Thread: LiveInTheDream's Public Dream Journal

Again, I tried playing with my WBTB time in hopes of allowing longer time for dreams, which again did not work, and in fact made the entire night be fruitless...I don't remember anything about my dreams except that in the last one of the night, I was thinking about how I couldn't remember my dreams. I wasn't lucid; just ignorant

I'd say that's about enough playing with WBTB time...I know what works the best by alarm, and if I wake up without an alarm, it works even better and more often. Maybe I should focus more on methods of waking myself up without an alarm...even though waking up by alarm at 5:21am has given me lucids in the past, it hasn't been working lately, whereas naturally waking up has. Time to really start pushing for MILD!

Last night I went to bed with the intention of doing a TotM; namely, to complete the basic challenge of drinking a glass of champagne. (As a side note, in real life I wouldn't drink that stuff, but it's a dream for crying out loud! ) I fell asleep too quickly to do a good MILD, and had a nightmare that I don't remember anymore. When I woke up from that, I tried to MILD, but again fell asleep before I could finish up with the visualization stage, so no good came of that. I did have a long and memorable dream after that, though! I wasn't far from succeeding at the TotM, seeing as it took place on New Years, and multiple times I saw glasses of champagne in the background, but I never went lucid, so in the end, I never actually made use of them, and failed at the TotM this time. I'll keep trying, though!

Here's the dream. It was more like a movie than a dream, though. Most of it was in third-person, and what I was seeing changed like a camera in a movie, moving from shot to shot, angle to angle. I wasn't even physically present the entire time, even though I knew I (or my character in the 'movie') was elsewhere and active.

We were having a new years party at my house and all was going well when police burst in and started taking everyone out. I ran all over the place, trying to get other people out of the house and to safety, but the police had surrounded the building and so no one escaped. Eventually it was just me, standing in the middle of the place, with the front door to my left and the back door to my right, knowing that police were on both sides. I was considering which would be the best possible escape when two clones of Agent Smith (from the Matrix films) walked in the front door. I chose right then to escape through the back. Police were there, as expected, but I was scared enough of Smith that I was able to take down both of the officers in my way and make a break for it after climbing over the fence. Smith watched the whole thing from inside, and said not a word. His two clones simply turned and looked at each other, then at the unconscious police on the ground.

Next thing I knew, I was at a dream friend's house....which was more like a mansion. I told him my situation, and he took me inside and promised that I'd be safe there. I turned around and saw a bunch of girls who were sitting around a counter. I thought about joining them, but just then I saw something through a window. It was Smith, circling the house with his many clones, looking for me. My friend saw it as well. "Quick!" he said. "Come with me!" He pulled my arm and led me down a few stairs in a staircase. "Why are we stopping?" I asked. "9...10...11." He said, counting the stairs we had descended. "Yep, this is the right one!" Then he pressed his hand against the wall, and it slid inward, then moved aside. It wasn't a big gap, but turned sideways we easily fit through. Once inside, my dream friend closed the wall and then led me down a few more stairs into a small, unlit basketball court with a very low ceiling (about seven feet was all). The wall on the right was a solid tinted window overlooking a full-size court with goals and a scoreboard and everything. "Wait here." He said. "I'll take care of Smith." I nodded to him and watched him leave. Having nothing else to do, I proceeded to examine the secret room. Machines were lined up against all the walls, standing about three feet tall and two feet wide. I couldn't tell what exactly they were for. My puzzlement increased when I made it to the end of the small court and found a passage on the left wall that led to at least 5 other courts just like this one. I took a couple steps backwards after peering in at the other courts, and bumped into something. Turning around, I saw the biggest of all the machines. It was around 5 feet tall and 6 feet wide. At the top of it was a tall screw with wires wrapped around it. A nut sat on the very top, barely screwed on at all. "That won't make a very good connection..." I thought as I began to screw the nut down closer to the wires. When I was just about to screw it all the way down on the wires, my friend returned. "Wait! No!" He shouted. But it was too late; the nut was down hard enough on the wires to make them connect. Lights came on in the small courts and in the large court. A buzzer sounded, and I knew Smith would hear. "Oh, no..." I said. Then I noticed something out the window. "Hey! That's me down there...on the big court!" "It's a hologram." My friend explained. "This room projects holograms from the small courts onto the big ones!" Just then, a few Smith clones burst into the large court. They saw my hologram standing there. "Going somewhere, Mr. Anderson?" one of them said in Smith's usual, devious way. They all ran at my hologram and tried to take it down, which obviously didn't go very well. While they were distracted, the real me ran for the exit. Unfortunately, that caused the holographic me to do the same thing, so Smith knew which direction I was headed.

As soon as I reached the stairway outside, I could hear another Smith talking to the girls at the counter, asking them if they knew anything about me. "Good thing I didn't talk to them!" I thought as I crouched low on the stairs, waiting to see what Smith's next move would be. When he concluded that the girls honestly knew nothing, he pulled out a radio device and told the other clones. It was then that I noticed he had a couple suitcases next to him, one on each side. Somehow they just couldn't be good. Bombs, perhaps? I took one look at those innocent girls and knew that I could not let anyone be hurt or killed because of my presence there. While Smith was on his radio, I ran up and swiped the case on his left and made a mad dash for the door. Smith and his clones all started to pursue me, of course, but somehow I managed to escape into a forest before they could catch me. Being night, I was totally hidden, and eventually they gave up the search and left. It was then that I had the chance to open the suitcase and find out what was inside. "Robots?!" Yep; the suitcase was filled with a bunch of little robot toys. "This must not have been Smith's...it was leaning up against the counter's base...I just assumed it was his, too, since he was right next to it!"

Meanwhile, Smith brought the other suitcase back to his boss. I never saw the boss's face, but his hands and voice sounded like that of an old man who was still incredibly strong and powerful. "A bomb?" He said. "You kept the bomb in my box? This was supposed to be used, not returned!" "I know, sir," Smith explained, "but he got away too soon." "How could he get away? You will go back and try again!" "Yes, sir."

It was then like someone hit rewind on the dream, and I was back in the small basketball court. The dream played itself out exactly as before, same 'camera' angles, same lines, same everything. I took the wrong case again and fled again, all exactly as before. Smith's boss even said the same things and told him to try again. The dream rewound again, and played out just the same. Smith's boss rewound it after that, too, setting the dream to play from the courts up to the part with Smith and his boss. The dream rewound one more time, but this time, something was different.

When I saw the big machine with the screw on the top, I decided not to screw the nut down. So my friend came back, and not in a panic. "Ok, I've done all I can." He said. "Smith doesn't believe me when I say you're not here. There's another passage similar to this one, on stair 23. Only it will lead you outside, and to a car. Here are the keys; get out of here, go wherever is safe!" "Thanks. I've just got one thing I need to take care of first." I went outside and waited for the Smith who talked to the girls to get on his radio. Then I ran up, grabbed the proper suitcase, swung it around and smacked him in the face, and then ran down to stair 23. I was inside and closed the wall behind me by the time Smith was up and chasing me again. He ran right past the secret passage in the wall. I made it safely outside, got in the car, and used the toolbox that was in the back seat to deactivate the bomb.

The next thing I saw was Smith talking to his boss. Fortunately, things worked out a bit differently this time. "Toys?" The boss said. "You brought me back a bunch of geeky robot toys in my box?! Smith, you are FIRED!"

And then I woke up. It wasn't lucid, but hey, it was pretty nice for a regular dream, imo

(Sorry there was no entry yesterday...really there was nothing to report, but what really happened is I just totally forgot )

Tried to WILD last night...it was my first attempt to do so for a little while. I figured that by taking a short break from trying, I'd increase my chances of success. I was right.

It wasn't long (about half an hour) before I was in SP in full, seeing tons of increasingly vivid HI, and feeling myself slipping into the dream state, still maintaining the proper level of consciousness. But then something weird happened. My eyelids started to quiver, and then they nearly opened--for real, not in the dream, like I was expecting--I successfully stabilized them, but not without losing the HI, and weakening the SP a bit. I tried just waiting for more HI to come, but when it did, I never reached the dream state, and it just disappeared within a few seconds.

When I opened my eyes and admitted defeat, it turned out that a couple hours had passed in this dreamless sleep paralysis, which felt really strange, because even though I had been conscious the whole time, it felt like I had actually slept for a while. I mean, it was kind of cool, being conscious while being asleep, but I'd much rather have lucid dreams than spend all night just waiting for the night to be over!

It was doubtful that WILD would succeed after that, so I tried just to DILD. Problem was, my sleep schedule was so messed up by that point that it took me a very long time to get into a dream state; I kept just slipping back into that waking sleep. When I finally did dream, it was like my vision was blurry and my hearing was bad; all that I could get out of the dream was a couple people standing in front of me, telling me things that I couldn't hear well enough to understand. I couldn't make out their faces, either. But suddenly, one of them put their hand on my shoulder and turned me to face a holographic image. In that moment I saw that I was in some science lab like the one from Avatar. "I suppose you're one of them, now." The person said, pointing to the image, which I saw was a group of Na'vi. "You better get in your body."

That's all I remember. I guess I've officially jumped on the bandwagon of Avatar dreaming...maybe I can actually go lucid and visit Pandora again sometime

I think trying a different method of induction every night is messing me up. I haven't done the exact same thing even twice in a row for a while, and actually, the last time I did the same thing twice in a row was the last time I had a lucid dream

So if you haven't guessed...no lucids. Again. I remembered one dream pretty well, though.

I was in some building with great architecture...it looked to be a couple hundred years old, at least. And this was a huge building I'm talking about. I went in there because of impression and because it was rigged to look like some store. But as soon as I got inside, I realized it was far different than what the outside made it out to be. I was denied exit; guards and hovering robot cameras all watched me, and if I tried to leave, they would see to it that I didn't make it out. I tried every traditional exit, and when that failed, I tried windows and rooftops as well. Still I was caught every time and forced to stay. Eventually admitting defeat, I sagged against the wall and slid to the floor. But then I felt something...the wall was giving way. After waiting for the hovering robot to pass by on its patrol, I pushed in on the brick wall, and found several of them to be loose. Pretty soon there was a hole just big enough for me to go through, so I did, and then I ran. I was in some sort of sewer system, but I just ignored the flow of...water, on the ground. Of course the robots found the whole and started to chase after me, so I hid every place I could as I went along. It took me hours, but finally I found a manhole cover that got me out of there. My first reaction to being free was to warn others not to go inside, but they either ignored me or told me I was crazy. Once, I noticed someone walking up the steps to the building's entrance, and I ran up to stop her, but she just looked angry and told me, "I come in and out of here all the time! What makes you think you have any business telling me what not to do, beggar?" "Beggar?" I thought. Then I looked at myself. Running all over the place, (and through the sewers) had left me dirty, smelly, and with holes in my clothes in several places. I cautiously followed her inside, and I noticed my dad sitting on a bench next to the door. "Dad, come on, we've got to get out of here now!" "Where have you been?" My dad asked. "I was waiting for you; I thought you were in here." "I was, but they wouldn't let me leave!" "What?" Just then, that woman walked by and straight out the door, and the security guard tipped his hat to her. I grabbed the guard by the neck, feeling as dirty as I looked. I wanted to strangle him for having stopped me, but now acting like it never happened so as to make me seem like the madman. There was a short scuffle, but eventually I was thrown out the door, and everyone thought I was crazy. I ran off, and woke up.

