All DJ Entries

02/15/2011
"Turtles in Time, Mudfish and Swine"

I was one of the Ninja Turtles, trekking through an enormous house. There was some kind of scenario going on, and I had to figure out how to get passed a certain point - though I can't remember exactly what the situation was. I remember going down an embankment, into a basement or something, and getting a phone call. The phone call was from us - the Ninja Turtles - from the future. We called back in time to ourselves to tell us how to gain some super-human powers. I believe that I was Leo, and Don was with me, while on the phone talking to ourselves. By the end of the conversation, I had 'learned' telekinesis and levitation. Don learned levitation and I think something else. That last part of that scenario I remember is rushing back into battle, with our new-found powers.

Later on, I was no longer one of the Turtles (though I still get the feeling it was the same dream), but was myself again, tossing a football around with some friends, on an enormous field. While we were playing, the field turned to murky water, and we continued to play on, about waist-deep. (I've actually played mud volleyball, in a pit like this. I've played football in the mud, but this was actually in a water-filled pit, so I'm guessing the volleyball experience is what inspired this dream.) Apparently, with the water came the wildlife. There were these fish swimming around in the dark water, along-side us. At first, a few of us thought they might have been pirhana, but they weren't. I remember reaching down and grabbing one of the fish with my bare hands, and tossing it across the swampy field like a football. Someone on the other end caught it, and they tossed it to someone else. I remember G and G (V) being out in the crowd somewhere. I ended up talking to them, sometime after the game.

More time passed, and I was now back at my house. Some girl had come by - either CC or R - looking for bud. I'd gotten her money and went to get some for her but, while I was waiting in the car, outside the dealer's house, an undercover cop car pulled up behind us. I was riding with someone else, and the cop went around to his (the driver) side first. When he went around in that direction, I tossed what bud I had out the window on my side. The cop saw me do it, and started taking pictures. I don't remember if he actually saw the bag or not. They brought a dog in, though, and the last thing I remember is being taken inside (I think just inside the house we were waiting at) for questioning.



02/17/2011
Dream Fragment One:
I was walking around my high school, with two girls. Somehow, we'd gotten tipped off that there was a bomb in the building, which was going to detonate within a matter of seconds. Immediately panicked, I became lucid. Though I knew it was a dream, I really wasn't looking forward to getting caught in the upcoming explosion, so I grabbed the two girls' hands and flew up through the roof to escape the blast.

That's all I remember.


Dream Fragment Two:
I was in a truck with Joe (At least, I think it was Joe), and we were in some high-speed chase. The only thing I remember is going way out into the sticks, on a muddy trail.


Dream Fragment Three:
I was chasing some guy who looked like Will Smith. We were both on bicycles, and I was tailing him all around town because he had stolen his from someone. I remember following him into a Wal-Mart parking lot, and then into the building. I never ended up catching him, though.

Chuck's Bad Day and Flirting with Bi-Sexual Winona Ryder
I'm living in a house with a bunch of people. It feels like a frat house. I sleep in a downstairs room shared with two other people. I wake up early and talk to the three roommates. One is Chuck and he says he had a bad day yesterday. Another is Ken Marino and he pulls me aside to tell me he's going to bake a cake. We walk to the living room where there is a whiteboard with math equations on it. Chuck erases part of the board and starts writing more math equations while describing his bad day. I ask something like "Did you really have a bad day? Or did you have an average day that fell short of your expectations?" This suggestion upsets Chuck and he storms off back to the bedroom.

It's still early morning. Other people are starting to wake up in the house. There is an open staircase visible in the living room, like the SAV house, and I sense that people are emerging from the bedrooms upstairs and moving to the kitchen or leaving the house. I walk back to my bedroom to find Chuck. Chuck is at the desk with a laptop and his cell phone. I lay on the bed. He starts talking again, but I don't recall about what. I am looking at the laptop. There's a computer program running that solves chess puzzles. There is an animated chessboard as the program tries different move sequences. When the program solves the puzzle, it sends a text message and starts a new one. Chuck gets up leaves the room. He leaves his phone. A moment later, the laptop finishes another puzzle and Chuck's phone buzzes, showing he got a text message.

So I'm alone for a moment in the bedroom. Once again I remark that it's early morning by the hint of sunlight from the window. A new person walks in and tells me that one of our housemate's boyfriend stayed overnight. I recognize the housemate as Patrick's sister. Then a few more people enter the room including Patrick's sister, a guy (who I assume to be the boyfriend), and a girl with short black hair who looks like Winona Ryder.

Winona flops on the bed next to me and starts talking to me in a very friendly way. It's a bit awkward for me because I don't know this person and all the other people in the room are watching. Winona says she's leaving soon with everyone to go to campus. She has a long day ahead of her. She's a college student and she studies at Disneyland. At one point, she changes position on the bed so that she's laying across my body. Then she asks if I want to hang out later that day. I say sure. She says not here in LA, but down at Disney. Again, I say sure. Then she smiles, happy that we made a date and then she leaves.

