6th February 2022 Different fragments: - In space, arriving in a ship near a nebula of some kind, with a planet inside and also another star nearby in a different nebula. I mistake the planet for the star a couple of times? I never see either of them up-close and the ship itself is never closer than a light-year in distance. - With H in some house. Daytime and light comes in from the windows, I don't recall seeing outside. Get the impression of a flat and that it belongs to someone else, a friend? There's a cupboard full of biscuits or something, including Belgian chocolate-covered wafers. I think I spot some dark chocolate ones, only to find out they're actually regular chocolate on a closer look, though I then do see some dark chocolate ones and take one. - I do something semi-sexual with H, approaching from behind. - An area with semi-detached houses. Can't remember who else is here but the queen of England is visiting the area. She's on her own with no entourage accompanying her. She's here to visit someone specifically and they don't seem to know each other very well. They have a short and amusing exchange and then start walking down the street together. There's a couple of other people relevant to what's going on and the sound then shifts focus to being on them. - Possibly linked directly with one of the other bits. In a large cave, like something out of Dark Souls. I fight a relatively small dragon and some humanoid as well as other enemies I can't recall. My weapons are frequently breaking but the enemies I kill also drop two-handed weapons fairly often. 12th February 2022 8:00 Fragment: A store, under it there's some cave I've been to before in the dream. It has lost and ancient things. It's dark, though not very much. One of the things here is a giant anthro's skull. It's big enough that I would be able to fit inside its throat area and I remark on this to (I think) H. I try to take it back up to the store. I find a savage native on the way back and he gets spooked by the skull in some way. I try to do something silly or funny but he doesn't seem interested in that. Then, at the store, something about a magazine. (recall gap) In a version of our kitchen. It's tidy and also not in a different kind of way. H just took some poison he asked me to give him. This happened once before in the dream. He doesn't remember this happening before and is now asking me to give him the antidote. I think to myself that it should be in a drawer. I end up looking everywhere and being unable to find it, which makes me explore the kitchen around a bit. (details faded but it was a long dream, might have had micro-woken up a couple of times through it) 9:30? Fragment: (last bit of a dream) Going down a stairwell in an apartment building like old home. Mom is with me and maybe someone else like T. The stairwell is square-ish with a hole/gap in the centre. As we get to the bottom level, a woman comes out of her apartment and starts talking to us. She's a little bit, not flustered, maybe excited and she touches up her breasts and says something about her clothes. Rather than just walk away, I give her some attention. Recall is fuzzy but I notice that she has a bulge around her crotch area and she reveals that she had been a man and kept these bits. But I find this odd, unusual and somewhat implausible, because on closer look her facial and bone structures seem more consistent with someone who's always been female. So I think to myself that actually she was just born with both sets of genitals and that this was a cover story that made it "easier" to explain. Mom is gone pretty early on before this happens and T becomes or is replaced by H. I think that H might be feeling jealous or something.
non-dream dream semi-lucid lucid FA / AP I am in a small dark room, white walls, old furniture. There is a table and two chairs and Riverstone is sitting behind the table, against the wall, with his head pending down and acting bizarre. I am lucid and try to figure if he is real or a shady DC. I say something but he is unresponsive. I tell him I know he is not real, so I am going to play with him a little bit. He then reacts, but I still can tell he is not really Riverstone and I actually feel he is becoming threatening to me. So I shrink him to the size of a bug and pick him from the floor. Now he is putting on a fight. I put him on the table and tell him it will be fine, I'll bring him back to normal size, but as I do it, he turns into a black snake and I stop resizing him, because I don't wanna face a giant black snake. I turn away to the door and just leave. At the next room I see my dog Hachi, but also Bernardo and some other stranger dog. Hachi is happy to see me, but then the other two start fighting in the background and instead of him defending Bernardo, he joins in attacking him. I scream in horror, but then tell myself it is just a nightmare and turn away. I plunge into the wall, I wander through darkness for a while and then come out at another dark room, very much the style of the previous two. I hear noise outside the door and open it. Looks like a cprridor of some vintage looking hostel. Some kid from another room to my left is also peaking out, sleepy. Tells me something as if I am supposed to know what he is talking about. I go to the lobby and from there goes a stairway to a living room in the basement, which is full of youngsters having fun, just like som hostel I stayed in Japan once. I am not interested, so I choose to go out to the street. There is a street market, which reminds me somewhere I have been in Germany. I recognize the memory, love reliving the details. Then hear some guys talking about getting laid and whose lady from the hostel tourists they are going to bang. They spot me and start acting menacing, like they are considering to rape me, so I try to get away from them by climbing a rope that is hanging with clothes from the top of a passageway over the street, and I run up a hill. End up in another strange house, that looks abandoned, almost like a windmill, but it is inhabited by 3 girls. One looks like Natalie Portman. They are nice and invite me in. They are having like a slumber party, all lounging over a bed and sharing chocolates while talking about this and that. They offer me chocolate, I say no and they find strange. So then I go on and on explaining my aversion to choclate since I was little.
