JD's Balls-to-the-Wall Awesome Dream Journal

[J.D.]

Welcome to my dream journal! Yes, the title is a bit ostentatious, but it's too late now! I used to get semi-lucid in most dreams ever since I can remember- like, I'd know in the back of my mind that it wasn't reality, and would reassure myself of the fact if anything I didn't like happened. But by and large, I'd never had an actual conscious lucid dream (never mind control) before coming to these forums. So this journal basically charts my lucid dreaming progress from the very beginning, which is nice! There's no actual lucidity before post 7, just a few semi's. Just a disclaimer, the first few dreams are described in mind-numbing detail because that's what I needed to boost my recall in the beginning. The more recent entries are written far more with an audience in mind! Enjoy! I should mention that I'm using Banhurt's Dream Journal 2.5 - which is brilliant, I recommend YOU get it! http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=91993 Also, any and all comments/interpretations are welcome and appreciated!

[J.D.]

17.10.2009 Oddball in Hogwarts (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I was playing some kind of game in a castle. This game seemed to be a variant of Halo 3's "Oddball". There were balls hidden on every floor of the castle which contained a certain amount of points. There were balls of different colours- the colours represented the amount of points available. The object of the game was to pick up and hold these balls. Every second you held a ball, points would be given to you. After the points contained in a ball ran out, it disappeared. The person with the most points at the end of the round (i.e. when all points were exhausted) was the winner. All the corridors in this castle were extremely tight. They had very low ceilings (maybe 6 feet) and it was so narrow it was difficult for two people to squeeze past each other. I got the impression that the castle might have been Hogwarts, and it was then that I realised I was in the middle of a game- and playing against various characters from Harry Potter. My friend Colin was competing as well. I assume he was involved because he is a massive HP fan. The game went on, and after a while everybody stopped running around because we thought all the balls had been used and that the round was over. However I looked at my "interactive map" and noticed that there was one ball remaining on the floor below with 10-15 seconds worth of points left. Colin and I raced for it and I got there first. Colin was annoyed because I would not give up the ball and let him have the points. (We talked while running) The final ball was in a room which was slightly less cramped than the rest of the castle, despite being only about 4m long from door to back. The walls were grey and looked like stone, except inorganic. There were three shower stalls on the left as I went into the room, and they had huge pink/purple curtains in front of them. The ball itself was at the back of the room, underneath a window which let in some quite bright sunlight. It was the kind of sunlight you might get on a cold but clear winter's morning. I picked up the ball and immediately moved back towards the door I had come in from. I passed the showers; the curtains had started blowing in the wind which had materialised- coming from the window (which I thought was closed?). I spied Colin and two girls out in the corridor and assumed they were getting ready to ambush me in an attempt to steal the ball- and its points. I backed quickly into the room again, looking for an angle or hiding place I could use to my tactical advantage when Colin & co. entered. (Camping is always a legitimate strategy) I realised the only option was to hide in one of the showers, which I ranked as "as good as useless" because it seemed too obvious a place to hide. I decided I would rely soley on speed to get past him and out into the corridor. Strangely though, he and his enforcers waited outside discussing strategy until I had collected all the points and the game was over. I thought this was strange but never got a chance to ask him about it as the dream ended. I woke up briefly here, I think.

[J.D.]

17.10.2009 Scooby Doo and the Mine Cart Rollercoaster (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID After briefly waking up after my last dream, this came next and began in a way loosely connected to the previous dream. I was on top of the castle, on the roof. There was a large modern-looking bridge leading off the top of the front of the castle which headed upwards, not too steeply. Presumably it went downwards not far along because I could only see a summit about 100m away. There were cables running along the side of the bridge and railroad tracks attached to it, with old-fashioned wooden mine carts. The character of Hermione (more Harry Potter) showed me how to use a cart and I took off up the bridge. Once I got to the summit, the track turned much more rickety, like one of those roller coasters based on the Wild West/mining. The track turned downhill steeply and entered a mine shaft. As the cart flew along at high speed through mountains, around the outsides of mountains, I became aware that it was suddenly night time. All of a sudden I was accompanied by Freddy, Daphne and Shaggy from Scooby Doo. We were all in the same cart apart from Freddy, who was in one behind. We were going very fast downhill, and at the indoor sections of the track, there were frequent overhanging black rubber cables which Daphne kept getting stuck on. I was thinking that this was pretty stupid of her. Every time she would get caught, Shaggy had to grab her arms and hold on. The cart continued at the same speed- the cables just stretched until they broke and Daphne ended up back in. About here I became aware that I was dreaming, probably due to the general ridiculousness of the situation. I was no longer in the cart, but was watching from a view which kept beside it. I did not try to participate in any way, and just watched what happened as everything became like a cartoon- probably since the only people left in the dream were cartoon characters. Everything was now in very simple colours. All rocks and earth were the same generic soil-brown colour. I watched as Shaggy tried again to pull Daphne back into their mine cart, when she said something to the effect of "You're a waster! You're always drunk or high!" to him. I laughed then, at how something like this could be in Scooby Doo. (Always drunk/high is how I imagined a real life Shaggy would be and I found this highly amusing coming straight from the cartoon) I somehow lost lucidity around here, probably because of lack of participation in the dream. I continued as an impartial observer. The track then went outside for a few hundred metres, and ran precariously close to the edge, along a cliff. The mountain continued almost vertically upwards on the right side ot the track, with the edge on the left. I was then watching the action from a point behind a large (8ft) mecacing-looking bird, which was sitting on a rocky peak about 50m from the track (on the left). This peak was at the same level as the track, but between the two was a vast chasm. I drew a pretty good sketch of this POV which I might scan if I get a chance. It was as if this bird was the monster Shaggy, Daphne and Freddy were trying to catch (like they always do), and it was watching their terrible attempt with satisfaction (like cartoon villains always do). The bird was black, which definately denoted malevolence, and its tail was like a cape. Of course it was a cape, since the monster is always a guy in a costume! The head looked like a cross between a crow and the ancient-egyptian bird-god, Horace. The bird flew away once the carts re-entered the mountain down another mine shaft, apparently having seen enough.

