memorable

Sep 6 2018

Not enough sleep. Have been having to work late.

First dream segment. There's a guy with a giant (2x2 or 3x3 inch) black square earring. The place is like a video gaming convention, and it's sort of simultaneously indoors and outdoors. I'm maybe drunk or something, I remember talking to a lot of DCs. At one point, I lean over the edge of a display to the concealed camera section (used to record the event or maybe for use with some kind of Kinect-like game) and I say something like "you can't stay here/keep playing forever". I think at some point, coworker A shows up and accompanies me and my group of DCs.

In the next segment, we're on the road with my mom. She's driving us somewhere, an old vacation home maybe, telling embarassing stories. Coworker A is in the backseat driver side, I'm passenger side. There are other DCs shotgun and middle backseet. We talk about various things, such as A being a bartender at a restaurant I used to work at. The subject moves to "romance" novels written by women. Eventually my mom puts an audiobook on or maybe reads aloud a passage, and everyone critiques it harshly, but halfway through I realize due to some turns of phrase and nicknames used that she must have written it. I feel guilt but don't say anything. We pass a couple of very shallow interstate exits (an interesting feature that's kind of hard to describe, but I know it when I see it -- possible dreamsign). Eventually we arrive at our destination.

I'm now in a house, it's an old vacation home I used to visit, but not with my mom. I think in the dream, the other DCs were my "real" brothers, and somehow my mom was a step or non-biological mother; the general feeling was that I had some long-forgotten history that I was reviving. After walking around the house for a bit and looking at different things, I came across some large scrolls! They were proably 2 feet long (including handles and such) and reminded me of a Torah scroll, but less formal looking. When I unrolled one, I could see that the letters were a mix of Chinese symbols (although I interpreted them as Japanes kanji and understood them) with smaller Hebrew and latin characters mixed in and surrounding them. The text was distinctly red. Everything in the scrolls made complete sense to me, and I talked them over excitedly with my brothers for a long time. This was what was meant for my life. My mom was in the kitchen or somewhere else; I could tell that she was happy for me, but at the same time sad that I was so excited about a life besides the one she had given me. Coworker A is in the house but not near and my brothers, off in the kitchen maybe.

Sep 5 2018

I'm in the front yard of my childhood home. It's dark out, a long while before dawn. My parents are there (we're all sitting on ice chests or plastic/yard chairs, I can't remember seeing them) and we're preparing for a party or get-together of some kind. The song "Sweet Child of Mine" is playing, and for some reason I have to learn the solo (I know it vaguely from playing it IWL in high school). This could be from the fact that my parents always wanted me to play guitar at family gatherings and I always hated it. I wrote down something like "just...play it" in my DJ but don't remember the significance. For some reason my high school girlfriend who I dated for like 3 weeks was going to be there, and I remember her name in loopy script. Can't remember if I wrote it or someone else did.

Very vague dream fragment in a restaurant. After that, a vivid dream where I'm on the patio/balcony of my current apartment. I had a "profound sense of acceptance" to quote my DJ.

I woke up around 5am into pretty good paralysis and decided to try a quick WILD attempt (my fiance gets up at 5:30am). Unfortunately my dog got up, flapped his ears loudly, and sat right on my arms/chest, which pulled me out if it. I lay awake for the remaining time and let my fiance sleep, but I heard some weird soft sighing. At first I thought it was her, but as she was leaving I brought it up and she said she heard it too. The only rational explanation is that it was our dog, but it sounded like a human female...

I walked the dog and looked at the stars, pushing my alarm back a little and resolving to get lucid.

In my next dream, I'm on a computer and for some reason I have to download a set of 128 bit pixel smileys. They're coming from a website called Jered/Jerek's World, or Site. The smileys are crude in an "early internet" kind of way. One of them was a picture of exaggerated red lips, another is more orange and is laughing, and my fiance laughs at them. I open up the windows search bar and paste what I had, into the search. It pastes the words "Jerek's World", and as I read the words in my head, the desktop background starts alternating between some tiled images, one tan one saying Jerek/Jered's Site and another grey one saying "Jerek's Billion Dollar Software Company". They transitioned in horizontal and vertical screen wipes.

