Weird . . .

[Alex Lou]

Memory Test and Adventures in Wardrobe
I wake.  My cat demands attention, so I brush her for a while.  Then I put the brush down and tell her that's enough.  I go back to sleep.  The cat starts bugging me again, begging to be brushed.  I look up to see that she's multiplied:  there's also one of her on the floor pawing at something.  Well that's a pretty clear sign.  I try to fly but fail.  Oh well, didn't I have things to do anyway?  I decide that pj's dream memory thing should come first.  I recite my address.  Too easy.  I throw in my parents' address (the address that I grew up at) for good measure.  I'm thinking that I need to find my perfect dream lover for the challenge, but I'm not even sure how to tackle that one . . .  Maybe my dream lover will come to me?  I start calling out for my dream lover to make an appearance.  I wake.

I'd like to go back to sleep, but better keep a record, lest I forget.  I grab a notebook that I keep by my bed for dream stats.  I'm glad that I left a pen on top of it.  I find a mostly blank page and start tally's for "lucids" and "dreams."  Do I need to write down my age?  Nah, if I'm ever a different age than my own I'll just specify.  I also write 10/10 under the lucid tally for the memory in the dream I just had.  I leave my DJ on my bed by my pillow.  I go back to sleep.

Now there are 3 of my cat.  One on the bed and two on the floor milling about.  I try to fly and fail.  Might as well do the memory thing again since this is technically a different dream.  I recite my address, then my phone number, then my social.  Then I walk out of the room.

I encounter my dad in the hallway just as I'm thinking that I need to change an object.  He'd been looking for his glasses and just found them.

"I need to change one object into another," I tell him.  "What object should I use?"

"Try my glasses," he says, offering them up.

At first I'm thinking that I should change them in his hands without touching them.  That's the idea that I got from the challenge:  to just change something with my mind, all magical like.  I think about it for a sec, but decide not.  I hate force-manipulating stuff like that.  It feels unnatural and usually yields instability.  Instead I take the glasses in my hands and start stretching them like taffy.  I form a long, sleeveless, Chinese style dress.  The golden frames form the details at the hem and collar but the body of the dress is clear like the glass, although it remains flexible.  I want to put it on, but I'm already wearing several layers of clothes.  I start taking them off, realizing that I'm doing this in front of my dad and reminding myself that he's only a DC.  Fortunately, when I look down and then up again, I see that my mind has replaced him with my husband anyway.  That will be more comfortable.  For some reason I'm wearing high-top sneakers and they're not that easy to get off.  I'm surprised that I can get them off at all, although I realize that I probably should have imagined them away.  Underneath I'm wearing two layers of socks, plus leg warmers.  As I work at them I wonder if I was wearing any of this in reality, and if so am I really taking them off?  But no, I only wore a loose, comfortable skirt to bed.  A skirt and that's it.  I find it interesting that I recognize one of the pairs of socks as a pair that I actually own.


I wake up and reach for my notebook, but it's not on my bed where I left it.  Turns out that part was an FA.

[Sunshine]

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[mu]

Reading Fragment

I know those cards. In a dream though they might actually say something interesting, if they keep changing. It sounds like your version was much more interesting than the joke, in that each sentence needed the other to establish meaning.

Spider Bites

Yeah,  ! What a crazy ending! Your spiders seem to have brought the dream to attention too. I love when dreams refer to other dreams.

Does This Sound Lucid to You?

Why that title?  It sounds like you were definitely lucid at the end. The glass box sounded very interesting.

Memory Test and Adventures in Wardrobe

I love the cat part! So simple, but so strange. You do have great dream memory.

[Alex Lou]

I'll be lucky if I can remember to try and remember something. 

Seriously, that's the hardest part.

Too much clothes!   The dress sounded cool.

Too bad I never got that dress on.  It was transparent and I wanted to fly around and watch the reactions of DCs.

I love when dreams refer to other dreams.

Me too.

Why that title?  It sounds like you were definitely lucid at the end. The glass box sounded very interesting.

