Summerlander
Lucid Dreamer

Date: 11/06/2022
Bedtime: 2.40am
Awakening: 7am
Return to bed: 7.20am
Method of entry: indirect
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 8.55am
DEILD: The Anesthesia Experiment


DREAMING

I'm a doctor with my own private clinic and patients are happy to see me save but one who proves to be very difficult and tests my patience to its limits. I end up battering him till he's unconscious and worry that I might have killed him. I check him with my stethoscope. Scene shift: I'm watching the British soap opera EastEnders and it feels like I'm in the scene as an observer. The setting is a pub, which is radically different from The Vic, and I witness Zack Hudson (played by James Farrar) losing the plot. The actor produces a broom and uses it to smash up the bottles of booze on display across the bar. The bartender, who happens to be the actor Peter Stormare, dashes around the wooden counter to hit Zack but this one is quite agile and ends up beating the former to a pulp. I am happy that Zack wins the fight because I remember Peter Stormare playing a wife beater in the film Chocolat.


WAKING

I scribble what I remember and note the identity anomaly (I'm not a doctor in real life), the inexplicable scene shift, the strong emotions of worry and excitement, the close-ups of celebrities and the impossibility of being inside a soap opera. After using the loo, I return to bed with a strong intention to enter the phase.


DREAMING

I believe I wake up to an empty bed and figure that my wife is already up and pottering about. I can hear crying coming from my youngest son's bedroom and find a strange tot there. I take it the little girl before me belongs to the neighbours who live above us and assume that my wife must have agreed to babysit for them but now she must be busy with chores. I pick up the child and tap her on the back. She stops crying after I hand her a teddy bear and carry her back to my bedroom to keep her entertained. After a short while she cries for her mum and I take her to see the view from my balcony but I have trouble opening its door. I hear noises outside and music followed by a propagandistic voice, making me think that the Labour Party have gone bonkers in trying to persuade people to vote for them. Scene shift: My eyes are shut and I feel rested on a mattress under a thick cover.


LUCID DREAMING

I'm in bed and it occurs to me that I could be dreaming of waking up. As I get up and start rubbing my hands for clarity (realism: 90%), I find that I am not wrong when I glance at the curtains covering the balcony door; they are chartreuse instead of a greyish colour as is the case in the real world. As I move around the bed, sight declines to a blurrier state and my eyes feel crusty. (Realism: 50%) Rubbing them whilst wishing for clarity restores realism to an even greater decree than previously and the inaccurate bedroom replica becomes clear. (Realism: 100%) I exit the room into the hallway and look at my reflection in the mirror on the wall at the top of the staircase. I'm wearing a grey hoodie and shorts and my face is quite realistic. I feel slightly excited at the colourful detail of my surroundings and start dancing in front of my reflection, which mimicks my movements. An apt, funky beat comes on—as though someone turned up the volume on a stereo—and then I hear a voice behind me: 'What are you doing, dad?' I turn to see another bedroom adjacent to mine, which doesn't exist in real life, and a perplexed eldest son is standing in the doorway. I smile at him and say as a means to reinforce to myself the nature of what's happening to me: 'I'm having a lucid dream!' He turns around and mutters, 'Okay, dad!' I pat him on the back and tell him I love him, apparently causing him to shrink back to his pre-teen phase, before he utters in a childlike voice: 'Love you too, dad!'

I run downstairs and find that all the lights in the house appear to be on. I enter the loo expecting to find an astronomy-themed mural on black walls but instead encounter a comical poster depicting cartooned police officers resembling Chief Wiggum from The Simpsons having gay sex. I find it hilarious but at the same time disappointed that my mind did not produce what I was looking for. I remember the anesthesia experiment and think of getting a syringe from my right pocket. As I reach to check the pocket, I feel a pinprick on my leg as though the object is already there and piercing my skin. I pull out an empty syringe with a long needle and go to the kitchen in order to find an anaesthetic to fill it with. I approach the fridge-freezer's water dispenser and imagine that it might produce a numbing drug in liquid form but quickly change my mind and instead open the refrigerator to find a plastic bottle filled with a colourless analgesic. I pierce the bottle with the needle inside the fridge and draw the fluid into the tube, subsequently stabbing my right leg with the syringe, noticing that the pinprick is not as painful as the one I experienced earlier. I inject the fluid into my leg, believing its anaesthetic properties to be immediately effective. The leg goes numb as I wished and there is no sensation when I pinch it. I immediately force myself to wake up.


