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YES! Finally i manage to get my goals right in the lucid dream and do some dream control!

I am in my bed, eyes closed, but i feel that something's not right and i might be in dream already. I risk and open eyes, it's night, room looks normal, but i go ahead and take off headphones. I still hear binaural beats without headphones, so i am indeed in dream. I remember to do stabilization, i touch the bed and the blanket and engage senses. The binaural beats shortly fade out, so i guess dream stabilized. I Get up from the bed and suddenly some noise starts on in my head, similar to the one from previous lucid dream when that started to fade out, but i just think that it might be just dream trying to trick me and i move on.
I decide to go to the balcony like i planned, but i lose control over movement and start walking towards the door out of the room instead for some reason. I quickly regain control and run towards the balcony door. It's closed so i just go ahead and ram it. The glass partially breaks, i check if my dream body's damaged in any way, but it's not. I do a few steps back and ram the door again, it breaks and i am at the balcony now. Noise in my head fades out.
I take a look around, the dream recreated the cityscape around my house from waking live fairly exactly, there are even people walking around like usual, and it's still night. I remember my todo list and decide to try transformation, first flying being that i recalled was a dragon, but a decide to try even though i haven't tried before. I try to imagine it and imagine the feel of it, while knowing that it will be successful, but it fails. I guess i should try flying anyways and it's somewhat working. I was slowly rising in the air and in the reflection from the window i notice some sort of black wings forming on my back and i start feeling them. That feeling screws me up a bit(i haven't felt transformations in lucid dream before) and i lose control over the flight, ending up hovering back to the balcony, but hey, success! I think wings disappeared once i was on the balcony since i stopped feeling them at that moment.
I recall my todo list again and next on the list was... summoning! Ofcourse out of everything i decide to try summoning a dragon. I try to imagine him appearing from various places, but no success... until i decide to look back at my room. The room was pretty dark and black dragon-like creature with yellow reptilian eyes was appearing out of shadows, though i barely could see details(should add night vision of sorts to todo list). I heard short roar and shortly it sprinted at me(it's size was enough to get through the doorway) and grabbed me with the claws, i felt the grab(but no pain of any kind or anything) and there i got waaay too excited due to all this success and the dream faded out.

This was a fun but weird DILD that hit right at the end of a very long NLD. The sudden introduction of this "Dream Coordinator" character was interesting. I enjoy it when my subconscious plays back at me like that.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #66: The Dream Coordinator

I'm on an epic quest, roaming on foot across the United States with several odd characters: a man in his 50s dragging around an 8-foot potted plant, an 11-year-old anorexic boy, and a pretty, short-haired woman in her mid-40s named "Mrs. Rearden". I've been journeying with Mrs. Rearden the longest and I trust her completely.

It's a foggy morning, and we're all sitting for a moment on a long couch outside of a gas station. I notice that gas is "$1200 / 1000 gallons". I think, "$1200?? God, that's expensive." But I take a moment to do the math and realize that this gas is actually super cheap. "Ah... tricky, tricky!" I think.

I see one of those gas station signs with the changeable letters. It reads, "DUDE THIS SUCKS", which I find surprising. I look closer and see that it has changed to "YES WE'RE OPEN!" Just below the sign I see a row of frightening stone gargoyles perched along one of the gas station walls. Finally I've been bombarded with enough clues and now I know that this is a dream.

The other DCs stare silently ahead, so I ignore them and take a look around. It's still foggy, but I realize that I'm not outside at all but rather in what looks like an enormous airplane hangar. There are windows high up in the corner and I float toward one, planning to phase outside. As I reach the window, though, my vision goes black.

I feel myself floating back down, so once again I imagine that I have a gladius in my hand and start swinging it around everywhere. I land back on the ground, but everything stays black. I can still feel the weight of the gladius and my moving arm, though, so I feel fairly relaxed. I start probing at my dream body and discover that I seem to be wearing nothing but my boxer shorts. Suddenly worried, I check to make sure that my wiener is still there. Yes, all is well.

I've been in the dark longer than I'd like so I call out for help. "Somebody come help me! Mrs. Rearden, I need you to help me!" There's no response. I poke and slap at my face, hoping something will happen. Finally, I decide that maybe something will happen if I take off my boxer shorts. As soon as I attempt this, I hear Mrs. Rearden shout, "Don't do that! Stop it! Here, I'll help you." She grabs my left hand, gives it a hard yank, and pulls me into a new dream scene just outside of a door.

I keep a grip on her hand and we walk through the door. We're on the second story walkway of a mall. Mrs. Rearden looks frightened. She mutters, "This is not where the Coordinator wants us to be."

I'm stunned by this. "Who? The Coordinator?"

"Yes," she says. "The Dream Coordinator. This was not what he had planned." She is really upset and keeps looking nervously around the scene

I tug at her hand and move with her further along the walkway. As we approach an elevator, I say, "There is no Dream Coordinator. This is my dream and we don't answer to anybody. But you don't have to come with me any further. I think I'm okay on my own now."

