The Astral Pulse

Hi All!

I just realized, after reading the journals of others (especially the newly returned and modded Selski- three cheers!) that I have a pretty exhaustive record of my own dreams, which are often somewhat novel. I might as well start sharing some now!

I generally have very vivid dreams that tell coherent narratives, and which I make a point to retell to myself upon waking. This step is crucial, because it solidifies the memory of the experience. This is also a common technique to perform after projection experiences as well. I think the theory is that the sorts of memories formed when we are outside the waking state tend to get discarded by our brains, but the retelling of the account once awake can serve to then transform it into a waking memory.

Most of the projection experiences I have tend to be launched from lucid dreams as well... this seems to fit my lifestyle best; but this journal will be strictly for the experiences which are closer to classical dreams.

So here is one recent account to start:

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July 22nd, 2017:

I don't recall the beginning of the dream sequence, but I recall everything from about the 1/3 point onward. I find myself in what feels like an office building (with fairly generous amounts of walking space, and some large open areas on each floor). There are around 40 other people there, all gathered for an impromptu meeting. There is a lot of tension in the air. The people gathered here (including myself) don't feel like the natural inhabitants of this office building. It feels like we all came to be here in an attempt to hide from something. There is one speaker, and he has the air of a person with advanced knowledge of the situation, more than the rest of us had. He explains that if we take on the appearance of the building's normal inhabitants, and appear to be doing tasks appropriate for the setting, we will be safe. It is sort of implied that there are people watching from outside. The impression I get is that they are armed with long-range rifles and have some means of seeing into the building. They aren't only watching this building, but they are particularly vigilant, and will eventually notice when something doesn't look right.

We waste no time in taking positions, and getting into the rhythm of feigning being active at mundane office tasks. The easiest way to do this is to sit at a computer console and tinker with things on the screen. I casually glance around at many others with the same thought, sort of reflecting on how their docile demeanor while tooling around aimlessly at the computers is so comically different from the mental states they must be experiencing. After a bit of this, I sort of grow bored of it, and decide to walk off to see what other simulated office tasks I can take part in. I walk down an open stairwell to the level below, and I pass a person midway down who is curled up into a ball asleep in a small niche in a wall. I immediately think about how this person is failing at the game pretty hard. I don't stop and stare at them (since that would be out of the ordinary, and it would draw attention to the anomaly), but I start asking myself questions. Can they see that person like that from outside? Are they ruining it for everyone? If they are in fact perfectly hidden, did they just manage to opt out of it all, but in a way that will impact no one? Does this mean I could also sleep in that same stairwell later, because it must be perfectly concealed?

The floor below is much like the one above, but with less computers. This floor is fairly dimly lit. There are a few people standing at consoles, doing the same routine as before... a few others having a quiet conversation in a far off corner. I stand at a workspace, and begin slicing stacks of paper with a hand cropping tool. I start thinking about how long the game will work. Will the watchers kill only those who step out of line? Will they attack everyone after they notice something is wrong up here? After about another 15 minutes down here, I walk back up to the floor above again, and pass the person in the stairwell again. I walk around the floor, taking survey of everyone up there... they are at the consoles again, mainly. Everyone with vacant looks... somehow trying to pretend the images they see on the screens interest them in some way. Things went on like this for a bit longer, more-or-less without major incident, just a stream of sameness. I think the dream felt like it lasted for 40 minutes in this narrative, and stayed pretty stable with it.

It all sounds very grim, but that isn't really how I experienced it. I sort of experienced it all in a very detached way, indifferent to a sense of danger. I knew that I ought to act a certain way... but it wasn't really out of fear, so much as just... "Ok, this is how things are here. I will behave accordingly here." The experience I had more than anything was a state of questioning... trying to piece together what the rules of this world were, and how to pursue my own interests by disguising them with convincing enough-cover acts.

Hurrah - you've started a dream journal!  :-D

That's a fascinating dream - your attention to detail and dream awareness is of very high quality.

Do you interpret your dreams, or just 'let them be'? I'm curious to what you think this one might mean (if you do indeed try to make sense of them).

And if you don't mind repeating yourself (as I'm sure you've posted this elsewhere/before), what is your technique for the process of transforming an LD to a projection? Do you actively DO something or is it simply a mindset? Curious.  8-)

QuoteThat's a fascinating dream - your attention to detail and dream awareness is of very high quality.

Yeah this one was particularly noteworthy.

Normally the ones I can recall well happen right before I wake up. This is partially because your last of 3-4 sleep cycles at the end of sleep is much longer, and your mind is much more rested; the dreams you may have here can stretch out pretty long, especially if you oversleep by a bit. If I just awake from a long dream late in the sleep cycle, this is generally where I can extract these long and detailed accounts from.

QuoteDo you interpret your dreams, or just 'let them be'? I'm curious to what you think this one might mean (if you do indeed try to make sense of them).

I am sort of half and half. I think some dreams may potentially tell us some things about our own psychology, and others may be more chance constructions. With this one in particular, I didn't really get the sense that there was a lot of psychological content (beyond what they normally have), so didn't really reach hard in trying to analyze it.

Probably the most noteworthy thing about dreams for me (and why I make effort to recall and record the more involved ones) is that you can sort of step into a new set of circumstances and have new emotional experiences that you don't have the context to experience in your normal life.

For instance, I will never have a twin in this life. But I could in a dream, and then I immediately have a context for having access to the sort of mental experiences you might have only in that situation.

Making a record of these dreams is sort of like making a record of all of these super novel experiences that it is useful to be able to recall in the future.

QuoteAnd if you don't mind repeating yourself (as I'm sure you've posted this elsewhere/before), what is your technique for the process of transforming an LD to a projection? Do you actively DO something or is it simply a mindset? Curious.

I don't mind at all, especially considering where we are, hehe.

So when I was younger, I very much turned my nose when people spoke about "affirmations". I sort of lumped it in as an extract of "New Age" culture and thinking which was sort of made up and not worth the time, and which everyone was repeating like parrots. I think there is a strong basis of value though behind the idea. If we remind ourselves often that we are focused on a specific goal, our entire consciousness seems to shift more into being in line with valuing it and realizing it. It isn't the saying of it, so much as the intending it. So that is sort of step one... being in a mindset where we are sincerely focused on achieving our goal, and will direct our energy toward that goal. I will often remind myself of this strongly as I am falling off to sleep... I believe this helps to align the subconscious mind with our intention; we are the same consciousness in a dream state as we are when we are waking, afterall. So we find ourself in a dreamstate now, and we have this burning idea in the back of our head about remembering our goal. If we are lucid enough (as in one of those long  sleeping-in sort of dreams I mentioned earlier) the idea will pop into our head again, as it does during the day. But now we suddenly have the idea in the dream state, and the crucial detail for recognizing it is in fact a dream state enters our mind. This is sort of where it goes one of two ways for me. I sometimes come to be in a roused state as a result of this realization, and the excitement of being in a situation that can lead to a projection experience can be enough to sort of wake me up, and I will find myself just talking to myself in my head with my eyes closed (which isn't that bad in itself, because then you can go through a projection routine in that state), or I might slip into a full-fledged projection if I maintain a detached-enough state of mental calm (I don't really differentiate between lucid dreams and projections, as I believe they are the same experience reached by different entry points).

So the basis of the technique... is that it is sort of a non-technique. It consists of an overriding intention which visits our conscious mind often enough that it might enter our sleeping mind as well, and then maintaining a state of detachment necessary to slip smoothly into the projection environment. Pretty simple and unsophisticated!

Thank you for the thorough explanation - great stuff!  :-)

July 27, 2017:

A particularly rich one tonight, with tons of features:

I am viewing, from a disembodied perspective, a version of the map of the United States (my home country). It sort of has some of the features of the actual one. I lived on the east coast for a good portion of my life, so the part that I am focused on is largely made up of east coast states, although they are curiously on the west coast of the map, in more or less the same order going up the coast. Notably though, there is a giant mountain in the top left labeled "Connecticut", lol. This feels natural and right.

A bit of time passes, and I am walking down the side of a road in a coastal area. The place sort of reminds me of junctures where several highways converge, sort of like the famous one in LA:

(https://www.upcounsel.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Los-Angeles-Lawyers.jpg)

The major difference is that the junction is right beside the beach, and it is almost entirely absent of cars. I am about to walk off the road to the beach, when a policeman walks up to me; he says, "I think I'd shoot you dead, and drop you off the edge of this bridge... people like you...". I sort of look at him blankly, and say "...huh." I look off to the beach instead, and walk over there.

I am walking on the beach for quite some time, when I see a mountain peaking out at the horizon. I reflect a bit, and say to myself, thinking of the map again... yeah, that must be Connecticut. I walk a bit more, and the mountain gets just a tiny bit closer. I run into an old friend at the beach... she is just hanging out enjoying some time off. We are very glad to see one another. I point to the mountain, and tell her that I think it is Connecticut. She says, "Really?" I tell her I think it is probably about 200 miles out, because mountains tend to look a lot closer than they actually are. I explain that I intend to get there though. I reason it will take about 6-7 days of walking if I keep a good pace (which I am actually capable of, in good conditions in real life... I have managed over 45 miles in single days before). We chat a bit more, and enjoy one another's company, and then I set out to reach Connecticut mountain.

