Recent DJ Posts

Ritual: I've had a bit of a dry spell lately, and even worse than the lack of lucid dreams has been the sensation of diminished overall awareness: my sleep lately has been distressingly ordinary. I'm still waking up frequently during the night, but now I can't even tell what time it is—usually I can guess accurately within ten minutes or so. When sleeping properly I always wake up a few minutes before my alarm, no matter what time I set it for, but lately the alarm has been waking me. I've been having an ordinary number of dreams, but they too are lacking even in rudimentary awareness. In the past, stressful periods at work have boosted my LDing, but I feel like maybe I'm getting a bit burnt out, so I've started using sleep as a form of escapism, instead of an opportunity for more interesting kinds of work. I've become a lazy sleeper!

Probably because of this lack of awareness, this time even when I started wondering if I was really dreaming, I continued to find the environment and events extremely persuasive and followed the plotline to its end. Only then did I take the time to deliberately RC. The only aspect of this that isn't disappointing is the fact that, once having noted I might be dreaming, I did manage to hold that thought and then come back to it, instead of just forgetting. I also felt as though my rational mind was functioning well in the way it recognized the dream sign, something that hasn't always been reliable.

The dream plot was based on waking life residue. Last night (in WL) around 1:30am we heard the sound of someone going through our trash bins outside the house, even though the bins are through a gate which, although it has no lock, clearly demonstrates a property boundary. Unfortunately there is no window through which to observe that area, and by the time I went out with a flashlight the person was gone.

The same thing happened in the dream, except that the person had left behind bags of newspapers, and I was worried they might contain criminal evidence. I wasn't sure if I should call the police, as I had already moved some of the bags, so my prints were now on them too. There were many more minor details and events that would only be tedious to record here, so I'll skip them.

Later the garbage-pickers come back, and I realize I can see them if I get the right angle through a window (not true in RL). I want to take pictures for evidence, but I have trouble pulling up the camera on my phone, normally a very simple operation. Even when I do get the camera working, it is too zoomed in and I can't frame the shot properly. I recognize these technical difficulties as dream signs, but at the moment I'm too caught up in events to RC.

The garbage-pickers leave before I can get a good shot, so I go around the front of the house for another try. The camera is still giving me trouble, and once again I notice how much it resembles a dream sign, even though this doesn't feel like a dream. After a few more minor incidents that plotline wraps up, and I now realize that I can give my full attention to checking whether or not I am dreaming. Everything has felt very real and convincing, but I know well how little that sensation can be trusted.

I jump... inconclusive. I came down quickly enough, but the jumping itself felt easier than I think it should, as though I am not lifting my full body weight. I jump a couple more times, trying to draw out the moment at the apex. It might actually be lengthening as I focus on it. My suspicion grows, I jump a bit more, and then sure enough, I find that I can pause at the top, hovering in the air. That clinches it. It was a dream all along.

What now? It's been so long since I've been lucid that I just want to explore and enjoy the environment. I look out the glass wall of the living room and see an expanse of snowy fields and pine forest stretching to a distant low mountain, utterly unlike the RL scenery. I feel satisfied with this prospect, so I fly through the glass without hesitation and start soaring over the landscape, looking down and enjoying the clarity of visual detail. I'm reminded of a recent conversation with a WL friend who also turned out to be an LDer, who mentioned that he prefers not to do tasks but would rather just fly around and enjoy the environment. Today that feels just fine.

I fly to the top of the mountain and land, hoping to explore on foot. There is a problem with scale, however: I am huge in relation to the mountain. My feet cover its entire upper surface. I take off into the air again, hoping I didn't crush too many trees and little creatures. The distorted scale now makes everything feel artificial, and the dream destabilizes. I exert will to remain in the dream state as it deconstructs, and for a moment I find myself flying through a black boundless space marked with thin white lines running horizontally and vertically in three dimensions. It strongly resembles the conception of virtual space in the movie Tron. I recognize that this is unconstructed dream space, and try not to let it disconcert me that the dream has faded, and I feel very close to being awake... I remind myself that if I should be able to enter a new scene if I can just be patient and maybe suggest something.

I'm trying to stay relaxed, so I imagine lying in a bath of warm water. This makes me realize that my flying feels like swimming so I use the idea. I am swimming underwater in a pool of water that is no different from my body temperature—that's why I don't feel it. And of course I can breathe underwater, because why not? These thoughts in mind, I now think I can see the glimmering underside of the water's surface just above my head, so I fly up and break it, preparing to find myself in a new scene. I notice how seamlessly my breathing remains the same as I transition from breathing water to air, and again this feels too artificial for my liking, but I try not to let it disrupt the dream.

