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Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Well, I'm getting pretty tired of not having decent lucids, so I'm going back to the constantly-RC method. I'll keep trying WILDs here and there cuz they're so much better when they work, but I'm not getting them to work consistently enough for me.

Since an important part of DILD is dream recall, I thought I had better write down what I remember of last night.

I wasn't actually in the dream; it was like a mental movie. There was a guy (I think his name was Martin) who was staying in a room at his girlfriend's house because he had no job and no money. The gf was some sort of psychiatrist or something like that, and was trying to get Martin a job with her, but he needed specific training before he could. So he got the details, packed what little he had, and headed off to different locations for the training.

It wasn't but a day after he left that his gf got a phone call from her boss. "You may want to tell Martin to look elsewhere." She said. "We've found someone for the job." Martin's gf was shocked. "And this person has all the necessary training for the position?" She asked. "Well...no." Boss replied. "Actually, she has no training at all. But she's got what it takes; you just have to see her with a patient! I think she'll end up teaching us, not the other way around." Now the gf was really distressed. Not only had the spot for Martin been filled contrary to previous plans, and he was getting training he couldn't afford without getting the job as well, but it was all happening for someone with no training! After a brief silence, the boss added, "You should probably meet her. Could I send her over to your place tomorrow? I think it would be a nicer place for a chat than at the office." "Uh, yeah...sure."

Next thing I know, the scene 'cut' to a different person. It was yet another girl (pretty sweet way to dream, right?) who lurked in the shadows (ok maybe not) and was watching Martin's girlfriend's boss at her desk. At first there were other people there, talking to her, but as soon as they all left, the lurker woman walked out and started speaking in commands. "You will not hire the new girl. You will tell her there has been a mistake and she cannot work here." As she spoke, the boss's eyes seemed to roll back in her head and black streaks appeared in both of them, swirling around. I could tell the boss was being controlled. But fortunately, the newcomer appeared just then. She was a pretty brunette that wore glasses; nothing at all like the other, rather dumpy people in the dream. "Let her go!" The newcomer shouted. Her words seemed to throw the evil woman back with a force, and she ran off first chance she got. The boss's eyes returned to normal. "What was that?" The boss asked. "I was totally unable to control myself!" "I don't know," the newcomer replied, "but I don't think we've seen the end of this one."

Again the scene 'cut' to a different location; this time a public phone in a train station. Martin was calling his gf. I can't remember all their dialogue, but she told him about the job no longer being available, and meeting with the newcomer the next day. She said that the whole thing sounded weird, and if possible, she would try to convince the boss not to hire the new girl because of her lack of experience. But still, it wasn't much comfort to Martin. He knew that without a job, he was financially screwed.

It was the following day, then, and the newcomer was knocking at the door of Martin's gf. She was suddenly in an apartment now instead of a house. "Come in." The reply to the knock came. But it wasn't Martin's gf's voice. The newcomer opened the door, and found Martin's gf standing there, motionless, black swirls in her eyes. Next to her was the evil woman. "Now you listen to me." The evil woman said. Martin's gf robotically spoke the same words at the same time; it was like their brains had been connected, and the evil woman's was the dominant of the two. "Do what I say, or she <Martin's gf> dies." The newcomer was strangely able to resist the mind-controlling power of the evil woman. "You don't have to live this way." She told the evil woman. "I can help you." The evil woman laughed, which also made Martin's motionless girlfriend laugh in an emotionless and robotic tone. The two laughs combined were chilling. "Help me? I'm doing this for you." The newcomer raised a single eyebrow in confusion at the evil woman's saying. "I'm doing this for her!" She continued, pointing at Martin's gf. But then something really weird happened. The evil woman looked not just in my direction as the spectator, but at me, even though I wasn't there. I could feel my real body for a moment, but then it got sucked in, and I was standing in that apartment room, also motionless and unable to move of my own accord. "I'm doing it...for him!" I then felt my eyes rolling back into my head, unstoppably, and black swirls began to cover my vision. But then I heard the newcomer start panicking. "No! Don't!" She cried. "He controls the dream; if you control him, you'll kill us all! We can't exist without him being the one in control!" The evil woman snapped back (the gf still saying all of her words at the same time: "Idiot! We'll stop existing as soon as he wakes up!" Then I felt myself uncontrollably begin to say the same things as the evil woman as well. "If I take control of him, we can continue existing forever! None of us have to die! I'm saving us all!" But at the same time as the evil woman was talking, I was thinking about what the newcomer had said about it being a dream. Pretty soon, I realized...it was a dream! Summoning all my energy into one panicked move, I thrust my head forward, said, "Not today!" (which the gf said at the same time as me, this time) and with one jerk of my head (the only thing I could move), I broke the dream like a pane of glass, and woke myself up.

Such a weird, weird concept...a DC being afraid of dying, and thereby attempting to take control of my mind so I wouldn't wake up?? I don't think I want to dwell on that one...

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Had an interesting experience last night. I may have discovered a sleeping position that significantly increases my chance of lucid dreaming.

As some of you know, I've been attempting for some time now to WILD right from going to bed rather than employing WBTB. Last night I finally did it, and this is how: by laying down completely flat on my face. I propped up my forehead and chest with two pillows so that I wouldn't suffocate, and then put my arms to my sides and began the WILD attempt. Surprisingly, I didn't hear or see much during the entry. For a brief second I felt a tingly feeling, but I completed my attention-switching at that moment so my bodily sensations were no longer being registered. Then the darkness of my eyelids seemed to expand far beyond my field of vision. The blackness took on a depth despite the fact that it was all dark and there was not really anything to give it depth.

And then I saw a tower. It was a purple-y color, as all of my beginning hypnagogic hallucinations are. I was looking down at it from above, and slowly drawing nearer to it. Whether I was moving towards it or it was moving towards me I do not know, but my mind got the cue, and I thought, "Oh! It's time to enter the dream now!" I then was rushed downward, past the building, into further blackness.

Next thing I know, I'm standing up in my room next to my bed. "That's weird, I don't remember standing up." I thought. "Better do an RC just in case." I pinched my nose several times, putting it in between several different sets of knuckles so that I knew I couldn't possibly duplicate the action in real life (if I were dreaming) and thereby ruin the RC. Every time, I was able to breath just fine. "Woah, that's cool! It's a dream!"

