Dreamlog

Note: I've stumbled upon some info suggesting that the WBTB technique, as described here, might not be the most scientifically solid approach to lucid dreaming. So going forward, I'm thinking of using Stephen Laberge's suggestion of morning naps. I'll finish up the current test sequence as planned and tweak things for the next one.

Current Test <6hr/20m/None>
Test Process:
3 nights in a row: Re-establish sleep rhythm. Go to bed at 11PM and wake at 7AM.
2 nights in a row: WBTB. Go to bed at 11PM. Wake at 5AM (6hrs). No supplements. Stay awake for 20m. Return to bed.
Repeat until four WBTBs are attempted.

Test Data:
#1: Weak Lucid (The Vanishing Plant, Night of Friday 10/6/23) <-- note that sleep schedule was not 11PM/5AM WBTB at this point, but counting it because 6hr/20m was still used.
#2: Attempted WBTB, No Recall (Night of Thursday 10/26/23) <-- isn't reflected in DJ because I had zero recall before or after WBTB.
#3: Attempted WBTB, No Recall (Night of Friday 10/27/23)
#4: TBD.

Test Results:
It's starting to look like 20m without Galantamine is not enough time awake to encourage lucidity for me. I will continue and get 4th data point (maybe a 5th to account for #1's weirdness), but already planning to try 30m plus Galantamine for the next test set, and then 30m without Galantamine after that.

Previous Configurations & Results
<6hr/10m/8mg (Galantamine)>
#1: Moderate lucid (Seeking The Elusive Fantasy Forest™, Night of Friday 9/8/23)
#2: Weak lucid (False Awakening and Fade, Night of Saturday 9/9/23)
#3: Weak lucid (False Awakening, Night of Wednesday 9/13/23)
#4: Moderate lucid (Silverlight Way, Night of Thursday 9/14/23)
It's 50/50. Some great lucids here, but still not the level I'm looking for.

Went to bed around 12:30AM.

Pre-WBTB

Shitty Future Cars:
It's night and I'm riding in a van. The streets are very narrow, similar to a previous dream with LM I had a few months ago.
The car hits a bump, and a futuristic AI voice says "that will be $7 to repair, and $70 for your injury."
I reflect about how shitty the future of cars is going to be.
...
I'm now at work, telling my coworkers about this event, and how shitty the future of cars is going to be.
They agree with me, and we decide that we should just drive old-ass cars forever.
But then one of them tells me that their Mom just died from a similar bump on the road.
It was one of those awkward moments, because we were just joking about such things.
But looking back, it didn't make sense because that same person was just laughing about it.

Woke for WBTB at 6:30AM.

150 words for the night.

WBTB
I stayed up for about 20 minutes, went for a walk, and watched a meditation video about a fantasy forest. Then I returned to bed.

Post-WBTB
No recall.

Went to bed at ???

Boomer Party:
I'm in CM's condo from a few years back.
I'm getting ready to go to a party but there is some issue with my clothes in my bag.
There is a guy at one point who is going to perform fellatio on me. Which isn't my preference.
But he wants to use some smartphone app. I take issue with the app.
I tell him that maybe I'm 'a boomer' for this, but I don't trust any of them such as TikTok, Facebook, etc.
Looking back, it is strange that I didn't take issue with the proposed activity, but I did take issue with using an app.
There wasn't an obvious indication that he was going to record with said app, just that he was going to use one, so it wasn't a privacy thing.

Supportive Snow:
I'm riding in a van with KD's mom. We're going up an incline on a snowy mountain road.
We're on the phone with my uncle J.
We see a jeep going down the next section of mountain. There road there is unfinished and heading downward.
The jeep is tumbling and flipping over multiple times.
I'm telling my uncle that the situation isn't looking good for us, but I'm not concerned about it.
We make it up to the turn where the jeep was, and mentally I'm now expecting to flip and have problems.
But when we go down, the snow cushions our descent. It bunches up and prevents the car from accelerating.

Woke up at ???

250 words for the night.

Went to bed at 11:00PM.

