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I ingested a traditional tribal "flood" dose of Iboga, a oneirogen that induces a waking dream state for 12 - 48 hours & has been used for centuries by the people of Gabon as a coming of age shamanic plant. Basically you're Lucid Dreaming while awake. I decided to take the root when I found out about it & how unlike hallucinogens the visions you receive from Iboga are not vague or open to much interpretation. Many people see parts of their life replayed, they feel the pain or joy their actions caused. Some see deities or significant people in their life including people who've passed away. Some people claim it's the tree of knowledge of good & evil from the bible.

It was risky for me to begin with because I have a heart condition & Iboga is very intense on the heart. The idea is to experience complete ego death which is followed by all the visions. Going through hell to get to heaven. Knowing this I decided to take the root right before going into the emergency room so in case if anything happened I would be in good hands.

I was really yearning for a spiritual aspect to my life which had been lost. All my life I was told what to believe mixed with my own beliefs & thoughts about all these different possibilities. I felt as if it would be best for me to experience what is true for me spiritually myself. So I decided ego death & true transcendence along with visions of my life would give me some answers. Needless to say, I was not disappointed.



It started to come on subtlety at first, in the emergency room waiting area things became very dim & dead looking like all the warmth to colors was slowly being sucked out. I started to feel as if I was riding some giant wave of reality in isolation of everything around me. Like the world could swallow me whole at any moment. I started to get worried because the waiting room was full & only 30 minutes into a 2 day experience I could already feel some effects. I kept trying to stress the fact I had ingested something that could send me into a psychotic break, get sick, or kill me. That I needed to be in a bed with a heart monitor & people who could check on me & bring me water while I began to purge.

I eventually get to a room & there's a bed, I'm questioned by doctors nurses & staff constantly as I'm starting to trip. I tell them I ingested it for spiritual purposes & that I should avoid being overstimulated. I purposefully brought a long a sleeping mask & my phone to play music to help move things along. As soon as we made it to the room all this was taken as a precautionary measure to ensure I wouldn't try to hurt myself or someone with it. They kept questioning me for what seemed like an hour. The first part of the trip felt like my body was trying to escape reality, the conscious voice in my head got increasingly paranoid about death, going crazy, saying something wrong to the doctors or nurses. I increasingly was drawing a complete blank as I was being questioned, I kept saying umm more & more as thoughts escaped my mind. My consciousness was becoming consumed with fear as I lost the ability to think & create a coherent sentence. One doctor made me feel guilty saying I ingested a hallucinogen & I was wasting taxpayer money in my "recreational pursuit". This was a search for truth, for meaning. Eventually I asked to be left alone trying to avoid over-stimulation after I answered the same questions about 5 times to 5 different people.

I drank some water which was brought to me & my heart starts pounding like crazy, I hear this intense buzzing in my ears that sounds like I'm near a high voltage transformer or surrounded by beehives. My heart is spiking off the charts on the monitor & I'm told I went into VTAC Ventricular Tachycardia (where your heart beats so fast it could stop). I'm so nauseated & worried at this point I purge into a bucket this green liquid, it looks like I puked up part of the hulk or Nickelodeon slime. I start to feel this energy building at the base of my spine, like hot magma or electricity charging up. At this point my heart is going so fast I'm convinced I won't make it through this & that before I knew it I would be moving onto whatever's next. At this point my ego is just screaming in my head like it wants to murder me, "You're going to wake up insane, you're heart is exploding get ready for the pain, you're dead.. nice job".



Eventually after what seemed like hours of fighting between death & my mind I accept death. With acceptance I slowly start seeing with my eyes closed - red very strongly, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, then violet. As this is happening I feel that magma, that energy, that electricity building at the base of my spine slowly move up as I accept my fate. I kept thinking of mercury moving up a thermometer. With complete acceptance I jolted out into the universe a soul past the purple into an infinite white light. Being a part of it but there was no sense of "I" no me, no body, pure spirit & an overwhelming sense of connectedness & unconditional love overwhelming every ounce of being. Being one with the big bang, forget infinite energy, light, the realest thing you could sense in there was pure joy, bliss, unconditional love, complete peace. No thought, stillness, nothingness, the void.

I wake up sometime later after being moved to what I learn later is the ICU. I'm incredibly lucid & the personal visions are starting to come, I'm so lucid it's like the power of lucidity carried over into waking life. I imagine this medical light on the ceiling that looks like a mushroom cap stretching & changing shape. As I believe it stretches it does so & it really seems to work when I send it unconditional love from my chest. I imagine stretching it so far with love I eventually break through the ceiling into another room.