I walk off the beach a bit, now walking beside my father. We are walking through a city environment off the coast a bit. We walk a few blocks, and then I notice that I am barefoot. I must have left my shoes back at the beach with my friend. I reason that I will never make it barefoot, so I tell my father I have to go back for my shoes. He says something about not burdening women, or something like that which I consider quaint, and I don't place much stock in.

I show up again at the beach, and there my shoes are again, waiting with my friend. I set off again, and go walking by a different route, this time through some overgrown dirt path. I run into my brother out there, and tell him about Connecticut mountain, and that I think it is around 200 miles off. He denies this, and says it is only 5 miles away. I tell him this can't be true, that he just can't be right about that. We don't agree about it, and I just continue on.

A bit of time passes, and I walk into a sort of internet cafe place, with only a few computers. I stand at one in the back right, two from the wall. I have a short little vision where I see a person taking a certain disjointed-looking body position at my current console, in order to initiate a kind of trans-dimensional travel. After viewing this, I am standing at the computer console again, and take this same stance. I travel to another reality, and I am in the same cafe, but in another universe or something like that. My friend is there again. She is showing me some pictures of her travels on a computer. I view about 7-8 of them, and then I notice that I need to view a certain one of her pictures in order to travel back to my universe again. I do that, and travel back immediately. Then I take the same stance, and travel back to hers again. I think I am sort of getting a feel for how reliable this method of travel is.

She is back to showing me the pictures. She asks me if I would like to flip through them myself, and I agree to do that. I start flipping through them again, and get very disconcerted, because I am not seeing the same pictures show up again, and I know that I need to view the particular one to return to my universe. I start giving her a comparison about the situation... I tell her how I am comfortable wandering around outside my home, as long as I recognize the road names. I will feel comfortable seeing a few new ones, as long as I am near roads that I know. The further away from roads I can name I get, the less comfortable I am (I am basically telling her to flip through the images again, because I am not comfortable being too far away from images that I recognize, and thus unable to return home via the travel method). She understands, and goes back to the part of the image set I recognize, and I travel back home to my universe.

The rest of the dream takes place in some sort of cabin space, where I am inspecting items in my bag, thinking about whether I may have left something in the other universe, and what effects it may have on that universe.

July 29, 2017:

This one is a bit graphic, so feel perfectly free to pass on it. I include dreams like this for the sake of capturing the whole spectrum honestly.

Pretty short and to the point. A woman and I are walking through a building. Our intention there is to blast through a certain spot on the ground with a cartoonish bomb. We arive at the spot... it is about a meter square, and made of a different material than the rest of the floor... a sort of softer-looking gray stone. She is about to place the little bomb (picture it as the classic blue orb with a fuse, and that is more or less right), when we spot one of the dogs that belongs to my sister. He is a beautiful Dalmatian, laying serenely on the ground near by. The woman tells me that we might as well get two for the price of one, and blow up the dog as well, since it was time to get rid of him. Strangely this felt like the exact right thing to do in the dream (it goes without saying this is not a choice I could get behind in the waking state), so I nodded approval. She set the bomb, and it went off, and didn't even dent the spot in the floor, but it blew the dog clean in half... part of his spine and some intestines trailing behind him as he crawled across the floor in agony. We were both horrified at the result, and quickly set several more bombs. Each new bomb blew chunks off of him, but he wasn't killed until the 6th or 7th bomb went off beside him. The abject shock and horror of this sequence of events woke me from sleep immediately, and I was quite shaken for a couple minutes after waking.

July 30, 2017:

(http://i.imgur.com/ff7tIqM.jpg?1)

I am walking down the corridor of a large multiuse-type building, like you might see at a state fairground in the US. The building itself is very drab and utilitarian, and the floor is paved in concrete in all spaces. The hallway is bounded on one side by a colonade of large, regular columns opening into a larger space, and a series of doors and recesses on the other side of the wall. We are searching for a restroom, because we have been driving for quite a while. Someone finds one at the end of the hall, but it is single-person use, and looks not so pleasant. I go off on my own to look for another restroom, and find one at the other side of the hall; it is a large room filled with machines with pay slots, with no one using them. I decide this isn't for me either, and continue walking. I watch a person enter another door, and decide that this must be where the good restroom is. I follow him in, and after a small antechamber, we enter this industrial looking room, that is completely round. It is about 50 meters in diameter, and is open at the other side to a row of columns, like the hall was. In the middle is a smaller cicular section divided in two by a passge through the middle; since this is aligned with the door, it seems like the natural place to walk.

I get 3/4 of the way to the passage through the middle section of the room, when I see something pretty horrifying... it is a bull with its skin flayed partially off, charging in circles around the outer perimeter of the room, looking for people to charge. It feels like this room is purposefully built to avoid the charging bull, since you can position yourself behind one of the middle sections as he is moving around the room. Myself and the other people in the room do this now, and dash to the middle passage as the bull is rounding the other side of the room, but then find it aligned with the passage again, and then about to charge through the middle passge. We then scramble around to the other side of the middle section, and continue back and forth in this way to evade the bull. This is exhausting, and it continues on like this for quite some time.

I seem to pass out from the mounting fatigue of that situation, and wake in a new sequence, in a bed watching television with some friends, and then sort of fade out from there.

(http://i.imgur.com/jUuPYjV.jpg?1)

Thanks for sharing these Stillwater, graphic as they are I can relate as I have had some similar. I like your graphics, it really helps visualize what you are saying.

Yeah two in a row like that, lol... normally they are a lot milder... not sure where those came from.

#6 -I agree with Nameless in that I can recall something strangely similar. The graphics do indeed help; wish I could do that.

#4 -I don't recall having this experience but it reminds me on at least a few levels of the 'translation tables' that Kurt Leland uses to describe his particular experiences. In his, he frequently describes trips on trains, subways and buses...

The '10,000 foot view' of the highway system reminds me of what Kurt describes as an overview of the transit system to the various areas of the Astral/Mental Realms (or whatever anyone prefers to refer to them as).

Then you are on a beach which can be thought of as an intermediary/boundary layer/transitional area. You are not sure how you might 'transit' the distance, hence the issue with 'footwear' and how long the journey may take.

What does the ocean represent? The 'distance' or possibly the unfathomable distance of your subconscious?

Why do you feel a need to get to the mountain? What is the meaning of Connecticut? Is it that straight-forward a pun? Connect-icut? What will reaching that mountain connect you to?

Either way, this is a great experience that gives me insight into alternatives to my own understanding. Thanks for sharing these!

Yeah that is a little program called "Sketchup", that is pretty simple to use for fast 3D modeling. I use it and a few other CAD-type programs for work, so I had it handy to draw up some references. You could definitely learn to use it quickly, it is pretty intuitive, and by far the easiest of the bunch to use.

You know, thinking back to the highway idea, it really did feel like a crossroads type concept... like everything was all converging to one node.

I had extremely positive feelings about the beach. The sun was bright, but not scorching. There was a wonderful breeze... everyone there was enjoying their existence, and in good spirits. I never touched the water really, but it felt... like being on the edge of the infinite for sure... like an endless mother. It could well be seen in that metaphorical light... like we were all minds wandering on the very edge of individuality and total unity... existing as separate beings, but without any barrier to total connection.

I don't think the word "Connecticut" had any meaning really, beyond something I just recognized. We don't really pronounce it how it looks like it would be spoken in this country... we say "Kah-neh-tih-kut"; most of us forget it is even spelled the way it is, so it is really just a word in this case I think.

Reaching the mountain... that reminds me of an experience I had as a kid. I was walking down the beach with two friends very late at night... maybe midnight. Far in the distance, the green and red of the hotel lights was faint and muddy, sort of blooming in the wet air, and bleeding into the water... it was like a distant seductive dream of fantastic place that we could reach if only we walked far enough. And of course, though we walked for hours, the horizon gets no closer, and we turn back (for how else could that story end). I think even as an adult, when I see something like that, I see more than the place those lights really are... some mundane place like any other... I see some fleeting promise of something profound, that I could reach, if only I walked far enough.

(https://favim.com/orig/201108/01/beach-hills-lights-night-rio-de-janeiro-Favim.com-118545.jpg)

July 10, 2017:

(http://www.lcmarchitects.com/assets/1/workflow_staging/Photos/703x364/143.JPG)

I am leaving my dormitory at my old university, and I find my way quickly to a path. There is a positive energy all around that is infectious, and also a driving sense of purpose. Everyone has somewhere to be today, and it is the same place. We are all getting there by different means, but by the same path. The image above is a shot near that road I am traveling in the same university, and has more or less all of the same features. Just imagine a wider road, that is winding, and draped with trees, and you've got it.

There are hundreds of people now. People unknown to me, and people I know intimately. People pass on bike and by car as I continue to run. We will be there soon, and we will all meet and gather. A car rolls by, at a slower pace, and someone leans out the window, waving me on- it is a friend. I jump into the rolling car, and it continues on at the same pace, driving off the side of the road. We will be there soon, just another half mile. I feel the wind and light enter me like a life force. The energy is building, almost there, have to keep moving. We will all be there together in a moment. The car stops at the side of the road, dead in its path, and we walk out to the quad.