[J.D.]

17.10.2009 Dexter and the Cleaner (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID My recall was a bit shabby for this dream, but it had all to do with the TV show "Dexter". I was Dexter, and me and a team of about four people were carrying out some kind of task for an agency. I had a "dream memory" of earlier that day, when an important-looking old man in an office building had given me a bright red file to deliver somewhere. Right now, it was night, and we were about to complete the task. We approached a tall wire fence, which had two layers of barbed wire at the top. I looked to my right and saw in the distance two plain-clothes police officers standing in front of what might have been a stadium or mall, surrounded by police cars. I knew that they were judging my performance. They had a large sign set up beside them, which was basically indicative of how well I was doing, as it showed my name and the title of the job I would recieve upon completion of this task. After climbing quickly over the fence, in almost one jump, I saw that the "Job" section on the sign had changed from "Delivery" to "Cop". I can't remember actually being able to read the letters on the sign, I just knew what it said. This might have been what caused me to realise I was in a dream. Same as in the last dream I knew I was having, I did not consciously try to do anything or interfere with the story, I just kept it in my head that this wasn't real. Kind of like watching a movie. I assumed my fence-climbing prowess had impressed the officers and I looked back at the fence thinking, "This has to be a dream, I'd never hop that in real life." With this thought, the fence nearly doubled in height. I looked at it, slightly daunted. But then I remembered I could pull off anything in a dream, so I scrambled over it even more easily than I had done when it was half the size. I walked casually over to the front of the building where the police officers were, and lost lucidity somewhere on the way. The dream continued as normal. I realised that the large building was definately a Mall, as I could see inside it now. The police officers said to me, "Congratulations, you passed, you're now a cop." I then took part in something like a murder investigation, except there had been no murder. I became part of a team of officers who examined nearly every inch of the mall. I interviewed a large cleaning lady with curly black hair and she told me how she was angry at a former co-worker for quitting and leaving her with all the work. She drove around on one of those motorised cleaning platforms they use in malls which works like a big lawnmower. I don't remember encountering this other cleaning lady in the dream, but I got a mental picture of her being about 300lbs, with a bad-ass attitude. This ex-cleaning lady became the "villain" for the rest of the dream, and I had the feeling that she was out to trip up my investigation in some way. My point of view soon shifted into the first cleaning lady, and I became her, going around with an enormous brush, sweeping up rubbish and dust. There was a slightly spooky moment when I entered a disused bathroom to sweep. It was completely cut off from the rest of the mall and was pretty eerie- barely any lights worked. I paused and reminded myself that this was a dream and nothing could possibly happen that I couldn't laugh away anyway. With confidence, I marched into the bathroom to clean it up. Some building work was obviously in progress in this bathroom, which doubled as a shower room. The floor and walls were made of the same type of orange/brown tiles you see in cheap communal washrooms, some were missing and others were smashed up. There were a couple of toilet cubicles missing where there should have been some. Upon entering, I saw a huge pile of rubble against one of the walls; it looked like there had been an earthquake. I thought to myself, "Look at the crap I have to deal with, there's no way I'm cleaning that up!" I went about my business, sweeping up the rubble and concrete dust into the big pile, when the actress Christine Rose appeared in the corner, where a cubicle had obviously once been. She was wearing a green apron over her outfit, and looked like she worked in a garden centre. She started trying to tell me to do something (me = the cleaning lady at this point), but I kept sweeping and not looking at her- it seemed that I'd heard it all before from this woman and was growing tired of her. The rest of this dream, I have forgotten.

[J.D.]

19.10.2009 The Misty Mountains (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID This dream was truly epic in terms of scope, length and fun! I have little memory of the very start of this dream, but I know it started off as a holiday or some kind of long trip. I had to get from one end of a huge island to the other, and I had someone with me, it might have been my friend Darren. We were in what appeared to be an enchanted forest. The grass was very green and the ground was flat. None of the trees were very thick, and the grass was full of thousands of bizzare species of birds and various tall flowers. It was night time and I could see the stars, but the forest seemed to glow and was the same brightness it would have been in the daytime. I knew that I had done this trip many hundreds of times before, and had flown it every time. I tried to take off, but could not rise above a foot off the ground and I kept accidentally kicking the taller birds. In the end we gave up on unaided flight and opted for a plane instead. The next thing I knew, we were in an airport. The airport was hideously confusing, and me and Darren got seperated. I wound up on a plane bound for the "Misty Mountains" with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaugn (like Wedding Crashers). They were both dressed in gray suits. We landed in the "Misty Mountains" and took a road trip in an old-fashioned convertible. We drove up and down mountain roads for what seemed (in dream time) like days. The roads were walled on either side with big grey cinder blocks, above which was a huge forest of pine trees, each about 50m tall and densely packed together. One day during this road trip, the police started chasing us. Vince Vaugn told me that Owen Wilson had robbed somewhere (bank maybe?) while I had been dozing in the back seat. OW was driving, and he took us to the nearest town. The town's police cars joined the chase. These ones were a dark green colour, and looked like they were straight from the 1950's. OW decided to try and fool the cops by driving down an "illegal street". I suddenly got some history of the town beamed into my head out of nowhere, and found out that the town had originally been made up of only a few main streets, but these were inconvenient, and over time, citizens had taken it upon themselves to create new streets using buldozers and pickaxes. The illegal street that we turned into was just wide enough for our convertible, but not wide enough for the persuing police cars. OW explained, "Just taking advantage of other people's deviousness!" When we emerged at the other side, we all jumped out of the car and let it roll onwards at high speed. It was persued by police cars until it crashed into a shop down the street. I assumed the police didn't get a good look at us and tried to blend into the people walking along. Vince Vaughn went into the nearest fashionable clothes shop and OW put on a grey hat and took out a huge old-fashioned camera, to make himself look like a reporter. He then spotted the model Naomi Campbell through the window of a shop, and started taking photos of her. When he saw her, he said "Hey look, there's scary Campbell." -Referring to her notorious temper I assume. She heard him, and marched outside, demanding to know what he meant. OW stuttered, but made a speedy recovery. "I said I'm a scaredy cat! Like... cowardly." She asked him how, and he improvised wildly, spotting Vince Vaughn coming back down the street, arms full of shopping bags, wearing a new outfit. "I'm too scared to ask my friend here for his jacket!" Luckily she found this funny and immediately snatched the jacket off VV, ignoring his warnings about how expensive it was. A little bit of missing time occurred here... The next thing i remember is the four of us being chased by King Kong in one of the Misty Mountain's many forests. He was straight-up terrifying, with his face constantly contorted with rage. At one point, we thought he was gone, and so emerged into a clearing which contained quite a large static caravan. We took a few tentative steps out, and suddenly I saw King Kong watching us from the other side of the caravan, through two large parallell windows. I nearly shat myself. The sheer horror of this ape's face shocked me into temporary lucidity. I reassured myself, "It's only a dream, but a damn scary one!" None of the others had noticed the ape yet, and I thought it would be a shame to spoil the big reveal when they too see the ape and run away in a blind panic. So I slowly turned back towards the treeline and smiled. Right when I expected it, they all screamed and charged past me back into the trees. I laughed quite hard. When I turned round King Kong was nowhere to be seen, and the caravan had transformed into some sort of flying coach. The pilot stepped out and said "Well done, now get on board and we'll fly out of here!" I don't ever remember seeing VV or NC again, but OW was sitting beside me on the flight. I looked out the window at the expanse of forest and saw that there was thick swirling mist around some parts at the tops of trees. I said to the pilot, "So that's why they're called the Misty Mountains!" and he replied "Nah, it's cuz I jizz on them every time I fly over, yeeehaww!" I laughed, shaking my head at this crazy bastard.