Next, I'm in a long kitchen stretching out maybe 10 feet to the left and 20 to the right. I'm not aware of anything behind me, but I understand that in front of me past an archway is the living room. I'm standing at the sink, looking for something or someone. Possibly my fiance is there. I was just walking around with a Brita pitcher, and now I see that there's a second, rounder one on the counter. I try to find the lid for it and I see it's in the sink, but the inside of it is covered with a greasy layer of spaghetti sauce.

In my next dream, my boss's boss is giving advice on business lunches, i.e. where to take clients. She suggests some other restaurant, but her favorite is the hotel restaurant. She hands it over to a younger guy who looks annoyed and seems to be a drier, more monotone version of a WL coworker. The room is tinged with blue lighting. He hands out a textbook. We're going to go on a business lunch with him, which he's not pleased about. I pull my phone out and subtly try to voice-record him, but no such luck. I end up taking notes on paper and draw a vivid picture of lips (was one of the smileys). I think at this point I was trying to record my dreams in-dream! Should capitalize on this. I woke with slight headache.



*Note: Analyzing my dreamsigns from the entries I've posted on DV, I think I can safely say my strongest ones are a) childhood home b) fiance c) family members. Hopefully I can add trying to dream journal as a new one, we'll see if it keeps manifesting.

Sep 3 2018

Woke 3:35. In a fight with parents and grandpa about cooking or setting up something (possibly speed-reading). Daylight outside, long tables (possibly crawfish boil).

Woke 5:05. Long fragment in a stadium, receiving some sort of business presentation from coworker. After it's over, I'm picking up my laptop bag and I stand out of the way for a coworker and an unnamed DC, who say that they have a "merge request in the morning". The presenter (another coworker) is kicking us out.

Awoke directly from FA nightmare. My dog barked and I could tell instantly that it was serious, not just him barking at another dog. The door to the bedroom is thrown open and the midget from Twin Peaks season 3 entered with a small gun. He approached the bed, not looking directly at me or anyone, just at the wall behind us. He said something vague and I tried to lean up in bed asking something to the extent of "What do you want?". As I tried to move, and in some sense solve the problem, my vision blurred and the dream started to fade. He was wearing a blue shirt with the pattern of "I (heart) N Y" but the letters were "? (eye symbol) T Y" in white. The room's layout was completely realistic and accurate unlike other false awakenings. I woke up and said "holy shit" aloud. Very scary experience, but very vivid -- would have been invaluable if I could have gotten lucid and converted it.

Before that, I was in my childhood home, on the phone with my manager about something that needed to get done. The screen was black with red nubmbers and dial-screen graphics, and an orbiting globe outline. The call got dropped. I was worrying about this with my parents but they seemed to think it would all work out (it was nighttime). My sister was in my room on my computer, looking for the first book in a series my fiance is currently reading. I suggested that she can just read my fiance's copy rather than buy it herself. I end up also giving her a japanese manga volume and another poorly translated japanese book, I remember the engrish being hilarious in-dream. After this, I went to the kitchen (all of the lights were out). I was trying to write down my dreams in ink on the wood floors. In the back of my mind I knew this was a terrible idea and that my dad would be furious, but in the moment I wasn't worried about it. There were some drops of water on the floor and it was smearing the ink, so I started wiping it up, making the smearing even worse. I was also worried about cockroaches.

After the ink, I found myself in a distinct dream scene. I was on the ground looking up at the side of a cliff maybe 4 or 5 stories high. There was a good bit of dirt caked on and I thought to myself how nice it would look if I could get the dirt off. I grabbed a wedge-shaped piece of reddish slate and scraped as much dirt as I could off and stepped back, and noticed how nice the geometric patterns were. I remember the thought-phrase "cliff face". When I looked again, one of the rock formations sort of looked like a nose, and the one below looked like a mouth! When I started examining the rest of the cliff, the whole thing was taken up by face structures (abstract and Easter Islandish). The ground went from being solid dirt and rock, to having some cracks in which curved red boards were shoved and prying the cracks apart. In the cracks were green cylindrical vegetables (I thought of okra or fat asparagus stalks). As I moved forward towards the cliff, I noticed a mesh oyster bag of sea urchins, which were moving around each other in the bag, sort of like you expect spike balls to in a metroidvania or platformer. This was a really vivid and overall nice and creative dream that's simple but feels profoundly peaceful, the kind of nonlucid you generally want to have. So of course this scene transitioned directly to the nightmare FA.

