"They All Fall Down" - 08/16/2021 (Lucid)

"They All Fall Down"

08/16/2021

(Lucid)

(I have been taking in a little mugwort, melatonin and valerian root, before bed, lately, and I've been having far more vivid and lucid dreams. This was one in a trend of clear and stable lucids I've had, recently, and seemed to stretch on for a noticeable while.)

The earliest thing I remember, in this dream, is that I was watching the movie "Little Monsters," in someone's crowded home, and that people kept trying to sit down in the same chair I was in - a chair that was obviously not meant for more than one person. Random people would constantly sit themselves down on one side of me, and then keep scooting over, more and more, until I was practically falling off of the chair. After a while, I just got irritated with it and got up from where I was sitting.

I walked outside, to the patio, where there were more people scattered about. This was obviously a party or cookout, or something, and folks were just hanging around in the yard and on the patio furniture. The dream was very realistic, and I spent quite a while just talking to some of the others - whom seemed familiar, but I could not tell if they were friends or family. Eventually, though, during the idle chit-chat, I started to realize that this was all a dream. Testing the suspicion, I brought a hand up over the wooden picnic table and focused on a mug, levitating it with telekinesis. A young girl, nearby, marveled at the trick, so I kept doing more, flourishing with my lucid powers as if I was a stage magician. A few of the others stopped to watch, before I eventually went back inside the house, to find something else to do.

Finding my way to the kitchen, I noticed something on the floor, practically wedged behind the door. It was about the size of a basketball, and it took me a moment to figure out that it was a human head. It belonged to a blonde woman who seemed to be, maybe, in her 50's, and the weirdest thing was that it didn't seem like it was a decapitated head. It was still attached to the body which, apparently, continued down through the floor, as if she was stuck in the ground, up to her neck, like a "clipping" issue, in a video game. What's more, is that she didn't really seemed to be bothered by this. Though she just kind of stared, idly, at the back side of the kitchen door, I could tell that she was very much alive, and she looked  more bored with her situation than distressed. Using my telekinetic control, I "pulled" her upward and out of the ground, revealing the rest of her body.

Her body, though, didn't seem to be in the same condition. When I phased her up and out of the floor, it was as if I had pulled a rotting corpse from a vertical grave. I could see that, when I looked back at her face, it had began to bruise and wither, as if it, too, was starting to rot. Just slightly disturbed by this, I gave another wave of my hand and "willed" her to return to a more normal appearance, which worked, almost effortlessly. With an arguably-flirtatious smile, she said "oh, you're good," and I just smiled in return and opened the fridge, beside her, to see what was inside. I pulled out a translucent bin that was filled with the rotting remains of half-eaten fruits and vegetables. Feeling a little "Dr. Strange" inspired, I waved my hand again, and willed the fruits and veggies to refresh themselves, and the bin began to replenish itself as the food items started regenerating as if they were being 3D printed.

Leaving the kitchen, I remember spending some time walking around the house, doing more idle tricks, here and there. I began to remark at how vivid the dream was, and how grounded I felt to it, even without having to do any stabilization gestures. Out of curiosity, though, I decided to look at my hands, just to see how they would appear, in a dream that was already this detailed. As expected, they looked just like they would in waking life - all fingers were present, and in perfect shape. The only difference, though, is that I had single strands of bright green light strung between each of my fingers. I also recall picking up an ink pen from an end table, and flicking it through a nearby window pane, as if it were a bullet from a gun. At one point, I told some of the house occupants about this being a dream and about them being characters within it, but I don't remember their reactions. 

I made my way out of the front side of the house and started walking down the sidewalk, meandering about and interacting with the neighbors, still feeling rather explorative and allowing the dreamscape to take me wherever it might. The longer I walked through the neighborhood, the more I could see that the neighbors were kind of "gathering." There was a palpable tension in the air, and all of the neighbors seemed to be streaming in one direction, as if the entire crowd was being led to some sort of event. I could hear a few of them talking, and there was, apparently, about to be some sort of clash with either another neighborhood, or some other kind of faction that these people were all united against. Curious, still, I decided to follow along with the crowd, to see what was going on.

The group began to file into a narrow, slum-esque alleyway, and I could see that there was another large group of people that was approach the front of our crowd. The tension was steadily rising, and I could tell that - for whatever reasons - these people were about to absolutely lay into each other. Close to the front of my group, I could see the two sides beginning to aggressively converge, and the moment the two crowds collided, all hell broke loose. Fists began flying, and gunfire filled the air. Military vehicles could be seen, speeding toward my group, from the other side. This was quickly turning into a major battle, and the vehicles coming in did not seem like they were going to stop, and they were set on mowing down our group, which was already firing back with everything they had. 

