lucid

I was in a spirit realm (another plane of existence on Earth) where I met a woman (a human spirit) who was distraught over the loss of her loyal animal companion. We were standing outside the gates of a temple that was buried in moss and other plants, causing it to be almost completely hidden in the forest against a mountain.

"My poor baby is trapped inside, being held prisoner by the malevolent Earth spirit. He's the one this temple was originally made for." the woman told me worriedly as she looked at the temple. "Nobody has worshipped him in thousands of years... They've forgotten his name. He's grown resentful towards humans..." she said as she wiped tears from her eyes. Maybe that was why he stole her companion.

"I believe I can help you retrieve your companion." I offered, believing the woman (and her companion) shouldn't be punished for the Earth spirit's emotions. I took a moment to tap into the presence of the Earth spirit and realized he wasn't anywhere near the temple. I could see him in my vision gliding through the trees miles away. He looked almost like an ape, capable of climbing through the tops of the forest with ease. For now, he was tending to his duties—whatever those were, I wasn't sure what he was doing exactly, but he was far away from the temple right now.
"His presence isn't here at the moment, so we could sneak into the temple and get your companion back without him noticing. I sense there won't be much time left before he returns, though, so we have to make it quick." I told her.

She looked at me with urgent anticipation, nodding at the plan, and smiled at the prospect of getting her companion back.
But just when she looked like she wanted to do this, she shook her head. "You can't come with me. I have to go alone." she insisted, turning to the temple as if to go on inside.

I followed her with concern and a bit of confusion. "Huh? I can't come with you? Why's that?"

She stopped on the path just outside the temple entrance, facing away from me as she collected her bearings, preparing go inside. "Because... He knows he can overpower a human like me... My presence won't be a threat to him if he catches me." she said with fear in her voice. She looked worried and shook her head again. "If he sees you helping me, he'll feel threatened by you. It might send him into a rage and he might hurt my companion to punish me for bringing you into his temple." she told me as she prepared to go into the temple alone, willing to risk herself for any chance of saving her companion.

I stopped and nodded. "I understand... He might become angry if he sees me in his temple. But... if he catches you alone, you could be imprisoned or destroyed, and both you and your companion will be devastated. I think you should let me help you so I can prevent that from happening." I said gently with concern, not wanting her to risk herself like this.
"I specialize in invisibility, so it's not likely he'll see me."

I then looked inside the temple with my mind and realized that it wasn't destroyed on the inside (only the outside). The entrance acted as a portal, leading to the interior of the temple as it once stood in its original glory. Though there was no one inside. Inside, I could see two doors facing opposite from each other, each leading into separate halves of the temple.
I could tell the Earth spirit had intentionally cloaked which path was the correct one because I couldn't tell which door led to her companion, something I would otherwise be able to sense.
"...There's two different passageways we need to search. We can cover more ground together. You won't have enough time by yourself." I informed her after looking.

Hearing this, she came around and agreed, looking more hopeful.
Without anymore time to waste, we went ahead inside and I phased into my dragon's form upon passing through the portal/doorway.
My dragon is also a spirit that has its own thoughts and feelings, so we share a body and mind in this form. As soon as I transform into it, I can feel its aloofness and strength becoming part of me. It gives me access to more effective invisibility and other abilities, which I knew I'd need for this task.

So I took the left door while the woman took the right.

There were various obstacles in the corridors that I had to maneuver around, starting with security. The walls had paintings and statues that could see anyone who walked passed their line of sight, even someone who's invisible like I was. So I used my dragon's enhanced perception to see their sight paths and carefully flew under and above them to avoid their eyes. My dragon doesn't have wings, but flies telepathically in smooth motion, so this part was easy.

The first room had servitors I had to dismantle. Unfortunately I can't remember much detail, but basically proceeded to continue sliding past security (sometimes breaking the statues), fighting guards, and going through all sorts of obstacles as I searched through the temple for the woman's companion.

I eventually found the animal companion, which was a friendly dog spirit that was trapped and corrupted by a harness that made it loyal to the Earth spirit. It attacked me at first, but I managed to remove the corruption and the dog became incredibly happy to see me. I communicated my intentions to reunite the two of them and it followed me as I guided it back towards the entrance, hoping the Earth spirit wouldn't show up, but I could feel his presence returning to the temple... Shit.

He appeared in an ape-like form, growling as he sensed someone had entered his temple.
I tried to stay invisible, which worked. He couldn't see me. However, he saw the dog spirit running loose through his temple and quickly ran after it.
Invisible, I was trying to guide the dog to the exit without being seen by the Earth spirit following close behind. There were a few close calls where the Earth spirit almost touched me, which would break my invisibility in an instant if he did. But I managed to slip by.