She responds that she wants to help, but as she's speaking, I become disconnected from my dream body. My perspective sinks down to the busy food court on the mall's first floor. I feel like an insubstantial apparition and I'm desperate to regain physical form. I try the gladius trick but it feels all wrong.

There's a guy with a shaved head nearby, black, in his 30s, wandering happily around the food court. I move toward him, hoping that if I make physical contact it'll bring me back into the dream. He sees me floating toward him, though, and takes off at a dead run, screaming in terror. I don't blame him -- if a ghost in nothing but boxer shorts came after me, I'd run like hell, too. With nowhere else to go, I run out of steam and the dream ends.

02/10/13

Human Vampire
I am flying over the Nile river in Egypt, looking down at the green foliage and sandy beaches. I make note of the fact this is the first time for quite a while that I have been able to enter a dream through this method. I fly off over the desert towards the pyramids. I realize there are people following me on the ground. I identify them as Templars. I don't really want to deal with Templars right now. I remember a task of the month for DV, however, is simply to give a flower to the next DC I see. I fly back to the banks of the Nile and look for a flower. I find a pretty one and I pick it before flying back to where I spotted the Templars.

I scan them from above and select one that looks kind of hot. They are approaching me, but I ignore most of them and land directly in front of the one Templar I have chosen. All of the Templars surround me, there are about ten of them, but I am focused on the one. I walk over to him and tell him that this is all a bit awkward… but I think he's hot. I hand him the flower with a smile. He just looks confused. Another Templar grabs the flower away, throws it on the ground, and stomps on it a few times. He says it was probably poisoned. I tell him he's just jealous because he didn't get one. I figure I have completed the task, so I focus on opening a portal to somewhere I need to be. A portal opens, and I go through it before the Templars can interfere. I close it immediately behind me. I find I am now on a dark street. There are several people there. They are in a fight. One of them looks like Alex O'Laughlin. He's so hot.

There are two other guys there fighting him, and they seem to be kicking his ass. I think that is strange since he looks like he did when he was a vampire in Moonlight, he should be kicking ass. Mick's ex-wife, Coraline, is also there. I wonder if this is the brief period where Mick was human but got in a fight with a couple of vampires. Coraline says she will give them what they want if they just leave Mick alone. Mick has just gotten thrown up against a dumpster, so I get between him and the vampire thugs and tell Coraline not to give them anything, I have a different deal for them… leave Mick alone and I leave them in one piece. One of them, a vampire that has one solid black eye, sniffs the air and tells me to stay out of what I don't understand. I tell them not to underestimate what they don't understand. The vampire says he's a little hungry anyway and grabs me like he thinks it will be easy. I twist his arm around and kick him away from me, which clearly takes him by surprise. I tell them it is their last chance. The vampire with one eye says to kill the fucking bitch. They both come at me. I form Witchblade into a sword and remove both of their heads, both heads have a permanent look of shock on them. Coraline asks how I did that, how could any human do that. I go over to Mick and focus some healing energy into him. I remember he will be a vampire again before too long, but for now he needs healing. I am gazing into Mick St. John's eyes when I wake up.

After trying and failing so much in the last several weeks, I finally made it to the Great Pyramid! I didn't complete the Task of the Year, but I had one fantastic lucid dream.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #59: On the Back of the Sphinx

I'm standing by a hedgerow on a suburban street, waiting for the hedges to part and let me in. Through these hedges is the party I'm supposed to attend. The hedges part for me, then close as I move toward them. "No problem," I say, covering up a sting of rejection. "I'll come back when you're ready for me."

I wander across the street to wait. I wonder whether I'm dreaming. I decide that I'll reality check "in a few minutes". (You slacker!) No -- I don't need to reality check. This is a dream! I look at my hands. No distortion, waviness, extra fingers, or discoloration. Still, I'm sure that I'm dreaming.

The dream feels sharp, vivid, and stable. I feel like I have tons of time and potential. I sprint across the street, leap over the hedgerow, and with a shout I soar into the sky. I'm flying over a rain forest now and my skyrocketing confidence level makes me shout, "L-dopa!!!" (Although I was displaying behavior in line with high dopamine levels, I've never taken L-dopa. Don't know what got into me.) After flying over the rain forest for a while, I wind up in a cloud bank and lose my bearings. Afraid of getting stuck here, I turn back toward the neighborhood, content to take a different direction.

I fly back out of the cloud bank, but a fierce gust of wind kicks up from the other direction and pushes me back toward the clouds. "Okay," I say. "You're taking me to the Pyramid." I relax as I pass back through the cloud bank, emerging over an ocean. I let the wind push me further on and soon I'm flying thousands of feet over a desert dotted with stones. It's dark, and the sand looks as gray as a moonscape. I descend headfirst toward the sand, sure that I'm going to find what I'm looking for.