So I'm feeling pretty proud of myself but there are still those few people left in the room who have just been watching all time. They seem horrified. I ask what's wrong. Patrick's sister leaves the room, upset. Then Hugh explains that Winona is Patrick's sister's girlfriend that they were talking about earlier. Girlfriend? I thought they said boyfriend. And I didn't know she was a lesbian. Then I ask Hugh who she is because she looks like a famous actress (at this point in the dream, I hadn't yet remembered Winona Ryder's name, just recognized the face). He says he doesn't know her name either. He says to name a movie that she was in. "Reality Bites." He's never seen it. "How could have never seen Reality Bites?" Sorry, name another. I can't think of another. I say, "Just pull out your phone, google Reality Bites, and read the first name that comes up." He suggests a few other names, but I know none of them are right.

Wow, that was long. It felt like at least 30 minutes of real time. After a woke up, I remembered the name Winona Ryder. And I just now remembered that Patrick's sister's name is Jennifer.

I am in a playground with a friend of mine (we'll call her "A") and a Ghostbusters-era Sigourney Weaver. We are all playing like little kids, and eventually start fighting over who gets to go down the slide first. We have a paper-rock-scissors battle to decide. Sigourney gets to go first, then me, and "A" is last. Sigourney goes down the slide but when it is my turn, there is an asian woman I don't know and her baby trying to climb up the slide and I have to wait until they get off to go down. I start to get impatient. While I am waiting, Sigourney Weaver runs to a nearby corner store and buys a tub of Cool Whip. She says "A" can have some but I can't. She opens it and for some reason it is yellow. She says it is butter-flavored. I go down to the store and get my own, but mine is just plain and smaller, and I tell them they can't have any. "A" tells us to stop fighting. Then I realize I can't eat any anyway because I am on a diet. My kids show up and want to play, but I tell them there are mean people here and we need to go somewhere else. The dream ends and another that I cannot remember begins.

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

[I had four different dreams last night.]

[Dream #1] I'm at the apartment building where I lived in Japan. There are several different landlords who own parts of the building, which is reflected in the fact that different parts of the facade have different designs. [Of course, this was not the case in real life.] Inside the building, though, instead of many small apartments, there is one big, open space crisscrossed by wooden support beams. A few other people my own age are in the building. Several of the wooden beams are arranged in a tall pyramid shape, supporting a large heating/air conditioning unit at the apex of the pyramid. This pyramid collapses and the unit crashes to the floor. At first, I think it's killed the young man who appeared to be standing directly under it, but then I see that he's okay, just scratched up a bit.

One of the other people in this large, open space is President Obama. I follow him up into an enclosed hallway and eavesdrop on a phone conversation he's having with his wife. From the conversation, I gather that he's going to pay for repairs to the damaged support structure and HVAC unit.

[Dream #2] I'm riding on Ellen's Energy Adventure in Epcot. The ride vehicles move up to get to the room with the screens for the film portion of the attraction; I can feel the vehicle moving upward. We get to that room, and the film begins. The film starts out on only one screen, then widens to fill the wraparound screens on either side of it as well, but there are no curtains that pull back to reveal the additional screens. [There were curtains when I went on this ride in reality back in 2000, but according to an article I just read recently, they're not working anymore.] The film contains lots of exciting action sequences, punctuated and made more immersive and realistic by air jets built into the backs of the seats. The seats also have lap bars; I can feel mine. At some point during the film, it dawns on me that I'm dreaming. When the film ends, I exit the ride along with everyone else. As I walk along my row of seats, I say to the guy walking in front of me, “Hey! You're a dream character!” Again, I don't get his attention at all. I continue walking through the passageways that lead out of the building. They're very dark; I make sure to pay close attention to the people and the edges of walls that I can see by the few dim lights, because I know that if I don't, the dream will fade. As I walk, I sing a song aloud, which was my lucid goal for the night. [I don't recall now which song it was, but I have the vague impression that it was a current country song, one I know well, sung by a male singer.] It doesn't even occur to me to do anything other than go along with the dream scenario; this is a ride at Epcot, so of course I'm going to go along with it and enjoy the experience.

There's a bottleneck along the exit route that slows down the flow of foot traffic. This makes me go, “Huh? What's going on?” Then I see what's causing the bottleneck: Suspended by individual cords from a track on the ceiling are multiple pairs of 3D glasses with polarized lenses, with no earpieces, so you have to hold them up to your eyes. Each cord is attached to a little wheel inside the track, so you can move the 3D glasses back and forth along the track. This passageway is filled with painted, Star-Wars-themed scenery, and when you look through the glasses, the scenery looks 3D. I take a pair of glasses and walk with them the rest of the way out of the building. I say aloud, “Oh my God! Rope-Trak!” [While in the dream, I remembered a dream I had when I was a kid that featured a very similar system, only with harnesses attached to the ends of the cords instead of the 3D glasses. In that dream, the purpose of the system was to make sure everyone at a museum followed the same path through the exhibits. I named this system “Rope-Trak” after the fact, when I was awake and used the dream as inspiration for a school project.] I'm surprised and pleased to see this concept reappear in another dream.

