task of the year

I'll just skip the earlier, NSFW lucid...

6-7.45am
(WILD)
Feel whole body shaking sensations and my face being crushed into the pillow. After this fades I can see the bookshelf next to the bed clearly, in a presumably identical state to real life. I stand up and phase through the curtains to get outside. The phasing results in black shapes obscuring part of my vision. It takes several attempts to clear it - cleaning an imaginary visor/lifting a visor, rubbing my eyes.


At this point the last Task of the Year comes to mind - the saucer one. So I hum a song that an Italian work colleague shared with me yesterday - a cover by an Italian singer of It's the End of the World as we Know it by REM. The sky fills with fighter jets involved in aerial battles with smaller, round, saucer-like alien vessels.

I spot a small round drone which looks like a smaller version of the alien saucers. Leaping high into the air I grab it and disassemble it, making the battery run low so it will return to the mother ship and take me with it. Sure enough the drone flies off and me with it.

We reach an empty warehouse. There are other people inside, moving around the wreckage of various space ships. All sort of weird aliens start arriving, but there doesn't seem to be a usable saucer here.

The dream destabilises and dumps me back in bed. I don't fall for it and remain lucid. This time I use the door to exit the bedroom. Four guys, room-mates - are making breakfast. One is holding a frying pan. The other side of the kitchen there is an open window. I climb outside and start looking around for another alien space ship.

A silver saucer swoops down and lands on the lawn. It is large enough to stand on, so I just jump on top and surf it. Controlling the saucer with my mind, I make us fly higher and higher through the skyscraper buildings around us, looking for empty sky. Then, up through the clouds, we emerge into space.

The blackness is filled with distant stars and a collection of larger planets. I fly towards one of the planets and surf down into the atmosphere.

Strange buildings formed from orange clay surround an open square. The ground is also a reddish-orange colour. Two humanoid looking women walk past. They don't look that weird - tattoos on the sides of their heads but still pretty. "Hey! I'm a human. From planet Earth!"
"No way!" She replies.
"Yeah true story! I come in peace too. Teach me something!"
"Um, like what?"
"Well, uh, what's your name? Tell me about yourself."
"My name is Blancmange" She replies.
*cough* (trying not to laugh) "Neat."
She then introduces her friend by singing a song. She explains that in their culture everyone has a song that describes them. It changes over time. The two alien women take me on a tour of their city which is all made from the same red-orange clay.

Blancmange continues singing her friend's song. The other woman looks very unhappy at her 'private' song being sung and taught to me.

6.30-7.15am
Back in school. Drama class. Ring of chairs around the outside, with a female student in the centre doing a performance art dance type thing? The performance finishes and my friend JR, in the chair to my right, gets up and enters the ring. Crap. That means I'm next. Is there a specific set of actions we are supposed to do? I get nervous at the thought of having to stand up in front of the class with no clue what is going on.

Thankfully, it occurs to me that this is a dream and I RC by looking at my hand. It's weird and twisted. I do a pinch-nose RC too, to confirm. Phew. Then I stand up and exit the classroom.

Outside I recall the plane TOTY and look around. A few trees. An empty road. No planes. Well, fake it 'til you make it: I squat as if sitting in a seat, arms forward as if clutching an imaginary flight stick. Then I do a vertical take off, thinking about a eurofighter shape until the plane forms around me. Now inside a reasonably realistic looking plane, I push the flight stick forward and start flying over the forest. It's quite speedy.

Now to find a time breach. A swirling pattern appears in the clouds and I fly towards it. The swirls lead into a wormhole of blackness filled with yellow 'dripping' dots falling in all directions. Gravity is screwed. Who knows which way is up anymore?

I get through the time breach and emerge in the future flying over a city on a mountaintop. There are a cluster of spires covered in metal spikes and radio masts. A river runs through the city. It looks fast flowing and drops into several waterfalls heading down the mountain. In the middle of the river are several silver structures that must be futuristic hyrdoelectric generators.

The sky is clear. I fly through the towers and look down at the streets below. They look mostly empty, no sign of cars. One building seems to be made entirely from black glass. There are no signs or screens or adverts. I spot something that looks like a motorbike and land. It has a very stylistic frame and is presumably an electric motorbike as there is no engine or exhaust pipes. Also it only has half a handlebar - the right side, with a throttle. So, no clutch or gears. Twist'n'go. I gotta try this thing out!

After swinging a leg over the frame I grab a fistful of throttle and it immediately wheelies down the road. Woah! I'm not sure what to do with my left hand, without a handlebar to hold, so I just sort of rest it on my knee. Anyway, rolling down the street pulling dank whoolies has attracted attention - a couple of other riders on similar machines join the road and start chasing me. I head down a narrow alley and see a blue and white droid at the end, which barely gets out of the way... I smash through into someone's back yard with grass and a shed.

The air is filled with flying fish! They are glowing blue. What the hell is this now? I stop the bike and wander over to a tree, where there are several fish hanging out in the branches. On closer inspection, one of the fish has a chameleon ability and changes it's colour to black. It's eyes look bloodshot. At this point I wake up.

