Thread: Asymptote's Dreams

Lucid bits are in blue.
Semi-lucid bits are in green.

November 28th, 2007

The Comedian in the Bowler Hat

A cinder-block building with white walls. It looks like some sort of bland administrative building. A man in a suit is walking around with another man. Suddenly, a third man, also dressed in a suit and a bowler hat (I'll call him Bowler Man) appears at the other end of the hallway, and walks towards the Man in the Suit.

The Man in the Suit is revealed to be a comedian of some sort, and Bowler Man is asking him for comedy tips. The Man in the Suit asks to see Bowler Man's comedy routine. The routine apparently begins with Bowler Man running away like a madman, with the Man in the Suit chasing him. As Bowler Man hurries around a corner, the Man in the Suit recommends that he "do the thing with his hat," upon which he throws the bowler at his pursuer.

The chase goes on for a while. [There are some bits I can't remember here.] Eventually, the routine reaches its concluding act: Bowler Man squeezes himself into a too-small closet. It's very claustrophobic. The Man in the Suit tries to squeeze in as well, but Bowler Man slips out. Someone somehow ends up getting locked in the tiny closet. The other person stands outside talking about how "the closet is where the immigrants have to wait while their papers are processed" or something like that. The one in the closet begins pounding on the closet door, and the door begins buckling in several places. It is revealed that the door is nothing but a layer of cloth over a flimsy styrofoam core. The person outside attempts to hold the door together, but as the person inside continues to pound away at it, it grows weaker and weaker.

[something] in the Mall

I'm in a shopping mall, walking around. Some important event is going on. It seems to be some kind of book fair. I'm somehow important, but I'm not sure how.

[the memory of this dream is very dim]

The Boxer

I'm standing at the top of a road on a hill. It looks a lot like a suburb in California. At the top of the road is a boxing ring. I'm standing in the ring, while a Jamaican or African boxer leaves. He seems quite pleased about something. A pet or girlfriend of his is waiting outside the ring [big distinction, I know, but I can't remember which it was]. He's trying to decide whether to let the pet/girlfriend go, and eventually decides that it's best if he does. I'm happy about the decision.

Lucid bits are in blue.
Semi-lucid bits are in green.

November 29th, 2007

The New Cat

I get a cat. It looks a lot like my old cat, but it's younger, with grayer fur, and isn't nearly as lazy. I'm sitting around some house, playing with the cat. I keep trying to come up with a name for it, but I can't. My friend Charlie is there. The cat keeps sitting on my hand. Charlie finds this quite amusing, but I think it's unsanitary.

Migraine Swabs

Charlie and I are walking around some kind of store. It's a very odd cross between a flea market and a convenience store. Charlie looks at some things, and asks me whether he should get the big "migraine kit," or the small one. The "migraine kit" consists of a large box of what looks like cotton swabs with unusually large tips wrapped in paper. I'm not sure how they work. I start thinking about visual disturbances and migraine auras. The woman behind the counter starts talking about her migraines while we pay for the kit.

My Lightbulb Collection, Her Football Bet

My mother and I are hanging around a house that looks like a combination of my current house, my parents' house, and my grandmother's old house. My mother is doing something football-related (American football). She's rummaging through the refrigerator, throwing lightbulbs to me from my "lighbtulb collection" (which I apparently keep in the refrigerator, inside a little fence made of cases of beer). She throws me a bulb, and it smashes against the ground, shattering. When she's done pulling all of them out of the refrigerator, she counts them up. I've got eight.

"Well, seven now," I say, somewhat dejectedly. She throws me another lightbulb. I catch it, and toss it back, telling her to put it back where it belongs. She doesn't bother to catch it, and it smashes on the floor. She then throws me one of those spherical glass Christmas ornaments. I throw this back as well, and it, too, shatters on the floor. I tell her not to throw me anymore. I get quite upset with her.

We're suddenly in a different room. There's a table by the window, that has a lot of little wooden or ceramic tiles on them. They're arranged like Scrabble tiles, but they have numbers on them instead of letters. My mother and I are entered into some kind of football-related bet. She starts tossing marbles onto the table. If any of the marbles land in one of a few containers scattered around the room, then I have to do something that I don't want to do [I can't recall what it was]. She casts the first marble, and it comes to rest against a tile with "29" written on it. Then, it somehow rolls across the table and onto the windowsill. It turns to the right and rolls across the sill. After it drops off the edge, it goes into a drainpipe. I'm quite nervous, because one of the "bad containers" is outside the window somewhere. I listen for the sound of the marble dropping into the container, but I'm relieved to hear it hit the ground instead. I'm very glad, because I had been certain that the drainpipe emptied into the "bad container."