I reach the outside of the building. This outdoor space looks very much like I remember it, and I can see everything clearly in the natural light. However, the sky is overcast and cloudy, and it's either raining or just about to; a hurricane is coming in. The dream ended here.

[Dream #3] I'm at my high school, just outside the gymnasium, looking south. Apparently, just being there is enough to make me realize I'm dreaming. It's nighttime, and the quad is filled with students. I decide to fly; it takes me two tries to take off. My first try turns into a big, parabolic jump. The second time, I succeed in getting airborne. To help launch myself forward, I kick off the wall of the gym with my foot, as one might kick off the wall of a pool while swimming. Among the crowd, I see the B. brothers again as I pass overhead. I think, They didn't go to my high school. I fly higher and see that the school is surrounded on two sides by ocean, which makes me go, “Huh?”

[Dream #4] I'm riding in the back seat of the brown car down a street in my old city. It's nighttime. I know where I am because I recognize the trees and landscaping on either side of the car. Looking out my window, I see a white car flying along, above and to the left of our car. This clues me in that I'm still dreaming. I wonder if I can make this car fly. Almost as soon as I've decided to try to do so, I find myself sitting in the driver's seat, alone in the car. I immediately realize that I'm now alone and driving the car, rather than riding in the back seat while someone else drove, because I had wanted/expected to be the driver. My dream control is improving. Cool.

The car is still going down the street at the same speed it was before. I make the same effort of will I used in my previous dream to fly on my own, only this time, I try to focus my will on the car rather than on my own body. As before, I concentrate on the thought of the object of focus rising up, on how that should feel. It takes noticeably more effort, but it works. I get the car into the air. However, I find that it's now traveling backward, and I can't get it to go forward. Looking out the front windshield and over the landscape, I notice that the moon is low on the horizon ahead of me and to the left, looks normal, and is full. Then the dream faded and I woke up.

Weird Notes
0741: Turn in homework on a laundry hanger. Talk about command when it was a remote controlled robot to send in to space. Sam Johnson. 99 on a test. Japanese.

More Weird
0907: Playing WarCraft on my television. Look at clock and realize it's 4pm and I'm late. My closet is messy. Go to kitchen, see wrong burner turned on the stove. Knock on mother's bedroom door to ask about the stove. Is she hung over?

Celebrities and Weirdness
1039 Jack from Will and Grace (but I call him Julian) want to jump in a swimming pool. Or drop a tennis ball? Lifeguard warns him not too. Two coworkers try to pull off my swimsuit under the water. Walk back inside. Birthday gift, Minnie Mouse bathing suit? Old birthday card for my sister. Walk past Angelina Jolie, but say nothing (mistakenly think her first name is Jolie). Fancy hotel inside a mall. Two small dogs chase around me and then run under a couch. Lance buys himself a trophy. Beauty salon. Girl at a sales counter offers me something but I say no.

OBE-like Dream
Method DILD
Lucidity C
Vividness C
Control D
1109: In bed. Dark. Listening to what sounds like a TV on in the next room. An episode of Star Trek: Voyager? Pizza Hut commercial? I visualize the TV screen. Then seem to drift off to sleep. Seem to wake again to a voice inside my head. I intuitively think it's the voice of my subconscious. It says "Jealous, jealous of your identity. So jealous of your thinking." Then pulled out of my body like an OBE. Kinda frightening. I realize I am dreaming so I am lucid but no control because my body is paralyzed. Float flat to a different room. Then land in a bed in someone else's sleeping body. See many small hands, like children's hands, reach for me as I lay paralyzed in this new body.

Military Base
1211: Military base. Jump forward in time. Steal nuke and launch codes. Find some old friends from the past. Go back to base called "Skylar."

Company Problems, Making Out with Coworker's GF
Method DILD
Lucidity D
Vividness B
Control C
1241: Company meeting in a private home. I'm alone in the bedroom, away from the crowd. AR comes in and tells me the company is losing all it's product lines. He starts listing off a long list of all the ones we will no longer have. I interrupt him and ask for just the products that will stay. Just X. I say, with cheerful sarcasm "Oh well in then in a week the company will be broke and we'll all be out of a job."

Then I see AR's girlfriend. She is younger. She has black hair with blond streaks. She has a black cocktail dress with a purple and white stripe. I say to her: "You look familiar". She looks at me with a wink and replies: "You look familiar too", as if to imply she new I was using a line and she is interested. I lead her into the closet. It only has one sliding door so we can't close the closet. I start feeling her up. She is wearing red underwear. At some point a become lucid and just enjoy making out with her. Her skin feels so good. I pull off my pants so she can blow me. But my penis is blue. I start to think this means something wrong with my physical body. The idea flashes in my mind that I've fallen asleep while driving, crashed, and now my physical body is in a coma at the bottom of a freezing cold lake. I force myself to wake up.

Magical Machine
1355: A programmer makes a machine that accidentally erases himself from existence. Scene with a slightly dirty swimming pool but with floating decorative candles. By some chance, I cause him to come back. The experience has taught him what he needs to change to make the machine work as intended. Now he can manipulate anything in the universe. He asks me what to change.

