side notes

September 29, 2010

G/C

Asleep by 1:00am.

WBTB at 4:00am. Took 8/400 G/C and this sleep aid called Melissa, which is 900mg lemon balm, 180mg l-theanine and a combo of B-vitamins. Ate a small 100-calorie bag of baked Cheetos to help swallow everything. Back to bed.

My recall is kind of low, because I didn't experience much in the way of dreams. Everything tipped off with an INRALD. I was laying in bed, listening to Jack breathing next to me (which made me think I was awake). I also thought I heard my dad thumping around upstairs, getting ready for work. Regardless, I heard ringing in my ears... the volume would sometimes jump. I relaxed and saw a swirly void behind my eye lids. When I focused on it the first time, I felt my body whoosh into a full on SP transition. The noises got louder and my entire body felt like it was buzzing. It subsided, but the swirly was still there, so I focused on it again, and the same experience happened again.

Tentatively, I wondered if I was asleep, but kind of lost myself, and drifted off a bit. I felt a book at my feet. I don't remember falling asleep with a book on my bed, but I guess I did? I pushed the book off my bed, gently, so it wouldn't slam to the floor. I realized my head felt kind of voidy, so I decided to reality check by biting my tongue. My tongue didn't feel any sharp piercing where it should (since I use that pointier tooth that sits next to the first molar)... I tried biting a few times, and it was the same. I knew now that I was asleep, but I decided to nose pinch. First time, I could breathe, second time, I could breathe. Sweet, alright. Now to move. The SP was still kind of strong, so I started moving with my ankles first, but unfortunately, it woke me up

I tried to fall back to sleep, but couldn't, as my dad actually was getting ready for work at this point

About 6:20 I decided to move to the couch for a bit, and by 6:40 I was waking up more, so I took a half-mg of melatonin and passed out at some point.

I had a series of false awakenings again. Each one, I tried to catch by biting my tongue, but each time it hurt like it should have, so I missed them all But at the same time, I knew that it was a false awakening, throughout the whole thing... it may have just been low-level lucidity. It's kind of confusing.

I had a dream that Jack was cleaning up our apartment. I noticed our bedroom door was closed. I opened it, and there were boxes piled about shoulder-height to me (I'm 5'2"). I went to our kitchen, and everything had been cleaned out. Except there were leaves covering the floor (probably because I was watching Glee last night, and one of the music scenes had leaves all over the floor).

Another dream, Joe's sister, Becky was at my house for some reason. I don't remember much about that.

I remember being at work, and trying to follow my family. I was trying to leave through the loading dock door. Each time, I would open it partially, and attempt to duck under the door as it was closing, but before I could even set the door in close motion, it would fall shut on its own. I finally got out, and I noticed some dodgy teens in the alley. I started jogging, and they didn't want anything to do with me.

Overall, I don't think I'll do 8/400 again. The night wasn't too much different than the first time I did 4/200, but this time, I woke up with a massive headache and I feel a bit nauseous.

September 13, 2010

Asleep by 1am.

Decided to try an experiment, today. Awake at 5am. Tried a new idea during my WBTB... playing the mathematics gamex100 on brain age to help wake up my prefrontal cortex Was actually a really good idea! I settled in for my WILD and had better focus than I have in weeks. SP was pretty uncomfortable this morning, coupled with the knowledge that I knew my BF would be interrupting my attempt today (long story)... I ended up passing out at some point, I think around the 6am point. I was woke up by my end of WBTB alarm. I'm actually thinking I should kill that alarm, but it's usually so I can move back from the couch to the bed. But it's a potential lucid I keep interrupting.

Almost-completed Beatles goal - Lucid - 1/5
This was all 60's-era setting. About 1965, actually.
I was on a stage with a bunch of instruments set up. This stage was a bit unusual, as it wasn't raised, or surrounded by raised seats. In fact, it was all one level, and there was a space of maybe 10 feet between us and the first row of audience. I noticed a stagehand had two stop signs (like the cross-walk hand-held ones), which he laid on the ground in a ^ shape. I "knew" it was Paul's spot to stand on the stage.

At that moment, Paul came out from back stage, with his bass on him already. "Hey Paul!" I beckoned him over. I wanted to test whether he knew about going past the stop signs, or not. "Come stand over here, this is where you're supposed to be!"

