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Originally journal on 06/29/2023.

Bizarre experience! I've never had anything quite like this happen.

I had a lucid nightmare the other night. Being lucid, I decided to stay in the dream. However, my spouse (in waking life asleep next to me) woke up in terror and started yelling.
Her yelling woke me up. I opened my eyes and she was yelling right in my face clear as day. She was looking straight at me, shouting "Go away!"
I could distinctly see the horror in her eyes. I told her that everything is fine, trying to calm her down.

Afterwards, she told me that she was NOT yelling in my face at all. That never happened. Not from that perceptive, anyway. She did yell those words, but not at me. She was looking at something red behind me and that's what she was yelling at. She had leaned forward to get close to it when she started yelling at it.

So, I saw from the perceptive of the red thing she was yelling at, not my body, which was facing a different direction in a completely different position in the room.
It was completely dark in the room as well. I saw her as though there was a bright light illuminating her face, but there was never any light.
This was an OBE, I concluded.

That's all for now!

Met another dreamer in my dream last night.

We were at a party in a big barn full of people. There was music and dancing.

She told me “This is my dream. I’m lucid dreaming.”

She seemed hesitant, though.

I replied “Neat! I’m lucid dreaming right now too. How is it? How do you like being lucid?”

I kept my voice down so as to not draw attention from bystanders.

“It’s nice, but I can’t control anything.” she said with disappointment.

“Sure you can!” I responded and reached out towards a stereo that was sitting nearby playing music for the party. “Watch, you can change the brightness with this dial.” I explained and proceeded to demonstrate. As I turned the dial, the environment changed from night to day, causing the sun to come up and make everything bright both indoors and outside.

The other dreamer looked excited and tried it for herself.

I left her that and went outside to do my own thing after that.

This was a lucid nightmare. It’s been a while since I had one, but it had impressive buildup. ��

I was in this house, a recurring location in my dreams. Got a video conference call on my phone all the sudden and tried to deny it, but the deny call button accepted the call instead and I was suddenly in a four-way conference.

All but one screen was jostled around in bedsheets. The fourth screen was also being jostled, but I saw a glimpse of a woman with an uncanny smile.

The hang up button wouldn’t work, so I turned the phone off completely.

Then I looked up, and the woman from the call was in the room with me, smiling, and looking around.

Startled, I asked what she’s doing.

“We’re ghost hunters! I can see ghosts. I’ll point them out for you, and tell you where they are~!” she informed me with cheer in her raspy voice.

She looked like she was on something, and I almost told her to leave, but then I remembered a place in this house from previous dreams that had always unnerved me.

I’ve never been able to go in the attic without being shaken to my core. I used to wake up with SP from going in there (have since learned how to overcome this), but I still don’t go in that attic.

I’ve always been curious about it, though.

“Oh. I can see ghosts too. But could you check out my attic?” I asked with interest.

She smiled and agreed, but as I went to show her where it was, she walked ahead of me so quickly, I couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t even find her in the house after a while.

No problem though. I made my way towards the attic anyway. I didn’t plan on going inside it directly, just close enough to show her where it was if she hadn’t found it already.

I eventually found her near the attic and she was giddy, smiling and laughing. Practically dancing around.
“Organ!” she called to me in delight, seeming even more off-putting than before.

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

“It’s on your kidney~” she sing-songed.

I woke myself up.
Nope. Not sticking around for that.

A young girl was trying to play computer games, but the games wouldn’t load and she was frustrated. I went over to troubleshoot them with her, but when we couldn’t get them working, I offered her something else fun to do instead: swim in the pool!

There was an indoor pool in the other room, so I turned into my dragon and we went swimming. There were other adults and children, but they couldn’t see me and didn’t notice that the girl was seemingly by herself.

When I was done swimming. I didn’t want to leave the girl alone, so I made up an explanation for her parents coming back. They were in the other room signing up for a membership, I decided.

The dream followed my explanation and as the girl reunited with her parents, I walked outside.

It had just stopped raining and the sun peaked through the gray, cloudy sky. The streets were wet with rainwater. I walked down the muddy sidewalk and wondered what I’d find to do next.

As I went, I saw a group of people gathered in a line at a van that seemed to contain what felt like death. They sang as they waited in line:

I dont need it,
Need my body.
Gonna leave it all behind.
I dont need my body,
Or my mind.

I moved along to look for something else to do instead, and ended up waking up in the morning.