I am making a video for a school assignment, when suddenly I am in the screen and the video is actually happening.
I am sitting cross-legged on the floor of a classroom with a final exam on a board in my lap. I am anxious. The exam is for my writing class, but the questions are all very silly, with equally silly answers. I consider each question carefully before selecting an answer, and wonder why I thought this exam would be so hard. A puppet frog (similar to Kermit but not exactly the same, smaller) keeps trying to distract me. I answer the last question, then raise my hand to get the teacher's attention.
Suddenly, everything changes into a commercial for a brand of beer called Happy Birthday. Everyone, myself included, is drinking beer and singing Weird Al's Happy Birthday song. It's a huge party. Someone spills beer on me, but I don't care.
The screen changes again and I am in a soap opera. Someone brings in a tray with the frog from before in it, but it is dead and has a bent hypodermic needle sticking out of its back. "Who would do such a thing?" the guy holding the tray says, and somewhere, a woman starts crying. I am angry. I killed the frog because it would not leave me alone, but I cannot tell them that. I know if I keep my mouth shut, I can get away with it.
Now I am out of the screen and watching again. Adam Sandler comes on the screen, then looks directly at me (or the camera, however you want to see it) and asks, "Will you drink a Happy Birthday with me?" I realize that there is a beer in my hand, and I drink, celebrating that finals are over.

Eddie Murphy ate a fly. Then it flew out of his mouth unscathed.

01/06/2010
Fragment One
I was hanging out with some chick who was kind of a cross between AF and LK. AF's real life boyfriend was this hybrid girl's boyfriend in the dream, and they had a son who I believe was representative of LK's real life son. He was not happy that this girl and I were such good friends, and he had a really shitty attitude toward me, the whole time I was there. The last thing I remember is the infant son almost falling off of the bed, at one point.


Fragment Two
I just remember being with family and friends, at Kellen's old house.


Dream Three
"Hang Time with Michael Jordan"

I was on some sort of assassination job. The objective was to kill a High Value Individual, framing one of two factions within a military base. This would effectively cause what one of my commanding officers called a Civil War," within the facility. I don't really remember much about this dream, besides taking the shot, through a set of bars, and hitting the HVI, center mass.

Later, I was in what was basically a cross between a mall and an airport terminal. I had to pull a "drop" job (literally), which consisted of dropping a bag full of something illegal over the second-floor railing, and down to someone making the pick-up, below. It was ridiculously obvious that we were doing something illegal, but...that was the plan. Lol. After the drop, we were making our way out of the building, and security was buzzing all around us. They knew that something had just happened, somewhere in the mall/airport, but they didn't know what, or by whom. We slipped right passed them, and walked out to the parking lot.

Outside, randomly, I ran into Michael Jordan. Lol. He was just on his way home from doing some shopping, and making his way to his car. Almost surprisngly, I became lucid at this encounter. (Considering everything that had just happened, before this, I find it funny that all it took was meeting Michael Jordan, to make me lucid. Lol.) I started walking and talking with him, for a while. I told him about the fact that I was just dreaming, and he just quirked a skeptical eyebrow at me. It's hilarious, but he pretty much just looked/acted exactly like Michael Jordan! Lol. He said something sarcastic, like "right. Sure you are..." continuing to walk beside me, at a relaxed pace. I said something like, "don't believe me? Watch," and I levitated into the air, moving around in front of him and hovering backward, while he kept walking toward me. I grinned at him and said "See? You're not the only one who can fly, Mike," laughing. He raised both eyebrows a bit, otherwise seemingly stoic. Though I could see that he was impressed, he didn't quite say much about it. He just kept walking, looking up at me.

I turned around and took aim at a car, a few dozen yards in front of us, reaching up toward it with one hand. Focusing my mind on the vehicle, I flipped my palm up, and slung my arm upward, grabbing the car with telekinesis, and hurling it through the air, over us. It soared to a good 30 feet in the air and then nose-dived toward the pavement. The car smashed into the parking lot, head-on, crunching itself nearly flat and toppling over. I couldn't help but note to myself how cool it looked.

Michael and I finally reached his car, and he asked me something about whether I planned to just follow him around, the whole time. I shrugged and simply said "I might as well, I'll probably be waking up soon, anyway." (Dunno why, but I just sort of had that feeling.) What's even funnier is that his car was an old, beat up, paint-stripped Pontiac Firebird, which wouldn't have surprised me, if it didn't even make it out of the parking lot, from the looks of it. We got inside, and it was just filled with all kinds of garbage; empty drive-thru bags; bottles; cans; etc. Settling into the seat, I was just about to look at my hands, to try to stabilize the dream, but I ended up waking up, instead.

Randomness
0559: This one is hard to explain. I remember it made sense in the dream but makes no sense now. Just going to dump my handwritten notes: Michael from TV The Office. Halloween skit. Tape record interview about haunted fishing boat or something. Supposed to be 30 minutes but goes over 2 hours. Speaking in southern accent. Describe Bryce character who is a zombie or serial killer or something. He wears bright blue overalls and a bright red hat. Then move in front of audience to all of a different some on the boat.

