non-lucid

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

Tried SSILD again last night, set my alarm for 3:25am. I rolled around in bed a while trying to coax myself to get up, 20 minutes later I did.

Dream 1 - River, rain, and a cave
I'm inside a cave, the ground has dryish dirt on it, it's pretty dark inside because there isn't a light source and it's a rainy day outside. I walk to the exit and look outside, the entrance is blocked by a flowing shallow river (knee-thigh deep). I apparently decided I wanted to leave the cave, and headed into the river which had rounded rocks on the bottom, making it hard to wade through. The river only spanned a short 10 metres wide. I looked back down the river and at the cave behind me too, the cave I was in was apart of a large rocky wall, it looked almost unnaturally hollowed out. I managed to cover about 8/10th of the river and was about to reach the riverbank but woke up.

Dream 2 - In my robe at the mall
Me and my close friend D are at the shopping mall walking around. I suddenly realize I'm in my robe! I head to a nearby store and buy a blue shirt, some shorts, and a red unbuttoned flannel shirt. For some reason this dissatisfies me, and I tell my friend D to go on without me while I go get some 'cool' clothes. I head off to a different clothing store, this one has nice wooden floors and tall wooden shelves, the shop is quite big. I see to my left a bunch of shirts on sale, but they look like they're for kids, so I go further into the shop and keep searching. I either forgot the rest or woke up.

2 exams are over and I got 2 weeks to go until my next one, I started doing RCs again today and will be firing up my determination too

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

#36
Going to re-write this out because I couldn't seem to find it on my DJ history. Going to do a slack job compared to the last time since I'm tired.

Dream 1 - Studying at the table
Me and my flatmate O are sitting at the kitchen table studying. We find that we have an assignment due soon in 2 parts, 600 words and 300 words. O lends me his work so I can use it as a reference, I open it up on my laptop using a program called 'Note Taker Pretender v9.0'. There are coloured tabs (red, yellow, etc) that separate the various sections of his assignment.

Dream 2 - Bathrooms everywhere
So there is a large room where there is a bunch of people in. It's quite gray and dull, there's a lot of doors that I know lead to various bathrooms. I decide to use one, and the one I go to has 3 people sitting on a bench in it. One of these people is J, a girl I knew from my residential hall. I ask them to leave so I can use the room and they comply. I close the door behind them and lock it.

#37
Dream Fragments.

Didn't remember anything except EXAMS, and that manifested into my dreams last night somehow. Super stressful, had a knot in my stomach the whole night.

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

Didn't really attempt a proper SSILD last night, turned off all my alarms so I could try and get a good sleep, which I did . Recalled 3 dreams but the last dream I had was forgotten while writing them into my DJ.

Dream 1 - Obstacle course race (~4am)
Me and a lot of other people are involved in some kind of race. The scenery is typical New Zealand green bush, the track we were running along mazed around with streams on both sides. The first part of the race involved everyone running along this track, it branched off in a few directions, I decided I could try the direct route by just jumping into the shallow stream. I didn't anticipate it slowing me down so much, and eventually I climbed back up onto the track. Shortly after I reached the second part of the race, where there were rails stretching left to right along the ground, spaced about half a metre apart with tall grass and puddles between them. Everyone had to jump from rail to rail, the alternative was that you'd just trip over them trying to run across to the end of this obstacle (I seem to remember a few people breaking their ankles when they missed a rail). I leaped from rail to rail, building momentum until I had a good stride going, I became quite focused on this and nearly fell over when I bumped into a woman. We both hurried onwards, some sense of urgency kept us going in the race. I reached the end of this obstacle, and there stretched an expansive short-grass field. At the end was a playground which I identified as the finish line, to left of it I could see the corner of a fenced off tennis court (I didn't seem to really look at it, hence the corner being in my peripheral vision). Everyone that had made it to this point was sprinting off, giving it everything they had to reach the end. For some reason my running was a bit 'weird', I seemed to be skipping and flailing my arms back and forth (I believe I was trying to create a swinging momentum with each skip to propel myself further). In the dream I thought this was the best way to maximize my speed, everyone else seemed to be running normally though. I had a feeling that everyone else was worn out by now, and I managed to spot my friend M and A (I haven't seen A for a long time, he was a childhood friend who moved overseas). M was running pretty damn fast, he shouldn't have been able to since he has asthma and is pretty against exercise. To my right I noticed that it seemed like a nice sunset was happened, and the hill sloped upwards in its direction, in retrospect I wish I had gone up and seen it. I seemed to come in the top 10 or the racers, and it resets to the start of the race. I'm now standing with a bunch of others in orange overalls on the top of a hill, at the bottom of which are a bunch of police setting up the race. We're convicts. A friend is next to me and starts saying he's going to make a run for it and jump onto the race track and escape that way. He bolts off down the road and I follow, knowing that if he was to succeed he'd need a good distraction, I think my plan was to yell out I saw something in the opposite direction he was going to go.

