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Late entry, but late is better than never.

first dream i was in some sort of tall building out on a balcony, scenery resembled old town from the game dying light. I look across about 100 yards away from the balcony, a small concrete bunker on a cliffside. I tell the group of people i am with i want to go there to meditate to improve my dream abilities and they laugh at me but i go anyway. I go into the bunker down an open hatch on the roof, down a all concrete staircase into a all concrete room with some yard supplies. i forget wy i am there and I grab a wheel barrow and collect some things. i go deeper into the bunker and end up in the finished basement of my old house, but it is dark. It is a room with the staircase in the middle dividing it into two sections of room. one with carpet and one with tile, and "tongue and groove" wood walls. I feel fear for some reason and leave. i go out the basement, back up the concrete stair entrance leaving the wheel barrow at the base of the stairs. i turn for a moment and stare at it, and it suddenly get thrashed, flipping over spilling all its contents, like something from a ghost movie and i very quickly run away from there. i am now all the way down the mountain on the road, with no transition between the two. I am talking to my friend somewhat frantically about the incident.

I wake up, throat dry so i grab the water next to me. forgot to do at least a basic wbtb.

This dream below would have been more complete had i wrote it down this morning.

I am in a classroom. its dark colored, faded wallpaper, really run down. The teacher decides to showcase a video of what i had done earlier in the dream, except instead of watching it the dream changes and I am now living this scene. I am in a very dark house, or asylum, or building, not quite sure but go with the flow. There are a series of long long dark hallways and the power is out. It is storming outside and lighting lights the room every once in a while. I see the silhouette of a ghost in one of the flashes, wait a minute and walk down the hallway to see it. now my family appears with me, but quickly disappears when i look down the next hallway. i assume the ghost did something. I see old t-shirts on the ground and pick them up thinking i may need them. The lightning flashes again, i see the ghost again at the end of the hallway and i start to run straight for it this time, it goes down the next hallway 90 degrees to it. there is another shirt at the intersection and i pick it up, look up to see the ghost flying at me. I have no time to react and it stops me. it is a pale older woman, wearing all gray dull clothing. she has no pupils, the dead eyes completely white. then the dream ends

usually dreams of horror themes never bother, gotta say these two in a row made me a bit skittish in my dreams. they usually help me become lucid, resizing this isnt real, but not this time!

Recall: 3/10. I'm in the town where I grew up but I'm an old woman. I'm jogging and despite my age I feel like it is effortless, so I decide to run the five miles to my house outside of town. I am crossing an intersection as I decide this, and suddenly something sails through the air and nearly hits me. It clatters to the pavement and I see it is an empty half-sized soda can. I look around for where it came from, and see a black man, evidently a vagrant, who is shouting and throwing them at me. He seems angry but I can't make out his words. He throws a second and then a third can.

I try to go another way to avoid him but find myself in a cul-de-sac that leads through a narrow alley into an even darker square surrounded by tall buildings. It looks creepy and dangerous, and from the lack of light I assume that the alley is the only way out or in. There is a dumpster in the alley and a guy going through it. I have no reason to go this way and fear for my safety if I do, so I return to my original route. The ground of this cul-de-sac street is covered with bananas, layers of them flattened and smashed against the ground, filling the air with a fruity, overripe smell. I don't remember my town being so heavily involved in the banana industry, and it doesn't make sense given that bananas don't even grow around here, but I can't discount the evidence all around me. As I leave the cul-de-sac and return to the main street, I am running over such a thick layer of smashed bananas on the ground that I have to take extra care not to slip and fall.

Some clothes in a shop catch my eye, and I pause to look them over. There are two outfits that seem ideal for an elderly woman like me, or at least, they look like the sort of thing you often see old ladies wearing. Both consist of a zip-up top and half-length pants in matching polyester. I try on the pants of one set, but don't like the texture of the cloth, and although it looks like I'd still be able to run in them, I wonder if they would end up chafing my legs. I decide to stick with my knee-length black lycra running tights and put them back on.

I start running home again. Then I remember how some people use the mental image of a repetitive motion, like running, as an anchor during their WILD attempts. I think it might be fun to give this a try and see if I can run right into the dream state. Even though conditions are ideal (given that I'm already dreaming at the time!) my attempts amount to little and I don't get lucid. I have the impression I started thinking this while I was actually in the process of waking up.