Paul comes over and he's got one foot over the stop signs. "Noooo!" I said. "Don't go past them, it's dangerous! Look at how close the audience is!" I said, and positioned him back by his shoulders.

"Oh, yeah, I suppose you're right!" he said.

John came out, so Paul says quietly, "Let's see if John fucks up with it!" Then louder, "Hey John, come over here!"

John does, indeed, mess it up, resulting in me laughing at him and saying, "Noooo!" again, but in a silly voice. John's a bit more whatever! about the whole thing and sticks his tongue out at me.

George comes out and the same thing repeats. As I'm pushing George back, I think to myself, "Wow, even if this is just a dream, I'm acting pretty retarded, I should stop!"

I need to go across to the other side of the stage (we're on stage left, my keyboard is on stage right). Paul is supposed to play on stage right. As we pass each other, we stop and kiss briefly before carrying on.

When I get to my keyboard, though, there's a major catastrophe! There's a pool of water underneath my keyboard, and the stagehands are doing nothing to clean it! I find a mop (didn't have to look far ) and start trying to get the water up.

Paul sees me, and comes over. "Why are you mopping it yourself?!" he demands.

"Because no one else is, and I'm not going to electrocute myself by playing in a puddle of water!"

We get some help, but the water is turning into sludge. Sighing, I decided maybe I should just move the keyboard to a new place on the stage. I pick it up, turn around and...

I'm in a different room, facing Jack and listening to the Beatles on my mp3 player "Noooo! What the fuck!" I silently ask myself.

"What are you playing?" Jack asks.

"Just some Beatles," I say quietly. "Only, I was just going to turn the sound off, and mash the keys, pretending like I could play, because I can't actually play any songs yet," I say and do some fancy key-mashing that could totally pass for legit. I wake up.

Fragments
Talking to my dad and he has a full head of mop-top inspired hair, only he's his age in present time.

August 29, 2010

I was having an AMC dream. JR discovered Annie was sleeping with some politician dude. They were getting it on in a car. JR discovered them and had got upset, but this part of the dream faded.

False awakening. I "woke up" in bed. I spent a moment lying there and recalling the dream. I was also quite surprised I had fallen asleep again. I didn't even feel it coming.

Edited for TMI content...

I wondered about the possibility of this being a false awakening. I then noticed that, consciously, I did feel different. Fairly positive now that I'm dreaming, I thought to myself, "Only one way to check, and that's to get out of bed!"

As I slowly rolled over and got out of bed, I marveled about the fact that this really did feel like I was moving my real body. I began to question whether I was truly dreaming or not. I rather felt that getting out of bed would feel floaty, especially since in lucids, I don't normally feel gravity and weighty. This felt exactly like real life. Future note, WILDs may feel exactly like this. Especially when I think I'm awake...

Anyways, I was thinking a lot about this whole "Am I moving a dream body or my real body?" thing, and I heard a voice in the back of my mind, "Don't over think it, or you WILL wake up too much and move your real body." This voice sounded female, to my surprise (I usually expect Danny to tell me these things). It was probably myself; but in the past, Janine (my first DG, before Danny) often sounded like me... I wonder if this was her, again?

I didn't spend too much time looking around the room. But I did notice that the bedroom door, positioning of the bed and my endtable were all as they should be. This made me question, again, whether I was lucid or awake. I looked at the clock on my endtable. The numbers should have been a dead give-away. I could barely read the clock... it looked tired-eye bleary and I couldn't really make out any numbers. I concentrated harder. Does that say 4:41 or 4:48? I rubbed my eyes and looked again. It says 4:48. "I don't have to get up until 5:30," I reminded myself. "This is perfect, I can sleep longer!"

Completely forgetting about the false awakening, I crawl back in bed beside Jack. I noticed he was awake and reading something on his phone. We had a short discussion about him not staying up this late and my alarm rang.

