Feral Cats

Sunday 5th August 2012

I went to bed at 8.23pm. I awoke at 4-something then went back to sleep at 5.50am. The memory is hazy but I am partially lucid and I do some sort of big jump into the air, spin round and land. It feels amazing the way I float. I become more lucid. I am walking through a house. I'm really looking and touching things to try and consolidate the dream. I look outside at the sky and there's dark, interesting looking clouds. I phase through a glass door. I look to my left and see a very cute kitten and also some feral-looking cats which back away from me in fear. I speak to one of them telepathically telling it not to be afraid of me. I will it to come over to me which it does. I pick it up and pat it. Then I go over to the kitten which has now changed to an adult cat. I pat that too. I do a few other things which I can't recall before losing lucidity and continuing to dream nonlucidly. I end up in a caravan looking at a collection of butterflies. The butterflies have amazing patterns on their wings of flowers in a field and also of ladies in old fashioned pastel-coloured dresses sitting under umbrella picnic tables.

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Wow good job.  An hour and twenty minutes. That's awesome!  I hope I get a good long one soon. I'm glad you were able to take the time to enjoy being there. Pretty cool you were able to so easily recognize that the time on the clock was off.

Bumped to push back the zombie spam of the forum apocalypse.

bump

I thought I would make a thread for a collection of my more strange disturbing or memorable dreams, lucid or not lucid. If and when I come across them in my old journals. Or if I have new ones I feel like putting here. I'm not sure yet how much time I'm going to put into reading through my old journals and collecting dreams. But I've been wanting to go through my old dreams for recalling them, and maybe some personal inspiration. Or just for the memories as well. I have a large chunk that are lost because of my old computer crashing and can't open. PJ had sent them to me to save to my computer. I do still have the computer, maybe I can get it fixed some day and retrieve those journals too.

Anyways last night I clicked on a random page in one of my old Journals and came across this bizarre dream from 2007. I thought it would be a good one to start with. I might slightly modify wording or punctuation of any old dreams. I'm still nowhere near perfect at grammar but I think I've improved somewhat since I first began online journaling.

Originally Recorded On November/11/2007

Accused

I have been accused of a serious crime that I didn't commit. There is a complex story line about forensics and detectives collecting evidence trying to prove me guilty. Eventually I end up in some meeting before the trial is to take place. Many people are there. Some working for me, and others working to put me away.

I'm very stressed out and afraid. people start asking me tons of questions and trying to get me to confess. But  I'm to afraid to say anything at all. I'm afraid that the evil lawyers will take anything I say and twist it into an admission of guilt. So I just sit there freaking out saying nothing at all. They start trying to say that my silence is an admission of guilt.

Fortunately I have a good group of people working for me, and they seem to think things will go my way. Donald Sutherland is one of the people working to prove me Innocent. I find this comforting. I think that he is a skilled lawyer. This entire part of the dream is very emotionally intense.

Now it's the next day and I'm in court. The trial is set to begin and I'm up at the witness stand about to be questioned. Only I'm standing not sitting. I start to get a really bad headache and my perspective shifts.

I'm now outside of my body and looking at myself. A portion of my skull has fallen away and I can see this strange growth. The growth is expanding from within my brain and beginning to squeeze outward. It has this weird jelly like appearance and is growing out of my head as I watch.

Suddenly half of my head explodes and my body falls to the floor and dies. There are people from the forensics lab rushing around and examining my body. Somebody uses a pencil to pick up a piece of the jelly like growth. It now looks like a round bubble. I hear the guy say." Oh my god! It's some kind of egg sack!"

The dream shifts and I'm in an examination laboratory. They have my body cut open all the way down the middle. And my body is in some tank filled with some kind of fluid. There are things growing outward from within my entire body. They are forming these really colorfully shoots within the tank. (not sure how to explain it exactly.) There are these thin multi colored shoots growing upward out of my body and filling the tank.

I realize that whatever this stuff is, it's creating a new type of environment for a completely new life form. And that every human on the earth is going to die in the same manner that I just did. And in the process a new environment will be formed for a new species to populate the earth.

I found this one I decided I want to save here.