It's nighttime when I land. I look to my right, and there's the Pyramid, illuminated by artificial light! I'm no more than twenty feet from it. The sphinx lies directly at the base of the Pyramid. I note that in the physical world she'd be further east toward Cairo, but the inconsistency doesn't bother me. Instead it reminds me even more strongly that this is my world.

The sphinx's stony skin is white like alabaster and she has Asian characters tattooed along all four legs and in a single stripe along each side of her body. She's far smaller than I'd expected, no more than thirty feet long. Her entire face has crumbled away (not just her nose.) I'm overcome with this urge to help her. Even setting aside Task of the Year, this is now something I badly want to do.

I press my palms against her face and say, "I'm going to fix you." I feel the stone first roiling then smoothing out against my hands. In a few seconds her face is repaired and her head starts to move. Her face looks mostly feline but there's still a vaguely humanoid quality to it. She licks my hand once and her tongue is the fleshy, rough tongue of a cat. Her head turns vaguely toward my face but her eyes are pupil-less, blank alabaster so I can't tell whether she's looking straight at me.

I swing my leg across her back and ask her to "Take me to the top of the Pyramid." She gets to her feet and starts walking around to the other side of the Pyramid. Her route takes us through a restaurant and bar where a number of women are dancing to this really amazing piece of world music. The melody is from some sort of brass instrument and it's backed by the mouth harp. (I had to google to even figure out what this instrument is called -- here's a good example of the mouth harp in action. I think it was in my memory banks from a video game I played about 15 years ago.)

As I ride through the dance floor, the music and dancing begin to draw me in. One particularly stunning dancer, an ebony-skinned young woman of about 25, is driving me to distraction. I feel the sphinx slowing down and things start to feel unstable. I try to refocus on the task at hand, but the dream falls apart.

This lucid was fueled by pure desperation. I've never fought this hard to save an LD that was going bad, but it paid off. I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this gladius thing.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #58: Generosity and Giants

A young woman named "Crystal Fleming" is collecting money for a charity, and I've pledged $33.13. I'm proud of my "generosity" and totally thrilled that I've found exact change down to the penny. But now I can't find Crystal. It's night, and I trudge across a snowy field to a picnic table where I think she might be waiting. But rather than Crystal, seated at the table is my friend W.

This is unexpected, and as soon as I question whether I'm dreaming, I know that I am. I tell W, "Gotta go, this is a lucid dream." His face is harshly lit, stony, and expressionless. I realize we're in a small, dark room now, getting darker by the moment. I head for the exit, but the scene fades...

Now I'm in the dark. I'm desperate for a lucid dream, though, so there's no way I'm letting this one go. I start swinging a gladius (ancient Roman sword) and willing myself to be in the Colosseum for Task of the Year. On top of this I shout, "This is still a lucid dream!"

I hear Wife muttering and rolling over nearby, and now I'm scared that I'm really yelling and waving my arms around in the bedroom. I want a lucid too badly to stop trying, though, so I jam the index and middle finger of my left hand into my mouth and start chewing on them. This all feels totally real, but I decide to ride it out to the end. If I look like a psycho, I look like a psycho. I'm not dropping this LD.

Suddenly, a sharp new dream scene forms: I'm standing on our bed, fingers in my mouth, swordless right hand swinging madly. The scene's extremely vivid, but there's a slight motion to everything that I see, like I'm slightly drunk. I hop down from the bed and run out into the hall.

The hallway outside of our bedroom is totally transformed. The carpeting is bright pink and the room is decorated floor to ceiling with stuffed animals. There's an exit to the right that doesn't exist IWL, so I explore it, curious where it leads. I find myself in a new hallway with a tall picture window overlooking an early morning street scene.

I phase through the glass out onto the street. The street is wet as if it rained overnight. A few cars pass by, headlights on. It looks like a work day that's just beginning. I fly up into the air, but my confidence isn't what it should be. My altitude is low and my speed's really pitiful. There's an entrance to a mall food court nearby, and the dream seems to be ushering me toward it. I don't resist.

In spite of the early hours, this food court is packed. It's a two story mall, so I try flying again, getting about 6 feet off of the ground and doing that slow drift again. I spot my reflection in the exit door on the opposite side of the food court. Except the reflection isn't me flying -- it's my 6'8" Uncle J walking toward the door with me flying over his shoulder. He looks solid, substantial, and real, while I look like some kind of phantasm. I look down, and he's not there. But in the glass's reflection, he's solid-looking and completely realistic.

Now I can't decide whether I'm me flying toward the door or if I'm my gigantic uncle, lumbering toward the exit on foot. I switch between feeling like I'm the one flying... then the one on foot... then both...

I raise my hand to phase through the door. Uncle J's reflection does the same. The phase fails. From below, an attractive DC calls to me, saying, "Hi! Come down here." The LD's starting to feel thin and I float down. The DC is about 30 with long, dark hair, and attractive almost to the point of absurdity. I remember reading Waggoner during my WBTB and want to ask her what she represents. I feel weak and insubstantial, though, and my voice is just a hoarse whisper. She looks at me, arms crossed, a wry smile on her face and the scene fades to black.

