# Sleep and Dreams > Dream Journals > Dream Journal Archive >  >  LiveInTheDream's Public Dream Journal

## LiveInTheDream

Normal text will be in black, normal dreams will be in blue, and lucid dreams will be in this really awesome shade of green. If I seem to have a dream that falls somewhere in between lucidity and normal dreams, it will be teal, since that's in between blue and green. I'll also infrequently be using a darkish red color for hypnagogic hallucinations or other, similar things.

Thanks for taking time to look through this; feel free to comment about whatever, old and new entries alike! Comments really do make my day  ::D: 
 


Just want to see the best?

Then perhaps you'll want to start by looking at some of these dreams (ones in *bold* are especially cool IMO):

My First Intentional LD

The Day Dream Control Was Conquered

The Dream Room and Pandora

Being 'The One'

*The Three Month Dream*

*My First TotM Accomplishment*

*First Truly Successful WILD*

*The DC Who Didn't Want to Die*

...and hopefully more soon to come!





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## LiveInTheDream

11:30pm - Tried the first time in my life for lucid dreams by this WILD technique I learned from the internet. Even though the guide said it normally takes 20-30 minutes, I reached weightlessness after 5 mins. Panicked and forced a wake up.

The time wore on to Sunday: 12/13/09 - 12:30am

Accidentally fell asleep at some unknown time until 4:00am. No memory of sleep or dreams. 

At 4:30am, I accidentally fell asleep again, this time achieving lucidity.

First I was in a college dorm, not in body, but spectating like a spirit. I saw a messy desk, covered with pencils, including a single bright red one. The desk was metal and looked to be at least 25 years old. A built-in lamp was mounted beneath the top shelf and cupboard.

Instantly, I was whisked to my living room. I saw a pile of objects that my mind registered as Christmas presents. I was in body then, and handeled each object, finding them to be true to real life things that I own, only these were brand new again. I realized how outdated and deteriorated some of it has become. I saw packaging labels in crystal clarity that I've only seen once my whole life, and some other packages that don't exist, yet they were fully realistic in physics, lighting, and texture. I picked them up, dropped them, spun them around on the glass side table they were on, and found it all to function as expected.

Next I was whisked away to church, where the clarity reached its strongest point. Having not intended to try for lucidity in the first place, I now thought I was there and awake. I was talking to a couple friends of mine. I heard their voices and laughs and saw their expressions and actions in full, accurate detail. Then, another friend of mine walked up to us. "I should ask him about lucid dreaming." I thought, since he is a very knowledgeable fellow. BIG MISTAKE. He replied by going through the steps for having a WILD, directly quoting what I had read on the internet. When he reached the weightlessness part, I said, "That's what freaks me out!" And instantly I realized I was dreaming and as a result of the shock, felt as if I were being sucked into a vortex and put back on my bed.

I was stuck in paralysis. Literally. Couldn't move. A wave of weightlessness started to come over my body, beginning with my toes and moving up. I thought I was WILDing again, but since I had no visualized dream in mind, and rather than go somewhere I didn't want to, I thrust open my eyes and moved my head however I still was able. The paralysis broke when the wave reached my head. Checked the clock and only half-an-hour had gone by; 5:00 am now. I had been a bit afraid that I would get stuck in a dream for a day or more; those fears are now quelled.

I am unharmed; very disoriented, but sitting up for a moment fixed that. Actually, I felt more energetic from that half hour than from a half night of normal sleep.

The process of getting in and out of lucidity still scares me a bit, but coming through it alive makes me more than willing to try again. Besides, lucidity itself is WICKED AWESOME, DUDE!

7:52am - Now that I've fully woken up from my first lucid dreams, I diagnose that lucid dreaming itself has had no negative side effect on me. The lack of sleep is catching up to me, but otherwise I feel fine. Nothing is out of the ordinary for sleep-depravity. I intend to try lucid dreaming again this afternoon, when/where it is safe to give another trial run.

1:26pm - Tried to go to New York and fly over the city using WILD. Didn't panic at weightlessness. Wasn't calm enough, though. My excitement caused my heart to beat very rapidly, almost dangerously so, suspending me in between wake and sleep. I saw the brightness of the New York sky through closed eyelids, saw the faint image of traffic below me on an apartment deck, and heard some city noises, but intentionally left the dream due to heart overactivity. Waking like that faithfully produced a degree of disorientation, but also gave me jitters from working my heart so hard. I MUST LEARN CALMNESS!

Something I just realized is that ALL lucid dreams of mine begin and end with me seeing an eye. It frequently changes shape and occasionally other features (eyebrows, lashes, etc) appear as well.

11:45pm - Attempted to sleep without entering a WILD. Concluded from study that WILD is not the preferable method, and not very successful.
The night wore on, but every time my eyes shut, I'd begin a WILD. Began to fear that I was messing up my brain and wouldn't ever be able to get a good night's sleep again without doctor's aid. Prayed for help which quickly calmed me down and I went to sleep naturally, though it was late.

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## LiveInTheDream

6:00am-Woke up and quickly reality checked my room. Realized I had successfully escaped a WILD night, and discovered that I was back in control; if I closed my eyes, did not fight movement urges, and did not attempt to maintain concsiousness, I could switch to natural sleep on demand. I also realized that I was in the perfect situation for a successful WILD, but chose to rest instead.

10:00am - Woke up again. I guess I was tired from all the hard work. NEVER slept until 10:00am before. Good thing I don't have anything important to do today.

Very little dream recall...

The first dream, all I can recall is a brief moment of being at a computer and looking at graphs with my mom.

One dream was longer, and involved a (fictional) uncle of mine. 

He had a big house and threw a party, and even had a music group play. Everything was fine up until this point. We had arrived at the house, been warmly welcomed, and been treated very hospitably, but something about him bothered me. When the music group began to play, I decided I didn't like the music, and proceeded to sabotage the party to get rid of them. Walked in and out of doors in hallways, past several members of my family, trying to find some way to stop the band from playing anymore. Eventually I found several huge objects that I was somehow able to pick up and move without the least bit of struggle. I then brought them all up to the living room balcony and began knocking over the band players by dropping the objects on their heads  :laugh: 

Obviously, this was causing much strife with my 'uncle'. He and the rest of my family all cornered me and began interrogating me with questions about why I would do such a thing when everyone had been so nice to us. For some reason I still thought the band and my 'uncle' were just plain evil, but then I woke up. It was a pretty clear dream; it seems I could have entered lucidity, but unfortunately I did not remember to RC.

I remember having more dreams prior to these, but they left my memory instantly upon awakening.

11:30pm - Went to sleep without WILDing intentionally OR unintentionally, without much help. Every time I would begin to enter WILD, I'd see the eye again, staring back at me, morphing into a million different forms, occasionally revealing an eyebrow or other details in the surrounding area. I would then look away from the eye and stop holding onto consciousness and be fine.

Over the night, I had several dreams, but I can only recall two again, in terms of length, in the same order as before.

The first is very unclear...I saw my dad making a statement about my sister that was bothersome. Something like "She's going back to college and is not allowed to EVER leave!" He also decided on a husband for her to be forcibly married to, though I cannot remember who or why.

The second was longer, but not much happened. Most of the time I was just randomly walking upstairs and downstairs, all around my house, not doing much, just seeing people from my family doing various normal things. I saw some history channel thing about trains on the TV for a brief time. One time when I went upstairs, I found an girl that I had never seen before putting on makeup in the bathroom. When I stepped in there to find out who she was, I saw a wedding dress hung up next to the shower. I decided that she and I must be getting married, and she agreed. We hugged and very nearly...did something else, too, but decided it was better just to wait. We decided we'd be married in two days, so it wouldn't be that long. I went back in my room and found that I had a bunk bed all of a sudden. I got on the bottom and she got on top and we went to sleep.

No lucidity--issue was, I saw no doorways in the dream, and my practice has been to RC when I go through doors. I'm beginning to think that my family is a dream sign. I've seen someone from my family in every dream I've had for the past two nights. Interestingly, WILDing didn't bring me any dreams of my family, but since it doesn't require RC's or signs, it doesn't matter.

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## LiveInTheDream

Two dreams again. I should have gotten up and recorded the first, because it is mostly lost on me now. However, I remember seeing my parents again.

Second dream was a jumble. Pretty much everything I had thought about that day was in there. Eventually it all worked out to me walking into a room with a small conference of some sort; no more than 50 people. The conference ended soon after I walked in, but first I demonstrated this little sticky, square lightbulb thingy that I had, since the conference leader was talking about it. Maybe they wanted to sell the lights; I don't know. When it was done, everyone was to pick up their chairs and stack them in the corners of the room. One kid with blond hair and glasses passed by. "Hey." I said. "What's your name?" I can't recall his answer. "Where are you from?" was my next question. "The Ford." He replied. "It's just a few hours away from Missouri...have you ever been to Missouri? I've been twice." "I go all the time," I replied. "I live in Kansas and I can drive into Missouri in about 15 minutes!"
 
I was zipped away then to a false awakening. The thought of reality checking crossed my mind, but unfortunately, I simply thought back "I already did!" I got down out of bed and there were several parksabers.com lightsabers on the floor. They too were part of the previous mish-mash of a dream I had just had. All over the place my mind started posing questions. "How do you know you're not dreaming? What about this is real?" but these questions were very quiet and only managed to cause a bright light to blind me momentarily, multiple times, as if my conscious was trying to break through. But the questions never stopped. Eventually, as I practiced with the saber props, I thought, "Well, if these sabers are from my dream, that would make THIS too a..."

And I awoke, reality checked, and found myself to be really awake.

Several other instances throughout the dream prompted reality checks, but I either excused them with "I already did, just a second ago!" referring to what I did right before I fell asleep, or the posed questions were too 'quiet', like a small voice desperately trying to make itself heard, but in the end being ignored.

Oh yes, and my family members were throughout the dream as well.

I think I'm getting close.

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## LiveInTheDream

11:47pm - Went to sleep with absolute determination to lucid dream. I really believed I would succeed, even though I had not done very many reality checks that day.

The first dream I recall came in the form of a nature trail. At first we were in a building made of small yellow bricks with squares of green at random places in the walls. The floor was of concrete, and I remember seeing realistic reflections in it. Soon, that building pathway led outside to he nature trail. My family and I were all there, walking it. The path seemed to go on forever, going past trees and creeks and all sorts of plants. The lighting wasn't very realistic here, though. I don't recall any shadows, and the sun didn't shine through the leaves at all as it should have. Eventually we decided to turn back and head home. On the way back, the path itself maintained its integrity; it went the same directions at the same point  in the path that it had before. The building we started at, however, was a different story. The colors had switched; now there were green bricks with little yellow squares at random points in the walls. I remarked at the change in the dream, but unfortunately my explanation was: "Oh, they must have painted it while we were gone." Soon after, I entered another dream.

This one also had a lot of trees and other foliage, as well as a dirt road. My friends and I had gathered there and were talking and looking at pictures we'd taken of the jungle/forest, when suddenly someone sped by us and started shooting. I don't think he hit anyone, but we all got in our cars (which were suddenly there with us as if by magic  :tongue2: ) and chased him down before he could do more damage. The dirt road was rough, but not realistically so. We easily sped through without ever once spinning out or having difficulty turning. That's not to say we were free from harm, though. Once I went off a jump, right behind the shooter and catching up, and on my way down, a branch hit the windshield and broke the glass. I felt little pieces pierce my skin, and it hurt when I moved, but I kept driving. Others behind me went through similar experiences, though their windshields remained intact. After a long chase like this, we drove into snowy territory, on a mountain (amazing how no one was even slightly cold). The shooter was gone, but there was a structure, and at the top was some huge, gold artifact. Everyone got out of their cars and began to climb the side of the structure. It wasn't too difficult, since only the support structure was left behind; the equivalent of modern beams in 5,000 year-old form. However, the structure was also straddling two sides of a huge snow-covered canyon below. We climbed with caution. Suddenly, the shooter came back, and this time he hit a friend of mine that was almost to reach the gold artifact. My friend fell off, but managed to land on the edge of the canyon rather than fall down in it. I rushed to the top, grabbed the gold, and then dove off the structure to the canyon edge. I rolled as I hit the ground and came up unhurt. The shooter was gone again. I started to pull glass shards out of me, but soon I woke up.

It was still early. I had enough time to do a WBTB so I decided I would give it a shot. Unfortunately, I had only a vague idea of how to properly DO a WBTB, so I didn't get all the way out of bed, but remained fully awake for about 30 seconds and suppressed thoughts about the day ahead or anything but lucid dreaming. Oddly enough, though, that much actually helped! At least, I think it did. I began to feel very lightweight...not totally weightless as if I was WILDing, but very light, and it was like the logic part of my brain was partially shut off while remaining conscious. I considered WILDing then because it seemed the most likely time for it to work, but in the end decided I didn't want to endure the transition and went back to sleep, hoping for a DILD that I never got. Didn't even have any dream recall from this sleep period.

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## LiveInTheDream

11:14pm

Went to sleep without well-set intentions. "Maybe I'll WBTB...I'll set an alarm for 4:30am. I'll leave my PC on so I can get o DV if I decide to get up." It was still too much 'up-in-the-air', though; I made no firm decision about following through. However, I ended up awakening at 2:21 having already been in REM, so that WBTB failed from the outset, but helped me guess a better time to set the alarm for. Another issue was that having my PC on meant a blue power light was flashing in my eyes all night long...it ended up working on me like a Nova Dreamer and influencing my dreams. For sake of time I'll only put one of them on this dream journal; I've already got the other one written down elsewhere. (yep, I'm still sticking with two dreams recalled every night, but they are increasing in clarity very rapidly now, and I can remember details from them for longer periods of time.)

The first dream began in a dystopia, an island that was mostly covered with water. Still, the water was not too deep for construction. The Vegas-like place was mostly up on stilts, with bridges for roads and sidewalks. In this town, I watched as a spectator as a warning rumor spread around that the water had become mixed with too many chemicals and would explode in one day, causing near-atomic reactions. Many heeded the warning and evacuated in time, but several foolish, wild party-ers remained behind to have 'fun' without the others around to talk bad about their lifestyle. As this went on, the setting sky turned red and orange, reflecting blood in the water. The parties went on. Finally, however, one girl realized something was wrong and pulled her boyfriend out to the docks. "What's going on? Let's go back and have fun!" He said. She paid no attention, but tried to find the fastest boat she could. She made her choice and then proceeded to untie it from the docks. "I think the rumor about this place is right!" She said. "We have to get out of here before something happens...I just know _something_ is going to happen!" The boyfriend didn't seem to care. "Oh come on, let's just go back." "No!" She persisted. "Please! Let's just leave now! We can come back if nothing happens!" A little boom echoed in the distance, as if the beginning of a chain reaction explosion had begun. The boyfriend jumped into the boat with his girlfriend and they tried to speed away before it was too late. They barely made it out of the docks before the entire island combusted and exploded, destroying everything in its path; radiation was very intense. The blast radius was far too big for the two people to escape, though. It caught up to them and destroyed them in the most gruesome way I have ever seen. These weren't your normal Quake gibs...all hair was instantly disintegrated by the radiation, limbs were blown off, bones ripped apart, and entrails exposed.  :Eek:  Never before had I witnessed human beings so mutilated. And as if that weren't bad enough, the dream 'rewound' itself and 'played back', showing this scene over and over until I woke up none too soon.

At 4:30am my alarm went off, but I had already had two dreams at that point so I figured the WBTB thing would never work at that point anyway. I only lost sleep from having a nightmare and now being woken up by the alarm. My mind had never asked questions about the possibility of being asleep during the dreams like it did the previous night, and all in all it felt like a lucid dreaming epic fail  :Sad: 

Maybe I'll WILD this afternoon to get myself back on track...

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## LiveInTheDream

6:00am - Woke up a bit earlier than was planned in order to try a WILD again. Haven't WILDed since that first time because the side effects frightened me, but after learning of their harmlessness, I was convinced it was worth a shot again.

The way it worked out, I fell back asleep before I could. However, I still had a lucid dream!!!!!! It was possibly the most unlikely method ever for going lucid, too: *falling asleep inside of a dream!* I was totally non-lucid at first, just going about my house, when the power went out. Real bad. Lights fell out of the ceiling, anything plugged into the wall was fried, etc. So while we waited for the repairman to come, I decided to catch up on sleep. 
And then I was *lucid*!  :boogie: 

Being only a DILD, it wasn't quite as vivid as when I WILDed, but it was plenty good for me! I was out on my driveway, and knew I was dreaming. Unfortunately, I didn't reality check because I was so sure of this. The end result was a lack total control and maximum clarity, but I'm just glad I finally had another lucid dream! Anyway, first I had a personal party for success, and then I walked up inside my garage, which was unusually packed with junk. There was no room for cars anymore. Most of it was boxed up, so I didn't bother to look and see inside them.

Then I 'woke up' in my previous dream, not lucid again. I forgot to reality check, of course, so I thought that was it. I saw that the power had not been fixed, so I soon went back to sleep...and was lucid again!

This time I wasted no time. To start off I rubbed my hands together, and that seemed to bring things into better focus. STILL I did no reality check, though...I don't know why I didn't think to do it just to be safe. However, I was out on the driveway again and the garage still looked the exact same. So I went right in there and approached a mirror. "Now for the fun stuff." I thought. I pulled up my shirt in front of the mirror and then put a hand over my abs with the intention of shapeshifting. BAM! Instant 6-pack!  ::D:  Unfortunately, shapeshifting that way, as expected, kind of shocked me awake a bit. Fortunately, also as planned, I was still there enough to spin around and rub my palms together. I began losing vision...things got darker and darker...but I kept on spinning and rubbing. When things got entirely black, I fell over from spinning, which actually jerked me back into the dream a little bit for registering the sensation of falling and landing on rough concrete. I got back up and continued spinning and rubbing, and slowly my vision returned. First all I could see was my foot on the ground, but as my disorientation began to leave, the scene of the dream returned. Before long, I was completely back in the dream, even clearer than it was before! I cheered for my success and then ran back up into the garage and looked in the mirror. Yep, the 6-pack was still there! For the first time in my life, I successfully shape-shifted something without waking up as a result! I went inside for a moment to share my success with whoever was in there, and my family was all there, just gathered around the TV as usual. I think what they were watching had something to do with dreams, because my Mom remarked, "Dreams sure are interesting." I shouted, "Especially LUCID dreams!!!" She replied, "I don't believe in lucid dreams." I laughed, both at that remark, and at the fact that everyone was almost totally inanimate. They just sat there with blank expressions on their faces, only moving their lips to talk, and they didn't even look at each other when they spoke. I refrained from telling them that they were PART of a lucid dream. Instead I went back out to the garage. "Alright, I've got as long as I need here; time doesn't apply. I can go slowly and shapeshift something and then stabilize, and then do it again." So that's what I intended to do. However, I got overconfident and tried to shapeshift far too much at once. In shock I was thrown down to the ground. I tried to rub my hands, but it was too late. I found myself waking up in the previous dream again. The power was on.

Then I woke up for real.

"Number of DILD's since joining," you ask? Now, there have been 2  ::banana::

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## LiveInTheDream

Woke up at 5:25am as was set for my watch alarm. As I did the previous day, before I had gone to bed I had watched videos about lucid dreaming, read about lucid dreaming, and wrote about lucid dreaming, all with the hopes of getting lucid dreaming into my mind and making it happen again. The alarm was set for around 6 hours after going to bed as well.

It worked. To make sure I wouldn't fall back asleep too soon and therefore make use of the WBTB method, I let my watch alarm snooze twice before I switched it off. That ensured that I stayed awake for 15 minutes before drifting back off to sleep. I never actually left my bed because I have found that doing that wakes me up too much, so I settled with sitting up and reality checking and being almost fully awake that way.

Anyway, once I fell asleep, I found myself in a maze of a neighborhood. There were houses with sidewalks that worked like a maze, which led to a pool that had a similar maze around it, which led to a restaurant that was laid out like a maze...it was all very closed in, other for parts of it being open to the sky. Most of it was under a ceiling, though. I was looking for a particular friend of mine, who seemed to be nowhere to be found. As time went on, I kind of started to realize that this situation was not normal. It really pushed the boundaries for me, though, when Africans in tuxedos started to appear out of nowhere. Still, I didn't quite recognize the fact that I was dreaming just yet. I walked up to another friend of mine who happened to be just standing there, and I asked her: "Hey, have you seen A.J. anywhere?" She began to reply with ambiguous and answers that really didn't do me any good. I got frustrated pretty quick, and told her, "Just tell me where he is!" "You can't make me." She replied. "Yes I can!" I said. "I'm dreaming! I can do whatever I want...hey. Wait! That's right! I'm dreaming! This is *my dream! I'm lucid!!*" Suddenly I realized how out of it everyone around me seemed. They weren't actually doing a whole lot. I walked up to one of the guys in a tuxedo just standing there, and he was still as stone. I noticed how realistic his face was, but as I kept looking, he didn't even flinch or look back at me. Silently cheering, I opened a door and went inside, expecting a bathroom to be there. Sure enough, there was. I looked in the mirror and saw myself exactly as I always do when I first wake up. Hair messy, and in a white t-shirt and green shorts. "Yes! I'm lucid! Oh yeah!" I proceeded to rub my hands and spin around and feel the result, just to enjoy the moment. I was surprised at how everything blurred when I spun, just like it would in real life. Then I started to bump into everything around me just so I could feel it. Then I stopped, laughing with joy, and remembered the reality check. "Oh yes, and I can't forget to try this!" I pinched my nose and breathed in. Sure enough, I was able to do it, even though the breath seemed to be drawn in from another consciousness. I didn't realize it was a mistake at first to reality check when I was already lucid, but it became apparent pretty quick that making myself lose connection with my dream body and re-establish connection with my real body was significantly weakening the dream. My vision began to grow weak. I frantically resumed rubbing and spinning, but it seemed to do no good. Everything went black, and I thought the dream was over. But then, all of a sudden, my vision returned! "Ok," I said aloud, "not wasting any more time here." I took a look in the mirror again. "Better start small...well, I gotta have something other than this to wear if I'm going out there." I thought about how to change clothes without physically doing it. I remembered a bit about passive control and force control and decided my plan of action. "When I walk through that door, my clothes will change to some awesome black outfit." I had Jedi robes or something like that in mind. I walked through the door back outside, and then looked down to see if it had worked. There were different clothes on me now, but it was a green t-shirt and black cargo pants. "Dang it! This isn't what I meant. Ok, when I go through that NEXT doorway, my clothes are going to change to black jedi robes." So I walked through the doorway and saw several of my friends conversing together. I looked to the left and saw a mirror again. My hair had been fixed in the process of changing, but I was still in the same outfit. "Oh come on...CHANGE!" The use of direct force startled me awake.

However, although the dream was short, it was the most vivid one yet, and I remembered much of what I've learned about lucid dreams, so in several ways it was a success.

That makes DILDs = 3  :boogie:

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## LiveInTheDream

6:30am - No lucid dreams. 

Recall two dreams again, but not many details. The first one was looking up stuff on wikipedia, as far as I can remember. Can't recall what I was researching, but it had to do with the military, since I remember seeing a picture of a tank with soldiers all around it.

The other dream was working in a movie theater/hospital. Yeah, weird combo. Basically, I had just recently got a job working at this place, and when my family came out to take a look around, they saw a preview play on a wall-mounted TV screen for a movie called (get this): "The Lucid Lucidity" Why that didn't draw my attention I don't know; it might as well have been called "Reality Check NOW, Dude!" But I did nothing of the sort. Anyway, my family decided to go see it the following Monday, and I was to go with them. I liked the idea...there was a girl I worked with that I wanted to ask out, and I saw this as the perfect no-pressure date. I spent all week trying to get to know her better and find out if she cared for me at all. Finally, by Friday, I asked if she'd go with us. She frowned. "I don't know...I might be busy." I took that as "I'm not interested." So I used super-speed to run home and ask my mom what I should have done to get on the girl's good side. She thought I did fine; that the girl might genuinely be busy, and I should ask for another time. (seriously...duh! But this wasn't even a lucid dream, so I'm allowed to be stupid  :tongue2: ) I super-sped back to work, where a nurse from the hospital part stopped me. "We don't take visitors after these hours." She said. "I work here," was my reply. "Oh. Go right in." I did, and everyone on the movie theater half of the building was cleaning up for the day. I walked right up to that girl and prepared to ask her if she was free another day. When she turned and saw me coming she smiled, and before I could say anything, she said, "Guess what? I checked my schedule and I'm actually free on Monday! I can come with you after all!" I don't recall anything after that. I guess that's when I woke up. Non-lucid dreams never show the most fun parts  :tongue2:

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## LiveInTheDream

5:30am - Set the alarm for a little bit earlier this time, since 6:30 was obviously way too late for a good WBTB. Again, intended to WILD, but decided against it because I had been up later than usual and was tired. My schedule would most likely allow for a napping WILD anyway.

When I fell asleep, I had two dreams that were very similar, but neither of them fully lucid. I can't say they _weren't_ lucid either, though, because occasionally I'd think something like "oh yeah this is a dream so I can do that." but before it would register in full, I'd slip back into unconsciousness. I would guess that this has to do with my fatigue, and that getting some rest will allow me to successfully lucid dream again soon.

WILDing was outlawed. The US Government decided that since it allowed a single person to have total freedom and control, it was too dangerous. Therefore, they took the key (no really, it was a key) to WILDING and locked it up tight, with many guards to keep it safe. I wanted to have a lucid dream again, so I decided I would get that key and upon taking control via WILDing, I'd eliminate the governmental threat. It took a couple days of traveling on the road to get there, which included stopping at a restaurant in which many people were talking about this outlawing of WILDing. I overheard them talking about trying to get the key, too. One person objected, saying it was impossible. I leaned in and said something like, "Excuse me for overhearing, but I'm going to get the key back, too. If we all work together we just might be able to do it. I can do a few tricks with a computer; if we're fast, I can get us in there and back out just in time to escape the guards." It was a deal, so we all piled up in a van and finished the trek to D. C., where a special facility had been created for the key. There was a huge mob everywhere protesting, but no one paid attention to them. Some tried to climb the barbed wire fence that surrounded the facility, but either found it too painful or were knocked down by one of the guards. By hacking into their computer system, I unlocked a couple doors for my little team to get inside with. The mob turned out to be an excellent distraction. I went in one door while the others from my team went through the other. I had barely gotten inside when massive guard dogs started chasing after me. I continued to run, but with each corner came more dogs, barking loud enough to get the guards' attention over the mob's noise. They very nearly captured me, but somehow I made it back outside and into the midst of the mob where they couldn't find me. By nightfall the mob had fallen apart to just a handful of tired protesters, and me. But finally, I saw the rest of my team escaping. It looked like they had the key.

Then I woke up briefly, before falling back asleep.
The second dream was a lot hazier...for one thing, it included bits and pieces of the first dream, but eventually worked out to me being back at home, only my home was different. Each room was vastly expanded so that it was a mansion. I saw on a newspaper that I had been rewarded a large sum for my part in getting the key to WILDing back. "Well, I guess they did it." I thought. As I walked into the next room, I saw on the TV that the president (though it was a dream character; not the real president) had been impeached because of his actions against WILDing and a man with a surname of Cielvichev (pronounced SEE-uhl-veh-chev) had risen to the presidency in his place. It was good news; this Cielvichev was the kind of person that I would support, and besides, he had restored WILDing to everyone.

After this it's kind of hazy. I didn't know what to do with all the money I had, and somehow I came across this broken family made up of a single mom and her four kids. They somehow were in trouble with the government too, and as I got more involved, I ended up being able to pay off debts and use my reward money to give them their lives back as much as possible. Besides that I remember having a Honda that could turn invisible, and we rode in it to a movie theater to see a dramatization of the story of how my team of guys and I had gotten the key to WILDing back.

Then I woke up. I was kind of disappointed that I hadn't gone lucid when I had come so close so many times, and overall just had a half-sense of being asleep without ever being quite conscious enough to act on it.

I plan on WILDing this afternoon if I find time. I guess we'll see if I can do something better then.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Wow, I really should have elaborated on my notes waaaay sooner today. Got busy and totally forgot about keeping my DJ updated. Now most of the dream is lost on me. So not only did I have terrible recall to begin with (only 1 dream this time, and not lucid) but most of that is hazy now  :Sad: 

I was driving...from the back seat. For some reason I refused to sit up front, so I was leaning forward in my Honda Pilot and trying to steer with one hand, stretching myself about as far as I could. To get it going, I had to lean down and push the pedal with my hand until I got up to speed, and then I'd steer for a while. Any sort of sharp turn was impossible, and I was causing a ton of chaos on the roads. Several times I thought I was going to be in a head-on collision, but the other driver would swerve and slow down just in the nick of time. "I'm such a horrible driver! How did this happen? I didn't used to be a bad driver! What's going on?" I thought. Suddenly, my sister appeared in the car next to me and she said: "Why not try riding up front?" Automagically, I found myself zip through the air and into the front seat. Suddenly I could drive again. (fancy that  ::lol:: ) But wait, there's more outrageous happenings! When I got home, I started complaining about how my sister had been so distracting and talked to me when I needed to concentrate and started pinning the fault for my horrible driving on _her_! Then I woke up.

What a positively stupid dream...good for laughs, I suppose, but I wasn't satisfied with that. When I woke up, it was 6:30...not 5:21, as my alarm was set for. (Seriously...5:21am is my *perfect* WBTB time.) Still, I decided to try a WILD, even though it was late. This was the first time I had the time to WILD long enough to actually get into a dream, so I went through all the crazy stuff from the tingles to the hallucinations to the voices. Interestingly, I found it very enjoyable this time, rather than slightly disturbing or even scary. Never did reach a dream, though, since I just woke up from my last REM for the night...

 ::morecrying::  - Lucid dreaming epic fail...

----------


## LiveInTheDream

I think my alarm is broken. It didn't wake me up again last night, and I made sure to have it somewhere where I would hear it. There's no way I could sleep through THAT alarm twice...it's just too loud.

Since there was no WBTB again, and I've been heavily relying on it, there was also no real LD. I _did_ have a continuous dream that seemed to last all night, but I lost most of it the moment I woke up.

I went to school one day, feeling very confident. I recall having been there before and feeling it was all intimidating and unfamiliar, but something was different about me this time. This time I knew that I could control everything, so I was not afraid of anything or anyone. It wasn't really lucidity, though, since I didn't fully know I was dreaming. I just knew I could control the dream. As I walked to class, I passed a group of girls who were chatting by some lockers. One of them glanced at me as I walked by, and her face caught my eye. It was Claire Bennet (from the Heroes TV show, for those of you who don't know). "Oh cool, so I'm not the only one here with powers." I thought. Rather than be in awe at Claire's ability like everyone else, I just said "Hey, Claire" as I passed by, as if she were an old friend. I could hear the other girls laugh, then say, "Does he know what you can do?" Puzzled, Claire replied, "I don't know...there's something different about him. Something...special." I went into class and sat down. The room was empty other than me. Only a few moments later the other students started coming in. Claire grabbed a seat next to me and leaned over. "Hey," she said. "Can we talk at lunch?" "Sure." Next thing I remember we were talking at lunch. I can't remember what exactly we said, but the basic idea of it was that Claire asked if I had any special 'ability' and I told her that I knew what she could do and that I too could do some special things. We both thought it was nice to have someone the same age that could understand what it was like to be 'special'. Back in class, all of a sudden, alarms went off, government agents burst into the building, searching for something. Claire pulled me out of my chair and down low, in the corner of the room. "Was anyone listening to us talk at lunch?" She asked. "I don't know..." suddenly it was like I was seeing lunch again, only from an omniscient perspective. I looked around and saw someone watching us and listening from a short distance. "Yes!" I said. "I just saw him." "They're coming for us! You have to do something!" "Do? Like what?" "Anything!" She pleaded. "You can control whatever you want to! You have to do something before they find us here!" Just then, the SWAT-like agents burst into our classroom. By impulse, I teleported Claire and myself out of there, to some other place that I don't remember.

I lost even partial lucidity then, and went back to just normal dreaming for a long time. However, I can't remember anything else. My dream recall is really getting bad!

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Had one very vivid dream recall that may actually have been two...I can't remember if I had the first part, woke up, and then went back to sleep, or had them both and then woke up. Either way, though I could name a lot of details, since the concepts are fairly basic and I'm in a hurry right now, I'll only list the basic concepts here.

There was a carnival coming to town. Everyone was talking about how amazing it was and how we all needed to go. In anticipation (and inspiration) for it, I built some contraptions of my own and ran a little 'carnival' in my basement. Some of them worked, others...not so much. But the sideshow-like machines were still fairly well received by my friends, though I considered them to be a failure.

Perhaps I woke up here, or maybe it was later. Either way, there was a short time lapse.

I was at the carnival, and enjoying it very much, when a couple really tall and heavy guys ambushed me and put a bag over my head. I got pushed and shoved and tossed and turned, and then eventually they pulled the bag off. I found myself standing naked in front of a bunch of tarps laid on the ground. Crowds had gathered and formed walls on either side of the narrow tarps and my captors stood behind me, so there was no chance of running. It wouldn't have mattered if I could, though, since they pushed me down onto the tarps and watched as I slid away, to everyone's uproarious laughter. I could feel some kind of oil on the tarps, and rubbed all over me as well. I heard one person in the crowd laugh that I was covered in 'hog oil', but what that is I don't know. What I do know is that it was very slippery, and I couldn't get up or stop myself from sliding. People in the crowd pushed me along, and whenever I got to a corner in the tarps, they'd start me sliding down the next one, laughing the whole way. I was incredibly angry, so rather than flail around and do no good, I stopped and let them do their deeds for a minute until I was able to figure out a plan; what direction was I spinning on the tarp, how much tarp was there left, how fast was I going, etc. When my mental calculations were complete, I thrust my hands back and kicked my legs in the air, performing a kip-up. It knocked oil everywhere and got some people to clear out of the way, not to mention get me off my back, but the tarp was so slick that when I tried to walk I went right back down again. I rolled over to the clearing I had created in the crowd and again tried to kip-up. I was close to getting to make a mad dash for it, but then the burly guys knocked me a good one on the head and knocked me out.

Horrible dream for a Christmas night...of course that _would_ be the most vivid one I've had for days now! Hopefully I'll be able to get back to _lucid_ dreaming very soon! I'm really getting tired of this dry spell...

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## LiveInTheDream

Semi-successfully WILD/EILDed this afternoon, for a nap. Used "The_Ultimate_Lucid_Induction.mp3" as my aural assistant. Came VERY close to fully entering the dream state, but there was a flaw with looping that particular MP3 during a WILD: at more than one point, the voice would not blend with the music and this difference would wake me up. Therefore, though it very successfully induced several different dream scenes, each only lasted for a few seconds, never fully encompassing my field of vision, before the song would reach a point that would jerk me out and back into the blackness of my eyelids. They were very definitely legitimate dreams, though! I would have kept on trying; each dream lasted a tiny bit longer than the last; it seemed that eventually my mind would have been able to tune out the song and finish off the WILD. However, all of a sudden, my eyes just opened of their own accord. I didn't want them to, I didn't try to make them, they just did. I thought maybe I was in a false awakening, so I reality checked, and discovered that I really was awake. Really odd situation...

Anyway, getting that close with a lucid dream inducing MP3 is encouraging. Perhaps I'll find a better one for me or be able to edit the one I used today so that it loses the parts that wake me up.

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## LiveInTheDream

Woke up and forgot my dreams too quickly to write them down. Should have written some simple notes...I remembered the dreams for plenty long to write them down, but I had to go to church, so unfortunately my dreams got lost this time  :Sad: 

I tried to WILD again this afternoon, without aural aid, but rather keeping my mind focused by going "[breath in]...1...[breath out]...I'm dreaming...[breath in]...2...[breath out]...I'm dreaming" and so on and visualising the numbers and letters of the words. It was working, and I was having a ton of side effects (which I thought of as a good thing, since recently I've been having very little, proving how far away I was to getting it right)...when suddenly, several noises erupted in my house, caused by the TV being turned on in the livingroom, cooking being started in the kitchen, etc. which woke me up immediately. I didn't move or open my eyes, but the focus was lost, the side effects gone, and even though I kept trying, it was far too loud for me to succeed, and even if I got earplugs or something I'd be moving and thus exiting the attempt, therefore I called it quits again. Yes, I did reality check to ensure that I wasn't in a false awakening.

I got closer, though! Soon I'm going to get this WILDing right again!

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## LiveInTheDream

Had too busy of a day to write down any dreams when I woke up, and they left me before I could write them down some other time  :Sad:

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## LiveInTheDream

I determined to WILD. Absolutely _determined._ I set my alarm in case of failure on the first try, set aside any care for getting any sleep, and got in bed.

First WILD attempt (midnight): Reached full SP by doing the counting method, but drifted off to sleep rather than remain conscious. My dad (who works for the government) apparently stood against everyone else in a major decision. And now they were trying to put him away for it. So he came home one day, told us to pack up whatever we could in the back of our car, and then leave as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, just when we were about done packing, I noticed a camera in our garage door code box. "Wait!" I shouted to someone who was about to walk right by it. I was too late. I ducked behind the car as I heard the camera activate an alarm and a hidden turret, which promptly destroyed whoever it was that walked by. We wasted no more time, but jumped in the car and pulled off, leaving everything else behind. It went alright at first, but eventually the police came after us, and we had to split up. I'm not sure where we got the second car from, but we suddenly had two, so we took separate ways with the hopes of spreading the cops thin and making it possible for us to escape.

Second WILD attempt (5:21am): Woke up to my alarm at 5:21am and tried to WBTB WILD. Again, soon after hitting full SP, I lost consciousness and fell asleep. This time I was in a dream similar to my first WILD experience. I jumped from place to place without trying to, first playing Halo 3 with a friend at his house, then chatting on facebook with another friend on a laptop in my kitchen, and then to my bed. False awakening...and it was all so real I never once realized I was dreaming, nor did I think to reality check. I would have noticed if something was out of order, but I had 10 normally-formed fingers that stayed that way, there were no flying turtles or anything like that. Each time I jumped through space and time, I simply accepted the new location as my present state of existence and didn't give it a thought. Eventually, though, I _did_ figure out one abnormality...I could still hear my friend talking about our game of Halo 3, even though I'd left that far behind! I woke up for real when I realized that, and found myself still in full SP! 

Third WILD attempt (time unknown): Rather than break it by opening my eyes or trying to move, I just used my consciousness to finish off a WILD, and sure enough, within moments, I felt earthquake-like tremors in my bed that then seemed to rip me out of my body and into another, as I shot towards a light in the darkness at a magnificent speed. The force of being shot towards the light was so strong my arms were pinned to my sides. "It's working! I'm doing it!" I thought. I don't know if that killed the dream or what, but when I hit the light, I wasn't put into a dream scene with my dream body, but just stuck into a bodiless darkness. I tried to form a dream scene, but none came. Probably too quickly, I gave up, and woke myself up.

Fourth WILD attempt (7:38am): Encouraged from being so close, I tried again, but this time couldn't even reach SP. I concluded that there was no more use in trying; REM was done for the night and there was just no way I was going to succeed at this point.

But I got REALLY close that time! Sooner or later I've just GOT to succeed at WILDing again!

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## LiveInTheDream

Fell asleep too quickly to even reach SP! So disappointing...dream recall was bad, too. Felt like the dream itself was long, but the instant I woke up all I remembered clearly enough to put in words was driving around in Florida with my sister in the passenger seat, no directions, no map, and trying to find my relatives' house. Eventually I saw the ocean, and was able to use it as a reference point to get to the house, only when we went inside, it was a huge, really nice building, rather than a little house. After that it's entirely unclear. I remember little images from here and there, but nothing I could logically put together or explain in this journal.

Tonight, I *really can't fall asleep when I WILD!*

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## LiveInTheDream

No dream recall again, WILD's failed...

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## LiveInTheDream

Sorry guys, I'm really having a bad dry spell right now!

I'm going to try upping my dosage of daily reality checks and see if that helps anything; maybe I'll be able to DILD again.

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## LiveInTheDream

Well, I feel stupid! But at least I had a couple dreams last night!

I went to bed with headphones and an MP3 player set to a lucid dreaming MP3 called 'Lucid Spike', which begins with a 20-minute silence to allow time for falling asleep.

I'm not exactly sure what happened, then. I had a dream, in which I was going around in this huge building that a bunch of large, square rooms. At the middle of each end of the square was a hallway that led another such room. Down each hallway was a door on either side that led to a smaller conference room with no more hallways. Everyone I know or have ever known was in that building. I was going through all those rooms, finding people that in real life I need to talk to, accomplishing business with them, and then moving on to the next person. Suddenly, I realized something. "What the heck? Where'd these headphones come from? I didn't put these on!" And I woke up.

At least, I thought I did. I was laying in bed, with the headphones still on and all, as it should have been. But I didn't reality check, and I didn't realize it was a false awakening. I just tried to be still and get SP.

Then I woke up for real, and the headphones were gone. I was like, "Ok, that's weird, I was wearing headphones, and both them and the MP3 player are nowhere. This must be a dream!" So I reality checked and was disappointed to find myself to be awake. That didn't solve the headphone situation, though. I leaned over my bed and found them to be on the floor. When I saw that, I suddenly remembered waking up and for some reason I threw it all off the side of the bed. I wish I knew why I did that! 

But for whatever reason, I ditched the MP3 player, which was supossed to _help_ me become lucid, before it could even play anything, and then had a false awakening in which the _presence_ of the MP3 player made me think it was real and _not_ go lucid!  :Bang head: 

Figure _that_ one out...

