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This LD was from the morning of 9/12/2013.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #145: Sleeping Body

I get the sense that a dream may have started, so I will my arm to move downward through the bed. It does, and now I'm floating blind through some sort of substance. It feels a bit like water but less substantial.

I swim through it for a few moments until I can dimly see that the stuff I'm swimming through is black and wispy. My right hand touches somebody else's who also seems to be swimming next to me. It's apparently Wife, because she says, "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Now I'm back in bed. I can see, but the light's very dim. I roll out in an OBE style and walk toward the bedroom door. Before I leave, I think to look back at the bed to see whether I'm there... and yes, there's Wife on her side, and next to her, rolled on his (its?) side is my sleeping dream body. For some reason my sleeping body isn't covered by the sheets so I can see that it's glowing slightly and is wearing some kind of blue shorts.

I think about approaching my sleeping body but I decide that I don't want to get too caught up in this. As I'm thinking this, Wife sits up a bit in bed, looks toward me, and says, "What was that?" I wonder whether she's speaking to me or the sleeping body. I sense that this scenario is starting to challenge my lucidity, so I move on.

I walk toward the closed bedroom door and then hear phase through it, briefly entering the void. I decide that the phase is just taking a long time and (somewhat reluctantly) the hallway scene appears and I'm walking through it. It still looks like my real hallway, but very dark.

I continue into my son E's room and find that the place is littered with a bunch of huge toys. Near one window stands a four-foot tall plush zebra with plastic wheels. It looks like you're supposed to ride around on it. There are several other big toys as well, but I didn't get as good of a look at them and don't remember them as well.

I don't see E, and I begin to wonder if he's here. I "sense" that there's a crib nearby and wonder if E is just younger than he was before. This train of thought is starting to distract me, so I move toward the window to phase outside. I wake up momentarily and then hold still for DEILD.

The DEILD once again starts from my bed, and like before, my arm sinks into the bed. I go into the void and float for a while.

Spoiler for Sexytime:

The scene stays dark, and I feel two women snuggle up on either side of me. I can vaguely imagine their shape but I can't directly see them. This doesn't seem to bother me, though, and I manage about 25-30 seconds of fun before...

I wake up.

This is the second lucid from the morning of September 3, 2013.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #142: Hotel OBE

During my mantra, I find myself staring at the ceiling of the hotel room we're staying in. I know that I'm wearing my sleep mask, though, so I'm positive that this is a dream. I will myself to roll away from my sleeping body, and now I'm on my feet.

Rather than walking, I'm just sliding around the room. The scene is dark and a little hazy, but everything looks just like I remember it. I don't look back at Wife or the spot where I was sleeping, although I wonder whether I've left a sleeping dream body behind in bed.

I slide into the adjacent room where the kids are sleeping. Now more things are different. My two kids R and E are each lying in separate cribs, both about two years younger than they are in waking life. R is now almost a newborn and E looks like he's about two. They're both sleeping blissfully on their backs, and I drift past them toward the front door.

When I phase through the hotel room door, I find myself in a darkened hallway that doesn't look very much like our hotel. I note how realistic the dream began and how quickly it diverged from reality. I want to turn on the lights and check out my environment. I give a grandiose shout of "Let there be light!"

The hallway is now better lit, but it's still fairly dim. From out of nowhere, I hear Wife's from behind me: "And there waaaaas light!" She follows this up with a mocking trumpet sound like "doo doo doo DOOOOOOO!!"

I look back, and yep, she's standing there behind me. "Whatcha doing?" she asks.

"I'm having a lucid dream. This one is an OBE." I'm preparing to explain what that is when I remember that there's no need to explain anything to Wife's DC.

I jump-phase through the ceiling, my head going right through into the void for a moment. I try this again, and get the same void result. Okay, next time I'll imagine a new scene... too late, the dream ends.

I'm back from vacation and I've got some catching up to do! Hope everyone's been well and I'll be checking what I missed in everyone's dream journals soon!

This dream is from the morning of September 2, 2013.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #140: Rooftop Surfing

I'm attempting a WILD and get some fast hypnagogic imagery of standing near the wall outside of my childhood home. I reach out to touch the house's wall and it's real. Climbing up to the roof feels natural and easy, so I clamber up to the top and look out over the old neighborhood.

