non-lucid

Lately I've been having a little trouble remembering my dreams after I've woken up, which concerns me a little because I almost always remember them. I'm always telling family and friends, "I had the strangest dream last night..." and then proceed to tell them all about it. Thankfully, i remember bits and pieces of the dream I had last night:

I'm driving in a car on what appears to be a freeway. I'm coming up on a slower moving vehicle, so I move over into the lane to the right of the vehicle and accelerate to pass it. As I look down the road I see another vehicle coming in the opposite direction and it has just moved into the same lane as me. I'm puzzled about this but not really concerned because everything around me seems to be happening in slow motion, but my reaction time(s) are still the same. So as the other car approaches me, I am easily able to move to the right just enough to let him pass me, then move to the left back into my lane. A few minutes later, I go to pass another car and the same thing happens but it's a different car this time. Then a few minutes after that, I see a car ahead of me try to change lanes, but it clips another car and they both start to go out of control. There I am in my car, watching this multi-car accident unfold in slow motion all around me. I'm watching pieces of the cars coming off and go flying slowly through the air. Even though my car remains undamaged, I pull over to the side of the road because I was a witness to the accident and will need to tell the police what happened. I see a restaurant on the opposite side of the road and suddenly find myself inside it, asking to use their phone. But the people in the restaurant, employees and customers alike, all just saw the accident and are asking me questions about it: "Are you all right?". "What happened?" "Who caused it?"

That's pretty much all I remember.

Okay, my dream last night was rather bizarre, but then I do have some bizarre dreams sometimes...

In my dream, I'm on a space ship, kind of like in Star Trek. (I say this because Spock was in my dream; actually TWO Spocks!) Anyway, I'm on this space ship with another man who looks like Spock, but isn't. I don't remember why we were there, only that we were not supposed to be on board. We were talking about what if we were discovered by someone and the fake Spock said something like, "The only way they would know we're not who we say we are is if the ship lost it's artificial gravity. They would be floating around in zero gravity but we would still be able to walk around." Not long after he said this, though, that's exactly what happened. But while I was unaffected by it, fake Spock started floating. In the dream I knew it was because he had not ingested whatever it was we were taking to enable us to move around in zero gravity. (a pill or liquid or something.)

In the next part of the dream, I'm watching things unfold as if I'm watching it on TV. A group of people are in what looks like the engineering section of the ship and Spock is there as well. (The REAL Spock; he is preparing to fix the artificial gravity.) Just as he is getting started, the fake Spock walks in. I'm thinking to myself, "He's going to get caught because 1. He's walking and there's no gravity, and 2. Now there are TWO Spocks!" But when I watch fake Spock approach, he is wearing what look like gravity boots. (They're not; they're fake as well but only he and I know this.) And he passes himself off as Spock's twin brother, which the real Spock, while giving him suspicious looks, does not dispute for whatever reason.

In this next part, I'm not sure if it's part of the same dream, or a fragment of another dream:

I'm suddenly in a large old mansion. I'm in a study or library and waiting for some friends of mine to return. Suddenly a panel in the wall opens up and there's a man dressed as a butler there but he appears to be made up of cotton stuffing inside a man shaped nylon covering, kind of like pantyhose. He is motioning for me to come with him, but I refuse because I know he is an imposter; the real butler is with the group of people I'm waiting on to return. Anyway, when I refuse to go with him, the man comes at me and tries to force me to come with him but I resist and we start fighting. We're struggling on the floor and I'm yelling for help and telling my friends that "I've found the imposter", but my friends are in another room or upstairs and cannot seem to hear me. Eventually I get the upper hand in the fight and get my opponent's head stuck underneath a chair or other piece of furniture. I'm punching and kicking him when suddenly he transforms into a friend of mine. He's pleading for mercy and begging me to stop hitting him. I eventually stop and help him back on his feet but as soon as he stands up, he runs off. I chase after him and as I do, he again transforms, this time into a dog. I'm chasing him across a green field towards a small creek. But he is running to fast and I can't catch him.

