All DJ Entries

This was the first of two lucid dreams from last night, and my first serious Great Barrier Reef attempt.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #130: The Turtle

I'm swimming in a shallow cove with my 4-year-old son "E". I tell him that he's helping me practice for a planned dream about the Great Barrier Reef and he seems excited to help. We come across a cave just under the waterline, swim into it, and emerge in a cavern where all these other kids are hanging around. I wonder whether all these kids are helping their moms and dads prepare for a Great Barrier Reef dream. This feels strange to me and I become lucid.

There's either a scene change or a memory gap at this point, because my next memory is of walking by myself through the grounds of a university. I pass two men who stare silently at me as I walk by. They're both in their late 20s and look almost like identical twins, except that one is dressed in a suit while the other wears glasses and a flannel shirt. I think that there's something I need to ask them, but I can't remember what it is. (I think I'd meant to ask them the meaning of life for Task of the Month.)

Nearby is a plaza with a tall stone column at each of its four corners. Perhaps a dozen DCs are walking around this plaza, looking happy but aimless. I exchange a glance with one tough-looking DC as I walk across the plaza, and something about him just rubs me the wrong way. I take a half-hearted swing at him, as if I'm trying to slap him upside the head. He ducks out of the way, and immediately I wonder why I would do something like that.

The DC moves aggressively toward me and I move to dissolve this problem that I've caused. I hold up my right hand to the DC and walk casually away, saying, "It's cool." The tension abates and he walks away. Whew.

I remember my intention to get to the Great Barrier Reef. I hulk-jump high above the Earth, knowing that I'll see water nearby. Sure enough, there's a sparkling blue ocean to my right. As I descend, I notice a cute DC standing in the water, waving at me as she watches me come back down to Earth. As I near the water, I realize that she's Wife!

Before I can say anything, I plunge into the water. This is one of only a handful of times that I've been underwater in an LD, and I'm pleased to see that I can breathe normally. I try my voice, and it's perfectly clear: "[Wife]! Can you hear me?" There's no reply and I don't see any sign of her. Okay, focus. I need to ride a sea turtle, find a great white shark, and bite it. Without dying. The task feels really intimidating to me but I start searching.

I swim in random directions for a while until I finally catch sight of a turtle. The turtle has no interest in my company, though, and speeds away from me underwater. I don't have any plan as to how I'm going to catch him, so I just try to swim faster. He kites me along like this for quite a while until I have a false awakening in some kind of hospital.

Wife and I are here trying to improve our dreaming abilities. I'm astounded but pleased that she's interested in dream work now. She tells me that she's trying to hit her REM cycles by setting alarms that correspond with the take-off times for airplanes. Skyler White (from Breaking Bad) walks into our room and starts speaking to Wife in a husky, almost male voice. She's apparently a researcher at this hospital. This all seems strange to me and I briefly become lucid before the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #127: Hagia Sophia

I'm touring a new school for my son "E" that's exclusively available to children who lucid dream. E is in his "level 2" class, and his teacher, a short, friendly, gray-haired lady is showing me around the room. It's a large classroom with basic carpeting and lots of little beds and sleeping nooks everywhere. All of the kids are running around, and I remark that if I had the opportunity to just sleep all the time for school, I'd definitely do it. It occurs to me that I might be dreaming right now... and it turns out that I am.

"I'm having a lucid dream right now," I tell the lady, and head for the exit door without waiting for a reply. I phase through the glass to find myself standing by a harbor in the early morning. There are two amphibious helicopters floating idly in the water, pontoons on their skids. I wonder whether this kind of helicopter really exists.

I remember that I want to find the Colosseum, so I start flying to get high above the water. I emerge from a light covering of fog that I hadn't even noticed, finding myself in a landscape of gently rolling hills that are covered with tightly packed buildings. I tell myself that the Colosseum is one of these buildings and that all I have to do is find it. I see a building that catches my eye, but instead of the Colosseum, it's Hagia Sophia.



"I know the Colosseum is here," I say, expecting it to glow (a trick I've used in the past.) "Show me where it is." A small site off to the side of Hagia Sophia starts to glow. It looks too small, but I fly toward it anyway. A sudden gust of wind starts pushing me in the opposite direction and turning me away from the glowing site. I decide that this wind is trying to carry me to the Colosseum so I won't get lost. It turns me all the way around so that I'm looking out over the endless ocean. I'm worried for a second that it's going to leave me facing out to sea, but it dutifully turns me around and starts moving me back toward Hagia Sophia and the glowing spot nearby.

The wind carries me all the way to the spot, and it's nothing more than a tiny plaza with a small raised platform of stone. I land, and when I examine the platform I find a small button with what looks like a glowing, golden bear's paw on it. Okay, hopefully this button will take me there. I press the button, and my vision is covered by a pop-up message like something from a video game.

The message contains two lines of text and I feel really intimidated at the thought of having to remember it. I try to lock the words in place but I feel like every word I'm not looking at is trying to change. Keeping them all steady feels like playing Whac-A-Mole and it's dawning on me that I should stop obsessing about this. As best I can remember the message says: "Use 4 parts of Vendarite to increase strength"

I'm not sure what this means, but I figure that in a lucid dream I can be as strong as I want to be (and have as much "Vendarite" as I like, for that matter), and will the message to close. I feel like something is happening to the plaza and that it's shifting in some way, but the dream soon ends.

It's been a while since I had a WILD and this one had by far the most violent transition I've experienced yet. Kinda cool!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #124: The Rodeo

I've been awake a while post-WBTB and I feel anxious "Am I ever gonna sleep?" thoughts creeping in. I roll to my side, relax my mind, and try to focus on hypnagogia while counting backward in a style like "100... I'm dreaming... 99... I'm dreaming..." Around the low 90s, I feel something like a thump in my head and then a loud crackle of electricity, followed by the sensation of shaking. My WILD transitions are usually very low-profile, so this surprises me. The whole thing is jolting but more exciting than unpleasant. I try to stay relaxed, prepared for the possibility of more weirdness.

Now everything is dark and I hear voices whispering in my ear. It's a bit creepy, but I know that this is normal and that I'm probably beginning to dream. I imagine myself oozing out of bed OBE-style. My body stretches like a piece of rubber, my feet meet the floor, and I'm standing in my bedroom. I'm wearing my orange-tinted safety glasses instead of my sleep mask, so it's really, really obvious that this is a dream.