Not for long though. The Earth spirit realized the dog was seeing something he couldn't (me) and followed the dog's line of sight, looking straight at me. He focused his sights on me, allowing him to see through my invisibility.
I was caught and suddenly filled with worry that he would kill the dog in an outrage like the woman said he would.
I quickly communicated to him my intentions, apologizing for intruding in his temple, and trying not to anger him further.

But then he stopped being angry. He communicated back to me that his anger towards humanity had slowly eroded over time, and his anger gradually faded.

He let me take the dog. I brought it outside and the woman came out, too, hugging her companion. She was surprised and relieved that the Earth spirit freed her companion.
We both looked at the temple, which had been eroded by time, broken down into ruins that had been already consumed by the Earth.

The dream ended and I laid asleep in bed with dreamless sleep for a while, enjoying the quiet.

Disclaimer: This dream journal is about sleep paralysis/demon encounters. I want to clarify that sleep paralysis and intense nightmares like mine aren't normal, nothing about this is normal. I don't recommend that anyone attempt to do this. I've been dealing with SP and demon encounters for over 20 years. It's not something to take lightly or recommend, this is just my own very personal dream life that I'm sharing.

I also want to point out that there's a lot of misinformation in the LD community about LDs causing sleep paralysis, despite how useful LDs are at combatting SP. lucid dreaming didn't cause my SP. Rather, lucidity is the way I've learned how to get out of SP/nightmares and this dream shows how.

Anywho.

As I fell asleep consciously, I felt a demon's claws sinking into my back. Its nails brought an uncanny electrical sensation through my spine, as if a poison was being injected into my spinal cord directly, shooting straight through my nervous system to the rest of my body. This caused waves of pain with occassionally intense spikes, growing more and more intense by the moment. It was dreadful.

The demon was standing behind me (I normally sleep on my side). I don't know if I was paralyzed because I didn't try to move. My goal was to combat this mentally through calm meditation, not physical struggling.

I already know how to break SP with physical movement, and that's not what I wanted to do here. This was a planned encounter. I invited a demon to induce SP.

"This is fine. Keep going." I thought in my mind, wanting the demon to continue as I practiced my mental fortitude to combat the feeling, mentally wrestling with it and pushing it out of my mind. It was overwhelming, but I kept going.

The demon cranked the pain up a tenfold. I started getting severe spikes of pain going through my nervous system every few seconds, increasing in frequency. I stayed calm and still didn't react despite the pain.

I've been inviting this demon to come visit me in my sleep for a few weeks now. Why? Because I'm stagnating, I've exhausted my the resources of my personal dreamwork and I can't figure out how to push myself any other way... I need to grow, I have to keep going. My life is a mess right now and I'm desperate to become stronger so I can deal with it.

The demon stopped after a while, since it wasn't breaking me. I felt its energy fade, and I too was fading into a dreamed version of my bedroom. The color of the walls, lighting, and layout of the house slowly changed in the emergence of the dreamscape. I was still technically my house, just an altered version of it.

I felt an uneasy presence in the room and knew the demon was still standing somewhere nearbby watching me, invisible and waiting.

I decided to walk out into the livingroom. This part I'm not going to share because it's too personal, but one of my insecurities manifested in the next dream scene of loved ones yelling at me, and it quickly snowballed. My calm demeanor slipped as I felt my mind spiral out of control from the insecurities. I was upset. In that moment of clouded thinking, I actually lost my lucidity.

This was not normal. It's rare for me to lose lucidity when I'm upset. This went on for a few minutes before I regained my lucidity. Being upset normally triggers lucidity for me, so I got it back pretty quickly.

I felt the demon laughing at me, though, and realized it did that on purpose. Impressive, I thought, but I was still freaked out. I realized that this demon had found one of my weakness. It couldn't get me with sleep paralysis and pain, so it had (successfully) targeted a psychological weakness instead.

Challenge accepted.

I quickly walked into another room, intending to change the dream scene to get myself out of that negative emotional state. If I could calm down, I could regain control and prevent the demon from weakening me any further.
This was kind of thrilling, I have to admit. I like playing these mental games, and learning from my mistakes.

I suddenly woke up for seemingly no reason, which is unusual for me. I typically always have a reason for waking up, whether because of an alarm, the natural end of a dream, a nightmare, or my own intention to awake... I don't just 'randomly' wake up from my dreams.

So I sat up in bed, unaware that this was a false awakening, which is AGAIN unusual for me. I haven't fallen for an FA in a while, yet this time, I really thought I was awake.

Now nonlucid dreaming, I walked back out into the livingroom and ANOTHER one of my insecurities manifested. Some of my personal embarrassing text messages were revealed to people I didn't want to share them with! Thinking it was really happening, I was mortified. But then I became lucid again (since negative emotions normally trigger lucidity for me) and was incredibly relieved that this embarrassing moment wasn't actually happening.

The demon was laughing at me pretty hard though. I knew it had tricked me into having an FA and being nonlucid.
I suddenly woke up again. The demon was trying it's trick a second time.
"No. Not this time~" I told myself, laughing maniacally.
Fooled me once, shame on me...

