Jamous' Dream Journal

[jamous]

I'm no pillar of Dream Views or anything, but I figured I would post my dream journal, whether anybody will read it or not. It's more for me to focus my mind on dreaming and on the nature of my dreams so I might actually recognize it when I'm in one. Regardless, I'll write it in a somewhat coherent and lucid manner, pardon the pun , so that you might get something from it as well. Here it is. [Lucid Dreams in Blue] September 2, 2007 [5/10 clarity, 5/10 detailed recollection, not lucid) I had several dreams last night. There were two brief scenes or series' of scenes that I remember (which I will record as one dream for now) the first of which was succinct but notable: My mother and I were either watching a savannah setting on TV or were on some sort of safari, and she was talking about going to see the whale carcasses in the plains of the savannah. I wasn't saying anything, but I overheard a dialogue between two people that were with me, of whom I had no visual. As I was gazing at the grass beneath enormous, eucalyptus-like trees that were maybe 40 or 50 feet tall, I was visualizing what they were discussing. They were talking about the whales dieing as they crossed over the continent (I suppose Africa) when an ocean over it was shallowing from recession and drying them up. I wondered whether their entire bodies were somehow preserved or if they were simply fossils. At this point my dreaming segued out of my consciousness and at some point back in with this next string of events: I was probably about 13 or 14-years-old, walking downhill on a sidewalk in a city like San Francisco with my mother and sister. However, I was also watching a man with his son in third person walking down the adjacent downhill sidewalk. He had a wooden cap gun, which looked like some sort of percussion pistol, or like a Disneyland souvenir. Nonchalantly he pulled the trigger and the gun made sort of a cracking sound and several seconds later discharged something like a fire-cracker onto the ground across the street into a parking lot. My visual focus then returned to my first person dream body. We were headed toward my mother’s barber’s shop and as we approached the entrance we heard her barber vomiting in the bathroom. Frazzled, sweating, with here hair in her face, she came out and asked us what we were doing there. She had taken the form of my Great Aunt, who I suppose is of the same general character archetype as the barber to my subconscious, and therefore I took no notice of the metamorphosis. My mother had called her several days beforehand, but she had not returned the call or confirmed an appointment. At some point on the sidewalk I found myself with the percussion pistol. I pulled the trigger and it made the cracking sound but it did not expel the fire cracker. Afraid the gun might explode in my hand, I threw it on the ground away from me. As I was on a dramatic downhill slope, I couldn’t see where the gun landed. So, I crab-walked down to it, as if on a steep roof, where I found two women out for a smoke break. I apologized for throwing the exlosive toy at them, and made some small-talk to relieve the awkwardness of the situation. As I started back up the sidewalk, my perspective again transcended into third person, with my visual focus directly on their ashtray. One of the women put out her cigarette and said to the other that it was nice having the occasional smoke on a weekend afternoon. Returning to first person I thought of a friend of mine, worrying that cigarette smoking might be the death of him. Approaching the entrance to the barber shop, I saw my Aunt inside on a hospital bed as if in a hospital. She was about three times her normal size. The doctor or maybe nurse, who was more of an invisible narrator, said that although she wanted to she wasn’t supposed to change her clothes due to the physical exertion. Unfortunately, she had just taken a shower, which, I thought to myself, obviously entailed changing her clothes. Somehow, the room then morphed into two hospital rooms. A man came over to us with a brown shoebox-like package and asked us where the Morrison family was. A line of my family were Morrison’s, and I thought to myself that these were the new Morrison’s, and seemed to lack the ethical fiber of the old Morrison’s, but were trying. I thought it was odd that the man wanted to give a gift to the sick old man in the next room, when he didn’t even seem to know him or the rest of the family visiting. The dream soon diminished, I awoke, and that’s it. See you tomorrow for my second entry!

