SammyTheSnake

Dream one: Supermarket catacombs
Somebody is ill in a large traditional church building.
I call an ambulance, the person in the other end of the phone appears to be almost expecting the call and even knows the persons address, but I explain that the person is not at home but at the church. I go and try to spot the ambulance in case they don't know where to stop and see a variety of shops built into the edge of the church building, like a shopping arcade. I investigate behind the shops and find a large underground storage facility full of what looks like supermarket stock on dusty shelves with some yellow jacketed men shuffling around with clipboards and fork lift trucks. I snoop about a bit before realising I probably ought not to be here and heading back upstairs by means of a rickety old open lift somewhat reminiscent of warehouses in 101 films.

Dream two: Naughty motorbiking
I'm on a dirt bike flying through streets and tunnels doing wheelies through large puddles and trying to skim over deeper water.
I get to the end of a tunnel and it opens out into a covered space on the bank of a river, it looks like this area is perhaps tidal or otherwise occasionally flooded with banks of sandy silt and puddles it feels a bit like the space under a pier or a large concrete pontoon. I carry on toward the bank of the river planning to use a RIB as a ramp to get over the river. At this point I think through the manoeuvre several times with variations as my dreaming mind is interrupted by the first flakes is lucidity. This repetition as my subconscious tries to decide how realistic the scenario needs to be to pass muster is a classic dreamsign and the lucidity grows until I opt to land in the middle of the river and sink down, enjoying the impossibility of breathing and riding a motorbike underwater. Unfortunately the darkness and minimal lucidity mean I lose the dream and wake up.

I reenter the dream but non lucidly (boo!) I'm back on the motorbike coming up to a backstreet industrial area with a variety of garage sized units each occupied by separate concerns, mostly #full of boxes, some appear to be running repair shops of various kinds.

I pull into one unit that apparently is where the bike belongs, but I get an uneasy feeling that these guys are up to nefarious activities and decide to go back out again. I see two motorbikes this time and realise a friend is with me and we head off to play in the streets and puddles again.

Dream three: Lots of sex
That's about it really, an awkward succession of stilted and vague sexual encounters in which neither party was all that interested and both seemed to be putting up with it for the benefit of the other. Eventually we stop because it's getting a bit sore. Heaven knows what Freud would make of that dream...

Dream four: Tree in a car
Leaving a large modern church building en masse to go and have lunch together. This is not the same church as in the earlier dream. I decide to take a chair with me for stone train, it's exactly like one of my table chairs. I head directly through the nearest door rather than negotiate several internal doorways, explaining the logic to Andrew on the way past. I ponder how in going to get the chair on my bike as I've left my car behind today. I overhear Maddie taking to somebody about how he wouldn't let a tree grow in his car and I investigate the subject of the conversation, pulling a small tree out of the suspension of some numpty's car. Freud would probably claim the tree was sine kind of sexual symbolism in this dream, too, I expect...

I'm at work and apparently I drove my car, which I now need to park somewhere and I'd rather like not to have to pay for parking, so I drive off south looking for somewhere I can park on the road. The road very rapidly starts feeling like an out of town road. I even consider parking in the entrance of a wheat field, but decide that I've driven too far from the office to walk back without being late for work, so I turn bank.

As I head back toward the office, I get lost and the roads don't look familiar, so I check on the satnav feature of my phone and realise where I went wrong. I'm on a road called the T3. I retrace my path again and end up coming through a whole bunch of narrow pedestrianised areas that eventually become inside. At some point, my car has become a motorbike.

At one point, my path seems to go over a very narrow footbridge - too narrow for me to go across without all the pedestrians getting out of my way. I consider going through the water underneath as it's very shallow, but am put off by a combination of the idea of driving a motorbike over what will probably be a very slippery surface, and the fact that the shallow water is teaming with tiny sharks!

I turn around and am briefly sidelined by some confusion about whether I'm supposed to be pedaling or not and when I pay attention to navigation again, I'm indoors in something like the mailbox in Birmingham (a mostly indoor collection of shops, restaurants, flats, hotels...) So I get off the bike and push it through. As I head down some stairs there's a scuffle going on between two blokes and one of them kicks out at me so I take his shoe off and throw it over the banister.

We argue a bit and I get bored of that and start looking for the way out. I end up in a cinema where the film is about to start but the adverts are still playing. I try to keep out of people's line of sight as I look for the exit.

I see that a section of wall looks like a screen but I realise somehow is actually a holographic protection covering an exit from the cinema. I step into it and as I do I realise it's just the entrance into the toilets but this is too cool not to investigate!

As I step through the screen, my view is replaced by a cartoon like facsimile of both myself and the scenery. I go down some stairs watching my cumbersome cartoonish feet on the steps and feeling how the view and the feeling are just fractionally out of synch because the cartoon view is drawn with slightly wobbly lines and not quite right angle corners. At the bottom of the stairs, I see a mirror in which I can see my cartoon self reflected. Apparently the system has decided to draw me like a rakishly thin Walter White, complete with the fedora like hat and sunglasses. I notice that I'm actually wearing a beanie hat and cardboard 3D glasses and am impressed that the system has identified what I'm wearing and created a cartoon replica that reflects that but not slavishly.

