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Dream 1(fragments):

I am doing some stuff at home and then i decide to look at hands they were weird so i am dreaming, i go to balcony, rub hands. Then i take off and feel wings, as i fly i notice that background is like static texture, then dream fades out.

Dream 2:

There was story about space station and some spaceship docking there. The crew of the ship were secretly pirates and were trying to capture the station, also they were not humans but rather light-blue muscular humanoids in armor. There was some kid-engineer that was defending the station and he started talk with one of pirates and managed to talk them into going away. Then i was looking at some kind of ship log and there were some of nicknames that i used on internet logged. Then back to story, the ship flied out of hanger and there was some battle going on.
Then everything everything faded to some other place, in the skies, a dragon was flying away.

Dream 3(fragments):

I was playing some FPS game and the level was located in some ancient tomb place, i was discussing something with other player and we were talking about some science book.
Then i wake up and i realize that apparently i accidentally bit somebody and some stuff around while sleeping and there was some talk about that.

This was the second of two lucid dreams from last night. I'm excited about this new Great Barrier Reef teleport, even if it is very glitch at this point!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #131: Oceanfront Property

I'm walking through a university when I encounter the same male twins from my previous dream. They're dressed just as before and again they stare wordlessly at me. I remember this from the previous dream and become lucid.

"Who are you?" I ask them.

The twin in glasses only says, "Be careful out there," and together they walk off down the path behind me.

I immediately remember my intention to explore the Great Barrier Reef and leap up into the air to fly. I soar over a few buildings toward a shipping yard filled with shipping crates and huge cranes. I know that I have to be close to the ocean. Somehow the dream loses cohesiveness for a moment and I'm thrown into the void.

Rubbing my hands together, I think of what my fastest way to the Great Barrier Reef will be. After giving my dream body a quick probe, I pinch my nose shut and flop backwards like I'm plunging into water. This works incredibly, and almost immediately I'm swimming through clear blue water again, similar to the prior dream. But as I look around, I see that I'm swimming through an underwater version of my bedroom!

I swim out into the hallway, so surprised to be swimming through my house that I have no idea what to do. I keep colliding with random objects like boxes as I swim and I'm generally nervous about my navigation, so I decide to return to the master bedroom to phase through the window. Hopefully that'll be something like the open sea. I swim back to the window but when I get to the shutters I just bounce off of them. I'm having trouble believing that I can do it or imagining what it will feel like. I make another attempt at it, bounce off again, and worry that I'm going nowhere and that I'll just wake up. Inevitably, this leads me to a false awakening in a darkened version of our bedroom.

Wife has a little "dream checklist" that she's trying to go over with me. "Did you get to the Great Barrier Reef?" she asks, poised to check something off.

"No," I say, disappointed.

She frowns. "Did you ask about the meaning of life?" she inquires hopefully. It goes on like this for a while, but I don't remember what else happens afterward.

Dream recall from today's nap.

I am at home and some people are distracting me from my nap, there is some talk, i have to do something with some papers and then they leave. After that i notice some candles on table, and that one of them apparently slightly setting the wall on fire, i started thinking about informing someone and almost exited the room, but then "wait a second", i look at my hands and they are weird, so i am dreaming. I stop and recall some stuff to do then i go to balcony doors while rubbing hands on the way. Dream version of my room appears to be using old layout and there are apparently a couple of steps down on the way to balcony door, and also balcony itself has glass walls, some of them are open though.
I jump out and feel my wings, starting the flight. I fly around and soon i am above some other city, with high density of rather small buildings and some industrial buildings, all of them are mostly blocky and squarey. I fly above them while looking around, there are some weird reflective surfaces floating in the air. After a few minutes i spot square opening in the roof of one of buildings and fly inside. Place appears to have mostly metallic walls and some machinery, then as i look around it slowly turns into different room from my home part by part, and then dream fades out.
I wake up and i still feel that i am dreaming, and it's nighttime here this time, i get up and go to balcony, it appears to be same as before false awakening with those two steps and glassed walls, but this time closed, i get to glass, turn around and fall back, phasing through it. I feel wings and start the flight. Looking around, dreamscape appears to be more natural, there are some trees. I fly to the left and then i find some village, there appears to be some wooden water barrel thing, in the middle of it that immediately catches my attention, i have urge to destroy it. So i land and start tearing it apart, it appears to have some mechanisms on top and metallic parts, and it's insides are made of... bread??? As i tear it apart i also notice some DCs walking around. Then satisfied with that being done, i stand up and think about trying some of that bread, but dream shortly fades out shortly.

