lucid

So last week I took off from the DJ because my sleep schedule was kinda brutal, making lucid dreaming more or less impossible. I got caught back up over the weekend though and this week shouldn't be as hard on me. Last night, at least, I was caught up on sleep enough to a) stay awake long enough to MILD, and b) have clear enough dreams to go lucid!

1) I became aware that I was dreaming right as the previous dream was beginning to fade away. I began to rub my hands together, but the dream continued to fade into darkness. I started spinning too, not so quickly as to wake me up, but just enough to generate sensations that would pull me back into the dreamworld. It worked, and suddenly everything shot into crystal clarity...and I found myself as a girl (kinda weird sensation, that ) in a circular fantasy-style arena with a monolythic cylinder at the center. The whole dream then went into Final Fantasy mode and I had the get up and an oversized sword, and a giant beast on the cylinder to fight. I had fun running around and pulling off crazy moves to fight it, but the beast only lasted a few seconds against my attacks before it was destroyed and burst into oblivion. No other creatures came, so I jumped up to the top of the arena (a good 20 or 30 foot jump) and walked out into a hallway to explore the dream world more. Unfortunately I have only fragments of what happened later, even though I maintained lucidity for a decent length of time.

Not such great recall last night, not much time to write about it, either

1) I was in a dystopia where the people weren't zombies, but pretty quickly became the living equivalent. I was lost and unable to make it to work or anything that I'd normally do in a day. At last I reality checked and became lucid, but I had so many false memories and such a bad environment that I didn't even attempt to simply recover the dream and turn it into something good. Instead I went inside a house, climbed up to the highest window, stepped out on the ledge, and then used my mind to shut the window on my heels, thus knocking me off to my death below, and effectively waking me up.

At least I can mark another LD on my sig from that!

Well, due to life getting extremely busy I had to take off a week of keeping up with my DJ, and last night being the first night of the weekend, I got to try again to lucid dream...and boy did I!

1) & 2) Just fragments of the first couple dreams of the night. Can't remember a lot of what I did, but I do recall quite clearly finding a mirror, looking at myself in it, and telling myself that I was dreaming until it sank in that I really was. I went lucid this way in both dreams and then went to do stuff, but sadly lost lucidity again fairly quickly.

3) I was keeping a DJ (yes, in the dream) of the previous two dreams in the night. Suddenly I realized I was still dreaming though, and so I happily marked a third lucid dream for one night...just before waking up.

4) By this point I'd finally gotten enough sleep for dreams to be fairly clear, and so I was wandering through some futuristic facility, unaware that I was asleep, when out of the corner of my eye I caught my reflection in a broken sheet of metal that was dangling from the wall. As I approached it, I began to marvel at how realistic the reflection was...which clued me in that I was dreaming and subconsciously knew it. I repeated the process of looking at myself in the mirror and telling myself quite firmly that I was dreaming until I really did gain lucidity...and this time held onto it! When I looked away from the mirror I was suddenly Adam Jensen, which I found cool and decided to stick with. I was on the basement level of the facility, and I decided there would be a villain at the top level, and I had to get there to stop him from some evil plot. And of course in Deus Ex style, that also meant I had to do a lot of sneaking around to get there. Well, I didn't do the best job at being subtle so security guards caught onto my presence very quickly, but a single punch to the face took each and every one of them out so easily it was almost disappointing. So I let two guys wake back up from the knockout punch and start chasing me, this time with the fun being in finding a way to hide from them. I began to half-fly-half-freerun all over the place until I rounded a corner, expecting to find a door to a crazy room on the other side. I did. Once inside, I was in a room that had its geometry duplicated on the ceiling, making it vertically symmetrical. I flew upside down and stood on the ceiling as the two guys ran inside on the floor, which was upside down to me, now. They couldn't figure out how the heck I was doing what I was, and it confused them enough for me to fly up some upside-down flights of stairs until I reached a pillar jutting sideways out of the wall. I stood by the pillar now, at yet another orientation different from the floor. The DC's were totally confused by this point, and so when they came after me, I simply kept myself on the opposite side of the pillar from them, and eventually they gave up looking for me. Just when they were about to leave though, one of them saw me, so I took them both out and kept going towards the top. Sadly I lost lucidity and woke up before I could get there, but it was still a pretty epic dream.


Here's a basic illustration of the crazy geometry I built into that room on the fly. Just goes to show the creativity the sleeping mind can have! I'd never think of this while awake

After several weeks of trying, my MILD finally took effect last night!

1) I was among a large crowd of people in some building with rather unusual architecture; very complicated pathways and such. Suddenly, a huge creature somewhat like a dragon swooped down from the sky and began attacking. And this thing was huge--it dwarfed the building which held around 300 people. At first I was just plain running away from it, but suddenly something clicked in my brain. "You know this is a dream." I thought, as if my waking self was speaking to my dream self. "This is a dream?" I looked around me at all the chaos. "Ohhhh, right! This is a dream! This. Is. A. Dream. THIS IS A DREAM!" I repeated that phrase until it sank in fully and I was happily able to say "I am lucid!" Then, rather than run away, I marched around a corner and up a few steps so I was standing on the roof of the building, practically staring the behemoth in the face. It roared like thunder at me and looked like it was going to charge or something, but I flew up into the air, used telekinesis to grab hold of the creature before it could do any damage, then I crumpled it up, breaking every bone I could in the process, before completely obliterating it into nothingness. Unfortunately though, with the really strange part of the dream gone, as soon as I landed I lost lucidity due to my surroundings being pretty normal again.

