Thread: Liber Somniorum Lucidorum

That's cool that you tasted a dream flavor! Awesome!

October 28, 2009

I was watching this really long, in-depth YouTube video on a comedy channel about a woman trapped in an abusive arranged marriage when I RC'd with the nose-pinching thing. For a brief moment I became lucid, but soon had a false awakening where I wrote the dream in my notebook. Now I'm wondering if I was ever really lucid or if I just dreamed about being lucid. Is there a difference?

My dreams can be very vague and unreal, so there's no firm ground to gain lucidity on. They can be as unvivid as possible-- I don't even follow through with actions; I just think I do. Like instead of going through the process of reading a letter I get a vague feeling that I read the letter. My subconscious is a lazy bitchbastard which doesn't want to do anything so it just appeases me with illusions like that. So did it just appease me by implanting a false memory of lucidity?

***

I had two more short, boring dreams, one in which I was only half asleep and when I tried to RC I put my hand to my real nose instead of my dream nose, waking myself up.

After chewing out my subconscious and arming myself with a newfound determination, I had a much better dream, in which I think I became lucid for realz.

***

A guy was standing in the atrium of his high school, looking up at an old art-deco-y decoration of a saint lady with nekkid boobs. There was an 80's pop beat in the background and his thoughts spoke in a wry voice, That's funny, since this school was built in the 1800s. And I was just like, Um, no. Artful nudity was less stigmatized back in the day than it is now, IMHO. Anyway, the general feeling was that I was stuck in one of John Hughes's million bildungsroman-themed movies, at the setup part where the main character snarkily comments on his life.

The kid went outside to where his parents were waiting for him in a car. Out of the blue I realized I was dreaming, so I tried to create a whole different scene entirely, but I guess that was just too much and everything went black. Then this fatbottomed, shifty-eyed Native American girl showed up claiming to be my dreamguide. We flew to a restaurant, where we totally made out.

I lost my lucidity when I had a false awakening in a room filled with leaves and light. I was surrounded by plants and musical instruments that I'm pretty sure I'd made in a previous forgotten dream. I'd painted my IRL ukulele grey and brown and fitted it out with a keytar. There was also a golden harp there that had rose thorns glued to it.

I went to an adjoining book-filled room. On one of the shelves was a decoration I also remembered having made out of thorny flowers and white Christmas tree lights. It stabbed me deep, but I wasn't disturbed. Then I found a puppy!

I had another false awakening, this time in my dorm room. I went out to get coffee, and when I woke up I was pissed that I didn't have a caramel latte. And that I didn't get to taste the dream caramel latte.

Let me explain what happened in that first dream. You became lucid, then you had a false awakening, which made you lose your lucidity. Afterwards, the dream continued. In that part of the dream, you dreamed about being lucid.

Whoah, you already met your dreamguide!

And she is a hot Native American chick. Awesome!

Yes, things are shaping up well. Sort of. No lucid dreams last night.

October 31, 2009

I had my first WILD via sleep paralysis. I just lay still until I could see dark blue floaty things twisting and swirling inside my eyelids like paramecium, and I heard a man's voice ringing in my head, though I don't remember what he was saying. Then the whole feeling of my body changed, to be light and numb. Just to be sure I was dreaming, I pinched my nose.

I got up and turned the night to day by pulling on my windowshade until I saw light behind it. Then I opened my door, hoping to see Mongolia, but there was nothing out there except the annoying people in my quad. I closed it, summoned one of my characters (from the book I'm writing for NaNoWriMo), and when I opened the door again Odval was there.

The first thing he said-- actually, the only thing he said-- was that I wasn't going to win NaNoWriMo. He was pretty much a contrary ass. He wanted to leave, but I coaxed him into staying with a cold bottle of airag, fermented mare's milk, which happens to be Mongolia's national alcoholic beverage. I asked him to tell me something about himself, and he just stared back defiantly like a bratty kid, sucking on his bottle of milk.

This actually wasn't out of character for him; I already knew he was rude and socially inappropriate, plus he distrusts women especially, but I was still surprised.

Odval made his escape when my annoying aunt (who IRL always hints that she wants to visit me at college... ugh) came into my room and tried to talk to me. At some point I started hearing Mongolian folk music, which transported me to Mongolia. Dry grasslands with yurts facing the south. Odval was there, but he just eyed me with distrust and walked away quickly. I went into a yurt and saw a fat woman, probably one of his aunts, eating something from a bowl.