Summer School, Car Search
0939: This seems to be a occasional recurring dreamplot for me: going to school and then searching for my car in a parking lot. Summer school math class. It's Friday. Pay tuition on Monday. Teacher gives us oven trays with French fries and tacos to take home for homework. One guy raises his hand. The teacher anticipates his issue. He is a vegetarian. The teacher give him a bowl of just fries instead.

Class ends and I leave. It's bright day outside. Teacher walks with me toward the parking lot. Parking lot looks like my elementary school. Teacher has a Tylenol PM sticker on his car. We part. I can't find my car in the parking lot. The lot is almost empty. Some one moved it to the nearby residential street. I hand my keys to some guy, like he's a valet. He hands them back to me. Then I walk to a nearby woman who says she had to move my car.

I go looking for my car, pressing the lock button so that the alarm beeps. Now the area seems more like around my high school. I briefly see old elementary school friend Jason, also looking for his car. I finally find my car. I open the trunk and lay the math homework oven tray inside, which I have been carefully holding this whole time. A stray dog jump in to the trunk.

Lonely WILD
Method WILD
Lucidity B
Vividness C
Control C
I wasn't visualizing this time. Instead I was imaging the sink-through-the-bed feeling. I feel my head sink slightly, as if in the gap between two pillows. I only use one pillow so I know I've transitioned into the dream. But I can still feel the stiffness of my physical body so I wait. After a moment, I start floating like an OBE, without intention or control. I float feet-first off my bed, still in a supine position, and toward my bathroom. I float into the bathroom and my body automatically shifts and moves into a seated position. I float down to sit on the toilet. I notice the bathroom is arranged wrong. The toilet is facing the door. It's where the shower should be.

So now the dream seems stable and I can move my own limbs. I stand up and walk out of the bathroom back into my bedroom. It's mostly dark. My room is full of tall lamps, all turned off. They all look the same: a tall metal pole that splits into three sections, which loop back down and end with a light bulb and a decorative shade. I don't have a lamp like this but it seems familiar. Anyway, there are probably 20 of these in the room. I step carefully between them, like a bamboo forest. Very strange.

I recall my plan which is very simple: talk to a DC. Okay, but there is no one around. I step through the lamp forest to my dresser with the TV on top. I reach for the power switch but stop myself: No, this isn't the plan. I start to get logical: If I'm going to talk to someone I need to find someone first. I walk toward the door and say "More clarity! More excitement!" I see light from the crack under the door. I recall a similar scene from another LD that turned out well, so I am hopeful.

I burst through the door and into the living room, expecting to find someone of something. But no one is here. It's just my quiet living room, dimly lit by morning sunlight. Hmm. I feel lonely. End.

American Psycho Playground
0524: I am in what seems to be a school playground in the middle of nowhere. Sandboxes, grassy areas, pull-up bars, chain-link fences, and so on. Christian Bale from American Psycho is here, chasing me and other people. Somehow he gets stabbed and falls to the ground. He calls an ambulance. The rest of us run and hide behind cover. He can't move but he's still throwing sharp things like knives and and pencils. One almost hits me. He is covered in blood. I'm not very afraid though. Just cautious to dodge the projectiles.

short WBTB, just long enough to drink a glass of water with a B-complex supplement

fragment
In bed, notice the nearby electrical outlet. It's making a noise like running water. I remove the plug from the top outlet and move it to the bottom, thinking that will somehow help.

fragment
My mother is in the next room. I overhear her talking to herself. She says that I was talking in my sleep.

Vivid Lucid With Some Tasks
Method DILD (prospective memory), DEILD
Lucidity B
Vividness A
Control B
1134: Begin recall in my bathroom. The light is off and the door is open. Dim morning light coming through my bedroom window. I remember my own advice to look at my hands and count my fingers. At first they appear normal but I stare at them for a moment. A finger on my left hand starts to look distorted and wavy. Bingo, I must be dreaming. I also notice the orientation of the bathroom is backwards compared to the real one.

I walk out the bathroom, through my bedroom, and on into the living room. There I see my father laying on the ground between the couch and coffee table. He's wrapped in a robe, like he's sick. I ask him a question, but move on. I peek in my roommate's room, but he's not there. I haven't stopped to think of a plan, so I'm just wandering aimlessly.

I exit the front door and find myself in an unfamiliar stairway. I go down one flight and pass by two young women. I think I said to them: "Oh, you're pretty, and so are you." They are carrying piles of clothes. I reason that they are moving in to the building. I stop on the landing of the floor below. It's covered with boxes and more clothes everywhere. I say aloud: "Wow, this place is really messy." Then I think: Wait, this is my place. It is my own dream in my own mind. Maybe the mess is symbolic. I pick up some of the clothes to get a closer look. They are actually neatly folded. I say aloud: "I guess I like my place like this." I'm not sure what I meant by that.

Now I exit the building and find myself in yet another unfamiliar setting. The building I was in is at the top of a rather steep hill. I am looking down a narrow street that goes down the hill with buildings, trees, and alleys on either side. It's only wide enough for foot traffic, no cars. I'd guess it looks a bit like San Francisco more than Los Angeles. Anyway, it's bright day and many people are on the street, going in and out of shops and sitting at cafe patio tables.