Even though I was fully lucid by this point, my mind was strangely unclear; it was like after so many failures at WILDing directly after going to bed, it was surprised to have succeeded and didn't exactly know how to handle it.

I could think of none of my goals. As I thought, I idly moved my hand past my shoulder...and it warped. I remembered my first attempt at shape-shifting in a lucid dream, and how far I'd come with dream control since then. I thought I'd go for it again and see how it went. There was absolutely no problem this time; I never lost the dream from shape-shifting, nor did it seem to fade or cause me to lose lucidity. So I turned myself into various people: video game characters, movie heroes...and I even switched genders a couple times (which was a very weird feeling indeed ). I didn't do it all at once, either. I treated my dream body like a 3D model that I could reshape and recolor at will, which seemed much more enjoyable than just declaring myself to be a different person and finding it to happen exactly as I say.

My success, however, would prove to be the loss of my dream. I got excited thereafter, so I threw open the nearest door and ran through whatever fantasy world was on the other side. My dad was there, and talking to me about stuff I can't remember anymore. I replied back, but with the intention of actually speaking out loud. This is another place where my mind was unclear. In the dream, I thought my dad was actually there next to my bed in real life, talking to me, and I was hearing it in the dream, and responding to him with my real voice even though I was completely asleep. It's an interesting concept and probably possible in the right circumstance, but this was not the right circumstance. I never figured out that it was completely impossible for my dad to be there since the door was locked and he couldn't have gotten in if he wanted to.

After I was done talking to my dad, I realized my excitement had caused the dream to slip a bit, so I rubbed my hands before going on. But the damage had already been done; I was losing lucidity. I tried to summon people and objects and it didn't work. Further attempts began to weaken the dream's clarity. Before long, I was not lucid any more. All I recall of the dream after losing lucidity is discovering that I had a huge range of notes that I could hit with my singing voice.

Kind of a weird lucid dream for me. How I got into it was unusual, my mental state during it was unusual, and what I did was unusual. Oh well. At least I had another WILD! It wasn't nearly as good having it right off the bat, but it was still better than 90% of my DILDs in terms of feeling real. I'd sure rather WILD like this every night than spend all day RCing just to get a couple half-decent LDs a week.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Well, my version of spring break this year was to take a short vacation, during which I managed to keep myself from getting on the internet and just relax and totally stay away from normal life for a while. And now it's over, and now I'm back!

During my time away from home, I managed to have a couple lucid dreams. They were not very clear or long, but my level of dream control was excellent in both, so it was still an enjoyable ride.

Dream 1: I found myself in a large mansion back in the middle ages, chasing after a villain for reasons unknown to me. I'm not sure why, but all of a sudden it was like something clicked in my mind and I realized I was dreaming! The chase fled my mind and I turned to flying around and using telekinesis and whatever else I could find to do in such an old, interesting place. Eventually, though, the villain found his way to me, so we had a sword fight that I easily won thanks to all the flying and the powers. I never killed the guy, but his sword was out of his hand and mine was at his throat as I woke up.

Dream 2: From the beginning, I knew that I was dreaming, and yet that realization wasn't strong enough from the beginning to allow me to form the dream. What I got was a futuristic world where racing through high-speed, high-danger tracks was the sport to end all sports. I was a racer, and I had a girlfriend who also raced. We were in a worldwide championship; everyone had their eyes on us, and if we did well for them, we'd have it made for life. Once I sat in the seat of one of those cars (which looked a great deal like this) I began paying attention to the controls and really went lucid. Of course, due to the lucidity, I did very well and won the race by a long shot. It was interesting being so famous for a race, so I didn't think of changing the dream.

The next several races saw me win more and more, and my girlfriend do well at first, and then lose once completely. I comforted her as I would a real person, but it didn't work. She was so upset that she stormed off and seemed to disappear outside the room. I had no time to think about it, since someone came into the room immediately afterward to escort me to the next race.

We rode on a hovering tram through the air, coming towards an entire city that was one big race track. it was a circular city with track wound all around in it like a bowl of spaghetti, piling up far above the walls around the base. A spire stuck up even higher than the tracks with a glass circular room at the top for spectators. The end result was a city that was basically shaped like a cone. Everything but the road itself was made of a shiny steel, which glistened brightly in the sunrise as I approached my biggest race yet.

After looking out the window, I turned and opened up a suitcase. A new uniform was in it, designed to match the colors of my redesigned car. "Woah, this looks expensive. I wish I could wear this thing around in real life!" I said. "What did you say?" My dream girlfriend asked as she walked in. "Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud. How are you doing? I haven't seen you for a while." I replied. "About that..." the dream gf began hesitantly. "You were right about what you said back there. I was just mad about losing the race, but I should have realized that you were right all along. I'm sorry." We made out--I mean, made up, and then I went out to race...only to end up waking up.

So yes indeed, I'm still lucid dreaming, and I fully intend to resume reality checking and attempting WILDs so I can have clearer and better lucid dreams once again very soon!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Dream recall wasn't the best last night...I remember a couple dreams that came late in the sleeping part of the morning, but the early dreams are totally lost on me, which isn't good because that's usually where my lucids are.

But oh well, here's what I remember:

Dream 1: I was running on a track and jumping hurdles, like in an olympic competition.

Such a boring and pointless dream, IMO...I'm not a runner, and I don't have a desire to be, so why I would dream this is beyond me

Dream 2: I was running (lots of running last night...that must mean something) from someone. I don't know who or why I had to run away, but I was. And I was in a suit and wearing a top-hat. A midget DC told me to hurry and follow him down a hole because it was the safest place, so I followed. Immediately I started to slip and slide and fall down the pit. Tt was too dark for me to see anything, but fortunately I was wearing infrared goggles all of a sudden, so I switched them on. (They really made things look like infrared goggles in real life do!) What I saw through the goggles was like a cave made out of membranes...at first I thought I was being swallowed by some huge alien, but then I slid down onto rocks and figured otherwise. I switched off the goggles because it seemed I was unable to stop my descent, and I honestly would rather not know where I was going, considering I'd probably be dead when I hit the bottom. The darkness caused me to lose my sense of direction, then. Down was up and left was right and...it was so confusing! And I was always sliding. Fast, but in a constantly changing direction. I turned the goggles back on a couple times just because I couldn't fight curiosity, but it didn't really help me reorient myself. It kind of made it worse to have a visual disorientation too, actually.

