Buckie's Dream Journal

[buckie]

Hi, I'm buckie... welcome to my dream journal! I'm trying to be good with this as I'm working on improving my recall through hypnosis and am hoping to use this as an archive of what I can remember. As of the start of this I've had one LD which I was able to control, which you can find here and a brief period of lucidity which you find here Feel free to comment.

[buckie]

Okay, first entry. 24 Oct 2006 ********************** Dreams Recalled 4 Lucid 0 (Total Lucid 2) Controlled 0 (Total Controlled 1) ********************** Been a tough week, so tonight I sneaked a zimovane before bedtime and consequently wasn't expecting much dream activity and low recall but I did have pen and paper at the ready (for the first time&#33 to see what I could salvage. #1: This was a long dream but I forgot about the dream journal when I needed to get up for a pee and by the time I got back to bed I had lost most of it (I also feel that I'd forgotten a lot of it as the dream was progressing) so all I have is this... I remember being in a modern hi-tech television studio (I used to work in one and I've watched a couple of programs in the last 2 days with TV studios in them) and they were filming a programme with Bill Oddie demonstrating a big blue electric cyber-cello(&#33. It was bigger than a normal cello, transparent, blue-neon in a Tron-like way and made a sound like a synthesiser. #2: Another snippet of a dream, also with a TV angle. I don't totally remember having this one but it's on my sheet so I guess that's why we write them down, eh? My (newly-ex'd) partner was living in the caldera of a volcano and a television crew were making a wildlife documentary about her . I'd been watching a documentary on volcanoes before bedtime . #3: I was at some kind of public school or military school or boarding school or something. I'm not sure I was attending it but was in the dining hall in the evening and they were having some kind of pub-quiz. I was the life and soul of the party and everyone was having fun but I was also doing very well in the quiz and remember starting to get annoyed that everyone was laughing and talking over the quiz questions and not taking it seriously enough. #4: This was another pretty long dream that I'm coming into about halfway through... It's set on an island or at least a coast line "20 miles west of the Isle of Man" (as it says on a brass plaque near the port where we come in ) and there's a bit where everyone in the dream got to the island but I can't remember that at all. Anyhow, it feels like it's about halfway between a science field trip and the bit where they go down to the planet in Star Trek. The rest of the group I was with had set off to study something and I was behind and trying to find my way from the coast to a small woodland area a little inland (probably about 200 or 300 metres away over a hill). When I got over the hill there was a river to cross with high steep banks and a rickety wooden walkway on my side leading down to the river which you could then get across. Of course I step on it and it collapses totally and I have to jump and land on the other side. I see it washing away down stream. So, I make it to the science group and they're studying some trees in a clearing which look in a bad way and they chatting about them bringing me up to speed and one of the girls says "The problem is this..." and with that a group of little flying devils/demons/insect things burst out of the trunk and in a shower of wood-dust and bark and start buzzing around before homing in on another tree and burying into the trunk. We go to the second tree and someone says "the only way to cure this is to blow the tree up with explosives whilst they are in it" but the problem is that round the edge of the clearing are these little houses that will be destroyed by the explosion. Me and my ex (she's living in a volcano as far as I know, how did she get there?) have to go into one of the houses and get the contents bagged and out. It turns out to be the house of some old lady who isn't there and we're going through the contents of her life and it is really sad, more like clearing up after a death than helping to save her stuff. I'm left thinking "I this what a life amounts to?". A little later we get the call that the ferry is leaving so we all go back there and we're all joking because one of the boys is the last on because he'd been kissing some girl back at the forest.

[buckie]

Update: I've been found a hypnosis mp3 lying around on the web and I'm going to road-test it for the next few nights before bed to see if it helps with the LDing!

[buckie]

25 Oct 2006 ********************** Dreams Recalled 2 Lucid 0 (Total Lucid 2) Controlled 0 (Total Controlled 1) ********************** Well... last night I ended up drunk on a school night so consequently 2 things... I've got a terrible hangover as I write this and my dream recall was, erm, less than good. I woke up at around 5am with my headphone earbuds still in so I'm guessing I listened to the hypnosis mp3 . I've got 2 things scribbled down: #1: "Rollercoaster on tour with lots of pizza"... The rollercoaster in question was the Grand National from Blackpool Pleasure Beach (I'm orginally from down that way), it was touring and had come to Scotland so I took some of my friends to go on it. In the dream it ended up resembling an underground truck escapade that I remember from the original Half Life. The pizza? Well, there was a bit towards the end of the dream when we're just disembarking where my ex tries to steal my last slice of pizza whilst she's already got a lot of pizza herself and I remember complaining "Not only have you got more pizza than me, you've also got a pizza waiting for you later". Go figure. #2: "MB in a bar with annoying boyfriend"... My good friend M in a bar that we both used to hang around in maybe 15 years ago. He has a really nice boyfriend in real life but in my dream he had this dick of a boyfriend who was a kind of Billy Idol clone with a kind of crappy new-school punk rock hair-do. I remember thinking that I hoped M wouldn't be going out with him for long.

