Thread: Nautilus' Online Dream Journal

Yikes, I haven't posted here for two months! Time for updates.

Sunday Night, 9-27-08

A short normal dream about missing the bus.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was walking along "the long route" to a bus stop which I supposedly went to only on a certain day of the week (which doesn't exist in waking life). I wasn't really hurrying. Then I approached the stop and saw the bus leaving! It was early! I ran after it, but of course I was too far away and it was no good. I wasn't too happy when I realized I would be about half an hour late for English class. This had never happened to me before, and I was trying to imagine how I would deal with it, since there was no way I could get there any earlier. I was annoyed at myself for not thinking about my walking route, since I had apparently gone a block or two out of my way from lack of planning ahead. I stood at the bus stop waiting for a while. A few minutes later I saw a yellow bus - which looked a bit like a school bus - coming up the street. It was making a "special stop". There were one or two other people at the stop with me who I apparently knew. We got on the bus, and the driver began explaining something. "There aren't any doors, so you'll have to hang on pretty well..." was all I heard. I sat down in a seat further from the window would be, and it was a good thing too, because at every row there was a gaping hole in the wall. One of the people I knew sat next to me near one such gaping hole. They smiled and cheerfully clung to the seat in front of them to avoid tumbling onto the street as the bus started moving quickly up the hill.

Despite the lucky arrival of this odd bus, however, I was still quite late. The teacher looked at me with the annoyed and disappointed expression I had feared and I cried and repeatedly said I was sorry and tried to explain...or was this just what I'd been thinking I'd want to do? It's hard to tell in dreams. In any case, the teacher soon turned my attention to some serious grammatical mistakes I'd made in my essay, which I then began to painstakingly correct. I was actually surprised I was getting so much one on one advice, and thought perhaps it was because I was late and needed to be brought up to speed.

Dream signs present: school

Are you that concerned about being late for class in real life?

Public transport dreams. I know I have them all the time.

Are you that concerned about being late for class in real life?

Lol, not that much. Although ironically, just today I was ten minutes late for English class, but for a different reason. The schedule said we were meeting in a different room than we usually do on Tuesdays. The schedule lied. Luckily about a third of the class also trusted the schedule, so it wasn't a problem when we explained what had happened. In fact I didn't even get the slightest bit worried coming in late. I think the dream might have more to do with how strongly I react to people I respect being disappointed in me. I have stressful dreams like that from time to time (the situations aren't realistic but the feelings are).

Thursday Night, 9-25-08

Short normal dream (I only remember this fragment at the moment, but more happened before it).

Spoiler for Dream:

I was in my living room. There was a gathering of people who I seemed to know. I sat down with them on one of the couches (there was a suprising number of couches). My uncle J. was there, and he handed out chocolate cookies. Two each. I started munching on a cookie and it was really good! It seemed like we were waiting for some sort of meeting to begin. I ate my second cookie and got crumbs all over myself. I didn't care. Everyone else was getting crumbs all over too. I felt myself start to wake up a bit (without realizing at the time that's what was happening) and I forced myself back into the dream. Someone handed me another cookie. I got halfway through it before I woke to find I'd been chewing on my teeth positioner which I'd only gotten a couple days before (which is probably not a good thing...and besides, I wanted to finish that cookie.)

Wednesday Night, 9-24-08

Medium length normal dream where I became obsessed about obtaining a picture of the moon.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was in the car with my mom. We were driving down a residential street at night, and I saw the moon. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen! There were clouds in front of it and it was bright and vivid and looked close enough to touch. I wanted to get a picture of it, but it was then hidden from view behind some buildings as we went down a hill. My mom had seen it to, but she said she couldn't turn around. I became obsessed; I had to get a picture of that moon, if only to see it one more time. I got out of the car and ran all the way back up the hill which seemed to take forever. I came to a plaza where there was a balcony and I stood there looking around...and there it was. I took a picture and was instantly calm again. My mom was near now. There were a few other people milling about which gave the place a friendly atmosphere. I took in the rest of the view, then laid down on a bench and closed my eyes.

I found myself standing at the edge of what seemed to be a football field. I was facing towards the stands, looking at all the people rather curiously. They paid no attention to me. I wandered along the edge of the field, which had me circling around to the left. I came to a place were people were gathered and a fair or trade show was in progress. I passed by three small booths with ballons, but didn't see much else until I got to a large table with a white cloth over it. There was a blue tarp held up by four poles several feet above everyone's heads. Someone announced the exhibit sitting on top of the table, which had apparently been made by a famous local artist. I went all around the table, looking at the exhibit from many different angles. It was made out of colored clay (mostly red, orange, green and blue). Much of it looked like the plastic dinosaur finger puppets I had as a kid. I was surprised! The wrinkles were so real looking! It made sense at the time. Other people began admiring the exhibit, and I started making my way back the way I came, lost in thought.

***

I had just been away. I was sitting in a chair right inside a large one story building. The wall at the entrance was made of glass and I could see bright green leaves of the trees outside with light shining through the door. My older sister Michelle came through the door with her... fiance maybe? I wondered briefly how I could have forgotten I had a sister. I got the information that I hadn't seen her for a very long time and this was a kind of family reunion. "Hey kid." she said as she breezed past me. I was annoyed for a moment, then found it amusing, because that seemed like something I would want say for some strange reason. She started talking to some relatives. I noticed she looked a lot like me and had a similar voice, but she was definitely more into style and talked a lot more sophisticated...ly...

Note: This is only the second time I've had a dream where I had an older sibling.

Dream signs present; sibling

End of September 2008

Short lucid dream (completed my goal of flying).

