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Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, Commentary made while awake

I'm at Disneyland, in a large, covered outdoor amphitheater, watching a new stage show that consists of Sorcerer Mickey waving an oversized magician's wand around (the black, cylindrical kind with white tips on both ends). Mini-fireworks, red foil streamers, and red confetti shoot out of the end of the wand in turn while the “Fantasmic!” theme music plays. [The part of the music that played in my dream starts at 1:41.] [I don't think I've ever heard an existing piece of music that clearly in a dream before. Awesome!] A few minutes into the show, the wand stops working. Looking between the seats and the other guests at the floor where Mickey is standing, I can see that there's an extra wand there, waiting to be picked up and used if needed. There's also an entire bundle of replacement wands descending from the ceiling in some sort of holder. The show stalls while a replacement wand is selected. While the show is on hold, Cast Members start giving out free stuff by passing it around through the audience. One of the things that gets passed to me is a small basket full of pin-on plastic name tags that are shaped like, and designed to look like, license plates from Cars. They all have different organization names and titles printed at the top and bottom of the name tag, surrounding a blank space to write your name in. I read each one, looking for the one I like best [I could read them in the dream, but I don't remember what any of them said now], so it takes me forever to choose one.

Dreamskip. I'm in an elevated, landscaped parking lot to the west of my high school campus. I can see the brown car, and I'm walking toward it. I realize that I'm dreaming and decide to get to my car by flying, instead of just walking. I try to take off by kicking off the ground and jumping up at the same time, but it doesn't work very well. The move takes me a lot higher than it would have in reality, maybe a couple feet off the ground, but I jump up and then float right back down again in a symmetrical, parabolic arc. [I don't remember how I did it, but] Somehow, I end up flying. I say, “Screw the car. I'm going to fly.”

I'm flying over the west side of the high school campus, but am now facing toward the center of campus rather than away from it. The view is panoramic and beautiful from up there. However, I find myself only flying sideways and backwards. I can feel myself being pulled in those directions through the air. Why am I not going forward, over the campus? That's the direction I want to go, but apparently, I can't. I don't understand this. I think, “There's going to be a wall behind me for me to kick off of and start flying forward.” The next moment, there is one. I'm being pulled backwards through the air until I feel my feet hit the wall, which stops me. I kick off the wall, propelling myself forward. I fly forward for a little way, but I still find it difficult to do. I end up getting pulled sideways again.

[I think some other stuff happened at this point, but I don't remember it now.]

I wake up and I'm lying down outside somewhere. It looks like a park. It's bright and sunny there. There is a cartoon dog looking at me, dressed up in a Halloween costume to look like some other kind of animal. I say hello to it, calmly and happily. Then it dawns on me, Oh, this is a false awakening. I'm still dreaming. I'm going to wake up for real soon. Then I did wake up for real.

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Side notes:

Last night, I listened to the first 15 minutes of the Subliminal Lucid 3.0 mp3 as I was getting ready for bed and going to sleep, while doing MILD affirmations at the same time. I also had my cardboard-square wristband on my right wrist. I did not listen to the binaural beats file at all. Therefore, I can conclude that the binaural beats file is not a necessity for me to have a lucid dream. I'm pretty sure that the most important factor is the focused affirmations and the desire to have one.

I'm pleased to see that I still have my previously-discovered ability to make things happen or appear in dreams by quietly, passively expecting them to happen or appear. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't have better control over my own flying, but admittedly, I am out of practice. I actually have a large backlog of handwritten notes on my dreams that I haven't had time to type up and put into my dream journal. I'll get around to it when I can.

Awake, Non-lucid, Semi-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm taking some sort of computer certification test using Prometric's testing software. I get to the end of the test, and the software gives me a message saying that the computer hasn't been recording any of my answers after the first four or five, and there are only 4 minutes left on the test's countdown clock, so there's no time to go back and answer them again. The timer runs out, and the software gives me a big fat zero as a test score. Very distressed, I run down to the end of the row of computers where I'm sitting, which is in the center of a large, open room. There's a desk with another computer on it in a cubicle at the end of the row, with one teacher/supervisor sitting at the desk and another standing outside the cubicle. I tell the one standing outside the cubicle what happened, but I see that the one sitting at the desk has my green-and-white CompTIA ID card right there, with my picture on it and everything. That tells me that I must have passed the test; otherwise, they wouldn't have made an ID card for me.

Guy is there. I follow him into another room, where there is a big, black laser printer. He explains to me how sometimes, the test results get sent directly to the printer without being saved on the computer, and that's what happened to me. I say, “So I didn't just lose an hour and a half of work?” He says, “No.” [In the dream, I actually had the false memory of working on that test for the last hour and a half.]

Woke up at 11:55 P.M. (after having gone to bed at 10:20 P.M.) and was really surprised at how short a time I'd been asleep. I exclaimed, “That was only one cycle?! Wow!” That was a really long and detailed dream for a first cycle. I felt that this was a promising sign, and decided right then and there to try for a lucid dream later. (I'm supposed to be cycle-adjusting right now, but I was feeling impatient. Sorry.) I took some notes, then went back to sleep.

[Fragment] I'm interacting with all the characters from Inception this time. [I don't remember anything we did, except that] At one point, a bunch of us are sitting around a dark wood dining table, apparently in a restaurant.

[Fragment] I'm in House #2, upstairs, and I shoo a cat out of my bedroom. I know that it's already too late; it's been in the room long enough that I'm going to start having allergic reactions when I go into my room.

Woke up at 4:25 A.M., took down some more notes, then listened to the second half of my binaural beats file and did some MILDing. It worked.

I'm following my friend Sam K. and his girlfriend [who I can't identify as a specific person in this dream] through the entrance to a department store in a mall. There are other people in the store. I pass two different old men who are really tall and each have two sets of eyes right on top of each other, and are wearing two pairs of glasses on them. I think to myself, Those men must have an unusual deformity. Or I might be dreaming. I don't attain full lucidity or self-determination yet., though. [I didn't think to RC, either. D'oh.] I continue following Sam and his girlfriend. They start climbing a wide, white flight of stairs up to the second floor of the mall. I speak aloud to them, saying something along the lines of, “Guys! We could just take the elevator!” They either ignore me or just don't hear me.