My husband and I are trying to get away (from what I have no idea) and we're running behind houses. There's a helicopter with lights chasing us. My husband gets caught and I watch where he goes and I run to get help. I hug a lady I used to work with and another old friend is there but they don't seem to be moving or doing anything to help us. I see a HUGE, beautiful snowy owl on a front porch. It was so beautiful I stopped for a moment to admire it. He was at least 3' x 3' and filled up the small porch. I was starting to contemplate the massive size but as I was considering this I knew I had to leave to help my husband.

The word "Bathor." Probably reference to "Hathor."

A fight with some people. Unclear.

I was at home. Darkish but visible. I was supposed to join a marathon or some kind of running event, but I am in a rush. I was looking for stuff (socks?). My sister was there. I think she was supposed to join me. There was a nosy kid there, annoying but somehow friendly and familiar. He gave me a phone/mp3 player. I was supposed to go to the bathroom but the first bathroom was being used. The next bathroom was about to be used by the kid. I ended up in the room next to it and just told the kid to hurry up. Yellow/Reddish color. The doors are open. The rooms are connected by doors and they each have a door to the corridor/hallway. I went out the hallway, and there's a rail right in front. I was on the second floor. I teleported on the ground floor and used the bathroom there. Blueish color. Just as I was about to close the door, Rob almost walked in. He said something incoherent, I think about using the other bathrooms. I said something about the ruined lock of this bathroom. I needed to take a bath before running.

I was climbing up the stairs inside what felt like a lighthouse. I reached the top level. It was grey outside. Rainy.

It was night or almost night but the surroundings are still visible. I'm on the railroad tracks that are still being built. Something about a bullet train in the country. One of the guys there (I think we are 4 total) said that the width might be too small. I looked at the tracks and some just criss-cross. As I watched, a small bullet-shaped train ran along one of the tracks. I had the idea that this was the future in our country.

I was on the road riding a jeep. I was thinking of going to... Cubao? Somehow, I ended up on the road along Quezon Ave. (or somewhere out of the way). I missed a turn. On the road, I saw a monkey-looking creature attack a lion. I felt excited. I watched as the monkey creature knocked out the lion and dragged it back somewhere on the side of the road. A house? A scuplture area. The jeep was high enough that I can see over the walls. I saw a big sundial(?) on the ground. Then I saw the monkey creature walk with a few other monkey creatures take their position near the walls and turn to stone. A thought came to mind about Lico talking about a practitioner near along this road.

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NOTES:

- I went to slept listening to the Dream Lotus by LaBerge.
- When it finished, it played one of Sam Harris' meditation audio. I had to wake up and turn it off and play the latter part of the Dream Lotus.
- Went back to focusing on the lotus light.
- After a while, I felt aware of my body but not quite there. I didn't know what to do to jump into the dream.
- I decided to just hold my breath (not sure if after I breathed out or after I breathed in).
- I felt the powerful tingly sensation. I knew I was in the dream.
- I slept at around 5:30 p.m., set alarm to 1.5 hours.

Ritual: wtb 3am, around 9am set vibrating alarm for 36 minutes. The first time it went off, I felt like I was already awake, that I had been lying awake for several minutes before I felt the vibration. In retrospect I was quickly suspicious that this was a false memory, but the consequence was that I woke up for real. I reset the alarm to go off in 28 minutes, and went back to sleep.

EILD: I felt the vibration again, and at first I thought it was another failed attempt, that I was wide awake again. But this time I convince myself not to give up so easily, to lay still and explore it. I wiggle my fingers. Actually... that feels right, like dream movement. I wiggle the fingers of the other hand and gradually start to engage my whole body, but soon, no, I can still sense the dream body but I'm convinced that I'm accidentally moving my real body too. (In retrospect, it seems likely that my impressions of moving the physical body were false, as this surely would have broken aphasia.) It feels like the two kinds of sensory awareness are layered together. My dream sense is not broken but I need to find some way to desynch from the physical, to move unnaturally in a way the real body can't follow. I try to bend my arm the wrong way at the elbow, down into the mattress. I find this a bit difficult for some reason, but something else happens: I start to understand that I am creating all this difficulty in my own mind, that it really doesn't have to be this complicated. Upon this realization I simply find myself standing next to the bed, fully in dream. That certainly makes things easier!

