regulator

Short NLD from August 23rd.

I'm the instructor or an advanced student at a school where people are trying to learn to draw. There's a student who is drawing on a backboard, drawing a horse's tail. And I'm helping him by smudging the colors of the chalk on the tail.

That's it. It's odd, because is can't draw at all. I'm horrible. The last person who should be teaching drawing.

I'm wondering to what extent the character I identify as "me" in a dream is sometimes not really me, but something more like a video game NPC (non-player-character), or better, like the player's character in a VG, but during a cut-scene, where the character does things and the player has no control. Anyway, here's the full version:

I'm in a studio apartment with my wife (we actually live in a house). There is a person who we know, and make plans for her tom come over the next day. But when this person came over, my wife was really tired and wanted to sleep instead. So she took a nap. The guest came over and I wanted to convince her to come back another time, but I didn't want to be rude. Then 2 of her friends came over, and I was trying to keep them quiet. They ere on a back patio behind a glass door.

Then, I had to go to the bathroom in the dream. Good news!! This is a DS, and I've been RCing every time I go to the bathroom IRL. And I've been making a point of RCing seriously. I do at least 3 things each time (read text/look at clocks, try to breath with nose plugged, and at least 1 more depending on what is around). I take it really seriously, because I don't want to get into a dream and half-ass the RC.

But that is exactly what happened. It was a totally weak RC unlike anything I'd do IRL. More on this in a second.

The dream continued with my wife waking up, and asking me who these people were. She then remembered that we invited one of them over. I asked her if she was OK to hang out. She said yes, and so she got up. We got ready to make some snacks for the guests. That's when I woke up.

OK, here's the thing. The way that the RC was done in my dream was completely unlike the way I do it IRL. It was kind of frustrated initially when I woke up because of the failed RC. What was frustrating is that the decision making that "I" was doing really wasn't like me at all. It is making me wonder to what extent, in some dreams at least, or maybe in all dreams at some times, there is a character that we identify as ourselves, but isn't really us. This character is more like a DC, or a video game NPC (non-player character).

Then I realized that the best analogy is a video game cut scene. In video games usually the player controls their character. But from time to time there are "cut scenes" where the player has no control. Some event happens but is pre-scripted. That's what the RC felt like. Whatever is 'me' wasn't really controlling that.

Anyway, apart from questions about what makes something oneself, as opposed to someone else, aside, I decided not to get too frustrated by it. The good news is that I recognized a DS in a dream, and performed an RC. So what I'm doing during the day is having the right effect. Just need to do what I can to ensure that the next time it happens the RC actually tips me off.

Somebody, it might have been Steve or Ben (two friends of mine), was making presents available to people that he liked. I think girls mostly. He had hand-drawn pictures of the presents. Not fancy drawings. I was explaining to him that presents are not a way to go about getting someone to hang out with you. It basically involved compromising your self and pretending to be someone you aren't. Especially if you are giving your own stuff. (I now have no recollection of anything from this dream. I dictated it into my iPhone when I woke up in the middle of the night. But now I have nothing. It is like I am reading some other person's schematic journal entry.)

In another dream I'm going somewhere with somebody outside on some roads. I think we were in a vehicle. We are camping or something near an intersection of major roads out in the middle of nowhere. A large group of people come by. They are high school or college kids. About six of them. There is a bridge nearby, and for some reason I have to go to the bathroom and there is a toilet on the bridge. I am trying to go to the bathroom but I can't get any privacy because the group of people is all around. I think this is a recurring thing in my dreams. Restrooms that are either out in the open, or not private enough. Seems like it could be a DS, so I'm now trying to RC every time I go to the bathroom.

There were two dreams that I recall parts of. Both non-lucid.

1. There was a self storage place with a concrete ramp and I was keeping stuff in there. It was pretty full. There were some bicycles that I needed to move inside. But there wasn't really enough space. As I was loading it someone nearby had an international scout. She couldn't get it started and wanted me to help. I went to help but when I got there she managed to get it started. She drove it away down to the bottom of the muddy hill.

2. In another scene I was watching a movie and there was an alien who was wearing a leather jacket with funky wooden armor on it. Kind of like a number of small wooden scales with symbols on them, in a random patchwork that only covered about half the coat. It wasn't clear whether a) in the dream I was watching a movie, or b) I wasn't really physically *in* this part of the dream, but the scene was just being presented to me in a movie-likeway. It's a subtle distinction, but quite real. The alien was presented in a scene which first showed the jacket, and then slowly panned up to the head to reveal a non-human head, kind of a cross between fish and lizard looking. And there were some Japanese people, but I'm not sure of their role, not sure if they were in the movie or were watching the moviewith me.

That's it.