A bunch of people are sitting on a wooden floor watching a small screen. It shows some weird film, and this makes me lucid again. I remember the elephant TOTY and walk straight out the closest door into a jungle. There are vines hanging down and the noise of hundreds of birds and animals nearby. An elephant walks out of the trees towards me.

I climb onto the elephant and start to ride down the narrow trail, reminding it that this is a dangerous war-zone. Angry natives jump out of the trees and try to attack me with spears. I swing my arms and kick them away. One of them angers the elephant which then starts charging through the jungle and trampling everything in it's path. I concentrate on holding on.

The charge becomes so fast that the scenery blurs and I wake up.

Having fallen asleep on my front I suddenly hear nosies from the corner of the room. Then a great weight crushes me into the bed. My head is on one side and all I can see is blackness behind me but the rest of the room is visible. The weight eases off and I do a pinch nose RC. Things are still blurry. The darkness behind me has turned into AB, who is lying on my back, but not that heavy. I stand up and she clings on around my shoulders.

Staggering around the room I find a half-filled bathtub of water with severed hands and feet floating in it. Urgh. The bathtub is in front of the window, so I have to climb over it to phase outside. Once outside I start flying. With AB on my back this is slower than normal, so I land and drop her off before starting to run through the street.

I start thinking about LC tasks while running through alleyways of a city. Recalling the dragon TOTY I start to search for a castle and around the next corner is a great castle reaching up into the sky. I fly up over the castle for a better view, and summon a dragon, imagining it breaking free from the dungeons below the castle.

Instead, an enormous winged shadow passes over the ground. People inside the castle look up in fear. The dragon circles around, unleashing flamethrower like breath to incinerate the castle's defenders. I fly down and sit on the dragon's back. It's head is covered in golden scales and the rest of it's body is read. Two large backwards facing horns are on it's head. We circle and unleash more fire before flying across the city.

The motion of flying with wings is jerky and uneven. We head across the city, searching for another castle to destroy. Among the skyscrapers is a small keep with a large stone outer wall - in the middle of the tall modern buildings it looks out of place. The dragon is so large that it simply lands on the castle and the weight smashes it. We fly up and the castle has been reduced to rubble.

I try to fly the dragon over a river that winds through the centre of the city, but the dream loses momentum and stalls.
.

The car park is full. Rows and rows of cars in all directions. I drive around trying to find a space. Finally there is a gap... but a large tour bus starts reversing into it. Then there seems to be a space on the right. I drive into the gap and park.

After getting out of the vehicle and checking it is within the white lines, I notice something odd. Next to one edge of the space is what looks like a headstone. It is old and worn, the name carved on it is illegible. Nearby is a stack of rocks - a cairn perhaps, and now, in all directions, more graves. This is probably not a good place to park. I feel that parking here is disrespectful somehow.

While trying to move the vehicle I end up flying in a huge hall, or maybe I have shrunk. The floor of this place has a large stone slab with the name Bathory on it. Immediately this conjures up thoughts of Elizabeth Bathory - the 16th century serial killer with vampiric-tendancies. Things go a bit abstract here - there is an unseen voice speaking to me, something about the Bathory family or a present day descendant. I recall saying "What's he done this time?" - as if it's someone I know, and they are always getting in trouble? Also, I am roleplaying as my character from a tabletop game.

Eventually all this adds up and makes me become lucid. I float down next to a wall and my fingers slide against it to help ground me. Recalling the sled TOTY I phase through the wall and focus on there being a snowy mountain top outside. A snowstorm is in progress and it is bitterly cold. I summon a sled and jump onto it, standing like it is a skateboard. The sled starts to move down the mountain, quickly gathering tremendous speed. I estimate it is travelling around 80-90mph.

It takes around 20 seconds to reach the bottom of the mountain. I make a powerful gesture with my left hand to shatter the earth and make a crack leading down below the surface. The sled continues sliding into the Earth through black rock cave tunnels. This continues for another 20 seconds or so, still at breakneck speed.

Suddenly the floor disappears sending me tumbling through the air. I land in fast flowing water, dragged along by the strong current towards a narrow crack in the rock. There is not much light, just a gentle luminesence from mould growing on the roof of the underground river.

I take a deep breath in to shrink myself enough to pass through the narrow gap without hitting the rocks. The tunnel abruptly stops and the water level drops, leaving me standing in a dark tunnel. At this point my vision spins around to show a massive boulder rolling down the tunnel, Indiana Jones style. Oh shit. I start running, my perspective external to my body, so that it shows me from the front and the boulder rolling behind, like that Crash Bandicoot level.

The camera pans back to normal perspective and I continue sprinting with the rumbling sound of the boulder and the ground shaking violently. Ahead is a wall with two doors, one smaller and then a double width door. I punch the door handle of the smaller exit down while throwing my shoulder against it, stumbling through into an underground station tunnel. There are enemies here, squatting on the ground. They look like morlocks, from the X-Men comics.

Rather than fight them I continue running and dodge past them - the boulder will crush them, and me if I stop. The tunnel becomes so packed with morlocks that it is difficult to find a path through. No... must... run....

I tumble into a false awakening in which my sister is poking me in the ear. "Stop it, no, don't wake me...."

Before 4.47am
Plate of stir fry type food that seemed to be mostly peppers. I don't like peppers. Yes I went to bed on an empty stomach, which just makes me dream about food.

