Memorable Dreams
It has been a long time since I have had any lucid dreams. Last night / this morning I was having a dream and woke up. I decided to do a reality check so I looked at the clock and noted the time. I then looked away, looked back and the time was way off. I did it a third time to see a different number and I realized I was dreaming. I remember the false awakening was so realistic. I tried to reason with myself that it was so realistic I must be awake. Not sure why I remembered to do the reality check but glad I did. I don't think the lucid dream part lasted very long. I remember vague parts of it like trying to jump up in the air and fly but it didn't work. I also remember entering a room and trying to create people. I was successful to a degree.... I don't remember the people having detail like faces, they were more like mannequins. I also remember tying to "Spin" to keep myself in the lucid dream. I believe I was successful.
So I haven't been sleeping well lately. I also have not been having LD's for a while. I had two very brief ones over the course of the last week. I wrote about one already. The next day I also had a very brief one. I went to bed about 3-4 am and couldn't sleep. I stared into the blackness and tried to get some visuals going. After a few hours of nothing I began to see bright colors, vivid techni-colors like walls. I imagined it like a tunnel and tried to create an opening like a circle at the other end. I could see through the tunnel and on the other end was my dream space. I had been thinking earlier in the night about dreaming I was in Florida by the pool. There it was right through the color tunnel. I managed to reach it and could feel myself split between my physical body and dream body. I was by the pool and in bed. It switched over to me just being by the pool. I was very excited. The dream wasn't fully formed. Everything was blank or unfinished. I remember jumping into the pool of water then going over to the side of the pool and picturing a girl there. She was there but she had no features. No face, just a blank body. I remember reaching over to her to bring her closer to me and the dream started to fade and then my consciousness slipped fully back into my body. As I lied in bed sleepless I began to slip off into small patches of sleep and wake back up again. At first I didn't notice but I began to recall having dreams. They weren't long. I must have been falling asleep for short periods of time like 5-15 mins tops then waking back up again. I tried to focus on the blackness and tried to "spin" my vision. Like a mini-galaxy I spun what little white there was around and around. It is a little hazy what happened next but I think I opened another "portal" and entered a LD state. I recall getting out of bed and walking up the stairs on the inside of my house. I know it was my house because as I walked up to the third floor I looked at the wall and saw there was no window. In my house there are two windows there and I saw they were absent. I remembered realizing it was SUPPOSED to be there. I was forming the dream around me and just had not added the windows. I walked into the third floor apt looking for people but no one was there and once again the place was not "fully formed yet". The place was being "built" around me. I don't recall much else except the fact that the LD wasn't very long and it faded away like the other. I sent my daughter off to school then laid back down to try to get some sleep but it still wouldnt come. Eventually I started to drift off into very small periods of sleep again (only a few minutes each) however they were semi-lucid dreams. I was lucid to a certain degree and only had control over my own actions, not the environment. I must have had about 10 of these mini segmented LDs before I finally just got out of bed.
It has been a long time since I have had a LD. This morning I had several. I wish I had taken the time to write them down because I can't recall them very well anymore. I was dreaming about something absurd and unrealistic. I woke up briefly at around 7:30 am and was very frustrated. I remember thinking how bizarre the dream was and how sad it was that I couldn't realize it was a dream while I was dreaming it. I was dreaming that I was part of a football team. We were a professional team but we were stuck playing at a really small local school field. It was upsetting me that we were there. The dream shifted into something else and I think I was doing road maintenance??? That is when I woke up frustrated. I then went back to sleep. I re-entered the dream and then I remember questioning the situation and I believe I did a reality check. I realized I was dreaming. I was dreaming that I was part of a football team. We were a professional team but we were stuck playing at a really small local school field. It was upsetting me that we were there. The dream shifted into something else and I think I was doing road maintenance??? That is when I woke up frustrated. I was very lightly sleeping at this point. I remember trying to fly however I couldn't fly very high, I was more hovering over the ground. I did not have any control over the environment and could not create the world around me. However I was aware I was dreaming and everything was very realistic. I remember a few different occasions I got overly excited about the fact I was have a LD but for the first time ever I remembered to SPIN!!!! I started to wake up and felt myself in both my bed and in the dream state. But I kept thinking "SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN" and my dream body spun faster and faster and faster.... and eventually I was back dreaming again!!! Very excited about this as it was not only a first time having this happen but it happened several times during my LD this am. One time was odd. I remember starting to wake up and things became like static on an old tv. I was between worlds and kept thinking SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN and when I was back in the dream state... It was all static. It weirded me out so I woke my body up to make sure I could still wake up... Did so and then fell back asleep. This was all very low level LD states. It was a very light sleep and the LD and dream states slipped away several times. However the landmark of me remembering to "SPIN" is great. If I can recall what I was dreaming about I will add to this later. I just recall trying to "Fly" on a few occasions but barely getting any lift and floating around more than anything else.
