Thread: Nautilus' Online Dream Journal

Sunday Night 9-23-07

I'll start off with one of my favorite lucid dreams Starts out with a normal dream. Long.

Spoiler for Dream:

My dad and I went into a store. I don't remember what we were supposed to get. They had a strange new system. There were a limited number of tables that had to be checked out to be used. They were needed to purchase items. The clerk took down our names etc. and then wanted to see a recipt for paying an electric bill (or something of the sort). I was really confused, since I had never payed for an electric bill. My dad talked to them and got them to forget about that part since it was so ridiculous. We now had two tables saved, and started looking around in the store. One isle was nothing but stenciles. My dad wanted to know why I didn't want any, I used to love stenciles! He started pointing out how cool some of them were. There were entire scenes that could be made from stencils, there were even stencils for drawing intricate patterns on special pens! I felt a little guilty now for rejecting all those really cool stencils...I still didn't want any though.

***

A ton of kids started showing up. It was like my entire grade from my old school had shown up. There were parents' cars filling the parking lot and crowds of people heading for the store. I think my friend TF was there, and I was talking to her. I knew that everyone was going to the store, and I dreaded the long wait due to the limited supply of tables and the fact that everyone else would be pushing their way in and getting there first. Then I remembered that my dad and I had already saved two tables, which TF and I could use. And since they were basically reserved, we could take our time getting there.

After some time, we had to be somewhere, and then we were all rushing off to that somewhere. We went into a building with a tall tower connected to it. There was a steep circular staircase going up the tower. The stairs were made of metal and not particuarly wide. I tried to keep up with the people in front of me. There weren't many; I was towards the front. But they were going pretty fast. I tripped before I got very far, and the person behind me ran into me and tripped also. Then there was a domino affect of everyone all bunched up together and falling on each other. At first I had been embarrassed for being the one to trip on the stairs, but when I saw that it was going to domino all the way back, I thought, "Oh come on all ready!" It was almost comical. I got back on my feet and managed to catch up with the people in front of me. There were even fewer of them now, since some of them had apparently gotten mixed up in the tripping. I held on tight to the center rail of the stairs in an attempt to go really fast without tripping again. I got to the top, only to find that everyone was going down again.

They had seen something that meant we needed to reverse directions. Something happened where everyone was being held hostage in the building/tower. We had to face against the wall in small groups. I became impatient with this, and started forming a plan of escape. I communicated with the other people in my group, and was able to walk by another group of about five people and say a few words without being noticed. After getting whatever it was I had needed from the tower, we escaped from the building.

When were a safe distance from the building, we split up and went our seperate ways. I found my mom, who began driving along the freeway. I didn't need to ride in the car because I could fly. I didn't have too much trouble keeping up. I had a lot of fun manuvering around canyon-like landscape.

A little later, I was reading a news article on the internet. It was a site I had been to before to read people's interesting stories. There were already several stories from my fellow escapees, each telling their version. I began writing my own story. I got about halfway before being interrupted.

***

I was back at the place near the building. There was a boy and a girl, both about my age. I don't know them in waking life, but they seemed farmiliar. We started gliding along next to the freeway, just as I had done before. We slowly began to go above the freeway, only slightly more to the left. For no apparent reason, I began singing "Home on the Range" and the girl joined in. We sang it twice. I think that was because a key change was necessary. I had a little trouble singing well, but not nearly as much as in waking life.

We turned to the left and went straight in that direction. The boy was now on my right, and the girl was further to the right. It finally sank in that flying meant I was dreaming. Unlike how I usually get excited, I simply accepted it as a mildly interesting fact. I may have remarked out loud that it was a dream. I counted my fingers. Nine. Now there was a nice high number. For a long time I'd only been getting six. I told the boy to count his fingers. He counted ten and looked at me as if this was perfectly normal. "On one hand...?" I said. He looked shocked and hurridly counted again and got some other high number. I found it interesting that when he had counted his fingers, it seemed to me like he was somtimes counting between the fingers. (I'm still trying to figure out why my hands can look exactly like they have five fingers on them, then count a different number).

We were now flying over what looked like streams that would eventually flow into a delta. They had a greenish color to them. We passed by a small, one-story building. Through a window, I could see what looked like a classroom, with lots of little kids and a few older ones. We stopped across from the back of the building. I said something like, "This place is awesome!" The girl said that I'd yelled that quite loudly... Through the window of the back of the building, people were staring at me. I covered my mouth with embarassment. I figured I might as well forget it, since there were better things to do with a dream than be embarassed. I stood up, suddenly having an idea. I would conjure up a door and create a scene behind it. The door wasn't too hard. It took me a while to realize that when I visualize something, it's almost immidiately there. I started thinking about what scene to create. I thought of a square, somewhat shallow pool. I visualized a blue bottom and lights all around it. There would be large red clay tiles around the edges, and mosaics around that. I didn't know what to do with the sky at first, but then I imagined a pastel sunset. My friends were waiting, so I decided it was good enough and opened the door.

I was amazed at how vivid it had turned out. I said "Wow." The large red tiles around the edge of the pool were one of the clearest features. The pool was just as I had imagined it. It was a little darker than I had planned, so the mosaics didn't show up very well. The sunset wasn't as visible right in front of me. When I turned to the left, I could see the sun and some very vivid colors around it. I laughed and pointed out the lines of a "corner" that showed up because of the vivid colors. I thought it was funny that it was like we were in a giant cube. We jumped in the pool. The water was a good temperature, though a little too warm at first. After going under water several times, I noticed that I was closing my eyes every time I went under. I tried convincing myself that it wouldn't hurt my eyes to keep them open...then I realized that I was holding my breath, also. From what I had read about lucid dreaming, I should be able to breath under water. So I tested that out. It was true!

When I came back up, I tried to get my friends' attention to tell them to try breathing underwater, but they were each going under at different times. When they were both above water, all I said was "See how long you can hold your breath, 1,2,3!" and we all went underwater at the same time. When I went under this time, I just breathed naturally, and could see without even thinking about it. Once the others realized what I was doing, they started laughing. I started doubting whether I would be able to stay underwater, and got a little water up my nose. I came up to the surface and coughed a little. Someone said "Let's go inside." So I followed the other two into a room. I didn't have time to make out what it looked like before I woke up.

Dream signs present: pool, store

Beggining of January 2008

A normal dream with an adventure section after the hotel bits. Long.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was in some kind of hotel with a group of people. My dad and I left the hotel and went to a jungle. There was a small tribe of people that lived in the trees there. We were supposed to investigate a matter of one of the tribesmen breaking some kind of rule or running off. It seemed to take a long time, and during the drive back to the hotel I mentioned this. My dad said it had only been an hour and a half.

When I got back to the hotel, I found ML and a girl with light brown (or maybe blonde) hair. We were trying to figure out which direction to go to get back to the room. There were lots of hallways and escalators in all directions. I started walking along the nearest passage, which was metal, and saw writing on the floor which stated, "police and detectives department". There were other people passing by, who appeared to know me. Probably due to the detective work I'd done in the jungle. I wasn't sure if this was the right direction, but we continued on anyways. We found what we thought was our hotel room, but I saw that the bathroom was different. For one thing, it was in a different spot. There was also only one instead of two, and the colors were different. We went back to the original spot. I walked over to a group of escalators. I was not very hopeful that they would lead back to the hotel room, since they were so close to the police and detectives department, but I tried anyways. The light-haired girl pointed to an escalator and said, "That one!" I started jogging up the escalator, followed by ML, then realized something was wrong and went back down. "You sent us up a down escalator!" I said to the light-haired girl, annoyed. She shrugged.

The other two started heading towards the exit while I followed, but then I saw something off to the right that looked farmiliar. I stopped and turned to look at it. It looked like a dead end at first, but it was actually a sort of overpass and two walls that framed the entrance to a very wide passageway. Both the overpass/walls and the passageway were a light yellowish-orange marble that had the effect of camaflaugeing it. I had a flashback of a time when I had been there before and ran along the passageway just to see the front desk and what the passageway looked like from the other side (so that I would know how to find it at a later time). I called the others over, and we made our way to the front desk.

The lady at the desk told us to get out our cards that we needed to get into our rooms. Apparently we hadn't gotten these cards yet, and we needed a four digit number. I pulled a small notebook out of my fanny-pack where I knew I had written the number, but I couldn't find it. I remembered the group coordinator telling me that the number was very important and not to lose it because I'd need to get into the hotel. I remembered writing it at the top of a page in the notebook. I flipped through the pages but couldn't find it. The other two girls had gotten their cards already, and now there was a line forming at the desk. I instinctively moved to the side to allow the lady to help other people. I found a page with lots of blurry numbers at the top and vauge indications of the groups of numbers. I tried to figure out if any of them were the four I needed.

I remembered something very similar happening the last time I was here, and I remembered the lady first asking me to move to the other side of the desk, then to sit down until I had found what I needed. This time I went and sat down in one of the large blue chairs without being asked. I was dreading the long waiting and frustration this mix-up would cause, but I said to myself that there was a lot more that was supposed to happen past the desk. Not necessarily relaxing stuff, but at least not boring. After I'd been searching for a long time, a messenger boy ran over. I told him to go find [so-in-so], apparently for the second time since he'd misunderstood me the first time. I thought the number might have a 3 in it, one or two zeros, and possibly a 1 or a 9. Something like 3001.

***

I was in a somewhat large room that vaguely resembled a classroom with a bunch of other musicians (from my orchestra?). We were playing some sort of game which included dancing around while playing. ML and another violinist were in my "group" and we were in a circle playing with our bows on each other's strings. I suddenly remembered something I had to do and opened the fridge (I guess I was in the kitchen now) to let the peas in. They needed to be fed a special diet of...who knows what. I think it was a sort of meat. They were taking a frustratingly long time, and I wanted to be able to close the door. I got the impression I had gone through this routine several times before, and I asked my mom if she was going to tell my dad and she said no and I wondered why she wanted to keep it a secret.

