Mortal Mist

      
           Dark lucid fragment  -  I become lucid in a very dark undefined dreamspace. Its a city, though its far darker than any city would be at night. Its barely there, even the sky has no real form to it.  I'm moving quickly, maybe flying. It seems lifeless and I have practically nothing to relate to. Thats the last thing I remember.


           Snooze alarm lucid - my snooze alarm is a dream sign.  when I sleep through it, I can always hear it in my dream.  I hear the alarm clock and almost wake up, but instead become lucid, aware of the my bed and the alarm clock but not awake.
          
            The sound is very loud. I am not really "in" a dream, but its more like I am seeing images (what's a word for that?).  I am watching two newscasters - not on a screen because the images is too large - against a black background.  Every second or so, when the alarm beeps the image switches from one newscaster to the other. Both are middle aged men. One is Indian, the other is Chinese.  They each speak in a jarring, frenzied, sort of scary way, kind of like if someone in real life began moving in super fast motion.  They talk and move too fast to be comprehensible. The fact that their images are blipping back and forth every second adds to the unsettling feel.

                                                                             '81 VW CHOPPER

Lucidity - 2/5
Clarity - 3/5

    So I've been driving my veggie oil powered '81 VW pickup for the past few nights. Sadly, I could probably use this as a dream sign as I am currently struggling to make repairs and get it on the road.

      Anyhow, I'm driving on a country road on a sunny day. Two trucks are ahead of me. The road seems to gain altitude some how and then I see that it ends abruptly, leaving only tree tops in front of us. The two trucks kind of float on the trees a la Crouching tiger Hidden Dragon. I follow suit. Then there is  gap and there aren't even any tree tops there. I know intuitively that we're supposed to will our vehicles over this gap, in a way similar to dream flying. That does it. This is a dream.

      I float through the gap and decide I might as well fly around a bit. I feel like I need to alter my vehicle. I will there to be folded down helicopter blades waiting to be utilized.... and there they are... just as I pictured.  I undo a bolt and the blades spring up on their own as if held down by tension. So now I got this chopper. I fly up and over the forest. I lose lucidity pretty quick....

      ....... and then I'm marrying one of the psych patients i work with - such is life.


Note- The way I think about it, I created the gap in that road the before going to bed that night with some MILD type exercise.



    

                                                          TAKING THE MEAT TRAIN NORTH TO INDIA (pre wbtb)

clarity - 2/5
lucidity - 0-3/5

      My great old friend D and I are driving north through Vermont in the evening when traffic stops due to a major accident involving a Volkswagon Golf.  Everyone's OK but the road is closed.  Luckily, there's a nearby train stop, so we go in to get tickets.  The ticket agent sits across from us on comfortable couches and talks about our options.  First he points out how I only have one sock on and no shoes. Whatever. He explains how all of the trains are tourist oriented theme trains, each representing a different culture.  The next train is the "meat train", which offers a continuous flow of Scandinavian meats to its riders. Tickets are $60 each.
       We buy two. Its even funnier because I'm a vegetarian. D explains this to the ticket agent and he looks at me with a new respect, like he is impressed by the vegetarian willing to ride the meat train.  I have redeemed my footwear situation.
      
        We get on the train. Our luggage travels next to the train on a conveyer belt.  I see that my luggage, which apparently consists of the back part of an upright piano, has fallen off the track. D and I get off to fix it.  The train accelerates into turbo mode and we run to catch up.  A line of beams on wheels are dragged in back of the train. The beams are for children to ride on while their parents enjoy the meatfest. "That doesn't really look safe for children" I say to D as we chase the train.

       We don't make it, but that turns out to be a good thing.  We run along the track, and the track turns out to lead through a crazy funhouse like system of hallways. There are false doors and optical illusion hallways that get smaller as you walk them.  We run around laughing.

       We reach our destination, but it turns out to be India, not Vermont.  
We are in Chennai at night. India happens to be a dream sign of mine (apparently meat trains are just a totally feasible aspect of waking life). I become lucid. I feel a strong dual body awareness, and feel like I'm about to wake up.  Closing one eye seems to help stabilize things. I know the beach is nearby and I just want to get into the ocean before waking.  I make it and submerge into the black water. Its not as warm as I hoped, but still great. I poke my head out to see some people milling around or sitting on an old broken pier.