Alright, so even if I hadn't gotten distracted, it's not like I could've done much with the lucidity, anyways. My guess is, this all happened just before 5:30, waking time. Maybe about 5:25, but this whole scene felt a bit shorter than 5 minutes. Still, this is a great note for future WILDs... I guess this is considered an INRALD (I'm Not Really Awake Lucid Dream)... I thought I was pretty good at determining lucidity by how it feels alone... and normal DILDs, I think that still holds true. But this whole new foray into INRALDing and WILDing... when I honestly think I'm awake, it really, really does feel like I'm awake! Further proof that I REALLY need to RC upon waking up...

I've acquired a new lucidity scale, so I can stop using misnomers like "semi-lucid." This scale is based on one developed by Ed Kelog.

Here it is

1/5 I realize that I dream, but continue to follow the dream "script"; no conscious choice.

2/5 I still follow the dream script (knowing that I dream), but I can make minor choices in keeping with dream reality. (This is where I know I'm dreaming, but I still have a plot to follow, and that's keeping me from really thinking things through and making my own conscious decisions as to what I want to do. I may transform into a dragon in order to kill puny fools blocking my path though, for example.)

3/5 I have the choice of following the dream script or not, can make major choices based on awareness of my potentialities in the dream state e.g. might choose to try a dream experiment instead of continuing the dream scenario, etc.

4/5 I'm fully aware that I dream and of the location and state of my physical body; also remember most knowledge from waking life, at least as it relates to goals that I had set for my lucid dreams.

5/5 I'm aware of myself as an integrated whole, at least on level with how I would be during a waking focus. Thinking, feeling, creating aspects of self are working as a unified whole. Extraordinary (even for dream reality) abilities and experiences often manifest.

I didn't put a lot of effort into recall today.

I did attempt a WILD after 6 hours of sleep. I wanted to test whether it was better for me to do one with the WBTB or to do them separate. The verdict remains to keep them separate. I didn't slip into HI at all! Although I did experience some intense SP, complete with shaking, flashing lights behind my eyelids and even some noises... I tried floating and rolling and visualizing and after all that, I was still awake.

Verdict: Better for me to split them up. I prefer having the HI and just working on the balancing act between sleep and consciousness.

July 24, 2010
Another crap McDonalds dream
I recall working with the hashbrowns again, at McDonalds, and Maxwell (ex-bf) being there.

Slept between 1:00a-9:30a

1:00a-5:30a
Meaningful portals
"This guy obviously does think my portals are meaningful," is what I have wrote. I can't, for the life of me, remember what this was about!

5:30-8:30
Set sail!
A friend was sailing around the world, in her boat, the South America. Her boat was painted a hideous colour of stark white with a child-like painting of South America on the bottom of her boat. I was looking at this design from underneath the water (I was under water, looking upwards). She was telling us about the tricky maneuvering she had to do to get into the docks at London, because she'd accidentally come in "backwards."

8:30-9:30a
Interesting house design, again
This house in my dream was supposed to be the house I currently live in. But it got quite warped up in the dream.
Starts out with me in my room. Bobbi (from work) is showing me my closet. She's quite proud of how she reorganized it. I don't really notice anything, other than hanging clothes, so I fake-enthusiastically say, "I really like it, thanks!" She goes on to tell me how all my bras are colour-coordinated with my tank tops. So she has done... She's paired a blue tank with an orange bra, pink bra with a green tank, etc.

[Grandma's dodgy basement trap door]
My dad wants to show me this interesting project Grandma was working on. She built a new way into the basement. I figured a new staircase, but then my dad opens up a panel out of the floor, in the main floor bathroom. He's trying to turn the light on, via pull-string, but the light appears to not want to turn on (obvious universal dream sign, missed!). Oh well, we don't need the light, anyways. All you have to do is use the same pull string to swing down through the trap door...

[Basement tenant and the new kitchen]
I'm hanging out in the basement with my parent's tenant. She's the girl who helped me cancel my gym membership IRL, yesterday.

"Did you realize just how many staircases there are in this place?" she asks.

"Well, I knew there were a couple," I say. She shows me this new one I don't recognize. I go up it, and I discover this dark kitchen area, that's been completely untouched for 13 years (and remarkably lacking any dust). The counters are a lovely wood and marble, the sink is huge, and I see a white stove with that smooth surface rather than burners. I think to myself that mum must've known about this kitchen, since she bought the new stove to go in here when she bought the black one for her main kitchen...

