ZAD's DJ

Trying to get back in the game again.

20210521
* Multiple dreams likely influenced by watching a few episodes of Love, Death, and Robots on Netflix yesterday.
* Fragment: walking through a dark city.
* Extended fragment group: in a pop-up community nested inside of a combination warehouse/train station. I was younger? Started out sitting on the floor, feelings of rejection. Our community is being sabotaged by the unseemly inspector/pest-control man. Alternating dark brown and light white/blue environments. Sitting on a long central bench with previously tentative characters after bonding - themes of friendship, community. Wholesome.
* Sleep notes: asleep around 11-12, woke at 5:10 and was very uncomfortable until 7:20 when I forced myself up.

* EDIT: forgot to add that after sleeping primarily on my back for the last few months, I made an effort to sleep on my side the last two nights, which may have helped with the more vivid dreams. I had pretty long and detailed dreams last night as well.

20210520
* A lot of dream fragments featuring my wife in different forms.
* Fragment: themes of age and youth. My wife and I are in the second story of a stone castle-like apartment with all of the lights turned off inside, looking out and down on the yard/driveway and downtown street. It's dark, illuminated only by streetlights. Late night or early morning. We watch the young-adult-aged daughter of the house owner approach the oddly positioned staircase with her small dog. We don't want to be caught watching her approach -- we may have been hiding out in the house? The dog sees us and enters our room playfully.

Will be trying to update here more frequently. I've really been neglecting the opportunity that COVID has given me to up my dream game and be more diligent with journaling. So let's change that!

20200801 (3nl)

1. swamp monster hunters consulting gypsies and bringing along journalist woman (she smelled?); in the woods skinny tweaker methheads interacting with big gnarled ginger root woody monsters, white van parked with headlights; in the stream, small monster with big nose - gypsies confirmed it's the worst one
This was a pretty memorable dream as far as the visuals and emotions. It was actually narrated, and sort of felt like an episode of True Detective (S1) with the lighting and "cinematography" if I can put it that way.

2. before this, downton abbey style old house family drama

3. shopping mall or false memory?

WBTB 1.

(Dream) 2 liter capless, fried egg stairs, (knife), F, alt apartment, night, cars

(WILD) In 8 nighttime, phase out of sliding glass door, accidentally phase through ground too, end up in Medieval chambers, long tables and a closet full of loose weapons (some really unique - twisted wood with two razor sharp small blades, lots of interesting maces, no swords; see guy, attack his head but he's resilient, turns out there's beasts we need to fight, pick up a bow and some rubber tipped arrows, keep asking him for a sword, eventually wake. Was a long (5ish minute) dream!

WBTB 2.

(WILD) In dark room, burnt man interviewing someone (nasty) but as he asks questions he's sketching in some lewd, nude, and (a bit) rude drawings, he goes on to some featuring Mewtwo and I make fun of him, see I on way out, then become lucid and leave the room, transform self in mirror but mirror is inconsistent - not keeping up with my movements or angles or anything. So I take the mirror outside and fly, it reflects the stars and moon well but my face is strangely small in the middle and sort of holographic. Could feel my waking body

(WILD) Not sure beginning of dream but daytime 9 and I walk out of garage and fly towards P's house, I fly fast and high at first, then swoop down load and slow down, and start trying to "summon" an ocean because of comments I told to F last night. Beneath me there starts flowing a pretty big ocean surge, but I try to imagine the ocean in front of me now, and it doesn't, just more and more rows of houses. Slowly the houses start to thin out and I get some wilderness location, and see an interesting cave I want to explore, so I stop (which is a bit hard with my momentum going) and hover down into the mouth of the cave, but it's a lot smaller than it looked from the sky and I just fit my feet and waist in and start looking around when I wake up. Could feel my waking body



Notes: Trying two new mantras together with each other. The first is "My dream is me", reminding myself to meditate on the fact that I can take full control of the dream and not pay any mind to inhibitory thoughts or feelings that may cause me to go nonlucid or break out of a dream too soon. The second is "I wake as I wake", reminding me to lie still and do a state test each time I wake to catch DEILDs and/or do more WILDs.

WBTB when F left for work. As I got back in bed I thought briefly about LDing but didn't MILD or anything. I relaxed and drifted, but right before I slipped out of consciousness I snapped back into awareness and began to feel the waves of vibrations. I was having the transparent eyelids effect and could see I was in a replica of my room. I had some expectation of SP/RA since I've had a few pretty spooky instances of that lately when I've MILDed (or sometimes when awaking from a DILD). However none came, and I started drifting up and to the right. I relaxed and let myself go.

Slowly I floated over to one of the walls and when I felt my dream body was free, I pushed off the wall onto the floor and walked down the hallway. I said "lights" and hoped that would work but it rarely does and didn't. I decided to do the thing that almost always fucks up my WILDs and phase through my window, hoping that that would be more successful than walking through my almost pitch-black apartment. This time instead of trying to phase through the curtains (which I always do for some reason), I pulled back the curtains and phased through the glass. It was double-paned with about six inches of separation between the two, so I thought I may have trouble getting through, but I decided to expect it to work, and it did.

