Timothy Paradox

Techniques

I'm listing some techniques I've tried throughout the years, what has worked and what hasn't.

Thruster hands

Basically, you imagine you're Iron Man, and your hands are jet or rocket engines. This involves holding your hands down by your sides, like Iron Man, or it won't work. That's an unfortunate limitation. It's worked for me once or twice, but it's not instinctive as I like having my arms in front of me in the Superman-pose.

Verbal commands

Much like how some LD'ers shout "increase clarity" to improve the stability of their dreams, I've found other dream abilities are equally susceptible to verbal commands. While flying, I shout "faster!", and I actually feel a burst of acceleration propelling me faster. And it works almost every time, up to ludicrous speeds.

'Reaching' forward

Pretty such the Superman pose. I find that by "reaching out" in front of you, it's kind of like a mental cue that you want to head towards this thing you're reaching out to, helping "mental propulsion".

Problems

Gaining altitude/transitioning

After all this time, I still have trouble gaining altitude vertically, maintaining altitude when flying horizontally, and especially transitioning from vertical flight (straight up) to horizontal flight forwards.

Perhaps I could try verbal commands to make it easier? Like "higher!" to climb, "forwards!" to go from vertical to horizontal.

Or avoid this problem entirely by not going straight up, but by taking a running start and climbing gradually. It's a lot easier.

Maneuvering in the air

I find it hard to make maneuvers, for example to dodge a building or other obstacle, while flying horizontally at speed. It's almost like real-life laws like inertia and aerodynamics apply to me. Turning feels hard, and I have to really physically turn my body and then apply intense concentration to make my body actually fly in that new direction (or inertia would just make me continue drifting in the previous direction).

Other

Speed. My flight speed feels very variable, and changes from dream to dream. Sometimes I reach speeds that feel like barely 200 mp/h. Sometimes closer a 800 mp/h, or even speeds that are completely impossible to real-world standards, like Europe-USA in 10 seconds. Not sure what causes these variations. Sometimes I just can't go beyond a certain speed, no matter how hard I try.

I procrastinated for 2 years to write out these dreams. Yes, really. I barely remember any of them, so many will just be the one-word description I wrote down after I woke up.

October 17: Time travel, home 2007. This does vaguely mean something to me. I'd somehow wound up 10 years in the past (8 from when I had this dream), and I'd gone to where we used to live as a family (now only my dad live there with his new wife, Debby). I think I ringed the doorbell and talked to my mom. Who didn't seem to notice I was 8 years older. Or was that a different dream...? Not sure.

October 18: Time travel, Mexico.

October 19: Miami, jet engine + cockpit - killer robot, Stig/Claire/Debby.

October 20: Lava, Travis Dane (villain from "Under Siege 2")?

October 21: Going nuclear.

October 23: Chased by killer CIA (?), Eros (old friend of mine), car - school, 220 km/h, LA, Green Mile - cloning, restrained, grey alien.

October 29: Hallucination, guy hits me in face repeatedly (brother?), knocks me to ground, sits on me, keeps hitting nose hard, I feel nothing/little, realize must be bleeding.

October 30: Escape from huge research (?) building, 30 floors under the water or under ground, 160 above. I was chased by something on stairs, I jumped down. Elevator, slow down, roll away?

Final boss robot, defeat, next game - walking through Las Vegas, remember/miss Claire, have to contain tears (powerful sorrow).

October 31: City destroyed and on fire, airships and normal ships, landing at airship, difficult approach, hook won't attach, ship crew doesn't want us there.

I was at the top of the Gen-Sys company building. Gen-Sys was a company that did breakthrough science in genetic engineering and the like, transhumanist sciences that I support. It was night. There was the brightly-lit reception area, where people arriving by chopper are received. The Gen-Sys symbol above the door leading out to the helipad. I was arrested by a typical "MiB" FBI agent, and escorted out to the helipad. The agent commandeered the Gen-Sys chopper parked there, and intended to fly me across the country (out west, to California) to be interrogated and imprisoned. I "knew" the company HQ I was at was located in the north-west of the country, but probably not at the coast. Maybe Chicago, or Detroit? The building was on the shore of a large river, and on the other side of the river was a major city, its many lights shining in the night. I was very angry for being arrested. I called the agent terrorist scum, and that he was helping the real bad guys without knowing it. I think I was talking about the luddites always trying to sabotage the company's efforts, trying to make them look bad. And being a transhumanist zealot... well... you never know what I might have done to the poor luddites, the cause of my arrest. The helicopter took off, but I struggle and jump out (it wasn't hovering very high yet), my hands still tied up. I sees Gen-Sys personnel at the entrance to the reception area, so I calmly walk up to him and tell him I changed my mind about leaving. Apparently hoping he'd be deceived, and let me leave through the building. It didn't quite work. Not sure what happened next.

