lucid

Ritual: WTB 12am, WBTB 4–5:30am (working), woke 6:15am with dream.

I dreamed I was working in a museum and I had assembled a collection of objects to show people. I had left a bunch of things lying outdoors on a forest path and wanted to bring them in, so I grabbed an armful of tall leather boots (there were least six pairs in different styles) and walked back to the museum. By the time I reached my destination I was only carrying one pair, and thought I must have dropped the others along the way. I wasn't sure where to store the boots I had brought back, but I looked around and decided to lock them up in a tall armoire of Japanese design. I opened up the doors and there was another set of doors behind the first, and another set behind that, three in all before I reached the interior.

I decided to take my car to go back and get the rest of the stuff since I had left a lot of things lying on the path and I wasn't doing a good job of bringing them back by hand. I have a third-person impression of watching my car wind its way through a narrow gorge: at times I was afraid the rocks were too close together for the car to fit, but I found it easy to lift the car off the ground and twist it as needed to avoid the rocky outcroppings. After getting safely through the narrow rocks I felt very pleased with my success, and decided that I should spend more time driving like this, using the wind as propulsion. This jogged my memory: wind! Wasn't that one of this month's TOTMs? At that moment I became lucid and decided to attempt the task.

I raised my arms and called out in a loud voice, "Wind!" I remembered that the task required not using any active power to fly, but letting the wind pick me up and carry me wherever it might be going. So after summoning the wind, I waited passively but invited it to lift my body in the air. The air picked me right up like I was as weightless as a feather, and I relaxed into it. It was wonderfully pleasant and enjoyable to be buoyed up in this way. Curiously I looked around me, wondering where we might be going. I have the impression of thick flocks of birds darkening in the air in what seemed like abstract geometric patterns.

I recalled that the bonus task also involved mastering the elements, and wondered if I could use this same wind to knock things down on the land below without getting buffeted too much while I was floating in it. I peered down at the trees, which appeared to be somewhere between 50 to 100 feet below me (I'm terrible at estimating vertical distances). They were in full green leaf and showed no sign of being blown about excessively by the wind at its current strength. I thought it would be a shame to knock down such beautiful trees, and before I could convince myself otherwise, I felt the air around me destabilizing and woke up.

Ritual: Last night I experimented for the first time with kava kava root (Piper methysticum). I had read many anecdotal reports that it instigated vivid dreams and perhaps even lucidity, so I thought it was worth trying out. I ordered some dried powdered root from an online herb and spice supplier that I trust. I don't have any doubts about the freshness and quality, as the package confirms that it was packed earlier this month and sourced from Vanuatu. I had read many reports of people complaining about the taste, describing it as "muddy," so I was surprised when I opened the package and encountered the most extraordinary and delightful fragrance. The plant is related to pepper, so it made sense that the scent would be peppery, but there was also something delicately floral about it and even a hint of wintergreen.

I had abstained from alcohol all day, since the two should not be consumed together, and my plan was to drink the kava before bed. I had a late dinner, ending at 11pm, so my plan was to give myself two hours to digest, then start drinking the kava at 1am and go to bed a few hours afterward (unless it made me too sleepy before that, which seemed like a distinct possibility). I don't like cold drinks late at night, but I read that you could warm kava gently without destroying its properties, so I adapted a recipe for "Mexican Hot Cocokavachocolate," blending two tablespoons of powdered kava kava (half what the recipe calls for, as I didn't want to overdo it my first time), two tablespoons of cocoa powder, agave syrup, a spoonful of cinnamon, and a generous pinch of cayenne with about two cups of almond milk (I skipped the vanilla extract suggested by the recipe because I didn't want to use even a tiny amount of alcohol). I blended this until it was frothy and then separated it into two mugs, putting one in the fridge—I planned to start with a minimal dose, and work up from there if it felt warranted. The other mug I heated briefly in the microwave, just enough to warm it, and then topped it with a dusting of grated Himalayan salt and freshly made whipped cream.

Okay, I'll admit I have a slightly weird palate (for instance, I *love* the taste of wormwood), but this was one of the most delicious dessert drinks I have ever tried in my life! It was so much better than regular hot chocolate; the spices and kava gave it exceptional depth of flavor and an unusual aftertaste. I didn't even need to strain it: I don't know if my powder was ground unusually finely or if the almond milk held it in suspension better than plain water, but it only added body, not grit, to the concoction.

I'm glad that I had done enough research to anticipate the curiously numbing, analgesic sensation that spread from my mouth all the down my esophagus, because that's the kind of thing that would really worry you if you didn't know it was supposed to happen! I sipped the kava very slowly over the next hour or so, to make sure my stomach didn't have any problems with this new experience. Everything was fine, and the onset of bodily relaxation came quickly, though my mind remained clear. After the first mug I felt like it would be fine to drink the second one I had reserved, so I slowly consumed that too. Despite the heavy feeling in my body, it never did make me drowsy, so I played SWTOR until 3:30am and then read DV and some LD books to prep for bed, retiring at 4:30am. I should note that I never felt any trace of euphoria, either, an effect that some had noted. That didn't bother me, though: my only interest was in enhancing my dreams.

Unfortunately, in that respect, the kava kava was a total bust. It was no different from any ordinary night of crappy dreaming: I was vaguely aware of dreaming most of the night, but my recall was terrible and what details I could specify were mostly mundane day residue. There was no sense of complex overarching plots, just lots of little random scenarios. Lots of people have written that kava helped them sleep more deeply and wake refreshed, but I didn't experience that either: I woke three times in the first several hours of sleep, which is typical, except that I felt much groggier than usual during those brief wakeful periods. At 9:00am I woke up and felt so unpleasantly lethargic, mentally as well as phsyically, and the dreaming had been so disappointing, that I decided to try to clear my head with an ample dose of piracetam. That stuff is amazing: to preserve its efficacy I save it for special occasions, but it always works really well to clear up any "brain fog."

Within fifteen minutes I was feeling complete mental clarity, so I decided to turn it into a proper WBTB. I added some L-theanine, alpha-GPC and bacopa and returned to bed using WILD technique. My focus was still subpar and I couldn't count effectively, so I initially fell into non-lucid sleep, but gradually became more aware of the dream as it progressed. There was no "aha" moment of lucidity, but I was definitely lucid by the end.

In conclusion, the kava kava didn't seem to improve my dreaming in the slightest, but at least it didn't suppress it either. If anything helped me get lucid, I believe it was the piracetam and other supplements I took at WBTB, because those I've had success with many times before. My recall was poor for most of the night, and even after waking up from the LD only the last scene was initially clear; recollection of the earlier incidents revived only after I started tracing back the course of events.

DILD, "Creating a Cat": I was hanging out with a friend, JM, and her young son. [DR: yesterday I had seen a picture of this kid that she had posted on Facebook.] The little boy was telling us a story about a butterfly who took care of him in the place he used to be. It sounded like he was talking about before he was born, and this reminded me of a book I had learned about last night, about a project to compile and investigate accounts of young children who claim to have memories of past lives. [DR: Jim B. Tucker, Return to Life, 2015.] After I mentioned the book to my friend, she told me about the time she took her son to an island off the coast of Wales (the named started with a 'T', something like "Tirnagal" or "Tiriagal") and he had started talking about how he used to live there. As she describes this, suddenly we both turn and stare as we hear the boy start speaking another language with the somber intonations of an adult. I have no idea what Welsh sounds like, but what the boy is saying definitely has the structures of a formal language—it is not just childish babble. The experience is so uncanny that I feel the hairs on my arms rise. Before I leave, I say to my friend, "The only thing I regret about not having a kid is the way it can sometimes provide unexpected insights into the human experience." [DR: This comment might also have been inspired by something I was reading last night, on p.163 of The Ego Tunnel, by Thomas Metzinger (2009), where he describes a toddler who falls and looks to his mother for social cues about how to emotionally react.]

I leave my friend's apartment and go outside. Now I'm on a beach. This is one of my most distinctive and common dream signs, despite the fact that I have little interest in beaches in WL and rarely visit them. I think it is related to the tide, a phenomenon that has always unsettled me. Despite the frequency and distinctiveness of this dream sign, for some reason it is one that I always have trouble recognizing as such. On this occasion I already have some degree of dream-awareness, but I lack awareness of that awareness, the metacognition that is characteristic of true lucidity.

As I'm walking along the beach, the sand looks soft and warm and comfortable, and I can't resist the temptation to lie down in it. Initially I am lying on my stomach, but then I roll onto my back, and feel as cozy as a kid making snow angels. I pause to reflect, why do you never hear of kids making sand angels? My comfort is soon disturbed by rippling in the sand... I notice that the whole beach is now billowing and subsiding, the dunes rolling like great waves. "Is it supposed to do that?" I vaguely wonder, and then a particularly large dune threatens to bury me, forcing me back on my feet to keep my balance. Though not quite lucid at this point, I have instinctive awareness of my mastery and control in this environment: I find it easy to "surf" these sand waves as they roll by underfoot. But they are getting even bigger, and I have the impression that the water is now rising rapidly as well, so I decide to find higher ground.

At the edge of the beach I find a stairwell leading up into a building. Getting into it takes some creative climbing, as there are various panels of transparent plexiglass serving as barriers, but I manage to circumvent them and get inside. The stairs emerge into the center of a dim, semi-industrial space, with narrow walkways on all four sides surrounding the wide pit formed by the stairwell in the middle of the room. No sooner have I gotten my bearings than a round hatch covering the end of a large pipe poking through the wall opens, and a humanoid creature crawls out. It is gollum-like, with huge bulging eyes. I don't want to be spotted, so I hold still and focus on being invisible. I feel a moment of relief as the creature initially descends the stairs, but it comes back promptly joined by a second person, a male human. As they approach the spot where I'm standing, I retreat into a corner to avoid them: even if they can't see me, they might blunder into me by accident if I'm not careful. On the bright side, having to strategize in this tense situation is improving my lucid awareness.

I reflect that my "invisibility" is just a mind trick: I am willing the DCs not to see me, and from their lack of reaction I assume it is working, but I can still see my own body plainly. This bothers me—at this point I'm a fairly experienced dreamer, so shouldn't I be able to dispense with a body? I've had no dearth of NLDs where I'm just a disembodied perspective, so surely I should be able to accomplish the same thing in my LDs. I decide to try to eliminate my dream body.

My body does obediently disappear from my field of vision, but the trouble is I still *feel* like I'm in a human body, with two legs, two arms, and two eyes located frontally in my head. If I have really transcended the body, I should no longer feel like I am mapped onto a human being. I conclude that I should begin subverting the pattern, and my first attempt is to try to shift my visual apparatus to floor level. This seems like it should be a fairly easy, basic task, but I find that I have trouble with it, maybe because I get caught up in questions like, well, if I'm not seeing out of physical eyes, then shouldn't my vision be even more radically different—unconstrained by frontality, for instance?

Meanwhile the man and gollum-like creature disappear into a side door, still apparently oblivious to my presence. I retrace my steps to the top of the stairs and examine the hatch that the latter had crawled out of. I consider going in there to explore, but decide that from the look of the creature and the size of the hatch, it will probably just be a cramped and uncomfortable network of tunnels. Instead I decide to follow the two through the side door.

I find myself in a large, open exhibition space with various vendors and booths. I pause for a moment to wonder why spaces like this are so common in my dreams. I don't know if this was a product of false memory or else better access to dream memory than I have in waking life, because at the time I was under the impression that I encountered such rooms on a regular basis; now that I'm awake I don't feel like they're especially common. At first I was just wandering around with no specific purpose, when it occurred to me that I shouldn't waste this opportunity to work on some tasks. There are a ton of things on my docket, but nothing especially pressing, so I thought over a few possibilities and decided to work on my Ars Magica forms and techniques—the other day I printed out the whole list of combinations and decided I should make it a long-term goal to try out all of them eventually.

I recalled that "creo animál" was the first one on my list that I had not tried, so I started intoning, "Creo animál!" I lengthened the syllables in a resonant voice, putting emphasis on the first syllable of "creo" and the last syllable of "animál." I repeated the invocation a few times in this manner, staring at an empty patch of floor. I didn't have a clear idea in mind of what kind of animal I wanted to create, but I thought I could leave that open for the dream to surprise me. However, nothing was happening. I thought perhaps I needed some raw materials, so I telekinetically lifted a nearby booth (hoping this wouldn't be too much inconvenience to the vendor) and pulled it into the space where I was working, then focused on compacting its form and shape into something suitable to my purpose. It folded itself up obediently until it was much smaller. However, I felt like I needed to impose a pattern on it since the dream wasn't responding with anything, so I arbitrarily chose the form of a cat. People started gathering around to watch the show as the booth finished its transformation, and now there was a short-haired black and white cat sitting stiffly on the floor. [In retrospect, the technique was closer to "muto" than "creo," since I adapted existing material rather than conjuring it from thin air.]

The newly-created cat was not moving, and did not seem capable of movement; it was like an empty shell of a cat, a living doll. This made sense, since I had created the body but not endowed it with sentience: I concluded that this would require a separate effect. Luckily this concurred with another task I needed to work on. "Creo mentem," I said, directing my words at the cat, and this time the effect resolved quickly: now the cat seemed to be capable of moving and perceiving its environment.

I wondered if "mentem" alone was sufficient: wouldn't that create something with the bland mental workings of a robot? Wouldn't I need to add "imáginem" to endow it with emotions and imagination, the "spark of life"? I wasn't sure, but I thought I'd better throw that in for good measure, so I intoned "Creo imáginem," focusing on giving the creature the capacity for emotions and inner life. Immediately I had doubts about whether this was wise. I don't know if my doubts were caused by the cat's behavior or if the cat's behavior was conditioned by my doubts, but whichever it was, the creature did not look pleased. It was lashing its tail in the way cats do when they're annoyed, and its face was contorted into a savage snarl. I wondered if throwing in "imáginem" had been overkill—emotions are not always pleasant, after all, and a creature so unexpectedly brought into existence might well be feeling upset and disoriented. Plus, I didn't even know if "imáginem," was necessary for a complete being; perhaps sentience was sufficiently specified by "mentem." [Consulting the Ars Magica rulebook now, I see that I misremembered the scope of of the Form: "imáginem" deals with sensations and illusions, not emotions and imagination. Though actually that makes the whole Form seem superfluous to the dreamstate, where there is no obvious difference between creating a thing and creating an illusion of that thing.]