[J.D.]

19.10.2009 Bus Crash (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID This isn't really a seperate dream from "Misty Mountains", as it continued uninterrupted, but the whole story is quite long and this part is totally different. The flying coach landed in a town on the North coast of Northern Ireland where I used to have a caravan, transforming into a standard coach as it descended. It drove into the campsite, to the caravan I used to own. To my surprise, my family was there, and so was my friend Darren. This time it was definately him, not like the last dream where I wasn't sure. I was exhausted from all the travelling, but the only bed available was a double bed in a room at the back end of the caravan, that Darren was already sleeping in. I was so tired I didn't care and flopped down to sleep. When I woke up, Darren was gone, and an enormous African man was just setttling down in his place. I said, "Who the absolute fuck are you?!?" He responded to tell me that this caravan was free for the use of anybody, and showed me his "ID poster". -This was a fold-out poster (which it seemed natural that everybody had :S) containing information about a person's appearance, nationality, marital status etc. I was shocked to see, beside "Occupation", the words "Large Rapist"! Needless to say, I shot out of bed and ran down to the living room, where I confronted the guy who was obviously running the place. He accompanied me back to the end room to examine the man's ID poster. He said, "This doesn't say rapist!" And sure enough, when I looked, it in fact said, "Huge Ravist". I had no idea what the hell a ravist was, and looked it up when I woke up. According to urbandictionary, it is: "A new political party. It is the Rave party. It is more fun than the Conservative party, and more socially acceptable than the Neonazi party." At the time, in my dream, I thought it was some kind of farmer, but I stand corrected! I still didn't go back to sleep, I just apologised to the guy and walked outside. (I was still 100% sure it had said "Rapist", and he'd changed it). When I stepped outside, the weather had changed dramatically. It was now hot and humid. The sun was bright, and I started to feel like I was in Florida or somewhere. I went over to two of my friends, Mark and Craig, who were lying on sun loungers. There was now clear blue water lapping up beside the caravan for some reason, and I suggested to them that we go fishing. Craig said, "Nah, only the pro's fish here, but look at that!" He pointed to a killer whale about 30ft away, swiming past. (The water had risen considerably) Craig swam out to it, and I tried to watch. I noticed I was wearing sunglasses, and conveniently they acted as goggles when I went underwater. The whale swam into the caravan's garden, which was now underwater, then leapt up in the air and smacked down causing a massive wave. It started to thrash about, sending the rising water everywhere. Me and several others jumped onto the coach to shelter, but couldn't get the doors closed because the water had broken the electrics. The water was now chest-high inside the coach. I saw that there was a double-decker bus parked nearby which I swam to and got on board. To my surprise, it was filled with about 60 of my former schoolmates, who were sheltering on the top level. The bottom level was full of water, which was now getting foamy because the whale was still thrashing around. I forced the doors closed, and the bus began to float. It floated to the top of a hill -the water had not reached the other side of this hill. The bus then started rolling down a busy road at high speed, gushing water at it went and knocking cars out of the way. I saw that up ahead was a busy intersection which was familiar to me. I became slightly lucid here, probably because this was so unbelievable -and great fun! Everybody else was screaming in terror and I just laughed. As the bus picked up speed, rolling towards the intersection, I knew this was going to be spectacular. As I would often do in situations like this, I whipped out my phone and started recording. -It didn't occur to me at all that this wouldn't last! I quickly searched my head for an "appropriately triumphant exclamation" to yell when the big crash happened, and for some reason opted for "BOOM HEADSHOT!!" Don't ask me why, it came out of nowhere! Right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olm7xC-gBMY#t=0:15 Enjoy! Somebody shouted "Heads down, chins up!", which made just as little sense. The devastation caused was unbelievable. There were cars thrown for hundreds of metres, trees uprooted and water everywhere. It was great fun seeing the shocked expressions of all the DCs. The rest of the dream was the aftermath of the crash. A huge deal was made out of the fact that somebody cut their hand.