My WL awareness was somewhat confused throughout this whole process, since during the whole time I was lying in bed I had the impression that I could overhear a colleague from work talking to her daughter (who I have never met). They were discussing a humanitarian volunteer program that the colleague was doing in another country, maybe Africa. I listened with interest since I had not been aware that she was involved with anything like this (there is no RL basis), but it made sense since she is a very kind and generous person. She was talking about some kind of environmental crisis and said that the local people trusted the "agents," that is, the field workers of this organization, like her, but not the administration or the experts that were sent in to instruct them. The challenge was teaching the locals new ways of environmental management so they were no longer unsustainably exploiting their natural resources. I think it was targeting water usage.

After I was fully transitioned into the dream, I remembered that I had reset my vibrating alarm to an interval of only seven minutes, so I would have to work quickly before it went off again, waking me up. Curiously, now I'm not sure if I really did reset it, and suspect I dreamed that part too. The nice thing about a device like this is that it actually provides hard evidence against which to check my unreliable memories. Nope! It's still set to 28 minutes. So there was one point this morning where I definitely did reset it from 36 to 28, but the later memory of resetting it to 7 minutes—for some reason convinced that I would be able to fall asleep within that time frame—turns out to have been an FFA (false falling asleep), evidence that I was already asleep.

With (so I mistakenly thought) only seven minutes to work in, minus whatever time I had already spent transitioning, I walk quickly through the house and toward the front door, ready to plunge into deeper dreamspace. As I pass through the living room, something bumps into my leg from the pile of wood stacked near the fireplace. At first I plan to ignore it but then I wonder if the dream is trying to get my attention, so I glance down and see a pair of scissors. I'm not sure what to make of this but I grab them and take them with me. I go outside, where the sky is cloudy and half-lit as though it were dawn or dusk. I realize that this is wrong, and recall that it must already be after 9am in WL.

What was my task? I have difficulty remembering, so while I'm thinking about it, I decide to do something spontaneous. I'm still holding the scissors... I know! I'll cut off my hair. As I walk I reach awkwardly behind my head and randomly lift locks of hair with my left hand, cutting them near the scalp with the scissors held in my right. This all feels surprisingly lifelike, which makes me think momentarily: I had better be right that I am dreaming! But then I figure, what's the worst thing that could happen if I accidentally cut off my real hair? I'd have to shave my head? Not a big deal, I even did that once in college.

All this time I'm still trying to think of the tasks I had planned—why is it sometimes so hard to remember? Finally it comes to me. Right! I was going to try to roleplay a familiar character. I decide on Shriven, my WoW character, since I've played her the longest and also the most recently. My tabletop characters are much more psychologically complex, but I think I should probably start with something simpler. Okay, how do to this? I remember that I was going to try the narration technique. I start with something really basic: "Shriven is running," I murmur. My stride changes as I think I remember what her run looks like, becoming more mechanical. That part makes sense, given that she's digitally rendered. I don't have the impression that I look or feel any different, though. I keep trying, and although I don't recall my narrations in detail, I have the impression that they were extremely bland.

I'm running through city streets now. At one point I notice that the buildings all seem older, eighteenth-century maybe, though this still just looks like one of my typical dream cities rather than a more appropriate setting for what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm still cutting my hair as I go—having started, I feel like I should finish the job. When I finally slice through the last tress, I stop and gaze at my reflection in a store window. Not bad! Although short hair never really suits my features, the haircut itself turned out alright, kind of punk/pixieish. In fact, it even reminds me of Shriven's hair, which is short and spiky and irregular. However, there is no real resemblance, and in all other respects my reflection looks unusually like my WL appearance: same eyes, same face, same hair color. Usually in dreams I see a lot more distortion.

