Here I go! And I'm Newer than a Newbie...

**.o0 SengSeng 0o.** · 07-20-2007 04:48 AM

A little sum-sumthin' about me.

Hey crew... Thought I'd jump in and try this journalling thing with you all, and maybe it can even inspire or help someone along the way.

Unlike many of the people on here who could build Rome in their dreams at the age of 3, I've had only one LD more than 15 years ago, when I was a teenager. I wish I had done what so many people wrote about their first time! Did I go eat ice cream until it literally came out my ears like one of those Playdoh extruders? Did I teleport to a planet full of women dying to see my six-pack abs, and where Thighmasters actually work? (Man, if that isn't a reality check!)

Nope. I chose to dive off a cliff and glide into an ocean, waking up upon impact. Gee! But as simple as the dream was, it actually was fun. Fun & interesting enough that I decided to stop bossing around my action figures and use that power for the good--to control my dreams again. So right about the time when flourescent tiger-striped bandanas were no longer cool, but between the time that jackets had 46 Michael Jackson pockets, I bought some cheap subliminal tapes and some of those red flashing LED glasses to try to fast-track myself back into Lucidville, USA. If that stuff ever worked, it had to have been by accident. It still hurts to think about how much of my milk money went to Dane Spotts! lol

Anyway, here I am today, jaded--but excited (albeit the kind of excited where your pulse doesn't change)--about all these new techniques ending in "ILD". In seeing tons of people doing this, I'm motivated once again to give it the 'ol girl scout try. I'm even committing to the point of getting professional hypnosis to set up some dream triggers, and using some audio software to create subliminal affirmations that play in reverse over binaural beats. Woot! Woot! (my pulse just changed, I think)

So will all this fluff and hoo-hah work? Time will tell! Stay tuned...

**.o0 SengSeng 0o.** · 07-20-2007 06:07 AM

A little overview

Yeah, I know. Simmer down. This is a dream journal, not a biography on the life and times of. But please go with it for the moment. In books and film, I could get away with calling this "character building". I mean, I feel like if I am truly going to ask you to follow along on a journey of one man's dreams, I would hope to at least have you at "Hello!"

One of the things that really reignited my interest in lucid dreaming is that I've been having a good success rate at remembering my normal dreams lately. Only recently have I become serious enough to begin writing them down, and thankfully none of them have yet to portray me back in Science class wearing nothing but tighty-whities.

My main goal is simply to recognize that I'm dreaming within my dream. I'm not even looking to run off with Miss America yet. I just want to be able to watch a DC stick a thumb in his/her mouth, blow really hard and watch the head inflate, without thinking it's totally normal! Such a simple goal, but so hard to attain! Where am I going to find an inflatable DC prop?

Accomplishing this should be a piece of cake, according to the experts that are still playing with Baby Einstein toys. I finally read enough instructions to be considered dangerous. There's this thing called MILD that looks interesting. From looking on WikiBooks, the MILD technique seems to fit my personality and sleep habits. Hopefully I can set some intentions with a little MILD, and then seal the deal with some WBTB about 5-6 hours later. Now can anyone point me in the direction of Miss America?

My first clue?

Mom always said, "Son, every rambling dream journal needs an over-sensationalized starting point.." Dang it Mom, why are you always right? Well, I think I've found a good place to begin. In fact, my starting point is not only sensational but ridiculously unusual, because it came true later that day!*

*In order to preserve the dramatic sensationalism, I needed to make that bold statement. My dream didn't really come true, per se. However, props in my dream were later found to be identical with what I was reading online. Coincidence? Shh--let's check back in.

Black Text: Ramblings & comments about the dream.
Blue Text: Review of the normal dream.
Red Text: Review of the dream once I went lucid.

Dream #1

In this short sequence, I was walking in a world that was bathed in bluish hues, sort of industrial-like. It seemed to be early morning. I was on a path that was leading down a hill towards a huge river. Since I was still up on the hill, I looked out and saw a big steel bridge spanning over the river, with some industrial icons in the background, like buildings, smoke stacks, etc. As I was walking slowly down the path, I realized I hadn't taken my vitamin yet today. I normally don't take them like I used to, so this action is suspect as I look back at the event. I look down at the vitamin and realize it's a horse pill! It looked like one of the largest pills I have ever seen. I knew I had to take the pill, and could feel myself almost doing some pre-swallow exercises to make sure this sucker didn't get lodged in my throat. In my right hand, I noticed that I had a bottle of Coca-Cola. Looking back, this is crazy, because I don't usually drink Coke/soda, and yet I had a 1 liter bottle in my hand that was about half way full. After taking a couple of breaths, I popped the huge pill in my mouth and put the bottle of Coke up to my mouth. I took a giant swig of the soda and then swallowed hard on that pill. I felt it traveling down my esophogus as if I tried to push my finger through the opening of a drinking straw. I felt that pill on all sides of my throat as it went down. I continued to drink a few more swigs of Coke just for good measure. At this point, I don't remember anything else.

