Lucid Dreams
So I guess paying such close attention to my dreams recently has paid off, as I've just successfully had one of the first lucid dreams I've ever had in my life. It was pretty amazing.
This one started off with me in some underground scene that I recognized from one of the video games I used to play, it was a square room, very big, and it had a dock in it for two mini submarines. So the water doesn't actually go anywhere and it's pretty dark in the room, lots of blues and greens and greys. I'm working on one of the subs and the other isn't there. Rick comes over to me and he says "Hey, we're getting ready for the assembly, come on." So I clean off my tools and step back from my work, turn towards a set of stairs that lead up to the light shining from behind a set of double doors at the top.
I step through the doors with rick into the auditorium at Winter Springs High School. Everything is terribly vivid, very life like, I even remember exactly how everyone feels while I'm stepping through them through these tiny isles trying to get to my assigned seat, where I am alphabetically next to Jason Prendergast. I always kind of didn't like that kid. I feel kind of bad for him now because I worked with him at Taco Bell and apparently he was trying to support himself and his girlfriend who was pregnant with his baby. And he was like, barely 18. Well, I remember this in the dream, and I'm about to ask him about his kid and all that jazz, and normally that's the point at which my dream would dissolve into complete chaos and he'd get angry and send a tsunami of babies at me or something, but no, this time my dream self actually became self-aware and said quietly under it's breath, "This is a dream...!"
Well I was seated next to him, looking around a lot, trying to gather everything I could about my surroundings, realizing that I was imagining them as soon as they were appearing to me, and that explained why some areas were foggier than others. I looked at the ground at my feet and then the kid in front of me said "Hey, are you doing anything?" I said "No," because saying I was dreaming would have ilicited a response that I didn't want to have to try to deal with right now. I know that I'm walking on thin ice having a lucid dream as it is and that I could wake myself up at any second. He asks if I can pass him a trash can that is way out of reach for the both of us and I simply think it to him, and then change his expectations, like one would change the AI in a computer program, so that he didn't freak out that I was able to do that. He was holding the trash can and said "Thanks!"
And then I thought about it. "Well, it FEELS like I'm dreaming, but I don't feel like I could wake up at any second... " So I laid back in my chair in the auditorium, where nothing had yet started because I didn't want it to start, and I tried to wake myself up. And succeded! I actually regained consciousness in my bed for just a split second. It felt like being sucked into a restricting black void, remembering that the real world had consequences and limitations, so I quickly let myself slip back into a dream state. It was hard to focus after that, but shortly I regained my sight.
At that moment I knew that whatever I thought was law, here. So I said fuck this assembly, I'm leaving. So I stood up, and started walking out. I realized there were a LOT of people between me and the isle where I wanted to be, and I simply knew that I was already in the isle. Then I was already in the isle. I tuned, started walking towards the door and an administrator tried to stop me, someone who's face I recognize as a bigger chap from my middle school, he kind of had huge glasses and a lazy eye or something, but he started to approach me and say something and I said "Hold it there, fucker. I'm going to walk out these doors, and you're going to let me. Now fuck off and die. Tell me you'd like to fuck off and die." And he told me he'd like to fuck off and die. I was holding a pencil, so I threw it at him and willed him to not react at all and it worked. I was ecstatic. I willed him to disappear when I looked away and he didn't pursue me, so I'm assuming it worked!
I knew I was dreaming, but my mind still doesn't relinquish complete control to itself, there still seems to be rules about how the people around me are going to act, their expectations, and it seems that if I meet them one on one, it's not a big deal, but largely the whole school was operating as normal and nobody was aware that I was the originator and controller of their universe. And neither did I, to an extent. I kept forgetting and remembering, simultaneously. It's hard to describe. Logic didn't make any sense, really, so I just did what felt right.
I walked out the double doors into the courtyard and just decided to walk around and see what I could see, enjoy the sense of self-awareness. I decided that the only logical thing to do would be to walk to Mr. Robie's room, as that's where the majority of my high school memories are. I started to pass familiar faces but they didn't seem to realize that I was dreaming: I passed David Schofield, for some reason, and then I passed Mr. Robie and said to myself "Nah, I'll wait till I walk to his room to talk to him. I'm sure my brain will put him there as well." I actually realized that objects have no permanence in my dreams and that I can invent them wherever I go, including people, including entire consciousnesses.
I kept walking for a short while and I bumped into Shawna and I nearly cried I was so glad to see her.
I hugged her close to me, she was wearing a grey sweater and I remembered the details of her backpack and the smell of her and all of these comforting things, everything was so real and I was so happy to see her that I forgot I was in control for a second.
She looked down at me a bit, as she's slightly taller than I am, and started speaking gibberish. Very happy gibberish, but gibberish. Like she was really really hurried and overcome with emotions and couldn't get the words to come out right. The basic Ideas that I got from her were that she didn't want me to join the Navy because then it would be really hard for us to see each other again for a long time, and that I needed to stay clean and sober so that I'd pass my drug tests, but she was using really roundabout words like "Don't let the fizzy bubblies that on your tonge do the happy to your brain when swallowed and your vision goes whooshy flozzy make so that...." and so forth. That's when I remembered that Shawna, no matter how giddy, was never quite that inarticulate, and I wanted to share with her what I had discovered! I'm dreaming! This was a dream. And she looked terrified for just a second... then saddened, then hurt. She just looked over her shoulder to the right and the sun caught her hair and I saw a single tear form and I realized what I had just said, and woke up.
The reason I woke up was because by saying "I'm dreaming," that completely invalidates everything else in that universe, including Shawna. I had just basically told her that she was insignificant and not real.