Befriended a man who was a shapeshifter like me, but he had an unfortunate alter-form (in my opinion, at least). I didn't want to hurt his feelings, so I didn't say that, but he was... an insect in his other form. A large flying, stinging bug that I've never seen IRL. ><
I admitted that I was squeamish about bugs, but told him I still thought it was great and he should find some bug friends who will appreciate his incredible gift.

He asked what I was, so I transformed into my dragon, and told him: "I'm the universe. To me, this is a dream. Don't worry about whether you're real, though—we're both the essence of it."

He liked that and we went off on some excursions I forgot the details of, but it involved an apocalypse and I found a grieving family in the aftermath. There were three children who's mom had been lost in the disaster. I helped them a bit (forgot the details again), and my shapeshifter friend decided to stay with them and the dad.

When I left, the oldest child followed me. When I asked him why, he said that he had seen the dragon that fought with them during the disaster and he had seen me transform, so he wanted to go with me.

So we went off adventuring into the wilderness, helping clean up rubble and find other survivors.

Had a dream in the same world as my previous “No Outside” dream: https://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/ner...outside-94602/

I didn’t realize it until later in the dream. It started out in waterways between tall (concrete?) buildings that had no visible windows or doors.

There was a hole-in-the-wall market. At the entrance, a man sold goods to customers (literally it was a hole in the wall of one of the buildings, it was well hidden). He sold everything from foot to housewears to electronics to drugs.

He asked me what I was looking for (his products were in the back mostly, customers stayed outside and he brought things out to them). I knew I was dreaming so I though “Sure I could go for some dream drugs.”

But I knew there was something I wanted to remember to do tonight that could be applied to this moment. What was it…?

Then I remembered. I was trying to figure out how to be truly happy again (been feeling off lately). So I told him I’d like something that’ll make me happy. He handed me some drugs and I took one. Nothing extraordinary happened, I just felt sorta drunk/high afterwards.

As I left, I noticed there were cameras watching just outside. Other customers told how to sneak around them.

Through dream scan, I realized this whole city was being watched by something and people lived in secret within the crevices. These people were surrounded and trapped.

I went out to look at the cameras and realized they were the same drones from my “No Outside” dream. Same world, different location. The drones were trying to recapture people who escaped.

I ended up letting the drones capture me out of curiosity to see what would happen but woke up (either SO woke me up or other natural waking).

After the wake up, I went back in but appeared in the woods. I was standing in a path when all the sudden about thirty soldiers in light gray uniforms showed up, but most of them were noticeably drunk.

A couple others appeared behind me with a higher ranking officer in green. The soldiers flanking him moved to join the group and they all looked at him as he spoke to the group.

I just happened to be there and was in the way, so I moved off the path and watched.

They were about to go home, which I guess was why he didn’t care about some random bystander being there, or the drunken murmuring. Everyone seemed tired, done, and eager to leave. Happy, in a way? Eh.

I suppose that’s what I’ve been feeling lately, whatever the hell it is. I’m done fighting, I’ve lost my entire family, everything I thought I knew was a lie, the world has been turned upside down and will never be the same. Time to go home and live life like none of it happened. I don’t know who I am anymore but everythings fine now and I’m supposed to be happy. I *want* to be happy. If I’m broken, that means they won. All they ever wanted was to break me. I’m so angry that I’ve let them win.

After years of regarding my dreams as nothing more than dreams, I started looking into astral projection and spiritual beliefs. I've been reading books, listening to other people's experiences, and running personal experiments (with the help of my significant other).

I'm now feeling more at home with it. I've reshaped my understanding of what it means to be real, which leads me to believe that AP is undeniable.

All our experiences (both dreams and waking) are filtered through our limited human perceptions, but consciousness isn't limited by perception.
How I came to terms with this:
- It's when you can feel the tension in a room after a fight takes place, even though you weren't there to witness it and may have no knowledge that it happened.
- When you don't hear a dog bark in your dream, but the sound somehow wakes you up.
- When in a dreamless state, you can be aware of changes in your surroundings, despite having no physical or mental perceptions of them.

I now believe that our consciousness isn't limited to our perceptions and neither is the universe. We can make the choice to find other ways to navigate the unperceivable aspects of reality, or ignore it.
So personally, I've chosen to be as aware as possible, even of the things I can't perceive.

This is where dreams and astral projection come in, providing a way to translate pure awareness into readable perceptions. Sometimes things can get lost in translation, but the more you practice and detach yourself from your own personal biases, the more you can perceive the things we wouldn't normally have access to.

Anyway, I know some people aren't into this sort of thing and respect that. I don't plan on putting much of this type of content on here.

