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Dream recall from today's naps.

Nap #1(fragment):

At some point in dream i was in my room and i was standing and staring at the wall. I spontaneously realize that i am dreaming, some weird voice keeps repeating word "Nila", and i can't move for some reason. Shortly dream fades to black before i can do anything. Voice still repeating that word and i try to visualize some other place but shortly i feel somebody's hands on my shoulders. Some other voice starts saying something along the lines "You will wake up, you will wake up right now"( ), i say "No" while still trying to change location and move, but shortly i indeed wake up.

Nap #2(fragments):

I was at home and there was something weird happening. I was busy in the bathroom, but some family member was interrupting and annoying me. Then everyone left and i was looking in the window. At the street, somebody was driving huge truck like crazy, ramming everything and causing total destruction. I decided to go outside and check it out. He did managed to crash the truck to the point of it not working, but even after that he was never giving up and was still trying to destroy everything by throwing some heavy objects. There were also alot of construction workers around trying to repair everything. Then building and nearby trees were set on fire and burned out.

I was really going for the "sand" trick that I used in The Sands of the Colosseum but I never could figure out how to capitalize on it. I need to learn to be a bit more flexible and much less fearful of the dark. Given what I've learned, all of that concern about the dark is nothing but a bad habit. This was a good learning experience though!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #82: Afraid of the Dark

I believe that this was a DILD, but my first memory is of being lucid in a huge, empty office space with plain white walls, harsh fluorescent lighting, and blue-gray industrial carpet. It looks like a place where there'd normally be a cubicle farm, but the floor is totally clear.

I'm happy to be lucid, but I want a new location. I want to perform the "sand trick", which involves focusing on the floor and rubbing it until I'm convinced that my hands are digging through sand. I start crawling around on the floor, find myself a spot, and start rubbing.

Nothing happens at first, so I focus harder on the thought that this is sand. Unfortunately, I'm looking right at industrial carpet and the thought won't go away. Finally a bunch of disgusting dust and dirt puffs up from the carpet and blows around, but it's not what I'm looking for. I try for a while longer but I feel myself becoming obsessed.

I get up and notice a set of doors in a far-off wall. I run over to it, place my hand on the doorknob, and imagine that the Colosseum is on the other side. I throw the doors open and instead of the Colosseum I see a darkened warehouse. I can't see in too far but I do make out a few scattered cardboard boxes.

"Too dark", I think. "Not going in there." I close the door, think about the Colosseum, and open it again. This time the boxes are gone and the room looks even darker.

I give up, close the door, and follow the wall to a closet-like cubby hole. I crawl around in here and again try to produce sand from the carpet. Even though this cubby is set off to the side, the lighting is unbearably harsh and I just produce more puffs of dust, like the carpet needs a good vacuuming. I try to close my eyes but they won't comply. It seems like this office scene is burned into my brain.

I jump to my feet and run around a bit, doing a quick dive-roll just for kicks. I round a corner and find one of my Siberian Huskies locked in a big cage. He whimpers and paws at the door. I fumble around for a latch but don't see anything.



I'm preparing to open the crate via telekenesis when Wife appears from behind me and says, "Oh here, let me take care of that!" I almost tell her that I'm having a lucid dream but I figure that she already knows. She crouches down and starts working the lock. I make the mistake of waiting around and lose lucidity.

The lock pops open and our dog comes bounding out. He runs past us and buries his face into a used-up paint can that's nearby. I look to see what he's doing and am horrified to see that he's happily chowing down on a couple of dead roaches. I'm about to tell him to stop but Wife hugs him around the neck and says, "Oh, such a good boy!!" I feel ill. Still, I decide to let it go because he's probably hungry.

Wife wanders over to a nearby window and I follow her. There are a pair of laser gun emplacements on the window sill. We each take one and she points across the dark city to a tall office building. Wooden boxes float silently out of the office building, flying off to destinations unknown. Wife explains: "Those boxes have dangerous cell phones in them that will give people cancer." We start firing our laser cannons at the evil cell phones, destroying as many boxes as we can. We get most of them but, I'm sorry to say, many get through. The dream ends...

