non-lucid

Taking the bus
I'm walking towards a bus. It's the first time I've used it, and I'm somewhat anxious about it. I have a brick red RFID fare card still in a plastic baggy. A conductor is walking around outside the bus directing people. I see RFID readers in a number of places; I wave my card nearby one of them and it beeps. I board the bus.

Now I'm inside. The bus has a long gentle curve. I'm standing in the middle of the curve, and I can't see the front or back of the bus. Seats along the outside of the bus are facing inwards; most of the bus is empty space. Everything is very sleek and shiny, looking very "futuristic."

Now I'm at work. It's the end of the day, and I'm talking on the phone with my wife arranging how I'm to be picked up. We hadn't considered that the bus wouldn't actually drop me off at the house but rather at a nearby bus stop. She'll have to load the kids into the car to come get me from there.


Revolving doors
I'm spending time with my friend Peter. He's showing off his college project, an improved automatic revolving door. It's got hand rails on the revolving part that people can "click;" once the bar has been clicked, the floor will vibrate to let people know it's time to leave the revolving door and walk into the building proper. It's also got a new "smart" floor that automatically adjusts itself so that it always works well, even when it's on a boat. I ask him about whether he'll be able to sell the design, since he did it as a school project; he replies that some companies he's worked with in the past have volunteered to help build the prototype, and that he may or may not sell the design later. I notice he seems a bit cagey about the topic. While we've been talking, we've been walking around and around and around.


The buffet
I'm going through a buffet line behind my parents and my wife. Somehow I've arrived late; they're already nearly done, and the conference will be starting again soon (though no one is quite sure when). I hope they give us sufficient warning. My wife advises me to get a bunch of food in my bowl and take it to the conference hall now, since I probably won't have time to finish out here. I put some Chicken Tagine on one side of my bowl and some desert on the other side. I'm not happy about their mixing, but there aren't any plates available and I don't want to try to carry two bowls. Mom points to the tagine and asks what it is; I tell her the main ingredients, though I tell her she'll have to ask my wife about what's in the sauce.


Fragments
I'm leaving a parking deck.

I'm wandering around a grocery store.

Fliers
I'm in my office. I notice a stack of fliers on my desk and start to look through them. They're all for women's products, and many of them have pictures of women dressed in rather revealing clothes. I put them down, preferring to avoid such things. My wife walks into the room and asks if I saw the fliers, saying that my 3rd daughter wanted me to have them. I say I looked at a couple then put them down, and she says that they had to go through the postal service, so they can't be TOO bad.

Outside my window a group of men is working on the lawn. I think something about how they won't move on until their boss, a woman I know, tells them to.


Light demo
I'm using some sort of interactive demo produced by a team as a project. The viewpoint moves along on rails, and if you click in the right places, you get to see more stuff. A message at the beginning says to click on the light. Every so often, there's an opening to the side, a room or a hallway, and each one has a part of the wall or floor that's extra bright; but when I click on them the program looks like it's going to go down them, but then keeps going straight. I restart and try again and the same thing happens. On the third try I figure out the correct hot spot to click; it's rather non-intuitive. The camera viewpoint goes into one of the lit hallways.

Now I'm physically present in that hallway. In front of me are some steps going down, and there are a handful of people already sitting on them. In front of us and to the left is a stage with closed curtains and some kind of project in front of the curtains. My third daughter goes up and looks at it, then comes back. My step-father is there and asks us what we'd like to sing.


House politics
I'm in a bedroom talking with someone about home defense. He says he'd love to have a good BB gun in his bedroom; I reply that a shotgun is much better for home defense. There's a half-made bed on the floor in one corner of the room.
Outside in the hallway I see ??? trying to set up a prank for when ??? comes along; he's hiding under a trap door on the stairs landing. He drops something and opens the trap door to find it. Now there's something about the household inheriting from two ancient houses (i.e. ancestories), and that the prank has given the patriarch the idea to combine the houses, something that's not normally done. He's reticent to do it, since the house name that'll be going away is more his heritage, but he's willing to do it since it makes so much more sense than keeping both houses around. Now I see a bunch of (physical) houses in a row, five or so small ones and one large one, and I see the five small houses get smashed into the large one, leaving a lot of cleared ground behind.


Train troubles
I'm riding on a train, talking with people in one of the cars. I have some concerns about something. At some point, the train stops. We get off, look around, and get back on. Now I'm in the locomotive, somehow in charge of the train. I really don't want this and I'm trying to think how to get rid of the responsibility. I'm also concerned about whether we have enough fuel to keep going. Now we're stopped again, and I'm standing on the ground by the locomotive. Another train comes by, a big one, and sideswipes my train. As if in slow motion, the train starts to tip, then falls off the tracks towards us. We're able to get out of the way, and no one is hurt. With the train on its side, I can see a compartment in the top of the locomotive. It seems to be the coal hopper, but it's just got a handful of what look like large dusty Hershy's Kisses. I make a comment about just wanting to put one in my mouth, to which the engineer just smiles. I say it's a good thing that we didn't go on since there's not even enough coal in here for another day of travel, but the engineer disagrees, saying this is really good stuff and a little goes a long way.

Along with the coal, the compartment also has a bunch of kids' books. I poke through them to see what's there, and a number of Mandy books stand out. Somehow I know the train's owner's daughter is grown up now and has no need of these books, so I think that my own daughter may enjoy them.


Car troubles
I'm on the hill near my house stuck in a long line of traffic. I come close to running into the car in front of me, and I hope that no one runs into me. Now I'm on foot standing in front of my car. I move off to the side just in time, and a car behind mine pushes it forward, smashing it into the car in front. Now I'm walking through the intersection at the top of the hill. I see a police car and a regular car off to the side, with the police officer lecturing the driver about weapons.


Fragment
We're in a vehicle along with at least one child, being driven by a chauffeur. We pull up outside a house, and he announces that we've arrived.

Imager rescue
I'm watching a group of Imagers descend into a strange place, some sort of alternate dimension. It's a "utopia," as clearly evidenced by the people all wearing the same identical flowing clothes and everything being spotlessly clean. The Imagers are here because they received a report that some of their members had been captured. Sure enough, in the main square they find a slaver selling four of their friends. The lead Imager pulls aside one of the junior members and instructs him to prepare a handful of poisoned coins (large silvery things), something that will take effect later in the day after they're long gone. He then starts to talk to the slaver to set the release conditions for the four. I start to talk to the captured Imagers to find out what happened. A young woman in the group tells me they were in the square and realized the best position had been taken, but no one was in it. Going over to investigate, someone had thrown bags over their heads, stopping them from fighting back, and here they are.


Curving fire
I'm standing outside with my wife and with Emily and her family on the grass near the end of "our" driveway. We're all admiring the neighbor's boat and jet ski. Emily's husband say that a jet ski is something they'd love to buy but they haven't been able to yet.

Now I'm setting up some kind of long rack with gas burners built into it. Now I'm carrying something that looks like a big scoop. It's the same width as the rack, two or maybe three feet. As I approach one end of the rack, the flames suddenly curve towards and into the scoop, even from the far end of the rack. It's quite a sight, and Emily is very impressed.


Side scroller
I'm playing a side scroller. I have to throw bombs to open new passages, but I have to be careful not to get caught in the explosions. Now My character is in a large room with some blocks in the middle and at the bottom. The next thing I need to do is to break through the blocks at the bottom and get into a water area. There's an enemy in the room with me, and I need to deal with him before I can continue. He's small and good at hiding, only coming out to strike when I'm not paying attention, so this is taking a while.

There's something about legal torrents of old games ranging from five hundred to two thousand megabytes. Many of the "old games" are actually new efforts designed to look like old games. I think about how pixel art is popular with indie devs, and how much I can't stand it.

