Thread: Because the Dark Matters

Eating cake... and Lady Gaga Possible mild lucid

01-03-2010

Dreams in DARK RED
Lucid in BLUE



I'm gonna start by going back a bit -- to... let's see... january 3rd. That was shortly after I started to get interested in lucidity and when I started keeping my new journal. I HAVE had lucid dreams before... quite a few now that I understand just what they are... though only a few with full lucidity. But until getting here and reading ETWOLD I never knew you could induce them yourself or get so much control.

Ok, so anywho... pretty sure I hit low level lucidity in this one. But it pisses me off because there are so many dreamsigns I should have recognized!!

Cut my finger at work and there were no bandaids, so I just held a paper towel on it till it stopped bleeding. I noticed the way it swelled up and realized that's to press the cut closed for healing. Also, on the way to work, heard a snippet of Bad Romance from somebody's car. That was waking life, just to set up the dream.

The Dream:

1st part I remember I was in my aunt and uncle's castle (dreamsign) eating some cake. I saw my hand, and all the fingers were super swollen (missed RC) and the forefinger (one I cut at work) had some kind of funky-looking bandaid on it. Or I don't know... maybe I didn't completely miss the RC, because I think this next part was lucid. Suddenly I was in an undefined space -- all I could see was a stretch of wall in front of me with Lady Gaga leaning against it, wearing nothing but fishnet tights and sticking her backside right in my face. Maybe she wanted to prove once and for all she's female, I don't know, but I grabbed her hips and stuck my face in there and started licking for all I'm worth. It only lasted about 3 seconds, then visual faded and I went back into the other dream in the castle.

Post dream wrapup

I know Gaga has a lot of haters... I've already run into a few in here, and I'm sure this post will generate some more flack. But that's cool. Haters can sit and spin... Lady Gaga is super-talented and super-hot... end of story. She can take a ride on my disco stick anytime. I had seen an interview that day that she did in a radio station where you couldn't see her from the waist down, but the DJ kept talking about the fishnet tights and panties she was wearing. I guess that sparked the dream.

Double Dream re-entry
Dreams in Dark Red
Lucid in Blue

I didn't write these down... I think I actually had them before I started the journal. But they're important in setting up what's been happening lately, so I'll jot them down real quick. Here, in fact... pasted in from another thread:



I just did this twice recently... and the funny thing is, I had never been able to re-enter a dream before and didn't think it was even possible! My friend told me he can do it and I laughed at him (oops!)

But after reading either here or in one of the LD books I've been reading that it's possible, it suddenly happens to me twice. Each time I woke up and thought about the dream, and let myself fall back asleep. It wasn't exactly the same the second time in, but some elements were... example in one I was dreaming of taking pictures. I was seeing through the viewfinder and finding great images and compositions (exciting to an artist). After waking up I wondered... since I could dream of taking pictures, maybe I could dream about stopmotion animation (what I do - I animated my avatar image to the left there). Nope... but I did manage to get into a dream of taking pictures again. Not the same situation or place, but the theme was the same (taking pics).

In my other re-entered dream the first part was a kind of mild nightmare... I was driving on a highway and slowly the ground on both sides fell away steeply, so it was like the highway ran along the top of a wall. There was no way to turn around, and I felt like I was getting too far from home and needed to go back. Bit I could only drive on until the ground rose back up and the road entered a little town. At the first intersection I did an illegal move to turn around and headed back home, but I had the feeling the police were going to chase me and I woke up.

When I re-entered it, it wasn't quite the same. I found myself in a long bus or train car that was permanently parked... being used as a building. I just somehow knew it was in that same little town from my nightmare. But this time I decided I would stick around and explore a little rather than run away in fear. I walked out of the train car (or whatever it was) and walked along the main street, right next to the intersection where I had turned before. Only this time I could see what I had missed before... that it's a beautiful little town with nice brick buildings covered with vines. This was all that happened, but I woke up that time feeling fantastic (I felt like absolute crap the first time I woke up).

I said these dreams are important in setting up what' been happening lately... bear in mind that I asked to have dreams about stopmotion animation....

Sculpture Garden

01-04-10

Dreams in Dark Red
Lucid in Blue



I was riding a bike up a long spiraling blacktop road that went to the top of a hill and then angled back down it (without crossing itself strangely) and at the bottom I fell into a big rectangular hole into an underground building. It was some kind of gallery filled with awesome sculptures of wicked-looking creatures and there were similar paintings all over the walls. A few workers were laboring away and didn't seem to mind that I had fallen in from the roof.

For a while I just walked around in complete awe at the incredible artwork, and then in a back room I found Ben Stein, who was the owner of it all but was old and dying and said he needed to give it all to somebody (guess who?). Then my mom was there, only it didn't look like her at all... she was young and had long hair... she was like a hippy chick. We were looking at a sculpture of a shaggy dog (just like Star or Dusty, dogs I had in the past) and it came to life. Then all the sculptures started coming to life. There was this young guy who was somehow half sculpture (but alive- and drunk as a skunk... ) he seemed to be Ben Stein's son. All he was doing was laying around drunk on his ass.

I kept exploring this incredible place (it was like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory for real!) and after a while I was outside in a sort of dug-out area (looks a lot like the fish pond in the back yard at my mom's house after my dad and I dug it out and before we filled it with water) ~ (or like the grave I dug for Star a few months ago come to think of it... ). Suddenly a bunch of sculptures buried in the walls of the pit started moving and coming out of the dirt. These were evil looking... all huge claws and fangs and tusks and wings. I got out of there quick!

At this point a bunch of official looking people showed up to start carting away all the sculptures and art. Ben Stein was gone (dead?) and all the workers were just apathetic about it, were going to help them load it all up in the vans. I was like "screw that!" and I got them all organized into an army, including all the living sculptures. The half-sculpture guy was a total badass.. now he was all ripped (before he was just kind of wimpy). His entire right half was totally Schwarzenegger. Somebody said "Don't forget about the guy on the bus".... um... guy on the bus? Okaaaay.... but I could see him (even though I was inside and the bus was out on the parking lot) -- it was the actor who played Shaggy in the CGI Scooby Doo movies. He came in and we all laughed with sheer joy at his 'return' as I was waking up, knowing we would win the fight now.

Post Dream Wrap up

A lot of things going on here.... I realized Ben Stein was a father figure (he 'left all the art to me' - I inherited my artistic talent from my dad who died a few years ago)... my mom was young and hip... (now she's suffering from COPD and on oxygen all the time) and the guy who's entire right side was all ripped must be my friend Rob, who always used to haul firewood in his left arm while piling it there with the right, so his left side is stronger. We had a falling out a few months ago and haven't talked since.

... And sculptures coming to life.... hmmmmmm, now what does THAT remind me of ~? Could it be.... maybeeeee..... stopmotion?!