Dream Signs: being somewhere without remembering getting there, dream-like environments, highly unusual events

Glad to see I still have a grip on dream control...to be honest I was somewhat afraid I would have lost that after so long with not lucid dreaming, but it's still there!

Ok, so I'm going to try to get back into regularly lucid dreaming again, and so that means I need to write in my DJ again. However, the reason I stopped writing in it is because I didn't have the time to write 10-page entries...so I'm going to change my style dramatically and give only a summary and list some possible dream signs to watch out for. I will maintain my color scheme for lucid/non-lucid dreams.

As a starting-out night, last night was a good one. I recalled three dreams and one of them was lucid (though only momentarily).

1) Summary: Overall this dream was unclear; I was doing a bunch of random things in unfamiliar places and somehow ended up on Facebook...and when I tried to read the nonsense text I became lucid, but I only stood up and began walking off when I began to wake up.

Dream Signs: Nonsense text (though usually text looks fine in my dreams), being someplace I don't remember getting to


2) Summary: This was a weird one; I should have gone lucid immediately. I went into the garage to find my car missing, and my boss was in there working on a tank. A Nintendo DS arrived in the mail and my boss took it and wired it into the tank so I could control it by the DS controls. I tried driving the tank to work, but it was too big and powerful to drive properly on regular streets, and I was sure I would get arrested...

Dream Signs: Highly Unusual Events, being around people (HUGE dream sign--when I go to sleep I'm always alone), video game elements


3) Summary: I was looking for something (not sure what), and my search ran me into Ashley Cowie as he looked for the Holy Grail. For some reason I thought an ancient tomb/cave place was where I would find my thing, and that's where Ashley Cowie wanted to look for the Holy Grail as well. We found a pillar with something on top, but we couldn't get high enough to look at it at first, and then when we did a glass box covered the top. Ashley distressed over how we could get in there while I broke open the glass. Nothing was inside.

Dream Signs: Being around people, highly unusual events, video game elements, looking for an unknown something

So last night I had a brief, but very highly lucid dream. First one in a while; I haven't been able to put much effort into lucid dreaming, so any that I have right now are random and unintentional.

Someone was hunting me down, for reasons I cannot recall. I had been on the run from them, but now I was back in my house. All I knew is that I had to get out of there before they caught me, and before I got out of there, I had to get a very important email from my computer. It held in it some form of proof that would end my problems (details of the contents are vague). So I sneaked upstairs to my computer, and tried to turn it on so as to get the email, but my pursuer was too smart. They cut the power to my house which of course immediately caused my PC to shut off as well. I suddenly got a feeling that I only get in dreams--a feeling of being utterly trapped by some power that I cannot see, but that I know is there, without any possibility of escape.

That triggered lucidity, and I instantly realized that I did not have to be trapped any longer. I recognized completely that I was in a dream and could control it how I pleased, so I held out my hand towards the computer to channel my energy properly, and with minor effort was able to power it up with Electrokinesis. I had hoped that once the power got stable I could draw my hand back and the PC would continue to operate without further active control, but unfortunately it did not. If I retracted me hand and withdrew the effort, the computer would immediately shut down.

There was no time to fool with that, so I tried to keep the computer powered on with my left hand while navigating to the email with my right. Now, my PC is rather powerful, and requires a lot of energy to keep running. It was draining my own energy very quickly, and I was having to put more and more effort in all the time. (Pause here for a moment: I know it doesn't sound very epic, but picture what all this was really like: the room was dark from lack of electricity, I had someone drawing nearer trying to kill me, and I was forcing myself to do something potentially 'fatal'. Not to mention that sparks were falling from the ceiling as lights and other nearby electrical objects were picking up on the current and breaking. It was a very intense, epic moment )

I had just gotten the email to open, and was about to read what it said, when suddenly the effort grew to be too much for me. The electricity overwhelmed me, resulting in a shock that hit from the inside out, as if coming from my brain, which threw me backwards onto the floor, bringing my chair with me. At this point I knew I would be defeated by the dream if I remained inside, so I just tried to break the dream into a million pieces, and I was awake instantly (that trick always works for me).

It's been far too long since I've had lucid experiences like this one. Call me an adrenaline junkie, but I love intense circumstances like that where lucid dream powers come particularly in handy

(SIDE NOTE: I'VE OFFICIALLY BEEN INTO LUCID DREAMING FOR A YEAR NOW! )

Well, I've kind of been absent from this DJ for a while again, but hopefully this time I'll really for real be coming back. I keep on saying I'm coming back but then stuff comes up, I know

Anyway, last night I had a really vivid lucid dream, that, although not very epic, was rather interesting. For one thing, it's the first truly lucid dream I've had in a very long time...one where I actually stopped what I was doing and examined my environment, amazed at how realistic it was, but fully aware that it was all completely non-existent.

The dream began as a nightmare-ish experience. I was in my house, but everything was darker than is natural for just being night-time. I could hear screams and the sounds of what I knew would be hideous-looking beasts in the distance. Watching. Waiting. For me.

But then I looked down, and saw that I was not myself, either. I was one such creature, with leathery, tar-black skin, and a voice that mutated and sounded creepy when I spoke. Instantly I realized it was all just a dream, and I decided I would get the heck out of there before something attacked and woke me up. Besides, I didn't like being an ugly monster anyway . I walked up to the nearest wall and tried to phase through it. Having been a while since my last lucid dream, I didn't immediately have enough sense of dream control to move through, but eventually I managed to force my way through the wall and out to the other side, where I suddenly was caught up into a vortex and sucked away from the house into pitch blackness.

