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Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #105: The Souvenir

I'm walking along the sidewalk of a street near the neighborhood where I grew up, contemplating a job opportunity. I've been offered a job as muscle in a mobster casino. The pay is less than what I'm making now but it's all "tax free", if you know what I mean. I feel like this is a strange thing to be thinking about, and when I also notice that gravity feels a bit different, I become lucid.

It's early morning and the sky hasn't hit full daylight yet. I decide to head for my childhood home, making my way quickly along the street by jumping along in 30-foot segments. I take a right, proceed for a bit, then a left, all along familiar roads. I know that my old home is just the next block over, so I fly over a couple of houses and land on the next street over.

My childhood home is here but it's different. It looks almost dilapidated and the windows are all dark. The parts of the house that were brick are all siding now. I prepare to go inside but then I stop myself. What am I looking for in there? I can't think of any reason to go inside.

I try to remember what I wanted out of this dream. I remember that I'm trying to meet Art at the Alamo. Then I remember how NyxCC teleported by turning a model of a scene into a true, immersive dream scene. I decide that I'll try conjuring a model of the Alamo and then attempt to teleport into it.

Reaching my hand behind my back, I imagine that there's a model of the Alamo sitting in it. But my mental image of what a "model of the Alamo" would look like is very vague and keeps changing. First it's a small ceramic, then it's a larger, hollow tin thing with no bottom and sharp edges, then it's tiny and solid stone. I check my hand but see nothing but an insubstantial outline that evaporates the moment that I look at it.

Okay, no good. Hand behind the back again, and this time I envision a ceramic souvenir, rough and unfinished on the bottom. I feel it taking shape but as I'm trying to focus, a strong wind picks up and tickles my hands and forearm. The souvenir disappears from my hand before I can look at it.

Frustrated, I gaze up at the sky. It's growing darker, like a storm's approaching. I think that this could be a fun time to try flying, but the dream ends before I get up into the air again.

Another swing and a miss at meeting Art at the Alamo. But the good news is that I managed to remember (and execute) Basic Task of the Month!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #104: Reservations

I have a false awakening at home and stumble out of bed. I'm disappointed and slightly grouchy that I failed to achieve a lucid dream. Feeling unmotivated, I wander aimlessly through the house, contemplating how late for work I probably am. I think that it's Friday, though, and I'm looking forward to ordering pizza with the guys at the office and shooting the breeze for a while. (Nope, today's Wednesday!)

I wind up in the exercise room but the power rack and dip station are completely missing. It's halfway converted into an office and I see the guts of a half-built computer on the floor. I kneel down to work on it, seeing that the RAM is missing and that the box is full of dust like it's been sitting there for years. I finally grasp how dreamlike this all is and become lucid.

I rub my hands together and assemble my goals. Two come to me fairly quickly: 1) meet NewArtemis at the Alamo 2) go water-skiing. (Oops, Advanced Task of the Month is actually parasailing.) I move into the master bedroom where I see Wife standing nearby as my two young children E and R run around the room. I announce that I'm having a lucid dream, eliciting an "Okay!" from Wife. I phase through the external wall of our house. I'm on the 2nd story, so I drift down to the driveway below, lightly brushing the branches of our oak tree with my fingers as I pass.

It's a bright morning outside and I'm preparing to fly off for the Alamo when I hear the voice of my son E behind me. "Daddy, wait! Daaaaaaddy!" I think that it's probably smartest to ignore him but I can't help looking back. Somehow he's followed me outside and I see him standing about fifteen feet away, looking so small. He looks at me with enormous, pleading eyes and says, "Daddy, can I go with you?"

I start feeling all melty-hearted and I know that resistance is futile. It'd probably be amusing to see E and NewArtemis' DCs interact anyway. "Sure, buddy," I say, scooping him up and placing him on my shoulders. I hop up into the air and we fly together over the neighborhood, heading vaguely northwest. The city's different in this direction, and we pass a park and a block of tall buildings. I decide that the Alamo is in the next block and I tell E this to cement it further in my mind. "Uh-huh!" he enthusiastically agrees.

When we hit the next city block, though, I'm disappointed to find no sign of the Alamo. There's a river running east-west with a simple stone bridge crossing it and a walkway on either side. I shout down to the DCs milling around below: "The Alamo's supposed to be right here! Which way is it?"

A blonde lady walking with her daughter points westward toward the bridge. "It's that way, just past the bridge!" I thank her, land, and walk under the bridge with E still on my shoulders. We emerge to see the Alamo up ahead but there's some kind of enormous line out front. I feel the urge to get in line and patiently wait but remind myself that this is my dream and it is therefore okay to be a bit of a jerk. I stride to the front of the line where I find a restaurant host holding a clipboard. It's apparent to me that the Alamo has been converted to some sort of amazingly popular restaurant.

The host asks me whether I have reservations. "Of course," I say. "Check under [CanisLucidus]."

"Ah yes!" he responds. "Party of fifteen. Your table's almost ready."

Fifteen people? "[NewArtemis] is in our group, isn't that right?" But the host wanders off, saying that he'll "be right back."

I decide to give him a moment before prodding the dream plot onward. I remember Task of the Month (speak gibberish to a DC and see how they respond.) A sour-looking girl of about eight with brown hair and freckles is waiting nearby, sitting on a piece of luggage. "Ooooooga booga booga!" I exclaim.

She looks very annoyed. "Can we please just skip the whole 'Mess with DCs' show?" I hear her fine, but her response shocks me into just saying, "What?" She sighs dramatically and repeats herself: "I said can we skip the whole 'Mess with DCs' show? Have you seen how long this line is? I am not in the mood."

Amused, I turn away. Good enough for me. I want to keep things rolling, so I announce to the unseen host, "So my table's ready then, right?"

The host scurries back into view. "Sorry for the wait, sir. Mr. Graham was napping and needed to be woken up. Who schedules a lunch for a nap?" he says with a laugh, even though I haven't the faintest idea what he's talking about or who "Mr. Graham" is. "Right this way," says the host, and I follow, now holding E by the hand. We're moving through a wood-paneled hallway into the restaurant interior when the dream ends.