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Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #221: The Singing Robot

I’m taking an unusually long time to fall asleep after WBTB and I sense a shift which makes me wonder whether the dream has begun. I will myself to roll out of bed and I find myself floating in the air about 3 feet above and to the left of where I normally sleep.

The sun shouldn’t be up yet but a trickle of daylight’s coming in through the shutters. I roll a couple of times, a little out of control. When I try to fly I wind up just heading straight downward, soon faceplanting in the floor. The scene goes dark and I hold on for DEILD. After a while I give up,I incorrectly thinking I’ve failed and have a false awakening, feeling disappointed that the dream was “so short”.

I log onto DV and see that Dreamer has left a series of comments on one of my DJ entries. Rather than text, these comments are a series of giant images that are larger than my screen, so I have to scroll around to see the entire picture. The first is one of Dreamer standing with one foot on a balcony railing, looking back at the “camera” and grinning. She’s holding her other foot over her head almost straight up in the air like some kind of crazy ballet move.

The next few pictures show different angles of a similar scene from a Japanese manga and I see that she’s just creating some favorite piece of a manga she likes. I think that this looks dangerous but I chuckle at her cleverness.

Soon the dream ends and I hold on for DEILD. I feel another shift and I once again roll out of bed into the air. This time I’m able to fly again but my dream body feels slight and insubstantial. It’s daytime, just as before, and I phase out through the shutters. The dream’s feeling really thin, and I try to rub my hands together but I can’t even manage that simple act. The dream soon falls into the void.

“I’m having a lucid dream,” I say, but my voice comes out very gargled and robotic. I don’t want to lose the dream, so I try singing. It works, but every word comes out in this strange, metallic robot voice:

This is a dreeeeeeam,
This is a dreeeeeeeeeeeam…
<pause> Dream dream dreeeeeeam…

The audio holds together for longer than I expect, but eventually I lose even this and wake up.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #219: The Conga Convention

I’ve arrived for work at some kind of computer lab where we build or test hardware. Dreamer works here, too, and when I walk into the back room I find her interviewing a candidate, a young woman in her early to mid-20s. Dreamer’s in the middle of having the candidate assemble the scattered parts of a computer, so I decide not to bother them.

I return to the front room to find the door blocked with tables and computer parts. I figure that Dreamer moved all this stuff to make room for the interview but I’m confused as to how it all got here. The idea of lucid dreaming crosses my mind, so I try the nose pinch and I’m lucid. My breathing is clumsy and difficult, though, and I lose stability, falling into the void.

I rub my hands together and talk out loud to myself about lucid dreaming until a new scene forms where I’m walking through a large, nearly empty room with a few tables against the wall. I think this may be the office again and that Dreamer will be here, but there’s only one unfamiliar, dark-haired woman in her early 30s sitting at the table writing on a clipboard.

I walk through a door into a large, brightly lit convention hall, filled with DCs seated at round tables, most of them sitting in front of plates of nondescript convention food. I remember that I need to summon Dreamer for the challenge so I say, “That’s Dreamer right over there,” and turn my gaze to the right while doing this sweeping gesture with my hand. When I turn I see a tiny child (about a foot tall!) with purple hair standing between two of the tables. This mini-Dreamer giggles, hops up in the air, and scampers away. When she’s run about 20 feet, she disappears in a purple flash. Several of the DCs look at me in confusion.

This was not what I had in mind, so I circle the room for a while, rubbing my hands together and thinking about how I want to do this. Okay, new plan. I do a vague, sweeping gesture at several tables and say, “Ah, Dreamer, you’re sitting over here.” A very tall woman is hunched over at one of the nearby tables and I see that purple hair cascades all around her head, hiding her face. She’s covered in layers and layers of shawls, rags, and wraps to the point where she just looks like a big pile of rags and hair.

The enormous woman begins to stir, slowly unfolding herself to full height. When she finally draws herself up to full height, it’s Dreamer, but a seven-foot-tall (2.1336 meters ) version of herself draped in colorful, purple-hued cloth. She smiles and then walks past me before I can say anything else, vanishing behind me.

I’m getting agitated about these summons, so I decide to go for Task of the Month instead. All I can remember is the “get naked” task, so off comes the shirt. Next I whip my pants down, but they get stuck around my shins like I’ve gotten sweaty or something. I get a little annoyed by this and simply will myself to be de-pantsed. Should have thought of that first!