Everything is dark, jumpy, and unstable. My body is moving too quickly and I keep crashing into things. I look at myself in the mirror and I can make out the shape of a man but visual quality is so low that I can't see much beyond that. I drift into the master bathroom and run straight into the counter. Then I float back to the master bedroom, going too far and wind up standing right over Wife. I reach down and touch her hip and shoulder and try to get myself anchored, but when she stirs I feel bad thinking about her DC waking up to see a creepy ghost looming over her.

The whole scene feels only half-painted. Okay, let's just get out of here. I run for the window. The shutters are closed, but I dive through, phasing into the void and then immediately rubbing my hands together to keep things stable. I kneel down and touch the floor, which feels like it's covered with dirty industrial carpet. I try to shift this toward being the sand of the Colosseum's floor, and as I keep touching it, it starts to feel more and more like a really dirty carpet. Hoping this is close enough, I start to imagine the arena all around me.

Now I can see my hands brushing over patterned, dimly illuminated carpet. The lighting is poor, and without thinking I look up to see that I'm inside a dark, empty stadium. I can't tell where the light's coming from but just at the edge of the light, I can vaguely make out empty stands. I remember podcasting about low light and I try to use my own advice of imagining how bright it is, but can't find any light source. I look hopelessly up at the ceiling, feeling embarrassed that I can't even make my own suggestion work.

Okay, next idea, also from the podcast: quit worrying about it. I jump up and start flying around the stadium, looking for people in the stands. There -- a group of 3 or 4 about halfway up. I keep circling, spotting more and more people. And as I look for them, the light in the scene grows to accomodate my expectations. After doing this for a while, there's a healthy crowd gathered in the stands and the scene is well-lit. Happy with this change, I land to find workers scurrying back and forth on the stadium floor preparing it for some kind of event. Everyone's in Western wear, and when I check, the crowd is too! It looks like they're putting on a rodeo in this stadium.

An announcer, a man in his late 40s with a bushy mustache and a cowboy hat, is under the spotlight and speaking into a microphone to warm up the crowd. I forget what he says, but they think he's great, and they cheer wildly at his words. I approach him and he holds the microphone up to me. "Uh," I say. "I want to turn this into the Colosseum."

He replies into the microphone, warmly but firmly: "No can do, boss." The crowd applauds. I think about forcing the change anyway, but I feel overwhelmed by the scope of the task. I just can't seem to build up the confidence that I need. I wander out through an exit hall, leaving the rodeo behind me.

I'm outside now and it's night. I walk through a narrow street, emerging near a restaurant patio. I'm close to the ocean. I see the water and I can hear the sound of the surf. Nearby a woman talking on her cellphone glances up at me, gives me a nod of acknowledgement, and walks away, still talking. I walk along the oceanside road for a little while, coming to a shopping center. A dark-haired woman in her late 20s approaches me. "Hi!" she says. I notice that she has a somewhat upturned nose. I also notice that I'm finding her very cute.

"I'm looking for the Colosseum," I tell her. "Can you show me where it is?"

"Oh, I'm really sorry! I have no idea where that is."

I feel discouraged and stuck. I tell her about my Colosseum goal and she nods along with my explanation. I no longer know what my plans are for this dream. Somehow I wind up telling her that I want to kiss her, she says go ahead, and so I do. As I'm kissing her (eyes open, dream stabilization style), I see three younger girls ranging from maybe 8-14 or so watching us with expressions ranging from horror to mild amusement. I notice that these three have her same upturned nose. Are they her little sisters? Her kids? Feeling embarrassed and a little confused, I pull away. "Bye!" she says brightly, and the four of them wander off together.

I continue through the shopping center, coming to a slightly darker hallway with shops on each side and a planter with a large palm tree in the middle of it. I hear Indian music coming from somewhere down the hallway, and as I walk toward the music, the dream ends.

Angel Falls!! Finally on the scoreboard for Task of the Year!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #119: Angel Falls

Wife and I are driving in a car through a field. Somehow, we believe that we're experiencing her brother's future and what will become of his life. The mood is relaxed and exploratory -- we're journeying with of a sense of curiosity rather than concern or foreboding.

I veer off on a path that goes to the left. "Not that way! The zoo is this way!" Wife grabs the wheel and yanks it back so that we're going straight once more. We follow this dirt path for a while before emerging onto a suburban street.

Somehow we're now pushing a big lawnmower rather than driving a car. The left side of the street is taken up by an angry-looking giant while the right side is littered with "doggy clean-up bags" that are filled with poop. Wife thinks that we should steer toward the poop bags and I think we should head for the giant because the poop will be too gross on the lawnmower wheels. We're not sure what to do, and as I examine the situation, I realize that this has to be a dream.

I'm slightly unclear on what happens from here, but I know that I was lucid for a good while, flew, found our 4-year-old son "E", and lost lucidity. Much later I'm walking through a train station with E when I remember how recently I was dreaming and realize that I still am. "[E]", I say, "I'm dreaming."

"That's a lucid dream!" he responds, and hops a little bit.

"That's right, buddy," I tell him. "Come with me outside. Remember that you can do everything that I can do." (I'm speaking to E, but mostly trying to remind myself.) I'm holding E's hand, and together we start flying toward the exit. A few DCs glance at us as we fly, but most ignore us. For no reason in particular, my flight momentum cuts out, but I focus on the street outside, thinking, We're out there now.

Now we're moving through the air again. I hear a DC shout "No!" and a hand grabs my ankle. For a moment this slows us down, but I think Bullshit, we're flying just fine... and right away we're moving perfectly again.

We land outside on a peaceful street scene. It's cobblestoned with no cars, just pedestrians. A river runs through the center of the road, running past the obelisk of a town square on our right, flowing toward a bay that's on our left. We follow the river, which grows broader and flows under a bridge before ultimately joining the bay. I decide that this river is perfect. This is the place where Angel Falls will be.

I turn back toward the distant town square and shout to the crowd: "This is Angel Falls! It's right here at the end of this river." And I unironically add, "Watch meee!"

From behind me I hear the thundering of a massive waterfall. Now when I look back toward the bay, everything looks strange. The original river is standing still, almost like time has stopped. But now there's a second, wilder river running right beside it. The bay has dropped completely out of sight, like we're at the top of a mesa. E and I fly over the calm river toward this new river and I can see it -- the top of an enormous waterfall! This is it!



I land close to the waterfall, realize that I'm no longer holding E's hand, and look for him. I want him to come with me, but I won't wait long. I'm too desperate to complete this task! Fortunately he's just behind me. "[E], hurry!" I tell him. "We're going over this waterfall!" He doesn't hesitate, scurrying up to the waterfall and leaping off in a clumsy-looking froggy posture. I plunge over the side, just behind him.

