memorable

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.

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’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.

Journal from 06/23/2023. This is one of my PR dreams that was especially fun!

Since I haven't been journaling my PR much, I'll include some backstory for what's been going on.

I started this particular dream in my territory, which is a dreamed replica of my childhood home (I really should come up with a name for it). The property spans about 2 acres. It's by the coast just outside of an isolated fishing town.

This place is dreary and full of death, guarded by my zombie hoard and packs of wolves. The whole place is surrounded by towering trees, which is where the zombies and wolves usually creep in from.

The home itself is a small two-story shack. The ground floor is half kitchen (with concrete floor), and half garage (which I'm pretty sure is haunted).

Recently, I've decided to put a portal to hell here. It was originally in the field, but I moved it inside the house to be the kitchen to go with my haunted garage (seems only right to have them be side-by-side).

Specifically, I made this a portal to the Helluva Boss universe hell, because that version of hell is fun. I figured it would help liven up the place.

And boy, it worked! Lots of terrifying entities have been coming through my portal ever since I added it, ranging from spicy to downright malicious.

This has resulted in a few lucid nightmares for me, but that's fine—it was my intention to expose myself to nightmares in a controlled environment like this in order to overcome my fears. I used to have a severe fear of demons, ghosts, and other hellish beings... *cough* This was pretty embarrassing and debilitating, since I live a good portion of my life in dream realms as the supposed Lucid Guardian.
What kind of lucid guardian is afraid of ghosts? Bah!
So this is why I've done this to myself, and I've since made breakthroughs because of it. I'm not easy to scare anymore. I can deal with zombies, ghosts, demons, you name it.

Anyway, I was standing in the kitchen looking at my nifty new hell portal. It's invisible now (used to be more noticeable). I can sense its presence, though. When I walk through it, there's no immediate signs that I've entered hell, but very subtle differences in the atmosphere clue me in. I can feel the emptiness in the air and something ominous.
Everything looks like a mirror image of the same location, but it's not the same.

There was a native mortal human visiting my house in this dream. She unknowingly went through my portal, so I followed her through. I crept behind her as a shadow while she wandered outside.

Human girl noticed the dark clouds rolling in and seemed rightly unsettled by the place. The sky was a mixture of ashen clouds and yellow fog lit by distant fires.
I revealed myself to her, telling her that she had stumbled into another realm. With glee, I warned her that she better turn back.... Unless she wanted to brave the demons and animated dead.
Only a fearless soul will survive in a place like this. So which will it be? I gave her the choice to go back, but I'll be honest that it wasn't without provocation. I was having too much fun!
I asked if she'd cave in to cowardice and flee for her life like scared little mortals do, or dance with me?

I drew flames up out of the ground, engulfing my home in a blaze to demonstrate that this was no joke. I began a musical number (yes, like a Disney supervillain!), dancing and singing to a variation of that "It's Tough To Be a God" song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZKE10BQlXY).
It was fun coming up with lyrics on the spot! This was my favorite part of the dream.
Through my own version of the lyrics (I forget the exact details), I conveyed my identity as a dream deity, revealing that her universe was my lucid dream. Isn't the nature of reality frightening?

Stolas (from Helluva Boss) came through my portal during this, so I pulled him into it without skipping a beat. He passively went along with the number as I used him as part of my demonstration to the human of the kinds of hellish beings she'd find here if she stayed.

Right as I was singing about being a dream god, I woke up because my significant other rolled over in bed and slapped me in the face, mumbling in opposition. lmao
She was half asleep. When I told her what she interrupted, she said (jokingly) that somebody had to put a stop to me because I was getting too cocky, and that's why she did it.

The dream god Achilles heel! One second you're singing about having unlimited dream god powers, and next thing you know you disappear because waking up is all part of the gig. That's so annoyingly hilarious! I love it.

I gotta do more of these.

Was spending time with my dad and he said "It just occurred to me in bardo that, this whole time, you wanted to spend time with me..." and he and stared straight ahead in shock as the realization hit him.