Losing Again
I'm in a large hall with tables. Similar to a banquet.
It reminds me of the cafeteria where we got told we didn't make finals in highschool marching band nationals.
Don't know what the competition in this dream is, though.
I'm with my team. There is a girl I don't recognize. We are younger than the other team.
We are watching the announcement on a TV.
My team is represented on the left and the other on the right.
It gets announced that we have lost the competition.

Woke up at 6:45AM, feeling groggy.

Went to bed at 11:00PM.

Fragment
There is a beach on a starry night. Galaxies are visible in the vast darkness of space.
The beach itself reminds me of GP's bachelor party from a few years back.
Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong are battling each other on the beach.

Woke up at 6:45AM.

Went to bed at ???

Bad Pheromones
I'm in a school/college situation. It may have been mixed with my work cafeteria. ER from work a few years back is there.
I default to hiding my interest in her (as I did in waking reality), thinking that there is not a high likelihood of that interest being returned by her.
There is a vague situation where I smell bad (lack of deodorant, dirty clothes etc).
This makes the situation all the more tense.

Recorded at ???

I woke up from my alarm and started to get ready for work. I showered, dressed etc. But then I decided to call in for the day (and went bad to bed) because I felt crappy. So, that technically makes this a mid-morning WBTB, but I wasn't going for any kind of timing goal here.

Went back to bed around 8AM.

Getting Lost at Costco
I'm at Costco with my girlfriend.
I do a nose RC out of habit and become lucid. I also do a hands RC, and I have baby-hands branching off my fingers. Nice.
I'm thinking that this is a great opportunity to try baked goods and see what they taste like in a dream.
Ape-brain kicks in at this point though, and activities ensue with my girlfriend.
She comments that since this is a dream, it doesn't matter that we are in public.
After that, I try to find the bakery section but lose my lucidity before reaching it.

Summoning Snow
I'm at home and did a nose-RC in the hallway, becoming lucid.
My brother is there. He had a nerf gun, but I mostly ignored him.
I did stabilization (narrating, rubbing hands/feet). I had the presence of mind to try to stand still, observe the dream environment, and ground myself.
The dream started to fade, but I managed to hold on. The same dream reformed, and I repeated my reality checks + stabilization. I felt pretty happy about this.
I reflect that maybe past dreams 'fading' were just my brain attempting to wrestle lucidity from me and succeeding. But this time I beat it.
I went out to the living room area, it's a long room instead. I wanted to go somewhere more interesting.
I remember one method for traversal is association/reframing, and also that my previous attempts at portals have been lackluster.
I think about where I would like to go and decide on a snowy place. I wonder what association might help my brain generate such a place.
I decide to imagine an ice pick and search around the living room for one, but no luck. I head outside.
There is a bit of snow on the ground, sort of like when snow that had been there previously has mostly melted. I find the ice pick on the ground in the yard.
I vaguely recall seeing my brother outside too, but then there was an older woman there. Not someone I recognized now or then.
The woman tries to advise me on lucid dream ability. She tells me that I have done well, but need to move on now.
I take the advice to mean my summoning of the ice pick went well, but I should try something new.
Where there is normally brick wall in my yard, there is a wooden fence. There is a beautiful New Zealand-esque grassy field landscape beyond the fence.
I jump over the fence and fly into the distance.

Alternate Silverlight
I am in a futuristic city with silver skyscrapers, lucid, and flying around.
I wonder whether this place is another interpretation of Silverlight (a fantasy forest I've been trying to get to).
I'm in a crowd with some DCs. The DCs know I am there, lucid, and dangerous to them. They have been warned by something.
I didn't do anything with these people and just flew off again, enjoying the dreamscape. This environment is much more interesting than my typical lucid dream fare.

Recorded around 10AM.

This was another surprise. My sleep schedule has been terrible. I hope these spontaneous lucids lately mean that my work with dreamsigns and awareness is paying off!

Went to bed around 2AM.