WAKING

Now awake, I quickly pinch my right leg but find that there is feeling there as normal in the real world, contrary to what was experienced (not felt) in the phase state. Also, I made the mistake of not performing the experiment as the first task of my plan of action. If required, I shall execute this task again.

Date: 04/06/2022
Bedtime: 3.30am
Awakening: 8am
Return to bed: 8.30am
Method: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Final awakening: 11.30am
Phase experience: No Murals To Be Found


DREAM STATE

I'm a member of a boarding school and meet up with a group of boffins in the woods at night in order to converse with them. It's our secret rendezvous to eat what we are reputedly not allowed: chocolate muffins. Suddenly, our indulgence is interrupted by a lorry driving through the forest towards our social circle, causing my uniformed friends to disperse. Subsequently, I explain to someone that I had been given the opportunity to devour a delicious chocolate muffin and that one of the other lads had a caramel one which I tasted vicariously, an amazingly advantageous ability which is deemed to be completely normal.

Scene shift: I'm on a small island which is the stage for a reality TV show, having somehow landed there and immediately regarded as a mystery guest by eminent contestants. Ulrika Jonsson asks me why I'm so short, making me feel inadequate and a little self-conscious. I do my best to speak graciously and politely—partly to make up for a perceived, physical shortcoming. However, no matter what I do, I feel like an alien or an outsider. I spot Xavier Bardem aboard a luxury boat sailing on a moat surrounding the villa and, feeling starstruck, I tell the others I'm quite fond of the actor. I am ushered into their residence and Ulrika shows me around. I clock a screen displaying a picture of me as a new contestant and notice that my face resembles that of Christopher Hitchens'—making me think that I am unconsciously emulating the public intellectual's expressions due to having watched him debate Robert Wright on YouTube.

Scene shift: I meet up with Anne-Marie as it's her birthday and she gives me a lift in a convertible from the close to a strange underground workshop. She is dressed up like a dog's dinner, all in leather and curiously a lot shorter than in real life. I give her a big hug, a kiss and wish her a happy birthday.


WAKING STATE

I realise that Anne-Marie does not drive and her height was inconsistent with reality (the impossibility of my former neighbour being considerably shorter than I remember is dismissed by a focus on, and delight in, an inflated ego towering over her when we embrace). The uncritical assumption that it was her birthday betrays a mnemonic failure because her birthday has already been and I messaged her on Facebook wishing her a happy one. Then there is an ID anomaly that also makes me considerably younger than I am in real life: I thought I was part of a coterie of boarding school boffins; on a separate oneiric occasion, my countenance resembles that of Christopher Hitchens' beyond just an emotional expression.

Unusual situations to look out for are exemplified in the dream scene where a lorry interrupts a 'muffin rendezvous'. Flawed logic that tasting a muffin vicariously through another boffin's taste buds is perfectly natural, when it is an impossibility, was present in the dream state. Scene shifts are common, too: I was on a reality TV show and suddenly, it is Anne-Marie's birthday. I have also been dreaming about celebrities every night: Xavier Bardem and Ulrika Jonsson. After using the loo, I return to bed with the intention to induce a lucid dream. I try the wake-initiated approach but fail to relax sufficiently on my back for about ten minutes, deciding afterwards to turn on my side and fall asleep.


