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

[Last night, I had a long, vivid, elaborate lucid dream that felt like it lasted between 10 and 20 minutes. This journal entry only reflects the most significant and memorable moments of that dream, which are all I remember now. There were other stretches of experience connecting the moments below that aren’t written down in detail, because I don’t remember them that well. They mostly consisted of me flying around and observing the scenery.]

I’m at my university, at some sort of outdoor expo, standing in a booth made up of some folding tables and an EZ-UP shade structure. It’s a sunny day. I’m supposed to be there to represent one of the organizations I’m in, and I’m supposed to be wearing that organization’s T-shirt, but I can’t find it. The only T-shirt I can find in our booth is one I got from [a client company that my company has done work for in real life]. The logo on the front of the T-shirt I have is the same shape as the logo of the organization I’m representing (an oval), and the overall T-shirt design is very similar, but the letters in the oval are different, and the T-shirt I actually have says “[the client company's name]” across the back. I change into this T-shirt anyway. I do it while standing behind the open back of some hatchback vehicle, hoping that nobody will see me, because [for some inexplicable reason], I’m not wearing a bra.

When I find myself looking at a very vivid, colorful cityscape from the viewpoint of flying over it, it only takes me a moment to realize that I’m dreaming. I slow myself down, controlling the speed of my flight, just observing the landscape around me.

I’m standing on the ground in that city. I look across the street and see the gates of ‘the Asian Disneyland.’ There are solid-colored, blue and pink, cartoony humanoid figures walking around on the other side of the metal gates. [They look just like the figures in this cartoon (WARNING: Ads on that page are likely NSFW).] I think, Heck yes, then fly over and enter the “Asian Disneyland.”

When I get inside, I am on the second story of what looks like an indoor mall, looking down onto the floor of the first story. When I see what’s down there, I realize, Of course, that’s what would be in the Asian Disneyland: casino table games. The entire first floor is full of them. I have absolutely no interest in this at all [true in real life, too], so I turn right around and go back out the entrance to the mall. [I am very, very sorry for the stereotype evident in the content of this dream.]

Once outside again, I go, “Oh, yeah!” when I recall the current Task of the Month: fly up into the sky and find out where all the snow comes from. I start flying up into the sky. There is a puffy cloud there, and I fly toward it, aiming to get on top of it. As I approach it, it turns from white to dark gray. Lightning flashes across it, and it reaches out to threaten me with a pseudopod made of dark-gray cloud. I think, Uh-oh. This dream is going to turn into a nightmare if I don’t take control of it. Just by thinking about it, I make the pseudopod stop threatening me and retreat back into the cloud, the lightning stop, and the cloud turn white again. The threat nullified, I continue flying toward the cloud. It turns dark gray again only a moment later, but I realize that that’s because I know that precipitation only falls from heavy, dark-gray clouds. [When I first read the Task of the Month for this month, my first reaction was, “I’m probably not going to find anything but clouds up there; I’m a little too rational-minded for that.” This dream experience proves that I was right.]

[Sure enough,] When I get on top of the cloud, there is nothing there – just cloud. I sit down cross-legged on top of the cloud and decide to fly around on it, using it as a mode of transportation, just like Goku does in “Dragonball Z.” While flying on the cloud, I find myself flying down a corridor that turns lots of corners at crazy angles, lined with doors on either side. [I don’t know what it was, but] Something about this situation makes me go, “Of course,” and then start singing: “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,” etc. I continue singing as I fly through the corridor.

As I fly around some more, I think excitedly and proudly about how I’ll get to have my username in orange on DreamViews tomorrow or the next day. [Although now I don’t think I really deserve it, since I fulfilled the letter of the challenge but not its spirit. I really didn’t find out anything; all I found when I flew into the sky was the source of snow that I already expected to be to be there, namely, a cloud. I am so boring!]

I need to get out of a building very quickly. [It may or may not have been the mall-like building mentioned earlier. I think it was a different one, though.] The building has a glass wall right next to the entrance. I decide to go out through the glass wall. I run toward it. A second before I reach it, I focus my mind on activating my intangibility, an ability I have used in several dreams before. It works perfectly; I run right through the glass wall without breaking it, just like a ghost.

I’m in a circular meeting room with several levels of steps leading down to a central circle of floor. There are no chairs. There are a lot of people standing around in the room. I know that they’re all just DCs. They have gathered here to conduct a sort of tribunal to determine whether or not I am a goddess. Some of them have found out about the superhuman abilities I exhibit when I’m in the dream world, and have concluded that I am one, but others disagree. I think, I’m not a goddess. I’m just a human who knows how to lucid dream. I don’t say anything during the meeting, though. [I don’t know why not.]

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Side notes:
Wow. I really feel like I took a step forward in my dream control skills last night.

10.17.2011
I am in an unfamiliar house with many other people. It's clearly some kind of social gathering for older adults, with whom I somehow blend in. While mingling I come across the host, a black man in a white robe who looks like Morgan Freeman, but younger. He is addressing the whole room and although I don't hear all his words, I realize he's about to go around the room asking what everyone's spiritual beliefs are, and it becomes apparent that it is a move to single me out as the only non-believer in the room.

Of course, he goes straight to me and places his hands on my shoulder, smiling wordlessly, expecting me to profess my beliefs. I tell him uncomfortably that I'm atheist, which leads the whole room to let out an awkward laugh. The host turns to the crowd gathered around us and mentions that I am in need of saving and that I need to accept their God, clearly assuming I'd simply not been exposed to it. I correct him in his assumption and say, "I was born Catholic, raised Christian, and chose to be an agnostic atheist." This was more disturbing to them, which produced an even more awkward laugh. I laugh myself, feeling less uncomfortable than before, and am left alone.

