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Another swing and a miss at meeting Art at the Alamo. But the good news is that I managed to remember (and execute) Basic Task of the Month!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #104: Reservations

I have a false awakening at home and stumble out of bed. I'm disappointed and slightly grouchy that I failed to achieve a lucid dream. Feeling unmotivated, I wander aimlessly through the house, contemplating how late for work I probably am. I think that it's Friday, though, and I'm looking forward to ordering pizza with the guys at the office and shooting the breeze for a while. (Nope, today's Wednesday!)

I wind up in the exercise room but the power rack and dip station are completely missing. It's halfway converted into an office and I see the guts of a half-built computer on the floor. I kneel down to work on it, seeing that the RAM is missing and that the box is full of dust like it's been sitting there for years. I finally grasp how dreamlike this all is and become lucid.

I rub my hands together and assemble my goals. Two come to me fairly quickly: 1) meet NewArtemis at the Alamo 2) go water-skiing. (Oops, Advanced Task of the Month is actually parasailing.) I move into the master bedroom where I see Wife standing nearby as my two young children E and R run around the room. I announce that I'm having a lucid dream, eliciting an "Okay!" from Wife. I phase through the external wall of our house. I'm on the 2nd story, so I drift down to the driveway below, lightly brushing the branches of our oak tree with my fingers as I pass.

It's a bright morning outside and I'm preparing to fly off for the Alamo when I hear the voice of my son E behind me. "Daddy, wait! Daaaaaaddy!" I think that it's probably smartest to ignore him but I can't help looking back. Somehow he's followed me outside and I see him standing about fifteen feet away, looking so small. He looks at me with enormous, pleading eyes and says, "Daddy, can I go with you?"

I start feeling all melty-hearted and I know that resistance is futile. It'd probably be amusing to see E and NewArtemis' DCs interact anyway. "Sure, buddy," I say, scooping him up and placing him on my shoulders. I hop up into the air and we fly together over the neighborhood, heading vaguely northwest. The city's different in this direction, and we pass a park and a block of tall buildings. I decide that the Alamo is in the next block and I tell E this to cement it further in my mind. "Uh-huh!" he enthusiastically agrees.

When we hit the next city block, though, I'm disappointed to find no sign of the Alamo. There's a river running east-west with a simple stone bridge crossing it and a walkway on either side. I shout down to the DCs milling around below: "The Alamo's supposed to be right here! Which way is it?"

A blonde lady walking with her daughter points westward toward the bridge. "It's that way, just past the bridge!" I thank her, land, and walk under the bridge with E still on my shoulders. We emerge to see the Alamo up ahead but there's some kind of enormous line out front. I feel the urge to get in line and patiently wait but remind myself that this is my dream and it is therefore okay to be a bit of a jerk. I stride to the front of the line where I find a restaurant host holding a clipboard. It's apparent to me that the Alamo has been converted to some sort of amazingly popular restaurant.

The host asks me whether I have reservations. "Of course," I say. "Check under [CanisLucidus]."

"Ah yes!" he responds. "Party of fifteen. Your table's almost ready."

Fifteen people? "[NewArtemis] is in our group, isn't that right?" But the host wanders off, saying that he'll "be right back."

I decide to give him a moment before prodding the dream plot onward. I remember Task of the Month (speak gibberish to a DC and see how they respond.) A sour-looking girl of about eight with brown hair and freckles is waiting nearby, sitting on a piece of luggage. "Ooooooga booga booga!" I exclaim.

She looks very annoyed. "Can we please just skip the whole 'Mess with DCs' show?" I hear her fine, but her response shocks me into just saying, "What?" She sighs dramatically and repeats herself: "I said can we skip the whole 'Mess with DCs' show? Have you seen how long this line is? I am not in the mood."

Amused, I turn away. Good enough for me. I want to keep things rolling, so I announce to the unseen host, "So my table's ready then, right?"

The host scurries back into view. "Sorry for the wait, sir. Mr. Graham was napping and needed to be woken up. Who schedules a lunch for a nap?" he says with a laugh, even though I haven't the faintest idea what he's talking about or who "Mr. Graham" is. "Right this way," says the host, and I follow, now holding E by the hand. We're moving through a wood-paneled hallway into the restaurant interior when the dream ends.

Looks like I need to go back to my "stop falling for false awakenings" and "stop missing dreamsigns" fundamentals. Still a fun dream, and got to try out a new teleport method (with mixed results.)

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #102: El Camino Real

I'm at a lucid dreaming camp with lots of people from my past. Throughout the day, we swim and boat in the lake, walk by the lakeside, and do various crafts. I tell everyone that "it's too late for me. I took galantamine and it didn't work. Let's get the rest of you lucid." I teach them about dreamsigns, awareness, and even supplements. I'm frustrated that I've failed to have a lucid dream but I figure maybe I'll feel better if some of the other camp participants can have a lucid.

This goes on for a really long time and eventually I run across Britney Spears eating a blueberry muffin in one of the hallways. She complains that her career is in a slump. I suggest that she would be a perfect spokesperson for blueberry muffin sales. She's thrilled with the idea. In celebration, she takes a staggeringly huge, very unladylike bite out of the muffin, paper and all. I feel incredibly savvy and very proud of myself.

From there, I have a false awakening: Wife and I are starting our day and she switches on the TV. (She never does this in the morning.)The music video for Madonna's "Like a Virgin" is playing on the TV. Her love interest is the guy who played the mummy in The Mummy movies. After the first verse, the TV switches to a 3d rendering of The Killers performing in front of the university Wife and I attended. "That's The Killers," she says. (She doesn't know what they look like.) We're sitting in a cafeteria now, watching people order food while I complain about how I failed to realize I was dreaming just a moment ago when it was so obvious. Some guy carrying a tray of food totally wipes out and gets spaghetti all over himself. Wife laughs when this happens, which seems cruel and out of character. (Big dreamsign. She thinks the part in Karate Kid where Daniel-San spills spaghetti on himself and everybody laughs is super mean.)

Now I'm staring out of a window in some kitchen, feeling sorry for myself that I didn't get lucid. I think that I could be dreaming right now, but everything is just too vivid. And yet... it finally dawns on me. I look over at Wife preparing food at the kitchen counter and it's so real that it almost costs me my lucidity. I decide that I'd better get moving.

The next room is a darkened dining room with an elegantly set table and an unlit candelabra. It's dark in the room and I decide that it would be best to leave the house, so I head for a wall and phase through it. There's no scene beyond the wall, and I wind up in the void.