Dream 2 - Looking after my daughter
I'm in my parents house, my mother and wife have gone out shopping and have left me and my daughter to play. It was a really nice dream, she and I were playing with her toys and I was talking to her good feels, not a particularly long or eventful dream though, but definitely memorable.

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

Slept a bit better, had okay-ish dream recall but I let some details slip by lying in bed and not being diligent enough about writing them down sooner. I even had a decent stab at the SSILD cycles, but the consecutive run of bad sleeps over the past few nights probably didn't give me a good base mindset for lucidity.

Dream Fragment
Standing on the driveway to my parents house at night-time, reminds me of when I used to sneak home late.

Dream 1 - Zombies at Uni
For some reason there's a zombie Apocalypse, me and some others have kind of gathered together. We're near the northern exit of the university (I know there was more to this, but I forgot most of what happened prior to this point) and we jump into this massive armoured vehicle. There's zombies off somewhere, I don't recall seeing them much except on the sidelines/backgrounds of the dream. The armoured vehicle can't move or something, but luckily there's another car loaded in the back compartment of it, all hooked up and tied down. I run to the back of the armoured vehicle and kick the back door open, then jump back and flick a hook off of the car, the rest simultaneously come free letting the car roll back. We proceed to hop inside, and then I think I woke up.

Dream 2 - Giant Cockroaches
I seem to remember dropping something at the very start of the dream... It was dark with only a little amount of light which made shadow-outlines of things. Whatever I dropped didn't hit the ground, because a size-able cockroach with pincers clamped it, I notice the sprawling crawling mass of these covering the floor. Fast-forward to later on, I'm running, there are GIANT cockroaches now, comparable to the spiders in the 'Eight-Legged Freaks' movie. It's still dark and I'm running, I'm in an old building (19th century Victorian brickwork or something) and I dash to the side, into a closed off room. I hide on the floor, near a big wooden table. I know they can't get in here.
*skitter*
"what was that?"
I look at a small cockroach scuttling across the floor near me, I realize that maybe the little ones can get in though... It feels like a few minutes pass, and I notice even more of them, they seem to amass into a swarm on the floor and I decide to rethink the idea of hiding, with the feeling that the larger ones are actually able to break into the room too now. I head to the exit on the other side of the room, and I think 'hmmm what if they've blocked off the other exit...?' but as I'm about to exit the room I wake up.

Was pretty bored with these dreams, didn't feel scared or fearful of anything in them (they sound like they should have been nightmares in retrospect, but weren't), they weren't strongly emotional.

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

Another terrible sleep, took me 4 hours to fall asleep.

Dream 1 - Charging like a rugby player
There's a reason behind what we were doing but I can't seem to recall it. There is a hallway, it turns left at the end, and before then there is a door on the left. The enemy is down here, and we charge them (me and a few others) as they come out from around the corner and the door. I'm in the lead and shoulder bash two on them, the third one I just straight punch in the face with my right hand. My pinky finger gets broken from the impact and I dart off into the room on the left. In here is pretty a bathroom, with windows on the other side of the room that look out over a nice forest scenery. 3 enemies are in this room, nursing their wounds, and they don't care that I'm in there. I sit down on floor and lean against the bath tub. Another enemy walks in, I say "hey man, my fingers broken" in an attempt to call truce. He stomps on my chest with his right leg and pins me down. I think 'Uh oh' and how intense this situation is, there doesn't seem much chance for me to get out since he's much bigger than me. I smack his leg off my chest, he stumbles a bit and I hook my leg up around his neck, squeeze, then do an insane grapple-throw and knock him out.

Dream 2 - Storming the witches house
Background: There is a witch (who is my neighbour R) that has taken over my parents house and made it her domain. She had enslaved a few people, and my friends had been captured and turned into little figurines.
I see that the witch has gone out, she will be home shortly though as I can see her walking down the mountain. I dash in the main driveway and run towards the house, finding my way inside I try to find what I'm looking for (my friends). I run to the end of the house, I can see the witch walking towards the house on the main driveway, I crouch down so she doesn't spot me. As she rounds a corner and heads into the main entrance, I bolt onto the deck and down the stairs, I see her slave taking a leak (it was a girl, but she had man's member for some reason). The slave was carrying a box, and I instantly know that the figurines of my friends are in there, so I bolt past and swipe it while she's preoccupied. There are others robbing the house and rebelling against her tyranny too, we all run in different directions as she discovers that there are intruders. I jump into the bushes and decide to break the figurines to release my friends.