DREAM STATE

During the day, a mustachioed food vendor is offering quiche to my family through the kitchen window of a radically different house. Inconsistently, he regales us with cheese sandwiches and charges after his so-called samples. I point out to my family that what we are getting is not quiche, but they say it's good and worth buying. Scene shift: at night, in my bedroom with Alfie and he tells me someone is outside. I open the balcony door to discover an architectural anomaly—there is no balcony; instead, a porch with two approaching teenagers wielding toy guns, and playfully pretending to be burglars, is manifestly before me. To my right, a staircase leads to the street below and next to it I make out strange neighbours arriving before entering the house next door. Dwelling on the structural inaccuracy, I conclude that I'm dreaming.


PHASE STATE

I rub my hands to stabilise the dream world. Returning to the bedroom replica, I decide to glide downstairs—encountering strange globular objects floating in the air at the bottom of the staircase—and head towards the loo whilst expecting to encounter a mural displayed on black walls for artistic inspiration but never reach my goal. I believe I wake up but still test the bedroom environment just to make sure. At the foot of the bed my fist goes through the carpeted floor and I know for sure that my surroundings are oneiric in nature. I sink into the floor in order to land in the loo imagined to be directly below so that I may find a mural in another attempt to seek artistic inspiration, but I descend into a dark space filled with some kind of pressure that almost feels like gelatine restricting my movements. Spinning causes the surrounding darkness to be replaced by an upstairs environment more congruous with my former address at Lea Close than the current one at Gardner House. Jumping out of one of the windows of an oneiric version of my former abode lands me on a fire engine parked right outside the front door. Upon seeing a party taking place in the opposite house with some people outside beckoning to me, I descend from the large vehicle to take a gander. Amongst the dream characters inviting me in are Poca and Andy Waters, who call out my name. Inside the house I find a lot of confusing but colourful decorations but no murals to be found. I lose lucidity at the party.


DREAM STATE

The party is characterised by debauchery and overall hedonism, including a butch lesbian pursuing me whilst declaring her lust for 'little boys'. Scene shift: I walk away from Lea Close with my mum, who complains incessantly about my former neighbour from hell, Helen, pointing out how conniving the woman can be. My mother wants me to go with her to confront our awful neighbours who are apparently near the local shops. I look back at my former house and see Stacey's silhouette behind a glazed front door and can tell she is wearing colourful summer clothes.


PHASE STATE

I'm back in bed and my head is hissing—a clear indication that I am in the hybrid phase state that makes lucid dreaming possible., I get up to what I recognise to be an inaccurate bedroom replica and therefore an oneiric environment. I search the house for murals, gliding faster than anybody could run, but find nothing, eventually flying out of the window of Melody's room to encounter a rustic vista radically different from Crane Park in the real world. The grassy field is missing and I'm flying over a muddy, tree-lined track with houses on either side (instead of a block of flats on the left as viewed from Mel's room in the real world). The houses are beautiful—some of them wooden and reminding me of the Old West—and curiosity gets the better of me. Descending to check out these properties, I expect that they also hide murals. I find empty rooms everywhere, finally coming upon a room with two beds ostensibly hiding sleeping people under their covers. The first bed I uncover is empty; the other turns out to hide a soft toy resembling a little dog that gradually morphs into a teddy bear. I wake up.


WAKING STATE

Scene shifts are quite frequent from daytime to nighttime scenes. The abodes are never quite right and there is a sense of traveling back in time to old addresses or neighbours that don't exist (nobody lives to our left). Unusual situations also come in the form of hedonistic parties and social contradictions, such as Poca and Andy Waters in the same room, often occur. It is a shame I couldn't find oneiric inspiration for a mural—I guess I must be more insistent in the dream world next time.