The first room I broke through into was like a dusty old worn down house with cobwebs all over, wooden floors, a broken window, & it looked like something no one would really appreciate. I notice in the dream I'm wearing clothes that appear to be like Link from Zelda. I'm greeted by two groups of people to my right. One of which is very happy, joyful, they have an inner-childlike sense to them. Curious, compassionate, encouraging, happy to be alive. They're cheering me on & saying great things about the room appreciating everything. I get the sense this is what I must do to move on. Love the room impartially, seeing the good in it. The other group of people seems miserable, they're void of color full of grays & find fault with the room saying things like "Ewww". I decide this is not the direction I want to take & I break down the wall by loving the place I'm at.

I end up in another room & another they're all very similar except each consecutive room is characterized by things of the chakra system. It seemed as though I was breaking down walls to move energy from the 1st chakra (the root) to the 7th chakra (the crown). The root is at the base of the spine & the crown is at the top of the head. A hierarchy of energy from the base of the spine to the top of the head; from the physical aspects of existence to the spiritual. Overall all the same lessons were to be learned. If I hesitated in loving a room, in breaking down a wall I was sent back to the beginning. It seemed like my visions were very influenced by the video games I played growing up. After a lot of tries I made it to the heart chakra (the central 4th & central chakra, the point where the physical aspects of our world become intertwined with the spiritual). Tibetan Buddhists believe the heart is responsible for the white light I saw, the white light people describe seeing before death right before moving onto the next life. Once I got to the heart alot of the questions I wanted answers to started getting answered.



I wanted to know who my soul mate was, what the meaning of life is, why we're here, what is truth for me. The first answer I got was about my soul mate. Right before the trip I was torn between this girl Windy & a girl Samantha I had just met who reminded me of Windy. Then it seems as though Windy had forgotten all about me but she holds such a big place in my heart I wasn't ready to move on. A free spirit, a soul that burns in the night with a deep passion for life, a fire within that you only read about. Her way of living inspired me to begin my spiritual journey which led me to this point. Little did I know there's a reason I dream of her almost every night, why I get Deja Vu around her so much, why when we first met I felt us both gaze into each others souls & I had this incredible sensation like we had met before. Iboga showed me we're soul mates & now I'm left waiting for the right time, for a chance to be her friend. If I ever get that chance I'll make it last until the end. In the vision when I reached the heart chakra I heard my voice boom out loud like I was asking who my soul mate was, it happened automatically like I didn't even have to think of it. It was like because I wrote down all my questions before taking the root the questions were already programmed into my subconscious to be asked later. As soon as that happened Windy appeared on a green lotus flower platform suspended in space & from there she yelled "Kenny! I love you! with such enthusiasm it warmed my soul. I heard her say "We're meant for eternity, our love will stand the test of time". The platform symbolized her heart chakra as I was on mine we communicated our love & our platforms moved together suspended in space until we were together & hugged & kissed with such passion I could feel a beam of love going from my heart to hers with such pure joy & ecstasy it was as if we became one in that moment & our souls were in complete bliss just combining with the others counter part.

Every part of this experience seemed more real than waking life & everyone I saw that I knew personally seemed to be their true self, like the inner child in them was fully out to be them-self, they were so creative & enthusiastic & passionate about everything they did or said. That alone was inspiring to me, passion is a big part of a joyful existence. Enthusiasm, joy, an inner curiosity & appreciation for everything. Every moment. Being true to yourself & not letting your mind convince you to hide or discard aspects of yourself. We have to laugh at the mind, our fears, doubts, insecurities, repression, limiting beliefs. They're all the enemies of progress & reaching our true potential I feel like I got the answers to my other questions through breaking through the walls & becoming one with the clear white light, pure consciousness, connectedness, bliss, joy, I'm a part of everything & everyone as they're a part of me. Unconditional love is the most powerful force in the universe & we have to learn to appreciate everything we do have. I live in America & have a car, a guitar. Do you know how amazing that is? We should all be happy when our basic needs are met because some people don't even have that luxury! Don't wait until you're nearly dead to start being grateful!

This by far was the most beneficial experience I've ever had even though it almost killed me it's like every day is a gift now. When the experience was over I was exhausted & slept for quite a while, when I woke up i saw the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen from my hospital bed & I was so grateful to be alive, I made sure all the doctors & nurses knew how much I appreciated them taking care of me. I still laugh because when I woke up the kept asking me all these funny questions in case if I had gone crazy.. You did this for spiritual reasons? You said you were selfish before? Do you think eating is selfish?



