The earliest parts of the dream I can still remember involve going around a house at night so that I can listen to different pieces of music being played on various radios and other equipment. All the rooms are dark, and I think I’m trying to avoid being seen by somebody. There’s a deliberate quality to what I’m doing, like it’s some task I’ve got to complete. Then, walking through a large room, possibly some kind of storage space, I remember that I’m dreaming, and so I can just do what I want. I walk further. Up ahead are two large windows set at an angle. I can see scenes playing out on the other side – it alternates between a bird’s-eye view of a large herd of dinosaurs of various kinds that looks a little unrealistic and something else I can no longer remember. (This was circa 4-5 am, not long after I’d finally managed to fall asleep, which would explain the relatively fluid, early-dream quality to some of the imagery.) I decide I want to get a closer look at the dinosaurs, so I jump through the glass when they’re visible. I start somewhere above them and to one side, but flying seems unusually difficult. I just feel too exhausted for it and float down towards the ground. But once I land, there’s suddenly someone there – I think at first that he’s my father, but it’s immediately obvious that he isn’t – the thought was probably a lingering remnant of the nonlucid dream that preceded this one. I ask him who he is. He seems a little sad at the question and, in fact, never actually answers it – he only says something that implies my not knowing already indicates some unfortunate state of affairs. We fly together – it is much easier now, with him. He wants to head back into the building I originally came out of, which is quite tall, almost like an office building. I ‘recognize’ various rooms I see through the glass. Among our surroundings out here, though, I can now see a place that strikes me as familiar among the array of them surrounding us in a rather physics-defying way. It’s hard to describe my impression of it – it’s like I’m looking into a realm that is the night sky, filled with colorful ballooning shapes, a little like kites, which I know to be sentient beings. I have good memories of that place. It isn’t just familiar: it feels as if, in some way, I belong there. I’m reluctant to go back inside when it is once again right here in front of me. But I follow my companion back through the glass, somewhat higher up than the level I exited from. We walk through a close, dark space which I know to be a puppet theater and into the room beyond, at which point I awaken. 3.12.22
I’m driving home, I think from downtown, though it mostly looks unfamiliar. I’m at a Y type intersection, waiting to turn to the left. I pull out slightly, waiting for the cars coming from the other fork. The light turns yellow while I’m still waiting and red as I finally make it through. I’m not trying to pick out a Furthur show on my phone; I think I have a lot of time, so I’m looking for a long one. I find one with a long timestamp, but clicking into it it looks more like studio material. Now, I’m parking at a 45 degree angle on some dirt shoulder. A cop car parks right next to me, which is weird with all the space around. The cop then gets out and sits in my passenger seat. She’s taken off her uniform (there are street clothes under - I think leggings and a pink tank top) and stuffed it to the right side of her. She says something like ‘you look flushed, so I’m just waiting [to get me for something].’ I take a quick video of her from head to toe. She is a large female with an intense, childish face. I sit in complete silence.
I’m walking Stella somewhere outside, a fairly wide dirt path, when I pass an older man with his dog, what looks like a retriever. Stella does well with being able to pass the dog without meeting it. There is a culvert off to the side, maybe 8+ feet long. It’s almost filled completely with running water and Stella decides to get into it. In an instant, she’s completely submerged and I can only feel by the pull of the long leash how far into it she is. I initially remain calm, hoping I’ll be able to remain calm, hoping I’ll be able to hold onto the leash until I can just run and grab her on the other side. This then does not feel possible, so I call for help from Dad who is now here. Stella is somehow still being swept down this stream that only seems a few inches deep. It is rocky as well and feels like it’s underground, as I run to catch up with her. With all of my might, I eventually do. I’m going into a Dead and Company concert with Melissa. The indoor venue seems like something comparable in size to the Reno Events Center. There’s a simple white folding table in the foyer and some hassle with the middle aged white man in getting our tickets. I succeed in getting them and we go in. It’s close to empty, so we hurry toward the front. There’s no GA, only seats. When I ask, Melissa says she doesn’t care where we sit, which kind of irritates me. At first we go up too high, so we try lower. There are now some people here and we have to squeeze by them in their seats. The band is on the stage now, all unfamiliar except for Bob Weir, the rest seeming much younger. I notice the drummer playing but don’t hear any music. Bob is wearing a black cloth face mask which he removes and gives to one of the younger band members to wear. This makes no sense to me but I try to let it go.