I had a friend stay over last night so I wasn't really expecting to have anything interesting to journal today. However once I was alone I decided to lay down and give try to fall back asleep. I put on a movie and lay in bed and slowly I started to drift off. What happened then was a complete surprise. My bod started to slowly tingle. I don't remember if it ever began to vibrate. I started to feel myself turning in my bed to weird angles and positions. It felt completely "normal" at first but then I decided to try "waking myself up" and seeing what happened. To my surprise I woke myself up and realized I had been in a very light sleep and dreaming of myself turning. I fell back asleep and began turning and shifting positions until I basically melted off the bed and onto the floor. I remember thinking how it should have hurt hitting the floor and that the angle I was positioned in was awkward and too tight a space. I should not have been able to fit in there and it should have hurt badly. I realized I was dreaming and struggled to stay asleep but was successful. I remember my eyes were closed and was afraid if I opened them I would wake myself up. I slightly opened them to find myself up against the wall near a window in my room looking down on my bed. I was still asleep. I tried to see if I could see myself sleeping but remember it was very blurry. I floated up the wall and plunged up into the ceiling and into the second floor of my house. I remember it was "blank" and I defined the area of what it should look like as I walked around. Looking at the color of the paint on the walls told me that I was in the past because the color is different now. So I focused on the paint colors and the walls changed to various different colors until they settled on what I recalled the colors should currently be. I noticed that the second floor had no people and no furniture. It was empty. In real life there are people living there and it is fully furnished. I walked around the apt. for a while and don't recall exactly what happened next. I remember waking up and falling back asleep several times but I was fully confident that I would return to my lucid state. Next thing I can remember I was floating outside of my house however it was the house I grew up in during childhood. There were no people, just houses. It felt so intense. I felt so connected to everything. I remember seeing a person at that time and I said two things to him. 1. "I realize that I will never be any more than I already am" 2. - I can't recall the exact words but it had something to do with me being connected to everything. I think the idea was that I was already more than just one person. I rose up in the air floating / flying and laughed as I realized I had full control over the world around me. The feeling was so intense that I remember fearing I would become crazy and possibly lost in this world. (I think this realization and validation through a person in my dream state shot me into a level four dream) I don't recall if I actually woke myself up to make sure that I could or not. I may have but it was only for a moment and I was right back in the same situation flying. If I did or not, something reassured me that I would be ok and I continued my dreaming. I flew up into the air and decided to fly to the moon. I remember seeing it small and ahead of me and as I approached it grew no bigger. It was the size of a small asteroid. I knew this wasn't correct so I tried to change it's shape to what I knew the moon was supposed to look like. I tried to give it craters and increase it's size. I don't think I was fully successful. I remember looking around and seeing dot's all over the place, I suppose they were stars. It reminded me of my "sandbox mode" dreams that I had yesterday. Except things were "real" not made of color. I was trying to create the world around me as I went and was doing a better job of it... but not hitting the mark exactly. I woke up and ended up falling back asleep into a regular dream. I was in a mall area with my family. I recall trying to buy some things at the register but something rang in at the wrong price. I complained to the cashier and we looked at the prices on the register tape. The prices were ambiguous. We couldn't tell. The cashier went to get the manager and he came over and refused to do anything about it because he was literally about to go on vacation THAT MOMENT. SO he walked off and left. I remember being angry and telling him I would be calling to complain to the people who ran the place and I made sure he knew my name. I went out in the parking lot full of cars and it occurred to me that I could fly. I remember just lifting up and flying around the parking lot. Landing and flying around some more. I think I was lucid at this point but it faded in and out. The next thing I remember was seeing a huge amusement park in the parking lot. With a crazy big huge gigantically large roller coaster. It was so abnormally large, towering up into the sky, that there was no way I was going to get onto it. I think my mother told me at that point it was closed and I felt some relief that it wasn't an option. The lucid portions of my dreams were so intense. I feel like it was "part two - intermediate level" from my dream yesterday. These are a brand new type of lucid dreams. Ones where I am creating the world from my imagination rather than them appearing already fully developed. I watched some videos last night on the five stages of lucid dreams and I am quite sure this had an influence on my dreams. He talked about touring space and alien planets. It never occurred to me before that I could fly myself up into space. Based on the level theory he presents I have a vague idea of what may be happening. Yesterday, I was not sure if what I was experiencing was an OOBE because of how different it was. But now I believe what may be happening is I am jumping right into "Level Four" lucid dreams and encountering a "blank slate" situation. This would explain why I am entering a dream state that seems empty and why I have to create the environment around me ahead of time. Waking up and falling back asleep into normal dreams where I attain lucidity by realize I am dreaming, brings me back into a lower level lucid dream where the environment is already established and I am able to move around in it. Then that lucidity eventually brings me back to a level 4 LD where I flew into space and created the moon and stars myself. This makes sense because of my conversation with that person. It validated that I was in a LD and it pushed me into the next level. I remember feeling so intense that I may be going crazy. This is similar to "breaking through" where the last time I did it I reached a level four dream state also. Totally amazing. The entire experience was from approx 10 am to 12 pm noon.
