Thread: LiveInTheDream's Public Dream Journal

Sorry there was no entry for yesterday. I hit one of those nights where I just don't remember anything whatsoever, and I was busy, so I didn't try too hard to get around to writing anything.

Last night I had a bit of an interesting experience. I haven't been doing my typical reality checking lately so as to experiment with a few other things and also come back later to a point when that same RC will work for me again. Well, never would I have guessed that youtube could be a lucid dream induction technique!

Yes, that's right. Youtube got me my LD last night! It didn't stay lucid for long or look very clear, but still, for something so odd, I'm amazed it worked at all.

So here's what the situation was: I had barely reality checked all day long, and it was getting close to bed time, so I was thinking about lucid dreaming and kind of regretting that I didn't RC very well. And I mean it was right before bed. I was on my computer browsing youtube when I heard this song in a video that I really liked. In the comments, someone said what the song's name and author were, so I looked up the music video. As most music videos are, it was weird as...well, something really weird. That, combined with my tired state and the interesting music, put me in an odd mental condition. Somehow I knew that that music video was going to appear in my dream, and I determined that when it did, I would know I was dreaming. Sure enough, when I got to sleep (after a failed WILD attempt), I was going about my day as normal when I opened a door and I found myself in the middle of that music video. "What was I supposed to remember when I saw this? Oh, that's right! That this is a dream!" I jumped out a nearby window and saw a sidewalk and a street below me. "That's gonna hurt...I guess I could fly. But that would be a bit too expected and boring for this situation, wouldn't it?" So when I hit the concrete, I simply caused it to bend like rubber and cushion all around me before springing back up from impact and launching me into the air . I did a flip and landed on my feet at the top of a building where a friend of mine (who also LD's from time to time) was standing. "You'll never believe this," I told him, "But I just used youtube to get lucid!" "Really? That's crazy! How?" I explained it to him, but unfortunately in the process of doing so I soon lost lucidity, and the dream went on to this weird blur of real people and fictional people and all of them behaving very differently from how they should.

I'm just about ready to return to putting serious effort in my days to lucid dreaming, but I do think it's fascinating how I've been able to continue short LD's with little things like YILD (youtube-induced lucid dream )

Well, maybe I don't have to get back to heavy reality checking after all! Last night I had a very clear lucid without MILD or WILD or even focusing on RCing throughout the day!

<meta http-equiv="CONTENT-TYPE" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><title></title><meta name="GENERATOR" content="OpenOffice.org 3.2 (Win32)"><style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> </style> I woke up in the night, disappointed that I had not yet gone lucid in a dream. “Alright,” I said, “Anything other than me in my room with my eyes closed is a dream and I need to realize that and reality check!” I was determined. So I rolled over and instantly went back to sleep.


It seemed only a moment later that I found myself on a dreamy landscape of a farm. “This is something other than me in my bed...which makes it a dream!” I realized pretty quickly that I didn't have control over anything. “No! I am not going to have a weak lucid again!” With that, I forced my hand to move, sending tingles running through my arm as sensations entered, clumsily reached it up to my hose, pinched, and breathed in. That put me in control, but it also made the dream go black.

It reappeared a moment later, and I was in a bed. Not my own, though, and my eyes were open, so I still knew it was a dream. I pinched my nose again to check, this time without any control struggle. I rolled over and prepared to get up, but I still didn't have control exactly right...with every movement, my body shapeshifted. I tried to stop it, but that didn't work out so well either. The dream went black again.

This time it reappeared in a room very similar to one in my real house, yet still different. Mostly it was black, and pulsating into clarity every once in a while. I rubbed my hands to try and clear things up, which succeeded, but then if I kept on rubbing, it would go black again. Eventually I remembered to try spinning, which (as usual) did nothing until the dream faded enough to make me lose my balance and fall on the ground. The sudden collision jerked everything back into crystal clarity. With one last nose pinch, I was fully lucid and it was fully clear. I looked around the room. It seemed I had only been teleporting with each fade, as outside the windows was the farm land, and certain things about the room suggested that it was part of a farm house. The most noticeable thing was that mice were running all over the place, but since I knew it was a dream I just ignored them. I approached a wall, looked straight at it so that I couldn't see anything behind me, and leaned against it, supported by my outstretched arms. Somehow that made me feel like I was able to work harder. “When I turn around,” I said aloud, “a girl will be waiting there, and she'll be really pretty, too.” I turned around, but no one was there. “Hold on a minute...” I thought out-loud as I looked for a mouse. It didn't take long to find one. I reached my hand out toward it and used telekinesis to morph the mouse into a girl. At first she was only a few feet tall, so I got closer and then used my thoughts to fix that. “Taller.” She got taller, but within a few moments she was way too tall. “Shorter.” She began to shrink again. This time, when she got to the right height, I said, “Stop.” And she did. Then I noticed her face wasn't very distinctive...very unclear. So I put my hands on her face and concentrated. By the time I pulled my hands back, her face was as clear as the rest of the dream. I snapped my fingers and she snapped into life.

The girl ended up being different than I had intended, but somehow the difference made her more attractive. She felt more real because of the difference; not like a robot that had no existence in and of itself.

“Where...where am I?” She asked.

“Anywhere you want to be.” I answered.

I then jumped up, and in one motion picked her up and flew through the wall to the world outside. Unfortunately, the world outside wasn't so clear, and in a moment things faded out one last time.


It's kind of funny. During the day I think I'm going to have to try really hard in my dreams to create things that way, but when it comes time for it, I have no trouble with it at all, and the time it takes to create what I want is lessening with each try

Oh noes!! I just realized I forgot to write anything today...and of course by now my dream recall has blown away like the wind...there weren't any lucids though, so no big deal, I guess. Still...it's frustrating

Ok, well I'm not supposed to say too much about this, but I've been on a secret mission with LDing lately, but for some reason every time I try to do it, if I'm getting near lucidity I get kicked out of lucidity, and the dream always ends up a nightmare

Last night's nightmare was particularly memorable...I think if I get the chance I'll even turn it into a movie scene.

I was in my room, and at first, everything was normal. But then, I noticed something strange...there was a worm on the ground. Then I turned around. There were a few more. Turned and looked around again, more worms, and even bigger and thicker now! "Well that's weird...how are they getting in here?" I said. Then I felt a sharp pain in my leg. I pulled the leg on my pants up so I could see, but quickly wished I hadn't. About 5 of those huge, thick worms had bitten into me and were now entirely in my leg, eating away at it, visible through a top layer of skin. The other worms were coming near me now, too, and I was surrounded. I dashed for the door, but multiple worms got into me after that, all eating away at my legs and arms from the inside, not to mention the disgusting sight of having a worm bulging through your skin. I may be a guy, but I still screamed. The door slammed behind me, I ran for the nearest person and begged them to help me get the worms out. "You're going to live," they told me, "but there's only one way to get those worms out." "Well do it already! please!" They reached down and pinched one of the worms on my leg. It let out a little, sickening cry and then rushed up through my leg towards my head. It felt so weird and disgusting...but not nearly as much as what happened next. After the worm got up to my head, I started choking and gagging, and then I coughed really hard, and blood came out along with the worm. Then I looked down and saw how many more worms were all throughout my body. There were easily 30 left for me to cough up that way, and then I still had a whole room full of them to deal with! Or so I thought. I turned and looked and saw a million more of them flooding into the house from the outside. There was nothing left to do but run! So I ran for the closest windows and tried to smash it and get outside. But I couldn't. The worms were coming closer, getting into the room, devouring the person who had just helped me. I had only a few seconds left...