The problem is that none of the DCs are taking notice that I’m in my birthday suit! I throw in a few booty-shaking dance moves, hoping for more of a reaction, and now the DCs start picking up on it. They start getting up from their tables, strip off their clothes (only down to underwear, interestingly) and start dancing as well. A big conga line starts forming to my left and after a moment the whole underwear-clad room is conga-ing around the entire place.

While all of this is going on, I just watch for a while. As I'm doing this, I experiment with looking away from dream characters and looking back to see how they change. They seem to mostly stay the same except some of the DCs seem to undergo slight changes in make-up or facial appearance. As I’m toying with this persistence trick, an attractive blonde woman in her late 20s drapes her arms around my neck and kisses me.

Spoiler for Awkwardness:

She tells me that she wants sex, and what do you know? Apparently I do too. But when she removes her undies, her entire body is made of some kind of smooth, rubberized plastic like a life-sized Barbie doll. She positions herself seductively, but the doll effect is so unbelievably off-putting that I decide to just wander to some other part of the room and pretend all of this never happened.

The conga line dies down and I seem to be dressed again. The DCs are all dressed and seem to be heading for the exit of the convention hall, and after a bit of wandering I decide to give the Dreamer summon another good shot. As I’m heading toward a double door, I pick one of the women at random and say, “Okay, there’s Dreamer…” One quick morph later and now I’ve finally got a proper, purple-haired, normal-heighted Dreamer walking toward me.

I give Dreamer a hug and start walking with her toward the exit, explaining out loud my plans for the dream. She nods and “uh-huh”s along but before we get to any of this, the dream fades out into a false awakening in an outdoor courtyard with a garden. There’s a woman in her late 40s with curly hair standing nearby and I tell her about the dream that I just had.

“I just had a lucid dream myself,” she responds. “I’m glad that one ended. It was getting strange. I think that REM cycle was all played out, so I’m up for the morning.”

“I’m going for more,” I tell her. “If you just wait long enough, there’s always another REM cycle.” She nods, pondering this. I wander the garden for a bit until the dream fades for good.

Not my best dream control, but hopefully I can learn from this!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #218: Empty-Handed

I hear my oldest son E calling for me. It feels like it’s very early morning and the sun’s still not up yet. I walk through the dark hallway into his room to find him sitting up in his bed. “Daddy! I’m up!” he announces and hops off of the bed. “I’m going to go tell Mommy.”

I follow him back down the hall, feeling disappointed that the morning’s starting so early and that I missed my chance to have a lucid. As E starts climbing up into bed to shake Wife awake, I’m hit with a huge wave of regret to have missed out on having a lucid dream. I decide to make one last desperate move and try to phase through the wall, phasing right through and falling into the void.

I’m floating through the darkness now so I just relax, rubbing my hands together and repeatedly muttering to myself that “I’m having a lucid dream...” It takes an uncomfortably long time, but after maybe 30 seconds of this, a bright new scene forms around me.

It’s mid-morning and I’m outside, standing by the exterior of what looks like a movie theater. I look up at the bright sky and notice that the clouds are moving across each other in all kinds of odd, crisscrossing directions. “I like that!” I shout, pointing up to the clouds. “Very nice!” I experimentally drag my right foot along the pavement and it feels like I’m wearing running shoes.

The dream is feeling really stable to me now so I decide that it’s time to summon Dreamer and earn some challenge points. I reach my right hand behind my back and say, “[Dreamer], grab onto my hand!” Nothing at first… then a slight prodding feeling on my hand!

I turn around to find a brown-haired woman in her late 30s, hunched over and poking at my hand with her index finger. (I decide that this is definitely not Dreamer.) She’s up really close, staring at my hand like it’s the strangest thing she’s ever seen. I feel frustrated and annoyed that she’s messing with me while I try to summon. “Cut it out!” I say, and she hurries away.

Something bad has happened to my confidence at this point, though, and I feel this combined surge of self-doubt, disappointment, and anger, and in a few seconds I wake up.

