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    1. Successful Sled Ride! (FA-WILD + FA)

      by , 05-22-2017 at 04:43 PM
      Ritual: The new Twin Peaks started last night, so I watched the usual Sunday shows in their second round and didn't get to bed until after 2am. I woke around 7 or 8 and looked at my iPad a bit, enough to wake up my mind, with the usual vague intention to make this into a WBTB, but the only other mental preparation I did was to remind myself that dreaming involves proprioreception, so I should pay attention to my whole body as I fell back asleep. It was 9am when I woke after the dream, which I felt had lasted only a few minutes.

      FA-WILD: During my WBTB, my husband mentioned that he was going to the grocery store this morning, so when I was half-woken by the sound of the garage door, I knew he must have left. This much was evidently a real perception, but right after that, still believing I was half awake, I heard voices. I knew my brother was in his room on the other side of the house, but I couldn't account for the other voices. [DL: My brother lives on the other side of the country, and the room I thought he was in does not exist.] Was he on the phone? But there were several voices, and the sounds of people moving around. Had he invited friends over? Then I recognized one of the voices as that of my maternal grandmother. [DL: She died over twenty years ago.]

      Despite the dreamlogic, these observations did actually make me wonder if I was dreaming the voices, not because of the incongruities that would have been obvious to a waking mind, but only because of my conviction that if my husband just left for the store, then no one else (besides my brother) should be in the house so early in the morning. I tested to see if I was getting any dream imagery, and sure enough, when I partially closed my eyes, the four flaps of a manually closed cardboard box appeared superimposed over the rumpled covers of the bed that I had thought I was seeing with my waking eyes. [DL: In retrospect, is it apparent that everything I observed after hearing the garage door was already in dream, so I was mistaken in believing that I had woken up. My mind was half awake, despite the dream logic, which is what led to the confusion about which perceptions were dreamed and which were real.]

      I realized that if I was already seeing dream imagery, then if I was careful I could probably "get up" out of bed and into the dream just like I do in WILDs. This was easily done. I crossed the room, an accurate likeness of my bedroom, and opened the window to look outside toward what I understood to be my brother's room, on the second floor above the attached shed. [DL: The shed has no second storey.] The ground was covered with snow, and I did recognize that this was incongruous with the current season. It gave me the idea to do the TOTY that I had attempted a couple times earlier, the sled ride.

      The last shot of the final show I watched last night was a woman diving backwards over the edge of a boat to go scuba diving. It made an impression on me because I had only ever dived into water face first, and at the time I had tried to imagine what it would feel like to enter the water that way. Now, as I was about to jump out the window, I decided to do it backwards like a scuba diver. For a moment I felt like I was falling and wondered if I would actually hit the ground, but then the nongravity of dream caught me pleasantly in an inverted arc, and I settled gently to my feet.

      I remembered the last few times I had attempted the sled task, and how I had overcomplicated it to the point where I kept waking up before I could finish. This time I decided I'd better just get it done, even if my solutions weren't elegant. So instead of going to the trouble of finding or manifesting the necessary sled and mountaintop, I just asserted these conditions into existence. I'm on a sled, riding down a mountain. As is typical when I "brute force" things in dream, initially it felt like a fiction, but soon I began to feel plausible sensations of sitting on a sled and sliding down the snowy slope. It was far from my best work, but it sufficed.

      I was sufficiently familiar with the task that before I had even intended it, my sled slipped through an irregular opening like the mouth of a cave, into a wide dark space. But then I wondered if this was good enough—I hadn't read the terms of the task in ages. Would a cave suffice, or did it have to be a proper hole through the surface of the earth? I couldn't remember, so I decided to play it safe and conjured a perfectly round hole, like the sort of thing you might see in a cartoon, just in front of me on the lower floor of the cave. My sled and I slipped right through, and at this point my interest perked up, because I didn't know what to expect, and had not planned or intended anything past this point.

