"Journey Into Sound" - 02/15/2022 (Lucid)

"Journey Into Sound"

02/15/2022

(Lucid)

(I had a pretty incredible, long, exploratory lucid dream, this morning, after waking up early to take out the trash. There was another hour and a half left before my phone alarm was set to go off, so I decided to go back to sleep and try for a WBTB lucid. My fiancé was getting set for work and I didn't want the sound keeping me awake, so I decided to put on some meditative binaural music and put my earphones in and sleep mask on - two things I hadn't done together, for years. After a few minutes, I'd drifted back off to sleep...)

The first thing I remember of the dream was being in the bathroom, with my fiancé trying to talk to me through the curtain, as she was taking a shower. (This was obviously inspired by the night before, when she was actually talking to me through the shower curtain, before bed.) In the dream, I had my headphones on, listening to what I would later come to find out was the same audio that I was listening to as I slept. The music was drowning out her voice, so I kept trying to take off my headphones, however, even when I would pull the earpieces out of my ears, I would still hear the audio coming from them. Then, I would reach up and try to pull them out of my ears again, and I would pull duplicate earbuds out, so that I was holding multiple copies of them upon every attempt. Finally, I saw that even the earphone jack was disconnected from my phone, but I was still hearing the audio in my ears.

Knowing that something was off, here, I attempted to move something on the bathroom counter with telekinesis: my go-to reality check, when I suspect I might be dreaming. The dream, though, was already very vivid, and I wasn't able to get the object (which I think was a sponge) to move. Still unsure whether this was a dream, I tried to pull back the shower curtain so that I could better understand what she was saying to me, but the curtain simply remained closed, despite my efforts, and it would not budge. Again, I knew that this wasn't right.

I looked around the bathroom, for some sort of confirmation as to whether this was a dream (still aware of the music playing in my ears). When I glanced at the mirror, I noticed that, instead of staring back at myself, my reflection was still standing where I had been, when I was trying to open the shower curtain, and facing away from me. Immediately, I knew this was a dream! Now, without a doubt, I reached one hand up and touched the mirror, in the space where my reflection should have been, and I pushed forward. My hand sank into the mirrored glass like water, and I stopped when it was about elbow deep, pulling it back out. I thought I might try crawling into the mirror, but when I tried and felt resistance - because of the dream being so vivid - I thought better of the idea, due to the risk of getting stuck and pulling myself out of the dream, completely.

Leaving the bathroom - still hearing the music in my head and recalling that it was the music I'd begun playing in my headset, when I went back to sleep - I made my way to the front door. For a moment, I thought about phasing through the door, but, again, like with the mirror, I anticipated getting stuck and jeopardizing the entire dream. Instead, I wanted to use an exit where I could already see outside, so I walked over to the nearest window. Reaching out and touching the windowsill, I ran my fingers along it, taking in the sensation of the wood frame, and grounding myself into the dream, trying to keep myself from thinking about my waking world body, so as not to get pulled back into wakefulness. Just outside of the window, I noticed something sticking out of the trash bin. It took me a few moments to realize that it was a human head. There was a dead, bald guy stuffed partially into the garbage, but, since he was close enough to touch, I merely reached out and shoved him off to one side, not wanting to fill my head with any thoughts of the dead (or the undead, since I'd been playing 'Dying Light 2', the past few nights). 

I crawled out of the open window and into the back yard, walking, then, around to the front of the house. It was a pleasant, sunny, but slightly cloudy morning (just a bit less overcast as it had been, when I'd been awake and taking the trash out, before going back to bed), and the rising sun and clouds had a very saturated, painterly look to them (much like the picturesque sunrises in the Dying Light games). Suddenly, a red Nissan RX-7 (similar to one that a friend used to have) came skidding to a stop, across my lawn and driveway. An unfamiliar man immediately jumped out of the driver's side, with a shotgun, and took aim at me, from about four yards away. Still completely aware that I was dreaming, though, I was able to raise both my forearms across my torso and brace against the blast, once he pulled the trigger. I could feel a bit of a punch, but it was an otherwise painless impact.

Unfortunately, I don't quite recall how I moved on, from my attacker, but I feel like I just kinda 'force-pushed' him out of the way and walked off, to explore the dreamscape. I remember walking directly across the street from my house, and toward the neighbor's home, just to see what I might find, inside. The front room (I assume, since I've never actually seen the inside of this neighbor's house) was quaint and dimly lit, and the one thing that really stood out to me was that there were cats walking/climbing all around the place. (We have had plenty of experiences with the strays around our neighborhood.)  One of the cats came up to me, bit me on the hand - which didn't really hurt - and decided that it wanted to latch on and not lot go. (There is a hilarious story about something similar happening in a previous lucid dream of mine.) Instead of giving it any of my attention - and possibly making the "attack" worse - I just decided to ignore the cat, which eventually disappeared, and I continued exploring the small house. The back rooms were semi-dark, as well, and fairly unspecific. Things were getting rather mundane, actually, and I started trying to think of something interesting to do.

First thing that came to mind was trying to find the Dream World Academy, and I was wondering how I might get to it, from here. I moved a couple of things around, in one of the rooms, trying to "will" a portal to appear behind random objects, but to no avail. I noticed a piano, in a corner, and thought I might try the old "secret passage" concept from movies. I played a couple of notes on the piano, trying to command a door to open, somewhere. Though I don't remember whether the trick actually worked or not, the next thing I remember is walking out of a stone hallway, and back onto the street in my neighborhood. 

A little frustrated with going in circles, so to speak, my attention was then drawn upward. The cloud-cover was pretty amazing, with a canopy of white rows of clouds now blanketing most of the sky. It looked vast, and awesome, and inviting. For a moment, I thought about flying up, to see if I could find a "heaven," curious as to my mind's rendition of it, but I, again, became weary of the danger of losing the dream, altogether (as it is, sometimes, tough for me to fly "above" certain altitudes, in dreams). Even at the very thought of it, I rubbed my hands together and concentrated on grounding myself even further into the dream, improving the clarity of the scene around me, in the process.

Rather than taking to the sky, I decided to focus, again, on finding the Academy. This time, instead of attempting to create portals, I thought I might try spinning the scene. Setting my intention to manifest the Academy, upon looking behind me, I quickly did a half-spin, in place. Instead of a normal, neighborhood home, I found a small, non-descript office complex. Curious, I walked to one of the window-lined buildings and stepped into an office. Most of the people that I saw, inside, were old, while folks, who all seemed very warm to my arrival. I told one lady that I was looking for the Dream World Academy, and she told me that I'd come to the right place. She said that class was just started, and that I could follow her to it. We stepped through slender, white hallways and, along the way, I passed by a girl in a hoodie, who was leaning up against a wall and reminded me of an old friend, B. It seemed as if she had been waiting for this class to start, with the way she'd removed herself from the wall and began to follow us, once we passed.