(http://tour.nd.edu/assets/129777/original/bond2_lg.jpg)

It is this exact place. The public court extends for another 70 yards behind the vantage in that shot, the building in view commands the space. It is very significant in my life.

The entire area here is filled with a throng of people, with the same anxious energy. Most of them here are very well-dressed, like they came to a public ceremony or a church service. We are walking toward the building now, as we enter the throng of people. Off to the left, suddenly a group of people scream hysterically, as though they had seen something abysmal. We walk over to see what the commotion is, and it is all directed at a cart, with a big placard on it, detailing a happening: a certain student was found dead in her apartment last night, causes unknown. This is not the reason why everyone is gathered here, but rather a shock to everyone. Et in Arcadia Ego, I guess. We walk up the steps into the building, and it isn't how we normally find it. The furniture is arranged differently, to accomodate the movements of a multitude of people today. It isn't long before we are walking through the lobby, and suddenly reality dissolves into solid light, and things fade out moments later.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Bond_Hall_interior_2.jpg/220px-Bond_Hall_interior_2.jpg)

How interesting - I'm not surprised my dream reminded you of yours, there are strange similarities in them both.

The main thing I love about reading your dreams is your attention to feeling. The way you describe the energy. There is little dialogue in your dreams - and I believe that's something I need to work on in mine. You seem to pick up on subtleties that I'm sure I miss by being so loud-mouthed and having a 'noisy' aura if you know what I mean.

I get a sense of calm when reading your dreams (apart from the dog/bull ones - they were striking by nature of the violence involved). Have you had any further thoughts on those particular ones? (Just curious).  :-)

The one with the bull is easier for me to understand. I take the well-being of animals very seriously- clearly much more than society at large does. I am very troubled by the magnitude of horrors human culture inflicts on animals, in a very non-subtle way.

I think the information point I left out that would be helpful for better understanding that one is that when I saw the scene, I immediately held the people working in the building responsible for harming the bull in that way. I felt like I walked into a peril that the wickedness of others authored.

The one with the dog was fairly different, but also similar. It was immediately clear we had failed him, and even then, he didn't lash out at us. He didn't hold us responsible, as I immediately did the people who harmed the bull.

August 3, 2017


I am on some sort of trip, looking for my hotel room. An old friend from when I was a kid is there. He is known primarily for being large-figured and very athletic. We haven't spoken for a while though, so it is sort of an awkward meeting. I never really find the hotel room, and I end up just walking back to the lobby.

I am walking through a mixture of an airport, a market and a shopping mall, to find my grandparents. It feels like they are supposed to pick me up after a trip. I run into them, and they are busy complaining with one another about something or other. I suggest that we stop and get mall pretzels (I would do this irl too, lol), but they tell me there is no time, because they have to meet someone back home. I can't think of who this would be, but we continue on walking through the airport / market / shopping mall combo.

(http://visitbudapest.travel/images/content/gallery/93/central-market-hall9__big.jpg)

that scene sort of fades out, and then I am with a group of girls I knew in high school again. The three of us have the reputation for being over-achievers, which was true irl as well. We are sitting at a table eating a meal, but mostly talking. I don't remember much of what was said, but it wasn't much more than banter probably. We walk to class, but there is a group of people blocking the door, doing some sort of street-dance display. They give off a very confrontational air, and we let them complete their street dance. They don't look as though they are going to let us pass, but when they see more people gathered there, they let us go by. It seems like the thing they valued was force, and more people represented more force.

We walk inside, and it is my high school biology teacher teaching a class.

I have to give some context here, because this guy was sort of a larger-than-life figure back at high school. He always looked angry, and had pointy spears for eyes. If they settled on someone, that person was assaulted by them. Very few people ever took a class with him, but everyone knew him merely by the power his stare projected. I actually liked him a lot of ways... I liked most of my teachers really. He had an incredible wit, and it was often employed at berating people in clever ways. I think his general attitude about the students is that no one told them the truth about anything, so he was going to be the guy. I remember one incident where the entire class failed a test, and he stood at the head of the classroom listing every question greater than 40% of the class missed. He then waxed theatrical, and started shouting about how nothing on the test was outside the text book. He pointed to a banner at the back of the room, and said that ought to take that one down, and replace it with one that said "The Starship Enterprise", because this room was going to strange and unknown places everyday, judging by the students' test scores. So this is the guy I met in the dream.

(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a8/cf/a0/a8cfa0a5a634aa6903530c586f54d7d6--teacher-desks-the-teacher.jpg)

We sit down at our desks, which are the long slate tables of a science classroom, about 8 people to a table. I sit in the back, which is the opposite of reality, since I always sat in the front row to avoid eyestrain. We are flipping through a magazine, and I see a page that looks like a yearbook page, with a grid of photos. In the bottom right is the friend from earlier in the dream. Suddenly I look up at the door and he walks in. He tells me he has a problem with his computer, and he needs me to fix it before he leaves on his big important official trip called something like the "Aflax", or something like that. I tell him I can get to it later in the day, and then he sits down next to me, even though it isn't his class. I wonder if this is going to cause us trouble. On my right are the two girls from earlier (who would also be sitting in the front row normally, so this is sort of a funny situation). We are the three best students in the class without contest. The teacher hands out a piece of paper with a little exercise... It is 40 basic questions, mostly arithmetic. I am sort of puzzled about why we would be doing an exercise like this. Toward the end, there are about 15 questions about molecular structures. He collects them all shortly afterward, and then singles out we three to tell the class that we all missed number 34, and we should be ashamed. This is the sort of mistake adults are not allowed to make, and it points at a huge character flaw that will stop us from getting anywhere later in life. The answer was connected to the fact that the molecule in the diagram had a hidden hydrogen atom out of view, that we should have nonetheless known about because it was implicit in the instability of the molecule without it. He takes this opportunity to continue putting us down. He didn't normally get many chances with us, but I think he wanted to be sure that no one could escape his criticism. He mentions we were also speaking when we shouldn't be (which was puzzling, because every one was in that moment, lol). I feel both that his criticisms were a bit exaggerated, but also that they may potentially be accurate in some sense, so I feel a bit embarrassed by it. He starts talking about me in particular, and tells me he has a job for people like me. Moments later I am there.

(http://www.constructionphotography.com/ImageThumbs/A125-00034/3/A125-00034_Interior_view_of_mechanical_room_in_commercial_building_in_Salt_Lake_City_UT.jpg)
I am at the top of a high rise building in a city. I am in some sort of mechanical room space, with a bunch of other people (but I don't belong to their group, they are apart from me). I get the feeling some sort of heist is going down. They tell me to go to the elevator, if I want to leave. I get the impression they are rigging this room with explosives. I go to the elevator, and I see that it is a very tall building, with 88 levels. I am looking through the list to see which button is for the lobby level. I figure that must be level 4, since the three levels below it have a marking that seems to indicate they are a basement. I really hope I am right about that, since it feels like there will not be time to make a mistake. As the elevator starts moving, I lay on the bottom of the elevator , and put my hands under my head, looking upward, to minimize injury in case the car falls or jolts. This is actually the thing to do in reality as well, but no one is ever likely to need to do that, lol. The floor meter reads that the trip will take a minute thirty, and this feels like too long, but it goes by pretty quickly. The car starts braking quickly, and comes to very abrupt stop, like it felt the tension as well. The doors open directly to the outside of the building somehow. I am about 6 feet above street level, in a night-time Italian city street. I jump down the small distance into a grassy berm, and then start running down the street. It is a bit strange, because there really aren't buildings of this scale in Italy, but I don't question it.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Lygon_st_melbourne_z.jpg/1200px-Lygon_st_melbourne_z.jpg)

Things fade a bit shortly thereafter and I am in another city, in another time and place. It feels like we are traversing an empty city decades after a societal collapse. The city is now infested with some sort of small monkeys that look like gibbons, about 3 feet tall.  I am with a group of people being led by a certain woman. She explains to us that we can't have any weapons. She has some sort of special skill that involves lowering down draw bridges built into the environment in order to pass through areas, and then to seal them back up again. She needs our help though, to help provide the force of extending the draw bridges. We have to get to a certain building, because another person left money in their bank account there decades ago, and it must be destroyed. It isn't clear why this is exactly, but I am part of this group now, and it isn't safe to leave it. We continue on traversing the city using the scaffolds and draw-bridge system that keeps us out of danger, and get to the location. The bank account is a slab of stone in the middle of a certain room. We smash it to bits and move on. After about another 15 minutes of traveling on like this, we have to exit the scaffolds and go to street level. This feels dangerous immediately, but she tells us again we can't have any kind of weapons.