Now I'm at the far left end of the room. There are more blocks here, and they seem to be switching every few seconds. Some of them show a powerup icon for a few seconds, then fade as other blocks start to show powerup icons. I try to break the powerups open, but I have to get moving at a good clip to do so, and that means being off screen to get enough speed, and that means I can't see which blocks currently hove powerups. As I move off screen I realize there's a hidden key showing me the blocks and powerups, and I'm able to use it to aim my character to get the powerups. After I've gotten a bunch, a gate comes down blocking my access, and a giant spiky rod starts to come down from the ceiling. I don't move quickly enough and take some damage before I'm able to get to the main part of the room, but then I'm able to use my new powerups, especially some kind of melee weapon that looks like a long rod, to make short work of it.


Bathing man
I'm in a yellowish room watching a very large man get painted all over with oriental style patterns and figures, designed to scare off evil spirits. He then proceeds to lie in a "bath" with water just a few inches deep. I guess the designs were to scare off water spirits? But if he's bathing, shouldn't the paint wash off? Or if it doesn't, then how will he get it off later, and what's the point of bathing now?

Later, I'm talking with him and find out his name is Sm, pronounced Sem. I think that name is familiar and realize it's from one of the Final Fantasies - thirteen, I think. I ask him if he's familiar with those games, and he says he isn't. I consider explaining about them to him, but I decide that's more trouble than it's worth.


Messed up lights
I'm in my bedroom trying to turn on the lights, but something very strange is going on. We have a dual slider fan/light switch near the door, and I'm sure I'm using the light slider, but as I slide it up and down other lights in the room are turning on and off, leaving the fan's light off the whole time. I look more closely and am even more surprised to see that there are two sliders on the same track. I start moving them slowly up and down, trying to figure out the pattern. The first notch turns on my wife's bedstand light; the second notch turns on a light in the middle of the wall and turns her lamp to dim. Other positions do other things. Now someone else is in the room. He's familiar to me (though I don't know who he was). He says he saw something about this in the manual when he got one recently, and he'd be happy to let me borrow it. I thank him but say it probably wouldn't do much good, since each room is wired differently; but he politely disagrees, saying this is exactly what the manual talked about. I tell him I'd love to see it.


Fragments
Something about "medieval court posturing"

I look between two nice buildings to see a house behind them. It's rather run down, but there's a light on upstairs and it looks much more homely than the austere newer buildings.

I'm in a dimly lit hallway.

Jeopardy!
I'm in a large, darkened auditorium, walking towards the front along with my son. We're on the set of Jeopardy, and both of us are contestants. I'm surprised I got on, and I can't believe my son did - he's not even ten yet! He submitted his application as part of a school project, but we didn't think he'd even be considered, let alone accepted. As I walk up the steps towards the stage and the podiums, I realize that I'm missing my shoes and socks. I wonder briefly how that could have happened, but I try to be nonchalant, hoping no one else notices. I see someone else wearing only socks, so I feel a bit better. I have the podium on the left and my son has the one on the right. Now I'm standing behind my podium looking out. Something is asked or said, and each contestant is supposed to respond. No one else seems willing to be the first one to say something, so I do. I hope that there are a lot of computer and electronics questions and not too much about sports.

Now I'm sitting in the audience a few rows away from the front. My family is around me, and I overhear the video manager behind us talking to someone else involved with the show. I think about whether I should have told Mom that I'd be a contestant so she could be sure to watch, or whether it would be better to leave it as a surprise so she realizes it when she sees me on TV. I like that idea better, but I'm concerned she may happen not to watch it that night.

Now I'm taking my son to the bathroom. I'm a little nervous (and annoyed), since they never told us what time we needed to be back, so I hope we don't miss anything. As we're walking back into the auditorium through the doors at the top/rear, we find they were looking for us, and since they couldn't find us they were about to replace us. The audience sees us at the back and starts chanting "We are here! We are here!" (straight out of Horton Hears A Who) and I take it up the chant as well as we walk to the front.

Now I'm standing behind podium, wondering about security of podium computer. I somehow manage to minimize the Jeopardy application and get to a Windows desktop. I play with that for a while, seeing what I can do. The contestant next to me sees what I'm doing and asks me about it, and I say something. Eventually I want to bring up the Jeopardy application again but I don't see it on the task bar; I have to alt-tab to it.

During another break, we head to the bathroom again. As we're Walking down a hill towards the main building, I somehow see the Jeopardy that's actually airing right now, and I see that it's got Arthur Chu again. I wonder how long he's been a champion and find it strange they're playing a prerecorded show at the same time they're recording a new one. Walking down a dirt incline reminds me that I still don't have shoes or socks.


Truck driving
I'm driving a big rig, currently idling in a parking lot. A train comes by on tracks across the road, blowing its horn. I toot my own horn back, pleased that mine is louder than the train's. I ponder the layout of roads, tracks, crossings, and bridges in this area, trying to think why trucks drivers take such a strange path. I can only assume it's to ensure they never get stopped by a train.

Research driving
I'm walking across a grassy field towards a building (either work or college, I'm not sure). I see an odd-looking car with two guys in the back seat. Somehow, I can see that one of them is Mike R whom I've worked with a number of times but never met. I walk up to the car and introduce myself. Somehow I end up inside talking with them. Eventually a driver comes and starts to take us somewhere. I'm somewhat anxious since I'm not supposed to be there and this is some sort of research expedition. I debate about whether to ask the driver to stop, and the further we go the more anxious I get since asking him to stop after all this time would be silly. Eventually I decide just to stay and see what happens.

Now we're driving by a huge monstrosity of a building. The front is incredibly wide and tall and seems to be one huge screen with hundreds of different video windows all playing at once. This is the new USPS building where they're trying to be modern and relevant. It's one of the ugliest things I've ever seen. I say that they're the "Facebook of ???." Now we're driving through another area. Somehow we transition to something my mind flags as "Jurassic Park," except it's a mad doctor who enjoys making body-part-shaped food that may or may not be actual body parts. I'm disgusted by it.

Now I'm driving through town on my own. I'm having some sort of difficulty - the roads are slick, and I keep having to go up and down steps in the car. I turn to go down some steps, and even though I'm going very slowly (walking pace), I manage to knock over a girl. I jump out of the car and help her to her feet, asking if she's OK. She says she's fine and continues on her way.


Unfinished ceiling
I'm at "our house" working on the hole in the kids' bedroom, trying to fish out the stuff my daughter dropped into the wall. I manage to get a vantage point that reveals that the stuff may have dropped into the room below. Now I'm in the dining room, looking up. I'm amazed to see that the ceiling is incomplete, that I can see the floor joists of the room above, and I find that I can look up in the gap between the walls separating rooms, including the wall with the hole. Looking around I find the missing tights as well as a whole table cloth. I wonder how she was able to stuff that down the small hole. I continue looking at the ceiling, wondering why it's like this. The ceiling is already low, particularly with a fan, and I don't think there's any way to finish the ceiling and have it be high enough to easily walk under it.


Vacation craziness
We're arriving at a vacation house along with at least one other family. As we're unloading the car, my wife notices that my right wrist has a silver ring going all the way around it flush with my skin. She asks about it, and I offhandedly tell her that the doctor decided my arm needed to be replaced, so I have an artificial arm and hand now. She's appalled, wanting to know the details of why such a drastic thing was needed. I'm really not sure; I just accepted the doctor's word. She asks details about how to care for it, and I confess it's something I haven't really thought about. She finds a paper labelled something like "READ THIS FIRST: How to care for your new arm" and starts looking over it. We realize it needs to be charged periodically, and I have no idea where the charger is. I hope it's a standard plug, and I assume I can just go by Radio Shack and get a universal adapter that will serve until we can find the original adapter.

Now we're all at the beach. There's some kind of kids' area nearby, so I go to check it out. Now I'm swimming in the kids' area. It seems to be a more sheltered cove, though the waves are still occasionally big. In fact, there are a few that pass over my head (my bouyancy is wrong, since I should be floating with them, not passing under them). I'm surprised that my eyes aren't stinging and assume that I'm closing my eyes just right to seal out the salt water. I'm also surprised that I have to deal with a few waves coming in the wrong direction (i.e. from the direction of the beach); I assume the big ones are hitting the shore and bouncing back, traveling back out to sea as smaller waves. I realize that, once again, I forgot to buy goggles and intend to make a note to do so.