Very short dreamskip. I'm on the second floor of the mall, looking up at a raised, square, brown section of the ceiling. I recognize it as the ceiling of the mall we used to go to all the time when I was a kid. [Which doesn't look at all like that in real life. Weird.] At that moment, I definitely know I'm dreaming, because I'm somewhere I wouldn't normally be in reality. I think to myself, F*** yeah. I'm here. [“Here,” in this case, meaning “in a dream,” not “at that particular mall.”]

I stop to take a good look around and touch things, to make sure the dream is stable so that I can explore it. [I'm learning to do this as a habit – yay!] I touch the carpet and look closely at the pattern on it. It's dark gray with little rectangular flecks of various colors on it in rows. I start walking around in the mall. Sam and his girlfriend are gone. This part of the second floor is the food court. I cross over the walkway that bridges one side of the mall and the other. There are white tables and chairs everywhere. One of the fast-food restaurants in the food court is an Orange Julius. I pass it, then turn around to listen and watch while somebody makes some kind of public announcement about something. [I don't remember what they said now.]

It occurs to me that since this is a dream, I can climb over the chairs and tables with impunity. I climb up onto a table, walk across it, step down onto a chair, then hop back down onto the floor. The impact feels lighter than it would have in real life. I say something like, “Sure enough, no one cares!” [Wow. That's quite a shift from the respectful attitude I had toward the DCs in my journal entry dated 05-Nov-2010. This worries me.]

I continue walking along through the food court, then think, Why am I just walking? I can fly. I can explore faster if I fly, too. So I start flying, going only a little faster than I'd been walking, and staying at about the same height above the floor of the mall as my eyes are when I'm standing up. [I'd never flown indoors or in front of DCs before, so it makes sense that I would be cautious about it.] There are two vaguely gangster-ish guys in front of me, one of whom says to me, “You're lookin' at me the wrong way.” I ignore them and fly right on past them. I head toward a row of glass-and-black-metal doors hung with dark red curtains. This is the entrance to another department store. Strangely, I find it difficult to fly toward them with any speed at all. It feels like trying to push one pole of a smaller magnet (me) toward the same pole of a much bigger magnet. I realize that it would be much easier going if I started flying backward, so I decide to release my deliberate control over my flying and let myself be pulled backward, just to see where I end up. The unknown force pulls me backward through the air very quickly. Much to my dismay, I wake up. I might have guessed that that was what would happen.

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Side notes:

I didn't wear my cardboard-square bracelet at all tonight, which suggests that it isn't the deciding factor in whether or not I succeed in inducing a lucid dream. It has to be either the MILD affirmations or the binaural beats file. (Or both; how do I know that the combination isn't more than the sum of its parts?)

[Now I'm all caught up. This one is from last night.]

I'm in a [completely unfamiliar] house where my family is staying. My mom is temporarily adopting a baby named Ana from some woman. Inside the house, I pick up P., who is maybe 5 or 6 years old (small enough for me to pick up and carry around) but still thinks and talks like the 19-year-old she currently is in reality. I'm supposed to call her Ana in front of our mother, but I accidentally slip up and call her P. [I don't even know.] There is an actual baby Ana somewhere in the house; I see her there. While walking around outside the house, I pass by the baby's mother as she's leaving.

Our family has also gotten a small, fluffy white dog. While I'm lying in bed in my room in the aforementioned house, the dog comes and jumps into bed with me, and I pet him and snuggle him. He's warm and soft, and I decide I like having a dog. [I've never had one in reality.]

My family and I are walking around on a street outside, at dusk. The neighborhood we're in looks rundown and old, all one-story houses and vacant lots. A bigger dog runs up to me and jumps up onto my clothes. I'm scared and try to tell him to go away [just as I would in real life], but he doesn't knock me over with his paws, and I decide the experience isn't actually as scary as I had thought it was. [Hmm. That's the second time I've encountered and overcome a longtime fear while dreaming, although I wasn't lucid this time. I hope this trend continues!]

We continue walking through the neighborhood. I recognize a lot of the people living in it as students from my ESOL classes at DePorres, which I know is also in the neighborhood. I say to my family, “If I randomly say hello to people, they're my students.” After a short while, there's a crowd of at least 20-25 people accompanying me on my walk through the neighborhood, and I recognize at least two-thirds of them as my students. I say aloud, “This is the best neighborhood ever!” [Not only were my students much more spread out across the area than that, but the neighborhood around DePorres isn't quite as rundown as it was in this dream. Also, I notice that when I dream about Florida, sometimes it's bright and sunny, and sometimes it's darker and grittier than it actually is (well, darker and grittier than the part of Florida where I lived actually is, anyway).]

We come upon a vacant lot that is all dug up because people are in the process of building a playground there. Standing on top of one of the piles of dug-up dirt, I say, “This wasn't here two years ago.” It makes me happy that something is getting built there.

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID FALSE AWAKENING PRECOG

20:30 GMT – sleep

Planes crash
Two airplanes crossing the sky right above my head are clearly going to crash one into the other a bit further ahead. I m with my dad who starts running to see it and I grab my camera to film it when it happens. I think we’re maybe being morbid and cold-blooded but the fact is there’s nothing we can do to prevent it from happening.
When we reach the crash site, we only see smoke and pieces of metal scattered all over. Later I learned a few people escaped alive but not when it crashed on the ground – they had been rescued when the plane was still on air, by some team who entered the plane in distress and gave some parachutes to selected people. They couldn’t save everybody – maybe not enough parachutes and I tried to imagine being one of the persons being left behind and the despair these persons might have felt.

Cousins
Staying at some place and waiting for my cousin Cris to join me there. She arrives all excited about a new job she has. Later, our cousin Rui also appears and strangely the crush I had for him as a child, rises up for no reason at all.

