Recent DJ Posts

I knew a very friendly cat with reddish/orange fur. I think she lived in a shelter, other cats were around too, and maybe other animals. I can’t remember. Some people around me were trying to do something with cotton balls, some kind of kickstarter project. They were inspired by cat to make red fur from cotton balls. The process was to comb through a cotton ball until it was strands and then dye it red and sell it by the bag. We all thought it was a brilliant idea, although can’t remember what we thought people would want with w bag full of red cotton.

More red: A red-haired guy gave me a ride home. He seemed creepy, in a pushy way. He wanted to come in to my place for some reason, and i think I let him, maybe to go to the toilet or something. Then wanted to stay longer and I told him to leave. I remember he had a weird smile on his face as I basically forced him out of my front door.

I was at my mom’s house (random made-up dream home) My uncle was there and we were talking. I saw a crow, wanted to feed it peanuts. I told my uncle to hold on while I went inside to get some nuts. I grabbed some, and I was holding them up in my hand so I could show the crow that I had some nuts to feed it. My uncle was laughing at me, and he took a nut and said, ‘Here’s how you do it!’ and threw it at the crow. I was angry because I thought he scared the bird and was being rude.

I had a friend– sometimes her hair was red, sometimes she was a blonde. She was a newish friend, and I felt I didn’t trust her completely although we were spending a lot of time together. At one point, I was in the back of a cab, she was on my right and my husband on my left. They seemed to be getting along well. I was considering the fact that I don’t drink anymore, and they both do. I felt that my husband probably thinks this friend is more exciting than me.

I was going to move back in with my mom for some reason, work related I think. My husband was now some guy I had only been dating for about a month. Up until now we both lived in a house we shared with other people. I wasn’t sure this guy even really liked me that much, the relationship was new, and I think the guy had a reputation for dating lots of women before me. This friend was moving in to this house when I left, I was not happy about this. I was trying to have a discussion with this friend about how I felt about her moving in. Friend was polyamorous and acting like I was being unreasonable and prudish. Right before I woke up I was deciding that I just needed to break things off guy because none of this was worth it.

I was in car with my mother— she was driving and we were on freeway. She was driving erratically, and I asked her if she could slow down. She said she drives slow.
I told her i felt afraid, and said I always have dreams with her driving and we wreck. [Good chance to be lucid here, but did not. I think we actually wrecked.]

I was eating a salad from a white cardboard to go box, and I saw what I had thought was black pepper move and realized that they were little bugs. I discreetly chewed the last bite and closed the box so no one would know I had been eating bugs.

My husband and I had a giant house with too much furniture all over. Many couches, beds, tables in random places. It seemed some of this furniture belonged to other people who were at our house for some gathering that day. At the end of the day people began collecting their furniture and leaving. An old acquaintance, ‘O’ was missing her nice large table. I apologized, but she was ok, and she said she could take this other smaller table instead. I said ok. I was anxious to clean up the house because I thought it could look really nice.

My husband was seeing someone else. We were polyamorous but I was unhappy. He and a woman and some other friends went to comedy show without me. I was devastated.
Walking down street trying to get to apt 4 at night. Raining? My best friend from high school [C] was my roommate but moving back to Europe with a grant to write something. We never talked although we lived together.

I was at a class– Spelling? Woman with baby used buzzer instead if clapping for asking questions. My husband and his girlfriend were in class before me
I told his gf how unhappy I was after I talked to my husband and asked him if it had to be this way. No one cared about my feelings.

My dog was locked in a room. It had a glass window, like recording booth. I somehow got her out and she turned into a large grey spider. I wanted her to change back, so I held onto her. Someone else there saw her and recognized bug as a 'world burther.'

Thought I saw my husband in a red [unreadable] with a baby going, to a show in a crowd of people. I ran up and hugged him but it wasn't him.

A strange man told me to come to the show to watch out for my husband. I began thinking I might divorce him. I thought about asking my parents if I could move in with them. I thought about how I was a burden to my parents.

I checked into a hotel where I knew my husband had a room already. It was late and dark inside the hotel. It was closed for the night. A night clerk said they had 6 rooms left and asked me what kind I wanted. I went upstairs to let myself into my husband’s room while they were getting my room ready. Husband wasn’t in his room so I went back downstairs.

I was standing outside the hotel waiting for Mom to fly in to town. I saw a plane crash and land on it’s wing, then it tipped over upside down. I heard people screaming inside plane. I was worried my Mom was on that flight. Then I heard her screaming. I started running towards the plane and then saw that she was coming from the hotel and she was ok.

At school a child came up to me and hugged me. They would not let go. Then along came a social worker and told me I had been chosen as a substitute father, as the child's father had had a breakdown.
I went to the child's house and found that the father had made a few mistakes that had attracted the attention of the authorities.
The house looked pristine, and much nicer than mine, lol. It was open plan, with a white kitchen table with some photocopied notes on it. The father had apparently stapled they're lesson plans to the child's homework (they were also a teacher Oo).
It all started getting really weird and I got freaked out after that, feeling obviously I shouldn't be there and wtf would this happen to me also.

Spoiler for Substitute husband:

Wife came home and it all get way out of hand. It appeared I was taking on the role in more ways than one. She started giving me a blowjob, right there in the kitchen. It was all very wrong Oo.
Then the social worker comes through the door, and we scrabble to clean up. LMAO.

I was working on the layout of an old newspaper and the image of a man at a radio station talking into a mic appeared. He said he had been working at this station since 1865 under the title of ‘Father of the House.’ I remember thinking he didn’t look that old, maybe only 45.

