WanderingGhost

So this morning my girlfriend called me around 5 am and woke me up. After talking for a few minutes she hung up and I went back to sleep. About 20 minutes later I had a natural awakening from a pretty vivid dream. I shifted in my bed some and began to fall back asleep. I could feel myself falling asleep very quickly so I decided to try to stay conscious while doing so. I could feel myself slowly losing touch with reality, I could no longer feel myself lying in my bed or hear my fan running. I repeated my mantra "this dream stabilizes" over and over and a dream scene began to form.

I was in my bedroom lying in my bed. I looked over and for some reason there was a mirror on my door and when I looked in the mirror I could see myself and it looked like there was a TV on the wall behind me. I looked over to the wall but there was no TV there and when I looked back at the door the mirror was gone. I tried to push my finger through my palm but it didn't work so I then tried to pinch my nose and breathe which I could. I got out of bed and went to my bedroom door and opened it. I was hoping it would open into something cool but it was just my normal hallway. I then walked over to my garage door and could see the light was on out there so I knew someone was out there. I opened the door and my dad was in the garage. I went out and said good morning or something similar to him and went up behind him. He began to turn around and I thought that he would probably look weird when he did since this was a dream and I was right. When he turned around he had a really thin long neck that hooked into a very tiny head. It was a little freaky but I knew I was dreaming so I wasn't really scared; in fact I found it kind of funny. Then I decided to go outside. It was morning and the sun was just beginning to rise so there were still stars in the sky. I tried to fly but couldn't get too far off the ground (just like the last time I tried), so I tried the superman method and was able to fly high into the sky. I flew for a few seconds before I woke up.

I'm not really sure if this technically counts as a WILD or not but this was the first time I've ever entered a dream directly. I have had to stabilize dreams before which brought on a new dream scene, but this was a little different. Also it was pretty weird feeling myself lose touch with reality as I fell asleep, but I'm glad I had this experience so I know (partially at least) what a WILD feels like.

So last night after waking up for a while and then going back to sleep I had another "natural" moment of lucidity. I was on a cruise ship for some reason and it had a concrete children's playground on it that looked a lot like a skate park. I thought to myself that it looked a lot like a liminal space and remembered I wanted to visit a liminal space in my dreams and wished I was dreaming so I could explore it. Then I realized I was dreaming. Everything went dark as it often does in these situations and I began to try stabilizing the dream by repeating "this dream stabilizes" which has worked for me multiple times before. I started feel a strong wind blowing me as I was lying in my bed and I thought I was about to get sucked out of my bed like the last time I did this but I got distracted because when I tried to swallow I couldn't. I was able to stay focused, but then I began to hear a noise which I thought was from my dream, but I soon realized was the music I had put on to try and help me sleep last night. This pushed me over the edge and I got too distracted and just woke up.

I am very disappointment, if the music hadn't been playing I may have finally had another lucid after weeks of trying for the competition, but whatever it happens. At least it's progress. I just now need to figure out how to properly harness this to do it more often instead of only once a month or so.

So I decided to try having some Mugwort tea last night and had a bizarre lucid as a result.

I was in a dream, I don't remember the details of it, when suddenly I realized I was dreaming. I began to feel myself waking up so I repeated "this dream stabilizes" until suddenly an eye formed out of the darkness. It scared me but I stayed calm and continued repeating the phrase until a full scene materialized. I was looking at myself laying in the bed in the darkness like there was a giant mirror right in front of me. Both of my eyes were scarily wide. The suddenly I felt like I got sucked out of my bed into a vortex and then I was flying. What followed was a fast paced barrage of changing scenes, many of which I don't quite remember. I remember one where I wanted to go underwater and suddenly I was. A group of mermaids swam past and for some reason I decided the last one should become evil. She did and turned around and attacked me. I also remember a scene on a treetop with three giant frogs and me eating one, thinking it would taste like "meat" (whatever that means) but it tasted like nothing.

Oddly enough, despite most peoples' reports on Mugwort, this lucid actually felt less vivid than some of my previous ones. It felt like some of my actions weren't my own and I remember wanting to wake up at one point because my dream-logic mind thought "this is boring, lucid dreaming isn't as interesting as I thought it was". It almost felt like it was someone else's thoughts and actions, even though I was lucid. Part of the haziness could potentially be contributed to the fact that I had this dream only 1 1/2 hours after I went to bed, which is the first time I've ever had a lucid that early into the night. Maybe because the REM cycle was shorter than the morning ones it made for a less vivid dream.

I think I would try Mugwort again, but next time I think I might try it with WBTB so I can see how it affects my early morning REM cycles. Hopefully next time it will allow for a longer and more vivid lucid, rather than one where I don't feel like myself.