Cities in the Astral

07/20/12 I have been very lax as far as posting my LDs on-line lately, sorry. I will add this one, because it is differant than normal.

Through out the night, I kept appearing in a out of phase kind of odd enviroment. It was almost all mental, with limited understandable visuals. My current Dream Guide 'The Diplomat' was trying very hard to give me a lecture. I tried all night (or so it felt) to get what it was he was trying to teach. He must be very patient as I fumbled with it like a child being explained calculus. The subject had something to do with dream types, and how I should react or treat each of them.
Whatever he was trying to teach me was not translating into terms that relate to what I understand from the physical world. He would almost think/ project the knowledge at me, and my brain felt like it was getting scrambled. He would say something that translated to something like "The dreams that begin with S", I would say "what?" He would try again, "those dreams have to do with bodily function," then he would project a feeling or something, trying to make me understand. I would say "huh?"
And so on for what seemed like hours!

This one is far from impressive. I am only journaling it for the competition thread. It was just a work anxiety dream. I realized I should not beat work, and could not figure out the specific reason I was feeling panicy. I kept trying to work but got very confused. Then I came to realize I was dreaming. I was so mad at my sleep being disturbed by work dreams that I missed out on a chance to have a good LD. Instead I just proclaimed out loud in the dream, "This is a dream, and I told you thaat you are not allowed to dream about work!" My mind raced onto a feeling of deadlines and such, so I got frustrated. I used my LD skills to erase the entire sceen and repress any thoughts of work. I was then pleased that it worked and drifted off into normal sleep. Dur ~1-2 min.

I got up and sat in the hot tub for about 20 minutes to get ready for WBTB. I laid on my back in bed and was some what frustrated by a pain i have been having in my low back. I reached SP and came back out 3 times before I truely fell asleep. I maintained awareness by chanting 'thank you' about every 5 seconds. I began to experience vivid HIs where my mostly unformed dream body was spinning and it fely like I was liquid going down a drain. There were buzzing and popping noises. I entered into what may have been REM and everything become very vivid, much more so than HIs. Suddeenly I was surrounded by swirling clouds of blood red. I heard all sorts of sounds like the popping of beer tops and weird noises I am not sure of.
I tried to test if this was an LD. I was unaware of my body except the vague feeling that my eyes were flitting around a bit. I could turn and look at different things, but everything kept looking all psycodelic and vividly colored by the swirling clouds. I formed a dream body, but it was clear and glass like. This LD did not seem to want to take a normal form, it was more an abstract LD. I started walking, but kept feeling myself being bent forward kind of like a cave man. I would straighten out my back but afteer a few seconds of walking i felt hunched over again. In hind sight my painful back was probably influancing things. I worked on forming wing planning on flying through the red clouds. I formed angel wings and felt them spread, but when I looked they were clear and glass like. Suddenly I felt very bent over and started loosing the dream. I woke up from my back pain. Dur~3 minutes.

I normally do not bother journaling small unimpressive LDs, but I am now for the Comp. Thread. It is good for me anyways. I had taken ambien but no alcohol. Drinking seems to be the worst for my LDing. I have been under lots of work pressure, and have been having nightly drinks. Last Comp. this totally ruined my score. I had good luck with ambien w/out drinking, but the dreams where short and unimpressive.

1st a WBTB that succeeded but I could not stay concious long due to the sedative. I woke up and looked on Dream Views and then laid on my back and counted breaths. The WILD was successful after only 5 minutes or so. When the sense of my body was gone I appeared in a dream that just had confusing noise and rapidly shifting images. I remembered the Comp and my first goal of flying. I focused and was having trouble, again due to the sedative. After about 20 seconds I took off in a swan dive kind of flight. The visuals switched to 3rd person, but the tactile was vivid feeling of me flying. I only got to fly for less than 1/2 a minute, because I was so drugged I drifted into unconciousness. Dur~1-2 minutes.

2nd DEILD I woke from a disturbing confused dream. I stayed still and followed the trail of the last dream to enter a dream. I was suddenly lucid, and surrounded by vague DCs who all were all trying to make me panic about a deadline or something. I also got a feel of adernalin like I was in a hurry and in trouble. LAME! I calmed down and realized I had stepped in to a work stress dream. I finally told the DCs to leave me alone as it was a dream and the work stuff was bothering me. The dream became unstable and I awoke.