Beliefs shape our reality, lucidity will show you that so take what you learn with lucidity back to waking life & meet your true potential, that is my foremost goal. Don't be afraid to explore, reintegrate lost parts of yourself, face nightmares with love & see what happens. Lucidity is an invaluable tool. In my second lucid dream ever through belief I was able to experience that ego-less state once again & I woke up feeling great! I highly recommend reading "Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self" by Robert Waggoner if you get the chance. I'm now completely committed to Lucidity for life. I ordered the Remee lucid dreaming mask & I'm so happy, this marks the beginning of my dream journal here & the beginning of my journey to the inner self. To reintegrating every last lost part of me. Healing what I rejected in the past & facing any & all fears. Going on adventures to space, Europe, Australia, Africa, Egypt, the Amazon all with my soul mate Windy who is still in my dreams almost every night (I bought an engagement ring by the way) & I'm saving it until the right time. Thanks for reading! I hope maybe I can inspire someone to strive for lucidity or to just go after their dreams I know my beliefs aren't for everyone. Happy dreaming

A dormitory and some tarot cards. Anxiety is what I feel. It is dark, not night, but hazy and dull and dim. Maya is near/here. A large box filled with alcoholic bottles. Empty maybe. Trouble. In the end I am not fearful. I'm going on some sort of journey. Someone asks me if/to write goodbyes. A bicycle is lying down and I write my goodbyes. I think I write down names around the bicycle in chalk. I think Rick S is here, talking to me. I write to my mom; I love you more than the moon and the stars.

Key:
{Curly brace & blue} .... Relevent waking life details before entry, if appropriate

Black .... Dream body/narative text

(Standard braces & dark green, bold) .... Dream notes, lucidity, time. method etc

************************************************** ***********************************

{This one is from last night....
Waking life A couple of days ago..... I was REALLY stressed on a return work trip by air... Bad days!!!
I had both outbound and return travel days of missing my connecting flights & aircraft breakdowns making me really late!!
Any connection with an unpleasant travel dream???}

(Non-Lucid)

I’m at an outdoor / above ground city ‘Metro’ station. The “line callout plan” at this station shows this is the green line. The station is in a large pedestrianised public open square with a pink and grey granite oval building. Theres hot dog sellers walking around the square and I can smell the food...

The metro train pulls up at the station & I board... Its like a dull white and silvery white two tone train, with a red and blue zig-zag logo on the side... Inside the train has red plastic seats, with blue padded bits in the middle... Theres quite a few people on the train, some are sat, some are stood up hangling on straps and rails... I'm stood up!!

A couple stops down the line, a group of lads get on. They are wearing 'hoodie' tops, track-trousers and bright coloured trainers...

They are being really antisocial and are swearing, making loud personal comments, spitting and generally upsetting all of the other passengers in my carriage. They then start dropping stink bombs...

I eventually get annoyed, and confront them about there behavior... One of them turns around and responds back
“Don’t like the smell of eggs..Tssk … You can S**K my D**K” ... I back down from the confrontation

The youths get off a stop or two later, and I carry on with my journey, shaken..

A few stops later, I get off the train at an above ground station, that I dont recognise
(Journey was above ground a while, then underground for a while, and then back above ground)

I'm in an open air station, in a gorge (~50-60ft deep), with stairs going up the side of the cutting to the exit, and some trees casting some shade from overhead.

I'm lost, and beginning to panic, I find the “Line callout map" on a notice board ... This station isn’t on the line!!
I start climbing the stairs to get out of the station cutting... The closer I am to the exit, and the more view I get of the station, the more I realise I'm lost!! ... Where am I??

Awaken, sweaty!!

Well currently I'm trying to WILD alot and regain my recall, tonight was an improvement.

Well I typed this up this morning, and pressed a button and it all got deleted, so I can't be bothered to type it all up again.

I attempt a WILD within a WILD, alarm wakes me up > I have a barfight with someone, he goes off crying > I go in a teachers car and drive to another city.

Just a quick summary this time.

First, Anthony turned into a hipster, and his mom had another baby. I had to feed the baby. So I went to the bathroom to get food. There was a little gnome in the bathroom, and, being an asshole gnome, decided to pee on me. I stood there for a little bit confused, then I decided to kick the shit out of this gnome. He was about the size of my foot, so it was very satisfying.

Then I was in this waiting room for something. When it was finally my turn to go to wherever I was waiting for, this guy came up to me and led me through the building's hallways. He looked like Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel (I don't even like that band). Anyway, he leads me on this grand adventure. Before I know it, I'm with three other people (one boy, two girls) and we are on this journey to somewhere. The whole thing had a very magical vibe to it, like I was inside a story book or a children's movie. Eventually we were all standing at this man-made cliff, and down below I could see a melancholy view of the ocean, where the wild wind blew the water away from the rocks to reveal fish flopping below them, and dead birds (huh?) spread about. One of the girls had transformed into an alligator with two propellers on its back. We all had umbrellas. Mine was really short, so I had to use a pole extension. Our umbrellas were inside out, and the plan was that we were going to use them to fly to our next destination. I asked, "Fly? Like in a movie?" The guy turned to me and said, "Like in-" I don't remember what he said. We all flipped our umbrellas so that they weren't inside out anymore. Now there was only me, the guy, and two other people. We were suddenly on this grassy path in an urban city, like in London or something. There was a metal fence to our left. To fly, we had to use the umbrella as if it was a wing, and we had to flap. It wasn't working so well, and we couldn't get the hang of it. Now, I had two umbrellas, and I had to flipped them around to fly. I started to get off the ground, and I was floating above the fence, but slowly. There was a storage/mail truck about 100 feet away, and it was DE that we needed to make it to this truck and stow away to our next destination. Everyone else got to the truck before me. I finally got there just in time. In the truck, there were a bunch of foam packages that a machine pushed into the truck and then packed them against the wall. I got in just in time before one went through, and it shoved me against the wall, where I was hidden behind the package. I woke up here. The machine and truck were making this weird noise like a turkey mixed with a squeaky hydraulic.