Not to long ago, I had a dream where I woke up ever twenty minuets. I was in a huge warehouse and the perimeter was all blocked off and I had no clue what to do. The setting was night and every time the sun rose I woke up then I fell back to sleep and this happened about five times. And I mind you, every time I start the dream, Im sitting in a latter well. every time I fell back to sleep I went into the same dream. After the first dream I realized I was dreaming and I started to notice more and more detail to things, so much that I notice things would change, things would be moved things would be missing. I then put to conclusion that I had an objective in order to finish the dream. I tryed escaping and i Instantly get attacked by massive amounts of bugs and giant roach mutants. The next dream i waited it out until sun rise and I woke up and I fall asleep and started all over. The last dream I looked up and climb up the latter well I would always start in and I finally get on top of the roof, and as I look around EVERYTHING was to to rubble burning, smoking, and falling apart. A post apocalyptic setting, i realize it was the end of the world and It was infested with torment death decay and hopelessness. while i investigate the roof i saw ac units, ventilation and dead pidgins. i then stumble on a dull black box with a tiny button in the middle, glowing a green ora, not knowing what it was I pressed it, nothing, I expected everything to blow up, and be completely white and I would wake up and continue my day, I shrugged and I said," okay,well that might not be it.", so I was bored but lucid and knowingly wondering through my dream, I investigated a little and I caught it from my peripherals, from all corners of the horizon I saw a racing void of black until suddenly I couldn't see anything and in that instance that I fell into the abyss of eternal NOTHING, which felt like an eternity of questioning and self thought, filled with anxiety and despair, I wake up. With only to amuent, I wake up to realize I'm late to work.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #216: Through the Roof

It’s some time after 4 AM and I’m wandering around downstairs, badly wanting to get some sleep to have a lucid dream. Somehow, Wife’s still awake watching something on her computer and I’m worrying that she really needs to get to sleep. “Well, I’m heading up,” I hint.

“Good night,” she says, still staring at the computer.

I head upstairs into the master bedroom. It’s dark, but there’s enough light that I can clearly see Wife curled up in bed. Wife downstairs and Wife upstairs? Dream! Since I’m in the bedroom, I get the sense that I’m supposed to start the lucid in the OBE style and “roll out of my body”. But I’m standing. How would I even do that?

Instead I decide to just float up through the ceiling, phasing out of the house and into the void. I thrash about a bit in the darkness and do a half-assed summon. Something that feels like a dry erase marker pops into my left hand, so I jam the end into my mouth and start chewing on it. With my right hand I make awkward swimming motions and imagine that I’m making forward progress.

After a bit of swimming, the void lifts and now I’m standing in my bathroom, all of the lights blazing. The bathroom looks mostly like it does in waking life apart from the fact that the mirrors are a little fogged up and have these odd creases in them. I can see my double in the mirror, making chewing motions with his mouth but he has no dry erase marker in his mouth. I grin and my double grins back, his mouth still shaped like he’s got the dry erase in it.

I dash around the room for a bit, keeping my eye on the mirror and my double does the same. I remember my intent to summon Dreamer. I reach behind me and try the summon, remembering my tip to Xanous to “try to just feel the person’s hand as if it’s already there”. To my complete embarrassment, this doesn’t work at all.

I try again and it’s not working. I become paranoid and wonder if it’s because I’m trying to summon in front of mirrors. I realize this is stupid but decide to try getting out of the room to see if that helps. As I’m walking to my left, I get this sense that I’m stumbling forward and the dream ends.

