lucid

I'm on a tour of haunted cemeteries. A few things seem a little off. There's this house that shows up several times on the tour in different places, almost like the house is following me and keeps appearing every time I look over my shoulder. Another weird thing is that we're told that the haunted cemeteries are the ones where slaves are buried, and one of the first ones we visit has a wooden gate with the words "Slave Entrance" scratched onto it. Why would a cemetery need a separate entrance for slaves?

I start to wake up, but then remember that I need to stay still with my eyes closed. It takes a little while before anything appears, and I start counting to stay focused. I find myself at work. Remembering the tornado task, I step out through the back door and look to the east. The sky is sunny, but as I focus, storm clouds appear. Then I watch the tornado form in the distance. It comes towards me as the base widens. I listen for the sounds of the storm, remembering that it's supposed to sound somewhat like a train. Instead, I hear thunder and… is that the score from the movie "Twister?" I just watched that movie the other night, and I really did like the music. I reach out to measure the width of the tornado with my hands – and find myself back indoors, holding a coiled-up rug.

I put the rug down and find a flower pot. It's already filled with soil, and I drop a single seed into it. Nothing happens at first, so I wave my hands over the pot as if I can make it grow. A single stalk shoots out, followed by two more, but there's nothing on them. I force the shoots to retreat back into the soil and come back as something more interesting. The second time, it comes out with a single daffodil. Much better. I wonder if there's anything else I can get out of this that would be more interesting, so I send the daffodil back into the soil. On the third try, an oak tree starts growing out of the pot and shoots upwards. My first thought is that I should climb it, since climbing trees is something I've done before in lucid dreams but it's not something I can do in waking life anymore.

This tree isn't so easy to climb, as the branches are too far apart for me to get both a handhold or a foothold, but I manage to get up into it. I look up and see stars above me, which reminds me of the bonus task. Could I climb the tree all the way up into space? I start climbing higher, but I can't see to get far enough. I start waking up again, but I go back to counting to stay focused. My counting turns into a launch countdown as I sit in the cockpit of a space shuttle. I blast off into space, though I seem to have lost the shuttle somewhere along the way. I watch as the planets zoom past me, first Mars, then Jupiter and Saturn, until I get to my destination: the moons of Uranus. I picked this planet because its moons have Shakespearean names, and one of them happens to be my given name. I land on "my" moon, which seems awfully tiny. It's like I'm standing on a large boulder. I stay on it for three orbits around the planet. This starts to get a little boring after a while, so I start spinning to see where I end up at random. I find myself on the surface of a moon. This time, the moon is large enough that I can see the lunar landscape all the way to the horizon. The sky above me is dark and full of stars. I can even see Jupiter and at this distance, it's as large as the sun appears on Earth.

There's a space capsule on the surface, and I walk into it. There's an astronaut inside who is going about his usual routine. He looks at me, comes towards me, and, um, we get into some really kinky activities. While I am flipped over on my belly while the astronaut guy does stuff, I'm watching plants growing in a hydroponic bay. There are roses growing in a pot, and more rosebuds appear and bloom as stuff happens, which seems pretty cool.

At work, I was putting bottles of shampoo out on the shelves. For some reason, these bottles where enclosed in a clamshell-type plastic anti-theft device. It didn't make sense that something this inexpensive would need an anti-theft device. I sought out my security guy. He gave me two keys and sent me to a Home Depot across the street with specific instructions on where to locate the parts for another anti-theft device.

The Home Depot was closed, but for some reason people were swarming into the darkened store. I looked at the keys that the security guy gave me, but one of them had bent in half in my hand. The other looked really thin, like something had shaved it down. I tried to remember the directions to the parts I needed, but I couldn't barely remember what he had said.

But now I had more important matters to think about. It was Friday night, and I was worried. I had two classes on Saturday and I had missed two weeks of class while I was out of town. One of them was a law class with some heavy reading, but I couldn't remember what I needed to read for class. In fact, I couldn't remember reading anything for the class at all during the two weeks I was gone. I had one night to get caught up. I tried to read the syllabus and noticed that this class had a lot of group work. Why the hell would I take a class like this and then go out of town for two weeks? I started to panic, realizing I would never get caught up.

On top of everything, Dad wanted me to come over to some apartment building where he was living, even though I didn't have the time. I drove over there, and at the parking entrance, he waved me over to some special part of the lot where there was resident parking. This area was blocking off by a barbed wire fence. As I parked my car, I thought it looked a little weird to see this kind of fence around only a portion of the lot.

At this point, I awakened briefly, realized that the dream had just ended, and was somewhat successful performing a DEILD.

I'm dreaming again. I find myself at work, and I've been told to take a new employee somewhere. I look at this new employee and even though she's not conventionally pretty, she has really soft lips. There are a lot of things I wanted to do in my next lucid dream, but instead, I decide that I really want to kiss her. I lean in, touch my lips to hers, and I'm so overcome with emotion that I wake up.