[INDENT][RIGHT][SIZE=1][COLOR=#808080]11.08.2013[/COLOR][/SIZE][/RIGHT]
[SIZE=1][COLOR=#808080]NON-DREAM[/COLOR] [COLOR=#1E90FF]DREAM[/COLOR] [COLOR=#DC143C]LUCID[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[SIZE=3][COLOR=#1E90FF]Some random things happened in a courtroom and everything kept looping, like a tape on repeat. I start to think for a second that [/COLOR][COLOR=#DC143C]I'm dreaming. But do I want to do anything about it...? Err... Um... OH I'm dreaming! I stand up and step forward a few steps towards the judge. I hear murmurs throughout the courtroom. People seem to have a problem with me wanting to leave. I try not to make a big deal out of it for fear that everyone will attack[/COLOR][COLOR=#808080] (like they always do)[/COLOR][COLOR=#DC143C],[/COLOR][COLOR=#DC143C]so I try talking to calm the situation and stall a bit.
I say, "Alright, just hold on one second okay guys?"
The tension rises.
"No no, j- just one sec, alright?"
I walk over to a dark part of the room with a single door. With the intention set in my mind I turn around and I am now in my house. Wow it worked! I open the shoe closet to put on some shoes [/COLOR][COLOR=#808080](very low lucidity at this point)[/COLOR][COLOR=#DC143C] I find some white shoes and start to put them on. AGH! I fall to the floor and my right eye closes shut. Shit, I'm fading! I have to go, what am I doing putting shoes on!? I struggle to stand up and go towards the door to go outside but I stop. No no maybe I [I]should[/I] put my shoes on. No...
...
Oh fuck it I'll put them on. [/COLOR][COLOR=#808080](As you can tell, I was panicking at this point.) [/COLOR][COLOR=#DC143C]I manage to get the shoes on finally. The fading is getting more intense. No! I open my eyes and struggle to keep the dream open with all my will power. I open the door to the garage. Should I lock it? Fuck I don't know... Ah nevermind that! I close the door behind me. I go outside and run full speed down the driveway. I jump and without even trying, a huge blast of bright orange fire shoots out from my feet and I take off at an incredible speed. Huh, I guess these are rocket shoes. I make it maybe 10 - 20 feet up in about half a second.
[/COLOR][/SIZE][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/vFSPQQU.png[/IMG]
[SIZE=3][COLOR=#DC143C]The dream fades to black.[/COLOR]
[/SIZE][/INDENT]

An insane chain of eight DILDs, DEILDs and false awakenings from this morning. Completely crazy! I apologize for the length, but it was a ton of dreaming. I gave the dreams headings to hopefully make the breaks clear. What a ride!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #129: Map of the World

Choline
I'm standing in the kitchen with Wife as she holds our two-year-old son "R" in her arms. She asks me when I was planning to take my choline bitartrate. When I tell her that I've already taken it, R starts to wail pathetically.

"How could you take your choline without letting him watch?" she says, annoyed at my apparent thoughtlessness. "You know that he loves that!"

I'm stammering out some excuse when it occurs to me that this has to be a dream. My vision goes a bit crazy and I go more or less blind. I fumble my way around the kitchen, feeling my way from the countertop to the breakfast table and sit down heavily in a chair.

"Are you okay?" asks Wife. I really think that I'm dreaming but I feel uneasy enough that I nose pinch and blow through. Suddenly, my vision is dominated by a huge still-frame close-up of my own unshaven face shouting something. Other than that, I'm still blind. "Are you okay?" she asks, more insistently this time.

Highlander
I have a false awakening back in bed, still suspicious that I'm dreaming. Wife snuggles closer to me and I hit the nose pinch, blowing right through again.

Wife rolls on top of me and sits up. I feel excited about where things seem to be going but rather than doing anything amorous she starts saying strange stuff about the Highlander series of movies: "Did you know that Michael let us borrow Highlander I through XV? I didn't even know there were fifteen. He and [female name] love those movies."

The Full Xanous
Another false awakening back in bed, and I roll out immediately. My vision is very blurry and the whole dream scene feels wobbly to me. I think that I need to get myself anchored in and I remember my intention to try the technique of "making out with the dream scene", suggested (jokingly) by DarkMatters and put into practice by Xanous. I'd promised to try to test this so I could talk about it on a future podcast.