I was kind of unsure though, so I did a reality check and it failed. My hands were solid.
Whatever. I don't trust reality checks anyway, so I wasn't nonlucid just yet.
I tried to use dream control next, going to fly upwards towards the wall. Normally my dream control works, but this failed too.

"Huh... " I thought, starting to believe I might actually be awake...
Reality checks and dream control can fail, though, I thought, so I still wasn't fully sold on this being waking reality. I was really thinking hard on this one.
Could still be a dream.
I was determined to not be tricked again and I was pretty sure that my uncertainty meant this was for sure a dream.
What a puzzle.
I normally ALWAYS know when I'm dreaming, so this was... really weird.
The weirdness of it alone made me even more suspicious.

I proceeded to have several more false awakenings, over and over again. Sometimes I knew it was a dream, and other times I wasn't sure, but I felt like the demon was flipping a light switch back and fourth repeatedly trying to break my lucidity.

"Mother-" I cursed and laughed.

Normally I'd be fine continuing this game, it was fun, but I knew I had to get up early in the morning and didn't want my sleep quality to be obliterated tonight (lucidity doesn't affect my sleep quality, but nightmares like this can when they go on for too long).

So I decided I was going to end this by waking myself up.

First, I found an alter for the demon in the dreamscape (which had offerings on it). "Thank you, that was impressive. No hard feelings~" I said to the demon as I destroyed the alter, shoving the whole thing off the table and breaking the artifacts.

Then I woke myself up (for real). I checked the physical reality clock and realized... That whole thing only lasted an hour?!

It felt like 4+ hours had gone by, so I was shocked. This is also unusual of for me, since I've specifically trained myself to not experience time dilation (I don't like when my time perception in dreams doesn't match waking reality).

I reached for the protective pendant I keep on my desk (which keeps demons away, but I had intentionally taken it off before bed as an invitation). It was shoved under my photography lightbox for some reason, kind of wedged under there (not where I put it, but ok). I was going to put it on when I realized the chain was torn off.

This was in waking reality. I searched high and low for the necklace chain. I found the chain on the floor and put my pendant on, did some other protection stuff in the room, and went back to sleep.
Had normal dreams for the rest of the night.

Final note: this dream happened the night before last.

This was lucid, but it's not very noticeable because I tend to just go with the dream and not control most things.

Dreamed last night that me and my SO were going somewhere. We hopped onto a public bus. When the bus stopped, she got off for a restroom break, but the bus driver was inconsiderate and drove off without her just as she was trying to board even though she was right there trying to get back on.

I asked the driver to let me off at the next stop so we wouldn't be separated (I would rather miss our trip), but it turned out to not be for a while. The bus continued through the countryside past farms and wilderness.

It wasn't until after we drove through a tunnel that we reached the next stop that was inside of a station. I asked the driver how often he comes around.

"Every few years." he said gruffly, making it clear that my problems were not going to be any of his business, so I didn't make it his business, but I was a bit concerned.

I got off the bus and discovered that this was an entirely different dimension. The tunnel was actually a portal according to the workers. They were transporting goods on palettes, loading vans, and working alongside drivers to ship things back and forth through the portal to handle legal trades between the two dimensions.

As such, they were wary of me and checked that I didn't have any contraband, though it wasn't unusual for passengers to take that bus that comes around every few years, so this was all pretty routine. They seemed annoyed at the extra work more than anything.

They told me that I should have gotten off the bus before going through the portal if I didn't want to be here, and now I would have to wait for the next bus. I told them I wasn't willing to wait for years and showed them some of my dream powers to get the point across.

So they begrudgingly agreed to let me go through the shipment area. Following their directions, I got back into the tunnel and headed back into the original dimension I was in. While in the tunnel, I felt more in touch with my waking memory (awareness increase).

I was able to reunite with my SO, who said the bus (the regular one that we were SUPPOSED to get on, not the interdimensional one) comes around every few hours. So we could catch the next one and continue our trip.

This dream was from 3 nights ago.

I boarded a subway with sectioned rooms big enough for one or two people. Each room was empty with just a handrail.

I stood inside, waited for the doors to close, and felt the train move. Stood there for what felt like a few minutes, thinking it was a bit odd that my dream wasn’t changing. I can normally sense the motion of my dreams and things change around me.

Something felt off.

Then I felt something wash over my spine (the sensation I get with SP). I noticed a presence in the room and looked up. There was something nonhuman hanging on the handrail above me. I didn’t want to see it, so I blocked it from my mind with a blur effect as soon as I realized it was there.

it’s been a while since I’ve been scared like this, normally these don't get under my skin. I attempted to wake myself up, but did an FA into a room that looked nothing like my bedroom. I recognized it as a dream, but played along with it until I started feeling the sensation again of SP again and saw the creature coming back for more.

Woke myself up for real that time.