I dreamt that that I fell asleep in my bed straight into a lucid dream where I grew wings and flew through the ceiling. It was exhilarating and I flew higher and through more and more ceilings, one after another. Then I noticed the ceiling fans were below me and I was actually flying downwards (paradoxically it would seem).
Then I landed lying in front of St. Peter's gate. A large stone gate standing on top of a circular stone foundation, seemingly floating in space. The gate was unattached, merely a gate with the carving "St. Peter's" on it. I started getting scared and really wanted to ascend, away from here. I was lying in my bed again, "half-asleep" (still within a dream). I even kept having to adjust my sleeping mask on my eyes.
After wishing hard enough to ascend, everything became bathed in golden light, and I knew I had golden wings. I flew up once more only to start falling straight down, quickly. Staring straight up, I fell straight past the gate and the platform it was on so I could see how it was standing atop a giant tower or spire. I kept falling, fast, with occasional vibrations that I could feel in the "real" world (within a dream).
Finally I landed on my my back on my bed, but under my eye mask I could see the shadows of flames flickering in the corners of my room and my bed started getting hot. (I could never really see any flames) My legs and back grew warm. I could see the shadow of a figure walking bath and forth on one wall. And heard a voice talking less TO me, but more AT me. It was around this point I realized I was in Hell and shocked myself awake.


I actually only woke up with a very vague after sense of warmth on my back. And surprisingly the fear and surprise wasn't there, like how emotions follow me from other intense dreams. I think that everything took place in a dream within a dream really helped. That and the fact that I don't believe in a Heaven or Hell and am incredibly secure in that belief that it didn't bother me as much as it should in my logical waking world. Of course I'm shaken that I would have such a dream in the first place, but I still think it was neat. Also even though the dream FELT lucid it couldn't have been, I was merely dreaming of having a lucid dream where these things happened.

I'm in Germany at a friends who's trowing a party.
There's a few people there I know, plus a girl I've just met.
Her first question after being introduced is: "Do you believe in god?"
This annoys me. If this is the first thing she wants to know about me, it has obviously got to be very important to her.
I reply with: "Which one?" thinking that she'll get the message and not talk to me for the rest of the evening, or at least drop the religious talk.

I don't mind religious people at all, as long as they aren't annoying about it, and I have a very strong feeling that this woman is exactly that kind of person.
To make things worse, she doesn't get it.

"What do you mean? Our lord an savior Christ of course! Don't tell me you're one of those atheists..."
"Yes, I am an atheist. But I could simply believe in another religion as well, you shouldn't generalize the term god like that. There's other beliefs out there you know."
"Yes, but they are all false, and you are a bad person for not honoring our lord."

You've got to be kidding me...
I roll my eyes and walk away.
There's no point in arguing with such people, I consider them borderline delusional.
I grab some food from a buffet when I notice the girl followed me.

"If you ask nicely I can teach you the way of Christ and save your soul you know... you can be forgiven!"
"Listen girl, what you're saying is terribly offensive. Being religious does not make you a better person than I am."
"I uphold moral values the same way you do and I need no religious teachings to tell me how to do so."
"You should leave me alone."

But she doesn't... instead she tells me that I'm going to hell.
I contemplate explaining the difference between beliefs and facts to her, and how what she's saying is being offensive but I quickly decide against it.
I've met people like her very rarely, but this is extreme.
I look at the balcony and think: If only I could just fly away. This party sucks!
If this was a dream I could just jump and begone.

I feel the urge to try to levitate...
I look at the girl who's now staring at me, looking genuinely sorry for myself.
This makes me angry, I could slap her in the face.
She seems to have no free will, just an empty shell... like a DC...

Hmm... I look around.
Nothing's off, everything seems perfectly fine... still... is this a dream?
I try to retrace my steps... how did I get here?
I have no idea... I must be dreaming!

I approach the balcony with the girl pursuing me.
Just before reaching the balcony I try to RC, but as my hand approaches my nose I finally know that I am dreaming, even though I haven't performed the RC yet.
So I just jump off the balcony and fly away.

It is nighttime, but I can see somewhat clearly.
I fly over a forest, enjoying the nice and fresh air, and not being annoyed by that girl anymore.
Flying... it really never gets old, it's such an amazing experience.
But I feel like doing something different.
I feel like running. Running as a wolf! Just as I did in Dancing with the wolves, Dragon at Stonehenge - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

I approach the ground and shift into a big white wolf mid flight and enter the forest fully transformed.
As I run though the forest I quickly notice that it's not the same as last time.
Last time was a magical experience, but this time it is not.
It doesn't feel surreal at all, and the forest appears normal and boring... not to mention it is rather dark which is bad.

Maybe last time I wasn't on earth? Maybe it was because I was with Olivia?
I keep running faster and faster, trying to remember what it was like last time and hopefully teleport into the same scene.
As I reach higher speeds my fur starts to sparkle and my vision becomes distorted.

My vision normalizes and I'm certain that I've teleported back to the location I was in last time.
It feels magical yet again. The forest is beautiful and oddly bright even though it's the middle of the night.
The sensation of the air brushing through my fur is absolutely amazing.
I wonder if I'll be able to meet Olivia or whoever she was yet again.
I attempt to relocate the hill we were on last time and find it after about a minute.

But she is not here.


I howl into the night hoping that she'll hear me and come visit me...

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

I’m in a building that is something like a conference center. There is a conference/camp event going on here for students in the $Program program. [Name has been hidden to prevent members of the program from finding this journal.] Most of the people attending the conference are teenagers and young adults. I go from the hallway through a door into one of the conference rooms, where there is a check-in and registration table set up. It’s covered with the papers that belong to that schema: lists of registered attendees, conference schedules and other materials for the conference, and calendars of upcoming events. I check in, then take a look at the calendar and see that there’s an overnight event coming up that includes attending a local high school’s football game. I want to go, but I think it conflicts with something else that I have going on.

At this conference, each $Program group that is attending has a different nickname or theme; my group is the “villains” group. The check-in table for each group is in a different room. After I've checked in, I walk back out into the hallway and encounter a girl, my age or a little younger, looking for her check-in room. Her name tag reads “Eliza.” I encourage her to join one of the “good” groups [by which I mean, any group that isn't villains-themed], because she's new to $Program. I expect that I'll be the only one from my $Program group who participates in the larger group activities offered by the conference, because everyone else in my group is an older adult and most of the other conference attendees are teenagers or young adults. Besides, LN teaches high school for a living; she probably doesn't want to spend her off-hours with teenagers, too.