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

SSILD day 11

Note: Terrible sleep, I remember almost nothing of my dreams. Insomnia kicked in for most of the night.

Dream Fragment
Having sexy time and the woman keeps getting fatter and when she orgasmed she went back to normal. Was pretty weird.

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

Note: There were a lot of friends that know, used to know, or haven't seen in a while. Through out all these dreams I seemed to see a whole bunch of them.

Dream 1 - Bad Drivers (before 05 00 - birds started chirping about 30 minutes after I woke so it's a rough estimate).
I am in my university, heading to field (the field is much larger, and has a dirt wall on the left) to meet someone. I remember that my old biol group is meeting too, and I don't want to meet them so I consider running up the side of the dirt wall to get past them. This train of thought is interrupted, as I'm walking I see a crowd of people and a truck just speeds towards them. I SWEAR this truck hit a person, but when is passed there was no one who was injured... I look off to the left and see a bus speeding towards me and the crowd! We all scatter to avoid it, I turn around heading towards a construction area where they're setting new pavement. I remember walking back knowing that the bus has passed, I seem to somehow be talking to a construction worker, I talk weirdly, as if I had a foreign accent... Haziness ensues until I'm walking down the ramp inside the cafeteria building (I remember that it seemed more club-esque style, black walls and dimmed lights etc). I am utterly shocked, because at the bottom of the ramp is my best friend D! He's looking at his phone, I haven't seen him for about a year so I just run towards him and bear hug him . He's apparently gay too, and I hug his boyfriend so he feels welcomed or something.

Dream 2 - Lucid #3 (07 00ish)
I'm in my high school walking along beside a bus (I used to bus back and forth from school). I see ahead of me my old friends, and M who I used to be really tight with but he moved away. I'm overwhelmed with the same happiness I had when I had seen D in the previous dream, I start running to tackle-hug him, but I stop. The feeling spurs a déjà vu effect, I realize instantly that I'm dreaming. I don't even do a reality check, I start to float and fly away (this has happened at the start of every lucid I've had). I stop myself, telling myself to stabilize the dream first, I'm rubbing my hands together but I can't really feel it. The same thing that happened in my last lucid happened again, I seemed to have my eyes closed, and I knew that once I open them I'd be awake. Bam. Ruined it again somehow.

Note: Stoked to have my 3rd lucid, but I need to learn to make them last and make them stable.

Dream 3 - Talking to friends (08 30)
I seem to be walking the usual route I take to university, talking to J1 who I don't usually walk with. I tell him that I had my 3rd lucid dream last night, he is impressed and then another friend walks past and asks us what we're talking about. I tell J1 not to say anything, I feel embarrassed about sharing it now (this is probably related to when some people walked in as I was showing J1 some poetry junk I was working on). I see J2 and I'm happy to see him (he used to get bullied and I used to stick up for him in high school), we start talking and I tell him we should go meet with J1 who's standing on the bridge looking into the river (still in the uni, this is all pretty accurately place for the dream world).

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

Dream 1 - Rocket ship
So I'm walking to a door that leads outside of a house, I open it and see outside. There's a giant rocket ship, and this is my 'project' in the dream, to build and launch a giant rocket into space. I get the feeling it's nearly launch time, and there's a barrel in front of me that I need to light, once I do it will launch, but... I realize that I need to clear the area, I shout out to my flatmates that it's going to launch soon and that I need some help. They run off somewhere and start 'clearing the area', I don't seem to really know what I'm doing, I can see another person driving a tanker truck around too. I start moving the aforementioned barrel up to the door, but as I reach the door I realize that no one will be able to get back inside which would be bad, since then they'd we'd all be caught in the blast radius of the rocket. I move it back and call my flatmates to come back inside, then I block the exit off with the barrel again (I suppose my plan was to be able to light it and then dart back inside the house). A major flaw of this, once again, was that I had blocked the entrance to myself >_< so I think to myself that maybe I could run around to the back entrance, but I woke up/forgot the rest.

