Thena

This was a lucid dream that was a bit unexpected. I was having a lazy Sunday morning lingering in bed. I had already turned off my sleep tracker and was trying to review my last dream of the night (involving tea with a Tibetan monk) when I managed to fall asleep and re-enter it.

I'm back in the monastery, which is basically a rectangular stone room with a doorway leading outside. The monk is pouring tea for some kind of tea ceremony. One detail seems out of place -- my dad and sister are lingering near the entrance. I don't remember them being here in the previous dream. I pull out my phone and try to read an email in order to do a reality check. The text of the email doesn't make any sense at all. The room starts to fade a bit, so I try spinning to keep the dream going. The scene shifts to my workplace. I think about my goal, which was to accomplish two of the tasks of the month in one dream since I usually wake up right after finishing just one task. I realize that there's no way I can do any of the tasks at work, so I try spinning again.

This time, I find myself on a beach at the base of a mountain cliff. There's some dim light in the sky, but it looks like the sun has just disappeared behind the horizon. I decide that I'm going to write my name in the sand. First, though, I need to find a good place to do it. The strip of beach I'm on is very narrow, and there are waves washing up from both the sea and, oddly enough, there are waves coming in the opposite direction from the mountain. I walk down the beach until I found a wider stretch. Then I proceed to write my given name in the sand. The sand itself feels almost liquidy as I spell out my name. When I'm done, the sand starts to bubble like boiling water until my name is no longer there. It's kind of funny to me since I'm not really fond of my given name anyway. Once the sand settles, I go back and write my nickname "Thena" in the sand. I accidentally walk over the "n" and "a" at the end, but I'm able to fix them. This time, the name stays put.

I want to try one more task, and I struggle to remember the details of the volcano task. But when I turn to scan the horizon for a volcano, I find Obama standing right behind me. His proportions are a little bit off. He's only an inch or two taller than me (I'm barely 5' tall while I'm sure the real Obama is over 6' tall) and his head seems slightly larger than the rest of his body, like a bobblehead. I immediately start repeating, "Oh my god, I am so sorry." This isn't who I planned on punching when I first read the task! But I have to do it because I'm not sure when I'll get another chance. So I punch Obama with my fist making impact with the right side of his face. I don't think my punch has all that much power, but Obama reacts as though I really hurt him. He even spits out a tooth that was knocked loose. He gives me this icy glare as though he's really angry. Then he turns around and walks away.

I try again to remember what was involved in the volcano task, but I'm fuzzy about the details. I remember climbing a tree in a previous lucid dream just because I could, so this time I climb straight up the side of the cliff. When I reach the top, I look around for a volcano, but there isn't one. Then I dive off the cliff into the sea. I go straight down into the water before surfacing. This time, I see a sunny island right in front of me with a single mountain peak that dominates the whole island. There's smoke rising from the top, so I know this has to be an active volcano. Something that amuses me at the time is that I can even hear Hawaiian music. I decide that I'm going climb the side of the mountain, but it bothers me that I can't remember what I'm supposed to once I reach the top. But the sides of the mountain are so smooth and so perfectly sloped that it feels a bit like climbing up a slide. I end up sliding backwards and then wake up.