Lucid Time!

This is from awhile ago. Probably sometime in late august of this year. I only remembered it because of the dream journal autosave function.

I was at the grocery store; my old workplace from 2018ish. I had just clocked off a shift when I was approached by a group of shady-looking people in a black pickup truck. They were a high profile drug cartel and had asked me to be a drug mule for them in exchange for a briefcase full of cash. I had completed the mission, delivered the drugs to the recipient and was about to get paid. They slammed the briefcase shut, and their leader explained they planned to turn me into the cops. Basically explaining how I was an idiot to think they would pay me, and that they intended to turn me over to the police for being a part of their operation, to throw them off the trail since I didnt have any connections to their group.

Nonlucid brain of course freaks out (instead of realizing that guy was probably screwing himself because I knew what his gang looked like, what car they drove, and where I had picked up the drugs from and who I had given them to, and that they had no evidence against me.) I start screaming and jumping up and down like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Then Manei pulls up in an old rusty red pickup truck and I completely forget about that plotline. She's really upset, borderline crying and I ask her to explain wny. She tells me to look in the back of the truck so I do. Its about 20 black cats, including one litter of kittens. She's super worked up because black cats are seen as tokens of bad luck and nobody wants to adopt them so she had to rescue them herself.

-+-

I am involved in some sort of lucid dream war. The full story eludes me but I am in an OTD area that is mostly farm fields and forests, and I am partially lucid. Most of the combatants in the group are fairly typical soldiers with modern gear and standard rifles and stuff; a couple of tanks and other armored vehicles. But there are more exotic combatants rolled in there. One guy is a pyromancer or firebender of some sort wearing some kind of robe or gown. A few of the soldiers are wearing camo-painted powered armor and using more futuristic weapons. The leader of this group is like a big leopard in a power suit with a humanoid body weilding a plasma battleaxe.

We are fighting against hordes of black and gray zombies with glowing red eyes. They come out of the field which is some kind of burial ground like zombies and we are gunning them down before they can get close. Then a big three-headed dragon comes out, its stature and body structure reminding me of king ghidorah. One of the armored vehicles fires a volley of missiles and the dragon roars but doesn't seem to have taken any significant injury. It lunges at our formation, biting down on soldiers who are firing on it in futility. Its centermost head lets out a roar which carries with it an aura of terror. I feel this 'aura' of fear somewhat but resist the urge to run away. Most of the force scrambles away.

The leopard man isn't phased. He jumps onto the dragon's head and holds onto one of its horns. Then begins one-handedly chopping at its neck. He actually manages to get off one of its three heads before the dragon grabs his arm in its mouth and shakes him around before throwing him across the field into a tree. His arm had torn off and the dragon ate it. Leopard man prepares to make a last stand. I summon my amethyst bow and kill the giant dragon by shooting an arrow into each of its two remaining heads. It then begins burning away in a manner very reminiscent of how a dragon would die in Skyrim and I absorb some power from it. I go help the leopard warrior get up despite him being battered and bloody and missing one arm. When I do I get a feeling from him. That he is an exceedingly proud warrior that refuses to quit fighting until he either dies or wins. I wanted to tell him he did a good job and that he should go find a medical camp, but knew he wouldn't listen no matter how I tried to convince him.

The remainder of our battered group continues to advance. We get into this grassy field surrounded by a wooden fence with this old abandoned farmhouse and fog closes in. There is a bit of a creepy atmosphere. Then this bug Sauron looking guy comes out with a giant sword and shield. Raiah (yes my original character) says "I've got something special for this freak" and shoots a matter disintegrator bolt from her robot arm. He blocks with his shield though it does make the shield glow red and orange where it hits. I tell everyone to stand back and let me handle this.

