Recent DJ Posts

I become lucid. I am walking down a path, attempting to remember the TOTM. I remember the advanced task(spin and teleport somewhere random). I decide not to because I am attempting to walk somewhere.
I remember my goal to summon my Patronus. I yell Expecto Patronum! several times, but give up after a DC starts complaining about the noise. I decide to attempt it silently, and wisp by wisp, a 'thing' appears.

Spoiler for patronus:

Click on the image for full resolution.
It appears just like the painting.
Suddenly, as I am still building it up, the dream go's grey. I panic, but quickly stabilise myself. I visualize the scene back, and soon I am back into the lucid dream. Phew! I however decide to not continue the patronus.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #242: The Return of the Rabbit

I’m riding in the back of a Suburban with several of my business partners. “PM” is the man behind the wheel and we’re driving slowly around a dirt loop, listening to the soundtrack from the video game that we’re working on. The music for our battle scene concludes and breaks into a slower section.

There’s a new part, a soft solo of a guitar-like stringed instrument that I’ve never heard before. It's beautiful! PM turns back to say, “I thought this part sounded fucking badass.” I enthusiastically agree that the new music sounds “all badass”. PM’s driving very erratically but not very concerned about it. I become semi-lucid, noting that this is probably a dream. I start laughing when he plows right over a stop sign and now I’m sure that this is a dream. PM is laughing too, and stops the car.

We all get out and there are several of the guys here, PM, “Leroy”, and probably “Z” as well as maybe more. I put my hand on PM’s upper back/shoulder and kind of massage it, wanting to stay really connected to the dream. “Hey man,” I say, “this is a lucid dream. This is the first time that you've been in one of these with me. I’m really happy you’re here!” I feel very happy to have these guys here with me and I enjoy the swell of positive emotions. I tell PM that I’ll do my best to remember the new parts of the song and that I wonder whether he’ll remember them too.

We walk down a dirt path through some trees and night falls quickly. We’re moving through an industrial area by the water and I think that I’d like to summon Dreamer. I look down to see that there are 4 shadows in the group. Must be me, PM, Leroy, and Z? I hold out my left hand, imagining that Dreamer will take hold of it. I feel something vaguely like a hand, then look down again to see a fifth shadow (in a dress!) holding onto my hand.

I look over and Dreamer is standing next to me! Her hair is blond rather than purple now and very short, the bangs bluntly chopped almost in the form of a bowl cut. She’s just wearing a shirt and some kind of pants, though, not a dress. We smile at each other. “Hey guys, this is…” and then attempt to introduce Dreamer several times. I’m mortified that twice in a row I completely goof her waking life name before finally getting it right. I feel awful about this, very embarrassed.

The guys continue ahead and Dreamer and I walk just behind, coming to an abandoned wharf. I recall that we had recent, very specific plans for this dream (to try to heal one another’s sniffles, ha ha…) I ask her whether she remembers and she replies, but I have a hard time understanding her. I move really close to Dreamer’s face, trying to understand her or read her lips or anything, but it’s not working. For a moment I wonder whether there was a kissing task, but no, that wasn’t it, maybe that was someone else’s lucid dare. (Correct, actually -- this was a dare that Dreamer completed a while back!) I quit focusing on her lips and on this mumbling problem, assuming that her speech will sort itself out if I just quit worrying about it.

As we walk further along the water, we talk about how nice it is to just stroll through the dreamworld. I tell her that I’m glad that we’re getting to hang out in such a stable dream and how relaxing this is. I feel peaceful and happy, which reminds me of the patronus task. I tell Dreamer that I want to try the patronus and she moves close to wrap me up in a hug. I extend my right arm and she places her left hand under my wrist, almost to support it. I tell her that I feel super happy in this dream and that I think the patronus is going to be easy! She enthusiastically agrees.



Immediately, pulses of blue energy pour out of my fingers and float to the ground in a big ball. And now scampering along the ground near our feet is my bunny patronus. “Oh, he is cute!” says Dreamer. As he hops around, the bunny turns from a blue, glowy patronus into a real bunny. He hops further along the wharf. Dreamer grabs my hand and pulls me along to follow him. We follow him for a while through an old, crumbling breezeway until the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #239: Patronus, Part Two

I’m reading a comic book with Wife about spies on a dangerous ocean voyage. There’s a lot of discussion about an acronym MBME and what it means. The meaning keeps changing, which makes me feel vaguely suspicious, but I don’t become lucid yet.

Somehow we become a part of the story and wind up in an RV that we decide is a classroom for my son E. We meet with one of his teachers for a while and at the end of the meeting I start gathering up all of my stuff. Stack of papers. Backpack with my work laptop. Our test iPad from the office. I’m exasperated that I brought so much stuff and left it lying around everywhere, and the whole thing overall feels strange. As Wife and I duck out of the RV, I consider my situation one more time and I become lucid.