I was working at the cafe, very busy section towards the front of the house.
Two women together ordered food, changed tables while waiting on food so I had trouble finding them at first. One of the women told me she hadn’t ordered this dish: it was a baking pan of 4 enchilada-shaped objects wrapped in what looked like blue plastic. It was called ‘the Four Plastics’ and I remembered her ordering it but I didn’t argue. She said she had ordered the ‘Rhubarb Salad. Lots of detailed activity happened that I don’t remember well now- fumbling with computer and ordering food, fumbling at cash register and fumbling getting people checks. I was at the cash register and I could see a girl in my section was out of water. I grabbed a pitcher and I walked over to her. She was a regular (dream- but she seemed to be a younger female version of a waking life regular I used to know) and she had a drink when I got to her table. She said it was an accident that she gestured towards me, that she had been doing some kind of experiment/magic. She was only 19, had long auburn hair, giant round glasses, and an awkward face. She was nice, but very strange. I felt bad for her, and wanted to find a way to help her grow into herself, specifically initially helping her to speak in a more eloquent manner. But I didn’t say anything. I listened to her tell me and some other people how she was tiring about going to a costume party, but that she would probably stay at home and dress up at her place alone. Maybe as a tomato? I can’t remember.
We had a new chef and a new [manager?] at the cafe. They were loyal to each other.

I had a small black puppy with me behind bar at one point. It was scrambling in my arms and ran around behind the bar and up to the top to greet some customers.

At one point there was an ex president visiting. He was of an asian background and he lived in this town that the cafe waist now that he was retired. His daughter worked at the cafe. They had been eating and listening to audiobooks that we rented out- a long series of perhaps 12 titles, all written on his receipt that he handed me at the cash register when he walked up. Initially he told me, ‘Don’t freak out…’ when he walked up. I told him I was remaining relaxed. One of the titles had the word phantom in it. I had trouble ringing them up but I did the best I could. A woman manger came up to me later and told me to organize them in a better way. I told her I wasn’t sure how- but she shoved the receipt into my chest and walked away.

I don’t remember it happening, but my husband had left me. I had moved on to an ex from long ago and he had left me as well. Then I had moved on to yet another ex, and we had been living in an old apartment similar to one we actually lived in in real life. We had issues and then we decided to stay together but get different apartments. I found one that was slightly cheaper at $640/month in the same complex. He eventually left me too. I remember feeling sad that everyone seemed to leave me, that something must be wrong with me.
I woke up (false) on my bed with my jeans and t-shirt on. I couldn’t recall going to bed, thought I must have bee really tired and just passed out when I came home from work. As I laid there, I looked up and could see a bunch of bikes hanging around me, and a bike part on my bed. Then I saw my mom through a window in my bedroom door. She came in and I told her that my ex had left me. I told her I already had my own place, and she seemed to be trying to help me plan my future, saying, ‘That’s not so bad…’ about the price of the apartment. I felt sad about living in this city again, didn’t want to be there. She was giving me $160 for my birthday. I told her I wanted a bike.

My apartment was a the foothills of some mountains. In the valley there was a large river. It was beautiful, though I didn’t acknowledge it in the dream. To the southwest , and n the opposite side of the river, was another range of mountains, and one structure in particular looked like a giant rock monster. I imagined him as a mythological being, that sometime woke up and ran through the valley, creating the river bed. He seemed slightly scary.


Thoughts:
I think I’m subconsciously afraid that I am not treating my husband well enough and fear him leaving me. I think this fear is valid but not really applicable, as we have great communication and things are good with us. I think this comes from general anxiety within my self about many things in my life. The cafe dreams are definitely a reoccurring theme, and I suppose I feel like I am struggling to keep up with things and making too many mistakes. Again I think it comes from a general anxiety, maybe specifically over my career.

An environmental catastrophe was about to happen to the Earth. Humans were aware of this, and there was a system installed in which we all had to wait for our name to be called (sometimes in groups, sometimes alone) and step aboard a small asteroid-like rock that floated nearby a cliff. The asteroid was like a disposable mini-rocket, and as it launched off with each group, it begin slowly disintegrating until the people aboard would fall to the ground and die, or be injured and die later. It was terrible, but not very real-feeling. I watched a friend die, then came my turn, and I woke up before I died.

I fell back asleep and entered a similar scenario, only this time it felt more real. I was living in a 'Fall-Out' type village, with very few amenities and maybe 50 people at most. We were under the control of another group of humans, like a military or militia. We had a local stand where a guy sold things like cigarettes, food, drink, drugs, etc. There was a man who delivered small amounts of rations regularly. I saw some soldiers going into some of the other homes on the compound and I knew the end was coming soon, they were going to take us away, and some [vague] bad thing was going to happen. During one moment I seemed to be playing the role of a child, although I also had my current dog, Cayna. I heard that the soldiers weren't allowing animals to come along and I began to panic. I knew I couldn't leave Cayna behind. She would starve. I knew she had been abandoned before and I dreaded the idea of putting her through that again, at my hands. I was leaving the home I shared with other people and I think I told a woman and her 2 kids that I had a dog and I was so sad to be made to leave it. I asked her if she was ready to leave too, and she said they were staying, because they have a cat, and if you sleep outside with your pet you can stay. I was thrilled and went to get my mother [random woman in dream, not real mom]. I saw her in the back of a car being driven away. I cried for her and she looked back and seemed to be crying out in pain of leaving me behind.