...and then I woke up. Man that one really freaked me out! All day long I've felt like I'm feeling those things getting into my legs and arms, even though I know they aren't there...it was just so creepy!

Try ignoring things like that next time. If they are machinations of your mind, they need your attention to exist.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Try ignoring things like that next time. If they are machinations of your mind, they need your attention to exist.

Good point; I kind of have been giving them too much attention, haven't I. Thanks

Oooh, we've got new smilies!

Oh yeah, and last night was a great LDing night for me, too! Two LD's, both of them accomplishing the lucid task of the month (basic and advanced)!

Dream 1: I was walking around in my backyard at night when I looked up and saw the sun in the sky. "What? The sun at night? That doesn't make any sense...this must be a dream!" I pinched my nose and breathed in just fine, solidifying my assumption. "Cool! Well, let's see, I've got three things I've been wanting to do...oh well, the sun's right there, so I guess I'll go with the basic task of the month first." I looked at the sun and flew up to it. The dark sky looked a bit more fitting once I got into space. Well, I circled around it a couple times until I found a place that looked like a good entry spot, and then flew right inside. Surprisingly, it didn't feel very bright. I mean, it looked like someone had photoshopped the sun to lose half of its saturation, so even though it was bright, it was...not. But whatever, it was the sun, and surprisingly, I did have a shadow this time! Probably just because I was looking for it, though. I didn't get much more time to think about it, though, because I woke up pretty quickly after that.

I was awake for about fifteen minutes then; I had intended to WILD but I was pretty tired so I broke it off soon after SP hit and decided I would DILD again instead.

Dream 2: I can't exactly remember everything that went on at first, but eventually I found myself watching football early in the morning and really enjoying it. Now there were a couple things about that scenario that made me question the reality of it. #1: I don't believe football is ever played early in the morning, and #2: I hate football, so I wouldn't know for sure in the first place, but I also wouldn't watch it and enjoy it . That much being thought through, I decided to reality check, which of course led me to becoming lucid! "Alright! Let's see...I got the basic task of the month down...let's go for the advanced now!" I turned and faced a wall and tried my usual teleportation method. "When I turn around, I'll be at Niagara Falls." I turned around and found the room to be mostly unchanged. I was definitely not at the falls. But something had changed, and that was the wall across from me. It now had a very large picture of Niagara Falls hanging on it, and a little table beneath it. "That'll work." I walked over and moved the table out of the way, then reached into the picture, first with my hand, then with my leg, then with the rest of me, and stepped through the picture into Niagara Falls! I found myself on a wooden walkway that circled around it, but I needed to get out onto the Maiden of the Mist in order to complete the advanced lucid task. Now I can't swim very well IRL, but I didn't let that even factor into it. I jumped into the water and began swimming out to the Maiden of the Mist, which was in the near distance. The water was amazing! It was so clear and clean and the temperature was perfect. Not to mention it, along with everything else, was so realistic I was just marveling at the sight of it all. Well, soon I made it to the ship and climbed up to the top deck. "Ok, so now I have to get married here to complete the lucid task...I wonder who I'm going to be married to?" I looked up ahead of me and got my answer. It wasn't hard to figure out, considering the whole thing was already set up, everybody was there, and she was the only one in a fancy white dress. "Woah, that works for me!" I thought when I saw her. I tried hard to remember her face, but of course that memory faded when I awoke. I do remember her name was Maria, though. I transformed my dripping wet clothes into a dry tux and then took my place in front of everyone, next to Maria. I couldn't believe it when the 'pastor' walked up, though...he was some kind of alien! "Well that's weird..." I thought. But it got weirder. A small, hovering alien that resembled a fish came up out of nowhere and tried to stop the wedding. "Oh buzz off." I said, hurling the thing away with telekinesis. The rest of the ceremony went on without interruption, and I gotta admit, the first alien dude wasn't so bad at his job after all. What was really fun was the reception, though. Everybody went below deck (does the Maiden of the Mist even have a lower deck?) where food and (non-alcoholic) drink and music and all our friends were waiting. Of course the food was amazing, and they only played my favorite songs, but nothing could beat the reactions of the dream characters. They all came up and told us congratulations, and I just smiled at each one and replied, "Pretty cool dream, huh?" Usually they just gave me a funny look and walked away, but there was one guy who didn't take it so well. He thought it was a joke at first. "Yeah, it can feel like a dream at first. It sinks in after the first couple days, though." He said. "No, no, I really mean this is a dream, I can pinch my nose and still breath in. Watch." It didn't convince him. He just stared at me. "Umm...yeah it's really a dream." I repeated. "THIS is NOT a DREAM!" He shouted before stomping off. "Woah...ok...then." After a moment of nobody saying anything to us, Maria slapped me on the arm. "You're making people upset!" She said. "Now c'mon, would this really be a dream?" "Yes." I replied. I took her hand and put it up to her nose, told her to pinch, and then try to breath in. "See." I said. A tear formed in her eye. "You're right, then...this is a dream!" It made her so sad I kind of wished I hadn't said anything, but at least someone else knew the truth. I went to go get us drinks in hopes of cheering her up a bit, but when I came back, she was gone. "That's weird." I thought out loud. Just then, a friend of mine walked by. "Hey, Mike. Mike!" I ran up to him as he headed to the restroom. "Have you seen my wife anywhere?" He motioned for me to follow him into the restroom. "Sorry," he said, "This is just the only place that I think we'll have some privacy." He went into a stall as he talked. I went into one myself just because it was awkward standing out there waiting, and to be honest I was kind of wondering what it would be like to pee in a lucid dream . "You know that little floating alien?" Mike asked. "Well, he's furious that the wedding went through. He kidnapped Maria. I tried to stop him, but...I can't fly." "Dangit, yes you can." I muttered under my breath. Mike was done then, so I decided to be done, too. I mean, in a lucid dream, you could keep going for forever! While we washed our hands, I asked, "So where'd he take her?" Mike didn't have a chance to answer. We heard the alien's voice outside the door. "Quick! Hide!" Mike said. I created a closet door in the wall next to me and climbed inside. The floating alien came in, checked himself in the mirror, and then left. "So do I need to hide because he's trying to kidnap me, too?" "Yep. I don't know where he took your wife, but I don't think you want to find out the hard way." "True. So how do we get out of here without me being caught, or you being caught helping me?" Mike smiled at that question. "Canoes." That made me smile, too. We climbed out the window and stood on the side of the ship. Suddenly we were at the top of Niagara falls. A couple canoes were tied to the boat, and we each took one and got in. "Now this is going to be awesome!" I shouted over the roar of the approaching falls. In another moment, we had completely gone over, and were canoeing down Niagara Falls! The canoes were smashed at the bottom, but of course we made it out ok.

After that we got to formulating a plan. Mike volunteered to get a bunch of his buddies together to help arrange transport to wherever the alien had taken Maria to, and I took Mike's laptop to go find out just where that was. I hacked into some security cameras until I found the alien's location. "Bingo." I said...which got the attention of a nearby security guard. "Hey, you there, what do you think you're doing!?" I sighed. "Sorry doc, I don't have time for this." I held my hands in front of me, concentrated, and made the guard disappear into thin air. So I took the sword left behind from the security guard (yeah...he had one ) and tried to sneak up onto the alien back aboard the ship. Of course since the whole wedding party was there, someone heard and saw me, so stealth failed. I swung at the alien, but missed, and he then pulled out a sword of his own and we had an epic duel. He was hard to hit, but weak, so before long, I had him on the floor, badly wounded, his weapon far out of his reach. "Alright! Alright!" He said, giving up. "Your wife is in the caves. North west. Only way in is by river." For some reason, everyone was shocked to hear the alien confess to a crime like that, but I left them to deal judgment however they wished. I flew around until I found Mike, who had a bunch of midgets with pointy gray beards and mustaches build a water craft. I couldn't fly through the caves because they were too low and treacherous, so I gladly accepted the vehicle from them. As I climbed in and took the strange controls, they wished me luck and cheered for my victory over the floating alien. I started the wooden craft off into the caves, having a little trouble driving at first, but never got a chance to find Maria. Pretty quickly after entering the caves, I woke up.

