Marc's Journal. Jan 5.

Hi everyone,

This is the first post in a potential dream journal.

I experience Sleep Paralysis very often, even when not trying to achieve the state. I'm wanting to progress to lucid dreaming. I've experienced around three lucid dreams recently without trying to actually have them. That has brought me here to learn more about the LD state and how to reach it more often. I'll describe the lucid dreams that I have had.

1) The first lucid dream that I can ever recall having. In the dream I was in my bedroom watching television with my head resting against the back wall with a pillow in between. I then started to play around with my long hair by putting it into a twirl. As I did this I gradually felt that something was wrong and did not make sense. After a few moments I began asking myself questions about it. As I felt the hair in my hand I came to the realization that I had to be dream because I didn't have long hair anymore, as it was now short. At that instant I was fully lucid in my dream. Before that, the lucidity gradually grew as I figured out what was going on. I then immedialtly woke up and was totally freaked out by the incident. I ran to tell my mom, and even wrote what I remembered of it down.

Below is a copy-n-paste of what I wrote down immediately after the first LD.

Saturday, February 28, 2004 @ 11:54 PM

Had a sleep paralysis episode. Pretty sure it occured when waking up from dreaming. I was having a dream where I was on my bed, sitting up a little, and watching tv. Then I put my right hand behind my head and starting playing with my hair. My head only has peach-fuzz, but in the dream my hair was shoulder length. In the dream I thought about putting it in a poney-tail like I USED TO. Then I realized that I did not have long hair, but I COULD FEEL LONG HAIR. I was actually wrapping it around my hand like I used to in real life. I kept feeling the long hair and knowing that I did not have long hair and started to freak out. That is when I become fully lucid. I did that for a few seconds and then woke-up in sleep paralysis. My eyes were shut, and I'm not sure if I could open them because I had the courage, in hindsight, to not try to get myself out of sleep parlysis. I felt the same sensations as always; hearing the buzzing, wave sound; feeling the tingling sensation all over my body; not being able to move (duh!); So, I had my eyes shut and began an attempt to play around with the sleep paralysis. I read that when in sleep paralyis, one can will themselves to move. People can turn sleep paraylsis into a lucid dream or OBE sometimes, and one way is to try to turn and get out of your body. It doesn't make any sense, but I tried to will myself to turn to my left, as if I were really getting up, however, I didn't try to actually move myself. I just thought about doing it. Unfortunately, nothing happended. I just layed in the sleep paralysis state, trying to move myself for a little while. Maybe a minute. Then I was frustrated that nothing was happening and began to fear that I may start to feel the evil presense again. It was a little after that when I began to hear an odd sound coming close by, in front of the bed. I'm not quite sure what it sounded like now, but it didn't seem to me to indicate anything bad, per say, but it was the impetus for me to begin to move my fingers and legs to break the paralysis. I may have been confused at the order, but I think my legs were moving a little before my arms, which is very odd because normally it is my arms after my fingers. I even tried to make sounds also. I heard myself making a whimper sound, but I can't control my voice box, or some other aspect makes me unable to control the sounds, as in speach. Not being able to snap out of the sleep paralysis always scars me for the few seconds when I am trying to get out of it. It must be the loss of control of my own body. Then I sat up and began thinking how crazy I was to let the sleep paralysis go on, since I thought I never would. It happened so fast though. This is my first episode of sleep paralysis where I was fully self-aware in a dream. It may have been only those few seconds when I realized my hair was not long in real life, but it was so surreal. I could FEEL THE LONG HAIR IN MY HAND! omg. It was no less real that real life. I wonder why I couldn't turn out of my body and experience either an OBE or lucid dream? I'll probably read more on how to do it since my sleep paralysis episodes are becoming more frequent. My sleeping pattern is way off, and that is no doubt a trigger for the sleep paralysis episodes I experience. I was up from about 11 PM of the 27th and got drowsy when after watching AMW on the 28th at around 10? I dunno. I may have slept a little between 11 and 10, but I'm not all to entirely sure.


Sunday, February 29, 2004 @ 4:54 AM

I just read all about lucid dreaming at http://www.lucidity.com/ and am going to try to fall asleep in hopes that I can have a lucid dream. Although, for having slept 2 hours in about 36, I am wide awake.


Sunday, February 29, 2004 @ 6:14 AM

IT WORKED!

