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Ritual: Last night I experimented for the first time with kava kava root (Piper methysticum). I had read many anecdotal reports that it instigated vivid dreams and perhaps even lucidity, so I thought it was worth trying out. I ordered some dried powdered root from an online herb and spice supplier that I trust. I don't have any doubts about the freshness and quality, as the package confirms that it was packed earlier this month and sourced from Vanuatu. I had read many reports of people complaining about the taste, describing it as "muddy," so I was surprised when I opened the package and encountered the most extraordinary and delightful fragrance. The plant is related to pepper, so it made sense that the scent would be peppery, but there was also something delicately floral about it and even a hint of wintergreen.

I had abstained from alcohol all day, since the two should not be consumed together, and my plan was to drink the kava before bed. I had a late dinner, ending at 11pm, so my plan was to give myself two hours to digest, then start drinking the kava at 1am and go to bed a few hours afterward (unless it made me too sleepy before that, which seemed like a distinct possibility). I don't like cold drinks late at night, but I read that you could warm kava gently without destroying its properties, so I adapted a recipe for "Mexican Hot Cocokavachocolate," blending two tablespoons of powdered kava kava (half what the recipe calls for, as I didn't want to overdo it my first time), two tablespoons of cocoa powder, agave syrup, a spoonful of cinnamon, and a generous pinch of cayenne with about two cups of almond milk (I skipped the vanilla extract suggested by the recipe because I didn't want to use even a tiny amount of alcohol). I blended this until it was frothy and then separated it into two mugs, putting one in the fridge—I planned to start with a minimal dose, and work up from there if it felt warranted. The other mug I heated briefly in the microwave, just enough to warm it, and then topped it with a dusting of grated Himalayan salt and freshly made whipped cream.

Okay, I'll admit I have a slightly weird palate (for instance, I *love* the taste of wormwood), but this was one of the most delicious dessert drinks I have ever tried in my life! It was so much better than regular hot chocolate; the spices and kava gave it exceptional depth of flavor and an unusual aftertaste. I didn't even need to strain it: I don't know if my powder was ground unusually finely or if the almond milk held it in suspension better than plain water, but it only added body, not grit, to the concoction.

I'm glad that I had done enough research to anticipate the curiously numbing, analgesic sensation that spread from my mouth all the down my esophagus, because that's the kind of thing that would really worry you if you didn't know it was supposed to happen! I sipped the kava very slowly over the next hour or so, to make sure my stomach didn't have any problems with this new experience. Everything was fine, and the onset of bodily relaxation came quickly, though my mind remained clear. After the first mug I felt like it would be fine to drink the second one I had reserved, so I slowly consumed that too. Despite the heavy feeling in my body, it never did make me drowsy, so I played SWTOR until 3:30am and then read DV and some LD books to prep for bed, retiring at 4:30am. I should note that I never felt any trace of euphoria, either, an effect that some had noted. That didn't bother me, though: my only interest was in enhancing my dreams.

Unfortunately, in that respect, the kava kava was a total bust. It was no different from any ordinary night of crappy dreaming: I was vaguely aware of dreaming most of the night, but my recall was terrible and what details I could specify were mostly mundane day residue. There was no sense of complex overarching plots, just lots of little random scenarios. Lots of people have written that kava helped them sleep more deeply and wake refreshed, but I didn't experience that either: I woke three times in the first several hours of sleep, which is typical, except that I felt much groggier than usual during those brief wakeful periods. At 9:00am I woke up and felt so unpleasantly lethargic, mentally as well as phsyically, and the dreaming had been so disappointing, that I decided to try to clear my head with an ample dose of piracetam. That stuff is amazing: to preserve its efficacy I save it for special occasions, but it always works really well to clear up any "brain fog."

Within fifteen minutes I was feeling complete mental clarity, so I decided to turn it into a proper WBTB. I added some L-theanine, alpha-GPC and bacopa and returned to bed using WILD technique. My focus was still subpar and I couldn't count effectively, so I initially fell into non-lucid sleep, but gradually became more aware of the dream as it progressed. There was no "aha" moment of lucidity, but I was definitely lucid by the end.

In conclusion, the kava kava didn't seem to improve my dreaming in the slightest, but at least it didn't suppress it either. If anything helped me get lucid, I believe it was the piracetam and other supplements I took at WBTB, because those I've had success with many times before. My recall was poor for most of the night, and even after waking up from the LD only the last scene was initially clear; recollection of the earlier incidents revived only after I started tracing back the course of events.

DILD, "Creating a Cat": I was hanging out with a friend, JM, and her young son. [DR: yesterday I had seen a picture of this kid that she had posted on Facebook.] The little boy was telling us a story about a butterfly who took care of him in the place he used to be. It sounded like he was talking about before he was born, and this reminded me of a book I had learned about last night, about a project to compile and investigate accounts of young children who claim to have memories of past lives. [DR: Jim B. Tucker, Return to Life, 2015.] After I mentioned the book to my friend, she told me about the time she took her son to an island off the coast of Wales (the named started with a 'T', something like "Tirnagal" or "Tiriagal") and he had started talking about how he used to live there. As she describes this, suddenly we both turn and stare as we hear the boy start speaking another language with the somber intonations of an adult. I have no idea what Welsh sounds like, but what the boy is saying definitely has the structures of a formal language—it is not just childish babble. The experience is so uncanny that I feel the hairs on my arms rise. Before I leave, I say to my friend, "The only thing I regret about not having a kid is the way it can sometimes provide unexpected insights into the human experience." [DR: This comment might also have been inspired by something I was reading last night, on p.163 of The Ego Tunnel, by Thomas Metzinger (2009), where he describes a toddler who falls and looks to his mother for social cues about how to emotionally react.]

I leave my friend's apartment and go outside. Now I'm on a beach. This is one of my most distinctive and common dream signs, despite the fact that I have little interest in beaches in WL and rarely visit them. I think it is related to the tide, a phenomenon that has always unsettled me. Despite the frequency and distinctiveness of this dream sign, for some reason it is one that I always have trouble recognizing as such. On this occasion I already have some degree of dream-awareness, but I lack awareness of that awareness, the metacognition that is characteristic of true lucidity.

As I'm walking along the beach, the sand looks soft and warm and comfortable, and I can't resist the temptation to lie down in it. Initially I am lying on my stomach, but then I roll onto my back, and feel as cozy as a kid making snow angels. I pause to reflect, why do you never hear of kids making sand angels? My comfort is soon disturbed by rippling in the sand... I notice that the whole beach is now billowing and subsiding, the dunes rolling like great waves. "Is it supposed to do that?" I vaguely wonder, and then a particularly large dune threatens to bury me, forcing me back on my feet to keep my balance. Though not quite lucid at this point, I have instinctive awareness of my mastery and control in this environment: I find it easy to "surf" these sand waves as they roll by underfoot. But they are getting even bigger, and I have the impression that the water is now rising rapidly as well, so I decide to find higher ground.

At the edge of the beach I find a stairwell leading up into a building. Getting into it takes some creative climbing, as there are various panels of transparent plexiglass serving as barriers, but I manage to circumvent them and get inside. The stairs emerge into the center of a dim, semi-industrial space, with narrow walkways on all four sides surrounding the wide pit formed by the stairwell in the middle of the room. No sooner have I gotten my bearings than a round hatch covering the end of a large pipe poking through the wall opens, and a humanoid creature crawls out. It is gollum-like, with huge bulging eyes. I don't want to be spotted, so I hold still and focus on being invisible. I feel a moment of relief as the creature initially descends the stairs, but it comes back promptly joined by a second person, a male human. As they approach the spot where I'm standing, I retreat into a corner to avoid them: even if they can't see me, they might blunder into me by accident if I'm not careful. On the bright side, having to strategize in this tense situation is improving my lucid awareness.

I reflect that my "invisibility" is just a mind trick: I am willing the DCs not to see me, and from their lack of reaction I assume it is working, but I can still see my own body plainly. This bothers me—at this point I'm a fairly experienced dreamer, so shouldn't I be able to dispense with a body? I've had no dearth of NLDs where I'm just a disembodied perspective, so surely I should be able to accomplish the same thing in my LDs. I decide to try to eliminate my dream body.

My body does obediently disappear from my field of vision, but the trouble is I still *feel* like I'm in a human body, with two legs, two arms, and two eyes located frontally in my head. If I have really transcended the body, I should no longer feel like I am mapped onto a human being. I conclude that I should begin subverting the pattern, and my first attempt is to try to shift my visual apparatus to floor level. This seems like it should be a fairly easy, basic task, but I find that I have trouble with it, maybe because I get caught up in questions like, well, if I'm not seeing out of physical eyes, then shouldn't my vision be even more radically different—unconstrained by frontality, for instance?

Meanwhile the man and gollum-like creature disappear into a side door, still apparently oblivious to my presence. I retrace my steps to the top of the stairs and examine the hatch that the latter had crawled out of. I consider going in there to explore, but decide that from the look of the creature and the size of the hatch, it will probably just be a cramped and uncomfortable network of tunnels. Instead I decide to follow the two through the side door.

I find myself in a large, open exhibition space with various vendors and booths. I pause for a moment to wonder why spaces like this are so common in my dreams. I don't know if this was a product of false memory or else better access to dream memory than I have in waking life, because at the time I was under the impression that I encountered such rooms on a regular basis; now that I'm awake I don't feel like they're especially common. At first I was just wandering around with no specific purpose, when it occurred to me that I shouldn't waste this opportunity to work on some tasks. There are a ton of things on my docket, but nothing especially pressing, so I thought over a few possibilities and decided to work on my Ars Magica forms and techniques—the other day I printed out the whole list of combinations and decided I should make it a long-term goal to try out all of them eventually.