We’re outside in a grassy field. I still have the goal of summoning my patronus with Dreamer, which I misremember as wanting to summon the patronus with Wife. “Come here, let’s summon my patronus!” I tell her.

“Oh, okay!” she responds. I take her up in a hug and kiss her for a moment. Then I extend my left arm out and expect a patronus to form.

There’s nothing at first, but I say, “Look, there’s something,” and now there are wisps of silvery, smoky mist flowing from my fingertips. The wisps coalesce into some little critter who leaps to the ground behind a passing DC. I lose sight for a moment and start looking around to see where the patronus has gone.

“Look, he’s so cutie!” says Wife. I turn to find my patronus, a silvery, wispy little bunny, hopping around in the grass under the RV. He turns back to look toward us and his little nose twitches. He returns to nibbling at the grass.



Wife says a couple more things about how cute he is, and I notice that the ground is becoming insubstantial. I think that maybe I rushed around too much in this dream, and it soon ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #238: Patronus Interruptus

I'm standing in a busy hotel lobby thinking about how I need a mini-USB cable to charge my phone. I reach down and dig one out of my backpack but realize that I’ve actually just stolen it from this other guy crouched nearby. “Sorry about that, dude!” I say, clapping him on the back. He turns to me and smiles politely. He’s an Indian guy and I recognize him as a random guy from the shopping area where I met Wife for lunch earlier in the week. I realize that I’m dreaming.

I’m excited to be lucid and the overreaction starts pulling me out of the dream and into the void. I rub my hands together, determined not to lose the dream. My hands feel stiff and oddly angled and I start tumbling forward over and over. I keep at it, though, saying something like, “I am having this lucid dream!”

After a bit of a fight, the scene resolves itself into a room on the second story house with two windows. I move toward the first window, attempting to phase, but the window feels stiff and resistant. I move to the other window and attempt it again, once again having trouble. This irritates me and makes me stubborn, so I head right for the wall this time instead, saying out loud that “There’s nothing there, you know.” I cut cleanly through the wall this time and float down to the front yard.

I remember my intent to summon Dreamer and say, “[Dreamer], yeah, you’re just… you’re right over there!” and gesture at the front entrance of the house. Dreamer steps out from the shadow of the front entrance. She looks like herself apart from her hair being pink rather than purple. She’s wearing a purple jumper that looks like fleece.

We approach one another and I realize that something seems off about her personality. She seems not to have much personality at all yet but I feel relaxed about this and that if we keep talking she’ll get set right. I give her a peck on the bridge of her nose and she reacts with surprise, smiles, and runs off down the street. I jog along behind her, and start telling her about her appearance in a previous non-lucid from that night. “Hey, in this last dream, you’d written a book!”

Dreamer stops. The area we’re in looks abandoned and urban. Now she has a huge smile on her face and seems like herself. “Tell me about this book!”

“Oh, I almost forgot!” I say, and give her a hug. It’s nice and I remember how she used thoughts of our friendship to produce her patronus. I also remember her words of “encouragement” a few nights ago for my own patronus attempt:

“I wonder if your patronus will be a giant turd!”

Chuckling a little, I extend my left hand out while continuing the hug with my right arm. Dreamer and I are both watching my outstretched fingers with anticipation but when I try to shout, “Expecto patronum!” I do a choking gurgle instead. I get antsy and lose the dream.

Ritual: WTB 1am, woke 4:20am, got up and read, drank spice lassi (yogurt, water, turmeric, cumin, salt), did 12 minutes seated meditation incorporation SSILD technique before returning to bed at 5:50am. Before going to bed I affirmed several times, "I vow to lucid dream," reflecting on how a vow is much more serious than an intention, a little nervous that I might inadvertantly break my vow, but reminding myself that I didn't dare, failing to go through on an intention is one thing, but you're never supposed to break your vows. I wanted to avoid supplements for the most part as that hasn't helped much lately, but I did use a few drops of Calea Zacatechichi tincture, because although I can't say for sure if it actually works, I thought the distinctive taste might contribute a useful placebo effect. I lay on my back in bed and did a series of tension-relaxation exercises, then cycled in random order through several affirmations ("I am aware / I do / I dream"). Drifted off, woke up a little, realized it was getting too bright out and my mind felt sufficiently wakeful that this might be an obstacle to sleep, so I put on my sleep mask (a device of last resort as I don't like wearing it), turned on my left side, and continued the affirmations until I fell asleep. I got a lot of distinct hypnagogic imagery and sounds every time I started to drift off, but I did not feel the physical signs of transition.

