side notes

Before WBTB

Russian Ride
I'm traveling internationally and I don't speak the language where I am at. I'm getting off a train or bus looking for the airport. I see another bus leaving and I wave my arms and chase it, yelling for it to stop. It does. I try to ask the driver where the airport is and he tells me (in English) that the bus is full. It clearly isn't. I wonder if there is some law saying there must be X number of open seats. Regardless, I stay on the bus and he doesn't kick me off. I make my way to the back of the bus. It resembles the CATA bus system from back home. In the back car is a girl with one leg. Short hair, kinda "bad-girl type". She has khaki pants on, and the missing leg has it tied to cover the stump. I sit next to her and ask for help. She's friendly.

Some time later we are back at her apartment. It's a big studio, kinda messy with paint and art all over the place. I realize that I'm a girl, and that she may be gay. I get the impression she might have been coming onto me.

Later I'm running from Russian agents. I'm running through an apartment complex, entering and leaving through doors/windows. I'm really high up. When I go outside I'm sidling on just-big-enough edges to not fall. I don't know why they are chasing me. I eventually make my way down from the tall complex and make it to the ground but I haven't shook them.

I'm in a down-town Chinatown type area at night. There is a big crowd of people and I'm trying to use them to escape from the Russian agents. I'm at a bar with two floors open to the outside. There are some TVs running with couches set in front of them. There are some dark corners I can hide in. I try out a few and crouch down, but I decide that none of them are good enough and keep moving. Then I stand up face-to-face with one of the agents. He looks like Dr. Brenner from Stranger Things.

Running again. This time it was short. I ended up in a stone building on a grassy hill, hiding underground. But they've just found me. There is the leader (Dr. Brenner) and two thug-types. They are going to torture me for information. I tell them I've only killed one time, and I wasn't sure if it was me or my uncle who pulled them trigger. I guess I was trying to intimidate them. It doesn't work. They casually talk to me about something and then without warning Dr. Brenner shoots my right ear off with a pistol.

I cry out in pain (S hears me and tries to shake me awake). It doesn't hurt as much as I expected it would. They tell me that they will shoot off the other ear if I don't comply.

I wake up and tell S I am OK.

After WBTB

W Aged Up
I'm at my Grandma P's house in the bedroom sleeping on the bed. I've slept in later than everybody else. I roll over and see some old drawings I made in my childhood on the wall. My grandma will have decided to have kept them. They are hyper realistic and drawn in pencil. Somehow, they are holographic. I think to myself that maybe I should get back into art.

W, my brother's son who is due in September, bursts into the room with his friend, Ian. He's four years old. I can't tell who is who and I feel bad about it. But now I know it is because W isn't born yet. One of them has buck teeth. I follow them around the house and then one kid is missing. I find W/Ian eating dish cleaning tablets under sink. Standard kid behavior I guess

Lucid Fragment
I'm in a large mall, reminiscent of one from an old marching band trip from high school. I do a nose reality check and realize I'm dreaming. I double take...crap! I was dreaming that whole time before with W! I think to myself that step one is to find my DG...but my lucidity slips and I wander off.

Conditions
Medium workout early in day
Big dinner
2 drinks of alcohol
Stayed up late
6hr/30m WBTB
Yuschak Primary Trigger (8Mg Galantamine, 250Mg Choline Bitartrate)

Notes
My theory on what happened here...sleep cycle issues. Instead of jumping into the same sleep cycle I was just in, I jumped into the beginning of a later one. I stayed up until about 2:30am playing Zelda and then set an alarm for 8:30am...so about 6 hours after sleep. I know that 5h45m has been a good target for me, so I was experimenting with a larger time to test and see if it can be improved. One problem though is that I didn't have an established wake-sleep rhythm. Plus, I stayed up longer than the typical 15m during the WBTB. I planned slightly longer at 20m but it was more like 30m. I don't think the alcohol will have mattered much because of the later timing, but it could have played a part. Lesson learned: Next time, have an established sleep rhythm. Gonna say data inconclusive about 6h/20m WBTB setup.

Stayed up too late playing Zelda. No recall. Boooooooo.

