[March 17th]

March 17th

Stayed up until 5 am playing madden 11 with some buddies. Very little dream recall.
Fragment: Peyton Manning signing multiple contracts.
Don't know what it means, but probably something to do with 7 hours of madden before sleep

[March 21 2012]

Eat 2 bananas right before bed!

Thanks ate two before going to bed.

March 21 2012

Woke up 6am, no recall, decided to stay up for a bit in order to try WBTB + WILD.  I didn't want to stay up the full 40-60 min, since i had to get up for work soon after.  Stayed up 5 mins.  Tried WILD twice.  Damn you alarm.  Perform RC. Not dreaming. Snooze.

Fragment:  I'm dreaming that I am playing one of those old strategy games, like Warcraft II or something, but I am actually in the game.  My miner looks something like this and I look like my normal self.  Some guy who is playing against me tries to beat him with a stick and I take a bigger stick and beat him up. Then I wake up.

Anyone have any ideas how to improve recall?  Its pretty annoying to wake up and know that I've had at least 3 dreams last night and not remember any of them.
I'll keep eating 2 bananas before bed.  We will see how it goes...

[Game Analysis 101]

01/31/12

Game Analysis 101
I am in school, it seems to be a game design class.  Everyone is talking about some video games and comparing them.  I am paying some attention, but I feel quite tired and I also feel like falling asleep.  My eyelids are heavy and I close them just enough to rest them.  I drift to sleep, and then I get poked by the person next to me.  I look and I see that my ex-boyfriend is in the class with me, and he has poked me to wake me up.  I stay awake long enough to hear everyone is now discussing Oblivion, and how it compares to Fallout 3.  The subject of Skyrim comes up as the instructor asks if anyone has played that and how it compares.  James says all of them blow ass.  I comment he wouldn’t know a good game if it bit him.  He gives me a strange look, maybe says something, but I am again drifting off to sleep.  My eyes close and then I wake up.

Cats!
I am in a place I don’t recognize, it is a house, and it is a big one.  I have no thought that I’m not supposed to be there, I am just wandering around and exploring.  I enter a bedroom and see an adorable tabby cat on the bed.  How cute!  I turn to leave the bedroom and I almost trip over a tortie cat right behind me.  Wow… where did you come from?  I pat the kitty and head down the hall towards the bathroom.  In the bathroom I find there is no human toilet, but there are four cat pans lined against the far wall.  Am I supposed to use the cat pan?  Even if I wanted to, they are all occupied.  There is a cat doing business in each one and also three more cats patiently waiting in line.  Wow… 7 more cats!  I pat the last one in line and head out to find a human bathroom.  I don’t find another bathroom, but I find my way back to the living room.  I go to sit on the couch but I am warded off by a hiss.  I almost sat on a cat!  I look and see there are seven cats crowded onto the seat of the couch, all lying around each other.  There are three more cats on the back of the couch and a cat on each arm.  12 more cats!  I mentally count cats and realize I have found 21 cats so far.  I turn from the couch and almost fall on my face as I realize I am about to step on a cat’s tail and I move awkwardly to avoid doing that.  22 cats… I wake up with a single cat purring beside me.

[To Infinity… and Beyond]

To Infinity… and Beyond
I am flying a space ship in outer space as in EVE online, though I am not flying one of the many EVE ships, I am flying my own Fire Valkyrie.  I am flying through asteroid belts hunting pirates.  I decide that the pirates I am finding in this belt are far too easy, so I need to go into a lower security zone.  What zone am I in now?  I push a couple buttons on my control panel and see it is a 0.8 zone, so it is really no wonder that the pirates here are easy.  I decide to head into low security space, so I pull up a map that shows the surrounding solar systems.  One of them is a 0.3 system, so I decide to go there.  I locate the nearest jump gate and head over to the 0.3 space solar system, plotting a course to an asteroid belt as soon as I come out of warp.  I ignore the usual warning from Concord saying they can't guarantee my safety in a 0.3 security space…  When I reach the asteroid belt I am immediately greeted by the transmissions of pirates, and there are quite a few of them.  One of them is a big one, yay!  A fight starts, it turns out the smaller ones are still very easy to destroy… only the largest one takes any effort to get rid of.  I fight the pirates and destroy all of them, then it is time to gather my loot.  But I'm in my Fire Valkyrie… where am I supposed to put the loot?  Fire Valkyries aren't chosen for their cargo space… I figure I'll take a look at what the loot is and figure out what to do with it.  I check the large enemy first and see there are several pieces of expensive loot in there… I will make a load of isk off of this!  Yay!

