"pet the cat" WILDing technique (not real technique)
Okay, I had an odd experience with my dream last night. Here's from my dream journal:
Quote:
July 29, 2011
I was in my bed. It was in my room, but my room wasn't exactly the same. By bed was turned a different way first of all. I had read about a “pet the cat” technique, where you imagined a cat and pretended to pet it. The goal was to start to feel the cat and thus to induce a lucid dream. I tried it, but I started to think about the cat and carried it around my house because it tried to scratch my face. I went off and did a bunch of other random stuff as I would in any dream. I seemed to have forgotten about the cat and I had this bird. All of this took place in what seemed to be an accurate representation of my house. I had the bird in a cage, and it was brown. A bunch of parakeets came in and I had them in cages. They were tweeting with the parakeets I regularly had (not for real though, we only have one parakeet) I let them out so they could fly out the door, but I grabbed the brown one as it was flying around so that it wouldn't get away, even as it bit me. That dream faded (and I forgot most of it now anyways), and I was back in bed, annoyed that I did that rather than gain lucidity, so I tried again. This time it worked, and I was in a dream. A cat materialized, it kept falling though because I also had to imagine the bed next to me it was on, and I kept moving it closer. It faded though. I was in bed again. I realized I hadn't moved, and that it could still be a dream. I got out of my bed, now being in the dream, but I couldn't really see anything. Rather than trying to “open my eyes”, I got to the floor to stabilize the dream. I started saying with my voice (which worked!) my vision mantra and also my dream length mantra. My vision appeared as I was stabilizing, and I saw the wooden floor. I had crouched down and put my hands on the floor, to stabilize. I kept stabilizing. My bed in this dream was the right way as my real room. While I was stabilizing, I wanted to taste something to get my fifth sense in, so I got up to find something to eat other than anything near the floor. I looked, and my alarm clock was like my old one a bit (that is, it was more like a cube), but it had some funky buttons. I read them trying to remember at least one. One said “Asæarel” I think (the a/e may not have been joined like that, and my spelling may be slightly off, but it looked like that spelling is the point). There was a map of who-knows-what tacked above my night table, so I took one of the tacs out and ate it. It was a thin tac, red, and it tasted very lemony and sour; as a matter of fact it was pretty nasty. I stabilized again after looking out my door, which was open. I looked to my left, and my closet was open. Apparently it was a sliding folding door (with panels that look like shutters. I think that a monster may come out, but I resolved to befriend the monster when he came out. None came out, but I didn't go to look inside. The dream began to fade to black. I was back in my bed. I was amazed that this technique had worked so well. I was very excited about this technique. I wanted to try petting the cat again, but the dream fades from here. (woke) I realize now that I've woken up. I realize that I can't “pet the cat” unless I'm already sleeping, and that the technique was imagined by me. I do a reality check just to make sure I'm really awake. An alarm goes off which forces me to get up since it wouldn't stop.
If that's confusing, I'll try to summarize it. Basically I had a dream that I was laying in my bed and, having read about this technique (on some website other than dreamviews, the site name started with "white"), I tried it. The first time it worked but I forgot to stay aware, the second time it worked, but it faded and I effectively had an in-dream false awakening. After that I got out of bed and had a higher quality lucid dream. Then, I woke up from this lucid as it faded (I suppose this is technically another F.A.). Then the dream actually faded and I really woke up.
Basically, I think I need to stabilize a bit longer. Stabilizing seemed to really make it last longer.
I may post it on my dream journal.