I'm freefalling now, soaked and yelling with excitement. I'm speeding toward a vast, green valley below me. I make no attempt to control my descent, move, or do anything apart from enjoy the sensation of falling through this curtain of water.

Suddenly I hit a pool of water below and instantly enter the void. I can still feel water all around me and for a moment I think about trying to reemerge. But no -- I did what I wanted to do. Time to wake up.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #115: Sandwiches for Skeptics

I DEILDed during this dream and wound up really scrambling the beginning. Pity. Anyway, I think this was a DILD. I remember something about a prison, finding my way through an office building, and being attacked. Somewhere along the way, I find Wife and my oldest son E. My memory becomes very clear here: It's morning and I'm walking through an empty, gray city with Wife and our oldest son E. I hold E's hand as he bounces and scampers beside me, pointing and jabbering excitedly.

We pass under a bridge and walk up a sloped street. All around us are gray vacant lots, brownstone tenements, and the occasional piece of newspaper carried on the wind. The one swatch of color is a bus stop to our left that bears a beautiful ad for Arby's. Below the Arby's logo it reads, "Sandwiches for Skeptics".

I find this very amusing but also really unlikely to be the new Arby's slogan. I tell Wife that "I'll have to google that later" but she doesn't respond. I run my fingers over the sign, appreciating its detail. There are even some air bubbles underneath the paper as if it wasn't pasted down all that carefully. I take my time with this, thinking that it can only help to draw me into the dream.

Task of the Year occurs to me. I'm fired up about going to Angel Falls, and I imagine that it's out there, just past the vacant lot and a row of buildings. As I do, I see little sprays of water coming up from over the tops of the buildings. I'm amused that the "graphics" for this water are absolutely terrible. The little puffs of water look like repeated, low-resolution particle effects with no animation.

Okay, enough thinking. Time to fly. I consider summoning NewArtemis to join us but then remember that I need to stay focused -- I'm already trying to bring two DCs with me. A summoning is pushing my luck too much. I take to the air, still holding E's hand, and his reaction is surprisingly subdued. From the ground below, I hear Wife say, "Oh okay... bye, guys!"

"Just follow us!" I shout back to her.

There's no reply, though, so I focus on flight. Looks like it's just me and E now. As we fly high enough to look over the tops of the surrounding buildings, I see that the entire city rest atop a huge mesa that rises high above an ocean. At the edge of the mesa I see a waterfall -- Angel Falls!

The Falls are a long way off, so I focus on flying faster and faster. We get up some good speed, but the dream is starting to feel thin and insubstantial. All I can think to do is speed up, but I'm not fast enough. We're still about a quarter mile away from the falls when I feel the sensation (real or imagined) of my eyeballs moving around and I'm awake.

I relax and go for a DEILD. I quickly enter a new dream scene, flying again, but this time as an observer with no dream body. I'm on a long, spiraling slope built out of stone blocks. The sides are unwalled and I can see that this tower stretches far above the clouds. I slide smoothly upward along the slope, making at least 3 full revolutions. I'm aware that I'm dreaming but I make no attempt to exert control. I'm content to just know where the tower leads. I keep spiraling upward and either lose lucidity or slip into the darkness between dreams...

Another swing and a miss at meeting Art at the Alamo. But the good news is that I managed to remember (and execute) Basic Task of the Month!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #104: Reservations

I have a false awakening at home and stumble out of bed. I'm disappointed and slightly grouchy that I failed to achieve a lucid dream. Feeling unmotivated, I wander aimlessly through the house, contemplating how late for work I probably am. I think that it's Friday, though, and I'm looking forward to ordering pizza with the guys at the office and shooting the breeze for a while. (Nope, today's Wednesday!)

I wind up in the exercise room but the power rack and dip station are completely missing. It's halfway converted into an office and I see the guts of a half-built computer on the floor. I kneel down to work on it, seeing that the RAM is missing and that the box is full of dust like it's been sitting there for years. I finally grasp how dreamlike this all is and become lucid.

I rub my hands together and assemble my goals. Two come to me fairly quickly: 1) meet NewArtemis at the Alamo 2) go water-skiing. (Oops, Advanced Task of the Month is actually parasailing.) I move into the master bedroom where I see Wife standing nearby as my two young children E and R run around the room. I announce that I'm having a lucid dream, eliciting an "Okay!" from Wife. I phase through the external wall of our house. I'm on the 2nd story, so I drift down to the driveway below, lightly brushing the branches of our oak tree with my fingers as I pass.

It's a bright morning outside and I'm preparing to fly off for the Alamo when I hear the voice of my son E behind me. "Daddy, wait! Daaaaaaddy!" I think that it's probably smartest to ignore him but I can't help looking back. Somehow he's followed me outside and I see him standing about fifteen feet away, looking so small. He looks at me with enormous, pleading eyes and says, "Daddy, can I go with you?"

I start feeling all melty-hearted and I know that resistance is futile. It'd probably be amusing to see E and NewArtemis' DCs interact anyway. "Sure, buddy," I say, scooping him up and placing him on my shoulders. I hop up into the air and we fly together over the neighborhood, heading vaguely northwest. The city's different in this direction, and we pass a park and a block of tall buildings. I decide that the Alamo is in the next block and I tell E this to cement it further in my mind. "Uh-huh!" he enthusiastically agrees.

When we hit the next city block, though, I'm disappointed to find no sign of the Alamo. There's a river running east-west with a simple stone bridge crossing it and a walkway on either side. I shout down to the DCs milling around below: "The Alamo's supposed to be right here! Which way is it?"

A blonde lady walking with her daughter points westward toward the bridge. "It's that way, just past the bridge!" I thank her, land, and walk under the bridge with E still on my shoulders. We emerge to see the Alamo up ahead but there's some kind of enormous line out front. I feel the urge to get in line and patiently wait but remind myself that this is my dream and it is therefore okay to be a bit of a jerk. I stride to the front of the line where I find a restaurant host holding a clipboard. It's apparent to me that the Alamo has been converted to some sort of amazingly popular restaurant.

The host asks me whether I have reservations. "Of course," I say. "Check under [CanisLucidus]."

"Ah yes!" he responds. "Party of fifteen. Your table's almost ready."

Fifteen people? "[NewArtemis] is in our group, isn't that right?" But the host wanders off, saying that he'll "be right back."

I decide to give him a moment before prodding the dream plot onward. I remember Task of the Month (speak gibberish to a DC and see how they respond.) A sour-looking girl of about eight with brown hair and freckles is waiting nearby, sitting on a piece of luggage. "Ooooooga booga booga!" I exclaim.

