spellbee2

I’m at a friend’s house. He and his friends are talking about some new musical that he wrote. I say it’s fine as long as he’s not singing it too, he can’t sing a lick. I walk around his house for a bit, until I realize I’m in my old living room. Wait, this doesn’t seem right. I instantly become lucid. I was now the only person in the house, so I decided to do some tasks. There’s a plant in a pot next to me in the living room with a couple seeds on it. I go to grab one. OUCH FREAKING HECK. The seeds are incredibly sharp to the touch, almost like a large sand spur. I try to find a less sharp one on the plant to no avail. I just decide to pull a seed out of my pocket, and sure enough, I find a small orange-seed-looking seed. I plant it in this small corner of my living room that is made of dirt. I turn around and back again to find a small tree in its place. It’s very short, but the trunk is very big around. A small stem with 3 leaves stuck out the top. I figured that was good enough.

I next wanted to talk to an inanimate object. I flew up to the attic for some reason, but had no luck talking to anything there. I tried a couple different objects around the house, but still nothing. I kind of forget what all happened next, but I ended up with a fairly heavy trash bag of something (I vaguely remember that it might have been the chopped down tree, but it could have been something worse like a body). I walked a bit out the front door and tossed the trash bag to this large tree with a face that was growing in my front yard. As it landed at the base of the tree, I shouted out at it.
“Thanks, tree!”
“No problem, boss.”



I wake up in my bed back in my present home. I have this weird feeling that I usually have after waking up from a nap - it’s like I can’t feel the sheets or bed, so I feel like I’m floating just above the bed. I can usually break this feeling without much effort (though it usually feels so pleasant that I don’t bother). However, for some reason I feel fairly paralyzed and can’t move. On top of that, my legs are actually floating higher than the rest of my body. They continue to rise as I inhale, eventually pointing up to the ceiling, and then lower themselves back down to the bed as I exhale. I hear footsteps coming down the hallway, and I start to panic a bit, wondering what my parents will think when they see me floating with my legs pointed up in a strange position. I exhale and try to keep from breathing, and I slowly lower back into to the bed, finally able to move. I sit up as my mom walks in. We head out to this elevator to go downstairs.



The elevator is really small and has not many features other than its cold metal walls and the red screen to show what floor we are at. I start to get a bit panicked, since usually in my dreams elevators tend to break and plummet. Wait, in my dreams… Of course, I’m an idiot. The elevator jerks to a halt, but before its inevitable fall to the ground, I quickly shove open the doors and get out.



I’m now in this large hotel conference room. I have no idea what’s going on. It looks like as big of an event as Comic-Con, but there’s not anyone dressed up or anything. I grab a flyer and take a look. “Fourth Annual Nerd Convention.” The convention’s literally a large gathering of incredibly smart people. I feel kinda out of place in this large crowd of nerds, so I make a break for the exit. Instead, I find myself in another room of the nerd convention. I walk through several rooms, each time finding another section of this massive Nerd-Con. I get incredibly frustrated, and in a fit of desperation, I shout “NERDS!” angrily at the top of my lungs. Everyone turns to me and happily shouts “NERDS!” as well. Soon, a chant of “NERDS!” starts sweeping across the convention center.

I wake up again. This time my laptop is in my lap, and I’m now on DreamViews Chat, talking with Mismagius. “Woah, that’s a pretty crazy dream. ^O^”
I try to type, “Pretty much, yeah”, but the words keep coming out wrong, and I have to try to retype it several times. Wait a minute, I didn’t even tell him my dream yet. Oh, I’m still dreaming, dang it. I now try to type out, “Oh wait, I’m still dreaming”, but the keys still aren’t quite working right. Wait, why am I even bothering to type? I’m freaking dreaming! I throw my laptop on the bed and get up to try some more stuff.

I recently read this thread on transformation, and since I’ve always struggled with transformation in dreams, I figured I’d give it a shot. The guide suggests starting out small and getting used to the feeling of controlling new body parts, by growing extra fingers and feeling how you can still control them individually. I look down at my hands to find that I only have 4 fingers at the moment. I grabbed my pinky and stretched it out towards the end of my hand, forming a fifth finger and returning my hand to (relatively) normal. I continue to do this until I have about seven fingers, and then I try bending each one individually. I shake my hand to return it to normal, but instead this just mixes up my hand even more. I have fingers sticking out of other fingers, and eventually I even have a finger that stretched across my other fingers, holding them all together. I pull this finger off my hand completely, but I don’t know what to do with it. I make sure no one’s looking, and then toss it in one of the laundry hampers. Shortly after this, however, I wake up for real.

I’m driving with my boss, driving a load of desktop computers to our next destination. For some reason my boss let me drive the van, even though I have no clue where I’m going. So when we get to an intersection, I don’t know which way to go. “Where am I going?” He says something, but the AC in the car is roaring too loudly for me to hear it. “What?” He doesn’t respond. I turn off the AC and ask again, but he still ignores me. I finally get to the intersection and drive straight, hoping for the best.

My boss finally scolds me, “You were supposed to turn right!”
“Well maybe I would’ve known that if you had spoken up!”

We get into a bit of a heated argument. I don’t see, however, that the road I’m on takes a sharp right and turns into an entrance ramp to the interstate. To the left of the turn is a deep chasm that looks almost bottomless. It’s pitch black at the bottom, despite the sunny day that should be lighting it up. I don’t have much time to react, so I turn the wheel sharply to the right. The left two tires of the van go over the edge, and it looks like the rest of the van isn’t going to stop in time. I suddenly have an intense fear that I’m going to die. My life flashes before my eyes (if that’s possible in a dream), and I start screaming in panic. Luckily, in some miraculous act that looked like messed up video game physics, my front right tire stays at the top of the cliff and pulls the rest of the van up back to safety.

I take a massive sigh of relief, while my boss continues to scold me for missing the turn, obviously not at all grateful to be alive. I was a little mad and confused myself. Where the heck is the guardrail? Why is there even a cliff in Florida? This seems weird enough to me that I quickly become lucid, but the scene is already disintegrating by this point, and I wake up in my bed. I try to DEILD back into the dream, but despite getting some strong vibrations, I can’t quite make it and decide to abort the attempt.

---

I’m back at college, even though it takes place at my old high school building. The structure of my day is like it was back in high school - 8 periods of different classes with 4 minutes between each period. Basically the only thing collegiate about this dream is the difficulty of the classes.

The only class I remember well is this higher level Spanish class. My friend talked me into taking it because it’d be easy credits. I took two years of Spanish back in high school, so I figure it can’t be that hard. The teacher hands us our first homework assignment: a 30-page excerpt from an English novel that we have to completely translate into Spanish by the next class. I quickly skim the contents of the assignment; a lot of the words are quite large, and some I don’t even know the definitions of in English. I was wrong. So horribly wrong.

I turn to my friend who convinced me to sign up for this class. “I thought you said this was supposed to be easy!”
“It is. I can finish this in like 5 minutes.”
“What are you, half Mexican?”
“Ah, quiet down, you bebé grande.”

I stare blankly at my paper, hoping for some divine revelation to show me how to tackle this great feat. Looking around the classroom, I notice that all the students are using some big book that looks like an old White Pages directory to do their assignment. There’s one of these under my desk, so I pull it out to examine it. An English to Spanish dictionary, huh? I guess this will be pretty easy. I look back at the clock to see how much time I have left. It’s 11:30. Okay, this class gets out at 11:45, right? Wait no, today’s Friday, so classes get out at...

The bell rings. ...11:30… I start panicking again, since this class seems way too hard to struggle through for a whole semester. Wait, it’s still the first week of classes, I can drop the class without any penalty. But then my credit hours would drop too low, and I’d lose my scholarship. So I have to find another class to replace this one. But how am I gonna find a replacement class and fill out the paperwork before 5pm when the offices close? Luckily, I don’t have to make that decision, as I wake up first.

I’m in a futuristic dystopia where the government is slowly implanting microchips into their citizens’ brains. These allow the wearers to enjoy faster reflexes, improved memory, and all of the Internet conveniently accessible in their head. Unfortunately, the government uses the technology to monitor people’s thoughts, and any anti-government thoughts are grounds for arrest.

