Recent DJ Posts

I’m in Scotland (I think with Melissa, but she’s not with me in this moment). Outside, the sun is shining through the parted clouds. It is not intense at all, and the temperature is very pleasant. I’m now in a coffee shop or something similar, seated at a table with two unfamiliar men. One is closer to my age and the other is closer to middle aged, reading a paper. After just a minute or so, he asks how my weekend was. I reply and then we ask the other guy. I’m slightly cognizant that I will have an accent here but don’t think too much of it, as neither comment on it. I’m now thinking of what I’ve packed, which doesn’t seem to be much, and realize I’ve forgotten the one thing I really wanted to bring, my raincoat.

I am in, what is in my mind at least, Scotland. I’m looking up at gentle green hills as I float down a narrow, stone ravine. The water seems shallow and slow moving. The sun peeks out from behind a hill and causes a glare which I shade with my hand. The scene seems tranquil and special. There is something about me thinking about what if it was a dream. Now I’m somewhere different but related with a middle aged foreign seeming lady that I’ve just met. I end up asking her where she’s from. She replies with ‘Vina’, which I think is in Scotland. I ask if it’s southern and she says no, that it’s more North than the North Pole. The conversation then easily moves to me staying there with her. I want to, and think I start making travel plans.

19th August 2021

Away from home at the time.

Scraps:

Something about a big drill at the tail end of a dream before waking.

Before that, something more adventure-like.

Another bit about S and A. But S was implied to have died and A was having a conversation with me, telling me all of this. In that moment I realise that was why we hadn't had any contact with her for a long time.

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21st August 2021

Recall was good at first and dreaming presence was very decent too, lots of dreaming overall, but I was unable to write any recall down initially and it was left too long by the time I had another chance, meaning almost all detail was gone.

Scraps:

Something about dreaming and art.

Last bit just before waking, I'm doing something charitable for someone. I'm somewhere like in Scotland and I remember moving around a fair bit. (in what way?)

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Notes:

- I cannot know whether my dream realisation about A's husband has any truth or not, since we still haven't spoken. Sadly it's been years since we last spoke.

- Dreaming about dreaming and art probably relates to some of the long-term lucid goals I have.

- I'm not sure if I was still away on the 21st or not, possibly just after I had been.

- I just realised while typing this DJ entry title that our host's husband passed away some years ago, perhaps this was what brought on the dream about A's husband, in some way.

non-dream dream semi-lucid lucid FA / AP

Driving through the mountains at night, I see some rocks on fire. First I don't know what it is and then it occurs to me someone is trying to set the woods on fire. I go back to try to do something about it. I arrive at a crossroad I hadn't seen before and almost crash with a group of ladies walking from a nearby village. They are aware of the fire. They tell me it is some guy's revenge, trying to set fire to another guy's land. Fortunately the fire is put out by the villagers.

Sleeping at my mom's, sharing her bed with a bunch of kids, who look like my cousins when they were young and also some toddlers I don't know.

Have lunch with my grandpa. We bake tofu and potatos in the oven, enough for several meals or some more people, but granpda is eating like a hungry hippo and soon there is no food left. I get up to go to the kitchen to get something else, but somehow I end up at Axman's restaurant. He has friends over and he talks and talks. I get very sleepy sitting on his couch while I wait to get his attention. I decide to get out of there and catch some air. Find a bunch of kids from a school or after school activities, playing in a yard and I join them with curiosity for what they are doing. They are selecting toys to play and I fix a few toys and board games that had missing parts and defects. Then find a kid interested in a 3D chess kind of game and I suggest we play it. But it takes 4 people. I see 2 other older girls sitting and invite them over. I am supposed to find a table for us which to sit, but I have to walk a long walk until I find one, almost a block away, outside some kind of canteen or cafeteria. There are people in other tables discussing if people should get free housing and support if they have no money or if should be given money instead. A server comes with a large cake, asks if I want it. I say sure, but I need to go get 3 other friends to join me.

At some foreign country, I think eastern Europe, with some friends. I go shopping with them at a supermarket. I didn't pick up a basket at the entrance, so I am putting on the cashier's counter the food I already picked while I am desperately looking for breakfast cereals. The cashier gets mad at me and pressures me to either pay or just take things out of there. I finally give up and pay what I bought. My friends then take me to some alternative collective where movies are being screened on some warehouse. They tell me it is a Portuguese expats association, all nice people and with a good cultural program. But we don't stay. Outside they talk with a couple guys sitting on chairs welcoming the movie goers. I spot an annex open and filled with bags of cat food. They explain they have a resident cat colony and show me where they feed them in a back alley. But I only see one cat there at the moment.