WILD, Part 1: I woke up again, thinking I might have transitioned successfully, and got out of bed. I could still distinctly feel myself wearing the sleep mask so I wondered if I was really dreaming, but realized that since it wasn't obstructing my vision, then I must be. I was tempted to rip off the mask but decided to just ignore it, and soon the sensations disappeared for the duration of the dream. Now that I was sure I was dreaming, I wanted to get started right away on my tasks. I reached behind me for my wand, a gesture familiar from a few years ago when I had been playing a lot with Harry Potter style magic. I got used the idea that my wand was sheathed just behind my right hip, so I could just reach back there at any time to draw it. However, this time I came up empty-handed. I realized that this was probably because, having just gotten out of bed, I wasn't wearing any clothes. Nevermind, I can work on that task later. By this time I'm in the kitchen, so it should be an easy matter to procure some fortune cookies!

I walk toward the kitchen counter, expecting to find a bag of fortune cookies ready to hand. Sure enough, there is a clear plastic bag right where I expect, but as I reach for it I see that it contains... what are those, pierogies? I laugh because they look almost like fortune cookies and are anything but, and it is just like dream to bait and switch this way. I pick up the bag and reach into it anyway, focusing my expectations around pulling out a proper fortune cookie, and by the time my hand closes around something, I can tell that it is falling into line: it has the dry smooth surface, distinctive shape and ridges of a fortune cookie. I pull it out and break it in half to get the fortune. I remember that I'm supposed to eat the cookie too, so I start nibbling at it while extracting the fortune, which was wedged inside the cookie in a crumpled up wad. As I smooth it, I see that the little strip of paper is covered with what looks like dabs of herb butter mixed with little shreds of nori seaweed, a kind of east-west fusion of ingredients. I'm disappointed to see that there is no writing on the paper at all, just the seasonings.

No problem, the bag contains several cookies. I'll just get another. I try again, and fortunately the next cookie contains a larger slip of paper, one that comes out properly this time and contains actual text—quite a lot of text actually, four or five lines of it. I start to read it, murmuring aloud to help fix it in memory. It starts something like: "And earth her allies rift..." It goes on from there, not making much sense, and worse, by the time I get to the second line the first one is already changing, now "her allies" looks like it has been replaced by something in German, "die Beile."

(Weird, according to my German dictionary app "die Beile" means "axes, hatchets." I've studied a bit of German, which is why I have the app, but I'm not aware that I've ever learned that word and didn't even know if it was a real one until I looked it up.)

I continue reading the fortune, and by the time I get to the end the first line has changed again even more, and I'm pretty sure so has everything else. I realize this is somewhat hopeless, the fortune was so long that it would have been hard enough to remember even if it were static, much less track all the changes, so I just determine to remember the part that I read initially, since I think I can keep at least this much in working memory: "And earth her allies rift."

By this point the fortune has transformed into a large plastic wrapper like the sort that might have wrapped a whole box of cookies, and as I continue to look at it, I'm surprised by how much additional text is written on the side in small print: mundane details like the address of the manufacturer, etc. I see a date, "1945," and note that the place of manufacture is San Francisco, which makes sense (wasn't the fortune cookie invented there?) but by now the date has already changed to "1929."

FA: Around this time I wake up and grab the notebook I keep next to the bed to start writing things down. Something's wrong, though: even though I normally open it to a blank page before sleeping, it is now open to a page wholly printed with graphics resembling some type of manga. I don't remember the notebook having graphics! I flip through to find a blank page quickly while my memories are fresh, but all the white pages are already filled with previous notes, and they are interspersed with the manga pages, like a cross between a notebook and a graphic novel. I find a space of blank color on one of the manga images, just enough room to scribble, "and earth her allies rift," but then I feel guilty about spoiling the drawing. I don't even remember what the story is, but if I write all over it I might end up regretting it.

While I'm still trying to figure out where to put down the rest of my notes, my husband comes into the room carrying two boxes wrapped in paper, like presents. Apparently this is some new game that has just arrived that he wants to play together, a console game. I remember him telling me about it earlier: the plot has something to do with cartoonish kids and their gorilla allies. It seems that the game can only be played in two-person mode, so he has come in to try to wake me up. I'm still lying in bed, so he sets the two boxes down right on top of me and starts to rip off the paper wrapping. The boxes are cubes measuring about a foot on each side, and at first I wonder why they are so large, but as he tears off the paper I can see from the box art that they contain individual devices like Playstation controllers.