      It was dark down here, and I had no sense of the borders of the space, yet I could see the details nearest me perfectly well in the nonlight of dream. The place felt public and even familiar—familiar as a type rather than a specific location—but I can't think of how to relate it to anything in WL. A "town square" might be the closest analogue, but of course in WL town squares don't tend to be in enormous caverns underground.

      I felt my mind shift over into observation mode and began to take deliberate note of the things I saw, but at the same time I felt really hungry and couldn't resist impulsively tasting everything. [WL: I hadn't eaten much for dinner and had even felt hungry again by the time I went to bed, so this was a genuine bleedthrough sensation.]

      My sled had disappeared in the transition through the hole, so now I was on foot. The first object that I passed, on my left, was a piece of fabric that had been fashioned into the form of an elephant, about about eighteen inches wide. It was attached to the top of a pole stuck in the ground, elevating it to just above waist height. I pulled the fabric elephant off the pole to give it a closer look as I continued to walk. White was the dominant color, but the details were stitched in brightly-hued threads, red and blue and green. The base fabric had a thick pile, almost fur-like, akin to what you might see on a stuffed animal, but the object overall was flat, lightly padded like a thin quilt. My hunger impelled me to take a big bite, and in my mouth it had the taste and texture of a sort of bland taffy. (Tastes are rarely very distinctive in my dreams.) I dropped it and moved on.

      The next object I encountered was also on a waist-high pole, and about the same size as the elephant. This one was made of paper and a bit more three-dimensional—it resembled a large origami fish folded from patterned paper. The taste and texture were even less remarkable, but I was so hungry it felt good to be chewing something.

      As I observed with mild amusement the way my hunger was driving me to try to eat things that didn't even resemble food, the rational part of my mind responded that this being a dream, there was no reason I shouldn't try to eat literally anything I could see. I put this to the test, breaking off random bits of any surface I came across and nibbling on them. One thing I remember distinctly was a table. It was a round table covered by a long, dark-hued tablecloth. I think there was a vase of flowers in the center but otherwise it was bare, so I grabbed a hank of the tablecloth and started noshing on that. I was cramming far more in my mouth than I ever would in WL, but I didn't worry since I knew that this stuff had no real substance.

      I was still in snacking mode when I came across a white-bearded gentleman in a navy blue blazer. The bronze buttons caught my eye, and without so much as saying hello, much less asking permission, I reached out and twisted off the top button, bringing it to my eyes for a closer look. Tiny convex letters around the top spelled out "Bartholomew," and a small human figure occupied the center of the button. "Saint Bartholomew?" I asked the gentleman from whom I had taken the button, while trying to remember if there was really such a saint or if I was just free associating. [WL: I still wasn't sure so I googled it. Apparently Saint Bartholomew was an apostle, and although I was not consciously aware of that, I suspect the influence of day residue, because in The Leftovers last night several disciples were mentioned, and I've never been able to keep disciples and apostles straight.] The man shook his head, and when I looked again at the button I saw the letters rearrange themselves into the name "Balthus," which seemed to make a bit more sense... in a way that I can't entirely explain. Still hungry, I licked the button. I thought it tasted a bit sour and metallic, a bit like licking a D battery but without the tingle. The bronze button had been darkly tarnished but now gleamed where I had licked it, so I licked it a few more times to polish the highlights. I looked at the letters again and now they read "Ubewiz," a name meant nothing to me, though I thought it sounded vaguely Polish. [DL: I just noticed the symmetry between the verb "polish" and the adjective "Polish," so I suspect dreamlogic lay behind this observation.]

      FA: I woke up (so I thought) and immediately fished my dream journal out of the bottom drawer of my bedside table. [WL: This was a realistic detail, because although usually I keep it right on the table next to the bed, for the past few days it has been in the drawer.] I flipped through it and couldn't find a single blank page, but I didn't want to waste any time so I started writing my notes in the margins. I was jotting down keywords: "Bartholomew, Balthus, Ubewiz," read the first line. Then I included brief notes about the fabric elephant and origami fish. I hadn't gotten very far when I woke up again and realized that I had been taking my initial notes in a false awakening and would have to start over, so once again I pulled my journal out of the drawer and wrote—grateful for the blank page this time—"Bartholomew, Balthus, Ubewiz."