Date: 22/05/2022
Bedtime: 2am
Awakening: 5.53am
Return to bed: 6.10am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 8.15am
Phase experience: The Guitar Experiment


DREAM STATE

I'm walking towards a nighttime wilderness in England with my former schoolmate Javed and a Sri Lankan punter from my former days as a bookie; both men are willing to have a friendly fight and I'm the umpire reminding them to play by the rules and that they are not to get seriously injured as both are family men. We jump over a brick wall and the fight is about to commence when I spot what look like a couple of Kodiak bears approaching from a distance and hurtling towards the men. Eventually, the ferocious beasts catch up to them and both faint; I hide behind a tree as I believe the would-be fighters are about to be devoured. The animals are not bears at all seen as they possess a larger and quite uncanny presence—they remind me of a cross between a lion and a rhinoceros but overall redolent of the demonic hounds in Ghostbusters. I am petrified and in awe of such creatures which are not officially known to exist. I hear fingers clicking and the beasts freeze next to the unconscious men. Not far, I see Judi Dench (the actress who plays 'M' in 007 films) standing in front of a building that wasn't there before which I take to be a top secret facility. I immediately get the impression that she controls the hellish hounds and, approaching, she snaps her fingers again. Huge mandibles grip the men's limbs and a jerk accompanied by a crunch rouses them back to consciousness. I am taken aback by this nifty trick as the men scram in a panic. It isn't Javed running alongside the Sri Lankan punter; it is now Bob Hoskins. I furtively get away and encounter my friend Lizzie Bowman in the wilderness who also witnessed Judi Dench's hounds. We run together and there is an impression that we must know where to tread because England is now swarming with lions and there is the added challenge that they move around. It feels like a precarious memory game.


WAKING STATE

I record what I can remember and note potential dream cues such as the social contradiction of Javed and my former customer, stark elements from my past, the unlikely situation of being the referee of an agreed upon fight in the wilderness, seeing celebrities, shapeshifting, impossible monstrous animals and the threat of lions. I also identify schematic associations by my dreaming mind, e.g., the night before I dreamt of a giant Venus flytrap similar to the one in the film Little Shop of Horrors which happens to star Rick Moranis who is also in Ghostbusters. I return to bed with the intention to induce a lucid dream and fall asleep.


DREAM STATE

Me and a group of people are sat around a table. It is my understanding that this is a therapy group session and it is peculiar that every male—myself included—is topless and we have to present the females with instances of child abuse and domestic violence. A male psychotherapist interrupts the session to announce that there's been a mix-up and some of us are in the wrong group—I happen to be one of the misplaced ones. I am invited to leave the room for a break before embarking upon finding the right room. One side of the room is missing a wall and I use this wide gap to jump down to a dark underground sewage system resembling what I encountered under a bridge in a recent lucid dream. This is somewhat familiar! What am I doing here? I'm dreaming!


PHASE STATE

I tell myself I no longer need to re-enter the building behind me in order to look for the new therapy room. Everything is a very elaborate illusion. (Realism: 90% gradually making progress towards 100% as I rub my hands.) It feels like a nighttime environment but I am now in a tunnel and see light at the end. I glide towards the arched opening revealing a daytime, urban environment where I come upon a river—beyond it, near the horizon, I see a pillar-shaped mountain that reaches all the way to the clouds, making for an odd panorama. I struggle to recall the experiment I'm supposed to execute and believe I'm waking when the surroundings fail even though I strenuously rub my hands in order to heighten tactility. I'm in bed, apparently having woken up, and tell my wife I just had a brief lucid dream but failed to remember the experiment. 'Next time!' she says. I look at my hands and they look normal but decide to do a reality test nonetheless by pushing my right index finger through my left palm; the digit goes through my hand at a push! I'm shocked to discover I just had a false awakening and start deepening the phase by rubbing my hands as the realism is now only 35% that of the real world and the bedroom replica got darker since I falsely awoke. I reach for my electric guitar in the corner of the room and realise it is a lot smaller than it's supposed to be when I pick it up. The instrument is still in its case, which I struggle to unzip, so I decide to play it by pressing the strings over the nylon fabric. As I feel the strings through the gigbag, I hear the electric wailing sound of the guitar even though it's unplugged. I start randomly shredding on the fretboard (which is something I struggle with in real life) to produce a surprising classical rock sound in the style of a musical prodigy like Yngwie Malmsteen. My experience is more tactile and auditory than visual at this point. (Realism: 70%) I revel in the elaborate solo I'm producing until the environment fades and the sound peters out.