I am part of a team that works for the government, monitoring the actions and thoughts of those who don’t have brain implants yet. There’s about 15 of us, ranging in age from really old to really young, but most of the group seems to be under 16. Of course, we’re not above the law, as our implants still monitor our thoughts. We’re currently in training, taking cognitive tests to test our brain’s abilities. Our test results come back, and I’m currently the top performer off the entire group.

The next part of training involves learning to report other people’s actions back to the main server. A robotic female voice (similar to GLaDos) explains to us the importance of left and right brain signalling, and how this is key to properly communicating with the server. To report something to the server, you have to transmit what you want to report using your left-brain, and then conclude the transmission with some special password using your right-brain. (In retrospect, the explanation doesn’t make sense, since you can’t relegate thoughts to one side of your brain at will, but I guess it’s okay for the brain to make up weird stuff about itself too…)

The scene changes to my actual job, setting up new computers in a middle school computer lab. Adam Levine (lead singer for Maroon 5) is the teacher, and is sitting in watching us work and answering any questions we have about how he wants the classroom set up. None of my coworkers have the brain chip, and at one point I need to report one of them for something they said. I try to focus my thoughts into sending a report, but then I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. I pull it out and see a notification from Facebook that I just posted a status with my mind. I open up Facebook to find my full report plastered at the top of my news feed.

Ugh, this technology is friggin’ stupid. I can’t believe anyone would want to use this crap.
I suddenly realize what I’ve done. I expect the police to bust down the door and arrest me for this thought. Instead, I get another notification on my phone, telling me that I’ve posted another status. I open the notification and read what I just put.
“Brigg using relive 14 agggggggggg rap.”
Wait, how did it get that messed up? I realize that the last part of the thought was using the center of my brain, as opposed to a specific side. Could this be the key? Do I have a safe haven for my personal thoughts, away from government scrutiny? Judging by the fact that this new thought didn’t bring about any consequences, I assume the answer was yes. However, I’m still incredibly paranoid that my thoughts could get me arrested or even killed at any moment, so I decide not to risk it.

I am now interrupted by my supervisor complaining about having no network access in the classroom, so we can’t connect the computers to the Internet to configure them. Just then GLaDos’s voice sounds over the intercom. “The network problems are caused by cellular interference. All cellular devices will be confiscated.” The phone I’m holding in my hand suddenly starts floating up to the ceiling. I grab onto it and pull it down, but over time the force pulling it upwards gets stronger, and it gets harder and harder to keep down. I stick the phone under a heavy desk, hoping it would stay there, but then the desk started to lift as well. I try sending a message to GLaDos. What are you doing? I need my phone for reporting!

Instead of answering my question, GLaDos continues over the intercom, advertising the brain implants to the rest of the people in the room. “It’s the way of the future, instant access to all of the world’s resources. Get your implants today, for a better, perfect way of life.” She continues for a while, but then stops abruptly mid-sentence. Suddenly, her tone changes to a harsh, angry tone.

“Adam! That’s not a very nice thing to say.”
We all stop and turn to Adam Levine, who is still in the corner of the classroom. Weird, I didn’t hear him say anything.
“I distinctly heard you thinking. You strongly believe that all this talk of a perfect life is, and I quote, ‘just a red herring for a larger issue’?”
Adam’s expression changes from surprise to extreme fear.
“You are now under arrest by the Federal Court of America, under code 409.12.”
There’s suddenly a high-pitched beeping coming from Adam’s head, followed by a powerful electric shock that sends him to the floor into violent spasms. After a while he finally stops convulsing, but his eyes are rolled back in his head and he’s not breathing. He’s dead.

My coworkers are thrown into a panic and run for the door. Meanwhile, I stay motionless, trying to stay completely calm despite what just occurred in front of me. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it…

A few seconds later, a few men in uniforms bust through the door. I expect something horrible to happen to me. Instead, they load the body onto a stretcher and haul it off, not paying a bit of attention to me having a panic attack in the corner. I wake up as they leave the room.

---

I’m on a road trip to Virginia to my friend’s house (even though he lives in Florida IRL). As I’m driving on the interstate, I suddenly see a car is heading straight towards me. I quickly swerve to avoid it, but then another one right behind it is also heading towards me. In fact, all the cars around me is heading the wrong direction, hurtling towards me at high speed. But I’m on the right side of the road, why is this oncoming traffic? I look in the rear view mirror and see some other cars behind me heading in my direction, including a few police cars. So it’s not just me then. I turn on the radio, and the traffic news station comes on. Apparently at that spot the roads were supposed to switch sides, but the sign on one side of the road had either fallen or been stolen, so no one on that side knew to switch over.

I luckily safely reached my destination, my friend’s house. He apparently lives in a small RV, which they are planning on driving back to Florida the next day. I’m kind of surprised and angry, since I had just driven 800 miles in one day to find out that I would have to drive 800 miles back right after arriving. But I’m too tired from my travels to put up too much of a protest, and I fall asleep on the couch.

---

I’m at my grandma’s old house, and we’re setting up for a family reunion Thanksgiving dinner. There’s a ton of tables set up, some for the different family cliques and one for the children. I’m a little disappointed to find out I was supposed to sit at the kids’ table, since I’m 20 and I’m bigger than that. My mom asks me to get something from the bedroom, so I head in to go find it. That’s when I realize that I’m in my underwear. Luckily, I’m in my own bedroom, so I pull out another pair of pants to put on. I’m about to put them on, when I turn around to see some guy standing in the doorway. He starts talking to me, asking me questions about how college is going and what I’m studying (the usual questions distant relatives ask when you meet them). Of course, he doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that I’m currently in my underwear. I’ve never seen this guy before. Are we sure he’s not just some creep? My mom yells that dinner’s ready, so I throw on my pants to go eat.

Had a rough night last night, and woke up at 5am unable to go back to sleep. I stayed up until about 6:30 browsing the forum and such, and then tried again to sleep.

My mom comes in and wakes me up. I get up and out of bed, when I realize I'm in my bedroom at my old house. I instantly know this is wrong and become lucid. I literally have nothing planned for this lucid (because I'm an idiot), so I figure I'd try once more to get in contact with Vi, who has been eluding me for quite some time now. Much like my last lucid, I pull out my phone and put it directly to my ear. "Vi, are you there?" No response. I look at my phone, and it's still on the home screen. Looks like I have to actually call her now. But I don't know her number, she doesn't even have one. Oh wait, there's an easy way to do this.

"OK Google, call Vi."
"Calling Vi..."
Ah, the power of technology.

I put the phone up to my ear and hear it ringing. I guess I should probably find a way out of here while I'm waiting. I walk up to the window and try to phase through it, but I can't quite will myself to get through it. I try pushing my face up against the glass, hoping to pop out on the other side. After a while of this not working, I realize how silly this must look. Oh man, what will the neighbors think. I back up and try a more forceful approach. I slam my elbow through the window, shattering it into a million pieces. I squeeze myself through the open space and make it to my front yard. I put the phone back up to my ear. “Please leave a message for…” Aw come on…

I take a look around. The neighborhood has a very dark and sinister vibe surrounding it. The sky is kind of a reddish-black. Weird, it wasn’t like that when I got out here. Just then, a zombie comes around the corner of a house and runs towards me. His walk and general appearance look strange, like he’s a Lego minifig or something. I punch the zombie in the chest, and he flies backward, exploding into his different Lego pieces. After a few seconds, the pieces start to rattle, and then come back together. The zombie then gets up and charges again, and I knock him down again. This continues a couple times, and I eventually tire of it. I pull out a baseball bat and smack the zombie into the ground. The impact actually shatters the concrete under the zombie, and knocks his skin off, turning him into a skeleton that looks definitely Lego-like.