I nodded. I wanted that more than anything, but gave up because he was cold towards me. I tried for years and he always shot me down.
One time I asked if he wanted to go to this festival we went to once when I was a kid, one of the few memories I have of him, and he said "No, that's for young people. I don't do that anymore." with bitterness as though he thought I cared about the festival.
That was when I realized he didn't cherish those memories. I don't know if he ever thought twice about me and the more I tried to spend time with him, the more it seemed he didn't.

"...No one ever wanted to spend time with me. Why?" he asked me, looking so shocked, confused, and heartbroken.

I lifted my hands struggling to come up with the words, but gave up. "I don't know. Your my dad. I love you. And... I thought you seemed fun to be around, anyway." I said but couldn't hold it together and started crying. I had to leave, so I walked away.

I saw it on his face that he finally understood.
If only it wasn't a dream. I cried for a bit as I put away the dream ice cream I was going to eat—but no longer felt like eating—and then woke myself up because I was only dreaming to avoid waking reality. It's like 10 AM...

I was at a convention, about to make a sale, and was in a bit of a hurry. I was nonlucid.

Suddenly out of nowhere, my grandpa walked by, as though just passing through. It didn’t fit with the scene and was a noticeable interruption from my current state of mind, but not because he was trying to be noticed. I got the feeling he wouldn’t have even looked at me, had I not initiated eye contact.

He smiled with genuine happiness, the way he used to smile at me. It was real, I thought. Something I hadn’t seen in a very long time, and never thought would happen again. I was instantly lucid.

There was something peaceful about him. He was ready to just walk by without interrupting the show, but I greeted him and we walked away from the convention into what appeared to be a Denny’s booth (with dark gray carpet on the floor, the wooden table and bench, and the red fake leather seatbacks).

“How are you doing?!” I asked, addressing him by his first name.

“Doing good! Its so nice to see you!” he said with a jovial lift in his voice like he used to have. I’ll never forget the joy he had.

“I’m glad to hear it.” I answered. “How is the real one doing?” I asked, referring to his physical self.

He frowned and seemed more dubious on the subject. “I just wish I could wake up…” he said with a sort of frustration and disappointment that was dwarfed by his happiness to be here. It seemed like he had been dealing with something lately.

That was about it for this one. I purposely woke up to write it down.

(crossposted from my DJ last night)

---

It’s 3am, been awake for 30-60 mins, mind racing with worries about things. Forgot to do dream recall because im so preoccupied with these thoughts. A dog has been barking in the distance.

i stop and think, none of these worries have happened yet. Why am i obsessing over them?

Wait

Is there a barking dog? Is that just a sound distortion from my noise machine? A hallucination?

I stop and listen carefully. Sounds real.

I lift my head off the pillow to listen from another angle. Still real-sounding. I swear, it's as realistic as anything I've heard, not coming from my mind.

But then I stop to think and realize it has been the exact same two barks every time. Dozens of times. The same two barks, spaced exactly the same, identical tone and pitch on repeat.

It’s not real.

I proceed to adjust the volume and sound of the two barks with my mind. The hallucination follows my adjustments. Still the same spacing between the two exact same barks, but I can slow it down, adjust the timing, and change the volume with my mind.

There was never any barking dog.

The things I'n worrying about aren’t happening either. I still hear the same barking on repeat and my worries are still there, but I know what's in my mind and what's not. I'm going back to sleep.

I had a dream last night that led to a mind-blowing discovery about happiness.

I've been sad lately, don't get much joy out of the things I used to love. It feels like the light inside of me has gone out.
I have plenty of "reasons" for why I'm sad, like depression and life struggles that are real and understandable.
But that doesn't change anything. I'm still sad.

Last night, I decided to try using my dreams as references for visual art. I wasn't trying to find the grand solution to my relentless despair, but I thought maybe I'll be happier if my drawing skills improve. Or maybe I'll make money off of my art if it looks better, and the money will make me happy.
idk maybe it'll just pass the time, worst case scenario.

My small, simple goal was to improve my anatomy skills, especially eyebrows. I have trouble visualizing eyebrows and putting them onto paper. I thought "Well, my dreams look just like real life. The human brain is incredible, capable of coming up with elaborate scenery and imagery that look just like real life. Perfect reference material, right? I can study anything I want in dreams."