About half way down the hill, there is an awning that catches my attention. I think to fly and land on it. I start to fly but sputter and lose height. I land under the awning. I sit down at a cafe patio table. Also at the table is a young man with dark brown "bedhead" hair and a scraggly beard. In a hip way, not an ugly way. He's holding an Amazon Kindle. He's talking to a nearby waitress. Neither of them see to notice my presence.

Dream fades. I DEILD back.

I'm back at the same cafe patio. The man with the Kindle stands up and walks away, never having noticed me. I stand up and now have more lucidity and control. I walk to the middle of the street and look around, thinking of what to do. I'm a bit distracted as I notice a older woman standing at a podium nearby. Maybe the hostess of a restaurant. Or maybe she's selling something. I snap back into focus and remember a few tasks. Meditate. Hmm. Risky. I decide I'm not ready for that. Laugh. I can do that. I enjoy a big loud "HA HA HA!" in the middle of this busy street. Everyone stops and turns to look at me. The noisy chatter turns dead quiet. Am I embarrassed? No, surprisingly.

Now I have everyone's attention. What next? Cry and pick a fight. Not sure why I thought of these two things together. I look around the crowd and pick out the biggest, meanest guy. He's a tall, wide, Samoan-looking guy. I look up at him and taunt him with a childish "Boo hoo!" crying gesture. Then I punch him in the face with a right hook. He punches back but I block with my left arm and counter with another right. He tries a few more times but I block and counter-punch again and again. He swings once more, loses his balance and falls. I place one leg on him, like I'm posing on top of a mountain.

I start to think what to do next, but the dream fades.

Type: DILD.
Lucidity: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Vividness: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Notes:
I hate it when I take too long to record dreams. And it just had to be this one.

This was a rather high-level lucid. I was in the back of a semi truck, which was actually lit pretty well, casting light onto the thinner metal walls. There were large, empty cardboard boxes with unidentifiable red and white labels around the inside walls of the truck, but then proceeded to start sliding around as the vehicle started and stopped. I could feel the gravity and shifts as the truck did this, which was almost every few moments.

I didn't know where I was.

In this period of time, I know I became lucid. I also know that I got out of the truck by creating a blast of bluish, electric energy. When I did this, I was able to hear the electrical sound of something shorting out, and a realistic zapping noise. I then walked out and ended up on the field of a university campus. The university building was around forty feet away from me, as an estimate. It was pretty small, with light brick and stone walls, but the area around the building was very big. It consisted mostly of trimmed grass and a running track that went around the perimeter of the campus. I knelt down and smelled the grass (while looking around me at the same time to not lose focus). The grass smelled rather sweet, almost too sweet. I touched it with my hands and it felt damp.

Next, I believe I looked up and the actor Edward Norton appeared behind me. But the strange thing was, I didn't summon him myself. However, I figured I wouldn't let it go to waste because he looked almost perfect and normal. I kissed him, and he kissed me back.

This dream consisted of more stuff, but unfortunately I took too long to record it.

fragment
0715: Running in a marathon. One coach suspects another of cheating.

WTF, Incomprehensible Notes
0757: Hulk goes back in time to stop a secret ... dates him. They work for ... deface some paintings with red paint. Then training for war. V for Vendetta. Brad Pitt. Sunglasses. False awakening.

Talking To Girls
0927: In school. It's a military school. I am called to another classroom. Baking cakes. In class. Flirting with Erinne from high school. Then another girl. Sara? Or maybe Erin from college. Talking about going crazy. Erinne sits on a swing set and starts bother me and the other girl who I am now talking with.

More WTF
1049: ... sex with Bridgette. Meet her two brothers. Then want to fight with our cars. So I drive around them and cover the shopping mall car wash food. I am driving a convertible. This is so one-sided. I ask if I can use real bullets.

Non-lucid dream, [Commentary made while awake]

Night of December 5-6

I'm attending a service at an unfamiliar church. I'm in the choir. The bishop is there, and he shushes the choir, ending the song we're singing early. Two other famous people are there: Arnold Schwarzenegger and H. [a writer who is on the Internet and likely to search for himself]. The two of them and the bishop pose for a group picture. H. is wearing a big, floppy USC baseball cap. We all tell him to turn it around and wear it so that the logo is showing, or else there's no point in having it on at all. He actually looks more like my real-life friend Victor K. than he looks like H.

The service also involves honoring some military people. There is a man in a very highly decorated, green military dress uniform there.

Night of December 6-7

[This was a long, fun, interesting dream with a really cool setting and particularly good recall, especially for dialog.]

This dream is set within the world of a TV show called “Cruiser Island.” Cruiser Island is one of a small group of small, tropical islands, very close together, located just off the coast of Florida and connected to each other and to the mainland by bridges. One of its neighboring islands is called Alo Island. There is a large, single-story building there that says “Alo Island Public Hospital” on the sign on the front.