I only remember bits and pieces of the dreams I had last night:

My first dream involved my first wife, who was killed in a car wreck back in 1998. In the dream, she is still alive and we're getting ready to go somewhere. She is walking around getting things ready. We walk into another room that resembles the kitchen at my Mom's house. There is a woman sitting there that I know from church. Our car won't start (Or it's wrecked or something) so the woman offers to let us use her car. I don't want to, but my wife accepts her offer.

Next, I remember that I'm talking to this guy about cycling, or long distance bike riding. (I used to ride quite a bit a few years back.) Anyway, I'm telling him that "it was easy riding back in Texas because everything is flat and there are no hills. But here there are lots and lots of hills." (At this point in the dream and as I'm saying that I remember moving my hand and arm up and down like it's going over hills. I also get the feeling that I'm in California.)

The next thing I remember is riding in the front seat of a vehicle with two other guys. I'm sitting in the middle. The guy driving is telling us about his wife, who had died a few years ago. I then tell him about a friend I knew back in the early 80's who was in a band called 'Oasis' with a buddy of his. (I think this is the guy I was talking to about cycling earlier in the dream.) He had shown me one of his business cards from back then where he had first met his wife. She had written her name and phone number on the card. But she had since died also, so he kept the business card as a keepsake.

This was kind of a weird dream because 1. I never knew anybody in the band Oasis, 2. it was very coincidental that the two guys in my dream and I all had wives who had died. It's also rather frustrating that I had an obvious dream sign (my deceased first wife) but did not realize I was dreaming when I saw her. She has appeared in several of my dreams over the years.

In my dream last night, I remember driving. I was in a car with someone (a female) and I was driving back and forth between another person's house and the beach. After driving the route a couple of times, I found a shortcut down this dirt road that would cut the trip in half. So my friend and I drove to the person's house and told him about the shortcut. He wanted to drive, so I let him. But when we came to the dirt road, he missed the turn. I told him he had missed the turn, so we had to back up for what seemed like a long time and ended up starting all over. But when we finally got to the turn, there were a bunch of men there installing barriers and turnstile-type gates so that no cars could get through. So we ended up having to go the rest of the way on foot. At the very last part was a tall slide that you had to climb up and slide down to get to the beach. I looked up and noticed that towards the top of the ladder, a couple of rungs were missing. I remember thinking it looked dangerous and didn't know if I wanted to climb up the ladder or not. My friend that I had been driving with climbed up the ladder and went down the slide out of sight on the other side of this sand dune. I ran over to see if she was all right and she told me that she was and that the bottom of the slide curved and launched you out in the air and down this embankment. I looked at what she was talking about and realized that she had been lucky to land where she had because if she had gone any further, she would have fallen off of a cliff.

In my next dream, I'm with a group of people about to go scuba diving. We are getting ready for the dive but everyone is taking so long that it's getting dark outside. I remember thinking, "It's not supposed to be but this is turning into a night dive. I had better go get my dive lights."

I'm still getting over a nasty cold, so my dreams lately have had the added benefit of cold medicine influencing them:

All I remember about this dream is that I'm someplace where I'm trying to set up my computer, along with an iPad I picked up somewhere along the way, so I can put on a slideshow display of pictures I took on a recent scuba dving trip of mine. But as hard as I try to do it, things keep happening (or fail to happen) that prevents it: I get sidetracked by someone or something; the table I put my equipment on suddenly grows huge so that I can't reach anything without climbing up on the table; there is no place to plug in my laptop computer so that it goes dead after running on only battery power; suddenly the table that is too big is suddenly too little and very unstable, etc. At one point, I'm sidetracked by having to go and pick up the broken pieces of a keyboard cover that are laying on the ground and in the water; this happened while the table was huge; for some reason, it was set up next to a large body of water, like a lake or a pond.

I've been battling a cold for the past several days and my dream circuits seem to have gone haywire. Last night, I dreamed the same scene over and over again for what seemed like about 10 times:

I'm with a group of scuba divers and we're aboout to get in the water and be photographed. As we do our dive, the pictures display like a slideshow, one right after another. Some are good, some are blurry. For some reason, I sense that some of the divers are frightened or uneasy. Then I see a picture of a shark, but it's dead. I find the body of the shark underwater and take about two or three shark's teeth before getting the uneasy feeling that other sharks may come and feed on the dead one, so I leave.