Outside seemed like my apartment grounds at first, but it became clear that I was in the quad of my old college campus. I floated down (my whole body was engaged, it was a nice and quite physical dream, with some light gravity). I aimed my fall and landed on a nice bush, grabbing it with my hands and balancing myself on it with my feet, before I dropped to the ground. It was still night, and everything was lit by tall streetlamps along the path. One of them had its box cracked open, with the plastic exposing lots of thin red and blue wires. I walked along for a bit and then woke up.

Dreams
A1: Neighborhood - lost some details on this one
2: Hotel - night - cost $850, feels like a lodge, mattress and sheets are broken into three parts, very comfortable, owner of hotel walks in when I'm in a strange position, she says she didn't want us to be stuck in there and hands us a key
#125: Childhood home - night - start in kitchen, look out sliding door and see shadow running across backyard, walk down hallway to parent's bedroom, feel strong intuition and instantly become lucid!
3: FA - night - writing down these dreams in bed
B4: Classroom area - day - classmates (hs, college, various other) are constantly asking me to help/remind them of something, after a while I get mad and say "do it yourself!", suddenly they all turn on me and the class is assigned some really complicated work with no explanation; transition to mall area - walk past a "kpop store" with nicely dressed korean girls in long coats, walk around near a couple of old asian ladies who are weaving/decorating huge rugs with gold leaf and nice thread, I try to step around them but accidentally step on one and the old lady against the wall gets angry, I go talk to her and after I somehow explain myself, she says her name is "Garou Jin" and that she will pardon me for it, and I can take a letter to my teacher, however each time I try to repeat her name to her she corrects me. [Interesting setting]
5: Inside apartment - morning - waiting for F to go to work, mix myself a drink (it looks odd, much like the one I made yesterday), watching TV and listening to headphones; in this version of our apartment, it was as if light was flowing through from the gap where our stairs are, and it created a very pleasing effect. The rest of the room was painted in soft blue-green pastels; a comfortable dream environment.
6: Deja vu location - day - McDonald's location from a past dream when I was first starting a new job over a year ago; it's always cool to visit a generated dream location (not from real life) twice.
C7: Campus sidewalk - day - walking with two girls (I'm part of campus security?), suddenly transition to outside my apartment by the office - there's an older woman with a very young owl sitting on an ice chest. There is also a large convoluted chicken head and it opens its mouth wide as if it's going to feed the small owl. The owl sticks its head in but the chicken head quickly swallows it whole. The two girls are distraught and the tries and fails to pull the owl out, so instead she sets up a small grill with shish kebab. She eventually convinces me that since we can't save the owl, all we can do is kill it quickly and enjoy the food.
8: Inside apartment - I've taken apart my dog's leash and am trying to put it back together, but suddenly it's transformed into a vacuum cleaner and my dog falls backwards into the tank of the vacuum.
9: Childhood home - laundry room with dad, talking about where detergents(?) are located in various cabinets, suddenly his face has a pixelated mask on the front surface of it, some kind of luchadore. In the other room there is a movie on with Tom Cruise and some woman, they're dancing (it's a drama).

Sleep Pattern
A: 10:00pm to 2:50am
B: 3:30am to 5:30am
C: 5:40am to 8:05am

Time Notes
Last food: 8pm
Alcohol: 5pm

Dream - Really good one but I lost it.

Dream - On city block arguing with cousin about marble or ugly pattern on truck and "it's just another truck anyway, why does he need to own this many trucks when the public transportation is cheaper in the long run". See a new baby/toddler cousin - his fingers are messed up and he's covered in cheeto dust. He calls me "Papa" which all my cousins laugh about and my aunt just rolls her eyes (?). We walk around this city area a bit, I remember specifically like "zooming in" on a market stall in the distance.

Fragment - Role Models actor (Sean) bad trump impression one slice pumpernickel loaf in fridge.

1x1 + 1x.5 = 1.5 => 169.5

Frag - 3 people, huge white rectangular cube in corner of open room

Frag - A boss of mine is rumored to be "super buff", and just doesn't look that way because of how he points his webcam

Dream - bringing F and other person (older?) to the beach. I have to go around on the parking lot once but I pull through to a good spot and vocalize this. We all get out and walk to a beach area. The waves are coming up surprisingly high. There are a few people in the water, one buff dude with grey skin. We get separated briefly

Dream - T (very immature former classmate) is teaching a human sexuality class (this is near the beach hill from last dream). There are diagrams on the board, of how names change in relationships. Parents become Mom and Dad even to each other, and also baby to each other. There were some other very serious points she was making but I was paying attention to the letters because there was some kond of code in the way words were capitalized

2x1 +2x.5 = 3 =>168

Dream: In restaurant, maybe FL or Outback. I've asked them to let me use their kitchen to prepare a meal for F, they agreed. I'm cooking a Ruth's Chris-sized steak and while I'm busying myself with everything else (sides, table prep) it burns on the bottom. I flip it and quickly go to serve it. But it turns out they gave me a shitty table, and I know how F likes booths. So I try to move but all they can give me is a less shitty table. So I pick up the drinks and food and move them, I have to get the assistance of one of the waitresses to get it all, then F arrives and the waitress is sitting with us now. Suddenly a boy joins us to get with the waitress, and it's a very convoulted version of the dance episode from "My So-Called Life" which F was watching last night. The steak tastes amazing despite being "well and good" or some other variation of the phrase "well done" that one of the DCs said. It was really juicy, nicely but minimally seasoned, tasted like a solid Medium although it looked black on the bottom.