***

I was in another jungle place. This time I was alone. I made my way carefully along a thick horizontal tree branch (or fallen tree) which was fairly high above the ground. It was near a creek or small river. When I reached the end of the tree, I saw some monky-like creatures, only they were perhaps more like goblins. Anywere between three and seven of them. They were not friendly. They started throwing stuff in the river; odd plants, dirt, mud and sticks, something they claimed was spider webs with bugs in it, making a nasty obstacle course. They also weighted my feet down with a brick and tossed me in the creek. I landed in a clear spot, luckily, but unluckily was surrounded by the junk. I would have to swim through it all. Going up didn't seem like a good idea, as the monkey-goblins were still there.

I started to get worried that I would run out of breath, then I noticed a mermaid, who handed me air bubbles. I thought breifly that she wouldn't have to worry about lack of air since she had gills. The mermaid was telling me about the monkey-goblins. There was a bunch of information that I can't quite recall. She said not to touch the kelp (which was to my left) since the monkey-goblins would see it move up at the surface. I noticed that I had a carrot in my mouth for some reason, and spit out the bits of it. The mermaid said not to let it drift away, and that we should bury it so that it wouldn't float to the surface. I tried sticking it in the sand, without much success. I eventually dug up a hole, stuck it in diagonally, and covered it back up. The mermaid said it was time to make a break. She went over to the kelp, which was sticking up so that it resembled bars. She simply grabbed one section and pulled it open like it was a door. Then we hurried through the opening, through a bit of water, and scrambled onto land. I was worried for a moment that the mermaid wouldn't be able to run (for obvious reasons), but that didn't turn out to be a problem. We went around a corner and the mermaid said there was a creature we could ride. At first I was hopeful that it was a baby dragon, but it turned out to be a large horse.

***

The mermaid was in the water again, and I was not far behind. We had reached some kind of cliff or dam. There were monkey-goblin guards patrolling along the cliff (they looked mostly human now). There was a narrow passageway to the left. We had to climb up the cliff to get to it though, and one of the guards saw us. Then followed a long and complicated conversation which was a series of intricate reasonings between the three of us, mostly by the mermaid. The guard apparently had to run away into exile due to some kind of rule breaking, and we convinced him not to alert the other guards that we were there. The three of us then took off down the narrow passageway. We found another creature to ride. It was giant (about five feet tall), white, and furry, somehow managing to give the impression of being both fearsome and cuddley. It may have resembled a dog, although it was impossible to tell with the masses of fur over it's face. The fur was very long and wispy. It couldn't carry all of us, so it led us down another passageway where it said it's sister was. It's sister turned out to be a giant pink bunny, with similar masses of long wispy fur.

We traveled until we came to a room with the door open. We jumped off the fuzzy creatures and entered the room. The door closed behind us. There was another open door on the other side of the room. Almost the entire floor was covered with thin golden chains. The fuzzies seemed depressed. They walked ahead of us, very slowly towards the door. They were stepping carefully over the chains. I followed a few feet behind them. I somehow got the information that you had to walk over the chains without shame, which was hard for the white fuzzy because he was in love with his sister(?!) In any case the fuzzies got across the room and out the door.

I was about to go through the door when it closed. I had expected something like that to happen. There was a disembodied woman's voice that filled the room, which said something like, "You can't go yet." I looked back to see that the mermaid was almost over the chains, and the guard was still at the far side of the room. The voice continued, "You should get up off the floor. Try that ledge." I noticed a short ledge against the side wall. The mermaid and I both got onto it. I didn't think it would do any good. The voice sounded unnatural, and was keeping up an almost constant stream of chatter. The words seemed like innocent bits of somewhat helpful advice, but the tone was unmistakably mocking.

I looked around the room. There wasn't a whole lot there. "Do you want me to catalauge what's in this room?" the voice was saying, "I know everything down to the words in the books and the dictionaries..." I focused my attention on the chains. I knew they would move, that was a given, and I didn't want to be anywhere near them when they did. I knew the voice was in some way connected to what happened in the room. It was playing with us, dragging things out. It felt like I was stuck in the middle of a dramatic scary movie. After staring warily at the chains for a while, I saw the guard try to run across them. The end of a chain caught his foot. He managed to get free for a short time before the other chains got him and he fell on the floor. I glanced over to see that the mermaid was still on the ledge, then ran over to where the guard was and tried to pry the chains away. It didn't work. The guard started saying something, possibly about his exile, and the voice might have said something too, but I woke up.

Dreams signs present: hotel, escalator, forest (or jungle), disembodied voice, lady at desk

Middle of January 2008

Interesting normal dream with a mirror. Almost became lucid. Short.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was standing in front of the mirror in the upstairs bathroom. I was imagining some scenario about what it would be like to be the last human on Earth. Not in the sense of everyone else dying, but in the sense of all the other spirits choosing to move on. I thought about how sad it would be, that the instant I chose to move on as well, it would be the end of a great experiment. The human experience would be over. I knew that in the scenario, the moment I decided to move on, the others would take me away to wherever it was they had all gone. I thought that I would probably decide that after some amazing realization...

I noticed that something seemed strange about my reflection. It was like there was a slight delayed reaction. The reflection would move an instant after I did. I put both my hands up at the same speed and the same height. One of the reflection's hands was notably lower. I put one hand down and waved with the one that seemed to be "lagging". The reflection waved back, and continued waving after I had stopped. I stepped back a bit. The reflection made some other hand motions, and seemed mildly amused at my shock. I didn't quite realize that I was in a dream, but I knew now that this definately wasn't the physical. I felt hands pulling me up and I started to drift. The reflection was saying something, but without sound. I tried to figure out what it was, but had no idea. Then everything kind of faded and I couldn't see anything but black. I thought that perhaps my eyes were closed, but didn't feel like putting the effort into opening them. The whole time I was going upwards, and it seemed to go on and on. Finally, I woke up, confused and with a heavy tingling feeling.

Middle of January 2007

And now for my longest recorded dream (so far) and also one of my favorites. To tell. Not so much to experience. I just call it "The Invaders". I'll put it in two parts since I woke up partway through then went back to sleep in a very similar dream. Now that I think about it, there's actually a short bit of lucidity at the end of the first part. I think it was before I knew about lucid dreaming though, and I basically woke myself up.

Spoiler for Dream Part 1:

I was a wolf, somewhere in the snowy mountains, possibly by a forest. I wandered around a bit, and discovered other wolves, some of which I seemed to recognize. I knew that it was the way of the wolves to be happy and grateful for the those that survived, instead of sad for those that had died.

***

I was in my house by the roll-top desk, and apparently my name was Sam (as in Samantha). Suddenly, there were several explosions, and the wall by the deck was missing, along with other portions of the living room walls. I ran to the other side of the living room, and there was a lady sitting there crying. Apparently, she had lost someone she cared about, and I tried to comfort her, and remembered the way of the wolves, and tried to get that message across. I somehow knew that there was a worldwide invasion that would be difficult to survive, thus making the wolves' message even more important.

***

I was with two or maybe three friends/allies. We were in the mountains, and we were trying to find someone who could help me learn magic to fight the invaders, as I seemed to have some minuscule talent. Once we finished hiking up the side of the mountain, we turned right and traveled for a short while along a curving road. Then we turned left into a medium sized room that was carved into the mountain. One of the friends said this was where the sorcerer lived. The sorcerer came into view, and asked my name. I was oddly mistrustful and reluctant tell him my name, especially not my real name (which apparently I remembered from waking life), so I said it was Sam. It was a sort of partial truth which also meant I didn't have to reveal my full name. The sorcerer looked a little suspicious, then went into another room to get somthing. My friends made no moves to leave, and although they meant well, I decided not to take their advice anymore. I was sure that the sorcerer was untrustworthy, so I quickly went back along the road by myself.

As I walked, I thought briefly of the problem I now faced. The sorcerer was the most powerful magic wielder known, and I suspected he was one of the invaders. This meant I would have to develop magic on my own, and there was hardly any time for that, so luck was really all I had. I thought the situation was like many of the books I've read, where the characters are constantly winging it.

I reached the end of the path, and began going down the side of the mountain. This meant taking a very unstable escalator. Instead of the steps staying flat like a normal escalator, they rolled beneath my feet, and I had to hold on tightly to the handrails to keep my balance. This was in itself unnerving, because they moved downwards at an uneven rate. Halfway down, I had to completely stop thinking about what to do because every moment I felt like I was going to fall. The stairs caught and pinched a blister on the back of my right foot. I pulled my foot free and jumped the remaining distance off the escalator, thankful to be back on solid ground.

It seemed to be a short distance back to my house, and I found myself sitting by the dining room table, examining the blister that was still hurting a bit. I ignored it after a few seconds, deciding that it would heal on it's own, and went up to my room. I searched frantically for anything that might help against the invaders. With a sense of urgency, I grabbed my black fanny pack, which I figured would have the most useful items in it anyways. I hurried back down the stairs. In my mind, the next step would be to find a group of allies that could help. I hadn't the slightest idea of who they would be.

I went downstairs to hide out in the guest bathroom. Then I inspected all the items in my pack and put them on the counter. I disregarded most of it. The most promising thing was my blue swiss army knife. However, I knew that even a sword wouldn't do any good against the sorcerer. The sense of urgency grew stronger, and I knew I would have to leave my hiding place sooner or later, and the sooner I left, the more chance I would have of escape. I ended up carrying nothing with me, and came out slowly. I crept cautiously towards the sound of singing voices that were emanating from the living room.

I peered around the corner, and had a flash of hope, for I had found the allies I was looking for. There stood five white robed figures in the center of the rubble strewn floor singing "Amazing Grace" with two more sitting on either side. There was an open feel to the room. This was probably due to the fact that the cieling was gone. So were most of the walls. My living room was now a traveler's path in this new world of chaos and war. I almost ran to the figures, but stopped myself because something was wrong with the scene and the song. When I looked more closely, I realized that the five figures standing were chained together, and the two on the sides were holding the ends of the chains. I recognized the one on the left as the sorcerer, who began laughing in a sort of mocking way. Now I was very scared and slightly sick at the surreal mixture of singing and laughter, and I ducked back behind the corner.