Then I had several false awakenings. I became lucid after the first one when I was writing down a dream in my notebook, and another time just because I noticed that I felt too airy. Unfortunately, every time I tried to do something cool, I had another false awakening restarting the dream putting me back in bed. Finally, some insecure bitch wearing ugg boots over her pants was calling me out for being unfashionable when I bit my RL tongue and the salty taste of blood woke me up.

Also, I had a gulp of pomegranate-blueberry juice and two powdered donuts right before the lucid dream (which is also the longest lucid dream I've had). I've heard that eating pretty much anything can bring your blood sugar levels up and give you more vivid dreams?

I do throat singing.

I don't know about eating before bed. I guess I always eat something small. I eat often.

The ugg boots girl cracked me up.

O rly? I tried to learn how to throat-sing a while back. I understand how to do it in theory but I just never got the hang of it.

Looks like around 5 AM is my best time for both WILDing and DILDing.

November 17, 2009

I was blonde and tan and pear-shaped. I went to a bar to sing.

This turned into a different dream where I visited my grandpa, and while I was there a bunch of young Sanskrit-speaking hooligans broke in and stole my laptop.

***

My family was on vacation. On the way there we stopped at some houses in the country because my mom knew a lady that lived in one of them. We knocked on the door but the house was empty. Then we found the lady's corpse in the trunk of the car that belonged to the creepy nasty guy who lived next door with his retarded brother. I tried to wake myself up, and in doing so realized I was dreaming. I considered trying to gain control of the dream, but the fear was too real. It took me a while to fall asleep again because I was convinced that there was a psychopath hiding in my room somewhere.

***

I had a brief, somewhat boring WILD. The first thing I did after rolling up the window shade for light was a somersault in the air, as per the monthly task. There were some random people in my room. I exploded their heads off their bodies, but somehow it wasn't satisfying. Everything was fuzzy and vague. I tried to focus, but there wasn't anything interesting enough to focus on. I felt like I was trapped in my room.

I went nonlucid and entered another dream, which was too boring to talk about.

Apparently this post is brought to you by the number 6, since I seem to use it a lot.

November 19, 2009

This is weird. I had a ton of lucids this morning, at least 4 and maybe as many as 10 (I'm going to go with 6), all in a row, and none of them lasted more than thirty seconds in dreamtime. I don't remember what I specifically did in each one, but they all involved looking in the mirror and changing one aspect of my appearance bizarrely. I half-woke up between each one and DIELDedback each time. I don't know why I didn't review my dream goals at some point, or why I felt the need to turn one of my eyes into a giant magnifying glass and my hair into a looming cliff face.

The only plus was that they were all very vivid. So vivid that I had to reality check a lot because I wasn't sure whether I was dreaming.

***

I had a long nonlucid dream that started off with me writing an essay about how I defined 'upper middle class' as 'anyone with a nicer house than me.' This slipped into a long, involved 'fairytale' that was supposedly based off Alice in Wonderland, but held no resemblance to it except for the absurdity.

It started off with a vague story arc about the main characters' next-door neighbors. Every scene that had them in it showed a new addition to their house, always painted purple, yellow, and pink. By the end of the dream these 'additions' had encompassed every house on their side of the street, including a barely-standing hovel out in the distance. It was quite amusing.

The main focus of the fairytale changed constantly, but it seemed to always deal with animals eating other animals. Tigers, butterflies, dogs, ducklings, and ferrets were among the animals who ate each other. There were also a number of completely unrelated melodramatic scenes, like when a character became a male model and everyone made fun of him, or when some guy was dragged off with a pumpkin on his head. All of this made sense and was epically interconnected at the time.

NEW! While I'm in sleep paralysis, voices often say silly or interesting things to me. I'll be posting them now.

WTVS: "You know what's better than wisdom?! Excitement! You know what's better than excitement?! Horticulture!"

Ever since I've gone home for the holidays I haven't been able to get lucid. I try to WILD every night, sometimes twice a night, and it hasn't worked yet.

Now I have a backlog.

November 26, 2009

My mom was convinced that Diet Pomegranate 7up had alcohol in it. I sang my university's alma mater and went to a land called My Little Generic Asian City.