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/12/20/01/3B874A4200000578-0-image-a-20_1482197707525.jpg)

We climb into a building that sort of feels like a combination between an urban library and a conference center, that has intricate wooden millwork detailing that resembles something from the 1870s (but in the lower levels of a very tall building). Very shortly after it all breaks down, and a horde of the gibbon monkeys crawl out of every corner and nook, and descend on us. I am cornered in part of a room, when the rest of the group leaves. I find a metal flagpole with two telescoping parts, and pick up one of them to use as a bludgeon. I swing it in the air several times, and the monkeys scatter from the room. I walk out to a window ledge (it is on the second story, about 20 feet above the ground), which is geometrically very complex. I judge it is too high to jump from, and I see the group leaving down the street, as I try to think of a way to get to them. I look down the other side of the street, and it is a massive dragon! I am totally taken aback by this, and it is not at all what I expected to be there. It is now walking toward them down the street, and it is clear it will expel them away, and I am being left behind. The leader shouts out to me to throw the flagpole segment down to the street, and not to use it as a weapon. I begrudgingly do this. I go back inside the building, and although the room is clear, I peer into the other adjacent rooms, and they are crawling with the monkeys now, which are moving in on this room. I feel like I am between a rock and a hard place, since I can't exit to the street due to the dragon, and I can't stay here, because the monkeys will descend on me.

(http://ydsadmissions.yale.edu/sites/default/files/imce/Yale-Day-Missions-Divinity-Library.jpeg)

I wake up shortly thereafter.

That was some night.  :-o

Do you find with an adventurous night such as this, you feel tired the next day?

How about lucidity? There were plenty of triggers throughout the night, and to top it all a massive dragon!  :-D

Yeah I think this is the first case of seeing a dragon in a dream for me, lol.

In this case, although the scenes were VERY vivid and detailed, and all of them had complex narratives that made some measure of sense, not much lucidity. For whatever reason, I didn't do a dream test like I normally may have. Probably the best chance to get into a lucid dream state would have been right at the end after I woke up. If I had imagined myself back in that terrifying situation with the dragon and the monkeys again, there was a good chance I could have gone back lucid / with a projection-like awareness.

I think when I woke up though, I was going through the routine of going over all of those events over and over, to make sure I captured the full narrative of it all. There were so many scenes and they were so complex, it seemed like a good goal was to simply remember it all at that point, lol. I don't think I was too plussed by the notion  of going back to being trapped with no way out, but maybe that is me just not being adventurous enough lol.

August 6, 2017

This is another rich one with a lot of dialogue.

(http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/7343414-3x2-940x627.jpg)

I am waiting for the school bus for a bit, in a suburban neighborhood like the one I grew up in. I am my present age (30-ish). It comes in a moment, and I climb aboard. I sit about 1/3 the way in, but facing the wrong way, looking toward the back of the bus. Some more students get on the bus, and they project sort of a confrontational attitude. It feels like I am going to possibly be attacked... I am thinking about the best way to position myself in the aisle in order to fight defensively if I need to. But a fight never happens. I walk off the bus at the end of the trip (school), and step off into a small crater made where the pavement has chipped away. I walk to the other side of the bus, and collect some fragments of pavement that seem to fit the broken area perfectly, and place them in the hole, as if to mend it. Other people look on, with the general attitude that it was a fool's errand, lol. I walk to class, and it turns out I am in elementary school again. The teacher is about my age, which is sort of funny. I sit down at a desk for a few minutes, as the students come in. Most them them are around 8-9 years old, with a few older students / people. Maybe a few students are 15 or so. The room is arranged sort of haphazardly. The middle of the room is empty, and most of the desks are moved to two sides of the room, toward one of the corners. There are some people sitting on bench-like ledge, and some others sitting on the floor.

Class is starting, and the teacher immediately looks at me sternly and says, "You can't sit there." I sort of turn my head, puzzled, and then walk off to sit on the ledge. She repeats the statement, "No, not there. You can't sit there." I sit on the ground now, with some other students.

"Here?"

"No, not there either. Sit here (she indicates a desk right to the left of her desk)."

"Ok, that works."

I sit down at that particular desk she chose for me, and then she puts on a slideshow. The first slide shows a grid of 4 cases relating to 4 possible combinations of two red and yellow balls, but it is only on the screen for 2 seconds, not enough time for me to scan it and learn the rule (but everyone else seems to get it well enough). Then she starts showing slides of different instances of those possible cases, or short movies. She asks which particular type each of the instances belongs to, and goes through 8 or 9 of them. Then the last one she asks me about (it is clear she doesn't think particularly much of me), but despite not really having seen the chart, I reasoned out what the 4 instances were from the previous responses the others gave, and then correctly answered the question. She sort of gives the impression I must have cheated somehow, but then drops it, and class ends. The scene fades out.

I am now walking with some friends, who are now late high-school age. I am again my present age (which I almost always am in dreams). Walking with these others is strangely satisfying, like it cancels out any negative aspects the scene might have to just be with this small group of friends. A school bus whizzes by without any indication it might have stopped, and one of them asks if that was mine. I say it was, but we continue on unabated. We walk to school again, but it is a different place this time. Things get a tiny bit fuzzy, and the scene changes slightly. I am now walking through a retail store later in the night. A friend is working in the back of the store stocking items, and calls out to me to join her. I walk toward her to meet her, but some frumpy lady who must be an assistant manager calls out something like, "You can't be back there with her"; but I don't really hear her clearly, so I walk toward the assistant manager calmly to see what was said. She repeats the thing, but I shake my head again to indicate I can't hear it well. I finally get to her, and she explains again that no one can be back there with her. My friend walks over, and I guess it is the end of her shift, so she joins me to walk out.

The scene sort of feels like walking out of the part of an American shopping mall where an anchor store like Macy's transitions into the hall of smaller outlets. She pulls out something like a Gameboy, and shows me something on it, saying, "Hey, have you seen 'Legman' ? " It looks something like a primitive version of the NES classic "Legend of Zelda" from the mid 80's. I tell her, "Yeah I have seen Legman. Everyone knows Legman." The scene ends a bit after that.

(http://tiboaz.biz/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/jimmyhulas1.jpg)

The next scene, I am with some coworker-type people, with one dude in particular. We are walking out of work. It isn't clear what work was, but the mood is light. It is late at night, and we are walking into a scene of American-style sprawl... for outsiders, a road lined with nothing but a random collection of chain restaurants, giant strip malls and shopping centers, government centers, etc, with no clear unifying feature or massing. I take on a very loose dialect, and launch into a long diatribe.

"You know what the problem with this place is? It all happened too quick. Look at the Old World. It happened over the course of a few thousand years of society. They had time to refine things, and history tended to stick around. They built it in a human way... in a way that made sense, because they had to do it that way. This place? It happened too fast. There was nothing really here to speak about 200 years back, so all of this is that old or newer. They filled this whole damn place with rubbish because they could, and no one stopped them, and it is still here now. We have to walk through this heap everyday."

"That's great an all, but what do you plan to do about it?", he cut in with.

"Man I don't freaking know. It's not a problem of the scale I can solve. But (misquoting Socrates in a vernacular way), the start of wisdom is knowing that you don't know what to do, or something like that, right?"

"That's just perfect. All problems and no solutions."

I shake my head, "Yeah, that is sort of how it goes I guess".

It is sort of a complex feeling we both have about the scene. Like in one sense we acknowledge that it is a kind of featureless wasteland we are inhabiting... a sort of pitiful waste of potential. But we also feel strangely safe and at ease there. There are no real dangers. Nothing that unpredictable about it. It isn't the place we'd choose, but it is a place that would take us and keep us safe and well.

We walk off into the sprawl for what feels like a good long while, and eventually it all dissolves.

(http://spacing.ca/atlantic/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2016/06/main_street-e1465858225939-600x450.jpg)


----------------

After I awake, I lay in bed a bit, trying to recreate the details of the scene with my friend working at the store, to jump back there again in a lucid state. It isn't to be though, because the two dogs start barking frantically to be let outside. It is 4 am, lol. It seems like every day they start earlier, to see how early they can push it, lol.

So to give the next dream some context, here is an experience from 4 years back:

June 25, 2013:

In an early morning projection, I ended up in an environment that resembled a non-descript school; I don't remember well what preceded it. I walked into a classroom from the outside, and settled down to see what would be taught. There were a few other people there too. It looked a bit like a class where hightschool math might be taught (I am often ending up back in highschool in dreams too, so it seems like a theme for me). The instructor was roughly human, with a well built frame. After what must have been around a 10 minute lesson in calculus, someone asked him if he would sing today again; he said, "sure, alright, how about this?" He burst into 70's era Bruce Springsteen, and sang an entire song, and segued smoothly into another.  He sang remarkably well, probably as well as the genuine article. The third song is really the only one I recall very well. It wasn't exactly one of Springsteen's, but it had very similar chord structure to Springsteen's song "The River". This particular song I will call "Diehard Believer", because that was the refrain in the chorus. I remember that one well enough that I could write down the words and musical notes of the chorus at least. I guess listen to "the river, and imagine if it was more upbeat and major, lol, and you will get the idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Jpq4QDWE0

After he finished his three numbers, people started making requests, now that he was singing Springsteen, haha. I suggested he sing "Thunder road".

He just smiled, as if to say, "If you think about it, I gave a lot- that will do."

I tend to take my more narritive experiences like this one to be metaphors. I suppose this one might have been the greater reality reminding that is has many faces, and shows up everywhere, because being in the presence of this multi-talented "teacher" was was very much like chatting with some great ascended master. He sort of radiated strength and understanding at the same time.
Almost like the universe was saying... yeah, I remember when I was Springsteen... wanna see him again?