Had a nice sense of freedom in this one, which left me feeling liberated enough to do Basic Task of the Month. This one was light and fun the entire way through, and even my flight malfunctions didn't get me too upset.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #55: Number Games and Ninja

Wife and I are seated on the floor with a dozen or so small children. The kids are probably 5 or 6 years old, but for some reason we're all taking a Japanese class together. We're working on a craft project while some unseen teacher barks simple instructions which Wife and all of the little kids easily follow. Not me, though. I'm fumbling around trying to glue something onto a paper plate and looking like quite the idiot.

The kids titter at my ineptitude. Wife shoots me a look of disbelief. The unseen teacher bellows more instructions and again I'm the only one who's not getting it. It's all really embarrassing and I think, "Well, I'd better hope this is all a dream. Because otherwise, this is humiliating." I use the nose pinch RC and become lucid.

Wife seems to have vanished, so I walk out of the room while the class continues to work. I seem to be in some kind of apartment, and I turn down a short hallway into a semi-dark, rather sparse bedroom. My friend "Leroy" is wandering around in here and I say, "Hey, [Leroy]! It's another lucid dream!" He ignores me, though, and seems to be looking for something.

A large window overlooks a nighttime city scene. It looks like we're about 10 stories up. I phase through the glass and step out onto a ledge, preparing to fly. I leap away from the building, ready to take to the sky... and give a little yelp as I plummet to the street below. I land pretty softly, narrowly missing a parked car. I relax my mind for a moment and then take to the air again.

I'm flying over a huge, grassy field that I think is supposed to be this city's equivalent of Central Park. The grass is short and extremely well-manicured. Golf course grass. Even though it's night, the park itself is strangely well-lit, and a few DCs are wandering through it. I see a couple of fancy archways and a miniature replica of the Arc de Triomphe.

Most interestingly of all, I see a ninja crouched behind a boulder, hiding in the shadows. Perhaps another forty feet away, there's an Imperial Stormtrooper and a man dressed like a World War I-era pilot searching carefully around the park, presumably looking for the ninja.

I remember the Task of the Month -- have a DC guess a number between 1 and 100. I swoop down to where the ninja is hiding and say, "Hey! I'm thinking of a number from 1 to 100. Guess what it is." The ninja seems horrified to see me. He presses his palms to the sides of his head, in disbelief that I would so bumblingly blow his cover. He points excitedly behind me at the Stormtrooper and the pilot. Guess they really are looking for him. "Oh, I see!" I tell him. "Sorry about that. Let me ask them instead."

I'm worried that the Stormtrooper will sound too garbled, so I address the World War I-era pilot. "Hey! I'm thinking of a number from 1 to 100. What is it?"

He thinks for a moment. "22?"

It occurs to me that I didn't actually think of a number from 1 to 100. I feel like a bit of a dummy. Okay, 38. 38 38 38. "Hey, man, sorry about that. I forgot to think of a number before I asked. Will you guess again?"

He pauses. Then a slightly sheepish guess of "Uh... 23?"

"No, but that's okay. Thanks!" The pilot and the Stormtrooper move toward the boulder, but I see that the ninja is long gone. The Stormtrooper growls something angry and garbled and I think how glad I am that I didn't try to play the guessing game with him.

I wander the park a bit more. The sun has apparently started to rise because it looks like early morning now. The number of DCs has picked up. I know that there's something I should be doing in New York, but I can't remember the task. (Task I was trying to think of: Transform into King Kong, climb the Empire State Building, and battle the military.) I think it's Task of the Year, but I incorrectly believe that there's something I should be doing in Central Park. I turn a corner past a food vendor, and rub my hands together. It doesn't feel as real as I'd expect. Things feel like they're slipping and I wake up.

This was the second of two lucid dreams from the morning of New Year's Day.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #52: The Obsidian Tower

I'm in a doctor's office, waiting awkwardly nearby while he examines some patient that I don't know. I'm a bit bored, so I think about the morning's previous lucid dream and how close I came to not recognizing that I'm dreaming. Things start to feel strange to me, so I hit the nose-pinch and become lucid.

I walk out of the office into a hallway and start looking for "Exit" signs. I'm excited to see one at the end of the hallway. I follow it and happily, there's another leading me further on. A tightly-packed group of DCs strolls through the hallway, taking up the entire thing. I "excuse me, excuse me" my way through them and work my way to the next "Exit" sign. This one points me toward a stairwell.

I begin to worry that I'm very high up so I decide that I need to get downstairs as efficiently as possible. I leap over the railing, intent on jumping my way to the bottom. Unfortunately, I just land in an untidy heap. A lady walking up the stairs nearby yelps when I crash-land. She hurries toward me and asks, "Are you okay?" It's pretty embarrassing. I tell her, "Thanks, but you don't need to worry about me."