Shortly afterward, in a small, rather bland classroom, the old woman began speaking. To be honest, I can only remember that she wasn't necessarily saying anything of interest, and the girl in the hoodie was looking just as detached from the dialogue as I was. Satisfied that I had found the Academy (albeit an unconventional "version" of it), I decided to go explore some more, removing myself from the classroom and wandering the halls again. Stepping out of one glass door, and into an outdoor corridor, I noticed a large hole in the concrete sidewalk. Looking into it, I saw that there was a stone staircase, heading down into the earth, and I made my way down into it. After a short while in this compact stairwell, I found myself coming out of another hallway, right back onto the street of my neighborhood. Again, I was at ground level, after having walked down a staircase, though I had never been higher than ground level, to begin with.

I noticed that I had a piece of paper in my hand, about the size of a business card. Unconcerned with whether anything was written on it, I decided to take the moment to use it to ground myself to the dream once more, taking the paper between my fingers and running them over the surface, feeling the tiniest details of the roughness of the material. As usual, that attention to detail caused the rest of the dream to feel more solid and immersive, when I took another glance at the neighborhood around me.

Once more, the sky above the houses caught my eyes. This time, it was because I could see three or four aircraft in the distance, doing what looked like air show stunts, over the city. Their aerobatics didn't seem to conform to physics, though, as they were just aimlessly tumbling and twisting through the air, completely devoid of any sense of logic. Interested, I began to hover, just a few feet from the ground, and toward the squad of aircraft. Just when I got within about 100 yards from them, the aircraft seem to all notice me, at once, and streaked in my direction. As they came closer, they all spiraled around each other and converged in a sort of cartwheeling transformation in the air (much like Starscream, from the 'Transformers' movies), twisting themselves into a single, Super Fighter Jet, about twice the size that a real one would be.

Now, hovering, just in front of me, like a VTOL-styled jet, the aircraft seemed to be blatantly taking aim at me. Anticipating incoming fire, and still feeling quite a bit of control, I simply stuck out one hand, palm facing the jet just as a stream of heavy machinegun fire sprayed in my direction. Effortlessly, my hand deflected the onslaught without the slightest tinge of pain. Then, I brought both my hands up, swiping my palms toward each other in a 'squeezing' motion, and crushing the entire plane, from a distance, with telekinesis, before flicking the mangled heap, dismissively, down an adjacent street.

Continuing on, in my current direction, I came to the roadway's dead end. The road didn't just stop, though. It disappeared into the rolling waves of the ocean, as if the entire street had been a beach ramp, all along, and half my neighborhood (which is nowhere near the beach) had fallen away into coastal waters. I was, now, on the ocean shore, looking down one side, to see that the water had come all the way up to the buildings - which had become more the mansions and/or hotel-type buildings, that you would normally catch on a touristy beach, rather than the small, suburban homes that were surrounding me, before. The entire rear face of one building had been sheared away by the water, exposing the hollowed, derelict, concrete skeleton within the structure. Still interested in exploring, I made my way over to the building, stopping for a moment to run my hand along a wooden fence, in order to ground myself to the dream, once more. I started to reflect on just how long this dream had been lasting, and remembered to think of key points to recall, upon waking, so I wouldn't lose too many of the earlier events to memory. (The four key points that I specifically recall instilling into my mind were the headphones dream sign; finding the 'Academy;' taking on the fighter jet; and this beach scene.) It was around here, that I noticed that I could still hear the meditative music that was playing through my headphones.

Once inside the hollowed-out building, there really wasn't much to look at. It was not much more than your standard - albeit enormous - abandoned home, with one whole side completely broken away and exposed to the ocean. While on the ground floor, just a few feet away from the lapping waves that intruded well into the structure, I saw a small, wooden platform - which looked motorized - "drive" in, from the open water, do a 90-degree turn, and sort of "park itself," just near me, practically screaming an invitation to get on it. So, I did. The plank steered itself away from the mansion and began to take me up the coastline, like a powered surfboard. In the distance, I could see two nearly-identical islands, with cone-like structures jetting up from the center of each one, as if they held twin volcanoes at their centers.

I was immediately intrigued by the thought of exploring these islands but, as the plank carried me, it began moving in a more lateral motion, as if it were trying to pull me further out to sea than to the islands that hugged the coast. As this was happening, the waves began to get more and more intense, and I could feel myself losing comfort. It wasn't long before these torrential tidal waves were crashing over even the tops of the buildings on the coast, and I was getting swept in and out with the current. This was getting out of hand. I jumped off of the plank and attempted to fly the rest of the way to the islands, but even the wind, it seemed, was creating this same rhythmic swelling and receding as the waves. It, too, was threatening to pull me out toward the horizon, even as I hovered a few dozen feet over the angry sea.

My anxiety was rising, and I was feeling less and less control of the situation. I even began sinking, out of the air, finding it hard to keep my levitation going. Knowing that I didn't want to find myself submerged in this writhing ocean, I waited until the moment my feet touched down on the surface of the water and gave myself one, desperate 'push', back into the air, executing a super-jump that, luckily, carried me over the rest of the water and allowed me to land upon the nearest island. The last thing I remember seeing was the broken barricade of an entrance to an underground mine, as well as the mouth of a separate, nearby cave, which continued straight into the volcanic mountainside, in front of me. As I stared at the two, rather ominous holes to the earth, thinking about which, if either, to explore, I heard the alarm on my phone ringing out - the sound seeping into the dream and replacing the soothing, ambient music that had been playing, throughout. 

I awoke, immediately.

========

(Side-Note:

As a bonus: the very next day, after having had such success with having my headphones on, I decided to try the same setup, waking up early and then putting on my headphones, to the same, meditative music, then attempting another Wake-Back-to-Method. The dream was much less eventful, so I won't write the whole thing out but, just as before, I had my headphones on, while in the dream. When I tried to take them out of my ears, just as before, they were simply multiplying as one earbud would be in my fingers, and its copy would still remain in my ear, and the music would continue playing. I instantly became lucid, in that dream, as well, making it two days in a row. 

I did try, once again, this morning, to make it a third time, but I wasn't able to remember anything but a small dream fragment, upon waking. No lucidity, on the last attempt, but this will definitely be something I attempt again, in the future.)

Last Night's Dream(s), in One Sentence - 2/26/2020

(Just trying a little something new, here on the blog. 😁

For those who are familiar with my Dreamwalker Chronicles Facebook page, you know that I often do "one sentence" summaries of current dreams, on the days that I have any that are noteworthy. Before now, they were all done in text format, but since I also have an Instagram art page, I've started setting those one sentence summaries against similar-themed pictures. In doing so, I decided I would give it a shot, here, as well!

These 3 dreams were actually from February 26th, so I'm a little late in posting them, but I'll try to keep them somewhat real-time (or close to it), from here on out!)