Spoiler for Dream:

I was wading through shallow water in a sort of bay. There were several other people who I didn't know doing the same. It felt a bit like a migration. Then I was walking along a path of wooden planks which crossed over a large amount of water. My parents were there with me, and it now seemed even more like a migration. I started walking ahead a bit. I began looking around. There were a few bamboo stalks around and we entered an area where they became really dense around the wood-plank path. I stared up at the stalks which were now towering above our heads. I could see green trees from time to time, and just a bit of light poking through. In the back of my head I remembered that I should be careful, "they" were still looking for us. Even so, walking underneath all those plants made me feel much safer. I was amazed at how clear everything was. Especially since it's a dream, I thought. I didn't fully realize what this meant, but it made me even happier than I already was. I flew easily just above the path. I'd been drifting a bit, anyways.

I continued to fly for a while. The path turned, I got far away from the other people, and the scenery changed slightly; things got darker, and yet the bamboo now seemed sparser. Tree branches interwove at sporadic intervals. I came to a small cave which seemed somehow to be manmade. I found a friend there who was hiding from "them" also, and had even more reason to hide than the rest of us did, apparently. He had injured his arm, I think, but I was more worried about his depressed state. There was a conversation, but I don't remember what it was. I walked away and stood just outside the cave. "They" would be coming soon. Or would they? I felt the dream destablize and restabilize, reminding me what was possible. I had a great idea! I'd teach my friend to fly, that should cheer him up. I succeeded in pulling him up into the air, but he barely seemed to even notice at first. Then I woke up.

Sunday Night, 10-5-08

Very short normal dream fragment.

Spoiler for Dream:

My teeth were chipping. This was not a pleasant discovery. I obsessed about it for a while. I found I could put the chipped bits back on the tooth they broke off of and they would stay there for a while if I was careful. I noticed that the chiped bits would also stick between my teeth...in fact I would always find them in the same places. More things happened which I can't remember, then I was talking to someone about a mystery. I remembered a certain chipped bit in the left side of my mouth. I had the strangest thought that this was supposed to be some sort of key...

Note: I forgot about this fragment when I woke up that day, but later found myself surprised that my teeth were perfectly fine (which triggered the memory of the dream).

Thursday Night, 10-9-08

Medium length lucid dream with a secret city.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was walking down an empty, bright white hallway. I saw a person I sort of know in waking life. I was surprised to see him there, and we talked about nothing particularly interesting. Then someone else was coming down the hallway and we had to hide...something to do with important secret family meetings which I wasn't supposed to know about. Apparently I had gotten a glimpse of several odd gatherings of people who were plotting against each other.

***

I was with a couple other people. I located the "secret entrance" to a place below where we stood. I had a clear memory of going there not long before with a friend who was still down there. The entrance was basically just a fancy trap door; it had two boards and there was a pole nearby. I stood on the boards and the other people followed. I was smiling because I was apparently showing them something really cool. I grabbed the pole and smacked it down between the boards, which was supposed to break them so we could get down. It didn't work. I tried several more times to no avail. Finally I threw the pole back off to the side, rolled my eyes and said, "Just jump."

We jumped and landed amongst a scattered crowd of people. We began searching for my friend, since she seemed to know more about things in this place. I briefly went into a church-type building and someone there gave me advice on how to find my friend. I wandered around the level, and I definitely knew that I dreaming at the time because I was thinking about how amazing it was that the people around me didn't look nearly as vague as they usually do in dreams. The floor was made of marble, as were the walls. They seemed much more solid than the people, and the contrast gave the whole place that dreamlike quality. I was pretty clear headed as I explored, and yet I didn't consciously remember my lucid plans.

***

I was in observer mode. There was a woman (possibly the friend I'd been searching for in the previous fragment) who had apparently just been committed to a strange kind of asylum; it was like a place for people who had nowhere to go and were only "slightly" insane. There was a lot of outdoor space and each person had their own little rooms and they were far enough apart that a train was necessary to get between them. The woman "checked-in" with the lady at the front desk who wanted her to eat when she really didn't want to. Luckily it was a laid-back sort of place, at least as far as asylums go, and they worked out an eating schedule that was different from other people's eating schedules (there was a chart showing the different people and dots for the times when they ate). This chart listed how to get to all the other rooms by train, and the newcomer took it with her and started visiting people. She made friends with a lot of them, and many were only children. There was something about everyone gathering together and outside visitors coming at the same time. The woman was going to tell the children a story so that they would go to sleep.

Dream signs present: lady at desk

Friday Night, 10-17-08

Long normal dream (I had a lot of amusing dream fragments that night).

Spoiler for Dream:

I was swimming in a pool. There were several other people in nearby lanes. All of a sudden, I looked up and saw a mountain lion staring at me from the other end of the pool. It stood there, hunched down for a moment, then leaped into the pool and started swimming forward. I moved over several lanes to get out of the way. It started swimming laps. I decided to get out a few minutes later. I remembered some vague idea that getting out of the pool was when the mountain lion would be most likely to attack, so I looked around to figure out where it was. I couldn't see it anywhere. It had vanished. This was not exactly reassuring, but I very carefully got out of the pool and grabbed my towel. I decided I was acting too scared, and remembered that mountain lions will attack what looks like prey. I stood up straighter and even went into Qi Gong stance. That made me feel more secure; I thought that the mountain lion would somehow be able to sense that Qi Gong makes me more grounded.

I went into a building where a friend was (who had also just gotten out of the pool). We talked about the mountain lion briefly. I mentioned the time, remembering that it was Friday and I would have Math class! My friend told me it was 11:00, and I relaxed, saying, "Oh, we have plenty of time. My math class doesn't start until just after 12." Then I became convinced it was actually Wednesday, and my friend said it was actually 8:10. I freaked out, realizing that my Oceanography lab class was starting right then! I ran off, and my friend walked away in the opposite direction to some other class. I became confused as to the day of the week again. I ran after my friend and announced that it was actually Thursday, so I had until 9:45. My friend said, "Well that's great, but it's 1:00."