This was a fun little WILD and attempt at Advanced Task of the Month. It's been a while since I've had to navigate my house and I'd forgotten how challenging it can be. Darkness seems to lurk around every corner and I'm always trying to just get out. Couldn't do that for this Task of the Month -- had to head further in.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #78: The DreamViews Drive

I'm getting consistent hypnagogic imagery of the den of our house, so I feel like I'm getting close. I focus on staying aware, and after a few more flashes of the den, a fully three-dimensional picture emerges. I will myself to roll off of the couch, and my dream body complies. I check my hands and feet and everything looks normal. No extra fingers or troll feet. The carpet feels very realistic as well and I mentally confirm that there's no reason I would have fallen asleep downstairs.

I give the coffee table a little shove with my foot and it glides over the carpet. Okay, now I'm really sure it's a dream. I walk through the den past my computer, stepping on a bunch of the kids' toys as I go. Strangely, there's a laundry basket in the middle of the floor. I give the laundry basket a hefty kick and it goes sailing into the air and flies straight out the window. I'm quite amused with myself.

Outside there's just a hint of light, like it's the early morning. I don't think it's possible that the sun's up yet, but it makes me feel more urgent and focused. Since I'm in the house, I want to find the note that I left for myself for Advanced Task of the Month. I have to get back up to our bedroom. I wonder whether I'll find myself there. The thought of my sleeping body makes me feel a little wobbly, so I imagine instead that Wife is lying in the bed by herself. I wonder whether Wife's DC will be interested in "victory celebrations" if I can complete Advanced Task of the Month. (Menthol, is that you?)

I walk through the kitchen, dining room, and den, past the pool table to the stairs. For a moment I think about trying a pool shot, but decide that I'd better stay focused. I'm pleased that the baby gate is missing from the bottom of the stairs. Halfway up, though, I see that this dream house has the baby gate installed in the middle of the stairs. "That's not real," I think, and phase through it.

The upstairs looks really, really dark. I notice a light switch on the wall next to me. I try both of the switches several times, but each of them just controls the air conditioner instead of the lights! Every time I flip one of them, the air conditioning rumbles to life and I feel a light stir of wind.

I'm not sure what to do, so I just charge ahead. The darkness starts to get really bad, and I realize that I'm about to lose the dream. I grab onto the banister as darkness sweeps over me. I produce a gladius in my right hand and start swinging it around in the void, still clutching the banister. I stay like this for quite some time, not losing the dream but also not going anywhere. It feels like at least 30 seconds. I fail to formulate a good transition to a new scene (or a way back into the existing scene), and I either fade to black or lose lucidity...

It's a clear morning. Wife and I are in a car, pulling up to a two-story brick house to pick up my best friend F. F greets us at the door and comes out to inspect the car we're driving, an amazing classic car that looks a bit like a '55 Chevy Belair. Wife goes inside the house and I tell F that he and I should go for a ride. I hand him the keys and he drives.



As we start down the street, I tell F, "Man, I just had a lucid dream before we came over here. I've got to enter it into DreamViews." He says cool. There's something like an old-style typewriter embedded in the car's console. I know that if I type the dream into this typewriter it'll automatically get posted to DreamViews. I marvel at how convenient this is. I congratulate myself for renting such a wonderful car.

While I peck randomly at the keys, I ask F whether he's had any lucid dreams lately when he's commuting on the train. He says no, and we talk dreaming for a bit. I say something about dream signs and I mention that one of mine is "really bad driving." He laughs and says, "You mean like this?" He hits a quick 3-point turn and floors the accelerator, sending us streaking back toward the house.

"It's a rental!" I whine. "Be careful, man!" It's a residential street and he's doing 60 mph, easy. We're almost back to the house now and he hasn't slowed down one bit. I'm distracted, too, because I'm still trying to type my DJ entry into the car's typewriter-thing. Now I realize that I don't have a seat belt. I alternate between blubbering "It's a rental!!" and "There's no seat belt!!" As we hit the driveway, I throw in, "I don't want to die!!"

F cuts the wheel hard to the left. There's a squeal of rubber and the car stops a few feet from the house. I'm relieved to be alive. I'm not angry because I assume that he just didn't hear my complaints. "I was trying to tell you, man. I don't think my side has a seat belt!"