I start climbing the stairs to the second floor of the building to get to the conference meeting rooms. There are two flights of stairs that cross in an X in midair, joining together at the point where they cross to form a platform. A third, smaller flight of stairs extends down from this platform to the floor I want to get to. There are others climbing the stairs along with me.

[I don’t remember the transition, but] I’m outside the building I was just in. I’m on a beautiful college campus. It has trees, grass, and winding, paved paths between the buildings. The ground is not level, but contoured, rolling up and down. In this scene, I realize that I’m dreaming. [I don’t remember why or how; I just did.] I jump/float down one of the inclines, grabbing a handful of grass at the bottom of the incline as I land on another path, which [I think] has a low wall that stands between the path and the incline I've just jumped/floated over. I'm touching it to keep the dream stable by engaging my senses. It feels like real grass and is very soft and supple. I walk down the path I've just landed on, heading toward a small tree, covering ground much more quickly than I would in reality. [Here, I experienced that phenomenon I've read about here on DV where, in order to get somewhere in a dream, you focus on your intention to arrive there and suddenly, there you are, having skipped over the boring part where you traveled there.] When I reach the small tree, I touch it, wrapping my hand around its narrow trunk. It feels rough, like a real tree. I'm just happily enjoying being in a dream.

A little further along the path, just beyond the small tree, is a large, square, paved area, in front of the entrance to a building. A woman is standing in this area, alone. She’s older and has wispy brown hair, which she wears up in a loose bun. She has lines and wrinkles on her face, and has a patch of shiny, lavender-pink eyeshadow all over the center of her face. She’s wearing a long dress the same color as the eyeshadow.

I suddenly recall the current Task of the Month [which I had just looked up, just before going to bed]. I approach the woman. In the distance, behind me, I can hear all the teenagers and young adults who are attending the conference/camp singing together:

“Day-oh, day-oh. Da-a-ay-oh, da-a-ay-oh. Daylight come and me wanna go home.”

I sing along with the young people as they begin the next repetition of this segment of music: “Day-oh.” As I sing, I look right at the older woman, expecting her to sing along, too.

“Day-oh,” she mumbles softly, looking down shyly at the ground to my left.

“Da-a-ay-oh,” I sing to her, still looking at her and expecting her to sing along.

“Da-a-ay-oh,” she mumbles, still looking down. I figure that she simply lacks confidence in her singing voice and encourage her by saying enthusiastically to her, “Come on, you can do it!”

“Daylight come and me wanna go home,” she sings, now looking up and demonstrating self-confidence. She proves to have a beautiful singing voice.

Pleased, I continue singing along with the young people, who have been singing the song all this time. The older woman continues singing along as well. “Come, Mr. Tally-Man, tally me banana. Daylight come and me wanna go home.”

Somewhere in the midst of those two lines, the dream faded and I woke up, probably because I was so excited about having completed the Task of the Month for the first time since February.

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Side notes:
I just looked up what the current Tasks of the Month were last night. I think this knowledge helped motivate me to want to have a lucid dream. I'm thrilled that I completed the basic task the same night! The euphoria from my achievement lasted for several hours into my waking day.
I'm also excited to have used a new dream control ability for the first time. I'd read that you could control what happened in your dreams, including controlling the actions of DCs, by expecting particular things to happen, but this was the first time I'd ever actually done it.

[This is a catch-up post. These dreams are from the night of July 10-11, 2011.]

I'm in Sunday school, and we're playing a game-show-style game in which I am the lovely assistant. The contestant on the game show is creating a piece of ceramic art using a pottery wheel.

I'm in a large van that has stone benches instead of regular seats. The van is filled with good friends of mine, and we're watching something good on TV. The van morphs into an airplane, and I disembark.

The interior of the airport where I've landed is windowless, and the walls, floor, and ceiling are all a flat, industrial, dark gray color. The building has multiple, unequal, uneven levels with stairs leading from one to another. There is one very tangled staircase that takes you up, down, around, and across, turning several corners and going in several different directions, as you go from the bottom of it to the top. [It doesn't loop, though; it has a beginning and an end that are on different levels of floor, but it also has a ridiculous number of convolutions in between that make no sense.] I walk this entire staircase, from beginning to end.

I'm walking around trying to find baggage claim, but I can't; I get lost. I'm carrying three plastic tokens, which I'm supposed to use to claim my bags. I pass a large bag inspection checkpoint, and another checkpoint specifically for people who are traveling with marijuana plants. There are lines of people waiting at both checkpoints. Each person in the line for the latter checkpoint is carrying either a marijuana plant, or some cuttings from one. They're not forbidden on flights, they just have to be inspected first. I also pass behind the back side of the security checkpoint.

I try to climb into an area full of junk. I meet a small boy who decides to follow me into the area.

[Separate dream.] P. and I [I think] are fighting over the scheduling of our showers and hair-drying. I apologize for the fact that I have to wash my hair every day because it's so hot. I try to rush through my shower.

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Side notes:
This night was my very first night in my new place of residence. When I woke up in my new room for the first time and recalled my first dream there, my reaction was, “Hmm. I got lost in a confusing place. That isn't very reassuring.”

[This is a catch-up post. These dreams are from the night of June 27-28, 2011.]

I'm creeping around a parking lot, in the nude. [This has been a recurring circumstance in my dreams lately. Why is that, I wonder?] I'm trying to get to my car without being seen by anyone.