I had Cayna though, and now I seemed to be back to my regular age because my husband was with me. I knew sooner or later we would be forced to commit mass suicide. I felt an enormous amount of dread. I thought, 'This is the worst possible ways things could end.' I wondered about Cayna again, and how she would survive without us. I thought she would have plenty to eat for a while—the left behind food and corpses...but then something convinced me that her death would be horrible if I let her live and I began to wonder if the safest thing to do for her was also poison her when we had to poison ourselves. My heart hurt; how could this be happening? I thought wouldn't it be wonderful if somehow, right before the and that someone said we didn't have to die after all? We could go on living! I felt a sting of hope rise and die quickly. I looked at my husband who was teary-eyed as well and told him that maybe the best thing for Cayna in the end would be to take her with us. He cringed and seemed to emote that he didn't want to talk about it. I said, 'I understand but I just wanted to say it now so when the time comes we had talked about it.'

Some time went by. We were outside this entire conversation, my husband and I. He suddenly told me to hold still and he began plucking at something on top of my head. He plucked off a ladybug -still attached to some of my hair- that he said had burrowed itself into my head/hair.

Thoughts:
I had some allergy issues right before bed, and my throat felt tight, felt itchy, and it felt a little hard to breathe. I've had allergy induced asthma before and it wasn't that bad, but I decided to take a Benedryl to relieve my symptoms. My husband spends lots of time playing Fall Out 4 lately, and I think the post-apocalyptic town was designed with that in mind. I have been a little worried about my dog. She is aging, and I wonder if I am giving her the absolute best care that I could be. Do I exercise her too hardly when we run? Do I feed her too much? etc. I found it interesting as I typed it out that my worries about abandoning my dog turned into me playing a child being 'abandoned' by my [dream]mother. I'm not sure what that means though.

Nothing last night.

Woke up this morning at 7 remembering:

I'm in a "school/university situation". The different buildings are in a hilly landscape near sea, it must be summer because the grass is dry and yellow. We are staying in a bungalow with a group of students. One of the walls is almost entirely made of glass, with big sliding doors. It's very windy outside, more than windy, it's a storm. I say to my boyfriend (I'm younger in my dream, he's now my husband) that I'm afraid that the parasol and the sign are going to be blown away. He says "don't worry, it's not that bad". But I see the sign disappeared already and now the giant parasol is going up in the air. I see animals are loose outside, white and brown ones and I ask my boyfriend if they are our calves. He says "No, they're from down there" and he points his finger to show me.
In the same dream I'm in one of the school/university buildings. I have to get back to the classroom but (of course, I think that happens all the time) I can't seem to find my way back. I walk with a girl I know, when she enters a classroom I want to follow her, but don't recognize the faces of the other students. Not the right place. I continue looking, on different floors, until I finally it. I'm too late, most of the others have already left. I can see that the teacher (my secondary school's maths teacher) has handed out a large book and two big sheets about economy. I wonder how I can get them as well, but I can't even find my bag and my computer. I ask my boyfriend if he knows where they are. He's impatient, wants to leave, to go out, have fun and get drunk. I'm upset, because I'm tired of looking for the classroom and my stuff and instead of comforting me, he only wants to go out and drink. He shows me where to find my things anyway. They're hidden behind a big desk chair.

After writing this I still felt sleepy so I tried a WBTB. I slept again, quite long, woke up with a headache and no dream.

I was really tired last night, for no special reason. I tried to read while my husband was watching a soccer match, but I kept dosing off. Went to bed at 21.45!

Woke up at 3.20 with a fragment on my mind. Maybe it wasn't even a dream fragment, but that would make it a really strange thought, so I'm going to count it as a fragment.

Fragment 1: All my dreams from the period of sleep that I just woke from were on a wooden cutting board. I tilted it and with my big knife I pushed them off, straight into my DJ…

I went straight back to sleep, too tired to do a WBTB and woke up at 6.15 remembering:

The bishop
My father, mother, me and ? arrive by bike at a big sports hall. Apparently we'll be visiting the celebration of a jubilee of an African bishop in there. We put our bikes in the designated outside area for bikes. Once inside the hall I take part in a workshop for "upcycling" (making something new and better out off used garments) clothes. I make myself a wide cream coloured, two layered top with a dark brown edge along the neckline. When I'm ready I start looking for my father and mother. I push through the crowd, some people recognize me and compliment me on my blouse. Proudly I tell them that I made it myself, without a pattern, just like that. A young woman thinks it's too big. I shrug my shoulders. What do you want, first time ever, without help…
I want to leave and find out that my parents have already left. I wonder if they would have left my bike there. There are a lot of bikes there but I don't recognize mine. I grab a ladies bike that is not locked and cycle of to the right, into town. After going for a while I decide that it's not right and I return to where I came from. I put the bike back, next to a woman (who looks like Marion that I met in the village last Sunday morning) is putting hers away. The two bikes lean against each other and she says; "Be careful now, don't touch them anymore". Together we walk towards the buildings. "To go to Brandons you have to go straight here and turn right later on" she says, pointing at the apartment buildings far away. "That's not where I'm going" I say to her and go in the direction of the sports hall. "Oh", she says "for Randen it's in there". I think she's full of nonsense and go inside. I move through the crowd until I find a group that includes my aunt Nelly and her daughter Anita. I talk to them for a bit until I see my dad. He's carrying a cotton bag and takes out a pair of pink pants so that I can get changed. I tell him that I want to say goodbye to the bishop before we go. The bishop is a big black man. He's "dressed" in a shiny, wooden case, only his head sticks out. It's a bit like a coffin, but the form is more rounded. He's standing up, watching a movie (?) that's being projected on a screen. There is a big case filled with boxes that contain parts of the movie. I guess that this is the present he's had. I say goodbye to him. He says that he's very happy that I came and he puts his hand on my head as a blessing gesture.