                            
                                                               GREG LOUSY:  MYSTIC DICTATOR AND VESSEL OF RAGE (post wbtb)
lucidity - 3-4/5
clarity - 3-4/5
note - the dialogue is not exact, but pretty damn close

        My wife and i live in a small, sterile room at my old college. Its not a dorm, more of a side room in a study hall.  The walls are this awful mustard color. I feel terrible, like I'm trapped here. I'm very aware that I am way to old to be a student. I'm not sure what I am.
     My wife is not home at the time. I go out to a common area to use the computers. I have these deviant thoughts like "I bet I could steal these computers and sell them".  I can't take this. I feel myself overflowing with sadness and rage.

      I walk out to the quad and start screaming as hard as I can continuously.  

  Wait a minute....  the last few times I was like this I was dreaming
                                                             ...... even have this recorded as a dreamsign..........  yep, dreaming.

     I don't need to RC, but I am puzzled by how clear and accurate everything is.  Also, I am very physically aware of my body.  I try to fly but fall and wrench my wrist.  I jump off a steep hill thinking I have to commit more - even worse result.  I walk on. A co-worker of mine walks beside me. I explain why this is a dream. "Watch this" I say. I start my screaming.  "see, nothing. In waking life you can't just go around screaming without anything happening.  Also, I don't think that hotel is really there. " - In the distance there is an enormous hotel illuminated by hundreds of moving spotlights. (my college is in rural a rural area.  (Thinking about it now, I wonder if this coworker, and maybe the hotel were gifts to help reinforce my lucidity)

      That being established, I resume my rage and sadness and random screaming. At one point, i stop screaming myself but the screaming continues on its own, resounding everywhere.

      I walk on, ending up in a groundskeepers shed or something, seeking refuge. A woman and someone else are there which irritates me because I want to be left alone, and these people look off putting and needy.  I make a beat by stomping and clapping and start singing a song about how I feel and wanting to be left alone.  This works pretty good and I'm starting to feel alright. These people in here don't seem to bad anymore. The even look endearing in a childish kind of way.

       Then two human sized bee type things hover by the window

I incorporate them into the song.  I laugh a little and move on, out of the shed.  More of my coworkers join me as I walk down the hill. I float along backstroke style for a bit. We go into a building that is kind of a cross between a college dorm and the hospital where we work.  One of the coworkers is J, who generaly plays the role of "the painfully unavailable woman".  Some guy who is with us gives J a hug. He tries to grab her ass and she nonchalantly moves his hand. He tries again with the same result. Again.  Then he tries to go down her pants and I've had enough. I push him away and lay into the guy, yelling. I explain how the first attempt was almost forgivable, and how each subsequent attempt made him more and more into a complete creep.

      Well, the infinite rage is back. I walk away into the hallway and just start destroying shit. I punch the wall repeatedly and throw the chunks. I seem to be finding electrical device and what not. Throw them down the hall, tear at the wires... rage. i think I pull out a window frame at one point.

       Deep within the wall I find several packages of strawberries. They are delicious, and magically make me feel better. One of the patients approaches (this part of the hall is more like the children's psych hospital where I work). She wants strawberries. Her staff tells me I can give her two. We discuss the amount. Most of the good ones are gone anyway, so I give her two strawberries and a few large blueberries that seem to have snuck in.

    i walk back to where my co-workers are. I approach the guy I had laid into. he's in a side room now and seems harmless and apologetic, just another human. he offers to leave and "take space" (psych hospital jargon), but I stop him and explain how I overreacted, and how the whole thing was more about me than him.  i walk away. J is sitting up in her blankets in the dark hallway. i sit across from her, close with our legs touching. We have a good talk, starting with the previous incident.

J. - that was kind of my fault. About a week ago we were hugging and I made a mistake with him.

me - Like a kissing mistake?

J (smiling) - Yeah, like a kissing mistake.

me - So you guys have been hanging out a lot in the dreamworld?

J - yeah

    At this point two large security officers walks down the hall, looking for someone. They are carrying around some handwritten pages with my name at the top, in my handwriting. They question me, but seem to think I am shorter than I really am. They stand there, piecing things together. I consider turning myself in, but then decide to just ignore them. I continue my talk with J.

J - he's just a regular, open kind of guy. I get so uncomfortable with you, like your some kind of mystic dictator or something.

me (laughing) - Well, if you ever get tired of being comfortable, I'll be here.

     We embrace and its the closest I've ever been to her.  

She has been morphing slightly throughout our talk. Her eyes got green and her teeth got sharp at some point, but she remained herself enough for the talk to be very satisfying.  At the end though, everything starts to get shaky and she starts morphing into my wife.  Also, the security guards are still there and they now know who I am. I'm not afraid (pretty sure I could wake up at will anyhow), but I decide to flee everything.  I fly down the hallway. It ends and i go through the wall, then the next wall, then the next.