Dream 2 - Time Travel
I found this dream peculiar since I don't know if this happened after or as a part of the above dream (like some weird transition occurred). But I think it may as well be called another dream since it was radically different. Me and a kid (maybe 10ish?) seem to have traveled to another world via a closet in his house (I think he was sheltering me in his house or something). I don't recall anything that really happened, but he had brought his friends and I came along to protect them or something (I sort of imagine that he had been slightly troubled prior to entering this world, and that it was like he was escaping). Fast forwarding to the end of the dream, we're in a rush to get back to the portal, like there is about to be some explosive catastrophe (I thought it might have been the rocket from the previous dream). All the kids friends make it to the portal and go through, me and the kid are last, he goes next, diving through, I follow and just in the nick of time (I felt like there was some kind of extreme explosion at that moment, and recall the portal having a thin, twirling vortex of purple energy around the entrance). I jump onto the portal (which is a bed with a blanket) and dive under the sheets. I'm back in the kids room. But something isn't quite right... I'm on the floor, the room is dark, behind me is the kid and the portal. I turn and face them, and something stirs to my left in a bed... It's another kid, the same kid that is looking at me from by the portal. I realize that beside me on my right is another bed, and I'm in it sleeping. The kid who just woke up looks around sleepily, a bit dazed and confused. We had gone back in time. I know though, that everything is going to be okay, because he NEEDED a brother... It felt strange, but I knew his dad would accept him and that they'd just be known as twins, and that the kid would never again feel the need to go into the portal, it would change the events of the future without creating a paradox. It was just... Supposed to be this way?

Dream 3 - Frozen Witch
Me, a guy and a girl are all best friends. We play near the coast that has a short drop into an expansive ocean. The rocks on the side of this coast are smooth sandstone, and there are fields of green behind them. The sky is stunning, warm and blue with a light breeze. I remember seeing wave cute arches of sandstone and some caves here and there. One day we come across a frozen woman, and somehow knowing she'd be alive (as if she were the Avatar or something) we unfreeze her, somehow... I seem to remember the brightness of the world dimming, things take on a tragic tone, she goes crazy and gets into a showdown with my friend (the guy), they're both very powerful. The only weakness the witch has is water, when it touches her she becomes immobile, so my friend tackles her off the coastal side and into the water. A month passes by without seeing either of them, until my friend washes up on the shore, we rush to help him and I think he ends up being okay.

The dream restarts - an alternate story unfolds.
This time, it isn't us that finds her, but another person, a Sea Goddess. She takes mercy on the soul of the frozen witch, and in her cavern begins to unfreeze her slowly. I discover this by walking into a cave one day, a pool of water lies in the middle of the room that looks clear and tropical. On the other side of the room is the witch, mostly frozen except her head which has a vortex of light blue twirling around her head calmly and slowly. Magic water drips onto her ice-encased body, gradually the water that melts floats up and joins the twirling vortex. The witch is different this time, she has a beautiful and friendly smile. It seemed inevitable though, because somehow later on she and my friend fight again. He rips of his clothes and tackles her into the water. This time she doesn't seem to be defeated by water, and as they thrash in the water they end up stopping. He climbs back onto land, and starts walking off into the distance. Things change now, my friend is a girl and is naked, it doesn't seem sexual though. Also, I've become the witch, I'm in the water, pressed up against the edge of the coast watching her walk away and I have a feeling of wanting her to teach me how to fight.

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

Day 8 SSILD - Did the cycles before I went to bed, I ended up having a FA around midnight. Was pretty weird, the feeling of waking up, and then waking up again. Also did some cycles around midnight and 3:30ish but just fell asleep shockingly fast.

Note: SSILD seems to be helping with my insomnia.

Note: Didn't put a great deal of effort into recalling my dreams this morning, I forgot 2 of them and most of the one that I do remember. They were all quite vivid and intensely long though.

Dream 1 - Cleaning
In a hall place, I can recall seeing people sitting at a desk writing stuff out. Then for some reason I was cleaning stuff in this room. I saw a few people from my geology class which is a dream sign for me.

Can't put as much effort into lucid dreaming sadly exams are taking up my focus for the next few weeks.

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

Day 7 SSILD - Pretty much nothing, was super tired and couldn't finish the cycles.

Dream 1 - Spider Bath
I'm at a my close friend Sam's house, me and him are talking about a game that reminds me of Tekken. I'm lying in a white bathtub as we talk, it has a slide window over the top with lots of cobwebs on the inside (so pretty much several inches from my face). I start noticing more and more that there seems to spiders of all sorts of colours, in retrospect they looked quite incredible and beautiful. In the conversation I'm having, we're talking about how I wreck at it, and the only way that my other friend Matt ever beats me is if he uses the spider character or something. I continue to keep noticing the presence of spiders until it starts making me a bit paranoid, I feel like maybe one of them will fall on me, 'what if they're poisonous' I think to myself. I feel like I absolutely have to get out now, I just felt that they were too close for comfort. At this point I get a bit frantic, reaching behind me for the edge of the window, trying to slide it open, I shimmy myself out through the small opening I've made in growing fear of the spiders. Once I'm up I give myself a shake and pat down, jumping up and kicking my legs. I feel a bit better now, and then wake up.

