mzungu
Oneirotechnist

My second lucid. I'm having difficulty remembering dream goals when lucid. Something to work on. Need to work on incubating dreams better.

I wake up, everything is dark. Something triggers me to do a reality check, so I plug my nose and try to breathe. I can still breathe. I try the nose plug RC again, just to be sure. Same result. I know I am dreaming. I become lucid.

I throw off my sheets and walk to my door. I try to walk through the door but get stuck. Maybe my eyes are poking out, though, because I can see on the other side. Stairs lead down to the first floor and all the lights are on.

I guess my mother must have been awake, because she hears me rustling around upstairs and decides it is a good time to hand me my laundry. I groan because I don't want to bother with this and I want to go and explore. She comes up stairs and tries to open my door, but only the top half opens. Instead of handing me laundry, however, she hands in some hangers. I grab them, shut the door, and then decide to go out the window.

I walk to the window and put my head through. No resistance. I struggle out and collapse on a sloping ceiling. Looking down I can see that there is a field in front of me. Green shrubs spattered with snow dot the landscape while the grass poked out of a layer of white like green confetti stars out of white frosting. I look down and am amazed at how real everything feels. I have a bit of trepidation at the notion of jumping down, but I know it is a dream. I jump and land softly and without any harm.

There are a bunch of DCs doing various things on this sunlit, winter morning. Some are tobogganing, some are skiing, others are having a massive snowfight. I see one DC, an African-American (or perhaps an African) who is building a snow fort while singing this song. It was very rhythmic and it was just nonsense words: "Woyoyoyoyoyoyoyo," repeated again and again.

A thought flashes through my mind that I can have sex with anyone I want, but I push it aside. I don't want to waste my time. So I walk towards the African-American DC. When I arrive he has this big djembe drum. I immediately decide that having a drum circle would be an awesome idea.

Other DCs join and they all have drums. Some have djembes, others have snare drums, others have those drums that Native Americans use during ceremonies and that you beat with a stick. I don't have a drum, however, so I decide to try to summon one. I look at the bare ground before me, look away, and look back. It doesn't work the first time, so I try again. This time this tiny little djembe drum appears. Its an teensy little thing, and I'm disappointed that I didn't get a huge drum like the African-American DC. I go with it, though, and bend down to pick it up, cradling it in the crook of my left elbow as I beat a rhythm out with my right.

We get into the flow of each other's rhythms, sometimes elaborating polyrhythms over another drummer's, sometimes establishing our own. We sing "Woyoyoyoyoyoyoyo," over and over again as we drum. I feel like I have known these guys forever, like there is some sort of mystical brotherhood between us. I feel love for all of them, and drumming sounds amazing. We start moving our bodies to the rhythms and dancing. Our rhythms are tribal.

Then this woman walks out from the building where my bedroom was (which at some point had morphed into a college dormitory), and tells us to be quiet because people are still trying to sleep. This is complete nonsense, of course, at it is obviously in the middle of the day. But I guess I must have only been semi-lucid at this point, because I don't protest. She'd ruined the vibe anyways.

Before I put down my little drum, however, I remember what AnotherDreamer had said to me about stabilizing your dream by studying objects in the dreamworld. I look at my drum and on the side the words "Breast No.15" was written. I decide to do another reality check and look away and look back, trying to see if the text changed. It did. When I looked at it the second time it said "Brassers 15."

The dream shifts to another location without my knowledge or any transition. We are in a large white room with comfortable tables. The DCs from the drum circle are sitting around talking. I decide to fly and find that it really is quite easy. I fly around the room and nobody thinks it is weird. There is a little alcove to the side where two DCs are talking over a table. I enter the alcove and bounce between the two walls over their head. On one of my approaches I twist around so I am flying towards them butt first. "Aerial attack!" I scream as I let off a massive fart right over their heads. They choke and gag and I start laughing hysterically. I start to feel myself wake up, but I see one of the DCs raise his fist towards me and shake it angrily.

"Goddamn ye, dreamer!" he says, in a thick Scottish accent.

I am in Italy, at a mall. In a small auditorium to the side, a stage has been set up. A kindly old gentleman in clericals mounts the stage. His weathered and a reddened face cracks into a smile. His circular glasses fall down and rest on the tip of his nose.

"I have been the subject of almost universal dismissal," he says, then cracks a mischievous grin. "It gives my great joy."

Suddenly he jerks back and collapses on the floor. A pool of blood forms under his head. I do not understand what I am seeing. Then a reporter cries out: "The pope has been shot!"

A wave of humanity surges forward like the contraction of some huge muscles. I find myseld behind the pope, as his wife (that's a dreamsign there, if there ever was one) rushes to his corpse. Somone pulls her back and she collapses on the stairs of the podium and weeps. I walk down the stairs as the pope's still form is carried by.