I realized that this kitchen should be mine! Now that the tenant knows about this place, she'll want to use it... How to get her to want to leave, though?

My Warcraft buddy, Gerakis, appears with a plan. He rigs up this stuffed toy to somehow become covered in raw red meat, and then tosses it to the tenant's dog (a shih-tzu), who is happily nomming (and growling) on the toy in the vent space next to her room, while she is trying to sleep. She complains it's too loud for her to sleep. Excellent...

I woke up here.

Slept between 11:30p-10:00a

After another night of lost dreams, I've decided to stop trying to forcibly DEILD as an induction technique. I'm quite good at using it to prolong dreams... and as a late-morning/not ready to get up yet technique (where I'm also less worried about losing a dream), it's still quite feasible. But there's too much recall at stake to use it as a main technique. I was also trying to "CAN-WILD" (which is like a DEILD... and alarm wakes you that turns itself off and you essentially DEILD, but if there's no dream, it ends up being a WILD anyways). But so far my body proves that when I wake up, I wake up, and I find it hard to re-enter the dream state on command like that. So, I am going to re-take up my habits of WBTB and focus on recall again.

11:30p-6:00a
House for sale
Upset at house being sold to my brothers (Mike, specifically). Some guy was doing house tours. That's all my notes say, I don't have any recollection of this dream!

6:00a-9:00a
Flying controls
I've forgotten what led up to this point, but I was being pursued by some witch. I jumped up off the ground and started flying away. This made me lucid. I Looked back and noticed she was hot on my tail. "I need to make myself fly faster," I thought. Normally, when I fly, my arms are in an upside-down V formation at my sides. I brought my arms straight against my sides, to see if that would improve my speed. No luck. I tried a Superman pose. Still no luck. "I remember reading somewhere that the way they fly is by thinking about their target, and basically letting themselves get pulled to it, mentally... Maybe that'll work...?" I looked at a point on the horizen, and kind of... "set it" with my mind and willed myself to get pulled towards it. I felt a yank from my belly button, like I was on a cord connecting it to the point I set, and I was being pulled towards the point. I yelped a bit with surprise, as it certainly did increase my speed, but it wasn't quite enough. Woke up, anyways.

9:00a-10:00a
School mates
There was some kind of event happening at my school (non-existent to RL). I think it might have been World Cup related. I'm sitting in an empty classroom with Freddy and Corine, from SAIT. We're talking about jobs and I say something about trying to break into sound ops. I look directly at Freddy, because IRL, he does some kinda theatre thing (not sure what capacity, but judging by his FBook posts, it sounds managerial).

Don't eat grassy snow
There's another point where I have a snowball in my hand, and I'm eating it. I realize it's all grassy, and I nearly throw up

Late for work
Another fragment where I realize I'm late for work. I'm trying to get my uniform together to get ready, but I keep getting distracted by things, which causes me to be more late.

Slept between 11:30p-6:00a.

11:30p-4:40a
DV-related fragment
Just a short fragment here. I was in a car with Naiya and possibly Akono. We all had DV going on our cellphones and we were checking up on people. Someone was helping out on some top-secret projects, but they kept leaking info on the forums by way of asking people to help them gather information on certain topics.

Had decided to try a DEILD this morning, so my lucid weaver alarm was what woke me. Unfortunately, I was quite confused at the sound of the alarm and wasn't sure why I was hearing beeping noises. Once they stopped I remembered, "Oh right, it's supposed to be a DEILD... What was I dreaming about?" and it was mostly gone I should probably remember to do an auto-suggestion before sleeping if I'm going to try a DEILD

Decided to turn the DEILD into a WILD using a suggestion I had gotten from someone using music (in my head) as an anchor, rather than music on earphones (since on earphones tends to carry over into dreams, so they say, and it gets annoying, I guess. I honestly don't think I would mind it, but I couldn't use my earphones, anyways).

It is definitely too difficult for me to WILD with the BF next to me To be fair, it wasn't a very serious attempt. I only got a light SP, barely any vibrations, and I found it hard to roll out due to that. Gave up, RC'd, just in case, then dozed very lightly and woke up for work, at 6am.