    Strangely, its the door to the outside that trips me up. I'm out but I'm grounded. I must have MM in mind, because I ask someone nearby "is that big hotel over there an ice hotel?"

      I see a bunch of skateboarders roll by. I notice a riderless board and recognize it as my ride. I chase it down and hop on (Awesome! I was thinking about a dream hoverboard vehicle a while ago!) I take a few turns and take to the air. Its kind of hard to gain altitude but this stile rules!
The dream fades.

I don't quite wake though - First some semi lucid fragments
 
       -  I'm eating tons of food from the fridge. I am convinced that its the same food I have in waking life, but it clearly wasn't, unless we have some huge cereal boxes with attached milk pouches I'm not aware of.

    
     -   Eating a huge bowl of delicious Asian fish soup, thinking about how if you only have a short time to make soup, Asian style is the way to go because ingredients like soy sauce have already had time for the flavors to mature - you don't have to develop as much of the flavors yourself with things like herb infusions.
       Then the soup is filled with ice.


      -  My old cat, Maize, who ran away is nuzzling against me and I think of how rare this is (she was very skiddish)



    

                                                                                    TRAPPED AGAIN

       hour nap before working the overnight shift - all dreaming consisted of FA's

FA - I go out to he kitchen table for coffee.  I become lucid and immediately feel a strong body buzz and everything goes fuzzy

FA - I roll over and check the clock - 9 something, time to get up (wish I noticed that the clock was one I haven't had in a year)

FA - again I go out to the table - lucid again - again with the buzz and everything becoming dark and hazy. This time I'm determined to get out I feel like there's a time limit, I'm fading. I fly around in a frantic way like an insect.  I head towards the door. My wife is very dark and hardly visible. She's not flying, but moving around in the same disjointed way I am. I get stuck at the wall. I try the front door. I open it and I'm out but I seem to be stuck a few feet from the house. Dual body awareness creeps in. Whet the hell, I'll just lie down - very blurry. I close one eye (this has helped before). This may delay the inevitable a bit.
     I lie on the rough grass and have the sensation of falling asleep. The dual body thing is very pronounced - I'm aware of lying on my back on scratchy grass, and aware of lying in bed on my stomach. Before waking I have a strange thought like "well I'll just have to get lucid from the other side" - as if it my dream body that will now be resting in this spot on the lawn.


   

        I am being pursued by a few hard looking criminal types. One is actor/comedian Patton Oswald, but that doesn't take the edge off things. He is one bad and dangerous looking Patton Oswald. One of hi henchmen challenges his authority and Oswald spins him around, points a gun at his back, then explains to the guy exactly how a real man would have acted at gunpoint, and how he wasn't one.

      Anyhow, there are three of us running, but I am the target. We get to a rocky beach and crowded parking lot, I split off from the others (was one my brother?) to throw them off . I head off the road and through the countryside - fields, woods, etc. I come to some fences. My pursuers are in sight. I jump one fence only to find there are three or four - some with barbed wire. I start over them and realize I can jump cleanly over these 8 foot fences. Thats odd - oh yeah - dreaming.

     I stop in mid air and turn around. I start flying in the opposite direction with the idea of finding and talking to this Patton Oswald guy (it seems I have trained myself to approach conflict when lucid).  I fly over farmland with beautiful bits of woods sprinkled through out. The day is a mix of overcast and sunny.
     Up ahead I notice some power lines in my path.

       What is that up there fumbling around in them?
                     
     Its a monkey. I fly in for a close look. the monkey gets kind of unclear and blank around the face. I fly on.
     Patton is nowhere to be found. I kind of lose my mojo and just stop in midair. I have been thinking about the doing nothing in lucids, and it seems I enacted that plan - To no end though, the dream fades out.

     

       fragment - a completely dark and cloudy sky with one tiny break in the clouds through which the sun shines for an intense second.

       also - Was I briefly lucid a second (or first) time that night? hmmm

Strange night of dreams....

  I'm on some sort of large ferris wheel with identical, numbered metal rooms spinning round instead of seats. Every few seconds, the rooms dissapear and I have to time my jumps so that I land in another room and do not fall.  I end up on the ground and it strikes me that this was more than a little unusual. I'm dreaming. I feel very light and so I decide to fly upwards. I move very fast and meet with no resistance. The buildings quickly recede and blurr beneath me untill I am in the blackness of space.  Things start to break up and what I can still see of the ground breaks up into a few blurry pixels then dissappears.

