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Bed Time: 1:45a

No dreams here.

WBTB Time: 5:45 – 20 minutes

I was running from a horde of zombies into this old, run-down house. I was joined by another group of survivors, and we ran into this one room where there were a ton of monitors and computers. Once all 5 of us were inside, we slammed the door shut. We were inside assessing the situation for a while, when one of the guys whispered to a girl by the door, and then opened the door and walked out. I realized after he left that this was probably a bad idea, but I didn’t really want to speak up. Soon after, we heard banging on the door. We kept the door shut, even if it was the guy that just left. Suddenly, we heard creaking from the ceiling. I look over in time to see a zombified goblin shark crash through the ceiling, crushing the computer screens and one of the members of our group. I ran out the door as the dream ended.

---

I was then on the front porch of my grandma’s house in Alabama. I looked over to the house across the street, which had a small satellite dish on top of it that was pointed at me. I took a step to the left, and the satellite beeped and shot a firework at me. I stepped out of the way as it hit the wall behind me, unleashing a shower of sparks. The satellite dish tracked my every move, firing every couple seconds, and I had to run away from the shots to the backyard.

There, I looked up to see a massive spider web spanning between two trees. It stretched at least 30 feet up, and was crawling with hundreds of white, medium-sized spiders. I snuck around the side of it, being sure not to touch the web. There were a couple of smaller spider webs on the ground, but I side-stepped around them. I got to the back of the house, and began searching for some valuable item, when the fireworks from the front started to land in front of me. I grabbed whatever I went back there to get and ran back for the gate. I was almost home free, but I tripped over a strand of web near the ground. The entire web started shaking, and spiders started falling off of it. I ran at top speed to get away from the downfall of nope. I reached the gate and dodged a few more fireworks before waking up.

Wake up: 8:10a

2 dreams: 2 pts
WBTB: 2 pts

Night Total: 4 pts
Competition Total: 19.5 pts

Nap time: 1:45p

Absolutely nothing. Most likely because it was hot in my room, since I woke up kinda sweaty, which absolutely kills my recall 100%.

Wake up: 2:35p

I then took off my blanket and tried to go back to sleep, which took longer than expected.

Nap time: 3:00p

I believe I WILDed in, since I was lucid from the start of this dream. I was in this garden of some kind. Pretty much everywhere I looked was green, but it wasn’t really textured. It almost looked like it was from a video game, since the shrubs were very blocky. I could tell the dream was shaky from the get-go, so I tried to stabilize by touching everything. The shrub felt almost like felt (lol), while the grass had more thorns and sharp things. This stabilization didn’t really work, though, as I soon suddenly lost vision in my left eye, eventually followed by my right.

I woke up into my dorm room (although on the wrong side of the room). My mom was at the door, asking me to send her an email with my class schedule so she knows when to call. I walked out the door into what looked more like my high school hallway. There were a ton of students going to class, most of which looked very distraught. I overheard some students talking about the abusive principal and some of the terrible things he was doing to them. I was kind of enraged, and since I have previous experience with school revolutions, I decided to stand up for everyone. I grabbed a megaphone and started to yell.

“Alright, everyone, enough is enough! Are you sick and tired of the constant torment of going to this school?”

I had a couple students turn around a cheer a little. I suddenly realized that I had no idea what I had just done. For one, I had no idea exactly who this principal guy was, nor what he was doing, so I didn’t feel really qualified to lead an organized rebellion. I started struggling, but this brown-haired girl started telling me what to say. I repeated her statements into the megaphone, and even though they made no sense to me, they did seem to fire up the crowd. After one final rally cry, they burst into a loud cheer and stormed the principal’s office. I turned back to the girl and thanked her for her help.

We walked outside to see pretty much anarchy outside. There were students everywhere protesting and going crazy. There were news vans covering the story, and one anchor came up to me and the girl to ask for our reaction to the groups storming the White House. Yes, the White House. I realized I was probably in way over my head now, but the brown-haired girl responded instead. She sounded like she knew what she was talking about, even though, again, in retrospect it made no sense. During this interview, however, I woke up.