I had several dreams last night, one of them lucid:

In my first dream, I’m in a field with some friends of mine. I look up into the sky and see some kind of small aircraft approaching. I watch it fly overhead; I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s small but it has all these gadgets attached to it, so I conclude that it must be some sort of drone aircraft. Then I notice a few more in the sky; they seem to be circling. Suddenly, one of them bursts into a bunch of small pieces and I realize that the small pieces are dropping down like small missiles and exploding when they hit the ground. People on the ground are in a panic and running for cover. As one of the small drone planes bursts directly over my head, my friends and I jump into this vehicle (truck?) for cover. But looking up, I see that the small missiles are dropping straight down on us and I know that if they hit the truck, it will explode. So I tell my friends we have to run. We leave the cover of the truck and run towards an area of ground where the missiles have already hit because I know we’ll be safe there. We end up at the top of this 3 story house and have to descend down to ground level to get away.

In my next dream, I’m in the lobby of a big building. I take notice of how detailed my surroundings are and realize that this must be a lucid dream. I do a RC by holding my nose and find that I can breathe through it. I also look at my hands and find them a little deformed. I notice that the carpeting is kind of rough, like sandpaper, so I ask that the floor be softer and smoother. Instantly, the carpet becomes soft and smooth. So I start exploring and find that I’m in some sort of office building of a company that makes gag gifts. I walk around, marveling at the detail and realism of everything, sometimes even back tracking to look at certain things again. This goes on for what seems like about ten minutes. I even check my hands again to see if I’m still lucid and they once again appear deformed. I end up on what looks like a loading dock and tell the dream I need to find a toilet, since I need to go to the bathroom. Looking around, I see that there is a toilet on the floor but it’s not hooked up. So I ask one of the dream figures what they do when they have to go to the bathroom. The DF, a woman, replies, “We just go on the floor”, and points to a small puddle on the concrete floor. I find this surprising and funny, and wake up.

I’m pleased that I had a lucid dream (my third) but disappointed that I really didn't accomplish anything other than walking around. I need to remember to try to focus and tell the dream more what I want (dream tasks). I haven't even flown in a dream yet.

In my dream last night, I found myself driving my truck across a field. A friend of mine was riding in the passenger seat and we were on his ranch. (In the waking world, he doesn't have a ranch) Anyway, I've got a couple of bales of hay in the back of the truck and we're taking it to where there is some construction going on. I come to a creek bed that has no water in it, but it's still muddy, as if it had been raining recently. I choose a place to cross and speed up so that I don't get bogged down in the mud. I make it across without getting stuck, and only then do I see another place close by where the crossing would have been easier. I ask my friend, "Is that where you usually cross?" and he replies by nodding his head up and down. We get to the construction site and start unloading the hay, which we plan on spreading out over the ground for some reason. Don't remember anything after that.

I remember two dreams from last night.

In my first dream, I’m outside of a house. Someone is telling me that there is an animal of some kind (a raccoon, squirrel or opossum) up in the attic of this house that makes an awful racket at night when people are trying to sleep. Me and another guy (unknown…but in the dream I know he is a friend) are going to try and catch whatever it is. Funny thing about the house, though, is that the front outside wall is missing so we are able to climb ladders and access the attic from outside. When I get to the top of my ladder, I look inside and spot something moving – it’s a small monkey, like the kind you see with organ grinders. He seems friendly, so I coax him over and grab him with one hand. This startles him and at first I think he’s going to bite me. I winch in anticipation, but the bite never comes. So I take the monkey and toss him outside onto the ground, then climb down the ladder. But when I turn to look at the monkey, I see that it is no longer alive and has somehow transformed into a toy stuffed monkey.

In my second dream, I’m driving a van and there are a couple of guys I don’t know in the van with me. We also have two women with us but they seem to each be sealed in some kind of big, square plastic bag filled with water. They are both alive and angry and demanding to be let out. I know somehow that we have kidnapped them and are driving someplace. One of the men in the van is angry with me because we are driving close to a news van/crew and he’s afraid they will be able to see inside our van and see and/or film the two women being held hostage. But I reassure him that I’m swerving in such a way that the news crew won’t be able to see them.