Dancing with Cars
I'm outside my childhood home. The yard looks like a mixture of heavy green and blue hues.
I perform a nose RC and realize that I'm dreaming.
My first thought is to try and stabilize, so I start rubbing the tree in the front yard. It's kinda wet, and I rub my feet on it too.
The dream is very vibrant, with the aforementioned green and blue hues. I wonder to myself if this is what people mean by 'dreamlike'.
I'm rubbing my hands and the tree trying to stabilize but the dream is fading. I started having a mental dialogue.
Sure, this is fading, but even if we have to WILD back in, we should be able to save this attempt.
I held on to the tree trunk, not wanting the dream to end.
To my delight, the dream fades back in. My tactile sense comes back first, holding the tree, and then my vision.
I walk away from the tree and I'm still rubbing my hands together. I narrate outloud what I'm doing as I move.
"I'm dreaming, rubbing my hands, and walking."
"This is a dream."
"I'm dreaming, rubbing my hands, and walking."
"This is a dream."
I approach our next door neighbor's garage door and notice that instead of an actual garage door, there is a set of regular doors in a line.
Perfect. I can use that to go somewhere new. However I'm not lucid enough to think about going to Silverlight Way (fantasy forest goal), and I decide that I want to go to Australia.
Before attempting to open the door, I visualize a green/yellow hued, wild jungle. I really focus on trying to hear the bugs, animals, branches and all that. This aligns with Australia apparently.
I say "Jungle!" and open the door.
And as is tradition at this point, I see a boring neighborhood on the other side of the door.
I shut the door, try again. Fail. This repeats a few times.
On the final try, I get a slightly different looking area. The architecture of the buildings looks a bit more interesting and there is a highway structure with cars high up.
I decide that is a more fitting setting for a lucid dream, so I go through the door.
I emerge into a street, and out in front of me is a set of tall buildings and the highway up in the sky. It's definitely night-time here.
I wander around a bit, enjoying the dream scene and sense of freedom.
...
I'm in a plane-hanger, talking to a tall man that may have been a coworker from long ago. The plane hanger is in the same environment as before, but I lost lucidity at some point.
He's telling me about an acne problem a current coworker, JG, has.
...
I'm wandering and realize that I haven't flown yet, and my lucidity comes back.
I take off towards the tall highway structure.
Music starts to play. It's melancholy, upbeat, but also happy. I can still hear it and I'm wondering if the melody exists already in the real world. It reminds me of Foals a little bit. There was a repeating three note rhythm, and the final lyric in the pattern was 'stop' or 'shop'.
I land on the raised highway structure. I think to myself that lately I haven't really demonstrated a high-level of dream control. I remembered some people on DV that talked about facing that DCs aren't real, and going through with dangerous situations.
I look out to the oncoming traffic and decide that I'm going to interrupt it. I hover in midair on the highway, just a foot or so above the ground.
The first car comes by, and it grazes me on my right side. As it approached it looked like it was moving around 75mph, but when it was close to me, it was more like 30mph. I slide my hand across it as it goes by.
The music from earlier is still playing. The next car approaches, and I do a 'wax-on, wax-off' motion on my right side. The car wildly flips in the air and flies off into the distance. I'm flipping cars with telekinesis in rhythm with the music.
It's total carnage, and I'm just like, vibin' with the music. But it turns out the DCs don't like to be tossed into oblivion, and cars start to park and queue up to block the road. They are getting out of their cars and approaching me. Chasing me.
The music is still playing, so it doesn't feel like a nightmare. More like a music video. I'm flying, running, and jumping to escape them.
Eventually I reach a garage-type area. BD from highschool is there, and he is trying to handcuff me with a bunch of different types of cuffs, but none of them are working.
One of them though, works, and bands my hands together. It's made from a silicon-material, similar to my smartwatch band.
...
There's a spinoff conversation about Apple TV remotes being smooth, and JG from earlier in the dream is showing off that she has a special edition one.
I've lost lucidity at this point.

Recorded at 7:25AM.

Went to bed around 3AM.

