Morning of October 23, 2018. Tuesday. Dream #: 18,936-03. Reading time (optimized): 3 min. Readability score: 69. As my non-lucid dream self, holding no viable threads of my real-life identity, I become vividly aware that I am sitting in the back seat, on the left-hand side, of an otherwise empty car in the Village Shopping Center parking lot in La Crosse. It is nighttime. I become aware that the car belongs to my brother-in-law Bob. (I have not had any contact with Bob since 1994, over twenty years ago.) There are only two other cars present. An idea comes to my dream self’s fictitious mind that I should go to the driver’s seat and take the car back to the Loomis Street house. I am feeling very cheerful and confident. I get out on the left-hand side and go around to get in the front seat. (This is really about the typical initiating of subliminal control of the dream state and has nothing to do with waking life or “interpretation.”) I get behind the driver’s seat. It is difficult to close the car doors, and I try several times. They are flimsy and not like real car doors at all, but are about as efficient as a dream can make something that stems from vivid non-lucidity. (It would have been better letting the dream play itself at this specific point.) I have no idea how to start the car. I have no key. I first consider that it starts like a lawn mower, but I do not see a recoil starter assembly. There is a small metal lever on the left side, below the steering wheel. I put my foot on the gas pedal and wiggle the lever. Gasoline starts pouring from underneath the full length of the dashboard. That concerns me. I do not want to incur the risk of something catching on fire. I get out of the car, and two unfamiliar men get out of their cars and come over to help me. At this point, as the men check over the car, I anticipate an explosion (an attempt at subliminal dream control), and I tell them to move away, but nothing happens. I decide to walk to the Loomis Street house. On the way, walking east on the north side of Sill Street, I notice many boxes of magazines on the boulevard. It is a recurring situation where I realize I can take what I want (as I am deliberately though subliminally creating this scenario at its foundation, knowing it is a dream on one level), as it is left out for garbage pickup. It is also late morning. My non-lucid dream self does not register the impossible time change (as is always the case). I find a stack of magazines that are black-and-white collections of Nancy comic strips (by Ernie Bushmiller). Looking around more, I also notice stacks of interior decorating magazines, which I have no interest in at the time. This part of my dream comes from the lifelong practice of trying to initiate viable emerging consciousness threads by focusing on sustained reading skills of which do not ordinarily exist in the dream state. I arrive at the Loomis Street house. My sister and mother are there and seem healthy. My dream self has no recall that they are deceased. A minimal thread of my conscious self identity emerges, but it is rather odd. I vaguely recall the concept of marijuana from Nimbin, yet I have no memory that I have lived in Australia for over twenty years or of my real-life status. (Additionally, I would never try drugs in real life under any circumstances, another factor that validates my dream self is not my true conscious self identity.) I have some “marijuana” that I smoke with my mother and sister. It is rolled-up full-sized newspapers. There is trouble keeping them rolled up, and they burn with big flames, though I still suck in the fire and smoke. As I focus, I am astounded by my vivified perception, and yet I am not lucid. I start to become puzzled as I enter enigmatic space (a specific level of the dream state). I realize, though vaguely, that there is no marijuana and that smoking newspaper is odd. I start to wake, realizing what my dream self had been creating. Fire is the emerging consciousness and often part of the waking process. The newspapers, at least as related to reading them, are the attempt to sharpen my perception, as I had tried to do in the previous dream segment, but it did not initiate lucidity, only revivification.