I move around to Wife's side of the bed. I briefly that I can test this method by just making out with Wife instead, but I realize that I'm just telling myself that as an excuse to get frisky with her. Instead I attack the corner of the mattress, totally making out with it. The sheets feel like t-shirt material against my tongue. After a moment, all sensation disappears, and I'm awake, my mouth kind of moving around. (In waking life, I believe. Pretty embarrassing. )

22:48
I DEILD into a bedroom scene and roll out. The computer monitor on the nearby desk is on, which it rarely is. The computer is showing the old Windows XP "Bliss" background with the grassy hill. The computer's clock reads "22:48".

I want to get out of the house, so I try to dive through the window. It feels oddly gummy, though, and I wind up with my torso stuck through the window. On the other side I just see blackness. I decide to back out, imagine a new scene, and try again. I'm about to make another run at it when I sort of fall back into...

Amazon
A false awakening where I'm lounging on a window seat in a sunlit room. A group of three women are standing nearby, laughing and chatting over stories about their kids. I nose pinch reality check (blowing through) and get up from the couch. As I stand up to my full height, I notice that one of the women is really tall (probably about six feet even) and very fit. As I walk nearby, she turns to look at me -- long brown hair, probably mid-30s, and very good-looking.

She starts walking toward me and it occurs to me that if I don't get away, the dream's probably ending in this room. As she joins me by the window, my quick internal deliberation ends in a verdict of "worth it". After about 20 seconds of making out, I wake up.

The King of the Colosseum
I quickly DEILD into a scene where I'm standing in my bedroom. It's very dark, so I let the void overtake me and start rubbing my hands together. I get onto my hands and knees and feel the floor, imagining sand between my fingers, thinking that the Colosseum is all around me. After a while, I can see the sand, and then the stone walls of a huge chamber. It's not the Colosseum I see, though, but more like a huge throne room with no ceiling. It's close, but just not quite right.

At the other end of the room, a cartoon king sits on his throne. He's a slimy-looking Jafar lookalike dressed in flowing red robes, and I think that he'll make the perfect opponent for Europe Task of the Year (the Colosseum battle.) As soon as I decide this, he lunges from his throne and charges toward me, a scimitar in his hand.

As he closes the distance, I decide to summon NewArtemis to help with the fight. "Jafar" is moving too fast, though, and he's practically on top of me before I can even start the summoning. Not even close, I'm on my own. I try to swing a sword at him, but in spite of my expectations, my hand is empty. My movement seems to surprise him, though, and as he stands there unsure of how to react, I grab his hair with my left hand and strike him hard on the side of the neck with the edge of my right hand.

His head pops cleanly off in my left hand. There's no gore involved, and the injury doesn't seem to slow him down much. The head spouts a series of angry curses at me before suddenly changing into the head of penguin. This shocks me into...

Map of the World
Another false awakening in my bedroom. I decide to get out of the house the direct way this time, running out of the master bedroom, vaulting over the baby gates as I move down the stairs (both gates higher than in waking life), and phasing through the back door into the yard. It's early morning now, and the pool has overflowed into the now-swampy back yard. Random objects like boxes and beach balls float in its waters. Floodlights are strung up in the trees all around me, shining brightly down on the yard.

I marvel at these changes before hopping over the fence. Rather than the neighbor's yard, I find myself in a construction site near a pile of steel girders. I try to fly, but I can't seem to get off of the ground. I walk for a while, moving past a cage composed of chainlink fencing where they're holding some kind of Little League practice. As I pass by, the kids and parents keep trying to talk to me about baseball, but I ignore them, trying to stay focused on the Colosseum.

As I walk further on, I somehow end up on a ledge on the side of a building, high above the city, with nowhere to go. I try to fly again, and this time it's easy. I shoot upward to an incredible height, moving all the way past the clouds, higher and higher until I can see the world laid out under me like a map. Some of the continents are even labeled in flowing calligraphy. I pick a spot below me, deciding it's the Colosseum, and fly downward. I'm shocked, though, when I land after flying only a few feet downward. Now I'm standing on an enormous stone floating through space. The "world" has disappeared entirely, and I'm walking on a painted mural of the Earth.

With nowhere to go, I suddenly remember the success that bemistaken just had with closing her eyes and mentally teleporting. I close my eyes, imagining the Colosseum. Without meaning to, I think of the possibility that I'll wake up when I open my eyes. I'm really worried about this, and I start hurrying. This flows into...