I meet Riverstone on my way to the train station. We are kidnapped by some mafia guys and taken to a palace behind the train station, where they intend to torture and question us for some reason. But there is an earthquake or some other building just collapsed and we escape in the middle of the chaos. I am half naked as they ripped my clothes. We go through secondary alleys and we hide from people, until we finally get on the train and escape.

My uncles and cousins are coming to my house, which is quite different from reality. It is also rustic but has smaller rooms, more floors and is stuck in some old town in Scotland. First to arrive are my cousins João and Sara and I show them the kitchen and storage room, placed around an old furnace. My mom joins us then. She is excited, brings a dog and says there is another one just as cute and playful, but doesn't explain where they come from. Then my uncles also arrive and my mom goes away without a warning. I follow her, trying to figure where she is going and the rest of the family follows suit. She was just going to a pub nearby to get some fancy liquors to serve to the family members, but now we are all there with her, so we decide to just get some drinks right there. A police officer that was at the door warns us we are too many and not wearing masks and therefore we are breaking the rules. I get a mask from my pocket and I suggest my family they do it to, but nobody cares. I then spot a group of people I know, all dressed up like in the 20s. They are sitting in some sofas by a large window with an iron frame. Outside is snowing, looks postcard perfect and I join them. Realize that I don't match their outfits, as I am in my large boots and sweater. But they actually save the center seat for me and welcome me.

Had an actual lucid dream. Not one of those fake ones in which I only think I'm lucid dreaming.

I found myself in a mountainous landscape, on a road winding around the mountains. My dad and his wife were with me. I jokingly said this didn't look like Belgium (my country), more like Scotland. I was already lucid at this point. Can't really identify when I attained lucidity. We were jogging, off the road and onto a dirt trail in the woods. I flew a little bit, but my dad told me it was better to stay on the ground and run, because that was I could sustain my lucidity easier. I figured he was right (more sensory input means better stability), and continued running with him. Back on the winding asphalt road, my dad started speeding up and I couldn't keep up. On the stone barriers on the side of the road (a steep drop right behind it) there was a drinking bottle. There was a name on it, 'Chronos'. I think there was another runner on the road, possibly going in the opposite direction. Anyway, I considered flying because I could not keep up with my dad on foot. Eventually, we reached the end of the road, close to the summit of the mountain. There was an old structure, like a medieval castle or something, but the entrance required us to climb a short but ridiculously steep stairway. Very short but high steps. I told Debby (dad's wife) I would use my ability of flight to reduce gravity by 50% to make the climb easier. But then, I noticed my vision was gone. I felt I was basically awake. Realizing I'd faded out too far and too quickly, I accepted I wasn't getting back and opened my eyes.

Scotland sometime in the 1700s, I'm in the stables brushing a horse and speaking with a young man I've just been riding with. He's about to inherit some position from his father and he's extremely uncomfortable about it, particularly about how little education he's had - less for its own sake, and more to do with how others will see him. The conversation's wandered around a bit on the subject of education, and I've just mentioned Jim, a servant I grew up with in the American colonies who's devoted to learning, more so than anyone I ever knew. Brilliant man. The man I'm talking to asks how much schooling he'd had - none. I feel vaguely ashamed about that, for my home and for myself for not thinking about this when we were younger - Jim certainly would have wanted to go to school and it had never occurred to me to think about that. If he'd been white, he'd almost certainly have gone to a college.

Two dull scenes I'm noting for the character who appears in both - at the end of the previous scene I went to sleep and "dreamed" of a long-haired old man who was a teacher in a modern classroom, who said that the two times are only nine steps apart, so it's silly to make such a fuss. At this point I was fully aware the classroom scene was a dream and had modern memories, but didn't believe the Scotland scene was a dream - I considered the classroom dream a way of communicating with this man while I was in the past. Woke up (really), went back to sleep, and some scenes later I was forging a series of swords - masterpieces. The same old man appeared, this time as the master of the forge, and was so impressed that he insisted I destroy one of them by peeling back layers of metal so he could see the core, see what I'd done.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm reading a letter from an old friend. She's telling me she's spent the last six years in Vienna, and that she's devoting this lifetime (meaning however long this particular identity lasts her) to the study of music. She uses a word that specifically means playing instruments rather than singing, and she says she's giving her voice a break after "those swan songs" in Canada. She's studying the piano, which reminds her of me - she asks if I remember the old spinet I used to play for them.

Scene changes when I think about when and where that had been. There's an image of a little room, dark for just a second, then lit up with this golden light in shapes created by a lantern - this incredibly intricate fantasy scene, silhouettes of people and leaves, and an impression of bars, as if inside a birdcage.