I hop back up and then leap over the next railing. It goes much better this time, and I hop all the way to the bottom like this, and it's probably 6-8 stories' worth of stairs. There's a long hallway at the bottom and as I walk along it, two boys of about 12 go running past me, one chasing the other. The boy in front is holding a handwritten note and the boy in pursuit says, "Give that back!" I stop them both, saying, "That's mine now", and pluck the note out of the first kid's hands. They register no objection to this and quickly wander away.

The note has 6 bullet points, each with a sentence. At the bottom is a phone number with the area code "666". (Yikes!) I read every sentence and try to memorize them, but they're very random and strange. One was something about the sky. I really work at the memorization task but the content is so random that it feels hopeless. After I've read the note, I follow another "Exit" sign that leads me outside.

I'm in a large, outdoor courtyard on a foggy morning. Across the courtyard from me is an obsidian tower made entirely of glass. It rises high into the fog and its top is entirely out of sight. I remember my goal of seeing the Pyramid, but this tower has really grabbed my interest. I float up into the air and start guiding myself toward it. One lady in the courtyard shouts, "Wait, how are you so tall?" I wonder for a moment whether I'm just growing to an enormous height and not flying at all. I double-check -- nope, there are my feet. (Oddly, they are clad in loafers.)

I start involuntarily flying backward away from the tower instead of forward toward it. I decide to see what happens if I simply turn around and put my back to the tower. Fortunately, this works well and I keep drifting toward the tower (now at my back) as I rise. I whip through several layers of fog before perching on the tower's stone roof.

My friend AJ is seated up there, looking out over the city. "Congratulations!" she says. "It's a great view from up here." I have to agree. The sky is brilliantly red now, and somehow I can see the courtyard far below, almost as if the fog was one-way. I can in fact see a great deal of the city from here. I wonder whether the people that I'm looking at can see me back.

"So what am I doing all the way up here?" she says.

"I'm not sure, but I think you've got it pretty good. I had to work my ass off to get up here!"

She laughs and soon my vision fades to black. I try to DEILD but then AJ says, "Hey, you're actually still up here. You just can't see anything." I try to think about what I could do to get my sight back, but in a few more seconds, I'm really awake.

This was the first of two lucid dreams from the morning of New Year's Day. What is it with me and holiday lucid dreaming?

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #51: The Thragian Age

I'm walking around a museum during a special event about "The Thragian Age". There are cool, semi-magical artifacts displayed all around, including a floating stone wheel that turns on its own and glows with strange white energy. A waitress offers me a drink from a tray. She's dressed in a sparkling blue skirt and a jeweled mask that I assume is also from the Thragian Age. I wish that I was better studied in this "Thragian Age" (or had heard of it at all.)

Wife walks up to me dressed in running shorts and a t-shirt and says that she feels "underdressed". I say, "Me too. And I'm tired. Let's nap." We curl up under a nearby table. I feel momentarily frisky but quickly reconsider when I remember where we are. I decide that while I'm sleeping, I might as well try to WILD. I close my eyes, wait for a dream scene to form and...

...find myself walking outside along an empty road, fully aware that I'm dreaming. It's also clear to me now that the previous scene was also a dream. I feel happy and confident as I jog along the road and start narrating to myself: "I'm in a lucid dream and I'm going to fly to the Great Pyramid." I take to the air near an overpass, swoop under it, and head for a distant set of mountains.

I fly for a while when the wind starts blowing against me. I really try not to fight so hard this time, saying, "Show me what you want to show me." I relax, and the wind turns me back toward the city. I fly for a while over houses, tree-lined streets, and people milling about in their yards.

The sun is bright and the wind is cool against my skin. A gust from the side makes me bank toward the city's downtown. I'm no longer concerned with visiting the Pyramid and I'm just enjoying the peace and the moment. I fly for a while longer, but before I reach downtown, the dream ends.

This was the second of two lucid dreams that came out of an experiment with green tea during WBTB. In retrospect, I might have liked to take more time talking to this angry dream character to see whether I could learn more about what he was about. These sorts of things can be hard to remember in the moment, but I'll keep trying.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #45: Crowbar Clint

I'm in a mall clothing store and a crazed young man in a baseball cap is wrecking the place with a crowbar. Frightened dream characters give him a wide berth as he screams, curses, and knocks over racks of clothing. He shouts threats and abusive profanity, swinging that crowbar like a baseball bat. I'm frantically planning the best way to get out of here without taking a crowbar to the face when I realize that I'm dreaming. Somehow I also know that the young man's name is Clint.

I get a rush of positive emotion once I realize that I'm perfectly safe. I notice that I know one DC in the store -- T, a coworker of mine, is standing by the cash register making his purchases.

I speak urgently to Clint, like he's neglected some important task: "Clint! Buddy, you've got to get going. T is over there waiting for you to help him change out his hubcaps with that crowbar of yours." Clint looks at me, his anger turning into confusion. I keep repeating this new story to him over and over, placing a hand on his shoulder and leading him toward T. Clint, now docile, walks silently beside me.

