lucid

I had an extra hour this morning since my college's convocation was cancelled today, so what better thing to do than take a nap.

I woke up in my house. I knew instantly I was dreaming, since I woke up in the guest bedroom. I had already decided before I fell asleep that I wanted to do the blood TOTM, and preferably with dragon blood that would transform me into a dragon. I exit the room and head for the stairs. My mom is in front of me saying something that I don't remember. I think of sucking her blood instead, but I decide against it, as that would be creepy. I start to follow her to the kitchen, but the kitchen wasn't there, and instead I found myself in the bathroom. On the counter were what seemed like hundreds of little bottles of all different shapes, sizes, and colors.


I found myself smack dab in the middle of a Macy's perfume department, basically.

I try to find one that looks like it's blood of some kind, but nothing stands out to me. I can't even find one that was red. Okay, let's just try to make it appear. I start to visualize the bottle, from the bottom up. As I imagine the glass pattern and red liquid, I realize the bottle I'm envisioning is right in front of me. How convenient. I pick it up, but as I shake it, the red liquid slowly turns to blue. Neat. The top, which I hadn't visualized yet, was a cheap plastic trigger-spray thing. I open wide and spray a couple times into my mouth. It tastes metallic, exactly like blood. I keep spraying until I feel like I've ingested enough. Okay, so now to just let the dragon blood do its magic. Within a few seconds, my arms start twitching, and then shaking, and then convulsing. My back tenses up, and I feel something churning inside my stomach.


Kind of like the last time I ate Taco Bell.

I start to lose vision in my right eye, and then my left. The scene goes completely dark, and soon the convulsions stop, and there's a deafening silence. A few seconds pass. Suddenly, the scene reappears. I look in the mirror, and notice my snazzy new wings behind my back. They kind of looked like Charizard wings, but were more flesh-colored. Cool, it worked! I was honestly excited, as I haven't had any transformation work for me even that much. I try to decide where to take these babies for a spin, but I quickly wake up from excitement.

I don't remember if this was a false or real awakening, but I lost lucidity. Still, I had a pretty amazing non-lucid at this point. Beware, it's pretty random at times, with lots of changes happening really fast, but it gets really good at the end. Just a glimpse into my ADD, I guess.

I was at a waterpark with some friends. I went down this slide into this small pool at the bottom. I get out and stand a ways away, as another girl comes down the slide. She kind of stays in the pool for a while, as she's waiting for a friend to come down. I look over to the left to see an old lady in her 90's on a motorcycle. She's at the top of this dirt ramp a distance away, and closer to me was another halfpipe. At the sound of a horn, she takes off down the ramp and heads toward the halfpipe. Unfortunately, she crashes, but the motorcycle continues, shooting wildly off the ramp and careening into the pool next to it, where the girl still is waiting. It lands right on top of her, and she goes under the water a bit. Her head comes back up, but the water starts to turn red with blood. She doesn't have much of an expression on her face, but I know instantly that her legs have been severed off. I wave for someone to come help. Paramedics soon rush in. I see my friends on the other side of the pool. I walk over them, and one of my friends says that we need to pray for the girl that just got hurt. I agree, but I first need to put away the towel that I (suddenly) have in my hands.

We are now on some kind of yacht. My friends are gathered around the kitchen table to pray, and I head to the sink to wring out my towel. I turn around to find I am now on a much smaller boat, and my friends are now tied up and sitting on a different boat. I run over to the edge to get a better look, and see this evil blonde lady standing on the other boat. She laughs maniacally at me.


I originally thought it was some lady from my church, but now that I've googled "evil blonde lady", frick, I think it was Ann Coulter. This expression and everything.

"I'm afraid I can't have you following me."

She points behind me. I turn to see a Heavy from Team Fortress 2 dumping a bunch of gasoline into the bottom of my boat. The gasoline quickly comes up to my chest, at which point he steps out of the boat onto the dock. I remain cool and calm, as I know that "I've played this level of the game before." I walk to the back of the boat to a small white button that reads "Press here to exit." I click it, and the gasoline starts to drain. Well that was easy. I turn to my side to see the other boat speeding off into the distance. "Oh no you don't!" I jump into the driver's seat and give chase. We drive off the lake, down a river, and through the sewers. Meanwhile, the boat appears to get smaller and smaller, until it's about the size of a go-cart, just barely getting around my body. Still, it keeps me afloat, and apparently can fly, as I find out as I drive up a ladder in the sewers. It looks like I am in Counter-Strike, climbing the ladder while carrying the boat in front of me. I drive the boat until I come to a massive room that looks like a level from Portal. I walk down a hallway to my right.

I don't remember at what point he joined me, but my buddy Mike was now with me. We walked through a couple dark office rooms that looked like they were abandoned.


This is not Portal as far as I know, but it looks pretty dang close to my dream.

"So, why are all these rooms dismantled?" Mike asks.
"Oh, I cut the power to these rooms in an earlier level, so nothing in here works. It was optional, but it makes this part a heck of a lot easier."

We come to another large Portal-like room. Lasers line the far walls, stretching diagonally at different heights. About fifty feet up is a small room surrounded by glass with the exit inside. There was a hole in the glass, and the wall on the other side was portalable, so it was a really simple solution. As I'm about to portal up, I hear footsteps around the corner. "Shoot, we gotta hide." We duck in a small recessed area in the darkness. The footsteps get closer and closer, until I'm certain we're going to be killed. Suddenly, I hear a quiet voice whisper,

"Move closer, I can't talk very loud. If she knows I'm here, she'll kill me."

I look up to see my friend Matt, who looks like he's turned into a half-man half-machine cyborg. There's wires running off of him connecting to different places on his body. I somehow know that he was on the boat that was kidnapped, and that he has been forced to work for the evil lady as her slave. He hands me a strange device.


This is a barcode scanner. It's also apparently a futuristic flash drive of sorts.

"I don't have much time to explain. She's set the facility to self-destruct in a few minutes, with all of us trapped inside. I've downloaded my conscience onto this drive. If you can connect it to the mainframe, I can override the explosion and get us out of here."
I continue to stare at the device, somewhat confused as to what all is happening.
"One last thing. If you are caught and capture, be sure to know four things. One, I was never here. Two, we do not know each other. Three, I am not American. And four..." He pauses for a moment, and a single tear runs down his face. "I always loved you."

I embrace him for a hug, tears streaming down my face. "Thanks for everything, Matt. I'll never forget you." He turns and walks down the hallway we just came through, and Mike and I head towards a different exit at the floor level. We enter in what looks like a break room. It's dark, but I can still make out some things. I walk into the closet, and find all of my friends still tied up. Mike and I start untying them and tell them to stay quiet and hidden. Meanwhile, I look for some kind of computer or power box connected to the mainframe. Then, there's a noise.

