Recent DJ Posts

I can recall four creams from last night! You know, it's weird; my dream recall's been lower than average lately, and it's suddenly shot way up!

I made notes on my iPod about the first dream, saved at 3:48 AM. The notes go as follows:

Neopets
washing hair
scanning, expired

Okay, so I had a dream that I could dress my Neopets up. I had different costumes for them. there was a hippie costume and a prisoner costume. There were more, but I can't remember what they were.

Later - still in the same dream, apparently - I had this thing for scanning barcodes to send a copy of the item onto some website I liked (Neopets, I assume). (I forgot to write this next part down in my regular dream journal (which I'm copying this from), but I tried to scan something - a ketchup bottle, I think - and it told me that that barcode had expired in 2008.)

I'm not sure how "washing hair" is relevant. Oh well. I should've added a little context there, I suppose.

I'm kinda tempted to skip over the second dream because I can hardly remember it and the notes aren't much help. I shouldn't, but... writing three dreams is enough, right?

(I need to explain a couple terms before this next one. A poomsae is a solo technique that has to be memorized and demonstrated at testing. It doesn't really serve much practical purpose aside from practicing good form. It's a bit hard to explain what it looks like, but, for those of you who have watched Avatar: The Last Airbender, it looks kinda like bending, just without the control over the elements, obviously. One-step sparring is a defensive technique; contrary to the name, one-step sparring is not at all like free sparring.)

Okay, on to the third! I was at belt testing (taekwondo). I was surprised it was so soon (it's scheduled for next month IRL). Oh, and my friend Autumn was there for some reason - yes, as a student. Anyway, since testing was so soon, I wasn't prepared for it, as I didn't know my poomsae yet (actually, I do know it in real life, but I was supposed to know a different one in the dream). Luckily, we were given some time to practice first, so I tried to learn it by watching the other orange belt students.

I managed to learn the first three steps in time - step forward and down block (left), step forward and body punch (right), turn around and down block (right).

Soon, it was class time (I'm not sure what happened to testing; perhaps they just forgot about it). However, instead of Master Lim, one of the testing judges was the instructor. I wondered why she was teaching the class, but then I remembered it was Wednesday, which seemed like a reasonable answer at the time.

I decided not to join that class, so I left. Just outside, one of the adult students decided to test me on my one-step sparring. I demonstrated that I knew mine well, using the same techniques as in real life this time.

In my fourth dream last night, I was watching TV at home. It was some weird show about this guy and this girl who went down a rabbit hole - kind of like in Alice in Wonderland, except they hadn't followed a rabbit there. It reminded me of the Deathly Hallows for some reason, even though the only thing it had in common with any of the Harry Potter movies was that one of the main characters was played by Rupert Grint.

Anyway, they fell down the rabbit hole and ended up in this little meadow with a big tree. There was a sudden flashback to their childhood, when they used to play there together. When it cut back to the present, the show decided to break the fourth wall by making a big deal of the fact that the actress playing the girl was in some famous band I'd never heard of (and that her sister was the bassist in her band). Then, she turned into a man. I turned off the TV.

My mom asked if I'd slept okay because she'd heard my bed creaking at around four in the morning. I told her I'd slept find but had woken up in the night and had probably rolled over onto my side while I was half-asleep. I asked for a tuna sandwich for lunch and then woke up.

- I had a miniature version of the Snowager from Neopets living under my sink.

One day, I was sitting under a blanket across from the cupboard under the sink, and it was open a bit. I saw his head poke out. He had red eyes. I looked him in the eye for a moment, then hid under the blanket. After a few seconds, I peeked out again, and he was still looking at me. I'm not sure why, but I glared at him. This made him angry. I was like "oh shit" and ran into the porch and closed the door.