I didn't think I could have a dream that was more realistic than any previous one, but that one tops them all. The appearance and actions of water are very hard things to duplicate, yet it all looked perfect. Lighting was all totally realistic, too. If I hadn't repeatedly pinched my nose to maintain lucidity, I probably would have started to believe it was real myself.

But anyway, I completed both the basic and advanced lucid task of the month in one night!

Well, I've been up super late the past few nights, so last night it finally caught up to me...I totally crashed before I could even think about lucidity, so of course I didn't go lucid...heck, I don't even remember my dreams, other than a vague image or two. Oh well...hopefully I can get rested up and try again tonight.

Darn, I totally forgot to write down my dreams today! I had a few non-lucids written down in notes, but I took too long to write them down in detail, so now the notes are fairly worthless...I'll do better tonight!

Ok, wow, I've really hit a low spot again! No lucids last night, and I can't really remember any dreams at all! Time to focus on recall again...I got my technique down now, though, so hopefully with a bit better recall things will be up and running full speed soon.

Ok, it's a bit late in the day for me now, but hopefully I can still remember everything decently.

Last night I made dream recall my focus. I figured, if I go lucid, great, if I don't, at least I'll be able to remember my dreams.

I ended up recalling 3, all of them non-lucid, but one of them very close.

Dream 1: I was not on Pandora, but I had an Avatar that I had designed for personal use. I had my computer moved to right next to my bed, where a very techy-looking device (presumably a brain-wave scanner or something like that) was attached at the head of the bed and connected to my PC. I turned on the computer, (see, electronics CAN work in dreams!) and opened up a program on the desktop. The interface was pretty basic, but it had very complex readouts all over it; frequencies and temperatures and a bunch of other measurements for me, my Avatar, and the computer hardware. I guess all of it had to be in equally working order, or else none of it would work, so it makes sense that all three things would need to be checked and logged. After confirming that everything was set up and ready, I clicked a few buttons to start the Avatar devices up and then laid down on the bed. As I listened to the machines begin to whir and chirp, my vision went blurry, and soon I was in a different room lit by a single, small lamp built right into the ceiling above me, making just about everything except me and the bed I was on look very dark and shadowy. Once things were fully clear and I was confident that the transition had been complete and successful, I sat up and looked down at myself. My skin was blue with exotic stripes of slightly darker blue all over it, I was several feet taller, I had a tail, and certain parts of my body glowed in the dark. A nearby mirror quickly confirmed that I was really in an Avatar! The bioluminescence thing really is cool, too! Well, as I had expected, I was in a trailer that was tilted about 30 degrees, with the open door on the side down into the ground, so that nothing could possibly get inside and harm the Avatar when I was away. Only inside the Avatar could I possibly be strong enough to lift the trailer while standing on the ground so as to let myself out. Once outside, I briefly took in my surroundings. It looked to be very early morning, as there was no hint of sunlight--rising or setting--anywhere. On the side of the trailer was a gun built for someone my size. I picked it up and started walking through the tall grass and the woods until I woke up.

Dream 2: I found myself at my house, and all was normal...except there was this girl there that kept insisting she was my girlfriend. I completely ignored the comment the first time, but after five or six times of her approaching me and saying that, as well as telling me of past times we'd supposedly spent together, it started to get my attention. I mentally started comparing what I knew to be true with what I was seeing. This girl was telling me about things I didn't remember happening at all...so I began to think about what I remembered. On the one hand, I remembered not having her as a girlfriend, and something told me I didn't remember doing the things with her that she said we had done. On the other hand, I remembered her name (Maria), and I distinctly remembered having done something with her before...in a dream. We were on the Maid of the Mist so that I could accomplish the task of the month. The wheels started turning, and I slowly began to think: "If all this is true, and I only remember her from a dream, then maybe I'm in a dream now?" It wasn't a realization, it was another question...a question I always follow up with a pinch-the-nose reality check. I was just about to do it, when I heard an explosion from the lower level of the house. I ran down the stairs to find the microwave exploding and with the door gone, microwaving the entire room as well as the people in it. Maria was running away just in the nick of time, but I could see a blast of flames was about to come around the corner, so I tackled her also just in the nick of time and got us both out of harm's way. Everything was instantly calm then (other than Maria, who was crying and shaking with fear), so I went into the kitchen to see the damage. All the walls and floor and ceiling were burnt gray like a radioactivity bomb had gone off. Colored puddles were on the floor in the place where people used to be. No one else had survived. I took Maria outside and tried to calm her down as I woke up.

Now I for one find that interesting. I don't know anyone IRL named Maria, and yet this person has come up twice now. She has always acted differently than other DC's, and the nose pinch RC caused her to realize that she was in a dream the last time we met up. She had memories of me in that previous dream that I remember of us together, but also in others that I do not remember ever having. Have I stumbled across a real person in shared dreaming without even trying?? If only I could go lucid again and ask her for an email address or something solid that could confirm that...oh well.

Dream 3: I was in my Avatar again, lying in the bed in the trailer. A big lightning bug flew up to me and started telling me to wake up. At first I told it to leave me alone, but it insisted that I had an important mission, so finally I got up and paid attention. I can't remember what the mission was, but I apparently agreed with it that it was important. I got out of the trailer, grabbed the gun from the side, and ran off into the woods. It gets a little unclear after that...I had a gunfight with a bunch of people, the big firefly alerting me of their locations. After everyone was taken care of, I just went back to the trailer and climbed in and went to sleep like nothing had happened Then I woke up.

I'm not sure what happened last night. I woke up a couple times, thought about my dreams, and silenced any thoughts about anything else...and yet I still couldn't remember for the life of me what it was I dreamed about! After giving it a lot of thought, I was able to recall two scenes. In neither one was I lucid, or even present! I was just spectating...honestly, I think in this case it was the dream that was unclear and not my recall, hence my lack of a body for all but a few seconds.


First thing I knew, I was looking at a crowd of people that I know IRL sitting on the ground. All of a sudden, one of them, a girl, stood up and said loud for all to hear: "Kyle, you and I are going to start dating." The dream 'camera' wooshed over all of their heads until Kyle was the focus. He didn't look shocked...very slightly surprised, perhaps. All that he said in reply was: "ok." As the dream began to fade, I got this sense that I knew that they really did start dating, and seriously, even though I didn't actually see it happen.

My WBTB alarm went off then, but I didn't stay awake very long...it would have been a DEILD if only I had gone lucid. My alarm has to have two buttons pressed at the same time in order to turn off, which I usually can't do until I'm fully awake, and thus it is quite effective for WBTB, but somehow I disabled it quite quickly and re-entered the same dream.

