Recent DJ Posts

I was at work, but work shifted between being my actual retail job and somehow being in a house I don't recognize. For some reason we had an order for someone, I think they were having a huge party. They ordered pallets of 12 pack sodas, among other items. I had to -- I forget -- unload them, check them in, something. On top of trying to so something already, I think move large displays. I remember a lot of Maybelline stuff.

It was then that I heard someone called out, and I was asked to stay an extra half hour. Sure. Just let me call home and let my family know I'll be running late. But my phone didn't work. Could pull up contacts even though I kept trying. The screen was nonsensical. Couldn't pull up the keyboard either. I took a break to go outside and sit in a car I didn't recognize so I could concentrate better. It didn't help. My boss(I didn't recognize this woman but knew she was my boss) went out the car that was apparently mine to ask if everything was okay.

I was very upset after trying so long to use my phone and somehow I just couldn't. I asked for her phone, and she dialed the number I gave her and handed it to me. The person on the other end was a stranger. I looked at the phone; she had dialed a totally different number that I could even quite read. I spent the rest of the dream becoming increasingly distraught as I tried to dial the right number. It never worked. At one point I told the manager to just go back to what she was doing because she was waiting on someone for a meeting but she didn't want to just leave me alone in the parking lot, something about safety like I could get mugged or something.

Also the manager's phone was a landline, not a smart phone. I wondered why and how a landline she owned worked so far from it's cradle which was surely at her house. Also, being a landline, it had actual buttons. And every time I hit a button it registered at the button next to it, so I couldn't possibly dial correctly. My mind explained this by deciding that the wires under the buttons were breaking down with age so they were shorting together.

(Dreaming hasn't been a focus lately, but: )

I'm floating in a void full of clouds and stars, and recognize that I'm lucid. A destination comes to mind - not one I'd planned in advance, it's an impulse. With that thought, I have the impression I've changed direction, moving closer to the earth - slightly negative connotations here; not bad, just frivolous.

I'm in a bar; it serves as a front room for my actual destination. There's conversation, people sitting around at tables; the bartender's a heavyset and balding man. Asks what I want to drink. I believe I'm not physical enough here to either drink or pay for anything, but refusing to order anything isn't acceptable, so I ask for a water. I'm thinking about the unusual vividness of this scene. The man to my right, clearly a regular, starts talking to me and the bartender, talking about the guy who owns this place (the person I came here to see) and the way things are done here; I'm going to have to set up a tab before I can order anything, even water. The bartender asks to see my phone in order to give me the owner's number. I take it out, but the screen's showing what I think of as the real world, in contrast to this place. I'm concerned about the bartender seeing that and recognizing that I'm out of place here. I hand him the phone anyway. He programs the number in without seeing anything out of the ordinary and hands my phone back.

The image on the phone, my 'real' world, is showing a woman with dirty blonde hair, winter clothing, knit hat, walking on a narrow street at night, the outskirts of a small city maybe, lots of greenery around on this particular street but the sense that there's a much more heavily built up area within walking distance. She's talking to someone, male, a friend or a sibling. The scene shifts so I'm there with them. They walk, they talk, they're being followed by something other than me. There's a sense of the dream becoming a nightmare.

As they entered an apartment building, I made the mistake of reacting to the other thing following them, thus letting it realize I was aware of it and attracting its attention. It attempted to latch onto me instead, and in the next scene it's taken on the role of my younger sibling (not one of my actual IRL ones), inserting itself into a role in my dream the same way it had been playing a role in that woman's dream. There was a brief moment where I accepted it as my sibling, before I remembered. It was very shocked when I hurt it in the process of removing it. "Ow, ow, you're hurting me!" "Get off of me, then." It did, and I woke up.

I'm talking to a little boy, elementary school age, while possessing the body of his older sister. He's upset with me/her because (prior to me possessing her) there was a baby photo of him that she'd shown to others. But she'd been using an edited version of the photo, cropped so that he was the only thing in the picture. The original photo was from the crime scene where they'd been found, and he'd been lying between the bodies of their parents. He's upset that she would take this image, remove the ugly parts, and present it to others as just a normal baby picture.

This takes my host completely off guard. She hadn't thought of it from that angle, even while she'd edited the photo to make it acceptable to show to others. She's emotionally attached to the photo as a whole, it's something to remind her of her family from "before." She used to look at it and dial what used to be her mother's number, listen to the answering machine - there's no answering machine at that number anymore, but she'll still dial and hang up just out of habit, the familiarity of that number displayed on her phone.