I notice in the mirror that there a chap behind me to the left who I think is part of the behind the scenes functioning of the illusion but somehow my 3D glasses let me see him vaguely. We chat a little bit about how cool the illusion is and he asks if I've looked at my hands yet, saying they usually have six fingers but they're still working on the rendering of that part. I look at my left hand and it looks like two images of a hand superimposed, both hands have long fingers, one with then curved to the left, one with then curved to the right. The overall impression is of far more fingers than I'm used to!

I switch to looking at my right hand. At first it looks fairly normal, though I notice I seem to have coloured felt tip pen markings. As I look a little harder, I realise that several of my fingers terminate with a further bifurcation into sub-fingers. I note that the sub fingers are made by duplicating my hand in miniature on the fingertips, though how complete the mini hand is varies from a couple of stubby blob like digits to a complete hand from the wrist up. I wiggle my fingers and delight in setting my teeny little subdigits doing their thing.

I decide to wash my hands and note that the pen markings come off very easily - perhaps they were illusory? The chap also washes his hands and while he goes off to the other side of the room to dry them I'm smugly satisfied that my magic glasses allow me to see there's a hand drier directly under the sink.

I head back up the stairs watching my goofy feet again, then turn a different way out of the cinema, ducking down to avoid blocking anyone's view again.

At this point, I have a micro awakening and managed to almost pull off a DEILD but wasn't quite lucid when I reentered the dream.

I'm in what looks like a dingy but dry basement or hidden storage area of an office building so I resume my mission to get to work on time having somehow sorted out the issue of parking. I realise that it's a long way up to the 25th floor where my office is but there's no lift in sight. I start on my way up a helix (*not* a spiral!) of platforms around the walls of the space. After about one storey of climbing, I come across some people working at desks spread out on the bare concrete floor. They give me disapproving looks as I climb over their desks and filling cabinets to get to to the next part of the building. As I climb off the top of a shelf full of boxes, I enter something much more like a house with large white gloss painted doors. Lots of corridors and small rooms give a general labyrinthine feel to the layout.

I come into a room that feels like a living area in somebody's home. There's a chap sitting at a table and a couple of figures I don't really look at but I take to be his children sitting around on the floor and sofas.

At this point, I GET LUCID! Though I have an of feeling that I more realised that I was already lucid (weird, huh?). I say to the guy at the table that if this is a dream then I should try to do my tasks, right? He looks a little confused but plays along. I remember that one of the TOTMs is to put shoes on and tie the laces. I ask the chap if I can borrow some shoes to do the task and he reaches around to get a shoebox from behind the table. Inside are an assortment of odd shoes from which I manage to pick out a pair of red baseball pumps. I fish out a black gym dap from inside the left shoe and put it on. I notice that the laces aren't looped into the eyes of the shoe properly and I don't fancy my chances of sorting that out in dreamland without cheating, but they are in place enough that I can try to tie a bow. I tie a bow in the left shoe laces with surprising ease and as I finish it off I realise that the laces are now correctly threaded through the eyes. Handy. I repeat the process (complete with removing another shoe from inside the one I'm trying to put on) and while I'm doing it, ask of the guy has any fortune cookies. He looks surprised again as if it's a huge coincidence that I want fortune cookies when he happens to have a bowl of them on the table! I explain that this is my deam so if I want fortune cookies, I get fortune cookies. He seems to be mostly satisfied with that but still looks a little unsure.

I shove a cookie in my mouth, it tastes and feels like a stale prawn cracker. I try to pull the paper slip out of the cookie while I bite it and after a few false starts manage to get a bit of paper but it doesn't have anything intelligible written on it. I take another cookie and more carefully bite it open to get to the fortune. This time the fortune is a tea stain coloured mah jiang tile with a Chinese symbol I don't recognise on it. Frustrated at my second attempt being thwarted by a lack of language skills, I decide that I *do* know Chinese and have another look at the symbol. I realise that it means "Fortune" and figure that's good enough! :-)

Next up, I want to try the toilet portal. I go through a couple of doors and find a large white porcelain appliance of a style in fitting with the late Victorian feel of the house. I pull the chain and jump into the bowl. Unfortunately, all that achieves is soggy feet. I try going in head first in a dive but chicken out because the porcelain feels intimidatingly solid!

I give up on the toilet bowl (I should have thought to shrink myself but hey) and scan around for something else to do. I remember that Sensei's competition back in July had a task to transform a DC and decide to give that a go. I go back to the room with the table guy and children and look at a skinny girl who looks about twelve. I tell her to raise her arms sideways and grow some more arms. That seems to work quite well, she now has six arms, though the four extra ones coming out of her armpits are a little small and underformed. Inspired by the slightly odd appearance of the new arms, I decide to see if I can make one of them form into something more impressive.

I will the fingers of one of the new arms to grow downward, which they obligingly do. The thumb of the hand also extends and becomes a head while the descending fingers become a body and legs. Eventually there are two girls looking like conjoined twins who share an arm. Shame I didn't manage that during the competition, eh?

I attempt a WBTB WILD. I'm pretty sure there was a gap in consciousness, but as the dream scene forms around me, I know it's a dream.

In front of me is a box/cage formed from metal bands. I decide to phase my way into the cage and back out again. The bands of metal bend with me a bit before flopping back into place like rubber bands. I remember that one of the tasks in the dream competition was to phase through something solid with eyes open so I look around for a suitable target.