Eventually I woke up from that, but I can't remember where. Another dumb dream, anyway. I wonder what's up with all the running, though...

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

IIIIIIIIIIII'M BACK!

Finally managed to lose that nasty cold, so I'm back into lucid dreaming now! And what a good start it was, too! After no RCing, no real attempting to go lucid, no studying lucid dreams for a couple weeks, I managed to go lucid on my first night of returning!

The world was covered in snow and war. I was living with multiple other war-ravaged citizens in a house that was protected by several fences. There were people protecting the place, but they were just barely successful. Enough enemies made it through to make just leaving the house a dangerous act. Going outside the first fence was life-threatening. Going beyond the second fence was suicide. The third and fourth fences had been damaged to the point of being little good. Unreal Tournament 3 vehicles were everywhere, particularly the Necris ones. There was constant noise of gunfire.

Inside the house, all we could do was watch, wait, and try to think up an escape plan. There was a device in our possession that contained important enemy plans and information. We knew it was only a matter of time before the house would be captured, but we didn't plan to be there when it happened. Every time we'd gather around and suggest possible escape plans, someone would discover a fatal problem with the idea and we'd come up empty handed (or empty-minded, as it were).

Well, the house's heater broke that day, and it fell to me to go and fix it. One of the girls that was also taking refuge in the house had become my girlfriend during our time there, so she tagged along to give me some company. We headed down the stairs to the old house's basement and into a room filled with machinery. Most of it was functioning, but sure enough, the furnace was dead. We talked and she handed me whatever tools I needed as I went about my work. I realized how much I valued her right then. Even in the middle of war, we could make a cheerful conversation and truly not be afraid simply because we had each other. Just after this realization hit me, the furnace kicked back into action and began heating the place again. My gf clapped and we headed upstairs.

Then the dream went into 'spectator mode' and I saw a normal guy who was guarding the house outside the fence suddenly transform into a red version of the Green Goblin from Spiderman! And I could feel his intentions change from guarding the house to destroying it.

Back in myself, in the house, my gf and I had just come up the stairs to hear everyone talking about the Red Goblin. We didn't know why, but we knew he was coming, and we had to defend ourselves. No sooner was I told this than Red burst inside. Everyone panicked, and for good reason too. I watched in horror as he tore the throat of anyone who was in his way and then knocked them away with a single blow. I grabbed my gf, pulled her into a nearby closet, and then closed the door. "What are we going to do?" She whispered. I fumbled around in the darkness until I found the flashlight that I knew was there. Once the light was on, I pointed it in the corner. A trap door was visible. "We're going to go outside." I replied. "It's too late to save everyone now, we just have to save ourselves." One more moment of listening to the screaming coming from outside the closet and she knew I was right. We crawled into the trapdoor and through the little passageway until finally we made it to the other end...which led us right outside into the snow.

"Look! There he is!" My gf shouted, pointing. I looked, and sure enough, the Red Goblin was leaving the building. He had something in his hand. Zooming in (with my eyes), I saw it to be the device with all the enemy plans! As soon as I zoomed back out, I saw my gf running over to the body of a fallen soldier. She grabbed his weapons, tossed one to me, and started running. "Wait!" I shouted as I ran after her. "No, don't follow him! You'll be killed!" But she wouldn't stop. A bomb shell flew down right in front of me and threw me backwards, face down into the snow, and by the time I got back up, neither the Red Goblin nor my gf was in sight. I ran until I got to the fence and then peeked over. Still no sign of either one of them. That meant they were beyond the second fence, in the hottest part of the battle.

Something in my heart screamed for my gf then. Suddenly I abandoned all sense of personal safety and decided I was going to bring her back to safety if I had to fight every enemy soldier alone. I was not going to let her die! So I jumped over the first fence, ran past several vehicles and soldiers who were exchanging fire, and then jumped over the second fence. Immediately, someone in a Scavenger vehicle started shooting at me. I dove and rolled out of the way and then came back up just in time to deliver a headshot to the enemy soldier. Before anything else could happen, I pushed him out of the cockpit and took over.

As I started driving off, something weird happened. I didn't RC or anything...I just suddenly realized something. "Hey!" I said. "This is a dream! Well, that means I don't need to go save her, then. I can just turn around, and she'll be there!" I turned around, and she wasn't there. I forgot to RC or rub hands, so my level of dream control wasn't the best. I didn't think to totally change the dream, but honestly I didn't want to anyway; I thought things were pretty cool as they were. "Oh well. At least I know she'll be alive, since I can decide that!" And off I went back to the first fence, taking down enemies left and right. I decided I would find my gf outside the first fence, and she would have the device with her. This time, my decision worked. I found her right where I expected to, and she did have the device. She was very badly wounded, though, and couldn't stand up. She was leaning against the fence, sitting on the ground.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She said as I jumped out of the scavenger and ran over to her. "I just wanted to help stop the war...I didn't want this to happen." "You're not going to die." I said gently. "How do you know?" She replied, a tear forming in her eye. "Because..." I reached up and touched a bloody spot on her face, and healed it. "...I won't let you." I then healed all of her wounds, picked her up, and flew off into the air. "Where are we going?" She asked. "Somewhere safe." I replied. And that's exactly where we went; I didn't stop flying until I came to a house far, far away from the war and snow. "Wait here." I told her. "I have one more thing I need to take care of. I just wanted to make sure you were safe." We hugged briefly, and then I flew back into the heat of battle.

As I entered the snowy area again, I watched for the Red Goblin. It wasn't long before I saw him going along on a hoverboard. I yelled to distract him, then dove down and ran right into him, knocking him clean off his hoverboard. We then engaged in an epic duel, mainly using pyrokinesis to fight each other. Of course I couldn't be burned because I knew that the fire didn't exist. Unfortunately, I didn't see how the battle ended, however, because I shortly thereafter woke up.

