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Fragment 1: I'm outside by a small river with a strong current. There's a grizzly bear drowning and calling to me for help. I run to the edge and pull him out of the water to safety.

Fragment 2: I'm on a stage in front of a small crowd. Minwoo pulls me close to him and we slow dance, not caring about anyone who watches.

Fragment 3: I'm sitting at a dinner table with a ton of people. Heechul is showing off all of his talents. I smile as I watch him.

Fragment 4: I'm in a hotel room with someone. We are eating. I look up and the curtain to a sliding glass door is open and people walking by can see us eat. I get up and close it.

I'm sitting in a classroom. A meeting is going on and I"m watching as an old man tries really hard to disprove veganism. He goes into a long rant about how stupid and unhealthy it is, without providing any evidence to support his claims. I'm getting more and more mad by the second. Suddenly the man stops talking and leaves the room without a word. Then Bambam and Yugyeom enter the class. Bambam takes a seat and opens a large folder. He looks through it quietly and stands up again. I looks at me and starts explaining the benefits of veganism, complete with scientific evidence and research. The more he talks the more happy I become. Then Yugyeom steps up to the front to demonstrate how veganism changes and helps the body. Be begins to dance and twist his body beautifully in a way that could only come from veganism and I'm so excited and happy to watch him dance.

Bedtime:
10:15pm
Wakeup:
7:30am

Recall wasn't so good last night, I didn't have my focus. I had a 10 hour work day, so my sleep was very deep. Did recall one solid dream though.

Dream 1
I was at a mass in a town near where I grew up, and my whole family was there. Halfway into the mass, this woman started giving a presentation, but there was some kids who were being really loud. I didn't witness exactly what happened, but the woman made these kids leave. I saw the mother gather her children and yell "Don't worry, we won't be coming back!" and she looked really angry. The next thing I know, my aunt goes up to the woman and ruins her presentation. She scribbles all over her whiteboard and says some stuff to her about how you can't just kick children out of the church. Then she realizes how embarrassing her actions were and starts crying. I get up and take her to the sacristy, and she's crying and says she was just really mad at how the woman treated that family. Then the priest comes in to talk to her, and I'm just sort of observing the whole thing. I forget what he was saying to her, but then the woman came in and she seemed really embarrassed and emotional as well. My aunt wouldn't talk to her or even look at her, and then I think we left.

Dream 2 (fragment):
This fragment is like a fake memory from high school, there's a bunch of kids from my class in a park behind my house, and we're all doing this music video with choreographed dancing and singing. I remember seeing my best friend from high school, who I haven't spoken to in years IRL, and I just remember avoiding her the whole time, even though we were still in high school and supposedly still friends. Awkward feelings...

Bedtime:
10:30pm
WBTB:
3:00am
Wakeup:
8:00am

Went to bed and didn't dream much until maybe 2:00am (I remember looking at the clock before this dream).

Dream 1
This was a FA. I "woke up" in my bed, and there was a thunder storm going on. The storm sounded really close because the thunder had that crackling sound. I got up and walked into the hallway of the apartment, and I could hear someone tap-dancing downstairs. I remember thinking "who would be tap-dancing at 2 in the morning?" If only I had done a RC!! I walked halfway through the hall and closed a door that doesn't exist IRL, and continued down the rest of the hallway. I used the bathroom, then went into the sunroom when I was finished. When I got into the sunroom, I realized that the lighting had changed, it wasn't dark anymore. The storm was still going on, but it looked like it could be afternoon. Also, the room was on the 1st floor, with very tall windows, and when I looked at where my piano should be, there was a different piano. I thought to myself "omg, am I in someone else's apartment by mistake? how did that happen?" then I woke up. I think I was on the verge of becoming lucid, because I was really questioning things, but not enough to do a RC

my WBTB alarm went off, and I attempted yet again to do a WILD, but still no luck. I even tried some visualizations, and also put headphones in and used some binaural beats.. Didn't do any good, I was just lying awake in bed. So eventually I decided to just go to sleep, because I knew I would be having my longer REM periods anyways, so I could just hope for the best and maybe I could get away with a DILD.

Dream 2
This is mostly just a fragment. It was along dream, but I don't remember much of the details. From what I remember, I was in a large building, I think it was a college of some kind. I think I was in classes, but in between I would go into this big open room, and in the middle of the room was a pit, and a piano was suspended above the pit. I would come into this room and play in between classes, but the piano was hard to reach and every time I would start playing I felt like I was going to fall into the pit. Not a very convenient set up.
Toward the end of the dream, my grandma and mom were waiting for someone in the hallway, and I went out there to talk to them. They were talking about the time when either Paul Simon or Paul McCartney recorded an album in Prague (obviously just a dream memory, not a real one). They were looking at a map, and Prague was like, in Northern China. "Wow!" they were saying, "that really in the middle of nowhere!"
I started to say goodbye to my grandma, and I asked her when I could come visit her. She said something about how my aunt was allowing us to have a horse race, so I should just come then. It didn't make sense to me but I just nodded and left.

