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25th September 2020

Scraps:

School. Construction, building or making something.
26th September 2020

In-line note; finally had a chance to make some proper DJ notes again.

7:30 (recall from last parts to first) Dream:

In a town with H. We were selling this prankster "frat bro" guy some metal keg, full of something, for a prank of his. We'd brought the keg to him on top of the van. H disappeared and left a shoe, one of his red and white ones. I assumed H had gone for a wee.

Then something changed. H was back and we saw the other guy off. Now we had a lorry with a weird trailer thing, just like a really long wooden-looking beam, with axles and wheels.

Earlier; Vision of the prankster guy and a group of people his age in a parliament building of some kind.

Then, in a street in a city, I see one of his posse. A fake blonde, a white girl. They were all in their early 20s. She tries to use an ATM and doesn't understand how to work it at all, looking a bit like an animal trying to understand the contraption. Something about her only having 23 or so in her account?

Earlier; In a school. Passing thoughts about old friends. I'm my current age, I roam through a very busy underground/maintenance area where all the other students of this school are passing through. I feel as though I am so different from when I was a kid. I walk through the crowded area with some type of confidence, not letting any anxieties or worries stop me or bother me. I spent a moment wondering how I could have ever let myself feel so anxious at school. Then I have some passing thoughts about how many of these kids will be struggling with some or many of the same issues I had and with no guidance either, which I also didn't really have for many aspects of that stage of my life.

Earlier; Talking to someone. Old friend or similar? The same underground place but not as busy. The other person has a Pepsi and gets it open? Has issues and the cap of the bottle gets deformed; I put it back on for him when he starts to struggle with it.

(more recall but faded)

9:00 Fragment:

Remember being in a building. I'd been there earlier in the dream. Now me and C from school were here to find out something about some guy? It was the guy's birthday? Or maybe we were going to prank him and so we needed to know more; maybe a combination.

I remember I couldn't be seen by anyone else at some point. I put on the one ring. I was effectively invisible but I could still see myself. I think someone specific could still see me. I remember an interface with something about this universe's rules on the top left, but I didn't look in it.

27th September 2020

Had recall but let it fade, didn't care enough to make notes because I felt too tired.

---

Notes:

- The moment of deep introspection through thought was somewhat unusual for a dream, especially with how specific it was. Oddly enough it's something that happens frequently enough in waking life but not much at all in dreams for me.

I had Men in Black searching for me in a building. I sneak down stairs, and went invisible (influence from Deus EX: MD). They couldn't see me, but I feared they could still "feel" my footsteps on the ground. I accidentally kicked over a bottle (or something), betraying my location. I continued to sneak away. By trying to minimize the "weight" of my footsteps, I discovered I can "glide" right above the ground. This over time evolved into full-fledged flight, and I flew away from the facility. I somehow "knew" I was flying just south of San Francisco, moving from (roughly) San Mateo to the north-west. I was flying quite high, but the environment looked "industrial", like a harbor district. The architecture was surreal. There was a beautiful sunset. I saw a giant cargo ship on land, laying on its stern, leaning with the bow against a huge concrete structure. I flew under it, through the triangle-shaped opening underneath. As always, it felt exhilarating to fly, and I used (as is becoming the custom) the Superman pose, using my arm (clenched fist) to change direction. Again, changing direction was difficult for me for some reason. It's as if even though the laws of physics don't count, the law of momentum just refuses to go away. At some point, I encountered another character in the air, perhaps two. They did something I would prefer to forget.

Ritual: Last night I experimented for the first time with kava kava root (Piper methysticum). I had read many anecdotal reports that it instigated vivid dreams and perhaps even lucidity, so I thought it was worth trying out. I ordered some dried powdered root from an online herb and spice supplier that I trust. I don't have any doubts about the freshness and quality, as the package confirms that it was packed earlier this month and sourced from Vanuatu. I had read many reports of people complaining about the taste, describing it as "muddy," so I was surprised when I opened the package and encountered the most extraordinary and delightful fragrance. The plant is related to pepper, so it made sense that the scent would be peppery, but there was also something delicately floral about it and even a hint of wintergreen.

I had abstained from alcohol all day, since the two should not be consumed together, and my plan was to drink the kava before bed. I had a late dinner, ending at 11pm, so my plan was to give myself two hours to digest, then start drinking the kava at 1am and go to bed a few hours afterward (unless it made me too sleepy before that, which seemed like a distinct possibility). I don't like cold drinks late at night, but I read that you could warm kava gently without destroying its properties, so I adapted a recipe for "Mexican Hot Cocokavachocolate," blending two tablespoons of powdered kava kava (half what the recipe calls for, as I didn't want to overdo it my first time), two tablespoons of cocoa powder, agave syrup, a spoonful of cinnamon, and a generous pinch of cayenne with about two cups of almond milk (I skipped the vanilla extract suggested by the recipe because I didn't want to use even a tiny amount of alcohol). I blended this until it was frothy and then separated it into two mugs, putting one in the fridge—I planned to start with a minimal dose, and work up from there if it felt warranted. The other mug I heated briefly in the microwave, just enough to warm it, and then topped it with a dusting of grated Himalayan salt and freshly made whipped cream.

Okay, I'll admit I have a slightly weird palate (for instance, I *love* the taste of wormwood), but this was one of the most delicious dessert drinks I have ever tried in my life! It was so much better than regular hot chocolate; the spices and kava gave it exceptional depth of flavor and an unusual aftertaste. I didn't even need to strain it: I don't know if my powder was ground unusually finely or if the almond milk held it in suspension better than plain water, but it only added body, not grit, to the concoction.

I'm glad that I had done enough research to anticipate the curiously numbing, analgesic sensation that spread from my mouth all the down my esophagus, because that's the kind of thing that would really worry you if you didn't know it was supposed to happen! I sipped the kava very slowly over the next hour or so, to make sure my stomach didn't have any problems with this new experience. Everything was fine, and the onset of bodily relaxation came quickly, though my mind remained clear. After the first mug I felt like it would be fine to drink the second one I had reserved, so I slowly consumed that too. Despite the heavy feeling in my body, it never did make me drowsy, so I played SWTOR until 3:30am and then read DV and some LD books to prep for bed, retiring at 4:30am. I should note that I never felt any trace of euphoria, either, an effect that some had noted. That didn't bother me, though: my only interest was in enhancing my dreams.

