Last night had a DILD and worked on the advanced tasks. The eyeball one went very smoothly! No progress with Howl's Moving Castle, though. Relevant paragraphs from DJ quoted below:

Which task first? I love the idea of Howl's Moving Castle so I decide to start with that one. First I try to summon the castle directly, not through any special method, just willing it to approach on its own legs. It doesn't appear promptly, so I start with plan B: conjure a fire, call it "Calcifer," and feed it until it becomes strong enough to build the castle from the ground up. The first part should be easy; I've practiced conjuring fire before in this very spot. So I hold out my right hand and concentrate on creating a flame in my open palm. There's just one problem. It is raining, quite heavily actually. Typical dream perversity! I'm trying to fill my palm with fire, but meanwhile it is filling up with water. I ignore the dream's little joke, and keep concentrating on the fire.

Sure enough, I shortly begin to feel the heat and see the brightness of the flame. I set it on the ground and start feeding it chunks of pita bread, calling it "Calcifer" and trying to coax it to respond. It grows larger at first, but doesn't show any sentience, and now the rain is causing it to dwindle despite my attempts to feed it. I decide to continue this experiment indoors, out of the rain. I pick up the fire, just carrying it in my hands, go inside and set it down again on a flat stone ledge, about two and half feet in width and height (the interior of the house no longer corresponds in any way to RL). I feed the fire and continue calling it "Calcifer" to try to get a response, but it ignores me, and I feel silly talking to a fire. I go outside, careful to take the fire out again with me so as not to leave it untended in the house, and fly up in the air before releasing it. I instruct it to go seek out Howl's Castle, hoping that it might reappear at some point later point in the dream.

I return to the ground, once again in a place recognizably like my back patio, though it is no longer raining. What next? I realize the eyeball task should be quick and easy, if I can stomach it, so I ought to knock that one out of the way. I consider going inside the house to use a real mirror, but I don't want to waste time so I stand outside the sliding glass door to the kitchen and rely on the faint reflection of myself I can see there. There is nothing unusual about my reflection—much less so than usual, actually. When thinking about this task in waking life I had decided (for the sake of safety and squeamishness) to try to remove the eyeball in a more hands-off way, simply raising my palm and trying to pop it out through will alone, but now that I'm ready to go I don't even remember that idea. Instead I lift my right hand to my right eye and just start digging in there. I feel a momentary discomfort, enough to make me think, "I'd better be damn sure I'm dreaming!" before I feel the fingers slide smoothly into the socket with little pain, and this reassures me.

The eye pops out easily, but it is attached to a surprisingly thick, gross, fleshy stalk. Even at the time I realize that my experience has probably been colored by other accounts of this task I've already read on the DV thread, some of which mention similar stalks. The stalk is inconvenient and ugly so I keep pulling until the eyeball breaks free, then turn it around to inspect it. It looks remarkably like an eyeball. I had been hoping that it would transform into something cool, like an orb of glass or even a jewel. But nope. It is a disturbingly life-like eyeball, with a distinct iris and pupil and even a bit of red tattered membrane where the stalk had been attached. When I aim the iris and pupil toward me, they already look dead and unseeing, so it doesn't occur to me to try to use this eyeball to see with. Also, although I don't take note of this at the time, in retrospect I can report that there was no subjective change in my experience of vision; I was still "seeing" as though with two intact eyes.

I had meant to look at my reflection again after pulling the eye out, but I forget to do so. Instead I'm absorbed in inspecting this very ordinary-looking eyeball and trying to find any notable details to report. I do observe that the iris seems to have changed color: from the initial blue it has faded to a drab brown. It is still kind of creepy to be holding my eyeball, so without experimenting further I pop it back in. Luckily no difficulties there, and only then do I remember to check my reflection. I look normal and still don't notice any changes to my vision. I feel a momentary regret that I didn't remember to try to transform the eyeball into something else before putting it back in, but I feel reasonably satisfied with the task so I'm ready to move on.