Very frustrating dream.

If only I had realized it was a dream, then I could have changed it! I really want to lucid dream about Pandora...a five-second non-lucid dream about it just isn't good enough for me.

Well, I figure it's time for me to have a consistent LD schedule. Ever since I started lucid dreaming, it's been really inconsistent. Everything was still an experiment, so I suppose it was appropriate for the time. But now, I know how the different methods work, and it's high time for me to go for one and stick with it for a while.

So hit reboot on the operation...I'm starting over from the beginning with the hopes of enabling myself to LD more frequently and consistently.

The first thing to work on is dream recall, so I focused on that last night. Rather than start thinking about something as soon as I woke up, I remained still and thought back through my dream. When at first I felt I couldn't remember anything, I turned to questioning. "Ok, who was in my dream?" That one worked the best, considering my dreams last night had several people from real life in them. By the time morning came around and dreaming was done, I had successfully recalled 3 dreams!

Dream 1: There was a storm coming. A big, bad one. Even during the day, the sky was darkened with clouds to the point of looking like night. No one knew exactly when the storm would come, but the one thing that was for certain was that when it did, no one would be able to get out and shop for necessities. So I found myself riding from place to place, helping my mom stock up for the storm (I don't remember ever stocking up for myself, though ). The weird thing was, as we drove, it wasn't on normal roads. All of the roads were stacked up vertically, one on top of the other, and each country had its roads located at different heights. We were, of course, in the USA section of roads, but we nearly fell through a hole in the road one time, on our way to a library. "Why are we stopping at the library to stock up for a storm?" I asked. "Because if the power goes out," my mom replied, "we'll need something to do." "Great." So we went inside, and parted ways to look for books that interested us. As I rounded one corner, I saw Brad (a friend IRL) standing there. "Hey!" I said. "Are you stocking up for the storm here, too?" "No, I'm just checking out some books for a chemistry test. Doesn't matter if the whole world closes down; school's going to keep going." "Yeah, that stinks. So did you get a chance to try out the mod yet?" (I made a game mod for Brad IRL) "Yeah, that was awesome! It worked perfectly! Totally changed the way I played the game. Thanks for that!" I don't remember what we said after that, but it wasn't long before I left the library and told my mom that I would drive her back home...she hadn't driven too well on the way there, which is why we nearly fell through the hole. Didn't do much good, though, because not long after we got going, a lightning bolt struck the road next to the car and knocked it clear off the edge of the road! It fell, down, down, down, until we landed on the roads of Russia. There was no elevator that would simply take us back up to USA roads...and the Russian authorities were not too happy with us getting there without Visa's/passports/anything like that. Off the side of the road, I saw a staircase that looked like it went up to the USA roads...so I began to fight off the Russian police and make my way there, but I woke up too soon. What fight there was was pretty epic, though. It was dark, raining in torrents, and I knew Jujitsu.

Dream 2: This dream was just plain dumb, but for some reason I dreamed it, and I have to recall it, so here it is. Somehow I met up with the replicator man (from recent episodes of Heroes.) Somehow I also found out that he wasn't evil, and had an attraction to Claire Bennet (also from Heroes). He also was afraid that Claire would never like him in return, "Because," he said, "I've been weird around her in the past...and my room is all messy." "What?" "Yeah, I live in a loft...and there's no way a girl would like coming over there with it like I've got it right now." "Well, how about this:" I suggested. "I'll organize your room for you, and then you'll be able to convince Claire to come over and give you a chance. When she sees what's been done, she'll know that you're making honest efforts." "Except you'd be making the effort, not me." He pointed out. "Umm...yeah." "Go ahead and do it." So I did. He wasn't kidding that it was a mess. But magically, I achieved great organization skills and got the place looking really nice. When I had him come look, he pointed to his coin collection. "I had those stacked by value, and you just put them all in a jar! You call that organization?" "Whatever..." So I took the coins out and put them in a coin sorter (I guess I pulled it out of thin air). "There. Happy now?" "Yep." But then, rather than invite Claire over, he got some punk buddy of his to come and play cards and listen to junky music. I mean, seriously, it sounded awful. There was nothing musical about it. "So...when are you going to invite Claire over?" I asked. At first I had no response, because the 'music' was too loud. So I literally killed the stereo with a smash of my fist, then repeated the question. "I did this so you could have Claire over, now when is she coming?" "Alright, alright, I'll call her already...sheesh." He sent his buddy away and pretty soon Claire was there. The stereo was suddenly fixed and he had his crap music playing again. (I cannot believe how dumb this dream is...) He and Claire were sitting on the couch. "So, do you like what I did to the room?" He asked. Claire looked disgusted. "You know...yeah, I like what you did to the room, but...I just don't feel the same way about you as you feel about me. Sorry." So she left. "Ok, whatever, man." He said, totally unhurt. "Hey, turn up the music, will ya?" He said to me as he turned on the TV.

Dream 3: This was kind of dumb, but it was at least entertaining because it was funny. A bunch of extended family members were dropping by one day, pretty unexpectedly. Well, dropping by at my parent's place. I, along with a couple of my brothers and sisters, were already at my parent's house, and that's also where the extended family was dropping by. Everyone seemed pretty worried about the food situation. "All we have is meatloaf!" My mom said. "Well, why not just make more of it?" I suggested. "You just can't do that with meatloaf!" "Why not?" "Because meatloaf just doesn't work that way." "Wow, ok..." and I backed off. Everyone else started to join in on fretting about the food, and it was bugging me, so I went upstairs and checked my email on the computer. I don't remember what was there, but it was enough to keep me busy until everyone was at the table and ready to eat. When I came down, every seat was filled, so I was going to head off to grab another chair, when I heard someone comment about the lack of food again. "Just try making more!" "No! But you just can't do that with meatloaf! It won't work!" everyone shouted at me. So I just went to grab the chair. When I got back to the dining room with it, I was told there was no room left. "I'll just go to the corner...I can hold the plate in my lap or something." "No! No!" They shouted. "There's just no room!" "Oh, so it's like the meatloaf?" I asked, frustrated. "GAAH! You just can't do that with meatloaf!" my sister shouted angrily. The thing was, I found out they were right about the chair situation. I really couldn't get my chair around to the corner because I kept on bumping everyone with it trying, and that made them all the more upset (and with each bump, the dream got weaker and weaker). "FINE! I'll take my plate upstairs." "No! No! You can't do that." But I did. I walked right into the room with the TV and turned it on. "Can't do that with meatloaf....ha! That's just nonsense." When the TV came on, it was a commercial. "Figures." But I watched the commercial anyway. It was some weird thing about a medicine to fight depression in teen girls. For some reason, its jingle was "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee". Finally, the dream ended and I woke up.

The dreams were obviously nothing special, but hey, I remembered 3 dreams very well in one night of trying when lately I've been doing good to remember even 1! If I keep this up, as well as other aspects of setting a LD schedule, I'm sure I'll start LDing again in no time!

Stupid DC's. They always repeat themselves like that. It's annoying.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Stupid DC's. They always repeat themselves like that. It's annoying.

haha yeah, I know. It's a good thing I was working on dream recall and not having fun dreams...the latter would have been an epic fail

Day 2 of the reboot on my lucid dreaming schedule. No LD's from it yet, but that is to be expected, I suppose. It takes a while to make a habit. But the good thing is, I was successfully able to maintain decent dream recall last night, with the addition of reality checks during the day. Last time I tried doing those two things at once, working this hard at it, it took me days to be able to do one without forgetting to do the other equally as hard.

Three dreams again. So far I've had no need to set alarms; my mind wakes me up after each dream that I remember.

Dream 1: I was at my church, but for some reason the service was not in the main auditorium. Only a handful of people were there, my brother being one of them. The funny thing is, he goes to a different church closer to where he lives. All of a sudden, one of my sisters stood up in the middle of everything that was going on, ran over to my brother, and started crying. And I mean really bawling. IRL, my brother is thinking about moving to another country, and even though nobody mentioned it in the dream, I just knew that was the cause of my sister's tears. The entire service was cancelled because she was making such a big deal, and everyone walked my brother out to his car. Pretty soon, everyone but him and me were crying. He wasn't crying because he was the one that was leaving, so he couldn't miss himself, and I wasn't crying because I understood his purpose for going, and as a guy, going somewhere far away for fulfill that purpose isn't a sad concept to me.

I'm not really sure what to think about that one. Is there a part of me that feels that saddened over him leaving that it got into my dreams? Or is it instead that I see myself as the only one not feeling that saddened over it? This I am not sure.

Dream 2: I was part of some Zune hacking forums. My project: run Windows XP on my Zune 30. It's technologically possible, I suppose. Impractical, since my Zune 30 has no touch screen, but possible. It took the forum guys and me a while, but eventually we figured we were really close to success. I had to go on a trip, so I took my Zune with me and played around with the codes on-board. Not sure how I did that, seeing as there's no keyboard, but somehow I just pressed buttons and the right letters were typed in . Eventually, I actually got it to work! It booted up and loaded properly. I even opened Windows Media Player 11 on it and was able to import all of my Zune's music to it. "Yes!" I shouted, drawing the attention of everyone else in the plane. "Look, look! See! I got Windows XP running on my Zune!" I showed some random guy. I listened to a couple songs, watched a couple video clips...and then woke up.

There's not much question about my mind with that one. Yep, that's how it works, for ya. Always taking handheld computers and using them for things they were never meant to do. I haven't done anything on my Zune, but I ran Linux on my Tungsten E2, so maybe I'll make this dream a reality someday.

Dream 3: I was afraid I was forgetting my previous dreams. I had fallen asleep too quickly to take down notes, or even come up with some catchy phrase that reminds me of the dreams as I usually do. I was in my room, so I woke up my computer (which happened to be running Ubuntu at the time) and OpenOffice was there, with full descriptions of both dreams. I read back through them, and found them to be completely accurate. I finished reading none too soon, since right after I was done I woke up.

Pretty handy dream, I think. If only I could do that every night as my last dream...it would make recall SO much easier

Whelp, those were my dreams from last night! I'll keep working on dream recall and reality checking as I have recently learned from Naiya's excellent tutorials!

FINALLY I WENT LUCID AGAIN!

TWICE!!!

Shout out to Naiya...I totally owe this one to you, since everything I did to go lucid was from your guide!

Ok, so here are the dreams. Not only were they lucid, but they were the most fascinating I've ever had for other respects, too. Unfortunately I forgot to try the TotM because I was too preoccupied with creating an entire world, but surely now that it's constructed in my mind I'll be able to just go there again without having to start from scratch, and I can do the TotM then.