Game On
I am in an arcade, but the arcade is also a casino of sorts.  There is a contest going on, and the jackpot is to be won by the first person to play a series of ten video games and not lose any of them.  I decide I am going to accept the challenge, so I start off playing the games.  It seems most of them are games I am able to play easily, though they aren't games I particularly like.  I am on a winning streak, however, and there are only two games left… and they are both games I should have no problem with!  The first one looks a lot like EVE Online, though it is a single player game.  I get on the game and start shooting down the enemy ships.  There is a kid standing next to me, the kid says I need to move and give him a turn on the game.  I say I will in just a bit, I just need to score 100,000 points.  The kid leaves and comes back with a woman who is an employee of the arcade.  She says it is the kid's turn now, move.  I ask if that means I won't be able to win the contest.  She says the contest isn't won unless I win on each game in a row, so if I quit, I lose.  I say I'll finish the round then, and then the kid can play.  She says no, leave now or get thrown out.  They're cheating!  They're not letting anyone win the contest!  I am annoyed at that.  I step away from the game and lose, I am going to lodge a complaint.  I'm not sure who to complain to… I am trying to figure that out when I wake up.
 
Zombie Stomp
I am at Alicia's house, and I know I need to get going home so I can get some stuff done.  I can't remember what it was that I need to get done… but if I don't get to a computer soon, time is being wasted.  For some reason she doesn't want me to leave until another of her friends arrives.  Her friend is already late… I wish she would hurry up and come before it is too late.  Finally we decide we need to go out and find Alicia's friend.  We go out and get in my car, though we have to go back in the house for a few more items before we actually leave.  I don't think anything strange about the fact one of the things we get is weapons.  I select a katana that is particularly sharp, it will do perfectly.  We go out and start looking for Alicia's friend.  It is dark out, so I am having problems searching.  We drive down an alley and find her friend surrounded by zombies.  I do a double take at that and then I realize what the sword is for.  Alicia's friend is up on a large dumpster trying to keep away from the zombies.  I attack the zombies, though I think I am the only one who fights… but it is not difficult.  These zombies are the slow moving dumb kind, and they have soon been relieved of their heads.  I am trying to get Alicia's friend back to the car now, I want to go home and do something productive.  She is being difficult, apparently traumatized from her encounter with zombies…

[Tags:]

Plans:  This is the last night for Halo task for full credit on the Lucidity Power Trials Club, and it is my aim to do it with Dakota.  Other than that, I will focus on just remembering something.  I remembered a dream last night, I want to do it more!  More!

I am in a place I don't recognize, and I am not lucid at the time.  I look around to see where I am, and I see that it is winter, the ground is covered in snow, and I am a bit chilly.  I think I'm doing quite well to be out in that weather and only be slightly chilly, but that might not last.  I wish I had a jacket of some kind, and I am surprised when one seems to appear from nowhere.  I put it on and look around more, I have absolutely no memory of how I came to be here, or even of where here is.  I decide to do a nose-pinch RC, and I discover that I am dreaming.

I look around the place a bit more now that I am aware I am dreaming.  I am in a cold and snowy place at the base of a mountain, there are paths or roads of some kind leading up the mountain, so I head for one of those roads.  While I am walking in that direction I am thinking about my goals, about what it is that I want to accomplish in dreams this night.  I remember the Halo Warthog mission, so I will try for that.  I walk along the base of the mountain looking for a possible place for the Halo mission to start.  I see a tunnel leading into the mountain that looks like a place for the mission to start, so I head in that direction.  I am thinking another part of the goal is to look for Dakotahnok to see if we can confirm a shared dream.  So I am also looking for him as I head to the cave entrance.

As soon as I get to the cave I see there is a man in there, he looks like he is waiting for something.  I wonder if it could be Dakotahnok… then I realize I have no idea what Dakotahnok looks like!  I approach the man and observe his appearance, he has short dark hair, is relatively tall with an average build, but then my attention gets drawn to his shirt… his t-shirt has Dakotahnok's spider avatar on it!  He sees me and asks if I am Raven Knight, so I say yes, I ask if he is Dakotahnok… he doesn't answer me, but he looks very happy with the situation and says, "We did it!  We did it!"  He is very excited at the prospect, I think it is awesome that we made it work.  Now if both of us can just remember this…

Dakotahnok and I aren't together for long, however, before we head in our own separate ways, as both of us are looking to complete the Halo task for the LPTC and this can't be done in a shared dream due to some people not accepting shared dreams at all, and for the ones that do, it would seem unfair to do a task as a team when everyone else has to do it individually.  I tell Dakotahnok to make sure and remember the dream.  He comments that I'm the one that has been having recall problems lately, touché… we go our separate ways.