Originally Recorded October/15/2007

Death Race

A group of people and I, are in a race. The winner becomes a millionaire, and also gets to continue living. There's about six of us, and we start out in some metal chamber. There are rubber pegs on the floor that we have to stand on. Because the whole room is about to be electrically charged. Each one of us also has to carry these things that look kind of like an old persons walker. And they also become electrically charged with the floor. The first part of the race is to get through the room without being electrocuted. We have to step in just the right places, using the walkers for balance. But you have to hold the walker just right. Because if your grip slips just a little. you will touch the wrong spot and be electrocuted. Part of the rules of the race are that you also have to try and kill your opponents along the way, as well as avoiding the many death traps that have been set up. And we are all unwilling contestants that have been kidnapped and forced into this place.

All of us make it through the room. We exit the room into a long corridor. I am the last one. We all now have weapons as well. Most of the others run ahead and disappear around a bend in the corridor. With the exception of one guy who stops and turns in my direction. I can tell that he sees me as the weakest of the pack. (And in truth that's how I'm feeling. And very frightened.) He is a fairly big guy, with a shaved head. He is carrying three huge blades. They are curved like fans. He has singled me out for the first kill. But somehow, I know that this guy was previously a friend of mine. I know him from before the race that I don't remember. He takes a step towards me and throws one of the blades. As it spins through the air it looks like a flying disk. I'm carrying a long handled Axe. It also has a wide curved blade. One side of the blade tapers to a point like a spike. I try to swing my axe to deflect the blade. but my timing is way off and I miss. But I'm able to dodge the blade, and it falls harmlessly to the floor. Twice more he throws his remaining blades. Both times I try to deflect them with my axe and miss. But I still avoid the blades.

Now he is weaponless. I set down my axe and pick up one of the blades and throw it in his direction. It spins towards his head then tilts to the side and just misses him. "That was a bad ass throw!" I exclaim.  "Yeah it was." He replies. But I suddenly feel sick to my stomach. Realizing I just nearly decapitated my friend. I don't want to kill him at all. But I don't want to be killed either. I throw the other two blades but only half heartedly. And I miss both times.

He moves to retrieve the blades. Thinking I won't survive his next attack I pick up my axe and charge. I swing the axe in a sideways swiping motion that just grazes his arm and draws a little blood. The axe feels very awkward in my hands and I'm not wielding it very well. I swipe it across again. And again, my axe does not connect very well. I can't seem to get much power behind it. But he was knocked off balance a little. Before he can recover I try a different tactic. I swing the axe around in an uppercut motion, with the spike end forward. The spike catches him in the throat just beneath the chin, and the point explodes out the top of his skull. There is the sickening sound of tearing flesh, and blood is spraying. Both horrified, and in shock at what I've just done. I'm also glad I survived the attack. I wake up with a yuck feeling in my stomach.

Current Goals: -Recall exercises -Dreamsign updates -Testing new RCs -Rally

12/19/19

Two fragments.

First, I was one person among a group of friends who had recently suffered a loss. Several exotic plants were in need of new owners, and I was familiar with them enough to show the others the basics of taking care of them. We brought them into the kitchen of the Bu West house for that.

Each plant looked like a pile of thick moss in a shallow oblong pot about as long and wide as my forearm. The mosslike top layer of the plant could be partially peeled back, exposing dense cilia on the underside and a variety of different morphs beneath depending on the individual plant. One was bushlike with thin winding branches that would need regular trimming. Another was a cluster of pointy seed pods. A third, being handled by a co-worker from waking life, resembled thick violet dandelion flowers that broke apart and drifted in the air like a seed head.

She was quite understandably fascinated by it, but while she was separating the seeding heads from the rest of the plant she ended up letting some loose in the kitchen, a few found their way into a convection oven she was using to reheat something, and I remember thinking to myself that the flavor of her food would be affected. =- Second, return to a recurring environment. An inverted dome structure mostly submerged with a walkway extending inward from the rim to a unit suspended at the center of the dome. Inside, automated processes count down to an uncertain time when the purpose of it all will be made clear. I and several others were inside the center unit for routine observations when a wall began to fall away, revealing a sign that read So Cal Bunnies.