Dream 1: I found myself in a lot of pain. I didn't know why, at first. I was going around some large facility, people everywhere, not understanding why it felt so weird when my feet hit the floor, or when my sleeves brushed up against my arms. But finally, for some reason everyone had to sit on the floor. When I did, I saw that my body was covered with very deep cuts covered by blackened skin. They looked awful; like I'd been through battle or something. There was no blood, though, interestingly. Suddenly there was a bottle of lotion next to me, and I started to put it on with the hopes of it at least easing the pain while we had to sit down. I simply loaded several of the cuts with lotion so that it was filled to the skin level...at least it sort of made me look whole again. Didn't help the pain, though...it actually stung like nothing else! Something happened then that I can't remember, but it made me look up, and then back down again. When I saw myself again, the cuts had been filled in, not with lotion, but with skin, and the pain was gone from those places! Of course I then did the same thing to the rest of the cuts, and before long, the pain was gone and so were the cuts! Even though I was glad, I was having this weird feeling...like something wasn't exactly right.

I found myself in a bathroom then, putting the lotion bottle back in its place. It was then that I realized what that feeling was, and the impulse to reality check broke through. The first one (asking "what was the last thing I did?") failed; I answered mentally not with "I went to bed" but with all the things I had done in the dream. The second one (asking "how did I get here?") puzzled me a bit, but still didn't make me lucid. The third one (asking "what makes me think this is real) ultimately succeeded, because it prompted me to do other reality checks, like pinching my nose, which made me go lucid!

"What!?" I shouted. There was genuine surprise in the words. I totally did NOT expect to discover that I was dreaming. But I knew for certain that I was, now. "Finally I won't be wasting time in my dreams! See you later!" I said to my reflection in the mirror. I turned to the bathroom door and walked out, thinking "Pandora" in my mind. But where I went was far from Pandora, and it is possibly the most fascinating thing I've ever experienced in a dream.

I was in a colorless room; the walls, floor, and ceiling were all simply shades of dull gray. Hundreds of doors lined every wall of the seemingly endless room. There was no light source in the room, yet it was not dark. People were everywhere...real people. Not one fictional character, not even a real person who was misrepresented in bodily form. But they were, from what I could tell, all 'bluepills', all dreaming without being lucid. Somehow I knew they were dreaming, though. As I went around the room, I saw the dreams of numerous people going on, in the many corners or alcoves that were available. Each place had a little set up as if for a school play, only it was what was making up each person's dream. Everyone was so dream-dead, they never once got the chance to turn around and see the truth about where they were. "Ok, time to go to Pandora." I said, after concluding that this was definitely NOT the place I had intended to go. "When I turn around, I'll be in Pandora." I said. But it didn't work. Suddenly I saw someone come tearing out of the crowd of people and rush for a door. They were moving too fast for me to see who they were. But I could move fast too, and so I got to the door and put my fingers between it and the frame as it closed. Just barely kept it open, too. "Ok. On the other side of this door is Pandora." I opened the door, but what I found was not Pandora, but this guy who had run through the door creating his own world, vastly different than anything from Avatar. "I must need to find my own door." But I didn't want anyone to follow me, so it was a while before I found a suitable door to use, without people crowding all around it. "On the other side of this door is Pandora." I opened it then, and found my words to be true. I shut the door behind me as fast as I could, but a couple of my friends made it through. Since they were friends I didn't mind; but I wasn't going to let bluepills into my Pandora. "Ok guys, you need to go lucid." I said, stopping them. "What do you mean?" They asked. One of them rolled his eyes and went back through the door. The other one, Josh, stayed behind. "You're in a dream. You need to be aware of that fact. Here. Pinch your nose and try to breath in. If this is a dream, you'll be able to do it. If it's not a dream, you won't." Josh tried it, and his eyes lit up. "Woah! I'm...what did you call it? Lucid?" "Yeah, you got it!" Josh cheered and ran off. I just laughed and went about my business.

I was definitely in Pandora, but as I ran up to the Hometree, I was disappointed to find only the stump left behind. Smoke rose from the charred vegetation on the ground. It looked as if the climactic battle had taken place there. At first I tried passively changing that. I turned my back to the tree and said, "when I turn around, everything's going to be good again; there will be thousands of trees, and amazing plants, and everything from the Pandora that I know!" But it didn't quite work out like that. The smoke was gone, but Hometree still was a stump, and though there were trees, they were not even close to the right kind. I gave up on that and just tried controlling it. I held out my hand. "Trees!" I said, and trees rose up from the ground. "Flowers!" And flowers bloomed on all the trees, growing their vines around the trunks instantly. "Vegetation!" And all the cool Pandora plants that I don't know the names of rose up from the ground where they belonged. In this process, I also noticed that Hometree had become whole again. Knowing it had been a workout, I rubbed my hands together to bring back full clarity. "Well that's more like it! Now to find Neytiri." I took a step forward and imagined myself turning instantly into a Na'vi, particularly the Na'vi that I had photoshopped myself to be IRL. As I passed by a pool of water, I looked at my reflection, and saw that my face matched that picture perfectly! I was fully Na'vi, but it didn't remain so for long. After searching for Neytiri for a few minutes and not finding her to be where I expected, the dream faded, and with it faded my Na'vi body. Soon, I woke up.

That dream has so much possible shared content it's unbelievable. Do all dreams really take place in that room, and if we could only go lucid enough to look away, we'd see where we truly were? And I had very little dream control there...I couldn't usurp the dreams of others, even those who went through the doors. And did my friend really go lucid when I told him to, or was he just a DC who did what I expected? Of course...why then would my other friend have left, when I expected him to do the same as Josh? I'll have to ask a few people about their dreams and see if any of what I saw sounds familiar to them.

Dream 2: I was walking through a row of bunkbeds in a dark room, when again that urge to reality check came to me. I was short of time, so I just pinched my nose, but was surprised when I was able to breath in. "What? Really?" I tried it again, and was thrilled to realize that I was indeed dreaming again! I wasted no time; I teleported myself right back to Pandora, and was happy to find it exactly as I'd left it. "Now to find Neytiri!" At first I tried doing passive control again, but that resulted in a 1-foot tall version of Neytiri! "You've got to be kidding me!" I tried just to make her bigger, but that turned her into a stack of boxes. "This isn't going so well...time for force control!" But then, rather than create Neytiri, I created an entire horde of Na'vi! They started running all over the place and doing their daily stuff, which was great, but I still hadn't succeeded. So I started looking around, and finally I saw her! Her name appeared above her head, and things sort of went non-lucid again. I think the nametag made me think too much like a video game, and suddenly I found myself in an armored human vehicle with a turret mounted on the back. They were shooting at the Na'vi. "No! Stop!" I shouted, beating the soldiers with whatever strength I had. I killed the driver, which effectively let the Na'vi get ahead, but I couldn't take out the gunners before one of them knocked me on the head and put me unconscious...also waking me up.

I sure hope the Na'vi were ok... I fully intend to go back there very soon. I guess if any of them are hurt I can just patch them up with lotion, since apparently that heals everything

Dream 3: I lost my video camera. When, where, how, I don't know, but I lost it. And I knew I had lost it. I was on a tram going on a tour through the universe, and asking everyone if they knew where my camera was. No one did. When we reached Pandora, I wanted to either cry or kill whoever made me lose my camera; I couldn't decide which. "We're in Pandora and I can't even get a video of it! This is awful!" I kept going around, but no luck finding the camera. The DC's weren't very helpful, since none of them were people IRL. One of them kept taunting me and saying that my camera was stolen, and I was right there when it happened, and yet I didn't do anything about it. That just made me angry.

I don't know when exactly I woke up, but eventually I did. Thank goodness...dumb non-lucid dreams...

Other than the non-lucid junk at the end, this was the best night I've ever had! Dream control was better than ever (even though there's room for improvement), clarity was fantastic, and it was in Pandora! I'm definitely going to keep on reality checking...let's do this again every night!

Man, I really botched dream recall last night! I remember having 1 lucid and 3 non-lucids, but since I didn't keep my mind silent and my body still upon awakening, all that's left is a vague image or situation in each one

I'm not in doubt that I was lucid for one dream, though. I remember doing the reality check and becoming lucid quite clearly. It's just what happens after that that I'm not sure about.

Two lucids again last night, and I remembered to remain bodily still and mentally calm long enough to recall them!

Dream 1: I was talking with a small group of friends (including a girl who shall remain nameless) when I did my reality checks and found myself to be dreaming. Suddenly that impulse to go to Pandora returned, but it was instantly counteracted by a desire to remain with this girl in particular. "I'm really sorry," I said to her, interrupting the conversation. "I really have to leave." But then I had an idea. "But...wait a second! You can come with me!" "Really?" She asked, puzzled. "Where to?" "Come here and just hold on to me." She did, so I picked her up and flew right out of that building, right through the roof, out into the world. She smiled and laughed as I soared through the air, holding on to her the whole time. It felt so real it was incredible. Every sense save taste was fully employed. I could feel the wind on us and see it blowing her hair, I could hear her laughter, see her smile...it was...well, incredible, as I said. When I saw how much she enjoyed just flying around, I totally lost my desire to leave her and go to Pandora, so we went everywhere either of us could think of, the whole time building up a sort of romantic feeling. Eventually, after flying over rushing seas, forests full of trees, mountains, plains, and every other beautiful scene on earth, that feeling reached such a climax that we couldn't hold back any longer. So I turned and looked at her, and she at me, and right there, over the earth, late at night, in the air, below the stars, we kissed. And oh boy did that ever feel real and amazing! I was suddenly filled with such a passion that I shot straight up out of the earth and deep into space. I showed her the moon, nebulae, stars, the whole way feeling her head pressed against mine. If ever there was a dream that I did not want to wake up from, this was it, but unfortunately, all dreams must come to an end, and so I soon woke up. How I stayed calm long enough to recall it all I don't know, but I sure am glad I did!

Dream 2: I'm not sure where I went lucid in this one, but I was lucid, and that girl was nowhere to be found. Rather than look for her, I decided that I would go to Pandora again. However, my lucidity was not as strong this time, so attempting to teleport there failed. So I tried flying. After all, Pandora is part of the Alpha Centauri system which is visible off the earth's southern hemisphere, right? So all I really had to do was fly there. I shot out into space as fast as I could, flying superman style, my hands out in front of me. It was pretty amazing, because I could see light reflecting off of my arms in incredible realism. However, before I could reach Pandora, I came across a Star Destroyer and a Rebel frigate, among hundreds of smaller star fighters that were all engaged in intense combat. "Well I can end this before going to Pandora!" I thought. Dodging tie fighters, I flew right up to the Star Destroyer and landed on the nose of it. A burning tie crashed onto the destroyer right next to me, causing the metal to dent and burn, all reflecting light as if fully real. It also knocked me down. But I got up and kept moving forward. Eventually I found what I was looking for: empty escape pod tubes. The weird thing was that as I went down the tubes, it turned out they were very long and windy. "These aren't escape pod tubes..." But I soon found out what they were. Flames shot through the tunnels, coming up after me. Of course I wasn't afraid, because being lucid meant that I was aware that none of what I was seeing existed. The fire swirled all around me and shot out of the tubes in the form of a laser, leaving me totally unharmed. I had a moment of third person, seeing the laser destroy multiple rebel starfighters and do considerable damage to the frigate as well. When I returned to myself, I decided that was enough. I gripped the sides of the tubes, took a deep breath, and then ripped the destroyer in half. That finished the fight, but unfortunately also caused me to lose lucidity. I have only faint ideas of what happened after that, but I never made it to Pandora

If only I had rubbed hands before all of that...it was an amazingly clear dream; all that was missing was full control, which I could have had if lucidity were just a bit more intense. I probably could have made it out of that battle still lucid...oh well.

