September, 2007 - Stretchy Fingers

I had just had a false awakening and I was sitting on my bed. I did the finger count reality check and became lucid. I grabbed my finger and pulled on it, remembering that people said it was fun to stretch fingers in dreams. It didn't work at first. I noticed that my little finger was extremely short. I had some limited success stretching my fingers. I floated down to the floor and stood in front of the mirror in my room. I experimented with changing the color of my clothes. I managed to change my shirt to a light blue and I made the sleeves longer.

The scene changed with my intention, and I was standing outside my house in the driveway. I looked up and to my left and the sky was incredibly beautiful. It turned from night to day as I watched. It was now early in the morning, and the whole neighborhood was quiet. I started to head down the sidewalk to my right, taking big leaps so that I would go through the air in slow motion for a bit before landing again, almost as if gravity had been reduced. I turned to my left at the corner of the block and crossed the street. By now I was leaping up pretty high. People were just starting to come out of their homes, and there were a couple of kids nearby. I showed off my ability to fly, and they were impressed once they realized that I was defying the laws of physics. I continued on for a short time before I lapsed into a normal dream.

Note: This is a good example of how the majority of my lucid dreams have turned out thus far; I will realize I'm dreaming, but forget whatever fantastic goal I may have set for myself while awake. Instead, I'll get caught up in the intricate details of whatever is around me. Sometimes this leads to lapsing back into a normal dream, losing consciousness of my ability to affect my surroundings. Other times, as in this dream, I end up toying with my abilities and being very easily entertained by the slightest alterations I can make. But there is one goal I rarely have difficulty remembering; I never seem to get tired of flying. And really, it's hard to complain after spending the night soaring amongst the stars.

July 17th, 2007 - Realm of the Immortal Statues

I was in the kitchen. I was holding a random cylindrical object, and it was whispering. I set it inside a cupboard. There was a whole row of cupboards, each one different, and they had an ancient feel to them. There was an antique copper key for every cupboard. Each key had a flat handle with a curved edge and holes cut into it to form intricate designs.

There were voices emanating from the cupboards. I wasn't particularly surprised, just mildly apprehensive. I felt the need to lock them away. I was supposed to go through a set of procedures. I had to turn the key, pull it down, turn it another way, pull it to the side and turn it once more in the opposite direction. It was confusing at first, and the voices accused me of doing it wrong. I was going from the right to left along the row of cupboards. I got the hang of it after I'd locked a few. Although it wasn't just about locking the cupboards. It was a ritual.

By the time I finished I was no longer in the kitchen. The cupboards were all that remained the same in my surroundings. I was in a wide, dusty and clay-like corridor. The place was dimmer than the kitchen had been, lit by candles or torches, perhaps, rather than electrical lights. There were several people around, but the most prominent was a stern woman in her thirties. She spoke to me. I was seeing things from the perspective of an young woman who was new to this place, and rather inexperienced. Apparently I had several tasks assigned to me. I got the impression that the next one would not be fun. I opened the door at the end of the corridor and entered the room, the stern woman following.

There were four sisters of varying ages who were evidently involved in a ritual. I positioned one of the girls in a niche in the corner. Apparently this wasn't right, and the stern woman started giving instructions. My perspective became that of an observer, still connected to my character in a sense, but watching rather than creating actions.

My character - the young woman - moved the remaining three girls to a different spot in the room and stood with them. The stern woman said something about getting a ladder, then started yelling urgently. My character and the three girls beside her turned into white statues, and I switched back into the perspective of the young woman. I felt like I was being pulled and stretched away from my body. There was an highly irritating, oppressive feeling. I saw and heard a long number, which was over a billion. This shocked me, because I knew that it represented the number of people that had gone through this very same thing.

Eventually I found myself in a strange open space with stone floors. It had that "other dimension" feel to it. There were places sectioned off by gates and fences. I saw several pure white people filing into these sections, and they motioned for me to hurry and do the same before the sun went down. When they stood still, they looked like nothing but lifeless statues again.

One statue person came along, apparently to close the gates. The others were warning me not to step on the blue stones that were just past the gates. I got the impression that this dimension was some sort of immortality, only the price was that we had to become statues every night. I suddenly remembered a legend. It told of four girls who were supposed to be sacrificed to such an existence in exchange for an extremely valuable item. A young woman sacrificed herself in place of one of the girls. Then, at the last minute, she tried to run back to the world of the living and died instead of becoming a statue because she went beyond the blue stones. The gates were closing, and I was torn. I felt the urge to run past the gates, despite the cries from the other statues. However, since I knew the story, I forced myself to remain where I was.

***

I was on a bridge, arguing with one of the other statues. We were allowed to wander and explore relatively freely during the day. But not as freely as I wanted to, hence the argument. That's about the time I woke up.

