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Hit my longest lucid yet this morning! It felt like it might have gone 20 minutes. Very exciting! Go go Intro Class!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #10: The Horschwager Olympics (Early this morning)

I'm at home in the master bedroom and something tips me off that I'm having a dream. Fortunately, it's daytime but I still feel compelled to leave the house as quickly as I can. (I've been getting stuck in the first scene very often lately.) After having trouble getting out of my upstairs window last time, I decide to dash downstairs and try the front door.

The second floor is a perfect reconstruction of my house, seemingly down to the smallest details. I even have to fiddle with the baby gate to get downstairs. The ground floor, though, has changed into a hot, stifling gaggle of steam tunnels with no obvious exits.

I notice a mirror on the wall and check my reflection. I look like myself but with a pudgier face and feathered, rather flamboyant 90s-looking hair. (Still dashing, of course!)

I return to looking for an exit and spy an old-school cast iron stove against the wall. I see that it has a vent/chimney sticking out of the top that I imagine must lead to the outside. It's only a few inches in diameter but I decide that I can squeeze myself up it and make my escape via reverse Santa Claus.

I crawl through the oven and start willing my way up the vent. It's ultra-confining and hot to the point where I feel some mild pain on my skin during the trek upward. What a way to travel! Why didn't I take the mirror? I operate with a noticeably reduced IQ in my LDs, I'm afraid!

I finally emerge in daylight on a coastal city on a bright, clear morning. It's like a cross between San Francisco and Nice, France. Wife jogs past me and I jog after her through a bustle of dream characters.

As we run along, Wife hands me her iPod and tells me to listen. It's playing some catchy pop number with a female vocalist. It's not my style but it's got this great hook that I can't resist humming along to. As I hum, Wife and all of the other dream characters that we pass start singing as well. The sort of thing that only happens on cheesy television programs and my lucid dreams, I think.

Eventually, the road breaks away from the coast and Wife stops to rest. I decide to go off on my own and try to compete in the Olympics (recent goal.) I walk through the door of a nearby building, expecting to find the Olympics.

A greeter DC guides me into an enormous room that's a combination locker room and ice skating rink. I'm somewhat perturbed to find myself in the Winter Olympics but figure that I can change this later. I grab a duffel bag out of one of the lockers and carry it with me. A harried-looking receptionist and "E" (IWL friend) direct me to go to the second floor via elevator. I ask them what city this Olympics is taking place in. They respond that it is in "Horschwager" this year.

The elevators look dilapidated and out of service. (Doors hanging off loosely, bare shafts visible, etc.) I decide to take the stairs. The stairs, however, are a confusing maze of narrow bridges and snaking archways with sheer drop-offs all around. I wander this maze for a good while, reminding myself that "I'm in a lucid dream, about to compete in the Olympics" but the clock eventually runs out just as I reach a strange, glass-enclosed room. I wake up.

Here was a lucid dream where I had fun but ran into some serious dream control trouble. Still wondering what I might have done differently here.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #9: Sunny Day "Sleep Paralysis" (August 14, 2012)

I'm walking outside of my childhood home on a bright, sunny day. I'm drinking in the scenery "lucid living" style. I get the sense that I'm dreaming and find myself lucid.

I'm calm and I rub my hands together, enjoying the beauty of the scenery. Everything looks very vivid in this dream, with none of the darkness I'd struggled with before. Just to check, I ask for "maximum lucidity" anyway, but nothing additional happens.

My hands look surprisingly normal so I study the sky for a while, enjoying the look of the clouds and the fact that I can stare into the sun without feeling any discomfort.

When I try to move, though, I suddenly realize that I'm flat on my back, completely paralyzed. It's as if the idea of my physical, paralyzed body is intruding on the dream scene.

I struggle to move for a bit, not succeeding. Finally, I attempt an in-dream out of body exit. (This would be a second dream body exiting what I know is my first dream body -- a delightfully weird idea.) I manage to peel a second set of arms out of my paralyzed arms. As my new head and torso start to exit, though, the dream scene collapses and I'm awake in bed.

This one's a real head scratcher. I'm not sure what I should have done differently here apart from trying not to get that mesmerized by the dream scenery. Perhaps I just need more practice with OBE-style exits.