A Higher (Air)Plane

I'm standing outside with someone I knew from high school. Somehow, we've both reached a higher plane of reality. Things look a bit different on this plane. We're looking up at the sky, which is full of contrails. Two fighter jets weave back and forth, following the contrails. I'm surprised by the beauty of the sky.

Hiding the Heart

Lionel and Jean (from the television show "As Time Goes By") are moving around a house that looks a bit like an art gallery. Eventually, Penny and Stephen (two of the irritating supporting characters from the show) enter and start poking around. They enter one particular room where there's a donor organ being stored. It's a heart hanging from the ceiling, behind an old-fashioned cloth pull-down shade. Jean, however, tells Penny and Stephen that there's a liver behind the shade.

NOTES:

A sky full of contrails appears to be one of my dreamsigns. It certainly shows up a lot in my dreams.

That's the second appearance of one of those spherical glass Christmas ornaments. I talked with my parents about those a week or so ago, which is probably why.

LUCID DREAMING GOALS: UPDATED

Well, I finally bought Stephen LaBerge's book (Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming. It's a good read. You should get it, if you don't already have it.) And with the book's guidance, I've expanded my list of lucid goals to include some decidedly less frivolous goals.

[ ] Have a (coherent) lucid dream.
[ ] Have a real conversation in a lucid dream.
[ ] Meet a DC. (I can't believe I haven't managed this yet)
[ ] Meet Stephen Hawking.
[ ] Find my Dream Guide (if I've got one).
[ ] Manifest my subconscious and ask it some questions.
[ ] Get in a fistfight with Denzel Washington...and win.
[ ] Fly.
[ ] Survive a global apocalypse...
[ ] ...and roam the post-apocalyptic Earth as a nomad.
[ ] Try lucid sex. (As a primate of the male persuasion, this one is pretty much obligatory).
[ ] Have a cinematic battle reminiscent of the Final Battle between Agent Smith and Neo at the end of the Matrix trilogy.
[ ] Have a conversation with a sentient computer.
[ ] Spend some time on a space station. (Maybe I could contrive to combine this goal with the above)
[ ] Drive the Autobahn.
[ ] Break the sound barrier. (Airplane optional)
[ ] Hold back the zombie invasion.
[ ] Hold back the alien invasion.
[ ] Meet an alien. (Okay, this one should probably be before the above...)
[ ] Talk mathematics with Paul Erdös.
[ ] Outwit a vastly superior opponent.
[ ] Pilot a tank.
[ ] Transcend, or escape the confines of normal reality.
[ ] Ask the Universe if It has a purpose.
[ ] Converse with a deity.
[ ] Experience a higher-order reality.
[ ] See what it's like to be female.
[ ] See what it's like to be old.
[ ] See what it's like to be an extraterrestrial.
[ ] Fall into a black hole.
[ ] Traverse a wormhole.

Any lucid bits are in blue.
Any semi-lucid bits are in green.

December 4th, 2007

The Meeting

I'm in a meeting at the newspaper office where I work. We have some sort of end-of-the-year "closing up shop" assignment: we have to write an essay on something. The guy who's meant to explain how to write our essays comes in, sick and in a bad mood. We're all in an art gallery, talking about various artist's styles that we could copy for our essays. Somebody wants to copy "Beth Tran"'s style ("Beth Tran" is the name my dream gave to someone I knew in high school). The guy who's supposed to be helping us suggests that we should write our essays on the little glass panels that fill in the railings on the gallery's second floor. He says something about how you can get maintenance to tilt one of the panels if you need them to. I'm not feeling very confident about my essay, and I'm quite happy to wake up.

Publishing

My cousin has a book published, and I'm very impressed with him. He seems very happy, and tells me that if he can get published, then I can get published. Some of the pages in his book are the wrong size, and contain comic strips instead of words, and none of the pages are bound together. My cousin says something about the time his dog died and how he'd cried when his monkey ran away. (?)