As I passed by the kitchen, I could see the opening in the wall which led to the back yard. I wondered if I should flee the house right away, but the idea of running through the dark in the wilderness was somehow more scary than staying inside. I guess my dream experience warned me against that sort of thing. I stopped to think at the beginning of the hallway into the family room. I needed to decide which direction to go. In my panic, the best plan I had was to go to the room most likely to give me safety, an escape route, allies, or anything useful. My mind raced through the limited options (amazing how small a house can seem when you're life depends on your choice of direction). Obviously the living room was out of the question. I had already searched the upstairs and it was unlikely anything had changed. Besides, there was no escape route. Other than the questionable idea of climbing out the window and trying to find a way down from the roof. The bathroom and laundry room were dead ends as well, and I didn't even consider the garage. The only direction that made sense was the family room, since there was another exit to the backyard there as a last resort.

My mind made up, I ran down the hall, then came skidding to a halt as a creature came towards me. It was a wolf. It was looking directly at me with it's teeth bared and growling. It was at that moment that I realized I was in the midst of a nightmare. It took but a few moments for the meaning of this revelation to sink in, then I began to try and take control of my surroundings. The wolf slowed and then stopped.I woke with the haunting sound of singing and laughter, still ringing in my ears, long after the dream was over.

Dream signs present: escalator, forest

Middle of January 2007

"The Invaders" Part 2. Really Long.

Spoiler for Dream Part 2:

The dream started in on a situation very similar to the one before it, with invaders, only this time it seemed to last two or three times longer. The first thing I remember was that I was in a large city. People were taking shelter in the larger buildings, and there was a group of warrior rebels who were making plans. Two or three of them scouted ahead to look for the invaders, while the others stayed at the fringes of the city. They couldn't come back because the invaders got too close.

The edge of the city overlooked a road about fifty feet below, that eventually curved into the city. After a while, the invaders could be seen marching along the road. They just looked like little black figures from that distance, but there were a lot of them, moving in large blocks like an army. It was immediately apparent that the rebels were very much outnumbered.

***

I was with my parents. We still had some time before the invaders got to the city, but not much. We checked into a hotel as a hiding place. For some reason, the hotel room looked a lot like my bedroom. In fact it was my bedroom. My parents opened up some boxes of paper that were in my closet, and started ripping up their contents. They said that we had to destroy all evidence that we existed, including birth certificates, ID cards, and anything that had our names or information on it. This would make us harder to track.

In the meantime, my dad sent me to gather supplies, especially food. According to him, we would need enough for thirty years. As I hurried out onto the sidewalk, I thought we would be lucky to remain undiscovered for a month. The city was unfamiliar to me, and I didn't know where I had to go to get food. As I started to look around, I saw a minivan parked nearby with a dark haired oriental lady and a little girl (her daughter, I guess) standing next to it. The lady was helping the girl into the seat, moving slowly and casually, as if nothing was happening. The streets were almost completely barren, and those that didn't have a hiding place were panicked or getting ready for a rebellion.

I tried to warn the lady about the invasion, but she didn't understand me very well. She mumbled something about picking her son up from grandma's and began driving slowly away. I ran after the car. The hotel was towards the top of the hill, and I was running uphill for a while. When I caught up with them in a parking garage, the lady was buckling a baby into the back seat. I tried to communicate again, but she said she was very busy and had to get groceries downtown. By now I was thoroughly annoyed. I felt like a bit of an idiot as I chased the car again, this time downhill. I started to get worried that time was running out, but I wasn't willing to give up after wasting a good amount of time already.

I found myself in a small store, but most of the food was gone. While I waited for the lady to finish arguing with the shopkeeper, I noticed a vending machine. I took out some money, thinking that even if vending machine food wasn't healthy, it was better than nothing. I found out soon enough that even the vending machines were totally empty, the glass smashed through. I knew that the invaders had reached the city, and the shopkeeper left. The lady finally seemed to understand what was going on when she went out the door, and began running with the girl up the sidewalk while carrying the baby. I followed, dreading the long hike uphill. I could hear explosions behind me, and had to keep going even though I was really tired of running.

I came to some sort of train yard that had to be crossed. There were about ten tracks, one after another, with trains zooming by at high speed in either direction. I managed to time my crossing just right for most of the way. I had to pause on one point, and was terrified about a train coming directly at me. My intuition told me to stay right where I was, so I did, despite my fear. A train I hadn't noticed rushed by on the next track over, and it passed soon enough for me to leap out of the way of the one coming at me. By the time I had crossed the tracks, I had lost sight of the dark haired lady.

I made it back to the hotel room only to find that we had to leave immediately. The buildings were going to be searched, and hiding was no longer an option. We checked out and left just about everything that hadn't needed to be destroyed in the room (except the violins, which we gave to someone for storage and safe keeping at my mom's insistance). As we were getting ready to leave, someone who looked a lot like the sorcerer walked in and questioned the lady at the front desk. I saw her point in our direction, and we left right away. We were on a different sidewalk, this one level. My mom got separated from us. My dad talked about how the invaders could disguise themselves, and there were several already doing so, such as the lady at the front desk and a news reporter. We were going to try and find where the enemy "headquarters" were, and attack from within. We ran past a homeless person on a corner. He yelled out something about how there was no invasion and how the whole idea was ridiculous. We crossed the street, and didn't know which way to turn or whether to go strait into an alley. The homeless person continued to yell, "You might think that there are ENEMIES but you wouldn't be RIGHT!" We went right.

It wasn't long before we came upon a guarded building. By now it was night time. Luckily, the one guard that could see us was very sleepy, and we managed to sneak past him. There were a lot of windows, and some of the walls were made of glass. There were several more guards both inside and outside. I managed to just barely get past the remaining guards and into the building, although my dad was still outside. I found a lower level that seemed relatively quiet. There were some people that saw me, which worried me at first. I realized that they were probably prisoners and wouldn't give me away. While I was investigating the room, my dad started talking to me on a walkie-talkie. All I can remember was something about "inheriting the Earth", which reminded me about the saying "the meek shall inherit the Earth". And then he died.

I didn't have much time for that to sink in, because some people came in the room, telling me I had to hurry. One of them looked like a guard, but apparently he was on my side. The other was a lady who started giving me directions. I went into an elevator. They continued talking through the open door. I can't remember everything they said, but basically, I was supposed to take a device with a button on it from the elevator (I could see it on the lower right hand side) and walk into a classroom, saying that I was there to lock up. They said it was important to actually lock up.

The elevator doors closed, and I pushed the button for the level they said to go to. I picked up the device and exited the elevator when it made it down to the right floor. I was in a wide hallway, which turned further on. The hallway was empty, but I saw a door nearby and went through it. I was in the classroom, and it was apparently an all girl class. The students looked very bored. The teacher finally noticed me, and I explained nervously that I was there to lock up. They waved me ahead after giving me a suspicious look and also dismissed the class, I guess for a break. I went out the door on the other side of the classroom after everyone else had left. I found that pressing the button once locked the door that I pointed it at.

I followed the students around the turn in the hall. At the end of the hall, there was a miniature arcade where some were playing video games. Others just stood around in the hall. I walked up to the arcade for a closer inspection, and was surprised when TF turned around. She looked as if she wasn't expecting me to be there either, and we talked for a while about nothing especially important. That was the only bright spot in the entire dream. After a while, I remembered why I was there, and started telling her about the invasion and everything that had happened. I felt a little guilty when she looked suddenly unhappy and worried.

***

I was back in the elevator, talking to the same people again. I guess I ended up in a dream time warp or something, because I knew that I was back in time, before I had gone into the classroom. This time, I heard a little more of what was said. One thing was that there was blood on the elevator floor, and the guard pointed out that it me. He apologized for having to shoot me in the foot because he was the head guard and others were watching. This time as the elevator went down, I stared at the top of my foot for a while, which was starting to hurt. I grabbed the locking device just before the doors opened.

When I stepped out into the hallway, it was different; there were lots of people standing around outside the room. I figured they were parents that had come to pick up their kids. I entered the room and was surprised to find a crowd. The doors on either end of the room had been propped open. I made my way slowly towards the other door, looking around as I went. I caught a glimpse of the top of my dad's head in the crowd, but didn't think much about it. In the center of the room was the lady with the two children who I had tried to warn about the invasion. They were on an upraised platform in chains, and I realized for the first time that everything was set up like a court hearing.

I was afraid they would be killed, and tried to figure out what to do. The only thing I could think of was the device that I held. I pressed the button, trying to unlock the chains from a distance, but apparently it only works on doors. The device emitted a sound. A few of the people near me started to look around, and I had to hurry away to remain unnoticed.

I left through the door on the far side and began going down the hall again. To the right, I could see the same section of hall that I had gone down and found the arcade. Instead, I turned to the left, where there was another, unexplored section. Then I saw my dad. I began walking towards him, when I remembered that he had died. I realized that it was actually an invader, and ran in the other direction. I ended up back in the court room, in the middle of a crowd that was staring at me. The invaders had finally noticed me. By now I was really tired of all the running around.

I tried turning the invaders against each other with words. This didn't have much affect at first, but other people in the crowd caught on and started talking also. There were a couple of scientists who told me about how they had been isolated in different buildings and how they had communicated by sending messages out the window and across the power lines using some string attached to a coat hanger. They said that they had created a device to create a portal. While the invaders started arguing about who should be the leader, a portal was successfully opened, and they were all sucked into it. It was like the end of the story (complete with narration) when I knew that the invaders would have nothing left to destroy except themselves. The last thing I remember before I woke up was the image of many glowing eyes sinking to the depths of a black ocean, far away in space.

Dream signs present: hotel, elevator, store, lady at desk

Between 1995 and 1997

A really old dream. Short.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was in the family room. Everything was very quiet, and yet I had a nagging feeling of unease. I opened the curtains and looked out the window at the back yard. There was the image of a lion running and it scared me a lot. Adding to the surrealism, it was two dimensional; it had a brass colored pin in the center and the two halves were moving back and forth, pivoting around the pin. The lion ran in place for an instant, then began to shoot across the yard towards me. I fell away from the window and closed the curtains. I thought the lion was an omen meaning something bad was about to happen, and I knew I had to leave immediately.

