Mu's Unnamed Dream Journal

[mu]

 So I'm starting a dream journal. I intend to only post dreams after I have them, that is, since some are repeats, I will not post them until they repeat again. I make no apologies if anyone is offended, although it is certainly not my desire to do so, since these are my dreams, as they happened, and I cannot change what has happened. So here goes:

 This is a new one. I'm in a convenience store owned by some Muslim men. I'm shopping for NJ license plates, hoping to find one with my license plate number already on it. It seemed as though I'd found one, but, after I bought it, it turned into a blank Texas plate. I've never been anywhere near Texas.
 There's an elevator in the store. I enter it, and it goes down a very long way, accelerating in every which way, rotating, etc. It's fun, but I'm getting dizzy.
 When it stops, I walk through a beautiful meadow surrounded by forests. Everything has a magical, shimmering quality about it. I feel like I smoked some weed on the day after taking LSD. (I did this several times, over 13 or so years ago. I'm clean now.) I'm eating pretzels out of a bag; some of them keep flying out of my hands and I'm getting annoyed about it. Also, I don't really want them. There are two annoying people here, jumping up and down and laughing, walking in the opposite direction. Then I stop feeling annoyed, and start laughing and enjoying the walk. I think about the elevator. I think, ``Hey, those Muslim guys can't drink or anything. Maybe that's why they have that cool elevator..''
 I'm suddenly in a suburb, walking around and around the same block. It seems familiar, but I don't remember it. During the whole dream I don't realize I'm dreaming, but for some reason I think that now I should wake up. And I do.
 At some point during the night I had another dream, of which I can only remember that my cat, who is not allowed outside, was outside. I picked her up and brought her in. (She has never gotten out.)

 That's about all I can remember. When I woke up, I almost immediately realized my dream had some things in common with a book I was reading the night before; (``We'', by Yevgeny Zamyatin.) There is a part where the character is descending a very long elevator, and before this he is walking around in a similar state as I was. I read a lot, and very, very rarely do I dream about what I'm reading. Maybe spending the last few days around here has changed something?

 It's actually pretty cool writing this down. I already feel more in touch with this `Dream World...'

[mu]

 I wake up (or dream I wake up) after several hours of sleep, and am disappointed that I haven't had any dreams. I fall back asleep, and have a dream.
 [Repeated element: I'm going through some passage. I cannot describe it. I often go through the same passage. I know it's the same one when I'm dreaming, but when I wake up I can't remember anything about it.]
 I get to a house that I'm quite convinced is my neighbors house, even though it is very far from my house, it does not look like my neighbors house, and my neighbor does not live there. There is a man inside who never says anything. He is playing a guitar, but it sounds like a harp. (Harmonica, but I'm thinking harp.) I envy his playing.
 While I am there, a mob of angry teenagers bust in and put me on trial (more like inquisition.) They say I hurt the feelings of one J-----, who was my girlfriend for a very short time when I was a teenager. [Not the dream: I was supposed to go dancing with her (I can not dance), but I went out drinking with someone else. I felt very bad about it at the time. And I ended up walking 20+ mile home, and got lost.]
 The turn me over to an old, bearded man with an Italian accent. He severely reprimands me. He builds a da Vinci-like flying machine, attaches some explosives to it, and sets me airborne. I have to get back to bed. In order to do so, I have to fly over this green-red-purple pedestal, jump off the contraption, land on the pedestal, bounce through my kitchen window, and into my bed (which is in the kitchen for some reason.) Whenever I do it, there is someone already in the bed. I keep trying, but my father, then my mother, then my sister, then pets, then strangers, then ... Each time I see someone there I go backwards in time, to try again. Only the explosives do not go back in time. I become more and more anxious. Finally, I see myself in the bed. I land into myself, and wake up.

[mu]

I can not remember any dreams from last night. I know I had some, but they slipped away as soon as I woke.