I wasn't waking up, however, and I knew it. I was simply moving to another, better place in the dream world. I watched as the leathery black skin peeled away, revealing my 'real' self beneath. My voice returned to normal as well. Next thing I know, I'm falling into a large gray box of a building, and it was basically empty to begin with. I tried creating a few things in it, but I was frustrated to find that I could barely control anything. Whatever I changed would erase itself and just fade away to the way it was before.

"What's going on here?" I asked myself.

My answer was approaching fast...literally. My sister flew up overhead, creating things to fill in the space around her as she went.

"Oh great!" I called out. "How'd I end up in your dream?"

She just laughed and kept on flying.

"I don't know, but have fun!"

I shook my head and began to fly off, wishing I had a totem like the one in Inception that I could use in other people's dreams. All of a sudden, though, I fell to the ground.

"What was that?" I asked my sister, who was still flying around.

"I just made a rule." She said. "To fly in my dream, you have to be in a sitting position."

"That's stupid! Why'd you do that?"

"If you're going to be in my dream, I might as well have fun with you."

"Yeah. Real funny."

I flew off (in a sitting position) and basically just explored the area and talked to the DC's in my sister's dream. It was interesting to carry on a conversation with DC's that weren't from my own subconscious. They spoke very differently than I'm used to having DC's speak, and often didn't make any sense to me at all.

In spite of minor annoyances it was an enjoyable night, overall. Plus I think I've got something going with MILD now, so hopefully my lucids should return to being much more frequent.

Ok, so I just woke up, and I think I finally discovered the perfect time for me to do a WBTB. Before, I was doing them at 5:20, because it had worked a couple times and gotten me great lucids, but the problem was, I often would just remain awake in my bed at that point rather than fall back asleep. It was just too late in the morning. So last night, I tried going to bed an hour earlier and getting up for WBTB at 4:00. Same amount of sleep beforehand, but it was still so early that I would fall back asleep easily.

Before I get around to those dreams, though, I want to mention something that happened at the beginning of the night. Now, when I first began to lucid dream, I would always see this eye staring at me when I'd close my eyes. I'm not sure when that stopped, but I just realized as I was going to bed that I hadn't seen it in a long while. So I closed my eyes and began to look for it. It didn't take long for it to appear. But what was weird this time was that it didn't stay just an eye forever. Pretty soon, it took on a 3D feel to it, and an entire face appeared around it.

"I am your dream guide. You have been looking for me."

Then the eyelashes on the first eye I'd seen began to grow longer and longer until they became almost plant-like vines extending out and encompassing me. Then the DG said:

"Embrace eternity!"

And all went black.

Then at 4:00 I woke up, went to the bathroom, and, as I said, fell back asleep easily. A bit too easily, perhaps. I had only started my mental preparation to get me ready to RC and recognize when I was dreaming when I fell asleep!

Dream 1: I was in a very rainy world. It looked as if it had been raining for quite some time, since there were floods everywhere. The only reason my house wasn't flooded was because I was living with several DC's in a house that was high up on a platform, just off to the side of an electrical tower.

Nowhere to go...pretty boring right? Well, it was, but then things started to get interesting. All of my DC friends and I were standing below the highest part of the tower where it was dry and we could see for miles, when we suddenly heard this deafening, sickening creak. It came from the structure we were standing on. And then...

*SNAP*!

*FZZT*!

We all looked in horror as to our left, a smaller tower that was connected to the main one fell down right on top of our little house! The house was not professionally made; it was just a bunch of plywood, really. The thing was totally smashed, and as if that weren't enough, the cord tied on to the top of fallen tower got enough of a tug (I guess it was caught on something under the water below) to pull it--and much of the house's remains--over the edge and out into the flood.

"That's...not good." Said one DC.

"We'll...we'll be ok." Another said, hopefully.

He spoke too soon. Another smaller tower in front of us snapped and splashed into the ocean next as well.

"We have to get out of here." I said. When they all looked at me with blank stares, I explained what I meant. "With those two towers taken down, there won't be any electrical charge running through the main power line up at the top of this station. We can ride it across to the next safe area, but we have to hurry! It won't be long before this whole place comes down, now."

We ascended for the top, I in the lead. Gathering up all my courage, I jumped, grabbed hold of the wire, and began flying through the rain on the high-speed zip-line. Then lightning flashed...

And I woke up. Even though it hadn't been lucid, the realism was simply incredible. All the rain hitting my face as I rode the zip-line, the sounds and sights of the smaller towers breaking...every detail was so accurate, and there were a LOT of details in this one, particularly with physics. So now I'm pretty confident that I've found when to lucid dream.

This knowledge in mind though, and it still being very early morning, I went back to sleep almost immediately, and the dream continued:

My DC friends and I had made our way to a kingdom which had also seen its share of damage (debris was everywhere), but at least it wasn't flooding...or raining at all, for that matter. In fact, the place was rather dry and desolate. We walked into the castle and explained our situation to the king, who was more than sympathetic.

"You may have noticed," he said, "that our own fair home has seen its last days. We've suffered many attacks from the ghouls, and I fear we must move to another location. The King of the West has agreed to take us in among his people, but we'll have no support in the transition. Join us if you wish, but be wary: it is a dangerous road that we travel."

"I don't think we have much of a choice." I said, as the unspoken leader of my little group.

