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I remember being in the Grease universe (you know, that movie with John Travolta?) which is weird because I haven't seen that movie in years. Anyways, I knew I was in the universe because Sandy and Danny were there, kissing it up for some reason. Then I remember being at a party with random people i've never seen before (including Sandy and Danny) and next thing I know i'm flirting it up with this girl, and then you know how it goes, it snowballs and next thing you know we figure out she's pregnant. People are freaking out, i'm freaking out, then I remember Sandy and Danny calling us over and I guess we transfered the baby to them. That's uh, all I remember.

It begins as all good stories do; on the top of a speeding train. I am there on a mission from the governor, to track and kill a dangerous man. There are soldiers walking along the top of the train ahead of me, assigned to the mission as well. For a moment, I think about what I will do next. Suddenly, the soldiers to toward me. They look nervous. Their guns are no longer at their sides, but pointed at me.
I am the dangerous man.
I charge them and they disappear, only to reveal an oncoming bridge that looks like the walkways to an airplane. I slam into it, bending the sheet metal walls and pass out.

I wake up, and the impact has separated me from the body of that dangerous man. I am myself again. A woman is next to me, and she is tearing up with Joy.

"He's going to marry me!" She says.

"He gave me this necklace! It's from the jewelers in the big city, and he made it disappear."

So that's what he does. He makes things disappear. And now he's disappeared himself.
I start walking past her down the road. It's getting dark, and as I walk I hear music. I go up a staircase into a park and find an incredible skate park. Massive half pipes, colour under lighting on everything, it's a skater's dream. Too bad I don't skate.

I'm pretty sure that at this moment I became lucid. Everything was so vivid. I was looking around, listening to how the music echoed off the curved walls and looking at the highschoolers hanging out here way past their curfews. Why was I here, wearing this dark hoodie and hiding myself? I didn't really know. I started to walk out of the park and down the road. I stopped to look back a some teens that were on the sidewalk. They were all regular kids, and one girl had some very short shorts on. It was like real life. The lighting from the street lamps, the cool of the night air. Everything.


After that I pulled out google maps to see how far that train had taken me from home. Far.

I would be in for a long walk. Instead, I walked into a pet store nearby. Inside I was playing with all of these small squid and shrimp and fish, looking in their tanks. Suddenly a bouncer came and tried to kick me out. He said I was missing the stamp for the place. There are like 5 bar stamps on my hadn and none of them are for this place. Rats.

My parents show up. My mother puts on such a fuss of how great the shop is that the bouncer leaves me alone. Take that, asshole.

Simon and Arshia show up out of the blue, and I get ready to go with them back home.

My alarm goes off.

I feel like I'm in school and working with a girl on a computer. I'm not aware enough to become lucid.

D1 - In a small room sharing a round table with a bald old guy with glasses. He is assessing a big stack of books but the door to the room keeps opening so he is getting more and more annoyed.
in the end he leaves complaining that he has never etc etc
He asks me if I have marked book pb-1256 yet, I embarressiny say I have not yet, it is a blue book.
Outside in the road there is a massive pile of red books, so many that it is stopping a large bus from reversing.
My work mate Ed has his lunch:a lunch french bagette with ham and a scotch egg tucked under is arm. He steps up into the front of the bus to drive but is encumbered by his groceries.
A weesel or something is trying to get at his food in the confines of the cab, causing him more trouble.

D2 - Repeating dream
There are a line of women and in order to solve something I have to visit them each in turn but keep running out of time.
I am convinced of this and keep going into the same dream.

D3 - I wbtb and find myself back in the dream I get a bit fed up as its not working. I realise its a dream and makee everything explode. It is like special effects from a movie, everywhere there is splintered wood traveling in slow motion through the air.

D4 - outside a flat that is supposed to be a. Old one of mine, but is not.
the door is boarded and inside one window is.
Outside i am waiting when paul from work gets in my way causing me to walk into wAter. We are high up over the main road of shops and I see above a pagoda style restaraunt that there is a giant dragon and frog statue in jade.

The first dream I was with my brother, and we found this person on a highway advertising something really fun to do. They were holding a sign, and shouting something out. Then I was with my brother, and it around dusk. We were on this grassy field with a white church looking building next to it. There were other people outside. Some were kids running around, and others were grow ups. My brother and I walked into the building, and sat at a large wood table. The place was dimly lit, abut you could easily see everyone at the table. They seemed to have Uno cards, and were passing them around. They asked me and my brother if we wanted to play poker. I thought I knew how to play so I said yea. Then I suggested to everyone that we play Egyptian Ratscrew, but no one listened. Then the dream ended.