I turn around to see the evil lady walk into the room with a mug in her hand. She turns on the lights, looks up, and freezes. My friends and I all stare with a deer-in-headlights look. She quickly turns and presses the emergency button on the wall. The lights turn red, and I hear a computerized voice.

"EMERGENCY! Intruder detected. Self-destruct initiated."

She then rushes me. I grab the first thing I can find, a plastic fork on the counter. I stab her in the side, but the prongs of the fork break off and do no damage. She immediately retaliates and stabs me in the side. I flinch, expecting pain, but realize nothing happened. She pulls back her arm, and in her hand is another plastic fork with broken prongs. Looks like she had the same idea. She pauses for a second, and then humorously remarks,

"We just had to get the cheap forks, didn't we?"

She throws the fork over her shoulder and runs out the door. Meanwhile, a few guards rush in the other door and start firing. I duck behind an overturned table. The sprinklers overhead start spraying, until it's absolute chaos everywhere. So this is where it ends, I guess. I look to my side to see a very out-of-place port in the wall that fits Matt's drive perfectly. It's quite a ways away, and would be practically suicide to try to get to it. A voice comes over the intercom.

"Explosion imminent. Evacuate the facilities. Destruction in 30 seconds."

Yep, this is where it ends. No time to waste. I dart out from behind the table and dive for more cover, slowly inching my way towards the port.

"Destruction in 15 seconds."

I try to decide my next move. The port is still a good 30 feet away. I try to take into account the location of the guards, the positions of Mike and the rest of my friends, the odds that the sprinklers would give me just enough cover to make it.

"Destruction in 10 seconds."

Nope, I should probably just go! I pull out the drive and dart towards the port. Everything moves in slow motion. I can see the bullets moving towards me in bullet time. I can see my friends looking on in disbelief. I can see each drop of water pouring from the sprinklers overhead. Just a few more feet. I stretch the drive out in front of me. Time slows to a stop. Until suddenly, I wake up.


I know, random WWE wrestler, I felt the same way.

I WILDed into my dorm room, as I almost always do. The dream seemed very unstable from the get-go, so I decided to wait it out before I tried anything major. I first walked around a bit, touching everything, reminding myself that it was a dream. I then got the weird idea to walk up the wall. Yeah, it was weird, but I figured, why not? I walked up to the door, put my foot on it, and then pulled my other foot up. I was now standing on the door, and my body was now parallel to the floor.


This cat's reaction is also similar to my own.

Well this is unique. I walked around beside the door to open it, and then fell through the hole/doorway. I landed on the wall in the hall, but then walked back down onto the floor, since I was beginning to get dizzy.

I flew to the end of the hall, opened the door, and made my way down the stairs to the outside. I walked over to a tree by the road and looked up at the many oranges on it. I reached up, pulled one down, and proceeded to stare at it for a while. It suddenly reminded me that I wanted to do the Task of the Month. I looked around for a pumpkin, and found a big display of hay bales and pumpkins for some fall festival (how incredibly convenient). I grabbed one from the ground, but it felt really mushy. Well, I can just peel this one apart, I guess. I pulled apart the pumpkin, only to find that the inside was much like the inside of an orange.


Wut.

So there I was, holding basically a giant orange. I was curious, so I took a large bite of it, and sure enough, it tasted just like an orange. It tasted decent, but I quickly grew tired of it. I tried to remember whether the task was to open a pumpkin, or to smash a pumpkin. Eh, wouldn't hurt just to be safe. I picked up another pumpkin, which felt much more like a normal pumpkin should. I took it over to the sidewalk and


Sorry, couldn't resist.

It burst open, and about 50 small coins, mostly dimes and pennies, spilled out onto the ground. Hmm, not too bad, I guess. But I enjoyed smashing these pumpkins, so I picked up another one. I could feel and hear something rattling inside, so I wasn't surprised when I threw it on the ground and more coins came out. I repeated this cycle several times. I felt like Link smashing pots or something.


Thankfully, no awkward dress/skirt thing in my dream.

When I finally grew tired of this, I began to walk off and try to think of another TOTM, but I quickly woke up.

Took a nice nap this afternoon. There was an interesting start, as I had some trouble transitioning, and I kind of got stuck between the real and dream worlds - distinctly hearing my roommate typing away on his keyboard but also interacting with my DCs at the same time. I kind of went back and forth in and out of sleep, until I finally got a nice long dream.

I don't remember exactly how everything pieced together, but I had three distinct scenes. First, I was at work, working the support desk at my college's computer lab. An Asian girl and her 2 friends walked up and asked for help with her computer. I tried to take a look at it, but she suddenly came around the desk, leaned her head on my shoulder, and started flirting with me. I asked her to back up, but she moved in closer. I remembered that it was just a dream, so I shouted at her "You're not even real!" and ran away.

The next scene was in some kind of warehouse. I was in the back trying to figure out what to do in my lucid. I remembered the TOTMs. I decided to start with the Expecto Patronum one. I first tried with just twirling my hand in the air and shouting "Expecto Patronum", but nothing happened. OK, maybe I need a wand of some kind. I happened to find a plastic straw. Well, gotta make do with what you've got. I spun the straw in the air and shouted the words, and this time I saw a trail of smoke run in a line across the floor. I tried once again, and this time the line of smoke was larger and more noticeable. I tried one last time, this time moving the "wand" in the air until I saw a blue aura around it. "Expecto Patronum!" The blue smoke shot to the ground, and suddenly a long snake appeared along the smoke line on the ground. The snake was about 15 feet long and started to move toward me. I tried to go around on the other side of it, but its mouth suddenly turned into the mouth of a crocodile and snapped at me. I dodged out of the way and kept walking.

Finally, there was a scene where I was looking for a fortune cookie for another TOTM. Well, I'll probably find one in this kitchen. I walked through a door into the kitchen at my old house. I walked to the sink, and sure enough, there was a fortune cookie there. I opened it up and ate half of it before reading the inside. I pulled out the paper and unraveled it. All it said was the word "Help". Help? That's it? I looked inside the cookie to see 3 more papers bunched up inside. I took out the first one. "Me." And the second one. "I'm." Finally, I read the last paper. "A cookie." Okay, genius, you got me... I then proceeded to rip up the papers and eat the other half of the cookie before eventually waking up.

Early morning naps = long vivid WILDs

The dream started much like my last lucid. I was in my bed, while some of my friends were in my room talking. I was lying down, but I had a hard time moving. I was basically moving like a sloth, as my arms felt like they were 500 lbs a piece. I wouldn't call it SP, as I was lucid in a dream. I slowly reached for the handrail by my top bunk. As soon as I grabbed it, I started floating, and me and the bar were transported to into this fairly dark "void", for lack of better term. I was being pulled up, so I held onto the bar to keep from flying away.