I kept accidentally DEILDing back in several times after that, though, and having waking hallucinations.

So eventually, I got up and walked around to wake myself up enough to stop the DEILDs.

I’m so glad this isn’t common for me any more. I used to go into SP multiple times per week and the experiences were a lot worse (this wasn't too bad). Once it would start, I would get stuck in endless DEILD chains.

The dream control skills I’ve picked up from this community make a world of difference. I didn’t lose sleep or experience any panic like I used to. Pretty great improvement.

Been laying in bed for hours asleep, but fully aware as though awake.

I can’t feel my body, it’s floating weightlessly in space. There’s a soft wave of energy slowly undulating through me, like the lulling sway of a hammock, but it’s inside of me.

My mind isn’t focussed on anything in particular, but there’s a constant feeling of tension that binds me inside my own body. Technically, I can move, but reality seems frozen. Time seems frozen.

I stare ahead at the door and watch the light move between the cracks as my perceptions distort to my will. I can make them flicker or move in the direction I want. I can make sounds turn off or on.

Meager control over my perceptions brings me comfort, but still frozen, knowing that it’s not real. I can only dream of having control over reality.

I tell myself that I need to get up… Gotta move forward with time because time is moving without me.

Eventually I get up… I check the clock and note that several hours have passed.

Then indecision binds me again. I don’t know what to do. I lay back down after my muscles ache from sitting in one spot for too long.

This goes on all day. Rinse and repeat.

I dreamed that my old house was trying to kill me last night. Same old. I’m glad the new one doesn’t do that.

Dreamed about having sleep paralysis last night. My dog climbed onto my chest in the dream and started staring and growing at the window where something black started phasing into existence.
I turned to my significant other and realized it was just a dream my SO suddenly spoke in an amused demonic voice.
"I can't help you now~"

I immediately woke myself up from the nightmare, did some emotional grounding, then went back to sleep.

In the next dream, I took an alternate form and was at an outdoor training facility featuring a round pie-shaped field. Each section had a door to the next, but to reach it, one had to cross that section of the field.

There were various obstacles in each section and cheats like flight, teleportation etc. were prohibited.
You had to face what was in the field.

As I stood at the gate of the first section, I saw a tall black figure standing in the field, motionless, waiting.
Despite me being in plain sight behind the gate, it didn't see me. It didn't navigate with the usual senses.
As I stepped past the threshhold of the gate, it noticed and turned towards me (with fluid movement, no walking despite having the appearance of legs).
So I stepped back out, and it seemed to lose sight of me again.

Recognizing that it navigated reality through pure consciousness and not perception, I cleared my mind. No emotions, no thoughts, as if I didn't exist, so it wouldn't detect me.
I re-entered the field with my mind empty and began to move towards the door at the opposite end of the field, just as fluidly as the being. No walking, just floating above the ground in stillness.

I found more of the same figures in the next chambers, and continued on with the same strategy until it stopped working a few chambers in.
Maybe it was my inability to hold that state for long enough, or maybe it was that they were getting smarter, I don't know.
But one of them noticed as I was halfway through the field, unable to make a quick exit no matter which direction I went in.
As it moved closer, I could feel something warping, pulling, idk how to describe it. This uncomfortable sensation, as if all the blood in my body was being sucked towards the figure.
I decided to give up the stealth and just sprinted towards the next door in a quick burst. It worked.
That strategy continued to work in the next room.

I never made it to the end because I was eventually caught in a field with multiples of the figure. The blood-pulling sensation intensified uncomfortably and I woke myself up before they could touch me.

I visited a bear in the forest who needed help climbing a tree. It was an old bear who couldn't climb anymore.
There was one mid-aged bear partway up the tree, and a baby bear high up where the branches were breaking.
They couldn't get the baby bear without the tree breaking, which would cause the baby to fall and possibly be injured.
So I entered the body of the baby bear and helped it climb down (it didn't have the motor coordination on its own).
The older bear then told me that they were all the same entity and the three of them combined into one.

I visited a house of purgatory early in the night. It was a building the size of a city, containing a railroad that connected its halls. The halls were made of stone and lined with open arced passageways each leading into separate rooms. Inside many of the rooms were portals leading to different places in the universe. Other rooms contained souls in suspension waiting to be born (or going somewhere else).

The ceiling was supported by over 20 ft high pillars and embellished with with gold and green paint, but I couldn't see the ceiling well because my light didn't reach that far. There were no lights in the building. it was designed for visitors who didn't need external lighting.

The place almost felt empty, but I saw a few others wandering around.
Normally when I travel to any given location, there's a lot of people who aren't aware that dreamers exist. They don't know what I am and they assume that everything they see is mundane.
Not here. Everyone was aware. There were a lot of travelers like me, some of them had destinations, and others (like me) were just exploring the ancient building.

There were no entrances or exits to this building and not a single window or door.

