false awakening

Fragment:
I'm hosting a party with my girlfriend's family. There is water saturating the carpet and I'm concerned that something is wrong.

Odd Pressure:
I hear my alarm go off and I reset it to snooze for 20 more minutes.
I wake up again and I notice that there is something wet on the floor. I go back to sleep again.
My alarm goes off again and this time I get up.
I go through my normal routine, and start brushing my teeth.
I feel an odd pressure on my left side. I realize that it is actually my girlfriend's body up against me on the bed.
I realize that I'm dreaming, and I don't feel the pressure anymore.
I quickly grab some toothpaste and swallow it, realizing that I could get competition points for that.
The taste is close to how it normally should be, but somehow drier. Blueberry-ish flavor.
The dream fades quickly, but I'm satisfied that I managed to do something before then.

Tot Gym:
I'm at the gym with some people from my 'Tots' friend group. H is there and also M.
The gym resembles the Crunch Fitness I visited some weeks ago.
There is a high-tech looking machine that requires a top-level membership to operate.
I'm worried that my friends are going to be lifting heavier than me.

Observation:
I get the sense that there are aliens who have the ability to shape perception such that they do not alert humankind.
I false-awaken on the couch and my girlfriend is observing me strangely, and I suspect that she is actually one of these aliens.
This scares me greatly. I wake up for real (still on the couch) and she is looking at me the same way.

User Error:
I'm getting ready for work and my smartphone's alarm is going off.
I turn it off, but it doesn't stop making sound. I get very frustrated.
My girlfriend tells me it must be user error.
The phone is a Samsung Galaxy, which isn't the one I have in waking life.

Fragment:
Something about Spongebob Squarepants.

Party Memories:
I'm at a wedding party, but I don't know whose it is.
The party is being held at an outdoor venue, and it looks like a mixture of IM's (from the Tots) and MM's (from highschool) backyards.
It's night-time, and there is a hot tub on my right. I see BY from highschool in a full suit, and wonder if he got the memo that this was supposed to be casual.
There is a sliding door on the left, and it goes into the sitting room from my previous home.
I set up an area there, sort of "my spot" where I can feel less socially awkward, and gather up the people I know at the party.
...
I'm in a local bar called Cornish Pasty. I'm sitting at the bar with MW from highschool.
We're sitting where I sat a few months back with JV in waking life.
He's there because I am getting married soon.
MW tells me that there might be something in the mail for me, implying he's bought one of the wedding registry items.
I'm feeling awkward, looking for a conversation topic, when I remember that I was at his wedding party recently.
I bring it up, and he remarks how drunk everybody was, and how we are all singing.
I tell him I remember that, but I don't.

Stuck:
I'm waking up in my bed, and I remember that I had just returned to sleep from my 6hr/20m WBTB.
I do a nose reality check and I can breathe. I'm dreaming.
I'm in bed, but I can't move. I try to blink-teleport, imagining that if I can just change the dream scene I'll regain my movement naturally.
So, I close my eyes and imagine a vast blue ocean.
I open my eyes.
Nothing changes, still stuck.
The dream fades and I wake briefly.

Loki and Oreo:
I false awake into my bed again, knowing to reality check.
I'm lucid again, but still can't move.
This time I try something else. I imagine my old Doberman Loki (rest is peace, he was the best boy).
The idea is that he will jostle the bed enough to kick my body into gear.
I call for him "Loki! Are you here?" and he comes bounding into the bedroom and jumps into the bed.
He, of course, lays down next to me because he always was a big lazy boy.
He looks up at me, inquisitive as ever with his dopey eyes and large snoot. He looks so real. I laugh, and wonder if my girlfriend can hear me laughing in waking life (I asked later, she could not).
My plan worked, when Loki jumped on me, that was enough to give me my movement back.
I looked back down, and now Loki had changed into a different childhood pet.
My longhair black and white cat, Oreo (also rest in peace, she was top-gangsta thug).
I get out of bed and say "C'mon! Let's go!" and Oreo gracefully leaps off the bed to follow me.
I see her characteristic "gangsta-prowl" as she moves and marvel at how well my brain is recreating my old pets.
Finally I leave the bedroom and realize that I should stabilize the dream soon, worried that it might fade.
The dream is a near-perfect recreation of my house, but it has blue hue to it.
Otherwise, the best way I can describe it is "thin". I think to myself, maybe I am low on REM sleep.
I start to narrate what I am doing as I do it "I'm walking in my hallway, I'm stabilizing the dream, I'm touching the walls..."
It occurs to me that I need to spend less time in my own head, or the dream is going to fade.
I make a concerted effort to engage with the environment, and not internalize too much.
As is tradition at this point, I lick the wall to help stabilize. It tastes like wall.
All this seems to help a bit, but I believe that I was simply low on REM, so the dream was going to be unstable no matter what.
Then I remember that it was the last night of competition, and I had defined some goals.
I recall my first goal of the three-step is to "summon" and then "ask for advice" so I go to summon Jordan Peterson.
But wait, I changed my mind earlier on the plan. I struggle to remember, but then I do.
During my WBTB 20 minutes, I decided instead that I would summon Daniel Love, because he would be able to assist me with a teleport.
I start to imagine Daniel Love in my house. I call out to him "Daniel! Are you here? Daniel?"
For a moment, no response.
But then a head pops out from behind a door down the hallway on the right, where the bathroom is.
"Yeah yeah I'm here!" he says, a bit flustered.
But, before I can ask him for advice on teleporting, the dream fades out.