Now I'm talking with somebody in charge of the kids' cove. He asks if I'd like a bucket ride. When he sees my quizzical look, he points to where people in large floating buckets are lining up behind some kind of water vehicle, forming a long "train" to get pulled around. The buckets look too small for a full sized adult, so I decline. He starts talking about the challenges of running such a thing safely, especially when it's raining. I see a list of things they're working on, including the problem of rain adding to the weight in the buckets. It seems they track the weight so they know if a kid falls out or a bucket becomes detached, and when the buckets fill with water it messes up the "fallen kid" detector.

Now we're walking along near the beach. I look up and see a drone flying past. I point it out, and my wife is amazed that I hadn't noticed more of them flying around. Now we're walking along a high pathway overlooking the city; it's quite a sight. Behind us, we see a large floating robot coming towards us, and we all take off at a run knowing this can't be good. It catches up to us and we recognize it from earlier. It ends up disobeying its orders, grabbing us, and helping us escape. Eventually it puts us down, then flies off and jams itself somewhere to block anything else that's chasing us. I'd liked it earlier, and I like it even more now, so I'm sad to see it sacrifice itself for us.


Fragments
I'm on top of the car as we're driving somewhere. It's a Sunday evening, but it's also the start to some festival. Suddenly all the normal lights go off and strands of Christmas lights come on. I get as low down to the car as possible; I don't want one of the strands to catch me and pull me off the roof.

I'm walking around the basement spraying something everywhere. Tiny puddles are all over the place, and I wonder how they got there. I'm thankful that I won't have to track mud into the house from the basement much longer, and a middle-aged man agrees, saying he's sure the police chief will also be very relieved, since he often has to visit the person whose office is down here.

Side-note | Lucid

Jeff's troubles
I'm in a room with my family, Jeff C, and maybe other people. Jeff is talking about a meeting he had with his company (Verizon) that was very difficult. It seems they're trying to bring him up on false disciplinary charges and he's having to fight back really hard. They're using all kinds of dirty tricks; this last meeting wasn't even held at the time they'd originally scheduled it for. Someone comments that Jeff's superior died recently and asks if it was because of this kind of thing, but Jeff replies that it wasn't quite the same, that he actually died of an equipment failure. I realize that my second daughter is playing with Jeff's boots, that she's got some kind of tool and is pulling plugs of leather and elastic out of the heel of the boots. Jeff is displeased, making a passive aggressive comment along the lines of "I really need those," and I take a more direct tone with her.


Strange construction
I'm walking along a road in a neighborhood. It's a cul-de-sac, so I know it'll be ending, but I'm surprised to see that it ends a lot sooner than I think it should, with a large box of a building built right on the road. Now I'm in the building talking with one of my friends. It seems he'd managed to acquire the rights to build on top of the road, but that another guy we know heard about it and managed to acquire rights for the adjacent block. The two of them are good friends; the second man did it partly to help his friend, but also partly out of a friendly rivalry. The two are building the building jointly, though they're each staying completely to their own section and not building on the other's section at all. For such a strange joint effort, I'm impressed with how it all looks; then I notice that there's a spot where the floors come together that's really messed up and not smooth like the rest of the concrete floor. The building itself is pretty complete. It's just a huge open space, very wide, very tall, and very deep. There are some small windows, though the place seems mostly lit by artificial lighting (I don't see it, but it feels like it).

Now the building is a church. The whole place is filled with chairs. Attendance is way down, since it's summer and most of the people who live here are students who have gone home fur the break. There's some kind of discussion about recording the sermon. A woman on the other side makes a comment about knowing all about big projects since she works for (my company). I hadn't realized we both worked for the same company, so I decide to introduce myself after the service is over.

Now I have some kind of internal monologue about my eldest daughter learning to play Ultimate Frisbee. I see a large crowd of teenage players on a field, including my daughter (who's not yet a teen IRL). She throws the frisbee almost casually, yet it streaks straight to its intended target, another player. Oddly, none of the other players are moving, and I realize this is a game following some unusual rules. Her throw is perfect; yet it turns out she threw to the wrong target, so she (or her team) actually loses points on the throw. I'm disappointed for her.


Little people in the kitchen
I'm observing in a kitchen. A young man just a few inches tall is trying to move around the edge of the kitchen island. His goal is a drawer on the other side of the island where a steak knife rests. Something goes wrong and he's not able to make it. This seems to be a family of tiny people who live in the house with the normal-sized people completely unawares. The father of the little people decides the son needs to try again. For some reason, he's full-sized, so it's easy for him to re-open the drawer (I don't know how it got closed) and flip the knife on its back so the sharp side is up (just like in the original task). The son starts to get ready got climb back up, but his brother (who's terrible at this sort of thing) decides to join him. The first brother is surprised, but the second explains that he'll need to get good at this sooner or later, and the first agrees. They approach the island, except now they're at least as tall as it is. They put their backs to it and do some kind of weird backflip to get up onto it.


Kitchen conversation
I'm sitting with a family around a table, talking about jams and juices. I'm trying to explain to the wife that there are different kinds of juices, mostly made from fruits. This comes as a surprise to her; she thought juice always came from ???. My wife explains that most jellies and jams are made from fruit juice, not ??? juice. I'm eating something smeared with a nice berry jam of some sort. I'm still a little hungry, so I go to the fridge and get out the milk, intending to have a glass to top off. When I look at it, I realize it's separated, with white at the bottom and a milky watery layer at the top half. I realize it's just skim milk, and it would be fine if I shook it, but I put it back as I've always despised skim.


Sharing a dream
I debated about whether to consider this lucid or not. I decided I should, since know I'm dreaming, and I manipulate it; yet my awareness was so low that I didn't recognize my wife as a DC.

I'm walking with my wife through a wide, featureless, gray hallway. I know I'm dreaming and that I just came out of another dream; yet I also believe that I'm sharing a dream with my wife a la Inception, that she's truly here with me. We discuss the previous dream, then dreaming in general. She says she doesn't think she can control the dream, so that makes me want to try. I hold out my hand, palm up, and manage to summon something small into it. I'm really pleased, as that's the first time I've been able to summon something. She tries and also summons something small into her hand; we're both really excited.

Later, we're still walking in the gray hallway, talking about dreaming. I haven't ever managed to get more than a foot or two off the ground trying to fly, so I decide to try again. After a moment, I start slowly to rise from the ground. It looks like I'm slowly falling upwards, and I think I'm going to land on the ceiling. I don't want that, and I manage to stabilize myself so I'm floating along suspended between the floor and ceiling. My wife tries it and manages to do something similar. Again, we're both excited.

At some point we talk about it being a bad idea to use the dream sharing device to share non-lucid dreams, since who knows what you'd see in the other person's subconscious that you'd rather not see (or they'd prefer you not to see).

Now we're both walking again. She asks what else can be done in dreams. I remind her of summoning things, and I'm surprised when she shows hesitation, even though we did it not too long ago. I try again, but this time I fail. She doesn't try it, instead deciding that she's going to change her hair color from dark brown to blond. I watch her trying for a moment, then decide to help her out to give her more confidence. I start concentrating too, trying to change her hair color, but nothing happens. I close my eyes so I can picture the change more clearly; unfortunately when I open my eyes I can't see anything and I know the dream is fading. After a few moments, I wake up. I try to chain a DEILD but fail.