Unfortunately, in that respect, the kava kava was a total bust. It was no different from any ordinary night of crappy dreaming: I was vaguely aware of dreaming most of the night, but my recall was terrible and what details I could specify were mostly mundane day residue. There was no sense of complex overarching plots, just lots of little random scenarios. Lots of people have written that kava helped them sleep more deeply and wake refreshed, but I didn't experience that either: I woke three times in the first several hours of sleep, which is typical, except that I felt much groggier than usual during those brief wakeful periods. At 9:00am I woke up and felt so unpleasantly lethargic, mentally as well as phsyically, and the dreaming had been so disappointing, that I decided to try to clear my head with an ample dose of piracetam. That stuff is amazing: to preserve its efficacy I save it for special occasions, but it always works really well to clear up any "brain fog."

Within fifteen minutes I was feeling complete mental clarity, so I decided to turn it into a proper WBTB. I added some L-theanine, alpha-GPC and bacopa and returned to bed using WILD technique. My focus was still subpar and I couldn't count effectively, so I initially fell into non-lucid sleep, but gradually became more aware of the dream as it progressed. There was no "aha" moment of lucidity, but I was definitely lucid by the end.

In conclusion, the kava kava didn't seem to improve my dreaming in the slightest, but at least it didn't suppress it either. If anything helped me get lucid, I believe it was the piracetam and other supplements I took at WBTB, because those I've had success with many times before. My recall was poor for most of the night, and even after waking up from the LD only the last scene was initially clear; recollection of the earlier incidents revived only after I started tracing back the course of events.

DILD, "Creating a Cat": I was hanging out with a friend, JM, and her young son. [DR: yesterday I had seen a picture of this kid that she had posted on Facebook.] The little boy was telling us a story about a butterfly who took care of him in the place he used to be. It sounded like he was talking about before he was born, and this reminded me of a book I had learned about last night, about a project to compile and investigate accounts of young children who claim to have memories of past lives. [DR: Jim B. Tucker, Return to Life, 2015.] After I mentioned the book to my friend, she told me about the time she took her son to an island off the coast of Wales (the named started with a 'T', something like "Tirnagal" or "Tiriagal") and he had started talking about how he used to live there. As she describes this, suddenly we both turn and stare as we hear the boy start speaking another language with the somber intonations of an adult. I have no idea what Welsh sounds like, but what the boy is saying definitely has the structures of a formal language—it is not just childish babble. The experience is so uncanny that I feel the hairs on my arms rise. Before I leave, I say to my friend, "The only thing I regret about not having a kid is the way it can sometimes provide unexpected insights into the human experience." [DR: This comment might also have been inspired by something I was reading last night, on p.163 of The Ego Tunnel, by Thomas Metzinger (2009), where he describes a toddler who falls and looks to his mother for social cues about how to emotionally react.]

I leave my friend's apartment and go outside. Now I'm on a beach. This is one of my most distinctive and common dream signs, despite the fact that I have little interest in beaches in WL and rarely visit them. I think it is related to the tide, a phenomenon that has always unsettled me. Despite the frequency and distinctiveness of this dream sign, for some reason it is one that I always have trouble recognizing as such. On this occasion I already have some degree of dream-awareness, but I lack awareness of that awareness, the metacognition that is characteristic of true lucidity.

As I'm walking along the beach, the sand looks soft and warm and comfortable, and I can't resist the temptation to lie down in it. Initially I am lying on my stomach, but then I roll onto my back, and feel as cozy as a kid making snow angels. I pause to reflect, why do you never hear of kids making sand angels? My comfort is soon disturbed by rippling in the sand... I notice that the whole beach is now billowing and subsiding, the dunes rolling like great waves. "Is it supposed to do that?" I vaguely wonder, and then a particularly large dune threatens to bury me, forcing me back on my feet to keep my balance. Though not quite lucid at this point, I have instinctive awareness of my mastery and control in this environment: I find it easy to "surf" these sand waves as they roll by underfoot. But they are getting even bigger, and I have the impression that the water is now rising rapidly as well, so I decide to find higher ground.

At the edge of the beach I find a stairwell leading up into a building. Getting into it takes some creative climbing, as there are various panels of transparent plexiglass serving as barriers, but I manage to circumvent them and get inside. The stairs emerge into the center of a dim, semi-industrial space, with narrow walkways on all four sides surrounding the wide pit formed by the stairwell in the middle of the room. No sooner have I gotten my bearings than a round hatch covering the end of a large pipe poking through the wall opens, and a humanoid creature crawls out. It is gollum-like, with huge bulging eyes. I don't want to be spotted, so I hold still and focus on being invisible. I feel a moment of relief as the creature initially descends the stairs, but it comes back promptly joined by a second person, a male human. As they approach the spot where I'm standing, I retreat into a corner to avoid them: even if they can't see me, they might blunder into me by accident if I'm not careful. On the bright side, having to strategize in this tense situation is improving my lucid awareness.

I reflect that my "invisibility" is just a mind trick: I am willing the DCs not to see me, and from their lack of reaction I assume it is working, but I can still see my own body plainly. This bothers me—at this point I'm a fairly experienced dreamer, so shouldn't I be able to dispense with a body? I've had no dearth of NLDs where I'm just a disembodied perspective, so surely I should be able to accomplish the same thing in my LDs. I decide to try to eliminate my dream body.

My body does obediently disappear from my field of vision, but the trouble is I still *feel* like I'm in a human body, with two legs, two arms, and two eyes located frontally in my head. If I have really transcended the body, I should no longer feel like I am mapped onto a human being. I conclude that I should begin subverting the pattern, and my first attempt is to try to shift my visual apparatus to floor level. This seems like it should be a fairly easy, basic task, but I find that I have trouble with it, maybe because I get caught up in questions like, well, if I'm not seeing out of physical eyes, then shouldn't my vision be even more radically different—unconstrained by frontality, for instance?