A warm, dark evening. I was at a wedding, sitting near a table. A sister of one of girls from my class appeared and took me to dance. We both had great time, somehow dancing exceptionally good. Suddenly I found myself outside my house. It was raining heavily, something wrong was going on around as people gathered in a strange platform in the middle of my backyard, that appeared from nowhere. I saw my father's tractor standing in front of my house and felt that I should park it inside a garage. I got inside it and drove back to my frontyard, then driving around the platform in backyard I parked it.

Ritual: Was working *really* inefficiently yesterday—took me almost eight hours to finish a 22 page article (one with lots of pictures, even!) because I kept looking things up and building my powerpoint at the same time. It was already after midnight before I started reading the 50+ page article (with almost no images) that I was also supposed to finish before bed, so I crapped out at 2:30am without getting it done. I woke at 8am and continued reading in bed, then napped again at 9am—so it became an inadvertant WBTB. Woke at 10:15 after this amazing dream, so I guess all the stress and angst paid off (though it is now 11:15am after writing up my account, and I am no closer to finishing that article! Yikes!)

Earlier NLD: Some interesting features actually. I'm in what I take to be the sheriff's office of a small lakeside town. The building is rustic and wooden. I am one of the cops, a man like the others. They're all macho, gruff, with mustaches. I notice a small boat in the lake just off shore. Although it looks like an innocent fishing expeditiion, I have a definite premonition of what is coming next. I know that someone is lying prone in that boat with a gun pointed toward us, and there are other shooters positioned strategically nearby, and any minute now they're going to fire. I know my colleagues brought this on themselves so I leave them to their fate, diving into a side room and locking the door. There's a random guy in here so I tell him to get down, we're going to be under fire. Meanwhile I make use of whatever time I have left to arrange the furniture to better blockade us, turning the tables and chairs over so that we can crouch behind them like shields. All of this feels like it has happened before—not in the vague sense of deja vu, but a very concrete and specific way like when you replay an encounter in a video game. For this reason I know that if we just position ourselves correctly and keep our heads low enough, we'll make it through this. The bullets start flying. I feel one zing very close to the left side my body, provoking a strange vibration. Did it hit me? Not quite. My sense of repetition is so strong that after the bullets stop, I predict even before lifting my head that I will see a bullet hole in the lower right hand corner of the window behind me. I turn around and there it is, just as I had predicted (not so astonishing in a dream, after all, but I hadn't realized I was dreaming yet). I pull out my phone and snap a picture of it to document this remarkable event before going back outside. I decide the only sensible thing to do is slip out of town immediately, so I take a side path through someone's backyard.

DEILD: Around this time the dream destabilizes enough that I become lucid. I wonder if I can restabilize and continue. I remember the principle I've devised for this: don't worry about visuals, focus on physical movement. Tactile integration is what is needed, then the visuals will re-establish themselves naturally. I dance my way back into full dream state. Now what? I remember my goal to continue with the TOTYs, and decide to try the Unicorn task.

I set my will to summoning a unicorn and soon see a suitable animal galloping toward me down a lane that bisects the fields. This is no ethereal being, but a sturdily built strawberry roan that just happens to have a horn on its head. I found a picture online that gives a good sense of the coat color, only in mine the red hues were more pronounced across the top of its rump.



After it reaches me, I realize I don't actually know how to climb on a tall horse bareback, so I command it to kneel so that I can get astride. Now we need to find a portal and travel to another land, but I had a plan for this: I've been wanting to visit the Wood Between the World.

I canter the roan unicorn back down the path it came from, priming my expectations to see a pool of water as we round the corner. We get halfway around and I still don't see water, but I keep my anticipation high. There it is, after all! I didn't see it at first because it is a very small pond, not much more than ten feet across, but sufficient for my task. "The Wood Between the World," I murmur, imagining what it will look like as I canter up to the pool and have the unicorn jump in. Although I've done my best to maintain conviction, we splash into the pool and... now the unicorn is standing in water up to its knees. We haven't gone anywhere.

This portal was a bust, so decide to look for another, passing a group of teenagers as I leave. I travel down the road until I find myself in what looks to be a luggage store room, like the kind you might find in a train station. The oddest thing is how familiar it looks: I have the distinct impression that I remember this place from an earlier dream this very night, but I can't tell if it is false memory or true. Nothing useful here, but as I leave I spot the group of teenagers again, and ride up to them. I ask if they know of any portals nearby. They mention the pool.

"I already tried that one, but it didn't work." The kids confirmed that, yeah, they don't work anymore, the magic is too weak. But the magic may not be gone entirely—one kid points out that if you stand near the pool and the background music fades, you can still hear something. This brings my attention to the music. I hadn't been paying attention to it, but a song has been playing in the background all along since I became lucid, like a soundtrack. It is a woman singing in a foreign language—it reminds me of the second half of the song "Bjarkan" from Wardruna's album Gap Var Ginnunga, which would make sense, because that's the main thing I've been listening to lately.

