LukeSid

Out of the desert now...only one dream but last night was a bit of a lash-up as per usual...

7.00 AM A lovely, warm little vignette by Ed, about an indoor cafe. It looked like a double-decker bus minus the engine parts...a "themed" cafe shall we say? (maybe using-up the props from Monday's bus stop incident) The wife (plus others?) were with me and there were customers seated on both levels. One of the staff was apparently going round with a raffle (looked like a very large box of Christmas crackers...I think Ed likes Christmas)

Cut to me watching a diner being served with what looked vaguely like shredded beef and vegetables. It looked nice and I gravitated towards the serving end. There was a guy cleaning out a large glass cabinet, inside which was the skeletal remains of what looked like a small cow...("looks like beef's off the menu boys") The others had disappeared somewhere, to look for a toilet...and cut...and fade

Not bad Ed...only the large rib-cage looked out of place...and the fact it was just in a glass case...and the fact that I don't remember any other shops being inside this "indoor place, whatever it was...I could go on...despite the fact that I'm being fairly diligent about ADA, I never picked-up on anything so I'm not there yet then.

I remember watching a documentary about an indoor market and cafe in Wales...that's where he got the idea. It's interesting to note that very rarely now does any of my original Dream Signs appear in Ed's script (and only peripherally when they do) Does highlighting them exorcise them?

Nothing last night...Zilch. If brains were locations mine was Death valley last night...On the dream front is was as dry as the driest biscuit ever made. Lucid dreaming was as far from me last night as the most distant star in the most distant Galaxy in however many parallel Universes there are...

Still...never mind eh?...there's always tomorrow night

Yep...our little (sometimes big and furry) multi-legged, cuddly friends. Like most people, I'm wary of them (but not terrified) I don't kill them...or any insects deliberately, (except the occasional fly who won't co-operate with my efforts to show it an easy way out) Insects were on the Earth long before us and therefore have squatter's rights.

2.45 AM But I made a decision I now regret. Because of my slight aversion I made no real effort at recall and all I now remember was a large industrial complex (DS) and I was aware that a lot of spiders were about and my wife had just opened a door and called to me and they were now out...and I could expect the small army to appear around a corner. I'm pretty sure that I awoke before they did and that's my take on many dreams

They usually don't have a Hollywood well-rounded dream ending... Ed just runs out of steam.

5.50 AM i found this a very difficult dream to put on paper...Ed at his "Arty" worst. A room (not unlike a Brit Working Man's club) full of men. I sat at the side, with a woman (at least I got one) Well, it was my dream...sorry Ed, it was our co-production. (I experience it...you make a pig's bollocks of the script.)

I think she was a doctor again (have I now got a dream friend?) and suddenly...like a flock of birds at roosting-time all the men gravitated towards the walls. Some sat on vacant chairs, the rest just wedged themselves wherever there was a space...it literally did feel like they were settling down for the night.

My companion apparently developed a soft-spot for an avuncular bespectacled guy alongside her. (Hey! remember me Miss? I helped make you...I can break you) I seem to have thought that he was some minor celebrity and she fussed over him and gave him advice (as long as that's all she gave him) I must admit, he seemed a very likeable chap.

Then Ed overdid it as per usual and moved into experimental-cinema. Cut to the guy moving towards me, alternating between a magnified image of his friendly face, then as a small whippet-type dog with a horseshoe??? I don't use any class A B or whatever drugs so I had no hand in this production...it was merely the output of a brain too long without a toehold in reality.

8.15 ish (I think) Mistake again. I grabbed the dream...then drifted and I must have fallen asleep and it drifted away like a lost balloon STAY FOCUSSED

But I'm encouraged. I put no alarm on last night and spontaneously woke up three times with dreams. What happened after that is just dream entropy...at night, if it can go wrong it will go wrong I've found.

Of course 100 remembered dreams a night is no compensation for a Lucid experience but am I down-hearted?...genuinely not (yet) As long as the ideas keep coming I've got nothing better to do at night...except sleep of course...and I'm doing lots of that as well (Isn't this conversation going round in circles?)

Only one captured dream last night. I reset my alarm to twitter at 6 Am (just in case I missed the rest of the night) Sure enough I slept through till it went off. Every time I reset the alarm it seems to over-ride my pre-sleep instructions to the brain...which involves lying down and simulating SP and eyes at a dream beginning, then simulating the end of SP, while going through wake-up instructions...and it often works quite well.