[buckie]

26th and 27th were a write-off. Dream recall was in the basement and what fragments I did recall disappeared like a fine mist on trying to grasp them. Ach well... Still listening to the mp3 but it has been having a hell of a job keeping up with my rock-and-roll lifestyle

[buckie]

28 Oct 2006 ********************** Dreams Recalled 3 Lucid 0 (Total Lucid 2) Controlled 0 (Total Controlled 1) ********************** Well, I got a couple of good dreams last night. No idea where they came from. There were some classic chances in them to be aware they weren't real but I missed them totally. I'll have to keep working on that. **Warning: The following dreams contain copious urination, a homosexual reality tv show, male nudity and one use of strong language** #1: I was filming a documentary about criminal activity in the UK Bulgarian community. There was a woman reporter and a camerman and myself and a sound engineer walking down a street to where a line of Bulgarians were queuing up for something. My real-life pal J was with us and as we reached the queue it turned into more undercover filming (I was holding a miniature dv camera and the next bit was seen through the eye piece - things felt covert). There was a Bulgarian man telling us about acts of violence on them by immigrant gangsters and how they were setting up a mafia within the community, he looked scared. J went through a side door at a pub near the queue of people with a dodgy looking slavic man and left the door open enough for me to film down there as they did some kind of deal. As I'm doing this it's as though the woman reporter has become one of the mafia types and is getting highly suspicious about what I am doing (??). Forutnately J comes back deal completed and the door is closed and the suspicion seems to go away.J shows the camera a packet of cigarettes which has got an amount of cocaine secreted in - I'm not sure how much but it seems in the dream that it is a large amount. Next, I want to go down the alleyway where J was, I go through the door and walk down - it's now just me the crew and J are gone and so is the mini camera. At the end of the corridor is a huge 19th century victorian public toilet block, all tiling and porcelain toilets and a shower. It is obviously for men as it has numerous urinals around the walls; these are pretty cool because you can sit down at a little seat and still pee forwards into them. I need to go so I sit at one and start peeing and as I do the room starts to change subtly as more and more elements of a bar start to appear and the things that were toilet-like change into bar-like things (the shower turns into a optic rack for example). I realise that drops of my pee are now splashing onto the bar and that people are now walking coming into the bar and my behaviour is becoming inappropriate to the setting - there is a gap underneath the bar-top that I am now peeing through into a steel bucket on the other side that contains bar-slops. In another bizarre twist the barman is UK Big Brother Winner Anthony Hutton(&#33 he's chatting away to me as I'm peeing into his slop bucket - it occurs to me that he might get in trouble if they try and recycle the slops so I get up and look around the (now fully operational) bar for the gents toilet. I see it and go in but another man comes in through a side door and stands next to me and I can't go. Somehow I next end up in a car with him and a small boy (his son?) and we are driving down a country lane. It turns out that there is a reality tv show being filmed in the lane on the road and this is the finale of it all. It is weird in the fact that we keep passing people on sofas but it is as though it is one sofa and the show is playing out through the front windscreen of the car (bit like that Chemical Brothers Star Guitar video). Oddly I notice that the three remaining men are all normally dressed except that they all have their (erect) willies out. It turns out they are all gay and that contestant b is in love with contestant a but that contestant a is in love with contestant c. It seems to me it will end badly for contestant b. This program is (thankfully) interrupted by an announcement on the car radio that Tony Blair is to close down a pub called the George IV somewhere in London because "the last ship called George IV has been sunk", I'm presuming it has something to do with the war in Iraq and I imagine it to be a big warship. Therefore I'm astonished to find out that it is a little vehicle the size of a reliant robin but "made by SEAT" that can go on water, underwater, can be a car and an autogyro. At this point something weird happens, it is as though the autogyro is superimposed with the car we are driving in and I'm still sitting where I was but I start to take off out of the car until I'm flying above it in the George IV. I can still talk with the man driving the car and he asks "So why did you come to Glasgow in the first place?" and I reply "Why does anyone do anything?" He says "You were lost?" and I sarcastically reply "Yes, I was heading for Sale and I took a wrong turn..." He gets the sarcasm and says "Ahhh... a woman!" and I say "Correct." At this point the autogyro comes down to land and I wake up. I need a pee #2: I must have been thinking about the bar scene in that dream when I woke up because when I go back to sleep I'm heading back into that room to find out what it really was and how it could've changed like that. As I enter through the same door there is a big scarey man there dressed in black and red, he gives me a fright because I am in full Scooby-Doo investigating-sneaking mode. I then realise he is more like an automaton, he doesn't come to life though. I have a good look round the room now and it is indeed more like a bar than a toilet, but it now looks more like the bar was in a filmset and that it is being dismantled or that it is getting renovated or something. I'm not sure how, but next I am going down the same corridor again heading towards the "bar" for a third time this evening and I notice a young woman trying to hide round the edge of the door frame to the left of the door. She is a dream character but I seem to know her as a friend. We go into the room and some more people are there, all are busy with some activity or another, one is planting plants in plantpots another is collecting dishes and taking them through to be washed in a kitchen. Me and the girl are sitting on the floor chatting about nothing in particular when the automaton starts to move in the corner of my eye. I'm startled again but then notice it is on strings and I look up to the ceiling where some ceiling tiles are missing and there is a young man acting as a puppeteer making the thing move. I look up at him and say "why don't you just fuck off?" at which point he puts down the rod thing that controls it and glumly leaves. The strings and control are hanging down over a bar in the suspended ceiling. Things are a little hazy but I eventually end up at a fun-fair that I initially think is Blackpool Pleasure Beach. My friend J is there with me. There are all these monorail kind of rides that are on concentric paths with faster trains and carriages on the inside and slower ones like Double Decker buses on the outside, the route for these goes all round the park and as I'm wandering around I nearly get hit by one (I've just realised it reminds me exactly of the feeling I get when I go to Amsterdam and I'm constantly looking the wrong way whilst being bombarded by cyclists and trams). I notice on the front of one of the carriages a three legged insignia and realise that we are not in Blackpool but the Isle of Man (no idea why this has popped up again). The whole thing looks pretty cool though so we try to go and get passes or tickets. J and me are at a big ticket booth and are looking at the type of tickets you can buy, there is a four hour pass which is ideal as we have got there late afternoon but when we ask the ticket woman if we can buy 2 of those she tells me they are all sold out and that I should get 2 all day passes, these are much dearer (£10, pretty cheap in real life but not in the dream economy du jour). This annoys me and I have a little moan at the woman but she is not swayed, so I ask her are there queues for the rides and she says "just the usual, sir because the big rides have restricted access". We grudgingly end up opting to buy the all day passes. Then we have to fill out a form to get them, credit card number, home address, telephone number and it starts to occur to me that a lot of this is marketing information and that there isn't any way to opt out of it (giving marketing info to people is a pet peave of mine, it always gets my back up in real life). I think this is pretty cheeky and I also notice that as I'm reading the form the information that is being requested keeps scrolling and changing, like it is on electronic paper or something. I can't remember it all but it is getting more and more disrespectful the more you fill in, for example one says "Give us a girl who can throw a pound (or a Tic Tac) into the air" and another is just a diagram like on aircraft emergency leaflets that indicates they want you to stare at a person near you and then quickly look away as they notice. Once we have our tickets we walk away from the booth to find the good rides and are passing a policeman and police woman giving advice to a teenage girl saying "Stay in your seat at all times. Sometimes people fall out and we have to pick them up off the M4." As I wake up I realise the stuff at the booth and this have taken some of the shine off the day. #3: Some kind of package holiday problem. Me and my ex had booked to go on holiday to this island somewhere but had been diverted to another hotel on another island. We are at reception trying to complain (the reception is the reception from a caravan park near Blackpool I used to holiday at as a child). No one is interested in our problem but eventually our holiday rep comes along and explains we can't go to our original destination and give a litany of woes about it including tornadoes and rioting. I look down and two ugly black beetles are mating back-to-back on the grimey reception desk. I want to crush them.