Pretty lame results, but I need the ambien due to my job. I will skip it when I can, and have stoppeed having drinks, so that will help.

I woke from a dream and decided to do a DEILD, which worked. I did not enter the dream I had been in though. I was back in that "Clear Light of the Mind" mode I describe in a post from earlier in the night. While this state is supposed to be some grand spiritual end, I am not all that impressed. I call it the white room after the training area in the matix.
I decided to create a dream in the white room, so I went about diong a RC (wow, no body, yep a dream), and started to form a body, but my wife woke me and it was time to get up.

I was walking past some metal tube shaped object, when my foot brushed it, and a label fell off it. I found that odd and stopped to do a RC. Yes, definately a LD. I tried to stablize, but ended up waking up.

This was a WBTB WILD. I had been drifting in HI land for some time, just barley staying aware, when a sudden flash of reality hit, and everything lit up very bright. I was no longer in any kind of darkness, but the scene was a pure clear white. I have been having fewer LDs for about a month, and got kind of excited. I wanted to varify that this was a dream and not just a pre-dream WILD phase. I loooked around and realized I was 100% disembodied, with no sense of my waking body or bed. I could rotate and the view stayed ultra-white or 'clear' as they say. I considered channeling the dream into an adventure, but I had just written a section about this kind of dream. The Tibetian Yogas of Sleep and Dream, call this "Clear Light of the Mind" and attach a very high level of spiritual meaning to it.
Now, in this state you do not even really think, as the process of thought is still a expression of duality. I decided to do the whole "Clear Light" thing and stopped the monolouge and just experienced the unity, or lack of duality.
"Yawn" some yogis may fantasize that this state is the ultimate level, but I think it is that they either want the 'goal' to be attainable, or they want to feel that because they can do this, that they have reached an end. I find it just one more state of awareness. Eventually my wife woke me up.

I do not know what went wrong with this one. All I can figure is that the heavy dose of sleep aids, plus wine, messed up my internal dream works. I did a WBTB and at some point realized I was all confused and perhaps was aware in my sleep. I decided to do a RC. My main RC is a gravity check in which I attempt to levitate. I tried to levitate and my body came into focus. I suppose I was levitating, but I will not count this short levitation to be flight for the competition thread.
I realized right away that my preseptions were all messed up. My body was distorted, kind of warped, and even though I felt myself floating, I had no ground or objects to refer against. So, it was I dream, yay, I got lucid. Then the odd part. My head started to kind of spin and get confused. I almost felt an electrical short going on. Remember the screeching noise in the scene when Neo fir takes the pill. Everything faded out into some odd stuff I can not recall. Dur ~1 minute

I did a WBTB and when a dream finally started I noticed my hair was differant than normal. I was lucid and ran my fingers through what seemed like a long afro. I normally have short straight hair.
I wanted a mirror. I did basic summoning by wanting a mirror and just turning, expecting to see one. I looked in the mirror and had a great time. I could pass my fingers infront of my hair to make it grow or stand on end or straighten. I could warp my facial features and it was alot of fun.
In truely bad form, I got caught up in this and did not stabilize. I eneded up loosing lucidity and wandered off. Lucid Dur~2 minutes.

I suddenly realized I had been dreaming and looked around. A woman was sitting near by me and was teaching something. I tried to pay attention now that I am lucid. She is teaching mesome fine details about lucid dream reality. It all makes sense as she is teaching it, but upon waking the details have become vague. I ooften feel like things said tome in a dream make good sense, but can nott remember any details later.

A very short DILD. I was staanding around in a dream and looked into my hands. I was holding a bead string. I saw that it broke and beads started falling. However, they were falling into darkness. Nothing was around other than me. I did my gravity RC and started levitating. I became lucid annd levitated around in the dark for a minute, but at that point I lost my recall. My job has been a big stress and is affecting my dreams.