I woke again at 8:59. My fiance was in trouble. We were in some sort of college sign-up, car buying, or other related scenario. There were DCs everywhere, and specifically several DCs with deep blue eyes and short hair meant her harm in an insidious way (they were outwardly friendly). I became more and more adversarial over the course of the dream, eventually hitting them and throwing things at them. We moved from the student union/indoor car lot into a side hallway which transitions to a long house with lots of corridors and small rooms arranged in pretty much a straight-shot, but almost labyrinthine at the same time. I was thinking somehow they were hypnotizing her, and she was getting more and more bruises on her arms and abdomen. Eventually I get in exaggerated physical fights with them and I somehow manage to get 2-4 of them to defect to my side as allies and stow her away under a sliding hole in the kitchen (sort of a drain hole in the floor, like you see in restaurant kitchens). She escaped succesfully.

I'm unknowingly in an FA but think I'm fully awake. I am having the "transparent eyelids" effect, and I'm looking around my bedroom at the closet door, but it's the wooden closet door from my childhood home. I'm etching a human face in it with my mind.

After this, I'm in my childhood home and members of my family as well as random DCs are dressed in "starship troopers armor" -- white and blue, and white and red. It was a long and in-depth dream, but I don't remember much of it. I finally escaped the fray and sat back on my bed, but then my father entered my room with his gun held high, and I remember thinking "oh good, you'll just be my bodyguard". When I thought this (non-lucidly), he changed his course of action from running forward to attack me to climbing in bed next to me with his rifle held out (think Fullmetal Jacket "This is my rifle"). I got up from bed* and started walking towards the hallway. Almost instantly I became lucid! I didn't say "I'm dreaming!" or do any RCs or stabilization unfortunately. I walked down the hallway towards the bathroom, and it was daylight outside, maybe early morning. I walked into the bathroom and looked at the mirror, seeing a girl in a dress instead of myself. In this moment, I started to think of the "bad guys" in the starship troopers armor and then banished the thought from my mind, knowing that if I thought of them I would encounter or summon them. So instead I took advantage of the situation -- although I was seeing the girl in the mirror, I felt my dream body as my own physical body. So I turned away from the mirror and decided that I would become the girl in the mirror. I turned back around and I was!

Spoiler for nudity:

My body had changed competely and I was naked. Naturally, I touched my arms and chest to test sensation (it was dull, sort of semi-numb as my dream body sensation usually is). I did a little twirl and

inspected my face further in the mirror -- my face was sort of ugly and homely**, and as mirrors in dreams usually do, my face shifted quite a bit. I leaned in further to inspect myself and kissed the mirror (it was cold). I then leaned back out and decided to try my "Clear sight. Clear sound. Clear touch. Grounded. Calm, confident. I can stay here as long as I want." stabilization phrase. However, as soon as touched my thumb and forefinger, I accidentally said "Clear mind" first! It rejected me from the dream instantly. As I began to feel my waking body, I realized my thumb and forefinger were touching here too; maybe this triggered the waking?

I laid awake for quite a while after that, as I had already slept more than usual for the night, and for the whole weekend basically. I was also still excited about the lucid and hoping to drop back into it. Eventually I went back to sleep and had some more non lucids. In the first, I was with my fiance in a rest area/cabin in the woods. In the next, I felt as though I dropped into the dream as a visualization from waking, but it's possible I was only visualizing from an FA. I was imagining tall waves, and how my body bobbed up and down in them. It felt incredibly nice and peaceful. I was at a beach, and my sister was standing on a board of some kind zipping up a life jacket. I think my fiance was bobbing up and down in the water too. When I looked at the shore, I couldn't quite see the sand but I could see tall buildings above the waves, which I identified to be my apartment buildings from WL. A distinct black shape was swimming towards me, and I thought it might be a shoe or a fish (I thought it could be a dangerous fish but dismissed the thought instantly). After another waking, I had a final dream of being in a wood panneled shop with an old woman who was offering the shop to me (inheritance?). Her wares were laid out on a long wooden table, which after looking away and looking back turned out to be a giant Knorr pasta packet. I believe this all happened in 3rd person.