I'm in a room with a small stage, with a full set for a play on it, where people are rehearsing for a play. Nobody is playing the part of Morgan, so I jump in to play that role. In the play, Morgan is a little girl who watches her mom get murdered right in front of her, in their home. The mom is lying in her bed, and the murderer is some guy who shoots her with a rifle while she's lying there. As I'm acting out Morgan's part, I scream and shriek horrifically in reaction to this, and I start crying real tears. When the scene has ended, I tell the director of the play and the other actors that I'll probably really cry every time we rehearse this scene, but then I take it back, saying: “Even I know better than to do that. If I do that, then I won't have anything left for the performance.”

I'm riding in a car with my parents. We're discussing the washing instructions for a baseball cap that my mom has. They say to 'show' the cap to dry it, and I explain to my mom that the intended meaning there was to 'display' it, e.g., to leave it sitting out to dry. We also discuss how my mom recently had to have the password for some online account set, and in order to do that, they had to ship a packet of papers containing the printed password from Florida to somewhere else on the East Coast.

I'm in a big, cathedral-like building where a lot of people have gathered for a religious service, or a performance, or something like that. We've given everyone a password so that those who want to [and who have laptops] can log in to a Web site to see what's really going on behind the scenes of what's happening in front of them on stage. Apparently, the service/performance/whatever-it-is has something to do with Inception, because I have a printed book that is a dictionary of its characters, items, and concepts.

[Fragment] I'm taking all the bedclothes off my bed, and I realize that what makes my bed so soft and comfortable isn't the mattress itself, but the mattress pad. [This has been a concern of mine in real life lately, pursuant to my upcoming move to a new place with a new mattress.]

7:43 AM
Note: My brother Peter is autistic and at the time I had this dream I felt that he was getting way in over his head with my parents church because something social clicked in his brain. My mother feels that his autism is being healed while I believe that that he is just changing his very extreme focus like he has always done.

I kept watching my brother drown repeatedly. There was nothing I could do. Dream transitions to funeral / show. I was standing next to a Pete look alike and and his fat down syndrome friend(DC only.) Mom was still talking like Pete was alive which made me sick and embarrassed. Part of the show is we watch Pete shoot off a cannon.

As we were leaving we started splitting up strangely marked and tagged pills. Most belonged to the special fat kid, two were mine(note: I don't do pills). Mom kept on talking and calling the clone Pete. I extremely angry and yelled at her to stop.

[This is a catch-up post. These dreams are from the nights of June 12-13 and 14-15, 2011.]

Night of June 12-13

There is a murder investigation taking place in a house that looks a lot like my grandparents' house. I am directly involved, and the investigation is highly elaborate and has a detailed plot, with lots of dialog. [Of course, I can't remember any of the specifics now.] Partway through, the dream morphs from live-action into a Tim Burton stop-motion movie featuring the Grim Reaper, who “kills” me. I somehow know I'm not really dead, though. I fall over backwards from the force of the scythe-blow and land in a sling, suspended from a moving, overhead track; it's part of a theme park ride. The ride takes me through “heaven” and ends with me exchanging salutes with Weird Al, who is standing in for Jesus on the ride.

Night of June 14-15

[Bizarre, Disneyland-related dreams FTW! This time,] I'm with a vivacious traveling companion, and we have time-traveled to the year 2011. [Whether backward or forward, I do not know.] We wonder how we know what year it is, until we come up with the obvious answer: “Because that's the year we set the time machine for?”

The entrance to the new version of Star Tours is in a rotating building with revolving doors. [This dream was in anticipation of the upcoming weekend; I was planning to go to Disneyland to ride the new Star Tours the following Sunday, June 19th, and I did.] Inside, there is a loading/staging area for the ride with circular staging zones.

“Abilene!” I say to a 1-year-old girl who is in the staging area with me. “You know you can't be on the end [of the row of seats]!” I take her spot in the staging area, making her and the other little kids move over along the row, toward the outside of the circle.

[This is a catch-up post. These dreams are from the night of June 9-10, 2011.]

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

I'm walking around the downtown area of a city. Every block is covered with tall buildings. Most of one block is covered with a three-or-four-story building with signs that identify it as “Jews' World.” It's their community center and place of worship; it is built around a narrow, rectangular courtyard/entryway with doors to various rooms leading off of it. I look at it and think, Wow, that's pretty cool, having a community center like that.

Directly across the street from this center is a similar, five-or-six-story community center and place of worship for the LDS church. A woman walks out of that complex and walks down the street. We pass each other in the street between the two centers, walking in opposite directions. The woman recognizes me and calls me “Pie [$RealFirstName].” I know that “Pie” is a nickname for [$OfficeBoss] [yes, he is LDS in real life], and that the use of that nickname as a title before my name indicates that I am a member of the in-group associated with [$OfficeBoss]. I'm rather disturbed that the woman both knew who I was and associated me with [$OfficeBoss] in such an intimate and familiar way.

Having realized I was dreaming at some point during this sequence of events [again, I'm not sure when], I decide to start flying. I take off and get pulled in a random direction, backward and sort of sideways. I try to control my flying and start flying forward by concentrating on details of the scenery I can see in front of me and trying to examine them more closely, as I did in my previous lucid [on the night of June 5], but it doesn't work. I attempt this method of control several times. When it stubbornly refuses to work, I just give up. I think, Fine. I'm just going to let myself get pulled along to wherever.

Then that dream faded to black, yet I remained consciously self-aware. I'm not sure if I was actually awake [more likely] or still asleep and self-aware during the gap between two dreams. At any rate, I remember that I knew that I was still asleep [however that works; I really don't even know what was going on here] and that if I just waited patiently, another dream would begin. I did, and it did.

I'm in the central courtyard of a big, old church made of yellow-tan stone. On one side of the courtyard, there is a large, windowlike opening in the wall with no glass, and on the other side of it are rolling vineyards. I briefly think of going flying over the vineyards, but I decide not to. Instead, I explore the building I'm in, and find a large kitchen knife. I pick it up and look at it, reflecting upon it: What's this doing here? We don't do sacrifices of living creatures in my church. We don't have to.

I go into the building, find the kitchen, and put the knife away. To get to the kitchen, I have to go through the parish hall. There are other people in there. I continue to explore more of the building, concentrating on just what a wonderful gift it is to be here in a dream and be lucid. [That's the last I remember.]