I was fading in and out of a dream body; as far as everyone around me was concerned, I wasn't there at all. I saw a TV turned on to a game show. The girl from before was playing it, and won. Then they brought out the prize...covered by a cylinder wireframe with a curtain strung all around it. When the cart it was on stopped moving, Kyle burst out of it in a shiny blue graduation gown

That's all I remember...I think maybe I'm in an LDing dry spell

I did a tiny bit better last night...came close to being decently lucid again! In other words, I was lucid, but I got it through WILD at the very beginning of the night, and it only lasted for about 1 second...I knew I was in a dream and I saw a tiny bit of my surroundings, but there was hardly time to do anything before the dream ended...so note to self: don't bother WILDing at the beginning of the night anymore

I did have a decent non-lucid dream later on, though. Again it was split in half by my WBTB alarm which I somehow disabled very quickly and re-entered the same dream...I'm gonna have to get a different alarm

I was a 'secret soldier'...not a spy, really, but a scout. I think the idea was for soldiers to be common people for part of every day so as to bridge the relational gap between soldier and civilian. At any rate, I was placed in this one town that I forgot the name of, given a small, furnished house and some money, and took orders to live there from early morning to early evening. I had to use some of that time to sleep, since I reported back to the Colonel at night and kept up with my real job.

Since building relationships was the point of my mission, on the first day I was on this strange kind of occupation I went to an outdoor restaurant for breakfast. The air was fresh and the food was good. I had intended to strike up conversations with people, but it turned out I was so early that no one else was there. I chatted a tiny bit with the waitress (who I discovered also owned the place and cooked the food), but ended up simply enjoying the solitude; the only sound being that of birds. When I left, the woman told me about the following day's special and asked me to come back in typical business manner. "Maybe I will." I said with all honesty. After that I went to look around town and meet up with other people...but the place was deserted of any walkers. Cars drove by, but obviously they were of no assistance to me. I ended up just going back to my given house and checking all of it out. I'm not sure what happened for the rest of the day...I think I went to sleep for a while.

Eventually it was night time, and I headed to the secret army headquarters, where the Colonel and other scout-soldiers like myself were waiting. We each reported on our day, and I wasn't surprised to hear the others have similar stories to my own. When that was done, the Colonel gave us a long talk about how we'd totally missed the point and needed to do much better the next day. "There is a military agenda here." He said. "The point is not to expose ourselves, but to build up trust with those that we can so that we'll have the trust of the people on our side when we finally do come out in the open. All it takes is for each of you to build up one or two meaningful relationships...we want quality here, not just quantity."

The next morning I did return to that restaurant, and again it was too early for anyone else to be there. The colonel's words echoing in my mind, I decided to try and have a conversation with the woman who ran the place. I can't remember her name, but in case you were wondering, she was definitely not the Maria that keeps popping up as of late. I'll just call her W. "No one else is here...do you have anything you need to do right now?" I asked. "Oh, not really." W replied. "Why?" "Just wondering. I'm new to the place and all, so I just thought it would be nice to have some company, if there's any to have." "Oh! Of course." W said, picking up a cup of coffee and sitting down at my table. "Is there something around town, someplace you need to go, I can help you find?" I thought a moment. "Honestly...nothing that I can think of." "You have a job in town?" She asked. "Well that's...complicated, and honestly I'm not supposed to talk about that." Obviously, things moved slowly at first, but eventually we got to talking pretty normally and pleasantly, and even discovered we had a lot of common interests.

Next thing I know, it's the night again, and I'm heading to the secret headquarters. This time the Colonel was a bit more pleased with how we'd done; just about everyone had properly focused on having one or two meaningful conversations than just trying to talk to whomever was available. Then the Colonel informed us of our real objective: to locate a spy hidden somewhere in that very town. We had been informed that they were trying to lay low and just live a normal life, and it was up to us to do the same in order to discover the spy and bring them to justice. Nobody questioned who the spy was from or what their goals were.

The next couple days went by uneventfully (and incompletely, actually...the dream sort of zipped through time) until after a few days I went to the restaurant again as usual and W came to me and said she was in trouble. She looked very scared and made it sound like she was going to die or something if I didn't help. When I asked what was going on, she said, "It's not safe here. How do I get to your house?" "My house? Why, W?" "Because I think even my own is bugged." I gave her directions and drew the route on a map, and then W told me when she planned to drop by. "I'll be there." I promised.

When she arrived at my place a few hours later, she closed all the windows and made sure no one would be able to find her in there. "What's going on? Aren't you going to tell me?" She turned and looked at me very serious. "There's something I must show you." W said. "I trust you...but you have to trust me." "I do." W nodded after a moment and then held out her arm. With her other hand, she rubbed very hard into her skin, which wiped away to reveal blue skin beneath. "I am a Na'vi." She said. "Soldiers are here in secret to capture me. They want to study me and interrogate me until they find a weak spot they can use to kill my people. I fled here and put on a disguise, but they've tracked me down, and now I need your help to escape." "Alright." I said, not mentioning that I was a soldier. "But I can't be found out, either, you know. You have a plan?" She ignored that question. "I have trusted you. Now it is time for you to trust me." With that, she grabbed my arm, rubbed, and revealed blue skin on me, too.

After that, it was really weird. I split into two people, one a Na'vi form of me, and one a soldier form of me. It was suddenly night, and the solider me told the Colonel about what happened, while the Na'vi me helped W escape the town. It was a very close call, but the Na'vi me escaped with W after the soldier me finally did the right thing and distracted the other soldiers.

That last part was so strange. Not only was I two people at once, but they were diametrically opposed to each other, even though in the end I was in control over both.

NOTES:

Dream 1: Went around historical sites riding on the back of cars (one with a license plate of "I C U", a clear reference to Avatar) with a friend of mine from real life. At the peak of the day, I told her how I truly feel about her, and even though I never heard her reply, she seemed more eager for us to do stuff together, which we did until the end of the day. It was always unusual things like riding on the back of cars...but it was also always enjoyable.

Dream 2: DEILDed to get back into the dream on the outside of the town, on a beach. Found my friend there when she called out my name and ran for me. As I held her close I tried to fly with her again, but for some reason couldn't. So I made the ground pile up beneath us instead, pushing us so high into the sky that we could reach out our hands and scoop up little pieces of clouds. At the top we dove off into the ocean below, which was amazingly fun. Then we got out of the water and watched the beautiful sunset.


Finally I went lucid again!

Again my watch alarm did not work for me, but it turned out not to matter. Actually, if it had gone off, I probably would have ended up not going lucid. You'll see why here in a minute.

Dream 1: I found myself in an incredible city. Everything looked very historical, even though it was all clean and kept-up as new. As I walked around, I saw an old-fashioned ice cream parlour and decided to go in and check it out. Now, I had ice cream shortly before going to bed, so I expect that had something to do with it . Inside, I saw one of my friends, a girl I had flown around in a previous dream. Of course, I bought her some ice cream and we sat down outside to eat it and chat. Shortly after our ice cream was gone, a taxi pulled up just a few yards away from us and let a small family in. "Come on!" My friend said, heading for the taxi. "I don't think there will be room for us." I commented, following anyway. As I got closer, I noticed the license plate on the taxi was "I C U", a clear reference to Avatar. As it turned out, there really was no room left for us, but that didn't even phase my friend. She just sat on the back of the car and waited for me to do likewise; it was as if she did this on a regular basis. It turned out to be pretty nice, though, riding around that city on the back of a taxi. We had a clear view unobstructed by a roof and doors, and we could hop off at any place we wanted to. Even though I remember several details about the places we stopped at, it's hard to sort them out in order, since we went so many different places. Suffice it to say that much...'we went many different places.' I bought her a few things and we had a lot of fun. Towards the end of the day, I could keep my mouth shut no longer, and though I don't remember what exactly I said, it was something to the effect of 'I love you'. I was afraid she would leave me then, but she only smiled to one side of her mouth and led me off somewhere. I was glad that she reacted well, but I didn't get to see where she was leading me off to, because soon after I woke up.