Dream: Dream revisits the same area as the last dream, I take F through to the other side of the building, it's a long hallway that reminds me for some reason of the first level map from SW: Dark Forces, while in reality it's just a long, wide white hallway with very tall ceilings and a cul-de-sac-ish area at the end.

Spoiler for potentially NSFW:

F and I are talking (sort of fighting?). I'm on top of her on the ground and we're making out and for some reason I slap her? I walk outside of the divider and see Ms. P, my babysitter from when I was a kid. It's this really awkward juxtoposition (I think I may have been naked?) and I'm trying to be nice to her while she's hugging me, and at the same time am feeling really guilty about F, and want to go apologize to her or something, but I'm still mad at her? It was just a huge jumble of emotions.

Fragment: F and I in an upstairs hallway like Laura Palmer's but reversed and open, hiding from someone?

Dream: FA where I wake up and feel neck-fuzzy and walk around the room clumsily.

Actual WBTB happens here.

Dream: I'm a superhero in a library area, my nemesis is Bullet, I have a female partner, at some point I hijack smokey van for a getaway (from a black patriarchal superhero gang/family of Bullet), I have invisibility powers, "NPCs" can't see me but will still avoid me -- thought that was an interesting caveat; an older woman superhero comes in and betrays my partner and is searching for me with the help of Bullet, I fly through paper separators, they won't kill me -- want me alive. Will edit to fill in details later. At some point I could read things consistently -- what did I read??

Dream: Lanes, bus, swerving. Bus is like 20 feet wide and 30 feet high and has to park outside of the overpass. Sunny day.

Lucid #81: Revisit table/desk area from Bullet dream. Spontaneously gain awareness but don't want to "cross the threshold" and become lucid. Linger for a second, playing with drawers, then say fuck it and ask "What is my path in life?" or something like that to my subconscious repeatedly. I don't get or feel a response, so I remember some old advice and look down and examine myself.

Spoiler for decidely NSFW:

I'm wearing a deep blue T-shirt, and for some reason, grey panties. I walk up to a mirror near the desk and check what's going on down there, and it's a pretty accurate depiction of the female anatomy. I'm kind of just checking it out when the realization hits that the dream is screwing with me and I'm about to wake up

Spoiler for decidely NSFW:

and then I do.

Tried Numi brand Guayusa tea last night (at bedtime, not WBTB, because I had no opportunity to steep tea for 8-10 minutes in the middle of the night). I half-expected it to keep me awake but in reality my thoughts were just so clear for the first time in a long time that I didn't want to go to sleep for around 30 minutes. Still had no problem relaxing with it overall, it just felt like a fog had been lifted from my brain. Highly recommend.

5x1+ 1x.5 + 10 (first lucid) + 5 (DILD) + 2 (WBTB) = +22.5 => 165

12-16

Nothing pre-WBTB
Dream: FA where red foxes come into the backyard, dog is scared, then more foxes come over hill covering fence.
Dream: FA where I'm rehearsing a lucid in bed - visualization skills were amazing because I was in a dream (I think).
Lucid #78: In 9 backyard, become lucid, run out towards birdhouse with dog, turn him into a fox from earlier dream, fly.
Lucid #79: In attic, become lucid, do weird finger-through-wood-through-finger RC, walk around, beginning of plot of #80 (grey hair black eyeliner pale woman is introduced as a revolutionary/collaborator?)
Lucid #80: In a modern-looking guggenheimish place, kept myself stable for a long time (maybe 5 mins total dream length?). Got lucid almost immediately but went with plot of lucid. I'm a woman in this one, running away and spying on behalf of the woman from before. I remember feeling my feet when I was running. I run through an atrium/lobby area while it's still empty and find a good place to duck behind (it's an attached area to the circular lobby and staircase that's recessed a few feet into the floor). When I climb/drop down into this small hiding place, I feel the gravity/physical sensations in vivid detail even though it's a movie-style acrobatic move. I duck pretty low (but not low enough) and watch as maybe a hundred people come down the staircase. I start looking at their faces and they're so detailed. They're all adults, most dressed in business clothes or their sunday best. Suddenly there are three or four older women and men wearing long powder blue robes and white hoods/masks, and they look right at me. I jump out of my hiding spot, across the staircase and to the lobby (where all of the people are now. I stand on a table and am soon followed by the pale white-haired black eyeliner girl, who starts monologing about why we're there. After a bit of this (I wish I remembered what she said) I wake up.
It was a long lucid chain so I had other lucids but don't remember enough to write them down or count them. Lucid fragment: transformed myself.
Fragment: Grandpa?
Dream: FA where I write down/tell all of my dreams