[J.D.]

22.10.2009 First Totally Stable Lucid (DILD) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I fell asleep in the late afternoon after having a shower and listening to my ipod for about an hour. I didn't attempt to WILD, in fact I didn't even intend to fall asleep. I know there was a dream which led me to becoming lucid, but I can't remember what it was. Recall isn't the best today. The first moment of lucidity I can recall was me sitting in the passenger seat of my mum's car (purple Renault Megane). My mum was driving, and somebody else was definately there, but I have no idea who it was, never turned round to look. We were in a multi-story car park (Castlecourt car park, for anyone in Northern Ireland!) As soon as I realised I had finally achieved being independantly aware in a dream, everything started to fade out. I remembered reading on the DV forums that a good way to stabilise a dream and increase vividness is to handle and feel an object, get your senses involved. I quickly glanced around the car's dashboard and could see nothing. I noticed the car's radio, and desperately pressed the "tape eject" button. To my enormous relief, a gray tape popped out, and I turned it over in my hands for about 30 seconds, keeping me in the dream. The most amazing thing about this was that it was a conscious decision to slowly lift and move my arm to the button. I could feel my arm muscles working and all the while I was thinking, "This is amazing, it's like I'm in another dimension, and completely asleep!" I felt like it took a bit of mental acrobatics to seperate my awareness of my actual body from my dream body, and moving my arm consciously was slow, like learning to walk. The radio then activated itself and "Back in the U.S.S.R." by The Beatles came on. Strangely, this was the very first song (of about 25) I listened to in my ipod session earlier, but it put me in a really positive mood. My mum started to drive towards the barrier at the exit and started talking. Then I saw she had the head of my 14-year-old brother and was talking in his voice. I wasn't having him driving the car! I rotated his head 90 degrees round to me by grabbing its top. I looked at him and shook my head in exasperation at the weirdness that was invading this previously normal situation. I entertained myself by singing along to "Back in the U.S.S.R." and bobbing my head in time. I had the first of several false awakenings here. I only realised they were false awakenings when I woke up for real at the end- I was then surprised to be sleeping in a different place than I expected from my false awakenings. Where I woke up was weird indeed. It was a dingy, underground, but well-lit basement. The bed I was in was slightly above the level of the floor, and there was a kind of computer terminal on the rusty platform beside it. The computer terminal was playing the same Beatles song. I thought I had woken up for real (Weird how the brain makes unfamiliar places seem familiar just to trick you into thinking you've woken up, creating a bizzare dream-within-a-dream scenario.) Another of my brothers was walking around the huge basement room talking to someone round the corner. Since I was still in a deep state of relaxation (in this first layer of dreaming), I was able to fall right back into the same dream. (second layer) This time nothing happened at all and I just listened to the music for a bit, happy that I'd managed to get back in. I experienced another false awakening, but this time I had my head under the covers in a totally different position. I wondered, "Should I have been able to have moved in my sleep? Should sleep paralysis not have stopped me?" My brother was still walking around talking belligerantly, and the music was blasting now. I got up, and ate a cake. Yes, straight out of the blue. There was a cake sitting beside the computer teminal. It was small, only about 6 inches across and was full of jam, really sticky. It was absolutely delicious. Best cake ever. Part of me thought "I'm never getting back to sleep", but I decided I would be able to if I had been dreaming that I was dreaming. i.e. loud things in dreams would not stop you sleeping in dreams. Turns out I was right and I went to sleep almost right away. This time I went to find a girl I remembered from a non-lucid dream I had earlier. She was blonde and awesome, but of course, completely made up. I'll censor the next few minutes for the sake of decency! Unfortunately, I decided NOT to have full sex with her because I was genuinely worried I would start sleep-thrusting in my bed, and that could be embarrassing if anyone walked in... (I remembered that my real bedroom door had been left slightly open) By the way, any readers of this, does that happen??? I'm pretty anxious to know!! I had yet another false awakening to the basement room. I must have been nearly ready to wake up for real here because I had occasional flashes of awareness of my own body in bed. Once, I could really feel the numbness of sleep paralysis. To try and anchor myself in the dream-world and avoid unneccessary waking, I climbed around the edges of my dream-bed (which bacame extremely long suddenly :S), feeling the wood which made up the frame very carefully. Not long before I woke up, I opened my real eyes, and I could see an image of my wall on top of what I could see in the dream, which was pretty crazy. Can't wait for the next one!

[J.D.]

25.10.2009 Sleepwalking at a Swimming Pool (DILD) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I know the dream I was in was extremely long and involved but can barely remember enough to make it worthwhile typing it out. I remember the lucid part though. I suddenly found myself sitting on a wall at the edge of a swimming pool. I was on holiday with my family somewhere warm. The first thing I did was reach down and feel the wall with my hands to increase the vividness. It worked, but not significantly. I got up and walked over to the diving board, past my dad in a deck chair. I then had a false awakening. I actually dreamed that I had been sleepwalking along the side of the swimming pool, and that the scenario I was in was actually real life. I don't know how my subconscious managed to trick me into believing I was sleepwalking, in the middle of the day, at a crowded swimming pool. All I remember after "waking up" is thinking, "God, it's lucky I woke up, imagine if I had drowned!" Moron lol.

[J.D.]

