side notes

As any astute follower of this journal would notice, I haven't quite followed through on my recent resolution to resume dream documentation, however I do like to come back to this journal time to time to document particularly notable dreams (eg the previous post). The following is actually a dream I had a few nights ago and have been toying with the idea of writing down; it was a very haunting, powerful experience that I keep thinking about again and again.

The overarching premise of the dream was that I was dead somehow and in heaven. I want to say that the earliest part of the sequence was me living ordinarily in an area that seemed to be a common room with a bunch of offshoot dwelling rooms adjacent to a hallway that led directly to a hospital where I worked (I'll get into more detail in describing both later on), but I also suspect these may be memories within the dream (I'll clarify this later as well). Anyways, the earliest clear part of this dream took place as I somehow came to be outside the gates of heaven. I was apparently well aware of a conspiracy to keep people out of heaven, and that the primary methodology of this conspiracy was a complex maze system outside heaven's gate with a long line of people that were queued to enter heaven, and it was so constructed so as to keep people trapped, slowly moving nowhere in circles. I was at first able to see a narrative overview of this maze; people in single file line, slowly shuffling forward, many branches and loops ensuring that the people (who seemed completely ignorant of their situation and complacently moved along) were trapped. There were "employees" who seemed to be party to the conspiracy directing the flow of the lines so as to maintain things. As it were, I was just near what I knew to be the actual, true entrance to heaven, which was blocked off and guarded by a line of "employees". As I stood there trying to determine how I was going to get back in, I by chance noticed a bellboy carrying a platter of dirty dishes (I seemed to understand they delivered food to people in line). I watched as he entered an adjacent hallway marked employees only. It was unguarded, so I looked down the hallway; it was tall and wide and reminiscent of the grand hallways at a hotel convention center. The hallway went a long ways back before ending in a group of employee rooms (I assumed one of them must be a kitchen), but I also noticed a hallway branched off to the right some distance down. I looked to my right now towards the entrance to heaven and noticed another hallway opened on the other side of the line of sentries, so I decided I'd try to sneak through that way. I happened to have my messenger bag with me, so I decided I'd pretend to be a writer. I began to walk quickly down the hallway, repeating the phrase, "I'm a writer" constantly in my head as though I thought it would somehow prevent me from being caught. As I turned the corner to the right, I found that the hallway continued for some time before coming to another hallway parallel to the first. I turned another right and headed towards the exit. As I continued down this hallway I came upon a black man in a suit who waved at me in a friendly way and offered to shake my hand. As I shook his hand I only said, "I'm a writer" and then kept walking; as I passed him I could see the look of confusion on his face. I seemed to understand that he wasn't a guard, but that his job was to simply stand there and greet people. I exited the hallway into the hospital area (note this was not the area I'd seen from the other side of heaven's gate previously), which was comprised of square rooms, all hallways, some of which resembled normal hospital hallways and some of which resembled patient rooms with through paths. I knew my way back from here by memory; from the hallway square at the exit of the hallway I turned right into a room square, then left through three more squares and then right to the exit of the hospital area into my living area I'd mentioned previously. As I arrived, I slowly walked further into the room, examining my surroundings. Like the hospital area, the room was familiar to me as though I'd been living there for some time. There was a dining table in the middle of the room along one wall that was cluttered with papers and there was a television suspended on a thick pillar adjacent to the table. It occurred to me later that the layout of the main common room very vaguely resembled the living room at my grandma Isabel's old house in Halstad, and to that theme everything seemed dusty and slightly old as though the furniture, paint on the wall, decorations, and even the television were from the 80's. There were a number of people intently going about there business in the room also. As I examined my surroundings I became increasingly distressed with my disposition. I then lashed out verbally, asking if this was all I had left now in heaven, that I'd spend eternity trapped in this dusty room with some other people from the 1990's (a woman nearby in earshot glanced at me and rolled her eyes as she continued doing something), complaining that there wasn't even much of a proper internet yet. I continued, suddenly realizing that I was due to take the MPJE tomorrow but now couldn't because I was dead, meaning that I'd never been successfully licensed as a pharmacist and thus the last several years of my life spent training to that end was wasted. This angry diatribe was cut short by the realization that I'd left Laura behind and could not be sure when she would arrive or if she'd arrive at all (at least we'd already returned to her hometown, I hoped she'd find happiness again, etc.). In this strong emotional mix of anger and sadness I realized that my situation could not be real, but I could only think of ending the dream quickly instead of allowing it to continue post reality check and instantly managed to wake myself up.

When I fell asleep again I had a short continuation of this dream where I went to a buffet for food (I was aware I was still in heaven). The restaurant had many people but wasn't too crowded. It reminded me of the restaurant at Bill's gambling hall.