I don't know, I'm not very particular with titles.  I actually think that I wasn't lucid.  I think that I just thought that I was playing the game in my mind.   But yeah, reading the description, it sounds lucid, which amuses me.

I love the cat part! So simple, but so strange. You do have great dream memory.

Yes, my sweet cat multiplying was really delightful. 

Seems strange to me that other people wouldn't be able to remember their address.     I should probably follow up next time with trying to remember what music I've been listening to.  I seemed to have some difficulty with that with skysaw's lucid logic challenges.

[Sunshine]

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[Alex Lou]

Sorry for whining in your journal.    I'm not having a good week of dreaming.

No worries.     Sorry about your bad week though . . . 

It may be that I just don't become lucid in the low-logic/memory dreams that you become lucid in.  Maybe you're better at attaining lucidity than I am.  After all, I only have the opportunity to test these things in the dreams where I'm already thinking clearly.  I do have many a dream where I don't show any sign of even knowing who I am.

[Sunshine]

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[Alex Lou]

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?

[mu]

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. 

You did that, and went straight underwater and became a mermaid.  This is exactly what I want to do, both the technique and ending up underwater. Was it easy?
It does sound something like entering an image stream, but iadr always starts off the description already in the stream. I'll have to ask him.

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.

It's not boring! In most of my favorite dreams there's not much going on; it's just really cool scenery and feelings, and experimenting with the dream world like that. That was great!

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 weird you are so good at remembering addresses and stuff but not recent music. I'm the opposite; I have no idea where I live, but I listen to a song once and it's in a dream within a day or two.

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?

You always hear about the vibrating... Whenever I have something remotely close to WILD, e.g., OOBE or intense SP, I get very strange sensations, but nothing I would describe as vibrations. Mostly I feel like I'm very light and expanding.

[Alex Lou]

You did that, and went straight underwater and became a mermaid.  This is exactly what I want to do, both the technique and ending up underwater. Was it easy?

Thanks.     Well, the whole thing with the water was not intentional.  Although, I don't think starting somewhere intentionally as the result of a WILD is much more difficult.  It was easy, I suppose, although only because WILDing is always semi-accidental for me.  I just happen to be falling asleep at the right time.  Still, I suppose that there were several points at which I could have messed up:  I could have resisted the vibrating, I could have tried too much action immediately after entering, and falling asleep while being aware of HI and falling asleep more quickly are learned skills.  Skills that I'm actually not that good at . . .

It does sound something like entering an image stream, but iadr always starts off the description already in the stream. I'll have to ask him.

After I woke I didn't think that it's really much like what iadr does.  That's just what I thought at the time.  There was a bit of messed up dream logic going on.

It's weird you are so good at remembering addresses and stuff but not recent music. I'm the opposite; I have no idea where I live, but I listen to a song once and it's in a dream within a day or two.

I get music I've been listening to in my dreams too . . . and usually forget to record it in my DJ.  But consciously trying to think of what music files I have is a bit different.  I actually haven't tried this much, only twice now, and the whole FA thing leaves me with no results for this try.  I was on the right track.  Next time I'll just have to recall a song or two by The Bird and the Bee.

[Sunshine]

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[Alex Lou]

Cool WiLD!  And you went into water, like I did that one time!  I'm still trying to repeat that.

Thanks!     It's my suspicion that imagining being in water is a natural reaction to a floating sensation.

Especially since it was more intentional this time.  (I wish I had accidental WilD's!  Or even intentional ones!)

I've been thinking about it and I've decided that there's no way for me to know that I ever have intentional WILDs.  Just because the intent is there doesn't mean that I caused it to happen.  And whenever I interrupt an unintentional WILD, I'll have another if I keep trying to go to sleep (which is most annoying btw.  Poor Lumi ).  So even if I had messed it up I may have had 2nd, 3rd, and 4th opportunities.

[Sunshine]

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[Alex Lou]

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.

[Sunshine]

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