memorable

I recalled this dream upon awakening at 6am:

In this dream I took an iT class. The instructor was a feminist, and I was her favorite student.

I befriended a male fellow student, and during breaks we would go to restaurants together. he was color blind, and could not tell green and blue apart. After the final day of the course was over, he said he could not join me at a restaurant because he had other plans. I followed him for a while, but then gave up, and found a restaurant of my own to dine in.

There was too much cigarette smoke. I sat down. A little girl sat down next to me. She had a binder of art supplies, so I showed her that I also had an art supplies binder much like hers. Another girl came. She stood there next to us. She noticed a really cool sticker that was kind of 3D lying on the bench beside me. The new girl wanted to have the sticker. And the girl sitting next to me wanted it too. But there was only one sticker.

I contemplated whether to tell them that neither of them could have it because it was probably forgotten there by some other little girl who might return for it. Or whether to use Salomon's solution: suggest that we divide the cool sticker in half, and see whether either girl is willing to part with the entire sticker rather than to distort it by dividing it.

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I could have sworn I remembered another dream at same time upon wake up, but it disappeared.

Side note: That last part of the dream made me smile because it is about such a typical parenting dilemma. I've got two boys not two girls, and in the dream the girls were not supposed to be mine, but this situation is one that as a parent I have encountered many a time: there is only one and of course both want it.

Around 12:30 (so only after first sleep cycle of the night) woke up with this dream:

It was decided that I shall have a baby, but I do not give birth but receive e baby fully formed. She is a baby girl. there are issues: too much light falling on the cradle, too much movement of the cradle contraption that she sleeps in. For a moment the baby in the contraption in light looks otherworldly.

I need to cover the baby with some sort of rigid screen so she is out of sight. To access her, I need to go around her cradle. On the other side is the bed of her Hindu nanny and the Nanny's son. The nanny accuses me of my being there means that her services are no longer needed. I reassure her that they are, but that I just need to nurse the baby. they are surprised that I wish to nurse her.

For a moment the baby seems too old to be a baby, and maybe threatening looking. She can talk! First she says she needs to go to the bathroom, but when she realizes that I meant to nurse her, she is ravished. First she latches onto my arm, apologizes, and latches onto my breast instead. I am confused as to her age. Is she a baby who can talk, or is she older and if so, should I nurse her? But why would she be that small if she is older. Andher eyes appear wiser than her apparent age.
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I believe this dream tone metaphorical: are my ideas old or new? Do they threaten others? Am I right to nurture these ideas? they can speak for themselves, and yet are helpless without my nurture. I think this dream was inspired by discussions of spirituality on DV.

Also I have been reading Greek mythology to my sons, and the idea of fully formed daughter (Athena) and baby that can talk (Hermes) was probably based on that.

A mother of a grown daughter who wanted to control her daughter too much came to me to change her name to one of the mother's choosing. I realized that it did not matter what I did, so I said to the daughter. "You can do whatever you like. You control your own fate. You can choose your own name." The daughter's eyes opened wide - she was very surprised.

I believe this dream was almost lucid:
(1) I realized that it did not matter what I did. Why? One possibility is that part of me realized that there would be no negative consequences of my defying the mother. Why? Could it be I realized it was a dream on some level? I think this was not lucid because I did not realize it consciously not that I recall, but this was close. Interestingly, when I realized that "it did not matter what I did", I chose to do the right thing.
(2) What I told the daughter is what you would tell someone to help them become lucid: You can do what you like. You are in control here.
(3) There was a sense of empowerment to this scene which was almost like in a lucid dream.

Dream sign: This was not my only dream about the power of a name!

Went to bed around 10:00pm

11:30 kidnapper in a car garage in our van wants to take my kids - I retaliate, I rescue the kids, I prepare to fight using martial arts which i don't know in real life. I felt sure that I would win. I don't remember dreaming the actual fight - i think the dream ended on my intension to fight and sureness of winning. It felt very empowering. A surprisingly vivid dream for this early in the night. A typical mother protects her kids dream.

"12-30 this us a reas," - at first I assumed that I was not awake enough to make sense while typing. But now given my struggles with typing in the morning, I assume that I just did not double heck the result. It could have been a clear sentence in my mind.