[jamous]

September 3, 2007 [6/10 clarity, 4/10 detailed recollection, not lucid) I found myself on a stone bench at a park, where some event must have been going on because there were lots of people. I was with several of my friends and I think we were drinking mouthwash to get drunk. Actually I didn’t really know that I was doing this until I noticed my mother across the sidewalk getting food. I said, “God dammit, it’s my mom,” and before I could hide the mouthwash I was drinking she came over to us. She asked what I was doing and we bickered for a minute or so until I noticed she had a brown Broken Social Scene (band) shirt on. I asked her about it, it completely sidetracked her, and she started to tell me how she had gone to see them, never hearing them before, and she thought they were pretty good. She then elaborated, saying that the show was also like an acrobatic Cirque du Soleil sort of deal. I was soon watching the show as she explained it. It was as if I was staring at her shirt and if morphed into a television. She explained that as they performed they also did acrobatics and redecorated the stage multiple times during the show, but a small television remained at the center of the stage throughout. There was then a brief part of my dream I don’t remember which left me walking through a forest on a mountain side. The forest lacked any sort of vegetation, but contained only white, dead trees. For a moment, though, I was seeing the iTunes screen and listening to a song by Band of Horses, which I thought to be very reminiscent of Sugary by the Grateful Dead. I was hiking with my mom, but I was as much as 30 feet behind her. I came upon a stone picnic table. I set my mouth wash on the table and began constructed an excuse for the mouth wash. I thought I would tell her that it was fairly common place for girls to carry mouth wash in their purses. Eventually I caught up with her and saw a town in the valley. We discussed how we were going to get home; I suggested we walk the several hundred miles, but then quietly reconsidered. Soon, however, I found myself in a car heading home.

[jamous]

Pre-journal Dream Lucid I was in my bed (in my dream) when I realized I might be dreaming. I carefully got out of bed and went into my living room where my family was, while remaining very focused, and told them i thought I was dreaming. My sister seemed to think I was just being my crazy old self, but I had a hunch I was right. I looked at my hand and counted my fingers. I had 5... damn. But still not convinced that I wasn't dreaming I looked up at the clock on my television, looked away, then looked back. The time did not change... damn. I tried it again, however, and the time changed to something like " :21" (digital) so I said "ha! I am dreaming" and still holding my focus I walked into my dining room where I found my father. I told my father I was dreaming and I chatted with him for a minute or so until I realized I needed to go to the bathroom. I laughed and told him this as well as that I could not go, because I might pee in my bed. He thought I was being very immature and told me I better go do my homework and that I better not fail any classes. Somehow this sobered me up or maybe on the contrary because I started to figure that it was indeed real life. This meant though that I must be loosing my mind because I had hallucinated the times on the clock. This deeply disturbed me, because it meant that I was either having hypnagogic hallucinations again or that my everyday reality was just yet a larger dream and that everybody I loved were not exterior beings but figments of my imagination. I figured that I might check around the house and examine the details of things. I went into my bedroom and everything was incredibly detailed, except my mattress was on the floor, which did not seem a bit out of the ordinary at the time. One of my most lucid of dreams, even if I wasn't sure that it was one. I think a major factor in your dream mind's mentality is the lack of short term memory, which ordinarily would clue you in that you're dreaming when something is out of the ordinary for your current situation in real life.

[jamous]

Pre-journal Dream First Lucid Dream I was aiming for a WILD and followed the procedure detailed on this site. But it took too long, and I gave up. As soon as I gave up I slipped into a short, neat little dream: I was at school (high school) and it was lunchtime. For some reason I had knives on me and I was kind of tossing one of them up and down in my hand while walking to the snack bar. Apparently this girl saw me with it and turned me in. But while the police were on their way I told her I would get rid of them. I remember being really nervous when the police arrived, but she told them she made a mistake. *heuff.* I was walking away from the scene, and feeling very relieved, when I realized I was dreaming. I saw my friend Jake at this point and proclaimed, "hey Jake I'm having a lucid dream!" And he said, "oh, cool man." So I thought to myself, what should I do? First thing that came to mind of course was flying. So I started running and sort of jumped, but it didn't work! After a few attempts I started to feel kind of a pull of transcending gravity. Unfortunatley Jake was still with me, and trying to fly as well, but was too stoned. This sort of threw off my lucidity. Then somebody said something in another room and I woke up.

