memorable

I don't remember any of my dreams last night, beyond waking up and reminding myself to remember what I'd just dreamed about.

d'oh.

However, while trying to remember at least a few fragments of it, I somehow dredged up an ancient dream from when I was like... 4 or 5 years old.

I was in a store in the mall with my aunt S. It was a clothing store, think of like Ross's but a much older one... the name escapes me... the chain has mostly faded away. I don't think I've seen one in a long time.

Anyway, I lost my aunt somehow. I'm wandering around through the aisles looking for her, when I see a yellow Mylar balloon with a smiley face on it floating in the middle of the aisle I'm looking down. A balloon is interesting, but I'm looking for my aunt. I continue looking down the aisles. When I turn around again, the balloon is behind me, a few feet away.

As I go through the store looking for my aunt, every time I turn around or look down the aisle, the balloon is there. I start to feel like it's following me. It goes from interesting to weird to unsettling.

I finally find my aunt and complain about the balloon. I can't really articulate what's going on or why it's upsetting me, though. Either way, she either doesn't believe me or doesn't care. Little kids say weird shit all the time, after all.

I follow her out of the store and we meet up with my grandmother and my cousin outside in the main area of the mall. There is a giant yacht in the middle of the mall, just sitting there. It's huge. Not quite the size of an ocean liner, but definitely way too big to just be sitting there in a mall. I recall that the lighting in the mall was very dim, and the ground was very... kind of fake brown marbly. Very "generic mall". The yacht was very white.

I wouldn't quite classify it as a nightmare, but I remember that it was an upsetting dream. At the time that I had it, I still didn't have a firm grasp on the idea that dreams are different from reality, so I spent a while believing that a balloon had really chased me around a store. I didn't like Mylar balloons for quite a while after that.

Another lucid last night. Went in and out of full and semi lucidity, but maintained a thread of awareness throughout.

I became lucid while looking in a mirror in a hallway. That is a common thing for me. Mirrors always induce lucidity. They're one of the absolutely fool-proof things for me. The mirror turned out to be in the hallway of one of my home bases, so I started off with the advantage that I was already at least partially anchored. I don't really remember, I think the mirror was near the door to the outside, because I believe that's the door that I opened later on. I should have paid more attention.

Anyway, I immediately tested my suspicion that I was dreaming by attempting to push my arm through the surface of the mirror. There was slight resistance on the surface, and then my arm sank in. The mirror looked like quicksilver as I pushed my arm through it.

Satisfied with the knowledge that I was dreaming, I spent a while playing with my appearance and examining myself in the mirror. I eventually managed to turn myself into more of a caricature of myself than my actual appearance, which I found very entertaining. While I was playing around with my eyes - moving them around, changing the size and shape, etc - I could hear my brother's voice narrating in the background that he at least liked this current character design better than the last (implying that he really didn't like either). I waved it off and kept playing around.

I was really satisfied by my handiwork because I had trouble with this before. I then spent a little bit more time dressing myself up as a sort of elven-looking sorcerer. Just as fun as cosplay, and several hundred dollars cheaper!

After spending some time tweaking my heroic cloak/cape thing (I settled on something asymmetrical and held up on one side by a nice brooch that I own in real life), I decided to meet up with some friends at a tavern.

I opened the door to go outside, and The Blackness happened. Some people call it The Void. Instead of the outdoors or the tavern that I wanted, everything beyond the door was pitch black. I stepped through the door into The Blackness, hoping it would dissipate. Instead, it enveloped me, and everything went dark. I tried vividly imagining my hands and moving them around in front of me. I briefly saw them appear before they faded back into the darkness. Waving them around some more didn't make them reappear.

I decided to try something I have never tried before. Instead of trying to make it go away, I would condense The Darkness into a form where it could no longer impede me.

I held out my hands and tried drawing it into a form in my hands. It didn't work, possibly because I was unable to see my hands.

I then put my hands behind my back and focused on trying to summon it that way. I felt fur and a small warm body. The Darkness disappeared as it was channeled into the form of a cat.

I brought the cat around to the front. It was skinny, with soft shiny black fur and gold eyes. I petted it and set it on the ground, and it ran off.