I dreamed I was somewhere in India, and was preparing myself for a long journey around the country.
I began to walk the path ... there was some obstacles involved, some natural and others not.
I was jumping a yellow wall between two gardens of a poor Indian neighborhood, and when I landed on the other side a bag with food, water and some other belongings was ripped, dropping food and other goods.

Suddenly a typically Indian-looking kid (dark skin) appeared, he had a dirty white shirt, and helped me get the things that had fallen from the bag. He built a cardboard box, and he put it all the food in that box and gave it to me ...

I started thinking about the difficulty that I would go to cross the country with a box and not a backpack.

I was in a car together with my mother and my brother, we were driving to some sort of climate park (though it seemed to be kinda earth, the odd thing was that small different climate zones seemed to be dispersed all over the world, or at least my country). Then I saw the first of these climate zones while looking out of the window, in the dream I recognized it as a type of Savannah. What I saw there was an otherworldly scenery, a huge uneven chunk of landscape with smaller and bigger hills all over the place. The grass was completely yellow, the same for the leaves of the trees, it however was a stronger yellow than that found on the grass in a real savannah, a little bit more like a lemon. While the description itself might not sound like a lot the details within the dream that I can’t describe appropriately turned this landscape into such an intense experience within the dream I was probably close to tears. And I was silent within the dream until it faded, busy being in shock and awe.

I had a very bizarre dream that I'm compelled to document. It wasn't quite lucid, but...well, read on.

Early as I can remember, I was in heaven in what looked like a cross between a mall and a cathedral. It was very crowded. By chance I found the man who had murdered me in heaven also. I declared that I was going to kill him (smite his soul or whatever) and that the Angel of Vengeance was on my side. After this short monologue I was about to attack the guy, but before I could do anything he stabbed me, killing me. After a short delay I was reborn as an angel of vengeance, called a One (Something--I can't quite recall what, it wasn't "Winged", I think it started with an M) Angel, and not just one--it seems as I had spawned as a squad of armed angels. It seems that this rebirth had taken some time, since after returning the man had been long gone. I searched heaven looking for the man but could not find him. Instead I returned to Earth and, running out of patience, I began to kill anyone who looked like the guy (from the start of the fight to here, the dream passed as some sort of weird top-down camera strategy RPG). It seems that to end my rampage I was returned to Earth with no memory except the name "One (Whatever) Angel". The dream then seemed to follow me on a search to find out what this name meant. I began by asking clergy or people who seemed religious; they all either straight-faced denied that they exist or looked at me in shock and horror and told me to get away from them. As my search went on with no answers I began just asking random strangers (my search took me to a drink stand just as it was closing in what was some in-dream deja vu, as I'd recognized this even from a deep early part of the dream that I don't now remember). Early on in my search I'd come across a girl who had overheard me asking questions at some point and had taken an interest in me. She eventually explained to me that she could help me remember everything through a process that involved dreams (vaguely Inception-style); I seemed to have a vague understanding of this process already and was firmly against it for a while. As time went on and my search for answers grew more desperate I eventually agreed to try it. It was to take place in what looked like some sort of park. As I entered, I came in behind an old, black lady accompanied by a young child. I recognized the old lady as someone I had previously asked about the angel who was disturbed by my question. The child stopped ahead of her and turned around, he asked, "Are you sure you want to do this? It could be the last time..." to which the old lady responded with something about helping these troubled young folk. I followed them to where the girl was waiting for us (I'm going to give her the name Ashley, it seems to fit my memory). In addition to the old, black woman (let's call her Oracle, since she looked like the latter version from the Matrix), Jon Voight was (apparently) helping us. They explained that Ashley would have to sit/lay on top of me in order to merge our dreams and gave me a large bag to put over my butt since apparently the process had several unpleasant side effects (supposedly most people shat themselves upon coming out of it). I sat down on a bench and they gave me some sort of injection and then immediately I was in the back (left) seat of a car, with Ashley sitting to my left, the others in the front (Jon Voight driving). I explained to them that I was once an oneironaught myself and briefly described my first lucid dream. As if to reply and boast of his own lucid dreaming skill, Jon Voight turned his head into an inflated version of Ashley's head. We all laughed, but I noticed that the situation was rather strange so I did a reality check that failed. I quickly exclaimed, "Holy shit, we're dreaming already! That's amazing." Then I looked over at Ashley, who was looking at me also, however she appeared out of it or drunk. I noted here that despite the reality check failing I didn't seem to be able to exert any lucid control; at the time I attributed this to the process occurring in the overarching dream storyline but now that I think about it after the fact it seemed kind of weird. At this point I had a very brief false awakening (I only remember because I awoke to a lit room before actually awakening) which was followed quickly by an actual awakening.