Making a note here to remind myself about WBTB timings. This includes time spent sleeping prior to WBTB as well as time awake before returning to bed.

Timing for Pre WBTB
Commonly practiced timings are 4.5hrs and 6hrs. These are probably based on 1.5hr sleep cycles. For example, 4.5hrs is 3 cycles (1.5 x 3) and 6hrs is 4 cycles (1.5 x 4).

Timing for Post WBTB
I've had success with staying awake for just 10m in all my previous attempts. I don't know if I would have higher quality lucid dreams if I were to increase this time. I've had several good lucids, but no excellent ones yet.

Rankings
Here is a ranking of my recent lucid dreams and their WBTB timings:

Night of Friday 3/10/23: My 1st lucid in a long time. Probably my most exciting of the recent bunch. Giving this a 3/5. ?hr/10m.

Night of Friday 3/24/23: Exciting WILD transition, but from what I can remember the dream itself was a nothingburger. 1/5. 5hr/10m.

Night of Friday 3/31/23: Another good lucid. 3/5. 5hr45m/10m.

Night of Saturday 4/8/23: Decent. 2/5. 6hr/10m

Summary
Based on the last four lucid dreams, there might be a bias toward 6hr being better than 5hr. Perhaps they would be better if hitting closer to the 4.5hr mark. Also worth experimenting with the time awake, since I have no data for longer or shorter wakeful periods. 10m seems shorter than what others suggest. Maybe lucidity quality could be improved by increasing it. Overall, more data needed.

Next Steps

Experiment A: For the next four lucids, use 6hr/15m as a timing. This will test whether 6hr is consistently better, as well as whether 15m gives more lucidity compared to 10m.

Experiment B: For the next four after A, use 4.5hr/?m as a timing. Evaluate the ?m timing based on results of experiment A.

Experiment C: For the next four after B, choose the best of both worlds and evaluate.

Fragment
I recall something about my Dad being in danger. There was a horror movie style song being sung by a little girl about what was going to happen to him. I can't recall what, but the dream was unsettling.

Pre-WBTB
No recall.

Post-WBTB
I'm up after about 6 hours, not ideal but timing restraints around the Easter holiday are constraining me. I've gotten up and taken my usual supplements. I'm now incubating what lucid dream I'd like to have. Shooting for these goals:

1. Visit the Elven Forest. Doesn't have to be super specific, just want to go somewhere wildly different than my usual dreams.
2. Apply meditation practice results. I want to sense my body to stabilize, and test out my new focus capabilities from listening practice in waking life.
3. Meet a dream guide. This entails actually confirming with the DC that they are my guide, not just assuming as much.
4. Eat cake or any delicious food. Currently dieting, so would be nice to have good food with zero consequences.

I'm imagining that I can go to the forest through a door like I tried previously, or try to go there directly from the WILD transition. From there, I can try to find the guide and ground myself. Then food! Back to bed, here we go.

I lie down and eventually feel the vibrations. I have a very short thought that getting flash banged and then shot during war would suck, and subsequently hope that I don't dream about that. Luckily, I didn't. I did realize though that going to Narnia through a wardrobe would be a great way to fulfil the goals I laid out here. Find a wardrobe, find the winter scene on the other side (Elven Forest), find Mr. Tumnus (Dream Guide), and have food with him (Delicious Food). I decided that this was what I would do. I don't get to WILD this time, but I eventually doze off.

Not Quite Narnia, But Not Bad Either
I wake up in my bed, but do a nose RC out of habit. I can breathe! I'm lucid. I immediately remember that I want to stabilize, so I think about feeling my body from the feet up and say "feeling my feet, feeling my legs..." all the way up to my head. I'm rubbing my hands together too. I have several false awakenings that start this way, so I suppose it didn't stabilize very well. One time (or two), I wake up in my Grandma M's old place from my childhood. I'm not 100% lucid here, but I do remember my old Doberman, Champ, and I false-awoke with my head resting on him. He seemed big and strong. He was a good boy.