5-6am
The dream takes place in a mansion sized building filled with hidden passages. It has the look of an old stately home. We are running away from enemies who are trying to take over the building. The group of us consists of me and co-worker TR, who is dragging along his red haired girlfriend.

Using the secret passages we manage to evade the enemy soldiers for a while, but then run straight into a room where the commander is standing with four of his pals. So much for escaping. I charge at the commander, leaping and punching the side of his head. He is taller than me, but not by much. Must have had knuckle dusters on, because after the punch the side of his face is all cut and bleeding in multiple places.

He roars in rage and I punch him several more times and kick at his legs trying to make him fall down. At this point the dream is feeling like a game rather than reality. I am on the verge of lucidity and wake up.


6.20ish- 7am
Trapped Dolphin
Think this was chained after a normal dream, but can't remember it. Starts with familiar shaking sensations that signal the onset of a dream. I pinch my nose to confirm the dream and stand up out of bed. Everything is very dark. Going to the window I phase outside.

The front gardens are full of bushes and flowers. It is still dark, pre-dawn. Children are hiding in the gardens amongst the greenery. Maybe they are playing a game. I look up to the sky and the sun rises rapidy. A man dressed as Batman exits the neighbours' house and heads off down the road. I wave to him.

My goal tonight was to go to the ocean and find an 18th century frigate (Master and Commander or Hornblower for reference. Yeah I know that's more 1800 ~ Napoleonics, the ships wouldn't have changed that much.)

I fly up into the air and head for the coast, flying at super speed. In RL my house is around 30-40 mins drive from the coast, but my flight is direct and much faster. Ahead is a beech in a cove with black rocks juting out of the sea. It reminds me more of Devon than the local pebble beaches.

The cove is filled with people playing in the surf. As I swoop down, a killer whale leaps out of the surf and then dives back underwater. Deeper than it looks! Then I see a dolphin trapped in a gully between two of the black rocks, it is trying to get back into the water but is stuck. Planting one foot on each of the rocks I lift the dolphin free. It's skin is smooth and wet. Even after being freed it lies on the surface making pained noises. I stroke the dolphin's side and try to reassure it.

The dolphin has reminded me of the DV task of the year, but it seems rude to ask this injured animal to give me a lift to Atlantis. The dream scene fades.

A false awakening has me trying to remove items from my black rucksack. Mum has filled it with fish! Also there is a pack of what looks like salmon bacon! After emptying it out I point out that this is my rucksack for college, not a bag for food shopping. (Slight confusion as to my age at this point.) Then even more items come out of the bag including cufflinks and small items of jewellery. Necklaces, ear rings. We put them into clear jelly moulds to be taken to the charity shop.

7-7.55am
Sex with a Mermaid
There are children outside the window making noise. The bedroom seems to be on the ground floor at the front of the house. I open the curtains and find they have left toys on the window sill. There is a crowd outside the front door. A couple of the parents seem to be discussing childcare arrangements with Mum. I go through to a living room where there are stacks of old videos, including one which is the 24 series feature length special.

These old videos are junk. Get rid of them, I suggest. Dad complains that they haven't watched it, and I tell them not to bother. My sister is also in the room. She backs me up and agrees that this old crap is not worth keeping. Then she tries to retrieve something from a shelf behind the sofa, and ends up straddling an unknown male DC sitting on the sofa.

There is a disconnect, probably a missing scene or two. I am walking through a town. On a brick wall there is a moving advert. It doesn't seem to be a screen, more like an animated painting. It contains a drawing of a car and unreadable text slogans. 'Great, even my dreams have adverts,' I think. Then I realise what that means, and become lucid.

The town is surrounded by mountains and forests. No ocean in sight. However, the sky could be an ocean. I fly straight up at full speed until there are clouds around me. Then I flip the world upside down, so the sky is beneath me and the distant trees and mountains above. Looking down and slowly falling into the sky, the blue expanse now becomes an ocean.

I tread water for a bit, noticing the tug of my wet clothing weighing me down. The sky has turned back from green and grey into a proper blue. It is very peaceful out here, no big waves, but also no land in sight. Recalling the last part of the earlier lucid I call out to summon a dolphin. One swims over to me. It seems cheerful. I ask it to take me to Atlantis then climb onto the dolphin's back. It leaps then dives down into the ocean.

Forgetting myself I take a deep breath and am holding it as we swim down, before realising this is not required. The dolphin swims down to a circle of metal on the sea floor. Then it starts poking at small screws that seem to be in the ocean floor. I help to remove some of the screws.

The room transforms around us. We are no longer underwater and the dolphin has grown legs and arms. There are coins on the floor. The dolphin says something about 'taking what is right.' I pick up a copper penny-like coin. It grabs a fistfull of golden coins and laughs. "The one with the most gold wins!" The dolphin-man declares triumphantly.

Ah whatever. I turn and exit the circular room and enter a domed one. It's old fashioned - like a National Trust property. Elegant wooden furniture, shelves lining the walls filled with large hardback books. There are those chaise-longues type chairs with red velvet. The room is populated with people dressed in 18th century clothing - long coats with embroidered collars and dressed with similar intricant designs sewed on them.