Coffee Splash:

I'm in a long square-like room, sort of like a trailer.
My Grandpa R has just died, and his casket is on display.
I keep thinking that the body is going to stand up.
Highly emotional feelings. My Dad is there with me.
We're tasked to set the casket aflame in some ritual and we are hesitating to do it.
Later in this process the casket goes down a serpentine system of pipes into fluid.
...
Later I am in a huge banquet hall-like building, with a theater attached.
I'm walking over to a concessions stand. I find a couple of fruits with barcode stickers and try to scan them.
A woman nearby says that this cannot be bought, even though the scan goes through.
...
I've come home to my current garage. There is a small circular folding table setup.
My laptop is setup there, and my brother has an identical one setup for him next to it.
My sister is with us as well.
I'm having an argument with my brother. He thinks I'm being too easy-going, and not allowing our sister to mourn.
This makes me angry, because I want to deal with grief my own way.
I notice a cold mug of coffee on the table, and I splash it in his face.
Trying to remove myself from the situation, I start to pick-up and leave.
My brother grabs my laptop's power cord, preventing me from going.
I wake up angry.

Shooting for the Girl:

I'm on a roadtrip with my girlfriend, her mom, and a young guy.
The guy is a friend of my girlfriend's mom, and I suspect that she is positioning him as my replacement.
I'm checking out at the counter, buying some snacks. I pay for the guy's food, trying to be cordial.
He seems to appreciate it, not outwardly trying to steal my girlfriend. He is friendly.
We leave and head outside. We are driving a large semi-truck.
A middle-eastern looking man follows us outside and seems angry.
He points out that I'm carrying wrappers, and going to make a mess in the car.
I notice a dumpster nearby and try to basketball-shoot the crumpled wrappers into it.
My shot is miserable. Embarrassed, I pick-up the clump and place it in the dumpster.
I'm worried that bad shot just affected my chances against the guy.

Game Night:

I'm playing a Yu-Gi-Oh inspired card game with my girlfriend.
Taking just a couple turns, I've already cleared her side of cards and attacking her life points.
The values on the cards are in the single digits.
...
Later I'm playing a mid-generation Pokemon game.
Looks like it might have been DS or 3DS era, with animated 2D sprites.
I'm controlling a Magneton, except it is made from four Magnemites instead of the usual three.
I use an attack called Tetraelectro Blast or something similar.
The animation has four distinct stages with accompanying sound.
Basically, it looks accurate to the games.
...
I'm in a Yu-Gi-Oh duel with someone in a large empty warehouse.
The atmosphere is dark and foreboding.
We have fully 3D virtual monsters, like in the show.
My opponent has summoned the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.
But it is multiplying. Four heads. Five heads. Six heads...
It's the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Hydra now.
The entire warehouse is filled with the oppressively huge heads and necks of the monster.
This monster gets so comically large that I'm nearly trapped by the slithering necks moving around me.
I see a light on my left side. I duck by one of the snaking necks and escape.


The Blue-Eyes Ultimate Hydra. Made with Bing Image Creator AI.

False Awakening:

I wake up and start telling my girlfriend about the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Hydra.
She has put a couple Monster Energy drinks on the foot of the bed for me.
My room is perfectly rendered, down to the real-life detail that my girlfriend is up early for an important work meeting.
I go over to the bathroom and look in the mirror.
I see that my eyes are large and white, with the pupils faded like a blind person's.
I start to freak out and wonder what is wrong!
The eyes correct themselves after I blink a few times.

Working Recovery:

I'm at work, outside, on the garden path between buildings.
NH from high-school marching band is there.
He has some kind of injury to one arm and to one leg.
The injuries, are exceptionally gory, like stumps where the hand and foot should be.
NH seems like he is in a good mood regardless.
...
I'm on the production floor, but the office cube area is reversed from left/right and under construction.
There is a tarp that goes over all the cubes, indicating that they are inaccessible.
...
Later I'm with NH at a back-area of the production floor.
His injuries seem to be lesser now, with just bruised limbs where the stumps once were.

WBTB:
I woke up after about 7.5 hours of sleep (11PM to 630AM) and then stayed up for about 45 minutes before going to sleep on the couch for a morning nap.

False Awakening:

I'm at home and taking out the trash. I notice that there are a few more trash/recycle cans than there should be. About 4 or 5 against the expected 2.
I do a nose-RC and become lucid. I recall the 'pre-flight check' from Daniel Love's book, so I decide to attempt that.
I say outloud "this is a dream, nothing is real, nothing can hurt me."
I look around the yard, trying to interact and stabilize the dream.
But this only lasts a few seconds or so, and the world fades.
I vaguely recall trying to fit my hands into some kind of gardening pot by the front door or side of the house.
...
I 'wake up' on the couch, and my family is there. Dad, sister, brother, and my friend DR.
We are taking turns playing a VR game, where the perspective of the person playing the game shows on the TV.
...
Later I'm in a different room, with pillars on four sides and 'open concept' entry ways.
I'm struggling with some straps on the VR setup for my arms.
There were also two different sizes for the VR goggles, and a smaller one fits me better.

Recorded at 940AM.

