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I was at work with Ron servicing an ATM inside a building during night drops but I kept messing up so Ron started yelling at me. There were people behind us and I tried to keep my cool because I knew they were recording us. I told him stuff calmly but he kept going off. I ran away before I got in trouble for kicking his ass and saw a pretty girl walking and talking in Spanish. I talked to her and asked her for her number. She said she worked all day and didn't really use it, which made me say "You don't work ALL day," she agreed and thought about it but didn't give me her number. I said "Okay" and left. I met up another crew and started getting the drop from a safe but didn't know how to open it.

Dream
Lucidity

I was playing a combination of Dishonored and counter strike when some girl told me it was time to leave. Me and her and another guy started walking out and I subconsciously remembered about fortune cookies. I told a man to open me one and read it. He said it said "This bitch". I knew it was referring to the girl since she was being bossy. We went through an elevator and landed on the basement, which was also an airport. I talked to a girl knowing she was part of my dreams. Eventually, I got teleported to my old apartment in Venezuela. I decided to do a reality check but kept it a secret from the person I was with, who was watching tv. I checked my watch but it was normal but I knew I was in a dream.
I left the loud room and entered what was my grandma's old room and flew out the glass window. I saw a man talking to a demon and when I landed on the other side of the fence, they both looked at me and ran towards me. I ran backwards and yelled at the demon, asking what it represented, as it turned into a demonic dog. It wouldn't reply to me and it kept trying to hurt me. I knew he couldn't hurt me and I said "I give you the ability to talk!" Still, no response from the dog. Slowly, it started turning into Lucy. Its ember filled eyes turned into black eyes and Lucy was sitting there. I petted her and she played with my hand. I kept asking her what she represented but no reply came. I worried that something might have happened to her. I heard sounds coming from Victoria Avenue and grabbed a chain Lucy had on, which was attached to the gate. I went to investigate the sound and zombies were coming towards us. I yelled "Firewall!" as I moved my arm towards the zombies. I started running away but was woken up by my alarm.

I was at a church when some girl was getting kidnapped. They got in my car and drove off but I still had the keys. I ran into what looked like an office and used their phone to call 911. I called but was instead talking to some rude costumer service guy for a school. I called a few more times but it didn't work so I left back to the parking lot and used my cellphone. I told the operator about the car and what it looked like, pointing out the bumper and airforce stickers. The operator had already received plenty of calls about it. I was more worried about getting my car back than the kidnapping. As I was on the phone, some gangster looking guy said that there's a lot of snitches coming from that church so he pushed me to the ground telling me not to snitch. I then got in a fight with some guy I recognized and some cops helped me out.
I went back into the church and told people to use their phones in their cars because someone was spying on us and I saw the guy and took him outside and beat him up. I also beat up some smaller dude.

I was a security guard at a prison, but not a corrections officer. I was partnered with a girl and we would take turns with the other group in sleeping and doing rounds. I had my gear from work and I even saw my rat Meek.

Lucidity

I said "This is a dream!" and flew upwards, scaring a person in front of me. I stabilized and increased clarity while standing outside a Walgreens in the middle of the night in a place with a lot of tall walls. I entered the Walgreens and, for training, started an active shooter scenario. 3 men entered the Walgreens with assault rifles. I pulled out K83 and shot at one of the men. The bullets just went through them without doing damage so I just cancelled the scenario. I started having sex with a girl and lost lucidity, but eventually gained it back after noticing she had a weird looking vagina. I was going to test my water magic and I said "When I use water magic, it looks like water, tastes like water, and even sounds like water, purified water. There was a blind where Nikki tried to jump on but missed, causing it to get broken. Wind was coming through the window and I woke up trying to fix it.

I was in my car with Laurie driving in a suburban neighborhood that was on a hill. She was speeding and made a turn that had no exit and ended up crashing the car into a house. I got out of the car and started running, worrying that the owners of the house would come out but I went back to file an insurance claim.