3x1 + 1x.5 +
10 (first lucid) + 5 (DILD) + 2 (WBTB) +
5 (RC) + 2x5 (other lucids)
= +35.5 => 138.5

12-17

Dream: Watching an RPG like Chrono Trigger or Oracle of Seasons (those eras) play out in front of me; it's taking place in a large castle with small raised platforms along the walls of an open section. At first there are people (sprites) there, but ss I approach each time they fade quickl. Possibly due to a curse? I think tomyself during the dream that the sprites sould be replaced with a "..."?
Fragment: Trying to find a shirt in the dryer for F's cousin, they're all too small though.
Fragment: Something about a carrot wrapped in plastic (Easter).
Dream: Overhead view of google maps/earth, I'm watching third-person my car drive down a road. I have to direct it with my touch/gestures from above, and it become a little unstable a few times. I am sort of an entity within the third-person camera doing the gestures, if that makes sense. Eventually I just start driving like crazy and crash into cars, hop over them, am kicking up dust. There's one section of the road that curves in two places, I have to zoom in to decide. Then I kick up dust all around and I'm pretty much just figure-8-ing the car around the desert. There's a humongous cardboard box which I run into.

2x1 + 2x.5 = +3 => 141.5

12-13

Dream: In a forest with F and D. I'm laying treats along the right-side path for D to follow and go through. For some reason, it's a competition where I have to lead D through his path and then do my own path as well. Once I finish D's path with him (he isn't great at it) I go to a small dock/pavillion/gazebo where I guess I have to cross to get to my path. There are all of these fuzzy caterpillars arranged like spiders crawling over the area I have to duck under/back through to get to my path. I'm really grossed out but eventually forced to touch them and find out they're not the stinging kind (maybe F shows me?). I back through and wake up.

Dream: I'm in 9 with F's grandma (G) and little cousin (L), we're planning a party for L and I bought her a paintbrush. G is asking me to host a party or something in this room and I said fine and she said everyone else will have to pay $50 which is a great honor but I don't have to pay it. There's a big crooked cardboard pink box with a weird shape protruding from the top, which I assume is G's present for L sitting out in the open, unwrapped. L keeps asking what the logo for Walmart is, and I don't want to tell her because in the top-right corner of the box it's there, and I guess I don't want her to know her present came from walmart? Doesn't make a lot of sense because the other side says "Shipped from Walmart" in clear black Impact font letters, just upside down (maybe she can't read upside down).
Dream transition to the kitchen area and I notice a roach or two on the mantle. Then I realize they're everywhere. It was dark before but now it's morning. I try to find some shoes to kill them with and when I look down I realize there are roaches and beetles everywhere, on the floor, couch, etc. I ask my dad for his shoes as I back towards the garage door. He says I'll be fine, they can't hurt you. The smaller beetles are approaching me now, one of them the size of an adolescent turtle has a white spot where his shell by his face peeled off. There are now beetles the size of those old exercise platforms that you step on and step off from. They have two pincers and a protruding element. Each time I look away and look back, it looks more metal/mechanical. My dad is putting his foot and ankle in between the pincers and the protruding part and showing me that "they don't hurt you" but really he's just moving his ankle out of the way at the last second.

Dream: In 9 LR again at night, room is mostly empty and I'm working onn the floor with F on some christmas dioramas on construction paper platforms. I can't remember now what the first few were of, but after doing a few she's mad at me. I get up and get some wooden train tracks (the traditional kind that fit together) and a wooden train (which looks pretty beat up). Two of the four tracks are painted, one red, one blue. I offer to paint the other ones and she gets angrier. I close the drapes on the sliding glass door but she wants them open, and she opens them back up, although they part from the middle when she does it whereas in real life they all pull from one side. D is looking out the window. She's still very mad at me when I bring her some red corrugated construction paper for the last diorama.

Fragment: Hospital w/ F?
Fragment: 9 backyard? Serious w/ family?

Had a few near-WILD experiences during this period despite doing no daywork and no MILD, only did SSILD after the WBTB briefly. I did take a vitamin B12 before bed (around 10 but didn't fall asleep till 11). WBTB (where I actually got up and walked around) 5:30 till 6:30, woke for good at 7:35.

Lucid #73: I'm in a huge mall or college bookstore area, yellow light. The dream part went on for a while but at a certain point I round a corner and see F. She's wearing something low-cut and holding a book. I notice some freckles that aren't accurate and become lucid! The first thing I said, for some reason, was "this is our dream!" I don't remember why I did this, but it seemed to empower her as a DC to be happier/less distressed; maybe it was just my own perception of her informing this. In any case, we talk for a while, but because I kept diving in this lucid chain instead of writing these down in between, I don't remember now about what. Eventually I led her outside to a campus student union/cafeteria area. I picked her up in my arms and I told her I was taking her to my incubated dream world (I called it something weird which I wish I remembered now). I spun for maybe 10-20 seconds but it didn't help much except to stabilize a bit. I ended up just looking at her for a while, and she was just smiling so big. Probably the single most wholesomely gratifying LD experience so far.