I recalled that "creo animál" was the first one on my list that I had not tried, so I started intoning, "Creo animál!" I lengthened the syllables in a resonant voice, putting emphasis on the first syllable of "creo" and the last syllable of "animál." I repeated the invocation a few times in this manner, staring at an empty patch of floor. I didn't have a clear idea in mind of what kind of animal I wanted to create, but I thought I could leave that open for the dream to surprise me. However, nothing was happening. I thought perhaps I needed some raw materials, so I telekinetically lifted a nearby booth (hoping this wouldn't be too much inconvenience to the vendor) and pulled it into the space where I was working, then focused on compacting its form and shape into something suitable to my purpose. It folded itself up obediently until it was much smaller. However, I felt like I needed to impose a pattern on it since the dream wasn't responding with anything, so I arbitrarily chose the form of a cat. People started gathering around to watch the show as the booth finished its transformation, and now there was a short-haired black and white cat sitting stiffly on the floor. [In retrospect, the technique was closer to "muto" than "creo," since I adapted existing material rather than conjuring it from thin air.]

The newly-created cat was not moving, and did not seem capable of movement; it was like an empty shell of a cat, a living doll. This made sense, since I had created the body but not endowed it with sentience: I concluded that this would require a separate effect. Luckily this concurred with another task I needed to work on. "Creo mentem," I said, directing my words at the cat, and this time the effect resolved quickly: now the cat seemed to be capable of moving and perceiving its environment.

I wondered if "mentem" alone was sufficient: wouldn't that create something with the bland mental workings of a robot? Wouldn't I need to add "imáginem" to endow it with emotions and imagination, the "spark of life"? I wasn't sure, but I thought I'd better throw that in for good measure, so I intoned "Creo imáginem," focusing on giving the creature the capacity for emotions and inner life. Immediately I had doubts about whether this was wise. I don't know if my doubts were caused by the cat's behavior or if the cat's behavior was conditioned by my doubts, but whichever it was, the creature did not look pleased. It was lashing its tail in the way cats do when they're annoyed, and its face was contorted into a savage snarl. I wondered if throwing in "imáginem" had been overkill—emotions are not always pleasant, after all, and a creature so unexpectedly brought into existence might well be feeling upset and disoriented. Plus, I didn't even know if "imáginem," was necessary for a complete being; perhaps sentience was sufficiently specified by "mentem." [Consulting the Ars Magica rulebook now, I see that I misremembered the scope of of the Form: "imáginem" deals with sensations and illusions, not emotions and imagination. Though actually that makes the whole Form seem superfluous to the dreamstate, where there is no obvious difference between creating a thing and creating an illusion of that thing.]

I knelt down to have a closer look at my creation, and felt even more disturbed. There was something awful and abject about its face, a wound or rot-like distortion of its jaw that left the teeth clearly visible through its cheek. [DR: I realize this might also be day residue, because recently I was reading articles about the so-called "zombie cat" which came with graphic pictures of a similarly disfigured animal.] I decided that I should try to understand what this cat was experiencing, so I said, "Intéllego animál." I felt impressions of fear and rage coming from the poor creature, and guiltily realized that I must have screwed up somehow. It made it even worse that it was a cat, a kind of animal for which I feel a great love and sympathy.



With a sweeping gesture I willed all the effects I had invoked to disperse, effectively uncreating the cat. I didn't have a clear visual sense of the result (did the body simply disappear or did the vendor's booth revert to its former shape? I'm not sure), but at least I felt that the spell had ended. I looked up at the spectators who had been watching the whole event and sheepishly apologized: "It didn't want to be a cat. I'm sorry. It just didn't work out."

One woman spoke up in reply. Her words were uttered very calmly and slowly, emphasizing each of the adjectives, and I felt like she was subtly criticizing my actions: "People want to be fair, and dominating, and controlling, and diverting."

Ritual: WTB 12:30am, woke ~6am and set vibrating alarm for 40 minutes. I don't have a clear memory of it going off the first time (~6:40). The second time it went off (~7:20) I seem to have experienced it entirely within the dream state. My lucidity lapsed shortly thereafter but came back when I noticed that the circumstances were suitable for one of the TOTMs. I must have dreamed for about ten minutes after the alarm went off the second time, waking at ~7:30 with 29 minutes left on the alarm going into its third 40 minute cycle.

NLD: I was on a bus traveling through a desert. Looking out the window, I saw an enormous lizard resembling an early-model godzilla. [DR: an image of a similar godzilla was shown briefly John Oliver's show on Sunday night.] It didn't look real, because on closer inspection its "skin" was wrinkled and rippling like that of inflatable parade float rather than a living creature. I concluded that it must be a world boss and looked away. Even though it was so much larger than me and very far off, I was afraid that my scrutiny might draw its attention, and I was not equipped to battle it without a raid.

Our destination was a cave, which was pleasantly cool and dark after the burning light and heat of the desert outside. I passed through the large front cavern through a door labeled "Imagemakers" that led into a back room. These "imagemakers" were literally cave painters, a studio full of artists each doing individual murals on the walls, but in a modern, Asian-inspired style. [DR: One painting seemed reminiscent of Toshio Aoki's Thunder Kami (1900), which I was looking at yesterday.]

I comment to one of the artists how pleasantly cool it is here in the back room. She replies, "It's only 25, if you're not careful you might freeze." [DR? I had reviewed the TOTMs before bed and my notes used the word "freeze," which also ended up being the task I attempted later in the same dream.] I assume she means Celsius because it's not that cold in here, and try to remember what that would be in Fahrenheit—72 or so? I point out to her that when I start to feel cold I can just put on more clothes. Outside in the heat, there was nothing I could do, so this is preferable.

EILD-FA: I feel the vibrating alarm and "wake up," or so I believe, though it retrospect it was obviously an FA because I was in a room with no resemblance to WL. I am sitting in bed reading a book, and after I feel the vibration I remember not to move at first, lest I break REMA. As I start to feel more confident in my dream senses, I venture to turn the page of the book. Slowly I expand my range of motion until I'm sure that I'm not going to disrupt the dream. The plot of the previous dream continues (insofar as it has any continuity, which isn't much) and I soon lose what little lucidity the alarm had prompted.

NLD: Now everyone's talking about a bride who is coming, also on a bus, and someone instructs me to go to a counter to buy a present for her, "a small dog." I had envisioned a tiny dog that was only a few inches long, but the two available at the counter aren't small by any reckoning; they must weigh 40 or 50 pounds. The clerk asks me what I want the dog to be able to do. I think this over, rationalizing that it is a gift to someone who might not be expecting it, so it would be best if it isn't too high maintenance. "Ummm.... sleep a lot?" is my first suggestion. I try to think of other possibilities. "Stand up? Lick? Can they do that?" The clerk looks at me and answers in a tone that suggests he thinks I am an idiot, "Yeah, they can all do that."

While I'm deliberating someone has come up and bought one of the two dogs, so I'm stuck with the one that is left. I think it's really ugly, with shaggy beige fur, and I hope the bride likes it or I'll be stuck with it. At least the dog has a good personality, friendly and responsive, nuzzling up to me like it wants to be liked. I go to another room and start talking with two girls. Suddenly the dog starts humping the floor, which embarrasses me. "I hope he doesn't do that around her," I say, meaning the bride. One of the girls laughts comments that the way she's been carrying on with her new husband, she probably won't be offended.

DILD: As the conversation continues, I suddenly notice: hey, I'm in a room with DCs, this would be a perfect opportunity to try the "freeze" TOTM. I mean, okay, there's only two of them, but we are in a room, so that should qualify as a "roomful."

"Freeze!" I say suddenly, interrupting whatever else we were talking about. The girls stare at me with looks that say "WTF." They're still moving normally, so I issue the command again, attempting to focus my will by tensing my body. That doesn't work either, and I realize that I have the wrong approach. I need to be focusing my mind, not my body. "Freeeeeze," I say cajolingly, drawing out the word. At this point they do stop moving, but I have the impression that they're just playing along. I decide to try the narration technique. "Your body feels so heavy, you can't move. You're paralyzed, like when you sleep." That reminds me, of course we're not completely paralyzed when we sleep, and I'd better not kill them by overdoing it. I hastily add, "You can breathe, of course, just like when you're sleeping."

The girls seem to be complying now, so I study them closely to be sure. I also remember that I should take conscious note of their names, which I had instinctively known earlier in the dream but had almost forgotten on going lucid. The smaller one on the left, with the dark hair... I think back and all I can come up with is "Calm." It sounds odd, but that's the only name that I remember for her. The plumper girl on the right, a blonde, I know for sure is called "Amy."

The smaller girl seems completely comatose now. I lift her arm and drop it, and it falls with satisfying limpness. The larger girl is also lying still, but I get the impression she's just pretending: one of her arms is in a position that could only be maintained by exerting muscle control. I lift it and it is stiff in my grasp.

Then I realize I'm going about this all wrong. I try to remember the specifics of the TOTM. Was I just supposed to freeze them in place, or was there something about actually stopping time? I can't clearly remember the wording. I decide I'd better try the latter in any case, it might work better—and I won't have to worry about the girls accidentally suffocating if time itself has stopped.

"Freeze!" I shout, now indicating not only the two of them but the whole environment, with only myself as an exception. I find that the logical impossibility of this trouble me: if I continue moving normally, then in what sense can time itself be said to have stopped? It doesn't make any sense. I remind myself that this is a dream, and I'm not obliged to work out the physics of it. I look at Amy to see if my new strategy has resulted in any improvement. No, although she is lying quite still, and her arm looks properly limp now, she's actually tapping the fingers of one hand.