So I entered a lucid dream with WILD and started studying a simple painting of a woman facing to the side. I could study the curve of her chin and lips, the size of her forehead relative to her chin, the shape of her eyes and eyebrows. All of the shapes and proportions. It was as if I was looking at a real painting for reference.

But this didn't help because I can already draw something like that from memory when awake. Side-views are easy for me. I've already memorized the curves and proportions. If I was going to improve, I needed references for more complex angles and expressions that I haven't memorized.

So I stepped away from the painting and started to look around at everything in my environment, marveling at how vivid everything was. The grass, the trees, every grain of dirt on the ground. I leaned down to examine the petals of a purple flower.

But again, I could draw a flower like that from memory. Neat, but not what I was looking for.

I needed to look at things that I have trouble visualizing when awake, because I don't know the finer details of what they look like.

So I found some people to study. I tried to examine the face of an older man who looked perfectly vivid and realistic at first, but upon close inspection, I couldn't wrap my mind around what his face was supposed to actually look like in finer detail. What's the exact curve of his eyebrow from every angle? Do all the hairs go in the same direction or do they curve out in separate directions? Where exactly on his skull do the eyebrows meet the orbital bone? I can't remember, I don't know these things, but I thought they would "magically" appear properly in my dream. For some reason, I thought my brain must've had this "secret highly detailed memory" storage that only dream-me could access. After all, my dreams are so vivid and realistic.

Seems kind of obvious that I was wrong, now that I think about it.
I couldn't make out his finer details in my dream any better than I could without a reference when awake. It wasn't even necessarily blurry, but it was like I was seeing the ambiguity of my mind failing to form an objectively correct visual. I was seeing all of the "possibilities" at the same time (not literally, but the illusion of my flawed perception was clearer than ever).

This is also what happens when I try to visualize his face when awake.
I still need a reference.

But it's mind-blowing that I didn't even notice the illusion covering up these deficits until I started looking for them. My unaware mind had convinced me that everything looked normal, when it didn't. That makes way more sense than my old magical assumption that we could somehow dream in 4K but not access this massive underused capacity for detail any other time.

So I can't use my dreams for art like I wanted, but this has even more incredible implications.

First, awareness is a much bigger aspect of our sensory perceptions than I previously thought. Everything you see is filtered through your awareness of it. You're not getting the real thing. Visual artists are specifically skilled to increase their awareness of visuals and a lack of awareness of visuals is reflected through their drawings, but we otherwise may never notice the awareness we lack (whether an artist or not).

We go about our whole life thinking we see things that we're not fully seeing. Our minds are filling in the blanks and we don't think twice about it.

Secondly, this is a huge difference between waking life and dreams that I never noticed before. Removing the "filter" like I did in this dream could help you recognize the dreamstate by reflecting on your level of visual awareness.

Third and more incredible to me is what this implies about happiness in general. I posted this on the Omnilucid discord, and a fellow dreamer pointed out how this happens with other things too (not just visuals) like when you dream of a funny joke, but wake up with the realization that it wasn't funny (your mind just thought it was). Or in waking life, the experience of a garden being extra beautiful knowing the labor and love that went into it VS just seeing a garden in a dream that was easily created on the spot.

I've had countless dreams that replicated the experience of something, without having the actual experience.

Like nightmares about things that aren't scary, or losing love for a person I've never met. It was just a trick of the mind, an illusion of having an experience I didn't even have... There's a pure essence to our experience of things that can't be seen, heard, touched etc. It doesn't seem to exist outside of our consciousness. It's invisible and intangible, but it's very real.

I think I've been getting wrapped up in the illusions of "stuff" and have a better understanding of what that means now. I'm feeling much more hopeful. Maybe I can find happiness again now that I'm seeing past the filters.

I was in a building with several families on it. They shared rooms with tapestries separating them for privacy. Nobody worked and everyone seemed pretty happy with their lifestyles, despite having never gone outside. Many generations were born into these communities. They were comfy and didn't have much in the way of crime (at least in the community I was investigating).