[Later, I had another nonlucid.] A whole bunch of the important businesspeople I know in real life, including [$OfficeBoss], have come over to House #2 for an early-morning presentation that I'm supposed to be giving, and they've all crowded into my bedroom. I wake up late for the presentation. In order to get into my closet, I have to ask [$OfficeBoss] and another man to move aside. I'm embarrassed to be seen by all these people while wearing only my black nightgown. [It was the same one I was wearing in real life that night.] I take too long to get ready, and all my guests wander off.

I go out into the rest of the house and see that my mom has put up all the Christmas decorations, even though it's June. I run the vacuum cleaner in the study; P. is there. I get a second shot at doing the presentation, and this time, it works out. I'm grateful that the first attempt, where I got up late for it and everyone left, was just a dream. [LOL!]

[Fragment] I'm in a house or hotel somewhere with MLT [a real-life friend]. I demonstrate to her the fold-out bed that's built into the wall, and she declares it to be too opulent. The building is cylindrical.

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

I'm traveling to Epcot on a highway. The highway is elevated relative to the park, which is long and narrow, and lush and green. There is a giant, inflated jack-o’-lantern in the center of the park. I’m dismayed to realize that the jack-o’-lantern has become the park’s de facto icon; it was never meant to be.

[Different dream.] I'm at a summer camp somewhere. [The day before I had this dream, I'd suddenly, randomly come to the nostalgic realization that it had been a very long time since I'd been to a camp of any kind. Thanks, brain! :-) ] I arrive at a wooden pickup station (sort of like a bus stop) at 8:15 A.M. [I think], in time to get picked up by a horse-drawn, wheeled wagon. I climb up into it and sit down on one of several benches. The wagon takes me and several other campers to an Old Western town where a reenactment activity will take place.

When I get there, I'm really glad I got up in time to catch the wagon, because the town is pretty cool. There are a bunch of animatronic figures that re-enact the shootout at the OK Corral. They have guns that fire styrofoam bullets, which stick to designated, smooth, flat target areas on the other animatronic figures. I move out of the way and take cover while the shootout is going on, not wanting to get hit by the bullets.

When the shootout is over, a large bunch of balloons comes floating toward me. I understand that it’s to transport me back to the point where I entered the town. I take hold of the ribbons on the balloons and allow them to pick me up and float me over some buildings to another part of the town.

I touch down in front of some town official, possibly the mayor or the sheriff. He asks me, “What do you think of the town?”

“I think I’ll stay,” I answer. When I say this, what I mean by it is that I want to get a souvenir picture taken in period costume. There is a kiosk nearby where you can do this. I’m about to do it, but when I look at the signs on the kiosk, I see that the pictures cost $5.00 each. I don’t want to pay $5.00 for a photo, so I change my mind and turn away.

[Dreamskip.] I’m floating with my bunch of balloons again [I think], heading toward a theme park with a roller coaster. I’m thinking about how theme parks are architectural works of art, and should be appreciated as such.

[I waited too long to start writing this, so I don't really remember what happened between the end of that scene and the beginning of the next one, nor do I remember how or why I became lucid.]

I'm in the entrance corridor of a big, fancy office building with a beautifully decorated interior. In front of me is a long wall with a door in it, and a sign next to the door indicating that these are the offices of a financial company. I know that it's a subsidiary of another company, and that it's in charge of the other company's finances.

I think, Okay. I'm going to try to walk through a wall again. I start walking forward, thinking about that goal. I begin to pass through the wall, and the room on the other side becomes visible. I continue moving forward. Even when I've gone far enough that I should be all the way through, I can still see parts of the ornately-decorated wall; they linger in my vision, semi-transparent and seeming to stick with me, like the strands of a spiderweb stick to you when you walk through it. I think, Just keep going forward. They'll go away, and you'll get through. You can do it. I keep moving forward, and the last strands of the afterimage of the wall finally fall away behind me, leaving me standing in the financial offices. There's no tactile sensation this time, though, unlike in my previous lucid dream when I went through the car door; this time, I don't feel anything at all from the wall. I'm happy and proud that I've finally walked through a wall without leaving a hole in it.

I wander through the financial offices a bit. There are employees of the company there, walking around, going about their everyday work. I think, I'm invisible and inaudible to them. Or, if I am visible, I just look like another employee. Somehow, I just know intuitively that one or the other of these things is true.

Eventually, I end up in front of another long wall, this one made of mirrors. [I don't remember now how I got from one scene to the next.] When I find myself in front of this wall of mirrors, I think, Now that I've figured out how to walk through walls, I'd like to try out another dream ability. I wonder if I can create a portal. Remembering what I read in somebody’s DJ here on DreamViews, I use my right index finger to trace a circle on the mirror-wall. [I don't know what exactly made me pick this destination, but] In my thoughts, I pick “heaven” as the destination that I want to be on the other side of the portal. When I'm finished drawing the circle, the area inside it doesn't transform into a portal; instead, it swings inward, like a door on a hinge. I go through the doorway.

The doorway is on one of the short sides of a rectangular room. The floor, walls, and ceiling of the room are all the same dark, metallic slate-gray color. At the opposite end of the room is a raised stage, also that same color, and on the stage is a smaller-than-life-size, cartoon lion. He's very definitely alive, though, and I know who he is immediately. I kneel down on the floor where I am and exclaim, “My Lord Aslan!” [Hmm. Well. That's reassuring.]

[I don't really remember how I got to the next scene. I remember attempting to create another portal and finding only darkness on the other side of the circular door because I hadn't been thinking of any particular destination, but I don't remember whether that was before or after the above scene. In any case, here's the next scene that I do remember.]

I'm now outside the building I was in before, walking across a grassy field. I happen to glance down at my feet and notice that I'm barefoot, and that I appear to have an unusually large number of toes, sticking out at odd angles and overlapping each other in unnatural ways, just like my fingers sometimes do when I look at them in dreams. I look down again, and this time I see that I have eight toes in a neat row on my left foot. It makes me smile to discover that toes can exhibit the same odd behavior as fingers in dreams.