House #1 is located on Cruiser Island. My family is hosting a sort of sleepover there. I'm in my bedroom, in the top bunk (which is mine), wearing pajamas, ready to go to bed. A boy who's maybe 8 or 9 years old climbs up the end of the bunk bed to get into the top bunk, and we talk. He says he's afraid of some kind of wild animal, and I reassure him by saying that we're in the middle of downtown, and no wild animals are coming here. The rest of the conversation goes something like this:

Me: What's your name?
Boy: Thomas.
Me: Yeah, I thought you kinda looked like a Thomas. I'm (Emiko). (we shake hands)
Thomas: You know that guy who sings with the Parish girls... I'm his younger brother.
Me: Oh, you're Dom's brother!

I decide I enjoy spending time with kids.

[Note: In the dream, when Thomas mentioned his older brother, I knew who we were talking about and knew that he shared a first name with, but wasn't, the protagonist from Inception. In real life, both brothers sang with the Parish girls, but only once, two days ago. They also have different first names in real life.]

I'm standing on the floor next to the foot end of the bunk bed. There are two Vietnamese women, a mom and a grandma, who are sleeping on the lower bunk. Two more Vietnamese moms are standing around in the room and in the hallway, along with a whole bunch of their kids. One of the moms says something about how she doesn't have magical Japanese eyes [I don't even know.] and then sternly commands all the boys to go and brush their hair, now, so that they can go to bed. All the girls have their hair in braids or pigtails, so they'll need their moms' help to comb it out. I think, With all these people in the house for the sleepover and all this excitement, my sleep cycle is getting completely thrown off. I'm not going to get a chance to try to lucid dream tonight. That's too bad. [And yet, I still somehow managed not to realize that I was dreaming at this point. I laughed when I remembered this thought upon waking up.]

I go into the bathroom to toss a few of my stray hairs into the trash can. I don't just toss them on the floor because of all the guests we have in the house. While I'm in the bathroom, I see that my gold cross necklace has fallen into the toilet. Also, I find some bedbugs somewhere in the house, crawling all over some white paper thing. I take it outside, showing it to my mom and explaining to her, as we walk along a sidewalk outside, what they are and what it's like to have them in the house. I say that I'm pretty sure I just got rid of all of them.

My mom and I continue walking through Cruiser Island's downtown, which looks a lot like San Luis Obispo's downtown, until we reach a small light rail station on the street. We look at the big, dark-blue metal signboard there to find out what its schedule is. We continue walking along the streets, turning at least one corner and passing one more light rail station. The street signs are white on blue like in L.A. [not white on brown like in the real SLO]. I talk to someone I pass on the street about which of the streets will be closed for the parade that's going to start soon.

[This is a catch-up post. This dream is from the night of November 25-26.]

Awake, Non-lucid dream, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm attending a writers' workshop at the home of author Beverly Cleary. Every single wall of the house is completely covered with filled bookshelves. I'm walking through the house, picking my way among people in sleeping bags lying on the floor.

Dreamskip. Now everyone is awake and listening to Cleary speak. She announces to all the attendees that she's retiring from writing. Her assistant says: “Does anyone have any questions? Real questions? Realer questions?”

One of the other attendees asks if anyone else there is willing to answer a question, and I volunteer to answer it, saying, “I can make a halfhearted effort at answering.” I say this because I don't think my answer can possibly be anywhere near as good as Cleary's. The assistant introduces me to the other attendee with the question as the author of the forthcoming novel “Artist.” In the dream, I know that the assistant is referring to my current NaNoWriMo novel [the one I was working on in real life when I had this dream], but I think, That's not the right title. [At that point, I hadn't given that novel a title yet in real life, but I still somehow knew that that wasn't the right one.] The other attendee gives me a thin ARC [Advance Reader Copy] of his (or her? I'm not sure) new book, and asks me if I'm interested in reading it and how long it would take me to read it. I am interested, because it has Piers Anthony's name on it as a reference, and is obviously high fantasy based on the cover design. I flip through it and say, “I could read this in an hour, maybe two.”

The other attendee and I walk through the house, which is crowded with workshop attendees. In the room where we end up, there are some people sitting around a picnic table, and David C. is one of them. The other attendee who gave me the ARC asks me something about what the group dynamic at this writers' workshop is like. I answer, then start telling him (her?) about the characteristics of the T./M. Writers' Group [I don't know of one in real life, besides the NaNoWriMo group] and F. Writers Read. Then I woke up. This one was so cool that I thought about trying to DEILD back in, but I didn't because I knew I'd already moved around too much.

--------------------
Side notes:

This dream was awesome. Not only did I have particularly good recall, especially for the many spoken conversations in the dream, but even better, somebody introduced me as the author of a forthcoming novel. Being the author of a published novel is one of my biggest real-life goals. Also, the night I had this dream was the night before Black Friday, and I had set a goal for that day of breaking my previous personal record for the most words of fiction written in a single day. I succeeded. I think this dream indicates that my intention to finish the draft I've started without stopping at the end of November had taken root firmly in my mind. Rawk.

[This is a catch-up post. These dreams are from the night of November 18-19, 2010.]