Feeling like I was now at the epicenter of this intensifying collision, I suddenly threw both arms out - one in the direction of either crowd - and sent out a forceful, telekinetic "push" - a wave of force that threw the people of each faction back, away from each other, and crushed the oncoming vehicles to a stop, as if they'd hit a concrete wall.

Quite satisfied with this move, I smiled as the bewildered dream characters, from both sides, gathered around in wonder, at what I'd just done. They were absolutely astonished at this "power," that I had, and I started to show off a bit, picking a few random people up with telekinesis and setting them back down gently. I talked to them about how this was all a dream, in order to gauge their reactions, which was pretty much the standard level of disbelief that I normally get when having this conversation with dream characters.

It was then, though, that I began to notice people falling down.

I would glance from one person to another, confused to see their eyes roll back in their heads, and they would simply drop to the ground, as if all of the life had been instantly ripped from them. Each direction I turned, another person would "go white" and then drop. The dream was still so vivid, that I could even see the redness in the bloodshot corners of their eyes, even after all of the color had rolled back into their skulls. I started to walk forward, wondering what was going on, and the bodies continue dropping, in a wave formation, as if being within a certain range of me simply flipped a switch and turned them into lifeless husks. It got to the point where, seemingly, with every step I took, another dozen people in front of me would, instantly, go white in the eyes and then drop to the ground.

Before long, I was the only one still standing in the alley.

(There was little else that I could remember, after that point. I vaguely recall their being mention, somewhere, of some entity being behind this phenomenon, but I don't remember whether I was still lucid, when I heard that, or from where I heard it, exactly. It was just a hazy fragment that stuck with me, after I woke.)

"Blown out of the Sky" - 11/25/2011 (Lucid)

"Blown out of the Sky"

11/25/2011  

Dream #2

(Lucid)

The first thing I remember was that I was lying down, naked, in a small, enclosed pod. Another body - petite; also naked - was sleeping on top of my chest. I could instantly tell it was a female, and that she was lying face down with her cheek practically nuzzled into my neck. I don't remember the dialogue that followed, but I heard a male voice, outside of the enclosure, stating that the girl was "T"  (an attractive friend and coworker, IRL) and that she had some kind of medical condition where, if she laid on her back for too long, she would stop breathing and die. She had, apparently, just rolled over, on her stomach, on top of me, and so the voice told me that I had to keep her there, asleep, so that she would neither wake up nor roll back over onto her back, since  she would be in danger of suffocating. I had no idea what we were even doing, lying in this chamber together, but the feeling of having here there with me was amazing. I was just loving it. She shuffled softly against me, and I put a hand down onto her lower back, feeling her torso rise and fall with another breath, confirming that she was breathing well and ok to be in this position. (With the lighting and everything, it felt like the final scene in "The Fifth Element," where Korben and Leeloo are in the rejuvenation chamber.)

The dream skipped ahead, and T and I were, then, sitting on an airplane together. We had gotten word (over the intercom, I believe), that we were under attack from rocket fire. No sooner did we get this warning, than a rocket slammed into the far section of the plane, causing an intense explosion. The far side of the plane (which I'm guessing was the front, because we were facing that way) tore right off of the rest of the aircraft, leaving a gaping hole, through which people and chairs began streaming out of the plane, into the night sky. We could only brace against each other and watch scores of people rip away from us - flinging out to God knows where - while we, still buckled into our seats, spiraled sickeningly toward a ground that we could not see. (My notes say something about making a deal with someone, which I don't really remember the details of, but I believe it had something to do with the attack on the plane.)

Soon, we were pulling ourselves out of the wreckage, having landed on some remote island, somewhere. I don't remember the actual impact, though. (It all seemed very "Lost"-like.) The plane was in ruins, but there were still a few survivors. Someone, who I believe might have been the pilot (even though he should have been torn away from us, with the rest of the plane), came onto the intercom and apologized for the rough landing, but he followed that by saying that 'at least it was better than the last time'...whatever that meant.