As I mentioned at the start of this entry I mentioned how haunting this dream has been the last few days. The reason for that is that afterwards I've been left with the haunting thought that I may have peered into the real heaven (a chilling thought given the "conspiracy", how drab the environment was, and my emotional observations towards the end). I don't genuinely believe this now (the fact that heaven is historically described as more paradise in nature, consideration that this may represent hell rather than heaven, and my ultimate awareness that this was a dream all heavily discount this notion), however I believe it does represent a phenomenon I referred to previously as "dream bleeding", where elements of the dream have remained strong in my consciousness long after the dream has ended.

By chance I happened to have a pretty decent length lucid dream, so I'd like to be sure to document it.

The earliest part in the sequence I can remember was some sort of fake Harry Potter movie (during the dream I seemed to think it was the third in the series, but couldn't remember the name), only it starred the cranky-professor-guy-with-the-eye-whose-name-I-don't-remember (that guy from the Goblet of Fire). Anyways, it seems he was going away and people were giving him various going away presents but he was being extra cranky about them. I recall the second to last one vividly; one person (seemed to be a young adult) held up this large, ornate deep green crystal cross with silver metallic edges, stating that he was offering the professor a chance to examine it and that it was a magical artifact that had belonged to his family for many years (it seemed to imply he was some sort of royalty). However the professor cut the student off from his speech angrily, exclaiming that he knew several good men who died in the name of that worthless, magic-less artifact. After that people started to disperse, and an older professor picked up another going away present that looked like a chest and looked as though he was about to leave but then decided to offer it up (saying that after what had just happened he thought the professor wouldn't be interested but thought he might try offering it anyways). They open it, and the chest is empty except for a small recess near the top left that contained a brass metallic pentagram. The older guy asked him if he knew what it was, and the professor replied dramatically that he did indeed know. The camera seemed to look into the box and zoom in ominously on the pentagram; as it got closer you could see that there was a different place on the other side. As it zoomed through the camera shifted to my vision as I saw a group of people walk by and I followed them into what I seemed to think was a hospital. We were talking about some project I was going to work on (it seemed like a job interview?). Inside, we entered some board room through a set of doors and then went to another set of doors along the same wall to let two other people in (I was already with two other people). One of them was Dr. Werremeyer, whom I was happy to see after so long. At some point it transitioned to me at my car at what seemed to be the gas station on University Drive in Fargo that we used to always get gas at. I seemed to think for a moment that my brother was joining me. We got into the car and were waiting there for a while. We amused ourselves with the two extremely short old ladies in the car next to us. At some point he asked me what we were waiting for, I replied that I wasn't sure, that I'd started with 5 professors and now had 0 and that if this was a dream it was kind of a shitty one, which prompted a reality check. It didn't pass (I remember thinking it was going to and being initially surprised that it didn't). I managed to keep focus but immediately getting to work. As I was doing this I was looking across a street corner and there was a lot of Hispanic people walking across the corner towards me. I decided since I didn't like this dream that I'd clean it up a little bit, so I mentally ordered the wind to blow everything away. It became quite a bit windier (as I could notice in the trees in the background), but it wasn't enough to blow the people away. I tried ordering it again and was able to blow a few people off their feet. I incidentally noticed I had a bottle of lime slushy stuff that I was drinking from. I also recall thinking this dream was going on a while (my temporal perception seemed awry here in retrospect) and I should come write about it. Since my current efforts weren't working I tried to get out of my car but somehow got my head stuck in the door and in trying to get myself out I accidentally woke up.

Observation: as I'd previously noted, during a failed reality test my breathing becomes noticeable as the kind of nasal breathing my waking body would experience. This time I discovered that maintaining this nasal breathing sound helped hold lucid focus. I seemed to think this lucid dream was longer, but I can't seem to remember much going on. Anyways, good stuff.

Looking at the last entry, you'll notice I'd long since abandoned my dreamwalking efforts. This was due to a combination of my (then) frustrating lack of success and the arduous business of last year's school work which made the preparation for sleep and dreams and the upkeep of a dream journal seem somewhat chorelike at a time when I didn't have the mental focus to spare. Now, having graduated and finished my PharmD, I find myself in a limbo between having graduated, obtaining licensure, and finding a job which leaves me with a lot of free time. I've been enjoying several fun, adventurous, and pleasant dreams the past few nights (the four quadrant pillars, the middle settlement, and being alarmed that the middle people do not actively defend themselves from the dangerous creatures from the pillars!), which remind me of my old lucid dreaming efforts. Being that my mental obligations are quite sparing and free time abound nowadays, I feel that it is my duty to return to pursuing mastery of my nocturnal subconscious, so starting tonight (or this morning I guess, I've been rolling into a 4AM-noonish sleep pattern) I'll be once more laying the groundwork starting with good-old simple dream recall.

