lucid

So I'm trying to get back focused on my tasks. My lucid rate has been ok lately but they have all been kinda aimless and accidental. I want to get into my fun and rewarding tasks. Didn't actually succeed in any this night, but it was a good effort so I feel good about it.

First Cycle Randomness
0755: B. First cycle. Bunch of randomness here. Not sure of the order. I'm in an airport, picking up lots of loose change. I think there was just a party of something and there's a bunch of change left. There are also pushpins with people's names written on them. I think the one I read said Bill. I am careful to keep the coins and pins separate. Then my father is here and he's haggling with a man to buy a coin sorting machine. I really want him to buy it to make my job easier. The fact that he's haggling over the price makes me think he is cheap. Then I'm talking to my father about the pushpins and the names on them. They were part of some party event where each person is given a pin and you're suppose to find the person whose name is on it. Or something like that. My father and I are talking about the psychology of it. Something about how people's anticipation always leads to disappointment and therefore people's happiness is always going down. Weird. Then I'm at another party or maybe back to the party that started it all. A group of people are sitting on couches around one guy. He looks like a frat boy with a backwards hat and t-shirt. They are talking about the pushpin game. He's bragging about how good he is at these party games. Last time, the game was to annoy people and he won four times in a row. He also has his own internet video feed on him all the time called "HD Hale." Then I'm watching a TV commercial for MetLife with a statue at the top of a building. The voice-over is talking about how they have solid investments on Mars. The statue is of Abraham, Jesus, and 4 other monks holding torches. But then the commercial turns into a comedy skit. Jesus is now Robert Downey Jr. and he's talking to the Abraham statue, who is played by someone named Carmack. He's saying, "Hey Carmack, why do you always get to be the father of God?"

Street Fighter Documentary
0927: C. Hugh is watching a documentary about Street Fighter. The original stages were in an underground hideout of a gang called the Panthers. But they abandoned it because it was radioactive. Then it talks about the possibility of a sequel and what will happen to the characters after many years. I see an older Ryu with his face starting to wrinkle and his hair starting to go gray. It says Blanka won't be around because he can't have children.

Counter-Strike, Lucid
Method DILD (spontaneous)
Lucidity B
Vividness B
Control C
0949: Very quick time from the previous dream. I'm in a game of Counter-Strike. I must be T because all my enemies look like CTs. A guy is camping upstairs in a building with the Para machine gun. I sneak in through a window and kill him. I take his machine gun and start camping the same building. I'm at the top of a stairway, overlooking the front room of the building which has a front door and several broken windows. Many CTs try to attack me from this front door and windows. One has a shield. But I mow them all down with my machine gun.

As I'm doing this, I sense that I'm narrating the action in my head. It's as if I'm trying to help myself recall this later for my dream journal. Now one more enemy comes to the front door with a flashbang in his hand. He throw it up the stairway and it goes off near me. This sudden flash combined with the self-narration makes me lucid. I stop fighting. I walk down the stairs and outside. I still see the CT enemies around but they are just standing still doing nothing.

I look at the scenery. Vividness is pretty good. It's bright day. It seems like a small town in France or Italy with cobblestone streets and stone buildings. I'm in a large city square or courtyard, with impressive buildings on three sides and a street lead up a hill to the north. I've been walking up the street on the slight incline of the hill. I start to remember my plan. I rub my hands and look at them to stabilize. Feels pretty good. Next task: summon music. For some reason, I think I should be indoors for this. I turn around and see one of the buildings. It's an old stone church with stained glass windows. Think Notre Dame. It's beautiful and vivid. I start walking toward it, but the dream fades.

More Gunfighting
1108: B. It starts a bit like the end of the last dream. I'm in a quaint European town, but now it's near the ocean. I'm in a large courtyard again. In one direction there looks to be a shipyard. In the middle of the shipyard is a futuristic airplane that looks like a giant green and purple hornet. Hugh is here and I guess it's his plane. He's sort of like Batman and the hornet plane is like the Bat-Mobile. Hugh says he just got all the armor upgrades for it. He gets in and it flies way.

Skip. The scene is now similar to the beginning of the previous dream. I'm in an old building that feels like a church. I'm on the second floor balcony that overlooks the large room below. I'm alone with a machine gun and I'm fighting off enemies below. This time, I think they look like marines from Starcraft. After a wave, I am reinforced by my friend H who leads a small group of his own marines. He says we need to move out. Before leaving, I pull out my dream journal, lay on the ground (still in the dream), and start writing in it about this dream.

Bus Station, Failed Task, The Moon and Mars
Method DILD (false awakening)
Lucidity C
Vividness C
Control C
1201: I think I am in a suburb of New York City. I am near the river at a bus station. It's early morning and it's mostly light but the sun isn't fully up yet. I'm looking around for someone or something, not sure what. There are a few DCs around and in the booth selling tickets. I walk all the way around the building and give up on what I was looking for. I am wearing a black sweatshirt and sweatpants but white shoes. I exit the bus station through a chain link fence. I get on a skateboard and start skating away toward a residential neighborhood.

False awakening. I'm in an unfamilar bedroom with very little furniture. I'm sleeping on a cheap cot. There's just a bit of morning sunlight coming through a window to my right. This is all wrong so I become lucid and back it up with a nose-plug RC. But for some reason I question whether I am really dreaming. I nose-plug several times, each time confirming that I am indeed dreaming.

So I finally accept that I'm dreaming and try to remember my plan. Rub my hands. Ok, I do that but I bit rushed. Summon music. The song I have in mind is "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I imagine it in my head for a moment and expect it to keep playing on it's own. No. I try to will the universe to play it for me. No. I gesture with my hand, as if pressing a button on a remote control toward a stereo. No. Hmm. Not working. Discouraged, I abandon the rest of the plan.

Instead, I hop out the window and hover and land on the street. It's a quiet residential neighborhood, like in the scene before the FA. The street is framed with big trees whose leaves have turned orange and brown for the fall. The sun is just rising in the distance and the sky is still a bluish-black with stars visible. I can also see the moon and Mars, which is right next to the moon and almost as big. The colors are so rich and it's a beautiful scene. I think to fly to the moon or maybe fly to Mars instead. I run and jump and get some height but then halt. It's like my rockets ran out and I slowly drift back down to the ground. Now I'm stuck and I start the feel my physical body. I can feel the sleep paralysis and so now my dream body can't move. Even my neck is stiff but I'm still looking up toward the moon and Mars. I know I'm waking up soon and I can't move, so I start bring the moon down to me! I pull the moon closer with my mind and it's getting bigger and bigger. It's about to fill my view and crash into the Earth when I wake up.

Zerg, Driving, Bar
1247: C. Was patrolling for Zerg (Starcraft again). I found some but forget to write down where on the map. (I think that was a false memory in the dream and I didn't actually experience it.) Anyway, I'm beating myself up for that mistake. Now I'm driving home in my car. The street looks like the area around my real office. I want to stop at a bar. I have to make a left turn into the parking lot and I have to wait a while as other cars are pulling out of the lot. I think I cut someone off. I walk into the bar and it's very small. Everything is wood paneled. I accidently bump into a guy near the door. He's with a group of rowdy people. They must be college students and I want to avoid them. I walk to the bar area. The stools are all out of place. I pick up one and place it at the bar and sit down. I'm sitting next to a middle-aged guy to my right. I think he says hello to me. There are two bartenders which I think is weird for such a small bar and only a few people inside. They are both young guys with short black hair. One says hello to me and asks what I want. I think for a moment and order a Corona Light (which I though was weird because I'd probably never order that in a real bar). Dream fades.

fragment
Talking to a girl. She asks me when I lost my virginity. I answer and ask her the same. Then I realize how flirtatious she is and move in to kiss her. To my surprise, she pulls me down to lay on top of her. Coitus ensues.

fragment
Another sex dream, but I can't recall any details.

Lucid Donuts
Method DILD (absurdity)
This was in my last sleep cycle. I'm laying on a bed. On and around the bed are a bunch of coworkers. I have the impression that we are on a work retreat near the beach. They are talking about the company's goals and culture. There is a box of donuts on the bed that people are eating. Chris is typing at a laptop and asking for people's opinions. He turns to me, but I'm more interested in the donuts. As I reach for a donut, I realize that I am not in my own bed, these people shouldn't be here, and I shouldn't be eating donuts. I am lucid for just a moment and then wake up.

I think I actually had 9 dreams or more. Late in the night, I was having really short cycles, about 15-30 minutes each. After a few, I realized I should try to DEILD chain them and then succeeded in having 2 lucids. But I didn't write anything down so my recall of the lucids to spotty and some of the non-lucids in between are lost.

Also, one of my best nights on Zeo. Scored 92. 8h 54m total sleep with 3h 37m in REM.

The Pink Dress
0914: C. Cycle 3 dream. It's Halloween or close to it. I'm in the Daisetta house. I'm arguing with my sister about something. I walk outside and lay on some couch cushions at the street curb. One of the neighbors is a an attractive young woman. An ex-girlfriend? She's dressed in a hot pink party dress with black trim and sunglasses. I thought of Marilyn Monroe. I guess it's a Halloween costume. She's walking around me, as if trying to arouse me or make me jealous. She has a younger sister of about 10 years who is also in a dress and is mimicking her older sister. The little girl is stumbling around in high heels and it's kinda funny. At one point, the little girls says "I just ate my burning bush." The older girl and I both laugh.