The Bulldog:

I'm sitting on a patio chair looking out to a sunrise. I'm high up, a few stories above the ground.
The patio is made of large wood pieces, similar in style to Frontier Land from Disneyland. Within the lore of the dream, we had just built it (my Dad, sister, and I).
I looked at my left hand and noticed that it had three fingers, and I looked at my right. It had four.
I become lucid. The very next thought is that I want to learn more about my dreamworld, to serve me better later.
So I decide to keep looking at my hands. They keep changing in finger count wildly, not fast or as if morphing, more like my brain kept trying to convince me that they had 'always been' said count.
It was more like my perception was in flux than the actual visuals. Tough to describe.
This activity doubles down on the fact that I truly am dreaming.

I decide to get up and look around. I see a man down below in a pool, he's singing on a platform in the middle.
Also, across the way there is another man singing. I listen to them for a while, but I can't recall the tune now.
I noticed a bulldog down by my heel. I feel a massively comforting presence. I don't recognize this dog but I feel the comfort anyway.
He is wearing some sort of skin(or should I say fur) tight dog-shirt.
I remember that I should be stabilizing the dream, so I run my hands across the wood railing a bit.
I notice that the patio is missing some pieces, and get concerned about the stability of the structure.
I decide to go the the side of the house, and once I turn the corner, it represents the side of the house I'm living in now.

The bull-dog is sitting in front of the gate that leads to the front yard. I go up to him and start to pet him.
"Are you a bulldog?" I ask.
"Yes, I am!" the bulldog replied with a British accent.
"Can you tell more more about you so that I can find you in my world?" I ask.
"Ohhh you shouldn't do that...because I have...my issue." the bulldog replies ominously.
I notice he is drooling a bit.
"Well, what is the issue?"
"I....tend to wet the bed." the bulldog admits with some shame in his voice.
I start to comfort the bulldog, but then I begin to lose lucidity.
Instead, I start telling the bulldog a story of a recurring dream. It's about not making finals for marching band back in high-school.
I try to recall the name of the girl who was our drum major who broke the news, but I can't remember her name (just her face).
This isn't actually a recurring dream.
An Asian girl appears behind him as if in response to the story, but she doesn't resemble anybody from it.
At this point I seem to get my bearings, and I start to narrate what has happened up to now, to the bulldog.

"So I've spent a lot of time in this dream letting things flow on their own, observing, doing RCs, keeping it low-key. Do you think it is OK if I try some dream control now?" I ask the bulldog.
"Yes, that seems reasonable." the bulldog replies matter of factly.
I walk forward and open the gate leading to the front yard.
It's night-time over here.
I remember that I want to try the teleport-sprint from another dream, so I position myself on the street with plenty of runway space in front of me.
But there is a festival happening on the street. Lots of people. This prevents me from having space.
I get the impression that the dream characters are not fans of what I am about to try, slightly hostile.
They don't stop me when I went to find a new position, but one guy did bump me as I passed.
I don't visualize a particular place. I break out into a sprint with the night-road in front of me and close my eyes.
I feel my body shake, similar to the first time having a WILD transition. Feels like going through a wormhole.
When I open my eyes, I see blackness. I assume I have woken up.
...
I'm back on the patio with the sunrise, but this time I think I am awake.
"Wow! What a cool lucid dream, I'd better go record it before I forget!" I think to myself.
I enter the house through a doorwall and go to a computer.
This home does not resemble one I have lived in.
The computer has three or four monitors all setup, and looks super cool.
Dream-me has a program setup that will record my dreams as audio, and then auto-tune them.
So I narrate the previous dream as it happened in its entirety.
I mess up the recording so I have to start and stop a few times.
As I recorded it, the computer generated an animated movie, with the audio, as a musical.
The graphics resembled Final Fantasy VII: Remake's.
I'm invested in making the video good.
...
I'm back in my actual bed. My girlfriend is by me, and so is a dog. It may have been a german-shepherd.
Strangely, my sister is at the foot of the bed.
We're awake because we are concerned that there is an intruder in the house.
I felt safe, because the dog would be able to alert us if there was a problem.
My girlfriend tells me I should give my sister the larger pillow, and I tell her that she is already asleep so there is no point.
I reflect that the dog with us is not giving me an allergic reaction, so maybe I can have a dog after all.
...
I'm back at my childhood home, and I'm talking about the intruder with my Dad.
I look at the thermostat, and it reads '60 degrees'. I think it is low, but my Dad tells me that this is how it has to be.
I look over to the living room and see my Mom playing a video game. She's losing so she calls me over to help and I do.

Based on this and the last WBTB attempt, it seems like 6hr/10m might not be the optimal WBTB configuration for me. I think I'll stick to it for experiment #4 to finish out the original plan though.

Went to bed at 11:30PM.

Pre-WBTB

Fragment
I'm at the Darkmoon Faire from World of Warcraft.
I'm playing as a Night Elf. I'm bragging to the other players around me about something.
Recorded at 5:30AM. Near the end of sleep cycle 3.

Scorpion Trap
I'm at some sort of manor, and I'm together with my ex-girlfriend H.
I find it strange that we are together again, but not enough to make me question it further.
We are standing in the front yard and it resembles the side-entrance from highschool (P) but with concrete steps going up.
There is a man up a story telling us about a device.
The device is a way to capture or deal with scorpions.
I remember looking back at H and thinking she looked kinda hot with her short blue dress on.
Recorded at 5:30AM. Near the end of sleep cycle 3.

WBTB
Woke up 6 hours after going to bed as planned. Felt very well rested. Almost decided to just stay awake. But I want those points. So I took the Galantamine 8mg to stay consistent with my experiment parameters and reviewed my go-forward for the lucid. After 10 minutes I went back to bed.

