Summerlander

Date: 14/12/2021
Bedtime: 8pm
Awakening: 12.10am
Return to bed: 3.15am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Awakening: 7.05am
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: The Pinch Experiment
Duration: 45 seconds

DREAM STATE

I'm enjoying dancing with strangers at a party in a strange house. Adjacent to the dance floor, there is a kitchen where something is cooking and a staircase. Me and my wife explore upstairs and are delighted to meet a prominent figure in the world of political activism. 'It's John Foucault!' I say to my wife, not realising that in waking life the name is Michel Foucault, who died decades ago and was not a slender black man constantly surrounded by acolytes. Suddenly, a rabble of angry Foucault opponents break into the property and the flight of stairs between us and the incoming threat is barricaded. Just as I think there is no way out, we are ushered to an open window and manage to escape danger. I am now walking by myself through Crane Park and find this continuity incongruous with the events that preceded it. The trees and herbage enfold the footpath in a peculiar way and the stream characteristic of Crane Park is nowhere to be found. I recognise that I am dreaming.

PHASE STATE

The environment is not necessarily more colourful upon my lucid realisation, but the landscape is certainly highly defined under a bright blue sky and the ground increases in realism when I scoop up rocks and sand with my hands. (Realism: 100%) Almost immediately, I recall the pinch experiment and look for my wife who had been with me prior to my lucidity. Gliding through the dirt track towards where the party house from the precedent dream might be found, I bring tactility and sound to life by churning up the soil with my hands. It feels like I'm on an invisible skateboard, playfully scarring the dirt track as I go, until I realise there are no houses ahead, so I decide to slow down and check behind a bush for my wife. 'Stacey?' She remains absent and all I see is twigs and leaves. Back on the dirt track, gliding through it at appreciable speed in the opposite direction and causing stones to collide and spark as a result, I see a perpendicular road ahead and take a right at the end of the park.

I access the nearest house, expecting to find wife there. Approaching the cottage-like structure, I see that its front door is already wide open and run into it; inside, I find myself in a waking-life bathroom replica, where Stacey's doppelgänger is perched on the sink. 'Alright, babe?' she says. 'Let me see your shoulder!' I reply, wasting no time as I roll up her short sleeve. I pinch my pseudo-wife as hard as I can on the right shoulder and, even though she remains indifferent, I worry that somehow I might be hurting my wife in the real world. 'It's okay,' the doppelgänger says, 'It doesn't hurt.' I make sure the pinch is strong enough that it would surely bruise someone if it were performed in waking life, simultaneously hoping that I won't find a bruised wife upon awakening. My curiosity about what is happening in the real world probably causes me to foul. I wake up.

WAKING STATE

I record the experience and check my wife's shoulder, explaining to her what the Project Elijah task entailed. She reveals that she is not bruised, confirming that actions in the phase state cannot have a direct effect on the external world. I suddenly remember, however, that Stacey has a booked appointment for a Covid-19 booster later. When I ask her which arm she prefers to have the vaccine injected in, she coincidentally says the right one.