August 12, 2017

I am back in the same biology class I was a few dreams back, with the same teacher. He is giving a lecture about molecular structures of ring-group molecules.

The lecture is long but uneventful.

At the end of the lecture, the teacher spontaneously decides to start singing.

He has a velvety voice, something that had elements of Springsteen and Billy Joel. Everyone was immediately disarmed by this suddenly happening. The room suddenly got very silent as he started, and everyone was hanging on every note, intoxicated by it. The room seemed to change color, shifting toward a red/ plum color, like the song was bending reality. The song itself was sort of a dirgeful ballad, like "Nights in White Satin" from the Moody Blues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdykXAT19Go

After not very long, everyone in the room was simply crying. We had been taken from our normal reality and transported to a very intense space of violent feeling by the song. After he was done, things just faded back in, like the spell was passing as abruptly as it came in.

After that, he wheeled in a television on a cart, and put on a film. It was sort of like a 70's / 80's -era British comedy, set out in a big public garden. There were about 12 figures in the scene. After not so much time, the figures began to strip their clothing off at various moments, and make jokes about it. The class thought this was tremendously funny, as it wasn't what we expected to be shown. After not too much time of this, the class was just uncontrollably laughing, as we saw started to question what sort of film this was, and why the teacher had chosen to show it to us.

I've missed reading your dreams.  :-)

The comedy seems out of place with the earlier experience. I did have a thought. As you described it, I immediately thought 'Carry On' films. These were a series of films with titles such as Carry On Camping, Carry On Up the Khyber, Carry On Matron and so on. They involved the same cast and the same theme - saucy fun with lots of flesh. (You may already know this, so forgive me if you do.)

I wondered if 'Carry On' might be relevant in some way?

The scene was somewhat similar in material to those films... but got to its goals much faster, lol. It was basically a Satyr play which didn't take itself seriously... and it seemed to fit in the same slot in the Dionysian festival (where each playwright would submit 3 Tragedies and a Satyr play to finish).

I wonder if I was somehow recalling that structure for some reason, or if the order of events was merely an accident.

August 23, 2017:

I am walking down an alleyway in the historic district of contemporary Rome. For those who may not know, most of the city is composed of alley-like streets, so alleys don't have a negative connotation there... just sort of a normal place.

I am about to meet my university crowd there (the same one from the meeting dream a few dreams ago), but I have yet to meet up with anyone. I am walking toward a location we were supposed to gather for some sort of pre-assignment study... just sort of meandering through alleys.

The buildings are tall, 5-6 stories, and sort of feel even more tower-like due to being in such a narrow space. They are painted in once-bright earth-tones, which have since faded from sun and weathering. Water damage sort of wicks up the bottom of the buildings in a band of wear... but somehow that is part of the charm of this place... an authenticity. Wires and metalwork bridge across the alley in places, with an occasional open shutter. The alley doesn't form a straight line, but rather juts out at odd angles, as the buildings are joined in a somewhat irregular, but solid edge.

(https://i.pinimg.com/236x/f8/e8/2a/f8e82a0b7e460ff8a97c81a6d2f9cb9a.jpg)

Navigating these types of streets is actually a pretty pleasant experience... you are sort of walking toward your destination, but you don't tend to take the same route everytime... you just sort of meander there organically, and see new sights every time. I am sort of at ease, as I am alone with myself in the calm setting, away from the dangerous cars (especially an issue in Italy) or crowds.

The cobblestones are wet in places, suggesting a recent rain. There are very few people around, but I don't feel much anxiety over it.

I eventually get to where I was going, but I look around, and don't really see anyone. I sort of walk about aimlessly in the general vicinity, and people gradually arrive. Eventually, a big mass of people arrive all at once, and the meeting happens. I don't really remember the meeting... I think I sort of faded out and back in toward the end of it. As we are leaving, I notice I don't have my shoes, oddly enough. I ask someone about it, and they point me back to a long row of shoes, about 50 pairs. I am not really sure why we all took our shoes off together in this place, but I don't question it. I find my shoes there among those others... except.... someone has pulled them apart! They are just bare soles with a little loop over the top of the foot left. Most of the components of the shoes are missing. I am puzzled, and I immediately conclude that someone else in the group did that. I go walking now barefoot, carrying the shoes in my hands, asking the others if they knew who messed with my shoes. No one answers in the positive, they just sort of look at me like I am crazy, and I walk on. And the rest of the dream goes by like this... just me asking person after person if they know what happened to my shoes, and no answers anywhere.


-----------------------


Looking back, it is sort of funny how I assumed some other student pulled the shoes apart, and not some random homeless person as it would normally have actually been in real Rome, lol.

This dream in some way feels like a cousin of the beach dream, where I also left my shoes behind, and also the other university-era dream, since the same folks were present at each dream.

Nicely recounted dream. I have fairly regular shoe dreams and even go to a dream shoe shop every few months to get a new pair. This shop is the same one each time I go. I've pondered the meaning of shoes over the years, given my dreams, and one interpretation is that they represent beliefs. After all, shoes are used for walking in - the walk of life, or the journey through life.

I promise I won't come along with my interpretations every time you post a dream!!  :-D

That's ok, I love to hear what others think! I think I did feel noticeably different without the shoes lol, so maybe they did symbolize some change or other, who knows?

August 28, 2017:

I am riding in a car down the road, presumably some friend is driving. The 90's song "I'm a B**ch I'm a lover" from Meredith Brooks comes on the radio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ivt_N2Zcts

I'm a b**ch, I'm a lover,
I'm a child, I'm a mother,
I'm a sinner, I'm a saint,
I do not feel ashamed

I immediately think to myself... I hope I get to be so many things in my life  :lol:

It is funny how those years are so clear in my memory... I can recall the chorus of a song I hadn't heard in a decade or more even while asleep...

I think it also has something to do with me wanting to connect to the view of the world I had as a kid. I think when I hear those old songs, I immediately think about the optimism and positivity they represent, and it is like the past reminding me of something?

----------

The next scene is totally different... I am in some sort of chemistry lab, and the powers that be have tasked us with creating new flavors of alcohol spirits. Today's idea is some sort of candy vodka... we are shoveling cups full of candies of separated colors into a crusher to be powdered. This doesn't last very long.

I feel like I think of the job as something someone else would have me do, that I wouldn't do by choice... especially because I don't really drink alcohol.

---------

I am back with university crowd again (third time this month, although otherwise I rarely dream about that period). We are traveling by car through a sort of run-down city, on our way to study a site. The site in question is supposed to be a vast tunnel system, but it will take time to get there. A train will take us there. We arrive, and the train is halfway in the tunnel entrance, and halfway out.

We enter the train from the back facing us. The train cars are organized in a very irregular way inside... the seats aren't evenly spaced or arranged, but rather they are grouped into sections that all face various focal points, like a series of home living rooms that are meant to orient the people in each group together. I pass a series of these arrangements, each with a few people already occupying them, but they don't seem interested in me joining their groups, so I keep moving on.

The train doesn't actually leave... I get to the front of the train, but no one seems to be there anymore. I walk back to the other side of the train again, and exit, and still deserted. Some cars and barricades are overturned, or arranged in a way that suggests some sort of big conflict happened. Then I see a group of cars out in the distance, trying to run people down. It feels like we were led into a trap, and they will try to pick us off now.

I am thinking to myself, "Who set us up like this? Why would they want to harm us?", and then I wake up.

September 4th, 2017

I am sitting in the middle of a circular platform, roofed by a pavilion. The platform is in the middle of the ocean, about a quarter mile from shore. The water is calm, and I can see out to the horizon. The platform is composed of radiating wooden planks and a painted red hub in the center. I get the distinct impression that the pavilion is meant for meditation, and I get a feeling of "intoxicating wellness". My view shifts to the third person, and I get a sort of documentary explanation of the person who built it and why. Back to first person, and I am back in the pavilion. I take to the water and begin making it back to shore. I alternate between floating on my back, looking up at the sky, and swimming directly to shore. The swim is gentle and I don't have to fight to make pace or stay afloat.

------------

I am walking through a department store with a family member that feels like some sort of aunt I never met. We pass by a rack of blue jackets made out of some sort of synthetic material, and I take one off the shelf, and put it on, over another jacket I am already wearing, as though that is how people shop for clothing, lol. We walk by various mundane aisles for a few minutes, and then the aunt stops and exclaims, seeing something she really connects with in a display. It looks like some sort of wooden rack with a collection of nooks in it. I am sort of puzzled by what so excited her about the item, and ask her about it, but she sort of brushes me off. She stands there for a good long time staring at it, and then tells me that I don't need to stick around if I don't want to. I wander off through the department store, not really connecting with anything around me. I walk into an elevator, and I take it one level up. I get out, and I immediately get the feeling of "this place isn't for you". It is some sort of abstract post-modernist  store front for only one item, a luxury sports car of some kind that strikes me as being only for billionaires. A very stern man curating the scene just sort of glares at me, and I walk back to the elevator, and take it one floor higher. No Luck.... it is a floor a lot like the other one, this time with a giant sign that says "The Puma". Toward the back of the level, is some sort of motorcycle object that looks like a fiberglass lion that a person might ride, but it has feet, instead of wheels; it is completely rigid though, and I get the feeling it is some sort of hoverbike. I continue walking.