I won't be able to reveal many elements of this dream for my own safety and privacy.

Suffice to say I was watching a television program of sorts, that greatly appealed to me. I wanted to know what it was called, so I looked around the dream space for clues. On an electrical panel (?) on a wall, I found the words "San Junipero". I somehow assumed that was the name of the show.

In another part of the same dream, I read the words "Les Hommes Oubliés". It's French (not my native language), and it means "The Forgotten Men".

Scary dream. I saw some kind of cabin. My grandfather, who died recently, was there. In a later scene we saw what happened after we (myself and possibly other family?) left. We had to abandon him because he had some kind of disease that as a threat to everybody. Grandpa was dead, and on the floor. He looked like he suffered a lot. It was very dark in the cabin. Only moonlight lit up the room. The floor, walls and even the ceiling was covered in red... stuff. Not blood. More like the red weed from "The War of the Worlds", or "the Ripley" from Stephen King's "Dreamcatcher". The scene looked creepy as hell. I felt like something evil was in there with us. There was a girl with me, now. Dire circumstances throughout the dream (mostly forgotten) had brought us together. I was crushing on her, hard. And the way I acted around her made it very obvious. I didn't care things were bad. Not if I got to be around her.

In another scene I found myself in medieval times, I think. I was in some kind of arena, sitting on a long bench with a bunch of other people. The person next to me told me to leave, quickly. I was apparently in danger. Possibly, "they" were after me.

Horrific dream. Sort of a continuation of the first. It was a frantic chase through a house, where I was being pursued by... Things. Like the monsters from John Carpenter's "The Thing". More and more of our group were being turned, mutating horribly, and I was now the only one left. It was awful and terrifying. I vaguely remember a bedroom, where I jumped through a window (through the glass) to escape one of the Things and "fell through dimensions". Impossible to explain in words. The dream concluded with an open ending... but I suspected I had been turned without knowing it myself, or as about to be turned.

Several dreams in the late morning/noon, all pretty weird and cool. In one, I was given a disc by someone (an old woman?). I think it was a heavy metal album. I asked someone in reality (or I thought it was) to immediately Google the band and album name to see if it existed. I think I was trying to prove a theory I had about dreams. Super meta, right? Of course, the person Googling wasn't real either. He messed around on his desktop (opening and closing irrelevant programs) and wasted my precious dream time. I woke up before we got any results.

At one point I met an old schoolmate of mine, Yannick VM. After interacting for a bit, I think he realized I was no longer as big of a dick as I used to be, and he got a little less cautious.

So, once again, I was leaving (?) SCHOOL. Nine years later and I'm still having nightly dreams about schools. Fuck. Anyway, I left the place running. I ran on some kind of wooden walkway through what looked like a park. Eventually I ended up... back in a fucking school. I was an adult though, but I still feared running across the courtyard the way I did would draw attention from the teachers. Then, the scene changed. The environment changed into a desert. The school was still there I think, but swallowed up by dunes of sand. The sand had a red hue. It reminded me more of the Australian outback than the Sahara, Gobi or American deserts. I was sitting in a dune buggy now all of a sudden. I was feeling the sand, running it through my hands - amazed how 'realistic' it felt.

I think I was with my brother, investigating a crashed semi truck. I was listening to ASMR at the time (while sleeping), and the girl talking in the video was "translated" in the dream. Some of her sentences were kept intact, but some were changed or added completely. The things she said were pretty comical. It sounded like a radio playing in the background. Oddly, I could also see images that accompanied the person speaking. While doing things in the dream. So I was seeing two things at the same time. The mind is amazing.