We were, soon, out in the wilderness, and we ran across a group of bandits who held us up (presumably, the ones who shot us down). They seemed pretty primitive, but they had weapons, and we didn't, so they began to take hostages. Once one of them got me in a chokehold, I began to panic a bit. However, I also began to suspect that I was dreaming. I held up one fist, in front of me, and tried to make a large blade grow out of my knuckles. It didn't work, though, and I just could not get the weapon to materialize. Instead, I pointed to another one of the bandits and made a 'flicking' gesture with my hand, as if I was brushing dust off of an old countertop. The man I was looking at promptly exploded and disappeared into thin air. The rest of the bandits stared at me, in shock, and began to fall back. The one who'd once had a hold of me quickly let me go. Now, content with the upper-hand, I let out a huge 'Shout' (taking a cue from "Skyrim") and unleashed a nice shockwave of sound, which blew some of the bandits backward. I could see the shockwave roll across the high grass and a nearby river bed, blasting into a patch of trees in the distance, where a grizzly bear had been standing. The husky bear reeled from the sound wave and turned tail to run away.

Quite satisfied with this, I went to turn my attention back to the bandits and saw that there was something coming, from off to one side. It was very large and moving over the river, but there was really nothing that we could identify - because of the torrential splashes of water shrouding the large, dark figure. At first, I thought it was a giant alligator - with a body some 15ft in diameter. But, when it got close enough to cease run/stomping through the water, its true form was revealed. It was a dragon - a pretty badass dragon, actually; all jagged, bony features and dark, nearly-black scales. It stopped in front of us, staring directly into my face, and had a short conversation with me, referring to me as the 'Dragonborn' (which is the nickname given to the lead character in Skyrim, which I have been playing lately, of course). I remember that it had the deep voice of the huge first dragon that I encountered in Skyrim, but I don't remember the conversation that we had.

Shortly after this, I was walking through a field, along with T. I took a moment to look at my hands, trying to ground myself into the dream a bit. My left hand looked fine, but I noticed that my right hand was missing two fingers and the thumb, bony stumps left where the fingers should be.

Again, my memory skips ahead a little while. We were in a more urban area, and a group of thugs pulled up in a caravan of jeeps and SUVs. There were a few more people in my group, now, than when it was just T and I. They, again, held us all at gunpoint, and the leader had this weird-looking gun that looked like it had 100 taser barbs, ready to fire. From the hardcore look of the weapon, though, it seemed like the barbs would do a lot more than just send a couple of thousand volts through someone. Still lucid, though, I kept getting in the leader's face, daring him to shoot me, trying to keep his attention off of the other people in my group.

There was another transition, and T and I were back in the wilderness - more of a jungle area, actually - trudging through a small pond of murky water. We were about stomach-deep, and it was only about 12 feet wide, so there already wasn't much room for us. It seemed much smaller, though. Much more crowded. That's when I noticed there was something very large, floating in the pond, just inches in front of me. It was actually taking up most of the space in the pond. I looked at it for a moment, and couldn't figure out what. It looked very rough, like it was a patch of hard Earth that was sticking up just a few inches out of the water. Then, I noticed it had a face, and on the near side of that face, I saw one, slit-pupiled eye staring back at me. An alligator. A very, very large alligator. T seemed to recognize it as a gator, at the same time as I did. I could see a quiet panic building up on her face, and I was feeling quite intimidated, myself. We shuffled quietly, trying to walk our way around it. I could see, though, that with every movement I made to get passed the gator, the gator's head would turn just slightly, in order to keep its eye on me. It was watching me, and I had a feeling it was about to strike at me, at any moment. I knew that this was a dream, but I wasn't really sure of what to do in the situation. I knew had to do something, though.

On instinct, I suddenly lunged at the enormous gator, landing on it's back and trying to wrap my arms around its mouth, from a mounted position. I landed a little too low on its body, though, and was only able to grab around its neck. The gator reared its head back, toward me, snapping its jaws just beside my head and grabbing ahold of my right ear with its teeth. I felt it bite down, but it didn't hurt all that match. I was, however, seemingly stuck. This thing would not let go of me, and I was not about to let go of it, giving it more room to maneuver. This thing could have easily bitten the top portion of my body in half, it was so big.

The last thing I remember is splashing around in the pond, fighting this massive reptile that had a vice-grip on my ear, while T tried to escape the water.

"Big Bad Hellhound" - 10/04/2020 (Lucid)

"Big Bad Hellhound"

10/4/2020

(Lucid)

(This dream was obviously brought on by a mish-mash of games that my girlfriend and I had been playing, this weekend, as well as the movie "Shazam," which we'd watched last night.)