I ran to whatever class I thought I had to go to at that point in time, knowing I had missed at least half of it. I ran into what I had been thinking would be English class, but which was actually an orchestra class (it wasn't either of the orchestras I'm in in waking life). Luckily I was finally "in the right place", if not at the right time, and I looked around. The room was set up with five or six rows of tables, where people had their instrument cases. Each table had a board attached in front of it, looking like it was there to block people's view slightly of the row in front of them. Everyone was standing and looking nervous. I took a spot on the right side of the class where my fellow violinists were. There was a short line of people at the front of the class, and each person was playing a short piece of music in front of someone sitting in a chair with a clipboard. I gathered that this was a sight reading test for seating, and I thought maybe I could just join the row closest to me. Everyone in that row had the same piece of music and it looked easy enough...but I was still too confused as to what was going on, and figured I should check in with the teacher for whatever assignments were necessary.

I walked to the other side of the room. It was my violin teacher! "Oh, you're late." she said loudly. "We'll let that pass since you're [my waking life name]." (As a side note, I had the sense that I was going to be the soloist, hence the allusion to me being somehow different and the fact that people were glaring at me.) I felt the need to explain why I was late anyways. "I got confused about what day of the week it is. First I thought it was Friday, then I thought it was Wednesday...and then I remembered it was actually Thursday." A few people nodded tolerantly.

I looked at the next group of people waiting to be tested. They had that "deer in the headlights" look. They had to play "Ode to Joy". It was such a simple version that I had to force myself not to roll my eyes. When they were almost finished, I stood in line, and someone handed me a piece of music. I looked at it and saw that it was unfamiliar and very...well, hard. There was a middle-aged man in front of me who was apparently the only other person being tested on that piece. Right before he was supposed to play, he threw the music down, screamed "I can't do this!" and ran out of the room. I put the music on the stand, unconcerned, and started trying to play the notes. I didn't think I was doing it right at first, but no one was holding their ears, so I kept going.

***

My parents and I were eating at a Wendy's, and for some reason my English teacher was there. I was surprised to see her, and I introduced her to my parents.

***

I was walking through a park on a nice windy day. Then some people came with a video camera and told me I was going to be part of a commercial. They said to just stand there and smile and that the words for the commercial would be dubbed in later. They placed the camera in front of me, along with a screen that showed what it was recording, and walked away. Confused, I stood in front of the camera and smiled. After a couple of minutes, I started glancing around nervously, wondering why it was such a long commercial and what exactly they were going to dub in. I stared at myself on the screen for a while. In the distance behind me, I saw a guy with two boys walking by. He suddenly noticed the camera, put his hands on the back of both the boys' heads, shoved their heads down, then tried to sneak away like that while staring at the ground. In the meantime the people making the commercial still hadn't shown up. There was no sound in the park except for the wind. Very odd.

***

I was in the living room of my house. I had just closed the screen door, and I sat down at the computer. I started working on a group project for school (I was apparently communicating with the other members of the group virtually). It could only be done on Windows, so I was very annoyed. I opened up the special little program. It had three tabs there, and I flipped between them out of boredom. I thought that at least the project was looking good, even if we weren't anywhere near done with it; One tab had the start of a video, another had bits of a presentation, and the last one was a behind-the-scenes assembly area. The presentation area had what looked like a computerized child's drawing of mountains, which made me a bit confused. One of my group members had just put a picture of a flying saucer into the assembly area. For some reason this made more sense. I clicked on the video to see what we had so far. I "went into" the scene in the video (which happens often in dreams). The spaceship was hovering nearby, and some guy was getting beamed up. A second guy was standing a few feet behind him. He was trying to stop the abduction, as he supposedly had the ability to control whatever energy powered the spaceship. He failed, and the first guy got abducted.

I was then in the spaceship. I saw small ovals of bright red light shining on the floor, circling out from the center of the saucer. The abducted guy was there, laughing, saying the aliens had "detected that he was far from home and decided to take him back there." He yelled to no one in particular that he'd been on a road trip and didn't want to be back home! I was now the one with the ability to control the energy (the blue or red lights which were all over the spaceship), and the guy told me to "turn this thing around!" I wasn't entirely sure how to do that. I decided to try...affirmations, I think it's called. I got out a piece of paper and started writing over and over something like, "I can control the energy of this spaceship. I will make it go back to where it was before." Then the pen started running out of ink. I considered grabbing a new one but decided it would break my concentration. I started writing, "This pen will work now" over and over. The only problem was that the act of writing in itself was rather difficult. Disgusted, I threw the pen off to the side and grabbed a new one. I started in again on my original task, but it was too late because we had just reached our destination.

I got off the spaceship with my cat Pascal (who had been on the spaceship too, for some reason). We'd just been dropped off at my house, which had a classroom in the center of it for some reason. I wandered into the classroom while carrying my cat. It was Spanish class (I don't even take Spanish in waking life). I got the information that the aliens had found out that Pascal wanted to learn Spanish, demanded that the school not discriminate against him because he was a cat, and made them allow him into the class. I got the impression that these aliens were very well meaning and even had a bit of authority, but that they really didn't know anything about humans. I looked around for a place to sit and an empty chair for Pascal. I was told, "The cat can sit in the corner of the room. We've put a table there so he won't feel...underprivileged." Pascal was placed on the table in the dark corner of the room. He curled his paws underneath him and stared at the floor. His initial kittenish enthusiasm for learning Spanish seemed somewhat diminished. I was a bit mad at the school authorities, but I wasn't sure how exactly I would argue with them without bringing the aliens' telepathic powers into it. I pet my kitty and tried to reassure him.