[jamous]

Pre-journal Dream WILD within a Dream I had gone to sleep on my couch when I went into a lucid dream. I fell asleep visualizing the rocks on the ground in my front yard and imagining the feeling of walking and I soon found myself in my front yard walking into the street. I thought, "sweet, I'm dreaming," and I started running down the road. But, it felt too real. I was sure I must have been kicking and punching my blanket off of me. So I thought I would go and look through the window in on my self sleeping to see if I was in fact kicking and punching in my sleep. But then I remembered that that would not make sense at all. It was then I began to feel frightened and I could feel my heart sort of buzzing. I worried that I was so deep in the dream that my soul was moving out of my real body. I decided the best thing to do was to fall asleep on the ground as to wake up in real life [dream logic]. So running at full speed I dove onto the ground into a sleeping position. It hurt and I could distinctly feel the dead oak leaves on the cement. Luckily, it worked and I woke up. But apparently the going to sleep on the couch was a dream too because I was in my bed. The reason the dream of running down my street was so vivid was that I had been deeply into REM sleep. And the reason my movements felt so real was that the difference from the wakefulness beforehand was nonexistent seeing as I had not actually been awake. After this, I told my uncle about it while unknowingly in another dream. I was in a park underneath a weeping willow with my sister and uncle, when I told them about the experience. I then proposed, "hey maybe I'm dreaming right now," positive that I was awake and I decided to close my eyes for a few seconds, because in my dreams that tends to wake me up. I opened my eyes and said, "see? not dreaming." I think the pseudo-reality-check [would have just woken me up] didn't work because I didn't believe it would. I think reality checks are mostly useless without prior suspicion. I wish I would have counted my fingers though, because that, who knows, might have worked, and if it had, that would have been a very vivid lucid dream in a nice park on a sunny day with friendly company... !

[jamous]

Pre-journal Dream Lucid In this lucid dream I had a "dream guide" for the first time. He was totally faceless, maybe bodiless, but he was my mentor. And somehow I knew that if I was doing something wrong in my dream, my mind would turn the dream against me. Which it did. I was sitting in a car, my dream guide was driving, when I realized I was dreaming. I looked at the clock a couple times to double check. I got out of the car and realized it was greatto be in a lucid dream again, but I was not as lucid as I usually am. These two girls then waltz out of the house we were parked in from of and I start making fun of them (losing lucidity at this point) when I started to actually feel bad for them! Later after a scalding from my dream grandmother, my dream guide and I drove into a city. It was night time in the city, but well lit and the streets made no sense, cars driving in completely random directions. The streets were rather packed and I started to wonder how I could be imagining so many faces I've never seen before. My dream guide then told me that all the people there driving around were victims of car accidents. I started to consider making a joke about people at bus stops when I remember that I can do whatever I want in my dream, flying, etc. Then a car screamed by me and there was this bloody, mangled woman in the car. At this point I realize that whenever I am immoral in my dream it turns sour, like the feeling of a nightmare in a lucid dream. The dream continued on after that, but mostly I lost my lucidity. I realize that even in my sleep I have a conscience and that for all I know I could be sharing the dream (not that I really even believe that it's possible). If the dream holds other minds I need to watch myself, and even if I am just alone in there, because karma acts instantly in my dreams.

