CanisLucidus

This lucid was long enough that I became legitimately concerned about remembering it. This worry wound up being a bit of a downfall, but it still took me in interesting directions.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #57: Gladius and Darkness

I'm experiencing deja vu as I walk through an airport terminal, sure that I've dreamed of this place before. I note all of these little details that I believe my mind left out of the dream version of this place -- the color of the carpeting, the man arguing at the ticket counter, the way that the ceiling curves into a dome in this room. Then I hear the sound of hurried little footsteps. Someone tells me "E is looking for you!" (E is my oldest son.) Now I'm lucid.

I hear E shout playfully from somewhere further down the terminal: "Looking for Daaaaddy!" I know that we're playing hide and seek. I eagerly set off, loving the idea of playing like this in an LD. I move through the terminal and wind up in a series of twisting, narrow office hallways. Other children run by me, possibly engaged in their own games of hide and seek.

As I'm moving through these hallways, a little hand swipes the back of my leg and E declares, "I got Daaaaddy!" I move toward E to scoop him up but he laughs and runs in the opposite direction. I follow but almost immediately I've lost him in the hallways.

I wind up back in the airport terminal and wander through there a while longer before coming to a craft table. Wife is standing at this table wearing a smock and molding some sort of clay. I walk up to the table but she doesn't acknowledge me. I grab a piece of clay and tell her, "I'm having a lucid dream." She responds in essence that I should "show her" what that means. (I don't remember her exact words.)

As I begin molding the clay, it starts foaming and fizzing until the entire surface is covered in a layer of foam. I wipe the foam away bit by bit and underneath is a carved image of a human face. Wife looks astonished. I tell her, "I'm telling you, being lucid is the way to go."

She hands me a round piece of glass. "Make me a picture of a Christmas tree." I nod, take the glass from her, and rub my hand across it once. Instead of a Christmas tree, I produce a little stained glass picture of an eye.

Wife looks at it. "Nice. But that's not a Christmas tree. I thought you said you were having a lucid dream."

A bit baffled, I shrug and say, "I don't know what to tell you." She goes back to her crafts and I walk further along in the airport terminal. I'm loving the experience of being lucid again and I suddenly fret that I'll forget everything that's happened. I try to recall everything that's happened up to this point, but this destabilizes the scene. Everything collapses into darkness.

I remember that Xanous had talked about handling "dark scenes" by acting out some action like riding a bike or running. I want to perform a Task of the Year, so I will myself to have a gladius in my hand. (The gladius is a sword of ancient Rome.) I swing the sword back and forth in the darkness, imagining that I'm locked in a dark tunnel underneath the Colosseum. I can hear the crowd now, and I know that the gates will open any moment to let me out for my match. I'm nervous with anticipation. I try to remember whether I have to kill for this task, and think that I do.



I see a blob of light forming in the corner of my vision. I'm filled with fear and nervous tension. But just as I'm bursting with anticipation, the crowd noise dies down and the blob of light forms into a high window in the hallway of a university. My vision is badly distorted around the edges, almost as if I'm wearing a shredded contact lens.

The window is about 15 feet above me, and I float up to it to start phasing through the glass. The phasing is difficult and awkward. It feels like I'm dragging my body through thick plastic wrap. I finally make it through and then I'm flying over a park in the mid-afternoon. The dream feels thin now, and I fly only a short distance before waking up.

This was the second of two LDs from last night.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #54: Into the Gray Matter

I'm seated on a train, looking out the window as a grassy landscape rolls by. An older lady sits down on the seat directly across from me so that we face each other. She tells me that she’s AH's mom. (AH is a friend from way back that I've lost touch with.) I'd never met her mom before, and we chat pleasantly for a bit. But soon I realize that AH's mother passed away before I'd even met AH herself.

The mother looks at me suspiciously the moment that I become lucid. She starts rocking in her seat, waving her finger at me, and hectoring me about why I chose that seat on the train and what business did I have on her train, anyway? She's speaking to me so aggressively and angrily that I'm taken aback. My fresh lucidity can't bear up and the scene blacks out. I refuse to believe that the LD is over, though, and I wait just a moment before I hear voices.

Through the darkness, I clearly hear Wife saying, “Sorry, guys, it’s time for bed.” I can hear my kids laughing and running around. It’s very loud and sounds incredibly real. Out loud, I say, “I know that I’m still asleep and that this is still a dream.” My voice, too, sounds shockingly real, and I can’t help but worry that I’m saying all of this in waking life as well.

I feel the kids hopping around me on the bed, but I remind myself that this is just my dream body feeling this, not my real one. My son E bounces nearby, gleefully saying, "Daddy's sleepin! Daddy's sleeeeeepin!" It seems so real that I feel like my lucidity is in jeopardy. I raise my voice until I'm almost shouting, "This is a lucid dream" over and over.

Suddenly, the voices stop and I find myself viewing a simple office that contains only a swivel chair and a desk with a hologram projected over the top of it. The hologram is a fully 3-d, semi-transparent projection of a human brain. I find that by thinking about it, I can rotate this hologram to the left or right.

I have no dream body, but as my curiosity grows, I find that I can move my viewpoint throughout the room, and I zoom in close on the brain. My perspective sinks into the brain itself and I zoom closer and closer until finally I can perceive individual synapses. I see neurotransmitters flowing across the synaptic cleft! To me they look like small, clear beads or little bubbles. I wonder what kind of neurotransmitter I'm looking at.

I watch this strange interplay for a moment, wondering whether I’m looking at my own brain or someone else’s. I travel around inside of this brain for a while before I wake up.

A short lucid, but it featured some of the most arresting visual imagery I've encountered so far. I'd wanted to see the Great Pyramid, but this was well beyond what I'd had in mind.

I like to think of my conscious mind as the "coauthor" of my dreams, but sometimes I have to wonder if it's anything more than a proofreader.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #33: The Poolside Pyramid

I'm swimming at a pool party. Rather than relaxing and enjoying the moment, I'm scrubbing furiously at algae blooms along the pool walls while trying to make sure that my two kids are keeping their heads above water. A tall, gray-haired man swims up and makes some unflattering remark about my scrubbing technique. First a flicker of annoyance ("this isn't even my job!"), then one of realization. He stops talking as soon as I'm lucid.

I want to go but I can't make myself leave until I'm sure my kids are safely out of the pool. Fortunately, when I check for them, I see that they've already disappeared. I tell the guy I've got lucid stuff to do and he responds, "Oh sure, man. Go for it."

I fly up out of the pool, thinking vaguely about my goal of reaching the top of the Great Pyramid. I'm shocked when on the horizon I see an entire pyramid complex, fully formed. In front of the Pyramid, in even more vivid detail is the sphinx and a towering statue of an Egyptian Pharaoh. Incredibly, the statue stands even taller than the Pyramid.

Rather than the dull sand-colored stone that I imagine when thinking of the Pyramid today, it's clad in brilliant white. The sphinx's face and body is either painted or perhaps decorated from top to bottom with colored stones, the eyes specifically ringed in deep blue, like lapis lazuli. The statue of the pharaoh is gold, similar in style to King Tut's burial mask.



Everything that I see ahead of me is far, far beyond what I'd incubated (or even imagined) for the Great Pyramid, and I'm thrilled with the idea of exploring it further. A little too thrilled, it seems, because not long after I start flying toward the pyramid complex, I'm awake. My heart rate is elevated (though not quite racing) and I can't seem to settle back in for a DEILD.

Ayiee! Let me back in!