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## LiveInTheDream

The dry spell is broken!!!  ::banana:: 

Yesterday I made sure to reality check all day long, and before bed I told myself a million times "I WILL lucid dream!" and "I WILL reality check!" but I didn't feel very good about it. I mean, in past dreams, I've though in the dream, "I should probably reality check...nah, I'm sure this is real." I needed something more; a sure dream sign I could use to force myself to reality check. *Then it hit me*, and I repeated to myself a million times, "The moment my eyes open, or I realize that they are opened, I WILL reality check!" Then I unintentionally practiced it myself. I opened my eyes (by mistake), and followed through with my saying. I felt good about it, and soon was asleep.

My dream began quite long, I was in a place that looked a lot like 'the real world' from _The Matrix._ Unfortunately, I think it went too long, eating up all the REM that would better have been lucid. I'm not sure what happened in this place, but I had a mission, and I remember someone handing me a device like a large thermometer, only it was _not_ for measuring the temperature. I walked through a doorway and suddenly found myself in my room. "Oh! My eyes are open. I need to reality check." I was sure all of this was real, but I pinched my nose, breathed in, and was shocked to find that I was dreaming! "Yes! I'm lucid!" I said, throwing aside the device. This time I got down to business, without wasting any time celebrating. I tried to fly. Initially I did little more than hover, but then, remembering the Matrix theme to my dream, I told myself, "There is no spoon," reminding myself that none of this actually existed, and I could affect it how I wished. That got me up to the ceiling, but of course that wasn't good enough for me. I looked out the window, and decided I would go right through it. "There is no spoon." I flew right for it, preparing to fly right outside, and...SMACK! I hit the window and was knocked to the ground. It kind of hurt. But I got back up and tried again...slowly. I just stuck out my thumb and pressed against the cold pane of glass. "There is no spoon." Slowly, as I convinced myself of the window's non-existence, my thumb pressed through the glass, until I could reach my entire hand through without a problem. I watched as the glass in the window rippled like water around my arm. Then I pulled my hand out, and jumped through the window, flying as I had originally intended. Unfortunately, I never once stabilized the dream, my REM was running low, and I flew too fast. Therefore, I no more than glimpsed the outside before I woke up, reality checked, and found it to be real.

Although it was a short lucid, it was very significant, seeing it broke my dry spell and I made headway in getting around my mind's strict laws of physics without forcing control!

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## LiveInTheDream

I remember having at least 6 different dreams last night, however, most of them were very unclear, and upon waking up I was left with only a hazy image of what went on. I remember two pretty well, though. Neither of them were lucid, but I expect this is due to the fact that I threw off my usual WBTB schedule by trying to wake up at 4:21am  instead of 5:21am and thus allow more time for lucid dreaming. I learned that that was a bad idea, as it produced no lucid dream, and also that I don't need more time for dreaming, as I was able to enter REM well into 8:00 this morning. Obviously the thing that has made my DILD's be short is the things I do in them that tend to wake me up.

Anyway, on to the dreams.

In the first dream, things began pretty normal--just going about one day with some dream characters that I seemed to know as long-time friends. When we passed by the neighborhood park, however, I saw something strange coming out of it. It was a giant hedgehog that was missing its back legs! "What in the world is _THAT?"_ I exclaimed, pointing. "Oh," replied one of the DC's, "that's one of the flying hedgehogs. Don't get too close, or they'll..." the DC was too late. I had already gotten too close, and it leaped off the ground and flew right into me, knocking me down. I decided I wanted to get out of there, so I turned and ran, the DC's shortly behind me. Suddenly, we were all in this sandy place, like a small canyon, with some buttes scattered throughout. Wooden beams had been laid down to connect the buttes together from the top. How anyone got up there in the first place I'm not sure. But we didn't pay much attention to the scenery; we just ran around the corner of one big rock and ducked. Peaking around the corner, I saw that the single flying hedgehog had alerted his buddies, and now millions of them were flying through the air in our direction, all of them missing their back legs. "We're done for." one DC whispered. I turned around and saw a Warthog (the Halo vehicle, not the animal) across the way from us. "Maybe not..." I said. This one girl DC and I ran across to it. I climbed in the front, and she took the turret in the back. At that moment I remember thinking it was kind of funny for a girl to be taking the turret, but she had some kind of warpaint on her face, so I figured she had probably done this before. Apparently she had, because she was a pretty darn good shot!  ::D:  I drove that warthog out there in the midst of all the flying hedgehogs and as I ran the low-flying ones down, she picked off the rest of them with that turret. It was pretty intense...I saw the muzzle flashes like real light, felt the heat from the turret...everything! I guess we won that battle, because I never died or anything, hedgehog bodies were everywhere, and I woke up.

The second dream came soon after that...my 4:21 alarm had not gone off yet, so I didn't try to stay awake.

I was at some peaceful lake, in a valley, the only sign of inhabitance being a small lake-house nearby. I was talking to that girl DC that I had fought with, and according to her, we totally destroyed the hedgehogs, but one of them had flown into my head as a final move of desperation and knocked me out. I had been unconscious until that point.

I don't remember anything else, save for a few images from the other dreams I had that are too vague to even put into words, really. Tonight I'm definitely not going to play with the WBTB time, since I know that 5:21am works for me. I'll also be sure to think more about weird things happening in my dreams as a sign that could make me go lucid. Flying hedgehogs missing their back legs...why the heck didn't that make me think I was dreaming?  :tongue2:

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## LiveInTheDream

Again I find myself in a situation where I recall dreaming several times; at least 3 this time. Unfortunately, because I didn't stay awake long enough to think to take down notes, all but one is lost on me. And that one is, again, so strange that I'm annoyed with myself for not realizing it was a dream in the first place!  :Bang head: 

The dream I remember clearly was one of the strangest things I've seen in a very long time. I went to Walmart, picked up a copy of "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" for Wii, and then drove back home. But then, when I walked inside, several dream characters (none of them people from real life) were there, and waiting for the game. We went to play it...by going upstairs and putting the disk in the shower! No kidding. Instantly, platforms and contraptions appeared in the shower, and a bunch of pieces (which were divided into groups like heads, torsos, feet) appeared on the sink. Each person playing the game put the pieces together to form a really odd kind of animal thing. All of the animals were remote-controlled, and we put them down into the shower, which was now a SSBB level. And so we controlled the animals and made them fight that way. As we played, the shower kind of faded away and we saw forests or waterfalls or any number of things moving past the platforms as we made our robotic animals smash each other to pieces...literally. I also noticed that the remotes we were using never seemed to stay the same...every time I'd look down at mine it would be totally different. It didn't seem to affect my skill level, though. After what seemed like hours, it was down to just me and one other DC; everyone else had been KO'd. The DC hit 'pause' and the shower came back. She said the animals needed to rest.

While they rested, we went to a different store and shopped around for I-don't-know-what...everyone split up into groups of two or three and it was a bit difficult to find them all, so it seemed to take another hour or so. Whoever had anything to purchase did so and then we left. Back at the house, the animals were still there, and interestingly, neither the animals nor the remotes had changed since I last saw them. As I had gotten there first, though, I made some last-minute modifications to my animal with the spare parts that were lying around. It ended up looking like a crayfish with a porcupine body, cow legs, and robotic arms. When everyone came in, they commented about how ugly my animal looked, but I was apparently pretty confident in how it would perform, because it didn't bother me.

We put the animals back into the shower, which resumed its state of platforms and scrolling backgrounds, and duked it out with the animals on the final round of the competition.

I woke up before I could see who won  :tongue2:

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## LiveInTheDream

Was up later than usual last night and did not want to lose any more sleep, so I only put minimal effort into a MILD, which did not work successfully. I had a few dreams, but I can't construct anything meaningful out of what I remember of them. Just an image here, an image there. Except I do remember that I dreamed quite clearly that we had two kinds of juice in the refrigerator, so I was a bit surprised when I woke up to find only one kind in there...then I realized it had been a dream  :tongue2:

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## LiveInTheDream

I'm not sure if I MILDed or accidentally WILDed, but either way, it gave me an awesome lucid dream last night! The best I've had yet, by far! The only thing I'd say was disappointing about it was that for some reason I was pretty near-sighted in the dream...I couldn't see anything in the distance, just a solid color that the terrain and all would blend into. I probably should have slowed down a bit and tried to fix that...I'm sure rubbing hands or spinning would have done the trick.

Oh well, here's what happened!

I went to bed a half-hour early so that I wouldn't feel like I was losing sleep if I spent a while relaxing, repeating mantras, and visualizing. I did all that, but as half-expected, was not able to pull it off at the beginning of the night. I woke up at about 2:30, however, and just repeated the whole process. I felt the onset of sleep paralysis, which made me want to swallow, but I just started breathing through my nose with my mouth open and was able to swallow and ignore it without hurting my progress any. As soon as I reached the visualization step of MILD, I started seeing a bunch of flashing lights, and then it was just one pulsating light that seemed to fly around. I just followed it, and it was like it led me out of my body and into my dream body. Within moments, I was in bed, looking out the window, at the moon. It was only another few moments before I realized something. "Wait a second..." I thought. "I can't see the moon out my window! This must be a dream!" I got out of bed and walked over to the window. I was determined to fly this time. "I know that I left the window locked...but it doesn't exist!" I reached a single finger down and opened up the window as if it weighed nothing. Same with the screened pane. Then I leaned out and flew off! I had absolutely no struggles, knowing that gravity was nonexistent and that it was just like walking in a dream; the only reason I moved anywhere was simply because I believed I would. Now the only question was...where should I fly to? "The moon!" it came to me, almost instantly. "Just like Neo..." I thought, aligning myself towards the moon and shooting off at a ridiculous speed. I arrived at the moon within a couple seconds. I flew low to the surface and looked at the craters and put my hand in the cold, gray sand. But then I realized something else...that was pretty much all there was to do on the moon. So I flew back home the same way, shooting through space and reaching land in about 2 seconds. I didn't target any specific place in the world; anywhere was fine with me. By chance, I ended up in a city, and I landed on the first building I felt compelled to. There was a roof access door that led directly to a deserted office level. On the walls were some black and white pictures of businessmen that I didn't recognize...probably employees of the month or something. "Ok," I thought. "there's always this list of things I want to do in a lucid dream, and now that I'm here, I can't think of anything else to do! Let's see...oh! I know. This ought to be fun! I'm going to go on a date..." I began to walk down a short hallway. "...with the girl around the corner." As I rounded the corner, I saw this really pretty girl standing there. Unfortunately, I didn't just accept that fact and move on. "I did it...I really did it!" Now you have to understand the significance of this action. I had been partially successful with flying before, and had figured out how to do that one pretty certainly, just never had a chance to actually do it until now. So it didn't surprise me to have success at that. But every attempt at this kind of dream control where I try to make things appear around the corner had previously failed. The thing about lucid dreaming by MILD is that even though I was aware that I was dreaming, I wasn't thinking 100% logically. Rather than accept success and move on like I would have thought to do if I was thinking fully clearly, I once again had a little lucid-dreaming-success party that very quickly began to wake me up. I felt the dream fading out too late, though, so my immediate attempts to rub hands didn't work. I should have spun around, too, but it didn't cross my mind at the time.

And thus the dream ended. Still, I believe this was the longest lucid dream I've had yet, and I exercised dream control unlike I've ever been able to do before. Not exactly sure what to label this one as in my sig, since it was kind of a WILD-MILD-DILD, but since I was shooting for MILD I guess that's what the label will be.

Bottom line is, I had another lucid dream!  :boogie:

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## LiveInTheDream

Again, I tried playing with my WBTB time in hopes of allowing longer time for dreams, which again did not work, and in fact made the entire night be fruitless...I don't remember anything about my dreams except that in the last one of the night, I was thinking about how I couldn't remember my dreams. I wasn't lucid; just ignorant  :tongue2: 

I'd say that's about enough playing with WBTB time...I know what works the best by alarm, and if I wake up without an alarm, it works even better and more often. Maybe I should focus more on methods of waking myself up without an alarm...even though waking up by alarm at 5:21am has given me lucids in the past, it hasn't been working lately, whereas naturally waking up has. Time to really start pushing for MILD!

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Last night I went to bed with the intention of doing a TotM; namely, to complete the basic challenge of drinking a glass of champagne. (As a side note, in real life I wouldn't drink that stuff, but it's a dream for crying out loud!  ::lol:: ) I fell asleep too quickly to do a good MILD, and had a nightmare that I don't remember anymore. When I woke up from that, I tried to MILD, but again fell asleep before I could finish up with the visualization stage, so no good came of that. I _did_ have a long and memorable dream after that, though! I wasn't far from succeeding at the TotM, seeing as it took place on New Years, and multiple times I saw glasses of champagne in the background, but I never went lucid, so in the end, I never actually made use of them, and failed at the TotM this time.  :Sad:  I'll keep trying, though!

Here's the dream. It was more like a movie than a dream, though. Most of it was in third-person, and what I was seeing changed like a camera in a movie, moving from shot to shot, angle to angle. I wasn't even physically present the entire time, even though I knew I (or my character in the 'movie') was elsewhere and active.

We were having a new years party at my house and all was going well when police burst in and started taking everyone out. I ran all over the place, trying to get other people out of the house and to safety, but the police had surrounded the building and so no one escaped. Eventually it was just me, standing in the middle of the place, with the front door to my left and the back door to my right, knowing that police were on both sides. I was considering which would be the best possible escape when two clones of Agent Smith (from the Matrix films) walked in the front door. I chose right then to escape through the back. Police were there, as expected, but I was scared enough of Smith that I was able to take down both of the officers in my way and make a break for it after climbing over the fence. Smith watched the whole thing from inside, and said not a word. His two clones simply turned and looked at each other, then at the unconscious police on the ground.

Next thing I knew, I was at a dream friend's house....which was more like a mansion. I told him my situation, and he took me inside and promised that I'd be safe there. I turned around and saw a bunch of girls who were sitting around a counter. I thought about joining them, but just then I saw something through a window. It was Smith, circling the house with his many clones, looking for me. My friend saw it as well. "Quick!" he said. "Come with me!" He pulled my arm and led me down a few stairs in a staircase. "Why are we stopping?" I asked. "9...10...11." He said, counting the stairs we had descended. "Yep, this is the right one!" Then he pressed his hand against the wall, and it slid inward, then moved aside. It wasn't a big gap, but turned sideways we easily fit through. Once inside, my dream friend closed the wall and then led me down a few more stairs into a small, unlit basketball court with a very low ceiling (about seven feet was all). The wall on the right was a solid tinted window overlooking a full-size court with goals and a scoreboard and everything. "Wait here." He said. "I'll take care of Smith." I nodded to him and watched him leave. Having nothing else to do, I proceeded to examine the secret room. Machines were lined up against all the walls, standing about three feet tall and two feet wide. I couldn't tell what exactly they were for. My puzzlement increased when I made it to the end of the small court and found a passage on the left wall that led to at least 5 other courts just like this one. I took a couple steps backwards after peering in at the other courts, and bumped into something. Turning around, I saw the biggest of all the machines. It was around 5 feet tall and 6 feet wide. At the top of it was a tall screw with wires wrapped around it. A nut sat on the very top, barely screwed on at all. "That won't make a very good connection..." I thought as I began to screw the nut down closer to the wires. When I was just about to screw it all the way down on the wires, my friend returned. "Wait! No!" He shouted. But it was too late; the nut was down hard enough on the wires to make them connect. Lights came on in the small courts and in the large court. A buzzer sounded, and I knew Smith would hear. "Oh, no..." I said. Then I noticed something out the window. "Hey! That's me down there...on the big court!" "It's a hologram." My friend explained. "This room projects holograms from the small courts onto the big ones!" Just then, a few Smith clones burst into the large court. They saw my hologram standing there. "Going somewhere, Mr. Anderson?" one of them said in Smith's usual, devious way. They all ran at my hologram and tried to take it down, which obviously didn't go very well. While they were distracted, the real me ran for the exit. Unfortunately, that caused the holographic me to do the same thing, so Smith knew which direction I was headed.

As soon as I reached the stairway outside, I could hear another Smith talking to the girls at the counter, asking them if they knew anything about me. "Good thing I didn't talk to them!" I thought as I crouched low on the stairs, waiting to see what Smith's next move would be. When he concluded that the girls honestly knew nothing, he pulled out a radio device and told the other clones. It was then that I noticed he had a couple suitcases next to him, one on each side. Somehow they just couldn't be good. Bombs, perhaps? I took one look at those innocent girls and knew that I could not let anyone be hurt or killed because of my presence there. While Smith was on his radio, I ran up and swiped the case on his left and made a mad dash for the door. Smith and his clones all started to pursue me, of course, but somehow I managed to escape into a forest before they could catch me. Being night, I was totally hidden, and eventually they gave up the search and left. It was then that I had the chance to open the suitcase and find out what was inside. "Robots?!" Yep; the suitcase was filled with a bunch of little robot toys. "This must not have been Smith's...it was leaning up against the counter's base...I just assumed it was his, too, since he was right next to it!"

Meanwhile, Smith brought the other suitcase back to his boss. I never saw the boss's face, but his hands and voice sounded like that of an old man who was still incredibly strong and powerful. "A bomb?" He said. "You kept the bomb in my box? This was supposed to be used, not returned!" "I know, sir," Smith explained, "but he got away too soon." "How could he get away? You will go back and try again!" "Yes, sir."

It was then like someone hit rewind on the dream, and I was back in the small basketball court. The dream played itself out exactly as before, same 'camera' angles, same lines, same everything. I took the wrong case again and fled again, all exactly as before. Smith's boss even said the same things and told him to try again. The dream rewound again, and played out just the same. Smith's boss rewound it after that, too, setting the dream to play from the courts up to the part with Smith and his boss. The dream rewound one more time, but this time, something was different.

When I saw the big machine with the screw on the top, I decided not to screw the nut down. So my friend came back, and not in a panic. "Ok, I've done all I can." He said. "Smith doesn't believe me when I say you're not here. There's another passage similar to this one, on stair 23. Only it will lead you outside, and to a car. Here are the keys; get out of here, go wherever is safe!" "Thanks. I've just got one thing I need to take care of first." I went outside and waited for the Smith who talked to the girls to get on his radio. Then I ran up, grabbed the proper suitcase, swung it around and smacked him in the face, and then ran down to stair 23. I was inside and closed the wall behind me by the time Smith was up and chasing me again. He ran right past the secret passage in the wall. I made it safely outside, got in the car, and used the toolbox that was in the back seat to deactivate the bomb.

The next thing I saw was Smith talking to his boss. Fortunately, things worked out a bit differently this time. "Toys?" The boss said. "You brought me back a bunch of geeky robot toys in my box?! Smith, you are FIRED!"

And then I woke up. It wasn't lucid, but hey, it was pretty nice for a regular dream, imo  ::lol::

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## LiveInTheDream

(Sorry there was no entry yesterday...really there was nothing to report, but what really happened is I just totally forgot  :Sad: )

Tried to WILD last night...it was my first attempt to do so for a little while. I figured that by taking a short break from trying, I'd increase my chances of success. I was right.

It wasn't long (about half an hour) before I was in SP in full, seeing tons of increasingly vivid HI, and feeling myself slipping into the dream state, still maintaining the proper level of consciousness. But then something weird happened. My eyelids started to quiver, and then they nearly opened--for real, not in the dream, like I was expecting--I successfully stabilized them, but not without losing the HI, and weakening the SP a bit. I tried just waiting for more HI to come, but when it did, I never reached the dream state, and it just disappeared within a few seconds.  ::morecrying:: 

When I opened my eyes and admitted defeat, it turned out that a couple hours had passed in this dreamless sleep paralysis, which felt really strange, because even though I had been conscious the whole time, it felt like I had actually slept for a while. I mean, it was kind of cool, being conscious while being asleep, but I'd much rather have lucid dreams than spend all night just waiting for the night to be over!

It was doubtful that WILD would succeed after that, so I tried just to DILD. Problem was, my sleep schedule was so messed up by that point that it took me a very long time to get into a dream state; I kept just slipping back into that waking sleep. When I finally did dream, it was like my vision was blurry and my hearing was bad; all that I could get out of the dream was a couple people standing in front of me, telling me things that I couldn't hear well enough to understand. I couldn't make out their faces, either. But suddenly, one of them put their hand on my shoulder and turned me to face a holographic image. In that moment I saw that I was in some science lab like the one from Avatar. "I suppose you're one of _them_, now." The person said, pointing to the image, which I saw was a group of Na'vi. "You better get in your body."

That's all I remember. I guess I've officially jumped on the bandwagon of Avatar dreaming...maybe I can actually go lucid and visit Pandora again sometime  :smiley:

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## LiveInTheDream

I think trying a different method of induction every night is messing me up. I haven't done the exact same thing even twice in a row for a while, and actually, the last time I did the same thing twice in a row was the last time I had a lucid dream  ::roll:: 

So if you haven't guessed...no lucids. Again. I remembered one dream pretty well, though.

I was in some building with great architecture...it looked to be a couple hundred years old, at least. And this was a huge building I'm talking about. I went in there because of impression and because it was rigged to look like some store. But as soon as I got inside, I realized it was far different than what the outside made it out to be. I was denied exit; guards and hovering robot cameras all watched me, and if I tried to leave, they would see to it that I didn't make it out. I tried every traditional exit, and when that failed, I tried windows and rooftops as well. Still I was caught every time and forced to stay. Eventually admitting defeat, I sagged against the wall and slid to the floor. But then I felt something...the wall was giving way. After waiting for the hovering robot to pass by on its patrol, I pushed in on the brick wall, and found several of them to be loose. Pretty soon there was a hole just big enough for me to go through, so I did, and then I ran. I was in some sort of sewer system, but I just ignored the flow of...water, on the ground. Of course the robots found the whole and started to chase after me, so I hid every place I could as I went along. It took me hours, but finally I found a manhole cover that got me out of there. My first reaction to being free was to warn others not to go inside, but they either ignored me or told me I was crazy. Once, I noticed someone walking up the steps to the building's entrance, and I ran up to stop her, but she just looked angry and told me, "I come in and out of here all the time! What makes you think you have any business telling me what not to do, beggar?" "Beggar?" I thought. Then I looked at myself. Running all over the place, (and through the sewers) had left me dirty, smelly, and with holes in my clothes in several places. I cautiously followed her inside, and I noticed my dad sitting on a bench next to the door. "Dad, come on, we've got to get out of here now!" "Where have you been?" My dad asked. "I was waiting for you; I thought you were in here." "I was, but they wouldn't let me leave!" "What?" Just then, that woman walked by and straight out the door, and the security guard tipped his hat to her. I grabbed the guard by the neck, feeling as dirty as I looked. I wanted to strangle him for having stopped me, but now acting like it never happened so as to make _me_ seem like the madman. There was a short scuffle, but eventually I was thrown out the door, and everyone thought I was crazy. I ran off, and woke up.

Very frustrating dream. 

If only I had realized it was a dream, then I could have changed it! I really want to lucid dream about Pandora...a five-second non-lucid dream about it just isn't good enough for me.

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## LiveInTheDream

Well, I figure it's time for me to have a consistent LD schedule. Ever since I started lucid dreaming, it's been really inconsistent. Everything was still an experiment, so I suppose it was appropriate for the time. But now, I know how the different methods work, and it's high time for me to go for one and stick with it for a while.

So hit *reboot* on the operation...I'm starting over from the beginning with the hopes of enabling myself to LD more frequently and consistently.

The first thing to work on is dream recall, so I focused on that last night. Rather than start thinking about something as soon as I woke up, I remained still and thought back through my dream. When at first I felt I couldn't remember anything, I turned to questioning. "Ok, who was in my dream?" That one worked the best, considering my dreams last night had several people from real life in them. By the time morning came around and dreaming was done, I had successfully recalled 3 dreams!

*Dream 1:* There was a storm coming. A big, bad one. Even during the day, the sky was darkened with clouds to the point of looking like night. No one knew exactly when the storm would come, but the one thing that was for certain was that when it did, no one would be able to get out and shop for necessities. So I found myself riding from place to place, helping my mom stock up for the storm (I don't remember _ever_ stocking up for myself, though  :tongue2: ). The weird thing was, as we drove, it wasn't on normal roads. All of the roads were stacked up vertically, one on top of the other, and each country had its roads located at different heights. We were, of course, in the USA section of roads, but we nearly fell through a hole in the road one time, on our way to a library. "Why are we stopping at the library to stock up for a storm?" I asked. "Because if the power goes out," my mom replied, "we'll need _something_ to do." "Great." So we went inside, and parted ways to look for books that interested us. As I rounded one corner, I saw Brad (a friend IRL) standing there. "Hey!" I said. "Are you stocking up for the storm here, too?" "No, I'm just checking out some books for a chemistry test. Doesn't matter if the whole world closes down; school's going to keep going." "Yeah, that stinks. So did you get a chance to try out the mod yet?" (I made a game mod for Brad IRL) "Yeah, that was awesome! It worked perfectly! Totally changed the way I played the game. Thanks for that!" I don't remember what we said after that, but it wasn't long before I left the library and told my mom that I would drive her back home...she hadn't driven too well on the way there, which is why we nearly fell through the hole. Didn't do much good, though, because not long after we got going, a lightning bolt struck the road next to the car and knocked it clear off the edge of the road! It fell, down, down, down, until we landed on the roads of Russia. There was no elevator that would simply take us back up to USA roads...and the Russian authorities were not too happy with us getting there without Visa's/passports/anything like that. Off the side of the road, I saw a staircase that looked like it went up to the USA roads...so I began to fight off the Russian police and make my way there, but I woke up too soon. What fight there was was pretty epic, though. It was dark, raining in torrents, and I knew Jujitsu.

*Dream 2:* This dream was just plain dumb, but for some reason I dreamed it, and I have to recall it, so here it is. Somehow I met up with the replicator man (from recent episodes of Heroes.) Somehow I also found out that he wasn't evil, and had an attraction to Claire Bennet (also from Heroes). He also was afraid that Claire would never like him in return, "Because," he said, "I've been weird around her in the past...and my room is all messy." "What?" "Yeah, I live in a loft...and there's no way a girl would like coming over there with it like I've got it right now." "Well, how about this:" I suggested. "I'll organize your room for you, and then you'll be able to convince Claire to come over and give you a chance. When she sees what's been done, she'll know that you're making honest efforts." "Except _you'd_ be making the effort, not me." He pointed out. "Umm...yeah." "Go ahead and do it." So I did. He wasn't kidding that it was a mess. But magically, I achieved great organization skills and got the place looking really nice. When I had him come look, he pointed to his coin collection. "I had those stacked by value, and you just put them all in a jar! You call that organization?" "Whatever..." So I took the coins out and put them in a coin sorter (I guess I pulled it out of thin air). "There. Happy now?" "Yep." But then, rather than invite Claire over, he got some punk buddy of his to come and play cards and listen to junky music. I mean, seriously, it sounded awful. There was nothing musical about it. "So...when are you going to invite Claire over?" I asked. At first I had no response, because the 'music' was too loud. So I literally killed the stereo with a smash of my fist, then repeated the question. "I did this so you could have Claire over, now when is she coming?" "Alright, alright, I'll call her already...sheesh." He sent his buddy away and pretty soon Claire was there. The stereo was suddenly fixed and he had his crap music playing again. (I cannot _believe_ how dumb this dream is...) He and Claire were sitting on the couch. "So, do you like what I did to the room?" He asked. Claire looked disgusted. "You know...yeah, I like what you did to the room, but...I just don't feel the same way about you as you feel about me. Sorry." So she left. "Ok, whatever, man." He said, totally unhurt. "Hey, turn up the music, will ya?" He said to me as he turned on the TV.

*Dream 3:* This was kind of dumb, but it was at least entertaining because it was funny. A bunch of extended family members were dropping by one day, pretty unexpectedly. Well, dropping by at my parent's place. I, along with a couple of my brothers and sisters, were already at my parent's house, and that's also where the extended family was dropping by. Everyone seemed pretty worried about the food situation. "All we have is meatloaf!" My mom said. "Well, why not just make _more_ of it?" I suggested. "You just can't *do* that with meatloaf!" "Why not?" "Because meatloaf just doesn't work that way." "Wow, ok..." and I backed off. Everyone else started to join in on fretting about the food, and it was bugging me, so I went upstairs and checked my email on the computer. I don't remember what was there, but it was enough to keep me busy until everyone was at the table and ready to eat. When I came down, every seat was filled, so I was going to head off to grab another chair, when I heard someone comment about the lack of food again. "Just try making more!" "No! But you just can't *do that with meatloaf!* It won't work!*"* everyone shouted at me. So I just went to grab the chair. When I got back to the dining room with it, I was told there was no room left. "I'll just go to the corner...I can hold the plate in my lap or something." "No! No!" They shouted. "*There's just no room!*" "Oh, so it's like the meatloaf?" I asked, frustrated. "*GAAH! You just can't do that with meatloaf!"* my sister shouted angrily. The thing was, I found out they were right about the chair situation. I really couldn't get my chair around to the corner because  I kept on bumping everyone with it trying, and that made them all the more upset (and with each bump, the dream got weaker and weaker). "FINE! I'll take my plate upstairs." "No! No! You can't do that." But I did. I walked right into the room with the TV and turned it on. "Can't do that with meatloaf....ha! That's just nonsense." When the TV came on, it was a commercial. "Figures." But I watched the commercial anyway. It was some weird thing about a medicine to fight depression in teen girls. For some reason, its jingle was "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee". Finally, the dream ended and I woke up.

The dreams were obviously nothing special, but hey, I remembered 3 dreams very well in one night of trying when lately I've been doing good to remember even 1! If I keep this up, as well as other aspects of setting a LD schedule, I'm sure I'll start LDing again in no time!  ::D:

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## Baron Samedi

Stupid DC's. They always repeat themselves like that. It's annoying.

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## LiveInTheDream

> Stupid DC's. They always repeat themselves like that. It's annoying.



haha yeah, I know. It's a good thing I was working on dream recall and not having fun dreams...the latter would have been an epic fail  :tongue2:

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## LiveInTheDream

Day 2 of the reboot on my lucid dreaming schedule. No LD's from it yet, but that is to be expected, I suppose. It takes a while to make a habit. But the good thing is, I was successfully able to maintain decent dream recall last night, with the addition of reality checks during the day. Last time I tried doing those two things at once, working this hard at it, it took me days to be able to do one without forgetting to do the other equally as hard.

Three dreams again. So far I've had no need to set alarms; my mind wakes me up after each dream that I remember.

Dream 1: I was at my church, but for some reason the service was not in the main auditorium. Only a handful of people were there, my brother being one of them. The funny thing is, he goes to a different church closer to where he lives. All of a sudden, one of my sisters stood up in the middle of everything that was going on, ran over to my brother, and started crying. And I mean really bawling. IRL, my brother is thinking about moving to another country, and even though nobody mentioned it in the dream, I just knew that was the cause of my sister's tears. The entire service was cancelled because she was making such a big deal, and everyone walked my brother out to his car. Pretty soon, everyone but him and me were crying. He wasn't crying because he was the one that was leaving, so he couldn't miss himself, and I wasn't crying because I understood his purpose for going, and as a guy, going somewhere far away for fulfill that purpose isn't a sad concept to me.

I'm not really sure what to think about that one. Is there a part of me that feels _that_ saddened over him leaving that it got into my dreams? Or is it instead that I see myself as the only one _not_ feeling that saddened over it? This I am not sure.

Dream 2: I was part of some Zune hacking forums. My project: run Windows XP on my Zune 30. It's technologically possible, I suppose. Impractical, since my Zune 30 has no touch screen, but possible. It took the forum guys and me a while, but eventually we figured we were really close to success. I had to go on a trip, so I took my Zune with me and played around with the codes on-board. Not sure how I did that, seeing as there's no keyboard, but somehow I just pressed buttons and the right letters were typed in  ::lol:: . Eventually, I actually got it to work! It booted up and loaded properly. I even opened Windows Media Player 11 on it and was able to import all of my Zune's music to it. "Yes!" I shouted, drawing the attention of everyone else in the plane. "Look, look! See! I got Windows XP running on my Zune!" I showed some random guy. I listened to a couple songs, watched a couple video clips...and then woke up.

There's not much question about my mind with that one. Yep, that's how it works, for ya. Always taking handheld computers and using them for things they were never meant to do. I haven't done anything on my Zune, but I ran Linux on my Tungsten E2, so maybe I'll make this dream a reality someday.  ::D: 

Dream 3: I was afraid I was forgetting my previous dreams. I had fallen asleep too quickly to take down notes, or even come up with some catchy phrase that reminds me of the dreams as I usually do. I was in my room, so I woke up my computer (which happened to be running Ubuntu at the time) and OpenOffice was there, with full descriptions of both dreams. I read back through them, and found them to be completely accurate. I finished reading none too soon, since right after I was done I woke up.

Pretty handy dream, I think. If only I could do that every night as my last dream...it would make recall SO much easier  :smiley: 

Whelp, those were my dreams from last night! I'll keep working on dream recall and reality checking as I have recently learned from Naiya's excellent tutorials!

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## LiveInTheDream

FINALLY I WENT LUCID AGAIN!  :boogie: 

TWICE!!!  ::banana::  ::banana:: 

Shout out to Naiya...I totally owe this one to you, since everything I did to go lucid was from your guide!  :smiley: 

Ok, so here are the dreams. Not only were they lucid, but they were the most fascinating I've ever had for other respects, too. Unfortunately I forgot to try the TotM because I was too preoccupied with creating an entire world, but surely now that it's constructed in my mind I'll be able to just go there again without having to start from scratch, and I can do the TotM then.

Dream 1: I found myself in a lot of pain. I didn't know why, at first. I was going around some large facility, people everywhere, not understanding why it felt so weird when my feet hit the floor, or when my sleeves brushed up against my arms. But finally, for some reason everyone had to sit on the floor. When I did, I saw that my body was covered with *very* deep cuts covered by blackened skin.  :Eek:  They looked awful; like I'd been through battle or something. There was no blood, though, interestingly. Suddenly there was a bottle of lotion next to me, and I started to put it on with the hopes of it at least easing the pain while we had to sit down. I simply loaded several of the cuts with lotion so that it was filled to the skin level...at least it _sort of_ made me look whole again. Didn't help the pain, though...it actually stung like nothing else! Something happened then that I can't remember, but it made me look up, and then back down again. When I saw myself again, the cuts had been filled in, not with lotion, but with skin, and the pain was gone from those places! Of course I then did the same thing to the rest of the cuts, and before long, the pain was gone and so were the cuts! Even though I was glad, I was having this weird feeling...like something wasn't exactly right.

I found myself in a bathroom then, putting the lotion bottle back in its place. It was then that I realized what that feeling was, and the impulse to reality check broke through. The first one (asking "what was the last thing I did?") failed; I answered mentally not with "I went to bed" but with all the things I had done in the dream. The second one (asking "how did I get here?") puzzled me a bit, but still didn't make me lucid. The third one (asking "what makes me think this is real) ultimately succeeded, because it prompted me to do other reality checks, like pinching my nose, which made me go lucid!

"What!?" I shouted. There was genuine surprise in the words. I totally did NOT expect to discover that I was dreaming. But I knew for certain that I was, now. "Finally I won't be wasting time in my dreams! See you later!" I said to my reflection in the mirror. I turned to the bathroom door and walked out, thinking "Pandora" in my mind. But where I went was far from Pandora, and it is possibly the most fascinating thing I've ever experienced in a dream.

I was in a colorless room; the walls, floor, and ceiling were all simply shades of dull gray. Hundreds of doors lined every wall of the seemingly endless room. There was no light source in the room, yet it was not dark. People were everywhere..._real people._ Not one fictional character, not even a real person who was misrepresented in bodily form. But they were, from what I could tell, all 'bluepills', all dreaming without being lucid. Somehow I knew they were dreaming, though. As I went around the room, I saw the dreams of numerous people going on, in the many corners or alcoves that were available. Each place had a little set up as if for a school play, only it was what was making up each person's dream. Everyone was so dream-dead, they never once got the chance to turn around and see the truth about where they were. "Ok, time to go to Pandora." I said, after concluding that this was definitely NOT the place I had intended to go. "When I turn around, I'll be in Pandora." I said. But it didn't work. Suddenly I saw someone come tearing out of the crowd of people and rush for a door. They were moving too fast for me to see who they were. But I could move fast too, and so I got to the door and put my fingers between it and the frame as it closed. Just barely kept it open, too. "Ok. On the other side of this door is Pandora." I opened the door, but what I found was not Pandora, but this guy who had run through the door creating his own world, vastly different than anything from _Avatar._ "I must need to find my own door." But I didn't want anyone to follow me, so it was a while before I found a suitable door to use, without people crowding all around it. "On the other side of this door is Pandora." I opened it then, and found my words to be true. I shut the door behind me as fast as I could, but a couple of my friends made it through. Since they were friends I didn't mind; but I wasn't going to let bluepills into my Pandora. "Ok guys, you need to go lucid." I said, stopping them. "What do you mean?" They asked. One of them rolled his eyes and went back through the door. The other one, Josh, stayed behind. "You're in a dream. You need to be aware of that fact. Here. Pinch your nose and try to breath in. If this is a dream, you'll be able to do it. If it's not a dream, you won't." Josh tried it, and his eyes lit up. "Woah! I'm...what did you call it? Lucid?" "Yeah, you got it!" Josh cheered and ran off. I just laughed and went about my business.

I was definitely in Pandora, but as I ran up to the Hometree, I was disappointed to find only the stump left behind. Smoke rose from the charred vegetation on the ground. It looked as if the climactic battle had taken place there. At first I tried passively changing that. I turned my back to the tree and said, "when I turn around, everything's going to be good again; there will be thousands of trees, and amazing plants, and everything from the Pandora that I know!" But it didn't quite work out like that. The smoke was gone, but Hometree still was a stump, and though there were trees, they were not even close to the right kind. I gave up on that and just tried controlling it. I held out my hand. "Trees!" I said, and trees rose up from the ground. "Flowers!" And flowers bloomed on all the trees, growing their vines around the trunks instantly. "Vegetation!" And all the cool Pandora plants that I don't know the names of rose up from the ground where they belonged. In this process, I also noticed that Hometree had become whole again. Knowing it had been a workout, I rubbed my hands together to bring back full clarity. "Well that's more like it! Now to find Neytiri." I took a step forward and imagined myself turning instantly into a Na'vi, particularly the Na'vi that I had photoshopped myself to be IRL. As I passed by a pool of water, I looked at my reflection, and saw that my face matched that picture perfectly! I was fully Na'vi, but it didn't remain so for long. After searching for Neytiri for a few minutes and not finding her to be where I expected, the dream faded, and with it faded my Na'vi body. Soon, I woke up.

That dream has so much possible shared content it's unbelievable. Do all dreams really take place in that room, and if we could only go lucid enough to look away, we'd see where we truly were? And I had very little dream control there...I couldn't usurp the dreams of others, even those who went through the doors. And did my friend really go lucid when I told him to, or was he just a DC who did what I expected? Of course...why then would my other friend have left, when I expected him to do the same as Josh? I'll have to ask a few people about their dreams and see if any of what I saw sounds familiar to them.

Dream 2: I was walking through a row of bunkbeds in a dark room, when again that urge to reality check came to me. I was short of time, so I just pinched my nose, but was surprised when I was able to breath in. "What? Really?" I tried it again, and was thrilled to realize that I was indeed dreaming again! I wasted no time; I teleported myself right back to Pandora, and was happy to find it exactly as I'd left it. "Now to find Neytiri!" At first I tried doing passive control again, but that resulted in a 1-foot tall version of Neytiri! "You've got to be kidding me!" I tried just to make her bigger, but that turned her into a stack of boxes. "This isn't going so well...time for force control!" But then, rather than create Neytiri, I created an entire horde of Na'vi! They started running all over the place and doing their daily stuff, which was great, but I still hadn't succeeded. So I started looking around, and finally I saw her! Her name appeared above her head, and things sort of went non-lucid again. I think the nametag made me think too much like a video game, and suddenly I found myself in an armored human vehicle with a turret mounted on the back. They were shooting at the Na'vi. "No! Stop!" I shouted, beating the soldiers with whatever strength I had. I killed the driver, which effectively let the Na'vi get ahead, but I couldn't take out the gunners before one of them knocked me on the head and put me unconscious...also waking me up.

I sure hope the Na'vi were ok... :tongue2:  I fully intend to go back there very soon. I guess if any of them are hurt I can just patch them up with lotion, since apparently that heals everything  ::lol:: 

Dream 3: I lost my video camera. When, where, how, I don't know, but I lost it. And I knew I had lost it. I was on a tram going on a tour through the universe, and asking everyone if they knew where my camera was. No one did. When we reached Pandora, I wanted to either cry or kill whoever made me lose my camera; I couldn't decide which. "We're in Pandora and I can't even get a video of it! This is awful!" I kept going around, but no luck finding the camera. The DC's weren't very helpful, since none of them were people IRL. One of them kept taunting me and saying that my camera was stolen, and I was right there when it happened, and yet I didn't do anything about it. That just made me angry.

I don't know when exactly I woke up, but eventually I did. Thank goodness...dumb non-lucid dreams...

Other than the non-lucid junk at the end, this was the best night I've ever had! Dream control was better than ever (even though there's room for improvement), clarity was fantastic, and it was in Pandora! I'm definitely going to keep on reality checking...let's do this again every night!  :boogie:

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## LiveInTheDream

Man, I really botched dream recall last night! I remember having 1 lucid and 3 non-lucids, but since I didn't keep my mind silent and my body still upon awakening, all that's left is a vague image or situation in each one  :Sad: 

I'm not in doubt that I was lucid for one dream, though. I remember doing the reality check and becoming lucid quite clearly. It's just what happens after that that I'm not sure about.

