non-lucid

Ritual: It was a great night for dreaming, probably because I went to bed so much earlier than usual, though I've also been especially attentive to my RCs for the last couple days. I went to bed a little before midnight, and I'm also currently on the East Coast, so the clock was three hours ahead of my usual time zone. My sleep was punctuated with the usual half-dozen wakings, though I didn't do any specific night practices other than try to pay attention to the transitions between sleeping and waking, and in this I was not persistant or prompt enough to pull off a WILD or a DEILD. But by around 6am I woke up from the first DILD, spent until 7:30am writing it down, then went back to bed and lucked into a second one.

NLD, "Drones": I'm standing by a floor-to-ceiling, wall-length window in a big hotel suite, looking out over the curve of a bay. From the height we must be somewhere between the 20th and 30th floor, and to the right I can see another tall building, or perhaps an extension of the same hotel, following the curve of the beach. Ahead and to the left is the flat horizon of the sea. It would be a pleasant view if it weren't for all the drones hovering in our field of vision, each one carrying a sign with a single word on it, white block letters on a black background. The words seem to be completely random.

"It's like some dystopian future," I comment to Peter Dinklage, who is standing to my left. I muse about what it would be like if the drones were weaponized, and turned on us like machines tend to do in science fiction. Though a chilling thought, they are awkwardly constructed without any armoring, and look like they would be easy to shoot down.

Then I notice that although they are not armed with guns, each drone is fitted with a camera, which is just as bad in some ways. Are they conducting mass surveillance on us? The cameras are all pointed directly at us. As I watch, a see a few drones of a different type fly in very close. They are not carrying signs, and they are disk-shaped, topped with a transparent dome through which we can see tiny people inside operating them. The pilots can't be human: even though I am standing next to a dwarf, they are much smaller than him, the size of babies, but with adult features and pointed ears. One of them waves at us, and Peter Dinklage says something like, "This is really disturbing."

FA-DILD, "Smallpox": Shortly after this I have the sense of waking up, though it is not a typical FA; I do not find myself in bed. I feel like I am standing in the same spot, in the same room, only awake now. Everyone else who was in the room a moment ago is gone, and there is no longer any impression of a view. The light has changed, becoming greyer and dimmer: it felt like late afternoon a moment ago, now it feels like early morning.

At once I notice that something is wrong with my body: a dense network of small patchy blisters is completely covering my skin. I look at myself in third person, as though in a mirror, and see them everywhere: covering my face, my chest, my arms, every patch of visible skin is mottled with these raised lesions. I know exactly what they are, too, I've seen them before in historical pictures: these are smallpox pustules, apparently in an early stage, since they are slightly lighter than my natural skin color and haven't scabbed or opened yet.

Immediately my rational mind rejects the scenario: didn't I get vaccinated for this? I realize I don't specifically remember getting a smallpox vaccine, but... isn't that because smallpox is extinct? I can't recall the details but I'm sure I remembered hearing that. Surely it's not making a comeback, like measles, because of all these anti-vaccers? But that can't be right—if smallpox were coming back then vaccinations for it would have become available, and I'd have been first in line.

This can't be happening. I try to will away the pustules but nothing changes. I remain unconvinced. This can't be happening, it must be a dream. If I can levitate, I will know it is a dream: I put my mind to it and though I do not levitate properly, I can feel that gravity is definitely different from waking life. So it is a dream! Okay, that's what I thought. Thank goodness I don't really have smallpox. Now I just need to fix my appearance.

I go into the bathroom and look in the mirror, trying to will my skin smooth again. The pustules are stubbornly persistant, but a lock of hair turns white and I decide to transform the rest of it for fun. It instantly turns stark white, but the texture remains smooth and silky. This gives me the idea to turn my skin jet black, like that of a drow elf. I concentrate and most of it transforms, but there are still pale patches on my forehead and upper cheeks, and when I look down at my legs, they are a streaky grey that is fading out toward the ankles, more like body paint than skin pigment.