***

"Momoa and the Old Schoolhouse" - 3/20/2019 (Lucid + Chain)

"Momoa and the Old Schoolhouse"

3/20/2019

(Lucid + Dream Chain)

PART ONE

I don't quite remember what was going on, in the very beginning of this dream. My earliest memory of it is being in what I believe was an office setting, and suspecting I was dreaming. Performing my most common reality check, I raised my hand over an object on a desk - something common, like a paperweight or computer mouse - and attempted to draw it to me with telekinesis. The object flew up off of the desk and into my hand, and confirmed to me that this was definitely a dream.

Walking outside of the building, I came to an elevated road, levitating off of my feet and flying up the incline, landing on the hill-top pavement and peering out, over a beautiful, expansive plains area. It was dusk, and the sky was a mixture of bright orange and a light, purple-ish tone. In the very center of this lush, green field, there was a large, old fashioned schoolhouse, set among a small patch of trees. Immediately, this reminded me of my previous intention, upon becoming lucid, which was to continue to search for the Dream World Academy. Not so much thinking that this might have actually been IT, I decided to search within it, to see if I could find my way into something that seemed a little more like what I had pictured. Flying over to the school, I Ianded in the front yard. The place was completely deserted, it seemed, and I stepped inside to have a look around.

The inside of the school seemed more like the interior of a home, and only sometimes matched the outdated look of the outside. I went from room to room, opening doors with the intention of kinda "creating" a D.W.A. environment, upon opening each new section of the schoolhouse. There was very little light in the home, and I had to fight the creepy feeling that was washing over me, as the atmosphere seemed very "Resident Evil," in that everything felt dim and still. Sounds echoed and shadows covered most of the walkways. (I have started playing the Resident Evil 2 remake, lately.) Most of the rooms remained normal, however, aside from one door I opened, where I could only see a large eye, peering out from a black substance that totally encompassed the inner door frame. Immediately, I closed the door and continue exploring, still trying to ignore the idea that my subconscious was inevitably going to mess with me, in this type of environment.

Moving on, through the house, I opened a new door, to a small bedroom. There was just a little sunlight coming in, through the window, and I could see that there were two, twin-sized beds inside. The room was small enough that they took up almost the whole area, and though the beds were made, I could see that there were figures beneath the covers - seemingly human-shaped - and those figures were moving. Reaching out to the covers of one of the beds, I tried to push all thoughts of 'scary things' out of my mind, hoping not to get ambushed with any selection of my worst nightmares. Ripping the covers off of the bed, I was surprised to see absolutely nothing, in what was, clearly, an occupied space, just seconds ago. I walked over to the second bed, watching the covers writhe about, as if a restless person was tossing about, beneath. Still trying not to let myself be intimidated, I yanked the covers of this one back, as well. Relieved, I was greeted by two or three small dogs, who were just playfully rolling around with each other on the bedspread.

After taking a moment to pet the doggos, I walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, which, again, resembled more a home kitchen than that of an old school. Unexpectedly, I was greeted by another dog, this one not quite as friendly as the ones I'd met in the bedroom. It snarled at me and kept trying to bite at me, and I continuously pushed it away. Getting annoyed, I tried to channel my inner Dragon Ball Z, clenched my fists and yelled, "Raaaaaaah!!!" A blast of energy exploded out of my body, pushing outward in all directions, and shaking the objects around me. The dog backed off, for only a moment, though, and the moment my energy dissipated, the dog rushed back in and chomped down on my hand. It didn't really hurt much, but once attached, I simply could not get the dog off of me, no matter how hard I pushed.

Eventually growing tired of the dog, and simply trying to ignore it, I walked out of the kitchen and toward the back of the house, with the dog still latched, tenaciously, onto my hand. I stepped out onto a rear deck, looking out over the plains area, which broke into mountains and valleys in the distance. Still frustrated with this dog, which remained locked onto my hand like a steak suspended above the ground, I thought about slinging my arm as far as I could, and chucking the dog into the deepest end of the valley. I rush of guilt came over me, though, and I decided against it. Instead, I gave one more hard shake, slinging the dog off of me and immediately launching myself into the air, away from it. I flew off, toward the mountains, simply trying to see what else I could explore.

It didn't take too long, though, before I began to see large structures in the sky, coming more into focus and out of the light haze before me. As I flew closer, I could see that these seemed to be gigantic tentacles - or tendrils, of some sort. They covered practically the whole sky, quickly overwhelming my field of view. I could not see from where they were originating, and I was growing more and more sure that I didn't want to know. Given their size, I did not even want to begin to imagine what they belonged to.

I don't remember whether I intentionally pulled myself out of this dream or not, but this dream scene ended shortly afterward.

PART TWO

(Dream Chain)

This dream seemed to already be in progress, upon my earliest memory of it. I was back in my old, Lake Mary home and, for some random reason, I was hanging out with Jason Momoa. (Lol.) We were just shooting the sh*t and hanging around the house. It all had a very chill, weekend sort of vibe. I remember us going to one of the windows and yelling back and forth, playfully, to one of the nearby neighbors as they walked their dog. At some point, I remember telling him about my previous lucid dream, trying to recall all of the details.

He ended up crashing at my place (as if any of this was, at all, just 'normal'), and the dream ended just as I went to sleep.

PART THREE

(Dream Chain)

In what some may consider a "dream within a dream," I suddenly found myself in some unfamiliar building. There were a bunch of DCs around, and the atmosphere was feeling kind of hostile. Feeling uncomfortable, my mind flipped back to what had previously been going on, I remembered that I was just hanging out with Jason Momoa, and that this had to be a dream. I was lucid, again.

Feeling much more relaxed, I was completely unfazed when one of the DCs started trying to antagonize me. I don't remember exactly what he said, but I remember just laughing him off, and telling him that this was just a dream, and I wasn't worried about him. He asked me to prove it, and I held up my hands, attempting to do the Finger-Through-Palm reality check. The dream was quite vivid, though, and my finger met waking-world resistance, refusing to phase through my other hand. Instead, I jumped into the air and tried to levitate, but I sank back to the ground, only slightly slower than real-time. The belligerent DC, unconvinced, told me that, if I could fly up and touch the high ceiling, he would believe me.

Not one to be shown up, by my own imagination, I jumped into the air and tried to fly to the ceiling. I couldn't quite reach it, though, feeling myself starting to sink back to the ground, after missing my mark by just a couple of feet. On the way do, though, I tried to forget about elevation, though, and simply tried to stop myself from touching down to the ground. Much to the shock of the DC - and those who had began to rally behind him - I found myself hovering in mid-air, about four feet off of the ground. Almost as expected, the DCs all took one look at my ability and ran away in terror. 