Meanwhile the man and gollum-like creature disappear into a side door, still apparently oblivious to my presence. I retrace my steps to the top of the stairs and examine the hatch that the latter had crawled out of. I consider going in there to explore, but decide that from the look of the creature and the size of the hatch, it will probably just be a cramped and uncomfortable network of tunnels. Instead I decide to follow the two through the side door.

I find myself in a large, open exhibition space with various vendors and booths. I pause for a moment to wonder why spaces like this are so common in my dreams. I don't know if this was a product of false memory or else better access to dream memory than I have in waking life, because at the time I was under the impression that I encountered such rooms on a regular basis; now that I'm awake I don't feel like they're especially common. At first I was just wandering around with no specific purpose, when it occurred to me that I shouldn't waste this opportunity to work on some tasks. There are a ton of things on my docket, but nothing especially pressing, so I thought over a few possibilities and decided to work on my Ars Magica forms and techniques—the other day I printed out the whole list of combinations and decided I should make it a long-term goal to try out all of them eventually.

I recalled that "creo animál" was the first one on my list that I had not tried, so I started intoning, "Creo animál!" I lengthened the syllables in a resonant voice, putting emphasis on the first syllable of "creo" and the last syllable of "animál." I repeated the invocation a few times in this manner, staring at an empty patch of floor. I didn't have a clear idea in mind of what kind of animal I wanted to create, but I thought I could leave that open for the dream to surprise me. However, nothing was happening. I thought perhaps I needed some raw materials, so I telekinetically lifted a nearby booth (hoping this wouldn't be too much inconvenience to the vendor) and pulled it into the space where I was working, then focused on compacting its form and shape into something suitable to my purpose. It folded itself up obediently until it was much smaller. However, I felt like I needed to impose a pattern on it since the dream wasn't responding with anything, so I arbitrarily chose the form of a cat. People started gathering around to watch the show as the booth finished its transformation, and now there was a short-haired black and white cat sitting stiffly on the floor. [In retrospect, the technique was closer to "muto" than "creo," since I adapted existing material rather than conjuring it from thin air.]

The newly-created cat was not moving, and did not seem capable of movement; it was like an empty shell of a cat, a living doll. This made sense, since I had created the body but not endowed it with sentience: I concluded that this would require a separate effect. Luckily this concurred with another task I needed to work on. "Creo mentem," I said, directing my words at the cat, and this time the effect resolved quickly: now the cat seemed to be capable of moving and perceiving its environment.

I wondered if "mentem" alone was sufficient: wouldn't that create something with the bland mental workings of a robot? Wouldn't I need to add "imáginem" to endow it with emotions and imagination, the "spark of life"? I wasn't sure, but I thought I'd better throw that in for good measure, so I intoned "Creo imáginem," focusing on giving the creature the capacity for emotions and inner life. Immediately I had doubts about whether this was wise. I don't know if my doubts were caused by the cat's behavior or if the cat's behavior was conditioned by my doubts, but whichever it was, the creature did not look pleased. It was lashing its tail in the way cats do when they're annoyed, and its face was contorted into a savage snarl. I wondered if throwing in "imáginem" had been overkill—emotions are not always pleasant, after all, and a creature so unexpectedly brought into existence might well be feeling upset and disoriented. Plus, I didn't even know if "imáginem," was necessary for a complete being; perhaps sentience was sufficiently specified by "mentem." [Consulting the Ars Magica rulebook now, I see that I misremembered the scope of of the Form: "imáginem" deals with sensations and illusions, not emotions and imagination. Though actually that makes the whole Form seem superfluous to the dreamstate, where there is no obvious difference between creating a thing and creating an illusion of that thing.]

I knelt down to have a closer look at my creation, and felt even more disturbed. There was something awful and abject about its face, a wound or rot-like distortion of its jaw that left the teeth clearly visible through its cheek. [DR: I realize this might also be day residue, because recently I was reading articles about the so-called "zombie cat" which came with graphic pictures of a similarly disfigured animal.] I decided that I should try to understand what this cat was experiencing, so I said, "Intéllego animál." I felt impressions of fear and rage coming from the poor creature, and guiltily realized that I must have screwed up somehow. It made it even worse that it was a cat, a kind of animal for which I feel a great love and sympathy.



With a sweeping gesture I willed all the effects I had invoked to disperse, effectively uncreating the cat. I didn't have a clear visual sense of the result (did the body simply disappear or did the vendor's booth revert to its former shape? I'm not sure), but at least I felt that the spell had ended. I looked up at the spectators who had been watching the whole event and sheepishly apologized: "It didn't want to be a cat. I'm sorry. It just didn't work out."

One woman spoke up in reply. Her words were uttered very calmly and slowly, emphasizing each of the adjectives, and I felt like she was subtly criticizing my actions: "People want to be fair, and dominating, and controlling, and diverting."

Morning of April 25, 2015. Saturday.



This is mostly a typical “being hunted” dream of the recurring type since childhood but it ends in a mostly comedic farce. This dream type, though slightly stressful during some scenarios, does not really have that much emotion at most points. I eventually have and maintain the typical three abilities in such dreams: Being able to fly whenever I want to, becoming and staying invisible, and intangibility (including the ability to travel through any wall or even person). These special in-dream abilities often create the impression of moving almost outside of my dream state at times even though I am still technically dreaming and fully in-body in most perspectives.

My dream starts with me being on a familiar city bus and looking at something on a notebook computer on the left side of the aisle, about the sixth seat back. When the bus stops, or is almost stopped at one point and I decide to get off, I hover, while in standing position, about two inches from the floor of the bus. When the bus does completely stop, I move backwards (while floating) and bump into some people seated in the back. I turn around and apologize and then leave the bus, still floating upright and not walking at any point.