4:00 cannot remember anything and distracted by my husband while trying to recall

4/16/2013 recorded outside of dreamviews first - late morning dream after awakening after each sleep cycle with no other memories

I was interviewing for a job with an elderly lady in her home, which was like a fancy mansion. Out of some reason i had the down comforter with me - for comfort? I was shown from a hallway to a living room / salon. The comforter stayed in the hallway. Another woman left just as I arrived, and she was going for another job interview and worried whether she looked good in the yellow blouse - it was very canary yellow, but suited her. The old woman among other things asked me to take dictation using a video which told me what to write. I tried, but then admitted defeat: I was making too many mistakes, not catching up, and the next set of dictation was going to be even harder. I said that I seldom write with a pen any more, and I don't type well fast either - never had to. But I do regularly use the computer and also type on my phone, but generally not dictation. I realized that the reason why she had me do dictation was that when she interviewed for a job decades ago that's what she would do. It showed a difference in generations: what was expected of a woman in a job interview. I expected that I had failed the interview, but to my surprise, I got a job offer. She realized that dictation was not needed for this job, and she liked me.


I think even though this dream was set at a job interview though I decided that I am not actively looking now after all for now, I think this dream is actually about my desire to be accepted by others for who I am despite faults. I think the setting was a home not an office because this dream was personal not official.

Angie is a friend of mine whom I have not seen in person since we were eightteen, and we really were close friend when we were sixteen. She lives in Europe, I live in the US. We are Facebook friends.

In my dream I had been invited to Angie's birthday party, and was eager to go. However, I kept getting confused: when is the party? Is it today or tomorrow? Check on phone. Tomorrow. When is it? Am I in the car now because I am driving there? If so, I don't have a present. No, the party is on Friday, and today is Thursday (in my dream).

Will I even need to drive there? Couldn't I just walk? But it will be late at night, and the party is barely walking distence. Could my mother drive me there? As long as she stays in the car: it would be awkward if she came in, unlike for that other party of another friend where that was ok.

I am not entirely sure whether I was an adult or a teen in this dream. I think it may have switched from adult to teen in mid-dream.

I was not aware not even a bit, even though with all that confusion I should have questioned that something was wrong. I kept not remembering from one moment to the next when that party will be. When I thought of walking at night, I briefly visualized that, too, but it did not raise any weirdness flags. The dream was quite vivid however. A prime example that vividness and awareness are so separate.

Even though this dream was about DV conversation, the characters appeared visually like real not just as text. However, I do not remember what any of the dream character representation of DV members looked like.

I just remember the last bit:

TiredPhil (speaking in animated anger to another DV member): "You know it's obvious who is going to help me take lucidity up a level, and help me achieve a higher level of enlightenment."

I dreamed that I was awake at night. Perhaps had gone to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water or something. When suddenly I realized there was an intruder in our house: a black man with a flashlight. Interestingly enough even though he did have a flashlight which was on, the lights in the room were also on, so I could clearly see everything (in fact I think that's why my dream mind decided to have the lights on).

(Side note: why was he black? Is my subconscious racist? Did he just happen to be black? Have I been conditioned by society to fear black men more, so that an intruder is more scary if black? I am white btw.)

He was on the younger side of middle aged, looked clean and clean shaven, and made the impression of being smart and surprisingly well off for someone who chose to burgle homes at night. He was wearing a clean sweater that looked good on him. He seemed fit, not athletic, but slim and healthy looking - like he took care of himself.

He was clearly here just looking for valuables: a burglar. He was very surprised to see me. He stopped and stared at me in shock, and said something like "What the heck? This has never happened before." He was clearly unprepared to face an awake inhabitant of the house. He did not seem aggressive, and just seemed to be thinking of what to say and do next.

Meanwhile I was terrified. I realized I expected that he would rape me. Next thing I know I am lying on my back on the floor with my knees up, even though I had been standing a moment ago, and the dream does not even bother to provide a transition. The burglar looks at me clearly confused and disturbed by my actions, as if he wanted to say "What are you doing woman?" He does not appear to have any intensions to rape me. he appears to be a cultured gentleman burglar.

This however does not diminish my fear. Next thing I know I wake up still horrified.

