fragments:
I'm with my parents walking into a fancy restaurant. We're all well dressed. The maitre'd escorts us through one room into another. The walls of this room are mostly window, and I can see that it's night time. I'm carrying my tablet.

I'm on a ship with some people.

I'm in a garage. Someone is working on a car and is getting a new tool.

I'm walking under the awning of a shopping center with my wife.

Alarm @ 0205
Bed @ 2315

Adventures in Florida
I'm seeing something about the Disney castle. It says it's the second most expensive building in the world. I just can't how that could be - unless maybe it's because it's made of 100% Legos. As the image zooms closer, I can see that it is in fact a lot shinier than I expected, probably because of all that Lego plastic. Wow, who know?

Now I'm in a nice car being driven somewhere. There's a woman I need to talk to, but I don't have her number. As I'm thinking about her, wondering how to contact her, she calls me. Unfortunately, the connection is terrible and I can't make out a word she's saying. I eventually try to yell to her that I'll just text her. Now we're pulling up to what looks like a nice hotel. I realize I forgot to text her, but it turns out she's waiting for me anyway, standing just outside the door under one of those funny curved awnings hotels like to use.

Now I'm inside the building, moving through a crowd. All of us are pretty well dressed. I see Chris and decide to talk to him, but since he's already heading in my general direction I just wait. Our eyes meet when he's a couple of people away from me and he comes closer, shakes my hand, and tells me that he can't talk now but he'll find me in a few minutes. Now I'm in another room, some kind of art gallery. The walls are a kind of golden color, as are the painting frames. I look at a few of the pictures, stopping to look at one in particular of a nice sailing ship being tossed by heavy seas. Chris comes in and I ask him about the woman. Specifically, I suspect that she has the power of teleportation, and think he'll know for sure. He confirms that she does have such powers, but that she can't use them on young children. I think that her abilities could come in very handy, because there are a couple of people I'm somehow responsible for that need to get from one side of Florida to the other, but I can't really take them because it's hours to Florida, hours from one side to the other, then hours back; and she could get them where they need to go in an eye-blink.

Now I'm walking outside with Chris in casual clothes. It's a beautiful day with a clear blue sky. We're on a sidewalk walking with the road to our right. Across the road I see an arid field, further on some garish buildings which I think are something like bathrooms / changing rooms, then a parking lot, then some apartment buildings. I comment that these buildings are even more ugly than normal Florida buildings (which are ugly enough). He's amused but makes no comment.

Now it's dusk. We're walking down a path towards a fence guarding the back of some kind of residential area. There's a gate in the fence at the end of the path, and as we get to it Chris gets annoyed with himself. The gate is locked with a padlock on the inside. He's got a key, but he's on the wrong side of the gate to get to the lock. He ends up having to climb the fence so he can open the gate for me. A groundskeeper sees him and starts heading our way, but when Chris shows he has a working key to the lock and explains that he accidentally left it locked this morning when he left, the groundskeeper is mollified and walks away. Now we're walking along a path between buildings headed for someone's residence.


Home improvement heist
I'm in a giant home improvement store looking at some stuff on an end-cap. Now I'm watching some guys walking through a deserted part of the store (possibly in the basement), guns drawn but pointing at the ground. They find a recessed area in another end-cap and open a hidden compartment in the back, but they're disappointed when it turns out to be empty. They realize the man in the wheelchair must have gotten there first and taken it, and that they'll have to track him down. Now the area they're in is near the checkout area. Someone hits a button expecting to call an elevator, but the entire floor - both their area and the checkout area - starts to rise upwards.

Bed @ 2230, alarm @ 0200

Woke @ 0130 for an unknown reason.
Military ceremony & mission
I'm looking into a room full of guys sitting around waiting for an event to start. They're sitting in individual chairs lined up in about 10 rows with chairs on each side of a central aisle. Alex asks if anyone who's good at editing movies known hos to fix movie hand-to-hand fight scenes. He clarifies that he doesn't want to do anything to the choreography but that he wants to replace the sound effects: the fake thwacks just really get to him. He briefly demonstrates by having a mock fight with someone from across the aisle near him to show how it really sounds when you hit someone.