"Freeze!" I shout again, looking directly at her hand. Still tapping. "Freeze!" I yell, glaring at the hand. Tap... tap... tap. "Freeze!" I insist, mustering all my intent. The hand finally goes limp. It occurs to me that at some point I'm going to need to write all this up, and the thought wakes me.

Notes: I never did remember the second part of the TOTM, not just in the dream but even after waking up, recording my notes, and going about my day... but I had the feeling that there might have been more to it, that I left something out, and on coming home from work and checking the forum, I see that there was a whole second part of the task that I skipped!

Slept from around midnight to 2:45am then got up for several hours. Returned to bed at 6:15am, after meditating a few minutes and taking some supplements (choline, Alpha-GPC, L-theanine, vitamin B complex, piracetam). Did some casual SSILD while falling asleep. Woke at 6:45am with dream.

I was in a room with dark walls, a sort of "black box" theatre, and about two-thirds of the room was full of tangled billows of blue cloth up to knee-level. Around eight people were positioned at various points in the cloth, flailing against it as though they were swimming (or drowning) in water. I knew it was a rehearsal for a play, and I felt a strong desire to join them but was restrained by a sense of propriety since I was not related to the production. I sat in a chair and reflected on how much I've always been attracted to the idea of acting even though I apparently have no talent for it.

Slowly and naturally it dawned on me that I was dreaming. The awareness brought with it a change of scene, perhaps a half-waking: I was back in my bed, but still in dream. I began to focus on animating my dream body as though it were a WILD, thrashing around in the tangled covers (not unlike how the actors had been flailing in the water-like whorls of cloth). I noted how my visual field was very chaotic, almost back to the fluctuating hypnagogic state, but the tactile field felt more stable, so I ignored the visual clutter and got out of bed. I don't need to see well to navigate my own house, whether in WL or a dream.

I wondered what to do and quickly decided to try to knock off the wine TOTM, which seemed like an easy one. So I walked swiftly to the kitchen pantry where I keep a lot of wine and reached for one at random. It was a rosé in a clear glass bottle. The level was very low, well down the shoulder, but since the cork was intact I figured it should count as a "full bottle" as specified in the TOTM. At first the bottle was the shape and size of a typical wine bottle, the more streamlined profile you usually see with burgundies, but as I set it down on the kitchen counter to get a better look, it transformed in front of my eyes to the larger, plumper form of a two-liter plastic soda bottle.

I was still determined to open it, so I picked it up and carried it over to where the corkscrew should be. It occurred to me that I should make a more detailed observation of the bottle first, since it was covered in writing printed directly on the glass. The writing was in white script of various fonts and sizes, but the white lettering against the clear glass was hard to read, especially with the level of the wine so low. The fonts were also elaborate and hard to make out. I held it up at an angle to get the best view and looked carefully. I could make out that the biggest word was "Mersault," which would make sense since (as I suspected and google confirms) this is an actual appellation in Burgundy. The next largest set of letters spelled "Farb," which reminded me of the German word for "color." I wondered if this had to do with the color of the wine, and was startled to observe that the wine was now colorless and looked exactly like water. Moreover, the bottle was starting to remind me of a water bottle. Oh dear, had I accidentally turned my wine into water? I'd better grab a different bottle! I was walking back to the pantry when I woke up.

There was actually a lot of day residue in this LD. Last night I ate out and had an elaborate meal with wine pairings: they included a rosé and a wine from a bottle that was partly empty but whose cork remained intact because the wine had been extracted with a needle and replaced with argon. Both of these details manifested directly in the dream, although I didn't recognize them as day residue until after I woke up. I just double-checked the menu and there was no Mersault, however, nor can I recall when I last had it, so I'm not sure where that came from.

I blew my nose, and noticed that something solid had emerged into the tissue. My growing unease ripened into sharp alarm when I inspected the contents. Next to some meatier pieces of phlegm was the unmistakable segmented shape of a short, light grey worm. It was about half an inch long, and completely alive and intact. I'm not sure if it was a true worm or had two hair-like rows of short legs, but it even started to move as I watched. The thought of such a thing living in my body, in my sinuses even, infused me with silent horror quickly ripening to desperation as I saw the front half of another worm, which would have been twice as long as the first if it were intact, in the tissue's contents. On the underside was a distinct mouth with two visible mandibles curved back so that they lay flat against its body like fangs. What were these things doing to me?

Just after discovering the worms in the tissue, I felt an itch just above the hairline of my forehead and absently scratched it. A soft body crushed under my fingers, getting tangled in my hair, and I brought them back to find the green ooze of yet another worm staining their tips. The horror became even more intense. Were there so many in my body that they were emerging? I needed to do something about this now.

Mustering all my willpower to stay calm and focused, I brought the unwieldy vehicle I was driving over to the curb, put it in park, and engaged the parking brake. It was a boxy shuttle like those that sometimes ferry people and their luggage around airports; this one had no seats and was specced for military use. I left the engine running, even as I wondered why I was doing so: this was unlikely to be a short stop. As I disembarked, I said something like, "Men, make sure not to move this vehicle," to my company. They were prone to horsing around, and I was afraid someone might bump the parking brake and accidentally disengage it. The vehicle was tricky to operate.

I disembarked, dodging the idle men lounging on the short flight of steps that led from the strip of grass bordering the curb down to the sidewalk bordering the building. The door was open, and there were more men clustered around the steps that led down into the building. I knew they were here because I had left for the last mission in such a hurry that they had been left behind. I had already sensed that something was wrong at the time, but it had still been too vague to articulate, a vague but crushing sense of oppression rather than any physical symptoms I could describe.

I was looking for someone in particular. Not the young doctor, but the old one, who I had known for a long time and trusted completely. After passing a row of men leaning against the bar to the right of the entryway, I turned left and was relieved to discover him standing next to a table. He had grey hair and a lined, weathered face, with a serious but not unkindly expression. I addressed him in a tone that was urgent but still tightly focused, doing everything I could to remain cogent and not lose myself to the mounting hysteria I was feeling.

"Richard, I think there's something wrong with me."

He looked up, and I saw that he could tell from my face that the matter was dire, but when he spoke his tone was relaxed, the practiced ease of an experienced combat physician. "Okay, tell me all about it."

"It started about a week before this mission," I began.

It was here that I woke up. The dream was a patchwork of distinct day residue. The worms were inspired by Jimmy Carter's appearance on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, where they briefly discussed his efforts to eradicate guinea worms in Africa. The doctor's face was a combination of Lance Hendrickson, who I saw the night before last when Aliens (1986) came on TV, and another old guy from another film of which my husband made an approving remark when he appeared. The film might have been The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), which we caught much of on cable last night, in which case the guy must have been Philip Baker Hall (b.1931)—I had to look up his name, but the face looks right. My role as a female leader of a military company comes directly from Mass Effect 3 (2012), which I was playing last night. I think there was a lot more to the dream, because it actually started with the scene prior to the mission when I first felt a foreboding uneasiness. I reported it in retrospect because I couldn't remember most of what happened before that last scene; the mission itself remains a blur in memory. There was physical input as well: when I woke up I still had a slight itch on my head where I had scratched in the dream and discovered the third worm.

11/22/14 I will see if I can do a written DJ entry in a quick way...trying to find a good balance. This "meditating" on my previous dreams seems to bring much more of my immediate waking life into the coming dreams somehow but it's only been three nights in a row so it's hard to tell if it could be some other cause and hardly conclusive. Leaving out some non-lucids should help speed it up.

I am on the couch with my wife and we are cuddling and getting more frisky and we have a blanket and while I wasn't looking she removed all her clothes and I knew what was next. The visuals and the vividness are quite good with very enjoyable sensations. <snip********************************************* ************************************************** ***************************>. Next we hear the keys in the front door lock and my wife rushes to get up and brings the blanket with her and runs around to the hall to hide leaving me with just my hands to cover up. I find my underwear and put them on. My son comes through the front door. As I greet him I hear a hair dryer going in the back corner room which, in hindsight, the layout seems most like my childhood home. The sound is coming from the bathroom in the master bedroom and no one should be in there. I ask my son if he knows why there would be a hair dryer going in there, did he use the hair dryer in there but that wouldn't make sense why would it come on by itself as this whole situation seems more supernatural...I get the thought that I can't believe this is not a dream. As I carefully head that way to see if there is an intruder or ghosts or what, my mother in law comes out of the bathroom and it is explained supposedly. I wonder what she is doing here though. I decide to do some state checks as we all head to an eat-in kitchen area that is in the place where the wall used to be between our kitchen and living room. I try to float and it feels like I'm doing it a little bit but I start to doubt...could I just be imagining the sensation really well right now. I do finger into my palm and my palm is solid but I know that many times the dream will create that scenario and decide to push my finger harder and I am amazed as I can see the skin on the back of my hand pushing out in the shape of my finger. But then again I wonder have I ever pushed this hard...can I actually see the shape of my finger on the other side of my hand if I do it this hard in waking life? I then decide to do a floating back flip and this convinces me enough to say OK then I can remove my underwear this is definitely a dream. I look over at my son who has a normal waking life reaction like "you are crazy what are you doing" but then I look at my wife and she has a "go ahead, whatever" look on her face and that is all the confirmation I would ever need! Unfortunately all this buildup, and then full confirmation in my mind, kind of felt like a strong emotional moment and I think it woke me up or I was just coming to the end of REM anyway.