I'm in some manner of waiting room, talking with a priest - I'm hoping to get his opinion on a dilemma that's been on my mind. But as I describe it to him, he gets increasingly uncomfortable. Finally he seizes on something I've said that he can turn into a sort of keyword - along the same lines of "crisis of faith" or "act of god," some familiar phrase. When I agree that yes, you could think of it that way, he seems relieved. He launches into a sort of canned speech on that keyword. I'm disappointed. This isn't the conversation I'd hoped it would be.

Janette arrives then, rescuing me, and I stand up to give her a quick kiss. The priest seems as relieved to be able to end the conversation politely as I am. It's been a while since I've met up with Janette, and she's dressed as a widow again, with a black veil over her eyes; I think this is the first time I've seen her in a veil since the 1950s. She's stunning as ever.

As we leave she teases me about being disappointed by that priest, about always looking for answers in all the wrong places. The conversation drifts, and as we step out onto the sidewalk I'm saying to her, "No, no, no - unless you wanted him." She makes a face. I'm teasing - that priest wouldn't exactly be her first choice of meal, and neither of us have been hunting people at all lately. But now we're both thinking about blood.

We head back to my place, and we immediately start up the stairs to the bedroom, but halfway up the stairs I leave her to go back down and take the phone off the hook, saying something about no distractions this time. The observer side of me remembers how this will turn out - when the woman I work with couldn't get through on the phone, she turned up at the door instead, and saw Janette wearing my robe. First time she'd seen Janette, and although it wasn't anything notable at the time, it eventually wound up raising unfortunate questions.

Working at some new job involving answering the phones and a square table with a few people standing around it. We are putting parts together sometimes, answering phones other times. I decide not to wear the uniform - some tan shirt with a collar. There are some other people out of uniform also. We get to talking a bit, but don't get along. Then I find out that they are the highest corporate bosses in the whole company, and they are upset about me not being in uniform! I tell my coworker if he thinks it'd make a difference to get in uniform. He's not sure. I tell him to wait here and I'll be right back then take off sprinting to my locker. I'm not sure what my locker combination is. I think it's 27, 3, 33 or something with a 17 or a 29 in it. I manage to get it right, and open the locker. Inside, no uniform. It must be in my other locker... I leave the lean-two locker room and run across a field at night to another small lean-two with lockers inside behind a small counter / cafe / bar where someone is serving food or drink. This time my locker is not even locked. Inside is the lock, with the combo set to 1337. I leave it inside and grab my shirt. It someone takes my lock, I don't really care, I just keep my work shirt in here. I put it back on and return to my post after what seemed like 20 minutes of trying to get the first locker open.

There are these people with some psychic skills ranked on a 1-10 scale, where 10s are considered essentially monsters and hardly ever exist. A message has gone out to all these people to stay indoors tonight. One of them's being hunted down by a 10-ranked kid, and anyone else going outside now would just get mixed up in the hunt. This kid's treated like a living weapon, kept locked up aside from the rare outings like this, but he's just a kid; there's a feeling here like being let off a leash. Now he's levitating around outdoors - it's night, so he's not worried about being seen. I'm fond of the kid, and I'm aware that later he'll get away from the place that keeps him locked up, and that'll be good for him. The woman he's hunting calls her home to ask for help, but the woman who answers the phone has already got the message not to go outside tonight, and she's torn.

Sarah Connor's been running from something together with this guy who can't run anymore, and she can't carry him. She's trying to convince herself to just leave him and go, but when she tries, she only gets three feet before her knees give out. I'm aware it's because she's fighting her own desire to stay and help him. She's thinking to herself that she should have done something every day to train herself to do things she doesn't want to do.

Gwendolen Chant's sitting in her room at Chrestomanci Castle, writing. She's just gotten back from another world - she's looking for one to move to, and she's just crossed this last one off her list of potentials. She'd had an unpleasant encounter with a girl there, and she'd wound up enchanting the girl into some monstrous form. Gwen led the girl to believe she'd be trapped in that form forever, but she's thinking that actually it'll wear off on its own in about a century. And about another century after that, it'll slowly start to grow back again - Gwen's thinking the girl's reaction when that starts should be hilarious.