*I think getting out of beds in nonlucids is a lucidity/awareness trigger -- will have to investigate how to encourage this).
**This is actually the second time I've transformed my body into a woman's in a mirror while lucid, but for some reason I always turn into butterfaces. Also not sure why I keep doing this. Why, lucid mind, why?

Aug 28 2018

I'm in my childhood church. On the altar there's some kind of human sacrifice of women going on. I remember also being around the sound booth (I was here a lot as a teenager). There are scenes in the youth room and parking lot as well, and they're all very dark, but I can't remember what was happening.

I'm in college again, but my curriculum is changing. I'll have to take a lot of advanced math classes I didn't have to take before. I'm really concerned but my fiance is trying to convince me it'll be easy, she starts drawing squiggles with her pencil on some paper in some sort of parallelogram (squiggles all going out from one point or line). I consider changing my major to Psychology, but I'll have to start with Psych 113 (whatever that is).

Aug 29 2018

As I was falling asleep, I did progressive relaxation, thought about a couple of new mantras* to see which felt right, and then started meditating on my breath, focusing on the tip of my nose. After a while I realized my body was mostly paralyzed. I decided to make the most of it and try to WILD. When I first thought of this, I got some pretty in-depth HI and imagined visuals, very vivid. But after that I spooked myself or something, and I couldn't get it to the same level of vividness for the next thirty or so minutes. So I MILDed on one of my new mantras and eventually moved and broke the paralysis.

In the first dream I remember, I was driving around my WL car. It was hard to handle (like trying to legally drive a car in video games) and I kept bobbing and weaving and turning around. My viewpoint was shifting between first and third person. I was driving around a warped version of the city I live in, and ended up running some stops signs or red lights. At some point some cops pulled out of a parking lot and started following me, but didn't turn their lights on. I lost them and went to an interstate ramp, but I didn't want to get on the interstate for some reason, so I was stuck between the ramp and the exit (it was on the left, whereas they're usually on the right). I had to wait for the lanes to clear out so I could back up and get off the ramp -- quite stressful. I think this happened twice.

In the next dream, it felt like an FA although I don't think it was. My dog was in it, which is odd because although I see him all day (probably more than my fiance) I've only ever seen him in my dreams once. We're in a darkened bedroom/living room combination. I walk downstairs and we're talking about somewhere we need to go. I'm possibly worried about an intruder? Slight shift and I'm going outside, I open the door and my dog almost makes it out but I grab his hind leg and put him back inside. Before or after that I caught him eating some crumbs off the ground.

Scene shift again and I'm sitting on something or laying on the grass on the side of the house, looking up at the sky. I notice some lights in the sky, like heat lightning. Then (separately) I notice I can see lights on the clouds, and realize they're coming from my phone! Even with dream logic I'm amazed that my light can travel so far to the clouds from my phone (I recall a similar experience from my childhood with a high-powered search flashlight). I try to shine the phone's light on a tree that's hangning overhead, and I see the patterns of the leaves on the clouds above! I also notice 2 moons, then 3, some redder or foggier than others, but mostly the same size. I wouldn't call it semi-lucid, but I was seriously questioning the world. I think I should try to add looking at the sky to my dream routine, since most of the time I'm looking at the ground or my immediate surroundings, and seeing these inconsistencies may help with getting lucid.

In the next dream I'm in a fitness center or some similar place. I'm sitting or laying down in these lanes, aiming my feet to sort of louge through the lanes. This is coupled with a video game-like view with arrows showing which direction I should go. At some point I turn around and lie prone, trying to go backwards, but my feet are dragging so I have to manually push myself. I'm sort of in a cobra pose with my back underneath this large pullup bar type thing (black metal wrapped in foam). Eventually I reach the end with a lobby or something similar (carpeted, reminds me of a Chuck E Cheese). I see someone I went to school with who I didn't really know, and I'm sort of embarassed. I say something stupid like "I'm having a Shiatsu massage**". She responds with something nice but is clearly weirded out.