I believe I have woken up. I get out of bed and walk towards the balcony door to part the curtains and check what the weather is like. It looks dismal outside: the sky is grey and overcast. Beyond the neighborhood, I make out a strange cloud formation. The more I peer at it, the more the sky turns pink and the more a fiery cloud manifests in the shape of a wide column with a cauliflower-like top. That is weird! This mushroom-shaped phenomenon looks like an atomic bomb has gone off! Could it be that I just had another false awakening? My index goes through my palm again, confirming I'm still dreaming and I open the balcony door. (Realism: 100%) I want to play guitar again but the corner of the room where the instrument is supposed to be, to my left, is out of reach. I don't want to waste time so I reach behind the curtain, to my right, expecting to find a guitar there. To my surprise, I find my old V-shaped guitar, which I sold years ago, leaning against the wall. I start playing a melody similar to the first solo in the song 'Master of Puppets' by Metallica. Curiously, each note I play simultaneously causes the now fiery sky to reverberate. I'm awed by the beauty of the sounds and the colours before me and subsequently all my senses fade, leading to wakefulness.


WAKING STATE

It is worth mentioning that I have some experience with music as an amateur piano and guitar but I must say that in the phase I played more confidently and easily reached the level of a virtuoso. This experience won't turn me into a great guitarist overnight, but it has, at least, inspired me greatly.

Date: 22/05/2022
Bedtime: 2am
Awakening: 5.53am
Return to bed: 6.10am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 8.15am
DILD: The Guitar Experiment


DREAMING

I'm walking towards a nighttime wilderness in England with my former schoolmate Javed and a Sri Lankan punter from my former days as a bookie; both men are willing to have a friendly fight and I'm the umpire reminding them to play by the rules and that they are not to get seriously injured as they are both family men. We jump over a brick wall and the fight is about to commence when I spot what look like a couple of Kodiak bears approaching from a distance towards the men. Eventually, the ferocious beasts catch up to them and both faint; I hide behind a tree as I believe the would-be fighters are about to be devoured. The animals are not bears at all as I see that they have a larger and quite uncanny presence—they remind me of a cross between a lion and a rhinoceros but overall redolent of the demonic hounds in Ghostbusters. I am petrified and in awe of such creatures which are not officially known to exist. I hear fingers clicking and the beasts freeze next to the unconscious men. Not far, I see Judi Dench (the actress who plays 'M' in 007 films) standing in front of a building that wasn't there before which I take to be a top secret facility. I immediately get the impression that she controls the hellish hounds and, approaching, she snaps her fingers again. Huge mandibles grip the men's limbs and a jerk accompanied by crunch rouses them back to consciousness. I am taken aback by this nifty trick as the men scram in panic. It isn't Javed running alongside the Sri Lankan punter; it is now Bob Hopkins. I furtively get away and encounter my friend Lizzie Bowman in the wilderness who also witnessed Judi Dench's hounds. We run together and there is an impression that we must know where to tread because England is now swarming with lions and there is the added challenge that they move around. It feels like a precarious memory game.


WAKING

I record what I can remember and note potential dream cues such as the social contradiction of Javed and my former customer, stark elements from my past, the unlikely situation of being the referee of an agreed upon fight in the wilderness, seeing celebrities, shapeshifting, impossible monstrous animals and the threat of lions. I also identify schematic associations by my dreaming mind, e.g., the night before I dreamt of a giant Venus flytrap similar to the one in the film Little Shop of Horrors which happens to star Rick Moranis who is also in Ghostbusters. I return to bed with the intention to enter the phase state and fall asleep.


DREAMING

Me and a group of people are sat around a table. It is my understanding that this is a therapy group session and it is peculiar that every male—myself included—is topless and we have to present the females with instances of child abuse and domestic violence. A male psychotherapist interrupts the session to announce that there's been a mix-up and some of us are in the wrong group—I happen to me one of the misplaced ones. I am invited to leave the room for a break before embarking upon finding the right room. One side of the room is missing a wall and I use this wide gap to jump down to a dark underground sewage system resembling one I encountered under a bridge in a recent lucid dream. This is somewhat familiar! What am I doing here? I'm dreaming!