At this point, I'm pretty sure I woke up, but then DEILDed back into another dream. I was on my bed again, and my friends were talking again. I was able to actually get up now, although I was kind of helplessly floating around the room. I finally managed to gain my footing on the ground. I then tried to head for the window to get out, but as soon as I hit the window, I woke up and DEILDed again.

Again, I was in my room, although this time my friends were gone and I started on the floor. I tried for the window again, and this time I actually got through. I found myself in this alley, with a good view of the moon above me. I wanna go up there, I thought to myself. I squated down to prepare for a fast takeoff, and then jumped with all my might. I instead moved about 2 mph towards the sky. I got back down and tried again, but still no luck. I changed my mind and instead flew around the corner of the building, but then I woke up and DEILDed again.

I was now walking down a hallway of my college. Maybe I should start doing something productive now. I remembered one of the TOTMs that I hadn't done yet. I walked up to some random guy. "Hey, do you know any other languages?" "Yeah, I'm fluent in German." "Cool, can you tell me a word?" "No." He walked faster to get away from me and turned into a classroom. I followed him in.

There was another group of guys standing around talking. I walk up and ask if any of them know any other languages. They all in turn reply no. Why do my DCs have to be so American? Then, a girl walked over to me. "Do you know any foreign words?" "Oh yeah, I know lots of them." "Cool, can you give me an example of one?" "Well have you ever heard of 'juh-kan-uh'?" "How do you spell that?" "Jicanon." "There's a silent n on the end?" "Sure, why not?" "Okay then, what does it mean?" As she walked away, she turned back and shouted "It means armed with a laser." A laser, huh? Sounds like a pointless word to me. Little did I know just how applicable that word would be.

I DEILDed one more time. I was now in the large auditorium we have at our campus. The entire student body was there, and we each has this small black sensor on our chest with a tiny LCD screen on the top. Our provost got up on stage and announced the start of the annual Laser Games. "You each have five lives. Last person standing wins. You have 10 minutes until the starting horn. Go!"

There was a mad dash from the auditorium. I had no idea what was happening, so I followed the crowd. Outside there were boxes of laser guns of all different sizes. I grabbed both a pistol and a rifle, strapped them to my back, and took off. I met up with some of my friends at the hill by the auditorium. We quickly tried to build a fort or some kind, but before we could finish, a loud horn echoed from the speakers around the campus. The games had begun.

I turned around in time to see another group ambushing us from behind. I grabbed my pistol and fired at the guy who was rushing at me. I felt my sensor vibrate a little, marking that my lives were being depleted. After some time, the attacker's sensor let out a loud beep, and an electric shock brought him to the ground. I stopped to catch my breath and looked down at the screen on my sensor. "1 Kill. 2 Lives." Hmmm, let's try that again. I rewinded the scene, and turned around to see the ambush again. This time my aim was much better, and I brought my attacker down in seconds. I looked at my screen again. "1 Kill. 5 Lives." Much better.

I pulled out my rifle and went after the guys attacking my team. I easily took down most of them. Their last member pulled out a sword and came after me. Yes, a freaking sword. He took a big swing, but luckily I managed to dodge it. I quickly pulled out my pistol and took him down before he could swing again. He fell with a thud, dropping his sword at his side. "Hey, can I borrow this?" "Sure, it's all yours." You never know when a giant freaking sword might come in handy. I next heard another beeping sound, but this time it was my alarm, and I woke up.

I had a late afternoon nap, and then WILDed into a dream. My dream recall's not to great lately, but I do remember the important parts.

I was in my friend's dorm room. I was on the top bunk, and three other guys were talking about something. I realized it was a dream, so I was not interested in their conversation. I jumped out the window (or, more really crashed through it, since it was fully closed) and flew outside. I got a ways away, just doing random tricks and stuff, when the dream destabilized.

Next thing I know, I was back. Back in the top bunk, while my friends were still talking. Okay, let's try that again. I jumped/crashed out the window again, to the same kind of scenery, except this time, there was less "rendered", for lack of better term. Just the area around my dorm was there, everything else was just black. I tried flying up until I could see all of it.

And then I woke up. In the top bunk. My friends were talking. Seriously? This is getting old. I don't remember exactly how many times this repeated, but by at least the fourth or fifth time, I was aware enough to not let it happen. This last time, I actually had great control of my flight, and the scenery was full, minus one part where I flew over one area that looked like it hadn't fully loaded in Google Earth.

And then I woke up. Thankfully, not in the top bunk again. Instead, I was in some kind of jail, right behind the metal bars. Okay, I should probably do something other than just fly. What were those TOTM's again? I racked my brain, since I hadn't even looked at the thread for like 2 weeks. The only one I could remember was the eyeball one. Okay, that one's not too hard. I pulled up my sunglasses that I was apparently wearing, and reached into my left eye. I kept telling myself it didn't hurt, and sure enough, with a little effort, it just slid out. I held it in my hand. Surprisingly, it was about the size of a baseball. I should have a little fun with this. I shifted my glance to the left, and the eyeball rolled a little to the left. I shifted to the right, and the eyeball rolled a little back to the right. It kind of looked like one of those novelty weasel balls rolling in my hand. Huh. I wonder if I can look through it too. Just then, a kind of ghost image appeared on the left side of my vision. It was facing an entirely different direction, like it was the direct feed from the eyeball to my brain. Okay, that's kind of creepy. I stuck the eyeball back in my head and went on. I somehow was transported to this large restaurant.

Story Break. There was one thing I hadn't done yet in my dream. I have been trying to create a persistent dream character through cosmodius95's incubation method, which you can find here. So long story short, I have been trying to create this guy named Bart, short for Bartholomew, a wolf-like dream guide I had in one of my older lucids. As the story goes, Bart is my best friend, and has the ability to transform into a wolf at will. He's about 6'1", has brown hair, blue eyes.

So I tried looking for Bart. The restaurant wasn't packed, but there were still a substantial amount of people, none of them matching the description of Bart. I finally asked a moderately intoxicated woman if she knew anyone there named Bart. She said yes, and brought me over to a buff, fairly intimidating looking guy. "Wait, no, this isn't Bart. That's Kevin." She brought me over to another guy who didn't look like him, and another, and another. Finally, she just shouted, "Is there anyone here named Bart?" One guy in the back stood up and raised his hand. I walked over to him. He was fairly short with black hair, so he still didn't match the description (in fact, he looked like one of my friends IWL), but apparently I didn't care. He acted like I was an old friend of his, and we did that sort of bro-hug thing that is all the rage nowadays. He asked how my dream was going so far. "Pretty good, got the task of the month out of the way." "Nice dude, about time." "Ha, I know, right?" He looked nothing like the Bart I had imagined, but he sure acted like him.