I am in an empty tiled space containing a pool. The lining of the pool is made of identical square beige tiles as the walkway around it and the low walls bounding the space. It appears to be outdoor because the walls don't go up all the way, but there is no impression of any surrounding environment, much less sky or weather. It is still very vague and plain and artificial; perhaps it could be described as "semi-constructed dream space." I look around for something notable, perhaps a DC, and I begin to hear music. It is a simple melody on a plucked string instrument, like a medieval lute. I don't see anyone else, but vision isn't perfect now, so I keep listening and looking. The song ends, and a woman's voice says, "Thanks, I really enjoyed this one song." There is a kind of parenthetical remark appended to the sentence in the same voice that I perceive simultaneously, though I don't seem to "hear" it as literally as the words just spoken. The parenthetical remark is: "...after a moment's reflection." In ordinary text one could write it as:

"Thanks, I really enjoyed this one song (after a moment's reflection)."

But that wouldn't quite convey the effect that the parenthetical part was not spoken aloud, and that it had a kind of simultaneity with the statement itself.

Feeling confident that I will momentary see the singer, I keep looking around... and feel paws on my face, my real face. The cat has chosen just this moment to come back to bed, waking me. Damn!

I just woke up from a dream where I had to sift through piles of trash looking for medical trash (bloody bandages, amputated body parts etc.) so I could then take that found trash and put it in the “proper” trash piles. Also something about lots of poor and destitute people living in underground parking garages that had no working lights.

Date: August 23, 2013
Method: MILD & WBTB (hoping for a WILD)
Total Hours of Sleep: around 9

Dream:

Dreamed I was in a grocery store as a worker. Food and garbage was everywhere. I was with my mother and daughter and we were dressed as maids. Before we got dirty we decided it would be best to wash up in the nearest restroom. The restroom was filthy and didn't have any soap to wash our hands. I somehow knew I had soap in my pocket and sure enough...I pull out three separate bars of soap for each of us to wash up before we get our hands dirty!

Frag:

Talking to someone.

Morning of October 15, 2012. Monday.



In my dream, I am lying in our bed and I am concerned about the garbage truck being too close to our house as well as being perpendicular to the street itself. At one point, it seems backed up almost to our bedroom window. The scenario repeats several times in a row. I look out and see that the robotic arm is much longer than in reality and somehow towers very high into the air (emergent consciousness rendering). It appears to be holding a larger commercial bin (which looks a lot smaller due to its supposed distance from my perspective). It is almost dizzying to consider such a high position. Nothing threatening happens (such as our house or window being damaged or the larger pieces of rubbish falling out near our house, as it almost seems might happen) but I continue to have a vague concern without being directly angry.

---

Anyone who understands the basic meanings of dreams (excluding personal associations with unique details and features which only the dreamer could possibly understand) will easily pick out the waking transition here. “Something coming down” (representing the waking process) in this case is the robotic arm of the garbage truck (robotic as a dream sign that renders the “artificial” perspective of the dream state) as well as implied falling debris. As most people would know, garbage or junk in a dream represents “unwanted data”, that is, ideas or thoughts that have proven to be without real long-term use (including other people’s negative ideas).

Even though this is a very basic waking transition, it is quite different than other types, say one that utilize an airplane landing, a meteor falling, or a bird landing, all with the same primary meaning but with different implications. This dream was likely a “repeat” (in metaphor) of reading more than my share of garbage on this date. The garbage truck itself represents the linear “cleanup” of recent thinking processes. Something being “too close” to one’s house relates to the liminal energies regarding circadian rhythms and full waking. Of course, being in bed in the dream state is the most obvious dream sign of all and the most obvious metaphor for sleeping and dreaming (yet I do not become lucid).

These dreams were rather unstable and blurry, and don't seem to have much meaning. I have come to find these sorts of dreams rather boring. Not only that, they are awkward to describe in DJ entries.

Fragment (Last Night)

All I can remember is looking in the mirror and having short white hair. I did not appear aged at all, though my hair was bleached. I closed my eyes and opened them, and my hair was black. I think my hair went though several more transformations. I wish I could remember more of the dream.

Fragment (Wednesday night)

I was hanging out in the basement with one of my friends. I think it was S or A. I looked under the large couch in our basement. There was a large clearance of a foot or two between the underside of the couch and the floor. And there was all of this garbage arranged/organized under the couch.
After looking for awhile, I told my friend that I was going to clean out the garbage. I started taking a load of pop cans upstairs to recycle them, but my recall fades out.