I go into the cave, which cuts through an area of the mountain.  It looks like the cave was carved through the rock by an intelligent race rather than a natural passage, it also winds around inside the mountain.  There seem to be passages heading off to the side of the main passage, but I don't feel there was a need to explore them.  There are strange mutant bug like things attacking me, I take a shotgun like weapon from my side and blast them, the blast takes out large groups of them at once.

I exit from the passage and find there is a vehicle parked on the other side, there is a voice speaking from somewhere… wtf?  It is a female voice, it says to get in the Warthog and go, go, go!  Wow… it's like I just stepped into the video game…  I jump into the Warthog, and someone else gets in the back… I'm not sure who… or what… he is, he clearly isn't human, but it is just as obvious that he is on my side, so as he takes control of the mounted turret on the back of the Warthog, I floor it and head for the path leading up the side of the mountain.

As we are going up the mountain, the path winds around the outside of the mountain, but there are numerous wide places in it where there are structures off to the side.  Mutant freaks are coming out of the structures and attacking us, they are swarming all around us, the guy in the back of the Warthog is blasting away at them, taking them down in waves.  Some of them are in front of us, the Warthog is able to drive right over them, squish, squish, squish…  I drive the Warthog farther up the mountain, it feels like the mountain must be a volcano about to erupt… the whole thing is shaking violently, large boulders are falling from above and crashing down towards the ground.  I am driving the Warthog to the left and right to avoid the falling debris…  An area of the path collapsed from in front of us, I am barely able to make the Warthog jump over the crevice to the other side… and I see the mountain is definitely a volcano, as there is lava flowing down through the crevice below.  Things continue in this manner until we are near the top, where I see there is a space craft hovering a short distance off the mountain.  The voice I heard earlier is saying to go for it, jump into the ship, before the entire place blows.  I floor the Warthog and make the jump into the waiting landing bay of the ship.

It is briefly dark in the landing bay before the interior lights come on, revealing that the Warthog has wrecked at the far end, the big guy from the back has been thrown off to the other side of the landing bay, and I am on my ass near a pile of cargo crates.  I go to check on the big guy, and I find he appears to be alive, just unconscious.  Well, that's good.  I figure the dream task is over, so I am ready to wake up… when there is an attack!

One of those mutant freaks is attacking, throwing off those strange bug things, it is really quite gross.  It looks like one of the enemies off of the Silent Hill games.  I remember I have to use Halo weapons, so I don't activate my Witchblade, instead look around and spot a plasma sword that the big guy seems to have dropped when the Warthog wrecked.

That is a pretty cool weapon, though, it cuts through and toasts the bug things on contact.  I fight against the creature, climbing up on some of the cargo crates to get away from its attacks, then I jump down from the crates and attack the thing from above, slicing it nearly in half from top to bottom.  The thing was UGLY!  I'm not sure what it is… just that it is dead.  More of the bug things crawl out of it, so I kill those, and once that is done I wake up.

[Game Fragment]

Game Fragment
Clarity: 9/10 Lucidity: 0/10 Interesting: 3/10
I am playing "Grand Theft Auto." Or what I think is GTA anyway. I'm running around, actually following the plot, and it's pretty fun. Then I come to a mission where I'm supposed to break into a building and kill everyone. I talk to my teammates to understand our abilities better. One is a pretentious girl who simply stands there and waves her finger back and forth in an annoying manner. I turn the game off, because it's too violent for me. My dad then asks how many games my memory card can hold. I look at him blankly, so he asks how many fish I've stolen from Animal Crossing.

Poor Grandma
Clarity: 6/0 Lucidity: 0/10 Interesting: 2/10
There is some manner of party at my house. For some reason, everyone's left except my grandmother. She says that she will walk home backwards because the wind is so strong. I ask if she wants me to walk her home, and she says yes. I hurry into my room to change clothes, but manage to fall asleep while doing so. I wake up at 2130 and assume that since it's so late, my grandmother has already found a way home. I go biking, and then my mom comes after me. I make a U-turn and go back to my house. My grandmother is still there, and my mom drives her home.

School Party
Clarity: 6/10 Lucidity: 0/10 Interesting: 5/10
I'm in choir, back in high school. It starts out by us hearing the Flight of the Valkyries from Die Walkuere. However, by the end it's turned into something Wotan sings at the beginning of the second act of Das Rheingold.  Then, we have to move around around a lot because of some weird song. I think it's about chitlins, whatever those are, the we have no music. Only the text, which is printed on some sort of food wrapper. Halfway through the song, my wrapper runs out of words, so I look on with my friend's. Then we go back to our original seat. My coat is draped across the back, yet someone mistook it for her's and sat there. She quickly moves when I point out her error.