The Motor-Car

I'm in England. People are sitting around and talking. Somebody is talking about their plans to steal their neighbor's "motor-car" (it's apparently sometime in the early 1900's) while the neighbor is away. They're talking about how they plan to break the chain on the person's garage door, then slide the bolt out, and make off with the car. The car looks to me like an early Model T Ford.

The Clay People

A bunch of clay people are walking around. There are some that look a lot like people, and others that are vastly simplified models of people. The ones that look like people have a lot of trouble talking because they're more complex and so their mouths are harder to animate.

December 7th, 2007

Lucid bits are in blue.
Semi-lucid bits are in green.

The Birthday Party

My friend Charlie and I are walking through a very grand forest. There's a path through a lovely bed of matted emerald grass. There are a few trees scattered here and there, but the forest is still very shady, as though it had a full canopy. Ahead of us are two fallen trees. One of them is normal-sized, but one of them has a trunk at least twenty feet wide.

As we go down the path, Charlie finds a dead standing tree. It's a little gnarled. For some reason, that makes it a "Jewish tree." Charlie fiddles around with the tree, but I warn him that it might fall down.

We arrive at our destination: what appears to be a birthday party. As we walk up to the cake, Charlie slips and falls facefirst into it. In order not to be associated with his faux pas, I mosey over to the other cake. A vaguely unpleasant woman asks me which piece I want. Before I can answer, she asks me if I've lit a candle yet. I get nervous. I see that the cake has "7th Grade" written on it in icing. That's apparently the wrong grade for me, so I go back to the other cake. Charlie is sitting there eating. I sit down and take a bite of something. It tastes like melting chocolate ice cream. I lick the spoon clean.

"What's the matter?" asks Charlie. "You've never had to recycle a spoon?"

"Actually, I have," I respond, "I just want to see if I can write in chocolate if I have to." Charlie looks at me like I'm an idiot. My mother appears.

"You know, it's good to write someone's name when you give them money," she says. I get nervous. Who was I supposed to give money to?

"But I don't have anybody to give money to!" I protest.

"Well, then you need more money."

Breaking down the Door

A police-based videogame. It's my officer versus quite a few terrorists. I go through the room, shooting them, but then there are too many. I execute a strategy. It works. "She's pretty good," says Charlie. I reach a door. I can see a terrorist on the other side. I shoot him before he can do anything. Charlie is impressed.

Then, I try to open the door. The things in my inventory are useless to open it, so I try to use a fire extinguisher. When I press the "use" button, all I do is tie the extinguisher up next to the door. When I click on it, all it does is rattle within its ropes.

Eventually, I find a tool that looks like a garden trowel with a handle as long as a rake handle. I use it to open the door, by cutting the door as though I was using a can opener. When I have a big circular cut made, I push the panel through, and it bends like the lid of an aluminum can. As Charlie is about to step through, I warn him to watch out for the sharp edges.

December 8th, 2007

Lucid bits are in blue.
Semi-lucid bits are in green.

The Epic Story

There are two people doing something. Some sort of malevolent entity is trying to stop them. They get trapped in an enclosed space, and they suddenly have health meters. Their health starts to go down. They die. Then, they re-spawn. This time, before their health drains, they put on spacesuits, then find a hidden exit. They get out of the enclosed space. The space is start of some sort of Stephen-King-like storyline. The two people have to get away before something happens with the other structures. When they get out of the structure, they realize that it was at a very high altitude.

It's later. They're on the ground. (This may be during the period between when they died and when they respawned). I'm with them. (It might actually have been after their escape, I can't remember). They're recovering. The woman seems to be somewhat worse for wear.

December 9th, 2007

Lucid: blue. Semi-lucid: green.

The Test

I'm in my economics class. There's a big test. I forgot to bring my review sheet and some other important piece of paper. I panic, then go to my professor to see if she can give me a break just once. She refuses, and I go to the corner and try to look depressed.

A crappy governor or mayor has been in office for some time. The election is coming up, and I'm hoping for someone better. I'm looking over a swampy river. There are alligators in the river, and they are actually able to fly for short periods on little insect-like wings. They use this ability to catch bugs and birds and things near the river.

The old (crappy) governor gets elected president. The new (better) governor candidate is happy because that means that he can now take the governorship. Then, he learns that the old governor is still the governor. The new governor complains that it would be impossible for any person to be president and governor at the same time. I'm in a very nice office with black marble walls and floors. I go to the window and look down. The window overlooks the river. I'm depressed and concerned about my economics test, and I consider jumping from the window (which is only on the first or second floor).

