Venryx

Date: February 25, 2013 ||| Time Block: 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM ||| Length: 3 minutes. ||| Lucidity: level 2. ||| Entry Type: DILD ||| Major Methods: BAT

Methods: lay in bed to take a nap; was battling the intensification of tinnitus until I fell asleep.

Summary: found myself in bed at some point; had the suspicion I was dreaming, so tried plugging my nose; had strange effects on my stomach area, but not regular effects; it was inconclusive, but I was leaning towards it meaning I was dreaming; I tried another reality check and confirmed I was dreaming; woke up soon after; went downstairs, and was doing stuff, then realized I hadn't done a reality check; thought I was probably still dreaming, and then snap, this was confirmed when I found myself back in bed; I immediately a reality check, of plugging my nose; the same inconclusive results as of earlier, so I tried the other one; knowing I was dreaming, I rolled off the bed; I remembered I wanted to try playing piano, so I tried playing them mentally; it kind of worked, but not very well; I decided to just go over and use my piano; problem's that I could barely see, and barely move, so I got stuck up against the piano; decided I would give up on that, and just stare at the blue reflection thing, that looked like the sky; I did, then my whole field of view transformed into what looked like the inside of a crystal ball surrounded by sky; tried thinking about particular things to see if it would change what I was seeing; thought of 'B', and saw it form out of the cloud particles, between the crystal edge artifact things; tried 'A, B, C', and saw 'A, C, B, 3' form out from the cloud particles; heard the ding of the doorbell; saw the 'B' fade, but in its place be an exact match up of blanket threads; then saw my post from Facebook, the very bottom of it; yet, for some reason looking back I can't place exactly when this occurred, because I also remember immediately getting up after hearing the doorbell, to go downstairs; very strange, I still don't know exactly what happened.

Date: February 17, 2013 ||| Time Block: 2:30 AM to 9:30 AM ||| Length: 10 minutes. ||| Lucidity: level 3/2. ||| Entry Type: DILD ||| Major Methods: BAT

Methods: went to bed for the night, while using some experimental methods.

Account:

I was lying in bed, and I somehow knew I was dreaming. I got out of bed, and amazed, went out into the upstairs hallway. I started walking downstairs, to try to get outside, but then I remembered that I had wanted to try doing something that I could practice wherever I happened to be. (I had decided on this earlier to prevent all the fading dreams and false awakenings) I couldn't really think of anything, though, so I ended up basically wasting my time trying to think of one until my dream started fading. (although I do remember one of my siblings ending up being next to me lying down on a couch) I knew from past experience that I would probably wake back into my dream bed, so I reminded myself to do a reality check.

Now back in bed, I did a reality check, and hurrah, I was still dreaming! I got out of bed, and started going downstairs, having given up for the moment on my dream goal. When I started walking towards the patio door, which is my preferred way to get out now since I get to see and plan where I'm going as I go to open the door, I saw that it was late morning outside. The grass was very green, and the plants in our yard were too. Anyway, I took out the wooden block that keeps the door closed, unlocked the latch, and opened it up. Now outside, my vision changed a bit so that I was seeing stuff I shouldn't have been able to see realistically. I was seeing a helicopter view of our backyard, and from this view I saw that there was an another section of fenced off area, extending from the edge of ours back into the grass of a non-real open area. I 'asked' what it was, and I heard Mom say that Dad had been working for quite some time on fencing in that area for us, as part of the extra land he just bought from our neighbors. I thought it was cool, but I needed a way to get into it. (my vision had returned to normal by now) Anyway, Davey was in the yard near the house, and he asked me if I could take him with me. I said sure, and picked him up, and started looking for a way to get over the fence. I thought of a latch-on ladder thing that I had seen earlier, (don't ask me why that was in there), but it was already back a ways in the house and I wanted to just get over. I knew I could just fly, but that would raise the risks of waking up. Looking around some more, I noticed a mini ladder built into our fence on the inside, kind of like the style used on swimming pools. I thought that would work pretty well, so I headed over towards it with Davey.