Side note: Why I had this dream: On DV some woman questioned why do rape victims make such a big deal out of it - a statement which kind of shocked me. Then on Facebook a friend of mine posted an interesting article about a professor teaching high school kids how not to rape, an article I read last evening, and someone else also posted a rape related comment because of News of course.

Upon waking part of me wondered whether the reason why I assumed the position was because part of me wanted to be raped in my dream. But no, I don't think so, my reaction was definitely sheer fear not any anticipation. I assumed the position in my dream because of the simple expectations cause effect in dreams.

Reassuringly enough my burglar's personality was such that I believe I was in no danger of actually being raped, even if I had not woken up. He seemed to be evaluating my reaction, and judging me to be a very confusing and ridiculous woman. So it was all in my head. My DC was not actually threatening, despite the potentially dangerous situation. Maybe given his personality I should not have expected him to try to rape me, but rather expected him to invite me to sit down with him at the table and calmly discuss the consequences: whether he could persuade me to please not call the police.

On another note: this was a very vivid dream. I think the vividness was enhanced by and also helped cause the intense emotions.

This dream was about a dreamviews thread on what are the odds this is a dream! Completely non-lucid and no sense of self - I was "reading" not participating.

Here is a fragment of my dream thread - there actually were user names but I forgot which:

...
[user1] This is not a dream, not weird enough.
[user2] Ah but we are not aware of all that is going on - not remembering all. If we backfill for all missing data points, then there is so much weirdness, that chances are high this is a dream!
....

First of all, a dream in which a DC says/writes that chances are high that it is a dream, that's beautiful! Now, why couldn't I also have some self-awareness to allow me to make the small leap from that to lucidity?

I know which thread triggered this! Gab yesterday wrote something like "let's face it our waking life is not weird enough, so we may need to pretend that it is" and I responded that I disagree that in my opinion life is plenty of weird, we just don't stop to question it most of the time, and don't notice how weird it is. In my dream the conversation was not between gab and JoannaB but it might as well have been. Fascinating, the only time I have successfully had an LD thus far after returning to this hobby was also triggered by DV interaction with gab. I think I will ask gab whether she would be willing to be my mentor or something, since obviously my dream self has a strong correlation between gab and lucidity or almost lucidity! Gab is my LD muse! Here is a link to the thread: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...correctly.html (gab's post is #17 and my response is #18, and this is definitely what this dream is based on!)

Another element of this dream, the backfilling for missing data to get adjusted statistics which may change the whole picture of what the data shows - this was triggered by a work problem I was working on this week! It's neat to see where such ideas in my dreams originated from in real life.

In this dream My husband and I had moved back to Bloomington, Indiana. Our kids were not there and I did not notice.

Before we even managed to get settled, an older woman (not old) but older than me (perhaps my mother's age) offered to guide me through the town in her car, and I accepted. So I separated from my husband.

I don't remember all of the tour, but it was lengthy, and I remember I got little out of it

Although at one point we stopped by the library, and a young male librarian somehow figured out I was Polish, and he spoke Polish too. He brought out lots of Polish sweets. I knew that while I could handle them, I could not eat any, even though I wanted to. I unwrapped some chocolates from their foil wrapper. I asked him where the closest Polish store was. He did not know even though he had all these candy, so he went to ask someone else, but he could not figure out the answer. I apologized for messing up (unwrapping) his chocolate candy. I tried to rewrap it, but the wrapper was no longer there. So I wrapped it in a green cloth napkin instead, and left it next to the books on a counter.

We continued the town tour in a car, but I was getting bored and tired. So I told the woman, and she seemed annoyed. I explained that we just got here into town, and I had not even had a chance to walk into my own new home yet. It became clear that even though she had picked me up close to where I lived, but she was unwilling to drop me off there. I could study the bus schedule. She had a bus schedule in the car, but I could not figure out how to read it, so I got out of the car and approached a bus stop to read anothe bus schedule there. That's when I realized that I did not know my address, nor which neighborhood we lived in or how far I was.

I took out my iPhone to try to contact my husband. An app was up, and I tried to close it, but I got an endless supply of Do you want to Exit? Prompts from this app, and hitting Exit just brought up a slightly different menu with Exit as one of the options.

I heard someone call my husband's name. I saw him approaching with a group of students. Only then I realized that it was just someone who had his name, and kind of looked like him (not really).