Clint appears to be the only person who believes this story. Other DCs shuffle away nervously as we walk by. T seems to get what's going on as well but he plays along, saying, "Yeah, Clint, let's go have a look at my truck." They walk off into the mall and I follow a few feet behind them.

I step outside to find myself on a second story walkway near an escalator. T and Clint have disappeared into the crowds of shoppers. The sun shines through a large, arching skylight that spans most of the mall's ceiling.



It looks like a beautiful day outside, so I decide that I'll fly to the top and phase through the skylight. The sunlight becomes brighter and brighter as I ascend, but before I reach the ceiling, I wake up.

This was one of two lucid dreams that came out of an experiment with caffeine during WBTB that I tried last night. (Thanks, Xanous!) My beverage of choice was green tea.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #44: Pool Care in the Temple of Zeus

I'm standing outside of a pool where people are swimming around having a business meeting. They're fretting about the now-green condition of another pool that's one story down and perhaps 100 feet away from the one where the meeting is taking place. I jump into the clean pool, swim toward the meeting, and explain that all we'll need to do is get the Ph and stabilizer levels fixed up and then shock it with liquid chlorine or even household bleach. They're relieved and grateful, and I have one moment of contentment before I realize that I jumped into the pool wearing a backpack with a laptop in it and have probably ruined it. I'm pretty distressed by thus until I realize that I'm dreaming.

"Got to go, everybody! This is all a dream." The other swimmers seem mildly surprised by this but they quickly accept it and go back to their meeting.

In the distance I see that the pool ends at what appears to be a sheer drop-off. Past that, I see the skyline of a city in the early morning. Eager to explore, I try to rise out of the water but somehow have trouble getting into the air. I yell out that I am going to fly into the air and nothing will stop me. I employ some probably-unnecessary profanity in my speech. I shoot out of the water, knifing through some overhanging tree branches (where did these come from?) and land on the roof of a stone temple in the style of Ancient Greece.

I'm overlooking a large, open-air courtyard that's surrounded by Doric columns. Past the courtyard is miles of grassland and a sky that's dark with storm clouds. The clouds are lit up with occasional bursts of sheet lightning and I hear low rumbles of thunder.



There's a strange platform of gray stone suspended above me and it's hung low enough that I can't stand fully upright. I decide to phase and begin pushing my hand upward against the platform, which feels solid. I push harder, and my fingers start digging chunks of stone out of the platform. I'm somewhat pleased by this but I decided to refocus my efforts on phasing through the platform.

I push my hands and head into the stone and this time it feels cottony and insubstantial. My vision goes black as my head disappears into the stone and I feel my feet leaving the temple roof. I float upward through the "stone", gradually becoming disoriented. I feel like I'm in a bed now, but I don't believe it. Still blind, I reach out, grabbing onto a pillow. I suddenly become very aware of my sleeping body and wake up in my real bed.

I enjoyed getting back to a dream that was just pure play. I was a bit of a mall rat as a kid, so perhaps that's where the setting came from. Only regret: not looking for the video arcade!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #43: The Flying Mall Rat

I'm in a mall walking through a jewelry store out into the main hallway. I have to maneuver around a family coming toward me. For some reason I employ a fancy (and physically impossible) spin-move to get around them, twirling all the way around and sliding several feet across the floor. It suddenly occurs to me that I need to remember whether or not I'm dreaming and in this case it feels very obvious that I am.

I walk out into the main hallway and see that the mall is three stories high. There's mall music coming over the PA system. It sounds like it's three or four girls harmonizing, and they're singing about breaking up with some schmo. They're actually quite talented, with sort of a sound like a modern-day Andrews Sisters. The lyrics and the tune itself are utterly generic, but since it's my dream, I can be honest with myself and admit that I find it catchy.



I'm feeling excited and playful so I leap up onto the railing of a short stairway and grind down (in other words, ride down the rail on my shoes.) I want to see what things look like from higher up, so I hop up to the second floor, grab onto the railing and swing myself over. I then perch my feet on the railing and leap upward across the gap to the third floor's railing.

At this point, I remember the Christmas carol Task of the Month. For some inexplicable reason, I decide that "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" is a Christmas carol and try to see whether I can remember it. In spite of it being several years since I heard it, the first verse comes back to me without any trouble, and I go swinging and leaping around the mall singing it, vaguely worried that I'm singing in waking life. From what I read in the TotM thread, this is a very common worry.

I spend a few more minutes having fun soaring around the mall. As I reach the end of the main hallway, though, I notice the entrance to a movie theater. I land on the ground floor and step inside the theater, curious what's playing. The theater is packed and I'm surprised by how many people I recognize from my own life. I walk through the crowd for quite a while, greeting old friends and acquaintances as I pass by them. The lights in the theater aren't dark yet, but everyone returns my greetings with whispers, as if they don't want to talk over the movie.

I happen on one friend, S, who appears to be the size of a child in her seat. For some reason I feel like I need to make her look "right" and tell her "Oh, you're much taller than that." She starts stretching out until her height seems correct, but now her head has gotten distressingly skinny. I start getting flustered and fixated and it's not long before I wake up.