LUCID DREAMING

I tell myself I no longer need to re-enter the building behind me in order to look for the new therapy room. Everything is a very elaborate illusion. (Realism: 90% gradually making progress towards 100% as I rub my hands.) It feels like a nighttime environment but I am now in a tunnel and I see light at the end. I glide towards the arched opening revealing a daytime, urban environment where I come upon a river—beyond it, near the horizon, I see a pillar-shaped mountain that reaches all the way to the clouds, making for an odd panorama. I struggle to recall the experiment I'm supposed to execute and believe I'm waking when the surroundings fade even though I strenuously rub my hands in order to heighten tactility.


FALSE AWAKENING

I'm in bed, apparently having woken up, and tell my wife that I just had a brief lucid dream but failed to remember the experiment. 'Next time!' she says. I look at my hands and they look normal but I decide to do a reality test nonetheless by pushing my right index finger through my left palm; the digit goes through my hand at a push!


LUCID DREAMING

I'm shocked to discover I just had a false awakening and start deepening the environment by rubbing my hands as the realism is now only 35% that of the real world and the bedroom replica got darker since I falsely awoke. I reach for my electric guitar in the corner of the room and realise it is a lot smaller than it's supposed to when I pick it up. The instrument is still in its case, which I struggle to unzip, so I decide to play it by pressing the strings over the nylon fabric. As I feel the strings through the gigbag, I hear the electric wailing sound of the guitar even though it's unplugged. I start randomly shredding on the fretboard (which is something I struggle with in real life) to produce a surprising classical rock sound in the style of a musical prodigy like Yngwie Malmsteen. My experience is more tactile and auditory than visual at this point. (Realism: 70%) I revel in the elaborate solo I'm producing until the environment fades and the sound peters out.


FALSE AWAKENING

I believe I have woken up. I get out of bed and walk towards the balcony door to part the curtains and check what the whether is like. It looks dismal outside: the sky is grey and overcast. Beyond the neighborhood, I make out a strange cloud formation. The more I peer at it, the more the sky turns pink and the more a fiery cloud manifests in the shape of a wide column with a cauliflower-like top. That is weird! This mushroom-shaped phenomenon looks like an atomic bomb has gone off! Could it be that I just had another false awakening?


LUCID DREAMING

My index goes through my palm again, confirming that I am still dreaming and I open the balcony door. (Realism: 100%) I want to play guitar again but the corner of the room where the instrument is supposed to be, to my left, is too far from me. I don't want to waste time so I reach behind the curtain to my right expecting to find a guitar there. To my surprise, I find my old V-shaped guitar, which I sold years ago, leaning against the wall. I start playing a melody similar to the first solo in the song 'Master of Puppets' by Metallica. Curiously, each note I play simultaneously causes the now fiery sky to reverberate. I'm awed by the beauty of the sounds and the colours before me before all my senses fade and I wake up for real.


WAKING STATE

It is worth mentioning that I have some experience with music as an amateur piano and guitar but I must say that in the lucid dream I played more confidently and easily reached the level of a virtuoso. This experience won't turn me into a great guitarist overnight, but it has, at least, inspired me greatly.

Date: 05/05/2022
Bedtime: 3.15am
Awakening: 7.10am
Return to bed: 7.20am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 11.15am
DILD: The Insertion Experiment

DREAMING

I'm queueing behind a man in a shop. I'm next to be served but actress Julia Roberts jumps in front of me. She briefly looks back at me and I shake my head in disapproval before saying with sarcastic chivalry, 'Go ahead, you first!' Scene shift: I'm playing computer games with my wife in my youngest son's bedroom. Suddenly I'm by myself and several screens surround me, allowing me to switch from one game to the next without wasting time. I tend to select fighting over racing games. Suddenly, I'm inside one of the games—which takes a life-like appearance—and I observe people sink into walls with water flowing over their composite-stone surfaces; it seems that whoever gets too close to these peculiar walls ends up literally flushed away, vanishing into their deep gaps. The environment is like a gallery and people are warned to stay away from the walls. I pose for a picture with actor Cuba Gooding Jr. and the photographer accidentally reverses into a wall. I try to save the man by attempting to grab him but he gets flushed away pretty quickly.