Old notes, most mean nothing to me over a week later. I do remember both of my deceased grandmothers, in a box (?). Then a scene in which Ben Affleck and Will Smith duked it out in a fist fight. They were bare-chested like professional boxers (no gloves though), and way more jacked up than the actors probably look in real life.

Other notes say "old Noah", and "dead empty service", but with a lack of context or memory these notes mean nothing to me now.

I was in a car, with a former classmate of mine (Nathan) and a few others. There was a discussion going on between Nathan and the others, and it was getting pretty nasty. I feel he was being bullied. Despite the fact he hates me in real life, I felt sympathy for him. I wasn't sure which "side" to choose.

School again. I was in a large, strange room deep in the school building. Looked more like a large cave than a room. There was a giant statue in the room, at least 30 foot tall. A person was holding a speech to a bunch of people, me included. Then, there was a shootout. I was being shot at by several enemies, but time moved slowly so I could dodge the bullets (looked like a scene straight out of "The Matrix"). I shot all 10-ish enemies faster than they could blink. Then, it turned out it was all an "act", a scene for a movie or something. All the bullets in my gun were blanks. I unloaded my weapon, and noticed the last round was real. But it wasn't a normal bullet. It was made of glass, and filled with a green liquid. I think I moved it too abruptly or dropped it, because a mechanism triggered and the liquid turned red. The bullet made a beeping noise. The beeping got faster. I got out of there like lightning and ran for the exit. Right after I had run out of the building into the open air, the whole building exploded in a massive fireball. My carelessness had killed dozens of people. Including my "co-star", a girl I had (fake) shot during the scene we were playing earlier. She appeared in front of me as a ghost, and she scolded me for killing her. Another girl appeared in a flash, a fiery superspeeder (like the Human Torch of "Fantastic Four") and ran into the school. She hadn't realized it'd blown up. She wasn't hurt though, thanks to her fire-based ability. An eclipse appeared (the landscape looked very fake suddenly, like a badly animated Photoshop), which signified I'd fucked up badly and there would be consequences for my actions.

EDIT: During the shootout in this dream, there was another point where I could not pull the trigger. It wasn't "heavy" this time, rather the opposite, loose - like the springs inside the pistol's mechanism were broken.

The appearance of giant mushroom clouds on the horizon everywhere announced the start of a global thermonuclear war. I was at the sea, near a small town. The environment reminded me of the northern coasts of France (around Normandy). I was stuck outside with a group of others. We decided to go back to town, where there was a fallout shelter. I had a thing called a "light-knife", a small kitchen knife with a blade made of pure light instead of steel. Very sharp! I cut myself on it, and could feel the pain "echo" in reality for a few moments before I realized it wasn't a real injury. A girl asked me where I got the knife, and I told her I found it about a kilometer back, on the ground. The girl left the group to go look for another one. After a while, I felt a little guilty, as I realized she would never find her way back. I decided to split off too, and go look for her. But I couldn't find the girl, and more nukes were detonating on the horizon all the time, convincing me to return to the others. I was a good kilometer or two from the town, but for some reason, I couldn't move. It felt like running, but a strong "resistance" slowing me down to a crawl. Same phenomenon that makes it hard for me to pull the trigger of guns in dreams. Stranded, alone and exposed to lethal radiation, I got scared and desperate. I yelled for help. I woke up.

I was in a classroom in northern Sweden. A few more people (all adults) were there with me. They had locked us up for being residents of a hostile nation. They started unlocking the door, and I knew they'll execute us all. I told the others to get ready to fight, and went to the door to open it as soon as it was unlocked. I felt like we were all going to die. The situation was so desperate, we might as well put up a fight. I opened the door, and the others rushed outside. We fought, and most of us were shot dead on the spot or otherwise killed or restrained (to be shot later). I was retrained as well, by a man I remembered from a previous job (in real life), a Dutchman called Michel. I practically begged him to let me go, and much to my surprise he did (out of view of the others). Grateful for the favor of my former colleague, I made my way out of the building, across the courtyard of the school, toward the large gate. It was snowing. When I got to the gate, the police arrived. If they found out I was with the other prisoners, they'd arrest me and I'd get killed after all. I pretended everything was normal and I was just going home after a day at work. It worked, and I got past them, onto the streets. It was very cold, snowing heavily, and it was very dark and gloomy even though it was midday. I was wearing my old Sergio Tacchini coat, something I used to wear when I went to high school myself (graduated 2008). I briefly thought to myself it's no surprise Scandinavian people got so depressed living there, with all the gloominess. I could hear the soundtrack of the dream in the background, a very fitting tune my subconscious made up on the spot. As I started waking up, I wondered how to proceed from there. I had to get out of Sweden somehow, and head south.