I had several lucid just before waking moments after this that I won't count. 236

Really need to start my waking life journal again, as the day residue is getting a little ridiculous. Due to my conversation with Sageous concerning the breath in dreams, I incubated this little gem:

I am at a restaurant. My sister is frying me fish in a small pond inside the restaurant. She has the fish pressed into a corner of the pond, and the water around the fish is boiling vigorously, as though it were frying in hot oil. The fish is supposed to be for my throat, which is apparently bothering me in the dream. My wife then explains to me that if I don't want to eat the fish, I can take an entire bottle of liquid medicine, which will have the same effect.

I am now standing in front of a mirror in a bathroom. Have just read the label on the bottle and am now trying to breathe. This is incredibly difficult. I try to breathe but feel like my throat is closing. I am also coughing, which is doing zilch to clear up my throat. My throat continues to close until I can't breathe at all. I then wake up.

Hurray for choking dreams!

This lucid was particularly long, and I was quite caught up in the action, so parts of my memory are foggy--will do the best that I can!

I am in a futuristic society, and am experiencing this dream via observation (I have no body). A traitor is being drawn out of hiding by his friend, a high-ranking politician. They are sitting in a living room, having a chat, when the politician friend pulls a surprise interrogation. The traitor is caught of guard and does not know how to respond. The politician is very friendly, and suggests that even if the friend confesses, he can use his influence to get him out of trouble. It seems that the traitor has been teaching a young kid how to LD, and the dream seems to compare this to watching stars--very innocent with a bit of wonder. They have been having 33 minute long lucid dreams together.

Transition to a fellow walking down the street (may have been LouaiB, though I am not entirely sure about this). It is night, and then neighborhood scene is very peaceful and lovely. Suddenly, this man stops and says, "This is a dream!" He then realizes he has had six lucid dreams that night, and he's very put out about this, as he feels he has "stayed awake most of the night lucid dreaming"

The next moment I am aware, I am in darkness, surrounded by a myriad of loud voices coming from all different directions. "Stop!" I finally shout. "I know this is a dream!" Everyone stops shouting, except for one small voice. Hanging there in space, I decide to focus on this one voice, and use it to help me rebuild the dream from out of darkness. Slowly, listening to the voice, I find myself lying in bed (but still in total blackness). I then begin to feel my body sliding backward, and off the back edge of the bed, as though the whole thing had been tipped upwards. I realize that this is just dream sensation (similar to a WILD) and decide to help the dream by slipping backward off of the bed. I fall through darkness.

As I am falling, Al Bundy's head (from Married with Children) appears in front of me, laughing:

I continue falling, wondering what in the hell incubated this dream and realize I am in some sort of air duct. Looking up, I see some falling object, breaking the laws of gravity as they fall faster than I do: pillows! I get really excited about this, and start punching pillows. I feel my excitement begin to rise, however, and try to calm down a bit so that I don't wake up. I finally end my fall by landing in a huge pile of pillows.

I find that by directing my awareness to the pillows, I can make them explode into clouds of feathers. I do this several times, before trying to channel energy into a pillow for the same effect. This doesn't work (although the pillow does heat up) in part, I think, because I am thinking too much about it. I don't care enough to keep trying though, and toss the pillow away.

I exit the pillow room through a metal hallway. Off to the right is a small room, with my dream guide (!) sleeping in a chair. His feet are up and he has a snooze bubble expanding and contracting from his nostril. While this may have been a false memory (as I have no memories of ever having met a dream guide), I think it was actually part of the dream that I had forgotten from earlier. I decide not to wake him up, as we had already had some kind of interaction earlier in the dream.

I walk up three short steps, and enter into a large make-up room (with mirrors like you would see in an actress's make-up room). There are mirrors all around, but this make-up room has no walls, and it is not possible to explain what is around the make-up room--it is just nothing at all. I see a woman on the other side of one these big mirrors and tables, and decide to see if she is good looking. As I move to get a better look, I realize it is my sister I say hi to her, and she replies, "Good, you're up."

"Nope," I say, moving past her, "Still dreaming." I make a note that the dream is trying to send me false awakenings. I manage to see my own reflection in the mirror: I am wearing a grody white nightgown, my hair looks unwashed, and my eyes are bloodshot. Basically look like I've fallen off the wagon.

I exit this area into a smaller living room, where I see some people from waking life that I know. They are all prepared to go to a wedding, and are dressed very nicely. At this point, I receive a false memory about needing to be awake for a wedding, but I am not fooled. Two of the people are an old crush and her husband. I take this opportunity to tell old crush how beautiful she looks. The husband tries to shake my hand, but he is super tall in dream, which pulls my arm way up into the air. I pull his arm down and shrink him a bit I then pat the third person, a kid playing with a dog, on the back. The kid tells me to wait until he is done petting the dog. The dog is groaning and basically enjoying being pet. As I am watching the dog, the dream begins to destabilize. I stop for a moment to feel whether or not this is real instability, or made up instability, but it is real and I wake up.

All in all, I slept an entire sleep cycle, and estimate I was lucid for approximately 25-30 minutes. Probably one of the most novel adventures ever, especially falling through the air duct. I am constantly amazed at the creative power of the dreaming mind.

Woke up around 6:00 AM, DJed a bit and then MILDed for about five minutes. Drifted off to sleep and had this:

7:45 AM: Maybe a FA? My wife tells me to not worry about having an LD: "It will happen soon." I am in some broken down, burned up city scape (day residue from watching clips of The Matrix yesterday) fighting colossal enemies that grow out of the ground. I am using one of the pole blasters from the movie Stargate. In the dream, the weapon is given to me by a hermanubis:



I blast one of the creatures a few times, then point the pole at some lit up squares above me on a burned out building. This activates an elevator. I plan to use the elevator to travel underground and attack the enemy's legs. At some point during this bit, I become aware that I am either dreaming or watching someone else's dream (??? C/R exactly).

I am running down some hallways. I see an odd-shaped item behind glass used for fires. I cannot tell if it is a fire extinguisher or an oxygen mask. I remove it and spray some gas out. I inhale some of this. It smells quite odd but seems safe enough. Not sure what happens after this.

After awaking from this, and feeling a bit worn out of trying to MILD, I decide to give myself a friendly auto-suggestion (as I have done in the past) and then practice SSILD. I practice SSILD for a little while. During this time, my wife wakes up and gets ready for work, the construction men are walking all over the roof doing who knows what, and I am just lying there.

Things seem to calm down though. My wife stops in to say goodbye, and I decide to roll over and sleep. As I roll over though, I decide to give SSILD one last shot. I do the visuals, then the auditory senses, and then come to my body. Here though I decide to just rest (instead of repeating the cycle). I suddenly feel the onset of REM--sort of like rushing sensation, but also a bit like a heaviness. I feel my body starting to slump over. "No, body--do not fall over!" I think--I don't want this to mess up the WILD! But of course, it isn't my waking body, but my dream body, and I begin to feel myself rolling outward in a semi-circle. At this point I realizewhat is going on--we're WILDing!

When I cease rolling, I have landed in some beautiful master bedroom--not my own!--and slowly get to my feet. I wait for a few moments, in case the dream is not set yet. I then carefully nose pinch. I a little air blockage but not a big deal because I am already sure I am dreaming. I immediately remember my 3-step task and begin to complete the fourth step. However, as I usually use my pocketses to summon items, imagine my dismay when I realize I am in my underwear! I still attempt to summon my phone from my underwear. I reach in, and pull my hand out real fast, saying "phone: be there!" I momentarily see the black outline of the phone in my palm, but then it disappears. I try this a few more times. I finally decide to do some other stuff, since Sensei said the goals for fourth step do not need to be completed in order. Before leaving the master bedroom, however, I decide to take off my underwear (?) as I feel they are useless to me

I place my hand on the wall of the bedroom, phase it through, and then phase through the entire wall. I then think of what else I wanted to do. I decide to look for StephL. This house is very nice--lots of wood and glass and sculpture and art around, and the floor is marble--and I feel odd shouting. I decide to contact StephL telepathically:

StephL, I think. StephL! I try a trick. Ah yes, I think, I remember now--I look around a bit and see a cabinet--StephL was definitely in that cabinet! I run over to the cabinet, but as I approach it becomes smaller--too small for anyone to fit inside. I realize it is unlikely she will be in here, but I open the tiny door anyway--empty!

I continue my rounds. I suddenly feel something bump inside my pocket (wait--pockets! WTF! I thought I was commando! ). Hey, I think--I bet that is my totem! I reach into my pocket and BAM! pull out my f***** totem. Fourth task complete. I am quite pleased as I know I have managed to get some points now. I pass a life-size version of my totem resting on the ground, and squat down in front of it. I feel it in both hands, still quite pleased with myself. I then continue my search.

I enter another master bedroom. On a very large bed--probably king sized--my wife is sitting, nude, wrapped up in sheets. She is smiling at me. I begin to walk over to her, but then remember I am on a quest. Sorry sweetheart! I turn and walk out of some glass doors into a screened-in pool area. Coming up out of the water is a beautiful, porcelain-skinned girl with long, blonde hair. She looks at me but doesn't seem ready to talk.

"Are you StephL?" I ask.

"No," she says. "My name is Katerina : some Russian patronymic that I don't entirely catch. She is treading water, and her mouth goes under the surface while she is talking, so I miss that bit.

"Can I swim too?" I ask. So much for my quest.

"Yes," she says, "But I am getting out."

I jump into the water, come up and then swim over to her. My fingers somehow get tangled in her hair. I pull them away gently, as I do not want to pull her hair. She lets me touch her. She is wearing a full-body, dark teal wet suit. She then says something demeaning to me, or kicks off of me, or something. This gets me kind of riled up

"I like girls who are a little mean to me," I say.