The dream shifts again and I'm in some kind of locker room. Another less-than-acquaintance from HS is there and is trying to convince the coach that he should recognize/remember him. He kept saying "I'm Double-D! Don't you remember me?" and the coach humiliated him. I think my dog may have been eating crumbs off the floor here too.



*"I am a master/natural at lucid dreaming" - meh; "I look at my hands and realize I am dreaming" - solid; "I calmly take control of the world I've created" - good for focusing on stabilization, but it's a mouthful.

**Of course I pronounced "massage" the british way, probably because I just watched S1E3 of Black Books, "Grapes of Wrath", which is arguably the best episode of anything ever.

Aug 24 2018

Yesterday afternoon I discovered SAT which pretty much describes what I called "relaxed ADA" in previous posts. I did this throughout the day, and started doing more consistent RCs (noseplug, question surroundings and past actions for ~30 seconds at least, then finger through palm to make sure) throughout the day. Before bed I didn't do meditation or anything, just progressive relaxation and a little MILD. I also did some autosuggestion that I would do an RC every time I woke up, since I've been having a lot of FA's lately and wanted to convert them. Then I fell asleep pretty quickly (and pretty early).

My first dream was of a huge, squarish/adobe-style mansion. I had the understanding that it wasn't mine, but rather I was staying at it. My fiance was staying there with me, and we had some R&R in our shadowy corner of the mansion, where we could still see some sunlight on the terrace. She was wearing an outfit I'd seen recently IWL. Occasionally we went on the main grounds and met with others staying there (non-WL DCs, but they were friends, not random lodgers). I remember semi-consciously shaping events and character actions, but I definitely wasn't fully lucid and never did an RC. It was a fun dream though, one of those simple and joyful NLs that you remember fondly afterwards.

I woke up after this dream and didn't do much MILDing, fell asleep pretty quickly. I'm a kid with three sidekicks, young Hermione and two other kids our age. We're all walking around an outdoor/indoor farmer's market that morphs into an oversized shopping mall. We start avoiding Darth Maul and his gang, they're trying to catch and kill us, or rather wipe out our existence. At one point we're flying around near the ceiling of the mall, dodging slow-flying homing darts. We're also avoiding the big stinky guy from spirited away (not noface, the stinky guy that turns out to be a river spirit). He apparently has the power to reverse-age us if we get to close to him. We eventually find our way into a room with a closet/armoire named Percy. He can take us back to some years ago before this happened. I think this part of the dream happened twice, in different ways. The first time, we all got in and were saved. The second time, only I made it into the armoire and shut the doors tight, with Darth Maul's fingers gripping the edge of the door. He was making some kind of persuasive argument, appealing to my emotions, and I felt sorry for him, but in the end I was able to shut the doors and I made it out. Flash-forward to several years later. My friends who didn't make it out were reincarnated and are the same age as me now (several years older). We are all at a smaller outdoor farmer's market. They are all the opposite genders now. One of them has discovered a new strain of blueberry, which is oblong.

Our curtain dropped IWL and I had to put it back. I went back to bed quickly after that. My next dream was an NL. I was in my high school gym and it was the last day of high school. I was in the top row of the bleachers joking around with my friends during an emotional and apparently important speech by Coach M. I got called out and cried in the dream. Several of my high school friends were there also, and they're some of my dream signs, so I should have recognized them. Despite this, I didn't question anything. I walked towards the exits and on the way out had a heart to heart with Coach M. Once I was out, I walked under the overhang and got made fun of by my friends for crying, but then we were all cool again.

Slight dream scene transition and I'm in the HS parking lot, where I see someone taking my dog into a black SUV. I run after them and I am flying on the street (I think I was semi-lucid here but I can't be sure; again, I definitely didn't do an RC or anything). I see one of my WL coworkers in the air on a flying machine (think chitty chitty bang bang). I ask him for help. As I fly forward and he flies towards school, I communicate with him telepathically and have him drop down some electronic turnstiles/gates to allow me access through where this black SUV is taking my dog. The gates and general scene remind me of the new Jurassic Park movies for some reason.