And then I woke up. In the top bunk. Screw this. I jumped out the window and flew until I woke up for real.

I went to bed at 2ish, and then WBTB at like 7.

I am at some party with my friends. I'm really uncomfortable, since I'm kind of a wallflower. Someone brings out the beer and drugs. I really shouldn't be here. What if my parents find out? I leave with my friends M and B. We walk out, but M says that we should steal a car. I immediately protest, but somehow, we find a bus, we break into it, and with B in the driver's seat, we drive off. I'm kind of freaking out, but I go along with it anyway.

We pull up next to a party bus at a red light. We exchange glances, and somehow mutually decide to drag race. The light turns green, and B floors it. We're losing the race, but then a cop pulls out and pulls over the other bus. That was close. We speed off, but then another cop comes to pull us over. I try to play it cool, hoping they don't know the bus is stolen. B gets out of the car to talk to the cops. Without saying a word, M jumps into the driver's seat and floors it.

"M, what the heck are you doing? You're going to get us killed!"
"I don't know man."
"Dude, I can't go to jail, pull over!

The bus continues to gain speed. I better turn myself in, maybe they'll be merciful. I open the side door and look out. From the side, it doesn't look like we're going very fast. I look behind us to see a single red car with police lights on top. I motion for them to move out of the way, but they don't. I just decide to make a move. I kind of step down from the car onto the pavement. I stay on my feet, which is good, but then the red cop car is heading straight for me. In some kind of slow-motion sequence, I determine which way is the best to jump, and barely dive out of the way before the car hits me. I roll into the grass on the side of the road.

I stand up, take a minute to collect myself, and walk over to where the cops and B are. One cop that looks like Carl Winslow from Family Matters sees me.

"Did you just jump out of a bus going 35 mph?"
"No, I think it was more like 15."

I kind of rest with my hands on my knees for a while, trying to catch my breath and soak in what just happened. The scene kind of shifts, and I'm under this patio at some kind of park. I see a clock that says it's 2:09 am. I see the cops taking M away in handcuffs. A female cop walks over to me. She says she'll let me go if I can tell her what time it is and what all happened that night. I tell her it's about 2:15 in the morning, and then try to remember what happened. I try to think back, but I have two overlapping memories - one of the car chase, and one of me going to bed.Wait a minute, I went to bed a while ago. I must be dreaming. I turn back to the cop.

"Do you want me to tell you what actually happened, or what happened in this dream?"
"Excuse me?"
"That's right, this is a dream. None of this is real."
She shines a light in my face. "Sir, have you been drinking this evening?"
"No, really, I'll prove it to you!"

I try to float up above her, but I can't get off the ground."Wait, hold on, I got this." She begins to look a little perturbed, and I see her reach for her handcuffs. Maybe this isn't a dream after all. But I can't go to jail. I gotta come up with something fast. I plug my nose and breathe loudly through it. It really isn't all that impressive, but she seems to be amazed. "You think that's cool, check this out." I squat down, and jump with all my might. I leap above the buildings about 50 feet in the air. I then slowly float down in front of her. She has a puzzled look on her face, like she is questioning everything that's happening. I'll show her one more thing. I pick up this heavy table next to me and try to balance it on my finger. I hold it for a while, but then it falls. "Meh, that one's still a work in progress."

We walk around to the side of the building. "I can still answer your question if you want."
"No, I don't think that's necessary anymore. I think I just need some time to think stuff out."
I turn around to see a large group of my friends. I hear some rock song playing, kind of like a song at the end of a movie right before the credits. Well, let's put on a show. I take off with a running start and fly off. I fly over to a nearby billboard, do kind of a wall run on it, and keep flying. I get a ways off the ground, and I decide to just float off, like a balloon released in the wind. I rise up to the clouds. To make sure the dream doesn't destabilize, I rub my hands together. Unfortunately, doing that makes the dream instantly destabilize, and I wake up.

Took an afternoon nap today at about 2, woke up at 3ish really hot with no recalled dreams. I stripped down to my underwear and took off the covers. I had my hands crossed over my head when I began to feel a tingling sensation in my hands. This soon spread to my legs, and I began to feel a buzzing in my head. I heard a noise get louder like a large sliding garage door slamming shut. I then began feeling like I was rocking side to side in my bed. I kept rocking more and more, until I fell out of my bed. I got up and did a RC, and I was dreaming. I was wrapped up in my covers, so I tried to pull them off, much to no avail. I tried to remind myself more and more that I was dreaming, but I finally got sick and tired of it, and just teleported out from under the covers.

I was then in another room of my house. I tried going out the back door and running outside several times, but each time I kept somehow ending up back in a different room of my house. I spend so much time here IWL that I keep getting dragged back, I thought. No matter. I kind of summoned a portal in the wall and ran through it, and ended up in the sanctuary of my church. Better than nothing, I guess.

Recently, I have been catching up on Hyu's Dream Journal. His posts were really an inspiration for me to take my lucid dreaming seriously, and I highly encourage you to read them if you haven't already. Hyu has several recurring dream characters, each with a unique personality and appearance. Most of my DCs are fairly flat and don't even really do much in my lucids. So, I figured, it's about time I made some friends with some DCs and got them to show up more consistently in my dreams. The first DC I wanted to make friends with, I decided, had to be a girl. I kind of wanted one that I was very attracted to, kind of love at first sight, and had a great personality. It's a dream, I thought, so at least I have a shot...

I was in the sanctuary of my church, although the entire place had the old ugly red carpet that we had a few years back. There were lots of people everywhere, mostly older (kind of like the actual congregation of my church...). I knew the right one had to be here somewhere. I kind of called out to the dream to get everyone to leave except the one I was looking for. I stood in the doorway as everyone passed me. I kind of scanned the crowd as they passed, looking for someone - anyone - that would be good. My eyes randomly focused on a few females, but I rejected most of them. Too old. Too fat. Not pretty enough. Pretty sure that one would be pedophilia. Too short. Before I knew it, the crowd was gone, with no one left. I kind of walked around, hoping to find someone in the building, but to no avail. I walked back to the main sanctuary, where several people suddenly appeared and kind of swarmed me, wanting some kind of help. I pushed them back and walked away angrily, shouting, "Screw you guys. Y'all aren't even real...".