Satisfied, I then thought about my dream state, and since this dream had been a bit rowdy, I began to wonder whether I was acting out any of my actions, in the waking world. In an absolutely hilarious lapse of awareness, I remembered that Jason Momoa was still hanging out in my house, as I slept, and I thought about how embarrassing it might have been, if I was flailing around in my sleep, gesturing out my dream actions. With that ironic misconception in mind, I decided to wake myself up.

(I couldn't help but laugh at myself, when I woke up, for real, in my present home, with no one else around. Lol.)

(*Original Artwork based on Dream*)

==========================
Side Notes:

- I've had other "dreams within dreams," before, where I have "gone to sleep" in a dream, had another dream scenario play out, and then "woke back up," into the same scenario that I was having, previously. This is the first one, though, where - during a "second-level" dream, I remembered the previous scenario but mistook it for real life. I can't get over how funny that is.

- I had been watching a lot of movie news, lately, with Avengers Endgame being right around the corner. Even though I haven't yet seen Aquaman, there's been plenty of references to Momoa so, as random as it was, it's not all that surprising that he made a cameo in the dream.

"Dream World Academy Dorm Life" - 04/12/2018 (Lucid)

"Dream World Academy Dorm Life"

04/12/2018

(Lucid)

 (Image Source)

(Having awoken, at about 8:30am; used the bathroom and set the intention on having a lucid dream; I got back into bed and fell back asleep, slipping into a false awakening.)

I sat up in bed, trying to adjust my eyes to the light coming in through the partly-draped window. My bedroom was strangely lit and seemed too dark for the amount of brightness shining from behind the curtains. Remembering that I’d just been fully awake, moments ago, and the room had been filled with sunlight, I deduced that I had done a WBTB and this was a false awakening. I knew I was dreaming. There was a hazy, almost ‘drunken’ feeling, when I looked around, as if I wasn’t fully immersed in the dream state, and I reached out to touch my wall and then ran my hand across my blanket, feeling the texture. At the same time, I repeated to myself “I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming…” (which I continued to do, periodically, throughout the rest of the dream), and I was immediately grounded into the dream – all of the visual details sharpening and making me feel more ‘present’ in the dream state. Leaning across the bed, I went to flip on the light switch, and it didn’t work. I found it slightly amusing that I even assumed it would have.

With this weird ‘light window, dark room’ duality still going on, I stood up and walked over to the window, itself. I raised a hand to the glass, and tried to phase through it, but the window resisted. Having to take a moment to re-affirm that this was still a dream, I tried again, and this time, my hand sunk into the window, up until about the elbow. I pulled my hand back out of the glass and immediately began thinking about what I wanted to do, now that I was fully lucid. I remembered that I wanted to try to find the Dream World Academy and started trying to think of the best way to go about it. Even though I knew I was dreaming, I had a momentary apprehension about roaming around undressed, but I think I quickly pushed the thought aside, because I was soon leaving the room (but I don’t remember if any clothes “materialized” on me or not. I never really thought about it).

Outside of what was, once, my bedroom, I was standing in an enormous hall, that looked like it belonged to the same kind of architecture that I’d seen outside my window. I wondered if roaming the interior of this building would be the best way to go about finding the Academy, or if going outside might be of more help. Deciding on the latter, I turned around and went back into the bedroom, walking back over to the window. This time, I pushed my whole body forward and phased through the window, now standing on a ledge about 5 stories from the ground.

Below, I could see a handful of people going about their business. My first thought was to jump from the ledge but - being that this dream was, now, extremely vivid – I didn’t want to just do something idiotic and impulsive, just because I was sure this wasn’t waking life. Thinking better of it, I slowly began to climb down from the ledge, testing my own body-weight, in order to see if I was able to defy physics without going too far. By the time I was hanging from the ledge, with one hand, I could feel that it was effortless. I seemed to way only a fraction of my actual weight. So, secure that I had enough control over gravity, I let go of the ledge and slowly hovered my way down to the ground.

Right around here, I vaguely remember something about someone’s cats approaching me and climbing all over me – refusing to leave me alone. It got extremely annoying, but didn’t last very long. I ended up going back inside this massive building, now on the ground floor. It had a very “campus-like” feel to it and, though the halls were completely empty of people, I had a feeling that this might have actually been my subconscious mind’s rendition of the Dream World Academy. The more I settled into the thought, the more I wanted to find something to actually confirm it.

I remember visiting 3 rooms, specifically. The first, was sort of a living area, which was the first place that I actually saw people inside. It looked kind of like a two-story apartment, and there were some college-age kids lying around, one of whom was at the fridge, in a tiny, open kitchen. Deciding not to disturb the scene too much, I kept wandering, and came upon a set of double doors. The doors opened into kind of a lounge, where [much-older] people were hanging around. It was more like a “study” room, and it was clear to see that these people were either “professors” or on staff of some sort. One man, with a bushy, gray bed of hair on his head motioned for me to leave them alone and go down the hall to where the younger people were hanging out. Again, not wanting to get too lost in the narrative, I left these people and continued down the hall.

By this time, I was beginning to feel that this place didn’t have a very “Dream World Academy” type of vibe to it. Without really knowing what to expect, as I walked through the [kinda boring, actually] hallway, I began to focus my attention on the desire to get something a little more ‘mystical’ or ‘magical’ out of the environment. Soon after, I was starting to see random Halloween decorations gradually adorning the walls. (I suppose this was my subconscious mind’s way of ‘mystifying’ up the place. Lol.)

When I stepped into the final room, I was surprised to be walking into a full-on college party. It had a dark, almost “Halloween Party” feel to it, but I don’t recall if there were any costumes involved. I didn’t make any immediate moves to interact, and just observed everyone while I walked through the room. There was a pretty large dude serving drinks, who didn’t look thrilled at the way I was studying him, and he grunted “What?” I simply said “nothing,” and kept walking. While navigating through the crowd, I began to remind myself “I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming…” One of the DC’s – a bit of a jock / “bro” – seemed to notice me doing it, and asked me what I was talking about. I told him, matter-of-factly, that what I said was that I was dreaming, and that they were all all figments of my imagination. Apparently, he didn’t take too kindly to that. He started saying stuff like “what?? No we aren’t!” and turned toward the crowd, yelling out “Hey! This guy says we’re not real! He thinks we’re all in his imagination!” I remember growing annoyed with him, but not really caring about the crowd’s response. I just continued on and tried to ignore him.

The next thing I remember is being outside, and riding on what I believe to be another DC’s motorcycle. (I get the feeling that someone let me ride it and that I didn’t just steal it, but who knows? Lol.) During the ride – and the more I got sucked in by the experience – I was beginning to lose lucidity and becoming immersed in the realism. It didn’t take long, though, before the bike started going out of control, and speeding straight toward a concrete embankment which led into a small body of water, in the middle of this city – like a flooded parking lot or something. All I knew was that I couldn’t stop, and I was about to drive straight into the water at a high speed.