After a moment of hesitation, I fled the room. But the hallway was a dark forest stretching so far I could barely see the end. There were creatures there, apes like trees with faces of brown stone. They stood upright against the walls with their roots obscuring the floor. I was in their midst before I even saw them. Branches came towards me and I began to run, knowing everything would be fine if I could just get to my mom. The creatures snatched at me and I stumbled and dodged with no sense of direction. The path only seemed to get longer, and I continued for what seemed like forever, not thinking that I would make it. I was finally approaching the end when the last one got me.

Strangely enough, it didn't do anything to hurt me. Once I had calmed down, I started negotiating and somehow managed to make friends with it. We slowly walked the few remaining feet out of the hall and peaked around the corner to see my mom doing dishes.

Between 2002 and 2004

A funny normal dream. Short.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was in a doctor's office with my mom. The doctor said that I had a rare disease called the ten sneezes. He said that after I sneezed ten times I would die, and on the last sneeze I would infect everyone around me. I got the impression that some of the sneezes would be involuntary. The doctor handed my mom ten tissues to count the sneezes. She started crying.

***

I was on a boat with my mom. She was taking me to Antartica so that when I hit the last sneeze I wouldn't infect anyone. Or something to that effect. I had already sneezed maybe three times. I said I was going to go take a nap, and went below deck where there was a bed. I had an odd dream with my missing cat Kepler in it. I woke up somewhat delerious and thinking about death and how I would be with all my cats that had died. I tried to communicate this to my mom, but she just looked at me as if the disease had affected my brain.

Just then ther was a loud commotion and Kermit the Frog (the ship's captain) came running by being chased by a mob. Apparently he had the ten sneezes disease also, and was towards the end of it. Unfortunatly, so was I. Two of the guys in the mob started chasing me. I ran into an elevator, and one of them managed to follow me. The elevator was going up and down rapidly. The guy was armed with two lethal rubber bands. He shot one off his finger, which missed and bounced around the elevator. I was jumping to try and avoid getting hit. My timing was bad. I wound up jumping up when the elevator was going down and almost hit the cieling. Then I started falling with the floor coming up at me. I hit the floor at the same time that I got hit by the second rubber band and sneezed the final sneeze. And I also woke up. I had basically just died in three ways at once.

Dream signs present: Elevator

Between 2003 and 2006

Short normal dream with ducks.

Spoiler for Dream:

My mom and I were in the kitchen. She told me that I needed to go outside and round up all the ducks because they were swimming in the pool (we have no pool in waking life). So I grudgingly went outside and tried to figure out how to get them out. There was a mother duck and her little ducklings in the pool. My dad was trying to get the little ones out with a net on a long pole.

There were many more adult ducks waddling around, but I couldn't just grab them because they were poisinous ducks. If they scratched me with their claws or bit me, I would be poisoned. So my dad was showing me the right way to grab them. It was working until I tried to grab one of the bigger ones (they were all unnaturally large) and it scratched me with it's claw. At the time I thought I had imagined it. I was taking the duck through the house and into the other yard where it was supposed to go when I looked at my leg. It had a long, bleeding, infected looking scratch on it. I showed my mom who was a bit upset.

Dream signs present: pool

Between 2004 and 2006

Medium length normal dream where I run away and become a seagull

Spoiler for Dream:

I was in an auditorium. I had a hard time getting past people to sit in one of the middle rows. This may have been partly due to the fact that I had a backpack with me. The person speaking on stage was saying something that was either boring or irritating. I decided to leave not long after I got there. I had thought, when I first got there, that they would be covering an important issue that I wanted to hear about.

***

I was in my house (not the waking life one). My parents were in the kitchen (they may not have been my waking life parents either). I think I was a teenage boy. I was arguing with a sister who was only a few years younger than me. It had something to do with how I was packing and leaving. In a backpack I had a helmet and food and just about everything else that I needed. I left after a while. If my sister left also, she went a different way.

***

I was in a forest (myself again). SP, SL, and AP (waking life friends) were there. We were going through what we had brought with us. We took inventory of all our combined supplies and rationed out the food.

***

I was standing at the top of a hill that overlooked an ocean. My friends were still there with me. I was playing a hand held video game. I think it was red. In the game, I was moving a seagull character around and I won. A voice said that as a reward, we would get to chase the sun, which was setting over the ocean. I was using the controls at first, but after a while I became the seagull and I was flying over ther water. I was getting used to how to maneuver and I twisted and turned just for the fun of it. I even tipped my wing and trailed it in the water a bit. Then I went too fast and went spinning out of control. I steadied myself with some effort and decided not to try any more stunts.

When I reached the sun, I landed on a small strip of land. I saw that the sun was made out of cardboard. I knocked it over and turned to my right. I walked along the strip of land. I found a cave with an awsome pool of water in it. It had natural rocks at the bottom and there were a few kids splashing around. I walked around it and investigated the water, then went back outside the cave. My friends had just caught up and mentioned something about how I had gone too fast. I told them that I wanted to show them something. I found an even larger pool in a cave a little further along and we decided to go swimming.

Dream signs present: theater, disembodied voice, pool, sibling, forest

December 2007 or January 2008

Long normal dream. Adventure/escaping from the bad guys type of dream.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was either on another planet or in a future setting. It was dessert villiage (I could tell because there was dusty sand everywhere). There was a guy with a covered sales stall. The stall had a sign on the front which took a long time to say that a human could work there. Apparently, this was practically unheard of in that culture. Machines and robots did all work. People didn't think that humans were capable of doing any kind of work. However I'd been looking for an opportunity like this, and so got a job having something to do with putting bread buns together. It was ridicuously easy, but people were amazed.

After a while a well dressed lady came to the back of the stall and was making critisisms. Then she tried to flirt with the stall guy (who didn't pay any attention), then she came into the stall and was making more annoying comments when there was a flood. I helped the lady out of the water, and all three of us fled the area. There was a map involved in trying to figure out which direction to go.

***

We were in a somewhat short building, in a medium sized room. I talked to the lady for a short time. She was being nicer now. I said I was going to take a look around. I walked into the next room. It was a lot bigger and had a large pool in the center. The pool was somewhat oval, and the far side curved out a bit. No one was in the pool, and there were only a few people around. Luckily they weren't paying attention to me. I walked slowly along the side of the pool. The exit was on the far side of the room (glass doors). I went past them, circled around to the other side of the pool and began walking back. The floor was wet and very slippery. A couple people went past me. Then there was someone walking behind me wanting to go faster, but the space between the pool and the wall was too narrow for them to get past. I tried walking a bit faster, but started to feel my feet slipping. Finally I was able to veer off to the right and let the person past. The spot I'd veered into contained a desk with a lady behind it and a passageway to the left of the desk. The lady told me to go down the corridor into the guestroom and grab certain items in a bag. It wasn't so much that she seemed to know me, more like she thought I was just another person in some kind of group.

I walked into the room, a bit confused as to what was going on. There was a bunch of stuff scattered all over a bed which was in the center of the room. There was a partially full bag opened there as well. I started putting the loose stuff back in the bag. I recognized my toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush etc. and started walking out of the room. The lady (or possibly another one) told me that I couldn't leave yet.

***

The group organizers, or authority people, weren't letting me leave. They were holding many other people hostage as well. By now it was night time. They ordered everyone to turn out their lights. I was in a room with one other girl. I had been trying to find a chance to look at the map, but now we had to turn our lights out before they got suspicious. The door was cracked, and I noticed that a dim light was on in the hallway. I tried to use the small amount of light to read the map, but one of the ladies was right outside the door and looked in my direction. I ducked out of sight and went over to the window, thinking maybe the moonlight would help. It didn't. Then I remembered that I had seen a small pinch-flashlight. I searched around in the near dark and found it.

The light gave off a reddish tint, but it made the map readable. I realized that it gave off too much light and the people might notice it, so I put the map and the light under the covers. The other girl looked at the map as well. We first thought that West would not be a good idea, since that was where the main forces were. The South wasn't considered much, that was the direction I'd come from not long ago, and I guess the North was pretty barren (dessert?). East seemed like the best option, but then we thought they would follow us easier if we went that way. We hesitantly settled on the general direction of West, then a bit North, thinking that they wouldn't expect us to go that way. And besides, they would follow us no matter what direction we picked. I said that we would need to leave as early in the morning as possible.

***

In the morning, the organizers came marching along single file. We managed to run past them the short distance to the door, mainly because they were all in one place and at one point couldn't see us. I went through the door without looking back and used some sort of flying machine to get further away. It was pretty simple, long and with narrow wings (similar to the one in the 9-27-07 dream, but longer). I had a hard time getting more than a few feet above the ground at first, and had to be very careful not to run into people. The streets were crowded, and although I wasn't going high, I was going very fast! Eventually I was high enough to see more than the panicked faces of people leaping out of the way. I still felt that I needed to go a bit higher. Unfortunately, I was flying just below some kind of metal contraption that had a horizontal bar every few feet. I was able to go higher, but I could tell that it wouldn't be fast enough to get between the bars. I simply coasted at the same level until I was more secure with how to operate the flying machine, then jerked it up and just barely made it through.

Now the flying was a lot easier. I decided I like the flying machine, because for once I didn't feel like I was going to accidently go to high. It kept me at the same level, and was very efficient (once one figured out how the heck to manipulate it). I got the information that this was used by elves. I soared away from civilization and found myself in a kind of dessert/mountain wilderness. There was a mountain (or mountains) that formed a sort of open circle area in the center, which I went to and decided to go higher. By now I had mastered the flying device, and decided I didn't need it anymore. I flew just as easily on my own.

As I circled upwards, I saw various types of birds, each one specialized for flying at different heights. I recognized seagulls at one point. I found that I was able to slightly change myself to have the wings of birds. I passed an empty spot where there were no birds to be found, then came to the top of the mountain where a medium sized bird was nesting. It stared at me warily. I tried changing types of wings several times. When I resembled a seagull, the bird grew hostile, and I quickly changed to resemble the nesting bird. I marveled at how aerodynamic it's wings were for a moment. The bird had backed up to it's partially built nest again, but I decided not to stick around.