The roof of my house seems to go on forever, somehow connecting with the roof of the neighbors' houses. Off in the distance I see what look likes breaks in this ocean of roofing shingles, and as I focus on them, my feet start to slide smoothly along like I'm surfing. I go with it, imagining that this is taking me toward the Colosseum for Europe Task of the Year.

The rooftops have a smooth rise and fall as I skate over them, moving me up and down. There's a big, fancy house in the distance that I'm steering toward, and I insist that it's right next to my goal. The house acts sort of like a mirage, though, fading out of existence when I get anywhere near it. I'm left with just that endless sea of rooftops. Eventually another house appears in the distance, and I move toward it now.

After a while, the rooftop starts sloping downward and my speed picks up. Now it's not a rooftop anymore but just a blue plastic slide. I try to slow down a bit. This seems to work but these doubts keep popping into my head and then I'm careening downward again.

Now the blue plastic slide is slick and wet like a water slide, heading almost straight down. I splash into a shallow, watery pool in some kind of indoor amusement facility. There's a teenage girl here in a yellow shirt and tan slacks who looks like she works here. Before I can say anything to her, a little girl who's about 6 years old runs up and pushes a button that's just outside the pool of water.

"That means you have to wait here," says the teenage girl.

"Sorry, I'm not doing that," I respond, getting out of the pool. I check her expression to see whether she cares about my rule-breaking. It looks like she couldn't care less.

I walk down a little foam ramp. This place looks like some kind of cross between a gymnastics studio and a water park. There's another girl who works here at the bottom of the ramp, dressed in the same yellow shirt and tan slacks.

"Which way to the Colosseum?" I ask her. She immediately points to my left, where I see a pit of foam blocks and two more girls in this worker outfit. I'm walking toward the foam pit when the dream ends.

Early fragment: something good about a DV member and lds

Dream: me and parents are living in a street shop that is a house. The place also reminds me of a cheap hotel room. I complain about all of us having to share the toilet. I want to do the laundry before we go out. The neighborhood is very bad too.

Fragment: mom wants to play golf because she can't wait for me on fridays?

Fragment: I am examining a large bullet that has been fired already and wonder if it can be used again. Some guys are after me, I run to the top of the building.

late-WBTB&WILD: As I am falling asleep, I expect to see a scene form in the darkness and think about my hands. I appear on a dark street, make a few movements to properly get in and stabilize and then my body begins to float up. I decide to control the flight and will myself to fly up but reach a certain height maybe about two floors high and the float/flying stops and I slowly go down. I wonder why's that and try again with the intention of going to the roof of the building this time. I float up but the dream ends and I need to get up too.

I was pretty confused last night. When my WILD alarm went off, I could've sworn that I was already awake and that I hadn't slept at all. I shrugged it off and attemted a WILD/FILD, but I failed and ended up dreaming about spiders again. FML. I guess hordes of spiders is a new dream sign, lol.

I start school tomorrow. What does this mean for my lucid dreaming efforts? Now that I have an actual reason to get up in the morning, I'll be able to establish a regular sleeping schedule and better understand my sleeping patterns. This should make the whole process a hell of a lot easier.

Date: 03 Sept

Comment: Ok, I don't have much time and the other fragments were not very interesting, so I am just posting the WILD here.

WILD: I repeat to myself that I am going to AF and will/intend to get a vision/dreamlet. At first I see something like a corner, then another place like in front of garage, I try to make repetitive movements and reach out for the snow.

Then suddenly I see my legs, wearing blue pants. I am in. A small moment of confusion as I partially look around and think this is my room while my body begins floating by itself and phases down through the bed (I wonder if this is obe, feels like a dream though). As I try to stabilize I move my hands, legs, etc. and take a few steps and accidentally end up walking on the wall. At that point, I remember the advanced task and continue walking on the wall. I go back down and decide to start again, for a short moment, it doesn't work. I go near the corner of the room, walk a bit on the floor towards the corner, then I guess my body bends so that the wall looks a bit more like the floor and get on.