I use the scissors to make a few finishing touches to the haircut before realizing that it is pointless to be so finicky in a dream. In fact, I'm done with the scissors now... I'm just going to drop them on the ground! This always feels so liberating, since I would never do that in WL. I continue running effortlessly down the street and when I come to the end there is a ten foot gap to cross to reach a platform or walkway. Jump—you can do this! I clear the gap, just barely, and feel proud of myself as I land.

Still, I don't feel like I'm making much progress on my task so I try to figure out how to improve my approach. What does Shriven do? Well, she often summons her mount, an undead warhorse. I narrate this to myself, but nothing happens. Every time I do this in game the horse makes a distinctive shrill whinny, so I try to use the sound as a focal point. I find it becomes ambiguous whether I can hear the sound in the dream or if I'm just remembering it.

As I pass through a T-intersection, a blinding light directly ahead causes me to swerve. It is so bright that I assume it must be bleedthrough from RL. I remember the conversation between my colleague and her daughter that I overheard during my transition; with true dream logic I never questioned the impossibility of that taking place in my bedroom, and so now I assume that one of them must still be there, taking flash pictures. Instead of going straight into the light, my initial direction, I turn and take the street on the left, even turning my face away so to diminish the brightness. I can hear a voice from the direction of the light saying, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" So I was right about the camera, I conclude. At no point do I recognize the absurdity and error in my thought processes, but I do reflect that it is interesting that the environment made me change the direction I was going—is the dream trying to control my movement?

After this interruption, I go back to trying to summon the undead warhorse. It's still not working, but then I notice that the shop just ahead of me seems to have horse skulls hanging on the back wall. That's an improvement! I go into the shop, which is now a tiny space almost completely filled by a large bunkbed. A bearded man is lounging on the lower bunk, eating a meal and watching TV, while the upper bunk is shacked with sheepskins. I ask the man about the horse skulls.

"That's not a horse skull," he responds.

I realize he must be referring to the giant animal skull on the floor at my feet. It must be about three feet long. "What is it?"

"That's an academic-size magic detector," he answers, hardly taking his eyes off his TV program. Not sure what to make of his words, I look at the skull again. I realize it must have come from some kind of giant lizard, like a crocodile, but it has a small horn at the snout like a rhinocerous. As I study it, I see that it is now green and sparkling, the color offset with pale stripes. I am tempted to compare it to an Elvis suit, but fear that the proprietor might be offended.

FA: I wake up and start taking notes right away, starting from the last scene and moving backward. Fortunately I don't get very far before I realize I am writing on dream paper. I wake up for real and record my notes on my laptop.

#413 - DEILD - 9:40AM

I have many dream late in the morning with several lucid moment that I forgot until this one.

I DEILD and enter heavy HI that turns into a dream scene without losing awareness. I am standing in front of a really large mirror at the bottom of a grassy hill. In the mirror, I see two red M&M people standing at the top; One big and one small.



I step to the left and still see the M&Ms at the top of the hill waving at me. This confuses me because the view in the mirror is slightly different and I have no reflection. I'm not sure why this is happening so I move back and forth from the mirror finding the effect is the same. I feel that I have a funny look on my face as I say, "Well, I am dreaming." This confirmation sets me into action. As I run fast up the hill at the larger M&M, I hear a mental voice telling me to eat the M&M. It's reminding me of a task that someone told me about. I am not sure if this is a false memory or I read it on lucid dares, but I decide to go for it.

As I rush up the M&M rushes down to pass by me, but as he does, I am able to take a huge bit out of him. I note the taste is just like it should be and continue running for a bit until I stop at the top of the hill. When I turn around, I see the smaller clone of the one I bit come running back up the hill. He looks to have a large football in his arms and I decide to tackle him. I jump on top of him, but he doesn't slow down. I look up the hill and notice vision bouncing from the rough ride as I cling to the little red M&M. I appreciate this little detail as I wake up.

Another little segment of lucidity. Time unknown.

I see S leaving work. I decide to.. ehem... "talk to her". (curse you menthol!) but she walks away quickly. I call out to her, but she continues to avoid me. She enters and exits several outdoor structures changing appearances as she passes through. None of this fools me and she looks more and more attractive each time. I continue to chase after until I wake up feeling like a douche.