She looks very annoyed. "Can we please just skip the whole 'Mess with DCs' show?" I hear her fine, but her response shocks me into just saying, "What?" She sighs dramatically and repeats herself: "I said can we skip the whole 'Mess with DCs' show? Have you seen how long this line is? I am not in the mood."

Amused, I turn away. Good enough for me. I want to keep things rolling, so I announce to the unseen host, "So my table's ready then, right?"

The host scurries back into view. "Sorry for the wait, sir. Mr. Graham was napping and needed to be woken up. Who schedules a lunch for a nap?" he says with a laugh, even though I haven't the faintest idea what he's talking about or who "Mr. Graham" is. "Right this way," says the host, and I follow, now holding E by the hand. We're moving through a wood-paneled hallway into the restaurant interior when the dream ends.

Although this wasn't the right location, I did at least successfully find/conjure/whatever NewArtemis. Forgot all about swapping gestures and keywords, but it's all good... dry spell broken!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #99: Walking the Path

I'm walking a beautiful nature trail. I sense that this is a place of peace and sanctuary outside of a hospital. I remind myself that I need to be sure that I'm not dreaming and I quickly realize that this is a dream.

I hear two female voices from the trail up ahead and somehow I know that this is NewArtemis and her cousin. (No clue whether she even has a cousin IWL.) Art's cousin appears first, with Art trailing maybe 15 feet behind. "Come on!" calls Cousin. "You were right! It worked!"

Cousin walks right past me, saying, "Hey! I'm [NewArtemis]'s cousin. She was so nervous this wouldn't work. She's been spinning her ring nonstop. That's what she does when she's nervous." With that, Cousin disappears from the scene, never to return.

"Hey, [NewArtemis]!" I say, giving her a hug. "Good to finally see you!" ("Finally see you" is a little weird since I've encountered Art's DC a bunch of times -- was I implying this was "the real her" for the first time? Or just flapping my gums?)

"Did you just break your dry spell, CL?"

"I did!" We continue walking in the direction Art and Cousin were going, which has me doubling back toward wherever I came from. "Dude, I'm trying so hard to remember what I was supposed to do when we met up. I remember parasailing but I don't think that's right."

She rubs her forehead or kind of scratches her head. "I don't remember anything either. Definitely not that we're supposed to go parasailing." (Art called this one right -- the parasailing thing was Task of the Month, not anything we'd talked about.)

I hear road noise from nearby and I make some kind of comment about wondering where it's coming from. The scene shifts to where we're walking through the corridor of a hospital. I remember something I wanted to ask. "Hey, is it true what your cousin said? That you spin your ring when you're nervous?"

She shakes her head. "No, that's total bullshit. My ring is kind of loose in the winter though." On the nature trail it felt like spring to me, and I'm able to remember that IWL it's summer.

Art holds up her hands to demonstrate and I see that she's wearing rings on four or five of her fingers. Then she kind of wiggles her hands and now she has even more rings, including a thumb ring. She does this ring reconfiguration trick a few more times and I think it looks super cool. I wonder whether she's got the right number of fingers but she's moving around too much for me to count.

We come to a T-junction where another hall comes from the left to meet the one that we're walking. I see my two boys E and R running off down the hall to make mischief. Art asks why we wound up here of all places rather than the Alamo. I say that I don't know. The dream ends.

Blame it on the menthol.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #98: Menthol and Marriage

I'm watching my son E perform some kind of a play with other 3-year-olds. At one point he's supposed to pretend a wiffle ball bat is a magic wand, but of course he goes waving it around dangerously close to other kids' heads. I run over to intervene but another mother gets there first. "I'll take that," she says, plucking it out of his hands.

"Sorry! Thanks for grabbing that from him," I say, embarrassed that she got there first. The woman gives me an unfriendly "where were you?" look. This annoys me, but as the father of the kid who was going nuts with a wiffle ball bat, there's not much I can say. I look back over at the play and E, laughing merrily, leaps over a low stone wall and goes running off God-knows-where. I take off after him...

...and have a false awakening in complete darkness. I hear Wife stir in the darkness and she asks me why I'm awake. I tell her that "I had this crazy dream where [E] almost hit a bunch of other kids in the head with a wiffle ball bat." I move to settle back against the pillow and realize that it's way, way too dark in here. "I'm dreaming," I tell her.

"Mm-hmm," is her sleepy reply, and I hear her roll over.

"It's super dark in here," I say. "I can't even see you." She doesn't respond but she rolls over again, leaning her head against my shoulder and putting her hand on my chest. I'm feeling really frisky and I think about asking her whether she wants to "make out a little bit."

Before I can unleash this suave line on her, she exclaims, "God, your breath!" and rolls away in horror. As she says that, I notice that the inside of my mouth feels nasty and vaguely thick, like my pre-bed dental care has totally worn off.

My confidence is a bit punctured, but I respond, "This is a dream. I can't possibly have bad breath in a dream."

"Okay, if you're sure," she says.

I move toward where her voice is coming from and try to kiss her. I wind up just finding her feet, which start flailing around when I touch them. "Why are you facing the wrong way now?" I ask, confused and a little exasperated.

"I don't know!" she responds. Holding on to an ankle, I very clumsily sort of turn her around. Since it's dark, I can just imagine that she's now facing the right way. As I do, the light in the scene increases ever so slightly until I can see her. I've managed to put my "death breath" from earlier out of my mind, so we kiss.

As they say, "one things leads to another", and the dream ends with roughly 4 minutes of very vivid LD sex before I wake up. Describing this part in detail would be a little too personal and graphic, but even after having a fair number of lucid dreams, the realism and detail of LDs still amazes me.

Last night was a potpourri of lots and lots of unstable little WILDs and DEILDs. Very very confusing night, but I was glad that I managed to tough it out and keep spooling up more dreams.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #92: DEILDs and Demigods

The WILD sticks me into a hazy, insubstantial scene. I have a dream body, but I can't tell where I am. I try to Hulk jump to someplace new and upon landing, I wake up...

I hold still for DEILD, repeating "here and now" and "I'm dreaming". Everything's still dark, but at some point, I feel like I'm dreaming. I mentally move my right hand to my face, pinch my nose shut, and try to breathe, blowing right through. I get out of bed, fall through the floor, and have a false awakening back in bed.

I'm still suspicious, so I hit the nose pinch again and confirm that I'm still dreaming. This instability has rattled me a bit, so I wait for a dream scene to form, temporarily forgetting how to handle myself in the void. Rather than take me anyplace, the dream fades out and I wake up for real.