non-dream dream semi-lucid lucid FA / AP At some house, staying with dharma brothers and sisters and my teacher is there too. Can't recall details, but we've been teasing each other, while we sit at opposite couches with different posses. The house starts shaking and chaos ensues, with people jumping over the couches, not knowing where to run to. Some say it is and earthquake, others say it isn't. I go to the nearest window and I see a pit forming around the house and it is full of liquid chocolate on which the house starts to sink. I warn everybody and jump over the pit to safer ground. Then offer help to others. But some don jump and instead pass me trays of chocolate cookies and cakes through the window. Then I am alone with a big guy that I was nice to and he is getting too close for comfort. He looks like a big viking with orange beard, but I have to push him away. He gets mad and demands to know why I don't love him back. I say I could love him if I actually knew him and if he changed his behavior. I buy some time until there are others around, who also escaped the sinking house. They come with paintings, namely portraits of me as a goddess or Wonder Woman. I look gorgeous on the paintings and look at myself for comparison, I suppose. I notice my hair is dark black on the half bottom but has a light brown shade on the top half and I don't like it. So I do some coloring on the top to even out the color, but somehow I end up bleaching most of my hair. At first look, I panic, but then realize I don't look bad blonde. I also have pretty black and pink highlights in the bottom of the hair and it actually looks amazing. Join some event with hundreds of people in an auditorium. My Sensei is on stage talking and then he gets emotional and starts singing a song. He sucks at it, so I accidentally giggle and he is very offended. Says he is doing his best and if there are those who do better, to please come and bless us with their voice. Then he calls me and tells everybody that I am so good that maybe I'll be discovered by someone from the music industry today. Except he knows I hate crowds and singing in front of audiences and surprises. People applaud to incentivize me and I say absolutely no and refuse to go. He comes down the stage and sits really close, on the row in front of me. Someone to my right says we don't need to stay angry at each other and suggests we apologize, but he grunts, so I get up and leave. Outside, I am thinking I can't have my ASD diagnostic soon enough. Maybe then people will understand and be a little more respectful of how hard it is for me to be exposed like that in front of hundreds of people. Then a car passes by on the road, an old model with a big rear. The owners tied, what I assume is their dog, to the windshield wipers and are driving with him standing outside on top of the trunk. The dog seems to be enjoying, but there is a huge risk he slips and gets hang on his leash. They stop at some traffic lights and some courageous guy comes running and unties the dog. The couple inside the car starts complaining and shouts threats, but they keep driving away. We find it odd. I tell the guy they probably will come back, so I stay by his side to support him. But they don't come and instead send a drone with inbuilt communication device. It says please to tie the dog to the drone and return it. I grab the drone and yell to the mic that they have to come and get it or else fuck off. So they obviously don't care about the dog and I tell the guy to keep it. Then the guy also talks to the drone and I notice he is holding the leash, but there is no dog at the end of it. I warn him and we freak out looking for the dog. Turns out he was sitting quietly behind us and allowed me to put the leash on him again, but he had been chewing on it and that's how it broke off. I had a dream based on a story I had watched about this french creep guy who runs a model agency and abuses young modes. I dream I am also working for some modelling agency and the boss sexually harassed me. So I go confront him at some shop where he is supposed to be with his wife and two adult twin daughters, but he is not there. I still deliver my message to the wife and daughters. They mock me. They say my career is ruined and anyway they already received the money I owed them for quitting. I am confused, I swear I did not pay anything and I will actually demand a compensation in court. They keep laughing. A male secretary of theirs explains to me they already received a transfer from my parents after they were told I was quitting the program. I am pissed. They then taunt me that I am throwing away international fame and riches because of nothing. I say I prefer keeping my self respect and dignity and be happy than a sell-out zombie raped by that sleaze bag for any money in the world and also that there are many ways to make money in life. They are getting upset with me and stop laughing and just want me to go away. Eventually I do, I see I am not going to open up their eyes to how pathetic they are. I cross the road, there are trams going both ways and lots of people on the crosswalk. I see the river down the street ahead. I am supposed to go to the street on the right, but I lots of people going straight ahead in a party mode, so I follow them. Then I also come across people showing indignation and complaining about some bullfighting. By the river, I see a fence around and area with sand on the ground, clearly an improvised arena. Outside is a small stable with about 6 young male calves lined up and some people are cheering and celebrating while others are naturally mourning the faith of the young ones and petting them. I get closer to also pet them and to say prayers for them. Then I spot a female calve on the side, looking very weak and being totally ignored. I guess she is there by mistake and no one seems to care about her. I get closer and she comes to me to cuddle up and lick me. I hug her and immediately decide I need to get out of there and take her with me somehow.
30th April 2021 Fragment: Seeing from outside the windshield (in front) of a jeep that dad and L are in. Dad is driving? There's a kid at the middle of the back seats. In the dream, something suggests this to be cousin R, I think through an old style printed square photograph. (in terms of view, perspective, stabilisation etc... this dream was like that bit from "what is love?") 1st May 2021 Fragment: Visiting a chocolate factory. Implied to belong to the person who I learned a bit about just the night before, when I was reading up about some chocolate I was having. I see the old man that I saw featured the previous night and his clothing is more casual and I think about how I expected a labcoat like in the featured image, but I do not do a RC or think further about it, perhaps because I'm continuing to walk through this open space which is part of the entrance to the factory? It's more like a theme park really, I'm there with two friends, I know one is JoCo but not sure about the other. (this dream was quite long but I got distracted I think)
13th September 2020 Fragment: Some segment where I was in a ship in space, like Freelancer. I think I'd bought a space station, but I can't remember how. Distant space looked dark, not as much as it should be in reality but there were only a few background nebulae. The station had a bit of a T shape and it spinned around its longest axis. I think when I took my ship to dock with the station, the whole station rotated toward my ship and stayed fixed in that orientation. But the station didn't look quite like one from Freelancer. It had more details and looked "realistic". I remember interacting with someone, either through a chat interface or voice chat. Fragment: I'm with Hnk in an open area, it looks like WoW but it's not any actual area from the game. We have a raid group with us and we're killing something like a dragon boss. I'm a warrior and I have T2 gear, I think. I'm alternating threat with another tank. I remember planting Alliance banners. When the boss finally dies, all the currently placed banners from either faction (there were some Horde ones too for some reason) change to the opposing factions'. The area looks a bit like Teldrassil. I remember after the boss is dead we run toward an arch of sorts, gnarled wood and stone? (recall gap) Something about Naxxramas, but it wasn't the "true" Naxxramas, which had some specific meaning in the dream. I talked to someone in the dream about this. Fragment: I'm in a completely flat desert (salt flats?). There are a couple of odd buildings, reminds me of BL in some way. Some dream characters, but recall faded too much. Fragment: Something about winning some kind of chocolate lottery or contest and as the prize I'd get chocolate for a lifetime. Some kind of chocolate bar. This tied in somehow with some kind of chocolate portals and rental servers? Notes: - A lot of the themes from these fragments are pretty well embedded in my head. Both games were games I played for a long time and between which I often alternated. - The chocolate lottery probably comes from having watched "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" but also just from an underlying desire to win a similar kind of lottery, but involving actual money. - The WoW dream is probably partly a reminder that I should talk to Hnk again, as I haven't remembered to do so for some time.
I am with Melissa, in her room. It seems like it is night time, though not super late - probably a little after everyone’s started to go to bed. I hear what sounds like her dad getting home and coming into the house. Inside now, I hear him calling for me specifically. I’m a little taken aback at him calling me directly, and I look to Melissa. She shakes her head no. I think we’re both undressed, probably post-coital. I decide to go out anyway, putting on a shirt and pajama pants. I don’t think I’ve put underwear on, and I look down to see if there’s a noticeable bulge. I go out to the kitchen or the hallway right before it. He has brought back chocolate and wants me to try it. The ‘chocolate’ looks like a plate of rice and beans, and if it’s really chocolate it looks pretty convincing. I try it and can’t tell which it tastes like. As I raise a spoonful to my mouth, I see something on my hand catch Carlos’s attention. He asks if I had a bloody nose. Using this perfect excuse, I say yes, I must’ve missed a spot cleaning up after it. I’m in the backseat of a taxi with Melissa, Brittney, and Katie. on the back of the seats there is a screen for gambling, along with buttons to press and a place to insert money. I watch Katie try it and lose $20 right away. For some reason, I try it out too. At first, I think I’ve lost $20 also, but then I see I have a $60 payout. I take the money, but then Brittney starts using some of it to play. I think she loses some of it. I’m kind of irritated, but I still come out with more than I started with. I think the taxi has been in some drive through this whole time?