[This is a catch-up post. This dream took place on the night of December 5-6, 2012.]

Non-lucid, Semi-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm at my university, and I have to fill out and turn in a form to get rid of a dorm room that I don't want or need, because I'm living in an apartment. I go into a computer lab to work on it, and the computers have floppy disk drives. When I remember a previous episode in this ongoing plot, I realize that I'm dreaming. [I don't remember that previous episode now, though. I think the lucid part of this dream continued on from this point, but I didn't write down what happened.]

I wake up, walk into the room where I work, and go to my work computer. As I'm walking across the room, I think, Hmm, am I still dreaming? This sure looks and feels real, and gravity feels normal, but I have a sneaking suspicion... When I get to my work computer, I see an instant-message conversation on the screen, and it's between two fictional characters. Yep. Still dreaming, I think. I start trying to type up a dream journal entry on my work computer, but I find it's very difficult to type in a dream. It's really slow going; it feels like my fingers don't know what to do. [Makes sense - that part of my brain that knows learned skills like typing must not be active when I'm asleep.] After just a few sentences, I lose interest in finishing my dream journal entry.

I start floating away from my desk. A friend gives me a push to help me along. I go into another area, where there are a bunch of people having some sort of gathering, possibly a picnic [I don't really remember now]. I decide I want to try making myself bigger. I crouch down on all fours, close my eyes, and concentrate on expanding the size of my body. At first, I don't think it's working because I don't feel any sensation, but when I open my eyes, I discover that it worked: I'm now huge compared to the DCs.

I wake up at somebody's house, having spent the night there after a party. I drive myself home, but get lost along the way. While I'm driving, my alarm clock wakes me up for real.

[This is a catch-up post. This dream took place on the night of November 20-21, 2012. The title of this dream is in Japanese, and is read "Sora ni Tondeiru Yumebito-Tai." It literally means "Flying in the Sky Dream Person Team (or Corps)." The dream felt a lot like being in an episode of an anime series, so I gave it a title that would be suitable for an anime series.]

Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm outside somewhere, lying in the warm sun. The sun's rays are making me too hot in my flannel pajamas. I'm wearing dark-colored plaid pajama bottoms [the same ones I'm wearing in real life], and a white flannel pajama top with red roses on it [the same pattern as on a bedspread my mom has at her house].

I'm in a large department store, filled with racks of cold-weather accessories and other clothes. I'm wandering through the racks by hopping up off the floor, hovering above it for a few seconds as I float forward, and then sinking back down. After several repetitions of this, I think, Hmm, this is longer than I should be able to float like this. Oh - that's because I'm dreaming.

I fly out of the room with the clothes and winter accessories and into a larger room. It's still part of the same store, but it has a higher ceiling and has a skylight. I stop to ground myself in the dream by landing on the ground and touching things with my hands, including some packages of batteries that are hanging up on a rack. It works.

I join up with a a group of kid DCs that includes Merida from Brave and a curly-haired blond boy. We all set off from the department store together to battle some evil force. We run out of the store and come to a hilltop that overlooks an ocean bay. Some of us, including Merida and myself, jump off the top of the hill and start flying over the bay. I shout “Woohoo!” as I jump off. I notice that some of the others in the group are simply running down the hill, rather than flying. [For the first time, it seems perfectly natural to me that some DCs can fly, too, and I don't feel any need to hide the fact that I can fly, as I usually do when I'm around DCs.]

All of us, those who ran and those who flew, reassemble at our destination, which is a small house on the cliff overlooking the ocean. We realize we're being pursued by some kind of monster that will kill us and eat us. There is a newspaper article about the monster in the house. The kids all seem to be sure that the monsters have found us, that they're coming, and that we're all doomed. For a second, I'm genuinely afraid, but then I remember: Oh, yeah, this is a dream. I know what this most likely means. I roll my eyes and announce to the group: “They aren't really monsters, they're just tasks that I haven't done and that I feel bad about.” [Or words to that effect.] I think about it for a moment and come up with what that task must be - paying a bill [among other things that I don't remember now]. Everyone in the group seems to relax, and no monsters ever actually appear at the house.

One of the DCs in the group says to another, “See about adopting her [meaning me] into the practice.” They are both young men, about 17-19 years old. The second one looks at me and says, “You're [Emiko].... Roboto.” [He used my real-life first name.] I reply, “Yes, that's a name I've used here before. I don't really like it, though.” [Huh? That's definitely not my real-life last name, and I certainly don't remember using it in a dream before. It was a big part of my childhood, though.] I say something about how grateful I am to have been accepted into this group of people, even with my mismatched pajamas. I'm still wearing the same dark pajama pants and light pajama top from the very beginning of the dream, while most of the other people in the group are wearing neat, matching, school-uniform-like outfits. [This isn't surprising; I was an anime fan for a long time, and a lot of the characters in the shows I liked were high school students who wore school uniforms.]