Although I do want to play the game at some point, I'm annoyed at this disruption because I was in the middle of a lucid dream attempt! After jotting down my notes I had been planning to try to re-enter the dream state. However, I already vaguely suspect that this might not be a real awakening because everything seems so exaggerated, from the problems with my notebook to my husband's rude attempt to wake me. He may not share my hobby, but he's aware of it, and would be unlikely to disturb me while I'm still sleeping, much less set boxes on me! This remains only a suspicion, and I don't become fully aware of the fact that I'm still dreaming. Rather, I conclude only that I'm still on the verge of it, since I can still feel the heaviness and tingling in my limbs that lets me know that I can probably re-enter the dreamstate once this distraction has diminished. So I quietly grumble at my husband until he leaves, careful to keep calm and not lose my temper since that could wake me up too much and make it impossible to to return to the dream. After he goes out of the room, I get myself settled in the bed again and prepare to re-transition. This is amusing in retrospect because evidently I was fully dreaming the whole time—I had the impression that I was DEILDing back into the dream, but obviously if this had been a real awakening DEILD would have been impossible after such a chaotic interlude! When I felt confident I was dreaming again, I got back out of bed.

WILD, Part 2: Having done fortune cookies, I thought I should put all my focus now into completing the Patronus TOTM. Once more I reach for my wand and once again come up empty-handed. No matter, I've used a chopstick as a wand before with great success, and I keep a jar of those right on the kitchen counter, so I walk up to it and pluck a nice sturdy one. Although the jar is mostly full of delicately-pointed Japanese chopsticks, I choose a sturdier one of the Chinese type, cut half-square and half-round. It looks just like one of my real chopsticks, from a simple and practical set I acquired many years ago in Nonthaburi because I didn't know I was supposed to give them back to the door-to-door noodle vendor, and it feels comfortable and familiar in my hand.

I figure that it would be most appropriate to summon a Patronus if there were a real threat, but I don't want to over-complicate things by going to look for one. I reason that since my husband was annoying me just now with the boxes and almost woke me up, this could serve as a sufficient stand-in. So I find him in the living room, point the wand toward him and say firmly, "Expecto Patronum!" I hear an audible "pop" like something bursting but see no change in the visual field. I try again and nothing happens at all. I strengthen my resolve, try a third time, and... what is that?... I look closer... it's... moths! The air between us where I was aiming the wand is now occupied with a cloud of small shimmering moths!

I'm delighted with these results because they were so unexpected. I figured my Patronus would turn out to be something predictable like a type of animal I like, maybe a cat or an owl or a raven or even a horse, but moths had never crossed my mind! However, I had intentionally left the form of the Patronus unspecified, because I was hoping the dream would collaborate with me creatively and come up with something interesting and unanticipated, and in this respect it fulfilled its role splendidly.

Moths! I would never have consciously arrived at this solution, but now it makes perfect sense: I am very much a night person, after all, and these are definitely night moths. I watch them for a few moments, entranced by the glitter and sparkle of their silver bodies in flight. They are relatively small, with wingspans of roughly three-quarters of an inch, but there is a whole cloud of them, many dozens filling an area several feet on either side. Although we are indoors, they appear to be illuminated by moonlight. It is incredibly beautiful. And they've fulfilled the function of a Patronus, it seems, in that they have averted the "threat" (such as it was) and completely defused the tension in the room. My husband is watching them too, and appears just as enchanted with them as I am.

After admiring the moths for a while, I notice a rabbit on the living room floor. It is wonderfully well-articulated, closely resembling Dürer's famous drawing of a hare. (Probably WLR because I briefly saw that drawing yesterday.) Since I'm still holding the wand, I figure I might as well try out another HP spell. I recall that there's one that ends with "leviosa," and although I can't remember the first word, I figure it is unimportant because clearly "leviosa" is the operative term. So I point the wand at the hare and say, "Leviosa!" Sure enough, it rises right off the ground into the air. I set it back down and pet it fondly.

I now feel satisfied that I have accomplished both the tasks I had intended, and I know I should wake up now and write promptly before I forget any details. But the dream is going so well, so clear and stable and responsive... it would be a shame to leave it so soon... I give in to the temptation to take a quick look outside, just for a minute, before coming back in to wake up and begin my report.

Walking back through the kitchen, I open the screen door to the back patio. Sometimes my WILDs become more unstable after I leave the house, probably in large part because I've developed the expectation that this can happen, but in this case I plan to wake up soon anyway, so I walk outside without hesitation.

It only takes a step or two before the environment no longer resembles my backyard. I encounter a group of four DCs, a mix of men and women who appear to be in their twenties. They begin to approach or accost me in a vaguely threatening manner. I try the Patronus charm again, but it is not as effective this time: the cloud of moths is much smaller and the DCs appear unimpressed. I'm not sure if I actually see them holding wands, or only rationalize that they might be, but I figure this would be the perfect opportunity to try another HP spell. "Expelliamus!" I shout, aiming at the guy on the far left. Sure enough, his wand jumps right out of his hand toward me, and I catch it neatly. You'd think this would give the others enough warning to prepare their defenses, and indeed they seem to be scrambling to try, but I promptly disarm them all using the same technique.