So that's Part 1. Let's connect this all together by introducing Part 2. Earlier in the day I was reading some LD material and came across an article talking about supplements to enhance your dreaming experiences. It went into detail about what sorts of herbs and nurtients support brain function, active dreams, etc., and which types of cocaine and LSD are sure to generate some mental activity. Totally convenient for all those times I run to the grocery store for Milk and hit the street corner for an eight ball.

The author mentioned that Choline is a supplement that assists with brain functioning, as well as caffeine and Theobromine, ingredients found in Chocolate. But next to the author's comment, it was mentioned that caffeine is helpful if you are doing the WILD or WBTB technique because the stimulant could help to keep you a little more active if you happen to be in the pattern of quickly falling asleep on yourself. He mentioned that .5 liters of Coke should be fine. Ok, wait a second. Wasn't I holding about .5 liters of Coke in my right hand during that first dream described above? As I thought back on the dream some more, I also remembered the experience with the huge pill going down. That memory then reminded me of a time when the biggest pills I ever took were Choline pills! I remember they were pressed horse pills and sometimes I'd feel close to choking on one. So I put my dream experience and my reading research together, and realized that this might be some kind of clue for myself. I still have no idea how I dreamt about this ahead of time. I mean, I get it that time is a man-made function and we all live in one moment, so I guess I can accept that the two events were made to go together in some cosmically synchronous moment. I'm going to need some Coke and Choline to process what the heck I just wrote.

Dream #2

A quick dream followed the first where dreamt of getting into a Jetson's style car with my wife and co-workers. Destination? The Pleiades, of course!

I don't remember much of the trip, but I remember the landing back on earth as if everyone were spinning down into the ground. Geez, how in the world can I describe this... We weren't in any craft, we were just human bodies, spinning in a small orbit, as if to be leaves caught up in a small whirlwind that is running out of steam. I actually was about 10 to 15 feet out from the center of the spinning vortex, so my body was traveling in this huge circular motion, which then began physically skidding across someone's lawn and literally scraping down "into" the ground as if to be a human drill bit. I started seeing the underground textures as I was forced to continue in this rotation, but found myself struggling to surface again. You'd think this would be a wee hint that I was dreaming? Nope! Apparently human drill bits register as perfectly normal to my subconcious...

Can you now see why my expectations for going lucid are so low?

Anyway, it's now about 1am, and I'm heading off to sleep. Tonight I'm going to do the MILD technique, and tell myself to wake up at 5am so that I can attempt the WBTB. I realize it's only 4 hours of sleep, but I'm pressed for time since I got all wrapped up in this bloated journal entry. So here's what I'm going to do for the next few weeks or so:

Nightly Routine

1. Lay on my back, and let all the thoughts drain out of my head for a few minutes.
2. I will silently instruct myself on the following: "In my next dream, I will realize I'm lucid". And, "When I dream within the next 6 hours, I will awaken within each dream"
3. I'm then going to suggest that I wake up at 5:00am. I will set the alarm for 5:10am just in case I am too tired to wake up naturally.
4. After a bit of reading or journaling, I'm going to imagine the most recent dream (if possible), and try to recall something bizarre that happened in it, so that I can use it as a dream symbol to remind myself to go lucid again.

Ok! Let's give it a shot! See ya in a few hours...

**.o0 SengSeng 0o.** · 07-20-2007 01:57 PM

Despite the enthusiam and intention, I totally bombed out on all fronts last night. I went to sleep and did my MILD technique as planned, instructing myself to recognize that I'm dreaming, while also mentioning that I intend to wake up at 5:00am for a WBTB session. Immediately setting those intentions, I crashed hard. I probably fell asleep shortly after 1:30am, and even though I told myself to wake up at 5am, I got a nudge from my wife at 5:10am telling me to turn off my alarm clock because it was waking up the neighborhood. Guess I was a bit tired?

Thankfully, today's Friday, and that means I don't have to be as regimented with my wake schedule. If I can wake myself up in the morning and try to get through my WBTB routine, I can at least try to recover from some of the sleep deprivation.

See you tomorrow morning!