Morning of December 1, 2018. Saturday. Dream # 18,975-02: Reading time: 3 min 48 sec. Readability score: 58. My infra-self’s illusory location of being beyond the nexus of RAS (reticular activating system) separates me from my waking life identity. My infra-self (non-lucid dream self as personified subconscious) loses the viable connection with my unconscious mind in the non-lucid dream state, this personal truth (validated tens of thousands of times since early childhood) being the opposite of what most of modern society naively believes about non-lucid dreams. Only one subliminal thread of my conscious self remains without activating any other until I am in the nexus of the waking process. I am in the King Street mansion, in the middle room of the east side of the second floor of the house, where I have not lived for over twenty years. I am wearing a dark blue hooded sweater with big front pockets. I am going to fly to Northside La Crosse, to Marilyn’s house. (Marilyn is an older half-sister on my mother’s side who died in 2014. My infra-self has no memory of her death.) The thought of physically taking to the air to fly has occurred in dreams all my life (even at age three), without the slightest pause of considering it as an impossible act, and of course, it is effortless. Flight and elevation symbols, both projected and inherited, have occurred at least once (typically more) in every sleep cycle for over fifty years. It is vestibular system correlation, the most common factor of the dream state, which I do not pretend has any association with waking life. It merely correlates with the nature of the absent physicality of the dream state. I have a total of five Kinder Surprise eggs, all of which are still in the original packaging, though one of them has some of the foil coming off, with part of the chocolate exposed. I decide to eat that one and put its yellow toy container in my right pocket. I put the other unwrapped chocolate eggs in my pockets, three on the left, one on my right, and will give them all (including the toy) to my youngest daughter. (This focus does not bring about a recall of where I live. However, this is the second recent dream where I remembered her while my infra-self was erroneously on King Street and preparing to go to Northside La Crosse, though that one was caused by her speaking when I was sleeping. Also, I never saw Kinder Surprise products in America in reality.) I fly to Northside La Crosse. I eat an entire chocolate pie (and appreciate its flavor) in an unfamiliar room implied to be in the Loomis Street house. (Dreams in which I eat something sweet only occur after I drink something sweet before sleep.) After this, I am watching television with my brother-in-law Bob. I do not care much about watching his show, which he comments on at times. I subliminally become aware of the nexus (the precursory association being the television), and this causes me to choose to go out onto the front porch. I look outside from the porch door and see a few unfamiliar people in the dark of late night. (There is no recall of often using this scenario to vivify and sustain my dream. Instead, I succumb to the subliminal awareness that I am dreaming in the next scene.) I lie down on the couch on the porch, my head east. My dream becomes much more vivid in this preparatory transition. Marilyn’s neighbor comes onto the porch but appears as she was in the late 1970s. It is dark, but I can vaguely discern whom it is seemingly implied to be. She is going into the living room to see Bob but stops briefly, saying, “Oh, hello Claude, I’m sorry if I scared you.” On the one hand, there were no concerns about this simulacrum coming onto the porch (even though the preconscious is typically domineering at this stage of the waking process in this dream type). On the other hand, she never called me by my real first name in real life, and this error augments my self-awareness, though I remain only semi-lucid and soon wake. Hearing my name in a dream usually results in consciousness shifts and level of awareness, as my imaginary dream self is unlike my waking life identity. It causes me to think about who I am, which causes me to wake, though the porch as the commonly recurring “bridge” through the nexus was already extant. This entity had the essence of the interconsciousness more so than the preconscious (which seems absent here), which is atypical but has happened in other dreams. It most likely included an emerging but distorted thread of recalling Zsuzsanna. However, why was it apologizing? Does this go all the way back to 1965 when it came as a giant white cat (with a beard) that walked over my chest (one of my first nexus-as-porch dreams)? It may also relate to the bull simulacrum that, as a child, served as a limitation of deliberate dream state vivification and indefinitely sustaining them (which is unhealthy). I think that the five eggs are autosymbolic for the beginning of the return to consciousness, as I have five children, though my infra-self only remembers my younger daughter, which correlates with the partially unwrapped egg as the beginning of waking life recall. (This is a no-brainer as “kinder” means “children” in this context in German - well DUH.) Yellow is the color I have always used (since early childhood) to initiate consciousness, whether in subliminal, liminal, or lucid modes. (Plus, it being on my ride side indicates waking process association, as I sleep on my left side with my right more exposed to my real environment.)
Morning of April 12, 2017. Wednesday. In the first part of my dream, I have the ability to “do anything” and I am clearly aware of this (even though I am not lucid at any point), of which becomes a focus on an unfamiliar Solntsevskaya Bratva boss (reminiscent of an older Mikhail Baryshnikov though more like Semion Mogilevich in the last moments of the scene, though Mikhail is possibly the man at the teacher’s desk and near the tree in later scenes) and his younger associate wanting me to find gold. Semion is at a desk in the last scene of the first segment. I explain that I will only find the gold that is not in a secured location or kept by others. I tell him that there is at least one large gold nugget twenty-five miles away. (This indicated that my dream would last twenty-five more minutes as gold typically represents emerging consciousness as well as sunrise). To me, this seems like too long of a drive, but he seems to be interested in getting it. I explain that I could find gold coins that had been lost (symbolic of subliminally seeking conscious self identity), but the focus remains on the gold nugget. No events related to this scenario occur after this. In another scene (which seems to be the same unfamiliar room as in the first scene), I get two chocolate Easter eggs from my mother (having no memory that she had died years ago). They are like Kinder Surprise eggs (and with the same wrapper imagery) but about twice the size. When I go to eat one as I am lying on the floor (on my side), there seems to be one inside the other, as I end up eating at least half the foil from the one on the inside (but I do not spit it out). My mother is present and I mention this. She says that she had forgotten to unwrap it (and the second egg is probably like this as well). This does not really make sense, as how would one unwrap a chocolate egg that is fully inside another one? The toy inside the plastic “egg” (of which there is only one inside the second wrapped layer) is hard to discern. It may be some sort of tiny plastic outrigger model, the pieces attached in one frame (and I see the small strip of paper with instructions as well). There is a tiny man, only about three inches high, who I talk to several different times throughout the rest of my dream. There is interest in where he may have come from. I ask him where he lives, naming about three locations, finally asking him if he lives under tree roots and he seems offended. He talks to another male (of normal height) at a desk. The other male asks me something about receiving a check. The layout of the room now reminds me somewhat of one of my high school basement classrooms, with a square column on each side of his desk. I notice that I am in pajamas and as it is the middle of the day I feel slightly embarrassed. (I do not wear anything when sleeping in real life, though this is just a first-level dream sign, that is, a subliminal non-lucid awareness of being asleep and dreaming.) I take them off and put a shirt on, but then I see that I already had a shirt on (even though I had not actually put