Hunting for tools
It's night. I'm by myself at "home," in an upstairs bathroom, thinking back on my childhood. Now I'm in a bedroom, trying to figure out how to get into a rotten tree in the back yard; I know there's some kind of treasure hidden in the trunk. I know I'm dreaming, but I don't think much of it. I have a huge bag of tools that I think will help me, and I decide to use an explosive to open it. The bag is on the top bunk of one of my kids' beds. I don't remember setting the charge, but it has something to do with fiddling with the lights in the bathroom across the hall. I head one room down the hallway, cover my ears, and wait. I hear words, and I'm pretty sure they're announcements of how long until the blast, but I'm not willing to uncover my ears to hear more clearly. I do move so I can stick my head into the hallway so I can try to hear more clearly. The announcement seems to be in my own voice, but I still can't make out the words. Eventually, I hear a muffled boom. All the lights in the house start slowly blinking on and off, but out of sync with each other. I go into the bathroom to turn off / undo whatever I did in there, then I go into the bedroom to find what tools I have available. Looking on the top bunk, I start sorting through the stuff. I turns out to be all stuffed animals without a single tool in sight.

As I leave the bedroom, I realize that I never took the time to ground myself in the dream. I stop and slowly look around myself, trying to take everything in. I touch one wall and feel the slightly rough texture - it looks and feels like sandpaper. I touch another nearby wall which looks like it has stones embedded in it. I'm surprised by how smooth it is until I notice the thin layer of glass covering it. I kneel down and run my fingers through the carpet, feeling its texture. I'm near the end of the upstairs hallway where I see a water fountain. A little doubt crosses my mind - is a water fountain normally found in a house? - but I shrug it off and decide to get a drink. I approach the water fountain, turn the handle, and get a drink. I take note of how cold and wet it feels, and I find it very pleasant.

Now that I've grounded myself in the dream, I decide to go down to the garage to get the tool I need. Now I'm in the kitchen. My mind wanders some, thinking of Robert G. He was in the military, did well for a while (though his father was terrified he'd be killed), but eventually lost his leg and had to come home. I fondly recall him, and think that for the first few years of my life I was a G before becoming part of another family.

Now I'm going down a second flight of steps towards the garage. As I'm going down the steps I consider throwing myself down them and trying to fly, but I can't bring myself to do it. At the bottom of the stairs, I see the door into the garage is already ajar. I try to open it by thought, but nothing happens. I push it open and go through.

In the garage, I'm surprised to see that the left-hand garage door is open and that Mike D is parked outside, tools out, working on a car that's half pulled into the garage. I ignore him at first, walking to the other side of the garage and digging through my pile of tools. I find something that looks kind of twisted and not really useful, but it's a big hunk of metal if nothing else and should be able to knock the rotten wood away from the tree. I grab it and head out the garage through the open garage door. I look through Mike's pile of tools and grab something else. , My wife's alarm wakes me up.


The synthesizer
I'm in the audience at a concert. I really don't like the music much. Now the concert seems to be over, but the two musicians are still there, playing for a handful of people in the front row. I walk down to take a closer look. The main musician is playing what appears to be an electric banjo. As I watch, he stops plucking at it and pulls out a bow to use on it; I'm impressed and look forward to hearing what sound that makes. The bow is actually fairly nice on it. As I look more closely, I see that it's not a banjo at all, but rather a large box with belts running side-to-side in it. The bow is moving the belts side-to-side and up and down, and sensors on the ends of the belt read his motions and produce sound. As he's playing, he frequently reconfigures the belts to produce different types of sounds. He sees me watching and says "It's a synthesizer" as if that explains completely what he's doing.


Fragment
I'm driving on a long road. It's perfectly straight without a single turn, but it goes up and down some fairly hilly terrain. I know I'll be turning right into a large church.

Pirate book
I'm in the water near the shore of an island with a small group of people. The water is waist deep for a long way out. A much larger group of rough men approaches, though it actually turns out to be two groups. One is a fairly reasonable group of pirates, but the other is very dangerous. The dangerous ones don't speak English, but the leader of the less dangerous ones speaks both languages. He ends up interpreting between myself and the leader of the dangerous ones. Somehow I manage to impress the dangerous leader, and he gives out a roar of good-natured laughter. Off in the distance, I see a storm approaching. The water is getting churned up and starts to look muddy.

Now I'm reading a book about pirates (i.e. the last scene in the dream). I'm about 2/3rds of the way through, having just started a new part. In the book, a bird makes a comment, something that sounds very off-handed, but it sounds familiar. I'm reading on my tablet now, so I search the book for the phrase and realize he's used that some phrase twice before, both before major events, and that he's much more than he seems. Somehow I had ended up back on the title page, and the search was also to help me find my place. In the scene, the bird and a couple of other guys are in the cabin of a ship.

Now I'm at a restaurant just sitting down with Peter S. Four two-person tables (rectangles) are pushed together, and I get a seat on the corner with him on the other side of the table and one seat left. Other people we don't know are sitting nearby. Peter's stuff is on the seat next to me, on the seat to his left (directly across from he), and on the tables; I'm amazed at how spread out his stuff is. We talk about how this place used to be, with the menu making no sense. He gave the example that you couldn't order a lemonade unless you also ordered an iced tea, and I said that if that happened I'd just order the tea but tell them to give it to the next person in line. The manager comes by, greets Peter (it seems he's a regular here), and puts free drinks cups on the table. He's put down a couple of large styrofoam cups as well as a tall stack of communion cups. I get up to go get a drink and decide to get iced tea. It's unsweetened, so I look around for the sugar. As I'm adding the sugar, the manager (a tall thick black man) talks to me about Peter, then asks if I've read the pirate book like the rest of Peter's friends have. I reply that I'm getting through it and finding it very thought provoking, and he says that I'll find it even more so as I get even further in. There are only a handful of spoons left, and one of them looks like it was used and put back (I see what looks like sugar stuck to it). I make sure to grab a clean spoon.


Hotel strangeness
I'm in what seems to be a hotel's conference center. I'm in a large hallway outside an auditorium. Through the doors I see lots of people seated and someone up on the stage. In front of the doors are what seem to be registration tables with people seated behind them. The conference is somehow related to me (work, maybe?) but I have no interest in it and walk away. I think something about where my car is parked.

Now I'm in a hotel room with someone I don't know. We talk about something, and he mentions a secret passage under the hotel. Now we're back near the registration area. I hope no one notices us. He lifts a large section of the floor (maybe 6' x 6') with a rug on top of it and reveals a trap door with a keyhole in it. He unlocks and opens it.

Now I'm walking back through the hotel to get to the room. There are doors on the sides of the hallway and in the middle of the hallway, all with different locks. I can't figure out why they would put them there, since most of them can just be walked around.

Now I'm back in the room. Pink strings are strung all over the place. I look through the window and see we're not at ground level (I don't know how high up we are). Across the street I see people at an open window. I realize I know them, and I also realize they're firing at me! It's some kind of game, but it's one I'm really not interested in playing. Somehow, one of them swings across and engages me in close combat. I try to dissuade him, but he keeps playfully engaging me. It ends up getting nasty and I fight rather brutally. I win the fight but I'm very unhappy about the whole thing.

People at work
I'm at work, sitting in my cube. My old cube is behind me, directly across the hallway. My current cube doesn't have too much stuff in it, but the old one seems to be where I store old equipment; it's filled with old computers, monitors, and stuff. I'm sitting at my computer watching the intro to some movie over and over. There's a short moment when an actor comes into the frame, and I'm trying to figure out who he is. Peter something, though I'm not sure if it's the actor's name or the character's name. I remember it's some kind of in-joke. I'm having trouble with the movie player; it's not doing what I want, skipping around, and I keep missing the spot I want.

Now a compliance woman is in my old cube marking things as needing upgrades. She's almost done - she didn't realize I was in my new cube - and I make sure to point out everything old I have assigned to me, letting her know how old it is, and she says that nearly everything I point out can be upgraded: three old towers, two ViewSonic CRTs, even an old UPS, even though Brad P (takes be a while to remember his last name) has half of it (the UPS is actually split down the middle). She points out some older servers that I got when I was first hired in 2004 and says that because they run Windows XP they'll need to be destroyed, but I tell her that they run Windows now, so they're compliant, and she agrees. She asks me if I'm running a media server, and she can tell by the look on my face that I do (I don't IRL). She gives me a friendly warning that they're going to start cracking down on people running them if they hear music blaring out of cubes and advises me to use headphones, and that it can be hard to find a pair that doesn't hurt the ears. I tell her that I've had a pair I've used for a long time, and she looks pleased.