She is now climbing out of the pool, but she lingers a minute. "You're lucky I like retards," she says.

I laugh. "What?"

"Yeah," she says, "Retards--boys I can be mean to."

We are now sitting on a ledge, still in the water. I move in close and slide my hands along her waist. She feels nice. I suddenly remember the contest. What was I supposed to be doing? I slide back a bit, because I have thought of a good final task.

"Do you mind if I try something?" I ask. She shrugs. I quickly and forcefully push my hands out at her, with the intention of using TK to knock her backward into the water. Nothing happens. I try a few more times, and remember how CanisLucidus knocked over a speedboat rather effortlessly. I try doing the motion lazily, not caring. The girl looks bored. Oh well.

I move in close again.

And I think that is enough, Dreamviews.

I will say that the dream ended with me feeling like things were destabilizing; I focused a bit on my senses and managed to hold it together a few more moments before I woke up.

8/1/14 restaurant with a spinning ride. Trying to cut through to restroom I plan to go through ride platform but end up riding with BrM from work and barely hanging on with just my hands. First try to go through exit door and I'm stopped by waitress. / pro baseball game. Great pitcher won it for other team. I'm on field afterwards. Baseball again..? / I feel like I was not that far off from forgetting this one too: I become lucid when I am at a party in a cafeteria setting that seems to be in (a particular foreign country I will leave out for now because of the tie in to FryingMan). I see "A", daughter of M who lives about 90 minutes north and I realize it would be very odd for her to be in this country at the same time as me and that it is a dream. Everyone is speaking the national language it seems and I try to think of a phrase that FryingMan said before so I could see what their reaction would be. I am also wondering if a DC of him might have been there. I just talk to the daughter that I know telling her that this is a dream and she looked on like she was listening but not surprised or anything. There are two long tables that I go to in this cafeteria like setting, probably residue from the party I attended few days ago. I walk up to this other table with about 6 people at it. The previous table had maybe 8 people. I was trying to think of some foreign phrase to say to the people sitting there but decided to move on and went out through the exit and into a hallway and got down to the end of the hallway and the dream went dark. I remained patient and focused stabilizing the dream and soon the visuals came back up and it seemed like I was in the same hall. I decide to go back the other way and I could hear a party going on in another door to my left and I decided to check it out and it was definitely a different party. They had disco lights going with some people dancing but mostly standing around and this time it was a very diverse crowd. People of all colors. I thought about going in there but decided to go continue down the hall and was just relishing the vividness of this dream. It started to fade again but this time I found myself fading back to bed. Probably the end of my REM cycle. 180


Some notes from Night 4 where I think I got lucid but I am not sure...ugh:

7/31 11pm, 5am violent shooting scene day residue from "Shoot'em Up" movie opening sequence before bed. Mole steps out of compound to save himself. Another guy is drawn out and blinded by bright spotlight. And shot with high powered machine gun in slow motion from midsection to head with bullet after bullet tearing through his head. I slowly peel my eyes away from this scene. Survivor going through multiple surgeries is tough as nails but also affected mentally - in one scene looks in shock. /Poor recall lately. As mentioned on the competition thread... I think I became lucid noticing that I was downtown just like I told myself to watch out for as a dream sign because of train sounds. Earlier I remember riding the train and getting on the wrong train just a minute early...just a minute before my actual train came. I was trying to look out the train window to see which destination I was heading to instead but the destination was illegible. There was at least one false awakening where my wife is getting ready and I can see her naked. I remember trying to go back into the dream (I think from the beginning of the (first?) false awakening) and having vibrations. I was so happy to see the vibrations back but I think it was all in dream (maybe it always is).

7/30 11-130 dream related to dream tracking and DJ / discussing how I will use alarm app with developer and when starting / beach town & hills / 4-430 wbtb LD! Office rolling stool - I am pushing this short rectangular stool on its rollers around some office halls. A lady is rolling her chair as well ahead of me but is a little bit slow and I make a move to go around her. The direction I went was a little bit of a long way so I have to speed up to make it worth it haha. At some point I realize that I'm making it hard on myself pushing this short stool around and I just pick it up and it is quite light. There's this beautiful brunette lady that tells me to grab one of these other kinds of chairs as well. I ask her if she is here to help me get set up in my office. I look closely at her face and feeling bold I tell her that her eyes are beautiful and I have one of my boldness initiated lucids that I was having commonly a few months back and I was reading about in my dream journal last night when I was looking to see thedifferent things I did when I would hit a little dry streak. Anyway, I told her this is a dream and you and I can have sex right here in the middle of the office all right now. I realize that I should be doing my first step for the competition and I'm trying to remember what it is and I finally think of mass telekinesis even though that was actually step 2. I feel the dream going dark not unlike the void but I don't think it was a DEILD and I just remain patient to stabilize and the sounds start coming back up and it sounds like I'm in the same place with lots of people around talking but when I look up expecting to see the beautiful brunette I get sidetracked and I get ready to pull my junk out and I look up and see my nephew and leave my junk covered. I think about doing one of my challenges to lucidity but decided to move on and went around the corner. I saw a black haired guy and thought maybe I can change him into the beautiful brunette in the hall (inspired by CanisLucidus' technique to summon Dreamer). I did my circular hand movement in front of his face that I planned to do for another task - not unlike a wizard or witch might do - and I get changes with each try. The first two times he just looks like a different guy but the third time he looks like a cute if somewhat tomboyish brunette girl with short hair. I hope this counts for some points because I didn't get many points going here. I start to refocus on my competition goals but perhaps I should have kept doing something at the same time because I fade gently back to bed and thought maybe I could re-enter the dream but I found myself fully waking up and ended up having to get up after running through the dream in my head to lock it into memory just in case. / record player playing a recording of something that I didn't want played related to a mistake at work. I was trying to carefully move the record needle to a different place on the record but the lever that you would normally put your finger on was very small and it was difficult to pick it up for fear of scratching the record. / ~645 sex with AB - I'm in an upstairs bedroom talking to AB from work and as I walk out of the room and start heading down the stairs I realize that she was looking at me in a flirty way...I'm dreaming...I decided to go back up the stairs into the room and she had already removed all her clothes. I asked her if she was touching with herself and she bashfully said yes. I reach down there and she is moist. We fool around quite a bit and I am getting ready to stick it in her mouth when I wake up. Possibly a false awakening as I don't remember doing an RC before going into my next dream. / dream discussing an idea for dehydrating then reconstitute for easier delivery (nothing related to my field of work).

Clearly I am letting sex get in the way of my plan for getting some points in the competition. Recall is improved with some lucids in between.

Lucid
DV Member
FA

5:17 AM: I am making a t-shirt for my club. I want it to feature quotes from Metallica, and I feel our members will like this. I show some designs: it is a chessboard with the words RED and BLACK stenciled on first row of squares. Writing is in red and black, lol. I know I will have to pay for this, especially to use Metallica's words and music, as they are so serious about being reimbursed (Napster!). A club member discusses the pros and cons of the project. In particular, he discusses how many people we are trying to reach are not being so due to poor storytelling skills on Sensei's part. Sensei favors good vs. evil conflicts, with good always prevailing. My club member (a WL friend) gives an example here discussing the merits of a literary work, in particular, a work in which Tannhauser (in this work, evil) has his "flesh tanned" at a Christmas dinner (some kind of medieval punishment). He then becomes a good guy and wins "the curried Christmas turkey breast" in some sort of competition (a joust, maybe) and defeats someone evil in single combat (swords). The idea is that Sensei's rigid preference for good over evil is excluding people from the club. Due to Sensei's popularity, this literary work is not nearly as damning as the club member hoped it would be. It is also expressed to me that I should use different Metallica material as this is the last time I will be combining Metallica and club slogans, for some reason (I've chosen stuff from Kill Them All but now consider whether it would be better to use Garage Inc. or And Justice for All. Multiple WL friends appear in this dream.

7:11 AM: My father and I have a heart-to-heart (day residue). He is writing a blog about President George W. Bush leaving office; president is spelled "presdent"-- I sigh at my father's poor spelling! He calls my mother and begins talking on the phone. He is trying to explain about new cellphones, but uses a lot of technical jargon to sound smart. She says, "Speak English, man!" He then suggests taking a Vicodin to "calm herself." I shake my head. He sees this and asks what is wrong. I tell him he is being really rude. He hangs up on my mom; he does not think he has been rude. I put it to him this way: "If someone told you to take drugs every time you got annoyed, you'd be pissed." He still is not getting it. "Dad, I need to say this," I say, and make it clear I don't want to be interrupted. I then have a personal conversation with my dad that I would rather not relate on the Internet!

1st fragment: I am riding my bike at my workplace. My boss is discussing new for the fiscal year with a bunch of suits outside in our courtyard. I am riding around them on my bike, not a care in the world. I am surprised at how light I feel, and jump the front tire over concrete steps and bumps. I notice that I am not riding my wife's bike, and am surprised--the tires are different. I also realize I have no helmet on and decide to be extra careful while riding. I almost fall from the bike from riding down too steep an incline, but manage to catch myself very lightly. Again, I think this amazing, but don't make the connection

2nd fragment: I am with my wife. She is hiding folded up dollar bills (day residue) in the little door of the car gas tank, for if we ever need money for gas. I begin to tell my sister where the money is, then decide not to.

FA: I feel I have woken from all of these dreams. My wife awakes, excited. "Did that really just happen!? Did I really dream that!?!?" she asks. "Tell me that was real!" She is crying happily as she gets her DJ out. I assume she has had some poignant experience and I say nothing, so that she will not be distracted and forget. She then gets up and uses the RR. I am worried she will forget her dream before writing it down; I don't want her to lose her dream and be sad.