In the second dream I was at my school with the cross country team. We were all in the woods right between the two steep hills on the school course. My brother was there, and my team wanted to try him out to see if he was good enough. One of my friends agreed to run a 1 mile course with him. Once they got back, my friend said he did really well, and could compete well.

The third dream was again with my brother and some of my team. We were all around this lake that was hidden in the woods. I was swimming in the lake with some friends, and we were talking, until we came across this one part. It looked like a passage way to a river, but my team said not to go there because people died there. I agreed, and kept floating around in the lake. When my team left,a no it was just me and my brother we both went over to the passage way. When we crossed, we say a really steep and rocky river. The water was flowing really fast, re were two people. One was a girl with short black hair, and the other was a bay with orange longer hair. The girl had just jumped on a surfboard and was surfing off the water and rocks. Then the boy went, but he fell on his knees. I could tell that my brother wanted to do it, but I told him not to because it seemed dangerous. Then we both had sleds, mine was just a plain circular orange sled. My brothers was about the isle of a queen mattress, and was modified with fans. It looked almost like a raft. We both went down the river, and it was really fun. I ended up,in this grassy side bank of the river, and my brother sled was a little further away. I made my way to the top again, and my brother came back, and said he was burnt. I asked how, and he said the people on his boat lit a fire. Then he said that they also released a lot of Pokemon, and we should go and catch them. I agreed, and we started walking down, but the dream ended.

My earliest memory is in what I think was some kind of mine. I think I was supposed to work there. There was a man I had to work with (he was also forced), a tall, buff black man. At some point I was hiding behind a rock, doing something. Maybe I had found something, or was planning something - I don't remember. Either way, a supervisor caught me, but I managed to talk my way out of it. I told him a story involving my partner, and led the supervisor to him. When we got to him, I wordlessly made it clear he had to corroborate my story and play ball. I also recall hiding something in the mine cart my partner was working with? This was still in the previous cavern, before I got caught. Anyway, at some point I was swinging on a rope by a wall - and I could see the supervisor looking at me from a balcony. Suddenly, his expression changed completely. It was as if color drained from his face, and he looked like he was seething with anger, but somehow remained emotionless at the same time. I realized the he must have found out I'd betrayed him. He stepped backwards, and disappeared. I used the rope to leap at a ledge across an artificial pool of water (the rope was above the water, roughly between the balcony and the ledge), but didn't go far enough, missed and plunged into the water below. I think most buildings and structures around me were made of wood. At some point I recall looking at a corridor adjacent to the balcony, and seeing a bunch of henchmen (and possibly supervisors) walking hurriedly towards something. I knew they were mobilizing to catch me. Now for the *ahem*, fun part. At some point I was back on land (I'd climbed out of the water). I think I was seated on the ground, leaning against a wall. Lara Croft (the "Rise of the Tomb Raider" one) was in my arms, making out with me. Which was a lot of fun. At some point she suddenly had strange-looking makeup on, which I didn't like (kissing a girl who wears thick lipstick disgusts me a little). I also tried kissing her bare boobies, but she didn't like that. Oh, well.

I have vague memories of a general store, and some weird/creepy stuff happening.

1. I'm in the kitchen of my home running around the tops of counters and doing back flips off of the top off of my fridge. I'm explaining lucid dreaming to someone in the room, and explaining how they can imagine it being like Neo in The Matrix. After this explanation, I stop and realize I'm inside of a dream. I say "I'm lucid". I consider stabilizing a bit a think eating a square of dark chocolate is a good idea. I go into the fridge and pull out a small container with a few squares. I open and continue walking through the house as I bite small pieces. It tastes pretty close to real life! I concentrate as it melts in my mouth, similar to the dream yoga beginner lessons. I walk down the hallway and approach the front door. I consider opening it, then think Nope!... and phase through the glass. I enter into the front yard and take in the new arrangement of bushes, color of the grass etc.I decide to raise clarity and focus a bit and stabilize the dream. I think back to Nina's Stabilization and Clarity Tutorial and test out one of the techs which I set as a goal. I put both hands in front of me and start demanding clarity and lucidity, over and over. My hands become more vivid and appear life-like. I look up to check the clarity of the foliage and notice it's a bit more vivid too. I progress to another goal and shout to my subconscious to help me become more lucid more often, repeating this a few times. I then ask my subconscious a couple times how to become lucid more frequently. I notice the lucid becoming a bit unstable and start dream spinning to prevent collapse, and increase clarity. I spin many times, moving my eyes up and down my field of vision
but the lucid slips into a non-lucid.