I was with my girlfriend, and a few other people, hanging out in someone's home. "A Nightmare on Elm Street" was coming on TV, and my girlfriend said that she had always wanted to see what it was all about, and that she was interested in watching it. Immediately, this struck me as weird, because she is certainly not the "horror movie type," in general. I tried to warn her against it, saying that the movie contained some pretty insanely-disturbing imagery, and that she may not know what she's quite getting herself into. She didn't care and insisted on watching it, so we just let the movie play. The only thing I remember were a couple of brief scenes (that are not actually in the movie). One, where someone - likely Freddy, in disguise - was gorily ripping an entire electric guitar out of someone's body, tearing it out through their chest cavity, and another, where a man, possessed by another entity which had manifested itself as a second head on his neck, was forcefully trying to push the head back down into the skin of his collar. (This was reminiscent of some of the Seven Deadly Sins manifestations, in "Shazam.") Before long, my girlfriend was saying that she had enough, and didn't want to watch anymore.

There was a shift in narrative, here, where the entire scenario became some sort of horror-movie, itself. I was trapped in the house (not sure where my girl and the others had gone), and I was trying to escape some sort of killer stalking around, inside. For some reason (that I can't recall), I couldn't go out the front door, as it was like I wasn't "allowed" to be in the home, or something, and couldn't alert the homeowners that I was there. Anyway, I ended up escaping through a back window, and out into the neighborhood, at night. There was an oversized pick-up truck, basically doing donuts in the street, and a young woman came running up the sidewalk, telling me - as she passed - that she had to sneak back into the house I'd just left, because she'd left some sort of item there. It all felt very much like an MMO game kind of encounter, where players are all just off doing their own thing, and often crossing paths, along the way. Then, when I started thinking about where I was going to go, next, a full-on map HUD display popped up in my field of view, as if I was playing a game. (Specifically, it looked like the map from "Dying Light," which my girl and I had played.) I could see that I was on an island, with no way out, and my mind apparently rationalized that I had completed my objective - escaping the house - and that I had to kind of "exit" the whole setting, as if returning to the lobby, after a game.

Suddenly, I was attacked on the street, by some lumbering person. (I want to say that it was a zombie, but I can't be sure.) While trying to fight off the attack, I could see something like one of the "QuickTime" animation buttons showing up in my field of view, as if I had to repeatedly press a button, in order to escape the attacker's clutches. The more I panicked, the faster this gauge was moving, and I could see little flashes of light forming in my field of view. At this very moment, I knew that my way of "escape" was to "wake up," and that the little flashes of light were my eyes trying to open up into the real world. However, though this was "lucid dreaming" logic, I don't feel that I ever got fully 'lucid,' at all and I was just going through the motions of trying to wake myself up.

Immediately, the entire scenario shifted, again, and this time, I was watching some unknown character wake up, on a television screen. He jolted up out of bed, as if awakening from a nightmare. I was now in a different house, along with some of my closest waking life friends, and we were huddled around the TV, watching whatever movie this was. Sooner or later, we had left the house and were walking around, outside. Again, it was night out, and it was eerily foggy. Judging by the architecture of the streets around us, everything had a sort of an Old Germany / Western Europe feel to it. (We had also been playing "Zombie Army Trilogy.") We'd discovered a pack of "demon-dogs" that were roaming the streets, and we had to sneak, stealthily, around them, to avoid getting spotted. However, when turning onto another, misty back alley, we'd seen a group of the dogs at the far end, and they saw us, as well. What was worse, though, was when we watched what looked like a group of tall trees shift into focus, through the mist, behind the dogs. Though I couldn't see the tops of the "trees," through the fog, I quickly became aware that these weren't trees, at all. They were *legs*. Specifically, they were the legs of another, enormous, demon dog. This one, though, was well over 50-feet tall - like a giant Hell Hound of a gritty anime, brought to life.

The beast belted out a wall-shaking roar and thundered into a sprint toward us. Naturally, we turned and ran the other way, fully aware that we were not going to be able to outrun this thing. Finally, coming to the end of the road - in the form of a high bridge or overpass, we instinctively dove over the railing, turning back while in the air, just in time to see the massive jaws of the gigantic beast snapping shut just, a few feet over our heads. Inevitably, though, we continued to fall away, off of the elevated road, and down toward what would have been a certain death.

But - just like that - I was back with my friends, again, roaming the streets of this foggy, old-world environment, slipping around in the dark, to hide from the demon dogs. Then, just as before, we saw the towering legs of the "alpha," stepping out of the fog. It sprinted at us, once again, but before turning to run, I remembered that this had happened before. Still, instinctively, I ran, bolting down the street, with my friends, away from the towering hound behind us. Glancing at the builds that flanked us, I remembered a conversation my girlfriend and I had been having (the night before), about wall-running in a video game.

Suspecting, now, that I was merely in a dream, I shifted my sprint to the right and took a few, diagonal steps up the wall beside me, twisting into an acrobatic flip and - somehow - dodging the enormous dog that had been chasing us. Afterward the dog was either destroyed by us, or simply disappeared, altogether (though I can't remember which).