Morning of October 13, 2018. Saturday. Dream #: 18,926-01. Optimized 3 minute read. Part of my dream’s initial setting has the essence of the Cubitis house’s kitchenette (1978) though its placement in the surroundings is incorrect. It features a 1990s washing machine instead of a stove. (My mother only ever had a wringer washing machine with a cylindrical body when we lived there.) There is an open space to the right (when facing west) leading to a big bedroom with other rooms beyond. My dream self mistakenly thinks it is Marilyn’s house. (Marilyn is a half-sister on my mother’s side who died in 2014. My dream self does not recall she died, and she appears here as in the late 1960s.) The washing machine inexplicably slides across the floor, turning at an angle. An invisible force drags it to the bedroom. It stops near a door on the opposite side, near the bed. I find this event fascinating, so I tell Marilyn about it. I discover the ghost of an unknown boy hiding under the bed after Marilyn informs me. I perceive him as sitting in a Padmasana position (Lotus Pose), although there would not be enough vertical space in a real-world scene. I find a small radio station control room in the house, though it is mainly featureless. I talk to Jim through its closed window. (Jim is a half-brother on my mother’s side who died in 2008. My dream self does not recall he died. He appears as he did in the 1970s.) He tells me I should never talk about the ghost to anyone outside our home, but I disagree with him, so he seems sad. I intensely focus on my marriage to Zsuzsanna and our miraculous “coincidences.” I talk about them as if they resulted from a divine force above us. Astoundingly, despite this, my dream self does not attain waking-life recognition. I return to the bedroom. Marilyn informs me that the ghost boy’s parents, also ghosts, had been hiding in the wardrobe for a long time. I open the wardrobe to investigate but mainly focus on an unfamiliar stocky man in glasses. He wears a suit. His right eye seems lower than it should be, angled downward. It is also a shorter distance from his left eye than what would be natural. I hold out my right hand for him to shake. I am sincere and cheerful. He willingly shakes my hand. I place my left hand over his right hand, and tactility increases. I am confident and peaceful as I acknowledge him with a sincere smile as if I am happy to meet him. Intelligently understanding dreams: In actuality, I am asleep in bed, vaguely contemplating mobility because of my status of REM atonia. That is why I imagine a force dragging something to the bed. It is a washing machine to remind me I am undressed while sleeping. Shaking hands compensates for becoming intuitively aware of somatosensory phasing caused by variations in REM atonia (paralysis while sleeping, which occurs through all dreams throughout the sleep cycle in healthy people). It also acknowledges the waking transition - unification with my real-life awareness. This act, and hugging, are the two fundamental forms of this intuitive process, depending on my willingness to wake up during a specific part of my dream. The unusual downward eye is an intuitive association with having my eyes closed during sleep. The “boy ghost” in the Lotus Pose under the bed is also a dream state signifier. There are two main reasons for ghosts appearing in my dreams. One reason is instinctual awareness of my dream self being an incomplete form of my true conscious self. That includes my lack of real-world mobility corresponding with the false physicality (vestibular-motor phasing) of dreaming. Even if I walk around in a dream, I am not walking with my body in a real-world event. This type of intuitive awareness integrates into various dream narratives. Unlike others, I rarely fear protoconsciousness, either in hypnopompic sleep paralysis or in the dream state proper (and its natural REM paralysis). The other reason is my deliberate summoning of ghosts, monsters, or haunting scenarios to bring about ASMR, which I learned to do in childhood. However, ASMR, predominant in the bliss of hypnopompic paralysis, is not usually as present in the dream state. At high levels of lucid dreaming, I have less control of a dream because of conscious bias (excluding hypnagogic and post-hypnagogic dreaming experiences). I know that ghosts, movie monsters, aliens, etc. - do not exist, so summoning such content is futile.
Updated 05-17-2022 at 04:12 PM by 1390
Morning of January 27, 2018. Saturday. Dream #: 18,667-02. Reading time (optimized): 1 min. Zsuzsanna and Marilyn are present. (My dream self does not recall Marilyn had died.) We are in the Loomis Street house in the open area between the living room and dining room. I face west towards the dining room. I begin to play a computer game that my youngest son had been playing. It resembles a pool table, but there seems to be only one corner pocket. Several creatures of different sizes sit on it. I need to deliver the ball into the pocket before an animal gets to it, making it harder to play. There is also a gun with which I can shoot the animal. As I play, Marilyn informs me about going out to buy a meal, talking about a hamburger, asking if I want one. I nod lightly. Meanwhile, the game becomes real. That is, there is now a pool table in the room, replacing the computer workstation. My dream self does not register the change. I am near one corner. There is a cat atop the table, but I am aware it is a computer-generated tangible hologram. I reach over to pick up the light gray rubber ball and hold it over the pocket to drop it in. I am unsure if this is the way to play, as it seems too simple in contrast to its previous difficulty. A different cat and ball appear, and I perform the same act again. My sense of touch as I pick up, hold, and drop the rubber ball, is augmented.