I saw him burst out of the cupboard and slither towards the door. He went right up to the window and stared at me, then slithered into the living room. He then started going back and forth between the two rooms, and I was worrying that he would break something. He was probably about 5 feet long and a foot tall. I started freaking out and wanted to call someone, but I didn't have a phone or my iPod. I could see the phone inside, and tried to figure out the right moment when I could open the door quickly and grab it. I tried to do so a few times, but each time, it would end up being only a small piece of the outside of the phone, and I never got the battery. Eventually I ended up with my iPod somehow and iMessaged my mom. As I did so, the Snowager went upstairs. I wasn't sure if he could before. I was worried about what he would do up there. The message I got back from my mom didn't sound concerned at all, and she gave me some sort of advice, but I don't remember what it said.


- I was trying to apply for a job at a small corner store. The inside looked like a cabin and I don't remember seeing anything for sale. I'm pretty sure they weren't actually hiring, but I was trying to convince him to hire me anyway. The guy working there seemed around 30-40 and looked kind of like my math teacher. He mentioned there was another girl working there, and started talking to me about how much he loved her and how he used to date her. I got the impression she was around my age or a bit older, and her name started with a K.


- I was playing Crossfire with N, I hit tab and saw I was actually doing well somehow, I think it was like 28-7. People were like "hakker" and stuff, lol. I felt kinda bad.


- I remembered another fragment earlier that had to do with a job as well, but I can't remember it now.

Sleep. I am sitting with John, and my mother comes from a corridor with three plastic bowls: doritos, popcorn and chocolate chip muffins. John asks me if I seriously bought Magic cards.

Then I am somewhere else, and I learn that Grandma has died. I feel guilty, wishing I had not judged her so harshly.

I am at school, and the Breakfast Club is running. This surprises me, because I thought it was over for the year. Nevertheless, they are serving mini-bagels and garlic bread. I take some garlic bread and go sit at one of the benches to watch the movie, the launching of the first rocket into space (however, it is more of a racing car with rockets going along a racrtrack).

Then, I am in a bookstore (which is actually the library, I think). I am another girl, who steals an orange shirt and ends up becoming a thief. I am being chased by the police in the Saab. At one intersection, I do a U-turn that makes my wheels skid. Then, I zoom through and go down a ton of side streets. I can only think of getting to the border. Wake.

Then, I woke up at 3:15, stayed up for about 5 minutes, and tried to do a WILD. Obviously, I failed.

Sleep. I am in a restaurant in the mall (located where the photography store should be). I see Mr. Dee (who is not even one of my teachers!), and he is telling me how I did on a presentation: poorly. He gives me a rubric, and I look at the mark: 6/26. (I do not remember what each individual section of the rubric said, however). I fall backwards and hit my head on the ground, but it does not hurt.

Then, I get up and walk back to the restaurant and enter a room with a kitten. I wake it up, and then see that a computer is on. Someone is composing an email. At the other computer sits a man, who tells me that I am being quite rude and that someone is already using that computer. Oh, and that I shouldn't be reading someone else' email. I tell him that I recognized the email (even though I didn't), and then Sasha walks into the room. The kitten starts clawing me, and I run out of the room. It is still clawing me, and its scratch marks even wrote a word on the back of my right hand (which I don't remember. Pansy, maybe?).

Sometime during the computer room scene, I browse Neopets and see that they have an "Academy Awards" for certain Neopets. Such as, the most "Classic" Neopet.

At one point, I am back in the restaurant, at one of the tables. I am with Luc and Sasha, and we are going to eat dinner. The restaurant is serving hamburgers for the first time, but they are surprisingly small. I initially ask for one until I see their size.

I am at Hopedale mall with a camera, and I need to take a picture of something beautiful. However, I forgot to take a picture of the rose flower box, and when I appear at home, I am frustrated. Wake.

[This is both a catch-up post and a repost. Apparently, there was a server crash recently that ate this entry after I posted it the first time.]

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

Some events unfold that I'm not a part of. [I don't remember what they were now, but there was definitely a plotline involved, and I was definitely just an outside observer.] When these events are over, I find myself sitting in a movie theater, watching the end credits of a movie. I realize that all of the preceding events were a movie.