Climbing over, I now saw the details of the fenced out area. It was about 10% the size of our existing yard, and it extended our space quite nicely. I remember thinking that one thing cool is that it gave us a convenient viewing advantage, from which we could see behind the neighbors far walls, into the other areas. One odd thing I saw was that there was also an angled piece which started at a foot wide, narrowing in slowly to a point, like a wedge, that 'wedged' out obstructively into the open yard of our neighbor, blocking him somewhat from the open grass area. Behind this, also, were a number of very small oak trees, some of which we touching up against the new fence of ours. Looking around for a place I wanted to go, I saw a relaxing area to the right with trees and many green plants. I decided just to fly myself over the small extension fence. Landing on the grass of the other side, I used some mental focusing techniques to ensure that my dream was stabilized enough. I then started walking around, amazed and examining all the different plants and objects. At the time, the land seemed more or less like what it is in real life, so I decided what I would do is look for unique objects in one of our neighbors yards that I had never seen before, at least in detail, and 'see' if it compared in real life. (I've heard other people's stories of, for instance, lucid dreaming about a birthmark on the back of a friend that turned out to be real, and I was checking if maybe stuff like that was in my memory somewhere)

I came across an area which felt very much to be some place in real life. It was a quiet area behind a small yellow house, with a few regular bushes and one of those oak-like mini tree things that you find in the state-owned park just outside our development. Thinking back, it actually did look familiar somehow. Anyway, there was also a log there, and on that log were some detailed marks. I walked up behind that log, and tried to look very closely at the details. The feature I decided on trying to remember was a series of small notches in the wood, four to be exact, which were at the same height and about 40% percent from the right edge. I kept my eyes on this log as I 'woke up', although unfortunately I was apparently moving from the wind or something so my view was getting angled badly, and also, I then woke up into a non-lucid dream that lasted for a long time.

Anyway, what's neat is that this dream came up entirely within my regular sleep cycle, and it lasted for quite a while. I didn't even lose any sleep from it! (which was kind of what I was getting at earlier, that once you get better at it, you don't even need to spend any time on it, because it starts to happen automatically; the time is already spent in having a dream, you're just gaining the mindset where you start to realize whenever you're dreaming, and can then change that time dreaming into an adventure) Now that I'm awake, I don't think that place actually exists in our development, although I think I may have seen it somewhere else, because it felt very familiar. But all that aside, it was interesting and relaxing, and it makes me happy when I think back to it.

Date: February 14, 2013 ||| Time Block: 7:00 AM to 8:30 AM ||| Length: 5 minutes. ||| Lucidity: level 3/2. ||| Entry Type: DILD ||| Major Methods: WBTB

Methods: lay in bed next to my younger brother after being called; just fell asleep while not even thinking about lucid dreaming.

Summary: had about 4 consecutive false awakenings (they have details, but too tired and forgetful to write them down); on 5th false awakening, finally gave up on other goals and went out the window to fly; had an amazing experience flying past our old house, picking up my sister (by her request), and flying off into the woods for many seconds, the whole way fully conscious I was dreaming and looking in awe at the scenery and the appearance of objects as they appeared; eventually hit into a power line and 'woke up'; I raced to go write it down, with Dad being there with Davey not surprising me; while thinking about what to write down, I woke up for real.

Date: February 11, 2013 ||| Time Block: 6:30 AM to 7:30 AM ||| Length: 5 minutes. ||| Lucidity: level 2. ||| Entry Type: DILD ||| Major Methods: WBTB, SSILD

Methods: stayed in bed, (after thinking about stuff after a natural awakening from having set my alarm), for the second half of my night sleep; performed around 3 SSILD cycles before falling asleep.

Account:

I was lying in my bed. Somehow I knew that time had passed since the last time I was conscious. I did a reality check, and discovered I was dreaming.