I'm in an abandoned building, bits of it feel like a multistory car park, but some bits feel like they used to be an office building. I see a wooden door and go to phase through it, I almost forget to keep my eyes open, but remember as I get to the door. The inside of the wood is a interesting combination of woody and transparent, the dark bands of the grain still visible and the light bands feel like air. As I come through the far side of the door, some of the grain bands stick to me for a bit before falling back into place like a bead curtain.

My recall is a bit vague about the next transition of scene, as I didn't bother to write anything down until the morning (bad boy!)

I'm at some kind of conference centre eager to get out and do some lucid dream tasks. I'm in an area outside the main auditorium room with hordes of people on their way in. I spot Jo McCaffery who's exited because she's going to be doing a presentation as part of the session and wants me to be there for moral support and feedback. I'm torn because I really want to do that for her but I also don't want to miss out on my lucid dream time. I'm just starting to follow the flow of delegates when I realise it's not actually her, but a DC, so it really doesn't matter! Lucid dreaming tasks it is!

I walk along a road for a bit, chatting with a couple of DCs. I see a door and the word "door" triggers my TOTM mnemonic, based as usual on the Tony Buzan rhyming numbers thing.

1 - bun. A bun opens just like a fortune cookie.
2 - shoe. Put some shoes on and don't forget to tie them
3 - tree. Laying a log in the toilet.
4 - door. I bet my Patronum is just behind that door!

I think the door is the back door of a childhood home, inside the conservatory.

I open the door and there on the quarry tiled floor, snuggled into a nest of blanket, are two crochet stuffed toy bunnies with pig-like snouts (they actually look somewhat like the clangers, but they were definitely bunnies) they look sleepy but seem to like a bit of petting. They're soft and warm and really cute!

I share my excitement with the random DCs, but it's too much excitement and I wake up with a "squee!"

This dream was interrupted by a couple of DEILDs, though I suspect that one or more of then may have been a false awakening - difficult to tell with your eyes closed and a degree of lingering REM atonia!

I'm climbing/vaulting over a fence and notice that I'm playing with the physics and re-doing the manoeuvre a couple of times so I GET LUCID!

I look around at the environment and see that I'm in a sunny meadow with trees to the sides and a step wooded hillside ahead. I start exploring the woods, enjoying the vividness of the cool soil-scented air, the gentle background noises of birds and a breeze soughing through the trees, and the detailed undergrowth. The sun is filtering through the treetop canopy in cool dapples lifting the ambient light level to a pleasant clarity.

After a brief exploration of a few paths among the trees, I start heading back downhill, apparently by a different path because I come across some ramshackle buildings in the edges of the forest. I think about how it's a shame that these pretty and romantic buildings are going to waste, but then notice some evidence of restoration in progress, apparently somebody's planning to resuscitate them and make a home here, which pleases me.

I'm vaguely aware that I have lucid tasks to do that involve people, so I start looking for a more populated area, though I don't think much about the specifics of the tasks yet.

As I continue downhill, the buildings become a little denser and the path becomes a residential road. The general feel is very reminiscent of the outskirts of Shrewsbury where I grew up, or perhaps a nearby village. As I notice this similarity, I also notice that there are people around, also strolling in the same direction as me. I recognise a few of them as people I knew in Shrewsbury, though I can't remember their names. I engage one in conversation and tell them about how this place seems to be my subconscious generating a Shrewsbury-esque scene, built out of the kind of scenery typical of Shrewsbury but not layed out the same. As we have this conversation about how it's a dreamsign for me to be in Shrewsbury, especially when it's clearly not *actually* Shrewsbury, the scenery is slowly becoming more reminiscent of the suburbs rather than the outlying areas, and still clearly a random imitation. I hope that this conversation will help my subconscious to recognise dream like scenery more easily in future dreams.

I briefly DEILD (FA?) here so the next scene is a little disconnected from the previous, but I've thought a little more about my lucid dare. I also note that my bladder would like some attention but I decide that lucid dreaming takes priority for now.

I'm in a room that feels like Bluecoat school, surrounded by jubilee people and I look for a female who looks like she might object amusingly to flirtatious behaviour in order that I can be sleazy without my inner horndog bending the scenario into a predictable humpfest!

I see Jo and lean over to *flibble* her breasts. She looks surprised and a little taken aback but not properly outraged. She also doesn't look turned on, though, so one nil to will over subconscious!

I try to remember some more ways to be obnoxious. I wolf whistle and shout out "Hey, Jo! Looking sexy!" making sure everyone around notices and disapproves. She starts walking away so I run around to overtake her, jump onto a table, flip my nob out and wave it in her face. She's definitely not impressed and bites it hard. Apparently my subconscious finds this an unimaginable turn on as I start ejaculating a seemingly endless stream which I decide to direct into a nearby sink. Probably inspired by my recently acknowledged full bladder, this turns into a stream of wee.

Feeling nervous that all this fluid release might not be only in the dream world, I wake up, glad to discover that I'm not humping my pillow or wallowing in a puddle. I decide to visit the little boys' room.

This was a DEILD chain with at least three DEILDs, maybe as many as five.

I GET LUCID waking down a street in a city centre scene that feels like some parts of Glasgow. I float into the air as an RC, then try to fly higher because flying more impressively is one of my dream goals.