------------

I am walking with a group of 2 unspecified family down a nondescript street. Suddenly a group of 3 people come running to meet us, one of them an Asian woman wielding a meat cleaver menacingly. I immediately realize I need to arm us somehow, and I dash into a small outbuilding that contains a pile of wrecked junk. I decide the choicest of weapons in the pile are a collection of bicycle handlebars (3 of them, from 3 different bikes). I run back with the handlebars, and throw one to a female relative, while the other relative refuses to fight, leaving me with the other two handlebar sets in either hand. The other assailants have left for some reason, but the woman with the meat cleaver is charging now. She dashes to the armed relative, and she fights off her strikes with the handlebars, knocking the meat cleaver toward me some distance. The woman then charges toward me, retrieving her cleaver on the way. She lunges toward me, striking out again, and I deflect her strikes with one of the handle bars. She swings again and again, and I can't disarm her, so I strike her smartly across the side of her head with the other set of handlebars, and she slumps down. I do not stop to see what state she is in, crumpled on the ground. We just rush on to get out of the situation.

------------

Later that day, we are walking through another street. A woman in a high window calls down to us, and one of the relatives tells her about the day. She then asks me to recount the story of the attack, as though it were any other part of the day. I begin telling the story, but the woman in the window gets bored of the story 1/3 of the way in. She sweeps her hand to dismiss me, sort of displeased with it all, and I walk on again, down another street.

September 7, 2017

There is a particularly interesting element to this one- it may possibly be an example of access to information my conscious mind doesn't have.


I am sitting in a hotel room with a woman. She is asking me the Italian names for various nouns. I have basic knowledge of the Italian language as a result of study and living there for a couple years. We go through about 20 words... mundane things like silverware, animals and the like. She asks me the word for "motorcycle". I say that I don't really know it. I say that I know the name for motorbike / scooter (which are of course very common there): "motorino / motorini". She then informs me the word is "Motocicletta". This is especially interesting... because I am sure this is a word I wasn't familiar with. I later looked up the word once I was awake, and it is indeed the right word. I can see a few possibilities:

1) I heard the word at some point, but didn't recall it consciously. My subconscious mind did remember it though

2) My sleeping mind was able to combine bicycle (bicicletta) and motorbike (motorino) accidentally into the actual word

3) I was in contact with some intelligence that was better at Italian than I am

------------

The second half of the dream is rather silly.

I am walking down a street in America, in a small city someplace. The buildings are moderately tall... around 5-6 stories maybe. I pass a group of people having a conversation on the sidewalk. A woman dressed in business casual clothing faces another person, and then somehow explosively urinates through her clothing toward the other person, presumably unintentionally. This causes quite a commotion, and medical help and police are quickly called to the scene. There is pandemonium taking place that is far out of proportion to the actual disturbance I witnessed. Police soon have the street on lockdown. I casually climb up a drain pipe to the roof of a third story building, and watch the scene from the rooftop. There are actually police up here as well, but they don't see me. They are speaking to the crowd, telling them that everything is under control. One of them is actually about to climb down the same drainpipe, but sees me up there as he turns around, and glances at me menacingly with a look of evil intent, and tells me, "You're finished, you piece of garbage".

Oddly enough, I wake up just a bit later.

It is actually a similar encounter to the dream I had walking down the beach, where the police also referred to me as trash, with ill intent. I think they are echoes of an actual experience I had a few years back where I was crossing at a crosswalk, and was nearly struck by a police car. I am probably extrapolating a mindset for the officer in question.

Sept. 29, 2017

We are walking through a medium-sized Belgian city late at night; the buildings are around 3-4 stories tall, with an 18th / 19th century character, in modern day. I need to be at a particular place in the city, but there is no fast way to get there using only the streets. There is, however a way to get there which involves walking through back alleyways and cutting through buildings. After crossing a couple corner shops and a few piazza-like spaces, we come to the final leg. We enter a building which has half the feeling of a museum, and half the feeling of a department store. Displays are arranged in a maze-like fashion, so getting through this building quickly is dependent on prior knowledge of the spaces. Some of the spaces are moderately lit, others are a bit dimmer. We probably travel around 150 yards through these spaces when we emerge back into another courtyard, which then opens into a fairly large square, basilican-type space.

This space, as opposed to the contemporary design of the displays, feels more like the 1650's... Jacobean in character. The room is two levels, and we are located on the balcony level which over-looks a lower open level. At the head of the lower space sit two figures. The figure on the right is a young woman dressed as a harlequin. She has a heart-shaped paddle with some message scrawled across it in black script; she is fairly full of figure. The man beside her is dressed as a medieval catholic pardoner, with a crucifix-topped staff; he feels very grave in disposition. There is a full court before them, engaged in conversation amongst themselves. The entire space is lit by dim, flickering candlelight. The walls are composed of densely-packed wooden millwork, laden with cloth banners which draped down from the higher levels. The floor of the space is composed of masonic figures of checkers in black, white, and red patterns, but only barely discernable for color in the light. I walked around the perimeter of this room along the balcony, passing behind the two presiding figures, and gazing down at them. 

As I entered another room just beside this one, my sight blacked out briefly and then I faded back in immediately. I was staring at the same room, but now much darker, and in a hazier state of mind. I felt the room being pulled into a frame at the opposite end of the room. A bell beside the frame began to toll, and suddenly the frame seemed to contain a "hungry portal", that sucked the image of the back of the room into itself. I saw the bell stretching out to infinity as its tolls bent in tone, from full-sounding to something like muffled by water. Another figure beside me shouted to me, as he held onto a column engaged to a wall; his clothing was being whipped around, apparently by the winds created by the vortex ahead of us. He told me that this portal would "lead us to new lifetimes, if we chose it". He let go, and I saw him pulled into the portal, melting into infinity like an object accelerating to the speed of light...an ever-elongating line.

I black out again, and when I came to again, I was back in the same room, the storm over. I reason that I must have been through the portal a time or few... some indeterminate number? The room beside, where the harlequin and pardoner presided earlier was now lit by a bit of light entering from outside, rather than candlelight. It was completely empty. I saw the paddle of the harlequin to remind me they were once there. I passed through the open courtyards, and back through the building that previously held the displays... it was now rundown, and contained furniture from a much earlier age. I passed through a good portion of the city, now completely empty. Eventually a street opened up to a bigger boulevard, and I walked into a corner salon. A few people were there, sitting quietly together. Most of them exuded this feeling of having very little "life force"... like they were not whole people, with conscious experiences, but rather wooden beings. A woman sat with her back to the boulevard windows, with a little light streaming over her. I had the feeling that she in particular was a real, conscious being. She looked on with a stoic, unchanging expression, which none-the-less had a small note of serenity to it. I noted her hair was cut in a medium-length bob- fairly straight and without much extra volume. I asked her how long she had been there. I said... "it must be lifetimes?" She nodded, and said, "yes, 300 years have gone by here." I got the impression the people around her didn't change their situation very often, and that she had spent a good portion of that time sitting here in this same position, engaged in no activity. I asked her if she would like to come away and leave with me... telling her that there were other things to see and do out there, and that she could be happy enough, more than here. She made the smallest of smiles, and agreed to leave with me, and it felt like a massive gesture... like that miniscule emotion was multiplied many-fold by intent and depth of feeling. I remember feeling glad, and remarking that she had quite a pleasant face afterall.

The light from the corner salon seemed to come with her, and enter the spaces we passed through. It felt like she was seeing these places just outside her previous setting for the very first time, and was in awe that there were other places that existed that were so different from the salon.  I took her back to the harlequin's court, and she looked down at the space, seeing the same paddle there. We walked around again to the same room with the portal, and we both faded out again.

Feb. 5 2018

Hi all! Haven't made an entry in a while, since I have been pretty pre-occupied, so here is a neat one I remember very vividly this past night!

It has lots of themes which have come up in previous dreams in this list, including being back in University, and losing shoes!

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So the first thing I remember is that I am walking through the streets of my old university, which are fairly different from what they are in real life. I am walking for around 20 minutes, and the sun is showing signs of setting, and it gets slightly foggy / hazy. I walk alongside a pitch for playing sports, which is lined with dim lights, and throngs of people. When I am closer, I can see that there are pillars of water jetting out of the ground for 30 feet into the air, at regular intervals, maybe 20 feet apart in a row. There are people shouting and panicing, and someone says, "The power is out, the poweplant must be venting! That is the water from the powerplant, nothing is holding it back now!" I recall for a moment that my university is run by a nuclear power plant (it isn't in real life, it is coal-powered, lol), and that this water is irradiated. I continue walking away from this scene a a fairly fast pace, not really wanting to be around the irradiated water.

I continue walking down the path, and it sort of meanders down a scraggly coastline. The skies are darkening, and there are dark clouds that signal a storm. People are rushing by me on the path, and the wind begins to pick up. People are carrying articles with them as they run past. One person was carrying what I guess was a guitar. Somehow I am not so phased by all of the commotion.