I began going low again, and as I did the bird told me about a food/water source at the foot of the mountain. Something to do with nectar. I reached the ground and discovered what the bird was talking about. There was a type of succulent that covered a very large patch of ground. Caught inside the green plant was some wattery red nectar. I was able to sip a little before the level went down too far for me to reach it. I saw how the birds would be able to get at it with their long beaks.

I walked a short ways away from the mountain and switched to observer mode. I got the information that there was a local tale of the "person who has the most ice cream". There was a scene of a group of people going into a grocery store and telling a guy to wait outside. The guy stood at the edge of the deserted parking lot, looking around nervously. A few minutes later some of the people came back out, carrying tubs of ice cream. They gave them to the guy, then went back into the store. The guy got tired of waiting outside and went in the grocery store to see what they were up to. The people were buying just about all the ice cream in the store, of all kinds of different flavors. (end of dream)

Dream signs present: pool, lady at desk

Thursday Night, 9-13-07

And next I'll post my first successful WILD (which I found very interesting upon waking). Before this point, I'd only been using RCs to get lucid. Fortunately, my dreams were getting clearer. Unfortunately, this meant my hands looked more and more real, and the finger counting reality check became unreliable. This dream was after my third attempt at a WILD. Long.

Spoiler for Dream:

I decided to attempt a Wake In Lucid Dream. The WILD technique I had read about was actually very simple; drift off to sleep, but stay aware and conscious. The site said to wait for the feeling of falling which occurs when a person is switching over to a dream. I knew what this falling feeling was, since I'd experienced it before. Only before, I'd jerk awake and feel as if I'd hit the ground. This time I was expecting it. I had had a hard time drifting off at first, but I'd managed to stay just barely conscious enough to let myself fall. The fall seemed to last for a very long time, longer than I'd expected. I assured myself that I could stop slowly if I wanted to, and I did. I thought that I was in my subconscious mind, and I knew that I was dreaming. The idea of counting my fingers didn't even cross my mind, because there had been no break in awareness. Unfortunately, I did forget what I had originally intended to do once I knew I was dreaming. Instead, finding myself in such an interesting place, I got it in my head that I was in search of a specific type of wrench. I knew the exact name of the type of wrench at the time, but I've forgotten it now.

Directly in front of me was a wall that was a little taller than myself. It had many small objects hanging from it, which I didn't bother to inspect. Apparently, I was in some kind of computer-like setting, as there was a mouse represented as a blue plus sign (the way that it's sometimes seen in computer games). My sub-c said something like, "I hope you don't mind the computer interface..." (I assumed it was my subconscious, since it was a disembodied voice). I thought that the computer interface was actually kinda cool.

I turned to my right and saw a door. I went to open it, but my sub-c informed me that it was locked. It said that I needed a key, which could be found on the wall. I squinted at the wall, and could make out several keys hanging there. I took one on the right edge, towards the bottom of the wall. Sub-c told me that I had to use the mouse to click and drag it to the lock (not sure how exactly I was moving the mouse). I had a hard time getting the key to where the lock was, and I was momentarily annoyed about the computer interface. Once the door had been unlocked, I opened the door and stepped into the dark room behind it. A man who I didn't recognize stepped into view, and I was rather shocked. I backed out quickly and shut the door. I hadn't gotten scared enough to wake up or think much about it at the time, but I wasn't about to go around opening any more locked doors. I was vaugely annoyed at my sub-c for not warning me, but after all, it should have been obvious that doors in the subconscious mind are locked for a reason.

I went down a passageway to the left of the wall with the objects, resuming my search for the wrench. I made two right turns, and came to a room that was only a little brighter than the first one (I don't think it had a door). The room was fairly big, and had a giant pile of junk in the center, along with more junk strewn across the rest of the floor. I knew that the wrench would be in this room somewhere, and started scanning the surface of the pile. I couldn't see very well. I found a light switch on the wall and went to turn it on. I wondered if the light would go on or not, since electricity doesn't always work in dreams. I thought it probably would...and I thought that if I just willed it to go on it would. All these thoughts took place in the instant before I flicked the switch. It worked. The room was flooded with light and I could see everything very clearly now. But I still didn't see a wrench. I reminded myself that since I was dreaming, I could simply materialize something. I stopped looking and stood with my eyes closed and my right hand out in front of me. I imagined that when I opened my eyes, I would be holding a wrench. I looked at my hand and there it was, a thin silver wrench. I was very happy with how little effort it took and how clear it was. This was the first time I had intentionally materialized something in a dream.

***

I had an FA. The wrench was still in my hand, and the pile of junk was on my bed! This discovery, although irritating at first, was very exciting. It meant (so I thought in my groggy state of mind) that I could materialize objects while dreaming, then transport them to the waking life. I went into the family room (which somehow was connected directly to my room) and began telling my parents about my dream in great detail, but I kept getting interrupted. Mostly by my mom.

***

I was at large banquet or dinner with a crowd of people. I seemed to know some of them vaugely. My mom was there. She told me to sprinkle parmesan cheese on everyone's food. I took the container of cheese and went around to each table. There were at least five tables, and there may have been as many as eight. By now, most of the people were sitting down. One boy said that he didn't want any cheese (in what seemed like an obnoxious way). I didn't put cheese in the soups, either, because I didn't think it would taste very good. A couple other people were helping me, so it didn't take to long to finish.

There was a lot more that happened in the banquet setting, both before and after the cheese, which I don't remember. At some point Lina (a cat that went missing) was there. My dad and I had apparently just combed her, and she ran into the family room. My dad and I ran after her. My mom saw her and said that her fur wasn't combed well enough. She asked me if I had any shampoo. At first I thought she was implying that I should give her a bath, but then I figured she was just making fun of me. Especially when she didn't say anything else.

That was around the time when I resumed talking about the dream, and I think my mom left. I was explaining about materializing the wrench, and my dad wanted to know why I wanted a wrench. I remembered that I wanted to create glass marbles, and I needed the wrench to make them. My dad reminded me that it's a lot of work to create glass marbles. I got confused trying to think of what my logical reason had been. I said something like, "I was going to make the marbles and take them into the dream, no...I was going to create them in the dream...and...then take them into waking life! It would be really easy to make them in a dream." I pointed out the pile of junk. My dad said that it was like (the word is unclear, but it was something hair or fly something or gossamer wings? Anyways it had a metaphorical meaning). I got the impression that the word meant that the objects from the dream were not completely there. It wasn't that they were hallucinations, only that they wouldn't last as long as physical objects because they were created by the mind. I looked over at the pile of junk, and noticed that it was fading. After awhile, it was gone completely, apart from a few scraps flickering in and out of existance. I was a bit disappointed, but still interested about what the discovery meant.

Dream signs present: disembodied voice

Between 2000 and 2004

An old normal dream with an interesting ending. Short.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was in the back yard. There were lots of people there, since it was a party. I was talking and socializing but my mind was on something else, because something was going a bit wrong. I had seen something, not long before, that didn't look right. And I needed to investigate.

***

I was getting chased by some sort of creature. It looked like a severly mutated human. I ran and managed to get inside. Then I ran upstairs and went into my room. I looked out the window, and the creature was running on the roof. I ducked out of sight and went to the upstairs hallway. It was trying to find a way in and I was making sure everything was locked. I looked across through the window over the stairs. The creature was now on that section of roof there and saw me. Then I began to really panic and there was more running and it may have found a way in...

***

Things were quieter, and I was at some place that seemed like the backstage of a small theater. There were lots of people nearby. The creature showed up, only I had stopped being afraid of it and found out he was my brother(!) I didn't know exactly what was going on. I led him away from the people so he wouldn't get confused or upset and go all wild again.

Dream signs present: sibling, theater

2006

Very short normal dream.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was trying to lead a group of people to safety because the world was ending. There may have been an earthquake going on. I found the tunnels that we had come through originaly. There was a giant snake with a British accent. It was in the way. It was going ahead of us and taking up all the space in the tunnels so that we couldn't get through. We found an alternate route and got everyone to safety on time.

Between April and July 2007

I guess this could be considered a lucid dream (within a dream), although I got pretty caught up in the situation. One of my favorites, despite the nightmarish quality. Long.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was getting chased by a little black creature, but I escaped or "woke up" and wasn't too worried about it.

***

I was in a parking lot with my parents. It looked a lot like the parking lot by Seqouia Station. I had a little sister. A government agent came in a normal looking car and took her away. He told my mom that if we wanted her back, she'd have to have papers proving she was her mother by September fifth. Then he drove away and my mom panicked. She rushed into a car and so did my dad. I got in the back seat, and looked at a row of cars that were nearby. Our red mazda was sitting there with it's doors open (I guess the car we were in was borrowed). I insisted on closing it's doors so that no one would take it. My mom said "All right, but hurry up!"

I got up and ran towards it. I had to pass in front of an oncoming silver car, which looked like it was stopping. Then at the last minute, they gunned it and passed really close in front of me, knocking me down and hurting my fingers on the wheels. I got up, yelling at the retreating car angrily, then closed the doors of the red car. When I got there, I found out that it wasn't even our car. Frustrated, I ran back to the car that my parents were in and jumped in quikly. I complained about the car that had knocked me over and hurt my fingers, and my parents got annoyed at me for distracting them when the government had taken my sister. My mom was muttering about September fifth.

After a period of quiet, I decided to sleep or rest. I wanted to get a dream. When I closed my eyes, I immediately saw a vivid scene with lots of colors. I opened my eyes. I was amazed that I had seen something so soon. I hadn't gone into a trance or anything! I decided not to try to figure it out, and closed my eyes again, trying not to lose the scene. I was standing at the top of a hill looking over patches of farm land. There were more hills or mountains to the sides, and the sky was lit with the beautiful colors of the setting sun. The scene made me feel happy and calm. I looked at a distant line being cut in a wheat field. It was a tractor. Only it wasn't going strait. Further along, the line had become irradic, winding left and right. I watched it for a while, apprehension starting to kick in. When I looked closer, I saw that no one was driving the tractor, and the key was still in the ignition. I ran, or more like glided, down the hill to take the key out. What happened to the farmer? I wondered, the apprehension getting worse and worse as I remembered the little black creature from an earlier part of my dream. I grabbed the key and pulled it out, stopping the tractor.