That’s all I remember from the second dream. I need to work on my RC’s throughout the day because, as crazy as some of my dreams are, there is no reason why I should not be recognizing them as dreams.

Had several dreams last night, some of them fragments.

In my first dream (fragment), I am at a hotel or office somewhere with some friends of mine. All I remember from it is that I had several bumps or welts on my face, neck and arms, like from a bug bite. But on closer inspection, the bumps seem to each have a little window on top of them and inside you can see tiny mechanical or electronic components. They look something like small Borg implants from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

An interesting side note: I actually AM staying at a hotel right now in Roatan, Honduras. And you have to constantly stay sprayed down with insect repellent because there are these little no-see-um bugs that bite and leave welts like mosquitoes. I’ve been lucky and haven’t gotten bitten but some other guests at the hotel are covered in bug bites.

In my next dream, my soon-to-be-ex wife and I are in a car and I’m driving us somewhere. When my wife finds out what route I took, she makes a comment that I should have taken a different route because it’s much shorter coming that way from where we live. I agree with her and suggest that next time we use her Garmin and follow the route it tells us to go. She likes that idea. This dream seems to repeat itself a couple of times, or maybe we’re just going to different places.

In my last dream, I am riding a bicycle. I had parked my truck and was trying out riding my bicycle from where I had parked my truck to a specific point, either work or home, I don’t remember. There is another man on a bike following behind me and he gradually catches up to me, since he’s going a little faster than I am. We greet each other and I explain to him what I’m doing, telling him I’m doing it to get more exercise. He tells me that’s a good idea and we end up giving each other advice and pointers about riding on the roads. I stop at a point along the way to meet some friends and eat lunch (or dinner) and invite the man inside to join me. As I’m inside, taking to some friends about a book I just read, I notice that the man I invited in has the exact same book in his hand. I don’t remember the title or author of the book, but I think it’s about bike riding.

I find myself at my mother’s house with two of my older brothers. In the dream, I know it’s my mother’s house but it’s not the same house as in the waking world. My mother is complaining because some baby ducks are either trapped or holed up underneath the house and/or porch and they keep “chirping”.

My parents have a 2 ½ acre yard with a pond in the back half of it. When I was little, we had ducks on the property, so it was not unusual back then to see baby ducks around the house now and then.

Anyway, in the dream, my Mom is afraid the baby ducks will die if they’re not rescued, plus the chirping is driving her nuts. So me and my two brothers crawl under the house/porch and retrieve the baby ducks. In doing so, we also find that there are some small green birds under there as well. They’re about the size of a small mouse. I pick up one of the birds and as I do, it tries to bite my hand. Luckily, I have gloves on. I tell my brothers, “It’s trying to bite me.” One of them says something like, “Yeah, watch out. They’re mean and they bite!” I can’t seem to stop the bird I’m holding from trying to bite me, and I’m starting to lose my grip on it, so instinctively, I squeeze the bird as hard as I can to try and kill it. It seems to work, because the bird stops moving. I look around for a place to dispose of it, but don’t see any trash cans around. So I end up just tossing it into the bushes.

I usually remember more than one dream during the night. But I'm on vacation in Honduras scuba diving and sleeping in a strange bed. I tossed and turned and only got about 5 hours of sleep.

At first when I woke up, I only remembered one dream. But as I was recalling the one I had just had before waking up to go to the bathroom, a couple of dreams I had had earlier suddenly popped into my head.

In my first dream, I’m in the cafeteria or snack bar of what looks like a high school. I’m trying to get myself a soft drink but I’m having difficulty. The students have one way of getting and paying for food and drinks, but I am a visitor and have to use a different method. There are special cups and lids that I have to use and, while trying to get myself a cup, lid and straw, I end up knocking everything onto the floor. I pick everything up and try to put them all back the way they were, all the while conscious of the fact that one of the students is watching me. But I feel like some kind of idiot because at first I pick them up and or/stack them wrong and I know the student watching me knows this. I finally get everything back the way it was and go to the machine to fill my drink. The machine is large and rectangular, like most coke machines in the waking world. This one is painted white, with a red vertical rectangle on the lower right side and matches the design on the cup I have; that’s how I know which machine to use. There are about 10 different buttons on top and a single slot in the bottom where you place your cup to be filled. I want to get diet coke, but don’t know which button to press because, while a couple of the buttons have the type of drink listed on it, most of them don’t. One even just has a gum wrapper instead of a drink label. So I look around, trying to see if I can find a student to see if they can tell me which button is diet coke.