***

I had tried to WILD at five, but instead I just fell asleep. I was at college, only my room was huge and luxurious. I had a stalker. He kept showing up in my room, and it was freaking me out.

I went to the restroom, and there was shit all over the toilets.

November 27, 2009

I sang a hip hop barn tune for the president. A bug with a sharp stabby appendage started following me around. I cooked a dish that involved anchovies on pita. I sprayed the bug with water to make it go away, but I still woke myself up out of fear of it.

***

Analysts explained my first dream. In fact, they had found 16 sharp stabby appendages in the dream environment. They laid them out on graph paper for me, largest to smallest.

November 29, 2009

It was my job to decide who would go on a reality show in Beijing about transgendered people.

November 30, 2009

My grandma insisted on making me chocolate-coated pancakes. I was anxious about a project that was due for school. Funny that I only have nervous dreams about college when I'm home for the quarter.

WTVS:"I was young and beautiful; my audio-visual cortex was fine."
"Brad was the first one to leave the Center. Now he misses it beautifully."

I figured out a quicker way to make myself WILD. Instead of entering sleep paralysis and straining my brain for voices and waiting for the blotches to enter my vision, which can take a long time to work and be very discouraging, I tried out something else.

I made my eyelids do a kind of strobe light thing. Not that I was blinking, but that I just saw light flashing on and off there. I don't know. I can't really explain it. Go here: http://www.netliberty.net/dreamachine-view.html# and set it to 7 hz. It makes you feel all floaty.

So I did that, and when the voices started, which was almost immediately (and in my ears rather than in my head, which is a plus) I somehow managed to amplify and clarify them. It worked. It was really more like DEILDing, though, since I had to be at the edge of sleep for it to work.

December 2, 2009

I got out of bed and looked out the window. It was dawn, and the neighbors were having a barbecue. Then I opened my eyes a little too far and woke myself up.

I DEILDed back immediately. While trying to sharpen my focus by staring at my ukulele, I woke up again.

I DEILDed back once more. This time I remembered my goals. I opened my door with the hopes of seeing my Dream Guide there. She was, but she looked a little somber, standing alone in the dark hallway. Her hair was stringy and there were dark circles under her eyes. I asked her what her name was. She paused, as if trying to remember, then said, "Deleela." I asked her to take me to the Lighthouse of Alexandria, but everything went black and I knew I'd asked for too much too soon. I think I slipped into a regular dream then.

WTVS: "Will she win?! If she can stab her opponent deep in the kneecap!"

December 3, 2009

There was a shower stall in the middle of the cafeteria. I showered there, despite its location and the warning sticker on the inside that said "Warning: may cause cancer or HIV."

***

Three WILDS by my new method, all short and crappy again. I can't even remember them, aside from the sense of nausea that pervaded them, because I didn't write them down. I think one involved a grassy meadow. And my eyes were stuck shut with sleep goop every time I started an LD. Also, instead of a gutteral man's voice ushering me into the dreams as usual, I heard crackling like blank space on a record.

I think the reason this kind of WILD is always shitty for me is because I'm only half-asleep (since it's in the morning). In at least one of my dreams, I could feel parts of my real body occasionally, floating spectrally in front of me. Mostly my arms and fingers.

I'm sick of all this DEILDing.

I just reformatted my entire dream journal for about the fifth time. I really need to stop doing that.

December 5, 2009

Had my first dream about missing an exam. It lasted for days in dreamtime, and about 5 hours in realtime. Before I even took it there was a massive amount of exposition, in which I attended the class and made friends. Everything was XTREMEly detailed, to the point where when it was time to take the exam, I actually read it.

I walked out in the middle of the exam for no discernible reason, even though it was pretty easy, and went on a singalong across the countryside. My annoying aunt randomly owned a diner, so I went there. Then I walked home, and I realized I had sent texts to everyone in my phone about how the world was beautiful and the universe was in childbirth. So I angsted about not finishing the exam, and I called my mom and she was disappointed in me.

December 6, 2009

Disturbing dream about my parents' marital problems. It was post-apocalyptic and deathly cold outside, and we were going to go to West Virginia. But my mom was driving, and she changed her mind and decided she wanted to go to her parent's cabin in southern Ohio, and acted like my dad didn't have a say about where we went. My dad's all passive aggressive so for a few minutes he just sighed loudly.