On being both Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser

01-04-10

Dreams in DARK RED
Lucid in BLUE

This was the same day as the dream above. I tend to wake up after about 5 or 6 hours every day and go back to sleep, and I usually remember several dreams. This one was weird... the visuals were just the downstairs part of the house, with no people in it (including me). Just still images. Everything happened in narration, with me dreaming up a story about Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (couple of characters created by Fritz Lieber - some of the finest fantasy fiction ever created). I was just working out ideas verbally for a story.. something about them wanting to make some kind of metal pole with a hook on the end to help them sneak aboard a ship from the dock... it's funny how detailed you can get in a dream like this... I worked out all kinds of intense ideas in great detail... should the pole be long or short... did it matter how heavy it was.... it could be very short (and thus lightweight) if they approached the ship with the Mouser on Fafhrd's brawny shoulders, but then how would Fafhrd climb aboard...

This was a lot of fun, dreaming about writing a story, Essentially I was 2 characters... or was I just the writer? It gets into some grey territory there.

L'Animateur

01-05-10

Dream in DARK RED
Lucid in BLUE



This one was the next day after the last 2 entries, and only a few days after I wished to dream about stopmotion.

Funny... when I woke up, at first I thought none of this was a dream... I just thought I had really been doing this crazy stuff!!! You'll see how utterly ridiculous that is....

The Dream:

1st part I remember I was in Main Street Market (a little store near my house) because I had picked up a piece of cardboard somewhere and needed to throw it away. Oh, did I mention... I was only wearing a towel. I had walked there THROUGH THE WOODS... and yeah... stopped in a public place in a towel to throw away a piece of trash. While I was there one of the cashiers said "Oh look... Prammaven is coming in!" (Prammaven is a friend of mine from the stopmotion message board). I looked out on the lot and there was a red mustang convertible pulling up with a blonde girl in it... I thought "that is definitely NOT PRAMMAVEN!"

Then I was running along the trail in the woods toward home, still in my towel. I could see my footprints from before (two sets of them actually... geeze, how many times did I run around this route?) and strangely, both my feet in all the footprints were pointing to the left (maybe due to the way I was laying in bed?). There's a german shepherd laying beside the trail a little ways in front of me chewing on a can of something like he's trying to get it open, and I hear a voice from a house nearby say "Well so much for that! I threw some food out there but the dumb dog went for the porn instead". I remember thinking "No he didn't you dumbass... he's trying to open the food... and he's probably gonna cut the hell out of his mouth!" I always carry a pocketknife, but alas... no pants, no pockets.

I would have helped him, but in my dreams german shepherds are nightmare creatures that always chase me, and I was a bit afraid of him even though he was totally mellow and never came at me. Each time I saw him he looked different... at first his head was deformed... looked a bit like a Dingo's head. Then later he had some kind of green harness thing on and I remember thinking "Like a guide dog". And the next time I noticed him he had green moss growing on his side. Anyway, he was trotting along with me, sort of diagonally in front of me... totally relaxed like I said, and still I was afraid and didn't want to be near him. I mean I wasn't like "Holy CRAP!! I gotta get out of here NOW!" afraid, more like "Ummmm yeah... no need to get too close to the doggy... ". But I was trying to get off the trail as I ran along it, so in a minute I was floating next to it using a long pole to push off from the top of sawed-off trees and stumps alongside the trail below (the trail was now like a ledge). The dog kept perfect pace with me, but I was having a hell of a time... the wind kept trying to blow me backward and it took all my strength and precision to keep poling from one stump to the next. For some reason I couldn't let the pole touch the ground.

Oh, and each time it touched the next stump I heard a piece of the music from L'Animateur... my friend Nick Hilligoss' film. Because I was struggling so much to make any forward progress, the music was playing slow and pausing in between stumps... like a jack-in-the-box playing Pop Goes the Weasel if you're winding it too slow. But when it played I could hear it perfectly... every note just right, and it sounded AWESOME!!!! In the dream I didn't realize what music it was... didn't figure that part out till I woke up. Oh, and just for the record, L'Animateur is (wait for it.... ) a stop motion animated film. Incidentally, Nick (who made the film) is from Australia, and Dingos are australian dogs. Also Nick pretty much taught me everything I know about animation.

Anywaaaay, The wind gets the best of me and I lose momentum and come drifting right down to the ground. When I get there the dog is laying there panting pleasantly, like he's waiting for me. I decide what the hell... he hasn't made any aggressive moves... maybe this dog is cool, and I reach out and start to pet him. Then I wake up with an intense feeling of euphoria that stayed with me all day, knowing I did the right thing.

Here's Nick's film, so you can witness the awesomeness and completely forget about my dumb little dream:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lfqTk_v5Kk

Dig the music! And the sheer talent!!

Cream Dream Machine

Dream in DARK RED
Lucid in BLUE



Stopped writing the dates because this one was last night. We're up to date now... I just left off a bunch of boring dreams from the last few days. And first off... no, it's not THAT kind of cream dream.... get your mind out of the gutter!! All will be explained....

1st thing I remember I was walking along a looooong country road... no signs of civilization for many miles. Wishing I had a ride of some kind. There was some tall skinny guy walking along with me that seemed familiar but I didn't know who he was. Suddenly I notice a cream-colored custom chopper sitting beside the road and I just know it's mine!! Oh yeahh baby!! I get on and try to start it up but it doesn't seem to have a kickstart on it. So I think for a minute... yeah, must be electric start. I look around and see what looks like a little piece of bare wire sticking out under the handlebars... doesn't look like a switch, and when I click it, at first nothing seems to happen... but then I realize it's purring like a kitten... it's just super quiet. I start to go and feel it's got insane power, but I slow down and ask the other guy if he needs a ride. Stopping was weird... you kow how dream vehicles can be... it kept wanting to roll a little, until I really jammed on the brakes and then it stopped too abruptly. He climbed on and that was the last I saw of him... guess he had served his purpose in the dream.

I was really lovin the sheer POWER of this chopper!! I was doing wheelies all down the long highway and it hardly made a sound.

Ok, there was a dream edit, and suddenly I was parking the bike on the porch of an old abandoned house. Why? No idea. I wanted to turn on a light inside the house, (here's where it gets really bizarre)... suddenly the house was no bigger than a dollhouse and I was reaching in through the open side wall to switch on the light in the front hall. I had to look in through the window to do it, and I realized the tiny light switch was a fake, but right next to it was an inset disc that when I pushed it switched on the light. Ok, now the house went back to normal size and I start walking down the hill.

At the bottom I see two claymation cavemen (but normal human size) arguing over something sitting on a treestump in between them like a table. They might have even resorted to hitting each other on the head with clubs... not sure, but there were definitely goofy cartoon antics. I was laughing as I turned and walked back up the hill... apparently that was all I had gone there to see. When I got back to the top I remarked how lucky I was that the chopper was still sitting where I had left it... "usually when you walk away from something it's gone when you get back". ... And yet I still didn't realize I was dreaming!!! Man, how stupid can you be in dreams!!??!!