I quickly rub my hands together and keep walking, thinking that I'll try a new teleport method out of the void, building on an idea that PennyRoyal had suggested. I place my fingers in front of my eyes and imagine them gently wiggling. Pretty soon my hands take shape in front of me and I begin to imagine a new scene behind them -- the Alamo, the arranged meeting spot with Art. Once I feel like the scene's ready, I move my hands aside and find myself in...

... Silicon Valley, walking along El Camino Real. There's even a roadsign marking out the intersection of "82" (El Camino Real) and "93" (unknown road.) It's a beautiful day, typical perfect weather for the South Bay. I jog up a residential street, and a lady power-walking with her dog gives me a friendly wave. I wave back. I know that I have tasks that I'm forgetting, but they refuse to come to mind.

Moving a bit further along the street, I pass my old friend Wang. I ask him how he's been and he says, "I can't talk right now. I've got to be careful not to catch a cold." When I accept this, he breaks into a laugh like he really pulled one over on me. "I'm just kidding!" he says. "I know that you're dreaming this!" He shouts across the street to a lady who's watering her lawn. "Do you know he's dreaming all of this?" I'm a little distracted by how hyper-realistic Wang looks. His lips move flawlessly with the words he's speaking. I wonder how it's possible for all of this to fit inside my head.

The woman is dark-haired, mid-40s, clad in sweat pants. "Oh, like that 'lucid dreaming'? I've always wanted to do that." I respond with a few encouraging words and jokingly say something along the lines of "better make sure that you're not dreaming right now, too." She and Wang laugh and I say, "You know what? Let me show you guys a couple of things." With that, I hope onto the trunk of a parked car and leap to to top of another parked car, intending from there to take off in flight. For some reason the flying doesn't happen, though, and I wind up hovering face-first a few inches off of the ground. Fortunately, this is still cool enough to impress.

"Guys," I tell them, "I'm going to try another teleport. It was good talking to you." They say goodbye, and I put my hands over my eyes again, trying once again to imagine the Alamo. I give it a little longer to incubate this time, waiting until I can "see" the structure fairly well in my mind. But when I remove my hands, I'm somewhere else near Palo Alto. I can see the Stanford Foothills. The vision out of my left eye looks odd, sort of like I have one messed up contact lens. I ignore it, take to the air, and fly just a bit before the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #100: The World Is Yours

I'm flying high in the sky around what looks to be a computer-generated globe that's populated with little dots. I feel like I'm on a plane with Wife but I don't see a plane. It's just me and my floating perspective as we circle slowly and gracefully around this globe.

I tell Wife, "This is a music video for a Phil Collins' song called 'Julia' from 1980." (Not true.) The song immediately starts playing. In it, Collins sings of how this globe is "not CGI" and that the dots represent people around the world. He sings that the dot he remembers best ("the one I best recall") was one of him over the ocean, flying on a plane to be reunited with his beloved Julia.

As the song ends, I suddenly find myself falling downward out of the sky. I hope that this is a dream, I think, and of course it is.

I immediately halt my fall and find myself hovering over a huge, vivid cityscape -- highways, skyscrapers, cranes, bridges, traffic jams, all arrayed for me down below. I want to fly around and explore this city, but when I attempt to fly, I'm unable to move. For some reason, I feel totally confident that I'll come unstuck. Stop asking, I think.

I ignore what the dream is telling me and I imagine that I'm already flying Iron Man-style around the city. A second later, I'm flying effortlessly, cruising anywhere I like. I get briefly stuck a time or two, but I just ignore it, imagine that I'm succeeding, and immediately start flying again. Eventually, the little glitches stop.

I see a tower that I remember from waking life -- it's one that I pass during my commute. I fly up to the top and circle around it. I glide low over roadways and high above a cluster of skyscrapers, then descend back to one of the bridges that spans a piece of some unfamiliar bay.

My confidence is soaring, and I decide try some large-scale dream control. I put my hands out in front of me and then bring them apart like I'm performing the breaststroke. As I do, I rake cars off of the bridge in either direction and dozens of them go plummeting toward the water. I bring my hands back together and I watch as time rewinds and they return to the bridge, unharmed. I fly back toward the skyscrapers, select a pair of them, and then begin moving them up and down, one for my left hand and one for my right.

I look to my left and see an enormous fire ogre (a la "Orcs Must Die") stomping toward me down one of the city streets. He towers over most of the nearby buildings, at least 100 feet tall. I wonder whether maybe I'll be fighting him later. I feel no fear at all. I reflect for a moment about what it would be like to have this much control and confidence in every LD. Nothing could stop me. What sort of things would I do if I had years of this kind of power?

Leaving the fire ogre behind for now, I fly over my city for a while and just let my dreaming brain show me what it can do. I look out at the waters of the nearby bay and think about using all of this overflowing confidence for some Task of the Month parasailing, but the dream soon ends.

Blame it on the menthol.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #98: Menthol and Marriage

I'm watching my son E perform some kind of a play with other 3-year-olds. At one point he's supposed to pretend a wiffle ball bat is a magic wand, but of course he goes waving it around dangerously close to other kids' heads. I run over to intervene but another mother gets there first. "I'll take that," she says, plucking it out of his hands.

"Sorry! Thanks for grabbing that from him," I say, embarrassed that she got there first. The woman gives me an unfriendly "where were you?" look. This annoys me, but as the father of the kid who was going nuts with a wiffle ball bat, there's not much I can say. I look back over at the play and E, laughing merrily, leaps over a low stone wall and goes running off God-knows-where. I take off after him...

...and have a false awakening in complete darkness. I hear Wife stir in the darkness and she asks me why I'm awake. I tell her that "I had this crazy dream where [E] almost hit a bunch of other kids in the head with a wiffle ball bat." I move to settle back against the pillow and realize that it's way, way too dark in here. "I'm dreaming," I tell her.

"Mm-hmm," is her sleepy reply, and I hear her roll over.

"It's super dark in here," I say. "I can't even see you." She doesn't respond but she rolls over again, leaning her head against my shoulder and putting her hand on my chest. I'm feeling really frisky and I think about asking her whether she wants to "make out a little bit."

Before I can unleash this suave line on her, she exclaims, "God, your breath!" and rolls away in horror. As she says that, I notice that the inside of my mouth feels nasty and vaguely thick, like my pre-bed dental care has totally worn off.

My confidence is a bit punctured, but I respond, "This is a dream. I can't possibly have bad breath in a dream."