I don't know if I'll get around to finishing my last summary post or if I'll continue that practice going forward, but I'm going to take it easy and play things by ear for now.

This is just a placeholder post for now; will do proper work on it this evening. Or weekend at least.

General Dream Content (This Month)
Number of new dream journal entries:
Number of documented dream sequences/fragments:
Number of lucid realizations: (%)
Number of significant lucid dreams: (%)

General Dream Content (Total)
Total documented dream sequences/fragments: 23
Total lucid dreams: 1 (4.3%)

Dream Signs (This Month)
Total identified dream signs:
Action: (%)
Context: (%)
Form: (%)
Awareness: (%)

Dream Signs (Total)
Total identified dream signs: 37
Action: 7 (18.9%)
Context: 16 (43.2%)
Form: 8 (21.6%)
Awareness: 6 (16.2%)

Dream Sign Associated Lucid Triggers
Number of lucid realizations: 3
Action: 2 (66.7%)
Context: 1 (33.3%)

Hit quite the jackpot on dreams this morning. This is made somewhat ironic in that I'm in the nadir of an annoying upper respiratory tract infection, so I didn't put any effort into dreaming for the night. Finally, since our alarm didn't go off this morning, I didn't have time to fully write these up in the 10 minutes I had to get ready and arrive at work. Also, splitting the rest into two entries to make room for plenty of tags.

Second sequence (note that this is #2 following the short sequence in the previous entry): I was driving in a car with my family again. We were turning onto University Drive from 19th avenue north. For some reason we were discussing Oblivion/Morrowind mods. We were apparently headed to the Fargodome for some reason. We parked and got out to go inside. Inside I spent most of my time at the food court there, ate a meal and loitered about. When my mom was ready to go we went out to the car and then pulled up to the entrance to wait for my dad and brother to come out. They came out just as I was getting impatient. As we turned back onto University Drive the dream transitioned into me physically playing in one of the mods we were discussing earlier (everything seemed real and not as though it looked like video game graphics). I enter some random house. As I walk in, a thin, thugish looking man comes to see who entered and meets me. Surveying the room, I notice he has a desperate-looking woman naked and tied down (I'm not sure if I realized it at the time, but I recognized after the fact that she strongly resembled my wife). Inferring that the man was about to rape her, I immediately slew the man. I turned and was about to leave without untying the woman when I figured I might as well not waste an opportunity and stripped down to have sex with her. At this point she didn't resist as though I was going to rape her, but she was very inviting and willing and quite turned on as well. It was very sensual and amazing sex; I entered her slowly and completely at first and then held it there, feeling her around me. She reached down to play with her clit as I held there, which was very erotic. After a short while we begin to have a good old aggressive, animalistic fuck.

Unfortunately it ended before it reached a climax. I have a reflex I've developed over the years that wakes me up from some sex dreams before they finish in order to avoid having to clean up the aftermath. This time it was mildly disappointing, but not in that it at least left me with the memory. Though the dream wasn't lucid, it is a memory I enjoy recalling and it's something I need to remember to perhaps emulate in lucid dreams in the future. It's also worth noting that my dream avatar is much thinner, allowing for some unrealistic actions during sex.

Just wanted to get this in before I forget. Had a short dream last night but woke up without any will to go record it. What remains is a fragment where I recall being in a lecture hall with Dr. Kelsch once more. The lecture hall was reminiscent of the larger of the two east rooms coming in from the south entrance to Sudro.

I seem to be struggling with a diminished will for lucid dreaming. I really need to summon the focus to recover my will to lucid dream. It's somewhat discouraging that I haven't been able to get lucid all month. I'm not sure if this is bad luck or if I'm just getting lazy.

Managed to salvage a fragment of a longer dream that I awoke too briefly from to hang on to more than a few details. All I remember involved a scene that resembled NCIS wherein there was that kind of office space with a handful of people standing around pretending to be witty until a passive-aggressive, older grumpy guy walked through hastily and told everyone what to do.

I'm quite disappointed I went through the entire weekend without a single good dream to record. Granted I spent most of Saturday and Sunday evenings taking heavy naps and I didn't get much sleep Saturday night...well, now that I put it that way I guess it's not surprising. I want to avoid saying I'm in a dry spell again, but it kinda feels like it.

This dream may or may not have been longer, but here are the parts that I can remember.