I had a third dream, but it was non-lucid. I also don't remember a ton about it.

Dream 3: Somehow, I had learned in an old castle that I had family ties to King Arthur, and that the whole King Arthur myth was not a myth, and that the magical sword Excalibur was a rightful part of my family inheritance. All that I had to do was find it, and other great treasures, in the castle. Of course with a fortune like that, there was a villain trying to find it first and pose as a descendant himself. He nearly did, too, but eventually I beat him in a sword fight and took Excalibur as my own.

All in all, a decent night of dreaming. I'm starting to feel good about consistent DILDing!

Didn't LD or recall last night...pretty much to be expected. I never get a chance to RC on Sundays, and my sleep schedule gets thrown off.

I'll do better tonight!

reality check, reality check, reality check, reality check....

Wow, last weekend must have messed up my LDing worse than I thought

I kept moving last night and letting my mind get distracted with other thoughts when I woke up, so I kept forgetting my dreams. I remember having at least 4, but I haven't the slightest idea of what the first three were. I'm positive none were lucid. Fortunately, with that last one, I was able to catch myself and remain still and silent to think about my dream. Not that it's much worth recalling, but hey, it's better than nothing.

I was keeping up with a house owned by a family that I know (IRL). They were on vacation and asked me to check their mail for them and do a couple other little things. Their daughter (who I have an...interesting history with) stayed behind, but she had to be out all day, which was why they asked me instead of her. Several days went by just fine, except for a strange woman who kept coming and asking if anyone of that family was there. When I told her 'no', she acted like she left, but I caught her stalking the place several times. A couple days, the daughter got home early, and actually was there when the woman (whose name, I learned from the daughter, was Maggie) asked if anyone besides me was home. Feeling a level of responsibility for protecting the daughter (if for no other reason, to help make up for our complicated and not-so-positive past), I still told Maggie 'no'. Somehow she knew I was lying; she persisted this time, but I refused to let her in. Eventually she left, but I knew there was trouble soon to come.

Finally, it reached the last day for this family to be on vacation, and for me to be at their house. Every time the daughter got home early, it was awkward between us. Neither of us really spoke. I decided to make the best of this last day. When the daughter got home, I looked her square in the eye, and cheerfully said, "Hello! Sorry I'm always at your house...I guess this is it, though!" She didn't respond as positively as I had hoped. "Yeah...I guess so." I didn't blame her, considering what we'd been through. I started to gather up my things. "Actually, I'm pretty much done around here, so I can go right now." "Ok." The daughter said. After a moment, she stopped me. "Hey! Um...thanks. You did a lot of work this week, and...well, I appreciate it." I smiled and prepared to leave. But just then, Maggie burst into the room. "What do you think you're doing!?" She shouted at the daughter. "After what he's done? You're just going to let him go? And thank him!?" and then Maggie prepared to spit out a bunch of dumb ideologies and philosophies about life. I can't remember exactly what they were, but think along the lines of "embrace your anger; make the dark side your ally." I had had just about enough of Maggie. So I grabbed a nearby PVC pipe, watched as Maggie turned to rant at the daughter, and then, when no one was looking at me, I took a swing at her, landing a blow right on the head. She turned around and glared at me something awful, then grabbed at the pipe as I swung again. She was incredibly strong, and snapped the Pipe in half like it was a toothpick. Unfortunately for her, this left a jagged edge to my half of the pipe, turning it into a very vicious weapon. We went back and forth, exchanging blows, blocking each others, and even though Maggie was unarmed, it took me a long while to land enough damage to weaken her. Eventually, though, I took a spin and plunged the sharp end of the pipe right into Maggie's stomach, knocking her back onto a nearby bed. She knew she was done for, so again she resumed spitting out dumb ideologies. The worst part of it was, that as I glanced at the daughter, I could see she was giving in and beginning to believe Maggie's words. "Can't you see he hates you for believing me!?" Maggie shouted. The daughter dropped to her knees and began to cry. I stood motionless for a moment, the PVC pipe raised and ready to finish off the strange woman. I had her incapacitated for a moment, so I lowered the pipe and carefully approached the crying daughter. I gently laid a hand on her shoulder. "I really don't hate you." She looked up at me. "I hate the devil; I do not hate the deceived." I extended a hand to help the daughter up, but it was also as a way to declare her side in the battle, and all three of us knew it. Maggie resumed her rant, but it didn't stop the daughter from taking my hand and standing up. "Go." She said. With that, I smashed the PVC pipe down on Maggie, which turned her face blue, and the next turned all of her skin blue, and the next turned everything--teeth, eyes, hair--blue, and then one last blow made a light shoot from her eyes and mouth, and then disintegrate her, just like Smith on the third Matrix. Actually, somehow I knew then that she was Smith, just in disguise. I woke up soon after that.

Just as a sidenote to this dream, I don't generally go around and beat people up with PVC pipes

I'm not sure how I didn't go lucid last night. My guess is that everything was just so normal, and my dream memory just barely bad enough to keep me from reality checking in full, that I never even noticed the possibility that I was dreaming

See what I mean in these two dreams I recalled (I was able to remain still when I woke up and think about the dreams this time!)

Dream 1: All was as normal as could be; I went about my day as I would go about any day. That kind of makes a long story short, because the dream was long and vivid, but hey, it was normal, so why waste time on that stuff? Anyway, at one point, I stopped to tell my brother about lucid dreaming. When I got to reality checking, he was kind of confused. "Why would I ask myself if I'm dreaming when I know I'm not?" "You want to ask that when you are in a dream. The only reason you ask during the day is so that you'll remember to in that dream." After that I had to leave and run some errands, and the normalness returned, but I kept thinking about reality checking.

So close...but not close enough.

Dream 2: My mom was telling me how she had been unable to get to sleep lately. "I don't have that problem anymore." I said. "I just put myself into sleep paralysis and I go right to sleep!" "Oh really?" She replied. "How do you do that?" "Well, it's simple." And then I went through the process, mentioning the possibility of lucid dreaming with the WILD method.

Honestly that's all I remember from that second dream...it wasn't very clear to begin with. But the fact that both dreams have a lot to do with lucid dreaming tells me that I'm close. I had other dreams, too, (I just couldn't remember them because I slept all night long instead of waking up three or four times as usual) and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they had similar content. I guess today I better beef up my RCing and see what happens!

Wow, my dream recall EXPLODED last night! None were lucid, but I came pretty close a couple times. Memories from real life got in more than once, and as each dream went on I started to question how it was possible. I didn't get any farther than that, though. I think I need to slightly tweak how I'm reality checking...


Dream 1: Well, I did it. Remember the girl I had flown around in my previous dream? I saw her again, and this time asked if she would go out on a date. She accepted, and we made plans before going our separate ways. That night on facebook we both changed our relationship status, and I started to be in disbelief about the whole situation. Questions started to arise concerning the impossibility of all of this, but I just accepted it as a fact that these things always work out in unbelievable ways and didn't RC.

I woke up for a short while after each dream, but basically rolled over and re-entered the same one.

Dream 2: We were actually going out on the date now. Sadly, I don't remember much of what happened, but the restaurant was nice and the food was good.

Dream 3: A few of my friends and I decided to make a movie, and I guess my church building was the best location for it, because we decided to take a night and film there all night long. When everyone was there and we had laid all of our stuff in one of the rooms, I remember one of my friends commenting that he saw my relationship status on facebook. I told him it was true, and even talked a little about the date. Once the camera was set up and ready to go, however, I sort of put that aside for the sake of making the movie. Everything was going well and we were getting great shots, but when we went outside to do some outdoor filming, there was this weird guy lurking in the shadows. The parking lot lights were on, so we caught a glimpse of his face beneath the black cloak he was wearing. The man was a bit heavy, with a rough-looking goatee, and what looked like brown warpaint on his forehead. He said nothing, he just watched us. We didn't notice him for a long time, even though several of us made comments that we thought we heard something. Of course we decided outdoor shooting was done for the night and we ran inside, locking all the doors to the building. "That thing on his forehead looked like a clan symbol or something," I said. "Who knows how many others he's got out there, hiding? Surrounding the building, even?" It seemed best to stop filming then, so we decided to turn off all the lights and hide in the storage room. It wasn't long before I fell asleep in there. No, I do not remember dreaming in my dream. When I woke up, it was light again, and all of us were safe. For a moment I felt like sleeping had been a good thing, but when I realized I had only gotten about three hours of it, my mind changed. I felt awful; really tired, weak, even shaky. My friends and I attempted to resume filming our movie, but just couldn't act anymore. We ended up calling it a day and heading home to sleep.

Dream 4: I was back home, and apparently had caught up on sleep, because I was feeling fine now. That didn't last long, though. The weird guy in the cloak burst into my house and declared that he was from the government. He had a couple other guys in cheap gray suits with him too, but they were more for threat factor than anything. Seeing I was outnumbered, I let the guy talk. He began by handing me a paper. "You sir," he said, "have been convicted by the federal government for piracy of video game music." "What!?" I shouted. "I legally own the game, don't I? I paid for the music, and I have shared it with no-one. How is ripping it from the disk for personal use piracy?" That stymied him a bit. But then one of his buddies spoke up. "Where did you rip the music to?" "Well, my hard drive." "Oh," the cloaked man said. "The hard drive...tsk tsk tsk." "How does that make it illegal?" A third guy spoke up. "Those songs which you have ripped to your hard drive were available on iTunes for a low price. I believe this game of yours even included links to places where these songs could be purchased for the sake of personal use." "Yeah, well I don't use iTunes, and I paid for the game, which includes the music, so what's wrong with me converting it to MP3's for personal use?" They didn't answer, but just pointed at the paper. "Your court hearing is in three weeks." The cloaked one said. "We'll see you then." He smiled wickedly and then left with his goons. "This is impossible." I said. "This doesn't make any sense...how would they even know that I converted the music?"