Updated 06-14-2020 at 01:23 PM by 1390
Morning of December 2, 2017. Saturday. It seems to be afternoon. I am in an unfamiliar restaurant with my mother (July 14, 1916-October 2, 2002) and Marilyn (older half-sister on my mother’s side, April 25, 1942-February 13, 2014). They are facing each other from each side of the booth and closest to the window. I am on Marilyn’s right. I have no memory of their deceased status and no viable link to my current conscious self identity. My dream self seems to be about twenty-five years old (though I am fifty-six in reality). I could assume the location as La Crosse (America), though there is no direct focus or thought about where we are. There is no backstory. (The restaurant scenario indicates mild hunger during sleep.) My mother wants me to buy a Dutch sandwich for her from the restaurant directly across the street (perceived as west of where we are, which subliminally aligns to the street as west of where I am in bed in reality). Although I already have some money, she gives me about a dollar and fifty cents in small change, which is apparently what one costs. (My mother never said “Dutch sandwich” in real life as far as I know, and I never bought a sandwich for her in real life. Apparently, a Dutch Sandwich is the term for a tax avoidance strategy that some multinational corporations use to lower their corporate tax liability. I have no familiarity with this term.) I leave the restaurant, but instead of crossing the street, I continue north in an odd state of faux lucidity (with thoughts of finding my wife Zsuzsanna, without remembering who she is, for a lovemaking session). (Faux lucidity is when I might do something I would do in a lucid dream but without being aware that it is a dream. It is different from liminal dream control, apex lucidity, and normal lucidity.) My dream self falls back into the current scenario of my dream and I decide to buy the sandwich. I cross over to the west side of the street with the intent to walk a block and come back around easterly after walking south for about a block. As I walk along the west side of the street rather than the sidewalk, an unknown Hispanic male walks near the middle of the street to my left. He is carrying an unrealistically long telescope in a case, similar to a tightrope walker using a pole for balance. It seems nearly three-fourths as wide as the street. (There are a few other unfamiliar people walking along to my left.) He accidentally tips it up on the right and bumps the back of my head without realizing it. I do not alert him to this and he walks on ahead. I enter the other restaurant. I see a large alcove near the entrance (to my right as I walk in). An unknown female is there. She is sitting near a low-set counter (north). It has about nine sandwiches for sale, sparsely arranged. I stand on her left. (Zsuzsanna is sleeping in this orientation in reality, that is, to my right.) I ask if there is a Dutch sandwich here (directed at the cashier behind me on the other side of the room, not this customer). This customer tells me that she has bought and is eating the last one. On the opposite side of the room are two more unknown females who work there and of whom are behind a high-set counter near the cash register. I absentmindedly walk out of the restaurant with the bottom half of one of the other sandwiches without paying for it. Mayonnaise is on it as well as minimal lettuce. I soon realize what I am doing, walk back in, and give it back to the female closest to the cash register. The purchase area is similar to the Coney Island Restaurant in La Crosse I had frequented years ago (and of the same directional orientation), but my dream self does not note this. She tells me that she will make two Dutch sandwiches that I can buy and starts to make them in an area near shelves (about four tiers) opposite the service counter. The other female (more to my right as I face south) asks me about “feather sticks” and if people generally consider them as “lighter”. I assume she is talking about feather dusters, so I nod in agreement. However, she talks about cooking on a gas stove, which puzzles me. She had apparently said “feather steaks” and was asking whether they are “lighter” when fried using a gas stove rather than (presumably) an electric stove. (“Feather steak” could be considered as a flight symbol, which means that the preconscious is inducing dream state waking symbolism, especially as this is a checkout scenario which symbolizes emergent consciousness activation and my dream’s implied precursory exit point, though my dream self remains unaware of this, likely involving RAS, as it is also similar to “feathered serpent” and with “steak” rhyming with “snake”. A snake is the main biological waking prompt via RAS depending on the dream type and depth of sleep. The reference to “lighter” additionally relates to waking symbolism, hovering, and RAS-related inner ear dynamics that typically biologically manifest the falling sensation upon waking.) The other female has my sandwiches ready. They are not in any sort of bag and are atop each other (two-tiered construct, symbolizing conscious self identity over fictional dream self identity, which I am vaguely aware of but without a viable trigger). I get out my money to pay for them and see that I am holding several coins (in my left hand) that look more like small disks of sliced salami. I go to give her what I assume to be a dollar coin to start with, but it is apparently only twenty-five cents (as it is about the size of an American quarter). I tell her that I am uncertain of the value of the “coins” because it is not clearly noted on them. (At this point, I have a vague recall of Australian one and two-dollar coins while still puzzling over the variously-sized miniature salami slices as “coins”, though this is not enough to trigger any thread of emergent consciousness despite coins and cash registers at a checkout being a known and very familiar dream state indicator and precursory end marker since childhood.) I decide to get out my wallet and pay with an American five-dollar note. The change I get seems like normal coins, which I put in my right pocket with the “salami coins”. (Getting out my wallet at the checkout is analogous to trying to link to my conscious self identity via my fictional dream self near my dream’s exit point, as an ID is kept in a wallet in real life.) As I turn to my left to leave (atypical waking orientation, though Zsuzsanna now sleeps on my right for the first time in years), I notice I am not wearing shoes. I am not sure how or when this happened. I soon find and put on my left shoe, which is near the counter under the attached stools. I accidentally put a girl’s shoe, black with a buckle, on my right foot. (This is a childhood dream association when Brenda was a prescient stand-in for Zsuzsanna.) I realize this, yet accidentally put on a different pair of wrong men’s shoes after taking off my correct left one. (The different sizes of the shoes infer that my feet are actually changing somewhat in size, but my dream self does not notice this. This is similar to teeth falling out, which has no meaning but validates the dream self’s body as being fictional and in a state of cessation and with the inability to speak coherently while unconscious.) Finally, I am satisfied at wearing the right shoes and walk out the door and wake. Thus, the final marker here classifies the ending as doorway waking symbolism, which is common, where a doorway symbolizes the exit point of the dream state. Not wearing shoes is a typical dream state indicator as I do not wear shoes in bed. There are apparent shared dream state energies (or at least subliminal acknowledgment of the dream state), as the girl’s right shoe likely relates to my wife Zsuzsanna being asleep at the time to my right. The man with the long telescope is a second-level dream state indicator. It relates to seeing outside the dream state (and is a subliminal form of the emergent consciousness as a precursor to either waking or becoming lucid), but in this case, there is no trigger despite the exaggerated length and even bumping the back of my head. (For example, in an experimental lucid dream from the 1980s, RAS activated by each of my eyes quickly extending out diagonally upwards, each becoming a telescope, symbolizing my connection to discernible consciousness outside of my fictional dream body). The vague association with a tightroper’s balancing pole is symbolic of RAS and mediating between dream state awareness and whole consciousness as related to inner ear dynamics and “not falling” (not waking with the biological falling sensation or hypnopompic kick caused by the shift from unconsciousness to consciousness, the reverse of becoming dizzy and passing out when awake).