After days upon days of no lucid dreams or even any signs of them I finally had "something" happen today. However it falls more under the "Astral Projection" category I suppose. I was out at the club late night, came home by 3 and was in bed by 4 am. Woke up around 11 then laid down to watch "Time Bandits" by Terry Gilliam and started to drift off. It was light out and as I closed my eye I noticed some major visualizations. I even opened my eyes up and saw them so I knew something was about to happen. My body started to vibrate and tingle slightly. Then I heard two sets of very odd noises. First I heard some voice in a deep tone say my name twice. Then I Heard a deep knocking sound and each time it happened the whole house felt like it was shaking. Again, recognizing these sounds for what they were I tried to calm myself down and focus on the vibrations. I could feel them build up in my body until I was almost taken over by them... but noises outside broke my concentration and like water flowing out of a funnel it slowly came to a stop. I was able to refocus and the vibrations built up and up and up until my entire body was engulfed and I felt like I was being pulled upward. I found myself in a world of technicolor light. Imagine a huge blank canvas around you with no definition just strong colors. I remember not knowing what to do. I also remember being slightly aware of my physical body. I felt like I was in another location but still lying down in bed at the same time. Control was not really there. It was definitely NOT a lucid dream. I believe this all took place in an "astral realm". I felt like a child trying to control it. I tried to manipulate it like a dream and create an environment but at first the best I could do felt like I was a child dragging a paint brush across the field. I then tried to focus on my body and remembered rolling, spinning, flying but again unlike a lucid dream, control was murky and I felt VERY limited in what I could actually do. I focused as hard as I could and I created a "mall" around me. Store fronts and people appeared. But it was as if it was all made out of the colored light I described above. I remember the people being of different ages but could not recall any specific features. I tried to engage one of them but I ended up waking myself up. I felt myself drain from that reality back into my body. I started again and soon found myself back in this realm. Accepting that I had limited control I left the world form itself around me. I remember being in a house, possibly a castle and then a war scene. But again nothing was normal in color. It was as if it was made out of that strange colored light. I felt like a foreigner in a strange land. I don't think I actually "moved" my astral body at all the entire time. I think the environment just shifted around me. I drifted in and out a few times then by 2 pm I woke up and stopped the process. I have literally no idea what I experienced so I am going to post this in the forums to see if anyone can help explain what happened.
Last night I got into bed around 11:00, did a relaxation exercise and closed my eyes. I tried to concentrate on any visuals I had going on (not many) and consciously think about having a Lucid Dream. Hours went by with nothing happening. I tossed and turned but couldn't even fall asleep. By around 3:00 am. I got up went to the bathroom and laid back down and tried again. What happened next was very confusing. It felt like from that point on I got NO SLEEP at all. I just tossed and turned all night. But as the night wore on I realized I was falling asleep for very brief periods of time (Not sure exactly possibly 5 - 15 mins) and dreaming. Then waking up... laying there, then falling asleep. The dreams were all segments of one large dream. I have never had this happen before to this extent. I have dreamed, woken up and fallen back asleep to the same dream but never anything like this. There were a few times where I remember falling asleep to myself thinking "you are dreaming..." and it carried over into the dream but it wasn't enough to cause lucidity or if it did it ended right away. I also know I had at least one false awakening. I fell asleep and "woke back up" frustrated I couldn't fall asleep but I wasn't in my room. (I realized this after the fact and put together that I was having false awakenings. So between not sleeping, having small dream segments each time I dozed off for very brief periods of time and then having false awakenings mixed in it was a very confusing and frustrating night / day. I never did manage to fall asleep for any considerable length of time. The dream segments added together were rather interesting. It took place in a subway station. Like the underground kind you take in Boston. I remember waiting for the T. A few trains went by but they weren't the ones I needed to take. I remember a group of girls dressed for halloween. They were dressed like Pac-Man and some of the ghosts I believe, but they weren't very good costumes. All of a sudden I realized I had been waiting for the wrong train. The train I needed passed a while ago. I got very upset and frustrated. At one point a train came by and it was the one I needed, a bunch of people crowded to get into the train but before anyone could get on, they took it out of service. I remember a sign saying something like "Service people only". So I wasn't able to board it. The next portion of the dream I was still in the station and I remember seeing this girl next to me. Long curly black hair. She was topless. Beautiful. I remember saying to her I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world. The next thing I remember I was talking to a different girl near bye and saying something to her. Possibly hitting on her. She got offended as if she knew I was just talking to the other girl. I remembered doing it then suddenly I didn't and I felt like the guy from "Memento" where I couldn't remember what had just happened. Everyone in the station was staring at me as if they knew I was faking... maybe I was at the start but by that point I wasn't. I remember feeling terrified. I remember feeling that I wanted to go home very badly and still wasn't able to get onto the train. I ran outside of the station where it was raining. At this point I think I started to recall that I was dreaming during some of the segments because I remember thinking I could fly home. That is all I can remember. The bulk of this took place between 4 - 9 am. Each portion of the dream broken up by waking or false awakenings, then continuing when I fell back asleep for very brief periods of time.