This lucid dream brought to you by Confidence Induced Lucid Dream. I did not RC during the day or anything like that because I'm not in the habit of it right now due to my recent cold. I simply believed I would have a lucid dream, and I did!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

I'm surprised I didn't go lucid last night, honestly. I'm not real close to being over my cold yet though, so my brain probably was still just thinking like a brain does when it's on medicine.

But anyway, here is what I remember of my dreams from last night:

Dream 1: I was just walking around my house one evening like it was a normal day, when this Evanescence song popped into my head. I started whistling it, and before long attempting to emulate the sound of various instruments, too. Only the funny thing was, it was hardly emulation because I could match the sound of the instruments perfectly! Of course it was only a matter of time before I figured out how to sing in multiple voices while still doing instruments too...it was a weird feeling, yet somehow it felt fully possible.

I love musical dreams...the only problem is that you can never remember the sound of it when you wake up.

Dream 2: I wasn't personally there; just spectating. And what I saw was a girl. She was running for her life. Her outfit was white and in the style of an Elf's (like in Lord of the Rings), but I could tell she was human. And apparently she could, too. As I moved in closer, I began to hear her thoughts: "Where...not far enough." She continued running, but I gathered that what she meant by that fragment of a thought was that simply running couldn't save her. "A wall!" As I heard this thought, a great stone wall rose out of the ground directly behind her. "Not high enough." A chasm could be seen just ahead. "An obstacle!" She jumped across the gap and landed on the other side without difficulty. "Not hard enough." As she continued to run I could sense her growing fear and hopelessness. "Nothing I do is enough to escape him!" Next thing I know, I was no longer spectating, and I was that girl! And that made her problem my problem. So I thought about other methods of escape. The idea to fly came to mind. Perhaps that would be the solution! So I ran up a hill (as this girl, remember), jumped off, and turned into an eagle.

Next thing I know, I'm in a false awakening, but still as this girl. That lasted only a few moments, though.

Maybe it was just the Nyquil, but that second one seems to have a lot of symbolism to it. Maybe not. I still can't think well enough to tell...

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Well, I've been off the past few days due to the worst cold I've had in a long time, but hopefully I'll be able to get back into lucid dreaming fairly quick (right now all sleep is for restoration and I can't give my brain a work-out anyway), and for now I can at least participate in the forums a bit.

But as this IS my dream journal, I'm going to mark down an interesting dream I had last night:

I found myself a few years in the past, editing a movie a friend and I made (IRL). Things were very detailed; I noticed what Windows XP theme was being used, the individual transitions in Windows Movie Maker, and even film grain and the like.

Next thing I know it's the present day, and I'm re-editing that video with better special effects and such, as an anniversary edition or something. That went on for a little while, but pretty soon I was in a different place entirely.

All I saw were monitors in front of me, like in a security camera room. And I--the me that was asleep in my bed--was on them! I had gone to bed (IRL) sitting up against the wall so as to keep the pressure and congestion in my head to a minimum. On the largest of all the screens, I saw a timeline along the left side. Touching a certain time of the night would display what happened on the screen. I found one place where I slid down from sitting up to laying flat on my side. After that I touched the screen where it said 3:30am. I had remained on my side since that time.

I was then moved from there to being in a Best Buy store looking at Zune skins. They didn't have very many, but there was this one really cool orange one that I was going to get. I woke up shortly after buying it and walking out of the store.

When I woke up, it was 3:45. And considering the time difference between that timeline and the dream in front of it, and the fact that the timeline only showed events in half-hour increments, that was pretty amazing accuracy. Not to mention the fact that I had indeed slid down to being on my side.

Maybe it was just the Nyquil...but it's still an interesting thing, nonetheless. Kind of like a lucid OBE

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

WOW! Just, wow! I succeeded at WILD again last night, and it was the best one yet!


So I naturally woke up at 5:00am, like I usually do (for reasons I have yet to understand), and lay in bed for about ten minutes before I woke up enough to realize that I was even awake. When that realization finally hit, it woke me up enough that a long WBTB seemed unnecessary. I didn't even get out of bed; instead I just rolled over to a new and comfortable position and then waited for the HI. They came visibly and audibly within a couple minutes. So I started counting.

"1...I'm dreaming...2...I'm dreaming..."

I did it pretty mindlessly, but it was just enough to keep me conscious. Before long I was seeing white everywhere and feeling the energy pulses as I did last time. And I had this urge to do something--anything! But I felt like if I just sat there I'd lose it. So I did the first thing that came to mind; with my eyes still closed, I started doing push-ups in my bed! (Really at this point I was in SP and in my dream body) And then, with a loud wooshing noise, it was like my consciousness was sucked away. I collapsed on the bed and everything went black. So I tried to open my eyes. I was in my bathroom, and I knew the WILD had succeeded. But everything was so real! A quick RC completely affirmed my state, however, and I thought of things to do. "Hmm...I recently said on dreamviews that I wouldn't mind lucid dreaming a level or two of Tomb Raider. When I open this door, I'll be in Croft Manor!" I opened the bathroom door, but I saw my hallway outside. "Dang. Try something else." I thought about teleportation, and the first thing that came to my head was how Hiro Nakamura teleports in the Heroes TV show. Figured it was worth a try. So I thought "Croft Manor", closed my eyes, and worked hard at it until my head shook from concentration. I heard the familiar teleportation sound from Heroes and then opened my eyes again. I was standing right in the doorway to Croft Manor!