They remind me that to complete the DV Task of the Year I must find the mermaid, also, that the mermaid will want an offering from me. The room has several tables covered in trinkets.

My next course of action is to try flirting with one of the 18th century women, very badly, to find out what to pick as a gift for the mermaid. The flirting is just cringe-worthy terrible. Realising this, I end up shouting "fuck it", vaulting over one of the chairs, standing on a table and grabbing a small blue ivory comb thing before running out of the room.

There are several similar looking rooms. Now where is the mermaid? A young boy walks past. "Hey, kid, where's the mermaid?" He points down a corridor. I run down and go past an open door. Inside are tanks the size of double beds, filled with water. Curled up in the corner of a tank is a mermaid. She has long dark hair and a shimmering blue-green fish tail. I climb into the tank and touch her tail. It feels just like a fish, which is both cool and weird at the same time.

She wakes up and turns to me looking alarmed. I drop the comb and it falls into the tank next to her. She grabs it as it falls, seems happy, and then snuggles up against my chest. Well, hello. Somehow she ends up on top of me, lying on my chest, with my legs wrapped around her tail.

"So, uh, how do you make more mermaids?" The question I'd been dying to ask...
"We have a sort of opening." She says.
"Oh really. Well, uh, so can I put my erm, you know, in your... 'opening.'" (Well I'm on top form tonight... just so damn smooth, eh? Ha.)
"You already did."
"Wait, I thought I had trousers on!"
...Well, not anymore, apparently. She starts grinding up against me and I can feel the usual sensations down there now, although my legs are either side of her body/tail. Not gonna lie, it feels a bit weird, but we have sex until the dream fades.

Before 7.20
While lying down I feel shaking sensations. The room is dark and blurry. I wait for a bit before pinching my nose to RC. The first thing I remember is the door task - so I walk over to my bedroom door and say "hi, what's your name?"
At first, the door is not very chatty, so I stroke it (uh, that sounds wrong somehow!), feeling the grain of the wood against my fingers. It doesn't seem to be varnished.

Repeating my question, this time the door answers, telling me it's name is "Fingers of Doom." What a strange name! It says some other stuff that I have forgotten now. There is a poster pinned to the door that is torn and ripped, barely holding on. I try to pin the pieces back into place before realising the pins might be hurting the door, but it says it doesn't mind.

After phasing out of the window, I end up in the village where I grew up. There is an orchard and a large open hillside. I summon an alien invasion by reaching up to the skies. As in my previous attempt, troop transports and smaller fighter saucer type craft land on the grass. This time alien troops exit the ships. They look like robots wearing ragged clothing and remind me somewhat of the phalanx from the comic I was reading last night.

Too late I realise that people were working in the orchard. The troops round up and capture the humans, my parents among them. I fly quickly over to the robot pointing a gun at my mum. The robot's ragged clothing makes him look kinda like a pirate.
"You better let her go, or else." I warn the pirate-robot. It decides to do what I say, and holsters it's gun before walking away.

The other prisoners are being escorted away. I grant Mum super-powers of flight and telekinesis so we can rescue Dad. Mum says it is fine and flies off. She doesn't need my help. I see her fighting the robots from the air and the prisoners cheering her on. Nice one, Mum.

I head into what looks like the alien's command tent. It is full of more robots and rows of tiny flashing lights on machines. I start smashing it up with my fists and during the chaos and smoke, run back outside. I pick the closest saucer and run up the small gangplank to get inside. It is smooth metal this time, almost featureless. There is a viewing screen type window in the ceiling. Taking control of the ship with pure willpower, I get it to take off and fly upwards into the sky.

To power the ship and my journey into space, I start singing Prodigy: Outer Space. "Gonna send him out of space... find another race... I'll take your brain to another dimension, play close attention!" Although, when the song came out I never knew the lyrics and so sung my own slightly misheard ones: "I'm descending outer space... Find another place."

The ship flies up through the clouds and out into space. The dark blackness is filled with stars and a purple swirling nebula. Within the nebula are tiny planets. I head into the nebula until the planets grow larger. Targeting a yellow and white looking planet, I pilot the ship towards it still purely using willpower.

It descends into the atmosphere and lands calmly in the centre of a yellow desert - scrub land. I jump out and see an insectoid thing the size of a dog with an oversized insect head. It crawls like a baby, except really fast, towards me. I back away as it charges me yelling "I come in peace!"

Turning, I find myself in a white structure. The room is filled with... hot tubs. There are skeletons sitting in them. Er. Okay. "Hey, what's up? I come in peace and whatever..."

The skeletons survey me with their empty eye sockets. They shiver and then jump out of the hot tubs holding brightly coloured plastic knives. Definitely not metal. Don't know of any lime-green or sky blue metal like that. They surround me, holding out the small knives. During the stand off, many of them shiver. The hot tubs must keep them warm.

"Hey, why don't you get back in the tubs and I'll try and sort something out to make it warmer?"
The skeletons seem to like this idea and put the knives away. I start to summon fire in my hands, and then try to think of how to raise the temperature of the whole room. The dream fades.