That's where I woke up, but the first thing I did was reach for my journal and suddenly realize... it has a cream colored cover! Interesting.... The pic I photoshopped above looks more metallic gold... but in the dream the chopper was literally cream colored... exactly the same as my journal.

Anyway, tried to WBTB and continue the dream, saying "I want my chopper again", but couldn't get back to sleep.

And need I even mention the by-now ubiquitous stopmotion images... claymation cavemen, a miniature house.... it's almost getting to be routine!!

I mean come on... yeah, I did ask to have dreams about stopmotion... but this isn't quite what I meant!! I was hoping to see some awesome creatures or a cool story idea that I can use for a movie. Guess I need to be more specific with my requests, huh?

The Cave Movie Redux
Dream in DARK RED
Lucid in BLUE


This is an image from a project me and a friend did many years ago called The Cave Movie. Puppets made from steel florist's wire, bodies formed form surgical cotton and skin of liquid latex... very crude, but serviceable. We shot it on super-8 film - the only way for home hobbyists to do stopmotion in the early 80's. A few years later when early full-sized VHS camcorders became available to the general public we rented one and recorded the film while projecting it on a wall. Shortly after that Rob's uncle borrowed the projector, with the Cave Movie in it, and that was the last we ever saw of the original film. So... now it only existed on tape. On ONE tape. Which got ate by a crappy VCR. So we disassembled it, did masking tape surgery, and managed to repair the tape, losing only a few precious seconds of animation. That was sometime in the 90's. Then we got smart and made a few copies.

Enter the new millennium -- along comes digital video and desktop editing. I transferred what remained (second generation copy of a damaged tape from a none-too-good film original) into digital format. It's really amazing it survived through all these catastrophes!! Our animation was pretty bad... not patient enough, but when played back in slow motion it looked kinda-sorta ok. At times. But some of the puppet designs were cool, and the idea was good. It's just that we were rank amateurs.

Anyway, all that was just to set up last night's dream. It's not very clear, and I can't remember most of it, but here's what I do recall...

I had filmed a new Cave Movie using digital-age technology... a hundred times better than what we did so long ago. It used some of the same basic puppet designs only modified to be new and improved. Basically it was exactly what we TRIED to create when we were teenagers but were unable to. Note I said HAD FILMED... I don't seem to have actually dreamed the filming part, or at least I can't remember it. Rob came over after I was done making it and I said I was going to run upstairs and get it to show him. The stairs were crazy-huge!! I mean, each step was like a 6 foot high leap onto a 20 foot long platform, then run to the end of that platform and another 6 foot leap up to the next one. Each level was like the size of an entire floor of a house, and there was stuff sitting around on the steps... furniture and stuff. As I ran I was seeing flash images of the movie I had made...

Making a new version of the Cave Movie is actually something I've thought a lot about. Essentially it's what I'm working toward with all my animation... when I reach a good enough level that's what I'm going to do. Only THIS time it will have a story, and the puppets and set pieces won't move around randomly between each frame... and and and....

When I first asked to have dreams about stopmotion animation what I was hoping for was to see scenes for a new version of the Cave Movie -- only I didn't know how that could work. I could hardly see MYSELF in a movie with nothing but monsters in it, right? Was it even possible to dream yourself into an animated movie scenario?

Well it's almost as if my dreams have been demonstrating how it works.... showing me that yes, I CAN dream of being inside an animated movie, surrounded by puppets the same size as me. And furthermore, the dreams can also reveal a wealth of information not apparent while dreaming but only revealed through analysis after writing it all down and pondering it.

So, in a sense... not much of a dream last night, but in a way, an awesome dream! It's as if my dreaming mind is working out how to approach this... setting up to show me what I wanted to see. Along the way I've been gaining a lot of respect for dreams and the way my intent can influence them (and yet the way you have to let them do things their own way). Hopefully soon I'll be able to go lucid and just click the Cave Movie button on the remote and just watch it on my plasma dream TV....

Defending the fallen goddess
Dream in DARK RED
Lucid in BLUE


Sorry about that last dream folks... maybe this one will make up for it. No stopmotion references this time thank god.... I was starting to get pretty tired of that myself!! Still no lucid, and I can't remember the beginning of the dream, so we pick it up midway...


I was some kind of acolyte or servitor of a fallen goddess... how I know this I can't say, I just knew it. She had had all her powers stripped except the ability to fly, and as long as I stayed within a few thousand yards of her I could fly too. We didn't have wings, and this was a totally unique way of flying for me. I've found many strange ways to fly in dreams before, but this time it was different... more like gliding -- I mean the way a pterodactyl does. We had to fall from a great height first to get the momentum up, then when we reached critical mass we could change direction any way we wanted.. including hovering in place as long as we wanted with no effort. Kinda weird, because sometimes we were just walking along on the ground... so don't ask me how the hell we got to flying again after that.

The environment for this dream was really cool... it was post-apocalyptic, and all the carnage was from the epic battle that had resulted in the fallen goddess' divestiture of powers. Her enemy was some kind of gigantic monster demon thing, that had completely laid waste to the human world... it was night-time and the landscape was littered with devastated buildings, mostly gutted and smoking. We were exploring the ones we could fly into looking for some kind of weapon to use against the demon-monster dude... certain kinds of metal could really mess him up.

The surface of the earth was swept by little whirlwinds and gusts carrying debris... swirling crumpled newspaper and all kinds of scrap. When we spotted a store that looked like it might have some kind of weapon in it we'd swoop down into it... usually they had an entire wall that was just torn wide open. I love the way we were flying... it was this effortless gliding and we could go as fast or slow as we wanted. So we'd swoop down and cruise slowly through these smashed husks of buildings -- trash and stuff flying around in the air, and we'd hover and talk for a while, then slowly cruise along looking for a weapon. In some kind of farm supply store I found a long hoe or something... like a 20 foot long wooden handle with a steel blade on the front.. like a hoe only not bent down... more like some kind of king-sized scraper or flat-bladed shovel. Wait... in fact what it reminded me of more than anything was one of these bad boys:
... It's a "cutting-in spade" for cutting up whales. And literally the handles are like 20 feet long. I guess that must be what I was thinking of... and now that I realize that.... yeah, it's a reference to my idea for an Ahab movie I want to do in stopmo. Ok, so only one small reference this time. Huh... weird, I had no idea this dream had a stopmo reference till I wrote this and thought about how to describe that weapon. Yeah, I guess I'm stopmo-obsessed!

Yeah... so, anyway.... weapon in hand we now burst out into the night ready to take on this monster demon guy. And what do you know... that's when he made his appearance!! I didn't see him very well... the roof of a building just burst open and a mass of writhing flesh came swelling out, like he was sort of blobular and going to squeeze himself up through the roof like a giant amoeba. But I was near enough that I could dive-bomb him and sink the steel blade into him. He let out a scream that shook the ground and it seemed to let some of the air out of him -- I got the idea that he shrank down to a more manageable size though I still didn't see him.