WBTB, 10 minutes

Family, TV Show
1025: D. Jumpy. Not sure of the order here. Sharing a room with my sister. I am folding laundry. She has written on a dry-erase board: "DO PIANO." She says something to my mother about Tai Chi. Watching the Jay Leno show. In the audience are a bunch of women from the army. They play 20 questions with the male actor guest. I recognized him but can't think of his name. In the dream, they call him "Clausen."

Sleazy Game Show Director
1111: C. No dreambody for me. Just watching like a movie. Two twin teenage girls wandering in the middle of nowhere. They hear voices coming from an abandoned warehouse. Inside, they find what looks like the filming set of a television game show. But all the people are just cardboard cutouts. There's only one real man who is "directing" this strange show. He's really sleazy. The girls approach him and he tries to convince them to appear on camera.

fragment
1130: D. This is where the really short dreams started. Man has a book of jokes. He's reading them aloud and laughing. In the floor are grooves on in the grooves are marbles. So you can place a chair on the marbles and slide it around.

Mocking Note-Taking
1145: C. I'm in my own bedroom with friends H, B, and D. H is explaining something. My television screen has been unplugged and moved on to my desk. I have a pen and am pretending to take notes on what H is saying on the palm of my hand. I'm trying to make B and D laugh. The conversation gets sidetracked by my prank and H is interrupted.

First Lucid, Angry
Method DILD (prospective memory)
Lucidity C
Control D
Vividness C
I am in the bedroom of the Daisetta house. H is also here with a bunch of other DCs who I suppose are his friends. I don't know them but we are all hanging out and it's cool. I am wearing pajamas and at some point I rip my pants. The DCs all tease me and I get really embarrassed and angry. I storm off to the kitchen and sit in a chair to stew in my anger. Occasionally, the DCs would pass by on their way to the fridge and would tease me more. As I'm thinking, I remember my intention to become lucid and become lucid. I nose-plug RC. Then I grab one of the mean DCs, lift him up, and throw him out the front door. I do this with a couple other of the DCs. Now everyone is upset at me. I walk outside. It's dark of night. The street is lit with the red and blue flashing lights of police cars. Dream fades.

there were some short non-lucids in between here, but I can't recall any details

Second Lucid, Task Attempts
Method DEILD
Lucidity C
Control C
Vividness C
From a non-lucid, I DEILD into this one. I was trying to re-enter the scene from the earlier lucid. The scene ended up being similar but not the same. I'm on a dark street in a residential neighborhood. Across the street is a gas station. I try to remember my goal for today. I was actually summon a bunch of my friends and have a party. But in this dream, all I remembered was to try summoning. So I try summoning S from work with the turn-around technique. I try and fail several times. Then I think to call her. I don't have my phone. I walk to the convenience store in the gas station, hoping to buy a prepaid cell phone. There are two attendants inside. They are arguing over something. I'm reminded of a scene from the movie Encino Man (wow that was a long time ago). I get impatient and just steal one of their personal cell phones. I don't actually know S's phone number so I just dial a bunch of random numbers. It rings and goes to her voice mail. Her outgoing message is weird. Half way through it, I start to will the message to be more personal. At the end she says "I love you." Not very satisfying.

I decide to do something else. Many of my recent lucids have been kinda weak and unfocused like this. I walk through the neighborhood and find a group of DCs sitting in what looks like a line of roller coaster cars. But they are just on the ground on the sidewalk. I talk to one pair of women. I think they are in their 30s. One has long black hair and is wearing a blue blouse. I don't remember what we talked about. Here, lucidity fades and I don't recall any more of the dream.

a few more short non-lucids that I don't recall anything detail about

Was exhausted this night. Got home and took a hot bath. I don't even remember laying down in bed. Apparently, I went to bed without my Zeo, eye mask, ear plugs, and without setting my dream journal next to my pillow. So I didn't write these dreams down and didn't note the times.

Internet Cafe
I'm in a quiet room filled with desks and computers. It seems like a library or internet cafe. The desks are cheap plastic and the chairs are folding chairs. My roommate is here and there are maybe just 2-3 other random DCs. I brought my roommate here because he needs to use a computer for something. He was skeptical, but now that we are here, he's finds it useful. Meanwhile, I'm on a computer browsing forums. I stand up and go to a different computer so I can read a different forum. I think that this place could actually make money if it advertised itself as an internet cafe.

Trains, Sex
Method DILD (dreamsign)
Lucidity C
Control D
Vividness C
I'm near a train station. It's reminiscent of the ones I used to use around Los Angeles. I'm in a hurry, running toward the station. I notice the stairways are changing color. The one I'm running toward turns blue. I interpret this to mean the train is arriving soon. I'm just in time and the train arrives. I hop on without buying a ticket. (I once did this by accident, got caught, and had to pay the fine) But I see an attendant checking tickets. She is an old lady. I hop off, buy a ticket, get back on and show it to her. I have to sign my name on it for some reason. Then I drop it in a shoe box with the others.

So now the train is moving. I'm sitting facing inward. The train is about a quarter filled with DCs. I look around and try to imagine what the people are thinking, like I used to do to past the time when I rode the train. I notice several young women on the train staring at me seductively. This has been a fairly reliable dreamsign. OK, I'm lucid. Oops, no reality checks or goals. My control is low. I get up and approach the woman sitting across from me. She is attractive with reddish-brown hair, a red sweater, jeans, and obnoxiously large sunglasses. She gets up too. We have sex. At one point, I put my hand on the back of her head and feel that her hair is now a very short buzz cut. The sex lasts for a satisfying few minutes until the dream fades.

Summoning, Flying, Legos on the Moon
Method DEILD
Lucidity B
Control C
Vividness B
I think this was a DEILD from another non-lucid that I don't recall. I was lucid from the beginning. I start with a false awakening. I'm in the family room of the Daisetta house. It's a large room and I'm alone, laying on the carpeted floor under some bed covers. I think of what to do. I still have sex on the brain so I decide to try summoning a girl. Rachel is the target. My mother walks in to tell me that someone has come to visit. I ask who. I don't recall who she said, but it's not Rachel. I try to roll with the punch. I say to my mother "Oh, will you tell me when Rachel arrives?" She acknowledges and leaves. Moments later, my mother walks back in to say someone else has arrived. "Is it Rachel?" "No, it's your friend from work." I stand up and walk out of the room toward the entryway. It turns out to be Nate, a former coworker. Ugh, this isn't working.

I march out of the house, determined to do something else but I'm not sure what. I rub my hands and look around the neighborhood. It's bright and sunny and it's at this point that I appreciate the vividness. Cool. I start flying and look at the landscape below. I'm having trouble turning again. (I now realize this is my mind obeying the laws of physics and inertia, I'll have to work on that.) I'm drifting toward a hillside. I try to turn but I keep drifting and bumping into the hill. Frustrated, I think I should try something more specific. The moon! I look upward and start flying straight up. Now I have no trouble getting speed.

I'm quickly out of the atmosphere and the ambient light disappears into a starry universe. This is my first time in outer space. I see the moon. It's gray but on it I can see colorful mountains. I think perhaps the moon has become a giant trash heap? Then I miss the moon. Yup, I'm going so fast that I miss and zoom past it. This is kinda scary for a moment because all I see around me is open space. I manage to turn around. Now I can see the Earth and the moon again. I circle around the moon a bit, carefully trying to line up.

Finally, I land on the gray surface. The colorful mountains I saw from far away are actually buildings made of giant Lego blocks. I look around a bit for people from DV. But I don't see anyone. I find myself next to a gray castle-like building. At the entrance is a metal gate that looks like a jail cell. Inside is a dragon made of Legos. He is gray, like the moon surface, except for the yellow accent of the scales on his back, his wing-like ears, and his nostrils. He says in a deep rumbling voice: "Intruder!" I remain calm. I explain that I'm an explorer. He becomes friendly. I talk to the dragon for a bit. I forget about what. At this point, the dream was fading.

I planned to not record my dreams this night. I just wanted to get a solid night's rest. So no recall in the first half (the usual reason). And for the first couple dreams I didn't write anything down. By the last two, I realized the dreams were worth writing down so I did so.

"Do Nothing"
Lucidity: C
Vividness: C
Control: C
~0800: No written notes, so this is spotty from memory. I don't recall how I became lucid. The first thing I recall is doing a nose plug RC. I'm sitting at a campfire circle. It's dusk. It seems like I'm in the giant doorway of an abandoned factory or airplane hanger. A few other DCs are around the fire. They look like migrant workers. The scene made me think of movies like The Motorcycle Diaries and Mi Mejor Enemigo. I remember my plan: "Do nothing", practice reality checks, focus on all 5 senses.. For taste, I lick a rock on the ground and it tastes like dirt! I vaguely recall that I did things for the other senses. I think I had double vision and that frustrated me. I try to talk to the DCs but I don't recall they said anything.

fragment
~0915: C. No written notes, so this is from memory. First thing I recall is a false awakening. I sense there was more before but no detail. I'm in my own room. I get out of bed and look at the time: 1:30pm. Crap, it is really that late? I get up, take off my Zeo headband and dock it in the bedside unit. It gives me a sleep score of 42. Really? I thought I slept better than that. Wake up for real. It's only about 9. My Zeo score for the night ended up at a more respectable 83.