[mu]

 I've been having a bit of trouble recalling dreams from the last couple of nights. I did a bit better this morning. It seems I was trying to befriend a large succession of animals. There was a very large sea snake / dragon type of creature in an in-ground pool. It only trusted me (there were other people there teasing it, or figuring how to exploit it.) There was an insect (moth?) flying between my eyes. Other people were trying to kill it. There was something that kept changing from a cat into a dog, it kept making me pet it. Others were abusing it. There were more that I can't remember. These were separate dreams, with significant lapse of time between them. In each case, I was trying to relax and protect the animal, and felt great compassion for it.
 I had the strangest feeling this morning. I vaguely remember that before these dreams, I had one of the repeat dreams, but I can not remember what it was. I concentrated very hard to remember, and I got this intense feeling of deja vu; but also I felt very deeply relaxed and peaceful, as if I had just had a very good meditation. The more I thought about this dream, the stranger I felt. It was kind of like being in two places at once; one place being literally inside of my head, the other far away. I believe the far away place is the source of the deja vu. It is as if my subconscious remembers it, but I do not. It was a beautiful state of mind.

[mu]

 I was sitting in a desk. Some one behind me was poking me in the back and laughing. They implied that this would be the only dream I would remember. They were right. I turned around and slammed the person's face into the desk, pressing their face into it. The person seemed at once many people, yet one person. I don't know why I reacted so violently, but the person seemed determined to drive me to it.
 But I realized I was dreaming! I was not happy or excited about it, though. Just very angry at the person. When I woke up my head felt as if it weighed 50 lbs, and my mind was very cloudy. It took me a while to realize what happened. If I see the person again, I'll try to be nicer...

[Toast]

Congratulations on the LD, even if it wasn't all that great.

Your recall seems to be pretty good, you've remembered something 4 out of 5 nights. If you're remembering these along with doing a job or whatever, I'd say you're doing pretty well. If you can spare the sleep, then waking yourself up in the night by alarm is a good way to remember multiple dreams per night.

[mu]

 Toast, thanks for the reply and encouragement. I've always had fairly good recall, but strangely it has been worse since I've started this journal. Maybe it's because I'm trying too hard to remember. on the other hand, I haven't been doing this for a week yet, so maybe it's just a coincidence.

 I'm looking at the front of my right lower forearm, and it has on it a thick layer of blood, as if it were applied with a paint brush. My arm is not bleeding. However, on the wall is an x-ray of the arm, with a very strange fracture:

                              {~~ ...
                             {~
                            {~
                           {~
                          {~
                         {~
                     {~~{~
                    {~   {~
                   {~     {~
               {~~{~       {~
              {~  {~        {~
          {~~{~    {~        {~
{~~{~~{~~{~   {~    {~        {~
      {~  {~   {~    {~

where each `~' is longer than shown and is moving. It goes on indefinitely, like a fractal. I was staring at this for quite some time. Every so often, an impulse from one of the `leaves' would cross to another leaf in a sort of little lightning bolt, and for a brief instance, the whole thing would form into a symbol, like some kind of pictograph. I've seen the symbols before in other dreams. I seem to understand them at the time, but I have no idea what they mean upon awakening, and can recall very little about their appearance. I have never seem anything similar when I'm awake.

[mu]

 This is a repeat dream. There are sometimes variations, but most of the details are always exactly the same.

 I am living in a very tall house; it's almost like a tower. I spend most of the time in the upper floors. The lower floors are more chaotic; there is a feeling of madness about them. They do not seem to be three dimensional, and there are indescribable sounds coming from them. It seems to get worse farther down; in any case I've never been beyond two or three of these floors.

 One thing in common with all of these repeat dreams involves my senses (although this sometimes happens in new dreams.) For one thing, I seem to have synesthesia. (I do not while I'm awake.) The sounds that I hear in the lower rooms are not really sounds. They occur when and only when I am looking at an `object.' Because they are not ordinary three-dimensional, physical objects, they are extremely confusing to look at for any length of time, and I perceive them as (not much less confusing) sounds. If I close my eyes, or look away, the sounds stop. The middle-higher floors have less confusing objects, but they still seem to kind of weave in and out of their forms. The sight of them produces strange, but rather soothing sounds. In the middle floors, some of the `monster' objects protrude through the floor, so I can still see them, but they sound quieter.

