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1st. So I had a false awakening where I began to go back to bed. As I fell back asleep, I could feel myself going into the dream so I thought I may as well just WILD it. It felt like I was doing flips and moving around my room, slowly it began to settle downed I tested to see whether I was in a lucid dream. So I went directly to the mirror in my bathroom, I was only about 4feet tall and had pale blue/blondish hair, my face was also a different structure with my bones being a lot sharper and harsh to look at. After this my dad came in and I though about posts when people said that they would tell their dream characters that they are actually in a dream, so I did exactly that although I cannot remember what happened after that.

2nd. So there was me and a little girl as well as my little brother. We were in this small circle sized area with a few other people and were surrounded by plants and fauna, most of these were normal looking. The girl began looking through one side of the bush where there was high shrubbery although an adult began telling her that she should not be doing that.. She then began going through another area where the ground was softer and almost marsh like and the plants were sparser and taller. Most of these were about half of my height. She began stepping on them, splitting them in the process. This would let her walk around without touching the ground. I thought that this could potentially be dangerous so I stopped her and she went somewhere else, while she was exploring somewhere else I became curious about what was outside of this circled off area so I began taking the path that she had taken using the same process of splitting the top of the plants. The plants became shorter and looked as if someone had already split them, so now the whole ground was practically covered. They also began to gain this weird purple colour. Suddenly the ground gave way to a massive pond. The pond was a very very dark green in colour and was covered in these gigantic lily pads with the length of a bed, the whole place had this kind of magical vibe to it. I started stepping on these although they gave way and flooded me up to my knees. At some point I decided to turn back after getting a bad feeling about the place, although I didn’t head back the way I came in, I went through this kind of swamp area with the same lily pads as before, although here the feeling of something being wrong went to dread and anxiety. I reached the shore in time although now everyone else was trying to do what I had done. I tried to warn them but they would not listen. This is all I can remember.

3rd. I was in a large track area although instead of running track there was a forest to replace it. Here I was chasing my little brother or my dog (Can’t Remember). As we came around the corner I could see that there were a group of people clustered together. There was my step-dad there and my sister. On the ground there was a iPhone6. In real life I am actually waiting for my iPhone to arrive so I was excited when I saw this in the dream world. I immediately asked my step-dad whether I could open it, he said yes. When i lifted the top I noticed that it was the black model, had some sort of case already half attached to it. The iPhone itself was pure black, thicker and felt generally not like an iPhone6. I put it back in the case and told him I would prefer the white model and would gladly wait.

Last night I decided to get up at 3:00 Am and try the WILD technique. I usually practice this technique once or twice per week. I started off lying in bed on my back, and then my right side, and left, then again on my back, and then on my right side again. This went on for about an hour and half, staying in one position for as long as I could stand it. No dreams forming, just random images. Suddenly, and instantly, there’s a full screen dream right in front of me! I’m at a campsite and there’s a big pile of wood in the fire pit. To enter the dream, I decided to raise my right hand with a burning match to light the fire. I could see my hand holding the burning match. I moved towards the fire pit, stepped into the dream, and then threw the match at the pile of wood. Bad idea, there was a massive fireball explosion, which threw me backwards right out of the dream (shortest lucid dream ever)! My body straightened right out, legs kicking, and then I rammed my big toe into my bed’s footboard. My toe still hurts. BTW, in my waking life, I usually throw a gallon of gas on a campfire to light it.

WILD technique to start dream 1.

10 Foot Tall Man in a Parking Lot
I saw a 10 foot man walking at a shopping mall parking lot. I floated over to him, looked him in the eyes, and asked who he was. His faced suddenly turned all black and wrinkled, with no facial features, then it turned back to normal. He didn't say anything back. He looked friendly enough, but he wasn't very chatty, so I floated back to the ground and walked away.

Vibrations happened here between dreams 1 and 2.

Visit with my Daughter
I was in a room, asking for my Daughter come. A girl walked in the room, I asked her name, and she said Clara (not my daughter). She left. Another girl came in the room, I asked her name, and she said Sara (not my daughter). A third girl came in the room, I asked her name, and she said Tara (not my daughter). Finally my daughter appeared in the room sitting on a staircase. I ran over to her to ask how's she doing? She looked sad, and said, "Why did you do that in your last dream?" I had now idea what she was talking about. I wanted to scoop her up and hug her. I woke up.

Jumping from a Bridge
I was in a large city walking a across a massive bridge. These kids were looking over the bridge railing and screaming. They were very upset because somebody had capsized their kayak and were drowning. The bridge was several hundred feet above the water, and the currents were fast and vicious. I looked over the edge, but I couldn't see anything. I said I will go and take a look. I stood up on the railing and then leapt. For a fleeting second I questioned my lucidity, because I wasn't flying yet. Just before I hit the water, I started to fly. I flew around the river, looking everywhere, but I still didn't see anything. I flew back up onto the bridge and told the kids there's nobody down there. I then asked the kids to all join hands, and we'll go flying together. One of the kids said, "Like Mary Poppins?", and I said, "Yes!". We joined hands and flew away. I woke up.

Flying Down a Beach
I was flying down a tropical beach. I wanted to cool off in waves, so I landed. I walked out into the surf, getting splashed by waist high waves. I could see the grains of sand washing out with each wave. The water was cool and refreshing. I leaned over and scooped up the sand. I felt the grains of sand in my hands. Clarity improved. I then flew off further down the beach to a building and then walked in.

Biting Dog with Red Eyes
I was holding this beautiful little dog, petting it, as I walked down a sidewalk. We walked past this big black dog with glowing red eyes. It was tied to a railing at someone’s front step. I put the little dog down and floated up to the big bad dog. I picked it up and hugged it, hoping it would not turn this into a nightmare. The hug caused it's eyes to stop glowing red. I put it back on the ground then petted it a few times. As I walked away, it leapt at me and bit onto my arm. The little bugger! It hurt a bit, but I ignored the pain, and continued to walk down the street. I didn’t want this dream to end. The dog hung from my arm for a short while, and eventually vanished.

Rubbing Lag Bolts to Improve Lucidity
I was standing beside a building, and my lucidity was fading fast. I looked around for something to rub in my hands. I saw these 3/8" lag bolts on the ground. I picked up one in each hand, and then rubbed them. The sharp edges of the threads made me very lucid. I dropped the bolts, then walked off to explore.

Ritual: Second try with the vibrating timer, successful but strange experience. This time it seemed to work not so much from going off (in fact I doubt it ever did), but because my anticipation of the trigger kept my mind alert during the process of falling asleep—to the point where I thought I was still awake long after I had evidently slipped into dream.

It's becoming apparent that anticipation can serve the same function as motivation. Actually my motivation was relatively low, for the same reason as last time: it is the busiest part of my work week and I realized that I wasn't sure I wanted to have to spend a long time writing up my dream report if successful. I went to bed a little after 12:30am, and woke up naturally around 5:40. (I checked the clock but can't recall the precise time, I think it was somewhere between 5:37 and 5:43.) I decided it was too late to do full WBTB and recognized my lack of motivation, so I just shoved the MotivAider in my pillow and went back to bed with no further technique, letting things take their own course.

Although normally I would fall back asleep in seconds or minutes at most after such a brief WBTB, I noticed that now I was oddly wakeful... it seemed like just waiting for the device to go off, even though it was set so that it wouldn't trigger initially until 45 minutes had passed, was keeping me awake. After a few minutes trying to get comfortable I grabbed the sleep mask from my bedside table because I knew the sun would come up soon. I then spent a very long time trying to get back to sleep... or so I thought. In retrospect it is apparent that for much of this period I was experiencing that obscure counterpart of a false awakening, a "false falling asleep" (FFA).

FFA: I think I must have actually fallen asleep very quickly, since a lot of the things I experienced while I thought I was trying to fall asleep turn out to be have been things I dreamed. For instance, at one point I was convinced that I was lying in bed with my body rotated in the opposite direction, my head facing the foot of the bed, but then I fixed this without really moving my limbs... a maneuver that would have been impossible to do physically.