Suddenly, I remembered, again, that this was all a dream. Just as the bike splashed into the flooded area, I leapt from the seat - vaulting over the handlebars and attempting to levitate myself over the water. My feet hit the deep water below me, but instead of sinking, I slid across the water, as if it were a slip-n-slide, coming almost to a hovering stop before focusing more on lift and flying up and off of the wet surface. Soon, I was flying through the city, between the high buildings on either side of me.

Maybe a dozen stories above the street, I flew toward an intersection, trying to think about what else to do, before the dream ended. No sooner did I begin to think about my options, than I saw two figures jump across the gap between the buildings at the crossroads – right across my path - and land on the rooftop off to my left side, without breaking momentum. As they ran across the top of the building, I made a quick left turn and followed, dropping down on the roof and running after them. They were robots, apparently – visually similar to something from Chappie or Real Steel – and the soon noticed that I was chasing them. Immediately, one of them turned and ran back to confront me, seemingly providing interference while the other continued to make its escape.

The robot dashing toward me (which was bright red, and larger than the other) was obviously not about to try and communicate, so I squared up in a Muay Thai stance and clashed with him. (This was the first dream fight I’ve had, in a long while, where I could actually remember a lot of the blow-by-blow. Lately, the details of most of my fights have been hazy, at best, and almost completely forgotten, most often. This was very vivid and intense, though.) There was a lot of punching and dodging, and we were perfectly playing off of each other, as if it was a choreographed, cinematic fight, but the one thing that really stood out was the first time I landed a roundhouse kick - right to the robot’s torso - and felt the kind of painful, metallic *CLANG*, against my shin, that made me second-guess whether going all out on this robot, even in a dream, would be more unpleasant than adventurous. The fight went on for a short while, but my attention began wandering over to the robot that had gotten away, wondering if I could defeat this present threat in enough time to catch up to the other robot and find out what they might have been up to, in the first place.

It was right around this moment of scattered focus, that the dream unraveled and I woke up. 

========================

Side Note: I find it funny that the big robot I fought was bright red, which is the same color as the stand-up kickboxing pad I practice on, in my garage. Lol.

"Skipping Class at DWA" - 02/25/2018 (Lucid)

“Skipping Class at DWA”

02/25/2018

Dream #2

(Lucid)

 (Pic Source) 

(I’d awoken at about 4am and was up for about 10 minutes, before laying back down. Remembering my intention to try to search for the DreamWorld Academy – a fun activity/project, that many of us at DV had done, for some time – I began to focus on the environment where I’d last seen it, in a previous lucid dream, which can be read, here. Sometimes we have light, ambient music playing through the night, but the room was quiet, aside from the sound of my girlfriend breathing. With this in my conscious mind, I focused on the sound of her breath, as well, and attempted to incubate her into the dream, as a dream character. After a short while, I fell back asleep, and initially had one dream about trying to get a drink from a leaky fridge. Then, I slipped into another…) 

The first thing I remember was being on a waterfront ledge, with my girlfriend. It was set on the outskirts of a big city, and felt a lot like being down near the water of the Lincoln Memorial, when we took our D.C. trip, lately. While walking along the water, I realized that I was dreaming. I’m not quite sure what tipped me off, but I think I just realized that I didn’t know where I was. (What I didn’t realize, though, that the waterfront setting looked a lot like the area outside the DreamWorld Academy, the last time I saw it in a dream. If I would have looked around, with this knowledge, I likely would have found it, immediately. Instead, as is so often is the case when becoming lucid, I got sidetracked.) 

I told this “projection” of my girlfriend that I was dreaming, and attempted to coax my subconscious into maintaining lucidity by telling Her to repeat that she was dreaming, over and over (which I often do, myself, to keep the awareness fresh in my mind). She started repeating it to herself and we continued to walk long the water. Coming to the edge of the platform upon which we were walking, I saw a small gap between us and the next platform, and decided to try to walk across the water. Not wanting to add any complications with getting her to follow me, I picked my girlfriend up and took a step off of the ledge, trying not to think about the softness of the water and touching down onto it. My feet sank just a few inches below the liquid, but I focused on forward motion and began to walk as if I was only in shin-deep water, though I could feel nothing between my feet. Soon, I’d floated my footsteps to the other side and flew up to land on the other platform. Before long, we were walking through the parking lot and I was trying to think of what else to do before I woke up. I thought that bike-riding could be a fun adventure in a lucid dream, but she protested and I didn’t want to sour the moment, so I decided we could go for a drive, instead, and just explore wherever the dream took us.

Next thing I knew, we were speeding down a highway. Night had turned into day, and there was a lot of traffic on the road. Immediately, I thought of the Matrix: Reloaded, and decided to have some freeway fun. Knowing that it would be too hard to keep track of my DC girlfriend, once the dream got busier, I left her sitting in the passenger seat and either phased up through the roof or called through the sunroof. (I can’t remember which.) Now, standing on the roof of the car, which was still speeding down the freeway, I lunged forward and hit the pavement running, super-speeding up the road and passing the cars in my way. Still thinking about the Matrix, my subconscious mind brought about chaos as the cars in front of me started crashing into each other and piling up. I attempted not to break stride and began jumping over them and dodging them while they flipped and spun my way, at one point running sideways along the bed of an 18-wheeler in order to avoid another wreck. Before me, I saw the two big rigs from the actual movie, slamming head-on into each other and causing the same, slow-mo explosion from the film. I jumped onto the bed of the nearest truck and then launched myself into the air, flying above the explosion and seeing a warped, surreal view of the cityscape as it dropped away, below me.

I don’t remember landing, but I was soon walking another city street, this time with lots of other people, doing their own thing. Lucidity was fading in and out, and I was beginning to just “go along” with the dream. Suddenly, a tall, light-skinned black guy with a bushy beard; a jacket and hoodie; and an obvious, “up-north” swagger stepped out of the crowd and walked up to me. Mysteriously, he said something about having to talk to me, later, and sifted back into the crowd. Still not quite sure of what my conscious state was, at this time, I soon found myself in a classroom. (I didn’t even realize that I’d been looking for the DW Academy, so the classroom went completely unnoted.) The same guy popped up, again, and I instantly became lucid, when I saw him. He stepped to me, again, and said something like “you ate it twice, in this dream” or “you did it twice in this dream.” (Something like that.) I really didn’t know what he was talking about but, intrigued, I asked him his name. Still talking like a hip, but nonchalant, New Yorker, he said his name was something like “Saultello, the Great.” I wrote it down on a notepad, in order to try and help in remembering it, once I woke up (which I often do. I don't remember the exact way I spelled it, but I believe it was "Saultello").

The scene changed (or there is a gap in my memory), and I remember sitting on a curb and talking to some old man. The sun was going down and everything was a dark orange hue. The man was rambling about something, but my lucidity kicked in again, and I instantly stopped paying attention to him. I realized that I’d been dreaming for a long time and started going back over my memories of everything that had happened, to keep them fresh in my mind until the dream faded and I woke up.