When I wake up next at 8.30 I remember 3 fragments, of which two are from the same dream:

Fragment 2: Don't do that….. I'm sure you will not be able to get all of it back!

Fragment 3: My dad, his wife, me, my husband and our youngest son are in a room together. My son is sitting in the corner of a sofa and preparing himself a smoke. I say to my husband, "The boy is only 15, are you okay with that?" He shrugs his shoulders. I'm angry, I grab my stuff and leave. I'm annoyed with myself, I've got nowhere to go, I haven't got the key to the car, or our house. I should have tried to find a solution instead of running off.

Fragment 4: My dad's wife is not feeling well. I want to leave and that's what I do. Just a bit later I see my dad and his wife following me. He's sort of dragging her along because she's feeling really bad. When they get to where I am my dad starts climbing on top of something and she lies down on the side of the road. I say to her that I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to do this to her, she could have stayed at home.

Went to bed at 23.30 and tried to meditate a bit. Don't think I stayed awake very long. Woke up at 3.00 to go to the toilet, remembered nothing. Stayed up for a WBTB, probably not long enough this time, but I'm afraid to stay awake way too long if I stay up to long. WBTB didn't work because I woke up from the alarm at 7.10.

Room in the attick
I'm in a house (not ours) with my husband and we go into the room in the attick. It's cleaned up now, before it was so messy that you could hardly enter it. Along two of the walls are large dressers (I'm not sure if this is the right word in English) Both wood, but different colours. Two drawers of the left one are left open. I pull my husband on the bed and we make out a bit. He gets up and starts collecting things to go and have a shower. Two (young) men enter the room. (I think "I'm glad I'm decent"). One of the men is the owner of the house, the other one (to whom he's showing the house) is a young version of Darrau. The owner, a long and skinny guy, tells Darrau about the room. "Over there we used to have the trains, and there the Playmobil". They speak French. At a certain moment one of them uses the word "relance" in a way that I don't understand. I ask for an explanation. "But a 'relance' is asking for something again if there is no reaction to the first time you've asked?" Darrau answer that in fact it is that, but sometimes it's also used in another way.

Wrote this dream up, went to the toilet and tried another WBTB. I got a lot closer but woke up again from a non lucid dream.

Another room in another attick
My husband and I woke up from the alarm. He had to get up to go to work. My best friend (from the period 13 to 17 yrs old) was in the room with us. Without saying anything he made it clear to me that I had to get her out of the room because he had something in mind. I told her that she could go down to the bathroom, she'd find a towel in the narrow high open cupboard. She left and my husband started unbuttoning my jeans.

Then I woke up, there were noises in the house (holidays, the kids are there). I tried to go back to the dream but the noises prevented that.

Ritual: It's been over a month since I've done any deliberate dream practice, due to a combination of low motivation and being really busy in WL, so this morning I woke up early to feed the cats and decided to turn it into a WBTB. To reinforce my intention, I took a very small amount (2mg) of galantamine, backed up with alpha-gpc and l-theanine. I lay on my back and tried to concentrate on my intention to get lucid, but my focus was almost completely lacking, and eventually I dozed off only to be startled awake by my own snoring. I turned on my side and fell asleep without any further efforts.

I am in a store that specializes in custom-made, artisanal candy and chocolates. There is a table covered with samples, and I am surprised to see one set labeled with the names of my dad and a cousin, apparently commissioned by them for some event. It consists of three types of chocolate meant to be dipped into three different flavored creams. I want to try all three, but there is only one sample of each flavor and I am competing for them with other customers, so I miss out on one or two.

My disappointment is eased when the lady proprietor brings out more samples, but these turn out to be biscuits and candy, rather than the chocolates on the first table. Still, they are very appealing in all their colors and textures, and I am standing over the table unapologetically sampling one thing after another when I feel a strange tremor in the floor. The motion becomes more intense, and the other customers start to panic because they think it is an earthquake, but I recognize that it is a different kind of motion. It doesn't feel like the ground is shaking under the building, but rather like the building itself is sliding over the ground, which is of course impossible, unless...

"Don't worry, everybody!" I say authoritatively. "This is a dream." I open the front door to see if I was right about the movement, and sure enough, the whole building is sliding sideways through a forest at great speed. While I wait for our journey to end, I continue munching confections: I was particularly enjoying one fennel-flavored cookie shaped like twining leaves and tinted delicately green. Recalling that I was planning to resume my diet tomorrow in waking life, I figured I should take advantage of this opportunity to stuff my face with calorie-free dream food!

The building eventually came to a halt, and I went outside to explore the new environment. I recall it was now an urban area, but some of the transitional details are vague. Somehow I met up with my husband and another guy, no one I recognized, and we drove through the city in a really nice convertible sportscar (modeled on the picture of the BMW i8 he showed me last night in WL). I think we were going to see a movie but maybe it wasn't showing (I don't remember watching one) so we went back out to get the car. It was parked some distance away, so to retrieve it faster, I concentrated on making it drive itself back to us, and to speed things up even more, I had it fly through the air.