As soon as I was awake enough to make any conscious thoughts, I thought back through that dream to make sure I remembered it and then checked my watch. It was shortly after 4:00. My watch alarm was set for 3:50, and it hadn't gone off at all. Good thing...if it had, it would have interrupted that dream!

Well, I decided to try for DEILD then, and it wasn't long before I succeeded.

Dream 2: I was back at that historical city, but on the outer edge of it now, on a beach. The city was shortly to my left, and the ocean to my right. In the distance, I saw my friend was still there. I guess she was going to lead me to the beach. But then it hit me: "Wait a second...this is a dream!" Almost immediately after I realized this, my friend saw me and called out my name as she ran in my direction. When we met, we threw our arms around each other . Remembering the time I had flown her around before, I decided to do so again...only for some strange reason, I just couldn't fly! I kept trying, but of course now I was...well, trying, not expecting, so I wasn't going anywhere. Rather than continue to fight it, then, I considered another option and decided it would work ok. With a thought, I caused the ground beneath us to rise up and push us higher and higher towards the sky, continually building up beneath our feet. Before long we reached the clouds, which it turned out we could scoop up into our hands. They were cold and wet, though. Figuring we were high enough, I stopped the upward advance of the ground. "I've got an idea." I said to my friend. "Hold on to my hand." She did so, and then after a count to three, we jumped off the top of the pillar I had made out of the ground and we dove down into the ocean, falling hundreds of miles until landing comfortably in the water. I noticed I could breath under the water, which was pretty cool, but even so I went back up to the beach because that's where the girl was going. As I made it onto the beach, I looked down and was amazed at how realistic the sand was. Because I was wet it clung to me in millions of little grains just like in real life. But anyway, when I reached her, I pulled a couple towels out of thin air and handed her one. "How'd you do that?" she asked. "Oh, that's my little secret." Now that I think about it, I find it funny that making the ground rise up didn't phase her, but pulling towels out of thin air did . After that we just sat on the sand close together and watched the sun set. The colors were incredible...it was almost better than a real beach sunset, honestly. After a while of doing that, I woke up.

It was still early enough for me to stay in bed a while, so I tried very hard to DEILD again and re-enter the dream, but to no avail. Oh well. At least I finally had a lucid dream again! Life was getting kinda boring without 'em

Just to let y'all know, I've been taking a break from RCing/LDing over the weekend so as to make all of it more effective again. I intend to start back up this week and hopefully resume having LDs again soon.

The thing for me is, no matter what RC I do, or how much I try to add in variations, within a month or so it just becomes so mindless that I can do it every five minutes all day long for days in a row and still not have an LD from it all. Of course, going that long without an LD despite the work put into it also brings a lot of doubt of success into play, which can also sabotage lucids. So I've stopped for just a few days in order to make all the reality checks stick out in my mind again, and I feel good about it working

Ok, no lucids last night since it's my first day of hitting reboot on LDing, but here's what I remember from last night:

Dream 1: First thing I know, it was 12:48 in the afternoon, and I know that because I found myself looking at a clock. That time jerked me into what I thought was reality, and I realized all the things I had to do that afternoon, so I got up and just went about the day normally.

What a waste of a dream. Oh well. The second one made up for it.

Dream 2: My friends and I were doing more filming for a movie we're making, and even though throughout the whole dream I had the idea that it was all just acting, before long I was drawn into it as if it were real, and no one ran a camera any more. The plot wasn't the same as the real movie we're making, but rather it was the typical thing where the bad guy has an evil plot that the good guys have to discover and then go beat up the bad guy to stop him. I can't remember all the details, but I clearly remember that the bad guy was using eyeballs from cows as a way to focus a laser beam so that it would be powerful enough to blow up the earth. About the time the movie reached the point where I and the other good guys made it to the bad guy's base, I paused for a moment and tried to use telekinesis on something. "If this is a dream then I can use telekinesis." I told myself. Unfortunately, not being lucid, I was not able to free my mind of real-life boundaries, so telekinesis was impossible. "Ok, I'm not dreaming." I concluded. Then I headed into a huge room where the laser was, as well as the bad guy. He sent a bunch of robots after me, which I dodged and destroyed with a bunch of cool moves. It sure was fun being able to jump and flip all around the place like that! And of course the final battle between me and the bad guy was especially fun. It reminded me a lot of the Matrix; fast, intense, and super high powered. Suffice it to say that I won, and woke up shortly afterwards. It would probably get boring to try and describe each individual move we did.

I remember having at least 3 dreams last night, but the first two are only blurs in my mind.

I found myself standing by the phone in my kitchen. It rang, and I looked at the caller ID. It was Berton. I picked it up and the dream went split-screen, one half being me, and the other half being Berton. He started delivering a prank phone message to me, pretending to be selling something and going on about it in a typical commercial tone. After a couple seconds, I hung it back up, but the 'split-screen' remained, and he kept on going with his pitch. "For some reason," I said to a couple people who were suddenly there, "he's been doing that to everyone lately...it was funny at first, but now it's getting to be just annoying."

I think more happened, but I can't remember anything else. The interesting thing about this dream is that I was conscious enough to realize that I was actually anticipating everything to happen before it did. I saw the phone and thought "that's going to ring", and in the next instant, it did. When I looked at the caller ID, I thought "it's Berton" and the next instant, I found it to be true. Now all of that happened in less than a second, but I knew very well that my thought came before the action.

I think I just proved my theory that non-lucid dreams are driven by what you expect to happen, not really by passive control

I give up on my watch alarm. I've tried all sorts of things to try and fix it, all to no avail. It just doesn't go off any more.

Last night I had it set for the middle of the night, and I intended to WILD and WBTB. I know, I've only made one WILD last very long, but I was determined this time.

As it turned out, I still woke up without my watch, but at 5:30am. Not quite as good as an hour earlier, but I still decided to give it a shot. At that point I also thought about dream recall a bit, and remembered one single dream.

Dream 1: It was like watching a slideshow of photoshopped family photos. I saw memories of mine flash by every few seconds with just a bit of reality distorted by a lot of fantasy. They seemed to go in somewhat of a chronological order, too. But things didn't stop when they reached the present day. No, after that, I saw future events that I am planning on happening as if they were memories. About a week out into the future, the dream ended.

So having recalled all that I could, I got out of bed, stretched, went to the bathroom so I wouldn't have any interruptions during the WILD, and then got back into bed. At first I tried it on my back as usual, but also as usual, all I got was a tingly feeling in my arms; not anywhere else, and no paralysis whatsoever. So I tried turning my head to the side to trick myself into thinking I was sleeping sideways as normal. That fared little better, though I did have some very faint HI that way. So I thought, "Why can't I WILD when I'm really on my side, then?" and decided to give it a shot. I rolled over to my side, sandwiched my head between two pillows so I was encapsulated in total darkness and silence, and then went on with the attempt.

For a long time nothing really happened. I thought about trying to count breaths or listen to a lucid MP3, but in the end I figured that all that stuff had already failed for me many times and it was time for me to go all on my own as I had that first night that I WILDed successfully.