Now Mike, an old work acquaintance, is in my new cube. I call across to him to find out what he's doing, then notice a bunch of other guys looking in through my cube windows (I was surprised to see how transparent they were). Mike seems to be hiding from them, and no one else is willing to go into my cube (no idea why). I call to him again and he comes over into my old cube with us. As he does so he bumps me and the nose pieces of my glasses scratch my nose. I remember the pain of the scratch. He apologizes. When I try to put the glasses back on, I see the pads are messed up. I go to fix them, but he takes them, fiddles, and gives them back before running off. I try again and find they're even worse. I fiddle with them for a moment and get them right.

Now I'm in a back room with a compliance guy. We're cooking something in a strange toaster oven - it's shaped like a toaster but has a "tunnel" running through it to put stuff in, with the element running across the top. I use a tiny pizza peel to pull out a bagel sandwich I'm toasting, hoping it won't burn being so close to the element.


Motel Questions
My wife and I walk into a building so I can ask some people some questions. To our left is an auditorium with the door left open; looking through, I see a guy talking and only one guy in the audience. To our right is a smaller room with three women sitting behind school desks, ready to answer questions. I get really anxious, wondering if this is only for attendees of the conference, but I try to be strong and push through and hope they don't question me too much if I act like I belong. They clearly know I don't and ask if I filled out a sheet (they give it a name) showing my current knowledge. I didn't, so they give one to me to fill out. It feels like a dismissal, that I should leave and come back with it filled out another day, but I decide to stay and fill it out right there. I look around for a pen and a flat surface to write on. One of the women says something else.

Now I'm in a back room, which appears to be a motel room. It's hard to move around as there are extension cords - both standard three-outlet two-prong cords as well as orange three-prong cords - running everywhere. Along the floor, along the ceiling, through mid-air. I recommend moving one of the smaller cords, as it would meet their needs and get rid of the mid-air cords, but a woman says they can't do that since some of the cords are plugged into something to monitor energy usage and I was suggesting moving the cord from a non-monitored circuit to a monitored circuit. I keep looking for a good solution and see one involving some splitters plugged in somewhere, but as I'm about to suggest it she does first. I lamely say that I was about to suggest the same thing.


Potluck
I'm at a large church potluck. As I'm going through the line, I happen to go through with RP who thanks me for the kindness we've shown J, says they'll pay to make sure everything is fixed properly, but says that he'll be ending the lease soon. I finish getting food from the first table and move onto the second, but there's a lot less here than I expected. I do see some deserts, including a random assortment that includes a chocolate-covered Oreo. I grab what may be the last one as I'd like to try it. Now I'm seated at a table right in front of some crackers and cheeses/spreads. I have no idea what the different crackers are, so I choose one at random. It's a rhomboid, and I notice many S's printed into it. I notice a legend on the package; at first I think it says S means "spicy," but looking again I realize S means "not spicy." I think that's confusing. I use a pinkish spread on it.


Fragments
Something about a hotel room, parkour, and questions about something.

I'm sitting at a table with my family. My son asks what my dreams were, nd I tell him about my near miss from a couple of days ago. A nearby family overhears me and is interested, so I explain more about lucid dreaming.

Cooking
I'm in a large kitchen area, wearing my blue bath robe. The counter wraps around three sides, and there's an island in the middle. Behind the kitchen is the living room. I'm at the table doing something. I realize that my wife was cooking something but got a phone call and had to step away, so I should deal with the food until she comes back. I go over to the stove and see she's got chunks of potato, kielbasa, tomato, and mushroom sautéing. I wonder what it's for, since she doesn't like mushrooms. I grab the spatula and start folding it every so often. While I'm standing there, I decide to do the nose-pinch test. I get my right nostril to seal properly, but I can't seem to get the left one. It doesn't feel like a dream, but I decide to do a backup test just in case. My wife is still around, so I don't want to do anything too crazy. I cast around in my mind for another RC, and the only one I can remember is jumping and coming down slowly. I give a small hop and come right down, so I decide I'm not dreaming and get back to cooking the food.

Now I'm at the island. I've got a bowl out and I'm moving the food from the skillet into the bowl. My wife is finally off of her call and comes over as I'm nearly done. I ask who it's for, and she says it's for her.

Fragment
A mashup of Words of Radiance and Imager, including Kaladin.

Wallet problems
I'm at Home Depot, carrying a few items. At the check out, I can't find my Home Depot card. The cashier thinks I'm goofing off and reminds me that it's time to pay. I apologize to the female cashier, explaining it's a great wallet, so thin and easy to carry, but sometimes it makes it harder to find cards. I go through my wallet pulling out all sorts of other cards and even old receipts. A customer is now in line behind me, and I apologize to him. I end up dumping out the entire wallet, but still no Home Depot card.

Now I'm sitting in a cab, in the front passenger seat, except the driver is to my right. The cashier is the driver. I'm still looking for the card. She's driving all over, and I'm searching deep in my wallet. It's hard to keep everything organized on my seat. Eventually I give up and she stops. I ask her what I owe and try to think how big a tip to give her. I know I saw a $20 bill in my wallet, and that I saw at least one other bill. Twenty is too much, but maybe a ten? She suggests that as her tip I could get her some of her favorite music. She really likes a style called ???, and she's missing ??? and ???. I go to write down those names, though she changes the second one to Ogre ???.

Now I'm walking around in a crowded downtown area. At an intersection ahead of me, a man stands in the middle holding a flashing red pole about his height. A fire truck edges through the intersection turning right (my left). As I think on this, I notice a couple of foreign men walking ahead of me, and I decide to follow them through the crowd. I just want to leave, and it looks like they're on their way out. Sure enough, they lead me back to the parking area. As I part ways with them, one of the guys notices a set of signatures on a column. They're all very nicely caligraphed and I suspect they're from the city founders. He figures it's some kind of guest registry, so he grabs a pen and adds his own name. I don't say anything, just keep walking, snickering to myself.

Now I'm getting out of a cab. I see a minivan next to us with a small girl getting into the van in a strange way, somehow sliding down the front passenger seat. The cab driver comments that she did that as a kid.

Fragments
I'm flying around a construction site collecting bonuses.

I'm push-starting some medium-sized chunky toy cars.

I'm gracefully moving around on winding foot bridges over water.

Security breach
I'm in a kitchen, helping a guy I don't know with his fish tank. We're trying to fill it with fresh water, but each time we try we see a bunch of drops of nasty black oily stuff floating on top. Eventually, I just ask him for a large measuring cup. He doesn't know what I intend, but he gets down a four cup glass measuring cup from a cabinet. I hold it sideways and gently lower it into the tank near a bunch of the oily staff, and a lot of it flows right in. I dump it out (in the sink?) and go back to the tank. Already I got over half of the stuff. I do it again a couple more times and the stuff is pretty much gone.

Now I'm outside with my wife. The house is behind us, and very tall trees are all around us. As we're talking about something, I notice that a nearby tree has a light colored sedan held waaaay up high by some enormous spider webs. I stop in mid sentence and point it out. She looks at it nonplussed and says it's been there for a while. I try to think about what to do about it when I notice that some of the guys from church are here to deal with it. They've set up a block and tackle so they can lower the car without powered equipment. I'm surprised that they've set it up at ground level, but i don't think much more about it. Using a really thick rope hooked to the block and tackle, they gently lower the car. I point out the mechanism to my wife, since we'd been talking about how they work just the other day. We go over to look at it more closely. I'm amazed that with only four windings and only about five feet between the fixed and movable parts they could lower the car over a hundred feet.