Of course, this still isn’t enough to kill him, and he comes together and charges at me again. I’m sick and tired of this stupid game, so I take off and float away. I don’t have much control, as I’m just basically floating upwards letting the wind carry me. However, this does give me a nice view of the city, which is in a complete state of disrepair. I float by a few windows and see families barricaded in their houses with assault rifles to protect them from zombie invasions. Even tall office buildings have been converted to safehouses from the zombies.



The scene quickly changes. I’m now in what looks like a very large convenience store. I look down to see I’m in some kind of gorilla suit, except the hair is white and the skin is blue (in retrospect, it was more like a yeti suit). The suit unleashes some kind of primal rage inside of me, and I feel the need to destroy everything. I start out by flipping a few tables, but then slowly escalate to pushing over shelves, throwing coolers, and even body slamming a couple displays. Luckily no one is there to get hurt, but I honestly have a fun time destroying everything in sight. I also admire how realistic the physics seem, as everything seems to shatter exactly as they should.

I’m now in another new scene, unloading groceries from my mom’s car into a strange house. I realize I’ve wasted a good amount of time doing pointless things in this lucid, but for the life of me I can’t remember anything I wanted to accomplish. I already did most of the Tasks of the Month, and I can’t even remember the ones I have yet to accomplish. I feel like Dreamer just recently dared me something, what was it again? And I have a whole list of ideas sitting on my phone, why can’t I remember any of them?

I try to rack my brain for any ideas of what to do. Thinking about Dreamer’s dare reminds me of one of her previous dares that involved explosive farts. I decide to unleash a mega fart of my own (real mature, right?). Fortunately, I have a ton of food in these grocery bags, including one large orange pepper, which I attempt to convince myself is a special kind of pepper that’s notorious for causing uncontrollable gas. I pick it up, and eat the entire thing in three quick bites. It definitely had a distinct peppery taste, which I admired for a while. The only thing it didn’t have was any effect, and so my dream world was safe from the threat of flatulence, for now.



The scene changed yet again, and I found myself in a very nice library. I flew around some more, still trying to think of anything to do. The library was quite large, with clear glass separating the many rooms. In retrospect, I feel like I’ve visited this same library in a previous dream. At least the antique wooden style of the place seemed very similar. There are several students around the library studying, and I think about disturbing them, but then decide against it when I find an exit from the building.

The library has a long set of stairs that extend out to this sketchy place under the highway. I finally decide to try calling Vi one more time. I pull out my phone again and put it up to my ear. “Please leave a message after the beep.” I let out a deep sigh and wait for the beep.

“Hey Vi, it’s me again. This is getting kind of ridiculous now. You’re too busy for me and my dreams, you’re pretty much avoiding me entirely. I mean, you’re my dream guide, and I feel like I need guidance. And...” I take a deep breath. “I miss you, ya know? We had good times together and… I feel like we were so close… I think I have a crush on you…”
What the heck am I saying? A crush on a dream character? That’s ridiculous. “I mean, not a crush as much as just a… general… liking.” I’ve backed myself into a corner now… I continue to fumble over my words, until I take a look off in the distance, and see three people running at a fairly high speed. They’re really far away, but I can tell that one of them is Vi.

I fly over to see what’s going on. Vi is dragging some guy by the wrist, and another guy wearing a similar uniform to Vi’s is following closely behind. The three of them stop running when I land in front of them. “Vi, what’s going on here?”
“We’re heading to the gym with this guy.”
She points to the guy she’s holding. The guy looked like a much fatter version of Jonah Hill with curly hair.
“Really? I don’t think this guy’s seen a gym a day in his life.”
I look closer and realize the guy has a very glazed over look, and is unresponsive to pretty much everything around him. “Is this dude okay?”
“Um, of course. He just hasn’t fallen asleep yet. Which is why we need to get going to the gym.”
“Fallen asleep yet? Vi, what the heck are you talking abo-”

I suddenly realize what she means, and everything falls into place in my mind. Vi is a dream guide, which means more than just guiding dreams. She and her partner, another dream guide, are responsible for taking the bodies of dreamers to the starting locations of their dreams each night. Then, when the dreamer falls asleep in real life, their dream body becomes active and follows the storyline planned out for them by the dream guides, until they eventually wake back up. The fat guy is another dreamer like me, and odds are his dream is going to start out in some gym. Everything in this dream world is just a show, cleverly choreographed and put on by these dream guides, and only a select few individuals, the lucid dreamers, ever get to see what goes on behind the scenes.

Vi’s partner’s watch beeps. “He’s at stage 3, we don’t have much time.” Vi nods to me before starting to run again.
“Wait, one last thing.”
“What is it?”
“Do me a favor… Don’t check your voicemail.”
She nods again and runs off, the other two close behind. I finally wake up.

I’m on the set of Jeopardy!, practicing some questions with Alex Trebek. The software used to show him the questions* is incredibly buggy. Random clicks just bring up more windows that mess up everything else. The entire practice show is at a standstill because I can’t get the program to work. Alex finally walks over and says he might have a better job for me. He takes me over to the question board and tells me to stand there and basically be the Vanna White of the show. We start an actual show taping, and my job is to press the screens for each question. One question involves filling in the missing letters from a chemical formula. After no one rings in and Alex reads the answer, I chime in with my own commentary: “Worst Wheel of Fortune puzzle ever.” This warrants about 5 minutes of laughter from everyone on the set, and they had to stop the taping to give everyone a chance to recompose themselves.



I’m now working at this large arena in Los Angeles. There’s a basketball game going on, currently in overtime, but a lot of the staff are getting anxious, since they have to convert the court into a hockey rink before Game 7 of the Stanley Cup the next day. One of the staff presses a button that makes the clock on the scoreboard tick down faster than normal, and finally the game comes to a close. Just then, the court starts to fill with water, and everyone clears out of the area. One of the staff flips a switch, and all the water instantly freezes into a nice thick layer of ice.

I walk outside the arena to a big open courtyard area, where there’s a ton of people having a huge celebration. I’m helping restock the food tables, when my mom asks if I can bring her some cake from another table on the other side of the crowd. I make the long trek through the crowd, grab the cake, and attempt to carefully take it back. I make it most of the way, but about 10 feet away from my destination, a rather large lady backs into me, and I spill the cake all over the front of my body. I’m slightly disappointed, but I’m much more mad at the lady who wasn’t paying attention to where she was going. However, I don’t have long to voice my frustrations, as I receive a message through an earpiece in my ear that there’s a situation a few blocks away.

I run off to the location of the emergency, and I see several other of the staff members running the same direction. As we run through the streets, I see billboards of propaganda everywhere. I begin to remember that I am part of a large group of resistance members attempting to start a revolution against the corrupt dystopian government. The whole scenario has a very Mirror’s Edge feel to it, as my run involves taking passageways through buildings and leaping to distant ledges.

I finally reach my destination, and there’s a large uproar from a crowd of about 300 people. Me and the other agents try to seamlessly blend into the group and join the riot. After a few minutes, a bald man with a goatee silences the crowd to speak.

“Too long have these menaces to society been allowed to oppress us. They threaten the peace we know so well.”
The crowd starts cheering, and I join in.
“They are pests, and must be dealt with if our government is to succeed.”
The crowd starts cheering again. Wait, what?…
“The Resistance must be stopped, for the greater good of our society.”
The crowd is now ecstatic. This isn’t good.
“Remember, they wear earpieces. If you see someone with an earpiece, take them down immediately and report them to the authorities.”
Nope, definitely not good. I hear a voice on my earpiece, “Blues are approaching the scene, get out of there, now!”

I quickly try to maneuver my way out of the crowd, but everyone in my way is jumping up and down, making it impossible to get through. I hear sirens getting louder, and soon several police officers in cars and on motorcycles arrive on the scene. They start throwing out tear gas into the crowd, and the group quickly disperses. I make a break towards a clearing, dodging tear gas canisters as they land all around me. It’s utter chaos around me, as I see people running every direction, trying to find shelter from the gas. One of the canisters bounces off my leg, but luckily I don’t breathe in any of the fumes and am able to keep running.

