Awake to take in the view...

1. (Fragment) I was waiting in a line somewhere.
2. Woke up, couldn't recall anything, decided to write down "No recall" in order to keep the habit going. It should be automatic anytime I wake up.
3. (Fragment) Man, that Disney trip I took earlier this month must've really permeated into my subconscious. I dreamed that I was at the Disney parks buying merch. In parentheses, I have written (x2-3). I do not remember what this means.
4. Full Lucid DILD: Here we go. I woke up at 5 AM, but my alarm wasn't until 5:15 AM, so I went back to sleep and immediately slipped into this dream.

Started out non-lucid. I was walking around San Diego, carrying a large body pillow with an anthropomorphic character on it. I was feeling rather self-conscious, like WHY do I have this and WHY am I walking around town with it?

A car drove by and I felt even more embarrassed, like can't I at least take this thing back to my hotel room?

Then I thought "Ah yes, I can teleport. I will teleport back to the hotel room now."

So I did.

I appeared back in the hotel room. There were bottles of lotion (of course ) and unpacked luggage in a pretty big room, and my cousin's stuff was there too. Great, so now my cousin is going to know about this giant body pillow.

I then idly realized that teleporting is not a thing that can happen in waking reality. Hmm... OH --

-- LUCIDITY.

So, my first instinct was to teleport again, onto a roller coaster. It was wooden. As I was going up the lift hill, T. was there in the seat next to me. We were not in the front seat -- closer to the back.

I then remembered -- oh yes, the competition, and my 3-step tasks! I summoned a clarinet and immediately played an F-concert scale (G Major in clarinet transposition) on the roller coaster. Then I played some random crap; I can't remember what.

My brain was not entirely clear -- I remember thinking "well I don't want to drop the clarinet off the roller coaster" but then logic snapped back into place. The scene was somewhat fuzzy, and not as vivid as I might have hoped. I was going to start stabilizing, and then figured I would try flying after I had finished on the roller coaster. But, then my alarm went off.

(It was nice and cold in my room, which is rare, because I live with my brother who is always cold, whereas I am always hot. Apparently, he finally didn't touch the thermostat. :v I think that helped a lot with my sleep quality.)
___

I also finally signed up for the DreamViews Discord server. I didn't realize we had one, even though it has presumably been linked up top for a long time. I had already hit the Nitro limit of 200 servers (thanks ADHD) but finally found an inactive one that has been mostly dead since 2021 that I didn't mind leaving.

...And the secret was getting 7.75 hours of sleep, apparently. I'm going to try and continue this trend. Regardless of how intense the week is, I will do my best to get enough sleep on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Which, for me, will be hugely beneficial I think.

So here's a list of all the many dreams I have recalled from last night:

Dream 1: Non-lucid; experienced during first 20 minutes of sleep. I fell asleep at roughly 12:10 AM, and had a dream about hanging out with my sister, my brother or friend (I think?), and a friend of my sister's. My sister went to use the bathroom, and the other guy I was with was talking with me and her friend. We were talking about her, but I don't precisely remember what we were talking about specifically. When she finished using the bathroom, she came out and said "You know I heard you while I was in there", because IRL my sister really does have good hearing. So maybe it was something embarrassing, but I don't really know for sure. I woke up and it was only 12:32 AM, so my brain had apparently launched me pretty quickly into REM again for some reason.

Dream 2: Non-lucid, but very close to lucidity. Good vs. evil! A giant snake was trying to kill me and two other people. However, my stuffed snake, Snakey, my tulpa, and I were destined to save us all! (I actually do have a stuffed snake, and he is actually named Snakey. He is the coolest. However, he is at my parent's house right now. :p In the dream, he had become real.) We prayed that we would be able to triumph over the snake. Then, we felt like we should just will it away, because -- get this -- we recognized that it was only in our heads and wasn't actually real. This one was SO CLOSE to being lucid, because of that realization, but not quite! We willed it away, and it worked!

Dream 3: Non-lucid. This is a fuzzier dream that I experienced during what felt like deeper sleep. Arguably it would've been significantly harder to become lucid during this one because of this fact. This one occurred in the middle of the night, if I recall correctly. IRL, I work part-time as a computer science TA at my university, helping students debug Java and Android programs. In this dream, the other TAs and I apparently "did not want to stop believing OR coding". I believe some malevolent individual was trying to get us to stop believing in God or something and also stop programming. Someone said that he would kill us all if we didn't do this. He had an army of supporters to back him up. Then, it faded and we were in a theme park. I dream a LOT about theme parks. Anyway, we were on the rides, but I was watching from a distance despite being on a ride technically myself. (?) Some of my fellow TAs were riding on a white roller coaster. The evil guy's plan was to hack into all the rides while we we're still on them, and somehow harm us. Maybe shut them down. I don't really know. I was worried for the others. Then, it faded again, and we were on a revolving turntable, much like the turntable by the roundhouse in Thomas the Train, but indoor and stark and depressing. I got onto it, and the evil guys had surrounded us. However, I somehow knew that we were going to be safe, and we were saved. I don't remember how.