Suddenly, a bit of one of the stained-glass windows that lined the border of the castle walls shattered in, as if a rock had been thrown through it. Only pure white light shone through behind it. I could hear ghoul war-cries off in the distance. Soon, other holes started to appear in the shattering windows.

"What's going on!?" I asked the king.

"The dream is collapsing!" He said. "What you see beyond is the great void. You never created anything beyond this castle!"

Something clicked, then.

"Wait, you mean all this is my dream?" I asked.

"Yes!" The king pleaded. "Only you can change it! Only you can save us from this oncoming battle!"

Empowered by this thought, I marched straight up the stairs to the balcony, where I could see out the windows clearly. Then I held up a hand and ran it across my vision, intending to fill in each window that my hand passed with the proper scenery behind it. It worked. What was left of the windows stopped breaking, and behind them, off in the distance, I could see the silhouette of the other buildings in the kingdom. They too were broken down as badly as the castle, it seemed.

"What shall we do now?" I asked the king, knowing full well what he'd say.

"We must defend ourselves from the ghouls! Quick! I have swords and armor."

Suddenly every one of us was wearing a suit of armor and holding a sword. Being lucid, the armor didn't weigh me down or make me less agile. It was mostly for looks, honestly, since I couldn't be harmed anyway. We all then ran out of the castle, swords blazing, and began attacking the ghouls as they ran up to us. There were hundreds of the miserable, scrawny, gray things, but we took them all out, and not too cleanly, either. I jumped and flipped all over the place, first using just my own sword, but later using a second sword I spontaneously created. I hacked off the heads of the creatures, often multiple in a single swing. Before long, the battle was over.

Unfortunately, something about that battle had caused my mind to lose sight of the fact that it was a dream, and I returned to being non-lucid.

The king had been wounded in the battle, so everyone decided it was high time to leave for this other kingdom that was going to take in all the people. We put the king on a sort of bed that could be carried, and then started out on our trek.

I can't remember how, but somewhere along the way I got separated from the rest of the people, and as I tried to find my own way back to the path we'd been following, I came across Gollum, and asked him to lead me where I needed to go (even though I wasn't lucid at this point, something in me still knew I couldn't get hurt, so I wasn't afraid of Gollum attacking me or anything).

"This way!" Gollum said, leading me into another broken down castle. "We must follow the path of the Gol-Keep, yes we must."

"The Gol-Keep?" I asked.

"Yes! Yes! The Gol-Keep! This way!"

False memory told me the Gol-Keep had a reputation of being the most evil place in existence. Sounded scary...which sounded fun. Gollum lead me into a tunnel that had been dug through the old castle. It wasn't very scary, though. I was disappointed.

"This isn't so scary after all." I said. "Isn't there something better?"

"This tunnel avoids the worst." Explained Gollum. "We don't wants to go through the other tunnel!"

"Take me there."

He did, but then let me go in alone. This other tunnel was totally dark, wet, and the home of a thousand creepy voices all around me. I could hear movement and occasionally feel a hand brush up against me, but I just kept walking, enjoying my invincibility in the midst of something that usually would have freaked me out.

I made it through the tunnel quickly and came out right behind the rest of the people as they entered the second kingdom. The king had died en route, so they were looking for a new leader to represent them to the King of the West. When they discovered that I had survived going through the Gol-Keep, and without any fear, I was chosen.

When we met before the King of the West, however, he was less convinced about me.

"We must have a duel to prove your worthiness." He said. "If you succeed, I will grant you continued rulership over these people beneath my rule alone, and a place to stay in my kingdom. If you fail to best me, however, then I fear I must turn you all away."

"I'm ready." I said.

The king fetched his sword and gave me choice of my own weapon. I settled on four swords, two in each hand, and then the sparring began. We went back and forth for quite some time, but no one really gained on the other. Eventually, I flipped two of the swords around and held them backhanded, so I was essentially wielding two double-bladed swords at once. This was indeed too much for the king, and I quickly knocked his sword from his hand.

I woke up right about then.

Yay! The RC's and totem and all that are working! Unfortunately, I had to get up early this morning, so I didn't get to write down all the dreams I had originally recalled, and it's late in the day now, so I only have tiny fragments left, but you can be sure I wrote down the most important one in full!

When the dream began, I was at home, in my living room. The realism of the dream was high, so I didn't notice anything strange and never went lucid from observation. However, I did do a reality check out of habit, and the moment I pinched my nose and still felt the air go through, I came into the full realization that I was dreaming. I don't think I've ever been so incredibly aware before! For the first time in a lucid dream, I truly felt unlimited. Speed was not a factor; I could just as easily run around the world as I could across my backyard. My reactions were unbeatable...I could have won in a fight against Neo. Physics were also not a problem. I could bend or break the rules my mind would typically apply to the world without side effects.

Now, in the past, I've struggled to use telekinesis on more than one object at a time. It just required focusing on too many things for it to work. But this time I felt confident I could do literally anything, so I stepped into the middle of the room, clenched my fists, and then imagined every object in the room lifting off the ground the more I drew my fists in closer towards me. As I looked around, I had succeeded. Regardless of weight or size, everything was lifted up. The 54-inch TV, couches, the dining table, chairs...even the oven! And it was no more work to suspend it all in the air than it was to breath. I could have held it there forever or cast it all out the window with a thought, or who knows what. Instead I just set it down gently, satisfied that I was truly unlimited, and it. Felt. Great.

