lucid

I wake up and look at the clock, then go back to sleep. I'm in a shopping centre and somebody I know is trying to get me going into a shop labelled 'Stargate', which sells merchandise and viewings for that show, which I've never watched, but I'm not interested because I don't think it sounds any good. At first I decide to go along anyway, although I think it is weird that they have such a niche place and it seems so successful. It occurs to me that I'm dreaming, and end up passionately lecturing someone about how they're just part of my dream, but in the end I start to think I might be awake after all and I am left feeling embarrassed. (This might have happened in a prior dream or a different scene, I can't quite place it at the moment.)

In the end I decide to go home instead (and the dream just skips from scene to scene, no need to walk anywhere) and I look at the clock in the car, but realise that every time I look at it, the time is different. At one point, it has the year on the end, 1932, and it occurs to me that it's a classic dream sign. I don't want to make another scene if I'm wrong, but with the case so strong, I end up getting out of the car to try and explore the dream world. I think about shouting for more clarity as you're supposed to do, but decide that would attract too much attention if it's not really a dream. I try spinning instead, but the only result is vertigo, and then the dream ends not too long after.

Between then and waking up, or maybe before the others, there is a fragment where I see a comedy sketch, except it was done wrong or something. When I did wake up, I notice that the time is over an hour earlier than the time I remember from when I woke up beforehand. It was probably a false awakening, and one that felt very real compared to the other dreams at that.

I woke up in the night, stayed up for a while, and tried to go back to sleep, facing the opposite way. I suddenly found myself in sleep paralysis, which I'd only ever had after waking up as opposed to going to sleep. There was a rushing or screeching sound which got persistently louder and louder. It occurred to me that you're supposed to try rolling out of your body when that happens. It didn't make anything happen, but there was this weird feeling where, even though I couldn't see or move, I could get a feeling as if I was actually moving around, like the proprioception of it. By that time the sound had stopped and I eventually broke the paralysis, and got to sleep.

Then I woke up again, left the room and wandered off, and then saw a bright laminated red card lying around, with letters on it that constantly switched but I knew to say 'WAKE UP'. I realised that I'd had a false awakening, and was surprised because it actually felt real, unlike the passive way most non-lucid dreams are. So I just woke up. I got up, tried to turn on the lights, but found that the switch didn't work, so I found a lamp and turned that on, and it did work. I realised that the lights didn't work because I was still asleep. I was worried that anything could jump out of the shadows at any moment, because it was a dream.

Either in this dream or a later one (it was a chain of false awakenings) I tried to exert some control, standing in the bathroom and trying to make a big streak of lightning in the air I think it was. It didn't work, but it did help my faith in the solidity of the dream. Unfortunately I didn't think to try spinning, passive control or just leaving the house. I was just happy that it felt real, mostly. One thing that I probably should have done but didn't occur to me was to look in the mirror. Still, when I actually did wake up I knew straight away, somehow.

There was a fragment from this night where I remember someone doing a monologue about how they preferred cows to people and a few mental impressions of villages, but not so much from it. I think the false awakenings were from disturbed sleep. Maybe having read about all the things that had happened influenced my experiences, although I didn't really believe, except in the abstract, things like shifting text or lights not working or auditory hallucinations that weren't just incoherent whispering, until I'd actually lived them.

I had been sent a few years into the past, into the body of my younger self, by unknown means. I was completely ecstatic that I'd know everything that was going to happen and determined to milk the situation to the very last drop. So I wasn't very subtle about my newfound advantage, and went around laughing, joking, and speculating a lot, feeling very free and confident.

Then I was with a bunch of people when I saw a black car, parked quite out of place, and instinctively recognised it as the car of a Japanese cosmetics tycoon. I basically thought making fun of him would be a great idea, but of course, it would have to be a proper battle of wits. A listing of rhymes and patterns of speech popped out in my head, some of them quite awful ('cake' with 'shake', what does that have to do with anything?) and then a whole poetic monologue which the people with me delivered to him. ('Dear sir, something something something.') He didn't say much back, I don't think I even saw him through the car windows.

A strange thought came into my head, 'I really like this dream'. Then, 'Oh, of course, it's a dream, not real.' It did confuse me for a bit, sort of disappointed it would end soon, but I thought about all that dream stuff you hear about and how you could do it now. The dream collapsed soon after though.

Things like this about time travel have been floating in my head a lot recently, and it's these sorts of stray thoughts that end up in my dreams a lot. I think the idea of a cosmetics tycoon is suggestion from a sketch I watched, and some of the listing rhetorical stuff in my head while talking to him probably came from a small passage in a newspaper about dancing, somehow.

I was sitting on a huge hill overlooking a city, a complex of villa-esque buildings behind me which I knew to be my school. It was a good view where I could see each street and building but not get a lot of noise. A map flickered into mind, indicating the location of the city.

Then I turned to someone sitting nearby, not caring who, and said: "Hahaahaha, this isn't real, is it? I live in England, this is like New Jersey or something." I didn't look at who it was or pay attention, but he just acted confused, I think.

So I immediately ran away, not losing breath or bumping into people or attracting attention. I knew I could do anything but didn't care much, I just ran and sometimes made a jump to see if it would set me in flight. After a few bridges and footpaths I ended up on a steady route. I noticed something and said: "What are you?"

It said: "Antagonism."
I said: "Like your inner darkness or something."
It said: "No, just resisting things. So I"m working against running further and going back and other small things."
I said: "Oh, okay then." and talked to it for a while.