      Updated 01-13-2019 at 07:42 AM by 34973

      Categories
      lucid , false awakening , side notes , task of the year
    2. At Least I Found Snow... (WILD)

      by , 03-10-2017 at 11:47 PM
      As I was falling asleep last night, at one point I became aware that I was just below the waking threshold and was able to take some control over the hypnagogic imagery. I wanted to try a TOTY and decided to attempt sledding again. I figured my problem last time was that I had gotten fixated on looking for a mountain to sled down... wouldn't it be more sensible to establish that I was on the mountain to start with? Then all I would have to do is go downhill. And find snow, of course.

      I successfully turned the hypnagogic imagery into a scene of sliding down a mountain slope. Initially it felt more like imagining than dreaming, in part because I was not yet fully embodied in the scene, only seeing it in my mind's eye. But already it was manifesting some of the ornery characteristics of dream and resisting my attempts to imagine snow, so I was sliding over bare earth. I let the scene play along and pretty soon I started to feel physical sensations: the bumps along the ground (I thought wistfully how snow would smooth out the ride!) and the surprisingly realistic smack of low hanging leaves against my face as I passed under trees. I was on a round metal saucer sled, barely big enough to seat me, but by concentrating I could prevent it from spinning out of control (unlike the similar sled I have in WL!)

      Before long it started to feel like a real dream with physical embodiment, but I was still lucid enough that I was not concerned when my sled went over a steep embankment and into freefall: I just applied some mental "brakes" and came down gently, landing in the yard of someone's farm. The farmer was there, so I realized this would be a perfect opportunity to coax some snow into existence.

      "Can you believe the weather we're having?" I asked the farmer. "Such thick snow! Hey, where is the snow the deepest?" I tried to make my tone convincing, despite the fact that there was still no snow in sight. Apparently this worked, because the farmer pointed into the distance, and when I sledded off in that direction, soon I was surrounded by snow everywhere!

      I was back in the mountain forest, but there was a slight problem. I looked around and saw no way down but steep rocky cliffs, rather than slopes that looked suitable for sledding. I figured I should just pick a cliff and sled off it anyway, since freefalling posed no real danger. But at that moment, for no good reason, I felt a subtle pang of anxiety about completing the task, and this woke me up.

      Dreams are a wonderful laboratory for discovering all the ways that our own minds can get in the way of our intentions!

      Updated 01-13-2019 at 07:44 AM by 34973

      Categories
      lucid , task of the year
    3. Sledding without a coat

      by , 06-10-2013 at 01:26 AM
      Length: ~5 min
      Type: Non-lucid

      I was eating breakfast (Banana nut muffin with two eggs) when I looked out the window and realized it was snowing. I told my brother. My mom then got mad at him for reasons I will not disclose. I went outside with my brother and we went sledding. He was suited up in a coat and everything, and I just had a dinky T-shirt on. He pointed that out and I said that it was too much trouble to suit up. I threw myself onto the snow, then once I touched it I woke up.

      After waking up, I realized it was summer.
    4. Zombie Invasion

      by , 11-15-2011 at 12:47 AM


      Date: ?? -Zombie Invasion- Semi -Lucid


      Me And A Group Of People(That I'd Never Seen Before) Rush Out Of A Dark Courtyard(Filled With Zombies),Into A Dark Rustic Building.Once Inside, We Barricade The Entrance.Someone Passes Guns Out.We Travel Up Stairs In Effort To Find An Escape.We Don't Ever Find One.In Panic,(I Knew I Was Dreaming Here) I Jump Of The Huge Stair Case And Die.I Then Kind Of ,"Spawn" In A Beautiful Scenery On A Top Of A Mountain.I'm Riding Down The Mountain On A Type Sled With Wheels.I Then Force Myself Awake.
      -End Of Dream-
    5. 9-27-2011

      by , 09-27-2011 at 11:17 AM (Typho's DJ)
      Deleted

      Updated 03-19-2012 at 04:23 AM by 44350

      Categories
      lucid , non-lucid , dream fragment
    6. Extreme Sledding in the Mountains

      by , 10-23-2010 at 09:25 PM (Zukin's Dream Journal! <3)
      My mom suggested that I take a Spanish class at the community college. I didn't really want to go into Spanish, so I decided not to. I walked around the small college, which was probably the size of a small house, and found a cute porch. The porch was a slab on concrete with a fence built around it, but off of the porch was a steep, snowy hill. I decided to sled.