The place was incredible; everything was exactly as it appeared in the game, only far more realistic. Even the patterns on the carpets inside were true to Tomb Raider: Anniversary! "Now to find Lara Croft!" As I said this, I turned around, pointing at the place where I wanted her to appear. At that moment she walked through the door that I was pointing at. "There you are!" I said. "Where shall we go? Vilcabamba? Coastal Thailand?" She wasn't nearly so excited. "What are you doing here?" She replied angrily as she walked by, not even looking me in the face. "Well come on, don't you want to go?" I asked. "Not with you!" She retorted. I tried to talk nice to her then and soften her attitude, but it didn't work. So I followed her as she walked outside and made a picnic lunch appear in the middle of the mansion's huge lawn. She didn't go for that, either. I guess being rich actually made Lara a snob after all

Giving up on that idea, I tried teleporting away to somewhere else (although I can't remember where, now). Instead of going there I ended up in my bed, in another false awakening. "What, it's over? Better reality check to make sure." I pinched my nose and breathed in. No air went through. But it didn't feel right, somehow, so I did it again, this time only pinching one side and then slowly pinching the other as I breathed in. This time air went through, and I knew I was in a false awakening. A moment of panic hit me, then. It felt like I had already been in a dream for a couple hours. I wondered if I'd ever truly wake up, or if I'd just keep having false awakenings. That fear left as quickly as it came, though. I figured it had only been a few real minutes, and besides, I wouldn't mind living in a lucid dream for a long time anyway, considering I was in full control right now.

I teleported back to the Croft Manor to figure out where I should go next. Lara was still there, and still unhappy, so I just flew around near the ceiling to stay out of her way. "Flying...flying...wait! I flew that girl around before. I should bring her back and we can fly someplace again!" So that's exactly what I did. I landed on the ground and tried to summon her. A girl appeared, but it was just a silhouette of an old woman. "You're not the right one." So I turned around and pointed, as I had done before, saying: "This is really her!" And sure enough, there she was! Her back was turned to me, though, so I was a bit nervous that her face wouldn't be right. I tapped her shoulder and she turned around. Not a single inch of her face was inaccurate! "Hi!" She smiled, and I could tell she was remembering our last flying adventure. "You ready to go?" I asked as I picked her up just as we had done before.

It was then that Lara got jealous. "Wait a minute, what do you mean, go? You can't go without me!" I shrugged. "Sorry, actually I can. You're not real." And then I flew off with the girl to the middle of the maze behind Croft Manor and landed there. I knew Lara wouldn't find us there in time. We laughed from the joy of flying and escaping that way. "You want to go get something to eat?" I asked. "Sure! That sounds good." "Where do you want to go?" "Anywhere's fine with me." I couldn't help chuckling, considering she had no idea that I could take her literally anywhere. "No," I said, caressing her cheeks with my hands. "You choose. Please." She nodded slowly, getting the idea that I would do anything for her. "Alright. How about..." and she mentioned the name of a restaurant that I can no longer remember. It started with an 'N', but that's all I can recall. "Ah! That's a good place. Here; just put your hands on my shoulders and we can teleport there." She did, and I successfully teleported us to the restaurant the same way I had teleported before.

When I opened my eyes, we were in a very cool building. The lights were dimmed, people were everywhere, and cool mexican-sounding music was being played on a stage a short ways away. It was all 100% real. "This is so much better than real life!" I shouted. I didn't want anyone to hear, though, so no one did. The girl was in front of me. "Come on!" She said, pulling me by the hand. I was almost in a daze; I just couldn't get over how great everything was, so it was good that she was there to pull me along. For some reason we had to go through a ticket booth to get inside, even though no one was taking or giving tickets. When it came to be my turn to go through, the guy standing at the counter said, "Have a good time!" I shook his hand just to see what it felt like. My fingernail caught on his hand as I did so, making him flinch. It felt real, that's for sure. Skin slightly rough, a bit of sweat...even the creases in his palm. "Sorry about that, dude." I nodded towards the place my fingernail had caught. "That's alright man! Go have a good night with your girlfriend!" Well, that was interesting.

I ran and caught up to the girl, who was looking for a table. "Is this ok?" She asked, pulling back a chair to sit in. "Looks good to me!" I took the other seat. "Hey, umm..." I began as I reached across the table and held her hand. "What would you say...we are? Not...not in real life, I mean, but...in here." She didn't get it. "What? What do you mean...'in here'?" I didn't want to say outright that it was a dream, since by now I was pretty sure that I was shared dreaming with this girl. Make her go lucid, and she could figure out that were sharing a dream and that I really do care for her. So I skipped the dream thing entirely and asked plainly: "Would you say you're my girlfriend?" She smiled.

Then I lost the dream and woke up!

I know! Of all times to wake up! I mean, COME ON! Just ten more seconds and I could have had an answer! I tried desperately to WILD again and get back to that spot, but of course it didn't work. It had been a couple hours, and I wasn't at all tired any more. REM was done. I couldn't relax.

Oh well. It was still my best WILD yet! And I'm getting better at doing it right, so hopefully before long I'll be able to use it to go lucid very often indeed!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Had kind of a weird experience last night. I tried a new WILD technique called NSSWILD (Natural Sleep Simulation Wake Induced Lucid Dream) that was going great...and I fell asleep again. But I was exceptionally tired last night, so it's not a big surprise/disappointment. On a less tiring day I'll probably be able to get through no problem!

But the weird thing I mentioned came when I fell asleep and dreamed regularly. I never did an RC or recognize a dream sign...I just suddenly thought "this is a dream, after all" as I went about, and went lucid! Here's the dream:

False memory told me that I had directed and acted in a smash-hit movie on a low budget in the past, so now I was part of a high-budget movie with all the big sets and professional cameras and all that. It was great. And we were about to shoot the climax of the film; when the guy (me) saves the girl, the villain raises his ugly head in apparent victory, and there are lots and lots of explosions. We ended up re-doing the scene several times for one reason or another, but finally, after two or three times, I randomly went lucid and just asked a DC for a quick review of everything I was supposed to do. Of course there were other things I could have done, being lucid, but I had already seen what kind of movie we were filming, and I really wanted to act it out being lucid. So once I got a crash course on my part, I decided to go play it for all I was worth. The scene began with the girl badly ill, in a hospital room several stories up. The hospital wasn't normal, though, being a black and twisty tower. The nurse said she was going to go get medicine, but as it turned out, as soon as she had left the room, we heard several short beeps, like on a keypad, and then the base of the building shot out flames, and a chain reaction was started that continued to the top. The place was collapsing! I punched the nurse and threw her out the window, but she shape-shifted into the evil (male) villain she truly was and grabbed onto the side of building on the way down, landing safely. I picked up the girl and carried her on back, then ran for the elevator down. It broke halfway down the first floor, and flames jetted down out of the ceiling as debris landed on top. I noticed that it melted a part of the steel wall, however, so I kicked with all my might and broke a hole through. Stairs were visible, so I carefully pushed the girl through, and then did a dive through the hole myself, landing in a roll and coming back up on my feet. The girl back on my back I began to run down the stairs, which were one of two spiraling stair cases. On the other staircase was the villain, who had hoped to capture us in the elevator. "Give up!" He shouted across the gap, which was filled with explosions and flames. "Even if you get out of here alive, your father won't. You'll have to choose...him, or her!" "Just watch me!" I replied, taking off in a run. But I couldn't get down any farther, because in the delay, the stairs broke on both ends of the room. The villain actually fell through his stair and landed in the flames, but still managed to escape in time (he was definitely not human...a pitch black creature with long, gnarled fingers and fingernails of a similar description). I managed to step back in time to not fall, but all of the stairs were weakened now, so I turned to the girl, who was barely conscious. "Can you hold on?" "I'll...try..." She held herself on my back, and I jumped, swinging from remaining stair to remaining stair, to pipe sticking out of the wall, to monkey-barring across exposed rebar and running on walls. That, combined with explosions and flames and all that, was quite epic. But then when I got to the bottom of the building, I kept the girl with me, rather than handing her off to someone else as we had done in previous shots. Instead, I ran to my aforementioned father (who looked exactly like my real life father, but acted nothing like him) and made him leave on a subway. I guess he worked around there or something. At first he protested, but I simply said to him: "I can heal; I'll survive the fire and all this. But you've got to get out of here! Take her with you; please, she'll die without some help!" This convinced him, and he left. The building began completely collapsing as the subway departed. I ran with super-speed out of there, but things went into slow-motion. Huge chunks of ceiling dropped down and nearly hit me, but I'd either dodge them, flip over them, or do any other number of cool move. Suffice it to say most of the time I was running on falling debris and not the floor. I made it outside just in time, but there was still the tower falling down, and it was headed right for me and my dream character friends (whom I knew by false memory). Telekinesis presented itself as the first option, so I held up my hands and pushed the tower the other way, so that it fell on top of the enemy army rather than us. I was then in third-person, viewing the scene through the eyes of the camera. I turned around, again in slow motion, with this cool grey and white cloak shading my face, the building collapsing in the background and sending a rush of wind my way, blowing the cloak in the wind. I simply walked, not panicked at all, proving the lengths of my control to everyone around. It was one of those classic, epic shots. Next thing I know, I was back in myself, and a bunch of people from Star Wars were asking me to lead them in battle. I woke up before I could, but I'm sure it would have been epic.

Honestly, it sounds a tad bit dumb when I write it, but it was quite awesome going through it! :bravo:

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Last night's WILD attempt again did not go so great. I was just reaching the point where I was thinking, "I should start counting to keep myself awake" and next thing I know, I'm waking up. In real life. I was in the same position that I had attempted the WILD in, though, so I must have at least made it to SP.

After that I fell back asleep and had one really interesting dream (for music people, anyway):

I found myself sitting on the floor with a bunch of candies. Ferrero Rocher, from the look of them. I picked one up and placed it in a spot in that plastic tray fancy chocolates always come in. A small note played. So I put another one in, one slot higher than the previous one. A slightly higher note played. Then I took those two out of the tray and put two different candies in. Each one of them changed the octave, but played the same note as the ones before. After experimenting with this for a while, I figured out which candies would produce notes in which octave, and which positions in the tray caused which individual notes.

Next thing I know, the tray that I was working with contained several more spaces. If I filled up the available spaces and still needed more, more would simply be there. So I got to composing a song in this manner. Once I got the main melody down, I started to add in harmonies. This is where things got interesting. As I put more candies into the slots to add harmonies, I began to realize how many different notes were playing all at once and still sounding great. "How is that even possible?" I asked, amazed. So I added in some more. Still the music didn't sound bad, and in fact, it sounded even better than before! "This many notes can't good together..."

I was jerked out of that dream by a loud bang from outside, so I don't know if I was about to go lucid or not right there. But the interesting fact still remains: I was hearing impossible notes in my head. How? Well, it's simple science. Sound heard by our ears is caused by vibrations in the air. In a dream, you don't hear by your ears, there are no vibrations, and there's no air. Crazy how that works...

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Well, I still fell asleep during my multiple WILD attempts, but at least I managed to have decent recall and even go lucid a couple times, although briefly!

Anyway, here is what went on in my head last night:

Dream 1: It was several years in the past. My siblings and I were still together with our parents and we were in Florida on vacation. We had this rental car with a ceiling that stuck downward in the middle and had a panel on the side with a red bar, a timer, and a phone (one of those old, curly-corded ones). We assumed the red bar and timer were to measure how many phone minutes we had left. I tried to think of people I could call just to see if it worked, but I couldn't think of any numbers, and just having the phone off the hook took off of our time. By the time we reached our destination, we only had 50 minutes left, which transferred wirelessly to the parking meter in front of us. "Oh great!" My dad complained. "You used up all but 50 minutes of our time!" "I think that's just for the phone, though." One of my sisters said. "No," my dad explained, "that's for the entire car! We can't use it anymore after that time runs up! That means we won't be able to stay here for more than five minutes if we want to get back to the hotel in time! I can't believe this..."

I woke up and realized I hadn't stayed awake through the WILD. "Ok, from this point on, if I see my family, or...or anyone, I'm dreaming." And then I fell back asleep, hoping that would at least be enough to get me lucid.