Dream 4: Non-lucid. I was in a lecture hall of some sort for artists. The lady teaching was trying to tell us that 3D artists should NOT learn to draw or digitally paint, because apparently it would actually make us worse, since it would take time away from learning how to model and render a scene. I was really ticked because I definitely disagree with that philosophy, and I believe that the general 3D community would agree with me.

Dream 5: The DILD! Sort of. I didn't have a specific reality check that worked this time. But when I sleep 8 hours or close to it, my body starts waking up more and more as my actual wakeup time approaches. I will often physically wake up to use the bathroom or get a drink of water, and then go back to sleep for a while longer. This is the most natural thing for me. As I do this, I have more and more dreams, and more and more REM sleep. Then, I am much more likely to recall dreams, and also much more likely to become lucid. Hard work pays off, guys!

First, I was on the internet. Some girl said that she had recently had a week-long paid internship with Disney, where they were basically paid to ride rides all day long. They were supposed to observe the culture of theme parks, or something. Then, I suddenly found myself on a cart or truck thing going to a theme park. It was presumably Disney, but there were a lot of rides that Disney definitely doesn't have IRL. All these other people were on the truck, too, but they were official interns and wore brown vests. I was there, but I didn't have a vest, so apparently I wasn't an official intern. I was worried I'd get in trouble for being on the truck despite not being officially hired, and wasn't sure how I even got there in the first place. My mom and my brother were there, too. And neither of them had vests. I went to go sit by my mom, but as I sat down beside her, she disappeared. I felt that she was still there, but had no idea why she had just randomly become invisible. Also, the seats were tiny, so my butt barely fit on them. We were in the back of the truck, in the open air with just a pavilion thing over us. So if it would have been raining, we would've been sheltered, but we still got fresh air.

We kept riding in the truck, looking at the rides that we would soon ride. I then realized that I was dreaming, because Disneyland does not look like that IRL. Too many thrill rides. Well, that and my mom randomly disappearing.

So I sat by my brother, and told him, "I think we're in a dream right now." And he said something like "We definitely could be. Is everything out of focus?" I said that yes, everything most certainly was out of focus. So he said that it probably was a dream. Suddenly, instead of being inside of a truck, it was just me and him and the (inferred) driver inside of an SUV or a Jeep Cherokee or something, and there were suddenly windows. So I clambered out the window, which was partially rolled down, and flew towards one of the rides!

It was a water ride with boats that looked like Perilous Plunge, an old ride from Knott's Berry Farm that I never actually went on. It went inside of a brown artificial mountain, and it was super cool. But just as I was about to reach a boat to get on it, I woke up. D: NOOOOOO!

The dream was still fuzzy, too. I wish it was more vivid, but mentally I was so close to awakening that I did accidentally wake myself up. -_-

Also, my notes read "still had sizzle". Nope, no idea what I meant by that. o.o

Dream 6: I tried to re-enter the previous dream, but to no avail. I do have a note that said "she knew I wanted it lol." Don't recall what that means, but I can guarantee you that it was not appropriate.

Dream 7: I had a dream. There may have been a girl but I can't really read my notes. This was more like a fragment. My alarm woke me up before I could get any further.

And that's it.

First remembered dream of the new year (so two nights ago, Dec. 31-Jan. 1): I was at an art store, possibly Michael's or something similar, buying supplies. My calculus teacher was there, working as a cashier for some reason. In the dream, I had a memory of recently receiving a math lesson from him, like the day before or something. I asked him for some clarification on a concept, and he explained it. So essentially he was doing two jobs at the same time.

I also saw lots of girls in the shop wearing DeviantArt T-shirts and some guys as well.

Then, it faded into watching some sailors load stuff into a ship. My dream journal reads this, exactly: "Apparently, people who wear jeans are more depressed because sailor boys had a depressing job, despite appearing happy, and they wore Levis and black jackets." This was apparently a thought that occurred to me during the dream which seemed perfectly rational at the time. :p

Then Jafar from Aladdin appeared, cackling evilly. It freaked me out so much that I woke up. Silly, as in waking life he's just a fun Disney villain. But I think the cackle was what did it. Or the spontaneity.

Last night, I have the following note on my phone at 6:06 AM: "New traveling companion who exists neither in space nor in time." I was excited to meet this individual, but then my alarm went off. -_-

Ah. I really don't want to start college again in a week. Not that I dislike it or anything, but the stress and lack of sleep....aaaaugh!