[buckie]

29 Oct 2006 ********************** Dreams Recalled 3 Lucid 0 (Total Lucid 2) Controlled 0 (Total Controlled 1) ********************** My dream recall is definitely getting better or my dreams are getting more vivid, either way I'm enjoying the spin off. I'm now starting to get into the zone where my dreams are important to me rather than just things to throw away in the morning. Shame I've treated them so badly over the years . I've not been making the progress I would've liked with lucidity. It just isn't occuring to me when I'm dreaming to question what is happening, it's all going on in front of my eyes but somehow I just can't make the connection - maybe I'm a republican sleeper . *** I have to say before I go on that I'm not a psycho in real life but there are facets of my behaviour in these dreams that, thinking about it in the cold light of day, would make it appear otherwise. I'm not disowning any of it however as none of it is beyond the bounds of possibility given the right set of circumstances *** #1: This all takes place in a two storey shopping-centre. There is something going on near the beginning with a filipino woman trying to trace her daughter and someone at a helpdesk suggests this service (which is described as a billing service) for her phone. I am messing about with my mobile and somehow I install this service on my phone too, maybe because - as it turns out - I'm trying to track down this woman C who was my girlfriend in real life over 15 years ago. We have a messy history and she always seems to pop up in my life when I really don't need it to happen but sometimes I miss her so it's not all a one way street. Anyhoo, I find her at one point (not clear how) but I definitely talk to her. I'm telling a friend about this meeting on my mobile and a third party breaks in chiding me for getting involved with C again calling me a fool - it turns out it's Big Brother winners week in my head because the voice in question belongs to Kate Lawler. I can't tell if she's motivated by love or just wanting the best for me but it is very cheeky, spying in on my conversations and I'm mad about it. At this point an old friend of mine MC contacts me, he works for the billing company and saw me get registered and thought he'd get in touch. I tell him about the spying and he turns up at the mall to offer advice on the service/spying and generally watch my back. I start hunting for C again all over but can't find her anywhere. I eventually do find her in an obscure corner of the centre with a current boyfriend. It's not ideal but I steal a few moments to ask her to come with me. It cuts to a voice over section where I'm panning through an idyllic village in Fife whist she is telling me that she can't come with me because she is going away to live there with her current bf. I then think I should ask her to come with me to London (the panning shot cuts to a busy London scene) and when I see the difference in lifestyle I think better of it, knowing she'll be happier in Fife and that I'm basically screwed. It then cuts back to a scene in a large lower floor room in the shopping centre with no roof, just walls like a tv set and all the characters in the dream bar C are there sitting around. I'm initially floating above as a camera and I'm being played by John Cleese and C's bf is being played by David Tennant. I grab him by the throat and I'm now playing myself again. I'm really angry and I tell him he's never loved her, just using her and my grip is getting tighter and tighter and I think things are going to break in his neck, so I throw him to the floor in the corner of the room. I turn round to storm out and the "dum, dum, dum-dum-dum" of the Eastenders outro plays, someone shouts cut and everyone is clapping and patting me on the back. It is a great episode, everyone is happy it went so well, except me as I know that it is all real and I walk off set angry and crying (I'd guess David Tennant isn't that pleased either but I don't get to see the aftermath of that). #2: Consulting company capers... My friend D is working for a top flight consultancy and I'm wanting to meet up for a drink with him. He invites me to the office and he's going to leave soon and we can hit the bar. However, everytime he tries to leave he gets sidetracked by some idiot who wants him to do something... Now I'm a contractor in real life and I currently don't have a contract and I don't have one in the dream either so when these business people are talking to D they keep asking me what I'm doing and I keep having to make up a contract or say "keeping busy" or something (I've turned up wearing my suit for some reason) D is lying for me too making me sound top-notch. This makes me feel like a liar and a fraud and an arsehole and I just want all these people to go away so I can get a drink with my friend. Next some total idiot from an aquatics lighting company turns up and is asking for very detailed specifications for lamps for aquariums. It is going to be a big deal so D has to get involved and I realise that he's going to have to dump me in favour of staying and sorting it out. I stay for a while in his office, spitefully sniping at the idiot from the aquatics company before getting totally bored/pissed off and leave. In the lobby of the building is a cake stall, it is just closing. I see some coconut cake that I want to buy but they are putting it all away. I make a bit deal so that they get me some and put it in a cake box. I feel petty and pissed off about this too. Back home my ex is there, I tell her about D and the cake woman and how pissed off I feel. She says "What else have you done about it?" in a you-could've-made-the-situation-better kind of way and I say in a glum and sarcastic fashion "Well, I didn't kill myself". #3: I may be back at this big consultancy firm or some other high-flying corporate building. I'm there on a freebie with J to see the men's final of Wimbledon. Oddly they're holding it at a tennis court on the roof of the building. It seems that it is sponsored by Guinness as there are dollies all over the place handing out pints of the stuff to everyone. This all culminates in them handing out a pint to everyone during the play in the last set and spoiling everything because the promoters want everyone to do a sing-song about tennis/guinness/wimbledon standing up like it's an anthem or like in some bier-keller or something. This is in lieu of a presentation ceremony and I think the whole thing is a farce and typical of what the corporates would like to do to everything enjoyable on the planet. I end up in a pub for a quiet pint with J afterwards and we get talking to some dream character girl. It turns out she has this room booked for a college reunion or some such function but says that we are perfectly welcome to stay. As we are all talking, this fat-but-annoyingly-trendy bloke (think the Magic Numbers but without the beard and with those thin emo black rimmed glasses) comes up behind me and starts chatting to the girl, he obviously knows her and is there for the reunion. Anyhow, whilst he's speaking I feel the distinct feeling of spit hitting the back of my head and some going in my drink, so I sit there waiting for him to apologise for it... he doesn't, just carries on yattering away. I'm fuming at his arrogance so eventually turn round and interrupt his conversation with "Excuse me, did you just spit on the back of my head?". He doesn't want to admit it but I'm staring at him in a very scarey way now and I'm feeling like I might lose control, I sense J go into "ready" mode, the girl didn't notice it and is obviously embarrassed and looking for words to diffuse the situation but there aren't any really, it is up to him. Finally he has to admit that he did it and he's somewhat humiliated because he didn't acknowledge it at the time. I go to the toilet to try to clean my hair. When I come back I say to J "Let's go, I don't want my pint with his spit in it." J replies "It's okay, I've already thrown it over him." As we're getting up to go I notice that trendy-bloke is over setting up decks with the DJ for the evening, he notices I've come back and wants to say something to me, I storm past ignoring him so he grabs me by the arm of my jacket (he's not intending violence, just wants to stop me so he can have his say). At this I just flip and swing the perfect punch, it connects with his nose and he goes down on the floor. He is lying curled up and he's crying and there is blood coming from his nose and everyone is looking at me. I feel like I've taken it too far and I feel bad for the guy and I feel like a total idiot.