WAKING

I wake up at the sound of the alarm and make some notes in my journal before getting my son up for school. I realise that I keep dreaming about celebrities lately, a theme which could turn into a potential dream cue. Playing computer games in my son's bedroom never happens and I also identify two instances of mechanical weirdness, such as, multiple screens and the subsequent flushing system on slippery wet walls observed after the impossibility of suddenly appearing inside a life-like game. Feeling tired, I return to bed.

DREAMING

At a nightclub a stately Rastafarian in dreadlocks insists that I stand in the corner of the dancefloor. This makes me very angry, especially when he refers to me as 'bitch'. I vehemently refuse to do as he says but he continues to press me so we lock horns and I end up killing him by bashing his head on steps at the edge of the dancefloor. I hear calls for security and scram as guards walk in my direction and call the police. Frightened, I exit the building, noticing that I am completely covered in blood. I meet up with my friend Musaddique who promises to help by taking me to his house. When we get there he tells me his door is the fourth one from a brick wall, but I see that the fourth one is blocked by a fence, so I ask him if he is sure and he appears confused. Weirdly, he starts counting doors before telling me that perhaps it's the third one. 'Do you not know your house?' I tease him before we enter the house and meet his family—which consists of his parents, his grown-up sister and some little siblings. Scene shift: It's time to go and, coincidentally, the back door of Musaddique's house allows direct access to a train station platform.

I am kindly given a travelcard so I can get a train home. As I head for some barriers beyond which some information screens are visible, I hear Musaddique and his sister calling me. I turn around to see them running towards me. They want the travelcard back because, as it turns out, they will need it. When I hand back what they gave me previously, I notice that I have two blue travelcards made of plastic, making them resemble my citizen card. I find it a little strange but reason that they must've given me two passes by mistake. They turn around and presumably start walking back to their house. I reach for my wallet and realise that it's missing so I panic. How will I get home now? I can still see the siblings walking at a distance and rush after them in the hope of borrowing some money to get home. Suddenly the platform is bustling with people and I lose them. 'Where are they? They were just here!' I think to myself. Feeling lost and confounded by their sudden disappearance, I begin to wonder if I'm dreaming. It's the only explanation ...

LUCID DREAMING

I no longer worry about anything but feel curious when I see Musaddique get on a train with the crowd. (Realism: 100%) The sliding doors close but I pass through the carriage like a ghost, encountering some resistance as I do so. I can see inside the train as I hover near the ceiling. A semblance of Musaddique and the rest of the passengers look up from their seats. Wondering about what reaction I might get, I say to Musaddique, 'Don't bother with the travelcard! This is a dream!' Musaddique and the passengers start hooting with laughter as if they had been actors all along in some Truman show and I just got 'punked'. I feel like I'm surrounded by tricksters as I stand in the aisle thinking that I must be careful not to get sucked into a dream plot.

I remember the Insertion Experiment and quickly lift a white shirt I'm wearing to plunge my right hand into my belly. As I watch my hand getting gradually absorbed by my torso, I make the following observations: there is some resistance, there is no blood, and there is no pain; as I wiggle the hand inside my tummy to feel for organs, I encounter a vacuous pressure—there is more feeling in my hand than my stomach area and no organs to be found. The environment begins to fade and I wake up eager to record my observations.

WAKING

I scribble some notes and recall the previous dream. Fights and confrontations in dreams are also quite common where strong emotions like anger tend to flare up. Being pursued by the police is also an extremely unlikely situation accompanied by feeling terrified of being captured. Each dream seems to come with at least one scene shift and there are some long-term memory-based elements such as Musaddique—a friend I have not seen since secondary school. I also need to practice being more critical of suspicious events such as Musaddique not knowing exactly which house door is his.