I'm in a church. Little bags containing rosaries are passed around. As the congregation begins to pray the rosary, I take mine out of the bag and realize something's not right. My rosary has all the beads squished together with no spaces and it's much smaller than the ones that everyone else has. I start to recite the first prayer, but I get confused: is it an Our Father or a Hail Mary? Why do the words sound wrong when I say them? Why am I saying the prayer out loud and everyone else is praying silently?

I don't want to call attention to myself by saying the wrong prayer so I head to the back of the church, where there's a diner(???). I sit at the counter and call a friend, who wants to come meet me after the service is over. But in the meantime, she asks me to order her some "deep fried moo shu." Immediately, I think this is completely bizarre dish name. I'm sure the waitress behind the counter is going to think I'm insane for ordering, but she and the short-order cook don't even flinch.

I start thinking back to the deal with the rosary and the church service, and the scene shifts. This time, I'm in a hospital corridor. I walk into a room and see my dad in the bed, hooked up to machines. Now I know this is wrong because he's been out of the hospital for weeks. I know now that I'm dreaming, and I start spinning because I really do not want to be in this place.

At first, I find myself in some kind of subterranean chamber where the walls are made of packed dirt, but then the walls turn white and the diner counter appears in front of me. There's a square-shaped plate in front of me with Chinese food. I think of the Easter egg task, and brightly-colored eggs start appearing on the plate. I select a violet egg and open it. A tiny bird flies out of the egg, and when I look closer, I see that the egg also contains a large aquamarine set in a massive gold ring. Then I pick up a second egg, a light gray one with a snowflake etched in white. When I open it, a tiny frog jumps out and hops away.

I start trying to remember what the other tasks are and remember that one of them is to prank a DC. The diner fades away and is replaced by an office. I see a guy walking past me and ask him, "Hey, can you do me a favor and run down the street to get me a Diet Coke?" He agrees and steps outside through a glass door. As soon as he's gone, I lock the door so he can't get back in. But I realize that this is a pretty lousy prank, not to mention I can't be sure he'll come back in this dream. I turn around and see another guy, and think of the most basic prank I can remember. "Dude, your shoelace is untied," I point out, then snicker as he stops to check his perfectly-tied shoes.

The church service from earlier is still on my mind, and I wonder if it's due to my anxiety over Easter coming up (I'm not a practicing Catholic but I'll have to go take my Dad to Sunday Mass). I start wondering if I'll remember what to say at the right time. The next thing I know, I start making up my own creed: "I believe in evolution. I believe in making up my own mind on what to believe and letting others believe what they choose…"

I was really onto something there, but then the phone rang and woke me up.

I was up late last night after working second shift, then had to get up early for a contractor stopping by in the morning. So I didn't get a whole lot of sleep. When I started feeling drowsy after the contractor left, I figured a nap wouldn't hurt.

I'm looking at my smartphone and for some reason, I'm trying to search for information on Jimmy Kimmel. I'm having trouble spelling his name, with my attempt to spell "Jimmy" coming out as something else. I look at my hands and realize this must be a dream. I look up from the phone and find myself at work, except I seem to be on skates while the main aisle is made of ice. I start skating down the aisle until I get to the toy department. When I head down a smaller aisle, I see a magic lamp hanging on a display. I rub the lamp, which looks like plastic but feels cold like metal. I wait for the genii to appear, except nothing happens. I take a few steps and try again, and this time the genii comes out of the lamp.

I wish for a magic carpet. The genii points to an endcap where there are plush purple toilet lid covers on display. He takes one and tosses it in the air. It seems to get larger and thinner as it spins until landing on the floor, now large enough to hold a person. I make sure to hang onto the lamp as I get on the rug. The rug flies through the air, heading for the front of the store where I magically pass through the plate-glass window. Outside, it is cool and cloudy. I do a few loops on the magic carpet before returning to the ground.

At this point, I know I want a second wish but I'm a little stumped for what to wish for. I look at the clouds and wish that I was someplace warm. Almost immediately, I find myself wearing a rain coat and sitting at a small table under a large umbrella. I can see palm trees in the distance, and when I stick my hand out, I can feel the rain. I focus on the sounds of a tropical rain storm…

And then I find myself in my garage at home. I open the garage door, reminding myself that I wished I was someplace warm. And instead of my driveway, I see a tropical forest with a dirt path winding through the trees. I follow the path, feeling squishy texture of the dirt under my feet. Eventually, I come to a large building. I realize that it's the home of my grandparents in India. I remember where to find the back door that leads to a kitchen. From there, I move to the large reception room on the main floor. I remember that it was my favorite room as a kid because it had a swing. Sure enough, I see a wicker egg-shaped chair that is suspended from the ceiling. I sit in the chair and let it swing back and forth. A drink appears in my hand, and I wonder what it is before deciding that it should be Bombay Sapphire gin, of course. I sip it and debate what to do for my third wish. For a moment, I wonder if I should ask for the perfect kiss and an image of Benedict Cumberbatch comes to mind. But I decide that I can't have him show up in every single lucid dream!