Unfocused Lucid
Lucidity: C
Vividness: C
Control: D
1100: Just a few notes so this is mostly from memory. I'm in a classroom. It's a art or shop class so all the students are standing at work tables. In the dream, I seem to be distracted or sleepy. The teacher is a woman and there are one or two girls sharing my table. The first thing I recall is the teacher scolding me for not paying attention. So I become aware of what we are supposed to be doing. We have a piece of paper with a drawing on it. On top, we have a piece of tracing paper and we are supposed to trace the drawing under it. The drawing is an architectural sketch of a colonial era boat, I think. So I start tracing but there is a time limit. The teacher is nearby, watching me. She thinks I won't finish in time. The other girl at my table is done and she is also watching me. I feel nervous but I act confident. I think we do two tracings like this. The next task is to trim a large piece of meat. It's really thin, more like a the hide than the flesh. The tracing paper has become butcher paper. I move to a larger table and spread this gross sheet of meat over the paper.

Skip. Now I'm outside in what seems to be a school campus but it's unfamiliar. I'm walking up a grassy hill. There are many other students around. It's bright daylight. I see a girl who I recognize as a high school classmate, Beth. I'm not sure but I think this must be what made me lucid. Her hair is weird, kinda like dreadlocks but also kinda like bananas. Anyway, her face is recognizable. Lucidity and control are low at this point. I don't RC or stabilize. I just march up to her, say hello, and demand a blow job. She starts doing it but soon turns into a weird creature and I stop.

I walk away and I'm starting to get my wits about me. But lucidity, vividness, and control are still pretty low. I try to think of my tasks. The only one I can remember is flying barrel roll. I hesitate because my recent flying has not been good. But I can't think of anything else to do so I jump and spin. It works! I'm able to hover horizontally a few feet off the ground and a spin multiple times. (Wikipedia tells me that this is actually an aileron roll, not a barrel roll) I fly around spinning for about 30 seconds. Maybe I popped out to third-person a bit. My lucidity was fading away.

Skip. Now I'm in a building. The school gym or theater maybe? Maybe I lost lucidity for a while and then regained it here. A troupe of clowns is performing a circus-style act. I am in a corner back stage, near the exit. I see a door but I want to try walking through the wall. I try a few times but fail. I try to convince myself that I can do it. I know this is a dream and that I can walk through the wall. But no luck. Dream ends. In retrospect, this attempt at control was too forced.

Dream Within Dream
1130 C. This was a combination of false awakening and false memory that made it feel like a dream within a dream. I sense that I am out of town for work (this is the false memory). I'm staying in a hotel and I'm sleeping and dreaming. In the dream, I am in a WWII-esque battle among the ruins of a bombed city. I'm with my childhood friend Collin. I only have a tiny pistol in this big fight. I see an enemy across the way and fire a few careful shots. The gun is very inaccurate but I manage to hit him in the head. Everyone is happy and celebrates me as the hero.

I have a false awakening in a hotel room. In the dream, I think that the war scene was a lucid dream and I remember the two real previous lucids. So I congratulate myself for 3 lucids in the night.

Skip. Now I'm back in my apartment. Combining the war dream, the false awakening in the hotel, and the false memory of traveling for work, this all creates the dream within the dream phenomenon. So anyway, I'm home in my apartment but it looks totally different. I sense that, as I returned from traveling, my roommate has just left. I see that he has left a bunch of books and devices about lucid dreaming. He is just starting to pratice having lucid dreams. I go in the bathroom and see that the faucet has been left on just a drip. But over several days, the drip has flooded the room with an inch of water.

Unusual circumstances on this night. Took B-Complex in the evening, about 5 hours before sleep. Didn't get to sleep until I was really tired. Woke up after just 3 hours of sleep to drive roommate to the airport. Was out of bed for about an hour total. Returned to sleep and had the lucid, technically in my third sleep cycle. The rest of the dreams were all very random, but more exciting then my usual boring dreams.

Rooms, Sprinklers, Flying
Lucidity C
Vividness B
Control D
0730: The beginning is jumpy and difficult to recall. I don't seem to have a dreambody, I'm just watching like a movie. It's in a house at a fancy dinner party. A few old people are talking about arranging to meet at a restaurant or country club. Then it's like a commercial. A young woman in a formal dress and hair styling peeks into the room and recommends watching a TV show. Someone asks, which TV show... Buffy? Then I recognize the girl as Alyson Hannigan from that show.

At some point, I sense that I have a dreambody and I am in the house alone. But maybe it has changed into my work office? I step into a room with tall windows all along the far wall. Sunlight is shining brightly through. The floor is grass instead of carpet! The grass is overgrown and spotted with weeds. I think to myself that someone in the office should maintain the grass. I think the new employee should have to do it as an initiation.

I walk out the side door of this room. It leads outdoors and now I am in the side yard of my old house on Daisetta. It's a narrow concrete strip that leads to the backyard. I walk to the backyard and it's fairly familiar. Except there are a row of short fake palm trees lining the lawn. They have big plastic bananas hanging from them and I think it looks really tacky. The sprinklers are on and they are really strong. The water shoots about 6 feet high and is soaking the whole yard, not just the grass. I start to think this is weird. But I don't want to get wet so I turn and run back into the door I came out of. In the Daisetta house, this should be the garage but it's still the room with grass. I notice the size of the room is about right for the garage though. Now sprinklers are on in here too! Ok, I really must be dreaming and I tell myself to do a reality check. I run through one more door to be out of the water.

I plug my nose and confirm I'm dreaming. Yay! I remember that it's been a long time since being lucid. I had a scene in mind but I'm not sure how to get there from here, so I go outside and just start flying toward the horizon. But my flying sucks! I can only hover a few feet off the ground and move very slow. Then I remember one of my cues to invoke the Superman schema: Lois Lane is in trouble and I have to save her! My flying gets a bit better. I'm flying faster and higher but still not great. I try to focus on where I am going. On the horizon, I see an ominous factory on top of a mountain. Lois must be trapped inside! Smoke is billowing out. Then I see an explosion. I sense the urgency and danger and try to fly faster. But it seems so far away. Discouraged, the dream fades.

Family and Old Acquaintances
0849: C. Very jumpy and random. At Daisetta house with the whole family. Mother hands me a book about politeness and etiquette. She says my father read it but doesn't follow it. I'm supposed to go to work but I'm staying home late. I'm dressed in a blue stripped shirt with matching shorts, which I think is weird. I remind myself to change into pants before leaving for work. Then talking to my sister and one of her friends. Then I get a message on my Xbox from someone with initials C.C. I struggle to think who that is. At first I think of Sean, but that's way off with S.F. The closest I can think is E.B., Erinne from high school. I turn and see her in the room at an impressive desk. She's dressed nicely and looks like a lawyer or executive. I ask if she knows who C.C. could be. She asks me what her own phone number is. I'm confused. Do you mean your non-cell phone number? I pull out my phone to look. See calls her own house and talks to her housekeeper. Then my mother brings a big slice of ice cream cake. My sister and I eat it with our hands.

Saving Private Ryan
1012: C. In a war setting. In a small troop, looking for someone like the movie Saving Private Ryan. We find him and he's really shaken up. He's the only survivor of a big battle. I let him use my phone to make a few calls, but no one answers. Then my phone rings with an incoming call, but it's a wrong number.

Speed Racer, Secret Mission, Rugby
1123: C. I start as a racecar driver. Feels a bit cartoonish like Speed Racer. But it's just my cover for a secret spy mission. I'm in a team of spies with me, Hugh, Leonardo DiCaprio, and maybe a couple other people. We are in some third-world country. I am reminded of the movie Spy Game (but DiCaprio wasn't in that one). Leo comes up to a fruit stand to make the secret exchange, pretending to buy a basket of fruit. But something goes wrong and we have to abort the mission and run away.

Then it seems to be years later. Hugh and I have returned to the same place. This time, his two younger brothers are with us. Maybe we have come to avenge Leo? We go to the same fruit stand. Some of our faces and Leo's are on "wanted" posters. So we send in the brothers because they are new. The vendor at the stand starts arguing with them. Things seem to go bad again.

Now I'm in the middle of a game that's a bit like rugby, but not quite. I sense that I am not good at this game. I'm on the team to fill a spot and I shouldn't interfere with my better teammates. But the ball comes to me and a run and kick a field goal. We win and I climb up on the uprights, which look like the big arch in Chinatown.

Enjoyed a lot of alcohol the evening before, so no recall for the first several hours. Then I had some REM rebound and recalled these short dreams. In bed for a total of 12 hours.

Chelsea Clinton Playing Lacrosse
0527: C. I have to write a report on Chelsea Clinton. I am looking at the wikipedia page, but I am upset because someone deliberately removed all the images. Later I realize that it's just a written essay and I don't need images. Then I'm watching a women's lacrosse game on TV and Chelsea is the star of one of the teams. Her team is up 7-2 and she gets taken out to rest. The other team scores two quick goals to make in 7-4. I think I'm watching with my father.