Then my voice teacher calls me over. I run to her side to see what she wants.

"I just found out you're singing in the Christmas pageant on Friday?"
"What?"
"Sorry, it's not my fault. Z just decided last night."
"WHAT?!"

She told me I'd get the music around Thursday sometime and then disappeared. I walk around in a daze, unsure of what to do. In the distance, I see Stephan playing with a basketball. He throws it, and it accidentally comes right for me. I dodge just in time.

Then I'm in some kind of room. There's a party going on. I remember the last party I went to, I stepped on a shard of glass that almost killed me, planted there by a member of the mafia to cause chaos. So I spend the entire party, along with Naomi, kneeling on the floor, looking for anything dangerous. It is covered in such things, and my feet would have been quite bloody had I not looked.

Then I see Lando Calrissian on Bespin saying "No, he doesn't want you! He's after somebody named, uh, Skywalker." Then a bunch of stormtroopers capture a group of Rodians.

Back to the party, everyone's left except Naomi. There are two puzzles out, but we're still working the floor. It is mostly clean now. Her parents come pick her up, remarking that the puzzles are unfinished. She replies that we were just having too much fun with other things.

[Tags:]

I request that we play the old SNES version of Mario Kart rather than whatever newfangled version we're playing.  I'm using the SNES controller like a Wiimote to steer and it's difficult, I keep going off the track.  It would be easier if I knew the course . . . it is impossible that I don't know the course.  I know all the courses very well.  Must be a dream.  I do a nose-plug RC to confirm.  Even though it kinda freaks me out, I hold my nose for a while longer than necessary, marveling at what it feels like to breathe, without breathing.

And a few days ago:
Wandering in this huge hall.  I'm there for a reason, but I get lost, fall in this pit.  There are things that look like abominations from WoW all over the place standing guard.  They seemed harmless, but now that one is with me in the pit I'm trapped in, it comes at me with a chainsaw.  I try to press 5 buttons at once to teleport away, but to late.  The thing slices me in half.  No pain, but still an unpleasant sensation.  It hacks at me some more, cutting me into smaller and smaller chunks.  I decide that it's leaving my head attached to my body to torture me.  My thoughts at the time:  "What an unpleasant dream.  Shouldn't I have bled to death by now?"

[Zombies in Rivet City]

Zombies in Rivet City
Zombies are everywhere.  I find an abandoned house and make it my home.  I secure all the doors and windows, adding many sturdy locks so that I can lock up tight at dusk when the zombies come out.  But somehow, after locking up the house I leave without using a door, and am now locked out.

The zombies start coming out as the sun goes down.  These are the kind that will run at you, so I run and they chase me.  I'm annoyed that I have to explore the surrounding area under these conditions.  I run headlong in any direction where I don't see zombies.

I come to the top of a cliff.  It would be a dead end, except that there is a pathway made out of grating that extends the side of the cliff over the abyss and leads to a metal door in it's face.  I enter.  I know that there are people who have found shelter deep inside.  A map comes up in my mind.  There's a maze of corridors where more zombies lurk, but I can see where the human guards are posted and the secure entry to their shelter.

It is a maze made of metal.  Corridors splitting off into more corridors.  When a zombie starts to chase, I run.  More zombies one way, and I choose a different direction.  More of the same.  The positions of the zombies determines which way I will explore.  When I am surrounded, I quickly run past one, relieved that he didn't grab me.  I'm scared, but not scared for my life.  I know this isn't real, and in that light it's actually a bit fun.

A boy opens a door for me.  I rush in and slam it shut behind me, holding it as a zombie throws his weight against it.  We're not to the secure shelter yet, and these zombies are smart.  They're going around to another entrance as the boy rushes to lock it.  It won't be easy getting to the shelter.

[Kain and Cecil]

Haven't been focused on dreaming lately, which is probably why I haven't had many lucid dreams, and fewer dreams in general.  Although I did have one higher quality lucid in the past week (although too short to do anything) so that isn't what's been missing.  Instead the lower quality ones are gone.  I assume it's the result of lack of recall.

I had a few non-lucid flying dreams, which is new.  Always with the help of a contraptions (one of which was made by me).

Kain and Cecil (Exciting to me since Final Fantasy IV has been part of my psyche for the past 17 years.)

I'm the dark knight Cecil.  Kain and I are fighting a huge quadrupedal beast that looks akin to the Atma Weapon.  It's covered in thousands of tiny, bulging, muscles, as well as strange growths, grime, and who knows what.  The thing has hundreds of needle-thin teeth and when it manages to catch my leg, sinking in those needles I loose most of my health bar.  I must not let this happen again or the battle will be lost.  I shout out a warning to Kain to keep clear of it's mouth and do the same myself.  It goes after Kain and I manage to jump onto the monster's back.  I pull on the back of it's head to bring it's jaws up and away from Kain.