I’m at a concert venue. It is full of people but I don’t think I currently hear any music. I seem to be off to the side of the stage in what feels like a dugout. The crowd starts a circle pit with the inner group moving in one direction and the outer group in the other. At this point, I know it’s a Grateful Dead concert, so this feels very out of place. I see the rest of the crowd sitting on the grass facing the stage and I end up over there. It’s a sea of faded tie dye and friendly faces. I end up next to a girl near my age with two others. We start talking and I mention that it’s my first show. She gleefully exclaims this to those around. In my mind, the year is 1981 and the show is more than halfway over (though it’s fully light out). Thinking of songs I’d like to hear, Morning Dew and Black Muddy River come to mind. *A movie came on at Blind Dog last night and my guess was that it was filmed around ‘81 due to the hair and clothes styles. I’m at an empty park with a large play structure. Mark approaches, so I say something like ‘You have something in, I take it.’ He says yes as I walk up to a section of the equipment to grab it for him (I don’t notice anywhere with books or even a shelf). Now we are in what looks like an almost empty living room. Zoe and Nicola are here, each at a computer. Mark is going to order some more; I pull up Amazon on a computer as he sits behind me. The first one comes out to more than $40, to which he gruffly says no. He seems a little less friendly than usual and is wearing darker clothes and a ballcap. I notice and get frustrated with how dim it is in here, so I go to open these blinds just like the ones in our apartment. I twist the rod and every blind looks like it’s starting to split.
Boat on a Stormy Sea I’m at an event taking place in a large, white tent, with people sitting at long tables in rows. I can’t remember the earlier part of the dream any longer, but at some point, a man on some sort of machine, kind of like a large tractor/open tank, bursts in and starts threatening people while riding up and down the aisles. He doesn’t actually seem to be trying to hurt anyone – yet – but it’s clearly a dangerous situation, so I head off to prepare properly before taking care of it. I go some distance away to a much smaller tent, where my own things are, and start by tying my hair back since that thing has exposed moving parts on it, and I want to be able to get close to it without having my neck snapped. While I’m getting ready, I plan, although I don’t think this will be very complicated. I figure I’ll just jump on and start messing with levers. But I’ll want to take out his grapply thingies first so he can’t just move them back. When I’m done, I go back a different way, past some fairly large buildings. The area is reminiscent of a university campus, and life seems to be going on normally here. A woman holding a number of small cards approaches me, wanting me to draw one. I do, knowing that she’s trying to help in some way. The cards are made of cardboard and are of varying sizes, as if they’re from multiple decks. I draw one which turns out to have a picture showing a boat on a stormy sea.* There’s accompanying text – I’m aware of having to focus more than usual in order to not instantly forget it (although, unfortunately, I did forget it between then and awakening). I take this as a positive sign. It also somehow suggests to me that it might be a good idea to see if I can get some of the other people in the tent to help out regarding the grapply things. * Note: this is the symbol for chords with dominant function in the app I use to practice improvising, which is something I was doing the night before this dream. 13.5.22 Cemetery Campsite I seem to be camping in a cemetery. Another tent is staked a few plots down – a mother and a young boy, who's three-ish, are staying there. I wonder whether I should tell them they’re camped on one of the graves that’s supposed to be haunted. We eventually do meet up somehow, and I show them the way to a local bank at her request. She meets with a couple of her relatives there, including an older woman who reminds me of somebody I know, who is looking after the child (who I now know is called Eliot) while she does something there. Eliot suddenly runs out of the building, and the woman follows, chasing him. I think she may need some help though, and so I wait around the opposite corner of the building and catch Eliot as he rounds it. He immediately starts crying. Sometime after that – back at the campsite – the woman has given me a bone with some meat on it to cook over a small fire. However, as I hold it over the flame, I notice there’s hardly any meat there at all – just a couple little scraps. Upon awakening, I also remembered a piano ostinato playing – not as a background of the dream, but as if it had somehow been going through my mind at the same time, apart from it. I didn’t check the pitches soon enough after the dream to be able to put it in a definite key, but this is what it sounded like: -15.5.22 Lots of interesting dreams lately. I'm not going to copy them all here, but highlights include: -Preparing for a chess match against a guy who likes to send his bishop in for a sacrifice on the f-pawn early in the game. I find this annoying and intend to make sure, through my own choice of moves, that this is not going to be an appealing option for him. -Lots of hostels and hotels. -Attending a concert on a campus but leaving after my rowdy friends got kicked out since it’s not really worth being there without them. -A lucid dream mostly consisting of talking to people and exploring.