Sadly, though, I had breathed in through my nose for the RC just a bit too hard, and the dream began to collapse, then. Everything started to fade, and so I tried desperately to rub my hands and spin, but nothing I did could stop me from waking up.

I tried to DEILD, then. I rolled over, silenced every thought that attempted to come into my mind, and passed out again.

I found myself back in the previous dream, getting up off the living room floor, as if I had simply gone unconscious and now was waking back up...even though the exact opposite had truly happened. For a moment I had a grasp on the fact that I was dreaming, but very quickly this knowledge fled from me, and I walked off, thinking what an amazing lucid dream I'd just had...and then I woke up again, this time unable to go back to sleep so quickly.

It may have been short, but it shows promise. I'm headed in the right direction again, and that was just after a few days of putting real effort into lucid dreaming again. Who knows where I'll be able to go after a few more days? If I can manage to be that unlimited in all my lucid dreams...heck, I could perform Inception for real

So I finally saw Inception last night, and to say the least it has really kind of redirected me in my lucid dreaming and put me back on the right path. That's not to say that everything in Inception regarding lucid dreams is 100% accurate, but it really put the joy back into the act of becoming lucid for me, making it an achievable goal rather than a constant frustration.

Of course, Inception being the last thing I saw last night, I had a lucid dream, and it was very Inception-themed. In fact, I spent the whole time in the hotel from the movie. I was in there for a few dream hours and did quite a bit, including testing out Cobb's totem (which I found on a table in the hotel hallway) and indeed it did spin indefinitely. Unfortunately, all else is very unclear due to my rude awakening...there was some loud noise outside that jolted me awake and absolutely destroyed my recall. I have only bits and pieces of the dream in my head still, but I know I was lucid.

Since the totem thing worked for me last night, though, I've started using a real one. It's much different than Cobb's, and has several different details that I can watch for and try to find inaccuracies with in the dream. Let's hope having a physical reminder always with me will get me to do RC's during the day again. I MUST get back into this 100%! I've missed having decent lucid dreams...

Well, you might have noticed I haven't posted in this DJ for about a month...this is because I've been kind of taking a hiatus from attempting to lucid dream. My success rates were ridiculously low, and I had the feeling it was because I had so many different methods in my head that I couldn't stick with just one, and I probably wasn't doing any of them correctly anyway out of a lack of motivation.

Basically, I'd lost my appreciation for lucid dreams because all of mine were a bunch of very hard-earned crap. I read back through some of the earlier entries of my DJ, when the concept of LDing was new to me, and I was kind of inspired by my enthusiasm from back then, so I figured I should just start over.

I had no real 'return date', just whenever felt right...and I guess that would be now, since I had a lucid dream after relearning MILD and focusing only on that method for a bit. However, it didn't quite succeed the first time, so I'll put down that non-lucid dream as well, for the sake of recall and finding more dream signs.

Dream 1: I was at work. It was a pretty normal day, except for a lot of little behavioral abnormalities in all my coworkers. The differences weren't big enough to make me realize I was dreaming, but they did get me thinking.

Then I went to stock some music that had just come in, and I noticed a poster that had a rather big difference: the band name didn't seem familiar at all. I recognized the album cover, but the name just wasn't right...although...I couldn't really...remember what the right name was anyway.

Suddenly this fact became like taking a blow to the head. I stumbled back, my vision suddenly fuzzy and dizzy. After a bit my confusion grew to the point where I couldn't remember that I was confused, and so all this ceased and I came back to.

Once my vision had cleared, I still couldn't recall the proper name for the band, but this time the name I was seeing sank in. The poster read: "The Lucid Dreamers"

Next thing I know, the dream has gone to me being on a train with a bunch of other people, and eating Pizza. I was annoyed that my sense of taste was so weak. I could taste the Canadian Bacon, but everything else was very bland, like a distant sound is to an ear.

Then I woke up.

Of course technically my MILD hadn't yet worked, but it sure had gotten me a long ways. I had seen and recognized differences in multiple senses and circumstances, and my mind was obviously thinking about lucid dreaming due to the poster. It happened to be early enough in the morning for me to go back to sleep and try again, so I wasted no time. I repeated my MILD a couple more times and was out once again.

Dream 2: The dream began with me as a soldier in a futuristic city that strongly resembled what you see in the movie Minority Report. I was part of a squad that was taking down a group of Koreans that had invaded the place. (no offense if you're reading this and you're Korean, of course, I just play Crysis from time to time) Suddenly, however, I realized something...I was in a sci-fi city, firing a weapon, and wearing a suit of armor. All of this was cited in my MILD as dream signs to watch out for.

I smiled to myself then, looked through the scope on my weapon, and picked off all of the remaining enemies as if I were an aimbot. Precision and accuracy was 100% all the way. I threw down my weapon then and flew up into the air to get a good look at the place. The thought occurred to me that I should reality check, but I decided against it.

"I already know that I'm dreaming, and usually if I nose-plug RC when I'm like this it wakes me up." I told myself as I glided over the vast expanse of the world.

Below me, everywhere I looked I saw cars speeding along multi-level highways, rotating 90 degrees and then plunging straight down to reach other levels when need be. All of the buildings they rushed in between were shiny and steel; cold, clean, and sophisticated.

It was also all fading away.

"No, this dream can NOT end now!"

I rubbed my hands together furiously, but things were still fading out. So I tried spinning then, still rubbing my hands together. The city only spun about me as it finally faded into blackness.

"Rats...I failed." I thought.