Something that regularly happens to me in dreams is that I will do this sort of "bunny hopping" flight technique, where I can hop into the air, and the wind takes me up with it, and I glide down with fair control after that. The way the wind is picking me up reminds me of that, and I start doing that again immediately. I do some short hops (for this technique) of about 8-10 feet into the air, testing it out again. Someone walks by and says, "Heh, you can do that too?" I nod and smile to him.

The wind is really picking up now, like tropical storm force. I have a little apprehension, thinking that the wind make "take me" far higher than I wanted to go, but I keep hopping anyhow. I give a big 12 foot hop, and indeed it has me. I am being pulled backwards now, and get quickly elevated to around 200 feet in the air, and then put out my arms, which have broad, invisible surfaces that resist the air like wings, and begin gliding along the coast. It is sort of like... I lift through the other scene like it was just a local haze, and things are getting brighter now.

At this point I think I gained full lucidity.

The scene has changed a lot in character. I am gliding down a midday coastline, about 80-120 feet in the air. I am in full control of my flight now, and I feel an ownership over it, like it is something that is my natural vocation. It feels like the thing that I ought to be doing, and everything is well because I am doing it now. The intensity of colors in the scene has really magnified, like they tend to in that lucid state. There is a rolling beach to my left, bordered by a red coastal cliff that goes on in patches to the horizon. The water isn't very deep, it is maybe 10-15 feet, and I can see the red of the sand below mixing with the color of the water. The water itself has a blue-green tint, and has regular white lines of peaks over it like a net. The whites in against the green in particular really evoke a painterly quality.

I am looking out at the whole scene, and I am remarking how much it feels like a painting brought to life... like the patterns feel just a tiny bit abstracted, everything feels idealized, like it was a carefully composed scene where everything was placed to be perfect. I am infatuated with the water and how perfect it is... it has a certain character that I am struggling to verbalize. When we paint, we sometimes capture these symbols from the natural world which say something to us... like the symbol of light rays falling through trees. This water felt like such a symbol, like it was both water, and a symbol of profound ease and well-being that was both real and a perfected abstraction. All the while through this the wind is whipping through my wings and hair, and filling me with a sense of exhileration that is mingling with the sense of ease and well being. 

I am thinking to myself that I can go on for quite a while like this. It is a perfect moment I don't need to leave in a hurry. A sort of funny thing happen then, where I begin to think about my shoes. I am wearing slip-on shoes which are a bit loose. The wind is tugging at them too, and one of them just manages to slip off of my heel, and plunge down into the water and sink. I circle around it, and see it down there through the crystal water, maybe 12 feet down. I feel pretty confident I can retrieve it. I dive down like a streamlined bird through the water, and cut through about 9 feet. I can just about reach the shoe, but I somehow run short of air... maybe the impact knocked some out of me. I swim back up to the surface and ready to try for another dive, confident I will get it this time. But I wake up now, and never get the try, hehe.


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A few images can almost describe the scene, if you think of qualities from each of them. The first image really captures the shape and color of the cliffs, and the way the red of the sand came through the water. The second image describes the color of most of the water, and how luminous white peaks netted over it all. The image of the painting sort of describes what I mean by the water having this painting-like character to it, like it was almost on a canvas or a watercolor, with some abstraction to the massings of the water... plus the colors were even more vivid than what appears in any of these images.


(https://ak5.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/1361935/thumb/1.jpg)

(https://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-photo-rushing-indian-ocean-waters-on-the-western-australia-coastline-with-red-sandstone-under-clear-skies-434407312.jpg)

(http://s3.otherpeoplespixels.com/sites/43644/assets/CpNvF7NPsAxI2i7q.jpg)

Wow, those are the kind of LDs that make it all worth it!!

Hi Stillwater *waves*

I've missed your dreams.  :wink:

That latest one sounds so wonderful and relaxing. Those kinds of dreams are probably my favourite, where I'm on my own, admiring the landscape and totally content.

Yeah it is nice to have those every once in a while! Being lucid through such an experience makes it even better! I never really tire of these flying experiences, and this one was particularly memorable!

May 18, 2018

Hi all!  Not so many dreams lately... maybe I have been a bit stressed by allergies and work.

This dream was pretty vivid though, and I remember it clearly. It is another of these university dreams I have had a lot lately, which seem to be crowding out the common "lost class" Highschool dream that I and a lot of others get.

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I am sitting in the studio in Rome finishing up some of our final assignments. The studio is an open floor covered in rows of large desks with occasional aisles cutting across the rows. The desks are littered with work from the following weeks, and the studio is lit by dim evening light. The windows are open and a welcome background breeze is livening things up a bit, and bringing in some damp air from outside. It is a lot like the studio was that year, but the arrangement of everything is a bit different.

Most of the students have left... maybe 20% of people are still around. I have a mind to be gone from here pretty soon as well. I am walking through the aisles, looking over at the work some other people are doing. They glance over at me as I pass, but don't really say anything or express any emotion. It is nearing dinner time, and I am also looking around for someone to go eat with tonight. I ask one of my friends, but she says she is busy. I ask another young lady I know less well, but she is also not interested. I continue looking over some of the work and books people have left out. I see another young lady out at the other side of the room, and I have a funny feeling she has a kind of contempt for me as a person somehow, and always has, but I look at her turned back, and think to myself that I will invite her anyhow, because I don't particularly dislike her. I stand behind her for about 8 seconds, wondering if I really ought to ask her, but I do. She makes some sort of excuse about meeting other friends that is clearly a poorly improvised lie. I resign to just go out alone instead.

I was thinking about getting a rather large meal, since I haven't eaten in about a day or so, but I have no one to really go with tonight, and as I am leaving the building, I pass through a small open-air cafe. I pick out a pre-made salad meal that is neatly packaged, and read out the price, which says 14.69 Euro. This seems quite high to me, but I get it anyhow. I bring it up to the Cashier, who is a bitter sort of old guy who looks like he wants some fun harrassing foreigners, and uses an aggressive Italian dialiect, but my Italian is fairly good this year, so I am able to follow him well. He tells me the price, and I fish around in a small basket for some money. I see I have a 20 Euro note, a room key, and a bank card. That year we also had to purchase some voucher tickets from the university, so they could be assured none of the students would starve, hehe. Since they are the least valuable form of currency we have, and only good for food purchases across the city, we would prioritize spending them first, but oddly I don't see any in my basket when I look. I think to myself, this 20 just barely covers the Salad. What if we had gone out, would I have had enough to cover dinner that night? There would be plenty still left on my bank card, but then what if the bank card didn't work at that establishment?

The cashier completes the exchange, and says something cheeky. I ask if everything is good now, and he says, "No, you haven't taken your change back." I take the change, and walk off.

The rain is coming down gently. I am walking a broad cobblestoned street with sidewalks in the historic district. The buildings are about 4-6 levels tall. The streets are mostly empty of cars, but a few still pass by here or there. There is a great big puddle coming up that covers the sidewalk and part of the street. It is about 150 feet across, and I judge it must be a foot or more deep at its center. A few people are trying to cross it regardless, but I decide I will cross the street to avoid it. I look out to make sure there are no cars coming. There are some, but they are quite far away. As I am crossing, I reflect on how the cars in this city will not stop if they see a pedestrian, but just continue without regard. As I am almost to the other sidewalk, I ask myself if I should be running, since the cars cannot be counted on to stop. I decide I have enough time and don't run.

I think about how I will just wander the city aimlessly through the rain for the next few hours. I think about all the slightly damp places I will see, and the spectacle of it all... the small dramas I will witness. I get caught up in this reverie and it takes me out of the scene, and I sort of fade away.

Your clarity was amazing as seen in your thought processes. I wanted your story to go on as I was enjoying it so much. :-(

It was very much a scene that could have happened in the physical world. It was completely consistent, and didn't contain any rogue elements or the normal dream weirdnesses. It was like a slice from my earlier life, with just the arrangements of things slightly different. Like the studio was the same, except a different floor plan. The people were the same but with different faces or names. I'd definitely met that cashier someplace in a different form.

Usually my dreams are less straightforward and accurate than that.

Rome seems to be a favorite dream location lately! Must be the 5th dream I have had set in that time and place, and they are usually pretty vivid.

July 23, 2018:


I am sitting with some sort of old historian type. He is giving a long private talk about the history of some ancient weapons. The major point of interest is that the weapons of the distant past are still immediately near to us. They were the fruits of history's ultimate victors, and were everything short of indestructible. He is now describing the last of these... a series of attack ships which were the focal hubs of these ancient weapons. After going through a list of the final 8, and showing holographic images of that lot, he introduces the showstoppers: two hovering attack ships, roughly 200 feet long, impervious to anything that could be done to them by humans, and a platform to around two dozen weapons systems.

The discussion takes an immediate departure at this point. He explains that not only are they still with us, but he personally commands them, and owns the controls. He asks my help to fulfill his mission. He tells me that "these two ships can 'end the war' in a single day". Somehow I am onboard without a single question asked.

About an hour later, the ships are arriving from the sky. I am told that they were living deep underground for eons. I climb into the small cockpit of one (relative to the immense size of the ship), and am handed a small trinket. I am told that this object is the control interface.