Now I could see, through the open door, not blackness but the brightly lit inside of the tavern. It had polished wooden floors and brightly burning candles and torches.

I rushed to the booth everybody was sitting in and scooted in. The booths were tall, made of dark stained wood, and seats were made of leather. While we were waiting for our server, I lost the thread of lucidity and the dream faded.

I don't really remember the rest of what I dreamed about that night.

____

I'm pleased that I finally solved a long-standing problem and completed a successful completely-controlled scene change. I've felt so stupid about struggling with these basic things after even several years and the ability to WILD with regular success. I'm looking forward to honing my skills further, as this has been a serious road-block for me.

One thing I can say is that my ability to maintain dream stability and my thread of awareness has gotten SIGNIFICANTLY better.

I've gotten better at WILD, although it took... what... 4 years?

I've found I have much more control over the dream and don't run into the "stuck in the dark" issue that plagues my lucid dreams when I gain awareness during a dream.

I've been horrible about keeping a dream journal, and today I only remember my 2 WILD lucid dreams and not much else. Very lazy of me.

My favorite method for WILD is to explore a specific environment. I have two main fallbacks, two different "home bases". I know a lot of people really want to create a home base. It has been very difficult for me - I had no luck even managing to arrive in my home base for 2 solid years. I think part of it was that my "home" really wasn't a good one and didn't reflect my true personality or needs, and I had to spend a lot of time rearranging and rebuilding it in my head. I have two different ones right now, depending on what I want to accomplish. One is a whimsical home in what looks like the rainforest of the Pacific Northwest, perched on a cliff over the ocean. The other one is a fortress in a rugged landscape that looks a lot like the Grand Canyon, although much more mountainous.


LD #1: Woke up. Had to use the bathroom. Went back to bed.
Began my visualization of home #1... I was on the sandy beach below the cliff. I walked up and down the beach in my mind, focusing on all of the sensations that would go with it - the sound of the waves, the sound of the wind, the feel of the sand beneath my feet and even the slight whisper it made when I walked. How my footprints looked. The sky and horizon over the ocean, and the smell of salt on the breeze. Eventually, the sound of gulls over the water.

I looked back toward my house. There are steep stairs that lead up from the beach to the top of the cliff - they're made from the stones themselves. I walk across the beach to the steps and start climbing upward toward the house. The stones feel solid beneath my feet.

By the time I reach the top of the cliff, the dream has solidified into a lucid dream, although it still feels very fragile. I spend some time on the terrace at the top of the cliff looking out across the beach and ocean, and marvel at how beautiful it is.

I have a feeling that there are some friends nearby heading toward my house, so I move through the bedroom (which has a door leading to the terrace) and then the kitchen area. Things are fuzzy and I've made the mistake of not stabilizing very well because I'm anxious to greet my friends.

I open the front door. The rainforest outside is cool and misty. Wooden steps create a trail upward through the foliage. I can hear their voices in the distance, it sounds like two of them are arguing with each other.

Two of my friends appear at the top of the steps and start heading downward... I can still hear the others arguing with each other, although they're still out of sight somewhere further up the trail.

All of this is very distracting. The dream is too thin at this point, and it fades. I wake up.

LD #2:
I wake up naturally. It's early morning... light outside, but earlier than I'd like to get out of bed. I don't really remember the dreams I just had.

I lie back and begin another visualization; this time, I'm exploring the fortress. The fortress is a very new idea, interesting and a bit more grim. I wander around through some nondescript rooms... I haven't really developed the place much... and eventually become lucid in an area with ugly lemon yellow walls that really don't look very fortressy. I'm sort of irritated since I'd rather be somewhere more fitting for what I'd like, and more interesting. The hall I'm going down twists and turns but doesn't lead anywhere, and I'm becoming more irritated.

I run across a woman wearing a very old-fashioned maid outfit (not like a sexy French maid, think a traditional English maid) but she's very... zombielike. I think I said something to her, and she replied in a monotone. Her eyes were white and milky-looking. I don't like her and don't want to deal with zombies, so I destroy her (with a thought, she basically becomes a blood spatter across the walls and floor).