I knelt down to have a closer look at my creation, and felt even more disturbed. There was something awful and abject about its face, a wound or rot-like distortion of its jaw that left the teeth clearly visible through its cheek. [DR: I realize this might also be day residue, because recently I was reading articles about the so-called "zombie cat" which came with graphic pictures of a similarly disfigured animal.] I decided that I should try to understand what this cat was experiencing, so I said, "Intéllego animál." I felt impressions of fear and rage coming from the poor creature, and guiltily realized that I must have screwed up somehow. It made it even worse that it was a cat, a kind of animal for which I feel a great love and sympathy.



With a sweeping gesture I willed all the effects I had invoked to disperse, effectively uncreating the cat. I didn't have a clear visual sense of the result (did the body simply disappear or did the vendor's booth revert to its former shape? I'm not sure), but at least I felt that the spell had ended. I looked up at the spectators who had been watching the whole event and sheepishly apologized: "It didn't want to be a cat. I'm sorry. It just didn't work out."

One woman spoke up in reply. Her words were uttered very calmly and slowly, emphasizing each of the adjectives, and I felt like she was subtly criticizing my actions: "People want to be fair, and dominating, and controlling, and diverting."

Ritual: WTB 12:45am, woke 6am and felt rested enough to do a solid WBTB and WILD attempt. Read LD books for an hour then returned to bed at 7am. I took bacopa, L-theanine, alpha-GPC, and even ventured to add a little galantamine to the mix, breaking open a Galantamind capsule and adding half the powder to my alpha-GPC solution. I lay on my back and counted, also deciding on my intended tasks: muto herbam and my lucid dare. For the hell of it I added in a short mantra on the off-counts: inspired by the DC's weird question last night ("Who is your mantra?") I was using the name of an intriguing DC from a prior dream. I started losing the count quickly and after picking it back up a few times, drifted off somewhere in the 30s. Eventually I woke back up, used the bathroom, and checked the time before lying down on my left side to sleep. It was 7:30am. Woke up at 8am with dream.

WILD: I quickly started to feel promising bodily sensations, able to move in ways I was sure weren't "real." At one point I felt my husband's face very close to mine, thought I could feel his breath against my face, and was afraid this distraction was going to wake me. Feeling a bit rude, I pushed him away. After that he got up and I hoped he had understood my reasons—recognized that I was in the middle of a dream attempt—and wasn't annoyed. Of course in retrospect, I'm sure that none of this actually happened; not only does the geography of the bed make it physically unlikely, but my husband was still fast asleep on his side of the bed when I woke up to write this report.

As soon as I felt I had full bodily control, I started trying to get out of bed. I threw caution to the winds because I've started to suspect that a lot of the barriers to transition are self-imposed. So I got out of bed as soon as I could manage it, and although I felt awkward at first, moving very herky-jerkily as I tried to walk out of the room—a bit like a marionette whose puppetmaster is still figuring out the right use of the strings—I soon got back into the feel of it.

I walked into the kitchen, where my attention was caught by what looked like a big wad of gauze or lace, about 18 inches in diamter. In shape it resembled those scrunchies you use in the shower, but it was much larger and made of lacy white gauze with silver sparkles. The texture was wonderfully detailed, more distinct than anything else in my field of vision, so I decided to pick it up and use it for my first experiment. The simpler of the tasks I had planned was to practice a bit with transformation and with plants, so I held the gauze in my hands and commanded, "Muto herbam," envisioning the form of a long-stemmed red rose.

The material was resistant at first, so I repeated the command a few times and intensified my will. Eventually it shrank compliantly into a red flower, but the blossom appeared to be that of a tulip, so I continued staring at it sternly until it manifested more layers of ruffled petals. I studied it to make sure it was a proper rose and not just an ambitious carnation, and when I was finally satisfied with its form, I lifted it to my nose to smell it. It actually did smell like a rose! This impressed me all the more because I so rarely have any olfactory impressions in my dreams. (Then again, I guess I don't spend much time sniffing things.)

I wondered if I should leave the house to perform my next task. I'm still working on my lucid dare, which requires me to find an camp of elves in the forest and join them in making music. My initial impulse was to leave my house and look for the forest, but that hasn't worked well before, so this time I thought I would to try a different approach and transform the environment around me rather than bodily leaving it. I looked around the room for another plant suitable for my experiment and was pleased to discover a spindly sapling with lots of thin twigs tipped with narrow yellow flowers growing in a pot. I went over to it and commanded "Rego herbam," commanding it to grow into a tall tree. Nothing happened at first, but eyeing its numerous twigs I had another idea for how to use it.

The sapling was slightly taller than I was, so I backed up against it and pulled its flexible branches around me to create the visual impression that I was surrounded by a thicket, once again commanding "Rego herbam." The trick worked! The twigs filling my field of vision became a real thicket in which I found myself hiding on a hillside, trying to remain unseen as I peered down at a large camp of about two dozen people occupying a cleared basin just below me. I hoped they were elves! But they didn't seem merry, and I didn't hear any music. They were dressed in muted earthtones and went about their business grimly.

I can't remember if I actually observed the camp being raided, but by some means I understood that this was a camp of rebels whose people were being oppressed and frequently captured and sold into slavery by the inhabitants of a nearby castle. I was aware that had several been taken away recently, and decided that the best way to ingratiate myself with the camp would be to rescue them. So I transported myself into the castle dungeon and began to search for the captives.

The first door I opened led to an empty room, though it definitely looked like a classic dungeon, with rough-hewn and filthy stone floor and walls. Returning to the corridor, I saw that there were lots of identical doors, and I didn't think I had time to try them all, so I let instinct guide me to another door across the hall. At first this seemed promising: there was very little light filtering in through the tiny windows high in the wall, and in the shadows I thought I saw four figures manacled to the walls around the room. As I walked in, planning to free them, I found that either my eyes had decieved me, or the dream had shifted: the manacles were there, but this room was just as empty as the last. It made me wonder if what I had seen were the ghosts of past prisoners.

As I went to leave the room, I was startled to discover that the door was now half-blocked by a chest-high mound of stone rubble. I started to climb over but it was too steep, and afterward the blockade looked even higher, taller than I was. If I didn't act soon I would be completely walled in! So I mustered my concentration and simply pushed through the pile of rocks. The stone felt very resistant and I had to use all my strength, but finally burst through into the hallway. I was surprised how exhausted I felt after this feat. Given that it was a dream, it shouldn't be any harder to move "rocks" than anything else, but I felt completely spent. While I paused to regain my strength, I heard people approaching from around a corner to my left. There was no time to get away, so I simply held very still in the doorway and concentrated on being invisible to them.

There were three people in all. One person passed by without giving any sign of seeing me. Two others followed, walking together, and to my consternation they stopped at the door, right in front of me. Although they didn't seem to see me, something appeared to have caught their attention (the dislodged rocks?) because one of them pulled out a handheld device and started waving it in my direction as though scanning something. I wondered what would happen if they tried to walk through the doorway. I still seemed to be invisible, but would they be able to pass right through my body? Or would they bump into me? I decided not to risk it, and I was also a little worried that the scanner might detect my presence, so I reached out and grabbed one of the people with each hand. I willed them both to fall unconscious, and they slumped to the ground. The one to the left was a woman dressed in "business casual," while the guy to the right appeared to be a uniformed security guard. I immediately knelt down and hastily stripped the latter of all the tech I could find on his body: earpiece, cellphone, and a few other little widgets that I didn't recognize. I thought I heard another person coming down the hall, so I transformed into a bird and flew out one of the small barred windows high up on the walls.

The castle was on a gently sloping hillside, and I was now flying over a wide rural landscape. At the base of the hill was a wooded region, and far beyond that I could see the curve of the ocean shore. I figured I would still be able to find my way back to the camp, since I had just come from there, so I let memory or instinct guide me. Meanwhile I focused on making sure I was flying properly, since I haven't spent much time in bird form. I alternated between flapping my wings and holding them stiff and outstretched so that I could glide on the wind. I felt like a large bird of prey, and I was clutching the tech I had just stolen in my talons.

I flew over the forest until I saw a clearing below that looked familiar. Descending felt very realistic, because I was circling just like a raptor would, wide at first and then in a narrowing spiral until I landed. To get the attention of the people in the camp, I decided that I should not be an ordinary brown eagle, but a white eagle. Apparently this drew a little too much attention, because on the way down I discovered that someone was shooting arrows at me. I decided I could use this to make my entrance particularly impressive, so at the very moment that I touched the ground I not only turned back into a woman, I also grabbed an arrow that was about to hit me right out of the air.

Earlier I had not made sure whether or not the people in the camp actually were elves, and now that I look around at closer range, I see only round human ears. I approach a couple people who are talking authoritatively, like leaders of the group. One is a capable looking woman with short, dirty-blonde hair. I ask her if there are any elves in the camp, thinking to myself that if I do find some, I'll give them the tech I stole as a friendly gesture. No one can specifically point to any elves, so I ask, well, who was shooting at me? I figure that if there is an elf, it might well have been the one lobbing arrows. The woman points across the camp. Following her gesture, I notice a slight figure huddled on a bench, completely wrapped in a dark grey blanket.

I walk over and lean down in front of the figure, trying to gently tug the blanket aside to reveal its face. It seems shy, hiding its face under the blanket like this, but I soon discover the reason. As I begin to reveal its features, they are the last thing I would have expected. The head is made of molded transparent plastic, with a suggestion of human features on the outside and circuitboards within. It is an android!

The android has a high, almost childish voice, and evidently feels very bashful about its unusual appearance. It tries to prevent me from pulling back the blanket, protesting, "I look repulsive."

I completely disagree, and tell it so: "No you don't. You look amazing." It reluctantly lets me tease aside the blanket to reveal its whole head.

At this point a man walks up to us. He looks to be in his forties, balding, a bit stocky in build, and with rounded features, kind of resembling Rob Corddry. From his dress and demeanor, I immediately intuit that he is the creator of this android. I realize that he would be the ideal person to give the tech I stole from the castle guard.

"I have something for you," I say without preamble, and fill his hands with the little pile of objects.

He looks delighted. "This will be really useful."

We start chatting a bit about the android, and I ask if he knows where to find any elves. He's not aware of any in the camp, but I overhear a snippet of conversation from people standing nearby that I think might be relevant to my question; one of them mentions a place called "Junkyard Bay" and I resolve to check it out.

"What's your name?" I ask the inventor. I feel a bit silly always asking this of DCs, but I like to know.

"Dira," he says. That's how I assumed it was spelled, but from the pronunciation it could just as easily be "Deera." He asks mine, and I tell him.

Dira is looking at me like he finds me really familiar, but can't figure out where he knows me from. "We haven't spoken before this? No beer? No comfort?"

I am perplexed by his laconic queries until I realize that he's asking if he might have met me in a bar or a brothel. I might have been offended at the implications if I weren't so fascinated by his distinctive manner of speaking, so unlike my own speech patterns. How could a DC, a projection of my own mind, demonstrate linguistic traits so utterly unlike my own, to the point where it took me a moment to make sense of what he was saying? It was one of those moments that make me wonder if my reductionist assumptions are correct, but I'm not ready to go down the path of madness without better evidence than this.

I shake my head, since I'm pretty sure I've never met him in either dream or waking life. He asks my name another time, and I repeat it. I've been using my WL name, having forgotten my former resolution to use an alias with DCs.

Dira starts explaining something about the locals: "What's particularly important for the native Ukaran communities is the..." there was more, but it was complicated, and I was still trying to figure out what was going on.

"Ukaran?" I ask, to make sure I heard correctly.

"Yes, the Ukaran and the Utankaran."

I had the impression that he was implying that the Ukarans were the people in this camp, and I'd already seen the problems that they were facing—oppression and human trafficking on the part of the people in the castle. I wondered if the oppressors were the Utankarans. The similarity in their names suggested that they were closely related but (in the manner of such things) probably deeply opposed social groups.

Ritual: WTB 2:30am, woke up to work from 5:30 to 6:30am, realized I'd drunk too much coffee before bedtime and have trouble going back to sleep. I figure as long as I'm insomniac, might as well try for LD and take some L-theanine and alpha-GPC. I try counting but have trouble focusing, realize I need more motivation so resolve on a task. I had been thinking earlier about the use of mantras for getting lucid, and I've had trouble deciding on one so I thought I should ask a DC.

WILD, "Balloon and Mantra": Since it seemed to initiate directly from the waking state, I guess this was a WILD though there was no distinct experience of transition, at least in the way I usually experience it (shifting into dream while continuing to perceive that I am lying in bed). At the beginning it felt more like hypnagogic imagery that I was playing around with, but gradually acquired more solidity and focus. (Or maybe that's the "normal" way people do it, haha.)

I'm on top of a building, playing catch with two other girls. We're throwing a ball around between us counter-clockwise. The girl to my left spikes the ball to make it hard for me to catch, so I retaliate by throwing it right back at her when she's not expecting it, instead of continuing to pass to the other girl. She says it's not fair because she wasn't paying attention. I retort that I did it because of the way she was playing.

The game becomes more leisurely and the ball becomes a balloon. I sit down and I'm practicing moving it telekinetically. The balloon is making the kind of strange echoing sounds that you hear when handling real balloons, only strongly magnified. I'm impressed with the way my mind can conjure that unusual but distinctive sound which I probably haven't heard in years. Although the sound component of the dream is impressively vivid, the visuals are terrible. The whole scene is in grainy black and white, and the balloon is white too, which makes it very hard to see against the sky when I bounce it up into the air. At one point I launch it away from me and lose sight of it altogether. When I go to summon it back, instead of the balloon returning to my hand, my right hand is contorted with a strange sensation, like it's being squeezed.