Somehow I made it home (either scene shift or new dream). My husband and I decided to hire a prostitute who was a friend of ours by the hour to help us unpack and improve our new home. The young woman was very excited by this assignment which was a refreshing change from her usual.

I dreamed that dreams are like pancakes.

How are pancakes like dreams? I shape my dreams and cook them. They may start out shapeless and liquidy, but them they solidify like magic. When I eat my dreams, they become part of myself. Dreams are often circular: no end and no beginning, and often repeat. One can toss a pancake in the air, and watch it float like a magic carpet in a dream. Most people like pancakes/dreams. Just like a pancake may have blueberries or something else in it, a dream may hide a gem worth discovering. You pour syrup over a pancake to make is taste better and sweeter, and at times we disguise our dreams to be more palatable to ourselves. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and yet we hurry through it, and dreaming can similarly have a crucial often insufficiently recogniZed importance. My dreams spiritually nourish and sustain me. I do not have time to make pancakes except for on the weekend, and part of my mind has been fighting the dream recall effort as too much for everyday life. Just like pancakes dreams are shaped by culture (different international variations), there are family recipes, and individuals can experiment with making their own variations. Each of us can have our own pancakes, but it is possible to share a pancake (and many people claim one can share a dream). Even my picky water younger son likes pancakes, and dreams can appeal to everyone.

This is my third metaphor for dreams in my dreams: fish, airplanes, and pancakes. Unlike fish airplanes soar free instead of being confined by self-censorship to an aquarium, but unlike airplanes pancakes become part of me and are not up there but close at hand. Fish are slippery, airplanes and solid, and pancakes not so much - one can shape a pancake, whereas an airplane comes in a certain shape and cannot be actively changed. One can consume fish and pancakes (sort of like the biblical spiritual food of fishes and loaves of bread) whereas airplanes consume one. Will I let my predefined dreams consume me, or will I through dream interpretation and later through lucid dreaming redefine my dreams and incorporate them into myself? I am hoping for the later. I want to be in charge of my dreams! Though I am also in charge of my fish: I control every aspect of their environment in my fish tank - it is up to me whether they live and thrive or die. If I put in the effort and with proper knowledge I can control mg fish, though I may prefer to observe their antics instead and be surprised by what they teach me about nature. I can also control an airplane, but only if I am the pilot, not as a passenger in a commercial flight. Airplanes and dreams allow us to fly: something we humans long for. Pancakes are not as ordinary as they may appear, and baking pancakes or bread is an activity that shows greater sophistication, a higher level of culture - though airplanes are much more technologically advanced. Fish in the aquarium hobby appeal to aesthetics, whereas pancakes appeal to our taste buds - I am engaging a new sense here. Airplanes had added a louder sound, though fish tanks also have a sound component which is a white noise, but they ate not as loud as airplanes. Oh, and pancakes are much more mundane and approachable than airplanes: despite the potential for too much effort for every day pancakes, they could become an everyday food if I were motivated. Fish are part of my everyday life. Airplanes are not. Both fish and pancakes are something I am competent and capable at, whereas at least in waking lives I do not know airplanes on such a level and I rely on others to control (though in my dreams I could of course pilot an aircraft.

I decided to take a nap because I am home and I can, and because I am still tired after my sickness.

Before going to nap, I had sent a friend request and a pm to gab.

As ai lay there, I decided to try to WILD since I have not really tried before, even though I before did not think I wanted to. Changed my mind.

I remember seeing some images: an art work vaguely reminiscent of the Mona Lisa, a very bright corridor, but at that point I was not sure yet whether I was dreaming or day dreaming - whether I had actually fallen asleep.

The first thing I saw when I was sure I was asleep already was that I had a Notification in dreamviews. Knowing it was a dream I clicked on it. Sure enough as expected it was a private message from gab. However, when I opened it, it was actually a message that I had previously gotten from gab and not a response to my friend request.

Then I woke up. Upon waking up before writing my dream journal entry, I checked dreamviews, and yes I had a message from gab replying to my friend request (she said yes). I then proceeded to write this dream journal entry and only once I had written a lot did it occur to me to check whether ai am still asleep (no I am not).

Yay, I did it! I had an LD! My first after many years.

In my dream my husband is out of town (as he is in real life).

In my dream I asked a coworker out on a date, and he happily accepted.