As Louis, I'm standing next to Lestat and looking down into the hold of a ship. It seems very dark, and I'm remembering a previous incident where he left me trapped somewhere. I tell him, "I've learned," and we're not going to go through that again. He acts exasperated, like I'm being ridiculous, and of course he wouldn't do that to me again, that was centuries ago, don't be so paranoid.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

After trouble trying to talk to my IRL father on the phone - I couldn't hear him clearly, but I also couldn't make the phone disconnect - I'm now meeting him at some event. I'm trying to save four or five seats, but that causes trouble with the people next to me; I get the seats I wanted, but the group of teenage guys sitting next to us are annoyed with me now. The one right next to me puts his feet up on the row of seats in front of us at an angle, crowding into my space, until he's practically in my lap. I call him a gay slur, then immediately wonder why I said that; meanwhile, he backs off and looks hurt. One of the other guys with him starts getting into my face, and at one point he suggests that maybe everyone here is dead - "I'm dead, you're dead, we're all dead," in a sing-song tone. I say to him, sure. Land of the dead, dreams, Underhill, it's all the same thing. Everyone around me has a rather unpleasant look on their face after that, and I think it's because I mentioned that this is a dream; then I think that this only happened because I picked up that expectation from other lucid dreamers. In any case, I get up and walk out of the room into the hall.

Thinking about that Underhill reference, I think it's important that I find elves - they're much preferable to the people who think they're dead - and I look for a door, but this building is built on an open sort of plan, with rooms opening onto each other at strange angles, not easy for me to control. I eventually come around to the back of the building and walk out a door, trying to use the door as a portal and thinking about elves, but feeling like I had only limited success. The door opens onto a stable, and there's a car parked here, and a woman in a ballgown getting into the car with a man who's wearing a uniform indicating he works here. On a closer look, he looks rather elfish. I think about hitching a ride.

Bit of a fragmented memory after that - I don't wind up getting into the car, but me and that guy walked out of that stable and into the woods, where we had some encounter with someone else. False awakening after that: waking up in an unfamiliar bedroom, I get my journal out of my backpack beside the bed and start writing down a dream about a (nonexistent) vampire movie involving that woman in the ballgown; as I was writing I believed it to be based on a real movie.

Dean and Sam are trapped inside a house they were investigating, something to do with a piano and a song that was being worked on at the time of the composer's death. As Dean, I'd been calling someone on my phone the moment the house trapped us inside, a woman we've worked with before. She'd been having lunch when I called her, and after a while the phone is taken by some guy she was eating with, someone who doesn't understand anything about what's going on and who tells me off for being rude, insists I should "use sir and ma'am" or else he'll hang up. So I call him "sir and ma'am" and piss him off. Thankfully the woman from before takes the phone back. I have the impression that if I hadn't been on the phone already, if I hadn't already had a connection established, the house would have prevented the phones from connecting; if this call ends, we won't be able to contact the outside world at all.

I've got a creature perched on my finger that's something like a crow and something like a bat - it's furry rather than feathered, but it's got a beak. The feeling of its talons around my finger is odd - not exactly discomfort, it reminds me of holding a mouse in your hands. I raise my hand and launch it into the sky.

There are two little girls, elementary school age, who are carrying out some illegal deal, weapons or something similar, something stored in the trunk of a car. They have some mentor who usually does this, he doesn't realize that they're here in his stead, he would have stopped them if he knew about it. This meeting with the customer was supposed to be an initial negotiation, a sample, but one of the girls declares that they're going to do the deal now. The customer reacts badly. The other girl gets shot, the one who'd declared they were doing the deal now takes a gun out of the trunk and shoots the customer, the cops come, they're all put in handcuffs, and the customer is bewildered, he was a good customer and doesn't understand why they tried to change things. The girls escape, go home, and try to cut the chains around their wrists with their father's tools.

1. Traveling with my cousins (to dragoncon?) We stopped at a hotel with wierd phones everywhere. My aunt called and asked which one of us pooped on her couch, and we said it must have been the dog. o-e

2. My family was beginning a journey, and we stopped at same aunt's house for supplies. I wanted to take their rootbeer, but they wouldn't let me.

Dream # 1:

I was in my house, walking down the hall. My mother was talking on the phone loudly. She was arguing with someone. I walked into the kitchen, and she had some papers in front of her on the counter. She was talking about a warranty. I figured that it must be the warranty for our driveway. She angrily hung up the phone, and I asked her if they were going to honor the warranty. Then I woke up.