A chamber behind the wall opened, and several small rabbits began exploring us and our equipment. Around the corner, another wall had moved to reveal a small office with a middle aged woman inside who was quite excited that she already had "customers."

Evidently the facility produced designer pets. Among the odder ones were hares spliced with pugs, hyenas and pangolins, and a pale reptilian pet with the face of a ball python, the texture of a snapping turtle and the general body proportions of a sloth. I was told that (breed?) made a good emotional support animal, but the individual I was handling had a defect in some cranial blood vessels that left it blind in its right eye and dramatically shortened its life expectancy.

Interesting dreams. Do yo do a lot of planting in waking life? The way you  describe it sounds like you have experience with plants. I used to when I was kid, I had out door gardens and a couple  indoor plants that I grew and took care of. But I've not done that since childhood.

I did when I was younger too. Both of my parents were groundskeepers when they met, and I helped my mother keep a garden at my childhood home for edible plants to help keep us fed when money was tight. She was (and for the most part still is) extremely knowledgeable not just about the plants themselves but also the tools and systems for maintaining them, she even designed and built her own drip system out of spare tubing and other assorted parts. These days she doesn't have the time for all that, but she does still give her houseplants lots of love.

I picked up quite a bit from her, but never had the same passion for plants myself. The idea of growing peppers or some other windowsill / balcony plant suitable for an apartment has been growing on me lately though, if you'll pardon the pun.

Very cool designer pets. I was trying to envision the reptile with the face of a python, texture of a snapping turtle and the body proportions of a sloth. I can't decide if what I'm seeing is cute or creepy. At any rate, I want one for an emotional support animal.

It was about 50/50 creepy/cute, I'd say. Sort of a Neverending Story or Dark Crystal vibe. Very relaxed when being held and handled though, there's definitely an appeal there.

12/20/19

Fragment

A single scene of refilling my water bottle at work. The lobby seemed smaller in the dream than waking life, now that I'm thinking back on it, but I don't remember thinking anything was out of the ordinary at the time.

12/21/19

No recall. Last memory is double checking my alarm since I work earlier on Saturdays.

12/22/19

Fragment

3 people hunting paranormal. Dream starts in first person, I and two others are in MoJo house preparing some tools including recording devices, binoculars, modernized ritualistic self defense tools (choosing the right type of headphones was part of my strategy for staying safe, for example, though I don't remember exactly how or why each type was protective). On our way out, one says I should leave a note for MoJo. I said we didn't have time, but my friend insisted, saying MoJo was feeling alone in her own home with us quietly coming and going all the time without so much as a goodbye. I relented and left a brief note.

Interestingly, I signed it with my real name, but not two seconds later the dream shifts to 3rd person and I'm replaced as a character by an unfamiliar young man. The new pair leave to go investigate blurry visual distortions in the trees and suspicious patterns of leaf movement. When they enter the car, the young woman discovers the young man has been replaced with a shape shifting creature approximating human behavior. It tries to strap it's seatbelt into her lock, ECT. She gets there impression that it means no harm, it's just bad at mimicking humans but wants her help with something.

Meanwhile the real young man walks with a shape shifter in the form of the young woman to a new destination where person 3 finds them and notices off behavior. He can multiply his body, and the three get into a fight until the woman is able to get a solid hit on the original, dispersing the clones.

Do you do paranormal investigations? I could have used your team's help in my dream from last night. I searched for the source of a disembodied woman voice in my house. Even in dream I was trying to recall the tricks that the methods that ghost hunting shows use to communicate with spirits.

Cool...

I found out recently that a lady I work with is a ghost hunter. The subject came up when I made a random silly comment about ghosts and hauntings and we started talking about it. And she eventually told me that she does real paranormal investigating and works with a local paranormal organization. I looked up their website and sure enough her picture is there with some brief info about some experiences she had as a kid that got her into investigating such things. She also told me that she knows the guys from the "Ghost Hunters" TV show.

When I told her I'd love to go with on a ghost hunt sometime she said she would take me if something comes up.  But I can't really do that right now because I'm not going to leave my little friend home alone any more than I absolutely have to.