And I look down at Kain.  He hold's his sword up with both hands defensively, taking a wide stance as he faces the beast.  He's so much more than the pixels of his Super Nintendo sprite, I realize.  He's defined with crisp lines, and details, and realistic proportions that even the DS version did not have.  I look at the black dragoon wingy things sprouting from either side of his helmet and wonder how good of a job my mind did recreating him.

The laser weapon mounted on the beast's head has turned to fire at me.  I reach out and grab it, struggling to manually turn it away from me so that it will fire harmlessly.  I shout to Kain and he runs around to the back of the monster while it's distracted so we can coordinate our attacks.


There was something very homoerotic about the whole thing:  two men beyond perfect physical fitness, in skin-tight armor, depending on one another and acting in synchronicity . . .

 . . . I blame Metal Gear 4.

This was all after running my husband through Deadmines the night before, so I had lots of WoW dreams that morning too.


The Weather In California
I wake and notice the sound of rain.  I go back to sleep.

I walk out onto the front porch of my parents' house and there's a huge rainbow stretching across the sky.  I shout to my mom, but although she's outside, she's looking at some architectural detail on a neighbor's balcony.  She thinks that's what I'm talking about and responds excitedly.  "No," I say, "The rainbow!"  I point and she looks up.

I walk out into the rain and around the house.  I keep looking up at the rainbow, but it's difficult to hold my gaze up with the big droplets hitting me in the face.  Then the rain lightens to a sprinkle and I see that the end of the rainbow is only maybe fifty feet ahead of me.  It's wide and bright.  Not quite solid.  Each color forms a broad band.  I'm just in awe.  It's so amazing.  I look around for the other end and see that it's much farther away.  How is it possible? I know that it's physically impossible to be closer to one end of the rainbow than another.

In the distance, on the horizon, I see dark clouds approaching quickly.  It has stopped raining now.  Are they rainclouds?  They look too dark and have the wrong shape.  They look more like the clouds of smoke from the fires of the fall with their faint, sickly yellow tinge.  Flocks of birds are flying in my direction, away from the clouds.  The dark clouds seem to accelerate as they're blown swiftly by the wind.  Suddenly I don't want to be outside when those clouds get here.  I run for the house.  But the clouds are so much faster.

[In Love]

In Love
I'm some kinda ocean goddess.  My powers have been taken away, leaving me little more powerful than a mortal, and naive without my infinite knowledge.  My most devoted servant leads me on a journey to reclaim my lost powers.  He's a young man.  My blessings have given him the abilities to breath water and swim swift as a fish.  Since I am not human and know no words we communicate through song with notes.  Side by side we fight my enemies through coral reefs and kelp forests.

We arrive at the entrance to the den of my enemies, where they hold the lost pieces of myself.  I look at this man leading and realize my intense feelings for him.  Such feelings are new to me, but I can see in his eyes that he returns them.  He had not known that I'd ever be mortal enough to experience love and return his.  We hold each other in the water for a few moments.  I feel his lips on my cheek and long for more.  It is bittersweet to know that once I'm my true self again, I may no longer feel this way for him.

We enter.  Deformed humanoid creatures are shooting at us from all directions.  I dodge their missiles as I shoot my own magic ones from my palms.  But I'm getting hit and I'm not sure how many healing items I have or where they have my powers hidden.

I'm asking my husband where to go since he's played through this video game a bunch already.  He tells me that I've already gone the wrong way and I'm gonna get game over.  I ask him how the game ends.  He tells me that they have a daughter with powers like her mother.

MB totally caused this one.  I figured out what her avatar was the other day, which must have triggered my memories of The Last Unicorn and the whole finds love once in a mortal body thing, but no longer feels it once a unicorn again.  Plus the whole deity thing.


Eating Escargot Fragment
Mmm . . . It's buttery and tender!