Lucid: blue. Semi-lucid: green.

December 10th, 2007

Redrawing the Robots

Emotions: The dream seemed strangely cool.

My friend Charlie and I are hanging around outside an academic-looking building, sitting on some kind of terrace. I'm looking at a food package of some sort. I look at the nutrition label. All of the nutrition values have been taped over so that the only information you can get is whether the percentage is one digit or two. I'm worried about the sugar content.

Charlie and I are talking about robots of some kind. They look rather like this:

(Note: Yes, I know it's a crappy picture, but give me a break, I can barely remember any of the details.)

A computer-like menu appears that has four different versions of this robot. None of the versions does anything different from any of the others. Somehow, I mess up one of the images on the menu, and I have to fix it using Photoshop or some such similar utility.

Lucid: blue. Semi-lucid: green.

December 11th, 2007

Emotions: Anxiety.

The Essay

I'm in my Western History class. We have to turn in an essay for our final exam (this part is actually true to life), and I go into a panic thinking that I've forgotten my essay. It turns out that I hadn't, but the essay is wrongly printed somehow. I get nervous, then I get really upset and start throwing things around the room. I need to talk to my professor, but she's gone somewhere else. I make a fool of myself and get a massive nosebleed. I go outside, but I still can't find my professor. I consider going home, but make one final (futile) attempt to find them.

The Bacon Diet

One of my father's business friends is going around checking up on some kind of epidemic. My father keeps talking about how someone he knows (possibly the business friend) has done a lot of self-improvements.

Some kind of bacon-related epidemic.

Part of my father's business friend's weight loss plan consists of bacon.

"I called the nurse and got an appointment for five thirty," he begins, "but the doctor told me that I had to lose weight. And he didn't just like tell me to go jogging, he gave me all these other exercises to do, and he told me to eat two ounces of bacon a day. That's four dollars!"

Lucid: blue. Semi-lucid: green.

December 13th, 2007

NOTES: This was quite a good series of dreams. Starting my extra B6 (25 milligrams) seemed to help my clarity. The dreams might have been even better, if I hadn't had to wake up early for an exam.

The Robotic General

Emotions: Pride, amazement.

I've built some sort of Artificial Intelligence. It consists of a little robotic man in a General Patton-style uniform. The robot takes out something that looks like a calculator, and puts it on top of a plastic box in front of him. The box resembles a defibrillator with a screen. When he starts typing, the "defibrillator" converts the letters he types into binary, so that they can be fed into the A.I., which apparently does some sort of natural-language processing. The robotic general types incredibly fast, and I'm very proud to have created such a thing.

The Dinner Party

I'm in a small restaurant which has some kind of buffet. There are lots of people milling around. I decide to be adventurous and try something I've never tried before. I decide on some kind of attractively-presented fried artichoke. I take a bite. Can't remember what it tasted like.

For some reason, I decide to go take a shower (apparently it's not a restaurant, it's my old house). It's a long shower, and I'm hoping that when I come out, the people will be gone, but they're not. I stand there naked and dripping wet, and wrap a towel around myself. There's a Muslim woman in the crowd, and I'm very careful to wrap the towel around myself so that it doesn't look like I'm making fun of her hijab (headscarf).

NOTE: I don't know why, but I have a lot of dreams with Muslim elements in them. Must be all the NPR I listen to.

The Show

I'm watching some kind of Monty Python-esque television show. All sorts of odd things are going on.

In one scene of the show, a man gets thrown into some kind of glass-walled jailhouse. The floor is covered with mud or water or blue gel [I can't remember which, it may have actually changed between the three during the dream]. He discovers that, in the jail with him, are a number of invisible people. One of them punches the visible guy. Some force tries to reveal the invisible people, but it doesn't work. One of the people is partially revealed, but only as the stack of silver televisions [?] they're sitting on. The man goes into the back corridor of the prison, and the walls inexplicably turn wooden [well, wood-and-glass-at-the-same-time, really]. All of the invisible people are afraid to go back there, for fear of encountering the invisible dog -- a giant chihuahua, of all things -- that lives back there.

The Dinner Party...hmm, that's rather unique. I'd like to try some fried artichoke. It's interesting that you wanted everyone gone so you hid in the shower...perhaps you can draw some meaning from that.