I feel this symbolic act is stronger than just reciting a dream mantra but maybe the act of doing something (i.e. setting the alarm, sends an even stronger signal)

8.30 AM I was determined to grab at least one dream and I would still be there now if I hadn't. The wife and I (and one other???) were trying to catch a bus, that was waiting at its turn-round point. Ed didn't make the mistake of letting the wife keep pace with me...even I would have gone "Whoa!...that's not right!"... the sight of her jogging alongside me would have been mind-blowing


I got on-board (that's wrong I would have held the bus till they got there) The bus drove off and they weren't with me (It seemed to take me ages to notice...I say again, how thick is my unconscious?)

I was absolutely livid. I looked for a bell (the act of looking around!) and couldn't find one...we must have been miles from them by now. The conductor came downstairs (a double-decker) and I explained that I needed to talk to the driver.

Cut to the fact that we're both now looking up at the bus, way way above us on some huge brick parapet (Ed...where's the continuity?...you need some sort of continuity Ed. I...oh what's the use!) We look around for how to reach this bus (then Ed ran out of ideas and I woke up)

Another symbolic dream about attaining LD way out of my reach? Talk about flogging a dead horse.. Ed gets an idea and literally flays it to death. But, last night gave me a couple of ideas...one about using props and one toying with the idea of one day laying-in as long as I can get back to sleep to see how long dreams might occur

Must go...I've gotta find the wife... she'll be livid as well...

A sparse couple of nights, with only 3 captured dreams between them. But I reached a conclusion re SSILD…for me, it’s a great relaxant…a WBTB and the cycles seem to guarantee me 4+ hours of deep, dreamless sleep.

Friday night’s dream. 4.15 AM
I do all the talking basically. Talking AT a doctor and observing the amount of work she had to get through, to achieve her position. She was basically non-committal (as DC’s are?). This might have related to a BBC news item I read involving the Syrian doctor who challenged Britain’s Labour leader to come to Syria …except I read that AFTER the dream (surely dreams aren’t predictive?)

Sat 1.20 AM
Ed’s turned into Cubby Broccoli (which is good, because I read that broccoli is also good brain-food, so he’s doing something right for once) This was a cut-down James Bond production I think. I’m sure there was action at the front-end (although, knowing Ed, that might have just involved a heated argument in a bus queue)

But there was a love scene with a genuine Bond-type girl (although I prefer the fuller figure myself) I say a love scene…more a foreplay scene (as a man, I thought there was far too much of that). It involved mainly snogging, with a slightly hurried bit of lip-caressing of her lower body, then, just as it might have got more interesting, I woke up…coitus interruptus,,,

You know what I’m going to say…would I have done that? External forces again

7.00 AM
Dog on a carpet. No…not another love scene, with one of Ed’s usual female DCs. A genuine small dog (haven’t got one myself) It seemed to have its claws trapped in the carpet and it was clearly in distress. Although I feared getting bitten, I went to its assistance and it held me in a weird sort of embrace, with it’s claws and little body pressed tight against me. Ed!..........??????

Re the sparse dreams. Serves me right for getting lured into experimenting with SSLD at this stage. I’d earlier decided to concentrate on the dream journal, ADA (which I’m doing fairly well at the moment) and maybe WILD in the afternoon. (no Ed that’s not another film title)

The beetroot extract should last me a total of 45 days…that’s surely enough time to see if they work at all. I read somewhere that fruit juices are not as effective as whole fruit (something is believed to be lost in the processing, so we'll see if the same applies to concentrated tablets)

Nothing exciting last night...only two dreams and a huge gap between them. I think I need to be more patient, when laying there trying to remember dreams. I very nearly missed the last one and I lay there longer and it emerged from the mists.

02.20 Trying on a succession of coats, with a crafty old salesman attending me. He's "talking-up" one particular coat and I say quite firmly "Well, I don't like it" and he looks decidedly miffed. ????

7.30 It must have been Christmas somewhere and there were lots of identically-wrapped presents on a table and I walked across the top of another table to get back to a companion. There were people lying on the floor and they commented on my table-walking. I relied "Don't tell me you've never walked across a table before"

Exciting stuff...and totally unfathomable.