(WBTB and WILD attempt--7:30ish)

8:29 AM: I am riding in the car with my mom on the interstate. I suddenly become cognizant that I am dreaming. I nose pinch to confirm. "Isn't it funny," I ask her, "that none of this is real?" I then nose pinch again (just to be sure--leaping from a speeding vehicle is almost never a good idea) and then open the door. The pavement and road shoulder are moving incredibly fast. I just step out, and the world slows down around me; I land safely on my feet. I manage to fly around a little bit! I get up in the air, and say "Look, I am higher! I'm higher!" Each time I say this I am lifted higher into the sky, or rather, the ground drops farther and farther away. It comes into my mind that I am tricking the dream (doh!) and the ground resumes its normal position. I am messing around with flying some more when I remember my 3-step task. I reach into my pocket and summon my cellphone; it is there. I open the lock screen and read some texts; some stuff from my dad, but all gibberish. I toss the phone away. I approach the wall of a building and phase my hand through; it passes through like a ghost, which has never happened before. I am already phasing my body through the wall, and the normal feeling of passing through jello or plasma or whatever returns

Inside is an odd shaped room--sort of bottle-necked with a square body and long-necked hallways. I can't remember exactly what occurred in this room, but I know I did not encounter any DCs or eat anything . . . lol. I see a mirror and wonder if phasing through a mirror is a task (old TotM, I believe--heard about it from podcasts). I phase through (a first for me, actually) but C/R what was on the other side. I suddenly realize I've been running about for a bit and have not seen any DCs--I forgot about my mom at this point. I leave this building and decide to summon a WL friend. "Jane (not her real name) be around this corner!" I say. I run around the brick side of the building, onto a cement patio with a picnic table. Sitting on the picnic table is my friend. She appears for a moment, and then changes into an old crush from high school. She looks really good and I almost lose it, lol. Her DC is stable, and looks exactly as she does in WL, except for dream glamour that always makes distracting DCs incredibly beautiful. We have a conversation.

"Hey (insert my WL name, lol,) it's really great to see you! you look good!" she says. She is wearing short shorts and her feet and legs are sandy, as though she's been walking at the beach. "You look good, too," I say, though I am cognizant that she is not real. She notices me oggling her and offers to have sex with me (which started out as one of my NL goals in several lucid dreams). I begin to comply, but then back away. I say, "I've been trying really hard not to get distracted during dreams, so I think I won't this time." She smiles and gives me a thumbs up. "Good job," she says, and then begins talking about her life and stuff. Admittedly I lose interest at this point and begin thinking about the tasks. I realize I should listen attentively (dream yoga and all) but then think, "I don't have time for this." I interrupt her: "What are some good lucid tasks for me to accomplish?" She sits for a moment and thinks. "How about flying?" she asks. I groan. "I'm terrible at flying." I look at her. "Do you know how?" She smiles and nods. "Show me, please!" I say. She holds out her hand and I take it and we walk out to an open area. I am very excited: I am finally going to get to advanced flying, and my crush from high school is going to teach me. Sweet! She looks up into the sky and then jumps. Nothing happens. She tries a couple more times and shrugs. I leave, annoyed, and decide to find someone who does know how to fly in this damn dream.

I run about the dream landscape, doing lots of high jumping (onto the backs of cars, up onto buildings and such). I find a hotel that seems to have people in it. I enter; it is packed with DCs. I look around at all of them: who would know how to fly? I ask one. She gives me a weird look and says she does not know how. I see a headless woman carrying a tray of something; surely a headless DC would know how to fly? I approach and ask, and she replies, "Um, I don't think I want to buy any," as though I am a salesperson. I ask a man and he looks disgustedly at me and says, "Oh, a dream question." I finally look around and shout, "Quiet!" Everyone stops talking and looks at me. There is still music and laughter coming from the ball room. "Tell them to be quiet in there too," I say (C/R if they shut up or not, lol). I say, "Who in here knows how to fly?" The DCs look around at each other. Finally a girl my age raises her hand and says, "I do." She asks me if this is the only way "Santa will bring me wings for Christmas" (A DV reference). She agrees to show me, and then proceeds to waste a lot of dream time screwing around, looking out of windows, rummaging through stuff. I keep asking her to hurry, because the dream will end soon, and she tells me to be patient or something. At some point, I begin to feel odd tactile sensations--someone brushing my hair, and tickling my body. I am not sure if these are random dream sensations or my wife trying to wake me up IRL. I move away from the area I am standing in and the sensations fade. I realize the dream will end soon and I quickly try to scan back through the events, in order to remember the dream better. As I am doing this I wake up. I think to DEILD, but then realize I will forget this dream (In all, this LD lasted about 45 minutes!)

3rd fragment: I am trying to open a car door. The handle snaps off in my hand. I flip it around and put it back on backwards; the handle works fine even though it isn't installed properly. I realize this is odd and wake up.

4th fragment: I have a somewhat lengthy dream, but am under the impression that I am merely deep in thought. In the dream, I am teaching a class on lucid dreaming. My students and I are back in the previous LD environment, with one of my WL friends leading the pack, lol, explaining what she wants to see in a dream. I look out of a window and tease them by saying, "I think I see a rat catcher!" We are walking through a beautiful wood-floor home, with many staircases and sunlit hallways. My high school crush passes again, and we meet eyes. She pats my stomach as she passes. I am suddenly aware that I am actually dreaming, and not merely deep in thought imagining myself to be dreaming, but I run out of REM time and wake up.

4 fragments: 2
3 dreams: 3
1 LD: 5

WBTB (sako!): 2
WILD (unsuccessful): 1

Basic
RC/stabilize: 1
Interact with dream character: 2
flying: 4
basic summoning: 4
Gain invulnerability: 4
Hand through object: 4
Use electronic device: 4

Advanced
Phase through object: 8

Three-step task
Summon phone, hand through object, walk through wall: 30

I am getting 73 total points. Let me know if this is not correct!

Red: DV members
Blue: Lucid

2:10 AM: Fragment. In an enchanted garden at night. All of the creatures here (mainly butterflies) are constructs, and are designed to "find out" thing about people (listening at the proper moment, or asking particular questions). This has something to do with sleep and dreaming but C/R (can't remember).

5:43 AM: (FA) I attempt WILD, which initiates missed FA. gab sees me trying to WILD and decides to help. She explains her method of WILDing: she visualizes Naruto in meditative posture (yeah right) before a big battle. She says the moment Naruto gets into meditative posture, he begins telling her he is ready to WILD. "I can see people fighting," he says. "The closest fight is the best one!" and "I'm ready right now," and "I'm still ready" and finally, if gab misses these cues, "I've woken up!" I marvel at how easy it is for gab to WILD!

The dream transitions to a false WBTB (lol) where I am ordering pizza with Sensei and a coworker. I have to walk down a long dirt road to get to my room, but am excited about having pizza. I explain to my coworker and Sensei that I will probably not have any soda because I need to return to bed for the competition. I also look at myself in the mirror at some point. Nothing weird; I just look tired. I contemplate taking Galantamine, then remember that it was hard to fall back asleep after a lucid dream. I reassure myself by remembering that we've just purchased some blackout curtains and I can sleep as late as I need to. I then take the Galantamine (?) but cannot remember a moment later if I took it or not. I ask my coworker if I took it. He says he thinks so. I tell him this is important, and is he sure? He assures me he is certain, and says, "You took something from that bottle." I am satisfied. I ask him if he wants one and he declines, saying he has heard it is ineffective. I assure him it has worked for me in the past, though he chalks this up to my "good recall." He admits his recall is very bad. I say mine has not been so great either lately.

(WBTB, WILD attempt 2)

7:24 AM: Meeting a Tibetan medicine student in a grocery store. We have an argument about how best to induce lucid dreams. He is trying to sell me some junk medicine. He then says that "half of the mind is dark" when travelling in different countries, which is why I am not remembering dreams. I tell him this is ridiculous and that the mind is never "dark." He becomes angry and says he cannot teach me anything. I try to calm him down. "Can't we have a discussion?" I ask. "Is homeopathy always right?"

"Yes," he says. He storms off. He then returns and says he is going to inform my "carlo" (no idea what that is) and my lama as to my rudeness. He also says he is going to find "all of the people that love me" and inform them too. I begin to get angry now to the point of violence. I implore him not to contact my friends and family, and get involved in my affairs. I also explain to him that our relationship is business, so do not make it personal. "Tell me you are understanding reality right now," I say.

A child I know wants to get past me to the drink cooler. I move out of the way. I am conscious now of making a scene, and decide to walk away. I head over to the freezer section, thinking I will preemptively call my lama and inform him of some lunatic who will be calling soon. I doubt he'll be mad at all. I meet a little old lady in the freezer section, and she asks for help finding the "orange juice with sugar." I begin digging through the freezer trying to find it. She tells me she completed "three years" of something "in three days." I politely ask how this is possible, because I feel she may have dementia. She explains how her personal business fell apart due to internal conflict. Dream (mercifully) ends.

8:58 AM: At a lake with a high school friend. He sees me and asks me to come over. I do. He then ignores me to talk to someone else (rather typical of him, I'm afraid). He sees an overweight girl walk past. Apparently she looks at him, because he says to the other guy, "Do you see this girl looking at me?" They then make fun of her. The other guy says, "Tell her to go inside, turn on the AC, and press the button that says 'food.'" They laugh then. I am disgusted, because they chose to make fun of her because maybe she found my friend attractive for a moment. I wonder why I am sitting her being ignored and then it hits me: Oh yes. This is a dream. I nose pinch to RC. I am about to set off to take care of my tasks, but I cannot pass up this opportunity.