So this dream was largely a success, and I didn't even try to become self-aware! It just happened! I'm thinking about really experimenting with lucid dreaming now, I'm really excited about it! I'll let you guys know how it goes! =D
This one started off with me in some underground scene that I recognized from one of the video games I used to play, it was a square room, very big, and it had a dock in it for two mini submarines. So the water doesn't actually go anywhere and it's pretty dark in the room, lots of blues and greens and greys. I'm working on one of the subs and the other isn't there. Rick comes over to me and he says "Hey, we're getting ready for the assembly, come on." So I clean off my tools and step back from my work, turn towards a set of stairs that lead up to the light shining from behind a set of double doors at the top.
I step through the doors with rick into the auditorium at Winter Springs High School. Everything is terribly vivid, very life like, I even remember exactly how everyone feels while I'm stepping through them through these tiny isles trying to get to my assigned seat, where I am alphabetically next to Jason Prendergast. I always kind of didn't like that kid. I feel kind of bad for him now because I worked with him at Taco Bell and apparently he was trying to support himself and his girlfriend who was pregnant with his baby. And he was like, barely 18. Well, I remember this in the dream, and I'm about to ask him about his kid and all that jazz, and normally that's the point at which my dream would dissolve into complete chaos and he'd get angry and send a tsunami of babies at me or something, but no, this time my dream self actually became self-aware and said quietly under it's breath, "This is a dream...!"
Well I was seated next to him, looking around a lot, trying to gather everything I could about my surroundings, realizing that I was imagining them as soon as they were appearing to me, and that explained why some areas were foggier than others. I looked at the ground at my feet and then the kid in front of me said "Hey, are you doing anything?" I said "No," because saying I was dreaming would have ilicited a response that I didn't want to have to try to deal with right now. I know that I'm walking on thin ice having a lucid dream as it is and that I could wake myself up at any second. He asks if I can pass him a trash can that is way out of reach for the both of us and I simply think it to him, and then change his expectations, like one would change the AI in a computer program, so that he didn't freak out that I was able to do that. He was holding the trash can and said "Thanks!"
And then I thought about it. "Well, it FEELS like I'm dreaming, but I don't feel like I could wake up at any second... " So I laid back in my chair in the auditorium, where nothing had yet started because I didn't want it to start, and I tried to wake myself up. And succeded! I actually regained consciousness in my bed for just a split second. It felt like being sucked into a restricting black void, remembering that the real world had consequences and limitations, so I quickly let myself slip back into a dream state. It was hard to focus after that, but shortly I regained my sight.
At that moment I knew that whatever I thought was law, here. So I said fuck this assembly, I'm leaving. So I stood up, and started walking out. I realized there were a LOT of people between me and the isle where I wanted to be, and I simply knew that I was already in the isle. Then I was already in the isle. I tuned, started walking towards the door and an administrator tried to stop me, someone who's face I recognize as a bigger chap from my middle school, he kind of had huge glasses and a lazy eye or something, but he started to approach me and say something and I said "Hold it there, fucker. I'm going to walk out these doors, and you're going to let me. Now fuck off and die. Tell me you'd like to fuck off and die." And he told me he'd like to fuck off and die. I was holding a pencil, so I threw it at him and willed him to not react at all and it worked. I was ecstatic. I willed him to disappear when I looked away and he didn't pursue me, so I'm assuming it worked!
I knew I was dreaming, but my mind still doesn't relinquish complete control to itself, there still seems to be rules about how the people around me are going to act, their expectations, and it seems that if I meet them one on one, it's not a big deal, but largely the whole school was operating as normal and nobody was aware that I was the originator and controller of their universe. And neither did I, to an extent. I kept forgetting and remembering, simultaneously. It's hard to describe. Logic didn't make any sense, really, so I just did what felt right.
I walked out the double doors into the courtyard and just decided to walk around and see what I could see, enjoy the sense of self-awareness. I decided that the only logical thing to do would be to walk to Mr. Robie's room, as that's where the majority of my high school memories are. I started to pass familiar faces but they didn't seem to realize that I was dreaming: I passed David Schofield, for some reason, and then I passed Mr. Robie and said to myself "Nah, I'll wait till I walk to his room to talk to him. I'm sure my brain will put him there as well." I actually realized that objects have no permanence in my dreams and that I can invent them wherever I go, including people, including entire consciousnesses.
I kept walking for a short while and I bumped into Shawna and I nearly cried I was so glad to see her.
I hugged her close to me, she was wearing a grey sweater and I remembered the details of her backpack and the smell of her and all of these comforting things, everything was so real and I was so happy to see her that I forgot I was in control for a second.
She looked down at me a bit, as she's slightly taller than I am, and started speaking gibberish. Very happy gibberish, but gibberish. Like she was really really hurried and overcome with emotions and couldn't get the words to come out right. The basic Ideas that I got from her were that she didn't want me to join the Navy because then it would be really hard for us to see each other again for a long time, and that I needed to stay clean and sober so that I'd pass my drug tests, but she was using really roundabout words like "Don't let the fizzy bubblies that on your tonge do the happy to your brain when swallowed and your vision goes whooshy flozzy make so that...." and so forth. That's when I remembered that Shawna, no matter how giddy, was never quite that inarticulate, and I wanted to share with her what I had discovered! I'm dreaming! This was a dream. And she looked terrified for just a second... then saddened, then hurt. She just looked over her shoulder to the right and the sun caught her hair and I saw a single tear form and I realized what I had just said, and woke up.
The reason I woke up was because by saying "I'm dreaming," that completely invalidates everything else in that universe, including Shawna. I had just basically told her that she was insignificant and not real.
So this dream was largely a success, and I didn't even try to become self-aware! It just happened! I'm thinking about really experimenting with lucid dreaming now, I'm really excited about it! I'll let you guys know how it goes! =D