Pickman

I'll start with the non-lucid dream that came before I woke up and performed a WBTB: I'm getting advice from Russell Brand on getting bodywash with a specific ingredient (can't remember what it was). Then Arnold Schwarzenegger is telling me that if he could have his time again he would be a vegetarian bodybuilder because "sometimes I feel down".

Then I am walking into the town centre. I see a tall, ugly, weird-looking man who keeps looking at me - the kind of person you avoid eye contact with. He approaches me and starts talking about how he held a job for one day in a place where they "make milk". I was polite, but then he started dancing around me as he talked, and grabbed my ears from behind. I got aggressive, and that's when I woke up.

After staying up for a little while I went back to bed, and had the lucid part of the dream: I was walking along the local seafront at night. The place is well-lit, but I start playing around with my phone, losing awareness of my surroundings. When I look up from my phone, I realize that all the lights had suddenly turned off. I was in almost pitch-black darkness. I could see the lights on the ships in the distance near the breakwater, and there was some light pollution from the city in the distance. But I could not see a thing in front of me.

That's when I knew I must be lucid, because I was trying to imagine the streetlights coming back on so I could see my way in front of me. I couldn't do it.

The rest of the dream is non-lucid. I am back in University. My accomodation is basically the same spacious room I had in the second year, but I'm sharing it with a mix of people from work and strangers. The landlord subjects us to a surprise inspection, and my place is a mess. On my desk is a pack of trading cards I had in the nineties, an old TV set, and a red/black leather bound book which is full of poetry. We all have to line up in the room as the landlord and an assistant look through the room - they seem to be searching for something, but are secretive about it.

Then I am standing on the University campus at night. I am holding a plate of food I have just bought - chicken, chips, and some other stuff. I see a couple walk onto the grounds. They notice me, but ignore me as the man throws a heavy-looking holdall through the glass front of a campus cafe and runs in to loot the place. The woman runs off to do the same elsewhere.

I realize I am witnessing a burglary. I reach for my phone, only to realize it isn't there - it's back at my room. I finish my plate of food first as I watch the man rob the place, before heading back.

In my room is two of the young women. They both seem to be ill, watching the old TV set on my desk. I casually ask how everyone is as I grab my phone, expecting "fine". One of them turns around, and is about to give a long-winded answer about how ill she is, and I realize that I don't have the time to listen to her answer because I need to call the police. Then I woke up.

This lucid dream is brief, and I think came in the middle of the REM cycle, so my memory of it is hazy.

I'll start with the non-lucid parts, which I only remember in fragments. The dream seemed to revolve about Richard Branson being my new manager at work. He has also let me stay with him in the spare room of his house, and I have to share the room with a coworker of mine - a young woman who I see often but don't speak to very much.

The two of us start hanging out together a lot. We seem to get pretty close to each other, although no sex or anything like that. At one point I am sitting in our room and she returns with some weed. She rolls up a joint and shares it with me. I get paranoid about the Branson's finding out, so I open a window and smoke leaning out of it. At one point Richard or a member of his family turns up in our room and I have to hide it.

At another point in the dream, I walk through my city during a beautiful summer day. I am walking with Vicky, a girl I knew from school and haven't seen since. We meet another girl I haven't seen since school at a crossing.

Here is the lucid part: I end up doing a lot of travel by train. It was in one of the train station that I realized I was dreaming. I think I am with the coworker mentioned above. I see two women who work as cleaners on the station and I decide to speak to them. Whatever I said (or did) seemed be horribly offensive to them and everyone around them. I must have been lucid because I always feel the need to do something completely innapropriate.

I forget how this situation arose, but I find myself being held captive in my own house by a group of people I can't remember. The thing is, no one is pointing a gun to my head or anything. I could leave, but for some reason I'm afraid to. There's some real psychological issues to unravel in this one.

I become lucid when I meet a woman who I have seen in the past as a hypnotherapist - only she doesn't look or sound like her. It is night, and she tells me that we should just get up and leave. I know this is a slightly nightmarish dream by now, so I decide to go with her, just to see what would happen. Despite knowing this is a dream, I am still hesitant to leave. Like I'm not supposed to do this or something.

We just walk out of the door without any opposition and get in her car. She drives us away and chats to me as she does so. The streets are empty. I'm really nervous for some reason. I look into the rear view mirror and I see the silhouette of a man in the road behind us in the distance. He seems to flit in and out of view. He looks like he is wearing some tribal headdress - like a bear-skin or something.

The hypnotherapist notices that I'm staring into the mirror and has a look herself.

'Oh yeah,' she says, 'it looks like there is a man behind us.'

This was the point where I woke up.