On the bright side, changing the color of my skin finally got rid of the pustules, leaving it smooth again. Now I just want to even out the color, but the pale patches resist my initial attempts to darken them through will alone. I try to use my hands, as though spreading pigment over the resistant areas, and this helps a bit, but it is not an easy fix. As I peer closer into the mirror during this process, I notice that my eyes are solid black. I can't remember if this was the correct color for drow eyes, but I really like the effect. By the time I complete the skin transformation, my hair has faded from snow white to a yellower bone white, and this looks better and more natural with the jet black eyes and skin.

During this process my hair has been going through stylistic variations, always long and straight, but hanging down in different ways, and smeared with substances like blood or oil. I figure this makes sense for drow fashion, since living underground they probably don't bathe all that often, making hair treatments like oil very practical, whereas the bloody streaks look impressively gruesome. Although my skin won't stay pure black, it doesn't fully revert to its natural shade either, but retains traces of color, like streaky orange-browns on a muted blue base, while the hair stays yellowish-white.

WBTB: I woke up and spent over an hour writing the report of the last dream, but afterwards it was still early enough to go back to bed. Although I was not sleepy, it was a pleasantly lazy morning, and I enjoyed drifting in hypnagogic imagery. There was a period of ambiguity where it became increasingly difficulty to tell if I was having waking or dreaming experiences, and then I slipped again into full dream.

DILD, "Bed Monsters": I was wandering through the large house belonging to my in-laws where I am currently staying, and I had lost count of the number of bedrooms... there had to be more than twenty. Just how big was this place? At that moment I realized, no, of course it is not so big in waking life, it is because I am dreaming that the size has been exaggerated. Dreaming, eh? Wasn't there something I had meant to do, if I found myself dreaming in a bedroom? Suddenly I recalled this month's TOTM, to make friends with the monster under your bed. Oh! I should get back to the room where I'd been sleeping! I dashed back so quickly I was afraid I would destabilize the dream, but luckily it stayed intact.

I peered under the bed but it was a pleasant open space. It looked like there were a few banal things stored under there, but nothing looked sinister or monstrous. I felt around for something to work with, and my hand closed around a small plush object, which I withdrew and examined closely. It was a small brown teddy bear, only five inches long, with a plump, pear-shaped body and tiny beady eyes. There was a lighter brown oval around the bit of stiching that served as a nose. I was impressed with the detail with which I could perceive it, but had no idea how was I supposed to "make friends" with it. It seemed totally inert, a harmless stuffed animal. I set it on the thick folds of the comforter piled on the bed. "Dance!" I commanded. It just sat there. "Dance!" I tried a few more times, but it remained inaminate.

I walked around to the other side of the bed, setting down the teddy bear on a dresser. I turned away for a moment, and when I looked again it had changed: now it was a sort of bell-shaped plastic structure hanging from the ceiling by a string. I couldn't tell what its purpose was, but it still appeared to be an inert object.

It occurred to me that I had been walking around and standing right next to the bed completely heedless of the space underneath. If there really were monsters under there, I'd have to watch out for my ankles! I wondered if this was the problem, that I didn't really have any lingering childhood fear of monsters under the bed. Perhaps I should try again with more intent.

I bent down and looked under the bed from this side, trying to keep the idea of monsters in mind. I still didn't see much under there: it was a light and airy space, just like in waking life, completely different from the overstuffed space under my bed at home. But I did see a scrap of cloth within arm's reach, so pulled it out. It turned out to be a little crocheted cat, only about three inches long, white with some orange spots. I guessed it must have been made by a total amateur. The body seemed floppy like it was unstuffed, and as I turned it over in my hands, I discovered that it was actually crocheted in a single flat piece with the four little legs sticking out horizontally, so only when it was folded in half along the back did it look plausibly like a cat. The head was the only piece that appeared to have been crocheted with any semblance of three-dimensionality. As I studied it closely, I saw tiny points of bright green contrasting with the dominant the white and orange: there was a little green tuft on the trip of the tail, and projecting from the head was a narrow appendange like the antenna of a cartoon alien, also topped with a green point.

However, this object also showed no sign of motion or life, so it would be hard to say I was "making friends" with it. But then my eye caught a glimpse of orange fur near my feet: my cat had appeared! I wasn't surprised that she had turned up: when thinking about the task in waking life, I had reasoned that she really was the monster under my bed. Though I adopted her when she was about five months old (the best guess of the shelter) she had been living in a feral state before that, and even after five years of comfortable indoor living she still has the edgy instincts of a street cat: she hisses at the slightest provocation, and holes up under the bed for hours whenever a stranger is in the house.