Around this time, everything switches over to bright color, brilliant blues and pinks. It happens as suddenly as turning on a light, and makes everything look much more vivid and cheerful. I figure this is REM switching on more fully, and comment to one of the DCs, "Hey, color just kicked in!" I notice that instead of the two girls, there are now at least a dozen of them, and they seem to be having a dance party. I hear a bouncy pop song playing in the background.

I get up and wander through the group, then suddenly I remember the task I had designated as I went to sleep. I approach a girl at random. She's dressed very unusually and elaborately, probably day residue from a Chinese painting I was looking at in WBTB, and I'm doubtful about whether she will be able to help, but figure it can't hurt to ask.



"I'm looking for a lucid dream mantra," I begin, then think I should explain more clearly what I mean. "Something that—"

"Who is your mantra?" she interrupts. It's such an odd question that I stop and look more closely at her. Her face is pretty but blank.

"That was my question," I reply, then wait to see if she'll have anything more helpful to offer.

"Who is your mantra?" she repeats, in exactly the same tone and words, like a broken record.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," I insist. This is going nowhere. Reaching back with two hands I grasp the edges of a cloth, as though it were a scarf I were wearing around my neck, and draw it over both our heads. Now the two of us are alone in the dark, face to face, with just a bit of the background peeping through under the edges of the cloth behind her. Although I had performed the gesture instinctively, my intention was to blot out the distractions so I could try to communicate with the girl more effectively. A more rational course would have been to find someone else to ask, or ask the dream directly, but I got too caught up in my determination to try to make her understand. My approach was not helpful, however, as this deconstruction of most of the dream environment makes me lose traction and wake up.

FAs: I had gotten up and was nearly ready for work. I went to use the bathroom before leaving and stood there dumbfounded: everything else looked normal, but the toilet was gone! I recognized immediately what this must mean. "You've got to be freakin' kidding me," I said aloud. Usually I would be delighted to realize I was still dreaming, but this time I already felt like I'd invested a lot of time in getting ready for my day, and now I would have to do it all over again, so I was actually annoyed.

My lucid awareness must have been pathetically low, because instead of doing something cool with the dream or thinking of one of my many fallback tasks, I stood there until I had successfully conjured the toilet back into place, because I still wanted to use it! Then I noticed that the clarity of the dream was waning and in an attempt to restore focus, told myself: "Open your eyes." But I accidentally opened my real eyes, waking up! It was a fail on so many levels.

I wanted to get back to the dream state so again I tried to play along with hypnagogic visuals. I had an image of a three medieval-looking riders in a wooded hillside. There was a male, a female, and one other. I was loping after them in the form of a wolf. The scene felt stronger and more stable than the usual hypnagogic imagery, but less tangible than a fully manifested dream. I realized that I instinctively knew the names of the man and the woman. (I suspect the indistinct third was their servant or page.)

After I had nearly caught up with the riders, I worried that if they noticed me in wolf form they might shoot me with an arrow, so I transformed into a woman (nude, I noticed) and caught their attention. They turned around one exclaimed, "A forest sprite!"

I "woke up" (I might have even had a vague sense at the time that it was not a real waking, since it still felt too "thin" for a proper dream) and tried to write down their names on my computer. The man's came so easily that it left no trace in memory, but the woman's name took me a lot of effort to type correctly, and I kept making mistakes and having to fix them. On the bright side, this meant that I still remembered it clearly when I woke up for real later. Her name was "Gwynrse," which I took to be Welsh.

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Ritual: I don't know if it was the jackfruit seeds or a bad scallop, but something I ate last night was brutal to my stomach. It got so unpleasant I that for a few hours I couldn't do anything but pace in discomfort, hoping something would come out in any direction. Finally I threw up, which usually leaves me feeling 100% better, but this was only a minor improvement. I managed to read for a bit, drinking herbal tea and self-medicating with tinctures of myrrh and wormwood. Around midnight I threw up again and finally felt stable enough to sleep. Although my stomach still hurt for a few hours and I couldn't drink much water at first, by the time I woke up at 8am, I was feeling basically fine again. My dream recall was terrible, though: I knew I had dreamed but couldn't pin down a single detail. At 9am I decided to go back to bed for a bit, performed half-assed WILD technique but started dreaming non-lucidly. On waking up my recall was 1/10 at first, but once I managed to recover the location of the dream I was able to follow the thread and reconstruct much of the narrative, resulting in 4/10 recall overall.

I was in my grandmother's house, a common setting for many of my dreams. The events going on were all very mundane... too dull to go into much detail. Briefly, I was looking for some powder that you could mix with milk to make a shake, similar to the Carnation Instant Breakfast packets my grandmother always used to have on hand, but couldn't find any.

I went into the bathroom and finally realized that my location was a dream sign, so I started to look around and wonder if this was a dream. Everything seemed so concrete and convincing that I had my doubts, but then something bizarre happened: I suddenly felt like I was being grabbed from behind by someone putting their arm around my right shoulder, but there was no one in the room with me! I whirled around to make sure and was staring at empty air. A moment later I felt it again even more strongly: the pressure of the arm squeezing my shoulder and chest, and the pressure of a warm body very close behind me.

Ohhh, I thought. I think I know what's going on. I really am dreaming, and my husband has come back to bed and put his arms around me. Upon that realization, I felt the dream fading, and sure enough, woke up in bed next to my husband.

"Are you going to get up? It's 1:50 in the afternoon," he said. I pointed out that I had returned to bed to for extra rest because I hadn't been feeling well last night. I was telling him about the strange thing that had just happened, how I had felt his presence while I was dreaming. I went on to explain how I should have recognized that it was a dream earlier, because my cousins were all much younger than they should be, and my grandmother's house was in the possession of an aunt (long-since divorced) rather than the uncle who currently lives there. My husband apologized for disrupting my dream, but I said it was okay, it hadn't been that interesting.

As we talked, I was looking out the screen door onto our patio. Where I should have seen the pool and cement deck, instead I was mildly surprised to observe a grassy hillside. I attributed this to some lingering after-effects of the dream state, instead of correctly realizing that I had never stopped dreaming all along. In retrospect this is more obvious, because the way I felt my husband put his arm around my right shoulder was impossible given that I sleep on the right side of the bed, so if I'm on my left side there is no room for someone to lay down behind me. I was also relieved when I woke up for real and discovered that it was only a little after 10:30am!

Ritual: WTB 2:30am, woke 7:15. I was stressed over something and felt too awake to go back to sleep right away, so I got up and put some time into a project for work. Returned to bed at 8:45am, no techniques, though I wondered if the WBTB would make lucidity more likely (happily it did) and woke again at 10am. Recall: 6/10.

DILD, "Wine and Cheese": I'm walking down a footpath outdoors, carrying a cat in the hem of my dress. That is, I've folded up my hem to make a kind of pocket with the cat in it. She is an orange tabby short-hair that doesn't resemble any cat I've known in WL. I think she'll probably want to look around, so I try to arrange the "pocket" in such a way that she can rest her paws on the edge of the hem that I am holding and peek her head out. This works for a while, but then I notice that my black inner dress feels too tight around my legs, hampering my movements, and I think I must have accidentally caught it up together with the hem of the outer dress (which is a sheer light brown fabric). In trying to rearrange it so I can walk unimpeded, the cat falls back down into the "pocket," but I figure this isn't so bad, since the outer dress is translucent, maybe she can still enjoy the view.

However, the cat is getting restless, and I remember something I read the other day on the forums: that if you just keep walking or wandering in a particular direction, the dream will destabilize. Well, such a thing has never happened to me before, despite numerous opportunities, but now I've caught a touch of schema infection from reading about it. [I agree with FryingMan that as a community we should try to be more conscientious about making claims that might infect other people's schemas!] So of course now that I'm anxious about it I start to feel destabilization coming on—I need to do something, quick! I notice that I am walking past a little wine-and-cheese shop, so I decide to duck in for a snack.

Almost immediately I start to wonder if this was a bad idea... sitting down for a whole meal seems like a very drab and tedious way to spend my precious dream time. I decide to keep it short and just taste a few things; there's no need to finish after all. So I order some white wine and a cheese plate. The lady running the shop insists that we also try a certain specialty of theirs, which turns out to be a kind of spread that you put over toast. I see that all of these menu options are also listed on a small chalkboard hung over the doorway to the kitchen, though she prepares everything from behind a counter that is in the dining room. She serves us two types of their specialty spread, together with wedges of three kinds of cheese. It looks like very high-quality cheese, and I'm surprised (and a bit dismayed) to see how big the pieces are.

The only seating in the place, which is very small, is a long communal table. I sit down and don't find it odd that I have a dining companion who sits to my right, though I didn't notice her before and my impressions are so vague that all I can really specify (uncertainly) is her gender. The orange cat I was carrying before is on the floor at my feet, and I hope the proprietor won't mind if she sees me feeding the cat little pieces of cheese. I take a sip of wine and a bite of some cheese and I am pleasantly surprised. Normally in dreams my sense of taste is dull and muted, but the taste and texture of this cheese is identical to the real thing. It is a sharp, tangy cheese with a firm, slightly crumbly texture like certain Spanish or French cheeses made from ewe's milk. I feel more enthusiastic about being here now, since I can enjoy a delightful snack without worrying about any extra calories! But on my second bite of cheese, as I concentrate on enjoying it, my perceptions accidentally shift to my real mouth—which of course is completely empty and tastes like night saliva. The dream fades and I very nearly wake up.

DEILD, "Navriela": Luckily I realize that I am not fully awake but just below the threshold, so I think I can probably DEILD. Initially I try to DEILD back into the dream I just left, but it has fragmented beyond retrieval. So I just focus on getting the dreamstate back. Visuals kick in first: I see what looks like the vantage of a movie camera tracking steadily from left to right over something that resembles a grim, minimalist palace interior, perhaps an empty throne room. Everything is smooth and metallic grey and vertical. Probably because I start to wonder what was supporting the camera for this shot, which is too smooth and gravity-defying for a human cameraman, I now hear a male voice off-screen saying, "It is difficult to make a movie like this." I listen and continue to hear voices conversing about the film, so with both sight and sound back in play, I know that dream is kicking in.

The camera has moved right through a doorway into the upper landing of a stairwell, and now I see a slender woman dressed all in silver begin to descend the stairs. To stabilize my senses I study her outfit, and I'm impressed how clearly I can perceive its details. She is wearing a kind of short jacket over a lower garment that reaches to her mid-thigh. It is not shorts or a skirt, however, and as I study it closely I observe a series of folds that suggest the garment consists of a single piece of cloth that was tucked between and through her legs to form something resembling short pants. I recognize this style of clothing—it looks like jongkraben, a kind of lower garment worn by both men and women in nineteenth-century Siam—but I'm surprised to see it in such an unusual context as this medieval/futuristic palace, worn by a pale, lithe, elf-like woman with white-blonde hair. I think I see some tassles dangling from the front, so I circle my perspective (still disembodied) around the woman to confirm what her outfit looks like from the front, and then continue to follow her down two flights of stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs she encounters an elderly but vigorous old man with a long white beard who resembles Gandalf. He starts talking to her and at one point asks, "What is your name?" I'm pleased that he has asked the question I was wondering. There is something so youthful yet elvishly ancient about the woman that she strongly reminds me of Galadriel in LOTR, even resembling Cate Blanchett a little bit, and I half-expect her to say that "Galadriel" is her name, especially now that I'm thinking it. But the dream surprises me, and she answers with something that sounds equally elvish, but a name I don't think I've ever heard before: "Navriela."

I start to think I should embody myself in this dream and work on some task. Had I been a little more on the ball I might have thought to accompany Navriela to a nearby forest to make another attempt my lucid dare, but I am too distracted by my growing attraction to her. I reflect that if I was one of the guys I would surely go "caveman" on her, and this gives me an idea for an experiment: what if I try to become a man? I sometimes identify as male characters in NLDs, but I hadn't attempted this before in an LD.

I imagined myself as a guy and approached Navriela with romantic intentions. She was compliant as I took her into my arms, and we fell together on a bed that was conveniently placed in an adjoining room. I started trying to make love to her as a man, although it was all rather vague and hasty (I don't even think we took our clothes off) and I didn't notice any differences in my anatomy. Nevertheless, there was something very arousing about it and I quickly orgasmed. "It's always so much easier for men," I thought wryly—overlooking the fact that it is always easier in dreams anyway.

FA: I woke up and immediately went to my computer to start writing my report, but I was having trouble accessing my word file. First I tried under "Open Recent," in Word since it's usually somewhere in that list, and when I didn't see it I tried typing the name of the file in the search box, but that didn't work either. I resorted to my back-up plan, dropping to desktop and clicking to the alias of my dream journal that I'd placed there, but even that failed for some reason. Since I actually do often have trouble accessing the file when I'm half-awake and hastening not to lose precious seconds of dream recall, it never occurred to me that my technical difficulties this time were evidence of an FA—even after discovering that my computer was in the middle of doing a full scan of some kind, and that my files were all locked until the scan was complete. Instead, I rationalized this by "remembering" that I had updated the OS just before I went to bed, and that concluded a mass file update was part of the process. Fortunately the progress bar was already at 56% and resolving quickly, so I waited it out. The OS shifted over to the new version, and now a new icon appeared on the top of all my window frames. It was a cartoon-like graphic of a noble male face haloed in a bright burst of sunlight, resembling a demigod or superhero. I figured this was the logo of the new OS, the name of which I knew at the time, but I wasn't paying much attention because finally I was able to open my dream journal file and start taking notes. Initially I started jotting down a lot of keywords and short phrases so I wouldn't lose any key events: "Navriela," and "four kittens" and "wine and cheese shop," and then started filling in the details.