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## LiveInTheDream

Two lucids again last night, and I remembered to remain bodily still and mentally calm long enough to recall them!  :boogie: 

Dream 1: I was talking with a small group of friends (including a girl who shall remain nameless) when I did my reality checks and found myself to be dreaming. Suddenly that impulse to go to Pandora returned, but it was instantly counteracted by a desire to remain with this girl in particular. "I'm really sorry," I said to her, interrupting the conversation. "I really have to leave." But then I had an idea. "But...wait a second! You can come with me!" "Really?" She asked, puzzled. "Where to?" "Come here and just hold on to me." She did, so I picked her up and flew right out of that building, right through the roof, out into the world. She smiled and laughed as I soared through the air, holding on to her the whole time. It felt so real it was incredible. Every sense save taste was fully employed. I could feel the wind on us and see it blowing her hair, I could hear her laughter, see her smile...it was...well, incredible, as I said. When I saw how much she enjoyed just flying around, I totally lost my desire to leave her and go to Pandora, so we went everywhere either of us could think of, the whole time building up a sort of romantic feeling. Eventually, after flying over rushing seas, forests full of trees, mountains, plains, and every other beautiful scene on earth, that feeling reached such a climax that we couldn't hold back any longer. So I turned and looked at her, and she at me, and right there, over the earth, late at night, in the air, below the stars, we kissed. And oh boy did that ever feel real and amazing! I was suddenly filled with such a passion that I shot straight up out of the earth and deep into space. I showed her the moon, nebulae, stars, the whole way feeling her head pressed against mine. If ever there was a dream that I did not want to wake up from, this was it, but unfortunately, all dreams must come to an end, and so I soon woke up. How I stayed calm long enough to recall it all I don't know, but I sure am glad I did!

Dream 2: I'm not sure where I went lucid in this one, but I was lucid, and that girl was nowhere to be found. Rather than look for her, I decided that I would go to Pandora again. However, my lucidity was not as strong this time, so attempting to teleport there failed. So I tried flying. After all, Pandora is part of the Alpha Centauri system which is visible off the earth's southern hemisphere, right? So all I really had to do was fly there. I shot out into space as fast as I could, flying superman style, my hands out in front of me. It was pretty amazing, because I could see light reflecting off of my arms in incredible realism. However, before I could reach Pandora, I came across a Star Destroyer and a Rebel frigate, among hundreds of smaller star fighters that were all engaged in intense combat. "Well I can end this before going to Pandora!" I thought. Dodging tie fighters, I flew right up to the Star Destroyer and landed on the nose of it. A burning tie crashed onto the destroyer right next to me, causing the metal to dent and burn, all reflecting light as if fully real. It also knocked me down. But I got up and kept moving forward. Eventually I found what I was looking for: empty escape pod tubes. The weird thing was that as I went down the tubes, it turned out they were very long and windy. "These aren't escape pod tubes..." But I soon found out what they were. Flames shot through the tunnels, coming up after me. Of course I wasn't afraid, because being lucid meant that I was aware that none of what I was seeing existed. The fire swirled all around me and shot out of the tubes in the form of a laser, leaving me totally unharmed. I had a moment of third person, seeing the laser destroy multiple rebel starfighters and do considerable damage to the frigate as well. When I returned to myself, I decided that was enough. I gripped the sides of the tubes, took a deep breath, and then ripped the destroyer in half. That finished the fight, but unfortunately also caused me to lose lucidity. I have only faint ideas of what happened after that, but I never made it to Pandora  :Sad: 

If only I had  rubbed hands before all of that...it was an amazingly clear dream; all that was missing was full control, which I could have had if lucidity were just a bit more intense. I probably could have made it out of that battle still lucid...oh well.

I had a third dream, but it was non-lucid. I also don't remember a ton about it.

Dream 3: Somehow, I had learned in an old castle that I had family ties to King Arthur, and that the whole King Arthur myth was not a myth, and that the magical sword Excalibur was a rightful part of my family inheritance. All that I had to do was find it, and other great treasures, in the castle. Of course with a fortune like that, there was a villain trying to find it first and pose as a descendant himself. He nearly did, too, but eventually I beat him in a sword fight and took Excalibur as my own.

All in all, a decent night of dreaming. I'm starting to feel good about consistent DILDing!

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## LiveInTheDream

Didn't LD *or* recall last night...pretty much to be expected. I never get a chance to RC on Sundays, and my sleep schedule gets thrown off.

I'll do better tonight!

_reality check, reality check, reality check, reality check...._

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## LiveInTheDream

Wow, last weekend must have messed up my LDing worse than I thought  :Sad: 

I kept moving last night and letting my mind get distracted with other thoughts when I woke up, so I kept forgetting my dreams. I remember having at least 4, but I haven't the slightest idea of what the first three were. I'm positive none were lucid. Fortunately, with that last one, I was able to catch myself and remain still and silent to think about my dream. Not that it's much worth recalling, but hey, it's better than nothing.

I was keeping up with a house owned by a family that I know (IRL). They were on vacation and asked me to check their mail for them and do a couple other little things. Their daughter (who I have an..._interesting_ history with) stayed behind, but she had to be out all day, which was why they asked me instead of her. Several days went by just fine, except for a strange woman who kept coming and asking if anyone of that family was there. When I told her 'no', she acted like she left, but I caught her stalking the place several times. A couple days, the daughter got home early, and actually was there when the woman (whose name, I learned from the daughter, was Maggie) asked if anyone besides me was home. Feeling a level of responsibility for protecting the daughter (if for no other reason, to help make up for our complicated and not-so-positive past), I still told Maggie 'no'. Somehow she knew I was lying; she persisted this time, but I refused to let her in. Eventually she left, but I knew there was trouble soon to come.

Finally, it reached the last day for this family to be on vacation, and for me to be at their house. Every time the daughter got home early, it was awkward between us. Neither of us really spoke. I decided to make the best of this last day. When the daughter got home, I looked her square in the eye, and cheerfully said, "Hello! Sorry I'm always at your house...I guess this is it, though!" She didn't respond as positively as I had hoped. "Yeah...I guess so." I didn't blame her, considering what we'd been through. I started to gather up my things. "Actually, I'm pretty much done around here, so I can go right now." "Ok." The daughter said. After a moment, she stopped me. "Hey! Um...thanks. You did a lot of work this week, and...well, I appreciate it." I smiled and prepared to leave. But just then, Maggie burst into the room. "What do you think you're doing!?" She shouted at the daughter. "After what he's done? You're just going to let him go? And _thank_ him!?" and then Maggie prepared to spit out a bunch of dumb ideologies and philosophies about life. I can't remember exactly what they were, but think along the lines of "embrace your anger; make the dark side your ally." I had had just about enough of Maggie. So I grabbed a nearby PVC pipe, watched as Maggie turned to rant at the daughter, and then, when no one was looking at me, I took a swing at her, landing a blow right on the head. She turned around and glared at me something awful, then grabbed at the pipe as I swung again. She was incredibly strong, and snapped the Pipe in half like it was a toothpick. Unfortunately for her, this left a jagged edge to my half of the pipe, turning it into a very vicious weapon. We went back and forth, exchanging blows, blocking each others, and even though Maggie was unarmed, it took me a long while to land enough damage to weaken her. Eventually, though, I took a spin and plunged the sharp end of the pipe right into Maggie's stomach, knocking her back onto a nearby bed. She knew she was done for, so again she resumed spitting out dumb ideologies. The worst part of it was, that as I glanced at the daughter, I could see she was giving in and beginning to believe Maggie's words. "Can't you see he hates you for believing me!?" Maggie shouted. The daughter dropped to her knees and began to cry. I stood motionless for a moment, the PVC pipe raised and ready to finish off the strange woman. I had her incapacitated for a moment, so I lowered the pipe and carefully approached the crying daughter. I gently laid a hand on her shoulder. "I really don't hate you." She looked up at me. "I hate the devil; I do not hate the deceived." I extended a hand to help the daughter up, but it was also as a way to declare her side in the battle, and all three of us knew it. Maggie resumed her rant, but it didn't stop the daughter from taking my hand and standing up. "Go." She said. With that, I smashed the PVC pipe down on Maggie, which turned her face blue, and the next turned all of her skin blue, and the next turned everything--teeth, eyes, hair--blue, and then one last blow made a light shoot from her eyes and mouth, and then disintegrate her, just like Smith on the third Matrix. Actually, somehow I knew then that she _was_ Smith, just in disguise. I woke up soon after that.

Just as a sidenote to this dream, I don't generally go around and beat people up with PVC pipes  ::roll::

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## LiveInTheDream

I'm not sure how I didn't go lucid last night. My guess is that everything was just so normal, and my dream memory just barely bad enough to keep me from reality checking in full, that I never even noticed the possibility that I was dreaming  :Sad: 

See what I mean in these two dreams I recalled (I *was* able to remain still when I woke up and think about the dreams this time!)

Dream 1: All was as normal as could be; I went about my day as I would go about any day. That kind of makes a long story short, because the dream was long and vivid, but hey, it was normal, so why waste time on that stuff? ::lol::  Anyway, at one point, I stopped to tell my brother about lucid dreaming. When I got to reality checking, he was kind of confused. "Why would I ask myself if I'm dreaming when I know I'm not?" "You want to ask that when you are _in_ a dream. The only reason you ask during the day is so that you'll remember to in that dream." After that I had to leave and run some errands, and the normalness returned, but I kept thinking about reality checking.

So close...but not close enough.

Dream 2: My mom was telling me how she had been unable to get to sleep lately. "I don't have that problem anymore." I said. "I just put myself into sleep paralysis and I go right to sleep!" "Oh really?" She replied. "How do you do that?" "Well, it's simple." And then I went through the process, mentioning the possibility of lucid dreaming with the WILD method.

Honestly that's all I remember from that second dream...it wasn't very clear to begin with. But the fact that both dreams have a lot to do with lucid dreaming tells me that I'm close. I had other dreams, too, (I just couldn't remember them because I slept all night long instead of waking up three or four times as usual) and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they had similar content. I guess today I better beef up my RCing and see what happens!

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## LiveInTheDream

Wow, my dream recall EXPLODED last night! None were lucid, but I came pretty close a couple times. Memories from real life got in more than once, and as each dream went on I started to question how it was possible. I didn't get any farther than that, though. I think I need to slightly tweak how I'm reality checking...


Dream 1: Well, I did it. Remember the girl I had flown around in my previous dream? I saw her again, and this time asked if she would go out on a date. She accepted, and we made plans before going our separate ways. That night on facebook we both changed our relationship status, and I started to be in disbelief about the whole situation. Questions started to arise concerning the impossibility of all of this, but I just accepted it as a fact that these things always work out in unbelievable ways and didn't RC.

I woke up for a short while after each dream, but basically rolled over and re-entered the same one.

Dream 2: We were actually going out on the date now. Sadly, I don't remember much of what happened, but the restaurant was nice and the food was good.

Dream 3: A few of my friends and I decided to make a movie, and I guess my church building was the best location for it, because we decided to take a night and film there all night long. When everyone was there and we had laid all of our stuff in one of the rooms, I remember one of my friends commenting that he saw my relationship status on facebook. I told him it was true, and even talked a little about the date. Once the camera was set up and ready to go, however, I sort of put that aside for the sake of making the movie. Everything was going well and we were getting great shots, but when we went outside to do some outdoor filming, there was this weird guy lurking in the shadows. The parking lot lights were on, so we caught a glimpse of his face beneath the black cloak he was wearing. The man was a bit heavy, with a rough-looking goatee, and what looked like brown warpaint on his forehead. He said nothing, he just watched us. We didn't notice him for a long time, even though several of us made comments that we thought we heard something. Of course we decided outdoor shooting was done for the night and we ran inside, locking all the doors to the building. "That thing on his forehead looked like a clan symbol or something," I said. "Who knows how many others he's got out there, hiding? Surrounding the building, even?" It seemed best to stop filming then, so we decided to turn off all the lights and hide in the storage room. It wasn't long before I fell asleep in there. No, I do not remember dreaming in my dream. When I woke up, it was light again, and all of us were safe. For a moment I felt like sleeping had been a good thing, but when I realized I had only gotten about three hours of it, my mind changed. I felt awful; really tired, weak, even shaky. My friends and I attempted to resume filming our movie, but just couldn't act anymore. We ended up calling it a day and heading home to sleep.

Dream 4: I was back home, and apparently had caught up on sleep, because I was feeling fine now. That didn't last long, though. The weird guy in the cloak burst into my house and declared that he was from the government. He had a couple other guys in cheap gray suits with him too, but they were more for threat factor than anything. Seeing I was outnumbered, I let the guy talk. He began by handing me a paper. "You sir," he said, "have been convicted by the federal government for piracy of video game music." "What!?" I shouted. "I legally own the game, don't I? I paid for the music, and I have shared it with no-one. How is ripping it from the disk for personal use piracy?" That stymied him a bit. But then one of his buddies spoke up. "Where did you rip the music _to_?" "Well, my hard drive." "Oh," the cloaked man said. "The hard drive...tsk tsk tsk." "How does that make it illegal?" A third guy spoke up. "Those songs which you have ripped to your hard drive were available on iTunes for a low price. I believe this game of yours even included links to places where these songs could be purchased for the sake of personal use." "Yeah, well I don't use iTunes, and I paid for the game, which includes the music, so what's wrong with me converting it to MP3's for personal use?" They didn't answer, but just pointed at the paper. "Your court hearing is in three weeks." The cloaked one said. "We'll see you then." He smiled wickedly and then left with his goons. "This is impossible." I said. "This doesn't make any sense...how would they even know that I converted the music?" 

Dream 5: Now I was at Walmart, and I just had this knowledge about the fact that I had simply given in and paid for the music to keep from going to jail over it, and that had cleared everything up. Now I was going to pick up a Wii Motion Plus attachment, go home, and use my video games in peace  :tongue2: . I walked up to the shelf and saw that there were no Motion Plus's there. "Wait a second, this seems familiar...didn't I already do this?" (Yes, I did, IRL...other than the government coming after me for converting video game music, that is)

Dream 6: My siblings, my parents, and I were on a vacation as a sort of personal family-reunion. We went on a vacation to this weird city...the entire thing was like a massive factory. Oily smoke billowed out of the rooftops of every building there, construction didn't seem to be finished on anything, as pipes and concrete and rusty metal beams were exposed everywhere. It was really a very dirty place...but something about it was attractive, too. I can't remember a whole lot of it as one continuous memory, but I recall first driving into the city by tightly winding, one-lane roads that were mounted up above the city buildings, and then spiraled downward until they reached the ground level. We drove around a bit from there on, checked into our hotel, and then looked around for a good place to eat. The buildings were actually pretty cool from ground level. Most of them were in a style that would have been retro were it not for the pipes and metal patches that made it all look modern. Inside the buildings was pretty cool as well, since all the appliances were steampunk, and the decorations and furniture looked to be a couple hundred years old. It would have made a very cool place for a movie.

So yeah, 6 dreams recalled last night, and never once did I go lucid.  :Sad:  There's just something not right about that.

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## Robot_Butler

Wow, last night was a  good one.  Congratulations on meeting up with the girl from the other night.  It sounds like you were close to figuring out that one was a dream.

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## LiveInTheDream

> Wow, last night was a  good one.  Congratulations on meeting up with the girl from the other night.  It sounds like you were close to figuring out that one was a dream.



Thanks! Yeah, it's too bad I didn't quite figure it out...I have the hardest time getting an RC to work for very long. Seems like after a week or so it becomes mindless and I can do the RC in a dream without ever realizing I'm dreaming, so I always have to figure something different out...like I'm doing right now  ::lol::

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## LiveInTheDream

*AVATAR FANS: Even though this one isn't lucid, you'll probably want to read it.

*Blast! This morning I got woken up by someone knocking loudly on the door, so I didn't have a chance to work on dream recall. Fortunately, I woke up earlier and recalled my first dream of the night, but that's all I get this time.

So here's my one dream:

I was a Na'vi (well, a human in an Avatar) in a Na'vi camp. The odd thing was, I, along with several other Na'vi around me, had tan skin at first. Also, Pandora looked more like New Zealand than Pandora, but a short walk fixed that. Everyone's skin turned blue later on too; I'm not sure when.

We were preparing for war, and it fell to me to scout out the land and set up a few traps designed to stop the initial wave of human ground attack. I did so by running across the thick tree branches like pathways. I had to jump between them and maintain good balance, but somehow it was very easy to do. When I had a good idea of the surrounding territory and good, defensible positions, I went about placing traps. As I placed the last one, an exploding plant they called a 'hermit bud', I heard the footsteps of someone approaching from behind. "Oh no! He heard us!" A Na'vi voice said. It sounded like they dove behind a bush then, so I had a good idea of where to look. When I found the two runaway Na'vi, I grabbed them by their braids and threatened to cut their neural connectors off if they fought back (capitol punishment for a Na'vi). They were cowards, which is why they fled the fight in the first place, so my threat kept them quite cooperative on the way back to the camp.

The Na'vi chief was very impressed with me. I had scouted out the land and set the traps in the best possible places as well as captured and returned two deserters. As the deserters were tied to a post to await punishment, I was given a promotion, effective immediately to...well, I don't know what the Na'vi word for it was, but basically a general. This was great news for most people, but one general, who hated the Avatars, did not take so well to it. He was willing to fight with me as a subordinate, but not an equal. This general happened to be watching as he sat on his Ikran, so in his fury he simply took off and proclaimed he was going to join the humans. The Na'vi chief ordered the archers to take him down, but they were so shocked and flustered that they couldn't get armed in time.

A sinking feeling hit my stomach as I watched the general ride out of sight, unharmed. I imagine everyone else felt it, too, because the chief put a hand on my shoulder and turned me to face him. "You are both human and Na'vi," he said. "Only you can save us now." I didn't like it, but I understood his reasoning. Without their best strategic leader, they would need someone who understood well how human machines worked--and therefore how to break them--to balance out the gap in military strength that was left behind.

"My Name is Lincoln" started playing, as if it were a movie. I was suddenly in red general armor with warpaint (and blue skin now), leading a Na'vi team on Ikran. The sound of hundreds of approaching aircraft rang loud in the air, and it was only a few moments before what we were all dreading appeared: a Dragon Assault Ship, with a swarm of Samson fighters shortly behind. We had little time to think of what to do, as the Dragon's forward guns began picking off Na'vi and their Ikran. Most of us managed to get past the guns, but there was no way we would be able to defeat all of the aircraft with what weapons we had. Thinking quickly, I jumped off my Ikran, drawing my dual blades at the same time, landing on the back of the Dragon, near the back propellers. My blades couldn't instantly pierce the metal of the ship's hull, but they could dent it, and so after several strikes to the propeller's joint to the ship, I was confident I had a weak enough spot to do some damage. I raised both blades over my head and thrust them down, piercing the metal and the machinery beneath, disabling one the propeller. The Dragon lurched, suddenly losing its balance, but I knew the pilot was skilled enough to keep it in the air as it was. There was no more time; we were beginning to near Na'vi ground defenses, and if I took the ship down, it would kill too many of my allies. In a desperate attempt, I ran to the front of the ship and did a flip off the end, throwing one of my blades through the cockpit window and into the pilot inside. My Ikran flew by at just the right moment to catch me as I fell, and then flew away before any damage could be done to us. I looked over my shoulder and watched as the dragon lifted upward and tilted due to the imbalance in propellers, forming a wall for the Samson fighters. The bulk of the fighters couldn't get out of the way in time, and either collided with the Dragon or other Samson's. The few remaining fighters soon found themselves caught in the flames of the resulting explosion, finishing off the human air support with one blow. All airborne Na'vi let out a cheer, but our celebration was cut short. Through the smoke came the defective general, both his Ikran and himself clad in RDA armor. "Go help the ground troops!" I ordered my Na'vi subordinates. "I'll take this one myself!"

Sadly, I can't remember the details of that fight. It was a whirl of spinning, colliding, and exchanging blows, and I was slowly losing, being in the weaker armor. I do remember how the battle ended, though. No matter what I did, I couldn't do damage to the general...until I noticed one single weak spot. I drew my remaining blade and threw it right at the defective Na'vi, cutting his braid (and thus his neural connectors) in half. He was stunned, and so was his Ikran, who now was out of the general's control. It was only a moment before he lost his grip on his ride and fell to the ground, hundreds of feet below.

I could feel my Ikran getting weak, and I myself was bleeding, so I took us back to the camp, where upon landing, I was informed that even with the humans knowing our ground strategy, we had managed to hold them off once my Ikran-mounted soldiers had arrived. That had not been in the original plan, and therefore it surprised the human soldiers and ended up destroying their whole operation. Pandora was ours! Everyone began celebrating, and I soon woke up.

It's really a shame that wasn't a lucid dream, or it would have been really awesome. However, for not being lucid, I had an usual amount of mental presence. Not being lucid is to be expected right now, anyway.

While Naiya's reality checking tutorial is good and worked for me, it only did so because I had a couple days where I had the time to give myself a mental workout. I don't have that kind of time anymore, so I'm tweaking a few things and I believe I've finally found a reality check that is both mental and physical, quick and solid. It's just going to take a few days for it to become a good enough habit to break into my dreams.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Well, _that_ was a weird experience...last night, I mean.

The first dream I had, I went lucid. I didn't have time to do anything, though, because there was a man standing in front of me. "I am The Guardian, and The Guide." He said. I tried moving...and found myself unable to. "Listen to me, because this is very important: you will not be able to dream again tonight. If you follow my instruction, there is a chance you will, but you have to do everything perfectly." He then went on with his instruction, but being unable to move, I gradually lost lucidity and eventuallywoke up.

Weird, weird experience. Especially because...he was right! After that, I couldn't enter SP for long enough to dream. Whether I went into it intentionally or unintentionally, the SP would simply break after a few moments, and I could never hold on to any of the dreams that began to form  :Sad: . I couldn't even remember what the guy had told me to do in order to successfully dream. When it reached 6:00 or so, I managed to dream, but it was another dumb one, and not lucid.

I applied for a job at a cookie dough factory. I didn't get the job, but all of my would-be co-workers really wanted me to get it. This one odd girl especially wouldn't give up on me. She said it was just because I didn't know baking well enough, and that if I created an original recipe to sell to the company, they'd hire me in no time. With her minor assistance, then, I did just that (yep, right in the factory...no one told the manager I was there). It was late in the day by that point, so she told me that she'd keep the first batch of the new recipe in a safe place so I could show it to the manager the next day. That sounded fine to me, but when the next day came, I arrived at the factory to find everyone cheering on this odd girl for _her_ new recipe...which was actually mine! "Oh, you gotta be kidding me!" I said to myself as I turned and left.

I don't think I'll ever understand how some of my dreams can be super-awesome and some can be super-stupid...like that one... :tongue2:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

I think my new reality check is working! The great thing is, I should be able to continue to do it every day, even on busy weekends, so hopefully a day without RCs won't have a chance to mess me up anymore!

As you may have guessed, that means I went lucid again last night. And I mean REALLY lucid this time. I've never had a clearer LD before. And even though I didn't remember to go to Pandora like I originally set out to do, it was pretty freaking awesome. I honestly didn't ever want to wake up from it  :tongue2: 

I'm not exactly sure how I went lucid. The first thing I remember was being lucid, so perhaps I realized I was dreaming from the very beginning. I was in the world of the Matrix, right down to the atmosphere being dark and having the sunglasses and black clothes on.

I found myself in a storage room at the basement level of some building. Currently nothing was happening, so I decided to take the time to really clear up the dream. I walked around and touched everything I saw, enjoying actually having the right sensation for each texture. But eventually I came across a rusted pipe in the wall that felt smooth. _"That's not right..."_ I thought. So I concentrated on what rusty metal _should_ feel like, and gradually the proper sensation came to me. When that was done I rubbed my hands. _"I really want this to last a while. Heck, I hope I never wake up!"_ By now, the dream was as clear as real life...clearer, even. I could forget that I even had a body elsewhere and just live as if this was life. But then I stopped myself. _"If I forget this is a dream, I won't be lucid anymore. So I still need to remember that...but how?"_ Then it hit me. I pinched my nose and breathed in without problem. "Now I know." I said to myself, aloud this time.

Now it was time to have some fun. Being the Matrix, I just had to try out a few moves. Flips, kicks...I could do it all. If it felt like I wasn't going to land right, I'd just suspend myself in the air for a half-second so that I could regain my footing. I intentionally didn't just fly, since that would eliminate all challenge and make things much less enjoyable.

Playtime was over pretty soon, though. Trinity walked up to me from behind a stack of boxes. I didn't think about it at the time, but it was incredible how realistic she was. Not cartoony at all like regular dreams make people. There was seriously no visual difference between seeing her in the dream and seeing her in the second movie. She was in the shiny biker outfit. "Someone's hacking the Matrix," she said. "We have to find him quick. He's causing all sorts of trouble, and who knows what he'll do if he's left to run rampant." We quickly found out. Viperwolves appeared all around us right then. Why this didn't remind me that I was intending to go to Pandora I don't know. Trinity held up her fists and got into a ready position, but I held up a hand in her direction and said, "Hold on, I got this." Then I reached out with my other hand and used telekinesis on the viperwolf nearest to me. It whined in pain as I held it suspended in air, slowly crushing it into a ball. When it gave in and stopped trying to fight, I threw it across the room and into a wooden rail. It smashed right through the wood, breaking the rail and killing the viperwolf. Trinity sharply turned her head towards me as I did the same towards her. We nodded to each other, and then she ran off to drive the viperwolves in my direction, and as they came, I promptly picked them up with a thought and smashed them onto the concrete floor, into the ceiling, or anything else that looked like it would do them damage. Most of the time I only tried to grab one at a time, but for a final, climactic blow, I picked up about five of them at once, crushed them, and then threw them off to the side.

After a few moments of waiting to see if any more would come, I suddenly was drawn out of myself and flown around outside like an invisible security camera. I was 'decoding the Matrix'. Soon, as I was pulled back into my dream body, I nearly fell down from the transition. Trinity saw it, and was worried. "What happened?" She asked, rushing over to me. "I...I saw the hacker." I regained my balance. "He's up three stories. Door to the fire escape. Go!" 

We made it outside and looked at the fire escape, but pretty soon a problem became evident to us both. Trinity was the first to speak it out loud. "You say he's coming out that door?" I nodded. "He'll see us and turn around unless we get up there really quick." "You know what, Trinity? You're right." So I ran up to the wall and then began running right up the side of the building. I reached the top and then did a flip off of it, landing right on my feet outside the door, just as it began to open. Standing there was a bald man with a scruffy goatee, dirty clothes, and a gun. He took his shot and sent a bullet right through my gut, but I healed myself instantly, so there was hardly even any blood loss. So next the hacker tried to punch me, but with both attempts I reached up and deflected his blows. "I know jujitsu." I said, intentionally copying Neo's line. It was an all-out fight after that, going back inside the top floor of the building, but unfortunately, this is where my dream recall starts to fade. No doubt about it, I was still lucid, and the fight was long, intense, and incredible, just like you'd expect from a Matrix fight. I remember running off walls and doing some crazy awesome kicks, but of course it wasn't an immediate victory for me. I was hurt a couple times, and being such a vivid dream, it really did hurt. I believe it all ended when I grabbed the guy and flew him back outside, smashing down the door in the process, and then flying down into the ground and crushing him into the concrete. Soon after that, I woke up.

Honestly, I'm glad I didn't go to Pandora as I had planned to. It's probably not as exciting to read about, but it sure was an incredible experience going through it!  ::D:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

I just lived out three months of my life last night. It was the worst dream I have ever had in my entire life. If it were a movie, it would be rated R, or higher. By necessity, I have recorded foul language, but blocked out certain characters. *Sorry it is so long, but it's hard to record three months at once and keep it short.*

I was first aware of the dream when I became lucid. Oh, that I had not! I tried leaving the building I was in and going to Pandora, I tried using telekinesis, I tried doing everything, but even though I was lucid, I could do nothing. I was as limited in this dream as I am in real life. I couldn't even wake myself up. There were a couple others in the concrete and steel-piped room, but they simply watched me try to go through the wall as if it were expected of me as a newcomer. I shouted out in one final attempt, and only succeeded in hurting myself.

    “No point in trying to escape.” An old man in the room said to me, slowly and depressed. “From this point on, all you can do is your best. The tests...will not be easy.”

    I held up my hands, giving up. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

    The old man sighed. “Then...there is no hope for you.”

    Just then, I saw a light on the floor; a door was opened behind me. Guards came in, wearing gas masks and black army uniforms. The leader said, “Take that one” as he pointed at me. His voice was deep and forbidding; he didn't have to shout or emphasize his words because it was obvious from his voice alone that no one would dare challenge him.

    I didn't react to them at first. I figured if they grabbed me, I could just phase through their arms. But when they grabbed me and I realized I couldn't do that, I panicked. I fought and kicked and punched, but nothing I did could get me out of their iron grasp. “Sedate him!” The guard on my right hissed. “What? Sedate? No, no, no, no!” I watched in horror as the lead guard came into view with a needle and slowly pressed it into me. Things started fading. All was black.

I woke up momentarily in my bed and RC'd it to be real, but I couldn't stay there for long. It was like something was pulling my mind back into the dream, and it was soon successful. When I was back in the dream, I was just waking up from the sedative. I RC'd again and found myself dreaming, but lucidity again did nothing for me. I was trapped. The dream was totally realistic. Even my vision wasn't perfect, and as in real life, if I closed my eyes, I saw little spots. I was really there in mind and spirit, and now body as well, in the greatest possible sense. I sat up, depressed.

    “Welcome back.” I heard a voice say. When I looked up, I saw a middle-aged woman with curly red hair standing there. “I'm Dr. Grace Augustine.” She said.

    “Doctor...so you're not being tested too?”

    She smirked, and then began to work some computer machinery as she spoke.

    “Oh, I'm being tested. We're all being tested, save the big man himself. Here.”

    She gave me a cup of water, which I took gratefully.

    “Who is the big man?” I asked after a swig.

    Grace stopped for a moment before answering.

    “That is a very dangerous question. Honestly, no one really knows the answer. No one's ever seen him, not anyone from this level. Some believe he's in disguise undergoing his own tests, but I know better. I may not have met him, but I've spoken with him, and believe me, he's not in this for a science experiment. There's something much deeper at hand. Anyway, for lack of a better title, people around here call him the G-Man.”

    “What are these tests? What are they for?”

    Dr. Augustine handed me a clipboard with papers on it detailing an organization called the “D.N.A.”

    “The DNA is a human research organization of the government.” Grace explained as I skimmed the pages, disappointed that the text wasn't changing like it should in a dream. “It's to...study human behavior; put people in a series of varying living conditions and see how their environment affects them.”

    “Well,” I explained, “I'm a Christian; I doubt they'll find my living circumstances to change me in the ways they expect.”

    I could tell Dr. Augustine wasn't convinced.

    “We'll see about that.” she said as she pulled a nearby lever.

    A steel bulkhead door opened behind her.

    “This way to your first room.”

    I got up and followed her down several dark hallways. The walls and ceiling were made entirely out of pipes, and the floor of a paneled steel square, with metal grating lining the left and right sides. One of the pipes was leaking, spraying steam out into the air and giving the area a very creepy atmosphere. Finally we reached a door.

    “And this,” said the doctor, opening the door. “Is your room.”

    Inside was a small room that looked very much like a little house's living room. It was smaller than the average hotel room, carpeted bright red and walls left white (and peeling at some points). Basic appliances were there, such as a television and a refrigerator, but they were old, small, and very outdated in appearance. Three people were in there, one a guy a bit taller than me with blonde hair and a thin face, and two girls, one an equally taller red-head and the other a shorter brunette. All of them looked to be about my age. They had the TV going and honestly seemed to be enjoying themselves. Their presence definitely cheered the whole situation and made me think that maybe there was some positive aspect to all of this.

    “Food will be brought to you once every day.” Dr. Augustine explained. “You must ration it out for yourselves and save each of the portions in the fridge.”

    “That's it?”

    “That's it.”

    “How long do I have to be here?”

    “One month.”

    “A month!? You gotta be kiddin' me, you can barely walk around in this place!”

    “You have a backyard. Just don't try to go beyond the fence. Now get in there, or I'm going to have trouble with the boss.”

    “Alright, alright!”

    I walked inside.

    “One month.” Said Dr. Augustine as she closed the door behind her.
    I just stood there for a moment, silent, not believing the situation I was in. I RC'd again and found myself to still be dreaming, or at least, not in my normal body. Honestly, I don't know where I was then. It was all too real. I took a couple steps inward, and the guy there turned and looked at me.

    “Oh, hey! The new guy's here!”

    The girls waved and said 'hi' as well. I just sat down on the floor next to the guy, since no chairs were around.

    “So how long'a you been here?” I asked.

    “Three months.” The guy said, with the girls nodding their agreement with the guessed time.

    “Huh, what? I thought we were only supposed to be here one month?”

    “No man, that was you!” he said as he put his arm on my shoulder. “You're the one we've been waiting for! The test setup isn't complete without a second male. Here, check the paper.”

    He flipped through my clipboard until he came to a page on test 1.

    “'This test must be conducted regardless all circumstances with two males and two females. The government reserves the right to keep an incomplete test's subjects in their environments until suitable additions have arrived'.” I read. “This is crazy! I didn't even sign up for this.”

    “Nobody does.” The brunette said. “And yet...everyone does. Look at the last page.”

    I did, and there was a signature on the dotted line. My signature. I couldn't believe it.

    “I...I didn't do this!”

    “Everyone who is born signs their signature there from simply being alive.” The guy explained.

    “Great. So what are we supposed to do?”

    “Didn't Grace tell you?” the redhead chimed in. “Live on rations for a month. It's not much, but we can definitely live on it.”

    “Is there really no way out of this?”

    To that, no one spoke for a long time. Finally, the brunette broke the silence.

    “Only a few have tried. They wanted to climb over the fence. No one knows what happened to them, but they never came back, and the government will act like they never existed if you ask them about it.”

    “Outstanding.”

    “Well hey,” the guy suggested. “How about we play a game? You know, loosen the tension.”

    “Sounds good to me.” The brunette agreed.

    “What about you?” The redhead asked, looking at me. “You in?”

    I sighed.

    “Why not...nothing else to do.”

    So we played a game of monopoly, and learned each others names. The blonde guy was Truman, the brunette was Mia, and the redhead was Danielle. I didn't know them, but I don't think I really needed to in order to understand that they had something. They had been living in semi-poverty for three months, and they were the happiest people I'd met in a long time.

    The days went on after that. As Grace had said, food was brought in once every day, and we had to ration it out and save what we could in the fridge. Even though there was little, everyone simply learned to think of the other three before themselves. There was no selfishness in that little place, which I think was supposed to be part of the test. To prove one or another of us to be selfish and in the process despise the others. But it never came close to happening. Every day we read the Bible to each other and it was our greatest source of encouragement. We were about as much a family as could be.

    Still, I came to feel something special for Mia. I didn't say anything about it to her. I didn't have to. Every time I went to bed I knew she'd be there the next day and that I'd spend every moment with her, so why complicate things? It wasn't like she didn't know. Once, Mia fell terribly sick, to the point of death. We were told that medicine would be exchanged for some of the daily rations, and I volunteered to give mine up so that Mia could get better, which she did. By this point, I was actually beginning to get beyond acceptance of my life and actually enjoy it this way. Every day was...was very pure. It was all about putting others first and living life to the best possible way for the sake of everyone else. I figured out that Truman had feelings for Danielle, and although it would have been very easy, nobody slept together. We kept to our own corners of the room at night and didn't cross any boundaries. It was a kind of life that I would have lived for a long time.

    But a month is just a month. Eventually the day came when Dr. Augustine visited our door and told me to say goodbye to my friends. I was very glad at this point that I had said nothing to Mia; it would have made things even harder. I told her goodbye the same way I did the other two; with nothing more than a hug and a word. It was very painful to be torn away from them, but guards were there to assist if I didn't comply of my own free will.

    When I was outside and the guards saw I wasn't fighting, they walked away for Dr. Augustine to handle me.

    “Why do this?” I asked, frustrated. “Why pull me away from them?”

    “Your test was for one month. Boss's orders. I don't make up the rules, kid.”

    We walked a bit farther and no one spoke.

    “You're going to have a break today.” Grace said. “Back in the room you started in.”

    “Why? Why not get the tests over with?”

    “I told you I don't make up the rules.”

    I went back inside the concrete room and sat on the concrete bed. It was like a prison cell.

    “Great. So I'm here. What now? Just sit and take a break?”

    “No.”

    And then something really weird happened. As Grace said,

    “The boss wants to see you.”

    My environment faded into total darkness, and Grace morphed into a guard, emitting a blue glow that was painful to look at. Her voice changed to that of the guard as well, giving an eerie feeling about me. Then the guard disintegrated and was taken up into the air. I screamed in fear and tried to run, but I found myself colliding with a wall in the darkness, falling down, knocked out.

Again I woke up for real, but was pulled back into the dream by a force other than me.[/COLOR

When I woke up in the dream, I was in the piped hallway. I took one small step and heard my foot echo all the way down the hallway and around the pitch black corner. Then I heard a gut-wrenching scream, and a dead man limped around the corner. This was no Half-life zombie; this guy was really dead and decaying, and walking towards me. I turned and ran into the darkness of the corner, found a stack of boxes over to the side, and tried to knock it over to block the way. I saw the dead man round the corner, keeping after me. The boxes were too heavy...but then, just in time, they fell, and with another sickening cry, the dead man admitted defeat. I heard him walk away, and then I was left alone, my heart pounding, sure that another of them was going to end up being right behind me, against the wall as well.

    “Well, well, well.”

    The voice startled me so bad that I thought there was a zombie behind me, but it turned out there wasn't.

    “Who are you?” I called out.

    “Who am I?” The voice replied, slow, quivering, and dry, sending chills up my spine. “The question is: who are you? That's why we're doing these tests. To discover you. Isn't that right?”

    I got his point, but I didn't like it. I remained pinned to the wall, heart racing. The voice laughed wickedly.

    “You see? Your eyes are blind. You speak of understanding, but you do not know what you are talking about.”

    “What are you talking about?” I finally gathered the courage to say. “What was that last test for? Why did I have to be pulled away? I was living right, and I had the truth.”

    “You are looking for truth, and right. But you do not know what you speak of. You may have passed the first test, but I wonder, was it you, or was it the others around you?”

    “They were good people. They don't deserve to be imprisoned by you!”

    “I didn't put them in prison. You did.”

    “I would never do such a thing!”

    “Oh,” the voice replied, undaunted. “You don't know what you would do. It's Murphy.”

    “Murphy as in Murphy's laws?” I mumbled so quiet that no one could hear it.

    “Yes...somehow your pathetic human was the only one to understand. It doesn't matter what you believe, or where you are. Sooner or later, you will give in. It's all...just...a matter...of...time.”

    I especially hated the way he said that last part.

    “Now, go. Your next test awaitssss.”

    Suddenly, the dead man broke through the boxes and ran after me. My legs froze; I couldn't make myself run, I was so afraid. But then, a blue light shone around him, and as I fainted, I could see my environment reverting to the lab with Grace Augustine.

I briefly woke up in real life yet again, but yet again was pulled back asleep.

I awoke in the dream with the doctor waving a light over my eyes and saying my name, trying to get me to come to. When I finally did, I sat up on the concrete bed and RC'd. I tested to be dreaming. 

    “What the h*ll was that? Get me out of this right now!”

    “I can't do that.” Grace said. “Come on. It's time for your next test.”

    I was taken outside, which looked a lot like Pandora, honestly, save I wasn't in the midst of trees. The testing facility was all up on a plateau, overlooking a forest, with an active volcano in the far distance. The sky was red and orange from the sunrise. I was led through various gates that required the doctor's authentication, and eventually came to a tree.

    “Here you go.” said the doctor. “Test number 2.”

    “Huh! A tree? Are you kidding?”

    “Nope. For the next month, you are to live here. There's shelter already built for you towards the top.”

    “Who's in it?”

    “No one. The point of this test is to see how you behave for a month when you are alone. Food rations will come out once a week...”

    “What!? Once a week?”

    “...but there are weapons in the tree house for you to hunt your own food.”

    “Great.”

    “Trust me, you'll want to learn how to fight well. You think all the animals are stuck on the ground? Think again. Now go on.”

    I looked around me. There were guards at every possible exit and escape. The fences were of latticed barbed wire. It was comply or die.

    “Listen...I'm not supposed to tell you this, but after this test you'll get to see Mia again.” Dr. Augustine told me. “One month. That's all you have to endure. Don't kill yourself now!”

    I looked at the factory as if it were the embodiment of the G-Man and the voice I had just heard.

    “Son of a bit**.”

    But I climbed up the tree then—for Mia.

    I don't know that I want to or even can go into details about that month. It was horrible. Weather  was hot, water was scarce, and so was food. The weapons were all hand-made and very pitiful. I had to sharpen each blade and tweak each arrow for balance before even attempting to use them. Of course the initial rations of food were not good enough for the week, so I had to go hunting. That didn't go so well. I was wary of every creature at first, trying to fight without being hurt, but one strange creature ended that attempt by biting the back of my arm.

    “Ow! S**t!”

    I then beat down the animal and tore at it with all my might, taking out my anger, temporarily forgetting all about the meat. I pulled it by the tail back to my tree, leaving streaks of dark blood on the dirt and grass. By that time it was night, I was sore, tired, and too hungry to go on. I barely was able to climb back up the tree to sleep. I didn't RC...I didn't want to. I knew where I was, that dream or no dream I couldn't change anything about my situation. I thought about Mia, and cried. Thinking of her made me want to read the Bible, but I could not, because I didn't have one with me, and my mind was too dulled and emotional to recall any memorized verses.