... And that's it. That's all there was (that I can remember anyway).

::: DARKMATTERS DREAM CLASSICS :::

"Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your long hair"
Dream in DARK RED
Lucid in BLUE
(I'm starting to wonder why I waste the effort writing that... I haven't used any blue since the first dream I wrote here!)



Occasionally I'll post an old dream that I still remember or that I wrote down long ago and is worth putting up here. I'll tag them with the fancy-schmancy red title like above just to make them stand out. And if you've noticed, Im trying to use boldface and other formatting tricks so I can quickly scan the posts and locate certain keywords I might want to find later. Well... that and it breaks up a big block of dull text and makes it a heck of a lot more readable!

Ok, so on with the classic dreamfest...

I'm doing this one strictly from memory. I'm sure if I dug through the box full of notebooks from years gone by I could probably find where I wrote it down (not when I originally had the dream, but years later)... but this is one I've thought about and told people enough that I can still remember it pretty well. In fact it's probably my favorite of all the dreams I've had.

The whole dream took place in a gigantic enclosed area with a polished wooden floor like the floor of a gymnasium. I say it was enclosed, yet the walls and ceiling were so far away I never saw them (except when... well, we'll get there when we get there). It was dark, like twilight or late evening dark (yes, the space was so freakin' huge that outdoor lighting conditions seemed to apply). Sitting here and there on this smooth wooden floor were little japanese style houses... the kind with sliding rice paper panels for walls, and they were situated in little decorative rock gardens. I was walking through it all with my sister Lauren. It seemed to be some kind of puzzle or riddle thing... a game we were engaged in -- we'd walk to the next little house and go inside, and it would be set up to look like some fairy tale or folk tale kind of thing, and we had to guess what it was. Like this...

We stepped into the first one (actually I had the feeling we had already done quite a few and there were only a few more left before the end of the day). Even though it was a tiny little house like a pagoda with rice paper walls, somehow the inside was a stone chamber with absolutely nothing in it except an arched window in one wall (not even the door we had come in... we weren't aloud to leave the room until we solved the riddle). We puzzled over this one for a while, and suddenly my sister figured it out. We weren't aloud to talk to each other or say what the answer was, we had to answer each riddle by just saying the right lines -- so Lauren went to the window and hung her hair out of it. Suddenly I understood, so I said "Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your long hair". That was it, puzzle solved. Now the stone chamber changed to the inside of the painted paper pagoda it was from the outside, and we walked out and went to the next one.

This one was another stone chamber, very rough-hewn, as if the entire square chamber had been hand-carved. In one wall was a recessed stone oven with an iron door on the front with small grilles so you could see the flames inside. The only other feature in the room was a large iron cage. I got this one first -- I stepped up to the cage, stuck my forefinger in through the bars and said "Hansel". Now Lauren understood her part, so she opened the iron door on the oven and said "Gretel".

That was the last pagoda in sight... we had solved them all, and that meant we were now allowed to spend the night inside the enclosure and to act as guardians... security guards in the event of intruders. We walked into a chamber with three straw mats laying on the floor, each one with a large jungle cat laying next to it. They were three different kinds of cats... I don't remember exactly what kinds, but I believe one was a tiger, one a panther, and one a Leopard or something like that. Somehow we knew two of these were our spirit animals, and we had to choose them correctly. I think it's absolutely ingenious how clever the dreaming mind can be at times... the fact that there were three cats means we both had to make a choice... if there were only two then after the first of us made a choice the other one would get the other cat by default.

We both knew immediately which cat was our spirit animal. I wish I could remember what they were, but it's been many years. But here's the clincher... just choosing the right cat wasn't enough... we also had to whisper their name in their ear or they'd tear us apart. My sister whispered something I couldn't hear in her cat's ear and it laid its head back down and went to sleep.. she snuggled up next to it's body to keep warm in the cooling evening air and I was left sitting on my mat next to my cat wondering how the hell I was supposed to know it's name!! The cat started to get restless because I didn't know it's name; I could feel it growling deep in its throat and then it looked at me. Its eyes were wild and glaring... beginning to get angry. The tail began to twitch and it started to rise up onto its front paws ready to stand up. I knew it was only a matter of minutes before it would rip into me. But Lauren leaned over and told me its name... it was something complicated that started with an R... I think it might have been Rumplestiltskin. Something similar anyway. Again, I really wish I remembered!

I whispered the name into the cat's ear and it laid back down and went to sleep. I snuggled up against it... feeling its strength and power... it was a wild thing but I had a shared bond with it and could somehow use the power of this type of cat in defense of the... whatever the place was we were defending. We slept like this for some time, then we all awoke suddenly and quietly in the middle of the night, knowing that there were intruders trying to get in. We all acted in concert without needing to say a word... we were like a well-oiled machine going into action. All three jungle cats started running along the polished wooden floor and my sister and I hung onto the tails of our spirit animals and slid along in our socks. Awesome fun!!

In complete silence we made our way in this fashion for what seemed like miles along the polished floor, winding our way between pagodas along curving paths until we came to a vast steel wall that seemed to be super-thick like the door of a bank vault. There was a huge garage-style door set in the wall made of thick armored steel that had been pried up somehow and three cat-burglars had come in and were standing just inside the (still-open) door. Heh... cat burglars was the way to describe them... they were like primitive tribesmen wearing nothing but loincloths and some kind of gloves or mitts and leggings... all made form the skin of a particular type of jungle cat. The mitts had claws emerging from them... I wasn't sure if the claws actually belonged to the dudes or if they were just attached to the mitts.

When we got within about 20 yards of these guys we released the tails of our cats and slid the rest of the way to them in our socks. Meanwhile all 3 of the cats ran ahead and got there before we did. The fight was on, and it was sheer bedlam. These guys were total badasses, they were starting to kick our asses even though with the cats we outnumbered them... and you'd think three guys would fall easy prey to three jungle cats, but these guys had somehow assumed the power of the cats they had killed and taken the skin and claws from. Somehow Lauren and all 3 cats were fighting two of the intruders and I was fighting their leader alone. I didn't know how I was supposed to fight this guy... I mean, he was a match for a full-grown tiger! He was super-strong and moved way too fast for me, and he looked in my eyes (his eyes were glowing red and empty) and roared!! That kind of freaked me out, and for a second it scared me even more, but then I got mad. I was like... ok... ok buddy... you can roar, well so can I! So I did, and as I did I could feel raw primal energy coursing through my body. That apparently was my heritage because I had bonded with my spirit animal, and I somehow knew that because I had got my power the right way... by knowing the cat's name rather than by killing it and taking its skin and claws, that I had more power than the cat-dude did.