06.02.2015

Fly and running down the city during a nap (WILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

2nd WILD (+5 pts)
Full Dream (+1 pts)
L-DEILD (Chain) (+2 pts)
Stabilize (+1 pts)
Advance Flying (+10 pts)
Eat something (+4 pts)
Invincibility (+7 pts)
Phase through objects (+8 pts)
Interact with a DC (+2 pts)

Took a big while to perform my WILD, struggled for this one.

Suddenly, my meditation reclining chair started to shake and I realized I was in a different room, knowing the WILD worked. The dream had a terrible quality and as soon as I tried to save it, I felt myself innevitable waking up, so I focused on L-DEILD to recover it.

A few moments of darkness, I found myself next to a small city, with a few houses down the road and with huge gardens. I had crystal clear quality but I still wanted to make the dream stable, so this time I grabbed a branch and rubbed it within my hands. From there, I took off to fly. It was very warm and very sunny (while in waking has been cold, windy and rainy) so I decided to fly at super high speed through the clouds and feel the breeze.

After flying for a while, I wanted to try super speed and run very fast, but for some reason I was afraid I would hurt my self or something, so I started looking for a star to give me invencibility:







After a attempting on a few garbages around, I did find one and I ate it. It tasted like a marshmallow and I felt stronger, so I decided to run at very fast speed and tried to walk through the buildings. I was able to run through one building, but the entire building, was thick brick instead of being hollow on the inside (rooms, furniture, etc) The other buildings, I think broke as I hit the wall.

I suddenly saw a cop saying that I was making a big mess and I had to go with me. I said to him that he could mind his own business and took of flying again.

I wanted to do more stuff, but I either do not recal (I doubt it) or I just woke up, because I felt there was a lapse of nothingness followed by awakening.

Working at some new job involving answering the phones and a square table with a few people standing around it. We are putting parts together sometimes, answering phones other times. I decide not to wear the uniform - some tan shirt with a collar. There are some other people out of uniform also. We get to talking a bit, but don't get along. Then I find out that they are the highest corporate bosses in the whole company, and they are upset about me not being in uniform! I tell my coworker if he thinks it'd make a difference to get in uniform. He's not sure. I tell him to wait here and I'll be right back then take off sprinting to my locker. I'm not sure what my locker combination is. I think it's 27, 3, 33 or something with a 17 or a 29 in it. I manage to get it right, and open the locker. Inside, no uniform. It must be in my other locker... I leave the lean-two locker room and run across a field at night to another small lean-two with lockers inside behind a small counter / cafe / bar where someone is serving food or drink. This time my locker is not even locked. Inside is the lock, with the combo set to 1337. I leave it inside and grab my shirt. It someone takes my lock, I don't really care, I just keep my work shirt in here. I put it back on and return to my post after what seemed like 20 minutes of trying to get the first locker open.

In the city

I recall jogging in a big city. It was early morning, and it was still dark. There wre lots of DC's. Whenever I get close to one of them I shouted I'm going to hav a lucid dream tonight!

Run for fun

It was early evening. I got out of home, and started to run. I was running through my backyard, to the city and ending in the forest valley. Everything had that bright, warm feeling caused by glow of the sundown. In the valley, I met my old pals. They seemed to don't care about my presence here.

Trying the "picture says a thousand words" style DJ entry again...Yesterday's entry took too long.


Count again...this time some of the currency is black...I'm dreaming.


Look up, quite vivid vast sandy parking lot or similar with a monument way off to my right.

I run then fly there




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DILD #2

Spoiler for risqué picture:

(picture seems pg-13 rated...hope okay) other women around...explore foggy house with sexy women all around



234 & 235

November 16, 2014

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(Happy birthday to me!)

Being Chased

I was being chased through a flooded school building. I was terrified, because it was Wolverine's brother who was chasing me, and he wanted to fucking KILL me. I tripped at some point and found an old yearbook of some sort, that had an old picture of my mom and her youngest sister when they were teenagers.




God, just PEE on him already!