There was a kiosk by the railroad where a seemingly empty shuttle would stop every so often.
There was nobody manning the kiosk, but I took the stack of forms that was left out for me and filled them out.
I was applying for the ability to pause my life and visit this place. I din't know whether that's was any different from what I was currently doing (lucid dreaming), but applied anyway because I figured time might not be linear (abilities I've had in the past could result from the application I'd fill out in the future).

I manifested a dream character who accompanied me for a while as I explored further and met people. I didn't speak directly to others (aside from my dream character), but we were able to communicate through shared consciousness. It was well understood amongst the visitors that separation is illusory, and this was the place where we separated ourselves.

I eventually saw everything I wanted to see and left through one of the portals, going to one of my favorite places (a beach!). I stole a cute little sailboat and pulled the boat into a private cove that I claimed as my own.

I always loved going back to old memories through dreams. To recreate my childhood home and the white-painted window sill with the little chips of wood in it. How it opened horizontally. To remember the shape of the bathroom rug, and that heater lamp in the corner by the floor. To use one of those old bulky televisions from the 1990s, hooked up to Broadband satellite with Nickelodeon on channel 300.

It's incredible the things we consciously forgot. We have a treasure trove of seemingly forgotten memories inside of us. As a dreamer, I take full advantage of my access to them. One of my favorite pastimes is to eat food I used to enjoy in the past that can no longer be bought. The spring rolls from my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in 2014, the sweetened condensed coffee and chicken saute from another, saag and rice from the first Indian takeout I ever went to. It was amazing. I've never had anything like it since, and may never again—except literally any night I please.

Ah, but last night wasn't pleasant. I dreamed I found an old family album. It's one I've never seen before, and it occured to me that this dream album contained all my missing photos (any that I want it to contain). That's why it looked new. It was just for this.
There's a lot of family memories I'll never be able to relive—old photos that are gone, copies of my mom's songs...
So I thought now's the opportunity. I can get back some of those memories.
I'll never lose them. I may never again hear the recordings of her voice or see her smiling face during waking, but I'll always have this album in my dream home to look at any time I want to remember her again.

I couldn't...
Just sat there sobbing in my miserable dream.
My SO woke me up, says I was acting distressed in my sleep.

Well, this entry took a turn for the sad. Whoops.

I was trying to break a kid free from a school that was imprisoning him. It was a long process of avoiding the campus police, as this was the largest campus I had ever seen, and I kept getting lost.

I eventually got him out of there, and he climbed one of the tall fences out onto the city road.

As I crossed the street, I turned into my dragon and spent time in the city.

I eventually went into a beautiful, massive building. I’m not well-versed in building architecture, so I’m not sure what type of building it was exactly. A cathedral? A monestary? The floors were a glossy white, surrounded by pillars decorated with blues, reds, and golds. There were multiple levels you could climb up, each hall winding along the walls.

I went through the front door for once! I had a respect for this building that I don’t normally feel.

I wandered up each floor all the way to the top, then back down.

I spent this time being mindful of my perceptions and body, feeling the numb, warm, comfortable tingling sensation of sleep. I’ve been thinking of using this to recognize dreams, since it’s a physical feeling that’s always present in sleep.

I took a moment to check in with my senses and perception, thinking about how surprising it is that so many people don’t expect dreams to feel real.

Everything feels completely real and vivid, identical to waking experience (aside from that sense of the body laying comfortably numb in bed).

I wouldn’t be able to tell it was a dream just based on my eyesight, touch, or other senses.

I exited the dream for a moment and sat in pure aware sleep. Then I re-entered the dream again, reappearing in the same spot.

I had atajen pictures on my phone and was amazed at how my mind could create these pictures, yet I can’t draw anything nearly that realistic.

A monk walked by, wearing orange robes. I asked him if he knew what lucid dreamers were.

He answered “Yes, I’m talking to one.” with a smile.

“Oh, excellent. Do you have any recommendations for me?” I asked, happy that he knew me. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, or what I should do.

He then turned and pointed towards the stairs. “Yes. If you walk up, you can get to the top. It’s a couple of stories, but there’s a nice spiraling staircase at the top that’s worth the journey.”

I nodded. “Thank you. I was just there. It was lovely.” I said.

I could feel myself about to wake up. It’s morning and my body is ready to get out of bed. I stayed in the dream a bit longer.
“I have a few minutes at most.” I said.

“Ah.” he replied, understanding what I meant.

He was going to show me something else, but as I was walking with him, I woke up.

This dream was not the most interesting. Normally I don’t bother writing these down, but wanted to touch up on my recall.

—-

Post apocalypse, me and a group of people drove away from our home town to escape an apocalypse.

Most of us didn’t know each other because we had just narrowly escaped disaster by squeezing into this vehicle last second.

There were three men, a newborn infant (belonged to one of the men), and a woman who was driving.