He laughts. "Nothing's going to happen to you, man!" I get out of the car and see that it's turned into a convertible. I get it now. "F! This is a dream, isn't it?" He's walking inside the house and I hurry after him, the dream growing dark. Fade to black...

It was stuffy again so I had a hard time sleeping, and then I woke up out of the blue at 6 A.M. and laid there for a while. But I figured if I could get back to sleep, I'd remember a dream or two at least, and I did.

Dream 1: The first thing I remember thinking when I woke up with this dream was 'Hannibal Lector'. In it, "I" was a doctor checking over a row of patients in bed. I may have been the woman in the Hannibal Lector movies. One was one important guy in particular. [Gap] I'm slipping into a room that the guy is going to be kept in. I wrap an item in a cloth, hoping it won't be found by anyone checking over the room. I need to put something there to identify who left it, so I go look through my desk stuff for a post-it note, but I can't find the ones I'm looking for, so I end up using my "F" letter ones (except they're a solid green unlike in real life, and they're not sticky). I stick it onto something on the bed.

Note: The bed made me think of my aunt's, and I use her room as a loci in my memory palace so I wonder if it came from there.

Dream 2: I'm drawing on a big whiteboard, except it's like an online drawing board so I'm not physically drawing on it. It seems I'm leaving a specific message for someone. A woman comes up to the board and looks at it, and says something about how to draw the zodiac symbols - she proceeds to draw them in black marker, except they're just regular shapes, like circles and triangles. I am confused.

Dream 3: Me and mom are in a building, I think we're looking for my sister. I had given her this card to save on something, perhaps for $3, but she said it wasn't a good deal or something and I was a bit miffed at her. Either it was already dark, or the power then went out as I tried to catch up with her.

I am wondering around a subterranean cavern full of dwarfish folk. I have some sort of ring on my left hand. I looks like a glowing amber stone with silver twig designs woven over it. I am looking for something and the ring glows bright when I get close. I examine the ring closely and it seems that the more I look at it the more the amber cracks and falls away. I take the ring to Elrond who is nearby and he refashions it into a mounted stone on a silver band. I question him and comment how ugly it now looks. He tells me that this is the more modern fashion. I accept that as satisfactory though I really liked the look of the other one. (I'll have to draw it up soon)

Before too long I notice I have wondered outside and it had grown dark. Wargs come out of the darkness and attack me. I switch to a third person view like I am playing a video game. I am pushing the green A button on the XBOX controller but I also feel as is I am the character in the game. I see a hobbit version of myself jumping and scrabbling and running to avoid the wargs. It is no use I become over ran and everything goes black.

I wake near a camp fire with a minor injury to my chest and shoulder. Apparently Legolas and Gimli rescued me after I passed out. Legolas tells me there is food. I see a string of several large trout like fish on some rocks. I begin to prepare the fish near the camp fire but the fire keeps going out and relighting itself. Every time it goes large evil looking hairless bears come out of the darkness to eat me. But just as I am about to get it the fire relights and the bears vanish. Unfortunately I end up knocking over a pot of water on the fire and it goes out for good.

Just when I think I am done. I see a bright flash of light. It is Gandolf and his staff. He came just at the right time. I try to make my way too him but all I see is a bright light like a huge spot light pointed straight at me. It is blinding. Then, I see a second. I pause at the strangeness of this. It looks like twin suns and I am reminded of something. I think it's dream sign but it doesn't register what that means. I am too frightened to care and only want to get to safety. This time the light engulfs me.

I look away from the light and find myself at work. My boss has been kidnapped. I and several co-workers go look around for clues. I see a strange metal hand print device on her desk. I push on it and the wall spins around to reveal a hidden room. All we can find is booze and food and candy. I say, "Considering what has happened; I think we can over look this." I wanted to keep it quiet but I excitedly tell E all about it.

Then I hear a loud computer voice say my real life email address and "recover fail". I think someone is hacking into my computer so I rush over to an area with desks and computers.