    I ended up falling asleep that night with rain pouring through the leaky roof of the wooden tree house. About the only good thing about it was that it cleaned the wound on my arm.

    The next day, I got out of the tree to find yesterday's kill completely devoured by other creatures.

    “D*m* it!”

    I spent the day hunting, and this time I got the meat from the kill right away, made a fire, and tried to cook it as best as possible. It tasted horrible; tough and dry, with no seasoning or spice to it at all. But it was food. I couldn't appreciate it, though. Not doing it for myself. There was no love in that; only hatred. Hatred for the G-Man, hatred for the pesky animals, hatred for my situation, even hatred for myself. By the end of that month, I was as much an animal as the beasts that I killed. My muscles were all huge and solid, my hair long and rough, and my mouth foul. I didn't pray, I didn't think about the Bible...all I thought about was Mia during the day, and the G-Man and the dead man during the night. Many times I was afraid that I had heard the cry of that demon in the night, when it would turn out to be a bird or some other creature.

    It was only a month, but it seemed an eternity.

    Finally the day came where I climbed back up into the tree house and found Dr. Augustine there. She was examining some pictures of Mia I had drawn on tree bark and hung on the walls.

    “Excellent work.” She said.

    I glared at her.

    “I ought to kill you.”

    “I don't. Make. The rules. Besides, you get to see Mia now, because I'm going to take you to her. You should be happy to see me again.”

    “I'm happy just to see another living soul again! I've been here alone for far too long. I just wish it didn't have to be you or anyone associated with the d*m* DNA.”

    “Tough luck. Come on, buddy.”

    I was taken to a car with the DNA logo on the side, put in, and driven to what Grace said was my third and final test environment.

    When we got there, I looked out the window to behold a huge mansion.

    “And that is your new home.” said the doctor.

    “You serious? It's fu**ing huge!”

    “And this time, no rations.”

    “What!? How am I supposed to live? There are no animals in this place!”

    “No rations. You get ten million dollars to spend however you wish; on food, clothes, whatever.”

    “You're kidding.”

    She shook her head.

    “Holy s**t!” I laughed. “Well this will be a breeze after living in the woods for so long.”

    “Well good luck, then. Here's the key. The place is yours. After one month here, we're shipping you back home. Make the most of it.”

    “Yeah, seriously!” I said, taking the key and dashing out the door.

    When I got inside, the place was incredible; three stories high and hundreds of rooms on each floor. There was a fountain in the middle of the entrance area, and huge stair cases on both sides. Mia was there, and saw me come in from the top of one of the stair cases. She called out my name, and I called out hers, and we ran to meet each other.

    “What happened to you!?” she asked. “You're filthy! And your clothes...they're all torn up!”

    “They made me live out in a tree house for the past month! A d*m* tree house! Rations came only once a week; I had to hunt for the rest.”

    “You poor thing! Come on, let's get you to the shower. There's clothes and everything you need up in the master bedroom.”

    She led me upstairs and to the room she spoke of. It was an amazing place; the bed was big enough for someone 9 feet tall to comfortably fit in, and the accommodations in the bathroom were just as extravagant. Mia was just about to leave so I could get cleaned up, but I turned and put her hands in mine before she could.

    “I'm afraid that if I let you go I'll never see you again.” I said.

    She smiled.

    “I'll wait right outside. Not a step farther away.”

    “Thank you.”

    It was great to get cleaned up after a month of filthiness. After a shower in the bathtub with jets and floor lamps, I trimmed my hair and shaved in front of a fifty-foot mirror. I never could get over the fact that was a multimillionaire and this was my new home for the next month. I didn't care, though. I knew how to live without money at all. It was Mia that I cared about.

    When I went into the bedroom to get dressed, I noticed a PDA on the bed. It hadn't been there before. I picked out an outfit and tried to ignore the device...but somehow it grabbed my attention. I touched the screen, and it turned on. A man with a gnarled, wrinkled face wearing a suit appeared on the screen. He was hideous. I didn't even need to ask to know he was the G-Man.

    “You son of a bit**! What do you want with me?”

    “Careful. Don't forget who gave you all this, and Mia.” He said in his usual, slow and devious manner.

    “Who the h*ll are you, really?”

    He ignored me.

    “I'm here to tell you about this device. This is what you will use this month to do everything.”

    “Like what? Why would I use s**t that you and your half-a**ed guards sneaked into this place?”

    “You will use it to make purchases.” He continued, undaunted.

    The screen changed to illustrate what he was talking about.

    “I have made hundreds of bookmarks for you. Web stores, magazines, everything is all right here for you at the touch of a button. There's even vast adult web content available at low prices.”

    “I'm not interested in adult web content.”

    “We shall see.”

    And with that, he was gone. Mia knocked on the door.

    “Is someone in there with you?”

    I turned to look at the door.

    “Oh. No! No, just talking to myself.”

    When I looked back down at the device, the G-Man had made it automatically switch to one of those bookmarked adult web pages.

    “D*m* it!”

    I tapped the home button on the PDA and shoved it into my pocket. Then I opened the door for Mia.

    There was something about the way she turned to look at me that made her stunningly beautiful in the red dress she was in.

    “Mia...there's something I have—I need—to tell you.”

    “You can tell me anything.”

    “Mia...” I took her hands in mine again. “I love you.”

    I saw a tear form in the corner of her eye, and then she threw her arms around me.

    “I thought I'd never get the chance to hear you say it!”

    Things went very well the rest of  that day. Mia and I went exploring the huge house, uninterrupted by anyone else. Since many rooms were empty, we also did some shopping. Well, I did, anyway. I told Mia I would order things; I didn't show her just how. See, I couldn't delete the bookmarks on the device, and I didn't want Mia to find them and think that I had put them there. So a 70-inch plasma screen TV, a water slide for the backyard pool, paintings by famous artists, you name it, all came in without Mia ever knowing just how I was ordering.

    It would have been a good month, except for the fact that Mia and I got so caught up in riches that we left behind the Bible and God and lived for ourselves. We couldn't leave our estate because guards would stop us, so marriage wasn't an option, and therefore, rather than make the right choices, we simply started sleeping together. But our love was quickly turning to selfishness, and so more and more those bookmarks became a temptation for me.

    Eventually, I resisted no more. I thought Mia was on the other side of the mansion, so I pulled out the device and opened the first bookmark in the list. Not ten minutes later, Mia came back and found me there with the device. And yes, she did think I had put the bookmarks there. But that hardly mattered now; I had given into them, which was a far worse deed.

    In the middle of our argument over the issue, blue lights shone from us both, and we were taken to the cement place I had first arrived at. Grace wasn't there, the G-Man wasn't there, but we could hear his voice.

    “You claimed to love this woman, but look at what you did!” His spine-chilling voice shouted.

    Then we were transported back to the first test room.

    “Remember what you were? Look at yourself now!”

    This time, only I had the blue light. Mia grabbed for me.

    “Mia! Don't!”

    She didn't have time. I was transported to the dark hallway with the pipes, and I was utterly alone, standing beneath the only light in the entire place. Behind me I heard the cry of the dead man again, but when he rounded the corner, I saw not just him, but an army of dead men behind him.

    I swore and ran away. They advanced behind me, faster and faster. I took twists and turns down the hallway, but at one point I had three options. Back, left, or right. Behind me was darkness and dead men, so I turned left. To my horror, more dead men swarmed in on that side of me as well. I screamed and ran, the decaying, limping bodies crying out after me.

    I began to realize as I ran that even the bright moments had been deception the past three months. It was all a trick, all a lie, and I had given into it all. I had been weak and easily decieved, I had become the very thing I hated, and now I was about to be destroyed by the very thing I feared most.

    I was lucid, but I couldn't wake up, I couldn't fight, I couldn't flee. The worst fear I've ever had set in as I realized that as far as reality was concerned, this was real, and there was no escaping it.

    There was one last corner for me to go around, but when I did, the army of dead men was already there. I was trapped this time. Quickly, I searched for more boxes, and found them, but knocking them over did no good. Hundreds of zombies were on both sides of me this time, and they were very strong. I held up the walls with my own hands and feet, but I knew I was only prolonging the inevitable. I couldn't hold them off forever, and there was nowhere else to go. They reached their decaying hands through holes in between boxes and clawed desperately at me in the darkness.

    Cusses and swears came from my mouth, and then the G-Man joined in the racket with his wicked laughter.

    “You wanted to find right and truth.” He said, still slowly, his voice still quivering, and chilling as ever. “Well, you found it. Or should I say...you found them.”

    “What!? These are you. You!”

    “No, these are you.”

    I finally began to understand, but I didn't want to.

    “No, no, no, no!” I cried.

    “Yeessss.” The G-Man hissed. “Every one of them is a work of yours; a tragedy. Weren't you a Christian? Then look around you.”

    The armies of dead men began to cry louder and beat harder against the walls of boxes.

    “You see? All there is...is tragedy. So much for Christianity.”

    “This can't be right. This can't be true. This isn't. It isn't!” I tried to convince myself, and control the dream. It was no use. I was still pinned, growing weaker by the moment.

    That speech seemed to crush everything about me; like the past three months had all been a sick game played just to prove to me that I would give into temptation if put in the wrong environments for enough time.

    Suddenly the pressure against the boxes eased, and the zombies were gone...or so I thought.

    A moment later, their faces came into view by the thousands, all behind one gnarled and twisted face of an old man that appeared right in front of me.

    “Tragedy is all that is, and that is what makes it right. It's Murphy. It's all...just...a matter...of...time.”

    With that, the G-Man snapped his fingers, and all was snuffed out in darkness. I wasn't in body then, but spectating, and I zoomed out and saw a briefcase being closed over my clipboard of papers. When it shut, the ten stars on the DNA symbol lit up.

    “We have his DNA now. I just hope it was worth doing to the poor fellow.” A rather heavy government worker said as he picked it up.

    The G-Man was sitting behind a desk, which I saw as things continued to zoom out.

    “Trust me. All of it is in that DNA. Right and wrong, good and evil...it's all pointless and meaningless...a fabrication of fragile, disgusting humanity. With this DNA, we have the ability to decide for ourselves what is good, and what is evil.”

    “You better be right.”


And then I woke up with a start. I might need to illustrate this a bit, since just reading it is not nearly as scary. I've never felt so scared, so betrayed, so deceived...I became a wicked, wicked person, not all that unlike who I really am, just less bridled. It's a very sobering story, especially since the G-Man's face and that line “It's Murphy. It's all...just...a matter...of...time” are not unfamiliar to me. I saw them both early on as a little kid. I called the G-Man “the gray man who stands next to my bed and brings dreams to me.” And he said that line more than once before.

If there's not something of the devil involved in all this, I don't know where it came from...  ::?: 

EDIT: A couple illustrations can be found here. I didn't spend too long on them, but the first one is pretty accurate, and the second one is exactly right.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Last night I half-intentionally didn't go lucid. I just needed a break after that last one. I didn't even try to remember my dreams in case they would be similar to the previous one and not something I would want to remember.

But at any rate, I'm feeling much better now and I'm ready to dive right back in!

Here's the one dream I do remember from last night:

Everyone was at a huge pool party. Friends, family...tons of people. And I don't just mean a huge party, I mean a huge pool, too. The pool was way bigger than the little one-story house next to it, complete with water slides and all kinds of other stuff.

After a while, everyone got out to eat some hamburgers. Eating in dreams is always enjoyable, since there are no health concerns whatsoever, not even for over-eating.  ::lol::  I remember talking to a couple people over the meal about dreams. One of them posed a fun question. "Hey, what would you do right now if this turned out to be a dream?" We laughed at the idea, totally not believing it could be a dream. I had the impulse to do a reality check, but I decided I didn't want to know, in case I would accidentally repeat the previous night's dream. "Well I know what I would do," said another at the table. "I'd pick you up out of thin air and throw you into the pool headfirst!" Everyone laughed again. "And then it would probably end up being a shared dream." I said. "So he would feel you do that and give you a call the next day, all like 'what the heck was that about?'" And we kept going like that for a while before heading back out.

Weird thing was, when I went back out there, the pool was set alongside a river, and I was in Pandora. "Oh, cool!" I said, still not becoming lucid. I paid no attention to everyone else running inside, grabbing their things, and leaving as quickly as they could. I stopped one of my friends as he ran past, though. "Hey, c'mon!" I said. "Dude, are you NUTS!?" That of course had me puzzled, so I turned around to see what was making him leave the pool. I found my answer not in the water, but in the air. It was a Samson; a helicopter from Avatar. My friend ran away, but the wind from the propellers knocked me down before I could. A soldier riding on it jumped off, grabbed me, and somehow I was suddenly in an RDA uniform. He told me that I had to get a couple samples of plants for him, and then sent me off into the jungle on a Gator (the RDA's water craft). I found the samples and brought them back to find the soldiers shooting at viperwolves or something...I didn't get time to see for sure before I woke up.

Maybe tonight I can go back there and stay awhile...on the Na'vi side!  :smiley: 


SIDENOTE: This is officially my 100th post on DV! :bravo:

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## LiveInTheDream

I started to not feel good last night, so even though I tried to LD, I ended up just sleeping all night and not having any lucid dreams. I can only even remember one non-lucid to some degree.

There was some evil woman going around, for what reason I did not know why. But she was secretly following me, and eventually I figured it out. One day I caught her eying me when I was mowing in my backyard. I hid behind a big piece of cardboard that was suddenly there, and knew I had to escape.

Suddenly I was Eragon, so the plan of escape was obvious. I called for Saphira with my mind and this tiny dragon flew over the fence. _"What?_" I thought. _"That doesn't make sense. How can Saphira be that small?"_ But as she got closer, she got bigger too, so that worked itself out ok and I was able to fly off, the wicked woman shouting curses at me as I fled.

We landed at a train station, I believe, and Saphira became small enough to fit inside. When I was in there, I saw a bunch of my friends, and they seemed to be waiting for me. Somehow they knew about the woman following me and that she wanted to take my dragon. "If this was a lucid dream," I said, "I'd just annihilate her." The first time, it was funny. Now, it's just annoying. Why do I keep talking about lucid dreaming in my dreams and not get that impulse to reality check?? Anyway, I was informed that we had been followed all the way to the train station, and that we had to leave by train as soon as possible. "Why not fly?" I asked. "Because that would be expected." Came the reply.

So we got on a train (which turned out to be a two-story hover train) and hoped we had made our escape well enough. The witch-woman had made it onto the train as well, though, and wasn't going to let us get away. Suddenly in third-person, I saw the witch release a robot drone and send it inside the hover train. The drone flew up around one of the passenger seats and picked Donald Duck as its victim. It sucked Donald up into its main body, so only his head was sticking out the front of the hovering drone. But apparently this totally possessed Donald and made him want to kill me, because I went back into first person and saw the drone coming. Saphira tried to breath fire on it, but apparently it was fireproof. Nothing else seemed to present itself as an option, so I grabbed it with telekinesis and sent it flying out the back door, totally breaking it down. "Woah, how did I do that!?" I didn't have time to figure it out. As the door was blasted open, we all saw the witch outside, being knocked off the back of the train. Everyone ran outside and just looked down at her as she hung on by her fingertips. Of course she begged for mercy and a second chance and promised not to ever do anything like that again if we let her go, but I wasn't convinced. I picked my foot up to step on her fingers and finish the fight, but because my friends were against that, I helped her up instead. But there was a button next to me that would open a door to the lower deck...a trap door in the floor right where the witch was standing. So I hit that button and watched her drop down, and then I closed the door, trapping her.

I don't remember what happened for a while after that, but when we reached our destination, the witch was able to get off the train and come after us again...as I expected she would. We were in some house when she tried to come to the door and get inside. Whoever was guarding the door didn't let her in, of course, and told her that she had her second chance, and she better leave before we changed our minds. Eventually she managed to get inside and somehow we killed her this time.

The dream went into third person again, this time showing the drone flying into a restaurant and releasing Donald Duck. Donald fell from pretty high up, but just bounced off of several things until he landed right in a chair. The robot drone flew down and landed in the other chair, paid for dinner, and tried to convinced Donald to help him avenge the witches death. Donald just got his finger stuck in a hole on the arm of his chair. The drone started getting frustrated with him, but I woke up too fast to see what happened.

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## LiveInTheDream

Wow. I don't know what happened last night. All I remember as far as dreams go is 1) Winning an iPod shuffle from MacDonald's, and 2) Watching the Matrix, or at least it was supposed to be the Matrix, even though it was actually nothing at all like it. No lucids, no complete dream memory...and I remained still and calm when I woke up each time! Somehow I just really messed up with that one...oh well, I guess I'll just keep plugging away. Sooner or later a dry spell ends, right?

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## LiveInTheDream

I didn't do so well with RCing yesterday, so when it came time for bed I decided to try for a MILD. I'm not sure how long I did the mantra out loud, but it was longer than I've ever done one before, and I kept mentally doing it until I went to sleep. It partially worked.

I was in Pandora, and when I looked down at myself, I found myself to be in an Avatar. No, I wasn't a genuine Na'vi, just an Avatar. After that I went a little ways, enjoying my surroundings, just to be stopped by an RDA soldier (man, they sure look tiny from that height  :tongue2:  ) It was some time after that that I lost lucidity. The dream continued strong, though, basically playing out the story of the Avatar movie, just with different characters. Of course, I was in the position of Jake, but there were replacements for the other main characters as well. They each had different names and faces, but I can't remember them now. At some point, when I first entered the Na'vi Hometree, I regained lucidity for a short while; just long enough to use what little Na'vi language I know on them. They weren't too impressed to say the least. The Na'vi in Neytiri's place taught me how to pronounce those words better, though. I didn't learn any new ones, since I lost lucidity again very soon. Anyway, it was very different to see that story from Jake's perspective. Really made the emotional side to it that much stronger.

 If you've seen Avatar, you'll know what I mean, and so I don't need to re-write it all for you here, and if you haven't seen Avatar, then go see it and you'll know what I dreamed.  :wink2:

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## LiveInTheDream

Sorry there was no entry for yesterday. I hit one of those nights where I just don't remember anything whatsoever, and I was busy, so I didn't try too hard to get around to writing anything.

Last night I had a bit of an interesting experience. I haven't been doing my typical reality checking lately so as to experiment with a few other things and also come back later to a point when that same RC will work for me again. Well, never would I have guessed that youtube could be a lucid dream induction technique! 

Yes, that's right. *Youtube* got me my LD last night! It didn't stay lucid for long or look very clear, but still, for something so odd, I'm amazed it worked at all.

So here's what the situation was: I had barely reality checked all day long, and it was getting close to bed time, so I was thinking about lucid dreaming and kind of regretting that I didn't RC very well. And I mean it was _right_ before bed. I was on my computer browsing youtube when I heard this song in a video that I really liked. In the comments, someone said what the song's name and author were, so I looked up the music video. As most music videos are, it was weird as...well, something really weird. That, combined with my tired state and the interesting music, put me in an odd mental condition. Somehow I knew that that music video was going to appear in my dream, and I determined that when it did, I would know I was dreaming. Sure enough, when I got to sleep (after a failed WILD attempt), I was going about my day as normal when I opened a door and I found myself in the middle of that music video. "What was I supposed to remember when I saw this? Oh, that's right! That this is a dream!" I jumped out a nearby window and saw a sidewalk and a street below me. "That's gonna hurt...I guess I could fly. But that would be a bit too expected and boring for this situation, wouldn't it?" So when I hit the concrete, I simply caused it to bend like rubber and cushion all around me before springing back up from impact and launching me into the air  ::D: . I did a flip and landed on my feet at the top of a building where a friend of mine (who also LD's from time to time) was standing. "You'll never believe this," I told him, "But I just used youtube to get lucid!" "Really? That's crazy! How?" I explained it to him, but unfortunately in the process of doing so I soon lost lucidity, and the dream went on to this weird blur of real people and fictional people and all of them behaving very differently from how they should.  ::?: 

I'm just about ready to return to putting serious effort in my days to lucid dreaming, but I do think it's fascinating how I've been able to continue short LD's with little things like *YILD* (youtube-induced lucid dream  :tongue2: )

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## LiveInTheDream

Well, maybe I don't have to get back to heavy reality checking after all! Last night I had a very clear lucid without MILD or WILD or even focusing on RCing throughout the day!  ::banana:: 

<meta http-equiv="CONTENT-TYPE" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><title></title><meta name="GENERATOR" content="OpenOffice.org 3.2  (Win32)"><style type="text/css"> 	<!-- 		@page { margin: 0.79in } 		P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } 	--> 	</style>  	I woke up in the night, disappointed that I had not yet gone lucid in a dream. Alright, I said, Anything other than me in my room with my eyes closed is a dream and I need to realize that and reality check! I was determined. So I rolled over and instantly went back to sleep. 


It seemed only a moment later that I found myself on a dreamy landscape of a farm. This is something other than me in my bed...which makes it a dream! I realized pretty quickly that I didn't have control over anything. No! I am *not* going to have a weak lucid again! With that, I forced my hand to move, sending tingles running through my arm as sensations entered, clumsily reached it up to my hose, pinched, and breathed in. That put me in control, but it also made the dream go black.

	It reappeared a moment later, and I was in a bed. Not my own, though, and my eyes were open, so I still knew it was a dream. I pinched my nose again to check, this time without any control struggle. I rolled over and prepared to get up, but I still didn't have control exactly right...with every movement, my body shapeshifted. I tried to stop it, but that didn't work out so well either. The dream went black again.

	This time it reappeared in a room very similar to one in my real house, yet still different. Mostly it was black, and pulsating into clarity every once in a while. I rubbed my hands to try and clear things up, which succeeded, but then if I kept on rubbing, it would go black again. Eventually I remembered to try spinning, which (as usual) did nothing until the dream faded enough to make me lose my balance and fall on the ground. The sudden collision jerked everything back into crystal clarity. With one last nose pinch, I was fully lucid and it was fully clear. I looked around the room. It seemed I had only been teleporting with each fade, as outside the windows was the farm land, and certain things about the room suggested that it was part of a farm house. The most noticeable thing was that mice were running all over the place, but since I knew it was a dream I just ignored them. I approached a wall, looked straight at it so that I couldn't see anything behind me, and leaned against it, supported by my outstretched arms. Somehow that made me feel like I was able to work harder. When I turn around, I said aloud, a girl will be waiting there, and she'll be really pretty, too. I turned around, but no one was there. Hold on a minute... I thought out-loud as I looked for a mouse. It didn't take long to find one. I reached my hand out toward it and used telekinesis to morph the mouse into a girl. At first she was only a few feet tall, so I got closer and then used my thoughts to fix that. Taller. She got taller, but within a few moments she was way too tall. Shorter. She began to shrink again. This time, when she got to the right height, I said, Stop. And she did. Then I noticed her face wasn't very distinctive...very unclear. So I put my hands on her face and concentrated. By the time I pulled my hands back, her face was as clear as the rest of the dream. I snapped my fingers and she snapped into life.

	The girl ended up being different than I had intended, but somehow the difference made her more attractive. She felt more real because of the difference; not like a robot that had no existence in and of itself.

	Where...where am I? She asked.

	Anywhere you want to be. I answered.

	I then jumped up, and in one motion picked her up and flew through the wall to the world outside. Unfortunately, the world outside wasn't so clear, and in a moment things faded out one last time.


It's kind of funny. During the day I think I'm going to have to try really hard in my dreams to create things that way, but when it comes time for it, I have no trouble with it at all, and the time it takes to create what I want is lessening with each try  ::biggrin::

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## LiveInTheDream

Oh noes!! I just realized I forgot to write anything today...and of course by now my dream recall has blown away like the wind...there weren't any lucids though, so no big deal, I guess. Still...it's frustrating  :Bang head:

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## LiveInTheDream

Ok, well I'm not supposed to say too much about this, but I've been on a secret mission with LDing lately, but for some reason every time I try to do it, if I'm getting near lucidity I get kicked out of lucidity, and the dream always ends up a nightmare  :Sad: 

Last night's nightmare was particularly memorable...I think if I get the chance I'll even turn it into a movie scene.

I was in my room, and at first, everything was normal. But then, I noticed something strange...there was a worm on the ground. Then I turned around. There were a few more. Turned and looked around again, more worms, and even bigger and thicker now! "Well that's weird...how are they getting in here?" I said. Then I felt a sharp pain in my leg. I pulled the leg on my pants up so I could see, but quickly wished I hadn't. About 5 of those huge, thick worms had bitten into me and were now entirely in my leg, eating away at it, visible through a top layer of skin. The other worms were coming near me now, too, and I was surrounded. I dashed for the door, but multiple worms got into me after that, all eating away at my legs and arms from the inside, not to mention the disgusting sight of having a worm bulging through your skin. I may be a guy, but I still screamed. The door slammed behind me, I ran for the nearest person and begged them to help me get the worms out. "You're going to live," they told me, "but there's only one way to get those worms out." "Well *do* it already! please!" They reached down and pinched one of the worms on my leg. It let out a little, sickening cry and then rushed up through my leg towards my head. It felt so weird and disgusting...but not nearly as much as what happened next. After the worm got up to my head, I started choking and gagging, and then I coughed really hard, and blood came out along with the worm. Then I looked down and saw how many more worms were all throughout my body. There were easily 30 left for me to cough up that way, and then I still had a whole room full of them to deal with! Or so I thought. I turned and looked and saw a million more of them flooding into the house from the outside. There was nothing left to do but run! So I ran for the closest windows and tried to smash it and get outside. But I couldn't. The worms were coming closer, getting into the room, devouring the person who had just helped me. I had only a few seconds left...

...and then I woke up. Man that one really freaked me out! All day long I've felt like I'm feeling those things getting into my legs and arms, even though I know they aren't there...it was just so creepy!  ::?:

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## Baron Samedi

Try ignoring things like that next time.  If they are machinations of your mind, they need your attention to exist.

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## LiveInTheDream

> Try ignoring things like that next time.  If they are machinations of your mind, they need your attention to exist.



Good point; I kind of have been giving them too much attention, haven't I. Thanks  :smiley:

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## LiveInTheDream

Oooh, we've got new smilies!  :Shades wink: 

Oh yeah, and last night was a great LDing night for me, too! Two LD's, both of them accomplishing the lucid task of the month (basic and advanced)!

Dream 1: I was walking around in my backyard at night when I looked up and saw the sun in the sky. "What? The sun at night? That doesn't make any sense...this must be a dream!" I pinched my nose and breathed in just fine, solidifying my assumption. "Cool! Well, let's see, I've got three things I've been wanting to do...oh well, the sun's right there, so I guess I'll go with the basic task of the month first." I looked at the sun and flew up to it. The dark sky looked a bit more fitting once I got into space. Well, I circled around it a couple times until I found a place that looked like a good entry spot, and then flew right inside. Surprisingly, it didn't feel very bright. I mean, it looked like someone had photoshopped the sun to lose half of its saturation, so even though it was bright, it was...not. But whatever, it was the sun, and surprisingly, I _did_ have a shadow this time! Probably just because I was looking for it, though. I didn't get much more time to think about it, though, because I woke up pretty quickly after that.

I was awake for about fifteen minutes then; I had intended to WILD but I was pretty tired so I broke it off soon after SP hit and decided I would DILD again instead.

Dream 2: I can't exactly remember everything that went on at first, but eventually I found myself watching football early in the morning and really enjoying it. Now there were a couple things about that scenario that made me question the reality of it. #1: I don't believe football is ever played early in the morning, and #2: I hate football, so I wouldn't know for sure in the first place, but I also wouldn't watch it and enjoy it  :Cheeky: . That much being thought through, I decided to reality check, which of course led me to becoming lucid! "Alright! Let's see...I got the basic task of the month down...let's go for the advanced now!" I turned and faced a wall and tried my usual teleportation method. "When I turn around, I'll be at Niagara Falls." I turned around and found the room to be mostly unchanged. I was definitely not at the falls. But something _had_ changed, and that was the wall across from me. It now had a very large picture of Niagara Falls hanging on it, and a little table beneath it. "That'll work." I walked over and moved the table out of the way, then reached into the picture, first with my hand, then with my leg, then with the rest of me, and stepped through the picture into Niagara Falls! I found myself on a wooden walkway that circled around it, but I needed to get out onto the Maiden of the Mist in order to complete the advanced lucid task. Now I can't swim very well IRL, but I didn't let that even factor into it. I jumped into the water and began swimming out to the Maiden of the Mist, which was in the near distance. The water was amazing! It was so clear and clean and the temperature was perfect. Not to mention it, along with everything else, was so realistic I was just marveling at the sight of it all. Well, soon I made it to the ship and climbed up to the top deck. "Ok, so now I have to get married here to complete the lucid task...I wonder who I'm going to be married to?" I looked up ahead of me and got my answer. It wasn't hard to figure out, considering the whole thing was already set up, everybody was there, and she was the only one in a fancy white dress. "Woah, that works for me!" I thought when I saw her. I tried hard to remember her face, but of course that memory faded when I awoke. I _do_ remember her name was Maria, though. I transformed my dripping wet clothes into a dry tux and then took my place in front of everyone, next to Maria. I couldn't believe it when the 'pastor' walked up, though...he was some kind of alien!  :Big laugh:  "Well that's weird..." I thought. But it got weirder. A small, hovering alien that resembled a fish came up out of nowhere and tried to stop the wedding. "Oh buzz off." I said, hurling the thing away with telekinesis. The rest of the ceremony went on without interruption, and I gotta admit, the first alien dude wasn't so bad at his job after all.  :tongue2:  What was *really* fun was the reception, though. Everybody went below deck (does the Maiden of the Mist even have a lower deck?) where food and (non-alcoholic) drink and music and all our friends were waiting. Of course the food was amazing, and they only played my favorite songs, but nothing could beat the reactions of the dream characters. They all came up and told us congratulations, and I just smiled at each one and replied, "Pretty cool dream, huh?" Usually they just gave me a funny look and walked away, but there was one guy who didn't take it so well. He thought it was a joke at first. "Yeah, it can feel like a dream at first. It sinks in after the first couple days, though." He said. "No, no, I really mean this is a dream, I can pinch my nose and still breath in. Watch." It didn't convince him. He just stared at me. "Umm...yeah it's really a dream." I repeated. "*THIS is NOT a DREAM!"* He shouted before stomping off. "Woah...ok...then." After a moment of nobody saying anything to us, Maria slapped me on the arm. "You're making people upset!" She said. "Now c'mon, would this really be a dream?" "Yes." I replied. I took her hand and put it up to her nose, told her to pinch, and then try to breath in. "See." I said. A tear formed in her eye. "You're right, then...this *is* a dream!" It made her so sad I kind of wished I hadn't said anything, but at least someone else knew the truth. I went to go get us drinks in hopes of cheering her up a bit, but when I came back, she was gone. "That's weird." I thought out loud. Just then, a friend of mine walked by. "Hey, Mike. Mike!" I ran up to him as he headed to the restroom. "Have you seen my wife anywhere?" He motioned for me to follow him into the restroom. "Sorry," he said, "This is just the only place that I think we'll have some privacy." He went into a stall as he talked. I went into one myself just because it was awkward standing out there waiting, and to be honest I was kind of wondering what it would be like to pee in a lucid dream  :tongue2: . "You know that little floating alien?" Mike asked. "Well, he's furious that the wedding went through. He kidnapped Maria. I tried to stop him, but...I can't fly." "Dangit, yes you can." I muttered under my breath. Mike was done then, so I decided to be done, too. I mean, in a lucid dream, you could keep going for forever! While we washed our hands, I asked, "So where'd he take her?" Mike didn't have a chance to answer. We heard the alien's voice outside the door. "Quick! Hide!" Mike said. I created a closet door in the wall next to me and climbed inside. The floating alien came in, checked himself in the mirror, and then left. "So do I need to hide because he's trying to kidnap me, too?" "Yep. I don't know where he took your wife, but I don't think you want to find out the hard way." "True. So how do we get out of here without me being caught, or you being caught helping me?" Mike smiled at that question. "Canoes." That made me smile, too. We climbed out the window and stood on the side of the ship. Suddenly we were at the _top_ of Niagara falls. A couple canoes were tied to the boat, and we each took one and got in. "Now *this* is going to be awesome!" I shouted over the roar of the approaching falls. In another moment, we had completely gone over, and were canoeing down Niagara Falls!  ::yddd::  The canoes were smashed at the bottom, but of course we made it out ok.

After that we got to formulating a plan. Mike volunteered to get a bunch of his buddies together to help arrange transport to wherever the alien had taken Maria to, and I took Mike's laptop to go find out just where that was. I hacked into some security cameras until I found the alien's location. "Bingo." I said...which got the attention of a nearby security guard. "Hey, you there, what do you think you're doing!?" I sighed. "Sorry doc, I don't have time for this." I held my hands in front of me, concentrated, and made the guard disappear into thin air. So I took the sword left behind from the security guard (yeah...he had one  :tongue2: ) and tried to sneak up onto the alien back aboard the ship. Of course since the whole wedding party was there, someone heard and saw me, so stealth failed. I swung at the alien, but missed, and he then pulled out a sword of his own and we had an epic duel. He was hard to hit, but weak, so before long, I had him on the floor, badly wounded, his weapon far out of his reach. "Alright! Alright!" He said, giving up. "Your wife is in the caves. North west. Only way in is by river." For some reason, everyone was shocked to hear the alien confess to a crime like that, but I left them to deal judgment however they wished. I flew around until I found Mike, who had a bunch of midgets with pointy gray beards and mustaches  build a water craft. I couldn't fly through the caves because they were too low and treacherous, so I gladly accepted the vehicle from them. As I climbed in and took the strange controls, they wished me luck and cheered for my victory over the floating alien. I started the wooden craft off into the caves, having a little trouble driving at first, but never got a chance to find Maria. Pretty quickly after entering the caves, I woke up.

I didn't think I could have a dream that was more realistic than any previous one, but that one tops them all. The appearance and actions of water are *very* hard things to duplicate, yet it all looked perfect. Lighting was all totally realistic, too. If I hadn't repeatedly pinched my nose to maintain lucidity, I probably would have started to believe it was real myself.

But anyway, I completed both the basic *and* advanced lucid task of the month in one night!  :Fame:

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## LiveInTheDream

Well, I've been up super late the past few nights, so last night it finally caught up to me...I totally crashed before I could even think about lucidity, so of course I didn't go lucid...heck, I don't even remember my dreams, other than a vague image or two. Oh well...hopefully I can get rested up and try again tonight.

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## LiveInTheDream

Darn, I totally forgot to write down my dreams today! I had a few non-lucids written down in notes, but I took too long to write them down in detail, so now the notes are fairly worthless...I'll do better tonight!

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## LiveInTheDream

Ok, wow, I've *really* hit a low spot again! No lucids last night, and I can't really remember any dreams at all! Time to focus on recall again...I got my technique down now, though, so hopefully with a bit better recall things will be up and running full speed soon.

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## LiveInTheDream

Ok, it's a bit late in the day for me now, but hopefully I can still remember everything decently.

Last night I made dream recall my focus. I figured, if I go lucid, great, if I don't, at least I'll be able to remember my dreams.

I ended up recalling 3, all of them non-lucid, but one of them very close.

Dream 1: I was not on Pandora, but I had an Avatar that I had designed for personal use. I had my computer moved to right next to my bed, where a very techy-looking device (presumably a brain-wave scanner or something like that) was attached at the head of the bed and connected to my PC. I turned on the computer, (see, electronics CAN work in dreams!) and opened up a program on the desktop. The interface was pretty basic, but it had very complex readouts all over it; frequencies and temperatures and a bunch of other measurements for me, my Avatar, and the computer hardware. I guess all of it had to be in equally working order, or else none of it would work, so it makes sense that all three things would need to be checked and logged. After confirming that everything was set up and ready, I clicked a few buttons to start the Avatar devices up and then laid down on the bed. As I listened to the machines begin to whir and chirp, my vision went blurry, and soon I was in a different room lit by a single, small lamp built right into the ceiling above me, making just about everything except me and the bed I was on look very dark and shadowy. Once things were fully clear and I was confident that the transition had been complete and successful, I sat up and looked down at myself. My skin was blue with exotic stripes of slightly darker blue all over it, I was several feet taller, I had a tail, and certain parts of my body glowed in the dark. A nearby mirror quickly confirmed that I was really in an Avatar! The bioluminescence thing really is cool, too! Well, as I had expected, I was in a trailer that was tilted about 30 degrees, with the open door on the side down into the ground, so that nothing could possibly get inside and harm the Avatar when I was away. Only inside the Avatar could I possibly be strong enough to lift the trailer while standing on the ground so as to let myself out. Once outside, I briefly took in my surroundings. It looked to be very early morning, as there was no hint of sunlight--rising _or_ setting--anywhere. On the side of the trailer was a gun built for someone my size. I picked it up and started walking through the tall grass and the woods until I woke up.

Dream 2: I found myself at my house, and all was normal...except there was this girl there that kept insisting she was my girlfriend. I completely ignored the comment the first time, but after five or six times of her approaching me and saying that, as well as telling me of past times we'd supposedly spent together, it started to get my attention. I mentally started comparing what I knew to be true with what I was seeing. This girl was telling me about things I didn't remember happening at all...so I began to think about what I remembered. On the one hand, I remembered not having her as a girlfriend, and something told me I didn't remember doing the things with her that she said we had done. On the other hand, I remembered her name (Maria), and I distinctly remembered having done _something_ with her before...in a dream. We were on the Maid of the Mist so that I could accomplish the task of the month. The wheels started turning, and I slowly began to think: "If all this is true, and I only remember her from a dream, then maybe I'm in a dream now?" It wasn't a realization, it was another question...a question I always follow up with a pinch-the-nose reality check. I was just about to do it, when I heard an explosion from the lower level of the house. I ran down the stairs to find the microwave exploding and with the door gone, microwaving the entire room as well as the people in it. Maria was running away just in the nick of time, but I could see a blast of flames was about to come around the corner, so I tackled her also just in the nick of time and got us both out of harm's way. Everything was instantly calm then (other than Maria, who was crying and shaking with fear), so I went into the kitchen to see the damage. All the walls and floor and ceiling were burnt gray like a radioactivity bomb had gone off. Colored puddles were on the floor in the place where people used to be. No one else had survived. I took Maria outside and tried to calm her down as I woke up.

Now I for one find that interesting. I don't know anyone IRL named Maria, and yet this person has come up twice now. She has always acted differently than other DC's, and the nose pinch RC caused her to realize that she was in a dream the last time we met up. She had memories of me in that previous dream that I remember of us together, but also in others that I do not remember ever having. Have I stumbled across a real person in shared dreaming without even trying?? If only I could go lucid again and ask her for an email address or something solid that could confirm that...oh well.

Dream 3: I was in my Avatar again, lying in the bed in the trailer. A big lightning bug flew up to me and started telling me to wake up. At first I told it to leave me alone, but it insisted that I had an important mission, so finally I got up and paid attention. I can't remember what the mission was, but I apparently agreed with it that it was important. I got out of the trailer, grabbed the gun from the side, and ran off into the woods. It gets a little unclear after that...I had a gunfight with a bunch of people, the big firefly alerting me of their locations. After everyone was taken care of, I just went back to the trailer and climbed in and went to sleep like nothing had happened  :Cheeky:  Then I woke up.

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## LiveInTheDream

I'm not sure what happened last night. I woke up a couple times, thought about my dreams, and silenced any thoughts about anything else...and yet I still couldn't remember for the life of me what it was I dreamed about! After giving it a lot of thought, I was able to recall two scenes. In neither one was I lucid, or even present! I was just spectating...honestly, I think in this case it was the dream that was unclear and not my recall, hence my lack of a body for all but a few seconds.


First thing I knew, I was looking at a crowd of people that I know IRL sitting on the ground. All of a sudden, one of them, a girl, stood up and said loud for all to hear: "Kyle, you and I are going to start dating." The dream 'camera' wooshed over all of their heads until Kyle was the focus. He didn't look shocked...very slightly surprised, perhaps. All that he said in reply was: "ok." As the dream began to fade, I got this sense that I knew that they really did start dating, and seriously, even though I didn't actually see it happen.

My WBTB alarm went off then, but I didn't stay awake very long...it would have been a DEILD if only I had gone lucid. My alarm has to have two buttons pressed at the same time in order to turn off, which I usually can't do until I'm fully awake, and thus it is quite effective for WBTB, but somehow I disabled it quite quickly and re-entered the same dream.

I was fading in and out of a dream body; as far as everyone around me was concerned, I wasn't there at all. I saw a TV turned on to a game show. The girl from before was playing it, and won. Then they brought out the prize...covered by a cylinder wireframe with a curtain strung all around it. When the cart it was on stopped moving, Kyle burst out of it in a shiny blue graduation gown  ::rolllaugh:: 

That's all I remember...I think maybe I'm in an LDing dry spell  :Sad:

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## LiveInTheDream

I did a tiny bit better last night...came close to being decently lucid again! In other words, I _was_ lucid, but I got it through WILD at the very beginning of the night, and it only lasted for about 1 second...I knew I was in a dream and I saw a tiny bit of my surroundings, but there was hardly time to do anything before the dream ended...so note to self: don't bother WILDing at the beginning of the night anymore  :tongue2: 

I did have a decent non-lucid dream later on, though. Again it was split in half by my WBTB alarm which I somehow disabled very quickly and re-entered the same dream...I'm gonna have to get a different alarm  :Sad: 

I was a 'secret soldier'...not a spy, really, but a scout. I think the idea was for soldiers to be common people for part of every day so as to bridge the relational gap between soldier and civilian. At any rate, I was placed in this one town that I forgot the name of, given a small, furnished house and some money, and took orders to live there from early morning to early evening. I had to use some of that time to sleep, since I reported back to the Colonel at night and kept up with my real job.