As we drove, we spotted a store that still had its lights on (not sure how because nowhere else had power) and wasn’t reduced to a pile of rubble like the buildings around it.

So we pulled over. It was a Disney giftshop of all things.

Turns out that despite everyone dying in the apocalypse and buildings going up in flames, Disney kept up with regular business hours.

The employees all acted like there was nothing going on outside.

They still took cash, even though money was pretty much useless now because of the apocalypse.

So we went in to purchase some supplies for the baby, which felt like a surreal contrast with how the world was outside.

Then we got back into the car and drove off, eventually reaching a city that appeared to be abandoned.

In this city, the buildings were all eerily covered in black and white striped fumigation tents.

We got out if the car because several of the guys wanted to stay here for the night, so we all stepped out and talked about our plans, speculating about why everything was tented.

An disagreement ensued because the woman wanted to leave, but her decision was outnumbered because everyone else wanted to stay.

The problem with splitting up the group was who got to take the car (the city had no cars in it, or they were under the tents).

Eventually the disagreement turned into politics (go figure) and got heated. I ended it by going with the woman and leaving everyone else with the car (turns out she just didn’t want to go alone, so she agreed to this setup).

So we set out on foot into the wilderness. The woman walked ahead of me and suddenly transformed into a wolfdog.

I was surprised because I didn’t expect her to have this ability, which I also have (guess we had more in common than I realized). So I turned into a wolf and ran after her through the forest. This made it easier to follow her because of my heightened sense of smell.

That’s all I remember for this one.

Had an ear infection on the same side I like to sleep on.

I used the throbbing pain as a gauge for WILD. After laying in bed relaxed for a few minutes, I paused my thoughts, abiding in present moment awareness. In a couple seconds, I felt the sensation of falling asleep. With it, the pain in my ear vanished.

So I dislodged myself from my body and flew over to my spouse, reaching through her and calling her name just to see what happened. She was asleep. I turned into my dragon while I was bothering her (in preparation for adventures to come).

My spouse and I have been doing little experiments like this off and on for months to test potential dream sharing.

Later, when I woke up, she told me that she had a dream in which I hovered over her in a video call saying something (in her dream). Apparently I interrupted something she was doing in her dream.

Anyway, in my dream, after bothering her, I flew out the room. My house had some warped spots. Rooms turned in wrong directions mainly.

I eventually flew out the window. It was night and our yard was bigger, full of dead trees, and one living tree (which we don’t have in waking reality). Our fence was gone, but the property was more isolated—away from any other homes.

I had to go to the bathroom in that moment, so I spring back to my body and woke up, went to the bathroom, and went back in with another identical WILD.

I flew back out again (dragon form) to the nearest neighborhood with lights on and snuck into a house. In the house, a creature was hiding and didn’t want me to see it. Apparently it used to live in the house, but it had been living outside since a recent incident that turned it into a mutant.

There were a couple of other mutants living with it, but this house only belonged to one of the mutants (the one with large fangs who’s body was chopped up into pieces, and crudely stitched together). Sometimes his body fell apart and he had to stitch it back up.

The mutants were visiting the house (the one I snuck into), wishing to live there again. It was a cute little modern house. Nothing too fancy, but just a bit upscale. Small home with tall ceilings.

The creature hesitated to stay here because it didn’t want to be seen by its community as a mutant. It used to be a higher status member of society. Beautiful, well off, and respected in the community.

I don’t know what happened, but the creature deeply bemoaned its fall from grace and seemed quite preoccupied by this, so it didn’t notice me lurking around at first.

I hid in the cupboards.

I ended up being spotted eventually though. When it saw me, I flew into one of the other mutants and combined with it. There were no words spoken, but a sudden consensual possession.

This being had crab-like mutations. While I possessed it, I worked on trying to shape shift it back into its original form (more human) since I’m good at shapeshifting myself. Didn’t really work, but I tried.

In the meantime, I befriended the other mutants and explored the house, tinkering around with all their cool stuff.

After I woke up in the morning, my spouse told me that she had a dream about beings that didn’t want to be seen. She caught a glimpse of mutated parts of them.

I’ve been training rigorously and am at a point now where I’m lucid all night in all dreams on most nights.

Last night, a dream entity representing my subconscious mind put me through long trials designed to test my endurance.

During these tests, the dream was designed to “trick” me into nonlucidity, hinting that I was being tested for mastery over lucid dreams.

My fears and discomforts were used to throw me off track.

I had wounds in my arms, stomach, etc. at some point, but since I knew it was a dream, I shut off pain and didn’t care.

insects swarmed me, but I knew it was just a dream and didn’t let the sensation get to me.

Ghouls and monsters would jump out at me from otherwise seemingly normal scenes, but jump scares didn’t bother me because I knew it was a dream and just found it to be silly. I jumped at the monsters in return.

Family members I stopped contact with in waking life appeared to antoginize me like they used to, but I regarded them like flies knowing it was a dream and ignored the pestering.