Storm
I’m at some apartment in a strange circular building on the outside, which funnels down in a spiral with inner verandas and terraces on the inside. It’s a very stormy weather outside and I close down the windows and shutters and it gets really warm and comfy inside. When shutting the last window I see someone outside who is either in danger from the storm or with whom I want to talk, but either way, I decide to go outside on purpose for this person.

Wounded horse
When I go outside, the building becomes a hill with green grass and lavender and many forest animals roaming around. No more stormy weather. To go faster to the bottom of the hill, I fly there. Other people are trying to do the same and fly up or down, but they are flapping their arms and look exhausted, so I try to show them how to simply glide effortlessly. When I arrive down there I encounter a huge biodiversity and also lots of animals which are alive, others that are dying and others already dead. I see a horse with a wounded leg and I really want to help but don’t know how.

2:30 GMT

Stalker
Now I’m in a same kind of building as before, but this one goes underground so to go from top to bottom, I have to go down a spiral staircase so I just jump all the floors to the (under)ground level. A guy who’s down there gets absolutely amazed by that. I then mingled with people but notice that he is following me. He finally stepped into my way and asked me if I was such and such person. At first I didn’t know what he was talking about but then I realised we had met before many times already and we had a world in common. He was totally obsessed with this idea we were soul mates. And he was cute and all but I didn’t feel anything special for him at all. He was getting touchy and holding my hands and I had to tell him I have a boyfriend, but he wasn’t letting himself be discouraged by that, so I had to escape from him.

Mafia war-like game
I disappeared in the crowd and found a group of faces I recognised from prep and high school. They were among a group of people organizing a game which I joined. Each individual or couples were given documents and/or objects representing a company or a business. Then we had to either steal, buy or merge with other companies and the person with more businesses in the end would win. The game could go on for days and people had to go around doing fairly normal lives in this common space (building) where there were a cantina, a gym, rooms, and everything else we needed to hang there.
In the beginning I was stealing documents from the most naïve persons, but then I started feeling bad about it and decided to instead make friendship with them and establishing agreements to merge or buy. I decided to only be aggressive to those who were aggressive to others. As aggressive and violent players were forming alliances between them, the game was getting more serious, because they would step on no matter whom to get control of others businesses, like a mafia. I had made merges, but in all agreements I kept the ownership, because I was stronger than my partners and businesses would be safer with me, but I was also being badly hunted down because so many businesses were concentrated on me. As a lonely wolf, I thought the docs would be safer with me, but only if I was not caught, so I was mostly hidden and attacking these bad guys whenever I had a shot. I managed to steal the documents of one of the biggest baddies’ group. Then they were infuriated and hunting me down and I wondered when the game would end, because they were taking it extremely seriously and would resort to violence if they'd catch me.

6:00 GMT – wake up

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

The sidewalk on the southwest side of the stretch of M. Road that heads southeast toward R. V. Road, which is on a downhill slope [both in this dream and in reality], has a banister running alongside it [only in this dream, as far as I know]. I'm sliding down the banister, and two large dogs come up to me to investigate. I manage to stop on the banister so that the woman who owns them can talk to me. She says that the oddness of what I was doing and my ethnicity had made the dogs curious. I say, “Really? I didn't think this was all that strange. I just took it for granted.” I feel the sensation of a dog's teeth gripping the back of my shirt, just behind my left shoulder, and pulling back on it, but I reassure myself by thinking, “It's all in your head.” Once again, I've only realized that I'm dreaming as I'm waking up from it.

I'm driving in the brown car with my mom to go and pick up our friend Sam K. from one of our old houses. He isn't there. When we turn around to head back, we decide to “go halvsies” - that is, we both sit in the back seat and reach forward as needed to turn the steering wheel. It's very easy to reach it. I remark, “Wow, I didn't expect this to work so well! I didn't expect it to work at all. I thought we would just crash and die.” I'm remembering having previously dreamed about driving this way [see my dream journal entry dated 10/21/10 – that's the dream I'm remembering], and am surprised that driving that way is working out so well in reality. [Ha!!] Our car goes all over lawns and sidewalks with us driving it this way, and we have one close call with another car, but we manage to avoid actually running into anything. I woke up and was very annoyed to realize that that had just been a dream, too, and that I hadn't noticed that it was one.

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

Last night, my WBTB went on for nearly fifteen minutes, due to my trying (and failing) to figure out what it was that had gone thump and woken me up. I think it helped me attain lucidity. I should do WBTBs that last that long more often.

I'm bicycling along a sidewalk that winds through grass along the side of a street. Every so often, the sidewalk rises up and becomes a little bridge that allows water to go under it. It goes up-and-down and side-to-side so much that it's a little difficult to bicycle on.

I'm in a building with a group of my Literacy AmeriCorps friends. We're in an open, interior space that runs through several stories of the multi-story building, and has lots of staircases and landings in it. My LAC friends are standing around on the staircases and landings. We're talking about the party that's going on in a room upstairs. One of my friends says that, in order to get in, you have to bribe the guy watching the door in a “touchy-feely” way, e.g., by touching him in a sexual way. I absolutely refuse to do this. At some point during this conversation, I realize, “This is a dream. I can't really be talking to these people.” [I haven't seen any of them in reality since the program ended; we don't even live in the same state anymore.] Then, a bunch of unidentified guys come up a flight of stairs from deeper in the building and start trying to molest me and the other girls with their hands. As they begin to surround me like a flood, I realize this is turning into a nightmare, and try to leave the scene by closing my eyes and turning around. Once again, it does absolutely nothing. The guys start getting their hands on me, and achieve their goal of discovering where my erogenous zones are. I'm scared and shocked and I wish it would end, so it does. I wake up, and go back to sleep shortly afterward.

I'm in a room where I and three of my LAC friends, one other girl and two guys, have been staying. I find a guitar in the closet. A tall guy I don't recognize is also in the room. One of us asks, “Who in this room plays guitar?” and the other answers with “Lisa C.” and one or two other names. [I can't remember now who said what, or what the other two names were.]