Normally I get up to go to the bathroom, but on my way, I smashed into a sharp corner of my wall last night (not dreaming, this happened in waking life).
My face was bruished, bleeding, and my significant other woke up in a panic. I assured her it was fine, just kinda hurts, and thought to myself "I don't want this to ruin my WBTB."

It did not!

I went on to have a few hours of borefest lucid dreams. I made rice and some other foods in the dream, but had no pesto for it so was very disappointed. I spent the rest of the dream trying to find something else to eat.

But then I hopped on a plane, chatted with the pilot, and found out that someone sabotaged the plane to cause a crash.

There weren't many people on board, and they didn't act like normal civilians. The whole thing was a set up to identify and flush me out. They knew I'd use my abilities to escape the plane crash.

Everyone else already seemed to have a plan and escaped easily with parachutes as the plane started to tip over. This all happened in seconds. As the nose went down, the plane plummeted faster and the pressure pulled me back.

One woman was at the escape door as if she'd been waiting for me, irritated that I was taking my preciously sweet time to evacuate. She left as soon as I followed. There was only a split second of time left and I climbed out just in time.

As I free fell out of the plane, I transformed into my dragon and took to the skies, looking down at the mountains and a plume of smoke that billowed out of the crash.
I flew down to investigate and look for the people who had been on board. I found them, and they were fine. Then I woke up in morning.

This is a personal dream that I wouldn’t normally post, but I wanted to share one of these. This is a good example of a therapeutic lucid dream. It shows one of the ways you can benefit from lucid dreaming if you experience grief or other difficult emotions.

Warning: A lot of unpleasantness ahead.

—-

We went to my grandpa’s house since we happened to be there and I decided to real quick grab some more of my stuff like the office chair. We didn’t leave much there, but the office chair was the one big thing I left.

He wasn’t home. I deliberated skipping it, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to just go in and grab the chair so he wouldn’t have to worry about moving it.

I know how much I personally hate unannounced guests and I would never want someone doing this for me, but I keep thinking of how much he’s expressed difference from me in this way. It makes no sense to me, but he never cared about people just walking into his house. He used to refuse to put doors between rooms in his house, removing them any chance he got, and didn’t like locks—he’d never lock his house. He’d leave doors wide upon and get excited about the happy surprise if anyone like a neighbor just happened to walk in out of the blue. All the time he’d invite people to show up and do things for him when he wasn’t home, as if the very thought of (what I would consider) an intrusion delighted him.

So I went in and got the chair. It was already sitting by the door, affirming his intention to get rid of it.

He then pulled up just as we were leaving. He was pissed, but not because it bothered him that I walked into his house. He wasn’t truly bothered at all, but acted as such merely because it violated the boundaries he knew I had. My boundaries, which he found a way to weaponize in this moment. It was shallow anger laced with the “Gotcha” delight that almost overided it to a point where I couldn’t take it seriously.
“So we’re just walking into people’s houses now.” he said with a sneer, but he could barely take his own pseudo rage seriously and I could hear the laughter below out from behind it.
It was strange, though. Something wasn’t right.
He then turned to me and I saw glimpses of the nice grandpa I used to know as he held his arms out and hugged me. He said he was happy to see me, he loved me, and goodbye.
There was anger and spite still in him, directed at me at the same time.
I asked if he wanted some money to cover any potential bills.
I felt bad that I don’t have much now because we just moved, but I’d give him whatever I could.
He answered with two voices clearly speaking in unison. One said yes, that it would help. The other voice cheered with derision. “Ooh money, hehehe!” it chuckled, as if celebrating plundered goods despite me giving it freely. It made it sound like I was being robbed even though that’s not what this was. I owed him far more than I could give, and I wanted to help him more than anything.
I didn’t like how that voice made me feel gross helping him, so I ignored it. I gave him $100, silently promising I’d have more later, and hugged him again. I told him thank you, that I loved him. I knew it was stupid to cry, but did so anyway.
I hurriedly got back in the car after waving goodbye and could hear the deriding voice cheering and mocking me as it celebrated the money.
His other voice didn’t speak, but it was sad and watched us leave as if it wished it could leave, too.
I felt pulled in two different directions whenever I was around him lately, ever since we moved here.
I never used to feel this way.