I've always been fascinated by ghost stories, but never put enough stock in them to actually go looking for anything. I have visited a couple of historic haunted locations around the USA like Eastern State Penetentiary, Harpers Ferry and San Juan Capistrano. The ambiance around places like that is cool to experience no matter what you believe about the paranormal.

12/23/19

Two Fragments

First, attending some sort of college class. I arrived late to see a student trying to give a presentation. Most of the rest of the class was occupied throwing little wrapped caramels at each other and not paying any attention. One of the caramels flew my way, and I caught it and held onto it. I like caramel. After a minute the rowdiness died down, but at that point the student's presentation was pretty much over. Another student approached me, and she instructed me to find a male friend I liked and then to meet her with him later. I ignored her, but she didn't much seem to care how I reacted, only that I'd received the instructions.

Second, I find myself in what might be a small club room. The blinds are down and I and several other students are working on 3d modeling projects on projected screens with smaller personal laptops for research and reference. The student from before enters the room, walks up to me, turns my chair around and puts her hands on my shoulders. She asks if I found anyone. I told her I hadn't, and she immediately turns around and leaves. A couple of other people in the room come up to my station and ask what that was about, but the conversation quickly turns to what I'm working on. I don't remember it specifically, but I remember describing some of the techniques I'm using to get certain features of the model to work with another student filling in some blanks when I'm being a bit vague.

My screen transitions into a first person view, and it changes from a 3d model to playing a sort of video game. It gives me a sort of legend of zelda vibe, but all I really remember is a feature mapped to directional buttons that change the character's weapons / stances. Cardinal directions are weapons, associated with seasons, and corners / diagonals are stances, associated with emotions or feelings. The screen in the game that you use to assign weapons and stances is arranged into a sort of a top-down stylized ziggurat design that reminds me of the interior of a recurring setting I used to call Sparring Axle where color-coded creatures representing ideologies and mindsets would hold formal sparring matches with each other with their followers. Neat little callback.

That student seems determined to distract you. Applauds that you managed to stay focused.

I'm kind of on the fence about the haunting thing. But I'd love to see something that convinced me it was real.

The whole conversation with her came up because I had randomly said something to her like. I know why hauntings can't be real. Because if you were a ghost, with no need of shelter, food, money, why would you just hang out in a house or building when you could be out exploring the planet, the bottom of the sea, maybe fly to another planet. You get the idea. Why would you just hang out in a house? I wouldn't I'd be wandering all over the world and beyond.

12/24/19

Fragment

Traveling from a nonspecific location in the USA to Delaware on foot using some sort of technology that allows extreme running speeds. At first I'm with someone else who is more familiar with this form of transportation, but eventually I before separated from him and end up at some sort of Arctic research station. After some adjustments, I'm able to meet back up with him somewhere in suburban Kansas, where he steals another piece of secret fast travel technology and uses it to teleport somewhere. He tries taunting me like a cheap comic book supervillain, until he realizes that the teleporter is biometrically locked and automatically sends unauthorised users to a sort of detainment center for the devices actual owner to interrogate. I wake up after he disappears.

12/25/19

Fragment

Brief image of two disembodied wolf heads. One white and one pink. Not gory, just emerging out of some kind of soft medium.

Possible Rally encounter, but colors aren't enough to go on with a memory that brief. Merry Christmas anyway, little hosts.

Hope you had a merry christmas. I don't celebrate it myself but have no ill will toward those who do. I tried celebrating Festivus one year and had a blast. This year I went for a hike on the 25th to immerse myself in nature. Had a wonderful walk through foggy, snow patchy woods. Was magical.

I really like the ending of your extreme running speed dream. That's pretty slick, teleporting unauthorized users to a detainment center.

I've heard Festivus is a wild ride, that one's on my bucket list. I don't live in a place that gets much fog anymore though, I miss it. Glad you were able to get out and appreciate some.

12/26/19

No dream recall. Last thing I do remember is moving a blanket off the bed after waking up in the night due to the heat.