Dream # 2:

I was at the ocean, and it was night time. The moon was full and provided plenty of light for me. I walked along the coast line, and the waves rolled in and out. There was a tall cliff face to my left, several hundred feet away from the water line. There were also buildings along the shore, mostly houses. One building in particular was a small guesthouse.

I walked into the guesthouse, and I saw a mirror in the hallway. I noticed that I was wearing my bathing suit. For some reason, I turned on the light. I could see someone stirring in bed in the next room, so I quickly turned the light off. I walked into the room, and I saw two queen-sized beds pushed up next to each other, probably to save space, because it was a small room.

There was one person in each bed. I could see that Curly from the Three Stooges was in the left bed, and an unknown person was in the right bed. So I climbed into the right bed and snuggled up close to the person in it. I fell asleep.

Next thing I remember, it is morning, and Curly is gone. One of my biology professors was walking around the room. He was the one in the bed with me during the night. When he noticed I was awake, he told me, "Good Morning." His hair was a mess and he was in his pajamas. He left the room and was gone for maybe five minutes. When he returned, he was dressed for the day and his hair was neatly combed. He also brought breakfast with him. We talked for a little while, but I don't remember what we talked about. At this point I woke up.

Dream # 3:

I returned to the previous dream at the ocean. I was still with my biology professor, but we were leaving a mall. He had a bag full of purchases, but I don't know what they were. Outside, we met one of my chemistry professors. He told us that he was excited about going to Belize.

The three of us walked back to the guesthouse, and we all had suitcases waiting for us. They were black, and the kind with wheels. We took our suitcases and walked outside. There was a sidewalk now, and we walked along it with our suitcases trailing behind us. We eventually came to a large van, and several students were loading their luggage into the back. I recognized a few of them that had gone to Belize with me (IRL), but there were several I had never seen before. I counted the students and realized that there wasn't room for me, and that I must not have signed up for the trip.

I asked my professor if the roster was full. He said, "Yes, but even if it wasn't, how would come up with the money in so short a time?" I stood to the side and watched everyone get into the van. Another student I had traveled with was standing with me. I guess he didn't remember to sign up, either. I was angry that I didn't get to go, and I wondered how I missed signing up. Then I woke up.

★★★☆☆

01/09/11

I just found a Star Wars game for my phone. I decide to try it out, so I'm tilting it left and right, figuring out the controls. Spacebar is jump.

I'm in the game. My surroundings are a dank green, covered in vines and rot. This was a school once. I try out the jump command, disappointed when I realize I have only first-level force jump. It doesn't matter; I'll be able to get around just fine.

Obi-Wan's shade appears beside me to explain my mission. This is strange, because I'm pretty sure I'm a past version of him. The force ghost fizzles out and disappears, exploding into four green blobs of goo. They reform and immediately begin to scuttle about, taking shape as Gravelings, mischievous reptilian creatures that arrange the accidental deaths of the people around them.

I strike with my single lightsaber, v-stepping in and twisting away after I cut through the torso of one of the gravelings. The creature goes still in shock, before it disintegrates in a flash of red sparks. With a sweep of my lightsaber, the others are scuttling away. I finish them off with force lightening.

Later, alone in an empty room, I suddenly realize that I'm dreaming. It feels like waking up. I try to remember my goals, but I come up blank. Fine - I'll run. I love to run in dreams. I take a running start and leap from a four-foot ledge.

In one reality, I can feel myself flying.
I drift away, into the blue, blue sky, heedless of the ceiling that used to be there. Simultaneously I'm falling, landing. I can feel the remnants of the other reality until all four of my limbs slowly reach the floor. I lay my forehead onto the cold cement and just breathe.

I see Zoe, walking away into a crowd of faceless people. I call out to her, chase after her. Her blonde hair swishes as she half turns, keeps walking.

We're sitting side by side, looking at the massive crowd milling about through the mall. She's counting the cash in a till.

"There's something you want to tell me," she says, flipping through a pile of five dollar bills.

"Yep."

She scowls, but doesn't turn to look at me. "Well?" she asks, "What is it?"

"You could say," I smile faintly, "That I have slightly more than platonic feelings for you."

Her hands go still. "Oh."

"But that doesn't matter," I say, leaning back.