"Thank you, robot valet," I said, as the car gently landed in front of us at the curb. My husband got in the driver's seat, and I got into the back again, but when the DC squeezed into some weird sidecar niche, I climbed over to take the passenger seat. For some reason the car had a British layout, so the driver sat on the right with the passenger seat to the left.

Since I had demonstrated that the car could fly, we took off directly into the air to avoid street traffic. However, our flight path didn't feel stable: we were getting buffeted in strange ways. I pointed out that while this car was incredibly aerodynamic on the ground, it was not designed for flying: a sturdy little pod would be better for this purpose. We dropped back down to the pavement and now the car performed beautifully, hugging the ground with impressive traction even though the streets were wet, and roaring forward at incredible speed.

"Where are we going?" I asked. Even though I wasn't in the driver's seat, as the dreamer I felt like I was actually the one steering. My husband said he wanted to pick up some things from the Hall of Records, and helped me locate the building. Inside, it turned out he was retrieving some parcels that had been mailed to him. He mentioned that one package was three days late, because the sender had needed to mail out a movie script first. "Why didn't he just bring them both to the post office at the same time?" I asked, to which there was no satisfactory answer. The parcels contained research materials, and now that my husband had them in hand, he wanted to do some work. "Okay, you work," I said. "I need to go do something."

I had remained partly lucid the whole time, but I had been enjoying the dream enough to let the narrative play out. Now that things were wrapping up, I remembered that I had planned to catch a fish for the TOTMs. I went around behind the building and conveniently found a stream flowing by. The water was shallow and crystal clear, so I peered in to see if I could spot any fish. What I actually saw swimming underwater were... kittens!

"Actually this will make things easier," I reflected. Now I wouldn't need to bother with a fishing rod, hook, and bait. Kittens were much easier to catch! I dangled a length of ribbon over the water until a kitten surfaced and started batting at it, then lured it closer to me until I could scoop it right up in my arms. I concluded that the creature I had caught was a "catbird fish" (I'm not sure why it wasn't just a "catfish," but this was the term that seemed right at the time) and knew I should examine it closely so that I could write a clear description in my report.

Once I was holding the animal, it was no longer the size of a tiny kitten but had swelled into a plump armful. It was no longer quite cat-shaped, either: now looked more like a stuffed animal with the bodily proportions of a totoro: big rounded torso and very short arms and legs. Although my "catbird fish" didn't physically resemble a fish, I sensed that there was something fishlike about its bones, even if I couldn't see them.

I studied the head first, which was still cartoonishly cat-like overall, but with significant differences. The mouth was very unusual: more narrow and vertical than that of a real cat, almost beaklike the way it protruded, but with large exposed teeth. There were two large incisors on the top and bottom, but both sets of incisors were adjacent to one another in the center, more like those of a rat than a cat, but wider and flatter.

After studying the mouth closely, I looked back up and saw that the round, wideset eyes were now completely white. I recalled noticing normal pupils before and wondered if they were rolled back in the head. Just when I was thinking that the creature was starting to look a bit scary, with its weird mouth and whitened eyes, suddenly it spoke up in a very friendly voice: "Hello!" I responded in kind, smiled at it, and continued my examination.

It had the fur of a cat, brown tabby stripes with patches of white here and there: a white triangle on the throat and chest, a little white on the belly, and white gloves. I checked and determined that all four paws were white. After looking over the creature thoroughly, I returned the "catbird fish" to the stream.

The environment had shifted around me: the stream was no longer outside, but occupied a room in a building that had put together exhibits pertaining to different countries. I wondered which country had supplied my "catbird fish," and looked around until I saw the words "This is Canada," inscribed under the surface of the stream. I wondered what other countries were being exhibited—somehow I knew there were supposed to be five of them—and if I could find any rooms with bodies of water suitable for fishing. It would be cool to catch dream fish from several different countries!

I wandered around the building looking for the other exhibits, but to my disappointment, all the others were closed. I went to the front desk to ask about this, and became even more incensed when I noticed a sign informing me that the price of admission was $898.99. I complained angrily to the desk clerk: how could they justify charging so much when only one of the five exhibits was even open?! He simply pointed me to a second sign, which listed a complicated set of refunds that reduced the price of admission to only $1.25.

"Oh, alright then." I figured $1.25 was a reasonable fee for the one exhibit I had seen, and was willing to pay. I had a bunch of change in my left hand, and started trying to count out five quarters into my right palm. The first few attempts inexplicably failed due to the shifting numbers and appearances of the coins. "This is really hard to do in a dream," I commented, and wondered if it would be easier if, instead of trying to shift the correct number of coins from left hand to right, I put them directly down on the desk as I counted.

I started making a little pile of quarters, but had only counted out two before coins that had initially resembled quarters turned out to be square when I set them down, and I had to start a separate pile for them. The third round, quarter-sized coin that I managed to produce had a square hole in the center like those old Chinese coins, and the fourth one had three triangular holes, but by this point I realized that this would never get done if I was too much of a perfectionist. All I needed was one more vaguely quarter-shaped coin to complete my stack of five, but suddenly all the ones still in my hand appeared to be the wrong shape and size. I picked something arbitrarily to finish the stack. I was well aware of the irony of going to so much effort to pay for something in a dream, but since it was so unexpectedly challenging, I felt that it would be a good exercise to try to see it through!

7/6/15 12:54 am

Tonight I went to bed before my husband to try to fix my sleeping schedule by going to bed early. I had a dream, which I don't remember, then went right to bed to trigger a lucid dream through dream chaining. I told myself over and over again I wanted to dream of my husband. And I did.