28.10.2009 Stupid TV Show People (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID My recall wasn't the best this morning because I had to get up earlier than I planned. I was in a friend's house which had three floors and seemed to have been built by hand, in stages. I was on the second floor, and looking in a basket full of old DVD's and videos when I found something that caught my eye. It was a VHS tape of an American sitcom and it looked really stupid and lame. Three people were on the front of the cover, a hot redhead, a stupid-looking guy and what appeared to be a butler, with huge bushy eyebrows. There was a knock at the door and I slid down the bannister to the ground floor. I saw two people were already answering the door to the redhead girl off the front of the VHS cover! I thought I'd introduce myself so I hopped down the last five or so stairs holding out my hand. She missed my hand and accidentally grabbed my crotch. We thought it was pretty funny and she invited everyone out to play frisbee in the back garden. The back garden was enormous, and on the side it connected to the house there was a 6m hill which might once have been a rockery but got overgrown. When we got round the back, the other two guys from the cover were there, except the butler looked like a normal guy with grey hair. The other guy kept putting fake bushy eyebrows on him and laughing, saying, "Look, he's the butler beast! Hahahah!" One of my friends turned to me and said, "How is that even funny?" I said, "Must be off the show." We played frisbee for a while, and I pulled off some amazing moves to catch it, even inches from where the two guys had left their glasses of red wine.

[J.D.]

28.10.2009 Morning After a Party (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I was stepping out the doors of a university with a group of five friends. We were discussing a party that had taken place the night before, somewhere on the outskirts of the institution. All I could see, up to the treeline in the distance, was a trail of rubbish, clothes and empty bottles, loosely following a winding white path through a green field. We walked along this path, and on the way I found my mobile phone and, to my delight, my jeans! It was only then that I realised I had been walking around all morning in my boxers. Not much else of this one I can remember...

[J.D.]

28.10.2009 Flying and Skateboarding (DILD) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I can't remember what I was dreaming about prior to becoming lucid, but the first thing I remember is coming into possession of a flying elephant. It was a much larger version of Dumbo and could probably seat about six. I remembered the basic task of the month for October on dreamviews- "Scare a DC", and decided to take a woman standing near me for a ride on the elephant. I controlled the elephant, sitting on top of its neck (the driving seat I assume!) while she sat on the top of one of the huge flapping ears, close to the head. We flew low at about 90mph through a city which had lots of things overhanging the streets and bridges to go over/under. It felt a bit like swinging through trees, so I started singing the George of the Jungle song, and the woman joined in. I made the ride deliberately extreme to try and scare my passenger, but nothing worked. She said, "Sure this is a dream, it's not even real!" I was annoyed so I jumped off the elephant and it flew away into the distance. I recognised the city I was standing in as Paris. The street went downhill for as far as I could see and I had a desire to skateboard down it. I knew I couldn't skateboard in real life, but that didn't matter. I took off down the street on a board, and basically grinded along the railings on the side the whole way down. I hopped from railing to railing as fast as I could think of where to grind next. I jumped over the tops of cars coming the other way and landed on the other side of the road a few times. When the road became level at the bottom of the hill, I finished up my ride by deliberately landing heavily on a low railing and snapping the board in half with the force of the impact. I felt like I should maybe try and integrate myself better into the dream, so I felt everything around me carefully and paid close attention to the feel of the peeling paint on the railings. I even did a reality check for the first time (in a dream). My reality check is to look at my hands and count how many fingers I have on each hand, then turn my hands over and double-check. When I counted my fingers, I found that I couldn't quite tell how many there were. The first time I looked, there were seven on my left hand (which I checked first), and when I looked again, there were six. My hands also looked more like a womans, with longer nails. Having been fully convinced I was dreaming, I walked over to a nearby kebab cart on a busy street corner with the intention of trying some food or a cold drink to test my other senses. The cart was the size of a large van and had lots of vats of food. I grabbed an ice cube out of one and a handful of doner kebab strips out of another and crammed everything in my mouth. The kebab meat was delicious, and although I could feel the ice cube getting crunched up and melted in my mouth, it didn't seem as cold as I expected. Maybe I don't have sensitive teeth in my dreams. :S I wasn't actually hungry, so I spat what I was eating back into the pile of food, to the disgust of several onlookers. I saw my brother eating out of a cantine farther along the cart, and I asked him what was good to eat. He directed me to a drinking fountain. I saw that the water flowing from the tap had steam coming off it and I thought, "I don't want to drink hot water!" So I ignored it and walked on.

[J.D.]

28.10.2009 Maths Test, Rod Stewart Concert (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I was in a maths class I haven't been in for years, doing a very simple maths test. I knew there was something cool going on in the main hall and I wanted to get done quickly to go see what it was. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep track of what I was doing. My attention span dropped to zero and I kept getting distracted by talking to the people around me. A girl across the room was having the same problem as me, and every time she realised she'd screwed up she would yell some profanity like she had tourette's syndrome. When the bell rang, I was frustrated to be kept behind by the teacher, who wanted to talk to me about getting distracted so easily. When I eventually escaped the classroom, I headed straight down to the hall. On the way I met a few of my old classmates, who seemed to be stage hands, carrying props to and from the hall. They all told me, "It's awesome, get down there!" So I doubled my pace and got to the back door of the hall. I threw it open and was disappointed to discover that a Rod Stewart concert was in full swing. (Apparently he's still got it! lol) Not being (in any way) a Rod Stewart fan myself, I was surprised to find myself actually enjoying the performance.

[J.D.]

29.10.2009 Strange Bus Journey (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I was back at my old high school, and a guy I used to know was giving me a piggy-back down to the bus park at a dangerous pace! He tripped over something and fell on his face, sending me rolling away. I got up to wait for my bus home to reverse into position. I was behind a blue railing at the back of the bus's parking space. When it finished reversing and stopped, I suddenly found myself sitting in the back seat. I couldn't understand how this happened without my knowlege, had I walked onto the bus on autopilot, or had I been teleported? This did actually happen one time, I couldn't figure it out! I probably should have recognised this as a sign that I was dreaming, but no luck! I even walked up to the front to try and pay the driver, but she only spoke chinese and I couldn't understand what she was saying. I became really drowsy on the bus ride, and kept jumping to alertness not knowing where we were. I eventually got off at a place I vaguely recognised, and spotted my two best friends cleaning a car. We all went into a newsagents- which doubled as a hair salon. The rest of the dream is a massive blur, but I started working in the shop until late at night. I ate lots of sweets.