I was living with my family again at our old house on Broadway, only there was also this other guy living with us who kind of looked like Gabriel Iglesias only shorter and not quite as fluffy. Anyways, I was in what must have been my brother's room (because A) it was really heavily cluttered and B) there was a scene coming up where I was in my room, which was different) and my brother was there too when Gabriel Iglesias guy came in and demanded something. We were both blew him off so he took out an uzi and sprayed the room; he didn't hit me at all but it killed my brother. Shortly, it cut to a courtroom where I was watching the verdict in the murder trial; GI guy was somehow found not guilty. So I wake up in my bed some morning after but I'm all depressed so I just lay there for a while. When I finally got up, I found my dad and GI guy in the kitchen packing up my brother's stuff. I asked if I could look through it for anything I could use (there was kind of a neat looking fan, and a lot of our old Nintendo hardware). As I started looking through his stuff, I said, "I know we didn't get along, but now that he's gone I kind of miss him." Then I broke down in tears.

Now here's the kind of weird part: I sensed something was weird, I guess probably from the emotional breakdown so I thought, "AM I DREAMING? REALITY CHECK!" But instead of doing a proper reality check I ended up just waking myself up.

Oops.

There was a little bit of dream bleeding with this one too. I woke up into reality trying to figure out how I could sneak some concentrated potassium chloride into GI guy's bloodstream.

So it seems the new mantra has a bit of a gaping flaw, and I suspect I know why. Namely that I haven't associated it with an actual reality check. I'll maybe fix this in the future, but for now this'll go on the back burner.

Despite starting my foray into the world of lucid dreaming in the late second week of August, it's already felt like a long road--though I'm already looking forward to a lifetime of practice. There have been some early encouraging successful results, but they are tempered by rocky outcomes towards the end of the month.

General Dream Content (This Month)
Number of new dream journal entries: 17
Number of documented dream sequences/fragments: 23
Number of lucid realizations: 3 (13%)
Number of significant lucid dreams: 1 (4.3%)

General Dream Content (Total)
Total documented dream sequences/fragments: 23
Total lucid dreams: 1 (4.3%)

Dream Signs (This Month)
Total identified dream signs: 37
Action: 7 (18.9%)
Context: 16 (43.2%)
Form: 8 (21.6%)
Awareness: 6 (16.2%)

Code:

0810-0811: Aw+1
0814: C+1, F+2
0813-0814: Ac+1, C+2, Aw+1
0815: Ac+1, C+2, Aw+1
0818-0819: Ac+1, C+2, F+2
0819-0820: Ac+1, C+1, F+1, Aw+1
0821-0822: Ac+1, C+1
0822-0823: Ac+1, C+1, F+1
0824-0825: Aw+1
0827: C+1, F+1
0828-0829: C+1, F+1, Aw+1
0829: C+1
0829-0830: C+1
0831: Ac+1
0831-0901: C+2, Aw+1

Dream Signs (Total)
Total identified dream signs: 37
Action: 7 (18.9%)
Context: 16 (43.2%)
Form: 8 (21.6%)
Awareness: 6 (16.2%)

Dream Sign Associated Lucid Triggers
Number of lucid realizations: 3
Action: 2 (66.7%)
Context: 1 (33.3%)

Code:

0821-0822: Ac+1
0829: C+1
0831-0901: Ac+1

Analysis: It's no surprise that the most common dream sign is unusual contexts. These often manifest as unusual situations, but also include a reasonable setting but an unusual sequence events therein. This highlights a definite need to be able to identify unusual situations for reality checking. It is, however, notable that Action-type dream signs seem to have more reliably triggered lucid dreams (if 2 out of 3 can be considered reliable); it's interesting that 2 out of the 3 lucid realizations involved my wife saying or doing something that I thought was highly unusual.

Other notes: I've been playing with different sleep mantras, trying to find a combination that helps. The initial one (which I'll list here shortly, it'll be the first one) helped a lot with dream recall, so I'm a little reluctant to drop it over concerns that it might dampen my recall; I'm also concerned that switching them every few nights might be dampening their effectiveness. I've been having trouble finding one for other aspects of dreaming that have the same subconscious impact. Here are some that I've tried:
"I will wake from my dreams and completely remember them."
"I will remember to realize that I'm dreaming."
"Tonight in my sleep I will dream."
In recent nights I've tried to combine them into one, long chain mantra (tried #3>#1>2 at first, but later found that #3>#2>#1 makes more sense), but it's been difficult and hasn't brought on noticeable differences. I would try to fall back on the first one when I got deep enough into sleep to not be able to concentrate on stringing three sentences together.
Last night I tried something new (and got a partial lucid to show for it):
"AM I DREAMING? REALITY CHECK!"
Short and to the point, and I suspect it'll be easier to impact into my subconscious.