[jamous]

In the nights unaccounted for I have had the same amount of detailed recollection and clarity as the two prior documented nights. I did not have the time to record them, as I had school to attend at eight in the morning. I hope to modify my sleep schedule this next week to allow me time to document my dreams in the hours before school. I slept in until 9:30 AM today, which allowed me longer, more vivid and cohesive dreams. September 15, 2007 [7/10 clarity, 5/10 detailed recollection, non-lucid) I had several dreams of which I remember only brief instances; there was one that I remember with a somewhat linear, cohesive plotline: I was in some sort of virtual reality, online multiplayer game (which I don’t even play in real life) in a room upstairs in an old cabin, in the woods and probably from the 19th century, dressed as something like a cowboy in a trench coat. My friends in this virtual reality room didn’t recognize me, and they were inquiring my identity, so in realization that they didn’t recognize me I decided to just sort of nod and say weird things in response to their probes. It wasn’t long until they caught on that it was me. At this point there was a section of the dream I don’t remember. But I soon found myself in the lobby of an old hotel in L.A. I felt like some sort of predator, like a murderer or rapist, but I actually think I was some sort of vampire (too much Buffy!). I didn’t feel evil though by any means. I knew that what I was doing would have no consequence in the real world, because I suppose I was either under the impression that I was still in a game or on some level I knew I was dreaming. I found this red-headed girl with petit features and a freckled complexion, probably in her late teens, on here knees on top of an old, Victorian sofa. She had her back turned and seemed to be pretending to make out with somebody. I approached her and she turned and sat down normally. She was alone and very innocent looking, so as a predator, I was very attracted to the situation. I sat down with her and we had a brief conversation that I don’t remember; I sounded very creepy though. She appeared to be just exuding horniness, when she finally jumped on top of me and started undressing herself. I very creepily implied to her that we should go into another room. I’m 17, but in this dream I must have been about 30, and I felt really bad seducing this young girl, but since knew it was only a game, or maybe a movie at this point, or a dream, I went ahead with it. We went into another room, and with out going up any stairs or entering any elevators, we were in the hallway upstairs. We walked through the hall towards the room at the end. We went inside and chatted again momentarily, when a guy with a flashlight, in a uniform came down the hall (our door was left open). I pulled him into the room and knew that I needed to kill them both, so I thrust him upon her and kicked him hard enough to send them both flying out the window. I felt horrible for murdering them, but I knew I had to. I ran down the hall and leaped from the window at the other end of the building. In the air however I thought to myself that this was going to hurt a lot, so somehow I redirected my fall back towards the building, over a set of balconies. I fell through each one with the intention of each one successively breaking my fall. It worked well and I wasn’t hurt. I found myself in an alley when an older woman approached me. She said she would take me to see somebody, and she showed me a bunch of nugs of weed, which fell onto the ground. I picked them up. I believe the marijuana took the place of blood in this story, because I seemed to be desperate for it. Then she showed me a jar of olives. She said she could have all of what I wanted (weed or olives or something) that I could want if I came with her (feels like a crappy movie doesn’t it?). And then I awoke.

[jamous]

October 21, 2007 [4/10 clarity, 5/10 detailed recollection, lucid) I had yet another lucid dream this morning. I was in a rural area, maybe in the south somewhere, and in and old cabin. There were a bunch of authoritative figures in the one room house with me, but I wanted them to leave, because I thought they were inhibiting my experiencing wholly the lucid experience. What I believed to be the semi-corporeal being of my subconscious was in the room with me, fortunately, and he seemed to shoo them out of the house at my unspoken demand. I was, at this point, ready to do something worthwhile when my vision went out. This has happened often in the lucid dreams that I've had after already having 8 hours of sleep. Actually I sort developed a way of intentionally having a lucid dream after already getting a lot of sleep but I won't get into that--see my next journal entry after I post it. Anyway, I have had this happen before, my vision going black, and generally it spells the end of my dream. But a week or so ago just for fun I did this sort of exercise where I walked around my house and yard with my eyes closed to try to utilize different senses. And since I had done this so recently, I knew what to do this time when my vision went out in my dream. I tried to focus on the dream environment with my sense of smell and my kinesthetic sense, or the way it felt to move. I found that I couldn't smell, but I vividly sensed the way it felt to be walking and moving. I went outside and at some point my vision came back. I found a creek and jumped up and clung to a beam on the underside of a bridge. I started to hoist myself along, but fell in the water. As soon as my head dunked beneath the water my vision went out again. I vividly felt the currents of the water however, which held my focus, while I pulled myself onto shore, again noting the way the splashing appealed to my tactility. Sadly, at this point, I woke up. The character of my subconscious, I forgot to mention, played a part in my vision going out too. The first time it went black, I interpreted his hand covering my eyes. He told me that I knew why I couldn't see. And I did--it was because I had already slept too much I hope my subconscious returns as a character in more of my lucid dreams... he was like a tour guide of my head! How cool is that?