Wake up: 3:45p

2 Dreams: 2 pts
1 WILD: 10 pts
Stabilization: 1 pts

Dream Total: 13 pts
Competition Total: 15.5 pts

Bed Time: 1:55a

Fragment 1: I was either on or was watching some game show involving driving go-carts.

WBTB: 6:15a - Awake 20 minutes

Aaaand, nothing.

Wake up: 8:15a

1 Fragment: 0.5 pts
WBTB: 2 pts

Night Total: 2.5 pts
Competition Total: 2.5 pts

I was in this body of water. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was man-made. There was this small opening underwater about the size of a softball. I swam towards it and slowly (and painfully) squeezed my way through. I found myself in this long tunnel, so I quickly swam through it and ended up in this large well. I swam to the surface and found my friend (use the term lightly) Richard sitting on the side of the well.

"Well, do you have it?"
"Yeah, here."
I hand him one of those cold medicines that you spray in your nose, which I had apparently stolen from Walgreen's.



"What is this?"
"What do you mean, 'What is this?' It's the cold medicine you wanted!"
"No, I mean what's this?"
He points to the label. I can make out the words "half dose" in fine print.
"Man, you know I need the extra strength cold medicine. Go back and get it!"
"That's stupid! Can't you just use twice as much or something?"
"Now that's stupid."
"So you expect me to swim back down there, back through that tiny hole, and all the way back into Walgreen's just so you can get your stupid extra strength medicine?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Screw that, I'm walking."

I climbed out of the well, which was for some reason inside this warehouse of sorts. I walked out the door into the street. I don't remember what exactly, but something made me lucid. I flew for a little bit, until I finally touched down outside a Walgreen's. I remembered that I should do some tasks while I was lucid, so I thought of the walking backwards task. I started taking some steps backward, and everything seemed to be going fine (although I got some strange looks from some DCs wondering what I was doing). I realized I was slowly gaining speed, and I felt like I was about to fall backwards. I tried to move my legs faster to keep up, but I kept going faster and faster. Soon, I realized my feet weren't even touching the ground, and I was pretty much flying backwards at an alarming rate. The scene around me kind of looked like I was hitting warp speed in reverse.



I think I kind of blacked out, and next thing I know I was walking into Walgreen's. I wasn't entirely lucid, but I knew that I could turn invisible. I walked into the store invisible, but the store kind of looked like this wooden cabin. There were students in robes talking about spells, so I kind of wondered if I was in Hogwart's.



I tried to sneak into the back without making any noise or bumping into anyone. For some reason, I was wearing a very large backpack, which was also invisible. However, as I was walking, the backpack brushed against some papers and knocked them to the ground. Everyone turned around and wondered what it was. I tried to quietly run away from the papers, but as I ran past this Christmas tree, my backpack again brushed against it, moving some of the lights and knocking one of the ornaments to the ground. One student stood up and went over to investigate. I made a hasty retreat. I decided to ditch the backpack, so I stowed it behind one of the couches in the room. I then ran, but knocked over one of the tables on the way. One girl screamed, and there was a murmur in the crowd about there being ghosts. I was scared they were going to cast some spell to make me visible, so I ran through the door to the back. There was a large swimming pool, so I jumped in and swam through another tunnel to the main store. It still had the wooden designs and decor as the previous room. I walked up to the customer service desk, where the only worker in the store was standing.

"So, I'm kind of an idiot. I came in here earlier and got some cold medicine, but I meant to grab the extra strength, not the half dose. Can I exchange it?"
"Do you have the receipt?"
I pulled the receipt out of my pocket and handed it to her (apparently, my dream forgot that I stole it in the first place), as well as the original cold medicine. She put it under the counter, and pulled out the extra strength version of it. I took it and jumped back in the swimming pool, 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 18

I'm currently heading back to college with my parents. I've discovered two things: (1) My dad speeds while my mom and I sleep, and (2) No matter how many naps I take in the car, I can't have/remember any dreams from those naps. I did manage to try the cycles in the 4-5 hours that I actually was able to sleep in the motel room, although I did not WBTB with it. I did have one kind of scary dream, but no lucids. Since I'm writing this about 18 hours after I woke up, I only remember this one scene:

I was driving around with my dad. We drove by my church, when in the parking lot we saw a couple cop cars surrounding my brother's car. We knew something had to be wrong, so we drove up to the scene. The policeman warned us to stay back, but it was too late. We saw what the commotion was about - a crazed lady (who looked like a mixture of my high school math teacher and Mr. Yang from Psych) came out from behind the car and looked straight at us. I yelled at my dad from the back seat to turn the car around quickly, but it wouldn't start up. She ran around to the side of the car opposite me and ripped the door open. She looked like a maniac, as bloodthirsty as a zombie and as strong as a werewolf (or at least that's what I remembered thinking). She said something to me that I don't remember, but I didn't want to hear it. I tried to kick her out of the open door, but my kicks hardly moved her. My dad finally got the car working and drove off. I continued my kicking, finally making some progress. Instead of falling out, however, she climbed over the top of the car and over to the other door behind me. I turned around and continued to kick with all of my might. I finally kicked her down to the floor, but I continued to kick and stomp in a fury of rage (I apparently have problems...).

So apparently that dream was so scary that when my dad shook my leg to wake me up, I woke up with a jolt and almost kicked him. So yeah, that was weird...

Day 18: LD - 0, FA - 0
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 15

(So I missed a couple days... yeah whatever...)

I went to bed at 12:30 and woke up at 5:45. I did the cycles a little different. I did the first 3 or 4 sitting up, and then laid down to do the rest. That way I would get at least some cycles in before falling asleep. Sure enough, it worked.

I was in a large grocery store, kind of like Sam's Club or Costco. I think I finally realized that being in a grocery store is a dream sign ('bout time. All my dreams are either about working at a grocery store or video games...), which is what made me lucid. I didn't really take the time to stabilize the dream since I was just flying all of a sudden. The way I flew was kind of weird. I was standing up straight but continued to move forward, and when I kicked out my feet to the side, I turned in the opposite direction (kind of like ice skating). I tried at one point to lean forward and fly Superman style, but I just started to stumble, so I just decided to go with it.

After a few minutes of flying, I woke up in this zoo. My friends M and J were with me, and we were in front of this giant tarantula exhibit. Like seriously, the tarantula was massive, about the size of the average dog or cat. As we watched, it broke out of its cage/box thing and came after us. We ran to another part of the zoo until we got to a dead end. I began to wonder if this was a dream too. I plugged my nose, and sure enough, I could breathe through it (although it took a couple tries to get it right...). I told M and J that it was okay since we're dreaming. "Great," M said, "but how do you explain that?" He pointed to the spider as it came around the corner, seemingly bigger than it was before. I was still a little scared, but I said, "It's okay, there's an exit right over there!" We all turned around, but there wasn't an exit like I said there would be. Maybe this isn't a dream, I thought. Soon after, though, I woke up.

I got some more flying time in, but then failed miserably at the second part of the dream... Oh well... I'm still somewhat happy with my results after reaching the halfway point of the challenge.

Day 15: LD - 2, FA - 1
TOTAL: LD - 11, FA - 9

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 14

(I missed two days, one because I got up really early and one because I went to bed really late.)

Went to bed a little after 1, got up at 5:45, and went back to sleep at 6:00. I woke up at about 9:30. There was one lucid dream followed by a non-lucid, but since I had to be at work at 10:45, I didn't have time to write them down or type them out. And since I just got off work, this is the first chance I've had - 10 hours after I woke up. In other words, I don't remember a lot of the dreams.

1. I was at some party at this big house. I only remember two scenes. In one, I was in this bathroom covered only by a towel. I looked at where I thought the mirror was, and there were two girls looking towards me from the other side of this apparently long bathroom. I wrapped the towel tighter, making sure to cover my, um, private parts... The second scene was my friend opening this refrigerator completely full of Caprisun. Somehow that made me lucid. I didn't try to do anything right off the bat. I just wanted to become more lucid, so I tried doing RC's and focusing on my senses. Unfortunately, I either woke up, had an FA, or the dream went black.