Eventually I decided that I ought to have a back-up EILD method so I tried to program my sleeping mask. I reached up and pried apart the velcro near the top to flick the "on" switch, remembering to hold it down four seconds to enter "nap mode." I couldn't tell if I saw the indicator lights or not... I thought I did, but the impression was vague. Did I have the brightness set too low? Oh well, I don't remember how to change it. I'll just turn it off and turn it back on again to be sure. Hmm, same thing, the lights are vague... I'm not sure if I'm really seeing them or just imagining it. And then I realize... hang on... I'm not even wearing the Remee, this is just an ordinary cloth sleep mask! So I tried to correct the situation by putting my Remee on under the regular mask... and I really thought I had done this until, while writing this report, I began to have doubts and went to check. Sure enough, the Remee hasn't been touched all night! At least I can verify that I was wearing the ordinary mask, since that one has been moved and is now lying on my bedstand where I must have left it after waking up.

At another point in the FFA I even felt the MotivAider finally go off. The vibrations felt lengthened and distorted again. I ignored them since I thought I was still awake, and hoped I would be asleep by the time it went off next. In retrospect I realize I must have dreamed even this, because the MotivAider could not have gone off until 45 minutes had passed (even on random mode it initially counts down the full maximum set interval), and I got up to start writing this report at 6:14am, less than 45 minutes after going back to bed around 5:40... so it is very unlikely that it actually went off in that whole period!

I was getting annoyed with how long it was taking (or so I thought) to fall asleep, and eventually in my impatience I decided to just start "practicing" WILD separations in my imagination. I tried to envision an almost physical pull on my dream body that would tug it up from the lying position into a standing one, and after each repetition of this I imagined myself landing with both feet on the bed with the flourish of a gymnast who has just finished an acrobatic move. It felt at first like I was only visualizing this rather than experiencing it: as though I were just going through the motions, practicing for when I got closer to falling asleep... but before long the sense of immersion set in, and I realized that I was already in a light WILD state. I was surprised that I had been able to move so easily from full wakefulness to full REM, still unaware that I had evidently already been dreaming for quite some time already!

WILD: Since I was under the impression that I had only just transitioned into a dream state, my initial goal was just to improve immersion and stabilization, so without trying to do any tasks at first I simply wandered through the house. I soon half-woke and had to separate again. I used the same visualization as before "pulling myself up" from lying down to standing up, but it went more smoothly and easily this time. Once again I landed like a gymnast, but this time rather than landing on the bed I vaulted right out of it and onto the bedroom floor.

By this time I felt immersed enough to start working on tasks. One of the TOTMs is to dress in a costume, and I had decided in advance that I wanted to dress like a witch, so I went to the "costume closet" where I keep my clothes that are too dressy or impractical for everyday use. At first I was surprised to see (so I thought) nothing but the clothes that are there in waking life. I must have been a bit confused, because although in WL the closet contains plenty of gothy-looking wraps and dresses entirely suitable for a witch costume, the only thing I thought to grab at the time was a small halter top of some colorful iridescent material. I didn't put it on yet, since my priority was to find a mask.

The closet actually contains a box of masks on the upper shelf, but in the dream I "remembered" that I had a brown paper bag of them on the floor, so I went through it until I found a witch mask... or was it? Looking at it again, I thought it actually looked more like a Darth Vader mask that someone had clumsily tried to convert into a witch face with dabs of green paint. But then I "remembered" using it as a witch mask before, so I figured it would be adequate.

Next I needed the pointy hat. I must have one around here somewhere... I dug through the closet, but couldn't find one of the right shape. Nevermind, I can make one! I pulled out a fedora made of black leather, and started trying to pull the top to make it longer and more pointy. At first the material was resistant but I put some focus into the act and soon was able to mold the hat into a proper Halloween-style witch hat, and put it on my head. The fact that it was made of black leather made me feel extra stylish. I paused at the door of the room and wondered if I needed to change my clothes as well, but when I looked down I saw that I was wearing a long black dress that already looked witchy enough, so I never had to put on that stupid halter top!

After walking back out to the kitchen, I remembered to check my reflection in the mirror (in a spot where there is no mirror in WL). It wasn't bad! I looked like that classic witch from the Wizard of Oz: green face, hooked nose, tall hat. The mask was looking much less Vader-like now, and at this point I noticed that there was even an inscription on it (entirely legible in the mirror rather than inverted by the reflection) that gave the title "Witch," and was signed either "Robert" or "Richard." I assumed the name must be that of the local artist who made the mask, and was reassured by the title that it had been intended as a witch mask after all.

When people were contributing suggestions for the October TOTMs, I had really liked the one about flying on a broomstick to a witches' gathering, so this was something I had planned to do once I got in costume. But now I wasn't sure. Maybe it would be fun to work on my lucid dare instead, and go startle some elves with my witch costume! I felt indecisive. And in either case I'll have to leave the house, so which door should I use? I've let myself get into the bad habit of being paranoid that leaving the house might destabilize the dream, so I wondered if leaving by a door I don't often use would help bypass this impression. I know that this worry is a wholly self-imposed obstacle—and moreover that it is not supported by the evidence—yet I also know that even letting myself worry about destabilization can have a destabilizing effect!

While I'm standing there trying to make up my mind, I notice that the scenery outside the kitchen door has already begun to change. Replacing the back patio is now a beautiful summer forest, with green leaves, mossy trunks and a clear limpid pool of water on the ground, like a natural spring. The water is only a few inches deep and appears completely transparent and pure. The scene is so lovely that I immediately let go of my pointless worries and go outside to enjoy it, kneeling in the water and running my hands through it, lifting it in my palms and letting it splash back into the pool. I find myself wondering if these surroundings will transform my costume from that of an ugly old green witch into a young beautiful forest witch. And what do we mean by "witch," anyway? I start pondering the question: aren't those two archetypes (ugly old witch and young beautiful witch) from the same tradition? Don't they both imply a woman with an unusually strong connection to the natural world?

I still haven't decided if I want to look for a witch gathering or an elven gathering in this forest, as I think both could conceivably be taking place here. Would the elves resent my presence if I'm still a Halloween-style witch? But if this pool has transformed me into a beautiful forest witch, maybe I would blend right in. (I regret now that it never occurred to me to check my reflection again in the pool! Though I still had the impression that I was wearing the same black dress.)

Once again the dream distracted me from my thoughts, this time by the sound of a voice singing. It was an attractive male voice, a low tenor, drifting from somewhere up above. The pool where I knelt was at the foot of a rocky ledge, at least ten feet high, and it seemed like the main part of the forest was up there. I flew up (I can't recall if I used a broomstick or just levitated as usual) to see if I could locate the singer. I followed the voice and soon found myself in a green mossy glade. I could not see anyone but I could hear the voice distinctly, so I took note of the words:

On the new sensation lying within,
One can ride a stream of water, straight and thin.

There was another half line of verse after this but on waking it faded before I could record it. I think it had something to do with the feeling or awareness produced by the "new sensation" mentioned in the first line. I woke up before I could listen to any more of the song or continue to look for the singer.

Note: It was still very early after I finished writing all my notes, so I went back to bed. I had some NLDs and at one point as I was starting to wake up from one I found myself thinking about the song again. At this time I got the impression that the missing line might have been: And so a new feeling is won. Of course there's no way to confirm if that's what it was originally, but it's the best I've got to go on!

Paraphrasing most entries so no hashtags...some just cut & pasted from digital DJ.