The initial non-lucid had been going on for awhile, it was about how I had a major paper due in the morning. Failing to have it done may get me thrown out of school. I had not even opened a book and should have started weeks ago. I met with all sort of confusion and things preventing me from getting it started. There seemed no hope.
Wait? How long has it been sinse I went to school, 10 years? What is the paper actually on, and how did I graduate and still owe someone a paper? All of these questions made me decide to RC. I use a gravity RC, so I attempted to levitate. Sure enough I was able to float up off the ground. I looked around and most of the scene was the familiar gray blue of my dreamscape. A desk full of books and me, were the only strong visuals. Suddenly the desk was about to fall apart and I knew it was full of chimes. I floated over to it and tried to hold it together. I knew I should not let the dream capture me, so I started to try and stablize. I looked at my arms around the desk, but at that point I woke up. Dur ~1-2 min.

My 4th or 5th WBTB attempt of the night was successful. I had been watching HIs patiently while chanting the manta "Watch for the dream, ride a horse" The HIs suddenly were under my control and my physical body was gone. Score! Third LD in the night. I played wit the images trying to summon images that seemed like a dream I could enter. My recall is fuzzy as to which scene I finally decided to step into. I think it was a park or something with trees, but it is blurry now. I visualized my self with a complete dream body and walked into the scene. I took some extra time to stablize, but could have ddone better. I examined my hands and and counted my fingers. I like to force the hands to form properly with only 5 fingers. I moved and worked the hands in various positions. I got excited to try to do stuff for the competition and should have patiently did a more advanced stablizing, but that is how it goes.
I looked around for something to do. A man was standing nearby and he was feeding squirels or something. I decided that interact with a DC was something that the competition called for (it is so hard to remember the goals in the LD!) I walked over to him and said 'Hi' He looked up and did not say anything.
I decided that if there was only one DC it should be a hot woman. I actually completed my first of three dream goals with out thinking about it. That is Advanced Summoning. I made the man disappear like he was teleported and in his place I summoned a nice sweet and pretty young woman. She wrapped her arms around me and in the excitement I lost my lucidity. I should know better.
The dream went on for awhile but I went back and forth between non-lucid and semi-lucid. I never got lucid enough again to grab control and re-establish full lucidity. We went to her house and I interacted with her family in a few scenes that were vivid, until I could not find her or anyone, and I awoke. Dur of lucid parts ~4 minutes.

I had been attempting my 2nd WILD try, then lost awareness and suddenly found myself lucid. It may be a WILD but as I am reporting on the competion thread, I want to be very fair. I lost all awareness prior to this so I will just call it a DELD which is worth less points. I became aware that i was totally disembodied and floating in a void. I casually checked to see if I was awake. No awareness what ever of my body, so I was asleep. I realize this is the blank slate kind of LD like the white training area in the matrix. I rotate my feild of vision 360 but nothing is there other than maybe slight variations of grey. I attempt to form a body. I bring my arms up and it is trippy.The blur into existance and it is bazaar suddenly being only a pair of arms. I never goot farther, because a loud vehical was warming up some where out side and I woke up. Dur~2 minutes.

I worked myself up trying to get back into serious LDing for the competition thread. Neither of my LDs from last night are very special, but it is a good start. The first one was my 3rd attempt last night for a WBTB WILD. I kept chanting internally "Watch for the dream. Ride a horse" I want to summon a pegusus for the task of the month, but plan on starting out with a normal horse first.
All of a sudden the HIs which had been swirling around formed all sorts of horse images, mostly horse heads in profile. I attempted to form a dream body and almost messed up the WILD. It was to soon, so I relaxed and kept the mantra going and just watched. After a minute it settled down into a sceeninside my house. I stablized by clappingand carefully observing the details while gently rotating in a full circle. I noticed something out of place for the house. The bathroom vanity was in my front room. I decided that looking into a mirror is fun and challenging, so I tried it. The mirror on the wall wanted to shift at angles that did not reflect me so I dream controlled it into place. I looked into it. At first the image was way back like i was a long ways away and my image had a big glowing star on my fore head that created rays like a cross. I brought it closer, and remembered someone on DV saying you always look different in a mirror. I personallyy have not found this. I was looking into the mirror at a reasonably good copy of myself. I should have been less fixated and remembered to do a better stabilization.
I lost lucidity at this point and the dream went on, but the details aall get blurred. Dur~3 minutes.