Lucid #74: I'm in a small cramped room, blue light. I'm with F again, leading her by the hand. We pass through another room with clutter and junk all around and I see a medusa-like woman who's covered in snakes, all green-black. She starts to chase us but I become lucid and send her away from us, not via force push or anything, but just by will. She is moved (not pushed) back against the wall, and I will her to phase through/into the wall (I figured if I can do it, so can DCs). She does, and it looks super wobbly and cool. But now all of the sudden I can hear a heartbeat sound coming from the walls. I don't worry about it and remind myself that I'm in control. I take F upstairs and we sit on a strange chair in an 8-like living room. We talk again for a bit, more serious this time than joyous. I ask her what I should get her for christmas. She says the earrings I got her were good but I should "double down"? We talk about a few other things which I've forgotten now, and for some reason when we're talking she keeps switching sides and talking at my back; it's sort of like we're in back-to-back seats in a round booth, and I keep turning one way and she'll turn the other. The heartbeat is mostly faded but I woke anyway.

Lucid #75: This one was a DEILD. I "came to" standing over a bed in a dark attic room. There was another snakelike monster in the bed, this time smaller like a large-dog-sized roly poly I guess. Since I was instantly lucid I had no fear and came at the thing face first to watch it shrink away. It shrunk in size and kept backing up and I put my hand on it and transformed it into D, but a smaller version. Then I told D to follow me (he was grey in this version since he originated as a snake monster). I was trying to find F but couldn't. Something happened for a while in this one but I lost it.

Lucid #76: This one started as a DEILD but I guess I lost lucidity during the transition and it became a dream where I was being informed by detectives that my teenage daughter was murdered. They took me to the spot where she was murdered (the outside of my apartment where I walk my dog) and I became lucid. I forgot all about the plot and was just energized by the actions of my previous dreams where I talked to F, especially when I asked about the Christmas present -- it was just really exciting that I spontaneously did something like that. This is important for two reasons I can think of: I woke with an enormous sense of elation/gratitude, and also I remembered not only WL memories within this dream, but also dream memories from a previous dream! Anyway because of all of this I started running victoriously towards these humongous trees (they were more like tree-bark vines reaching up maybe 20 stories, like a skyscraper). I was so happy that when I felt the moisture on some of the leaves I thought of rain, and it started raining! It felt so real, it was amazing. At first I was lifting myself with my arms only, but then I thought about it and started using my legs too. I looked down and up at the huge expanse of the trees and the rain and it was just an exhilarating experience.

Lucid #77: Semi-DEILD. It wasn't instant but I did definitely "slip back" in a way. I tried to materialize something and eventually I got up very sloppily (my control was off due to awareness of WL body in a weird position). I walked to the bathroom and it reminded me of the opening scene of the 6th or 7th HP book with Harry's vision of Nagini biting the man in the room. There were two guys with country accents talking here. Woke up.

Lucid fragments: heard music at one point; felt grief? maybe there was at one point an older man giving me advice; possibly during #75 I turned a small square section of either a being (snake being) or a piece of wood (bedpost?) into a flashlight.

3x1 + 2x.5 +
10 (first LD) + 5 (DILD) + 2 (WBTB) + 4x5 (other LDs) +
15 (personal goal*)
= +56 => 99.5

Running total: 99.5

* Change the weather to make it rain while already lucid

12-11

Dream: Old-school hand drawn room (reminded me of Angel's Egg for some reason) which I was placed in, covered in spiderwebs, with a large door and a square section cut out of the floor which would rotate and change, but for now looked like the rest of the room. This part of it was like the first dungeon in Minish Cap. I go through the door and there's a beautiful garden terrace where a woman in her early thirties, dressed in a green dress and covered in plant outfitting, wants to be my wife. I take her hand and walk her around the terrace, then return through the door to the spider room and discuss the prospect of marrying the spider queen. I wake up before deciding.

Dream: At a large house with daylight pouring in, I've spent the summer there and am showing someone how to use a lathe to make a particular shape in a piece of wood. Transition and a young Jodie Foster (younger than Silence of the Lambs) is now there in my stead. The owner, who is older and a bit menacing, is walking her around. The owner suddenly changes into James McAvoy from the movie Split. He's subtly (or not so subtly) suggesting that he can get away with anything here and Jodie (who is with the FBI?) says that the FBI can stop "everyone". Suddenly this is all a film and Stanley Kubrik is directing, and he's not happy with the shot. I'm now possessing Jodie, and we're walking back through the house (toward the lathe area). A few doors open on their own, and one chair pulls back from a table and rotates to face us. It's sufficiently scary. In a small fragment/FA later, I have missed calls from Kubrik.