Dream 2: I was baby-sitting two of my nieces in the present day. They wanted to go down in the basement to play Xbox. Now even though I didn't go lucid yet, this kind of struck me as odd for multiple reasons: 1) I don't have an Xbox, 2) if I did, my nieces wouldn't be interested in playing it, and 3) it wouldn't be in the basement because there's no TV down there. So I went down to get a game set up for them. There was a pretty big TV there, as well as a couch and lounge chair around it. I went over and found the Xbox and turned it on. Then I look up and find the TV shrunk down to just having a screen a couple inches across! "Are you sure this screen is big enough for you guys?" I asked. "Yeah, it's fine." One of them replied. I turned around then and noticed something really strange: the lightbulb in the ceiling was out, but the room was still lit. I walked over to it and pulled on the string to turn it on. Nothing happened. Pulled again, still nothing changed. "Ok, this is so weird." So I did a reality check. I thought I felt air come through my nose with it pinched. "I must not have pinched very hard...no way this is a dream. But I need to do it again just to make sure." I did, and this time I was beginning to be convinced otherwise. One more time, and I was fully lucid! I dropped all concerns for my nieces now that I knew they weren't really there and I ran up the stairs to get outside so I could fly somewhere interesting. Unfortunately I ran a bit too fast. The dream started to weaken. I rubbed my hands and tried to spin around, but I couldn't hold on to the dream...it had gone on for too long as a non-lucid and now the REM was almost over. As the dream faded I began losing balance, so I grabbed for the door and railing on the stairs, also clinging to the sensation of those objects being there. But nothing could stop it.

I woke up, of course. I'm not sure when I fell back asleep, but I'm pretty sure it was during another WILD attempt

Dream 3: I was lucid from the very beginning this time, but I found myself in a place like the construct from the Matrix. Everything was white, save for a TV and a couple chairs...and three DC's who were standing there. One was a girl, another a tall and strong man, the other a short and stocky kind of guy. I didn't have time to think of going anywhere or doing anything I had set out to do in waking life, because these DC's ran up to me and each one started begging me to make them the star of a movie. "This is your dream, only you can do this for me!" Each one kept repeating. "Ok, ok, guys, if it will get you to leave me alone, I'll make all of you the stars of a movie." That wasn't good enough for them. "No, I want to the be the star instead of the other two of them!" (Man, DC's sure can be selfish!) "I choose the lady, then." I lost lucidity at that point as well as my body and I watched as a short 'video clip' played before my eyes with the girl as the star actress. It was some kind of action adventure film; I can't remember much of it. I do remember hearing a voice telling me the future of the girl because of the film, though, mentioning other movies that she was in and how this one started it all for her. After that ended, however, I was back at the construct place, still not lucid, and the tall guy was there. "Now you have to make me the star." He said. "It's not fair that I don't get a chance to prove my worth. I can act twice as good as her; you'll see." So I made him the star, and the video replayed with him in it. He wasn't a great actor, honestly. He made mistakes left and right. Again the narrator voice talked about the future of the star actor, but I can't remember what it said about him. The video clip over, I was in the construct once more, with just Mr. Shorty left. He was wearing a suit and black sunglasses, and he was a black guy now, too. "Hey man." He said. "Just give me a chance. Don't leave ol' shorty out now, right? I'll show ya. I can act for real." I don't remember actually giving him the part, but the video clip replayed with the short guy in there (now as a bald white man with a long moustache). He stopped the other actors, though, and had them totally rearrange the set. He turned the film into a comedy about twin aviators, both played by him. The narrator once again chimed in, talking about how this guy's skills as a director ended up surpassing his acting skills and making him famous for several movies...or something like that.

This time when the dream was over I didn't have time to go back to sleep, so I just lay in bed and worked on recall of all these. So that's what happened last night.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Last night I tried WILD again, and I'll probably continue doing so each night until I get it right. I've had success with most other methods, so I really want to learn this one now.

I did better than last, but still didn't quite get to the dream. I reached a point where I wasn't really paying any attention to my physical body, so I guess I couldn't feel it anymore. Then I suddenly had this strange impulse, that if I thought very hard: "I'm going to lucid dream!" that I would have some mental explosion and the WILD would go farther. But I gave into the impulse anyway, and that's exactly what happened! Tingles accelerated, noises grew loud, lights flashed in the darkness. So i figured I should try it again. Same thing happened. Eventually I pushed too hard though, and the WILD broke. Everything went back to normal. I guess I woke myself up...

But I got close!

Oh yeah, and I woke up this morning with one dream in memory:

We (i.e. me and a bunch of DC's) were at the top of a big hill. There was a road going over the hill, but we were off to the side, on the grass. We had two bikes, a truck, two ropes, and a picnic lunch. As we ate, we were trying to figure out what we could do with all of it. Eventually, one of them said he had a great idea, but he didn't want to tell us what it was without showing us. He told me to get on one bike, and a short and chubby DC to get on the other. Then he tied one end of a rope to the handle bars of my bike and the other end to the back of the bike of the chubby DC. He tied the second rope between Chubby's bike and the trailer hitch on the truck. Then the DC got inside the truck and started driving, pulling the two of us along behind him...on the road! We flew down the hill (I'm sure the truck's gas pedal was floored), and it was quite enjoyable, until we realized we were going in the wrong direction! Cars were coming at us in both lanes, and we had to dodge them all by constantly switching lanes. Several times we very nearly crashed. It was quite intense, but still a lot of fun . When we finally got to the bottom of the hill, I assumed the DC in the truck would stop driving, so I let go of the handle bars to raise my fists in the air as a symbol of victory over the danger we had gone through, but I was wrong about the DC slowing down. He kept going, Chubby looked back at me and shouted, "Dude, what are you doing!?" and the handle bars on my bike got pulled by the rope which caused me to drift into the other lane right as a car sped up towards me. We collided, and I woke up.

Do not try this at home!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

I give up on my watch alarm. I've tried all sorts of things to try and fix it, all to no avail. It just doesn't go off any more.

Last night I had it set for the middle of the night, and I intended to WILD and WBTB. I know, I've only made one WILD last very long, but I was determined this time.

As it turned out, I still woke up without my watch, but at 5:30am. Not quite as good as an hour earlier, but I still decided to give it a shot. At that point I also thought about dream recall a bit, and remembered one single dream.

Dream 1: It was like watching a slideshow of photoshopped family photos. I saw memories of mine flash by every few seconds with just a bit of reality distorted by a lot of fantasy. They seemed to go in somewhat of a chronological order, too. But things didn't stop when they reached the present day. No, after that, I saw future events that I am planning on happening as if they were memories. About a week out into the future, the dream ended.