An alternative idea that I had was to imagine that I'm getting dragged down into the ground. That's a bit too "Nightmare on Elm Street" for me, though, so I don't know!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #8: Black Bronco (August 11, 2012)

I'm in the passenger seat of a Black Bronco that's being driven by Josh Clark of the "Stuff You Should Know" podcast. We're in a gas station and I do not approve of the way he's driving. I'm whining to him to pay attention to what he's doing. Paying no heed, he carelessly backs the Bronco right into this rusty old beater of a car.

In spite of my prior nagging, he is amazed that this has happened. I tell him to shut off the engine and I go to check out how bad the wreck is. The damage looks all wrong to me. The side of the Bronco is crushed in rather than the back. I look at the beater and see that it's completely unharmed. When I look back at the Bronco, I see that it has vanished completely! I'm quickly lucid.

There's a sudden wobble in my vision and I mutter, "Calm down, calm down..." to myself and rub my hands together. Things settle down a bit. I hit the nose pinch RC to make sure my mind's right and start looking at the now-changed scenery.

The beater is parked on the side of a gravel road. It's nighttime and on the other side of the road is a grassy field and some distance behind it a school. I start walking along the road, getting ready to make my next move.

Something is constraining my arms and shoulders. I figure that it's some kind of backpack so I shrug it off of my shoulders and drop it to the ground, freeing my arms. (I don't think to open it.) Shortly after this, I start to lose stability and wake up.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #7: doogogol.com (July 29, 2012)

Our son "E" wanders into our bedroom in the early morning. I'm groggy but I listen to him tell us about how a "big vortex" was in his room. Wife is shocked that he knows the word "vortex". I tell her that I taught him the word -- then realize I had done so in a previous dream that night. I do the nose pinch reality check and I'm lucid.

As I get out of bed, the room starts going dark again, just like in lucid dream #5. I rub my hands together and demand, "Increase lucidity!" but it makes no difference. Soon it is completely dark. I shout, "Increase <expletive> lucidity!". Wife gives me a "That's right!" but it still doesn't work. I'm in total darkness.

I "peel away" the darkness as if it is a curtain but behind it is only more darkness. Out of ideas, I imagine that there's a cliff behind me and I pitch myself backward over it (a suggestion from CosmicIron.)

I'm falling now and I don't have a destination in mind. I am thinking about searching the internet for help, though, and "land" in a web browser. Success! (Sort of.) I try to type "google.com" but it comes out as "doogogol.com". Fortunately, this works, and I wind up back in the bedroom, mid-morning.

I tell Wife that I'm going to go out and fly. I struggle to squeeze myself out of the window, noting that all of the trees in the front yard have moved around. I punch the glass out of the window but it's still too tight of a squeeze. During the struggle, I wake up.

Easily my favorite lucid dream. Ironically, began as a lucid nightmare. Very satisfying and got about 10 minutes out of it.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #6: Seaside Escape (July 24, 2012)

Wife and I are walking along a wharf late at night with a man that we believe is our friend. I begin to realize that this man is not who he says he is and I'm growing more and more agitated. Suddenly, Wife screams, "It’s a setup! We’re being ambushed! Run!" and tears off running ahead of me.

I run after her and I hear the footsteps of our pursuers behind me. There are now many of them after us and this has become a full-blown nightmare. I know that the men behind me intend to kill us both.

Wife is running along the wharf ahead of me but she's approaching its end (or at least a bend) that leads straight into the ocean. We have nowhere left to go and I become lucid.

I run forward faster and faster to catch up with her. As my speed increases, I realized that I am soaring a couple of feet above the ground. I catch her under the arms and jumped up into the sky with her, flying several hundred feet into the air. We fly together over the ocean, splashing down far away from the wharf and our pursuers. The sea is choppy but it's a beautiful night. I'm completely unafraid.

I jump several more times until we end up in shallower water by a brightly-lit, festive boardwalk. The water is crowded with swimmers. It’s still night and we swim together through the crowd. I look closely at the faces of these other swimmers as we pass by. Vivid, detailed and varied, often with literally dozens of dream characters in the scene at once. I study them all, enjoying their detail. Most of them look like realistic people but one child has a very large head with an exceptionally large chin and lips. I commit his face to memory because it is so notable. He has curly blonde hair and somewhat pale skin.