I was left behind on a tiny island (just 30 feet across, maybe) by a villain - Gaff from Blade Runner. The island was in a very (extremely) wide river, relatively close to the southern shore. There was a lot of fog, and a chill in the air. Gaff could fly, and he flew off towards an extremely large (width and height) skyscraper on the opposite shore, basically Wallace HQ from Blade Runner 2049. The building was so tall, I thought to myself that even if I could fly, I'd be too scared of heights to go there. Suddenly I was with another person on the island. Gaff. And he was a friend suddenly, also left behind on that island. And I could fly. He held onto me (on my back) and I had to fly us to the shore. But he was so damn heavy! I don't know if I managed to keep from plunging into the water. I knew one thing: we had to destroy that building.

I was in a large open room, maybe a gym. I could fly, and realized doing circus tricks would indeed be a good way to make money and get famous. I did some tricks for an audience, like backflips and stuff. Some guy suspected I was on an invisible support, or hanging by a thread, so I invited him to come and feel. They remained unconvinced (I could feel a wire suddenly, as if I *really* was hanging from a wire, except I wasn't). I got really furious at the guy (not really, I think I was just acting and wanted to do a good villain speech to terrify the DC's). I cut the scene to the next one, somehow, as this is what would happen in movies (I could be director and character of my dream at the same time). It was night now, and I exited the gym through the back exit. I saw the people who were watching earlier at their cars, ready to leave. They were talking some more. I looked at one of them with some regret for my earlier behavior, then flew away. Higher, higher and then away over the city. It was day all of a sudden, and I didn't notice this transition. I was now aware I was dreaming, but it wasn't a sudden "!!!" moment, but more as if I'd known all along (I did not). I had to dodge some kind of windmill on a rooftop, and I think the blade hit me (I felt it). No injuries, though. I flew along the coastline now, approaching the harbor of what looked like Zeebrugge (Belgium). The waters were fierce and I could see a large cargo ship smashing violently into the waves. I wanted to fly home, to Brasschaat where I live. I realized that was far, but trying to teleport was too hard (dream felt real) and too risky (to avoid waking up). Just a moment later, the image froze and I lost the dream. I knew I could maybe "restart" the dream but that would take too much effort so I opened my eyes.

I've been noticing dreams in which I 'think' I am sleepwalking, but am not. It's hard to explain (as usual), but I think I am walking around in reality, but I know my eyes are closed but I can still see. But I think what I'm seeing is reality (as if I can see through my closed eyelids), not just a dream.

The other night I had such an experience, where I thought I'd woken up. My laptop was still turned on and next to me on the bed (sometimes I play ASMR videos as I fall asleep), and I reached over and clicked 'x' to close the tab. Then, I thought I woken up again, for real this time, and I'd reached over and clicked for real, except I missed the 'x' for closing the tab and clicked somewhere in the middle of the screen.

Now I think I might be 'misremembering' these events, and perhaps the dreams never matched reality at all, and it was a double false awakening.

I dreamt I was going through a city, floating on top of some kind of ball (like one of those large balls you use for working out. I just lay on top of the ball, which hovered despite being filled with air. I even thought it would work better if it was helium. Anyway... I practiced maneuvering and turning, and thought it was good practice for my flying dreams, where I often have trouble turning... Ironic! After a while I arrived at my destination (a train station?). I got off the ball, and noticed the "event" was just starting. There was a countdown which ended just as a walked in, and I thought to myself "right on time".