[buckie]

30 Oct 2006 ********************** Dreams Recalled 1 Lucid 0 (Total Lucid 2) Controlled 0 (Total Controlled 1) ********************** Ever have one of those nights when you know you've just had a dream but it seems like too much effort remembering it and you just want to go back to sleep? I had that last night. I've been good too, done my self-hypnosis, early to bed, no alcohol etc... I distinctly remember having 2 dreams that I could've recalled if I'd put the effort in but reaching for the pen seemed like insurmountable effort so they slipped away. Last dream of the night was pretty funny though and I got that one. #1: I am on some cycling holiday with J. It is a distinctly Tyrolean environment with lush, green, rolling hills; it is sunny and feels like when spring is turning to summer. We cycle down this hill and get to a point where the road forks. At the fork is a group of Scottish infantry soldiers with their pipe band and a collection of assorted media. The troops are assembling and the bagpipes are warming up, the camera crews are getting their cameras on their shoulders and are getting ready to film. The hill road continues down to the right onto a wide wooded path and disappears round a bend. The soldiers march down this road and disappear until all that is left is the sound of the band fading into the distance with the camera crews still pointing after them. We're confused by this but the implication is that there is a battle being fought that way. The other fork is to the left on more level ground and into wide open daylight and more rolling hills; it seems way more appealing but there is a vague feeling that things in the whole region may be changing for the worse. This is compounded when a group of 6 or 7 girls come cycling round the bend from the left and stop to talk to us. They seem to know more about the situation and say that the things are getting a little more tense but they've decided to stay and continue their holiday. I notice they are wearing sky blue cycling helmets and they say they painted them that colour on the advice of the local UN peackeeping force and advise me and J to do the same as we'll be safer that way. Finally they invite us for dinner later that evening. It jumps to early that evening and we are in the girls' alpine chalet, on a nice hillside with a great view of the sun setting across the valley through two huge picture windows. We have food and drink and are enjoying ourselves with the girls. I catch one of them keep looking at me whilst I'm talking to the others, I think she is very attractive and, although it seems like ages later in the dream and that I must've spent time talking to her at some point I can't remember, we end up kissing. The evening ends on a pleasant note and the girls are nice and friendly and we all arrange to meet tomorrow evening and go somewhere for a night out. It jumps again to next evening and me and J are sitting in the lounge of the chalet watching TV with some of the girls whilst we wait for some of the others to finish getting ready to go out. On television is a live variety gala show to raise funds to buy some kind of computer chip that you can put into clothing and it will save the person's life who is wearing it. It is aimed at helping people in the Third World. On stage at the moment are S Club 7 and they are doing a snappy pop tune and dancing around and all that crap they do. As a finale to the piece they line up in two rows of three and the seventh member - who, (and I'm getting quite concerned about this now) turns out to be Big Brother 7 contestant Richard - takes a big run up from left to right. When he reaches them he vaults into the air as if off a springboard (but there isn't one) and performs a straight-legged back-flip, the idea being that he lands at the other side of them in unison with the end of the song. However something goes terribly wrong for the poor chap as halfway through the flip the sheer force of the manouvre sends his trousers flying off; the rest of the group are aghast. He nails his landing perfectly and in time to the end of the music but naked from the waist down and to stunned silence from the audience, at which point the horror of what has happened hits him and he starts to pee uncontrollably onto the stage in a puddle all around him just staring out at everyone. Back at the chalet we're all going "Oh my god, did you see that?!?" and laughing hysterically. A little later we're in another room. It occurs to me I want to meet up with the girl from last night but I can't find her. There are more people there now and it is becoming like a house party, although J and me are still supposed to be going out with the girls. Also I'm trying to tell the people there the story about the TV show but no-one is listening properly and they keep getting distracted by other things/people. The whole thing is starting to get frustrating. I see J heading for the door and I ask him where he is going, he tells me he needs to go and get money. I'm stuck there on my own not knowing what to do, then I wake up.