In my next dream, I’m in a convenience store walking up to the cashier. As I’m approaching, a young man with a mohawk and carrying a floor waxer is climbing out from behind the counter and leaving the store. There is a small crowd of customers gathered around and as the man leaves the store, they all applaud the cashier behind the counter, who happens to be a friend of mine from work. I look outside and see the man walking back to a truck parked in the street outside and there are two or three other men with him. The man with the mohawk is angry and saying something to his friends. Suddenly he turns around and tries to run back into the store but his friends restrain him. At this point, I notice that the street is all torn up, like somebody dug up all the concrete in different places. It suddenly dawns on me that the men outside are some kind of con men, who go around contracting with different businesses to do different jobs but don’t actually do the job (or do it badly), then demand to be paid anyway. I turn to my friend behind the counter and say, “Let me guess; they tried to con you into paying them to wax your floor”. To which my friend replied, “And he didn’t even do anything.” All the other people had been applauding my friend for making the man leave the store. But I am worried that the man and his friends will come back and harm (or even kill) my friend.

In my last dream, I’m in a kind of club with a bunch of people, including Danny DeVito, who seems to be in charge. There is a girl standing up on a small stage, wearing heels, shorts and a sleeveless button down top. She appears to be new to the place and a little bit nervous because she is auditioning to be a stripper and has to take her clothes off in front of us as part of the audition. After a little coaxing from the crowd, she finally removes her top and her shorts. I notice that her breasts, while not very big, have large nipples and areolas, which I find very attractive. Some of the other men in the crowd make favorable comments as well and one man even follows her when she leaves the stage to go into a small office. At this point I get the idea to “pass the hat” and collect a bunch of small change and give it to Danny DeVito, telling him that they are the tips the crowd gave the girl. My reasoning behind this is that Danny thinks the girl will make him lots of money but by giving him just a bunch of loose change, it’ll be like playing a joke on him. As one man pulls out a pocket full of coins, I notice that they look strange. They don’t look like regular American quarters, dimes and nickels. The backs of all the coins have little full color flowery borders on them, with a little poem or quotation inside of it. I can’t recall what it said but I remember taking offense at one of the quotes, since it doesn’t seem very patriotic or American. One of the guys standing around assures me that the quote is correct and has every right to be on the coin. I then give the money to someone and tell them to give it to Danny DeVito. But when they come back, the person tells me that Danny wasn’t in the office, just the girl was, and so he gave the money to her. He says she was resting and didn’t look at the money; she just looked up from the couch and said, “Thank you” when he told her it was her tip money. At this point I am angry because the joke didn’t go over as I had planned and because the girl will most likely be offended when she sees how little money is there. At this point I wake up.

I want to point out that the man who tells me the quote on the coin is okay is a friend of mine who lives in another state. We belong to the same scuba diving club and only see each other when we go on scuba diving trips. We are on such a trip right now.

Had several dreams last night. I wasn't sure how my dreams will be affected because I am on vacation in Roatan for a week. But the bed in the room is very comfortable, so I'm hoping that the relaxing environment will help me have more vivid and lucid dreams.

In my first dream, I found what looked like a dead dog underneath a porch or walkway. It looked like a dog, but it’s body was long and skinny like a snake. Then I found another dog. It had a normal body and at first I thought it was dead as well, but then I noticed it was breathing. It raised it’s head to look at me and suddenly I noticed that there were several dogs under there, all seemingly strays. I tried to coax them out with some food, but only a couple of them came out.

In my next dream, I’m outdoors, playing golf with some friends when I hit my ball into this field. Suddenly my friends are worried because we need to get my ball back; it’s important for some reason. But I’m not sure where it is; I only know where it might be. But to get it back, I have to get in a golf cart and drive a long way down this road (into town?), then turn around and backtrack across people’s yards and private property to get to where my ball is. The dream ends before I find it.