Come on. Stay in there. I try not to worry too much about this, but I'm a little rattled. I stay still, working for DEILD, and finally a scene starts forming that looks like the inside of a cave. I try rubbing my hands on the floor of the cavern and it feels real -- I'm in.

I'm crouched on a long downward slope in a cavern of red rock. The tunnel is large and well-lit and a number of DCs in street clothes are watching me, seemingly anticipating that I'll do something. I decide to put on a little show, hopping into the air, floating gently along the slope for about 25 feet. There are gasps of astonishment and a crowd starts to gather.

"I'm dreaming all of this," I explain to the crowd.

Murmurs of disagreement from the crowd. One man walks up and says, "No. I've done lucid dreaming myself, and this is totally different." The people in the crowd start trying to convince me that I'm a demigod demonstrating my powers. I half-heartedly object, but they are unanimous, convincing, and very persistent. Eventually I'm persuaded and lose lucidity. I perform various dream control stunts like telekenesis and producing lightning. The whole time I think that they're god powers, even gratefully noting that lucid dreaming was great practice for becoming a "demigod". I do this for a while, shamelessly enjoying the adoration.

I wake up, slightly annoyed at my own stupidity. Quick bathroom trip, back to bed for a second WILD. I emerge on a street scene with several eye-catching female DCs walking by in different directions. I realize that I'm totally staring, think briefly about menthol, and then wake up.

I DEILD back into the void. I imagine that I'm swinging a gladius for a bit and eventually I find myself in a kitchen that looks a bit like my own. I'm muttering something about "sulbutiamine" (a drug I'd read a mention of recently.) An Asian woman in a business suit gives me an unfriendly look. "I've taken sulbutiamine," she says. Her demeanor darkens and her eyes turn completely black. "And I've taken drugs that made it so I never rotted in my coffin." Her face has grown pallid and vaguely zombie-like, and she advances slowly toward me.

I'm very creeped out by her but mostly I'm annoyed that she's trying to inject this nightmare nonsense into what was planned to be my cool lucid dream. I turn away and decide to just think about something else so she'll fade out. I walk over to the window and look out into the night. The dream fades and I wake up.

I go for DEILD once more... I'm on a street scene, standing next to a cute, tall-ish redhead. She's smiling warmly, and she has her arms open like she wants to hug. I feel exhausted and grateful, and I gladly hug her. She nibbles my ear and I respond by kissing her neck, coming close to losing lucidity. I shake it off, though, thinking that I need to ask her to help me back on the right track with this crazy sequence of dreams. I'm struggling to find the words, but she seems to understand, pulling away and somehow drawing up even taller. Now she's truly a giant, about nine feet tall. She reaches down, places a hand on the back of my head, and guides me toward a huge television.

My wife and kids are here playing some kind of video game and they happily invite me to join them. The interface is like a super-slick version of Steam. Soon there's a controller in my hands and we're playing a combination music and puzzle game. As I'm trying to learn how it works, I lose lucidity again, but still have a good time playing for a while. I keep thinking of great enhancements for the game and for this "Steam" interface and the ideas keep winding up in the game itself. I'm amazed by this. I feel impressed but sad that the developers "already thought of all my great ideas." We all play together for some time, and after that the dream fades to oblivion.

This WILD was amazing. Very vivid and realistic, rich content, successful summoning, and a Task of the Month success (plus a failure.) Forgive the length of this entry, but the dream was 25-30 minutes, and a lot happened! (Edit: After further review... best LD ever.)

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #90: The Night of the Weredog

I experience a sharp transition that feels like a short fall face-first onto a paved surface. My arms are splayed out over my head and I can't move. I can see just a bit and it looks like I'm on a basketball court at night, but I'm afraid to open my eyes more to look around.

I'm totally paralyzed. I'm conscious and aware but for some reason can't move, and I think I'm experiencing something similar to REM atonia. I know it's all in my head, though, so I start peeling my dream-arms out of this fake physical body by rotating them forward into the ground using thought rather than my muscles. It takes a little effort, but eventually I feel this set of "dream-arms" separate out and move independently. Soon the rest of my dream-body follows and I'm able to exit completely and get to my feet.

It is a basketball court -- four of them in fact, all arranged together in one giant rectangle. I'm alone on this court but teenagers are playing small, informal games on the other courts. The courts are surrounded by concrete stands and a metal railing. For fun, I stunt-jump off of the metal railing and land back on the court, then see Wife approaching out of the darkness. She's dressed for bed and looks groggy. "You're still up?" she says. "Shouldn't you get to bed?"

"Shhh, it's okay," I say. "Go back to sleep. I'm having one of my dreams." She nods, yawns, and wanders off into the darkness. False awakening averted.

I roam around the basketball court for a while before regaining focus on my goals for the dream -- summon NewArtemis and have her do the werewolf tranformation for Advanced Task of the Month. I put my right hand out for the handshake summon and look away, pointing my gaze over my left shoulder. I don't feel anything at first, but I'm relaxed about it. I know it'll work if I just give it time. I imagine the sensation of a hand pressing into my palm, and then slowly, vaguely it takes shape. After a few moments, I give the "hand" a squeeze and it squeezes back.

Without looking, I check for a forearm, probing all the way up to the elbow. "[NewArtemis], is that you?"

"Hey! Yeah I'm here!" Cool, I think, but I want to be sure the summon's really solid before I look. I check the DC's arm -- quite thin, but it's there. I reach her shoulder and I'm a little worried when it just feels like bare skin.

"So before I look... uh, what's the story with your clothing situation?"

"It's fine, I'm dressed!" she says. "Come on, quit worrying so much!"

Slowly, I turn to look. I'm shocked to see that I'm shaking hands with a short, middle-aged woman in a blue business suit. There's about a half second of sudden blackness and then a hard scene transition -- now I'm shaking hands with NewArtemis (no longer the businesswoman and back to her usual DC appearance) on some beachside boardwalk at night. Success! "Told you!" she crows. "Let's go!" She sprints past a burly, mustachioed man eating an ice cream cone, heading toward the sand. I follow, flying to keep up.

As she reaches the beach sand, she notices that I'm flying. She looks annoyed. "You know, I can't seem to get my flying to work right now." I notice that I'm unable to fly more than a few feet off of the ground. I try a Hulk jump and can only manage a measly 20 feet or so. Seeing this, she tries a Hulk jump of her own and manages about 50 feet. "Ha!"