I pass by an alleyway, when I hear someone shout, “Agent!” I turn to see a lady with an earpiece motioning me to follow her down the alley. She walks over to a brick wall and pushes a secret button, revealing a small hole just big enough for me to fit into. I jump down this slide inside the hole, and eventually slide into a river running behind some of the buildings. I start to swim towards a nearby dock, but the scene goes black.



I find myself in some sort of flashback. I am seated at a table in this small interrogation room with a small whiteboard on the wall. I try reading what’s written on it, but the letters keep changing on me. Just then, the lady from the alley walks in and places some papers down on the table.
“Well, unfortunately, you failed the microexpression test. We noticed that when you tell a lie, the right side of your mouth raises a little…” She pauses for a bit. “Interesting…”
“What is it?”
“Well it appears the side of your mouth doesn’t raise when you’re told a lie, kind of like the lie that you failed the microexpression exam.” I look up at her confused. “Congrats, you passed. Welcome to the team, agent.”
She extends her arm, and we shake hands, but then I wake up.

*Fun fact, there isn’t actually any software that Alex Trebek uses when he reads the questions. He just has a sheet of paper with the questions, and he crosses them off as he goes. I’m great at parties.

I had to get up early this morning to give my dad his birthday present before he left for work. After he left, I went back to bed, fairly confident I was going to get lucid. I tried a new WILD technique/anchor thing, counting my heartbeats as I was falling asleep.

I suddenly find myself floating a few feet off my bed. Well that was quick. I rolled over and touched down next to my bed. It’d been awhile since my last good lucid, so I really wanted to talk to Vi. My attempts to summon her in the past never really worked, but someone in chat the other day suggested calling her on the phone to summon her. I grab my phone off the nightstand and put it up to my ear.

“Hey Vi, you there?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Um… Where are you right now?”
“...In a place, why?”
“Well I’m finally lucid, I wanted to hang out or something…”
“Oh, well I’m kind of busy.”
“With what? I’m dreaming, you can’t be doing something else…”
There’s silence on the other end.
“Vi, you still there?”
Still no response. Great, she hung up on me. I put down the phone to redial, but I wake up first.

I lay in my bed motionless for a while, hoping to DEILD back into the dream. However, I hear a ton of noise as my dad comes up the stairs. He barges into my room, saying something about how he forgot something before heading to work. He says he didn’t mean to bother me, yet he keeps talking until I finally get up. I’m now wide awake, but suddenly, I realize that I can feel my sleep mask on my face, but I can’t see it, like it’s not even there. I do a quick nose plug, and find out I’m still dreaming. Good, I’m glad you’re not actually that stupid, dad. I push him out of my bedroom and close the door.

I run back over to my bed and phase through the window to the small section of roof outside my bedroom. It’s raining pretty hard, which is weird, since I don’t ever remember any rain in my dreams typically. I try to do some more firebending like I did in my last dream, but the rain makes it incredibly difficult. I’m able to generate some flames from my hands, but they aren’t very strong at all. I fly back inside and (falsely) remember that one of the Tasks of the Month is to lay down in bed and have a WILD within the dream (only a month late on that one). I lay down in my bed and quickly transition into a new dream.



I’m at a large mansion in the country, at this fairly large party. I for some reason know that this party is a public hangout for all the users of imgur, a photo-sharing website that I frequent quite a bit. Unfortunately, it looks like there’s not a lot of people at this party, and the ones that are there are a little too nerdy for my tastes - most of them are wearing fedoras and talking about D&D or something similar (nothing wrong with that stuff, just not something I’m interested in). I’m seriously considering leaving this fairly lame party, but then I spot a beautiful sight on one of their plates.



Frosted animal crackers, my lunchbox-favorite snack back in elementary school. Plus, these ones look homemade. Maybe I’ll stick around just a little longer, just to get some of those delicious cookies. I wander inside in search of these cookies, and find a large spread of food out in the living room of the house. I turn around to find Sarah (the founder of imgur and kind of a celebrity on the site) sitting in a chair behind me. I’m a little embarrassed. “I was just grabbing some food for the road, I gotta get going. Thanks for this party, it’s been fun.” I hide a little smirk as the lie passes my lips.
“Glad you liked it. Feel free to stop by if you’re ever in California again.”
“I will.” ...probably not.

I grab a plate full of frosted animal crackers, and head out the door, regaining a slight bit of lucidity. Outside I see a guy and a girl from my class in high school, who are apparently in a relationship. They both get in the guy’s convertible. I decide to show off a little bit, so I crouch down and then launch myself into the sky before flying off. I turn back to look at their expressions, they seem unimpressed. I fly back down and drop the animal crackers into their car. One of them hits the guy in the head, and he turns around and shakes his fist at me. I laugh and fly into the clouds. It feels so freeing, just being so high and looking down. I continue to watch as the clouds cover my view of the ground, and the dream destabilizes.

I find myself now in a game of Minecraft, digging underground searching for a secret building. I see this long passageway through the rocks, and start to head down that way. I pull out a flashlight just in time to see a Minecraft-looking 8-bit version of Venom from Spiderman charging at me from the darkness.



I turn around and break into a sprint to escape, but Venom lets out a horrifying shriek that sends chills down my spine. I run faster, but soon find myself at a dead end. This can’t be right, did I take a wrong turn? Venom inches closer, ready to attack. It lets out one more shriek, and this time I let out my own scream equal in pitch and volume. I charge towards the beast, and deliver a blow to its face. It stumbles back, stops for a few seconds, and then charges again. I keep fighting, pushing it back more and more each time. I finally see a passageway off to my right and take off towards it. I reach a large opening, so I quickly turn around a place blocks to fill the passage. Finally safe, I take a deep breath and regain my composure before finally waking up.

I was on this small colony on an island. Everything looked and felt kind of like Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, and I was one of the assassins in my hooded cloak. I was semi-lucid, and remember having a conversation with some guy on the beach. He mentioned something about fire, and I remembered that firebending was something I really wanted to do in a dream. I held out my hand, did a little flick of my wrist, and my hand caught on fire. I could feel the heat from the fire quite noticeably. It didn’t hurt at first, but it got hotter over time, so I had to take breaks every couple seconds. I tried a couple times to make the biggest fireball I could before having to stop because of the heat.


A highly convenient representation of my situation from a YouTube video I watched the other day.

I was now at this event at this large outdoor arena. I was on stage seated with Howie Mandel (comedian and judge on “America’s Got Talent”) and one other guy. Howie got up to do a stand-up routine for a few minutes before introducing me as the next comedy act. I was actually surprisingly calm (despite how nervous I would be in the same situation in real life), but I still didn’t really know what to say. I got up and told a few jokes (which I remember thinking were fairly cheesy, but the audience liked them) before finally waking up.

Actually had two different wake-up times today, with several tasks completed in each one.

8:15am
I was at work (during the summer, I work with a Dell contractor setting up computers at elementary schools), but there were a ton of annoying kids that kept asking what we were doing. They kept stealing some of our equipment, and we had to chase them down to get it back. It took us forever to finally finish the job with all the setbacks.

I was at my childhood house, when I spontaneously became lucid. I was able to remember the TOTMs, and one of them was staring at a mirror. I walked over to this body-length mirror we had by the bathroom and stared at my reflection. I had a 5 o’clock shadow of a beard, and was initially wearing a green hoodie (kind of like my avatar), but then everything kept changing. My face kept changing shape, mainly getting fatter and skinnier. My facial hair kept changing from a beard to clean shaven to a goatee. My hair changed styles, eventually growing out until it hung down to my shoulders. Even my hoodie changed colors, from red to blue to purple. I stared as long as I could, but I had to look away for fear the dream would destabilize.

I next decided to walk outside and take on more tasks. I immediately saw a rainbow canopy hanging over the door to the garage. I thought about eating it to do the rainbow task, but figured that wouldn’t really meet the requirements. Instead I looked in the sky, and saw 3 or 4 rainbows that seemed decently close to the ground. One looked like it was right above the top of this tree in my backyard, so I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone and climb the tree to eat it. I started climbing the tree, but after I got about halfway, the tree started to sink into the ground. I managed to get to the top, but by that time it was too low to the ground and I couldn’t see over my house. I jumped off and flew over to another tree in my backyard. I landed fairly close to the top, but before I could take in my surroundings, the tree started sinking again. I was about to try it on one more tree, but the dream switched.