I walked out the door and into this hospital hallway. I walked through a couple doors, somehow ending up in the same spot as before. Suddenly, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around to see this brown-haired girl, 5'10"ish, probably 4.5/10, motioning me to follow her. She didn't say much, but instead just started to walk away. I quickly followed behind her. Well, not really love at first sight, but, meh, maybe she's got a good personality.

We walked a ways before I spoke up. "So, you must be my dream guide today, huh?"
"Yeah, you could say that, I guess."
Could I file a complaint with whoever made that decision?
"Are you going to tell me where we're going?"
"No, not really."
This is going greeaaaat...

We walked through a couple more hallways until we arrived in this fairly large room, with white walls and a tall popcorn ceiling. There wasn't really anything interesting here.

"So, what are we doing h-"
I turned around, and she wasn't there. At first, it felt like she led me to some kind of trap, but the door was still wide open, so I guess I could have left. I first looked around and called out for her, but she was nowhere to be found. Meh, it's probably for the best, I thought. Anyway, time to actually do something productive in this lucid. I took off to fly in this room, but went up too high too fast and slammed my head on the ceiling.

I woke up back in my house on the couch in just my underwear. Wait, I went to my bed for my nap, so why am I down here? I did a quick RC and found myself dreaming again. After the previous failure to connect with my DC, I figured doing anything would be nice at this point. I was in my underwear, so I figured "Off with it!". I took it off and figured I'd do the Basic I TOTM. I opened the door and ran outside, but then realized I had already done that task. I tried to remember the other tasks, but the only one I could think of was the junk food one. I went out to my backyard and found a massive, conveniently-placed bag of chips. I opened it up to find mini pretzels and Doritos (a strange combination, yes, but meh). I grabbed a handful, and almost got it to my mouth, but it disappeared before I could eat it. "Darn, I was hungry." I tried grabbing another handful, but the dream quickly destabilized.

I woke up back in my bed. I took off my sleep mask, looked at the clock, and saw it was 4:20 (blaze it... jk). I only had one thought in my head.

"I forgot to ask her her name..."

I was in this giant Lego city. I don't remember exactly what made me lucid, but I was. I somehow remembered the TOTM, so I decided to get naked. My clothes suddenly disappeared. I went to go find a DC. I found this Lego guy that had an elephant head. I ran up to him naked, and he kept trying to look away.

Spoiler for Rated PG-13 for Nudity and Graphic Stupidity:

"Look at my penis!" I shouted. I then accidentally hit him in the face with my junk. He started running away. I tried to run after him to apologize, but he ran into his house. "Well, that's done."

I then couldn't think of any other intentions, so I flew away into the sky. I was very lucid, so I had great control when flying. I saw an airplane (still made out of Legos) above me, so I flew inside, only to find the pilot passed out in the cockpit. I think I lost lucidity at that point.

There's a gap in my recall here, but then I was playing this Pokemon game in the living room of my old house, where R and C were apparently living. I was playing on an NES, although the graphics were more GameCube quality. I apparently had to catch all the Pokemon and if I didn't do it in one try, I had to start over to get the rest. I was scared when I got to the end, for fear that the NES wouldn't save my progress. But then I woke up.

So I've decided to do a 30-day challenge of using the SSILD technique. I have experimented with the technique before with somewhat mixed success. So this time I'm going to use nothing but SSILD for the next 30 days and record how many LD's and FA's I get. So here we go:

Day 17

(Again, I couldn't really find any time to try any SSILD's on normal time, so it took me an afternoon nap to finally get a chance to try it. I am dedicated to finishing this challenge, but it will definitely take longer than 13 days to finish the last 13 days.)

I woke up early for some golf with my dad (happy birthday to me!). I got back at 12-ish, got a shower, had 300 mg of B-6, and took a nap at 1. Got a semi-lucid one at first, and then I got really lucid after the FA.

I was working at the grocery store. This British mother and son asked me if we had any of this certain kind of dog food in the back. I told them that I would check it out as I headed through the back doors. I walked into this mirror version of the store that had all the items in backstock. It was like a version of the store specifically for the employees, as they had their own deli counter and everything. I walked to the aisle that the dog food was on. I looked on one side of the aisle where the dog food is, but I couldn't find it. One of the guys that works in the grocery department IRL (that for some reason hates me) walked by, and I asked him if we had any of that kind of dog food. He kind of yelled at me, saying like "If it's not on the shelf, then we don't have any." Although I was slightly perturbed by my coworker, I walked out back into the regular store, found the two customers, and explained politely that we were out of the product. I then walked back to the mirrored store and sat down by the deli.

I don't remember what exactly happened next, but I remember eventually I was falling down this hole at a fairly high speed. I was lucid, so I was kind of flying, I guess. I kept falling until I got to the bottom of the shaft and kind of gracefully landed. I was in some like "dream station". There was a kind of car in the middle of this turntable, and three tunnels with signs over them for different dreams. I just got in the car and took the first one. All of a sudden, I was running in this video game environment. I tried to run fast, like a Sonic game, but I kept running into walls and blocks I was supposed to jump over. I did get to this one part where I had to use a homing attack on these balls floating in mid air to move forward. I hit the first one, and then kind of lunged toward the second one (which I guess is my homing attack), then the third one, and so on until I got to right above the top of this like mountain. I held on to the last ball as it kind of lifted me into the air. Soon I was falling down the shaft into the dream station again.

I kind of flew for a little bit longer, but then I heard my dad calling my name. I woke up in my old bedroom, and my dad was naked in front of me. "Oh, gosh, dad, put some pants on, that's disgusting..." He woke me up to tell me to come downstairs. I got up, got dressed, and went to the bathroom. Something felt a little bit off, and so I wondered if I was still dreaming. I tried to lift myself off the ground, and sure enough, it worked. I flew downstairs. I walked out the front door to this kind of shelter (like they have in parks) where there was this party going on. I don't remember what the party was for, but for some reason I felt like I had to entertain the guests. I got this long stick and stood it up on the ground, and then tried to stand on top of it and balance. I tried 3 or 4 times, reminding myself that I was dreaming so I could do it. I soon realized that maybe I could figure out something else to entertain them. I stood on top of one of the tables and started flapping my arms until I started to rise off the ground. I flew around for a little to everyone's amazement. After I landed, I said "You think that's impressive? Check this out!" I then imagined having wings (growing wings has been one of my intentions for a while) and began flapping my shoulder blades. I again started to lift off the ground a little. As I rose, I saw a conveniently placed mirror on the wall, and I could see my massive, pure white angel wings on my back. I flew with them for a couple seconds, but then I woke up soon after.