I'd like to end by commenting on some observations I'd had with regards to the last few lucid realizations. I've noticed in dreams that during a nose pinch reality check, the sensation is such that I'm still able to breath but it feels as though my nose is a little bit stuffy/congested. During my second lucid realization I attempted to hold focus by keeping my nose pinched and breathing; as it dissolved back into reality I noticed that the sensation of breathing from the lucid dream matched up with the sensations of natural breathing in reality. So I wonder if the success of this reality check is related to or contingent upon clear, breathable nasal passages.

Another fragment/short sequence this morning.

I was with my family again and we'd just arrived at a restaurant for dinner. As we got out of our vehicle we notice we'd parked next to a really cool looking pickup truck that was painted all in gold. There was a post in the bed of the pickup on which was mounted a video camera, so I figured whomever owned it was using it to shoot movies. As we walked around it, the coolness was ruined slightly by the realization that it was only painted on that one side. We went into the restaurant; there was a line of people going up to the cash register at the front where we were to order, evidently. It seemed to be some sort of continental restaurant that specialized in seafood, but I couldn't decide what I wanted to get. There was some sort of bound ghost towards the front of the line that was trying to get my attention; it appeared as a woman with long, bright blond hair and pale skin, wearing a white robe. She was blindfolded and bound by several brown leather straps. I went over to try to figure out what she was trying to tell me, but I couldn't understand or make out what she was trying to say. I noticed there was a computer in the corner then I noticed some people whom I identified as friends outside the restaurant, so I went to see what they were up to. I talked to them for a while and then we went into the restaurant. I remember recalling that the layout of the entrance had changed some (and now I recall my family was no longer there, it seems as though I had gone to the restaurant with these friends now). We were still in line trying to decide what to get when someone told me that someone was sending me instant messages on the computer in the corner. I sat down to see what was going on, some girl (a nurse maybe?) was frantically complaining about how my mom had left the hospital (she's worked there for years in real life) and was sending other weird-looking messages. I was confused and trying to figure out why she was so upset. Dream ends around there at some point.

Again, parts of this dream were likely heavily inspired by last night, when my wife and I discovered there was a Golden Corral here and went to check it out. For the record, it was alright (not top tier) and had a pretty decent selection. Might be worth a return trip in the future. Wasn't a fan of the ambient country music though.

Edit: Additional notes, it feels as though I'm in a bit of a dry spell, though I'll admit it could be worse; I am still able to get at least some material for entries still. This certain relative timing of this morning's entry (i.e. Morning of X) comes from the fact that my wife's earlier alarm this morning woke me up earlier than usual without any dreams to record, though fortunately I was able to get a little bit more sleep and experience the above. I believe in my enthusiasm earlier this week following last weekend's first lucid dream I may have been trying to run before I could walk, so I'm returning my effort to push forward to instead focus on solidifying the basics. Meanwhile, I've been at least trying to ramp up efforts to pepper in reality checks throughout the day. We'll try to remain optimistic.

The following recently occurred to me:
A) This dream journal contains absolutely no privacy options.
B) This dream journal now comes up as the second entry when you Google search for "SCPantera".
C) Several of my dreams contain fairly dicey information that, while I have no mind towards anonymous people on the internet reading them, would rather not have people I know stumbling across this journal.

Though regrettable, here's my plan as an alternative: I'm going to backup my dream journal entries on Word documents in my personal files on my computer and simply cross index the entries I'd rather not have public.

Edit: And done. I elected to leave a few racier bits that I don't mind being public too much and stuck with only removing a couple sequences I thought were downright embarrassing. Hopefully this will allow my dream journal to retain some entertainment value without being too risky.
I'm trying to decide if I want to put forth the effort to backup every entry. It would be a good idea, but may be time consuming.

A weird sequence, likely inspired with a chance meeting last night with an old FFXI friend as well as an unrequited mystery from those days as well as several related events earlier in the day.

There was an early sequence where I seem to recall a Starfox-style shmup that I can't place within the context of the rest of the dream.