2. I was at my good ol' grocery store that is in every dream that I have, except this time it looked different. The aisles and departments were in the same general area and format, but the ceiling and walls were really high, like at Home Depot, and the aisles and speedways were really wide, like at Walmart. It was closing time and I was supposed to mop, but I also had to take back one of the electric handicapped shopping carts. I dragged the mop head behind me as I drove down each aisle with the cart.

Day 14: LD - 1, FA - 0
TOTAL: LD - 9, FA - 8

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 13

I went to bed late again, about 1:30. I set my alarm and actually woke up at 5:45 (I usually try to do 5 hours, but I was too lazy last night to change the alarm time...). However, I quickly fell asleep without doing the cycles (I'm getting really bad at the commitment required to get up early for this...). I do remember one dream and one fairly long fragment from last night, even without any B6.
---
1. I was back at my high school for my first day of the new year, and I was trying to figure out my schedule (I have at least 5 or 6 of these dreams every year starting in July...). English was my first class, but I had some lady other than my actual English teacher in high school. She seemed a little crazy, giving us assignments that were more designed for elementary students. I don't remember what my second class was, but I remember that afterwards I went into the hallway, which looked like the walkway of a bowling alley. I was looking for my schedule in my backpack because I didn't know what my next class was. After searching a couple folders, I finally found the schedule and saw my next class was Physics (technically, the schedule called the class "Discovering Physics", which is close to the name of the textbook for my actual physics class next year, "Mastering Physics". Just an interesting tidbit...). I ran off to my next class.

2. It was starting to rain outside. I was stuck in the parking lot, so I ran to this red van which had the side door open. I tried to press the button to make the door close automatically. Instead, the door kind of slowly closed one section at a time (kind of hard to explain, like the bottom part of the door lifted up and went in place, then the next part kind of lifted up from underneath and went above the first part). The whole process took forever, and it started to rain before the entire door came together. Instead of the last section going in place, however, the door kind of malfunctioned, and this kind of handicapped ramp on the outside of the van pushed down, lifting the side of the car.
---
When I woke up at about 8:15, I had a hard time getting up. I finally just kind of forced myself up (by rolling off the bed...). I figured it would be fine if I performed the WBTB then. First thing I did was take 300mg of B6 so it would be absorbed by the time I actually went to sleep. I sat up playing solitaire on my phone for like 45 minutes (yeah, really... I was bored...). I then laid down at a little after 9 and performed the cycles. I got through about 4 cycles before I fell asleep again. And, oh boy, this was a major false awakening-fest...
---
I'm pretty sure the dream just started with a FA right off the bat. I woke up in my bed, but I was backwards in my bed (my feet were on my pillow and my head was where my feet usually are.) The wall I was looking at looked really off. I tried to get up, but I was kind of stuck to the bed. The dream started to destabilize (I think), but I just kind of laid there for a while making sure I didn't move. I again woke up in a bedroom, but it was my old bedroom*. My dad came in to wake me up for breakfast, so I kind of pretended to be asleep. I felt him sit down on my bed as my side of the bed rose up a little, although a lot more than it should have. Again, the dream went dark. I woke up a third time in the right bedroom, but everything in the room was flipped. I knew this was wrong too. My brother came in just as the dream went dark again. I woke up again in my old bedroom backwards in my bed again. My phone was vibrating, so I sat up to check it. I tried pressing a button to turn the screen on. I could see the screen show something, but the backlight wouldn't turn on so I could see it. I finally grasped that I was dreaming. I was able to get up finally and stood in the middle of my bedroom. There was stuff going on outside my door, but I did my best to ignore it.