At this I stood up, and clapped my hands a few times, I don't know exactly why but I think to turn the lights on or increase clarity. It didn't really work. I yelled something out, and walked out of my bedroom. I saw the light on downstairs, and I followed it. Now in the hall next to our dining room, I walk up next to my three sisters. I take a pause and try to remember what I wanted to do. I remember I want to try a test or skill that I can do wherever I am, so I don't need to worry about being in the right location to get better at it. I think of the fireball releasing capabilities. I try breathing into my hands in a weird way, I guess because I figured abnormal acts would be more likely to do something. That didn't work, so I figured I would just ask my sisters some questions. I walked up to Grace, and tried to ask her a question, but both she and Monica had headphones on loudly, and they refused to listen despite my insistence. So I gave up and turned to Chrissy. I asked her, "Chrissy, what is the purpose of life?" She responded with a utilitarian-type response, about achieving the greatest good for the greatest number, except I don't think using these specific terms. She actually finished the thought in one form, but then paused, and resaid it in another way. They were actually fully coherent. I think I said some things, and then she explained a slightly different view, that our purpose is simply to reduce "throughout the world" the amount of suffering as greatly as we can. I then talked with her on this, continuing the thought that "which will also naturally lead to greater happiness", with her agreeing, and then we went on. Eventually, we ended, and I looked for something else to ask. 'Hey, there's a calculator.' I then picked it up, and pressed a few buttons, which it somehow knew to mean, 'What is the meaning of life?'. I was just waking up, but I saw it spit out the numbers, ".06" on the first display, and "49" on the second. So ".0649", apparently. Cool, I always thought it was 42.

I woke up back in bed, and I instantly did a reality check. Aha, still dreaming. I went out of my bedroom, but I think I was wandering in the dark for a while. I remember that at some point, not knowing where I was, I saw a light flick on and I was in the sink room of our house in Wisconsin. Chrissy had apparently just turned it on. I said thank you, and we had a short discussion on something that I don't remember anymore. I then walked out into the living/dining room of our old house, and saw another calculator sitting on the island. I picked it up immediately, trying to ask it again about the meaning of life. I was trying to figure out how to ask it, when I thought of the number keys having letter equivalents. 'Oh, there they are.' My thoughts had made them appear just beneath the numbers, you know, the three letter combinations like "MNO". I actually spelled out "meaning of life", the entire thing, using these buttons, except I had the benefit of it knowing what letter I wanted out of the three each time. Anyway, I finished the phrase, and pressed the Enter button. It then displayed a menu, actually, with what looked like branches of philosophy. Oh man, I could get the same thing online. It didn't really give me a tangible answer, just statistical data and such. I tried navigating through it, but it was like an encyclopedia. Eventually, my dream faded.

Now back in bed, I did a reality check. 'Hmmm…' I couldn't really tell, the feeling in my airways when plugging my nose, was just at the point where it was inconclusive of whether I felt air pass through it or not. I yelled out something like, "Am I asleep?" to Chrissy, which of course didn't make any sense for a number of reasons. I somehow didn't find it unusual that I knew intuitively she was in another room with Dad, and heard her yell back to stop yelling. So instead I thought to myself, "Fine", as if that settled whether I was really dreaming or not. I then tried to remember my dream. But then after a few seconds, for some reason I stopped. And I stared at that text. 'Yeah, that bold, black text on the front of that tab, in that browser bar. I can know if I'm awake based on what that looks like.' So I stared at it, not realizing it made no sense to be visible, and I noticed one oddity, that it was bolder than tab-text usually was. This wasn't enough to make me realize I was dreaming, though. But enough that I thought, 'If this were a dream, I need to remember what this feels like right now.' I tried feeling my body lying in bed, and all the contact points with the blanket, pillow, and bed. And you know what, it was coherent and felt quite normal. But I did notice, that my body felt just a twinge more 'embedded' within the bed than I realized was normal. But again, this wasn't enough for me to realize I was dreaming, and I went back to trying to remember my dream. Within a few more seconds, I repositioned myself, and I felt something change. I then did a reality check, and I knew that I had just awoken from a false awakening. It's hard to explain how I knew; I believe it was the return of rationality, in a tangible way. You can feel when your ability to reason returns to you, by what could be described as a 'sharpness' or 'rigidness' of thoughts and concepts. It's that reality is more clear to you, suddenly. Anyway, at this point I realized that the dream account I had been forming within the dream had been lost, and virtually none of the dream was within my active memory. So I stayed in bed for a few more minutes, trying to re-remember the dream. I then turned back on my computer and wrote it all down on here, which I am only now just finishing.