Commercial Break
A false awakening in what looks like an office kitchen. It's the early morning and Wife is here with me eating a bowl of cereal and watching a small, staticky television set. On it, two Russian men are arguing about photo editing software.

"Sorry if I woke you," she says. "I knew you'd want to see this!"

"I wish you'd let me sleep," I whine. "I was having a lucid dream."

"Oh really?" she says. "It sounded like something erotic was happening."

I think of saying something like "I only made out a little with a six-foot-tall woman" but this doesn't seem like much of a defense. So I just say, "Well, that's embarrassing."

"Ew," she says, wrinkling her nose and going back to her television program. I finally nose pinch, realizing that the teleport didn't wake me up at all! All of this was expectation. I get excited thinking about this, and the dream falls apart, finally ending this crazy chain of dreams...

Dream recall from today's naps.

Dream 1(fragments):

There was some anime with story about some detective dude who visited some school and was getting all clues by beating up people and in the end he found out that the teacher was behind everything and then there's some other character appeared.

Dream 2:

I am in my room, doing some stuff, and i spontaneously realize that i am dreaming, i take off a few headsets(seems to be my new reality check, multiplying headsets, haha) and then go towards balcony, i look around and it's different, more cramped than IWL and it's more structually into building. Suddenly dream fades out.
I wake up still dreaming, but can only see cloudy blackness, though still can feel that i am in my room. Dream is highly unstable. I get up from the bed and go in general direction of balcony, i hear familiar voice of attacker DC, as he gets in my way, i forcefully shove him off to the side and continue towards balcony while trying to force dream to stabilize with sheer will. As i reach balcony dream becomes stable and blackness fades, i rub hands and take off a few more headsets because why not, balcony seems to be pretty similar to before false awakening.
I jump, feel my wings and start flying. I fly to the left from the balcony and there are some yellow buildings, trees and some highways. After a bit of just flying i decide to try that idea of starting transformation from phantom sensations. I focus on them and it starts, i feel and see snout and also the side of nearest building becomes reflective, in reflection i see that my head is a head of dragon now, black/grey scales and a few horns, but as i try to move, it reverts back. I fly over some fence and there's some passage under bridge. I land and decide to go through it, there are some DCs.
I exit passage and now i am in some foggy park place(As in, natural fog), with trees and a puddle of water to the right, i take off once again with my wings and i fly higher, out of the fog. I look around and there are some tall red brick buildings surrounding the park, i fly higher and get onto the roof of one, then i continue flight. As i fly i notice that one of buildings has small weird HP bar near the roof, i get onto it and stomp a few times, with each stomp taking out part of hp bar, as it reaches 0% building falls apart in the place, then i continue flight and notice more buildings with hp bars and part of their hp missing, they look actually damaged. As i fly over one, i hear some voice saying something and then some force knocks me to the right, i fall onto the streets, but manage to land perfectly. I look around and see some buildings on fire and some factory building. I walk and lose lucidity, i walk through some streets and reach some gas station.
I wake up and i am apparently in some outdoor restaurant place and my tagbook is on the floor, some weird kid is looking at it. I grab whole thing and kid says that he knows me from dreamviews apparently. We start talking about something and then he asks if he can have some of candies that i apparently have in the pocket, there's four of them. I give him one and eat one myself as well, it's yummy.

Dream recall from today's nap. Lucid started with ultralow awareness and with each FA awareness got higher, though each FA also ruined my recall somewhat apparently.

Dream 1(fragments):

I was going to nap but there were some distractions, and then radio randomly started playing and i was trying to turn it off.

Dream 2:

I am doing some stuff at home, then i wake up in different room, take off headset and sound is still here, some DC starts distracting me and i think about my room. Dream fades out.
I wake up in my room, but it's different, also mom's here, i take off headset again, still hear sound and i feel headset still on me, i take off a few more headsets off my head and throw them on the floor. I go to balcony but door's closed, before i open it mom starts talking about something and slowly turns into that DC that attacked me before. Before i can do much i am teleported back to bed and some force binds me in place, DC says something about some video game and shows images from some platformer, i try to fight the force but dream fades out.
I wake up again, room is exactly the same as IWL, doubtful, i go to balcony and take off a few headsets, i am indeed still dreaming, suddenly outside changes greatly and i am now on balcony of some different building, which looks much older and much more interesting in structure. I take off and fly, i feel my wings. I fly along the wall and then under some kind of arch/bridge that links that building and some tower-like structure. I also try to do some other dream control, like summoning, but end up only making my voice really different. Then soon dream fades out.