"Okay, if you're sure," she says.

I move toward where her voice is coming from and try to kiss her. I wind up just finding her feet, which start flailing around when I touch them. "Why are you facing the wrong way now?" I ask, confused and a little exasperated.

"I don't know!" she responds. Holding on to an ankle, I very clumsily sort of turn her around. Since it's dark, I can just imagine that she's now facing the right way. As I do, the light in the scene increases ever so slightly until I can see her. I've managed to put my "death breath" from earlier out of my mind, so we kiss.

As they say, "one things leads to another", and the dream ends with roughly 4 minutes of very vivid LD sex before I wake up. Describing this part in detail would be a little too personal and graphic, but even after having a fair number of lucid dreams, the realism and detail of LDs still amazes me.

#184 - DILD - 10:08AM - 4 of 4

I'm feeling ill today so lay back down for a nap.

I am sitting in the living room on the couch watching TV next to my younger daughter. I hear her say "[something something], mother fucker". This gets my attention and I look at her startled. I say, "Dalynn! You don't get to say that word. You're just not old enough."
She replies, "But mom said it. She said she was going to get lucid like a mother fucker." My eyes get big and I'm surprised she said it again. I look over at my wife and see is blankly starting at the TV oblivious to the conversation. Then I get it. Several things hit me at once. First, my daughter is really 6 but she looks 13. Second, my wife would have come unglued if my daughter had really said that. Third, the furniture was all wrong. Fourth, my daughter said her mom wanted to get lucid.
I say out loud, "I think I might be dreaming." I nose plug out of habit and blow through but it feels a little restricted. Hmm. I'm not sure now. I do it again several time until I am satisfied that I am dreaming. "Hey! I am dreaming."

Then I make a classic mistake of thinking way too much about my physical body lying in bed. I find myself in hard SP. I open my eyes and can see I am on my left side. My face is slightly buried into the blanket and all I can see is the gold and burgundy pattern of the comforter. I try to roll over but I am completely paralyzed. I feel really hot and think I am sweating profusely. I just want to uncover and get air but I can't. I feel claustrophobic and restricted.

OK I can accept this. I close my eyes and relax and transition out of bed. I feel like I am walking with my eyes closed so I instinctively open them. I really just open my physical eyes. I see the blanket again and feel surprised that I had not budged a muscle. I feel so hot. I close my eyes and try to move the blankets of me. I feel like I really did it for a second but when I open my eyes again I see nothing changed. I decide to just ignore the hot feeling again and try to dream. As soon as I relax I wake up and realize I am not the least bit hot or sweaty.

#179 - 5:38AM - DILD - 2 of 3

On this one my memory is a little vague. I became lucid but only for a few moments. I've forgotten much of the detail so I'll be brief.

I am watching my wife give birth to my son for the second time. But this time she is in the bedroom on the bed and there is a midwife. She has the baby crowning the she suddenly flips over with her butt in the air. I see him pull an arm out and wave at me. This so ridiculous that I become lucid but only on a low level. I didn't decide to change anything or leave. I just stood there watching my son being born. After he was born I got a good look at him and noticed this face was completely purple. I didn't freak out as I knew none of this was real. My wife says to me, "Well, are you going to hold your son?"
I reply, "Yeah later after I wake up."
Then I wake up.

Last night was a potpourri of lots and lots of unstable little WILDs and DEILDs. Very very confusing night, but I was glad that I managed to tough it out and keep spooling up more dreams.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #92: DEILDs and Demigods

The WILD sticks me into a hazy, insubstantial scene. I have a dream body, but I can't tell where I am. I try to Hulk jump to someplace new and upon landing, I wake up...

I hold still for DEILD, repeating "here and now" and "I'm dreaming". Everything's still dark, but at some point, I feel like I'm dreaming. I mentally move my right hand to my face, pinch my nose shut, and try to breathe, blowing right through. I get out of bed, fall through the floor, and have a false awakening back in bed.

I'm still suspicious, so I hit the nose pinch again and confirm that I'm still dreaming. This instability has rattled me a bit, so I wait for a dream scene to form, temporarily forgetting how to handle myself in the void. Rather than take me anyplace, the dream fades out and I wake up for real.

Come on. Stay in there. I try not to worry too much about this, but I'm a little rattled. I stay still, working for DEILD, and finally a scene starts forming that looks like the inside of a cave. I try rubbing my hands on the floor of the cavern and it feels real -- I'm in.

I'm crouched on a long downward slope in a cavern of red rock. The tunnel is large and well-lit and a number of DCs in street clothes are watching me, seemingly anticipating that I'll do something. I decide to put on a little show, hopping into the air, floating gently along the slope for about 25 feet. There are gasps of astonishment and a crowd starts to gather.

"I'm dreaming all of this," I explain to the crowd.

Murmurs of disagreement from the crowd. One man walks up and says, "No. I've done lucid dreaming myself, and this is totally different." The people in the crowd start trying to convince me that I'm a demigod demonstrating my powers. I half-heartedly object, but they are unanimous, convincing, and very persistent. Eventually I'm persuaded and lose lucidity. I perform various dream control stunts like telekenesis and producing lightning. The whole time I think that they're god powers, even gratefully noting that lucid dreaming was great practice for becoming a "demigod". I do this for a while, shamelessly enjoying the adoration.

I wake up, slightly annoyed at my own stupidity. Quick bathroom trip, back to bed for a second WILD. I emerge on a street scene with several eye-catching female DCs walking by in different directions. I realize that I'm totally staring, think briefly about menthol, and then wake up.

I DEILD back into the void. I imagine that I'm swinging a gladius for a bit and eventually I find myself in a kitchen that looks a bit like my own. I'm muttering something about "sulbutiamine" (a drug I'd read a mention of recently.) An Asian woman in a business suit gives me an unfriendly look. "I've taken sulbutiamine," she says. Her demeanor darkens and her eyes turn completely black. "And I've taken drugs that made it so I never rotted in my coffin." Her face has grown pallid and vaguely zombie-like, and she advances slowly toward me.

I'm very creeped out by her but mostly I'm annoyed that she's trying to inject this nightmare nonsense into what was planned to be my cool lucid dream. I turn away and decide to just think about something else so she'll fade out. I walk over to the window and look out into the night. The dream fades and I wake up.