I knelt down to ruffle her long, soft fur, which felt totally life-like, but I noticed the color was off. In the dream she was calico, with big orange patches, but I remembered that she was a tabby in waking life. I wondered if she could qualify as my dream bed monster—though right now she was acting very pleasant and relaxed, and I figured it probably wouldn't count because I had already made friends with her in WL.

Yet again I peeked under the bed, and this time at last I found the perfect candidate for my experiment. I felt that it was connected somehow with the tame cat at my feet, as though all her feral qualities had separated into a different animal. This one had a tortoise-shell coat, all the same colors as a calico but in smaller, more mingled patches. Although the fur resembled that of a cat, the body suggested another animal entirely, with a narrower head and tapering snout. I was pretty sure it was a fox. Best of all, it was already hissing and snarling at me! This was the monster I had been looking for!

Now all I had to do was make friends with it. I began calling to it in the cooing, overly affectionate voice I might use with my cat. "Come here... lovely sweetie... lovely sweetie. I have treats for you my love... treats for you my love." The animal reacted as any feral creature would, holding its ground and continuing to hiss and snarl. I could see the tension locked into its body, poised for fight or flight. I reasoned that since it was a dream monster, the best approach would be to hug it, but that wasn't obviously wasn't going to be possible while it was still under the bed. I needed to draw it out first.

I reached under the bed and the animal snapped at the air and threatened to bite me. I considered drawing my hand back for a different approach but decided to let it go ahead and bite, inspired by that wonderful scene in Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind where Nausicaa tames the fox-squirrel by remaining calm and patient when it bites her finger. Plus, since it was a dream I didn't have to worry about physical harm. So I kept reaching toward the animal until it bit down on the middle of my left index finger. The pain was surprisingly clear and sharp, but easily manageable. I kept thinking of that scene from Nausicaa and projecting similar expectations on this situation. I felt the animal relax enough to take a few steps closer to me, but it had not yet emerged from under the bed when the dream abruptly faded. Intriguingly, even after I had fully transitioned to wakefulness, I could still feel a distinct itch in the second joint of my left index finger where the animal had bitten me.

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Earlier: I heard about a plan for a new kind of TOTM on DV. Someone had come up with a single extremely complex and elaborate task that was broken down into about a dozen different steps, and the number of steps one was able to complete determined whether one got credit for Basic, Basic + Advanced, or Basic + Advanced + Bonus tasks. Someone who managed to complete the entire series would get credit as though it were a TOTY.

Later: I was at some kind of large event like a conference, and passed by a counter with a placard advertising a program or game called "BRAinixity." A list identified the first three letters as standing for the following descriptors:
• Big
• Regular
• Alteration

I gathered that "BRAinixity" was a kind of lucid dreaming program, and that these three terms described the magnitude of effects that practitioners might have on their dreams, depending on their level of accomplishment. I inwardly scoffed a bit at the idea that it somehow took a higher degree of effort or mastery to accomplish a "big" effect on a dream object as opposed to a minor "alternation," since I had time and again observed the lack of any such meaningful distinctions in the dream state, but I was nevertheless interested in seeing what the program was all about, so I decided to sign up.

A woman with short light brown hair was currently signing up for the BRAinixity program, and I was standing next to her waiting my turn. Since we were going to be on the same team, we exchanged introductions. She had a strong accent that made me think she was from Germany, and said her name was "Lalla." She explained that it had originally been longer, but that she had shortened it when invaders had attacked the valley where she lived. I understood her implications: under the circumstances, a long name would have added brief but unnecessary delays to social interactions. "Yeah," I joked drily, "You don't want to be standing there waiting for someone to finish pronouncing your name when you should be running away."

She finished signing up and the woman behind the counter began to take my information. I saw that I was on the "Cloud Valley" team—all the teams were organized by fictional valleys of various names, each of which accommodated about eight team members, judging from the number of lines on the registration card. Each team member was assigned to "Towers" of a particular color. Only the top line on my team's card was still blank, and since I was the last person signing up, I didn't have any choice as to what color my towers would be. I looked closer to see what color towers I'd be getting and saw "Green" next to my name, which pleased me, since green was what I would have chosen anyway.