I'm in a giant, room-sized aquarium. It's rectangular and about twelve feet from floor to ceiling, and all but the top three feet are filled with fresh water. One wall of the rectangular room is covered with small, enclosed plastic boxes, each containing a different kind of fish. You can open up the doors on the front of each box to let the fish out into the larger aquarium. I'm swimming in the water and can apparently breathe under it. I'm playing with the fish that are out in the larger aquarium, trying to get them to act out some scenario, but it isn't working out too well because there's this one carnivorous fish with big, pointy teeth that keeps eating most of the smaller fish. Eventually, it even starts eating another fish that's bigger than itself. I swim up to the very top row of little boxes, one of which contains a Blue Tang. I think about letting it out, but decide not to because I'm not sure if this one is a freshwater fish or not, and because I don't have very many of that kind. At this point, I discover that I suddenly can't breathe as easily under the water, and I realize that it's because the top three feet of the room are now filled with water, too. [Yes, I realize that doesn't make much sense. No, I didn't realize this during the dream, nor did I realize I was dreaming.] I go to the end of the room and start trying to get the door open so I can breathe the air outside the room. It has a wheel on it that you turn to open the door. While I'm still trying to open the door, before I can either drown or get it open, I wake up. [Dude. That was pretty cool. I wanna go back and play in the aquarium room again sometime.]

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

[I don't remember much about my first dream, except that I went,] “Hey, isn't that Ken Watanabe?” I realize that I'm waking up from a dream and attempt, for the very first time, to DEILD. It doesn't work, probably because I have no idea what I'm doing. I wake up and take some notes, as usual, and then go back to sleep.

[Warning: Disturbing imagery ahead!]

False awakening in my current real room. [I completely fail to catch it.] My parents' alarm clock radio is playing music really loudly.

I go down a big slide made of foam padding with canvas on the outside of it. It takes me down to a beach, but this beach seems to be the bank of a river rather than the shore of an ocean. When I get to the bottom, the end of the slide goes on for a little way so that riders can come to a complete stop. When I do come to a stop at the end, the end of the slide partially deflates under my weight, and I discover that there's a cute little kitten lying on the end of it. It has some of its fur and even a lot of its skin missing, so it's mostly gray bone plates. It curls up into a ball and gets the most awful look on its face. The lady who is there watching it says that he's freezing. I decide to give the kitten my beach towel to keep him warm, as well as my fried chicken. There are lots of other people around us on the beach. I'm a little afraid of them, because I know I'm in the middle of a very large city.

I realize this is a dream just as it's ending. I woke up and was very surprised to discover that I'd actually fallen asleep while lying on my side, something I've never done before (okay, I probably have, but it was when I was too young to remember it).

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

When my 6:30 alarm went off this morning, I was still sleepy, despite having gone to bed just after 10, and I felt somehow sure that I'd have at least one dream that I remembered if I slept in for another hour, so I reset the alarm for 7:30. Luckily, before I fell asleep again, I remembered that REM cycles take 90 minutes, so I reset it again for 8:00. [I'm not entirely sure in what order I had the following dreams, nor am I sure whether the first one took place before or after the 6:30 alarm, but here they all are.]

I open my eyes in my bedroom and immediately notice that the light fixture in the center of the ceiling has a square cover over the lightbulb, like the light over the shower in my real bathroom, not a round cover like it does in my real bedroom. I say right out loud, “That light is wrong, so I must be dreaming! HELLS TO THE YEAH!” I get out of bed, but then stand just inside the door for a few moments, trying to figure out whether or not I can still breathe through my nose while pinching it shut. It seems I can, but only a little bit. Confused, I give up trying to figure it out and leave the room to say good morning to my mom. She's there, just like normal. I go back in my room and, still hopeful that this might still be a dream, try to walk through one of the walls. Again, it doesn't work; the wall and I are completely solid to each other.

The Dream King is talking to me. [Not the one from The Sandman; it's the gryphon from the Rankin-Bass version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”] He says something along the lines of, “When you summoned us for fun times earlier, you bounced and lay down. The next time you do it, could you lay on your back first so the palace doesn't get shaken around?”

I'm in a park somewhere with P. We have to go through it to get home. There are all these dogs running around, and she protects me from them just by knowing how to act confidently and politely toward them. At some point, we end up riding bareback on a horse through the park. I can feel the horse's hair. Eventually we get to an escalator and start riding up it (yes, still on our horse). It goes up into an enclosed chamber with animatronic figurines in it, designed to look like the riders of the escalator are coming out of the mouth of some giant creature. There is some kind of audio narration playing, thanking us for visiting this attraction. When we get to the top of the escalator and exit the chamber, we're on a street.

The 8:00 alarm went off for real, and I recalled all of the above. I went out of my room and talked to my mom.
Me: I just had a really confusing dream. Is this the first time I've come out to say hi to you this morning, or the second?
Mom: The first.
Me: I thought so. That's what I dreamed about.
After I'd confirmed it, I started feeling happy and proud about having another lucid dream.

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Meta-commentary:

The WBTB+MILD technique seems to be working well for me, at least giving me interesting dreams with good recall, if not consistently giving me lucid dreams. I've found something that works for me, though, so I'm going to keep it up. I was making the effort with my MILDing again last night, but I could be putting even more effort into it. Also, I had my cardboard-square bracelet on for most of the night, but I think I took it off when the 6:30 alarm went off because I was tired of wearing it. I'm not sure, though, so I can't say whether or not I was wearing it when I had my lucid dream. Finally, I shall have to remember not to rely on the nose-pinch RC so much; it served to confuse the issue rather than to clarify it. Next time, I'll try the finger-counting method.

October 8, 2010

Synopsis: A witch has trapped me and my cousin. We escape into a forest that keeps us safe from her wrath

Note: I've been trying to return to the sanctity of my forest for a long time

Return to My Forest
My entire class has gathered in a building. Our teacher then instructs each of us where to go. She sends some students down this hall, some down the other hall, some into this room, and some into that room. It's pretty clear she's separating us! Why?