Eventually I woke up again and realized the last sequence had been an FA. Unfortunately my overall recall was now somewhat eroded the delay in waking up properly, especially of earlier sequences before I became aware that I was dreaming. I don't think there was ever a clear boundary or "aha" moment when I got lucid; it just seemed to naturally dawn upon me while I was walking down the path carrying the cat.

NLD: I can partly recall an even earlier scene, non-lucid, where I was in a store, looking through horse halters. I was surprised to find horse supplies for sale at a mainstream store like this—it resembled a budget department store like a Target. I compared several halters but didn't like their quality or appearance. One that I rejected was covered with pale pink fake fur; another incorporated a fly mask but I wasn't sure if the eye holes would fit properly. I ended up rejecting them all and walking away. As I left, I noticed that the halters were on display in the children's section of the store, which annoyed me: why is horseback riding so often pigeonholed as an activity for young children? Certainly it helps to start young, but it takes years of practice to get any good at it. I think it was after walking out of the store that I was carrying the cat in my dress, where my dream report started, but the transition is unclear. I also now have no idea what the keywords "four kittens" was referring to, among all the notes I had recorded in my dreamed dream journal—so there is probably at least one lost scene.

Ritual: WTB 2am, woke 9am with dream. Recall: 9/10. April had so far been a dryspell, but after my hot streak in early March I hadn't worried too much about it. I've noticed that my streaks and dryspells often seem to operate cyclically. I was distressed in early April when even my dream recall was inexplicably poor, but for the past week that had been improving. I had been continuing daytime RCs but to no discernible effect, and hadn't made any serious LD attempts all month.

Last night was no exception, but since I was stressed and annoyed over work obligations, I let myself drink rather heavily with dinner. The consequence of this was that I slept poorly, having to cycle lots of water and wake up even more frequently than usual. This didn't bother me either, as I'd slept plenty in the last few days and didn't feel especially tired. I also enjoyed that I was dreaming heavily all night, with decent recall, though the dreams themselves were not interesting enough to sacrifice more sleep to record them. As morning approached, the line between sleeping and waking started to blur, to the point where I found myself in a long dream where I seemed to be lying half-awake in my bed, but talking and interacting with DCs who were in the room with me. Even before the dream ended it occurred to me that it had involved some semi-lucid intervals, so I realized I should get up and take some notes. I was in the process of doing so when I began to suspect I was still dreaming. My first instinct was to wake myself up so I could record the dream properly, but then I realized that I shouldn't squander this unexpected opportunity!

DILD: In my living room. Don't think I'm awake yet. Could wake myself up, of course. Hang on—that would be a waste. Must be at least an hour before I have to get up. What were those tasks again?

Jogging will be easy enough. I start running even before I leave the house. Suddenly my feet feel heavy and I notice I am wearing my old black leather combat boots. Grin—if there was any doubt I was dreaming it has cleared up now. [For the record, I was never in the military, I just had a distinctive fashion sense in my youth.] Go outside the door and jog away. Immediately nothing like my backyard, though it does still resemble the region I live in. Look around: in the distance see a woman pushing a stroller. "Woman pushing a stroller," I say to myself, to fix the details. I'm running across a parking lot, and where it ends I pass an unusual tree whose thick branches are armed with long thorns. "Thorn tree," I state for the record. Find myself at the edge of a steep hill and run straight down. Gravity isn't a problem, I stay perpendicular to the ground I am covering, which means I am pitched forward at a 45 degree angle and would fall flat onto my stomach if gravity were operative, but it isn't. I can feel my body being gently buoyed up into this position, and my speed doesn't become too great. Say, "Steep hill." As I'm running down the hill, looking around, I see something stranger. The earth is almost barren, with dry scrubby vegetation in patches, but looking to my left, I see razors sticking up out of the ground as if someone has planted them there, dozens of them, several inches apart, covering a large patch of ground. "Razors planted in the ground," I say, adding, "Disposable razors." And they're not just any brand, but I recognize them: distinctive yellow handles, white heads... "Bic razors," I think.

At the bottom of the hill the ground levels out. I notice that the act of jogging doesn't feel at all realistic, which is interesting because I actually do jog in WL on a semi-regular basis, so it is not that my dreaming mind lacks sensations to draw upon. In what respect is it unrealistic? Well, there's no need for real effort, no sense of real weight. And now, unbidden, my arms are dangling and dragging through the dry dirt of the ground, I can feel it sifting through my fingers. My arms do not feel any longer than normal, and my legs do not feel any shorter than normal, yet my fingers are trailing the ground alongside me as I run. I notice a small mushroom lying on the dirt and pick it up, saying "Mushroom." It is a fleshy beige tube-shaped stem without a distinct cap, and I recognize the type from the grocery store—it is a small eryngii mushroom.

Previously I had passed highways at the base of the hill, but now I'm approaching a smaller local street, buildings tightly packed together on the side of the street across from me. I decide to move on to another task. When the April TOTMs were posted I had worked out a plan whereby I would use the portable hole to portal myself into space and do the bonus task. I note an ideal location in the street—there's a manhole cover there or some other kind of circular mark that seems the ideal place to set down the hole. I notice three guys on this side of the road are getting into a parked car and feel instinctive momentary caution about running in front of it, but remind myself that this is a dream, there's no way to be harmed if the car hits me, and anyway I should use it as motivation to succeed quickly in the hole task. In retrospect, I note that the direction they're about to drive suggests either that this must be a one-way street, or else that the traffic flow is the opposite of what it normally is in the US.

I had planned my strategy as I was jogging up, so once I got to the spot I had designated, I promptly used my right hand to reach into my "pocket" (to avoid overcomplicating things I deliberately didn't bother to take notice of what I was wearing or make sure it had a pocket, I just let assumption carry the day), pulled out my portable hole and dropped it. Nothing happened, but the problem was easily diagnosed: my hand had come up empty from my pocket, so I had only been pretending to drop the hole. Apparently, in dreams, there can somehow still be a distinction (however nuanced) between "pretending" to do something and "actually" doing it.

"You actually have to pull something out," I murmured to myself reprovingly, and reached into my pocket again. This time my hand closed around a folded piece of very thin black cloth. I recall the texture of the cloth made it feel like a synthetic fiber, smooth and slightly shiny. I unfolded it and dropped it on the pavement. It was circular, perfectly sized to fit over the manhole-cover spot in the street, but I had thrown it so casually that it had fallen in a bunched up and wrinkled way, so I kneeled down to gently smooth it flat. Then I stood back up and stepped on the cloth, intending to sink through it and find myself in space. Of course the first time, it felt no different than stepping onto a layer of cloth that had been set onto the pavement, and I didn't go anywhere. This didn't surprise me, since I knew my expectations might have been conditioned by some of the early TOTM reports I had read in this month's thread. So I patiently tried again, knowing I could make this work. I hopped in place and focused on the sensation of sinking. The second try was still a dud. I hopped again, maintaining my focus and emphasizing the idea of falling through the hole. It worked, though instead of falling suddenly, as one might through a real hole, I was sinking slowly and gently downward. I used this extra time to build my image of where I wanted to end up: space.

After I sank beneath the surface of the pavement, I was floating in a pitch black, unconstructed space. This was more promising than disorienting—after all, outer space has very similar qualities. However, I knew I should be seeing stars, so I firmed my resolve to be in space, specifically "outer space," not just unconstructed space. The dream complied, and filling my field of view to the front and right was a sudden glimpse of a great starry disk, fully round as if I was looking at it head on. "Galaxy," I murmured, impressed by how beautiful it was, how awe-inspiring, even if it had been generated entirely by my own mind. But the task required me to observe a sunrise over Earth, so I focused my intention using keywords: "Space. Sunrise."

The beautiful galaxy disappeared, replaced with a vision much less inspiring. From photographs I have the impression that seeing the actual Earth from space is visually stunning, but despite the loveliness of my galaxy, my model of Earth was rather dull and unconvincing. What made it so underwhelming was that I didn't feel like the distances were right: even though I was still floating in "space," I felt like I was only a few feet away from the planet, which resembled a large globe about six feet in diameter. It was dark, because I was looking at the night side, and as I willed the "sunrise" to occur, the light creeping around the edge of the planet illuminated something unexpected: the whole planet seemed fenced in by structures built over and around it, and they were covered with corporate logos! Actually it seemed very appropriate metaphor for the current state of affairs. The structures definitely didn't look like the sorts of things that could exist in space, though, since they consisted of large interlocking beams that crowded and dwarfed the planet itself. As I examined this structure, the "space" in which I was floating stabilized into the interior of a large, dimly lit room, the earth and the structures around it becoming mere models. It resembled the lobby of a planetarium or space museum.

"Space. Sunrise." I said again firmly, trying to restore the scene to the one I had intended. I temporarily succeeded in making the room fade away so that I was again floating in darkness in front of the Earth, but when I tried to re-do the sunrise, the growing light illuminated the walls of the same room that I had just banished, and now the light was almost aggressively bright. This, I figured, was actual light from WL—during my earlier wakings I had noticed that it was a very bright morning, and my curtains can only do so much to keep light out of the bedroom. I managed to ignore the light and hold onto the dream a little bit longer, but I was still wrestling to turn the room's interior back into outer space when I woke up.

Ritual: WTB 1am, WBTB 4:45 to 6:15, woke 6:45 am with first dream, 8:30am with second.

DILD, "Canceled Movie": Theater, lights go down to start movie, then come up again, we all have to move, no clear reason. I lose track of my mom and brother. General confusion. I wonder if it is a dream. I feel convinced it is though I can't be sure. How to figure out? Reason, if it's a dream then in WL I should have already seen the movie and be able to recall it (dream logic!) I think back and can't remember what movie I watched today. Still not sure, need more substantive proof: levitate something. Point to stairs and levitate small random object; decide I need a barrette for my hair and it is one by the time it hits my palm. Pin back my hair. Okay, pretty sure I'm dreaming, that's good. Distracted by all the confusion around me still, people trying to figure out what is going on, don't think of tasks, wake up.

Note: I wrote the notes above hastily because I hadn't gotten much sleep yet and wanted to get back to bed as soon as possible. One detail I left out because it seemed too insignificant to mention was that in the dream, when I first got up and was gathering my things to leave the theater, I put two large jars in my purse and was surprised that they fit. I don't remember now what they contained, but I have the impression that at least one was a beverage. This is only relevant now because of what happened later.

I had made coffee late at night because I still had a lot of work to get done before the next day, but realizing I was too tired to simply stay up late, I decided to go to bed and get up to work after a few hours of sleep. I left the coffee to cool on the counter in the large mason jar that I always use to make it, hipster pour-over style. During my WBTB I again decided not to drink the coffee since I was planning to return to bed, and transferred it to a smaller mason jar with a lid that put in the fridge. The next morning, the coffee was still there and I was feeling groggy, so I brought it to work with me. At the end of a long day, as I was gathering my things to go home, I tried stowing the now-empty mason jar in my purse for lack of a better place to put it, and was surprised that it fit. I had a sudden flashback to the same thing happening in the dream that morning. The parallel felt eerily similar, though I had to reflect with amusement that if this was an example of dream precog, it only seems to happen for me with the most wildly trivial and insignificant events.

NLD, "Mountains, Goblins, Geisha": I'm part of a group that is planning to take a trip to a town high up a mountain. I show my friend a picture of the mountain, which is alarmingly tall and sheer, and point to the location of the little town three-quarters of the way up. I've been there before and am nervous about the drive because the roads are so dangerous. I'm convinced that when I remembered the drive I was actually drawing on memories from a different dream long ago.

On the mountain, we become the playthings of some goblins. I don't recall what they are doing to the boys, but the girls all have to make themselves up and dress like geisha. The goblins are telepathic, so we have to moderate our thoughts. We end up with psychological conflicts because we are obliged to maintain conscious thought patterns that are at variance with what we "really" think.

We are being housed in some dingy rooms with cheap blue carpets. I wonder if they were originally designed as dorm rooms, and that question makes me wonder where all of this is actually taking place. I sense the unreality of my situation, but I attribute it to the idea that we're being filmed.

I look out the window to see if there are any clues about our real location. In the window of the building next door I see a neon "Michelob" sign—it must be a bar! I look for more clues, and see a sign attached the building with the word "Make." That must be the name of the bar... later I'll have to google to see if I can figure out where such a place is located. My suspicions are that we're somewhere in the Catskills or Adirondacks.

Ritual: WTB 1am, WBTB 6-7am recording NLDs, woke 7:45am with DILD + FA.

NLD, "Sparked": Walking home at night. Someone drives past in a dark vehicle and I say, "Turn on your lights!" Then I feel embarrassed when I notice she is actually walking. She enters the apartment two doors ahead of mine. The door next to her place is open, and there are people just inside it who give the impression that they are workers, not residents. My bed is the first thing I see when I open the door of my apartment, and I'm pleased to see a large box on it. Oh good, that thing I ordered has arrived.

After looking through the first box and strewing its contents, plastic wrap and styrofoam all over my bed, I open a smaller box that has also arrived. It contains a speaker that I ordered. When I first pull it out of the packaging I am disappointed: the surface is surprisingly dirty. Is it just shelfworn, or did I get a refurbished one by mistake? I'll be annoyed in the latter case, since I thought I was ordering a new one. There is some molded styrofoam that seems like the original packaging, if that's any clue.

The speaker weighs almost nothing, and I remember that this is a special lightweight system. It's portability is limited by its size, however, at about 8x10 inches. The back of it consists of flaps are supposed to fold together in a clever way. As I go to remove the last of the styrofoam supports, something unusual happens inside my head, like an electrical disruption.

I remain calm and think I'd better tell my roommates about this in case it incapacitates me and I end up needing medical attention, so I say aloud: "Hey guys, something weird just happened to me. I felt a "pop," saw a flash of white light, and now in the back of my head I hear a tone that is steadily increasing in frequency."

