Middle of January, 2008 - Mirror

I noticed that something seemed strange about my reflection. It was like there was a slight delayed reaction. The reflection would move an instant after I did. I moved both my hands upward at the same speed and to the same height, but one of the reflection's hands was noticeably lower. I put one hand down and waved with the one which seemed to be "lagging". The reflection waved back... and continued waving after I stopped. I took a quick step back. The reflection made some other hand motions and seemed amused at my shock.
 

I felt hands pulling me upward and I started to drift. The reflection was speaking, but I could hear nothing. Then everything faded and I couldn't see anything but black. I thought that perhaps my eyes were closed, but I didn't feel like making the effort to open them. I didn't quite realize I was dreaming; I figured at the time that I had died and was being taken to whatever plane of existence came next, and that that was why things weren't following the laws of physics. The entire time I was moving upwards, and it seemed to go on and on. Finally, I woke up with a heavy tingling feeling. I was surprised to find that I was not, in fact, dead, but I had simply woken up from a dream.

2006 - Snake

I was trying to lead a band of people to safety because the world was ending. The aftershock of a powerful earthquake was rippling through the land beneath our feet, dislodging rocks from the mountain we were standing at the base of. I found the tunnels that we had come through to reach this place originally. To my annoyance, there was a giant snake with a British accent in the main tunnel, and it was blocking the way! Thankfully, after much searching, we discovered an alternate route and got everyone to safety in time.

Note: While my earlier childhood nightmares centered around creatures chasing me, in my teenage years they shifted towards the theme of the world ending. While still terrifying at times, I often found myself taking on the role of heroine in these dreams.

Between 2001 and 2003 - Mutant

It was night, and I was in our backyard where my parents were hosting a party. I was doing my best to talk and socialize, but I was distracted. Something felt wrong. I had seen something at the edge of the gathering which didn't look right, and I needed to investigate.

***

I was getting chased by a creature. It looked like a severely mutated human. I sprinted for the door and found safety inside. Then I ran upstairs and into my room. I looked out my window and saw the creature running on all fours on the roof. I ducked out of sight and moved to the upstairs hallway. I knew the thing was trying to find a way in, and I wanted to make sure everything was locked. I looked across the stairway to the window which looked out over another section of roof. The creature scrambled around to that side of the house a few seconds later. It saw me. At that point I began to really panic, running from room to room, trying to think of the best place to hide out. And from the sounds of things, the creature may have found a way in...

***

Things were quieter, and I was backstage in a small theater. There were lots of people nearby. The creature showed up, only I was no longer afraid of it. I had found out he was my brother. I led him away from the crowd of people so he wouldn't get confused or upset and go wild again.

Between 2003 and 2006 - Round Up the Ducks!

My mom and I were in the kitchen. She told me that I needed to go outside and round up all the ducks because they were swimming in the pool (though we have no pool in waking life). So I reluctantly went outside and wondered how to remove the mother duck and her ducklings. My dad was trying to get the young ones out with a big net on a long pole.

There were additional adult ducks waddling around, but I couldn't just grab them because they were poisonous ducks. If they scratched me with their claws or bit me, I would be poisoned. So my dad was showing me the proper way to grab them. It was working until I tried to catch one of the bigger ones (they were all unnaturally large), which put up quite a struggle. I managed to wrestle it into a secure hold, and I was taking the duck through the house and into the other yard where it belonged when I looked down at my leg. It had a long, bleeding, infected looking scratch on it. I showed my mom, who was a bit upset.

Between 2004 and 2006 - Chase the Sun

I was in my house, which looked completely different from my waking life home. My character's parents were in the kitchen. I was a teenage boy and I was arguing with my sister who was a few years younger than me (again, different from waking life - I don't have a sister and I am female). The argument was triggered when my sister discovered I was packing and planning to leave. I had a helmet and food and just about every other necessity and oddity stuffed into a backpack. I left a few minutes later. If my sister left as well, she went a different direction.

***

I was in a forest, but now I had the same appearance as my waking life self. My friends SP, SL, and AP were there with me. We were pawing through the items we had brought with us. We took inventory of all our combined supplies and rationed out the food.

***

The four of us were standing at the top of a hill that overlooked the ocean. I was playing a red, hand held video game. I was moving a seagull character around on the screen, and I won the game. A voice announced that as a reward, we would be allowed to chase the sun as it set over the ocean. I was using the controls at first, but soon I became the seagull and I was flying over the water. It took me a while to get used to how to maneuver, but then I was twisting and turning just for the fun of it. I even swooped down just above the surface of the ocean, tipped my wing, and trailed it in the water. Then I went too fast and went spinning out of control. I steadied myself with some effort and tried to glide smoothly again.

As I approached the sun, I landed on a small strip of land, human once more. I discovered then that the sun was made out of cardboard. I knocked it over. Without a further thought, I turned to my right and walked along the strip of land.