[Intentional WILD and Naija Adventure]

Intentional WILD and Naija Adventure
I wake from some stupid dream and go back to sleep.  I do this thing that I do when I want to fall alseep quickly, where I encourage the random voices/music and promote a slight sinking sensation, a weight on the eyelids.  I realize that I'm close to a WILD and decide to push for it.  And then I get this feeling of vibration.  It doesn't alarm me much; at the time I thought that it felt kinda like the vibrations I got a few times while meditating for the dream yoga workshop.  Although it was different.  It felt like I was seeing or hearing it, or maybe both.  So I intensify it until it fills my eyes and ears, I merge with it.  Then I'm floating . . . and then I'm underwater.  It's clear, pale blue with bubbles that block my vision.  Should I try the memory task now?  Am I even in a dream yet?  This feels like cheating:  I was awake doing some weird thing with my mind and now, in the same second, I'm having a vision, but is it really dream yet?  Is this what Iadr means when he writes, "Image stream to lucid"?  Is this the pre-dream part?  My impulse is to swim off and explore but I restrain myself and watch the bubbles in case things aren't stable yet.  Then I swim off.  I decide that I must be a mermaid since I can breathe underwater and swim faster than usual.  Although I seem to be the kind with separated legs since I'm doing breaststroke.  I can feel the fins on my feet.  I feel green. 

I swim toward a light, but something's blocking my vision of what's ahead.  I push past, and to my shock, break though the surface of the water.  I experience the air and the sun as if it's my first time.  The sun is setting behind tiny rocky islands and the sky is all pink.  But I can't breathe the air!  I submerge my mouth and nose back into the water, but the real me and the mermaid identity seem to be having a conflict and now I can't breath the water either!  I stick my mouth in the air and force myself to breathe, then I submerge and force myself to breathe the water.  Now I can breathe both and I spend some time just enjoying where water and wind meet, swimming down, and then surfacing, and swimming all around the little islands.  One time when I come up I see that it has become night.  I don't want to be swimming in the dark, so I decide to make it sunset again the next time I surface, and it is.  I find myself realizing that my dreams are primarily without dialogue.  I think that people must find my descriptions of my experiences in a world without words to be boring.  I wonder if I should try to talk to somebody. 

The time of day is very neurotic now.  The sun is always at a different location when I surface.  But the water continually gets darker.  I realize that darkness increases the probability that I'll see the orca, but the first dark shape I see in the water has a pointier head.  The shark rushes towards me.  I propel myself out of the way and land on it's back, straddling it.  I pull a hemp rope out of nowhere and make an impromptu harness.  It doesn't resist much:  it is just a dumb shark and doesn't know what to do once it's food is out of sight.  It's also made of plastic and air, like a large version of the blow-up sharks you see in pools.  I see another shark shape coming my way.  I steer my shark to the side as it attacks and kick it.  I'm trying to tell myself that I'll be fine:  that I don't need my shark-mount because I can just deliver a palm strike to it's snout and it should leave me alone.  It swipes at me again, and this time I'm not so quick and it bites my leg.  It's just a soft feeling on my leg and I realize that this is a blow-up shark too.  It's only teeth are painted onto the inside of it's plastic mouth.

I'm thinking that I need to find my perfect dream lover.  The scene changes and I walk into a room with two single beds.  I look away and then back again with the expectation that my lover will materialize.  I see someone on the far bed for a sec, but then they fade, leaving an empty bed. Does this mean that I'm my own perfect lover?  Is that why I'm all alone?  I'm about to leave when I realize that I could make someone be under the covers.  I walk over to one of the beds and pull back the blanket and there's a man underneath.  For a sec I think that it could be my husband, he has the same complexion, but then I see his face.  He's not unattractive, but he's also not my ideal.  Might as well investigate though, he could have secret talents that will make him my perfect lover!  I know that he's not when I see that he's not very good with his hands, but there's also no reason to stop.  While I have sex with him I hear myself giving a monologue as if it's something I've typed up for my DJ.  I end by saying, "For a random lay, he was quite phenomenal!"  And I keep true to my word soon afterwards.

Now I remember the memory test.  I say my address, making sure that I'm complete with city, state, and zip code.  I monitor what I say and know it's all correct.  Now, wasn't I gonna think of songs? I think of some dumb song that's been on the radio lately.  No, not that.  How 'bout something that I've actually added to my music collection?  I think of The Bird and the Bee, and as I do, I wake.

It's actually an FA where I'm at a hotel with a bunch of my friends.  I'm tired and want to go back to sleep.  I get really pissed at one of my friends when he insists that Nintendo made a game modeled after a D&D campaign.  I realize that I'm forgetting things from the beginning of the dream and that I really just need to write it all down.  At which point I actually wake up.


This WILD was more the result of intent than most of the WILDs I've had.  I now realize that I'd experience something very typical for the first time with the vibrating.  I wonder why I experienced it for the first time now.  Or was it just weird HI, the product of my imagination after reading about how so many people have a vibrating sensation when WILDing?

[Does This Sound Lucid to You?]

Does This Sound Lucid to You?
I'm in World of Warcraft.  I'm on some quest to go retrieve an object from the Horde capital of Orgrimmar.  I'm my human self, which makes me Alliance and an enemy of the Horde, so it's a good thing that I have a spell to disguise myself as an orc.  The spell fades quickly, so I keep casting it every 30 seconds or so as I enter the city.