We emerge from the water into the boardwalk’s shopping area, which looks very much like a mall food court. This area, too, is bustling with dream characters. I realize that I’ve lost track of Wife now. I feel that she’s safe and has to be nearby. At this point I sense I am at risk of being drawn too much into the "dream plot" and start talking to the characters around me, telling them that I am having a lucid dream.

I stop at a coffee shop. The girl who is the cashier there presides over a display case of poppy seed muffins. I feel bold and pushy so I tell the cashier that "This is my dream and you will do what I say!" Her hands drop to her sides and she looks ahead, suddenly no longer independently animated. I tell her to leave the cash register and walk out into the food court. She does. Some other DCs are watching, seemingly unsure what to make of this. I'm deciding whether to try to turn the cashier into Wife or try to see how many dream characters I can control at once.

A feeling of frailty suddenly sweeps over me and my voice becomes a whisper. Moments later, I'm awake.

This was just a great LD. I was riding high for days from this one.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #5: The Darkened Clock (July 20, 2012)

I am standing at the foot of my bed in the dark. I look over at the alarm clock to see what time it is but it's gone completely dark. At first I think that there has been a power failure but I soon wonder whether I might be dreaming.

I nose pinch and can breathe through only my left nostril! (More on that later.) Still, this is enough to make me lucid. The room is deeply, oppressively dark and I feel like I'm losing the dream scene. I rub my hands together and although the dream feels more stable, the darkness in the room is deepening.

I rub my hands over my arms again and again and try to say, "Increase lucidity..." But the words only come out in this weak, breathy whisper. I want to make a break for the wall, act boldly like before, but my dream body feels faint and frail.

I go on like this for a good while, just weakening as everything fades and soon I'm awake. I quickly discover the reason that I could only breathe through the left side of my nose during the reality check -- I was sleeping face down with the right side of my face smashed against the pillow!

This one was my first SSILD-induced dream. It was long (for me), going 10-12 minutes.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #3: The Forest Compound (July 2, 2012)

I awaken to a strange noise coming from outside of our bedroom. I go into the hallway to investigate but find that this swirling green energy vortex is blocking my path back into the bedroom. I walk forward, pushing my way through it, and it feels like walking through a Chicago windstorm. It slowly dawns on me that I might be dreaming and I push my finger through my palm. I'm instantly lucid and I decide to get out of the room as fast as possible so that I can fly.

I'm feeling unusually bold so I shove myself right through the wall. The scene blanks for a moment before placing me on top of an office building. I run straight for the edge of the building, leap off, and try to fly. I fail, falling several hundred feet to the empty streets. The landing is jarring but painless. This time I try jumping straight up and find that I can jump thousands of feet into the air. The office buildings shrink into the distance below me. I can't soar but I find that I can leap across the city this way, each leap ending in an awkward crash landing. Each time that I jump, the voice of my young son giggles "Again!" even though he is not here.

I do one last clumsy leap and crash into a forested area, knocking over a tree. There's a compound nearby and I run into the first building that I see. It's a long, windowed, sunlit hallway with high ceilings and teeming with dream characters. I stop an Asian lady in her late 30's (a stranger) and tell her that I'm dreaming. She looks a little reluctant to admit this but finally confesses that I'm right. I sense that talking this frankly is an awkward bending of the rules for her. She seems very real and I feel a little bit bad for putting her in this position.

At the end of the hall I find an apartment where two identical twins who are IWL friends of mine live. I barge right in, announcing that this is all taking place in my lucid dream. One of the twins laughs and she becomes very interested in how this all works, peppering me with questions like,

"So, we're both dreaming? No? How's this work then? Will I remember this tomorrow?"
"You mean, I'm not real and you are? This is your dream? That's hilarious."
"What's going to happen to me after you wake up?" I'm caught off-guard by this and left fumbling for an answer.

The three of us chat for a while before I sense that my lucidity is slipping. I bid them goodbye and run back down the hall. On the way, I run into a guy named "Robert Lamb", the host of the "Stuff to Blow Your Mind" podcast (the place where I first heard of lucid dreaming.) I announce to him that we're in my lucid dream and without missing a beat, he says, "I hope they don't have to amputate." "Yeah, lucid dreams that last for too long cause a total loss of circulation in the dreamer's limbs, limb necrosis and eventually require amputation."

"It's really terrible," he adds helpfully.

Even though I don't believe this, I'm a little shaken up at the thought. I run further down the hall, ducking into a dark bar just before I wake up.