Dream recall from today's naps.

Dream 1:

I am at home, doing something on PC, then i am interrupted by someone questioning about my nap and look at the time, it is 1:00 or close to that, but i already went to nap at 2:00, i start feeling the dream too, so i am dreaming. Dream is slightly unstable, i go to balcony and jump out, i feel my wings and start flying around, the place looks mostly similar to waking life, but to the left there are some buildings that don't present IWL. I end up flying around for a few minutes, getting in some wind currents a couple of times, looking around and trying transformation. I also notice that sky is being like background texture rather than actual sky, weird, haha. Then dream fades as i wake up moving around the room in chair, i get confused and then wake up properly.

Dream 2:

I am on the bed in some grey-ish room and i think that's my room, there's some aquarium with fishes right above doorway, it's weird, i start reading some magazine and then look at aquarium again, now there's pretty big and really weird fish of green-yellow color, and it has 4 big frog-like eyes. I end up multitasking between reading and watching it, at first it just stays in one place, but then it slowly starts phasing through aquarium glass. Then it teleports to the left from me, onto the wall, and then onto my head, everything goes dark. I feel that i am dreaming and vision fades back in and room is shaking for a bit, also it is darker now and... there's same DC that attacked me few lucids back, i say something to him and give him "Don't even think about doing it again" look and he gets scared and sulks in corner, then says something about what i am doing not being a good idea. I go to window and look outside, i am apparently in some kind of skyscraper building. Then dream fades out.
I wake up but in different room of my home, the one with chandelier. I get up and let out a bit of roar, go on all four and jump through window, ending up partially phasing through it, i feel wings and try to fly through, but i get stuck for a bit, then as i phase through i end up falling onto the floor of some different room. Brown walls, bookshelves, green/red carpet and some small lights. A bit confused, i jump and fly through window again, this time ending up outside. It looks like it's autumn, since all trees have yellow/reddish leaves, and also there's really huge fence. I try to fly over it but dream fades out and i wake up twice.

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.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #126: Mad Dog

I'm sitting in my childhood bedroom on my old bed. I look out the window and some thug-looking guy in a tank top is standing outside by a parked car, loafing around with a somewhat overweight girlfriend. As I'm trying to figure out what's going on, I unintentionally make eye contact with the guy and he starts mad dogging me. I quickly look away but out of my peripheral vision, I see him walking aggressively toward my room. Great, what's he want?

The guy reaches behind his back and draws a revolver from the waistband of his pants. I dive out of the room into the hallway as a gunshot blows through my window. I'm surprised by how soft the sound is. I think that it's so quiet that nobody might hear it. Will anyone even hear it and call the police? I duck into the bathroom, waiting there for a bit before baaaarely peeking my head around the corner to look out through the office window down the hall. But the guy is there, too, and fires immediately.

I scramble to the back of the house into my parents' bedroom, but I see the guy circling around to the back yard. I can't believe how hard he is to shake, and I realize that this is all a dream.

Relaxed now, I head back to the front of the house, walking through the hallways, through the den to the front door. I phase through the front door out into the street to find the car (and my assailant) gone. I'm trying to remember my goals but absolutely nothing is coming to me. I don't remember the Colosseum, I don't remember my intention to summon NewArtemis, nothing. I think that I'm supposed to be working on Advanced Task of the Month and that it has something to do with California. (Totally wrong.)

I decide to explore, hoping it'll come to me. I fly up into the air for a while, soaring over my old neighborhood. I fly over a creek at one point, but I don't get to explore very long before the dream ends.

July 22, 2013, Monday

I was running down the road west with some kids. It's in my hometown. It was twilight, right before dawn, but with no sun rays yet. We flight up to the skies. The sun began to rise.

We started to feather fall, and some of the kids were already on the ground. I flapped my hands harder to go up higher. I saw the municipal building, I kept flying up, up higher than the trees.

I passed by a tree house on a really tall tree. I knocked on the door, but then kept flying past it. I looked at the fields of my hometown below. I floated down and landed.

These were the most realistic non-SSILD false awakenings I think that I've ever had. Made for a fun series!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #121: Barefoot

I'm dimly aware that I'm dreaming in some scene that I can't remember, and as I become lucid, I'm thrown straight into the void. I hang on for dear life and start rubbing my hands together like crazy. It feels solid and realistic and pretty soon I feel comfortable that I'm anchored pretty well into the dream.