Getting to where the object is kept is tricky.  A sexy, bald, lady orc with an axe directs me.  I have to enter a small image by willing myself through it with my mind.  Inside, it's like a glass box.  And there's no gravity!  There are all kinds of magical objects around.  After retrieving the orb that I came for, I grab handfuls of other glowing stones and fill my pockets.  Then I grab more, putting necklaces around my neck and just carrying some in my hands.  The necklaces are ornately carved bone.  I know that they have stat bonuses too.  I want them all.

I exit, burdened with my plunder, and the orc babe asks if I've fulfilled all my quest objectives.  I don't want to open my quest log in front of her because she'd see that I'm on an Alliance quest.  So I tell her that I'll look as soon as I go drop all this stuff off at the bank (Do I have room in the bank?).

Now she grows suspicious, "Which bank?"

"Orgrimmar."  Should I have said Silvermoon?  She'll see me leaving the city . . .

I consider stopping by the Orgrimmar bank to pretend that I'm dropping things off, but the orc doesn't watch me as I walk away, so I just head out the front gate of the city.  I find a secluded spot by the city wall to hearthstone (teleport) to the human city of Stormwind.  While looking at my action bars for my hearthstone, I see the swirly purple icon that represents Astral Recall, and decide to use that teleport spell instead.  I click on it and my hands gain green halos.  I wave my hands around in little circles in the air as I watch the casting bar . . . and . . . nothing happens!  I'm still just outside Orgrimmar.  I can't use Astral Recall again for a while, so I try the hearthstone, watching the cast bar again, and again no teleport.  Although, I notice that the music has changed to that of the human Elwynn Forest. 

I wonder why this is happening, but quickly find the explanation:
I'm playing the game in my mind, so I don't actually have access to real game data. My mind doesn't have all the files; it doesn't know to automatically port me to Stormwind when I hearthstone.  I imagine connecting my brain to my computer with USB cords.  I wonder how accurately my mind recreated the world of Warcraft on it's own.  I look at my surroundings.  Is this what the game really looks like? 

I try to just teleport myself with my mind but fail.  Oh well . . .  I start walking to Stormwind.  It's a long, exhausting trek, especially when going uphill.  I wake just before I get there.

[Tags:]

Down the Evil Storyline
I'm playing Breath of Fire III because someone I was chatting with online had mentioned that it was a cool game, reminding me of how much I love it.  I'd responded with some enthusiasm, but now as I play I wonder why I didn't mention what great games IV and V are.  II too, or even I.  No, not I, it was too tedious.

I'm the little girl Arya From George Martin's A song of Ice and Fire.  I return to Winterfell from Braavos and conspire to take some magical items from one of my father's gaolers.  When I go to take them, the man tries to stop me.  He's huge:  over six foot tall, and both muscular and fat.  I end up killing him.  The items that I take are some bags (which are larger than the ones I had, so I put them in my bag slots on the lower right of the screen) and something else . . . which unlocks powers within me.  I'm filled with the seductive feeling of destructive power.  Now I'm able to turn into a dragon.  I pick out my dragon form from a selection screen.  There are also more powerful dragon forms that I can't access yet.  They all look fairly humanoid. 

Now I'm navigating through an area filled with dragons.  They're all milling about, rather rapidly.  They are less likely to attack me because of my dragon form, but I'm prepared to fight.  I'll incinerate them with fire.

I'm back at Winterfell, having not reached my goal, but determined to try again to venture past the dragons.  My family has returned (except my mother who is among the walking dead).  Their hair is bright orange, as is my own, I realize.  Theirs is bleached by the southern sun, from black to orange.  I realize that my hair is only orange because I'm a child and always in the sun.  When I get older it will be black like theirs.  My father see's my evil deed, he sees that I killed his man.  He looks at me differently.  He asks me if it was worth it, killing him to gain my powers.  I say, "Yes.  Yes it was."  I feel evil.  I realize that I've gone down the evil path with Arya.  I'll have to save in a new file so that I can reload and play through the good story too.  I want to see all of Arya's storylines.

I'm making children into weapons.  Arya is the first.  I acquire two more.  The second has a defensive ability.  He becomes a tank.  But my favorite is the third.  He blows things up.  I realize that I really like blowing things up.  I'm some creepy, scrawny, evil genius.  With my mind, and their powers, everyone will be at my mercy.  I get magical artifact for my favorite weapon.  They're a pair of cute little orange shoes.  They allow him to make catastrophically large explosions.  I have him blow things up for my enjoyment then tell him to keep the shoes hidden.  I'm delighted that they look so inconspicuous.  If someone want's to take his powers they won't know where to look.  He's only about four years old.