Dream 5: Now I was at Walmart, and I just had this knowledge about the fact that I had simply given in and paid for the music to keep from going to jail over it, and that had cleared everything up. Now I was going to pick up a Wii Motion Plus attachment, go home, and use my video games in peace . I walked up to the shelf and saw that there were no Motion Plus's there. "Wait a second, this seems familiar...didn't I already do this?" (Yes, I did, IRL...other than the government coming after me for converting video game music, that is)

Dream 6: My siblings, my parents, and I were on a vacation as a sort of personal family-reunion. We went on a vacation to this weird city...the entire thing was like a massive factory. Oily smoke billowed out of the rooftops of every building there, construction didn't seem to be finished on anything, as pipes and concrete and rusty metal beams were exposed everywhere. It was really a very dirty place...but something about it was attractive, too. I can't remember a whole lot of it as one continuous memory, but I recall first driving into the city by tightly winding, one-lane roads that were mounted up above the city buildings, and then spiraled downward until they reached the ground level. We drove around a bit from there on, checked into our hotel, and then looked around for a good place to eat. The buildings were actually pretty cool from ground level. Most of them were in a style that would have been retro were it not for the pipes and metal patches that made it all look modern. Inside the buildings was pretty cool as well, since all the appliances were steampunk, and the decorations and furniture looked to be a couple hundred years old. It would have made a very cool place for a movie.

So yeah, 6 dreams recalled last night, and never once did I go lucid. There's just something not right about that.

Wow, last night was a good one. Congratulations on meeting up with the girl from the other night. It sounds like you were close to figuring out that one was a dream.

Originally Posted by Robot_Butler

Wow, last night was a good one. Congratulations on meeting up with the girl from the other night. It sounds like you were close to figuring out that one was a dream.

Thanks! Yeah, it's too bad I didn't quite figure it out...I have the hardest time getting an RC to work for very long. Seems like after a week or so it becomes mindless and I can do the RC in a dream without ever realizing I'm dreaming, so I always have to figure something different out...like I'm doing right now

AVATAR FANS: Even though this one isn't lucid, you'll probably want to read it.

Blast! This morning I got woken up by someone knocking loudly on the door, so I didn't have a chance to work on dream recall. Fortunately, I woke up earlier and recalled my first dream of the night, but that's all I get this time.

So here's my one dream:

I was a Na'vi (well, a human in an Avatar) in a Na'vi camp. The odd thing was, I, along with several other Na'vi around me, had tan skin at first. Also, Pandora looked more like New Zealand than Pandora, but a short walk fixed that. Everyone's skin turned blue later on too; I'm not sure when.

We were preparing for war, and it fell to me to scout out the land and set up a few traps designed to stop the initial wave of human ground attack. I did so by running across the thick tree branches like pathways. I had to jump between them and maintain good balance, but somehow it was very easy to do. When I had a good idea of the surrounding territory and good, defensible positions, I went about placing traps. As I placed the last one, an exploding plant they called a 'hermit bud', I heard the footsteps of someone approaching from behind. "Oh no! He heard us!" A Na'vi voice said. It sounded like they dove behind a bush then, so I had a good idea of where to look. When I found the two runaway Na'vi, I grabbed them by their braids and threatened to cut their neural connectors off if they fought back (capitol punishment for a Na'vi). They were cowards, which is why they fled the fight in the first place, so my threat kept them quite cooperative on the way back to the camp.

The Na'vi chief was very impressed with me. I had scouted out the land and set the traps in the best possible places as well as captured and returned two deserters. As the deserters were tied to a post to await punishment, I was given a promotion, effective immediately to...well, I don't know what the Na'vi word for it was, but basically a general. This was great news for most people, but one general, who hated the Avatars, did not take so well to it. He was willing to fight with me as a subordinate, but not an equal. This general happened to be watching as he sat on his Ikran, so in his fury he simply took off and proclaimed he was going to join the humans. The Na'vi chief ordered the archers to take him down, but they were so shocked and flustered that they couldn't get armed in time.

A sinking feeling hit my stomach as I watched the general ride out of sight, unharmed. I imagine everyone else felt it, too, because the chief put a hand on my shoulder and turned me to face him. "You are both human and Na'vi," he said. "Only you can save us now." I didn't like it, but I understood his reasoning. Without their best strategic leader, they would need someone who understood well how human machines worked--and therefore how to break them--to balance out the gap in military strength that was left behind.

"My Name is Lincoln" started playing, as if it were a movie. I was suddenly in red general armor with warpaint (and blue skin now), leading a Na'vi team on Ikran. The sound of hundreds of approaching aircraft rang loud in the air, and it was only a few moments before what we were all dreading appeared: a Dragon Assault Ship, with a swarm of Samson fighters shortly behind. We had little time to think of what to do, as the Dragon's forward guns began picking off Na'vi and their Ikran. Most of us managed to get past the guns, but there was no way we would be able to defeat all of the aircraft with what weapons we had. Thinking quickly, I jumped off my Ikran, drawing my dual blades at the same time, landing on the back of the Dragon, near the back propellers. My blades couldn't instantly pierce the metal of the ship's hull, but they could dent it, and so after several strikes to the propeller's joint to the ship, I was confident I had a weak enough spot to do some damage. I raised both blades over my head and thrust them down, piercing the metal and the machinery beneath, disabling one the propeller. The Dragon lurched, suddenly losing its balance, but I knew the pilot was skilled enough to keep it in the air as it was. There was no more time; we were beginning to near Na'vi ground defenses, and if I took the ship down, it would kill too many of my allies. In a desperate attempt, I ran to the front of the ship and did a flip off the end, throwing one of my blades through the cockpit window and into the pilot inside. My Ikran flew by at just the right moment to catch me as I fell, and then flew away before any damage could be done to us. I looked over my shoulder and watched as the dragon lifted upward and tilted due to the imbalance in propellers, forming a wall for the Samson fighters. The bulk of the fighters couldn't get out of the way in time, and either collided with the Dragon or other Samson's. The few remaining fighters soon found themselves caught in the flames of the resulting explosion, finishing off the human air support with one blow. All airborne Na'vi let out a cheer, but our celebration was cut short. Through the smoke came the defective general, both his Ikran and himself clad in RDA armor. "Go help the ground troops!" I ordered my Na'vi subordinates. "I'll take this one myself!"

Sadly, I can't remember the details of that fight. It was a whirl of spinning, colliding, and exchanging blows, and I was slowly losing, being in the weaker armor. I do remember how the battle ended, though. No matter what I did, I couldn't do damage to the general...until I noticed one single weak spot. I drew my remaining blade and threw it right at the defective Na'vi, cutting his braid (and thus his neural connectors) in half. He was stunned, and so was his Ikran, who now was out of the general's control. It was only a moment before he lost his grip on his ride and fell to the ground, hundreds of feet below.

I could feel my Ikran getting weak, and I myself was bleeding, so I took us back to the camp, where upon landing, I was informed that even with the humans knowing our ground strategy, we had managed to hold them off once my Ikran-mounted soldiers had arrived. That had not been in the original plan, and therefore it surprised the human soldiers and ended up destroying their whole operation. Pandora was ours! Everyone began celebrating, and I soon woke up.

It's really a shame that wasn't a lucid dream, or it would have been really awesome. However, for not being lucid, I had an usual amount of mental presence. Not being lucid is to be expected right now, anyway.

While Naiya's reality checking tutorial is good and worked for me, it only did so because I had a couple days where I had the time to give myself a mental workout. I don't have that kind of time anymore, so I'm tweaking a few things and I believe I've finally found a reality check that is both mental and physical, quick and solid. It's just going to take a few days for it to become a good enough habit to break into my dreams.

Well, that was a weird experience...last night, I mean.

The first dream I had, I went lucid. I didn't have time to do anything, though, because there was a man standing in front of me. "I am The Guardian, and The Guide." He said. I tried moving...and found myself unable to. "Listen to me, because this is very important: you will not be able to dream again tonight. If you follow my instruction, there is a chance you will, but you have to do everything perfectly." He then went on with his instruction, but being unable to move, I gradually lost lucidity and eventuallywoke up.

Weird, weird experience. Especially because...he was right! After that, I couldn't enter SP for long enough to dream. Whether I went into it intentionally or unintentionally, the SP would simply break after a few moments, and I could never hold on to any of the dreams that began to form . I couldn't even remember what the guy had told me to do in order to successfully dream. When it reached 6:00 or so, I managed to dream, but it was another dumb one, and not lucid.

I applied for a job at a cookie dough factory. I didn't get the job, but all of my would-be co-workers really wanted me to get it. This one odd girl especially wouldn't give up on me. She said it was just because I didn't know baking well enough, and that if I created an original recipe to sell to the company, they'd hire me in no time. With her minor assistance, then, I did just that (yep, right in the factory...no one told the manager I was there). It was late in the day by that point, so she told me that she'd keep the first batch of the new recipe in a safe place so I could show it to the manager the next day. That sounded fine to me, but when the next day came, I arrived at the factory to find everyone cheering on this odd girl for her new recipe...which was actually mine! "Oh, you gotta be kidding me!" I said to myself as I turned and left.

I don't think I'll ever understand how some of my dreams can be super-awesome and some can be super-stupid...like that one...

I think my new reality check is working! The great thing is, I should be able to continue to do it every day, even on busy weekends, so hopefully a day without RCs won't have a chance to mess me up anymore!

As you may have guessed, that means I went lucid again last night. And I mean REALLY lucid this time. I've never had a clearer LD before. And even though I didn't remember to go to Pandora like I originally set out to do, it was pretty freaking awesome. I honestly didn't ever want to wake up from it

I'm not exactly sure how I went lucid. The first thing I remember was being lucid, so perhaps I realized I was dreaming from the very beginning. I was in the world of the Matrix, right down to the atmosphere being dark and having the sunglasses and black clothes on.

I found myself in a storage room at the basement level of some building. Currently nothing was happening, so I decided to take the time to really clear up the dream. I walked around and touched everything I saw, enjoying actually having the right sensation for each texture. But eventually I came across a rusted pipe in the wall that felt smooth. "That's not right..." I thought. So I concentrated on what rusty metal should feel like, and gradually the proper sensation came to me. When that was done I rubbed my hands. "I really want this to last a while. Heck, I hope I never wake up!" By now, the dream was as clear as real life...clearer, even. I could forget that I even had a body elsewhere and just live as if this was life. But then I stopped myself. "If I forget this is a dream, I won't be lucid anymore. So I still need to remember that...but how?" Then it hit me. I pinched my nose and breathed in without problem. "Now I know." I said to myself, aloud this time.

Now it was time to have some fun. Being the Matrix, I just had to try out a few moves. Flips, kicks...I could do it all. If it felt like I wasn't going to land right, I'd just suspend myself in the air for a half-second so that I could regain my footing. I intentionally didn't just fly, since that would eliminate all challenge and make things much less enjoyable.

Playtime was over pretty soon, though. Trinity walked up to me from behind a stack of boxes. I didn't think about it at the time, but it was incredible how realistic she was. Not cartoony at all like regular dreams make people. There was seriously no visual difference between seeing her in the dream and seeing her in the second movie. She was in the shiny biker outfit. "Someone's hacking the Matrix," she said. "We have to find him quick. He's causing all sorts of trouble, and who knows what he'll do if he's left to run rampant." We quickly found out. Viperwolves appeared all around us right then. Why this didn't remind me that I was intending to go to Pandora I don't know. Trinity held up her fists and got into a ready position, but I held up a hand in her direction and said, "Hold on, I got this." Then I reached out with my other hand and used telekinesis on the viperwolf nearest to me. It whined in pain as I held it suspended in air, slowly crushing it into a ball. When it gave in and stopped trying to fight, I threw it across the room and into a wooden rail. It smashed right through the wood, breaking the rail and killing the viperwolf. Trinity sharply turned her head towards me as I did the same towards her. We nodded to each other, and then she ran off to drive the viperwolves in my direction, and as they came, I promptly picked them up with a thought and smashed them onto the concrete floor, into the ceiling, or anything else that looked like it would do them damage. Most of the time I only tried to grab one at a time, but for a final, climactic blow, I picked up about five of them at once, crushed them, and then threw them off to the side.