I go for DEILD once more... I'm on a street scene, standing next to a cute, tall-ish redhead. She's smiling warmly, and she has her arms open like she wants to hug. I feel exhausted and grateful, and I gladly hug her. She nibbles my ear and I respond by kissing her neck, coming close to losing lucidity. I shake it off, though, thinking that I need to ask her to help me back on the right track with this crazy sequence of dreams. I'm struggling to find the words, but she seems to understand, pulling away and somehow drawing up even taller. Now she's truly a giant, about nine feet tall. She reaches down, places a hand on the back of my head, and guides me toward a huge television.

My wife and kids are here playing some kind of video game and they happily invite me to join them. The interface is like a super-slick version of Steam. Soon there's a controller in my hands and we're playing a combination music and puzzle game. As I'm trying to learn how it works, I lose lucidity again, but still have a good time playing for a while. I keep thinking of great enhancements for the game and for this "Steam" interface and the ideas keep winding up in the game itself. I'm amazed by this. I feel impressed but sad that the developers "already thought of all my great ideas." We all play together for some time, and after that the dream fades to oblivion.

This WILD was amazing. Very vivid and realistic, rich content, successful summoning, and a Task of the Month success (plus a failure.) Forgive the length of this entry, but the dream was 25-30 minutes, and a lot happened! (Edit: After further review... best LD ever.)

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #90: The Night of the Weredog

I experience a sharp transition that feels like a short fall face-first onto a paved surface. My arms are splayed out over my head and I can't move. I can see just a bit and it looks like I'm on a basketball court at night, but I'm afraid to open my eyes more to look around.

I'm totally paralyzed. I'm conscious and aware but for some reason can't move, and I think I'm experiencing something similar to REM atonia. I know it's all in my head, though, so I start peeling my dream-arms out of this fake physical body by rotating them forward into the ground using thought rather than my muscles. It takes a little effort, but eventually I feel this set of "dream-arms" separate out and move independently. Soon the rest of my dream-body follows and I'm able to exit completely and get to my feet.

It is a basketball court -- four of them in fact, all arranged together in one giant rectangle. I'm alone on this court but teenagers are playing small, informal games on the other courts. The courts are surrounded by concrete stands and a metal railing. For fun, I stunt-jump off of the metal railing and land back on the court, then see Wife approaching out of the darkness. She's dressed for bed and looks groggy. "You're still up?" she says. "Shouldn't you get to bed?"

"Shhh, it's okay," I say. "Go back to sleep. I'm having one of my dreams." She nods, yawns, and wanders off into the darkness. False awakening averted.

I roam around the basketball court for a while before regaining focus on my goals for the dream -- summon NewArtemis and have her do the werewolf tranformation for Advanced Task of the Month. I put my right hand out for the handshake summon and look away, pointing my gaze over my left shoulder. I don't feel anything at first, but I'm relaxed about it. I know it'll work if I just give it time. I imagine the sensation of a hand pressing into my palm, and then slowly, vaguely it takes shape. After a few moments, I give the "hand" a squeeze and it squeezes back.

Without looking, I check for a forearm, probing all the way up to the elbow. "[NewArtemis], is that you?"

"Hey! Yeah I'm here!" Cool, I think, but I want to be sure the summon's really solid before I look. I check the DC's arm -- quite thin, but it's there. I reach her shoulder and I'm a little worried when it just feels like bare skin.

"So before I look... uh, what's the story with your clothing situation?"

"It's fine, I'm dressed!" she says. "Come on, quit worrying so much!"

Slowly, I turn to look. I'm shocked to see that I'm shaking hands with a short, middle-aged woman in a blue business suit. There's about a half second of sudden blackness and then a hard scene transition -- now I'm shaking hands with NewArtemis (no longer the businesswoman and back to her usual DC appearance) on some beachside boardwalk at night. Success! "Told you!" she crows. "Let's go!" She sprints past a burly, mustachioed man eating an ice cream cone, heading toward the sand. I follow, flying to keep up.

As she reaches the beach sand, she notices that I'm flying. She looks annoyed. "You know, I can't seem to get my flying to work right now." I notice that I'm unable to fly more than a few feet off of the ground. I try a Hulk jump and can only manage a measly 20 feet or so. Seeing this, she tries a Hulk jump of her own and manages about 50 feet. "Ha!"

There are some dunes along the shore and we practice competitively Hulk jumping up and down the dunes as we continue along the water. After doing this for a bit, we come to a long line of black-robed cultists standing at the top of a dune in a long series of rows, torches in hand. They're droning and chanting, obviously in the middle of performing some dark ritual. There are probably 50 of them in total and I think that this looks like a perfect place to go for the "mythical creature" Task of the Month. "[NewArtemis]! Do your werewolf transformation! These guys are just begging to get eaten by a werewolf."



She looks doubtful. "I'm not so sure," she says. "Isn't this just a bunch of college kids doing a fraternity initiation?"

Just as she says this, one of the "evil acolytes" flips his hood back. He's a friendly-looking blonde guy with a goofy smile. "Hey guys! Sorry if we freaked you out! We're just a bunch of college kids doing a fraternity initiation!" (He uses her precise wording.)

I sigh. We continue for a little while longer, coming to a well-lit swimming pool. "Maybe we should go ahead now and do your werewolf transformation while we're thinking about it," I suggest, and the moment I say this, she changes fast into a big, black dog, bounds ahead of me, and leaps joyfully into the pool! She splashes playfully in the pool for a while, panting and grinning.



But as she kicks up more water, the playful splashing turns into thrashing and now the black dog has turned into my 3-year-old son and he's sinking fast. I'm still aware that it's a dream so even though I badly want to pull him out of the water, I don't feel as freaked out as I would in waking life. I dive into the pool and even underwater I can hear my son calling to me. I can see and breathe without any trouble and I swim to the bottom of the pool, scoop him up, then fly back out of the water, landing poolside to tend to him. He seems unharmed and the moment I set him down, he runs off into a nearby grotto.

I follow my son into the grotto, a low-ceilinged cave with a shallow pool of water, partially bricked walls, and some form of dim light that reflects off the water and plays across the cave ceiling. I find that my son E has changed back into NewArtemis in human form. "Sorry about the pool thing, man," Art says, rolling her eyes. "Hey, do Task of the Month on these DCs!" She gestures at a family of tourists that are exploring the grotto. (The task is to tell a DC they're not real and see their reaction.)

I'm impressed that she reminded me of this. "Good idea! Hey kid," I say, addressing a boy of about 11, "you're not real."

"Nuh-uhh..." the kid counters, looking cross and uncomfortable. Okay, that should be good for a Basic completion, but I'm looking for more.