Lucid MILD, WBTB, Dream Chaining

I dreamed we had a shared dream and I was showing him how to control his dream. We flew together hand in hand. Saw Conan live. Visited a herd of "Mittens" (my cat who passed away recently), one of them bit me. It hurt. I wasn't bothered by it, and found it quite funny. The herd of Mittens was in my mother's backyard.

I woke up in my dream and my husband agreed we had a shared dream, but then proceeded to tell me I was Sailor Moon in his dream, which made me realize we didn't share dreams. He described his dream totally differently. Note: I'm still dreaming.

Then, I see this white stuffed animal on a chair who's talking to me in a squeaky voice. I don't remember the conversation. At first, I didn't trust him. I told him to go away. But all of the sudden I realized what he was saying. I told him, in different words, but essentially this "You're my dream guide." And he said yes (I think, or something affirming what I said) and jumped in my arms to give me a hug. Then I woke up when my husband got in bed in waking life.

I used a different word for dream guide in my dream, but don't remember what.

He was definitely different than all my dream characters, with a sense of his own agency. Even different than my dream husband, who was just responding to what I did. I think I didn't trust him at first because he seemed to have his own agency.

I almost feel like my dream guide and I were speaking on a different level, like in code. We knew what we meant, even though it wasn't in clear English.

This was definitely the best dream I've had with my husband. We were flying hand in hand! And that was amazing. I've flown hand in hand with one other dream character before, in my first successful flying dream. I asked him what my middle name was and he said Windy, then took my hand, proceeding to fly with me in the air. I've been able to fly in my dreams ever since, and this moment flying with my husband was definitely reminiscent on my first flying dream. I was rusty flying, since I haven't triggered a lucid dream in a while (only accidental ones) and had to relearn how to fly, only this time it was me who took my husband's hand to show him, rather than a dream character showing me.

When I was trying to fly, at first it wasn't successful. I'd keep trying to jump from higher levels of ground to lower levels, on a hilly area with grass and patches of dirt. The area is around my mother's house, down the road near a foresty area.

There was a point in the dream we were on a train, before the flying scene, taking to other dream characters.

Connected to my mom's backyard is an acquaintance's house. It's supposed to be my mom's, and I felt like it was my mom's, but at the same time this person's house. We went into his room and saw an anime poster. There was a "mom figure" there that was supposed to be my mom, but wasn't my mom in waking life. She was worried about me, but I told her this is all just a dream so not to worry. I showed my husband how to control the dream further by saying "clearer" and "brighter", controlling my dream world to become clearer and brighter.

In a sense, the dream started off with me being the dream guide for my dream husband, then finding my own dream guide. I really hope to see him again! I haven't been searching for a dream guide, but have been hoping to have a repeated dream character that has a sense of self and grows with each lucid dream. So perhaps this is a manifestation of that desire. Certainly not what I expected! A stuffed animal as my dream guide. I'm so excited by this.

This dream started off, I believe, as non-lucid. Though I don't remember the point exactly I became lucid. My husband and I were watching Roku together, and then went to see Conan live. When we watched Conan on Roku, he had his typical blue background, but live everything was white and the show was supposed to be a new Conan show, called Live with Conan. There was this mean producer lady, who was playing tricks on me. I think that was the point I became lucid, because something about her just gave off that she was a dream character. Conan later sat with me and my husband in the audience and apologized for her actions.

I was looking under the bed for my two cats, and they were there, but to my surprise I found a third! It was an enormous calico, at least twice the size of any other cat I'd ever seen, and unbelievably fat. Startled by this strange discovery, I pointed it out to my husband. He gave me a suspicious look and said, "That's Crowl," as if explaining the obvious.

"He must have at least fifteen percent of the Internet!" I exclaimed, thinking that there's no way such an unusual cat could avoid becoming an Internet sensation. My husband nodded in confirmation.

"Where did he come from?" I inquired. It seemed like a reasonable question, since I had never seen this cat before but my husband appeared to be familiar with him.

Again my husband looked at me in wary confusion, as if he couldn't understand why he had to keep telling me things I should know perfectly well. "We got him from Donna Slope."

"Who's Donna Slope?" The tension was growing with every question I asked. My husband was now staring at me as if he feared that I had finally lost my mind. I gathered that this was the name of someone we knew quite well, for for the life of me I could not remember a single detail about her.

I noticed that the sliding door to the patio was open, and one of our own cats and Crowl had gone outside. I expressed alarm: ours is an elderly indoor cat, and definitely not allowed outside without close supervision. My husband seemed strangely unconcerned: "It's okay, he'll follow Crowl." I was not reassured. "We'll have to talk about this later," I said, indicating the events of the entire morning, and went out after the cats.

The two were already walking along the side of the house toward the street. To my alarm I saw that the front gate was open, and they went right through it. For some reason after I caught up with them I picked up Crowl first. As I walked back along the side of the house I noticed an assortment of little pumpkins or round gourds next to the path. One green one was rattling violently as if something were trying to get out. This piqued my curiosity, but I could not investigate with my arms full of cat, so I resolved to take a closer look after both cats were secured back indoors. I unceremoniously dumped Crowl back inside the bedroom, making sure to close the screen door behind him, and then went back for the other cat.

I was worried at having left my cat unattended, but reminded myself that he moved very slowly in his old age and he could not have gone far. As long as he hadn't blundered out into the street, he should be okay. I soon spotted him next to the sidewalk chewing on grass... but something was amiss. There were now two cats of his appearance. I studied them closely until I thought I was sure which one was him, and carried him back inside. After he was safely secured in the house, I went back to investigate those pumpkins.