"Green towers in Cloud Valley," I said aloud, liking how poetic it sounded.

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!

Recall: 4/10. I woke up with a crystal clear memory of what I was saying to a DC just before waking, but the context is lost:

"My short-term memory is phenomenally good. Better than most people. I test extremely well. That's how I got this far in academia. But my long-term memory is absolute shite." I go with the British pronunciation for emphasis. "It's like living with a disability. About half the people I know, if they come up to me, I have no idea who they are. I've been living with this my whole life, so I can usually bluff my way through it. Half the time, at least they look familiar, and I spend the whole conversation trying to remember where I've seen them before and what their name is. But the other half of the time, I don't remember ever even having met them."

Recall: 3/10. I'm in the town where I grew up but I'm an old woman. I'm jogging and despite my age I feel like it is effortless, so I decide to run the five miles to my house outside of town. I am crossing an intersection as I decide this, and suddenly something sails through the air and nearly hits me. It clatters to the pavement and I see it is an empty half-sized soda can. I look around for where it came from, and see a black man, evidently a vagrant, who is shouting and throwing them at me. He seems angry but I can't make out his words. He throws a second and then a third can.

I try to go another way to avoid him but find myself in a cul-de-sac that leads through a narrow alley into an even darker square surrounded by tall buildings. It looks creepy and dangerous, and from the lack of light I assume that the alley is the only way out or in. There is a dumpster in the alley and a guy going through it. I have no reason to go this way and fear for my safety if I do, so I return to my original route. The ground of this cul-de-sac street is covered with bananas, layers of them flattened and smashed against the ground, filling the air with a fruity, overripe smell. I don't remember my town being so heavily involved in the banana industry, and it doesn't make sense given that bananas don't even grow around here, but I can't discount the evidence all around me. As I leave the cul-de-sac and return to the main street, I am running over such a thick layer of smashed bananas on the ground that I have to take extra care not to slip and fall.

Some clothes in a shop catch my eye, and I pause to look them over. There are two outfits that seem ideal for an elderly woman like me, or at least, they look like the sort of thing you often see old ladies wearing. Both consist of a zip-up top and half-length pants in matching polyester. I try on the pants of one set, but don't like the texture of the cloth, and although it looks like I'd still be able to run in them, I wonder if they would end up chafing my legs. I decide to stick with my knee-length black lycra running tights and put them back on.

I start running home again. Then I remember how some people use the mental image of a repetitive motion, like running, as an anchor during their WILD attempts. I think it might be fun to give this a try and see if I can run right into the dream state. Even though conditions are ideal (given that I'm already dreaming at the time!) my attempts amount to little and I don't get lucid. I have the impression I started thinking this while I was actually in the process of waking up.

Recall: 1/10. WTB 4am, woke 10am. All night on waking I had the impression of complex dreams but could not recall even the broad outlines. At one point there was a fragment of Japanese in my head: play between the words "iro iro" (which I think means "various") and "iru" (infinitive of "to be"). After final sleep had the vague impression of seeing places on a map, and was sure that I had dreamed something urban and apocalyptic... but I cannot seem to find the thread.

10:45am. Took a shower, still trying to remember. At first I thought the hot water was a distraction, but after a few minutes something flashed into mind and I murmured: "I was in the woods."

I was in the woods. There was at least one other person, and we were digging for something. And then another entity approached us. I have the impression that he usually drove a horse and carriage, but at the time of our encounter he was on foot. I recognized him as something terrifying and supernatural. He had a name, the everyday kind some boogeymen develop in folklore, consisting of an adjective and a common first name. The adjective might have been "dark"; I don't remember the name. I have the impression he had a stunted body, a normal-sized male torso on short and shriveled legs.

When I saw this creature on the forest path, I recognized the terror and danger he represented, and then the strangest thing happened: on a whim, I ran up and hugged him! And as this was happening, I was thinking wryly to myself, "If I were lucid, would I dare to do this? I don't think so!" Somehow I managed to have this thought without being lucid in the slightest—I guess you could say it was dream awareness without memory or agency. However, there might have been a touch of dream memory, even if WL memory was absent: my comment was in reference to an incident that occurred several years when I was lucid, and my intended task was to approach a fae spirit, but the one I glimpsed in the distance was so creepy that all she did was glance in my direction and I started running away as fast as I could!