There are some dunes along the shore and we practice competitively Hulk jumping up and down the dunes as we continue along the water. After doing this for a bit, we come to a long line of black-robed cultists standing at the top of a dune in a long series of rows, torches in hand. They're droning and chanting, obviously in the middle of performing some dark ritual. There are probably 50 of them in total and I think that this looks like a perfect place to go for the "mythical creature" Task of the Month. "[NewArtemis]! Do your werewolf transformation! These guys are just begging to get eaten by a werewolf."



She looks doubtful. "I'm not so sure," she says. "Isn't this just a bunch of college kids doing a fraternity initiation?"

Just as she says this, one of the "evil acolytes" flips his hood back. He's a friendly-looking blonde guy with a goofy smile. "Hey guys! Sorry if we freaked you out! We're just a bunch of college kids doing a fraternity initiation!" (He uses her precise wording.)

I sigh. We continue for a little while longer, coming to a well-lit swimming pool. "Maybe we should go ahead now and do your werewolf transformation while we're thinking about it," I suggest, and the moment I say this, she changes fast into a big, black dog, bounds ahead of me, and leaps joyfully into the pool! She splashes playfully in the pool for a while, panting and grinning.



But as she kicks up more water, the playful splashing turns into thrashing and now the black dog has turned into my 3-year-old son and he's sinking fast. I'm still aware that it's a dream so even though I badly want to pull him out of the water, I don't feel as freaked out as I would in waking life. I dive into the pool and even underwater I can hear my son calling to me. I can see and breathe without any trouble and I swim to the bottom of the pool, scoop him up, then fly back out of the water, landing poolside to tend to him. He seems unharmed and the moment I set him down, he runs off into a nearby grotto.

I follow my son into the grotto, a low-ceilinged cave with a shallow pool of water, partially bricked walls, and some form of dim light that reflects off the water and plays across the cave ceiling. I find that my son E has changed back into NewArtemis in human form. "Sorry about the pool thing, man," Art says, rolling her eyes. "Hey, do Task of the Month on these DCs!" She gestures at a family of tourists that are exploring the grotto. (The task is to tell a DC they're not real and see their reaction.)

I'm impressed that she reminded me of this. "Good idea! Hey kid," I say, addressing a boy of about 11, "you're not real."

"Nuh-uhh..." the kid counters, looking cross and uncomfortable. Okay, that should be good for a Basic completion, but I'm looking for more.

Now I address a bearded man in his mid-60s, who I assume is the boy's grandfather. "You're not real. This is all happening inside my dream."

"Nonsense," the grandfather says, "you're not real. I'll prove it." He flicks me on the left arm, looking proud of himself. I counterargue by levitating him a couple of feet off of the ground and setting him back down. He blubbers for a moment, then looks off at one of the cave walls, mentally processing this existential crisis. I feel a little bad for him.

"[NewArtemis], you should do this too, get those Basic wings," I say, only partly joking. She doesn't respond, and when I look over, she's changed into a man in his late 20s, short-haired, prematurely balding, and slumped against the wall in fatigue. He mumbles something about how long the dream has been and how tired it's made him. I throw the guy over my shoulder and carry him out of the grotto. When I set him down outside, he's turned back into a tired-looking NewArtemis. "Are you okay?" I ask. She says that she is, but everything has started to feel wobbly and unstable.

Suddenly, the whole scene rocks and something pitches us forward. We both yelp and I fall flat on my face, my hands flailing out in front of me. I'm semi-paralyzed and the scene has gone dark, but I've managed to grab onto NewArtemis' left ankle where it feels like she's wearing some kind of thick winter sock. There's a loud rumbling in the background that sounds like an earthquake. "I can still move!" yells NewArtemis over the noise and she drags me slowly forward across some kind of rough gravel. My face is smashed down into the gravel so I can't respond. She keeps hauling us forward for about 15 more seconds before the scene collapses into...

...a false awakening in some unknown house. Mom is here and I excitedly start telling her about the incredible LD that I just had, going over as many details as I can recall. She tells me to keep my voice down -- my son R is sleeping in the next room over. I apologize, continuing the recollection in a softer tone of voice. After a while, this scene fades, too, and I'm awake.

This was a very long dream / lucid dream series, going on for at least 45 minutes to an hour. I lost lucidity early on and regained it, so the first part of the dream is extremely scrambled. Also, a little background on one portion: I recently found out that Wife thinks lucid dreaming is more or less a waste of time. I was disappointed by this and concerned about what her DC might be like in future dream appearances.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #88: Reconciliation Hour

I'm in a lucid dream where I'm in a current of strong running water. I'm taking things easy, reminding myself to be more patient in life. I have a false awakening into a completely rearranged version of my house, downstairs. I hunt around for my dream journal... there it is, on the counter! I reach for it and as I grab it, my friend The Schwartz walks up and asks, "Hey, whatcha doing?"

"Hang on, [The Schwartz], I've gotta get these dreams written down. My dream memory is good for like 3 seconds. If I think about anything else, it'll all go away." I feel my dream memories leaking out of my ears. (Figuratively.) He looks a little hurt and I remember that the message of the dream I just finished was to be more patient. "Sorry, man. I know I'm not as patient as I should be sometimes. My dream was about getting better at that. You were even in it." (I assume this is true but no longer have any memory of it.)

I crouch down by a coffee table and get ready to write. Just then a full-sized poodle noses aggressively toward me. "Hey puppy," I say, reaching out to pet it. The dog turns away, totally snubbing me, circles around behind me, and then bites me hard on the butt. Another dog, a German shepherd joins the poodle and behind them I see my real two dogs (Siberian Huskies) lying on the carpet, panting.

"[Wife]!!" I wail, going into the kitchen. "Why do we have four freaking dogs in this house now? Wasn't two bad enough?"

Wife is in the kitchen cooking huge pans of a strange, purplish, bubbling yogurt conconction with her mom. "Oh, those belong to sissy and [brother-in-law Muppet]. We're just taking care of them." I grumble at this but sit down to journal. All but the last 2 pages of the DJ are filled, and the last entry is really hard to read. It says something about 139 pounds, but everything else is blurry and shifty. I demand proof that I'm not dreaming and become lucid.

"Hey, [Wife]," I say. "I'm having a lucid dream."

"Cool!" she responds. "Why don't we go to the park?" And then we're someplace else, holding hands and walking outside along a broad, grassy path with a great number of other people. We trudge past a flooded parking lot and the steel-toed boots I'm apparently wearing are soaked through. I'm annoyed at first, then remember that I can just fix it -- I do.