Instead, I wish that I could speak to my grandmother. I see my Nana, my mom's mother, appear on my left hand side. She reminds me that this used to be her sewing room. I look on my right and see my dad's mother, who passed away before I was born. I really want to hear what she has to say, but she remains silent at first. I realize that I have no idea what she even sounds like because I have no memories to build on. Trying to draw her out, I ask, "What should I do with my life? I could really use some guidance." She remains silent, but this time she leans forward and kisses me on the forehead, then she gives me a hug. Then she tells me, "I want you to live. I have two beautiful granddaughters that I am so proud of and I want you to live your lives."

Having not focused on lucid dreaming for a few months, I showed just how easily I can get back into practice by hitting two more in one night. Also, it looks like it helps if I do them on my day off when I'm more relaxed and able to sleep in.

…I'm standing in the front hallway. I know this has to be a dream because I was just in bed, and I confirm this by noting that the hallway seems larger and the closet seems smaller than usual. I wonder what I'll find when I turn around, and what I see is Michael Fassbender. (Yeah, at all those Fassy pictures on Tumblr before bed really paid off!) Oddly enough, he's wearing a priest's roman collar -- must be due to that interview I read about him wanting to be a priest when he was little. The first thing that comes to mind is that I want to give him my heart. How romantic, right? I try to reach into my chest. It's like there's a gap where I can get my hand through, but then I hit a bony plate halfway in that stops me from reaching my heart. I try to think of another way to get my heart out, including the possibility of reaching down through my throat. This is pretty gory stuff, actually. Not what I was thinking about when I set out on this task. I look over Michael's shoulder and there is Benedict Cumberbatch, all dressed up in his tux like he's going to some awards show. And as I look at him, my heart just floats out of my chest and into my hands. It's a large heart-shaped ruby that seems to be glowing. I give it to Benedict and he cradles it in his hands as he promises he'll take good care of it.

At this point, there was a noise outside that woke me up. I checked my watch and realize I have another two hours before I have to be up, so I roll over and try to go back to sleep for lucid dream #2.

I'm walking through work as I listen to "We Go Together" from the Grease soundtrack playing. Wait a second -- they don't play music at work. I see that there is an extra block of aisles where there shouldn't be one and I know I am dreaming again. I look at my hands to stabilize the dream, but my hands start flipping up and down, faster and faster until they're beating like a pair of hummingbird wings. The store disappears and I see a mountain appear, the same mountain that has shown up in a few previous dreams. I start to fly up towards the top but think to myself, "No, wait, I was supposed to do something else."

Returning to the ground, I see my coworker Kathy. I've noticed that she turns up in a lot of my dreams hanging out with my friends even though we barely speak to each other at work. I walk up to her and ask why she keeps showing up in these dreams. She tells me, "Because I represent the possibility. I represent what you could be if you would just open up and try harder." I'm not quite sure I'm satisfied with her answer, but I consider it for a moment. Then I decide to try something. I step into Kathy's body to see what it's like to be her. The mountain appears again, this time completely covered with snow. I remember the bonus task of the month and find myself on skis. I've never really skied before, so it takes me a little while to figure out how to start skiing up the mountain. I settle into a sort of cross-country skiing up the steep incline. I do have to pull myself along at times, but I make it to the top, where there's a flat ledge. Kathy is waiting up at the top and tells me that I did a great job. There's a guy waiting there, too, but I can't make out his face. He stands behind me, takes a linen suit jacket and wraps it around me to keep me warm. The jacket seems more like warm weather wear, though. Since it's not enough, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me closer. I wish I could see who he is because I know who I want it to be.

And then my cell phone rings, waking me up.

First time I successfully used DEILD! One thing I use sometimes when I'm having a dry spell is to review and old list of lucid dream goals, and one of mine was to visit Venice.

I'm not quite awake after the last dream ends when I decide I want to go for it and return to the dream. Instead of the restaurant I was dreaming of, I'm now walking through very deep snow headed towards a small building with white siding. It looks like a church. Outside the door, there's a man waiting for me. He's wearing a red sweater, his dark hair is cropped and he has a round face. There's something about the way he looks at me that makes me uncomfortable. He asks, "So, how have you been taking care of yourself?" It feels intrusive. I look down at the snow and wonder why I'm even here.

I try spinning and find myself in the upstairs hallway of my house, where the paint colors seem a bit more vibrant than I remember. Unfortunately, Creepy Sweater Man seems to have followed me home. I head downstairs and he follows me -- oooh, wait, those are really cool shoes sitting on the floor by the front door. Are those mine? I pick up one of them. It's a black wedge sneaker with all these metallic accents. I trace one of the metal pieces as I listen to Creepy Sweater Man trying to get my attention. Then I cut him off to ask a question: "Who is my soul mate?"

Without any hesitation, he answers, "Gerard Butler."