Recall: 2/10 upon waking, 5/10 after finding the thread. It was hard to remember anything at all when I first woke up, but I persisted until a few details came back, and that let me pin down a few detailed scenes at least. The overall plot remained vague. There were a lot of additional fragments from earlier sequences or prior dreams that I've left out.

I'm hanging out a woman who is at least a generation younger and we're getting dressed to go out. I have a vest in grey and black hues that swirl into one another in a cloud-like pattern, resembling the soft color variations of tie-dye, but subtle and not at all gaudy because of the dark colors. I'm wearing it over a thin long-sleeved, collarless knit shirt. I don't remember the color, maybe sort of mustard or yellow ochre. Then I try on a few pairs of pants to figure out which will match best. I decide on the dark grey corduroys but now I can't find them... where did I put them? I was just trying them on! I go through all the drawers of the dresser and they aren't here. Now I'm stuck wearing dark blue denim pants that don't match at all. I go into the next room and am relieved to find the cords on the bed... not sure how they got there since I didn't remember coming into this room, but I assume I was just spacing out and don't think to RC.

Some unclear sequences. The young woman and I go into town, and meet up with a third woman, who involves us in some kind of conspiracy. There is a fourth woman visiting town that she wants to engage in conversation under the pretext of just being friendly, but she has some more complex, sinister plan (that I don't remember in the slightest). We follow the visitor and after she ducks into a cafe, we follow suit. It has gotten cold and rainy out, so we pretend we've just stopped in for a hot drink. We hadn't intended to engage the visitor yet; the conspirator wants to do so but the young woman and I are afraid it will come across as too abrupt and awkward, so we are frantically trying to communicate across the table with our eyes and subtle shakes of the head that she should not go approach her. (The interior is small and no one else is here, so we can't speak aloud about our plans.)

The waitress comes over to see what we want to order. I see a drink named "Raksiteli" on the menu that I'm sure I remember having here before: I recall it is served hot in a tiny glass, tastes like honey mead but is strongly alcoholic. (I think the dream was merging "rkatsiteli," the name of a grape used for Eastern European amber wines, with "raki," a strong spirit that I did once try in a delicious honey-flavored version.) However, each glass was priced at $22, which seemed way too high! I remembered having four or five in a row last time... did I really pay that much? I thought maybe this time I should just get some coffee. I spent so long browsing the menu indecisively that I started to think I must be annoying everyone, so I told the waitress to get the orders of the other people at the table while I made up my mind.

Meanwhile, the cafe was filling up quickly with other people. The whole time I was inspecting the menu, I was also glancing up occasionally at the woman, the one we were targetting, sitting across the room at the bar. I thought it might help if I caught her eye a couple times, making it seem accidental, so that it wouldn't seem so random if we did decide to approach her. I was startled when she began walking over to us, but it turned out she was joining some people who had recently sat down at the table to our right. This worked out well, because overhearing their discussion (the tables were very close together) we made some comments and soon joined their conversation.

They were talking about apples for some reason—probably also deciding what to order—and I commented that I really don't like apples, especially cold from the refrigerator. "You should warm them up, then," said the woman sitting on the bench just to my right. I admitted sheepishly that the one way I do like apples was to hollow out the cores and fill them with butter and brown sugar, then bake them in the oven until wrinkled and brown on top. After I confessed my sweet tooth, the visiting woman, our target, now sitting across from me but at the next table, took a plate of whipped cream from their table and offered it to me. I couldn't tell if she was just being kind or if she suspected our plot and was getting ahead of it... might the cream be drugged? Was it intended to knock me out? But I thought it would look suspicious if I didn't accept some. I exchanged some silent glances with the people at my own table while we tried to assess her motives and decide what I should do. Without saying a word, we decided that I would try some of the cream, but that my companions would not, just in case the friendly gesture was something other than it seemed.

I used an online program to try to create the floorplan of the cafe. I didn't get the proportions quite right, so there should be four seats at the bar in the upper left corner, and two seats across from the wall benches at each of the small tables (allowing them to seat four people each), but this gives a general sense of the layout. I was sitting with the two other woman at the table on the bottom left side of the room, the younger woman to my left and the conspiratorial woman sitting in the chair across from us. The visiting woman was sitting at the bar at first, then moved to one of the chairs facing the table just to the right of ours, where two or three other people were initially sitting.