From trying to go to sleep, I kept nodding off a little and then would know that I had just been falling asleep and could recall the bizarre things I was thinking of at the time, but didn't know about when I was thinking about them. That kept happening and then I finally fell asleep. I don't recall dreaming anything, but all of a sudden I was experiencing sleep paralysis. I said to myself, "Holy shit! It's happening!" I kept my eyes shut because I didn't want to hallucinate anything disturbing. I heard the usual buzzing and wave sound and the tingling of energy all in my body. At the start it was just those feeling and sounds, as always. And I just saw darkness because my eyes were shut. I tried to imagine seeing things, but nothing happened. Then I tried to imagine the sense of spinning around, and after a little bit I actually thought that I was spinning around to the left very rapidly. Then I tried to imagine things, but nothing really happended. Just still the darkness, but for a brief second I thought I saw something tiny that I couldnt focus on because I was spinning. I kept this up for a long time, and I could feel that it was starting to end, so I kept focusing on spinning and it intensified. After what seemed a minute or two of spinning around in darkness, I began to feel a pressure on the upper right side of my torso. If it was as if something, initially, weighing 15-20 lbs were placed there. I began to think that it was the old hag (omg, I just go chills typing that) sitting on my chest. I tried to not let it bother me, and kept focusing on the spinning and trying to see things, but the pressure kept increasing until I started to think I was suffocating. After probably a minute or two of this, the pressure was too much and I was having a hard time breathing, so I started moving my fingers and toes as much as I could, as always, to break free. I don't recall making any sounds because it ended after a few seconds of willing myself to move. Near the end, the pressure would always be there, but increase in waves. So at one moment it would feel very heavy, but bareable, and then the next it would be like a truck was on me and I couldnt get any breath. I did not feel a presence or anything evil. I got scared during this for a second, but reassured myself that nothing bad could happen to me, and the sensations just continued. I imagined that the hag was sitting on my chest (just got chills), but reassured myself it was just another sensation. What if I opened my eyes? I awoke laying my my left side in a fetal position. The area where I felt the weight would be exposed if something wanted to sit there (chills). It is just in my mind, and so I keep telling myself that I can't be harmed, but it totally felt like I was suffocating and I have the fear that I might die if I "die" in this strange state. I read that people have "died" in their dreams, and then woken up, so I should not fear it, but I just have to get used to it. Oh ya, the entire time when I was trying to fall asleep I kept saying to myself, in my head, "Am I dreaming? Am I dreaming? ..." It looked like it helped out! Do my eyes need to be open for me to have a lucid dream, or what? I don't want to open them because the sensations get pretty intense and I might imagine something disturbing.


2) Another lucid dream I had took place with my walking around the basement of a former home I lived in. I was looking around at all the things laying around and how odd some of them seemed to be. The basement was not finished, and so I could see though the walls, as there were only the support beams in place. I walked to where the stairs should be so that I could leave the basement, but when I got there, the stairs were missing! I could clearly see the shut door, but no stairs. Then I looked to my right and saw the flight of stairs in another room, going from the floor to the ceiling. I just knew that the stairs, along with the other strange objects, did not make any sense. After which I knew that I was dreaming. I then became very excited and ran around the basement looking for a clock to see if the apparent time would change after each time I looked. I couldn't find one at all. I then panicked that I wouldn't be able to get out of the basement. I just knew that there was nothing outside of it, even if the flight of stairs were present and I could walk up them. So, I yelled like a baby after which I woke up in my real bed. It was the best lucid dream I've ever had. I totally felt that I was walking around my old basement. I even could feel the things I was touching!

My sleeping pattern, and eating pattern are both not very good. I'm sleeping during part of the day and up at night. Family was staying with me and so that is part of the reason. I slept awoke on the 28th at around 8PM and am already tired now, 29th at 5:30AM. My diet and nutrition need work. Being a vegan, those things affect me greatly.

I'm going to try to experience the sleep paralysis state to lead to a lucid dream or OBE, and if that fails, trying to recognize that I am dreaming in a dream and so attain lucidity that way.

It's odd that if I simply desire to have SP, I will. Yet, I don't consciously do anything in between falling asleep and waking up in the state. Very odd, indeed!

I had many regular dreams and brief SP.

1) Brad Pitt and the shopping mall.