"And why is that?"

"Because," I say, and I stretch my hands out in front of my face, "None of this is real."

And the dream dissolves into static.

Running. Scare Factor: 3.

A weird sequence, likely inspired with a chance meeting last night with an old FFXI friend as well as an unrequited mystery from those days as well as several related events earlier in the day.

There was an early sequence where I seem to recall a Starfox-style shmup that I can't place within the context of the rest of the dream.

It seems that I lived in some unfamiliar downtown location, and that members of my old TiamatsFangs FFXI linkshell were getting together in real life to do some sort of video game-esque covert operation. We were to try to get into some kind of factory, the entrance to which was on the roof of a tall building, to demolish...something. We went in, and made our way to the end, but my partners started dying as we got ready to blow up the place. There was some kind of weird monster/alien thing killing people. As I fled out I turned and saw it grotesquely kill two people. I managed to escape back onto the roof-entrance, the only survivor. Except it flashed back to before the operation began. Since I knew what would happen I began trying to prepare an escape route, cleaning up excess ammo, weapons, and items on the floor to make picking up things for use easier, however I became frustrated that my partners were sitting around goofing off instead of preparing for the mission so I gave up and left. On my way home I realized I could use the opportunity of the TiamatsFangs' gathering to track down Jillia. I had already called and talked to her at some point during the preparation for the operation, so on my way home I called her number again but she didn't answer. When I got home to a room that looked like some sort of home office I sat down and started to think about how I could proceed. I started looking through the contacts on my phone and noticed I had a second number for Jillia, so I called it. An older woman answered the phone; I asked her if Jillia was there to which she replied yes. I asked the woman for the location of this phone number to which she replied that it was a place called "The Dungeon". I thanked her and hung up to consult the internet for the Dungeon's location; I remember that the first time I searched for it I forgot to specify the city I was in (when I corrected it, I corrected it with Fargo, ND or 58102, so evidently this dream was supposed to take place in Fargo). I quickly found it online, it was some sort of arcade. I went there; inside I met the older woman I had spoken to earlier behind a counter just inside the entrance. Also there were several teenagers there, I thought it odd that several of the boys were shirtless--and also that none of them were playing any arcade games, in fact there were no arcade games at all. The area was mostly empty except for some furniture and beanbag chairs. I asked the woman if Jillia was there again and she offered to take me to her. As we slowly made our way back I continued to observe the bizarre behavior of the children here. The woman explained that Jillia was a poor girl, having been abused and I recall ending that explanation mentally by adding "by these people" to the end. As we reached the entrance to the basement, I observed a short, ugly-looking girl and a boy getting ready to have sex, and they were eventually joined by a second boy. I went down into the basement alone. At the bottom was a large room, the room was pitch black except where it was sparsely lit by a small television in the middle on the other side of the room. There was some kind of clothing rack blocking the direct path to the television, instead leading a path around the outside of the room. In the far back corner there was a green couch that was very brightly lit. I called out for Jillia and she answered, though I couldn't see her at all. I replied, "Now there's a voice I recognize!" She sounded somewhat paranoid however. She instructed me to go to the couch in the back corner. Standing in the light it was even harder to see into the darkness, but I sensed that she had moved from near the TV to around between me and the door. She instructed me to remove my pants and shirt so I removed my black coat, shirt, and pants and set them on the couch. She then instructed me to go over and play the game. I went over, in just my underwear, and sat down by the TV. There was an old school Sega console there with what looked to be some sort of hacked old school Sonic game. I picked up the controller and hadn't even started playing when I heard the door to the basement slam shut. Alarmed that Jillia may have ran off, I quickly got up and returned to the couch to put my clothes back on and try to follow her. As I was putting my clothes back on the lights came on in the rest of the room. The floor was concrete and the walls were painted a bland white, it looked for sure like somewhere people may be held captive and I recall thinking, "Aw shit, I'm trapped down here." I immediately suspected the bizarre people on the floor above of foul play. When I checked the door, however, it was unlocked so I went upstairs to leave. The teens that were there before were outside in the rain, apparently having fun and taking pictures of each other. I quietly left, trying not to draw attention to myself. About a block away I turned and looked back, trying to think of how I could find her now. The dream ends there.

Side note: with some more effort into reality checking around phones as previously planned, I might have been able to catch this one.