The "historian" prepares to climb aboard the other ship, and tells me to only use a small fraction of what the ship is capable of, as this will be more than enough. As the cockpit closes, I realize that the control interface is some sort of neurological link. In my mind's eye, I see sense readouts of the ship's major systems and status points. I also have a god's eye perspective of the ship and surroundings. I see the ship from inside and from a point in the air far off. I see visions of places far away on the ground, and the stirrings of military vehicles in far off places. I see all of this at once, but my focus shifts from one set of data to another fluidly. I can immediately feel a series of weapon systems I am now in contact with, and grasp their capabilities. Some of these are integrated into the ship itself... air to air defensive weapons, and ground attack options, and some are in distant locations, such as orbital platforms.

We have been in the air for a few moments, and the historian tells me that we are nearing our targets. I protest sharply, remarking that we haven't even really left home... these are our own people. His response is, "Our people, theirs, it doesn't matter. There are no good guys in a war." I protest further, asking how we are going to win by sabotaging our own side. He simply retorts that winning isn't about strength so much as perception.

We begin our attacks. The historian is far away now, and I am flying at 10,000 feet above a sort of fairground on the outskirts of a small city. I fire pulses of energy from the ship at the fairground, and get distant visions of some carnival structures collapsing, and a parking lot where some cars are exploding, and I think I may just see little people running away in horror. I continue bombarding the ground below, hitting roads and buildings, seeing massive fires billow out smoke. Nearing the city center, I fire out broad bolts of energy, which pierce through entire blocks of buildings and bore deep into the ground. This continues for about 10 minutes, and I conclude by calling upon an orbital system to fire an immense beam into the heart of the city. half of the city is destroyed in an instant, as waves of energy cascade from the point of contact on the ground, and I see a molten hole 30 meters wide, which has bored straight into the earth.

The carnage continues on for hours, as we employ these systems against a dozen other cities. I see wings of fighters (F18s and F22s, or something similar) out hundreds of miles away, but nothing ever gets close, because I fire out seeker charges from the ship, which find these distant pursuers in an instant, and I watch them fizzle out a moment later. The same for ground-based defenses. As the sun is setting, we are preparing to retire these weapons. We land on a distant shore, disembark, and the ships fly off on their own back into the sky.

I walk back home for hours in the dark, walking through woods, fields, and along roads. It is quite a long journey back home. I finally get home the next day, and there is a feeling of horrible tension in the air. Everyone is glued to news programs which details reel upon reel of shots from the ground of the past day's events. 200,000 civilian and military dead. Endless shots of horrors upon horrors  and misery in high definition. Two unknown craft are featured at the center of everything. I suddenly feel a wave of immense guilt, as somehow I hadn't pictured everything as it really had been. Somehow there is no mention of me or the historian anywhere in the newscasts, and I am not about to disabuse anyone of any ignorances. The war is over. Both sides have vowed to unite against the threat of the unknown alien forces. Maybe it was worth it afterall?

I walk back to my bedroom, and find my shoes. Oddly, they are changed. They were previously a red fabric and rubber combination, but all of the red fabric has been replaced by a transparent plastic material. I have this feeling that someone has "taken" the fabric from the shoes in small retribution. I don't know fully how to take this, but shoes, and things happening to my shoes has been an ongoing theme for the past couple years in my dreams. Several other references to this trend appear in the other dream posts in this thread.

I vow to take the controls to the weapon ship, and hide them someplace far away no one will ever find them. I take them in a small satchel bag with me on a trip across the countryside. It is something like the forests and fields of Belgium. I feel like an exile from my own culture, but the natural world welcomes me. I wander over  field and fens. I swim across gentle streams, and feel the water embrace me, like a friend. An hour later, I am swimming through a sedate marsh, as the sun is drawing low again. I dive down into the water and plant the controls under some rocks there. The feeling of finality there somehow causes the dream to conclude and I wake up. 

August 24, 2018

I am sort of in a kind of headspace without a setting, where I am worrying about "exams". It is a time in my life where I have 6-8 of them stacked up in a two week period, and they absolutely dominate my life. I am thinking of ways to schedule the studying, essays, and attending the exams themselves, and I am underwater every time... no matter what, even if I schedule the whole two weeks full, I only have time for 60% of what needs to be done. I don't look forward to the pain of overexerting myself to that degree, and for something that brings me no happiness. The perspective shifts a bit, and I am back in a biology class. Incidentally, it is the same biology class as in one of the earliest logged dreams here, but the scene doesn't last long. The instructor is berating the students, and explaining that most people don't really deserve to pass, and won't.

I leave this setting, and walk out into the hall, and I just seem to wander like a loose leaf. I walk for ages down the halls, and look into empty classrooms, and just sort of change direction from time to time, with no real destination. I wander into my old high school calculus teacher, and a couple girls I knew in highschool, one of whom was my best friend. This particular calculus teacher was known even at that time for being an ancient person, so by now he has probably moved on from this life. We walk just outside. It is well past sundown, and an early winter night, so maybe 40 F (5 C) degrees outside. We walk out and sit in a sort of open wooden structure, that is like a gazebo, but with walls, and open windows, dark inside, but with a great view. Out the windows... it is sort of hard to describe what I see exactly... it is like they are vignette landscapes that are illuminated by distant shimmering lights... they are distant and unreachable, but incredibly alluring in the night setting. They are like some kind of ephemoral paradise that can't be attained by simply walking there. We all are seated against a couple walls inside the wooden structure now, and our calculus teacher is telling us about his childhood. It is sometime in the mid 1760's. He tells us all about the people he knew there, and how they behaved and dressed, and about how his head was full of entirely different sorts of thoughts and desires in that place. It is a place lost to him, and there is no way to return, because he has seen too many things since then to be blank enough to experience it in that pure way again.

I interject that the buildings must have been beautiful (what an odd comment to such a profound story, hehe). He said that they were indeed, but then he moved on to "Fort Lauderdale" (which was to say that there they were not). I knew this to be a place in Florida. As I was gazing out the window again, I could see the buildings and towns of ancient Fort Lauderdale out in the distance forming before me. I commented that "they must have all been heavily water-damaged and storm-stricken". He sort of half nodded in affirmation. I sat a little while longer, and just felt the cold on my face. I had enough clothing that it was managable. I stood up, and the two girls were each seated on a bench along one of the walls, both asleep now. I walked over to them and was sort of captivated by how peaceful and at ease they both appeared. I gently felt each of their noses to make sure they weren't suffering any ill effects or damage from the cold (it felt like the way to do that for some reason), and just let them continue to sleep, as I sat back down. A while later, we all went back inside.

After passing through a single hall, we walked through a heavy-looking door. It was wider than a normal door, and required a lot of heft to move. It had a little window in the top middle. After shutting it on the other side, I noticed another of my good friends was waiting on the other side now, so we reopen the door to let her pass. After that, I notice that written on this side of the door is a message in bold white text, that said something to the effect of "Always open this door for others to pass. You have been warned, and next time will be punished". What an odd thing to be written there...

We climb up through a series of stairs and ramps, sometimes through spaces that were school-like, and other times more like a sort of commercial shopping space, like a closed-down mall after hours. One of the girls breaks off to leave and go to her "dorm", wherever that was. My friend and I continue on to the roof level, which is a place I have never been.

It is hard to really describe it, because it seems to have contradictory qualities. It is open to the night sky above at the beginning portion, but later portions are covered by more levels, sort of like a parking garage, where you feel like you are outside in a sense, even though you are fully enclosed. It is mostly quite dark, but it is also full of these various lights and wonders. There is somehow a rollercoaster track that is snaking along through the various spaces, and shortly after noticing it, a cart rattles by at high speed. I turn to my friend and say, "I didn't know you guys had a 'devastor' up here!" (which must have been some special kind of rollercoaster since we both understood the term naturally). We walk a bit deeper. This place feels like it is her domain rather than mine, since this is the area her own dorm is located, and I think that is where we are headed. Out to the right, the there is some sort of magnificent garden embedded in a sunken space, complete with geometric formations and plant-finials reaching up like spires. It echoes the gardens that stretch out over the landscape at the ground level.

We walk a bit further yet, and now we are under one of the upper floor levels I mentioned before. There are some people queued up to enter an elevator, so we wait in line. The line progresses quickly enough, and we enter it. There seem to be about 4 people there already. The elevator door closes, as someone tries to get inside, but it shuts on their sleeve. We push the open button again to free the person, and he waits outside as the elevator closes again. The elevator rises a couple floors, but then just seems to stop, and I get the feeling we are waiting for something. The elevator is quite a bit larger now, and there are more people here than before, maybe 15, but I don't really notice. Everyone's attention is drawn to the one corner, of the elevator, where some folks are engaged in some sex acts, fully derobed. People don't really react with outrage, so much as curiosity, and more people join in, in participation. I look over at my friend and laugh, sort of thinking about how this is awkward and funny at the same time. She seems encouraged, and joins in herself. So I am standing there at this moment, thinking... "well isn't this a situation", when a woman walks up to me and lovingly beckons for me to participate as well, and I am drawn in also. There are folks engaged in every orientation's version of sexual acts, and it feels like a strange expression of community in a way. The intense revelry continues for a few minutes before I ultimately wake up.