I took a seat and class started. The subject was actually English, not Spanish, but I didn't notice at the time. Also, it was taught by my oceanography teacher, not my English teacher. At any rate, there was something about a book which most of my classmates seemed to have. I wondered if it was required, since the teacher was referring to it for grammer, but I hadn't seen anything requiring that book... The teacher began chanting about sentence structure; it was like a little poem itself, and it was really familiar to me. I looked over at my neighbor's book, trying to find it, then decided maybe I'd look it up later. There was a piano playing in accompaniment to the chant thing...I thought maybe my mom was playing. I now recognized the tune as Fiocco Allegro! Then class was over. I told the teacher about how my waking life was going well, but I was having all kinds of crazy dreams! (I told her some of the previous fragments). She said, "Oh, that's terrible to have dreams like that when things are going well."

I said, "Not really. Actually it's better that way."

Another girl pipped up, "It's true! It's worse to have nightmares when things are going badly!"

Someone made an announcement about free Neopolitan ice cream samples. We all packed up our things and I headed over to the other side of the room where people were crowding around the ice cream. I grabbed a sample also. It was in a paper cup, and I somehow was eating it without a spoon. I noticed that the colors were not the traditional colors. I walked over to where Pascal was. He was curled up into a ball, and he had fallen asleep. He sniffed the ice cream and decided he didn't want any. I didn't blame him. It tasted funny.

***

I was out in front of my house. Pascal was sitting there, looking happy. I got the information that he was satisfied that he could now understand people speaking Spanish.

Dream signs present: pool

Thursday Night, 11-13-08

Short normal dream with flying.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was flying over the ocean. My vision was extremely clear and I could see the sun reflecting off the water as it was becoming slightly lower in the sky. I started to glide closer to the surface of the water and briefly wondered about how I was steering. This was disconcerting for a moment, then I regained control of my flight. I may have passed by a sailboat at one point. I came to a place where the water was enclosed in a bay, and the only way to continue in the direction I was going was to go through a narrow cave/tunnel. I did so, turning easily into the mouth of the cave.

I came through the other side of the tunnel and found the most amazing scene; There was a large city with skyscrapers and lights all throughout it. It was night time there, and the ocean was flowing through the city, leaving the top two thirds of the skyscrapers sticking out. I landed on the large flat surface of a medium-height building. I watched a business guy and another guy argue for a while, then one of them challenged the other to a duel and they started having a paintball fight, throwing handfulls of paint at each other (the business man got slimed).

Sunday Night, 12-14-08

Medium length normal dream. A nun, a strange spirit, and a damaged house in space.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was in observer mode watching two groups of people. They started fighting, splitting up and stealthily running from room to room trying to find an opponent. The fighting started getting really gory, and I eventually noticed that there was blood on the walls and the people were killing each other. I thought the fighting should be over soon...but it only got more graphic. I started feeling a little sick. I realized I was watching this on the TV, practically staring at it like in a trance, and I made myself turn it off, as it seemed it was only going to get worse.

I looked around to see that I was in a house with a lot of corridors, not unlike the place shown on the TV, only a lot safer feeling. I walked into what appeared to be a bedroom/living room. There was another TV there, and I wondered if I'd waited long enough for the gory parts to be over...I knew it probably wasn't but I was bored, so I decided to just try a different channel. Before I could turn it on, however, a nun appeared and calmly said this wasn't the best idea. The nun said something else about a "gray spirit" (or maybe it was "dark spirit"). I was then able to sense and sort of see this gray spirit. It wasn't particularly scary, just easily annoyed. I got the impression it was better to just leave it alone. The nun was apparently the gray spirit's caretaker.

***

In space. The "ship" was part of a house, a different one than the one I'd been in. I noticed it was dark and started walking around a bit. The place looked familiar. I went into a room and clearly saw a rocking chair. It started slowly rocking, even making a creaking sound as it did so. This was somewhat unnerving but not unexpected. I kept myself calm, realizing it was probably just the gray spirit. I switched into the perspective of a man in his twenties who apparently wasn't aware of the gray spirit's presence. He/I decided to sit down in the rocking chair when it stopped moving. There was a grunt and I could "see" the gray spirit materialize. I stood away from the chair; I would have been amused at the incident if I hadn't been so reluctant to upset the gray spirit.

A few minutes later I was in the kitchen. I remembered part of how I'd gotten there; in my mind's eye I kept seeing three quarters of the house broken off and traveling through space. The gray spirit was nearby, yelling at me for damaging the house and getting it trapped in space. It complained that now we'd be stuck on such-in-such planet with all those idiots. Even so, my character was very excited at the prospect of meeting the local inhabitants of the other planet, and I started trying to cheer the gray spirit up (knowing it would probably only get more annoyed). I turned on the light (the gray spirit dematerialized as it hates too much light) and started pulling a whole bunch of food and supplies out of the cupboards. I babbled about how we could trade with the locals and how we had everything needed to survive...it suddenly occurred to me that we had something very valuable indeed. Potatoes! I dug around in the cupboards, eventually grinning proudly and pulling out a bag of potatoes.

Monday Night, 1-5-09

Medium length normal dream. "Members only" bathroom.

Spoiler for Dream:

My parents and I were at a social gathering. When it was over, my mom said she had to go to the bathroom. I decided to go along also, even though I didn't have to go that much. We walked along for quite a while before coming to a slightly familiar building. (All together there were two or three buildings I knew of, along with a bunch of lawns and fancy pathways.) My mom and I entered the building. Now I recognized the place as a kind of resort/hotel for people with membership. The requirements for membership seemed to be a lot of money and a looking-down-your-nose attitude towards those who are not members. I told my mom, "They are not going to let us in!" She wouldn't listen. We went up a short set of stairs to the front desk and my mom asked directions to the bathroom. The lady sitting there asked for our identification. When it was clear that we were mere 'normal' people, she said she'd have to ask us to leave. My mom looked like she was going to start arguing, so I quickly asked the lady (and the security guard who had just appeared) as nicely as I could if we could just be in and out and we wouldn't go anywhere else. The two staff members reluctantly agreed because they were nice, even though they could get in trouble for it.