"You need more sleep," someone suggested. He could be right, but I didn't see the relevance. I do want to go back to bed but I'll have to clear all the box mess off it first.

What was happening to me? I had a contextual clue, at least: "It happened when I touched the speaker for the first time." Perhaps the device had built up some kind of strange electrical charge that I had triggered?

All this time the tone was whining to higher and higher pitches, and I waited with curiosity and slight anxiety to see what would happen next. When it seemed like it had become so shrill that it would soon pass beyond my auditory range, all that happened was that I woke up.

Note: The other day I read about "exploding head syndrome." This might have been a minor instance of it! The "popping" sound and flash of light are apparently classic symptoms. This is only the second time I've experienced something like this.

DILD, "Victorian Gentleman": I'm at a computer trying to order something online. I don't recall what it was, but the cost was over $200. There were some complicated webforms to navigate, and then after some difficulty finding my wallet, my credit card was missing. Meanwhile my stepmother-in-law comes over and offers to let me run her card instead. "No, no, no, no," I say quickly, trying to deter her, having just spotted mine on the table. Too late, she has already run her card and made the purchase. Well, that was nice of her, even if it wasn't what I would have asked for. I should show appreciation. I hug her and say, "Thank you."

Walking outside afterward, I have second thoughts. Was I rude to simply thank her? Maybe she hadn't intended the action as a gift. But even if she had, perhaps it would have been more polite of me to ask when she wanted me to pay her back, and that would give her the option to be magnanimous and say it wasn't necessary. But if she had assumed I would pay her back, wouldn't it be rude of her to create an extra hassle for me that I hadn't asked for? I had told her "no" and she did it anyway. I conclude that under the circumstances, my response was adequate and I should let it go.

As I walk back in the house, behind me I hear a man's voice, distinctively low and gravelly. It is really familiar. Who is that guy? I think he must live next door; I'm always hearing that voice. I sneak a look back before going in and spot him: he is older, gaunt, with straggly grey hair. I think he looks like an aging biker or a math professor (they can look more similar than you might think!)

I continue in the house and decide to repack my suitcase, which is in disarray, when it occurs to me... wait. I have the impression that I hear that man's voice all the time, but I suddenly suspect that I only hear it in dreams. Could this be a dream, then? I realize that it is. This gives me the confidence to go back outside and approach the guy, intending to find out who he is. I would not want to so brazenly walk up to a stranger in WL, but this is my dream so there is no reason to hesitate. As I step back through the door I find myself with handful of silver rings in my right hand that I am putting on the fingers of the left. Why did I grab so many? I'm going to have to put multiple rings on each finger to make them all fit.

Only one person is in sight now, a dapper gentleman in Victorian dress walking by from left to right. He has a neatly trimmed beard, a black frock coat, and a top hat. I've always been fascinated by that era, but in dreams I've never been successful in my attempts to meet historical figures. I wonder if he'll really acknowledge being from that time period. Maybe he's just dressing up?

I get his attention and ask, "Are you from the Victorian era?" He confirms it. I'm interested now so I start walking alongside him, suggesting, "Tell me about yourself." As he begins to reply, I look more closely at his face and realize that he is strikingly good-looking. On a whim I seize his arm and pull him off the road, then push him against the door of a nearby house and start kissing him, thinking meanwhile that in waking life I would never do this with a stranger. Though taken by surprise he responds willingly. The only thing marring the pleasure of the kiss is a little piece of fingernail in my mouth—I must have been biting them—and I try to move it with my tongue so it won't come into contact with his mouth, which would be awkward. During a break in the kissing I manage to swallow the bit of nail, and the gentleman never seems to notice.

After that interlude we continue together down the street. It's odd that I so quickly lost interest in my more intellectual inquiries and succumbed to mere erotic instinct... and annoying, in that I never did get to hear the DC's account of himself. My lucidity apparently faded quite a bit in the process (it was never very keen in this dream), because it doesn't occur to me to ask again, and instead I just walk along with little further thought.

We stop at a shop whose front opens right onto the street, and the gentleman wants to buy an unusual kind of candy that I've never seen before. It is some highly-processed, artificially flavored substance that comes in brightly colored plastic packages. The package can be activated in such a way that its contents will burst out like a foam snake. This is marketed to kids as a toy as well as a snack: they can have mock battles trying to hit one another with the candy snakes, then eat them afterwad. The girl minding the shop explains this to me while showing her a green stain spot on her T-shirt from where one of the candies had landed on her. So they stain clothes, too? I look down and am glad to see that I'm wearing something casual.

FA, "Let the Right One In": I wake up and get out of bed to record the dream. I don't notice anything unusual as I'm walking across the house, but pause in confusion as I go to sit down at my computer. Where's my chair? Why would my chair be gone? Surely I'm not dreaming? At first it feels improbable but gradually I realize that I am. Interesting... well, I want to explore this, but I don't want to lose my memory of the previous dream. It is still clear in mind, so I review the events and even recite a list of key words aloud to help fix my impressions. Then I look around to see what this new dream has to offer.

In contrast to the relative normality of the house, correct in layout but more sparsely furnished than normal, the view outside is catastrophic and extraordinary. A wide frozen river of swelling ice is flowing motionlessly where my patio should be, and cascading down toward the city in the distance. Just beyond it looms a mountain of pure white ice, with a matte, knobbly texture like that reminds me of spray-on styrofoam. Craning my head up, I can just see the narrow peak glittering in the sun. Everything looks incredibly clear and vivid, beautiful and frozen but apocalyptic.

The landscape is packed with people, whose clothes provide little patches of bright color. Bodies are frozen into the river and wander in groups along its banks. The only place free of people is the slopes of the ice mountain, steep and white and pristine. As I turn my gaze from the east, where I saw the river and mountain, to the south, the view becomes more grim. A whole crowd of people outside presses right up against the glass wall of my house, looking longingly inside, their bodies almost grey with cold and frost. I feel compassion for their plight, but I'm not sure what to do about it. My house is not big enough to accommodate even a fraction of the throngs who want to get in.

The people on the left, closer to the river, were all standing very still, but as I continue along the wall to the right, the people on this side are becoming more restless, with a few actively trying to break in. Some are attempting to cut holes in the glass. I wonder how long before they'll get through, and realize that I might need to start warding the walls against them. Then I see a segment of glass fall in, and realize that one woman has just succeeded in making a hole. It is about three feet high and a foot or so wide, in the shape of a narrow heart or mitten. Before she can slip through, I aim my flat palms toward the gap and begin to refreeze the glass (I don't seem to be distinguishing between ice and glass here). After a thin layer of glass or ice manifests over the hole, I pick up the piece that was removed and put it back in place, willing the gaps to fill in.

As I continue along the wall, the situation is getting even worse. There are already more holes. In fact, one woman has just crawled inside. I pick her up like a manniquin to remove her. The crowd is too think to restore her to ground level, so I toss her on top of the others... she can crowd-surf.

I come face to face with another woman who has made a hole in the glass. "You're not real, you're not real," I protest against her attempted incursion. It occurs to me that I should respond to her vaguely threatening presence with kindness. I embrace her and kiss her on the mouth, but she is oddly inert. It's like kissing a doll. I have nothing but a faint impression of staring blue eyes... blank eyes. "You're not real. Do you understand that? The reality of you is that you're not real."

She remains stiff and unresponsive, but doesn't back down, so I try an alternate tack. If she wants to get in the house so badly, then I will welcome her. I grab her arm and start tugging her inside. At this she actually resists, telling a woman standing near her outside, "Don't let go of my arm."

This is an interesting development. "Don't you want to come in?" I taunt. "A minute ago you were clamoring to come in." The dream ends.

Ritual: Too tired to work late so WTB 12am, woke 4am to finish work. WBTB at 6:15, woke 7:15am with first DILD.

DILD, "Mirror Lake": Woke up with fragile recall... as I was getting down notes from the end of the dream, ended up forgetting much of what came before. Thought about it and some scenes came back, but there might be gaps.

I recall an NLD at my grandma's house involving lots of cats and kittens of all sizes and personalities. I was trying to negotiate conflicts between them and protect the kittens from dogs who seemed on the verge of trying to eat them. I woke at one point (though I now suspect this was an FA) and reflected, oh, those were such obvious dream signs (grandma's house & cats), I should be more attentive.

Not sure exactly when I became lucid; it might have happened around this point. I recall lying in bed, thinking it was just like my real bed but instinctively aware that I was dreaming. (In retrospect, typically, room and bed were nothing like WL.) I lay on my back staring at the complex patterns that were playing across the ceiling in black and white, complex and shifting geometric abstractions.

From there the scene changed. I recall the transition clearly, because I found it interesting how I went from lying flat on my back to sitting in a partially reclining chair in a movie theater without ever feeling as though my body had changed position. Corresponding with my new angle of vision, the patterns on the ceiling have now reoriented to become the images on the movie screen, and transformed from abstract to representational. When I was lying in bed I had the impression that my husband was sleeping to my right (odd because in WL he sleeps on my left); now he is sitting on my right in the movie theatre. The rest of the room was empty in the earlier scene, even lacking furniture apart from the bed: the movie theatre, by contrast, is packed with people.

Having experienced all this so distinctively, especially the odd ambivalence of change/no change in my position, I become curious about my dream body and feel it with my hands. How lifelike is it? I'm impressed with its solidity and the distinct way I can feel the muscles moving under my skin as I twist in my seat. (In retrospect, the muscular movement may have been exaggerated.)

Even though I'm only touching my side and hip, the attention to my body makes me feel slightly aroused, and I am reminded of the recent forum thread where the OP asked if it was possible to maintain lucidity through orgasm. Certainly, I had replied. Though I've done it before, some years ago, eventually I decided not to get distracted by dream sex so it's been a while. It now occurred to me to see if I could still do it, if only as an exercise in maintaining stability. I hesitated momentarily since I was in such a public place, but shrugged off those concerns—this is my dream, how much more private can you get?—and indeed no one around me notices or reacts as I move my hand discreetly downward.

All it takes is a few minutes of pressure with my fingers to get myself off. I watch the images on the movie screen to make sure I don't lose focus on the dream. The intensity passes and the dream remains stable. I once again marvel at how easy it is to orgasm in dream compared to the cumbersome efforts required of the physical body. After the movie ends—I don't recall the story at all—I leave the theater. I remember being impressed at how long the dream lasts and how continuous the spaces feel, though in retrospect I don't clearly remember all the ground I covered.

The next thing I remember is a scene inspired by day residue from work. I talk briefly with colleagues, mostly people that I observe have no correspondence to WL. When I get bored with this and turn to leave, a woman asks, "You're leaving already?" I go out the door carrying a large textbook in one hand. I briefly consider discarding it, but decide to keep it with me for now.

Beyond the doorway I find myself in the hallway of a university building. It's hard to say if it is dorms or classrooms, but there are lots of flyers and decorations all over the walls. I note the peculiarities of my vision: the environment is really stable, with lots of detail, but everything is a bit dim and out of focus. I'm deciding what to do next and recall the mirror TOTM. There are always public restrooms in hallways like this, and there will undoubtedly be a mirror in the restroom, so I walk down the hallway and look for a likely door.

I reach a corner where the corridor takes a right turn to the left, so I continue in that direction. After turning the corner, I encounter something unexpected: the hall is much darker here, as if the lights have gone out, and the way forward is block with big stacks of boxes. Interesting... why is the dream trying to stop me from going down this hall? Curious, I levitate and cross the barrier easily—the boxes were only stacked high enough to be an obstacle to someone on foot.

A voice calls out from the darkness behind the boxes, apparently a guy stationed at a desk there to make sure no one gets past. "You can't go back there," he warns me.

"Why?" I ask, genuinely wanting to know the answer. The barriers the dream is throwing in my way are becoming more and more intriguing!

His excuse is really lame and boring: "There are books being deposited."

"Okay," I respond indifferently. I ignore him and continue to levitate down the hallway. Halfway down I encounter a door on my right. Will the guard pursue me? I have the the impression that he starts to get up from his desk, but I've moved so quickly that I have a big lead already. To further distract and delay him, I throw the big textbook I've been carrying in his direction. Helpfully, this frees up my hands so that I can open the door.

I have the impression that the door was supposed to be locked, but I bypass it effortlessly. As I twist the knob and push the door open, I can feel the distinct tickle of thick cobwebs brushing my right hand. This gives me a creepy thrill... is there actually some peril here? Why would the dream try to keep me out of this room? Just past the door is a pair of light switches on the wall to my right. I flip them but nothing happens. Typical.

Although the room is darker than the hall outside, I can still vaguely see. It is unremarkable: just a storeroom with a few boxes stacked here and there. However, one detail draws my attention: it is very thing I was looking for, a mirror! The mirror is large, at least 3x8 feet, and lying flat on the floor in an arbitrary position as though it is merely being stored here. This is great, I can try the TOTM! I've used mirrors as portals before, but they were always vertically aligned. The fact that this mirror is flat on the floor suggests a new way of using it: instead of pushing or walking through, as is natural with vertical mirrors, I should just run over and jump in as though it were a pool of water. I figure it will work as long as I can avoid any doubts or second thoughts.

I take a running jump and fall into the mirror's surface. My alignment isn't perfect—I end up on my back sinking half into the mirror, half into the floor, but I don't let this bother me. There is a momentary disorientation of unconstructed dream space, then I watch curiously as a new environment begins to coalesce, wondering where I'll find myself.

It was predictable, really: after thinking about the mirror-portal as a pool of water, that is exactly where I end up. I am floating on my back on the surface of a very calm body of water, like a pond, and I can hear a stream bubbling somewhere nearby. This is actually quite peaceful and relaxing, and I think how nice it would be to float here for a while... but I'm already waking up.

FA: There is a brief FA where I hear my husband's breathing on my right—still the inverse of our actual positions in WL—and then I wake up for real.