Off topic... Research show protein-deficiency as a probable cause of old-age memory loss...rather than Alzheimers (pay attention...you won't believe how quickly life passes us by) Protein synthesis is an essential step in the formation of long-term memory so how to boost my brain-protein? (are you listening Ed...I SAID HOW TO BOOST...I give up...he's as deaf as a post)

Brain protein RbAp48 apparently...so we can expect health food supplements soon.

"A bottle of RbAp48 please Miss."

"With or without choline & galantamine sir?"

"With please...and also with beetroot extract...I'm only getting 3500mg per day at the moment."

Ah...that'll be the day...

Back dreaming but only grabbed one dream fragment last night. I've received the beetroot extract tablets but not taken enough yet to see a result one way or the other. Each 700mg tablet contains the equivalent of 3500mg of dried beetroot...am I in danger of turning into Violet Beauregarde?

The dream raises the old chestnut again...who or what controls our dreams?

I'm in some sort of fairly broken-down industrial complex (DS) I'm out somewhere on my own and I have bare feet...and I'm in near darkness. I'm assuming that the unconscious is as bad as creating feet as it is creating hands...so who or what combined bare feet with the inability to see them?

But, there are deeper issues. I've been trying ADA and I'm slowly getting there. So I'm fairly aware of how my feet feel, in shoes and out of shoes. I think I was barefoot on shingley/pebbly ground, but I was unable to register the fact that I felt nothing was not how it should have been. So...on the one hand giving me bare feet but cloaking them in darkness...and on the other hand the creation of rough ground that might have rung alarm bells (but didn't)

Finally...this is the 3rd dream I've had where I'm lost and trying to get back somewhere. Is that a metaphor for my attempts to become lucid but not yet finding a way?

Complete lash-up last night and I'm on a short break so I'll get a few days rest before I'm back in the saddle.

I read up on the latest SSILD and that looks very interesting. I had a dry run during the day (at what I think is my REM sweet-spot) and it was very encouraging (definite signs that things were happening) So I altered my alarm time to later (5.30 AM), took 2 choline earlier and went through the cycles...and I could NOT go back to sleep in a hurry

I've never been a person who can usually hit the pillow and BLAM...I'm gone...and I can see that the effects of this method would diminish the longer it takes to go to sleep and I repeated the cycles once and I can see that was probably a mistake. Ed was completely thrown by my attempts...he retired to his editing room and refused to co-operate for the rest of the night. But, I like it and I'll pick that up again (particularly during the afternoon attempts) I'll also trawl through the discussion after the tutorial.

I get the impression that altering my alarm seems to have a strong impression on my brain and sometimes seems to override my "brain conditioning" exercises so I'll limit the amount of times I alter the alarm. It will stay at 5.30 now and I'll have a 10 minute "getup" a little slurp, pick my nose maybe (no I won't...I'll use a hanky) then go through the cycles nicely ready for the late-morning REM "happy-hours"

"Nil Desperandum Illegitimi Carborundum" (specially you Ed)

On second thoughts, I thought I'd post my proven end-of -dream data here rather than on the general forum I also log my diet...in case I discover a "miracle food" They are based on a midnight SST. Sometimes it takes me longer to go off (but as I collect more and more data the margin of error should get less)
All AM times

1.00 1.10 1.40 1.55

2.30

3.20 3.30 3.40

5.00 5.10

6.00 6.15 6.20 6.30 6.45

7,10 7.20 7.50

8.20 8.40

I've only recorded times where I had a remembered dream and not any times where I had post-REM traces or dreams that escaped (that would double the count ) I have a hunch that the later complete REM periods (start to finish) are as follows (+- 5 minutes)

6.00 to 6.45

7.10 to 7.50

8.20 to 9.00

The gap at 4.00 is caused by me setting my alarm for that time and getting up for half to one hour (usually having a small coffee) I might stop setting the alarm because I'm thinking maybe it doesn't really serve any useful purpose (I find daytime WILDs give stronger effects that night-time ones anyway)

I've read that older men have fewer...but longer...REM cycles. But, so far, I appear to have about six (and that's not even counting the period where I set my alarm) Obviously, as more data is collected, some of these gaps could close up into one cycle

Looking at one period 6.00 to 6.45 would there be multiple dreams within that cycle? Am I therefore missing hundreds of short dreams or perhaps only capturing a fraction of one long dream? Or, on any given day, is only part of a REM period filled with a dream and then the engine just idles for the rest of the period?

Loving it.....