I use my upgraded form. I'm very familiar with it now and I notice that. "I must have gotten used to it in dreams I don't remember anymore." I say to myself before I roar at him and then charge. There wasn't any real martial arts or strategy. I just rushed him and grabbed his hand holding the sword to prevent him from using it. We wrestle for a bit, as we twist and torque one another in various ways we get pushed through the farmhouse destroying the middle section leaving just the front and back wall and a little section of roof. His armor is covered with spikes and blades and its difficult to wrestle him without something poking or cutting me. Wrestling him is exhausting. Eventually I get him pinned and manage to pull his helmet off. He is just an old bully from junior high. I then grab him by the neck and pull him out of the armor, but do so in a way that doesn't injure or discomfort him. His body is normal sized and doesn't even fill a portion of the armor's torso, and all the armor breaks away when I remove him.

Last night:

I went to bed meditating on the idea that I seem to have developed a rather adversarial relationship with myself, and that since very early in my lucid dreaming career I have struggled with dream characters being directly and openly opposed to me being lucid. I think this epiphany was at least partially motivated by the "lucid dream war" being the crescendo of a very long lineage of dreams about fighting hostile dream characters. I have also struggled with myself reacting violently against dream characters when it is unwarranted. I resolved that it may be a roadblock that is keeping me from having more frequent and more enjoyable lucid dreams, and that I wanted to remedy this.

I was walking in a park. The park is on a big sloping hill overlooking a beach with neatly mowed grass and trees surrounding it on three sides. There is a large parking lot near the top of the open grass area with cars parked in it and a small modern/futuristic cafe style building made out of glass, curved steel tubes and suspension wires that sort of hangs out over the slope. It kind of reminds me of half of a suspension bridge sticking out over the steeply sloping park with two levels of decks with chairs and dream characters sitting on them eating and talking. There is also a black paved walking trail that snakes back and fourth heading down towards the beach.

I am walking along the black walking path thinking about how I should not be here, that it is a long way to get back to work. I then question where I am and become lucid. A family approaches me. Two children and two adults. They feel familiar and inform me that they have missed me and want to know when I might be able to come over and see them. Though there is an unspoken subtext that this implies they want to meet me in lucid dreams again. I respond with something to the effect of "I'll come see you soon" which similarly has an unspoken subtext that I have been seriously considering getting back on the lucid dreaming wagon. I acknowledge that I am accomplishing my goal of having positive interactions with dream characters.

Another dream character comes along with several dogs on leashes. They all look like labradors in various colors and are all quite large. As the dream character walks by the dream scene shifts. I am underneath a stairwell in a basement somewhere; the walls are plywood and 2x4 studs, with all of the dogs but not the dream character. There is very little free space and the dogs become agitated. I try to convince myself that they are just excited to see me and not aggressive, though I didn't thoroughly convince myself.

I am then back in the park scene, now on the inside portion of the cafe. I am holding a black and white cat with long fur, holding it on its back with belly and paws up. The cat is agitated and aggressive. It is hissing at me and trying to claw me and so I try to hold it in a different position. I try to put it down. None of these options work. My arms are not responding. Despite still being at least partially lucid I am now only an observer with no ability to act or speak.

The cat is still aggressive and hissing. But now it is breathing heavily and makes a sort of loud irritating squeaking/wheezing sound when it does. Each time it breathes in its eyes and paw pads, which are jet black, swell up slightly then shrink. But each time the cat breathes in they swell a little bigger and don't shrink quite as much. There is a fearful sort of tension, as though this sounds absurd, in the context of the dream it was a rather disturbing and grotesque phenomenon. I try to channel positive energy into the cat, sensing that it is suffering. I try to break free of the situation and just do anything on my own volition, but I'm now only a lucid observer. A dream character starts laughing at me. I pull my rip cord and tell myself that this is becoming a nightmare, and I want to wake up.

Too late. The cat's eyes and pawpads pop, splattering me and the surrounding dream characters with black tar. Everyone starts running and screaming. The black tar burns my skin and I am filled with a horrible terror as gooey sort of spider-like parasites crawl out of its eyes. I finally finish awakening and the dream fades out, though with the emotional intensity I probably would have woken up anyway.