Date: February 8, 2013 ||| Time Block: 1:30 AM to 5:30 AM ||| Length: 5 minutes. ||| Lucidity: level 3/2/1. ||| Entry Type: DILD ||| Major Methods: BAT

Methods: lay in bed for the night; thought about lucid dreaming on and off as I fell asleep; used a few experimental techniques.

Account:

I was in the back seat of our van. We were driving down a road, and looking at at the buildings. We were on a raised highway, so we could see many places at once with relative nearness. I remember looking out, and seeing things like something that looked like Big Ben, (which Mom, I think, corrected as a structure 'in Belgium'), a large movie building, and countless others that seemed to be from all over the world. From this I concluded that we "must be in Seattle", since no where else would there be so much diversity. (I don't know quite where I got this, maybe from the city's 'ethnic diversity', as my college classes would have me word it) But then it struck me that perhaps it was all a dream. At that point, I looked around, touching the seat I was sitting on, the plastic trim on the car's side, the back of the seat in front of me, and said to myself, "Well if this is a dream, then there's nothing realer." (read as: "If this is a dream, than it's as real as real life.")

Sure enough, after about 10 seconds, my body began to feel a bit different, as it started to 'vibrate'. Now I've known for some time now just how incredible it is to find yourself dreaming, but there are times when a couple of less-vivid lucid dreams will make you forget, and then when you have a dream with full lucidity, you remember what it feels like to be fully 'alive' or 'awake' within a lucid dream. That's what it felt like here, in remembering just how clear they can be. I went on to dream some more off of this, although over time I lost my lucidity and the dream became just another regular dream. I've noticed this tends to happen more with the dreams that I have in the middle of the night. Just a quick overview, is we eventually came up upon a road blockage, which I incorrectly remembered as being part of a dream Monica told me about; I tried to make the car go faster by mentally willing it to; we came upon a jump, and we got over first; at some point, it turned into a race; at some point, I was standing and throwing an object as the means of finishing the race; at some point, the race became between Monica, and Dad and I; at some point, we crossed the finish line a second behind Monica, and then I also went to Dad as the race's judge, in a sense, to explain how she didn't do it correctly; and so on, as goes any other regular dream.

Date: February 5, 2013 ||| Time Block: 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM ||| Length: 30 minutes. ||| Lucidity: level 3/2. ||| Entry Type: DILD ||| Major Methods: WBTB, SSILD

Methods: lay in bed to take a nap; performed around 7 SSILD cycles.

Account:

The most complex dream I've ever had, I think. Involving at least 10 false awakenings, and countless events. I'm stretching my memory to the limit, here, but I'll do my best to recollect it all.

First, like last time, I had a very long lucid dream right at the start, that I can't remember. It's very disappointing, because I know that this part was the most interesting. Anyway…

I wake up. My memory's extremely patchy, but I remember going around the house, and then eventually thinking of trying out talking with different voices to see how different I could make myself sound. I remember being upstairs, walking in the hallway, making myself sound like a 50 year old man, then a little girl, then someone my age but just a different voice, then my own voice, then a really smooth voice, and so on. They all work, most of them very realistically, although a few were annoyingly quiet. The dream eventually fades for reasons I no longer remember.

I wake up. I'm in my room, and I know that at this part, I had more than just this one false awakening, but I can't remember any details except that in the first few I was by myself, and then in later ones Davey was with me. So I'm going off from these later ones, where I'm in my room, with Davey, and I'm holding him as we talk. I remember I had some objective throughout this series of awakenings that I had difficulty accomplishing. Anyhow, I eventually wake up.

Back in bed, I somehow find myself with my brother again. Many events occur, including a wind-like sensation diminishing my feel of him, but then I get it back to normal. Also, some other imagined characters eventually come into my room, though not in a scary way. (even though the characters themselves were kind of strange, I had prepared myself earlier not to be disturbed by this) The dream eventually fades for reasons I no longer remember.