I run across one of the dream characters who'd normally inhabit this fort (he's a general) but everything is foggy so I don't recall any specifics about him... I need to work on him a little more... and complain about the zombie. He tells me that he and another dream character zombified all of the inhabitants and servants in the fortress when they took it over, so they wouldn't have to deal with any opposition by them but the fortress was kept running and in pretty decent repair. He doesn't care much about convenience and upkeep for himself - he doesn't need that stuff - but the way he sees it, it's more convenient for me. It's sort of evil and disturbing, but it IS something I'd expect that character to do, and he does have a good point.

This wasn't something I came up with myself... I was a little surprised by it, actually. I still don't really like the zombies, but I don't want to argue with that particular dream character very much - he's very stubborn - so I let the zombie thing slide.

As I head toward the main door that leads outside of the fortress, the dream falls apart and I wake up.

Non-Lucid: Rat Circus
Prior to my lucid, I had a regular dream. In it, a bunch of hamster, mice, and rats took care of a bunch of human babies that lived inside of an aquarium. Somehow, something happened and the aquarium was contaminated with radiation. The rats were distraught, since a hazmat team had sealed off the aquarium. They managed to save all but one of the babies.
The aquarium was in an apartment that one of the rats owned. For some reason, some other rats (and a mole? I can't remember) dug up his garden. They would do this by digging holes under it at night and grabbing vegetables by the roots. The mole could also turn into a sort of sentient gas if he needed to.
Anyway, after the whole aquarium baby fiasco, another group of rats decided to build a tiny circus in a corner of the parking lot. There is sort of a time lapse sequence as the circus is built and illuminated, until there is a bustling rat city built around it. I woke up bewildered. I have weird dreams, but that one is pretty up there.

Lucid: The Cottage:
I settled back into bed and did my relaxation exercises on my back. Once I had begun working on my trance, I very slowly rolled onto my side and began visualization exercises. As with the prior night, I began the exercise where I explore my cottage (a location I have been "building" as a placeholder to get kicked back to, rather than something like the void or my bedroom or a stupid laundromat in Nebraska).

As I continued the visualization slowly gathered intensity. Lucidity actually snuck up on me on this one, since I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I didn't notice my body falling asleep, and the change was so gradual that I didn't realize the dream had fully formed until I looked around and realized that I was actually standing in a hallway rather than imagining that I was standing in a hallway.

I decided to explore in earnest. The floors were polished wood, sort of a dark honey color. I decided that I needed to find a mirror so I could reinforce my lucidity. I turned to my left and went through a door.

I found myself in a small alcove right before you enter the great-room, and there was a small wooden table against the wall, of the sort you would put in an alcove. It was dark wood, with turned table legs, and on top of it was a porcelain bowl with potpourri in it. Above it was an oblong oval mirror with a baroque-looking gold frame. This wasn't exactly what I'd envisioned (the furniture was a little more elaborate and fussy than I'd normally pick out). They both looked like antiques, though, so maybe it was the antique-lover in me.

Anyway, when I looked in the mirror, I saw that I was wearing a green-gold bodice with a cream colored chemise and green skirts. My hair was chin-length, and it was red, but it looked like I had a bad dye job. I laughed at how bad my hair looked and made some faces in the mirror before reminding myself that I didn't want to get too fascinated by mirrors again.

I went into the great room. The walls were white plaster. The floor in front of the fireplace was stone. The fireplace itself was made of irregular stones, fitted together. The fireplace had moved from where I initially imagined it. I decided to find the DC I'd been looking for (because I have some questions for them) but I didn't see them. I went through a door to my right, where there was a small den, but he wasn't there. Since the den also connected to the kitchen area, which led back into the great room, I decided that I would simply wander around the cottage in circles until he did appear. Lo and behold, on my second lap, there he was.

He looked different from the DC I recalled, far different, so I was a little irritated. I couldn't decide whether or not he actually was that DC. For one thing, he had very short hair, and it was a chestnut color rather than ash blond, and in sort of a faux-hawk. I told him that he didn't look the way I expected, and asked him to at least change his hair.