What seemed like a few seconds later (but probably was much longer), I heard a faint sound. An echo of someone in the far distance, talking about something that I could not remember the instant the echo stopped. Encouraged by this progress, I continued to wait. In another few seconds, a shelf loaded with fresh vegetables (don't ask me why; I don't know) appeared in full color. I glanced at it momentarily, then ignored it, and it seemed to blur and float away. Next I saw a man in a suit sitting behind a desk float towards me in the darkness. Before long I could tell his face was the face of the G-Man from my horrible 3-month dream. I purposefully eliminated that image. That seemed to be all I needed, anyway. My sensations were suddenly schewed after that. I felt like I was still conscious of my body, and yet I knew that what I was feeling was not my real body, because it started to wave about as if riding on water and conforming to the shape of the wave. That sensation was stopped by the feeling of someone reaching their arms around me and holding me tightly. I probably would have freaked out, but I could hear movement behind me and soon I felt lips brush against my ear. "It's all going to be all right." A gentle, female voice whispered. This feeling of extreme security and peace came over me then, and I let her (whoever 'she' is) hold on as long as she wanted. The bodily distortions continued for several more minutes, and a few times I was even able to move my perceived arm, which made my real arm attempt to move, but unsuccessfully. She let go soon after that and seemed to fade away behind me. Once again, I was alone. But then, all of a sudden, everything went white. A strong buzz was in my ears, and it was like an earthquake couple with an EMP went off. The ground shook, energy seemed to hit me in waves, growing in intensity with time. And then, at the peak of it all...it all just faded away. I found myself high in the sky, and looking down below me, I saw a huge canyon. I could see for hundreds of miles around me, and the canyon went through all of it. The sky was bright and clear, other than a few white clouds. Since I was already in the air, I had no trouble trying to get off the ground and fly. I just flew as usual, and went all over the place. It was incredible how realistic it was; I have never had a dream with such a large and wide-open view before. After I had gone through some of those clouds and enjoyed feeling the cool air and wind on my face, I flew straight down towards the bottom of the canyon at high speed. It was very fun! Of course, I curved upward right before I hit the ground and started speeding through the canyons, every inch of which looked just like real life. Every crack, every shadow, variations in colors...all of it looked perfect. But then something weird happened. I flew past a cowboy with a banjo that was playing and singing in front of a little campfire. I should have only been able to hear him for a brief moment as I flew past, but his voice continued even as I went miles away. That little loss of realism signaled the beginning of the end. I was just about to fly somewhere else (like Pandora), when everything started to go black and I woke up with a start.

I think I finally figured out my problem with WILDing! Up to this point, I was trying to use everyone else's techniques when really all I had to do was what worked for me in the first place!

Having had such a great experience WILDing yesterday, I decided I would set my aim in that direction again. I used a MILD-like mantra technique to wake myself up on time rather than rely on an alarm. I got up, stretched and used the bathroom and felt 100% set to successfully WILD.

It wasn't long after getting back in bed that I first saw HI, and heard a faint echo of a distant voice. "Awesome, it's working again!" I thought.

Next thing I know, I was waking up...I had fallen asleep and missed the WILD

Only dream I remember is a recurring instance of the dream I wrote about at this link (Dream 3), with the small changes that it was Christmas day this time around, the food was spaghetti, not meatloaf, and I didn't watch TV .

Last night I tried WILD again, and I'll probably continue doing so each night until I get it right. I've had success with most other methods, so I really want to learn this one now.

I did better than last, but still didn't quite get to the dream. I reached a point where I wasn't really paying any attention to my physical body, so I guess I couldn't feel it anymore. Then I suddenly had this strange impulse, that if I thought very hard: "I'm going to lucid dream!" that I would have some mental explosion and the WILD would go farther. But I gave into the impulse anyway, and that's exactly what happened! Tingles accelerated, noises grew loud, lights flashed in the darkness. So i figured I should try it again. Same thing happened. Eventually I pushed too hard though, and the WILD broke. Everything went back to normal. I guess I woke myself up...

But I got close!

Oh yeah, and I woke up this morning with one dream in memory:

We (i.e. me and a bunch of DC's) were at the top of a big hill. There was a road going over the hill, but we were off to the side, on the grass. We had two bikes, a truck, two ropes, and a picnic lunch. As we ate, we were trying to figure out what we could do with all of it. Eventually, one of them said he had a great idea, but he didn't want to tell us what it was without showing us. He told me to get on one bike, and a short and chubby DC to get on the other. Then he tied one end of a rope to the handle bars of my bike and the other end to the back of the bike of the chubby DC. He tied the second rope between Chubby's bike and the trailer hitch on the truck. Then the DC got inside the truck and started driving, pulling the two of us along behind him...on the road! We flew down the hill (I'm sure the truck's gas pedal was floored), and it was quite enjoyable, until we realized we were going in the wrong direction! Cars were coming at us in both lanes, and we had to dodge them all by constantly switching lanes. Several times we very nearly crashed. It was quite intense, but still a lot of fun . When we finally got to the bottom of the hill, I assumed the DC in the truck would stop driving, so I let go of the handle bars to raise my fists in the air as a symbol of victory over the danger we had gone through, but I was wrong about the DC slowing down. He kept going, Chubby looked back at me and shouted, "Dude, what are you doing!?" and the handle bars on my bike got pulled by the rope which caused me to drift into the other lane right as a car sped up towards me. We collided, and I woke up.

Do not try this at home!

Well, I still fell asleep during my multiple WILD attempts, but at least I managed to have decent recall and even go lucid a couple times, although briefly!

Anyway, here is what went on in my head last night:

Dream 1: It was several years in the past. My siblings and I were still together with our parents and we were in Florida on vacation. We had this rental car with a ceiling that stuck downward in the middle and had a panel on the side with a red bar, a timer, and a phone (one of those old, curly-corded ones). We assumed the red bar and timer were to measure how many phone minutes we had left. I tried to think of people I could call just to see if it worked, but I couldn't think of any numbers, and just having the phone off the hook took off of our time. By the time we reached our destination, we only had 50 minutes left, which transferred wirelessly to the parking meter in front of us. "Oh great!" My dad complained. "You used up all but 50 minutes of our time!" "I think that's just for the phone, though." One of my sisters said. "No," my dad explained, "that's for the entire car! We can't use it anymore after that time runs up! That means we won't be able to stay here for more than five minutes if we want to get back to the hotel in time! I can't believe this..."

I woke up and realized I hadn't stayed awake through the WILD. "Ok, from this point on, if I see my family, or...or anyone, I'm dreaming." And then I fell back asleep, hoping that would at least be enough to get me lucid.

Dream 2: I was baby-sitting two of my nieces in the present day. They wanted to go down in the basement to play Xbox. Now even though I didn't go lucid yet, this kind of struck me as odd for multiple reasons: 1) I don't have an Xbox, 2) if I did, my nieces wouldn't be interested in playing it, and 3) it wouldn't be in the basement because there's no TV down there. So I went down to get a game set up for them. There was a pretty big TV there, as well as a couch and lounge chair around it. I went over and found the Xbox and turned it on. Then I look up and find the TV shrunk down to just having a screen a couple inches across! "Are you sure this screen is big enough for you guys?" I asked. "Yeah, it's fine." One of them replied. I turned around then and noticed something really strange: the lightbulb in the ceiling was out, but the room was still lit. I walked over to it and pulled on the string to turn it on. Nothing happened. Pulled again, still nothing changed. "Ok, this is so weird." So I did a reality check. I thought I felt air come through my nose with it pinched. "I must not have pinched very hard...no way this is a dream. But I need to do it again just to make sure." I did, and this time I was beginning to be convinced otherwise. One more time, and I was fully lucid! I dropped all concerns for my nieces now that I knew they weren't really there and I ran up the stairs to get outside so I could fly somewhere interesting. Unfortunately I ran a bit too fast. The dream started to weaken. I rubbed my hands and tried to spin around, but I couldn't hold on to the dream...it had gone on for too long as a non-lucid and now the REM was almost over. As the dream faded I began losing balance, so I grabbed for the door and railing on the stairs, also clinging to the sensation of those objects being there. But nothing could stop it.