Right before I went to bed, I was reading Hyu's dream journal and was fascinated by this post about persistent realms, so I thought I'd give it a try. I imagined myself leaving this dream made by my subconscious so I could get to the real worlds outside the dream. I kind of felt my body relax, and before I realized what was happening, I was falling backwards. I fell right through the floor into darkness. I continued to fall back until I got to this small planet that looked like a level from Super Mario Galaxy. The "planet" kind of had the general shape of a cube, but several parts were missing, making a long walkway around to wherever I was supposed to go (the Power Star, probably...). Before I could even start, though, I actually woke up thanks to my loud mouth parents downstairs yelling for me to get up.
---
I looked at the clock and saw it was only 9:45. It did surprise me that all that happened in the span of about 30 minutes instead of the usual hour and a half that it takes me. I was really surprised and happy that I had such quick success with Hyu's technique. Granted, I wouldn't exactly call it a success, but it was a lot more progress than I expected so soon.

Day 13: LD - 1, FA - 4
TOTAL: LD - 8, FA - 8

*My brother got married and moved out in December, so I got to move all of my stuff into his room, which is slightly bigger than mine. In my dream, I woke up back in my old bedroom down the hall from my current bedroom.

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 12

(Note: This should technically be day 13, but yesterday I didn't do the cycles, although I did have this pretty cool LD.)

I went to bed really late, like 1:30. I woke up at like 7-ish to do the cycles, although I got about half way through. I remember one fairly vivid dream.

I was at some house on this fairly big island. I was driving this strange vehicle. It had a propeller on top like a helicopter, but was basically a pole that hung down from the propeller and a platform underneath to stand on. I was driving this vehicle up this mountain for some reason. The thing couldn't exactly stop on a dime, so it was hard to control, and once or twice I was afraid that I'd fall off the edge of the cliff. I drove this vehicle around until I got back around near the house. For some reason I transformed into Sonic the Hedgehog (I was playing some Sonic Adventure 2 before I went to bed...) and found I had a surfboard in my hand. I ran over to the swimming pool of the house, which was actually one of those surfing pools that just has jets that make one continuous surfable wave. I surfed for a few minutes before I woke up.

Day 12: LD - 0, 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 10
(Note: This should be day 11, but last night I fell back asleep before I even started the cycles, so I decided not to count it. I don't even remember any of my dreams that night anyway...)

I went to bed about 12:30 and woke up at 5:45. In order to keep the night before from happening again, I got up, went to the bathroom, and played games on my phone until about 6. I then fell asleep just before my final cycle.

The only thing I remember is that I had a dream. I don't remember any part, aspect, scene, emotion, or anything about the dream - just that I had one. My theory is that I'm having one of my recall droughts that I have every few weeks where I go from remembering 1-2 dreams a night to remembering about 1-2 a week. Hopefully, this will only last a few days, maybe a week, but in the mean time, I think I'll take some B-6 to bring my recall back to normal levels.

Day 10: LD - 0, FA - 0
TOTAL: LD - 5, 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 9

I had to be up early this morning, so I didn't set my alarm for five hours after bed (although I woke up then anyway...). I did have one dream where I was working at the grocery store (I worked 10 hours there yesterday, what can I say?). I don't remember much more than that. After all my daily activities, I took a nap at 4:00 pm. I tried to do the cycles then, but I fell asleep pretty quickly. Fortunately (and unfortunately), my mom called me and woke me up at 4:30. I managed to do the cycles this time completely, and finally, after a 4 day drought, I had an LD.

I was at some sports training camp (which is weird, since I don't do sports at all...) with my older brother. He was trying to train me to be less of a pushover (pure sibling motivation...). He kept shoving me, telling me to stand up and fight for myself. I suddenly became somewhat-lucid. I rubbed my hands together to stabilize the dream. I built up all the power I could will and shoved him back, and he went flying several feet backwards. Suddenly, the scene changed to the gymnasium of my high school. My brother was back up off the ground and said something like, "Now you're ready." I walked out of the gym and apparently hopped on some car like Mario Kart. I was racing down the road ("racing" doesn't necessarily mean fast...) towards the other side of the school. At like 2 or three parts of the "race", some of the buildings were kind of alive (like in the movie "Monster House") and flying over the track in some sort of pattern trying to keep me from getting by. I remember being terrified each time I would approach one and feeling a huge sense of relief after passing it safely.