Talking to someone about "the 40." They're a group of heroes in Scotland, technically real historical figures but their story's become more like a legend, involved in a conflict with the English. Although they're regarded as heroes, I'm thinking that their story was crucial in creating a bad future for Scotland.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm digging through a drawer filled with various small objects and papers, searching for something. I'm talking to myself out loud, saying "She'll turn this too into one of her charms." Charm as in talisman. There's a woman - the owner of the things I'm searching through - who suffered some setback, as a result of which some object that belongs to her is temporarily in my hands. I meant that she was going to turn that separation itself into her advantage. As I search through the drawer, I uncover a small skeleton of a creature with sharp teeth, no larger than my thumbnail. Another one of her charms. I'm thinking she was likely told this was some wondrous creature - it isn't.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm in a mountain forest with Dieter. He's holding some large dark-furred animal he's killed - we've caught three of them in a row - and we're talking about the quality of the hunting here since the humans abandoned their village. You'd think that would only improve the hunting, but there's something I'm worried about. When we mention the village I see an image of it, on a hillside with a large body of water in the distance, and I think about something that's been bothering me ever since a conversation I'd had with someone in that village. I say to Dieter now, times have changed - we haven't changed with them. We should. I should have set him free centuries ago and set him up with whatever he wanted. I've been selfish, not thinking. He ignores this and tries to steer me back onto the topic of hunting.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

Semi-lucid - aware this is a dream but not enough to affect my actions - I'm approaching a certain building by a narrow path between two hedges out back by the gardens. There's somewhere else I was heading, but a little boy intercepts me and tells me there's some message for me in the house.

(A memory gap.)

On the grounds of that same estate, right at a tall hedge that serves as an important border between here and the next place, there's a little girl crouching on the ground and a woman next to her. The woman's plain and tired-looking, with brown hair that looks darker because it hasn't been washed. The little girl is blonde and sort of bossing the woman around in some game they're playing. She wants to join in on something going on beyond the hedge, but she's not allowed, so she's playing here and waiting for her chance. I immediately recognize the girl as Julia's daughter, she resembles her so closely, and I ask the woman some questions to try to confirm that hunch without asking about Julia directly. The woman says to something I ask about the girl's mother, "You don't have to tell me that," mistaking my question for rhetorical and irritated about it, irritated at the mother's behavior. This makes me realize that while yes, the girl's mother is Julia, this woman is also the girl's mother - she's Julia's wife. I'd assumed she was a nursemaid, I'm deeply embarrassed.

A man's telling me something about Alice in Wonderland when he's attacked and killed by these enormous crows. We're in his apartment. One of the crows lands on my shoulder and looks at me, and I'm feeling very exasperated with it.

I'm the same man I was in the previous scene but now with a head like a crow - which I definitely didn't have in the previous scene - and I'm standing in front of an older crow-headed man who's sitting on the floor in these elaborate robes. He's telling me he can't help me, and says something about "the 40 visions."

(And this last one is one from two weeks ago that I didn't bother to write out properly. The pen & paper dream journal fell open to it just now and the Alice in Wonderland theme caught my eye.) There's a scene in Alice in Wonderland where Alice is trapped inside the mouth of a crocodile. A boy pulls its tail to make it open its mouth, and she runs out. Now someone's tried to recreate that scene, but the girl playing the role of Alice was too scared and wouldn't move. I shove my way through the kids to get her out, and somebody gets their arm bitten off. (I wrote down who, but I can't read my own writing.)

This one was long but I forgot a lot of it..
- I've forgotten my black backpack at school by the art room. I know where it is but when I look for it, I can't find it.

Dream 2
- I'm outside by a fairly large lake. I think the sun has just gone down; it is dark but there are still some shades of purple on the lake and in the sky. A man who looks like Gandalf comes over and gives a little, pink, bipedal creature. This creature is very affectionate and keeps hugging my leg.

A fragment..
- I see my best friend B sitting at a counter with 2 of her friends. They're all tightly wrapped in ceran wrap. B looks very uncomfortable, like she doesn't want to be there.

Dream 3
- I'm in an unfamiliar 2 story house with R. R isn't doing much, but he's here. We're on the bottom floor and I know there is a lot of food here. I think I take some crackers. Now I am upstairs; R Is gone, but I'm sitting by my mom who is talking to some doctors. They are saying that I could have pneumonia. I think this upsets my mom so we leave right away, but right before we do I get something else to eat because I am still hungry. Whatever I get, it comes with a beer. There are four choices; I pick a peach flavored one. Now, my mom is driving us home but I am outside the truck, somehow attached to it and able to sit down. I drink the beer, really noticing the prominent peach flavor, and think that I'd like to move to Scotland.