I'm pretty sure I just had my first lucid dream. It seemed kind of long at the time but I may only remember some bits and pieces now, gonna try to get down as much as I can. And it's weird, it feels so foggy now. Was a very intriguing experience. There was another dream before it but I want to get down as much of the lucid as I can so I'm writing it first.

I'm trying to recall what it was that triggered the reality check. I think it was that I was laying in bed or on the phone with my wife and she said something absurd (I think it had something to do with her saying she was on her way home from class at university, and I quickly realized she doesn't go to school in reality) that caused me to quickly consider that this isn't real and pull a nose-pinch reality check. I was able to breathe like my nose was just a little stuffy despite the nose-pinch. There was an obligatory, "Holy shit, I'm lucid!" moment. To keep the dream from fading from excitement and to calm down, I closed my eyes and (for whatever reason) pictured a topographical map key. Feeling it was stable, I opened my eyes, did another reality check (marveling of course at how weird it was to be breathing through a pinched nose, and then started wandering my environment. I seemed to be in what looked and felt like my old house on Broadway. I was a little unprepared for my first lucid; I hadn't thought of anything cool to do. The first thing I did was go into the bathroom. I figured since I was lucid I might as well start playing around with how well I could control it. I went to the door of the bathroom and decided I'd summon something on the floor outside and close the door to see if it appeared; I arbitrarily chose cake, and then I sort of glanced up and back down and it was there on the floor, slightly stale and with a big slice missing--I didn't even have to close the door. Happy, I went to the big picture window out front and continued experimenting by swapping between night and day by closing my eyes for a second then looking at the sky. I noted some unusual mixed success, namely whenever I wanted it to be day or night it would literally only be just starting day or night (ie at dawn or dusk). It's a little foggy if there was something occurring between now and what happened next, but the next thing I remember was that I was quickly running out of ideas for things to do, so I thought, "Well, I've always wanted to experience sex as a woman, let's give that a try." So I went back to the bathroom (it's notable that the previous time it was the bathroom from the old Broadway house, but it was now the bathroom from my previous apartment on Oak Street), stripped down, then looked in the mirror. Quick comment after the fact, the mirror worked just fine for its purpose in the dream, but before transforming I started in my normal dream avatar--which is myself as I recognize but much thinner. I was able to transform myself by pointing to the parts of my body that I wanted to transform and focusing on them. I started with breasts, then moved on to my penis. I recall being amused/annoyed that as I was shrinking my penis my foreskin wasn't shrinking with it so I had to do that separate. I started to get a little impatient so I just waved my hand around in front of my crotch and looked up at the ceiling to try to speed things up. Eventually everything looked pretty good, wasn't perfect, and I noticed that at some point I had lost all my body hair without intentionally trying to, but it was good enough for a first attempt. I was trying to decide what I wanted to do first with my new body when I noticed I sorta needed to pee so I decided to get that out of the way first, so I did. Just that was an unusual new physical sensation. There was some toilet paper sitting in the bathtub next to the toilet, so I grabbed some to clean things up a bit (since I was planning to shortly be playing around down there soon anyways); as I was cleaning up the phone rang and I answered it. The voice on the other end was some woman trying to tell me about how there were cloths in the tub that I could use for whatever but to leave them there so she could wash them later (I noticed here that it was hard to focus on what was happening now while I was on the phone trying to listen). I looked back into the tub and the toilet paper had been replaced by dark blue cloth. I shortly regretted flushing a few of them down the toilet. I checked the mirror one last time to see if things were still good and then went back out to the living room. I'm think there may have been somewhere here where I experimented with my new body, but if so unfortunately I don't remember it. Eventually there appeared in my house (as though she was familiar with the place) a thin, light-skinned black girl. Delighted to find another person to help me experiment with my new body, I asked her if she wanted to have sex with me. She seemed apprehensive; focusing on her I first removed her clothes then, noting of course that she too was female and thus would make proper copulation difficult, made her instantly grow a penis. She wasn't very amused by this, however, and she angrily stormed off to the basement. Shrugging, and once again bored, I decided to turn my attention on mentally recreating graphic-update remakes of old school video games I love in my mind for entertainment. I started with what I assume was Final Fantasy 6, though thinking on it after the fact the action doesn't match up properly with the game (though I specifically recall Terra's appearance). At some point this was interrupted with my wife calling, when she called what had been the video game scene taking up my entire stream of consciousness suddenly appeared as though I'd taken it out of full-screen mode on my monitor on my computer at my current apartment. I even had my headphones on, so I had to remove one of side of them to expose an ear for the phone like I usually do. I was annoyed at the distraction but answered the phone anyways. I don't remember the contents of the actual phone message, but I note again after the fact that it started to break my lucid concentration. The last part I remember now was going down to the basement where I found the black girl (who had now been transformed into some sort of small Pokémon-like creature) cuddling on a table with another small Pokémon-like creature. Saying, "Oh, so you'll have sex with him but not me!" and did my own storming-off-angrily upstairs and back to the living room, where I waved my hand and did some sort of mental slash across the table they were lying on and killing them both. My memory of this dream ends here, though when I woke I seemed to think that there was more non-lucid dream that came after this. I awoke just prior to starting this journal entry and did a quick reality check that passed, officially ending my first lucid dream.