Lucid #72: I do WBTB and try a Choline 350mg capsule. After a bit of MILDing, I decide to SSILD and go to
bed as I usually would. I MILD one last time with "I will recognize the dream state. In my next dream, I will
look at my hands and realize I'm dreaming". I fall asleep and wake briefly and have a few cycles of this, where I catch myself right on the edge. Finally I'm aware enough to ride that and I feel the tunnel vision/pull of the WILD! I'm lying on my side and my whole body is pretty numb, and for some reason I'm worried about moving my waking body since the dream doesn't feel like it's "materialized" enough. So instead of moving my dream body, I sort of will myself backwards and start spinning, and I'm in! I fall/float/fly towards the backboard and can finally start moving my arms, although they're stiff. It's incredibly dark in the room so I have a hard time stabilizing, especially since my tactile and auditory senses are also not very well engaged. I do a finger-palm RC but my coordination is off and it takes a few tries to get my hands in the right position; I finally do it and it works but only helps a little. I decide that I have to get out of the room if I'm going to stabilize and keep this going (since I have spotty luck with lights) so I head to the curtains and try to phase through them, thinking of the incubated dream scene I expect to be on the other side. I think of how it will smell, sound, and look. I feel like I'm going to make it, but somehow I get wrapped up in the curtains and am unable to phase through them (why didn't I just push them aside? ;_ and I wake up. I try to DEILD but don't have much luck latching on to the images; it feels like in all of my DEILD attempts lately, the images are weaker and are sort of spinning away from me. I imagine the feeling/texture of surfaces I see, and imagine my dream arm reaching out and touching them, but it just doesn't work like it has in the past. In any case, the exit on this WILD was probably my most exhilarating yet, even though I didn't get to do much with the lucid.

Dream: I'm with F and my dog (D) at a huge house (our current lodging -- apartment, hotel, vacation home, idk). It's dark and we're walking through it, checking out the rooms and talking. D is by the door so I crouch down and look out the window panes on the door. The stars are beautiful, and then I notice that someone is on our porch in one of our lounge chairs, an older man in a white robe. He's putting down a beer when I notice more people in the neighbor's yard. Then, to the left of me in the kitchen/dining room picture window, I notice three pickup trucks parked in a driveway that I didn't know existed, taking up way too many spots! Three guys are walking into our house carrying baskets and cases full of beer.

Fragment: There's a middle-aged woman in a grey robe or dress who's posing on the carpet as if for a photo shoot, saying suggestive things.

Lost a dream here.

Fragment: F is mad at me for some reason? Long and drawn out dream but it's lost now.

One thing I noticed tonight -- almost everytime I woke, I did an immediate (mental) RC, which is progress! Also my nonlucids were incredibly vivid and interesting, which is another goal I have.

3x1 + 2x.5 + 10(LD) + 5(WILD) + 2 (WBTB) + 2 (RC) = +23 => 38.5

12-9

Two dreams I can't even read now.

Dream #1: In 9 living room, vivid explicit scene with F (very emotional).

Another unreadable; maybe I need to go back to writing on my phone.

Dream #2: In grandparent's house, it's a very different version of the house, but for some reason I think it's accurate. It's much bigger and with many more small alcoves and nooks and crannies. There is a specific microwave & toaster oven that convinces me that it's their house. I felt like as I was walking through it I was exercising non/semi-lucid dream control, which is strange; I definitely wasn't lucid, but I was able to change things at will. This is a trend I've been noticing quite a lot. It also reminded me of a house I'd been to in a dream before (specifically a dream set there where I climbed a gigantic tree in the backyard). Eventually I walk out onto the carport and then turn around, and my late grandma is there. She's bald, so I fashion her a wig shaped like her old haircut. I think we spoke and maybe walked somewhere together. It was comforting to see her.

Another unreadable.

Fragment #1: Outside of a hotel or convention center with highschool friend S. We're taking turns drawing guns. I draw some fusion of an M60 and an AR. I think it became real and I started shooting it around for fun. Then we went inside and it reminded me of my fellowship hall from my childhood church.

Dream #3: There was a long dream before what I start to remember, but I'm in a squarish or octoganal room with a coworker A and a couple of other "attendees"; it felt like we were in either a youth retreat or a reality show like Big Brother -- we were all in a house together for some reason. He was showing me how to do a certain lift (a special kind of squat) and he was in some weird rack that went around all four sides. He unstrapped some supports and rotated 90 degrees as if that was important. There were two or three other people in the room, one looked like a hipsterish girl (yellow shirt, black pants, grey hair? maybe). Quote in my DJ: "Stood in on the [spare] / Can't you see?".

Dream #4: I work at a local taco restaurant serving snowballs. It's nighttime and the restaurant/food truck is open to the air. Someone asks for a stuffed snowcone and I refuse indignantly, serving them a "regular" instead (it's all ice cream). I look out the back window and see some signs that remind me of New Orleans, on which the text doesn't change. I think this is odd, because after all the text should change since I'm in a dream. Somehow I did not get lucid from this thought. Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week.

4x1 + 1x.5 = +4.5 => 13.5

12-10

Sleep schedule is still not back to normal.