I woke up, of course. I'm not sure when I fell back asleep, but I'm pretty sure it was during another WILD attempt

Dream 3: I was lucid from the very beginning this time, but I found myself in a place like the construct from the Matrix. Everything was white, save for a TV and a couple chairs...and three DC's who were standing there. One was a girl, another a tall and strong man, the other a short and stocky kind of guy. I didn't have time to think of going anywhere or doing anything I had set out to do in waking life, because these DC's ran up to me and each one started begging me to make them the star of a movie. "This is your dream, only you can do this for me!" Each one kept repeating. "Ok, ok, guys, if it will get you to leave me alone, I'll make all of you the stars of a movie." That wasn't good enough for them. "No, I want to the be the star instead of the other two of them!" (Man, DC's sure can be selfish!) "I choose the lady, then." I lost lucidity at that point as well as my body and I watched as a short 'video clip' played before my eyes with the girl as the star actress. It was some kind of action adventure film; I can't remember much of it. I do remember hearing a voice telling me the future of the girl because of the film, though, mentioning other movies that she was in and how this one started it all for her. After that ended, however, I was back at the construct place, still not lucid, and the tall guy was there. "Now you have to make me the star." He said. "It's not fair that I don't get a chance to prove my worth. I can act twice as good as her; you'll see." So I made him the star, and the video replayed with him in it. He wasn't a great actor, honestly. He made mistakes left and right. Again the narrator voice talked about the future of the star actor, but I can't remember what it said about him. The video clip over, I was in the construct once more, with just Mr. Shorty left. He was wearing a suit and black sunglasses, and he was a black guy now, too. "Hey man." He said. "Just give me a chance. Don't leave ol' shorty out now, right? I'll show ya. I can act for real." I don't remember actually giving him the part, but the video clip replayed with the short guy in there (now as a bald white man with a long moustache). He stopped the other actors, though, and had them totally rearrange the set. He turned the film into a comedy about twin aviators, both played by him. The narrator once again chimed in, talking about how this guy's skills as a director ended up surpassing his acting skills and making him famous for several movies...or something like that.

This time when the dream was over I didn't have time to go back to sleep, so I just lay in bed and worked on recall of all these. So that's what happened last night.

Last night's WILD attempt again did not go so great. I was just reaching the point where I was thinking, "I should start counting to keep myself awake" and next thing I know, I'm waking up. In real life. I was in the same position that I had attempted the WILD in, though, so I must have at least made it to SP.

After that I fell back asleep and had one really interesting dream (for music people, anyway):

I found myself sitting on the floor with a bunch of candies. Ferrero Rocher, from the look of them. I picked one up and placed it in a spot in that plastic tray fancy chocolates always come in. A small note played. So I put another one in, one slot higher than the previous one. A slightly higher note played. Then I took those two out of the tray and put two different candies in. Each one of them changed the octave, but played the same note as the ones before. After experimenting with this for a while, I figured out which candies would produce notes in which octave, and which positions in the tray caused which individual notes.

Next thing I know, the tray that I was working with contained several more spaces. If I filled up the available spaces and still needed more, more would simply be there. So I got to composing a song in this manner. Once I got the main melody down, I started to add in harmonies. This is where things got interesting. As I put more candies into the slots to add harmonies, I began to realize how many different notes were playing all at once and still sounding great. "How is that even possible?" I asked, amazed. So I added in some more. Still the music didn't sound bad, and in fact, it sounded even better than before! "This many notes can't good together..."

I was jerked out of that dream by a loud bang from outside, so I don't know if I was about to go lucid or not right there. But the interesting fact still remains: I was hearing impossible notes in my head. How? Well, it's simple science. Sound heard by our ears is caused by vibrations in the air. In a dream, you don't hear by your ears, there are no vibrations, and there's no air. Crazy how that works...

Had kind of a weird experience last night. I tried a new WILD technique called NSSWILD (Natural Sleep Simulation Wake Induced Lucid Dream) that was going great...and I fell asleep again. But I was exceptionally tired last night, so it's not a big surprise/disappointment. On a less tiring day I'll probably be able to get through no problem!

But the weird thing I mentioned came when I fell asleep and dreamed regularly. I never did an RC or recognize a dream sign...I just suddenly thought "this is a dream, after all" as I went about, and went lucid! Here's the dream:

False memory told me that I had directed and acted in a smash-hit movie on a low budget in the past, so now I was part of a high-budget movie with all the big sets and professional cameras and all that. It was great. And we were about to shoot the climax of the film; when the guy (me) saves the girl, the villain raises his ugly head in apparent victory, and there are lots and lots of explosions. We ended up re-doing the scene several times for one reason or another, but finally, after two or three times, I randomly went lucid and just asked a DC for a quick review of everything I was supposed to do. Of course there were other things I could have done, being lucid, but I had already seen what kind of movie we were filming, and I really wanted to act it out being lucid. So once I got a crash course on my part, I decided to go play it for all I was worth. The scene began with the girl badly ill, in a hospital room several stories up. The hospital wasn't normal, though, being a black and twisty tower. The nurse said she was going to go get medicine, but as it turned out, as soon as she had left the room, we heard several short beeps, like on a keypad, and then the base of the building shot out flames, and a chain reaction was started that continued to the top. The place was collapsing! I punched the nurse and threw her out the window, but she shape-shifted into the evil (male) villain she truly was and grabbed onto the side of building on the way down, landing safely. I picked up the girl and carried her on back, then ran for the elevator down. It broke halfway down the first floor, and flames jetted down out of the ceiling as debris landed on top. I noticed that it melted a part of the steel wall, however, so I kicked with all my might and broke a hole through. Stairs were visible, so I carefully pushed the girl through, and then did a dive through the hole myself, landing in a roll and coming back up on my feet. The girl back on my back I began to run down the stairs, which were one of two spiraling stair cases. On the other staircase was the villain, who had hoped to capture us in the elevator. "Give up!" He shouted across the gap, which was filled with explosions and flames. "Even if you get out of here alive, your father won't. You'll have to choose...him, or her!" "Just watch me!" I replied, taking off in a run. But I couldn't get down any farther, because in the delay, the stairs broke on both ends of the room. The villain actually fell through his stair and landed in the flames, but still managed to escape in time (he was definitely not human...a pitch black creature with long, gnarled fingers and fingernails of a similar description). I managed to step back in time to not fall, but all of the stairs were weakened now, so I turned to the girl, who was barely conscious. "Can you hold on?" "I'll...try..." She held herself on my back, and I jumped, swinging from remaining stair to remaining stair, to pipe sticking out of the wall, to monkey-barring across exposed rebar and running on walls. That, combined with explosions and flames and all that, was quite epic. But then when I got to the bottom of the building, I kept the girl with me, rather than handing her off to someone else as we had done in previous shots. Instead, I ran to my aforementioned father (who looked exactly like my real life father, but acted nothing like him) and made him leave on a subway. I guess he worked around there or something. At first he protested, but I simply said to him: "I can heal; I'll survive the fire and all this. But you've got to get out of here! Take her with you; please, she'll die without some help!" This convinced him, and he left. The building began completely collapsing as the subway departed. I ran with super-speed out of there, but things went into slow-motion. Huge chunks of ceiling dropped down and nearly hit me, but I'd either dodge them, flip over them, or do any other number of cool move. Suffice it to say most of the time I was running on falling debris and not the floor. I made it outside just in time, but there was still the tower falling down, and it was headed right for me and my dream character friends (whom I knew by false memory). Telekinesis presented itself as the first option, so I held up my hands and pushed the tower the other way, so that it fell on top of the enemy army rather than us. I was then in third-person, viewing the scene through the eyes of the camera. I turned around, again in slow motion, with this cool grey and white cloak shading my face, the building collapsing in the background and sending a rush of wind my way, blowing the cloak in the wind. I simply walked, not panicked at all, proving the lengths of my control to everyone around. It was one of those classic, epic shots. Next thing I know, I was back in myself, and a bunch of people from Star Wars were asking me to lead them in battle. I woke up before I could, but I'm sure it would have been epic.