I notice that a DC has risen into the air with me, a dark haired woman perhaps in her early forties. I float across to her and say "I'd like as conversion with you, if that's OK" then go on to explain that I'm dreaming and that she's not real but I want to find out what she's like. She furrows her brow as I say she's not real as if she's considering whether to be offended. We share another couple of sentences of conversation that I can't remember.

I come down to ground level to think what to do next. I look at a car thinking of going for a joy ride and note that it's a left hand drive like in another recent dream, so I decide I'd rather find a right hand drive car. I floatalong the street looking at a variety of weird cars, mostly looking like concept cars, but including several just plain surreal ones (one has a shaggy coat of wires, another is a small house with wheels...)

I realise I ought to be thinking of the TOTMs, so I go through the mantra "foreign banana, eye castle, tease" (I replaced the bonus TOTM with the dare I was recently dared, because it sounded more fun!)

I look across the street to see another DC on the pavement on the other side of the street, a shabby looking blonde woman probably in her 50s. I ask her for a foreign word and its meaning, but she wants to bustle past me. I say "well I'm going to stop you because this is my dream and I'm in charge" I accost her as she's about to enter her house. When she realises in not going to let her go without my word, she says "koinu" and I ask her what it means. "Go away / go home" is the reply, which I guess I had coming...

The next task is to rob a bank using only a banana. I put my hand out palm up with a deliberate gesture to conjure up a banana. I get a tiny yellow dot in my palm, about the size of a lentil. I decide that's probably not intimidating enough, so I decide to try another tactic. I make another conjuring gesture at the pavement to conjure up a giant banana attack dog. I get a rather blobby banana-like dog who also doesn't look all that impressive. I stretch out his snout to make it look a little more aggressive with limited success. I realise I still have the pill sized banana in my other hand, so I throw it to the ground and it becomes another banana dog, this one smaller but at least a little more angular and aggressive looking.

I head into the bank and shout that everyone should keep back as I have attack bananas!

People seem suitably nervous at first, but as I go through the bank looking for a cashier to take money from, the general feel turns into one of normal interaction, as if my attack bananas have made their point and the staff are all happy to just go about the business of finding me some money to steal. At the back of the bank is a large table positively groaning with bank notes. The bank notes are tiny, about a third the size of a credit card, and very simply designed, a bit like monopoly money. I ask the chap counting and sorting the money to put as much as he could in a Tupperware sitting on the table for me and he obliges. I note that these tiny notes include some really huge denominations of thousands of pounds, so a small Tupperware of then is still a major haul. The chap hands over the cash and I head out.

I have a long interlude here with almost no lucidity during which I read a very surreal psychedelic concept art book that my dad had lying around. The story seems to mostly relate a relationship between the main protagonist and his girlfriend, who he meets when she's about eight, and they have a difficult life trying to work out how to go about a relationship when the book seems to have started too early in their lives. The protagonist (who I identify with enough that at one point I'm living the story rather than reading it) had a weird experience of trying to work or how old his "girlfriend" is and if it's non-creepy yet for him to fancy her. Eventually, she gains boobies and he decides that makes it OK. She gets pregnant and the couple split up and feel very miserable about the while situation as if they blame the author of the book for making their lives suck. I loved the book, but my dad says he never really liked it.

I start looking for a mirror to watch myself pull my eyeballs out. I see the Shire Hall in Shrewsbury, and outside is a rather pitiful Lord Hill's Column, about 18" of column and 6" of Lord Hill. I figure there might be a nice big mirror in the reception, so I start to head inside. The entrance turns out to be blocked with hundreds of shopping trolleys, which keeps me snared up for quite a while. Eventually, I find myself inside at a large mirror and stare at myself trying to remember how I was planning to pull my eyeballs out. I try poking my fingers behind my left eyeball (I'm less find of my left eye because it's crap) and try to retain my view through the eyeball as I remove it. I think the sight acts as an anchor keeping the eyeball in place as I'm so used to my perspective being from my eyeballs' customary position! I decide it might be more successful to try sucking my eyeball out with the palm of my hand, blocking my view as I do so.

After a couple more unsuccessful attempts, I pull my hand away to see that my reflection has become oddly distorted, as if made a bit ineptly out of plastocene. I do note, however, that one eyeball is protruding about an inch from my face, and the other is somehow sticking out of my temple. I decide this counts and inspect my eyes in my reflection for a bit. They both look like crappy craftsmanship, but they're definitely my eyes and definitely not in their normal places. I shove them back in and start to think about the next TOTM - find Howl's castle.

I try looking around for a giant insect like walking castle, and even try to conjure one up, but then I remember that the magic door can be a way in as well was a way out, so I look for interesting looking doors to find the inside of the castle through. I spot a door that looks tempting, it's small and characterful, so I go to open it. There are two or three street urchins lurking by the door and they keep getting in my way. I pull the door open to find shorter door behind it, then a manhole cover, then another door...

Eventually I wake up for a final time and a twitch as I'm just about to attempt another DEILD spoils it for me :-(

Dream 1:
Faffing about trying to move out of a building. My brother keeps running off to pack more things and I'm getting impatient.

Eventually we get going in a van that contains another van. My brother derives down the road at breakneck speed, barely missing cars at the junction at the bottom of the road. I tell him off for that.

Dream 2:
I've run out of clean undies (all packed in the van?) So I start looking for somewhere to hand clean some dirty undies. As I keep going, there are more and more bits and bobs in the sink, with people adding things as I try to clean everything and the sunk growing to accommodate the heaps of junk.