Now I address a bearded man in his mid-60s, who I assume is the boy's grandfather. "You're not real. This is all happening inside my dream."

"Nonsense," the grandfather says, "you're not real. I'll prove it." He flicks me on the left arm, looking proud of himself. I counterargue by levitating him a couple of feet off of the ground and setting him back down. He blubbers for a moment, then looks off at one of the cave walls, mentally processing this existential crisis. I feel a little bad for him.

"[NewArtemis], you should do this too, get those Basic wings," I say, only partly joking. She doesn't respond, and when I look over, she's changed into a man in his late 20s, short-haired, prematurely balding, and slumped against the wall in fatigue. He mumbles something about how long the dream has been and how tired it's made him. I throw the guy over my shoulder and carry him out of the grotto. When I set him down outside, he's turned back into a tired-looking NewArtemis. "Are you okay?" I ask. She says that she is, but everything has started to feel wobbly and unstable.

Suddenly, the whole scene rocks and something pitches us forward. We both yelp and I fall flat on my face, my hands flailing out in front of me. I'm semi-paralyzed and the scene has gone dark, but I've managed to grab onto NewArtemis' left ankle where it feels like she's wearing some kind of thick winter sock. There's a loud rumbling in the background that sounds like an earthquake. "I can still move!" yells NewArtemis over the noise and she drags me slowly forward across some kind of rough gravel. My face is smashed down into the gravel so I can't respond. She keeps hauling us forward for about 15 more seconds before the scene collapses into...

...a false awakening in some unknown house. Mom is here and I excitedly start telling her about the incredible LD that I just had, going over as many details as I can recall. She tells me to keep my voice down -- my son R is sleeping in the next room over. I apologize, continuing the recollection in a softer tone of voice. After a while, this scene fades, too, and I'm awake.

This was a very long dream / lucid dream series, going on for at least 45 minutes to an hour. I lost lucidity early on and regained it, so the first part of the dream is extremely scrambled. Also, a little background on one portion: I recently found out that Wife thinks lucid dreaming is more or less a waste of time. I was disappointed by this and concerned about what her DC might be like in future dream appearances.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #88: Reconciliation Hour

I'm in a lucid dream where I'm in a current of strong running water. I'm taking things easy, reminding myself to be more patient in life. I have a false awakening into a completely rearranged version of my house, downstairs. I hunt around for my dream journal... there it is, on the counter! I reach for it and as I grab it, my friend The Schwartz walks up and asks, "Hey, whatcha doing?"

"Hang on, [The Schwartz], I've gotta get these dreams written down. My dream memory is good for like 3 seconds. If I think about anything else, it'll all go away." I feel my dream memories leaking out of my ears. (Figuratively.) He looks a little hurt and I remember that the message of the dream I just finished was to be more patient. "Sorry, man. I know I'm not as patient as I should be sometimes. My dream was about getting better at that. You were even in it." (I assume this is true but no longer have any memory of it.)

I crouch down by a coffee table and get ready to write. Just then a full-sized poodle noses aggressively toward me. "Hey puppy," I say, reaching out to pet it. The dog turns away, totally snubbing me, circles around behind me, and then bites me hard on the butt. Another dog, a German shepherd joins the poodle and behind them I see my real two dogs (Siberian Huskies) lying on the carpet, panting.

"[Wife]!!" I wail, going into the kitchen. "Why do we have four freaking dogs in this house now? Wasn't two bad enough?"

Wife is in the kitchen cooking huge pans of a strange, purplish, bubbling yogurt conconction with her mom. "Oh, those belong to sissy and [brother-in-law Muppet]. We're just taking care of them." I grumble at this but sit down to journal. All but the last 2 pages of the DJ are filled, and the last entry is really hard to read. It says something about 139 pounds, but everything else is blurry and shifty. I demand proof that I'm not dreaming and become lucid.

"Hey, [Wife]," I say. "I'm having a lucid dream."

"Cool!" she responds. "Why don't we go to the park?" And then we're someplace else, holding hands and walking outside along a broad, grassy path with a great number of other people. We trudge past a flooded parking lot and the steel-toed boots I'm apparently wearing are soaked through. I'm annoyed at first, then remember that I can just fix it -- I do.

After walking for a long while, we get to a playground. The playground is a sort of cross between a playground and a petting zoo because all sorts of little animals like sheep and pigs are playing on the equipment as well, mingling with the kids. Our two kids (who weren't in the scene before) streak past us and join in the playing. My oldest son E sort of sits on another boy and I cringe, worrying that there might be some sort of confrontation. All is well, though, and everyone plays happily.

We do this for a while and then wander various paths in the park, the kids coming and going. There's an indoor scene as well where our son E gets to take a class and writes on the blackboard (something he can't do all that well IWL yet.)

Eventually we return home and put E to bed, except he's sleeping in a crib for some reason now. I'm happy, the way I feel after a great day out with the family. I keep looking at my hands as we put him to bed, reminding myself that I'm dreaming. Each time I do, I seem to grow an extra finger. The extra fingers even work pretty well although it seems to take extra special effort to move the "new" fingers vs. the old ones. By the end, my right hand has nine fingers.

As we leave his room, I show my freaky alien-looking hand to Wife and she laughs, saying, "That's awesome." I laugh too, peeling the extra fingers off like a glove and tossing it into the corner of a room where it lands with a rubbery thump. The fingers transform into a brightly-colored kerchief.

I say, "You know, I wish you felt differently about lucid dreaming." (IWL, Wife expressed that she thinks lucid dreaming is pretty much a waste of time.)

"I love that you have these dreams," she says, smiling.

I'm confused. "But you pretty much told me that this was a waste of time." She looks away, her smile fading. Then it hits me how caught up I am in confusing fantasy and reality, even while lucid. "Sorry. I forgot. Here and now."

She smiles again and turns to leave the room. I check her out as she's walking away. "Not gonna happen..." she says, without turning around, and bounds out of the room. I follow as the dream fades...

#59

I woke up to pee. I don't know what time it was. I went back to bed and cycled (SSILD). It hasn't been working lately, but neither have I been trying very hard. Last night I made a serious effort with my cycling.

Spoiler for Sexy Time:

My dream opens with a chick spread wide open for me. I don't even see the girl except for her vaginal area. I was nervous for the usual reason, but I conclude that I really am dreaming even without an RC.

I eat the girl out with a fervor, ass and all for as long as I can. Eventually the dream shifts.