Brad Pitt and I were close friends. He was off from shooting his last movie. I told him how strange it must be for him to have a movie come out that he worked on two years ago. We both wore winter hats. He was really into computer things so we looked at some of those places. Then he took me to a clothing store that his friend worked at but it didn't have anything I liked. At one point we encountered a piano collection in the middle of the mall. I was an expert pianist, and so I began playing these amazing pieces, while Brad recorded them on a Comodore 64. He had trouble using the newer computers and that made me feel bad. Of course, he took off his winter hat and girls couldn't keep their eyes off him, but it didn't bother me since I still got lots of attention of my own.


2) The Huygens space probe.

The Huygens space probe should have landed on Titan and reported back, but hadn't. As time went on, many scientists were worried that the probe had been malfunctioned and been destroyed. There were two main scientists for the probe. One of them had the last name Jeffrey and was being interviewed about the events. His entire career was invested in the probe and so I felt bad. He was remaining optimistic but you could tell he thought it was all over. As I was riding my bike home from the university, I heard on the radio that the probe had just sent back a message of success to ground controllers. I yelled in excitment! And others did too when they heard.


3) The car workshop.

For some reason, I was working in a car mechanic shop. A group of guys, including myself, were on a project to build this car from scratch. I told them previously that I knew how to do these few areas of it, but really didn't. So I tried to find ways to waste time. I was to build some sort of liquid-holding pan for the engine, as well as something else, but instead decided to make a webpage for the car. One guy got really upset at my drawings.


4) The bike ride home.

I was riding a bike down the winding streets of my university campus. Avoiding people was no problem, but soon I encountered a white van that drove right across my path and then stopped. I was travelling so fast that I almost crashed into him. I got off my bike and yelled at the jerk. He stayed in his car and said he was sorry. I then got back on my bike and rode over the narrow bridge we have here. There were so many students that I had to wieve in and out in order to get by them. Near the end of the bridge I ran into a group of girls that would block my every attempt to get past them, even though I was travelling very fast, they kept up by walking fast. It was very odd.

5) Something about football, or being athletic.

This must have been my first dream of the night because I remember almost nothing of it. It was summer and I, along with some other guys, was in the backyard of a large mansion. There was some female lady who was evaluating us for something. We had our shirts off and were throwing around something like a football. She was impressed with whatever I was doing.


6) Two asians, bikes, and me.

It was nighttime. Summer/Spring. There was an Asian man and his asian wife on bikes riding with me down these empty streets. They were main streets of the city, but deserted. We were racing down them trying to get past all the lights before they turned red. At one point I wanted to go back to a McDonalds that we had just passed so that I could eat some french fries.



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I also had very brief SP. When I experience SP from the waking state, the SP does not come on me all at once. It comes in little increments. I will be hearing and feeling everything normally, and then will hear and feel all the sensations and sounds of the SP state for a second, and then back to normal. This will continue for less than a minute, and increase in duration, until the SP is in full effect.

That happend to me today. I was experiencing that when my cat came into my room and wouldn't stop meowing. I couldn't concentrate on emptying my mind and relaxing so that the SP would take effect and so it ended there. He always wakes me up!

I'm not sure why so many dreams involved my riding a bike because I haven't done so in years and years. The huygens probe I can understand, but not Brad Pitt, lol.

1) A girl in the mens bathroom with me.

I was using a mens urinal. I looked to my left and saw these small feet inside of the mens stall beside me. A second later, a girl emerges from the same stall. For some reason, I'm not apprehensive or anything, even though I know its not normal. I tell her that I've done the same thing by accident in the womens bathroom. I forget to pay attention to my peeing, and get pee on myself. I become embarassed and try to not let her see. The pee was not normal pee, it was flourescent yellow! I use some of the water to clean it up. I walk over to her completely naked. She had just searched through all the stalls for clean tissue paper. I check them myself with a glance, and she is holding the only clean roll. She over me some to dry up the water. A friend of hers then comes into the washroom and we all leave together I think.


2) Murder in the bathroom.

I'm in a mens bathroom at my university. There is a large mirror there and I can see myself in it. I wear a thin grey jacket, and dark black pants. My hair is odd, and medium length. I look like a bad-boy. In walks an older man that has some authority or thinks he does. We get into a fight. He grabs both my arms and is extremely powerful, but he doesnt look like it. I remember that this was very strange to me at the time. We continue to fight and he ends up dead. I walk calmly out of the bathroom so that no one pays me any attention. I then try to make my way off of the university campus without encountering anyone that will recognize me and be able to know my whearabouts at times that day. I nervously wait for a bus to come, but continue to walk to successive bus stops because I cant keep still and want to get off the campus. At one bustop, I run into one of my profs. He says hello, and I continue on, knowing he will be able to say that I left at that time to police. I eventually grab a bus and leave.