Since building relationships was the point of my mission, on the first day I was on this strange kind of occupation I went to an outdoor restaurant for breakfast. The air was fresh and the food was good. I had intended to strike up conversations with people, but it turned out I was so early that no one else was there. I chatted a tiny bit with the waitress (who I discovered also owned the place and cooked the food), but ended up simply enjoying the solitude; the only sound being that of birds. When I left, the woman told me about the following day's special and asked me to come back in typical business manner. "Maybe I will." I said with all honesty. After that I went to look around town and meet up with other people...but the place was deserted of any walkers. Cars drove by, but obviously they were of no assistance to me. I ended up just going back to my given house and checking all of it out. I'm not sure what happened for the rest of the day...I think I went to sleep for a while.

Eventually it was night time, and I headed to the secret army headquarters, where the Colonel and other scout-soldiers like myself were waiting. We each reported on our day, and I wasn't surprised to hear the others have similar stories to my own. When that was done, the Colonel gave us a long talk about how we'd totally missed the point and needed to do much better the next day. "There is a military agenda here." He said. "The point is not to expose ourselves, but to build up trust with those that we can so that we'll have the trust of the people on our side when we finally do come out in the open. All it takes is for each of you to build up one or two meaningful relationships...we want quality here, not just quantity."

The next morning I did return to that restaurant, and again it was too early for anyone else to be there. The colonel's words echoing in my mind, I decided to try and have a conversation with the woman who ran the place. I can't remember her name, but in case you were wondering, she was definitely not the Maria that keeps popping up as of late. I'll just call her W. "No one else is here...do you have anything you need to do right now?" I asked. "Oh, not really." W replied. "Why?" "Just wondering. I'm new to the place and all, so I just thought it would be nice to have some company, if there's any to have." "Oh! Of course." W said, picking up a cup of coffee and sitting down at my table. "Is there something around town, someplace you need to go, I can help you find?" I thought a moment. "Honestly...nothing that I can think of." "You have a job in town?" She asked. "Well that's...complicated, and honestly I'm not supposed to talk about that." Obviously, things moved slowly at first, but eventually we got to talking pretty normally and pleasantly, and even discovered we had a lot of common interests.

Next thing I know, it's the night again, and I'm heading to the secret headquarters. This time the Colonel was a bit more pleased with how we'd done; just about everyone had properly focused on having one or two meaningful conversations than just trying to talk to whomever was available. Then the Colonel informed us of our real objective: to locate a spy hidden somewhere in that very town. We had been informed that they were trying to lay low and just live a normal life, and it was up to us to do the same in order to discover the spy and bring them to justice. Nobody questioned who the spy was from or what their goals were.

The next couple days went by uneventfully (and incompletely, actually...the dream sort of zipped through time) until after a few days I went to the restaurant again as usual and W came to me and said she was in trouble. She looked very scared and made it sound like she was going to die or something if I didn't help. When I asked what was going on, she said, "It's not safe here. How do I get to your house?" "My house? Why, W?" "Because I think even my own is bugged." I gave her directions and drew the route on a map, and then W told me when she planned to drop by. "I'll be there." I promised.

When she arrived at my place a few hours later, she closed all the windows and made sure no one would be able to find her in there. "What's going on? Aren't you going to tell me?" She turned and looked at me very serious. "There's something I must show you." W said. "I trust you...but you have to trust me." "I do." W nodded after a moment and then held out her arm. With her other hand, she rubbed very hard into her skin, which wiped away to reveal blue skin beneath. "I am a Na'vi." She said. "Soldiers are here in secret to capture me. They want to study me and interrogate me until they find a weak spot they can use to kill my people. I fled here and put on a disguise, but they've tracked me down, and now I need your help to escape." "Alright." I said, not mentioning that I was a soldier. "But I can't be found out, either, you know. You have a plan?" She ignored that question. "I have trusted you. Now it is time for you to trust me." With that, she grabbed my arm, rubbed, and revealed blue skin on me, too.

After that, it was really weird. I split into two people, one a Na'vi form of me, and one a soldier form of me. It was suddenly night, and the solider me told the Colonel about what happened, while the Na'vi me helped W escape the town. It was a very close call, but the Na'vi me escaped with W after the soldier me finally did the right thing and distracted the other soldiers.

That last part was so strange. Not only was I two people at once, but they were diametrically opposed to each other, even though in the end I was in control over both.

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## LiveInTheDream

NOTES:

Dream 1: Went around historical sites riding on the back of cars (one with a license plate of "I    C    U", a clear reference to Avatar) with a friend of mine from real life. At the peak of the day, I told her how I truly feel about her, and even though I never heard her reply, she seemed more eager for us to do stuff together, which we did until the end of the day. It was always unusual things like riding on the back of cars...but it was also always enjoyable.

Dream 2: DEILDed to get back into the dream on the outside of the town, on a beach. Found my friend there when she called out my name and ran for me. As I held her close I tried to fly with her again, but for some reason couldn't. So I made the ground pile up beneath us instead, pushing us so high into the sky that we could reach out our hands and scoop up little pieces of clouds. At the top we dove off into the ocean below, which was amazingly fun. Then we got out of the water and watched the beautiful sunset.


Finally I went lucid again!  ::banana:: 

Again my watch alarm did not work for me, but it turned out not to matter. Actually, if it _had_ gone off, I probably would have ended up _not_ going lucid. You'll see why here in a minute.

Dream 1: I found myself in an incredible city. Everything looked very historical, even though it was all clean and kept-up as new. As I walked around, I saw an old-fashioned ice cream parlour and decided to go in and check it out. Now, I had ice cream shortly before going to bed, so I expect that had something to do with it  :Cheeky: . Inside, I saw one of my friends, a girl I had flown around in a previous dream. Of course, I bought her some ice cream and we sat down outside to eat it and chat. Shortly after our ice cream was gone, a taxi pulled up just a few yards away from us and let a small family in. "Come on!" My friend said, heading for the taxi. "I don't think there will be room for us." I commented, following anyway. As I got closer, I noticed the license plate on the taxi was "I   C   U", a clear reference to Avatar. As it turned out, there really was no room left for us, but that didn't even phase my friend. She just sat on the back of the car and waited for me to do likewise; it was as if she did this on a regular basis. It turned out to be pretty nice, though, riding around that city on the back of a taxi. We had a clear view unobstructed by a roof and doors, and we could hop off at any place we wanted to. Even though I remember several details about the places we stopped at, it's hard to sort them out in order, since we went so many different places. Suffice it to say that much...'we went many different places.' I bought her a few things and we had a lot of fun. Towards the end of the day, I could keep my mouth shut no longer, and though I don't remember what exactly I said, it was something to the effect of 'I love you'. I was afraid she would leave me then, but she only smiled to one side of her mouth and led me off somewhere. I was glad that she reacted well, but I didn't get to see where she was leading me off to, because soon after I woke up.

As soon as I was awake enough to make any conscious thoughts, I thought back through that dream to make sure I remembered it and then checked my watch. It was shortly after 4:00. My watch alarm was set for 3:50, and it hadn't gone off at all. Good thing...if it had, it would have interrupted that dream!

Well, I decided to try for DEILD then, and it wasn't long before I succeeded.

Dream 2: I was back at that historical city, but on the outer edge of it now, on a beach. The city was shortly to my left, and the ocean to my right. In the distance, I saw my friend was still there. I guess she was going to lead me to the beach. But then it hit me: "Wait a second...this is a dream!" Almost immediately after I realized this, my friend saw me and called out my name as she ran in my direction. When we met, we threw our arms around each other  ::D: . Remembering the time I had flown her around before, I decided to do so again...only for some strange reason, I just couldn't fly! I kept trying, but of course now I was...well, _trying_, not _expecting_, so I wasn't going anywhere. Rather than continue to fight it, then, I considered another option and decided it would work ok. With a thought, I caused the ground beneath us to rise up and push us higher and higher towards the sky, continually building up beneath our feet. Before long we reached the clouds, which it turned out we could scoop up into our hands. They were cold and wet, though. Figuring we were high enough, I stopped the upward advance of the ground. "I've got an idea." I said to my friend. "Hold on to my hand." She did so, and then after a count to three, we jumped off the top of the pillar I had made out of the ground and we dove down into the ocean, falling hundreds of miles until landing comfortably in the water. I noticed I could breath under the water, which was pretty cool, but even so I went back up to the beach because that's where the girl was going. As I made it onto the beach, I looked down and was amazed at how realistic the sand was. Because I was wet it clung to me in millions of little grains just like in real life. But anyway, when I reached her, I pulled a couple towels out of thin air and handed her one. "How'd you do that?" she asked. "Oh, that's my little secret." Now that I think about it, I find it funny that making the ground rise up didn't phase her, but pulling towels out of thin air did  ::lol:: . After that we just sat on the sand close together and watched the sun set. The colors were incredible...it was almost better than a real beach sunset, honestly. After a while of doing that, I woke up.

It was still early enough for me to stay in bed a while, so I tried very hard to DEILD again and re-enter the dream, but to no avail. Oh well. At least I finally had a lucid dream again! Life was getting kinda boring without 'em  :wink2:

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## LiveInTheDream

Just to let y'all know, I've been taking a break from RCing/LDing over the weekend so as to make all of it more effective again. I intend to start back up this week and hopefully resume having LDs again soon.

The thing for me is, no matter what RC I do, or how much I try to add in variations, within a month or so it just becomes so mindless that I can do it every five minutes all day long for days in a row and still not have an LD from it all. Of course, going that long without an LD despite the work put into it also brings a lot of doubt of success into play, which can also sabotage lucids. So I've stopped for just a few days in order to make all the reality checks stick out in my mind again, and I feel good about it working  ::D:

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## LiveInTheDream

Ok, no lucids last night since it's my first day of hitting reboot on LDing, but here's what I remember from last night:

Dream 1: First thing I know, it was 12:48 in the afternoon, and I know that because I found myself looking at a clock. That time jerked me into what I thought was reality, and I realized all the things I had to do that afternoon, so I got up and just went about the day normally.

What a waste of a dream. Oh well. The second one made up for it.

Dream 2: My friends and I were doing more filming for a movie we're making, and even though throughout the whole dream I had the idea that it was all just acting, before long I was drawn into it as if it were real, and no one ran a camera any more. The plot wasn't the same as the real movie we're making, but rather it was the typical thing where the bad guy has an evil plot that the good guys have to discover and then go beat up the bad guy to stop him. I can't remember all the details, but I clearly remember that the bad guy was using eyeballs from cows as a way to focus a laser beam so that it would be powerful enough to blow up the earth. About the time the movie reached the point where I and the other good guys made it to the bad guy's base, I paused for a moment and tried to use telekinesis on something. "If this is a dream then I can use telekinesis." I told myself. Unfortunately, not being lucid, I was not able to free my mind of real-life boundaries, so telekinesis was impossible. "Ok, I'm not dreaming." I concluded. Then I headed into a huge room where the laser was, as well as the bad guy. He sent a bunch of robots after me, which I dodged and destroyed with a bunch of cool moves. It sure was fun being able to jump and flip all around the place like that! And of course the final battle between me and the bad guy was especially fun. It reminded me a lot of the Matrix; fast, intense, and super high powered. Suffice it to say that I won, and woke up shortly afterwards. It would probably get boring to try and describe each individual move we did.  :tongue2:

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## LiveInTheDream

I remember having at least 3 dreams last night, but the first two are only blurs in my mind.  :Sad: 

I found myself standing by the phone in my kitchen. It rang, and I looked at the caller ID. It was Berton. I picked it up and the dream went split-screen, one half being me, and the other half being Berton. He started delivering a prank phone message to me, pretending to be selling something and going on about it in a typical commercial tone. After a couple seconds, I hung it back up, but the 'split-screen' remained, and he kept on going with his pitch. "For some reason," I said to a couple people who were suddenly there, "he's been doing that to everyone lately...it was funny at first, but now it's getting to be just annoying."

I think more happened, but I can't remember anything else. The interesting thing about this dream is that I was conscious enough to realize that I was actually anticipating everything to happen before it did. I saw the phone and thought "that's going to ring", and in the next instant, it did. When I looked at the caller ID, I thought "it's Berton" and the next instant, I found it to be true. Now all of that happened in less than a second, but I knew very well that my thought came before the action.

I think I just proved my theory that non-lucid dreams are driven by what you expect to happen, not really by passive control  ::D:

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## LiveInTheDream

I give up on my watch alarm. I've tried all sorts of things to try and fix it, all to no avail. It just doesn't go off any more.

Last night I had it set for the middle of the night, and I intended to WILD and WBTB. I know, I've only made one WILD last very long, but I was determined this time.

As it turned out, I still woke up without my watch, but at 5:30am. Not quite as good as an hour earlier, but I still decided to give it a shot. At that point I also thought about dream recall a bit, and remembered one single dream.

Dream 1: It was like watching a slideshow of photoshopped family photos. I saw memories of mine flash by every few seconds with just a bit of reality distorted by a lot of fantasy. They seemed to go in somewhat of a chronological order, too. But things didn't stop when they reached the present day. No, after that, I saw future events that I am planning on happening as if they were memories. About a week out into the future, the dream ended.

So having recalled all that I could, I got out of bed, stretched, went to the bathroom so I wouldn't have any interruptions during the WILD, and then got back into bed. At first I tried it on my back as usual, but also as usual, all I got was a tingly feeling in my arms; not anywhere else, and no paralysis whatsoever. So I tried turning my head to the side to trick myself into thinking I was sleeping sideways as normal. That fared little better, though I did have some very faint HI that way. So I thought, "Why can't I WILD when I'm _really_ on my side, then?" and decided to give it a shot. I rolled over to my side, sandwiched my head between two pillows so I was encapsulated in total darkness and silence, and then went on with the attempt.

For a long time nothing really happened. I thought about trying to count breaths or listen to a lucid MP3, but in the end I figured that all that stuff had already failed for me many times and it was time for me to go all on my own as I had that first night that I WILDed successfully.

What seemed like a few seconds later (but probably was much longer), I heard a faint sound. An echo of someone in the far distance, talking about something that I could not remember the instant the echo stopped. Encouraged by this progress, I continued to wait. In another few seconds, a shelf loaded with fresh vegetables (don't ask me why; I don't know) appeared in full color. I glanced at it momentarily, then ignored it, and it seemed to blur and float away. Next I saw a man in a suit sitting behind a desk float towards me in the darkness. Before long I could tell his face was the face of the G-Man from my horrible 3-month dream. I purposefully eliminated that image. That seemed to be all I needed, anyway. My sensations were suddenly schewed after that. I felt like I was still conscious of my body, and yet I knew that what I was feeling was not my real body, because it started to wave about as if riding on water and conforming to the shape of the wave. That sensation was stopped by the feeling of someone reaching their arms around me and holding me tightly. I probably would have freaked out, but I could hear movement behind me and soon I felt lips brush against my ear. "It's all going to be all right." A gentle, female voice whispered. This feeling of extreme security and peace came over me then, and I let her (whoever 'she' is) hold on as long as she wanted. The bodily distortions continued for several more minutes, and a few times I was even able to move my perceived arm, which made my real arm attempt to move, but unsuccessfully. She let go soon after that and seemed to fade away behind me. Once again, I was alone. But then, all of a sudden, everything went white. A strong buzz was in my ears, and it was like an earthquake couple with an EMP went off. The ground shook, energy seemed to hit me in waves, growing in intensity with time. And then, at the peak of it all...it all just faded away. I found myself high in the sky, and looking down below me, I saw a huge canyon. I could see for hundreds of miles around me, and the canyon went through all of it. The sky was bright and clear, other than a few white clouds. Since I was already in the air, I had no trouble trying to get off the ground and fly. I just flew as usual, and went all over the place. It was incredible how realistic it was; I have never had a dream with such a large and wide-open view before. After I had gone through some of those clouds and enjoyed feeling the cool air and wind on my face, I flew straight down towards the bottom of the canyon at high speed. It was *very* fun!  ::D:  Of course, I curved upward right before I hit the ground and started speeding through the canyons, every inch of which looked just like real life. Every crack, every shadow, variations in colors...all of it looked perfect. But then something weird happened. I flew past a cowboy with a banjo that was playing and singing in front of a little campfire. I should have only been able to hear him for a brief moment as I flew past, but his voice continued even as I went miles away. That little loss of realism signaled the beginning of the end. I was just about to fly somewhere else (like Pandora), when everything started to go black and I woke up with a start.

I think I finally figured out my problem with WILDing! Up to this point, I was trying to use everyone else's techniques when really all I had to do was what worked for me in the first place!  ::roll::

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## LiveInTheDream

Having had such a great experience WILDing yesterday, I decided I would set my aim in that direction again. I used a MILD-like mantra technique to wake myself up on time rather than rely on an alarm. I got up, stretched and used the bathroom and felt 100% set to successfully WILD.

It wasn't long after getting back in bed that I first saw HI, and heard a faint echo of a distant voice. "Awesome, it's working again!" I thought.

Next thing I know, I was waking up...I had fallen asleep and missed the WILD  :Sad: 

Only dream I remember is a recurring instance of the dream I wrote about at this link (Dream 3), with the small changes that it was Christmas day this time around, the food was spaghetti, not meatloaf, and I didn't watch TV  :tongue2: .

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## LiveInTheDream

Last night I tried WILD again, and I'll probably continue doing so each night until I get it right. I've had success with most other methods, so I really want to learn this one now. 

I did better than last, but still didn't quite get to the dream. I reached a point where I wasn't really paying any attention to my physical body, so I guess I couldn't feel it anymore. Then I suddenly had this strange impulse, that if I thought very hard: "I'm going to lucid dream!" that I would have some mental explosion and the WILD would go farther. But I gave into the impulse anyway, and that's exactly what happened! Tingles accelerated, noises grew loud, lights flashed in the darkness. So i figured I should try it again. Same thing happened. Eventually I pushed too hard though, and the WILD broke. Everything went back to normal. I guess I woke myself up...

But I got close!  ::D: 

Oh yeah, and I woke up this morning with one dream in memory:

We (i.e. me and a bunch of DC's) were at the top of a big hill. There was a road going over the hill, but we were off to the side, on the grass. We had two bikes, a truck, two ropes, and a picnic lunch. As we ate, we were trying to figure out what we could do with all of it. Eventually, one of them said he had a great idea, but he didn't want to tell us what it was without showing us. He told me to get on one bike, and a short and chubby DC to get on the other. Then he tied one end of a rope to the handle bars of my bike and the other end to the back of the bike of the chubby DC. He tied the second rope between Chubby's bike and the trailer hitch on the truck. Then the DC got inside the truck and started driving, pulling the two of us along behind him...on the road! We flew down the hill (I'm sure the truck's gas pedal was floored), and it was quite enjoyable, until we realized we were going in the wrong direction! Cars were coming at us in both lanes, and we had to dodge them all by constantly switching lanes. Several times we very nearly crashed. It was quite intense, but still a lot of fun  ::lol:: . When we finally got to the bottom of the hill, I assumed the DC in the truck would stop driving, so I let go of the handle bars to raise my fists in the air as a symbol of victory over the danger we had gone through, but I was wrong about the DC slowing down. He kept going, Chubby looked back at me and shouted, "Dude, _what_ are you _doing_!?" and the handle bars on my bike got pulled by the rope which caused me to drift into the other lane right as a car sped up towards me. We collided, and I woke up.

Do not try this at home!  :Cheeky:

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## LiveInTheDream

Well, I still fell asleep during my multiple WILD attempts, but at least I managed to have decent recall and even go lucid a couple times, although briefly!

Anyway, here is what went on in my head last night:

Dream 1: It was several years in the past. My siblings and I were still together with our parents and we were in Florida on vacation. We had this rental car with a ceiling that stuck downward in the middle and had a panel on the side with a red bar, a timer, and a phone (one of those old, curly-corded ones). We assumed the red bar and timer were to measure how many phone minutes we had left. I tried to think of people I could call just to see if it worked, but I couldn't think of any numbers, and just having the phone off the hook took off of our time. By the time we reached our destination, we only had 50 minutes left, which transferred wirelessly to the parking meter in front of us. "Oh great!" My dad complained. "You used up all but 50 minutes of our time!" "I think that's just for the phone, though." One of my sisters said. "No," my dad explained, "that's for the entire car! We can't use it anymore after that time runs up! That means we won't be able to stay here for more than five minutes if we want to get back to the hotel in time! I can't believe this..."

I woke up and realized I hadn't stayed awake through the WILD. "Ok, from this point on, if I see my family, or...or _anyone_, I'm dreaming." And then I fell back asleep, hoping that would at least be enough to get me lucid.

Dream 2: I was baby-sitting two of my nieces in the present day. They wanted to go down in the basement to play Xbox. Now even though I didn't go lucid yet, this kind of struck me as odd for multiple reasons: 1) I don't have an Xbox, 2) if I did, my nieces wouldn't be interested in playing it, and 3) it wouldn't be in the basement because there's no TV down there. So I went down to get a game set up for them. There was a pretty big TV there, as well as a couch and lounge chair around it. I went over and found the Xbox and turned it on. Then I look up and find the TV shrunk down to just having a screen a couple inches across! "Are you sure this screen is big enough for you guys?" I asked. "Yeah, it's fine." One of them replied. I turned around then and noticed something *really* strange: the lightbulb in the ceiling was out, but the room was still lit. I walked over to it and pulled on the string to turn it on. Nothing happened. Pulled again, still nothing changed. "Ok, this is *so* weird." So I did a reality check. I thought I felt air come through my nose with it pinched. "I must not have pinched very hard...no way this is a dream. But I need to do it again just to make sure." I did, and this time I was beginning to be convinced otherwise. One more time, and I was fully lucid! I dropped all concerns for my nieces now that I knew they weren't really there and I ran up the stairs to get outside so I could fly somewhere interesting. Unfortunately I ran a bit too fast. The dream started to weaken. I rubbed my hands and tried to spin around, but I couldn't hold on to the dream...it had gone on for too long as a non-lucid and now the REM was almost over. As the dream faded I began losing balance, so I grabbed for the door and railing on the stairs, also clinging to the sensation of those objects being there. But nothing could stop it.

I woke up, of course. I'm not sure when I fell back asleep, but I'm pretty sure it was during another WILD attempt  :tongue2: 

Dream 3: I was lucid from the very beginning this time, but I found myself in a place like the construct from the Matrix. Everything was white, save for a TV and a couple chairs...and three DC's who were standing there. One was a girl, another a tall and strong man, the other a short and stocky kind of guy. I didn't have time to think of going anywhere or doing anything I had set out to do in waking life, because these DC's ran up to me and each one started begging me to make them the star of a movie. "This is your dream, only you can do this for me!" Each one kept repeating. "Ok, ok, guys, if it will get you to leave me alone, I'll make all of you the stars of a movie." That wasn't good enough for them. "No, I want to the be the star *instead* of the other two of them!" (Man, DC's sure can be selfish!) "I choose the lady, then." I lost lucidity at that point as well as my body and I watched as a short 'video clip' played before my eyes with the girl as the star actress. It was some kind of action adventure film; I can't remember much of it. I do remember hearing a voice telling me the future of the girl because of the film, though, mentioning other movies that she was in and how this one started it all for her. After that ended, however, I was back at the construct place, still not lucid, and the tall guy was there. "Now you have to make me the star." He said. "It's not fair that I don't get a chance to prove my worth. I can act twice as good as her; you'll see." So I made him the star, and the video replayed with him in it. He wasn't a great actor, honestly. He made mistakes left and right. Again the narrator voice talked about the future of the star actor, but I can't remember what it said about him. The video clip over, I was in the construct once more, with just Mr. Shorty left. He was wearing a suit and black sunglasses, and he was a black guy now, too. "Hey man." He said. "Just give me a chance. Don't leave ol' shorty out now, right? I'll show ya. I can act for real." I don't remember actually giving him the part, but the video clip replayed with the short guy in there (now as a bald white man with a long moustache). He stopped the other actors, though, and had them totally rearrange the set. He turned the film into a comedy about twin aviators, both played by him. The narrator once again chimed in, talking about how this guy's skills as a director ended up surpassing his acting skills and making him famous for several movies...or something like that.

This time when the dream was over I didn't have time to go back to sleep, so I just lay in bed and worked on recall of all these. So that's what happened last night.

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## LiveInTheDream

Last night's WILD attempt again did not go so great. I was just reaching the point where I was thinking, "I should start counting to keep myself awake" and next thing I know, I'm waking up. In real life. I was in the same position that I had attempted the WILD in, though, so I must have at least made it to SP.

After that I fell back asleep and had one really interesting dream (for music people, anyway):

I found myself sitting on the floor with a bunch of candies. Ferrero Rocher, from the look of them. I picked one up and placed it in a spot in that plastic tray fancy chocolates always come in. A small note played. So I put another one in, one slot higher than the previous one. A slightly higher note played. Then I took those two out of the tray and put two different candies in. Each one of them changed the octave, but played the same note as the ones before. After experimenting with this for a while, I figured out which candies would produce notes in which octave, and which positions in the tray caused which individual notes.

Next thing I know, the tray that I was working with contained several more spaces. If I filled up the available spaces and still needed more, more would simply be there. So I got to composing a song in this manner. Once I got the main melody down, I started to add in harmonies. This is where things got interesting. As I put more candies into the slots to add harmonies, I began to realize how many different notes were playing all at once and still sounding great. "How is that even possible?" I asked, amazed. So I added in some more. Still the music didn't sound bad, and in fact, it sounded even better than before! "This many notes can't good together..."

I was jerked out of that dream by a loud bang from outside, so I don't know if I was about to go lucid or not right there. But the interesting fact still remains: I was hearing impossible notes in my head. How? Well, it's simple science. Sound heard by our ears is caused by vibrations in the air. In a dream, you don't hear by your ears, there are no vibrations, and there's no air. Crazy how that works...

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## LiveInTheDream

Had kind of a weird experience last night. I tried a new WILD technique called NSSWILD (Natural Sleep Simulation Wake Induced Lucid Dream) that was going great...and I fell asleep again. But I was exceptionally tired last night, so it's not a big surprise/disappointment. On a less tiring day I'll probably be able to get through no problem!

But the weird thing I mentioned came when I fell asleep and dreamed regularly. I never did an RC or recognize a dream sign...I just suddenly thought "this is a dream, after all" as I went about, and went lucid! Here's the dream:

False memory told me that I had directed and acted in a smash-hit movie on a low budget in the past, so now I was part of a high-budget movie with all the big sets and professional cameras and all that. It was great. And we were about to shoot the climax of the film; when the guy (me) saves the girl, the villain raises his ugly head in apparent victory, and there are lots and lots of explosions. We ended up re-doing the scene several times for one reason or another, but finally, after two or three times, I randomly went lucid and just asked a DC for a quick review of everything I was supposed to do. Of course there were other things I could have done, being lucid, but I had already seen what kind of movie we were filming, and I really wanted to act it out being lucid. So once I got a crash course on my part, I decided to go play it for all I was worth. The scene began with the girl badly ill, in a hospital room several stories up. The hospital wasn't normal, though, being a black and twisty tower. The nurse said she was going to go get medicine, but as it turned out, as soon as she had left the room, we heard several short beeps, like on a keypad, and then the base of the building shot out flames, and a chain reaction was started that continued to the top. The place was collapsing! I punched the nurse and threw her out the window, but she shape-shifted into the evil (male) villain she truly was and grabbed onto the side of building on the way down, landing safely. I picked up the girl and carried her on back, then ran for the elevator down. It broke halfway down the first floor, and flames jetted down out of the ceiling as debris landed on top. I noticed that it melted a part of the steel wall, however, so I kicked with all my might and broke a hole through. Stairs were visible, so I carefully pushed the girl through, and then did a dive through the hole myself, landing in a roll and coming back up on my feet. The girl back on my back I began to run down the stairs, which were one of two spiraling stair cases. On the other staircase was the villain, who had hoped to capture us in the elevator. "Give up!" He shouted across the gap, which was filled with explosions and flames. "Even if you get out of here alive, your father won't. You'll have to choose...him, or her!" "Just watch me!" I replied, taking off in a run. But I couldn't get down any farther, because in the delay, the stairs broke on both ends of the room. The villain actually fell through his stair and landed in the flames, but still managed to escape in time (he was definitely not human...a pitch black creature with long, gnarled fingers and fingernails of a similar description). I managed to step back in time to not fall, but all of the stairs were weakened now, so I turned to the girl, who was barely conscious. "Can you hold on?" "I'll...try..." She held herself on my back, and I jumped, swinging from remaining stair to remaining stair, to pipe sticking out of the wall, to monkey-barring across exposed rebar and running on walls. That, combined with explosions and flames and all that, was quite epic. But then when I got to the bottom of the building, I kept the girl with me, rather than handing her off to someone else as we had done in previous shots. Instead, I ran to my aforementioned father (who looked exactly like my real life father, but acted nothing like him) and made him leave on a subway. I guess he worked around there or something. At first he protested, but I simply said to him: "I can heal; I'll survive the fire and all this. But you've got to get out of here! Take her with you; please, she'll die without some help!" This convinced him, and he left. The building began completely collapsing as the subway departed. I ran with super-speed out of there, but things went into slow-motion. Huge chunks of ceiling dropped down and nearly hit me, but I'd either dodge them, flip over them, or do any other number of cool move. Suffice it to say most of the time I was running on falling debris and not the floor. I made it outside just in time, but there was still the tower falling down, and it was headed right for me and my dream character friends (whom I knew by false memory). Telekinesis presented itself as the first option, so I held up my hands and pushed the tower the other way, so that it fell on top of the enemy army rather than us. I was then in third-person, viewing the scene through the eyes of the camera. I turned around, again in slow motion, with this cool grey and white cloak shading my face, the building collapsing in the background and sending a rush of wind my way, blowing the cloak in the wind. I simply walked, not panicked at all, proving the lengths of my control to everyone around. It was one of those classic, epic shots. Next thing I know, I was back in myself, and a bunch of people from Star Wars were asking me to lead them in battle. I woke up before I could, but I'm sure it would have been epic.

Honestly, it sounds a tad bit dumb when I write it, but it was quite awesome going through it! :bravo:

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## LiveInTheDream

WOW! Just, wow! I succeeded at WILD again last night, and it was the best one yet!   ::banana:: 


So I naturally woke up at 5:00am, like I usually do (for reasons I have yet to understand), and lay in bed for about ten minutes before I woke up enough to realize that I was even awake. When that realization finally hit, it woke me up enough that a long WBTB seemed unnecessary. I didn't even get out of bed; instead I just rolled over to a new and comfortable position and then waited for the HI. They came visibly and audibly within a couple minutes. So I started counting. 

"1...I'm dreaming...2...I'm dreaming..."

I did it pretty mindlessly, but it was just enough to keep me conscious. Before long I was seeing white everywhere and feeling the energy pulses as I did last time. And I had this urge to do something--anything! But I felt like if I just sat there I'd lose it. So I did the first thing that came to mind; with my eyes still closed, I started doing push-ups in my bed! (Really at this point I was in SP and in my dream body) And then, with a loud wooshing noise, it was like my consciousness was sucked away. I collapsed on the bed and everything went black. So I tried to open my eyes. I was in my bathroom, and I knew the WILD had succeeded. But everything was so real! A quick RC completely affirmed my state, however, and I thought of things to do. "Hmm...I recently said on dreamviews that I wouldn't mind lucid dreaming a level or two of Tomb Raider. When I open this door, I'll be in Croft Manor!" I opened the bathroom door, but I saw my hallway outside. "Dang. Try something else." I thought about teleportation, and the first thing that came to my head was how Hiro Nakamura teleports in the Heroes TV show. Figured it was worth a try. So I thought "Croft Manor", closed my eyes, and worked hard at it until my head shook from concentration. I heard the familiar teleportation sound from Heroes and then opened my eyes again. I was standing right in the doorway to Croft Manor!

The place was incredible; everything was exactly as it appeared in the game, only far more realistic. Even the patterns on the carpets inside were true to Tomb Raider: Anniversary! "Now to find Lara Croft!" As I said this, I turned around, pointing at the place where I wanted her to appear. At that moment she walked through the door that I was pointing at. "There you are!" I said. "Where shall we go? Vilcabamba? Coastal Thailand?" She wasn't nearly so excited. "What are you doing here?" She replied angrily as she walked by, not even looking me in the face. "Well come on, don't you want to go?" I asked. "Not with _you_!" She retorted. I tried to talk nice to her then and soften her attitude, but it didn't work. So I followed her as she walked outside and made a picnic lunch appear in the middle of the mansion's huge lawn. She didn't go for that, either. I guess being rich actually made Lara a snob after all  :Cheeky: 

Giving up on that idea, I tried teleporting away to somewhere else (although I can't remember where, now). Instead of going there I ended up in my bed, in another false awakening. "What, it's over? Better reality check to make sure." I pinched my nose and breathed in. No air went through. But it didn't feel right, somehow, so I did it again, this time only pinching one side and then slowly pinching the other as I breathed in. This time air went through, and I knew I was in a false awakening. A moment of panic hit me, then. It felt like I had already been in a dream for a couple hours. I wondered if I'd ever truly wake up, or if I'd just keep having false awakenings. That fear left as quickly as it came, though. I figured it had only been a few real minutes, and besides, I wouldn't mind living in a lucid dream for a long time anyway, considering I was in full control right now.

I teleported back to the Croft Manor to figure out where I should go next. Lara was still there, and still unhappy, so I just flew around near the ceiling to stay out of her way. "Flying...flying...wait! I flew that girl around before. I should bring her back and we can fly someplace again!" So that's exactly what I did. I landed on the ground and tried to summon her. A girl appeared, but it was just a silhouette of an old woman. "You're not the right one." So I turned around and pointed, as I had done before, saying: "_This_ is really her!" And sure enough, there she was! Her back was turned to me, though, so I was a bit nervous that her face wouldn't be right. I tapped her shoulder and she turned around. Not a single inch of her face was inaccurate!  ::D:  "Hi!" She smiled, and I could tell she was remembering our last flying adventure. "You ready to go?" I asked as I picked her up just as we had done before.

It was then that Lara got jealous. "Wait a minute, what do you mean, _go_? You can't go without me!" I shrugged. "Sorry, actually I can. You're not real." And then I flew off with the girl to the middle of the maze behind Croft Manor and landed there. I knew Lara wouldn't find us there in time. We laughed from the joy of flying and escaping that way. "You want to go get something to eat?" I asked. "Sure! That sounds good." "Where do you want to go?" "Anywhere's fine with me." I couldn't help chuckling, considering she had no idea that I could take her literally anywhere. "No," I said, caressing her cheeks with my hands. "You choose. Please." She nodded slowly, getting the idea that I would do anything for her. "Alright. How about..." and she mentioned the name of a restaurant that I can no longer remember. It started with an 'N', but that's all I can recall. "Ah! That's a good place. Here; just put your hands on my shoulders and we can teleport there." She did, and I successfully teleported us to the restaurant the same way I had teleported before.

When I opened my eyes, we were in a very cool building. The lights were dimmed, people were everywhere, and cool mexican-sounding music was being played on a stage a short ways away. It was all 100% real. "This is _so_ much better than real life!" I shouted. I didn't want anyone to hear, though, so no one did. The girl was in front of me. "Come on!" She said, pulling me by the hand. I was almost in a daze; I just couldn't get over how great everything was, so it was good that she was there to pull me along. For some reason we had to go through a ticket booth to get inside, even though no one was taking or giving tickets. When it came to be my turn to go through, the guy standing at the counter said, "Have a good time!" I shook his hand just to see what it felt like. My fingernail caught on his hand as I did so, making him flinch. It felt real, that's for sure. Skin slightly rough, a bit of sweat...even the creases in his palm. "Sorry about that, dude." I nodded towards the place my fingernail had caught. "That's alright man! Go have a good night with your girlfriend!" Well, that was interesting.

I ran and caught up to the girl, who was looking for a table. "Is this ok?" She asked, pulling back a chair to sit in. "Looks good to me!" I took the other seat. "Hey, umm..." I began as I reached across the table and held her hand. "What would you say...we are? Not...not in real life, I mean, but...in _here_." She didn't get it. "What? What do you mean...'in here'?" I didn't want to say outright that it was a dream, since by now I was pretty sure that I was shared dreaming with this girl. Make her go lucid, and she could figure out that were sharing a dream and that I really do care for her. So I skipped the dream thing entirely and asked plainly: "Would you say you're my girlfriend?" She smiled.

Then I lost the dream and woke up!  :Oh noes: 

I know! Of all times to wake up! I mean, COME ON! Just ten more seconds and I could have had an answer! I tried desperately to WILD again and get back to that spot, but of course it didn't work. It had been a couple hours, and I wasn't at all tired any more. REM was done. I couldn't relax.

Oh well. It was still my best WILD yet! And I'm getting better at doing it right, so hopefully before long I'll be able to use it to go lucid very often indeed!

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## BigFan

I didn't have a chance to read all your dreams but they are pretty interesting. That 3 month one sounded epic though. The last one sounded good as well. Personally, can't wait to get that good or to get a couple more LDs. BTW, in terms of WILDing, do you just wake up 6hr after falling asleep and just stay in bed doing the counting because I've been WILDing lately as well, but, I can only get so far before either giving up or just falling back asleep  :tongue2:

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## LiveInTheDream

> I didn't have a chance to read all your dreams but they are pretty interesting. That 3 month one sounded epic though. The last one sounded good as well. Personally, can't wait to get that good or to get a couple more LDs. BTW, in terms of WILDing, do you just wake up 6hr after falling asleep and just stay in bed doing the counting because I've been WILDing lately as well, but, I can only get so far before either giving up or just falling back asleep



The falling asleep issue is bad for me, too. What I've learned is not to do a normal WBTB where I get up and try to sort of wake up. If I can keep my eyes closed while still realizing I'm awake, I do, and then just roll over and try to WILD. That, and using a special method called NSSWILD, has recently helped me a TON.

Glad you're enjoying my journal!  ::D:

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## BigFan

> The falling asleep issue is bad for me, too. What I've learned is not to do a normal WBTB where I get up and try to sort of wake up. If I can keep my eyes closed while still realizing I'm awake, I do, and then just roll over and try to WILD. That, and using a special method called NSSWILD, has recently helped me a TON.
> 
> Glad you're enjoying my journal!



Thanks for the tip, I'll give NSSWILD a try. I really wanna get another LD, but, it seems like WILDs are the fastest and hardest route to take but I'm up for the challenge  ::D:

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## LiveInTheDream

Well, I've been off the past few days due to the worst cold I've had in a long time, but hopefully I'll be able to get back into lucid dreaming fairly quick (right now all sleep is for restoration and I can't give my brain a work-out anyway), and for now I can at least participate in the forums a bit.

But as this IS my dream journal, I'm going to mark down an interesting dream I had last night:

I found myself a few years in the past, editing a movie a friend and I made (IRL). Things were very detailed; I noticed what Windows XP theme was being used, the individual transitions in Windows Movie Maker, and even film grain and the like.

Next thing I know it's the present day, and I'm re-editing that video with better special effects and such, as an anniversary edition or something. That went on for a little while, but pretty soon I was in a different place entirely.

All I saw were monitors in front of me, like in a security camera room. And I--the me that was asleep in my bed--was on them! I had gone to bed (IRL) sitting up against the wall so as to keep the pressure and congestion in my head to a minimum. On the largest of all the screens, I saw a timeline along the left side. Touching a certain time of the night would display what happened on the screen. I found one place where I slid down from sitting up to laying flat on my side. After that I touched the screen where it said 3:30am. I had remained on my side since that time.

I was then moved from there to being in a Best Buy store looking at Zune skins. They didn't have very many, but there was this one really cool orange one that I was going to get. I woke up shortly after buying it and walking out of the store.

When I woke up, it was 3:45. And considering the time difference between that timeline and the dream in front of it, and the fact that the timeline only showed events in half-hour increments, that was pretty amazing accuracy. Not to mention the fact that I had indeed slid down to being on my side.

Maybe it was just the Nyquil...but it's still an interesting thing, nonetheless. Kind of like a lucid OBE  :tongue2:

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## LiveInTheDream

I'm surprised I didn't go lucid last night, honestly. I'm not real close to being over my cold yet though, so my brain probably was still just thinking like a brain does when it's on medicine.

But anyway, here is what I remember of my dreams from last night:

Dream 1: I was just walking around my house one evening like it was a normal day, when this Evanescence song popped into my head. I started whistling it, and before long attempting to emulate the sound of various instruments, too. Only the funny thing was, it was hardly emulation because I could match the sound of the instruments perfectly! Of course it was only a matter of time before I figured out how to sing in multiple voices while still doing instruments too...it was a weird feeling, yet somehow it felt fully possible.

I love musical dreams...the only problem is that you can never remember the sound of it when you wake up.  :Sad: 

Dream 2: I wasn't personally there; just spectating. And what I saw was a girl. She was running for her life. Her outfit was white and in the style of an Elf's (like in Lord of the Rings), but I could tell she was human. And apparently she could, too. As I moved in closer, I began to hear her thoughts: "Where...not far enough." She continued running, but I gathered that what she meant by that fragment of a thought was that simply running couldn't save her. "A wall!" As I heard this thought, a great stone wall rose out of the ground directly behind her. "Not high enough." A chasm could be seen just ahead. "An obstacle!" She jumped across the gap and landed on the other side without difficulty. "Not hard enough." As she continued to run I could sense her growing fear and hopelessness. "Nothing I do is enough to escape him!" Next thing I know, I was no longer spectating, and I _was_ that girl! And that made her problem my problem. So I thought about other methods of escape. The idea to fly came to mind. Perhaps that would be the solution! So I ran up a hill (as this girl, remember), jumped off, and turned into an eagle.