[jamous]

November 13, 2007 [8/10 clarity, 7/10 detailed recollection, lucid) I'm finally getting the hang of lucid dreams. This morning I had a great lucid that took place in a grocery store: It was a DILD; I woke up briefly and went back to sleep, and as I was drifting off I sort of semi-intentionally started a lucid dream [don't ask me how]. I thought to myself, "ok, don't blow this opportunity. Let's focus on visual details." So I looked into the pattern of this woman's jacket and studied it. I also smelled the air, and I guess it smelled like a grocery store. Then I thought let's find some people. I headed for the bathrooms, and for some reason there was a combination women's and gays' designated bathroom, hahaha. Anyway I headed for the women's [only] bathroom. It was really big and had a weird layout which seemed to change constantly. I wanted to make a hot girl appear, so I thought, "hmmm, I probably can't just make her materialize with my mind, so I'll use a magic wand! harry potter style!" (I had remembered actually a thread on dv that discussed this idea) I saw a pipe going up the wall next to me, so I ripped a piece off and it formed a perfect magic wand. I said out loud a girl's name {I could hear it echo through my head or the dream universe and I vividly remember worrying that somebody in the rw could hear me!! haha!} So, well, it didn't work. So I made a bag of chips appear, and that did work! The end!

[jamous]

January 01, 2008 Happy New Year! [10/10 clarity, 8.8/10 detailed recollection, lucid) I can pretty much forget any other lucid dream I have ever had after the dream I just experienced. I was fully lucid, abosolutely confident of maintaining my lucidity, and once I applied a little effort I had fantastic control too!: Ok, so initially I was in this dream where I was in hot tub doing some sort of competition with like josh hartnet and tila "tequila". Then I was dreaming I was looking for some girls phone, I found it, and found 2 others as well, who know... Then I found myself in an airport. There had been some terror attack or something because there were police and army officials at the door letting nobody in or out. I tried to leave and they pointed therre guns at me and told me to get back. But then I found myself in a military uniform of some sort, and it became like some movie or cartoon of some sort because at this point I walked over to the entrance and when I felt like they were about to turn me away or shoot me or whatever I cleared my throat real loud as if to get there attention and I stood up straight and kept walking. Hahaha, it was like a bad three stooges skit or something. I did this a few times until I was out and when I got out I bolted out onto the street. I couldn't run fast, like my muscles were frozen or I was knee deep in mud. You know the feeling. And I knew the feeling, because then I became lucid. I was on the freeway or something at this point, so I hopped onto a bus as to get me somewhere. I don't really remember this part too much though so I'll skip it. I do kind of remember it but it didn't make any sense anyway. So now I'll get to the interesting part: I was in a rundown little neighborhood in a real cool, rainy, tropical area; Hawaii I think. It was twilight. I looked out on to my surroundings and was profoundly touched by how real it all was. I kept walking, and noticed many broken down old cars, no people. I found myself on this sort of dirt path beside the road where I saw a pencil on the the ground. I picked it up, threw it into the air, and said "dragonfly!" as if to turn it into one, but it didn't work and it fell to the ground. Then I realized again that "hey I can do whatever want, and witht he new confidence I looked at it and said, "snail!" and I watched it slowly morph into a little sea snail. Then I picked it up again, threw it into the air, and it turned into a dragonfly and flew away. Then I climbed up on top of an old truck and reflected on how truly lonely lucid dreams are. This was so real-ly disturbing I almost wanted to wake up and go hug somebody. But fortunatly I didn't. I walked through a covered parking lot. I was looking for a car to drive, when I noticed a person with dread-locks in an old station wagon. As I was passing in front of the car I realized he was a pirate, and there were four more as well. This was the most hilarious site. I was standing in front of an old station wagon in hawaii at twilight with 5 pirates crammed inside all stairing at me with big disgusting grins, so I started cracking up. At this point somebody called for me, so I woke myself up.Most incredible experience... of my life maybe. Lonely, but not frightening, just infintely interesting, and amazing.