[J.D.]

29.10.2009 Flying Practice (DILD) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I managed, for the first time, to chain the next three lucid dreams together in one morning. I must be getting somewhere with all this! I was playing a game of Halo 3, on a map called Last Resort, one of my favourites. It was just a mess-around game, and I wanted to tweak the settings to reduce the effect of gravity so I could fly. Having done this, I realised, "I can't fly..." even though I was in the role of a video game character. I became lucid there. I decided I'd had enough playing Halo 3, and I was suddenly in my own house. What I realised after waking up was that the house I was in was a clever amalgamation of the three houses I've lived in during my life, plus my dad's current house. However it all seemed normal at the time. I was wearing pyjamas. There was mess everywhere, like a party had been had. There were a lot of my possessions that I hadn't seen in years lying around the floor. I tried to fly around the house. I jumped up in the air, higher than I normally wound have been able to, and on the descent, I hovered about a foot above the floor. I then kept this up and floated around the house. I said to my brothers, "Hey, look at this!" They seemed impressed. I went outside with the intention of flying much higher. I was slightly worried about this because any time I've ever tried to fly unaided in a dream in my life, I've got to a certain height, shat myself (not literally) and plummeted. I told myself though, that it was only a dream and I couldn't actually injure myself. (Turns out this doesn't make heights any less scary!) Some people in the street looked at me strangely for wearing pyjamas, but I didn't care. I flew up to the height of a street light, but had real difficulty going any higher, or staying at that height. I grabbed onto the top of a pillar made of bricks and dangled off it quite comfortably. Then a grey car pulled up outside and out stepped some of my friends' parents, come to pay a visit. I guided them inside, floating of course, and told them to ignore the mess. In the living room I found my old friend Lucie lying on the setee. "'The fuck are you doing here?" I asked her. She didn't reply and I found myself losing the dream.

[J.D.]

29.10.2009 Simply Lucid (DILD) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID By carefully re-relaxing and focusing on becoming lucid again, I would up back in my messy four-houses from the previous dream. I knew I probably didn't have much time before I woke up again, so I tried to prolong it my not letting myself get agitated enough to wake up. I slowly walked around the house until I got to the living room. There was a big, old-fasioned, wood-pannelled TV in the corner playing a music channel. Robbie Williams was doing a cover of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi". I thought it was rather good so I made a mental note to download it when I woke up- if it existed! (It doesn't ) I turned off the TV when another song came on so it wouldn't make me forget Paparazzi. I went into the kitchen to find more of my old possessions strewn across the floor, and found an old journal from 2005. Even though I knew I was dreaming, I lifted it and put it in my pocket, lest anyone read it. Here I was woken up by noise downstairs. I snapped straight from the dream to sleep paralysis.

[J.D.]

29.10.2009 First WILD! (DEILD) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I had just awoken from my previous dream but I knew I could probably give it another go. I couldn't feel any part of my body, but I had it in my head that feeling things is good to strengthen lucidity. It felt like three of my fingers were touching an electronic button each. I started pressing the buttons rhythmically, like I was drumming my fingers, and after about 20 seconds, the buttons fell off and dropped into my duvet. This took me straight into a lucid dream. I was in the same house as before, except this time I wasn't wearing anything. I saw my laptop on a desk in the middle of the room and tried to use it, just to see if it would work. I got onto Facebook and tried to update my status for a laugh. I tried to type in that I'd heard a decent cover version of Paparazzi, but I had lost the ability to type properly. I kept accidentally erasing what I'd typed, and getting the spelling totally wrong. I decided it wasn't that much of a loss, really, so I stood up, and saw two girls in bikinis walking past the front window. One of them I knew, and she came inside. Unfortunately I woke up as I approached her!

[ArmoredSandwich]

Pretty cool stuff! I haven't read everything yet but so far it's been a good read I like the pictures :O

[THELUKESTIR]

" I slowly walked around the house until I got to the living room. There was a big, old-fasioned, wood-pannelled TV in the corner playing a music channel. Robbie Williams was doing a cover of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi". I thought it was rather good so I made a mental note to download it when I woke up- if it existed! (It doesn't )" my favorite moment... for some reason blurring the lines between reality and dreams just astounds me

[J.D.]

Thanks for the positive comments, guys! I've been away all weekend, but hopefully I'll have some new stuff to get down here tomorrow morning. " I slowly walked around the house until I got to the living room. There was a big, old-fasioned, wood-pannelled TV in the corner playing a music channel. Robbie Williams was doing a cover of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi". I thought it was rather good so I made a mental note to download it when I woke up- if it existed! (It doesn't )" my favorite moment... for some reason blurring the lines between reality and dreams just astounds me I was so gutted to find out it wasn't real too! That was a bit of a strange experience, but amazing.

[J.D.]

03.11.2009 Fragments (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID My recall was pure terrible today. I lay the blame on my weekend away, which basically amounted to a sleepless binge! The following dream fragments are what I can remember from when I slept most of the evening after coming home. I was crouching under a small arch or bridge, which looked a lot like a certain level in Halo 3. I had a pet mouse with me which I could command to do whatever I wanted. It kept making its way around in a big circle around me until I called it over. Eventually I lost it because it was so small. Memory blank I was in some sort of race down a massively tall, snowy mountain with three other guys. There was a blizzard on and visibility was poor. I managed to get a lead on the others by launching myself off ledges and landing on ones below. The depth of the snow cushioned my landing each time. I think a white cat featured in this dream somehow... Can't place it though!

[J.D.]