Recall has been terrible for the last week or more, absolutely minimal. Last night was a little better, maybe 2/10: I dreamed all night but could barely piece anything back together, even right after waking up.

NLD fragment, "No Chicken": I was in the backseat of a car being driven by someone else. I can't remember why we needed a live chicken. Although I had no awareness that I was dreaming, I knew instinctively that I should be able to conjure a chicken out of thin air by will alone, and I got frustrated after trying again and again with no success.

NLD fragment, "No Pants": My mom wanted to enter an underground cave complex that had been set up as a tourist site, but I was afraid they wouldn't let me in because I wasn't wearing pants. I solved this problem by taking off my bulky green sweater and slipping it on like a skirt, fastening it by tying the arms together in front. Though this left me with nothing but a sports bra on top, I buttoned my coat over it and at that point felt like I could pass muster. In the cave, I looked down at my improvised "skirt" and thought it was working pretty well—to a casual observer, it might even look like I was wearing a normal skirt with a sweater tied around my waist.

I commented, "Okay mom, this is the weirdest thing I've ever done." Though in retrospect I have to acknowledge that it really wasn't all that weird in the great scheme of things.

I'm walking along the street when a shop catches my attention and I start to browse what they have on display. The shop interior is open to the street, separated from the sidewalk only by a waist-high display counter—it's peculiar that storefronts in my dreams are so frequently based on the Bangkok model, even though there may be nothing else distinctly Asian about the products or proprietors.

On the display counter facing the street is a variety of small bottles of essential oil. I examine the labels, and recognize a few types that I had purchased online recently. Would it have been better to buy them here and save on shipping? But I then I would be stuck with the sales tax, which might work out to even more.

From the conversation between the couple running the place, I get the impression that business has been slow today. I've spent enough time browsing that I feel like I ought to buy something, if only not to disappoint the proprietors. Besides, it will be good for the local economy. There's nothing in particular that I need, but I'm sure I can find something here I will use or enjoy.

Looking up from the essential oils on the counter, I see that there are several shelves of shampoo and conditioner on the side walls in front. That would be a practical purchase... but when I see the prices I hesitate. I don't like paying through the nose for bath products. I venture inside the store to see what else is available. The back wall contains a display shelf for books and magazines. Most of them seem to be about yoga. My eye falls on the title of one issue in particular: What Are the Benefits of Yoga Even When Doing it For No Reasons? I reflect that the title is biased; it implies that there is benefit. And the "no reasons" thing reminds me about the attitude so often demonstrated by American Buddhists regarding meditation, the idea that having any kind of reason suggests attachment, so one should meditate without a reason or goal... with the vague assumption that it is somehow good for you anyway.

Well, I'm not interested in yoga, and I'm certainly not interested in practicing yoga or meditation for no reason. My priorities are quite different, and very well-defined: I'm interested in whatever can help me improve my dreaming.

Gradually, I make a counter-clockwise sweep of the small store interior. On the left wall, a variety of objects are hanging on display. One catches my eye, a rectangle of black silk printed with a delicate pattern of flower buds. I take it down for a closer look, and note that the silk is pieced together in a curious, distinctive way. "What is this?" I ask the proprietors.

The man of the couple says, "You could use it for anything. You could even tear it up and just use the cloth."

I think—but don't say aloud—that the price tag is $90, an awful lot for a piece of scrap cloth! I take another look at the unusual stitching, and it reminds me of something. "Isn't it one of those Japanese cloths used for wrapping?" I'm sure I remember reading about these.

The woman affirms that it is, and seems surprised that I know about it. She clarifies that it is designed specifically to go around a 10x10x10" package. The art of making them is hardly practiced anymore, she says. I wonder if she means doing the wrapping properly—if the cloths were so rare, why would there be a random one for sale in this shop? And I'm sure I've seen them for sale before, if only in a catalogue.