I'm very pleased with my achievements so far tonight, but no other ideas for new abilities to try out come to mind, and the sky and the grass are so inviting, so I decide to fly. I kick off the ground with my right foot and take off. I find myself being forced backward by some unseen, unidentified force, just as I have many times before when I've started flying. I move my fists into the position I learned from my dream dad in my previous lucid, with my left fist close to my chest and my right one further away from my body, and move them back and forth relative to each other, trying to use that new technique I'd just learned to gain control over my flying. It works. I stop feeling the unseen force, and begin flying forward.

[That’s the last I remember of my dream.]

I woke up and found myself still in sleep paralysis. I didn’t feel any vibrations this time, though; it just felt like my arms and legs were really heavy, and like I couldn’t move them even if I tried. I waited a few seconds before moving my arms from their position up over my head. I didn’t even remember putting them there before falling asleep. A few minutes later, the feeling goes away.

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Side notes:

I get to check another goal off my list of lucid-dreaming goals! Yay! I really look forward to continuing to improve my intangibility skills. Now that I've more or less gotten the hang of going through things, my new big goal is to get good at defining, creating, and getting into dream environments of my choice.

I am at hippie festival at my childhood home. It is summer and there are lots of people there. I am high on marijuana. I think it feels oddly much like dreaming. I am fascinated my the grass. It is a very bright green colour. I decide that I want to have sex and notice a young man standing close to me. (I'll call him Will) He is more innocent looking than the other people there. I go up to him and start kissing him. He doesn't seem to mind my behavior. After a while I realize that we are being a bit too affectionate for a public setting, so we start searching for a more secluded place.

We come to an old shed that my mom uses for storing old things. Inside there is a pile of old rugs. We start shaking away the sand on them and arranging them in a more suitable manner. Will finds an old blanket and I tell him to put it on top of the rugs. I notice that someone is trying to get in through the door. I go to it and pull it shut. I try to lock it, but the lock doesn't work. I stand there holding the door shut until whoever is on the other side of the door leaves. I turn around and see Will sleeping under the blanket on the rugs. I go to sleep next to him.

The next day a young man comes and wakes us up. He says we have to leave so we get dressed and after a while I walk out through the door.

I walk into a house. Through an open door that leads to a stable I can see a little girl taking care of a horse. I watch her for a while until I realize that I've walked into a stranger's house without announcing myself. I go searching for an adult.

In the kitchen I find the girl's mother. She is making dinner. I introduce myself and say that I'm there for a friendly chat. She asks me if I've just moved in to the neighborhood. I get a bit embarrassed and say that no, I've lived here all my life, I just haven't visited before because I'm very anti-social. I am there now because I've decided to change that. She invites me to stay for dinner and I accept.

I walk further into the house and come to the bedroom. The father of the house is lying on the bed. He has his arm around a young child. When he notices me he points at my stomach and says something. I put my hands over my stomach and think about a scar I have there. I think that the man must be crazy and that somehow he could sense the secret behind that scar. (I don't know why I had a scar or what the secret behind it was)

I go back to the kitchen. My mom is there talking to the woman. I get annoyed and ask her what she's doing here. She says that the woman is her doctor and she's here because of a disgusting and embarrassing problem that she's been having. After telling me all about it she leaves. The woman asks me to help her lay the table. She gives me a stack of plates and I start putting them on the table. The table is round and there are already glasses and bowls on it. The plates have half eaten meals on them. I put an empty plate at my place because I don't want to eat from a plate that someone else has already eaten from. We sit down to eat. I notice that there is something orange with the texture of mashed potatoes in the bowls.

I get up from the table and walk away a bit. Then I hear that Will and his parents are arguing. I go back to the table and realize that Will has told his parents what happened between us. His parents are very religious and don't want their child to have sex before he's married. I try to tell them that we didn't actually have sex, but that doesn't seem to help. Will's father tells him to ask for God's forgiveness, but Will refuses because he doesn't think he's done anything wrong. He says that he is going to leave forever unless his father stops being unreasonable. His father ignores him, so we go into Will's room, pack a few things, and leave.

Will tells me he was only able to go to the festival because he lives so close and was able to sneak out. His parents never would have let him go. We meet up with a girl who is also on the run. I tell her about what has happened and how unreasonable Will's parents are. I say that I think people should be able to do whatever they want with whoever they want unless it hurts someone. The girl agrees with me. She tells us that she is running from the place where she used to work. It was a plantation where she was exposed to some kind of chemical or radiation that would kill her if she didn't get away. While she is talking she suddenly collapses. Will tells me to call for an ambulance, but I notice that we're next to mom's doctor's house so we go get her instead. We ring the doorbell and she opens. She is holding a bottle of milk that she's drinking from. I tell her that it's an emergency and she has to come quickly. She closes the door and a while later she comes out. I notice that she's been to get a glass for her milk. We take her to the sick girl. The doctor points out that the girl actually is a headband. I explain that it must be a symptom of whatever she's suffering from. The doctor picks up the headband, shakes it a bit and declares that she, or it, is dead.

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

I'm at my new church. The sanctuary is big and sort of round [more so than it is in reality]. I'm sitting on a pew near the front of the room, from which I can see both the altar and the center of the room. In the center of the room is an elevated circle with six thick, round columns spaced evenly around its outer edge. Beyond the outer edge of the circle, centered in the back of the room just in front of the main doors, is a lectern. I recognize it as our regular lectern, even though it and all the columns are festooned with decorative constructs made out of LEGO toys. A sort of mesh made of bright orange axles and connectors from a LEGO set hangs down a little way over the sides of the top of the lectern. The columns are all similarly decorated. The woman standing at the back of the room places a LEGO construct that she refers to as her “crown of thorns” on top of one of the columns. This causes all the columns to start moving vertically, changing their relative heights. I think about how cool all this is, especially the hydraulic-powered columns.