I see JG and DL playing a prank on someone's computer. I think it is mine but I just watch and see what they are doing. They have a bag of commonly used keyboard keys that they popped off the keyboard. They tape the bag to the back of the monitor. They look at each other and laugh. I think they are idiots. Then the take fists full of hair and tape it the desk. I try to think of a way to get into their office and get them back. I know it will be tough and I feel clueless.

But no. I realize it is "Fat Amy's" (From Pitch Perfect) desk. She is sitting right there letting them do it. Then, for some reason, I tell her, "I think JG wants to give you a blow job." She tells me, "He can't. I'm too tough."

I wake up.

I recalled 2 other dreams and 2 fragment as well but this was be best one. I freaking love LOTR!

I became lucid in total darkness, so I'm not sure what made me realize that I was dreaming. I was plummetting through the pitch black. It frightened me a little, even though I knew it was a dream. I reassured myself that I was safe and that I could change the setting if I wanted to, but I decided to continue the free fall anyway.
Suddenly I broke through the darkness to a million points of light. I was falling past a vast, beautiful galaxy. Now the falling sensation felt more like flying, because I knew gravity had no claim to me here. It was breathtaking.
Eventually it all faded and I found myself in a normal dream, where I lost my lucidity.

non-dream dream semi-lucid lucid false awakening

On a cruise ship that gets stranded near the shore of an island. The captain and crew tell people not to leave the ship until we're rescued, but I feel that a storm is coming and it's dangerous to stay in the ship, so I leave with some close friends. The others are hit by the storm and of course the ship sinks and many die. But some manage to reach the island and they bring some sort of curse with them. As they set foot on the island, it turns into a desert. As I and my friends struggle to cross this desert, we see the others maybe a mile away behind us, being engulfed by a grasshoper cloud. We run to escape the bugs and I fall over a huge slab partially cover by sand, which has the map of the earth carved on. As I focus on a particular spot on that map, I feel pulled into a vortex and I fall, fall, fall into the darkness. I find myself in a dark place inside my head, I feel my "real" body outside and I realize I'm sleeping. I almost wake up but I hang in there and very faint shapes start to form. I seem to wander through a landscape as seen through a scanning microscope. I see microscopic life forms, very small seeds germinating, microbes, the detail of the "ground" with nanometric resolution. Amazing.
Then I feel a force pulling me up and I rise, rise, rise. The darkness gives place to a white light that becomes brighter and brighter. I tumble through the light and then I am laid o a solid surface. I look around and I'm surrounded by ducks, a goose, water spouts, bits of grass, mud, sheep... I turn my head and behind me is a brown bear. I get scared and jump, but he seems to be more afraid and runs to the opposite direction. Then I realize there are animals of all species around me, herbivores and carnivores, all gathered, as waiting for something. I look beyond them and I see we're in the middle of some kind of square in a village, with an interesting mix of European style traditional buildings. I also spot some human beings in the distance, but before I contact them, I'm surrounded by three guys who don't seem to want to sing Kumbaya. They grab me and I use some kenpo moves in self-defense. Usually I use my dream kung fu skills, but this time I consciently applied the lessons from my real life training and it worked (I clearly notice that my left side is my weakness and that I must work it.) Also, the dudes didn't count on my ability to fly. I fly up, up, up, and the darkness descends upon me again. Everything is black, except for a faint blueish light from a window to my left. Something touches my back. A black cat makes an appearance and guides me through what seems to be a house at night. He climbs up some furniture and invites me to follow him, until we reach a door near the ceiling, which could be a door to an attic, maybe. I hear voices and lights turn up. Some guys are entering the room and I feel urgency in leaving, so I go through the door and I wake up.

I get up from the couch, feeling so sleepy and my mom is standing at the door looking at me, commenting that I slept over today. "Yeah, I was so tired." But something doesn't add up and I do a RC. I am still dreaming. I think about using the opportunity but I feel the vortex sucking me again and I wake up.
I did overslept and my mom had indeed entered the house, but she left when she realized I was sleeping.