When I roared at him, I felt this insane surge of power rise through me and I saw the reflected glow on his face from my eyes, which I knew were now glowing red much brighter than his were. I saw fear come over his face and suddenly he broke and ran toward the door, which was beginning to close. His cohorts fled with him, and all three dropped at full speed and slid out under the massive door as it was closing. I dove after them and also did the drop/slide thing, but I was slightly too late and could only jam my arm under the door... but my fingers tangled in his hair, so I did another roar -- this one louder and far more savage than my first one, and my power redoubled. I felt claws spring out of my hands and a mane come out around my neck and shoulders, and I grabbed him with a hand as strong as steel and hauled him back under the door, bending the lower edge of it inward. In fact I became so powerful and primal that it scared me a bit...

I woke up right then, feeling a surge of power like that I had felt in the dream (but not nearly as strong... no claws or mane). I somehow knew that we had captured all the intruders and successfully defended the... place.

Ok, no fancy picture today. The last 2 days my dream recall has been crap, just fragments remembered and nothing to write home about (or here either!)... just a lot of dumb stuff happening. I did write down what I could remember in my notebook DJ though (always do that).

I will say this much about last night's dreams though... it seems like I dreamed about lucidity in some strange way... and I think that means it's starting to filter into my dreaming mind. I just remember something about all the bricks in the floor floating up in the air... only it wasn't actually HAPPENING in the dream, it's like I was just visualizing it (dreaming of visualizing.... it's like one of those Russian nesting dolls around here!). And somehow I just knew that if I was able to actually make the bricks float the way I visualized it then I'd be able to go lucid. Strange stuff, but encouraging.

Also I dreamed that my sister stepped up to me in a store and said "See... you need me to help you". I didn't know why she said that or why it annoyed me, but I walked away from her and a couple of doors appeared in between us so I could shut them on her (non-lucid dream control maybe?). To set the stage... it was like a huge book store of some kind, and I was looking at the stuff on the shelves. I found some kind of chunk of melted glass or amber and when I looked really close inside it I saw a tiny mosquito (Jurassic Park reference?). There were two girls standing next to me and they laughed and asked what good something like that was... so I told them that I could make it fly around in the air and I could see through the mosquito's eyes. or if I wanted I could make it orbit the earth like a satellite and could see what's going on all over the world. (??!!!???). That's when my sister appeared out of nowhere and said "See... you need me to help you".

In thinking about it, I realized I had just posted that classic dream where my sister told me the name of my spirit animal (last post above this one) - and I've noticed that after writing about things in this DJ sometimes I dream about them again... it's like writing about it helps to impress it in my mind. It's kind of funny... going through all the dreams I posted above you can kind of see certain ideas repeating.

I even had the thought after writing that dream (the one just above) that maybe my sister is my dream guide or my Animus... so maybe that's why she appeared and said I need her help?

I don't know, but when I'm able to go lucid and not wake up right away, I need to try to find out.

Oh, also I worked the last 2 days. On days when I work I tend not to get that much sleep, so I think that's why my dream recall isn't so good then. Off tomorrow, and it's good sleepin' in weather!

Dream in DARK RED
Lucid in BLUE

Dream recall is back baby!!!! Yeah!!!

1. 1st dream -
   
   This was the last dream of my regular sleep period before I wake up (about 6 hours in). I don't even attempt any initiation techniques for that period, only for WBTBs. This dream was strangely in black and white, and was like a 50's action flick. It was me and a guy and girl running around in the woods. My recall is spotty.. I know there was a lot that happened, but I only remember a few things...
   
   There was a lot of running along the top of logs and pole vaulting with long poles (like 20 feet long). I can see certain themes that seem to occur frequently in my dreams already... the woods, long poles (hey... quiet in the back row there! Sometimes a pole is just a pole ). But then I've already seen in the course of this journal that a theme can be introduced into my dream life and remain for a little while before phasing out... so I wouldn't say any of these can be considered dream signs... except maybe the woods. I could step into it any time I want... it's just about 15 feet from the back door, but I haven't gone into it for a few years now. Anyway... that's about it for this dream. woke up and thought about it (wish I had fixed the details better in my mind or written it down) then WBTB...
   
   
2. 2nd dream -
   
   1st part I remember I was in a dept store looking at some kind of large complicated electronic/mechanical toy in a red plastic case with a clamp-on lid. It played music and little figures moved around in it. When other people walked up I didn't want them to see how cool it was & buy it before I could (Like I didn't have money but wanted to come back & get it later) so I tried to clamp the lid on it, but it went on crooked and the music kept playing, and this little girl ran up and opened it. That scene ended and cut to a downhill trail in the woods. I'm with 2 girls and another guy and the feeling was that we were going to do something cool, like setting out to have an adventure. Somehow we ended up in an underground labyrinth being held prisoner by who I took to be one of the girls' dad and his henchmen. It seems like some cool stuff happened in between but I don't remember it, or maybe it was a dream with a lot of quick edits.
   
   They were marching us along the tunnel (with thick mud on the floor... lots of great concrete wall details and slimy tunnel stuff) and they made us take the batteries out of our flashlights, but stupidly they let us keep both, we just had to put the batteries in our pockets. Stupid stupid henchmen! They got distracted by something and I put my flashlight back together thinking I could blind them and make our getaway when the chance presented itself.
   
   There was some intrigue about a woman who had died and her soul was trapped in a tangle of vines. Not sure if this happened earlier, but it seemed like it was right in the middle of the underground part. Now it seemed like the girl took her dad's side and they recaptured the rest of us. But as we rounded a corner in a wide part of the tunnel the Ghostbusters were sitting at a card table with some equipment on it like they had been monitoring our approach, and they ran to the rescue and chased the henchmen off back down the tunnel. I picked up a rifle with a good scope on it and sighted along the tunnel at the retreating figures, shot one, and it turned out to be the girl. Didn't want to hit her.
   
   Then all 4 of us from the beginning of the dream were walking back up the trail we had walked down at the beginning and it felt like our little adventure was over and we were laughing and reminiscing about it as we headed back home. I felt physically drained, probably feeling my real body because I really strained myself unloading shipment at work yesterday IRL.
   
   
3. 3rd dream -
   
   I was sitting in a room with my sister Lauren and we were both at computers. I was playing a game and trying to get her to play it but she didn't want to and seemed annoyed. Then I went INTO the game & forgot about the room and Lauren.
   
   Overhead view looking down at a snowy road w/ a big mall off to the left. It was a very cartoony game, like Kingdom Hearts. I think I was Donald Duck in some kind of Duckmobile at this point. Cartoonish electronic videogame music was playing and my car was leaving a trail of slowly disappearing glowing dots behind it. Then I notice another car to the right of me starting to gain on me. Somehow I know it's Lauren & she's entered the game now. My vision zooms in on the 2 cars and they become more real.
   
