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I become lucid using an RC for the first time in ages. I look at the second word of an unremembered phrase, then look again - sure enough, it has changed from a word beginning with "O" to a word beginning with "Liru".

Following kraid's advice, I begin exploring the dream instead of doing anything extravagant. The place seems to be an exponentially larger, more modern version of my house. (My dreams almost never happen in the house, large or otherwise.) It's also completely deserted. I walk through the empty halls, engaging my sense of touch. I also open a wooden door and lick the edge.

Eventually I wind up in the vast living room. There is a man sleeping on the reclining sofa. Hoping that it is Shadewink, I approach, and see that it is my brother. I cannot change him into Shadewink either. I don't dare disturb him for fear that he'd wake up - it does not occur to me that he is a DC I could ask questions to.

I am also looking for Dorothy's teleporting slippers (one of my dream goals). I can't find any footwear except two plastic pinkish bathroom slippers. Now I put them on and click the 'heels', and they don't work. I try to repaint my surroundings instead - that doesn't work either.

The dream skips (or perhaps it's a chronology problem). I'm lying in my bed again, looking up at the ceiling. The ceiling becomes much more brightly colored, and I realize that I'm staring at the real life ceiling. I instantly go back to sleep and do a successful DEILD that didn't last long / I don't remember.

In a later dream I have a false awakening. The hand RC doesn't work anymore, but somehow, the dialogue of two characters makes me realize I'm still dreaming. I then find that I can't turn my head. (Extreme mobility problems are common in my LDs.) It's stuck in a 90 degree position as I lie on my bed. At first I'm also unable to get up, but eventually I succeed. However, my head is still skewed. I try to walk around but it's a major inconvenience. I don't get very far before I wake up again.

I have a non-lucid in which my brother reveals to my mom he has been reading my offline dream journal. I protest that "it's personal!" (what an understatement!) but he says that it's been lying out there in the open. I remember being extremely upset.

___

I did stay lucid for a decent 3-5 minutes or more, so that's an improvement from my more recent shitty ones. This is also the first dream in many recent ones in which I successfully used an RC. I should stick with text RCs and maybe try to get my hand RC back. I should also probably expect my next LDs to be immobility-free, stable, engaging and exciting, so that they'll turn out that way.

MUST PRACTICE DREAM CONTROL.

I found myself standing near a street in a bleak greyish city. I was next to a random Indian guy, who asked me what he could do in a dream. I asked him, "Why not jump in front of that car and see what happens when you die?"

He gave me a shocked and scared look. Then I said, "Why not try flying?"

"How do you fly?" he asked.

"Like this!" I answered. And I jumped up into the air - and fell back down. I quickly realized that I hadn't let go of gravity. Then I tried again, jumping up, and as I was falling down I started doing breaststrokes in the air. It worked! I was swimming through the air, not very gracefully (flailing limbs), but I was ascending. I was flying upwards, and I could see a greenish-brown mountain from up over the buildings of the grey city. A song was playing in my head as I flew - I forgot the song. I then started worrying about flying too high or too fast, or losing focus because of the song, so I made a turn and landed next to the Indian again.

I asked him what his name was, and a black rectangle flashed on front of my eyes for an instant. Then he cocked his head to the right and said very cheekily, "Nnnno." Then the dream instantly wrapped in black, and I woke.

Since it was a lucid dream, I caught the waking point immediately, and I realized I'd woken; so I decided to try my first DEILD, and didn't open my eyes or move. I felt my eyes and hand twitching, but other than that I tried hard to keep still.

Soon, I began seeing something in the back of my eyelids. Text instructions to DEILD appeared on a blue screen. I waited a bit longer, and the screen progressed into a "lucid-ability gauging" test, as if to test if you were good enough to enter LD, or to get you ready for one. It involved moving black pool balls in a water tank by telekinesis. First, an example run of one ball being moved; then a whole bundle of pool balls (in the triangular shape usually seen when placing pool balls together on a table) was dropped into the tank. I can't remember clearly, but I think I passed the test, as I was able to move on.

After that, I waited a bit longer, and the drill/static hybrid noise I usually hear during hypnagogic hallucinations came. I saw a final text instruction - "Remember not to move or open your eyes" - but I felt myself twitching. Orange epileptic light was flashing in front of and behind my eyes. I remember a voice saying, "It took me one minute of Chinese lightning..." However, I felt my eyes twitching even more.

In the end, I wasn't able to be wrapped into the hallucinations into a dream. Instead, I woke up. I realized I hadn't focused on the black behind my eyelids. I'd been bordering on opening my eyes.

Goddammit. Almost there.