Post-WBTB

False Awakening
I wake up in my bed and do a nose-plug RC out of habit.
I'm lucid now. I try to move my hands forward to do a hands RC, but they feel very heavy.
I struggle against this weight, but I can't overcome it.
Recorded at 7AM. Early in sleep cycle 5.

Pre-WBTB

Fragment
I can faintly remember something Dragonball Z related.

WBTB
I'm very tired but force myself out of bed. I spend the 10 minutes similar to how I did last night: going over my plans, and reviewing the advice friends on DV gave me regarding teleporting and visualization.
I lay down and spend a long while trying to get to sleep. It's possible that 10 minutes WBTB wake-time is too long for me (twice in a row now I've struggled to sleep). More data will tell on that.

Post-WBTB

False Awakening and Fade
I wake up in my bed and remember to do a nose-plug RC, and I can breathe. It takes a couple seconds to realize but...
I'm dreaming!
I get out of bed and make my way to the hallway, thinking about how best to start stabilizing.
I rub my hands together, and also my barefeet on the ground.
But, unfortunately, before I know it, the dream has faded.
I don't recall recovering from this.

Tree Arena Fragment
I vaguely remember a big circular arena.
It may have been inside a large tree trunk. Maybe non-lucid me made it to the EFF™ after all
I can also recall some pirate ships circling the area. The main combat section was raised and the lower section was filled with water.

Pre-WBTB

Fragment
Frieza from Dragonball Z is at a Home Depot store.
Recorded at 5AM, at the beginning of sleep cycle 5.

WBTB

During my 10 minutes of wake-time, I planned what I would do if I had a false awakening at my home. After taking the 8mg Galantamine and using the bathroom, I walked down the hall doing my series of reality checks. Then I rubbed my hands together. I also decided I should interact with the environment in some way, so I licked the wall. Yep. Gotta commit man. I wander around the house a bit, and decided I should find ways to teleport to the forest (step one of "The Plan"). I decide that I will summon an image of a forest on the living room TV and then step through it. Path forward established and my 10 minutes spent, I was content to lay down in bed. I tossed around for awhile and thought about just about every current life problem I have. Maybe I was too awake. After what felt like forever, I finally drifted off. No WILD though unfortunately.

Post-WBTB

Seeking The Elusive Fantasy Forest™
I'm waking up in my bed, and I immediately think to check for a false awakening.
I can breathe through my plugged nose.
I'm dreaming!
I decided to cycle through some more RCs just in case.
I look at my hands, and I have far more than five fingers on each hand. Yep. Dream.
I tried to see my nose on the left and right sides and I can. So according to that check I am awake.
To be fair I've never done that RC before so I didn't really know what to expect.
I default back to another nose-plug RC and I can still breathe. Definitely dreaming.
I recalled my plan from the WBTB prep, so I rubbed my hands and licked the wall. Yep.
It tasted like the real wall. Like paint.
I then find myself back in bed. Another false awakening.
I repeat the RCs, but this time my vision isn't quite coming to me.
I try to will my eyes to work. Nope.
I say "Heal my eyes!" It works a little bit. I say "HEAL MY EYES TIMES 1000!" It works a bit more.
This goes on for some time, and I'm getting annoyed.
I recall another technique where I "take off glasses I didn't know I was wearing".
I do this and clarity improves a lot.
Eventually my vision stabilizes to the point where I can focus on other things. Like my goals.
I can recall "The Plan" in it's entirety. Step one is to teleport to the fantasy forest.
I wander over to my living room, which now resembles a mixture of my actual living room and my friend M's.
My girlfriend S is there on the couch. I decide to play it cool and not tell her this is a dream.
Instead I say "Oh hello! How are you? I'm going into the TV now!"
I don't recall actually going through the TV, so I may have wandered away.
...
I find myself lucid in the garage later. I'm looking around for the Elusive Fantasy Forest™.
I look down, and hope that when I look up, the forest will be on the other side of the open garage door.
Nope.
Vivid green grass and neighborhood. At least that is consistent. It looks similar to how it did in my previous lucids.
I checked around the garage some more, looking for a door or something else I can use to teleport.
I find a storage cabinet and try to teleport Narnia-style, but no luck.
I lose my focus for a bit, and I end up walking out of the garage door and preparing to fly.
I kick off the ground hard and take flight. I specifically notice that my right leg doesn't hurt as I jump (In waking life I am recovering from surgery so jumping is normally out of the question).
I zoom around and enjoy the view. The grass looks even more vivid from up here. It takes on a pastel-like painting aesthetic.
As I take in the view I come to a realization.
There is nothing other than vivid green grass and dots of homes that look like legos from this high up, for as far as my eyes can see.
Maybe the reason I can't find my forest is because this entire goddamn dream-plane is a neighborhood.
I zoom around some more, and find myself using air-swimming to control finer turns. Haven't tried that before.
Also unusual, I land without losing lucidity. I remember that I still need to try this stupid teleporting thing.
I'm back at my garage now and I remember reading a tutorial somewhere on DV about "scrolling the world".
So I raised my hand as if I was about to swipe the world like an image in my phone pictures gallery, not really expecting this to work.
Except, against dream-rules, it does work despite my negative expectation. The entire world, my current view of it anyway, swipes to the left, and a new image slides in from the right, teleporting me somewhere new.
But of course, not the elusive Fantasy Forest™.
I see a big, vivid, blue ocean in front of me. The waves are almost caramel-like. They move too slowly. In other words, their viscosity is higher than it should be. They crash down lazily.
My family may have been there too, I can recall my Dad being present for sure.
I briefly consider exploring the bottom of the ocean because who knows what my brain would put there!
But I ignore the ocean and my family: I am on a mission dammit!
I turn to walk away from the ocean and I notice it is raining behind me, and there is a forest in the distance.
But then a car drives by in front of it. IT ISN'T A FANTASY FOREST! IT'S A REGULAR PRESENT DAY FOREST!
I start to think about other ways to reach the forest. In particular, I imagined it might be easier to seek out a campfire and go from there.
But despite my best efforts, before I reach the Elusive Fantasy Forest™ I find myself waking up, thinking I should try to record before I lose memory of this dream.
I wake.
Recorded at 7:45AM.