Somehow from here I end up in a version of Disneyland with fiance. Again, she's wearing an outfit that I saw IWL recently, a business-ish dress this time. Everything is frozen. There's a huge blue bioluminescent flower that's completely frozen. The entrance feels more like a shoddy amusement park than Disneyland -- the sign for it is like 8.5x11 and just says in small Denny's-like font "Disney". Fiance is wearing ice skates, I'm wearing her thin slippers from WL. I get a strong sense of deja vu as we enter and hop over a cold puddle. I can feel the ice crunch underfoot and feel the cold, but not in a bad way...very vivid. I make a comment about taking a swim or something similar

From here I end up at a pot luck that looks like a huge Thanksgiving feast. I brought my own meal though, and I feel bad about it because it's not enough for everyone. I say my hellos and then head to the back where there's a darkened living room (fireplace behind/to the righ of me) and I'm in a chair/recliner. There are some older folks and family members around me and fiance eventually joins me.



*Note: Mostly slept on my sides last night. I think this results in more vivid semi lucids and non lucids, which can be nice every once in a while Interestingly I don't think I had any FA's.

Aug 23 2018

Woke up at 3:30 am, remember bits of a long NL. I was a female (possibly jewish?) in some sort of relationship/society/sisterhood. My best friend or leader was dismissing me from the group sternly but also still loves me and was sad to see me go. I remember the words "Is it possible to always be a mama bear?" with no context (hey -- they made sense then). I also remember a DC from earlier in the dream that looked like an old (current) Seinfeld with white hair. I think I was returning to my family.

Was moderately relaxed but again had some trouble getting back to sleep*. Got up and went to the bathroom, then came back. Figured since I still couldn't get to sleep I would try to relax and WILD. No success after some time (although I had some pretty great hypnagogic imagery), so I SSILD'd and laid on my side**.

I eventually got to sleep about 45 minutes or an hour after waking. I didn't notice it, but my neck was strained because of the pillow's position. I then had a series of FA's where I would wake up in my bed and talk/move around, but my fiance would angrily tell me to go to sleep each time because she had work in the morning. Between the second and third FA, I woke up briefly and realized was happening. I resolved that if it happened again, I would take advantage of it.

Success! The next time I FA'd, I saw apple peelings on the bed, and went downstairs to get some apple juice from the fridge, and I thought about tryptophan and realized I was dreaming! I didn't immediately look at my hands and clarify the situation, but I was able to stumble through the dark dream living room (my movement felt somewhat staggering). There was a terrifying old (demon?) woman's face on the couch, so partly out of fear I decided to leave this dream. I pressed my dream head down into the "pillow" to change dream scenes and vaguely thought of a giant tree as a new destination.

I think that when I used this technique (pressing head back into pillow), I somehow became more conscious of my WL body and realized I was lying on my side with my neck strained and my left eye being pressed in by the pillow. As the new dream scene materialized, It came to me in portrait format instead of landscape, if you can imagine that -- and it was letterboxed (black bars on the left and right). This effect worked so well because I could only see out of my right "dream eye", so I didn't have the advantage of binocular vision to "3D it away". Because of my awareness of my neck strain, I also couldn't move my head at all, and the only thing I could control was zooming my vision in and out.

The dream scene wasn't a giant tree, but rather another, smaller version of the previous living room, only bright this time (with daylight coming in through the window and the indoor lights on). There was no one in the room. I understood that it went back some ways behind me and was dark that way. The couch was similar to my childhood couch (old and scratchy, had diagonal woven textiles, like thick yarn) but was grey instead of tan. There were some objects strewn about the couch. As I zoomed in closer, objects would "pop" out of existence, sort of the opposite effect of the Object Fade setting in video games; when I zoomed out, they would return. There was a largeish button, a cylindrical something, a box, and some other miscellaneous vague items.

I should have tried to change dream scenes again, but I think that would have been difficult considering I probably would have had to press left instead of back to fall into the pillow, and who knows if that would have worked. The dream faded very slowly and I probably could have held onto it longer.