But after a few more moments, I still hadn't woken up. I looked around me again, and now I saw a grid of white dots everywhere in the blackness, increasing in clarity every second. I rubbed my hands together again, and one by one each of the white dots became a building, every one more detailed and clear than before. It wasn't long until the whole city was back, and I was ready to head out on an adventure.

Unfortunately, this is where my memory begins to fail me, thanks to the unpleasant way the dream ended. I just know that I did go on many adventures and they were thrilling and satisfying to say the least. The dream tried to fade out multiple times, but I was always able to bring it back without problem. Somewhere along the way, that girl from multiple previous dreams was back again and we went on a lot of the adventures together. It was great.

But then the dream transitioned, and although I was still lucid, I decided I was done for the night because those adventures had ended so well and I didn't want to mess up such a great ending by doing something else, so I allowed myself to become non-lucid again and just watch the last few minutes of the dream.

What a mistake that was!

I was still in the same city, but I walked home, and everything there was still normal, further convincing me I was not dreaming any more. Then I got a phone call from that girl I mentioned, and she said she had to see me. I told her to come on over, but it turned out she was already just outside my door .

"What is it?" I asked as I let her in.

"I just had my first lucid dream!" She exclaimed. "It was amazing...I know you've told me about them before, but I didn't realize how incredible it really is! I even wrote it down in a dream journal just like you said you do. Here, look!"

She handed me her dream journal and I read it. It was the lucid dream I had just been through, but all from her perspective.

"I know." I said, handing the journal back. "I had this same lucid dream!"

That really blew her away. She was so excited she hugged me, and I thought I'd never let go. But...then I got another phone call. It was another friend of mine, asking if he could talk to this girl. She took the phone, but I could hear the voice on the other side saying:

"That guy is a moron! I know you care about him, but I just need to warn you. He's seriously messed up. I've got his dream journal open on my computer right now; he talks about a lot of really weird stuff and he actually believes it. I'm telling you, he says he found a Dream Room and can enter other people's dreams, and there's even these posts about using self-hypnosis for lucid dreams, or the theory that ghosts are lucid dreamers..."

I couldn't have been more annoyed. Or scared. I saw tears enter the girl's eyes as she slowly sank against the wall and slid down to sitting on the floor, and I thought she might try to run away, so I sat down as well and put my hands on her shoulders so she'd look me in the eyes.

"I can explain everything!" I said. "He's twisting the truth to make me sound crazy! I promise!"

The tears receded, but she didn't seem fully convinced, since she kept listening to this guy verbally murder every aspect of my reputation.

I woke up in a sweat and with my heart pounding...for a moment I still was afraid that that relationship was in danger, but of course I quickly realized I had woken up and all of it was not a real problem.

But aside from the unpleasant awakening, I'm quite happy with this MILD technique! I think I'll focus on it for a while longer now and see what I can do

Yay! Two lucid dreams in one week thus far...looks like my VERY long dry spell might actually be ending? I hope so.

Anyway, I'm not exactly sure what I was doing when the dream began, but eventually I noticed that as I walked through the dreamworld, the faster I went, the higher I'd lift off the ground. Well, that was a dead giveaway and I instantly recognized myself to be in a dream.

First thing I did was just see how high I could go with this weird walking/levitating thing. It was very different than flying, because my forward motion was the same speed and orientation as walking...I just vertically would move up or down based on how fast I moved my feet.

And of course, in my delight over succeeding to lucid dream again, it was extremely enjoyable to go super high, let myself fall, and shout: "I'm lucid dreaming!" on my way down, just because I was doing something impossible that proved such a statement to be true. I do that a lot in my LDs

After a couple such landings, however, I found myself to have teleported to the middle of some sort of gathering. It was rather dark inside, but not so much that it was hard to see details. I found a couple familiar faces who greeted me and I would reply with something that hid the truth (i.e. that it was all just a dream) from my friends (who may or may not have really been present there).

But then I got stopped by someone different. I didn't recognize this man, but he certainly recognized me.

"Care for a drink?" He asked, handing me one of two glasses filled with glowing green liquid, which he had carried with him.

"Sure." I replied, taking the glass as if I weren't suspicious.

Of course, in reality, I was highly suspicious. This was a DC, after all...a creation of my mind. I could know him better than he knew himself. And I knew something was up with him.

At first he talked nice, telling me how impressed he had been with my work in the film and gaming industries, but eventually he got around to his real purpose for being there, and it was not just to compliment me on my achievements.

"What I have here," he said, pulling out a small stack of papers from a shoulder bag, "is some material my boys picked up from various sources."

"Materials?" I asked. "Like what?"

"Scripts, mostly. We have the chance to produce the most popular media before the authors ever get the chance. Oh, but fame is not all that there is to it. There's always money involved, eh? Let's say...two million in earnest now for your help producing these films and games, and more by the hour you work with us. How does that sound?"

"Sounds to me like you're crazy!" I shouted.

All heads turned to look at this man and me. The attention scared him, since he was still holding the stolen scripts, so he turned and ran for the nearest exit. I ran after him, but lost track of where he was for a short while, giving him just enough of an advantage to jump in one of his gang's two cars and drive off, the other criminal car shortly behind him.

Me, I just kept running, staying close behind the two criminal cars, and slowly gaining on them. I didn't think about the speed at the time; it was as easy for me to run at 100mph as 10. Unfortunately, it was only a two-lane road (and reversed from real life), so while the criminals advanced on the left side, I had to run against oncoming traffic on the right, jumping over each car that drove towards me.