I walk out into the theater lobby, which is long, narrow, and wedge-shaped, growing slightly wider as I approach the entrance. I walk out through the theater's glass front doors onto the sidewalk. There, I meet up with my parents again.

My parents and I are in a strange, [possibly?] open-air, car-like vehicle with a hired driver. I'm showing them around the quaint, seaside downtown of Lake Worth [which, as usual for me in my dreams, looks absolutely nothing like it does in real life; it looks more urban]. We marvel at the awesomely cheesy anti-drug mural painted on the wall of one building.

[Different dream.] I'm flying above M. Road, traveling north, but facing south. I'm being pulled backward by that unknown, unseen force that so often does that in my flying dreams. I realize that I'm dreaming and take control of the situation by concentrating on the details of the scenery around me, as if I were going to stop to admire them. It works as intended: my backward motion slows, then stops. Then, I start flying forward under my own willpower, heading toward home (i.e., south). As I fly, I admire the rich detail of the scene around me and how much like reality it is.

[Dreamskip.] I'm now in a quiet, peaceful, suburban residential neighborhood, on a concrete walking path separated from the backyards on either side of it by fences. I hop along the sidewalk like an astronaut on the moon, making slow jumps that carry me several feet into the air, then slowly floating back down in an arc. I'm enjoying the fun of being in a low-gravity environment, which my dream environments often are.

I get up onto one of the fences and perform several floating glide-leaps from one parallel fence to another, combining jumping with flying. Then, I decide to try to change the dream environment to a different one by closing my eyes and spinning. I think, If I'm going to do that, I'd better start from a standing start. I jump off the fence I'm on and float gently down to the sidewalk. Once I'm standing on it, I think, Neopia, and close my eyes, but forget to spin around.

When I open my eyes, I'm in a much different suburban neighborhood. I'm standing in the middle of a straight street, looking down its length. It's lined on both sides with brightly colored, two-story houses with lush, green trees in their front yards. It doesn't look much like any of the official artwork of Neopia, but nonetheless, I become aware that this is Neopia, and that I've succeeded in my goal of changing the scene and getting there. I'm so excited about this that the scene winks out of existence after about two seconds, and I wake up. [Sigh.]

[Later, different dream.] I'm attending some special event at a theme park on behalf of [the company I've been teaching with]. I'm with SH and TS [two of my fellow teachers]. We're all wearing our white lab coats, and we're walking across a plaza that has a circular concrete beam running overhead, around the perimeter. I see some friends of mine wearing full rubberhead Sesame Street character costumes, also walking across the plaza in the opposite direction. I say to the young man in the Elmo costume who is carrying the head and looking sweaty and tired, “Hi, Mark. Go get some water.”

There are many other people there, changing into or out of costumes. Many of them are hanging their hangers on the concrete ring. TS suggests that we hang our lab coats from it, but I prefer to go back to the trailer, which [only in the dream, not in real life] has sides with panels that open to reveal closets [like my band trailer did in high school]. I want to put my lab coat there because I can make sure that trailer is locked.

--------------------------------------------
Side notes:

That first scene, where I realized that everything that had preceded it had just been a movie I was watching, was a particularly cool example of day residue. I had just been to the movies the evening before I had this dream. The recent article about how dreaming and watching movies produce very similar patterns of brain activity has informed the way I watch movies now; I always mentally compare the two experiences. In the movie I watched on this evening (Limitless), the ending felt exactly like being suddenly, rudely awakened by an alarm clock when you're still right in the middle of a dream. It's not surprising that that experience gave rise to an actual dream in which a movie ended and I suddenly realized, “oh, yeah, that didn't actually happen, I'm just watching a movie.” Both within the dream and in retrospect, that realization felt very similar to the realization, “oh, yeah, that was just a dream” that I've often had just after both false and real awakenings. Therefore, that moment of realization within that dream felt very much like a false awakening.

It belatedly occurs to me that Neopia is an entire planet. If I chose only one specific locale on that planet and made that the focus of my intentions, I'd probably have better success getting there.