The pumpkins ranged in color from green to orange, and seams indicated that the tops could be lifted like those of jack-o-lanterns. What did I expect to find inside? What if it was a coiled up snake, and it bit me? I brushed aside the fear impatiently: the only reason to be afraid of a snake is if you think it might have deadly poison, but that is quite rare. Most snakebites are harmless. Still, why did I want to look inside the pumpkins? I needed a good reason. "Curiosity," I concluded. "Curiosity is the desire to know more." That seemed like a good enough reason in itself.

The first few pumpkins were hollowed out as I anticipated, but they contained only vague shapes, like something was still buried in the pumpkin flesh. I peered closely at one and I thought it looked lizard-shaped. "Maybe they aren't ready to hatch yet," I concluded. I reached the green one that had been shaking violently. Surely this one was ready! I stopped and tried to imagine what I would most like to find inside, and decided on one of those little troll dolls. Wouldn't be cool to find one that had come to life? I lifted the top and... it was just another lizard. This was vaguely disappointing after I had gotten my hopes up for something more exotic.

After going back in the house I started thinking hard. I realized something very strange was going on today, and I needed to figure out what it was. My husband was acting very uncharacteristically, and I was apparently unfamiliar with major details of my own life. What could it be? Was it related to time travel? My current situation felt very similar to the life I knew, but not identical... could I have somehow "jumped the tracks" to a different timeline, a different possible present?

Later I was shelving some books in the kitchen when another possibility came to mind: I could be dreaming. At first this felt very unlikely, but I knew that apperances could be deceiving, and I would need to test thoroughly. I began by looking at a book on the shelf and trying to withdraw it through will alone. Nothing happened, but I thought it might just need a headstart, so I pulled it out about an inch with my fingers, then tried to finish using only mental strength. This time it worked! I let the book hover in the air above my palm to confirm that I was controlling it with my thoughts.

Alright, so I'm definitely dreaming. Shit. That means I have to remember everything so I can write it down when I wake up. I started going over details from the morning, listing them aloud to better fix them in memory. "Crowl... Donna Slope... lizards in pumpkins..." I'm sure several other things happened that morning that I'm now forgetting, but I lost lucidity and had another long NLD before waking up, so some of the details have faded.

This is the third dream in which the DC implied to be my dream-world husband appears. Note that in previous dreams, I had not felt repulsed by him. In this dream, and every one involving him since, his age has changed from in his 30s to in his 50s.

I am walking through the gardens of a mental institution with my mother. The day is pleasant and sunny, the flowers are more realistic-looking and less overblown and lurid than they usually are in my dreams. We walk through a tunnel of trees towards the entrance of the institution, talking about my marriage. My mother outright condemns my choice of partner, in particular the age gap between us (I am 20, he is in his late 30s). I, thinking about my marriage, am more concerned about the difficult relationship between my husband and I, than I am about the age difference.

We come to the entrance, there are two cars with chauffeurs waiting outside. The double doors open, and my husband runs out. I am startled by how he has aged, he is now in his early 50s although I am still 20, and haven’t aged. He runs over to me, making a fuss of me, bowing repeatedly and kissing my hand. I am disgusted by his behaviour: embarrassed because he’s making a scene in front of my mother and all the orderlies and I have to stand there and take it to be polite, and anxious because I know he’s only pretending to be respectful towards me and I’m wondering what he’ll do when we’re alone.

My mother is driven away in the first car. The institution staff go back inside, and I watch the doors close as my 50-something husband kisses and bites my neck and whispers threats in my ear. I let him get into the car first (it’s a red car). I take my time about getting into the car with him, watching him watching me through the window. The dream ends shortly after I get in the car.

This is the forum post in which I mentioned this series of dreams: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...m-married.html

Ritual: WTB 12:30am, woke 7:30 with first DILD. No techniques, hadn't really intended to get lucid, but I was wearing a Jawbone fitness tracker on my wrist to bed for the first time. It's a bit tight and I think the unfamiliar sensation served as an anchor for consciousness.

DILD (eventually), "Hong Kong Apartment": I am in Hong Kong with my husband, staying in the apartment of someone unknown to me. I'm curious who this guy is and why we're at his place, so I'm attentive to my surroundings. It is a one-bedroom apartment and the layout feels familiar; I figure it must be a common floorplan here. The first thing I remember is being in a small room of unclear function, a study maybe, and looking at a plaque on the wall. It depicts a Chinese character, the archaic version of that character, and the pinyin transliteration: sōng, corresponding to the English word "page"—not the leaf of a book but the job title. From this I suppose that the young man who lives here must be serving as a page in the Hong Kong government, in the same way that there are pages in the US Congress.

My husband is talking to me, and I'm vaguely following his words but not entirely sure what he's going on about. I'm still trying to figure out why we're here: does my husband know the guy who owns this place, or is this some kind of Airbnb arrangement? Meanwhile I'm trying to wrap an enormous porkchop—the size of a prime rib steak—that I have for some reason. It is fully grilled but no one has eaten it yet, and I'm not hungry now so I want to put it away. It had been wrapped in butcher's paper but I'm having trouble re-wrapping it, and this distracts my attention for some time as I end up having to use a piece of foil to supplement the paper where it is torn. As I finally wrap the porkchop successfully and go to put it in the fridge, I see that there is fresh lettuce in the fridge, and I've also noticed dirty plates on the counter. I had assumed the apartment's owner was letting us stay because he was away somewhere, but these details make me think he must be currently living here and could walk in at any moment.