 Some of the objects are like this: Imagine taking a room, with it's objects, turning it inside out, and wrapping it around a sphere. Pull some of the parts out, push other parts in, twisting them so that they kind of form a vortex into themselves. Then imagine that this whole thing is alive--it has a definite personality, and is attempting to communicate. It changes colors to speak, and becomes angry when it is ignored.

 Other objects look more normal. For example an old wooden chair, but one of the arms will dissolve, float off, become a sound, slam into the wall, reform back at it's original location as the wrong object, for example a metal beam, then slowly turn into an arm again.

 Also, I seem to have senses that have no physical counterpart, and these also get involved in the synesthesia. This is pretty much impossible to explain, because there is nothing to compare it to. All of the physical senses are responses to phenomenon that are electrical in nature; there is some other `fundamental force' here. I believe it is this force which keeps the objects with more `chaotic energy' on the lower floors, or perhaps they are more chaotic because of it. I think chaos is not the right word here either, because there is a strange feeling of order.

 In any case, I have not spent much time on these lower floors, because the lower I go, the more I lose the distinction between my self and the `place.' It is not fear, but there is less `I' that is conscious, to even look at anything.

 The upper floors are very pleasant and relaxing. I often sleep in a bed in the attic, which is basically like a normal attic, but with nice big windows and fine furnishings. There I have dreams within dreams, when I awake, I wake up there. These dreams I can not remember.

 This house is always exactly the same, but what I do on the lower floors varies. But I always go to the attic and I always sleep there. Sometimes I read, or just sit and think. I do not remember what books or what thoughts.

 This, however, always happens. Outside of the attic's window, on the ground is a road. Across from the road is a meadow, beyond which is a forest. Walking along the road are dinosaurs and strange, very colorful birds. About once a minute, a vehicle (not a modern car, more `futuristic,' but it moves like and about the speed of a car. There are passengers of some sort inside.) comes down the road, and the birds jump out of the way into the meadow. The dinosaurs are slow to respond, and usually, one of them gets hit. This causes no damage to the vehicle. The dinosaur will appear to be fine, but then a bulldozer will come, pick up the dinosaur (still standing), and dump it into the meadow, where it flops over dead. The other dinosaurs do not seem to react to all of this. The sizes of the bulldozer and the dinosaurs are normal, but the dinosaur seems to get smaller when it is being picked up. The dinosaurs are about 80% brontosaurus, the rest smaller and varied types. Some of the birds will eat the dinosaur corpse. No matter how many dinosaurs die, they do not seem to diminish in number. There is probably 50-100 of them, with 2-3 birds to each one.

 I feel very bad for the dinosaurs. I have tried jumping out of the window to help, but none of the animals (or the vehicles) seem to notice that I am there at all. If I yell from the window, some of them will look up, but little else.

[Serith]

That is very strange, sounds like an interesting place for recurring dreams.  You should try to find a way to go up above the attic, and see if it gets extremely orderly up there, the same as it gets extremely chaotic as you go down.  You mentioned reading there, maybe you could check the bookshelf for a secret door, leading to a stairway going up.

[mu]

 Thanks for the reply, Serith. That's a great idea, checking for a secret door. The problem is I can't have proper lucid dreams yet. All of the events unfold, and I feel I am consciously making decisions, but I can't really change the `plot' of the dream, or I don't realize it's a dream to begin with. When I am able, I will definitely try your suggestion. By the way, I looked at your dream journal and all I can say is WOW. The idea of drawing your dreams, and the drawings themselves, are very, very cool.

 I feel like I'm gonna go crazy if I keep thinking about this. I had at least two repeat dreams last night, but I can't remember them. I know they were repeats, because I wake up and think `Oh, that again,' and it's all crystal-clear in my mind, for about 3 seconds. then I completely forget everything. The `feeling' of it lingers on, nagging me all day, like a song that you've forgotten how it goes. After the second time, I was determined not to let it happen again, but then I had a new dream, of which I recall fairly little also.