Now we're back in the kitchen. My wife is offering me various hot drinks; I ask for one she hasn't mentioned but that I know we have. We start talking about playing a game. The games we've played recently have been fun, but long, and we're both in the mood for something shorter. We talk for a moment about a chess+checkers hybrid, but neither of us actually knows how to play it, so we decide against it (I think that on each turn we're supposed to move a chess piece first, then a checkers piece; but I can't quite remember). Now we're sitting at a small table playing checkers. I'm vaguely aware of the rules, but I haven't played in a very long time. My wife isn't much better off than I am. I'm red, she's black. Somehow, I've already gotten most of my pieces past hers. She makes a comment about having tried an aggressive strategy that didn't work out so well. Looking at my pieces, I realize that I've already got three pieces that have reached her side of the board. I look for a way to mark them as such, but not seeing anything handy nearby I just flip them over. They're an unusual design for checker pieces, being narrower on top than on bottom, so it's easy to tell which ones are up-side-down. We continue playing. I manage to knock off a couple of her pieces; she comes very close to getting a couple of mine, but I realize what's happening at the last moment and get my pieces to safety.

Now I'm having trouble seeing the whole board. For some reason, I'm having to scroll to see it, making it much harder for me to play. I find a preferences page with options for checker appearance. I try out a couple of odd looking ones, but I'm not a fan of how they look. I try to revert to the traditional design, but I end up with a "missing graphic" message where my token is. I stop fiddling with it, knowing I'll have to come back later to get it working right. I scroll down to my edge of the board and see a piece that's about to reach it. I hadn't realized she was so close! Then I realize that this isn't one of my wife's pieces. Has someone else joined the game? I pull up the list of connected players and see that, besides myself and my wife, there are two other uninvited players. At first, I assume that we accidentally left our game public; then I notice that the account owning the piece about to reach my side has a comment saying something about having root access to all trusted Church networks. I panic, kicking her from the game, then changing my passwords. My wife is getting impatient, but I tell her how important this is. We keep playing the game, but now my mind is on the intruder, wondering how she got in and how much damage she may have caused.

Now my wife and I are in the car, with her driving. We pass a pasture, and she points out an ancient gate with a latch that's nearly impossible to open or close. We talk about how sad it is that the animals only get a few minutes of pasture time a day because of the old latch. Now we're still in the car and I'm talking security stuff. I'm trying to figure out what to do to ensure the intruder, or another like her, can't mess with me again. I plan to create all new VPN keys and to change all my passwords. Beyond that, I'd previously taken the naive view that someone on the VPN could be trusted with full network access, but I now see that was foolish. I'm going to have to set up firewalls to partition the VPN, along with password protected gateways to allow access between networks only when authenticated.

Now we're walking into a subway station with my in-laws. As we walk onto the platform, the train is pulling out - except the "train" is actually the row of seats along the wall. My wife runs after them, beckoning for us to follow, and manages to sit on a seat near the end. I follow, but her parents stand indecisively. I call for her to get off since they aren't coming. She clearly doesn't want to but gets off just before the line of chairs leaves the platform. We return to her parents who say they have something they need to do before getting on a train. I have a brief vision of a young woman in a security booth flipping between camera feeds on a small black and white monitor. Now the four of us are walking down a dimly lit tunnel. We come across a room cut out of the stone with boxes all around the perimeter - it seems my inlaws want to buy some black market goods. My wife and I turn around and quickly walk the other way, not wanting to get caught up in whatever is going on here.

Now I see a room with high shelves in the back filled with empty cardboard boxes, ranging in size from boxes large enough to easily hold a man down to flat-pack boxes only a couple of inches thick. Someone makes a comment that this is a "hobo hotel" and that parts of it look more comfortable than where she sleeps. Now I see her: she's dressed up in a funny suit, kind of like Kiwi Blitz. She's preparing to fight one of the smugglers. He doesn't know it, but she's used something on the hobos to make them very protective of her. The fight starts out going well for her, as she's very nimble and can dodge any blows he tries to land. Eventually, she lets herself get hit in the shoulder. It's not a hard blow, but it's enough that her hobos become protective of her and start to swarm the guy. They're huge, hulking men, reminiscent of the brutes from Bioshock 2. Now the fight is over and she's going down a side passage.

Fragments:
I'm walking into a mall with a couple of other people. We're going in some kind of back / service entrance, which makes me a little nervous. We pass an open door on our right leading into an auditorium of some kind, but we ignore it, continuing on. Just past it we walk through a sensor that detects we're walking the wrong way and sets off an alarm. We quickly head back to the exit, not wanting to run into security.

I'm in our upstairs bathroom running the shower, trying to get the temperature right. My second daughter is standing between the toilet and the shower.

I'm downstairs in our family room. My second daughter is holding one of my PVC penny whistles, except it's about three feet long and has many holes all down its length.

Side-note Lucid


Time snapshots
I'm driving in my car to go to my chiropractor. I realize it's still morning, and I don't have my appointment until early afternoon, but for some reason I don't turn around. I realize it's about ten thirty, and I know I have a conference call at eleven, so I just need to be sure not to miss it. I go through a light in the right lane which turns into a right-hand-only turn lane. I somehow end up letting the car coast to a stop. I'm really confused about what's going on. Two large trucks are to my left, also stopped. I remember there's an app on my phone that saves snapshots in time and lets me go back to them. I quickly pull it up and hit the Back button. With a sound like a timebug in World of Goo, I'm back at the last light, going through it. I know this is too late - I'm about to get stuck on the turn lane - so I hit the button again. Now I'm at the previous light, and I have time to switch lanes before I get stuck.

I'm really excited about this. If I can rewind time yet still remember everything that happened, the possibilities are endless! I can read all the books I want, then rewind time so that the reading took no time at all! I can spend a long time solving a difficult problem, then rewind time and remember the solution. I try to think if there's a way to bring something back with me, a completed piece of work, but I don't know how that could be done. Maybe there's a way to time-proof a USB stick? I start to think about sleep - surely being awake for a long time would take its toll? - but then I reason I can sleep whenever and then rewind time to before I slept.

I'm still driving. It's almost time for my appointment, so I can't turn around, but I'm still going to be pretty early. I'm on a two-lane road with lots of trees. Someone is trying to come out of a driveway on my left but waits for me to pass first. Now I'm walking into a strange structure. I'm in a short stairwell that's C shaped. The lighting is pretty dim. I start to walk up, then realize I'm still too early. I hear someone coming down and hurry out; I feel like I'd be embarrassed if I met them. Now I'm back outside walking down some steps. I pass a maintenance worker going the other way. I realize I'm wearing only my V-neck undershirt. He comments "nice neck." I'm a little embarrassed but I don't worry about it too much.

Now I realize that I can undo this whole trip if I have a snapshot from before I left. I go to pull up the time snapshot app, but I find that I have a bunch installed and it takes a moment to figure out which is the one I'd been using earlier. I'm disappointed to see that it only has three snapshots. The main listing only shows the time the snapshot was taken and not the date; I have to click the triple-dot icon to get a details page. One seems to be some kind of default snapshot - the date is 1-1-00 - and I'm not going to touch that. The next has a very strange label that I don't understand. In trying to get details about it I somehow put it into Sharing mode. I have no idea what it means to share a time snapshot, but I wish I hadn't done it.

Now I'm walking down a hallway in a building similar to the one I work in. Windows are floor to ceiling to my left, though there are occasional pillars and lots of moving boxes piled around. A wall is to my right, occasionally opening out into an office or other open area. I realize I'm now completely naked and don't have the phone any more. Oddly, I'm not embarrassed at all, more annoyed at myself. I have the feeling the phone is on my jeans on one of the piles of boxes further back in the hallway, but I'm not positive. I realize I have to get the phone: if I do, I can undo all of this. I turn around and start heading the other way. A couple of women come out of an office in front of me. I sidestep behind a pillar and use a hand to cover myself, nodding respectfully to them as they pass. Neither one takes any notice of me.