GTA in SAV, Hangover
0630: D. I'm stealing cars and escaping cops in SAV, like Grand Theft Auto. Not much recall.

False awakening that I totally missed. I'm in my own bedroom and I'm still drunk (day residue). Everything is really weird, but I account for it as drunk stuff I did last night. I'm under the bed comforter but not under the sheets. I get up. I'm wearing a heavy jacket and a pair of swim trunks. My bedroom door is wide open. The water in the bathtub is running. I walk into my closet to change. I see something in the corner of my eye to my right. I think maybe it's my own reflection in a mirror. I move, but it doesn't which freaks me out. Turns out to be Dave who was hiding in my closet.

Comedy Show, Wrong Page
0808: D. I'm at a Dane Cook show in New York. In the first part, he's in front of a small crowd. Then as part of the big opening, this small section of seats separates and moves down into a large theater. Dane Cook continues with his act but it's like a classroom and everyone is following along with books and notes. I don't know what page we're supposed to be on and I panic. There's a girl sitting to my left and one in front of me. I guess we are in a group. They are upset with me and trying to get me to the right page. As I flip through the book, it becomes my dream journal. This happens a few times. Now Dane wants someone to read aloud from the book. We are at the far right of the theater and there is a microphone nearby. The girl to my left is supposed to read but she has lost the page too. I am embarrassed.

Touch Football, Libido
0921 D. I'm with a group of people. I sense they are friends but I don't recognize anyone in particular. We are in a convenience store, goofing off. Running through the aisles and knocking things off the shelves. The employees are upset. Then we divide into two teams to play football (day residue) in the middle of the store. I'm on a team of another guy and a girl. The other team is 4 guys. I don't think that's fair.

We have the ball first. Me and the other guy on my team alternate as quarterback. We basically ignore the girl and just pass to each other. The first time I catch the ball, I turn and see the other team running toward me. I think, wait, we said touch football, right? Not tackle, I hope? It's touch football and no one gets hurt. My team is successfully driving down the "field". The endzone is the freezers at the end of the store. I get the ball, run to the freezers, open the door, and place the ball inside among the frozen pizzas and ice cream. We win!

At some point I become lucid. I'm still in the convenience store but no longer in the group of friends. I have no control and the dream is not very vivid. I just know that I'm dreaming and there's no consequences for whatever I do. So my libido takes the lead. Naturally, I look around for the nearest woman and tear her clothes off. She looks to be in her thirties but I'm not bothered. Her underwear turns out to be some rather scandalous light purple lingerie. I move in and kiss her but this narrows my field of vision. I close my eyes and the dream fades away.

Lucid Supermarket, Libido
1021: C. I'm in my car, driving at night. I'm hungry and stop at a supermarket to get something to eat. The supermarket claims to specialize in lucid dreaming. I think at one point the store is called Lucida Monica Market. Then later it is La Lucida Market. But it's in Culver City (day residue), not Santa Monica. Inside it looks like a typical supermarket. I search up and down the aisles for something to eat but nothing seems appetizing. There are quite a few DCs browsing the aisles and also way too many DCs behind the counters working. It seems like they are all staring at me, waiting for me to ask for help. I feel a bit paranoid and shy.

Then I come to the aisle that is supposedly for lucid dreaming. The signs above mark the sections with various lucid dreaming topics. The one I remember is "Expectations". But the items in this section are just a bunch of mirrors, knick-knacks, and craft supplies. I struggle to see exactly how this is relevant to lucid dreaming.

Once again, I'm bored and my mind turns to sex but I'm not lucid as in the previous dream. I scan around me for the nearest woman. Like the food, nothing seems particular appetizing, so I continue to wander for a woman. Before long, the dream fades.

Took a B-Complex supplement about 2 hours before sleep and also sipped some natural apple juice throughout the night.

Colored String Competition
0200: C. In a competition. Each player has a small plastic toy bow (as in bow-and-arrow) with a colored piece of string. There are about 10 people including me. Some are vaguely familiar. There is a host, like it's a game show. The goal is to guess the color of other's strings. I think mine is plain white. The host guides us through a few rounds. Then one round is tricky. The choice is between two people who have pink and red. We are supposed to guess which is which. Only me and one other girl get it right. Actually, I just copy her guess. I realize she is Lexi, a childhood friend.

WBTB+MILD, short

Bunker, Dream Control without Lucidity
0452: B. Ok, this dream was really vivid. I could have sworn it was lucid, but on waking up and recalling I realized I never actually had the critical lucid moment. I'm on a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II map. I think it's called Quarry. But I'm not fighting. I look for a bunker under the hills and find one. It has a low ceiling, a locking door, and a narrow pillbox window looking out at the center of the map. I'm glad that the door has a lock for some reason. I look at the low ceiling. This is the point where I appreciate how vivid the dream is and I feel that pre-lucid tingle but never go fully lucid. The ceiling is bare rock with a tangle of metal braces, electrical wires, and light bulbs. There are also some spider webs and I carefully look for spiders but find none. The whole room is only about 10 feet by 10 feet. I think there is a bed and a few military-looking green crates stacked around.

Now Hugh and a girl are in the room with me. The girl is tall and skinny with a brown hair in a pony tail. Kinda tomboyish. She vaguely reminds me of the ex-girlfriend of an old friend from college. She's casually dressed in jeans and a tank top with some cleavage, which is distracting me. I show them the view through the window. It's bright day outside. You can see the part of the map where there's a big stack of cube-shaped cut stones. But in the dream, they are cardboard boxes instead of stones. I notice this is weird but not enough to become lucid. Then I try to impress both of them, mostly the girl, with some dream powers. I try to levitate an empty water bottle but fail. The girl is bored and wants to go somewhere else. I try to teleport us out but fail again. So we walk out the door, through a hallway and out into the open.

Hugh and the girl venture off. I'm looking around and see Justin, a childhood friend, walk up to me. His hair is buzzed really short, almost bald. He's wearing a light blue UCLA T-shirt. He says something about the UCLA football team. Then he asks if I'm bored and what to do something. He suggests we go watch a movie called "Cobalt Jungle." I say "Hell, yeah!" Here's where I start showing some dream control.

Justin jumps on a motorized dirt bike and I fly behind him. I'm parallel to the ground, just a 2-3 feet off the ground. We're traveling on a very rough dirt road with a steep hill bank on either side. The sky is now overcast and the ground is muddy with patches of green. Justin and I are weaving around telephone polls that are scattered on the road. I want to go faster so I concentrate and accelerate. We started at about 30 mph, now it feels like 80 mph. Justin hits a bump in the road and falls off his bike. But before he hits the ground, I reach with my left arm and use telekinesis to put him back on the bike and to keep the bike from crashing. Wake up and try to DEILD but no luck.

WBTB+MILD, long, read DV

The Blue Sweater
0638 B. Another very vivid dream. This time I become lucid for a while. I recall a fragment from the earliest part of the dream. I'm laying in bed and feel something warm at my feet. I lift the sheets and see my old cat Sam balled up. He wakes up and moves up the bed closer to me and lays down again next to my body for warmth. I think, aww, so cute.

False awakening. I roll over to write in my journal. It's early morning light outside. The window is at the head of the bed, which is the correct direction. Next to my journal, I see two pairs of glasses. One looks like mine, though this isn't where I usually place them when I sleep. The other pair looks similar in style but smaller. I think, hmm, who's are these? I get up and look around nervously. Is there someone else in my room? No. The room is fairly convincing as my real bedroom and very vivid. I examine the glasses more closely. They look like reading glasses that you would wear at the edge of your nose. They say "Granny" on the legs like a brand name.

As I'm looking at the glasses, I notice I'm wearing a very thick and woolly royal blue sweater. I think, Umm what? I don't own anything like this. I nose-plug check and I can breath. But I'm not convinced. The scene seems too vivid to be a dream. I do the nose-plug again and can breath again. Hmm. Ok, I guess I'm dreaming. But I'm still surprised. I do a finger-through-the-hand check to be sure. My finger doesn't go through but I look down and see my finger smushed like clay against the palm of my hand. Ok, I'm finally convinced.

What to do? I think of my plan. My plan that I set for tonight was: look at my hands, feel my body, notice my clothes, then take off my clothes and do something embarrassing while naked. I get up the taking off my clothes. I start pulling the sleeves of the blue sweater when I decide that I could be doing something interesting while disrobing.

I look at the window and realize it's wrong. It's a long and rectangular. It should be two tall narrow windows. Outside, I see a front lawn and other houses like a suburban neighborhood. That's also wrong; I live in the city with a parking structure across the street. This improves my lucidity but distracts me. Outside on the lawn, I see a giant TV screen. It's a billboard mounted just a few feet off the ground. There are a few adults throwing a football on the street. I intuitively know they are a news crew from the local TV station. I forget about my clothes and plan. I climb on the bed and try to phase through the window. I get halfway and feel stuck. Oh no!