I do a quick walk on the ceiling but then notice my hair is getting over my face and in the direction of gravity and I am also wearing a white doctor's coat which makes it hard (or distracting) for me to move. I acknowledge that this is a bad idea, yet do my best to take off the coat, struggling for a bit and thinking that I am always undressing in dreams. I wonder if I should quickly make a ponytail but then decide to do nothing with the hair and just ignore it. It stops bothering me. Then I continue walking on the floor, on the wall and up the ceiling, selecting somewhat spacier areas with less furniture parts to walk on. The room is quite small and all this walking makes me feel as if I have been spinning inside of a washing machine. I feel the dream fading and am afraid that I will wake up any moment but continue to engage.

The room turns into a mix of the present and past bathrooms as I continue having fun. I can hear the neighbors being noisy and lock the door to make sure no expectation of DC will come to interrupt me. When crossing over near each corner of the room (which helps me uphold the illusion somehow), I also have the peculiar sensation that as I switch walls, I am actually making the room spin around me. I lose my concentration for a bit and the ceiling turns into the floor and I find myself in the bathtub. I go to the corner of the room to start it again but the dream finally fades.

I want to thank my mother for this lucid dream. If not for her rambling to me while I was sleeping I would not have done a successful WILD. Her real time voice brought me just enough out of my dream to have a truly awesome experience.

I wasn't really dreaming anything before I herd my mothers voice in the back of my head, talking about who knows what. I herd it, but I wasn't listening to what she was saying when I found myself in a WILD state, except I was coming from a dream where I was dreaming of nothing. Let me emphasize here: I was waking up from her talking, found my mother was in my apartment, then started to go back into the dream before I was fully awake then found myself in a WILD. I decided to put myself somewhere, and found my vision looking down on a blank world. I realized that this world was mine for the editing and started using incredible lucid control to make entire forests and oceans appear out of thin air, then started populating my world with a variety of creatures of my own making. This world was my canvas, and my limitless mind the brush. I was thoroughly enjoying myself, waving my arms like a conductor as things appeared out of thin air on my very own world when I was woken up completely. My brain latched onto the dream as hard as it could before the mental cord snapped and I was opening my eyes to my apartment and a rather annoyed feeling, while my mother was going on and on condescendingly about how I needed to get my sleeping condition under control. The only thought going through my head was how the heck had she gotten into my apartment.

hi i hope i am doing this right, anyways i had a short semi lucid dream last night which i will write here. its not much but I'll write it anyways since its the first lucid dream i have had in a while.

i don't remember much of how it started out but i remember i was in my house and there was someone else there who i didn't know, he started to chase me so i ran to the front door, at first the door wouldn't open and i panicked trying to unlock it by unlatching the lock, i finally forced the latch almost breaking it and opened the door. i noticed that i was running almost in slow motion, the more i tried to run the more it felt like i was trying to run through water. i used the side of the house to push off of hoping to give me more speed and ran into the street. it was there that i started to wonder if i was dreaming, or maybe i was just wondering if i could fly but didn't realize at that point i was dreaming (either one). i tried to fly and to my surprise it worked, i floated across the street and onto the drive way of one of our neighbors. it was then i did a reality check to help me fly, because if i knew for sure it was a dream i could fly easier. at first i had a hard time getting off of the ground, but then i imagined i was getting lighter and concentrated on the sky. soon i was rising slowly at first then faster and faster until i was soaring, at this point i was lucid i believe, maybe not at the highest lucidity but lucid enough to really enjoy it and know i was dreaming. i flew over rooftops and i saw a building by the ocean in the distance so i flew there. one thing i might note is that this time there was no "sky cieling" that i usually encounter i was able to fly freely. i also noticed that flying as high as i could wasn't my goal this time, my goal was just to get away from the person chasing me, i didn't even think about the barrier at first. anyways i got to this building, it was brown and had large windows like in a medieval castle, it wasn't very wide but it was long and tall, i flew into one of the rooms and looked out the window on the other side (i dont remember what the room looked like) i think at this point my lucidity was slipping now i was only semi lucid. i saw people standing around below and they were swinging these orbs on strings, i knew that were magical orbs and this was some sort of contest they were doing. everyone had one of the 6 magic classes just like in Wizard 101 (an online game i play) which were: life, death, myth, storm, fire, ice. i got one of these orbs on a string and started swinging it here and there. unfortunately this is where the dream becomes fuzzy although i feel there was something about a mermaid whose tail was made of a carrot and had lettuce for fins at the end, or was it a merman?