Not much sleep either, the past couple nights. I focused on getting some more detailed descriptions for older recurring DCs and getting back to familiarity with some of their symbols. Working with some of Ophi and Lune's tones helped keep me attentive at work against a bit of sleeplessness. It's no substitute for rest, but it got me through a busy day. I caught up some in the evening, and I'll be heading back to that now. Fingers crossed.

12/27/19

Fragment

Single image of reaching into a small [wooden?] birdcage with several small gemstones floating inside.

12/28/19

Discovering, training with and eventually participating in a mock duel with several small magical and/or technological tools adapted for use as weapons.

first part of dream involved finding these. I remember a small underground sci-fi styled building that had become more cavelike over time due to mineral deposition coating the walls and floors with brittle stone. The place was roughly the size of a small apartment building, but with larger halls. Some of the machinery was working due to efforts by some group to restore the facility, which created obstacles to reaching the tool.

I was with DCs who represented two people from waking life, but I don't remember who now. Traveling through the building led us to a sort of looping series of rooms that were linking back recursively on each other, and we realized we must be in the facility where the palm-mounted weapon was made. We split up, allowing us to trigger different spatial anomalies and puzzle our way through the building.

At the top was a door hinge that had been expanded to comically large proportions over years and years of spatial distortion, but only when approached from a certain angle. The curved and irregular surface inside could only be navigated with some kind of skating maneuver I can't remember very well, but at the apex of the hinge were the palm mounted weapon. I presume escaping the place using their less dramatic but more reliable spatial distortions was simpler than breaking in, but I don't remember that bit.

Second part was a mock duel that consisted of two parts. First were several competitive tests of finesse, destructive ability and familiarity with the tools. First person to knock down a small pin hanging from a difficult to access object without breaking anything, first person to break a thing to judge's standards, the usual cliches. Then we relocated to a more open area for the actual face-to-face part, though I woke up on the way there.

12/29/19

No dream recall. I remember turning over a couple of times in the night for a drink of water I keep on the nightstand.

12/30/19

Fragment after some poor sleep.

Single image of a woman sitting on a bench indoors. Odd posture, both attentive and excruciatingly formal. She was looking off slightly to my left, not sure at what. No clear memory of the room or her exact appearance. Maybe wearing some kind of long coat?

Hope you have some better sleep soon. I've been struggling to remember much the last couple nights too, sucks. It helped getting a nap in today. Had some nap recall.

Hope you get back to some sweet sleeping soon. As odd as it sounds, sleep yoga sometimes works for me when I'm desperate to sleep.

It's a pain in the ass, but it happens. Thanks for the encouragement you two.

I only have a passing familiarity with yoga in general, but it doesn't sound all that odd. Brings to mind some mental body awareness exercises and gentle dream-related meditation drills that might pair well with a sleep yoga session. I'll try that tonight and report back, likely after work. Busy one tomorrow.

12/31/19

No dream recall, but I did get a decent night's sleep.

I tried a dream yoga exercise after Wedijahs' suggestion, not surprisingly that's the last thing I remember from the night. It's been a while since I did anything like this, so I incorporated some easy to reach dream symbols to help simplify the process.

Started it by getting settled into bed with a small neck pillow and a larger one under my knees for comfort. I visualized an old comfortable scene from back home, paying special attention to the feelings of chill wind over my body and coarse ground under my feet. The soft sound of wingbeats over my head from local birds waking up in the early morning and the silhouettes of small trees and brush stretching off toward the horizon rounded it out.

I used those silhouettes to facilitate a scene transition the way I would in an LD, changing it from a waking life scene to the Manifestuary. The plant silhouettes were replaced by the dim glow of coral growths and the flat arid landscape replaced by grey shoreline and ink black ocean.

I reached my left hand out to one of the corals, drawing a pinpoint of tone into my hand, and using the faint vibration and luminescence associated with the stuff to perform a basic body awareness exercise. I moved the feeling of it up and down each finger, then each arm, then traced my back, stomach and legs, back up my neck and across my face and scalp.

Next time I'll probably start at my face or toes, I'm beginning to understand why most introductory guides on this sort of thing do that. I could feel myself making strained expressions and involuntarily flexing my feet when I reached tough spots. Focusing on relaxing those first seems like a smart choice.