Shortly after ridding ourselves of the beast, my friends and I were talking about what had happened. I don't recall much of the dialogue, but I specifically telling them about my having to wake up, so that I could remember everything that went on, in the dream. The last thing I remember of the scenario was one of my friends telling a hilarious joke that had everyone cracking up, just as I was purposefully pulling myself out of the dream and waking myself up.

(I'm not sure, but I believe this one might have resulted in an actual false awakening, because I remember waking up with my laughter actually carrying over from the dream, and into waking life. My girlfriend was lying beside me, as usual, but I didn't get out of bed. I just relaxed, as if to drift back off to sleep. Then, moments later, I was waking up, again. I still don't know if the laughing bit was real or another dream, though, so I'm not counting it as a false awakening in this journal entry.)

Last Night's Dream(s), in One Sentence: 03/05 - 03/08/2020

(Two dreams, from over the weekend....)

***

"Nail-Biter / First Freddy Encounter" - 03/26/2007 (Lucid)

"Nail-Biter / First Freddy Encounter"
03/26/2007 
(Lucid)

(O.M.G. What a morning...
Ok, first, let me just say, here and now, that I officially submit (this time) to Freddy Krueger! I've kicked the Hell out of Jason Voorhees in lucid dreams, a number of times, but have always wondered what it would be like to face Freddy in the dream world. I've had one previous dream with Freddy in it - that I can remember - but all he did in that one was glare at me, sitting lazily in a chair as I passed by him. After the dream I'd just had a few minutes ago, though, I hope I never run into him again; unless I'm fully lucid, and mentally prepared for it, at least.

I had been feeling kinda sick, today. I came home from work early and decided to take a nap, wondering if I could induce a lucid dream - seeing as how I never take naps and shouldn't fall too deeply into sleep.)

There were quite a few elements tied into this dream, but I only remember a few of them. It started off at my aunt's old house. My mom and most of my other relatives were talking about us all going somewhere together, so I'd gone into a back room to change clothes. When I came out, I'd already been left behind with my little cousin (though I can't remember which one); apparently having been duped into babysitting her. Some time had passed, and I later recall going back in the same room where I had changed clothes. Once I entered, I noticed the door had disappeared, behind me. I was now trapped. The room was completely bare, except for a small dresser against one wall. It took me a minute to figure out, but, once I opened one of the dresser cabinets and moved a mass of clothes out of the way, I saw that there was no back to the dresser, and I could crawl through the small opening and out into the rest of the house. When I got back out to the living room, it turned out that a couple of my relatives were still there (including, randomly, a friend from work, to whom neither of us were related). My mom and aunt were still gone, though. I had no idea where they were.

There is also another fragment of a memory, within the same timeline, when I was outside my aunt's older house, and my uncle Larry drove by. It was night time and no one really noticed that it was him, except for me. He seemed to try to draw me to the car but, when other family members saw him and started trying to get his attention, he and his girl (who was driving) suddenly took off, suspiciously. That, alone, was weird, but it soon got much, much worse. 

(Now, the scenery, toward the end of the dream completely changed. I still think it was still the same dream, though, because many of the same people were in it, along with a few newer folks. Mom and my aunt were still out on their unknown errand.)

The next thing I knew, we were all on a farm. There was a big, brown barn, and my cousins and I were running around on its flat rooftop, playing games like children. There was also a large swing set that was just a couple of yards away from the barn. Aside from that, there seemed to be nothing around but miles of high grass and trees in the distance. While running around on this wide, not-particularly-dangerous roof, I suddenly felt some strange, invisible force grab me, without warning, and fling me over the edge of the barn. While falling, I could see that I was dropping straight toward a rather large pile of old wooden beams and fence posts on the ground below. Aware that I had been on a roof that was a good 3 stories tall, I knew my landing was going to suck. Hard.

I crashed down into the beams and boards, helplessly, face first. My entire body was racked with a dull (yet potent) and throbbing pain. Slowly I picked myself up into push-up position, and could see that my blood was splattered all over the old, yellowed wood. The second that I realized the blood was gushing from my mouth - which felt like I'd stuffed my cheeks with a box-ful of rocks - I heard a loud creaking noise behind me and turned my head.

For no reason at all, the entire wall of the barn, nearest me, suddenly detached itself from the rest of the building and started tilting over...in my direction. The only thing I had time to do was curl up into fetal position before the heavy barn wall slammed down on top of me and broke apart, crushing me beneath hundreds of pounds of solid wood. I felt like I blacked out for a moment, but, next thing I knew, I was climbing out of the rubble while being pulled by friends and family that had been standing around during the accident. Some of my cousins - who'd been on the roof with me - were being helped too, having fallen when the wall (and, apparently, the roof) collapsed. As I got up, I felt just like..well...like I'd been crushed by a big fucking wall, actually.