to be honest describing this was quite hard, there are a lot of details i left out, like where exactly the people were standing and what the contest was like, but its something i would have to draw, and i am not good at drawing so, a written description will have to do.

this dream lasted for about 2 to 3 minutes as far as i could tell but i could never tell how long i have been in a dream no matter how hard i try. basically it was a short to medium length lucid/semi lucid dream.

today about an hour ago i attempted another WILD. still no success although i got a bit further (each time i try it i get a little further) and your right, SP isn't necessary for WILD, im soooo glad i found out about that would probably have been waiting for all those vibrations and sounds to indicate if i am near the dream state. i did experience the beginning of REM Atonia though, but unfortunately my foot was in a crooked position and i couldn't help but move it thus ending the attempt, also there planes going overhead. i live near an airport which makes WILD extremely hard, maybe i can time it to inbetween the times they go overhead cause i know their all on a schedule. anyways i am pretty sure it was rem atonia i experienced, i was in hypnagogia pretty deep i had nearly lost consciousness, then i suddenly felt my body becoming numb and a tiny bit tingly, it was a weird feeling but nowhere near as intense as SP which i have or used to have. i could move which is why i tried to lay as still as i could, at first i got excited cause i knew i was near the point where i would enter the dream, and i think that also played a part in the reason this attempt failed. i managed to calm down and try drift back into the state of consciousness i was in earlier repeating "1 i am dreaming 2 i am dreaming 3 i am dreaming" ect, it seemed to work and at some point i felt like i was floating and the feeling of the bed started to fade a bit, but the noise outside was too distracting and my foot too. so thats as far as i got for now but i got soooo close! pretty sure I'll get it within the next few tries now.

this is my first entry here, feel free to comment, i always look forward to feed back.

8/15/2013, 22:00-6:45

The dda-ld ("didn't-do-anything lucid dream") is a stupid dream where you suddenly have the realization that you're dreaming, but your brain is a d-bag and says, "You know what? Let's not have a lucid dream." and you end up waking yourself up, effectively screwing yourself out of having a lucid dream that you actually do something in, hence the dda-ld.

I have actually had many of these stupid dreams in the past. This is just the first one I've decided to post. So here it is, the dda-ld:

Key:
Lucid Dream
Non-lucid dream
Woken Up
Sleep Paralysis

Dream 1:

I remember a jellyfish. That is all.

The DDA-LD:

I then woke up at probably around 3:00 in the morning, having to go to the bathroom. I got up, took a piss, stood around for a few seconds for the WBTB effect, then went back into bed. It was a bit cold, so I couldn't go to sleep right away. I was then laying there when suddenly I started feeling the rushing, vibrating, and the hypnagogic hallucinations of sleep paralysis. I remember some HH of me looking at porn on the computer () and then an icon suddenly appeared in the bottom right corner that I couldn't get rid of. I became scared I was gonna get found out. Then I suddenly woke up in my bed. I kind of knew I was dreaming, but I wasn't sure, so I tried to create something; a sound, an object, a smell, anything. Whenever I tried to create anything, all that would happen was the rushing sound and vibrations, which I was thinking were like me trying to concentrate on creating something. I then gave up on that and instead, my brain said "screw it" and tried to wake me up the same way I woke up in a prievious LD: by doing the nose plug reality check, and got too involved with the breathing of my physical body, that I wake myself up. That didn't work this time, so I just closed my eyes to connect with the physical body, and I woke myself up.


So that is my DDA-LD. Technically, I'd call it a DDA-WILD because of the sleep paralysis, but it still is a DDA-LD. Though, this isn't a total failure, since this actually is the first time I've had a WILD.

[HR][/HR]
[B]Tuesday, August 13th 2013: "Amazing Mirror" (LUCID)
Type: WBTB/WILD[/B]

After a brief WBTB period (around 10 minutes), I begin to slowly enter sleep paralysis. After the vibrations begin I relax as usual and focus on seeing through my eyelids. A few moments later the picture becomes clearer and clearer. After about 5 seconds, my bedroom becomes extremely vivid, and I just move my dream body and sit up. Excited that I entered a dream, I take a deep breath and get up from my bed. I look down at it, thinking maybe I'll see my body lying there, but no... I just see the bed, the pillow, and the sheets. I analyze the objects in my room and laugh because it's just so vivid. I am also lucid enough to know that I'll soon have to get up for work, and worry that maybe my alarm clock will wake me up soon and ruin my lucid dream. Now I enter my living room. It is day time, actually morning, just as in reality. I see one of my friends lying on the couch, but he doesn't live here at all. I tell him this is not reality, and ask him if he already knew that. He says no, and seems a bit disappointed. I tell him I have some things to do/experiment with, and that I won't disturb him, so he can remain lying on the couch. He laughs and says ok.