After a few moments of waiting to see if any more would come, I suddenly was drawn out of myself and flown around outside like an invisible security camera. I was 'decoding the Matrix'. Soon, as I was pulled back into my dream body, I nearly fell down from the transition. Trinity saw it, and was worried. "What happened?" She asked, rushing over to me. "I...I saw the hacker." I regained my balance. "He's up three stories. Door to the fire escape. Go!"

We made it outside and looked at the fire escape, but pretty soon a problem became evident to us both. Trinity was the first to speak it out loud. "You say he's coming out that door?" I nodded. "He'll see us and turn around unless we get up there really quick." "You know what, Trinity? You're right." So I ran up to the wall and then began running right up the side of the building. I reached the top and then did a flip off of it, landing right on my feet outside the door, just as it began to open. Standing there was a bald man with a scruffy goatee, dirty clothes, and a gun. He took his shot and sent a bullet right through my gut, but I healed myself instantly, so there was hardly even any blood loss. So next the hacker tried to punch me, but with both attempts I reached up and deflected his blows. "I know jujitsu." I said, intentionally copying Neo's line. It was an all-out fight after that, going back inside the top floor of the building, but unfortunately, this is where my dream recall starts to fade. No doubt about it, I was still lucid, and the fight was long, intense, and incredible, just like you'd expect from a Matrix fight. I remember running off walls and doing some crazy awesome kicks, but of course it wasn't an immediate victory for me. I was hurt a couple times, and being such a vivid dream, it really did hurt. I believe it all ended when I grabbed the guy and flew him back outside, smashing down the door in the process, and then flying down into the ground and crushing him into the concrete. Soon after that, I woke up.

Honestly, I'm glad I didn't go to Pandora as I had planned to. It's probably not as exciting to read about, but it sure was an incredible experience going through it!

I just lived out three months of my life last night. It was the worst dream I have ever had in my entire life. If it were a movie, it would be rated R, or higher. By necessity, I have recorded foul language, but blocked out certain characters. Sorry it is so long, but it's hard to record three months at once and keep it short.

I was first aware of the dream when I became lucid. Oh, that I had not! I tried leaving the building I was in and going to Pandora, I tried using telekinesis, I tried doing everything, but even though I was lucid, I could do nothing. I was as limited in this dream as I am in real life. I couldn't even wake myself up. There were a couple others in the concrete and steel-piped room, but they simply watched me try to go through the wall as if it were expected of me as a newcomer. I shouted out in one final attempt, and only succeeded in hurting myself.

“No point in trying to escape.” An old man in the room said to me, slowly and depressed. “From this point on, all you can do is your best. The tests...will not be easy.”

I held up my hands, giving up. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

The old man sighed. “Then...there is no hope for you.”

Just then, I saw a light on the floor; a door was opened behind me. Guards came in, wearing gas masks and black army uniforms. The leader said, “Take that one” as he pointed at me. His voice was deep and forbidding; he didn't have to shout or emphasize his words because it was obvious from his voice alone that no one would dare challenge him.

I didn't react to them at first. I figured if they grabbed me, I could just phase through their arms. But when they grabbed me and I realized I couldn't do that, I panicked. I fought and kicked and punched, but nothing I did could get me out of their iron grasp. “Sedate him!” The guard on my right hissed. “What? Sedate? No, no, no, no!” I watched in horror as the lead guard came into view with a needle and slowly pressed it into me. Things started fading. All was black.

I woke up momentarily in my bed and RC'd it to be real, but I couldn't stay there for long. It was like something was pulling my mind back into the dream, and it was soon successful. When I was back in the dream, I was just waking up from the sedative. I RC'd again and found myself dreaming, but lucidity again did nothing for me. I was trapped. The dream was totally realistic. Even my vision wasn't perfect, and as in real life, if I closed my eyes, I saw little spots. I was really there in mind and spirit, and now body as well, in the greatest possible sense. I sat up, depressed.

“Welcome back.” I heard a voice say. When I looked up, I saw a middle-aged woman with curly red hair standing there. “I'm Dr. Grace Augustine.” She said.

“Doctor...so you're not being tested too?”

She smirked, and then began to work some computer machinery as she spoke.

“Oh, I'm being tested. We're all being tested, save the big man himself. Here.”

She gave me a cup of water, which I took gratefully.

“Who is the big man?” I asked after a swig.

Grace stopped for a moment before answering.

“That is a very dangerous question. Honestly, no one really knows the answer. No one's ever seen him, not anyone from this level. Some believe he's in disguise undergoing his own tests, but I know better. I may not have met him, but I've spoken with him, and believe me, he's not in this for a science experiment. There's something much deeper at hand. Anyway, for lack of a better title, people around here call him the G-Man.”

“What are these tests? What are they for?”

Dr. Augustine handed me a clipboard with papers on it detailing an organization called the “D.N.A.”

“The DNA is a human research organization of the government.” Grace explained as I skimmed the pages, disappointed that the text wasn't changing like it should in a dream. “It's to...study human behavior; put people in a series of varying living conditions and see how their environment affects them.”

“Well,” I explained, “I'm a Christian; I doubt they'll find my living circumstances to change me in the ways they expect.”

I could tell Dr. Augustine wasn't convinced.

“We'll see about that.” she said as she pulled a nearby lever.

A steel bulkhead door opened behind her.

“This way to your first room.”

I got up and followed her down several dark hallways. The walls and ceiling were made entirely out of pipes, and the floor of a paneled steel square, with metal grating lining the left and right sides. One of the pipes was leaking, spraying steam out into the air and giving the area a very creepy atmosphere. Finally we reached a door.

“And this,” said the doctor, opening the door. “Is your room.”

Inside was a small room that looked very much like a little house's living room. It was smaller than the average hotel room, carpeted bright red and walls left white (and peeling at some points). Basic appliances were there, such as a television and a refrigerator, but they were old, small, and very outdated in appearance. Three people were in there, one a guy a bit taller than me with blonde hair and a thin face, and two girls, one an equally taller red-head and the other a shorter brunette. All of them looked to be about my age. They had the TV going and honestly seemed to be enjoying themselves. Their presence definitely cheered the whole situation and made me think that maybe there was some positive aspect to all of this.

“Food will be brought to you once every day.” Dr. Augustine explained. “You must ration it out for yourselves and save each of the portions in the fridge.”

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

“How long do I have to be here?”

“One month.”

“A month!? You gotta be kiddin' me, you can barely walk around in this place!”

“You have a backyard. Just don't try to go beyond the fence. Now get in there, or I'm going to have trouble with the boss.”

“Alright, alright!”

I walked inside.

“One month.” Said Dr. Augustine as she closed the door behind her.
I just stood there for a moment, silent, not believing the situation I was in. I RC'd again and found myself to still be dreaming, or at least, not in my normal body. Honestly, I don't know where I was then. It was all too real. I took a couple steps inward, and the guy there turned and looked at me.

“Oh, hey! The new guy's here!”

The girls waved and said 'hi' as well. I just sat down on the floor next to the guy, since no chairs were around.

“So how long'a you been here?” I asked.

“Three months.” The guy said, with the girls nodding their agreement with the guessed time.

“Huh, what? I thought we were only supposed to be here one month?”

“No man, that was you!” he said as he put his arm on my shoulder. “You're the one we've been waiting for! The test setup isn't complete without a second male. Here, check the paper.”

He flipped through my clipboard until he came to a page on test 1.

“'This test must be conducted regardless all circumstances with two males and two females. The government reserves the right to keep an incomplete test's subjects in their environments until suitable additions have arrived'.” I read. “This is crazy! I didn't even sign up for this.”

“Nobody does.” The brunette said. “And yet...everyone does. Look at the last page.”

I did, and there was a signature on the dotted line. My signature. I couldn't believe it.

“I...I didn't do this!”

“Everyone who is born signs their signature there from simply being alive.” The guy explained.

“Great. So what are we supposed to do?”

“Didn't Grace tell you?” the redhead chimed in. “Live on rations for a month. It's not much, but we can definitely live on it.”

“Is there really no way out of this?”

To that, no one spoke for a long time. Finally, the brunette broke the silence.

“Only a few have tried. They wanted to climb over the fence. No one knows what happened to them, but they never came back, and the government will act like they never existed if you ask them about it.”

“Outstanding.”

“Well hey,” the guy suggested. “How about we play a game? You know, loosen the tension.”

“Sounds good to me.” The brunette agreed.

“What about you?” The redhead asked, looking at me. “You in?”

I sighed.

“Why not...nothing else to do.”

So we played a game of monopoly, and learned each others names. The blonde guy was Truman, the brunette was Mia, and the redhead was Danielle. I didn't know them, but I don't think I really needed to in order to understand that they had something. They had been living in semi-poverty for three months, and they were the happiest people I'd met in a long time.

The days went on after that. As Grace had said, food was brought in once every day, and we had to ration it out and save what we could in the fridge. Even though there was little, everyone simply learned to think of the other three before themselves. There was no selfishness in that little place, which I think was supposed to be part of the test. To prove one or another of us to be selfish and in the process despise the others. But it never came close to happening. Every day we read the Bible to each other and it was our greatest source of encouragement. We were about as much a family as could be.

Still, I came to feel something special for Mia. I didn't say anything about it to her. I didn't have to. Every time I went to bed I knew she'd be there the next day and that I'd spend every moment with her, so why complicate things? It wasn't like she didn't know. Once, Mia fell terribly sick, to the point of death. We were told that medicine would be exchanged for some of the daily rations, and I volunteered to give mine up so that Mia could get better, which she did. By this point, I was actually beginning to get beyond acceptance of my life and actually enjoy it this way. Every day was...was very pure. It was all about putting others first and living life to the best possible way for the sake of everyone else. I figured out that Truman had feelings for Danielle, and although it would have been very easy, nobody slept together. We kept to our own corners of the room at night and didn't cross any boundaries. It was a kind of life that I would have lived for a long time.

But a month is just a month. Eventually the day came when Dr. Augustine visited our door and told me to say goodbye to my friends. I was very glad at this point that I had said nothing to Mia; it would have made things even harder. I told her goodbye the same way I did the other two; with nothing more than a hug and a word. It was very painful to be torn away from them, but guards were there to assist if I didn't comply of my own free will.

When I was outside and the guards saw I wasn't fighting, they walked away for Dr. Augustine to handle me.

“Why do this?” I asked, frustrated. “Why pull me away from them?”