Before 5.15
The dream is of a game world in tiny 8-bit style. The monsters are tiny and pixellated. It is not always clear exactly what they are due to the bad quality graphics! While exploring a set of underground tunnels in the game, I find a wall made of glass. It has green dotted lines in irregular patterns drawn on it. Using some kind of sticky hands (D&D spider climb??) spell, I climb the wall like an insect.

The glass wall reveals secret chambers filled with monsters and loot. I phase through the glass (hadn't become lucid, just somehow gained that ability) and start attacking the monsters. After fighting for a while more monsters appear. I am playing a wizard character and cast spells to keep them back. A door appears but it is locked. More monsters appear, filling up the room, getting tougher to kill as they keep spawning.

My character dies and the game resets right back to the beginning. I am irritated. Where were the save points? It is a difficult game as there is no indication of where to go or what to do.

Giving up on the game I find myself outside where there are three row boats waiting on a river. Three floating platforms are infront of the boats. I stand on a platform, but then other people join me and the platform sinks under our combined weight. I climb onto the boat. There is someone already in the central boat who speaks in Italian and then German.

An ex-work-colleage joins me in the boat: KF. She is holding a bunch of flowers and dips them in the water. They shrivel up and die. From the boat we somehow end up inside a building where a group of other co-workers are sitting around a table eating chocolate cake. CW demolishes a large slice, stuffing it in his face getting it all over the place. I take a chocolate chip biscuit and take a bite of it.

Then I try to leave the house, finding a mudstained floor that leads into a garden. Steps made from ivy and plants have covered the exit. I climb them, ending up around the height of a normal house. Then after shimmying along one of the steps I manage to drop down into a shaded part of the garden. At this point, I become lucid.

The garden has a couple of bicycles lying in the grass. I think about stealing one of them while climbing a slope that leads out to a street. There are three cars parked in the road. I remember the TOTY and walk over. Pulling up the bonnet (hood) I sweep the engine compartment. It has a bunch of small junk items inside but no engine. Good. Then I walk around the car and rip off all the wheels, leaving it resting on the axles.

Now prepared, the car has also become a convertible. So I lean into the car and try to start it. At first it will not work, but a few more attempts and it roars into life. Hopping into the driving seat, I drive the car down the road. The axles are grinding into the tarmac. Sounds terrible!

At the side of the road I spot a group of bikers and a really gorgeous Ducati - unusually in a burnt orange colour like a Lamborghini Aventador. I try to get through the group and attempt to steal the bike, but the rider block me from getting near it. I give up and walk further down the street past some nice cars but nothing compared to that Ducati motorbike.

While walking into a building I remember the massage task. There is a family sitting here - mother, father, child. I ask for a massage. The man walks behind me and starts rubbing my shoulders. It is not very strong but it is noticable. The man then asks something about the child, indicating that it is mine. That's not my kid?? I wake up.

6.40-7.12am
Medium LD #401
Something is wrong with my phone. It keeps playing the wrong video or music. Then I see that the curtains have been stuck out of the windows which are now closed, meaning the fabric is on the outside. I open the windows and pull the curtains back inside. While doing this my partner's car pulls up on the driveway so I rush downstairs to open the front door.

Back inside the front room there is a game going on. I collect dice that are scattered on the floor. In a corner of the room is a d10 that is glowing bright white. Dice of power! Alright. I walk through into another room and someone attacks me. I reveal the dice of power clutched in my hand and they back off. Also, in my other hand, a blue triangular stone with a spiral inscribed on it has appeared.

This makes me lucid and after a moment inspecting my hands and arms I look around seeing my sister and another DC. The only exit is a window. At first the glass is solid and resists any attempt to pass through it but after some effort it starts to stretch like molten plastic.

Outside is a garden with a street at the far end. JR and a couple of other DCs are walking along it. Remembering the task of the year I call out for a goat.

From the rocks and bushes at the side of the garden a rather small brown goat tumbles out. It bleats and picks itself up unsteadily. I check it is solid and can feel its coarse hair. "Now unleash the Chimera!" I gesture at the goat and tranform it. It grows to 3m tall and its body turns more lion like while its head and face become an angry predatory bird with a hooked beak.

There's no one here though. "Attack!" I command the Chimera while spinning around and seeing some DCs further up the garden.

The Chimera leaps up onto the rocks and the DCs panic. "Use your lightning powers!" The Chimera becomes covered in an aura of flashing blue lightning that electrocutes several DCs that fall to the ground.

"Use fire breath!" The Chinera spins around and unleashes a flamethrower style gout of flame that incinerates a man running towards it. "Use your poison tail." The Chineras tail whips out and stabs a man in the chest. He staggers and falls down.

The dream is starting to destabilise though... noooo...

Before the final part can be completed the dreams fades. I stay perfectly still and DEILD back in.

The reformed dream has me lying in bed though. Something in my mouth feels loose and I pull out a weird metal bracket. I'm still semi-lucid and trying to get back on track. There is a computer screen near the bed, so I use that to try and control the dream. The Chimera is on screen waiting, like a computer game. I'm about to send it off attacking enemies again when I realise the first part about transforming a goat... so I attempt to turn it into a goat and it shrinks into some weird little squid thing. Uh...