Between April and June, 2007 - False Awakening

I woke up and came downstairs into the family room. I sat down by the computer and decided on a whim to do a reality check to see if I was dreaming. I counted my fingers and I only had four! For some reason this really freaked me out, and I fell out of the chair. As I was sprawled on the floor, staring at my hand, I could hear dramatic music in the background (like in corny movies where the violins play the high glissandos during "scary" moments). I turned to the right and saw my dad standing there with his head behind the curtain for some reason. This made me freak out more and I woke up again. I came downstairs and told my parents about the weird dream and my mom said that I take too long to tell stories. My dad thought it was funny. A few minutes later I woke up for real.

Note: A dream within a dream within a dream. This is a classic example of what the lucid dreaming community refers to as a "false awakening". Basically, it happens when you think you have woken up when you are really still dreaming. This can be particularly frustrating if you were in the middle of a lucid dream, then you assume the dream is over when it isn't. Standard practice to avoid such a scenario is to do a reality check every time you wake up. That way, if you have a false awakening, you can simply continue on with the dream, lucidity intact.

Introduction to Reality Checks

One of the easiest and most common methods of obtaining lucid dreams is reality checks. A reality check is anything you can use to test whether you are dreaming or awake. Popular reality checks include holding your nose closed and seeing if you can still breath, trying to poke a finger through the palm of your hand, counting your fingers and seeing if you get a number other than five, or checking the time more than once and seeing if the numbers change in an illogical way. If things happen the way you would expect (you can't breath with your nose and mouth closed, you can't poke your finger through your hand, you have five fingers on each hand and time progresses linearly), then you're awake. If, however, odd things happen, then chances are you're dreaming.

The idea is to get into the habit of performing a reality check regularly and whenever something seems odd. (My personal favorite is the finger counting reality check; it's easy to do at any point in time, and it doesn't make you look too crazy... at least compared with some of the other ones.) While initially you'll probably just be confirming you're awake, sooner or later your reality test will come up negative.

So if, for example, you find you have six fingers on your right hand, you should realize this means you're in the middle of a dream. If this happens, then by definition you've had a lucid dream! Congratulations! Of course, there are still challenges to overcome from this point, like keeping from getting too excited and waking up, not losing focus and forgetting it's a dream, trying to remember what you wanted to do with the dream in the first place, the skill of dream control itself, etc. But still, it's pretty cool to know you are dreaming at the time, in and of itself, whether it lasts for a moment or the entire dream.


Why does the reality check method work? Well, while we're in the midst of a dream, the logical part of our brain isn't functioning as well as it does when we're awake. A purple unicorn could walk by in a dream, and we may think nothing of it. Or we might think, "huh, that's a bit odd..." then be on our merry way. I can't count the number of times I've thought back on dreams and wondered, "How in the heck did I not realize that was a dream?!" If you're in the habit of questioning what you experience, however, one of those oddities may cause you to wonder and pause just long enough to do a reality check. Then, when the test fails, you know it's a dream. Not because you're thinking clearly and logically, necessarily, just because you've burned it into your brain that having any number of fingers other than five means you're dreaming (or whatever test you've chosen).

Granted, reality checks can be a bit random with their success rates, even with a solid habit. Nevertheless, if you feel like dabbling with the concept of a lucid dream it's an interesting thing to try out. I've had friends I told about the method come back to me with stories of their first lucid dreams, often months later, even though they weren't very serious about trying to get a lucid. They just happened to do a reality check at some point, on a whim almost, and find they were dreaming.

In my mom's case she didn't even have to do a check. She was swimming through the air one day when she suddenly realized it must be a dream. She says it was because dreams had been on her mind a lot when she usually didn't give them much thought, which she attributed to me rambling on about lucid dreaming all the time. One of my friends got a lucid dream the very night after I told her about the finger counting test. In her case I wasn't too surprised. She was known for talking in her sleep and having very good dream recall. Although I have to admit I was a bit jealous; it had taken me weeks of effort to get my first lucid dream.

April, 2007 - Floating in the Living Room

I was upstairs in my room along with my friend AP who was visiting. As we were coming out of the room, I looked at my hand to do a reality check. I had seven fingers. "I'm dreaming." I said, mostly to myself. I asked AP, "How many fingers do you have on your hand?"

"Uh, five." she said as if this were obvious.

"No, count them!"

AP looked at her hand, her expression going from mildly confused to completely perplexed.

I didn't wait to see her reaction beyond that. I glided down over the stairs, repeating to myself that I was dreaming. I floated around the living room going almost as high as the ceiling. My mom's piano student, K, had just come in for a lesson, and I told her and my mom that I was dreaming. They acted as if nothing was happening out of the ordinary. K began complaining about back pain. I started excitedly telling her that she could instantly make the pain go away, and that she could materialize anything she wanted. Just turn around and there would the the item. I babbled on a bit more, then floated away and lapsed back into normal dreaming. I wandered around the house, just walking now. AP came downstairs, and we went into the family room to talk.