*Sexual content in many spots.
10/1 DILD: I was so angry at people cutting in front of me at an elevator line that the emotion instantly lifted me about 1 yard/meter off the ground which immediately clued me in that I was dreaming. I let the anger carry over into my lucidity and was venting telling them how I can just fly to the top of the building...I don't need this f-ing elevator...and I can smack you around if I want to, rip off your clothes, so there it turned sexual and I ripped of a few women's clothes with TK floating above the crowd feeling omnipotent. It was quite fun but I should have moved straight to some goals and ended up waking up as my wife got out of bed (99% sure that wasn't an FA). 213

9/27 I believe 3 separate lucid events and that HH's SSILD and visualization were the keys. After low key game. Waited 1 hour after waking to record dreams due to breakfast ready. The first one I went back to sleep trying to get more and I think I forgot too many details. I think it was the dream in the #shopping area and I'm #lookingFor #lostItem shopping bag I set down on this couch or chair and its missing when I go back. The lucid part is sexual with a sexy woman something about her curves and fine body. 210

The second lucidity event I am walking past the #school that is having a big sports or Olympics day with all the students competing in different events but I paid particular attention to students playing #rugby. When I first look at them I wondered if they weren't wearing football pads but upon further examination or dream transitioning they were clearly not wearing football pads and I could see them doing a rugby scrum. This transitioned to me playing with them and narrator talking about how one of the ways to score is kicking the ball through the uprights and one of the guys kicks the ball forward and I leap up to catch it but a taller guy catches it first I continue running down the field leaping into the air and I realize that I'm dreaming I have a lot of fun bounding across the field. 211

Third lucid event seems to start as a DEILD As I am visualizing in bed and I get the scene of a sexy woman and as I enter the scene there is a table, paper and a pointed plastic writing pen and ink that you dip it into and I write different messages to see how well I can write in a lucid dream. I forget exactly the first words I wrote but they came out pretty good but when I tried to write "dream" and it was very hard to read and I had more trouble with the ink getting more runny and not sticking to the writing device and the colors were getting too light to show on the white piece of paper. I've then start to remember that there was a sexy woman when I first came into the scene and I could see her sitting on the far end of the table. As I go to move towards her it gets a little foggy but I stay patient and focus first on her toes and her toenails painted with nail polish and slowly work my way up her leg with her body reforming. I reach under her dress
and caress her sexy legs and butt and remove her underwear. I reach for her wonderful warm moisture before working my way up to her top before waking up. 212

Stats from app: 12:15-10am xyz spikes113, 335 356 417 445 wbtb@530recall slipped away; 604 recheck app@620-625 xyz: 658?dild 712?dild 805 840deild 908wife up audio+xyz spike, 920 925 952 (late more tossing and turning? Earlier c/b combo of my and wife's movements?)

9/21 Lucid #sex with perfect, perky #Russian girl. Her breasts her butt! Her skin so soft after some hesitation from her I showed her she wanted me bad and she let me touch her everywhere. Thought about fingering her behind but afraid the dream might come up with a surprise there. Later sex with M, the friend of wife with twin sister. I told her it is okay...it's just a dream! She says "Your c*ck is so big! After exploding inside her my wife and I walk out of party and through a #shopping area with various #stores with groceries and #restaurants and my DC wife is proud of her stud "since it is all a dream" my new pick up line. I am scanning all of the DC's we pass. One lady looks interesting but I'm looking for a certain type since I already had 2 women so far this dream. 209

9/20 Awesome vivid tsunami dream where I am calm and lead a rescue.
WILD/LD 1: I thought I was just visualizing when a dream materialized. I hear Girl Friday downstairs and go down to hook up. Go semi-lucid as various people judge my interest in her but regain it when I see a girl in lingerie laying on the floor trying to seduce me. She is too young. I pick her up and hold her like a father would. 206

LD 2: I think that I WILD again. I am laying in bed visualizing when I find myself in a scene laying under the stars. I remember the striking feeling and realism of opening my dream eyes wide to soak in the whole view with so many stars in every direction. It was extremely beautiful and felt like a spiritual experience. I remembered my personal goal that I tied into the TOTM. 207

LD 3: Awake again visualizing and enter non-lucid dream at some point turned DILD.<snip> He leaves it unattended on oven to overflow and the oven starts to fill up with water like a clothes washer but it's open so the water would flow out onto the floor. I start to try to turn it off and then realize this is a dream the oven can't just turn into clothes washer. I fly up from there up out of the house but then I remember Girl Friday was there and I fly back down into the house but I seem to have messed up the visuals but I stay patient. I go into the living room in a bit of a fog I go sit down on the couch next to where Girl Friday was in the dream. I reach out for her and she seems to be forming back into my dream and I'm looking down at the floor and there's this round item rolling back and forth by itself that was cool. I think I'm forgetting a lot because I waited until the morning to record everything until I'm actually getting up. I did record the tsunami dream during wake back to bed which I'm doing shorter now. Factors for improved multiples? Vivid dream at beginning of night. DEILD focus. Visualization at each awakening. Stop and ask if dream. More frequent random natural self awareness. Back to lumosity. Adding a little fat back into my diet. 208

9/19 LD 1: This whole thing, this whole discussion and scenario has all been a dream! Start to get naked then decide to do nose plug=can breathe but am I fully plugging it, do finger through palm and proceed to get naked. I call for Girl Friday to come in and as I hear her (or someone approaching) I wake up. 204

LD 2: A noise (my wife leaving) wakes me up and I DEILD back into what looks like the same scene as my previous dream except I notice a mirror and look into it to see myself as a woman who looks like a thinner version of Julia Louis-Dreyfus. I decide to open my blouse and check out my breasts. They are small but nicely shaped. I sit down and take off my pants with plans to check out down there but I transform back to myself with my normal junk down there and all. I fade back to bed and fade in and out of some dreamlets including one with a little Asian girl I felt drawn to protect named Ashikara. I am trying to find her again in the fog and a little blonde girl pokes her head around a corner and disappears. Possible NREM lucid but not counting this part after the LD with me as a woman. 205

9/18 Examining source of smoke makes me lucid. Smoke coming from underneath carpet, pull it back, embers present, hole under carpet, look closer and hole gets bigger, think it looks like mouse hole and a mouse comes out. There are many orange ear plugs down this hole. Earlier I attempted the glottal RC and had trouble hinting a dream already but the above scenario confirmed it. Convincing FA. 203

9/15 Standing over bed seeing fleas on bed made me lucid. Wife there also. 202

9/12 I see Cameron Diaz and realize I am dreaming. I walk up to her and give her a kiss on the lips and then look at her again and she still looks mostly like her but with no make-up. I think FA after. Also DEILD focus bleeding into NLDs. 201

I incubated this dream, and used the WILD technique to get there, so I was lucid for the entire experience. I emerge into the dream standing in a Mexican style concrete cabana, at an azure blue ocean delta. The sand was white; the sky was blue, and no clouds. I could see the heat radiating off the sand, distorting the scenery in the distance. It was so hot, and the air was thick with the smell of salt. The cabana was right on the edge of one of the delta’s rivers. I immediately thought I should try some fishing. My rod and tackle magically appeared out of nowhere. This gear was heavy duty and perfect for catching a huge fish. I look for bait, but all I found was a beaver tail. It was sitting on the concrete floor, in the cabana, off to the side. I picked up the tail and baited the hook. I was going to cast the bait into the river beside the cabana, but decided not to, because the water was too shallow, and I couldn’t see any fish swimming. I decided to head out across the delta to look for a more suitable fishing spot. As I walked I could feel the sand grains against my feet. There was no vegetation anywhere. Just rivers and sand bars. After a short walk, I found the perfect spot, a deep river which faded from pale blue at the edge to dark blue in the middle. There must be fish here! I cast my rod downstream at a 45 degree angle from shore, and waited, for a huge fish to bite onto the beaver tail. Suddenly, there's a huge bite, and my rod bends right over! I pulled back on the rod hard. Then the line went loose. Was the fish gone? I then thought, this would really suck if an alligator had taken the beaver tail (being lucid I shouldn’t of thought about an alligator being there). Oh no, there’s a 12 foot alligator on the line and he’s swimming fully speed at me. He hit the shore running, and there was nowhere to go. Was I scared? Heck no, I was lucid! I ran right at the alligator, wrapped my arms around its thick scaly chest, and then picked him up. His long tail was lying bent across the beach. I then hugged him passionately. I’ve made a very conscious effort never to hurt anything in my lucid dreams. The alligator then turned into a beautiful woman. Her head was over my shoulder, so I have no idea who she was. I just held her close in my arms, and thought, maybe she’s someone I love. I few seconds later I woke up.