I didn't like that we were being separated, isolated alone in the school. So me and my cousin go down a hallway together before the teacher could instruct us. The teacher finds us and instructs us to go to this room. She then asks my cousin sweetly "You could have your own bedroom instead of sharing! Want to have your own bedroom instead?"

"NO!"

My cousin didn't want to be separated from me either. Annoyed, the teacher slams the door on us and locks us in the bedroom. It's like a hotel room.

I feel like I've dreamed this before. Except in the last dream me and my cousin struggled to escape. In the last dream my cousin made a loud distraction while I tried to bust the window. It didn't work. My cousin starts thinking of new distractions, including flooding our room with water.

I inspect the window. You can only open it from the outside. But maybe we don't need to open it or break it? I grab my cousin's hand and together we fly right through the window! That was easy.

We fly over the courtyards, they were dark and gothic looking.We fly over a small village. Which looked desolate, as if our teacher (a witch) has cursed it. There were strange creatures or beings about, I guessed they were working for the witch. We've been spotted!

I make it to the edge of a forest, still afraid the witch will find me. So I fly deeper into the forest, still with my cousin (whos now transformed into a small animal). I think I'm in the heart of the forest now, in a dry river bed. I land on some rocks with lots of pockets in them, like giant lava rocks. I thought, this rock will make a good home. Me and my cousin relax for a little bit.

Soon after I realized we weren't alone. From a distance I noticed two figures racing towards us. One was a dog-man, the other was a bright red fox who looked more like a demon. In my minds eye, the fox was the pet of the dog-man. They looked pissed! Me and my cousin try to find a new spot to hide, but we were too slow. The two of them stop in front of us.

"What are you doing in our forest?"

I figured honesty was best. "We ran away from the witch, but I think she's still after us"

Realizing we were just taking refuge, their demeanor became sweet. They welcomed us and told us we could stay as long as we wanted. At this point me and my cousin remembered that we had left a family member behind back in the witches castle. An old frail man, who was supposed to be 'our' father (which makes no sense logically because she's my cousin). But we were both too afraid to leave the forest now, and decided to stay until we became stronger.

Spring came to the forest, and water rushed in to fill the river bed.

I was convinced that the witch was after me! (I think that's from a previous dream). The woodland creatures keep a careful watch, keeping the demons and witches henchmen out. Word spread that the witch was fast approaching us.

A dark cloaked being, over 14ft tall, bursts through the forest, screaming! It's the witch! The woodland creatures gather together.

Suddenly, and with a flash of light, a demi-god as brilliant as the sun appears in front of the witch!! With a powerful voice and with the crack of lightning, he declares the forest sacred ground. The witch can not, not now, not ever, enter. Wow, nice to have some demi-gods on our side.

The witch howls mournfully, then quickly retreats back to her castle!

Nows a good time to come up with a rescue plan. I make my cousin transform out of her animal form, a hamster, which I thought wouldn't help much for the rescue. We should rescue as our people forms instead (we each had an animal form apparently). After sitting around in a cozy circle with my woodland friends, I decide the best course of action is to turn invisible, rescue the old man, and sneak out quietly.

We practice turning invisible, but I can still see my feet! Am I really invisible?

I keep practicing my invisibility. (At this point I was prolonging the dream, making it slowly abstract. The forest is only half a forest, the other half is a bedroom). I snoop around invisible. A butterfly girl with a tiny voice is looking for her friend, froggy. "Oh froggy! Oh froggy! Where are you?" Her words ring like chimes.

She floats very close to the doorway protecting the forest. The next thing I know, a black giant naga head was lounging towards the butterfly girl. Her cries of help were drowned out by the shrieking scream of the naga-witch! I thought for sure she would die!

But then a blast of light slices the tongue of the naga, thick blood pours from the naga's mouth. The naga shrieks in pain, and retreats back to the castle. The butterfly girl lives, and now I know our forest really is being protected by a powerful sun demi-god.

Its time to rescue the old man. I'm still worried though. I'm worried I'm not really invisible. And I'm worried the witch can trap me in her castle. But my woodland friends explain, that once you are a part of the forest, the bond is eternal, so the witch can never ensnare me.

Me and my cousin leave the sanctity of the forest, in what feels like for the first time in months. The world has grown even darker, the sky a gray. Two ghoulish teenagers were sitting on a log. Trying out my invisibility, I ask them "Can you see me?"

The first one says one says "No...well..sorta....you're outline. Like a silver outline."

"Pff...you call that invisible? I give you a 0 out of 9!"

0 out of 9! You jerk!

And then I woke up

October 3, 2010

Synopsis: Too many hamsters. Later, I climb a mountain and fly. Brief lucidity.

Note: I was talking to my friend a couple of days ago about how she moved out, so she can give me advice. She basically told me she just packed her bags and left, with no security of a job!

Climb the Mountain
Like magic we have two more hamsters. This is bad! Our first two hamsters are already miserable no matter how much play time we give them (they just want freedom, lots of it!). Two more hamsters? The cage is cramped now. What are we gonna do?

Me and my sister explore some retail store. Maybe its a pet store? We exit the back door and see a giant mountain up ahead. (In the real world it wouldn't giant, dream abstraction). Excited, I race my sister to the top. She takes her time and seems to whine about all the rocks and rubble. I reach the peek and I can see the whole valley and the pet store below.

I tell my sister "I've written a new book! It's called A Leap of Faith!" I don't even know why I said that.

I jump! Jumping off the mountain peek made me lucid. I soar over the whole city, which looks like a shining quilt from way up here. I haven't been this high up in a long time! It felt real nice. I think about growing wings to try a different flying method.

That just teleported me to a strange room. I start to have this weird conversation with a dream character about which wings are better to fly with. He insists on using smaller, humming bird like wings. I think that's no fun. I want larger hawk like wings! I woke up after that.