At this point, my recall is broken and I lose lucidity. I might have woken up and DEILD back. Either way, the dream continues. One of the news crew is now in my room. He's an Asian man with a light blue dress shirt and slacks. He reminds me of a real TV reporter from one of the TV stations in Los Angeles. He apologizes for the billboard and says it won't be there more than three days. He goes on about how important advertising is for his station and who important the suburbs are. As we're talking, he starts standing, then sitting, then laying on the floor near my desk. Then he goes on about how television and entertainment are so important to our culture. He compares it to religion in the time of Jesus. I try to summarize his argument "So, the Internet is the new religion?" He says "Yes, exactly!"

WBTB, trouble falling asleep

Soccer
1107: D. Playing on a soccer team. Maybe a college team. Strict grid system with only one part of slack allowed. I am a controversial new member of the team. I make a play that leads to a goal.

Drank some beer last evening so no recall until the second half of the night, but wow what a night.

Freaky Room
0652: C. I'm laying in a bed at one end of a long room. It's almost pitch dark. I can just make out the silhouette of some bedroom furniture and I sense there is a doorway at the far end of the room. A creepy little girl is running around the room. Her face glows like a dim candle. As she gets near me I'm a little frightened. Maybe I'm a little lucid because I tell myself this is just a dream and I should just stay calm and watch. The girl giggles and says "Come, you should see!" And then she exits the room through the door. I still haven't moved. Then I see a large man sitting at the far end of the room. His face is also glowing dimly. He stands up and slowly walks toward me at a zombie's pace. As he gets close, he stretches one arm out toward me as if he intends to grab me. I'm afraid and turn away, still laying in the bed. Dream fades.

Bridgette?
0733: C. I'm in a dark room. Seems like a bedroom. There's some light coming through a door near me that leads to a hallway. I think I'm looking for something in a dresser. A girl walks in and asks for my help. At first, she seems to be Bridgette, a very attractive coworker IWL. She's talking about a forum post about collecting all the images from the game loading screens. She's holding a piece of paper and she wants me to burn it for her. I tell her this is a dream. Again, maybe I'm a little lucid but the vividness and control are low. She says, "Oh, I'm dreaming with you?" I get a closer look and she looks Asian, which Bridgette is not. I say, "Yeah, help me take of my shirt." She does but as the shirt lifts over my head it blocks out my vision and the dream ends abruptly.

Kiting Sleep
0830: D. For about 30 minutes, I'm drifting in and out of sleep, false awakenings, wake, and hallucinations. Here's a bunch of fragments, I'm not sure which was which. I'm calling this "kiting" for lack of a known term. Some fragments were lucid, so I'm counting this as one lucid dream.

Watching two people play chess. The person playing white is making illegal moves but no one else notices and I don't say anything.

FA in my own bedroom. I hear music coming from my computer. It's not supposed to be on. I recognize the artist is Jimmy Eat World.

Riding in a car with my father driving. It's his old pickup truck. We are exiting a covered parking lot. Maybe a sports stadium. He's arguing something. I say this is a dream and I'm just going to fly away to avoid him. I try to jump through the roof of the car but fail.

I'm at a store paying for something. I pull out a black Visa card. Supposedly it's a "Visa HILL" card and it's very hard to get so I must be a VIP customer. The cashier is impressed.

My underwear is on backwards.

Sisyphus in Wonderland, Dream Guide?!
0930 A! This was an incredibly weird and memorable lucid dream. It's much more fantasy and strangeness then my average dreams.

FA. I'm in a bedroom. It's mostly dark. The room is arranged a bit like my real room. But there is a TV mounted on the far wall where there shouldn't be. I become lucid early on but my control is poor at the beginning. My father is in the room and we're arguing again. I'm so sick of this recurring theme with my father. I'm aware in the dream that I've already been through this on same night. I tune him out and think what I want to do now that I'm lucid and have some control.

I get outside somehow. It's night outside in a residential neighborhood. But the houses and trees are all cartoonish colors. The trees are purple and blue. The houses are crazy colors like yellow and red. It looks like something out of Dr. Seuss or Alice in Wonderland. But since it's dark, the bright colors aren't as noticeable and it seems somewhat realistic. The street is dimly lit with street lamps and moonlight. I walk in the middle of the street to the corner of the block, still upset and without a plan. At the corner, there is a building that looks like a drive-thru fast-food restaurant. On top of the building is a big neon sign styled in black and white with a font like Corner Bakery. The sign reads "difficulty, inc." which I think is kinda funny.

My father is following me and we start fighting with our bare hands. I try to fly away but he can fly too. My flying sucks today. I can hover fine but I can only thrust by pushing off things for short distances. We're still wrestling in the air and through the neighborhood. After a minute or two I am fed up and just try to fly away. The dream starts to feel unstable. I land next to a brick building with vines growing on the walls. I feel the vines and brick to get some sensory stability. But I still wake up.

I try to DEILD. I'm imagining the same scene, trying to re-enter. I'm about to give up, but I hear my father's voice describing the scene. He says things like "brick wall, restaurant down the street, grassy lawn" and this helps me get back into the scene. As soon as I'm back, I'm fighting with him again. But now I'm just walking away, trying to ignore him. When he gets close, I push him a way and continue walking. I don't want to waste any more of my lucid dream on him so I start spinning to teleport away. I try so hard that I wake up and turn my physical neck. At least I think I was awake. I'm in my bed and stop moving my head.

I try to DEILD again. Again, about 20 seconds pass and I'm about to give up. I'm about to switch to recalling earlier parts of the dream for my journal. But I suddenly feel like I'm going through a tunnel. I'm back in the dream. The edges of the tunnel turn into leaves and I find myself hiding in a bush peeking out through a hole in the leaves. It seems like time is going really fast around me for a few seconds. The tree leaves are rustling and street lamps are twinkling really fast like time-lapse photography. Things slow down to normal. I'm in the same dark cartoonish neighborhood but a different area. I'm in the middle of the quiet street. My father is gone and I'm in the deep in middle of the block where there are just houses, no restaurants or retail buildings.

Phew. Ok. Now, what to do? I start walking down the middle of the street, looking at the crazy colored trees and gingerbread houses. I see an old lady outside. I walk toward her but she enters her front door. I think of Mother Goose. I keep walking and start to see the end of the block in the distance. I see a paint store far off across the intersection that advertises two kinds of paint: "DRIED" and "WET". I think that's pretty funny and congratulate my subconscious for the joke.

Then a short goat-man jumps out at me from the shadow of the trees to my right. I'm startled but he quickly seems friendly. He's about 4 feet tall with goat legs and yellowish-brown fur. I guess he must be Pan from Greek mythology. He asks me what I'm doing. I remember my plan, I'm going to practice teleporting by spinning or opening doors. He says, "Cool! I'll try too!" And he starts spinning like a playful child. I start spinning as fast as I can. The world becomes a blur and unrecognizable. I slow down my I'm still in the same place in the same scene. Hmm, didn't work.

Another character approaches Pan and me. I don't get a good look at him, but I sense he is friendly and familiar. He says, "There's a portal in the boat" and points toward the nearest house. Later, recalling the dream, I think that maybe this character might have been my Dream Guide! I still don't recall what he looked like. Somehow though, I was left with three separate vague impressions: A man-size yellow dinosaur (think Barney), Homestar Runner, and Ronald McDonald. I lead the way as the three of us walk up to the house he pointed out. It's yellow with red trim. It looks like a life-size gingerbread house or a cartoonish McDonald's. The front door is only about 3 feet high and I get a strong Alice in Wonderland feeling.

I'm puzzled. This is a house, not a boat. There's a lunchbox next to the front door. I bend over to look at it. "Is this what I'm looking for?" No, I sense my DG gesturing into the house. I look in a window where I can see through to the backyard. I stoop down and we all walk through the small house to the backyard. In the middle of a small patch of grass, there's an inflatable kiddie pool with a plastic toy boat floating. Okay, this must be the boat but where's the portal and how I am supposed to get in such a small boat? DG says exactly what I'm thinking: "Shrink down to size." Okay, never done that before. I bend over to get a closer look at the boat and see a USB port on it with some text printed under it. I squint to read the words. My alarm goes off and wakes me up.

Restful, but light sleep this night with many short interrupted dreams. The lucids are barely worth counting. I'm giving myself credit for at least recognizing some dreamsigns that made me lucid.

Food and Robots
0523 C. Hazy and jumpy. Two girls are competing for my attention. We are in a two story house. I'm resting on the couch on the first floor watching a boy singer who might be a robot. One girl is on the first floor and the other on the second. They are both cooking things for me. One cooks a steak but it looks like a big raw beef roast. Around it she puts a bunch of small Philly-style cheesesteak sandwiches. The other girl made something too but the first girl blocked her from showing me. I go to the bathroom and I think the second girl meets me in there to tries to tell me something. Something about the cartoon charactor Lisa Simpson. Maybe she is Lisa. Then the boy robot singer starts singing again but he's terrible. The first girls is upset about this: "Did you reset the game back to beginning?!"