Notes: I've been having lucid dreams very frequently since eating shit on bike this summer and concussing myself. These almost always occur just after falling asleep and usually end with the sensation of choking, resulting in waking up. I also almost always drool during these events.

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I appeared, quite suddenly, in a long metallic looking hallway glowing with a strange red tint. I perceived that this was representative of some distant war fire.

In reality, I had just sent my friend a Facebook message before suddenly falling asleep. Instead of focusing on the still empty hallway I thought about that for a minute, then turned my attention to my physical body, which felt numb. I could feel myself drooling. Realizing I was lucid dreaming, I decided to stop wasting my time focusing on external factors and focus on the dream.

My first thought was to dream about fighting off a horde of baddies. A bunch of grunts wearing steel helmets and lamellar armor appeared. An axe appeared in my hand. I started to fight.

At first, I couldn't move quickly. Something in my mind was holding me back from fully controlling the dream. I thought "no, move faster" repeatedly until eventually, my dream self could move full speed.

My brain continued to try and derail my lucidity. At one point I conjured some fat dude in office attire to grab me and pull me away from the action. After thinking, very purposefully, "fuck off" a few times, he did so. Almost immediately after that, the part of my brain that wants to confound me conjured my dad and tried to turn my lucid dream into a nightmare.

He was being attacked by several grunts, his hand reaching out to me from between a door crack. I knew my dream was going to have him killed. I threw my axe and stayed one grunt, the other disappeared. My dad lay bent over unnaturally over a couch, I could tell part of my brain was waiting for me to interpret his figure as dead.

"Nope, he's fine," I thought. Dad sprung back up, totally untouched.

At this point, I started to feel the choking sensation and knew I wasn't going to be able to remain asleep. I felt like I couldn't breathe. The dream swirled out of focus. I began to hear my physical body making a choking noise. I woke up and breathed. My pillow was covered in drool.

#363 - WILD - 7:47AM

I wake fully now and use the toilet. I am feeling really pissed off that I didn't get a real lucid this time. I actually start feeling sorry for myself. It's after 7am and I know the alarm will go off at 8am. I decide to chill myself out and really focus hard on WILD.

I enter vibrations. Oh God here we go again. Just like last time, I can't break past SP. My wife coughs and rolls over waking me some. I re-focus on body relaxation and slip back in fairly quickly. I struggle some more. I recall a semi lucid moment from earlier where I was going on about having too much negative energy lately and I need to meditate more. I may as well try that. I'm not getting anyplace like this. I clear my mind and I start to feel myself roll. Rather than try to stop it, I focus on the sensation as I meditate keeping my mind clear of all thought. I have some interesting HI but I gently push it away as thoughts.

I watch a full scene form. I am walking outside and can hear my foot steps crunch on some gravel. Is this more HI or a full dream? I look around and see that I am in a bright summer day near a Half Round Barn. It looks like the one I pass by all the time just outside of town in waking life. I look at my hands and they seem solid but a little video-game-ish. I become super happy and relieved to have finally made it into a a solid lucid. I immediately start back on my goals for the night.

As I walk around the barn, I use expectation to find Robin Williams. I notice how dry the ground is but there are high weeds along the side of the barn. Robin isn't there. I begin to call out for him as I walk. I notice how loud and full my voice sounds. I become excited again about being lucid but I push the emotions away. You don't want to wake yourself.

On the other side of the barn, I come to familiar street near my workplace. Some cars pass and I think Robin may be in one. Then, I spot some men working on a house in the distance. I shout for Robin and one of them looks. He appears to be a little too large and has a red shirt on. I wave exaggeratedly and motion for him to come to me. He stops what he is doing and beings running toward me. As he gets closer he looks nothing like Robin. I decide to try to force it with belief and expectation. I look way for a moment and really concentrate on Robin Williams face. I see it in my mind (irony) and look back at the man. He looks a lot like John Pennett now (Wrong dead comic). Oh well. Just go with it.
I say, "Hey you're Robin Williams!"
The man doesn't say anything but his body language says he's confused and he disagrees.
I give up on Robin and decide to move on. I respond, "So OK you're not Robin but you do have my fortune cookie."
The man must be a mute, because he lets out a soundless, "Ah" and throws his head back in silent laughter.
I see his red shirt is a "pocket tee" and the pocket is right at my eye-level. I spy a bulge in it the shape of what I am hoping for. I look up at his face and the man now looks a little like Wreck-it Ralph. Of course, this doesn't register with me at the time, because I really want that fortune cookie. The man reaches in his pocket with index and thumb and plucks out the cookie with his huge meaty hand. I greedily take the cookie.

I notice there is no wrapper on it and at first I am a little turned off by that. Well, I'm not going to eat it and it's not like it matters here anyway. The cookie seems a little large as I crack it open. I pull the paper out and let the broken peices fall out of existence. I try to read it but everything is blurry at first. I focus hard. First I see some oddly spaced numbers. Then I notice the random characters above that. Then a word under the numbers. En.. Ensl... En... Encaved? I want to make sense of this word but instead I tuck it way to mull over later when I am wake. Then, for some reason I try to read out the numbers to the man, "Threeee? Two?" I can't seem to read what I am seeing. The man seems really impatient with me and I decide he's right; there's no time for this. I study the paper a second more while wordlessly committing as much as possible to memory. Basically, the paper reads something like this:
-------------------------------------------------------------
%**&
2 3 4 3 5 6 3 5 4 2
E N C A V E D
-------------------------------------------------------------

I turn to the man forgetting about the paper, "OK hold on... Hey, I am going to perform a Patronus now. You can stay an watch if you'd like." I turn to hold up a wand but everything has gone dark now. I try to hold on an focus but I feel my body in bed so I let it go.

NLD fragment, early: There was a band of Thai Buddhist monks in Bangkok called "Sacred Light." Contrary to what you'd expect, their music was surprisingly harsh and experimental. A musician from another band commented about one of the group, "His music has an edge of irrancidity." I woke up and for a few minutes I remained fully convinced that "irrancidity" was as much of a real word as "rancidity" (sort of like how you can legitimately say either "regardless" or "irregardless").

NLD: (I'll gloss over this since it was tedious and contains a lot of RL details. It was a basic anxiety dream: I was performing a task at my workplace and I was ill-prepared, everything was going wrong, and a senior colleague was observing the whole fiasco.)

Proto-lucid: After the anxiety dream I half-woke and was reminded of my speculations lately about the degree to which increased stress in waking life might actually be a condition actually favorable to lucidity. I slipped from these musings into a proto-lucid event—I don't want to call it a "lucid dream" per se because it felt too superficial and unformed. It started when I transitioned from my half-awake thoughts into walking past the house where I grew up. The back door was wide open, including the screen door, and this bothered me. Was the house abandoned? Or were the people who lived there now just careless? It was not a good idea to leave the door open like that because the nearby wetlands meant that the summer air was always thick with mosquitos and biting flies.

I stepped up to the threshold and called out, "Hello? Hello?" There was no response. The interior was decorated differently than I remembered, which I attributed to the fact that other people lived there now. I was reminded of the last episode of "The Leftovers" I watched Sunday night and figured that with the door wide open like that, even a large animal like a deer could wander inside. I decided not to go in—it didn't feel like "my" home anymore and I would be intruding on someone else's space, even if they weren't present. However, the wide open door still annoyed me, so I closed the inner screen door. Then I mostly closed the outer door as well. If the inhabitants came by and found their door unexpectedly closed it might startle them, but they should know better than to leave it open in the first place.