I didn't get the WILD or dream control I was hoping for, but there is a lot of recall here...so that's a plus!

Before WBTB

Sci-Fi Feeding Time
It's dark, night-time at a stable on a farm.
There are horse-like creatures and other monsters in sci-fi fleshy body bags.
Some of the horse-creatures are sitting on their backsides...and have huge upright dongs.
Like straight up into the air, 3ft diameter and 5ft high...
Someone is showing me how they care for the creatures.
They have one mature creature chew up food and spit it out.
Then they collect the mush and feed it to the younger ones.
The whole situation is very strange and I kinda wish I would've forgotten this one.

Fireshots and Frogskins
I'm in a team at Hogwarts and we are in the middle of magic combat with another group.
They are Slytherins or otherwise dark magic users.
It isn't a friendly duel, they are trying to hurt us.
I shoot some fire attacks at one of them and set their robes on fire.
I remark that the spell was meant for aesthetic uses, but very useful here.
I shoot off some stupefies and experlliarmises, and notice that I have multiples wands and they break as I'm shooting.
They sort of snap like twigs.
It feels similar to how durability works in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Later I'm in a downstairs living space or maybe a lab.
Mr. Weasley is there. He has a big frog creature. About 1ft tall.
I'm wanting the frog's shed-skin shell from him.
There is also information I'm needing. There was another person I was planning to bribe with the skin-shell.
But I realize that Mr. Weasley has the same info.
The room looks like my childhood kitchen now, with Mr. Weasley standing near the sink.
I ask him for the info, and indicate my understanding that I don't need to bribe him.
He pauses, gives me a look, sarcastically pauses...maybe a bribe IS needed...
But then gives me the info.

Cave Battle
JM from work and I are planning a dangerous trip to get treasure.
Later we arrive at the site.
I'm in an underground cave with a large rock blocking the entrance above.
Similar to a bombable wall from Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
There is a horde of orcs/goblin creatures above the wall chasing me. JM is above as well.
I'm searching the cave for the treasure. The monsters are getting closer to opening the rock.
I start to look for a weapon instead. I find a bow, but the arrows with it are dull.
They break through. I try to hide.
3 goblins make their way to the back cave chamber where I am at.
They chase me around the room and shoot arrows at me, I try to grab fallen arrows to fight back desperately.
J!!! HELP!!! I scream.
He shows up and helps me fight.

After WBTB
I head back to bed and focus on the forest I want to WILD into. I wait a long time, and multiple alarms go off interrupting my attempt. I eventually slip off to sleep without a WILD.

False Awakenings
I'm in my bedroom, thinking that I've wasted my time for the last day of comp.
Crap. I do a half-hearted nose reality-check just to be sure...
And I'm dreaming! But it fades quickly into another false awakening.
This happens a few times, but I never get real control of the dreams.
Only counting it as one dream because it all was sort of a blur.

Hey, You, You're Finally Awake
I have metal chains binding my arms together and I'm riding a cart through some valley.
I'm a prisoner, similar to the opening of Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.
My right eye is bound shut somehow and I can't find a way to move my body to free it.
I think about how maybe I'm sleeping with my eye covered...
I must be dreaming!
Despite being lucid, I can't do anything to free my eye.
When I woke up, I confirm that my right eye was, in fact, lodged into my pillow. Go figure.

Carpet Shower
I'm at my Grandma P's old house (the one with the big upstairs area and Jack/Jill bathroom).
My dad owns it now. He's talking to his friend about how great blowjobs are. I mean, I can't argue with the man.
There is a stuffed animal on a chair alone in one of the rooms. I don't see the significance of it, if any.
I'm searching for a shower and I find one in the middle of one of the big bedrooms over the carpeting.
It doesn't strike me as strange that a faucet is right in the middle of the bedroom wall.
I start to shower up, but my Dad interrupts me and I have to leave the room.

Unexpected Assist
I'm in an apartment similar to H and A's from a few years back.
We're down some stairs. H is giving me a strange look and I feel like she is into me.
Her and my girlfriend S are aware of my WBTB and WILD attempts, and are trying to help.
They set up a bed for me with a stuffed animal to help me sleep.

Panther Dinner Time
I'm in a fancy restaurant sitting outside. It reminds me of where we sat and got ice cream in Disneyland/California Adventure.
There is a large panther approaching the seating area.
It's aggressive and the crowd freaks out.
Then a man appears from out of the crowd and seems to know the panther.
He commands it, and manages to get it to jump onto a nearby brick wall and hang there.
The situation is resolved.