As we pulled out of the driveway, I saw something sitting there. It was short and black, and it sat in a massive puddle of itself. Now that I looked at the house from outside, I could see it better. There was black grime everywhere. It was all over the property, having spread itself onto everything, a wet spiderweb of black goop. It was all over my grandpa too. His clothes, hair, and skin had little strings of weblike goop all over. It leaked out from inside his mouth and the corners of his eyes.
I thought about how, in waking life, there was always this strange invisible grime that follows him. It has a physical texture and smell, but I couldn’t see it. The only time I ever saw him without it was for a few years when he was practicing Buddhism. At that time, he was happier than I had ever seen him before.
He still keeps all the statues and pictures from his trip to Burma, but I avoid talking to him about Buddhism as it seems to anger him if it’s brought up.
Anyway in this dream I didn’t see it when I was in the house, but I could see the black grime clearly now from the car.

I looked down at myself, checking our car and things. We were clean. It wasn’t on us. I wasnt worried about it getting on us either, as I knew it didn’t want anything to do with us.

It had already tried over the course of the two years we lived there. That’s why it spited us, and wanted us gone.
I looked out the window at my grandpa, who watched us drive away.

“…I got manipulated, didn’t I?” I then turned and asked my partner.

“Yeah.” she said.

I nodded, not knowing why I asked other than to get her opinion, I guess.

For a moment, we couldn’t decide where to go, but ultimately we decided to go home to the new place.

I've been playing around with moving and talking during hypnagogic and other dream-like states (in addition to dreams).

What I've found so far is that the mechanism that controls your waking body does not automatically wake you up. These seem to be two separate mechanisms.

More coming soon.

The "Maybe Means Yes" is my variation of SAT (Sporadic Awareness Technique). SAT is a daytime awareness practice similar to ADA and reality checking.

What is ADA and SAT?
ADA stands for All Day Awareness and is the practice of being aware of whether or not you are dreaming constantly throughout the day.

SAT stands for Sporadic Awareness Technique and is the same as ADA, but an easier version of it. Instead of awareness being constant, you can simply be aware sporadically (randomly) in moments throughout the day. You can still gain a high rate of lucitity by doing SAT even though it's not constant.

What is awareness, though?
Awareness means you know something or are perceiving something. You can be aware of anything, such as that you're reading this guide, that the sky is blue, or that you're sitting in a chair. You are constantly aware of many things all at once, both in your environment and in your mind.

With daytime awareness practices for the purpose of lucid dreaming, there is only one thing you need to be aware of: are you awake or dreaming? You don't need to be aware of the sky or your feelings, only this one question. To do awareness practices, ask yourself this question.

But how do I ask myself if I'm awake or dreaming?
To do this technique, earnestly ask yourself this question: "Am I dreaming or awake?" There are three possible answers.

1. "No, I am awake." The waking experience is the easiest to identify. This is something many lucid dreamers learn on their own through experience, but I will tell you right here from the get-go: you know most easily when you're awake.

2. The next possible answer is "Yes, I am dreaming." If you're doing reality checks, be mindful of whether you're already at the "yes" answer, as you don't need to complicate it with a reality check. You're already lucid.

3. The third and most game-changing answer is "Maybe." Many people use reality checks here, but it's not necessary to RC due to a funny little secret about lucid dreaming: maybe means yes.

Any time you're seriously asking yourelf if this is all a dream, you're very likely dreaming! When dreaming, our brains work differently. We're more prone to accepting absurd scenarios. Being unsure whether you're actually dreaming is one of those absurdities. This is the very thing that causes non-lucidity to begin with and you can use it to become lucid through awareness. The way dream brain makes you uncertain of your reality is itself a clue that you're dreaming. By being aware of your own uncertainty and being critical of what your uncertainty means, you become lucid in dreams.

What about reality checks?
Now you're probably thinking, do I need to do a reality check? The answer is no. If you're already aware that you're dreaming through techniques like SAT, there is no need for reality checks.

Reality checks confirm whether you are in a dream by being critical of things in your environment. For example: if you look at your hands, they will look normal when awake, but you could have an impossible number of fingers in your dreams. There are many different kinds of reality checks that all do the same thing (pushing a finger through your palm, trying to breathe through your nose while plugging it, etc.)

Reality checks are commonly used and highly effective, but it's important to remember that what makes you lucid is the awareness and criticality that comes before them, not the check itself. If you are at the point of seriously asking yourself "Am I dreaming?" then you already know (because maybe means yes) that you are in fact dreaming.

So you can do reality checks if you find them beneficial, but they aren't required for 100% accurate results that we can get from awareness alone.


Reminders & Timers
Daytime awareness practices should not involve setting timers or alarms to remind yourself to be aware, since you won't be able to use those in your dreams. If the timer you set doesn't go off in your dreams, you won't know to do it and you won't become lucid.

Sure, you could set yourself up to dream about an alarm going off, but there is a much easier and more effective way of reminding yourself to do SAT in dreams: enter DILD hooks.