I was walking around town and met this super patchy but suave guy with a singsong voice. He asked me to go to a fancy dinner with him, and it was amazing. He took me to his top-floor penthouse apartment and was showing me all the fancy remote controlled gadgets in the rooms. Even the bathroom had a remote control for everything. The shower was huge, and luxurious, and there was a pool and hot-tub in the bathroom. Also a hot tub in the bedroom, which is where we went ;D

I thought it was going to be a one-night stand and he would kick me out tomorrow morning, but it turned out he was actually very devoted to me. He kissed me at the door when I left the next morning to go to my classes, and asked me to come back as soon as I could, and gave me the spare key.

When I went back to his place later that day, he wasn't home, but I went inside and was messing around with all the remotes. I took a really long shower and discovered that I could basically snap and switch genitalia. I was shocked but excited, and I realized this was a strange thing to be able to do, and when I looked at my hands I realized I was dreaming.

The suave man with the singsong voice got back right after that, and I realized it was The Face. "I haven't seen you around lately," I told him. I was naked and still in male-genital-form (the boobs were still there, no matter which form).

"Sure you have. You just don't remember." He came toward me and started rubbing me. He asked if I wanted to know what a man's orgasm felt like.

He suddenly stopped though, and decided to first teach me how to pee. It turned into some kinky shit. He handed me like three huge glasses of water and basically said he wanted me to pee on him and then do him in the butt. I was losing my lucidity a bit at this point, getting swept up in his pace. I was just getting to the point where I felt like I had to pee, when a crazy couple busted through the front door. They were trying to get our attention and The Face and I were both pissed, because things were just getting good. We threw them out the window at some point, but the man showed up again. At this point, the intruder was getting dangerous, and threw a knife at me. I was still lucid, but I still flinched, and I saw a panicked look on The Face's face, and he caught the knife. "Don't you hurt her," he said and seemed really angry. I thought, Huh, so he actually cares about me a lot more than I thought.

I was barely lucid at this point, and I remember thinking, God, just PEE on him! That aughta' make him leave!

So I peed on him. I saw The Face's jealous but amused look and remembered I was dreaming. I closed my eyes, and willed the annoying intruder to disappear. When I opened my eyes, he was gone, and The Face was coming closer, looking super duper horny.

But then I woke up. And REALLY had to pee.

Dream
False Awakening

I was running some sort of time trial course at work with some people. Some guy was arguing with Adam telling him to chill out. We kept driving and some asian dude started arguing and recording us. I told him "We're not cops, so I don't care if you record!" Me and the other guy got in the driver's truck and sped off as the asian guy kept recording. Eventually, we came to a bridge where I saw a girl on a bicycle with a Spanish flag, because they had just won the world cup. I went through some stuff and when I came up to a broken bridge that was over some rough waters, I saw people jumping across to the other side. Some people failed the jump, even my grandmas. I stepped back and felt that I had boots on. I ran and jumped at the last second, which is when the bridge started to fall. I ran through the falling bridge and jumped onto some closed sci-fi looking doors. Too late.I knew I had to do it all over again so I grabbed my pistol from my belt and shot myself, falling into the water as my sight slowly turned black.

I woke in a room with my sister. She was playing with one of those cup and wire phones and I told her she was doing it wrong, as I tried to write down my dream. My aunt was trying to sleep in the other room and the noise Valery was making through the phone made my aunt come into the room and start yelling.

DreamLucidity

I knew I was dreaming while I was in a large, city-like supermarket while a huge vampire lord started attacking people. Everyone started running and some people fought the vampire. The vampire flew at me as I tried summoning water from my finger tips to fight it. It wasn't working so I ran away. I ran behind L. Hernandez because he knew where to go to hide from the vampire. As I ran, I could hear my boots hit the ground and I could feel the coldness of the floor the times I touched it when rounding a tight corner. I tried to feel tired by running but it didn't work. I lost awareness at times but I managed to gain it back. I tried summoning water but nothing seemed to work, making fall behind and lose sight of Hernandez, but found a young girl in a corner with a bandage on her arm. I went up to her and put my hand close to her wounds. Eventually, we could see her wounds light up under the bandage with a yellowish color which slowly faded into a dark red, sort of how blood looks.
The girl, who had a cute round face with a small nose and short light hair, thanked me. I started to leave but she asked how I healed her. I said "This is a dream!" she seemed confused at first but after pointing a few things out, her eyes widened and she finally realized it was in fact a dream, saying "Ohhh yeah!" As we walked, I saw the exit, the sun shinning brightly on the outside. I told the girl, "You can imagine your mom walking in right now" but she said "I like Miley Cyrus". I looked at her and replied "On three, Miley will be singing a song behind that counter" and pointed to what looked like a costumer service desk. "One, two, three" We looked and saw a girl that looked just like Miley Cyrus before she cut her hair. The young girl got excited and gave me her number. It was long, maybe international but it had to have been in the US because it started with a 1. I told her I wouldn't remember that and as soon as I said my first three digits, I woke up.