I’m at work, though it also seems like I’m at home (the setting is definitely the conference room at work, but it feels like I was just home or the rest of the space is the house, Dad’s house more specifically). Sitting in front of the computer but behind a baker’s rack, as it’s still cluttered in here, I pull up a Grateful Dead concert clip on Youtube. It’s something like ‘longest/best Dark Star’, with a timestamp of 20 minutes and some odd seconds. The scene is dark but I can tell from how the band members look that it’s sometime in the 80s. I feel like it’s going to be good. Now, I am inside the scene, onstage with the band. Phil and then Jerry are in my line of sight to the left. I watch them play and watch Phil play a huge and heavy note with a grin. There is communication, verbal or otherwise, about how he plays the bass like a guitar. I’m also playing a bass or guitar, briefly cognizant of how it’s probably unnecessary. I look to Jerry to get his attention and mouth ‘dew’ when he looks, conveying my intent to segue into Morning Dew. He lights up slightly, so I think it’s well received. I get chills thinking about it.
I am either at a concert or watching a recording of one. I seem to be extremely close to the small stage, with a point of view a bit taller than I really am. I think it’s the Jerry Garcia Band playing, though I can only see Jerry on the dim stage. He looks like an early 70s Jerry right now and in the next moment he looks like a 90s Jerry. This makes me wonder if this is a recording or some kind of psychedelic experience (i.e. me just hallucinating his earlier appearance). He sings and fumbles with some lyrics but returns to the right words with a grin. He’s now singing Friend of the Devil and does the same thing. Someone in the crowd starts singing the wrong verse - Jerry confidently sings the correct one and then says “nice try.” I am in an airport or other large, public place. I need to find a bathroom and end up walking into one (there are no walls or signs or anything). This space is slightly raised and features a dozen or more circular booth tables. Walking closer, I see that they are not tables but an almost full circle or urinals. There are so many of them and it’s so empty in here that it's almost both peaceful and overwhelming. I pick one that seems to be slightly off to the side in case someone else shows up. I am getting on a bus. The driver, a lady with a perfectly relaxed and peaceful energy, stops me on the way in to give me what looks like a stamp or a blotter. She has a small stack of them and picks one out for me. It features a tiny psychedelic design, what looks like space or just a stellar design. This bus is smaller and has been converted. Melissa is with me and we sit on its floor, against some pillows. The energy here is also incredibly peaceful and relaxed.
I’m in an unfamiliar house with my mother, showing her some pieces of music I’ve written using a playback program on a computer. As the dream goes on, the physical setting apparently vanishes in favor of the scores scrolling before my eyes. Unfortunately, I can no longer remember any of the music except for the clarinet part in one. The clarinet is holding a single note, and as several measures go by without it stopping, I make a mental note to modify the part as soon as we’re done listening. The computer may be able to play it back as written, but a clarinettist does actually have to take a breath at some point. -27.4.22
I am walking from somewhere to somewhere else to use the bathroom. I think I come from a school and it looks like I’m heading to a construction site/new apartments or other buildings. It crosses my mind that I’ve actually passed a bathroom, but I continue on anyway. This area looks like it’s near the marina. I’m on the side of an uncrowded highway. I walk through a red light and it doesn’t cause any problems but still I feel a little guilty. I have my blue headphones on, listening to some music. I’m also walking at a good pace, and it feels like. I round a corner and start stepping high, flexing my eyes at each rise. I now notice that I can get multiple flexes in each step. Pretty soon I am completely off the ground at each step for a time longer than possible. I enjoy the sensation and continue it and soon I am levitating up into the air. I rise to 50+ feet and then the thought crosses my mind that this would only be possible in a dream. My mind writes off this happening with some explanation. *Though it sounds like it, I never actually realize this is a dream in the dream. I also wake up right after.