Day 17: LD - 2, FA - 1
TOTAL: LD - 15, FA - 13

So I've decided to do a 30-day challenge of using the SSILD technique. I have experimented with the technique before with somewhat mixed success. So this time I'm going to use nothing but SSILD for the next 30 days and record how many LD's and FA's I get. So here we go:

Day 16

(Obligatory note about how I've missed over a week of entries because my sleep schedule's been messed up when in reality it's because I'm too lazy to get up early in the morning anymore...)

So I went to bed late last night and got up early this morning, but I decided this afternoon would be the perfect time to take a lucid nap. I took 300 mg of B6 before I went to bed about 2 pm. Although I laid there until about 2:30 after doing the cycles, I finally got to sleep, and kind of had my first ever WILD, but without the lucidity (WID?). Like for the first time I watched the HH until it kind of popped into a dream scene, but for some reason I wasn't lucid right away. I guess that counts as success, but anyway...

I started out in some kind of video game kind of like Banjo-Kazooie, in that it was an open world but I had to complete missions to collect some special tokens or something. The missions had me going to various places, like my brother's apartment, my dorm room, and some weird island. After this, my boss from work was leading me to some place (my two dream signs are work and video games, and BOOM here they are in the same dream, and I'm still not lucid yet...). However, along the way, he leads me into this warp point that takes me to some secret area for some secret mission. The only problem is that I've already done the mission, apparently, so I remember mentally hitting the back button several times to get back to the main world. After the second or third time, my boss finally turns around to me and says "Maybe I should stop running into those things, huh?".

He finally leads me into this mall, and I find myself lost in the middle of JC Penney. There's tons of people around. I don't remember what, but something about the scene makes me lucid. I take a few moments to realize that I am dreaming, and therefore this is a dream - nothing is real (something I seem to always forget in my lucids...). I decide that I want to talk to my dream guide, so first I decide to thin out the crowd. I yell out "There's nobody here." I call it out a few times, and each time, there seems to be less and less people until soon the store is empty. I then decide to summon my dream guide, which I determined from an earlier dream is a gray-haired wolf-like creature. I call out his name several times, expecting him to be right around the corner, but he never comes. One time, however, I think I see him around the corner, so I run around to find that it's just a furry gray purse (doh, so close...). I finally decide to abandon that track and just have my first talk with my subconscious. I yell out that I want to talk to my subconscious. I yell this several times, but find no one. I see this tall shelf in front of me, so I decide to climb up to get a better view. I take kind of a Superman-ish leap and jump on top of it (that was easy...). I look out, and I see the busy mall beneath me.

Suddenly, someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around to see this guy that kind of looks like a younger, more buff Christopher Eccleston (aka the ninth Doctor, aka the Doctor that was in the only episode of Doctor Who that I've ever watched...). All he says to me is that I should get out soon as he points to a door down on the ground. I ask him if he is my subconscious, and he says something like he is my "pre-subconscious", but he can help me get to my subconscious, but first I have to run. There's this explosion on the other side of the mall, and all of a sudden water starts flowing from the source of the explosion. I was apparently not on the shelf anymore since I don't remember jumping down before I ran towards the door he pointed out. He kind of ran with me some of the way, but we got separated when I got to the door. I saw some of my friends outside, and they called me over to where one of my teachers was sitting with his car. I got in and we drove off to the beach.

I was suddenly in my swimsuit, apparently, and I walked to the water. Before I got there, though, the guy I talked to in the mall walked up to me and stopped me. He introduced himself to me as C44 (pronounced "C-four-four", yeah, I don't get it either...). He walked me over to this group of people by an umbrella. He introduced me to these other people, 2 guys and one girl. I don't remember any of their names, but they looked like partying college kids that go to the beach to get drunk on Spring Break (aka the kind of people I don't hang around with IWL...). C44 introduced me to one last guy, a guy who didn't look like the others, but kind of acted like them. He looked like a 40-ish year old guy with the hair of Wreck-It Ralph, although he was still fairly well-built. C44 told me that his name is Amplitude, and he's my subconscious (great, my subconscious has a 90's street name...). All of us just kind of hung out for a little bit. I kind of felt like I was the most awkward person in that group, but they seemed to accept me anyway, although part of me felt that it was more out of pity than actually liking me (you know that friend you hang out with just because you feel sorry for them? It was kind of like that...). I ended up talking to the girl for a while, although we just kind of had small talk about where I was from, what college I was going to, what I was studying, etc.

After a while, I think I was either bored or felt too awkward, so I told them I had to leave. C44 came over to say thanks for coming by. I thanked him instead, and went to hug him (TOTM!). He seemed okay with it at first, but I figured that wasn't the reaction the forum wanted, so I continued to hold him for a little bit. His smile slowly turned into this look of confusion, until he finally said something, so I was like, "I'm just messing with you. Thanks for the Task of the Month." He laughed. I walked away and the dream felt like it was slipping away.

I woke up on the couch in my living room. I looked at the clock and saw it was 7:00. Shoot, I didn't want to sleep for 5 hours, I thought. But, then the scene went dark.

I woke up again, this time in kind of storage shed/garage. I got up and saw Amplitude standing in front of me, which made me lucid. He didn't say much - he kind of just stood there for a bit. "Are you really my subconscious?" I asked. He nodded and said, "Ask me anything." I froze. In all my effort to just try to arrange a meeting with my subconscious, I never actually thought of a single thing I wanted to ask him. I kind of thought of a question on the spot, but I thought it was stupid and just suppressed it. He just kind of laughed. "Can't think of anything, huh? Shall we watch the tape, then?" I turned around to see this little projection screen set up in the corner. I guess I was embarrassed of watching any tape of myself, so I decided a stupid question was better than no question. "How do I know if I've found the right girl?" I could've facepalmed myself. He kind of chuckled. "I can't answer that for you. You have to find that out for yourself." I found myself backing up for some reason. There was some ambient noise that kind of got louder, so I couldn't hear the rest of what he said. The dream kind of destabilized, and I woke up in some hotel room. I realized that wasn't right, but soon I woke up for real. I looked at the clock and saw it was only 4:00, which was a relief.

This one was a nice, long, pretty cool lucid dream, but I still feel like I missed several opportunities, but whatever. Still pretty cool.

Day 16: LD - 2, FA - 3
TOTAL: LD - 13, FA - 12

Taking a break from the SSILD challenge (mainly because I fell asleep last night before I could do the cycles, but I still had a LD) to share this amazingly terrifying yet still pretty awesome lucid nightmare I had last night. Probably one of the most memorable dreams I've had in years.