I lost lucidity, and I can't remember what happened afterward, but compared to the lucid portion of the dream, I couldn't care less about it.

I woke up and had to pee again after this dream, or possibly later.

I decided to cycle again and see if I could have another lucid. I have my typical itches that disturb my cycling, so I scratch and move around until I can rest and cycle properly. I do, and eventually I dream.

#60

I'm with B. L. and my wife. At one point I think R was there. I'm walking down a long, curved street. I tell B that I have dreamed of this road before. It was actually a false memory.

We walked down the hill to the bottom where there was GA red clay piled up from a construction job, and it was spotted with rocks. I tried to tell B that I remembered that also. It was as though I had dreamed of the very same road.

I said something about my birthday in relation to the memory. My wife started crying because I said I had the dream on my birthday. (This stemmed from her not caring about dreaming at all IWL) I responded to her, "No, it was my birthday IN the dream when I had been down the road."

Beyond the construction type Earth pile was a gully, and turning to the left about 130° was some modest housing. This was also a false memory that just amazed me. The whole scene was like I'd been there before. The only thing different was that I remembered the housing being not as nice as it was now.

I turned around and B was up a ramp (that hadn't been there before) and was walking away with R or my wife. I started trying to go up the ramp, but I had a bit of a hard time getting up it. It was steep and slippery.

I held on to some black piping and made it to the top where I found a black girl. her skin was like an iron skillet, but it was nice just the same. She was easy enough to look at.

I told her that if this were a dream...and I became lucid.

I started singing a Bee Gee's tune with different lyrics

Spoiler for Sexy Time:

and took down her white shorts. I looked her in the face and I had no trouble pulling her pants down.

I touched her vag and paid special attention to how it felt. I mashed down and felt her skin on my hands and fingers. I then picked her waist up to eat her and she was small. I thought, as long as I'm picking her up, I might as well turn her around so she can suck me, so I turned her around. She started sucking me and a woke up.

I was sad to wake up, but I enjoyed my dreams. I went to pee and tried cycling again. I dreamed, but I don't remember what, and it wasn't lucid.

I took a pass at Advanced Task of the Month (turn a lump of coal into a diamond) but was running into all kinds of cognitive and dream control problems. My brain seemed to be a little zonked. This was my first lucid where I'd taken Valerian Root for sleep, so it's something to consider. Still, a nice long dream, even just counting the lucid part! If I'd managed to get lucid earlier I might have even had more time (and avoided that chaotic freeway scene.)

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #84: Vehicle Fire

Everything in the house is breaking at once. The plumbing is leaking all over the place, the dogs have destroyed a bunch of stuff, and I hear some kind of weird crunching noise from outside. To top it off, we're late picking up the kids from something.

I head outside to find my brother-in-law Muppet swinging around like a monkey on one of the external brick columns that supports our house. Each time he swings around, a couple of bricks fall off of the house and land nearby. Plus, the pillar is actually moving a little bit each time he goes around it. "What the hell are you doing?" I say to him. "You're gonna break our house!" I perform some half-assed reality check and it succeeds.

"What did you do just now?" asks Muppet.

"That was a reality check," I explain. "Everything is such a mess that I hoped I was just dreaming."

"Ah," he says, not especially interested. He points at our roof. Three objects that look like wooden shipping pallets are sticking out of it. "Hey, what are those?" asks Muppet. I grimace, thinking that they must have fallen out of a plane or something and wound up embedded in our roof. Muppet gets distracted, makes some remark about the flowers on the banana plants in our back yard, and then hops away over the top of our house. (Yes, over the top of our two-story house.)

Wife and I get in the car to go pick up the kids. We drive around the city for a long time but every road seems to be closed. Finally we take a tollway but traffic suddenly gets really heavy. I lightly bump some car as I'm driving around but nobody makes a big deal about it. Looking up ahead, we see the reason for the delay: ahead of us a disabled car is engulfed in flames. Black smoke billows up to the sky.



"We've gotta get off this road," I tell Wife, and steer the car toward a left exit. Just as I do that, though, a fire engine comes racing toward me, going the wrong way up the exit. I throw the car in reverse to try to get out of the way. I have to bump a lot of cars to clear a path, but I figure that's okay.

Finally, our car gets totally stuck, so I hop out and start pushing it sideways, kind of lifting it each time. I realize that I'm way too strong and become lucid. Wife has vanished, which is probably for the best -- the scene has grown totally chaotic, with cars driving around everywhere bumping into each other and the siren from the fire truck wailing in my ear. I pick up the car over my head and throw it across the road. In mid-air it changes from an SUV into a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Then it becomes just the front half of a VW Beetle.

The license plate looks like a bar of soap with words carved into it in cartoony handwriting. I get closer so that I can study it. There are four words, but I only remember "ship" and "check".

Now I remember Task of the Month -- turn a lump of coal into a diamond. Unfortunately, I start trying to conjure a diamond at first. I'm very aware of my hands for some reason, and even when I put them behind my back I can't seem to make myself buy into the conjuration. I bring my hands back to the front of my body and see that now I'm wearing these black, rather lady-like leather driving gloves. Annoyed, I take them off and pitch them away. I try the conjuration again -- again, more lady-gloves. Then I remember that I wasn't even supposed to be conjuring a diamond in the first place but a lump of coal. I start working on that, wind up with lady-gloves again, and start getting frustrated. A car clips me as it goes by, I start getting agitated, and darkness comes over me, pitching me into the void.

I feel relaxed, and start probing at my dream body. It's only a few seconds before I find myself standing in my own bedroom, walking toward the door. I say something encouraging to myself like, "Hell yeah, sexy new dream body!" For a moment I contemplate turning around to see whether Wife is in bed and might be down for doing something sexy but I get scared that approaching the bed I'm actually occupying IWL would be destabilizing.

I head to the top of the stairs. The baby gate's blocking me but I just power through it and it sort of snaps open. I get nearly to the bottom of the stairs when everything stretches way, way out and takes on that stereotypical "endless hallway" look. I keep moving but no matter how far I go everything seems to stay in the same place. Then the entire room suddenly rotates 90 degrees, floor becoming wall, and I slide down the rest of the way to the first floor.

Our coat closet has been replaced with what looks like a giant iPhone. The screen is displaying a game with a 5x5 array of tiles. When you touch various tiles, you receive prizes in the form of troops for Clash of Clans. I earn 4 Minions and a Hog Rider just pushing tiles at random, but now I'm interested in learning what the rules of the game are. I'm trying to figure this out when the dream ends.