It seems that I lived in some unfamiliar downtown location, and that members of my old TiamatsFangs FFXI linkshell were getting together in real life to do some sort of video game-esque covert operation. We were to try to get into some kind of factory, the entrance to which was on the roof of a tall building, to demolish...something. We went in, and made our way to the end, but my partners started dying as we got ready to blow up the place. There was some kind of weird monster/alien thing killing people. As I fled out I turned and saw it grotesquely kill two people. I managed to escape back onto the roof-entrance, the only survivor. Except it flashed back to before the operation began. Since I knew what would happen I began trying to prepare an escape route, cleaning up excess ammo, weapons, and items on the floor to make picking up things for use easier, however I became frustrated that my partners were sitting around goofing off instead of preparing for the mission so I gave up and left. On my way home I realized I could use the opportunity of the TiamatsFangs' gathering to track down Jillia. I had already called and talked to her at some point during the preparation for the operation, so on my way home I called her number again but she didn't answer. When I got home to a room that looked like some sort of home office I sat down and started to think about how I could proceed. I started looking through the contacts on my phone and noticed I had a second number for Jillia, so I called it. An older woman answered the phone; I asked her if Jillia was there to which she replied yes. I asked the woman for the location of this phone number to which she replied that it was a place called "The Dungeon". I thanked her and hung up to consult the internet for the Dungeon's location; I remember that the first time I searched for it I forgot to specify the city I was in (when I corrected it, I corrected it with Fargo, ND or 58102, so evidently this dream was supposed to take place in Fargo). I quickly found it online, it was some sort of arcade. I went there; inside I met the older woman I had spoken to earlier behind a counter just inside the entrance. Also there were several teenagers there, I thought it odd that several of the boys were shirtless--and also that none of them were playing any arcade games, in fact there were no arcade games at all. The area was mostly empty except for some furniture and beanbag chairs. I asked the woman if Jillia was there again and she offered to take me to her. As we slowly made our way back I continued to observe the bizarre behavior of the children here. The woman explained that Jillia was a poor girl, having been abused and I recall ending that explanation mentally by adding "by these people" to the end. As we reached the entrance to the basement, I observed a short, ugly-looking girl and a boy getting ready to have sex, and they were eventually joined by a second boy. I went down into the basement alone. At the bottom was a large room, the room was pitch black except where it was sparsely lit by a small television in the middle on the other side of the room. There was some kind of clothing rack blocking the direct path to the television, instead leading a path around the outside of the room. In the far back corner there was a green couch that was very brightly lit. I called out for Jillia and she answered, though I couldn't see her at all. I replied, "Now there's a voice I recognize!" She sounded somewhat paranoid however. She instructed me to go to the couch in the back corner. Standing in the light it was even harder to see into the darkness, but I sensed that she had moved from near the TV to around between me and the door. She instructed me to remove my pants and shirt so I removed my black coat, shirt, and pants and set them on the couch. She then instructed me to go over and play the game. I went over, in just my underwear, and sat down by the TV. There was an old school Sega console there with what looked to be some sort of hacked old school Sonic game. I picked up the controller and hadn't even started playing when I heard the door to the basement slam shut. Alarmed that Jillia may have ran off, I quickly got up and returned to the couch to put my clothes back on and try to follow her. As I was putting my clothes back on the lights came on in the rest of the room. The floor was concrete and the walls were painted a bland white, it looked for sure like somewhere people may be held captive and I recall thinking, "Aw shit, I'm trapped down here." I immediately suspected the bizarre people on the floor above of foul play. When I checked the door, however, it was unlocked so I went upstairs to leave. The teens that were there before were outside in the rain, apparently having fun and taking pictures of each other. I quietly left, trying not to draw attention to myself. About a block away I turned and looked back, trying to think of how I could find her now. The dream ends there.

Side note: with some more effort into reality checking around phones as previously planned, I might have been able to catch this one.

When my thoughts turn to last night's virgin lucid dream, I'm filled with a hungry excitement. It was an unspeakably amazing experience, so unique that I find myself regularly questioning whether it truly occurred but its my memory and my journal documentation of the event that are able to confidently quash such thoughts.

I'm ravenously reading up on techniques on this site related to improving dream recall and methodology for dream signs and reality checks. I'll admit that my initial interest in lucid dreaming was casual and my effort thus far had been less than perfect, however these quick results have convinced me that the outcome is more than worth the effort.

I leave tabs up with sections highlighted for quick review before I head to bed. These include:
Dreamviews Lucid Dreaming Community & Resource - Dream Recall
Focus your intent to wake from your dreams and remember them just before you lie down, and continue to repeat your intent to yourself as you approach sleep. Repeat to yourself over and over, “I will wake from my dreams and completely remember them.” If you find your thoughts wandering as you slip into sleep, reaffirm your intent. You want your last thought before drifting off to sleep to be of your intent to awaken from your dreams and remember them.
http://www.dreamviews.com/f74/dild-d...id-dream-9423/
(I AM GOING TO REMEMBER TO RECOGNIZE THAT I AM DREAMING.)
http://www.dreamviews.com/f74/lucid-...tutorial-1518/

Based on recommendations in the last link, on the 1st of each month I'm going to conglomerate a summary of the previous month's dreams to analyze for dream signs.