2. I'm in the kitchen of my home speaking to S and her Bro. He's telling me about the web page to the soccer camp he's organizing. I look at him intently, noticing something is strange. My awareness raises, and I put my right hand in front of him and say "I'm lucid" with a smile.I ask if there's any dark chocolate around, or if I have to summon it. They say there isn't, so I begin opening a drawer to pull some out. I pull out the container, but it's just crumbs left. I begin walking to the front of the house, and figures I'll just shake some slabs out of a jacket sleeve in the closet. I try it, but still crumbs. I munch on a few crumbs as I approach the front of the house. I make my way to the front of the house, and head down a walkway which closely resembles that of my childhood home I see a couple crash cans with slabs of dark chocolate adhered to the sides. I decide - 'that'll work' and crack off a huge slab. I become hesitant as I figure there might be a super-funky pungent trash taste/small. I casually dust it and don't worry. It tastes pretty good too, and my clarity raises a bit. I walk a bit further down the driveway
Then wake up.

Whilst working in the laboratory on a chemical plant (an old place of employment) one of my friends / colleagues fills up a cardboard water bomb and throws it.
It impacts the desk in front of me and explodes with a huge bang. I wake up with a hypnic jerk.

1. I'm aware of the dreamscape, standing in the back of the living room area in my home. My body is locked in place, but I can see the dark room and all the furniture. I think back to some dream yoga techniques and start feeling and moving 'phantom arms' into the dream scape, feeling them, and then seeing them appear. I begin gaining a bit of mobility and slide into the scene a bit. As I'm transitioning

I find myself in bed. I look toward the headboard and notice a small diamond pattern in the center with a dot in the middle. I notice something is wrong and realize I don't have a headboard!

2. I see S laying next to me face down and roll on top of the cover. I roll onto her as she's sleeping and look down a bit excited. After a few seconds..

I wake up in seems to be WL, and I go for a DEILD.

Morning of July 27, 2016. Wednesday.



Even though I am fully lucid, I had entered a very skewed version of “When Wakes the Dreamer!” (first read around age twelve in 1973 in Eerie Magazine). My wife Zsuzsanna is outside talking with an unknown female. They are looking at the horizon at what are apparently unusual events related to the supposed HAARP (apparently closed in 2014) conspiracy. It also seems there may be some sort of military action but not as an imminent threat. San Francisco, as in the story, is “gone”. Misty “tendrils” of either smoke or cloud rise in the distance, some tongue-like.

As I am listening to Zsuzsanna and this unknown female speak, I look up at the nighttime sky and see a huge cloud. It looks much like a human face, mostly like Doug in a particular panel of “When Wakes the Dreamer!” though oddly in the negative (even though I do not recall seeing it in photographic negative at any time in my past). (The word balloon with the image had read “Just moments ago you said that I was aware of things that the mass media would never realize existed! Perhaps!”)

Still, Doug’s huge visage almost seems like pareidolia in the back of my mind (especially as seeing a face in the clouds is a common form of pareidolia - and even though it is a dream, I do not want to embarrass myself). I mostly stare in awe at the sky. I am not that concerned about the female of whom Zsuzsanna is talking to regarding the so-called HAARP weapon. I never draw their attention to this weird cloud at any point even though I consider doing so.

His “tongue” seems to extend and go up along the left side of his face almost to his “forehead” - which is almost like a separate vertical cylindrical cloud formation, not quite like a tornado, but becoming more like a giant pale vertical tomato worm cocoon (distorted by elongation and being rendered in photographic negative). Still, the more closely I stare at it, the more eerie (no pun intended) it appears.

If Doug is the dreamer of my dream, where does that leave me? Certainly it is not my face in the clouds. I find myself wandering through an alley and “returning” to our home, though it is a mostly unfamiliar residence still deemed to be ours.