The sanctuary is filled with people. We're there for the Children's Stations of the Cross [an event that actually is coming up in just a few weeks]. There are lots of kids there, going through the stations in small groups. A group of kids walks by in front of my pew, and I hear one of the girls in it complain that there aren't enough girls in her group. I decide to join the group so that there will be more girls in it. [I was my adult self in this dream, but no one took any particular notice of me.]

I follow the group to the back of the room, out the main doors, and into the narthex. We stop at the location of the plaque designating the first station, which is hanging on the wall between the narthex and the sanctuary, just to the right of the main doors to the sanctuary. Another adult woman is operating this first station. She's ready for us with a toy that someone at the church put together to make Stations of the Cross more interactive and engaging: a pretend PASIV device. Inside the case, I see a piece of equipment from Verizon's network, a white metal rectangular box with the Verizon logo on top. I know that the box contains telephone cables on coils that allow them to be pulled out and then retracted. You can pull out the cables through holes in the side of the box, and that's what the woman does. The plastic jacks on the ends of the cables plug into matching ports on the bracelets that the kids and I are all wearing. The jacks and ports are the same size and shape as the ones used for the LEGO NXT robots and their sensors, I note. [The cables, however, are satiny silver-gray in color, not black like in real life.]

When all of us are plugged in by our bracelets and the device is turned on, the bracelets start pulsating, contracting and expanding in a way meant to simulate the sensation of an increasing heart rate. The experience is intended to help us identify and empathize with someone who is in mortal terror. While doing this, we all lie down on the tile floor and pretend to be asleep, because we know that this is what we're supposed to do when playing with a pretend dream-sharing device. [When I woke up and recalled all this, I thought it was hilarious both that my brain had created this scenario directly inspired by Inception, and that I had never realized that I was dreaming.]

After this, I walk through the parish hall [both the narthex and the parish hall are exactly like the ones at St. Mark's in Upland] and pick up some snacks. There seems to be some kind of meeting going on in one part of the room.

[Next cycle.] I'm walking on a wet, slippery stone-and-concrete courtyard in the middle of some old buildings with lots of dark-brown wood. The ground is wet because it has been raining; it's a gray, overcast day. I recognize this as an unfamiliar place and realize that I'm dreaming. This no longer shocks or startles me. I immediately start touching all the walls and handrails I pass, even crouching down at one point to lick up some of the water in one of the rain puddles. All of these actions evoke the corresponding sensations accurately.

I see a flight of wooden stairs leading up from the ground, attached to the outside of one of the buildings. I think, I wonder if I can turn these into an infinite loop. So I start climbing them, keeping track of how many segments of stairs separated by 90-degree turns I've climbed, counting them aloud. “One... two... three... now, when I get to the end of the next one, I should be back where I started from, right?” I say. When I get to the end of the fourth segment, though, I'm not back where I started from. The stairway just ends in a level, wooden, elevated walkway leading off to the right. “Damn you, astrophysics!” I exclaim aloud, expressing my disappointment that the normal laws of reality have prevailed despite this being a dream. [Why “astrophysics,” I have no idea.] I quickly shrug it off and continue exploring, walking along the walkway.

The walkway leads to the top of some steep, grassy hills. I crouch down near the top of one of them. I'm a little cold, so I try to summon a blanket to wrap around myself by thinking about one. Then I remember, No, just consciously, deliberately concentrating on it like that doesn't work. You have to know and expect that it will be there. I don't proceed to do this, though.

On top of one of the hills [the same one? A different one? I'm not sure], there is a concert stage with an amplifier sitting in the grass in front of it, to stage right. There's supposed to be a concert going on, but it's just beginning the process of being canceled. A rock band is on stage, but they aren't playing; they seem to be telling the audience at the bottom of the hill that there's no show to see, and some of the audience is beginning to wander away. They're canceling the show because the amplifier isn't working. I open up the top of the amplifier and find an AAA battery sitting half out of its battery cradle, which is itself only partially wired up to the rest of the amp. I reconnect all the wires and push the battery back into the cradle, and then the amp works. The band un-cancels the show and starts playing, and the audience stays and watches. I walk down the hill to join the audience. I notice that I'm now wearing the same two layers of coats that I often wear in real life. The dream starts to fade. Then I woke up.

I am in some sort of camp cabin type house, on some endowment kind of lands. I get the feeling it’s a college or university, and it’s definitely in Canada. There are a lot of trees. It’s night time, and with me are a gathering of about 4 other people. We’re discussing religion, a certain type of Wicca/Pagan belief that involves a deity that appears masked and shrouded in many layers of draped cloth. She is said to come to certain devotees late in the night. After discussing this for a little while, we move on to talking about prophets. As the others are talking about some random prophet, “THE Prophet” comes to me. The others don’t seem to notice, they kind of fade into the scene, still there, but not as noticeable. The Prophet is a man, dressed in draped cloth, smiling down at me in an absolutely radiant way. The feeling that he exudes is pure love and joy. He reaches out and takes my hands, holds them gently, Even though there is a sense that he has no hands. He tells me how happy he is to have me join them. This moment seems to stretch out for a time, then it fades and the scene with the others comes back into focus. I tell them about my experience and they are all in awe. The meeting ends and we all leave. I hope that someone will walk home with me, as it’s dark and I don’t feel safe, but they all scatter in different directions before I can ask anyone.

Flash forward a bit into the future to a completely different climate, one that is warm and somewhat tropical in feeling. There are huts scattered around the landscape. They look like a futuristic version of a teepee. Someone has left the daily food ration outside the hut in a special hammock kind of thing. I go to collect it. They are gourds, and I am familiar enough with them to know that they are spiced and very tasty. I notice a woman slips by the hammock and steals some of the gourds, then hurries away. This upsets me, but I know there is nothing I can do about it, so I take the rest into the hut.

