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Dream - Lucid

I was watching something about the life and death of Bob Ross. I saw him doing his painting show. I think it was saying he died because of an addiction. I then was, for some reason, getting his death confused with my grandpa, and his confused with my dad (who is alive IWL). I felt very sad for the loss of my dad, thinking of how I just saw him. I felt confused though, as if it wasn't quite right.

Then, I was walking around a shopping mall with my mom when my old dealer called me up, telling me he had some "good cigarettes and some good stuff" for me if I wanted. He said he'd bring it by my house (the house I grew up in). I told him I'd be home in ten minutes. I hoped my mom didn't know I was talking to a dealer on the phone. Not long after that, he called me back to ask where I was. I asked him if he was still living in the same place. He said yes, but he was at my place. I said I'd be there soon. He had his friend over at the house bringing me the goods. He said he'd have to call him or something.

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This whole dream was literally a video game. It looked as if it had pixelated Gameboy Color graphics. It started out with a boiling potion in a weird, square container. It was very foamy. I and someone else had to stop the potion from becoming fully effective because it would end the world or something like that. We put something in it to neutralize it. We spent the remainder of the game trying to keep the potion ingredients from the witch, who kept finding us. We were in a house for the last part of it, and she somehow got ahold of all the ingredients. The last two she added were broccoli and carrots. I knew we were doomed. Either we restarted the game from an earlier save, or we somehow neutralized the potion. We used powdered, green ginger to neutralize it.

This dream was longer, but I can't remember details, only the general gist of what happened.

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Not sleeping so well again. Extremely tired but that doesn't seem to make any difference. I'm tired of being tired.

Morning of June 12, 1976. Saturday.



At the beginning of my dream, I find myself walking north on a known back road between Arcadia and my home in Cubitis. It seems I am returning home from somewhere, possibly school, although it is the weekend in reality. (My dream self often does not know what year it is let alone the day, though walking home here symbolizes my imminent return to consciousness). It is possibly late morning or early afternoon. The weeds on each side of the road are higher and denser than in reality. The road seems older or less-maintained (which may be an indicator of the presence of prescient threads, of which there are two known of in this dream). I am walking on the right side of the road, close to the roadside.

Stepping out from the roadside and from my right is a hippie (at least two years older than me, possibly about seventeen) with long blond hair. He is apparently selling GRIT newspapers. He seems like an unlikely older hippie version of my otherwise soft-spoken friend Johnny C—-y, but the hair color is wrong. He is otherwise unknown.

Even though he is selling GRIT newspapers, he also seems to be selling illicit drugs (a very rare dream scenario). He offers me a free sample pill called “Snakeskin” (which I first also but only vaguely consider is a reference to American dollar bills, followed by vaguely considering if the pill is actually made of skin from a snake), which is a large green oval tablet. For some reason, I take it (which is something I never would have done in real life).

As I continue to walk along, I have a strange feeling of being pulled into the air and thrown to the opposite side of the road, which causes me to wake with an unusual but vague sense of motion sickness, though it is very brief.

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Familiar dream state components and meanings:

RAS symbolism: A snake often serves as the main trigger of RAS and is likely the oldest biologically (and probably serves as such in the dreams of all primates, including lemurs, lorises, monkeys, apes, and man). Here however, the association is with its skin, for the subliminal realization of the shedding of it as releasing the fictional dream self to return to the conscious self identity. The pill, as an emergent consciousness precursor (in contrast to the alternate choice of reading the newspaper), symbolizes the shift in consciousness that occurs with waking. My dream self however, seems to subliminally perceive it as reinduction potential (though just as in waking life, some pills are known to bring one closer to unconsciousness, while this dream ultimately utilizes the opposite inference regardless of how my dream self views it).

Vestibular system symbolism: The rising upwards and flipping backwards to the other side of the road is the resolving of ambiguous vestibular system dynamics in rising from unconsciousness. This is the same waking symbolism as in dreams such as “The Pole Vault Event” from 1970, though in that one, the dynamics were transmuted to another dream character.

Premonitory hypnopompic precursor: My entire dream seems based on potential control (though based on passive choice in this case) of the waking transition and the nature of RAS. This is because I had continuously been working with dreams in this way since I was around eight years old (to induce apex lucidity). However, prescience always has curious potential despite the dream type or its core symbolism and inherent meaning. In fact, prescience seems far more likely to stem from known core symbolism, which has always puzzled me.

Personified preconscious: Newspaper boy. The personified preconscious is rendered for waking mediation of a softer transition than “raw” RAS, though often with conflict if there is real environmental noise (and a need to wake and identity it) or biological need (for example, a need to use the bathroom, drink water, or change sleeping position).

Emergent consciousness factor: The newspapers and the pill, relative to apparent choice. The role of the preconscious here is in making me aware of thinking skills (reading) that are only viable when conscious. Additionally, it introduces the choice of exiting my dream with vestibular system consolidation (the pill), of which I subliminally associate with flight and thus prefer in this case over the softer choice (though which sometimes becomes abstract and annoying since printed text is difficult to understand or stabilize in many states of unconsciousness).

Prescient threads: A boy (unknown to me) selling GRIT approached my mother after this dream. She purchased the newspaper for about a year and a half prior to our move back to Wisconsin. Additionally, I needed to take both penicillin pills and painkillers after the surgery on my right thumb about two months after this dream. (I had never taken pills on any regular basis before.) The prescient nature of the latter seems to be validated by the preconscious in this case having similarities (in appearance only) to my real-life friend Johnny. Although the pills in this dream are presumably illicit, Johnny had told me a few times in real life that he wanted to be a doctor after finishing high school.

Real-life influence seems to have come from a GRIT advertisement, though with altered associations.

Additional notes: In this dream, the original vague association of “Snakeskin” being a reference to money was probably based on the altered association with the GRIT advertisement. The waking symbolism is oriented to my right as is most often the case. The preconscious is rendered to my right as the newspaper boy, who steps out from the weeds from my right. This seems mainly due to sleeping on my left side (as real environmental factors are more intrusive upon my right side, which is more exposed to the real environment I am sleeping in, and its ambiance - whereas unconscious factors, even when personified, are typically oriented on my left). In contrast, flying and being suddenly aware of the left side of my body (on the left side of the road) is the final waking dynamic, as it correlates exactly with my real physical orientation and sleeping position.

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