Every bone in my body hurt. I had to stagger aimlessly, just to stay on my feet, and wasn't doing a very good job at that. By the time I stopped wandering, I was over by the swing set, where some of the others were recovering as well. My hand was covering my mouth, which was still gushing blood, and it wasn't until then that I found out why.

I had a mouthful of old, twisted, metal nails.

Not only did I have a mouthful of nails, but they were stabbed into my gums and my lips; every one of them twisted at multiple angles so that none of them would have any chance of coming straight out. Still in a state of shock after the "accident," I began twisting these fuckers out of my gums. It was, of course, THE MOST HORRIBLE FEELING EVER, let me just say. I could feel them sliding through my gums, grinding against my teeth. I could feel every corner of twisted metal as I had to turn them in different directions to get them to come all the way out. There was no real sharp pain, but the dull pain (which is all I usually feel in dreams) was absolute torture, itself. Every single nail was agony - so much so that I had to practically stop and rest after pulling each one out, and there seemed to be no end to how many of them were in there - ten at the very least. There was a time where there were two left; pointed downward from my top jaw; positioned like canine teeth. I actually thought about leaving them in there like that, because I didn't want to go through yanking them out. I knew I had to just suck it up and get it over with, though.

Some of the people around me were trying to console me while I was doing this and, at one point, I came along one more, reeaally long nail. I mean really, ridiculously, unnaturally long. The more I pulled it, the more I realized that it wasn't lodged in my gums. I could feel it gagging me as it came up my throat; 4 ft - easily - of thin metal, covered in blood. Eventually, it got caught on something within me, and I couldn't pull anymore. I was trying to think of what to do about this when the guy standing next to me nonchalantly says "Here, let me help you," and grabs onto the nail. I caught a quick mental flash of the direction the nail was facing. The pointed end was in the other guy's hand, and the nail's head was still inside of me, which meant---

I screamed "No wait!" and the guy yanks this damn thing out of my mouth, ripping a huge chunk of bloody tissue from inside of me, hanging onto the head of the nail like meat from a fish hook. I practically collapsed from that feeling.

I looked at this disturbingly long nail, thinking to myself "What in the HELL is THAT?!" and sat down on one of the swings, next to a little girl that was in our group, trying to pull myself together.

Within a few short moments, the sky turned a deep, threatening gray. The winds started picking up. Before anyone could figure out what was happening, the chains on the swing of the little girl next to me started slithering around her, like snakes. She shrieked and the chains coiled around her limbs; her neck; her torso. They began raveling her up higher and higher in the swing, slowly constricting her. Crushing her. I jumped out of my swing as fast as I can, wide-eyed, staring at the horror beside me. Then, I heard that familiar voice coming from everywhere at once; Freddy - his body nowhere to be seen. He'd begun singing "Rock-a-bye Baby" all slowly, as the dying little girl's swing started rocking gently back and forth. Just when I was about to haul ass from this Hellish scene, I suddenly felt myself swinging, even though I was no longer sitting in my swing. It was as if a giant, invisible hand had picked me up, in a seated position, and was swinging me back and forth on its palm, in place of the swing-set itself. 

Instantly, I realized what was happening and screamed out something along the lines of: "Holy Shit, it's Freddy! I'm having a nightmare!!" and I could hear a few of the people around me screaming in recognition of his voice and name as they scattered away in terror. Now lucid, I threw myself forward as hard as I could and "fell off" of the invisible hand and onto the ground, picking myself up and running off to jump over a small, chain-link fence that everyone else was climbing before me. As soon as I vaulted over to the other side, I'd realized I'd had enough. After everything that had happened, I decided to throw in the towel instead of using my lucidity to actually try to challenge Freddy. The truth was: I was still in a panic and simply wanted no part of this nightmare. The last image I remember, before waking myself up, is of a lone figure, standing out in the middle of the grassy field. I can't specifically remember if it was Freddy or not but, by the way he/she was just standing there, watching us, it would only make sense.

(...I woke up feeling like I'd just been hit by a truck.

Looks like it's:

Freddy - 1
Me - 0

...and I'm ok with that. I'm not looking for a rematch anytime soon. =P )

"Into the WILD" - 05/29/2013 (Lucid + Chain)

(Happy to say that this was the first WILD experience I have had in years!! I'm going to add the dream fragments that surrounded the main dream as well, so this entry is more of a 3-in-1 post.