I had the impression we had to be careful not to be recognized as non-members. The bathroom wasn't far. We now went down some stairs and entered to where there was...a pool. I thought that this was a very odd bathroom... I soon forgot that's what we were looking for in the first place, though, because there were a ton of people there, wading in the knee-deep water with what they probably considered to be casual clothes. We got stuck in the middle of the underground pool room. The place was so crowded that I couldn't see more than a couple feet in any direction. There were staff people offering miniature glasses of wine and booze. I tried to blend in, but the people around me were beginning to get on my nerves. I started to try to get my mom to leave, but she had started a loud conversation! Two or three minutes later, I finally managed to drag her out of there.

After leaving the building, we met up with my dad again. My parents walked a ways ahead of me while I looked back. I could see the lady from the front desk now standing outside on a second-story balcony. I smiled and she smiled back and waved. I started waving too, then saw the security guard and waved again. I walked a bit further, looked back again to see a whole row of people. I continued waving, maybe getting a bit carried away since I'd never even seen half of them before...I started getting really jolly feeling. I started kind of skipping along and jumping off of the short curbs surrounding plants. I went up some stairs two at a time. I remember thinking that I felt I could almost fly...but I didn't really try. I was still grinning like an idiot. I eventually caught up with my parents, who were starting to wonder what was wrong with me. They didn't say anything, though.

We had now reached a parking lot. Just then, R. the lifeguard (from the place my mom and I go swimming) came running over. He wanted us to go to some kind of performance or event, and he insisted it had to be this week. My parents said we could probably go, but we weren't sure when. He said, "How about Halloween?" and scoffed at people who stay home on Halloween. I said Halloween wasn't the best time because it's my favorite holiday and we have decorations and everything. "How about Sunday?" I said, "Or even Wednesday..." The final decision was to go right then. R happily ran off to his car and we started driving towards [city the event was in].

***

We were in [city we were going to] and the traffic was slowing us down a bit. I had to go to the bathroom, but didn't mention it because finding a parking space in itself would take longer than just getting to our destination. We started moving a bit faster now, and a motorcyclist wanted to race. My dad didn't see it this way; he saw it as yet another person trying to cut in front of him just to get a few car lengths ahead. So he did what any mature person would do; he sped up to prevent them from getting ahead! Muahaha! Only then there was a light blue broken down car double parking and blocking the way. No problem, my dad gunned the accelerator and swerved around it, beating the motorcyclist to the next red light.

Dream signs present: pool, hotel, lady at desk.

Hey there, nice journal! I love the mirror dream on the first page where your reflection was lagging! What a bummer to have missed that obvious cue though

Hey, I was just about to post and I suddenly noticed one of your dream signs listed above is toilets with no privacy. That's one of mine as well! Weird huh? I get it quite a lot in dreams. What's with that I wonder??

Nice journal layout

Originally Posted by DreamQueen

Hey there, nice journal! I love the mirror dream on the first page where your reflection was lagging! What a bummer to have missed that obvious cue though

Hey, I was just about to post and I suddenly noticed one of your dream signs listed above is toilets with no privacy. That's one of mine as well! Weird huh? I get it quite a lot in dreams. What's with that I wonder??

Nice journal layout

Hi, thanks for posting Yeah, that mirror dream was weird. I was so confused and disoriented when I woke up, lol.

That's weird about the toilets with no privacy! Maybe it has something to do with social fears or...um... walls being liable to disappear without warning in dreams? In any case, it seems like it should be a very useful dream sign, at least.

Edit: I just discovered a new dream sign; a lady (different one each time) at "the front desk". Very odd.

Tuesday Night, 1-6-09

Medium length normal dream. The OCD and smurf roommates and a lottery ticket scam.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was in observer mode in the living room. The lighting was dim, but I could see a wooden chair in the center of the room with four more placed all around it, all facing the same direction. There was a small gathering of people who took their seats in the chairs and had a meeting. It was almost like a informal little ritual. The meeting lasted only a few minutes, and the people got up to leave. One person went into the kitchen. The scene changed. The person who was in the kitchen was now in his apartment. I switched into that character's perspective. He had a roommate who was apparently very sloppy. They were now both cartoon characters, and the roommate had a big nose (like a smurf). The apartment was divided by a line of tape because my character was neat to the point of OCD. The roommate didn't seem to be paying any attention to the dividing line and had "messed up" the magnets on the fridge. My character got mad, but the roommate apologized and gave a sad-puppy-dog look. I patted my roommate on the nose and "fixed" the magnets.

I began looking at maps. I was apparently planning a trip. I saw a time lapse of myself taking a purple felt marker and adding a small section of the route I was planning each day. After I finished making a complete look in the Western U.S., I started in on a route going from Africa to Europe, then another in the Arctic. I was almost finished with the loop in the Arctic when I snapped out of my mindless planning and thought, "What am I doing? There's no way I'll manage to plan a route through all that ice!" I resoved to stick with my first plan.

I was myself again, still looking over the maps. My dad came over. We were talking about plans for the trip. He said we (my parents and I) could spend a day hiking in the mountains which were near the Mexican boarder. I wondered why I didn't know there were mountains there. I said we would have to find a hotel to stay at so that we wouldn't be traveling in the dark. I searched the map...and pointed to a city not far from the mountains. "There," I said, "in Seattle." I wondered why Seattle was so far south. I had also been wondering why there were two or three states below California and why some of the states' names I didn't even recognize. I chided myself for being so stupid as to not even know the names of all the states! (In waking life I know the state names very well; the ones in the dream were either names of other places, such as Toledo, or total gibberish). In any case, there didn't seem to be any more planning to be done, and I put the maps away.