Dream #1: Long, vivid nonlucid taking place in a stronghold(?). First scene: with F in the middle of the night on a long, high lookout bridge kind of area. I'm shining a flashlight (or lantern?) over the metal railing and it's brighter in certain parts of the metal; I tell her that this is because there's a higher spirit presence/concentration in the brighter areas. The flashlight illuminates the bars but nothing beyond them, until I think that thought, and pass it over a terrifying withered old woman/hagraven fusion! I try to take the flashlight away but just the image of her is pulling F into some kind of black hole? When F is pulled in I point the flashlight back in full force so that I can go after her; I'm sucked in too, but I think a bit too late.

I'm transported instead into a large open body of water with my comrades at the fortress. There is a raised shore area scattered with leaf litter, but the floor of the body of water is made up of vivid multicolored mosaic sections of mud/stone. Looking back their shapes are sort of organic, and the entire picture together kind of looks like a political map (color scheme, borders) however that didn't occur to me at the time. I get the feeling that the entire area is covered by a very tall natural structure (cave or high canopy), as there's a bright opening far ahead where sunlight peeks through. Scattered throughout the pool, embedded in the multicolored segments, are red skulls and ribcages. Some of the skulls are only peeking out enough to look like masks.

Beside me, one of my older female comrades (a leader?) is consoling me after I explain the situation. We begin formulating a plan.

Dream #2: FA which was very accurate, but I still had my mints on the nightstand while in WL I had accidentally knocked them off last night.

2x1 = +2 => 15.5

12-6 (Night of 12-5)
Fragment: grandpa.
Dream: rusted knife (green patina)
Dream: TAZ reunion bunker elevators moterhead mom/sister storage unit; happiness backtracking djer in b/t previous dream and past (skull mountain); foggy photo 3/4sm "my turn" nobody was. (What did I write here and how did it ever make sense to me?)
Fragment: grandpa; walking dad use food mart; thought buds, barber does.
Dream: outside police station/courthouse with steps and a statue to the left of me; I'm taking on the identity of a grizzled detective (I'm hispanic or something?); there are lots of burnt people around a trash fire on the landing next to the statue; as I walk past I notice soot smudges all over my shirt like impasto brushwork; I gesture at the people and then walk up to the door, and proclaim (to my invisible partner?) "wtf is with all of these people?"
3x1 + 2x.5 = +4 => 4

12-7
Dream: stadium/auditorium setting, dark and possibly outdoors; I'm hiding out in the back of the room, although I have some significance here (guest of honor, or winner of some prize/award); I see a box of sleepytime tea on the floor; I go to the bathroom and throw eggs at the wall as two fictional Real Housewives sit backwards on the urinals.
Dream: in 9 bedroom with A (childhood best friend), we're goofing off; we are picking through old stuff, photos, toys, etc., we take off our shirts and make muscles in the mirror and just talk for a while; for a moment we look at a computer.
Fragment: on a boat in OB?
Dream: at the movies (set up sort of like the aquarium) with mom, A, F, possibly A's mom or my dad? we go through the hallway and sit down in a very shallow but wide theater with a huge screen; we watch a serious 80's/90's procedural with slow-motion bullets ripping through some red green and blue material (clay/play doh?); after the final scene dustin hoffman stands up and casts a shadow on the screen from the projecter and says something asinine and stuttery (reminds me of his rainman character); after we walk out of the theater we're all talking about it, my mom is eating up, saying "he ad-libbed that!"; A and I "don't get it".
Fragment: arcade?
3x1 + 2x.5 = +4 => 8

12-4

Fragment (a): Guy with vape-ish thing that has a rubber cover on mouthpiece, like a new paintbrush. He gives me douche chills. He's explaining something in a condescending way? Darkish wood room?

Dream (i): In a very dark crawlspace/attic/room, sneaking around, don't want to be found. Strong sense of foreboding, remember thinking "oh no" after feeling fear, remembering in-dream that fear/expectation will cause the thing to happen. I don't get close to lucidity though. Strange how I can peripherally recognize things to do/not do in a dream, and realize them, but not realize I'm in a dream. Fell through with companion onto a palette/tub in the corner of the room; window across the way? Transition, outside 8 on dog walking path by poop bag station. Talking to dad about politics/voting? Notable as the first time I've dreamed about this area of 8, which is strange because I've walked the path thrice daily for over a year living here.

Dream (ii): FA-type dream, but in totally distorted version of 8. Has almost the same vibe as (i) (foreboding), but now F is here. She's gotten dressed in her pajamas again and is sitting on the couch, I join her there (third person moment). Notable because in the waking between (i) and (ii), I MILDed that I wanted to return to the dream location of (i), and in a sense they were very close together in a way that I can't quite put my finger on. It's just that "dream understanding" that comes to you.

Fragment (b): Series of in-bed FAs.