Dream 4
- I'm driving my cousin down a busy, main street to some burger place. We finally find it, and enter the building through some secret entrance. It looks more like an old house and I get the feeling that we shouldn't be here. We continue on anyway, and reach a big window/opening in the wall. Looking out, I see a huge, grassy feild far below me. On this feild there are many marching bands, each wearing their school colors.

Dream 5
- I'm at an indoor concert with my dad. We are seated in a row close to the small stage. My dad gets up and leaves for a bit; when he gets back, he has already missed the ending.
**I wake up after this dream ends and haven't moved or opened my eyes. I try to imagine myself back at that concert cheering with everyone else, but not a thing happens?

Good morning, everybody. I slept about 12 hours last night, in hopes of getting over my cold. I recall three dreams from last night. They're all pretty fragmented, and I'm not even exactly sure what order they came in.

Dream #1

I stood out on some concrete balcony or ledge (like at the head of a concrete wheelchair ramp) a couple meters higher than the road. It was daytime, and I was in a big town, in some area that looked like SoHo in NYC. The streets were cobblestone. The place was empty.

I was looking across the street to a place that looked like a bank next door to a fast food restaurant. I was playing around on my phone. I was trying to look into my bank account to see how much money I had. I may have been out on some trip to a different city or country, and I may have been trying to figure out exactly how much more money I could spend on this trip.

But I couldn't remember the name of my bank. I went over the names of banks (probably not real names) in my head without locating the name of my bank.

At some point I may have figured out the name of the bank, only to discover, contrary to my previous insistence, that it was precisely the bank across the street from me.

I now noticed that there were a lot of cosplayers going into the fast food restaurant next door to the bank. I was curious about these cosplayers.

I was now in the fast food restaurant. The place was packed with cosplayers. Some of them may actually have been dressed up as clowns, like Ronald McDonald, rather than being in cosplay.

Dream #2

I had come down to Mexico with my mom. I was now walking around town by myself. It was daytime, a warm day. I walked down a quiet, narrow street.

I probably went into one store, the floor for which was at the bottom of a few short steps. I may have walked around in the store for a few minutes.

I was now back in the house where my mom was. It was like a house that belonged to "one of our family members" in Mexico. I was in a completely empty bedroom. It may have been later in the night or early the next morning.

My mom came into the bedroom and sat down across from me on the floor. She insinuated that some people had mistaken me for a narc while I'd been walking around the city. Now I was kind of in trouble with these people.

My mom told me, "They say here that a narc is like a dog on a leash, except they say he has a coat-hanger attached, too."

This saying gave me a picture in my head like a chalkboard drawing of a sillhouette-man walking a sillhouette-dog on a leash. The dog also had a coat-hanger sticking up from its back.

I understood the "coat-hanger" to be a symbol for the nice clothes that narcs wore (???).

My mom and I were now downstairs in the living room, which was also empty. My mom told me we had to be very careful now, walking around town, as all these drug dealers would now be looking out for us.

I wondered why on earth people would think I was a narc. I knew that if I even slightly resembed a narc, I wouldn't be coming down to Mexico at this point in time.

But now I remembered that "the cousin of mine," whom my mom and I were down here to visit, actually was a narc. So even if the drug dealers figured out I wasn't a narc, I'd still be hunted down and under suspicion for visiting a known narc.

I now wondered why in the hell my mom had chosen to come down here at this point, when all this dangerous stuff was going on.

Dream #3

I stood behind a tall, thin, young man. The man had a pale complexion and red-brown hair in a squarish, tall haircut. He wore a grey jacket. We may have been in some kind of small, crowded room, having just finished some kind of meeting for young adults.

The young man spoke, and for some reason I said aloud that it was obvious the man was Scottish, given his accent and his manner of expression.

The man turned around. Rather than being annoyed with me, he seemed to assume my observation meant that I had something in common with him.. He asked me what I was.

I said, "All three," which the man took to mean Irish, English, and Scottish (???).

The man said, "Oh, right, right. I wonder why they don't say all four and include the Welsh?"

I responded (or tried to respond?) with the thought that perhaps they were separated by language (???), so that everybody thought of the Welsh as different from "the other three."

(Note, December 13th: I forgot to mention that in waking life I've been reading The Judge, by Rebecca West. Rebecca West is a writer who was active from the 1920s through the 1980s. She's really cool. One thing that really struck me about her is that she is Irish and English on her father's side and Scottish on her mother's side. I took this "Irish-English-Scottish" aspect of West and identified myself with it -- for some reason -- in the third dream.)