I continued walking around the side of the house and headed down toward the chicken house and barn. I was impatient to cover the distance so I started running, and I was reminded how good running felt when I was living here in my teens. Sometimes I would just run across the grass with sheer exhilaration and excess of energy. It's been a long time since I've felt like that—especially when running! When I got to the space between the two buildings I peeked into the chicken house, but it was empty so I went into the barn instead. I had noticed some people in the pasture so I crept quietly through the barn to the lower area where it connected with the pasture and peeked around the wall. Yes, there were definitely a couple people in the pasture, about a hundred yards away. I was pleased that the dream was finally starting to take some initiative and manifest something other than the basic environment. However, I didn't want those people to see me, since I still felt like an intruder now that they owned the place, so I remained hidden.

I went back inside the lower level of the barn and headed for the stairs that led upstairs. Meanwhile I reflected on how muddy and vague the environment still was, despite the fact that the dream had been otherwise stable so far. My senses were crap. I had experienced this in plenty of WILDs—which in hindsight this might have almost been, though since it had started in a non-standard location (my WILDS typically involve me "getting up" out of bed) I simply might not have recognized it as such. But at that time I still didn't want to give it credit for being a real dream at all, because I felt that it didn't quite measure up. Maybe I'm getting too critical; on reflection it looks more like a real dream than it felt at the time. But that's probably just a trick of print: the dreamstate was not really rising to the occasion, and I felt too much like I was "working the controls," as it were.

Anyway, I was contemplating the muddy, vague environment, which I felt was being shaped almost more through my conscious memory of the place than through the independent activity of the dream. Last night I had been reading a thread on DV about ADA, which included claims that greater awareness in waking life can also sharpen one's dream senses, and I couldn't help but acknowledge that my ordinary level of perceptiveness in waking life is probably much lower than most people's—because in effect I've spent most of my life practicing how to filter things out, not let them in. That said, my dream senses are usually reasonably sharp (with the exception of taste and smell) and my recall can be quite good, but I thought that perhaps the muddiness of the environment this time had been conditioned by that chain of thought.

I headed up the stairs to the upper level of the barn. I wandered around a bit more but don't recall encountering or thinking anything else of note before I woke up.

On waking, I realized that the circumstances were now all in order for a proper WILD attempt, but although I went through the ritual in a way that felt like it should have been successful, in the end I just fell into a period of regular sleep without even an NLD to show for it. This has actually happened several times over the last couple weeks, which is irritating given my satisfying successes earlier this month.

Very excited about having my first for sure without a doubt WILD.

I didn't take any supplements. I napped when I got home from work from about 330 or 345 to around 7 (I slept way longer than I wanted to). I tried going to sleep around 11. I tossed and turned for awhile and was really focusing here and there about lucid dreaming, I felt myself almost asleep with a nice buzz going through my body and I was picturing a dream scene, or just an object. I turned over which I thought would mean I would lose it but as soon as I turned over I entered into the buzz state again, on the brink of sleep. I had an inkling of awareness and I was focused on a table with a plate on it. I kept thinking this for a couple of minutes and then WHAM, a dream formed around me. LUCID: I wasn't sure If I could or should move yet but I moved my arm and was able to move it in the dream scene. I gave a little smirk happy that I was in a lucid dream but calm. I was in a house (none that I recognized), I was sitting at a table with a white plate and some silverware. I stood up and noticed it was dark outside. I walked out the front door and looked up at the sky. I noticed the moon and stars. I thought I would try to make the moon bigger and put my hands in front of the moon and tried to stretch it bigger. This didn't seem to work at all. I then tried to make it light outside and I think the shades changed from a purplish like a dawn to a more dark. I thought of flying up and looking for something to do but decided to go back in the house instead to find some people to do the TOTMs with.

I began to go inside but it was dark so I flipped the switches and they actually worked. I went inside and went into a bedroom imagining someone was in there. My dad was in bed and I think he was awake already so I decided to do the basic task on him (or what my stupid dream self thought the task was). I asked him where the spoon was, as I was asking him he disappeared, just vanished into thin air. I shrugged and a little irritated went into another room. This time it was my younger brother and he was sleeping, also the sun was coming up at this time and I could see it was getting light outside. One of the dogs I have currently was laying on the floor in there and he was asleep. I woke him by asking him about where the spoon was, he said he didn't remember. I asked him again and he said he thought in the dishwasher. Thinking I had finished the basic task I was going to go for the advanced task. I told him to watch this and kinda looked at my hand and made a couple of my fingers longer. I put it to my eye and began to push back. My brother bolted up and out of his room and to who knows where. I kinda followed but was more focused on getting my eye out. I kept pushing but just felt pressure and never got to the back of my eye where I could pull it out. I gave up in the kitchen and headed outside.

Outside it was now light. I looked next door in the back yard and there were a bunch of young girls standing around a pool. I kinda jumped/floated over the fence to see what all the commotion was about and saw they were all looking at a snake or lizard in the pool that was swimming around. All of the girls were in swimming suits and were about to I assumed have a lesson. I think I said watch this and I used telekinesis on the snake, wound him in a little ball and crushed it. They all said EWWWW and there was a black cloud now in the pool. I walked through the gaggle of girls and looked at them. They were all still looking in the pool. I looked back at the black cloud which was pretty big and the carcass of the snake was still there. I then grabbed the snake with my 'power' and tossed it out of the pool. I then tried to collect all the black stuff with my mind but didn't' seem to work. They were looking at a bunch of little bugs that were on the water now and they called them like skitters or something. I took a close look at a couple of them and went ahead and headed out.

I jumped over the fence again into the front and was skipping along the sidewalk looking at the neighborhood. I was in a neighborhood with really separated houses and large green yards. I began to come upon a larger house which I planned on going in, it was really big and was an old house like many others in the neighborhood. I thought this one might have some sort of business run out of it like a old folks home or the like. I also thought this dream was lasting an awfully long time and then woke up.

While I didn't get the TOTM done I am stoked at the length of this dream and the fact that this was my first concrete WILD. This was not supp induced at all either.

Upside: LD 2 nights in a row for final two nights and a memorable WILD, though somewhat short. Downside: not a whole lot of points and the one the next night even shorter.

8/9/14* something sexual in party setting? / parameters of video recording / rental house white paint maybe painted in here looks nice in day..not bright at night. / guy being dragged behind boat as punishment. Acquaintance calls out for him to be freed. / While experimenting with visualizing and taking control of HH's, I fall into a wild. What I at first only saw as an advanced dreamlet that would likely dematerialize, became more as I interacted with it or already was more. I was apparently standing outside perhaps in front of a restaurant or similar area where people would gather in front of and there's this group of people including this sexy woman in a gorgeous dress. It was skin tight with white and earth tones in it with the different colors in blocks on a solid white base. Most of the earth tone colors were horizonal blocks around the midsection and bottom of the dress and there were two vertical blocks over the thighs that were see through revealing her beautiful thighs. Idecide to take action in what I think is a still a dreamlet. I say something complimentary about her and her dress.<<DC interact>> She takes my hand and urges me towards the town car that she apparently came in. As we both climb in the visuals become more ethereal with only flashes of light here and there as we have sex it feels like we are both in space floating weightless and moving together as one in a wonderful moment of ecstasy! This continues for a while until I wake up. Maybe 3-4 minutes total. Wow!!! 188