We kept driving, past some crazy guy jumping on a trampoline wearing nothing but his tears, which frosted there in the cold. My mom stopped the car at her brother's house because she thought she'd have better reception there when she tried to call her parents, but my dad was just like, "I'm done." He got out of the car and started yelling at my mom. I couldn't hear them through the glass and metal and plastic and rubber of the van, but it was clear that my dad was going to leave us.

December 8, 2009

I was sick of living in a single at college so I got a roommate, a white girl with dreadlocks. She was a painter, and in the morning she and several other artists would paint a man lying on a table.

One day I walked into the room, and my laptop was gone. I freaked out for a moment until I saw a madwoman sitting in my laundry basket in the corner, clutching it to her chest.

I spent the rest of the dream standing on my hands and doing push ups.

December 13, 2009

I was in some South American country when the revolution started. I had been living in a shitty hotel, sleeping in a room with about twenty twin beds. I was in town when chaos started going down. I was standing on a roof, surrounded by men with machine guns, and I decided to jump off and fly away over the rolling green hills.

Since I can't fly IRL, I became lucid. I was afraid to go back to my hotel so I wandered around aimlessly until I lost lucidity.

December 16, 2009

It's been a year since my marching band career ended, and yet I still have anxious dreams from time to time about being late to or unprepared for a band event.

I was in a setting that wasn't my hometown or my college town. I'd wager that it was in the wild west somewhere, on account of the dustiness of the soil. The buildings were decorated with red, white, and blue ribbons in preparation for the parade, but the streets were empty.

It wasn't I who was late, but some other girl. I was helping her. We scrambled back to our peers, who were already marching.

***

My friend Katie and I were sampling a buffet at some party. I got a big plate of tiny crackers covered in soup. However, I soon forgot about both Katie and the soup when I walked through an archway and the rhyme

Keep calm and carry on
Recall your dream goals 'fore it's gone

popped into my head, lucidating me.

Everything was blurry, so I reminded myself that I shouldn't try to consciously create the scenery, that I should let it be nonsensical. This made everything snap into focus more vividly than before. For the first time I noticed the men in lion and llama suits sitting at the bar and slamming down cold ones.

I wandered into another room, repeating the rhyme several times in order to stay lucid. For whatever reason, though, I didn't actually review my dream goals.

A middle-aged woman with straight brown hair waved me over. I sat down at her table. "I'm the ambassador," she said, and we talked at length. Maybe she's my substitute dream guide since Deleela doesn't like showing up here?

My hometown makes her ill, apparently. I don't blame her. It's depressing here.

***

I barely woke up and promptly DEILDed. Usually when I WILD I feel trapped in whatever room I'm in, afraid of opening windows and doors. This time I wasn't. I remembered I should review my dream goals, but I didn't actually do that. For some reason I decided that going to Mars was one of my dream goals.

I woke up my mom because I wanted to take her to Mars with me. I looked out a window, at a sky thickly bespangled with stars, and stretched it wide enough for us to fit through.

My mom wasn't good at flying, though. All she did was drag me down.

***

I was on a trip to Japan, hanging out with this random couple. The guy kept insisting on buying me shit, even though he had mentioned earlier that he was living on food stamps, and I was like, "Step off!" but I didn't actually say that, because I avoid confrontation.

I went to a strange restroom that was a huge blue revolving mass of porto-potties, only you had to pee into a funnel. Why must I have so many nasty bathroom dreams?!

December 18, 2009

I was at a bookstore, which I must have frequented before in other dreams, because I saw this couple making out in the aisles and I was like "WTF I see them every time I'm here!"

I picked up the latest Harry Potter book, the 8th in the series. It contained things that made people seriously question physics. Some guy was lecturing me about it. The law of gravity was getting all glitchy, and a rainbowy cloud like a bubble was eating matter.

In the dream I had been married to and since divorced a short fat man. I went to his house and told him I still loved him as a friend. This was apparently insincere, since I soon sent a pack of orcs after him. Before they could get to him, though, a jogging vampire bit him.

A dark woman with soft downy hair on her back snaked down a vine into a lagoon. I followed her.

She turned her face to me, and I saw that she was beautiful, with large red eyes and a hooked nose studded with gold. I asked her if she was a vampire, and she said yes, and I was like "Dammit!" She pulled me into the water.