I had a very solid amount of fear by now. I had gone from looking at the scene to being in the very center of it. And everything seemed so real, from the bit of movement that I thought I just saw in the shadows to the feel of the small silver key that I was still clutching in my hand. There was a somewhat tall see-through platform nearby. I knew how the story went. I would wait around while there were bits of movement and rustlings and it started to get dark and things like that, then the black creature would jump out and come at me. I would start running and do things like jump up on the platform to try to get away.

I decided to cut things short and went straight for the platform. The creature decided to cut things short also, and went straight for me. I had just barely managed to scramble up onto the platform, and the creature almost got my leg. Up close, I could see that it looked kind of like a little black dog, only with all the cute removed. A split second later and the dog had jumped onto the platform as well. I should have known. Creatures like this one are always good at jumping. I hadn't even managed to stand up and I had to start running, as the dog was right behind me. It was tearing at my leg, and in a panick, I turned around to kick it away. This was something I had never done before, and still didn't manage to as I woke up right then.

Dream signs present: sibling

Beginning of September 2007

One of my strangest lucids. Packed with symbolic meaning. Long.

Spoiler for Dream:

My dad was on a quest to find the "most hugged" object or place. One would expect it to be a tree or something. But my dad announced that it was a Duncan Doughnuts. Then I watched a video clip about this, which was obviously a form of publicity. There was a guy talking about how it had been remodeled and designed. I entered the Duncan Doughnuts building and looked around. It looked exactly like every other Duncan Doughnuts I had ever seen (not that I've ever been to a Duncan Doughnuts in waking life)! It had the occasional colored floor or cieling tile that made the whole room appear like wonderbread. I mentally scoffed at how they called that design. The host person tried to convince me to eat some "wonderfully greasy" french fries. I looked at the french fries sitting there in their basket of oil and decided against it.

I sat down at one of the tables and began working on a computer. The computer was instructing me on how to do something. It was for my dad and a lady he worked with. I entered in the information the computer asked for. The program automatically ordered people by their phone numbers. I thought this was strange. Especially since it only showed the first three or four digits, so how could this ordering system be useful to anyone? There was a stamp that I was supposed to use on a print out so that my dad would get paid. I wondered what would happen if I stamped it twice, so I tried. The stamps cancelled each other out. I had to wipe them off and stamp it again.

***

My mom and I were in a somewhat dark building. I was supposed to clip a dog's nails (it may have been a person at first), but I was having a hard time. I gave up, and began studying the dog's hands. I was looking at my own hands and even toes, trying to figure out what it was that was different. I moved into the next room over to take a closer look at the dog's hands while my mom stayed in the previous room. All of a sudden, I realized what it was. The thumbs were on the outside!!! This shocked me much more than the fact that the dog had hands in the first place. I kept telling my mom that the thumbs were on the outside, trying to get her to understand the importance of this discovery. There was something about the thumbs being on the outside that felt deeply wrong.

I looked back at my own hands, and on an impulse I did a reality check and counted them. I knew I was dreaming. I told my mom, and started to go out the door. I didn't know where I was going, but I wanted to go somewhere else. To fly somewhere else. I hesitated, wondering if my mom was coming, or if I should just start off on my own. Then a voice said, "Why are you resisting?" I was confused for a moment, then interpreted this to mean that I should just let the dream go it's own course. But why would I let the dream continue normally when I was lucid? As I nervously wandered back into the room, it occured to me that maybe this could be interesting. In a normal dream, the subconscious is mostly in control, showing messages that I may not be aware of at the time. In a lucid dream, the conscious mostly in control, and I basically do whatever I feel like. So what if I was aware that it was a dream, and listened to the messages? A direct connection to my sub-c. This was the first time that I interpreted the voice as being my subconscious.

Even after these thoughts, I was still uneasy. It was a combination of confused guilt, that maybe I'd been frivolous with my previous lucid dreams, and fear that whatever lessons my sub-c wanted me to learn would be hard to bear. There was a shelf full of books. As my mom pulled one out, I thought suddenly, "I can learn in my sleep everything I really want to learn while I'm awake!" I (or possibly my mom) began reading from the book. It said, "How to control people's will." It reminded me of corporations. And then the meaning of those words sank in like never before. I became very upset, to the point of crying even, saying that the concept shouldn't even exist. I heard my dad's voice, going into rant/lecture mode, "That dog would never survive in the wild." There was something about how the dog's nails would not funtion properly. My dad continued, "Constantly clinking on glass, arowroro, scratch scratch scratch, aarowowrororo..." I woke up.

Meaning I found in this dream: The last statement, about clinking on glass didn't make sense right away. I think what it means is that the dog's hands were genetically modified so that it could do something trivial and unimportant. Clinking on a wine glass, like a rich person at a party. But because of the modification to make this relatively unimportant thing possible, the dog didn't have the claws needed to survive on it's own. There are other possible symbols in this dream. Controlling someone's will, the corporations. The metaphor of a person being represented as a dog, who follows orders. Changed so they can do things that are nothing but the whim of another, and which limits their own ability to accomplish what's important to them. Domestication taken to an extreme.

Dream signs: disembodied voice, store

Saturday Night, 1-27-07

Long normal dream. I go into space and land on the moon towards the end

Spoiler for Dream:

TF was demonstrating her abilities with fire. She got it to swirl so fast that it turned into a controlled fire tornado. It looked like it was about four feet tall and six feet wide, at it's largest. This demonstration was held in my living room, and my dad may have watched it with mild interest for a while.

***

I was at someone's house, possibly AP's (it didn't look like her actual house). I was helping build something like a log house with four or five other people, most of them about my age, one of them a girl that looked younger. The younger girl was the one directing the whole process. It turned out we were building a miniature log house, and some of the building material was really thin. Once the basic structure was built, we took a break. There may have been a suggestion to go swimming. At that point I was thirsty, and remembered that I had brought a drink. AP's mom showed me where the drinks were being kept. I had a small amount of lemonade, and someone else was pointing out that they had brought pink lemonade.

Sometime after this, I was making suggestions to close the gaps in the log house by filling them with more logs. There was also something where I was up on a roof clearing stuff out, with someone else on the ground to help. I started to loose my balance, and had to hang onto a tree branch to steady myself. Then I asked for a ladder to get down.

***

TF and I were walking along a sidewalk in a residential place with a group of people (I guess they were people she knew). I was telling her about how (real life incident) my mom had been singing a tune, (which I then proceed to sing), and that I just happened to be humming a tune at the same time, only it was different, (then I hum the tune I had been humming), which was so different to be really funny. I don't know any of the words to it except "do da, do da". TF only sort of listened, I guess because of the other people. I felt a little left out at the time, but decided not to make a big deal about it.

***

We were at a really long dinner table, and there were a few candles. TF was showing off her pyrokenises on the candles by causing the flames to twist. I was impressed with that, as was everyone else that was paying attention, then I remembered then that she could do a whole lot more than slowly twisting a flame.

***

We had to catch a train to get away fast, so we went into a section that was like an underground station. I realized later that it was the actual train. I didn't like the feel of it, because something about the place didn't look right. The only obvious way out was the way we came in, and I was distinctly aware of the possibility of becoming trapped. There were lots of orangish colored, plastic chairs, about two thirds of which were occupied. TF began talking to a dark haired woman who was near the entrance and looked knowledgeable. TF asked her some questions, and I think I mostly just listened. The woman was describing some vague procedures, which only served to make me a bit more worried.

There were chairs lining the walls facing outwards, and another row of chairs down the center facing forwards. The dark haired woman told us to take our seats, and we sat in the center row, TF directly behind me. The last few people took their seats, then someone came in that gave off negative energy. He seemed a lot like the evil sorcerer from "The Invaders" dream. He put his hands on either side of one of the passenger's head (without actually touching them), then moved on to the next one, and continued like this down the row on the left. No one seemed to be bothered by this, except that the train was completely silent.

I soon realized what was happening; all the passenger's minds were being scanned, one by one. My fears were confirmed. If we were discovered, we would be trapped. Therefore, the only possibility was to somehow keep my mind blank and remain calm. This proved to be exceedingly difficult, because the closer the sorcerer got, the stronger I could feel the negative energy. By the time they reached the back of the center row, I had been fighting the almost overwhelming feeling of disgust and negativity for what seemed like a long time. When the energy started to become physically painful, I realized how difficult remaining calm really was. TF passed the scanning without incident, and I finally managed to make my mind blank, but it was too late, and we were discovered. The sorcerer shouted for the guards, who, by some miracle, we managed to get passed before they came in the train. We began running and were chased by guards that were conveniently wearing black.

TF and I were passing through some sort of street fair. There were lots of people that we had to navigate through, who continued to go about their own business. The water was now to our left, and we got to a wider section of side walk, and the bay curved away from us. TF mentioned that she wished she was a mermaid in the water, because then she could go faster. I remembered thinking that a mermaid would have a hard time on land. The pathway sloped downwards for a short while, then flattened out again further on. There were no more people at this point, except for a little girl (maybe seven years old) who seemed to be running also. TF was all the way down the sloped section now, and I was a bit further behind. When I looked back, I saw that the girl had fallen down and the guards were still coming. I tried to help her, but couldn't reach her. TF used psychokinesis to move her within reach, and I caught ahold of her arm. Then we both carried the girl, since she couldn't run fast enough to keep up with us.

At some point I said "We're out of our element here". This kind of reminded me about the analogy about the "mermaid out of water". Then I thought, wait a minute, my element is supposed to be wind...and TF said, "Let me guess, you can fly." (which is exactly the sort of thing she'd say in waking life, lol). I was doubtful at the time that I could fly, but I figured I could somehow speed up our running, maybe make us lighter. After a while, I realized that we actually were flying above the clouds. I think I overdid the height a bit though, because we wound up floating around in space. And then we got separated, and I was drifting very quickly away from Earth. Whoops. I was concerned about how small it seemed to be getting. I tried changing directions and began to sort of orbit. Eventually, I saw the moon, and aimed for it. I worried momentarily that the impact would hurt, but that didn't turn out to be a problem.