In my living room there is a big mirror in the same position just like in real life. Now it dawns on me that I wanted to experiment with mirrors next time I become lucid. Very excitedly I step closer to the mirror and closer. Now I see my reflection... which is... extremely odd, just as always. But this time I am analyzing every detail of it, and it simply amazes me. My reflection is "angry", and "scary". My eyes look very focused, as if I'm ready to attack someone. One eyebrow is raised, which looks funny. In any case, the atmosphere is somewhat eerie, but it's a good feeling nonetheless. Now I move to the left, and the reflection seems to move just a bit differently, perhaps with a 1 second delay, and some minor differences in movement. Then I move to the right, and again, there is a delay and minor differences. Then I get very close to the mirror and analyze my face. One eyebrow is still raised, eyes are still scary, and the face is in "attack-mode." I actually laugh at this point, but my reflection doesn't laugh.

At this point I decide to try what I read somewhere on the internet, and that's pulling the reflection out of the mirror. First, I stick my hand inside the mirror for a second, then pull it out. It looks cool, kind of like pushing your hand into liquid. I move my hand really close, then push it inside the mirror very fast and grab my reflection's hand. I pull it out, and pull, and pull... first up to the wrist, then up to the elbow. He's pulling back very hard, and I'm pulling in my direction. My friend watches the whole thing in amusement. I tell him to help me pull him out of the mirror. Gets up and helps me. However, at this point the arm begins stretching kind of like rubber, and I see that I can't pull him out, instead it's just like a very long arm that is now almost pulled to the end of the room. My friend and I decide to let go of the arm, and it just pulls itself back very fast into the mirror, snapping back kind of like a rubber band.

A false awakening occurs. I am in my bed, but I already know it's a false awakening without doing a reality test. Everything is amazingly vivid again. I laugh and get up, but before I get to do anything... my alarm clock "really" wakes me up.

Another entry from my WORD (.doc) dream journal:

[B]Monday, 18. April 2011: "Sunlight" (LUCID)
Type: WILD/WBTB[/B]

After about 4 hours of sleep, I get up, and go back to bed a couple of minutes later. I get sleep paralysis, then get a little uncomfortable and will myself out of it by trying to move my head as hard as possible. That always works for me. After that, I get it again, then I get the illusion that my head starts shaking and banging against the pillow. I also feel slight pressure in my entire body. I keep saying to myself that I will have a lucid dream. The next thing I know, I am in a dream, laying in my bed in the same position I fell asleep in. Everything looks the same. I get up, and start walking a bit around the room, reminding myself outloud that it is a dream. I start paying attention to the details, particularly the light switch on the wall. A few seconds later the environment begins to fade. I try to relax and rub my hands against one another, and the dream stabilizes a bit. I walk into the living room, and the door is open, I see the sunlight outside, and it is also shining onto the floor.

However, looking at the sunlight destabilizes the dream and it begins to fade even more. I go back into the bedroom, which is darker, and the clarity improves. I focus, remind myself once more that I am in a dream, and then walk again into the living room. The sun once again causes the dream to begin breaking up so to speak, and losing clarity very much. Now I decide I will start spinning in order to stabilize it. So, in the living room, I spread my hands out, and start to spin and spin, expecting and hoping that the environment will stabilize. However, it continues to fade, and eventually... I don't know what happened after that. I did not wake up. It seems there was some kind of pause after that, if that's possible. Some kind of non-dream period? After that I only vaguely remember a non-Lucid dream.