I walk on a little further, and encounter a few more DCs sitting on a low brick wall and chatting. The initial four have followed me, and I get the impression that the new ones are their friends. I wonder if they are going to retaliate at me for having taken all their wands, so try the Patronus charm yet again: "Expecto Patronum!" This time only a scattering of moths appear, a half dozen or less. I feel a bit embarrassed at this poor showing. "It must be out," I muse, wondering if the wand can only conjure a limited number of moths in a given interval.

Nevermind, I've got more tricks in my arsenal, and I want to intimidate these DCs so they'll back off. I wonder if I can levitate the whole group of people? "Leviosa!" I command, trying to make them all rise in the air at once. It doesn't work, and I speculate that maybe this is like game mechanics, where it is easier to perform such effects on simple creatures like animals, but harder on a more intelligent creature like a person, since they get a free roll to resist. I think it over and decide, well, maybe so, but... I have all the wands! Their combined power should be enough to counter any resistance. Is it possible to use more than one wand simultaneously to cast a spell? Only one way to find out!

Standing in the center of the DCs, who form a ring around me, I levitate myself initially—partly to cement the idea of levitation more firmly in mind, and partly because some of them look like they might want to make a grab at me at any minute. Hovering in the air just above them, I arrange all the wands together in my right hand so that I am gripping them evenly, and try again: "Leviosa!" This time I am pleased to see the whole circle of people around me—about six or seven now I think, the initial group plus their friends—rise simultaneously several feet into the air until they are almost even with my own level. They all look discomfited and alarmed by this change of circumstances, so to reassure them that I mean no real harm I let them sink gently back down to the ground and come down as well myself, satisfied with the results of my experiment.

I decide to stop fooling around now and go back into the house to write my report. It seems dream logic has made me forget that I can just wake up whenever I want to, I don't actually have to go back bodily into the house and manually start writing. But as I turn to go, one of the girls who has returned to her seat on the brick wall yells something hostile and sarcastic after me. I figure she's upset over my levitation stunt, so I decide to use friendliness to try to transform her attitude. I walk right up to her and, maybe taking "friendliness" a little too far, kiss her on the lips. Although she just looks startled and confused now, I smile warmly and say with genuine affection, "See you later!"

Returning to what I think must be the spot where I came out of the building, I go back inside. Just in case the DCs are still feeling miffed and try to follow me in, I lock and bolt the heavy door behind me. This is no longer the sliding screen door to my kitchen, but a large and solidly made wooden door with numerous locking mechanisms. I'm not sure if I came in the right door at all, because when I turn around I see that I'm in what looks like a nineteenth-century boiler room: it is full of heavy, old-fashioned machinery. Nevermind, I'm sure I can find the entrance to my kitchen just a little further on, so I'll go through and look for it.

As I pass by some of the machines, I marvel at their intricacy and the clarity with which I can perceive how they are constructed. I pass one machine that has a cylindrical body like an old stove. Although it is made out of solid black cast iron, there is a primitive electric cord incongruously coming out of it, so I figure it must be from a period of technological transition in the late nineteenth century. The electricity is driving some kind of rotating grinder that is hidden in the upper part of the cast iron body under a round upper plate, and with a flash of insight I think I know what this is: it must be a mill of some kind! But what is it grinding? I look at it a little longer and see a lower basin, also cast iron, positioned below the cylindrical body to catch drippings of some kind: the drippings resemble hot slag, semi-melted metal. Whatever this thing is milling, it is definitely not flour!

I continue to make my way through the room, dodging complex pieces of shaped metal and machinery that crowd around closely on all sides, but when I get to the far wall I'm disconcerted to find that there's no door. How am I going to get back into my house? Although there seems to be no exit in the walls other than the door I came in, the ceiling is so far overhead as to be out of sight, and I observe that this is less a room than a vertical shaft filled with industrial machinery all the way up, so I begin to levitate and rise through the lattice of metal bars. When I get about three storeys up I see in the wall what looks like the worn wooden cover of a hatch, arched on the top and with a flat base. There is no handle and it looks like it would be too small to crawl through comfortably, but I figure I can make a portal in the wall here to pass through.