Updated 06-05-2018 at 05:07 AM by 1390
Morning of April 7, 2016. Thursday. There is a backstory to my dream of having collected water from a shallow pond. I am not sure of the setting or its location. My sister Marilyn (half-sister on my mother’s side) is nearby and as she appeared before I moved to Florida in 1967. My family as they are now are also present at one point. I look into the water and below the surface I see many implied one-celled animals (which you can only clearly see with a microscope in real life). Marilyn also looks on. I see a glowing transparent centipede, swimming downwards (which puzzles me since I know centipedes are not aquatic), forming a moving staircase shape (like a mobile escalator) eventually going out of sight. The one-celled animals (mainly protozoa) swim down out of sight but are visible at other times. Eventually, a small fish jumps up out of the “aquarium” which surprises Marilyn. I am somewhat surprised as well, because I thought I had gotten the water from a pond that was not deep enough to be suitable for fish. I am not sure where the fish is after the jump, perhaps on the floor. (A fish out of water represents the dreamer coming out of the dream and as a result, my dream shifts to the waking transition.) Later, I am holding an antlion larva. Over time, I notice blood on the tip of one of my fingers. It seems that it had been biting me (even though they do not bite in my experience). However, it also seems to instead be the result of a hangnail. Still, I ask my sister whether or not antlions eat people. Again, a fish is a projection of the dream self in the dream state (and water represents sleep and the flow of thoughts in the dream state). The one-celled animals may be a reference to minor neuron activity or a subliminal association with other dreamers. An aquarium is a downsized focus on the dream state itself, representing the human mind on one level. The unlikely “phasing” centipede swimming in the water represents a shift in consciousness. In this case, as it swims deeper, it forms a symbolic staircase to link to the nonlinear events throughout my life and down into the depths of the unconscious. This is evident by the link to a version of the original childhood “Taboo” dream (sparsely recurring, no more than perhaps four times) and upon checking, I found markers and parallels. It has the same basic setup; that is, looking at an aquarium of (visible to the naked eye) one-celled animals, though this was in third grade in 1970, one version found to be on today’s date exactly forty-six years ago (and which appears to have been partially influenced by the movie “Jigsaw”, about a man finding a body submerged in a bathtub). I have not held antlion larva much since third grade. This ending element represents a typical waking transition because an adult antlion resembles a dragonfly, which is a flight symbol. The bloody finger may be an association with our youngest son’s hangnail. The reference to “eating people” is a reference to coalescence and the dream self merging into whole consciousness during the waking transition (especially the association with “lion” as a lion is often a form of the more aggressive emergent consciousness). Also, an antlion is shaped somewhat like a human thumb, where my youngest son’s hangnail was. The antlion’s mandibles may be an association with the hangnail itself. Other phasing staircase references (as the “water centipede” in this dream) can be found in dreams such as “Rocket Science?” (July 2, 1976), where a sheet of typing paper mysteriously “rolls” down from the ceiling (which represents the liminal state between sleeping and waking) and forms a staircase pattern or brief “escalator”. This focus greatly intensified that dream. A similar event occurs in “White Noise Staircase” (February 21, 2014). Identifying phasing staircases may be beneficial, since I believe that it may also be relevant to a deeper bond with the Source and wholeness, as a staircase is a link between sleeping, dreaming, and waking). A centipede may be a dream’s rendering of the human spinal cord. In water (as in this dream) it serves as both a reminder of the human physical form as such and immersion in the dream state via the staircase or escalator metaphor. On one level it is the energies of my unconscious awareness returning to the Source. In the first version of “Taboo” from 1970, it was more about “sea monkeys” (brine shrimp) on one level. These “sea monkeys” also represent the human spinal cord.
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