I got a lucid again today! Pretty cool, and i accidentally succeed with a wild also i think? or it was close, i was almost asleep and i dreamed about that i ball was coming towards me, and i tried dodging. I wake up, because i dodged irl xD

And the lucid i got, was really vivid. But i got some problems to remember everything from the lucid dream. but i did dream checks and such, with success but it was weird, i looked at my hands, and they acually looks normal when lucid
I was at a strange place, can't remember where? ;o

My dream recall is a little better, but i still need to train

I experienced sleep paralysis and some vibrations this morning. I've experienced this once before.
The first time was way more intense, it was more like shaking not vibrating. The first time i was totally aware of what was happening and totally conscious. I recognized the paralysis right away and the vibrations because i had been reading about astral projection and Wake induced lucid dreaming. and i knew what i had to do in order to start my lucid session but i was too chocked basically. I was terrified of the intensity of the vibrations, it felt like i was having some sort of fit, epileptic or whatever and that put me off a bit. I felt like the more intense the vibrations got the more the paralysis took over and i paniced. I just tore myself up, i felt like if i don't get up now i will never get up.
This was my biggest mistake, cause now im having a hard time inducing this state of trance.
I've been reading a lot about this subject and i know now not to be afraid of the procedure. That it is perfectly normal and safe, as i see it, this is the biggest problem people have while trying to astral project or WILD. To get over the fear, and get over the separation of physical body and spirit/energy or soul or whatever. Key at this point in the procedure is to relax furhter and let the vibrations take over, try to channel the vibrations, and after a while proceed with the separation, using wich technique you prefer (the rope, the roll over ect.)

This morning though i was dreaming, ( i don't really exercise reality check during day-time anymore, i used to but life intertwined ) anyway, for some reason in my dream i did a reality check by looking at my hands and noticing they were disorted so i realized i was dreaming and right away i was back on my couch were i had fallen asleep and i was vibrating and was partially paralyzed, this time i didn't get scared, i just found myself in it and relaxed and i was quite soothing after a while. Then i decided to separeta from my body (maybe rushed too fast to this point) anyway, i decided to do the roll-over-technique because i was sleeping on my side so i thought it would make more sense than the rope. but i was so paralyzed i couldn't It felt like trying to run from the bad guy in a dream and not being able to. When i start to think about it i wasn't as lucid that it had been the first time, it wasn't all that clear, maybe i wasn't as conscious as i thought i was. Maybe i was dreaming about having a sleep paralysis and vibrations? that is quite possible isn't it? why wouldn't it be?
anyway, then the vibrations just passed and i moved and "woke up". So im not sure if it was a dream or an actual beginning of an astral or wild. Maybe i shouldn't dwell on it too much and just try again instead, i just felt like i had to write this down first.

It's been a while since I had a WILD and this one had by far the most violent transition I've experienced yet. Kinda cool!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #124: The Rodeo

I've been awake a while post-WBTB and I feel anxious "Am I ever gonna sleep?" thoughts creeping in. I roll to my side, relax my mind, and try to focus on hypnagogia while counting backward in a style like "100... I'm dreaming... 99... I'm dreaming..." Around the low 90s, I feel something like a thump in my head and then a loud crackle of electricity, followed by the sensation of shaking. My WILD transitions are usually very low-profile, so this surprises me. The whole thing is jolting but more exciting than unpleasant. I try to stay relaxed, prepared for the possibility of more weirdness.

Now everything is dark and I hear voices whispering in my ear. It's a bit creepy, but I know that this is normal and that I'm probably beginning to dream. I imagine myself oozing out of bed OBE-style. My body stretches like a piece of rubber, my feet meet the floor, and I'm standing in my bedroom. I'm wearing my orange-tinted safety glasses instead of my sleep mask, so it's really, really obvious that this is a dream.

Everything is dark, jumpy, and unstable. My body is moving too quickly and I keep crashing into things. I look at myself in the mirror and I can make out the shape of a man but visual quality is so low that I can't see much beyond that. I drift into the master bathroom and run straight into the counter. Then I float back to the master bedroom, going too far and wind up standing right over Wife. I reach down and touch her hip and shoulder and try to get myself anchored, but when she stirs I feel bad thinking about her DC waking up to see a creepy ghost looming over her.