Now the event, an air Force graduation ceremony, has started. Three people are standing to attention in front - someone standing behind what looks like a pulpit flanked by a man on either side of him. The three up on the stage are all graduating; the older officer running this event is sitting towards the back making comments. The two men flanking the speaker types don't look very sharp, but they do look strong. Both the guy behind the pulpit and the officer speak.

Now I'm looking at a poster for an old war TV show. It's got a picture of a somewhat goofy guy in military gear and a wool cap saying a sentence including both "roger" and "radio," though all the Rs are held for far too long. Somehow I know this show was inspired by a true story.

Now I'm watching the 'true story' unfold. A small group of men was assigned to a stealth boat to trail an enemy ship, monitor all its radio, and relay everything back home. Early on in the mission, the officer in charge was killed, leaving only a bunch of junior enlisted guys alive. They were never told how long the mission would last and they figured they didn't have authority to leave, so they just spent years following this other ship. With just six guys on a boat, they got kind of nuts, hence the weird tag-line with the rolling Rs. I see them on the deck of their little ship, wearing loose uniforms and the wool caps from the poster, lounging in deck chairs.

Now I'm seeing them as they perform a dangerous mission to get even closer. They're all in the water around their boat and they're going to swim it right up to the enemy ship. They all think it's a suicide mission, but they're still game for it. They have to control their speed really well so they don't overshoot and end up on the enemy boat's deck. Now it's over and the guys are sitting around exhausted. The guy who's nominally in charge gives the bad news they need to do it again, but this time he's going it alone. Before they can stop him or try to help, he dives off and heads for the enemy ship. Now he's headed back, successful but wounded, swimming slowly and painfully due to his wound.


BTB @ 0215; didn't fall asleep for at least an hour.
Woke @ 0415 by child; didn't fall asleep for at least half an hour.


Night firing range
I'm at a shooting range checking out a "night firing" room. I'm a bit confused, since it's just as bright as other rooms, but I guess they let us turn off the lights when we're ready to start shooting. I look back towards the front of the room and see that there's only one lane. I briefly wonder if they'd let us go behind the firing line to set up targets, but I figure that even with only one lane they still wouldn't let us do it. As I turn around I notice that I'm live on a video monitor; it must be one of those setups like they have in a lot of stores to remind you that you're being recorded and not to do anything stupid. The image on the monitor is poor and somehow strange - maybe showing only my legs? - but I don't think anything of it. As I'm walking towards the door I realize my gun is in my belt holster and has a clip in it. I know they don't like that outside the range, so I remove the clip and stick it in my back pocket, then open and lock the slide. I'm not sure whether to put the gun back in the holster like that - it looks pretty weird - but I don't have my normal bag to put it in, so I do.

Now I'm back in the store part. I zip up my jacket, but I get the zipper lined up wrong, so zippers mesh poorly. I manage to get them apart without too much trouble, even though it looked like it could be hard. I notice that the teeth in the zipper are surprisingly large. One of the store employees sees me deal with my zipper and brings over his jacket, explaining that he's having trouble getting it zipped and asking if I could take a look. He tries to zip it, but he doesn't get the ends lines up right, and it looks like some short strings - which are hanging off along the entire length - get under it and pop it off. I explain both problems. He's going to try again using a little pair of pliers, but I want to try it by hand first - I don't think it'll actually take that much force. I get the sides mated correctly, then slide the zipper while holding back the flaps (and strings). It goes just fine, though it ends up going much higher than I expected it to, zipping onto material well above the collar. At first I think it's a hood, but then I realize that it's zipping too high for that, and that it wouldn't make sense for it to be a hood since it's zipping up the front. He's very impressed that I managed to get it zipped, so I explain and show him what I did. He takes it and puts it over something, then zips it back up. It turns out it's a rain cover (or something) for this other thing.