When I reached the moon, I got a sort of map view of it. I found out that the government (or so I speculated) had installed some sort of system on the moon. It was kind of like a "smarthouse", only it could materialize just about anything. So I started putting in rivers and roads (and knew at the time that putting roads in was stupid because no one was there anyways). The moon made some changes of it's own; where there had been an ocean, it sectioned the water off and made it more shallow, saying it wasn't safe, something about sting rays, and that if I hurt myself I would lose my powers. I put the finishing touches on the rivers by making sure they lined up (since I was viewing it like a map, there were edges, and the size of the rivers had to line up on the opposite side). Once that had been done, I had the idea of building amazing structures. I picked a spot where I would build my home, which was to be a mansion. I wanted to make it by hand, and although everything looked really small from my viewpoint, I knew that it would be life size after I was finished.

I decided to make the mansion out of sand, noting that though sand isn't usually the best building material, in this case it could be made more solid later on. I tried to figure out how I would go about building it, and the moon piped in, "Hello, I can materialize anything in the universe!"

I somehow got the impression that the moon was offering to build the mansion itself, but I wanted something to do, so I asked for a bucket. A bucket appeared, and I filled it with water from the river. Then I mixed sand in with it. I had a lot of fun playing around with different consistencies. I got a handful of wet sand, then shaped it into a sort of brick/stone shape and placed it in the ground. I had to dig into the ground a bit so that it wouldn't fall over. I continued adding sand bricks in a curve. It was looking really cool because there were little seashells in the potential walls. I shaped the walls in a curve, and when it started to look like I was making it circular, I changed my mind and began curving it the other way. I ran my finger down the spot where the two curves connected to give it more design, amazed at how easy it was, and began thinking about where I would put the fireplace. In the meantime, I noticed that I wouldn't have enough room, so I moved the whole thing closer to the river. I still didn't have enough room, so I moved the river. I took a break from the building to re-align the rivers. I noticed that the one that I had just moved was very clean and crystal clear, but there were other bodies of water that flowed into it that weren't completely clean. I started blending the colors of the rivers to make it look more realistic. That was probably around the time when I woke up.

Dream signs present: disembodied voice

Sunday Night, 2-4-07

A short normal dream. Not much to it, but it had some dream signs.

Spoiler for Dream:

My mom had a card for LM (a friend of hers), to repay her for something that she had sent. I volunteered to go back to the hotel (I think we'd been visiting someone) and deliver the card, though I was annoyed at the time that it was taking so long to get going. I noticed as I ran towards the building that the card had it's price printed on the front, $6, and noted that it wasn't as expensive as whatever it was LM had sent.

***

My parents and I were in a theater, where some musicians were going to perform, but we weren't there to watch and were only passing through. I had my violin with me for some reason. I had to use the bathroom, and exited through a side door. When I came out again, I realized that the show was about to start, and people were starting to go back into the theatre. I got nervous, because we didn't have tickets to get back in, and I needed my violin case. I considered the possibility of sneaking back in the side door through the bathroom, but decided instead to explain to someone about my case, then either grab it, or have someone get it for me. I found a scientist guy who was examining my violin (which somehow was not with the case), who then wanted me to show him different finger positions. I began putting my fingers in the different positions, careful not to make any noise because the performance had begun. The scientist guy kept thinking that each interval was a different position.

***

There were some cheerleaders (friendly, not the annoying kind) that were in some sort of pyramid formation, and the one at the top was balancing on one foot and turning. She started to look a little wobbly and off balance, and I remember hoping she didn't fall.

Dream signs present: hotel, theater

Wednesday Night, 3-29-07

Short normal dream.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was sitting on the couch in the family room. My parents were there also. we had five eggs...I seemed to know they were special eggs (slightly larger than chicken eggs). My dad said to hold them in my hands to make them warm, then they would hatch. I did this, and sure enough, a little bird pecked it's way out of the shell. I did the same thing with the other four eggs. The birds morphed into kittens when I wasn't paying attention. I remember wondering what I would feed the kittens. They were running all over the house and getting into mischief. I managed to corral them in the kitchen. The other cats were ignoring them. I noticed thhat the kittens looked almost identical, with white, orangish, and a kind of ginger colored splotches.

Just then, I had to go somewhere. My mom stayed behind. After a while, my dad and I were in the hills far away, waiting outside of someplace along with a small gathering of people. I was nervous about the kittens, so I tried calling my mom on the cell phone to make sure she fed them. I kept entering the wrong number, but I finally got it, right before the people were going in.

Wednesday Night, 6-13-07

Normal dream with several random fragments. Long.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was checking my e-mail, and I was happy about the "Inbox(2)" message. In the dream it may have looked more like "Inbox: 2". Anyways, one of the messages was from TF. It was some sort of puzzle, where there's a picture that's scrambled and has to be unscrambled. The second message was from my cousin JL. It was important and had to be responded to right away, which I guess I did.

***

I was hiking in a forest with a group of people that were my age, and knew them all (though some of them not very well). At one point, we stopped in a small clearing with a semi-circle of rocks which we sat on. I became aware that I had seen this before and knew what was going to happen (dream memory, not waking life).

I went into observer mode, and remembered that this was when M was the only boy, and the others were H, D, and I remembered being happy that two of my best friends were there...one was TF, and the other was SL. It was some sort of school project or camping trip. I remembered that M and D got into an argument and started throwing rocks at each other, and the rest of us had to break them up.

***

I was in a room that strongly resembled the family room. There were three rows of (painted?) pictures lining the wall where the computer would normally be, and two more rows where the cube would be. Many of the pictures on the first wall were portraits. I think there were other people in the room, who I talked to for a while. Several times I thought I heard the pictures make noises. At first I was inclined to ignore them, then thought that it wouldn't be all that strange if they could talk...

So I started looking at the pictures more closely. I found that when I waved my hand in front of each one, they would say "yes" or "no". I got the feeling that had something to do with which ones I liked, or more accurately, which ones liked me. Most of the portraits said no, but the one of a girl in the top row on the far right said yes in a high almost squeaky voice. By now I was having fun, and moved on to the second wall.

The bottom row was made up of three or four pictures of plants. One by one, they sort of straightened up and grew as I passed by them. Except the last one, which drooped dramatically, looking suddenly quite ill. Taken aback, I tried waving my hand near it again with the intent of healing, which apparently only made it worse. By then it didn't look like it could get any worse without actually dying! Feeling hurt I thought, "Well, what is it about me that's so bad that it makes it do that!" I found some water and poured it in the pot (at some unknown and unnoticed point, the pictures had become actual plants). I think it was starting to get better, but that's the end of the fragment.

***

I was on the Tonight Show for some reason. Where normally they would show a video clip, they showed me checking my e-mail (no, I do not know why). There was another message from TF. This time it was a spinning figure that apparently I was supposed to click on. And various voices, including Jay Leno and members of the audience, kept saying, "No, you're not doing it right! You're supposed to click on it after it starts spinning!" There was some laughter at my apparent lack of success, which I barely noticed. After a while, I ditched the e-mail, and the clip ended.

***

I was in the big bathroom, and there was a fairly large bug (looked almost like a tailess whip scorpian, except it could fly). I didn't want it to land on me and get squished, so I opened the shower door, then closed it when it had jumped inside. It said a few sentences which I can't remember, then said something in a funny voice to the effect of "Up, up, up and away!" and flew over the top of the shower door. Then landed on me. After which I got really annoyed, waved my arms around a bit, shouted "Get off!" and woke up.

Dream signs present: forest

Tuesday Night, 7-17-07

Really cool normal dream. Reminds me a bit of a Greek myth. Medium length.

Spoiler for Dream:

There was a cat who I was playing with in the living room.

***

I was in the kitchen. I was putting away some random cylindrical object that may have been saying something. I put it in a cuppord. The cubbords were different, and they gave the impression of being old. There was a key for each cubbord. Each one had a flat, round handle with an fairly intricate design with holes cut into it. They were probably copper, and they had an antik look to them. There seemed to be voices coming from the cuppords. I wasn't particuarly surprised, just mildly apprehensive. I got a sense of needing to lock them away. I was supposed to go through a set of procedures. I had to turn the key, pull it down, turn it another way, pull it to the side and possibly turn it once more. It was confusing at first, and the voices accused me of doing it wrong. I was going from the right-most cuppord to the left. I got the hang of it after locking several cuppords. Although for some reason locking isn't exactly the right word. It was more like a ritual.

I was no longer in the kitchen, but in a place with the same sort of feel to it as the cuppords (which were still there). It was a somewhat wide, dusty and clay-like corridor. Not very bright, but not notably dark either. There were several other people around, but one of the most prominent ones was a stern looking woman, probably in her thirties, who was talking to me. I had a little knowledge about what was going on. I was seeing things from the perspective of an adult woman who was new to the place, and rather inexperienced. Apparently, I had several tasks that needed to be performed. I got the impression that the next one wouldn't be too fun. I opened the door at the end of the corridor.

There were four girls of varying ages (sisters?) who were apparently involved in the ritual. I switched into partial observer mode, and positioned one of the girls in a niche in the corner, since that was the only thing abnormal that I could find in the room. Apparently this wasn't right, and the other woman started giving instructions. The younger woman moved the other three girls to a different spot in the room and stood with them. The stern lady said something about getting a ladder, then started yelling urgently. Then the younger lady and the three girls that were standing there turned into white statues, and I switched back into the original perspective. I felt almost like I was leaving my body, and there was an annoying oppressive feeling that lasted for a while. I saw/heard a really long number, that was one billion and something, which seemed shocking, because I knew that it represented the number of people that had gone through the same thing.

Eventually, I found myself in a strange open space, with stone floors. It had that "other dimension" feel to it. There were parts that were sectioned off by gates and fences. I saw several pure white people filing into these sections, and they motioned for me to do the same before the sun went down. When they stood still, they looked like statues again. One person came along, apparently to close the gates. The others were saying something about not stepping on the blue stones that were just past the gates. I got the impression that this dimension was some sort of immortality, only the people had to become statues every night. At that point, I suddenly remembered a legend. It was about how four girls were supposed to be sacrificed (to become statues) in exchange for some extremely valuble item, and a woman sacrificed herself in place of one of the girls. Then at the last minute, she tried to run back to the world of the living and died instead of becoming a statue because she went past the blue stones. The gates were closing, and my character was confused. She wanted to run past the gates, despite the cries from the other statues. However, since I knew the story, I didn't move.