I am crying too. I am distraught, shocked, angry. I had loved the old pope, in my own way, the sort of love that one can give to someone you never meet but admire, the love only a non-Catholic would be able to provide. The pope was kind and compassionate. He was the kind of person who looked out for the people that society had forgotten about. He rejected all the splendid trappings of his office, and went around in his own car, and ate in the cafeteria line with his servants.

I am angry that someone would want to harm such a loving man. I stomp away. At the entrance to the mall there are some rough looking Italian teenage boys. They fall in line with me and we exit the mall.

Outside all is quiet. We look around and see people relaxing on benches, poking around on their phones. As if they hadn't a care in the world.

"They don't know," one of my companions says.
This girl looks up from her phone and sees us.
"The pope has been shot," she says, as if she's announcing the title of the newest Lady Gaga album.
"Or don't care," I add.

We stomp around, angry, looking at expensive cars.

-+-

My Friend introduces me to some shady characters whose leader lives in a place called the Den. My friend gets in trouble with them, while I become part of the inner circle. They want me to go to the Den, but I am frightened. Finally they decide to send me home to await their orders.

-+-

Something about being an ambassador to another country, whose monarch I slap, an unforgivable act. My queen gives me a profound speech, but I forget everything she said.

So after my first LD (since childhood) three days ago I thought I would be getting LDs pretty regularly. Not the case. My dreams seemed to have shortened, or my recall has gotten muddy. And my WILD attempts have been wildly unsuccessful. I don't even get vibrations anymore. I'm a little bit paranoid that my medications (Levothyroxine and Stratterra) are interfering with my ability to LD. But I have researched both, and they seem to aid lucid dreaming, not hinder it. Oh well, I soldier on.

I am in a park. All these baby birds surround me. Their legs are extra long, so that it looks like they are walking on stilts. They are very hungry, and chirping at me for some food. I can see their little beaks opening in protest. They are so hungry they try to peck at my clothes. For some reason, I have one of those plastic red bags that my CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) uses to deliver their potatos. The baby birds are ripping it to pieces. I wonder where these birds' mothers are, and look around to find something to feed them. I see a giant plastic jar of peanuts. I walk over to it and grab it, opening it and dumping the contents on the lawn. The birds attack it and have it all eaten in like two minutes. Apparently there were apples in the jar as well, because they roll out and a pack of wolves arrive and eat them. Why the wolves prefer the apples to the babies birds is a mystery. Apparently the peanuts and the apples were supposed to be for a picnic my family was going to have. My sister-in-law had brought them. When she found out what I had done, she said I could have them.

-+-

Somebody tells me I might have something called ver-Johnsonsing. Somebody else complains about English men coming home from foreign parts looking ridiculous in native garments. There is a tent community protected by this old stone wall. The wall is toppling, however, because a modern building had been built right up against it and is pressing the old wall back. I wander through the city of tents, following a guy on a bike.

-+-

All my seminary friends are sitting together at those plastic foldable tables. My sister-in-law is busy taking pictures of us with a camera. We start pounding the tables and singing a praise song "Everyday, it's you I live for..." (Aaaah, get it out of my head!) Some people are using drumsticks to hit the tables with. I started hitting the table early, because my sister-in-law tells me to stop.

-+-

This boy I know from somewhere, maybe highschool, says something sexist and offends me and my friend. I challenge him to a fight. Somebody tries to hold me back, I think it might be my mother, but I ask them to leave and the pressure disappears. We start to fight. I dodge and twist and pound my fists into his face. Everybody closes in like they want to finish him off. But I tell everyone to give him space and ask if he concedes. He nods. I tell him he has to apologize to my friend and to women for being a bigot. He does, his face red with shame.

So I did a WBTB WILD last night (meditated while waiting to go back to bed), but it didn't work. I tried the WILD three times, and each time I would get the vibrations, but I never really lost the sense of my body. Oh, well, it ended up not mattering because my RCs and MILD mantra kicked in and saved the night. Lucid in only five days since I started? Not bad.