So I figured it's 11 am, perfect time to lay back down and re-try to enter a LD state. After the weird ones i Had earlier today... what the hell. Laid down, shut my eyes and nothing happened for a while. Then I found myself standing in the middle of what I assumed was "my room" and couldn't remember getting up. So I remember thinking, "I'm dreaming" do something, jump! I did but didn't float. So I said fuck it and just threw myself into the air like superman and it worked. I thought I was in my own house (I wasn't) so I jumped up into the air again and tried to float through the floors but it didn't work. I think I woke myself back up at that point and fell right back asleep remembering I was dreaming still... I was so happy that I realized it was a false awakening that I woke myself up. But I fell back asleep and it happened again. I didn't realize I was sleeping, I tested it and again I was dreaming. I kept waking myself back up for real and that got more confusing. I know I was awake at one point and I convinced myself I was actually still dreaming... and it worked. (I could feel my body in bed and knew I was actually awake but I just pushed through it and made myself fall back asleep). This time I was so happy I managed to get up, run out of the room, unlock the door to the house and go out into the street where there was lots of people and families walking around. It was a neighborhood (not mine) and I have no idea who's house I had woken up in... I remember walking around and trying to go to someone else's house and go inside. I got very excited and the dream started to fade so I reminded myself to spin. Spin spin spin.... I think I started it too late because next thing I know I could feel my body in bed and I was thinking spin spin spin.... It was a fight between the two states of LD and awake in bed... I think it almost worked but in the end I woke up. So I will take this as another victory. Even though my LD's are still very short periods of time today I feel like I actually did work and learned some things. Earlier today I spent time in my LD's dealing with controlling them and keeping them going. Just now I feel like I learned how to identify false awakenings better. It also made me realize I have a hell of a lot more false awakenings then I think I do.
Last night I went to bed early and did a muscle relaxation technique. I then closed my eyes, put in ear plugs and tried to concentrate on the visuals. I got some tingling sensations but after an hour or more nothing happened. I flipped onto my side and went to sleep. My alarm went off at 4 am so I tried again... but nothing happened and I drifted off to sleep. Sent my kid off to school at 7 am, propped an extra pillow behind my head and started again. This is typically when I start to LD anyway. Like the day before I drifted in and out. Overall I had several LDs but they were quite different than before. They all started off as normal dreams and I wake up into them. The first one was the longest and it took me a while to realize I was dreaming. But once I did I immediately started to work on controlling it. The LD was not as "intense and vivid" as the long one I had four days ago. But I had total control. The first one was about my extended family. I am quite sure that this was because one of my aunts made a comment on my facebook page and I read it before bed. It took place in the bedroom I grew up in as a kid. Eventually I realized I was dreaming. I stayed in the room and experimented with different things. I remember doing something really odd like taking my hand and stretching it across the room. I don't recall much else at this point other than I had total control. I had several small LDs after that. I would wake up and fall right back asleep. I remember some of them were sexual in nature. The last one I can recall took place in a hallway. I remember saying I was looking for a "red head" and a bunch of people came running down the hallway and one girl came up to me and said something like "here I am". The odd thing was she really didn't have red hair, it was more strawberry blonde. But I pulled her aside and focused on her and she became a red head. I remember once again having sex after that. So this makes four LD night / days in a row. While none of the past three have matched how intense and real the first one was days ago, they were all different than in the past. This latest one was by far the oddest and most interesting as it seemed like I was taking advantage of he time and honing my skills in getting control over the dream world. Like a sandbox version of a game I sat and played and experimented. I would like to now combine the two and try to have a really deep LD with control that goes on for a while. I think I am trying a combination of different techniques at night before I fall asleep and they are not working. I may also be attempting to have an OOB experience. I really need to learn the different techniques and the difference between the two and how to attain them.