The Skyrim house (Wednesday Night)

I hate dreams that relate to video games that I play. Especially when they make no sense, like this.

I was dreaming of being in the game Skyrim. I had just bought this DLC that added some new group to the game, and I was checking out their base.
It turned out to be this very small, modern looking house. It was made almost entirely out of these brick-red wooden boards, aside from a glass wall on the front. When I went inside there were three slots with walls in between them. The one on the left had an enchanting table, the one in the middle, a chest, and the one on the right, an alchemy table.
Then some sort of elevator in the floor that took me down into a much larger setting.
There was a very long room, made of the same reddish wood. The walls were on a 45 degree angle, and angled as though you were in the attic of a large house. There were support beams going down this large hall (Think like ribs on an old wooden ship)
The middle part of the hall was a sort of sunk in walkway, and along the edges were various stations. I can remember numerous DCs producing resources, foraging weapons, brewing potions, etc etc...
By this point someone started giving me a tour of the place. He was an old man, and apparently the leader of this faction. We walked for a long time and he was just talking about his plans.

Party Crashers (Also Wednesday night)

Save the best for last, as they say. None of these dreams interest me much, but this one the most for its plot and humor.

I can remember being in some sort of theme park. It wasn't a really big ticket place, and I wasn't with anyone. I can remember it being a hot, dry day.
This discreet looking man came up to me and asked me to do him a big favor. He was tall, thin, and short black hair. He said that there was a party for the rich and well connected taking place in that tower. (He gestured to a small, cylindrical glass skyscraper) And apparently he wanted them all dead.
He gave me four or five brick-sized explosives. They were just plastic black boxes with a red LED in one corner, and a detonator remote with a key in it. He explained to me that I should go into the party and hide the explosives around the room. Then turn the detonator remote, and I would have a minute and a half to get away.
I went to the small skyscraper and got into the elevator. The elevator turned out to be one of the rides at the amusement park. I had to get into a seat and put on a rigid shoulder support.
The elevator moved really fast and went up and down a couple times until I arrived on the party floor. The elevator let out into a medium sized dining room all prepared for the party. There were dream characters sitting at the table, but I hopped up on the table, and began duct-taping the explosive charges to the ceiling. They were completely oblivious...
After that, I hid one in a vase, and went into the observation room that gave me a view of the dreamworld. The dream was blurry and boring, so I set the last explosive in there, and started to head back though the dining room.
By this point the dream characters at the party had begun taking the explosives off the wall and trying to figure out what they were. I thought that if I could get out before they realized and got rid of them.
I turned the key on the detonation remote, and was ready to get on the elevator when the man who had given me the assignment showed up. He created some sort of portal on the wall and enticed me to walk though it.
From there, there was some sort of apocalyptic city, all charred and destroyed. I must have slipped out of the dream or woke up, because it sort of ends there.

I was working in some sort of castle that was part of many castles spaced out evenly in some grim planet that was usually raining. It was mentioned to be named Hykoon. My job was to carry the garbage down a long hallway from the main courtyard to the bins outside. Another guy who worked with me delivered meals to the owner of the castle. There was a main courtyard of cobblestone and four unlit towers with staircases. The other guy went up these staircases but wouldn’t say what was up top. Lobster-like aliens ran the place, including one who was a sort of leader.

I eventually snuck up the stairs at night and spotted a meeting between two of the aliens, one of them stabbed the other, fled into the forest that was outside and was gunned down by security turrets. Then I woke up. The last part seemed almost like a video game.

"Garbage dive and clowns" This was probably one the weirdest dreams I have had in quite some time. To give you a visual I viewed this dream from a movie perspective meaning that there were multiple cuts to various scene. For the majority of the dream I was just an observor watching the events go down, influencing the endings with where every my unawoken mind went. Over the course of the night i woke up twice so emotionally involved in the dream I went right back to sleep hoping to revisit the dream I had awoken from. Luckily i was able to each time

First thing I remember is looking into a home with someone else. Some kid took out the garbage and then began thinking about garbage. Next thing I knew I was in millions of pounds of garbage but it was not the kind all bagged up. I was all squishey and was alive. Felt like I was in a tub full of worms! My companion asked me how much more time till we get to the bottom! I said it will be very soon. Meanwhile unfriendly clowns were holding hostage some of my friends. The clowns had set up an enitre under ground world in which there were doctor clowns, school teachers clown, school kid clowns, librarian clowns, every type of human job replaced with a clown face and human body. They detested the presence of my friends and had tortured some of my friends. Luckily most of the hostages were able to escape and they set up two barracades infront of a doorway entrance into an autitorium. The clowns held there distance as my friends had managed to aqquire guns.*