I discover a package that looks much like a miniature pillow (obvious dream sign) which seems to be on our bed (another obvious dream sign). I am aware it contains a small amount of various organic herbs and seeds that we had ordered, which were quite expensive. However, when I go closer, everything starts popping out of the package, though each at a different time, such as maize flour (the first to somehow “jump” through the unwrapped package), sunflower seeds, fennel seeds, and seemingly thistle seeds as one of the last features (the kind you “make a wish” on). I do not want all of this wasted, so I eat the small amount of maize flour as well as some of the sunflower seeds and fennel seeds that later emerge. (I believe this segment was caused by sounds in my real environment at the time and my dream trying to resolve these sounds by including both dream signs and very slight “nourishment” and an analogy to increasing awareness of physicality.)

---

1. I had just parked my car at Dylan's house. Patrick and Dylan got out and went inside rather quickly. As I turned off my car I looked around. I happened to look in the back seat and upon doing so I found a bottle of liquor and some Smirnoffs along with some other weak malt beverages. "Oh shit, dad left his liquor in here and mom left her smirnoffs and other drinks in here" I said aloud. I noticed that the bottle of liquor was unopened;brand new. However, all 4 of my moms drinks were all open and had no cap, but they were still full. "Why the fuck would she take just the caps off" I said in a rather annoyed tone. I then "remembered" the whole event of how I drove my mom and dad to the liquor store hours earlier so they could get what they got. "I can drink some of dad's liquor without him noticing" I thought, "but mom will definitely notice if I drank some of her drinks".
With that I grabbed my dad's liquor and put it in my bag and picked up my mom's drinks which were already in a drink holder that held all 4 of her drinks. I carefully got out of my car so I wouldn't spill her drinks and with my left hand I got my keys and locked my car up. After that I walked up to Dylan's front door, opened it, and walked inside. His parents were no where to be seen, so I didn't bother hiding the alcohol that I was carrying in my hand. I noticed that Dylan's house looked different on the inside. It was much bigger and spacious, and that's saying alot considering his house is already 2 stories. Everything in his house looked different besides the hardwood floor I was standing on.
I then walked upstairs and noticed that Dylan's room wasn't where it normally was. The whole upstairs was huge. Dylan's room was now where his brother's room normally was and his brother no longer lived here. Dylan's actual room in waking life was now a guest room. In between these rooms was a large bathroom. Directly in front of these rooms were 2 hallways. One hallway was on the right of Dylan's "new" room, and the other hallway was directly in front of Dylan's new room. At the end of each of these hallways was another room. In the middle of the hallway that was directly in front of his new room there was a large archway that really added to the overall beautiful architecture of the house.
As I walked into Dylan's new room I found Dylan and Patrick both laying face down on his bed. "What the hell, y'all are already going to sleep?!?" I said. M was standing on the side of the bed. She was looking at me with a stern look and I knew instantly that she was mad at me about something. She ended up yelling at me about something, but in the end I still had no idea why she was mad at me. While she was yelling at me I realized that this was the most mad I had ever seen her. I remember apologizing even though I had no idea what I did wrong. After getting yelled at, we all just chilled in Dylan's room. M calmed down a few minutes later and was no longer mad at me.
"Dude Cory let me have some of those Smirnoffs" Dylan said. "Hell no dude, my mom would totally notice" I told him as I looked down at the drinks once more getting annoyed about how they had no cap. I remember thinking they could spill very easily, but I wasn't going to worry about that at the moment. "Cory help me count the numbers on these cards" M said. I looked over at her and in her hands she was holding up 3 hot pink index cards with double digit numbers on them. I started reading the numbers out to her. I remember the number on the far right index card was an 84. After I told her the numbers I felt the urge to pee. I walked out of Dylan's room to go to the restroom, but as I did so I saw a group of sharply dressed men that seemed to be investigating Dylan's "old" room as well as the restroom. This group of men were from the Hawkins laboratory which is from the show "Stranger Things". All of their equipment was in Dylan's old room as well as the restroom.
"Fuck I can't go to the restroom now" I thought to myself. Just then M came out of Dylan's room. "Cory can I talk to you in secret?" she asked me. "Yeah about what?" I asked. "Just follow me" she replied. "Where are we gonna go?" I asked. "Just give me your hand" she said. With that she took me by the hand and we walked down the hallway in front of Dylan's "new" room. As we did so I remember noticing how soft her hand was. I also remember that I specifically wanted to remember this moment. We walked under the huge archway I mentioned earlier and as we did so I looked up at it, once again noticing how amazing it was.
Suddenly the whole atmosphere about the house seemed dark, and everything actually looked dark as well. The only light on in the house now was the light on in the room not too far ahead of us. "That's the room we're going to, it's the second most haunted room in the house" M told me. "Why aren't we going to the most haunted room in the house?" I asked. "Because I'm too scared" she told me. She then pointed out the most haunted room in the house. The room was about 30 feet to the right of the room we were currently going to. I looked over at it, and it just looked like it held bad vibes. It reminded me of the dark dream version of my house.
As we got closer to the 2nd most haunted room in the house, I looked inside it once more and saw part of the sheets of the bed floating in the air. Seconds later we walked in and we both sat on the bed. I wasn't sure what we were doing in here but I started to feel really creepy vibes, and I knew it wasn't just us two in the room. Immediately upon sitting down the sheets on the corner of the bed directly next to me starting floating in the air. I remained calm and relaxed though, like usual. M started showing signs that she was scared. I could see it in her face and body language. She moved closer to me and hugged me tightly as she put her head on my shoulder. I put my arms around her and at that moment I ignored all the creepy vibes and whole "haunted" stuff and just thought about how I never wanted to let her go.
Seconds later I started to feel a really weird sensation. It felt as though something was effecting my energy and my brain. The closest way I can describe it is that it felt like my brain was being hacked or something. It was then I knew that we needed to get out of this room. If this room is this bad I can't imagine what the most haunted room is like. "M we gotta leave. Now." I said. She looked me in the eyes and nodded her head. We both got up and left the room quickly. We walked back to Dylan's room, but on the way back a demon emerged from who knows where and started chasing us. I looked back at it as we started running to get to Dylan's room faster, and I somehow knew that this demon was 13 feet 6 inches tall, and it was in the form of a really sinister looking female.
Seconds later we made it back to Dylan's room and M ran in immediately, but I turned around and faced the demon. I remember looking up at it just thinking of how tall it was.