Blanking out in church
I'm in church, in the middle of a service, kneeling down to mess with phone on the floor, and I'm embarrassed when I accidentally make some noise. Now I start awake, still kneeling, and look around. I see that the communion bread has already passed to the row behind me. Now the wine is being passed around, and I'm feeling incredibly awkward. What do I do about the wine? Do I take it and pretend that nothing happened? Do I let it pass by and pass off my not taking the bread as being on purpose? What would people think?


Fragments:
I'm outside, on the top of a mountain, standing on a grassy area. Church people are mingling.

I'm driving down a neighborhood road to a house. I see that the neighbor's yard has a horse loose in it.


Notable dream signs: I seem to be dreaming a lot about guns these days.

Bed @ 2230, SSILD
Alarm @ 0200

Woke @ 0200

Airport adventures
I'm in an airport with a friend. We've just finished asking a couple of security guards a question. We pick up our passports from a little table - beyond which is a large room they seem to be guarding entrance to and/or exit from - and walk back the way we came from. Now my friend and I are in a hallway with lots of right angles. The hallway continues to our left; the woman's room is in front of us, the men's room is to our right, and the hallway continues the other way behind us. My friend asks me if I want to visit the other side of the runway. At first, I start to say no, that I've already been there; then I get confused and ask if this is an airport where you get to the other side by going over or under. I know I've gone to the other side in an airport where you go under, but I don't think I've ever taken a skyway over a runway before. He replies you go over, so I agree. Now we're in the men's room. A voice on the PA is counting down from ten, and I know that when it reaches zero a security pulse is going to hurt a lot (probably taking off twenty HP) if we're not in a designated safe area. I start running through the bathroom, hoping I can get to one in time; then I realize it's hopeless (the bathroom is huge, it'll take seconds just to reach the exit) and stop near some stalls. A door is closed, so at least it's not just my friend and I who are going to take damage.

Now I'm outside climbing around on what seems to be a long-abandoned water park that was built on the runway. I briefly try to slide down a dry chute before realizing that, though parts of it are smooth, others are badly worn away revealing a pebble-like texture beneath. Someone I don't know doesn't seem to care and comes sliding towards me; somehow I get out of the way in the nick of time. He asks if I want to come with him to get a better view. Now the two of us are much higher on the ruins looking out over them. He says something else.


BTB @ 0230, SSILD. Woke @ 0620.

Lifelike video games
I'm playing a video game with @Jakkarth, but I seem to be physically present. We're standing outside in an area we've just cleared of the enemy. Our surroundings are falling down, though whether from age or from the fighting I can't tell. We take a breather, then Jakkarth fiddles with his controller - looking like a large console controller - to bring on the next wave. A huge robot, taller than we are, almost as wide as the area we're in, and roughly triangle-shaped, comes around the corner and heads straight for us. It's spinning, and it's fast. We'll be crushed if we don't move quickly. I start running the other way, heading straight for some kind of fence, boosting myself with my right hand to vault over it, then turn right into the next area, which seems to be the clothing and/or bedding section from a department store. The robot crashes through the fence and starts coming for me, knocking down everything in its path. I somehow manage to get some height and jump as it comes for me, landing on top of it. I'm surprised to see Jakkarth on top of the robot controlling it. Traitor! I run up to him and point my weapon at him, laughing that I've won. He's clearly having a good time too, good-naturedly complaining that he almost got me. He resets the scenario so we can try it properly.

I'm fighting with my back to a wall, the corner a little to my right, my team around me. We all have some kind of energy rifles, as does the enemy. They're taking cover behind some buildings about 50 feet in front of us, while we're pretty exposed. I need to reach into a window behind me to press F3 on a keyboard (black), but there's an enemy in there who's somehow messing me up. My "mother," also part of my team, comes over to me and initiates a mind meld with me. With the mind meld in place, I can see the world through her eyes as well as my own, and I'm able to reach behind myself and press F3. Now that that's done, I head along the wall away from the corner and turn left down a corridor. I realize she never ended the mind meld and wonder what effect it'll have on things. I think about Vulcan children and wonder how this affects their relationships with their parents and when they learn to do it for themselves.