I found a cave with a shallow, natural pool of water. The cave was dimly lit by candlelight, which created flickering patterns of light on the water. The pool was bordered by dark rock with boulders of the same composition resting at the bottom, and there were a few kids splashing about. I walked around the edge and investigated the water, then wandered back outside. My friends had caught up and said I had gone too fast. I was excited, and told them I wanted to show them something. We explored the cave and found an even larger pool a little further along. We decided to go swimming there.

Note: It doesn't seem to happen as frequently these days as it used to, but sometimes I have dreams where instead of being myself as I am in waking life, I see things from the perspective of a different person, almost as if I am playing the part of a character. These characters may be similar to who I am, or they may be of a different age, gender or personality. On much rarer occasions, I may temporarily take on the form of an animal, as in the case of this dream.

Also note that I only use the initials of people I know from waking life who make appearances in my dreams, but I'll use the full names of any dream characters who don't exist in waking life.

Between 2002 and 2004 - The Ten Sneezes

I was in a doctor's office with my mom. The doctor informed us that I had a rare disease called the "Ten Sneezes". He said that after I sneezed ten times I would die, and on the last sneeze I would infect everyone around me. I got the impression that some of the sneezes would be involuntary. The doctor handed my mom ten tissues to count the sneezes. She started crying.

***

I was on a boat with my mom. She was taking me to Antarctica so I could be quarantined, with any luck before reaching the final sneeze. I was already three sneezes into it. I told my mom I was going to go take a nap and went below deck where there was a small cot. I had an odd dream involving my missing cat Kepler. I woke up somewhat delirious and thinking about death and how I would soon be with all my cats that had passed away. I tried to communicate this to my mom after I came above deck again, but she just looked at me as if the disease had addled my brain.
 

Just then there was a loud commotion and Kermit the Frog - who happened to be the ship's captain - came running by, chased relentlessly by an angry mob. Apparently he had contracted the ten sneezes disease as well and was nearing the end of it. Unfortunately, so was I by this time. Two of the men from the mob started chasing me. I ran into an elevator, successfully evading one, but the other managed to follow me. The elevator began malfunctioning, going up and down rapidly.

The man in the elevator was armed with two lethal rubber bands wrapped around his hands. He shot one off his finger, which missed me narrowly and continued to bounce around off the walls. I was jumping to try and avoid getting hit. My timing was bad. I jumped up while the elevator was going down and I nearly hit the ceiling. Then I fell, watching the floor race up towards my face. I hit the floor while simultaneously getting hit by the second rubber band, sneezing the final sneeze, and waking up. I had essentially died in three ways at once.

Between 1995 and 1997 - The Image of a Lion

I was in the family room. Everything was very quiet, and yet I had a nagging feeling of unease. I opened the curtains and looked out the window to the back yard. I saw the two dimensional image of a lion running, which caused me to freeze in place with fear. It had a brass colored pin in the center and the two halves were moving back and forth, pivoting about the pin. The lion ran in place for a few seconds, then suddenly shot across the yard towards me, no longer just an image. I fell away from the window and shoved the curtains closed. I felt the lion was a bad omen, and I knew I had to leave immediately.

After a moment of hesitation, I fled the room. But the hallway I entered was a dark forest stretching so far I could barely see the end. There were creatures there; apes like trees, with faces of chiseled brown stone. They stood upright against the walls with their roots obscuring the floor. I was in their midst before I realized they were there. Branches reached for me and I began to run, knowing everything would be fine if I could just find my mom. The creatures snatched at me and I stumbled and dodged with limited sense of direction. The path only seemed to get longer and I continued for what seemed like forever, not thinking that I would make it. I was finally approaching the end when the last one got me.

Strangely enough, it didn't do anything to hurt me. Once I had calmed down, I started negotiating and somehow managed to make friends with it. We slowly walked the few remaining feet out of the hall and peaked around the corner to see my mom doing dishes.

Note: I don't have the exact date this dream occurred, but I estimate it was from when I was between five and seven years old. Something which was very characteristic of my childhood nightmares, which can be seen here, is that I would often wind up making friends with the creatures and monsters which initially chased and terrorized me.

Introduction

A few years ago, I was really passionate about dreams, particularly lucid dreams. I'd like to get back into the habit of recording my dreams, so I thought I'd start a blog to share some of the more interesting ones. I'd like to post my collection of old favorites, as well as my reflections on dreaming and new dream fragments as they occur.

For those who don't know, a lucid dream is when you realize you are dreaming during the dream. Once this happens, you can do anything with the dream you want. Literally. Fly, breath underwater, manifest objects or entire sweeping scenes of surprising detail, go on adventures... the list goes on. For some people, this happens naturally from time to time. For the majority, like myself, learning how to become lucid during a dream is a skill which has to be learned. For more information, I highly recommend dreamviews.com where I learned most of what I know about lucid dreams.

To help distinguish between regular, non lucid dreams (where I am unaware it is a dream at the time) and lucid ones, I will put the lucid segments in blue text. Hope you enjoy the read!