***

I was walking along the sidewalk in a city I didn't recognize. I might have started the trip, except that I was apparently walking by myself. I turned around a corner and found a dead-end side street. There were three or four people smoking what I assumed to be pot. A girl with brown hair came over to me and asked if I wanted any. I said no and she got mad. She said something about how anyone who didn't want to be a part of the group could just leave! (All right, she may have said it stronger and with some curse words). The girl grabbed my wrist and shoved me out of the side street then followed me until I was a block away. I sort of rolled my eyes when she was gone.

***

I switched into the perspective of a teenage boy. I was running along the sidewalk through a crowd of people. Off to my left, there was a street which split off and slanted down. There was a very small open-roofed car with a guy driving like a maniac down the lower street. I jumped and landed in the car. The guy had a bag full of rolled up slips of paper. He told me they were lottery tickets, and that he had convinced people to give them to him. He had promised them fortune, but he told me that this was actually a lie and he was getting all the tickets for free. I saw the people in the crowd above throwing thier bits of paper into the bag. I thought this was rather silly of them to trust a random stranger (plus most of the tickets were just landing on the street). Even so, what this guy was doing wasn't right. I grabbed the bag and jumped out of the car. I ran away to shouts of "HEY!"

I jumped up to a higher street which was away from the crowd. There were police sirens, but the police didn't seem to know who was comitting the crime. They started chasing me since I had the bag. I ran off, hiding behind a train which was going by. I found a group of friends who joined me in my cause. Two or three of them took the bag and hijacked the train, as the original crook had hijacked a different one. The train with my allies in it had gotten derailed and was bulldozing its way through the city. It smashed through two trains which had been moving parallel to it, derailing them as well. Luckily those trains managed to stop. I went running along next to the still moving train. I went underneath one of those train gates which goes down, just barely avoiding getting whacked on the head by it. Car horns were blaring. I saw the train going at an angle towards another train. "Just one more to go and we'll have won..." I thought. The train was slowing. It managed to crash into the other train just as it was stopping. The metal on both trains warped and rippled satisfyingly as the police arrived. My friends hopped out and we surveyed the damage. My friends shrugged. We ran away and rejoined the rest of the group.

End of December 2008 or Beginning of January 2009

Short lucid dream fragment. Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly what happened before the fragment, except something about preparing for a huge presentation going on in a large building.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was outside going down a large set of stairs. They got wider and curved outwards towards the bottom. I couldn't see anything around me too well, except that the stairs were white marble and the sun was out and bright enough to make me have to squint. I was jumping down the stairs, several at a time, without holding onto the rails. I was somewhat interested because I felt so light. I thought to myself that maybe I should be more careful...but then I thought, why? I can't really hurt myself because...because I'm dreaming! If I fall and crack my head on the pavement, I would die but I'd really only be waking up! That would be really fun! I paused for a moment. Actually, no it wouldn't. What a stupid idea. No way am I wasting a lucid for something like that. I jumped down again, not planning on falling any more, but not willing to give up the fun out of fear. I was ready to take the last jump to the ground. Everything had gotten even whiter and I couldn't see anything. I found I was frozen. I couldn't tell whether I had jumped or landed or even if I was awake or asleep. Then I found myself lying on my side in my bed, in a light sleep paralysis. I made my body jerk a bit to get out of it.

Wednesday Night, 1-7-09

Long normal dream. An empty void and a crowded palace.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was standing outside in a strange, open garden, composed mostly of stones I think. I was talking to one or two people about the "other realm" and I remembered something of what I was referring to; I remembered flying in darkness. It was like an endless void, and yet I could sense things a little without being able to see them. I talked to my companions as I re-experienced the memory, "There were other creatures there who lived in the darkness. I sensed two of them, and they started chasing me..." In the memory I was thinking that the danger was so great that I might actually end my existence if the creatures caught me (though strangely I wasn't too afraid). Then I saw a light. It was a tall diamond-shaped crystal which lit up the void. I had a strong feeling of love and gratitude when I saw it. I somehow knew what the crystal was and said its "name". It came over to where I was and I realized the creatures were keeping their distance. The light of the crystal was focused vertically, as if there was a cylindrical tube around the sides of it. It became clear to me that this focused nature of the light is what the creatures were afraid of, and that the crystal being could hover above those it wished to protect...

I was back in the garden place. There had been two or three other stories of the darkness, as if we were trying to figure something out, but our meeting was interrupted when we found out we were needed somewhere else.

***

We were in a large, brightly lit palace. There was a larger group of people now, which I was somewhat separate from. There was a ruler who was very angry. Most of us were down on our knees, though I didn't notice it at the time. The ruler was demanding answers. I looked at the floor around me. There were white tiles with some black. It looked like someone had drawn with different colors of crayons over much of the floor, only the crayon was actually more like dust. The ruler began asking questions of me specifically; it asked if I knew where [name of it's family member which started with an M.] was, or if M. had told me about [?]. I thought about my answer very carefully. The ruler seemed ready to accuse anyone, and I thought that if I said that M. had told me about [?], the ruler would take that as proof that I knew everything about whatever the subject was and was therefore guilty...I did in fact remember a very small amount of whatever the subject was. It had to do with a very unique color of red. I saw this color on the floor, streaks of a vivid red combined with streaks of orange.

Out loud, I carefully admitted to only knowing a little (thinking that knowing nothing was just as bad as knowing everything). I looked at the other colors of red...there was a spot off to my right where the dust was somewhat sparser. I slowly put my right hand in the red dust as if this was symbolic. I only said a few words more, something between an explanation and an apology. I was crying from what little I could remember about the subject M. had said (it was becoming clear that M. was most likely gone). I was expecting the ruler to be angry again, but when I looked up the ruler seemed more distant and less important, almost frozen in place and soon forgotten by everyone else. I stood up and stepped back to survey the quiet crowd. I was no longer one of the main focuses of their attention, and the crowd had spread out quite a bit. I walked slowly along the edges of the room, some of the people being introduced to me as I went.