Note: Clear thoughts and good focus in dreams, even lucid ones, generally requires a significant amount of skill and practice. Hence why whenever I realize I'm dreaming, I still have to keep reminding myself of the fact periodically. Otherwise, as happened in this example, I'll lapse back into regular dreaming; that is, I'll forget that it's not "real".

January 27th, 2007 - My Friend the Pyromaniac

My friend TF was demonstrating her abilities with fire. She got a ball of fire to swirl so fast that it turned into a controlled tornado. It looked like it was about four feet tall and six feet wide. This demonstration was held in my living room, and my dad watched it with mild interest for a while.

***

We were at a really long dinner table with a bunch of other people present. TF was showing off her pyrokenises on candles by causing the flames to twist. I was impressed with that, as was everyone else that was paying attention, but then I remembered then that she could do a whole lot more than slowly twisting a little flame.

***

We had to catch a train to get away fast, so we went into a section that was like an underground station. We made it onto a strange train. I didn't like the feel of it. The only obvious way out was the way we came in, and I was distinctly aware of the possibility of being trapped. There were lots of orange plastic chairs, about two thirds of which were occupied. TF began talking to a dark haired woman who was near the entrance and looked knowledgeable. TF asked her some questions, and I mostly listened. The woman was describing some vague procedures, which only served to make me more paranoid.

There were chairs lining the walls facing outwards, and another row of chairs down the center facing forwards. The dark haired woman told us to take our seats, and we sat in the center row, TF directly behind me. The last few people sat down, then a man walked in who radiated negative energy. He seemed almost exactly like the evil sorcerer from "The Invaders" dream. He hovered his hands on either side of one of the passenger's head, then moved on to the next one. He continued like this all the way down the row to my left. No one seemed to be bothered by this, but the train was completely silent.

I suddenly realized what was happening; all the passenger's minds were being scanned, one by one. My fears were confirmed. If we were discovered, we would be trapped. Therefore, the only possibility was to somehow keep my mind blank and remain calm. This proved to be exceedingly difficult, because the closer the sorcerer got, the stronger I could feel his negative energy.

By the time the sorcerer reached the back of the center row, I had been fighting an overwhelming feeling of disgust and negativity for too long. The energy started to become physically painful, and my concentration wavered. TF passed the scanning without incident and I regained a blank mind. But it was too late. We were discovered. The sorcerer shouted for the guards. We reacted swiftly, dodging the guards before they entered the room. We ran, chased by the guards who were conveniently identifiable by their black uniforms.

TF and I found ourselves in the midst of a street fair. We navigated frantically through the crowd of locals, who merely continued about their business. The sea was directly to our left until we got to a wider section of side walk, then the bay curved away from us. TF muttered that she wished she was a mermaid in the water so she could go faster. I thought idly that fast though a mermaid would be in the water, it would be completely helpless on land.

The pathway sloped downwards for quite a ways, then flattened out again further on. There were no more people at this point, except for a little girl who looked to be about seven. She was running as well. TF had reached the bottom of the sloped section and I was just behind her. I looked back to see that the girl had fallen down. The guards were approaching. I tried to help the girl, but I couldn't reach her. TF doubled back towards us, using psychokinesis to move the girl within my reach. I caught a hold of her arm. Then TF and I carried the girl, since she couldn't run fast enough to keep up with us.

At some point I said "We're out of our element here!" This reminded me of the analogy about the mermaid out of water. Then I thought, wait a minute, my element is supposed to be wind...

"Let me guess, you can fly." TF said dryly. I was doubtful at the time that I could fly, but I figured I could at least speed up our running, maybe make us lighter. It seemed to be working. After a while I realized that we truly were flying, high above the clouds. I think I overdid the height, though, because we wound up floating around in space. Then we got separated and I drifted very quickly away from Earth. Whoops. I was concerned about how far away it was getting. I tried changing directions and fell into a lopsided orbit. Eventually I saw the moon, and I aimed for it. I worried momentarily that the impact would hurt, but that didn't turn out to be a problem.

When I reached the moon, I got an aerial view of it, like a map laid out below me. I discovered that the government had installed a smart-house system on the moon which could materialize anything. Using this system I started putting in rivers and roads. The moon made some changes of it's own; where there had been an ocean, it sectioned the water off and made it more shallow, saying it wasn't safe otherwise, something about sting rays. It told me that if I hurt myself, I would lose my powers. I put the finishing touches on the rivers by making sure they lined up. Next, I wanted to create a giant structure from sand, to be made more stable later. I tried to figure out how I would go about building it, and the moon piped in, "Hello, I can materialize anything in the universe!"