The group of DCs and I all feel a general sense that that is the end of this adventure, but that there will be more in the future. We start flying off over the landscape, looking back at the buildings where we've just been: the big store with the skylight, and a motel [?]. There is an upbeat, exciting rock song playing in the background. It feels exactly like I'm experiencing the end credits of an anime show.

I'm now traveling along in some kind of vehicle with the two young men, watching the scenery pass by from a tree-lined road that runs along the crest of a ridge opposite those buildings. I say to them, “Also, your ending theme song kicks ass.” [I think the context for this was that they thanked me for sticking with them so long at the end of the adventure, and I replied that of course, I wanted to prolong the experience as long as possible and have as much fun as I could. I don't remember the beginning of the conversation very well, though. The song I heard reminded me a little bit of this one, except it was at a faster tempo.]

I have a false awakening in the bed I'm actually in [I was sleeping on a futon because I had family in town that week], where I can see my bare legs, before waking up for real.

---------------------------
Side notes:
THIS DREAM WAS SO COOL!!!! I hadn't had a really long, fun, clear lucid like this in a while before I had this dream. I was so happy to have it!

This was the Aurora Borealis Task of the Month, and led to a really outstanding dream with some personal firsts. Some big ones for me were changing day to night and performing the task while the DC of a loved one (my son) accompanied me.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #36: Aurora Borealis

Wife and I are sitting at our breakfast table chatting with RI, a high school friend that I haven't seen in a long time. I look at the clock, realizing that it's 1:10 and I'm ten minutes late for a #DVA chat session. Wife and I go upstairs without IR, leaving her just sitting at the table. (Rude, I know.) I'm about to join the #DVA chat when Wife says, "Shouldn't you show her out of the house?"

I leave, and become lucid halfway down the stairs. The downstairs is different from my real house now. The floor has become shag carpet rather than hardwood and the ceiling is barely six feet tall, my head reaching right to the top of it. IR is still at the breakfast table but she just smiles and waves me on. My three-year-old son E is waiting for me at the back door, and I scoop him up in my arms, knowing that he would love to see the aurora borealis.

I step outside and find that my back yard is either gone or has swollen to gigantic proportions. There's a huge barbecue going on to my left. Vividness is top-notch -- I literally cannot detect any difference in visual quality between what I'm seeing now and what I see in waking life. I walk on, passing a set of grills where a man in a red football jersey numbered "52" is turning over some burgers. His shirt is emblazoned with the words "UNCLE BO". I stare at the guy for a moment, a bit stunned by how real he looks.

I perch my son on my shoulders and start running past the barbecue into a city. A long line of DCs is waiting in line for a movie or a show. I notice that C, someone that I haven't seen since high school is manning the ticket line. He smirks at me and shrugs his shoulders when I recognize him.

I walk to the base of a skyscraper and look into the sunny sky. I need darkness for this Task of the Month so I tell my son, "It's getting dark now." The sun fades out of view and the color of the sky deepens to twilight. As soon as night falls, I see the autora borealis above me!



I start to rise off of the ground but my son is squirming on my shoulders, saying, "Don't want to go! Don't want to go!" He starts crawling around on my head, even giving me a little foot to the face. I shift him so that his arms are around my neck and he seems to settle down. I fly straight up, staying close to the skyscraper to keep my bearings.

I'm feeling an overwhelming sense of excitement as I fly toward the aurora. I'm so pumped that I shout a continuous battle cry as I rise. In response, the dream starts blasting a full symphonic orchestra soundtrack to my ascent. Looking back this seems totally cheesy, but I can't even care! It was amazing. The music was fantastic... I wish so badly that I could have somehow recorded it.

I fly over the Aurora and see that inside it conceals a vast mother ship, almost like a space carrier that stretches for miles. As far as I can see down the length of the ship, smaller yellow spaceships are taking off from the carrier to destinations unknown. As each leaves the mother ship, it emits this purple flash of energy that joins the rest of the Aurora. It's the energy "exhaust" of each of these smaller spaceships that creates the aurora.

All along, the soundtrack (and, amazingly, my battle cry) keeps going. I realize that I can do just as these ships are doing and I start pouring that purple energy outward from my palms, and it bleeds into the rest of the Aurora. More and more energy pours from my hands as the dream begins to fade. Soon all I can see are my hands, and after that I wake up.

Mom's Army

My mom is an evil wizard. We would be able to deal with that, but apparently she is somehow using her powers to give similar powers to other people as well. I discover this when I overhear some men talking about how they're on their way to a ceremony gain those powers and join her army. They say that she's planning to convert one percent of the world's population, then stop, allowing them to rule over the rest of humanity. This is bad news for me and the rest of my family.

Cruelty to Animals

A woman from the housing system has taken my family's dog for a walk while we're on a camping trip. While most everyone else is distracted, I see the woman use the shock collar to zap the dog for absolutely no reason. This makes me very angry, and I immediately report the event to my dad.

Frags:

• bugs being scary
• "fly -- over [illegible] northern realms"
• orchestra audition