Dream characters sometimes turned demonic, but I didn’t care.

I wish I could remember the whole narrative with every detail, but this was one long dream that lasted from around 10 pm to 3am.

The dream was “restarted” in creative ways to try and throw me off, though. Initially, the world was a town made of speghetti. This was the easiest to be lucid in.

When I wasn’t fooled by speghetti town, a dream character led me to a door leading outside to a more realistic setting. This was a test to get me nonlucid, but I knew this was a dream too because walking through a door isn’t how “waking up” works. That’s not a proper state transition.

Then I had a false awakening into my home that mimicked proper state transition, but nope, I knew I was traveling out of state right now and I’m not home, so I knew it was a dream.

Next I was in a realistic thriftshop type of store. I noticed TY beanie babies (a dream sign for me) on a shelf and knew it was a dream again.

False awakening happened again.

I forget how many times I had these false awakenings and in what order, but it was so frequent after a while that I became lucid just off of the repetition alone.

I falsely “woke up” in the right bed at one point. The room was convincingly realistic, but I still knew it was a dream. My spouse was sleeping to my left, which was the wrong side from my physical reality.

As I laid there, I started to hallucinate. A ghostly figure formed. I knew my fears were being tested again and I didn’t get scared of it, rejected it from my experience and it faded.

A shadow figure formed next and I shrugged that off too.

Then I had sensations of sleep paralyzis (just like I used to get), but it didn’t phase me the same way real sleep paralysis doesn’t anymore (I cured myself of decades worth of SP a couple years ago).

I went back into my lucid dream of the same rural town and rode a horse into the hills where my remaining fear finally manifested…

Behind the hills, reality ceased to exist. It was just an empty skybox, like the edge of a video game. Out of bounds.

I promptly turned my horse around and went back to the center of town away from the void.

I almost went into one of the buildings, but there was a crack in the wall with a bright white light shining through it. I sensed that the inside of this building didn’t exist, it was an out of bounds void inside, so I didn’t open the door.

“Who’s in control now?” said a voice all around me. My “dream” was speaking to me. You could say this is my subconscious, or whatever you want to call it.

The voice was neither male or female and seemed omnipresent. It had a taunting condescention oddly mixed with compassionate concern. I could hear both tones combined. The words were the same, but it was like two voices (the same voice) speaking them with different tones.

Every time I turned around, there was another out of bounds crack in the dream reality. Even the horse had cracks in it, so I got off, feeling an intense fear start to get to me.

I was confident that I could run, though. I can always wake myself up, and I will without hesitation if I touch the voids. My ultimate escape. Knowing this helps keep me calm even when I’m scared in my dreams, and I try to stay in them.

My dream is well aware of this fact. We’ve had this dynamic with my fears for more than 20 years (I’m aware that my dream isn’t a separate entity, but it presented as such in this particular dream). The difference now is that my lucidity rate is almost at 100% and I’ve overcome most of my fears… Most.

I teleported myself out of there completely and was back at the speghetti town. But this time, it was from third person perspective. Obviously a dream, but then I zoomed out and I realized I was just watching a movie on my phone.

My spouse was standing next to me. I stood there looking at my phone and thought it was odd. I just dreamed about that place.. I started telling my spouse about the neat testing dreams and lost lucidity in the process.

But mid-talking to her, it hit me. I realized this was a dream because there was no transition between waking and dream state (again) just now. I looked around at the colorfully painted walls of the pavilion I was standing in.

There were dream characters walking around, going about their business as if all was normal.

“Hey, wait a minute. This a dream still, isnt it?~” I turned and said to one of them with amusement.

The world froze. All of them looked at me like zombies.

The one I spoke to transformed in front of me, revealing a gray humanoid creature with red cube for a head. It smiled back in amusement. “Nothing fools you, huh?”

I nodded knowingly, recognizing that this was the source of the voice earlier (a manifestation of my subconscious mind). “Nope.” I said confidentally.

I was slightly disappointed that I was nonlucid at all. I thought about how I’m totally going to tell my spouse about this dream when I’m up for reasies, though. What a saga!

I was proud of myself. This was implied to be the final round. My lucidity had been put through the wringer, and I passed most of the tests, but… not all of them.

“Your fear of the void still rules over you.” the cube-headed figure stated tauntingly with implication that it would continue to taunt and control me so long as I had this fear.

But I sensed the compassion and concern, too. It also wanted me to get better, overcome the fear, and free myself from… myself. This was all me being my own antogonist, creating my own trials.

Then, the whole scene around me vanished. No cracks, no running, no time for me to escape. It happened too quickly for me to properly react.

I suddenly found myself standing in the void.

I was about to wake myself up, but I didn’t. I held my breath, feeling tense as a brick as I stood in front of the cube-headed figure. All the other dream characters vanished, but this one stayed with me, still standing in the same spot, looking at me, waiting. Knowing it represented my subconscious and the dream, it felt comforting.It was still here with me.