After walking for a long while, we get to a playground. The playground is a sort of cross between a playground and a petting zoo because all sorts of little animals like sheep and pigs are playing on the equipment as well, mingling with the kids. Our two kids (who weren't in the scene before) streak past us and join in the playing. My oldest son E sort of sits on another boy and I cringe, worrying that there might be some sort of confrontation. All is well, though, and everyone plays happily.

We do this for a while and then wander various paths in the park, the kids coming and going. There's an indoor scene as well where our son E gets to take a class and writes on the blackboard (something he can't do all that well IWL yet.)

Eventually we return home and put E to bed, except he's sleeping in a crib for some reason now. I'm happy, the way I feel after a great day out with the family. I keep looking at my hands as we put him to bed, reminding myself that I'm dreaming. Each time I do, I seem to grow an extra finger. The extra fingers even work pretty well although it seems to take extra special effort to move the "new" fingers vs. the old ones. By the end, my right hand has nine fingers.

As we leave his room, I show my freaky alien-looking hand to Wife and she laughs, saying, "That's awesome." I laugh too, peeling the extra fingers off like a glove and tossing it into the corner of a room where it lands with a rubbery thump. The fingers transform into a brightly-colored kerchief.

I say, "You know, I wish you felt differently about lucid dreaming." (IWL, Wife expressed that she thinks lucid dreaming is pretty much a waste of time.)

"I love that you have these dreams," she says, smiling.

I'm confused. "But you pretty much told me that this was a waste of time." She looks away, her smile fading. Then it hits me how caught up I am in confusing fantasy and reality, even while lucid. "Sorry. I forgot. Here and now."

She smiles again and turns to leave the room. I check her out as she's walking away. "Not gonna happen..." she says, without turning around, and bounds out of the room. I follow as the dream fades...

My attachment and affection for familiar DCs came back to bite me in this one. They are so lifelike that in the moment they feel every bit as real as the actual person. I love my DCs but I may need to learn to get better about leaving them behind in certain situations.

And I finally had the phase through a solid wall that I've been looking for! That's progress!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #67: All That You Can't Leave Behind

I'm sitting on a carpeted floor talking to my friend BS about strength training, in particular his recent deadlifting injury. At some point, he offers me responsibility or a promotion of some kind, saying that I will be level "17+". It occurs to me that I almost always communicate with him online rather than in person and I become lucid.

I see that I'm sitting on the floor of my master bedroom and BS has vanished. I know that I'm dreaming but the scene's almost distressingly vivid, sort of like a very realistic FA. Our laundry basket is in the middle of the floor but otherwise the room is impeccably organized. Yeah, definitely a dream.

It looks like it's early morning and Wife isn't in the bed. I want out of the house to work on some tasks so I decide to phase right outside Alyzarin-style. I walk up to a wall that leads outside, imagining that it's not really there. But when I try to walk through it, it stops me. This time I imagine the house having that entire section of wall missing, but my phase attempt is still a failure.

I take a few steps back and make one final run-up, focusing my mind on the fact that none of this exists... and pop right through the wall to the outside! My left shoulder slightly clips the window on the way through and a few stray fragments of glass fall with me to the driveway below. It may not have been the prettiest thing, but I'm happy to have finally phased through a solid wall again!

I'd been looking at pictures of Angel Falls during my WBTB and it's fresh in my mind. I Hulk-jump hundreds of feet into the air, willing myself to land at Angel Falls. Instead I come crashing back to Earth on a broad downtown plaza next to a long row of elegant, sculptured water fountains. The plaza is busy this morning and working men and women walk purposefully past, seemingly oblivious to my landing.

My 3-year-old son E is standing here watching the fountains. A few kids are playing in the fountains and I get the sense that he wants to join them. "Hey buddy!" I say. "I'm dreaming all of this."

He pops his thumb into his mouth. I think that he's getting way too old to still be doing that. "That's a lucid dream!" he declares, and smiles slyly.

I bend down and give him a hug. "That's right. We'll talk about this tomorrow. For now I'm going to take you with me." (I haven't thought through how dangerous it probably is to jump off of Angel Falls with a toddler.) I hoist him up to my shoulders the same way that I do every evening during part of our after-dinner walks. But somehow the lift feels awkward, strange, and too heavy. He slips out of my arms and crashes down to the plaza, landing hard on his forehead.

He wails in pain and I hurriedly bend down to scoop him up. I'm terribly upset, bordering on losing lucidity. I check his face and I'm relieved to see that he's unmarked. I hug him tight to me as he squalls in my ear. I'm too emotional to hold the dream together and I wake up.

This was really a lucid fragment followed by a short DILD. Ah, there was so much unrealized potential in this dream! Way too short for all its promise. Some phasing progress though!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #65: A Short Soliloquy

I'm standing in a rain forest clearing, standing in a shallow pool of clear water with my 3-year-old son E. I realize that this must be a dream. I immediately think of jumping from Angel Falls for Task of the Year.

E seems to read my mind because he panics and starts scampering around, squeaking, "Don't want to go! No! No! Don't want to! Don't want to go!" I try to get him to calm down but I quickly wake up.

I lay there and try to DEILD, but nothing comes. I flip to my back and start some fast SSILD cycles. I am halfway through the second cycle when I lose consciousness.

It's nighttime and I'm standing in E's darkened room, reflecting on the nature of life, illusion, and reality. I think, "Everything is just an illusion." I quickly realize how right I am.

I look around and see that E's bed and E himself are both gone. I hold up my hands, looking first at the palms. I bend my fingers into claws, noting how realistic my hands look. At some point, I stopped getting so many distortions and extra fingers, it seems. "My hands are an illusion," I whisper to noone in particular.

There's very faint moonlight trickling in through the plantation shutters of E's window. I say, "This wall is an illusion, too." I remember Alyzarin talking about how easy phasing became once she internalized that every wall was nothing but a picture that only she could make real. What could be simpler or more obviously true than that?

I imagine where I'll be when I step through that wall. I move toward the wall, thinking of the Colosseum. But then I have a vision of the top of Angel Falls. It's far more vivid, so I go with that.

As I pass into the wall, it feels like nothing more than mist. My vision cuts to milky gray and I vividly hear splashing water and the shouts and greetings of friends. People are already here waiting for me, but who? Is it people from waking life? DV members preparing to do Task of the Year? Suddenly I wake up. I try to go back to sleep but it's too late in the morning to transition back in.

This was a nice, very vivid LD where I was reunited with a long-gone childhood pet. It was more difficult than usual to connect to my tasks and goals. In fact, I could remember very little from waking life. I'm wondering whether this is because it was galantamine night, which required me to use an extremely short WBTB.