“Your test was for one month. Boss's orders. I don't make up the rules, kid.”

We walked a bit farther and no one spoke.

“You're going to have a break today.” Grace said. “Back in the room you started in.”

“Why? Why not get the tests over with?”

“I told you I don't make up the rules.”

I went back inside the concrete room and sat on the concrete bed. It was like a prison cell.

“Great. So I'm here. What now? Just sit and take a break?”

“No.”

And then something really weird happened. As Grace said,

“The boss wants to see you.”

My environment faded into total darkness, and Grace morphed into a guard, emitting a blue glow that was painful to look at. Her voice changed to that of the guard as well, giving an eerie feeling about me. Then the guard disintegrated and was taken up into the air. I screamed in fear and tried to run, but I found myself colliding with a wall in the darkness, falling down, knocked out.

Again I woke up for real, but was pulled back into the dream by a force other than me.[/COLOR

When I woke up in the dream, I was in the piped hallway. I took one small step and heard my foot echo all the way down the hallway and around the pitch black corner. Then I heard a gut-wrenching scream, and a dead man limped around the corner. This was no Half-life zombie; this guy was really dead and decaying, and walking towards me. I turned and ran into the darkness of the corner, found a stack of boxes over to the side, and tried to knock it over to block the way. I saw the dead man round the corner, keeping after me. The boxes were too heavy...but then, just in time, they fell, and with another sickening cry, the dead man admitted defeat. I heard him walk away, and then I was left alone, my heart pounding, sure that another of them was going to end up being right behind me, against the wall as well.

“Well, well, well.”

The voice startled me so bad that I thought there was a zombie behind me, but it turned out there wasn't.

“Who are you?” I called out.

“Who am I?” The voice replied, slow, quivering, and dry, sending chills up my spine. “The question is: who are you? That's why we're doing these tests. To discover you. Isn't that right?”

I got his point, but I didn't like it. I remained pinned to the wall, heart racing. The voice laughed wickedly.

“You see? Your eyes are blind. You speak of understanding, but you do not know what you are talking about.”

“What are you talking about?” I finally gathered the courage to say. “What was that last test for? Why did I have to be pulled away? I was living right, and I had the truth.”

“You are looking for truth, and right. But you do not know what you speak of. You may have passed the first test, but I wonder, was it you, or was it the others around you?”

“They were good people. They don't deserve to be imprisoned by you!”

“I didn't put them in prison. You did.”

“I would never do such a thing!”

“Oh,” the voice replied, undaunted. “You don't know what you would do. It's Murphy.”

“Murphy as in Murphy's laws?” I mumbled so quiet that no one could hear it.

“Yes...somehow your pathetic human was the only one to understand. It doesn't matter what you believe, or where you are. Sooner or later, you will give in. It's all...just...a matter...of...time.”

I especially hated the way he said that last part.

“Now, go. Your next test awaitssss.”

Suddenly, the dead man broke through the boxes and ran after me. My legs froze; I couldn't make myself run, I was so afraid. But then, a blue light shone around him, and as I fainted, I could see my environment reverting to the lab with Grace Augustine.

I briefly woke up in real life yet again, but yet again was pulled back asleep.

I awoke in the dream with the doctor waving a light over my eyes and saying my name, trying to get me to come to. When I finally did, I sat up on the concrete bed and RC'd. I tested to be dreaming.

“What the h*ll was that? Get me out of this right now!”

“I can't do that.” Grace said. “Come on. It's time for your next test.”

I was taken outside, which looked a lot like Pandora, honestly, save I wasn't in the midst of trees. The testing facility was all up on a plateau, overlooking a forest, with an active volcano in the far distance. The sky was red and orange from the sunrise. I was led through various gates that required the doctor's authentication, and eventually came to a tree.

“Here you go.” said the doctor. “Test number 2.”

“Huh! A tree? Are you kidding?”

“Nope. For the next month, you are to live here. There's shelter already built for you towards the top.”

“Who's in it?”

“No one. The point of this test is to see how you behave for a month when you are alone. Food rations will come out once a week...”

“What!? Once a week?”

“...but there are weapons in the tree house for you to hunt your own food.”

“Great.”

“Trust me, you'll want to learn how to fight well. You think all the animals are stuck on the ground? Think again. Now go on.”

I looked around me. There were guards at every possible exit and escape. The fences were of latticed barbed wire. It was comply or die.

“Listen...I'm not supposed to tell you this, but after this test you'll get to see Mia again.” Dr. Augustine told me. “One month. That's all you have to endure. Don't kill yourself now!”

I looked at the factory as if it were the embodiment of the G-Man and the voice I had just heard.

“Son of a bit**.”

But I climbed up the tree then—for Mia.

I don't know that I want to or even can go into details about that month. It was horrible. Weather was hot, water was scarce, and so was food. The weapons were all hand-made and very pitiful. I had to sharpen each blade and tweak each arrow for balance before even attempting to use them. Of course the initial rations of food were not good enough for the week, so I had to go hunting. That didn't go so well. I was wary of every creature at first, trying to fight without being hurt, but one strange creature ended that attempt by biting the back of my arm.

“Ow! S**t!”

I then beat down the animal and tore at it with all my might, taking out my anger, temporarily forgetting all about the meat. I pulled it by the tail back to my tree, leaving streaks of dark blood on the dirt and grass. By that time it was night, I was sore, tired, and too hungry to go on. I barely was able to climb back up the tree to sleep. I didn't RC...I didn't want to. I knew where I was, that dream or no dream I couldn't change anything about my situation. I thought about Mia, and cried. Thinking of her made me want to read the Bible, but I could not, because I didn't have one with me, and my mind was too dulled and emotional to recall any memorized verses.

I ended up falling asleep that night with rain pouring through the leaky roof of the wooden tree house. About the only good thing about it was that it cleaned the wound on my arm.

The next day, I got out of the tree to find yesterday's kill completely devoured by other creatures.

“D*m* it!”

I spent the day hunting, and this time I got the meat from the kill right away, made a fire, and tried to cook it as best as possible. It tasted horrible; tough and dry, with no seasoning or spice to it at all. But it was food. I couldn't appreciate it, though. Not doing it for myself. There was no love in that; only hatred. Hatred for the G-Man, hatred for the pesky animals, hatred for my situation, even hatred for myself. By the end of that month, I was as much an animal as the beasts that I killed. My muscles were all huge and solid, my hair long and rough, and my mouth foul. I didn't pray, I didn't think about the Bible...all I thought about was Mia during the day, and the G-Man and the dead man during the night. Many times I was afraid that I had heard the cry of that demon in the night, when it would turn out to be a bird or some other creature.

It was only a month, but it seemed an eternity.

Finally the day came where I climbed back up into the tree house and found Dr. Augustine there. She was examining some pictures of Mia I had drawn on tree bark and hung on the walls.

“Excellent work.” She said.

I glared at her.

“I ought to kill you.”

“I don't. Make. The rules. Besides, you get to see Mia now, because I'm going to take you to her. You should be happy to see me again.”

“I'm happy just to see another living soul again! I've been here alone for far too long. I just wish it didn't have to be you or anyone associated with the d*m* DNA.”

“Tough luck. Come on, buddy.”

I was taken to a car with the DNA logo on the side, put in, and driven to what Grace said was my third and final test environment.

When we got there, I looked out the window to behold a huge mansion.

“And that is your new home.” said the doctor.

“You serious? It's fu**ing huge!”

“And this time, no rations.”

“What!? How am I supposed to live? There are no animals in this place!”

“No rations. You get ten million dollars to spend however you wish; on food, clothes, whatever.”

“You're kidding.”

She shook her head.

“Holy s**t!” I laughed. “Well this will be a breeze after living in the woods for so long.”

“Well good luck, then. Here's the key. The place is yours. After one month here, we're shipping you back home. Make the most of it.”

“Yeah, seriously!” I said, taking the key and dashing out the door.

When I got inside, the place was incredible; three stories high and hundreds of rooms on each floor. There was a fountain in the middle of the entrance area, and huge stair cases on both sides. Mia was there, and saw me come in from the top of one of the stair cases. She called out my name, and I called out hers, and we ran to meet each other.

“What happened to you!?” she asked. “You're filthy! And your clothes...they're all torn up!”

“They made me live out in a tree house for the past month! A d*m* tree house! Rations came only once a week; I had to hunt for the rest.”

“You poor thing! Come on, let's get you to the shower. There's clothes and everything you need up in the master bedroom.”

She led me upstairs and to the room she spoke of. It was an amazing place; the bed was big enough for someone 9 feet tall to comfortably fit in, and the accommodations in the bathroom were just as extravagant. Mia was just about to leave so I could get cleaned up, but I turned and put her hands in mine before she could.

“I'm afraid that if I let you go I'll never see you again.” I said.

She smiled.

“I'll wait right outside. Not a step farther away.”

“Thank you.”

It was great to get cleaned up after a month of filthiness. After a shower in the bathtub with jets and floor lamps, I trimmed my hair and shaved in front of a fifty-foot mirror. I never could get over the fact that was a multimillionaire and this was my new home for the next month. I didn't care, though. I knew how to live without money at all. It was Mia that I cared about.

When I went into the bedroom to get dressed, I noticed a PDA on the bed. It hadn't been there before. I picked out an outfit and tried to ignore the device...but somehow it grabbed my attention. I touched the screen, and it turned on. A man with a gnarled, wrinkled face wearing a suit appeared on the screen. He was hideous. I didn't even need to ask to know he was the G-Man.

“You son of a bit**! What do you want with me?”

“Careful. Don't forget who gave you all this, and Mia.” He said in his usual, slow and devious manner.

“Who the h*ll are you, really?”

He ignored me.

“I'm here to tell you about this device. This is what you will use this month to do everything.”

“Like what? Why would I use s**t that you and your half-a**ed guards sneaked into this place?”

“You will use it to make purchases.” He continued, undaunted.

The screen changed to illustrate what he was talking about.

“I have made hundreds of bookmarks for you. Web stores, magazines, everything is all right here for you at the touch of a button. There's even vast adult web content available at low prices.”

“I'm not interested in adult web content.”

“We shall see.”

And with that, he was gone. Mia knocked on the door.

“Is someone in there with you?”

I turned to look at the door.

“Oh. No! No, just talking to myself.”

When I looked back down at the device, the G-Man had made it automatically switch to one of those bookmarked adult web pages.

“D*m* it!”

I tapped the home button on the PDA and shoved it into my pocket. Then I opened the door for Mia.

There was something about the way she turned to look at me that made her stunningly beautiful in the red dress she was in.

“Mia...there's something I have—I need—to tell you.”

“You can tell me anything.”

“Mia...” I took her hands in mine again. “I love you.”

I saw a tear form in the corner of her eye, and then she threw her arms around me.

“I thought I'd never get the chance to hear you say it!”