[jamous]

Nobody reads my dream journal, so I doubt anybody cares, but I am going to start recording all my dreams again! In truth, I have never been disciplined about it in the LEAST. But this time I am! By golly! So... I'm making a commitment: for this work week (through thursday or friday night) I am going to record in a journal ALL the dreams I remember as soon as I wake up, then post them here on dreamviews when I get the chance. I am also going to try to WILD twice each night, once when I go to bed, and again approximately 5 hours later using this method here: http://dreamviews.com/community/showthread.php?t=62282 [Thank you BillyBob!]

[Drazila]

I'll have to keep tabs on this journal, I like your system of rating clarity and recall on dreams. I might steal that idea, or do something similar to it.

[jamous]

yeah I probably got the idea from somebody else, but it is actually very helpful. Once you start rating things in your journal like clarity and recollection you begin to notice that the numbers actually increase more or less with each dream.. it's exciting!

[Drazila]

Yeah, I can imagine that this could make finding trends in dream quality much easier to quantify.

[dreamnoob]

wow the dream with the guide in the car in the city is messed up sooooooo lucky your able to ld

[jamous]

wow the dream with the guide in the car in the city is messed up sooooooo lucky your able to ld lucid dreaming is without a doubt one of the most meaningful, intriquing things to do in life. I can't wait till I start having lucids again. There soo much I wanna do! You've had two it says in your signature, is that right, dreamnoob? Were they cool?

[jamous]

February 7, 2009 [7/10 clarity, 5/10 detailed recollection, not lucid) (I apologize for the writing on this one. I am just going to copy it directly from my dream journal and I wrote the entry half asleep) Dreamed I was in this sort of palace in the jungle, but also in the city it seems. The room was warm and soft and the lighting was dim and golden-like in color. There were rainforest-junglelike plants around, two of them on each side of a couple steps leading down to an entrance/exit, where this incredibly beautiful girl stood before me nude. It was touching how beautiful she was. I knew that she was my age, 18, but I thought of her as a woman. She was horribly distraught because her baby was lost and in danger. She was standing in front of a doorway or portal of some kind into another place which was somehow further away than just a few steps. It appeared her child was in this place. She was trying to tell me somehow that I needed to help her but seemed to be suggesting that I was too much of a child myself to handle the situation. Then she gave me a cryptic message in written words in the air or something (can't remember) which meant the same thing. On some level I knew I was dreaming because I remember that in the back of my mind I was trying to interpret what was going on, thinking, "this is incredible, I hope I can remember this..." What was most moving was the sheer beauty of this woman and the heart-twisting affection I felt for her. Then I continued to dream that I was interpreting the dream to somebody. But it seems like this part of the dream was more like my regular dreams (which are more mundane and life-like), and the other was more of something I get occasionally that I think of as a "dream-within-a-dream," (dreaming that I'm dreaming) which are typically more emotional, moving, abstract, and symbolic.