I thought I'd capture 4 dreams last night but 2 wriggled away...the last one as I lay there, trying to recall every last detail but, instead, i drifted off again and Ed snatched the dream back and threw it into the recycle bin.

1.10 AM Fairly unfathomable this one. I'm with a woman...part of it I think involved the wife but I'm not sure that all of it did. I don't think there was any impropriety (but I can't swear to it) She made great play about leaving one room and going through a door into another (did the room have a roof on?) Looking across a sort of valley (probably no roof then...or maybe even an outer wall) I saw two couples (male/female) and one couple were stark naked...I got the impression that they were captives.

I don't recall anything further so maybe Ed was trying for a sex-comedy...minus the sex...and the comedy.

6.20 This one was clearer. It took place on a luxury "yacht" (similar to the one in the picture) The "captain" seemed very laid back as he stood with his colleagues (he may have been the owner) I noticed a price list and one rate said "diving" £97. I remarked that I presumed that this involved "frogman's equipment." (very war-time dialogue...just remember that I don't write it...damn you Ed))

He nodded very coolly (not a great talker...not even any waffle) There were a large number of DC's for this type of vessel (so Ed can afford that many extras but not a train yesterday?) They were heading downstairs to some sort of function.

I've just attempted a WILD (Fail) Although I was getting pretty good colour...always greeny-yellow bands of colour that drift downwards but never actually coalesce into one whole structure (not yet anyway) I'm getting quite a good picture now of the spread of my REM periods...which I'll post on the main forum, in case anyone has any observations re them

Unable to post yesterday so here's a small dream-let from Wednesday

3.05 Old shops (maybe Victorian) selling fruit A couple were waffling on and trying to decide and I found some really nice fruit and i was busy enjoying it (I don't remember paying - perhaps Ed did) Lay dozing and got eye effects right up to 3.40

THURSDAY - We had a night out, lots to eat and a bit to drink and very tired and snuffly, so lucky to get anything at all last night

6.20 On a bus talking to kids and I dropped some crisps on the floor and threw them out of the door. Asked one kid how he was and he said "Future do." ?????? (Er...excuse me...Ed...Ed...what the f....? is that the best you can do? I could write miles better stuff if you'd only let me...Grrr!)

Sorry about that...now, where was I? Oh yes...

8.20 Some (maybe Continental) railway station. There was one of those concertina metal mesh gates you sometimes get and a kid with me was playing with it and apparently damaged it. I think it was supposed to represent a broken-down train and I tried to fix it, while a tannoy said something about a delayed departure

Excuse me again...(Ed...why the gate? I know the budget's tight but couldn't you use a real train for God's sake! It looks so ridiculous...me tugging away at that and pressing that little red button...you're losing it boy...you really are!)

Sorry again. It's highly possible, because of my age that there's too much brain deterioration. Not yet Alzheimers...probably years away from that dammit...at least I could then get brain-improvement drugs on the NHS. I've been reading up on beetroot juice (good for blood pressure and brain performance) and I've sent off for some concentrated tablets. I shouldn't blame Ed...he does his best...poor bastard.

Kept off the Xbox yesterday, had 2 glasses of chianti and things picked up again.

1.00 AM I dropped off some time after 12.00 AM so this dream was probably in delta sleep (I've had early ones before) A dark dream...and I half-expected that. I precondition for about an hour before retiring (generally muttering to Ed...or just myself most of the time, judging by his usual output) One thing I opined was that there were perhaps "dark forces" sometimes thwarting my attempts.

"Don't put dark forces" in my dream I whispered...yes I know it sounds foolish, but how can an old man, sitting in a darkened room, talking to himself, sound otherwise?

I'm hiding in a maze of (windows?) I go around cleaning these windows off and I can hear shouts of encouragement from outside...but also some menacing sounds. Suddenly, something behind me jumps on me and pins me to the ground. It's heavy and I can't move at first...then I fight back. I have one of its arms between my teeth and threaten to bite it off if he doesn't stop (I think it was another human)

Ed's gone from Ed-B-DeMille to Ed Eisenstein. This dream is loaded with symbolism...even I can see it. The maze is my attempts at lucidity and I'm "clearing windows" and trying to progress, the shouts of encouragement may be people wanting me to succeed (who cares but me?) The assailant is the "dark force" hampering me and I'm fighting back...and people think I'm cheesy...Are dreams really that easy to read?