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm in a theater, watching a film that turns out to be really scary and disturbing. The film begins with one Congressman sitting behind his desk in his office, while another is standing in front of his desk, calling him out on his shenanigans. The one behind the desk dies of a heart attack a few seconds after the one standing up finishes ranting. The ranter then starts an investigation of the one who died.

At this point, the film's narrator says, "The more he found, the more he refused to see." The Congressman performing the investigation stays in one place [I think it may have been the dead one's office, but I'm not positive] for such a long time that he eventually survives by cannibalism. One of the things he finds while investigating is a bag of marijuana, which he goes through, looking for cigarette butts. At the end of the film, there is a message from his family, left in vinyl-cling letters on the window: he got out and is now getting help.

The film ends, and I exit the theater and walk down the long flight of wide steps leading up to it. The theater is located inside Disneyland. [I've been having dreams featuring bizarre versions of Disneyland since I was a child, but this one really takes bizarre to a new level.] It's a beautiful, sunny afternoon. I walk through Fantasyland and into Toontown; the two share a long, open border with each other, with no transition point or hard line of demarcation between them. Riding on a moving walkway, I go past a turnaround mechanism for the Skyway - the big wheel that keeps the cable with all the buckets attached to it moving and allows the buckets to turn around and go back the other way. It is at ground level. The cable is there, has buckets attached to it, and is moving, but there's no loading/unloading station there, just the turnaround mechanism, all by itself.

I walk past Mickey's house. The path through Toontown dead-ends into a section of the queue for the Roger Rabbit ride. I decide I might as well stay there and get in line, now that I'm there; it was only about 4:00 P.M. the last time I looked at the time, so I have plenty of time to enjoy myself. [D'oh! Should have RCed.] I get in line, walking through an opening into the enclosed, indoor space where the queue is. I walk past a group of Cast Members who are singing a barbershop-quartet rendition of "Stray Cat Strut." I wait for them to finish, then tell them that I know where I'm supposed to go to get to the back of the line, and I'm not taking cuts in the line. They understand and let me pass. One of the Cast Members lets me get in line in front of him. This puts me in line directly behind Gary Coleman and some other little people. We introduce ourselves to each other politely; he goes first. I realize that I'm dreaming just as it's ending, when it's too late to do anything; I can already feel my real body.

I'm at a high school, in a room that has chairs in it, but no desks (possibly the drama classroom). One DC is talking at great length to a group of other DCs on the subject of her facial reconstruction surgery. I pull up a chair, joining the group, and listen. I introduce myself to the DC who has been talking. As we're shaking hands, she introduces herself to me as Anne-Marie. She says that she's ugly, and I automatically answer, "No, you're not." [She reminds me a little bit of real-life friend Dawn B. from college, now that I think of it.] She has dirty-blond hair in a ponytail, pale skin, and sunken, brown eyes. She has a black eye on one of them. I know nothing about her appearance is her fault, though, and I like people to be happy with themselves, so that's why I told her she wasn't ugly. In reply to my denial that she's ugly, she says, "Oh, are you another furry?" I answer, "No, but I am an anime fan." I know that she's an anime fan, too. We chat a bit more, and the conversation ends with our agreeing to eat lunch together.

At the end of the conversation, I have another “Oh, yeah, I'm dreaming” moment. The realization comes easily and naturally, the only specific trigger being that I'm in an unfamiliar place. [I had been MILDing again, so when I found myself lucid dreaming, I accepted and realized it readily because it was what I was expecting.] I take a look around. The classroom is irregularly-shaped, high-ceilinged, and sunlit from skylights. Visual clarity is good. I get down on the floor to feel the carpet, which is short, institutional, and gray. I start crawling on the carpet through the room, remarking to myself aloud: “I don't have any energy today. It's my own fault; I should have gone to bed earlier.” My dream body feels just as tired and sluggish as I know my real one does at this early hour of the morning. I've never experienced this in a lucid dream before, so I find it strange, so I comment on it and come up with a logical explanation for it.

“Why am I wearing this heavy backpack, anyway?” I say to myself, because, I realize, I am wearing one. It feels just like the ones I carried in junior high and high school, so it must be full of textbooks. I take it off, one strap at a time, and let it roll off my back and onto the floor. “That's better... a little,” I say. I can feel the absence of its weight, and I feel a little less tired, but not totally back to normal.

There is a full-length mirror on one side of the room. I stand up and go to look at myself in it. My hair is wavy again, and this time, it reaches all the way to my waist. “Oh, cool!” I say. “That's so pretty! I've always wanted it to be like this!” [While it certainly was pretty, I know very well that actually having hair that long would be really impractical... but, yeah, there evidently is a part of my mind that misses having long hair.] I'm wearing a bright sky-blue T-shirt with pink hearts and gold and silver swirls and sparkles on it, and a long, blue denim wraparound skirt. While looking at my reflection in the mirror, I reach for the outer flap of my skirt with my hands and try to touch it, but I can't feel anything there. When I look down at the skirt itself and try again, though, I can feel it. [That's a pretty cool and interesting difference between dreams and reality, and more (anecdotal) evidence that whatever you concentrate your direct perception on, your mind works harder to create.] I woke up after that.