There were other buildings like this with other similar communities of families living in them. If residents wanted outside contact, they could get in touch with the other communities using computerized drones.

Sometimes people would transfer between communities, but it was a big deal to do this. That's what they assumed I came from, though nobody seemed interested in asking me anything about the details of my whereabouts. They were just friendly and interested in the new addition to the community. I was well-liked.

The computers and drones kept records, maintained society, and brought in supplies. They provided everything.
Nobody questioned the drones either. They simply regarded them as helpers and protection.

One of the hallways had no lights, so it would appear dark when you looked down the hallway.
I noticed a portal in the dark (it wasn't invisible, just an energy field I could feel). Going through it, I found that the portal led to another connected building identical to this one, but with different people in it.

I can't remember if it was just me that could use this portal, or if the residents knew about it.

There was also a door that led outside. I asked one of the residents about it. They expressed sharp disapproval and acted like I was crazy to even think about going outside, telling me there was nothing outside.

The drones will shoot you dead anyway, they told me.
Yet these drones were protecting them? From what?

I went outside when no one was looking.

Upon stepping through the door, I found myself standing in an empty parking garage.
There were drones patrolling the area. I turned into my dragon and went invisible so they wouldn't shoot.

There was a light coming from one of the car ramps leading down below. I already knew what it was before I saw it, but I went down to investigate anyway.

Sure enough, that's where the universe ended. Everything surrounding this building and the garage was a white void.

There really was nothing outside. Literally.

Accidentally deleted this journal, so I'm rewriting what I can remember of it.

---

I was in my childhood home standing on the balcony. I looked up and saw what looked like a cancerous formation in the sky (a patch of red that began to grow).
When the sun went down, some people with weapons and flashlights showed up. My family ducked behind the furniture. I was lucid and decided not to buy into the fear, so I stepped outside, knowing it was me they wanted. They proceeded to kidnap me, having me get into a van.

In the van, I went to the front and saw the driver, a woman with straight black hair. I talked to her, asked what was going on. I can't remember the full conversation and lost the journal for this, but she told me about how she was dying of a medical illness and needed a large sum of money to pay for treatment. Due to unbridled capitalism and its goal of limitless growth at the expense of life (like a cancer), crime was her last resort for health care to save her life. That's why she kidnapped me.

I reached forward from the back of the van (through the little window) and materialized money out of my hands. She was stunned.

I told her that her world is my dream. She was a bit horrified at first, though because she was already facing terminal illness, I think she took it better than some.

I felt like I was going to wake up soon and told her I had to go. I asked if there was anything else I could do for her before I left. She was still stunned, but asked if I could change her hair. So I kept myself asleep for a while to do her hair like she wanted, changing it on a biological level so it would stay permanent.

I then woke up and it was morning.

One hour long dream. I did V-WILD but decided to just pay a lot of attention to the process, feeling it, being present. I've been running lots of tests like this lately to try and get a better idea of how it works.

After doing V-WILD into my bedroom, I climbed out the window. I noted how a lot of things were different in my neighborhood like lighting and rearranged buildings.

I decided to test out waking myself up in a way where it’s more dream body instead of waking (trying to get a better understanding for the difference between dream and waking body lately). I tested to see if I can trigger a false awakening.

Yes! Maybe? I woke up back in my bedroom. I assumed this was either a dream, or I woke myself for real. I did a reality check with finger through palm and it didn’t work.

I was pretty sure it was a dream anyway though. I didn't take the failed RC too seriously, since I know that happens sometimes. I plugged my nose and breathed, that worked.

I proceeded to practice false awakenings a few times. Knew I was still dreaming each time, got a better feel for it.

Most of the time I was with my dream character version of SO. She watched me do all this nonsense lol. Most times I told her it was a dream, she acted mock concerned like half-heartedly gasped. I responded “Yeah, I know if you were my rl SO you would be rightly concerned about me thinking everything is a dream, but since we both know it’s a dream, you’re fine. No need to act all shocked haha."

I eventually woke myself up for real when it felt it had been an hour. My timing guess was right (I seem to still have a good sense of RL time in dreams).