The kids can't think of any way to strengthen the portal magic, so I ask if they know of any other portals nearby. They point back across the field and tell me to look for a small shack. I ride over and find the door slightly ajar, so I go in. The door swings shut and clicks behind me—it seems to have automatically locked. Nevermind, I was planning to use this as a portal anyway. How do I pass through? Maybe I should stand here astride the unicorn and let the environment around us shift phase. I begin to try to reimagine my surroundings... but I am interrupted by a cry of alarm.

It comes from a young couple, a boy and girl, who had apparently been making out in a sort of nook or loft halfway up the side wall of this shack. They are startled by my presence and furious when they discover that I have accidentally locked the door. "We'll die in here!" wails the girl. I look around. This shack wasn't built of terribly sturdy materials, I'm sure we can find a way out, even if we have to dismantle it. Distracted by the unexpected crisis, I forget about portalling and even forget that a locked door should be no barrier to me as a dreamer.

"This wasn't designed as a prison, we'll find something." I reassure them. I look around carefully and notice an opening halfway up the side wall in one corner. It's six or seven feet up: all we have to do is climb to it, then jump over a gap of a few feet to the low flat roof of an adjacent shed. I dismount and give the girl, Sarah, a boost to help her climb up. Next I go to help the boy, Tom. His head is now attached to a long pole, like a broomstick, instead of a body, so this is easy: I pick up the pole and pass it through the opening to Sarah. Now my cat is here for some reason and also needs rescuing, but there is a paper grocery bag handy, so I put the cat in the bag and try to hand that across to Sarah. Suddenly uncooperative, Sarah threatens to dump my cat out of the bag. I am flabbergasted. Why would she suddenly turn against me?

"But I showed you the way out and helped you!" I protest. Sarah and Tom are unsympathetic; it is clear that they feel no obligation to return the favor. My annoyance reminds me what I am capable of. After all, there was another way this task could go—that wasn't how I planned to do it, but now that I've been provoked, maybe that's how this will play out. I look back at the door, remembering the classic "Knock" spell from D&D. "Unlock," I command, pointing at the door, and the latch obediently clicks open. I get back on the unicorn and walk calmly out. Tom and Sarah, who have just climbed down from the shed, are astounded to see this. They are even more shocked when the unicorn gores Sarah through the chest with its horn, tossing her body aside like a limp rag. Tom watches in horror, and then his turn comes. Despite my scruples about killing, once I felt that these DCs had justified it by their treachery, I dispatch them without hesitation or remorse. Instead, I find myself wondering if my unicorn will be transformed by this dreadful act—I was envisioning something like the "bog unicorn" in Dragon Age: Inquisition—but it remains a roan horse with a spiral horn protruding from its head.

Okay, apparently now I'm committed to the murder version of the task, so I need a third victim. [Note: I was mistaken about this; the task only required two.] I remember that earlier in the NLD I had encountered some unpleasant people in town, so I ride back in that direction. On the way, I see a number of people working outdoors. I reflect how easy it would be to pick one at random... but that would be wrong. I can't just run up to a random DC and spear them, unprovoked. I do try to maintain *some* ethical standards.

The people working outside resemble medieval peasants. Actually the whole scene has become more medieval in appearance. Just past the peasants I see the remnants of an old ruined stone structure, reduced to its foundations and a few half-standing walls. Congregating around it are men that I take to be warriors. They have brown or red hair, some balding, and many flaunt long beards decorated with bands and beading. I ride up without attracting any attention. What if I just pick the most evil one? "Show me a rapist," I instruct the dream. Surely among a band of what appear to be tribal warriors from some feudal period there must be no shortage of those, given that it was a standard aspect of warfare in many early societies. So I'd better be more specific: "Show me the worst one." The results are inconclusive: I look over the men again and there is no clear candidate.

I recall D&D includes a spell that can be used to check alignment. Maybe I can frame it this way? I instruct the dream to reveal the most evil person by making them glow. Now I see one: the glow surrounds a burly guy with his back to me, looking out over the water. He has short brown hair shaved into a distinctive flat line where it meets his neck, and his head is bare on top, either bald or shaved. As I approach, he moves away and I lose sight of him, the glow fading. I study the crowd but since I only saw the guy from behind at a distance, it is hard to be sure which one he is. I don't want to pick the wrong guy. I attempt to cast the spell again, but now the glow seems to be targeting someone else. While trying to sort out this confusion, I spy something across the field, even better—no, perfect!

It is a jousting tournament!

The jousting is already under way, but I ride up and boldly demand to enter the lists. The organizers comply without too much fuss. But I also have demands to make about my opponent: "I wish to find the most immoral among the contenders."