Note: This was probably caused by me opening my window at night because it's been too hot lately, and I always get a bit paranoid about spiders crawling over me, even though I don't usually mind them and there aren't any poisonous spiders where I live.

Dream Fragment: Prior to the next dream and possibly a part of it, I remember either dreaming or thinking about an anime show I've seen before where the main character is looking for a club to join. He goes around and trials them out, doing boxing, karate, etc.

Dream 2 - Tree School and School Fight
I decide to join a group which turns out to be a sort of school. This 'school' is inside a giant tree where students go to learn and take part in whatever it is that interests them (maybe 100-200 people). I seem to have joined really late into the year or something, and everyone already has cliques and groups, this makes me a bit of a social reject for some reason. Haziness ensues until I am in a queue, maybe in a cafeteria or dining hall, and the person in front of me is from my university class (he's got dreadlocks and is pretty much a tool), and in the dream he's like 7ft which is much bigger than he actually is IWL. We seem to talk a bit and everything is alright, he smiles and we're on good terms now, then he walks off. Haziness ensues again, and now it seems there's a school gathering outside on a deck built on one of the large trees branches. As I'm walking along a branch about half a metre wide, I glance back at the tree to see my old flat mate through a window in the tree, sitting at a desk in his room playing games. I continue until I reach the deck and sit on seat (like one of those ones in parks), there's a guy on the other side who smirks and says "oh god" as I sit down. I can tell that it's because of my 'social reject' status in the school at the moment. Next thing I know I notice three guys approaching behind me, they're looking to be bullies. The leader starts talking to me, trying to act really cool, he says something like "no one knows you or likes you" to which I respond "oh that's a shame, my name is A-A-Al-Alex". I seem to have formed a stutter. "A-A-Al-Alex" he repeats mockingly, "it's called a stutter, some people have them" I reply, I don't feel bothered by anything he's doing or saying yet, but I seem to think he's a bit stupid. We seem to be standing and facing each other a few metres apart now, there's a few people at the side too. He cracks a joke at me and everyone laughs. "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" I shout at the top of my lungs, everyone is startled suddenly and the guy in front of me looks at me in confusion and fright. I dash towards him within a sec of shouting, I punch his throat, followed by two punches to his face. He's on the ground, I jump on him and start brutally beating him. I stop after about 10 seconds thinking that I don't want to go too far, I only wanted to teach him a lesson. Everyone else was too scared to step in and help him or break up the fight. Fast forwarding to the principals office, I make my excuse as "I don't take **** from bullies. It's better to take him down than let him torment me". I don't remember much after this but my feeling was that he let me off with a warning and the other guy had an insane black eye.

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

Day 6 using SSILD
I decided to refocus my intent after reading an old thread about getting out of a dry spell. I knew that I had to build the confidence, so I tried super damn hard, telling myself that I CAN do it, I WILL do it. I kept telling myself to be a natural lucid dreamer, to make myself think that I know it can be done. I got good results and have now broken my dry spell.

Dream 1 - Dream Fragment (00 35)
Very short, I briefly remember that there was something about lucid dreaming, then I promptly woke up.

Dream 2 - Oil Volcanism (02 55)
I seem to be on a road trip in a car, driving towards the beach with my brothers gf's family boat (I don't think they have a boat). It feels like I'm in the South Island, and the sky is overcast. Somehow the boat gets into the water and I'm on it now with a friend and a boat guide. I don't really make any contact with the boat guide, he's in the background, I think he was wearing a life vest. There is a board or frame on the wall of the boat, I touch it and know that if I lift it up too much then the boat will fall apart. I turn around at some point to see my friend touching it and he lifts it up too much, subsequently disassembling the boat. We're in the water now, I feel a bit worried about sharks but I don't think too much about it. We try to bring together a sort of 'shield' of boat parts to protect our legs in case there are sharks though, since it felt like there was no way we could get on any of the floating bits without falling off. Next thing I know, we're somehow getting this makeshift 'raft' thing with us in the centre (still in the water though, imagine a barricade) to move towards the oil 'spill', of which was the original goal for the road trip. The oil spill itself is more like an upwelling of oil, it feels a bit warm and is viscous. The plan now is to get back to shore using the flow coming from the upwelling oil, so we wade our little fort on the top of the spill and go down the slide as if it were a slide, gaining momentary momentum. We make it to the edge, I think something to myself along the lines of staying within the boundaries of the oil spill because no wildlife like sharks and stuff would be able to get us. I see the shore in the distance, I start thinking that it isn't that far and so I shouldn't worry about sharks, next thing I know I'm getting out of the water and walking along the shore to the car. As I walk towards the car I see my mum, brother, and my brothers gf drive past, my brother is laughing at some joke. I decide I better go say hi, and walk up to the car. They're standing in a triangle talking, they're here to go see the oil spill too. I try to get into the conversation to apologize to my brothers gf but I can't seem to get into it, I then wake up.