"I don't even know who that is! I've never seen any of his movies," I reply. I can't even picture what the guy looks like, and I get a little upset.This is not exactly the answer I was hoping for.

Creepy Sweater shrugs. "I really don't know anything. I just took a guess," he says.

The scene shifts, and now I find myself in a partially lit room full of pottery, and I'm holding a pair of vases. At least Creepy Sweater Man is gone. I'm right near a window, and when I look outside, I see that I am in Venice. I've always wanted to come here! I can see a canal just outside this building, and I race downstairs to get closer to the water. I come out onto a balcony that is about four feet above the canal. It has the feel of being in a video game where you have to navigate three dimensional levels on a 2D screen. I see a gondola waiting on the canal and I worry about how to get there, but then a ladder appears that allows me to climb down.

Once I'm in the gondola, the gondolier sets off and starts to sing "O Sole Mio." It's a song I usually enjoy, but today I'm a little impatient. I cut him off and ask, "Who is my soul mate?"

"The gentleman waiting at the bridge, he is your soul mate. You will see him soon," says the gondolier. I'm thinking that he means the famous Bridge of Sighs. I wonder how I'm going to meet someone there because there's no access to the bridge from the canal. As if the gondolier is reading my mind, he instead takes me to the Rialto Bridge.

I don't even remember getting out of the gondola as I'm in such a hurry to get on the bridge. As I'm climbing up the bridge, I can see Benedict Cumberbatch (an actor that I am very familiar with) waiting at the top. When I get to him, I ask, "Do you know who my soul mate is?"

He looks a little surprised by my question. "Darling, it's me," he answers before leaning over to kiss me. I'm so overwhelmed that I wake up.

This was a lucid dream that was a bit unexpected. I was having a lazy Sunday morning lingering in bed. I had already turned off my sleep tracker and was trying to review my last dream of the night (involving tea with a Tibetan monk) when I managed to fall asleep and re-enter it.

I'm back in the monastery, which is basically a rectangular stone room with a doorway leading outside. The monk is pouring tea for some kind of tea ceremony. One detail seems out of place -- my dad and sister are lingering near the entrance. I don't remember them being here in the previous dream. I pull out my phone and try to read an email in order to do a reality check. The text of the email doesn't make any sense at all. The room starts to fade a bit, so I try spinning to keep the dream going. The scene shifts to my workplace. I think about my goal, which was to accomplish two of the tasks of the month in one dream since I usually wake up right after finishing just one task. I realize that there's no way I can do any of the tasks at work, so I try spinning again.

This time, I find myself on a beach at the base of a mountain cliff. There's some dim light in the sky, but it looks like the sun has just disappeared behind the horizon. I decide that I'm going to write my name in the sand. First, though, I need to find a good place to do it. The strip of beach I'm on is very narrow, and there are waves washing up from both the sea and, oddly enough, there are waves coming in the opposite direction from the mountain. I walk down the beach until I found a wider stretch. Then I proceed to write my given name in the sand. The sand itself feels almost liquidy as I spell out my name. When I'm done, the sand starts to bubble like boiling water until my name is no longer there. It's kind of funny to me since I'm not really fond of my given name anyway. Once the sand settles, I go back and write my nickname "Thena" in the sand. I accidentally walk over the "n" and "a" at the end, but I'm able to fix them. This time, the name stays put.

I want to try one more task, and I struggle to remember the details of the volcano task. But when I turn to scan the horizon for a volcano, I find Obama standing right behind me. His proportions are a little bit off. He's only an inch or two taller than me (I'm barely 5' tall while I'm sure the real Obama is over 6' tall) and his head seems slightly larger than the rest of his body, like a bobblehead. I immediately start repeating, "Oh my god, I am so sorry." This isn't who I planned on punching when I first read the task! But I have to do it because I'm not sure when I'll get another chance. So I punch Obama with my fist making impact with the right side of his face. I don't think my punch has all that much power, but Obama reacts as though I really hurt him. He even spits out a tooth that was knocked loose. He gives me this icy glare as though he's really angry. Then he turns around and walks away.

I try again to remember what was involved in the volcano task, but I'm fuzzy about the details. I remember climbing a tree in a previous lucid dream just because I could, so this time I climb straight up the side of the cliff. When I reach the top, I look around for a volcano, but there isn't one. Then I dive off the cliff into the sea. I go straight down into the water before surfacing. This time, I see a sunny island right in front of me with a single mountain peak that dominates the whole island. There's smoke rising from the top, so I know this has to be an active volcano. Something that amuses me at the time is that I can even hear Hawaiian music. I decide that I'm going climb the side of the mountain, but it bothers me that I can't remember what I'm supposed to once I reach the top. But the sides of the mountain are so smooth and so perfectly sloped that it feels a bit like climbing up a slide. I end up sliding backwards and then wake up.

Went to bed at 2:25 AM (damn novel keeping me reading until the very end!). It took me 24 minutes to fall asleep, with minor awakenings at 4:45, 5:24, and 6:30. I was really restless around 8:30 AM. That was when I decided to do a WILD while half-awake, but I didn't think it was working. In reality, once I gave up I started dreaming.