I want to say this non-lucid dream was an hour long. It just kept going and going. And in cycle 2? Vividness was only average or below. It was memorable, but kinda boring at the same time. I'm just going to skim over it here yet it's still a wall of text.

B-Complex vitamin one hour before bed, drank natural apple juice

Longest Dream Ever
0637: B.
Paradoxical Architecture and Drug Party
I'm in a strange building with several floors and many staircases. It's hard to get to the room you want because each staircase takes you to a different place than you expect. I'm living here while going to college but I'm moving out soon, I'm trying to find someone to take my apartment. Then there's a family that moves in and I befriend their young 10-year-old son. Lots of deja vu feeling here.

Then I'm hosting a few friends in this strange apartment and we are doing drugs. Then it turns into a formal party for a community of strictly kosher Jews. Everyone is doing drugs and talking about being kosher. Then the landlord shows up and I'm supposed to give him the keys. But I remember the drugs in the bedroom so I sneak back in and put them in a briefcase. I run away from the building with my friends.

Mugged and Suspected
Now I'm alone, walking on the main street of a small town. Reminds me of Monterrey. Instead of a briefcase of drugs, I'm now holding a bottle of whiskey, open and half empty. I sense there are cops around and also a criminal. I let the criminal steal the bottle out of my hand as he runs by. The cops stop me. They think that I gave the criminal the bottle, like a planned exchange. They think it's hard drugs dissolved in water. But I'm so scared and clueless that they realize I'm no criminal and they let me go.

Bear-Lion Mating Season
Now I'm walking with the friends again and we still have the drugs. We're in the middle of nowhere on a dirt path through some grassy hills. We stop and one girl snorts it all. She turns into a bear-lion kind of thing. Looks like the head of those big Chinese lion parade costumes with the big floppy mouth. She has thick black fur like a bear. The rest of us stand back, not sure what to do. A male bear-lion appears nearby and stares at the female, as if to mate. I try to make eye contact with my friend to see what she's thinking. She can't speak. I think perhaps she is afraid of the male and wants my help. She gestures with her eyes, which I interpret to mean "you guys leave, I'll stay". So I leave and the male pounces on her.

Now I'm walking alone toward the nearest town. I see my bear-lion friend running down a hill toward the same town. I chase after her. She seems upset and I figure out that she didn't want me to leave. She wanted my help. Her eye gesture actually meant "let's all run that way." Now she won't forgive me. As we arrive in the town, she turns back into a woman. I plead with her but she'll never forgive me.

Dalai Lama in a Diner
Then, I'm sitting in a diner with Lance. He is reciting a quote from the Dalai Lama with a perfect voice impression. The quote (which seemed real, but I looked it up and couldn't find it IWL) is about idea of spiritual salvation contrasted with the distractions of modern culture. At the very end, Lance is just staring at me intently and I let the quote and the whole dream just sink in for a moment.

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID FALSE AWAKENING


23:30 GMT – Sleep

Chase
Me and 3 others are trying to escape this group of men who want to kill us. We’re on shallow waters (ocean shoreline, I think), it’s foggy and they are on the beach trying to spot us. They see us as we are getting close to a boat anchored there. They start shooting as we get inside the boat, but they are fast and before we manage to turn the boat engine on, they also get to the boat. We hide and decide to split up and go in different directions. We later gather on land and follow a road with a stone wall by our right side. From the top of this wall fall amazing huge hanging plants with red flower bunches and for moments I forget about the danger I was running from and just feel captivated by the alien beauty of this place.

Strange pet
I am carrying a cute pet that is making a lot of noise. He is so tiny and gets lost inside my clothes. I have to undress my pants very gently, trying not to squeeze or squash him. I find him in there, he is a bit wet, I dry him up, I cuddle him, he looks like a fury ping-pong ball.

2:30 GMT

Nothing... [total frustration]

7:00 GMT – wake up

July 30, 2010

Synopsis: I'm told to find my friend who is lost in the dream world and help her. I feel like I enter my friends dream, and we have a crazy adventure! Water monsters and riding a manta ray! Lucid. Shared-dreaming theme.

Night Time Note: I had read a mantra before sleeping, but I forgot what the mantra was!

A Friend is Lost in the Dream
I'm in a large house with lots of old faces from my old job. I don't remember who told me this, or when, but I just remember being told:

Our friend is lost in the dream world. We have to go find her. Sam and Laura have already left into the dream to go looking for her.

I don't know who the friend is that's trapped in the dreamworld. And I couldn't remember who Laura was, I had trouble recalling the right face to the right name. But anyways.

Me and my old co-worker Megan get ready to enter the dreamworld. I decide to leave first. I make my way to the back porch. The porch is actually a staircase, that mysteriously stops in mid air. Below us is the dreamworld. My mother is sitting on the steps, I thought of her as a gatekeeper. A cat nearby seems to be a guardian.

Before leaping off the staircase, my mother tells me "The first person you'll find is Sam." I'm about to leap when my mom interrupts me again "Oh wait! Do you have Sam's number on your cell phone?" I go back inside and look for my cell phone, and I can't remember Sam's number for the life of me. Oh well.

I jump and become lucid! The scenery is beautiful and very bright and vivid. It's a forest. I fly quickly over the forest, remembering in my head my task. 'Find Sam, find Lori or Laura, then find the friend I'm supposed to help!'

I start to yell "Sam! Sam! Where are you!"

I fly into a small town. And right away I find Sam! She was in an old fashioned horse drawn carriage, being carried like a princess, of all places, through a boring apartment complex. Sam seems happy to see me and I quickly make room for myself in the carriage. Sam tells me she's already been dreaming for at least 45 minutes, and now she's going to wake up soon. She didn't find the friend we are supposed to help.

Excited I say "Sam! We're dreaming! Remember me when you wake up!"

She tells me I should be able to find this Lori/Laura. She gives me a big hug, and disappears. I assume she woke up.