The dream started with kind of a commercial for Home Depot talking about all of the services they offer, like free delivery and haul-away, and "the knowledge and expertise to get things done" (not sure if that was actually there, but I know that's on the real commercial...). The final scene of the commercial showed the parking lot of Home Depot. In a very cinematic transition, the logo, phone number, and other info at the end of the commercial faded out as I walked towards the store. I was heading there to get my dad something for his birthday. The store wasn't like a normal Home Depot where everything was inside. Instead, all the products were outside under different tents that said "Hardware" and "Plumbing" and all the different departments at Home Depot. I went over to the hardware tent to find something that my dad would like.

I walked through a few aisles until I finally got to the back of the tent where I saw my mom and dad also browsing. "Great," I thought, "now my dad will see what I'm getting for him." I went up and talked to them, and we talked as we walked down another aisle or two. I then realized that the two of them were handcuffed together. "What are the handcuffs for?" I asked. Neither of them answered my question, but instead they walked away like they didn't even hear it. As I looked around, I realized that all of the couples were handcuffed together. I didn't understand what this was for, but it didn't seem to be right (or legal), so I decided to investigate.

I snuck in through a large sliding overhead door into the employees only area. Inside was this big room with several cargo storage containers in a row towards this larger part of the room that extended out like a very large warehouse. I decided to get on top of the containers so I could get a better idea of where I was. I got on top of the first one, and then ran from one to the next towards the large room. After about 7 or 8 of these containers, I heard this robotic male voice say something like "Crushers Initiated." I saw in front of me a large spiked crusher flattening each cargo container. I assumed that the cargo containers would be moving towards the crusher at a slow pace, which would give me plenty of time before I had to get off. Then I saw a second crusher crush the next container, and soon more and more crushers worked their way towards me, quickly picking up speed. I turned around and ran as fast as I could from one container to the next trying to outrun the crushers. I jumped off the last one just in time and fell onto a large conveyer belt. I heard the robotic voice say "You're not getting away that easily." I then saw a crusher at the end of the conveyer belt, and I was rapidly speeding towards it. I quickly rolled off the side of the belt before I got crushed. There was then a flashing red light and a siren. I expected people to come after me, so I ran in the first door I could find to get away.

Little did I know that I had just set foot in an elevator. I turned to try to go back out, but the door had closed and locked. I was in this small room, when suddenly the wall opposite the door turned into a large screen. The robotic voice seemed to have a sarcastic, biting tone to it (kind of like a male GladOS) as it said, "I hope you feel proud of yourself. Because of your negligence, 26 people have died." The number 26 appeared in big red numbers on the screen. "Now comes the fun part," the voice continued. "I'm going to ask you simple yes or no questions. Answer any of them right, and I let you go. My sensors can also read your fear, which will cost you dearly." I felt my blood pressure rise, and there was suddenly a buzzer as the elevator car quickly dropped. After a while it stopped, and the voice said. "We're now 10 floors down. I'd advise you to keep your cool, as there are only 100 floors." The first question came on the screen. I don't even think I got a chance to look at the question before the ceiling started to close in above me. I then heard the buzzer again as the car dropped again. This time it took me much longer to get under control as the ceiling continued to come down. I was pretty much on all fours before I pressed my answer on the screen.

The ceiling stopped. The elevator screeched to a halt. "I did it," I thought. The voice then started to laugh. "That is so incredibly wrong," it said. The entire screen went red. "And now, due to your ignorance, 64 people have died. I hope you're happy, you incompetent fool." The buzzer sounded and the car started dropping again. "He's playing with me," I thought, "This can't be happening." I had a whole psychological battle with myself for about 15 seconds as the car continued to descend. "I have to get out." I decided to try to wake myself up by blinking really hard and willing my eyes open. Then I realized, "Wait, if I'm lucid enough to know I can wake up, then I'm lucid enough to control this dream."

"Wait, what?" the voice said. I felt this surge of power go through me. I was the one in control now. With heroic strength I pushed the ceiling back up. "Stop, what are you doing?" I reared back with all the power I could muster and punched through the door of the elevator. The doors flew back as sparks flew. I ran into the hallway, where there were now flashing red lights and a loud siren. I ran down the halls (which looked kind of like the halls of the Death Star) towards any exit I could find. The computer wasn't giving up without a fight, though. Two turrets suddenly came out of the walls and started shooting at me. I watched as the bullets bounced off of me. I was invincible, and there wasn't anything that could stop me. I took out all of my anger and rage against this demon computer as I punched the turrets so hard that they sailed down the hallway and exploded. I ran further until these two electrical nodes came out of the walls and shot electricity at me. This time it didn't so much hurt as somewhat paralyze me. I fought against the paralysis enough to punch the wall next to me. I hit so hard, all of the electricity in the entire hall started to falter. The lights kind of flickered as I ran down the rest of the hallway.

I finally got back to the room I started in with the crushers and cargo containers. As I ran towards the open overhead door, I heard the voice say, "Lockdown in 3, 2, 1..." The door quickly closed just before I could get under it. I punched one last time, knocking the door off of its tracks and leaving me enough of a hole to escape. I continued to run, not stopping for a second to look back. The tents that were outside were gone - it was now just an empty lot. I ran for the far end of the parking lot, which had a hill that led up to the highway. The "adrenaline" started to wear off. I started to feel less rage and need to trash everything and more calm and happy that I escaped. I ran towards the hill and saw these rusty metal rungs leading up the hill. I climbed these until I got to the top of the hill, and then the scene went white and I woke up.

So yeah, that's probably the first time I've had a nightmare have a happy ending. It also seemed to end almost perfectly too, with a great sense of closure. I should write a book...

So I've decided to do a 30-day challenge of using the SSILD technique. I have experimented with the technique before with somewhat mixed success. So this time I'm going to use nothing but SSILD for the next 30 days and record how many LD's and FA's I get. So here we go:

Day 11

Went to bed late: about 1:00 am. Because of my recent recall drought, I took 3 B-6's before I went to bed. I decided not to turn my alarm on, but because I've been doing this for 10 days now, I naturally woke up after 5 hours, giving me a chance to do the cycles. I woke up about every hour after that, and each time I started the cycles but was unable to complete them. I remember one non-lucid dream and two dreams that turned lucid for a short time at the end - not enough to pull off my intentions, but enough to get some flying time in...

1. I was in the main building at my college. There was a long staircase leading upwards to the higher floors, and for some reason the bookstore was on the first floor. I was walking through the bookstore when I saw one of my friends that just graduated browsing through the shelves for his textbooks. I asked him why he was there so early - the new students weren't supposed to get there until Wednesday (which is true IWL - I have to be there on Sunday, August 11, because I'm one of the student leaders on the hall, the new students get there Wednesday, and the returning students get there Friday). He said he decided to get there early to take a look around.