I'm not going to count this among my lucid dreams being as it fit into the context of the dream that my reality check would fail (maybe this also explains my apparent lack of dream control). It was a curious experience. I'm a little disappointed I didn't get to see the end to my search for answers.

20 Aug 2011

We were having a party somewhere but I was not there. Many others were in and around the same place as me. I was hanging around Pokolbin Street, Broadmeadow to redirect people to the new venue. For some reason KnowingNoMore ran past and would not stop for our attentions. Some other random and I chased him up towards the school and across the road, he yelled something about a family tragedy, then back down the other side but I needed to go to the toilette so I ran into the house where I thought KnowingNoMore lived and some rich, late 50s woman allowed me in. I went in to the bathroom, only to discover that her husband was showering in there. The wife also returned and they were showering together. They complained about my behaviour and threatened to kick me out if I refused to give them sex therapy. This was a horrible situation for me but I had no choice unless I wanted to wet myself. They both got off while I was there, I will say no more on the subject as it is not nice to recall but I do remember that the couple were in fact in two places at once. They were in the shower and also at a cocktail party where they had certain problems with their hygiene. Some time later, my family and I were going on a long trip. On one particular leg, we had to climb high into some mountains and then back down the other side. The descent was the hard part. We had been traveling for a very long time and were relieved to be nearly at the end of our leg. The descent was steep and twisted sharply above cliff edges. On top of this difficulty, we had a bottle which had to be carried with us, safely to the base. It was usually kicked down the path as we needed both hands each to balance. On the second last hairpin, we nearly fell. They had been getting progressively worse. The last one was too tight for my dribbling abilities so I picked up the bottle and threw it to a safe location on the path below. On traversing this last bend at the peril of our lives, we came out on a long flattening area leading up to the carpark of some council flats. Having taken this in, I realised that the bottle was now running away so quite naturally I sprinted after it. I jumped onto and over several cars in a line and eventually caught the bottle. At this point I noted that I had almost cleared an entire car in one jump and attempted the like again with about as much success as a snake. But heads up, I had crushed in the roofs and bonnets of many cars and many alarms were going off. We thought that they would be ignored but no such luck. The council flat occupants were all coming out to see what the noise was. We had to run and blend in. Someone, possibly a member of my family tried repeatedly to enter the flats' building but was foiled at the last minute every time. Was entry here our goal? I walked around the face of the building, looking for an alley way through to the grounds at the back. I had a previous memory if there being one or two such alleys but they were nowhere to be found. The grounds at the rear (or possibly it was the front since we were standing in the carpark if you recall) were fenced off all the way around and could only be accessed internally by the building. Clearly there was some reason to keep people out. Some time later again, I found myself in a joke magic shop, not an ordinary joke magic shop but one of those joke magic shops that uses real magic for its jokes. It was similar to the shop operated by Fred and George in Diagon Alley in the popular fantasy series "Harry Potter". I was demonstrating various products for the customers and they kept feeding me polyjuice potion to see what I would turn into. I turned into all manner of things from lions to mice to famous people to discoloured china and I was getting rather sick of it. And do you know what I said when I was getting rather sick of it? I said, "I'm getting rather sick of this. Don't you think that that's enough?" They were quite surprised that anyone could get sick of polyjuice potion but the interesting thing is that though most people don't know since they've never tried polyjuice potion (it's quite expensive), it actually makes one feel quite literally sick. Whether they force fed me another tea spoon or not, I am sure that I do not know since I woke up.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Planning my unplanned Trip


I dreamt...

I am living in a different house than my preset one.
I am hanging out with Travis B. (someone I know as a YouTube artist, an independent film maker from Southern California that I met once while he was premiering a film in Boston), and someone else, one or two others, maybe friends of Travis.

I am scheduled to leave very soon to go on vacation for 2-4 weeks. Soon. Tomorrow? Today! I'm scheduled to leave today, yet, I haven’t planned out my vacation at all! I haven’t planned where to go, what to do. and here I am packing. I’m packing for a vacation I know nothing about. What do I pack? Warm things, cold things? Sports equipment? Skis? Bathing suits? I start packing but then realize how futile, how ridiculous it is to pack for an event that hasn’t been defined. I put of leaving for my vacation since I haven’t make any plans. I tell myself, I’ll leave tomorrow. This makes sense, since I don’t know where to go. Yet I feel guilty, dumb, for postponing a vacation! These is precious and limited time, and here I am throwing one of the few days away. How .. dumb! Lazy. I berate myself for the stupidity and laziness, the lack of planning on my part that has led to losing a day of vacation.

I think back to my last vacation. I even describe it to someone, one of the women who is helping me research ideas and pinpoint a destination or theme.