I truly look at my friend for the first time, and his eyes bug out and seems a bit cartoony. I look away and he stabilizes into himself. He tells me we are going somewhere else now. While he is talking, I am listening, and start to lose lucidity. I mentally repeat, "This is a dream" to stabilize. Lucidity returns. I tell him I'm not going. He asks why not. I say, "Because you're supposed to be my friend, but being around you is neither friendly nor fun." I then walk away. He tries to follow me, but I start running (quite elated actually) and jump high over a 9ft fence or so and easily land on the other side. Escaped!

I then set to the tasks. I attempt the basic flying task. I leap into the air, high again, and yank branches down off of a pine tree. I swim my arms a bit, but don't see any real flying. For some reason, in dream, I become convinced that I have satisfied the basic flying task, but C/R when I wake up. Oh well.

I then attempt advanced flying. I peer up at the sky. It is very far away, blue, with white clouds. It seems impossible. I tell myself, "This is just your mind. You can fly right up into those clouds." I remember StephL saying that advanced flying seemed kind of scary, and I empathize with that thought. I jump into the air, staring straight up, and fall right back down. I try a couple more times. Nope. I decide to do the basic dream control task and set off.

I run down to my school building where I went to school as a child, and see a bolt in the wall (at this point I attempt advanced flying again, but still no success). I begin to shape the bolt with my hands, expanding it, and willing it to change into something else. It transforms into a combination lock. The lock looks more like a paperweight than a real lock, but it certainly is no longer a bolt. I am satisfied. I turn to find something else to mess around with and the dream ends.

So I tallied my points and it's actually 18.5:

2 NLD: 2
1 frag: 1/2
1 lucid: 5

RC/Stabilize: 1
Interact w/ DC: 2
Basic Object changing: 4

WBTB: 2
WILD: 1

If anyone has any advice on flying and advanced flying, I would love to learn. It's one of the things I want to do more than anything, and one of the things I have been least successful at in the past. Sometimes I am OK at basic flying, but most often it has been challenging. I am much more adept at manipulating the environment.

3/30/14 *!! **

1145to bed, ~130son home, 152wake from LD#1, 202 til 219 DJing awake thinking 257-305still+earplugs 425wake from LD#2 550wake from LD#3. Factors for early LD & 3 in one night=awareness raised by my son coming home. The timing of this early awareness would be best replicated with a DEILD alarm. Plus apple juice maybe 6 ounces and lots of milk with cereal before bed=effect?

I remember being lucid just before so it was either DEILD > lose lucidity >regain lucidity...or DEILD attempt ++awareness > DILD > lose lucidity >regain lucidity within same dream for LD#1. In the last part where I regained lucidity I had a terrific experience! I am in my car operating some car elevator that moves a car on or off of a ship. I decide I need to go back and in operating it back down it malfunctions and my car starts falling and falling. The way that I am falling makes me realize that I am dreaming. I begin to fly on my own and I'm above a city with lots of hills, green hills but very built up with so many things going on! I have the feeling that this is a foreign city, a very busy foreign city. There are not usually so many things going on in my lucid dreams. I see the word Hacienda on a sign. I think to look for more words and landmarks and see "lower level" in the stadium section of seats and I hear the crack of a bat hitting a
baseball... It's a baseball stadium! But I flew by it so quick and the stands are set up very unusually as if each section was separate and not immediately congruent to the baseball field. I keep going and I start thinking of looking for something to examine close up. This place is so green and I'm swooping around at quite a speed. Green hills within the city and DCs everywhere I am just amazed at all of the graphics processing of my brain but realize that the resolution is more like a great video game than HD reality. I find this house on a hill top and see a sexy woman. Another woman says a warning to the sexy woman and she runs inside and I try to follow but I stay bigger than the small area I'm trying to enter, it is staying small like it was in my view from up above. It is as if my brain did not correct the size when I swoop down to this house or it is as if this was always a miniature world and I a flying giant. Anyway, I try to approach the
woman but she won't stop running and screaming so I grabbed her gently like a giant grabbing a miniature dollar something looking at her, she is very cute. I start taking off her clothes but my fingers are so big I feel like King Kong with the damsel but more frisky I guess. She does not seem to mind anymore! I carefully pinch my forefinger and my thumb together several times until I can grab a piece of the fabric of her blouse and pull it away. I am very curious and I find that underneath she is wearing a black and white striped bra and I repeat the same steps to remove it. I start fading back to bed trying a quick DEILD but I seem to be at the end of that REM cycle and I can hear my son on the phone so I get up to see what is up. I lay back down and attempt to induce my wife into an LD by telling her that she is dreaming. 127

LD#2 is a WILD attempt where at first I think I'm just getting a dreamlet of a bank scene but as it continues I realize that is a full fledged dream that I'm completely inside of and I am in the bank with a gun, an automatic gun and apparently I am robbing a bank for some reason . It sounds like fun so I continue with the scenario. Some hero from the bank is running around trying to mess me up and I start firing the automatic weapon chasing him around the bank with the bullets and after about 20 plus rounds of bullets the gun jams up. The scene fates into very intricate grid pattern. I have gotten good patterns before I always find it fascinating but this one was more intricate than I remember previous ones being. Like I was in the movie Tron or something. It is also kind of similar to floating through space but instead of stars there are lines everywhere and I just enjoy it until I eventually fade back to bed. 128

LD#3 I can remember the beginning of this dream quite well , the non-lucid part. There is a female cop on the run for something that she didn't do. There is a Native American cop like reservation police who is looking for her and feels that she is innocent and wants to help her. He calls out for her as he is standing several feet from his truck and the truck starts rolling away. It rolls over a fence and is heading towards his partner as he runs after it . It knocks his partner in the head with a glancing blow and he falls to the ground but there are more wheels to follow and one runs over his head, gross! I cover my eyes a little bit and now this whole thing is playing out like a movie. The Native American cop witnesses his partner's head being ran over and vomits a bright green fluorescent colored vomit! I think to myself "I didn't need to see that...that didn't need to be part of the movie!" I seem to wonder about the color of the vomit perhaps
semi-lucidly. I feel myself back in bed and there is a heavy weight on top of me. I recognize this feeling and stay calm. I decide that it is a woman on top of me even though she feels more heavy then the average woman. I make a few thrusts upwards in an intercourse motion and I am able to mentally reorient myself to where I am on top of her and fully in the dream. I am on top of a beautiful sexy woman and we proceed to have sex until I fade back to bed. 129

A couple of key points that I noted in my dream journal were that I was staring at the back of my closed eyelids and as images formed I would look past them like the way you might stare off into the distance. It felt like a key to dealing with HI's and dreamlets. This was used in my WILD attempt.

3/27* I wake up from a non lucid dream where I saved a baby but the baby was partly unconscious but the father was already assuming the worst and heartbroken and I could not get him to look at the eye movement of the baby as proof that she would survive. I am able to convince the mother who comes up running. I have this feeling that I was lucid earlier perhaps in the dream before this one and I think was I flying? No I don't think so. And then I remembered it involved having sex with my wife! I remember this while I was reading the above dream in my bedside dream journal! It all started coming back to me! I realize that it is easier to forget a lucid dream especially earlier in the night when you have regular dreams follow it and your recall is not the best. Heck I forget things from waking life. I won't go into full details but someone had just left the room and my wife's mom or my dad I think was the one who just left the room. I feel like I am
probably dreaming but not as sure as usual for some reason and there's also danger of that person coming back in. I do the nose pinch and I can breathe through but I wonder if I really close my nose and I decide to look at my hand and at first I think it looks normal but then I definitely count six fingers. I proceed to have quite a time with my wife and we do a number of things that we don't commonly do and a lot of interesting things happen that don't quite make sense but very enjoyable. I am leaving out the details for obvious reasons but the sexual experience lasted maybe 4 minutes I would say, so not the longest LD. I fade back to bed. 126

One more note of interest to myself at least...the next night waking up on March 30th I had a dream involving something like 40% of the details of my evening out that very night! I usually find that the connections are a little harder to make between the residue and the dream content.

12/22** DILDx2 1210 220 410 6 740
Mirror dild, awareness dild

220 F: wife&I see lovebirds in a store leaning into each other, we look at each other...I say I bet he's touching //

Spoiler for explicit:

her breasts. She says I bet she's touching his (dong). I say yeah and I bet its huge and he's gonna slap her face with it.

410 D: really cool ride at amusement park (any ride designers credit me!) Hybrid train ride on tracks for all ages. Some cars or seats move independently as it goes along. One kind rotates horizontally, some up and down like a Carousel as it takes you through a long stretch of the park. Wife and son are directed to seats on the near side and back of the train and I am directed to the far side of the train. Do you want me to go around the front of the train or under here (small clearance under train and tracks)? I hurry around the front of the train and it starts to take off without me so I jump on the train its a set of 4 seats in a circle and there are three older guys sitting in the other three seats. I sit down in the fourth seat and look back towards the back of the train and see my wife and son and they're waving for me to come on over. I hop off the train as it starts to move slowly and as I try to make my way over to them the train movement
becomes confusing and I can't make it over to where they are and I lose track of them. There is some kind of like water slide path that goes along the train track and I foot surf down the path having a great time. I wonder if I'm not supposed to be doing this and along the way I see a worker look over at me and I wonder if I'm busted but he keeps walking on. I find them at the end of the path. That was so much fun waking up from even though it didn't seem like I was lucid. If I was it was very low level. Definitely not counting it.