I went into observer mode and entered another room. This was a very small room, and it was crowded as well (maybe one or two dozen people altogether). Most of the people there were dwarfs, as in from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They were grumbling about how they now had to deal with having a smaller bed than even their original (apparently since Snow White was held in high esteem by the royal family, the dwarfs had temporarily had a very large bed). "Oh well." said one of the dwarfs, and some of the them started piling into the little bed. "Wait a minute!" said one of the other dwarfs, "Snow White's going to the airport! Aren't any of the rest of you upset about this?" The grumblings threatened to begin again about having a smaller bed...The one dwarf sort of waddled towards the exit and said, "Well I'm going to the airport! Who's with me?" There were a lot of blank faces. There was a little girl in the room who raised her hand and said she would go. The little girl's grandmother decided on going as well, since she had to look after the little girl.

I drifted out of the little room, back into the huge entrance room where the majority of the crowd was. There was a wide variety of characters still arriving. I glimpsed a small cherub-like girl sitting on a throne. She was holding a small crystal, but I could tell it was a different one than the one I had met (and it also seemed "younger" and not as bright). I was a little disappointed. Only a few seconds later, the one I was familiar with glided into the room and took it's place hovering above the thrones. This made me happy again.

***

I was walking down a wooden plank pathway at night. It was all very peaceful and quiet, until I suddenly got a bunch of information about *plot* and realized I was in the middle of an anime film. There was something about this guy and this other guy and this friend of mine...and it was all actually kinda boring. I even rolled my eyes and shrugged. I just kept walking until I was yanked back to...

An airport. The dwarf, the little girl, and her grandmother were at the busy airport, looking very lost and out of place. I heard some of the dwarf's thoughts; the others would come later, they had to. That's how stories go! It's all very dramatic, but if it works... Indeed, a few minutes later, a small number of the other dwarfs came, resolved on giving Snow White an earful about their sufferings. Specifically about how they had to pile into a smaller bed when they were living in a palace for crissakes. Etc. etc.

Beginning of January 2009

Short lucid dream (ate blueberry pie).

Spoiler for Dream:

Something about being transported back down to the planet after being involved in a meeting on an alien spaceship. The transport ship looked like a large elevator on the inside. There was one other girl there, and we made small talk about the meeting until the ship landed. I got out and found my parents. Apparently I was now a bit late, but it wasn't a big deal.

My parents and I were in a cafe ordering several boxes worth of one type of pastry. I had the impression it was for a party of some sort. I looked at the other food on display. There were pies sitting on top of the glass display case and I saw that one of them was a blueberry pie. There was only one piece left. I stared at it for a while; it looked perfect, with the pie crust in a crisscross pattern which I don't usually get a chance to see. After a few minutes, my parents had managed to obtain the pastries and we walked out and into the building next to it. A few seconds later I found I was holding the piece of pie. This made me really confused, and I considered returning it... but it seemed to have just materialized, since I knew I hadn't even picked it up. I thought for a moment more and realized that the only possible answer was that I was dreaming. Therefore, I reasoned, it's perfectly all right for me to eat this pie! It was really good; the crust was the perfect balance between flaky and doughy and the whole thing was as warm as if it had just come out of the oven. It didn't occur to me to do anything with my lucidity except eat the blueberry pie. You can't blame me, though, because that was the best blue berry pie I've ever had!

Monday Night, 1-19-08

Short lucid dream.

Spoiler for Dream:

I said goodnight to my parents, then walked into my room briefly. It was too dark to see much. I remembered I needed to brush my teeth, so I went into the upstairs bathroom. I stepped into a patch of eerie light. There was even more strange light off to my left. I thought, should I be worried? But I stayed calm because the light looked pretty and I thought, doesn't it always look like this? Almost? I picked up my toothbrush and glanced at my reflection in the mirror. I was beginning to wonder if there was a small chance I was dreaming. My reflection looked normal enough... I could see in the reflection that I was wearing my Pirates of the Carribean t-shirt. I wondered, would a dream really be this accurate? Past experience led me to do a reality check in response to this. Looked like five fingers, counted six. Disbelief, counted again; six. Counted one more time just because it was amusing; six. Now I was grinning. The only purpose I could think of was trying to keep my head clear enough to stay in the dream but then I woke up!

It was an FA. Couldn't figure out why I "woke up". It wasn't from getting too excited. I checked to see what I was wearing. It was indeed the Pirates of the Carribean shirt. I was amazed I had been wearing that in the dream as well, especially since I hadn't remembered it consciously before or after the dream (and, in fact, hadn't been wearing that t-shirt in waking life.). Then I mentally scoffed; Of course, the dream wasn't so realistic after all. I hadn't seen the red headband on the skull in crossbones which I can see so clearly now that I'm so obviously awake! Ha. Ha.

Tuesday Night, 1-20-08

Short lucid dream about floating in my living room.

Spoiler for Dream:

Floating in middle of the living room in my house. I wasn't aware right away that I was actually floating; I was thinking about how if I were to see the shadows below me in a certain way (I would then see the shadows the way I was imagining) then I should realize I was dreaming. I stared at the shadows on the ground some more. I could make out my own shadow with what looked like helicopter blades rotating behind me. I became aware that I was really seeing this. The "helicopter" idea seemed to make some sense, since I was hovering but...I was in my living room and having a mini helicopter in my living room seemed a little odd. I counted my fingers. I wasn't sure of the number, but I was just about convinced I was dreaming. I counted again as I drifted over the dining room table. FOUR FINGERS! It was very clear that time, and needless to say it looked very strange.

I quickly remembered that I needed to first stabilize the dream. I wanted to try going through the ground, but I couldn't even get to it since I was so far up in the air. I felt myself loosing the dream and I searched my memory for anything which might help. I remembered the trick of rubbing your hands together and gave it a try. It was the first time I've done this, and I was surprised at how real the sensation was. Everything else in the dream had faded, but I could still feel my hands rubbing together. Unfortunately, I still woke up.