the first one on) so I am now wearing two shirts and notice that they are different colors (blue and pale orange I think, the blue on the outside). I think about whether I should just button up the second one but consider that it may be too warm. Eventually, it is seen that the tiny man actually had been living in a small cave under a large tree (just as I had first thought and asked him about though which seemingly offended him), accessible via a tiny doorway between the tree roots. I see two tiny women dressed as fishwives standing just outside the door. They seem to be wondering where the tiny man went. I want to talk to them, but they are wary of human beings of normal height. A group of other people, some of them relatives, curiously approach the tree (including Tina, which is possibly the first dream she has ever appeared in - I see her full name on a small piece of paper near the tree with a couple other names I do not discern). They seem to question whether or not tiny people really exist. One unknown male (Mikhail? - though vaguely like my brother Leonard) places about six or seven odd plastic animal figures near the door as “bait”. They are not to scale and include a frog, cow, horse, dragon, owl, and other animals, all about two inches tall. The tiny women somehow get the figures inside and the figures come to life. The frog tries to eat the cow but fails. Other figures try to eat each other in a chaotic scene but the scene changes. (I am viewing this as if the scene is magnified and I am perceiving from within the tiny cave, though this viewpoint changes in the next scene.) The tiny man returns and goes inside the cave under the tree. I had wanted to talk to him more. Soon, a young Gregory Hines (February 14, 1946-August 9, 2003) is present. Apparently, he is the ruler of the kingdom of the little people even though he is of normal height. He now plans on eliminating everyone but the little people (and himself). As such, he calls another copy of himself to aid in the end of the world. A sketch of Gregory Hines “slides” down a miniature skyscraper (though which is still about ten feet tall) that has the external surface of a flat disco ball. I watch as it nears ground level, each square shifting as the parts of the drawing “slide” down the side of the building. The drawing becomes three-dimensional and soon becomes the second “real” Gregory Hines but he is dressed differently than the first - in an unusual vertically pinstriped (dark gray and white) dance costume. I pick him up and throw him over my right shoulder (his head in back of me) and he kicks his legs. The first Gregory Hines looks on with annoyance. I am not sure what to do. I do not want everyone to be killed but I do not feel like carrying the second Gregory around or hurting him. This is the first time that my preconscious and emergent consciousness (not fully coalesced but still physically touching me and over my right shoulder) were both Gregory Hines. The two shirts event seems redundant of the concentric chocolate eggs event. It may relate to layers of consciousness within the sleep cycle or an unusual waking transition metaphor that requires a second prompt for coalescence (as I was in the dream state much longer than usual). The personified unconscious was the tiny man (validated by the fact he lived underground under a tree, a tree being analogous to the human brain only in some cases). This dream is atypical with regard to the miniature people factor. Most such dreams trigger lucidity and extreme vividness but not in this case. The high school basement classroom is a factor of the unconscious. The fall (or “slide”) down the outer wall of the disco ball building (also a “moon cessation” factor symbolizing the change in circadian rhythms) seems to be the otherwise common precursor to the “fall” of the emergent consciousness and vestibular system correlation. I explain this dream type further in “Dreams of Type PRECONAV-VSCPCEL, 01-15”.
Updated 07-04-2018 at 12:22 PM by 1390
27 Feb I'm in a room with lots of DCs. Some of them are leaving for an event. There are different kinds of chocolate boxes at a nearby counter. The DCs go to get chocolate, leaving a bit of a mess. I take couple of chocolates as well and consume them slowly. There's a particular idleness in my mind. I recall I was trying to fall asleep. Something tells me I can already act as if in the dream. I look around - indeed it's a dream. In still somewhat clouded awareness I recall about totm. This is now incorporated in the dream - there's a room where people do the current totm. It then changes to totm suggestions written on the door. Spellbee has suggested that we do programming def functions which appear on the door. My awareness increases and I now have greater clarity. I decide to leave this place and look for a window or door. I opt for the nearest door though a bit afraid I may end up in a labyrinth inside a building rather than outdoors. There's an unappealing old corridor with worn out walls. Luckily, after I reach its end is another door leading outside. I'm now walking near a wall, wondering what will be on the other side once I glance at it. A couple of blocks like those in my hometown appear. I stop to contemplate briefly on this entire process. How and why did these blocks appear, from all the possible items and images that could have been assembled. Did I think them up? Why precisely these objects and not something else. I stare in the distance ahead, thinking that I am not seeing images. What I am seeing are endless possibilities of what could be there. After the feeling of amazement has subsided a bit, I decide to get back to the totms. I am now on top of the wall and think about summoning the book of secrets from the basic task. To do so, I cover the top of the surface with my palm, moving it slowly to reveal the book behind. A red leather book promptly appears underneath with to my suprise the title Book of Secrets. It has relatively few pages and they are all leather. On the first browse there's a list of words with positive qualities or goals. One of the words is "innocent". I try to memorize two more words but forget them after wake. The entire book has a rather medieval appearance. The rest of the pages contain portraits of figures of importance like cardinals or archdukes. I browse one last time to find pictures of weird experiments that were done at the time. Some sort of medieval type of scientific research. Memory gap. There were several moments of the dream thinning out and me back to bed and back to dream, ruining coherent recall. The next scene I remember, I am still lucid and inside a room talking to a DC. I want to continue with totms and the task I recall next is the advanced one to change the weather. I confidently ask the DC for help - "There's something you can help me with. I know you can do this!" We are near a window and I can see the outside ground. It's not too evident which season it is - just bare ground, but I need it to be definitely winter. I turn my back so that I don't see the outside world but face the DC. She is looking outside and waves her hands around as if she is painting the snow. I then turn around and look again - now everything is covered with snow! Alright, now we need for spring or summer to come. I turn myself around and let the DC do her magic again. I look back and the snow-covered ground is now green grass. There's a weird bird resembling a toucan but much larger walking on the grass. Its beak is very unusual - a shiny green color. A closer look reveals that its beak is actually a purely reflective mirror-like surface and the green is just the grass being mirrored. Now there are several of these birds with shiny green beaks, black feathers with strangely warped structures. I am amazed at the kinds of stuff dreams can come up with. I take one last look at the weather transformation - despite the season change, it's still a bit dark and cloudy. To let the sunshine in, decide to get rid of the clouds. First, I stretch my arm and literally pick a few clouds from the sky as if they were nearby objects. Moreover, I get the sudden desire to try to blow the rest of the clouds away. I do it and it actually works! Now the scene is much brighter. The dream soon thins out and I feel my body once again. I fall asleep almost immediately and end up in another room. I feel this dream idleness which makes me realize I am still dreaming. I come up with a funny song and start dancing around while DCs stare at me. Pretty fast this time, the dream disappears, I feel my body once again and wake up.