8/10/14* narrator: gruesome scene but also surreal scene. He used a hammer. / keep paperwork? From time we went to hospital to show hardship. False memory. / thank you bro-law E..for picking me up? Giving me a ride? / normal sport not in normal position, not tired at all. Losing my normal position? At half-time go into school see sexy woman and think if dream I would take action (like I was thinking during wbtb visualization), wake / penises on TV, all different, wife sees and giggles, for some reason I worry during dream that wife may be imagining another man during sex. / on phone with MB, us as witness for lawyer for her divorce case / at school for event, auditorium doors open part way by themselves. I peek in and it is dark and ominous. I take off down hall...Should I Fly?!!! this is a dream! Go for Step3 to the TOTY (sleeping beauty who was also was going to be transformed to Scarlett for my personal goal but I didn't get far at all)...Look for exit...doors locked...I bust through like Superman. I fly super fast up toward "fantasyland" as imagined...maybe 25 seconds and I stop, thinking this is far enough. While deciding whether to step out or fall back,to get into fantasyland, I wake. 189 / JD from 90 minutes North of here brings a baby & small girl...just dropping them off can't stay (ex coming?) I carry baby...big! Pantsless so I go to bathroom find swim trunks. More people coming for a party...swim trunks are embarrassing. Day residue or like baby the other night, also big. Use baby for baby new year in parade. Baby teetering...falls but falls well so he's unhurt. I try to break his fall and miss - too late, and pick him up. Cute woman washing dishes and moving butt sexily (visualization residue for girl friday) I say don't do that...implying provocative. Camera. / I slept too long and still try an afternoon nap before end of competition to try to get more points knowing that the last two nights will not add up to a whole lot of points. Was able to get HH's and interact some but eventually just knock out for the nap.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #228: The Fall from Orbit

I’m lying in bed when I sense a shift and suspect that a WILD has begun. Something feels not quite real about the situation. I rub my hands together. It’s close, but it feels like I’m dreaming this rather than experiencing it in the waking world. I feel Wife stir next to me and wonder if she can sense me moving around.

I try to speak but all that comes out is a strange, reluctant croak. There’s no doubt that it’s a dream now. The sense of being in bed becomes less and less clear and I feel like I’ve at least partially entered the void.

I wait for a while, relying on hand-rubbing to keep me in the dream but finally call out: “Dreamer, pull me out of here!” I feel the sensation of a hand grabbing my right arm and pulling me down toward where the “bed” would have been, and I get the sense that I’m rotating. When I’ve turned about 180 degrees I suddenly feel massive acceleration ahead of me and slightly downward, like something attached a rocket to me!

The acceleration halts and a new scene comes into view. I’m flying high above the Earth in lower earth orbit! The clouds look slightly pixelated but convincing enough that the effect is very dramatic.



I remember that all of my goals are on the surface of the planet, so I point myself downward and imagine myself shooting forward at top speed. I take off like a rocket, the ground rising dizzyingly fast to meet me. I’m shooting toward a bunch of buildings, headed directly for a house!

I’m prepare to plow into this house, but my fall stops short, my feet rotate back under me and I’m now standing gently on the ground next to a miniature house and a cluster of miniature buildings. What looked like a city seconds ago now looks like a bunch of little model buildings. The room is fully enclosed and dimly-lit but I can still see well enough to do what I want.

I want to summon Dreamer but there aren’t any DCs around to use. I remember my behind the back summoning tech, but I’m not feeling sure about how I executed it. It fizzles. I walk to another corner of the room and try it there. Still nothing.

I approach another part of the room where there’s a bar and a broad mirror above it. When I look into the mirror, I see myself standing there but in a completely different scene. My reflection is on some cobblestoned street, outdoors and it’s daytime. I strafe back and forth to test the reflection and he reacts as expected.

Now I spy the building’s glass front door and through it I see the cobblestoned scene I’d just viewed in the mirror. There’s a guy trying to get into the room, an Asian guy in his mid-twenties wearing glasses. Not the easiest DC to transform to Dreamer, maybe, but nothing I can’t handle!

I go up to the door to let him in and start messing with the lock. Then I realize what a waste of time this is. Why not just phase instead? I start the phase, my right arm passing straight through the glass but as I’m about to go the rest of the way, the dream ends.

Woke up around 6:00 AM, DJed a bit and then MILDed for about five minutes. Drifted off to sleep and had this:

7:45 AM: Maybe a FA? My wife tells me to not worry about having an LD: "It will happen soon." I am in some broken down, burned up city scape (day residue from watching clips of The Matrix yesterday) fighting colossal enemies that grow out of the ground. I am using one of the pole blasters from the movie Stargate. In the dream, the weapon is given to me by a hermanubis:



I blast one of the creatures a few times, then point the pole at some lit up squares above me on a burned out building. This activates an elevator. I plan to use the elevator to travel underground and attack the enemy's legs. At some point during this bit, I become aware that I am either dreaming or watching someone else's dream (??? C/R exactly).

I am running down some hallways. I see an odd-shaped item behind glass used for fires. I cannot tell if it is a fire extinguisher or an oxygen mask. I remove it and spray some gas out. I inhale some of this. It smells quite odd but seems safe enough. Not sure what happens after this.

After awaking from this, and feeling a bit worn out of trying to MILD, I decide to give myself a friendly auto-suggestion (as I have done in the past) and then practice SSILD. I practice SSILD for a little while. During this time, my wife wakes up and gets ready for work, the construction men are walking all over the roof doing who knows what, and I am just lying there.

Things seem to calm down though. My wife stops in to say goodbye, and I decide to roll over and sleep. As I roll over though, I decide to give SSILD one last shot. I do the visuals, then the auditory senses, and then come to my body. Here though I decide to just rest (instead of repeating the cycle). I suddenly feel the onset of REM--sort of like rushing sensation, but also a bit like a heaviness. I feel my body starting to slump over. "No, body--do not fall over!" I think--I don't want this to mess up the WILD! But of course, it isn't my waking body, but my dream body, and I begin to feel myself rolling outward in a semi-circle. At this point I realizewhat is going on--we're WILDing!

When I cease rolling, I have landed in some beautiful master bedroom--not my own!--and slowly get to my feet. I wait for a few moments, in case the dream is not set yet. I then carefully nose pinch. I a little air blockage but not a big deal because I am already sure I am dreaming. I immediately remember my 3-step task and begin to complete the fourth step. However, as I usually use my pocketses to summon items, imagine my dismay when I realize I am in my underwear! I still attempt to summon my phone from my underwear. I reach in, and pull my hand out real fast, saying "phone: be there!" I momentarily see the black outline of the phone in my palm, but then it disappears. I try this a few more times. I finally decide to do some other stuff, since Sensei said the goals for fourth step do not need to be completed in order. Before leaving the master bedroom, however, I decide to take off my underwear (?) as I feel they are useless to me

I place my hand on the wall of the bedroom, phase it through, and then phase through the entire wall. I then think of what else I wanted to do. I decide to look for StephL. This house is very nice--lots of wood and glass and sculpture and art around, and the floor is marble--and I feel odd shouting. I decide to contact StephL telepathically:

StephL, I think. StephL! I try a trick. Ah yes, I think, I remember now--I look around a bit and see a cabinet--StephL was definitely in that cabinet! I run over to the cabinet, but as I approach it becomes smaller--too small for anyone to fit inside. I realize it is unlikely she will be in here, but I open the tiny door anyway--empty!

I continue my rounds. I suddenly feel something bump inside my pocket (wait--pockets! WTF! I thought I was commando! ). Hey, I think--I bet that is my totem! I reach into my pocket and BAM! pull out my f***** totem. Fourth task complete. I am quite pleased as I know I have managed to get some points now. I pass a life-size version of my totem resting on the ground, and squat down in front of it. I feel it in both hands, still quite pleased with myself. I then continue my search.

I enter another master bedroom. On a very large bed--probably king sized--my wife is sitting, nude, wrapped up in sheets. She is smiling at me. I begin to walk over to her, but then remember I am on a quest. Sorry sweetheart! I turn and walk out of some glass doors into a screened-in pool area. Coming up out of the water is a beautiful, porcelain-skinned girl with long, blonde hair. She looks at me but doesn't seem ready to talk.

"Are you StephL?" I ask.