I'd awoken in the middle of the night, after 'dreamless' sleep, used the bathroom and decided to try a WBTB. Using a lucid dream induction audio, I lay back down and tried to put my attention on becoming aware of when I was dreaming. At first, I couldn't get to sleep and wondered if I was going to be able to at all. Soon, though, I had already drifted off to sleep and had a short, first dream: )

05/29/2013

Dream Fragment #1

(False Awakening)
(Lucid)

I 'woke up' to the sound of my daughter's voice, having come into my room to let me know that I was sleeping late and had to hurry up to take her to school. It struck me as strange, at first, because it was still dark in my room, but she doesn't go to school until sun-up. All I could see was her silhouette standing in the cracked doorway. I wondered how she got in my room in the first place, seeing as how the door was locked when I went to bed. Quickly, I realized that I had to be dreaming. However, before I was able to even think about having some fun with my lucidity, I began to wonder whether or not I actually was oversleeping. Thinking it was better to be safe than sorry, I woke myself up.

(After looking around my room - which was now empty, with the door still shut - I prepared to go back to sleep, resetting the induction audio.)

"Into the WILD"
Dream #2

(Lucid)

The hypnagogic imagery came on pretty quickly, this time. I started to see dull, abstract figures moving around in the darkness behind my eyelids, while the audio still lulled in my ears. Focusing more on these images, they began to expand into a more detailed scene of large, armor-clad beings trudging back and forth in an enormous cave. It seemed that they were shipping or mining something through these tunnels. Everything was still rather hazy and dark, though, and I really didn't like being in this cave scene. I wanted to be outside. I wanted to do some flying.

With little more effort than just the desire to do so, I found myself falling through gray skies, high above a mountain range with an enormous stone temple set into one of the cliffsides (Which I believe might have been representing the caves/tunnels I was just in). I wasn't falling at freefall speed, exactly, but I simply couldn't get much control of myself, in order to fly. The entire dream scene was still hazy and unstable, as if the dream could have fallen apart at any moment. It didn't help that the sky was overcast and extremely foggy, and I could still faintly hear the audio track. Below me, I could see an enormous green canopy of trees. I was falling toward a forest and tried to pull up so that I could fly over the tops of them. Gathering some forward momentum, I started to skim across the treetops, which were so dense that they looked more like a solid surface than millions of separate leaves and branches. It reminded me of a vast green ocean and, even though I was now flying forward, I was still descending toward it. My feet touched the top of the trees...but they didn't feel like trees. It felt like mud. The mere thought of an ocean/liquid was causing the treetops to turn into a green sludge. I felt that I would soon be consumed in a sea of this muck, if I kept sinking, and I just wanted to abort the whole situation. Again, I thought about being somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Next thing I knew, I was inside a building. It seemed that I was backstage and a band was about to go on. (The sound from the induction track was now gone.) There were a few people my age milling about, but I don't remember interacting with them much. Now that I had a moment to collect my thoughts, the first thing I thought of was stabilizing the (still visually hazy) dream. I looked at my hands, which were wavy and out of focus, while repeating to myself "I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming, etc." to keep myself from losing lucidity. Slowly, my hands came into focus. I turned to the wall nearest me, which had some yellow 'safety' lines painted on the concrete surface, and I rubbed my hands along the wall, really getting a feel for the surface and bringing the dream even more into focus.

Once grounded, I thought of what to do with the rest of my time. I remembered the game I'd made up for artistic inspiration (where I would turn over cards in a dream and use whatever showed on them to make some graphic art in waking life). Walking over to a dresser, I stuck my hand in one of the drawers and 'willed' some cards into my fingers. When I pulled my hand out, I was holding about 3 cards. The first one I turned over was a 4 of hearts, but the hearts were all drawn dripping with blood. I then remembered that I was supposed to use Magic: the Gathering type cards, with actual characters and scenery on them. I tossed the cards back into the open drawer and blindly reached my hand in again. This time, I pulled out a whole deck of regular playing cards. Rather than keep trying to get a 'Magic' deck, I simply held up one of the playing cards with the back facing me and 'willed' it to be some sort of fantasy genre image on the other side. When I turned the card over, there was a picture of the Grim Reaper, looking rather menacing while holding his scythe. Noting that one in my mind, I pulled up another card and did the same. This one had a picture of what looked like a female angel who was composed of either water, ice, glass, crystal or something of the sort. It was a pretty cool image. 