    I'm either at work or at college. In any case I'm sort of a homeless outcast. I am sitting at the base of a large tree on the outskirts. I am living there. I have a TV mounted on a nearby tree and I am watching some fantasy movie. Something like Alice in Wonderland. Some students stop by. They want me to take place in some sort of science experiment. They will cover my arms with some kind of brightly colored dye and I am to scratch away the dye. They want to see if I do so in a certain pattern. There may even be written information underneath the colors that I may or may not reveal. I begin worrying about the dye, which is spilling into the soil.

     I also made a go at Moonbeam's envelope challenge.  I just went to bed with the intent of seeing the envelope.  I didn't, but I did dream of a written test and the answer was already written in - a daisy.  (I'm not exceedingly hopeful)

interesting evening nap - all INRALD's, all happening at nighttime.

    I get up slowly. My body feels super weird.  Top Heavy, wobbly.  I try floating - no problem.  Try to go out the window.  Why can I never get out the window.  Always the door though.  I go out to the living room..  I try to just hang out for a minute, getting my bearings.  I float up above the ground floating Indian style.  Kind of cool, feels very freaky.  I float away.  My stomach feels funny. Things start fading in and out.  I'm really moving.  I'm being swept away by wind.  I think its ending a few times but it keeps going, the bodily sensation of flight long outlasting the visuals.


    And we're back. I get up again. The house looks a little different.  I will an upstairs (none IWL).  I think of the stairs at my grandparents house.  Around the corner, there they are.  I go up.  Its tiny, not even rooms really, just a small space, but that small space embodies my grandparents perfectly.  The clutter, the feel, something.  I linger a minute then tell my grandparents I love them aloud and head out the window.  Again, no window access.  I keep at it, get through the screen, then partially outside, whats this? another screen.  Fine, fine, I get it I get it.

briefly woken up for real and answered phone (not sure if it was exactly here)

     Getting up, trying to masturbate. Its just not happening. Give it up.  Kind of a waste anyhow. Onwards oneironaut! continue. transcend annoying erection!

    I get up, same wobbliness, same feel. As soon as I get out of my room, I am startled by a very life like old lady, who I don't know.  A good look at her face though, and I "know" it's L's grandmother.  "Have you seen L lately?" I ask. "Nah, mostly 'm fine alone. She's a trip."  "I love her, you know" I say as I walk out the front door.  The driveway looks similar except for the snow.  Its midwinter. As I walk on I see its not only winter, but Christmas.  The street is all shiny and I'm holding some kind of ornamental icicle and the windows are bright and there are occasional little colored lights everywhere.  I notice a cat in a window. I look in to see more cats.  I open the door and walk in.  Why not?  There is a litter of cute kittens in some kind of kitten bed with several grown cats walking around a very bright and clear wood floored apartment.  I hear something or someone down in the basement.  I'm not frightened, but I do feel funny enough to leave. Back on the street I start thinking about things to do.  I try to levitate some passers by.  It doesn't seem to work at first but then I notice that the occasional pedestrian is, in fat, walking 10 feet off the ground.  Then a scooter or two zooms by head height. A few other small objects...  It starts to feel downright whacky.   Then some guy (the guy I first tried to levitate?)  Bounds around the corner in some version of Santa's sleigh, but I forget if there were reindeer up front or scooters.  I call out to him.  I try to fly to him. can't.  He circles back and tries to reach my hand but it doesn't happen.  I feel a little cheated, like "c'mon, I totally started that"  I round the corner.  Still very clear, very shiny.  I try to fly up again. Nothing.  I even ask aloud for help. Nothing.  As I ask, I am reminded of this autitistic kid I used to work with who would always want to be picked up and would constantly ask/demand "Up!  Up! Up!"
        No flight.  I find myself scaling a house, still trying to get up, wondering if there is some lesson here.  things fade.

    - Some other brief periods of getting up and fading out also happened.  Each of these episodes would fade, and feel like the last.  The last one I couldn't get up at all. 

     

remembered on the ride to work that i had been lucid, - for a good little while I think, the only solid memory is that I was climbing up some face of rock and it was very sunny

Lucidity eludes me once again.  This is from around mid sleep or so

I'm at this huge, buffet area at a party.  The party is for me, my birthday or something.  There are strange and delicious looking oysters of various kinds all around.  I become lucid when I realize there would never be such a fancy party for me (its OK)
      I start walking around. The scene immediately starts to degenerate, which is too bad because it was very interesting.  Its a bright indoor space but it seems to go on forever with no walls in sight.  Its full of people wearing very bright colors (I remember one neon purple suit in particular.  I stop and try sitting and focusing on my breath as a last ditch effort.  No such luck, the scene quickly dissolves.

pretty good dream awareness and vividness last night.
   