I have another false awakening where my living room looks very different. It reminds me of my girlfriend S' grandpa's house. In the sitting room specifically. I see my dad, except he has black hair instead of the usual grey. His hair is still pretty short though. I'm exploring around this modified version of my house, one area looks like Grandma P's old dining room from the apartment, when I remembered that I want to go to Narnia. Maybe that meditation practice is helping me remember? I recall that my dad was standing in front of a wardrobe. I get excited. I can use that to get to Narnia! Maybe my dream put it there for that purpose, or it was coincidence. Convenient regardless.

I open the wardrobe, and discover that it has a bunch of drawers inside. Not a walk-in. Less convenient. Turns out my brain is a troll. I close it and start to look for other doorways. I go down a hall that isn't normally in my house and I see my girlfriend S sitting in bed at the end of it. She's looking pretty hot, and seems to be beckoning to me, but I am on a mission! I regret this choice a bit now. I see a bathroom through an open door in the hallway, and then another door next to it. I open it. It's a walk-in closet with a bunch of clothes in it. Perfect. I work myself into the clothes and start pushing. Just like Lucy in "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe". This is taking awhile and the clothes are pretty tough to push. I start to worry that I'm just going to wake up before I emerge anywhere, and just then I finally push through.

Snowy...ski mountain. Dang it. My brain really doesn't like to give me fantasy scenes, it seems. This time there isn't an obvious doorway where I came from, like the sewer pipe door from the last lucid. I seem to have just emerged out of thin air. So it isn't trivial to try for Narnia again. Oh well. I decide to explore this new environment. It is still cool! Just not what I'm after. Notably, I don't feel cold despite the snow and the wind. It seems like a little German-themed town, sort of like Frankenmuth, with a main street lined with shops and tourists. I start walking up a cobblestone path that leads up a hill. I'm still stabilizing using my body technique, and I reflect:

"Well, at least I sorta got one of my goals..."

Wait. Goals. Plural. There were others. What were the others?! I strain my brain a bit and then callout to the universe:

"DREAM GUIDE!!! Where are you?! I want to meet you!?"

I look around and nothing happens and then:

"Yo, wassup?"

A slightly overweight (but not unattractive) woman around my age saunters into view from over my shoulder. I recognize her as a version of the pink-haired girl from a few lucids ago. I was right. She WAS the dream guide. Her hair was a more natural color now, but I can't remember which. Also, she's still wearing the skimpy-leather outfit she was before, despite the fact that we are out in the snow. I guess that checks out, with my brain.

"Hi! What's your name?" I say.

"Hm..." she looks off into the distance and doesn't answer me. I ask again.

"..." she doesn't seem to want to answer, or understand the question.

"I'm going to call you Leather," I say.

"Hm...sure I guess," she replies.

Then, of course, my brain goes down the typical path.

Spoiler for Spicy Content:

"So, Leather, you're looking pretty hot. We could probably get away with some stuff before I wake up, if you want," I suggest casually.

"Hm... I wouldn't be opposed," she replies.

Right in the middle of the snowy street, she gets on top of me in missionary position. Before I can really feel anything I start to wake up.

I wake up fully shortly after. After doing a series of RC's to verify, I rush to record this dream before it fades.

Notes
Pretty happy with this! I would've liked to try some food, or otherwise do more exciting things in the lucid. I feel like I didn't time the WBTB quite right, but for a limited time-schedule that's alright. I'm super happy to have confirmed a dream guide! Although I'll have to verify a name...I'm not sure 'Leather' makes the most sense as a name. Probably wasn't the most lucid at that moment. Looking forward to adding some AI images to this post. Been practicing it and getting familiar with new tools so we'll see what I can come up with. I'm thinking at least the snowy mountain deserves so cool art. Maybe Leather can get a portrait? Don't want to be too much of a goon with that though. Just like, out of respect y'know. She's my dream guide after all.

Conditions
1/2 drink of alcohol
Big workout early in the day, healthy dinner but cookies later.
6hr0m/10m WBTB
6th Yuschak Primary Trigger Usage (8Mg Galantamine, 250Mg Choline Bitartrate)

No recall. Pretty terrible sleep this night, but that was self-inflicted

No recall. Woke up late for work and rushed the memory away.

Fragment
Not much recall today but I did wake up with something. I had a profound feeling of importance about life and family, and the name "Trixie". I wonder if there was a more involved dream behind it, but the feeling and name is all I can remember.