And my ever-reliable nose pinch RC let me down!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #63: After the Storm

I'm walking with my 3-year-old E in the back yard of what I think is our family home. The yard is vast, wild, and overgrown. As we walk, a Golden Retriever comes up to us and starts sniffing my hand. He looks almost exactly like the dog that I had when I was a kid, but I dismiss this as coincidence.

I wonder how this dog got into our yard. E, the dog, and I walk to to edge of the property and I see that the entire fence is destroyed. Nothing but a couple of snapped fenceposts remain. Looking further out, I see that our next door neighbor's house has been utterly destroyed. I think that this must be a dream. I perform the nose pinch reality check and can't breathe. I try it again and still can't breathe. "Oh shit," I think. "This is really happening."

The three of us walk further through town. Everywhere we look, houses are toppled and people sift dispiritedly through the rubble. I tell my son, "E, I think there's been a big tornado. Daddy's going to figure this out."

We walk across an empty four-lane road. Some of the shops on this road are open, which strikes me as odd. I RC again, pushing my finger into my palm. My left hand stretches like stiff taffy and I know that this is a dream.

I look down at the Golden Retriever and realize that he really is the same dog that I had when I was a boy! He's been gone almost fifteen years but now he's somehow standing right in front of me. I scratch him behind the ears. He just looks off into the distance with that big, goofy doggy grin. Even though I know that this is all a dream, it feels like a reunion.

E pets the Golden and starts fiddling with his ears. The dog pants and stares contentedly up at the sky. I decide that now is the right time for me to break off on my own.

I walk further along the road. I know that I had lots of plans for this lucid dream but I can't remember any of them. As I'm pondering this, a steady flow of traffic starts on the road and in a few seconds, cars are whizzing by in both directions. I remember a conversation with Xanous and Alyzarin about how they like to play in traffic during lucid dreams.

I start walking across the road. I'm halfway across when I suddenly realize that the cars are driving on the left side of the road (like in Great Britain or New Zealand.) The next thing I know, a small, strange, open-topped car is barreling toward me. Suddenly I'm scared that this car is going to flatten me and I try to force-push it to the side. The little car swerves to the left and its brakes squeal. I float up into the air, drifting slightly away.

The car has stopped and its driver, a woman of about 30, is leaned forward toward the steering wheel. Her eyes are squeezed shut as if she's in pain. I run or fly to the side of her little open-topped car, freaked that I've hurt her somehow when I did that force-push. "Are you okay? Are you okay?"

She doesn't respond, but she's clutching at her stomach. There's something horribly wrong with her. Her stomach is badly distended, stretching all the way down so that it rests on the floorboard of her car. I pick up her enormous, stretched stomach off of the floor and start feeding it back into her body. It takes some effort, but in the end it spools smoothly back into her torso as if nothing had ever happened.

She looks at me and smiles. I notice for the first time that she's incredibly attractive and I kiss her. (Guess I got over the stomach thing!) I pull away before I get myself totally distracted and she drives off, waving as she goes.

Again I try to remember my goals and again they won't come. I finish crossing the road and leap about twelve feet into the air, perching on a crumbling arbor by the side of the road. I look out over the ruined city and see that the destruction stretches for miles. I can't even seem to find my house anymore. Is the destruction getting worse? What's happening to this place?

I consider where to explore next but the dream soon ends.

This lucid was long enough that I became legitimately concerned about remembering it. This worry wound up being a bit of a downfall, but it still took me in interesting directions.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #57: Gladius and Darkness

I'm experiencing deja vu as I walk through an airport terminal, sure that I've dreamed of this place before. I note all of these little details that I believe my mind left out of the dream version of this place -- the color of the carpeting, the man arguing at the ticket counter, the way that the ceiling curves into a dome in this room. Then I hear the sound of hurried little footsteps. Someone tells me "E is looking for you!" (E is my oldest son.) Now I'm lucid.

I hear E shout playfully from somewhere further down the terminal: "Looking for Daaaaddy!" I know that we're playing hide and seek. I eagerly set off, loving the idea of playing like this in an LD. I move through the terminal and wind up in a series of twisting, narrow office hallways. Other children run by me, possibly engaged in their own games of hide and seek.

As I'm moving through these hallways, a little hand swipes the back of my leg and E declares, "I got Daaaaddy!" I move toward E to scoop him up but he laughs and runs in the opposite direction. I follow but almost immediately I've lost him in the hallways.

I wind up back in the airport terminal and wander through there a while longer before coming to a craft table. Wife is standing at this table wearing a smock and molding some sort of clay. I walk up to the table but she doesn't acknowledge me. I grab a piece of clay and tell her, "I'm having a lucid dream." She responds in essence that I should "show her" what that means. (I don't remember her exact words.)

As I begin molding the clay, it starts foaming and fizzing until the entire surface is covered in a layer of foam. I wipe the foam away bit by bit and underneath is a carved image of a human face. Wife looks astonished. I tell her, "I'm telling you, being lucid is the way to go."

She hands me a round piece of glass. "Make me a picture of a Christmas tree." I nod, take the glass from her, and rub my hand across it once. Instead of a Christmas tree, I produce a little stained glass picture of an eye.

Wife looks at it. "Nice. But that's not a Christmas tree. I thought you said you were having a lucid dream."

A bit baffled, I shrug and say, "I don't know what to tell you." She goes back to her crafts and I walk further along in the airport terminal. I'm loving the experience of being lucid again and I suddenly fret that I'll forget everything that's happened. I try to recall everything that's happened up to this point, but this destabilizes the scene. Everything collapses into darkness.

I remember that Xanous had talked about handling "dark scenes" by acting out some action like riding a bike or running. I want to perform a Task of the Year, so I will myself to have a gladius in my hand. (The gladius is a sword of ancient Rome.) I swing the sword back and forth in the darkness, imagining that I'm locked in a dark tunnel underneath the Colosseum. I can hear the crowd now, and I know that the gates will open any moment to let me out for my match. I'm nervous with anticipation. I try to remember whether I have to kill for this task, and think that I do.



I see a blob of light forming in the corner of my vision. I'm filled with fear and nervous tension. But just as I'm bursting with anticipation, the crowd noise dies down and the blob of light forms into a high window in the hallway of a university. My vision is badly distorted around the edges, almost as if I'm wearing a shredded contact lens.

The window is about 15 feet above me, and I float up to it to start phasing through the glass. The phasing is difficult and awkward. It feels like I'm dragging my body through thick plastic wrap. I finally make it through and then I'm flying over a park in the mid-afternoon. The dream feels thin now, and I fly only a short distance before waking up.