So having recalled all that I could, I got out of bed, stretched, went to the bathroom so I wouldn't have any interruptions during the WILD, and then got back into bed. At first I tried it on my back as usual, but also as usual, all I got was a tingly feeling in my arms; not anywhere else, and no paralysis whatsoever. So I tried turning my head to the side to trick myself into thinking I was sleeping sideways as normal. That fared little better, though I did have some very faint HI that way. So I thought, "Why can't I WILD when I'm really on my side, then?" and decided to give it a shot. I rolled over to my side, sandwiched my head between two pillows so I was encapsulated in total darkness and silence, and then went on with the attempt.

For a long time nothing really happened. I thought about trying to count breaths or listen to a lucid MP3, but in the end I figured that all that stuff had already failed for me many times and it was time for me to go all on my own as I had that first night that I WILDed successfully.

What seemed like a few seconds later (but probably was much longer), I heard a faint sound. An echo of someone in the far distance, talking about something that I could not remember the instant the echo stopped. Encouraged by this progress, I continued to wait. In another few seconds, a shelf loaded with fresh vegetables (don't ask me why; I don't know) appeared in full color. I glanced at it momentarily, then ignored it, and it seemed to blur and float away. Next I saw a man in a suit sitting behind a desk float towards me in the darkness. Before long I could tell his face was the face of the G-Man from my horrible 3-month dream. I purposefully eliminated that image. That seemed to be all I needed, anyway. My sensations were suddenly schewed after that. I felt like I was still conscious of my body, and yet I knew that what I was feeling was not my real body, because it started to wave about as if riding on water and conforming to the shape of the wave. That sensation was stopped by the feeling of someone reaching their arms around me and holding me tightly. I probably would have freaked out, but I could hear movement behind me and soon I felt lips brush against my ear. "It's all going to be all right." A gentle, female voice whispered. This feeling of extreme security and peace came over me then, and I let her (whoever 'she' is) hold on as long as she wanted. The bodily distortions continued for several more minutes, and a few times I was even able to move my perceived arm, which made my real arm attempt to move, but unsuccessfully. She let go soon after that and seemed to fade away behind me. Once again, I was alone. But then, all of a sudden, everything went white. A strong buzz was in my ears, and it was like an earthquake couple with an EMP went off. The ground shook, energy seemed to hit me in waves, growing in intensity with time. And then, at the peak of it all...it all just faded away. I found myself high in the sky, and looking down below me, I saw a huge canyon. I could see for hundreds of miles around me, and the canyon went through all of it. The sky was bright and clear, other than a few white clouds. Since I was already in the air, I had no trouble trying to get off the ground and fly. I just flew as usual, and went all over the place. It was incredible how realistic it was; I have never had a dream with such a large and wide-open view before. After I had gone through some of those clouds and enjoyed feeling the cool air and wind on my face, I flew straight down towards the bottom of the canyon at high speed. It was very fun! Of course, I curved upward right before I hit the ground and started speeding through the canyons, every inch of which looked just like real life. Every crack, every shadow, variations in colors...all of it looked perfect. But then something weird happened. I flew past a cowboy with a banjo that was playing and singing in front of a little campfire. I should have only been able to hear him for a brief moment as I flew past, but his voice continued even as I went miles away. That little loss of realism signaled the beginning of the end. I was just about to fly somewhere else (like Pandora), when everything started to go black and I woke up with a start.

I think I finally figured out my problem with WILDing! Up to this point, I was trying to use everyone else's techniques when really all I had to do was what worked for me in the first place!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

I remember having at least 3 dreams last night, but the first two are only blurs in my mind.

I found myself standing by the phone in my kitchen. It rang, and I looked at the caller ID. It was Berton. I picked it up and the dream went split-screen, one half being me, and the other half being Berton. He started delivering a prank phone message to me, pretending to be selling something and going on about it in a typical commercial tone. After a couple seconds, I hung it back up, but the 'split-screen' remained, and he kept on going with his pitch. "For some reason," I said to a couple people who were suddenly there, "he's been doing that to everyone lately...it was funny at first, but now it's getting to be just annoying."

I think more happened, but I can't remember anything else. The interesting thing about this dream is that I was conscious enough to realize that I was actually anticipating everything to happen before it did. I saw the phone and thought "that's going to ring", and in the next instant, it did. When I looked at the caller ID, I thought "it's Berton" and the next instant, I found it to be true. Now all of that happened in less than a second, but I knew very well that my thought came before the action.

I think I just proved my theory that non-lucid dreams are driven by what you expect to happen, not really by passive control

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Ok, no lucids last night since it's my first day of hitting reboot on LDing, but here's what I remember from last night:

Dream 1: First thing I know, it was 12:48 in the afternoon, and I know that because I found myself looking at a clock. That time jerked me into what I thought was reality, and I realized all the things I had to do that afternoon, so I got up and just went about the day normally.

What a waste of a dream. Oh well. The second one made up for it.

Dream 2: My friends and I were doing more filming for a movie we're making, and even though throughout the whole dream I had the idea that it was all just acting, before long I was drawn into it as if it were real, and no one ran a camera any more. The plot wasn't the same as the real movie we're making, but rather it was the typical thing where the bad guy has an evil plot that the good guys have to discover and then go beat up the bad guy to stop him. I can't remember all the details, but I clearly remember that the bad guy was using eyeballs from cows as a way to focus a laser beam so that it would be powerful enough to blow up the earth. About the time the movie reached the point where I and the other good guys made it to the bad guy's base, I paused for a moment and tried to use telekinesis on something. "If this is a dream then I can use telekinesis." I told myself. Unfortunately, not being lucid, I was not able to free my mind of real-life boundaries, so telekinesis was impossible. "Ok, I'm not dreaming." I concluded. Then I headed into a huge room where the laser was, as well as the bad guy. He sent a bunch of robots after me, which I dodged and destroyed with a bunch of cool moves. It sure was fun being able to jump and flip all around the place like that! And of course the final battle between me and the bad guy was especially fun. It reminded me a lot of the Matrix; fast, intense, and super high powered. Suffice it to say that I won, and woke up shortly afterwards. It would probably get boring to try and describe each individual move we did.