Updated 02-27-2017 at 09:20 PM by 61764
2 fragments. Dreamt that I purchased a snack that came like sticks, perhaps Slim Jims. But when I bit into one I realized that I had purchased incense by mistake. Dreamt that someone had hidden treats, bags of coffee, small appliances, and other small prizes throughout a house. I along with a few other people participated in a competition, similar to an Easter Egg Hunt, where we raced throughout the house trying to find as many good prizes as we could. Many were chocolate sweets and seemed to be craving dark chocolate.
Ritual: After a year or so of initial successes with galantamine, back in 2010–11, it had stopped working very well for me to the point where I hardly ever use it anymore. But last night after going to bed late (around 3am) and waking up just before dawn, I still felt heavy enough with sleep that I thought I might give it a shot. (Galantamine is a stimulant, so the main risk is not being able to get back to sleep.) I took one of the red pills from a bottle of "Dream Leaf," which I had nearly given up on since it had never worked for me before, possibly because I only tried it long after I had gotten "over" galantamine. I know the red pills contain galantamine from the distinctive effects, but I must say that it greatly bothers me that this supplement neglects to identify the presence of galantamine on the label, or even on their website, much less clarify the actual dosage. In fact, I would go so far as to call this obfuscation shamefully irresponsible and borderline criminal. Galantamine is a powerful substance that should never be given to people without their knowledge. So for ethical reasons I dislike this particular supplement and definitely would not recommend it, but galantamine is galantamine, and on this occasion it actually worked. Woke and wrote at 9, so I'm a bit underslept with a slight galantamine hangover, but it's been so long since I've had this sensation that I'm almost enjoying it. I've always found galantamine dreams a bit superficial, but that's not always a bad thing. My recent attempts to force dream events to unfold in a detailed and realistic way, in the name of quality, often prove counter-productive. Sometimes a little "cowboying" is necessary to get the job done, especially in the inherent instability of the dream environment. So tonight's dreams were ultimately successful, but not exactly Masterpiece Theatre. WILD, "Fading Gift": I was lying on my back in bed, and recognized I was in dream even as I started making elaborate sweeping gestures with my hands, but continued gesturing for a while to increase my sense of motor control. At one point I closed my eyes and scratched my scalp, and I was amazed that the sensations felt exactly like like waking life. "I am the dreamer," I murmured a few times, as if to fix the idea in mind. I recalled how often I make unnecessary difficulties for myself at this transitional stage and told myself that if I was already dreaming, I didn't need a ton of preamble before getting out of bed—I should just get up. So I did, and it was fine. I've really been wanting to do the "finding a leftover present" TOTM, so I started looking around the room. (As has become typical lately, the room did not resemble my bedroom in WL.) I looked under the dresser, on the table... nothing so far. I felt a slight contradiction in my mental outlook: on the one hand, the best way to find the present would be to expect or even to will it to be there, but on the other hand, since it was a present I wanted to be surprised rather than force the issue. So I allowed myself only a vague expectation and kept looking. I found a wooden cabinet much like the one in my office and when I opened the door there were a few presents on the middle shelf. The first two I noticed, very small objects, I rejected as not quite right. Although they were loosely covered in wrapping, it wasn't taped down, so it looked like they had already been opened and then put back. I kept looking and on the left side of the shelf was the perfect gift: a wide cylinder about six inches high wrapped in red and white paper with a red ribbon rising vertically on four sides to form a neat bow at the top. The paper looked familiar at first so I studied it for a moment, but it was not any pattern I've seen before. It consisted of thin white lines on a red background, but they were awkwardly curving and abstract, like an elaborate doodle. Just as I started to open the present, I felt the dream begin to fade. I moved quickly, trying to open the box in the little time I had left. When the top came off, I plunged in my hand and felt... tissue paper. I was almost awake now, and as I reached past the tissue paper I felt like I crossed that indiscernable border between dreaming and waking consciousness. Or maybe it is not so indiscernible: what had just disappeared was my sense of touch, without which the dream had lost its tangibility. Vision lingered a little longer, and I saw my hand pull out a thick gold chain the length of a necklace, sparsely ornamented with tiny flowers that were each composed of four thin petals of white enamel. I was dissatisfied, however, not only with the gift itself (I don't care much for jewelry and this was definitely not my style), but with the fact that the dream was fading so fast that I couldn't determine to what extent dream imagination or waking imagination (not that I clearly understand the difference!) had determined the nature of the gift. I went back to sleep, resolving to try to get lucid again and complete the task in a more satisfactory way. DILD, "Elephant Ride": I was lying in bed but felt uncomfortable, realized I was still wearing day clothes, including a bra. Ugh, had I passed out last night? As I removed it, I noticed it was a lacy underwire thing that didn't even look familiar. I wanted to get back to sleep but the television was on loudly, so I tried to find the remote to turn it off. There were four or five remotes on top of the dresser, and I pressed the power button on all of them but nothing worked. On a couple, the image would cut out as though it were turning off but then come right back, and other remotes had no effect at all. Fine, I'll pull the damn plug, I thought grumpily, but the TV was mounted on the wall and on closer inspection it seems the wiring was concealed behind the wall. I settled for muting the volume (at least that worked) and turning the screen to the side, which accomplished little but expressed my annoyance with the device. [Possible source: I just got back from visiting my mom, where the TV was on loudly in the mornings, making it hard to read or work.] I headed back toward the bed, but suddenly realized I must be dreaming. That would explain the difficulty I just had with the televisions, at least! And with the realization came the memory of my earlier lucid episode and my dissatisfaction with the TOTM I had attempted. I was pleased with the chance to try again. Looking around, I soon spotted a wrapped gift on the bedside table. It was a small square box, around two inches wide and one inch high, made of that shiny gold cardboard that is common in gift boxes, and wrapped with a red ribbon. I started to untie the ribbon and realized that I was wearing gloves. At first I thought it an oddity, but quickly understood that it was just the dream's way of representing the slight awkwardness I felt in my fingers as I tried to complete this fine motor activity. I considered pulling off the gloves but recognized that it would just be a pointless waste of time, and decided instead to ignore them. At least they were thin gloves, and didn't impede me that much in my attempt to open the box. By the time it was open, they were gone. This time I was very pleased with what I found in the box. It looked like a single confection of some sort. "Perfect, I love food!" I