I stay awake for the next 2-3 hours, unable to fall back to sleep as my insomnia seems to kick in. Nearing the end of this (between 5-6) I could hear birds chirping outside, I started trying to make myself fall asleep and focusing on my hypnogogic imagery. I had two intense hypnogogic sounds, one was an amplified bird chirp that boomed down my ear, the other was just a boom.

Dream 3 - Homeless shelter for students (between 06 00 and 06 30)
I had made my way to a house where lots of people who didn't have houses would sleep, it was free accommodation. Everyone would either be sleeping on the floor, couches or beds, and the house was more like one room. I conversed a little bit with the DC's but I don't recall any of the conversations. I remember thinking that it would be convenient for a student to live here, you wouldn't ever have to pay rent, and for some reason I think that most of the people there were actually students. I decide to lie down and go to sleep on the floor. I wake up during the night and think 'oh shit, I should be going home', knowing that I would have to walk up a huge hill (the image I had of the hill was the exact same one as the one I walk up to get home from my friends house). After this imagery, the house takes on a different tone, kind of resembling an experience where my friend would have get-togethers at his place and we'd crash on his couch. Upon thinking that the hike back will make me sweaty (it's incredibly humid in the place with the hill) I take off my long-johns - this felt like a struggle for some reason.

I try to cement this dream to memory, and as I'm doing so I end up falling asleep again into what is now the 2nd lucid dream I've had.

Dream 4 - The thief who wants our stuff for some reason (07 20)
Almost like a continuation of my journey in the past dream, I'm now home. I'm conversing with my family in the family room about how a thief is going to try and steal chess pieces from us (they're super small too). I remember something about them having a special power when they're all brought together. We decide to keep them in a chest and protect them, we have to go away somewhere so the thief can't find us. The king piece isn't with the other pieces though, it's been completely forgotten by the others. I walk into the sitting room (I think Americans call this a lounge) and look around for a while. I seem to be on my stomach on the floor, I notice that at the bottom of a 1m tall, 15cm wide wooden stand thing is the king chess piece. It looks like a knight though . I think to myself that I should keep it to myself and that way no one will know where the last piece is. It is in a glass box container, I open it up and take it out, I seem to still be lying on my stomach and decide I should probably get up. I hear my mum coming into the lounge, and I barely manage to get up in time and put my arm behind the curtain and the figurine in my mouth, obscuring them both from view. My mum walks through, "Hey mum" I say, it comes out metallic because of the figurine in my mouth. She doesn't pay any attention the weirdness of my voice. Unfortunately I had forgotten to turn off my alarm that goes off at 06 45, the glass box behind the curtain is next to my head and starts vibrating loudly. My mum says "what's that sound?" as she walks towards me with a confused look on her face. "It's just my phone, I like the feel of it", I rub my head against the curtain to what I'm pretending to is now a phone behind it. She then says "Is it coming from behind the curtain?". This felt like an incredibly weird response, I start having an internal monologue: "What? Why would she ask that, I just told her that it's my phone and she can clearly see it's coming from behind the curtain. Is she not satisfied with my answer?" I start to realize that this has to be a dream, my feelings about the current situation flow away as I realize none of it matters. "I'm dreaming" I think to myself. I walk towards the doors that lead to the deck, on my way I do a RC to make sure, pushing my thumb onto the palm of my hand and stretching it elastically. I open the doors and fly outside, it's night time, I fly up a bit and get blocked a bit by the power lines. I decide to go up a bit and hover over the house, and for some reason that I can't recall, I closed my eyes. Big mistake. I think 'oh shit, if I open my eyes I'll be awake >_<'... Then I tried to open my eyes and be in the dream but it didn't work.

Note: I didn't feel overly excited and destabilize the dream like I did in my first lucid, instead I just cocked it up somehow.

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

Dream 1: I forgot.

I remember waking up at around 3ish though and being like "holy shit this dream is huge... can I just forget it? Yes, I can..." then I went back to sleep. The recall I had for that dream was too big, I felt like it would have taken 3 pages to write up. Oh well.