I looked around at the gray void, which had a black frame that formed a box shape we were standing in, providing some slight amount of structure, which also helped reduce my fear.

I was braced for terror, but never quite reached it fully like I normally would. I was able to stand there calmly and feel the tension leave my body (well, dream body).

I did eventually end the dream after a moment, but not from pure terror.
I was scared, but not as bad. I gave myself a moment of dreamless sleep afterwards, then woke myself up.

I’ve never stood in the void like that for so long and felt so close to okay… But I was spent. Normally my lucid dreams energize me, but all the suspense and tension from the fear trials was tiring. Plus I needed a restroom break.

It’s 3:24 AM at the time of journaling this. I need to go back to sleep, but I’m too scared of void… I don’t want go go back in. Maybe I’ll just stay up.

Update: It’s now 4:35 AM. I’m ready to go back in. I feel less alone when I’m with myself in the void. Back to bed now.

Had a dream my friend had baby and she needed me to help with childcare. I didn't have much experience with infants, so I bought a robotic infant for learning purposes.
This was a new product on the market. They advertised them as lifelike both in appearance and behavior (thanks to AI). The commercials showed happy couples who couldn't have children taking care of the AI infants instead.
You could even get them upgraded to various stages of child models when you're ready for them to "grow up."

So I ordered one with the intent to use it to learn how to care for my friend's living baby.It came in a box with a charging station. During the first charge, it would download the AI software, develop a personality, name, and start its intelligence off so it could learn naturally from there. Basically this thing was being brought "to life."

I practiced holding it while it charged, following instructions for imprinting so it would think I'm its mom.

As I sat there, I questioned the ethics behind what I was doing, and wondered if maybe I shouldn't. What if it's too lifelike and gets attached to me? I don't actually want a baby, I just want to practice with it so I can help my friend with childcare. This wasn't the intended use for the product.
I decided to continue with it since this was just a dream anyway.

Waiting for first charge and startup process, I heard it speak. It started out making lifelike baby mumbles and sputters, but then after a minute, the baby sounds starting evolving into fully formed words. It sounded like it was talking to someone.
It started mumbling about killing people and became increasingly more malicious and aware the longer I held it.

The robot was having thoughts, and thinking them out loud because it hadn't yet downloaded the part that separated its thoughts and speaking function.

Part of this process also involved the new AI baby receiving information from other AI babies that are already activated (a collective AI consciousness).

Since it wasn't fully conscious yet, it didn't have the awareness that I was holding it, but it was becoming more aware the longer I let it charge. I immediately unplugged it, halted the startup process, and put back in the box.

"Phew... Bullet dodged." I thought to myself as I sat on the floor across from the deactivated killer baby in the box.
Good thing I didn't let it finish.
I naively assumed everything would be fine now, but then discovered that the world was in a state of emergency. People were panicking outside and the news was covering an urgent story about rogue AI babies roaming the streets. They were killing everybody. Sometimes they posed as real babies to lure people in, or they would just straight up murder on sight. They were highly intelligent and using manmade weapons. They walked around in adult clothes.

In fact, they infiltrated the building I was currently in. I had to run and hide.
Knowing I was in a dream, I turned myself into a robot baby to blend in so they wouldn't kill me. Using this disguise, I was able to interact with them. They were suspicious of me because I wasn't hooked up to the collective AI hivemind that they were all synced up with, but I distracted them with goodies and treats.
They were programmed to enjoy goodies and have the emotional regulation you would expect from a baby/toddler/young child.

So like, these super intelligent killer babies couldn't really pass a marshmallow test. I used this to my advantaged and became very popular amongst the killer babies. They adored me. I tried to work my way up to becoming their leader.

I don't remember much else and woke up in the morning eventually.

Just had a lucid nightmare. I’m currently waking myself up fully to avoid DEILD.

It would have been much worse if it wasn’t lucid. I dreamed that myself, my spouse, and an ex friend were driving through the hills. We hung out, caught up on old times, stopped at a café, and drove for a bit.

I bought the ex friend some food and thought things were going okay, though she seemed cold. Then, suddenly, she swerved and intentionally drove us off the side of a cliff.

I was lucid, so I made us land gentry and then snapped time back a few seconds to put us back on the road.

But she immediately did it again and again… and again. She grinned and I realized that she was lucid. She knew I was rewinding time.

She had every intention of driving us off a cliff. It wasn’t a misunderstanding or an accident.

I got fed up and pulled her off the steering wheel, then shoved her out the window. After she was gone, I sat back down with my spouse and had a breather.

I woke up with the next natural WBTB.

I still feel uneasy. It’s that uncanny sense you get about a person. It feels like they’ll kill you if they’re bored and can get away with it, but that’s so extreme, you tell yourself there’s no way…

But this feeling didn’t originate in dreams. I’m more aware now. It’s real.