I listen to NPR quite often as well...I understand where your coming from.

Ah, "the bacon diet"...that's rather silly..I've always thought of bacon as heart and weight destroying ...amusing how it was almost being prescribed

You've got some good recall here.

Originally Posted by bro

The Dinner Party...hmm, that's rather unique. I'd like to try some fried artichoke. It's interesting that you wanted everyone gone so you hid in the shower...perhaps you can draw some meaning from that.

I listen to NPR quite often as well...I understand where your coming from.

Ah, "the bacon diet"...that's rather silly..I've always thought of bacon as heart and weight destroying ...amusing how it was almost being prescribed

You've got some good recall here.

Thanks for the reply!

I think you're probably right about the shower thing. I've been feeling rather lonely lately. Maybe my mind is trying to tell me that I've been isolating myself...

As for the bacon thing, I think that was just my brain being contrary, since bacon is so incredibly unhealthy...

Lucid: blue. Semi-lucid: green.

December 14th, 2007

The Gay Man

There's a gay man hanging about [I can't remember what he was doing]. My friend Charlie severely overreacts to his sexuality. I start talking about how I'm so desperate for attention that I don't care if gay guys hit on me.

NOTE: I have no idea what this means, but I get the feeling it means something.

Hmm . . . secret desires eh? From the looks of a few threads around here, it seems like you're not the only one struggling with your dream sexuality. Don't sweat it. It probably means just as much as my lesbian dreams - that is, nothing. Also, that rocket you drew doesn't look like a phallic symbol at all.

Hehe. I like the lucid goal "Manifest my subconscious and ask it some questions." I'd like to get into some good conversations in my dreams as well. It'll be interesting to see what our subconsciousnesses (say that with a lisp) have to say.

Haha Strinky... "at all".

I'd go with the same advice...don't worry about it. I've had dreams where I've done all sorts of stuff with guys...used to bother me, but I actually think it might be a desire for human interaction...in some way.

Strinky's idea sounds very good...I've wanted to do that for a long time but never had quite enough lucid luck.

Keep up the reordings asymptote.

Originally Posted by strinky

Also, that rocket you drew doesn't look like a phallic symbol at all.

Damn...I was really hoping that the little rectangular arm thing and the series of round things (I'm still not sure what they were supposed to be) might soften that impression a little...

Lucid: blue. Semi-lucid: green.

December 15th, 2007

After the Apocalypse

Post-apocalyptic wasteland. I'm living in a little country house on a river. Every now and then, rusted, patched-up boats full of nomads float by. I don't want them to attack me, so I decide that there is some kind of marker on the outside of my house to let passerby know that I'm neutral. I "decide" that all the inhabitants of the river and its banks make up a kind of loose federation that have mutually agreed not to attack one another.

Fighting with Dad

My father, my friend, and I are all hanging around a rusted, decayed trainyard. My father stands around impassively while my friend and I play around. I start to hop over this fence so that we can play around in a bigger area nearby, but my father stops me, telling me that that's going too far. I get upset. I'm tired of being controlled and limited. I go back to my father, then, to defy him, I head for a metal tower that stands in the trainyard. I climb over and under various pipes and train parts. My father starts chasing after me, yelling. I reach the tower, and begin climbing a ladder up its side. My father follows me up. I'm now very high, standing on top of what looks like a tanker car balanced atop the tower.

When my father finally reaches me, we get into some kind of "honor battle." We're both standing on opposite sides of the helm of this rusty speedboat, which is apparently flying through the air. Each of us has a little silver button that we have to press as fast as we can in order to "increase the voltage." Whoever gets their voltage up first wins the battle. I start pressing as hard and fast as I can, but no matter what I do, I can't outdo my father. The boat flies off. I'm not on it.

NOTE: I'm noticing a strange trend of seeming psychological significance in my dreams. I get the feeling that my subconscious is feeling "hemmed in" by some authority, somehow.

The Celebration

I'm standing on the banks of a small river. There are houses on either side. A woman in the house near me calls to a man across the river -- who is dressed like an Amish person -- asking about the celebration that is about to start. I can't remember his reply. To get the celebration going, he dumps a bucket of that bubble solution into the river, and takes a big plastic wand, dips it in, and starts blowing bubbles. He gives another wand to a little girl standing near him. The man's friends are starting to decorate the house across the way.