Fragment 1:
Whizzing around in boats


Dream 1:
A loop about lucid dreaming. I am trying to pull off some kind of lucid challenge and keep going back to sleep after not quite managing it.

I manage to avert a nasty violent argument on the final attempt, a bystander appears to remember the argument that happened in the previous loop and is scared when I turn up but is relieved when I manage to change the story this time around

Fragment 2:
Dancing on the sofa to the band outside

Fragment 1:
I'm trying to repair something that needs some specific screws that I know I have somewhere but I can't find. After what feels like about ten minutes of scrabbling around in various nooks and crannies, I give up, assuming the screws got hovered up or something.

Fragment 2:
I'm playing with portals like in the game Portal - would be pretty damn cool if I could remember more of it, especially if I can do it lucidly. Hmm, future TOTM?


Dream 1 - Alien invasion part one:
The world is taken over by some kind of alien slash demigod (I just watched Thor II and Guardians of the Galaxy) The water levels are rising and everyone is trying to find a spot on top of buildings or other high up places. For some reason it's important that everyone is quiet and there's something jangling in my pocket - little round bells about the size of peas, similar to the ones you get on a cat collar. Perhaps these are a remnant of the gizmo from the first fragment?

I appear to be flying and aim to land on top of a silo like object with some other people. I'm desperately trying to shed the bells silently and manage to ditch the last handful into the water as I land, just as the baddie comes around the corner and starts casting some kind of spell on people. The spell turns people black in a non visual way (I don't know how better to explain it!) and as each person is labeled by the spell, they are assigned to a group of people, 4-6 per group.

The groups are the same as in some previous grouping (is this the second invasion?) and people start being drawn through the air to join their groups. I am pulled off the silo, around a corner, and up the side of a multi story building. People are flying off the balconies to join their groups while I am drawn slowly up the side of the building to meet the people I was with before. The groups seem to be named after satellites in orbit with somewhat whimsical names (which I can't remember, I think stone were named after the four classical elements)

Dream two - Alien invasion part two:
After waking up for a minute, I end up in a new dream that seems to be a follow on from the previous one

An older chap (reminiscent of Dale from the walking dead) is leading a group of people through deserted streets (I'm one of them)

We appear to be some kind of resistance force against the alien invader, but when he shows up, "Dale" acts like he's cooperating and shows the baddie a giant sign he made listing the satellites. The sign is made from repurposed traffic signs and there are about 30 named.

Baddie decides he doesn't approve and to demonstrate his opinion, he levitates the sign over to a giant unlit bonfire on a nearby hillock. Three are about a dozen minions swarming over the pile of junk trying to light it. After a few attempts, there's a fireball and most of the minions are inside it, a couple are just on the edge and run screaming on fire for a moment before dying.

One comes running over screaming "Soy yo! Soy yo!" I expect him to be horribly injured but he seems to be OK. We take him inside the building we are standing next to.

As we enter the building, the scenario transforms again. It's just me and a woman who appears to be my wife. We try to find a good place to sleep in this abandoned and barren building. The walls are whitewashed and it feels like a building that was not quite finished before it was abandoned. We settle in adjacent rooms, but I need to go through her room to get to the next one...

Wake up to alarm.

I try a few cheeky micro WILDs in the ten minute gaps of my alarm's size cycle without success. With a 20 minute gap, this might be a viable tactic...

NLD:
I'm outside a building I don't actually turn around to see but appears to be a train station. I have my bike with me and I'm planning to cycle home, but feel like I should show my train pass before I go anyway. I hang around in a fenced of area just over the road where a bus is due to arrive to replace a missing train, muttering under my breath about how poorly arranged this train station appears to be (I do this in real life, too!)

When the bus appears, I have to squeeze past to get to the door to show my ticket (thinking back, the location if the door means this bus was left hand drive) The conductor chap is puzzled by my explanation of why I'm showing him my ticket, and I feel like a chump for waiting around when it seems I needn't have bothered.

I go back across the road to get on my bike, noticing that it's just starting to get a bit dark, just enough that I'd rather have my lights on to avoid SMIDSY.

I reach over to get my helmet (hanging on the fence) and when I turn back my bike has been replaced by a large silver car (a Mondeo, I think) This doesn't phase me at all. (I have a memory of going to buy the car but I think this is a retrospective justification or an insert from a different dream) I get into the left hand side of the car and have to reach quite far forward to pull the door shut.

I think I ought to drive super gently because this is a new car and because I don't want to give Emma any excuse to criticise my driving. I briefly think that I should put my bike lights on, but remember that my bike is a car now and has headlights!

I head off on a dirt track, because it's too tight to turn around and take the obvious route home. I try to work out how to get from the dirt track to the main road and see several other cars on a parallel track looking like they know the way but I can't get to their track. I decide that I can just keep going on this track and that eventually it will turn into a residential area and beyond that will be a main road. I have to dodge a couple of mutters coming the other way at high speed. Just as the track gains tarmac, I catch up with a couple of other cars, who then look like they're turning off to the left into a race track. I can't resist joining them out of curiosity. I think this might be a prefect chance to satisfy my need for speed in a low risk environment.