"First Night at Dream World Academy" - 10/16/2011 (Lucid)

"First Night at Dream World Academy"
10/16/2011

(Lucid)

(Ironically, I had almost forgotten this dream, upon waking. I'd gotten sidetracked, and it wasn't until a good 20 minutes after fully waking up, that I remembered the experience. For those who might remember, I posted another blog entry, a while back, about trying to find a 'Dream World Academy', which is a fictional place that's part of an activity on www.dreamviews.com. In the first dream, I wasn't able to locate such a place, before I woke up. This time, though, I was able to, and had a pretty interesting time, walking around and exploring it. Unfortunately, sooo many of the details feel lost =/, but what I retained still left me with a feeling of total accomplishment.)

I don't really remember anything that happened in the beginning of this dream, and my timeline is a little disjointed, but I will put it together the best I can remember. The earliest memory I have is of having just realized I was dreaming, and trying to fly, somewhere out in the woods at night. I was having a lot of trouble flying, and I seemed to just be sinking back to the ground with normal gravity, whenever I tired to take off. I don't remember the point at which I actually was able to take control of my flight, but I was soon zooming out toward the coastline, having remembered my intention to try to find the Academy. The last few times that I had been searching for it, it was always on the water, so I figured the best way to find it was to just fly out over the ocean and will it to be there.

I overshot the shoreline, without pause, and continued out toward the dark horizon. The sky was this eerily-beautiful canvas of black, dark blue and purple, with the lightest colors having been pushed back beyond the coastline I was leaving; the last rays of setting sunlight behind me as I continued flying into the void, a few dozen feet above the water. The further out to sea I flew, though, the more uncomfortable I got. I could see that this deep, featureless, dark purple backdrop was beginning to project some detail in the sky. I could now see, thick, individual whisps of soft, purple/gray storm clouds, where there had once seemed to be none. (With my speed and low altitude, it felt a lot like the scene in Superman Returns, when he's flying out toward the kryptonite reef.) By this time, the sky was looking even more and more ominous, and I couldn't shake the foreboding notion that I was flying into something sinister. The puffy purple clouds - still barely visible against the dark backdrop - were beginning to swirl, and I half expected to see funnel clouds spike downward from them. Just on the horizon, I could see sporadic flashes of lightning on the water. I didn't like this at all. It's not secret that I'm pretty apprehensive about being way out in open water, in my dreams - because of my constant run-ins with sea monsters - and I realized that I was now out in the middle of nowhere, with no Academy in sight. More than a little intimidated by my new surroundings, I decided to turn around and fly back to the shore. (I have to go over the St. John's River Bridge, every night on my way home, and we've been having some pretty amazing-looking thunderstorms and cloud cover out here, lately. I'm thinking it might have been where the intense storm imagery over the water came from.)

Soon back on land, I began to think of other ways to find the Academy, and I remembered about the portals. At first, I looked around for any of the puddle / water-hole type puddles I had been using in previous dreams. When I didn't find any, immediately, I thought about doors. I began wandering around, going through various doorways and trying to 'will' myself into the Academy. Behind one door, in particular, I walked into the setting of a previous dream from over a year ago. It was a theme park that some friends and I had gone to for a Halloween Horror Nights type of occasion. The room that I had walked into was the lobby of one of their haunted houses. I remembered previous dream and that it had been pretty creepy, so I really didn't have any desire to stay here. When I turned around, though, the door that I had come through was gone, and I was standing in the middle of the haunted house lobby, with no sign of the wall that had just been behind me. A little uneasy about this - trying not to get distracted from my mission - I searched around for another door, spotting a little service door in the corner of the lobby. I walked over to the door and opened it...only to find another door, behind it. Behind that one, was another. I was beginning to get a little fed up with this.

I closed the door and focused on changing what was behind it. When I opened it again, the other door had vanished, and there was a dark, stone hallway, leading off into the distance. There was a soft light inside the corridor, but I don't recall what from. Stepping further into the hallway, I saw an opening on the other side, leading out into the night. When I stepped through the archway, I found myself outside, on the water, as if I had stepped out onto a concrete dock. I walked out away from the archway a bit and turned around, to get a good look at the structure from which I'd just emerged. It was a monstrous, stone building. It seemed a series a buildings, really, comprised of high towers and ramparts, various points in the seemingly-medieval architecture connected by high walkways and bridges. It looked like a great, dark castle, from down here. Immediately, I knew where I was; I had finally made it to the Dream World Academy! I walked along the narrow dock for a moment, looking for a main entrance. It was still nighttime, and it didn't look like there was much more than the moon lighting the outside of this place. Eventually, I came to a turn-off, and rounded it to see a gigantic stairway, comprised of what looked to be hundreds of steps, ascending toward a large set of double doors at the front of the Academy.

I started climbing the stairs, taking in the spectacle, and just now beginning to notice that there were other people milling about the outside of the building. Everyone seemed to just be doing their own thing, and not paying any particular attention to me, which was fine, because I really didn't want to disturb too much, my first time here. I just continued to watch everyone, while I walked up toward the doorway. About halfway up, I passed a small group of people on the stairway. It looked as if they were practicing magic or something, but I don't quite recall. When I got to the large doors, I stepped inside and into a main lobby. Inside the Academy was nearly as dark as the outside; the soft glow of a few, scattered torches fighting against the cool blue of the moonlight coming in through the windows and portals around us, for possession of the black shadows which still dominated the majority of the what could have been adequately called a 'Great Hall' of sorts. The whole place had a very Harry Potter / Hogwarts kind of feel, outside of being quite dark and having a very 'pre-electricity' atmosphere.

Unfortunately, there is a lot beyond this point that I don't remember. Nothing too noteworthy, that I can recall. I vaguely remember just wandering the halls, talking to a couple of various DC's about the school, most of which were just practicing a few general abilities, here and there. I remember a portly old bald man being one of the instructors there, but I don't recall very much about him. The last memory I have of the dream is being out near the water again and trying to run back over the events in the dream, as a normally do, to try to help remember them upon waking.

"Portals: the Search for the Dream World Academy Begins" - 07/07/2011 (Lucid + Chain)

(An amazing adventure, this morning. So, I had become really interested in the new Dream World Academy concept, and wanted to give locating it in a lucid dream a shot. I wasn't really sure that I would have a lucid dream, but I got up early and had enough time to try a WBTB. With about 3 hours left to sleep, I came to the computer and browsed DV for a while, reading through the Academy thread once again. Then I lay back down and set my intention to recognize when I was dreaming. [Eidt:] By the way, I still have some journal entries to post, from the days and weeks before this, but I figured I would just start again from here, and I will post those previous dreams later.)