I was awake, but decided to close my eyes a bit more as I was still really tired. In the darkness behind my eyelids, I saw a line. I focused on it, and more lines appeared, and formed a shape. It looked like a watch, or no - a compass. Four lines, arrows - one in every direction. Detail increased, and now I saw it was beautifully adorned with all manner of embellishments. Then I saw what looked like text... but it was outside of the compass. I now saw the compass was a drawing written on the right page of an old book. I could read the text - it was in Dutch, but I can't remember what it said. I was distracted by something in real life, and briefly opened my eyes. I lost the vision right there and then, and was unable to continue when I closed my eyes again.

Another "back to high school" dream. I hate these so much. I remember it was 8 in the morning and it as time to leave for school, but then I thought perhaps I didn't *have* to, as I knew I'm 28 years old... I think I magically lived back with my dad at our old house.

Why is my mind permanently stuck in 2008?

I basically dreamt the plot of a full episode of Heroes, basically the first episode of a new season of the canceled 'Reborn' series from 2015. It focused on the father of Nathan and Malina, and showed a bit of his origin story. Most of it took place in Italy, 2006. His name was Pierre Gasly, which also happens to be the name of a Formula One driver (a racing series I follow religiously). He was in Italy with his wife/girlfriend, who eventually turned on him and became the villain of the story. The story started with some comic-book style narration (some of the scenes literally played out in front of me as pages of a 9th Wonders comic book), in which he spoke about his powers (it was implied he was ludicrously powerful) and said how his mother always said he was special. Anyway... the evil girlfriend was eventually defeated. I saw the next scene through the eyes of Pierre, where he approached Angela Petrelli, who was sitting on a bench just outside the Italian village. She showed him a 9th Wonders comic, featuring the exact scenes I just witnessed earlier in the dream. There was also a scene with Claire Bennet, who was apparently on vacation (with her folks) to Italy in 2006.

After waking, I decided to close my eyes some more. I immediately got hypnagogic 'flashes', like a dream while being awake. I saw two kids, no older than 8, walking along a waterfront promenade. I knew a certain event would happen and they would fall in the water and (presumably) drown. I decided to watch, and see if 'destiny' would really happen. It did. Like clockwork, right when they were supposed to, the kids smashed through the low wall (!!!) separating them from the water, and fell into said water. I decided I couldn't just stand there and let it happen, and decided to jump in and save them. I was half awake at this point and it felt like I was controlling every aspect of that dream, not just my own actions.

I dreamt an entire episode of a show I invented myself, right there in that dream. I don't recall anything about it, other than that the plot appeared to make sense.

Met my old friends again, which I will call F and B. Or at least I considered them friends... Until for some reason they started hating me, the reasons mostly political. As the world grew more polarized, so did we. I'm a rationalist and centrist (from my point of view, I know), they were very much on the far-left of the spectrum. It didn't work.

So I met them again somewhere, and F talked about his time in university (which was ages ago in real life). He said they "at least banged the (forgot subject) teacher before the end of the year". I was a little... surprised he would speak of such explicit things, but I just said "really, cool!" or something like that. Then he said it was more of a gangbang, and the teacher was a dude. This really surprised me, as I realized this meant he was gay - a fact I didn't know about him. I don't recall what I said (it was a rhetorical question, out of surprise, not negative judgement), but he instantly interpreted as if I was being homophobic (they have always seen me as a Nazi, just for not buying into their radical leftist ideas) and offensive. The disgust on his face... summarized exactly how I feel my former friends feel about me. Clearly, I'm not over it. Then the other 'friend', B, suggested I was an antisemitist. Not sure how the conversation went that way. I defended myself and said I wasn't... because I'm not, the suggestion is ludicrous. He dismissed my defense, with that same look of disgust as the other friend from before. They hated me... for being something I am not! If only they could see through my eyes, or look into my mind, and see I am none of the things they think I am. Anyway, he pulled out his phone, opened Facebook and showed a comment I made on a picture as evidence of my "antisemitism". It was a pro-Israel post condemning atrocities committed against them. Despising hypocrisy, I replied something sarcastic, reminding them of how the atrocities they are committing themselves (in Palestine, presumably). And that was, from B's point of view, evidence I was a Jew-hating Nazi.

I felt miserable when I woke up. The world has gone insane. Or is it just me who has gone insane?