Some Salsa Dancing (5:53)

I'm messing with the wiring in my car so I can do a power cycle on it and fix something. Then I realize I've been doing a lot of extra work. [My dream journal says that around now I "park and check car" and "Mom strikes," but I don't know what this means.] Later, I'm with my sister and we're trying some salsa dancing. We manage some really cool flips and barrel rolls. I feel like I'm inventing an all-new kind of dance.

Basement

I find myself in a crawlspace with periodic rectangular holes in the floor, leading to staircases that descend into darkness. I'm trying to find a lighted staircase so that I can escape from here. Eventually I find one, but there are other problems. I become lucid somehow, and risk looking into the darkness. The dream fades palpably, and in desperation I try to turn it into a sex dream. I suppose it works, after a fashion (no visuals), but I wake up soon afterwards.

Takeover

A villainous man takes the whole building hostage. Most of us are penned up alone in small rooms, separated from each other, but we can see what's going on in the building by looking at the various TV screens on the walls. Against orders, a naked woman in one room talks to the man. Smirking, he pushes a button that blows up the room she was in. I'm scared that there will be gore all over the room when the smoke clears, but fortunately, there is not. Then there are some explosions along the outside walls of the compound, and I know that the outside resistance movement is trying to break in and depose the villain. I wish they wouldn't try--they have no realistic chance of winning. But I leave the room to try and help them somehow.

I meet up with someone on my team and we run into a problem. There are no nearby enemies, so we try to solve it in a few different ways. After the last attempt, I say, "It's no use, we tried this last year." (This enemy takeover is a yearly occurrence, one we are cursed with until we find a way to escape it.) Suddenly, a door opens above us and an enemy comes out. When we get a clear look at his face, we see that it's "The Law" (from Rocket Jump's VGHS). He smiles nastily.

Nowhere near a success, but at least the Task of the Year is on my mind!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #53: The Cestus

I’m in a bathroom, looking for a stall to use. I don't feel desperate, but I'm not being very careful as I swing one open. Inside I find a guy standing there peeing right into the drain on the floor. I bleat, "Sorry! Sorry!" as I try to hurriedly close the door. But unfortunately, the stall door has completely disappeared, leaving me no escape from this excruciating situation.

I’m embarrassed for him peeing into the drain like a barbarian and I’m embarrassed for me throwing open the door like an idiot. I stand there marinating in the awkwardness for a moment before it becomes so painful that I have a false awakening into...

...the same bathroom. I don't buy that I woke up in a bathroom, and I become lucid. The bathroom is empty now and I’m standing by a sink looking into a mirror. I note that the stall doors are all closed again and that I badly need a shave. I cannot handle the idea of leaving a bathroom without washing my hands, so I'm glad that the faucet works. I don't see soap anywhere but fortunately I manage to get over this.

I head outside into the hall and it looks like the hallway of a dark hotel, deep blue carpeting and flickering fluorescent lights. I can go left or right and I choose left. When I head to the left, though, I see a writhing black cloud of smoke at the end of the hall. It looks like the smoke monster from Lost. I mutter, “I’ll pass...” and head back the other way down the hall.

The electric lights flicker for a moment and then the whole scene starts to darken and press down on me. I rub my hands together and the details feel real, down to the deadlift calluses at the pinky, ring, and middle finger joints. When I do this, there’s an electric crackle and the lights come back on. I walk for a long way down the hall but somehow it just seems to get longer and longer. I want to either find a DC for basic Task of the Month or get to Rome for the Colosseum battle Task of the Year. I start to feel fretful that I'm going nowhere and the scene fades to black.

I feel it coming, though, and I relax and prep for DEILD. Another scene begins to form. I’m walking through a concrete structure that looks like a parking garage or the innards of a stadium. I’m wearing something like a cestus, a nasty-looking, studded leather wrapping around my hand. This isn’t the Colosseum, but I feel like I can turn this into the “Europe” Task of the Year. I’m armed and the location seems like something I could massage into the Colosseum with a little effort.



But I notice that I feel like I’m no longer able to breathe. The breath simply doesn't feel like it's coming anymore. I know it has to be an illusion but the sensation is terrifying. I try to relax and wait for this to play itself out but some part of me panics and I wake up.

I get out of bed....everything is black as night. Okay, maybe it'll get better.....no, I'm back in reality.