Either way, once I spread the little tone echo through my body I focused on gathering it back into my hands and returning it to the coral.

It could have been a short and sweet session, but I ran into a couple of tough sensory areas that occupied most of the session and I probably compromised the relaxing intentions of it all by struggling through them until I was satisfied with the way the feeling traveled across them. Good practice, but not when I'm trying to fall asleep. Lessons learned.

That sounds like a wonderful session. The sleep yoga I was talking about isn't that deep though. It's just deep stretching in yoga poses, slowing one's breathing, and trying to keep the mind clear. I started off using videos off youtube but developed my own routine. I'll usually do it until my body stops crackling and popping and the stretches aren't uncomfortable anymore. By the end, while in corpse pose, I sometimes can feel myself drifting off and know I'll sleep well that night.

Also Happy New Year Contratonics.

Wishing you all the best and brightest dreams in the upcoming year, lucid and non lucid. Looking forward to reading what dreams may come you way.

My introduction to a thing called "sleep yoga" was very different, apparently. That sounds much more manageable!

Happy New year to you too, dreams and all.

01/01/20

A bunch of Fragments

I'm traveling across a hilly, rocky area peppered with trees and small lakes. I'm carrying a sword and dream memory suggests I'm familiar with its use, but I am not a soldier or mercenary by trade. Instead I'm some sort of alchemist, collecting ingredients from rare creatures and environments to create potions, materials and other products with slight magical properties.

I settle in for a short time in a local town and meet another alchemist who specializes in metalwork. He and I take an apprentice who is was a soldier and is looking to find a trade. I and the metal worker eventually notice some nonspecific danger coming in the form of some kind of magical attack. While discussing amongst ourselves how to help the town and survive ourselves, the other alchemist is injured. I treat him but he will need time to be healed enough to fight without opening the wound. Our apprentice and I scout using tools of the trade.

2. Later in the same dream, I'm in third person watching crows gathering at a small ridge. Each is carrying a curved tooth. The teeth dissolve, and each crow becomes a fiery looking black and grey silhouette of a bird. They take flight again, and charge into local wildlife of their way to a town. Anything they touch dissolves and implodes with a rhythmic brush and thud.

3. Making a large luxurious bed with a waking life coworker in the middle of a slightly dome shaped room. Firm yet smooth sheets, thick blankets so fluffy they could almost be pillows themselves, dark rich burgundy and violet colors. I'd just gotten done talking with someone here, and I don't remember using the bed for anything, but my coworker and I were moving in what felt like very practiced motions turning this thing over.

4. Short scene of equipping some sort of science-fictiony set of equipment. I was wearing a sort of thin body armor with attachment sites for modular parts, choosing a "loadout" appropriate for some upcoming work, though I don't remember any of the details.

5. In Bu West house getting a cousin's dog ready to walk outside. I dress for snow while the juvenile golden retriever dances about in excitement. When I open the door, everything beyond the hill of the driveway seems to be a colorful, dense caricature of outer space with brightly colored galaxies, interstellar clouds, ect. There are several half-constructed lego sets strewn about, and I find myself able to take them apart to salvage real spacecraft and supplies by removing their toy equivalents from the set. The dog vanishes at some point during my scavenging.

Wow looks like recall is picking up. Those were fun dreams.  I love the fantasy theme going on. Are you a fan of the genre? Books, movies, shows, games?  I've always wanted to summon and fly on the back of a dragon in a lucid dream. So far never done it, though I did visit Krynn once while lucid. the world of The Dragon Lance saga. That was a wonderfully magical experience. I have the VR version of Skyrim. OMG, fighting dragons in VR on a life size scale, and when my character was still weak, I was in pure awe of it the first couple of times.

Happy upcoming birthday Rainbow!

We're practically the same age, only you're a few months older. Guess what, we're getting old...  Oh, well.  What do you do? Oh, I know. Have another Lucid Dream! Play in the land of the ageless.

Fingers crossed on the recall. It'll wax and wane a bit, but things are getting on track faster than I expected.