(click to show/hide)

Serith mentioning some games including Myst in chat.  Me replying with full knowledge of the game, thinking that it's kinda unusual that I have so much knowledge of games considering I'm female and that all these teenage boys probably weren't even old enough to play Myst when it came out.

Sean999 mentioned that he might like to ride a dragon for the challenge.  I was thinking that riding a dragon doesn't really interest me that much, since I've turned into one before.

Buying 14 and 16 slot bags for various people in World of Warcraft.

Thinking that I'd like to play Fallout III and thinking how there's a morality factor to it.

Thinking about the destructive character archetype, especially Jame from P. C. Hodgell's novels.

A girl with red hair told me that she liked my hair because it's really bright.  I assumed that she was talking about the part where I dyed it pink.  The rest of my hair isn't as bright as hers, although it once was.

My mom mentioned to me about a girl she was talking to that had natural black hair with a white streak.

Wishing that there were more of Arya in Martin's last book.  And realizing that now I'm gonna have to wait years for him to finally write his next one and find out what happens to her.

Wanting to play more of Valkyria (it has tanks and grenades!).

Thinking about the kindergarten where I worked last semester and missing my kids.

A race in World of Warcraft (what are they called?) that match my description of the gaoler.  I watched one dance on youtube.

[Zombie Nightmare!]

Zombie Nightmare!
Zombies have invaded my hometown.  My husband has given me a gun and I'm shooting into a crowd of zombies and people trying to get head shots on the zombies.  Zombies keep attacking humans, so the ratio of zombies to humans keeps going up.  But it's easy to tell which ones are zombies because their names are red.  I'm doing pretty well at first, but after I pick off the zombies in a fifty foot radius around me, I find it difficult to hit anymore.  I've never been very good at video games like this.  I wonder why my husband gave me the gun instead of using it himself.  I consider using a more powerful gun but I like the infinite ammo on the one I've got.

We retreat to my parents' house along with some of our friends and a few of the kids I work with and barricade ourselves in.  There are lots of large windows in the house, but they're double-paned so the zombies shouldn't be able to break them.  But then we notice that they're piling scraps of plywood around the house.  Are they gonna set it on fire?  Are zombies that smart?  If they do the glass will shatter from the heat.  I begin devising a plan to bring everyone upstairs and somehow seal off the first floor.  But then I notice that there's plywood upstairs too . . . and the only way that the zombies could put the wood upstairs is if they're in the house already!

I run into one at the top of the stairs.  This has gotten too scary.  Being face-to-face with a blood-thirsty zombie, looking into his soulless, wide yellow eyes (with the eyelids rotted away) and gaping, drooling mouth is too much for me.  Its scalp is a patchwork of scraggly hair, green, rotting skin, and pale bone.  I could just wake up from this dream.  I should just wake up from this dream.  I shut out the image of the zombie and concentrate on waking, doubting my ability.

I wake.  It's still dark, the middle of the night.  I'm too freaked out not to think about how well fortified the house is against a zombie attack.  My husband tells me that the cardinal rule of a zombie attack is to use the staircase and then destroy it.  Yeah . . . he's more of a dork than I am . . .

[Tags:]

The main dream I remember was actually a series of loosely connected dreams, involving some sort of quest.  What details there were changed often, so I have no idea what was going on.  Sometimes I was myself, sometimes I was some sort of overpowered video game character, and sometimes I thought it was just a videogame, other times it wasn't.  It started out as being about collecting these artifact thing, and quickly became much more confusing.

(There was going to be a drawing for this dream, but it turned out so unlike the actual scene that I'm not going to post it.)

Another dream I had didn't include me.  I experienced things from the perspective of someone who had escaped an evil island and had become very rich.  The rich islander was pretty evil in his own right, he collected all kinds of animals, and treated them really badly.  One of the cats was acting strangely, so he sent his butler out to find the cat's father, who would help figure out what the problem was.  After a long time, the butler came back with the cat's father, who turned out to be Ronald McDonald.


(In this image, I was testing out Painter X's tools for transforming a photo into a painting.  I was unimpressed with them, so I probably won't do this again.  Once again, I'm using an image from Flickr licensed under a CC license.

Although he looked exactly the same, the dream's version of Ronald McDonald was extremely different from the McDonald's mascot.  I'm not sure what was up with him, but I think he was a wizard or something.  He said nothing to the rich islander, just moved around a little, and the islander got more and more frightened by some telepathic message he was getting, until he promised he'd give away all his animals to kinder people.