No dreams from friday night on account of the fact that I don't even remember what I did while I was awake friday night.

Last night I remember three not-so-detailed dreams
1: I was adopting a neopet from someone, but the pet was two socks that had been made out of seaweed. When I was adopting the pet the water conditions were not right (read: pH and temperature) so the pet didn't evolve correctly, but I happened to like the messed up one better.

2: I was going to some event in downtown LA and so I was staying in a hotel there. I was really excited because then I could go to Little Tokyo and get yummy japanese food. There were a bunch of details about my excursions that I remembered, but then I fell back asleep and couldn't remember them.

3: I was talking to this girl on a facebook inbox. We usually recommend indie music to each other. She sent me a message saying "You should check out Taylor Swift and Eminem". It was weird because that is the opposite of the music we usually send, + obviously, being a teenager, I know who they are already.

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, Dream within a dream, [Commentary made while awake]

[This is a catch-up post. These dreams are from December 24-27, 2010.]

Night of December 23-24

I'm playing Neopets, and I somehow obtain an item that makes a particular level of a particular Flash game easier.

I'm with P. in a hotel/bookstore. It's 12:30 A.M., according to an analog clock. [That's what my handwritten notes say, anyway.]

I'm at my high school, once again visiting the second row of portables located a little distance to the west of the main campus. [These portables don't exist in real life, but did appear in a previous dream, namely, the last dream in this DJ entry.] I'm walking around with no shoes on. As I climb up the steps into one of those distant portables, I wonder whether I'm going to get in trouble for that.

Night of December 24-25

[I only have a very vague memory of this dream, especially now that I'm reconstructing it from handwritten notes this long after the fact (1/15/11). I've reconstructed it from my handwritten notes as best I can.]

I'm at dream!Disneyland, watching a video in a theater. I also have a lucid dream within a normal one. When I first realize that I'm dreaming, I try to fly, but I can't. There are three DCs there, one of whom introduces himself to me and to the other two, and says something about how he isn't sure if we've met in reality or not. [Hmmmm... very interesting.] I actually tell the three of them that I'm dreaming. I get a second shot at completing a mission, and this time, I succeed. The mission involves saving the son of some teacher from someone. To complete it, I have to go into a room full of computer workstations and press a red, rectangular button that I find on someone's workstation. I couldn't find it the first time. At the end, when everything around me is blowing up [I think], I'm lying face down, going, “Please be a dream... please be a dream...” because I'm convinced that it's reality.

I wake up out of my lucid, back into the regular, non-lucid dream I'd been having before.

Night of December 26-27

I'm riding along on my bicycle. A mechanical arm attached to an overhead conveyor belt grabs my bike and pulls it into this big, elaborate, two-story construct that's a combination of a maze, a play structure, and an amusement-park ride, with me still on the bike. I think, I thought things like this only existed in dreams! I didn't think anyone had actually built one as a ride! [LOL, more dream sign fail...] I'm excited to be going into it, though, because I know it's an amusement-park ride/activity and it'll be fun. The conveyor belt goes up at an angle, taking me up to the second floor. When I get there, I get off my bike and go inside a room. Other people are there, including some real-life friends [I think; I don't really remember who now]. We're all role-playing that we're scientists in a laboratory [I think], because that's part of the ride.

The next thing I remember is realizing that being put in [artificial] danger is also part of the ride. I run toward the double doors through which I came into the room and open them by punching them. They swing outward, and I see that I've opened them just in the nick of time – just after the doors open, I see a locking bolt on one of the doors shoot out automatically. If I hadn't opened the doors when I did, we would have been locked inside.

[I don't remember the transition to the next scene.] I'm in a large bike repair shop. My red bike [the one I have in real life right now] has been taken here, and I want it back. The female DC who runs the bike repair shop gives it back to me, along with a brand-new pair of long black-and-gray bicycle shorts, which are lying in a particular spot on the floor, waiting for me.

[Fragment] Something about a [different] female DC who is infected with some kind of microbes that, when active, cause her body to become excessively warm.