No recall.

Pre-WBTB

Fragment
I'm in a labyrinth maze. Viewpoint is from above.

Fragment
The Youtuber ProJared and somebody else is giving an apology speech on Distractible. It's a video, and Distractible is apparently a streaming platform like Spotify. I'm looking up what their policy is. My girlfriend SB says that they don't have a policy.

Post-WBTB

Actually woke up moments before my alarm went off. That's pretty neat. I took my supplements, used the restroom, and wrote down this entry. I slept just about 5 hours and 45 minutes, so in theory I should be entering REM cycle 4 at its' end. Maybe unstable dreams then? Hope not. Maybe I can get into REM cycle 5 from the get go after that.

I tossed and turned for quite a while. I was worried that I had wasted my time and the timing reset on the supplements (once a week for Galantamine if not using Piracetam). My phone goes off (who the hell is texting me at 7AM, savages) so I put it in airplane mode. That'll show 'em.

Supplement Interaction Gone Wrong
I'm tossing and turning in bed and I notice that I'm feeling nauseous. I fall over the side of my bed and struggle to get my vision into focus. Something must have gone wrong with the supplements and the alcohol. I feel drunk. SB is outside our room calling out to me.

"I have four parents here!" she said.

She probably wants some help hosting, I think.

"Wait four? Are any of our friends there?" I ask.

She replies in the negative. Great. So there are four people there that I probably don't know terribly well that I now need to entertain. And I feel drunk. I decide that the best thing I can do is try to sleep it off and then go help, so I get on the bed and rollback over.

Post-WBTB

Thank god. I'm awake and I feel better. There hasn't been an alcohol-supplement interaction. Nobody is visiting us at 7AM. I can resume my WILD attempts. I'm very relieved about this so I relax easier. SB has gotten up to start the day so I have the whole bed to myself. REM cycle 5 here we go. Vibrations eventually show up.

I start to see images slowly forming. I remember my past success visualizing my hands to 'grab' the dream, so I try to recreate that. I see a pinhole image at the end of the void. It looks like a beach. I start thinking about things I could grab onto. I see some streetlights. Perfect. I imagine the feeling of gripping the cold metal, and visualize my hands closing around them. I can already see my arms outstretched, and my right hand closing around the lamp.

California Chaos
I'm standing on a beach reminiscent of the California Boardwalk, holding onto a metal streetlight in my right hand. It's a beautiful sunny day. I've done it again! Successful WILD #2!


Beachside Bars. Made with Holara AI.

The first thing I do is approach a portly-looking man at a beachside bar and side down next to him. He vaguely looks like RR from work, or Carlos Mencia. I turn to him.

"Hey man. What if I were to tell you that this was a dream?" I say.

"WOAH. No way!" He casually dismisses the suggestion.

"Oh yeah? Then what about THIS!?"

I attempt to put my right index finger through my left palm to demonstrate a reality check, but I can't do it.

To be fair, I've never actually done that before. But looking back this is pretty funny. In the moment, it was also pretty funny.

"Okay forget that... then what about THIS?!"

I hold up my hand and count the fingers on it...1-2-3-4-5...6-7-8!

"WOAH. That's insane!" He exclaims.

"I'm gonna go cause trouble if you wanna come with me?" I ask him.

"Nah I'm good." He replies.

I get up. It would've been cool to create chaos with a partner in crime. I forgot all about trying to summon Aeon (name I've given to the dream-guide from the Desert planet). I'm wanting to get her advice on the dream world and see if I can ask her to make me lucid whenever she sees me in a non-lucid dream. I wander down the Boardwalk and come up to some cute girls sitting at a high-top table. I figure, it's a dream I can do whatever I want.

Spoiler for Spicy Content:

I ask one of them to stand up and bend over. She's wearing jorts. I spank her ass. Nice.

Anyway, moving on. I continue walking along the Boardwalk and come up on a brick wall. I recognize that the texture would be good to help stabilize, so I start rubbing the wall like a weirdo for a bit. Can't recall if it did anything other than make me look like a weirdo.