Next thing I know, I'm in a false awakening, but still as this girl. That lasted only a few moments, though.

Maybe it was just the Nyquil, but that second one seems to have a lot of symbolism to it. Maybe not. I still can't think well enough to tell...

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## LiveInTheDream

Sorry guys, my illness has made LDing pretty much impossible, and medicine has messed up my dream recall too.  :Sad: 

I'm just posting this to let everyone know I'm not gone and I'll be back shortly...this thing can't mess me up forever!

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## LiveInTheDream

I came VERY close to WILDing last night. I didn't really feel SP coming on this time, but I realized after a while that I could no longer feel myself. Then the images started coming on and fading out. And then, an alarm went off really loudly! And another, and another! And I saw fire alarms in what looked like a school building, and I thought "hey, I'm dreaming!", and then...I coughed.

It woke me right back up, and the coughs that followed ensured that I had to sit up and get fully awake, thus ruining the WILD.  :Sad: 

Stupid cold. I better get rid of you soon...

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## LiveInTheDream

IIIIIIIIIIII'M BACK!  ::banana:: 

Finally managed to lose that nasty cold, so I'm back into lucid dreaming now! And what a good start it was, too! After no RCing, no real attempting to go lucid, no studying lucid dreams for a couple weeks, I managed to go lucid on my first night of returning!

The world was covered in snow and war. I was living with multiple other war-ravaged citizens in a house that was protected by several fences. There were people protecting the place, but they were just barely successful. Enough enemies made it through to make just leaving the house a dangerous act. Going outside the first fence was life-threatening. Going beyond the second fence was suicide. The third and fourth fences had been damaged to the point of being little good. Unreal Tournament 3 vehicles were everywhere, particularly the Necris ones. There was constant noise of gunfire.

Inside the house, all we could do was watch, wait, and try to think up an escape plan. There was a device in our possession that contained important enemy plans and information. We knew it was only a matter of time before the house would be captured, but we didn't plan to be there when it happened. Every time we'd gather around and suggest possible escape plans, someone would discover a fatal problem with the idea and we'd come up empty handed (or empty-minded, as it were).

Well, the house's heater broke that day, and it fell to me to go and fix it. One of the girls that was also taking refuge in the house had become my girlfriend during our time there, so she tagged along to give me some company. We headed down the stairs to the old house's basement and into a room filled with machinery. Most of it was functioning, but sure enough, the furnace was dead. We talked and she handed me whatever tools I needed as I went about my work. I realized how much I valued her right then. Even in the middle of war, we could make a cheerful conversation and truly not be afraid simply because we had each other. Just after this realization hit me, the furnace kicked back into action and began heating the place again. My gf clapped and we headed upstairs.

Then the dream went into 'spectator mode' and I saw a normal guy who was guarding the house outside the fence suddenly transform into a red version of the Green Goblin from Spiderman! And I could feel his intentions change from guarding the house to destroying it.

Back in myself, in the house, my gf and I had just come up the stairs to hear everyone talking about the Red Goblin. We didn't know why, but we knew he was coming, and we had to defend ourselves. No sooner was I told this than Red burst inside. Everyone panicked, and for good reason too. I watched in horror as he tore the throat of anyone who was in his way and then knocked them away with a single blow. I grabbed my gf, pulled her into a nearby closet, and then closed the door. "What are we going to do?" She whispered. I fumbled around in the darkness until I found the flashlight that I knew was there. Once the light was on, I pointed it in the corner. A trap door was visible. "We're going to go outside." I replied. "It's too late to save everyone now, we just have to save ourselves." One more moment of listening to the screaming coming from outside the closet and she knew I was right. We crawled into the trapdoor and through the little passageway until finally we made it to the other end...which led us right outside into the snow. 

"Look! There he is!" My gf shouted, pointing. I looked, and sure enough, the Red Goblin was leaving the building. He had something in his hand. Zooming in (with my eyes), I saw it to be the device with all the enemy plans! As soon as I zoomed back out, I saw my gf running over to the body of a fallen soldier. She grabbed his weapons, tossed one to me, and started running. "Wait!" I shouted as I ran after her. "No, don't follow him! You'll be killed!" But she wouldn't stop. A bomb shell flew down right in front of me and threw me backwards, face down into the snow, and by the time I got back up, neither the Red Goblin nor my gf was in sight. I ran until I got to the fence and then peeked over. Still no sign of either one of them. That meant they were beyond the second fence, in the hottest part of the battle.

Something in my heart screamed for my gf then. Suddenly I abandoned all sense of personal safety and decided I was going to bring her back to safety if I had to fight every enemy soldier alone. I was *not* going to let her die! So I jumped over the first fence, ran past several vehicles and soldiers who were exchanging fire, and then jumped over the second fence. Immediately, someone in a Scavenger vehicle started shooting at me. I dove and rolled out of the way and then came back up just in time to deliver a headshot to the enemy soldier. Before anything else could happen, I pushed him out of the cockpit and took over. 

As I started driving off, something weird happened. I didn't RC or anything...I just suddenly realized something. "Hey!" I said. "This is a dream! Well, that means I don't need to go save her, then. I can just turn around, and she'll be there!" I turned around, and she wasn't there. I forgot to RC or rub hands, so my level of dream control wasn't the best. I didn't think to totally change the dream, but honestly I didn't want to anyway; I thought things were pretty cool as they were. "Oh well. At least I know she'll be alive, since I can decide that!" And off I went back to the first fence, taking down enemies left and right. I decided I would find my gf outside the first fence, and she would have the device with her. This time, my decision worked. I found her right where I expected to, and she did have the device. She was very badly wounded, though, and couldn't stand up. She was leaning against the fence, sitting on the ground.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She said as I jumped out of the scavenger and ran over to her. "I just wanted to help stop the war...I didn't want this to happen." "You're not going to die." I said gently. "How do you know?" She replied, a tear forming in her eye. "Because..." I reached up and touched a bloody spot on her face, and healed it. "...I won't let you." I then healed all of her wounds, picked her up, and flew off into the air. "Where are we going?" She asked. "Somewhere safe." I replied. And that's exactly where we went; I didn't stop flying until I came to a house far, far away from the war and snow. "Wait here." I told her. "I have one more thing I need to take care of. I just wanted to make sure you were safe." We hugged briefly, and then I flew back into the heat of battle.

As I entered the snowy area again, I watched for the Red Goblin. It wasn't long before I saw him going along on a hoverboard. I yelled to distract him, then dove down and ran right into him, knocking him clean off his hoverboard. We then engaged in an epic duel, mainly using pyrokinesis to fight each other. Of course I couldn't be burned because I knew that the fire didn't exist. Unfortunately, I didn't see how the battle ended, however, because I shortly thereafter woke up.

This lucid dream brought to you by Confidence Induced Lucid Dream. I did not RC during the day or anything like that because I'm not in the habit of it right now due to my recent cold. I simply believed I would have a lucid dream, and I did!  ::D:

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## LiveInTheDream

Dream recall wasn't the best last night...I remember a couple dreams that came late in the sleeping part of the morning, but the early dreams are totally lost on me, which isn't good because that's usually where my lucids are.  :Sad: 

But oh well, here's what I remember:

Dream 1: I was running on a track and jumping hurdles, like in an olympic competition. 

Such a boring and pointless dream, IMO...I'm not a runner, and I don't have a desire to be, so why I would dream this is beyond me  :tongue2: 

Dream 2: I was running (lots of running last night...that must mean something) from someone. I don't know who or why I had to run away, but I was. And I was in a suit and wearing a top-hat. A midget DC told me to hurry and follow him down a hole because it was the safest place, so I followed. Immediately I started to slip and slide and fall down the pit. Tt was too dark for me to see anything, but fortunately I was wearing infrared goggles all of a sudden, so I switched them on. (They really made things look like infrared goggles in real life do!) What I saw through the goggles was like a cave made out of membranes...at first I thought I was being swallowed by some huge alien, but then I slid down onto rocks and figured otherwise. I switched off the goggles because it seemed I was unable to stop my descent, and I honestly would rather not know where I was going, considering I'd probably be dead when I hit the bottom. The darkness caused me to lose my sense of direction, then. Down was up and left was right and...it was so confusing! And I was always sliding. Fast, but in a constantly changing direction. I turned the goggles back on a couple times just because I couldn't fight curiosity, but it didn't really help me reorient myself. It kind of made it worse to have a visual disorientation too, actually.

Eventually I woke up from that, but I can't remember where. Another dumb dream, anyway. I wonder what's up with all the running, though...

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## LiveInTheDream

Well, my version of spring break this year was to take a short vacation, during which I managed to keep myself from getting on the internet and just relax and totally stay away from normal life for a while. And now it's over, and now I'm back!

During my time away from home, I managed to have a couple lucid dreams. They were not very clear or long, but my level of dream control was excellent in both, so it was still an enjoyable ride.

Dream 1: I found myself in a large mansion back in the middle ages, chasing after a villain for reasons unknown to me. I'm not sure why, but all of a sudden it was like something clicked in my mind and I realized I was dreaming! The chase fled my mind and I turned to flying around and using telekinesis and whatever else I could find to do in such an old, interesting place. Eventually, though, the villain found his way to me, so we had a sword fight that I easily won thanks to all the flying and the powers. I never killed the guy, but his sword was out of his hand and mine was at his throat as I woke up.

Dream 2: From the beginning, I knew that I was dreaming, and yet that realization wasn't strong enough from the beginning to allow me to form the dream. What I got was a futuristic world where racing through high-speed, high-danger tracks was the sport to end all sports. I was a racer, and I had a girlfriend who also raced. We were in a worldwide championship; everyone had their eyes on us, and if we did well for them, we'd have it made for life. Once I sat in the seat of one of those cars (which looked a great deal like this) I began paying attention to the controls and really went lucid. Of course, due to the lucidity, I did very well and won the race by a long shot. It was interesting being so famous for a race, so I didn't think of changing the dream. 

The next several races saw me win more and more, and my girlfriend do well at first, and then lose once completely. I comforted her as I would a real person, but it didn't work. She was so upset that she stormed off and seemed to disappear outside the room. I had no time to think about it, since someone came into the room immediately afterward to escort me to the next race.

We rode on a hovering tram through the air, coming towards an entire city that was one big race track. it was a circular city with track wound all around in it like a bowl of spaghetti, piling up far above the walls around the base. A spire stuck up even higher than the tracks with a glass circular room at the top for spectators. The end result was a city that was basically shaped like a cone. Everything but the road itself was made of a shiny steel, which glistened brightly in the sunrise as I approached my biggest race yet.

After looking out the window, I turned and opened up a suitcase. A new uniform was in it, designed to match the colors of my redesigned car. "Woah, this looks expensive. I wish I could wear this thing around in real life!" I said. "What did you say?" My dream girlfriend asked as she walked in. "Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud. How are you doing? I haven't seen you for a while." I replied. "About that..." the dream gf began hesitantly. "You were right about what you said back there. I was just mad about losing the race, but I should have realized that you were right all along. I'm sorry." We made out--I mean, made *up*, and then I went out to race...only to end up waking up.

So yes indeed, I'm still lucid dreaming, and I fully intend to resume reality checking and attempting WILDs so I can have clearer and better lucid dreams once again very soon!  ::D:

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## LiveInTheDream

Had an interesting experience last night. I may have discovered a sleeping position that significantly increases my chance of lucid dreaming.

As some of you know, I've been attempting for some time now to WILD right from going to bed rather than employing WBTB. Last night I finally did it, and this is how: by laying down completely flat on my face. I propped up my forehead and chest with two pillows so that I wouldn't suffocate, and then put my arms to my sides and began the WILD attempt. Surprisingly, I didn't hear or see much during the entry. For a brief second I felt a tingly feeling, but I completed my attention-switching at that moment so my bodily sensations were no longer being registered. Then the darkness of my eyelids seemed to expand far beyond my field of vision. The blackness took on a depth despite the fact that it was all dark and there was not really anything to give it depth.

And then I saw a tower. It was a purple-y color, as all of my beginning hypnagogic hallucinations are. I was looking down at it from above, and slowly drawing nearer to it. Whether I was moving towards it or it was moving towards me I do not know, but my mind got the cue, and I thought, "Oh! It's time to enter the dream now!" I then was rushed downward, past the building, into further blackness.

Next thing I know, I'm standing up in my room next to my bed. "That's weird, I don't remember standing up." I thought. "Better do an RC just in case." I pinched my nose several times, putting it in between several different sets of knuckles so that I knew I couldn't possibly duplicate the action in real life (if I _were_ dreaming) and thereby ruin the RC. Every time, I was able to breath just fine. "Woah, that's cool! It's a dream!"

Even though I was fully lucid by this point, my mind was strangely unclear; it was like after so many failures at WILDing directly after going to bed, it was surprised to have succeeded and didn't exactly know how to handle it.

I could think of none of my goals. As I thought, I idly moved my hand past my shoulder...and it warped. I remembered my first attempt at shape-shifting in a lucid dream, and how far I'd come with dream control since then. I thought I'd go for it again and see how it went. There was absolutely no problem this time; I never lost the dream from shape-shifting, nor did it seem to fade or cause me to lose lucidity. So I turned myself into various people: video game characters, movie heroes...and I even switched genders a couple times (which was a very weird feeling indeed  ::shock:: ). I didn't do it all at once, either. I treated my dream body like a 3D model that I could reshape and recolor at will, which seemed much more enjoyable than just declaring myself to be a different person and finding it to happen exactly as I say.

My success, however, would prove to be the loss of my dream. I got excited thereafter, so I threw open the nearest door and ran through whatever fantasy world was on the other side. My dad was there, and talking to me about stuff I can't remember anymore. I replied back, but with the intention of actually speaking out loud. This is another place where my mind was unclear. In the dream, I thought my dad was actually there next to my bed in real life, talking to me, and I was hearing it in the dream, and responding to him with my real voice even though I was completely asleep. It's an interesting concept and probably possible in the right circumstance, but this was not the right circumstance. I never figured out that it was completely impossible for my dad to be there since the door was locked and he couldn't have gotten in if he wanted to.  :tongue2: 

After I was done talking to my dad, I realized my excitement had caused the dream to slip a bit, so I rubbed my hands before going on. But the damage had already been done; I was losing lucidity. I tried to summon people and objects and it didn't work. Further attempts began to weaken the dream's clarity. Before long, I was not lucid any more. All I recall of the dream after losing lucidity is discovering that I had a huge range of notes that I could hit with my singing voice.

Kind of a weird lucid dream for me. How I got into it was unusual, my mental state during it was unusual, and what I did was unusual. Oh well. At least I had another WILD! It wasn't nearly as good having it right off the bat, but it was still better than 90% of my DILDs in terms of feeling real. I'd sure rather WILD like this every night than spend all day RCing just to get a couple half-decent LDs a week.

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## LiveInTheDream

Well, I'm getting pretty tired of not having decent lucids, so I'm going back to the constantly-RC method. I'll keep trying WILDs here and there cuz they're so much better when they work, but I'm not getting them to work consistently enough for me.

Since an important part of DILD is dream recall, I thought I had better write down what I remember of last night.

I wasn't actually in the dream; it was like a mental movie. There was a guy (I think his name was Martin) who was staying in a room at his girlfriend's house because he had no job and no money. The gf was some sort of psychiatrist or something like that, and was trying to get Martin a job with her, but he needed specific training before he could. So he got the details, packed what little he had, and headed off to different locations for the training. 

It wasn't but a day after he left that his gf got a phone call from her boss. "You may want to tell Martin to look elsewhere." She said. "We've found someone for the job." Martin's gf was shocked. "And this person has all the necessary training for the position?" She asked. "Well...no." Boss replied. "Actually, she has no training at all. But she's got what it takes; you just have to see her with a patient! I think she'll end up teaching us, not the other way around." Now the gf was _really_ distressed. Not only had the spot for Martin been filled contrary to previous plans, and he was getting training he couldn't afford without getting the job as well, but it was all happening for someone with no training! After a brief silence, the boss added, "You should probably meet her. Could I send her over to your place tomorrow? I think it would be a nicer place for a chat than at the office." "Uh, yeah...sure."

Next thing I know, the scene 'cut' to a different person. It was yet another girl (pretty sweet way to dream, right?) who lurked in the shadows (ok maybe not) and was watching Martin's girlfriend's boss at her desk. At first there were other people there, talking to her, but as soon as they all left, the lurker woman walked out and started speaking in commands. "You will not hire the new girl. You will tell her there has been a mistake and she cannot work here." As she spoke, the boss's eyes seemed to roll back in her head and black streaks appeared in both of them, swirling around. I could tell the boss was being controlled. But fortunately, the newcomer appeared just then. She was a pretty brunette that wore glasses; nothing at all like the other, rather dumpy people in the dream. "Let her *go!*" The newcomer shouted. Her words seemed to throw the evil woman back with a force, and she ran off first chance she got. The boss's eyes returned to normal. "What _was_ that?" The boss asked. "I was totally unable to control myself!" "I don't know," the newcomer replied, "but I don't think we've seen the end of this one."

Again the scene 'cut' to a different location; this time a public phone in a train station. Martin was calling his gf. I can't remember all their dialogue, but she told him about the job no longer being available, and meeting with the newcomer the next day. She said that the whole thing sounded weird, and if possible, she would try to convince the boss not to hire the new girl because of her lack of experience. But still, it wasn't much comfort to Martin. He knew that without a job, he was financially screwed.

It was the following day, then, and the newcomer was knocking at the door of Martin's gf. She was suddenly in an apartment now instead of a house. "Come in." The reply to the knock came. But it wasn't Martin's gf's voice. The newcomer opened the door, and found Martin's gf standing there, motionless, black swirls in her eyes. Next to her was the evil woman. "Now you listen to me." The evil woman said. Martin's gf robotically spoke the same words at the same time; it was like their brains had been connected, and the evil woman's was the dominant of the two. "Do what I say, or she <Martin's gf> dies." The newcomer was strangely able to resist the mind-controlling power of the evil woman. "You don't have to live this way." She told the evil woman. "I can help you." The evil woman laughed, which also made Martin's motionless girlfriend laugh in an emotionless and robotic tone. The two laughs combined were chilling. "Help _me_? I'm doing this for _you_." The newcomer raised a single eyebrow in confusion at the evil woman's saying. "I'm doing this for _her_!" She continued, pointing at Martin's gf. But then something _really_ weird happened. The evil woman looked not just in my direction as the spectator, but at _me_, even though I wasn't there. I could feel my real body for a moment, but then it got sucked in, and I was standing in that apartment room, also motionless and unable to move of my own accord. "I'm doing it...for _him!"_ I then felt my eyes rolling back into my head, unstoppably, and black swirls began to cover my vision. But then I heard the newcomer start panicking. "No! Don't!" She cried. "He controls the dream; if you control him, you'll kill us all! We can't exist without him being the one in control!" The evil woman snapped back (the gf still saying all of her words at the same time: "Idiot! We'll stop existing as soon as he wakes up!" Then I felt myself uncontrollably begin to say the same things as the evil woman as well. "If I take control of him, we can continue existing forever! None of us have to die! I'm saving us all!" But at the same time as the evil woman was talking, I was thinking about what the newcomer had said about it being a dream. Pretty soon, I realized...it _was_ a dream! Summoning all my energy into one panicked move, I thrust my head forward, said, "Not today!" (which the gf said at the same time as me, this time) and with one jerk of my head (the only thing I could move), I broke the dream like a pane of glass, and woke myself up.

Such a weird, weird concept...a DC being afraid of dying, and thereby attempting to take control of my mind so I wouldn't wake up?? I don't think I want to dwell on that one...  ::shock::

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Well, that was annoying. Last night as I was going to sleep, I was thinking about stuff I'd want to do if I went lucid. For some reason, "play Wii" came to mind. "Nah," I told myself, "I don't want to do that. I can do that in real life, and it wouldn't really be any different in a dream." And then I thought up other stuff.

Dream 1: I was playing Wii. And then I went to a friend's house and played Wii. And then I went to my sister's house and played Wii. And then I bought a new Wii game and went home and played Wii.

And there was absolutely nothing different about it than in real life, save the games were weird and the Wiimote was deadly accurate. The second dream wasn't a whole lot better, although the environment was kinda cool.

Dream 2: My family had a reunion of sorts. At an airplane factory from World War II. It was a tower with several floors and went decently high into the sky, all of it constructed of metal and concrete. It created a very rustic, mechanical atmosphere that was cool to just go exploring in, and would have made a great movie set, but otherwise was pretty boring. We had to bring our own stuff for beds, and no one thought to bring a mattress of any sort, so all we had was sheets and a concrete floor.

And then there were the toilets. They were all in one big room, lined up in columns, with no doors on the stalls. There was a drain in the floor that all the guys used instead  ::lol:: . The showers were in that same room, but not any better than the rest of it, because the water had almost entirely rusted the metal interior. 

A friend of mine (who wasn't even part of my family, so I don't know what he was doing there) and I decided to be a little adventurous, so rather than figure out something to do inside, we went outside. At the tower's four corners was a pattern of steel beams. Although difficult at first, we soon figured an easy way to climb straight up the building. We made it all the way to the top, too, and looked all around. The view was amazing! The foggy, green landscape seemed to roll on forever!

Then my foot slipped! I couldn't keep hold, and began to free fall, knocking my friend off in the process. I thought we were finished...but then we landed on the window washer and everything ended up being ok. He lowered us back down to the main floor just in time for us to leave.

As I loaded up my car, for some reason I decided to put my sheets and pillow on the roof. For some reason, this just made my dad really angry. "Your sheets are going to come right off there and land on someone's windshield and cause a wreck!" (funny that that would be the only logical thing about the dream, and I didn't think anything of it) That just seemed ridiculous, so I ignored him and left it all on the roof, totally unsecured.

About half-way home, we had to stop at not one, not two, but _three_ restaurants _all at once_ so that everyone got enough to eat. The first two places just weren't enough food, even though the portions were always huge. Maybe it was because no one actually ate anything at any of the three places...we just walked in, ordered, and then walked out  ::lol:: .

Last thing I remember is making it home, and being proud to discover that the sheets and pillow had in fact *not* flown off the car and my dad had worried over nothing.

I am so glad that I'm getting back to RCing all the time...in just a few more days I'll be able to replace lousy dreams like these with really exciting stuff...as funny as it is to see 12 guys standing around a drain in the floor and peeing in it all at once, I'd rather fly than watch that any day  :Cheeky:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

No, I didn't forget to add another entry today. There's just nothing much to add. I only got about 3 hours of sleep last night due to a pretty personal matter, and what dreams that distressed and unnatural sleep brought me were unclear and scattered, so I only have a couple vague images without any real explanation for them.

Hopefully I can do better tonight...REM rebound, here I come!

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Well, I did kinda have REM rebound, but I didn't quite go lucid  :Sad:  Almost, but not quite.

Dream 1: I was in a huge spaceship, was some sort of government agent, and had a highly important mission: to safely deliver three rubber wristbands; one of them that frequently changed color, and the other two invisible. Though separate the three were powerless, when linked together, they created the most powerful energy source known to man. It had to be taken to earth government for safekeeping and to stop the energy crisis that was taking place below.

At first, the ride was pretty uneventful. I just sat there and guarded the wristbands with another guy who looked to be about ten years older than me. After a while, a rather fat guy in a white T-shirt and torn up jeans stopped by and asked how it was going. 

"Going well," relied my partner. "Now move along; passengers aren't allowed in these quarters."

"Who ever said I was a passenger?" The fat guy said with a somewhat evil smile.

Intense music started playing. I leaned forward a bit in my seat and slid my hand down to the gun on my belt.

"But, I'll move along anyway."

The music died down and I relaxed my grip. All was normal for a few more seconds. Then, all of a sudden, a loud whistle echoed in the hallway outside our little room, and a fierce wind rushed inside, blurring my vision and knocking me to the ground...which in turn knocked me completely out.

When I awoke, my partner had been knocked out as well. The room was a mess; everything was torn up...and the safe with the wristbands was open and empty. We wasted no time; it was obvious who took them. It seemed just a moment later that we were knocking at the cabin door of the fat guy. While we waited for the knock to be answered, my partner explained his plan.

"I'll keep him busy talking. You sneak in around us and find the wristbands, and then get back out. Go back to the safe; don't wait for me."

I nodded, and then hid around the corner just in time for fatso to open the door. 

"Do you know anything about fuel cell rods?" my partner asked.

"Well now, let's see..." fatso replied, also stepping out a bit, providing the perfect opportunity for me to slip by.

Once inside the cabin, I went straight for fatso's closet. He hadn't had a chance to find a great hiding spot for the wristbands yet, so the closet seemed the most sensible place to look. I put on a pair of goggles that would allow me to see the invisible wristbands, and found them almost instantly. As I quietly sneaked back out, I saw that my partner had been successful in distracting fatso. They were deep into conversation and fatso had no idea that I had ever been there.

It seemed like our plan had worked...until I accidentally connected all three wristbands as I clasped them and ran off. A big energy ball formed in my hand and developed a strong magnetic force. I couldn't stop it; and it grew larger and larger until sort of exploding and shooting off--right at fatso! He was completely knocked unconscious, and my partner was even kicked back a little. "Run!" He said, coming to catch up to me.

It was close, but we did get the wristbands back into the safe (which was suddenly not torn up, same with the rest of the room). Mission accomplished? You wish. Only minutes later, fatso shows up at our door again, grinning wickedly. He held out a paper that appeared to be some legal document.

"You stole from me, and physically assaulted me. That is punishable by law." He said.

"Steal?!" I shouted. "You stole government property from *us!* _And_ you were going to use it for your own selfish purposes. _That's_ what's punishable by law."

"You abused government property for personal gain." Fatso accused. "But I am willing to forgive it all if you will simply hand over the wristbands."

"No." My partner said. "This is ridiculous. We've done nothing wrong, the explosion was an accident, and you've broken just about every law possible on this ship."

"You won't give it up?" Fatso asked.

"No." I said. "And we'll fight you with all we've got, too."

Suddenly, the wall had a hole blown through it, and Darth Vader walked in with hundreds of stormtroopers. I picked up a lightsaber from amidst the debris of the wall and fought Vader, while the ship's crew fought all the troopers. But it was a futile fight; we were outnumbered. Before long, we were forced to surrender, and Darth Vader forced us to turn the wristbands over to fatso.

I woke up then, but kind of DEILDed. Except, I wasn't lucid. I just back in that same spaceship. No longer was I some guard; I was just myself.

Dream 2: A bunch of my friends and I were gathered in a circle on the steel floor talking about lucid dreaming. "I think we should try FILD." one of them suggested. The rest of us agreed; it was a pretty new induction technique for everyone there, so we figured we could help each other out along the way. So we all lay down in sleeping bags and tried to FILD. I remember feeling very close to sleep, and so I began the finger movements. Very quickly, I felt SP come on. "It must be time to reality check!" I thought. So I reached up to do a nose pinch...

...but woke up before I could. How annoying. But at least I was close! I thought about reality checking in the dream and was well on my way to doing one; if I could just think about it earlier on in the dream, perhaps I could have a decent lucid!

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Very little dream recall. In fact, all I remember is I was trying to torrent something with my PDA, and I had to leave and take it with me, but I didn't want to lose my wireless internet signal and stop the torrent. Somehow I got it to connect to my car and then drove off.

I should have gone lucid from this...

#1 my PDA only has bluetooth, not WiFi, #2 my car doesn't supply internet, #3 I can't run a torrent program on my PDA, and #4 if I could, I would just have paused it and left rather than worry about it messing up  :tongue2: 

I'm getting pretty tired of missing so many obvious things...sooner or later the RCs _must_ start bleeding into my dreams.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Drat! I slept in WAY late this morning. Of course that means no dream recall, since when I realized what time it was, I snapped right awake and jumped out of bed before being able to even think about the previous night.

How annoying. I think I would remember if I had any lucid dreams, but I seriously remember nothing from last night. Not even vague memories. For all I know I _did_ go lucid and I just can't remember it  :Sad:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Well, I think I was close to going lucid last night. At one point there was a false awakening of sorts, which always brings me somewhat close to lucidity. I probably would have done a RC if it weren't for the guy with the knife...

Dream 1: I was on a huge ship; it looked like one of those cruise ships, but I am honestly not sure of this ones purpose.

"We have the worlds smartest AI aboard," said an official as he checked me in to my room. "It ten years ahead of its time; we honestly don't plan on using our pilot, even if storms come up. This machine knows how to handle it all."

"It's incredible how far artificial intelligence has come." I commented as I set down my bags and began unloading them into drawers.

"Plus," the official added with a tap to a badge on his coat, "all authorities around here have on of these. They each perform simple AI functions. All together they control every part of the machine, but to make sure no one has that kind of power, the controls were split up into badges like this one."

"It's that powerful a computer, is it?"

The official nodded. "Well," he said, "enjoy your stay."

I nodded to him and he left, closing the door behind him.

I continued getting everything unpacked and then just rested on one of the bunks in the little room. A couple hours later, the boat rocked a little and the sun shone through the window just right to cause something on the floor to sparkle. I got up to see what it was, and discovered that the official's AI controller badge had fallen off as he left. Of course my first reaction was to pick it up and return it to him, but unfortunately, as I began to do so, I bumped a little green button on the side. The badge began beeping furiously, and I could hear a bigger alarm going off outside. Although no camera or microphone was visible on the badge, I knew it was recording me somehow, so I leaned far off to the side and remained silent until the alarm stopped.

"Ok, now I really need to get this back to the guy that checked me in and clear this mess up."

So I got up, opened the door, and saw another official running down the hallway.

"Excuse me, sir!"

"You!" He shouted. "What are you doing with that badge?"

"I found it on the floor in my room; I'm sorry about all the alarms, I bumped a button when picking it up so I could return it to the official that checked me in."

He smirked. "That's what they all say! You're coming with me."

I got a solid punch to the chin and everything went black.

Next thing I know, a bag is being pulled off my head, my hands are chained behind my back, and all I'm wearing is a pair of torn up brown shorts. There were 30 or so others around me in the same situation.

"Who are these people?" I asked, figuring it would end up answering all my questions at once.

"These are the people who stood behind your claim that the badge you found was left by a mistake of the official." The burly man holding my chains answered. "Your numbers are too strong; therefore, to prevent a mutiny, the captain has ordered that you all be put to death by bomb."

That last bit sure got my attention. Looking around, I saw that everyone was being led behind a barrel and chained to it, all in rows. Not all the people being chained were very old; some looked to be only 11 or 12. _Anyone_ who had stood up on my part was being brought there.

"Sit here." The burly man said, pushing me down behind a barrel in the back corner of the square formed by all the rows of explosives and people. 

He then pulled my hands around front and tied their chains around the barrel so that I could not possibly get away or survive the explosion. Everyone was ready now; it was only a matter of time before all of us faced our doom. Hearing the others cry was the worst part, though. Being helpless to save myself was one thing, but being helpless to save those who so faithfully stood behind me was far worse.

A lady official dressed all in white went through the rows checking the chains. At first the surrounding officials closely examined her work, but once they were certain she was doing it right, they focused on readying the blasting detonator. The lady went by each person in front of me, row by row...and after what seemed like forever, was at the person to my right, and then, at me, the last person on the last row. I closed my eyes and prepared to feel the chains stiffen a bit more...but instead, I felt them loosen. My eyes snapped open, and I beheld the lady pulling on the chains around my wrists and freeing me.

"Ready!" She called. Then she turned to me and whispered: "The smoke will cloud your exit; I'll be waiting straight back to your left. As soon as you start seeing smoke, run! You'll have only a few seconds. I can't guarantee you'll live. This is all I can do. I'm sorry."

I was shocked, but I paid attention. She ran off as fast as she could, and I waited with my hands in the chains as if I were still trapped, so no one would re-chain me before the explosion was started. A few seconds later, I could hear the detonator lever being pressed, and smoke instantly shot up in my face. I fled, then, as fast as my legs would carry me, in the direction I had been told.

The sound of the wailing, suffering people behind me was almost too much, but somehow I went on, and then...

*BOOOM!

*The explosion knocked me to the ground, but I made it out before the flames could reach me. The flames were so realistic; limbs and heads flew out towards the sea accompanied by the final screams of those unfortunate enough to be on the back row, which exploded the latest. It was a horrible sight to see.

Before I had time to mourn, however, the lady official pulled me up and led me to her room.

"I'm...terribly sorry." She said. "This should never have happened."

A few moments of silence passed.

"I...I would have stood behind you as well, but when I saw what direction things were heading, I decided it was best I keep my silence and help you this way."

"No, no, don't be sorry for not standing behind me! I couldn't bear another soul suffering the fate of those poor people."

Another few moments of silence.

"Well...I expect you're not up for formalities right now," the lady said, "but just so you know, my name is Meg. I have clothes for you in the bathroom. You can take a shower and then rest until I come back. No one will disturb you here, so get all the sleep you can. We have much work to do."

She left me then, and went about her shipboard duties for the rest of the day. I took a shower and got into the clothes Meg had left for me, and then tried to relax. Of course, even though I was physically and emotionally worn out, I couldn't. Looking around the room, I found a small bookshelf and a handful of books on it. Reading one of those for a few minutes helped a good bit, and soon I fell asleep.

Waking up was a much weirder experience, though. I was suddenly in my room from real life, and really thought I had woken up from a dream. There was a noise outside the door, but it didn't bother me. "It's locked; no one can come in." I thought. But then I heard the noise again, and this time it sounded like the door opened. So I sat up in bed with a start to find the door opened just a crack, but the doorknob was indeed set to the locked position. No one was there. "I must not have closed it all the way last night." Excuses, excuses. 

I lay back in bed, but only moments later heard a much louder noise and this time actually saw someone walking in. He was dressed all in black, had his head completely wrapped up in a black scarf. He also had a knife. I remained completely still and silent so he would mistake me to be asleep. Then, as soon as he got close enough, I let my fist rip through the air and land right on his nose. It stunned him enough for me to literally jump out of bed and land a kick to his stomach, which was also enough to knock the knife from his hand and send it flying into the wall.

The man fled then, and the dream seemed to wash away like rain and return me to the ship I was on previously. Meg walked inside and looked scared.

"What happened?" She asked. "I saw an executioner outside! Has he found you?"

"Has he?" I repeated, pulling the knife from the wall. "This was his weapon!"

"Then they know." Meg's face seemed to darken. "They know you're alive. That just makes our time that much shorter."

"I'm ready."

That entire day was spent sneaking all around the ship, avoiding detection, and visiting the rooms of people who Meg said also supported me, but in secret. Of course they too were furious about the death of those who had supported me up front, and now were ready to assist even at risk of their own lives.

So we set out, and one by one, were able to pick-pocket the badges from the officials (with the help of Meg and her legally obtained badge). Of course by the end of the day they knew something was up with all their badges missing, but we had been so careful that no one stood out as a suspect, and there were only rumors that I was still alive; no solid proof (apparently the executioner was not hired by the officials and did not care to alert them of my presence).

Finally, at sunset, we had every badge, and thus complete control of the most advanced AI in the world. Every member of our secret group was in hiding outside the captain's cabin, and just as he walked outside, we jumped out with a loud war cry. I made sure to stand above the crowd, triumphantly holding the badges above my head so that the officers would know they had been defeated.

Fear was in every one of their eyes as we used the AI to gather them together in the center of the ship. I left Meg in control of the AI for a moment so I could personally speak to the officers one last time. It was nice seeing them afraid of my authority for a change.

"Based on what you did to my friends you should have the same done to you." I said. "But that would make me no better than any of you. Does everyone here know how to swim?"

No one answered; they knew that I knew it was a requirement for an officer to be able to swim.

I moved a safe distance away and then nodded to Meg. With the press of a button, the AI flipped up the floor that the officers were on, flinging them into the air and out over the water. I'm pretty sure there was land nearby somewhere.

That night everyone threw a party. There were cool lights and tiki lamps and great music and all that. I was going to ask Meg to dance ( ::D: ), but my alarm started going off and woke me up before I could.

Oh well. It may not have been lucid, but it was still a decent dream.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

My dreams were quite short last night...I don't think I slept properly. Like I was waking up in the middle of REM. I remembered several dreams this way, but there wasn't much time to go lucid, and if I had, I couldn't have done anything much...

Dream 1: I was part of the Heroes TV show, only it wasn't a show, it was real. It was the episode from not too long ago where Sylar wanted Matt Parkman to put a block in his mind so he wouldn't have his powers any more. Just like in the real episode, Matt refused. 

That's when I showed up, in Peter's place, only I was myself. I had empathic mimicry like Peter did in Season 1. I didn't feel confident with all my abilities, but I knew they were there and that I could use them with some work, so I volunteered instead of Matt. 

"I'll help you, Sylar. I don't know how to use these powers very well yet, but I can do my best." 

At first, Sylar refused. "This is a matter of messing with my mind; I'm not going to let someone who isn't familiar with their powers try it and just see how it goes."

But no matter how hard he tried to get Matt to do the job, there was just no way Matt would give in. So eventually Sylar did let me try to go in his mind and 'disable' his powers. It took some work, but I did it, and so Sylar turned into a good guy.

Which reminds me; I want to try to mind-read a DC in a lucid dream...that could be very interesting.

Dream 2: I was sitting in a circle of chairs with other people from real life that I know. One of them was telling jokes she said she found off the internet. All of them rhymed really well, and were legitimately funny! One of them made me laugh so hard I fell over backwards in my chair and the shock of falling woke me up.

Unfortunately, waking up that way didn't give me time to think about any of the jokes and write them down...but I know *for sure* that they really rhymed, and were really funny! And in waking life, I'm _terrible_ with poetry and those kinds of jokes...talk about hidden potential.

Dream 3: I was missing a dream sign. Frequently in my dreams I'm going on some sort of vacation with my extended family, which is exactly what I was doing in this one. We were looking for some place to stop and eat (which is also a common occurrence) and we found nothing, so we stopped at this one random school building and went inside. There were boxes on a table in there with a food inside that looked sort of like pizza. 

"Peregogies!" My brother in law exclaimed. "These things are awesome!"

They _did_ taste *really* good, and so I had quite a bit. But then my stomach started to feel sick. All of a sudden I stood up and shouted:

"I HATE peregogies!"

Everyone was shocked. They all started to yell back at me and tell me that I was crazy and ungrateful and I just tried to stand up straight with a dizziness that was setting on. Eventually I couldn't, and I fell down, throwing up on the floor.

This was definitely one of those dreams I was relieved to wake up from. No, I didn't throw up in my bed; in fact, I feel totally fine. Whatever 'peregogies' (pronounced 'pare-uh-GOH-jeez') are, I know not to eat them again  ::lol::

----------


## LiveInTheDream

FINALLY had another lucid last night, short though it was. And actually, it still didn't come from my reality checks, which is really surprising to me. It used to be that if I RC'd for a week, I'd have a lot of LD's, but this time, I've only even come close a couple times!

This time I actually WILDed after WBTB, but unfortunately it didn't end up being as amazing as my last WBTB WILD.

Dream 1: There was a time during the WILD when sleep suddenly overtook me, and I momentarily lost consciousness. But then I suddenly snapped back into mental awareness, like my mind said: "Wait! This is what you were supposed to be looking for!" 

Next thing I know, I'm outside in my backyard, lying down in the same position that I had been in my bed...only now I was on top of a fence. Yes, just a fence. I wasn't even laying across it; my body and the fence were going in perpendicular directions, and I wasn't falling down. There was no doubt that I was dreaming with something obvious like that staring me in the face! "I made it!" I thought. So I stood up, but my logical mind got the better of me and I couldn't balance on the fence.

For several seconds I wobbled back and forth, trying to stabilize or lean so that I could jump off and land nicely. But then I had a better idea. "Fly!" I shouted to no one in particular as I lifted off into the air.

The wind was strong beneath me; I could feel it rushing up onto my hands, my face, rippling through my clothes, and even in my hair. "So _real_!" I whispered.

By this point I had well stabilized my flight, so I was ready to go around and see what I could see. But sadly, excitement at finally being in a lucid dream grew too strong and in an instant, I woke up.

I tried just to DEILD at this point, and it almost worked.

Dream 2: I found myself talking to a friend about lucid dreaming. Now this friend knows very little about it IRL, so I was surprised to hear him so knowledgeable about things.

"I even discovered a way to instantly WILD every single time I try." He told me.

"Really? Could you show me? That would be so awesome to LD like that!"

"Yeah, sure, it's really easy."

So he got down on his knees, leaned his head down to the ground, left his butt sticking up in the air, and then pulled a blanket over himself.

"And then," I heard his muffled voice say, "you just close your eyes and WILD."

In another instant, he was totally still, and didn't respond if I tried to talk to him. After about five minutes, though, he suddenly started shouting and thrashing about!

"Wake up! Gah! Wake up! Wake up!"

Of course he did wake himself up that way. Apparently the dream had turned into a nightmare  :tongue2: 

"Did it work?" I asked once he had calmed down.

"Yeah, of course it did."

I decided to ignore how stupid a position it was to be in; if it got WILDs that well, it was worth it. So I took the blanket and gave it a shot.

Next thing I know after closing my eyes, I'm in a huge underground auditorium with thousands of people all around. The room was a cave, really, and the stage a huge diamond that was carved into. "No way! It worked! I'm in a lucid dream!"

But then my friend decided to shake me back awake...in the non-lucid dream.