Dream 2: Arenas AGAIN?!?!
So a common theme for me in my dreams are arenas. I was with a friend and we were in a competing in said arena, but I can't recall anything about the scenery or event or opponents though.

Dream Fragment: Prison?
I just have this feeling that I had a dream about a prison, and the only DC I can remember was prisoner leaning against the railing on the second floor, looking out over the others in the cafeteria (I was on the first floor in the cafeteria).

Note: Terrible recall was caused by a completely desire to just sleep properly and not care for once. It felt great just taking a rest to be honest, especially since all my lectures and assignments are out of the way now.

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

Quite a restless night attempting SSILD for the 4th night in a row. I recalled only 1 dream, the others vanished upon waking up because I felt exhausted by efforts to do SSILD over the past few days (insomnia keeps kicking in and keep me awake when I'm trying to fall asleep after a WBTB).

Dream 1 - The Dwarven Adventure
Note: I was unconvinced that I had even had this dream, since I believed I had been in my bed and just 'thinking' about the dream occurring - like I was still trying to drift off to sleep. I've never had an experience like this, in fact I've had a few oddities occur as a result of trying the SSILD technique.

I am with my close friend + flatmate M, he's on a skateboard and I'm on a tray-like trolley rolling along the ground. We're on a narrow pathway next to a road, there are the typical green trees of my NZ home-village scenery. We roll a long with him in the lead, he sucks at skateboarding and is trying to learn, he keeps trying to maintain his balance while moving slowly, he rolls downhill a bit and steadies himself. At some point the dream seems to have progressed again, I realize I am a Dwarf now and my friend has left somewhere, I'm still on my trolley thing rolling around. I'm confronted by a fellow Dwarf who tells me that I'm only 1 of 4 Dwarves that exist on the surface world, the rest had all returned to the mountain halls to live. He also has a trolley-tray thing, that seems to be the common mode of transportation for Dwarves, I shan't question it. Both me and the other Dwarf were old and bearded, very similar to LOTR Dwarves. Anyways, we decide that we should unite the last of the surface Dwarves and travel back to join our fellow brethren within the mountains. We encounter another bearded Dwarf after an incredibly and unquestionably short amount of time, he is old like us, and a little bit crazy looking. We tell him of what we're doing, and for some reason we have to hurry and leave, we're about to get chased. The first Dwarf decides he will stay behind, he can't come with us because he won't make it, the second Dwarf jumps off of his trolley and onto a lever, then smiles crazily and goes 'oopsy' (he seemed to be working for the people that were about to start chasing us in order to pay off some debt, but he broke the rules and pulled the lever). The lever releases a huge trolley roughly 5mx5mx1m, I roll onto it and turn around, the second Dwarf jumps back onto his trolley and rolls his way swiftly onto the large trolley, and then in an inspiring moment the first Dwarf makes an effort to join us, making it in the last second before the big trolley zoomed off down a wide track.

Phew, safe, the bad guys slip from our minds at this point. The track we're on is like a really wide BMX track in the woods, we zoom off down this track. One of the Dwarves jump off and starts riding his own trolley in front of us, he zooms ahead and occasionally burrows through the ground, then shoots out of a nearby wall and back onto the track. These Dwarves are master diggers or something. We stop after a while to get the last Dwarf. This Dwarf is way younger, and tall like a human, he looks exactly like Will Smith. We convinced him to push us on the large tray-trolley, I sit at the front and pull out a pipe and start smoking it Bilbo Baggins style. I crack a few random jokes about the trolley being a dragon and the smoke I'm breathing being its breath, in retrospect this made no sense -.-... At some point the dream jumps again, I'm the usual old me and I'm skyping my gf, but I feel that somehow it was a coherent transition from the Dwarf adventure.

We skype and her two friends are with her, they're both blonde and one has a few piercings. They apparently have a couple monkeys, this part felt quite vivid when it comes to the monkeys - they seemed so lifelike when I 'woke up' (remember the note) that it spurred me to realize that I HAD been dreaming after all. The conversation with them goes on for a few minutes, but I get the feeling it felt longer than it actually was. They point the camera feed towards the monkeys that are having an argument, one is about 20 inches tall, the other about 30inches. The big one is telling the little one off for dressing up in a pink apron, the little one turns around for the big one to take it off (kind of like a parent telling it's kid off) and it rolls its eyes and its tongue hangs from its mouth lazily, it sighs in annoyance at its fellow monkey.