My last vacation was a wandering road trip. It was adventure, activity, travel, and some workshops. I ended up, at one point, among other places, at a wonderful tropical resort. I did activities there, some with groups. I swam in beautiful places. And it was fun, engaging and beautiful. And, at towards the end, very lonely. I would look around and see that I was the only single person there. Everyone else were in couples. I ended up feeling sad and lonely, a bit left out.

So Travis and a couple others grab me and drag me out doors. We start walking around. They are scheming where to take me. One of the women we’re with knows the area, but is not exactly sure which road to take to get to where she wants to be. We start walking until she realizes we’re going the wrong way, and we turn around. They start running with excitement, now that we’re on the right path. I can’t keep up, because I’m so out of shape. I think to myself, “I am SO out of shape, I can’t even keep up with regular people. What am I thinking going on a vacation in this condition! I can’t do things that a vacationing person would want to do. This is pathetic. I am pathetic. I should just cancel this vacation, just scrap the whole idea. Hell, I don’t even have a plan. What was I thinking?!”

(I realize as we're walking along that I'm wearing a 2-piece bikini. We're walking through the neighborhood, and pass by a nearby beach, so I don't look out of place per se. Yet I realize I'm the only one in my little group in a 2-piece bathing suit. The other women are wearing a 1-piece. I feel so out of place, so self conscious! I am 40 pounds overweight, and feel I have no right wearing a 2-piece. I do what I can to suck in my gut, but it isn't something I can keep up. Oh, how I wish I had a shirt to wear over this, or a sarong to wrap around me!)

They take me into this really small library. But it isn’t a regular public library. It is a kind of small, specialized research station, maybe privately owned. They tear into it, dragging me along. I am not into it, but force myself to go along with it, since they are so enthusiastic - for me and my vacation. I force myself to look at the books on the floor-to-ceiling shelves. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I see nothing, I find nothing, I feel nothing - I am nothing. I hate myself, and am embarrassed that they are more excited about me and my trip, more excited about planning my trip than I am. but for their sake, I drag my body along the aisles with them, and force my eyes to pass across the shelves and shelves of books. Nothing.

They take me up to another floor of more of the same. I move sluggishly, forcing myself. Then something happens. I see something that catches my eye, and my interest. I begin to look around. We must be in the right section, because I like what I see. I begin to get excited, to become engaged in the process. I pull out books and flip through them. Ideas are bubbling up.

At one point, I am in this library, and I’m holding some sort of staff - a scepter (Dictionary definition: “An ornamented staff carried by rulers on ceremonial occasions as a symbol of sovereignty"). It is small, but Powerful. The kind a Monarch would hold to indicate position and royalty. One of the woman who brought me is lounging next to me. She watches me with a smile on her lips and excitement in her eyes. “It is Powerful, isn’t it. An Instrument of Power. It just makes you feel Big, Important, Powerful! Yes, it fits in your hand. You really ought to have one of these. Just to hold once in a while. Just to bring back to you this Feeling of Power. Yes. This sort of thing Belongs in your hand!” And she is exactly right! I look at it in my hand and wonder at how well it Fits.

I wonder how I can integrate this into my trip. I am not sure, but I will, somehow. Perhaps my journey will be a search of how to integrate this, a Journey. While I don’t know the destination of my trip, I now have a Direction.

I was in some sort of convention in a huge gallery complex of modern architecture (lots of glass and steel). I spent quite some time walking around looking at things but I don’t even remember if there was any art to see there. At one point I followed a friend up into an upper viewing space that was conventionally three storeys high via narrow steel stairs but all inside a huge glass and steel building. When I went up there were heaps of people there but there was nothing really to see except for the high up view, which out of my fear of heights (which is always greatly exaggerated in dreams) I refused to behold. I went back down the stairs but stopped at a platform about halfway down where I saw my uncle and was also soon joined by my brother, my cousin and her boyfriend, who was wearing my balaclava which I remembered I had been wearing a while before, and when I verbally noticed it I accidentally addressed my cousin instead of him, causing some confusion and he took it off before anyone else noticed.

We were all sitting around a coffee table that had assorted snack food on it. There were these really delicious but tiny little biscuits that my brother would drop into the bowl of this sweet, sugary, caramel coloured sauce, and then with a teaspoon he would gather up the now sauce-coated biscuits and eat them. I had no such spoon, so when I wanted some I attempted to just scoop them up with my fingers, and my brother stopped me, declaring to everyone in a righteous manner the wrong I had done, and insisted I get a utensil – so I grabbed a butterknife and tried again. Though successful with the butterknife, he seemed to have some problem with it because it wasn’t a spoon. Anxious members of staff kept hovering around our table, waiting for us to finish anything so they could take the plates and utensils away.