I was in some room in Venezuela with my duty belt on the floor. I was keeping it a secret because I didn't want people to know about it and tell the government or have it stolen. The room then turned into a warehouse and I was with Laurie. There was a bedroom where we would stay in. I knew I was still with Desirae but she was somewhere else and we would keep in touch via text. She was freaking out cus of some stuff so she had her cousins send me mean voicemails. I got in a work van and parked it near a door so I could see who would come in and out of the warehouse.

Dream
Notes

I was playing Castle TD and the objective was to defend some eggs while they hatched. I was successful, so I went into the apartments with Laurie. Laurie was complaining because I said that I was breathing dangerous gas. I was then outside working out and doing some stuff with 2 of my cars. Nikki kept getting out of the apartment. I saw some skater kids and started talking smack to them. Moments later, cops showed up and asked me about it, me denying everything. A cop pushed a kid and he thought I did it so I took him down and cuffed him. The cops were gonna take me in so they tried cuffing me but I didn't let them. I saw that one cop was cuffed so I grabbed the other cuff and put it on another cop and ran. I ran and headed towards Rebecca's apartment, where I was going to hide, but remembered that they might look for me there. I ran towards Kayla's apartment but got the wrong one. I saw an Air Force helicopter with cops in it looking for me. I ran and got in the right apartment where I asked for help. I asked if I should turn myself in or just be a hardened criminal.

The day before, I was playing Castle TD and asked myself "I play this game quite often, I wonder why I don't have any dreams about it."
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I was watching an extra episode on the game The Walking Dead. The girl went on about how so much changed after she saved someone and got back on the boat. She then left her group, which was turning corrupt.
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I was at an agency that I've been at in one of my lucid dreams. I was picking up money and didn't know all the paperwork that had to be signed but once they asked me for the time, I noticed my watch was weird. I was about to jump up and say that I was in a dream but I didn't, in case I wasn't. I counted my fingers and counted 5 but since I was being rushed, I wasn't able to keep doing reality checks.

I was watching a video of a kid jump into some water with a GoPro. Once he made it into the water, I could see 2 big sharks or whales.

I was in some sort of school running against some people in a gym, which was pretty crowded. While running, there was a lot of things that were distracting me like eating a sandwich, talking to friends, etc. In the end, I got 3rd place and some girl was teaching me how to eat a sandwich.
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I was at a small reunion with Laurie and her friend Mitchell was there. I started picking on him and hitting him while he was cooking food. We went outside to fight and I think I hit him a few more times but then I went inside and served him some food and apologized.
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I was in Counter Strike and was killing the enemy team with an awp. Some stuff started happening about some paperwork or something.
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I was playing New Vegas and was getting mods for my game. I was also talking to Laurie. Some guy I knew was in the Marines and he got killed so I was getting him ready for the Morgue. I was talking to the person getting him ready for his casket and how he should look. I then talked with his parents on how they had to pay the guy.

I was at work and went into a sanctuary or cave with a black rock and green stuff going through it. My partner and I got ambushed by some monsters and we got beat pretty badly. We left and went to Santa Fe, where everything was different and some guy was telling us that he doesn't do business with us anymore because he found a spider in his money bag.

I was with Kristy and a few other people at my old school in Venezuela. People were bullying Kristy so I started comforting her. We left and I was with a group of people that didn't wanna go help with something. When we got outside, the sky was black but as bright as day. It looked so beautiful that I did a reality check, counting 8 fingers in one hand and looking at my watch, which was different. I didn't snap that I was dreaming and carried on. I continued and some backpacks caught on fire so I got a hose and extinguished the flames. I was telling myself I was a firefighter.