Reflect Part of a longer series of events involving travel from one place to another. The only part I remember well was towards the end, where I’m being chased by a young woman in a rather video game-ish setting. As I run, a handful of parallel memories arise, showing various outcomes to this event, which are all variations on her catching up. Looks like this is a mandatory fight. I also notice that something is different from the memories, something important: I know who she really is. I make sure she doesn’t catch up until an open area up ahead, and then we’re both standing there, facing one another. She initially has brown skin and straight, dark, shoulder-length hair, but the image dissolves, and she changes to a shorter figure with grayish skin, rather like Zimmy from Gunnerkrigg Court. There’s a short conversation here, which I can no longer remember, and then she attacks, throwing some sort of enormous summoning spell at me. I raise an arm and deflect it back at her with a gesture. What happens next is rather like a lengthy animation playing out, temporarily turning both of us into passive observers as it takes over the screen/dream and practically defeats my opponent all on its own. Moreover, at the end of it, the nature of the encounter seems to have changed, so that now I just have to complete three small, easy puzzles to win. My opponent actually contributes to solving one, in sort of a “yeah, yeah, let’s get this over with” way. Poke Another vaguely video game-ish one of which I can only remember the later part. In this one, I’m with a small group of people in a town, and there is a man there we have to fight, although it isn’t clear why, and he doesn’t actually seem to be an enemy. I can’t remember his appearance (or, really, the specific visuals of the dream in general), but something about him was reminiscent of Zorro somehow. A woman in the group demonstrates to me how to attack via a menu. There’s a list of attacks, most of which seem to be elementally based, but the woman indicates the one that he is apparently weak to, which is color-coded purple and labeled “Quiet”. Oddly, all the attacks just seem to be summoning various ensembles of musicians, who then play music. I select the most powerful option, which summons three of them. I then poke him in the back, which takes a small chunk out of his remaining HP. He’s just standing there and not responding in any way, so I poke him a few more times until he is defeated – or maybe just until I’ve got his attention, which seems as if it might be what this whole thing is actually about.
I’m in a library, doing research for a school assignment. While I’m still not sure what materials I’ll need for it, I figure it would be a good idea to get some likely books since I happen to be here anyway. The assignment seems to involve music, specifically the composer Borodin, so I return to a shelf on the floor directly above the ground one where I had been earlier in the dream. About all I can remember of that earlier part was listening to a song with a couple other people, including my aunt. It had a heartbreakingly beautiful ending, but when I asked my aunt for a translation from the Russian, the text turned out to be a rather banal folk song about two mice. Anyway, once I get there, I pull a book from the shelf and flip it open to an analysis – probably a violin part, in either D or E. A very simplified reduction shows the staff with the I note, the IV and V above it a little later on, and then the ii on the octave below. The text explains how the melody avoids these structurally important notes (IV and V) and instead goes in a series of dark, ambiguous spirals that land on the ii each time. 27.10.21
Morning of February 5, 2020. Wednesday. Dream #: 19,406-02. Optimized 2 minute read. I have a turntable set up in a featureless, unknown location as part of a large console to use commercial music sections in new mixes. I become annoyed because, although the music is playing through my headphones, it is also blaring through the speakers, and I do not want to annoy other people in the room. There may be a short or a loose jack. I stuff tissue paper in one input. The setting changes. I am in an unfamiliar library. Many other people are here. I now only have a turntable on the floor near a bookcase. Although I am still thinking about mixing music, I notice a group of interesting little books on a shelf. They remind me of the vintage Little Blue Books (Haldeman-Julius Publishing Company) I once had, but they seem to be a periodical as there are issue numbers on them, published each week since the 1900s. I read some of the content. On one back page, a couple of sentences are curiously at an angle, overlapping others. I can still read the content regarding 1930s women’s fashion. There are many pages featuring crafts. Two unfamiliar boys intend to sit down while they face the bookcase. They accidentally stumble onto my turntable. I shout at them after they fall and again when I see a crack in the middle of the tonearm. (It is flat and made of cream-colored plastic). I believe they should pay for a new tonearm. A bystander watches me. Arnold Schwarzenegger approaches. He commands me to stop yelling at the boys. I spontaneously punch him, and he goes flying backward, all the way to the other side of the library. He transforms into a shoddy black and blue plastic robot that seems like an oversized hollow toy, with limbs that are flat in profile and somewhat skeletal. It lands on its head near a bookcase. If you are knowledgeable about dreams, you know that arm swinging is a spontaneous physiological stimulus for emergence from REM atonia (physical immobility while sleeping). Protoconsciousness (here as Arnold Schwarzenegger) induces this response. There is a correlation with the cracked “tonearm,” cleverly directing me to gain muscle tonality and arm mobility for waking. My dream’s cerebral phasing stage (seeking and reading text) included vestibular phasing ambiguity (the illogical angles of the superimposed sentences revealing a conflict between my imaginary vertical orientation in my dream and my body’s horizontal position while sleeping). Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes an unrealistic robot as in 1984’s movie “The Terminator.” Movie influence is often predominant in my dreams more than associations with real life. Protoconsciousness often personifies as either a celebrity or an unfamiliar person to block associations with waking life from a personal level. The robot’s infeasibility correlates with REM atonia. (Dolls or statues are other indicators of this type of metacognitive awareness.) The robot’s colors are an incidental correlation with the phrase “beaten black and blue.” Stuffing tissue paper into one input correlates with putting tissue paper in one’s ear to block sound while sleeping.