I was now in this futuristic dystopia in what seemed like a space station. Flying robots patrolled the halls, and were required to escort you from one part of the station to another, to make sure you didn’t try to escape. I apparently had done something bad, so I was being escorted by the robots to the police. They brought me to this area outside (if there is an “outside” on a space station) with a large catapult. Next to the catapult, a man was standing with a revolver pointed at me. He didn’t look like him, but for some reason I knew that this guy was a resurrected Joseph Stalin. He threatened to shoot me if I didn’t launch myself from the catapult through a large hoop in the air about 100 yards away. “You’re insane, why do I have to do that?” He cocked his gun, so I reluctantly agreed. I flew through the sky, but missed the target by a lot and fell. Luckily, I respawned next to the catapult, again with Stalin pointing the gun at me. I tried several times, but I missed every time. Eventually, I decided I didn’t want to launch again. I tried to knock the gun out Stalin’s hand, but instead it fired into my stomach, and I died. I respawned yet again, and tried several times to knock the gun out until I woke up for real.
---

10:15am
I was at the house of my 6th grade teacher. I was hiding upstairs because I was naked, and tried to find any clothes I could use to cover up. I thought to cover my nether regions with toilet paper for some reason, so I wrapped myself a nice pair of TP underwear around my legs and crotch.

Spoiler for ”R-Rated Content”:

No, seriously, I’m not joking, this part’s really weird and slightly disturbing. It’s really not that important to the story, I’m only putting it here in the interest of full disclosure. Are you sure you want to read it?

Spoiler for ”Yes, I have a sick sense of humor.”:

Unfortunately, my penis broke through the toilet paper in the front. I was going to reinforce it, but I heard someone coming upstairs. I didn’t want anyone to see me in this embarrassing situation, so in a panicking frenzy, I grabbed some scissors and cut off my penis. I then quickly re-covered my crotch with TP.

A young girl, probably about 5 or 6 came upstairs, and thankfully didn’t seem to care about my lack of clothes. She told me to come downstairs, so I did,but I also spontaneously became lucid. I remembered another TOTM, with the magic show. I got their attention, and then pulled out some scissors and cut off my finger. At first they were a little concerned, but then I waved my hand over my finger, and it reappeared. I did it again just for the heck of it, and they were both impressed.

Next I remembered the house quest. In an attempt to make sure my intention came true, I leaned down to the girl.

“Do you want to check out my house?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not only my house, it literally represents me.”
“Woah, cool!”

I take her by the hand and we walk outside. Everything looks like it’s built in Minecraft style. We walk over to my house. The exterior of the house had large windows for every room. We walked around the back of the house, and I could see that every room had a single plaque in the middle of each room as a centerpiece. I walked through the back door into a small library, where several of my old friends were sitting at some tables. One of them waved me over to tell me something (which I don’t remember now). I talked to them until I woke up.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted any dreams, but in the interest of picking my lucidity back up, I’m getting back into journaling. My dream last night was pretty cool, so I figured I’d start now.

First, I started off in this weird video game. There were a maze of chambers and locked doors, and several different soccer balls that I had to kick into their corresponding doors to unlock them. Occasionally there were a few creepy mannequin-like creatures that would block me from kicking the balls into the doors, but I managed to stay far enough away from them that they didn’t hurt me at all.

Next, I was working in what looked like a giant military base, with a large warehouse in the middle. Me and my boss were moving big boxes of paper in from his truck. At one point I looked at the papers, which were printed on one side with what looked like math homework. We finally walked back to my boss’s truck. It was 3pm, and he had to head to another project site, but he said there was one more pallet of paper boxes that I needed to move in, and I could leave after finishing that.

After he left, I was heading back to get the paper, but the wind was blowing pretty hard. At one point I stretched out my arms and let the wind take me up a bit into the air. I figured I’d use this to my advantage. I had some contraption that was basically a pool noodle shaped like football field goalposts. As I held it over my head, the wind picked up under it and lifted me up into the air. I sailed around the base for a while, mostly just staying a few feet off the ground. There were a ton of people around the base, and everyone waved as I passed them in the sky. The weirdness of this situation made me semi-lucid, but I was having fun sailing, so I just kept with it. At one point I took it even higher, flying about 100 feet up, and it felt amazing.

I eventually touched down in an open field. I lifted back up and practiced the landing a few times, but the last time my hands slipped from the pool noodle, and I fell on my back. Cosmo and Wanda from Fairly Oddparents were there, commenting on my “masterful” landing. “You think that’s impressive, check this out.” I pulled a portal gun out (from who knows where) and shot it into the sky. I then turned and pointed at the ground below me and fired. I instantly fell through it and found myself several miles up plummeting towards the earth. I must have been in a cloud or something, since I couldn’t see the ground from where I was. It was incredibly exhilarating. There was a speed meter at the bottom of my vision, so I tried repositioning myself in mid air to increase my speed as I tried to approach terminal velocity. It strangely didn’t change much, so I kept trying to make myself as aerodynamic as possible. Of course, I was too distracted by this, and forgot to actually pay attention to how close I was to the ground. I looked down to see it was coming up alarmingly fast. I pulled the cord to the parachute I was apparently wearing, but it was mostly too late. I blacked out as I hit a tree.

I woke up under the tree I had hit. My parachute was still caught up in the branches above me. I stood up and looked at my watch, it was past 10pm. I remember that I hadn’t finished unloading the paper boxes. I rushed over to the warehouse, only to find it was all closed up, with all the lights off. The gate outside was locked. I was thinking about jumping over, when a white car pulled up next to me. The window rolled down, and one of my friends was driving. I asked her how to get in, but she just told me they’ve been closed for a while. She then started telling me about her day. I really didn’t care about it, and was still trying to figure out how I was going to get inside, but she wouldn’t shut up.

In a fairly cinematic fashion, the scene transitioned into a flashback. The scene was this mix between Frozen and Toy Story. A young Elsa and Anna were in their bedroom, and Anna was excited for her birthday presents.

“Did you buy me a toy?”
“Oh, I bought you all the toys.”

Elsa opened a box with 3 or 4 toys inside, which looked like Raggedy Ann dolls. The dolls sprang to life and did a dance on her bed. I remember thinking (again, confusing Toy Story and Frozen) that it was weird that toys would buy other toys, since that would essentially be slavery. And then I woke up.

It's been a while since I've updated this, mainly because I've been too busy with school and work and life to even try to dream. Pretty much haven't had any interesting dreams anyway. If you're interested in how the Vi situation is going, I had a few semi-lucids a while back where she appeared, and I asked her a few questions. Of course, my recall was horrible, so I don't remember anything other than that.

Anyway, I did manage a decent lucid during a nap yesterday, and just got around to typing it up today. So this entire dream was kind of in and out, mostly since there was a lot of noise in my room, between my roommates playing Minecraft and annoying dormmates barging in and being loud. However, I did lay still through all of it, kept drifting in and out of a dream (usually a different scene each time), and eventually did have a long enough period of actual sleep to get some quick lucid stuff done.

After all the mini DEILDs and stuff, the dream was still pretty unstable, but I found Vi in a mineshaft of some kind. She was pushing a minecart while I walked beside her. I asked her where she's been lately, and she mentioned something about hiding, although she disappeared before I could find out what she was hiding from. I then found myself on this floating island that looked like a planet from Super Mario Galaxy. A long, straight, shallow canal ran down the center of it, and I jumped in to swim. I tried to remember the Tasks of the Month, and for some reason I thought one of them was to drink water through a straw. I was going to drink the canal water, but it was filthy and looked disgusting. I got out and found a water fountain instead, so I drank from that. There wasn't really any refreshing taste or anything, the dream was too unstable for any of that detail.