???

Everything is post-apocalyptic again. My friend and I are in a rusty car (perhaps a Volkswagen), being rebellious. We're trying to escape from some kind of authority figure. We speed up a parking-deck ramp.

NOTE: I'm guessing that some part of my mind is feeling oppressed by some kind of authority. Of course, as always, it could be that the authority is my own inhibitions. I know nothing about dream interpretation, so I'm not sure.

Lucid: blue. Semi-lucid: green.

December 16th, 2007

The Fence

My friend Charlie and I are walking through this neighborhood, talking. Somehow, we end up in somebody's yard, where we're trapped by a big, rusty chain-link fence. Our entrapment doesn't seem to concern us, and we simply lean against an enormous oak tree in the yard and continue our conversation. After a few minutes, we notice a young, angsty teenager dressed all in black sitting on a tire swing and staring at us. He seems quite put off by our presence, and goes inside to tell his grandmother. We get nervous, because we know that the grandmother will call the police, and we try to get out of the yard. We have a hard time getting out, though, because the fence is topped with razor wire. Eventually, we pull the fence up in one corner and slip out under it.

Lucid: blue. Semi-lucid: green.

December 18th, 2007

Across the Pole

My mother and I take a trip to Scotland. We get there by driving across the polar ice cap from my new home near Canada (This bit I don't understand...I've never even been to Canada).

We're talking about driving over the pole. I make a joke about how, since Santa Claus is an alien (?), he picked the worst place to land, since the pole was so isolated, he couldn't spread any further. My mother finds this funny. Then, I suddenly get serious, and start worrying about what happens when the icecap melts and human beings get exposed to all the strange germs that are around the North Pole, lurking under the ice. I start thinking about a movie plot where everybody in a polar research station dies because of said germs, then there's an epidemic, etc.

Cuttlefish

My friend Charlie and I head down a flight of stairs and head over to this aquarium to have a look at the cuttlefish. My father is already there looking at it. Charlie and I want to see it change color (as cuttlefish do). At first, we can't even see it, and we're not even sure it's there, since it's turned dark-green to blend in with the seaweed in the tank. My father says that they've replaced the cuttlefish with something else, and they're trying to fool us into thinking they haven't. My father flips a switch, and the cuttlefish squirts out some kind of substance and turns pink. I worry that the switch had activated a garbage disposal (?), and that my father had chopped off one of the cuttlefish's tentacles. As it swims around, the cuttlefish is starting to look an awful lot like a person.

Lucid: blue. Semi-lucid: green.

December 19th, 2007

The Seagulls

I'm at the beach, observing some kind of seagull society. They're making war against the moon, shooting little pellets of light at it in an attempt to shoot it down. They think they're doing damage, because every now and then, a little circular bright spot will appear on the moon's surface. They call the bright spots "light baskets," and think that they're a sign that the pellets are hitting the moon. I know, however, that the "light baskets" are just the results of normal meteor impacts.

Two of the seagulls are walking down the beach, a male and a female. The female has all sorts of strange cloth interlaced into her wing feathers. She tells her companion that she has to have the cloth because she was "underweight" or "too small" for the seagull air force, and that she had to add the cloth in order to produce enough lift to be able to join said air force.

Then, the two seagulls begin flirting with one another. The male starts pecking the female in the rear end.

"Ooh, I see London!" he says.

"Oh, stop it!" she replies, smilingly.

The Essays

I'm at my college, which has inexplicably moved into some sort of massive motel complex. I'm feeling rather clueless, because I'm not quite sure what's going on, and I've got a lot of essays to turn in. It takes me a very long time to find the place where I'm supposed to turn the essays in. I eventually do get them turned in however, but I'm still quite nervous about my grades.

Eventually, I get the essays back. The teacher has written comments, both critical and complimentary. Some of the comments confuse me.

Lucid: blue. Semi-lucid: green.

December 20th, 2007

NOTE: This is the first nightmare that I can remember since I was about ten years old.

"The Outer Limits"

There are all sorts of odd phenomena going on. The rest of the dream is a television show reminiscent of "The Outer Limits", a kind of Twilight-Zone-like show from the 1990's.

I see a view of some Hawaiian islands. The narrator is talking about them, about the tsunamis that a slight shift in the moon's orbit has caused.