"Portals: the Search for the Dream World Academy Begins"

07/07/2011

Dream #1

(Lucid + Chain)

PART 1

It was night out, and I was in a type of old, harbor town, near the water. There were two teams of tactical military forces battling each other, throughout the streets, and I had been sneaking around in the dark - scrambling over rooftops and slipping through shadowy hallways - trying not to get discovered by these gunmen. At one point, I was running along the edge of a rooftop with one of the soldiers trailing behind me, wearing very modern and high-tech gear. When I came to the edge, I knew I had no choice but to try to jump for it, but I was in the air before I realized just how high up I was. My stomach turned as the street-lit road came up at me. In that last moment of panic, though, I recognized how unreal this situation was. On hope and desperation, I braced my hands and feet for impact and landed in a surprisingly relaxed crouch on the cobblestone(like) walkway. I was definitely dreaming. Immediately I remembered the goal of trying to find the Dream World Academy. Even though this area had a lot of close-set houses, there seemed to be many more dark hallways then actual doors. So my chances of finding a portal to the Academy weren't looking all that good. I did find a statue of an elephant or some other large creature, in a courtyard and, remembering the importance of touching things, to keep grounded in the dream, I climbed atop the statue and sat on its head, feeling the stone surface beneath me with my palms.

After some time, I found myself on the far side of the small town, still set close to the water. This was the opposite team's quarters, and they accepted me in as if I was automatically on their side, anyway. The way they ushered me in - as opposed to the way the other team was actually trying to capture/kill me - made me feel like I was already a member of their faction. Once I got accustomed to them, and things had settled down, I went exploring again. This place was basically an old restaurant, on the water. There were plenty of doors - bathrooms; closets; etc. - and I quickly got to work, opening them all and trying to find anything behind them which I wouldn't expect to find, otherwise. But, even when putting some will power and intent behind it, a bathroom was still a bathroom. A closet was just a closet. While moving through the quarters, I kept touching things; dragging my fingers along the walls and counters, just taking in the sensation of how the surfaces felt. I also made sure to keep looking at my hands, periodically, not wanting to lose the dream before I could meet my objective. After searching to no avail, I found myself back in the bathroom. Everything was still vivid, but I was losing lucidity, probably due to just getting daunted by the fruitless search. Something caused me to remind myself of my mission, though. I had almost forgotten. I was still dreaming, and I had to find the Academy. I looked briefly in the foggy bathroom mirror, but I didn't want to focus too much on my reflection. (I've had some pretty crazy encounters with my reflection, before, and didn't want to get side-tracked.) I left the bathroom and kept searching.

There are some parts here in which my memory seems to jump around. At one point, I was in the kitchen, which looked just like mine. It seemed to be day time outside now, and there was this really shady-looking cook in there with me. He made some type of threat to me and pulled a knife. I told him that he didn't want to try anything, because this was my dream, and I could crush him, if I wanted. I proved this by raising my hand and levitating some Tupper-ware off of the counter with telekinesis. Shocked and amazed, this cook instantly developed some freakish, homosexual crush on me. He casually slipped around behind me, embraced me, and kissed me on my cheek. Completely weirded out by this, I almost reached back and elbowed him square in the nose. I decided against it, though, and just slid out of his grasp, turning to face him defensively and making my way away from him, also not wanting to get caught up in fighting in this dream. Another fragment came when I found myself sitting in a residential garage, at night. There were headlights of a car beaming in on me, and two guys got out and began walking toward me, threateningly. My lucidity had begun waning, but it was still there. I reached out my hands and tried to push the oncoming men away from me with TK, but it didn't work. Uncontrollably, I questioned whether I was back in the real world. There was a fleeting moment, there, where I felt entirely stupid for trying to use TK on these guys, like I was some kind of wizard or something. I jumped up to my feet and ran like Hell.

(I woke up here, and saw that I still had about an hour and a half to sleep, so I lay still and relaxed, trying to drop myself back into the same dream.) 

PART 2

I was back in the harbor town. I don't believe I WILDed, but I was already lucid, from my earliest recollection of this new dream. Moving along the docks at night, I had to stick to the shadows again, slinking my way passed the opposing team's sentries, and making it back to the HQ of my apparent allies. Still checking my hands and touching things, to keep the dream stable, I started searching around the restaurant again. Stepping into the dining area once more, I noticed that I had just passed a stunning woman, whom had grabbed my attention from the corner of my eye. I actually turned around in place, and looked back over to the wall, where she was sitting. She was a classy-looking brunette in an old-fashioned black dress and hat, sitting by herself. Smiling, I walked back over to her, leaning in close. She stared up at me, becoming visibly excited at how close my face was getting to hers. Again, she looked like she knew me, much like everyone on 'this side of the battle.'. There was an anxious recognition in her face - kind of like she and I knew each other very well, and she knew that we weren't supposed to be getting this close. (Now that I think of it, she reminded me a lot of Mal, from Inception.)

I could see her breathing heavier, the closer I got, and she just stared up at me. Finally, I kissed her. Nothing too crazy. I really wasn't trying to get caught up in LD sex, and I could see how easily that could have come next. She decided to tag along with me, though, and we moved on through the dining area. Still feeling a little, uh, randy?, I used some telekinesis to tug at the shirts and blouses of a few of the girls that were seated at nearby tables. I was never able to pull one of them off, but could only kind of tease them into moving a little bit. Moving further down this hallway, and headed back toward the kitchen area, we passed an older man; a waiter or host. I decided to ask some more DCs if they new about this Academy/castle, stopping the waiter and inquiring about it. He seemed to have at least some idea of this place I was speaking of, but really no information that helped us in finding it. In the kitchen area, still unable to find a portal, we came across an old T.V. Then, it was actually the woman, who came up with an ingenious idea. Why just look for doors? She turned on the T.V., which was only static, and she jus kind of motioned to it. I knew immediately what she was implying. Stepping forward, I put my hands out to the glass, slowly phasing into it. I had been through mirrors before, but never into a T.V. The white and black fray of static filled my view and completely enveloped me. I simply relaxed and went with it, trying to set the intention for this makeshift portal to transport me to the Academy.

I wound up in a jungle area, in the day time, still lucid. There was a stone slab of wall in front of me, and lush green vegetation all around. A small pit full of water sat off to one side, about 7 feet in diameter and filled with knotted ropes of vines and plant life, stretching down into some of the most crystal clear water I could imagine. I met another woman here, who was a bit of an Amazon, and very 'Earthy.' We got to talking about the Castle I was looking for, and she seemed to be well aware of it. She said that it was hidden back in the mountainous area behind the old harbor town, where the two opposing forces were battling. She also went more into detail about how varied the portals can be, saying that portals are everywhere. Whether or not they will take you to the Academy isn't guaranteed, but that they were everywhere. She pointed to the little well/water pit next to us, that I had been looking at earlier, and told me that it was a portal that would take me back to the harbor, and that I could continue my quest for the castle from there. I jumped into the waterhole, and sank, everything going dark for a moment, and then doing some generic, kaleidoscope-like tunnel transition.