The next attempt has it become a large cartoonish goat, in fact the graphics for the entire dream become 'warcraftish'. A DC tries to distract me by asking something but I ignore them. Waving my hands and chanting some magical made-up words I tranform the goat into my Chimera monster again. It has a similar form to before but more cartoony in fitting with the whole dream.

This time the Chimera is under my telepathic control. Waves of enemies with swords and spears start charging in so I use lightning and flame breath kill them.

The Chimera is perfectly under my control and breathes out an ice cloud that solidifies two more DCs. "Smash the ice!" Dutifully the Chimera raises up onto its hind legs then smashes down on the frozen figures with both front paws.

Oh yeah poison tail... last one. The Chimera has a long lions tail but it is whipping around and is easy to imagine as a snake. It buries its fangs in one DCs neck but now the Chimera and myself have merged into one being and the enemies are swamping me. The crush of numbers starts to destabilise the dream and I wake up.

5.30-6.40am 11/4/2016

Long LD 391 "Gold Thief"
I am on a bus that drives down an escalator with JR and ST. At the bottom of the escalator the bus stops. We get off and my friends start talking about the hotel. A guy is standing in a booth behind toughened glass. The others check in, then I tell him I was already checked in to room 8. The guy hands over some bits of paper and a key card. I follow ST and JR up a set of stairs that twist and turn, which then leads into a tunnel that is too small to stand up in.

Part-way along this causes me to become lucid. The tunnel is now a windowless grey room. After a reality check I remember my three step task and pick a random wall to phase through. It leads to a grey limbo so I push on until it forms a strange barren desert world. Ahead is a wide muddy track with a twisted tree and a guy standing next to two motorbikes.

Next on my three step is to do an advanced summon. Now that's something which is normally tricky. So I try to conjure a motorbike in the air. It doesn't work. Frustrated I jump on the red motorbike already there and set off. There are cars and a train heading down the street opposite so I set off in pursuit. After riding around after the other cars and dodging a train something hits the bike and spins me around. I head back to the tree.

It would really make sense to try and earn some more points, my mind still on the 3 step tasks but relaxed after the ride. I have a better plan this time, summoning a tree, with a large magical gesture that sweeps my arms upwards. The ground doesn't rumble or split though the tree does phase into existence from the base up. The branches wink in and out of existence then finally stabilise. I let out a whoop 'cause it worked.

OK OK. Three for three? Element manipulation. I look down at my hands and try to summon water in them. I've had luck with fire and ice, even electricity. This one is new. I see my hands turning blue and water like. The blue seeps up my arms and over the two little fingers on my right hand. On the left the thumb and first finger turn to water. I keep focusing on it to make more water and it starts spilling onto the floor. All the water from my hands spills onto the ground... and within a few seconds I'm swimming in an enormous lake.

The water continues pouring from my hands though and the blue takes over everything as I try to fly away.

False awakening. My dad is moving stuff around in my room. I wonder what time it is. They are talking about packing to move to Canada. Wait. What? I pinch my nose. Yep still dreaming.

I phase through the window and into a town. Having completed my three step I try to think of other things and come up blank until remembering to sit on a cloud. So I start trying to fly and find the city doesn't want to let me go. It always forms an unexpected barrier over my head.

I manage to do some advanced fast flying though, trying to build up speed to break through, but this doesn't work. In the end I'm in a room filled with people. I think about how cool it would be to enter somewhere like this at will. To be able to fall asleep and instantly enter this realm. I ask a dc if they can help me to to this but they remind me that you need to sleep first and do a WBTB. This is true.

Well there need to be more task attempts with this epically long stable lucid. So I start to do a TOTY and find a weird creature that is fighting some other alien like four-legged creatures. I try to turn it into a goat so I can then do the chimera task but this turns out to be difficult and destabilising.

False awakening. On my wrist is an enormous fitbit with a smartphone size screen, reporting how long I've been in "dream sleep". I do a reality check and become lucid again.

The surroundings are a mess of streets and Hong Kong airport - a mashup of British and Chinese styles. Looking out of the windows I try to summon rain to make a rainbow for the other TOTY, but the sky turns black instead. No good.

I fly through multiple windows and a metal gate thing that block my path. Finally I find a patch of blue sky with a rainbow and start to follow it. At the point it hits the ground it continues through the buildings and twists and turns through the streets that look more like a typical English or Irish village. The rainbow ends at a pit underneath a house. No leprechaun.

I throw stuff down the pit and start shouting to wake the leprechaun up and also digging at the end of the rainbow. The hole starts filling up with shiny golden coins. There is a grumbling noise and the leprechaun seems to be waking up from deep underground.

Then someone flicks my ear. It's a member of the tour group I met in China. She is Irish. Prettiest damn leprechaun ever! (She might not be too happy about it, but I took it that she was a leprechaun there to defend the gold, as she was hostile. ) I take a handful of the coins and announce I'm stealing them. She says something incomprehensible in Gaelic, her body language angry, and tries to flick my ear again, then I wake.

17/1/2016 (sat)

It's a long post... recall overload even before I get to the 3 lucids...

Before 6am
Fragment
-Crazy guy who had tried to shave off his beard... and missed the bit on the end. It was growing out sideways from the side of his mouth. He was very angry and shouting at everyone else.