In my last dream, I’m in the military. I’m a lower rank because other people are giving me orders. One of them sends me down the hall to our commanding officer’s office to tell him something important that happened to a ship or a plane, and that he’s needed back in our work area. When I get back to my work area, I notice that somebody had thrown my lunch away that I had left on a table. When I asked why it had been thrown out, I’m told it is because the CO didn’t like me because I had disobeyed a direct order to shave off my goatee. For some reason, everyone wanted me to shave off my goatee because it has gray hair in it.

This last dream kind of coincides with real like in that I have a goatee and my daughters think I should shave it off because it has gray hair in it and it will make me look younger.

I wasn't figuring on being able to remember any dreams from last night because I had a fairly potent margarita with my dinner. But I do remember bits and pieces of it:

I'm outdoors somewhere with some frineds of mine from work. And I'm carrying some kind of handheld device which lets me see things the others can't. We seem to be in some sort of competition with another group of guys from work and one of them (a guy I work with named Wade) is carrying a similar device. We seem to be driving on some kind of circular track. My team is driving counterclockwise, while the other team is driving clockwise. Or maybe it's just me and Wade who are driving, because I remember looking through the device and being able to see him coming at me. I'm unclear on what the rules of the race are.

In another dream, I find myself driving along a road approaching a 90 degree turn to the left which leads to a long bridge. It's been raining and there is water flowing over parts of the road as the water rises. I'm wanting to cross the bridge and get to the other side before the water gets too high and I am unable to cross.

Sidenote: This bridge scene has appeared in my dreams quite a few times in the past. I don't recall it being a bridge that I've ever seen in waking life, but in my dreams it feels as though it's a familiar sight.

In an effort to make my dreams more vivid, I experimented by taking two 100mg tablets of vitamin B6. I didn't really notice any change as far as my dreams being more vivid.

I recall having several dreams last night, some being easier to remember than others. All I remember of my first dream is being talked to about some kind of paper or contract. It has to do with something from work and it concerns my union. A man was telling me and my co-workers about the contract and that if we sign it, it would be a good thing but that we would be going against the rules of the company (or country) and would be in danger of going to jail. Despite the threat, in my dream I was one of a few guys who signed their paper.

My second dream was kind of weird. Me and some friends, which included Ron Weasly from the Harry Potter movies, had a small backpack filled with explosives which somehow accidently got mixed up with the backpack of a kid who was on a field trip with his class. He and his classmates were in three inflatable rafts which are tied together and drifting single file down a small creek. The teacher is in the lead raft. We are communicating with the boy who has our backpack via a walkie talkie. Ron somehow sneaks onboard the middle raft without being noticed and tells the boy, who is in the raft bringing up the rear, that "there are 75 lbs of explosives inside that laser." By laser, I think he means a flashlight or toy or something, not a real laser.

In my last dream, I find myself drving past an assortment of odd looking buildings that, from the road, look like large souvenir shops. I remember having talked to an old lady (Grandmother type) who wanted me to pick up some kind of magazine that one of the shops sells. Suddenly, I'm inside one of the shops, walking around looking at all the items on the shelves and also keeping an eye out for the magazine. The floor is uneven and I walk down a wooden ramp into one section where a woman designs, makes and sells wedding dresses. There are some magazines on a rack, but the title of the magazine is different from the one my friend wanted, so I leave them alone. The woman is in a small room or office talking to someone, and I remember wanting to hurry through there before she sees me and comes out because I'm afraid she might think I'm wanting to buy something from her. Thankfully the next section of the store has western wear, boots, etc., stuff that is more suited for men and I'm hoping that the woman will see that I'm still walking and not follow me. I'm heading for a section in the very rear of the shop when another section off to the right catched my eye because it's full of some of the most beautiful furniture I've ever seen. There is a display of circular coffee tables in the middle of the room. Each one seems to have been carved out of a single block of wood and each one is different. One has horses (bucking broncos?) which are holding up the top of the table. Another one has a train. Each table is polished to such a high gloss shine that they seem to almost be glowing. That is all I remember because that's when I woke up.