With those 3 images in mind (including the bloody hearts, which I will incorporate somehow, if I decide to do a piece based on these cards), I went around to find something else to do. I levitated and started floating around the room. The thought crossed my mind, to fly up through the ceiling, but didn't want to get stuck (which I often do). Instead, I floated over to a nearby window. I could see my old neighborhood outside, and decided to try phasing through the glass. I put my hands up to the glass and pushed forward. My hands sank through, up to the elbows, and then got stuck as if the glass just solidified around them. Frustrated, I pulled on them for a little bit but couldn't get them back out, so instead, I just focused on getting through the glass, pushed forward and phased all the way through.

Instead of ending up in my old neighborhood, though, I was outside my present house, in the backyard. It seems that the scenery had changed in that small (always awkward) moment that I stepped through the glass. Still levitating, I moved around toward the front of the house and began having trouble with flight again. I was only a few feet off the ground, but my hovering felt really sluggish, and I couldn't move as freely as I wanted. There is a huge hill on the side of my house, and as I started to round the front corner of the building, I started 'sliding' down the hill backward, as if I was getting sucked out toward the street by gravity, instead of down toward the ground. I kept trying to fly faster to escape the pull, but I couldn't. The more I tried, the steeper and higher the top of the hill seemed to stretch away from me. So, thinking of Iron Man, I put my hands behind me and imagined them and my feet as being thrusters. This worked, and I began flying back up over the hill with ease. (There was no actual propulsion/jet, though. Just imagining that there was made flying seem easier, I think.) When I got to my garage, it was already open. My old dirt bike was inside, covered with a tarp. Without a second thought, I jumped on the bike, started it up with no problems, and tore off down the street, riding on one wheel with no fear of falling (which I wasn't very good at, in waking life. Lol).

While riding down my street, I saw some kid getting beat up on by 3 or 4 punks. I turned the bike around and approached them. Once off the bike, I don't remember much of the conversation, but I remember picking the entire group of bullies up as if they were one being, and slinging them away into the woods nearby, causing them to break through the trees like a collective wrecking ball and disappear among the debris. It was actually rather cartoonish...but satisfying. Lol.

Around this point, I thought it best to go back over the events of the dream, so that I could recall them when I woke up. I stood still and recounted all of the events that I could remember, until I got to the present. Then, when I figured I had enough remembered, I attempted to wake myself.

Dream Fragment Three:

(False Awakening)

I 'woke up' in my bed, and all seemed normal. Sitting up, I turned to face my laptop (which is near my bed). Attempting to type up my dream notes immediately, I found out that my laptop was covered in a jungle of wires. The more I tried to unravel it, the more wires seemed to be entangling it. Before too long, I realized that this was completely unusual, but before I realized it was another dream, I woke up for real.

"Unsafe Driving Conditions" - 07/05/2009 (Lucid)

"Unsafe Driving Conditions"
07/05/2009

(Lucid)

The first thing I remember is driving in a car with my mom. It was really dark and stormy outside, and the conditions on the road were quickly deteriorating. Suddenly, I notice some massive plume of what looks like smoke, a few hundred yards out in a clearing. Through the worsening rain, I could see that this wasn't smoke. It was a funnel cloud that had practically materialized on the spot. As soon as it touched down, the wind and rain began to make the car swerve. Visibility dropped to absolute zero, and we could feel that the car was being pushed around, this way and that, because of the tornado's winds.

I had no idea where we were, or if the car was still on the road. All I could see was a blanket of gray, amidst periodic cracks of lightning. Suddenly, the violent weather stopped, and the gray was beginning to clear. It felt serene for a second - still and weightless. As my vision cleared even more, I realized that not only were we not on the road, but we were falling from the sky! The tornado had picked us up, when everything went dark, and now it had hurled us away from the darkest part of the sky, and we were falling toward the ground at terminal velocity. As soon as I noticed this, both my body and my mom's floated out of the top of the car (which seemed it might have been a convertable), and were free-falling alongside it. I was prepared to die. What choice did I have? Not sure if she could hear me, I screamed out to my mom that I loved her, and got ready to turn myself head-downward and eliminate any chance of surviving with my body broken.

Then, I wondered if this was really happening.

The ground was approaching fast but, before it, was the top of a tall, cylindrical structure - like a silo or something. I was headed right for it. In a last-ditch bit of faith, with all of my might, I willed myself to stop in the air, thrusting my feet downward at the silo just before impact. It was only for an instant, but I felt myself slow down - just slightly. Upon that sudden realization that I was dreaming, I stuck the landing on the top of the silo in a crouch. (I had been watching Superman Returns earlier, and it was just like when he landed on the silo in the field - quick and precise).

As soon as I landed, I woke up.