I finally thought to stabilize a little, and I finally managed to get a little more clarity than my hazy semi-lucidity. I thought if there were any more tasks that I could do. "Of course, how about the one I came up with!" I reached into my pocket and felt around, and managed to pull out a round circle of black fabric about the size of a grapefruit. I threw it on the ground, and it formed a hole. It grew a little bit, but was still too small to fit into. I did stick my foot in, however, and it felt like I was dipping my foot in jello. I then continued to pull out different torn pieces of black fabric out of my pocket, and they each turned into equally shaped holes in the ground. After getting desperate, I stopped, took a deep breath, and reached in my pocket one last time. I felt something like a squishy grape, so I pulled it out. It was a small black sphere that I can’t really describe other than being a blob. I threw it onto the ground, and it grew to a decent sized hole. I jumped head-first into it and actually had no problem getting inside.

I found myself in this back alley, which was covered in snow and ice. I walked down the alley until I reached the back loading dock of this big department store. I passed this guy and started to make small talk.

“Lovely weather we’re having…” I sarcastically remark.
“Speak for yourself, bud. I’m sick of this snow.”
“Well at least it’s supposed to warm up soon.”
“I don’t care. This winter has lasted long enough. I say we end the tyrannical reign of the cold. WE SHOULD BOYCOTT WINTER!”

He continued to shout, which actually drew quite a crowd for his bizarre cause. Meanwhile, I snuck away awkwardly and went into the store before I woke up.

I tried to take a nap today. At first, I woke up after an hour with nothing recalled. I tried going back to sleep, and only had two small tidbits that were actually notable.

I was in this large mall or some kind of indoor flea market. It had a very country theme, as everything was made of dark wood. The place was so big, I had no idea where the exit was, but I wanted to get outside where there were more possibilities. I found a wall that looked like it went outside, so I decided to phase through it. I ran full speed at the wall, and then...

WHAM! I hit the wall so hard, that I actually fell backwards to the ground. Man, I'm clumsy in my dreams. I got up, shook my head a bit, and tried again. This time I made it through relatively fine. I was in this parking lot under construction. It was really sunny, but it somehow started to rain. It felt refreshingly cool and incredibly realistic. I tried to use this to stimulate my senses and stabilize, but instead I woke up

---

I DEILDed into someone’s house. It was apparently my buddy M’s, but it’s not his IRL. I had been having trouble the whole dream with dream control and stability, so I thought I’d try something new. I pulled an iPod Touch out of my pocket. It was a tad smaller than a normal iPod, but it would do. I was hoping that since I’m so into technology, my subconscious would easily accept me using this iPod as my remote control for the dream. I moved through some of the menus, but interestingly enough, it only had a few of the normal iPod functions, like music and a few simple apps. I tried turning on some music to see what it did, and suddenly there was music playing throughout the room. It took me a while, but I eventually recognized the song - the Alphabet song… It sounded like a very childish version that you might play for younger kids to help them learn the alphabet. Let’s just say I was hoping for something slightly more... energetic. I hit the “Next” button, but the same song started playing again. I kept hitting it, hoping for a new song, but it just kept starting over from the beginning. I hit some other button, and some other song finally started. It sounded similar, but it no longer felt ridiculous, so I just accepted it and moved on.

Unfortunately, there weren’t many other functions I could find in the three screens of the main menu. Wait a minute, I know how to solve this.
“Hey Siri.”
The familiar robotic voice came to life, “How can I help you?”
“Change the world gravity to 0.”
The iPod switched to some other app, asking if I wanted to add a custom voice command. Of course it doesn’t want to understand me… Nothing else is working today, why would this? I pressed submit for this screen, and then took a few steps before jumping to test it out. Sure enough, I continued up to the ceiling. It felt less like zero gravity and more like I was just flying, but at least it was progress.

I landed outside and tried again. “Hey Siri.”
“Hey Sim.” This response seemed weird, I have no idea why it called me Sim.
“Spawn a car.”
“Okay, spawning car.”
I expected a car to show up in front of me, but instead some text was floating just above the ground: Ob_New_Car_1: Texture missing. Are you freaking kidding me? My brain is missing texture files now? I fiddled with it some more until I woke up.

I knew I should’ve gotten Android.

I was a secret agent for some company, specializing in dream infiltration. Me and two other agents were in this one dream, which took place in the streets of this city. We only had a limited amount of power to use dream control, which I could see on my wrist watch. I was semi-lucid, so I made sure to keep a close watch on the number, without realizing it meant nothing. I went to check it from the beginning, and it read 689. I wasn't really sure what this number meant, but it felt high enough that I was comfortable using some powers.

We were walking to the place we were supposed to infiltrate, but I thought this took too long. I took off to fly, but after getting about 30 feet in the air, I realized this might be a waste of dream power, so I came back down to earth. I instead decided to kind of jog to my destination. I tried not to go too fast and waste power, but I kind of got caught in the flow, and my jogging turned into a kind of high-speed skating. I tried to take a sharp turn, but I had no traction, so I slipped, fell, and blacked out.

I realized I was waking up, so I DEILDed back in, still only semi-lucid. I was now at my destination, a very large warehouse building right next to the water. I jumped up onto the roof, trying to find a way in, when I heard one of my partners shout through my headset.

"Oh God, the Icarus men are here."

I turned around to see him running inside the building, being chased by members of Project Icarus from Mirror's Edge (basically, super-strong, super-fast, free-running cops). I dropped down to a lower level of the roof, where a large window gave me a good view of the inside. I saw my partner being ambushed by at least 10 armed gunmen, who opened fire immediately. I could hardly stand to watch.

But then, two Icarus agents jumped onto the walkway just inside the window. I tried to run out of sight into the shadows. Then another 2 started patrolling right by the window on the outside. I was pinned down, but for some reason, they didn't see me. I chalked this up to poor AI programming, but I was still too scared to make a run for it. I stayed here until I blacked out.

I woke up at my old house that I lived at as a kid. I honestly don't remember much that happened here, but it ended with me trying to wake myself up from this dream. I tried closing my eyes and feeling my real body, but amazingly that didn't work. I opened my eyes and found myself in another room of the house, lying face down on the carpet. I tried again, but had much the same result. Finally, after three times, I managed to succeed (kind of).

I found myself in my current house. My mom was waking me up early to go do some work at my grandma's house. I was kind of mad, since I didn't want to have to get up. I went downstairs, but she still needed to go upstairs and get dressed. I figured she wouldn't be down for a while, which would give me plenty of time to take a nap. I laid down on the carpet, and tried to WILD.

I found myself in the same room, but my body was turned around the other way, so I knew I was dreaming (though not that it was inside another dream). It felt like an OBE, since I was in the same place I fell asleep, and my body felt kind of floaty. I decided to try to summon Vi, but then I heard my mom's footsteps coming down the stairs. Crap, that took less time than I thought. I didn't want her to see me floating around when my body was still asleep on the floor, so I hid as she came in the room, and darted out behind her. I figured I'd be pulled back to my body soon, since my mom was about to wake me up, so I just decided to wait it out. But then I didn't get pulled back. I heard my mom calling my name. I thought of my lifeless body laying on the floor. Oh crap, what if she thinks I'm dead? I rush back over to get back in my body, but it's not there. My mom somehow sees me. "Oh good, there you are. C'mon, let's go."

I was a little confused, so I tried a nose pinch RC, but much to my surprise, it failed - I couldn't breathe through it. I concluded that I was actually awake, and then dismissed the last 5 minutes as just a funny coincidence. I went to put on my shoes to leave, when I woke up for real (actually, my mom woke me up for real, since we did actually have somewhere to go this morning).

Side note: I'll be really glad when I'm not home for spring break, so my mom will stop showing up in my dreams just to annoy the crap out of me.

The beginning of this dream was fairly foggy, but I eventually became lucid somewhere in my house. I decided to try to portal to Vi, much like I did during my last quality lucid. I used the same technique as last time, pointing to the wall and drawing a circle with my finger. I then tried to pull the portal up to size, but after I got it to the size of my hand, it became kind of stiff and wouldn’t open any more. I put all my energy into trying to open it, but then eventually gave up.