Aiming my wand at the wall, I intend for a portal to form in the location of the hatch. Although nothing appears that I would recognize as a portal, the wall changes, the area in front of me becoming transparent, and just a few feet beyond I see a vertical transparent sheet of glass, apparently the wall of a neighboring building, a modern glass-walled high-rise. Directly across from me through the glass, I see what looks like the interior of a cafe, the sort of place the people who work in this building might stop for coffee or a snack on their lunch hour. It is dark inside and empty of customers, as it is nighttime, but I notice with mild alarm that several cops are running through the cafe and aiming guns at me! They seem very deliberate, as though this was a sting operation directed at stopping me. If they shoot, they'll surely break the glass and then I'll be exposed.

I consider making the first move and breaking the glass myself to engage them, but I don't feel like getting into combat. I point my wand toward the cops with the intention of creating some kind of protective barrier between us, but I don't see any change and can't tell if this is successful. I decide to just get out of here. Making another portal directly in front of me seems like a bad idea, because the cops might shoot at any moment, so I get a bit creative and make the portal directly under my feet—all this time I have been hovering in the air, after all—and then I take what feels like a leap of faith and simply let myself fall directly into it. Would any pursuers be able to follow? As I fall, I decide that probably the best course at this point is to let the portal lead me to waking, and so I transition from feeling as though I'm falling through a round tunnel of undefined space to waking up in my bed and scrambling to start taking notes before the memories fade.

It's interesting how clear and stable my dream memory remains—even of such a complex series of episodes—for as long as I am still dreaming, and it is only on waking that the whole fabric begins to thin and fray unless it is captured immediately. Fortunately there were no problems with my notebook this time so I jotted down the key details quickly by hand and then spent the next hour and a half typing up my full draft of the report while the memories were still fresh in mind. I don't mind devoting the time (and sacrificing the sleep) for it when the dreaming is so good!

September 16, 2014

---

I was in some sort of large aircraft. there may have been something about an air battle at some point with smaller craft. I was fighting some bad guy. I don't remember the battle much, but I do know that it was an epic one.

After I defeated the bad guy, he turned into The Face, and we floated on this massive ship/mansion thing. He was changing the world by making is so we were floating on just water, and there were hovering land masses in the shapes of animals, covered in grass and trees. Beyond them, in the far distance, were some mountains. I couldn't tell if they were on the ground or also floating, because they were far enough away that the curvature of the world made it so I couldn't see the bottom of them.

For some reason, the floating animal-land-masses were giving me a weird vibe. I didn't like it there, I could feel something just a little off about the whole place, and so I took off flying from the balcony The Face and I were standing on. We may have been talking, but mostly he was just showing me how he could change the world.

I flew over the water and to the mountains. Once I got closer, I saw that they were indeed just on the water, not floating. I flew over the mountains (which, as it turned out, were more just large hills) and saw a large plane behind them. Beyond the plane I saw a large city (the Big City on my map). From here I could see that I was on the side that is along a river.

I flew into the city, and something made me look down at my hands. I had a weird sort of there-but-not-there second thumb, and so I knew that I was dreaming! I was already flying, and so I just sort of went up further, to the roof of the building next to me. It looked like there was some sort of fancy dinner party on the roof, and I flew up to a table. I had the Patronus task on my mind already, and didn't want a repeat of the last attempt, so instead of trying to find a wand, I just picked up a butter knife and called it good.

I turned away from the dinner party with my butter knife in hand, and looked into my own wavey, slightly distorted reflection in the mirror-like window-covered wall of the building next to this one. I yelled, "Expecto Patronum!" and there was a blue-ish purple-ish and somehow also orange-ish glow from the end of the knife. I made myself focus on a happy memory, which happened to be a time in Austria with Zukin, when we were hiking. I yelled, "Expecto Patronum!" again, and this time there was more light, and a shadow of something large on the windows of the other building. I focused on the blurry shape and realized it was Mewtwo.

Fuck Yeah.

I watched my badass patronus fly around, then dismissed it with a smile. I was pretty happy with this lucid dream so far! I thought of what other task I could try, and remembered the fortune cookie one. That was the other one I was pretty excited to try.

I fly back to the dinner party, and found the bar tender lady at the edge of the roof. I first asked for something to drink, and got some bubbly in a dainty glass with gold flecks around the rim. I landed on the roof and milled amongst the people, sipping my drink, and then I went back to the bartender lady. I asked for a fortune cookie this time. She grudgingly said, "Alright, fine," and reached under the bar, handing me a fortune cookie. I grinned and stuck it in my pocket. I had the feeling that I should wait to open it. That I should first fly down to the ground level of the building. I hovered around the front entrance, hoping to meet Zukin. Lowe and behold, I opened the door to find her waiting for me in the lobby.

"Hey Zukin! I'm lucid right now! We're in a dream!" She just kinda stared at me. "Can you remember any of the lucid tasks this month?" I asked, hoping that my subconscious mind could give me a hint on the other tasks, all of which I keep forgetting, even IWL.