ND "Spider Nest"
I 'woke up' and found my head had been covered in thick white spiders webs, while asleep. Sitting up I start pulling all the webbing off my face and off my hair. It is sticking to my fingers, so I wipe it on the carpet next to the bed. The web is covered in tiny white spiders, a whole nest of them scurrying around on the floor. Grabbing a heavy book from the night stand I drop it onto the nest, squishing them all.

From here, kneeling on the floor, I spot something else weird: Under the bed are a whole collection of cameras. They don't seem to be switched on though. The bedside light isn't working. In the gloom though it's clear there is someone else in the bed. A woman.

On the pillow is another tall light with a lampshade made from a fabric veil. I try to remove the veil and switch the light on, but it doesn't seem to work either.

ND "Size Nines"
With BB and two other guys. A police officer tries to arrest us but he is acting very un-cop like. He threatens us. I glance at BB and his face betrays nothing, but I can tell, just a twinkle in his eyes maybe, that he has a plan. BB acts calm and goes along with the arrest, so I fall in line too.

The officer doesn't have enough handcuffs for all of us so we walk behind him. We head down a corridor in some kind of leisure centre or pool. The officer stops and measures the other unknown guy's feet, asking which of us has size nines. I stay quiet. The officer doesn't measure my feet and we head off again down the corridor.

As we walk past a set of double doors, the third guy ducks inside them. I momentarily consider following him, but decide to remain with BB instead.

Ahead in the corridor are a group of people trying to move a large metal box. The officer stops to help them, so we join in as well.

ND "Imperial Guard Fight for Jesus!"
My Dad has written a quote on the back of a book. It was something about the truth... it sounded good, but I can't remember it. Probably didn't make real sense anyway.

So apparently Dad is now really into Warhammer 40K and has started Space Marines... because of Egyptology? He has started making a model board that looks like an abandoned warehouse with Egyptian hieroglyphs on it. Behind me he shows off his newest piece of work: A model pen filled with tiny dinosaurs. The models are moving and roaring, it is incredible.

Dad then starts telling me that he chose Space Marines because they fight against Jesus. Er, what?
"Not like those Imperials! They fight for Jesus!"
I can't help but laugh because it sounds crazy.
"No," Dad continues "I chose Space Marines because then you get a beast army too." He indicates the dinosaurs.
"Er, don't you mean Tau..." I reply, remembering that in Dawn of War the Tau got Kroot units which look a bit like dinosaurs.
Dad is insistent about the Space Marines. He shows me a screen with small animated pictures on.

The dream changes and I'm driving a car. Some idiot in a minivan tries to overtake in the outside lane while we are queueing for a set of lights. I see a gap and move into it, which pisses the minivan driver off even more.

Leaving the vehicle I walk inside a pub. A group of people are playing cards. One of them is JA from work. Also, they are pretending to be part of the Sons of Anarchy: Most of them are wearing leather cuts. They start to sort out drinks for everyone.

One guy who I don't recognise comes over and we hug as brothers. He warns me that he is getting his friend out of this life. He glances over to another table where a 20ish year old guy is sitting looking nervous. "We're getting out. He's mine."
"Yeah, fine, whatever. Do what you like."
He seems surprised by my response. I don't care and head outside. There are tables filled with patrons and the road still busy next to it. I have a false memory of leaving my dog out here and whistle.
"Juicy! Juicy!" ...apparently the dog is called Juice, after the SOA character.
A small wiry terrier runs over and I squat down to scratch the dog behind the ears and greet him. Juice then starts to follow me as we start to walk back to the car.

6.30-7.10am
Long LD 339 "Phoenix"
I am driving like a total maniac. It's all right, because this is a dream, so no one will get hurt. I nearly hit the kerb, then take a junction without stopping. The road layout is weird, or I'm going the wrong way down a slip road... and almost end up driving into a tree lined verge. Well this is silly... why am I just driving stupid? I should really just become lucid and do something productive with this dream.

So I acknowledge the fact this is a dream and attempt to stop the car. It has other ideas. The car fishtails across the road and collides with a tree, despite me fighting the controls. Oh well. Another dream car wrecked. I climb out and look around. The road is in the middle of a forest. Perfect for the fairy TOTY... but the scene fades.

Hoping it is just a scene change I hold on, assuming this is not a real awakening. After staring at blackness for a while I attempt to conjure a dream scene. Instead, the bedroom forms. AB is not here though. Getting up and looking around the room at several ugly pieces of furniture, I decide to use them to complete a different TOTY, phoenix.

Looking down at my right hand I flick it open and summon a ball of fire. It half works - there is heat coming off it but it is invisible, just a flickering haze of heat and warmth in my palm. I try the other hand and the same thing happens. Oh well. I throw the fire at the nearest cabinet and it starts to melt. The flames spread to nearby bits of furniture too.

I concentrate on the fire in my hand to turn it red, although it looks like real flame rather than just red magical energy. Happy with my fire-producing abilities I start chucking fireballs around the room. Soon the entire room is burning.