Right away I remember that I want to get to the Colosseum. Like the previous dream, I want to build the Colosseum scene from the void. This time I choose to do so by constructing the Colosseum's inner stone wall. I reach my left hand out and yes, it feels like it's dragging along stone. I walk along this wall, dragging my fingers upward until they reach a... ceiling? No, that's wrong. I deny the ceiling's existence and after a bit my fingers keep climbing until they reach the wall's top.

Now I'm feeling the top and side of the wall with both hands. It feels very realistic now, and the scene comes sharply into focus. I see that I'm rubbing some isolated piece of stone that's standing in a modern-looking, well-lit library. It's very cleanly decorated and only sparsely populated with bookshelves, and two spiral staircases lead up to a second floor. I see a couple of friends standing around. Near a table is "AJ", and standing across from her is "LS". Neither notice me. Further away I spot an extremely attractive female stranger (Asian, mid-20s, long hair). I suppress a strong impulse to approach her for "that thing" and instead turn toward the glass door, phasing through to the outside.

Outside is a plaza with a broad set of bricked steps leading down to a grassy area. At the top of the stairs to my right, two teenage girls are seated at a white metal table having a meal (lunch?) "Which way to the Colosseum?" I ask them, and one girl points immediately across the plaza, swallowing like she has a mouthful of food she wants to down before speaking. "Thanks!" I say, and start flying in that direction. I get high enough to spot a distant tower and a tree-lined street nearby, but the sound of a wet sneeze over the baby monitor sends me into the black. I keep my eyes closed, trying to DEILD, but I hear Wife groan unhappily, and now I don't think I can get back to sleep.

I open my eyes and find myself lying in bed in our darkened bedroom. (False awakening.) I get out of bed and reach over to grab my journal, expecting my Kindle Fire to be on top, but it's missing. Where the hell did it go? I step into the master bathroom, close the door so I don't disturb Wife, and try to flip the light switch on. Instead the fan comes on. I try the other switch. Fan again. Come on, what the hell? I'm going to forget everything. Both switches at once, and still no light, just the fan. I hit the nose pinch and blow through. Amazing.

I go back to the bedroom and it's brighter now. Wife's missing, and the shutters are open. I leap up, phase through the window, and perch on a dream balcony that's outside. The balcony overlooks a courtyard far below, very much unlike the geography of our real house. I fly out over the courtyard, soon coming to a forest of extremely tall trees. The trees are like pines that stretch far into the sky, coming close to touching the cloud cover. I think that if I can just get over these trees, I'll be able to look down at a huge chunk of the landscape, spot the Colosseum, and fly there for Europe Task of the Year.

I fly higher and higher, trying to crest just over the treetops. I get close to the top but keep feeling resistance. I know that it's mental, so I keep shrugging it off, insisting to myself that I am flying higher each time. I approach a cloud and do this flailing little grasp for it. For some reason, I briefly see stars and get the sensation of my heartrate increasing. This takes me straight into...

A false awakening in our bedroom. I look at the clock and see that the screen's completely dark. I nose pinch and blow through. I approach the window, phase through, and hop out onto a ledge. I'm over another courtyard (this one with a pool), and about 3 stories up, suddenly feeling very nervous about attempting flight. I just became lucid. Am I sure? I hit a secondary nose pinch and make sure that this feels vaguely like "dream gravity". I think about the phase and the multiple nose pinches, and decide that I should be okay.

I'm still nervous, though, and when I jump, I float to the ground rather than fly. The landing's soft, and I'm sure that I'm dreaming, but I decide not to push it with the flying just now. I walk around the pool, scanning the crowd for a while, seeing many familiar faces -- my friend "The Dragon" and his wife, my father-in-law, and a couple of other friends that I can no longer recall. I walk past the shallow end of the pool, past where some kids are playing some game with a ball. At the edge of the courtyard is an ivy-covered archway that I'm planning on walking through, maybe turning it into a gateway to the Colosseum.

I remember to try to summon NewArtemis. As I pass by the stairway out of the pool, without stopping, I extend my hand toward the pool, and say, "[NewArtemis], are you ready to go?" It works! Art emerges from the water, walks up the stairs, and hops out of the pool.

Her voice is faint, but as she walks along she says, "Don't want to wear shoes. Don't like to wear shoes."

I don't know what to make of this, so I just go back to my stuff: "The Colosseum's right through here. You ready?"