Coming up the drive I have some difficulty with the gears, accidentally ending up in third at very low speed, then struggling with clutch control, feeling like a early as I hold up the car behind, given that I'm trying to drive impeccably.

I get to the track and park my car as out of the way as possible so I can find somebody in charge and find out what the costs are etc. They'd a sign up saying entrance is free, so I have a look over the fence to see what's going on. There are people racing around on skateboards, so I won't be able to drive today and I turn around to leave.

My car seems to have taken on board my desire to park out of the way and had shrunk down and transformed into a motorbike helmet. I briefly pounder the dream physics of getting into the car on is reduced form and turning around when the full sized firm would be overlapping with the building I parked next to. I turn the helmet sound and move it away from the building so that there won't be a conflict when it returns to full size.

I drive off on a tarmac road, following a series of junctions while trying to get a grip on this new car. There are a variety of controls around the steering wheel, one of which spears to be some kind of military device, but I can't work out what. There's a key for it in the driver's door pocket, and even the key has a little lock on it. I have no idea where the key for the key lock is. Also in the door pocket are some audio tapes, the car soars to have a take player, how quaint.

After following the road around a bit, I pull into a supermarket carpark over a huge speed bump. The car skids a coupe of times barely missing boards and other cars. I manage to react to the skids and avoid crashing, but only just. I think how it would be a good idea to find a nice open part of the carpark to practice, but it's a very small carpark. I head out passing an employee of the supermarket on the way out.

I wrestle with the gears again, the clutch send to be reluctant to grip at low speed and I think about what people will think about me buying a car without checking such basics. The dashboard of the car has lots of gizmos, glowing lights that react to my driving, a fuel consumption disk that shows me when in using too much, a radio that appears to be from my old Mondeo and is still tuned into my choice of station.

Fragment:
Discussing the former dream with my dad, then waking up to find I'm running late because I turned my alarm off instead of snoozing!

SammyTheSnake

Lucid dream:
After I tried a WILD, but probably after a lapse in consciousness, I start visualising a street full of people (a scenario I have been incubating because several goals involve DCs)

There are lots of people walking in the same direction as me as I fly a couple of feet above the ground (a favourite way of getting around in a dream - helpfully reminding me that it *is* a dream!) and a few going the other way. I try to look at people's faces to see if I recognise anyone, but nobody looks familiar.

The street is familiar and I think it might be Dogpole in Shrewsbury (where I grew up) I nearly get distracted worrying too much about where the street goes, but realise that having a street in mind is handy because I can just let my subconscious follow the route and I don't need to think to much about generating more scenery. As I turn down the hill I realise that the street has become enclosed like a giant corridor in a shopping centre or the like. The sides of the street / corridor are a combination of shop fronts, redbrick buildings, and rich oak panelling. The ground changes from tarmac to satin finish white tiles.

Heading down the hill, I realise almost all the people I see are heading in the same direction as me which isn't very convenient because not setting their faces turns them into "traffic" rather than "people". I turn left at a junction at the bottom of the hill (I should have just stopped at the junction, but hey) thinking that I might see more faces heading that way, but my subconscious pulls a fast one on me and I turn into a large room that feels a lot like a swimming pool changing room.

My lucidity drops somewhat at this scene change, but I'm still just about lucid. I start faffing around with taking off my suit (apparently I'm wearing an expensive suit) carefully folding it and trying to lie it on a bench where it won't get wet. I notice a female DC who seems to want me to "interact" with her, so I oblige. My lucidity / dream recall fades out completely here.

NLD:
I'm in my suit from the previous dream, but I have been awake in between. I'm at Armoury Gardens (childhood home) getting ready for work, mum is there explaining why I'm in a suit to Sandeep (my boss's boss) and the explanation involves staying overnight at a relative's house but I don't remember the details. Alice (my sister) has a rather awesome electric violin in a nice case that seems to be designed for two. She talks about getting a chin rest for it, as the case has spare space.

There was more to this dream but it's very vague, I remember a spiral staircase and some gizmo or other but not even really enough to call a fragment

SammyTheSnake

Dream one:
Trying to get into a large house that I'm sure is a location I've been to in previous dreams. There's no spare key, mum explains that it's a special key that would cost over a hundred pounds to duplicate.

My big brother is behind me also trying to get into the house. I manage to find a different door and get in, but I lock the door behind me and run around closing a variety of other doors and windows. I don't recall why I wanted to lock him out...

Dream two:
A seemingly endless cycle of trying to get to work on time (or at least no later than I already am!)

Fixing my bike, putting my shoes on only to find the shoelaces need replacing, waking up at midday, desperately needing the loo just as I'm about to leave, not being able to find my keys, getting lost as I run the whole way to work (it's about 25 miles) getting to work and finding it's locked. Really the whole repertoire of rubbish anxiety dream nonsense!

Fragment:
For some reason I'm in a somewhat erotic tryst with a girl who seems to be quite keen on trying to fit me in anywhere except the most obvious option. Not the most unpleasant dream I've ever had, but still a little frustrating

Dream one:

I'm arriving at the Gables [my grandparents' house] with a couple of others (family members?) And it's somewhat empty because my grandparents are planning to sell up (and move to a smaller house, probably)

I accidentally stomp mud all over the freshly hoovered carpets from my big boots and go to look for the "hodduddudduh" to sweep it up. The carpet sweeper is as useless as ever, just spreading the mud around.