Meanwhile, the more honorable among the knights point out that without a saddle I will surely be unhorsed. Worse, without the protection of armor or a shield, the lance will surely pierce and kill me. I shrug off their objections, thinking that without saddle or armor maybe I can do some stunt riding and duck down to the side, avoiding the lance entirely. After all, my intention is not to strike my opponent with a lance—my unicorn's horn must fulfill that function to complete the task.

I continue to insist that I be matched against the most immoral of the prospective opponents. There is some debate about who that should be. A man wearing ecclesiastical robes and a cross seems to be the top choice, which makes sense given everything I've heard about the medieval church. I realize that this is all taking a very long time and add to my demands:

"Also, I demand to go next!"

The organizers comply with this too. My bout is set up. But I'm not entirely happy with what I see. Facing me at the other end of the lists is a tall black woman on foot, wielding a club in each hand. This isn't what I had in mind: she is not even a jouster! And I sense that she is clearly not the right match: did they assume she was immoral from a medieval sense of racism or xenophobia? Or is she immoral in the fun kind of way, a free-spirited woman who lives large? Either or both seemed likely. This wasn't what I was looking for. If I have to dispatch someone, I prefer that they be genuinely evil.

"No, this is not the right opponent!" I protest. "I mean, who is the most immoral to the people?" There is no response at first. I have the impression that people are intimidated from replying aloud, so I ride up close to the audience in the stands and ask again. Listening closely, I hear a whispered name: "Lüsswig." I ride along the stands and the whispers of "Lüsswig... Lüsswig..." are unmistakable, repeated everywhere by people trying to speak anonymously under their breath.

I return to the center of the lists and announce: "I shall fight Lüsswig!"

Lüsswig turns out to be a guy wearing a long grey cloak with a hood that is closed in the front, completely covering his face. He removes the hood, revealing himself to be a man with short dark brown hair and full cheeks covered with several days worth of stubble. A smug, sinister smile spreads across his face at the prospect of the coming match. [Note: I've spent a long time trying to figure out who Lüsswig resembled, and the best I can come up with is a badly shaven Jonathan Frakes.]

"Yes, this is a better choice," I declare. His glee is slightly unnerving—he clearly thinks he will best me. I mentally prepare myself by deciding that it must be his destiny to die by unicorn.

We take our places at opposite ends of the tilt and... I can feel the dream fading... oh fuck fuck I was so close... hold it together, surely I can... no, I'm in my body, in my bed, it's gone. Lüsswig you bastard... I guess you win after all.

I can only assume this will augment Lüsswig's dastardly reputation. Stories will spread of the mysterious unicorn rider who disrupted the jousting tournament, arrogantly demanding to fight the most evil of men, but then fled the moment she realized was it was Lüsswig!

Notes: So close! So very very close to completing the unicorn task! I could have finished easily had I taken the practical (but vicious) route and chosen a third victim at random. But no, I had to be honorable and look for someone who *deserved* it...

Oh! Oh! I just looked up the terms of the task. For once I misremembered the details to my benefit—I thought I needed to murder three DCs, but now I see it was only two. So I did it after all! And then my mistaken conviction that I needed a third actually led to some pretty cool extra scenes.

There was this man, fitted in a old-fashioned tuxedo, with a very white face, white gloves, and slicked back black hair. The lower half of his body is a giant spider, the chitin as slick and shiny as the silk of his waistcoat.
He's on a hardwood scene, under a very bright spotlight that glitter off the joints of his spinnery legs. He's dancing, his four eyes closed as he listens to music I can't hear. It's eerie, graceful, the tips of his legs ticking on the wooden floor like rain on a roof.

Ritual: Last night's moment of lucidity made me crave good dreaming again, but I woke up after six hours with nothing but a few shreds of bland and wan memory. Determined to do better, I dug out the silent vibrating alarm I was using last year for my DEILD experiments and strapped it to my wrist. I set the timer for 33 minutes at first, so I would likely be asleep by the time it went off, but after lying awake for about half that time reset it for 17 minutes. I reminded myself that it would be fine if I was still awake when it went off, a good opportunity to re-familiarize myself with the sensation I was anticipating and to RC. I did feel the pulse once before I fell asleep; afterwards, given that another 45 minutes went by before I woke up, it must have gone off a couple times that I didn't notice. However, I did get lucid, even though the timing suggests that the onset was not triggered by the vibration, because when I finally woke up the alarm was 30 seconds from going off again, and I don't think the dream lasted that long (though I could be wrong about that). This would be consistent with my other experiments with this technique: it works, but not in the way one might expect. Rather than directly inducing an awareness of the dream state with its signal, it seems to be rather that the anticipation of the alarm serves as an anchor for the attention that makes it easier to transition directly into dream. Consequently, rather than a DILD I had a WILD.