I was at work. I had my new clear water bottle with me, and at one point I realized there were bubbles in my water. On closer inspection, there were bubbles coming from the bottom of the water bottle. I couldn't see anything that could be causing the bubbles. I showed it to a coworker, who checked her water bottle and found the same thing. We set both bottles down, side by side, and watched the bubbles. I laughed and said it was probably Thor's fault, because gods do this kind of thing, right? I was willing to bet Thor or Odin would pop-up at any minute. My coworker and I went down an access corridor back to the main sales floor. Just inside the door to the sales floor, there was a family with two small kids. I asked if they needed any help since I had a feeling that they were looking for the bathroom, and the woman said that they didn't. Then I told them that this was an employees only area and they would have to leave. The woman gave me a dirty look, and I moved on without checking to see if they left the access corridor. I took a quick glance around the sales floor, then I ducked into another corridor to make my way to the bathroom. It looked nothing like our work bathrooms. The stalls were stainless steel but looked really aged, as if they hadn't been cared for in years. There was dim light coming from a window but no interior lights. I was shocked to find another woman already there. I moved past her, went into a stall, and realized it was too narrow to even turn around. Then I woke up.

At this point, I wanted to try for a DEILD. But I was acutely aware of sweat beads rolling down my nose and the sounds of a garbage truck making its way down the street. Plus I really could not bring myself to re-enter that awful bathroom. I rolled over and figured that I'd probably blown it, but I wasn't willing to give up yet. I watched some of the HI, which reminded me of daisies, then clouds, until a solid image formed that I could interact with…

And the image that came to me was a young Tom Hiddleston with his pre-Thor curly hair. I remembered the task of the month was to hug the first DC you come across, so I told him, "Okay, I'm hanging onto you until I get my chance." He looked pretty confused. And then I realized that I had to engage more of my senses than just sight since I could still hear the damn garbage truck outside, so I went to touch Tom's hair. Actually, I did more than just touch -- I started running my fingers through his curls. Now he was really confused, although I saw the hint of a smile. His hair really wasn't very soft. It was very coarse and felt a little bit like straw, which was not what I expected. But it seemed to do the trick and the dream finally solidified around us. We were in the upstairs hallway, but where there was supposed to be a light fixture, there was a miniature version of the sun. It was way to bright to look at, so I rushed downstairs and outside. The sun was much less intense out here.

I still felt the need to touch things, and the grass seemed like the next best thing. I plopped down on the ground and started rolling around in the grass. Tom stood over me and laughed. Then an animal appeared next to me, and at first I thought it was one of the dogs. Instead, it was a sheep. I got up and plunged my fingers into the sheep's wool, which was really soft. And then, for reasons I couldn't understand, I ended up climbing onto the back of the sheep and riding it like a horse while Tom led the sheep down to the street. Then I directed him to take us to the local park. There was a field we had to cross to get to the park, and the grass kept getting higher and higher until it was brushing my knees. I looked up and saw mountains in the distance behind the houses. "Guess we're not in my neighborhood anymore," I said to Tom and the sheep. I trailed my fingers in the tall grass until I hit something gooey. It was like a little hill of -- cream cheese? Okay, that's weird. Fortunately, I see a nearby stream. I bend down and plunge my fingers into the water to clean them off. The stream becomes more of a fast-moving river with a steep bank, and Tom has to hang onto my feet to make sure I don't get carried away by the rushing water.

We find a bench and sit down. I can feel the hard bench underneath me and realize that I'm pretty much done waiting for this dream to feel real. I tell Tom about how much he means to me, how I started with "The Avengers" and then went back to watch all his movies, then all of the interviews he's done, and how I really appreciate him. He seemed pretty flattered. Then I asked if I could give him a hug and embrace him. At first, he seemed a little stiff, but then I felt his arms close around me. He grabbed my butt and pulled me closer while I rubbed his back.

And then someone rang the doorbell, the dogs started barking and there was no way I could block all of that out to stay in the dream.

So I keep having dreams about my evening and weekends job, which has been a little frustrating because I don't really like spending my waking hours there! Tonight, I woke up from another dream about work around 6 AM and attempted a WBTB, where I had this WILD.

I was back in the same scene where the previous dream left off, but at least this time I knew it was a dream. I looked around, seeing the whole store around me and letting the images solidify. Now, I had to have a little fun with it! To my left, I could see a manager and a group of coworkers gathering for a short meeting. I went over to join them, glancing down quickly to make sure that I was in my work uniform. Remembering the task of the month, I decided to rip it off. I didn't even get that far as my clothes simply disappeared. There was no discernible reaction from my dream coworkers. I started to walk away to see if I could find someone else who might react. I glanced down again and realized that I was now wearing a very skimpy blue bikini. Oddly enough, it seemed to fit me very well -- that really should not work on my body type. I started removing the bikini top, but that's when one of the the dogs jumped on the bed and woke me up.