When the food ran out, we all departed from the building as everyone was leaving, causing a mass crowd to disperse into the dark streets outside. A whole group of us, which now seemed to consist of a random mixture of family, friends and probably at least one invented character, began walking away in one direction, down a wide street them seemed to be flanked with what looked like volcanic cliffs. The sky was the one of the most magnificent dream visions I have ever seen, as it looked as if no atmosphere existed, so it was a direct view of the intensely shining galactic sea of stars and nebulae. I kept stopping everyone so I could take out my phone and take photos of the view. At one point I saw that the formation of some of the rocky cliffs, when viewed from a certain angle, looked like a basic representation of a human face (like the face on mars), which I likened to Julian Assange. We walked to a point where there was no longer any other humans in sight excerpt for our group, and there was a glimpse of a view where we could see over the volcanic cliffs on the other side of street, it just seemed like the landscape continued on to the horizon with the dark, rounded, rocky landscape, and the stars burned intense in a galactic swirl above.

We got to a point where the road stopped and we had to get onto a very old wooden walkway that dangerously had many parts broken or missing, and it ascended over the now small dark cliffs that we had been walking along all this time. As we went further along this wooden walkway, it seemed we were crossing some sort of threshold and entering a zone of a different nature. Suddenly the walkway ended and we found ourselves in a sunny landscape full of grass, rocks and trees. The dark galactic sky had now been replaced by a bright blue one, and for the first time we saw vegetation. It looked like some sort of huge natural reserve, where the landscape was basically flat and covered with dried out grass. Very prominently there was a wide gravel road flanked by horizontal logs of sun bleached wood along the edges (I frequently stopped to take 'texture photos' of this wood as it was a beautiful grey colour flecked with yellow and green lichen), and every once in a while there were tall wooden signposts that told us a number of distances to destinations. As we travelled along, we saw no sign of human or animal life, and on one side of us a vast eucalypt forest, and a continuous tall rock formation on the side closest to us, that had a concave form that provided relief to us from the sun.

Eventually we got to a place where the rock formation diverged away to create a large grassy space where we saw a large multitude of strange prehistoric looking animals. Amongst them the ones I remember most were these woolly mammoths with patchy grey fur, and these other ones that had a large scaly body of a cross between a kangaroo and a therapod dinosaur, and the head and hands of an ape. For some reason, someone in our group suddenly had a soccer ball and kicked it out into the field towards the grazing animals. This caused all of the non ape-headed animals to stampede away into the forest in fear. However the ape-headed creatures kicked the ball back to us, and then we started kicking it back and forth between us and the animals and it turned into a kind of game. However, eventually the ape creatures approached us closer and we felt threatened. As we ran around trying to dodge them, I suddenly found some sort of ancient arcane tome on the grass right before me and I quickly flicked through its pages to find anything related to animals. I found something that looked like it had something to do with animal control, so I ripped that page out of the book and held it upwards, and this supposedly activated the magical powers within the text, and the ape-headed creatures seemed to stop.

Then they started calmly walking towards me, so I flipped through the book again and found another article that seemed to mention something called “the authority of PETA”, and I ripped it out and activated its power in the same manner as the previous one. The ape-headed animals now started to speak English and were highly intelligent. They queried as to why we were here, as if we were not meant to be, and they threatened to kill us if we couldn’t come up with a sound reason as to why they shouldn’t. The last thing I remember in the dream before I woke up was trying to desperately convince these ape-headed creatures about why the survival of our group was important as I speculated that we might be the last humans left alive, but the ape-headed creatures seemed to regard the survival of humanity as a deeply negative outcome.

Two sequences of note tonight.

I was in a large metropolitan city. I was driving (with some other people?) to some shop that sells herbal products. I/we went inside to check things out; I walked around checking out products, being my normal smug, condescending self when confronted with herbal products. For whatever reason, I stay inside wandering around after they close, I end up staying there overnight. During the night and as morning approached I argued with the owner, some hipster chick, over why the vast majority of her products were utter bullshit. I stick around for a little while after they open then eventually leave.

I either am or am playing my paragon adept femshep in some ME2-like game. Our ship is under attack by some unknown force, so I'm scrambling about the ship doing damage control. We take a big hit and something notifies me that I need to go check it out immediately or the crew will die, so I quickly head there. There's a big hole in the ship, but it's blocked off automatically by a glass door or a forcefield or something, but I can see that two crew members had gotten sucked out through the damaged hull. I grab three oxygen masks and then jump out after them. I'm able to get to them and get them set up with oxygen in time, but we're now out in space and drifting away from the ship. I turn to look back and observe that it doesn't look like the Normandy, but it looked reminiscent of one of the airships from Final Fantasy 6 (only more obligatorily high tech). It's facing away from us, and it jumps out to light speed but then immediately jumps back so that it's coming towards us again to pick us up.

Short fragment and a slightly longer fragment tonight. The short fragment was that I was walking down a long isle in a grocery store, shopping with my wife. She was asking me if we should get some juice, but I was like, "Eh, nah." This, of course, would never happen in real life; my wife absolutely refuses to take me grocery shopping.