"Well, did it work?"

"You bloody well bet it did! Why'd you wake me up!? Couldn't you have waited until I finished the dream?"

Then I woke up for real. (and by the way, I'm not counting that second lucid part as another LD in my sig just cuz it was so short)

Dream 3: There _was_ another dream I remember too, but it came earlier on in the night. I just wanted to get the more interesting dreams written first  :smiley: . Basically, the doctor told me that because my vision isn't 20/20, I should get my eyes replaced with a new camera device that looked like a real eye and could be fit in an empty eye socket. I didn't want to go through with it. 

"My eyes aren't _that_ bad, and what if the surgery fails? Then I'll have no vision at all!" I protested.

"But if it succeeds, you'll have 20/20 for life!"

"Through machines, though, and machines are known to mess up once in a while. I don't want to have to go through eye maintenance all the time when my eyes were nearly fine to begin with."

"But you could have 20/20!" The doctor repeated.

Eventually I just left, but then I kept running into family and friends and they all told me the same things as the doctor and really wanted me to get the artificial eyes. One of them even mentioned they had artificial lungs and the surgery went without a hitch...all just to get me to replace my eyes that are not that bad. It drove me crazy!  :Oh noes:  When I still refused to everyone who told me to get my eyes replaced, they decided to kidnap me and force me to comply with the doctor. 

Thankfully, I woke up from that one before they could. I don't exactly want to have my eyes removed, even in a dream. I know exactly what made me dream this, though: _Immortel ad vitam_. It's a movie I recently watched that has most people with artificial parts and one guy mentions his lungs being replaced...don't recommend that movie at all. It was such a waste of time. Pointless and confusing.

Dream 4: This also happened earlier in the night. Don't remember much about this one. There was a woman who was crazed...trying to take over the world or something. We heard tell of her moving through the country, taking cities over wherever she went. Eventually, she was in my neighborhood, and then, in my house. I grabbed the first weapon I could get to: my sword. (yes, I have a sword IRL, and that's the one I grabbed, only the hilt was longer in the dream than it really is) 

I fearlessly walked up to the woman with the sword in my hand and shouted: "Get! Back!" The gem on the sword's pommel began to glow, and as terror overtook the woman's gaze, she crumpled to the ground onto her knees.

"You...have...my sword!"

"What are you talking about, this is my sword! And I _will_ use it unless you give this up!"

"No, that once was my sword, many hundreds of years ago...it is where I get my power from, but I lost it once, and so I now am searching the earth for it."

I thought then that she would grab it out of my hand and turn into some monster of unstoppable power, but she didn't.

"That sword lies in the hands of a brave man, now. I can never reclaim it."

That said, she stood up slowly, walked out silently, her vast armies scattering, and no one ever heard from her again.

That one could almost be in a movie or book or something...interesting concept.

Well, not a bad night for dreaming! Four recalls, a little bit of lucidity...still room for improvement, though!

----------


## Indeed

I wish my dreams were as interesting as yours. 
Nice!

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Thanks! Glad you enjoy reading them  :smiley:

----------


## Mancon

I love reading your lucid dreams! They give me so much encouragement!

----------


## LiveInTheDream

> I love reading your lucid dreams! They give me so much encouragement!



Thanks for telling me; it's nice to know I'm being a help to someone  ::D: 

I can't really report much in the way of dreams for today...woke up by alarms and I had to rush out the door as soon as possible so...no time to work on recall  :Sad:

----------


## Mancon

> Thanks for telling me; it's nice to know I'm being a help to someone 
> 
> I can't really report much in the way of dreams for today...woke up by alarms and I had to rush out the door as soon as possible so...no time to work on recall



Aww..same with me. Anyway you watch Heroes? I LOVE that show!

----------


## Queen Zukin

This is my favorite dream journal! Love reading your dreams!!!

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## LiveInTheDream

> Anyway you watch Heroes? I LOVE that show!



You bet I watch it! I've seen every episode at least twice.  ::D:  I suppose that's why it gets into my dreams so much...that, and I get a lot of ideas for lucid dreaming from Heroes. So many cool powers to use in dreams...maybe I'll get to do something like that tonight! If so I'll be sure to write it tomorrow  :smiley:

----------


## Mancon

> You bet I watch it! I've seen every episode at least twice.  I suppose that's why it gets into my dreams so much...that, and I get a lot of ideas for lucid dreaming from Heroes. So many cool powers to use in dreams...maybe I'll get to do something like that tonight! If so I'll be sure to write it tomorrow



Yeah, I really got into LDing when I realized I could use Hero powers in my dreams xD

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Well, I can't say I went lucid last night, but I'm not sure how I didn't.

Dream 1: I found myself in a chair with a table circling around me. Past that, all was black. On the table was all sorts of weird food, mostly variations of a beehive-shaped substance with a popsicle stick coming out of the bottom. They were in all different colors, some transparent and gelatin-like, some solid-colored and firmer, like a cake or something. Oh, and some of the popsicle sticks were edible as well. Plus, every one of these weird things had trippy decorations on them, too. Swirled colored icing, big balls of some sort of candy stuck all over...and it all tasted awesome.

"Haha all I've done in this dream is eat!" I found myself saying. "Can't wait to tell this one to the guys on dreamviews."

I think I was kind of waking up as I said that, because I was fully awake immediately after, and that's the only explanation I can think for me accepting the fact that it was a dream without really being lucid.

Dream 2: I was only spectating now, and there was a woman with a giant yellow squid in a hotel room. She said that since she had no children, the squid was like a son to her. I mean, she really loved the thing! Pretty much all she did all day long was talk to it and hold it (even though it was bigger than she was). From listening to her talk, apparently she was in a hotel just to get away from the people that mocked her about the yellow sea creature who somehow could survive without water.

Eventually, the hotel caught wind of what exactly was being kept in one of their rooms, and they told the woman to leave or get rid of the squid. She burst into tears. Realizing she needed mental help, they instead forcibly removed the squid from her and tried to bring in a psychiatrist, but she beat the doctor until he fled, and then just cried on her bed.

But then...the yellow squid found its way back into the room through the window! Of course the woman was suddenly happy again...and that's really all I remember.

Call yourself a dream interpretation expert? Then what the heck is a yellow squid supposed to mean? My gosh...seriously.

Dream 3: Spectating again, it was a thunder-storming night, and I saw a kitten sneaking into a closet and the door was magically closed on it.

The next morning, the couple that lived in the house discovered the kitten and were very baffled by its presence there. They had two cats (who also spoke English in the dream) but they hated each other, so there seemed to be no way the kitten came from them.

The female cat accused the male cat of rape while she was sleeping, which he denied. And next thing I know, while the people and the cats are arguing about all this, the dream 'camera' was being pulled back into a mouse hole and I saw two mice watching the argument and discussing what they thought happened.

It was disturbing enough to everyone to get a full-scale investigation going. I can't remember most of what happened because the dream's plot was so complicated, but basically the mice were the only ones to get on the right track and figure out what happened. The people and the cats just got off on a confusing trail of miscommunication and false leads so that the whole thing seemed like a bigger deal than it was. And yet somehow through all of this the two cats started to like each other.

But at the end, one of the mice came forth and declared that all the evidence pointed to the male cat having raped the female cat while they _both_ were sleeping. "It's simple." The mouse explained. "He doesn't remember anything, and yet the genes of the kitten match up to the cats perfectly. He must have been sleepwalking when it happened, then!"

Everyone sighed out of relief that the mystery had been solved and then everyone went to bed. Once the lights were out, the female cat asked the male cat, "Did you really do that to me?" After a pause, the male cat replied: "I don't know. Do you want to do it again to find out if anything feels familiar?"

I kid you not, that's what the cat said. Scary to think that line originated in my mind  ::shock::  I swear I don't think like that all the time!

----------


## LiveInTheDream

In recent weeks, my ability to LD has seemed to wane as lucid dreams grew fewer and farther between, not to mention that the quality of each one has been on a downward scale as well.

Last night, I may have discovered both the 'why' and the 'how' concerning fixing the issue!

Since I've been RCing consistently for nearly two weeks now with no RC-induced lucid dreams behind me, I decided to try MILD. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of beginning the mantra while lying on my back. I can't sleep on my back, and for some reason, whatever position I begin a MILD in is what I'll revert to once I fall asleep. So I kept rolling over onto my back and waking up, preventing any very deep lucids, but like I said, I did learn a bit!

I had made a video mocking the president and I was sneaking around with a few buddies to literally deliver it right to his office on a DVD. It was tough avoiding security guards, but all the cameras were taken out via computer hacks. We made it to the office, the president was gone, and I set the DVD on the desk.

*BEEP* *BEEP*

Alarms went off and an army of guards rushed to the scene with the president shortly behind them (only he looked nothing like Obama; more like Einstein with tanned skin). We put our hands up, but suddenly my mind started racing. "I'm not lucid! What can I do? Wait a second, if this already is a dream, I can just _go_ lucid!" 

I put my hands down, and nobody fired at me. I just stood there a moment, smiling at the guards, enjoying their utter powerlessness. My buddies thought I was crazy.

"Go ahead, fire." I said.

One of them did, and the bullet just went right through me, not leaving a mark. Everyone's eyes were bugging out in shock.

"Don't you get it? This is a dream!"

Suddenly the president went crazy.

"It's a dream! It's a dream!" He shouted and sang, dancing around the room, even on the walls, until he ended up right in front of me and started to shake my hand vigorously.

I started losing the dream at this point, but I heard the president saying that he respected me for successfully reaching his desk unnoticed and that I would be highly rewarded.

Woke up as he was saying that, but quickly rolled off my back and DEILDed.

I was now in a parade that the president had to celebrate. He was riding on the front of the float I was on, still shouting and singing "It's a dream! This is a dream!" People were everywhere around me.

I stood up and waved, which got a lot of applause, and then I shouted:

"Look at me everybody I'M LUCIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID!"

The crowds roared with cheers and applause as I held out that last word. And then, just because I could, I jumped off the float, did a flip, and landed on the ground. The parade cleared away to give me space, and then I performed various tricks that are absolutely impossible IRL.

Woke up again, due to rolling onto my back. This time was for a little bit longer, so I couldn't DEILD. But still, I wasn't done LDing for the night now! When I fell back asleep...

...I found myself in Walmart in 1995. Only I had memories from 2010 still. It was like I had time traveled; the building, the ads, the decorations...all of it looked exactly like it had IRL in 1995. "Hah! This is all old stuff!" I said to myself as I walked through the place. "I wonder if I'm dreaming...but how can I find that out without drawing a lot of attention, in case this is real?"

I settled on getting something off the top shelf without any assistance. I figured the shelf was too high for me to normally be able to jump up and reach, so I'd definitely be dreaming if I could pull the object down. So I got ready, jumped, and made it far higher than the shelf, and in fact, landed on my feet right on top!

"This is definitely a dream! How cool!"

"What are you doing up there!?" A woman called. "You're going to kill yourself!"

"No I'm not, I'm dreaming!" I replied, jumping off and landing with a roll to the ground, completely unhurt. "See?"

Apparently I offended her, cuz she stormed off.

I ignored it.

"Now to update this place!"

I didn't even reach out my hands; I just thought about everything in the store changing to its present-day state, and as I watched, signs everywhere began to flip around with new ads and decorations, shelves and aisles rearranged themselves, and products morphed into their current versions.

Satisfied, I turned around and found myself staring at my ceiling. Once again, on my back, waking myself up...

Writing those dreams makes me feel a lot more in control than I felt actually going through them. I really was aware that I was dreaming, but because I kept waking up, I still felt disconnected from my dream body, and thus the dreams felt 'shallow'...if that's the right descriptor.

But anyway, it seems I was having trouble lucid dreaming because my brain somehow wasn't making the connection between non-lucid dreams and lucid dreams. It was apparently expecting to be lucid from the beginning or not at all, since I practically had to force it to accept the fact that I was in a dream at first, and go from non-lucid to being lucid. But after that, I was conscious of being in a dream far easier, so maybe I just needed to shatter that mental concept and now I'll be back to lucid dreaming every night!  ::D:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Not a very exciting night last night...fell asleep too quickly to MILD very well, though I did try. I only really remember one dream, too.

It was a few months in the future; I was running around the camp that I film for during the summer. Only thing was, I wasn't filming, just running. With a quick look to my watch I found it to be Thursday.

"Oh, crap! The week is almost over and I haven't done any filming!"

I doubled my running speed to try and find some campers to film, but as I attempted to dodge obstacles, I climbed up onto higher ground just to find myself caught between a tree and the dirt. Couldn't pull through, so I pushed myself back out, but in the process my backbone bent in a way it shouldn't be able to, and it hurt. But I kept on running!

Finally I made it to where everyone was going to play a game.

"Well, at least there will be _some_ footage for the movie."

One of the camp leaders approached me.

"Are  you ok? You don't look so good." He asked.

"I can't believe it...I don't know what happened...but the week is nearly over and I haven't done any filming!"

The guy looked at me funny.

"We just got here a few hours ago."

I was too relieved to think of reality checking for the strange turn of events. I ran off to start filming...

...and next thing I know, I'm at my house, and several of my friends came and we went inside. But then I turned around and they were no longer there, so I just went on with the day as usual.

Eventually I remembered that I had had friends over, so I went looking for them, and finally discovered them outside, playing on a mini golf course that was where my driveway should be.

"Where did this come from?" I asked.

"Dude, you've had this here for ages!" One of them replied.

"Really?" Was all I had to say.

Now why didn't I reality check from something in that?? Man, I'm slow...  :tongue2:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Well, all you people out there who think you may have turned off your alarm in your sleep, I have solid proof that it is quite possible to do!

Other than that, my dreams really accomplished nothing. I was too worn out to stay conscious of mind very long, and I think that continued all through the dream, preventing me from becoming lucid.

As for retelling this dream, it's a bit difficult for me to accurately place events in a timeline, since so many things were happening at once and I was in a very deep sleep so as to not be conscious of my surroundings, really. But I will try.

The first thing I remember is finding myself in a very large house with tons of stuff all around. Since I saw a friend there, I naturally attributed the place to him. Outside, there were huge trailers just filled with items of every sort. I was told I could do whatever I wanted with what I could find. Being a techie guy, I naturally headed right for the electronics. After some digging, I found one of every console system Nintendo has ever made. NES, SNES, N64, Wii...the whole shebang.

So I took them all inside and cracked open the cases. Then I wired and cut and soldered them all together to fit as one multi-platform device inside a modified Wii case. My friend and I then tested it out, and although we had controller troubles at first, before long everything was working no problem. I remember playing _Star Wars Episode I: Racer_ for the N64 with SNES controllers  ::lol:: 

At some point, the doorbell rang. As it turned out, the person who had arrived was an online friend of mine that I've never actually met in real life, but he said he was in the area and decided to stop by. (Even though I wasn't at my own house, somehow he knew where I was  :tongue2: ) It was great actually getting to see him and spend time with him, but before we could do too much, my watch alarm started going off.

"What's that?" My two friends asked.

"Oh, that's my wake back to bed alarm. Since you guys are here, I'll just turn it off and do it some other time."

I looked down at my watch and saw the time displaying the proper hour and minute for when it should go off. Then I pressed the two buttons on the side to disable the alarm, and it stopped.

There was a lot more to that dream...soldiers and trying to escape and relationship issues...but it's all a jumble in my head. I can't remember how it connects, though I know that it somehow did seamlessly go from one thing to another, never mind whether it made sense or not. I think what I wrote was the most important part of the dream anyway, though. 

I finally remembered to pick up a new watch, so the alarm works fine now, but apparently that didn't change its effectiveness all that much...at least it's rather funny how that worked out  ::lol::

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Sorry there was no entry yesterday. I've been overtaken by really bad allergies, and I couldn't sleep that night...so obviously, I had no real dreams, just vague images here and there.

Last night I fared a bit better; sleep didn't come easily, but it did come, and brought dreams with it. Still, my discomfort messed up recall a bit, so only the lucid part really stands out in my memory.

I was in what was like a mix of real life and Mass Effect. That is, there were people and locations from real life, but I was actually Commander Shepherd and I remember even mentioning to a few people that I was a Spectre as well. When I would talk to people, frequently (though not always) I would choose my sentences from a circle of options, just like in the game. I also remember adjusting my equipment selection from a 'screen' that perfectly mimicked the original Mass Effect screen.

And I had a Palm Pre, which totally made my day  ::D: 

Although I don't recall there being any fights, at one point a DC who looked a lot like a certain friend of mine came up and said:

"That was a pretty slick move you made back there."

For some reason that seemed to ring a bell in my head, and I could just feel in the air that I could pull off any moves I attempted. That much figured out, it was only a moment later before I figured out _why_...

"Oh right! This is a dream!" I whispered quietly to myself. Then I cleared my throat and spoke up. "Dude, I am _the ONE_! I can do anything!"

"Really?" The DC asked. "Show me."

"Ok. Watch."

I then ran a few steps and did a flip that landed me perfectly on my feet.

"And I can't even _do_ flips! Not in real life, anyway."

Someone clapped, even though I never saw who. Figured it was worth going on if they'd enjoy a show, though. Since I couldn't really injure myself, it seemed a good time to try something that would kill me IRL.

I ran another few steps and did a flip and a half, this time landing directly on my head. Then I just stood like that, maintaining balance without my hands, even, and even though I was surprised to find that it _did_ hurt, I wasn't actually wounded, so it didn't bother me.

After that, I did everything I could think of to show off; butterfly twists, wall runs, handsprings...a lot of stuff requested by the onlooking DC's.

Maybe I just went too crazy and flung my head around so much that the dream faded, I don't know. But for whatever reason, just like I went lucid in order to start pulling off moves, I stopped pulling off moves and lost lucidity.

The dream only went on a little while after that anyway, so I didn't miss out on much.

Seems weird that I just don't RC in my dreams anymore. I do RCs faithfully every day for weeks, and then in the dreams that end up being lucid, I just...go lucid. It's very unfortunate, actually. I have the presence of mind to understand that I can do things that I can't do IRL, but my mind is still absent enough to not be very creative; I usually just keep doing whatever I was doing in the non-lucid part of the dream, just in a more extraordinary way. And it doesn't really feel like lucidity should...more like the feeling of playing a video game that I have total control over than feeling physically present in the dream.

I'll have to work on that...maybe I should start RCing assuming that I've already gone lucid, so that when I naturally go lucid in dreams, my first action will be to RC and thus improve my state of mind.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

I wasn't honestly expecting to dream last night cuz allergies have been making sleep of any sort be difficult, but I came across these great binaural beats on youtube that really did get me into a Theta frequency, and I just went right to sleep without medicine or having to sit up all night!  ::D:  (and by the way, I feel INCREDIBLY better today. Binaural beats FTW!)

So my recall isn't the best this time since I wasn't planning on recalling anything, but with some thought I was able to remember a couple dreams.

Dream 1: I was at the dentist's, and they were telling me I would have to get my two front bottom teeth removed. With a look in the mirror, I understood why; there were WAY too many teeth in my mouth, which had made a real problem. But the two that they were suggesting I have removed were about the only two that were actually straight, so I argued against it.

"Why not take out these two on the sides? They're just about to get pushed out anyway; they're more of an annoyance than anything!"

But that didn't work on the dentist. Actually, nothing did. I tried to come up with all sorts of other ideas, but he refused to do anything other than his own idea.

I'm not really sure if that dream ended and I woke up, or if it just changed to this next dream, but since the two have no connection, I'm separating them anyway.

Dream 2: I took a vacation to Florida and stayed with my uncle and aunt...except they were only there for about five minutes of my entire two week stay there. (Of course this dream didn't show me every moment of the two weeks; time skipped left and right and I don't recall it ever being night) I went all over the city and enjoyed the sights, but never once did I see a beach. It was all a bit futuristic, actually. The cars still ran on wheels rather than floating in the air and such, but the roads were elevated without support beams, and the buildings looked like they had been designed more for aesthetics than functionality.

Not very exciting stuff, I know, but I'll bet with these binaural beats that I've found I can figure out some way to have LDs very consistently and quickly, which will be simply *awesome*.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

With a binaural beat that I have discovered to work for me very well, I decided it was time to focus on WILD again. I went online with my PDA and navigated to the youtube link so it would be ready for me, set an alarm, and went to bed after a listen to get me ready to fall asleep the instant I got in bed.

All was well until I put my arm under my pillow in my sleep, effectively silencing my watch alarm until it shut off on its own. I happened to wake up on my own while there was still plenty of time to WILD, but it was later in the morning than I had intended. Not a big deal, I figured, since I had binaural aid to help me fall back asleep.

But then I realized something else...my left ear had stopped up over night, which would mess up the beat. I'd be getting a much stronger frequency in the right ear than the left ear, so they wouldn't combine to that all-important third frequency in my brain and thereby put me into Theta mode.

I tried listening to it anyway, but after it had gone through twice, I still was no closer to being asleep than when it had started, and usually I'm very nearly asleep after just one listen through. So I took out the headphones and tried to do things the old fashioned way.

All I got was a non-lucid dream where I was trying unsuccessfully to WILD.  :Sad: 

Stupid ear wax.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

I had no dream recall yesterday, which is why there was no entry.

Today, I've only got a bit better recall. I think I just keep falling too deep into sleep because I've been up later than usual.

In my notes I have written that the dream was like a mixture of Mass Effect and Monsters Inc., but I have absolutely no idea what that is supposed to mean. Don't remember Monsters Inc. being involved at all...but here's what I do remember.

(for those of you unfamiliar with Mass Effect, I've linked to key game elements so you can get an idea of what was going on in the context of the game)

Everyone was on the Presidium level of the Citadel from Mass Effect. The place was still a huge mess from Sovereign and Saren's attack, and I was on a team of people cleaning up a part of the financial district.

The dream was incredibly clear; like the detail of a lucid dream without the lucidity. I put on fingerless leather gloves to get to work, and the little bumps on the leather looked and felt as they would in real life. As I worked to pick things up and clean debris away, I felt muscular exertion, as if I really was doing hard work.

Even though there was a ton of work to be done, it really wasn't that bad to have to do it. Everyone was just happy for the Geth War to be drawn to somewhat of an end and for the Reaper to have been destroyed. Plus, I was doing all the work with friends (some from real life, others aliens from the game, namely a Salarian and an Asari) which kept our spirits up, since we could talk and make jokes the whole time.

But the entire day was not to go so well. After finishing up our assigned area on the financial district, we were sent down into the Wards...to help fix up Chora's Den.

There was a group of shady characters on the other side of the place, supposedly also cleaning things up. But they were arguing the whole time, apparently on a racial basis. There were a few humans and one Krogan, and I suppose having the majority made them feel confident enough to oppose the alien. But it was still foolish, as eventually they angered the Krogan enough to make him fire a weapon at them, and (big surprise) they had the weapons to fight back.

Misfires proceeded to take out my team, although we attempted to hide. They hit everyone aside from me and one other person. But the Salarian and Asari were completely riddled with holes. Angered, I pulled out a pistol and promptly took down the one surviving human from the other side of the room. Blood was everywhere; my friend had to run off to avoid throwing up on the spot.

Then something strange happened. A bunch of mice ran out from the debris and began to climb into the bullet holes on the dead Asari. Somehow they reanimated her and she stood up, now bent on my destruction.

The dream then went into third person and followed me as if the whole thing were just a video game. I tried to run away from the Asari, but it seemed everywhere I went I would reach a dead end and get caught, which would cause the dream to 'load the autosave' from when the Asari was transformed. I'd watch the mice all over again and then try to run away, but get stuck in a dead end. This went on for five or six more tries before I finally found a passage that had been partially blocked by debris, preventing me from seeing it in the past. I managed to take that passage without getting slowed down to the point of being caught by the Asari, and this time got far enough away for her to lose my trail. 

Then I hid and waited for her to come my way. When she did, I pulled out my pistol again and shot her in the head. She completely exploded, sending mice flying everywhere before they scattered and ran.

I woke up shortly after that.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Well, last night I went to bed trying out a new MP3 to see if it would help me wake up at the right time to WILD.

The MP3 definitely worked; I didn't wear headphones all night, but I turned the volume all the way up and then wrapped the earbud cords around my bed post and then slid the buds down into all the cord loops so they stayed in place pointing right at my head.

It woke me up two times in the night, but only on the first time did I get anything good out of it. My memory served me well enough; I noticed as soon as I woke up, but didn't rush to a billion thoughts that would wake me up. I simply rolled over, got into a comfortable position, and then went completely still. It wasn't long before I saw HI and felt SP...and yet, I must have lost consciousness at some point, because the next thing I remember is everything being totally black and me being totally unaware of my body. I don't recall ever seeing flashing lights or feeling the ground shake, which happen every time I WILD, or even just get close to succeeding at one.

But at least I regained consciousness at this point, body asleep, mind awake, and in a dreamless state. So I decided to try and make one of my own.

"A character is appearing in front of me."

Sure enough, a moment later, I saw a DC turn her head out of the darkness (yes, it was a girl). Suddenly I felt as if I were sinking, drawing closer to her. The girl's eyes shot open and stared at me as if from afar. I continued to sink inward, and as I did so, more than the girl's head faded into view.

She reached her hand out to me, almost robotically, as the sinking began to slow down. I felt as if I would lose the dream; like I was momentarily to rocket back upward and wake up. But I reached out and managed to just barely grab hold of her hand, and she pulled, breaking the opposing force suspending me in the air and causing me to freefall down into the dream.

After falling what felt like ten or fifteen feet, I collided with something, and instantly the dream was in full view. I had hit a bed, and now I bounced off and landed on the floor. The girl had been on the other side of the bed than the one that I fell on, and the impact had effectively knocked her out as well.

She was startled, like she hadn't seen me before. Maybe she thought what had just happened was a dream for _her_ or something.

"Who...who are you?" She asked, holding up a blanket to cover herself.

"I'm..." I paused to quickly think up a title that wouldn't give everything away to her as a dream. I didn't know her well enough yet to know if she'd respond well to that or not.

"...a friend."

Her entire countenance changed immediately, then. I wish now that I had just told her the truth, though, because as soon as I ignored my connection to real life, I lost it completely.

"Oh! And you haven't even been given a place to sleep!"

"That won't be necessary. I'm...really not tired, to be honest."

"Well you must at least need something to eat or drink! Come, this way!"

The girl then hurried down the hallway, pulling the blanket around herself as she went. Not knowing what else to do, I followed. Her house was very futuristic; technology not (yet) existent was everywhere. Eventually we made it to a small kitchen with a round table to one side.

"Please, sit." She said, handing me a glass of something to drink.

It suddenly struck me how sweet this girl was...no doubt about it, I was falling in love.

"So," the girl began. "Would  you mind telling me a bit about yourself?"

"Sure, but...I still don't even know your name." (funny that I would say this, since she still didn't know _my_ name)

"Oh! I'm so sorry. My name is Avina."

After that I told her about my past, which was now a bunch of false memories telling me I had been a soldier in the Alliance Military that was sent to guard the city and I had fallen through Avina's roof by mistake.

"I feel so terrible!" Avina exclaimed when I had finished my story.

"What? Why?"

"I've kept you up this whole time! Didn't even give you the option of waiting until morning!"

"It...kind of _is_ morning, Avina." I replied after seeing a nearby clock read 3:00am

"Right. There's another bed in my room; you may use that if you want to. Feel free to wake me up if you need anything else!"

And next thing I know, I'm in a bed beneath a large window in Avina's room, and I can't fall asleep or take my eyes off of her. Eventually I couldn't resist any longer. Slowly, quietly, I walked over to her bed and just watched her sleep a moment.

Before I knew it, my hand had found its way down, and I was stroking her hair, caressing the side of her face, and then leaning down for a kiss. Of course that woke Avina right up, but she didn't fight or anything. Rather she reached her arms around me and stood up. We continued kissing for quite a while, but then Avina leaned back and said:

"I will be yours. Always."

After that things kind of blur together. My duties with the Alliance Military frequently pulled us apart, but we always made every effort to be together. Travel distance or cost didn't matter.

One point that stands out in my mind is when a huge crowd was before the Citadel Council discussing Alliance plans for the future. As it is typically with politics, everything was going down the tubes as far as I was concerned. What needed to be done seemed so simple to me, and yet everyone was bickering over complex things and not getting anything accomplished.

As I sat there, listening to all this, I noticed Avina come in the side door and take a seat next to me. She could see the frustration on my face.

"You should speak. Many people here respect you." She whispered.

"But that doesn't mean anyone will stand with me! What I say is useless without backup."

"I'll stand with you." Avina said.

That was all I needed. I stood up, interrupting an official far more important than I, and stated my opinion on the matter. The council, as expected, told me I was out of my mind and to sit back down. I continued, however, and asked for anyone who agreed with my plan to stand with me. At first, no one did. But then Avina stood, which soon encouraged another to stand, and another, and another, until the intimidation of the council was broken and the entire room of men and women was standing in my favor, opposed to the council. They had no choice but to accept my plan for the Alliance Military, then.

Gets blurry again...next thing I remember, Avina and I were arriving at her house after being married. It was late, but there was no chance we could sleep.

"Tell me this isn't a dream!" Avina said. "I cannot believe all this...it is just too wonderful!"

"This isn't a dream!" I said. "It's just us--forever!"

Then we lay down in the same bed this time and...well, you can probably figure out what.  :wink2: 

We didn't get a wink of sleep that night, but neither of us cared. I don't think we ever even let go of each other before dawn.


Well...make of _that_ what you will. It was an incredible experience for _me_, anyway. Doubt anyone else will really appreciate it the same way.  :tongue2:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

YES!! Finally a decent lucid dream again!  ::banana:: 

I've had several recent lucids before this, yes, but as of late they have been more like playing a video game than being physically present in the dream. This one was like being physically present again, which is *awesome!

*First thing I know, I'm flat on the ground in the snow. Only it isn't cold, just pleasantly chilly. After getting up onto my feet, I looked around me, and found I was in the most stunning landscape I have ever seen. Right before me was a cliff that dropped down several hundred feet. Extending beyond that was miles and miles of rocky terrain with various elements at random points throughout. A little bit of green here, a little pool of water there...it really compensated for the rockiness, making the area feel very lush despite its overall gray appearance.

And then there was the volcano. Out in the distance, a huge mountain stood high above the rest of the place, spewing out its lava high into the deep, deep blue sky. Bluer sky than I've ever seen before. And when the lava collided with the atmosphere, it totally transformed, causing a super-nova-like ball of light to hover in the sky, followed by curvy contrails of dusty steam spreading all over, making the sky seem full of stars even though it was still daytime.

As I beheld this magnificent display, there was no question in my mind. "This is a dream." I said. "It has to be." I pinched my nose and breathed in, and sure enough, air passed right through.

I almost wasn't sure if I wanted to leave. This place was so magnificent I gladly would have just studied and memorized it for the  duration of the dream, but I figured there were better things to do.

The first thing that came to mind was to try and summon a friend and see if it would result in a shared dream. I tried the "when I turn around, so-and-so will be there" thing, but it didn't work (in fact, I can't seem to get that to work any place but a WILD) so I tried transforming a rock as I'd done before. That almost worked. As I slowly raised my hands, simultaneously willing the rock to grow and turn into a person, the ground shook beneath me and the terrain deformed a bit, but no person came. Maybe the rock wasn't distinct enough, considering everything else around me was rock, too.

Eventually I gave up on that idea and so I took off into the air to fly someplace interesting. Before long, I came to a very industrial-looking city; really cool place. In the very middle of that city was an arena, and _this_ caught my attention. It had a big sign over the entrance that read: "Shared Game."

As I walked inside, I was greeted by a rather tall guy who asked me straight out: "Do you know that you're dreaming?"

"Yep, I do. So is this place what I think it is?"

"We're all lucid dreamers, here. We come to play the Game, but only lucid dreamers are allowed inside. Non-lucid people just get pounded in there."

"How do you play?"

"There aren't really any rules. The object of the game is just to get the ball from the other team and get it to the other side of the field, which scores you a point. How you get it to the other side and how you keep the other team from doing so is up to you."

"Sounds cool, can I just join in right now?"

"Of course! Have fun!"

So I went into the arena, was welcomed by a huge group of people who all claimed to be lucid dreamers, chose a team to side with, and we played. It was *the* craziest game I've ever played. The ball was constantly being changed hands. Teleportation, flying, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, whatever--all of it was allowed and frequently used. Points weren't scored very often, but eventually the other team did get to 5 (which I learned was the winning score). I believe my team ended up at 3, though, so we didn't do too bad.

After that game, I said goodbye and left the arena with a personal dream goal in mind: to skydive without a parachute *or* a plane. I just took off right there, looking down at the world below, the buildings, the arena and the dreamers who were still playing the game...it was all *so real!*

Once I reached a good height, I stopped flying and let myself enter freefall. It was a short trip back down, but a *lot* of fun! I landed smack on the ground, right on my face, but quickly got back up.

Problem was, for that moment that I was laying down, the dream started to fade, like I had put myself in the position that I was sleeping in IRL. So I did another nose RC to clear things up a bit longer, but I was losing control fast by now. Before long, I was completely non-lucid, and the dream transformed into a confusing plot about a guy trying to take over the world using cows.

All in all, for being a ton shorter than it had to be, that was really a great LD. Next time I won't skydive I guess...unless I can land on my feet. The realism was really great, though. All the scenery was very dramatic and the lighting was odd, but it gave a cool effect. And I would *really* love to learn if those were actually other lucid dreamers playing that game.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Ugh...dream recall is getting bad again.

I went to Target and bought a Wii component video cable, and instantly I was back home and it was set up, so I turned the Wii on, set the video mode to 480p instead of the default 480i, and suddenly everything on the screen was completely smooth and the colors all looked nicer.

That's all I remember. What a waste of a dream, right? The only un-realistic part was instant teleportation...other than that, it all happened just like it would in real life, and it wasn't even a very exciting real-life-like event anyway.  :Sad:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Still no good recall...I came SO close to getting a dream fully remembered, but as I continued to wake up, I lost almost everything.

I just started a new job so I'm probably just a little stressed out.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Ok, FINALLY got some recall and a lucid dream in!

Dream 1: I started a fantasy novel on google docs, but apparently should have paid more attention to the security settings. Soon, a whole bunch of people were writing in it, and so when I suddenly was inside the story, it caused a whole bunch of chaos. Writers tried to kill off other writers by writing monsters and magicians and all that into the story, and there was a ton of blood...I once threw my sword into the eye of a giant troll and blood squirted everywhere, including all over the writer who had spawned him in the first place. I wrote another sword into the story and took down that writer, too.

A lot of such things happened...I can't remember them all. But at the end, I was the only writer still standing, and I was sucked out of the story back to my desk...and the google docs novel had been completely erased  :Sad: 

I woke up for a brief moment after that and went back to sleep.

Dream 2: A false awakening, only in the past. I was probably 14 or 15. I was compelled somehow to get up out of bed and sneak downstairs to get something, but I can't remember what anymore. I knew I couldn't get caught, though, whatever it was.

I made it downstairs easily enough, but then my dad started to head down as well, since he was getting ready to leave for work. I hid beneath a table and hoped he wouldn't see me. But he did...and yet, didn't react at all to my presence. So I got out from hiding and sneaked around the place, got what I needed, and then headed back upstairs just as my dad left. He could have seen me several times, but it was like I was invisible to him. I thought it was weird, but didn't realize I was dreaming.

This time I woke up and realized it. I forced my eyes open for a short while and then attempted a WILD. Got everything still, saw a bit of HI, and then...FLASH! Woosh!

Dream 3: I was in a false awakening again, but in the present day. I couldn't focus at all...I couldn't move...had to pinch my nose. *Had* to! Forced my arm up with much difficulty, pinched, breathed through...

and then things jumped into better clarity. Only, my vision was still screwy, like being cross-eyed and not able to fix it. After trying just to correct my vision a bit without results, I decided I would teleport. "1...2...3!" I said, building up my energy and then thrusting my head forward through the pillow, shutting my eyes.

When I opened them again, I was just outside my house, floating in mid-air. Suddenly an idea came to mind: "I wonder what's beyond the sky?" I thought. "I should find out!" So I flew straight up, not to go into space, but to the top of the sky, as if it were just a skybox in a video game.

I went through it once and all was just black, so I ducked back down into the sky, waited a moment, and then went back through it again.

This time I came up out of water, and looking around me, I found myself to be at a beach where all the water was the sky, and if you swam down very far, you'd fall down into the world. But I didn't want that, of course, so I climbed onto the sand and walked around a bit. Everything was so real it was crazy...every plant, every grain of sand--it all astounded me.

Pretty soon a girl came up to me...she was like a combination of people from real life that I've seen, but not met. Of course, being lucid, I didn't hesitate to go up and talk to her. We ended up sitting down together on a couple beach chairs, but that was a mistake. The moment I stopped moving and started to only focus on one thing (the girl), I started to lose the dream. My vision began to switch to the false awakening again, even though I could still feel my dream body at that beach with the girl. I pinched my nose and moved my head, which brought things back up for a little while, but it didn't last long.

Not as good as my last WILD, but it'll do. There are a couple private matters I left out that made the dream worthwhile  :wink2:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

I might have just discovered a great gem of lucid dreaming. I call it: RC-MILD, since you basically just MILD, but replace a mantra with one solid, thorough RC.

So I thought up this new method, then got in bed and just tried to go to sleep normally. But I was watching myself, that I didn't actually fall asleep. I just wanted to be near sleep so that the RC would be the last thing I remembered doing. When I felt close to being asleep, I sat up, did the full RC, and then laid back down and next thing I know, I'm asleep.

[COLOR="rgb(65, 105, 225)"]In the dream I entered, I was watching some video on youtube. Nothing unusual was going on; there was really nothing to indicate that it was a dream. And yet, all of a sudden I had this impulse to to a reality check, and upon pinching my nose, I tested out[/COLOR] to be dreaming! I was a bit surprised at the immediate success of RC-MILD, and couldn't think up something original to do now that I was lucid. So I just decided to practice my shapeshifting more.

I turned around and found myself suddenly outside some mansion, which I ignored and went on to the shape shifting. People passed by me doing that as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Eventually I must have tried to go too far with a stretch or something, because the dream started to fade big time. So I rubbed hands, rubbed hands, rubbed hands...and it came back in full force, the shapeshifts still being part of me!

I tried to walk around after that and just see what I could see, but eventually my lucidity faded[COLOR="rgb(65, 105, 225)"], all the shapeshifts just literally fell off of my body, leaving a normal me behind, and the dream continued on, turning into some strange videogame-like experience[/COLOR]

Not a bad start for my first time with a new method...I must go start a thread about this now!  ::D:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Ok, no title on this one, cuz the days are kind of messed up.

It's been hard to lucid dream lately what with starting a new job and all...that's usually what my mind is filtering through at night. Faces, words, tasks, various other important things to remember...makes it hard to go to sleep for a while. But despite this, I'm making my best effort to do intentionally do something I've never done on purpose before...and get proof that I really did it this time, too.

What am I referring to? Shared dreaming, naturally.  :smiley: 

A good friend of mine and I have everything set up. (He's not on DV, and he probably won't ever be [says he's too busy for another online thing...he doesn't even visit the forums he already has memberships to lol] so if you don't know him personally you won't be able to see his part, but trust me to be honest on this one, k?  :wink2:  ) Oh yeah, and his name's Mike.

Anyway, what we're trying to do is totally crazy. Mike came up with it, but I'm sure willing to go along since it would be very entertaining to watch. The dream will be set in Florida, in a field with a bunch of purple rhinos who kidnapped a girl. Mike will ride in on Pegasus and dominate the rhinos, then ride off with the girl to some super nice restaurant.

My part in all this? To bring Pegasus to him, lead him to Florida, etc...basically set up the scene and watch it happen. We thought it would be interesting to have this kind of direct co-involvement in a shared dream. It won't just be _seeing_ another dreamer, it will be two dreamers _dynamically affecting_ a singular environment with one cause in mind.

So far nothing has happened. I've come close to being lucid a couple times, but close just ain't good enough. Mike's recall has been low lately, so whether or not he's been close to lucidity we can't say. But one dream he remembered was partially lucid, as he intentionally exited the dream in order to wake up on time.

And there you have it...what has happened since I've been gone a few days. Hopefully this shared dreaming experiment goes well! Whether it does or not, I'll be sure to try one with a DV member after this, so we'll have both DJ's online  :smiley:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Still no luck with the shared dreaming experiment, but I came close to being lucid last night.

I was in my livingroom, practicing my kicks and the like. All of a sudden, however, I had this impulse to do a backflip, and the knowledge of how to do it right just came to me. So I gave it a shot, and succeeded!

"Woah, I can do backflips!"

I tried again, and succeeded again. Now confident of my jumping ability, I began to think through the Matrix fight between Neo and Morpheus to see what else I should try.

I got a little running start, then jumped, triple-kicked, and then landed with plenty of time to spare.

"I've never been able to get three kicks in before...only two, and that was cutting it close!"

After that I further discovered I could lay on the ground and roll straight backwards, springing off my hands onto my feet, do wallflips with multiple upward steps, and a number of other cool things.

That's the part where I almost went lucid. I should have known to reality check then, but I certainly recognized the situation as not being normal, every day life. It didn't continue, though.

[COLOR="rgb(65, 105, 225)"]Next thing I know, there's a world-famous runner taking on the most dangerous course ever. I showed up to the race as a competitor, totally unknown by the crowd watching, and the subject of the champion runner's mockery. Even famous people weren't as fast as he was...so he was sure I wouldn't come close to matching his speed. I just smiled and let him bash me with his words, knowing I had a secret he was unaware of.