Honestly, it sounds a tad bit dumb when I write it, but it was quite awesome going through it! :bravo:

WOW! Just, wow! I succeeded at WILD again last night, and it was the best one yet!


So I naturally woke up at 5:00am, like I usually do (for reasons I have yet to understand), and lay in bed for about ten minutes before I woke up enough to realize that I was even awake. When that realization finally hit, it woke me up enough that a long WBTB seemed unnecessary. I didn't even get out of bed; instead I just rolled over to a new and comfortable position and then waited for the HI. They came visibly and audibly within a couple minutes. So I started counting.

"1...I'm dreaming...2...I'm dreaming..."

I did it pretty mindlessly, but it was just enough to keep me conscious. Before long I was seeing white everywhere and feeling the energy pulses as I did last time. And I had this urge to do something--anything! But I felt like if I just sat there I'd lose it. So I did the first thing that came to mind; with my eyes still closed, I started doing push-ups in my bed! (Really at this point I was in SP and in my dream body) And then, with a loud wooshing noise, it was like my consciousness was sucked away. I collapsed on the bed and everything went black. So I tried to open my eyes. I was in my bathroom, and I knew the WILD had succeeded. But everything was so real! A quick RC completely affirmed my state, however, and I thought of things to do. "Hmm...I recently said on dreamviews that I wouldn't mind lucid dreaming a level or two of Tomb Raider. When I open this door, I'll be in Croft Manor!" I opened the bathroom door, but I saw my hallway outside. "Dang. Try something else." I thought about teleportation, and the first thing that came to my head was how Hiro Nakamura teleports in the Heroes TV show. Figured it was worth a try. So I thought "Croft Manor", closed my eyes, and worked hard at it until my head shook from concentration. I heard the familiar teleportation sound from Heroes and then opened my eyes again. I was standing right in the doorway to Croft Manor!

The place was incredible; everything was exactly as it appeared in the game, only far more realistic. Even the patterns on the carpets inside were true to Tomb Raider: Anniversary! "Now to find Lara Croft!" As I said this, I turned around, pointing at the place where I wanted her to appear. At that moment she walked through the door that I was pointing at. "There you are!" I said. "Where shall we go? Vilcabamba? Coastal Thailand?" She wasn't nearly so excited. "What are you doing here?" She replied angrily as she walked by, not even looking me in the face. "Well come on, don't you want to go?" I asked. "Not with you!" She retorted. I tried to talk nice to her then and soften her attitude, but it didn't work. So I followed her as she walked outside and made a picnic lunch appear in the middle of the mansion's huge lawn. She didn't go for that, either. I guess being rich actually made Lara a snob after all

Giving up on that idea, I tried teleporting away to somewhere else (although I can't remember where, now). Instead of going there I ended up in my bed, in another false awakening. "What, it's over? Better reality check to make sure." I pinched my nose and breathed in. No air went through. But it didn't feel right, somehow, so I did it again, this time only pinching one side and then slowly pinching the other as I breathed in. This time air went through, and I knew I was in a false awakening. A moment of panic hit me, then. It felt like I had already been in a dream for a couple hours. I wondered if I'd ever truly wake up, or if I'd just keep having false awakenings. That fear left as quickly as it came, though. I figured it had only been a few real minutes, and besides, I wouldn't mind living in a lucid dream for a long time anyway, considering I was in full control right now.

I teleported back to the Croft Manor to figure out where I should go next. Lara was still there, and still unhappy, so I just flew around near the ceiling to stay out of her way. "Flying...flying...wait! I flew that girl around before. I should bring her back and we can fly someplace again!" So that's exactly what I did. I landed on the ground and tried to summon her. A girl appeared, but it was just a silhouette of an old woman. "You're not the right one." So I turned around and pointed, as I had done before, saying: "This is really her!" And sure enough, there she was! Her back was turned to me, though, so I was a bit nervous that her face wouldn't be right. I tapped her shoulder and she turned around. Not a single inch of her face was inaccurate! "Hi!" She smiled, and I could tell she was remembering our last flying adventure. "You ready to go?" I asked as I picked her up just as we had done before.

It was then that Lara got jealous. "Wait a minute, what do you mean, go? You can't go without me!" I shrugged. "Sorry, actually I can. You're not real." And then I flew off with the girl to the middle of the maze behind Croft Manor and landed there. I knew Lara wouldn't find us there in time. We laughed from the joy of flying and escaping that way. "You want to go get something to eat?" I asked. "Sure! That sounds good." "Where do you want to go?" "Anywhere's fine with me." I couldn't help chuckling, considering she had no idea that I could take her literally anywhere. "No," I said, caressing her cheeks with my hands. "You choose. Please." She nodded slowly, getting the idea that I would do anything for her. "Alright. How about..." and she mentioned the name of a restaurant that I can no longer remember. It started with an 'N', but that's all I can recall. "Ah! That's a good place. Here; just put your hands on my shoulders and we can teleport there." She did, and I successfully teleported us to the restaurant the same way I had teleported before.

When I opened my eyes, we were in a very cool building. The lights were dimmed, people were everywhere, and cool mexican-sounding music was being played on a stage a short ways away. It was all 100% real. "This is so much better than real life!" I shouted. I didn't want anyone to hear, though, so no one did. The girl was in front of me. "Come on!" She said, pulling me by the hand. I was almost in a daze; I just couldn't get over how great everything was, so it was good that she was there to pull me along. For some reason we had to go through a ticket booth to get inside, even though no one was taking or giving tickets. When it came to be my turn to go through, the guy standing at the counter said, "Have a good time!" I shook his hand just to see what it felt like. My fingernail caught on his hand as I did so, making him flinch. It felt real, that's for sure. Skin slightly rough, a bit of sweat...even the creases in his palm. "Sorry about that, dude." I nodded towards the place my fingernail had caught. "That's alright man! Go have a good night with your girlfriend!" Well, that was interesting.

I ran and caught up to the girl, who was looking for a table. "Is this ok?" She asked, pulling back a chair to sit in. "Looks good to me!" I took the other seat. "Hey, umm..." I began as I reached across the table and held her hand. "What would you say...we are? Not...not in real life, I mean, but...in here." She didn't get it. "What? What do you mean...'in here'?" I didn't want to say outright that it was a dream, since by now I was pretty sure that I was shared dreaming with this girl. Make her go lucid, and she could figure out that were sharing a dream and that I really do care for her. So I skipped the dream thing entirely and asked plainly: "Would you say you're my girlfriend?" She smiled.

Then I lost the dream and woke up!

I know! Of all times to wake up! I mean, COME ON! Just ten more seconds and I could have had an answer! I tried desperately to WILD again and get back to that spot, but of course it didn't work. It had been a couple hours, and I wasn't at all tired any more. REM was done. I couldn't relax.

Oh well. It was still my best WILD yet! And I'm getting better at doing it right, so hopefully before long I'll be able to use it to go lucid very often indeed!