There was a congregation of middle eastern and central Asian vampires there under the vines, ranging from ages seven to maybe mid-twenties. Someone told the twenty-somethings that they were old and white enough to pass as tourists, and they left.

The vampires gathered around me and told me how they had become infected. Here, vampirism was spread not through bite, but through blood transfusions and sharing of sexual fluids. A very young girl said that in her country, people believed that if you had sex with a virgin, your vampirism would go away. Because of this idea she was raped, and now she'll be seven years old for eternity.

So basically, vampirism was an allegory for AIDS.

***

I broke into a king's house to steal gold and precious stones. I heard someone moving in another room, so I stuffed the loot in my pockets and got out of there.

I escaped into a shopping mall, where I ranted to no one in particular about how it was too bad that I hadn't become lucid in my previous dream, and then I was like "LOLOLOLOL I'm dreaming!"

I didn't think to review my goals. I just walked around the mall asking random girls to make out with me. They all ignored me, so instead I ate some applesauce, and it was delicious.

December 20, 2009

I ran through empty fields and snowy streets. The ground fell away from my feet increasingly fast. It was exhilarating.

***

Anxious cafeteria dream. My college ID had been damaged, and the blonde transsexual woman at the counter said that the machine wouldn't take it, so I had to pay in crumpled bills.

I think it's time to compile a list of my all time biggest subconscious fears, according to the frequency at which they appear along with intense anxiety in my dreams.

8. a slowly-creeping personification of death
7. cafeterias
6. sweaty-toothed madmen
5. preapocalypstic mass hysteria
4. women
3. not getting to class on time
2. marching band events

And my all time biggest subconscious fear is...

1. uncleanly, labyrinthine bathrooms

WTVS: "Bathe your toes in Beethoven."

December 21, 2009

I was on a plane to Greece. Someone gave me a yellow and black pill. I swallowed it without water, and the cabin began to spin like a carousel.

***

I WILDed, but it not in my old way or new way. I just kept present while I fell asleep.

I flopped out of bed and went downstairs. My dad and some of my uncles were building something in the living room. I let my parents drag me to church, because I only had one goal to accomplish today: cheese.

I forgot about it for a while, though. I started talking to my wallet, which transported me to a dusty road, where I now sat atop a tall 1800's style bicycle. I just wanted to cross the street, but every time I tried to, cars sped in front of me.

Eventually I decided to get some cheese out of my backpack. My fingers came up empty, and at first I considered just pretending to eat cheese, but ultimately reached back into the bag and retrieved a square of American cheese. I don't like that kind so I put it back and got out a block of the nasty pseudocheese one can buy from a market near my dorm. As expected, it was disgusting. I could barely taste the cheesy flavor over whatever filler the manufacturers had put in it to increase its volume.

I don't understand. Real world cheese can be so good. Maybe dream cheese just can't handle the pressure.

I should have looked in the bag again. I should have scoured it for the love of my life, goat cheese, or the alluring ambrosia that is smoked cheddar. But alas! I wasted my cheese opportunity, and now I will never forgive myself.

WTVS: "When Dillywater of Green Tweezers announced his betrothal, everything turned up smiles."

Keep summoning cheese. You did a dream drug. Awesome.

I will surely try summoning cheese again.

December 22, 2009

A girl and her baby went into a washing machine, thinking it was a portal to another world. They died, their blank bloated faces smeared across the window, her gooseberry green eyes staring out at us. An old dowager sang a song of mourning, and both mother and child emerged from the brick building unscathed.

I know I've been inactive lately. First I went home for Christmas break and my lucid dreaming ability went away entirely. Then I came back to school and the ability didn't return with me. I'm sure it doesn't help that I haven't been keeping a dream journal. I've heard lots of voices recently, though, which I have recorded.

January 7, 2010

Failed DEILD.

I got out of bed and opened the window, only vaguely aware of the icy cold wind battering through it. I threw off my robe. My arms elongated until they were bone-thin and thumped heavily against the carpeted floor. Talons cut from my sharp-angling elbows. I stepped up onto the windowframe and crouched there for a moment, watching the dawn rising pink on the snow, my mouth curled contemptuously, almost ferally. Then I leapt.