I wake up. I'm in my room again, with Davey. I try to go downstairs with him, and am doing so at first, but I go down a bit too fast on the last few, and cause the dream to fade.

I wake up into a very realistic false awakening, with nothing unusual. I think I may have actually woken up, but I can't remember, because I intentionally went back to bed very quickly and did not do reality checks. With my head on the pillow and my eyes closed, I can only remember a few seconds of this before another dream had formed, though I don't remember actually entering one.

I wake up. Through some means, at some point there is an iPad in front of me, and Davey is using it to get to different games. I realize it is in a dream, and am fascinated at watching Davey use it to open games that don't even exist. It looks so real, with perfect dimensions, and unique and distinct icons for each app just like in real life. He presses on one, and he opens a game. The game starts. It is a basic game, with 8 or so buttons that track with the game's objective. Which is, apparently, to interact somehow with a hippo and lion, who alternate their appearance in the game scene, which is our back yard, although seen from a game's camera as a 3D model. (you could even see the tell-tale 3D artifacts like closeup textures being overly blocky) Davey plays this, pressing the Up button, then Down, and so on, as the mechanical-like hippo, first of all, runs across our back yard towards the game camera. Gracie comes in the room as Davey's doing this, and she's thinks it's a game she plays in real life (which actually doesn't exist, but I was subtly tricked into thinking it did). I tell her she's in a dream, and more specifically, my dream, so the game is not real. (though I didn't want to tell her that she was not real) I don't remember how, but the dream eventually fades.

I wake up. I'm in my room, and Mom and Dad are there. They're talking about something in the dream plot, but I'm not really interested. I tell them it's a dream, go out of my bedroom, enter Chrissy's room, and consider exiting through her window. At first I'm a little nervous, because it feels so real, but I do a reality check and confirm that I'm dreaming. I go to the window, unlatch it, and get up on the window sill. Just to be on the safe side, though, instead of just jumping out, I hang off of the edge with my right hand. At this point, I emotionally confirmed I was dreaming, because the yard was laid out differently. More specifically, the bamboo was over at the wrong corner, which itself was misplaced, there was grass around the bamboo that doesn't actually exist, and the grass was all a deep green, (which looked very nice, but was unrealistic). Also, my body itself just felt different. After looking around a bit, (it was really beautiful), I jumped out of the window and began to fly. As I was looking around in mid-flight, I saw a lion off in an extended corner of our yard. Realizing that to run would simply lengthen the annoyance, I let myself down to the ground, put out my hand, and just told it to bite me. It came up roaring, and it bit my hand, but all I felt was a sensation of pressure, like when putting a moderately-strong clip on your finger. The lion was apparently disappointed, and it turned away its head and walked away. I think my dream faded a few seconds after.

I wake up into another very realistic false awakening. I don't actually know for sure if I was dreaming, because again I went straight back to bed without doing reality checks.

I wake up. Through some turn of events that I can't remember, there ends up being a lady in my room with her husband, who is apparently crying about something. From what I remember thinking, apparently they had boarded in our house in another room. The reason she was crying had something to do with my being awake or not. Anyway, I want to go outside again. I'm not sure at first if my window is in a dream, but discover it is upon closer inspection, and push through the screen. I think the dream fades when I do this, but my memory is so 'sketchy', that I can't remember anymore. (that being a new term I learned from 'you guys', btw, just like 'I call shotgun' for claiming seats)

I wake up again. At some point, those two people are in my room again. This time, she tells me that she's not sure I'm truly awake. I figure she's just a dream character trying to keep me from realizing I'm dreaming, so I check the window, and it was still opened a bit 'from last time'. I declare this to her, and she responds in a way that reveals she was indeed trying to trick me. I drop out of the window, into our yard. I expect there to be the lion again, so I try to just keep my cool, and test out my relaxation techniques for when in situations that would otherwise be disturbing. I begin to repeat the alphabet mentally with changing tones, and talk to myself in conversation style. I'm straining my ears for any sound of the lion. After a few seconds, I hear it growl from across the yard. Perfect. I now figure that my dream has lasted long enough, (like, way longer than any others except maybe the last time), that my dream will have to end soon anyway. So I want to try out my backup plan to force my awakening. I let out my breath, and hold my airways closed as hard as I can.