See this is a perfect example of why I want to lucid dream. This is not who I am in waking life. This is not who I want to be. This is not who I choose to be.

Yes, I am lonely when my husband is out of town I get it.
I will also admit that I like this coworker ... as a coworker, as a buddy, as someone to share ideas with and to joke with.

Infidelity is a big no-no for me, and I also get that my mind therefore decided to present me with this scenario to shock me, to tell me "See I know how to push your buttons." Here is something that would really bother you.

But we already knew that! We already knew that I am struggling with self-esteem issues and with taking control over who I want to perceive myself as and deciding what is proper.

This however I know is not proper. And I refuse to think that I "need" this, so subconscious fuck off! I am going to relearn lucid dreaming, and make sure that I get to decide what I do and what is right for me.

If I am so fucking lonely tonight, why not give me a dream of my husband instead. That would have been nice, ok? But no, my subconscious, you decided to play games with me. Well, I don't appreciate that!

In an hour I need to get up and go to work and face this coworker, and forget that my subconscious asked him out on a date.

I was at a high class resort of sorts, and I was not me, though I don't have a a good sense of who I was.

The most memorable part of the resort stay was the tutorial they did mostly directed toward men of "How Do You Dance With a Lady" when there is a wine bottle involved. It appeared to be a formal evening dress code event, with classical dancing. So the men were given a multiple choice quizz:

Do you "Dance with a Lady" and a wine bottle
(a) by renaming your wine bottle "lady" and dancing with her
(b) try to pour or drink the wine while simultaneously trying to dance
(c) you enjoy your wine while the lady dances
OR and this was the "correct" answer
(d) you pour the wine for your lady and yourself, you both enjoy it, then put down your glaces, and then you dance together

A later scene at same resort (this one woke me up):

I was sitting on the veranda or a large balcony of the resort, and I was not paying much attention. All of a sudden I hear this terrible looming noise, and a loud voice saying something from a loudspeaker that sounded like "Ally Action" though I could not figure out what they were actually saying. At first someone else blocked my view, but then they moved, and I realized that a helicopter was the source of this noise and loudspeaker too. Then I realize that the helicopter was going to land right where I was sitting/lounging. I moved quickly to avoid being squished. In fact this was so vivid and realistic that upon waking up, I immediately sat up in bed and got out of the way.

This was not a lucid dream but it was vivid and detailed and long with more than one scene.

And upon waking I remembered a previous dream also which I shall record separately.

I believe I remembered the dream that I forgot earlier tonight, and I remembered the Significant Insight that I had reached before. This dream is actually about dreaming even though it may not appear to be!

In my dream I was an actress in theatre, just starting out. And an experienced actor had taken my under his wing and was showing me the ropes. During a break in rehearsal I had been chatting with another less experienced actor. My self-appointed mentor saw this, and afterward took me aside and reprimanded me, saying "Why are you wasting your time with that nobody? To succeed in this trade, It matters who your connections are. It matters who you are seen with, and he is not someone you want to be seen with." I rebutted him with "I am not in this for the usual reasons: I am not in it for the money nor for the fame, and I choose who I hang with."

While analyzing this dream after it happened it occurred to me that this dream was about why I am putting this effort into dreaming now, why I want to lucid dream, why I am here at DV:

I am not doing it for the usual reasons. Or maybe these are the usual reasons for some people, who knows. An important motivator for me is to regain my self-dignity and self-respect, to regain control of my dreams so that I do not do what my subconscious tells me to do. I get to choose who I hang with. For me the an important motivator for lucid dreaming this time around is moral reasons: I want to do what I perceive as being right (which of course does not mean I won't do something like shoot someone in a lucid dream because it feels right to do so , I need to do empowers me, and I need to not let those more experienced than me dictate what is right for me. This is what attracts me to DV is because it seems to be a place where people generally support this kind of attitude, and do not try to impose their way on others.

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Friday March 1 2013 I took NyQuil for my cold, and went to bed early. Around 8:30pm I woke up. I remember having some profound insight into my dream recall or something like that. I remember feeling very self-satisfied with my progress and how it was not just a fragment this time. After all this patting myself on the back, I almost fell back asleep without writing anything in my dream journal. I startled myself back awake in order to write it down, and it was all gone, except for this.