      As I was sledding, I realized that I was probably somewhere in the mountains. The hill had become less steep, but I couldn't see an end to it. I picked up a lot of speed, and the natural scenery was beautiful. As the wind continued to whip my cheeks as I sledded in my little purple sled, I saw 2 figures in front of me. I put my leg out to stop the sled before I hit them, but the force was too strong. Fortunately, the impact wasn't too bad.

      "Watch where you're going." One of them says. I don't remember if both of them were boys, but I know that at least one was a male and the other could have been a female. I wondered what they were doing out here. Looking around me, I noticed that the entire perimeter was composed of just a snowy wasteland. Snow and mountains as far as the eye could see.



      "What are you guys doing out here? Would you like to sled with me?" I asked, noticing that I could see my breath.

      "We're on a mission," One of them says sternly. He looks out to the horizon.

      "Well, the sledding out here is really fun." I say. The two begin arguing amongst themselves.

      "How did we manage to even get here?" One of them says.

      "I thought that the library was that way..." The other person responds.

      "Well I don't see a library out here!" He shouts.

      "No shit captain obvious!"

      "We're in the middle of freaking nowhere thanks to you."

      "You're always blaming this shit on me!"

      "If you guys are lost, seriously, the sledding here is really nice and fast," I said, interrupting their argument.

      "Looks like we have no choice," One of them says reluctantly. Somehow they both have sleds.

      We continue sledding down the hill until we reach the bottom. At the bottom there is a small stream which leads into a large pond. The two begin arguing again. I decide to leave them there.

      After climbing horizontally up the hill, I come to a library (Hahahaha). I want to research where I was, so I look for books about the mountains. Instead, I find a book about Blind Justice (~Torn Souls, Hurt Faiths~). Inside the books are beautiful pictures from the story, and I am amazed that our library has this. It explains the story in depth and I was surprised at the book's version of the story.
      Categories
      non-lucid
    7. #129. Shapeshifting Children

      by , 08-12-2010 at 02:48 AM (Things to Run Away From Really Fast)
      08/11/10



      I'm travelling through a village. Their level of technology seems medieval at best. A little girl is suspected of being a witch. I help her escape.

      We wander up a path through an idyllic countryside, hilly and covered in green. I lead and the girl, ten or so, trails slightly behind me. The hinges of the wooden gate creak as they move, and I hold the gate open. The girl shrieks in delight and runs onto the field. A dark brown horse is running towards us. It has odd, light-coloured streaks painted across its side. As it approaches the girl, it slows down. The girl jumps up and down, asking if she can ride it.

      "He doesn't like anyone, even me." I say, studying the horse. I smile when the horse snorts. "Especially me. I think he might like you, though."

      The girl climbs on the horse's back, and the two of them gallop across the fenced enclosure.

      Later, we're sitting inside a log cabin that resembles a barn. The black horse is now a black owl, perched on a railing. I sit across from him, and we watch the girl explore the building as we talk. She runs back over to us, smiling as she sits down on the couch.

      "We're going to have to winter-proof the house if she's going to stay with you." I tell the owl seriously.

      The girl turns into a bird. I catch the bundle of feathers between my hands, gently. "You are far too domesticated." I tell her.

      I will the cracks in the wall to close, making the wood grow back together, sealing out the wind.

      It's winter the next time I return to the cabin. We play on the hill, sliding down packed snow and laughing.

      Shapeshifting Children. Scare Factor: 1.