I recall a fragment in which I was drinking a cheap beer. It was somewhat horrible, it tasted like it was pure toxic chemicals instead of usual beer.

Morning of July 27, 2016. Wednesday.



One area of a building I find myself in, as I am becoming mostly lucid, seems to be a small private bar, though with several people, mostly unfamiliar, though Ian Somerhalder is here. (This actor was on both “Lost” and “The Vampire Diaries” so curiously can represent both subliminal water induction and dream flight as well as the circadian rhythms factor of nightfall and the dream state, all simultaneously.)

I am lucid, but not viably lucid (to where I can automatically direct everything) and I do not enter apex lucidity (which requires pushing open a heavy wooden door for me or at least going through a porch or open doorway) even though I am aware I am dreaming.

I start talking about how I am dreaming and try to prove this to the patrons of the bar. Ian looks on with a slight interest and becomes curious when I press my hand into the rectangular wooden and metal bar table. However, instead of my hand phasing through the table, the implied polarity is skewed as I push my hand down through the surface so that the wood and metal moves, creating a hand-shaped hole in the top of the table (with some of the metal part ribboning around part of my hand), the main piece sticking to the palm of my hand as I continue to press down. This is not quite what I had intended of course, but Ian still has a look of awe on his face with a vague hint of amusement. I try it a few more times at the main bar, but my hands and fingers now only meet with total solidity. I keep tapping my fingers and hand on the surface and only meet logical resistance as in reality. This annoys me greatly. The counter’s solidity is very realistic and uncompromising.

I leave the area and soon find myself in a shootout with police officers and a number of 1960s gangsters. I do not have a gun and I do not materialize one at any point. I end up in an area where I notice an unknown male of about forty years of age. He is wearing a black shirt that reads (in white letters) “Do not shoot me because I am Claude’s (my full name in possessive) guardian.” I find this very peculiar and thus question why and how an Angel of Retrieval could possibly be in a lucid dream other than as comic relief. I also find this scene (and him) somewhat hypocritical on two levels. Firstly, the shirt is possibly bulletproof, and secondly, I myself have no writing on my own shirt and it is likely not bulletproof either. Still, I somehow manage to dodge all the bullets that are randomly flying everywhere. I try to summon the shirt from his body into my hands, which works, but then decide he can have it anyway.

I then go into a large area where the timber structure of the walls and ceiling is rather complex and a number of people are having a party. I decide to use telekinesis to make the ceiling collapse for no particular reason and leave the building as it collapses behind me.