I knew I must have transitioned when I realized I was holding a piece of paper in my hands. I used the paper to better integrate by running it between my fingers and being attentive to the lifelike sensations. They were vivid enough that I figured I should just get up out of bed, even though my vision hadn't kicked in fully yet and everything was dim and blurry. Since there are bookcases right next to my bed in WL and my intention was to do this month's Basic Task i, the moment I was on my feet I started examining the books. My vision was no better overall, but I could see well enough in the area of my primary focus. Reading was surprisingly easy as well, although the words themselves did not always remain stable, sometimes changing into new ones right before my eyes.

I read a half dozen book titles right away, some better than others, but none so striking that I felt like putting special effort into memorizing them. I hoped a few might stick with me naturally, but unfortunately I didn't remember any of them on waking. After browsing the books in the bedroom for a while, I moved out to the kitchen, where I have more bookshelves (there are books almost everywhere in my house). I continued reading titles, trying to find a really good one for the task. Finally after moving on to a second shelf in the kitchen I found what I was looking for. The book was a slim hardcover, about 9"x11" and 3/4 inch thick. The cover had a glossy sheen and was white in the upper half and a darker color, grey perhaps, in the lower half. In the very center, where the colors met, was the word: "REVOLIOTUN" in red and black stylized capital letters. I took note of how it appeared to be the word "revolution" with some of the letters transposed. I wasn't sure if this was part of the title or designated something else, like the series, publisher, or maybe just a cover design, since the actual title seemed to be printed below this in the lower half of the cover. The title was David Bowie's Dreams: Naked in Flight. This tickled me, especially given his recent passing, and I knew it was the one I wanted to bring back for the task.

I set my mind on remembering that book, but glanced at a few more for good measure. There was one small paperback titled Blue Skulls Book that struck me, but that's the only other title I can remember.

Now that I had completed the task, I wondered if I should wake and write immediately, but it seemed a waste of good dream state. Was it really that good, though? My vision was still terrible. "Then maybe I should work on that," I told myself reprovingly. So I looked out the kitchen window and tried to clean up my vision. "Just open your eyes," I instructed myself. "But be careful not to open your real eyes!" I actually did have a sensation like my eyes were opening, and suddenly my vision cleared up beautifully! I looked out the window and was startled by the amazing color and clarity of the landscape, a wide grassy expanse bordered by distant hills, so unlike my actual concrete pool patio. The vision from my left eye was perfect, but my right eye faded in and out: it kept feeling like something was covering it, which I tried to brush away with my fingers as though it were an errant lock of hair. I realized that it was probably the bleedthrough sensation from the way my face was pressed into my pillow (I was able to confirm this on waking) and decided I'd better do my best to ignore it.

The beauty of the outdoors lured me, so I stepped through the sliding screen door into this marvelous dreamscape, and immediately felt my heart fill with joy. I wondered if I should plan to do anything in particular, but decided no, it was enough just to look around and drink in the sights, now that I could see so clearly. As I moved over the ground, I was more dancing than walking for the sheer pleasure of it. Momentarily I wondered if I should be careful not to accidently blunder into any WL obstacles I couldn't see, but then had to remind myself, this isn't like google cardboard: I'm not just surrounded by an illusory overlay on the real world, this is a whole world in its own right.

"This is my favorite world!" I murmured in fervent appreciation, then caught myself. That seemed like a radical statement. Was it really true? I reflected for a moment and had to admit that it was. I felt a bit sorry for the real world—how could it compare to this? As I looked around, marveling at the beauty of my surroundings, my eye was caught by a brighter spot in the dream sky, a white disk surrounded by intensified illumination, like the sun filtering through a haze. For some reason this struck me as remarkable, and I thought back and couldn't remember ever seeing a sun in my dream sky before. Unlike the unpleasant brightness of the real sun, this one I could gaze at directly.

I wandered across the lawn until I discovered a large headstone. It had the traditional rounded shape but was very wide, maybe three or four feet tall and five or six in width. I was pleased to discover that I could read the chiseled inscription very clearly: "THE EARLY DEATHS OF BLAKE GRACE." The name meant nothing to me, but what particularly caught my attention was the plural, "deaths." How could he or she have died more than once? Oh well, in the dream world, I suppose anything is possible.

Encountering the tombstone hadn't diminished my joy in the slightest. I still felt radiantly happy, even when I glanced down and noticed that I was standing on a carved piece of stone that covered the grave itself, like the lid of a sarcophagus. "I hope I'm not disturbing the inhabitant!" I thought amiably, and stepped off the stone, watching closely to see if it would move, on the off-chance that the corpse might decide to rise from the grave in indignation. Even this possibility did not dampen my mood; I felt fully capable of dealing with such an eventuality, should it occur. But the dead slept. I felt compassion for the person buried here and thought I should make up for my accidental insult by doing something to honor the grave. In the hollow of one of the carvings toward the foot of the stone was an accumulation of gravel on which an uprooted mushroom was lying. I picked up the mushroom and tried to set it upright, pushing the stem into the gravel to help it stand up. The surface of the mushroom was starting to rot, but the sight filled me with a sense of tender compassion, much like the grave itself.