Mum comments that she'd love to live here and I doubt she could afford it because it's much bigger that armoury gardens.

Dream two:
I've been kidnapped to make drugs like in Breaking Bad. Walter White is asleep in a bed and I try to wake him up to get him to help me. The man who's coercing me into making drugs explains that he's drugged and not likely top wake up soon. I also feel very heavy limbed as if I'm recovering from being drugged. I get dressed and can't find any socks because I didn't pack any as I wasn't expecting to stay.

Dream three:
I'm in a spherical spaceship with three competing/cooperating factions controlling their own sectors of the ship. I'm inside the ship with the other two captains, trying out some gizmos. There's one that lets us mimic each other perfectly (like a holographic disguise with voice simulation)

The three factions are stereotypes, one of them is a very by-the-book character, which I rib him about when I mimic him. I touch the left of his three eyelids (on my face while I'm disguised as him) and he gets very angry, apparently there's some kind of cultural taboo I'm breaking. He grabs my arm and tells me he'll break it of I don't stop, and rip it off altogether of I do it again.

I stop.

Then we look at some close combat weapons, one in particular grabs my attention, it's a glove with razor sharp blades, hooked at the end. It's labeled the 'killingpriest". It reminds me of Vega from Street Fighter.

There's also a selection of smaller hook like things with sharp ends which the third captain uses to rip the helmet off my face, scratching my nose in the process. Ouch.


Lucid dream one!
I'm arriving at some kind of jacuzzi establishment with a posse of friends. I climb into a jacuzzi booth through tinted cellophane windows that are supposed to make marketing photography more realistic. There's no water in the jacuzzi bit there is a round table about 8ft across. I sit at the table with a random chap. A couple of girls look on like they're going to join us but decide to go for the overcrowded both next door instead. I laugh and comment that nothing feels like rejection as much as girls preferring to be cramped with old folk than sit with us!

Another couple of girls come into our booth and we start spinning the table which spins the both too, like the teacups at the amusement park. One of the girls has her feet sticking right out into the slave inner the table where I want my feet. I'm not sure if o should be irritated or if she's trying to flirt.

Pizza arrives! I'm not sure if were supposed to get food here but we tuck in anyway. I notice my buddies outside of the booth sitting at a bar eating together, so I get up and join them. Steve G has a plate stacked high with various cured meats and comments that one of them in particular is almost pure salt. I all if I can try it and he offers me the slice. It's like the basin equivalent of a single malt whisky, full of deep rich unexpected flavours. I ask him where he got out from and he days there's a charcuterie exhibit on down the road, so I go to investigate.

I wander through the stalls in a dimly lit exhibition hall, most of which are giving out free samples, but I somehow end up at one that's charging for samples and don't have s penny on me :-(

I head back to the jacuzzi place (to borrow some money from a friend?) but realise that there were stalls giving out free samples so I go back down the hill again.

I'm waking into the town centre like area with a swarm of other people milling around trying to get to wherever they're going, most going in the same direction, but stone going elsewhere and I'm feeling a little frustrated by having to squeeze through the crowd, so the possibility of floating over them cones to mind (I've been using visualisation of floating and environment manipulation as a daytime practice, which seems to have worked!)

I GET LUCID!

I float up above the crowd as an RC and start to think of what I should do with my lucidity. I remember that flying faster is an aim of mine and might count as advanced flying for the competition. I try a variety of swimming like manoeuvres to accelerate with limited success, I get a sensation of speed (wind in my face and the ground blurring) but I'm not covering ground any faster, so I don't think it counts. I try going higher instead to get the advanced flying goal. With a series of *whooshes* I rise up to about fifty metres, then maybe 500, then just below cloud level. I decide that's high enough to count and close my eyes to feel the sensation of flying . I'm a little nervous that this might destabilise the dream but that doesn't seem to happen.

I decide that while I'm up here I might as well try the"fall from a great height" dare and realise it combines well with the "gain invulnerability" goal. I allow myself to fall precipitously to the ground, feeling the wind rushing past me more and more urgently, falling with a splintering sound through a tree and hitting the ground with a damp thud. The tree feels uncomfortable but the ground seems to be quite soft, like really well hydrated soft soil.

I get up unharmed and opening my eyes (realising I probably should have fallen with my eyes open) to see a girl trying to fix a gate in front of her house, looking a little frustrated and despondent, like she's been trying for a while and is worried about the security of her house of she can't fix it. I think this night be a chance to get basic summoning by conjuring up a spare part to fix the gate, but it seems she just needs to tighten a bolt and doesn't have a spanner or the finger strength to so it by hand. I tighten the bolt for her (my left arm is uncooperative so I have to lean right in to do it - perhaps I'm sleeping on my arm?) Her mother is just arriving home and they're both grateful. I say they're welcome and mumble something about it not being perfect but it should do for now.

I look around at the street and think about what I should do next. I think of my three step task (supper strength, basic summoning, eat something) my plan is to flip cars over, then summon and eat a bar of chocolate (with the possibility that the chocolate might be magic and transform me into the incredible hulk)

I spot a car park across the road and fly over to it. It's night time now (it's been a sunny day so far) I land heavily on the bonnet of a car, denting it badly, jump onto another couple of cars, and then land on the ground next to another, which I kick. (I'm just enjoying being destructive with no consequences!)