"Yeah!" Her voice is still faint, but much more enthusiastic. As we approach the doorway, 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 #118: Water Slide

I'm walking down the central aisle of an airplane when I hear a voice to my right: "Hey [CanisLucidus]! Check out this view!" I look to my right and NewArtemis is waving me over and pointing at the window. "Have you ever seen Los Angeles from the air before?"

"[NewArtemis]!" I take the middle seat and say something about the last time I flew into LA. I talk about how it's been a long time since I was there and ask her what she's doing in LA.

"Same thing you are," she says. "The gymnastics conference." I feel like this is totally unexpected and don't know how to respond. Why don't I remember this? Since when do I care about gymnastics? Art points out the window again. "Look, that's the Staples Center!"

As I'm checking out LA through the window, a flight attendant makes an announcement that the plane will be landing shortly. Art stares at me pointedly, not saying anything. "Am I supposed to be doing something?" I ask, not following what's going on.

"Are you just going to leave your son all by himself while the plane lands?" Now I'm sure that my 2-year-old son "R" is all by himself several rows back. Panicked, I run toward the back of the plane without saying goodbye. When I get back to my row, I see some guy in the window seat and R crawling around freely on the middle seat. The guy turns to me and says something odd, and I wonder whether this is all a dream. As soon as I ask myself the question, I know the answer.

I look out the window again, and the plane is on the ground now. Passengers are starting to stand up at their seats and in the aisle. I stand up in the aisle myself and say, "[NewArtemis], come back this way. I'm going to Angel Falls." Almost immediately she slips past some guy standing in the aisle and appears near my row. I start narrating partly to her but mostly to the dream itself. "Okay, this plane took us right to Angel Falls." We walk through the doorway of the airplane and down a short set of stairs covered by a canopy.

"Can you fly?" I ask her. But I correct myself: "You can fly." And she floats past, bouncing along the canopy ceiling before reaching the end and floating up temporarily out of sight. Now I hear the roar of a waterfall and I'm feeling really excited. I start flying, too, and I wind up bouncing along just like she did before I break out into the open.

The waterfall is there, but it's really just a waterpark slide sitting on an open stretch of runway. The ride's about 30 feet tall, quite steep, and looks like fun. It's got a banner stretched over its exit with its name... something like, "_____ Raging River _____", with a couple of words I can't recall. Art and I fly over to the top of the slide, me just slightly in front. It's 4 "lanes" of slides right next to each other, and I take the 2nd from the left. I think that Art wound up further behind me in the same lane. I reach the bottom, zooming past a couple of portly kids in lanes #1 and #3.

As soon as I hit the bottom of the slide, I hop up again, expecting Angel Falls to be in front of me. And indeed, in front of me is the top of a huge waterfall. This one's got a banner stretched over the top of it, too: "Angel Falls". But it's still some kind of ride, not the real waterfall. It's close. A very impressive, realistic (almost scary) ride, but still a ride. I shout something back to Art about how this probably doesn't count. She says something I can't remember and indicates she's still here.

The dream still feels really stable and vivid, but I'm reluctant to waste any time, so I leap over the waterfall feet-first. Immediately I'm drenched and in freefall. After a few seconds of that, I land smoothly on some kind of big, steep plastic slide and travel along it for maybe another 20 seconds before things flatten out just a bit and the slide takes me underground. I'm still moving at a good pace but no longer at the crazy speeds of before.

The slide flattens out and broadens, and I slide past a few other riders that I'm sharing the slide with. When I feel myself slowing down, I find that I can sort of spin on my butt and gain a little speed. One DC that I pass asks me how I'm doing this and I tell him that I'm having a lucid dream.

After a while, the slide narrows and finally ends. There's a long line of DCs waiting to exit the "ride". I think about whether I should wait in line, then remember that I need to still find the real Angel Falls. I'm thinking about how to do this when the dream ends.

This one was a lot of fun, in large part because it was the first time I managed to really modify terrain in a major way. I still can't believe that I fell for the last false awakening, especially after catching the others.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #117: Carving the Coasts

I'm standing on a bus, blathering some false memory to the other riders about how a friend of mine was on an episode of Friends. I suddenly realize that I've missed my stop by miles, we're in the final bus terminal, and everybody's getting off. A middle-aged bald guy hands me a bunch of coins, including a JFK half dollar and a weird coin with a hole in the middle of it, and announces that he's paying everyone's bus fare. I hand the coins over to the bus driver, who takes them all. Once we're outside, the bald guy asks for his change and then berates me when I say that I gave the driver everything.