Meanwhile, I recall cut scenes in between my plot to a different character. It's a guy pretending to be a robot. He's dressed a bit like the Tinman from Wizard of Oz but really skinny. He's trying to blend in with other robots that all look that same. The robots greet him in a robotic voice (think the infantry droids from Star Wars) saying "Left-hand side of you." To which he is supposed to salute his right arm across to his left side. Then "Right-hand side of you" and salute with other arm. The pretend robot catches on to this greeting and fools the other robots. At one point he is drinking from a water fountain. I sense he is my friend.

untitled
0654 D. Short dream. Not sure what to make of my notes: I'm baking a special bread that will make me lucid. Carry inside my body? The Simpsons.

WBTB+MILD 10 minutes

untitled
0748: D. I'm Homer Simpson and I'm practicing MILD. I go into a dream world with simple geometric-shaped objects like Tron. I'm being chased by men in suits with pistols like the agents from The Matrix. I can stop their bullets just like Neo.

Trouble sleeping, turned it into a WBTB+meditation and reading DV for about an hour total

False Awakening Chain
1018 C. This was about 20 minutes of false awakenings. In my own room. I can see through my sleep mask. I see my desk and alarm clock in the wrong place across the room. I'm lucid but can barely move my arms and legs. I manage to sit up in bed. At this point IWL, the garbage truck shows up and makes a loud banging noise about every five minutes. Each time, this either wakes me up or triggers an FA. Some times I could move my arms to nose-plug and I was awake. Other times I couldn't move my arms. I'm unsure how many times it happened but I recall a couple more lucid periods.

False awakening. I can see but the view is dark and blurry. I sense a small dog jump on my bed to my left. He gets close to my face and I can feel the heat of his breath. I can't move to look at him. I'm just trying to be patient for the scene to solidify. The dog starts growling. Interrupted by noise.

False awakening. I'm laying on my back and can't move my body. I can tilt my head down and look at my body. My view looks like an X-ray image highlighted with electric blue. A blue line extends along my body like my spine but continues all the way down to between my feet.

Eventually, I reach a real wakening and give up on this futile chain so I can note it in my journal.

False Awakening, Dreamsign
1044: C. Another false awakening. I can see through my sleep mask. I notice my bedroom door is open when it shouldn't be. I hear my roommate in the next room, whisking eggs I think. I can't move.

untitled
1000: F. I recalled this dream after/inside the dream that followed it all I remember is a fragment. A blond man?

Doomsday Program, Customer Complaint
1114: D. Really jumping with very short and fast scene cuts. I'm at work. I woman comes in and tells me I have to get out fast. It's like near the beginning of The Matrix when Neo needs to sneak out of his office. The woman leads me to a car and I'm driving. We are chased by some bad guys. I tell her to reach in the back seat and grab a special cell phone. I tell her to dial a special sequence of numbers. She does and it activates a doomsday program. We are on a bridge over water and parts of it collapse but the section we are on is intact. Buildings around in the distance all blow up and collapse. The bad guy car can't follow us but we're stuck on this section of bridge.

Cut to what feels like a ransom exchange with the bad guys. I hand a guy a brief case. He looks like Andy Garcia's character in Ocean's Eleven. He hands it to another guy who then runs along a the bridge cable but there's no bridge.

Cut to a big warehouse building with a dirt floor. I have my shirt off and I'm fighting the bad guys gladiator style. One of them is still the Andy Garcia character.

Cut back to me at work. I'm dozing on a couch in the kitchen (not real IWL). I keep thinking of the previous dream about the blond man. I'm trying to keep it in my mind so I can recall it later. I look up at the bulletin board and see a red poster with a very angry customer support email complaint on it. Something about a guy who lost his credits after they went over 4000. I ask, "Hey, has anyone looked into this?" A co-worker (IWL he's just an artist) gets angry at me. He says it would be so easy to look up the guy's account and he describes the few keystrokes that it would take. But he says he knows it's probably just a fraudulent claim and it's a waste of time. He's angry at me because he thinks I care too much and it's a waste of time. I'm taken aback my this.

Stove Fire
0424: C. This was early in the night and my notes aren't clear. Talking to a family of Italians in a kitchen. We're talking about food. One guy is sitting on the edge of the stove even while all four gas burners are lit, each cooking a small pizza. I try to warn him that he should move to another seat. Sister walks away very upset. He brags that a 9-inch pizza is 5 pounds of food. His clothes catch fire. Everyone is yelling at him to move but he seems paralyzed. Father puts out the fire with a fire extinguisher. Sister comes back with an "I told you so" attitude.

Backyard Ninjas
1100: A! Last sleep cycle of the night after 30 minute WBTB with MILD auto-suggestion. This might have been an unintentional WILD because of how the dream started. My plan was to practice teleporting, but I went off the script.

I start in bed, trying to fall asleep. I don't really know if I was really awake or dreaming INRA. Either way, I open my eyes and can see something through my sleep mask. I can still feel it around my head but it's like a hole is cut in it and I can see a blurry scene of what looks like a grand piano from far away. Now I know I must be dreaming but I still feel like I'm in my physical body. I'm not in the scene, I'm just seeing it without a dream body. So I just stay calm and don't try to move or control anything. I just watch what's happening in the scene and gently suggest that the "camera" move and zoom in. Gradually, the scene starts to look like a room with sunlight coming in a sliding glass door. This reminds me of the Daisetta house.

Then, WHAM!, I'm in the scene with my dream body. I'm not sure if this was a sudden change or a gap in my memory. It's the most vivid lucid I've had in a while. I phase through the glass door and out into the backyard which is a fairly faithful recreation of my true memory. There's a swimming pool, a concrete patio, a patio table with a giant umbrella and steep incline of dirt. The yard is surrounded by a tall fence and trees. I just look around a appreciate the vividness for about a minute. It's so calm and peaceful that the dream starts to destabilize and I wake up.

I remain still in bed to DEILD back. I imagine myself spinning in the same scene. And I'm back in the same spot. Phew. I figure I'd better do something but I forgot my plan so I think of any random task from my list. First task, I run and skip across the surface of the pool water with ease. I'm thinking of what to do next but my memory and vividness aren't as good as before. I figure I should stabilize a bit. I see a long garden rake laying on the patio table. I reach to grab the handle but I can't move my arms! I don't panic. I spin and recover my arms. I rub my hand and then grab the rake. All this improves the stability and I decided I'll just do something silly and fun.

I hold the rake like a bowstaff and assume a fighting posture. I suggest to myself, "Uh-oh... ninjas!" I look around and see four ninjas perched on the tress and fence around the yard. They are all in black with hoods and black sunglasses. The pounce off their perches to attack me with short swords. I fend them off with my rake and fight back for a few minutes. Eventually, all four are beaten and laying on the ground. I walk up to one, and snap his neck. Blood flows from his nostrils.

I walk up to another and realize it's a woman. I instinctively tear off her clothes. But I realize that I'm losing control and this will end the dream. I stop myself, stand up, and turn away. I'm now in the side yard and I can see a glimpse of the rest of the neighborhood toward the street. I think of all the houses with their doors and I'm reminded of the lucid dream from the night before. I begin to remember that my plan for today was to practice teleporting through doors. But before I can move, the dream fades away.

Elusive First Cycle Dream
0430: D. First cycle. Once again that strange feeling in the first cycle of having slept for a long time. When I woke up, I was a bit upset that maybe I had slept through the whole night without any recall. But when I looked at the clock I realized I'd only been asleep for about 75 minutes. By this time, the vague recollection of my dream had mostly faded. This is what I wrote: No plot recall. Just feeling of missing something. Feeling of change. Chasing to recover something lost. In retrospect, maybe the feeling was about the dream recall itself, not within the dream. Or maybe the feelings from the dream spilled over into waking. Anyway, moving on.

Girlfriend in India
0630: B. This is likely some residue of a conversation I had with a friend about his Pakistani girlfriend. I'm in India living in a cheap apartment. I'm dating an Indian girl. She looks like the contestant from MasterChef. We're fooling around in the bed and she wants to go further. I don't want to or maybe I'm just teasing her. Suddenly I'm wearing my sleep mask. She pulls it off and tells me to stop acting silly. We end up just cuddling and seem to drift off to sleep.

I wake up in the hallway outside the apartment. The girl is gone. Hugh lives next door. He's exiting his apartment and locking his door. He notices me and stops to talk. He's heading off to work and he's wonder why I'm sleeping in the hallway. He leaves.

I stumble into the apartment but now it's where the girl and her parents live. I'm trying to figure out how to turn on the A/C and hang a "do not disturb" sign for the maid. The girl and her parents are talking around a small kitchen table. The mother is concerned that her daughter is dating a boy. The father is proud of the job he has done raising her. Then an air raid siren goes off. The mother tells the girl to go tie up the reindeer.

Just Weird
0755: C. I live in a house is feels familiar but isn't recognizable. It's really hot and humid. At school, there's a contest to do something with two sheets of fabric. I guess I won and I bring home two blankets. I talk with my mother and sister about where to put them. Suddenly, instead of two blankets, it's a colorful table placemat and a frozen packaged crab. The placemat is white with blue and orange stripes. The crap is bright orange and the package says it's from Mexico. I decide to put the two items in the dining room where there is a very long large dining table. But I guess we barely use this room. There's a spider web above the table and a live crab walking across the table. My sister breaks the spider web and the spider falls near her. She and I are both freaked out and run out.