Never been deep into fantasy, but I have gotten into a handful of series here and there and used to do a lot of tabletop RPGs as a player and gm, where fantasy in various forms is king in terms of popularity. That's where most of my familiarity with the genre comes from. I didn't know Dragonlance was a series, I've only heard of it as a D&D campaign setting. Literally walking into a fictional world does sound like a wild ride. If there's a thread for stuff like this I'd be glad to pick up on this convo more in depth there, could be good inspiration.

Edit: didn't see a general enough topic to Necro, so here's a fresh one http://mortalmist.com/forum/index.php?topic=10785.0

01/02/20

Fragment

Short scene in what looked like a concrete room. I'm alone, looking through various roughly carved stone crates and loading their contents onto a sort of flattened shopping cart.

Great batch of dreams and recall there! Would love to experience an outerspace scene like the one you had.

It was pretty rad. Fingers crossed for you on that one.

01/03/20

Fragments

Biking a long way to work. At a shopping center I'm stopped by a cop who asks for my ID. As I'm fishing it out of my wallet, he says to turn it my way because I can't see the face. I say that's a dollar bill, my ID is still stuck in the pocket. I get my ID out, but he reaches into the wallet and retrieves what I thought was a dollar bill, but is in fact some kind of religious pamphlet made to look like one, roughly, with an unfamiliar man's face on it. The cop folds it out curiously and we both glance over it. He seems suspicious that I have it, asking where I got it. I suggest it was included as part of a tip from work, as I didn't know it was anything but money until this moment.

An unfamiliar man approaches and warns me not to believe the contents of the pamphlet, saying the man who wrote it is a liar and only looking out for himself. I'm getting frustrated at this point, repeating that I don't know what it is and I'm not interested in its contents. The man hands a handwritten receipt to the cop, saying it's my receipt for the "soul gem." and reiterating that I should explain where I got it. The cop doesn't seem to recognize this man or put much faith in his claim that the scrawled note belongs to me, and I'm allowed to go about my business.

Several brief fragments of a dream about caring for a small alien animal with a DC friend I don't recognize from waking life. Earliest bit I remember is an image of the creature itself, kind of a tardigrade looking thing with a translucent white outer membrane and visible internal organs.

Later we lose it somehow, and I remember driving around a run-down suburban neighborhood in the snow looking for it. We come across an abandoned house and find it inside, going through some sort of metamorphosis. It's encased in a roughly thumbnail sized sac of pink bubbly flesh attached to a wall with little tendons. Memory skips over some kind of fight, possibly with the creature itself after emerging from the cocoon, but eventually I and the DC safely recover it.

It's smaller than before, but it appears more mature featuring grasping arms, a more expressive face and the ability to move around on its own. It hooks on to one of my fingers and hangs there like a bat. Needly little claws sting pretty bad, but it's not being aggressive, just curious and wants to stay attached to someone it recognizes. I try to get it off to wrap it in something, reasoning that it wouldn't survive the cold outside. It fusses and keeps trying to latch back onto our fingers.

We do eventually get it out safely, and once we're back at my place we find an instruction manual for its care on my DC friend's laptop. We learn that this metamorphosis is the first of two, and just before she opens her info on what to expect for the second change I wake up.

Religious pamphlet disguised as money that's kind of brilliant way to trick people into looking at them. Don't let the churches know about that idea.

That dream about the creature was really cool. Too bad you woke up before the second change. I wonder what would have happened next.

Lovin' all the dream creatures. You have a weird & wonderful menagerie in your mind.

Discovering the weird creatures my dreams come up with is a joy for me too. I used to draw them when I was younger, but haven't put pencil to paper in a while. That may be something to get back to.

01/04/20

A little one-two punch of cannibalism in this dream, fair warning if that turns your stomach.

Return to the building with the luxurious bed from my dream on Jan 1. I go downstairs, and the place seems to be a single large room with a massive loft featuring The bed space. Most of the ground level is kitchen and a slightly depressed living room area with two couches and a couple of matching seats arranged around a large coffee table. Dim overhead light fixtures set a tranquil, homey sort of mood.

I go further downstairs into a basement area through what might be mistaken for an underground wine cellar. Small ceramic vessels line the smooth stone walls in racks. Then the basement opens up into a great big stone cavern with a single stone walkway crossing it. At the center of the walkway is a long stone coffin. I walk up to it and it slides open to reveal a pale athletic looking woman with platinum blonde hair wearing modern clothing.