Meanwhile back at the house I remember listening to a conversation between a young kid and an older adult. The adult was warning the kid not to play in the garbage but the good was friendly but defiant in his beliefs repeating "my uncle has always told me if you are in garbage keep digging".*

In the midst of the garbage I recalled what this young prophet had said and i told my companion of this seemingly profound axiom. We began chanting it and very soon we recahed the bottom of the pile. The garbage was essentially a large vat contained by 4 walls that descended down for hundreds of miles. I did not know where the garbage actually began, only where it ended. I felt my feet dangeling out into the air as my body slid through the rest of the slimey garbage making a thick waterey that resembled that sound of a tounge clicking against a cheek. Finally my head exited through the muck and I dropped about 10 feet into a dull and dark halway. I remember landing with an umph on the hardwood floors.My companion was thankful to be out of the mess and I reminded him to be quiet as there were clowns all around us.

We managed to exit the eerie hallway and make our way into another large hallway swarming with clowns of all sorts. The first type i remember was opening a door in the hallway and seeing a tall and slim woman clown reading a book to a group of young clowns sitting criss crossed on the floor. She stared at me with a deceptive hate in her eyes. The actual seblance of the clown is hard to describe because their heads seemed hollographic, Meaning they switched between the face of a human and that of a clown.

'" come on lets go!" I yelled to my companion. We sprinted down the long hallway slapping and punching the clowns that we passed by. The hallway was full of twists and turns and at every corner we would run into a clown that seemed to be busy working doing things like carrying lots of paper work or drinking a cup of coffe.*

Soon i began to sense we were near my friends as I had multiple flashbacks of them crying out to us from the barracades. we ran through the hall way shoving our way pst multiple clowns until we bursed through a door and found ourselves in a large room filled with hundred of angry clowns. I looked around and noticed one of the barracades. I made a run for it with my commrad right behind me and dove over the barracade into the safety of my friends. "Thank God your here" they said.*

Then I woke up.


Feels like an epic dream that i should write a creative ending for.

I used to have an aunt and uncle that lived in a sparse neighborhood near the edge of our town. But they moved to Alabama when I was about 8. This dream supposedly involved them.

My parents told me they were taking me to see a new garbage dump that they had put in where my aunt and uncle used to live. We drove along this country road. It was summertime and the forest was green and lush. We finally arrived at their neighborhood and got out of the car. I was with my parents and some other girl I didn't know.
I got out and started wading in a pond.
"It's a shame isn't it. Ever since they put in the new garbage dump, this pond is polluted and the fish are dying."
I looked into the water, and I could see the sandy bottom and fish swirling around.
We waded along the shoreline until we came to a clearing in the woods.
The stranger girl beat me there. For some reason, she looked very hazy. All I could make out was that she had black hair.
The ground showed evidence of a heavy vehicle, and there was a rather small hill. Supposedly, it was the garbage dump, but it was quite small. Perhaps four feet high, and ten feet at the base. If there was garbage, they covered it over with dirt.
The stranger-girl I was now alone with kept talking about the garbage dump. I just sort of sat there quietly so that she could let her thoughts out. She seemed so sad.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

Three people were sitting on a couch. The one in the center was an adult, probably a man. The other two were either children or young adults who acted like children. The two were half-laying on the couch, leaning their heads and shoulders against the central man.

The two may have been one boy and one girl or two girls. The boy (?) may have been in love with the girl. He may have told the girl he was in love with her.

The girl may have responded by acting like she would go out with the boy. But she really didn't love him. She loved some other female, either a girl around her age or a woman around the age of the man, who may have been her teacher.

The man in the center may have had some suspicion that the girl was in love with another female. But the way the girl seemed to act in love with the boy kept the man from being suspicious. If the man knew for sure the girl was a lesbian, he would have stopped her. He was very protective of her, and he thought lesbianism was wrong.

I was now watching this scene in a movie theater. I sat in the theatre with my two old friends, R and Y. The theater was mostly empty, with only a few people in each row.

My friends and I heard a voice coming from one of the back rows. It sounded like the voice of our old friend, ER. We thought it must have been ER. But then it was quiet. So we didn't think about it anymore. But then we heard ER's voice again. I knew it must be him.

I turned around in my seat and called out, "ER! ER!" in a half-whisper. My friends giggled a bit and told me to stop talking in the theater and annoying everybody. I was about to defy them by calling out to ER again. But he waved at us, stood up, and began walking toward us.

But I didn't want to be quiet after being told to be quiet. So I called out, "We're actually looking for a second ER, too! ER!"