   I decide to see if I can turn directly toward the mall and cut right across the strip of land, and it works! The mall is our goal in the game. It works & I feel overjoyed. I get there before her & go driving around the building, sometimes losing sight of the car as it goes around a corner. The view is no longer overhead, but I'm still seeing it 3rd person. When I know I've reached the store we're supposed to go into I again disappear momentarily around the corner but I try some kind of tricky move anyway -- some kind of quick sideways slide/park/exit from the car thing that I think will work better because the car is out of sight, and it does. When my vision gets around the corner I'm now Mickey Mouse standing beside the car.
   
   Mickey goes into the store and my POV follows. Inside the tiny shop Geppetto is just waking up behind the counter and stands up as if to help Mickey. But I've already made Mickey run around the room rapidly and didn't find whatever I was looking for, so I make him go into this tiny little back room behind the counter. Geppetto is freaking out like "Hey... you can't do that!" All I can see now of Mickey is his shadow on the wall, and suddenly a bunch of shadows of something like little Pac Men rise up all around him and start biting him. I'm laughing as I hear all these cartoonish noises.. clatterings and thumps and Mickey is going "Oh! Ouch! Hey.. Stop that!" in his high-pitched voice... then he's forcibly ejected from the room back into the store, tumbling head over... tail. Guess that room's off limits!!
   
   There's another dream edit and now I"m in a room where a spy mission is being discussed. One of the people there is a guy I grew up with, but nobody realizes that, and somehow I feel like it gives us an advantage. We decide to team up and go on the mission ourselves.
   
   It's as if these episodes with me and other real people are interspersed with the game cuts, as if these are the people I:m playing the games with. Now I seem to be playing a different game with the guy I grew up with... it's a more serious Anime style game beginning with two characters sliding down a waterfall into the parking lot of some kind of bank made all of brick. There was some sort of adventure then, but I don;t remember it, or else the dream just cut directly to the next part...
   
   I was writing in a notebook (!) Hah!! DJ, anybody? I can see myself writing words, and it seemed like I could read them, but on waking I couldn't remember what it said at all. Probably typical dream gibberish. I filled a page and wanted to write more, but was too dream-stupid to understand how to turn the page. As I was looking at the page, suddenly the words re-arranged themselves so that I had only written in the left half of the paper, leaving another column on the right! So I started writing in it. It seemed like I was writing down the dream so I would remember it...

It seems like there was another dream, but I was barely awake and remembering it when the other dreams flooded into my mind and I lost the last one entirely. I know I woke up several times and went back into the dream sequence. God, I love days off when I can sleep in!!! The best dreamtime is definitely after waking up the first time.

Note to self... Yesterday somebody on the forum posted something I need to remember. I don't recall who it was... one of the regulars from central Europe who posts a lot. He said the important thing is to make sure you go to sleep with your mind still aware.... . I think I let my mind drift into a dull state before I fall asleep. I think I need to come up with some kind of mantra or something.

Ack! I want to read your whole DJ... amazing recall! No time...

I love stop motion. I wanted to be a stop motion animator when I was a kid. I was obsessed with Gumby and The Wind in the Willows.

Hey Nomad, welcome to my DJ! Wow, you're the first visitor in here (to post anything).... and you're one of the big players on this site!! It's like a visit from a celebrity... well ok, overreacting a bit. But anyway, thanks!

(stupid) SPY SCHOOL
Dream in DARK RED
Lucid in BLUE




Another work day, not much sleep, and not much recall. But I seem to be continuing on the spy game theme that began yesterday.

1st thing I remember, I was in some kind of Spy School along with only a few other people. Wish I could remember more details from this part, I think it was fun. No cartoon or video game stuff today, the visuals were completely realistic stuff, but the story was cartoonish now, like some goofy comedy flick.

Anyway, we graduated spy school and went out into the world to do our thing.I was on assignment outside a row of suburban houses at night sitting in a bush near a few parked cars. Nothing is happening, until suddenly this ridiculous character comes running in foolish fashion up the street, making a complete ass of himself. I knew it was one of the guys from the spy school, and I groaned... he was a total idiot! If he's on this case too, then it's a lost cause!

He was dressed like some kind of cheesy pimp with a big fro, and his shirt open to the waist with gold chains hanging all down his chest and black makeup all over him. The way he came running up the street a moment ago was like some kind of exaggerated pimp walk only done a lot faster... really ridiculous. Now he jumped on top of a car and sat there looking up at the moon like he was about to howl or something. I knew if I was going to get any good intel here it would have to be fast, before he ruined everything, so I broke from the bush and crawled right up to the house I had been surveilling. It was dark inside, but I knew some people were hiding in there with no lights on and trying to stay away from windows so as not to be spotted. So I boldly looked right in a window, and I saw some guy sort of sliding around on the carpet like an inchworm. He was skinny and bald and looked like another comedy reject, and then I recognized him as another classmate from spy school.

He slid very laboriously around the living room and through a door, and I knew I had a few seconds to get in before anybody else would be in the living room (don't ask me how I knew). So I quickly opened the front door and crawled in. I thought it would be hilarious if I did this and then let them see me... I assumed this stupid position, laying on the floor with my head propped up on my hand and a big smile on my face. Geeze... I was just as stupid as they were!!

Suddenly I was back outside looking in the window like I had been a moment before, and now the door the guy had slid through opened and a blonde woman walked out, dressed in an Oktoberfest peasant girl outfit. Stupid disguise yeah, but she was SMOKIN!!! All swelling hips and hanging tits and big eyes and thick lips...

She walked right up to the window like she already knew I was there, opened it, and grabbed my head with both hands and planted a huge wet smacker on my lips!! I got incredibly aroused just for a moment, and then I was waking up.

Still had half an hour till my alarm went off, but couldn't get back to sleep.

The physics blogs are abuzz with rumours that a particle of dark matter has finally been found. If it is true, it is huge news. Dark matter is thought to make up 90 per cent of the universe's mass and what evidence there is for it remains highly controversial. That's why any news of a sighting is seized upon.

Wow, very cool!!! Strange though... apparently this particle is in an abandoned iron mine in Minnesota? And it's probably just background noise, not dark matter at all... but still cool. Thanks for posting. Apparently now scientists are hard at work building far more sensitive equipment to scan for more particles of it.

Too Stupid to Lucid?
Dream in DARK RED
Lucid in BLUE

Day off today, so I was able to wake up and go back to sleep several times and remember the dream each time (except for one).

1. Walking the Whatsit
   1st part I remember I was walking some kind of animal from an apartment building out into the street & it kept mutating on the leash. It was a small dog at first, and might have turned into a pig briefly without my noticing anything weird was going on. It stayed the same size through all the mutations, and kept walking at the same pace, and I was just too stupid to realize I was dreaming! It turned into some kind of huge lobster-thing with the head pointing straight up, very weird looking. Then it just went into a constant state of change... never remaining any one thing long enough to even register what it was.
   