Eventually the oncoming traffic grew more heavy, and I slowly began to fall back from the criminals. That was NOT going to happen. All in one moment, I completely stopped running, stepped to the side, and grabbed hold of the next car that drove towards me. I spun around from the momentum of the car and then released it into the air. It flew right into the criminal cars and caused all three to explode. Of course the force of the explosion threw other cars into the air, even in my direction, but they bounced off of me like toys, leaving me completely unharmed.

Mission accomplished, I flew off as I had before, descended, and when I landed...woke up.

If that car scene hasn't been done in a movie...it should be

Well, I've been having some trouble sleeping lately (not stress or anything, I just haven't been tired, so it's weird ), so I never would have expected to lucid dream...especially through a WILD. But after not initially getting to sleep until 12:30 in the morning and then waking back up two or three times, staying awake for half an hour, and then falling back asleep, I found myself wide awake at 6am or so, unable to go back asleep at all. At least, not for a very long time. I just lay in bed and tried to not think about anything, and after an hour and a half or thereabouts, I realized I couldn't raise my right arm to scratch an itch. At first I just tried harder to lift it, but suddenly it clicked in my head: "Oh! I'm in sleep paralysis!"

I started to hear a buzz, and I felt like I could separate from my real body and get into my dream body. I was quickly able to succeed at doing so, and then as I felt real life fall away, everything around me went white.

For a short while I lost all sensation of any body, but when the buzzing grew to an extreme, raging frequency, I found myself physically present in that whiteness, ready to transition to a dream, but unable to do so. I ran all about in the whiteness, knowing I had only seconds before I'd lose the dream, but still I was stuck.

"How do I get in the dream!?" I finally shouted in desperation.

"Just...jump down." A voice calmly replied.

I acted like I was jumping off a ledge, and sure enough, I descended from the whiteness and landed right on the floor in my room.

First thing I did, of course, was pinch my nose and try to breath in, so there would be no mistake about my state. I could only breathe out of one side of my nose with it pinched, but of course that was still enough. I then began to examine my environment. The realism astounded me...if I looked out the window, I could see for miles and miles, even though none of it was scenery from real life. I noticed a fishtank (which I got rid of years ago IRL) was in my room, and I could see my reflection in it with perfect accuracy.

Since I had something to work with, and needed something to do, shape shifting came to mind. I succeeded in shape shifting, but my control over it was very bad, so I ended up just distorting my face to a degree that felt very strange. Giving up on that, I decided I'd just go outside and fly to wherever the wind might take me.

Once I was outside, takeoff was easy, but I thrust my hands out in front of me, which I don't usually do for flying, and it threw off my balance and sent me to the ground. I tried flying a bit more, but couldn't get off the ground for more than a second, now.

Then I had another idea: why not just run somewhere really fast? But...now that I thought about it, I had actually been moving really slowly the whole dream. Running at all was a challenge. Running fast...well...that woke me up.

Not the best LD ever, but it's good to know that I'm coming back.

<Click here to read Part 2>

I had the sensation of time passing, although it was an instantaneous transition from the zombie attack to what was presumably days later. My friends and I were gathered around in the apartment building to discuss what had happened. The closet door was still shut and had remained so since the zombie attack because we knew that the portal to the zombie homeworld was still open behind us. Something had to be done about that, and I also mentioned the little girl that had tried to escape them.

"We don't know how many prisoners they're keeping or why," I told everyone, "but it's up to us to get them the heck out of there. We've got to take the fight to the zombies and wipe them out once and for all."

Jane Doe looked up at me with a hint of admiration in her eye. I suddenly had the sensation that our relationship had grown over the past few days as well.

As it turned out, this would become more than just a sensation. The closet room had been converted into our battle station where we could enter and exit the battle zone at will as long as we controlled the door (which was guaranteed since the room was outfitted with other defenses now, as well). There were a few tiny rooms (just a bunk and a wall in a metal box for protection, nothing more) that we could rest in, and we did so every night to keep ourselves sharp for the next day's warfare. Even though we had proper weapons this time, it was slow going to raid the zombies since we had to filter out who was dead and who was alive, because there was no external difference that we could perceive.

Anyway, one night after about (what false memory said was) a week or so of battle, Jane and I had a little talk in one of those rooms. We'd been growing closer that whole time, and although I don't remember exactly what transpired, but we concluded that we loved each other and had to be together. So rather than sleep that night, we simply stayed inside that little room and talked or just sat in silence with our arms around each other.

But the night always has to end eventually. In the morning was another day of battle. When it was time for everyone to get up, Jane and I went out to brief everyone on the day's mission. We sat next to each other in the circle of our friends, and I moved up close and put my arm around her. The relief of being able to do that instead of refrain from it in order not to offend Jane (as would have been the case back when we were just friends) was phenomenal. I'd never felt like that before.

"Thanks." she said, as if to say 'it's nice to feel secure and have something happy for once in this bad situation.'

I briefed everyone and then we all started to head through the closet door. However, I stopped Jane before she could get through, pulled her around, and gave her a long kiss.

"I love you." I said (intended connotation: 'be careful out there')

"I will." Came the reply (intended connotation: 'I get your connotation')

And then we went out to battle. Since by now this is incredibly long, I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say we won with heavy casualties, and those who were alive were beaten and worn out. We had freed as many prisoners as we could, but some were killed in the action. However, most of all, I was just glad the fight was over. Still...there was one last problem that found its way to me right after I killed the last zombie. A baby that had been imprisoned there lay on the ground, crying. I picked it up and ran out of the portal back to the closet room just before the portal closed up, sealing us off forever from that dreaded zombie world.