In the second sequence I was walking down the street with a black woman. We were about to get on a subway. She was telling me about how she was looking forward to riding the IM subway for the first time, only she pronounced it like the "im" in "him". A white woman near us who overheard was annoyed and corrected her that it was pronounced like initials. As we walked down the stairs into the subway, the black woman had her subway pass on some kind of wood or plastic board; she didn't know she was supposed to hold it at a certain angle as she passed through the scanner, but it was hanging at the right angle anyways. As we proceeded she asked me why I didn't need a pass, I told her it was because I had already picked up a special permit which required two forms of ID and that when you show them they only give back one (which I then thought was kind of counterintuitive). As I was telling her this, we were passing by the special permit area where I could remember earlier (possibly even in the same dream here) standing in line to get the permit. The subway looked more like an airport terminal.

I had an interesting set of dreams last night, but my memory of them is rather disjointed. It was heavily inspired by Myst and Riven, which I have been replaying and playing through respectively after having picked up the Cyan pack on Steam (a nice, reasonable $20 for some hardcore classic PC games). The dreams take the form of that sort of exploration through surreal-yet-logical realms. I seemed to have a sense of dread most of the time; I imagine this mimics the emotions one trapped in a Myst-like experience might have. The first area I can remember was sort of a Myst-island style hub area, but looked a lot different. I was in a grassy plains area; there was a path heading through, several large rocks or canyon walls, one path led off to a lagoon area, another path led off to a large, imposing purple-black castle in the distance. Every so often along the path some animals would try to attack me: a swarm of insects near the lagoon, a snake in the grass a ways in front of the castle. I stopped playing this game and decided to try the older original version. I remember seeing an intro sequence and the Myst intro theme music playing, and thinking that this intro sequence was absent in the remake. It was mostly the same as the 3D one, but presented in still images like the original Myst; the creatures attacking me looked like they were relatively poorly rendered. I moved on to an apparent sequel, this one also in 3D. I have a small memory of something in a village that was on stilts above a lake or ocean; the water and sky were both black or dark gray. There was also a forest, with different patches of green, blue and purple, and red and orange forest. I remember having that same sense of confused frustration as to what to do next that I had yesterday when playing Riven. I found a pair of ropes hanging in the orange forest, whenever I pulled one a basket on the end of a rope would come down from the treetops and there would be some unusual objects that were meant to be hints inside.

Thinking about that last bit reminds me of a different sequence, though again I only seem to remember a few details. I was in some sort of RPG. We were in a city mostly. I knew there was a hard boss fight we had to go to at the top of a several-story-high building, so I was spending a lot of time doing various tasks to prepare for it.

Tonight's dreams came in kind of random fragments, which I suspect might possibly be due to waking up several times over the course of the night and not even realizing I'd dreamed before dozing off again. Here's what I can remember:

I was with my family, we were in a car (it seems it must have been either an SUV or our old Isuzu Trooper, judging from how relatively high I was seated) and one of my parents was driving, I was in one of the back seats. We were on our way to the lakes, which I was somewhat excited for; I had been vaguely wanting to spend a weekend at some lakes place all summer (also, I had read a classified ad for a luxurious-sounding lake cabin yesterday, which probably contributed to the dream's inspiration). The lake area we were going to was in a sparsely wooded area, but for some reason we were going to stay in a hotel at the edge of the woods. As we turned into the hotel, we were stopped by a woman and a young girl. The young girl walked up to the window and was telling my parents something; apparently they were from another family that we were traveling with. Apparently, the hotel we were going to go stay at was either closed or full, so we'd have to go stay in our proper lake cabin. I noticed the hotel was in a fenced off lot, and was several feet deep in water as though it was flooded. We went back onto the road to go into the woods, but a short ways in we came to a line of traffic that was backed up behind the main road, which was closed for some reason. My family used this as an excuse to turn around and go home. I was pissed because there was a clearly visible side road nearby that we could have used.

I was playing Metal Gear Solid 5 (!), and was increasingly concerned that Hideo Kojima has gotten a bit too avant-garde, because it included several highly unusual elements, such as Pokémon. There was one part where I was trying to figure out how this summon thing worked; it would summon a ghost night who would get more powerful with time but the summon didn't last very long. I eventually figured out that you have to restart channeling the spell to continue and doing so wouldn't resummon the ghost knight. Later, I tried to get my brother to try playing the game, but he wasn't interested.

At some point, I decided that if my family wasn't going to the lakes, I'd go by myself. So I took a car and drove there. At the woods there was a large grouping of camp sites and paved areas for RVs. It looked like a fun place to be, but was disappointingly empty, which I attributed to it being early in the season. I found a quaint-looking cabin that I parked at (though curiously I note that it wasn't near any lake).

I'm not sure if there is some chronological shuffling that's going on with my memory, but this is all I recall for now.