I soon came across this guy from my work (who happens to hate me for no reason, but I digress...) who needed help transferring all of his bags of groceries from the bed of his truck to the back seat of his van, which was already mostly full of plastic bags already.* I began by taking out the bags two at a time and setting them in the van like I usually do, but then I realized this would take much too long. I said to him, "I'll just throw the bags in there. After all, I have the most accurate arm in the world." I then proceeded to throw the bags into the car (something I'd probably be fired for if I did in real life...). Although my throwing motion felt weird, every pitch went exactly where I wanted it. I soon got tired of this as well, so I continued to throw bag after bag over my shoulder without looking until the truck was empty. I then shut the door of the van and drove off in my Mario Kart again. Once again, the flying buildings tried to stop me, although this time they had a slightly different pattern.

I remember waking up, although it was in a strange place (I think back at my high school). I got up and went to the bathroom, but I was kind of disappointed since my LD was over. I didn't want it to end, so I did an RC just to make sure it was over. I plugged my nose, but I could still breathe through it. I was back in the gym of my high school at the water fountain. I think I went outside and got on my stupid Mario Kart again. Once again, the buildings tried to stop me, this time seeming more human and less pattern oriented. I pulled around to the football field and stopped. As I walked out to the field, I felt the dream destabilize, and I soon woke up.

Although disappointed that I completely forgot all my LD intentions, I was excited that I finally broke my slump.

Day 9: LD - 1, FA - 1
TOTAL: LD - 5, FA - 3

*This was actually very similar to a real scenario I had at work yesterday. There was a family on vacation that bought three carts full of groceries (~$500-$600 worth). It took two employees (me and one other guy) to help them take out their groceries and load them into their car. There was no room up front, so we had to fit everything into their very small trunk, which was already somewhat full of various items. And their groceries included two 24-packs of beer and 8 12-packs of soda. We were literally cramming groceries in every space we could find. This is possibly the most specific real life scenario that has been replicated in my dreams.

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 8

Because of my recent failures in lucid dreaming the past few days, I decided to take 2 B-6's - not enough to induce an LD by itself, but hopefully enough to boost my recall and help my SSILD work better. I went to bed at 12:00, but I couldn't get to sleep until at least 1. I woke up naturally for some reason at 4:30, and then my alarm went off at 6:30, which was ridiculously stupid since I set it for 5:45. I'm 100% sure that it was my alarm going off, and I did an RC when I woke up so I'm sure it wasn't an FA. It has no snooze function on the app I was used (or at least it was disabled for that alarm), so it actually kind of pisses me off that it screwed up like that. I laid there until about 7:15 with no sign of going to sleep, so I just gave up. I do remember having 2 non-lucid dreams, but I didn't bother to write it down, so I completely forgot it... The other one was technically a fragment, but whatever.

I was in the studio audience of a 90's episode of Family Feud, hosted by Kathy Griffin (don't ask me why...). The entire set was red carpet, red seats, red everything. I was walking backstage for some reason, when these two ring girls walk out from the back door. I kind of paid them no attention and went through the door.

My failure is really starting to get on my nerves. It was even worse tonight since I couldn't even get back to sleep when I wanted to. I know it's common to have a dry spell, but this is kinda ridiculous...

Day 8: LD - 0, FA - 0
TOTAL: LD - 4, FA - 2

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 7

I went to bed at 12:30 and set my alarm for 6:00. When my alarm went off, I woke up, but I soon fell back to sleep before I could even do the cycles. I did have one dream, but my recall was shattered by my parents barging in my room at 8:30. Here's what I remember:

I was in some city with my college pastor and his wife. I think it was like Germany or something, but I don't remember. I was carrying around this massive iPad/tablet computer that was the size of a small flatscreen TV and probably about 20 pounds. We went into some water park, and as they went on this one ride, I decided to stay outside so my tablet wouldn't get wet. /*Gap here*/ I was playing/in some game like Lego Island where everything was made of Legos. I had to fly some helicopter and shoot down this dinosaur.