"No," she says. "My name is Katerina : some Russian patronymic that I don't entirely catch. She is treading water, and her mouth goes under the surface while she is talking, so I miss that bit.

"Can I swim too?" I ask. So much for my quest.

"Yes," she says, "But I am getting out."

I jump into the water, come up and then swim over to her. My fingers somehow get tangled in her hair. I pull them away gently, as I do not want to pull her hair. She lets me touch her. She is wearing a full-body, dark teal wet suit. She then says something demeaning to me, or kicks off of me, or something. This gets me kind of riled up

"I like girls who are a little mean to me," I say.

She is now climbing out of the pool, but she lingers a minute. "You're lucky I like retards," she says.

I laugh. "What?"

"Yeah," she says, "Retards--boys I can be mean to."

We are now sitting on a ledge, still in the water. I move in close and slide my hands along her waist. She feels nice. I suddenly remember the contest. What was I supposed to be doing? I slide back a bit, because I have thought of a good final task.

"Do you mind if I try something?" I ask. She shrugs. I quickly and forcefully push my hands out at her, with the intention of using TK to knock her backward into the water. Nothing happens. I try a few more times, and remember how CanisLucidus knocked over a speedboat rather effortlessly. I try doing the motion lazily, not caring. The girl looks bored. Oh well.

I move in close again.

And I think that is enough, Dreamviews.

I will say that the dream ended with me feeling like things were destabilizing; I focused a bit on my senses and managed to hold it together a few more moments before I woke up.

Ritual: wtb around 12:30am. Had to get up at 8am so no time for serious WBTB, but I had been reading about FILD and how it relies on short WBTBs that allow one to go back to sleep quickly, so thought this would be a good opportunity to try it out. I was waking up naturally every couple of hours and each time did FILD as I went back to sleep, but no results. If I was having NLDs, I didn't take notes and don't remember them now.

My fourth waking occurred at 6:50am. I did FILD again. This time, as I was nearing sleep I saw a tiny white light, rayed like a star and unusually bright, appear in the darkness behind my eyelids and seem to come closer. This reminded me: wasn't I supposed to be paying attention to hypnogogic imagery? Actually I don't think that is a part of the FILD technique but in my half-asleep recollection I was convinced it was, so I focused on that white star, and for whatever reason I felt like it was actually effective in helping me transition.

I had not been doing the "nosepinch" RC during my FILD attempts, as the tutorial recommends, because it struck me as potentially counter-productive to make such a large motion—if the body is not already in SP then one would end up moving one's physical arm and disrupting the transition. Plus, I figured, if I still had the presence of mind to remember to RC in the first place, then I could probably figure it out in some other way.

As I was trying to come up with alternate RCs that didn't involve physical movement, at one point it occurred to me, "Hey, if I'm lying here with my eyes closed, how come I can see my bedside table?" What a giveaway! So then I realized I must have transitioned without even knowing it, and got out of bed.

WILD: The first thing I did was go look out the sliding door in the bedroom. In RL it leads to the back patio, but in the dream, it opened onto a wide grassy lawn that extended a great distance. The air felt very real and fresh as it came through the door. I remembered my tasks, but after botching them last time because I rushed out of the house before the dream had stabilized, I didn't want a repeat of that failure. I realized I'd better take some time first and let the dreamstate develop a bit more strength. It felt unusually "thin," even for an early-stage WILD.

As I walked down the hall, I noticed three coins lying on the floor just inside the door to the library. This pleased me immensely, because I recognized it at once as waking life residue, the consequence of a conversation yesterday, and I was glad the dream was showing a bit of initiative. I picked up the coins and then wondered where to put them when I discovered that was wearing a skirt that had no pockets. "Don't be silly," I reminded myself, observing that this shouldn't be an obstacle in the dreamstate. So without looking, I slipped my hand down until I could feel the edge of the pocket that manifested on the skirt just where I "expected" it to be, and slipped the coins inside.

Shortly after this the dream was disrupted by a half-waking, but I was able to re-transition. I got out of bed again and realized I'd better work more deliberately on stabilization, running through each of my senses in turn to better engage them. Touch always seems the most foundational, so I rubbed my hands together and over various differently-textured surfaces in the room: the fluffiness of a sheepskin, the scratchiness of the wool rug, the smoothness of the wall. My sense of touch tends to be robust even in the most poorly-integrated dreams, so the results were satisfactory. What next? I thought of sight and sound, but immediately hesitated. The dream felt so thin and fragile that I felt convinced engaging sight and sound would expose me to RL stimuli and risk waking me. I thought it might be better to do taste and smell first to try to get a little more traction. As I walked toward the kitchen I saw a potted basil plant (much like the one I had bought yesterday from Trader Joe's) sitting in the door of the hallway bathroom. "That'll do for taste," I thought, plucking a leaf and putting in my mouth. It tasted very much like real basil, spicy and herbaceous, but somehow not entirely pleasant on its own. The leaf was unusually large and now it was filling my mouth in an unpleasant limp wad, so rather than chew and swallow, I took out what was left of it and put it on the counter. Surely there must be something else to eat? Ice cream maybe? I looked in the freezer, but remembered that I had finished the chocolate ice cream last night. I considered manifesting some more, but didn't get around to it. This might have been around the time the second half-waking occurred, and I had to re-transition.

It's not unusual that I have to chain a few WILDs like this before the dreamstate stabilizes, but this time it only seemed to be getting weaker rather than more robust, despite my deliberate attempts to gain traction. I guess my REM state wasn't very strong or I was already too wakeful. At one point I had opened the screen door by my work area and was standing with one foot inside the room, one foot outside on the patio, looking down the side of the house and thinking how unusually lifelike it looked, rather than showing the typical degree of dream-like distortions. And not long after that I woke up for the third time, too fully awake to retransition. I checked my clock and it was 7:35am.

It was a rather unsatisfying WILD in that the dream started out thin and only got thinner as time went on... there was one rough patch in the third part where I felt like I was holding it together through imagination alone before my senses re-engaged. By the very end, after it became apparent that I wasn't going to be able to accomplish anything worthwhile, I think I just gave up and was indulging in libidinous pleasure—through thought alone, as it seemed too much trouble at that point to try to create a scenario.

I'll have to keep trying with FILD to see if I can get better results. On the upside, it has the advantage that it can be practiced during very brief WBTBs, so it can be used at times when other techniques that require more mental focus would be unsuitable.

Ritual: Went to bed around 12:50am. Woke naturally at 3:32. Seemed a bit soon to WBTB but my motivation was good and I recalled traces of imagery so decided to go for it. Drank guayusa tea and read Brooks & Vogelsong. Before going to bed did hybrid of SSILD/counting/affirmation while sitting in chair. Technique: counted incrementally while breathing slowly and deeply, thinking the number on each in-breath, and on outbreath rotated between senses (thinking "look," "listen," or "feel") and then adding an affirmation, letting it fall randomly between "always lucid" or "always aware." Counted to fifty in this way, though I was impressed how easily it was to lose track of the number (this is good, it means the mind is losing its focus on waking life) even while sitting upright in a chair. Returned to bed at 4:52am and continued counting up to 70 while lying on my back, then ceased the practice and turned on my left side to sleep. I soon realized that I'd overdone the WBTB a bit and was excessively wakeful, but consoled myself that I should be able to return to sleep eventually given how few hours I had gotten so far, and my chances for WILDing should be improved by this touch of insomnia.

I had made sure to fix a very clear task in mind: I had read about the "fairy tale" challenges on DV and they seemed potentially interesting, but I realized I should make a clear plan. If I did successfully WILD I would find myself in my house, so how would I go about pursuing the task? My idea was this: grab a loaf of bread from the kitchen, exit the front door, turn right and walk up the hill, where in a previous WILD I had passed through a tunnel and found myself in a deep, dark forest. I could leave a trail of bread crumbs and see what happened from there.