Interlude: From 7:15 to 8am I wake and write the notes from the last dream, then return to bed. It is hard to fall asleep, taking about half an hour. Everytime I get close to sleep, some unexpected noise wakes me: my husband's alarm clock; a text message; and finally an unrelenting sequence of pounding and clattering at the house next door, as though someone is alternately assembling and destroying a pile of scrap metal.

Spoiler for Sexual content:

DILD, "Coitus Interruptus": I find myself at home with my husband, but fully aware that I'm dreaming. I decide to expand on my sexual experimentation in the last dream, and see if I can maintain the same stability with a partner. "Do you want to have sex?" I ask, and at his affirmation, I begin taking off my clothes. The disrobing becomes tedious and seems to be taking an excessive degree of time and effort—it's a dream, can't I just will them away? But I feel like it is important to take my time and do this properly (I was probably wrong about that). Moreover, the dream is not cooperating: after getting my shirt and socks off I start to struggle with my pants, but even as I do so, I can feel myself wearing a shirt and socks again! Nevermind, I tell myself, only the pants really need to come off. I lose patience with how much effort this is taking and try to will them off, but the frustration wakes me up—

—or so I think. Getting out of bed, I have to ask... am I really awake? I can't be sure (only in retrospect does it become clear that the layout of the room was all wrong). Looking around for dream signs, I see a ceramic catfood bowl stacked within a metal one (catfood bowls shouldn't be in the bedroom at all but I fail to realize that!) What has caught my eye is the fact that the ceramic bowl is cracked. I don't remember the bowl being cracked... is this really happening? (Actually, I noticed yesterday an unexpected crack in a WL wooden bowl, so this must be DR.) I go over to the bowl and tug on the cracked area. Pieces fall to the floor, everything acting very natural and lifelike. If I'm going to figure out whether this is a dream, I have to try something more drastic. I point my finger at one of the shards and will it to levitate. Sure enough, it promptly rises into the air and floats wherever my finger directs it. Awesome! So I really am dreaming! Suspicions confirmed, I walk straight to my husband's office: "Want to try again?" Clothes are no obstacle this time since I am still nude from getting out of bed, but at the moment of penetration I wake up—

—or so I think. I'm lying in bed, but I can tell I'm not completely awake, because I'm seeing some random page of text in front of my eyes. I must still be dreaming. I'm enjoying the facility with which I've been able to detect and maintain FAs in this dream. I return to my husband's office to continue the experiment. This time he isn't there. I try to imagine us having sex in the absence of his DC, but it is not the least bit convincing, no different from "imagining" in WL. I find this odd. DCs are mental projections, so shouldn't I be able to compensate with my mind alone? Apparently it is more complicated than that.

I go back to the bedroom and find my husband there. I propose sex but he claims he is spent, apparently from our last encounters. I insist, and he goes along. This time we manage full penetration, and oddly, at the same moment I feel a corresponding sensation of fullness in my mouth. I figure the act must be triggering an association with oral sex. At the moment it feels distracting and uncomfortable, and since it doesn't go away on its own, I reach into my mouth to try to manually pluck out the sensation. This is even worse: it feels like I am tugging on my own esophagus, so I stop. I wake up—

—but did I? After that chain of FAs I wait and try to be sure. This feels more like real wakefulness, and I can feel the weight and warmth of the cat lying on me, in the position he took as I was falling asleep. I decide I'm truly awake this time, review the memories briefly, and get up to write at 9:30am. This time I notice a physical sensation of sexual arousal, which was lacking after the earlier dream. I wonder if it is because I woke up in mid-experiment or because it was not successfully resolved this time.

Ritual: WTB 12:30am, woke 7:30 with first DILD. No techniques, hadn't really intended to get lucid, but I was wearing a Jawbone fitness tracker on my wrist to bed for the first time. It's a bit tight and I think the unfamiliar sensation served as an anchor for consciousness.

DILD (eventually), "Hong Kong Apartment": I am in Hong Kong with my husband, staying in the apartment of someone unknown to me. I'm curious who this guy is and why we're at his place, so I'm attentive to my surroundings. It is a one-bedroom apartment and the layout feels familiar; I figure it must be a common floorplan here. The first thing I remember is being in a small room of unclear function, a study maybe, and looking at a plaque on the wall. It depicts a Chinese character, the archaic version of that character, and the pinyin transliteration: sōng, corresponding to the English word "page"—not the leaf of a book but the job title. From this I suppose that the young man who lives here must be serving as a page in the Hong Kong government, in the same way that there are pages in the US Congress.

My husband is talking to me, and I'm vaguely following his words but not entirely sure what he's going on about. I'm still trying to figure out why we're here: does my husband know the guy who owns this place, or is this some kind of Airbnb arrangement? Meanwhile I'm trying to wrap an enormous porkchop—the size of a prime rib steak—that I have for some reason. It is fully grilled but no one has eaten it yet, and I'm not hungry now so I want to put it away. It had been wrapped in butcher's paper but I'm having trouble re-wrapping it, and this distracts my attention for some time as I end up having to use a piece of foil to supplement the paper where it is torn. As I finally wrap the porkchop successfully and go to put it in the fridge, I see that there is fresh lettuce in the fridge, and I've also noticed dirty plates on the counter. I had assumed the apartment's owner was letting us stay because he was away somewhere, but these details make me think he must be currently living here and could walk in at any moment.

I know my husband needs to leave for some meeting or event, and our conversation is delaying his departure, so finally I say in exasperation, "Get out of here already!" Right after he goes out the door, I worry that he might have misunderstood my tone of voice and thought I was angry, so I opened the door and called after his retreating form, "I didn't mean to speak harshly." Meanwhile a girl with short, curly blonde hair is walking from right to left in front of the apartment, and I think she might be someone he had just been referring to—at the time I even recalled her name, something with the initials "J.S."—so I gaze at her curiously. She looks back at me with the self-conscious but indifferent air of someone wondering why a stranger is staring at them. It seems like it would be awkward to start a conversation so I go back inside.

Alone in the apartment, I look around at the decor. There are a lot of hand-carved wooden animal figures, and they remind me of a set that I bought in a museum shortly before Christmas, but couldn't figure out who to give them to. They seem to match this guy's tastes... maybe I should give them to him, in thanks for the loan of his apartment. It seems like a nice gesture so I plan on it. In the center of the main room, which has an open floor plan connected with the kitchenette, is a wide square column that is hollow inside to serve as storage space. I note with interest that there are a number of oversized books here. One of them is at least four feet tall, and the title on the spine reads Disney as Orientalism, accompanied by some Disney-style graphics. I make a mental note that later I'll want to pull that one out and flip through it. It's so big it won't fit on a table—I'll have to do this on the floor! It is the largest of the books in this closet, but none of them are small. Several others are about three feet tall with matching red covers, and I see that one of them is about Shanghai. Books of this size must have cost a fortune... this guy must be doing well here. I wonder if it would be rude to read his books without asking permission first, but figure there's no harm in it.

I wonder how I'll explain my presence if this guy shows up while I'm here by myself, since I'm still not clear on who he exactly is or why I'm at his apartment. In fact, this question starts to bother me, because it seems like I should have a better explanation. Of course, it's always possible that I'm dreaming, but... I want to discount this at first, since it seems to contradict what I'm experiencing from this environment. It is so detailed, lifelike, and stable, it really doesn't feel like a dream. But I make myself take the time to think this over more carefully: if I am actually dreaming, that would explain a lot, like why I had a porkchop, something I almost never eat, and the difficulty I had wrapping it. It would explain why I am in Hong Kong with no idea why I am here, and why I find myself in the apartment of a guy I don't even know. I don't use any techniques to RC, I just think it over and gradually recognize the illusory nature of my surroundings: indeed I am dreaming!

So now what? Normally I would apply myself to some task or other, but I had specifically made a point not to do so this time, if I got lucid, because I'm facing too much work today to spend hours writing up my report. So my plan was not to do anything specific, but simply to contemplate and enjoy the dream environment. (For some reason I had the idea that this would save me time writing things up later, although that is proving not to be the case!) I walk toward the back wall of the apartment, which is completely transparent, and look outside. It is still night, but there is a well-lit open-air bar just below, with a stream running behind it. There are a surprising number of people down there, and all seem to be relaxed and enjoying themselves, like guests at a resort. I sit down to watch the scene, while thinking back over what I've just experienced. I'm still impressed by how detailed and stable this dream was. For instance, that Chinese character on the wall—it was so clearly articulated, even though I don't think it was one I've ever seen before, and I strongly doubt it's even a real one. I wished I had looked at it more carefully, and focus on reviving the mental image. I think can remember the top elements of the modern version of the character, but I'm vague about what composed the bottom, which was complex, and I had not studied it closely at the time. The archaic version was simpler, and I can remember it much more distinctly. Concentrating on this inadvertently wakes me up.

Interlude: After writing the above account and going back to bed at 8:45am, I certainly didn't intend to get lucid again, given that I've already spent a lot of time writing when I should be working, but I never want to rule it out. I ended up having several FAs, the later ones bringing on a very long bout of lucidity, in which I just wandered around exploring rather than working on specific tasks. There would still be a lot to write up but given time constraints I'll have to keep it brief. Woke for the day at 10:15.

FA: I was in the bathroom thinking that I should make a more consistent effort to recognize those little discrepancies that might make me notice I'm dreaming, like I did in the last dream, without realizing that I was actually dreaming at that very moment.

FA/DILD, "Trail of Smoke": I hovered for a long time on the border between sleep and waking and enjoyed observing its ambiguities. For instance, there was a point where I was convinced I was immersed in dream visuals but hearing everything perfectly accurately from waking life (I was probably wrong about this). I caught at least one FA and was pleased after my failure to catch the last one. Then a long dream followed where I was basically lucid the whole time, but also knew I wouldn't have time to write it up in much detail, so only certain episodes that were especially interesting stand out clearly in my memory. I really can't take the time to include them all here, but the last scene was worth mentioning:

I am wandering through a dream environment typical for me, a labyrinthine enclosed public space, and having just seen someone smoking on a magazine cover, I now find myself smoking a cigarette. The smoke doesn't dissipate completely but lingers faintly in the air along the path I have walked, like that memorable scene from Donnie Darko (2001). It looks like I could potentially trace back the smoke and rediscover all the places I have visited in the course of this long dream. This makes me wonder: how big is the dream world? And the answer seems obvious: there are no boundaries, it is as big as mind itself. Standing in that world even as I recognize its boundlessness, I feel a sense of awe.

I gaze at the glimmering smoke trails and murmur, "All the places I've been are like a trail of smoke that follows me."

Ritual: WTB 11:30pm, WBTB 5–5:45am. Took supplements (l-theanine, alpha-gpc, piracetam, bacopa), did about half an hour of relaxation/breathing/counting on my back. Toward the end had brief series of vivid hypnagogic images (close up of eagle's head, view of a forest) then snapped back to full wakefulness. Not worried, this always happens. Turned on my left side to fall asleep. Woke with dream at 6:30am, so I had probably been asleep for about fifteen minutes.

DILD, "Time Stop": I've just finished a multi-course meal at a nice restaurant and I'm standing a the bar afterward, where the proprietor is offering me a special drink. While she prepares it, I notice that I can barely stand, my legs are crumpling under me, and I stagger as I try to regain my balance, hoping no one will notice. I kneel at the bar, which is low enough to accommodate this, to disguise my inability to stand. This is so embarrassing... am I drunk? I think back and don't understand how that could be, since I've only had ordinary wine pairings with my meal. Then I realize the truth: ohhhh... that incredible heaviness in my legs, that's just because I'm falling asleep!

I'm relieved to understand what is going on, and also impressed that I can think so clearly about the fact that my real body is falling asleep in bed without disrupting the dream. I decide to go on with the narrative that is playing out because I really want to try this drink. The bartender sets an unusual glass in front of me. It is shaped like a particular wooden table made by Isamu Noguchi circa 1941, but with a semi-circular indentation on top for the drink. It is made of hollow light blue glass and the interior is full of crushed ice, to keep the drink cool. The whole thing is very small, like a sake cup, and the indentation looks like it holds less than an ounce of liquid.



I try the drink, which is a clear liquid, pleasantly bright and floral in taste, in flavor a bit like St. Germain but lighter-bodied and not so cloyingly sweet. I complement the bartender and ask what it is made of. "Catfish liqueur," she replies. I'm impressed! I wouldn't have guessed, as the taste was not the least bit fishy. Another girl asks how the drink is made, and narrates as the bartender shows her: "So you mix it with that blue stuff, then top with..." I look at the bottle she's indicating. It is a gallon-sized jug made of translucent plastic containing a clear liquid. It reminds me of those extra-large bottles of Heinz white vinegar, but the shape of the bottle is more like that typically used for laundry detergent. There is a graphic of naturalistic forest trees on the front of the bottle which makes it resemble the cover of a nature magazine. The brand name clearly reads: "Gesuckt." From the name I assume it is a foreign import, probably German, and wonder if I can buy it at any of my usual grocery stores.

My earlier thought about "fishiness" has now taken the form of a chunk of sardine or mackerel that I discover lodged between my gum and upper lip. I reason that it must have come from a dish I ate during the meal earlier. I prod it out with my tongue and finish chewing it. Meanwhile I'm walking away from the bar toward the restaurant area. There are a lot of people in the room, which reminds me—hey! I could try the TOTM again, see if I can do it properly this time.

"Freeze!" I say loudly, but people keep going about their business. I remember the difficulty I had with this last time, and it also reminds me that I'm supposed to be stopping time, so I switch wording. "Time stop!" I command. I say it a few times, still not getting much result, so I decide an explanation is needed, addressing the room in a loud voice so that everyone can hear. "I said 'time stop!' That means everybody stops moving. Time stop! Time stop, everybody!"