Practicing Dream Control
0905: B. A short WBTB where I used the bathroom and had a few slips of water. Practiced MILD suggestion going back to sleep. I sense there was more plot earlier in the dream but don't recall, so I pick it up as I'm in a nice quiet residential neighborhood cul-de-sac. It's a sunny autumn afternoon. All the houses are two-story with nice lawns, trees, and Halloween decorations. I enter one house in the middle of the block. Inside it's a crowded house party. I walk up the stairs to the second floor, stepping sideways through the crowd. I see a guy who I recognize as Nick, a friend from high school. I'm confident I'm dreaming and I'm ready to execute my plan. I continue walking through the upstairs of the house, walking with purpose and determination. I'm looking at my hands and rubbing them.

My first task is to touch and pick up a few objects, which I do as I'm walking through a bedroom and then a hallway. I think I picked up an empty can of peas. I'm looking for a window that overlooks the front of the house. I find one and run and jump through. It's a small window so I hit the wall as well but I go right through and hover gently down to the street. I don't recall hearing a crash so I don't know if I smashed through or if I passed through, but it's satisfying enough to count as my task.

So I'm back out in the middle of the cul-de-sac street. I'm feeling pretty confident and ready to try my next task. I want to summon a girl from work named S and then teach her to fly. So I'm looking for a door. The house on the corner catches my eye. I walk up to the front door of the house and I think, yup, this is S's house. I picture her opening the door and then I knock. A woman opens the door but she's not right. She has many of S's features and her voice is similar, but she looks about 50 years old. I roll with it. "Hi, you must be S's mother. Is she home?" She replies: "Yes, come on it!"

The house is a bit dark inside and decorated with oriental rugs which kinda makes sense. I ask, "Is she upstairs?" I look at the stairs, expecting her to be coming down. Again, there is a woman there but she still isn't S. Again she has similar features, tan and pretty with long black hair. She looks about 35. The girl I'm looking for is supposed to be about 25. The mother says exactly what I'm thinking: "Oh, that's her older sister." I try one more time. "Could you call S down?" Once more, another S impostor comes walking down the stairs. This one was pretty close. Her age and height are right and her voice is right on. S's Turkish accent is probably the most distinctive thing about her IWL. But this girl isn't as tan and she has freckles on her face. Hmm, my confidence is a bit shaken. I talk to this girl a little, I forget about what. I give her a hug and a couple of friendly kisses. I decided to leave and move on.

I walk outside. I'm a bit discouraged. That didn't go as planned. I recall the earlier part of the dream and, come to think of it, my lucidity is probably only average. I'm thinking of what to do next. Meet Dream Guide? Hmm. I look at the house at the far corner of the street. It has the most Halloween decorations on the block. I try to imagine opening the door to see my Dream Guide, who I imagine is Yoda. But on the heels of the less than perfect summoning, I decide to do something else. I resolve to spin to a new scene. I picture my office and start spinning. As I'm spinning for about 10 seconds I still see the neighbor scene around me. Hmm. I slow down. Should I close my eyes? What if that makes me wake up. I tell myself, don't think about closing your eyes! Of course, I close my eyes and wake up. Ah! Rookie mistake. Oh well. Lesson learned.

Missed Lucid, Facepalm Worthy
1125: C. I had trouble falling asleep after the last dream so I got up and read DV for a while and then got back to bed about an hour later. This dream might as well have been a giant light in my eyes screaming "Dreamsigns!" Yet I blew it. I'm walking in a bright outdoor school yard. The buildings are familiar to my high school. It's lunch time and it's crowded with students. Everyone is wearing the navy blue uniforms from my junior high. I think, hmm, if this were a dream this would totally be a dreamsign. I look around to see if a recognize anyone. I see a group of people that I didn't like in high school that often recur in my dreams. Yup, that would be another dreamsign. I walk near them through the crowd, hoping to overhear their conversation without them noticing me.

I continue through the crowd and see a white soccer ball bouncing toward me. I think, now see if I were lucid, I'd probably kick this soccer ball. I kick it but I still don't clue in that I'm aware that I'm dreaming. I actually feel disappointed that I'm not lucid and any amount of lucidity or dream control that I might have had fades away. I decide to leave. I walk to the parking lot but I don't find my car where I expect it. I get a little worried. I wander around pressing the lock button to trigger the car horn. I finally hear the horn on the far side of the school, which now is only one building that looks like a hamburger stand with some covered benches near it. I walk to my car and recognize it. End.

Experimenting with some dream titles to break up the wall of text a bit.

0230: F. Two sentences of illegible notes.

Birthday Girl, Bro Code
0337: C. Even in a dream, I obey the bro code. I'm at a girl's birthday party. I came with Lance. It's indoors at a house. There are about a dozen people there. It's dark outside and mostly dark inside. Lance and I pull the birthday girl aside to give her the gifts, so the three of us are alone in a dark room. Lance forgot to bring a gift, but luckily I brought two. I say they are from both of us.

The birthday girl has short black hair. She's tall and pretty. She's wearing a dress. She opens the presents. One is wrapped in purple, the other in yellow. Yellow is her favorite color? I don't remember what the gifts are but she really likes them and is very happy. She starts making out with both of us. (Not the arrangement I had planned for my first threesome, but whatever) As things get heated, it's clear the girl is more interested in me. She pulls off my pants and ignores Lance. Lance gets up and paces around the room upset. He keeps saying "That's not cool." I stop her and get up. She wants me to come back. I leave with Lance.

Hell Is An Amusement Park Line
0510: C. I need to raise half a million dollars, fast. Maybe I'm in debt to a loan shark.

Scene change. I'm in purgatory. I guess I'm dead. I'm waiting in line to be judged to go to heaven or hell. The focus changes to someone else, like I'm watching the movie of some else's life. The main character is a man who died while trying to solve a crime. He's destined to go to heaven, but he chooses the go to hell instead. He hopes he can find more information in hell to solve the crime. I think that's heroic. His partner tries to stop him and says he's crazy. Our hero says he's from San Francisco. Somehow that makes sense to the partner and lets him go.

Scene change. Now it's hell. People come sliding down a big ramp into a large red cavern crowded with people. It's lit by flames and it's fairly bright. Our hero comes sliding down. The focus switches back to me in first-person. I'm already in hell when the hero arrives. In hell, everyone is standing in tight groups in little pens formed by metal railings. It's just like waiting in line for an amusement park ride. I'm standing near some elementary school classmates and they are talking on and on about boring stuff. I think, this IS torture. I think that's funny.

I yell to someone who just arrives down the slide. "Hey, I hope you can come up with the money, by the way. Just because I'm dead doesn't mean I don't have bills to pay. But it's not like I can do anything about it from down here."

Birthday Gifts, Annoying Ice Cream Girl
0716: C. I'm indoors in an unfamiliar place but I get the impression that it's my own bedroom in a house. Apparently, it's my birthday. I'm unwrapping presents. Most of the presents are children's toys like dolls and figurines. My sister gives me a new Blackberry. I walk across the room to plug it in to charge. Another gift is D&D-like role playing game. Hugh wants to play so I unfold the map across the floor. I remark how big the map is. It's about 6 feet by 3 feet.

Scene change. I'm in a outdoor mall in a food court. I'm wearing a blue shirt with faded white lettering that says "BIRTHDAY TODDLER." Everyone is gone except Hugh, but he starts walking away leaving me alone. There are other random people in the food court though. A girl from the crowd walks up to me. I'm not attracted to her. She says she want to satisfy some urges and then walks away somewhere, as if to go fetch something that she will bring back to me. I feel awkward. Another girl walks up to me. This one is attractive and I want to talk to her. She wishes me happy birthday. I ask how she knew it was my birthday. She says it's written on my shirt.

The first girl comes back and hijacks the conversation. The second girl walks away. I'm annoyed about that but I try to be polite. The girl has a variety of ice cream and she starts feeding it to me. She want me to guess the flavors and pick my favorite. I play along to be polite. The first one is dark cherry. The second is strawberry. There are two more that I haven't tasted yet. The next one is green so I'm thinking it will either be mint or pistachio. Dream fades.

0740: False awakening. I don't RC. I roll over to write in my dream journal about my last dream. I write something but I don't note the time. Then I wake up for real. I RC. I roll over to write in my dream journal. I think, wait! Didn't I just do this? Damn it! I write: "False awakening. I dream of writing in my journal."

Unstable DEILD
0811: D. Again, I'm in the food court of an indoor mall but this one is different. I'm with two friends but I don't recall who. We sit at a bench near the actor who played George's father in Seinfeld. But he doesn't say anything. A young blond girl walk up to us nervously. She says "Did you guys know there's a dance coming up?" We say nothing and she walks away.

Another group of girls comes and sits near us in the same set of benches. One attractive blond looks at me and says "Hi I don't know if you remember me." I don't but I guess just to keep the conversation going: "Did we meet last night?" She says no. "I'm on of the 'Real Players.'" I have no idea what that means. Then she starts talking about a family and farm animals. Scene fades.