After this I decided that it was probably time to wake up, since I didn't want to risk wandering off and forgetting the book title and the engraving on the headstone. Since I was waking myself up deliberately, I was able to get ready and do it in a very controlled way. As the dream began to fade into void, I grabbed a pen and got ready to start writing in the notebook next to my bed the moment I transitioned, until I realized how ridiculous this was. There was no point in picking up a dream pen—it wouldn't save me any time—I would still have to move my physical arm and grab the physical pen once I actually woke up! What a hassle!

Morning of August 18, 2015. Tuesday.



This was after my most interesting dream of this date. In this case, it seems Zsuzsanna and I are within an “invisible” geodesic dome (one of the main settings for higher levels of communication, it seems) which is quite large. It would have to be to contain an entire carnival within. The carnival is apparently “closed”. It is late at night. There are blue lights here and there that provide minimal illumination.

My wife and I walk along, half walking, half dancing, so cheerful, not caring that no one is operating this rather odd carnival. At one point, I see a “roller coaster” moving about (though eventually actually more like a monorail) that is actually seemingly alive, glowing a sort of lighter green in contrast to the lights. A giant robotic spider “ride” walks around on its own for a short time, but is no threat in any way. (I even think I hear a human-like groan from it.) Still, there are no signs of any other people (yet).

The fortune-teller booth (from “Batman Forever”) sits in one area. We acknowledge it humorously but minimally as we go around in a somewhat circular path. We puzzle at it as being everyman. It cannot seem to make up its mind about where it wants to “go”. It laughs eerily and artificially but cannot move out of the booth as only its fake arm sways back and forth randomly. It seems “stuck” in its one sad little “role”.

The song “Bad Days” (by the Flaming Lips) plays over and over eventually and our dance-walk seems even more cheerful.

“You’re sorta stuck where you are, But in your dreams you can buy expensive cars, Or live on Mars, And have it your way…”

The watermelon scene in the music video reminds me so much of home…

“In your dreams, Show no mercy…”

Oh sure, it is an awful, terrible song, with awful, terrible music, but it is such a charming novelty and reminds me of the first couple of years I spent with Zsuzsanna.

The “fortune teller” comes out of the booth, now a real man for the first time ever, somewhat chubby and gray-haired, it seems, and dressed normally, informally. He snaps his fingers, kicks his heels, and walks up an elevated path over a hill (seemingly westward). I know that we will never see him again and I never see his face, and he never turns to look back at us.

“And all your bad days will end, You have to sleep late when you can, And all your bad days will end”…

Someone is knocking on 104. Knocking. Knocking. Knocking on the door (just like in the music video at that part of the song). Someone is knocking on our door at 104. (In real life, same number, exact time - synchronized with my dream’s residual rhythm.) It is a parcel delivery for our oldest daughter, which she soon gets.

I have slept later than usual as the real knocking on 104 wakes me.

Oh, Source, you so funny.

Disembodied, I'm standing on the second floor, looking over a railing down at the main hall of this three-floor antebellum mansion filled with women waltzing to Que Sera, Sera. There's men here too, but they might as well be props, they're not what I'm here to see. A fire breaks out with no apparent cause, and I recognize what moment in time this must be; the fire here is a reflection of what's happening in reality in the place where they're sleeping. One of the women is caught in the fire and starts screaming. And then the fire's gone, and she's fine, and they go back to dancing. Though they're not aware of it, the end of the fire signified the end of their connection with reality; their sleeping bodies have died, and they won't be able to leave this dream world.

There My Thongs Ya Wanker
I'm at the shops and I'm coming down some stairs to leave. I see some Asian looking guy slip my thongs on. I ask him what the hell is he doing and have a go at him. He walks off in shame. I call him a wanker as he leaves. I see that he wasn't too happy with the comment and doesn't want to leave the situation. As I get down the stairs I'm confronted by his brothers. They're all similar looking, maybe even twins. I'm standing my ground but starting to feel a bit intimidated. I tell them I was angry which made me abuse him. Everything eventually gets sort out. I walk passed them moments later and it feels we have all moved on with what happened.

I'm in another area of the shopping centre. I see my brother, he's hiding from a friend of his. I walk close to where his hiding. I hear a song, maybe a mjay song. I begin bobbing around having a bit of fun. Some guy in the distance is having a bit of a laugh. While still dancing, I try and limbo a sign but can't do it. A lady in her shop sees me and comes over and tries to sell me stuff. There's a game in there that has limbo in it. Brooke Alford comes over and I tell her about the lady coming over when I started doing limbo. I try the limbo again and succeed this time.