From here, people are looking for me - possibly due to my special abilities (or even as a result of my bumping the people on the bus). In dreams like this, most people looking for me are not necessarily law enforcement (or dangerous criminals) but most often related to some sort of industrial business or paramilitary group. I fly for a time, and land on a few different roofs of mostly warehouses and industrial buildings. When I am lying on a roof on my side but with my head elevated and when a female is looking my way to point out where I am to the others, I decide to fly from that area and then land in an alleyway. At that point, I become invisible and eventually intangible. After this, I actually walk through someone (who is walking in my direction); an elderly businesswoman. They are not aware of me at all or that I had passed through them and they do not react in any way.

I walk through walls of some of the warehouses while there are people inside, but because I am invisible, I am not that concerned. Still, they do usually seem to have a special method for finding my general location (within about a two block range).

A Doberman (Doberman Pinscher) appears, running out from a building about half a block away, and knows where I am due to his sense of smell (even though I am still invisible). He begins barking a bit and indicating his awareness of where I am standing at this time. Not quite certain of what to do, as a few of the people will likely soon come to this area, I bend down and bite his nose off, which immediately seems quite disgusting to have to do this. The dog does not even seem that injured, though, but then randomly runs around barking in different areas and seems confused. (This is probably an incidental association with a line from “My Kingdom” by Echo and the Bunnymen, which has both “bite the nose off” and “climb the roof top” - as I had enhanced an old entry about my precognitive “Kingdom” novella though which has nothing to do with the song at all. Over the many years, I have learned that many dreams have associations with no meaning at all other than inconsequential or otherwise unrelated word associations and purely accidental puns.)

I then keep moving until I reach a stream about the same distance wide as railroad tracks and the immediate usual area around them, which is between a mostly featureless field and a higher embankment on the other side (though there are still a few old wooden buildings off to my left). The Doberman is off to my left, not knowing where I am anymore. Across the stream, the area seems far more rural, with a bit of tall grass here and there and a few trees. (Even though it is quite different, especially regarding the stream and higher embankment, it has a similar layout and essence as the area beyond the backyard in Cubitis and thus seems very loosely modeled on the area, as is the case with many other dreams that do not actually imply the area - this not being due to a particular memory but the brain simply using it for a “new” setting - I have seen this continuously throughout my life including with composite locations and bilocated features.)

Soon, about a hundred or more Irish Setters appear by approaching the edge of the embankment across the river. They are all of several different mostly solid colors in no particular order: Mostly black, darker brown, lighter rust-colored, and white. They start barking in large groups while sitting and pointing their noses upward, almost like an implied chorus, creating such a cacophony, it becomes ridiculous, and they are not necessarily barking at or sensing me, because the lines are long and they are all looking in one straight direction rather than arced around my general location. They are mostly in about three or four even suggested lines, but not fully together in any line other than in groups of about five or six. One male comes out from near where they are to see what is going on as he seems to be one of the owners or trainers. The loud sound becomes like a continuous “Ru-ru-ru-ru-ru-ru” - very realistic in the impression even though I have never heard that many dogs barking at once in real life.

These dogs on the other side of the stream are creating so much distraction and noise (as well as confusing the Doberman even more) that I know I will easily be able to move out of the range of my “hunters” from here by flying over the stream and moving on into what is probably a peaceful forest beyond. One of the males who was trying to locate me is about half a block away to my left, distracted by the dogs, some of which seem to be barking at him.

02-21-2015 -- I am in the hallway in front of my bedroom at Rosemary's house, except my room is the first on the right side of the hall, instead of the left, and the hall is running E/W rather than N/S (I think.) The room is a disaster, with tons of papers and junk on the floor, and there is so much of it that a lot of it has slipped into the hallway, and I know this is going to really tick Rosemary off. So I get to work, grabbing and shoving all the stuff in the hallway into the room, then shut the door. It takes me about 2 minutes, and I am somehow feeling really proud of myself, so I decide to go tell Rosemary.

I wander down the hall and walked past the kitchen and step down the two small steps leading into the living room. (No idea where this home layout comes from, by the way.) But when I get to the living room, I find that Rosemary/Bonnie (it is now a cross between the two) has got some sort of clown alley-type meeting going on. I duck out of the way and head back to my room, but as I get there, I discover we have relatives visiting, and they are poking all around the house. They go to open the door to my room, and I am trying to stop them as I don't want them to see the mess, but I find myself looking into a different, clean room. I pull the door shut and open it again, just long enough to glimpse the mess in my room. I shut it a third time and open it, to find myself looking in at one of the rooms that usually have two or three of the kids from other landlord dreams sleeping in them, and just kind of tilt my head in confusion. Seems each time the door is open, it leads to a different room.

---

02-20-2015 -- Vague memories of driving and chasing scenes, but can't remember any actual details, then I find myself in a huge pool or aquarium. There is a big red fish here, probably about five feet long, six inches wide, and about 10 or 12 inches deep. It's a vivid red, and looks quite gorgeous, but unfortunately is swallowed whole by perhaps a 12 foot long shark, that, after it eats the big red fish, seems to no longer be hungry, and wants to make friends with people. We are rather iffy about trusting it at all ... after all, what if it gets hungry again?

So this big shark is swimming around, and it can't talk, but it kind of nudges us like a dog that wants to be petted might. Meanwhile there is a sort of small city here, currently sitting on top of the water with a sort of a fish-like man (greenish-gray skin, gills, scales, but man-shaped) who is glaring at us. He kind of blames us for the shark being around, as if we brought it here, and keeps trying to make his city sink under water, so we can't enter it and look around, because he's mad about the shark. Not too detailed, at least that I can remember, but sort of neat.

---

02-20-2015 -- I'm having some sort of interaction with KPSB's family, possibly originally at their home, but we very soon are at the Buena Park Mall. We're just wandering around, shopping, when I spot Kevin's sister, L, who seems to be talking with what looks like Emma Frost, the White Queen. I don't trust the evil woman, and worry she is corrupting L, so I am hovering near, trying to listen in on what they are saying. Emma is in one of her usual scandalous outfits, so I'm also rather enjoying the view. Unfortunately, they are starting to notice my attention, and begin to move away, so I try to turn invisible, so I can keep watching. It actually works fairly well this time.