Things went very well the rest of that day. Mia and I went exploring the huge house, uninterrupted by anyone else. Since many rooms were empty, we also did some shopping. Well, I did, anyway. I told Mia I would order things; I didn't show her just how. See, I couldn't delete the bookmarks on the device, and I didn't want Mia to find them and think that I had put them there. So a 70-inch plasma screen TV, a water slide for the backyard pool, paintings by famous artists, you name it, all came in without Mia ever knowing just how I was ordering.

It would have been a good month, except for the fact that Mia and I got so caught up in riches that we left behind the Bible and God and lived for ourselves. We couldn't leave our estate because guards would stop us, so marriage wasn't an option, and therefore, rather than make the right choices, we simply started sleeping together. But our love was quickly turning to selfishness, and so more and more those bookmarks became a temptation for me.

Eventually, I resisted no more. I thought Mia was on the other side of the mansion, so I pulled out the device and opened the first bookmark in the list. Not ten minutes later, Mia came back and found me there with the device. And yes, she did think I had put the bookmarks there. But that hardly mattered now; I had given into them, which was a far worse deed.

In the middle of our argument over the issue, blue lights shone from us both, and we were taken to the cement place I had first arrived at. Grace wasn't there, the G-Man wasn't there, but we could hear his voice.

“You claimed to love this woman, but look at what you did!” His spine-chilling voice shouted.

Then we were transported back to the first test room.

“Remember what you were? Look at yourself now!”

This time, only I had the blue light. Mia grabbed for me.

“Mia! Don't!”

She didn't have time. I was transported to the dark hallway with the pipes, and I was utterly alone, standing beneath the only light in the entire place. Behind me I heard the cry of the dead man again, but when he rounded the corner, I saw not just him, but an army of dead men behind him.

I swore and ran away. They advanced behind me, faster and faster. I took twists and turns down the hallway, but at one point I had three options. Back, left, or right. Behind me was darkness and dead men, so I turned left. To my horror, more dead men swarmed in on that side of me as well. I screamed and ran, the decaying, limping bodies crying out after me.

I began to realize as I ran that even the bright moments had been deception the past three months. It was all a trick, all a lie, and I had given into it all. I had been weak and easily decieved, I had become the very thing I hated, and now I was about to be destroyed by the very thing I feared most.

I was lucid, but I couldn't wake up, I couldn't fight, I couldn't flee. The worst fear I've ever had set in as I realized that as far as reality was concerned, this was real, and there was no escaping it.

There was one last corner for me to go around, but when I did, the army of dead men was already there. I was trapped this time. Quickly, I searched for more boxes, and found them, but knocking them over did no good. Hundreds of zombies were on both sides of me this time, and they were very strong. I held up the walls with my own hands and feet, but I knew I was only prolonging the inevitable. I couldn't hold them off forever, and there was nowhere else to go. They reached their decaying hands through holes in between boxes and clawed desperately at me in the darkness.

Cusses and swears came from my mouth, and then the G-Man joined in the racket with his wicked laughter.

“You wanted to find right and truth.” He said, still slowly, his voice still quivering, and chilling as ever. “Well, you found it. Or should I say...you found them.”

“What!? These are you. You!”

“No, these are you.”

I finally began to understand, but I didn't want to.

“No, no, no, no!” I cried.

“Yeessss.” The G-Man hissed. “Every one of them is a work of yours; a tragedy. Weren't you a Christian? Then look around you.”

The armies of dead men began to cry louder and beat harder against the walls of boxes.

“You see? All there is...is tragedy. So much for Christianity.”

“This can't be right. This can't be true. This isn't. It isn't!” I tried to convince myself, and control the dream. It was no use. I was still pinned, growing weaker by the moment.

That speech seemed to crush everything about me; like the past three months had all been a sick game played just to prove to me that I would give into temptation if put in the wrong environments for enough time.

Suddenly the pressure against the boxes eased, and the zombies were gone...or so I thought.

A moment later, their faces came into view by the thousands, all behind one gnarled and twisted face of an old man that appeared right in front of me.

“Tragedy is all that is, and that is what makes it right. It's Murphy. It's all...just...a matter...of...time.”

With that, the G-Man snapped his fingers, and all was snuffed out in darkness. I wasn't in body then, but spectating, and I zoomed out and saw a briefcase being closed over my clipboard of papers. When it shut, the ten stars on the DNA symbol lit up.

“We have his DNA now. I just hope it was worth doing to the poor fellow.” A rather heavy government worker said as he picked it up.

The G-Man was sitting behind a desk, which I saw as things continued to zoom out.

“Trust me. All of it is in that DNA. Right and wrong, good and evil...it's all pointless and meaningless...a fabrication of fragile, disgusting humanity. With this DNA, we have the ability to decide for ourselves what is good, and what is evil.”

“You better be right.”


And then I woke up with a start. I might need to illustrate this a bit, since just reading it is not nearly as scary. I've never felt so scared, so betrayed, so deceived...I became a wicked, wicked person, not all that unlike who I really am, just less bridled. It's a very sobering story, especially since the G-Man's face and that line “It's Murphy. It's all...just...a matter...of...time” are not unfamiliar to me. I saw them both early on as a little kid. I called the G-Man “the gray man who stands next to my bed and brings dreams to me.” And he said that line more than once before.

If there's not something of the devil involved in all this, I don't know where it came from...

EDIT: A couple illustrations can be found here. I didn't spend too long on them, but the first one is pretty accurate, and the second one is exactly right.

Last night I half-intentionally didn't go lucid. I just needed a break after that last one. I didn't even try to remember my dreams in case they would be similar to the previous one and not something I would want to remember.

But at any rate, I'm feeling much better now and I'm ready to dive right back in!

Here's the one dream I do remember from last night:

Everyone was at a huge pool party. Friends, family...tons of people. And I don't just mean a huge party, I mean a huge pool, too. The pool was way bigger than the little one-story house next to it, complete with water slides and all kinds of other stuff.

After a while, everyone got out to eat some hamburgers. Eating in dreams is always enjoyable, since there are no health concerns whatsoever, not even for over-eating. I remember talking to a couple people over the meal about dreams. One of them posed a fun question. "Hey, what would you do right now if this turned out to be a dream?" We laughed at the idea, totally not believing it could be a dream. I had the impulse to do a reality check, but I decided I didn't want to know, in case I would accidentally repeat the previous night's dream. "Well I know what I would do," said another at the table. "I'd pick you up out of thin air and throw you into the pool headfirst!" Everyone laughed again. "And then it would probably end up being a shared dream." I said. "So he would feel you do that and give you a call the next day, all like 'what the heck was that about?'" And we kept going like that for a while before heading back out.

Weird thing was, when I went back out there, the pool was set alongside a river, and I was in Pandora. "Oh, cool!" I said, still not becoming lucid. I paid no attention to everyone else running inside, grabbing their things, and leaving as quickly as they could. I stopped one of my friends as he ran past, though. "Hey, c'mon!" I said. "Dude, are you NUTS!?" That of course had me puzzled, so I turned around to see what was making him leave the pool. I found my answer not in the water, but in the air. It was a Samson; a helicopter from Avatar. My friend ran away, but the wind from the propellers knocked me down before I could. A soldier riding on it jumped off, grabbed me, and somehow I was suddenly in an RDA uniform. He told me that I had to get a couple samples of plants for him, and then sent me off into the jungle on a Gator (the RDA's water craft). I found the samples and brought them back to find the soldiers shooting at viperwolves or something...I didn't get time to see for sure before I woke up.

Maybe tonight I can go back there and stay awhile...on the Na'vi side!


SIDENOTE: This is officially my 100th post on DV! :bravo:

I started to not feel good last night, so even though I tried to LD, I ended up just sleeping all night and not having any lucid dreams. I can only even remember one non-lucid to some degree.

There was some evil woman going around, for what reason I did not know why. But she was secretly following me, and eventually I figured it out. One day I caught her eying me when I was mowing in my backyard. I hid behind a big piece of cardboard that was suddenly there, and knew I had to escape.

Suddenly I was Eragon, so the plan of escape was obvious. I called for Saphira with my mind and this tiny dragon flew over the fence. "What?" I thought. "That doesn't make sense. How can Saphira be that small?" But as she got closer, she got bigger too, so that worked itself out ok and I was able to fly off, the wicked woman shouting curses at me as I fled.

We landed at a train station, I believe, and Saphira became small enough to fit inside. When I was in there, I saw a bunch of my friends, and they seemed to be waiting for me. Somehow they knew about the woman following me and that she wanted to take my dragon. "If this was a lucid dream," I said, "I'd just annihilate her." The first time, it was funny. Now, it's just annoying. Why do I keep talking about lucid dreaming in my dreams and not get that impulse to reality check?? Anyway, I was informed that we had been followed all the way to the train station, and that we had to leave by train as soon as possible. "Why not fly?" I asked. "Because that would be expected." Came the reply.

So we got on a train (which turned out to be a two-story hover train) and hoped we had made our escape well enough. The witch-woman had made it onto the train as well, though, and wasn't going to let us get away. Suddenly in third-person, I saw the witch release a robot drone and send it inside the hover train. The drone flew up around one of the passenger seats and picked Donald Duck as its victim. It sucked Donald up into its main body, so only his head was sticking out the front of the hovering drone. But apparently this totally possessed Donald and made him want to kill me, because I went back into first person and saw the drone coming. Saphira tried to breath fire on it, but apparently it was fireproof. Nothing else seemed to present itself as an option, so I grabbed it with telekinesis and sent it flying out the back door, totally breaking it down. "Woah, how did I do that!?" I didn't have time to figure it out. As the door was blasted open, we all saw the witch outside, being knocked off the back of the train. Everyone ran outside and just looked down at her as she hung on by her fingertips. Of course she begged for mercy and a second chance and promised not to ever do anything like that again if we let her go, but I wasn't convinced. I picked my foot up to step on her fingers and finish the fight, but because my friends were against that, I helped her up instead. But there was a button next to me that would open a door to the lower deck...a trap door in the floor right where the witch was standing. So I hit that button and watched her drop down, and then I closed the door, trapping her.

I don't remember what happened for a while after that, but when we reached our destination, the witch was able to get off the train and come after us again...as I expected she would. We were in some house when she tried to come to the door and get inside. Whoever was guarding the door didn't let her in, of course, and told her that she had her second chance, and she better leave before we changed our minds. Eventually she managed to get inside and somehow we killed her this time.

The dream went into third person again, this time showing the drone flying into a restaurant and releasing Donald Duck. Donald fell from pretty high up, but just bounced off of several things until he landed right in a chair. The robot drone flew down and landed in the other chair, paid for dinner, and tried to convinced Donald to help him avenge the witches death. Donald just got his finger stuck in a hole on the arm of his chair. The drone started getting frustrated with him, but I woke up too fast to see what happened.

Wow. I don't know what happened last night. All I remember as far as dreams go is 1) Winning an iPod shuffle from MacDonald's, and 2) Watching the Matrix, or at least it was supposed to be the Matrix, even though it was actually nothing at all like it. No lucids, no complete dream memory...and I remained still and calm when I woke up each time! Somehow I just really messed up with that one...oh well, I guess I'll just keep plugging away. Sooner or later a dry spell ends, right?