The Huntsman
I'm in a room with some people and someone lets a huntsman spider out into the room. I watch the spider paralyze a more deadlier spider. It walks over towards
It and towers over it. The other spider must go into intense fear and paralyzed it. The other people shrivels up as it's taken by the huntsman.
There's a bed in the middle of the room and it's been put on the extra folded up blanket that's laying on the bed. I'm feeling a little uneasy with knowing a spider is roaming around the room. Someone is moving something towards the spider to try and get a reaction from it. The spider pounces to give out a warning. I can now see the spider close up. It's fangs are lighting up with an orange/red glow. At one point it seemed to be shooting light out of it.

I'm near the wall doing something.

Holiday Park Surf
With Josh at a holiday park. I see some surf in the distance. It looks pretty choppy as if it's in the middle of the ocean. Drew decides to go out into the water with a few others. I think about going out but feel it's too cold.

I'm in a room with Josh and There's some girls there also. We're talking to them about something. Inspiring them some how.

Dream Fragments
1. A guy tells me about his acting gig he got in the states. I see a scene of him acting. He's talking with an accent in the scene. I don't rate his acting ability too good.

2. I got some fresh dates out of the fridge.

3. Having a play around wrestling match on the street. There's a few teams doing it.

#425 - DILD - 7:14AM

After the last LD I try meditating again, but fall asleep.

I am in some restaurant and there is food and trash all over the carpet. Someone tells me to get in uniform and help clean. I take a snapchat of the mess. I am in uniform and I walk into another part to see how I can help, but I see things are mostly managed now. I pass what I think is a manager. I try covering the company emblem on my shirt as I pass. I feel stupid for putting the uniform on and wish I could change.

I realize that I am on a cruise ship and I look for my sister Angie who is always going on cruises. I step outside on to the deck and look around. The ship is massive and looks like a small town. I see the water beyond and get vertigo as I realize were actually moving. I say to my wife, "You really do forget that you're on a boat." We all move toward the very tip of the bow and watch the water. We are coming into a bay area with high cliffs. There is what looks like a hill in the water and is mostly wet sand. We somehow power up it and I see water trying to flood the stern. As we level out, I see everyone has come outside. They all start cheering and clapping. The ship starts to dock, but bumps into something. I think of the Titanic and worry. A jet of water pushes the ship sideways and a voice says something about trying again. Then, I see a large rusted steel bar in front of the ship. Something like a dinosaur neck and head extends from someplace behind me. It latches on the bar and chews on it. It acts to stabilize and dock the ship. A voice says something about the dinosaur sharpening it's teeth this way, but it leaves a black residue. The dino turns and shows us its grayish, nubby teeth.

I am now laying on the floor next to some other guys in football uniforms paired with cheerleaders in wedding dresses in a pattern. The rest of the team comes in and wonders what's going on. This is a pep rally and we got roped into being apart of the performance. Music starts and we all get up and start some synchronized dancing. Of course, me and half the others have no idea what we are doing and do our best to keep up. The lyrics say, "Dance with me. Dance with me." So me and another cheerleader who looks a lot like Anna Kendrick start slow dancing. I am overly aware of the feel of her close to me, one arm around her waist, and her hand in my other. We are both feeling awkward and stop dancing. We laugh and both admit that we had no idea what we were doing. The song stops and we turn and sit close to each other on the floor. I am glad she stayed next to me. My old high school buddy Jason his on stage with a band. He's saying stuff to get the crowd excited and is generally acting way out of character. I start thinking about how dumb I felt during the dancing and wonder how I even got myself in this situation. I think something about the next time I am in a dream... Wait this IS a dream! I am a little unsure about this thought at first, but it only takes a millisecond to realize it's true. The dream starts crashing so I do the only thing I could think of to stabilize. I turn to the very hot Anna Kendrick look-a-like and resume dancing with her. Of course, this time I am much more confident and our dancing becomes dirty and we grind while I feel her up. This soon turns into sex and the hottie turns into my ex-wife. I lose my arousal and wonder, WHY? OH GOD WHY? I then realize it's a part of my past and just a memory. I appreciate it for what it is and the good times we once had. I let the scene play it self out without taking control or making decisions. I wake up.

Taylor Swift is giving a performance. She points at me, choosing me to come and dance too. Surprised, I go up and start dancing across from her, singing quietly along with the song. I wonder if she’d let me do some singing. I’m wearing a knee-length skirt and it flows around me. I try to mimic her moves.

After, she tells me I was a bit slow, but I didn’t realize I was supposed to be keeping up or anything.

Then, she takes me and a few other chosen people to a clothes store. She turns around and asks me if I shaved. I say ‘yes, of course’, only to stop and actually think about it. Did she mean underarms and legs, or-? I hope that my skirt hadn’t flipped up while I was dancing.

She starts looking through shirts for us, and she holds up this one and says she thinks it’s too big for any of us, but it actually looks too small, for me at least.