I run through the neighborhood, avoiding random DCs by taking the back alleys. Eventually I come to a tall house that looks like something out of a fairy tale. Inside I finally find Lori/Laura. And the name and the face were completely wrong. This character was unstable, fuzzy, as the name and the face made no sense to me. I follow her outside.

But once outside she was completely different person. She was a 'name' and a 'face' I knew and recognized - Maggie. No one ever told me I would meet Maggie.

She asks me "Have you been looking for me?"

It doesn't even occur to me that this is the friend that I'm supposed to find and help! Still thinking I still have to find someone else, I tell Maggie "We should go!"

"You're right, come on!"

Maggie's World
(I remain with a light lucidity)
It didn't feel like it was my dream anymore. From the get go Maggie had me running! Someone is after her, who I don't know! It's a dream theme I know so well - I have a chase-dream tag.

"Come on! Hurry!"

Usually in my dreams I am on the run and my friends follow me. This time, my friend is on the run and I am simply following her blindly.

Maggie was a fast runner, one of the fastest "dream characters" I've met. I had trouble keeping up with her, flying was too slow, my legs were too slow. But Maggie would often look behind to make sure I was still there.

After running through several neighborhoods we find two bicycles. Oh perfect! Now we can really make some distance between us and these bad guys. But the bikes were rusty and crappy and we ditch them soon after.

I try to transform to make keeping up with Maggie easier, but it didn't help. Every now and then Maggie would run strange, like she has an injured leg. Then she would run normal, like there was no injury. We climbed fences, and made our way through a complex construction site with wires and pipes and giant boxes.

We snuck our way into a facility of some sort. All the while, Maggie is still leading the way. I'm not sure what this place is. But this seemed like a bad idea. So many walls, and corners, and doors. It's like a maze.

We hear something. . . is that. . . water? A giant wave of water was rushing towards us. If the wall of water wasn't bad enough, it was full of giant worm monsters that were made of water. The giant water monsters attack us! Damn! We need to get high, above this wave.

Just then, we see a giant manta ray flying gracefully, gulping the water with his giant mouth. Maggie has a most devious expression, lol, I just laugh at her crazy thought. We wait for the right moment and then we leap on top of the giant manta ray! Riding safely above the monstrous wave.

Woah! Riding the giant manta ray was wild! He was like a roller-coaster. A gliding roller-coaster! Both me and Maggie scream excitedly like little girls. At first I was crouched down, holding on tight. But when it became real fun, I stood up.

The manta ray swallows all the water and comes to a slow stop. We jump. We really need to get out of this crazy place.

"Come on! This way!"

Maggie leads the way again. We run through a supermarket that quickly transforms into a futuristic laboratory. Oh damn, the water is coming back. Maggie suddenly stops running, she has a pensive expression as if she's trying to think of something. No time to think!! I run right past her and down the hallway.

Bad move.

It was a dead end. Did Maggie know it was a dead end?

I turn around and the water monster has me cornered. The manta ray was drifting slowly towards the water, but he was flying real low. Where as the wall of water was towering high! Crap! The water monster comes crashing towards me! Scared, I hide in a closet that magically appeared for me.

Silence.

The closet was white. Just white. It would have been a void if it wasn't for the visible slits of the door. For a moment I wait for the water to seep in and flood the closet. But nothing happens!

I sigh deeply. Damn, I just ruined the dream didn't I? A lot of times if I leave the sight of a dream character, that dream character will disappear. I was afraid that this awesome "dream character" Maggie would disappear now. I sat there, waiting, any moment, I'll just wake up.

Then. . I hear footsteps splashing through a puddle of water. It's Maggie's footsteps. She runs up and down the corridor. Is she looking for me? I pop out of the closet. And there was Maggie waiting for me!

"Come on!" She leads the way again. Her legs are even faster now. I had to find ways to make my running path shorter than hers to keep up. We enter a warehouse. Maggie looks up at the crates floating above us. Good idea, if we can get up there we can safely get above the wave.

I press a button hoping to bring the crate down, instead the machine drops the crate and the entire thing smashes on the floor. "Oops..sorry!"

Maggie tries to find another way up there. Why don't we just fly? I try to transform again, and I try to fly up there, but I can't. I can barely make five feet off the ground. I hear footsteps. A large group of men surround us, their leader was an arab man in a suit. He had Sayids voice from the show Lost. Are these the bad guys Maggie has been running from?

Maggie tries to ignore their threats as she desperately cuts away at the rope with pocket knife. I'm not even sure what's that going to accomplish except - nothing! For the first time I seriously doubt Maggie's plan, what ever it is, will work.

I blast a fire ball at the leader! He's not impressed. "What are you doing in my warehouse? And why are you ruining it?"

So. . he's not after Maggie?

"Wait!" I said "We just want to leave this place. Can you please show us the exit and we'll leave you're warehouse alone?"

Maggie continues to cut away at the rope.

"Then, I will show you the way out." He presses a button and a door opens. Maggie reacts like a cat and bolts out the door. I just take my sweet time leaving. Once were outside, Maggie finally relaxes.

"I thought for sure he was lying about letting us out." She says

The man shakes his head and explains "I keep my promises." He turned out to be a really nice man. The next scene was vivid, but for some strange reason I have trouble recalling it. I think the man offers us two bicycles, but they were all rusty. Maggie complains that texas bikes don't rust. The man, a true sales man says "Ah, but do your bikes have big wheels like mine?"

I feel it's almost time, to wake up I mean.

I look about me. The scenery is gorgeous. Mountainous, green, ripe. Maggie talks to the man and laughs at herself for running away all this time. A lemon tree was growing next to us and I grab a fruit, quite lucid. It smelled so richly of lemon!

"I can't do it! I just can't do it! I know it's a dream but even then I still can't bite into this lemon!" My mouth waters at just the thought. Maggie laughs at me.

Quite happy that I left Maggie in a more peaceful and vivid dream, I say goodbye and wake up.



Sweeet

July 28, 2010

Synopsis: Me and my family stay at a strange hotel, and an even stranger landscape charred by volcanoes. Some abstraction, some vivid.