I pulled off Basic Task of the Month in this one and got part of the way through Advanced. Considering that I came into this dream in a bit of an unfocused mood, I'm calling this a success!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #83: Expensive Snacks

I WILD into a scene where I'm standing in the driveway of our house. There's a dark blue jeeped parked here. I notice that the jeep's license plate is made out of paper and as I lean down to investigate it, Wife comes up from behind me and says, "You're going to pick up the kids, right?"

I say something along the lines of, "Huh?" I turn to face her but she's already walking away. She waves over her shoulder, calling, "Thanksloveyoubye!!" before vanishing back into the house.

I turn my attention back to that weird "license plate". It's filled with extremely small print that mostly seems to be related to lucid dreaming. I try to memorize a little of it but I can tell that the text is changing. I give up on this hopeless task and climb into the jeep.

Two child seats are jammed into the back, totally askew and clearly not properly installed. For a moment I worry about picking up the kids in seats that are this unsafe but I quickly remember that I have no intention of actually going to get the kids. I'm interested in the car, though, so I climb into the driver's seat.

Without me having to do anything, the car starts driving itself backwards through my neighborhood. I have no idea why it's in reverse, but the car's going at a fine pace and making great turns, so I just go with it. I decide to chill a bit and just let the car drive me around. I think of how comfortable my seat is and it automatically reclines for me.

I happen to glance over at the passenger seat and notice that one of Wife's rings is laying on the cushion. I try to remember whether she lost this ring IWL. No, it's not missing. But the Task of the Month occurs to me and I decide to give the ring a taste. I jam it into my mouth and start sucking on it. The taste is slightly oily at first, but I'm not getting a lot of flavor. I start to suck a bit harder and I feel the top of the ring begin to melt! My mouth is filled with the taste of vegetable oil.

I spit the ring out and see that about a third of it is completely melted. The damage bothers me so I grip it in my hand for a moment to repair it. It comes out whole again and I toss it back onto the seat.

I want to go for the Advanced Task now (transform a lump of coal into a diamond), so I conjure a lump of coal by "finding" it behind my back. As I bring it forward to look at it, though, I feel the scene darkening and losing focus. The change is sudden, so I'm left with no time to complete the diamond transformation. I get ready to DEILD but when the scene collapses I'm left totally awake.

I was really going for the "sand" trick that I used in The Sands of the Colosseum but I never could figure out how to capitalize on it. I need to learn to be a bit more flexible and much less fearful of the dark. Given what I've learned, all of that concern about the dark is nothing but a bad habit. This was a good learning experience though!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #82: Afraid of the Dark

I believe that this was a DILD, but my first memory is of being lucid in a huge, empty office space with plain white walls, harsh fluorescent lighting, and blue-gray industrial carpet. It looks like a place where there'd normally be a cubicle farm, but the floor is totally clear.

I'm happy to be lucid, but I want a new location. I want to perform the "sand trick", which involves focusing on the floor and rubbing it until I'm convinced that my hands are digging through sand. I start crawling around on the floor, find myself a spot, and start rubbing.

Nothing happens at first, so I focus harder on the thought that this is sand. Unfortunately, I'm looking right at industrial carpet and the thought won't go away. Finally a bunch of disgusting dust and dirt puffs up from the carpet and blows around, but it's not what I'm looking for. I try for a while longer but I feel myself becoming obsessed.

I get up and notice a set of doors in a far-off wall. I run over to it, place my hand on the doorknob, and imagine that the Colosseum is on the other side. I throw the doors open and instead of the Colosseum I see a darkened warehouse. I can't see in too far but I do make out a few scattered cardboard boxes.

"Too dark", I think. "Not going in there." I close the door, think about the Colosseum, and open it again. This time the boxes are gone and the room looks even darker.

I give up, close the door, and follow the wall to a closet-like cubby hole. I crawl around in here and again try to produce sand from the carpet. Even though this cubby is set off to the side, the lighting is unbearably harsh and I just produce more puffs of dust, like the carpet needs a good vacuuming. I try to close my eyes but they won't comply. It seems like this office scene is burned into my brain.

I jump to my feet and run around a bit, doing a quick dive-roll just for kicks. I round a corner and find one of my Siberian Huskies locked in a big cage. He whimpers and paws at the door. I fumble around for a latch but don't see anything.



I'm preparing to open the crate via telekenesis when Wife appears from behind me and says, "Oh here, let me take care of that!" I almost tell her that I'm having a lucid dream but I figure that she already knows. She crouches down and starts working the lock. I make the mistake of waiting around and lose lucidity.

The lock pops open and our dog comes bounding out. He runs past us and buries his face into a used-up paint can that's nearby. I look to see what he's doing and am horrified to see that he's happily chowing down on a couple of dead roaches. I'm about to tell him to stop but Wife hugs him around the neck and says, "Oh, such a good boy!!" I feel ill. Still, I decide to let it go because he's probably hungry.

Wife wanders over to a nearby window and I follow her. There are a pair of laser gun emplacements on the window sill. We each take one and she points across the dark city to a tall office building. Wooden boxes float silently out of the office building, flying off to destinations unknown. Wife explains: "Those boxes have dangerous cell phones in them that will give people cancer." We start firing our laser cannons at the evil cell phones, destroying as many boxes as we can. We get most of them but, I'm sorry to say, many get through. The dream ends...

This Task of the Year attempt was a big step forward for my teleportation from the void. I combined my idea of relying on tactile sensations to teleport with Chimpertainment's approach where he focuses on a single point while allowing the rest of the scene to build. The results were excellent. Even though I didn't manage Task of the Year, this was a pretty big one for me.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #80: The Sands of the Colosseum

I'm driving with Wife over a hilly, Dr. Seuss-like landscape in a car with giant tires. It occurs to me that this all might be a dream and I decide that it is. As I become lucid, Wife immediately stops talking.

I drive for a bit, wondering where I should take my funky new car. But then I remember my goal of touching and engaging with the dream world as quickly as possible to really draw myself into it. I stop the car (seemingly through an act of will) and feel the seat with my left hand. I reach my right hand over to Wife and begin to feel and massage her left thigh. My initial intent was non-sexual but right away I feel a stir of excitement and distraction, so I stop. I try to touch the seat with my right hand instead, but I somehow miss and transition into...