[buckie]

Yesterday I received my copies of EWLD and Lucid Dreaming from Amazon. Here is what LaBerge has to say about missing dreamsigns in your dreams (as I have been moaning about it): The mistake (common among novice lucid dreamers) is to focus on how uncritical their minds are during dreaming, using each missed dreamsign as another example proving that they never recognize dreamsigns. This is a mistake! If you do this, you use missed dreamsigns to learn that you are too unreflective, stupid, or simply lacking in the capability to become lucid. That is not what you want to learn, is it? lucid dreaming, p29.[/b] This is something important I need to change. Also, I have a feeling that the mp3 I found on the web hasn't been working. It does put me in a trance and then deepen it successfully but the suggestions don't seem to be helping me trigger lucidity. Luckily there is a CD with the Lucid Dreaming book that has a trance/suggestion recording on it for before bedtime. I tried it last night and, whilst I am less happy with the trance induction the suggestion may be better for HILD. I'm going to start using this one so time will tell. There is also a 5 minute message for helping with MILD. I haven't tried MILD before last night but it is supposed to be the most successful for triggering lucidity so I tried that as well. Trance suggestion before bedtime, MILD when I woke up from my recalled dream (around 5:30am). The results? Very deep sleep, a real struggle to drag my two recalled dreams out of my mind, no lucidity and a headache this morning when I woke up (like one of those sleep hangovers when you sleep too much). Ho hum; keep on keeping on.

[buckie]

31 Oct 2006 ********************** Dreams Recalled 2 Lucid 0 (Total Lucid 2) Controlled 0 (Total Controlled 1) ********************** #1: I'm working at an airport, for an airline. I've been working there a long time so when a newbie arrives I'm asked to go and show him how to do his first job. The first job you get is in the departure/arrivals lounge, at the gate helping with queries from customers who are leaving or have just arrived. We walk there through the airport, he is already giving me the impression that he is a bit hopeless. When we get to the gate he disappears just as a flight is coming in. My boss is there and she is asking me if I think he'll be any good. As I am having to get my hands dirty and do his job for him just now, I tell her I doubt it. As the first passengers arrive I straighten my tie, put on my best smile and go into customer service mode, my boss helps too. As we are dealing with the passengers the newbie comes in, he didn't get his breakfast so made a detour to the canteen to get a big takeaway carton of with a fried breakfast in it. His hands are greasy, he doesn't have his tie on, his shirt is untucked. I have a word with him and he tries hopelessly to get himself straightened out and pitch in... Now there is a line of passengers ready to embark and they've got the usual queries, complaints etc and the newbie is attempting to help them but all he is doing is causing confusion and chaos; so much so that we have to give one group of upper-class snobby students free tickets for the flight they complain so much! Finally the flight embarks and only a dribble of people are still arriving through the gate. At this point I change from being an employee to being an arriving holidaymaker coming through the lounge pushing my airport trolley and with my ex in tow. We pass the group of airport staff heading for our luxury hotel (which oddly is built as part of the airport). Somehow, right next to the arrivals lounge is a room from the hotel, it's not our room more like a show room. We check it out and it looks really top notch. I'm looking at the bed and I notice that on each pillow is a test-tube type affair with what it turns out is "erection cream" in it (whatever happened to chocolates?). I'm laughing and show them to my ex who also is incredulous/laughing. We leave the room and are pushing the trolley over a link bridge, one of those all glass affairs, when we bump into our holiday rep; I recognise him, he recognises us. He is with this very tall, dark haired young woman, not pretty but with striking features. He is asking us if we are okay just now and I reply that we are but what, I ask wryly, is the story with the erection cream? He says "Ah, you've not met Miss xxxxx" (sorry, didn't catch your name). She is carrying a little pot of the stuff. She takes my hand and dips my index finger into the pot, as I take it out it feels like someone has tied and elastic band very tightly around it just below the tip. I say to her "Ah, a vasoconstrictor!", she smiles and says "yes". Then she moves round to stand behind me and start massaging my hand. I quickly notice that she is gently and covertly pressing her breast into the back of my neck as she does so; I lean back a little to let her know I've noticed. I am aware that my ex is still there but I don't really care if I get caught. Next we are outside pushing the trolley through a courtyard, there is a young boy with us now who has had some kind of body art that involves crimping his thumbnail to embed patterns in it. He says "There's no way I am going to stay with mum". We hear on a radio that King Farouk of Saud (he was actually an Egyptian king in the mid 20th century) has had his mobile phone conversations intercepted and they are being played; I find this very interesting. In one he says "We will do the deal with China but we won't be using [place A] or [place B] (both places in China) as that is madness". At this point my ex and I go our separate ways, she is heading to our room in the hotel but I have a swanky suite in this courtyard and go to stay there myself - I feel she is a bit put out by this. As the dream ends I am reclining in the sun-porch of the suite relaxed and gazing out over the courtyard as King Farouk is on the radio saying to some western diplomat "Your industry has to support the costs of this new technology sector, which has yet to produce anything of worth and as such it is a tax on us to allow people who only want to work in a playpen to enjoy themselves. You wonder why production costs are much lower in the East?" #2: Bit patchy this one, but I am in a someone's back garden. He is a keen gardener, it is autumn and he is doing the final duties of the year and preparing for winter. I, on the other hand, am slyly tring to plant magic mushroom spores in a patch of soil he has just tilled. He notices and says "If you want to plant some mushrooms, do it over here not there..." I feel caught but he doesn't know what kind of mushrooms they are so it's okay. I say "Oops, I've used them all now". I feel a bit bad for ruining his planting scheme in his own garden. Next he shows me some mushrooms he's been growing, they are huge and are elegantly coloured like large pieces of pottery, vaguely chinese. He picks one and shows it to me, I remark on their likeness to pottery through their colours and he smiles... he's playing a trick on me - he paints them as they grow until they look like that. I feel naive. Next thing I'm in a big bed in his house and weirdly he's in there too. I'm suposed to be staying over but feel very uncomfortable with the arrangement, I have my back to him and as he starts to cuddle up to me I get out of bed and make an excuse saying I really have to go home (I can't stay with this old perv&#33. My excuse is accepted but I immediately realise my mistake as it isn't him at all but either his daughter or an attractive red-headed female lodger who is making a pass at me, but the moment is gone I can't now go back on it or I'll be a liar . As I'm getting ready to leave I notice her cat, it is trying to jump up at me. It is made out of rags and patchwork, it is weird and I'm not sure I like it. It is trying to bite me but as its mouth is made from an old sock the useless thing can't do anything. As I'm leaving I wander into the living room of the house where some people are gathered watching the Goodies on TV. For some reason I have on a second world war german officers hat (the ones in blue/grey with a black band), it has seen better days and is floppy as though made of felt, it is quite comical. As I leave I reflect that it must have been a very late episode of the Goodies as it had references to Margaret Thatcher in it.