Vacation by the Volcanic Flats
It's a beautiful warm summer night, and me and my sisters have gone for a stroll with mom. My dream already feels like it's been going on for a while now, but I can't remember it until now. We walk through a giant stone tunnel connecting the downtown to the little town were staying at. Lots of other tourists were also enjoying the stroll through the old castle tunnel, lit by the moon.



The tunnel opens up into a field of grass under an amazing starry sky. We can see our hotel up on a hill. It too looks like an old castle. The hill is rocky, jagged, and black from the volcanic waste it was built on.

In one weird abstract scene a tiny train almost runs us over. We just hop over the tracks and continue our night time stroll up the hill. The grass gives way to boulders and craters.



Sis sees some water in one of the craters, thirsty, she bends down to take a drink. "Stop!" I yell "That's poison! That's volcanic water!" After saving my sis we finally climb the steps to the hotel. The door was open. A little red flag goes off in my head, why is the door open? Did someone break in?

There's no one in the living room, or the kitchen. My sisters check their bedrooms and I check mine. Standing in the doorway I scream "IS ANYONE IN HERE!" Suddenly a cabinet door from the back of my bedroom swings wide open, and then shuts. Scared that my room is haunted, I yell at it - kinda totorro style.

The next morning it was dad's turn to take us out. We climb down the stone steps when a scene of birds catch our attention. Holy crap the birds are HUGE! They're like dinosaurs! Sis gets too close and the birds snatch her. They quickly drop her back down. The giant birds were battling each other. We run down the spiraling steps before they decide to attack us instead.



This scene looks like from a zelda video game. The steps were tiny and narrow. If you fell off the ledge you fell several hundred feet before falling into a deep pool of misty - toxic - water. There was an island in the middle of the misty pool, with a simple wooden cabin. We quickly run into the cabin and take refuge from the crazy giant dinosaur birds.

I love this cabin! There were some other tourists inside, but when we came in we came wanting to own the place. Feeling uncomfortable, the other tourists leave and we lock the front door. This is the kind of cabin I would love to have. It was so warm and adorable! All the doors were gnome like. The hand crafted furniture was for sell and sis has her eye on one of the chairs.

I remember that this part of the dream was the most vivid. It's hard to describe the front room but I remember it pretty clearly. And the cabin actually FELT warm and stuffy. We hear some noises coming from outside. Damn, people are trying to get in! We quickly try to find any doors or windows we forgot to lock. I woke up shortly after.

July ??, 2010

Meant to type this out sooner

Synopsis: A party gets rowdy, my dad is drunk and kind of scary. Afterward I become lucid and a voice tells me to find the Goddess of the Dried Lake. I fly and fly and even fly right through my Inner Sanctuary

Night Time Note: I slept with a stone underneath my bed, chrysocolla. But this was the only night I had any weird dreams.



Drunks in my Room!
The family is throwing some sort of party. At the same time I'm letting guests in my bedroom to see my awesome paintings, so it's like a party and an art opening all at once. It was a nice big house too, not our little apartment.

It's getting late, and I want these party people to leave my bedroom. But then here comes dad standing by the door way, drunk. He's swaying back and forth, and it's making me real uneasy. He comes stumbling towards me, and I don't like it. So I fly out my window.

I'm standing on the curbside with my sister and others. We all want to leave this crazy party. But then I get worried about my precious paintings. Damn, those drunks are going to ruin my paintings! I fly back into my bedroom but it's completely empty.

My dream fades into a new one

Goddess of the Dried Lake
I fly out the back window into a surreal landscape. It's a garden right outside my bedroom window. But the garden is fake, like in the Truman show, the sky is really a painted wall.

A voice speaks to me and makes me lucid "Find the Goddess of the Dried Lake"

I see an image of the dried lake beneath me. There are round ripples in the dried mud. The mud itself glistened with a rainbow of colors. Kind of like when you can see a rainbow in grease spills, except this was dried mud. It was beautiful actually.

The voice then tells me that a man will help me find the Goddess of the Dried Lake. She gives me a name, but I don't remember the name . Even during the dream I kept having to repeat the name because I kept remembering it wrong. All I know is when I woke up, I realized the name was the name of a mineral.

So I've got my dream goal! Find the Goddess of the Dried Lake! I flew and flew and flew and flew and flew! Through houses and hallways, hotels, malls, cities, and towns. I had no real plan

I fly through a valley hoping I'd see signs of a dried lake. Instead I found this weird man-made construction with giant rubbery-plastic pipes. They were minty-green in color. It sort of looked like a giant freakish car engine. Except it's the size of a house. I didn't like it! I try to transform into a gargoyle but the most I get are claws. I rip apart the plastic pipes while growling! Some random DCs see me and are shocked that I destroy this.....thing. What ever it was.

I fly away satisfied I destroyed the freakish engine.

I'm over another town. I'll never find the dried lake at this rate! I need to go up. Just as I think that I start to float higher and higher and higher, as if I'm on an invisible elevator. Soon I can see the whole city below me for miles and miles, and it's surrounding country side. That must be where the dried lake is!

I fly into a forest.

It's magically enchanting! The trees were so tall and lush I couldn't see the sky, only a few streaks of blue and white. I fly deeper into the beautiful forest and I'm greeted by a group of stags. They had gentle kind faces and seemed to like me. Their antlers were so long and intricate! I admire their antlers by stroking them.



It goes completely over my head that I've entered my Inner Sanctuary, a dream goal I've set up for myself. The first time I entered my Inner Sanctuary, a friendly stag greeted me and introduced me to the forest.

Instead I think "No! Don't get distracted! You have to find the dried lake!" Me idiot!

I fly out of the beautiful forest. My dream search gets more desperate and desperate. I'm flying through bedrooms into bedrooms, into closets into closets. And now I feel like time is running out, and DCs are after me. I lose control, I forget why I was flying or what I'm looking for. And then I wake up.

Who is the Goddess of the Dried Lake and who is the man who is supposed to help me find her?