***

I was on a bridge arguing with one of the other statues. Apparently they're allowed to wander around during the day. That's about the time I woke up.

Dream signs present: disembodied voice

Monday Night, 8-6-07

Normal dream fragments. Short.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was on some sort of tv talent show, and I was supposed to recite the periodic table. Unfortunately, I forgot the second half for no apparent reason.

***

I ate a snickers bar. It was tasted very good.

***

I was apparently in the midst of the Everybody Loves Raymond show. Marie came in and tossed something in a box and locked it, but forgot to take the key out. For some reason I had to get what had been tossed in the box, and I started jiggling the key to get it open. Then Marie came running in yelling at me and took the key away. I closed the door and went back to the box, which was already unlocked, so I opened it up and inside were a bunch of cards. When I picked them up, several of them turned out to be children's books, and I couldn't find anything that looked interesting. I wondered why they were locked away.

***

I was in observer mode. Raymond, Debra, Robert, and Marie were laying on their bellies on a balcony, and Robert was complaining about how he had almost swallowed a lady bug. Raymond was making disgusted sounds the lady bug that had just gotten spit out.

Tuesday Night, 8-7-07

Mostly a normal dream, but it has a short bit of lucidity. Long.

Spoiler for Dream:

I was some sort of unofficial realator. I got the impression that I was rather short. I was showing a group of people possible places to live. We were up high, and there was a city nearby. Many of the buildings had been built recently. The first place we came to was slightly higher, and it had an amazing view. I talked about how this was a great place to live at the time, and would be very expensive. Then I mentioned that the view would soon be completely obstructed by more tall buildings that would undoubtedly be built. We moved on, and I talked about how a good place would be on the roof of one of the buildings. I started going on about how this roof or that roof was unsuitable to live in. It was very hard to find a good roof, because the buildings were so oddly shaped. They looked sort of futuristic. The city below didn't seem to have much happening.

***

I was still in character, and I appeared to be having a flashback. I was walking along the sidewalk in the city, and this was some sort of memory about how people wouldn't believe me when I said I could fly using a helium balloon. I didn't think I could either. Since I was so short, I thought I could almost fly...I thought about it a bit, and became convinced that I could do it if I thought about it in the right way. I started rising slowly off the ground. In fact, I thought, I don't even need this balloon! I ditched the balloon and continued to rise into the air. I had a short period of lucidity where I knew that I was dreaming, and so of course I could fly. As I moved more quickly through the air, I thought for a moment that I was going to wake up and tried not to. I ended up lapsing back into normal dreaming.

***

I was in observer mode. I was outside of a school. Some boy had written his name in the clouds. I arbitrarily decided to call him Fred. Everyone was going back inside and wondering which Fred it was, since apparently there were more than one in the school. I was inside a classroom on the first floor, and one kid was boasting about how he was the one who had written his name in the clouds. I arbitrarily decided to call him Larry. I found it amusing that the other kids at his table were buying it, considering the name difference. Fred was sitting at the next table over, looking annoyed. His friends were saying stuff like "What are you going to do?" and looking wide-eyed. There was a slab of light colored ice cream on Larry's desk for some reason, which Larry would glance at confusedly in between boastings. It turned out that Fred had psychokinetic abilities, and he smashed the ice cream in Larry's face without having to worry about accountability. Only his friends seemed to know what had happened, and they were trying hard not to crack up.

School was over, and everyone was crowding back into the hallways. Larry rushed into the bathroom to wash off the ice cream. Fred shouted "Bye Larry!", then started snickering once the door had closed. I became part of the scene as myself. I walked towards the door opposite the one I had come in. Just before I got there, I met a someone I knew in the dream. I was really excited, and she said there were others nearby. She went to go find them. We formed a group outside. There were maybe seven or eight of us all together. We started picking our way through the other people. There were mostly highschool aged kids sitting at tables, and they were blasting some really loud music that was getting on my nerves. We finally got out of earshot of the loud music.

We were going to take a train. Only then I realized that I had gotten the wrong ticket! I rushed back to the place just inside the school building where there was a train ticket machine. I put the ticket into the machine. Then I realized that that's not how it works...and yet the machine had taken the ticket, so why was that an option? I was confused, but short on time. I looked in my fanny pack, but apparently I was out of money. I started freaking out a bit. There were people waiting in line behind me. Then I found that the ticket machine was giving me a refund. Oh good, I thought, that should give me enough money to buy another ticket. Then I wondered if the others would have the time or money to get their tickets...The machine spit out about twenty dollars worth of quarters. I tried not to be too annoyed at this. I was having a hard time holding all the coins, and thought about how much harder this would make things. I sighed and started feeding in the quarters. I was pleased to find that the coin slot was larger than usual, and I could stuff several more coins in at once, which I proceeded to do. Halfway through, I wondered if it was such a good idea, but I continued since I was running out of time. Towards the end the coins jammed, and I poked the last quarters in hard enough to dislodge them.

The machine spit out lots of tickets, which I grabbed. I hurried back to the group, where they were trying to be organized and make sure everyone was there. I asked if anyone needed a ticket. Two or three of them already had their tickets, but others needed them and I handed out some of my extras. I still had a couple extra tickets, and I asked if everyone had the right time...I stared at my ticket, "12:32" I said (later I realized that this was an inconsistancy, since before this the tickets had said Day Pass). One of the people had the wrong time, and I gave them an extra. We made our way back to the train station, and I thought about how I still had an extra ticket that would never get used. I boarded the train, showing the person standing at the front my ticket, which they waved aside. They said it wasn't necessary to show the ticket right away since they'd come by later. I sat down on the left side of the train by a window seat. I saw TF come by. She sat in the row behind me at a window seat. "Oh, all right." I said, "If you want a window seat, I can sit on the end." She sat where I was sitting and I sat next to her so we could talk.

There was a little white fluffy kitten on the train. The person in front of me passed it back to me, and the kitten proceeded to look adorable. It was a tradition for the kitten around on this particualar trip. I passed the kitten to the person behind me.

Dream signs present: school

Wednesday Night, 8-8-07

Medium length, normal dream fragments. Mostly about a secret "resistance".

Spoiler for Dream:

I was standing near the door. I knew that each day before, I had thought, "Lina's coming back some day." (Lina's my missing cat) This time I said. "Lina's never coming back." Then the door opened and Lina came darting in. I was amazed, and rushed over to pick her up. She was a little scared, and I sat down and started petting her and eventually she calmed down. Her fur was really fluffy. I told my mom that we weren't going to let her out ever again. My mom mentioned that we were growing vegetables inside and that Lina would eat them. I said we could put them in the add-on room on the deck. My mom said I still needed to put the shelves up and clear out the junk, and that she couldn't clean the rest of the house until I did.

***

I was reading and sending a lot of email. There may have been something from my cousin JL, possibly political related.

***

I was on the stage of a small theater. It was probably a rehearsal going on, as it didn't look like a performance. There were lots of people about my age, and I headed up a short set of stairs that was still on the stage. Someone had dropped a one dollar bill (it may have even been me) and I picked it up. I talked to someone else, who gave me a five or ten dollar bill, and I handed them the one dollar bill, which was the only money I had at the time. This was some sort of tradition, I guess. I came back down the stairs and off the stage.

I started walking through a place that had a different feel to it. It was definitely away from the crowds. There were several trash bins. They were a little shorter than shoulder height. I looked at the top of the first one I came to and saw a dollar bill. I picked it up. Then I found that it was covered in tape and torn in places. I came to the conclusion that some kid had been playing around. It looked like it would be hard to salvage, and I wanted to move on, so I put it back. As I continued to look, I found more dollar bills that had come to the same fate. I started to get really annoyed at the wastefulness. I figured it was someone really rich who could afford to throw away money like that. And then at the top of a trash bin further along, I saw a wad of twenty dollar bills. This time I grabbed it. Then my mom came over and said I shouldn't touch them at all because they were radioactive (or poisonous or in some other way harmful). I was really disappointed.

I continued walking. The path I was on ended, and connected to a perpendicular path. It was empty and deserted, other than a policeman patrolling.

***

I was back at the deserted place. I was a little worried about safety, but the policeman was there, so I thought he would protect me. I walked along for a while, then saw a man coming out of a car in a parking lot. The policeman shot me in the leg, then began beating the man up. I felt stupid for trusting "authority".

***

I was attending a resistance meeting. My mom might have been with me. Everyone was angry about how I'd gotten shot. We were making plans. After the meeting, I continued to receive email updates from the resistance.

We came out of a manhole in the middle of a city street using one of those thick sort of bike chains. My mom and I went into a small, one story building. It was apparently our home, since it had our stuff in it. My mom was going through stuff. I went to the back of the room, where I hadn't gone for a long time. There were some really old kid's books which I had more or less forgotten about. There was a whole series of them. I started putting them in order. I asked my mom where one of them was, since I couldn't find it on the shelves. She handed it to me after a while.

Dream signs present: theater

Thursday Night, 8-9-07

Short normal dream.

Spoiler for Dreams:

I took Tabitha (one of my cats) inside the car. I had a reason for going to the car with Tabitha, but when I got there I forgot what it was. After a few seconds, I picked Taby up again and walked back into the house. A couple of people had arrived, a man and a woman. I got the impression that they were siblings. They were going to stay in our house, and we went up to where my room would be. Instead there was a counter with a check out clerk and they bought something with foreign money. The clerk started talking to me after they had gone a few steps away. He said that there was something strange about the money, that the figures were too faded, or something like that. I didn't understand what he meant, and he showed me the money, which was green and had a picture on it. He said to try scratching it, and I did so. The ink disappeared where it had been scratched. The clerk seemed to be implying that he wanted me to do something about it. I asked the people why the ink was coming off of the money, and they said something like "Don't you trust us?", got a hurt look and walked off.

Dream signs present: store (in my room!)