WTVS: "My name is Cuthbert! I'm a maaaaaagical faaaaaairy!"
"A heart rate is unremittant."
"Crimecicles."
"Go ahead, you relative buttplace!"
"The roaring sound of architecture."
"The reason we have wings are blooming."
"Crawl inside the summer cables. Today they're smaller."
"To have breathed our own liters, breathed of our own teeth."
"A wee vat of stolen infinity."

February 7, 2010

There was a wedding. I searched the suburbs for a family party. Found them in a green-roofed Victorian house whose first floor was perched on a concrete block ten feet off the ground. Sat on the encircling porch with my relatives, looking out at the city lights and telling old stories.

February 8, 2010

I was a man in a dark house with wide open windows, fearing robbery and reading a book by M. K. Hobson.

WTVS: "Can I touch your negative spaces?"

February 10, 2010

The house was going to explode. I spent way too much time looking for my shoes. There were baby shoes everywhere.

February 11, 2010

I was in a castle, squirreling away supplies for the apocalypse. A disembodied voice told me to put on a jean jacket and beaver hat for that "deranged woodsman look". I complied.

February 18, 2010

I slid on my socks over the slick floors of the university. A boy killed his baby brother by knocking his head with a tuna can. Party lights flashed everywhere. I made some friends in a giant dorm room full of beds and couches and sheets spattered with vomit.

WTVS: "Red Alto! Do you read me? The servants are at the butcher!"
"Brighten up, Benjamin Franklin."

February 27, 2010

There was a tiny oil rig where superheroes were forced to live against their will. Whenever someone tried to escape or disobeyed the rules, they were thrown over the side to drown. At first I was a participant, and my power was flight (dampened by their drugs) but I became nothing more than a bystander.

It was revealed that there were organisms descended from humans that lived under the rig. It was thought that they were children of a possible secret water-breather who had been thrown to the waves. There was a big scandal, because the rig's resident mind-reader had claimed that he hadn't felt any intelligent life in the ocean.

March 1, 2010

You know the genre blacksploitation? My subconscious decided to invent a genre called whiteploitation. According to the dream, The Chronicles of Narnia falls into that category.

March 4, 2010

I chased Katie through a series of concert venues and movie sets. We waltzed. When I woke up, I had dredged up all those feelings of self-loathing and inadequacy again.

March 6, 2010

Yes! My first lucid of 2010! It's been too long. I missed that feeling of rising out of my body.

I did typical DEILD stuff. Looked in the mirror and morphed my body. Got drunk on dream shots. Summoned a lady and made out with her. Actually, I tried to summon my dream guide Deleela, but she never arrived. Soon lost lucidity and went on to do stuff that I don't much remember, like visit the crazy cat lady who pays for my scholarship. (Note: my college actually pays for my scholarship.)

***

I lived in a world where people lived on ships and houseboats, where it was perpetually night and fire was the only source of light. You access this world through an EXIT door in a movie theater, and once you've been there it's extremely difficult to remember that you came from somewhere else.

I was helping a woman paint a ship's deck with lines of gold paint and suddenly remembered my origins. I led all the people across the sea to escape, but was it really an escape? The real world is even more depressing.

March 8, 2010

A corporation adopted a bunch of orphaned children and got old Celtic words tattooed on their backs so that they could be living advertisements when they turned six years old. Then artsy black-and-white photos were taken of the children, who had been nearly starved to show how hungry they were for whatever restaurant chain they advertised, except for one fat kid who was supposed to appeal to "plus size readers."

March 12, 2010

When I'm not myself in a dream, I'm always an unnamed male. I was a boy on a bobsled.

I tried to DEILD a few times and I accomplished it twice briefly but it was too late in the morning and my body wouldn't stay asleep.

March 18, 2010

I was a man in a batman costume. I stole from a convenience store and leapt onto the roofs of skyscrapers to get away. I walked down a spiral staircase. An army of clones lived in the building. My long-lost mother was a midget. I hopped on a streetcar at night to get away.

In the early morning I tried to DEILD but some asshole called my phone and it kept buzzing every few minutes to remind me.

March 19, 2010

There was a kind of separate reality that people could retreat to and still be able to communicate with others. Everyone had a place in the reality where they went if their lives were in danger so their loved ones could find them.

I was on the back of a goose that circled higher and higher.

WTVS: "A streetcar named Bill."

March 22, 2010

Anxious grocery shopping dream.