Although I used to consider myself heavily stoic and secular, with a certain amount of pride in how firmly attached to reality (I thought) I was, I'm finding it thus quite ironic how easy it is to question reality. I'm finding that (improved) dream recall is helping a lot with this; it hasn't gone unnoticed how there was some heavy "dream-bleeding" into reality I experienced a few nights back with the oh-crap-I-cheated-on-my-wife dream--I seemed to think the events of the dream had actually occurred for several minutes into my waking life.

I'd also like to remark on how easy I found dream control once lucid. I'm delighted that I was able to transition into it very naturally, though I imagine this was helped along by a confidence that this would be true. Another effort that I need to make going forward is to have something of a plan for each following lucid dream; last night I demonstrated a solid level of object control, next LD's focus will be more on environmental control. I was quite unprepared for what to do with my first LD. In my initial excitement, I neglected to pin down my environment and as a result there were some negative interaction between my environment and myself that served to shake my focus and concentration.

In closing, I wonder if this is what drug abuse is like. Being a stoic pharmacy practitioner, the last thing on my mind is using external substances to achieve euphoria or non-reality states. It's crude, irresponsible, uncivilized, and pathetic. Lucid dreaming not only falls well outside this dogma, appearing considerably more transcendent, but additionally it seems to have virtually no adverse effects.

“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you long to return.” - Leonardo Da Vinci

I'm pretty sure I just had my first lucid dream. It seemed kind of long at the time but I may only remember some bits and pieces now, gonna try to get down as much as I can. And it's weird, it feels so foggy now. Was a very intriguing experience. There was another dream before it but I want to get down as much of the lucid as I can so I'm writing it first.

I'm trying to recall what it was that triggered the reality check. I think it was that I was laying in bed or on the phone with my wife and she said something absurd (I think it had something to do with her saying she was on her way home from class at university, and I quickly realized she doesn't go to school in reality) that caused me to quickly consider that this isn't real and pull a nose-pinch reality check. I was able to breathe like my nose was just a little stuffy despite the nose-pinch. There was an obligatory, "Holy shit, I'm lucid!" moment. To keep the dream from fading from excitement and to calm down, I closed my eyes and (for whatever reason) pictured a topographical map key. Feeling it was stable, I opened my eyes, did another reality check (marveling of course at how weird it was to be breathing through a pinched nose, and then started wandering my environment. I seemed to be in what looked and felt like my old house on Broadway. I was a little unprepared for my first lucid; I hadn't thought of anything cool to do. The first thing I did was go into the bathroom. I figured since I was lucid I might as well start playing around with how well I could control it. I went to the door of the bathroom and decided I'd summon something on the floor outside and close the door to see if it appeared; I arbitrarily chose cake, and then I sort of glanced up and back down and it was there on the floor, slightly stale and with a big slice missing--I didn't even have to close the door. Happy, I went to the big picture window out front and continued experimenting by swapping between night and day by closing my eyes for a second then looking at the sky. I noted some unusual mixed success, namely whenever I wanted it to be day or night it would literally only be just starting day or night (ie at dawn or dusk). It's a little foggy if there was something occurring between now and what happened next, but the next thing I remember was that I was quickly running out of ideas for things to do, so I thought, "Well, I've always wanted to experience sex as a woman, let's give that a try." So I went back to the bathroom (it's notable that the previous time it was the bathroom from the old Broadway house, but it was now the bathroom from my previous apartment on Oak Street), stripped down, then looked in the mirror. Quick comment after the fact, the mirror worked just fine for its purpose in the dream, but before transforming I started in my normal dream avatar--which is myself as I recognize but much thinner. I was able to transform myself by pointing to the parts of my body that I wanted to transform and focusing on them. I started with breasts, then moved on to my penis. I recall being amused/annoyed that as I was shrinking my penis my foreskin wasn't shrinking with it so I had to do that separate. I started to get a little impatient so I just waved my hand around in front of my crotch and looked up at the ceiling to try to speed things up. Eventually everything looked pretty good, wasn't perfect, and I noticed that at some point I had lost all my body hair without intentionally trying to, but it was good enough for a first attempt. I was trying to decide what I wanted to do first with my new body when I noticed I sorta needed to pee so I decided to get that out of the way first, so I did. Just that was an unusual new physical sensation. There was some toilet paper sitting in the bathtub next to the toilet, so I grabbed some to clean things up a bit (since I was planning to shortly be playing around down there soon anyways); as I was cleaning up the phone rang and I answered it. The voice on the other end was some woman trying to tell me about how there were cloths in the tub that I could use for whatever but to leave them there so she could wash them later (I noticed here that it was hard to focus on what was happening now while I was on the phone trying to listen). I looked back into the tub and the toilet paper had been replaced by dark blue cloth. I shortly regretted flushing a few of them down the toilet. I checked the mirror one last time to see if things were still good and then went back out to the living room. I'm think there may have been somewhere here where I experimented with my new body, but if so unfortunately I don't remember it. Eventually there appeared in my house (as though she was familiar with the place) a thin, light-skinned black girl. Delighted to find another person to help me experiment with my new body, I asked her if she wanted to have sex with me. She seemed apprehensive; focusing on her I first removed her clothes then, noting of course that she too was female and thus would make proper copulation difficult, made her instantly grow a penis. She wasn't very amused by this, however, and she angrily stormed off to the basement. Shrugging, and once again bored, I decided to turn my attention on mentally recreating graphic-update remakes of old school video games I love in my mind for entertainment. I started with what I assume was Final Fantasy 6, though thinking on it after the fact the action doesn't match up properly with the game (though I specifically recall Terra's appearance). At some point this was interrupted with my wife calling, when she called what had been the video game scene taking up my entire stream of consciousness suddenly appeared as though I'd taken it out of full-screen mode on my monitor on my computer at my current apartment. I even had my headphones on, so I had to remove one of side of them to expose an ear for the phone like I usually do. I was annoyed at the distraction but answered the phone anyways. I don't remember the contents of the actual phone message, but I note again after the fact that it started to break my lucid concentration. The last part I remember now was going down to the basement where I found the black girl (who had now been transformed into some sort of small Pokémon-like creature) cuddling on a table with another small Pokémon-like creature. Saying, "Oh, so you'll have sex with him but not me!" and did my own storming-off-angrily upstairs and back to the living room, where I waved my hand and did some sort of mental slash across the table they were lying on and killing them both. My memory of this dream ends here, though when I woke I seemed to think that there was more non-lucid dream that came after this. I awoke just prior to starting this journal entry and did a quick reality check that passed, officially ending my first lucid dream.