5/1/14* I remember thinking that I got #140, so waking memory was present in several spots during the night hinting at some good self awareness in spots including waking memory of a recent event in the last few weeks, but for the life of me I can't bring back the whole LD, just the "outline" of it. Usually I have no problem remembering LDs (unless I have forgotten a lot more than I realize) but on a few occasions in the past I have had the feeling that I had an LD during the night and then it would all come flowing back to me, remembering the details. This one must have fell into a false awakening I am thinking because of the recall issue and if I actually woke up from the dream I am sure I would have recalled more. All I know is that I was in a work environment when I noticed something weird and realized that I was dreaming. I remember taking off flying and ending up in a void and flying different directions while trying to imagine a new scene and at some point I was thinking that I got to LD #140. That's all I can remember for now. The other waking memory was of someone who left my company a few weeks ago and in the dream I realized that he no longer worked there but the dreaming mind created the scenario that he was just visiting. I even thought about whether or not I could get in trouble for letting him be in the building but seeing that other authorities saw him as well, I decided that it must be fine. Also interesting to me is that all 3 of the people have "g" sounds in their first names. In another dream(?) in work scenario "S" from office was pointing out why a particular request couldn't go out yet due to (bc) not being completed and that made complete sense in the dream and IWL reality. Other dreams include some self-surgery on the bottom of my toe, impatient with the doctor who had another patient in the room - a naked woman being examined. I removed too much tissue. Another dream I was on a spinning amusement park ride that was indoors and spinning quite fast with lots of "G's." For some reason I had the idea that FryingMan was on the ride as well and I remember joking around that "we're all gonna die!" like something was wrong with the ride and I remember one guy's face looking very concerned and I just laughed. At the end of the ride, the girl behind me was with another guy but she was touching my arm behind the cover of part of the ride in an intentional flirty way. I also saw a college couple having sex and the particulars gave a strong indication that this scene came about due to incubation. 140

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #202: Hoodie

I’m crossing a dark street, wearing a hoodie, sneaking around, and trying to keep a low profile. Three tough-looking young thugs seem to notice me and start walking in my direction. I turn away, not sure that I’ve been spotted, and draw my hoodie further over my head. As I’m doing this, I realize that this has to be a dream.

Somehow the hoodie is badly constricting my vision to the point where I’m now just looking out through a tiny little tunnel. I look behind me and only one of the thugs is still there, but now he’s really coming for me. I start walking away, trying to gather my wits well enough to ignore him.

My vision keeps getting smaller and smaller, which annoys me and stresses me out. To my surprise, the thug starts singing, and his voice is deep, rich, and melodious. He repeatedly sings: “This ain’t the way my game goes…”

He’s right up on me now, so I turn toward him and force-push him off. He makes a sound like “Whuf!” and seems to fly backward just as the last of my vision shrinks to the void. I feel myself falling forward to where the street should be, but I go through, and after a moment of strange acceleration downward, I’m awake.

Yet another near miss on Task of the Year! I really need to work on learning to close these. Lots of fun though!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #193: Magic Carpet School

I’m part of a large parenting group that’s exploring a gloomy cavern illuminated by translucent pools of water. After quietly exploring this place for a while, we all wind up back at one of the mom’s houses. Somebody suggests that we do a group hug, and we all awkwardly move toward the middle of the room.

I notice that Andy Bernard from The Office is part of the group. He looks sweaty and awkward and I think, “Hey that guy who plays Andy Bernard sure looks sweaty and awkward in person.” I do a quick mental check to see whether this is a dream and decide that yes, it definitely is.

I walk out of this living room into an elementary school classroom that’s in the middle of some kind of lesson. I pass through without interacting with any of the dream characters, wanting to get outside for a Task of the Year attempt. (The Aladdin’s lamp task with a magic carpet and three wishes.)

Leaving this classroom takes me to a second classroom and I start worrying that I’ll spend this whole lucid wandering through an endless series of grade school classes. I head for a wall, announcing that “This is a phase outside,” before plunging right through. I wind up in the void, but my hands and forearms are still brightly illuminated and clearly visible.

I rub my hands together and slowly the void becomes filled with a swirling field of stars. This fades into a scene from the Matrix that has the Youtube logo and controls underneath it, and I see that I am watching a video whose length is “0:98”. I briefly wonder if I went to bed wearing VR goggles or something and that the images are penetrating my eyelids. Scenes from The Matrix flash by and the image slowly rotates.

Now there’s a crackling sound and my vision fills with a series of strange characters that I can’t identify. I feel a sharp tug backward and I wait for the new scene to form. My vision reforms into… another elementary school classroom, this one a little bigger with an adjacent windowed playroom. I head immediately for the exit and I’m pleased to find myself in an entrance area. I bolt through a set of glass doors and now I’m outside.

Immediately I start attempting the lamp summon by “finding” it behind my back, but my hand just keeps coming back empty. After three failures, I’m really frustrated by this. On the last attempt my hand comes back with some little piece of dirty, wooden-looking junk about the size of a sugar cube. This time I pretend that this is the lamp but it’s just way too small. “Bigger… bigger…” and do a little magician-esque gesture. It plumps up nicely into a real magic lamp! It’s way too light to be realistic, but who cares, next step!