Dream
Lucidity
False Awakening

I woke up on a bed because I could hear the sound of a heavy breeze coming through an open window. The breeze sent printed pictures under the closed door to the outside of the room. I knew the breeze was telling me to go out of the room. I wondered why but all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. A powerful man's voice kept telling me I was dreaming, and that I had to go look at one of the rooms. I replied "I can't go back to the dream, it's already too late, I'm already awake." The voice replied, "You are in a dream; look at your watch," upon doing so, I realized that my watch looked normal except for the area where the date is shown was blank. I realized I was dreaming!
I calmed myself and stabilized the dream. The voice told me "Someone is waiting for you at the open door" I went out the room and down the hallway to the left. As I passed the open doors, they shut by themselves. In the third or fourth door, I saw some sort of cat run out the room. I tried talking to it but couldn't speak. I reached the end of the hallway, which opened up into a small room with an open window and very big vans outside. I turned around and saw an open door. The place was dark and I said "Light!", which made a flash of light appear. The area lit up for a few seconds. I entered a room with an open door. The room itself was a little dirty and dark. I noticed two beds and said "Light!", making the flash of light appear again. I saw a woman on one of the beds, which startled me. I walked towards what I saw was an older woman, around 50, wrinkles, but attractive, skinny and a darkish skin tone. We made introductions and she told me her name was Lisa, but that I could call her whatever I wanted. She was very vibrant and outgoing and she told me she was what I refer to as a 'Dream Guide'.
We chatted for a while and I eventually asked what the water in most of my dreams represented. She went on a long explanation about her being in prison and her being a native, and about a bear or something. I don't remember. I then asked her if the way I was woken up, with the wind, had any meaning. She smiled and said no. She started looking a lot older and my dream got blurry. I lost awareness and as I was waking up, Lisa told me I looked good at the grocery store.

Dream
Lucidity

I was on an interstate road in the middle of nowhere in NM. I was working at some sort of refinery and got freaked out when I got behind some tanks full of gas. I asked how I got there and looked at my watch. Since it was dark, I tried lighting up the watch but it didn't work. I eventually realized I was dreaming!
I counted my fingers and there were 8 in one hand. I increased clarity and stabilized the dream before thinking of exploding one of the tanks full of gas. I remembered I don't use fire magic so I looked around and saw a door leading underground. Upon trying the door, I found out it was locked so I reached into my pocket for a key. As I was doing that, the door opened on its own. I went down the stairs and opened more doors, some of them looking like the doors in the game fallout. The area was dark, so I said "Increase brightness!", which only helped a little. I rose my right hand and said "Light", which made a small orb of light appear, lighting the area as if I were holding a torch. I moved the light in front of my eyes, which hurt them because the light was so bright. I cancelled the light and reached for the flashlight on my belt. I lit up a few spots around the room, wondering if there would be monsters around. I decided to hover and passed through floors, purposely getting stuck in some of them.
Once I reached the top, I decided to let go and I fell and fell and fell until I hit the floor, which didn't hurt. I walked through the building and saw 2 Mario characters. I came up on a cave-like room with grass and water. I decided to ask one of the Mario characters what the water represented, which lead to a stupid response that I knew was fake. I said "Yeah, whatever" and walked away. I looked at my watch, which was showing time normally. Upon looking at it closer, I notice that the day was moving long with the seconds. I decided to do something to upgrade my max lucidity so I tried summoning a water orb between my hands but it didn't work and slowly started to wake up.

Ritual: WTB 1am, woke 4:20am, got up and read, drank spice lassi (yogurt, water, turmeric, cumin, salt), did 12 minutes seated meditation incorporation SSILD technique before returning to bed at 5:50am. Before going to bed I affirmed several times, "I vow to lucid dream," reflecting on how a vow is much more serious than an intention, a little nervous that I might inadvertantly break my vow, but reminding myself that I didn't dare, failing to go through on an intention is one thing, but you're never supposed to break your vows. I wanted to avoid supplements for the most part as that hasn't helped much lately, but I did use a few drops of Calea Zacatechichi tincture, because although I can't say for sure if it actually works, I thought the distinctive taste might contribute a useful placebo effect. I lay on my back in bed and did a series of tension-relaxation exercises, then cycled in random order through several affirmations ("I am aware / I do / I dream"). Drifted off, woke up a little, realized it was getting too bright out and my mind felt sufficiently wakeful that this might be an obstacle to sleep, so I put on my sleep mask (a device of last resort as I don't like wearing it), turned on my left side, and continued the affirmations until I fell asleep. I got a lot of distinct hypnagogic imagery and sounds every time I started to drift off, but I did not feel the physical signs of transition.