Failed a WILD attempt today, probably due to lack of focus. But after getting up to move my car, I realized I was still pretty sleepy. I went to lie down for a while and ended up having a DILD instead. However, the lack of focus meant that I forgot about my dream goals and simply went along with the plot.

I walked through a store, trying on shoes. Narrowing my choices down to two pairs of heels, I selected the red pair with the higher heel. I made sure that I had two matching shoes before heading to make my purchase.

I moved onto a different shopping center that had a large outdoor area. After quite a long walk through an outdoor courtyard, I reached the interior. I'm walking down a flight of stairs when I realize that my shoes don't match. The left shoes is the style I picked out, but the right shoe is the style I rejected. I worry about how I'm going to fix this. The best option seems to be to rush back to the other store and exchange one of the shoes. But I don't want them to not take a return because the shoe looks worn. I take off the right shoe, put on a thick sock, and walk off wearing one high-heeled shoe and one sock.

Once I get outside, there's a large crowd that is blocking the exit from the courtyard. I can't seem to get through, but I explain my problem and someone offers to help me. She has a large camper in the parking lot and takes me there. She brings out a chest of drawers from the camper and tells me I can swap my mismatched shoes for a matching pair. I open the first drawer and recognize my own clothes. If these are my clothes, then I must be dreaming. If I'm dreaming, then I'm confident that when I open the next drawer, I'll find my matching shoe. Once I have the shoes I want, I leave with the woman who helped me. She takes me to an apartment in a warm, sunny city. I think it's Miami. I see something odd reflected in a mirror on the closet door. Turning around, I see that there's a small window. Outside the window, I can see large whales swimming down a narrow canal. They don't look like any whales I've ever seen before -- very large with a flat head that doesn't look like it makes them very aerodynamic in the water. Instead of swimming, they move forward by leaping through the air.

I turn away from the window. Near the entrance of the apartment, there is a group of people gathered around a woman. She is a victim of domestic violence and they are trying to clean up her injuries. I notice she has a Nintendo DS in her hand and realize that I have to reset her current game to help her. But when I reach for the console, the others yell at me. They say that I can offer my advice, but I shouldn't reset the game for her. It has to be her choice.

Woke up at 6AM after nearly 7 hours of sleep and decided to attempt a WILD. I kept falling in and out of it, but I remained still and tried to follow where the images took me until it stabilized.

The image faded and then became solid and clear. I was now watching Severus Snape drinking from a tea cup. The room seemed to be bathed in a warm glow of light coming from behind Snape. It's not what I expected from the dungeons. The liquid in the cup looked much too creamy to be tea. It looked like a thick creamy soup with two red spots floating on the surface. I'm disappointed that he's not drinking a potion.

But I take a step back and see that at the other end of the table, there is a small rack holding some vials of liquid. The first one has a liquid that reminds me of the color of figs. It doesn't look particularly interesting. But the second is light orange in color. It fizzes and seems to emit light. Somehow, I am given that it contains Higgs Bosen particles. I take off the stopper and drink the whole thing. I start to feel a tingling sensation all over my body. Then it starts to feel like my muscles are starting to spasm.

Snape shouts, "You foolish girl! What have you done?" He forces me to drink the last potion in the rack. It's a pale robin's egg blue and seems to lightly shimmer. At first, I don't think it does anything. Then I feel like I am falling backwards. I fall through the floor and see myself passing through clouds. I stretch, and suddenly I have wings. I use them to catch an updraft and do a loop. When I reach the top of the loop, I realize that the transformation is complete — I am now a Pegasus, a winged horse. I fly through the clouds for a while, focusing on the way the air feels against my feathers. I seem to be white or light gray in color, though my wings have spots of color.

The clouds break at one point and I find myself flying over the Jefferson memorial on a very sunny day. I try to decide if I should land somewhere, but then I am swallowed up in clouds again.

Then Snape is back, and he's riding on my back. "Having fun?" he asks. I laugh. "Bet you've never flown like this before!" I tell him. He sneers and says, "I don't need a horse to fly." He leaps off, disappears into a flash of black ribbons of light, and is gone.

I try to follow him, but I find myself landing in the aisle of a warehouse store. The floors are made of cement and I focus on the clop clop sound of my hooves. Eventually I see a shape at the end of the aisle. As it comes closer, I see that it is an older woman wearing a yellow sweater. She seems pretty confused to see a winged horse in the warehouse store. After a moment of staring, she leads me to the end of the aisle. On a shelf, there is a black lacquer box. I have a strong mental image of using my hands to put carrots in the box. The woman gives me one of the carrots.

Snape reappears and leads me to the exit. The store is closed and there are big metal gates that have been lowered to block the doors. I simply relax and walk through them. There's a large parking lot outside, and I try to see if I'll have enough room to do a running take-off. Snape seems to have other ideas, though. He pulls one more vial out of his robes. This one has a potion that looks like mother-of-pearl. He gives it to me and I drink the whole thing. Suddenly, I am melting. I look up at Snape as I transform into a puddle of liquid on the floor. He is laughing the whole time.