Note to self: be wary about answering phones once you're lucid; it seems to help break lucid focus. In fact, I'm going to try to make an effort to start reality checks whenever answering and/or ending phone calls. I'm going to try to remember that the next thing on my agenda for practice when a dream goes lucid is controlling the environment; this time I kind of let the environment do what it wanted around me.

There was a dream sequence either prior to or leading up to where it went lucid. There was a long prelude to most of what I remember, but the bulk of what I remember was that there was this stretch of interstate that I would drive down as though I was in a GTA-ish sandbox type game and try to score points on this segment of highway. The segment of highway was kind of a long straight section with a curve off to the right. I'm thinking I may have lost more memory of this dream out of excitement for the lucid one, so maybe more will come back to me later.

07/21/10

I try to figure out this teleporting thing. Hazel helps out.



The scene drifts into focus. I'm sitting on the cool, freshly trimmed grass outside the Ixburg Inn. My surroundings are hazy, and I feel half-asleep.

It's one of those late-morning, about to wake up dreams. I dig my fingers into the soft grass and soil. I'm dreaming, I tell myself. I'm lucid.

I stare at the yellow metal siding of the warehouse beyond the fence, trying to remember my lucid goals. I can't remember the first one, so I go down the list until something pops out at me.

#2. Find Hazel.

I feel for my phone in the front left-hand pocket of my jeans. The colours around me start to grey out, and I slowly lower my hand to the ground. I grab fistfuls of grass and breathe deep, watching the sky get brighter and bluer as I calm down. Sunlight beams down from the sky. I'm facing the other direction, toward the back of the motel rooms. There are apple trees beyond the fence.

I slip my hand into my pocket (left-hand, right-hand, there isn't any difference) and pull out my phone. I think I should try this method one more time before I give up on it.

Leaning against the red fence, I mash seven random digits into the keypad (one of them is an "8") and hold the phone to my ear. It rings twice.

"Hello?" says a female voice on the other end.

"Hazel?" I ask. "Are you asleep?"

"Obviously." She seems amused.

I shake my head. I'm still not sure this is really Hazel. "Want to try to meet up?"

"Can you teleport?"

I hesitate.

An impatient noise from her end of the phone, and Hazel is standing in front of me. The chin-length black hair is her dream-avatar's most distinctive feature, and I doubt it's what her hair looks like in real life.

We're standing on the other side of the fence, drifting slowly westward without my knowing. A DC lurks at the periphery of my awareness, and I think it's a childhood friend.

We discuss the best way to get back to her dream. I explain an idea I've been putting together, that instead of opening a portal or a door, I just need to imagine the new setting and drift slowly into it. The danger is in how easily this could trigger a false awakening.

Hazel says she wants to try something. She touches my forehead with two fingers. I fall back onto the tall grass, frozen in place. I can't move, and the scene is fading into black. I'm not worried, though. She starts talking, describing the setting of her dream.

I pop back into existence between one second and the next. I can still hear the words, but they sound like nonsense. I'm surrounded by orange wooden cabinetry, and I think I'm in a basement. The narration starts to describe the exact kind of cupboard exists across from me, and I snap, "Okay! I get it! I'm here!"

I'm sitting down on a bunk bed when Hazel appears again. The dream destabilizes.

I "wake up".

I'm in the basement of a church, or maybe my late grandma's house (she was a minister). I'm trying to find a bible, because the narrator has apparently been quoting bible verses at me.