We were all facing forward. My friends were laughing at me. Then ER and Y began catching up with each other. They'd both led some pretty interesting lives in the years since they'd spoken.

ER began asking Y about a couple questions about some of the things she'd done. Y responded. She'd apparently had one project where she'd kept some kind of material sealed up in a big trash can.

At first I thought the project was sinister, like she was keeping a dead body or body parts in liquid in the can. But then it just sounded gross, like she was keeping liquid and old junk in the can.

Y had another project where she had to vacuum up some kind of dust. This project also seemed really gross.

sorry for missing caps, etc.: too lazy, on my ithing, blah blah blah... you get it.

So this isn't gonna be very detailed cause it's been a while since I had this one so I don't remember much.

I was at a garbage dump type of place, a big lot surrounded by a short rusty fence and a mound of greenish brown trash in the middle. There were seagulls circling the top of the crap pile. There was a guy there in a dirty blue jumpsuit and a milkman hat who was shoveling trash from the mound and throwing it in another smaller mound. So basically his job was to shovel the trash around for no reason... lol poor guy. I went up to the big trash mound and started digging around (ew), and i found a brown paper bag. I opened it up and there were a bunch of kitties in it, and a cat (mom I think.) I grabbed the bag and showed it to the trash guy, asking if I could take them since I didn't think they should be thrown away like that. He told me I could only take one, somethinb about having to fill his "dead cat trash quota". I grabbed a gray one and gave the rest back to the trash man. For some reason I had to hide the kitty though, like it was illegal to have it or something? I don't know. But anyways, I put it in my purse and very carefully walked home.

Something happened happened on the walk but I don't remember...

I ran in my 'house' and locked the door. The place was actually like a really dark and scary dorm room. I think I had a roomate but I don't really remember. I dumped the cat out of my purse onto the table, but it was flat as a pancake and dead.

We're very poor and have an extremely strict budget to live on. While on our way to a food shop I notice a jewelry shop. I can't help but drool over some of the trinkets while my (ex) man waits outside. I come out, very depressed, knowing we can never afford anything in there, especially not the necklaces I love so much. I tell my man so and he drops everything, practically running into the store. I can hear him asking about second hand jewelry.

A friend that I suddenly notice with me asks me if I'm happy. I smile and say that although I think it's a nice gesture of him to do this for me, I do wish he'd have done it later while I was not here. I explain that I know he will buy something, and just come out and hand it to me, rather than saving it to give to me on Mother's Day, for example, which is in a few days. As I predict, he does just as I said he would. I ask him to take it back and give it to me on Mother's Day.

Suddenly we're mugged by a very tall man who doesn't even bother to hide his face. A fight breaks out, and its actually me that's kicking his ass while my man watches from the sidelines. I am so angry, telling the thief that his is so low for stealing from people who can't even afford to buy food. There is going to be a court case and I'm very emotional.

Dream skip and I'm at a garbage can outside that same jewelry store, sorting through what I find in there, looking for something of value. I'm shocked at my luck that I actually find something - a fairly expensive set that someone has taken a few pieces off and thrown the rest away. It looks as though they took only a few pairs of ear rings and tossed the rest, which includes some bangles and a ring. It's not really my style, all in kind of a floral print, but beggars can't be choosers, as they say. I notice a price tag that reads $124.99. I also find some ornate elephants that are covered in dirt which I wipe carefully away.

Type: regular dream.
Lucidity: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Vividness: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Notes:
This is a dream added from a few months earlier.

I've never picked through garbage before like some homeless people do. But last night, I was doing precisely that.

It was probably the middle of the day, because the sky was light and blue. I was outside a bank building made from slightly worn red bricks; the sign of whatever was inside the building was navy blue but the name and logo of the company was skewed, so I couldn't remember what it was like. There was an alley in between this building and another one, and I was looking for stuff. I wasn't homeless, but I guess I was just randomly searching for trinkets. I walked towards a rectangular green dumpster in the alley and opened it up.

There wasn't anything garbage-like about the items inside. There were brand new articles of clothing, neatly wrapped up in plastic bags, and new toys still in the box. I remember seeing a yellow remote-control race car and something that looked like a Barbie doll. I dug around a bit more and saw some sort of silver coin, around the size of a nickel, sitting on one of the other plastic bags. I held it out and showed my sister, who happened to magically appear while I was looking in the garbage. "Look, I found a coin!" I told her.

"It's just a coin," she told me, rolling her eyes and turning away.

"I know, but these are worth a million dollars nowadays!" I told her, trying to persuade her that I wasn't crazy or something.

...