thought to myself happily. I pulled it out and looked it over. It was not very distinguished in shape, light brown in color and vaguely round, but a bit lumpy. There was a darker spot in the center like a piece of chocolate. [Possible source: I've been eating my mother's Christmas cookies, which have a spot of apricot jam covered with chocolate in the center. They have a much firmer texture overall than this one did, though.] The surface was dry but felt a bit pliant between my fingers, a sort of rubbery texture. I bit into the confection and found the mouthfeel similar to what the outer texture had led me to anticipate. There was just the hint of a thin crust, and then the inside was soft but chewy. It reminded me of mochi but was firmer and easier to chew. At this point I was analyzing it with the idea of possibly attempting to recreate it in waking life. I knew that it would have to be based on glutinous rice flour. However, the overall taste was lightly chocolatey and fruity. I looked where I had bitten and distinctly saw raisins, both black and gold. There were also pieces of another fruit that was harder to identify. It had faint striations that reminded me of the fresh jackfruit I had eaten last night in WL (so that was probably the source), but this had the texture of a dried fruit. Can jackfruit be dried and baked into cookies? I couldn't say. If not, I thought that dried apricot might work just as well. The taste could have been either; it was hard to tell with all the other flavors going on. I finished the confection and found it very satisfying. If I ever do manage to recreate something like this, I'll have to post the recipe here! I felt that I had now completed the TOTM satisfactorily, so what next? I looked around the room, and wondered if I should just leave through the door and go exploring. But somehow that is never very satisfying; I usually get better results when I am pursuing a specific idea of some sort, even when the results are not what I expected. The dream felt reasonably stable, so I wondered if I might attempt one of the TOTYs. I recalled the "riding" theme, but unfortunately, I hadn't looked at the list lately and couldn't remember the specifics very well. There was a window here... maybe I could summon a bird and ride it through the night sky? That sounded fun, but I didn't think it was on the list. The only one I could clearly remember was the elephant ride, because my studies have given me such a distinct impression of how elephants were used in battle in pre-modern Siam. I had always planned to try that one, but how do I get from my dream bedroom to pre-modern Siam? I tried to remember the transportation spell from Harry Potter, but the command wasn't coming to me. All I could recall was "flue" something, and anyway there were no fireplaces in this bedroom (unlike my WL bedroom, which does have one!) I decided my best bet was probably the window. I knew you needed to mount an elephant from someplace high, so if I could summon one over, I could probably just descend from the window directly to its back. Then once I was on the elephant, it would be easier to get to Siam. On the way to the window, I felt impelled to opened the middle drawer of the dresser as I walked past. It was nearly empty, with just a few stray pieces of clothing... but in the far right corner was the gleam of gold. It was a pile of chocolate coins! You know the ones, disks of chocolate wrapped in gold foil stamped like currency. These were a few different sizes. I realized these might come in handy if I ended up having to buy the elephant, so I grabbed a handful and put them in my pocket. I opened the window and felt the cool night air. The window was on the second storey, as I had anticipated, but looking out, I actually recognized that this looked nothing like my house. To the left, I could see a garage door extending perpendicularly to the wall my window was in. The house appeared to be painted beige. Across the driveway, which ran next to this wall to meet the garage, there was a wide grassy yard bordered by trees. I looked up at the night sky above the trees to see if there were any familiar constellations, and immediate recognized Orion. Of course... it seems anywhere I go, I see Orion, even in a dream. He was at an angle, almost on his side, just over the treetops... but not exactly the same in WL. At first I counted four stars in his belt, instead of the usual three. The more I looked at it, the more stars accumulated, but only in certain areas, so pretty soon Orion appeared to be wearing not only a belt, but also a brassiere, which amused me, and a crown. The crown had spikes pointing upward, like the common representation of crowns in modern iconography, but matching spikes adorned the brassiere and belt. At this point the whole shape of the constellation was getting a bit thin and stretched, and while I'm sure these transformations could go on indefinitely, right now I needed an elephant. I knew my husband was in the next room, probably working, and even though I suspected this was dream logic, I hesitated to shout lest I annoy him. (Though I suppose it is still reasonable not to want to annoy the dream husband.) So I tried to summon the elephant quietly. Nothing happened. After trying for a bit without results, I decided to take a more dramatic approach. I stepped through the window and jumped, setting my intention for there to be an elephant down there, so I could land on its back. There wasn't. But the results were promising nonetheless... from unconstructed dream space, I managed to conjure something plausibly like the interior of a palace in Siam. It was a bit of a hack job, without much detail, and I confess the throne was far too low (must not have been the formal audience hall), but it was sufficient for my purposes. There were various ministers standing around (another embarrassingly inaccurate detail; no courtiers would stand in the presence of the king in early nineteenth-century Siam! Good gracious!) and the king was on the throne, but a bit vague. My initial impression was that he resembled the recently deceased Rama IX, but that troubled me because I was going for an earlier era. I tried to make him look more like Rama III, but it wasn't working very well, so in the end I just didn't look too closely. At any rate, the king was vague enough that he didn't quibble when I handed over my handful of chocolate coins and requested an elephant. I didn't feel like getting into complex negotiations; I just allowed myself assume the success of the transaction and walked away. As I exited the interior of the palace and momentarily noticed the bright sunlight reflecting off the whitewashed arch of the doorway, I felt a flash of familiarity. Of course, I thought to myself, This must be the Grand Palace, I've been here a few times. I let my memory conjure something akin to the elephant-mounting station I remembered observing there, and walked over to it. There was no elephant there presently, so I waited for someone to bring it around... and started getting impatient. No one seemed to be doing much, or paying attention to my repeated request. They must not understand English, I considered. I'll have to try it in Thai. "Chang!" I shouted, the Thai word for elephant. "Ma nee!" I realized how rude I must sound: while "ma nee" would probably be correctly understood as "come here," or, given the contextual clues, "bring it here" as I had intended, it was a terribly rough and simple way of speaking. It was the sort of thing you might say to call a dog. I hadn't even appended a perfunctory "kha" at the end. But then I started wondering what level of politeness would be proper in this situation. I was in the palace, which made things more difficult, because royal Thai is another ballgame altogether. But what was my own social standing here? In speaking