I walked back to my room and decided to try something different. Instead of a wall portal, why not a floor one? I tried the same technique, and this time it was much easier - in fact, the portal appeared just by thinking about it, instead of having to draw it. I had some false memory about someone telling me that floor portals were dangerous, and you had to have something prepared on the other side to catch you. I didn’t think too much about it, and dove in. I fell through and found myself in a purple void, falling with no end in sight. I felt a slight tingling in my body, which then turned into some strong vibrations. I stopped falling, and was now just floating. I stopped to take moment to realize how pleasant this sensation felt. The purple void was replaced for a bit with an orange and green sort of checkerboard pattern everywhere I looked. These soon faded however, but the vibrations continued for a bit.

I now found myself back in my bed, but I was facing the wrong way, so I knew I was still dreaming. The vibrations wore off, so I stood back up, eager to try the portals again. However, I passed by two mirrors and remembered the mirror TotM. I was a little confused on the description at first, I just thought I had to interact with it and describe the effects. I grabbed the smaller of the two mirrors off the wall, and tried to push my hand through it. It went through with relative easy, and I could see my hand stretching through the back of the mirror. It stretched almost like spandex, and felt kind of funny in a good way.

I then started to grab the other mirror, but my mom barged in my room and started yelling at me again (she does this a lot in my dreams as of late, but to be fair she has been nagging me almost the whole time I’ve been back for spring break). I don’t even remember what she was yelling at me for this time. I grabbed the second mirror and tried to stick my body through it, starting with my head. However, as I stuck body parts through the mirror, they turned invisible! I had a little trouble fitting all the way through, but eventually turned my entire body invisible. This caused my mom to finally leave.

I somehow reappeared, and decided to go back to trying for the portals. I found a clear spot on the wall, but instead of the pointing and drawing, I just decided to point until a small hole appeared on the wall, and then I tried to pull it apart. Instead, I managed to pull the drywall off. Inside the wall were the wooden studs, which had little termites running all over them. I thought that was kind of disgusting, so I moved to another section of wall and tried two more times, with much the same result. Finally, I tried changing it up one more time. I pointed at the wall with one hand, and then drew a circle around it with the other hand. This actually worked surprisingly well, as the outline of the circle I drew even showed up on the wall. When I completed the circle, it suddenly changed into a large circular mirror. This one was large enough for me to actually get into, so I ran a full speed into it. It offered little resistance except a little tingling, but then the scene went white, instead of the black that it usually fades to.

I had a false memory of someone on the forum saying that running through mirrors takes you to the spirit world. As I kind of waited for the scene to reappear, I wondered if that was what had actually happened. But then the scene started to appear, and I noticed it was a 16-bit video game of some sort. It mainly showed a map of “the spirit world”, which looked a lot like a map from Final Fantasy or something. At the bottom, a dialog box appeared, and actually showed my thoughts on the screen. I was kind of weirded out by this, and decided it probably wasn’t worth it, so when the box asked me if I wanted to enter the dream world, I “clicked” no. The scene now faded to a 16-bit version of my room in 3rd person. I could see my avatar in my bed. A little health bar over him showed that he was about to wake up, but a strange lady walked over and sat on his chest. This led to a somewhat humorous Game Over screen, with the big words “Sleep Paralysis” flashing on the screen. I thought this was more funny than scary, so I laughed until the scene went black again.

I found myself in bed one more time, but everything seemed somewhat normal. I wondered if I was still dreaming, so I walked over to the mirror again and tried to push my hand through it. The mirror gave way almost like liquid, so I knew I was still dreaming. I walked out of my room and found myself in one of my old classrooms from Junior High. I became just semi-lucid at this point. There were computers on tables all over the room. The teacher was there, talking about some evil plan he had to use the computers for. I was more interested by this one girl (who, in retrospect, may have been Vi) playing a Sonic game on one of the computers. I walked over and asked her about it.

“Yeah, I just love how fast he runs everywhere.”
“You think that’s super speed? Check this out.”

I took off into a hard sprint around the room. I felt the wind whipping through my hair, even though it didn’t actually look like I was moving that quick. I somehow managed to run “fast” enough that I ran up the wall, and continued to run around the entire room on the wall. However, just before I finished the first lap, I tripped over a wire from the computers and fell flat on my face. She still though this was amazing, however. “Wow. You’ll probably be better at this game than me.” She hands me the controller.

Apparently this was the newest Sonic game, which (as expected) got horrible reviews. Somehow I knew the plot already - that Sonic and friends got stuck in the spirit world, and as such they had taken completely different forms. For example, I was playing as Shadow, who for some reason had long, Ozzy Osbourne-like hair that was dyed purple, as well as purple sunglasses like Ozzy’s. The internet had nicknamed him “Hippie Shadow”, which I thought was pretty hilarious. The level I was playing was somewhat difficult, especially since the controls were some weird combination of the keyboard and mouse, but I managed to complete it. The cutscenes were even weirder, including Tails being in a romantic relationship with a female version of himself. I found this so weird and hilarious that I woke up.

A poorly photoshopped rendering of Hippie Shadow, just for the lulz:

A couple friends from school were over at my house. For some reason our water wasn’t working, so we had to use a litter box. Several of the friends got in an argument about something stupid, and my RA had to break it up once they started shoving. I went outside for some reason, and got in a conversation with some Hugh Laurie and some other British people about the strange quirks in American and British vocabulary.

Did a WBTB after 4:45 hours, then stayed up for 30 minutes.

I found myself in this white room, and instantly knew I was dreaming. After having a conversation on IRC on why Vi has been acting so strangely to me, and reading some of Hyu's DJ, I decided to change up my approach. Instead of searching for Vi, I was going to go to her. I tried summoning a portal, which in retrospect I've never actually done in a lucid before. I stretched out my hand, pointed my finger at the wall, and kind of drew a circle in the air for a few seconds. Then I grabbed in the air and pulled back, and a blue portal began to stretch out on the wall. I was pretty impressed with myself, since it felt so natural. However, I was hesitant to jump in, since it seemed to extend into complete darkness, and I had no idea where it would lead.

I decided instead that I would pull Vi through the portal to me. I reached into the portal with one hand and tried to feel around inside. I felt a few strange things, like plastic toys and wooden blocks, but then I felt a hand grab mine. I knew it was her, so I pulled as hard as I could. She came tumbling out of the portal. I fell to the ground, and she landed fairly close next to me. I looked over to see if she was alright. At first she gave me her usually disapproving look, like "Why do you keep bothering me?" But then I noticed she started to smile a bit, and then started to chuckle and shake her head. We sat there for a minute or so, not really saying or doing anything. It kinda felt awkward for me, but I didn't really have anything to say.

I woke up to my mom yelling at me, something about "the longest nap she's ever seen." I figured she meant my WBTB, so I told her that I just got up to go to the bathroom, I wasn't actually planning on fully getting up. She continued to berate me, since I had a haircut appointment at noon and it was already 1:45pm. I got up with a start and rushed downstairs. However, when I got to the bottom step, I remembered that being late is one of my dream signs, and maybe I was still asleep. I did a quick nose plug, and sure enough, I was still dreaming.

Given this lucky second chance, I decided to try the portal again. I drew the portal again, but this time it took me a little while longer before it worked. A nice round orange portal appeared (nice video game reference there, subcon...). This time, I could see a dark purple fog inside. I ran towards it and jumped in, but (or should I say butt) I got stuck halfway. I didn't make the portal large enough, so my hips got stuck in the entrance. Before I could start self-loathing for how fat my subconscious thinks I am, the portal started to close slowly, pushing inward on my stomach. It wasn't painful, but it was definitely uncomfortable. I tried to wiggle my way through, and even had considered leaving my legs behind and growing new ones. But then a hand reached out and grabbed me, pulling my whole body into the portal. However, the dream destabilized.

I felt my body in bed, but I realized quickly enough that I was able to DEILD. I tried to imagine the white room I started in. Sure enough, I found myself back in the white room, although now there were more white rooms attached to it. It was fairly dark, but in each room was a different piece of furniture that emanated a very bright colored light. They almost worked like glow sticks, illuminating a small part of each room with enough light to make my way through. It was a neat effect, and almost felt like Mirror's Edge, where the inside of each building has the same white walls but with a different accent color.