Lucid #71: In a house, don't remember the first few moments of the dream, suddenly gain consciousness and push my hands into a wall. Feels cool. When I pull them back out, I have rotten/termite-eaten wood one one of my index fingers. Something looks wrong about my wrist where the (sleeve?) meets my hand -- the overlap is backwards. It looks my hand (which looks totally real) is actually a glove, and the sleeve is my real body? So I pull off my hand like a glove, and underneath there's a foot! It's not mine because it's not hairy and looks feminine, and the toes are painted blue (#00008b looks like a match). I feel it with my hand and then put it against my face to see if it feels real -- it does! I have a hand foot! How strange. I don't know for sure now, but I remember after waking thinking that the senses to my hand felt different -- it didn't feel like I could control a hand and those nerve impulses would be "translated" into foot movements -- it actually felt like controlling another foot in the place of my hand. If that makes sense. But there's no way to verify that now I guess. Anyway, after feeling the foot, I was torn between sitting down and meditating and teleporting to my dream world, and I ended up hesitating and woke up.

Fragment (c): Series of controllable hypnagogic episodes. First, a series of faces that I could move, and who had personalities I could understand. I don't remember the second. I also had one or more dreams after this but lost them.



Notes: Excited about the December Contest!

Lucid #68: In a long bathroom, become lucid almost immediately. Remembered my goal to anchor myself and sat down quickly on the floor. I took a look at the individual items spread out on the counters, got up a few times and each time I started to lose focus, sat back down. My visual clarity was okay, but I was focusing on stability. I tasted some popcorn which had an accurate buttery taste, but no crunchy texture. Dream felt pretty long, somewhere around 3 minutes.

Lucid Fragment A: Recorded it in my memory palace but lost it now.
Lucid Fragment B: Dual-body experience; possibly an FA? I could feel both my dream body and my paralyzed waking body. I was willing my body to move, and thinking at the same time "I hope I don't move my waking body" -- this thought gave me awareness of both. During this time I also heard vivid conversations/voices which I focused on -- it felt like a pre-WILD experience.
Lucid Fragment C: For a moment, I remember staring at a mirror and thinking "my face should be completely distorted", but it wasn't. I looked on for quite a bit at my reflection, which was 100% perfect. This took place in a dark room, and I remember reading some text that was static as well -- very strange.

Lucid #69: Long and strongly narrative-driven dream; I knew it was a dream and that I could control anything I needed to (except dream length -- I forgot about my goal to anchor myself or any goals at all), but I didn't know my own identity -- I believed I was the dream character, a boy detective. I was in a wooden attic bedroom. Out of a tall window in front of me, there were purple wolfman monsters lounging on the lawn several stories below. Someone or something was talking to me in the room, an adult male voice. I spent what felt like several minutes inspecting items in the room and interacting with the voice, as well as reading some text which did change upon looking back. Even though the text would change, the last 2-3 letters would stay the same. Throughout I feel the presence of a sidekick, maybe a dog? Suddenly I felt a sense of urgency, I expected one of the purple monsters to have come to the window (none did, which is strange since I expected and feared it). I decided I needed a sword, so I willed for there to be a longsword in a small bag. I reached in, expected it, and pulled one out! It had a rounded tip (day residue from talking about HEMA), so I figured it wasn't sharp and placed it in a belt loop that was on my shirt. Turns out it was sharp and cut through the loop. I ran my finger along the edge and felt the sharpness, which is a rare sensation in dreams (usually it's a dull, blunt pressure). From here I believe the dream continued for a bit but I can't remember specifics. In total I remember waking up (and even during the dream) feeling like the dream was going on for a really long time, close to 5 minutes! It was a really amazing experience.

Lucid #70: Another long, narrative-driven dream, sort of a sequel to #69. I'm older now, I look like the actor from Chuck in an odd third person moment. My sidekick is also grown (and human) and another person makes a juvenile comment. We are on a huge piece of land owned by someone who's hired us to drive out/defend against "the Russians" who have taken over. We take a brief tour of the land, and lots of the grass is dying/dead. I become lucid around here (in the same way as above -- I'm aware of my powers but not of my identity as ZAD). It turns out that the landowners are killing the grass on purpose to appease the Russians. We get to a chain link fence, behind which is a field and an old abandoned warehouse/factory. Suddenly a gunshot goes off and I see a bullet coming right for me. I will myself to turn invisible and slow down time to dodge it (I didn't know I could do that!). They aren't shooting at anyone else, just me, and I keep dodging and running. They shoot wherever they hear the grass/leaf cover crunch. I'm about to hide behind a tree and think I'm good, but suddenly a black wolf comes rushing at me. One of the guards (who aren't doing anything by the way) mentions that the only thing that can kill the black wolf is one of the bullets being shot at me, so I assume that this is a hostage fakeout takeout shot situation, where I have to get them to take the shot and then move the black wolf in the way. However as I'm thinking of this and wrestling with the wolf, a grey/blondish allied wolf (my partner?) starts to wrestle with the black wolf. I fear for the grey wolf and suddenly he looks at me directly in the eyes and has the most pained expression on his face -- I think they've taken the shot and taken him out. I feel profound sadness and wake up.


Notes: 70 lucids! Nice!