 My grandmother's brother keeps dying. And coming back to life. He's quite senile, and he doesn't realize he's dead. He has moments of clarity and speaks profound wisdom, of which I remember nothing. This goes on for a long time. His eyes seem to be glowing red.

I vaguely recall trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces of which are random, non jigsaw-piece-like objects, like branches, pliers, and coffee-make parts.

 I have a seemingly endless sequence of false awakenings, all very mundane. Each time I wake up in a different mood. I really woke up with the damned `repeat dreams stuck in my head.'

[Serith]

Thanks for the reply, Serith. That's a great idea, checking for a secret door. The problem is I can't have proper lucid dreams yet. All of the events unfold, and I feel I am consciously making decisions, but I can't really change the `plot' of the dream, or I don't realize it's a dream to begin with. When I am able, I will definitely try your suggestion. By the way, I looked at your dream journal and all I can say is WOW. The idea of drawing your dreams, and the drawings themselves, are very, very cool.

Probably it's easier to just remember, "next time I'm in that building, I'll look for a secret way above the attic" then to actually become lucid.  If it does become more and more orderly as you go up just like it becomes more chaotic as you go down, then it'd probably also make you more aware as you go up just like you become less aware as you go down.   I suspect that effect would actually cause lucidity.

Thanks for the compliment.  I really wish more people would draw their dreams, as dream journals with images seem more interesting than plain text, and drawings would probably be more interesting than the pictures off the internet that the other people who add images to their dream journals use.  Plus, I suspect that there are lots of people here who would do much better at drawing their dreams than I do. I know Oneironaut does occasionally, and the results are amazing.

My grandmother's brother keeps dying. And coming back to life. He's quite senile, and he doesn't realize he's dead. He has moments of clarity and speaks profound wisdom, of which I remember nothing. This goes on for a long time. His eyes seem to be glowing red.

It does always seem that way, that you can never remember the profound wisdom that DCs sometimes seem to speak, or you remember it as nonsense.  Does anyone remember hearing any accounts of anyone actually learning something amazing from a DC?

[mu]

Probably it's easier to just remember, "next time I'm in that building, I'll look for a secret way above the attic" then to actually become lucid.  If it does become more and more orderly as you go up just like it becomes more chaotic as you go down, then it'd probably also make you more aware as you go up just like you become less aware as you go down.   I suspect that effect would actually cause lucidity.

 That's very insightful, and it's certainly something I will try. My objectiveness is definitely proportional to the height of the floors, and it makes sense that the floors just a little higher would have the effect of causing lucidity, since it seems so close to it already in the attic. I actually feel extremely `aware' on the lower floors, but I am not able to make sense of the situation; I can not distinguish between myself and the surroundings, my perception seems kind of backwards.

... I really wish more people would draw their dreams...

 I actually tried to draw this attic with the gimp last night. I gave up in about 10 minutes. I used to draw reasonably well on paper, but I can't even draw a circle with a mouse. I don't have a tablet. Maybe one day I'll try scanning something...

It does always seem that way, that you can never remember the profound wisdom that DCs sometimes seem to speak, or you remember it as nonsense.  Does anyone remember hearing any accounts of anyone actually learning something amazing from a DC?

 Maybe it's some kind of `subconscious wisdom' that can't quite be put into words. On the other hand, maybe it is complete nonsense. Strange what a revelation it seems like at the time, though.

 I have discovered that if I have a really nice meditation before going to sleep, I have very little dreams for several hours afterwards. There is definitely a pattern here. I did have a dream early this morning, however, which may or may not be directly inspired by a dream I read in Toast's DJ, about the Asian girl who invented a wonderful new mathematics:

 I had discovered an amazing new law of physics which simplified physical calculations enormously. It was some kind of conservation law of a new abstract quantity similar to energy. I spent the majority of the dream testing my theory in various situations, from mundane objects such as falling trees, to sub-nuclear interactions within living brains (makes a lot of sense,) to the origin of the big bang. I discovered that everything is fundamentally impossible, and realizing that this would also include my theory, became disenchanted and walked through a mirror into another universe, never to return.