[buckie]

1 Nov 2006 ********************** Dreams Recalled 0 Lucid 0 (Total Lucid 2) Controlled 0 (Total Controlled 1) ********************** I think I need to relax a little with the dream-gym stuff. I went and bought some clary sage yesterday, sprinkled some on my pillow, read some more of EWLD, did some pre-sleep suggestion/relaxation stuff. I couldn't get to sleep. It was as though I was lying there waiting for something to happen. Eventually got some quite poor quality sleep with very poor dream recall. Maybe if I don't try so hard something will happen, so I'm going to spend a few days not looking at LD in the hope that that might be the way to find it. I did get some recall on my last dream last night but it was all very random so I'm not even going to put it in. On a side note if you are tempted to use clary essential oil, use it sparingly, probably in a diffuser before bedtime. I put it neat onto my pillow and found it quite an uncomfortable night's sleep. My feeling is my dreams were very vivid but as I say, recall was low and my sleep very disturbed.

[buckie]

3 Nov 2006 ********************** Dreams Recalled 1 and a bit Lucid 0 (Total Lucid 2) Controlled 0 (Total Controlled 1) ********************** Just relaxed on the 2nd, stayed away from journalling, didn't try to catch my dreams, didn't read about LD, nada. My brain felt calmer and last night some recall returned... these aren't full dreams but there was enough to make me want to write them down. #1: I am in the house where I grew up in Manchester, my mum and dad are both there (they are divorced now) and as young as when I lived there but I am my age now. It is daytime and the house is being decorated but odd haunting things are happening every so often - I can't remember any of them specifically, they were actual events though - and there is a sense of growing unease. Eventually I'm looking at the chimney breast which is painted a magnolia colour and I can see tiny droplets of blood splattered there as though they'd been flicked on with a brush. I point them out and as I do more and more appear until we can see that blood is seaping through the paint. It spells out a message saying that the ghost is alive now and is going to be paying us a visit shortly. The doorbell goes and I go through to answer it, there is a figure on the other side of the glass and I am very scared... ...the scene changes and I am now Jim Hacker. I'm in one of those small fairground ride carriages like you would have on a ghost train or somesuch. The track takes me slowly through a television studio set with small cinema screens in each area. It seems to be some kind of experimental Channel 4 comedy about a television show going wrong. Someone somewhere is controlling the images on the screens as I careen through various Channel 4 sets (Channel 4 news, some US comedy with Kirsty Alley - she's in bed and she's looking hot - and lots of other areas). It's the same image on all the screens and the joke seems to be that the person responsible for it has fallen asleep or can't control it properly and all sorts of inappropriate stuff is popping up (porn, random internet sites, mad flash animations) and then I come through in a little train and non of the people trying to do their job can work out what the hell is going on. As the dream ends I'm still in this carriage and Humphrey Appleby's disembodied voice is saying "don't tell me all we got him as a leaving present was lighter and a [fire extinguisher?]". #2: This is very patchy but was really disturbing at the time. I was back at my old house in Manchester again and this time there is my father, my brother and his wife and their children. Again everyone is about 20 years younger except me.; I've been away in Scotland and have returned after the 20 years for what seems like the first time (I visit all the time in real life). Everything is going well until I notice that the fishtank I left when I went is still there in the corner of the livingroom (in reality I never left a fishtank, it resembles my fishtank from my house now). It hasn't been looked after at all, in fact no one has been near it since I went. The water is very green and algae is coating everything but... I notice that things are actually living in it. A small fish swims by but it is pretty deformed, missing bits of fins and with a very crooked back. I really don't want to look but I am facinated that stuff is still in there without having been fed or the water changed or anything. It is difficult to see clearly because of the green yuck, but it is clear that a whole miniature ecosystem has developed of ravaged, deformed animals and you can see them predating on each other. All the fish have big chunks missing here and there and are bent and twisted out of shape, but it is what you can't see that seems the most horrific. As I'm getting closer trying for a better look a rotting seagull with a skull for a head swims past under the water and comes to settle in a corner of the tank like a corpse floating to the bottom of the sea, all drenched feathers and torn, rotting flesh tightened across bones. I know I should clean the tank out but I can't bear to open the lid and am afraid and sickened by the animals inside. I wake up.