WILD, Part 1: I woke up again, thinking I might have transitioned successfully, and got out of bed. I could still distinctly feel myself wearing the sleep mask so I wondered if I was really dreaming, but realized that since it wasn't obstructing my vision, then I must be. I was tempted to rip off the mask but decided to just ignore it, and soon the sensations disappeared for the duration of the dream. Now that I was sure I was dreaming, I wanted to get started right away on my tasks. I reached behind me for my wand, a gesture familiar from a few years ago when I had been playing a lot with Harry Potter style magic. I got used the idea that my wand was sheathed just behind my right hip, so I could just reach back there at any time to draw it. However, this time I came up empty-handed. I realized that this was probably because, having just gotten out of bed, I wasn't wearing any clothes. Nevermind, I can work on that task later. By this time I'm in the kitchen, so it should be an easy matter to procure some fortune cookies!

I walk toward the kitchen counter, expecting to find a bag of fortune cookies ready to hand. Sure enough, there is a clear plastic bag right where I expect, but as I reach for it I see that it contains... what are those, pierogies? I laugh because they look almost like fortune cookies and are anything but, and it is just like dream to bait and switch this way. I pick up the bag and reach into it anyway, focusing my expectations around pulling out a proper fortune cookie, and by the time my hand closes around something, I can tell that it is falling into line: it has the dry smooth surface, distinctive shape and ridges of a fortune cookie. I pull it out and break it in half to get the fortune. I remember that I'm supposed to eat the cookie too, so I start nibbling at it while extracting the fortune, which was wedged inside the cookie in a crumpled up wad. As I smooth it, I see that the little strip of paper is covered with what looks like dabs of herb butter mixed with little shreds of nori seaweed, a kind of east-west fusion of ingredients. I'm disappointed to see that there is no writing on the paper at all, just the seasonings.

No problem, the bag contains several cookies. I'll just get another. I try again, and fortunately the next cookie contains a larger slip of paper, one that comes out properly this time and contains actual text—quite a lot of text actually, four or five lines of it. I start to read it, murmuring aloud to help fix it in memory. It starts something like: "And earth her allies rift..." It goes on from there, not making much sense, and worse, by the time I get to the second line the first one is already changing, now "her allies" looks like it has been replaced by something in German, "die Beile."

(Weird, according to my German dictionary app "die Beile" means "axes, hatchets." I've studied a bit of German, which is why I have the app, but I'm not aware that I've ever learned that word and didn't even know if it was a real one until I looked it up.)

I continue reading the fortune, and by the time I get to the end the first line has changed again even more, and I'm pretty sure so has everything else. I realize this is somewhat hopeless, the fortune was so long that it would have been hard enough to remember even if it were static, much less track all the changes, so I just determine to remember the part that I read initially, since I think I can keep at least this much in working memory: "And earth her allies rift."

By this point the fortune has transformed into a large plastic wrapper like the sort that might have wrapped a whole box of cookies, and as I continue to look at it, I'm surprised by how much additional text is written on the side in small print: mundane details like the address of the manufacturer, etc. I see a date, "1945," and note that the place of manufacture is San Francisco, which makes sense (wasn't the fortune cookie invented there?) but by now the date has already changed to "1929."

FA: Around this time I wake up and grab the notebook I keep next to the bed to start writing things down. Something's wrong, though: even though I normally open it to a blank page before sleeping, it is now open to a page wholly printed with graphics resembling some type of manga. I don't remember the notebook having graphics! I flip through to find a blank page quickly while my memories are fresh, but all the white pages are already filled with previous notes, and they are interspersed with the manga pages, like a cross between a notebook and a graphic novel. I find a space of blank color on one of the manga images, just enough room to scribble, "and earth her allies rift," but then I feel guilty about spoiling the drawing. I don't even remember what the story is, but if I write all over it I might end up regretting it.