I knew Vi was nearby, so I looked around the building for her. I came across two elevators, so I pressed the button between them. The right doors opened, but instead of an elevator, there was a hallway with a metal garage door partially open on the other side. It looked like it led outside, so I decided to search somewhere else. I started to walk away, but suddenly I heard the footsteps of two guards coming towards me. I ran back to the elevator and opened it, and then ran down the hallway. I slid under the gap in the door (you know, just in case you were doubting this dream was Mirror’s Edge-related) and then continued into this new hallway, where crates and cardboard boxes were stacked on each side. I slowed down a bit, as I was sure I had given them the slip, but then a siren went off. “Intruder Alert in Sector 5. Commence lockdown.” That can’t be good.

I turned the corner to this area that had more large crates stacked up everywhere. It looked like a giant warehouse, so big that it looked like the outside world, but I could see the walls way off in the distance. There were people running around everywhere in this area. I wanted to make a break for it, but I had a better idea. I came out of hiding and started shouting at everyone. “Come on, you heard the voice! Lock this place down! I don’t want this intruder escaping!” Amazingly, in the confusion, all of them heeded my orders and took off to their stations. Once I had an opening, I ran off in search of an exit before they locked them all on me.

I hid behind some boxes for a bit, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see Vi shushing me. She waved for me to follow her, so I did. She made each turn through the maze of crates and boxes like she knew what she was doing, so I followed her without asking any questions. We finally made it to a fence on the outskirts of the warehouse, and quickly jumped over it. There was a nearby shed, so we both went into it. Vi locked the door after we made it inside, and then turned around and gave me a high five.

“You’re starting to get this whole stealth thing down, I think.”
“Thanks, I guess.” She smiled, and for the first time I felt like I did something right around her. At this point, I kind of felt a desire to get freaky with her, but I decided against it, since this was the first time she had been cooperative, and I didn't want to ruin it. I figured I better take advantage of her current mood. “So tell me about yourself.”
She started saying something, but it was so fast I couldn’t understand it. And she just kept talking. I was somewhat amazed that this was the same DC who two weeks earlier gave me one word answers and judgmental glares, and now she was talking at 200 mph, expecting me to keep up. I probably could’ve, but I was also distracted by the fact that she was kind of floating in the air. While I was sitting on the corner of a table, her body was reclined, almost like she was seated in an invisible dentist’s chair. I kind of just stared at her as she kept talking, and as a result the dream started to destabilize, so I rubbed my hands together. She noticed, and stopped talking. "Maybe we should go out. I know where we can get some treats."

We walked out the door. The dream seemed stable again, so I asked one more question. "So what exactly is a dream guide?"
I don't remember exactly what she said, but she mentioned something about an "all-seeing eye" and a "tree of life". At this point, it felt less like she was being cryptic and more like she was just screwing with me now. She then took off with a running start and parkoured over the fence. I did the same, although I scraped my arm on the way over. She kept running, and I tried to keep up with her until I woke up.

I was in a dorm room playing the new Super Smash Bros with some friends. After I lost (which happens a lot for me, unfortunately), I was talking with a friend and showing him some new apps on my phone. One of them was involving 50 Shades of Gray with characters from Legend of Zelda. I tried to keep him from seeing it, but it kept popping up. I told him I was only interested in the plot, and he gave me a disapproving look. I then played another app, which involved a flying bunny stuck in a pinball machine.

(WBTB here)

I was at a real life DreamViews Academy, a school dedicated to teaching the art of lucid dreaming. Thankfully, I was mostly lucid from the start (because missing lucidity in the college of lucidity would've been embarrassing…). My friends J and D were with me, and they had no idea what this place was. I explained to them all about DreamViews and what lucid dreams were, including the fact that we were in one right now. They seemed to have trouble wrapping their heads around it.

The scene changed to some kind of parking garage. To demonstrate that I could do anything in this dream, I held out my two fingers like a gun, pointed them at a random car, and “shot”. There was a loud bang, and then the car exploded. Both of them seemed astonished, but soon the dream kind of faded.

All three of us woke up in the middle of the floor back in the academy. I turn to look at them. “So that was a lucid dream.”
J turns back. “I think we might still be in a dream.”
D chimes in. “No, I think that’s impossible. We just woke up, right?”
Curious, I do a quick nose-plug and find I’m still dreaming. “J’s right, we’re still dreaming.” Unfortunately they don’t seem too interested anymore and start talking about going to see some movie. I have other plans, however. “You guys go, I still have some things I want to do.”

They head out a glass door to the street, while I turn and head down some stairs into this large library area. The entire architecture was gold-colored stone, and the floor tile was a checkerboard style. I walked to a clearing and then started to summon Vi. However, as soon as I said “Vi”, a brown-haired girl sitting at a table with two guys in front of me turned around to see me.

The feeling I felt when I saw her is fairly indescribable. I felt this strong, pleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach, like an instant connection with her. It wasn’t like any kind of sexual desire, but it just felt like when I saw her, I felt happy - too happy, in fact, as I completely forgot everything I wanted to ask or say to her. I kind of froze because of how beautiful she seemed. It felt less like I was meeting a new friend, and more like I was trying to ask a pretty girl out for a first date. I finally mustered up some words.

“Vi? So you’re my dream guide?”
She gave me a confused and somewhat disapproving look. “Yeah.” She seemed like she was not amused.
“Oh, okay cool…” My mind was a total blank. The awkward silence felt like an eternity. “Well, I just wanted to tell you that you’re beautiful.”
Her expression didn't really change at all. Completely embarrassed, I walked away.

I felt like a complete idiot. Maybe she wasn't my dream guide. But then how do you explain the feeling that I had? Then again, why did she seem so uninterested in helping me? Why did she seem to be judging me? Wait, this is my dream, why am I so scared of what one of my DCs thinks of me? I have to go back.

By this time, I had already walked a ways away from Vi, so I decided to fly back to her. I tried to take off, but didn’t get very high, so I stopped, bent down, and shot up fist-forward like Superman. This got me much higher, and after a few more arm flaps, I was able to stay aloft. I turned back towards the tables, but the dream scene changed.

I was now in a game of Halo, wearing one of the suits from the game. My teammates and I were waiting for the fight to begin. I noticed that if I looked right at my teammates, their names would appear floating above their heads, just like in the game. I quickly set out on a search for Vi. After checking all of my other teammates, I finally found her. She was wearing a red suit which seemed much thinner and more feminine, much like Samus’s suit from Metroid.

“Good, you’re still here. I was scared that you didn’t like me or something.”
Before she could say anything though, the alarm sounded, and the match had begun. I started to run forward, and immediately shot two enemies. Another enemy appeared around the corner and shot at me, and there was no way for me to dodge the bullet. Before it hit, however, I heard Vi shout “Wait!” and the scene froze. It then rewinded back to the start of the match. Vi held me back from running this time. “This game isn’t all about brute force. Let me teach you a little about stealth.”

We ran along a wall in the shadows, making sure that no one was coming. We crept along like this for a while, until we heard footsteps coming from down the hallway. I started to pull out my sword, but Vi grabbed me and pulled us both into the wall, literally. We both turned into a kind of drawing on the wall, like from Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (if you haven’t figured it out by now, I play a lot of video games). We were hidden in the shadows well enough that no one noticed when they ran by. We came back out of the wall and kept moving forward.

I came to a small area outside. This now looked less sci-fi and more like current architecture. I was in a small alley-like thing between two buildings. There was a balcony overhead, and small rocks covering the ground like some kind of garden decoration. I realized Vi was no longer near me, so I pulled out my pistol to be safe. One enemy appeared on the balcony, so I shot him. He fell to the ground, and some bystanders that were walking by stopped and yelled at me for killing him. Another enemy appeared behind them, so I shot him too. They continued to yell at me, until the dream eventually destabilized and I woke up.