We're probably pretty close to Longs at this point, and they start walking toward Sears, then branch off to one of the main mall exits, and I try to stay close, but as I burst out the doors into the parking lot, they are nowhere in sight, and I realize they have gotten away, and I still have no idea what they were planning. Something about a little kid approaching me and hugging my leg or something, then I step back inside. It is evening, but not too late, and only 6 or 7, so still a couple of hours before the mall closes. There are dozens and dozens of booths set up selling things for the holiday, as well as the stores, but for some reason, they are all starting to pack up the goods and tear down the booths, and with a couple of hours left before closing, it just doesn't make sense to me ... but oh well.

I start walking toward May Company, and glance into Waldenbooks as I pass, but today I have no interest in stepping inside. As I am about to step through the doors into May Company, I find myself facing a Chinese dragon. Not a huge, mythical animal, but the parade costume thing. I try to squeeze to the side and slip past it, but one of the people in the large head (which has about six people in a sort of semi-circle carrying it) calls out to me, and turns out to be an attractive Chinese girl I know. (Actually, I don't think I know any Chinese girls, oh well.)

She's asking me something about what I'm doing, and it in some way brings up the topic of balloons, and I mention that I can twist balloons. They don't believe me, so I start looking around. Either part of the dragon or separate, there are some uninflated balloons and things around, and I keep picking up several looking for one I can blow up and twist to prove myself. Unfortunately most are broken, and the few that are not are old and weak, and as soon as I try to blow them up, they break. Then if I can find a whole one, I know just how hard they are to blow up without a pump. Then I find one that is already blown up, and I figure I can demonstrate with it, but it is completely filled up, so there is no room for the air to go anywhere as I twist it, which makes it even harder to deal with. Still, I manage a couple of twists and turn to show them, just to find the dragon and all it's carriers have walked off. Oh well. I walk into May Company, and wake up before I reach the other end of the store.

A scene ended with me getting into a car and driving away. While I'm driving, however, something goes wrong, I keep weaving into the other lane, and I wind up getting pulled over by a cop. I'm thinking, good thing this is just a dream. And I'd rather not stick around for this, so I go incorporeal and float through the roof, invisible. I look down at the cop being surprised by the car without a driver, and then I decide to bring the car with me: I turn it into water droplets, which collect in the palm of my hand.

There's a memory gap, but I doubt the semi-lucidity lasted long after that. Next scene I remember clearly is non-lucid: a woman is consulting a witch, asking her to do a spell or divination for her. When it's over, the witch asks the woman what that looked like from her end - meaning that during the course of the spell, the witch realized this woman's got some magic of her own. And the god this witch works for may or may not have an interest in this woman. The witch asks her a question, about why she's trying to (do something) when she's got too much on her plate already. The woman explains: there's a guy who loves her "pretty bad" - no mention of whether it's reciprocated - and she "can't hear him anymore," by which she means hear him in her head - it's a vampire thing - and she's worried about him.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm temporarily working for a doctor with a small private practice, I'm in training. The doctor's showing me a patient's chart and is asking me if anything jumps out at me - I say the patient's lost 10 pounds, but I'm thinking, that could just be a diet. The doctor points out what she wanted me to see: this patient's been suffering from hallucinations, describing strange sights and sounds. But she lives in the city, and there are all sorts of strange things there; and on the date that she experienced these 'strange sights and sounds,' there was a parade. I'm doubtful. I say, "I don't know, it's pretty difficult to confuse a parade with a hallucination." The doctor admits this is true.

There was a scene where I went to talk with that patient, and by the end of that scene we've wound up talking casually in the waiting room, she's very pretty and very easy to talk to. Then a baby belonging to one of the other patients crawls up into her lap. It's got a dripping diaper. This eventually leads to an unpleasant confrontation with the mother, who denied that the baby was the cause of the mess; the mother becomes so outraged that she takes out a gun, points it at the ceiling and shoots.

I grab the woman's arm holding the gun. The other patients in the waiting room all run out the door, except the one I'd been talking to. I get the gun away from her before she can fire the other bullet - it's a two shot derringer - and I hand it to the other patient. As I do so I say something along the lines of "Hold this for me, honey." Then I think, wait a minute, she was my patient a minute ago, that's very unprofessional, I can't go around changing a DC's relationship to me mid-storyline just because we shared a nice conversation and a life-or-death situation. The woman has pulled out another gun, and I take it away from her and hand it to the patient again - there wind up being 4 guns total.

I realized I was dreaming and thought about what I should do. I thought of a task of the month and remembered the invisibility one. So I think of the most classic "naughty" trick in the book, go to the girls locker room. I'm outside, and I know I need to find a school, but it's really dark outside and hard to see. So I put on some night vision goggles, and things then green but they brighten up. I see a school not too far away so I head in that direction. I stop and realize I haven't gone invisible yet. I just think about it and repeat that people can't see me. For some reason I knew it worked and I head inside the school. There were girls leaving and they didn't see me walk by them. I head to the girls locker room, and there was one girl left. But then she left and I was by myself...
I then remembered that I wanted to visit Erebor from the Hobbit. I decide to phase through the wall and think that's where I want to show up. I push through it remembering an old dream that's how I did it. When I go through, I come out in a fancy hotel. I thought about trying again, but I decided to just explore a bit and see if I could just "stumble upon" Erebor. I find a hallway, and then a door. I open the door and realize I found it. But it was extremely dark and hard to see. So I thought maybe I just need to help my subconscious out, so I'm walking down the stone stairs from the movie trying to think of what it looked like. It doesn't really work because I end up back at the hotel.

I'm at home, and for some reason my mom is like a tyrant. She loves Erica, but doesn't treat me very well, and treats McKenna like dirt. This doesn't sit well with me so I confront her, and get mad at how she treats us. She's confused at why I'm mad, and I respond it's mainly for McKenna. I trash some of the food she's made to let her know how angry I was and then left to let that sit with her. Soon some people come over, and I felt like I needed to tell someone what happened. I grab either my dad or someone else and pull them away from the crowd to my room, and talk to him saying I was mad at her, but she's still my mom so I don't know how I should feel.