I feel like an idiot and everyone's staring at me, so I slink away and walk outside, wondering how I'm going to get home. On the corner I see a gang member carrying a pistol and wearing a blue bandana face mask. He jumps out from behind cover and starts firing at some unknown enemy. I think that this must be a really bad neighborhood and that I'd better get out of here. I look up at the sun to figure out which way is east, but notice that the sun's too low in the sky for the brightness of the day. The sun self-consciously moves higher in the sky to match my expectations and I realize that I'm dreaming.

I'm walking by an apartment complex with a little playground filled with grade school kids. I start flying to look for Angel Falls and one of the kids says, "It's Superman!"

"That's right!" I say, and start "bah bah baahhh"ing the original John Williams Superman theme. I decide that I want to hear the real thing and immediately my subconscious produces the original soundtrack (or close enough to convince me, at least.) I fly off, the Superman score playing in my head and filling me with nerdy confidence.

I come to a broad river with some low hills along the water's edge. I fly along the river until I come to a coastline, proceeding along that for a while, looking for Angel Falls. I start eyeing those low hills and think about whether I could turn them into Angel Falls. As I do this, they start growing taller, and I find that I can raise and lower the height of these hills just by thinking about it. Something seems to stop them from getting up to full mountain height, but I can still get them high enough to impress myself, at least. I keep flying along the coast, building the hills taller and watching as the occasional small waterfall even erupts from the side. These waterfalls are all pretty modest, though, and not nearly high enough for Angel Falls.

As I'm happily traveling down the coast and raising the hills up to the sky, a group of elderly people that look like tourists start flying in front of me, way too close, and blocking my view a bit. The tourists are pointing at the hills and reading some kind of guide book, and disturbingly, one of them is only wearing a diaper. I maneuver past a couple of them, but the old man in a diaper won't get out of the way. I say, "You want to land," and he immediately banks to the left and drops out of sight. Satisfied, I continue flying and trying to make the coastal hills climb higher and higher. I can't get enough of watching this! As I'm raising one set of hills really high, I start to see water cascading off of it, and I think that it's going to turn into Angel Falls. As I look up and up, my perspective suddenly clonks onto its side and I'm pitched into the void.

I rub my hands together to make sure my dream body's ready to go, then I try to find the floor. I imagine my hands rubbing against the smooth rock of a river bed, but the sensation I feel is different. More like cloth. Soon I can see out of my left eye, but only in a small circle. Right eye's still blind. It looks like I'm laying facedown on our comforter -- false awakening. It's morning and I'm alone, laying across the bed.

I get up and check myself in the bedroom mirror. I've got a bunch of blankets and sheets and stuff wrapped around me. I put my arms out so they can fall to the floor. I look just like myself except that my eyes are filled in with black and these dark wisps of smoky electricity-looking stuff are crackling around my head. Overall effect: badass. There's still something wrong with my right eye, but I just tell myself that the blankets are gone and I can see fine. Pretty soon, I do.

There's a new door in the wall of our bedroom, and I walk through it into some kind of sunroom. (This is strange since our bedroom is on the 2nd floor.) My friends "Leroy" and "Leroyette" (husband and wife) are here working on some kind of art project with a bunch of strangers. Everyone's working away with scissors, paper, and cloth. I call out, "[Leroy]! I'm having a lucid dream."

"Here, let me get the door," he says, undoing a bunch of strange locks on an external, glass-paned door. I step outside and there's a small waterfall, about 15 feet high, going in a small garden. I'm wondering how to turn this into Angel Falls when the scene goes dark right before...

I have another false awakening in my master bedroom. The door to the sunroom is still there, and I head through it again. There, again, is Leroy. This time I try undoing all of the locks myself. There are an unbelievable number of curtains, locks, and shutters covering the door, and I'm finding it really frustrating to mess with them. "I don't recall your doors being covered with this much bullcrap," I whine. Leroy chuckles and tries to help me. (Apparently I thought this was his house, but it doesn't resemble any room in Leroy's home.) "You know, I could have just phased this whole time. Sorry, man!" I phase through the door onto a grassy lawn, jump into the air, and start flying again. After flying for a short time...

Another false awakening, this time in the sunroom. Embarrassingly, this one fools me and I'm non-lucid. An overweight bearded guy in his 20s is dressed in a wookiee costume (sans head.) He's complaining about how girls are always too interested in lucid dreaming. Don't they understand that stuff is just fantasy? He puts the head of the wookiee costume on and poses for a photograph, doing his best Chewbacca cry. Cameras flash. The dream ends.