Postby Dante » Sun Nov 21, 2010 3:34 pm
[color="SeaGreen"]OOD: I already know. TL;DR. But I just wanted to make an example of one of my "longer dreams". I love these things, because they feel like weeks have passed in the period of a couple of hours. BTW, I consider myself to be an Oneironaut in training. Dreams are one of my favorite activities because of the sheer amount of crazy experiences you can have in him. You can go sky diving in exotic locations every night, dine with people who aren't even living anymore and all kinds of crazy things... FOR FREE! Of course, it's all in your imagination, but when you're dreaming it certainly doesn't "look" like it.
LUCIDITY ACHIEVED! Although my memory is sadly jumpy at times (which is a real shame, I'd love to recount the whole story of THIS one). It also jumps around a TON with various plot locations so I'm unfortunately unsure about the order on some of these events - but I think I've kept it pretty good. I was aiming for a lucid this morning after a short burst of surfing the net at about 4 AM. I tried the WILD (Wake Into Lucid Dreaming) technique, and had some pretty cool near success that nearly counts as dreaming in my book (I was getting weird loud sounds - which unfortunately startled me and kicked me out of falling asleep while conscious). But all this thinking about dreaming spurred me into a DILD (Dream Into Lucid Dreaming).[/color]
[color="RoyalBlue"]ID:
The dream starts out with me in my room. I had my eyes barely open and I could see the light from the hallway. I felt I had woken up and failed to achieve a dream altogether (false awakening). Now I'd have to fall asleep again and that just wouldn't be too fun (less time to dream). As I laid in bed though, I heard the sound of Chrono Trigger's Cathedral theme playing from the hall. I suddenly realized that no one in my house could be playing this music and therefore I must be dreaming. Well, at least I felt this was a pretty sure bet. I decided it was worth following up.
I did something brave. Something I've NEVER done in my dreams before. I went to the upstairs bathroom. This place was considered the most haunted part of our house and I RARELY built up the courage to go in there during a dream (I'd always find something scary inside). The music was obviously emanating from that part of the house though, the attic in fact. I wouldn't even go up there today during the night-time. In fact, I've never been up there at all. I saw a giant floating eye-ball in that spot when I was two, and the memory persists in the dream-world. The attic above it. No. I would never go there. It's a separate part of the house from the garage attic, even though they are adjacent. They're separated by a wall that just has no place being there in my opinion.
Climbing up, I noticed that I felt a completely different body shape and I was incredibly light, maybe about 110-120 pounds? I was 14 again and therefore this was DEFINITELY a dream. When I pulled myself up, this attic was definitely the scene of nightmares I expected it should be. I was now on a landing looking down about 5 feet into a room. No way back once I jumped down. There were spider webs behind me, I remember touching them and feeling their icky sensation on my hands and EVERYTHING was covered in this slightly iridescent white moss, or was it dust? There were shadows everywhere and everything that was stored up there, exercise bike, baby crib... it was all COVERED in the stuff. I felt as though I had walked into the creepy forests of Fable, and was completely and totally vulnerable (clothing articles in dreams vanish at the weirdest times).
That stated, I realized I was dreaming, so I continued onward, soon leaving the attic completely behind.
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When I walked into the light, I was suddenly laying down in the sand, only to get up to find that I was in an episode of "Lost". I've never even watched an episode of the show, so I'm not sure how my mind decided to make that world up. The only person that made me recognize it was the show, was Hurley (I looked him up on Wikipedia as I didn't even know his name - only his face). Everyone had been rescued by the coast guard... only to have our boat flip apparently (there were some new coast guard members there as well... they were the only ones with life jackets). This was now a NEW place for us to get shipwrecked on!
However, soon after our arrival, one of the group members arrived back to say they saw a "huge mansion". Dun dun dun. But I figured it out. It wasn't a "secret island mansion". It was one of many houses. We had landed back in California on an unused piece of beachfront. To verify this, I took off into flight. I was going a few feet above the ground at a very nice rate of speed. It was much easier to control then normal. As I suspected, we were near a group of houses, no streets, just houses with sidewalks. Each was unique and vividly detailed in the dream, brickwork, stonework, unique designs. Modern architects should really use their dreams to design their work more often.
I was uninterested in staying in an episode of Lost, and so I landed near-by. The dream started to get fuzzy and while I was talking to people, I couldn't remember what I was saying. To counteract this, I used the spinning technique and rapidly brought clarity back into my dream. I even thought of a new experiment for tonight during my WILD. I will try to spin myself around when I start to hear the loud noises in order to help create vivid imagery. (spinning in a dream is one of the better ways to build clarity, odd as it may seem. Somehow, this simple activity can really lengthen your dreams and make them far more vivid while you are dreaming them).
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After this, I decided that I wanted to head to a location in one of my comic books. I've had a REALLY hard time getting here in the past, with only fleeting glimpses during my attempts and sadly this time would prove to be no different. Doing so would require my brain to invent another person's reality, which it appears rather unwilling to do. Furthermore, to try to convince my subconscious that I belong in this world, I have to transform into a persona that would fit in the reality. Given that the comic takes place exclusively in "the dream world", I take this as the ultimate form of fan boyism. I mean, no one can go to the real Gotham City, or Middle Earth, but if the fiction declares that the story takes place in the dream world, then by using lucidity I should be able to actually "go" to the fictional reality where the comic takes place (at least in phrase).
The First thing I tried to do was change my form. I ran to a set of mirrors that I believed were around the corner (dreams are really nice at building faith as belief forms reality here). Running in front of them, I then used my mind to try and will my form to change after allowing myself to visualize my "dream character". I've had no luck with this in the past, but this time was different. For one, I saw several different characteristics in my imagination in the dream that were missing from the one I had drawn in reality (odd but fun at the same time). I was also able to transform in the mirrors, but only temporarily. A moment later, I would be back to me, a 14 year old in khaki cargo pants and a brown tee-shirt (it was a persistent image as well I might add. Also, thank goodness my clothing has returned... temporarily). I tried for a while and then decided that if objective 1 couldn't be met, maybe I could try for objective 2.
I've come to figure out how to flip dream worlds in my dreams, it all comes down to expectation and knowing which objects can flip you from one world to another. Elevators for one, are capable of going anywhere in my dreams. Click a button and you'll end up on a different floor, or even the middle of the sky! Another object that you can walk through is a mirror, but I've had experiences of just getting blackness on the other side in the past with no way back to reality, so I avoided this until I can lucid better. Then there are bodies of water. This is a new trick I recently discovered. Just fly straight down and when you hit the water keep going "down". Eventually, gravity will flip directions and you'll find that you're popping out on the "other side". In other words, lakes have a top and a bottom "surface" in the dream world if done quickly enough.
Like the mirror, I had only limited success in focusing the world into existence. I had a momentary flight along the coast line, a momentary flight above the city and then *poof* I was back into some other world of suburban houses or old industrial complexes. I obviously need more time at the beach or in the forest. I also tried asking dream characters in this world for assistance, which they gladly provided here but turned up nothing. This isn't supposed to work like this. When you ask a dream person for something, the object should come into existence because you believe that they know and so Kamina logic comes into play "Don't believe in the object! Believe in the me that believes the object!". Oddly, the person knew of a cabinet next to the elevator that I didn't see the first time I was there, but the thing I was looking for wasn't inside.
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FKA Pascal