The whole scene feels only half-painted. Okay, let's just get out of here. I run for the window. The shutters are closed, but I dive through, phasing into the void and then immediately rubbing my hands together to keep things stable. I kneel down and touch the floor, which feels like it's covered with dirty industrial carpet. I try to shift this toward being the sand of the Colosseum's floor, and as I keep touching it, it starts to feel more and more like a really dirty carpet. Hoping this is close enough, I start to imagine the arena all around me.

Now I can see my hands brushing over patterned, dimly illuminated carpet. The lighting is poor, and without thinking I look up to see that I'm inside a dark, empty stadium. I can't tell where the light's coming from but just at the edge of the light, I can vaguely make out empty stands. I remember podcasting about low light and I try to use my own advice of imagining how bright it is, but can't find any light source. I look hopelessly up at the ceiling, feeling embarrassed that I can't even make my own suggestion work.

Okay, next idea, also from the podcast: quit worrying about it. I jump up and start flying around the stadium, looking for people in the stands. There -- a group of 3 or 4 about halfway up. I keep circling, spotting more and more people. And as I look for them, the light in the scene grows to accomodate my expectations. After doing this for a while, there's a healthy crowd gathered in the stands and the scene is well-lit. Happy with this change, I land to find workers scurrying back and forth on the stadium floor preparing it for some kind of event. Everyone's in Western wear, and when I check, the crowd is too! It looks like they're putting on a rodeo in this stadium.

An announcer, a man in his late 40s with a bushy mustache and a cowboy hat, is under the spotlight and speaking into a microphone to warm up the crowd. I forget what he says, but they think he's great, and they cheer wildly at his words. I approach him and he holds the microphone up to me. "Uh," I say. "I want to turn this into the Colosseum."

He replies into the microphone, warmly but firmly: "No can do, boss." The crowd applauds. I think about forcing the change anyway, but I feel overwhelmed by the scope of the task. I just can't seem to build up the confidence that I need. I wander out through an exit hall, leaving the rodeo behind me.

I'm outside now and it's night. I walk through a narrow street, emerging near a restaurant patio. I'm close to the ocean. I see the water and I can hear the sound of the surf. Nearby a woman talking on her cellphone glances up at me, gives me a nod of acknowledgement, and walks away, still talking. I walk along the oceanside road for a little while, coming to a shopping center. A dark-haired woman in her late 20s approaches me. "Hi!" she says. I notice that she has a somewhat upturned nose. I also notice that I'm finding her very cute.

"I'm looking for the Colosseum," I tell her. "Can you show me where it is?"

"Oh, I'm really sorry! I have no idea where that is."

I feel discouraged and stuck. I tell her about my Colosseum goal and she nods along with my explanation. I no longer know what my plans are for this dream. Somehow I wind up telling her that I want to kiss her, she says go ahead, and so I do. As I'm kissing her (eyes open, dream stabilization style), I see three younger girls ranging from maybe 8-14 or so watching us with expressions ranging from horror to mild amusement. I notice that these three have her same upturned nose. Are they her little sisters? Her kids? Feeling embarrassed and a little confused, I pull away. "Bye!" she says brightly, and the four of them wander off together.

I continue through the shopping center, coming to a slightly darker hallway with shops on each side and a planter with a large palm tree in the middle of it. I hear Indian music coming from somewhere down the hallway, and as I walk toward the music, the dream ends.

7/20/13

WILD + DEILD (nap)

I was in a break from sleep and I felt that I was close to SP. I tried to clear my mind for like 20 seconds and then imagined the sliding sensations. I soon felt my body sliding horizontally along the bed. I slid off and was laying on my back on the pile of stuff next to my bed.

I opened my eyes and was in my room. I decided to try and create a new scene. I didn't want to close my eyes so I tried to imagine a scene and didn't pay attention to what I was actually seeing. I thought it would be cool to pilot a helicopter so I visualized a cockpit. I start to see a small tv set with 4 player split screen on it was a heli pilot game (1st person view). It is getting closer and closer and I am trying to eventually enter the game. I start to control the bottom right screen but I can never actually pull it out of the game.

DEILD

I decide to not go on the game route. I imagine standing next to a helicopter and a scene develops where a bunch of pilots are listening to a briefing before a mission. There is a big map and the head military guy is talking about the plan. The map isn't of anything I recognize. He mentions one area and suddenly speaks in french. He says we don't have a word for that place in English and its going to be intense. I lose the dream before the mission starts.