04.11.2009 Invasion (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID The first thing I remember is watching a kind of cutscene where the Earth was being invaded by an alien army. There were thousands of different kinds of troops suddenly on the ground- men in armour, monsters, spiders the size of skyscrapers, giant floating octopuses and what looked like a blue lantern fish, also enormous. The human-looking men in armour were very close in appearance to the Necromonger army from the movie "The Chronicles of Riddick". In this cutscene, the (very diverse) army arrived on earth, immediately overwhelmed any resistance and burrowed down to the centre of the earth where they set up a base. All the huge floating monsters guarded the hole and would occasionally emerge to attack the surface. The alien base was a huge underground hollow with a pillar in the middle. The interior of this pillar served as an HQ. I was on a motorbike being chased by enemy soldiers, also on bikes. The path I took was through a ruined city. Everything was crumbling and the ground was basically thick ash. Every so often some kind of flying bat creature would dive bomb me and I would have to leap backwards off the bike and be dragged along behind it. It got me covered in dirt but I avoided the flying thing. I reached a tall and intact building on a street corner where I found a few guys hiding out. The enemy army surrounded us and demanded that I come outside. I walked out to meet them, and to my surprise, the enemy leader took off his helmet and approached me. I can't remember what we talked about, but it turned out that all the enemy soldiers were slaves to one person, who was now in residence at the centre of the Earth. I found out that even the giant blue floating lantern fish (which looked shit-scary), was actually called Nigel, and didn't like being the only enormous lantern fish in the army. The rest of this dream is a bit of a blur, but I think it might have made a good movie!

[J.D.]

05.11.2009 Disneyland (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I was in some sort of water park, in what I assumed to be Disneyland. There were lots of winding and interlinking channels of quite deep water, in which people were swimming and boats were sailing. I was on one of these boats, which was being driven by Beyoncé. :S I sat in the seating area in the back while she drove from just above us. After taking off, we took a right turn to head off down the nearest channel. I thought several times the boat was going to hit one of the people swimming past, but we were lucky. A short way along, everybody on the boat jumped into the water, which had a slight current like a lazy river. I then saw that the other people from the boat were the cast of Friends. I swam over, but to my horror, realised I had no swimming shorts on. I swam quickly away round a bend, where I came to a shop. I jumped out of the water and put a towel round me and went inside. The shop was pretty small and poorly organised. Everything was either stuffed into shelves or crammed into wicker baskets on the floor. The shopkeeper seemed a bit strange to me. He had short light-brown hair and wore glasses. I got the feeling from him that something wasn't right. I wandered round the shop, and suddenly became very dizzy, like I was drunk. I would walk from one wall to another, and if I encountered another person on the way, I would fall past them onto the nearest surface that could support my weight. This could be a shelf, wall or fridge of drinks. The guy at the counter looked at me suspiciously. I finally got the balls to go up and ask him whether he sold swimming shorts. He told me he did and pointed at a wicker basket on the floor. I was disappointed to find that they weren't quite swimming shorts. They were made of a rough material and were pretty flimsy. Right here in my dream I had a strange psychic experience, which ended up being totally pointless. I only wonder why it was in my dream at all! I looked at the price on the shorts and thought, "I bet it's something ridiculous like 90 dollars..." Just then, an ad was finishing on the radio, which said, "...now only 90 dollars!" I thought this was strange but thought no more of it. When I found the price it was in fact $40. I asked the shopkeeper if I could try them on and he said, "We don't do that." I was getting annoyed with this guy and it was getting dark outside so I just bought them and left through the back door so as not to waste any more time. Out the back was a hill. The back of the shop was at the top, and I could see down the hill for miles, until where it turned into forest. There were numerous bumps in the hill and a train track wound up it. Suddenly, people started running past me down the hill, shouting that Voldemort was coming. I thought this was unlikely but didnt want to chance it so I took off after them. The sky suddenly went completely dark, with a greenish tinge. I found I could run very fast indeed downhill, and was soon at the front of everyone else. I paused to look back at the shop, where I saw two black smoke trails crash downwards into the shop in a "V" formation. The shop collapsed, and most of the people I was with screamed. (I wish I could have become lucid here, then gone back and opened up a can of whoopass.) We kept on running, and tried to stay out of the line of sight from the shop by keeping to the right and putting trees and the corners of buildings between us. We had to avoid trains which were now coming up the hill frequently. They were the kind of small trains you would see in a theme park, which are used to give tours, except they were loaded up with supplies of some kind. I found I was able to jump through the gaps in the carriges and keep my speed up, so that's what I did as often as possible. We ran right up to the forest, where we found a river. I wasn't wide or deep, but very mossy on both sides, so it was difficult to see where the drop was. When I got over, I looked to my right, and saw about 15 of what I can only describe as "vine men", advancing on me. They looked very manacing, but some intuition told me that they weren't looking for a fight. I listened carefully and could hear music playing. Then I noticed that the vine men were actually dancing in time to it. I took up the dance as well, and they seemed a lot happier. The last I can remember of this dream is falling asleep in the forest.

[J.D.]