Next thing I know, I'm in the streets of the steampunk city again, several areas in ruins from the zombie attack of a few days ago. My little army of friends passed by me in line as they exited the apartment, all of them dirty and bruised. I waited anxiously for Jane, as I intended to give the baby into her care, but she never came through the line. Frantically I ran to find someone in her squad.

"What about Jane? Where is she?" I asked.

"Jane?" They replied. "I...well...she...I never saw her come out. I'm sorry."

"No." I said firmly. "She's alive. Where is she?"

"I can't help you there."

Determined, I walked back to see if I could find her myself. But just as I did, down the stairs walked none other than a very beat up Jane Doe. I ran up to her, put the baby in her arms, then let her collapse against me as we kissed and I supported her. I knew people were watching, but I didn't care. This was my Jane; nothing was going to stop me from being with her now.

"We have to go now." She said after a long while and lots of 'I love you''s were exchanged between us.

"Go where?" I asked (intended connotation: 'I don't care where as long as we're together')

"No, I mean we have to wake up. We're all dreamers here, remember? Now just...wake up."

And I did wake up. I know that doesn't seem all that exciting now that it's written down, but trust me, the love in that dream was real and strong enough to make it incredible a thousand times over. The cool steampunk/sci-fi environment was just a bonus. And the intense battles were neat, too. Unfortunately, all that doesn't translate into plain text very well...oh well. This is an experience I know I shall not forget.

<Click here to read part 1>

Once inside the upstairs room with the closet, I reached over to the nearest lamp and hit the switch. The lights didn't come on. I hit the switch again. No good. So I went to a different light and tried it, but got the same result. "Oh, that means it's a dream!"

Now if you know me, you know that I like to use doors to teleport places in lucid dreams. But my lucidity was not strong even now, and so when I opened the closet door, I did nothing but shatter everything...and lose lucidity.

All the lights and lamps in the room (which were many) flickered strange colors, as if there was an electrical issue. I didn't know what was going on, so I decided to just grab the gift boxes and go. There was an eerie blue light inside the closet that was good enough for me to just barely be able to make out what was inside. However, one step further inside, and the whole place shook as if from an earthquake. I stumbled and fell, expecting to hit the back of the closet...but instead I fell right through where the back wall should have been.

When I looked up, I was flat on the ground of a vast mass of red, mars-like sand. It was dark in the sky, so I couldn't see far, but I could feel in the air that something was wrong about this place. My feelings were confirmed when a little kid ran up to me screaming for help as she apparently fled from something...just before hands reached out of the darkness, grabbed her, pulled her into the darkness, and then...instant silence.

And now all the attention was on me.

"The portal!" A rough voice shouted from the distance. "It's open! Move, now, let's GO!"

I tried to get up and run, but I ended up being carried back through the closet by the oncoming flood of bodies that rushed through it. Once they'd gotten through and changed their course, momentum flung me into the air and into the middle of the forest of lamps that stood in the closet room. Because it was dark and there were too many lamps to comfortably navigate, nobody paid attention to me, and I watched in horror as dozens of 7-foot tall, burly, rough men rushed into the room and down the hallway right to where my friends were. Many of them brandished weapons...I knew that no one would stand a chance against them.

As soon as I found my footing, I got out of the lamps and threw myself at the closet door. I managed to shut it, but in the process cut off the finger of one of the tall men as he stuck out his hand to try and stop the door from closing. I was surprised at first to see that there was no blood...it was just a skeleton and dried up, gray insides in that finger. But then it all made sense. These were the living zombies I had heard about; those who were internally dead but externally still strong as ever. Fully mindless, ruthless bodies.

Jane Doe was the first thing to come to my mind. No matter what happened, I just couldn't let the living zombies get to her. She didn't know how I felt about her, but our relationship had a lot of potential that I intended to take advantage of when the right time came, and I wasn't about to lose my chances now.

Suddenly I had knives on my belt, so I pulled them out, ran for the stairs (which was where the zombies were by now) and with expert handling began to lodge the blades into the zombies' dead bodies. It wasn't exactly one knife = one kill, but it distracted the zombies long enough for my friends to get weapons of their own.

The battle raged for what seemed like hours. It was not an easy victory, but we did eventually destroy the zombies' bodies bad enough that they really and truly died. I remember the last zombie's death in particular...I was running out of knives, when I had gotten backed into the closet room by one final zombie. I had a couple minor wounds, so I was being cautious--not to mention this thing was huge and mighty and had brass knuckles. I landed one knife into the zombie's shirtless chest, but it merely groaned in pain and kept coming my way. I threw another one and it landed right next to the first knife, but still it didn't bleed and it got close enough to land a blow that threw me back several feet.

I was out of knives. Frantically I searched my belt, but there was none. However, after a glance behind me, I saw a blade sticking out of a dead zombie's back, grabbed it, and hurled it towards the live zombie, expecting a triumphal, last-minute kill.

It didn't happen. Despite three knives in its chest, the beast was still as alive as ever, and heading my way. I really thought this was the end...

**BANG!**

A bullet shot echoed through the halls. The zombie collapsed onto its knees, two holes through it in addition to my knives. It cussed and swore in pain, but still didn't die.

"Finish him off!" I called to the one with the gun (who was on my side, obviously).

He emptied out his clip on the zombie, but it wasn't until easily two-dozen bullets later that the thing finally died. Still...it was over. We'd fought off the zombies.

<Continue to Part 3>