I know my husband needs to leave for some meeting or event, and our conversation is delaying his departure, so finally I say in exasperation, "Get out of here already!" Right after he goes out the door, I worry that he might have misunderstood my tone of voice and thought I was angry, so I opened the door and called after his retreating form, "I didn't mean to speak harshly." Meanwhile a girl with short, curly blonde hair is walking from right to left in front of the apartment, and I think she might be someone he had just been referring to—at the time I even recalled her name, something with the initials "J.S."—so I gaze at her curiously. She looks back at me with the self-conscious but indifferent air of someone wondering why a stranger is staring at them. It seems like it would be awkward to start a conversation so I go back inside.

Alone in the apartment, I look around at the decor. There are a lot of hand-carved wooden animal figures, and they remind me of a set that I bought in a museum shortly before Christmas, but couldn't figure out who to give them to. They seem to match this guy's tastes... maybe I should give them to him, in thanks for the loan of his apartment. It seems like a nice gesture so I plan on it. In the center of the main room, which has an open floor plan connected with the kitchenette, is a wide square column that is hollow inside to serve as storage space. I note with interest that there are a number of oversized books here. One of them is at least four feet tall, and the title on the spine reads Disney as Orientalism, accompanied by some Disney-style graphics. I make a mental note that later I'll want to pull that one out and flip through it. It's so big it won't fit on a table—I'll have to do this on the floor! It is the largest of the books in this closet, but none of them are small. Several others are about three feet tall with matching red covers, and I see that one of them is about Shanghai. Books of this size must have cost a fortune... this guy must be doing well here. I wonder if it would be rude to read his books without asking permission first, but figure there's no harm in it.

I wonder how I'll explain my presence if this guy shows up while I'm here by myself, since I'm still not clear on who he exactly is or why I'm at his apartment. In fact, this question starts to bother me, because it seems like I should have a better explanation. Of course, it's always possible that I'm dreaming, but... I want to discount this at first, since it seems to contradict what I'm experiencing from this environment. It is so detailed, lifelike, and stable, it really doesn't feel like a dream. But I make myself take the time to think this over more carefully: if I am actually dreaming, that would explain a lot, like why I had a porkchop, something I almost never eat, and the difficulty I had wrapping it. It would explain why I am in Hong Kong with no idea why I am here, and why I find myself in the apartment of a guy I don't even know. I don't use any techniques to RC, I just think it over and gradually recognize the illusory nature of my surroundings: indeed I am dreaming!

So now what? Normally I would apply myself to some task or other, but I had specifically made a point not to do so this time, if I got lucid, because I'm facing too much work today to spend hours writing up my report. So my plan was not to do anything specific, but simply to contemplate and enjoy the dream environment. (For some reason I had the idea that this would save me time writing things up later, although that is proving not to be the case!) I walk toward the back wall of the apartment, which is completely transparent, and look outside. It is still night, but there is a well-lit open-air bar just below, with a stream running behind it. There are a surprising number of people down there, and all seem to be relaxed and enjoying themselves, like guests at a resort. I sit down to watch the scene, while thinking back over what I've just experienced. I'm still impressed by how detailed and stable this dream was. For instance, that Chinese character on the wall—it was so clearly articulated, even though I don't think it was one I've ever seen before, and I strongly doubt it's even a real one. I wished I had looked at it more carefully, and focus on reviving the mental image. I think can remember the top elements of the modern version of the character, but I'm vague about what composed the bottom, which was complex, and I had not studied it closely at the time. The archaic version was simpler, and I can remember it much more distinctly. Concentrating on this inadvertently wakes me up.

Interlude: After writing the above account and going back to bed at 8:45am, I certainly didn't intend to get lucid again, given that I've already spent a lot of time writing when I should be working, but I never want to rule it out. I ended up having several FAs, the later ones bringing on a very long bout of lucidity, in which I just wandered around exploring rather than working on specific tasks. There would still be a lot to write up but given time constraints I'll have to keep it brief. Woke for the day at 10:15.

FA: I was in the bathroom thinking that I should make a more consistent effort to recognize those little discrepancies that might make me notice I'm dreaming, like I did in the last dream, without realizing that I was actually dreaming at that very moment.

FA/DILD, "Trail of Smoke": I hovered for a long time on the border between sleep and waking and enjoyed observing its ambiguities. For instance, there was a point where I was convinced I was immersed in dream visuals but hearing everything perfectly accurately from waking life (I was probably wrong about this). I caught at least one FA and was pleased after my failure to catch the last one. Then a long dream followed where I was basically lucid the whole time, but also knew I wouldn't have time to write it up in much detail, so only certain episodes that were especially interesting stand out clearly in my memory. I really can't take the time to include them all here, but the last scene was worth mentioning:

I am wandering through a dream environment typical for me, a labyrinthine enclosed public space, and having just seen someone smoking on a magazine cover, I now find myself smoking a cigarette. The smoke doesn't dissipate completely but lingers faintly in the air along the path I have walked, like that memorable scene from Donnie Darko (2001). It looks like I could potentially trace back the smoke and rediscover all the places I have visited in the course of this long dream. This makes me wonder: how big is the dream world? And the answer seems obvious: there are no boundaries, it is as big as mind itself. Standing in that world even as I recognize its boundlessness, I feel a sense of awe.

I gaze at the glimmering smoke trails and murmur, "All the places I've been are like a trail of smoke that follows me."