 I woke up, fell back asleep, and had this same dream again. (I guess that means I'm back in the original universe. ) I've never had it before.

[Toast]

mu: Glad to know one of my dreams could be so inspiring . Your dream sounds a lot more interesting than the original to be hones though. A new abstract quality? Mirrors to other universes? Wow.

Recurring dreams seem to happen a lot for you... I wonder why that could be, since I absolutely never have a dream that I've had before.

Serith: Yeah, I would like to draw my dreams, but my drawing is so atrocious that I would be ashamed to post it. Maybe I'll start trying to draw them anyway, since as they say, practice makes perfect, and if I'm drawing stuff every day, then I should (some time ) get better.

[Serith]

Serith: Yeah, I would like to draw my dreams, but my drawing is so atrocious that I would be ashamed to post it. Maybe I'll start trying to draw them anyway, since as they say, practice makes perfect, and if I'm drawing stuff every day, then I should (some time ) get better.

Yeah, there's always a starting period where your drawing is atrocious, a few of the earlier drawings in my DV journal are just embarrassing.  Still, it doesn't last too long if you keep it up, and when people can see your earlier drawings, the later ones look much better just by comparison.

[mu]

... Wow.

Recurring dreams seem to happen a lot for you... I wonder why that could be, since I absolutely never have a dream that I've had before.

Thanks . I wonder why too, that's why I'm here. I remember having some of them at least 15 years ago, probably several time per year. Most of them are quite enjoyable, so maybe I just want to `see it again,' like an old movie? But I can't seem to ever dream about what I want to, to find out more about it. That's why I want to be lucid in them.

 This is not exactly a repeat, but the location is. There are some repeating dreams in my dad's store, and some in my mom's store. Neither of them have really ever owned any kind of store. I'm in my mom's store. Strangely, she is never there, but it is her store. It is like a supermarket, but all of the food is for animals, and the aisles are extremely close together. I'm driving through the aisle on some kind of cart, holding a broken vacuum cleaner handle and looking for something to fix it with. Some bird seed falls onto the handle, thereby rendering it irreparable, and I throw it up into the air. The handle shorts out the lights, and I then realize that I really needed some pet food, and I shouldn't have wasted time with the vacuum cleaner. I can't see anything, so I go into the basement to check the fuses. (I know how to find the basement because I've been here before.)

 Suddenly I'm outside and running up into the air. (I have had very few dreams in which I'm flying by my own power. I always need some kind of machine. But if I run very fast I start running up into the air, and I can stay up for 20-30 s.) I land on the roof of the store, and confused, I jump down into the parking lot to try again. But when I turn around there is a different store there, the mall. I've had some very strange dreams about the mall, and for some reason I was afraid to go in. I woke up.

 I haven't dreamed about the mall for a while, and the details are sketchy to me right now. Since I've started this journal, I've been thinking a lot about these repeat dreams and locations. They are all kind of like old memories in the back of my mind, and it feels like they are all sort of active, or becoming active, like some part of my brain is thinking about them all of the time. It's a very hard thing to describe. Since I would like to have these dreams whilst lucid, I am going to add here some thought, key-words, etc. as I remember them, even if it's been a while since I've had a particular dream. I don't expect this will make much sense to anyone.

 (mall, really, really long room, north exit=south exit, disturbing)
 (farm road, damn tall grass, path, flying on ground, friendly people, king)
 (rolling down hill, junk, palace, statue heads, airplane)
 (bombed basement, evil, shiny, shower, rust, lovecraft-like)
 (island under bermuda triangle, tests, display cases, secrets, team)
 (subterranean, beautiful girl, mirror, hand)
 (highway to grandma's, repeat, neighborhood)
 (death, space, music)
 (dad store, hardware, serial killer, long pipes)
 (house, water, cabin, connected)
 (here)