He responded, "I'm a warrior and I don't want long hair. It gives my enemies something to grab in combat." I actually couldn't argue with the logic of that, to tell you the truth. I took my glasses off and put them on again (made things blurry and then clear again, basically) and every time I did this, his face would shift a little bit. His eyes were kind of a dark blue-green. I still couldn't decide if this was the DC I wanted, and how much I could rely on his answers to any questions I asked him, so I decided to wander around the cottage a little more.

I crossed through the great room and opened the door. Rather than the snowy forest from before, or the temperate rainforest I was expecting, instead the rolling landscape was more like the Shire. It was bright and sunny out, and the sky was a pretty shade of blue, with white puffy clouds. There were some hanging planters full of flowers hanging over the door and windows. They were red and blue, and I don't know what kinds of flowers they were, but they spilled over the sides of the planters. I smelled them, but they didn't smell like much of anything.

I decided to go find Grimalkin (he is a cat in a wizard hat). I figured he might be in the kitchen, because he likes hanging out there. I went into the kitchen, and he wasn't there. I could feel that the dream was drawing to a close, so I wanted to find him quickly.

"Grimalkin?" I called. Immediately, as if in reaction to my attempt to summon him, the dream lost intensity. It became a ghost of what it had been. I tried to restore the intensity of the dream, but didn't have much luck. I could already feel that I was on the verge of waking up, so I let it go.

I woke up and looked at the clock. I'd slept a solid 8 hours, although my alarm wouldn't go off for another 30 minutes. I tried to doze, but my brain seemed to have decided that it had had enough sleep for the night, so I got up and made coffee.

August 27, 2008:
One of my rare positive dreams.

I was sleeping in my mother's room on her bed for this one, which isn't usual for me but her bed is softer and my back hurt a lot.

As I was beginning to fall asleep I started to dream that shadowy grey figures were shuffling around the bed, they were wearing grey cloaks and had veils over their faces. I was sort of scared but then another figure appeared who was a humanoid with golden hair, and announced himself as a "golden" something, at which point a bubble of light began to expand from our bodies to fill the room. The shadowy figures couldn't withstand this and disintegrated. The light filled all of the corners of the room and then expanded beyond it and my new friend and I flew around inside of a bubble of light. He demonstrated that he could expand or contract the bubble, and then the dream faded into the blackness that's usually deep sleep for me.

Original entry dated 03/20/2006:

According to C, the other day (night) I had what we have come to call an 'episode'...
I sleepwalk, I do it very very VERY rarely. I also talk in my sleep, a little bit more often (sometimes I can actually tell that I'm asleep and I'm talking in my sleep but I can't actually do anything about it).

She was worried since I was going on 15 hours of being asleep. So she yelled toward my bedroom for me to wake up. My response was, apparently (I don't remember this) to get out of bed, walk from my bedroom to the couch, and lie down on the couch. Apparently I actually said a few sentences to her (she didn't say what) and went back to sleep on the couch.
After a while, I got up off of the couch, and I was waving my arms and muttering/talking. When she asked me what I'd said, I angrily replied, "I'm not talking to YOU." and went back into my bedroom, lay down, and went back to sleep.

This reminds me vaguely of an incident that I DO partly remember, about a year and a half ago. At some point, something startled me out of bed, I don't remember what. I remember a very loud, disorienting ringing/buzzing noise. I lived alone at the time. I ran around my apartment, panicking, unable to fully wake up (I realized that I was half-asleep but could not fully bring myself to consciousness - I could barely think at all), running in circles and throwing things around. I vaguely remember that I was searching for clothing to put on so that I could escape my apartment and run outside. Thankfully, two things prevented me from doing this: 1. I realized, even in my barely-awake state, that I was undressed (tshirt and underwear) and could not go outside in that state, and 2. I was too disoriented to find clothing, much less put it on, before the episode subsided and I crawled back in bed. I recall that it only lasted a few minutes (5, at the most) and that as soon as the deafening humming/ringing subsided, I went back to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I thought that perhaps the fire alarm had gone off, but upon asking my neighbors, they said that no fire alarms (including the smoke alarm in my apartment) had gone off the night before. My mother ironically suggested that I had been dreaming.