While I'm still trying to figure out where to put down the rest of my notes, my husband comes into the room carrying two boxes wrapped in paper, like presents. Apparently this is some new game that has just arrived that he wants to play together, a console game. I remember him telling me about it earlier: the plot has something to do with cartoonish kids and their gorilla allies. It seems that the game can only be played in two-person mode, so he has come in to try to wake me up. I'm still lying in bed, so he sets the two boxes down right on top of me and starts to rip off the paper wrapping. The boxes are cubes measuring about a foot on each side, and at first I wonder why they are so large, but as he tears off the paper I can see from the box art that they contain individual devices like Playstation controllers.

Although I do want to play the game at some point, I'm annoyed at this disruption because I was in the middle of a lucid dream attempt! After jotting down my notes I had been planning to try to re-enter the dream state. However, I already vaguely suspect that this might not be a real awakening because everything seems so exaggerated, from the problems with my notebook to my husband's rude attempt to wake me. He may not share my hobby, but he's aware of it, and would be unlikely to disturb me while I'm still sleeping, much less set boxes on me! This remains only a suspicion, and I don't become fully aware of the fact that I'm still dreaming. Rather, I conclude only that I'm still on the verge of it, since I can still feel the heaviness and tingling in my limbs that lets me know that I can probably re-enter the dreamstate once this distraction has diminished. So I quietly grumble at my husband until he leaves, careful to keep calm and not lose my temper since that could wake me up too much and make it impossible to to return to the dream. After he goes out of the room, I get myself settled in the bed again and prepare to re-transition. This is amusing in retrospect because evidently I was fully dreaming the whole time—I had the impression that I was DEILDing back into the dream, but obviously if this had been a real awakening DEILD would have been impossible after such a chaotic interlude! When I felt confident I was dreaming again, I got back out of bed.

WILD, Part 2: Having done fortune cookies, I thought I should put all my focus now into completing the Patronus TOTM. Once more I reach for my wand and once again come up empty-handed. No matter, I've used a chopstick as a wand before with great success, and I keep a jar of those right on the kitchen counter, so I walk up to it and pluck a nice sturdy one. Although the jar is mostly full of delicately-pointed Japanese chopsticks, I choose a sturdier one of the Chinese type, cut half-square and half-round. It looks just like one of my real chopsticks, from a simple and practical set I acquired many years ago in Nonthaburi because I didn't know I was supposed to give them back to the door-to-door noodle vendor, and it feels comfortable and familiar in my hand.

I figure that it would be most appropriate to summon a Patronus if there were a real threat, but I don't want to over-complicate things by going to look for one. I reason that since my husband was annoying me just now with the boxes and almost woke me up, this could serve as a sufficient stand-in. So I find him in the living room, point the wand toward him and say firmly, "Expecto Patronum!" I hear an audible "pop" like something bursting but see no change in the visual field. I try again and nothing happens at all. I strengthen my resolve, try a third time, and... what is that?... I look closer... it's... moths! The air between us where I was aiming the wand is now occupied with a cloud of small shimmering moths!

I'm delighted with these results because they were so unexpected. I figured my Patronus would turn out to be something predictable like a type of animal I like, maybe a cat or an owl or a raven or even a horse, but moths had never crossed my mind! However, I had intentionally left the form of the Patronus unspecified, because I was hoping the dream would collaborate with me creatively and come up with something interesting and unanticipated, and in this respect it fulfilled its role splendidly.

Moths! I would never have consciously arrived at this solution, but now it makes perfect sense: I am very much a night person, after all, and these are definitely night moths. I watch them for a few moments, entranced by the glitter and sparkle of their silver bodies in flight. They are relatively small, with wingspans of roughly three-quarters of an inch, but there is a whole cloud of them, many dozens filling an area several feet on either side. Although we are indoors, they appear to be illuminated by moonlight. It is incredibly beautiful. And they've fulfilled the function of a Patronus, it seems, in that they have averted the "threat" (such as it was) and completely defused the tension in the room. My husband is watching them too, and appears just as enchanted with them as I am.