roughly I was assuming a great deal of authority... maybe that was not so bad in this situation. Fortunately, I saw my elephant being brought around before I was able to go too deep down the rabbit hole of Thai honorifics. It was a disappointing elephant, by any standards... not only small but kind of flabby and soft, a cartoonish cross between a real baby elephant and Dumbo. Moreover it was completely unadorned, with no harness or howdah. I momentarily wondered if the lack was due to an inadequate mental impression of what a howdah should look like? But no, I could picture it clearly enough in my imagination... it just wasn't on the elephant. I guess that's what I get for being rude to the staff. To add insult to injury, they didn't even properly lead the elephant to the mounting station—though it was probably too small to get on from there anyway—they just dumped it on the stairs, where it crumpled over weakly. On the bright side, this made it easy to clamber up on its neck, so I did so and prepared to forge on. I knew I had to enter a battle, so we promptly exited the city. I had thought to do this properly on a magnificent war elephant with a howdah and a driver and four soldiers to guard the legs—I've seen plenty of paintings and movies of proper war elephants in action—but instead I was alone, bareback with no weapon, on the most pathetic elephant I've ever seen. But at least in dream there was no risk of actually falling in battle, so I figured I could make do. We had barely gone past the city walls when I saw the invaders approaching from the jungle. That wasn't much of a stretch; it seemed like Ayutthaya was always under attack. (I had originally envisioned myself in Bangkok, but had already slipped back to an earlier era more appropriate for elephant combat). The invaders were on horseback, I noticed, and I was relieved to see that they were only coming in ones and twos, given that I was going to have to take them on alone. They had long black hair and Asian features, and naturally I assumed that they were Burmese... until I got close enough to swing at one and saw the pointed ears. Elves?! Last night I was playing Witcher II and Pillars of Eternity, and the portrait of Aloth in the latter game closely resembled these invaders, but I wasn't sure why they were showing up here. Also, I'm fond of elves and felt loathe to fight them. Fortunately, our combat was more play-acting than anything. I had a good mental image of the kind of long-handled glaive I should be wielding, but though I swung it toward the elves and they gamely mimed being struck, the weapon did not visibly appear in my hands—and I was thankful that it drew no blood. So I marched forward on my pathetic elephant, going through the motions of bashing the elves (elves?!) with my invisible glaive, while they went through the motions of being knocked aside, until the jungle started to coalesce into a new kind of space, a kind of wide passage under an increasingly low ceiling. The texture of the ceiling interested me, and from my position atop the elephant I could reach up and just touch it. It was covered with a kind of thick cloth, like a yellowish patterned felt, and I reached into the seams between two pieces and felt something hard and smooth. I pulled it out and found an object streaked with yellow and brown that resembled a wild bird's egg, but it was too hard and irregular, so I thought it must be a stone. I slipped it into my pocket. The felt overhead was gaping at the seams so I grabbed it and tore it off, revealing a kind of wide hatch with a knob for a handle. I wondered what it might be concealing so I pulled it open... and found the dream space deconstructing, muffling me in a soft blankety texture. Instinctively I tried to protect myself by putting the stone I had just found in my mouth, but I was still being enveloped in the stuff. I tried to pull at it with my hands, and as my fingers sank into it I was struck by the familiarity of the texture, like coarse sheep's wool—not the clean feel of a fleece, but the dirty, oily texture it has when it is still on the sheep. That was the last thing I felt before waking.
D1 - I am in some woods that lead down to a river, on the banks of the river are a small group of people. I offer a boy there a bar of chocolate that i procured on my way. The people are dressed in medieval clothing, but the chocolate bar wrapper and all is modern and large. WBTB D2 - The boy tells me of a place where we can get more food, if we are clever. There is a college nearby where students often play a game with the locals, throwing paper aeroplanes at each other through the dormitory windows. If we go there at night we may be able to sneak in. We get there and sure enough there are two undergraduates there who are late because they are getting changed from some sporting activity. When they open the dorm window to play paper aeroplane throwing, I climb across a para-pit joining the building and onto the roof. From there I sneak into the building. WBTB D3 - I am now inside the large college buildings which look edwardian or later, mostly stone with elegant windows. There is some do going on but I am in a side room. I go to look down from one of the windows and see the feathery leaves and branches of a tree. The tree looks oriental. It is like a jack in the beanstalk tree and goes down and down and down. I feel a jolt of fear as I realise how high up I am. I am as high up as the sky, looking down seemingly forever. I roll away from the window feeling I cannot stand for a moment. I go to find the boy who is eating and tell him of the tree. He comes and looks.
I was driving around with weed and I felt like Eddie was there. Maybe I was driving him around or something. Anyways, I was trying to get home so I could smoke. Somehow I ended up parked outside of someone's house. Could have been my house from child hood. I was in the car with Grace trying to get her to smoke with me. Instead of calling her by her name I said "Hey Taurus!" because her sun sign is a Taurus. Think she got pissed at that. She gets pissed a lot. Later on I ended up in the attic of the house I was parked outside of. I was concocting some kind of chocolate milk drink. I was pouring milk from one carton to another but I was transporting it using the cap and I had somehow transformed the cap into a cylinder... milk transporting device. All I managed to do was make a mess... a chocolate mess O.o hohoHOo. Later I had to fall asleep in a blanket of eggs... Like the eggs were arranged in little slots on the blanket as if they were in an actual egg carton. I assumed I was supposed to incubate these eggs, as no other reality in which I fell asleep in a blanket of eggs made sense. I had a false awakening and my dad left me a voice message that was radio transmitted. He was telling me how stressed he was and it was really eerie. His voice was stacked on top of itself many times... call it doppleganger voice. The number of voices stacked was related to the amount of stress he had. This was all associated somehow with quantities of rags.
I followed two of my former best friends up a staircase to the very top floor of a library. They didn't see me following them so I felt sneaky. When I got to the top floor I stopped when I saw a vending machine with very discounted prices. I thought the prices were discounted because not many people went to the very top floor of the library, which was smaller than the other floors. I bought a chocolate bar for 7 cents. My former friends had walked into the library. Then I walked into the library and saw a former boyfriend sitting at a table. I sat down beside him at the table and ate my chocolate as he was writing. He tried to ignore me but I could tell that he was disturbed or annoyed or something like that but I was content eating my chocolate and thought his annoyance was humorous.