Later I had another FA but failed to convert it. When I awoke I was feeling more relaxed and thought I'd casually try to WILD for a bit again. It was nice because I could feel the waves of vibration flow over me. I was doing LaBerge's "1. I'm dreaming. 2. I'm dreaming. 3. ..." method, trying to be a passive observer and let the dream take me in. Had some very vivid HI again and let it play out before me. I think I got partway there, because I remember my HI started integrating into moving imagery, then mini dream scenes, then almost a full dream scene. At the height of it, I was a point in space rotating around a stadium that looked like a giant thimble. I think I was fully aware, enough to at least call it a semi-lucid, but I don't think it was a dream as much as imagery; it didn't feel dreamlike, and I didn't feel as if I was really "in it" as much as I was just "seeing it".

Later in the night I had some more FAs and in some of them I was semi-lucid but not fully there. Once I was trying to WILD again, but got interrupted by a sudden and powerful fear of an intruder.

Overall, a pretty good night! I'm intereseted to know if anyone else has had this kind of "locked view" experience in their dreams, lucid or otherwise.



*I'm not sure why this is happening lately (waking up earlier and can't get back to sleep); I always considered myself a heavy sleeper and never have trouble getting to bed. Also, I haven't been setting alarms or autosuggestions to do WBTB, I think just possibly raised nighttime awareness after meditation is causing small disturbances to wake me. Any advice appreciated.

**I tend to lie on my back most of the time, which helps with vivid dreams and recall, but seems to be causing problems with getting to sleep and staying asleep if I'm not already tired from the day. It also makes me hyperaware of early morning hunger.

***Also just wanted to note that I've been abstaining from my nighttime tea (it makes me drowsy on weekday mornings) and any supplements (I sometimes use melatonin and/or valerian), but have been drinking half a glass of apple juice each night 30ish minutes before bed. Luckily I

Aug 21 2018

I went to sleep around 11:45 or 12. As I was falling asleep, I performed the Progressive Relaxation technique mentioned in LaBerge's ETWOLD. During the relaxation, I continuously repeated to myself that whenever I saw either of my parents or my fiance, I would do an RC and question whether I was dreaming or not (one of them almost always show up at some point).* I enforced this by looking over at my fiance and doing reality checks. (I've always been aware that they are dream signs but this is the first time I've tried to use them to trigger RCs).

I eventually dozed off and had a few NLs that I can't remember now. I should have written them down when I woke up at 4:15 as I could still remember fragments then, but I was in shock when I awoke. My entire body was numb! I've never actually experienced waking up into SP and/or REM Atonia, only trying to induce it on myself, which never really worked.

It was amazing! I was completely calm and relaxed. Even as my dog was rearranging himself next to me and putting his paws in my side, it didn't phase me or make me any more awake. It was a state of disconnection with my body, all except gentle, almost imperceptible vibrations.

I've been reading up about visualization and imagining all 5 senses after reading arby's VILD and visualization posts. During the day yesterday, I was practicing moving my "dream arm" while my real arm remained still, and also noting how my entire body felt while walking, standing, leaning on something, sitting, etc. So naturally when I found myself in this state I did the same. The sensations were remarkably accurate! I could visualize myself standing in another room and feel all the sensations of my body being there. This alone was amazing.

I also tried to use this state and convert it into a WILD** or SSILD-then-fall-asleep, but oddly I couldn't get "relaxed enough" to fall back asleep -- my breathing was very shallow and I had to strain to take deep breaths, which pulled me out of the state momentarily (although I returned quickly each time). So I sat in this state for probably an hour or two and just enjoyed it. Eventually I fell asleep into an FA that I couldn't catch and convert (those pesky buggers!) and another NL that I do remember.

The strange thing about my NL was that it was as if my brain was actively fighting me -- now that I had identified my parents and fiance as dream signs and was using them for MILD and RCs, it removed them from all my dreams and placed in people from work that never pop up in my dreams! Strange.

Overall a weird but positive experience!

*Does this count as MILD? I'm trying to figure out how exactly to differentiate MILD from other similar techniques and it seems kind of vague. Is it just setting your intentions and/or having a mantra as you go to sleep?

**edit: Looking back in my DJ, I actually did almost WILD two or three times but got pulled back each time, back into the state. I think it helped me to identify what the feeling is like though, as it was closer than I've ever been before!