I rub the lamp, wishing for the magic carpet. I decide to be really specific, saying, “A magic carpet. Make it rolled up.” A simple little rolled-up rug appears on the ground. I immediately think, Why’d you ask for it rolled up? That’s just a pain in the ass. I expect the magic carpet to unroll and it does, so I quickly sit down. As I do, it lifts me up into the air and starts flying leisurely forward.

For my second wish, I quickly say “Delicious cookie!” and a tiny little sliver of cookie appears in my hand, like someone had already eaten most of it. I find this awfully stingy for a magic lamp but I stuff it in my mouth. It’s chocolate chip, not bad at all.

I think about how close I am to completing the task and the excitement gets the best of me. I get one last look at the roof of a one-story building as I float over it before the dream ends.

Interestingly, this was my second lucid in a row that hit very close to the onset of sleep. I woke up to write this down around 1:15 or so in the morning after being late to bed. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it's definitely encouraging me to continue my pre-bed MILD work!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #192: The Shadow of the Pagoda

I’m sitting at a table with some random people, working on something with pen and paper. My mind’s wandering and as I recall my intent to have a lucid dream, I almost immediately pass into one.

From here, I fall quickly into the void. I rub my hands together, expecting a new scene. Before long I emerge into a false awakening in early morning, sort of seated at the edge of my bed. Some kind of suction is drawing me away from the bed and toward our closet. This worries me for some reason and I ask Wife to “Pull me back in…” in this thin, weak voice.

She kneels on the bed and strains forward to reach for me, whimpering and fretting like she wants to help but doesn’t know how. I recognize that I’m starting to get caught up in this sense of powerlessness, and I let go, falling into the void again.

I make my way forward and emerge in a fancy-looking house, facing a set of glass doors that open to a veranda. For reasons I can’t recall, I decided to head deeper into the house and wandered through a series of rooms. The house is attractive but large and confusing and I start regretting my decision to stay inside.

I wind up in a bedroom with a simple but comfortable-looking bed that has a large stuffed teddy bear laying on top of it. Wife is standing off to the side near one corner and I remember to ask her for her middle name (for Task of the Month.)

When I ask for her middle name, she responds, “Ba ba!”

“Your middle name is ‘Ba ba’?”

She laughs. “Oh, sorry! I actually meant ‘Ba ba ba ba’.” I’m amused but I consider asking her a third time. The teddy bear catches my eye for a moment and when I turn back Wife has vanished. I think about asking the teddy bear for its middle name but decide instead that it’s time to move on.

I leave and walk through a dining hall where my son “E” joins me and starts to follow. I say something to him that I can no longer recall and we walk through more confusing rooms. At one point I’m in a dimly-lit kitchen and notice that my vision has gone blurry. I stare at my hands to draw out the detail and it works pretty well, though not as completely as I might have hoped.

I walk through another dining hall with E and as we’re exiting, the door shuts automatically behind me, cutting me off from him. I see him through the door as it closes and I feel a moment of concern that I’ve left him behind. No, let it go. I continue to a series of glass-panelled doors at the rear of the room and phase through, with some minor difficulty.

I emerge from the phase in a shady courtyard. Towering above me is an immense pagoda, stretching far away into the sky. Even in a dream I’m amazed by how tall and broad it is, far out of scale with everything else surrounding it. It’s at least 500 feet tall and dominates the landscape.



Two women walk by at the other end of the courtyard, casually chatting. They look like they’re from the 1900s, each wearing a large hat and carrying a parasol. I contemplate taking off for some flying and exploration, but the dream ends.

One notable thing about this dream was that I had it very close to the beginning of my sleep. Burke's MIT article gave me the idea to do a really determined MILD before bed and it certainly paid off here!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #191: Enjoy the Silence

I’m sitting in an airport terminal, waiting for a flight. A few seats over I spot Kurt Klimanski, a guy who did some lucid dreaming youtube videos several years ago. I think hey, great opportunity to talk about lucid dreaming with someone while I pass the time.

As I’m getting out of my seat to approach him, I notice the dreamlike way that I glide out of my chair and question whether I’m having a lucid dream right now. Hey, turns out that I am!