At first, as in real life, nothing really happened. But soon the need for air was catching up, and I started feeling 'air hunger'. Once this began, something fascinating happened. The dream scene faded, and at each increase of intensity of my air hunger, the scene would change entirely, as if in a movie. I started out a feet feet above a set of green hills, and my viewpoint floated up slowly like a camera panning up. Then the scene changed, and I was on the African savanna, floating up from among the dry grasses of the plain, with trees in the background, and the sun on the horizon. This continued to happen, until about 10 seconds later, I heard the ever familiar sound of my fan to the left of my bed fade into my audial perception, and I knew somehow that this time I had truly awaken. You know, I think what it is is that you sense that your full reasoning ability has returned to you, in a way that it doesn't in a false awakening. But this is one of those "you won't know it until you experience it" things, since in false awakenings, you consider your lessened reasoning abilities perfectly normal. But anyway, I plugged my nose, and confirmed I was awake. And then I laid my head back down on the pillow, and have been working ever since to remember this all. I know that there was so much more, but I suppose this will improve with practice.

Date: February 4, 2013 ||| Time Block: 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM ||| Length: 5 minutes. ||| Lucidity: level 3. ||| Entry Type: DILD ||| Major Methods: WBTB, SSILD

Methods: lay in bed to take a nap; performed around 7 SSILD cycles.

Account:

I'm really not sure how to categorize this last experience. It was just now, about five minutes ago.

I had performed around 7 SSILD repetitions, and had been trying to let myself fall asleep. Remembering what I had done before, I turned over onto another position, this time onto my back. And I could tell I would asleep soon.

Five minutes ago, my eyes were closed, and I figured I would do a reality check. I reached my hand up to my nose, plugged it, and yet felt myself breath through it anyway. Of course, I instantly opened my eyes. But I couldn't move. My hands were up against the blanket, and the most I could do was nudge the blanket a quarter inch or so. But I could see, and I looked all around me, and the room was accurately detailed to the very dot. I figured it was just a realistic false awakening. So I continued to try to break the sleep paralysis. Giving up on the direct approach with my hands, I started on my legs, knowing these could usually be moved earlier. Pushing up against the bed with them, I could feel the movement unlocking the control of my arms and head. I started moving my arms in a pawing motion to get them out of the blanket. And this is where the strange stuff happened.

I could feel my arms having gotten the blanket off of them, and yet I could see very plainly that they hadn't. Figuring my feeling and sight were just out of synch, I tried to focus my brain on the tactile portion and think I really had. But I still had my eyes open, and the room was exactly the same, at exactly the same angle. The final part of the breaking out involved my bringing my head up, to then get up into the dream world. But the moment I brought my head off of the pillow, with my eyes still open from before, I felt different and I knew that I was awake. And I did a reality check, of plugging my nose, (which has only failed once, by the way, because I did it wrong), and it also reported I was awake. And it left me wondering… what just happened?

The only explanations I can think of are that I was in a false awakening, and my dreaming was so accurate that when my real vision kicked in with my eyes still open not a single visual dot had changed, or more oddly, that my tactile perception was from within a dream, and my visual perception was from the real world. I very much think it was the latter, since I had my eyes open the entire time. But either way, it was certainly an odd experience.

Date: February 2, 2013 ||| Time Block: 4:00 AM to 11:30 AM ||| Length: 1 minute. ||| Lucidity: level 3/2. ||| Entry Type: DILD ||| Major Methods: BAT

Methods: lay in bed for the night; used some experimental methods until I fell asleep.

Summary: I'm in bed, and Dad starts wrestling me or something; I realize how odd it is, do a reality check, and realize I'm dreaming; I then try to get out of bed, but am sort of stuck; while continuing to try to get out of bed, I wake up.