As I walked down the Boardwalk, I noticed that the dream started to fade to black. Instinctually, I started to focus on my arms, and gripping the dream. It is hard to describe, but I actively was resisting letting the dream fade. Miraculously, it worked. The dream was back, and I was still walking on that sunny day in the boardwalk.

I come upon some stairs going down into a sewer-like structure down below. I think to myself:

"Y'know, that seems like a great way to cause a nightmare...screw it! I'm going for it."


The Tunnel and the Stairs. Made with Holara AI.

I start to descend the stairs. As I go down, I think to try and summon KF from high-school. Sure enough, when I get to the bottom of the stairs, I see her but her face is obscured. The bottom of the stairs reminds me of the bottom of the wells from the Forest Temple in The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. KF walks by me quickly and she seems upset about something so I don't bother her. I try to project comfort and warmness her way and say:

"Hey K, I'm going exploring, do you want to come with?" I ask.

I don't get a reply, but she does stop and turn, and then turned back and walked away. I decide to move on.

I find some more stairs going up at the end of the sewer tunnel. There is a great big door. I think:

"Ah! I can use this to get to that elven forest I've been trying to get to!"

Which actually is one of my goals and has been for some time now. Really great memories of waking life in this dream. I focus on what I want the elven forest to look like (tall grey trees as far as the eye can see, fog) and open the door.

Sunny neighborhood cul-de-sac. Nope. Not what I want. I close the door and try again.

Again with the neighborhood. Come on man...I try one more time.

Still the neighborhood. Well, damn it. I guess we're going to the neighborhood. I step out of the sewer door and into the neighborhood. There actually is a grassy knoll with the great big door leading into a sewer behind me, so I give my brain consistency points for that one. Maybe that's why it wouldn't give me the elven forest, because it couldn't find a way to drop a sewer into it.

I'm walking up to the circular end street of the homes and enjoying the sun. I have another blackout-recovery episode and save the dream. Maybe I am getting close to waking. I look around and find no DCs or areas of interest. I decide to fly. I put my arms out in front of me Superman-style and takeoff. The feeling of flight doesn't feel as robust as it normally does. More like a light pickup on the wind. The dream starts to fade shortly after I am in the air, and I don't save it this time.

Pixar VR Concert
I'm standing in a central plaza. It makes me think of the Nintendo Wii U game Nintendo Land. It's all in virtual reality which is pretty darn cool. There are a bunch of concerts going on, maybe six that you can walk to. Each has an assortment of characters from famous franchises from Pixar or Disney or whatever. I can't remember specifics except for Mr. Hippo from Five Nights at Freddy's. Obviously he must be the main attraction here because his monologues are bomb as fuck. Some time later there is a tank of water and I'm helping clean it up. One of the characters is awkwardly making a pass at me but I don't recall details.

Notes
All things accounted for, I'm pretty happy with this night of dreaming. I interacted with multiple dream characters, successfully saved the dream from fading several times, summoned a DC, had some great recall for goals, and performed a teleport (although it didn't take me where I wanted, that's still progress). That also makes 5 uses of the Yuschak Primary Trigger, after which the author suggests that the reader has enough experience to try out other supplements. I'm not sure I will, but it is something to consider.

Conditions
2 drinks of alcohol
No workout, unhealthy dinner
5hr45m/10m WBTB
5th Yuschak Primary Trigger Attempt (8Mg Galantamine, 250Mg Choline Bitartrate)

No recall this time.

No recall. I was too busy last night and this morning to focus

Lost the recall on these, but I definitely had some content upon waking. Still haven't invested into finding a good solution for being too lazy in the morning to record. They seem to fade so darn fast. To be fair, we had some pretty busy evenings this weekend, so I can hardly blame myself for this result. But still. Wish the recall was better.

No recall.

Definitely had something more than usual today. Maybe multiple fragments or a short dream. But it faded very quickly. Maybe I will look into using a mic to capture these dreams. Maybe I just need to plan waking time in better alignment with my REM cycles.

Adding this link to my DJ for reference. Very interesting so far. I was able to focus on about 3 sounds at once before losing focus on one or more of them. These are fun and give me a goal to aim for during meditation.

https://www.dreamviews.com/dream-yog...esson-1-a.html