Note to self: be wary about answering phones once you're lucid; it seems to help break lucid focus. In fact, I'm going to try to make an effort to start reality checks whenever answering and/or ending phone calls. I'm going to try to remember that the next thing on my agenda for practice when a dream goes lucid is controlling the environment; this time I kind of let the environment do what it wanted around me.

There was a dream sequence either prior to or leading up to where it went lucid. There was a long prelude to most of what I remember, but the bulk of what I remember was that there was this stretch of interstate that I would drive down as though I was in a GTA-ish sandbox type game and try to score points on this segment of highway. The segment of highway was kind of a long straight section with a curve off to the right. I'm thinking I may have lost more memory of this dream out of excitement for the lucid one, so maybe more will come back to me later.

Edit: This is a partial entry with one dream sequence omitted. See file 0818-0819; recall note: mall apartment, egg achievement, delivery man.

I've got a few fragments to record, unfortunately I ran into a problem wherein I woke up perfectly to remember them, thought about the dreams enough to crystallize them somewhat (or at least for sure the fragments I'm about to write down), but then I intentionally neglected to get up to write them down. This is something to work on overcoming in the future. I was reluctant to get up under the justification that it was sort of the middle of the work week and I was too tired to get up and write for a while to justify doing it. Plus some of the subject matter of the first one made me reluctant to bother to remember it at all (in fact, although I feel it's beneficial to write as much detail as I can remember, I'd still kind of rather any readers skip over this post). I would like to congratulate myself on the noticeably improved dream recall though, it's amazing what just a little effort can do to go a long way towards awakening at the end of dreams and remembering plenty of detail.

So here we go. As usually I'll try to keep it as chronologically in order as possible.

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The next one was a shorter fragment. I was with my immediate family. Everything seemed kind of retrograde; my brother was younger and both my parents were heavier as though it was before they both had gastric bypasses. We walked through a small junkyard into the waiting room of what looked like a car repair shop, but was apparently a combination car repair shop/walk-in clinic. Everyone sat down in a chair to wait but me; I paced around the room being annoyed and angry that once again people I'd known for years had nothing but contempt and disregard for my medical opinion. At some point I noticed my mother was missing a foot, and I thought, "Diabetes." Curiously, she was still able to walk fine despite the missing/invisible foot. She got up to ask the receptionist what was taking so long, she sounded frustrated, in pain, and desperate. She then went and sat down at a different spot. She was trying to partially cover her face with her coat, but I noticed she was crying. I continued pacing around and making mental notes about my family members until the dream ended.

One last quick note: just went to start breakfast and I remembered one more super short fragment wherein I noticed that the free expired 2-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper I brought home from work a few days ago expired in 1995.