After the women pass without comment, I realize this is a dream. I do a nose-pinch RC to further convince myself, and I'm not surprised to feel air moving through my closed nostrils. I immediately try to remember my current goals. I know that number one on the list is to look at and count my fingers. I hold up my right hand and look at it. I have five fingers, but when I hold them stretched out, my middle and ring fingers are at a very obtuse angle - a little further and they'd be pointed directly away from each other. I keep looking and my hand kind of blurs; now it looks almost as if my left and right hands are superimposed on top of each other. I can see a thumb and pointer sticking out of each side, and there's a jumble of fingers in the middle. When I bend my pointer, I see it moving on both sides of my hand. I wiggle another finger and see both copies wiggling. I had been hoping I'd get an extra finger that I'd have conscious control over. Oh well, maybe another time.

I remember the next thing on the list was to try to become extra aware of my environment. To my left is what looks like a small section from a dollar store. Shelving units are filled with all kinds of junk. I decide to reapply the nose pinch (using my left hand) to help keep me focused, then start to look at the items on the shelves. The shelf nearest me has what look like baby bath toys. As I'm trying to slowly move my attention from one to another, I realize that I'm now holding my upper lip instead of my nose, so I readjust my fingers to once again hold my nose. I notice a couple of stacks of items on the shelf, and I realize they're shaking. I identify this as the dream not being as stable as it should be. I try to stare at them, willing them to stop shaking, but it doesn't work (in hindsight, focusing on them gave the vibrations more power; I should have just ignored them). I give up on it and keep walking along the corridor, coming out into a larger room. I get stuck with my eyes closed and I try to focus on breathing through my closed nose. After a few moments, the feeling of breathing through my nose changes subtly - more like my nose is stuffed - and I "realize" I've woken up so I can't breath through a pinched nose any more. I wake up for real moments later.


Fragment:
I'm trying to do something for a group of women. Nothing I do makes them happy, and I'm starting to feel really frustrated.

Side-note Lucid

A strange test
I'm flying in a large military plane - an old bomber? - to meet with some of my work team. I'm a passenger. First we fly to Aaron's house. He's on a cul-de-sac, near the end. We fly a circle around his house and try to figure out if we can land on the road. His house has a lot of antennas. The pilot is talking to Aaron's team lead on the phone, figuring out when we can meet. Aaron's currently really busy, but since we're here in a cool plane, he should be able to make time.

Now I'm in a car with someone driving back. They think I lost one of my shoes, so I'm a security risk; but I still have both my shoes on. Someone got confused. Now I'm back. The final test in some kind of competition is going on, and I've missed one of three hours. I think I still have time to do it all, but I'll need to hurry. I try to calm my nerves. Now I'm in what looks like a living room. Behind me a door leads back into the school. Somehow I accidentally stumbled across a kind of apartment while looking for the school's bathroom. I apologize to the occupants and leave.

Now I'm taking some kind of math test. Now I'm printing some kind of recommendation form sent by AW. Now I've finished everything and I'm looking over it. I read the recommendation letter and am horrified by all the typos. I decide I have time to pull it up and fix it. Something very strange happens with the text editor; it's not cooperating at all. I think I finally manage to get it working. Now I'm editing stuff by playing some kind of game. Things are going well, but then an internal timer reaches six hours and the game becomes much, much harder. Enemies who were previously easy now become strong enough easily to kill me. I'm having real trouble, and I don't have much time left to fix the document before the contest is over. I try to figure out if I can reset the timer to make things easier again.

Two contestants before me sing their final thing. They do a lovely duet in harmony with accompaniment. I congratulate them, and they say that others won't be able to do it since you need accompaniment to sing in harmony. I disagree, but I don't say anything. One of them - Mom? - wants to know if I'm interested in her final score. I say I am, but she doesn't hear me and walks off.



Walking at the park
I'm walking on a path entering a fairly crowded park. I see my pastor talking to a group. This park allows most activities, but if you're going to run, you have to do barefoot running. I don't know if he knows this or if he knows what that means, so I intend to pull him aside later and demonstrate. On my left is a building with an open door. One woman leads a dog out; shortly after, another leads a dog in. I realize the owner of the house must do dog-sitting. I overhear the new lady say something about keeping the dog for an extra half-day this time, and the owner of the business says how much it'll be. Now I'm still walking on the path, but I've got a dog walking with me. It's a Scottish Terrier, very like my step-aunt's old dog Brandy. We're in a park that allows pretty much any activity, except that if you run, you have to do barefoot running. I'm walking him along a path that runs next to a wide stream that leads into a lake. At one point, I realize I've lost him; looking ahead, I see him up ahead, just sniffing a HUGE black dog (I know he's 500 pounds). Both dogs are acting very friendly to each other. I catch up and apologize, and the lady walking the other dog says it's no trouble. Later, we're trying to cross a narrower part of the sidewalk. A lady is three with her slightly disabled adult daughter. They're letting people coming towards us get off the bridge, trying to empty it of people so the daughter will have an easier time getting across. I don't want to wait behind them so I just go around a different way.

Now I'm in a bathroom. I go to use the urinal on the far end (on the left) but realize it has no bottom. I quickly shift one over. Now I'm washing my hands. I'm in the same place as before, but the urinals are gone and sinks are in their place (I don't realize this at the time). I look over at the leftmost sink and get a little confused when I see it has a proper bottom. I notice some buttons along the side - three, with the middle button already pushed in. I press the bottom button and a kind of waterfall out the front of the sink starts, running right onto the floor. I notice a label by the button asking not to use that for too long or it'll flood the bathroom. I press the top button and get a blast of hot air - a hand dryer. An "awooga" alarm also starts up to remind the user to turn it off. I wonder why they didn't have that with the waterfall feature, since that seems much more dangerous. JG is there; we say something brief.

Now I'm leaving the bathroom. As I turn the corner, I realize I lost the dog again. I see some straps and I decide the easiest way to get him back is to hold one of the straps and really believe that it's a leash and he's on the other end (at this point I know I'm dreaming but there's no real awareness). Before I try it, I remember that I wanted to try lots of RCs next time I'm dreaming. Now I'm in an area with some giant windows to my right; the bathroom is to my left. I realize I'm getting that slightly "tipsy" feeling that indicates the dream isn't as stable as I'd like, but I remember that RCs help stabilize, so I start off with the traditional nose-pinch. The feeling of air passing through a pinched nose is one of the most amazing feelings! Next, I remember someone (Sivason?) talking about the importance of remembering the reality of the dreaming body without dwelling on any of its senses. I take a moment to think about that, to remember that this body isn't real, that I've got a real body back in my bed. I move onto the RCs I haven't done before. First, I try to push my left pointer through my right palm. I have a great sense of expectation; I know it'll work and I want to see what happens. There's some resistance, but I can see the back of my right hand bulge some, then my finger pops through. The hole my finger goes through isn't smooth; it's uneven, looking like it really did punch through.

Now I'm trying to remember other RC techs, but I'm having trouble. Finally, I remember the jump test. I jump, expecting to float down; instead, I find myself hanging in mid-air as if caught by the waist, head towards the floor, legs out behind me. I decide I should easily be able to transition to flying. so I stretch out horizontally and fly towards the window. Somehow I get it open. Beyond the window I see a fly screen, but I figure I can punch straight through it, so I fly at it, expecting to go through. Instead, it catches me and starts to stretch and stretch. Somehow I end up going down. I was many stories up, and now I'm going down towards the ground caught in the ever stretching net of the fly screen. Finally, a couple of stories up, the fly screen won't stretch any more and I'm just stuck hanging there. I try to think if I can get back up to the window to knock the flyscreen frame off. I get stuck with my eyes closed and start to panic a bit, but I calm down and start pinching my nose to keep myself grounded. After a few seconds I'm able to open my eyes again. The flyscreen is gone.

Now I'm on something floating, some kind of one-person soft raft. Hundreds of people around me are on similar things, and we're all floating along. I still know this is a dream, but all awareness is gone. I manage to do something impossible to jump up onto a wall running next to the water. Now I'm downstream. I jump from the wall onto people's rafts and use them to cross to the other side, onto some kind of small pier.


Fragment:
Vertical slits have been cut in the side of the microwave cabinet and knives are stuck through them like a strange knife block. The largest knife is just touching the side of the microwave.