I move toward him but the chairs are all in my way. Mildly annoyed, I float past the chairs and land next to him. “Hey, the guy from the video, right?” I say. Kurt Klimanski looks up. “I’m actually having a lucid dream right now.”

“Oh, okay… cool, man,” he responds, bobbing his head up and down.

He starts talking about something LD-related but I feel myself slipping into the void. I grab for his hand but miss and wind up scrabbling at the carpet. He’s still talking, seemingly oblivious to how hard I’m trying to hang onto the scene. This goes on for a bit but eventually I fall into the void.

I’m relaxed here, though, and adopt a swimming motion to move silently through the darkness. I get the sense of motion and catch imagery that looks like I’m swimming past a series of huge, slowly turning pages in a book.

Then I’m pulled into a false awakening. It’s super realistic, but I have a strong sense that I’m still dreaming. I open my eyes and even feel the sensation of them opening, but I still know it’s all an illusion. I should still have my sleep mask on but I have relatively clear vision of the darkened room around me. Wife sleeps silently beside me.

I look up at the ceiling and see two large, projected circles filled with stars there. The two star circles slowly rotate in opposite directions. The effect is hypnotic and beautiful.

I watch for a good while, surprised that I’m able to maintain this much stillness without the dream falling apart. I almost feel like I’m getting away with something by just sitting here watching. I feel like my dreaming brain still believes that it has me fooled. I lay there for a while enjoying the experience until the dream ends. This time my eyes open to the pitch blackness of my sleep mask.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #190: Menthol and Marriage, Part Three

I have another false awakening in bed, but I quickly realize that it's a dream. I hop up immediately and phase out through the wall onto our street. The scene is dark, and after I’ve taken a few steps along the street, it collapses into the void.

I rub my hands together and keep walking forward. No scene takes shape, so I start thinking of directing where I want to go. For some reason I remember my personal goal of traveling to the Taj Mahal. I imagine that it’s in front of me, but can’t quite seem to get anything to take shape.

Suddenly, there’s a hard transition and a feeling of backward acceleration like I’ve been yanked back hard by a long cord. I think “Hell yeah” and get excited about where this will take me. But I’m super disappointed to find myself back in bed in a false awakening.

The room looks just like waking life, so I assume that the dream blew up on me. It feels very “obvious” that this is a real waking, but I try a nose pinch reality check “just in case”. I’m shocked and pleased when I inhale a rush of air past my pinched nostrils.

Immediately I start floating upward toward the ceiling, OBE-style. The room seems brightly lit now. I marvel at how convincing this feels, and as I roll over in the air, I see Wife laying in bed right where she’d normally be. She looks really hot to me so I float down to the bed beside her, feeling very amorous. I say something super cheese like “Hey girl, you know what I want.” Even in-dream it dawns on me that I sound like a doofus and I chuckle a little bit.

Fortunately she’s not repelled by all of this and we get to enjoy a little bit of sexytime before the dream ends.

Very close call on Task of the Year! I'll definitely have to go for this one again.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #188: CL and the Beanstalk

I WILD into a scene filled with fleeting hypnagogic imagery which quickly fades into the void. I start waving my dream-hands in a repetitive motion, waiting for a scene to form. Nothing happens right away, though, so I start licking my fingers for a while to see if that works.

Nothing’s shaping up yet, though, so I try seeing how far I can stick my tongue out. I can feel it extending outward from my mouth seemingly on and on, and after a few moments I can vaguely see it extending away from my face into the distance. Curious how large I can make it, I will the tongue to expand and it balloons out in a huge, rectangular shape as large as a room. After a couple of seconds, I can see that yes, it actually is a room…

Now I’m standing high up in an office building, looking out over a city skyline through enormous windows. It’s late afternoon. I enjoy the sight of the skyline for a moment, rubbing my hands together.

As I’m doing this, a helicopter rises into view from below my line of sight, turns itself directly toward me, and opens fire with dual-mounted miniguns.



The office windows shatter and I feel myself being pelted with glass and bullets. There’s no pain, but each impact feels like a definitive hit. I know that it’s a dream but I can’t stop myself from shying from the window, crouching down, and nearly cowering. I hold my hand out toward the helicopter then swipe it quickly to the right, flinging it away from the building and out of sight.