3) Will and the seminar class.

At my university, I was attending a seminar class. The room was full. At one point in the past, I had left my clothing and belongings in the room and I now wanted to get them. They were high atop a shelf. I walked over the chairs and tables of people to move across the room to the shelf. Once there, I found a green namsack which I opened to make sure it was mine. It was. I then took the napsack down and went back across the room. One of the people that I walked past was Will from Will And Grace. He said something to me. As I walked back, my prof said it was okay for me to submit my assignments in the new year. I was glad. There was a large pile of clothing of mine in a corner of the room. Some of the girls I knew were there. Maybe the ones from the bathroom dreams previously.

1) Helicopter wars.

The dream involved lots of helicopters in aerial battles. I was flying a Loach against hueys, etc. Just a lot of battles. Nothing specific.

I wasn't able to remember any other dreams.

This was a very good sleep for me! I had a regular dream and an amazing LUCID DREAM!!!!!! YA!!!

1) Sex with some girls.

I never dream about sex, so this was unsual for me. I think I dreamt about it because I had watched a funny video of hand-puppet sex on ebaumsworld.com. In this dream I was having sex in all these different situations. Self-explanatory.


2) ** LUCID DREAM **.

As I wrote earlier, I decided the next time I had sleep paralysis, that I would try to open my eyes and get up. Well, that is just what I did. I was experiencing sleep paralysis; after awakening. I intensified it by relaxing and then attempted to open my eyes. Only one eye slightly opended a fraction and I could see a yellow light. This was odd, since normally I would be able to open them completely. I then had the thought to just try to get out of bed. At first, I couldn't move. Then the vibrations and sounds of SP ended and I rolled out of bed. As I did this, my eyes opened and I could see my shadow on my bed. I stood up beside my bed and looked around the room.

This was obviously my dream bedroom because things were misplaced and everything was in a grey, lowlight tone; just as I had experienced one time previously. However, instead of getting excited, I focused my mind on being very analytical so that I wouldnt get caught up in the moment. And it worked out very well. I soon was just looking around at everything. It was so amazing how real it all was. I then decided to walk out of my room. I could see into a furnance room here, but decided not to enter. I walked upstairs to the main floow of the house. As I did so, the light level increased dramatically and so all of the main floor looked like it was daylight. At first, things still did not have much of any colour. As I had this thought, I looked into the living room and saw that everything that had the colour purple was shown in vibrant purple, but that was the only colour scene. A few seconds later, and the other colours became apparent. I walked around the house looking at everything. The odd part was that the layout of the house was not identical to any house I had lived in, but was composed of parts of the two most recent. The main floor and top floor were that of my old house, the basement that of my current house.

On the main floor, I met my two cats. One of which has died. That was so beautiful to see her there walking around. I walked up the stairs to the top floor and heard snoring coming from my mothers room. I decided not to wake her because it would have got me too excited and freaked me out. So I went back down the stairs and continued looking at everything.

I then remembered that people can fly in their dreams. I have not once flew in any dreams in all my life. I stood in the living room and looked down at my feet. I then willed myself to hover above the ground. AND IT HAPPENED! Oh my, it was so unreal. Oddly, my cats began to hover as well. It was as if I eliminated gravity for them too. I then restored it because the room was not large enough to fly in.

I walked to the sliding backdoors, opened them, and went outside. The landscape was exactly as it was in real life, only the backyard was fenced-in, which it wasn't in real life. I noticed this, but just went with it. I went through a door in the fence, but one of my cats followed me through it. I wanted to go flying, but also didn't want my cat to get lost. You see, I just didn't know if he got lost in the dream, whether he would be lost the next time I had a lucid dream. For that reason, I kept running after him to put him back inside the fence. It was at that point that I lost lucidity and woke up in bed.