I'm flipping through the book, but I don't remember the order. "Where was Ecclesiastes, again?

"Near the end," says Grandma.

I mutter something about having had these memorized at one point.

The dream ends.

I'm the commander of a fleet of ships, taking shelter in an empty harbour. A woman with long, blonde curly hair stands beside me, asking about the clouds on the horizon.

"Those are pure ozone," I tell her. "They're poisonous, but they won't come up onto the coast."

"I wish we could go out to them," she says wistfully.

Looking at the swirling mass of dark clouds, I almost agree with her.

Hazel. Scare Factor: 3.

Haaaazel, you're being all mysterious and otherworldly. Stop it.

Also: Facebook, guys? Really?

Friday, July 2, 2010

Teleporting is hard.

I'm standing by a river. The sky is bright blue, and the dry grass is long and yellow. I'm looking up at the sky, staring at an illusion that's some kind of sculpture, a clue into my quest during this dream. (This was a long and meandering dream, but I don't remember most of it.

I'm the producer for a play. It's going well, but during the middle of it, Harley Quinn and the Joker show up and start dancing. The crowd cheers, and I'm not sure if this is part of the play or if the characters actually showed up.

"Write as if it was my plan all along." - written in journal

There's a parkour club in Quickton. I tag along.

---

I'm Harry Potter, fighting Voldemort. He sends me into an alternate dimension, and I have to get back to my friends. There are death eaters in the buildings around us, raining down stunning spells as if they're snipers. "If you get hit seven times, you're dead," says my companion. I deliberately get hit by stunning spells, counting, and they send me back to the previous dream.

The windows are leaking. We have to stop it because the magic could get in. We're holding the building against Voldemort, but it's going to be destroyed soon anyway, so we do a quick job. Hermione staples stucco wire under the windows, and I use an air nailer to keep the frame in place. The way that I'm holding it in the dream would probably break my hand IWL.

I'm either Harry or Voldemort, fighting the other one. "Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus!" I shout, matching the other character spell for spell, effectively blocking them. I realize I'm probably Voldemort. "Avada Kedavra!" Seriously, these spells are kind of hard to remember.

---

One of Ben's friends, a guy my age, is pissed because I just told him off for something. He throws a few punches my way, but always misses. He attacks me in earnest, throwing punches hard and fast. I block them easily, redirecting them in circles. One punch hits me, but I barely feel it. The guy is getting more and more frustrated.

Finally, my brother pulls him off me, and we go rob a grocery store.

---

FA. I wake up in a house that resembles my rental in Squamish. Ben and my cousin Reg are in the basement. I look at my right hand and count my fingers. They're blurry, and my fourth and fifth fingers keep fading into one another. Weird. This doesn't feel like a dream. I try to remember a more dependable RC, and pinch my nose. I can still breathe, but shouldn't I be able to anyway? No, wait. I have my mouth closed. I really am dreaming. I wonder if the boys are gonna go all nightmarish on me.

I think back to my lucid goals. 1) Talk to a DC on a phone. 2) Find Hazel. 3) Teleport. I go to pick up the landline, but change my mind and grab my cell phone beside my bed. I call someone; I don't remember who. I talk to them and hang up. I type into my contacts for Hazel, but the number isn't there. I phone information, ask for Hazel. The woman on the other end tells me crabbily that there are a lot of Hazels in the world, which one do I want?

"The one from DreamViews, obviously."

"This number is not in service."

It's night outside. My mom is sitting in the car, apparently waiting for Ben. She has some weird emo-style haircut, and I'd be more weirded out if I didn't know this was a dream. I use telekinesis to lift up the fringe over her eye, checking for zombieness. Obviously, I'm not completely lucid. Ben leaves the house, catches a ride with my mom.

Reg is still here. I have my hand outstretched, focusing on wherever Hazel might be. I'm trying to draw myself there so I can teleport. I turn around briefly.

"How do I teleport?" I ask the DC.

"How the hell should I know?" asks Reg. He pauses and sighs, "Just... stay like that for a while. Until you wake up."

"Or it works?"

"Like hell."

The dream starts fading into different solid colours, and I wake up back in the Squamish-room.

I hand check again. Most of my fingers are missing. I pinch my nose. Still dreaming.

I go outside and there are a bunch of dogs on the porch. There are also a bunch of people talking about their pets.

Telephone, Take 2. Scare Factor: 2.