After admiring the moths for a while, I notice a rabbit on the living room floor. It is wonderfully well-articulated, closely resembling Dürer's famous drawing of a hare. (Probably WLR because I briefly saw that drawing yesterday.) Since I'm still holding the wand, I figure I might as well try out another HP spell. I recall that there's one that ends with "leviosa," and although I can't remember the first word, I figure it is unimportant because clearly "leviosa" is the operative term. So I point the wand at the hare and say, "Leviosa!" Sure enough, it rises right off the ground into the air. I set it back down and pet it fondly.

I now feel satisfied that I have accomplished both the tasks I had intended, and I know I should wake up now and write promptly before I forget any details. But the dream is going so well, so clear and stable and responsive... it would be a shame to leave it so soon... I give in to the temptation to take a quick look outside, just for a minute, before coming back in to wake up and begin my report.

Walking back through the kitchen, I open the screen door to the back patio. Sometimes my WILDs become more unstable after I leave the house, probably in large part because I've developed the expectation that this can happen, but in this case I plan to wake up soon anyway, so I walk outside without hesitation.

It only takes a step or two before the environment no longer resembles my backyard. I encounter a group of four DCs, a mix of men and women who appear to be in their twenties. They begin to approach or accost me in a vaguely threatening manner. I try the Patronus charm again, but it is not as effective this time: the cloud of moths is much smaller and the DCs appear unimpressed. I'm not sure if I actually see them holding wands, or only rationalize that they might be, but I figure this would be the perfect opportunity to try another HP spell. "Expelliamus!" I shout, aiming at the guy on the far left. Sure enough, his wand jumps right out of his hand toward me, and I catch it neatly. You'd think this would give the others enough warning to prepare their defenses, and indeed they seem to be scrambling to try, but I promptly disarm them all using the same technique.

I walk on a little further, and encounter a few more DCs sitting on a low brick wall and chatting. The initial four have followed me, and I get the impression that the new ones are their friends. I wonder if they are going to retaliate at me for having taken all their wands, so try the Patronus charm yet again: "Expecto Patronum!" This time only a scattering of moths appear, a half dozen or less. I feel a bit embarrassed at this poor showing. "It must be out," I muse, wondering if the wand can only conjure a limited number of moths in a given interval.

Nevermind, I've got more tricks in my arsenal, and I want to intimidate these DCs so they'll back off. I wonder if I can levitate the whole group of people? "Leviosa!" I command, trying to make them all rise in the air at once. It doesn't work, and I speculate that maybe this is like game mechanics, where it is easier to perform such effects on simple creatures like animals, but harder on a more intelligent creature like a person, since they get a free roll to resist. I think it over and decide, well, maybe so, but... I have all the wands! Their combined power should be enough to counter any resistance. Is it possible to use more than one wand simultaneously to cast a spell? Only one way to find out!

Standing in the center of the DCs, who form a ring around me, I levitate myself initially—partly to cement the idea of levitation more firmly in mind, and partly because some of them look like they might want to make a grab at me at any minute. Hovering in the air just above them, I arrange all the wands together in my right hand so that I am gripping them evenly, and try again: "Leviosa!" This time I am pleased to see the whole circle of people around me—about six or seven now I think, the initial group plus their friends—rise simultaneously several feet into the air until they are almost even with my own level. They all look discomfited and alarmed by this change of circumstances, so to reassure them that I mean no real harm I let them sink gently back down to the ground and come down as well myself, satisfied with the results of my experiment.

I decide to stop fooling around now and go back into the house to write my report. It seems dream logic has made me forget that I can just wake up whenever I want to, I don't actually have to go back bodily into the house and manually start writing. But as I turn to go, one of the girls who has returned to her seat on the brick wall yells something hostile and sarcastic after me. I figure she's upset over my levitation stunt, so I decide to use friendliness to try to transform her attitude. I walk right up to her and, maybe taking "friendliness" a little too far, kiss her on the lips. Although she just looks startled and confused now, I smile warmly and say with genuine affection, "See you later!"