What about DILD hooks?
DILD hooks are often talked about in relation to daytime awareness practices and can be incredible useful. But what are they?

DILD stands for Dream Initiated Lucid Dream, which means that you become lucid at some point in your dream. Any technique that's not WILD is technically DILD, so ADA/SAT is also technically a form of DILD. The "hook" is the reminder part.

DILD hooking is the same thing as SAT, but with a reminder. The reminder/hook must be something that occurs in both your waking life and dreams (usually not phone reminders, timers, or alarms).

For example, if you dream about dragons often, you can train yourself to do SAT every time you encounter something related to dragons in waking life (doesn't need to be an actual dragon, just the idea of one). By training yourself to remember to do SAT every time you think of dragons, you can become lucid frequently in your dreams whenever dragons appear—especially if you train the criticality behind recognizing that living dragons only exist in dreams.

Realistic Hooks
DILD hooks can also be realistic or mundane things like cats, bananas, certain family members, seeing the sky, or the simple act of moving. As long as the hook occurs in your dreams, it can work as a reminder to do SAT.

As described above, you don't need a reality check (like a dragon) to do SAT—all you need is to mindfully ask yourself if you're dreaming and be aware of the three possible answers. This is why realistic DILD hooks work.

Emotions can also be DILD hooks. Children who become lucid from nightmares (a frequent backstory of natural lucid dreamers) unknowingly do DILD hooks by training an association between feelings of fear, and questioning their reality. Negative emotion is an ideal DILD hook if your goal is to stop nightmares with lucid dreaming. It can be trained deliberately by practicing daytime awareness every time you experience the negative emotion in your waking life, even if just from harmless exposure such as watching a scary/unpleasant movie.


Now that we're done explaining the techniques, here's some examples of how they can be put into practice!

The Talking Cat Example
Let's say you have a cat and every time you see him, you greet him with a heart "Hello!" You do this every day that you see him.

Then, one night you see your cat in a dream. Without thinking, you say "Hello!" just like you would when awake.
But rather than staring at you like you have two heads or meowing for food, he responds "Howdy partner!"
Hold up.
...Mr. Whiskers is a cowboy?! Tch. Funny cat!

If you're not practicing awareness, you'll likely gloss right over the fact the cat just spoke. Something may feel off, but you might just shrug it off and move on, failing to notice that you're dreaming despite the obvious sign.
This is where awareness comes in. You can set yourself up to become lucid in this situation by turning your conversations with your cat into a DILD hook. Every time you greet the cat, you remind yourself to ask the question "Am I dreaming?" By developing this habit, the reminder becomes ingrained and will transition into your dreams.
The next time you encounter your cat in dreams, you'll have the awareness to ask yourself whether you're dreaming.
Now this is where you could use the cat as a reality check. If he talks, it's a dream. If he doesn't talk, it's not a dream. This can work just fine sometimes, but if you find that reality checks aren't getting the results you want, remember that maybe means yes and fallback on your awareness. Be aware of your uncertainty of the dreamstate, and you will get lucid from just asking the question no matter your cat talks or meows.



Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I thought you were supposed to pay attention to details in your environment for ADA? Like details in the grass, eye movements, the feeling of clothing, etc.
A: This is fine if it works for you. If it's not working, make sure you are being critically aware. If you only pay attention to details in your environment without being aware and critical of whether you're awake/dreaming, you may trigger more detailed dreams instead of lucid ones.

Q: I can't find guides on SAT, only ADA?
A: Because ADA and SAT are the same (other than how much you you do them), guides for ADA and SAT are interchangible. As long as you keep in mind that SAT is the sporadic version of ADA, you can use guides for both. It is a matter of All Day VS Spodic timing of your awareness, but otherwise they are the same practice.

Q: I still don't understand what awareness is.
A: If you read this guide and still don't understand what it means to be aware, you might be overthinking it. Are you awake right now? If so, then you're aware that you're awake. If you've ever had a lucid dream before, you were aware that you were dreaming. Bingo! Now you got it! Go do more of that.

Q: What is the "most effective" DILD hook?
A: Effectiveness is higher for things you dream frequently about. Also, things with an emotional impact also seem to be extra effective.

Q: I can't remember any dreams. How do I know what happens frequently in my dreams for a DILD hook?
A: For this, I recommend either doing SAT without a DILD hook, or using a common DILD hook (like the sky, something you most likely are dreaming about but just can't remember). Also, you need to work on your recall, otherwise you may not remember any future lucid dreams you have.
Here's my recall guide: https://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/ner...l-guide-94405/