There are seating places on the floor of the hut where the residents can sit around in a circle facing each other. In my place there is a gift box, very organic looking. I pick it up and unwrap it very carefully, taking my time and enjoying the process. I can’t remember all of the items that were in there, but there was a roll of cloth with detailed instructions on how and why to wear it. It said something like “Drape this cloth over your body to cover as much flesh as you can, as your body is precious, and should be protected”. There were also a few ornate ear rings and some semi precious stones.

We’re eating the spiced gourds now, and suddenly we’re interrupted by a visit from the prophet and his “Speaker”. The Speaker is draped in so many layers (including all around the face) that it’s very difficult to tell if it’s a male or a female. S/he begins to speak and I look at her/him as s/he does. I am scolded and told to look either at the Prophet, or at the ground. We are instructed in quite a few things which I don’t remember, but I do remember something to the effect of being told we should not eat meat for some critical reason. We are allowed to eat grains (such as rice) and vegetables like the gourds we are eating now.
I realize that all the others in the hut with me are also new to this way of life, and the dream ends.

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

The first thing I remember is thinking, I should really do an RC. [I have no idea why I thought that, but I did.] I do, and discover that I can breathe through my nose while holding it shut. Strangely, though, I find I can't do anything more than that, besides lie there. I can't even see anything around me. I try to get up, but I can't. I think, "I have no mouth, and I must scream," but I don't really mean it; I'm not afraid or even really concerned, just slightly puzzled, and I'm just observing that my situation is comparable to the one for which the short story is named.

[Later, I had a really, really cool non-lucid.] My mom, P., and I get into the open, upholstered back seat of a tiny little wooden propeller plane, big enough for the three of us and a pilot, who sits in a seat in front of ours. The plane takes off from the airport in the city of Louisville, which I know [in the dream] is the greenest city in America. [It looks nothing like the real Louisville.] We fly over the city in our plane, admiring the view. There is a big building with cascades of water gushing through big, rectangular openings on one side. I think, I hope that's a power plant. It obviously is, powering the entire city. The city is very beautiful from the air. It is on a very flat, sandy plain, next to the ocean. [Wait, what?! Real!Louisville is landlocked! It's by a river, but it's not the same thing.]

The little plane flies low over the ocean, so that we can dip our rubber-thong-sandal-clad feet in the water as we fly along. Then, suddenly, I find myself in the ocean water, holding on to a dark purple foam mat that floats in the water. I'm wearing my favorite swimsuit [that I have in real life]. I see the plane, floating with most of the plane below the surface of the water, the pilot still in his seat. I hang on tightly to the foam mat to keep myself afloat, knowing that I can't swim. [Strange; I could swim back on February 2.] There are other swimmers in the water besides me and my family. A young man grabs hold of my mat and flips it up and pushes it over onto me, trying to use it to playfully push me under the water. I pretend to go along with it, but manage to keep my head above water. [Now that I think of it, I was much more buoyant in the water in this dream than I am in reality, and could keep an arbitrary amount of my body above water, just like in my dream on February 2; I just wasn't aware that I could do that this time.]

My family and I get back onto the plane, which is getting ready to take off from the water. I have a conversation with the pilot about how there have to be at least two feet of distance between the surface of the water and the wings of the plane in order for it to take off. It takes off with the help of a wave that gives it a push from behind, then climbs back into the sky. The pilot says something about how he's heading back to the airport, since it's so close by that there will be practically no weather at all there. The plane returns to the airport and lands there.

[Later in the night, after a very brief WBTB.] I'm talking about being a lucid dreamer [whether to myself or to someone else, I'm not sure]. I ramble on about the mental discipline I have to have for a bit, not really paying attention to what I'm saying. Suddenly, I realize that for the last several sentences, I haven't been talking about lucid dreaming at all; I've been talking about being kind and behaving well toward other people. At some point, without realizing it, I shifted from talking about being a lucid dreamer to talking about being a Christian. I say to myself, “That's a good sign. It means my subconscious has its priorities in order.”

I'm in House #1, and am now definitely lucid. Everything around me is vague and blurry. I try to focus my attention on some of the scenery to make it clearer, and it works a little bit, but the house looks as if I'm looking at it through dark, spot-and-fingerprint-covered sunglasses. I'm walking back and forth in the master bedroom, which is much more spacious than it was in the real House #1. I remember that my dreaming goal for tonight was to practice delivering my 30-second commercial, so I start practicing.

"Hello, my name is (Emiko)," I say. "I'm a computer technician... networking technician... I'm a computer technician who specializes in networking."

I go on to say the same thing I've been saying almost every time I've practiced this, about saving money for my previous employer. I can't think of anything new and creative to add to my 30-second commercial. I'm rather surprised. I had expected the words and thoughts to flow more easily here, but it's actually a little bit harder to deliver a good 30-second commercial in a lucid dream than it is in reality. [So much for using all of your brain's potential while you're dreaming. Not for that purpose, anyway. I suppose my brain was also busy generating the scenery around me. Or maybe I just need to gain more dreaming experience. I don't know.]

There's another reason why I'm having difficulty practicing my 30-second commercial: I'm distracted by my stuffy nose, which is now running. I wipe it with a black paper napkin with white polka dots on it, remarking, “I didn't think dream bodies could get sick like this!” As I continue pacing the master bedroom, I think, I could try walking through that wall there if I wanted to, but I decide not to, because I have something more important to work on while I'm here.

I step forward far enough to see around the corner into the bathroom, to the left. I see the DC version of my mom there. She's wearing a light yellow T-shirt and is crouched down, apparently looking for something under the sink. I say, “Oh. Hi, Mom. I have this cold right now. I don't know why I'm telling you this. Just to let you know.”

She says something along the lines of, “Well, don't get it on me.” I turn away, looking back into the master bedroom, and discover that I can now see everything with perfect clarity. “Oh, now I can see!” I exclaim, slightly annoyed. I walk toward the other end of the room, aiming to explore beyond another doorway into another part of the house. [Stupidly,] I close my eyes, and then open my real eyes. I'm disappointed in myself when I realize that I've lost the dream by doing something that I know better than to do.