I look around and find that everyone has frozen in place. Okay, this is better, I seem to have gotten the point across. Now I'm supposed to put someone in an embarassing position. I didn't plan ahead for this, so I'm going to have to come up with an idea on the fly. My gaze falls on a stout old lady in the middle of the room. I walk over and unbutton her light blue jacket and white blouse. Inside, she's wearing a pink bra, and I'm relieved to see that it has a front closure, so I unhook it and reveal her breasts. I hope I'm not being too mean, but remind myself that it's just a dream so there will be no lasting harm.

Now I have to get everyone moving again. What's the opposite of "time stop"? I try some variants: "Uhhh... go. Start. Start moving." This works, but meanwhile I had taken my eyes off the old lady to check whether everyone else was back in motion, and when I look at her again, her clothes are already back in order and no one is reacting as if they had seen anything unusual. I chide myself for not paying closer attention. I'd better try again.

"Time stop! Time stop!" This time the DCs react much more promptly, like they're getting the hang of it. Okay, what should I do this time? I look around for ideas. Among a group of people in one corner are two meathead-looking guys. I go over and start posing them really close together, much closer than a couple of straight men would normally be comfortable with. As I move and angle their bodies, I notice that it doesn't feel so much like time has stopped as that they are just playing along while I reposition them, and there's some difficulty, maybe even slight resistance, as I lean their faces together as though they were about to kiss. Finally I get it just how I want, so that their lips are almost touching. Then I step back a few paces so that when I restart time, I'll have a clear view of both their reactions and the people around them.

This time I restart the scene with more confidence, like I'm getting the hang of this too. "Okay, renew!" I command, punctuating the signal by clapping the first two fingers of my right hand into the palm of my left. It feels like being a movie director.

I watch closely as people start moving again. I was hoping the two guys would either react with comic embarrassment or, even better, be overcome by a latent attraction and really start kissing. Instead, they simply draw away from one another without any expression or commentary, and no one around them takes any visible notice. I'm disappointed with the blasé behavior of all these DCs, but I have to admit it makes sense: they're projections of my own mind, after all, and I'm fairly blasé myself most of the time.

Observing a dog walking through the room, I momentarily wonder if I should try again, but the lackluster reactions of the DCs has sapped my motivation, and I feel that I have adequately performed the TOTM. I wonder if I should wake up and write... but the dream seems stable, and I'm reluctant to end it earlier than I have to. However, I'm aware how easy it is to start forgetting the details if I don't record them promptly, so I do the next best thing and start verbally recounting my memories of the scene, to help fix them in mind for later. As I'm doing this I end up waking anyway.

Interlude: From 6:30 to 7:15am I record my notes and then return to bed, going to sleep with no further techniques. I wake up at 8:30am from another DILD.

DILD, "Sphere": The plot has been going on for a while but I don't remember much detail from before I become lucid. I'm sitting on the toilet in the bathroom of a house that belongs to a male friend I've been hanging out with for most of the dream [!WL]. I feel guilty when I notice that I've almost used up all his toilet paper. I tell myself that I should really stop giving into the urge to use the bathroom when I'm dreaming. This isn't waking life, where it actually makes sense to go if you feel like you have to. In a dream it's completely pointless, a waste of time, and kind of gross. If I'm doing this, it's because I'm too caught up in the idea of a physical body. I'm reminded of something Sageous wrote in the forum, how he doesn't really have a body in dreams anymore. I should work on getting less attached to mine.



I get up and go over to the bathroom sink, studying my reflection in the mirror. It's actually a close resemblance, as far as I can tell through the mask that covers most of my features. The mask is reminiscent of the one worn by Michio Ito in his 1915 "Fox Dance," though mine lacks the long snout and doesn't cover my mouth. Also my eyes are clearly visible through the sockets. The fact that I am wearing a mask does not strike me as odd, and instead I ponder what to do about my body. I don't think I can eliminate the idea of it all at once, so it might be best to proceed in stages. What's the most radical distortion I can think of? I know! I'll become a sphere.

I keep watching my reflection as my face starts swelling and widening. It looks disturbing at first, like obesity or an illness, and I have to focus on making my whole body expand, not just my face. Not only can I witness this happening in the mirror, I can actually feel it. As I become rounder and rounder, I remind myself that there is no reason a sphere should only see out of two frontally positioned eyes. I should try to expand my concept of vision to include the area behind me. This only partly works: I'm now getting visual feed from what seems like the opposite side of my sphere, and can perceive the rim of the tub and a bit of the floor and shower curtain, all very close up. However in the process I lose my frontal vision, and as I try to experience both visual fields at once I become disoriented and start rotating in place, which makes sense given that I'm a sphere with nothing to stand on anymore. The disorientation gets so bad that I'm afraid it might disrupt the dream, so I let my body snap back to its familiar structure, satisfied that I had a reasonable success for my first try.

I look back in the mirror to check my appearance again. My reflection looks like it did before, and I'm still convinced that it is just like waking life—although in retrospect I realize that my dream-self had a brunette bob rather than the shoulder-length brown hair of WL. I'm still wearing the mask and want to look at the face underneath, so I take it off. There are more layers of mask under the first, and I peel them off one by one, until I'm finally just wearing glasses, and take those off too. Finally my face is uncovered, and I am satisfied that it is a good likeness. I notice an unusual vividness to my eyes, which are sparkling and happy, and I am pleased with my appearance.

Stepping outside, I realize that I'm still carrying my glasses. Should I just throw them away? I feel a natural reluctance, but remind myself that it's a dream, it doesn't matter. Then I reason that I might want to use them later: this could be a good trick to improve focus if the dream gets hazy. Sure, I could always manifest a fresh pair, but that will be easier if I condition my expectations by saving these now. So I slip the glasses into my jacket pocket.

What should I do now? I'm in a great mood and have no particular task in mind, so I decide to explore the dream world. Perched alone on a grassy hillside I see a strange building, very gaudy, with red roofs under a gold dome: it looks like a cross between an old McDonald's and a sultan's palace. I realize it is a restaurant of some kind and head over there.

I'm still feeling unusually happy and excited as I walk in, so I pump my fist and go "Woo!" My enthusiasm has been making the people around me more friendly, I notice, and remind myself that I should try to be more like this in WL. The restaurant is small inside, like a cafe, with a several tables and a counter where I go up to order. Despite the counter it is not a fast food restaurant: the menu consists of about six innovative dishes printed on a small square of white paper.

"What's the tastiest thing on the menu?" I ask, then realize I have a craving for spicy food and ask, "I mean the tastiest spicy dish."

"The D-4," replies the server. I check the menu and the description lists this as a big steak dish, which sounds too heavy and will take forever to prepare, so I look at the appetizers instead. There are only three listed, but two of them sound like they consist of just three pieces of fish, served nigiri sushi style. The fish that interests me looks like langoustine, but with the soft, ribbed texture of monkfish. The server tries to warn me that it's a very small dish, but I say, "I know. It looks like someone has already left one here," pointing to the piece sitting on the menu.

I put in my order and take a place at a small table, then get up to think this over. Can I really commit valuable dream time to sitting down for a whole meal, even a small one? Shouldn't I be doing something more productive? Maybe I should just leave. But I consider that the experience might be interesting, and I can even try to combine it with a task—the circumstances are ideal to work on summoning, something I've always struggled with.

I walk back over and tell the server, "Actually, I'm here to meet somebody." I pull out my phone, wondering who to call among the characters I've tried (unsuccessfully) to summon over the years. But then I notice that someone is already sitting at my table, so I go over to see who it is. I've never seen this guy before: he looks like he's in his twenties, with straight, mousy-brown hair and thin, very pointed features.

"Hi, are you here to meet me?" He nods.

Okay, I think, rolling with the circumstances, this could work. I'll meet someone new, like a blind date. "What's your name?" I inquire.

"I'm Denny, a crass ass." He looks bashfully down at the table.

This odd term rings a bell. Didn't I, much earlier in the dream, long before I got lucid, meet a guy named Paul who used the exact same term for himself? What an oddity; I don't think I've ever heard that term in life. What could it mean?

"Did you say, 'a crass ass'?" I ask, enunciating clearly. The young man nods.

"Why would you call yourself that?" I am genuinely mystified.

"It's what my friends call me."

Unfortunately I woke up before I could find out anything more!

Ritual: WTB 12:30am, woke ~6am and set vibrating alarm for 40 minutes. I don't have a clear memory of it going off the first time (~6:40). The second time it went off (~7:20) I seem to have experienced it entirely within the dream state. My lucidity lapsed shortly thereafter but came back when I noticed that the circumstances were suitable for one of the TOTMs. I must have dreamed for about ten minutes after the alarm went off the second time, waking at ~7:30 with 29 minutes left on the alarm going into its third 40 minute cycle.

NLD: I was on a bus traveling through a desert. Looking out the window, I saw an enormous lizard resembling an early-model godzilla. [DR: an image of a similar godzilla was shown briefly John Oliver's show on Sunday night.] It didn't look real, because on closer inspection its "skin" was wrinkled and rippling like that of inflatable parade float rather than a living creature. I concluded that it must be a world boss and looked away. Even though it was so much larger than me and very far off, I was afraid that my scrutiny might draw its attention, and I was not equipped to battle it without a raid.

Our destination was a cave, which was pleasantly cool and dark after the burning light and heat of the desert outside. I passed through the large front cavern through a door labeled "Imagemakers" that led into a back room. These "imagemakers" were literally cave painters, a studio full of artists each doing individual murals on the walls, but in a modern, Asian-inspired style. [DR: One painting seemed reminiscent of Toshio Aoki's Thunder Kami (1900), which I was looking at yesterday.]

I comment to one of the artists how pleasantly cool it is here in the back room. She replies, "It's only 25, if you're not careful you might freeze." [DR? I had reviewed the TOTMs before bed and my notes used the word "freeze," which also ended up being the task I attempted later in the same dream.] I assume she means Celsius because it's not that cold in here, and try to remember what that would be in Fahrenheit—72 or so? I point out to her that when I start to feel cold I can just put on more clothes. Outside in the heat, there was nothing I could do, so this is preferable.

EILD-FA: I feel the vibrating alarm and "wake up," or so I believe, though it retrospect it was obviously an FA because I was in a room with no resemblance to WL. I am sitting in bed reading a book, and after I feel the vibration I remember not to move at first, lest I break REMA. As I start to feel more confident in my dream senses, I venture to turn the page of the book. Slowly I expand my range of motion until I'm sure that I'm not going to disrupt the dream. The plot of the previous dream continues (insofar as it has any continuity, which isn't much) and I soon lose what little lucidity the alarm had prompted.

NLD: Now everyone's talking about a bride who is coming, also on a bus, and someone instructs me to go to a counter to buy a present for her, "a small dog." I had envisioned a tiny dog that was only a few inches long, but the two available at the counter aren't small by any reckoning; they must weigh 40 or 50 pounds. The clerk asks me what I want the dog to be able to do. I think this over, rationalizing that it is a gift to someone who might not be expecting it, so it would be best if it isn't too high maintenance. "Ummm.... sleep a lot?" is my first suggestion. I try to think of other possibilities. "Stand up? Lick? Can they do that?" The clerk looks at me and answers in a tone that suggests he thinks I am an idiot, "Yeah, they can all do that."

While I'm deliberating someone has come up and bought one of the two dogs, so I'm stuck with the one that is left. I think it's really ugly, with shaggy beige fur, and I hope the bride likes it or I'll be stuck with it. At least the dog has a good personality, friendly and responsive, nuzzling up to me like it wants to be liked. I go to another room and start talking with two girls. Suddenly the dog starts humping the floor, which embarrasses me. "I hope he doesn't do that around her," I say, meaning the bride. One of the girls laughts comments that the way she's been carrying on with her new husband, she probably won't be offended.

DILD: As the conversation continues, I suddenly notice: hey, I'm in a room with DCs, this would be a perfect opportunity to try the "freeze" TOTM. I mean, okay, there's only two of them, but we are in a room, so that should qualify as a "roomful."

"Freeze!" I say suddenly, interrupting whatever else we were talking about. The girls stare at me with looks that say "WTF." They're still moving normally, so I issue the command again, attempting to focus my will by tensing my body. That doesn't work either, and I realize that I have the wrong approach. I need to be focusing my mind, not my body. "Freeeeeze," I say cajolingly, drawing out the word. At this point they do stop moving, but I have the impression that they're just playing along. I decide to try the narration technique. "Your body feels so heavy, you can't move. You're paralyzed, like when you sleep." That reminds me, of course we're not completely paralyzed when we sleep, and I'd better not kill them by overdoing it. I hastily add, "You can breathe, of course, just like when you're sleeping."

The girls seem to be complying now, so I study them closely to be sure. I also remember that I should take conscious note of their names, which I had instinctively known earlier in the dream but had almost forgotten on going lucid. The smaller one on the left, with the dark hair... I think back and all I can come up with is "Calm." It sounds odd, but that's the only name that I remember for her. The plumper girl on the right, a blonde, I know for sure is called "Amy."

The smaller girl seems completely comatose now. I lift her arm and drop it, and it falls with satisfying limpness. The larger girl is also lying still, but I get the impression she's just pretending: one of her arms is in a position that could only be maintained by exerting muscle control. I lift it and it is stiff in my grasp.

Then I realize I'm going about this all wrong. I try to remember the specifics of the TOTM. Was I just supposed to freeze them in place, or was there something about actually stopping time? I can't clearly remember the wording. I decide I'd better try the latter in any case, it might work better—and I won't have to worry about the girls accidentally suffocating if time itself has stopped.

"Freeze!" I shout, now indicating not only the two of them but the whole environment, with only myself as an exception. I find that the logical impossibility of this trouble me: if I continue moving normally, then in what sense can time itself be said to have stopped? It doesn't make any sense. I remind myself that this is a dream, and I'm not obliged to work out the physics of it. I look at Amy to see if my new strategy has resulted in any improvement. No, although she is lying quite still, and her arm looks properly limp now, she's actually tapping the fingers of one hand.