Conditions
Medium workout
Light dinner
Bed on time
6hr/30m WBTB
Yuschak Primary Trigger (8Mg Galantamine, 250Mg Choline Bitartrate)

Notes
So I still didn't get the result I was hoping for. There were some alarms my girlfriend had go off during the attempt, but I'm not sure I can 100% blame those for the failure. I think that given the challenge of falling asleep once again, 30m might be too long of a wake period. Intent was 20m, but by the time I had taken the supplements, recorded my dreams, used the bathroom, and reviewed my goals 30m had passed. I'm undecided if I want to test 6hr/30m WBTB one more time, or move on and try 6hr/20m in earnest.

Before WBTB

Russian Ride
I'm traveling internationally and I don't speak the language where I am at. I'm getting off a train or bus looking for the airport. I see another bus leaving and I wave my arms and chase it, yelling for it to stop. It does. I try to ask the driver where the airport is and he tells me (in English) that the bus is full. It clearly isn't. I wonder if there is some law saying there must be X number of open seats. Regardless, I stay on the bus and he doesn't kick me off. I make my way to the back of the bus. It resembles the CATA bus system from back home. In the back car is a girl with one leg. Short hair, kinda "bad-girl type". She has khaki pants on, and the missing leg has it tied to cover the stump. I sit next to her and ask for help. She's friendly.

Some time later we are back at her apartment. It's a big studio, kinda messy with paint and art all over the place. I realize that I'm a girl, and that she may be gay. I get the impression she might have been coming onto me.

Later I'm running from Russian agents. I'm running through an apartment complex, entering and leaving through doors/windows. I'm really high up. When I go outside I'm sidling on just-big-enough edges to not fall. I don't know why they are chasing me. I eventually make my way down from the tall complex and make it to the ground but I haven't shook them.

I'm in a down-town Chinatown type area at night. There is a big crowd of people and I'm trying to use them to escape from the Russian agents. I'm at a bar with two floors open to the outside. There are some TVs running with couches set in front of them. There are some dark corners I can hide in. I try out a few and crouch down, but I decide that none of them are good enough and keep moving. Then I stand up face-to-face with one of the agents. He looks like Dr. Brenner from Stranger Things.

Running again. This time it was short. I ended up in a stone building on a grassy hill, hiding underground. But they've just found me. There is the leader (Dr. Brenner) and two thug-types. They are going to torture me for information. I tell them I've only killed one time, and I wasn't sure if it was me or my uncle who pulled them trigger. I guess I was trying to intimidate them. It doesn't work. They casually talk to me about something and then without warning Dr. Brenner shoots my right ear off with a pistol.

I cry out in pain (S hears me and tries to shake me awake). It doesn't hurt as much as I expected it would. They tell me that they will shoot off the other ear if I don't comply.

I wake up and tell S I am OK.

After WBTB

W Aged Up
I'm at my Grandma P's house in the bedroom sleeping on the bed. I've slept in later than everybody else. I roll over and see some old drawings I made in my childhood on the wall. My grandma will have decided to have kept them. They are hyper realistic and drawn in pencil. Somehow, they are holographic. I think to myself that maybe I should get back into art.

W, my brother's son who is due in September, bursts into the room with his friend, Ian. He's four years old. I can't tell who is who and I feel bad about it. But now I know it is because W isn't born yet. One of them has buck teeth. I follow them around the house and then one kid is missing. I find W/Ian eating dish cleaning tablets under sink. Standard kid behavior I guess

Lucid Fragment
I'm in a large mall, reminiscent of one from an old marching band trip from high school. I do a nose reality check and realize I'm dreaming. I double take...crap! I was dreaming that whole time before with W! I think to myself that step one is to find my DG...but my lucidity slips and I wander off.

Conditions
Medium workout early in day
Big dinner
2 drinks of alcohol
Stayed up late
6hr/30m WBTB
Yuschak Primary Trigger (8Mg Galantamine, 250Mg Choline Bitartrate)

Notes
My theory on what happened here...sleep cycle issues. Instead of jumping into the same sleep cycle I was just in, I jumped into the beginning of a later one. I stayed up until about 2:30am playing Zelda and then set an alarm for 8:30am...so about 6 hours after sleep. I know that 5h45m has been a good target for me, so I was experimenting with a larger time to test and see if it can be improved. One problem though is that I didn't have an established wake-sleep rhythm. Plus, I stayed up longer than the typical 15m during the WBTB. I planned slightly longer at 20m but it was more like 30m. I don't think the alcohol will have mattered much because of the later timing, but it could have played a part. Lesson learned: Next time, have an established sleep rhythm. Gonna say data inconclusive about 6h/20m WBTB setup.

Pre-WBTB

Fragment
I'm in a labyrinth maze. Viewpoint is from above.

Fragment
The Youtuber ProJared and somebody else is giving an apology speech on Distractible. It's a video, and Distractible is apparently a streaming platform like Spotify. I'm looking up what their policy is. My girlfriend SB says that they don't have a policy.

Post-WBTB

Actually woke up moments before my alarm went off. That's pretty neat. I took my supplements, used the restroom, and wrote down this entry. I slept just about 5 hours and 45 minutes, so in theory I should be entering REM cycle 4 at its' end. Maybe unstable dreams then? Hope not. Maybe I can get into REM cycle 5 from the get go after that.

I tossed and turned for quite a while. I was worried that I had wasted my time and the timing reset on the supplements (once a week for Galantamine if not using Piracetam). My phone goes off (who the hell is texting me at 7AM, savages) so I put it in airplane mode. That'll show 'em.

Supplement Interaction Gone Wrong
I'm tossing and turning in bed and I notice that I'm feeling nauseous. I fall over the side of my bed and struggle to get my vision into focus. Something must have gone wrong with the supplements and the alcohol. I feel drunk. SB is outside our room calling out to me.