The wrecked office is filled with random debris now, and I make my way past it to stand at the edge of the now-empty window. I recall Task of the Year (find and plant some magic beans, climb the beanstalk, and defeat the giant at the top.) My immediate goal is to get back to ground level, so I instinctively point to a lower rooftop perhaps 7 or 8 stories down and will myself to float to it. It works and I’m pulled smoothly down.

Now I’m really enthused about this pointing thing, so I point at the street below, once again pulling myself down. I’m filled with confidence after this, so I just start knocking out Task of the Year steps as quickly as I can.

I need bare earth, so I scoop the roadway aside, leaving a bowl-shaped hollow for my seed. I close and then open my hand, expecting the seed to be there. It is! (Looks like a pine nut.) I stuff the seed in the hole, cover it over with dirt and pat it down. A stalk immediately starts growing out of the ground and I jump onto it as it goes by. The stalk’s growing fast and since I hitched a ride so early, the plant’s doing the climbing for me.

I streak past the nearby buildings and head into the clouds. Immediately a shirtless, ape-like giant with a long beard comes loping toward me, about 100 feet away. I’m preparing to do something violent and decisive to make absolutely certain that I nail Task of the Year, but excitement gets the best of me. The scene collapses into a false awakening back in my bedroom.

I need to use the bathroom, so I get out of bed, head in there, and start peeing. My aim is terrible and I keep hitting the seat, the floor, the tank, everything but what I’m aiming at. This really frustrates me and I assume that I must be super tired.

Just then I notice a strange, robotic laundry machine sloshing water onto the floor. Its label indicates that it’s some kind of diaper-washing contraption. Our kids barely use any diapers these days so I wonder why we have it and why it’s here flooding our bathroom.

My 2-year-old son R walks into the room, followed soon after by a sleepy-looking Wife. Her hair is standing up in all kinds of crazy directions, including one nearly two-foot spike that’s going straight up. “Your hair is pretty awesome right now,” I tell her. She giggles and checks herself out in the mirror. We have a good laugh about this until the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #187: The Hybrid

I have a false awakening in a strange bedroom that I think is some kind of condominium. Wife is here along with my two young kids E and R. I wonder whether I can go back to sleep and try to have a lucid dream but then realize that I’m having one right now.

I charge toward the window but feel someone short grab onto my arm. “Who is that?” I ask, looking down to find my 2-year-old son R clutching me. “It’s [R], Daddy. I want to go with you. Daddy, let me go with you!” For a moment I consider it, but once I think about my Task of the Year goal (turning into a fish-man and acting out The Little Mermaid), I decide no way. I’m way too nervous about bringing one of my kids’ DCs into the ocean.

R’s grip slips off of me as I phase through the window. I feel a little guilty for a moment, but I remind myself that this isn’t really him. I’m wound up in my backyard during what looks like mid-morning. I jump up into the air, imagining that there will be an ocean where my eastern neighbor’s yard ought to be. But when I get up there, it still looks like waking life.

I have some momentary flight trouble, but I psych myself up with a few phrases until things are going the way I want them to. I fly west for a bit, slowly turning southward and expecting to see water until… I see the ocean just ahead of me!

I pop up into the air and then plunge straight downward into the water, happily swimming about beneath the waves. The water’s darker than I’d like, but I try not to get too nervous or worked about this. I imagine my lower body turning into that of a fish, swim around that way for a bit, then look down to check my handiwork. It’s close, but not quite right… each leg is still there but all scaly like a fish’s body with a fin on the end.

I look away again, swim around a bit more, trying to make it all feel natural. I check again and it’s looking better, just about right, but now I’m feeling paranoid about my breathing. I feel like I can’t breathe underwater and need to surface. Panicked that something is wrong with my breathing in waking life, I push for the surface and fall into the void. I keep doing repetitive swimming motions, though, trying to hold onto the dream. After a while of this, I wonder if I’m making swimming motions in bed. This finally transitions me into...

… a false awakening where I’m lying in a large bed next to Wife. The room’s not my own, though. I recognize this as the condominium from the beginning of the dream, and realize that I’m still dreaming. I roll over to Wife’s side of the bed and start getting frisky. She murmurs sleepily but when I tell her that “this is all a dream”, she becomes more engaged. We make out for a little bit, but the dream hits the void.