Finding the carpets
I'm talking to a woman in a squarish, medium-sized room just off of a gigantic oval-shaped room. I direct her to a cubby on the far left of the gigantic room saying she'll find the rolled-up carpet there. Someone else reminds us that there will actually be two carpets. How had I forgotten that? One is larger, one is smaller - I should have remembered that Aladin actually had two carpets. Now I'm watching someone small entering a store wearing a strange costume with a really poorly-fitting mask. He muses to himself that Sonic has made this far too easy since he already has a reputation of handing out candy to kids. As he's pondering that, I see Sonic in the store, giving a chocolate coin to a child as he passes. I consider that Sonic's spines look droopier than they should. I realize the small guy's costume is supposed to be Sonic, but wow is it bad. After Sonic leaves the store, the guy goes in, intending to bribe the kid with more candy to give him information about the carpets; but the store keeper, thinking the real Sonic has come back in, comes over and starts giving him chocolate coin after chocolate coin, never giving him a chance to talk to the kid.


Fragments:
I'm driving on a small road and turn left onto an even smaller one, winding my way along a twisting path between small homes.

I'm parked at the top of a parking deck. As I close the van doors I leave the windows open so it doesn't get too hot, but as I walk away I realize there's a high chance of rain today and I need to go back to close them all.

Patrick Stewart's hockey gang
I'm in a house with a group of street toughs who have just helped "us" out. I'm in their room, and I see a tiny record player on the bed. For some reason, I think briefly about stealing the record - somehow I know it's valuable. I decide not to - besides just being wrong, I have no desire to cross a group of street toughs - and leave room. As I'm walking out, one of them walks in. He gives me a suspicious look, and I wonder if I have a guilty look on my face from my earlier thoughts. Now I'm in my room, talking with my wife about making copies of records. She's sitting on the edge of the bed working on something, while I'm laying on my side facing her. She doesn't understand why it would be all that hard, saying that surely wax would do the job. I explain that normal wax is too soft, that while it's easy to push into grooves it would deform when removed and so wouldn't be useful for making a good copy. Instead, we'd need some kind of wax that's easy to work with when warm but which hardens completely when cool.

Now I'm at an ice rink watching the group of toughs play a hockey game. I'm excited to find out that they're led by Patrick Stewart - except where I see his name written, it's something like Patrick Steaus. I get a look at his face and - even though covered by a helmet with facial bars - I'm sure it's him. His face is more angular, more lined than I've seen it before, but it's still him. I only got a quick glance at his name earlier, so I look around trying to find it again. I see it out of the corner of my eye - again with that strange almost-spelling - but it always changes to something else before I can get a really good look. Maybe this is his "pen name" that he uses to hide from some of his fame? At one point the names of all the players appear on the wall near the ceiling, moving around in a circle, each name separated from the next by a ♠. Even so, I never get a clear look at the name. Now the game is over and he and his team are skating around the rink on an exhibition lap. As they're leaving the rink I take note of how incredibly smoothly they're skating - it looks unnatural. I also get a better look at their armor/uniforms - they're covered head-to-toe in something that's shiny, hard, and completely black. After they're gone, I belatedly kick myself for not taking a picture - my friends would have loved this. I pull out my phone and open the camera app, hoping my battery doesn't die, looking for something with his picture and/or name. I can't find anything with either. Oh well.


Impressive office
I'm leaving a stairwell and stepping into a long hallway. A foreign couple is pushing a cart towards me, seemingly looking for where they're staying. I move around them and continue on, coming to an open elevator. Looking inside, I see a roughly 10 year old boy. I realize I'm on the wrong floor and decide to take the elevator, but then somehow feel uneasy about getting inside. I realize I'm only one floor down from where I need to be and decide to just take the stairs.