Traversing a rocky landscape with a friend, we descend a slope, scramble past some boulders and find a massive hole. Hundreds of feet wide, it has no apparent bottom. My friend urges me to taka closer look to see how deep it is. Nearly slipping on the steep rocks in the dark, I amble my way closer until I am right near the edge. With a flashlight, I attempt to light it up to get a sense of its size, but this doesn't work. I step even closer, dangerously close to the edge, and risk my life to look forward inside.

Far down below, what seems like a mile, I see Buddha Avalokiteshvara run past, glowing with radiant white light. Wishing to be closer to Buddha, I jump into the massive hole. Landing on the bottom, it is a labyrinth of cave tunnels, filled with demon beasts. Most of them are asleep, but those immediately next to me are awakened by my mere presence. I run before they fully awake, but the caves are thick with demons, hardly even a gap to step my foot. I know Avalokiteshvara is in here somewhere so I call out his name continually as I run, waking up a massive horde of beasts, just at my heels now.

I reach a large chamber and am spontaneously armed with a gun. I shoot many of these demons and free up some space, but countless more keep coming. I shoot to keep them at bay rather than to kill, partly out of compassion, and partly to save ammo and time. Even so, my situation starts to look hopeless as I am losing ground against them, even as I run and shoot like the best gunman who ever lived.

My meditation teacher appears around the corner where I expected to find Avalokiteshvara, and at the same time as daylight quickly dawns. He is operating a flying robot, built by google, using facial recognition software, motion sensors, and laser cannons. This machine easily obliterates all the hostile creatures in an instant. I only notice it now mopping up the few stragglers who run at us from around the corners. Really confused by all this, I notice that I feel more peaceful now that I'm not running for my life. But those demons... Were they living beings or just personifications of something abstract?

I was participating in the Tour de France, except there were no bicycles involved. At first I was swimming in a river. There were other people swimming around me, including little babies and their mothers. The babies were eligible for a special award if they could swim well on their own, but in one case we noticed the mother secretly helping her infant by supporting it from under the water, so it was disqualified.

I didn't like being stuck in a group of people, so I exerted some effort to swim ahead of them and find my own space. It made me think about the huge variation in human athletic ability. In a long distance race like this, some people were already hours ahead. I figured I was probably somewhere in the middle, and I was sure that there would still be people hours behind me. I didn't feel any pressure to compete against others or try to finish the race quickly; it felt like the sort of event that one could complete at one's own speed.

Under the water I could see seaweed in a form that resembled bundles of thick green ropes, stretching endlessly in the direction the river flowed. They looked like they were flowing along too, so I grabbed them to see if I could catch a ride, but they were moving slower than I could swim on my own so I let go again. The race course led me out of the river and now I was running on land down a quiet little house-lined street, like a small village.

I was still thinking about that strange ropy seaweed. It had reminded me of thick cables of the sort that might carry electricity or another kind of signal. What would it be like if our society used biological materials like this for our technological infrastructure? I decided to try out the material, so I manifested a hand made out of the same stuff as the seaweed. It resembled a human hand in shape but was not connected to a body, and was light green in color. Mischievously, I made the hand crawl up the porch of the nearest house and pull the string of the bell that hung on the doorframe.

The door opened, and inside I was surprised to see that the one who opened it was not a human but a chicken, an ordinary-looking hen. She must have been a Plymouth Rock, judging from her black and white barred plumage. It reminded me of a silly line I'd heard somewhere, so I joked, "There's nobody here but us chickens!" She didn't make any response—maybe she didn't know that one?—and I was still running so I soon passed by.