~6am F&Dild F: helping Sj M with something related to my business near the Capitol in a town south of where he currently resides.

DILD: amusement park again I take train as before one quick stop to where the bathroom is but this is more a traditional train but I got on the wrong train and it took me to completely different stop people that got off there were catching a connecting train so ask the conductor of that train where I should go and they said you can catch the same line you were on back to where you started and then catch the correct train. I walked away from there and I saw a girl in one of those corndog Hut like outfits brightly striped and ask her where the nearest bathroom is and she said over there behind such and such some feature at the amusement park and I see a animal faux fur hat/partial mask like for kids (pikachu etc) but a little realistic I think fox. I put it on and start skipping through the park acting silly and I think this may make me look gay to some people and sure enough my subconscious spawned a gay bashing closeted gay that steps into my path and
wants to fight I guess. I say hey dude chill (or something like that) I'm just acting silly and then I go ahead and skip on around him. I see the bathroom and go inside and wash my my hands first and look up at the mirror...Holy Shit I'm dreaming and I'm a black guy. I have high wide set cheekbones, wide nose, medium dark skin, shoulder length dark brown to black trimmed dreadlocks. I take my time to really soak in the face/look. I start making faces to see if like before there would be sync issues. Sure enough there was a delay..I would close one eye and moments later "he" would. It was fascinating! I then went outside no longer concerned with going to the bathroom. I see two boys walking and say look what I can do and I take off flying up ahead a little. Unimpressed I say how about this and I shoot up straight into the air at super speed and then shoot back quickly but slowing down at the last minute landing gently on my feet. Enough of that...I go
flying around the amusement park exploring and start fading back to bed. I woke up thinking the mirror thing was cool but now 12 hours later transcribing from my paper DJ I am a little "weirded out." I have read about one or two people seeing a different person in the mirror...but what the heck is that about?

~740 DILD#2 having trouble sleeping after a bit of a late WBTB. I just remembered about how I saw myself in HI's in the last night or two and note it down. Also noted how weird it was to look in the mirror during the WBTB right after that LD. I don't feel like trying to WILD. I think about how i didn't get to any goals or contest items and remember i need to do step 2 telekinesis which i chose because I don't remember trying it before. I eventually fall asleep. I am in this giant Conference Center like what I was in recently with escalators and all and I am noticing lots of beautiful women going by and then I notice but I'm floating around the place just above the floor and realize that I'm dreaming. I'm having a lot of fun just checking out all the beautiful women while fly floating about and I start to get a little mischievous and beside the try out the telekinesis. Using telekinesis, I am pulling down the womens clothes with a simple motion of my
hand through the air including one that looks a little like Girl Friday. Then something on happens it is like the scene is playing in front of me on two separate huge movie screens and I'm watching this group of 3 women putting another woman up like a pyramid for cheer and the same thing is happening over to the left as well but the one on the right is closer to me and I watch curious if they are able to perform the maneuver. They are also out of sync - the two screens. Could this be a residue from recalling the earlier lucid dream where the mirror image was out of sync? . The woman on top tumbles down and her hair gets stuck in the escalator and I have no interest in watching anymore of that. I look away or possibly close my eyes and find myself back in bed. (too tired to look for typos, gotta go to bed soon)

Night 6 (Nights 4&5 uneventful)
121813** all approximate: 11 340 545 640
Fragment, I am backing up my car to pick up my mother in law but she keeps reaching out for the car too soon causing me to stop before I get to her. Recalled this around 3:40am during my WBTB. When I go back to bed I do some mantras that "I notice the vibrations" that coincide with me entering most dreams from WILD state...just in case I've lost too much consciousness by the time the vibrations show up, at least that should bring me back to good awareness as I enter the dream. I decide to do some quick SSILD cycles and like FryingMan I decide to experiment with backing off of the cycles and focusing on going to sleep and alternating. I told myself the other day that I was probably experimenting with too many different things but something worked here. It feels like I probably take maybe a little over 30 minutes to get back to REM sleep/vibrations (for me at least) . I am mostly too alert so definitely towards the end I am putting all of my focus on falling
asleep through relaxation. For better or worse I changed positions experimenting with different positions due to a little heel pain that I should probably ice and nip in the bud! I get a longer series of vibrations than normal and I try to nudge them on to peak and push me into the dream but they seem to just keep going longer than normal but eventually they subside and no scene forming immediately, it feels like I'm in the void and I start visualizing a scene with lots of DC's and I settle on a big clothing store that is not too far away so I teleport there and I'm in the store floating just above the ground and it looks like a fairly accurate representation of the actual store except no cash registers at the front just big areas of clothes. I make my way through the store checking out different characters some of them looking at me strange and I start thinking a little more sexually and decide to go invisible. It feels like it worked but I did not
look down on myself I just proceeded. I think that the women's bathroom would be a good place to go but as I start to go in I decide they are not always the most glamorous of places and I back off from there. I find a beautiful woman in the store with really nice brown hazel eyes and I cup my right hand around the right side of her face and can see my hand and she can apparently see me (lost or gave up invisibility or never was invisible) and we do a little dance then I do a little silly dance and I tell her she should do it as well but she looks at me like she is not going to do that, it's not sexy. And she doesn't look like the kind of woman that would try anything silly. Looking back I get the feeling that my lucidity was fading here. Either the dream fades, my recall fades late in the dream or my lucidity does but I'm leaning towards the idea that I faded into a false awakening after the above, but I'm not sure. All I know is I have some additional non-lucid dreams before awakening and recalling, luckily not letting the LD fade from memory
entirely at least! In one of those dreams I was in the old office - the site of which I passed 2 nights ago and thought about - but in the dream it was a combination of the office and a restaurant for some reason. The owner of the restaurant or manager is asking me if I can deliver a couple of packages of business cards on my way out and I look at them and think this is a place in U but I later realized it's in the city several more cities south from there and I said maybe I can get my son to deliver them. How much would you pay him? He said about 7 dollars an hour and I blew that off as an insult and had no plans to follow up with him. I now realize that this is probably day residue from watching a recorded episode of "what would you do" where the owner of a diner or the manager was being rude to one of his workers. Next I saw one of my coworkers eating there on a stool/counter area much like in a diner and he asked me what I was doing and I said I was
just ordering some food and I realized that the time is about 820am (in the dream) and I was supposed to be at work at 8 so as I head towards the back door which is now more like the original old office door and I peek out the back door to see if the boss might be pulling up...when I don't see the boss I run up to my car unlock it with my remote and drive off quickly running late for work to my current office. Hmm... perhaps a false awakening since that is a common theme of FAs - running late for work or school... But it feels like I'm remembering the full dream so I don't know and the running late part and "realization" of being late happened towards the end of the dream not from beginning. ~540 am laying in bed recalling my dreams and jot down some notes in DJ. I drift in and out of sleep and sometime around 630 my wife starts some early morning cuddling and at one point my wife gets a little aggressive and although I'm convinced I'm fully awake I double check with a reality check just in
case and I am indeed awake. I ask her to be more gentle but realize I was probably not responding enough more focusing on getting back to sleep since I get to sleep in later than her and I know she will be getting up to get ready soon so no time for too much with her anyway. 5-10 minutes later I feel my wife get out of bed to get ready and I decide to try to drift off to sleep for another potential lucid dream and I'm finding myself taking a number of minutes to get back to sleep. Wild vibrations again, and again I am not seeing a scene form so I start visualizing the one earlier, the big clothing store and this time I remember the dressing rooms. Last time I was there IWL a cute mom I know was there with her daughter visiting from university who was waiting outside of the dressing rooms so I decide they were there now and I go to check out the mom. I fly up over to the dressing rooms and I can see her in her bra and pants and she is quite sexy I'm floating above
the dressing room area deciding if I want to go down there or move on when I hear what were possibly waking life noises of my son and wife getting ready but I stay calm and I unintentionally but seamlessly teleport back to my house and I go downstairs (in the LD, not IWL) where I was hearing the noise and I see my wife and I tell her let's have a little fun...take off all your clothes and she does and I admire her for a moment and then we do a few things, you know. After a while of that I decide I want to move on to one of my goals to fly to Yosemite National Park. I go out the door and I see the cute neighbor down the street, go check her out for a moment but then move on fairly quickly and I look up at the sky and horizon and think about the direction to Yosemite and start flying at very high speed in that direction. I'm trying to make out some of the features on the ground mostly just green hills and mostly greenish land in a bit of a blur going too fast and it starts getting colder and colder and I decide I am there and slow down rapidly and land on what I decide will be the famous half dome. I can't tell for sure if it is a good representation of half dome because it is gray and snowy all around but I'm definitely high up in the mountains. In my goal I had planned to make it summer if it was not already summer-like when I got there. There is snow everywhere and I think of how Steph was building a snowman related to the tasks of the month that I kind of put on the back burner this month (been mostly camped out in the DILD section of the forums) but sounded fun so I decided to start building a snowman. I built the base snowball about a foot in diameter and then two more each a little bit smaller. I then found two rocks to make his eyes, a stick to make his nose and I was in the process of finding something to make his mouth out of when I started fading back to my bed. I laid still and I could hear my wife going out the front door leaving for the day and figured that may
have been what started waking me up. I tried to re- enter the dream but realized I felt too awake and did not try long. Definitely not a false awakening unless I'm still sleeping right now! Haha. I was so sure I was awake and obviously I am but I should have done my reality check when getting up anyway to catch false awakenings! Too many things that I could put my focus on! Perhaps I should make one point of focus into being kind of like a habit and then move on to the next one but it must still have meaning each time to be effective I'm thinking.