Returning to what I think must be the spot where I came out of the building, I go back inside. Just in case the DCs are still feeling miffed and try to follow me in, I lock and bolt the heavy door behind me. This is no longer the sliding screen door to my kitchen, but a large and solidly made wooden door with numerous locking mechanisms. I'm not sure if I came in the right door at all, because when I turn around I see that I'm in what looks like a nineteenth-century boiler room: it is full of heavy, old-fashioned machinery. Nevermind, I'm sure I can find the entrance to my kitchen just a little further on, so I'll go through and look for it.

As I pass by some of the machines, I marvel at their intricacy and the clarity with which I can perceive how they are constructed. I pass one machine that has a cylindrical body like an old stove. Although it is made out of solid black cast iron, there is a primitive electric cord incongruously coming out of it, so I figure it must be from a period of technological transition in the late nineteenth century. The electricity is driving some kind of rotating grinder that is hidden in the upper part of the cast iron body under a round upper plate, and with a flash of insight I think I know what this is: it must be a mill of some kind! But what is it grinding? I look at it a little longer and see a lower basin, also cast iron, positioned below the cylindrical body to catch drippings of some kind: the drippings resemble hot slag, semi-melted metal. Whatever this thing is milling, it is definitely not flour!

I continue to make my way through the room, dodging complex pieces of shaped metal and machinery that crowd around closely on all sides, but when I get to the far wall I'm disconcerted to find that there's no door. How am I going to get back into my house? Although there seems to be no exit in the walls other than the door I came in, the ceiling is so far overhead as to be out of sight, and I observe that this is less a room than a vertical shaft filled with industrial machinery all the way up, so I begin to levitate and rise through the lattice of metal bars. When I get about three storeys up I see in the wall what looks like the worn wooden cover of a hatch, arched on the top and with a flat base. There is no handle and it looks like it would be too small to crawl through comfortably, but I figure I can make a portal in the wall here to pass through.

Aiming my wand at the wall, I intend for a portal to form in the location of the hatch. Although nothing appears that I would recognize as a portal, the wall changes, the area in front of me becoming transparent, and just a few feet beyond I see a vertical transparent sheet of glass, apparently the wall of a neighboring building, a modern glass-walled high-rise. Directly across from me through the glass, I see what looks like the interior of a cafe, the sort of place the people who work in this building might stop for coffee or a snack on their lunch hour. It is dark inside and empty of customers, as it is nighttime, but I notice with mild alarm that several cops are running through the cafe and aiming guns at me! They seem very deliberate, as though this was a sting operation directed at stopping me. If they shoot, they'll surely break the glass and then I'll be exposed.

I consider making the first move and breaking the glass myself to engage them, but I don't feel like getting into combat. I point my wand toward the cops with the intention of creating some kind of protective barrier between us, but I don't see any change and can't tell if this is successful. I decide to just get out of here. Making another portal directly in front of me seems like a bad idea, because the cops might shoot at any moment, so I get a bit creative and make the portal directly under my feet—all this time I have been hovering in the air, after all—and then I take what feels like a leap of faith and simply let myself fall directly into it. Would any pursuers be able to follow? As I fall, I decide that probably the best course at this point is to let the portal lead me to waking, and so I transition from feeling as though I'm falling through a round tunnel of undefined space to waking up in my bed and scrambling to start taking notes before the memories fade.

It's interesting how clear and stable my dream memory remains—even of such a complex series of episodes—for as long as I am still dreaming, and it is only on waking that the whole fabric begins to thin and fray unless it is captured immediately. Fortunately there were no problems with my notebook this time so I jotted down the key details quickly by hand and then spent the next hour and a half typing up my full draft of the report while the memories were still fresh in mind. I don't mind devoting the time (and sacrificing the sleep) for it when the dreaming is so good!