Lets try this again. I head to the living room, and I think about finding Kaomea, and I see her right at the door step, and the door is open. When I get to the door, she's not there....and I get this weird super creepy feeling...like something just scared the shit out of me. Everything turned to blackness as a soon as I stepped out of my house....wtf

Okay, here we go. I'm at some club, the lights are flashing like that last lucid I had where I was looking for Kaomea in the club. I run across a couple of people I know...flirting ensues, and I move on. There this one girl who has her hair stuck in one of the buttons on my shirt. I take it off, and restructure her hair to make it look longer fuller and better. A piece falls out while she was dancing, but oh well.

I started looking for HER....I came up to a blonde girl, but she had black bangs, and everything else was blonde. I asked her if she's ever seen me in any other dreams, and she said yes. Someone else tapped me on the shoulder, and I ignored her (probably was the real HER) and then I asked her for her name. She said it was Shyree. Then I woke the fuck up.


Had some other dream where I had this carton of eggs that could move like a pull back race car.....WTF.

I experienced some challenges in this LD and, sad to say, I didn't exactly pass with flying colors. I need to be confident with producing a light source and finding my way out when I'm lost in some building. I wish I'd remembered darknightedlady's observation that "Exit" signs seem to work well for me in navigation. They're a reliable tool for me and I need to keep them in mind.

Not my best work, but I very much enjoyed the exploratory romp anyway!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #37: Hotel California

I'm business partners with my good friend "Leroy", and we ride a bus to a conference at some sunny resort. We pass by a nice pool complex on our way in, and many DCs are soaking up the sun poolside. I recognize MS, a friend from high school, but she disappears into the crowd as we draw closer.



Leroy and I walk through the hotel entrance and move toward the elevator. There are smashed eggs all over the floor in front of the elevator door, and I say, "[Leroy], I'm tired of walking on eggshells around you." Two things dawn on me: a) That joke was terrible and b) This is all a dream.

Leroy has disappeared, but momentum still has me reaching for the elevator button. I stop when I see that the elevator only goes down. I remember that I'm trying to either witness the Trinity test or relive the Apollo 11 mission. Neither of those are likely to be in the basement, so I start looking for a way out.

I turn toward the hotel entrance and see that it has been replaced by a solid, slightly reflective metal plate. I try to phase through it the way I do with glass, but it feels totally solid. Unwelcome anxiety starts to creep in and I set off down a nearby hallway, hoping for an easy exit. A set of double doors at the end of the hallway takes me into a tunnel that's built of concrete blocks. I feel like I'm descending in spite of my best wishes. There's a door further down the hallway but it's one way and offers no handle.

I step through an open doorway into a dimly lit room. An unseen door closes gently behind me and now there's barely enough light to see. I hold my hands out, saying "Illuminate!" Nothing. "Illuuuuuuuuminate!" I squall, but nothing happens. Fear is growing in me, a helpless sense that there's no way out of this hotel. I try to shake that off, instead imagining that there's light coming from an unseen side tunnel... yes, I see it now.



I start crawling through this new tunnel on hands and knees, but it becomes a tighter and tighter squeeze as I move forward. There's light ahead of me, though, and I shimmy desperately forward. Anxiety begins to slip out of my control and I'm soon awake.

I a m participating in some gathering. My mother is here. We sit on some sort of skateboard esque vehicle, on our butts. We slide down a windy forest highway, holding hands. My mom pulls me in closer to her, avoiding the traffic on either side of us.