   I tried to walk it back into the apartment building, but now the door was just in a curved section of wall... no building there anymore! This also failed to strike me as strange, I just was confused as to why every time I stepped through the door I ended up outside again, but in a completely different place.
   
   
2. "Get the hell out of my yard!"
   Was running around in the woods while some guy shot at me, I think because I had walked through his yard. A lot of really long leaps, almost flying, jumping up or down low dirt bluffs etc. Pretty cool stuff.
   
   
3. Whatever
   This was a pretty long detailed adventure dream, and I think it was really good, but I only remember little snatches of it and they don't make enough sense to even really describe.
   
   
   
4. My computer is a practical joker
   Was trying to order a bronze statue online, but as I filled in the order form I was typing the word BRONZE but all the letters would change each time I typed another one. I thought it must be a site that's not optimized for Macs! When I typed in the last letter instead of BRONZE it said OLDMEN. I carefully counted the # of letters and it's the same for both words, and this struck me as being incredibly funny as I was waking up. I was amazed (in the dream) at how clever the computer(dream) was in tricking me.

Investing in the flying machine (and getting conned)
Dream
Lucid

Ok, now I KNOW my mind is playing games with my attempts to achieve lucidity!!!

Dig this... last night I set my intent to fly in a dream and thus realize I'm dreaming, right? Ok... well here's what I dreamed.....


I was in some kind of department store like a K~Mart, at a card table in the back of the store that looked like it was set up for shady purposes, as in not really associated with the store itself but by some shady entrepreneur type. A bookie or something. I'm standing there next to this guy I seem to only barely know, as if I've just met him moments ago and he talked me into standing here with him. Behind the table sits some fat guy who looks like your typical underhanded used car salesman or shyster lawyer. He's got a few forms all typed up and pushes them across the table for me and the guy next to me to sign. I'm putting my John Hancock on the line as the guy next to me is talking on his cell phone... talking real fast and using all kinds of persuasive tricks on whoever is on the line with him. As I scribble my nomen, the fat shyster type says something to him along the lines of "Hey buddy, I can't keep extending you a credit line like this... you know your last 6 checks bounced..."

This suggests to me that he's talked me into investing in some invention of his that he's already talked 6 other people into backing and each time before it's fallen through (as in they lost everything). And somehow I know what he's got me investing in is this crazy flying machine he's supposedly building made from (among other things) parts of an iron bedframe!

That's it... entire dream. I woke up feeling swindled, and angry that I had fallen for it when it was so obvious.

So... here's what I get out of this on sober (waking) analysis....

My subconscious is playing games with me!!! Bear in mind... my intent was to dream of flying... There was a flying machine. It was made at least in part from sections of a BED.

I was being swindled. And I was too compliant (dream-stupid) to realize it or to do anything about it... I essentially let it happen because I was in the regular dreaming state.. not lucid.

Yep... it's just like my dreaming mind was playing a big practical joke on me and saying "Ok... so you wanna dream about flying...? How's THIS... flying machine... made from a freakin' BED no less! Har har... that's a riot!! And... on top of it... just to show who's holding the cards here... you're too stupid to understand I'm showing you your dream sign, so now you're getting swindled!!!"

I thought it was very clever though... the dreaming mind never ceases to amaze me with what it's capable of. And I now have a theory... that the subconscious teases us when we first set out to attain lucidity. It plays practical jokes on us, just to put up a little resistance. But it feels like it's a playful resistance... like somebody who's just having some fun at your expense and eventually if you persist long enough they'll break down and say "Ok... well, if you really want lucidity that bad... then have at it!"

Whip it good

Dream
Lucid

I was at my Grandpa's old house in New Athens. My grandpa died many years ago, and of course now his house belongs to somebody else. I do sometimes dream of being at that house, but usually in those dreams I'm a child... this time I'm an adult. There are other people there, my family I assume, but I'm in the spare bedroom by myself on a computer (yeah right... like you'd ever find a computer at my grandpa's house!!) and I can only hear their voices.

I think my sister walked in and we spoke briefly but I don[t remember what we said, and then I was leaving the house to take a walk. Out through the familiar green-painted screen door with a thread spool for a handle, and it slammed hard behind like it always used to.

Somehow I end up walking through a long trailer. It seemed normal when I went in, like everybody always just walks right through trailers, but then I suddenly felt like I was intruding... looked around and it's a beauty salon with several women getting their hair done. I see a door in the side wall and walk out, and 3 people come out behind me. I can hear them talking... it's 2 men and a woman - I glance at them, and one of them is holding a coiled whip. Very strange.... but I start to notice all around me people are holding whips. Maybe one in 5 of them. I:m feeling especially sociable today so I slow down and let them catch me, and I say something like "Wow, I haven't been in New Athens for a while, but when did everybody start carrying whips? What's up with that?"

I say it in a friendly tone, but there's no answer and they seem angry that I spoke to them. Suddenly there's some kind of tremendous earthquake or apocalypse of some kind... I only remember images of fragmented reality.... as if the earth has broken up into chunks and some of them are lifting into the air with people still on them... but the people aren't overly surprised by this.

I woke up then. I had a headache and felt pretty bad... probably why the weird dream and especially the ending.

I went back to sleep and vaguely recall 2 more dreams, but unfortunately I didn't fix them firmly in my mind upon awakening because I still had a headache and felt like moose crap. So the only thing I can recall from one is standing beside some kind of really sweet sports car (maybe a bright yellow or red Lambo?) with one gull-wing door open and a few people standing near me. I was talking to them, and I THINK I was telling them a dream... possibly the one I just wrote or the one I was in at the time... and it seems my intention was to impress the dream in my memory.

Dusty Star
Dream
Lucid



I almost didn't make that entry yesterday... I was going to just give up... quit journaling and trying for lucidity and all of it. Because I felt like crap with that terrible headache (which had gone on for a few days). But today it's gone, I feel a hell of a lot better, and it's all good again. And here's today's dream (actually I think I woke up and went back into the dream, but it all runs together and I can't be sure)

First let me set this up... it relates to some pretty intense shit. When I was probably..... 14 (?) I had a shaggy Hungarian Sheepdog named Dusty. He was a great dog... smart and could do cool tricks. He died one winter and I wanted to bury him, but the ground was completely frozen and there were like 4 feet of snow and ice... no way it could be done. Instead my mom had me put him in the snow, and we were going to wait for a thaw/melt and then bury him. But the winter had other plans... the freeze just went on and on... and eventually she made me fold him in half and stick him in a trash can... and he got his burial at the landfill. I cried like a baby for months every time I thought about it. And several years later I had a dream that I was in the living room of her house and Dusty's ghost came slowly and sadly walking through a wall, sniffing dejectedly at the ground and looking around morosely, as if looking for us but he couldn't see us. I called out to him, but he couldn't hear me. He just kept walking, head hung down, and went out through the opposite wall. I cried again when I woke up from that one.