11:00p-2:00a
I had originally planned to do a WBTB and take some Tylenol Ultra for a CWILD. I had deprived myself of caffeine since like... 1pm. I don't know if it was anticipation, or whether I was just going to have an insomniac night anyways, but I drifted in a light sleep during this time.

I remember a fragment of Raven Knight telling me my mum had said hi to her (as if this was Warcraft).

2:00a-6:00a
I got up for my WBTB. I stupidly took the Tylenol Ultra, not thinking that maybe if I was having a rough sleep, I should skip the caffeine jolt *Sigh*

I did have some interesting experiences though.

I nearly WILD'ed twice. I wasn't intending on it, but I mean... what is WILD, but mind awake, body asleep, right? I experienced some SP vibrations, which were oddly something I saw, rather than felt. Hard to describe, considering all I saw were the blacks of my eyelids.

The first time this happened, once they subsided I kind of just went, "Fuck, now what?" I wasn't feeling floaty, and I couldn't induce that feeling. Okay, so try to open my dream eyes. I opened my eyes. Unfortunately, I saw my sleep mask. Transition fail, again.

Second time, I felt the SP vibrations the normal way. I even felt kind of floaty-ish this time. But once again, transition fail. I do not know how the eff to complete a WILD.

After this, I had this lucid HI where I was sitting in an office. It was very unstable, visually. I tried to focus on the visuals. Danny (my DG) told me to STOP trying to force something visually as the first thing. He told me to close my eyes and sway back and forth. He said focus more on my dream body and less on my real one. My problem is I focus too much on my real body, so I remain anchored. So, once I've got my focus on my dream body and I'm not aware of my physical one anymore, then I can open my eyes. This was working, but it kept flipping in and out (possibly due to the caffeine). I finally got a visual where Danny handed me a small orange pill and a glass of water. I swallowed it and said, "It reminds me of cat food."

"Cat food?!" Danny asks, sounding thoroughly confused. I wake.

Throughout this time, one of the things I was doing to help me sleep was listening to a slow song. In hindsight, I'm wondering about the validity of that as an anchor when/if I WILD in the future. Does anyone else ever listen to music during a WILD? I mean, I knew when I was dosing off because when I came to again, I'd notice the song wasn't where it left off. But I also wonder... if I'm consciously transitioning into a dream, will I still hear the song? I wouldn't mind that, in fact, it MIGHT not be such a bad thing, so long as I can stay focused on the dream. Hmm...

I finally did pass out at around 5. I had a non-lucid where I was chatting with Garrett's mum on MSN, only she didn't know it was me. I was chatting through Garrett's account and was pretending to be him.

June 28, 2010 - Part Two
4:30p-9:30p
I had to do a night shift tonight, so I settled in for my nap at just after 4:30 this afternoon. Actually, it was probably closer to 5. I had decided to do a WILD attempt, since I read and got some instructions on two very neat-sounding techniques. Essentially, if one didn't work, the other might.

As a side note: I forgot to deprive myself from caffeine, so unfortunately, I didn't do a proper CWILD. But, I did find out that Tylenol Ultra has caffeine in it, but it's 65mg to 500mg of acetomenophine (spelling?). I remember reading that anything less than 120mg of caffeine wasn't really enough, but I didn't want to take 1000mg of acetomenophine, so... that's why my CWILD failed.

Note: CWILD is a technique I learned from another site. It stands for Caffeine Withrdrawl Induced Lucid Dream. It can be combo'd with any induction technique, including DILDs and has no direct relation to Wake Induced Lucid Dreams (other than it can be combo'd).

Anyways, so I settled in and got to work on relaxing each area of my body. I don't really have a set relaxation technique (like the 61-point. That is a brutal tech). I just focus on each area, like feet, calves, thighs, etc and imagine that with each exhale, there's energy floating out of my focused area. It works like a charm, for me). I felt good and relaxed and decided to work first on the "anchoring" technique.

The gist of the technique is to find something to anchor your consciousness/awareness (passively) as you're falling asleep. Normally, I would use my clock, because it ticks really loudly, but today, I was using earplugs. So, I twisted my fingers in a weird position. It... kind of worked. Not really as well as the tick-tock works. I talked myself into sleep and did notice that I was losing focus on my hand and becoming a little too involved in the dreamlets. I noted I was experiencing some visual hallucinations in the form of yellow swirly light playing across my eyelids, but I didn't really pay too much attention to it. Some dreamlets rolled in... again, noted, but not focused. I drifted like this for a bit. This was all set up to be a good start to the WILD.