I'm at someone's house, but we're like all prisoners there. Someone hacks a computer to give us GPS coordinates from the wi-fi. Someone breaks in because they knew what we were doing.

I look at a mirror and think I should try to see through this, then realize that means I'm dreaming, but I wake up.

(undated older dreams 3)

Cory and I were taking a road trip to visit a girl he used to know. He was driving and I was riding shotgun, and it was pretty uneventful at first. After a while we got lost in a mountainous area, and he took a wrong turn up a curvy and dangerous mountain path. It was a tiny one lane road with nothing but a wooden fence stopping us from going over the edge, but he started driving super fast and I was freaking out thinking we would die. At one point the front wheel of the car goes off the edge but somehow he was able to bring it back up to keep us from falling. At the top of the path was a dead end, so he parked us on the mountain peak with no way down because the road was only one-way. I scanned the area below us and saw highways in the distance, but we had no way to get down to them, so eventually he called 911 and they had to send a helicopter to come get us off the mountain. As the helicopter was flying away with us, I remember being worried because there were groceries in the trunk of the car and I didn't want them to go bad.

I was visiting somebody with Cory. This might have been linked to the last dream but I can't remember anything happening between the two. Cory and I were in a room with the girl we were visiting, his old roommate. We were all sitting on the couch and she was complaining about her old neighbors. Apparently they were four goth kids who were always loud, and she had them kicked out of the neighborhood. Suddenly I remembered I had to go home to get something, and it was vital that I left right away. There was a railroad that ran right through the girl's living room, that started by her couch and entered a tunnel built into the wall on the right. Our car was still on the mountain, so the only transportation was this small platform with a single chair on it attached to the rails. I knew home was a long way away, and it would take me months to get there but I jumped on the platform and left that way anyway.

Me and a bunch of people were all sitting in a cafeteria eating, when suddenly one person screamed and was carried off by an invisible force. Soon after, another person was taken. We realized that invisible hell hounds were attacking us so we barricaded ourselves in the cafeteria and this redneck guy that reminded me of the dude from Walking Dead just happened to have a rifle with him, so he put a chair next to the door and guarded the room. I told people that I had lots of swords in my room, so we got a few people to volunteer to leave the cafeteria with me to get the weapons. We left the barricade and headed down the hallway to my bedroom, which was very girly and had pink and dolls everywhere for some odd reason. One of the guys with us, a gangsta dude, was starting to doubt I had any swords at all in all that girly mess, so he flipped us off and left towards the cafeteria on his own. On his way out, one of the hell hounds attacked and dragged him off, so we grabbed all the swords and ran back to the barricade, slicing up all the hounds that tried to grab at us. After when seemed like days, we realized we couldn't stay there forever, and hoped that the threat had left, so we opened up the doors and went outside into the parking lot. But it wasn't safe, we were immediately jumped by a pack of hell hounds but were able to survive using the swords and the redneck guy's gun. We were then stuck in the parking lot because the door to the cafeteria had been opened and we had no idea if there were any hounds in there waiting for us. Someone discovered that the hounds would only attack us if they could see us, so we set out blankets and towels and stuff and huddled together under them so the hounds couldn't see us. I hid in a camping tent with three other people, and I remember feeling claustrophobic and couldn't move. The redneck guy sat near us with his gun to guard us.

Not so great recall last night, and what I do remember is a bit vague.

11.17.2013

Transformation (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I am on a secret mission that somehow involves stealing a particular item from this girl's bedroom. To accomplish this, I knock on her door and proceed to transform into an adorable black bunny. She comes to the door, squeals in delight, and carries me up to her room. I notice that it feels kind of nice being held while in this form.

In her room, I change shape again. This time, I'm a black cat. A talking black cat. I talk to her and trick her into helping me out with my mission.

11.17.2013

Ghost Hunters (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I am with a friend in the lower rooms of an old, creepy building. My friend is hunting a ghost, but I happen to really like the ghost she's trying to get rid of. I turn invisible and screw up my friend's hunt while trying to help the ghost girl get to safety. There is also an evil spirit there that we're all avoiding. The ghost girl is terrified--- she holds my hand the entire time.

My friends and I were having one last get-together before I moved away from the area. They were my old friends from my last few years of high school, and we were all sitting at this big picnic table that was out on the very edge of a wooden pier in the water. To get to the table, you had to cross another huge loading dock that was covered in shipping containers and fish, and also a a swinging wooden bridge that connected the two and was very wobbly. My friends were asking why I had to leave so soon and suggested I stay a few more days, but I knew I had to leave. I was staying in a big RV in an empty grassy field next to the dock, so technically I could've stayed as long as I wanted, but I really wanted to leave. We ate food and talked about the past for a while, and then I headed back to my RV. As I was crossing the wooden bridge, I heard them talking to each other, saying things like "He didn't have to leave so soon!" and "Well, he's never coming back, he never wanted to live in the south anyway." I went into the RV to pack up and secure some things, and noticed someone had put bacon in my pantry instead of in the fridge/freezer. It was still cold so I put it back in the freezer, and then took something else out of the freezer to put in the pantry. Then I realized I'd forgotten something back at the picnic table, so I ran back over there. But when I crossed the wooden bridge, the table was no longer on a pier anymore, it was on a hardwood floor with shelves in surrounding it. This didn't seem strange to me, though. I walked up to my friends but they didn't say anything to me, and that's when I looked at my reflection in the glass covering over one of the shelves and realized I was invisible and nobody could see me. I thought, "If I can just scare them, they'll be able to see me!" so I grabbed a little figurine on a shelf, broke off its ears and turned its eyes black so it looked super creepy, and then made it move in front of one of my friends. She screamed when she saw it, and immediately afterwards was able to see me. Then she told the others I was there invisible, and they all in turn let me scare them so they could see me as well.