Now I'm walking through another hallway. A light yellowish wall is to my right; the left wall is glass, looking out into some kind of fancy lobby area. Small potted trees dot the hallway. A strange vehicle is coming towards me, and I somehow know it's an automated cart that moves through the halls carrying people and/or things, and that normally it has wheels on the end of long legs (which let it pass over almost anything in the hallway) but that it's currently in a collapsed state. Looking further down the hallway, I see another one coming towards me. This one is extended to its full height and is carrying a handful of people in business suits. I immediately feel that I'm not comfortable with having this thing drive over me and look for a place to get around it - problematic, since it takes up the entire width of the hallway. Thankfully, I realize there's a spot in the hallway in front of me that does actually get quite a bit wider - as if someone cut a larger circle out of that area - and I'm confident that I'll get there about the same time as this thing (it's traveling at about walking speed). As we get closer together I realize that it couldn't have gone over me anyway, since it's criss-crossed horizontal and diagonal struts underneath itself. I'm impressed by its appearance - so spindly, with shiny chrome struts and black wheels that seem much too small for its size - yet it still seems very stable. I move to my right, it moves to its right, and we circle around each other, continuing on our ways.

Now I'm walking through the lobby. This place is gigantic and very attractive. The floor is shiny, pedestals with small statues are dotted here and there, and the walls and ceiling are glass, revealing a beautiful light blue sky. I "remember" that the ceiling didn't used to be this high, that they recently did construction to raise it up, but I can't remember when that construction happened, even though it must have been a significant project.. I walk near a group of seated bigwigs, stopping to hear what they're saying. I notice a woman in a white dress standing nearby - a secretary? - but I don't really pay any attention to her. Individual conversations stop and someone important - maybe the CEO? - starts talking. As I'm listening, I get a feeling that my chest is exposed. I look down and realize that my white button-down shirt has its top button undone, that I'm not wearing a tie, and that I'm not wearing my customary undershirt. All this is odd, but it doesn't explain that strange sense of exposure I just had. I pull the flaps together, somehow feeling self-conscious about actually buttoning the top button without also wearing a tie, then walk off.


Super chase / failed joke TOTM
I'm standing knee-deep in water. I'm in some kind of urban setting, with buildings all around. At least one building directly borders the pool. I see other tall buildings nearby, but I'm also able to see the sky through gaps between the buildings. It's dusk. As I walk along, I come to a strange bump in the water. As I get closer, the bump stands up and reveals itself to be a woman dressed in something resembling Super Girl's costume, with the addition of a mask. She starts playfully chasing me. I generally manage to keep away - neither of us can move well through this water - but she manages to grab an arm or a leg every so often.

Now I'm near a wall (tiled with small green tiles, each a slightly different shade) and realize that I'm dreaming, and if I throw myself through the wall she can't follow. I jump backwards towards the wall, but I have a moment of concern - I judged my distance poorly, and I'm not going to hit very hard. Will it work? I decide it will - this is my dream, after all - and as I hit the wall it shatters and I pass through. For a moment I see only black with green bits whizzing everywhere.

Now I'm seeing what appears to be an ancient monitor. The background is white, and a handful of words and/or a simple graphic (can't remember) is drawn out in giant black pixels. I have no presence here - no body - and this screen takes up my entire vision. I figure this is related to "the void" I've other LDers talk about, and I just need to approach it calmly. I picture the screen splitting down the middle, moving to the side, revealing a new dream world; but all I get is a pixelated animation of the screen sliding apart. I remember that one of the best ways to escape the void is to imagine physical sensations, so I imagine what it feels like to spin around and around.

Now I'm sitting across from Mom at a cafe table. Behind her is a small coat room painted a light beige; I see a coat rack to the left. She looks good, wearing a black and red dress with a red jacket over it. As I'm trying to decide what to do next, I remember that I have dream goals. I remember that the first thing on my list is remembering where my real body is, but I just don't feel like doing "you're not real" all over again. I don't have any recollection of my second intensification exercise. Once I dismiss the "sleeping body" exercise, I remember about the current TOTM, so I ask Mom if she can tell me a joke. She gets a really serious look on her face and says "No ... no, I can't," then launches into this weird philosophical monologue about how telling a joke really exposes the depths of your soul, especially when you're in a dream. I wake up.