...a false awakening where I'm standing by the bed in a dark hotel room. I remember everything, though, and I remain lucid. I see Wife's vague outline in the bed, but darkness is already pressing down. I know the void's coming so I start rubbing my hands together. Soon everything is totally dark and I keep probing my dream body. I probe each side of my chest and try flexing just a bit. Everything feels totally realistic. I check my junk to make sure all is as it should be (yep, we're good ), and poke the outside of my thighs with finger-spears.

Comfortable with my dream body, I crouch down in the dark and move my right hand in a rubbing motion, imagining that I'm moving my palm over sand. Soon I feel something like a thin layer of sand. As I keep rubbing, the layer seems to grow thicker and thicker. Now I can actually see the motion of my hand and I can vaguely make out sand shifting around. I think specifically of the sand in the Colosseum, then dig my fingers deep into the sand. I feel them scrape what feels like a wooden board.

The sand comes fully into view, sharp and detailed. I keep staring at it, imagining that I'm surrounded on all sides by the Colosseum. I hear the crowd now, and after a few more seconds, I have imagined right where I'm standing in the Coloseum (close to one wall), what kind of day it is (sunny), and what I'll be trying to do (kill orcs.)

I stand up, raise my eyes, and I am there in the great arena. Every detail looks perfect. I sweep my gaze from side to side, grinning at the thought that I'm actually here. I think that it looks just like stepping into a scene from "Gladiator". I'm excited and happy to have finally made it!



I want to see more and more of the scenery, and without meaning to, I allow my perspective to float high up above my dream body. I scan the crowd for a while, eventually viewing the scene from high enough that I see the surrounding Roman streets. I suddenly zoom in on a street scene packed with Roman citizens. Lucilla from "Gladiator" is laughing and playfully hopping down the street. It feels strange because the whole scene is playing too fast.

Now I realize that I'm just watching all of this on my Kindle Fire and a little display tells me this is being played at "4x". I'm distressed that I'm now just watching all this on a screen and I try to "rewind" to the part where I was in the Colosseum. The controls don't seem to work properly, although I do manage to slow the scene down to normal speed.

I've lost all connection to my dream body and soon I wake up.

This was a fun little WILD and attempt at Advanced Task of the Month. It's been a while since I've had to navigate my house and I'd forgotten how challenging it can be. Darkness seems to lurk around every corner and I'm always trying to just get out. Couldn't do that for this Task of the Month -- had to head further in.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #78: The DreamViews Drive

I'm getting consistent hypnagogic imagery of the den of our house, so I feel like I'm getting close. I focus on staying aware, and after a few more flashes of the den, a fully three-dimensional picture emerges. I will myself to roll off of the couch, and my dream body complies. I check my hands and feet and everything looks normal. No extra fingers or troll feet. The carpet feels very realistic as well and I mentally confirm that there's no reason I would have fallen asleep downstairs.

I give the coffee table a little shove with my foot and it glides over the carpet. Okay, now I'm really sure it's a dream. I walk through the den past my computer, stepping on a bunch of the kids' toys as I go. Strangely, there's a laundry basket in the middle of the floor. I give the laundry basket a hefty kick and it goes sailing into the air and flies straight out the window. I'm quite amused with myself.

Outside there's just a hint of light, like it's the early morning. I don't think it's possible that the sun's up yet, but it makes me feel more urgent and focused. Since I'm in the house, I want to find the note that I left for myself for Advanced Task of the Month. I have to get back up to our bedroom. I wonder whether I'll find myself there. The thought of my sleeping body makes me feel a little wobbly, so I imagine instead that Wife is lying in the bed by herself. I wonder whether Wife's DC will be interested in "victory celebrations" if I can complete Advanced Task of the Month. (Menthol, is that you?)

I walk through the kitchen, dining room, and den, past the pool table to the stairs. For a moment I think about trying a pool shot, but decide that I'd better stay focused. I'm pleased that the baby gate is missing from the bottom of the stairs. Halfway up, though, I see that this dream house has the baby gate installed in the middle of the stairs. "That's not real," I think, and phase through it.

The upstairs looks really, really dark. I notice a light switch on the wall next to me. I try both of the switches several times, but each of them just controls the air conditioner instead of the lights! Every time I flip one of them, the air conditioning rumbles to life and I feel a light stir of wind.

I'm not sure what to do, so I just charge ahead. The darkness starts to get really bad, and I realize that I'm about to lose the dream. I grab onto the banister as darkness sweeps over me. I produce a gladius in my right hand and start swinging it around in the void, still clutching the banister. I stay like this for quite some time, not losing the dream but also not going anywhere. It feels like at least 30 seconds. I fail to formulate a good transition to a new scene (or a way back into the existing scene), and I either fade to black or lose lucidity...

It's a clear morning. Wife and I are in a car, pulling up to a two-story brick house to pick up my best friend F. F greets us at the door and comes out to inspect the car we're driving, an amazing classic car that looks a bit like a '55 Chevy Belair. Wife goes inside the house and I tell F that he and I should go for a ride. I hand him the keys and he drives.



As we start down the street, I tell F, "Man, I just had a lucid dream before we came over here. I've got to enter it into DreamViews." He says cool. There's something like an old-style typewriter embedded in the car's console. I know that if I type the dream into this typewriter it'll automatically get posted to DreamViews. I marvel at how convenient this is. I congratulate myself for renting such a wonderful car.

While I peck randomly at the keys, I ask F whether he's had any lucid dreams lately when he's commuting on the train. He says no, and we talk dreaming for a bit. I say something about dream signs and I mention that one of mine is "really bad driving." He laughs and says, "You mean like this?" He hits a quick 3-point turn and floors the accelerator, sending us streaking back toward the house.

"It's a rental!" I whine. "Be careful, man!" It's a residential street and he's doing 60 mph, easy. We're almost back to the house now and he hasn't slowed down one bit. I'm distracted, too, because I'm still trying to type my DJ entry into the car's typewriter-thing. Now I realize that I don't have a seat belt. I alternate between blubbering "It's a rental!!" and "There's no seat belt!!" As we hit the driveway, I throw in, "I don't want to die!!"

F cuts the wheel hard to the left. There's a squeal of rubber and the car stops a few feet from the house. I'm relieved to be alive. I'm not angry because I assume that he just didn't hear my complaints. "I was trying to tell you, man. I don't think my side has a seat belt!"

He laughts. "Nothing's going to happen to you, man!" I get out of the car and see that it's turned into a convertible. I get it now. "F! This is a dream, isn't it?" He's walking inside the house and I hurry after him, the dream growing dark. Fade to black...