It was late at night, and Cory and I were out looking for a place that would rent us a steam vacuum. I guess there was a huge stain in our carpet and we couldn't wait until morning to clean it up. We came across a stip mall that had a Stanley Steemer store, but I said they wouldn't be open and we should just go elsewhere. Cory said we should go check anyway, and it turned out they were open, but when we went up to the service counter, he immediately asked to reserve a copy of the new RoboCop movie on DVD. I was totally shocked because we only had the money for the vacuum and he'd just wasted it to reserve a movie that didn't come out until next year, so we went home vacuum-less.

It was the first day of school, and I was sitting in art class. The teacher had assigned us a project involving mixed media, and I'd chosen construction paper, highlighters, and colored pencils. I was trying to make a portrait of Yinepu, and worked very hard on it because I wanted it to be perfect, but I couldn't get the pieces of construction paper I'd cut to stay properly and had to resort to using the pencils for his head, and I was disappointed. I wanted to go back and fix it, but the class was over. As I was walking through the halls, everyone kept looking at me and giggling, and I had no idea why. After a few minutes of enduring it, I grabbed one of the gigglers and asked her what was so funny about me that made everyone laugh, and she pointed to the area above my head. I reached up but there was nothing there, and I realized they were seeing something I couldn't see, so I ignored them. Then I realized I had a lot of books from all my different classes, but I hadn't rented a locker yet, so I went up to the office and asked to rent one. The lady said it would be $65 for the year but when I paid the money, she said lockers wouldn't be assigned until tomorrow. I said "But what am I supposed to do with all these books?! I can't carry them all everywhere!" but she wouldn't help. Then I went to gym class, but the teacher wasn't there yet. There was a magazine rack next to the bleachers that had a copy of a Superman magazine with a drawing of Wonder Woman dressed in a Superman outfit. I was the only one there, so I just went out onto the middle of the basketball court and started rolling around like a cat. Then another student came in, a man with glasses who looked too old to be in school, and he asked me what I was doing. I told him "The teacher said today was act like a cat day." to see how many people I could get to join me in my silliness, and he actually believed me and started crawling around the floor. Soon, more students came, and the whole class was on the court acting like cats.

16.1.2011

The Center (DEILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Dream: Birds in Flight

★★☆☆☆

An interesting game, this is. Flight, life, through the perspective of a small bird. But it seems there is more to this game than meets the eye as soon I am met with a group of individuals, all derived from the game world. They're on a quest, a mission to find the center of everything, the hub of the multiverse. I follow them, cloaking myself with Invisibility, but my attempt to conceal my lurking fails as one of the group members bumps into me. Moving ahead, through an underpass, I try to make it look like nothing happened, but they're wise to my scheme, and from the underpass come scores of groups, each similar, but different, decoys to allow the escape of the original. *My frustration wakens me. . .

DEILD: The Hub

★★★☆☆

I slip back into the thick of things, appearing, floating, above a bridge, the group from before ahead of me.

“How did he find us?!” shouts one of the four, exasperated at my appearance.

“It's called a WILD, bitch,” the expletive flows off my tongue.

Flying ahead, I realize the hub must be close, and sure enough, seated in a cold rock face, I find it. It's a. . . USB hub? This is silly. There has to be more to it than this. Even an ethernet hub would be better. Hmm, I bet I could change it, change one of the ports, make it possible to easily move throughout dimensions. So I do. But the results are more than I expected. . .

Inside the hub, I find a frog-like, almost slug-like being. It seems he takes requests, sending clients capable of coming to him through time and space, or bringing objects to them. He does it all through portals, which he creates and facilitates for the masses. I ask to return to Earth, to where I came from, and I'm treated to a vivid display of swirling dimensions and the vastness of my universe as I'm thrown through the portal, back to Earth, into the vast oceans of the past.

I'm a small amphibian, it seems, in the early days of life. A fish is about to eat me, and I have no way to defend myself. Acting quickly, I make a request to return to the hub, using a GUI I manage to prompt. Just like that, I'm whisked away to the hall from before, the foyer at the center of everything.
I decide starting a new life here might prove interesting. . .

DILD: Prey

★★★☆☆

A chill permeates the room. They know what's coming, the people around me, and they're afraid. Crying and fear erupts around me as everyone starts to run. I lie still, on the floor, confused, yet calm. It forms to my right, a monster, a creature of nightmares, taught tan skin stretched across a huge, dog-like body. Hundreds of teeth, sharp and pointed, line its gaping maw. Death is on the agenda tonight, as it bounds at my unmoving body.

Why has everyone gone? Why don't I care? Oh yes, that's why. . .

With vigor I stand, and with quiet dignity I deliver a world-shattering kick into the gut of my would-be reaper. Death greets the beast before it can finish its tumbling flight, well before it hits the ground.

The dream starts off with me in a comfortable cottage on the beach in a small town I do not recognize. The streets and houses around me are empty of people and I somehow know that I am the only human around. There are monsters and dangerous things outside and to remain safe I have to stay inside the cottage.

Though I never consciously recognize that I am in a dream, I know that I can do things that I could not normally, such as defying gravity and floating around and being able to see and walk through walls. For a short time I practice flying around and moving through walls before I risk a peek outside. The windows on one side of the building were boarded up or sealed so I had to stick my head through the wall to see outside.

The sun was beginning to set and darkness was growing, yet through the twilight I could see a large muscular creature that looked like a cross between a bull and a demon walking along the beach before disappearing either into or behind another cottage not far from mine. I become scared and retreat into the cottage, fearing that I would be seen and have an onslaught of monsters attack my hiding place.

There is a bit more to the dream but I cannot remember much other than that I am trapped in the cottage all night and by morning I have achieved the ability to become invisible after practicing all night.

Night of November 6, 1992. Friday.



This dream first came in 1992 (before I even met my wife), but there have been other versions, including one in 2008 which I posted on my old journal. Here are the basics.