Home Assembly
I'm at the bottom of a set of stairs. The stairs look 2D or paper-like.
The house we are in doesn't look like somewhere I readily recognize, but it might have been similar to M and J's house from far back in my childhood.
I'm with my girlfriend's family once again. They notice I am trying to climb the stairs, but having difficulty due to not being able to put weight on my shoulder.
This is reproduced accurately. I actually have recently had surgery, and this makes some sense.
One of the uncles uses a lever, and the stairs start to move from the bottom up, carrying me to the top.
...
Later I'm in the kitchen of my Grandma P's current home. I'm with my T friend group.
We are stationed around the kitchen counter island, and we are playing a competition or game.
We are trying to assemble something quickly. Our friend J who moved away was also part of the game, but remotely. He finishes first, winning the game.

Woke up around 2PM.

This one caught me off guard. I've failed to go to bed at my planned times, so I didn't attempt a WBTB. But regardless, my brain decided to give me a lucid dream

Went to bed around 3AM.

Lucid Fruit
I'm in the backseat of an SUV/minivan looking out the window.
I get a vague sense that the world looks too bright so I do a nose RC.
I can't believe it, but I'm dreaming!
I look around and admire the world. It's a bright sunny day.
I'm with a family. It might have been my girlfriend's but I didn't look closely.
The car parks at a grocery store parking lot.
I decide to roll withe flow of the dream and walk with the group to the entrance of the store.
When we get in, I see a man stocking the fruit near the front of the store.
I decide that I should stabilize and I start rubbing my hands.
I try to remember if I have any specific goals in mind, but there is what feels like a block on my memory.
I ask the man how I can better stabilize the dream. He tells me to touch all the fruits and feel the surfaces.
I start to do this, but the dream fades.

Woke up around 12:30PM.

Went to bed around 1AM.

Hogwarts Chill
I'm at Hogwarts near the entranceway.
There is a reception desk set up that I am approaching.
I see Draco Malfoy nearby. I notice that I am very cold.
I wake up and realize I'm cold because the blanket is off me and the fan in blowing directly on me.
Recalled around 7AM.

Woke up around 8AM.

Went to bed around 12:00AM.

Another Reunion
I'm with my friend R from highschool marching band.
We are in an big gym, reminiscent of the one we used to sleep in during travel for competitions.
I recall looking around and thinking about how real everything looks.
R's jeans and the glossy wood floor are high in detail.
But I don't reality check, despite being somewhat aware that this is an illusion.
I ask R is he is going to the reunion. He says yes.
We make our way down a hall, and end up in the S building auditorium.
There is a screen on the stage, showing us going onto the stage as Freshmen.
When I go to sit down there is a handicap section.
I think about how as of recently I don't need that anymore (not exactly true, still in recovery).

Obstacles
I'm with my brother running away from something.
It's night-time and we are on the sidewalk behind our childhood home.
I'm ahead and I reach the entrance first.
There is a brick section over the window where we need to get to.
I start to pull at the bricks and I'm making an opening.
I try to make it through but I can't fit. I get back at it and try to open it more.
But not fast enough. My brother catches up and starts berating me for not getting the path open.
I'm getting upset and scared.
More bricks reappear.

Woke up around 9:30AM.

Went to bed around 1AM.

Fragment
I'm at the airport.
My Grandma P, Uncle J, and brother are there to pick me up.
I'm angry with them about something and I storm away with my bag, outside, and across the street.

Zones
I'm at a football game at my highschool field.
It's nighttime, under the lights.
A cheerleader girl bumps a microphone boom on the sideline and apologizes.
Initially I'm on some bleachers on the endzone side of the field.
DTP.
There's a football game on a screen, and I see the cheerleader bump the boom and apologize exactly the same way.
I'm in a bar that looks like a Pizza Hut with my girlfriend and my friend J.
J is having a rough time from too much weed.
The bartender looks like Ryan Reynolds and he is making us a series of strong looking drinks.
The bartender also lays out some joints and calls them 'enchiladas'.
I realize that I need to be able to drive home so I take it easy.
There's another guy here (seems to know the bartender), and I'm concerned that if I get sick, he will try to get with my girlfriend.
All recorded on waking around 8:30AM.

Went to bed around 1AM.

Fragment
I'm in a movie theater. Reminds me of IMAX. There is a group of people with me.