6.30 AM I think I only grabbed part of a longish dream. There was a Jewish woman (how do I know and why was she?) I loved her but I sensed her feelings for me weren't quite as deep. I sense that there was some sort of pursuit going on earlier but I only got a very faint hint. I would have liked to know more of this dream because Ed seemed to use less of his normal "sledgehammer" technique.

But the rest has presumably gone forever, back to Ed's editing suite...to be recycled into his next "epic."

7.50 A short dreamlet. Sitting with a group of my betters...and they seem to be treating me as an equal! An Arnie lookalike (but not a soundalike) says in unaccented English something about teachers delaying the opening of school by one more day. I said "They're fucking useless" (look...I don't write this dialogue!) and they thought that was profound and funny????

Well...I must go...I've got thousands more windows to wash.

For the first time in over a year I've been really hammering Xbox, playing Halo Reach Legendary and I've now nearly completed it (not bad for an oldie) But, contrary to my earlier view, I'm now wondering whether this has disrupted my dream cycle.

I'm fairly sure that the dreams have been there, but it's been difficult to catch them. Even after two choline tablets last night I only managed one and a fragment of one. By now, it's clear to me that the dreams and any planning is easily disrupted by tiredness and various other causes. They are truly like will-o'-the-wisps

1.55 AM Dream fragment A ample woman in her forties (steady on Ed...you know I like ample women don't you...you dog!) blathered on about farm and water rates??? She was with some other people (her parents I think).

08.40 AM I was with a group of military officers (DS) in some place like Whitehall and we were making some derogatory remarks, as a group of ministers passed by. One bespectacled minister overheard us and I can remember feeling alarmed. "Deny everything." I said ( a good maxim in life I've found)

He came over and did some DC blathering and a colleague (who seemed remarkably coherent) translated and said that apparently, subject to a month's review, we would hear some news to our liking.

i can't recall any recent news items about unhappy farmers or military and we have no connections to either occupations in our living generations. Could it be racial memory? Who knows?

So despite my earlier assumptions, it looks likely that heavy gaming probably didn't cause me to have the two amazingly vivid hypnagogic visions I had a couple of years back (one at night and one napping during the day)

With my current interest in LD, I'd dearly like to know (a) the cause...was it something I ate? (b)the time of my nap...because it was truly a golden hour. So I'm working at both. I know 17.00 PM is good for SP effects etc (although NEVER hypnagogia or a dream) but I'm now thinking that this was maybe early afternoon (a good excuse to experiment...I'm turning into a dormouse I think)

Was (a) red wine? (which I only used to drink occasionally...honest) Well, I'll just have to try won't I? failing that I'll have to try a range of drinks and foodstuffs because I can't, at this stage, envisage any external cause.

Excelsior...I can speak Latin me....

I've said it before and I say it again...although, obviously, attaining lucidity is the holy grail, I find the whole dream thing a fascinating journey. I must do else I wouldn't drag myself up at unearthly hours just to write in a journal.

Personally, I think that there's things that are deeply mysterious... are dreams strange just because the conscious is switched off? Why does there often seem to be a force at work that hampers achieving LD for some? Will I ever get to see other levels?

Only one dream last night...part of a longer dream I think. It was in some kind of weird takeaway joint with huge cast iron (pressure cookers?) Some were open and whole cooked chickens rested in the tops...looking small compared to the cookers. Again, I seemed to look closer at these and they were very rusty.

A woman who I apparently knew? had purchased a meal and she had placed the various packages in (you're not going to believe this) her bra. She was complimenting the guy on the quality of the foods and he seemed very pleased with that.

I admit that I was always what was called a "breast man" (albeit an old one now and always harmless) Many men are leg men...or whatever) but ??????? why there?

Given that the unconscious can assemble fairly recognisable human beings and many other things why would a takeaway not have a reasonable schema of microwaves etc?... instead these things might have been present in the late 19th early 20th century. Could it be racial (now called genetic) memory which is believed to be part of a "collective unconscious?" Intriguing stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneti...y_(psychology)

i was tired last night and went to bed an hour earlier. I fell asleep quickly and I think it threw my internal clock out of sync. I woke up during the night but I wasn't feeling the after-effects of dreaming (the slight tremors in arms and eyes) and I didn't recall any dreams.

That's disappointing, because I believed that I'd conditioned my body to awaken immediately a dream ended and SP stopped. So either the "ending of SP" conditioning isn't relevant or it needs that and the correct sleep time to be really effective.