After a moment, though, there’s a transition into an office environment. Wife’s still here with me so we continue making out.

Spoiler for Sexytime:

I notice one of the office workers, an attractive Hispanic woman in her late 20s, holding a stack of papers and talking to another employee. I tell the woman that she wants to join us and she responds, "Okay, good idea," and begins to undress while still sort of continuing to work. I guess my attention wanders, though, because after a moment she walks off to do some work thing, still partially undressed.

After that Wife and I enjoy some sexytime before…

… the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #185: Kaleidoscope

It’s morning time and I’m preparing to give my 2-year-old son “R” a shower. This strikes me as strange because R usually takes baths and Wife’s the one who usually bathes him. I dimly recall my intent to have a lucid dream and after thinking for a moment, accept that I’m having one right now.

The layout of the room’s exactly like waking life (so far as I can tell) and there’s a window high on the wall near the shower. I hop up to it, plant my hands on the sill, and phase my head and shoulders through to the outside. It’s morning, just after dawn, and the sky glows reddish-orange.

As I’m preparing to fly off, R says, “Daddy, I want to go with you but I don’t know how to do that.” (I take this to mean that he doesn’t know how to phase.)

“That’s okay, buddy,” I respond. “This is a dream.”

For some reason I have a surge of anxiety that the dream won’t stay stable and of course my vision gets a little crazy. I leap the rest of the way through the glass and fly for just a moment before I freeze in mid-air. Seconds later, my vision goes black and I’m in the void.

I rub my hands together for a moment and then decide to change scenes by plummeting downward to the ground that I imagine is still outside. I go rocketing downward but as I hit what would be the ground, there’s a “whomp!” sound and a puff of air as I pass right through. I continue accelerating faster and faster until I crash into…

...my bed. I’m lying on my stomach, my head turned to the left. My eyes are closed and it completely feels like I’m awake, but I’m suspicious, so I try to see through my eyelids. This works and after a few seconds I’m looking out at my bedroom. The center portion of my vision swirls and blends together like a kaleidoscope. I wonder if the effect will change if I open my eyes, but I decide not to mess with anything just now.

I will myself to roll out of my body and transition into an OBE, but I can’t seem to make it happen. The kaleidoscope vision effect continues for a while until the dream eventually fades out.

This one is from the morning of 12/15/2013.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #174: Android

I’m sitting on the floor of an apartment talking to a guy who I think is Oneironaut Zero. I don’t really know OZ, so I think this is a little unusual, but I’m happy to be talking about lucid dreaming.

As we’re chatting, Wife walks into the room with a young woman in her early 20s, blonde, petite and with a slightly vacant look in her eye. Wife explains that this is a new model of android that they’re selling now very inexpensively and can act almost like a real person.

We greet the android and she responds with a shy wave and a slightly stilted “Hi.” With that, she crouches down on the floor and starts tracing her finger through the carpet. Wife leaves the room and, as I try to say something to the android, Wife yells from down the hall, “The kids are trying to sleep! Keep it down!” I feel annoyed that I can’t talk but she’s allowed to yell.

“Did you just roll your eyes at me?” says Wife from down the hall and storms back into the room, looking irritated. I know that I didn’t and as I wonder why she thinks so, I soon realize that I’m dreaming. I get to my feet and the scene shifts. Wife disappears, Oneironaut Zero disappears, and the android’s hair goes from blonde to brown and her skin becomes paler.

I grab the android’s hand and charge for the apartment window, phasing straight through into what looks like an unfinished street scene. The street seems to draw itself in chunks as we run along. I see a few buildings against the blank sky but they seem to raise up lazily just as I look in their direction.

We run along like this for a while before the dream seems to stop rebuilding and finally sags into the void. The android is still here and seems determined to stay in the scene. She says something like, “I want to go too” and starts grabbing onto my arms and head. At one point it feels like she’s trying to stand on my head.

Eventually the android settles down a bit, shifts herself next to me, and we make out for a little bit. After about 15-20 seconds, though, she becomes non-responsive and just sort of stops moving. This takes the fun out of it, so I start thinking about where to take the dream next, but it soon ends.