This is an older dream.

I was in a world that had crumbled. Everything was surrounded by a white void, and the remains of the universe floated in fragments through space. There were mountains, roads, cars, buildings, and fragments of asphalt and other materials floating around.

The universe was still in the process of being consumed. In the distance, I could see the edges of the mountains being dissolved by something that looked like a wall of blue electricity or dust.
In my dragon's form, I flew around in search of remaining life, and spotted a woman standing on a fragment of the remaining road.

The brunette woman stood at the edge of the road coming off of a driveway. There was a house nearby that I presume was her home.
She stared out at the dissolving mountains.
When I landed next to her as my human self, she didn't look at me, but spoke.
"This is the end, isn't it?"

I turned and watched the mountains with her, and nodded.
I could feel my body waking. It was morning.
"I have to go soon. Do you want to come with?" I asked her and she looked at me in surprise.

It took her a moment to respond, but as soon as she agreed, I turned back into my dragon and picked her up, carrying her as I traveled straight into the void.

I woke up in my bed. When I looked up, I saw the figure of the woman standing at the end of the bed.
"Thank you." she said and then faded away.

Lost the dream journal to this, going off memory.

---

I traveled to a post apocalyptic version of earth. The few people still surviving didn’t know what happened, so I was just there to tell them what caused the world to end—so that history can be recorded and they don’t repeat the same mistake.

I then traveled back to before the apocalypse wiped everyone out (still in the distant future from our modern time), and I noticed Arthur was still on the air.

So, I turned on an episode and… it was bad.

It was unbelievably bad... Instead of having a round head, Arthur had a chipmunk shaped head. Instead of human eyes, the characters all had animal eyes, but they were enlarged to fit the cartoon animal face. Absolutely horrifying. Picture large beady black orbs slightly jutting out of the face with flimsy tacked-on human eyebrows. But they had human mouths…. And teeth. It was hyper realistic, but 2D not 3D. You could see every hair, but smooth areas like the teeth had no detail.

No that's not what started the apocalypse, but dang thank goodness the apocalypse ended it.

Followed a biologist named Ethan to an alien planet. Him and a group of researchers set up a base of operations to study the native wildlife. There was a slothlike creature that he was creating a 3-D model of (they recorded many different animals and plants). They brought a dog with them and whenever I went near the dog, I started levitating. At some point I asked whether there was something causing me to levitate around the dog or if it was a dream thing. Suddenly all of them looked at me demonically and I got scared and either woke up or got a false awakening.

This hasn’t happened to me in a while. I think maybe I broke immersion too harshly and spooked myself.

It was a fun dream though so I decided to go back into it with WILD.

I reappeared in a futuristic version of Earth in which many years had passed. Everything was tightly controlled and monitored. People weren’t allowed to communicate without a device listening and tracking them. The government kept tabs on everything people said.

I decided to look for Ethan. After messing around with my phone a bit, but deciding the phone wasn’t worth it because of the tracking, I looked for him in person. I found him in a truck parked in an alleyway, and told him I could break him out.

He didn’t want to be freed, though. He was worried about the government catching him. Turns out they were following me anyway. They already knew.

So (in my dream dragon form) I grabbed him and flew out of the building.

Outside, there was a shore and what looked like ocean. I started flying over the water in a random direction until I saw some land. An escape, I thought.

I thought we were making it out, but then I realized they had cows on a boat heading in that direction. We were heading straight for a slaughterhouse.

I realized in that moment that there was nothing out here. The whole world head been reduced to this one island and section of ocean.

I was still being followed and they were laughing their butts off at the fact I was going straight for the slaughterhouse. I turned back and was captured. I didn’t want anything to do with the void beyond the ocean, so I just let them take me back.

I then journaled this dream inside the dream and then woke at 5:09 AM real time (checked clock).

I went back to sleep and re-entered the dream again, back to being caught.

I don’t think much happened but they brought me back inside and seemed like they weren’t sure what to do with me. They knew what I was and that I wouldn’t be here long. Eventually I woke up again to 7:00 alarm.