Side-note | Lucid

[LUCID] Grocery store task
Before bed, I was running over my known dreamsigns, telling myself that "If I see X, I'll know I'm dreaming" I don't remember how this one started, but I think there's a good chance it was the "huge room" dreamsign. After waking up, I couldn't remember anything for a few moments. Just as I thought all was lost, I got a flash of this one. I'm sure I forgot parts (like how I got lucid in the first place).

I'm in a grocery store. Some kind of event is going on at one end. I'm at the other end, getting snacks. Lots of junk food is hanging in front of me; nothing is too my back. A friend is with me, but I knew that as a DC he can't be as fast as me, because he's bound by the rules of the dream. I'm still waiting for him at the snacks, and I know that once he arrives and gets his own snacks it'll still take him a while to get back to the event. I start thinking about how I can help him. I decide that adding moving walkways to the store would be a good start, but I don't actually try it.

Now, I'm looking at the store's safe. I pick up something that would let me open it (maybe the key? I don't know), but then I decide, that I'm in a dream, so I should use my mind! I stare at the door, trying to picture the gears inside it spinning, unlocking, and opening the door. Nothing happens.

Now I'm with my family in a kind of hallway next to the windows. It's wide enough for a line of cafe tables and enough room to walk. We're sitting on the floor, looking out the window. A couple of bulky men are standing outside the window. Beyond them is the parking lot and road, and beyond the road is a steep embankment going up. My wife and I are sitting right next to each other, my right arm pressed against her left. I remember the task to close my eyes for ten seconds. I get an odd feeling of excitement, that I'll be doing something I know I shouldn't be doing, but I KNOW it'll go well. I close my eyes and start counting. I focus on the feeling of my wife against my side and on the memory of what I saw. I almost see a kind of "after image". The men's shirts particularly stand out as blobs of color. I reach 10 and open my eyes. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed. I consider trying it again, except visualizing a different scene with my eyes closed; but I don't do it.

Now I'm looking at the embankment. People are climbing up ladders to the top, but something is going wrong. They're complaining loudly about it, even though it's their own fault. (I don't know how I know they're complaining; they're across the street where I can't hear them). Eventually, some other activity has to stop because their complaining is just too much of a pain.

Now I'm walking with my third daughter on the road, just like everyone else. We're still following the rules of the road and get into the left turn lane behind a line of people.


New directions
I'm walking through a grassy field (some kind of park, I think) sending a text message to Jakkarth, telling him that I've moved to a new place. I try to give a thumbnail sketch of where it is, but I'm still not familiar with the area and I can't provide real directions. I tell him that I'll send proper directions once I get back to the house. Now I've just come down from being on a play fort. I realize that my phone isn't in my pocket and look around for it. I see it on the ground under the fort, and I realize that it fell out of my pocket somehow as I was coming down.


Lost ties
I'm walking around outside church Side-note(which looks nothing like the real one)[/COLOR] when I see JB, one of our deacons, holding a wad of ties in one hand and his cell phone in the other. He's using the cell phone to talk through the PA system, announcing that he's found some ties and that they'll be going in the trash unless they're claimed soon. He shows them to me and asks if they're mine; I take a quick look and tell him they aren't. He gives one final warning over the PA, then starts to throw them away, but I stop him. I tell him that it always annoys me that the policy is always "Claim your stuff or it goes to Good Will." I wish there were a short period during which the stuff stayed on display but where anyone who wanted it could take it. He thinks about it, then agrees with me and hands me the ties to look through again, to see if I want to keep any of them. He warns me that there's trash in the middle of the wad of ties. I see that he's been going around the property, picking up trash and wadding it all together. On closer inspection, I really don't like any of the ties and start looking for a place to throw them away.


Parking deck excitement
I'm in the passenger seat of a van driven by people I'm staying with. I don't know them very well. The father Side-note(who looks like Iron Man 3's Killian - something had reminded me of Extremis the night before)[/COLOR] is driving, and his kids are in the back. We're in a parking deck, trying to get out. The main exit is backed up, so he decides to take a "short cut". He drives over a curb, knocking over some glass jars that had been placed along it. Following this path around the deck, we reach what should have been an exit, except that it's been mostly walled off. There are still gaps around and under it where we can catch glimpses of the outside. I see tires under it and hope it's not a police car, and that if it is they won't realize what we've done. He backs up back over the curb. I see that the unblocked exit is right next to this one, and that it's currently clear. I don't think he should take it yet - if it really was a police car out side, we don't want to tip its occupants off that we were the ones who jumped the curb - but he just takes the exit. Sure enough, it was a police car, and they start following us, though their lights aren't yet on. The father starts slowly accelerating. I ask incredulously if he's planning on getting into a chase with the police, but he denies it. By this time, he's going recklessly fast around the parking lot, trying to lose the police before they actually turn their lights on. I consider bailing out of the car, but decide that would be just as dangerous as staying in.


Fragments
It's night. I see something about a ghostly apparition - some kind of advanced technology - that jumped on / through a helicopter and brought it down. An investigation is ongoing into what it was. I see a pool of some kind in front of me. An artificial animal - a cow? - is helping fill it. Suddenly, I realize that the plot to bring down the helicopter was from the artificial animals, and that it lets them fill these pools over and over, becoming rich and taking all the power as they do so.

Something in a house.

Chemicals at work
I'm at work, walking into a room filled with people and chairs around long tables. Most of the chairs are already full. I sit down at the end of a row in an empty seat by MK. He'd had his jacket on the back of the chair, but he moves it to his own when I sit. The conversation sis already going about whether we can do a better job of creating test plans than QA can, but at some point it turns to whether we can make the product better by ditching the current framework and doing it from scratch. I have my doubts about both, but there are a lot of people excited about the idea. Someone is standing up, holding a diagram he's drawn, showing how great this will be. Someone is standing behind a podium at the front of the room, though I don't think he participates in the discussion or leads in any way.

Now I'm in a hallway somewhere in the building. There are a couple of doors near each other, both with glass windows to look inside and card readers to control access. Now I'm in the room on the left. It's full of dangerous chemical experiments or processes or something, so I leave quickly. Now I'm in the room on the right, and I see that it wraps around behind the other room. Going to the back, I see more equipment for working with chemicals, like emergency showers, but nothing seems dangerous. I see a door into the chemical room and assume that this is the less secure side and I would need to card my way through; then I notice that I can see a card reader on the other side of the door, and this side has only a speaker and a button. It looks like someone on the other side needs to use an intercom to talk to someone on this side to be buzzed through, which I think is very strange.


New character
I'm creating a new character in an action RPG, and I have lots of options available to me. One is an option whether he'll get access to special abilities or whether he'll have more intrinsic armor. One of the other pre-baked characters in my party uses the second option. After considering it for a moment, I decide that will make the game easier, since it'll reduce complexity and give me more skill points to allocate elsewhere, so I choose it and move on. During the first battle, I decide that was silly; I always like having the most options, and who knows when those abilities will be useful? I can't change my mind now, so I have to delete this character and start over. On the "Are you sure?" dialog, I see that my character is named Nazrax. My wife comes in and I have to stop for now.


Gardening
I'm outside working in a very large garden. Other people are out here, each of us working in our own sections. I seem to have more authority, as I'm walking around, checking on things, and moving things around. I particularly check up on a gardener near the wall of a building.


Riding instructor
I'm at the place where my daughter gets her riding lessons. I look into the paddock and see her instructor riding around on a GIANT horse. In-dream, I think it's the size of four horses. It has five pairs of legs, is very wide, and is about twice as tall as a normal horse. The instructor is riding in counterclockwise circles around the paddock. When he comes to a corner and turns, the horse somehow pivots around the rear set of legs. As he's going along the far side from me, he passes by some stalls with white horses facing away from us. As he passes each horse, he tugs on its tail, causing milk to jet out of its udder. I consider this a very strange way to milk them, and I hope he doesn't get kicked; but I assume he knows what he's doing and don't worry too much.