Somehow my gf is next to me now, she is leaning towards the computer and makes a remark about my room "Ugh what's that smell, it smells like duck shit". To which I respond "I don't know, who cares, maybe a duck came in here and took a shit?" *nonchalant look on my face*
Coincidentally, a duck waddles across my desk all of a sudden, it nips my arm and I try to grab it, then it flutters around frantically as I hold it in my left hand. It then flutters at me in defense, it nips my neck which I feel really intensely. I wake up in an intense spasm, my head pressed against my left shoulder.

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

I never properly become 'lucid' in this, and I found the dream I had really disturbing so I'm going to cut a few details out for my own sake.

During the night an alarm I had set a week beforehand had gone off at 4am. I wasn't prepared for this, I had completely forgotten, but I decided it would be a good opportunity to do a SSILD because I seemed to have awoken just before an REM period. What followed was my third consecutive attempt at a SSILD and almost my second lucid dream in an extremely disturbing situation.

Dream 1: I hope I can purge this from my memory one day.
I was lying in my bed going through the cycles required in a SSILD technique, eventually I fall asleep (literally after an hour, insomnia nearly kicked in). I'm sitting on the edge of a bed reading a book about hydro-geology (one of the papers I'm studying in university), the room I'm in has a pale blue colour to it, and there is a bookshelf next to me. Two milfs walk in, and the one on the right suggests another book for me to read on the same topic. I thank her for the suggestion, and the two woman sit on either side of me. I get a bit uncomfortable and nervous as I realize what's going on, the two woman are attractive and seem to be interested in me. I put my head into my lap and draw a deep breath, something just doesn't feel right. In the space of a few seconds I've somehow gained the notion that I must be in a dream, but I haven't checked yet, and I'm still thinking about the two woman next to me... They look at me and I only have two thoughts going through my head: Do a reality check... Have a three-way...
Before I could even do anything in these few seconds of mild realization, the woman to my left has hooked up with me, I close my eyes, her tongue feels cold and thin, it shouldn't feel like that. The notion to do a reality check becomes stronger, I just KNOW that I'm dreaming, it has to be, I want to do one but I don't have enough time... I'm awake. And incredibly disturbed (since I left some details out, anyone reading this won't know why I feel disturbed).

I decide to reality check and make sure I didn't just have a false awakening, but nope, I'm awake. God damn it. Okay, try again. I go through the cycles again and try it from the beginning, but I'm too sleepy, I keep forgetting. I'm persistent though, I just KNEW that I could do it again. This is where another strange thing happened, I'm still not sure what actually occurred to me...

Lying on my left side, eyes closed. Something's happening. A strobe light-like sensation was happening to eyes, but instead of light, it was an alternating image, I instantly think that I'm entering a dream consciously. It happens in a rapid-fire act, going back and forth, where one second I can SEE my room, then I'm somewhere else, then back to my room, then back to the other place. This sensation only lasted a few seconds and I failed to make it stabilize. I should also note that in this case and inside the dream I had earlier, I felt my heart thumping away, I suspect that the adrenaline rush that came with the prospect of a lucid dream prevented from actually having one. Also I believe that the 'strobe light-like' thing I experienced might have been my eyes starting up an REM period as I was awake and aware, I thought that I might have accidentally almost induced a VILD (since I was heavily visualizing at the time).

Black: Non-dream
Blue: Non-lucid
Red: Lucid

I have a few dream fragments, my sleep wasn't that great due to staying up and watching the lunar eclipse last night.

Dream 1: The letter detective
I'm in a small rural Chinese/Japanese village, the paths made of dirt which is a white-brown colour. The buildings in this area are pretty authentic wooden houses. Me and another person are searching for a white envelope that's supposed to contain an important letter, I walk down the path and see to my left a little grassy slope with a white envelope on it as well as a red object. From this, we discern that the thief is a man with a red shirt and that he's emptied the envelope and taken the letter. I seem to see something under one of the houses and we crawl beneath it, but I see someone behind us and all of a sudden we're hiding. It doesn't work though, he knows we're hiding and he looks super redneck and has a red checkered flannel shirt - he's the thief. We try to shuffle out but for some reason we can't, the man behind us crouches down and reaches to grab us, he runs a finger down the back of my leg which felt incredibly real. I wake up from the shock of the touch which freaked me out.

Dream Fragment 1:
I seem to be holding some hot chicks panties as I lie in someones bed in the morning.

Dream Fragment 2:
This dream felt incredibly short, I seem to realize that I'm in a dream and wake up before I actually become 'lucid'.

Note: 2nd attempt at using SSILD induction technique, I failed but seem to have had a very shallow lucidity experience.