She stared at me again, shrugged, and then said, "Let's go to the bathroom. I gotta pee."

I put my drink down against a wall and followed her to the bathroom (STILL not remembering the flushing task. And what a hint I'd given myself, too! I actually had to check the forum and then laughed at myself for not getting it). I watched her go into one of the stalls, and sat on the sink while she used the toilet. I took out my fortune cookie, and took it out of the wrapping. I inhaled as I cracked it open, and was surprised to see a rather large, folded piece of paper inside. I unfolded it, and there was a lot of text. First, a whole bunch of rather large numbers (large for a fortune cookie, that is) and then some random words, and more numbers. I realized the numbers and words kept changing when I looked away, so I tried not to take my eyes off the numbers and words as I got out my phone, hoping to write them down. Silly me. Lucky thing is, writing things helps me remember them, so I remember many of the numbers and words I saw. It was something like this:

87 69 899 99 99 99 56 72 12

Money
Moshy

88 54 23

Honey
Honey

And then more words and numbers. Lots of them. It was weird.

I laughed, and Zukin came out of the stall. "What's so funny?" She asked, washing her hands.

"This fortune. You know we're in a dream, right?" I recently read a book that described a method for inducing shared dreams, and this is what I was trying with her. I just found out she likely wasn't even asleep when I had this dream, which may be why it never worked... "This fortune is on crack, look at it. It keeps changing." Even as I passed her the paper, I could see that the numbers and words were changing, though the format was always the same. always the same amount of words and numbers, always in the same place and with the same number of digits or letters.

She looked at it, shrugged, and said, "huh. That's kinda weird."

We left the bathroom, and I found my drink again. I liked having the pretty glass in my hand, since it made me feel posh. I tried telling Zukin again that this was a lucid dream. She stared at me again and then smiled. "Hey, how about let's go to that place I took you before, that garden thing?"

I didn't remember the place she was talking about, or having been taken someplace by her even, but I shugged and said, "Sure, why not?" I had already done two tasks and it could be fun! And if I was going to continue trying to share the dream with the real Zukin, I had to stick with the DC Zukin.

We went out of the building, and met one of her friends. It was a man, but I don't remember much more about him, I was mostly focusing on Zukin at this point. Which I'm glad I did, because she started being a fucking ninja. She was doing back-flips over walls and climbing lamp-posts like it was nothing. I jumped to follow her, flying, but couldn't fly for a moment. I looked down at my hands again to reaffirm that I was dreaming, and this time I had a there-but-not-there second middle finger. So weird! Anyways, once again assured that I was still dreaming, I jumped again and started flying to follow Zukin. Her friend was also flying, slightly behind me. I knew this was still not the real Zukin, because she wasn't flying. Flying's her thang in a lucid dream, so I figured if it was her, she still didn't know we were dreaming.

So I am flying after Zukin as she ninjas her way to this big half-indoor, half-outdoor garden. In this garden, there is a pool-sized hot tub surrounded by tropical plants and trees, with a huge rock at one end of it. There are about ten people in the tub right now, all toward the end without the rock on it. I land on the rock, and look back just as Zukin does a flip over the edge of it to land next to me, and her friend lands behind her, and then run past us both, jumping into the water. I think he had stripped buck-naked as he ran.

I looked back at Zukin, and said, "I don't have my swimsuit on, hope you don't mind!" and winked, but then realized that, if I took off my clothes, my swimsuit was probably going to be on underneath, and if not, I'm dreaming so what the hell?

She said, "Ohhhh, skinny dipping?" and made a move toward me all seductively.

"Oh yeah," I said. I took off my shirt, and found that I did indeed have a swimsuit on. Except it was one from my childhood, which just magically seemed to still fit me. It was light blue with colorful plastic beads on it. I took off my pants, and noted a faded salmony colored bikini bottom. My body was a lot more fit than it is IWL, to my joy AND consternation.

I jumped into the warm water, and we both swam to the other end, taking a seat amidst the other people. I told her again that this was a lucid dream, but it started to fade. I let it fade, knowing that it had been a great dream. I swirled the water around my fingers a bit and dunked my head until the dream faded completely and I woke up 15 minutes before my alarm!

Note: The goal tonight is mainly to have another Harry Potter dream, MoSh is wanting to continue the Harry Potter dreaming, I haven't heard from Tigress as to if she recalls the last night's dreams at the sorting… so the goal was to meet up with MoSh and attend a class where they are teaching patronuses.