I was back in the harbor, at night, coming up from beneath the water, somewhere way out in the lake or bay or whatever it was. I could see the layers of stone buildings, just off the water. I knew that the warring parties were still battling, and was going to continue to do my best to stay out of sight. While I was treading water, I could see a figure moving around, just beside me. It was still the dead of night, but there seemed to be some sort of soft light coming up from beneath the water, just enough to see that the silhouette was of a dolphin. It poked its head up near me, and I could see that its skin was actually as black as its silhouette was. I then began to get a little anxious, because I was in this huge body of water at night. I knew it would only be a matter of time before the sea monsters came out to play. So, focusing my mind for flight, I sort of 'surfed' my way forward through the water, and then up and out of it, hovering up onto one of the docks and setting out to find more portals. My flight was feeling very awkward, and my body kept wanting to defy my intention; floating in opposite directions, having trouble staying elevated, etc. I was able to float up to one of the high rooftops, and I grabbed onto the ledge, just on the outside of a staircase. Some of the 'enemy' team were assembling on this rooftop, and they then began walking down the stairway that I was hanging on the outside of. I ducked away behind the railing, hanging precariously off the edge, overlooking the street. They passed practically within inches of me while I watched them, through the stone banister, and one of them looked back to talk to his squad. When he did, I could have sworn that he looked dead at me...but he never said anything to alert his men.

Within this area of the harbor, I still had a hard time finding a lot of doors, so I went to searching for other 'types' of portals. I found what looked like a sewer drain, in the street, and figured that this could serve as a great portal. Setting the intention to show up somewhere within the academy, I jumped into the hole in the earth. Another Avatar-esque transition through a colorful tunnel, and I again found myself in the jungle setting, where I had earlier spoken to the Amazon woman, but she was nowhere to be found. I took another tunnel from this scene, and ended up back at the harbor town. Still not having any luck with doors, I just kept crawling into holes and dark paths, trying to find a portal that would lead me to the Academy. Throughout all this 'jumping,' I vaguely remember one moment where I showed up in some place where there was a kid around, whom I considered a threat, for some reason. I think he was going to alert the opposing team of my position. I got him side-tracked by asking him if he wanted to see some 'magic' and used pyrokinesis to light my hand on fire. He was enthralled by it, and I somehow used that distractions to escape the area. After another portal jump, I ended up back at the harbor for like the 4th time, only it was day time, this time. I wasn't really expecting to find the Dream World Academy in the daytime (I'm gonna have to ask if it's supposed to appear in the daytime or not), so I actually tried to make it night out, myself. I went through a hallway and commanded that it would be night time, when I emerged from the other side. Didn't work. So, I spent the next few moments hopping in portals and trying to find one that would bring me back to this harbor area in the night, so I could just fly to the mountains and look for the castle the old fashioned way.

I woke up before I was able to find anything, though.

"Dream World Academy Campus" - 02/26/2020 (Lucid)

"Dream World Academy Campus"

02/26/2020

Dream#3

(Lucid)

(Before this, I'd had a short fragment, about being on a street corner and telling some friends about my first dream of the night. While telling them the story, After that fragment, I'd woken up and planned to do a WBTB, with the intention of searching for the Dream World Academy. Pretty quickly, with the affirmation in mind, I fell back asleep, and into another dream.)

The first thing I remember was being in a grocery store. There wasn't much out of the ordinary going on, in the beginning, but I spontaneously realized that I was unfamiliar with this place, and I knew that I had to be dreaming. Almost as quickly as I had become lucid, I remembered what my objective had been, upon going back to sleep: Finding the Dream World Academy. I thought about how I might best attempt to locate this fictional facility, and I found myself following a couple of the employees into a walk-in freezer. Inside the freezer, there was a smaller, grocery store "ICE" dispenser, in the corner. Thinking that I might be able to create a portal to the DWA, I stepped over to the dispenser; opened the hatch-like door; and began to crawl inside, attempting to "will" myself to another location. It was pitch-black, inside, though, and I started to think that submerging myself in total darkness might prompt a less-desirable scene change, though, so I decided to abort the idea and exited the ICE dispenser.

Still trying to figure out my approach to finding the DWA, I left the grocery store and stepped out onto the street. The street scene seemed more like a small, eastern European town, than anything that I'm normally familiar with. While outside, I saw a few of my real life friends, on the street. Somewhere around here, while interacting with them, I got caught up in the narrative and forgot that I was dreaming, losing my lucidity. We hung for a bit, on the street corner, and then boarded a transit bus, apparently about to head off, somewhere that someone had suggested, but I couldn't remember the conversation. Just as the bus had begun to pull away from the curb, though, I remembered that this was all just a dream, and that I had a task to complete.

Immediately, I ignored the narrative that was beginning to develop in regards to my friends. I simply turned toward one of the bus windows, and stepped forward, pressing my hands to the glass and then pushing myself into it, phasing through the side of the departing bus and stepping back out onto the cobblestone street. I looked around the city square, trying to find the best way to bring myself to the Dream World Academy. My first inclination was to go back into the grocery store I had recently exited, but I figured that there had to be a faster way. That's when I remembered the old "turn around" technique. Looking away from the storefront, I began to imagine that the Dream World Academy would be right behind me. I didn't bother to imagine what it might look like - only that it would be there. Then, I turned back around, and the entire storefront had changed. Instead, I was looking up at a gigantic, stone stairway, spanning almost the entire face of an old-style university building. The stairway had to have been a good 30 feet wide, and stretched up further than I cared to try and quantify. Ecstatic that I had, apparently, found my objective, I began to climb the stairs, in order to find the entrance.

Eventually reaching the top of the stairway, seemingly a couple of hundred feet above the ground, I was greeted by a large, metallic sculpture of either an eagle or a griffin. I can easily remember the bird's beak, but I can't recall whether it had an eagle's body. I walked passed the statue, and into a short, arched hallway. The daylight continued, on the other side of the short hallway, and I walked through it, stepping out into a central courtyard. However, instead of an actual courtyard, I came to a downward staircase that overlooked and vast bay area, surrounded on all sides by more old-European(ish) architecture. It was as if I was stepping out, into the highest sections of a football stadium, but instead of bleachers, there were houses, and instead of a football field, it was a harbor that spanned more than a mile, on either side.

After taking a moment to marvel at the surreal environment, I began to descend the internal stairway, with plans to just explore as much as possible. By this time, other people began showing up, many of them dressed in generic university uniforms - students, obviously. They silently passed me by, moving up and down the staircase while I wandered about, aimlessly.

(Unfortunately, I don't recall much more of this before waking up.)