**The Cusp** · 07-20-2007 02:05 PM

That's a long post to say you didn't have any dreams. Better luck sleeping this weekend.

Also, that orange text is a little hard on the eyes.

I was going to try to structure this reply like a Strongbad email, but I just couldn't convey the subtleties of his voice through typing alone.

**.o0 SengSeng 0o.** · 07-20-2007 08:35 PM

Hey, Cusp... Yeah, I guess I'm a little verbose right now because this is a bit new. I'm sure if the nights go by without success, I'll start sounding like a drunken bum, posting headings that grumble words like, "Whadyyyawannnnnt!" :-)

Thanks for the suggestion on the text! I'll consider changing it up, and will try to avoid unecessary forrays into my childhood just to conclude that I forget my dream.

**.o0 SengSeng 0o.** · 07-23-2007 04:45 AM

Ok... Not off to a good start... Great Dream Journal, dude! :p

Friday night I turned in pretty late, and did not get that much sleep. I woke up Saturday and could not remember anything. Oh well.. I'll try again Saturday night!

**.o0 SengSeng 0o.** · 07-23-2007 05:07 AM

Finally! A scrap of a dream to report on! Unfortunately, I don't remember any moments in the dream where I thought to question anything. Here is it, though, for sh!ts and giggles.

I was at a beach house that had a bunch of people staying there who were part of another family. I didn't recognize anyone, but they seemed cool and treated me like family. I walked out to a beach and spent some time watching the water. It was crystal clear and people were having fun. Suddenly, massive winds started picking up. The scene sort of collapsed in on itself as if I were watching it through a paper towel tube. As I watched through the tube, I could see the waves getting really, really large and slamming into each other. There was no rain or storm front, just hurricane force winds. Off to my right, opposite of the water, I saw an airplane that looked like it was trying to fly within the violent wind. I just watched it for a few moments as it went out of view. When I turned back to the water, everything was placid. The water was like a mirror, with not one ripple or disturbance on it. I remember marvelling at how the water looked. Damn, that was a perfect trigger, too. And I didn't even stop to question it!

Anyway, I went back to the beach house, and realized it was time to catch my plane back home. The next thing I new, I was at the airport gate, getting ready to go through ticketing. A bubbly blonde attendant was at the turnstyle and asked for my identification. My wife was suddenly with me, and as I was reaching for my driver's license, she was sifting through her purse looking for her passport. As I pulled out my license, the attendant looked at me and was like, Uh.... Sir? What is this? I looked at my license and noticed the laminated edges had separated, and air/water/something entered into the license area and invalidated the whole thing! All of the print was fuzzy and water-damaged, and my picture was the picture of someone else, kind of like when you buy a new picture frame and there's always someone else smiling away. I was completely puzzled, and since my wife didn't have her passport, I told the attendant we would head back [to the beach house] to try to get things fixed.

I arrived (alone) back at the beach house and explained to the pseudo-family that there was an issue with my identification. They all looked uncomfortable for a minute, but said, "No problem! We'll find somewhere for you to stay!" I got the feeling that a grandmother had arrived to visit and she had taken my place since I was supposed to be flying back home.

The last thing I remember is being in a bedroom and looking down at an olive green throw rug, that lay next to the bed. It had large, beige imperial emblems patterned on it, and one side of it had really frayed edges of the olive fabric. I got the impression at that moment that the bedroom belonged to someone that was dead. I felt kinda weird at the moment, and was concerned that if I slept in that room, that I would encounter his essense or ghost-form that night. I'm not sure if I am connecting another dream from another time last year, but I seem to recall that this bedroom is in part of a castle, which would be a morph from the beach house. The bedroom sat wayyyy up on a column, sort of reminding me of the story of Repunzel. And that was it! I woke up at 11:15am.

I definitely got a ton more sleep on Saturday night than Friday night, which makes me think that my sleep patterns need some long lead time to really start forming memorable dreams. When I get short sleep at night, It seems that I don't get to the point of recalling anything.

Keep on truckin'!

**.o0 SengSeng 0o.** · 07-23-2007 05:18 AM

If anyone has any ideas after reading this post, please offer up anything you feel!

Today (7/22), I had the chance to nap for 4 hours during the day. I have generally been exhausted, so this was a great opportunity to catch up on things.

Since I've been highly motivated to remember my dreams, I've noticed that I'm now thinking about my dreams as soon as I awaken. And in most cases, I attempt a mini MILD technique where I tell myself that "in my next dream, I will wake up and become lucid."