After I woke up at 8:30, I tried to get back to sleep, but I found I couldn't - or at least I though I couldn't, because I then woke up at 9:30! Aggravated, I decided to stay up for an hour watching random YouTube videos on my phone. At about 10:20, I did the SSILD cycles and went back to sleep. I woke up at 11:00 with no recollection of a dream. Mad that I couldn't even induce a lucid after doing the napping technique, I got up stormed out of my room. I then woke up at 11:45. Yes, it was an FA. At least that's something...

Day 7: LD - 0, FA - 1
TOTAL: LD - 4, FA - 2

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 6

I went to bed about 12:30 last night and set my alarm for 5:50. I woke up, went to the bathroom, wrote some in my dream journal, and then did the cycles before I went to sleep. No lucids again, just 3 fairly long dreams.

1. I was watching this video about this new piece of gaming equipment - basically a helmet that read your brain waves and translated them into motion for your character. It seemed more like a Home Shopping Network segment, and it was hosted by John Anderson and John Henson from Wipeout. The segment showed this woman with a helmet that was connected by ridiculous looking wires to this small robot that mimicked her moves completely. I ended up watching the video twice, the second time with my dad, who asked stupid questions while it was going on, like "Why does the robot have lungs if it can't breathe?"

*WBTB was here*

2. I was at some hotel or convention center for this talent show that we have every year, Teen Talent. I was supposed to audition for piano, but I didn't have a song prepared. I figured I was just going to improvise something since I couldn't think of a good song to play. I remember seeing my drama instructor from church as well as some of my friends from church who were also there for Teen Talent. When I finally played for the audition, I played this Legend of Zelda piano medley that I've been working on IWL. It sounded good, but I don't know what the judge thought of it.

3. I had some friends over at my house. We were either watching or playing some game show in my family room in front of the TV. I thought the intensity of the game needed some sprucing up, so I decided to set up lights to help make it more interesting. I had Christmas lights, spotlights, can lights, and even some motorized lights that turn by themselves at my disposal. I had them all set up how I wanted it, but I spent a long time trying to figure out how to work the controls in the back. I finally figured it out, and the lights looked awesome, but then I woke up.

So yeah, 2-day drought of lucids. After the promising start I had with this technique, I didn't think this was going to happen. Don't worry, I'm not stopping. If anything, this failure's making me try harder.

Day 6: LD - 0, FA - 0
Total: LD - 4, FA - 1

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 5

My timing tonight was absolutely horrible. I went to bed at 12:30 and set my alarm for 5:45 (I seem to have best results if I wake up after 5 hours of sleep). However, I naturally awoke from dream 1 below at about 4:00. I figured, what the heck, so I did the cycles then instead, but left my alarm on just in case. However, I then naturally woke up after dream 2 at 7:30ish for some reason - meaning I completely slept through my alarm (which automatically turns itself off after 15 seconds). Somewhat disappointed, I tried the cycles again before I went to sleep. I don't remember any dreams from then until I woke up again about 5 minutes before my final alarm went off at 10:30. As a result, I only had 2 somewhat-disappointing non-lucid dreams.

1. I was back at the grocery store (dream sign, anyone?), but instead of being a normal grocery store, it was the set for a kid's game show. The set looked like that old show "Legends of the Hidden Temple", but had the premise of "Supermarket Sweep" (2 big reasons why the 90's were the best). Kids would run down the aisles retrieving specific products and bringing them back to the front of the store.

2. I went back in time to when I was in 8th grade (I remember thinking "8th grade is fine. I'm sick and tired of all this college stuff.") One of my coworkers (yes, from the grocery store...) was our substitute history teacher. She was writing our assignments on the board, which included "Frog Dissection Part 2" (kind of a weird thing to do in history class), and two long papers. I remember thinking how interesting her handwriting looked, almost like it looked like in real life (yes, I'm an idiot. I was so close, but hey, it's progress, I suppose...).

Day 5: LD - 0, FA - 0
Total: LD - 4, FA - 1