I decide not to purchase the cloth as I don't have an appropriately sized 10x10x10" box to go with it. I'm about to peruse the essential oils again and pick something at random, when we are interrupted by a government raid. There is a moment when I wonder if I should avert this plot point entirely, but I let it happen—after all, what is the worst they can do, try to lock me up? And that won't amount to much. Instinctively I am aware of my invulnerability.

The scene shifts here, and now we are outdoors on a paved area, like a wide driveway, on top of a hill. However, I am aware that I am not far from the shop I was visiting; it is right at the bottom of the hill.

That agent is back again. What is this, the third time? He has threatened me before, but it has not gone well, so now he is threatening my host, the male shopkeeper. "I'll investigate every client," he warns. "No one can stand up to that kind of scrutiny."

I feel obliged to defend the poor guy and intervene. The agent should be dealing with me. I'm the real target; he has no business taking his frustrations out on random people who are accidentally associated with me. I get in his face and confront him.

"Why do you keep getting involved?" I still remember distinctly that this is the third time we have met, and that the previous two encounters have not ended well for him. This won't, either. I conclude my train of thought aloud: "You like it. You must like being humiliated."

The agent lies down on the ground, as if in demonstration of my point. I am annoyed and start berating him. I forget what I said initially, but I conclude, "And there's your shit-kicking foot." To make my point perfectly clear, I enact the metaphor literally. The agent's left leg extends to impossible length, his shoe and sock disappear, and his bare foot kicks a shit in a high arc away from us. To emphasize what has just happened, I ensure that it leaves a stain on his foot.

Afterwards the agent gets up to go, and I re-emphasize the pointlessness of his continued investigation of me. "My activities are confined to this circle. I'm not involved in anything in the wider world." I am aware that the 'wider world' is not even real for me; that I exist here within the circle of my own attention. This doesn't fully manifest as dream awareness, just the sense of my ontological difference from everyone else in this environment.

The agents, about four of them in total, all turn to go. They have three dogs with them. I laugh when one dog darts aside, seemingly smelling something in the bushes, and scarfs it down. Knowing the appetites of dogs, I assume it must have found the shit that was kicked.

I want to get back to the narrative from which I was so rudely interrupted; I still have business in the store at the bottom of the hill. I decide to fly for speed—and figure if the agents see me flying overhead, they might take my arguments more seriously and think twice before trying to interfere again. I swoop downhill at great speed, thinking about how I use the word "swooping," but when birds of prey dive like this, it is called "stooping." I realize I'm not sure precisely how such birds break their fall, so when I reach the bottom of the hill, I circle counter-clockwise twice to regain control before lightly letting my feet contact the ground again. The whole flight felt very graceful, and I am proud of myself, convinced that I am starting to get good at this. I'm not just flying anymore, I'm flying with style!

I momentarily wonder if the proprietors of the store will be startled to see me flying. As I reach the ground, however, I realize that I have lost interest in the original narrative—which was incredibly mundane, let's admit—and now want to write my report on what just happend. I still don't have a clear sense that I'm dreaming, as such, yet I understand distinctly that I need to wake up. It takes a bit of deliberate effort to push through the layers—they feel almost like a physical fog—that divide me from waking consciousness, but I persevere until I am sure I am definitely awake... at least as sure as one can ever be.

The setting of the dream was the farm where I lived as a teenager, but nothing about the plot resembled waking life, and my own character was an adolescent boy. I was the son of our tribe's chieftain, and another adult male in the tribe approached me with an offer. He wanted to buy my father's flower that was growing near the chicken house, offering me a groat in exchange. I refused, of course: the flower was not mine to sell.

On my way to the barn I passed the flower and glanced at it. It was beautiful and otherworldly, with large hanging bell-shaped blossoms of red and purple. I thought I had made the right decision by turning the man away. I went into the barn, the bottom floor of which was completely empty of everything but a pile of horse manure that had been gathered into the center of the space. This was a bit odd, but my thoughts were elsewhere.

I was remembering what the same man had done for the nuns: by giving them an iPad, he had eliminated their tendency to engage in other, more heretical, forms of augury. Had he been testing me? Obviously it would have been wrong to sell the flower for my own gain, but perhaps it was also wrong to refuse outright. I should tell my father about the offer and see if he might want to sell the flower after all. Perhaps he needs a groat.