Monday Night, 3-9-09

Long normal dream. A weird one that bothered me for the better part of a day after waking up.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was in the family room. There was a sorcerous type creature loose in the house. I ran down the hall into the kitchen, where there was a blondish woman who was on my side. The creature plodded along behind me, slowly catching up. The creature had a massive amount of blue swirling energy between it's hands, and I knew it would use this to destroy the house and those of us within it. I told the blonde woman that we were going to drain the energy away and that she had to keep the creature from creating more long enough for me to gather energy myself.

The creature had just reached the kitchen and we had drained most of the energy. I slipped into the living room and crouched down to gather energy. I felt like I had no time, like there was an overlap between the creature's energy not being gone before I had started, and that this would ruin the whole plan. I hoped that my ally was successful, though, and I put my hands near each other. I could feel energy between them instantly and I could see a faint blue/white glow flickering here and there.

***

I must have been planning to use the energy against the monster, but whatever happened, it didn't seem to completely work. The creature was standing in the entrance hall, swaying back and forth, obviously weakened. It had transformed to look almost like a female human, but it was still very strange; it looked a bit like a zombie. For no apparent reason I walked right up to it and put a plastic bag over it's head. I was going to suffocate it? Maybe I shouldn't...but I had already started and decided it was better to finish...besides, if I stopped, the thing would just rattle around the house until it was strong enough to be a threat again. Or so I reasoned, but I was very disturbed when it "died". I saw myself from a third person view carrying the body and tossing it out the front door into the night. This disturbed me so much that I had an FA.

This FA did not start with me waking up in bed; the scene simply jumped to me standing in the entrance hall thinking I was awake. I tried telling my parents about the dream, but couldn't explain. I walked over to a nearby table and pulled the table cloth up. I saw my cat Tabitha hiding under there. I started brainstorming out loud to her, trying to figure out what I had done in the dream. Things like, "Do you think morals are different in dreams?" I rambled on for a while. I finished by saying, "Someday, we'll all live there [in the dreamworld], and then we'll have plenty of time to figure out all the strange rules and new morals." I managed to say this cheerfully. I pet Tabitha on the head. I could swear she smiled at me.

***

I was standing out back on the deck with my dad. It was daytime. He pointed out an empty rice krispies box that was lying around. I knew that the box was somehow equivalent to the creature I'd thrown outside. A young racoon came out of the box. I hissed and stomped on the deck to try to scare the racoon away (something my dad does in waking life to keep them from knocking things over and eating the pond plants). The racoon sauntered off the deck, ignoring me. I ran after it and jumped down. I actually screamed at it, apparently in anger. I stood there, surprised at myself, wondering what people would think about me screaming. There weren't any neighbors around though, and my dad didn't seem to notice. What annoyed me was that the racoon had not yet run away. All it did was pull it's head back a bit, it's face expressionless. I began to get nervous, but I didn't back down. The racoon sat there for four or five seconds more before walking quickly into the yard.

I went back to the deck and said to my dad, "I've never seen a racoon act that fearless...not even the ones that used to come around looking for cat food."

My dad said, "It's a useful adaptation that they have to show no emotions."

I got the impression that this meant they would be less likely to be seen as prey. It occured to me that this might not be the best advantage if they happened to face off with a more dangerous creature; the other creature might see it as a challenge.

My dad responded to this thought as if I had spoken it out loud. "That's why they pause."

That explained it. They would pause while deciding if the other creature was dangerous, and in the meantime their emotions would be hidden and their next action unknown.

As we stood on the deck, several young racoons were walking slowly towards us. The first one was possibly the one I had scared away. It jumped up onto the deck and walked a bit past me. It showed no signs of fear or agression. Just behind it was it's mother. The "mother" looked like a small black panther. This was the creature that really scared me. Her eyes were a strange milky white color. I thought this might mean she was blind. In any case, she was staring at me with those weird eyes as she came forward slowly, with one paw in front of the other. I made a vague remark about how I was not too thrilled about the situation. My dad said it was no big deal, the creatures were no threat. Oh yeah? I wasn't about to believe that, even coming from my dad. If I stood there much longer I'd be surrounded by racoons and the black panther. Even now another racoon was coming onto the deck. I made up my mind and leaped for the door to the house.

I practically had to jump over the first racoon, and I barely slid past the panther. I made it into the house and slammed the sliding screen door shut. The panther had charged after me and smashed her head into the screen. For a moment I could see her teeth as she growled in anger. She got to her feet and backed up a couple paces, her face becoming blank again. I was still worried because the screen door wasn't exactly an impassable barrier. I was sitting on the floor since I had fallen down after all the frantic running and leaping.

I was starting to consider closing the glass door when I became mesmerized looking at the black panther, particuarly at the eyes. Her expression had changed once again. She looked innocent and friendly. She came forwards again, this time in a non-threatening manner. I started to think the panther was actually beautiful. In fact, if she hadn't just tried to kill me, I would say she even looked cute. I even got a crazy urge to pet the panther. I mentally scoffed at myself. "Can I pet the cute little kitty?" You idiot. NO YOU CANNOT PET THE CUTE LITTLE KITTY!! There were some holes in the screen door. The panther began to poke her paws through, just like a playful cat. I touched her paws and she batted at me gently. Then suddenly her claws came out and ripped into my hands. I was suddenly in a confusion of pain and terror. I thought I was about to finish pulling the claws out of my hands when the panther dug them into the palms of my hands, just below my fingers. She leaned forward and began speaking to me in an intense tone about revenge. I tried some more to get the claws out of my hands, but I was unsuccessful. I woke up from the pain and fear.

Never throw something out into the night in dreams. They always come back.