As soon as the race started, I took off running. Since I was a late entry, I started dead last, but within thirty seconds I had cleared all opponents other than the champ himself. It was just the two of us on the cameras that followed us down the track.

Very soon the paved part of the track ended and we were in a canyon area. Rocks were everywhere...it would have been easy to trip. The champ and I were neck-and-neck, and he decided it was time to lose me, so he began to run to the side to push me into the rock wall. I just took a step up the wall, did a flip, and landed on the other side of the champ, still running at full speed. He was so surprised that he tripped, and I took the lead for a long time.

From here it gets hazy, but there was a lot more to the race. The champ caught up eventually, but not enough to win. The track also involved a lot harder stuff, like chasms that had to be crossed by swinging across bars, rock walls that had to actually be climbed, etc.[/COLOR]

Soon after I woke up from that dream, I realized that I had unintentionally entered SP. Before long I was feeling my dream body and making movements with full sensation, but my real body wasn't even twitching. Multiple times I even saw things and interacted with them briefly, but a full dream never formed. I'm quite sure that with time it would have, but it was getting late, and I knew I couldn't afford to sleep through another REM cycle, so I had to wake up.

But at least I now have a better idea of when to try to get into SP! If I could just go to bed a bit earlier so that I get the same amount of sleep earlier in the night and _then_ WILD...maybe that would finally get me another super lucid dream!

----------


## MrDreamsX

> LiveInTheDream: Friday, April 2, 2010 - "I'm doing it...for him!" I then felt my eyes rolling back into my head, unstoppably, and black swirls began to cover my vision...  I don't think I want to dwell on that one..."



How would you rate this in terms of scariness, compared to your other nightmares? In one of my old nightmares I had the reverse transition. I inexplicably _exited_ the situation by shifting to watching it on TV.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

> How would you rate this in terms of scariness, compared to your other nightmares? In one of my old nightmares I had the reverse transition. I inexplicably _exited_ the situation by shifting to watching it on TV.



Well, now that it's over I find it very interesting and not scary at all, but I know that while I was going through it I was quite freaked out...on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being scariest, I would say it was 7.

----------


## MrDreamsX

I'm interested to read any dream you have posted that you rank a 7 or higher in overall scariness then... This one surprised me with its plot complexity.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

It surprises me, too. I still can't figure out how I would have dreamed up a DC with a will to prevent me from waking up :\

----------


## MrDreamsX

> It surprises me, too. I still can't figure out how I would have dreamed up a DC with a will to prevent me from waking up :\



I have had lucid DC who were "in love with me" complain about me ruining things by "knowing it was a dream." The one that comes to mind I still remember by name... She hurt my boyhood feelings, and I do not recall ever seeing her in a dream again. -This was _long_ before I lucid trained.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Yeah, while a lot of DC's don't amount to much, some of them can really have a strong effect on your mind for one reason or another. I don't treat all my DC's with deep respect for that fact, but it's a good idea to bear in mind that your dream characters can affect you.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Well, it's been a while...between work and an otherwise busy schedule, I just haven't had time to write here lately! Not that there was much to tell...but keeping up with any dreams will help recall, so it's a bit of a shame nonetheless.

But today I've got the time, and last night I had a little lucid dream, so here we go again!  ::D: 

I was working in a department of a huge mall. At first everything was normal...just work as usual. I was talking to my manager, when all of a sudden, some guy with a mask ran in and started shooting! Got my manager two or three times. Strange thing was, though, he didn't get me.

See, as soon as that bullet had fired, it was like the dream went into slow-motion. I whirled around and saw the bullet tearing through the air and was able to dodge it without a problem. This clearly upset the killer, because he suddenly forgot about everyone else and just went after me. But I worked my way up closer and closer to him, dodging bullets all the way, and then eventually I let out a punch that threw him half-way across the room!

That was when I realized I was dreaming.

"Oh, why didn't I just use some psionic ability to take him down?" I thought out loud.

With a thought, I brought my manager back to life and then walked out of the store.

"Since this is a dream," I thought, "I should try some moves..."

So I did. Right in the middle of the mall, I started doing handsprings (front and back), aerials, flips, and other fun stuff. In the middle of all this, though, I got interrupted by an older lady who wanted some packages delivered. At first I tried to just make excuses and leave, but she was persistent, and I couldn't see why it would take long to deliver packages in a lucid dream, so eventually I gave in. I flew around the mall and tried to find the people to deliver the packages to, but it was actually harder than I thought to locate them. I caused everyone's names to appear over their heads so I'd know who to find, but I still just couldn't find everyone.

Eventually I _did_ find one person, so I landed and delivered it to her, but then she turned around and told me about something she wanted me to do. I can't remember where exactly my lucidity faded, but every time I delivered a package, there would be another mini-quest thing that I was supposed to do, and eventually the dream was more of an RPG than anything. I still had lucid powers and I retained my moves (both of which I used frequently), but the realization of being in a dream was gone.

I can't remember all that I did...but it ranged from deliveries to rescuing people out of burning buildings to taking down assassins before they could reach their target. Most of it was kind of hazy from this point on, but that burning building experience was very clear. It was difficult to get inside, but eventually I managed to rip away a garbage chute that was coming out of the side of the building and get inside that way. Once in, I could feel the heat building up, the loud rumble of the flames, the boards beneath me rotting away...the entire building nearly collapsed with me inside. It began to fall, tilting the entire place, but I used telekinesis to hold the place up long enough for me to find the little girl I was sent to find and bring her out alive.

Well, it certainly took long enough, but eventually I had all mini-quests cleared and all packages delivered. I walked back to the place I had started at, told my manager what a crazy day I'd had, and soon woke up.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Again, work is why I haven't written in a while. So far I simply haven't figured out a way to maintain good recall on nights before work...or keep my mind from thinking about the day ahead and thus killing my remembrance to RC in dreams.

But today is a day off of work, so it was a day on for lucid dreaming!  ::D: 

And guess what? This time, it was another WILD.

I first woke up and I was on the floor. RC'd to be awake. Not sure how I got to be on the floor, but WILDing was on my mind, so I didn't stop to think about it. See, I had this little memory from a past dream. Someone had just told me "just relax and let your mind drift" for explaining how to WILD. So that's what I did. I didn't move somewhere else first, I just lay down where I was and stopped consciously forming thought processes.

Within moments, I saw light flashes, then images. Memories. Flashing by like lightning. Then there was this huge tingling sensation that overtook me. It was so powerful it almost hurt! And then...sounds, tons of different sounds all mixing together. Voices, mostly. I felt myself being pulled out of my body and into my dream body. Unintentionally, I rolled out of my physical self into my dream self. My eyes were still shut, though. But since I knew I was in a dream, I tried to open my dream eyes.

Instead, I opened my real eyes. I tried to just let my mind drift and relax and re-enter the dream, but nothing happened. So I stood up, shook my head a bit to wake me up enough to get fully out of the dream state, and then went back down to the floor and tried to force my mind into a dream, all within a few second. It worked. Lights, memory flashes, voices, and then the sensation of a second body all came back. My vision came to me, but I was still in my room, laying on the floor. This time I stood up in the second body, and I could see my real body laying on the floor.

It was a remarkable feeling, that transition from body to body. The dream body felt colder, yet not in an unpleasant way. Certainly not like the cold of a dead body. On the contrary, it was a vibrant chill that felt far more alive than what I feel during waking life. And since there's no dust or dirt whatsoever  in dreams, the dream body felt clean in a way that's impossible to achieve IRL.

But anyway, there I was, in the dream. I was still in my room, looking down at the body I'd just left, and so I did an RC, and I could breath through my pinched nose easily. I trusted the RC to be true, but I couldn't believe how real everything around me was. It made me think about my last really good WILD, and once again I appreciated just how much more realistic WILDs are than other lucid dreams. There was simply nothing around me save reality checks that didn't feel and look 100% real. I walked down the hallway to look out the window. For some reason, walking in the dream body was a little awkward at first, but I got it figured out pretty quick. And when I looked out the window, I saw *tons* of snow, further confirming it to be a dream, although it was nonetheless real-looking. I tried teleporting short distances across the rooom then for the sake of practice, but strangely, I couldn't. 

Of course, I didn't want to spend the whole dream in my house, so I went to the bathroom and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened.

"Oh, come on, I don't have this problem." I said to myself. "That's what _other_ lucid dreamers complain about, but I've never had trouble with a light switch before."

I flipped the switch again. Still, nothing happened.

"Look, I know what this place should look like with light on, now just TURN ON!"

I flipped the switch one more time, and the lights came on...even though the switch was in the 'off' position.

"Well, that works."

Then I went inside and shut the door. There were people around the house that had tried to talk to me already, and I wanted them to leave me alone. You never know how DC's are going to react to teleporting somewhere, which is what I had in mind.

Except, now that I thought about it...there was something I had meant to do in my lucid dream, someplace I had meant to be, and I knew it, but I couldn't remember where!

When I gave up trying to remember the place, I decided to just go wherever I could go. It didn't matter to me where, since I couldn't remember any of my goals anyway. For the sake of doing things differently, I stepped into the shower and stood right on the drain. Then I imagined myself being sucked down in, and within moments, that's precisely what happened! My body swirled around, getting smaller by the second, then rushed down into the pipe like water.

I slid through pipes for quite some time, but when I finally came out, I was full size already, and so was everything around me. I had fallen from the ceiling into some sort of industrial looking store...kind of like Home Depot or Lowes. Only the stuff they had here was for anything but home improvement. In front of me was a huge display of video games, and there were better things than that around me. Guns, lightsabers, tanks, jeeps with mounted guns, etc.

Speaking of which, right at that moment someone came flying over a display in one such jeep and started trying to shoot me. I could have just stood there and been fine considering the bullets weren't real and I knew it, but my reaction was to teleport to the nearest cover, which I was able to do without trouble this time. Once the gun had stopped firing, I ran out and jumped onto the vehicle before the guy in it could drive away, also accidentally teleporting us both to some lush planet with a cool, color-filled sky and bright light on the ground even though there was no sun. I tried to reach the driver and take him out, but he whipped around a corner so fast that I lost my grip and flew over the side of a cliff as we were driving past it.

Of course I teleported myself again before I hit the ground, and wasn't surprised to have come back to the store. Only this time there was a girl there; one I know IRL. She had a camera, and held it out to me.

"Could you take a picture for me?" She asked.

I nodded and took the camera. 

But then I also realized an interesting opportunity. If it _is_ possible to bring things back from dreams into real life, what better thing to do it with than a picture? So I willed the camera to come back with me when I woke up, then snapped the picture. 

Yet another intriguing thing happened, then. When I looked at the picture on the camera screen, I realized I had seen the picture before IRL. It was true to the dream, in that she really had posed exactly as the picture showed (while still remaining in life-like motion, I should add...she didn't freeze up like the picture or something), but it was also true to real life, in that even the background matched up with the real picture.

"Either I just time traveled and took this picture and I bring it back with me, or  this is one impressively strong memory." I said to myself.

Obviously, I assume the latter.

Unfortunately, the dream began to fade at this point, and since I was holding the camera, my hands were too occupied to be rubbed together in time, and I didn't have time to spin or do anything else to save the dream.

It was like the dream body was somehow on a tether that my real body was pulling on, drawing them back together. I saw blurs, heard wooshing noises, and the feeling of my real body began to take over the vibrant chill of the dream one.

I woke up, and was now in bed. RC'd to be awake. How I got back in bed while WILDing I don't know. And no, neither the camera nor the picture came back with me.  :Sad: 

But at least it was a highly lucid dream with a plot that wasn't too shabby. Could have been much better, though. Gotta work on remembering those dream goals!  :Bang head:

----------


## MadMonkey

man. That 3 month dream is intense! I can't imagine what it would be like to be traped in my mind for 3 months. I havn't had time to read any of your other dreams obviously because that one is so long but I look forward to seeing what your dreams are like where you have control.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

> man. That 3 month dream is intense! I can't imagine what it would be like to be traped in my mind for 3 months. I havn't had time to read any of your other dreams obviously because that one is so long but I look forward to seeing what your dreams are like where you have control.



Yep, it was pretty crazy. Several people have asked me why I didn't try harder to control that one, and for some reason I couldn't remember why for the longest time. But then eventually I came across Naiya's DILD/WILD guide, and it came back to me: because she said your dreams may have something important to get across, so if you can't seem to control the dream, look for the point to it instead. There were quite a few lessons to be learned from that dream, for sure...next time I think I'll try to fix my problems without living an extra three months in my head  :tongue2: 

Oh, and thanks for your interest!  ::D:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Hoo boy has it ever been too long since I wrote a dream in here. It's not that I haven't been having good recall, but I've been kind of working on a personal experiment to test out a theory I have as to why I don't lucid dream every night now that I can go lucid without any special method or really any work during the day. You can check it out here. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the theory!

But I'm sure everyone is going to want to hear some results, as well. Actually, I have _several_ nights of lucid dreams that came from all this, but unfortunately I didn't always have time to write them down.  :Sad:  I managed to get something from last night down on my computer before leaving for work today, though, so once again I will be creating a new entry in this dream journal!  :smiley: 

Last night's lucid dream was a bit unusual in that my own dream goals never came to mind; I never once considered changing my circumstances to form a whole new story. I didn't even turn the story I was in into something supernatural, although I did do things that I wouldn't be able to IRL.

So here's what happened. A bunch of friends and I had gathered together  to make a movie to raise money for something. I can't recall the details of the movie or what we were doing it for, but it was a good cause and a big deal to everyone involved. Though everyone had some say in how the production went, this one girl and I quickly rose to the top as directors.

There's a big hole in my memory right after there...I know a _lot_ happened, whole weeks went by (though I didn't see every moment of every day), and we got a lot done.

Then I remember talking to this girl about music. Since we were going to be getting money for the movie, all the music had to be original. She was wondering how we'd make the music anywhere near as good as a standard production's.

Oh, that's no problem. I said. This is just a dream. I can whip out an instrument and just start playing.

Really? She replied, apparently taking no notice of the mention of being in a dream.

To prove it, I waved my hand in the air as if I was picking up a violin, and as soon as I held the imaginary instrument to my neck, a violin materialized. At first I didn't sound that great, but within a couple more tries at playing I was doing _Viva la Vida_ in perfect pitch. (Why that song? Just cuz it's the first thing that came to mind, I guess)

Of course she was most impressed and pleased with it, especially when I told her that I'd never really played a violin before. The rest of that night was mostly spent just playing songs for the girl as she requested them, but I didn't mind.

As production went on, I could sense something happening between her and me. It wasn't that we talked more or hung out more or anything like that...only that when we did all those things, we were much closer than before. We were more open with each other.

Then there came that one fateful night when the group was supposed to meet for more shooting, and I was at home, getting ready to leave. For some reason my mom was there, and she was telling me how foolish I was being for participating in such a project, and said I was ignoring all of life's responsibilities for the sake of that movie. I tried to reason with her at first, but being in a dream, I knew I didn't really have to show respect. So I just walked past her, grabbed the car keys, and...she tried to physically block me from leaving. I just teleported into the car and left. (Don't ask why I didn't just teleport to the meeting spot...I don't know why that didn't come to mind in the first place.)

Since I had hurried to get away, I arrived at the meeting place early, so only a couple other people were there yet. I checked around to make sure all the sets were in place and all the cameras were running, and even listened to a sample of music that I had supposedly done all the instruments to (even though I only ever actually did the violin). I laughed to myself at the obvious dream plot hole, being the only person there who understood how that happened.

Just then, I happened to look through the window and see a bunch of people arriving. I hurried to the door and held it open for the ladies. They all thanked me and then moved on...well, almost all of them.

This particular girl that I had grown fond of walked in the door last, thanked me for holding it, then just looked at me for a few seconds. The impulse to look away came, but I ignored it. Then she just winked and began to walk off. But I knew what that meant. We'd come a long ways.

I walked after the girl and grabbed her by the hand. She turned around, but now looked nervous. I put my other hand in hers, and we stood there, just holding hands. Then I started trying to move closer,  but she took a step back each time I took a step forward.

Are you sure you want this? She asked, suddenly fumbling with words and stuttering left and right.   

I'm sure." I replied calmly. "Don't you?

Well, yes, but...but how do we know this is the...the right thing? For us?

I think we both know the answer to that one.

She took a look behind her, but continued to step back. She was running out of room.

I just...I don't know...I don't want to worry...

Then she stepped up against a wall, and could back up no further.

Oh...I...uh... she continued. 

Don't worry. Everything's alright.

I slowly reached up and caressed her cheek, which seemed to ignite something inside her. She jumped up and flung her arms around my neck, holding on so tightly that I was the only thing holding her up off the ground.

My memory fades after that...maybe that's when my alarm went off; I can't remember exactly.

Anyway, not the best example of a lucid dream, but it does offer some proof to my theory that the only reason I don't lucid dream every night is because I've presently trained myself to think that lucid dreaming is something difficult to achieve. The past few nights I've been focusing on consciously unlearning that, and as you can see, it has indeed worked. With time, I'm sure I'll come to better control things and become a full-fledged natural LDer  ::D: 

Wish me luck!

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Well, I didn't really plan on WILDing last night, but I woke up shortly before 5:00 and just rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

I didn't move a whole lot, so it wasn't long before I started to feel the loss of sensation in my hands (these always go first, for me). Since I'd gotten that far, I thought "Well, why not see if I can make it?" So I just focused on keeping my mind conscious enough to WILD and letting everything else fall asleep.

Strangely, I didn't have *any* HI this time. It was even a pretty calm ride as far as vibrations and other weird sensations were concerned. I just noticed after a while that I really couldn't move...it wasn't just a loss of sensation anymore, I _really couldn't move_. "Here we go, then!"

It was like I sank down out of my body then, but I could still feel both it and the dream body my mind had created. But being in the dream now, it was like a single wave passing across me, starting from my toes and moving up to my head, was erasing those last sensations of my real body so that I was completely in the dream.

I could already open my eyes and look around me at this point, but I waited until the wave had passed before I tried to move anything so I didn't lose the dream. I was still in my bedroom, laying down, but everything was much darker than it should have been, so I knew I hadn't failed the WILD. 

Once all the vibrations had ceased and I felt I was securely in the dream, I did a reality check and tested to be dreaming, and then immediately got up and tried to fly out of my house and on to things more exciting. 

I had a slight and temporary problem at the outset; I could fly no problem, but as soon as I focused on moving through a wall or the ceiling, I'd lose my flying concentration and so begin to descend. This only lasted a few seconds though, as I quickly figured out to focus on  _flying through the wall_, a singular thing, not flying _and_ phasing through. 

And then the last wall to my house was a bit of a bugger, too. Instead of simply letting me pass through it, at first it tried to stretch out and hold me inside, like it was made of elastic. 

"Oh, come on, I'm  _outside_ already." I said for the sake of convincing my subconscious to let me go.

The wall snapped back through me and into its place then, leaving me hovering outside, looking down on my neighborhood exactly as it looks IRL. I had planned no dream goals for this WILD, so rather than go to any place in particular, I just picked a direction and decided to fly at lightspeed for a little while and just see where I ended up. 

I've never flown that fast before. It was awesome.  *Way* better than teleporting, because I actually got to see _everything_ that I flew over, which was really impressive considering all of it was a dream. There were houses, tall buildings, cars, people, birds, trees...I saw it all for what felt like miles of nearly instant travel.

I might have kept on going, but then I heard a call. 

"Hey! Down here!" 

Couldn't tell who it was from my distance, but I figured I might as well go and check it out. I slowed down, flew low, and finally landed on the ground in a really strange kind of place.  

Everything was tropical, and yet, industrial. There was no grass, no roads, just sand. There were many buildings of the style that you see around beaches, and they all had water features that pooled into streams which flowed all throughout the city, using the sand to form intricate pathways of their own. But at the same time, it looked planned out, since several of these little streams went into the base of a big fountain at the center of the place. This fountain's job was apparently to spray the water all the way back up to the top of all the buildings, spewing out a stream in every direction so every building was continually re-using the water. 

"This would be a pretty cool place to go on a dream date in..." 

After taking all this in for a short while, the person who had stopped me walked up and thanked me for coming. I could see now that it was a woman. That gave me another idea. 

"I wonder if I could take over this DC's body and go on a date from the female perspective? That would be interesting..." 

So I began to ask the woman some questions, like where the best restaurant was. Once everything was answered and I had a plan, I was just about to make my first attempt at DC possession when something else came to mind. 

"Oh, and one last thing. How old are you?" I asked. 

"58." Was her reply. 

She didn't look  _nearly_ that old at first glance, but once I actually thought about it, she certainly didn't look young anymore.

"58! But...that just won't do. Would you mind if I took some of those years away from you?" 

She was repulsed by the offer. 

"I'd really rather you didn't. In fact, I must be going now. Goodbye." 

"Ok...I suppose I'll just look for someone else, then." 

Problem was, there weren't a whole lot of people around. I had to just walk around for a minute before I saw anybody, and even then, it was a guy this time. He didn't look to be old, so I approached him. 

"How old are you?" I asked. 

"32." 

"32, not bad at all. Still, would you mind if I took off about 10 years from that number?" 

"Go right ahead, those were the best 10 years of my life! I wouldn't mind living them again!" 

So I held my hands out towards him and through willpower caused him to grow just a bit younger. There wasn't a  _whole_ lot of visual difference, but there was some. Enough to make one guess his age would lie in the early 20's instead of the early 30's.

"Dude, I feel great! Thanks!" 

Before I could ask the guy if he knew of any young woman who might be around, I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around to see a VERY old woman standing there in front of me. 

"What you just did for that man...would you do that for me?" She asked. 

Now, I would have guessed that this woman was in her late 80's, and near death. Her skin was almost colorless. Hair completely white, and thin. Skin wrinkled something awful. 

But it was just so crazy I had to give it a shot. 

"Alright, I'll do it." 

I held out my hands and began the transformation. It must have been a shocking feeling, because the instant change began to happen, the old woman grabbed onto my wrists and held on tightly. 

It was a crazy thing to watch. The wrinkles tightened up, her hair grew thick and long as it simultaneously turned to a glossy dark brown, a healthy pink flooded into her pale skin, and many other such things as well. 

When I was finally finished, the now-young woman brushed her hair out of her face and smiled brightly at the change. I couldn't believe how amazing she looked. I mean, this girl was a TKO! I wondered if I should simply take her out on a date myself instead of take her over... ::lol:: 

I held on to the girl's hand and led her to the guy I had transformed a minute ago, and he immediately began to ask her out. I was just getting ready to take possession, one way or the other, when... 

I woke up.

Since I was awake, I didn't try to DEILD for fear that I would fail and then not have recalled the past dream at all. So instead I went back through the dream in my memory until I had it in my mind pretty well and then I rolled over and tried to WILD again.

Once more, it was a pretty easy ride to the dream. All I felt was the inability to move, and then a wave-like transition into the dream body, and then...


Dream 2:

I was standing in a room with a crowd of people, but somehow they all seemed dull in color and liveliness compared to one person right in front of me. He seemed different than the rest of the people around. Not that his actions were spectacular; he simply was taking pictures with a really nice camera. Eventually he noticed me looking at him, but it didn't seem to bother him. He just waved and said 'hi'.

But there _was_ something weird that happened during that short event. From the moment we made eye contact, I heard a faint whisper and saw ghost-like words scroll across my vision, both saying the same thing: "Man of Shred"

"No way, Man of Shred?" I thought. "I've got to find out!"

I tried to run towards him and get his attention, but he had seen someone else and was making his way through the crowd to get to them.

"Hey! Wait! It's LiveInTheDream!"

Yes, I woke up in the middle of that last sentence. And I finished saying it out loud, IRL. It was weird...like I had gotten kicked out of the dream. Usually there's a split-second sensation of "oh crap I'm waking up", but not this time. One moment I was in the dream, the next I was fully awake.

And I felt like I was being watched. Seriously. As in, I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if I had turned around and found someone standing right next to my bed. It was that real a feeling to me.

So _now_ the question is...was that really Man of Shred I saw, or just an imposter of a dream character?

You can be sure I'll look further into this one. MoSh, you've got a PM heading your way...

----------


## Man of Shred

Was the room dark by any chance? I remember a dream of standing in a dark room with weird creatures and then seeing a girl run down th hallway. I chased after her.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Yes, it was rather dark. Actually, I started out in the dream sitting down, so what with all the people (and weird creatures, but mostly I was seeing people) around, all I could see of the room itself was a gray wall. And yes, it was a hallway as well.  :Eek:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Woke up at about 6:00 this morning and realized I hadn't had any lucid dreams yet. Since it was early, I still had time for another REM cycle, and I wasn't about to lose that chance, so I rolled over and decided to WILD.

Instead, I just passed out, but it ended up working out ok.

First thing I know, I'm standing on the rail of my backyard deck, looking down at the ground below. I knew I was in a dream already, so I just jumped and tried to fly off. As I flew, I also did a couple other things to improve the dream experience. First, I pinched my nose and tried to breath in so that there would be no doubt as to my state and I wouldn't lose lucididty. Then, I shouted: "Time: SLOW DOWN!" So that even if I only slept for 5 real minutes, it would feel like hours to me (just a little idea I spontaneously thought up, and it's not a bad one, if I may say so myself).

For some reason, though, in the middle of flight, I also teleported unintentionally. So as I was landing from flying, I saw the place I had flown to. But the moment I hit the ground, I was inside a building with a huge ceiling made entirely of glass. The walls and floor were of metal and not glass, but they still had a high reflectivity level, and everything looked very clean.

To my left was a teacher who was standing and giving a lecture, pacing back and forth and being very emphatic. To my right were two rows of students, obviously college-age. It didn't take long to figure out that this was a specialty class, what with the nice building, distinguished-looking teacher, and the fact that there weren't many students compared to the huge room.

Still, knowing it was a dream, I held no respect for the situation, and I walked right in front of the teacher and looked over the students to see if there was anyone there that I recognized. Eventually one girl I know IRL (whom I shall refer to as Jane Doe) waved and said 'hi'.(This was also the girl I flew around in my first real WILD, and that has appeared in my dreams a couple times since then) I figured she'd be perfect to go around with again, so I walked over to her, literally threw aside the school materials, and asked her to come with me. I was half surprised that she didn't object due to being in school. Of course...the teacher hadn't skipped a beat in his droning lecture since I came in, so apparently it wasn't that hard for people there to ignore certain things.

I led Jane to a big window at the back of the room.

"You want to see something fun?" I asked.

"Sure!" came the reply.

So in one motion, I jumped, picked her up, and smashed through the window (not that the window _needed_ to break; I could have just phased through it, but c'mon, what's more dramatic? Phasing, or seeing a million particles of glass fly everywhere?) We then fell down for several stories, picking up speed the whole time. Then, at the last moment, I slowed down my descent just enough so that I could comfortably land without it feeling like I'd actually altered our fall.

I turned to Jane, whom I was still holding. She didn't look impressed.

"What? I just jumped out of a building and fell for like 500 feet, and you didn't find that fun?"

"It was fun...I suppose. But that kind of scared me! I don't usually jump out of buildings for fun and expect it to work out ok."

"If you were lucid dreaming you'd probably appreciate it more, I suppose." I muttered under my breath. Then, speaking up, "Well, how about this, then?"

I jumped up and started to fly again, then looked over at Jane. She was smiling this time; it just wasn't the same since we have gone flying so many times now. When I looked back in front of me, I realized we had teleported again. Now we were back to the place I had landed at prior to the first unintentional teleport. By now, the sun was setting and there was some sort of party going on. One of my co-workers was there, and she approached me.

"You realize you're going to be in this dream for four years." She said.

"What?"

"Since you slowed the time down...it will feel like four years."

"Oh. Ok. That's fine with me."

Really, it was. Things were going well. I wouldn't have minded four years of lucidity. But I still didn't believe her. Generally, don't take lucid dreaming tips from a DC. They don't know what they're talking about. I just was trying to get to the table where the food and drinks were, and not get stopped any more along the way.

So I grabbed Jane's hand and led her through the small crowd to one of the tables and picked up a couple glasses of punch. IRL, I hate punch, but who says it has to taste bad in an LD?

It gets a little hazy around here...Jane and I separated from the crowd and I asked her about our relationship...and I don't remember her answer, but she hugged me, so it must not have been too bad.

And next thing I remember, my alarm is going off and I'm waking up.

Stupid alarm clocks. Oh well, I suppose I should be thankful I don't get to work late  :tongue2: 

Oh, and I really recommend slowing down time every time you lucid dream. It really felt like several hours even though now it seems like only a few minutes  ::D:

----------


## MadMonkey

That time slowdown thing is a realy good idea. You could always have as much time to lucid as you want if you just make time perseption about 4 times faster. I'll do that next time I have a full lucid.

----------


## LiveInTheDream

> That time slowdown thing is a realy good idea. You could always have as much time to lucid as you want if you just make time perseption about 4 times faster.



My thoughts exactly. Hope it works for ya! I'd be interested to hear how it goes  :smiley:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

Once again, it's been *far* too long since I last put an entry in here. I'll try to start updating more frequently again, but...no promises  :wink2: 

I seem to have developed a weird mental block about lucid dreams. You may remember my post about how we can become unsuccessful with lucid dreams simply because we subconsciously believe them to be difficult. Since this realization, my amount of naturally-occurring lucid dreams has sky-rocketed to nearly 100% of all recent lucid dreams...but I haven't had as many lucid dreams what with not putting a lot of work into a particular method, so that percentage is really not so impressive as it may initially seem.

The problem is, I'll find myself thinking with two minds in a dream. There's my 'dream mind' which is caught up with the bizarre events of the dream story, and there's my subconscious mind that clearly realizes I'm dreaming, but due to being asleep, illogically thinks: "Oh, I'm dreaming! Too bad this isn't a lucid dream..." often resulting in a dream where I have all the powers of lucidity and I understand that I cannot be hurt and things like that, but without really ever understanding_ why_.

It's starting to become quite annoying. If I could get myself to make the right conclusion at the moment I realize I'm non-lucid dreaming, I seriously could have multiple LDs every night without putting any more effort into it than simply reminding myself about it before I go to sleep!  ::shock:: 

Anyway, I guess fixing that starts with maintaining good dream recall, so here's what I remember of last night's dream:

I was in some party house, and I was preparing (you guessed it) a party. The interior of the place resembled my real house in layout, but everything about the rooms was vastly different. All the walls and many ceilings and floors were painted black, with brightly-colored symbols and images painted on top in random places. Under a black light, they looked quite cool.

At first, everything was going smoothly. I got disco balls and club lights mounted, music started playing, food and drinks set out...and then at one moment, I slipped on a ladder and caught the palm of my right hand on a sharp point as I fell.

When I looked at the damage, my entire palm had been split, and now my thumb and a large piece of skin from my hand were dangling loose, nearly to fall off at any moment. With my other hand, I tried to pull everything back together, but multiple attempts proved unsuccessful for one reason or another. My first try, I managed to get the skin lined up correctly, but I hadn't fit my thumb bones back into their place properly, so my actual thumb was hollow and the bones for it were being pinned down beneath the skin of my palm.

I tried pulling the skin back then, which hurt like crazy, but I knew it had to be done, else I'd be without a functioning thumb. I slid the bones and muscles back inside the hollow skin of the thumb and then tried replacing the skin. For some reason I had difficulty lining it back up this time, and so it pulled too far, squishing my entire hand together into a shape much thinner than it should be.

Finally, one of my friends arrived and saw the trouble. The solution we ended up with was that I would get the skin into place, and then hold it there while my friend wrapped tape around it to hold things together long enough for me to see a doctor. It seemed to work.

"It's too bad this dream isn't a lucid dream." I said to myself.

The party went on, but the pain in my hand increased, and eventually the tape wouldn't hold any more, giving me the same issue as before with my thumb potentially falling off. At one point, the pain grew so intense that I collapsed on the ground. That sure didn't help anything! I landed wrong, which made the bones and muscles in my thumb rip right through the skin, making things worse than ever before. I rolled over, writhing in pain, and grabbed my hand, now awake IRL.

Strangely enough, it _did_ hurt around my palm and thumb. Not sure why. But of course it wasn't cut open and about to fall off  :tongue2:

----------


## LiveInTheDream

A friend of mine was dead.  :Eek: 

That's what the phone call that started it all was about. Of course I rushed to the scene of the crime as soon as I could so as to learn more about what happened, but it honestly didn't do me much good. All anyone knew for sure was that one moment my friend was alive and well and the next he was laying in a pool of blood, several knife wounds all over his body. 

No one ever saw the killer. He didn't even leave fingerprints behind, so there was no good way to track him down, either. This, of course, made the last person to see my friend the primary suspect: Zachary Quinto. He was literally dragged to the scene of the crime and the police attempted to identify any sort of evidence with him.

They discovered the cuts on my friend's body matched the width and length of a knife owned by Mr. Quinto, but when they produced said knife, Zach didn't seem to recognize it. He didn't appear to be bluffing, either; he was genuinely shocked that a long, brown knife had been discovered on the floor of his home, caked in blood.

Quinto was promptly arrested, and I was asked to leave while further investigation was carried out. I was by no means satisfied, though. The next day I paid a visit to the police office to inquire about their discoveries. They told me that evidence against Quinto was insufficient and they would be letting him go later on that day, and also that the knife they found belonged to a mysterious killer known only by the alias "Knife-baby". The killer's targets seemed random; just whoever was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And this time, chance had it so that the Knife-baby killer's choice was personal.

I set out on a quest to find out just who this murderer was and bring them down myself, or otherwise set them up for arrest. It didn't take long before I met up with Quinto, who was planning to do the same thing in order to clear his own name.

We went all over the globe together, following the tiniest and most confusing trails of clues, hoping that sooner or later we'd find our guy. Sadly, the biggest help we got was the frequent news reports of the Knife-baby killer's latest victims. After enough people had been killed, we were able to line up their locations on a map like a 'connect the dots' picture and plot a line to predict where the killer would be next. The location? A research building in the Amazon jungle.

Quinto and I approached the building from a ways off, not wanting to alert anyone of our presence by the sound of a vehicle. After hacking through security at the back door, we began to make our way through the hallway, keeping our eyes peeled in all possible directions.

Suddenly, all went black. I heard a noise like a muffled explosion followed by the feedback of a thousand echoes. It hurt my ears, so I put my hands over them while crying out in pain...and as I fell to my knees, the light came back on, and I was on my knees before the dead body of a scientist who worked in the facility. Blood was everywhere, and knife wounds were clearly visible in the corpse's back. It was then that I noticed my hands were wet, so I pulled them down, away from my ears, and was horrified to see that my own hands were also caked with blood, and I held a long, brown knife in my right hand.

Quinto was unharmed, but backed up against the wall, and breathing hard. He was clearly freaked out by the whole thing. When he got his breath back, he stared at the body, and at me.

"You...you..._you're_ the Knife-baby killer!" He said angrily, charging at me and pinning me up against the wall.

"What? Think about what you're saying! Why would I have killed my own friend, framed you, and then come all this way with you just so I could turn around and show you that I was the one all along? Do you really think I'm that stupid?" I replied.

Quinto let go and backed off, huffing with frustration that we'd missed the killer again.

"So how does this work?" He asked. "Does the killer ever actually kill anyone? Or does he just use us as proxies?"

"Wait a minute, so you're saying you did kill my friend?"

"You know that's not true! I saw what you just saw! Blackness, then that noise, then a dead body sitting at my feet, and a long brown knife and blood in my hands. But I got rid of the knife; _I got rid of the knife!_! The killer obviously wanted me to be framed...that's why he put the knife back in my house! And now he wants you as well. Maybe that's how he handles people who have leads on his location. Puts them in prison by false accusation."

"Then let's follow him, before he gets away!"

We turned back to the door we'd come in, and found it still wide open. There was a moment of self-hatred, thinking we'd just created the killer's escape route. That was the final straw. We charged outside just in time to see a black figure running into another building a short ways away.

"There he is!" Quinto pointed.

The chase was on! We smashed through the door to the building and kept running, absolutely determined not to let this guy get away. We were gaining on the figure, who was still black as a shadow even up close, and then we followed him around a corner...only to hear a scream and see the Knife-baby killer throwing himself over us, knocking us both to the ground.

When I got up, I was no longer in the building, Quinto was no longer there, and the Knife-baby killer was completely out of my memory. The dream continued on as a rather typical false-awakening.

Still no lucid dream, but it's cool non-lucids like this that make me not mind so much  ::D:

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## MadMonkey

Thats a great dream. I love how your dreams are like movies so much that I can even predict whats going to happen next like in a movie you think psht its that guy I had a feeling you were going to be the knife-baby and what a bizar alias. lol Have you played the game Heavy Rain for the ps3 because I think you would realy like it. Just make sure you don't get any spoilers from youtube or it will ruin the game.

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## LiveInTheDream

> Thats a great dream. I love how your dreams are like movies so much that I can even predict whats going to happen next like in a movie you think psht its that guy I had a feeling you were going to be the knife-baby and what a bizar alias. lol Have you played the game Heavy Rain for the ps3 because I think you would realy like it. Just make sure you don't get any spoilers from youtube or it will ruin the game.



LOL I know the alias is so stupid  :Big laugh: 

I haven't played Heavy Rain cuz I don't have a PS3, but I'm determined to go through it someday. I've played Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit, though, which is probably where a lot of this dream came from  :tongue2:

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## LiveInTheDream

Finally, another long and fun-filled lucid dream!!  ::D:  Unfortunately, my dream recall has been at a low point as of late, so I can neither remember every detail nor what order things go in...but I will certainly do my best.

When the dream began, I was simply walking through some store. It wasn't your average store; everything was painted black or a dark gray, and the lights were kept just bright enough to see comfortably. I'm not sure what they were supposed to be selling at this, since I never saw any products anywhere, but there was a single cashier behind a solitary desk.

As I walked through this place, something suddenly bothered my nose. Maybe a fly nearly went up into it or something; I'm not really sure. But I simply reached up and rubbed my nose with the back of my hand, which _should_ have temporarily cut off breathing...but it didn't.

"That felt weird." I thought. "I had better check again."

This time I pinched hard and still breathed in effortlessly. 

"Ok...do I actually get to say it?" I asked myself, realizing with excitement what was going on. "I'm...I'm dreaming! Yes, I'm actually aware of it! I'm dreaming!"

Of course, the first thing that came to mind then was the question of what to _do_ with this dream.

"I need to have a Matrix fight!"

The moment I looked down, I was suddenly no longer myself, but Neo. And when I looked all around the room, doors had appeared in the walls. I took my stance and waited. Within moments, all sorts of people rushed in from them; agents, the Twins, and all kinds of other henchmen, too.

Although the ensuing fight was enjoyable from Neo's perspective, it was altogether far too short. I simply unleashed my dream body in a fury of moves that would be too fast for waking-mind reaction speeds, but as the dream itself was a matter of thought processes, my actions could apparently be just as quick as each electrical signal that formed my environment. This effectively sent people flying everywhere, and when they hit the walls, it was usually hard enough that they did not get back up.

I looked around after the last man was down, saw their bodies laying everywhere, and figured I should move on to something else.

"I should accomplish some dream goal or task of the month. Don't think I'll be doing either of those here, now."

Since I was already Neo, I bent low to the ground, which sent small waves out from under me, just before I shot straight up into the sky, phasing right through the ceiling to get there.

It was night all around me, but I could see a sea sparkling beneath a sky full of stars off to my right, and a city alive with lights in every window to my left.

"Let's see, what was that task of the month? Oh yes. Pyrokinesis. I think I'll skip on the mushroom patch...Neo just doesn't seem to fit in that scene."

I reached my hands up over my head and formed a large flame in between them. Since I had nothing better to burn, I threw it down towards the store I'd just been in and watched it explode as I continued to feed fire into it from the palms of my hands. 

Shortly, however, I came to the realization that my goal had been accomplished, and once again it was far too short. I needed new territory; new people. So I shot off across the sea to my right and planned on just going to whatever place struck me first.

I ended up having much less say in the matter than I had planned on, though. For some reason, soon after crossing the sea and arriving in another city, I began to lose my ability to fly. At first I tried to just change my position a little, but that only sped up my descent. Eventually I was plummeting straight down and I could do nothing to stop it.

My fall ended at a glass roof in someone's apartment. I went crashing through, suddenly myself again and no longer neo. Of course the family that lived there was startled to say the least, and instantly ran to see if I was alright. I'm sure they expected blood and glass wounds, but I only ever saw one piece of glass in me, and as soon as I pulled it out of my arm and passed my hand over it the wound was gone.

From this point on, things get very hazy, which is frustrating, because the longest part of the dream came hereafter. 

I stayed with that family for days (though I didn't see every moment of each day), trying to regain my ability to fly, and also using them as an experiment. Over our time together, I didn't just outright tell them they were part of a dream, but I slowly built up their knowledge of the world until they understood that none of it really existed and that they could bend or break all the rules as they wished. The parents seemed to have a hard time accepting it, only ever being able to do things like move pencils across a table with telekineses. The younger ones, however, caught on quite well, and when I finally did recover my ability to fly, they could easily join me.

There was, however, a LOT involved in all of that; this is one of the longest lucid dreams I've had in a long while. I simply don't remember all the details  :Sad: 

After a while, I went into a false awakening and tried to write down the previous dream. Unfortunately, all I succeeded in was screwing up my recall, since I wasn't truly awake.

It doesn't actually seem like that fun of a dream now that I write it, but while I was going through it it sure seemed enjoyable  :tongue2: 

NOTICE: This shall be the last of my dream journal entries that uses this format. From now on I shall use the new DJ Blog format. I intend to get everything migrated over there, so all these entries will not be lost in the midst of a vast archive, but for nostalgia's sake...so long, my first-ever dream journal!  :smiley:

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