I go talk to my father. He is not a human but a ring of flexible tissue suspended within a rigid round frame that forms an outer ring. My character, the young boy, is not surprised by this, but OOCly I find it odd. It is hypnotic to watch the creature talk: the inner ring changes shape, forming geometric and other patterns, while vibrating. Together the shape-changing and vibration sound quite similar to a human voice, though higher-pitched and with more vibrato.

I mention that I want to talk about so-and-so, the member of the tribe who offered me the deal (at the time I knew his name, but lost it on waking), and at once my father starts describing a recent encounter with the guy:

"We chat a while, then he tells me what a fine young man you are. I'm thinking, wowwww!" He emphasizes the word "wow," drawing it out with varying intonations a bit like a hippy or stoner might... and then the sound blends into the chime of my alarm going off and waking me. I was annoyed to be interrupted mid-dream!

NLD, "Spheres of Gas": A journalist or scientist was reporting from near the top of one of the world's tallest mountains. He or she was filming the thousands of frosty white spheres, each one a few inches across, that spread in clusters over the rocks, and explaining about how these were a type of gas (carbon dioxide?) that was naturally sequestered here in solid form. The purpose was to expose some misinformation that was being spread about climate change. I think the prospects were dire, because changing conditions would cause the release of the gasses.

He was well above the frostline, so high that he was barely within a breathable atmosphere, yet he could look down and see the beautiful warm waters of the tropics directly below. When he was done with his report he simply jumped off the sheer mountainside and floated gently down to the sea, landing precisely in center of a spiral of white sand in the brilliant blue water. All this time my perspective fluctuated between observing him/her and being him/her (perhaps that is why the gender feels ambiguous?)

NLD, "Jidori Chicken": I'm at a grocery store looking for something to cook for lunch. I remember that I like venison sausage and ask about it. They don't seem to have any but give me a sample of cheese spread. I think I could fry up some chicken if it is fresh enough, and I find a small cut-up chicken with a label proclaiming it is only nine hours old. "Jidori chicken!" I think approvingly, having long wanted to try one of these ultra-fresh birds, but I wonder if the label is accurate given that it must have spent at least some time sitting on the shelf. How often do they update the label or clean out the old ones? I decide that it must be at least daily and put the chicken in my basket.

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.

Afraid to Call
SB is standing up from the table and pulling out her cellphone when a cop drives by outside. She puts the phone away hurriedly, expressing the fear that she might be arrested. We argue with her, "How could you be arrested for making a cellphone call in your own house? Come on, what would the charges be?" But we can't talk her out of it and she, still anxious, goes to bed. After she has left the room, I ask the others, "Is this normal?" meaning, does she act like this all the time? They indicate to me with their eyes and subtle nods that it is.

Note: It's odd, this is a friend I haven't talked to in a couple years, and after I dreamed this last night, today I got an email from her...

Turquoise Bob
Look in the mirror, see that my hair is cut in a turquoise bob. It looks surprisingly good; I think I might keep it this way. It will be annoying to have to get it trimmed all the time, but I should make an effort. Should I get the color done professionally or do it myself? Decide on the latter, that's how I've always done it. Look online to find the color. How to get the hued variegated like this? Figure I need to bleach it white first, then can selectively coat parts of it with vaseline.

Bus to Sabaville
In some vast interior space, need to get back home. Find a shuttle that I think will take me toward where I saw the bus stop, but then it goes too far and in the wrong direction. I discover it is heading to a stoner convention. As everyone stands up to disembark, young man in seat in front of me (hefty, dark hair, pale skin) stares at me and asks out of nowhere: "Who are you?"

I stare back, perplexed. "Why would you ask me that? We've never met before. How could it matter who I am? I'm a stranger, on a bus."

My answer seems to have disoriented him. "Am I dead?"

Sarcastically, I respond, "Could be. It happens sometimes." I leave, going in a different direction from the others disembarking the bus.

Awed by the sheer size of this place. Don't see any internal columns or supports... what is keeping the roof up? Must be miles across. Find the stop to take the shuttle back in the other direction. Young woman there, think I've seen her before.

"Can you tell me if this place has a bus that can take me back to Sabaville?" I inquire.

"That's not where you should be spending your time." I assume she means that it's not a very cool place to live.

"Well, it's where I need to get back to."

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: 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."