      Driving my truck. I doze off at the wheel, rise from my body so that I'm riding on the roof, looking up at the sky.  Full lucidity kicks in and the sky becomes extremely vivid and detailed.  it feels very stable, but I'm not quite sure if I'm driving my truck in waking life, or in another dream, so I suppose I should go back to my body to be on the safe side.....   Damn!!!

went to bed half drunk.  I don't know if its the REM rebound effect or just my synapses firing in desperate dehydrated confusion

       My mother is driving us home from somewhere. Home to the house we moved out of in 1990, She cuts through this nearby Christian school. We stop to get a snack at some outside cafeteria. She sits with some unsuspecting teenager and starts talking to him incessantly. I forget what about.  At first, she just seems a bit quarky and talkative like she can be, but she gets more and more intense, talking about what this kid has done even though she doesn't know him, getting more and more nervous until she is very distressed and talking faster.  I start to worry that she's having a stroke or some medical issue that can cause sudden personality change. I ask if she's OK but she just keeps talking.  By the end, she seems genuinely mentally ill and tortured. I can't help her.  Its terrible. I become lucid, as a way out I think. 
       "Mom, this is just a dream. I love you.  I'm going to wake up now."
       (then in and out of an FA)
 
           Walking along the wood on a dark road.  I become lucid. Something is pulling at me and just I give in and go limp.  I'm swept away into the air floating kind of sideways on my back.  I look at the tree line and sky. Its very clear and beautiful. The stars move and pool together and slowly form an enormous human image, taking up the whole sky, his chest rising from the horizon.  It was some kind of Hindu god. Shiva I believe.

Loop - walking along a similar road.  This time I get a little help with the lucid part.  A branch from a tree falls.  Its full of those helicopter like seed pods which keep the branch floating while somehow still staying attached. it bounces off the ground, then up again. It brushes my leg then floats into the woods.  Yep, dreaming. Again same thing. I feel a force and give in. I float in the same way.  This time I go through the woods a before halting to a hover in some backyard, looking at a plain white house.  The upstairs part is illuminated from the inside with moving fields of colored light, presumably emanating from whomever is living their lives in that particular house.  The different colors are different emotions.  I can feel them too. They are all positive, life affirming emotions. Excitement, joy, others I can't name but feel wonderful.
       I start thinking. I remember the empty and painful experience of the previous dream with my mother, and I am genuinely astounded at the range of all we can experience in life.  I start to wonder how the feelings of this house can be so overwhelmingly positive.  "must be something to do with the foundation" I think.

        FA - in some room with brother at some camp or seminar type place. Sleeping on the floor. Still lucid.  I start floating and walking and sitting on the walls. FA - My brother has been watching me and apparently I was actually walking on the walls while sleeping. - interesting - (then, at some point, my brother has become a clear and intelligent African tribesman with tribal tattoos on his eyes, but its definitely still my brother.)

      FA - still lucid. This time I'm in a hallway with many bedrooms. It looks like the wing of the hospital where I work and work people are there, but here, they're not work people, but lucid dreamers at some kind of gathering (they're probably from MM).  Its ironic though because for the most part they're not lucid.  I see Lynn from work (maybe the wisest person at work) I look at her. She's lucid.  I explain how I think its weird with all these dreamers and only the two of us know its a dream.  She's more even keeled. It doesn't strike her as odd. Then there's some piece where I realize I'm not myself.  Someone has left food and clothes and notes for me but they are labeled "MB".  I slowly piece together that in this situation, I actually am this MB.   
       Lucidity fades.  We all go to this big cafeteria. Its still the people from work but we are now joined by a whole bunch of patients. 100 or so. The dream has shifted from a dream gathering to an autism gathering, more like an autism celebration.  The food and tables are very classy and there are uniformed waiters.  I'm sitting next to Peter, who is worried that he will clear the table and destroy all the food and plates.  I try to talk him through it, and he seems to manage.  After the meal, its apparently time for a group song.  A few of the autistic kids start singing some kind of hymn - mostly the word "alelluyia".  People slowly join in.  I notice some Down's syndrome kids there too, also getting into it.  One table stands up and starts cheering on this little down's girl who is rapturously singing.  The sound builds into this state of special needs extacy, until the sound is literally vibrating everyone and everything in the room. Its unbelievable.