Briefly became lucid during a much-needed nap, but I ended up waking immediately. In hindsight, maybe I should have had lunch before taking my nap, seeing how hungry I was in the dream!

I'm in a room, watching a cabinet member talking to reporters. There's something important I need to ask her, so I hang around and try to look busy by looking at a map. When she's done, she comes over to me and asks, "Was there something that you needed?" For the life of me, I cannot remember the question I needed to ask her.

I head out of the room and down a hallway. There's a stand selling food that looks really good, but there's a long line. I'm salivating as I wait. There's a case with crab legs, and I can't wait to have one. While I'm waiting, I spot Rachel, a friend from college. We talk about making plans for dinner so I can meet her husband and she can meet my boyfriend. She suggests place near Yorktown. For some reason, the name makes me giggle. She asks if it's because my boyfriend is from Yorktown, Virginia. I say yes, but something in the back of my mind keeps nagging me, reminding me that it's not true. I can't seem to remember where my boyfriend is from.

I finally get to the head of the line. But it looks like I'm too late. There's no more crab legs left in the case, but they have raw tilapia. I pick out a filet, but the cashier tells me how expensive it is and asks if I can afford it. I hesitate, not really knowing how much money I have on hand. The cashier tells me that he has a solution to make it affordable. Then he rips off a ridge of fat, puts it on a skewer, and tells me how I'm getting such a "bargain" on this special cut. I think I've lost my taste for seafood, so I move onto another case. There's something that looks like meatloaf muffins, but I pick out something else. I take my food and the next thing I know, I'm at home. I want to sit in front of the TV and eat, but the couch is missing. I see that it's moved off to the side, so I go to drag it into the correct spot. It's much lighter than I expected. Apparently, it's because my couch has become an armchair, and it's upholstered in the same fabric as the couch I threw away years ago. Again, something about the situation is nagging me. I sit down and dig into my take-out container, which has cauliflower and potatoes cooked in some kind of spices and masala. I'm biting into a piece of cauliflower when I realize this is the same meal I had last week. It startles me enough that I immediately wake up.

This one's actually from yesterday. Let's hope it works.

Rough night to begin with, but it ended well after all. I got up at 5 AM to do a WBTB, except I couldn't get back to sleep. After trying for a while, I got up again at 7 AM. I got something to eat, watched TV for a while, and got some business out of the way. When I started feeling drowsy, I went back to bed.

I'm sitting on my sister's bed as she talks. She's complaining about the landline not working because the company hooking up the phones has no idea what they're doing, so we have to stick around until they send someone to fix it. I randomly start telling her about the Sodastream I bought a while back. She asks if it adds sugar to drinks. I try explaining that it depends on the drink mix and they make sugar-free ones, but she repeats her question about sugar as if she doesn't hear me. I lay down on her bed and tune her out as I start doze off.

Then I feel skin brushing against mine. I opened my eyes to see that I'm naked under the sheets, and that there's someone else in bed with me. At first, it looks like my long-term boyfriend, though he seems quite a bit pudgier than usual. Oh, and he's naked, too. I scoot a little closer, but then it hits me that my sister's bedroom is really weird place for the two of us to get it on. I start thinking back to the weird conversation with my sister and realize that this has to be a dream.

I sit up, but now I'm in my parents' bed. Worse, my dad is entering the room and screaming about catching me with my boyfriend, who quickly vanishes. And I'm still naked! This seems like it's quickly turning into a nightmare, but at least I maintain lucidity instead of panicking. I remember the task of the month and spot the small mirrored detailing on the headboard. I try to push through one of the tiny mirrors and get rejected -- not that I could put more than a finger through it anyway.

I jump out of bed and run to the nearest place I can hide, which turns out to be Dad's closet. He follows me and continues to yell. I need to get out of this situation. Opposite the closet entrance is bathroom vanity with a sink. Above the sink, there's a mirror. I'm still a little cautious after my last experience with a mirror, so I want to test it. I grab a jar off the counter and throw it. I'm expecting the mirror to shatter, but instead, the jar bounces off like a rubber ball hitting concrete. I take a running leap and dive headfirst into the mirror.

Passing through the mirror is much easier than I expected. I find myself falling through blackness at first, but then there's a lot of light. I land in the waters just off the beach of a tropical island. It looks so beautiful, like it came out of a picture postcard. My sweetie appears next to me, floating on an inflatable raft with his sunglasses on and a tropical drink in his hand. He smiles at me and says that he's been waiting for me, but he knew he wouldn't have to wait long. He had faith that I'd be able to do it.

Because I hadn't been able to sleep the night before, I took 3 mg of melatonin before going to bed. Woke up at 6:15, ran to the bathroom, and then put on a sleep mask to block out the light while performing MILD. And wow, was I successful this time!