I wake up and DEILD into a lucid. My view is totally distorted. It's like I'm looking at a blurry TV, off center and from an angle. On the TV it looks like Street Fighter and I struggle to recognize one of the characters is Guile. I turn my head to try to center the view. Instead, I enter a rocky tunnel. I'm floating through, like I'm being carried underwater. It's like in medical films when they stick a camera down a person's esophagus. I look at my hands and rub them. The view still sucks. Dream ends. I think, damn, another difficult scene. I guess I need to be more prepared to face anything that comes at me. Or maybe I just need to be patient and let the dream solidify before trying any control.

Good night but a strange night. My cycles were about 60 minutes instead of 90. And for a period before the lucid, I was drifting in and out of sleep for about 5 minutes at a time. That's how I managed to count 5 dreams in only about 6 hours of sleep. I probably had 3 or 4 more tiny dreams that I didn't record. I think I would become a bit lucid in them and I would instantly drift into wake. I'd do an RC but I'd be in my bed every time.

0400: Finally asleep. It took me almost 2 hours, during which time I got up for a while and read.

0459: D. First cycle! But might notes are illegible. Here's what I decipher: Seems like I was asleep for a long time. I dreamed about my billy. I wants see if my buys construed. This is mad with me bran verses. Like my dreams are changed on my waterbed? Um yeah. No idea.

0559: C. I'm at a beach house next to a rocky ocean coast. Oregon, maybe. I'm outside. It's bright but just a bit hazy. I'm alone but I feel my father is around and that the house belongs to a friend of his who were are visiting. I'm using a laptop, paying bills. I have a physical letter that is some kind of offer to bid on a house for $200,000. I fill out the form online but stop to think before submitting it. I decide not too. My father walks out and asks if I'm getting an error on my computer. Something about "Phone recognized". He says it happens when you close a window. I close the window and see several error popup windows cascade across the screen and then close one by one. The owner of the beach house also comes out and explains they probably need to restart the router. We try to determine when exactly the problem started. But I hadn't closed a window while I was working so I only saw it after my father asked me to try.

0648: D. This was one of the really short dreams while drifting in and out of sleep. I'm on a computer. I'm programming while Alt+Tabbing back and forth to a movie. My sister sees the movie and is upset. Then the cat jump on my lap.

0730: D. I'm in the Daisetta house watching a basketball game. It's night outside but the lights are on inside. Lance is in the room, working on a computer. Both basketball teams are wearing red and it's confusing. I find this strange. I try to talk to Lance but he's focused on his work and isn't interested in the game. The game is important, like a playoff game. Lance gets up and put on a coat to leave. He's dressed for rainy weather.

0821: B. I'm driving home at night. I pull into the parking lot and Hugh is waiting for me. We talk about the plan for me to pick him up from the airport. I think, wait, aren't you supposed to be out of town? I'm picking you up, not dropping you off. This is weird and I become semi-lucid. But the parking lot is familiar and nothing else strange is happening. So I lose it. I walk to the elevator. There are a few old Asian ladies. One tries to talk to me in sign language.

I get on the elevator alone and head up to my floor. As it stops, I hear a creaking noise. The elevator slowly starts to tip over to the right with me in it, like a sinking ship. Oh, I'm dreaming. God I hope I'm dreaming. I stay cool. "This is my world and I can do anything!" As the elevator turns horizontal, I jump out and hover in the elevator shaft. The car falls to the ground. I'm looking in to the building and it's looks dark and damaged, like on Star Trek when they take heavy damage with smoke and broken pipes in the corridors. Three superheroes fly out of the corridor and hit me while I'm still hovering in the elevator shaft. This knocks we out of the building and into the dark downtown Los Angeles skyline.

My stability and control aren't great. I look at my hands and that helps a lot. I'm still flying. I look around and see rooftops and buildings below. This is cool. Now the three superheroes are zooming around and attacking me with fireballs. They are dressed in brightly colored tights, but I don't recognized them specifically. I think, "Am I the good guy or the bad guy"? Oh well. I fight back with my fireballs (they are blue today) and fire breath.

I try the flying backward somersault with mixed success. As I'm upside-down, my vision goes black and disoriented. I recover. I keep defending myself with fireballs. At one point, 5 mirror images of Spider-Man jump out and attack me too. I throw a Street Fighter Guile Sonic Boom.

False awakening. I'm in my own bed. I know I'm dreaming but I feel like I'm in my physical body. I can feel the sleep paralysis of my physical body. I look down and see my foot with distorted toes wiggling. I try to move my dream arms. I try to focus. Dream fades and I end up moving my physical arms.

Two LDs, but hardly impressive. I didn't sleep well so I don't think I could have stabilized these tiny dreams.

But before all that, I once again practiced the daydream while trying to fall sleep. I'm going to make it a part of my regular routine so I'll note it in my journal in green. It's neat that I can recall the daydreams without any written notes. Wow, it's long. This is more like me writing a short story than a dream. If you're just looking for the actual dreams, skip down to the bottom.

Daydream: I'm running down a dark tunnel like a railroad tunnel with a light at the end. I'm going to search for the portal to the dream world, but first I'm going to look for that little town that I was in last night. As I'm running, I wonder what to call this place between the physical world and the dream world. But instead of picking a name, I decide I'll ask someone when I get there.

In the tunnel, a giant spider blocks my way. I'm afraid but I decide to face the fear. I try to talk to him and befriend him. I even pet him. I know that he's not a monster. He is a guardian, protecting me from entering a place I'm not yet ready for. It's the place that is dangerous, not the guardian. When I have faced my fear, I will be ready and the guardian will let me pass. The spider is friendly and lets me past. He will help me again in the future.

I emerge from the tunnel into a sunny valley with a quaint Renaissance-era town with cobblestone streets and houses. I imagine it looks like France and many of the people have French accents. I want to find Juliette and Marie again so we can all go to the dream world together. In the center of the town is a church. I go in and ask a nun where Juliette and Marie are. She says Marie lives across the street. I enter Marie's house and she's alone. I ask where Juliette is. Marie is worried. Juliette has gone missing. I say we'll find her. I grab Marie and jump high above the city. Marie points out Juliette's house and we swoop down. Inside we find Juliette's mother. She is upset. She says Juliette left alone to look for the portal. The mother is angry at me because I was the one that told people about the dream world. I promise I will find Juliette and bring her back. "Which direction would she have gone?" "East," the mother says, "toward the rising sun."

Marie and I head east and talk along the way. She tells me the name of this place is Never. It's a small town in the middle of a varied, realistic landscape. She says it's always been here. Apparently, nothing changes and people don't grow old. Kids go to school to learn Nothing. Marie and Juliette don't go to school, they are a few years older than that. No one has ever left. Juliette was the first one to try to leave. I ask, "What is east of Never?" She says, "The forest, and beyond it the mountains."

We reach the edge of the forest. It's a dark and foreboding woodland forest like one would see in Europe. Marie is afraid but I reassure her that everything will be okay. The giant spider returns. Marie is terrified but I try to stay calm and talk to the spider. I explain the situation and ask for his help. He gives me a rope made of his silk. He tells me to tie the rope to a tree at the forest edge. I can follow the rope back out of the forest so I won't get lost. Brilliant!

I turn around and Marie is happy and has a basket full of muffins. I eat one and it's delicious. I ask where and how she got freshly baked muffins. She says she's the daughter of the town baker and she can bake anything out of anything. She says Juliette is the daughter of the blacksmith and make any tool. She doesn't seem to think these magical powers are unusual.

We walk through the forest, trying to find paths and signs that Juliette would also have followed. We meet a large sparrow and I try to talk with him to ask for help. He doesn't speak, but he comes with us perched on my arm. We come upon areas of bright yellow light that teleport us to other parts of the forest. I check the rope and it's still taught, so I trust it will still lead the way out. Marie and I stop to rest and lo and behold Juliette finds us. We are relieved and follow the rope out of the forest and then walk back to town.

Me, J, and M try to think where the dream portal could me. They really want to know about the dream world and also the physical world. I become aware of physical body and I feel like I'm being pulled out of Never. Eventually I let go come back to the physical world, still awake.

0005: C. My notes are mostly illegible. I remember it being a robust dream but all I can decipher from my notes is this: Hugh, Dave, and I ... Star Trek. Dave ... beer ... has a character like Captain Picard ... They introduce themselves. One girl is a comedian and this intrigues me.

0637: D. I'm in bed and it's dark. I think I have a laptop. I hear Linkin Park music. I'm typing in "laser" to a web browser to search. But I keep spelling it wrong. Then I think I've got it right but the browser shows an error page. I think it's because I spelled it wrong. But I realize it's an internet connection problem. I think, maybe Hugh pulled the plug? Why would he do that? I start to get out of bed when suddenly I'm being dragged out of bed by the wire on my headphones. I'm pulled toward the desk in my room, defying gravity. Ugh. I'm dreaming. But these are hardly good conditions. I'm being ripped through the air by my ears in great pain and darkness. "Stabilize!" No luck. Dream ends abruptly.

0740: D. I'm in bed (again) lying on my right side. I open my eyes and the view is distorted. It's like the picture is being sucked into a vortex somewhere to the upper left. I realize I'm dreaming (again) but these aren't good conditions (again). "Stabilize!" I rub my left hand across the mattress sheet to get some tactile sensation. Dream ends abruptly.