I got the impression that the moon was offering to build the structure itself, but I wanted something to do, so I asked for a bucket. A bucket appeared by my feet, and I filled it with water from the river. Then I mixed sand in with it. I had a lot of fun playing around with different consistencies. I got a handful of wet sand, then shaped it into a sort of brick shape and lodged it in the ground.

It was starting to look really cool because there were little seashells in the walls. I shaped the walls into a curve, at first thinking of creating a circle, then I changed my mind and began curving it the other way. I ran my finger down the spot where the two curves connected to give it more design, amazed at how easy it was, and began thinking about how I could make a house out of it and wondering where to put the fireplace.

In the meantime, I noticed that I wouldn't have enough room, so I moved the whole thing closer to the river. I still didn't have enough room, so I moved the river. I took a break from building to re-align the rivers. I noticed that the one that I had just moved was very clean and crystal clear, but there were other bodies of water that flowed into it that weren't completely clean. I started blending the colors of the rivers to make it look more realistic. That was probably around the time when I woke up.

Beginning of September, 2007 - Free Will

My dad was on a quest to find the "most hugged" object or place. One would expect it to be a tree or something. But my dad announced that it was a Duncan Donuts. Then I watched a video clip about this, which was clearly a form of publicity. There was a guy talking about how this particular shop had been remodeled and designed. I entered the Duncan Donuts building and looked around. It had the occasional colored floor or ceiling tile that made the whole room look like Wonder bread. I mentally scoffed at how they called that design. The host person tried to convince me to eat some "wonderfully greasy" french fries. I looked at the french fries sitting there in their basket of oil and decided against it.

I sat down at one of the tables and began working at a computer. The computer was instructing me on how to do something. It was for my dad and his coworker. I entered in the information the computer asked for. The program automatically sorted people by their phone numbers. I thought this was strange. Especially since it only showed the first three or four digits, so how could this ordering system be useful to anyone? There was a stamp that I was supposed to use on a print-out so that my dad would get paid. I wondered what would happen if I stamped it twice, so I tried. The stamps cancelled each other out. I had to wipe them off and stamp it again.

***

My mom and I were in a somewhat dark building. I was supposed to clip a dog's nails (it had been human at first), but I was having a hard time. I gave up and began studying the dog's hands. I was looking at my own hands and even toes, trying to figure out what it was that was different. I moved into the next room over to take a closer look at the dog's hands while my mom stayed in the previous room. All of a sudden, I realized what it was. The thumbs were on the outside!!! This shocked me much more than the fact that the dog had hands in the first place. I kept telling my mom that the thumbs were on the outside, trying to get her to understand the importance of this discovery. There was something about the thumbs being on the outside that felt deeply wrong.

I looked back at my own hands, and on an impulse I did a reality check and counted them. I had the wrong number of fingers. I now knew I was dreaming. I informed my mom, then I started to go out the door. I didn't know where I was going, but I wanted to go somewhere else. To fly off somewhere. I hesitated, wondering if my mom was coming, or if I should just go on my own. Then a voice said, "Why are you resisting?" I was confused for a moment, then interpreted this to mean that I should just let the dream go it's own course. But why would I let the dream continue normally when I was lucid? As I nervously wandered back into the room, it occured to me that maybe this could be interesting. In a normal dream, the subconscious is mostly in control, showing messages that I may not be aware of at the time. In a lucid dream, the conscious is mostly in control, and I basically do whatever I feel like. So what if I were to be aware that it was a dream, and listened to the messages instead of ignoring them? A direct connection to my sub-c. This was the first time that I interpreted the voice as being my subconscious.

Even after these thoughts, I was still uneasy. It was a combination of confused guilt, that maybe I'd been frivolous with my previous lucid dreams, and fear that whatever lessons my sub-c wanted me to learn would be hard to bear. There was a shelf full of books. As my mom pulled one out, I thought suddenly, "I can learn in my sleep everything I want to learn while I'm awake!" I (or possibly my mom) began reading from the book. It was titled, "How to control people's will." It reminded me of corporations. And then the meaning of those words sank in like never before. I became very upset, to the point of crying even, saying that the concept shouldn't even exist. I heard my dad's voice, going into rant/lecture mode, "That dog would never survive in the wild." He said something about how the dog's nails would not function properly. "Constantly clinking on glass, arowroro, scratch scratch scratch, aarowowrororo..." I woke up.

Note: The last statement, about clinking on glass didn't make sense right away. I think what it means is that the dog's hands were genetically modified so that it could do something trivial and unimportant. Clinking on a wine glass, like a posh person at a party. But because of the modification to make this relatively unimportant thing possible, the dog didn't have the claws needed to survive on it's own. There are other possible symbols in this dream. The connection between controlling someone's will and the corporations. The metaphor of a person being represented as a dog, who follows orders. Changed so they can do things that are nothing but the whim of another, and which limits their own ability to accomplish what's important to them. Domestication taken to an extreme.