I had to run down to the basement to grab something. When I turn on the lights, I notice that all the boxes and assorted junk that had been in the basement are gone. Maybe Dad moved them? It doesn't make sense, though, because there was a lot more stuff than he would be able to move without help. I head upstairs to see that Carrie has arrived. It feels weird to see her come over by herself like she did when she was single. Lately, every time I see her, she's got her husband and kids in tow. But things start adding up. I take another look at the basement and this time I notice that the floors are tile when they should have carpet. Puzzled, I go to the front window and look outside. It's dark, but I can see that multiple cars parked on the driveway. I can remember parking my car on the street last night because the driveway was seal-coated last night.

This has to be a dream, then. I head outside and shout, "Hey, where is my Sorting Hat?" I probably would have tried summoning it, except I remembered that I hadn't gotten a wand yet. I notice a few carnival booths set up on the corner with the Circus Circus logo in bright lights. Finally, a hat appears on top of one of the cars in the driveway. It's a striped paper carnival hat, though, and definitely not a Sorting Hat. I put it on, but it doesn't do anything. I guess I'll just have to head to Hogwarts in the morning. (Looks like I forgot that I can control the dream.) I go around the corner and find an area surrounded by hay bales and bordered by a fence. It seems like as good a place as any to spend the night. Cameron walks right through the fence to join me. He gives me a look and suggests that this is like one of those times when we used to make out in the hay loft of his dad's barn. I'm so distracted by him that of course I forget my plan to go to Hogwarts.

We must have fallen asleep, but when I wake up, I'm indoors looking at someone's custom closet installation. The hangers are all out of order, something that tends to irritate me. I quickly take the hangers and organize them so the closet looks much neater. The owner of the closet (not to mention the house) appears and thanks me. She's an older women dressed in a red pantsuit. The closet seems more like a long hallway instead of a separate room, and it has windows. I notice outside of one window that there's a system of water-lined ramps and conveyors. I ask about them, and the homeowner explains that before she bought the property to convert into a home, it had been a race track. Did they race greyhounds? "Oh, no! They used to race turtles," she explains. I'm horrified at the thought of the poor turtles. It doesn't still work, does it? The homeowner smiles and winks at me. She flips a switch and the conveyors start moving, but instead of turtles, thousands of rubber ducks start floating down the ramps. I'm absolutely thrilled by the sight, and the homeowner seems pleased to see me so amused. I start to wonder if she might be interested in me. (Poor Cameron! I seem to have forgotten all about him.)

The woman starts laying out an elaborate plan to get revenge on the people who have crossed her. I don't get it, but I want to help. I head outside to see a group of men taking the roof off the house next door. It has something to do with her plan. I realize that I should do something to secure her house. Heading back inside, I notice that there are four cars parked in a garage built to hold just two. They all seem to fit without a problem, though there's a white sedan parked in a way that the back bumper would block the garage door from coming down. There was plenty of room for the sedan to pull forward another two feet. That's my plan, at least, but instead I hit the button to lower the garage door. As expected, it hits the bumper of the sedan and reverses direction. I hit the button again. This time, the door curves outward as it reaches the sedan to close around it. I'm pleased that I've been able to secure the garage, but I quickly realized that the garage door is made of glass. There's a group of kids that stop outside. One of them shouts, "Hey, that's Iron Man's car!" They start banging on the window. I fly into a rage and head out to confront them. I'm so angry that I don't pay attention to the fact that it's snowing in May. Someone, maybe the woman from earlier, pulls me back. She shuffles me a few steps away into a Cracker Barrel store. I see Ron and Hermione sitting and making goo goo eyes at each other. I roll my eyes at them, but it reminds me that I was interested in someone. I start thinking back over the last few moments, realize that I'm dreaming, but wake up.

I was awake in bed, going over a dream from earlier in the night when I must have dozed off.

I'm in an airport, I think. It's a large indoor space with an escalator leading to another level. There was a moment of confusion because I remembered being in bed and I can still hear someone moving around in the room next to mine. I realized that I must have fallen asleep while still aware, something I usually have trouble with. My first thought was that I'm going to oversleep and I should get up now, but then I thought, "Why not enjoy this for a little bit? I want ice cream since I wasn't able to have some yesterday!"

I rub my hands together, then step onto the escalator and grip the handrail since stabilizing a lucid dream always gives me trouble. On the upper level, I can see the outline of storefronts to my left. One of them has to be an ice cream store, I think. I head in that direction, only to find a concrete barrier blocking access to the storefronts. Ahead of me is a door. I step through it, thinking that it will get me to the drop-off area for the airport. I see a street, but the sun is blinding me. The street fades and I find myself on my patio. There's a table in front of me and a loaf of rye bread. I take the package and reach in, pulling out a slice of bread. This doesn't seem to appetizing on the surface, but I know that it could taste differently in a dream. I bite into the bread and find it tastes like rich chocolate ice cream! Having achieved my goal, I wake up.