05.11.2009 "I am Iron Man" (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I only remembered that this dream existed at all when I was typing up the previous one. It's strange to think that we probably have lots of great dreams that disappear into the void when we don't remember them. Seems like a real waste. Anyway, just glad I saved this one! I was being held prisoner in a bunker-turned-prison, much like in the Ironman movie- except better lit. At the start of the dream, I had already built the suit and was commencing my escape. I busted down the thick steel door and about ten guards came running at me. However, in the dust that was kicked up by the door being broken, I was somehow able to sneak to the other side of them without being noticed. Once the dust settled and they saw me (with horror, I might add), I proceeded to "dish it out" on my captors, using a combination of super-powered kicks and flying beatdowns with my forearm plates. They never stood a chance, and soon I was free. I found myself in the main hall of what appeared to be a cathedral. I had emerged from one of the secluded doors at the back corner. The celing was very high, there might have been a dome on top. It was then that I noticed Hitler standing looking up at some artwork. I immediately knew that he was the one who was keeping me prisoner, and I resolved to piss him off before my rocket-powered blast-off to freedom. I tried to get his attention. I started off with "Yo dickhead!" But he didn't even acknowledge the noise of my voice. I decided to try a different tact. "Mein Führer!" I shouted. Hitler of course, couldn't resist, and turned right round ready to do the nazi salute. I was ready for him, and sent a marble bust his way which hit him clean in the stomach. Then I turned around and took off straight through the front pillars. I then woke up at home. It felt like some time had passed since I escaped from Hitler. I was awoken by someone bringing me a delivery of a huge box. I ripped it open and to my surprise, there were the parts for an upgraded version of my suit inside. As I opened all the individual packets, it struck me how much this looked like a futuristic toy. The designs on the box and instructions seemed very professional and, well, market-friendly. When I put it together and got inside, I looked a lot more like Optimus Prime than Iron Man, even the colours. I definately preferred this suit over my last one. (I never found out what happened to it) It had the ability to transform into some sort of supercar, with me in the driving seat. I tested it out in the street outside my house and found that it could hover and fly extremely fast. One time, when it was in "car mode", I pressed a button on the dashboard which was surrounded by purple neon lights. The roof closed on me and the car shot forward. I couldn't see where it was going, and it made a sound like a spaceship. I passed out, but when I woke up, I was five hundred(ish) years in the future. It was night time, and I walked into the first building I saw. Luckily, it was full of people waiting to explain everything to me. Small blank of missing time here... I had fallen asleep in a hammock in an upstairs room of this building. The room was windowed on all sides, and was full of people. There was the atmosphere of a party having finished earlier in the night. People were standing around talking and sipping drinks, and there was a purpleish glow which was the only source of light. I got up and walked to the window. It overlooked, about half a mile below, an enormous highway 30 lanes wide, full of traffic. I was surprised that the roads were so full this early in the morning, but I remembered that I knew nothing about the future and this could be normal. There were some cars and lorries that I could clearly see were fuelled by petrol (not sure how I inferred this, maybe because they looked just like their modern-day counterparts)- but some others which were like skeletal frames of vehicles. These seemed to have no fuel tank on board, and I could only imagine that they worked by somehow absorbing power from elsewhere using the white umbrella-shaped dome on their roofs. I said to a guy next to me, "I see you haven't completely abandoned petrol then?" He smiled and nodded. I asked him how the white-umbrella vehicles were powered, but he was quite secretive. Through listening to the comments of people around the room, I deduced that they were somehow harnessing radiation which hit the earth naturally (day or night- not solar) from space and using it as power. This is the closest vehicle in appearace that I could find to the radiation-powered vehicles from the future. Just imagine a great big white umbrella on top. I begged the other people at the party to tell me exactly what this new power source was, but they wouldn't, because I was from the past. I said, "It's not like I'm going to go back and patent the idea, then get filthy rich, I have no interest in that!" (In actual fact, that's exactly what I intended to do lol) They still refused and I was forced to admit defeat and head back outside.When I got back to my car, I saw someone trying to steal it. I had set up a password and biometric ID scans so nobody could use it but me, but I saw that she had already changed the password. She ran for it, but I caught up to her and she told me the password without much interrogation. I made it back to my time with no real bother and spent a long time flying up hills really fast and taking off, transforming in mid air and landing in the upright position.

[J.D.]

05.11.2009 Ballroom Dancing (Non-lucid) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID This either a fragment of a dream or just a really short dream. I'm inclined to think the latter, as anything small I remember of a dream ususally leads me to remember a bit more than what I've got here. I was in the ballroom of a giant cruise ship. It was ornately decorated, and there was a fountain in the middle. Two or three people were dancing in an old-fashioned way to some classical music. I was with a girl who wanted to dance with me, but I kept refusing. In real life my dancing amounts to little more than getting wasted and bobbing around to the beat of the music. I thought this probably wouldn't cut it. However, she managed to persuade me and we started to dance. I was getting embarrassed because I was hopeless, but I suddenly gained confidence out of nowhere and was ballroom dancing like a master in a few seconds. I might have been aware it was a dream and that would have been the thing that gave me confidence, but I can't remember.

[J.D.]

06.11.2009 Nice Long Lucid (DILD) NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I can't remember what I was dreaming about before becoming lucid- the lucid part is all I could force myself to remember! I was standing in the car park of a shopping centre near my house and I was Homer Simpson. I don't know how that happened but I thought, "Right, enough of this!" and changed myself back to normal after a few tries, one of which nearly woke me up. I had to rub my hands together and forget about my physical body- soon I was back to stability. I was then picked up in the family car we had back in the 90's, a big Ford Galaxy. My whole family was in the car, and I had the back two seats to myself. I was desperate to get out and try to fly or something, and I thought of opening up the boot and taking off out the back, but everything seemed so real it was hard for me to do something that might kill me if in fact it was real. For the second time ever, I remembered to do a reality check. I looked down and counted my fingers. Sure enough, there was an indeterminate number on each hand, maybe six. I leaned forward to show it to my brother, but I can't remember his reaction. I was completely sure this was a dream, but I was still impeded from jumping out of the moving car by my self-preservation instict. I'll have to train myself to remember that this is only useful when I'm awake! Maybe I'll deliberatly do something suicidal next time and see what happens. I was then distracted by waving at a girl driving the car behind. I used to know her from school, but havn't seen her since. She didn't see me at first, and I could see that she looked very sad. When she did notice me, she gave a very half-assed wave and turned away. Despite wanting to do something extreme, I thought I might as well go along with the dream. I was content just knowing that I was dreaming and marvelling at how real everything looked/felt. The car stopped and we went inside a house we havn't lived in for five years. At first it looked like the one house, but once again, it was an amalgamation of more than one of the houses I've lived in. I walked up to the kitchen table, looking to try some food. I went for a mini Cadbury's Crunchie. It tasted just like it should in real life, maybe nicer- I'm not even very fond of Crunchies. Once everybody was inside, I noticed that the door had been left open. I ran at it and jumped into the air, drop-kicking it in such a way that it bounced off the wall and slammed shut. I woke up here.