This afternoon was awesome. I had a bunch of small dreams that lasted for what seemed like 1 or 2 minutes a piece. However, as soon as the dream ended, I woke up and immediately questioned whether I had a lucid moment in it. When I realized I just "watched" the dream, I felt tired enough to fall back asleep again. Before I did, I repeated the MILD technique over and over again. I did this for about 5 more sets of dreams over the 4 hour period. But in all of these dreams, not once did I have the urge or get the impression to question anything! I would wake up after each dream, frustrated because I know I just instructed myself right before I went under.

If anyone has any "intuitive" feelings that apply to this case, your inner-thoughts would be appreciated. Otherwise, I'm going to try to ferret out some ideas in the Newbie area of DreamViews.

It will eventually happen! I'm remaining optimistic and positive. No expectations, just giving myself instruction and seeing what happens. It's a little after midnight heading into a Monday morning. Let's see if we can get something going.

**.o0 SengSeng 0o.** · 07-23-2007 02:05 PM

Didn't go lucid, but had an incredibly detailed dream. I also listened to a subliminal mp3 that someone posted in the forums.

The dream started by me seeing my mother at someone's house. I never saw the place before, and it was old and cluttered. My mother told me that she was in town for some kind of seminar for work, and would be staying for only one night and then going home. I browsed into the next room, and came upon someone's bedroom. The bedroom was very cluttered and small. I remember 2 sides of the room very well. The first wall had a door to a adjacent bathroom, which was closed, and a bathrobe was hanging off it. I distinctly remember there being a light switch next to the door that had a switch plate that was cut on both sides. I have no idea why it was trimmed, because it looked like it had plenty of room on the wall. Usually switch plates are trimmed when the physical switch is too close to the door jamb. Anyway, I noticed next to the light switch was a scissor-rack hung high on the wall. On each hook was a different kind of hat. One hat stood out, which was a grey top hat, the kind that was popular in the 50's, with a trench coat. I guess it comes closest to looking like a cowboy hat. But this hat was made of short grey fur, the kind that you typically see Teddy Bears made out of. I remember thinking it was unusual in the dream, but I never questioned it further. Damn! Missed that opportunity to go lucid.

Here's the most interesting part of the dream: I went over to the other wall, which was directly opposite of the wall with the bathroom door and hats. I noticed that the guy had a shoe rack mounted to the wall, and there were many styles of womens high heels on it. One pair resembled a style that my wife owns, and those stood out. There were a couple more that I didn't focus on. I did remember looking at the sizes of one pair of shoes, thinking that my wife might be interested in having them. I looked on the shoe itself and remember seing that the pair was a size 9. [This is very interesting, beause usually letters and numbers get jumbled up after awakening from dreams, such that one cannot remember but knew that there was a number at the time] When I saw they were too big, I moved on to look at other things next to the shoes.

At that moment, I spotted a few jars of clear chemicals. One particular cylinder was made out of steel, and I guess I was curious as to what it was, because I picked it up off the shelf. As soon as I did that, I got burned! I immediately felt liquid running/spreading all over my right hand, and I felt a hot heat and a burning sensation. I also got a "heavy metal" taste in my mouth, feeling like the liquid had seeped into my bloodstream and started accumulating in my mouth. I quickly dropped cylinder on the bed and wiped my hand on an old, white comforter on the bed. I noticed that the chemical was eating through the sheet in sort of an oval burn. I took the cylinder and ran somewhere. I have no idea how I suddenly got there, but I was now at my dream home very early in the morning. I have no idea where this place is in RL, but in the dream it felt like I made it home. I put the cynlinder on the counter, afraid that it was going to eat the laminate countertops. I then pressed the soap dispenser and filled a sponge with orange colored soap. I immediately washed my mouth out with it to get rid of the heavy metallic taste that was in my mouth. That seemed to do the trick, and I tried to then wash my hands. At that moment I knew I had to call 911, but I was afraid that I was calling too late for someone to help me. After washing my hand, I scurried back up to my mom's room, which was back at that remote house. I wound up in her bedroom again, showing her my hand. I then brought the hand close up to my face, and saw incredible detail on the palm of my hand. I could clearly see the acid burn. There were three pits on my hands and the skin was very smooth, as if the fingerprints and skin textures were burned smooth.

At this point, my wife shifted her arm significantly in RL bed, and I ended up waking up at 3:30am to write this in my journal.

I tried to go back to sleep remembering my burned hand, which would be a balatant dream trigger, and an ideal way to use the WBTB method. Unfortunately, I did not enter back into the same dream, and don't remember any other dreams after that.

Onwards!