"I have four parents here!" she said.

She probably wants some help hosting, I think.

"Wait four? Are any of our friends there?" I ask.

She replies in the negative. Great. So there are four people there that I probably don't know terribly well that I now need to entertain. And I feel drunk. I decide that the best thing I can do is try to sleep it off and then go help, so I get on the bed and rollback over.

Post-WBTB

Thank god. I'm awake and I feel better. There hasn't been an alcohol-supplement interaction. Nobody is visiting us at 7AM. I can resume my WILD attempts. I'm very relieved about this so I relax easier. SB has gotten up to start the day so I have the whole bed to myself. REM cycle 5 here we go. Vibrations eventually show up.

I start to see images slowly forming. I remember my past success visualizing my hands to 'grab' the dream, so I try to recreate that. I see a pinhole image at the end of the void. It looks like a beach. I start thinking about things I could grab onto. I see some streetlights. Perfect. I imagine the feeling of gripping the cold metal, and visualize my hands closing around them. I can already see my arms outstretched, and my right hand closing around the lamp.

California Chaos
I'm standing on a beach reminiscent of the California Boardwalk, holding onto a metal streetlight in my right hand. It's a beautiful sunny day. I've done it again! Successful WILD #2!


Beachside Bars. Made with Holara AI.

The first thing I do is approach a portly-looking man at a beachside bar and side down next to him. He vaguely looks like RR from work, or Carlos Mencia. I turn to him.

"Hey man. What if I were to tell you that this was a dream?" I say.

"WOAH. No way!" He casually dismisses the suggestion.

"Oh yeah? Then what about THIS!?"

I attempt to put my right index finger through my left palm to demonstrate a reality check, but I can't do it.

To be fair, I've never actually done that before. But looking back this is pretty funny. In the moment, it was also pretty funny.

"Okay forget that... then what about THIS?!"

I hold up my hand and count the fingers on it...1-2-3-4-5...6-7-8!

"WOAH. That's insane!" He exclaims.

"I'm gonna go cause trouble if you wanna come with me?" I ask him.

"Nah I'm good." He replies.

I get up. It would've been cool to create chaos with a partner in crime. I forgot all about trying to summon Aeon (name I've given to the dream-guide from the Desert planet). I'm wanting to get her advice on the dream world and see if I can ask her to make me lucid whenever she sees me in a non-lucid dream. I wander down the Boardwalk and come up to some cute girls sitting at a high-top table. I figure, it's a dream I can do whatever I want.

Spoiler for Spicy Content:

I ask one of them to stand up and bend over. She's wearing jorts. I spank her ass. Nice.

Anyway, moving on. I continue walking along the Boardwalk and come up on a brick wall. I recognize that the texture would be good to help stabilize, so I start rubbing the wall like a weirdo for a bit. Can't recall if it did anything other than make me look like a weirdo.

As I walked down the Boardwalk, I noticed that the dream started to fade to black. Instinctually, I started to focus on my arms, and gripping the dream. It is hard to describe, but I actively was resisting letting the dream fade. Miraculously, it worked. The dream was back, and I was still walking on that sunny day in the boardwalk.

I come upon some stairs going down into a sewer-like structure down below. I think to myself:

"Y'know, that seems like a great way to cause a nightmare...screw it! I'm going for it."


The Tunnel and the Stairs. Made with Holara AI.

I start to descend the stairs. As I go down, I think to try and summon KF from high-school. Sure enough, when I get to the bottom of the stairs, I see her but her face is obscured. The bottom of the stairs reminds me of the bottom of the wells from the Forest Temple in The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. KF walks by me quickly and she seems upset about something so I don't bother her. I try to project comfort and warmness her way and say:

"Hey K, I'm going exploring, do you want to come with?" I ask.

I don't get a reply, but she does stop and turn, and then turned back and walked away. I decide to move on.

I find some more stairs going up at the end of the sewer tunnel. There is a great big door. I think:

"Ah! I can use this to get to that elven forest I've been trying to get to!"

Which actually is one of my goals and has been for some time now. Really great memories of waking life in this dream. I focus on what I want the elven forest to look like (tall grey trees as far as the eye can see, fog) and open the door.

Sunny neighborhood cul-de-sac. Nope. Not what I want. I close the door and try again.

Again with the neighborhood. Come on man...I try one more time.

Still the neighborhood. Well, damn it. I guess we're going to the neighborhood. I step out of the sewer door and into the neighborhood. There actually is a grassy knoll with the great big door leading into a sewer behind me, so I give my brain consistency points for that one. Maybe that's why it wouldn't give me the elven forest, because it couldn't find a way to drop a sewer into it.

I'm walking up to the circular end street of the homes and enjoying the sun. I have another blackout-recovery episode and save the dream. Maybe I am getting close to waking. I look around and find no DCs or areas of interest. I decide to fly. I put my arms out in front of me Superman-style and takeoff. The feeling of flight doesn't feel as robust as it normally does. More like a light pickup on the wind. The dream starts to fade shortly after I am in the air, and I don't save it this time.

Pixar VR Concert
I'm standing in a central plaza. It makes me think of the Nintendo Wii U game Nintendo Land. It's all in virtual reality which is pretty darn cool. There are a bunch of concerts going on, maybe six that you can walk to. Each has an assortment of characters from famous franchises from Pixar or Disney or whatever. I can't remember specifics except for Mr. Hippo from Five Nights at Freddy's. Obviously he must be the main attraction here because his monologues are bomb as fuck. Some time later there is a tank of water and I'm helping clean it up. One of the characters is awkwardly making a pass at me but I don't recall details.