Ritual: It's been over a month since I've done any deliberate dream practice, due to a combination of low motivation and being really busy in WL, so this morning I woke up early to feed the cats and decided to turn it into a WBTB. To reinforce my intention, I took a very small amount (2mg) of galantamine, backed up with alpha-gpc and l-theanine. I lay on my back and tried to concentrate on my intention to get lucid, but my focus was almost completely lacking, and eventually I dozed off only to be startled awake by my own snoring. I turned on my side and fell asleep without any further efforts. I am in a store that specializes in custom-made, artisanal candy and chocolates. There is a table covered with samples, and I am surprised to see one set labeled with the names of my dad and a cousin, apparently commissioned by them for some event. It consists of three types of chocolate meant to be dipped into three different flavored creams. I want to try all three, but there is only one sample of each flavor and I am competing for them with other customers, so I miss out on one or two. My disappointment is eased when the lady proprietor brings out more samples, but these turn out to be biscuits and candy, rather than the chocolates on the first table. Still, they are very appealing in all their colors and textures, and I am standing over the table unapologetically sampling one thing after another when I feel a strange tremor in the floor. The motion becomes more intense, and the other customers start to panic because they think it is an earthquake, but I recognize that it is a different kind of motion. It doesn't feel like the ground is shaking under the building, but rather like the building itself is sliding over the ground, which is of course impossible, unless... "Don't worry, everybody!" I say authoritatively. "This is a dream." I open the front door to see if I was right about the movement, and sure enough, the whole building is sliding sideways through a forest at great speed. While I wait for our journey to end, I continue munching confections: I was particularly enjoying one fennel-flavored cookie shaped like twining leaves and tinted delicately green. Recalling that I was planning to resume my diet tomorrow in waking life, I figured I should take advantage of this opportunity to stuff my face with calorie-free dream food! The building eventually came to a halt, and I went outside to explore the new environment. I recall it was now an urban area, but some of the transitional details are vague. Somehow I met up with my husband and another guy, no one I recognized, and we drove through the city in a really nice convertible sportscar (modeled on the picture of the BMW i8 he showed me last night in WL). I think we were going to see a movie but maybe it wasn't showing (I don't remember watching one) so we went back out to get the car. It was parked some distance away, so to retrieve it faster, I concentrated on making it drive itself back to us, and to speed things up even more, I had it fly through the air. "Thank you, robot valet," I said, as the car gently landed in front of us at the curb. My husband got in the driver's seat, and I got into the back again, but when the DC squeezed into some weird sidecar niche, I climbed over to take the passenger seat. For some reason the car had a British layout, so the driver sat on the right with the passenger seat to the left. Since I had demonstrated that the car could fly, we took off directly into the air to avoid street traffic. However, our flight path didn't feel stable: we were getting buffeted in strange ways. I pointed out that while this car was incredibly aerodynamic on the ground, it was not designed for flying: a sturdy little pod would be better for this purpose. We dropped back down to the pavement and now the car performed beautifully, hugging the ground with impressive traction even though the streets were wet, and roaring forward at incredible speed. "Where are we going?" I asked. Even though I wasn't in the driver's seat, as the dreamer I felt like I was actually the one steering. My husband said he wanted to pick up some things from the Hall of Records, and helped me locate the building. Inside, it turned out he was retrieving some parcels that had been mailed to him. He mentioned that one package was three days late, because the sender had needed to mail out a movie script first. "Why didn't he just bring them both to the post office at the same time?" I asked, to which there was no satisfactory answer. The parcels contained research materials, and now that my husband had them in hand, he wanted to do some work. "Okay, you work," I said. "I need to go do something." I had remained partly lucid the whole time, but I had been enjoying the dream enough to let the narrative play out. Now that things were wrapping up, I remembered that I had planned to catch a fish for the TOTMs. I went around behind the building and conveniently found a stream flowing by. The water was shallow and crystal clear, so I peered in to see if I could spot any fish. What I actually saw swimming underwater were... kittens! "Actually this will make things easier," I reflected. Now I wouldn't need to bother with a fishing rod, hook, and bait. Kittens were much easier to catch! I dangled a length of ribbon over the water until a kitten surfaced and started batting at it, then lured it closer to me until I could scoop it right up in my arms. I concluded that the creature I had caught was a "catbird fish" (I'm not sure why it wasn't just a "catfish," but this was the term that seemed right at the time) and knew I should examine it closely so that I could write a clear description in my report. Once I was holding the animal, it was no longer the size of a tiny kitten but had swelled into a plump armful. It was no longer quite cat-shaped, either: now looked more like a stuffed animal with the bodily proportions of a totoro: big rounded torso and very short arms and legs. Although my "catbird fish" didn't physically resemble a fish, I sensed that there was something fishlike about its bones, even if I couldn't see them. I studied the head first, which was still cartoonishly cat-like overall, but with significant differences. The mouth was very unusual: more narrow and vertical than that of a real cat, almost beaklike the way it protruded, but with large exposed teeth. There were two large incisors on the top and bottom, but both sets of incisors were adjacent to one another in the center, more like those of a rat than a cat, but wider and flatter. After studying the mouth closely, I looked back up and saw that the round, wideset eyes were now completely white. I recalled noticing normal pupils before and wondered if they were rolled back in the head. Just when I was thinking that the creature was starting to look a bit scary, with its weird mouth and whitened eyes, suddenly it spoke up in a very friendly voice: "Hello!" I responded in kind, smiled at it, and continued my examination. It had the fur of a cat, brown tabby stripes with patches of white here and there: a white triangle on the throat and chest, a little white on the belly, and white gloves. I checked and determined that all four paws were white. After looking over the creature thoroughly, I returned the "catbird fish" to the stream. The environment had shifted around me: the stream was no longer outside, but occupied a room in a building that had put together exhibits pertaining to different countries. I wondered which country had supplied my "catbird fish," and looked around until I saw the words "This is Canada," inscribed under the surface of the stream. I wondered what other countries were being exhibited—somehow I knew there were supposed to be five of them—and if I could find any rooms with bodies of water suitable for fishing. It would be cool to catch dream fish from several different countries! I wandered around the building looking for the other exhibits, but to my disappointment, all the others were closed. I went to the front desk to ask about this, and became even more incensed when I noticed a sign informing me that the price of admission was $898.99. I complained angrily to the desk clerk: how could they justify charging so much when only one of the five exhibits was even open?! He simply pointed me to a second sign, which listed a complicated set of refunds that reduced the price of admission to only $1.25. "Oh, alright then." I figured $1.25 was a reasonable fee for the one exhibit I had seen, and was willing to pay. I had a bunch of change in my left hand, and started trying to count out five quarters into my right palm. The first few attempts inexplicably failed due to the shifting numbers and appearances of the coins. "This is really hard to do in a dream," I commented, and wondered if it would be easier if, instead of trying to shift the correct number of coins from left hand to right, I put them directly down on the desk as I counted. I started making a little pile of quarters, but had only counted out two before coins that had initially resembled quarters turned out to be square when I set them down, and I had to start a separate pile for them. The third round, quarter-sized coin that I managed to produce had a square hole in the center like those old Chinese coins, and the fourth one had three triangular holes, but by this point I realized that this would never get done if I was too much of a perfectionist. All I needed was one more vaguely quarter-shaped coin to complete my stack of five, but suddenly all the ones still in my hand appeared to be the wrong shape and size. I picked something arbitrarily to finish the stack. I was well aware of the irony of going to so much effort to pay for something in a dream, but since it was so unexpectedly challenging, I felt that it would be a good exercise to try to see it through!
Updated 08-11-2015 at 10:00 PM by 34973
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