Ok, cut years into the future... I got another Hungarian Sheepdog (actually my mom gave it to me) that looked just like Dusty... this one a female named Star (that's her in the pic). I hate to say it because I loved her, but she just wasn't smart like Dusty was. But you know how it is... that's not important when you love your pet. Star lived to the ripe old age of something like 15 years (!!) and died a few months ago, but this time I was able to bury her, and as I did I felt like I was making up for the terrible wrong that had struck poor Dusty. I buried them both that misty morning (symbolically).

Ok... the dream...


I was laying on the parking lot of the old Petrosian Cleaners (which has since been razed) next to Main Street Market (which I'm starting to think is a DS... it shows up in a lot of dreams) and a shaggy dog was laying right next to me. I was overjoyed to see it, and I knew it was either Dusty or Star but couldn't tell which one. We rejoiced to see each other, and played for a long time. Now I was laying on my side again (position I was sleeping in?) and noticed there was a corrugated plastic pipe running across the lot, like a downspout extension thing. It was about the diameter of my arm at this point, but as I looked at it it grew until I could just about stick my head and maybe my chest in it. The dog trotted into it and disappeared along its length, and somehow I knew it was returning to where it had to go (land of the dead, whatever). But we had shared a beautiful reunion and I felt great.

This is where I THINK one dream ended, I woke up, and then went back into it. Anyway, next thing I know I'm in a dark room and my eyesight is slowly adjusting, and I notice a full-length mirror in front of me. I seem to be sitting in a char that swivels from side to side, but has a head rest... like a barber's chair. As my sight adjusts better I begin to see my reflection... no wait, that doesn't look like me. In fact it's a cop, sitting in another barber chair right next to me. He does look a lot LIKE me, but it isn't me. I then realize this is the bathroom of my mom's house, and then the cop and I are in the living room.. he's in a chair, I'm laying on the floor next to the coffee table, and my mom is sitting on the couch. I'm telling her about the dog on the parking lot and that I couldn't tell if it was Dusty or Star, and I begin to realize there's a shaggy hungarian sheepdog laying right next to me again! After petting it a little I go into the other room where she always kept the milk bones and I get one. I hold it in front of the dog's nose but I say "Wait.... wait.....", and he waits, but is obviously excited. So I know it's Dusty... Star didn't have this kind of self control or obedience.

I say "Dusty!!" and give him the milk bone. He's wagging his tail like crazy, all young and energetic the way he was as a puppy. Now I feel like I know it was him earlier at the parking lot too, and for a moment I'm sad because I wasn't able to have this moment with Star, but I remember having "another one of these things" (dreams) recently with a similar reunion with Star, so it's all good.

I seem to be having a lot of dreams where I understand I'm not in a normal state of consciousness, and yet I don't quite realize it's a dream. So close!!! I'll take this as a good sign....

Sorry to hear about your dogs, man.

I had a dream last night of a shaggy dog that jumped into my arms. It was white.

Thanks Nomad. Yeah, it's a shame pets just don't live as long as we do... they bring so much joy, but you always know it's gonna end in sadness. But it's been long enough that I'm over it, and a dream like this can make you really remember them the way they were in the good times.

The dwarf girl and the metallic balloon
Dream
Lucid

I didn't even attempt any techniques last night... I figure I'll just take a break for a while and get back to it later.

I'm walking through a school that resembles the college I went to (note to self.... SCHOOL= DREAM SIGN) but it's weird... there are parts of the corridors where you need to get down and crawl through narrow spaces. I'm looking for somebody and I check in several classrooms. There's a memory gap here, and next thing I know I'm outside with this big metallic balloon (I mean the sort of foil ones that they give away at events you know... they're disk shaped with a big seam around the sides) talking to a dwarf girl, and it seems like she's my only ally. Somehow I know there's some monstrous character chasing me and she's given me the balloon to help me escape.

We have a teary goodbye and I get the feeling she's in love with me and it really hurts her to see me go, but she gave me the balloon (her favorite possession) anyway. Very touching. I blow it up and I'm in some kind of seat or simple harness under it and it lifts me up into the air. The terrain is extremely hilly here, ridges upon ridges, all slanting upward in one direction, and that's the direction I'm going, so as I rise slowly Im paralleling the slant of the terrain and these awesome rounded hill formations are passing by me. Awesome stuff!! This goes on for a while... then the dream devolves into fragmented images that don't make enough sense to record. I know a lot more happened, and it seems like it was pretty darn cool... wish I could remember it better. I didn't try to fix it in my memory when I woke up because like I say I decided to take a break.

... Screw taking a break!!! I can't stop thinking about lucidity, and I've only been trying now for a month... I'm going to keep on trying for a while.

Caddies in Spaaaaaace...
Dream
Lucid

1. Making stopmo puppets
   
   Me and my friend Rob are making stopmotion puppets. It's a weird technique... we're using coathanger wire for the armatures (way too stiff... I actually tried it on my first puppet) and we're just making arms and legs, sculpting them on the wire from super sculpey or epoxy putty or something that hardens like that.
   
   Wake up, fall back asleep....
   
   
2. Black Caddy space shuttle
   
   I'm watching commercials, or more like looking at magazine ads in a really big glossy magazine, but as I look at them they move. All the ads feature a particular model of car... need to see if I can find a pic. It's an old-fashioned type of car, something from a 40's gangster flick (Google shows a 1940's Caddilac Limo that looks perfect)... but in the ads each one is done up differently... I remember one was all chromed and had rivets all over, as if it's made from thick armor plated steel and completely bulletproof. There was also one that could drive underwater and one that could go into space. I seem to be looking from the magazine to something else... a monitor or TV? Each time I look at it all I see are wheeling stars, as if it's a feed from a spaceship drifting through space really fast. I get the feeling Im supposed to be controlling it or at least doing something every now and then to keep it on course, but I'm not... apparently because Im too busy looking at the magazine ads. They're really well-done and look super cool.
   
   I'm now looking only at one ad, for the car that goes into space. I see that it's actually a lot bigger than it looked... much bigger than a car in fact... more like the size of a space shuttle, and astronauts are lined up beside it as if waiting to get inside, all wearing what look like old-fashioned aviation suits... hoses draped over their shoulders that can be connected to sockets on the ship and laced-up leather body panels to hold in the pressure.
   
   Now it's not just an ad any more, I'm actually there right next to this huge shiny metallic spaceship, and it's like I'm trying to get on the team so I can go into space. Every now and then I glance again at the monitor, but now it's like because I'm waiting in line I can't get to it, only see it from a distance, and each time I see it now the space ship is careening out of control spinning dizzily through a massive field of stars. It's thrilling to see, but I get the feeling it might end badly at any moment. I'm just hoping that I can get accepted on the team or whatever and get fitted up with my space suit in time to fix things before disaster strikes.