It all starts in a perfectly innocent manner. My wife and I are dining in public in a small restaurant in what seems to be a rural area. There are not many residential houses around and much of the region seems like an isolated farming community. There are small lists of rules and guidelines everywhere (even on trees - which is somewhat of an eyesore in an otherwise enjoyable natural landscape) that give details on what a human being is allowed to do or not do by some sort of pseudo-morality of likely a single person in the region (who probably owns the most land and properties). It includes what people should eat and not eat (even what shape - for example, diagonally sliced sandwiches are not allowed because it implies “sneaking” from corner to corner as the “devil” does). Time passes and we apparently do something “wrong” although I am not sure what it is. Perhaps it is something to do with how our bodies are positioned at the table or being too close together in public (which I think is actually the case implied here). At any rate, I find myself with the power to become invisible and also send my wife (by some sort of magic) to a safer location as more and more people seem offended for no apparent reason. When I become invisible, it seems to work for a short time in evading them, but then they note my footprints and are able to follow me for a time.

For some reason, I get the impression that these people have “evil” in their hearts (while pretending others are “evil” by not following their rules in diet and routine) and are only pretending to live as a Utopian community. They chase me around (even though I am invisible) watching where I leave my footprints. However, I find myself with the ability to walk without leaving footprints and for some time, they are baffled. However, they then start dropping nets and putting up temporary barbed-wire fences everywhere they can. I run into a barbed-wire fence and drag it along behind me and they point and give chase.

Soon, though, I then have the ability to pass through solid objects and simply go wherever I want with no threat of capture. I watch the people run around pointing in random directions (never at me anymore) and fights ensue amongst themselves based on “rules” regarding how to capture and deal with someone evading their rules. This seems so ironic I start laughing and my sides actually begin to “hurt” or more like “tickle” and I almost give myself away.

I notice more houses than before. More people are called in to deal with me, the “devil” in their midst. They start shooting cannons of powder and such and throwing grenades into random locations. Every now and then, they accidentally kill one of their own group. They also start doing a revisionist history of what my wife and I were supposedly involved in while in the restaurant (which is now a landmark due to the inhuman “creatures” having been there), all completely fabricated by the town gossips. They gather around campfires telling stories of the “boogeyman” who still haunts their town. Eventually, the cannons going off all the time start to annoy me and I decide that I might just as well leave the region altogether. I then have the power to hover and fly about.

Eventually, I come to a bridge which is now no longer wooden but concrete and two-lane and covered with barbed-wire fencing and diagonally striped red and white guardhouses. I look back and notice the whole area now looks more like domed cities from “Logan’s Run” and very futuristic. Futuristic “jets” and other flying military craft are speeding across the sky and shooting at each other and many crash into residential buildings below with one explosion after another. The death toll (around 10,000) is shown on a large football-scoreboard-like structure. Apparently, all this destruction and war is going on just to find out where I am. I stand on the bridge watching. I then fly away high into the sky (as a ball of blue light) leaving them to obliterate themselves…

Morning of March 28, 1970. Saturday.



One of my favorite dreams, very long and with many parts, I had at age nine and this was a time period where the color of Pepto-Bismol sometimes dominated as a main feature (dreams only, not hypnagogic or hypnopompic visions). I am not sure why; I had not actually taken it that much. I tend to wonder if we had never had Pepto-Bismol in the house, if the features in my dreams would have been the same other than that color, because all the things that did have that color would not be remotely associated with that shade of pink for the most part. In fact, in this dream, the cane actually does seem lighter greenish-blue at times.

This time it was a cane with a small sliding switch on the top that activated special powers for me. It was shaped like a candy cane and was that familiar Pepto-Bismol color. A lot of major events occur, and my dream was probably an hour long, or so it seemed (although it is possible it was a series of dreams in one night, which were linked).

In the very first part of my dream, there are two prisoners looking out through a jail cell (I eventually associated them with “Hudd and Dini” from Cracked Magazine). It actually seems to be more like a cage, I suppose, as I can clearly see the scene as if it was inside a normal jail, although there does seem to be some sort of “outside office” to the east. Other people walk about and notice the criminals. However, at the same time, it seems to be taking place in the playground in the middle area of the southern side, closer to the fence (where beyond are normal residential homes).

Somehow the prisoners escape, and for some reason, because I am right there at the time, may be after my special cane and start to chase me. However, I chant “invisible…invisible…” and I both turn invisible and sink down into the ground (several feet). The prisoners are running perfectly in step with each other, reminding me of a scene from Alice in Wonderland or a scene from older issues of Mad Magazine (or maybe Scooby-Doo), with their knees lifted comically high in the air. Soon, I am above ground and actually chasing them. They realize this, and do a double take, but I still am able to get away by going through the outside wall of the auditorium.

I notice Brenda W (female classmate) is putting on some sort of marionette show, but is having a lot of trouble with the strings, and the audience is booing her. She is sad - but I become invisible to help her, and am able to move the puppet around and perform all the actions and such of the whole play. It mostly involves animal antics, with an elephant mopping the floor in a sort of Carol Burnett-like routine mixed with a scene from “Fantasia”. The audience is amazed and marvels at her show.

Later, I am at an area that seems to be a combination of a brother’s home (in Cubitis) and the principal’s office in school. I am marching around in my invisible state and making “booing” sounds and another boy my age (sitting on the couch) is looking terrified.

Eventually, along comes Ricardo Montalbán driving a taxi. He has the two criminals of the first part of my dream with him. He is after my “magical” cane (which has a “real” technological explanation for what it does). I am worried for a little while, but I surprise him, and float up through the roof of the taxi and escape.

I then end up at an older house with two floors and an attic on “King Street”. This part was amazingly precognitive in that is actually where I was living years later (in Wisconsin), including the street name - and the mood I then had was very precise (there was no way to know my family would move to Wisconsin again at a later date or that I would feel just as I did at that much later stage of my life). Somehow, the cane stopped working and I was trapped as a “ghost” who could only walk around and haunt the place by knocking chairs over and such until someone came along and helped me. But I remained a “ghost” at the time. Not the greatest ending, but it was still a fun dream. There were several other parts that I did not originally write down. I know there was something about avoiding mosquitoes by becoming of no substance so that they just moved through me and could not bite.