Quest for Buried Treasure
I'm on a quest. It feels like a video-game.
There is a 2d sidescroller-styled 3d environment. Similar to Sonic Colors (which I've been watching gameplay of recently).
It is a beach-like place, with beaches on the left and right sides, and ocean beyond. Sunny, of course.
The land proceeds forward and I'm searching for buried treasure.
I'm leading a group, and I've found the treasure before so they trust me to find it again.
We find other treasures along the way, including equipable pink gear.
Recorded on waking around 12PM.

Previous Results
<6hr/10m/8mg (Galantamine)>
#1: Moderate lucid (Seeking The Elusive Fantasy Forest™, Night of Friday 9/8/23)
#2: Weak lucid (False Awakening and Fade, Night of Saturday 9/9/23)
#3: Weak lucid (False Awakening, Night of Wednesday 9/13/23)
#4: Moderate lucid (Silverlight Way, Night of Thursday 9/14/23)

Summary
It's 50/50. Some great lucids here, but still not the level I'm looking for. Going to tweak a couple things and run a new test.

New Test
<6hr/20m/None>
3 nights in a row: Re-establish sleep rhythm. Go to bed at 11PM and wake at 7AM.
2 nights in a row: WBTB. Go to bed at 11PM. Wake at 5AM (6hrs). No supplements. Stay awake for 20m. Return to bed.
Repeat until four WBTBs are attempted.

Went to bed around 1AM.

Pre-WBTB

Fragment
Brief impression of a Punch-Out-like video game.

WBTB
Ratio: 6hr/20m
Supplements: None.
Sleep Cycle: Semi-stable.
I got up and walked outside of for a bit, doing plenty of reality checks. I try to make the entire time outside a reality check.
I also review my dreamsign list, trying to commit the top 5 to memory.

Post-WBTB

The Vanishing Plant
I'm walking around in my living room and I do a nose RC out of habit.
To my surprise it fails and I become lucid.
I remember that narration is supposed to help stabilization so I start talking out loud.
"I'm rubbing my hands, I'm rubbing my feet, I'm walking."
I think about what I should do next and consider taking a bite out of the kitchen table, but then decide against.
It wasn't all that exciting last time I did that.
I recall that my goal was to try and observe my dreamworld, to gain an understanding and hopefully a feel for the 'dreamlike'.
I leave through the front door and go outside.
It looks near identical to reality, sunny summer day, except there is a plant nearby that is missing the bottom.
Like in a video game where a texture is missing.
I note that daytime/sunny is one of the top dream signs, and wonder if there are more 'missing textures'.
I also connect this missing texture idea to my top dreamsign which is 'video-games or inspired by a video game'.
"I'm walking around, I'm observing the dreamworld, I'm rubbing my hands," I say outloud, attempting to stabilize again.
I decide that I want to go somewhere more interesting, so I close my eyes and attempt to transform the scene into something else.
I think vaguely about changing the season into fall or winter.
I open my eyes with hope, but the scene only changes slightly. Objects have changed position, but no theme change.
I recall flying through the neighborhood some more, but my lucidity fades.
...
Later I'm in somebody else's house, lucid and looking around.
There is a woman I don't recognize, vaguely Hispanic looking.
"Is there a portal around here?" I ask.
She replies in the negative.
Despite this, I open a closet nearby and try to imagine a green swirly portal inside.
Nope, just closet.
...
I'm at a sleepover at work with my coworker JM.
Apparently we have to sleep there because there is a test we are running.
We have sleeping bags setup on the production floor.
I feel as sense of awkwardness because there are people around us working and I wonder if I should be doing the same.
Recorded on waking at 9:15AM.

Notes
I'm going to start a series of 4 tests for the 6hr/20m/none configuration with this being #1.
Initial impression is my control and dream length were lesser compared to 6hr/10m/8mgGal (Galantamine). This could be unrelated to the configs, and due to the currently only semi-stable sleep cycle.
I want to test whether galantamine is needed for more vivid dreams, and also if my 10m WBTB wake time is limiting my lucid dream experience.
I know that changing multiple variables at once isn't the best science (but I intend to test more configurations later).
General guidance for WBTB seems to recommend much longer than 10m, so I perceive a likely improvement by making it longer, hence earlier testing of this configuration.