2. (This may be a continuation of the previous dream) I was in a large hallway outside of a convention room. I don't remember how, but I realized I was naked (except for a strange backpack). I ran into the bathroom to hide, but as I got through the door, I realized that it was just a dream. I turned around and walked calmly out of the door. I took off my backpack and didn't care that I was naked (yeah, I know, that was last month's TOTM...). Although I got a couple looks, no one seemed to really care. I ran outside to this little balcony and saw some of my friends from college on the ground below. I wondered what it felt like to fly naked. I took a running start and jumped off. Although I had kind of a sputtering start, I finally got going and flew off, even doing a flip in mid-air. Before I got too far, however, I woke up.

3. I was back working at the grocery store. It was fairly late at night, but we still had a few customers. For some reason, there was a second receipt printer hooked up to the register. I tried to attach it back to the machine, but it still didn't look right, until I realized that the second receipt printer shouldn't even be there. I disconnected it, but it kept printing. I knew it was too old to be wireless, so something had to be wrong. That's when I became lucid. The next customer asked me to run back and grab something from the back. I jumped up and flew over the aisles and back to where the item was, and then flew back to the front of the store to deliver it. I flew past several customers on the way, but nobody really paid attention. I gave the customer the item, but then my manager asked me to take a damaged item to the bin in the back of the store. I flew back again and went through the doors to the back. I searched for the bin for 2 or 3 minutes, but couldn't find it. Then I woke up.

Like I always seem to do in my LD's, I went along with the plot of the dream instead of breaking free and making my own story. I always try to remind myself to stop what I'm doing in the dream and just ground myself to become more lucid, and yet in the heat of the moment in the lucid, I always forget. Still, got a few good lucids tonight, so I can't really complain.

Day 11: LD - 2, FA - 0
TOTAL: LD - 7, FA - 3

So I've decided to do a 30-day challenge of using the SSILD technique. I have experimented with the technique before with somewhat mixed success. So this time I'm going to use nothing but SSILD for the next 30 days and record how many LD's and FA's I get. So here we go:

Day 1

I went to bed a little bit after midnight, and woke up at 5:45 am. I went to the bathroom and then performed the SSILD cycles while focusing on my breath, WILD style. I distinctly remember 4 dreams, and one little scene from a 5th dream.

1. I was doing some kind of cross-country trip (except I was walking, but whatever). We were going across this long patch of ice that was pretty much a road. There were a lot of people on the ice, like it was a public pool or something. There was also a sign about how if you fall in the water, there are flying "superdogs" patrolling to lift you to safety. I went across the first time without much trouble, as it was mostly downhill and I was able to slide the whole way. The way back, however, was much harder. I got to a thin part of the ice and fell in. However, the water wasn't that cold, and I was able to pull myself back up onto the ice.

2. In this dream, I was sort of more of a passive observer. I was not part of the actual story, but I could see the whole thing and move about freely (kind of like the cutscenes in Half-Life). The story took place in some kind of hotel suite. This girl that looked like Selena Gomez was basically hiding from the police in the hotel room of this other guy. After a while, there was a knock at the door. The girl (I'll just call her Selena) ran to go hide, while the guy opened the door. It was my two RA's at college and two police officers coming to search his room. That dream soon ended, however.

3. I was working at my job as a cashier at a grocery store (don't mock, it's a summer job...). It was absolutely swamped, almost as bad as Christmas or Thanksgiving. The lines were backing up, and I was trying to work as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, nothing was going right. One lady walked out without paying after I told her her total, and on one order the printer completely shredded the receipt, and when I went back to reprint it, I couldn't find the button to do it. My supervisor came over and said something to me about showing up for work 3 hours late. I realized that I couldn't remember why I showed up so late or what I had been doing earlier that day. I thought, "Maybe this is a dream!" I wanted to take on the TOTM, but I wanted to make absolutely sure I was dreaming since actually getting naked at work IRL is kind of frowned upon. I looked for something out of the ordinary to prove that it was a dream, and sure enough, there was this big glass structure over my register, kind of like a big version of those glass shelters at bus stops. I was then confident that I was dreaming. I got out from behind my cash register and went to the front of the store. I shouted, "Excuse me, everyone, may I have your attention please?" I then proceeded to take off my clothes, which were a little tight, almost like they were made of spandex. I then shouted, "I'm naked!" No one seemed to pay attention though. I then went on to do other things, while naked, for a minute or two until I woke up.

I woke up at about 7:30 am. I wrote down these dreams in my journal, and did kind of a shortened version of the SSILD before I went back to sleep.

4. I was some kind of ghost zombie killer/treasure hunter. It was like some video game where I had to shoot these monsters while also going in the cave to collect treasure. The cave looked like it was at Disney World or some theme park or something. I had to go inside, grab this idol, and get out before the cave collapsed. I did this about two or three times. The last time, however, these three kids (about 10 or 11 in age) that I apparently knew followed me in. I grabbed the idol and turned around to find them behind me. I urged them to get out before the place collapsed. Two of them went ahead of me, but one decided to take up the rear and follow me. When I got to the exit, though, he was gone. I knew that I had to go back in and find him. I ran back through the collapsing cave and found a secret exit through this lake of some sort. It led me outside back to the entrance of the cave. I got out of the water and noticed this girl (pretty sure it was Selena again) acting suspicious. I decided to keep an eye on her. She went around this corner and had a confrontation with this lady, who I assumed was her mom. They fought, but then went around the corner out of sight. After a couple seconds, Selena came back around the corner. When she noticed me, she kind of panicked, screamed "I didn't mean to do it," and ran away. I could tell by her response and by the dramatic music starting that something bad had happened. I turned to the people behind me and told them to call 911. I ran around the corner to find Selena's mom and dad both stabbed in the heart, dead. I asked someone standing nearby what had happened, but they just told me basically gibberish. Soon after, I woke up.

5. (This fifth "dream" is technically just a dream scene. I don't remember when in the night it occurred, and I don't remember any other part of the dream other than this, but apparently I was lucid since I remembered my lucid intentions and fulfilled one of them.) I was in some kind of trench, sliding down into this abyss. I remembered that I wanted to meet my dream guide, and that he could help me. (I had already predetermined that I wanted my dream guide to be a large wolf-like creature named Bartholomew with fiery orange hair and the voice of Liam Neeson... yeah...) I tried to imagine him coming to my rescue, and he did, although he had just plain gray fur. He pulled me out of the trench to safety. After I was safe on solid ground, I asked him what his name was, and he replied with a low-pitched, "Bartholomew." I wanted to ask him some questions, but I soon either woke up or lost lucidity.

So, overall, I'd say a successful day 1 of SSILD. Technically 2 LD's in one night, which is a record for me, I believe. Can't wait to see what happens the next 29 days.

Day 1: LD - 2, FA - 0