WILD #1: It took a long time to go back to sleep. Eventually I felt sensations I interpreted as the onset of SP: tingling and distortion of the physical body, then a sense of weight on my chest so localized and specific that I wondered if the cat had actually jumped on me, but the weight quickly increased beyond that of any cat. I was encouraged because it seemed like this transition was happening very cleanly and consciously, and turned my attention to beginning to "move" the non-physical "body." I was careful not to wiggle my fingers or adjust my limbs lest I break SP, so I concentrated on unnatural movements like full-body rotation. I could begin to feel my body swinging in a horizontal rotation but didn't yet have enough traction to "get up" out of bed. Suddenly I felt a vertical "lift" as though my body had floated up several feet, and the next moment I was standing on my feet next to the bed. "And I'm up!" I thought to myself, pleased.

I noticed right away how dark it was, and despite the clarity of the transition, I did not feel well-integrated into the dream body. I deduced that this was probably a consequence of weak REM-state, given how little sleep I had gotten before the WBTB. I thought I'd better do some stabilization, so I touched some surfaces around me and then rubbed my hands together. This felt lifelike enough, so I became too easily complacent and didn't do anything further to integrate... a mistake, as it turned out. But I was pre-occupied with performing my task and didn't want to get distracted to the point where I never left the antechamber, as so often happens, so I rushed to get started.

I moved swiftly toward the kitchen and picked up the bag of bread from the counter as I passed through. It felt quite full, and I recalled that I had bought a new bag just the other day in waking life. Although the environment was still very muddy and vague, I could easily find my way through the house out of habit, so I headed straight for the front door. As I was crossing the threshold, I noticed that the bag of bread suddenly felt very light, as though there were only a few slices left. I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I should return to the kitchen, but didn't want to be distracted from my task, so I figured, "That's alright, I can always manifest more."

I walked out into the night, the outdoor environment no more distinct than the indoors had been, but I knew where I was going. I turned right and began to walk uphill, reaching into the bag to start dropping breadcrumbs. To encourage the right environment to appear, I started muttering under my breath: "Entering the world of Hansel & Gretel. Entering the world of Hansel & Gretel." But I only got off two recitations before I abruptly awoke. I realized my error at once: the dreamspace outside the antechamber is always less stable, and in my impatience to get started on the task, I hadn't integrated properly before exiting.

I lay for a long time in the position I woke in. Often I can seamlessly re-enter a WILD if I half-wake and don't move. But this was no half-waking: my mind was fully awoken and I soon realized that holding my position would be of no use, sleep had well and truly gone. I used the bathroom so it wouldn't pre-occupy me later and returned to bed, lying on my other side now to make a fresh start. By now the sun was rising so I got out my sleep mask from the drawer. I hate wearing it, but I could tell the light would be disruptive today. I considered checking the time but was trying not to stimulate wakefulness any further, so deliberately decided not to. It was evidently around sunrise, anyway, which occurred at 6:01am today according to Google. That was well over an hour after I had finished my WBTB and the dream can only have lasted a few minutes, so it must have taken me a very long time to fall asleep beforehand.

WILD #2: I lay on my right side and tried to keep a positive attitude: of course I can do it again! I re-WILD all the time! Not usually from such drastic awakening, admittedly, but I didn't let myself focus on the negatives. I wondered if I should rise and write a report, but reflected that there was little to report apart from the exact wording of the phrases I had thought or spoken, and these I had already scrawled in my notepad. The rest, what little there was, would be easy to remember. So I let go of those worries and focused attention on my breathing, remembering not to "try" to fall asleep but just let it happen. Eventually, it did.

Whereas the previous transition had been so vivid, this time I was surprised to find myself simply standing at the foot of the bed. I hadn't noticed the separation. But at least I remembered where I had gone wrong in the last attempt, and reminded myself: don't rush it. Get traction. Find something to do in the antechamber to better immerse yourself.

I noticed that this time the bedroom was full of books, stacked in messy piles and filling bags all over the floor. I figured that these would provide a good opportunity to more fully engage my senses in the dreamspace. So I selected a few and carried them with me as I moved out of the room. The kitchen floor was also covered with books, so many piles and stacks that was actually hard to pick a path through them. I was picking up volumes more or less at random until I noticed what was clearly an artist's sketchbook, a spiral-bound 9"x12" Strathmore, on top of one pile. "Oh, I should look at that!" I thought, and grabbed it. Finally I made my way to the living room, where I found a small oriental rug on the floor (about 2'x3', black pattern on a white background) and sat down on it to begin to peruse my books.

I chose the sketchbook first, because I was the most curious what I might find inside this one, and dream pictures tend to be easier to perceive and remember afterwards than dream text. The first picture I saw upon opening it was a portrait of what looked like a tribal chieftain, showing the upper half of his body and filling the whole page. He looked about middle-aged, with angular but weather-beaten features. The most distinctive element of the portrait, dominating most of the visual space, was the enormous headdress he was wearing. It wasn't made of feathers or any obvious RL material but seemed composed of abstract patterns with a Mayan styling to them. I took note of the colors. The headdress was all in shades of red, mostly an earthy brick shade. There were constrasting shades of muted green in the distinctive wide straps criss-crossing his body in various places. It didn't occur to me at the time, but the obvious deduction is that these straps were there to secure the enormous headdress.

After looking carefully at the first drawing, I turned the page. The next image I saw was more cartoon-like. The page was divided into four rectangular panels, each one the width of the page, and stacked vertically. There was a caption, though I don't remember if it was above or below the panels: "Doyle Oss Toss." How clever, I thought... until I realized that it didn't rhyme as well as I had thought at first, because I was aware from the start that "Oss" meant "Owl" but soon realized that the RL word had been distorted unrecognizably to fit the rhyme. My dream texts often demonstrate this tendency to favor rhyme and alliteration over comprehensible meaning.

The four panels showed the Doyle Owl being punted by a large shaggy grey wolf. The Owl was on the left, the wolf on the right, and the setting suggested the outdoors but was very plain, with little in the background to distract the eye. The sky behind them was dark. The first panel showed the Owl already in mid-air, with the wolf's head lowered, evidently having just head-butted it. The second panel showed the Owl about halfway down, in the act of falling, the wolf's head still lowered. The third panel showed the Owl having come to rest again on the ground, the wolf's position unchanged. The last panel showed the Owl lying on the ground where it had fallen, and now the wolf had lowered its haunches into a crouch and lifted its head toward the sky, howling in what I interpreted as triumph.

I think I might have spied one more drawing but I don't remember it, because around this time I woke up. In a false awakening. Which I didn't recognize. Responsibly, I immediately began to record the dream on my notepad, first sketching out the four-panel cartoon I have just described. After completing that, I started blocking out the tribal chieftain, and made some notes about the colors. I think I wrote about the green straps first, and when I started trying to describe the particular shades of red in the headdress, the dream began to evolve, and I thought I remembered dreaming that I was a sultan who had a vizier who wore a turban constructed of red cloth in various textures and shades, including a dark red kerchief. It's possible that this image relates to a drawing from the original sketchbook that I've forgotten, because as I was jotting down notes about color of his headgear a new visual appeared, where I could see the vizier from above and behind, with a clear vantage on the dark red kerchief, and I was surprised because I knew that I had not previously seen him from that perspective.

Before the FA could evolve any more, I woke up for real and recognized that I had just been writing my dream report in another dream, and I'd better get up and do it properly. In this case I didn't mind the delay because writing it down in the FA had helped cement the details in memory (this is not always the case). So I started jotting down my notes on the notepad next to my bed... only to realize soon after I'd started that even though I was more or less awake now, I still wasn't actually doing it, I was still just experiencing a kind of half-dreamed enactment of writing, and I should stop tricking myself and physically get out of bed so I could be sure I was doing it properly. So I got up and hastily sketched out the four-panel again—noticing with amusement how much crappier it looked in RL than in the more elegantly sketched version from my initial FA. I noted the time of rising as 6:56am, and recorded the rest of the dream on my laptop.