The original cupboard has melted to the floor in a dark mound of ash, still flaming around the edges. Willing a phoenix to rise from the ashes I concentrate and start seeing the shape of a bird start to form. It's wings seem to be formed of the same invisible fire in my hands, but much hotter. The phoenix is shrieking and twisting now, rising into the air.

The room feels very hot now. Uncomfortably so. I decide it's time to make an exit and phase through the window into the darkness beyond but end up in the darkness of the void, wondering what to do next.

Two of my goals require a DC, so I started thinking about forming a pub or bar where there would be plenty of people to try out some magic on. Instead a tablet forms and I start reading the dreams written on the screen, before realising the scene has formed around me already. It's another empty bedroom.

I phase through the window again. Beyond turns out to be a regular looking street, so I levitate down to the ground. It is night time. Everyone must be asleep in bed. Well, time to wake them up. I start to climb up the wall like Spiderman, to the upper floors, and peer in a window. The room inside has a wine rack thing, but is deserted.

The next window is much more promising. Inside, lying on the bed, in her undies, is a blonde woman. Well, hello! I tap on the glass to see if she's okay with me climbing in through the window at this time of night. She looks slightly confused, but smiles. I take that as an invitation and phase into the room.

The blonde woman stands up on the bed and starts moving to a second bed up in an alcove on the wall. As I start to move over, completely distracted from my goals and just thinking about having sex with her, the dream fades into a real awakening.

7.20 - 8.40am
Medium LD 340 "Turn You to Stone"
In a car again. This time with my Mum, Dad and sister. Dad is driving. We head into a small English village, heading down a hill with a pretty view of the town. However the road is blocked. I climb out of the car and become lucid straight away.

Still acting on the sexual urges stirred up from the previous dream's ending, I climb the nearest wall and find a door up on the second floor. Opening it reveals a bedroom. Sure enough there is a hot girl sitting on the bed, again in just her underwear. Unfortunately there is a guy sitting across the room.

"Excuse me. I really want to have sex with her, so you should leave." Brutal honesty. Sometimes my SC respects that, and it seems like one of those times. The guy gets up and exits the room. The woman just looks at me, almost blankly, uninterested. Bit of a turn off. I decide to persevere and see what happens.

Thankfully, once I sit down on the bed she decides that she is interested. To my delight she wants to try a couple of other things first before getting on with it.

When we are in the middle of having sex though, another woman enters the room. She's older, fully dressed, and, well, I'm enjoying myself just fine as things are. The other woman tries to stop us, grabbing my arm and trying to pull me off the bed. Remembering one of my personal goals, I turn to her and say "You're going to sleep now", in my finest Kilgrave impression. She curls up on the floor and starts snoring.

The woman that I was having sex with decides to go help the woman and try to wake her up. Fantastic. Irritated, I touch the girl's shoulder and will her to turn to stone. The skin on her shoulder takes on the appearance of stone, and the effect grows, covering her entire body. So now there is a statue of a naked woman trying to wake the sleeping woman.

Well, enough of this. I go searching for my motorbike. The bedroom door leads out into a car park. There are rows and rows of cars but no bikes, so I start turning around and looking for one. A couple of motorbikes appear, but they are weird looking. I specifically want to ride my own bike tonight.

I start to call out my motorbike's name and searching through the car park for her. (Yes, my motorbike has a name. I don't care if you think it's weird.) The car park leads to a street. There is a bus stop with several people waiting. A group of guys are hanging around. The bus stop leads into a tunnel, and at this point I acknowledge that my attempts to summon my bike aren't working. A new approach is needed. Before thinking of anything, the dream ends.

Short LD 341 "Pipe Cleaner"
I am desperate to urinate but unable to find a toilet. There is a large sink/bowl thing on the floor, so I pee into that. It is out in the open, in the middle of some kind of hospital. It seems to take forever, with there being an unending amount of urine. Some people walk past while I'm standing there, peeing into the bowl. They give me weird looks, but, well, I don't think I can stop the flow.

A nurse shows up. She starts saying I should get a check up, and that there is clearly something wrong with me. She holds up a 'medical' pipe cleaner - the single bit of wire with white bristles surrounding it. Eeeep, no, you are not going to do what I think you're planning on doing with that!

I turn around and am confronted by a second nurse. This one is holding what can only be described as a solid, clear plastic condom type thing with sharp looking bristles on the inside. There are rows of the same contraption in packets on the shelf behind her. Yikes.
"Stay the hell away from me!"
I zip my trousers up and make a hasty exit.

The hospital turns into a pub. I walk past the bar, which contains a few DCs sitting drinking. At the door, still thinking about the nurses, I decide to do a reality check. Yep. This is a dream. I almost leave the pub before recalling the TOTM and head back to the bar.

The barman gives me a surprised look when I ask for a beer. That's a normal request to make of a barman, isn't it?
"You want a beer?" He says, slowly, as if this is a very stupid thing to ask for.
"Yeah. A beer."
He raises an eyebrow, but walks away.
"What are you drinking?" I ask the guy sitting nearby at the bar, holding some kind of elaborate cocktail. "What's wrong with the beer?"
"The beer tastes like piss." He tells me. "This is orange juice."
Looking around, all the other patrons seems to be drinking fruit juice too. Great. I manage to find a bar where no one is drunk. I start to walk out of the pub and wake up.