I'm in my room, in the dark, looking at my monitor. One of my speakers is to the right. I hear singing from it. It is in another language. I think its Welsh. I know that it is coming from down stairs and that it must be my dad, who sings all the time (he does this IWL, and yes, some of the songs are in Welsh). I'm not sure why, but I go to the bathroom, maybe with the idea of taking a shower and getting up. The makeup of the house is completely different from my WL house, but I don't notice this. The light is on in the bathroom. I look in the mirror. I look normal, except my hair is sticking out on all sides so it looks like I have a saucer around my head. The top of my head, my crown, is also shaved, like a Christian monk. This triggers a reality check. The light in the bathroom must have gone off, because I performed the RC in the dark. I plug my nose and try to breathe. I still can! I become semi-lucid, but I'm so surprised at being able to breathe through closed nostrils that I perform the RC again. I thought my fingers might have slipped and half-opened a nostril. I'm excited, so I run out into the hall, where everything is dark. I whisper "Turn on the lights," or something like that, but nothing happens. I'm whispering because I have a crazy idea that my dad is downstairs, and I don't want him to know I'm lucid dreaming (I get secretive about weird stuff IWL, and this is why I figured this dream was not completely lucid). I find a switch and flick it. The lights come on. I run towards a balcony. Steps lead downstairs to a wall full of large windows. The steps are tiled with wood and the banister beside them is of some exotic wood. I can see that outside it is that time before dawn when everything is gray or deep shades of blue. As I run down the stairs, the sun comes up and by the time I make it outside it is morning. The sky is a brilliant shade of denim blue, without a cloud in the sky.

I am in a cheery neighborhood with comfortable looking homes, most of them ranch style. For some reason the neighborhood reminds me of Norther California. It is definitely not my own WL neck of suburbia. There are paths leading to other houses, and the spaces between the paths are mulched with red cedar.

Everything looks a bit blurry, so I shout "Clarify!". Nothing happens, but it must have worked because the last scene in the dream is very vivid. I remember that if I get too excited I will wake up, so I think stabilizing would be a good idea. I try to rub my hands together, but I am wearing these large red oven mits. I take off the mits and rub my hands together. I don't feel more grounded or anything. I have an idea that it might be a good idea to twirl for further stabilization. But I remember that turning around can also teleport you somewhere else, so I don't end up doing it. I want to explore the neighborhood first.

I look for something to do. I see a dream character across the road, checking her mail. She's this girl I knew from a farm in Northern California when I hitchhiked down the West Coast from Seattle. She has a cute coffee-cream brown face with a sprinkling of freckles on her nose. Her eyes are the color of brown autumn leaves, and her chocolate hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She is wearing blue sweatpants. I forget what she was wearing for her top. I run over to her, and she backs up into the siding of her house. She looks pretty calm, nevertheless, to see a strange fat guy sprinting towards her.

"Do you want the table?" she asks when I arrive. I don't remember if there was a table nearby she could give me, but I certainly didn't want it.

"No," I reply with crazy enthusiasm. "I want to tell you a story!"

I don't know what story I had in mind, but she says something I can't quite recall, but that ends with "alligators."

"I love alligators!" I cry.

I wake up.

Better recall last night. I tried WBTB, but it didn't work. I had a regular non-lucid dream that I don't remember much.

I'm hanging out in the living room with some relative. A small bee somehow gets in, and I try to capture it to take it outside (most of my relatives are the kind of people who kill any insect inside their homes). The bee stings me on the thumb and I give a little shout. One of my relatives laugh and say that's what I get for trying to be nice and take it outside. Anyways I get up to take the bee out and I notice that the floor is all covered with bees, who are grouping together in small swarms that look like fuzzy yellow and black hillocks. They are turning our house into their hive. Everybody in the house gets up and starts stomping around, trying to kill the bees. I run outside, though, because I can't bear to kill living things and I didn't want to watch them do it. While I'm outside, however, these bees attack me and sort of form up into balls and roll down my ear canal to sting out my ear drum. I can feel them buzzing in my ear canal and it is not a very pleasant sensation. I dig in my ear and throw the bees onto the pavement, where they lay still like fuzzy yellow and black balls. I then decide to go back into the house to get some earplugs and some bug spray. I head around the back of the house where there is this detached shed. I go in and the thing is full of gardening tools, power equipment and ladders. I meet my mother inside, who is sweeping bees into the shed and killing them with a rolled up damp towel (that takes skill). She says something like: "There's something you don't want to see." I ask her if there was any bug spray I could use, and she said yes. I tell her about the bees getting into my ear, and she says it'd be best if I didn't bleed through a perforated ear drum. I pick up a large set of orange ear protectors. My uncle must be in the shed as well because he asks why I want headphones to listen to music when we had a bee attack on our hands.

This dream was my subconscious being mean, basically asking: "Ok, Mr. Gandhi, I know you don't like killing insects, but what if bees invaded your home?" It was doubly mean because my favorite insect is the bee.

Also remember two snippets from other dreams I had last night:

Flying from San Fransisco to Cleveland

Being yelled at because I emptied the compost digester on the garden and dug it in, thus making the soil acidic (you are supposed to place it on top and let it go through an aerobic phase first before digging it in).