I've explained the lucid dream to my mom, but words can not do it justice. You have to experience it for yourself. I so want to have another lucid dream like this. As I wrote before, I had one lucid dream where I woke up in my dream bed, but it ended there because I got excited. The LD I just had lasted for at least 5 minutes as I walked around the house. I can remember every movement I made, thought I had, and most things I saw. It was as if I was actually in a real place. The most unsual thing about the experience, besides the odd arrangement of things, was the lack of any real sound. I don't recall my counts making any sound or hearing anything myself besides the snoring of my mother.

And all this after just writing in this dream journal for a few days! I suppose I've been lucid many times, but just didn't recognize it and so attributed it to mere sleep paralysis!

1) University chopper pilot.

I was a pilot hired by the university to transport construction supplies using a Loach. I would spend time doing stunts with the helicopter. At one point I was transporting supplies for Peter Jackson. After flying the helicopter for a long time, I was told by a man that previous pilots of the chopper had all died because it was unsafe. He then wanted me to take him and a 3rd man and do stunts. There were fires or something in the city and I was thought responsible after I was set up by someone who wanted the chopper for himself.


2) Hit and run murder and Susan Surrandan.

A hit and run occured on the university campus. The criminal took the license plates off the car and left it at the scene. I knew that it belong to one of the professors, but was unsure who. I was hired by Susan Surrandan, who was a lawyer, to help her do research to find treatments for some sort of lung/breathing disorder of a child. Her husband got mad and questioned how much money she was paying me for my services.


3) Laser tag in the mall.

I was with family in a mall. We had a tradition of playing tag there. We could chose from various weapons to use to "tag" eachother. I chose a laser. Others chose rockets, etc. We then went around trying to tag eachother to win a prize my cousins brought. I won the contest, but didn't get the prize. My mom thought that she should get it because she would have more use for it. The prize was a small sphere that contained lightning.


4) Solving a quadratic equation.

My family and I were all around a blackboard, trying to solve this equation: ax^2 + bx + c = 0. I said the solution was "x = a*b/c", which is wrong since I checked it when I woke up, lol. I convinced them all that it was correct using my knowledge of differential equations.

Last night wasn't very pleasent. I stayed up past 25 hours so that I could adjust my sleeping schedule for school. I decided to sleep with the lights off in my bedroom for the 2nd time in probably 3 years. I just can't sleep in the dark because of the sleep paralysis and all this freaky stuff that happens to me when I do. Anyways, I thougt I would try sleeping with the light out. About 20 minutes into it, I became aware in some strange state that I assume was SP. There was an entity acosting me as I lay in bed. Speaking to me and screwing with my head. I can remember how surreal everything felt at the time. There were definitely the wave sounds associated with this event, but it was hard to even notice with the thing around. To be honest, I was so freaked out and disoriented that I really didnt even think I was in SP at the time. The way I can tell is that I couldn't move when it was happening and everything seemed chaotic and to be happening really quickly, and then an instant later, when I could move, everything was calm. Of course, I imediately went on turned on the light. I'm just not ready to sleep in the dark yet. I'll try again some other time. Man, was it screwed up! It was no where near has horrifying as the first time though. Thank god!

I don't recall dreaming anything. I seemed to sleep uninterrupted for the entire night after the incident. At least, I don't recalling waking up multiple times.

I can just recall a single dream that I had. It was an amazing adventure.


1) The girl and the lost village.

In this dream, there was an entire people/civilization after me and a handful of my friends. Mostly after me, but my friends helped me out and so they were in danger. It seems to have taken place in an age where we could travel to different worlds. I was continually in different places uses my witts to outsmart the people trying to kill me. They were always a hair length away. Thoughout most of this, I was guided and saved by a girl. She was amazing. I would get hurt or just lay down and she would take charge and do the most ingenious things to get us to safety. We would run through large caverns, tunnels, an underground city within a city, etc. There were giant waterfalls, cliffs. At one point we were alone together and in a large underground stream. We floated to the end of the stream and it was a waterfall! It must have been miles and miles high because I could barely see the ground. As we were falling together, I told her that this happend to me before and that we wouldn't make it. She was really calm and said not to worry. She hugged me and as we landed in this shallow water, I felt no pain. We then coninued to run from the people. At the end of the dream, we were together on a cliff by an ocean doing meditation and tai-chi. The underground city was a spaceship. The people gave up trying to get us and the ship left. What was left was some ruins in a forest on a deserted planet. It was just the two of us there. I kept knowing that the place was called Lost Village. This dream was amazing. I wish I was lucid for it!