"Freeze!" I shout again, looking directly at her hand. Still tapping. "Freeze!" I yell, glaring at the hand. Tap... tap... tap. "Freeze!" I insist, mustering all my intent. The hand finally goes limp. It occurs to me that at some point I'm going to need to write all this up, and the thought wakes me.

Notes: I never did remember the second part of the TOTM, not just in the dream but even after waking up, recording my notes, and going about my day... but I had the feeling that there might have been more to it, that I left something out, and on coming home from work and checking the forum, I see that there was a whole second part of the task that I skipped!

Ritual: WTB 2:30am, after a little over four hours of sleep I strap the vibrating alarm to my wrist, set for 35 minutes. When it goes off it wakes me very definitely. I lay still and try to DEILD but can feel that REMA is broken. Turn down vibration strength to minimum, note time at 7:20am, and try again... same result. Remove alarm and go to sleep normally. Next time I wake up, try again with better success... at the time thought it was DEILD but realize now it must have actually been a DILD because I was not in my WL bed, so it must have been FA rather than real waking.

DILD-DEILD: I wake up and remember not to move. I am lying on my right side, but I am in a bed in my grandmother's house. Momentarily I wonder why I am there, but "remember" that I am visiting her. Oddly, in retrospect it feels like my lengthwise orientation—the directions my head and feet were respectively pointing—was also the opposite from how I sleep WL, and that the bed was on the opposite wall, sort of like the whole room was a mirror image of my WL bedroom. But since everything was in the same relative position to everything else, I'm not sure where that feeling came from.

I try to DEILD and at first I'm convinced I'm physically moving but REMA seems intact so I relax and explore my sensory awareness. Finally I just start to rock back and forth, until I feel confident enough in my dream body to get out of bed. The door to the hall is open, and on the other side I can see the living room, lit up by a Christmas tree with beautiful golden lights. I know it is my grandmother's house in Texas and don't realize that she hasn't lived there for years.

My awareness is fairly low all around and I don't recall my tasks either. Aimlessly I go outside and spontaneously a magnificent chestnut horse canters up to me, already saddled. I used to ride a lot in Texas so it is probably the result of mental association. I caress the shoulder of the horse and put my left foot in the stirrup, barely able to reach that high as the animal is quite tall. I start to pull myself up and into the saddle but I lose my balance and get "stuck" with my right leg halfway over. I waver there with my left leg in the stirrup and my right in mid-air, somehow unable to complete the movement. Finally I force it with an act of will and get astride the horse, but it doesn't feel right, the proportions are all wrong. The mental dissonance wakes me (although I am now convinced this too was an FA).

FA(?): On waking, I review the dream and recognize my mental error in thinking that I had been visiting my grandmother's old house and that it was Christmas-time, but I thought I was at least correct in the position of the tree, and remembered seeing in that spot one year. Now that I am fully awake, I have my doubts even about this: my "remembered" layout of the house was all wrong, and I don't think I ever even visited at Christmas time.

DILD-DEILD: I didn't think REMA had broken yet so I tried to DEILD again, and there were some ambiguous successes that I don't recall well (I still suspect the whole thing was a DILD, and that even most of the "transitions" occurred entirely within the dream state).

At some point I am back in my WL house, and I open the front door to go outside. After the stunt on the horse I wonder if the door will impede my progress and, probably in response to my thought, I discover that after I open the first door panel there is still a second one to go through, but I try not to cause unnecessary obstacles for myself and go through the second door easily.

It is very foggy in the front yard, and it is also a wide grassy area with scattered trees rather than a busy suburban street. The fog is making everything vague so I go for the tried and true, "Clarity now!" I shout it a few times and the dream responds, a bit sarcastically overdoing it. Now everything is too sharp, almost pixellated. I can see white and black birds with incredible definition in their pattern and plumage, but the focus is too sharp to look comfortably real. This is preferable to the earlier fogginess, however, so I go along with it.

As so often, I start instinctively singing as I explore the landscape. My voice is somewhat annoying this time, high-pitched and overly sweet, and there's nothing especially beautiful or memorable about the melodies I'm coming up with. It sounds like the sort of singing you'd hear in a mediocre mid-century musical. But I stick with it, hoping I can use it to influence the dream.

The landscape is pleasantly pastoral in all directions now. I am walking in an open meadow, and there are scattered trees here and there. I can't see any other figures, and I decide things would be more interesting if I could interact with a DC, so I decide to request one. I sing something about the "view," and then in the next line ask the dream to "send someone to talk to..." — and hesitate, having botched the lyrics. If I could end the with line "to you," it would have proper meter and rhyme, but obviously I wanted the DC to come talk "to me," so I tack the word "me" awkwardly onto the end of the line. It sounds so stupid that I break character and laugh at myself.

I give up on the singing and make my request again with a simple act of will. This works much better, and at once I can see a woman—of a sort—approaching me. She has a human torso but the lower part of her body is that of a large serpent, like a naga, and she resembles Medusa in having snake-like strands instead of hair. While I contemplate her unusual appearance, a second such creature shows up at her side. The face of the second one is thinner, with high cheekbones, attractive even, and her snake-hair is asymmetrically coiffed like elaborate dreadlocks. I find her appearance so striking that I want to complement her.

"I like your... arrangement." It comes out awkwardly because I realized mid-sentence that "hair" wasn't the right word and had to choose another one, but I'm not sure if she'll understand. "I mean your snakes," I explain hurriedly, hoping I'm not inadvertently being offensive by naming them as such. The naga I'm addressing studies me with a twisted expression, like she's not sure whether to be flattered or irritated.

I converse with them for a few minutes but unfortunately I can't recall what we discussed. Then they ask me for a favor: will I go up that hill nearby and tell their father that they're working on the project? It sounds like an innocent request, but I sense that there is something sinister behind it. I suspect that this is a ploy to lure me into their encampment, where I will be taken captive. As I hesitate, pondering their motivations, I can actually feel the pressure of their minds against mine, like they are attempting to work a subtle enchantment to compel me to go. I lash back mentally, and they both recoil.

Now the veneer of friendliness drops, and the two nagas become openly hostile. I don't feel like getting dragged into a fight, so I instinctively put an end to the situation. At the top of my voice I shout wordless syllables that sound like a whiplash or thunderclap—"Kuk-KAH!"—and clap my hands together at the same instant. The two nagas vanish into thin air. I am satisfied with how well that worked, but feel a faint pang of concern... I hope I didn't destroy them; I only meant to remove them from my presence!

The dream ends at this point. I wake up and start report around 8:45am.

Ritual: wtb 3am, around 9am set vibrating alarm for 36 minutes. The first time it went off, I felt like I was already awake, that I had been lying awake for several minutes before I felt the vibration. In retrospect I was quickly suspicious that this was a false memory, but the consequence was that I woke up for real. I reset the alarm to go off in 28 minutes, and went back to sleep.

EILD: I felt the vibration again, and at first I thought it was another failed attempt, that I was wide awake again. But this time I convince myself not to give up so easily, to lay still and explore it. I wiggle my fingers. Actually... that feels right, like dream movement. I wiggle the fingers of the other hand and gradually start to engage my whole body, but soon, no, I can still sense the dream body but I'm convinced that I'm accidentally moving my real body too. (In retrospect, it seems likely that my impressions of moving the physical body were false, as this surely would have broken aphasia.) It feels like the two kinds of sensory awareness are layered together. My dream sense is not broken but I need to find some way to desynch from the physical, to move unnaturally in a way the real body can't follow. I try to bend my arm the wrong way at the elbow, down into the mattress. I find this a bit difficult for some reason, but something else happens: I start to understand that I am creating all this difficulty in my own mind, that it really doesn't have to be this complicated. Upon this realization I simply find myself standing next to the bed, fully in dream. That certainly makes things easier!

My WL awareness was somewhat confused throughout this whole process, since during the whole time I was lying in bed I had the impression that I could overhear a colleague from work talking to her daughter (who I have never met). They were discussing a humanitarian volunteer program that the colleague was doing in another country, maybe Africa. I listened with interest since I had not been aware that she was involved with anything like this (there is no RL basis), but it made sense since she is a very kind and generous person. She was talking about some kind of environmental crisis and said that the local people trusted the "agents," that is, the field workers of this organization, like her, but not the administration or the experts that were sent in to instruct them. The challenge was teaching the locals new ways of environmental management so they were no longer unsustainably exploiting their natural resources. I think it was targeting water usage.

After I was fully transitioned into the dream, I remembered that I had reset my vibrating alarm to an interval of only seven minutes, so I would have to work quickly before it went off again, waking me up. Curiously, now I'm not sure if I really did reset it, and suspect I dreamed that part too. The nice thing about a device like this is that it actually provides hard evidence against which to check my unreliable memories. Nope! It's still set to 28 minutes. So there was one point this morning where I definitely did reset it from 36 to 28, but the later memory of resetting it to 7 minutes—for some reason convinced that I would be able to fall asleep within that time frame—turns out to have been an FFA (false falling asleep), evidence that I was already asleep.

With (so I mistakenly thought) only seven minutes to work in, minus whatever time I had already spent transitioning, I walk quickly through the house and toward the front door, ready to plunge into deeper dreamspace. As I pass through the living room, something bumps into my leg from the pile of wood stacked near the fireplace. At first I plan to ignore it but then I wonder if the dream is trying to get my attention, so I glance down and see a pair of scissors. I'm not sure what to make of this but I grab them and take them with me. I go outside, where the sky is cloudy and half-lit as though it were dawn or dusk. I realize that this is wrong, and recall that it must already be after 9am in WL.

What was my task? I have difficulty remembering, so while I'm thinking about it, I decide to do something spontaneous. I'm still holding the scissors... I know! I'll cut off my hair. As I walk I reach awkwardly behind my head and randomly lift locks of hair with my left hand, cutting them near the scalp with the scissors held in my right. This all feels surprisingly lifelike, which makes me think momentarily: I had better be right that I am dreaming! But then I figure, what's the worst thing that could happen if I accidentally cut off my real hair? I'd have to shave my head? Not a big deal, I even did that once in college.

All this time I'm still trying to think of the tasks I had planned—why is it sometimes so hard to remember? Finally it comes to me. Right! I was going to try to roleplay a familiar character. I decide on Shriven, my WoW character, since I've played her the longest and also the most recently. My tabletop characters are much more psychologically complex, but I think I should probably start with something simpler. Okay, how do to this? I remember that I was going to try the narration technique. I start with something really basic: "Shriven is running," I murmur. My stride changes as I think I remember what her run looks like, becoming more mechanical. That part makes sense, given that she's digitally rendered. I don't have the impression that I look or feel any different, though. I keep trying, and although I don't recall my narrations in detail, I have the impression that they were extremely bland.

I'm running through city streets now. At one point I notice that the buildings all seem older, eighteenth-century maybe, though this still just looks like one of my typical dream cities rather than a more appropriate setting for what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm still cutting my hair as I go—having started, I feel like I should finish the job. When I finally slice through the last tress, I stop and gaze at my reflection in a store window. Not bad! Although short hair never really suits my features, the haircut itself turned out alright, kind of punk/pixieish. In fact, it even reminds me of Shriven's hair, which is short and spiky and irregular. However, there is no real resemblance, and in all other respects my reflection looks unusually like my WL appearance: same eyes, same face, same hair color. Usually in dreams I see a lot more distortion.

I use the scissors to make a few finishing touches to the haircut before realizing that it is pointless to be so finicky in a dream. In fact, I'm done with the scissors now... I'm just going to drop them on the ground! This always feels so liberating, since I would never do that in WL. I continue running effortlessly down the street and when I come to the end there is a ten foot gap to cross to reach a platform or walkway. Jump—you can do this! I clear the gap, just barely, and feel proud of myself as I land.

Still, I don't feel like I'm making much progress on my task so I try to figure out how to improve my approach. What does Shriven do? Well, she often summons her mount, an undead warhorse. I narrate this to myself, but nothing happens. Every time I do this in game the horse makes a distinctive shrill whinny, so I try to use the sound as a focal point. I find it becomes ambiguous whether I can hear the sound in the dream or if I'm just remembering it.

As I pass through a T-intersection, a blinding light directly ahead causes me to swerve. It is so bright that I assume it must be bleedthrough from RL. I remember the conversation between my colleague and her daughter that I overheard during my transition; with true dream logic I never questioned the impossibility of that taking place in my bedroom, and so now I assume that one of them must still be there, taking flash pictures. Instead of going straight into the light, my initial direction, I turn and take the street on the left, even turning my face away so to diminish the brightness. I can hear a voice from the direction of the light saying, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" So I was right about the camera, I conclude. At no point do I recognize the absurdity and error in my thought processes, but I do reflect that it is interesting that the environment made me change the direction I was going—is the dream trying to control my movement?

After this interruption, I go back to trying to summon the undead warhorse. It's still not working, but then I notice that the shop just ahead of me seems to have horse skulls hanging on the back wall. That's an improvement! I go into the shop, which is now a tiny space almost completely filled by a large bunkbed. A bearded man is lounging on the lower bunk, eating a meal and watching TV, while the upper bunk is shacked with sheepskins. I ask the man about the horse skulls.

"That's not a horse skull," he responds.

I realize he must be referring to the giant animal skull on the floor at my feet. It must be about three feet long. "What is it?"

"That's an academic-size magic detector," he answers, hardly taking his eyes off his TV program. Not sure what to make of his words, I look at the skull again. I realize it must have come from some kind of giant lizard, like a crocodile, but it has a small horn at the snout like a rhinocerous. As I study it, I see that it is now green and sparkling, the color offset with pale stripes. I am tempted to compare it to an Elvis suit, but fear that the proprietor might be offended.

FA: I wake up and start taking notes right away, starting from the last scene and moving backward. Fortunately I don't get very far before I realize I am writing on dream paper. I wake up for real and record my notes on my laptop.