I pick a smallish car (a Micra, perhaps?) And lift out onto its side - it leaves the ground slightly in the process. I'm not happy that the strength require is superhuman enough, so I do the same with a larger car. With the third car, I concentrate on being stronger, rather than lifting harder. I consider making the car light but that surely counts as cheating. I manage to get this one to land on its other side, having rotated 270 degrees.

I realise that I've been rolling cars in the downhill direction, so I decide to do one last car uphill. I spot a yellow skoda truck that appears to be something to do with fixing street lighting. I stand on the downhill side, grab the don't-drive-under-me rail, muster some imagination momentum, and manage to flip it onto its roof.

Satisfied that I've been suitably superhuman, I decide to move on to the summoning part but just then my alarm goes off and I realise this entire dream happened between my alarm and the first snooze -10 minutes!

I'm in a car park, or possibly at the side of a road with cars parked alongside. I remember that I was going to turn cars over as a demonstration of superhuman strength. MrPriority is with me and it becomes a competition to see who can do the most impressive car flip. I start with a smallish car and turn it onto its side fairly easily. I move on to a larger car, perhaps a Mondeo. I hope to turn it right over. It nearly tips onto its roof but I lose momentum and it trays on its side like the first.

I move on again to an estate car, picking it over a couple of others as they're parked in and there's nowhere to flip them over into. As I'm turning it over I notice there's a man in the driver's seat and I hesitate a little bit but I know this competition takes that into account, so I carry on. The car ends up testing against a bus and there are several family members in the car. A small child has fallen out of the car and is such between the car and the bus, so I help to retrieve it unharmed.

An additional fragment: I remember there being a salamander. No idea what the rest of the dream was, just the salamander...

Dream one:
I'm in water about chest deep, I have somebody unconscious in a fireman's lift who I'm trying to rescue from drowning. The water is under a low beam type bridge and slowly rising.

Dream two:
I'm on a single track road and I'm trying to use a wall wart type phone charger to tie my shoelaces. There's a large car stationary on the road, perhaps a Passat estate (I'm planning to but a car and that's one of the options I'm considering) there are two people during around the car with luggage and equipment. I ignore then for a moment and go back to my shore laces. Now the wall wart has mutated into a rear light for a bike, I notice that I accidentally left it switched on while I was looking at the car and attendant people, but in a mode that makes it flash one every couple of second so it's ready to think it's switched off if you're in a hurry. I press the button in the light and it cycles through at least a dozen modes, a little screen mentions VGA output and I realise the light has a camera built in to record traffic incidents, which is cool but a distraction. I decide that I can attach the light using a couple of elastic bands and move on.

The car and people are now the focus of my attention, there is a woman who has an air of authority and a male lackey who I mostly ignore. I invisibly float around inspecting the situation, feeling like I'm some kind of expert who might be able to help them sort out whatever they're faffing with if I can analyse the situation. I try to identify the vehicle and it feels like it might be some kind of alien or secret technology as well as being a boring family car.

I slip sideways into a parallel scenario where I'm watching a man designing the vehicle in question. I note that his paperwork is branded with a car manufacturer's logos and name (Audi or VW I think) and some vague memory that I'm supposed to be remembering dreams prompts me to start taking mental notes. The designer's name is Gerhardt Davidov which I see handwritten in magic marker in all caps on a manilla folder. I start writing notes but stop when I remember that notes made during a dream don't come out of the dream with you. This is as close to lucidity as I've been for ages, so I guess that should be an encouraging sign...

Fragments:
After I wake up for WBTB I lie trying to remember my dreams, which is difficult and I think some of my memories got conflated. Fragments include playing with Harriet (my daughter) as a baby, showing a comic / graphic novel style rendition of my heroic water rescue dream to a DV member who days I should turn it into a web comic, standing on a train with the cast of one of my earlier dreams when a bunch of people I identify as the cast of a different dream rush by and I think about how I'm not even sure whether the dream they come from is a real memory or a dream memory...

I'm walking home from town with a couple of bags of grocery shopping, crossing the ringroad roundabout by the police station. I'm coming down the stairs into the underpass and notice that the headroom at the bottom of the stairs is very restricted, so I'm stooping to see if I'm in anyone's way.

I spot John Fieldsend and his wife, who I've never seen outside of Shrewsbury, where I used to live years ago, and a girl I take to be their daughter (though far too young but hey) I greet them with "Hello, Fieldsends" I also notice that I'm not wearing and shoes and the ground's a little wet so my yellow socks are getting wet. I decide I should get my shipping home before I go back to town to get my boots which I "remember" I left in a shop up town.

Coming out of the far side of the underpass (onto a street that's not the one normally there) I notice the sunny well lit ambiance and identify it as one of my dreamsigns. All of a sudden I realise that seeing the Fieldsends counts, too, and the very low headroom in the underpass, and having no shoes on is also suspicious. I decide to do a reality check because I'm more suspicious than convinced. I start levitating above the ground and now I *know* it's a dream!

I ditch the shopping bags and fly up above the houses. My dream starts to fade rapidly. It's getting dark and I'm nowhere near any surfaces to fondle. I try spinning but the dream keeps fading. I'm now aware of my sleeping body and realise I can't keep hold of the dream. In retrospect, it might have been an FA, but I just rolled over and went back to sleep, not even smart enough to try a DEILD, Doh!