I am in bed in a dark room that I don't recognize, but this doesn't seem strange to me at all. I look around as my eyes adjust to the darkness and I see I am in what looks like a dorm room with three roommates, all of whom are fast asleep. I can't make out much detail of the room in the dark, but what I can see of it looks like I am in some kind of medieval castle. I let myself enjoy that fantasy for a bit, thinking it would be awesome if I really was in a castle instead of an ordinary dorm room… the fact that I am not attending a school where I have to sleep in a dorm doesn't occur to me at the time. I lie there quietly as the light from the window starts getting brighter, which sucks. I don't really want to get up. I'm not especially tired, which comes as a surprise to me, but I am comfortable and I want to stay in bed for a while longer. But soon my roommates are getting out of bed and stretching, they don't seem to want to get up any more than I do, but it is clearly time to get up.

So I get out of bed and dress behind a curtain that hangs around my bed for privacy, and I notice the uniforms for school look like something they would wear in Harry Potter! I laugh to myself about that, muttering that I wish it really was magic that I would be learning… I put on the robes, noticing mine says Slytherin on it… not what I prefer… I come out of my isolated bed area and look at my roommates, they are all coming out fully dressed as well, also in Slytherin robes… And I notice that the room really does look like a castle, we are dressed as if we were attending Hogwarts, the room looks like we are staying at Hogwarts… this entire thing seems a bit too strange… I remember that when I wake up I need to do a covert RC by pinching my nose, so I do that and I find out I am dreaming! I repeat the RC a couple times to confirm, but there is no doubt that this is a dream. I decide to go along with the dream, since it is going in an interesting direction already.

My three roommates are fairly friendly, though it seems they would also rather be in bed right now, we talk to each other a bit, good morning, how are you, some other assorted small talk… Then we are ready to go up some stairs into the main common room of our dorms. There are more people in there, now there are both men and women, everyone looks like college age… There were other rooms on the women's side of the dorm, and there are quite a few guys, too, and I recognize some of them. Specifically I recognize Draco Malfoy, Gregory Crab, and Vincent Goyle… Both Crabb and Goyle are bitching about being hungry, Draco is clearly getting annoyed at them for going on and on about their stomachs, he seems to find that frustrating. Finally he turns and just walks away from them, he comes right over to me and asks if I am feeling ok, though I am not immediately sure what he is talking about as for me feeling better. Have I been sick? I don't remember being sick… I say I am feeling fine. I am wondering what Draco is up to, but it is time to go so we can get to class.

I will get over the next part quickly, we go to the great hall and get some breakfast, though I am not really feeling hungry, I usually don't feel that hungry in dreams except for if there is something really yummy to eat. I nibble on a few things so I am not standing out in the group, then we move on to a class, the class is a Defense Against the Dark Arts class… with Professor Lupin! I sit down in the classroom, waiting for a class to start. I see the other students coming into the room, Harry, Ron, Hermione… MoSh! MoSh comes into the room! I go over to MoSh and say hi, MoSh says something about not wanting to get out of bed for class, I tell him this is a dream. He says yeah, being able to come here is a dream, he has been wanting to learn stuff like this. Before I can reiterate that this really is a dream, Tigress comes into the room! Yay! Now there are two people in the class that I know, I sit down next to Tigress, MoSh sits down next to me, and now the three of us are waiting for the class to begin. MoSh has a Gryffindor robe on, Tigress has one from Ravenclaw, so I figure this probably looks like an unusual gathering… now we just need someone from Hufflepuff to join us there. Inter-house cooperation, cool! Soon Asuka comes into the room, so MoSh says bye to me and sits at the table behind Tigress and me with Asuka since there are only three seats at each table. I look back at the two of them, but not for long. Class is about to begin when Draco sits down beside me… wtf? He should be sitting over with Crabb and Goyle, who are looking a bit confused at the table across the aisle.

Well, it doesn't really matter because we don't stay for long in the class, just long enough for Lupin to explain what a patronus is, and what the spell is for creating one, then he says the best way to learn is to do it, so we were going on a short field trip to a field, where we could have plenty of room to practice. All of us follow Lupin outside to a clear meadow area near the school, which looks just like I had imagined it to look, like a pretty awesome castle. We are on the top of a hill when Lupin talks more about creating patronuses, then we have a chance to create our own patronuses. Tigress, MoSh, and I have no problems creating our patronuses. Our three patronuses are soon flying around with each other, in the sky, and quite a few of the others are now just gawking at them without even trying to create their own patronuses. Lupin says we have done absolutely fantastic, but tells the others they need to focus on their own patronuses rather than looking at ours, then he goes around to other students to try to help them. Soon Asuka's patronus joins MoSh's, Tigress' and mine. Harry is the next to add his patronus to the party, which is its usual buck form, the rest of ours looked like the pictures below…

MoSh's is an Eastern style dragon…


Asuka's is a white peacock…


Raven's Patronus is a white panther…


Tigress' patronus is a mystical white wolf…