comment dream lucid Failed WILD (light vibrations, I thought that nothing happened but I was probably dreaming about being in bed at that point or very shortly after). I'm in bed. I get up and walk out of the room through a hallway. Something feels off. The movement - it's slightly slower and smoother. Am I dreaming? I raise my hand to do a nose plug RC but don't even finish it, the movement has a definite weird feel. I step into the room across from the bedroom where I slept and immediately know it isn't supposed to be there. The room looks like a combination of my childhood bedroom and the bedroom in my in-laws' apartment. What was I going to do? Trumps! And something else, but I can remember that later. Trumps come from the Amber book series by Roger Zelazny. In the books, they are tarot cards used for communicating with the person in the picture and also for teleporting. I've always loved Amber and came across the idea of using Trumps in one of FryingMan's posts. If I can get them into my dreams, it would be a neat tool for summoning DCs and for teleporting. I try to get the cards out of my pocket. But I don't seem to have any easily accessible pockets. I remember the sweatpants that I wear IRL now - they have zippered pockets. I feel the zipper and unzip it. From inside, I pull out an old tissue. I face a desk. There's a black phone on it, and music is playing. It's something modern, pop/techno/dance, mostly beats, I don't like it, but it's an original song and that's what gets my attention. I pick up the phone and say, "Play some rock." The music stops, but nothing new starts. "Classic rock," I specify. Nothing. I leave the phone alone and return to the contents of my pockets. More pieces of tissue. A small piece of lined paper, as if cut from my DJ, but blank. Nothing more. A DC enters the room. He wants to know what I'm doing with the phone. I pick it up again and say, "Play something." Now it works - the phone starts playing something techno-like again. The DC walks to the other end of the room, where he joins another DC who was already there. I wonder what to do next. TOTM! I look around the room - the other DC is now just a little closer. I walk up to him and ask "What part of my subconscious do you represent?" He looks at me in great surprise. "I don't know," he says, throwing up his hands. He turns to the other DC, but then turns back to me and says "Mrzoprs" with effort. I'm not sure I've understood correctly. "What?" "Mrzoprs," he repeats. "Mrzoprs" is a nonsense word, but if I assume Czech etymology, it could be loosely translated as "regretboob" or "grumpyboob". OK, enough. I have more goals to do. I go out into a big atrium. My next goal needs me to fly. But my lucidity and concentration have dropped significantly and I'm having trouble getting airborne, as well as problems with my clothes getting in the way. Then I get distracted by a friend who finds my attempts amusing. Nothing else interesting happens.
Something about a Dead and Company convert. I am looking at the setlist, that has not yet been performed, as if I have the ability to revise it. The encore is One More Saturday Night and even though it is a Saturday I want to change it to Black Muddy River. There’s also a section mid second set that I want to be Help on the Way and Slipknot into The Eleven. I write this down as HOTW>Slipknot>11.
I am sitting in bed and I think about to type dreams or do something else on my phone when Mom comes in and lies perpendicularly up on the bed with her head in her hand. I’m playing music on my speaker, what sounds like the type of deathcore I listened to in high school. Mom pauses and kind of looks like she’s thinking, then let’s out an “I hate this.” The vocals are pretty creepy, I imagine especially if you don’t like this kind of music. Then, a bump against the side of the house coincides with an intense part of the song, and it almost scares me. I reach for my phone to stop the song.
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