Unfortunately, my throat was a huge distraction for me. I had ate a grilled cheese sandwich before sleeping, cos I was super hungry. So this made a horrible mucous-y feeling in the back of my throat, which, once I started drifting into the HI, got a bit easier to ignore. But, it certainly delayed the whole process; triggering my body's constant need to swallow. I found breathing through my nose helped bypass that, for some reason.

The other problem was that I'm a bit sick, so my throat started getting massively tickly. To the point where my body decided to say, "Fuck you, I'm coughing," and it wasn't something I could control or supress. It did this twice And wrecked my efforts, twice.

Rebuilding the SP wasn't too difficult, but I will note a few interesting sensations.

1) At one point, the strongest point of the SP, my legs felt all hard and brittle. Like, if I moved them, they would break and crumble. I thought this was pretty neat. I decided to try wiggling my toes, and it took a lot of mental effort to do so.

2) It seemed like each time I "shifted" into a deeper phase of the SP, my heart would race. I had to do a little mental focusing to calm it back down. This was accompanied by my light hallucinations pitching me into complete blackness (each time I shifted). It actual resembled a light being shut off in the room (even though I wore a sleep mask).

3) I noticed some very subtle vibrations. Unfortunately, they were so subtle and weak, that it was difficult to use them of an indication of falling asleep.

So, once I hit that deep stage of leg-brittle, I decided this anchoring thing wasn't helping, nor did I seem to dive into a scene. I began to wonder if I had done the same thing in all my other WILDs... I'm already asleep, and trapped in a mental prison. I was chatting with someone about this a few days ago, who had the same problem as me. He'd get to this point and move, but he kept moving his real body. He said he had to learn how to separate his dream body.

So, I gave up on the anchoring, and I instead tried to activate my dream body's senses. This... pretty much didn't go very well at all. Not much to say other than I couldn't float out or move any dream part or anything. Ughhhhh.

Anyways, once I was wracked with my second bout of coughing, I decided maybe rolling over would help alleviate my throat. I rolled over, got myself all re-relaxed and passed out! I hadn't really intended to pass out. I'm not entirely sure what happened there, to be honest. I never consciously decided to give up and pass out. In fact, I was quite keen on being successful.

Anyways, so once again, I'm thwarted by the ever-elusive WILD.

Hospital Audit
I was in a doctor's office. They asked me to do an audit on the place, like ensuring the equipment was working and such. At this point, I was too tired to do the audit properly. I was half-assing it, walking around the building and not really paying too much attention. I decided to leave it for now and went for lunch.

[Lunch]
I was in a Safeway, which had a mall-like food court in it. But only the KFC was open. I didn't really want "Kentucky Fried Suicide," but seeing how my options were forcibly limited, I got some food.

[Back at the doctor's office]
I got lost in the building. Also, my clothes were now covered in some-foul smelling liquid and I had some dirty yellow stains on my clothes. This part is choppy, but I remember finding my way into a dark room, and watched a movie on the big TV in there.

I left the room when I remembered I was supposed to be auditing. I walked along hallways and wandered into a ward. It seemed to be a maternity ward. I felt like I was trespassing, and left before anyone saw me.

I continued to walk down the hallway and came upon these small cubby-like lockers. There were pink on one side and blue on the other. Then, some nurses appeared. They asked me why I'm covered in stained clothing. I don't remember what I told them.

I completed the audit and snuck out.

Game Show
I was competing against my mother in a game show. We each had to run these obstacle courses 5 times through. Although I didn't know which course would be the harder one, I was in the points lead, so I got to choose the course to run. I chose the one on the right. As our host was explaining the course, and what constituted as a win, I woke up.

I wanted to at least hear the rest of the instructions, or run through the course once. I started a DEILD and was near-successful at chaining back in, but I dragged myself out of it cos I really did have to get up and get ready for work

Note to self: Don't play sims 3 before bed. It hijacks dreams...