Notes
All things accounted for, I'm pretty happy with this night of dreaming. I interacted with multiple dream characters, successfully saved the dream from fading several times, summoned a DC, had some great recall for goals, and performed a teleport (although it didn't take me where I wanted, that's still progress). That also makes 5 uses of the Yuschak Primary Trigger, after which the author suggests that the reader has enough experience to try out other supplements. I'm not sure I will, but it is something to consider.

Conditions
2 drinks of alcohol
No workout, unhealthy dinner
5hr45m/10m WBTB
5th Yuschak Primary Trigger Attempt (8Mg Galantamine, 250Mg Choline Bitartrate)

Ignoring Work and the Jungle
I'm at my desk at work. My coworker D is sitting next to me explaining something. Others nearby are listening intently, but I decide that it isn't important and ignore him. I tell him that. He thinks it is funny. No hard feelings. Dream feels lighthearted.

Fragment
I recall a muggy jungle with maybe some drizzle but not much else.

Potential Influencing Factors:
Exercise - 1 hour of walking.
Meditation - About 15 minutes of visualization.
Diet - Ate heavy meal at Panda Express.

Pre WBTB - Winter Neighborhood

There is some muggy jungle scene but I can't recall much else.

I'm at a neighborhood street in the winter time. It reminds me of one I used to run as part of a route in college. Unlike how I remember, there are homeless people struggling to stay warm all across the street. The group I'm with don't have anything to give them so we feel bad.

Post WBTB - Zoomin' Through Space and Fun at the Sand Shrine

I take the Yuschak primary trigger supplement combo and get back to bed within about 10 minutes after reviewing WILD entry techniques. I lay down for sometime and wait for the vibrations. They eventually come and are fairly intense. I feel two waves of them, but no images ever form. I eventually slip off into normal sleep.

I'm back at the same neighborhood but this time it is a warm summer scene with a thriving community. I'm living with some friends of S and I. Three couples. SP is sort of the mom of the group and we're following her. We are coming home from driving somewhere and get into the house. The inside reminds me of my Grandma M's house. Specifically the bar we sit down at is reminiscent. We start unloading bags and everybody gets something. I get a giant jelly candy brick. I get up to look around the house and use the bathroom. SP or one of the other girls nearly walks in on me while I'm using the toilet, but luckily I'm standing and facing away from the door. When I go back into the hallway, I do a nose reality check out of habit. I'm lucid now.

Since a house isn't the most exciting place in the world, I decide to go outside. I leave the front door and the green grass is super vivid. I decide I should stabilize, so I rub my barefeet on the grass and the dirt. I lick the dirt for good measure and rub my hands. I do a few more nose RCs just in case. Well, if that check failed I would have looked really stupid. Oh well. Good thing I can breathe through my nose. I decided I want to fly, so I took off superman style. I hit a set of tree branches above me like a total chump immediately but it didn't hurt too bad.


Flyin' high. Made with a combination of Bing and Nightcafe image generator AIs.

I rose up into the sky and enjoyed the view of the neighborhood. I wanted to go explore more, but the world started to zoom out. Oh shit. It feels like I'm moving super fast. The world zooms out so far that I'm now in space looking at Earth. I think about the Outer Wilds Travelers' Theme song and laugh while saying the first few notes of acoustic guitar out loud. Naturally, the song starts to play. Zooming through space with music.

Outer Wilds Travelers' Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR_wIb_n4ZU


The vacuum of space. Made with Nightcafe AI.

Into the universe I say "So, where are we goin'?" like Pippen at the council of Elrond from Lord of the Rings.

As if in answer, a pale blue cloudy planet comes into view on the space horizon. I remark that this definitely isn't earth. It doesn't have any green on it. At this point I'm just super happy I have been lucid this long. As I'm sent closer to the planet I confirm it isn't Earth. This is a desert planet.

My feet lithely (not a hint of my waking knee pain) land at the top of a shrine in a desert. There is a book with golden pages atop a pedestal. I see an attractive purple haired woman across the way near the top of the stairs leading down to the sand. She's wearing skimpy clothes, black leather with her chest showing. Her legwear isn't covering much either. No complaints. I get the sense that she is an experienced traveler, or she can guide me in some way.

"Woah! This place is so vivid!" I say.

"Yeah, it's pretty much always like that," she replies over the desert wind.

I start to follow her down the stairs and then try to pull her closer to me. She doesn't seem into it so I back off. We continue walking down the shrine area. I look at her clothes again.

Spoiler for Spicy Content:

"Soooo are you into bondage or something?" I ask.

"Well...yeah" she replies while turning a bit red.

I pin her to one of the nearby walls and start to make out with her. I slowly slip my finger behind her and down her lower back...and further.

"FUCK! I forgot how amazing this feels!" she says.


The purple-haired guide. Made with Nightcafe AI.

The dream gets unstable after that and I go into a false awakening. My body feels heavy. I try to rollover but still feel something like sleep paralysis. I have a few more false awakenings, but I eventually decide I really want to write down dreams, so I wiggle my toes and rollover. I wake up for real this time.

Supplements: Yuschak Primary Trigger Combination (3rd Attempt)
Galantamine: 8mg
Choline Bitartrate: 250mg

Default = Commentary
Blue = Dream
Dark Orange = Lucid