I see a few of my shirts sitting on top of some hangers and think there’s some reason for it – saving them for later or something. But then I see three shirts hanging on hangers that I know are mine and shouldn’t be there. I get upset and go over to take them back, pushing side a guy who was standing there before he can take them.

Later at night while lying in bed, I wonder what Taylor thought when I suddenly disappeared, and I didn’t know how to contact her to let her know what happened. Twitter maybe?

Inspirations: Seeing the mention of Taylor Swift in someone else’s dream?

Circumstances have caused a woman to temporarily move in with me; we're not romantically entangled in any way. At the moment I'm cooking breakfast and she's sitting at the table - she's asked for eggs benedict. I'm mentioning some gadget that was around in the 50s for cooking breakfast that I'd liked, I don't know why they don't make that one anymore.

As we're talking, at some point I make a reference to something else that had happened in the 50s, and she gets the reference and responds as if she was also there. The character side of me doesn't take notice of this, but the dreamer side of me finds it odd that she got that reference - I take this as an indication that she's also, if not immortal, at least significantly older than her appearance. It's also clear that she knows I'm not human, though the character side of me doesn't know she knows.

When I bring the food to the table, I say something to her and she responds with yes, father, and then immediately looks embarrassed. The character side of me takes it as a joke in response to what I'd just said to her - but the dreamer side of me is thinking, that explains it.

I'm dancing with a different woman in my apartment. She's got short black hair in this 20s finger wave look, deliberately trying to recreate that look from the past, but this is the 1990s, and she's mortal. The dreamer side of me thinks of the song we're listening to as 'bland, inoffensive 90s romance music.' She's describing some kind of dull pain that lasts for weeks on end, and asks if I can imagine living like that, expecting the answer to be no. I have, actually. I try to describe the actual sensation without being specific about the setting, but she figures it out immediately and gets excited: "The Inquisition? You were there?" She always gets excited about these big name historical events she's read about, and they're never the parts worth remembering.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

Someone of no immediately identifiable gender, who has been on the road for a very long time, parks their truck outside my IRL home and starts to eat lunch, clearly believing that no one is around here during the daytime. When they see me watching them from the window they start to leave, but I stop them, telling them I don't mind them stopping here.

Unfortunately, the dream apparently took that as an open invitation. While I'm outside talking to them, a great deal of people walk into the house - a married couple under the misimpression that it's theirs now and all their relatives. When I confront them they quickly accept that an error has been made, but they still keep standing around in the house. Telling them to get out does nothing.

So I rephrase, framing it as a narrative instead of a command. "And the people walked out of the house."

And giving no indication that they've heard me, as if it's their own idea, they all turn and start making their way out of the house. I'm pleased by how easy and effective that was compared to trying to control through commands - admittedly I hadn't put any mental force behind the command here, but there wasn't any mental effort involved in the narrative approach either. They're moving more slowly than I'd like, so I continue narrating. "It's a beautiful day, so they all decided to go outside." I'm curious whether the weather will respond to that - it doesn't seem to, but then it was decent weather to begin with. They're all outside now, but they're milling around outside the door. "They all decided to go to the park to catch up with their relatives." They start moving toward the road, and the women closest to me have started discussing some cousin they haven't seen in a while. This is really wonderfully effective, I'll have to remember that in the future.

A human wandered into our territory and due to an accident, got stuck here. He's spent the past few days trying to figure out a way out of this, but right now he's relaxing with us. He's taken some of the things out of his luggage and has been showing us how they work, and now he's putting on a demonstration. He's a performer, a dancer, and he's showing us what he'd been working on before the accident got him stuck here. A woman's joining him, he gave her a costume to wear, a white dress. The man directly to my left is in charge of starting the music at his signal; he's been spending more time with this guy than any of the rest of us except the woman he's dancing with, so he's learned how to make records work. The rest of us are sitting around on the rocks in a circle, watching.

In the center of the clearing below us, he and the woman take each other's hands as if starting a formal dance. He repositions her closer to him, and she 'laughs' and 'says' that they're going to be dancing right on top of each other this way - in quotes because we don't use sound to 'talk,' though the laughing expression/gesture is the same.

He starts to lead her through the dance. The dreamer side of me recognizes this as a sort of mix of an old court dance with modern sensibilities; the same could be said for the dress he gave her to wear, a sort of fantasy version of medieval clothes, very much a costume. From this perspective, it's clear that this was a dance designed for a specific performance, but the dream character side of me is under the vague misimpression that this is just how his people dance to celebrate things. Either way, I'm enjoying watching.

His actions are oddly tentative, uncertain, more so than hers though he's the one teaching. I find that hesitation fun to watch, too. I'm also aware that this is the moment when he started to doubt whether he wanted to leave at all - so of course his immediate reaction was to become even more determined to get out as soon as possible.

(The next two dreams after waking up and going back to sleep were also on the subject of dances and concerts.)