The view switches to an old lighthouse keeper talking about the tsunamis. The feel switches to less of a science-fiction show and more of a documentary. One of those cheesy documentary reenactments plays. Even though it was many years ago, the man himself is playing in the reenactment, even though he would have looked much younger then.

The man's talking about how, when the tsunami hit, he drove to the highest part of the island. He's driving his Volkswagen Beetle up to the top of a mountain when the wave hits. His car is submerged in water up to the bottoms of the windows.

"I drove until my engine stopped," he says.

He reaches the top of the mountain, where his house stands. It's a gray rectangular cinder-block building. As he climbs up onto the roof to escape the rising water, he sees a lamp floating around in his living room. He says something about how the water will break his fan. He climbs up onto the edge of the roof. The roof itself is nonexistent, so its like walking on a balance beam. Eventually, the water recedes.

Suddenly, the show is like The Outer Limits again. The man is looking down in horror at his destroyed garden, screaming "My orchids! My beautiful orchids!"

The scene switches again to a view of three people standing in my living room, a mother and her two teenage daughters. Somehow I know that this is the part of the show where the daughters learn the moral of the story (apparently, the "story" was the earlier part about the lighthouse keeper). The daughters seem rather confused about the moral. The younger girl says "So, does that mean I can hang up the poster, then?"

"Yeah, sure," says the mother. (Apparently, the moral was poster-related...) They stand in silence for a moment.

"So, what are we having for dinner?" asks the young daughter.

"We're having heart...OF HELL!" replies the mother. As she says the last words, she reaches into the young daughter's chest and rips her heart out, then covers her with one of those sea-foam-green medical sheets. She and the older daughter start laughing maniacally. Apparently, the mother has been invaded by some sort of parasite that made her evil. During the dream, this seemed incredibly scary.

Lucid: blue. Semi-lucid: green.

January 23rd, 2008

Frau Professor

I'm in my German class. My German professor is doing some sort of end-of-semester wrap-up. It seems very pointless, and I get tired of it. I start to scribble on the back inside cover of my German textbook. My professor gets very angry.

Later, after I've gone home, I discover that that same professor lives near me. She starts to make trouble for me, because apparently, she's still angry. She gets my friend and I arrested for something.

Lucid: blue.
Semi-lucid: green.

February 6th, 2008

They Stole my Identity

I'm in my apartment, but it looks different from the way it usually looks. I go to the window to check to check if my car is still in the parking lot (something I used to do all the time), and I see that it's not there. I go into a panic and start pacing back and forth. I try to call my father to tell him what happened, but I keep mis-dialing the phone number and getting interrupted.

Nervously, I go to my front door to make sure it's locked, since I'm worried that whoever stole the car might still be in the neighborhood. As I turn the locks, one of them falls out of the door, then the other one. It takes me a few minutes to get them back in, and then I realize that I've put them in backwards (actually, I put them in the right way, but in the dream, they seemed backwards to me).

Without warning, an Indian family starts walking through my apartment, which is suddenly decorated very differently. Not sure what's going on, I ask them what they're doing, and I find out that they live here now. Feeling terrified and exasperated, I go out to the parking lot and start walking in circles. I finally call my father, but he doesn't seem to care about my situation. I keep searching the parking lot, hoping that my car will show up there. Suddenly, I see it parked in one of the spaces on the far end.

I feel very confused, and then I think "There's no way this is possible. Things that have disappeared don't just reappear again." With that in mind, I do the hand reality check, and discover that I'm dreaming. Elated to finally be having a lucid dream (and to discover that the whole missing-car identity-theft saga wasn't real), I start jumping up and down, screaming happily. I start walking across the parking lot, then decide to try to fly. I end up sort of floating backwards for a second, but then I hit my head on a fence or something. I decide to do another reality check, but this time, my hand looks normal.

Lucid: blue. Semi-lucid: green.

March 2nd, 2008

The Stranger

I'm back at my old house. Nobody else is around. I go outside, and see a very strange car (somewhat reminiscent of the Batmobile, but shorter) sitting in the driveway. It's some sort of futuristic concept car. The wheels retract, and a man comes out through the wheel well. The man makes me uneasy, and I want him to go away, but he comes inside. Once in the house, I discover my friend sitting on the couch. The strange man goes into the kitchen and does something. After a few minutes, I decide to get rid of the stranger, and so I go over to the kitchen and get a knife from the drawer to threaten the man with.