[buckie]

4 Nov 2006 ********************** Dreams Recalled 2 Lucid 0 (Total Lucid 2) Controlled 0 (Total Controlled 1) ********************** Typical Saturday night out fayre last night so brain was a bit scrambled. I did dream and did recall but didn't have much motivation to journal them down. Let me see if what I have makes any sense... #1: There was going to be a strike at a school, the people who going to be striking were, in reality, a group of collegues of mine from an old job where they worked in the maintenance department. They were all stood in a warehouse talking things over. Everyone seemed to have low moral and be being treated poorly... Somehow I find myself at a school disco trying to buy a single joint off some guy. It takes ages to track him down and get hold of one. I go back to my chums (some boy and girl, DCs) and the boy has already got a joint. I can't believe he didn't tell me before all the hassle I went to. Next time I look we are somehow on a train and the conductor is coming - I know we'll be in trouble for the joints so I jump off the train. I'm on the railway track and the drugs have now become a bag of weed. I see policemen coming from the tunnel the train has just gone into so I throw the bag through the air to try and drop-shot it into some bushes at the side of the track. The bag goes up into the air in slow motion heading right for where I want it, but just when I think I'm safe a crow or a raven swoops down and grabs the bag in its beak and flies over me and drops it at my feet. Next, I'm in a red sports car that is being driven by a boy about 8 years old. He is driving round country roads in a circuit, he's driving about 70mph and everytime we go past a speed sign he throws a proper Mack-Sennett-issue custard pie out of the window and splats it so you can't see the speed limit anymore. Eventually we jump to being at the side of the road with the car on its side in a ditch. The little boy is scratching his head as I explain that it's a consequence of driving too fast that this happened. #2: This dream starts on a hillside at dusk where there is some sort of superhero showdown going on. There are some pretty serious battles happening all around with different coloured power-balls flying about in the night sky and a lot of grimacing and energy forces throwing people around. I am thinking to myself that, as I don't actually possess any superpowers of my own, I should get away from this carnival of chaos but it's getting dark and there isn't any discernible path off the hill and anyway there doesn't look like anywhere to go. Fortunately there is a squirrel/ferret thing there and at my feet there is a rabbit hole. I sort of manage to get the little chap to go down the hole and it starts digging in there until the hole is big enough for me to fit down. I notice there is light coming from down there. I jump down and come through the ceiling of a subterranian home. It is very modern and the people who own it are very nice. It turns out that they know me as they actually bought the house from me and it's good that I'm here because there are a few things that they need help sorting out that I left behind but they are not able to do. I tell them I'm glad to help and set about configuring their wireless networking and sorting out their cabling and some other stuff. As I'm doing this I notice in another part of the lounge is the warehouse area where the staff from my earlier dream were standing. They are still there but now this little man (about 2 feet tall) who is obviously their boss is shouting at them and humiliating them and they look really forlorn. He is a nasty piece of work, laughing at them and generally putting them down so I go over to him and start really having a go back at him. I'm gving him a few home truths and he can't take it... I'm pointing at him, poking my finger towards him and he's backing off so I keep following him giving him a dressing down. He trips as he backs over something and falls to the floor and now I'm above him and he's got one arm up to his face to protect himself. I just look at him witheringly and turn away. As I turn back everyone seems very happy, I seem to have done a good thing for them, some of them cheer. My friends J and B are there, they seem to approve too.