I am in this house. I know it, but it's been a while. There are beds everywhere, as if the owners were accomodating many guests. I get the sense that this may be the last time I get to be here. Amanda C. is here. She is in a room that is failiar to me.
Two couches very close to each other.
Small room, crowded.
Low lit.
Electronics with their messy cords.
I lose my camera. Suddely it's night and I feel alone in the house. I'm not scared just anxious to know where everyone is. I walk around in the dark until I am upstairs. There is a large room just before two smaller rooms that are side by side. I don't think these rooms have doors. Only door frames. I enter the room to the right, and find someone is sleeping. I feel this is a young woman, one who lives here. The daughter of the owners possibly. I leave the room and house. I find myslef in a wooded area. I follow the sounds of talking, laughter and music. I find a crowd of people, some familiar. They all seem to be sitting on a raised platform of some kind. Like the bed of a semi-truck or a dock. My mom is also here. She is sitting on someone's lap, a man. She is glowing with happiness. I see my father and realize that this group is comprised mostly of musicians. It's dark and they are partying it up. I see Ryan H. up on the platform. I don't want to talk to him because
a) I dont think he'll remember me and
b) I just don't want the small talk right now.
There is a small black boy telling a joke. The joke has something to do with the 80's and the band New Edition. I pretend to laugh uncontrolably so Ryan doesn't think that I recognize him (oh dream logic).

Note: My father was a musician.

Note: This is the first dream I remember having in my life. I must have been three or four years old.

I'm in the living room of our first house on twenty-sixth and Alberta in Portland, Oregon. I'm not sure of my age but I can see my skinny little girl legs dangling down from my dad's lap. So I figure I'm three or four. We're in his light blue reclining chair. The sun sheds light on the chair and on me and on dad. I feel safe. Then it is dark. Not completely dark but the dark of a dense cloud covering sun. I am in the lap of Beetleguise. His black and white striped pants in place of my dad's blue jeans.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #13: Dad's Dream Journal

My dad has started a dream journal and he's looking for my advice on lucid dreaming. For some reason, he secretly dead drops the journal to me in the back of a car. I have to pick it up late at night to make sure that nobody finds out that he's keeping a dream journal.

His journal describes a dream that he had falling asleep in a chair. I read through it and conclude that he was very close to a WILD. I'm very happy for him and attempt to place a rah-rah green check mark in the margin of his DJ. To my astonishment, it comes out as a boldfaced "left 2". I wonder what the hell is going on and decide to reality check "just in case". I use the nose pinch RC and instantly become lucid.

My sudden lucidity shocks me into a false awakening in the hotel room I am sharing with Wife. I know that it's a false awakening because I still have the nose pinch clamped down and I'm still breathing freely. I get up out of bed but the sheets are wrapped tightly around me. I flail and struggle to free myself from the sheets and finally fling them across the room.

The room's incredibly dark and I can barely see anything. I feel on the wall, expecting to find a light switch. I flick it on and rather than illuminating the room it causes a very dim light to come on outside. I feel for another switch and this one seems to turn on a dim bathroom light behind me, but this soon goes out. I'm looking for another switch when the room's air conditioning suddenly roars to life and I awaken to the sound of the (very loud) hotel room A/C.

These dark rooms can be tricky! Next time I may try just walking through doors as quickly as I can. I saw that OpheliaBlue had some success using that to escape darkness. If that doesn't work, perhaps I'll just hurl myself off of an imaginary cliff again and try my luck.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #7: doogogol.com (July 29, 2012)

Our son "E" wanders into our bedroom in the early morning. I'm groggy but I listen to him tell us about how a "big vortex" was in his room. Wife is shocked that he knows the word "vortex". I tell her that I taught him the word -- then realize I had done so in a previous dream that night. I do the nose pinch reality check and I'm lucid.

As I get out of bed, the room starts going dark again, just like in lucid dream #5. I rub my hands together and demand, "Increase lucidity!" but it makes no difference. Soon it is completely dark. I shout, "Increase <expletive> lucidity!". Wife gives me a "That's right!" but it still doesn't work. I'm in total darkness.

I "peel away" the darkness as if it is a curtain but behind it is only more darkness. Out of ideas, I imagine that there's a cliff behind me and I pitch myself backward over it (a suggestion from CosmicIron.)

I'm falling now and I don't have a destination in mind. I am thinking about searching the internet for help, though, and "land" in a web browser. Success! (Sort of.) I try to type "google.com" but it comes out as "doogogol.com". Fortunately, this works, and I wind up back in the bedroom, mid-morning.

I tell Wife that I'm going to go out and fly. I struggle to squeeze myself out of the window, noting that all of the trees in the front yard have moved around. I punch the glass out of the window but it's still too tight of a squeeze. During the struggle, I wake up.