I end up walking on a very large and wide wharf that extends out about thirty feet or more over a gray ocean and it seems just prior to sunrise. A number of people are present, but no one is familiar. I make eye contact with a random male of about thirty and try to communicate with telepathy but he just stares back blankly. I eventually start touching and pushing people (not aggressively) to see how “stable” they are.

A young girl approaches (probably a young version of my wife Zsuzsanna I perceive as being asleep - thus the ocean, which represents sleep and the dream state) and she seems slightly upset but does not see me at all (even though I am not phased or invisible as far as I know). There are a couple other people in the area. She seems concerned about the dolphin known as “Skipper” and it possibly swimming away or “leaving” her (though this is only by assumption because I think of “Skipper” as a dolphin for some reason, when it is actually supposed to be “Flipper” - so this association with Skipper as a dolphin may be completely wrong, though it does have meaning). I look out at the ocean and start to hear unusual music (an old song I wrote at age twelve based on “When Wakes The Dreamer!” from Eerie Magazine) and decide to leave my dream.

---

This last part is rather interesting and contains an element I could not possibly have known about, as Zsuzsanna had never mentioned that she had her doll named Skipper (which was female) near the ocean (the only doll she took that time), and also, had to leave it behind when her family moved. In my dream though, at least vaguely, I did see “Skipper” as a distortion of “Flipper” which would be me as the dreamer leaving that essence of me behind in the symbolic ocean of sleep (while Zsuzsanna was still sleeping as I woke thus I was “leaving her” as we were then at different levels of consciousness), while it is also an incidental play on “Skippy” (the kangaroo). A doll is also the dreamer within a dream, as it is still and “held” by the superior whole consciousness and not active in sleep.

I had the most sporadic night of patchy non-lucid dreams. Meesha Cat kept sitting on my head & face. She kept purring & then jumping on my belly. Mike was getting ready for work & she just wouldn't leave me alone all night. I think it was the combo of the lightening, rain & Mike's early schedule. Anyway all of my dreams were partial snippets of dreams that were jerky. In the sense that they wouldn't make sense & jumped scene to scene almost like you hit the fast forward button on a movie & it took you too the commercial before returning to the movie. Except I kept getting woke up or getting a different snippet of another movie. So frustrating. Also I'm in a shit load of pain cuz I ran low on my pain meds but the doc fixed me up again today.

Went to sleep at 3am last night. Had to turn off the t.v. and something bothered me. Can't remember what though.

Notes on things that help me with lucidity

*Thinking of my dream guide before bed. I like to appear in the dream next to my guide.

*Reading or listening to others dreams and thinking of them before bed.

*I ask myself what I was doing or what I want to do sometimes during the day because i get distracted by some things. Other times I ask it intentionally because I know my father was trying to distract me.XD Other times people actually make me forget by changing the subject.This helps me because it gets me thinking in the dream if I ask it and helps with recalling a moment from the dream. Like how tasty the cooked marshmallow on a stick was in my non lucid dream last night and how I would want to taste it again in the future.However, there's a possibility it could keep you from getting lucid too because you will be sucked into the moment of wanting to do something in a non lucid. Which happened in my store non lucid dream where I asked myself what I wanted to do first in my retail job and than went to do it.
(I'm not that forgetful though. So its not really a negative trait about me.)

*Reminding my self to RC when I find myself on a bed.This works mostly during false awakenings where it feels like I'm awake but I'm not. After rc I like to observe the dream surrounding to see what is out of place and remind myself what the surrounding is supposed to be like in reality.

*My reality check involves me biting my finger. It turns out to be rubbery which tells me for sure I'm dreaming. However, when I wake up for real I don't have to bite my finger. The real world is more concrete than the dream world.In the dream world things can be out of place, I can hear strange voices or make them appear as well as illusions/characters/objects and can move freely while doing these things. Being unable to move is a sign for me that I'm still in dream mode. Its also important to be accepting of still being in the dream or waking up. I'm welcoming to false awakenings because they are like second chances for me when I'm afraid in a dream. They allow for me to recollect my thoughts so I can be calmer.
(Not that I want false awakenings but im accepting of them as a dream thing)

*Saying "I'm dreaming " in my mind a few times (3 or 2 times) with my eyes closed helps boost my confidence for a lucid but I don't rely on it as much. I think I prefer "Lucid dreaming is a natural and achievable state" because that's the kind of thinking that gave me my first lucid and it feels better and less mechanical.

All of these things connected help me with becoming lucid. Sorry if it sounds a little weird. There might be other things but I can't recall anything else now.