She speaks to me as if we're strangers, dramatically revealing herself to be a vampire and detailing a twisted game of social politicking that resulted in her becoming what she is and getting one over on her backstabbing former associates. Dream memory insists I've probably done this more times than I can count with her, so I listen politely until she is finished and wait for her to invite me back upstairs for a "taste."

We make our way back up to the large kitchen, where we each pull up a stool at the bar. She takes my wrist and bites into it, delivering an unfortunately sharp pain followed by a merciful numbness. After a few moments, she lets go of my arm. It doesn't seem to need any bandaging. Then she reaches out toward me with her own wrist up. I distinctly remember feeling a sense of jaded frustration at this. Like a weary babysitter indulging an enthusiastic child. Dream memory says she does this every time, even though I'm not a vampire. I take her wrist and bite, firm enough to feel but not enough to actually break skin. I don't understand this ritual, but I feel a sort of responsibility to perform it. I have a brief vision of actually being a vampire and feeling blood in my fangs, but it passes and I'm back in the fancy kitchen gnawing uselessly on her wrist.

Regardless of how silly it seems to me, after a moment the vampire seems satisfied. She thanks me and goes about rummaging through the kitchen while I prepare some cookware for imminent use. I ask what she's interested in eating today, and as she mulls over the question the scene shifts.

I'm standing by a small concrete pool with a small group of people. I'm carving into the shoulders and arms of one man and feeding the raw meat to the rest of the group. Very graphic and detailed, but the man is in no pain and nobody involved is in any distress. He chats idly with the rest of us while I set bits of his muscle onto paper plates and hand them to others. The mood around the pool is one of casual bemusement. I have some as well, and it has the taste and texture of slightly over cooked unseasoned chicken breast.

01/05/20

No dream recall. Getting some water from the nightstand is the last waking memory before sleep.

Wow, bizarre dream. Cool. I've been a vampire in dreams before and tried to suck blood out of people. It was an odd experience.

I suddenly remember a long forgotten intense dream adventure where I was trying to escape a very tall tower full of powerful vampires that could fly.

Odd seems to be the word for it. One of those moments that makes you wonder how the brain approximates sensations you've never felt before in waking life, yet convinces you that what you're feeling is a normal part of your body.

01/06/20 Fragment

Single image of observing two people in third person. They're dressed for extreme cold and their faces are mostly obscured. One looks back at the other and I have the distinct impression he is smirking.

01/07/20

No dream recall. There was something, but I slept through my first alarm and had to get ready for work in a hurry. Had to let it slip today.

Last waking memory is adjusting my sleeping position on the bed. It's getting old and the indentation in the middle sticks around no matter which way I flip it.

01/08/20

Fragment

Brief scene of a small pond, not much bigger than 20 meters across, surrounded by sparse clumps of tall grass and trees a bit farther back. Reminds me now of some of the areas winter runoff in the mountains can develop into relatively shallow permanent pools. I'm propped up against something solid I can't see, reclining on the dirt a little ways from the embankment, and I try to turn around to face another person I know is there. Moving feels stiff and strained, and I can't quite get them into view.

01/09/20

No dream recall. Last waking memory is turning off a light in the kitchen I'd accidentally left on in the evening.

01/10/20

Fragments

I'm with a group of people from different time periods in my waking life. High school and college friends, a couple people from around the desert where I grew up, ect. All of them are getting together to go to some event, and ask if I'll be able to make it. I'm not sure if I'm in a place financially to make it work, but I tell them I'll try.

We visit the site where the event is going to happen. It's a very nice conference center off the beaten path. We have to take a narrow exit off a highway, through a tunnel and around what looks like some kind of ranch over a hill before it's visible. While together in one of the conference rooms we discuss plans.

At some point I'm with one of the others in a nearby convenience store. I try to pay for the travel food we pick up, but the register shows that I only have a little over 6 bucks in my account. I try not to look too disappointed that I somehow didn't know I'd spent all my money and wouldn't be able to attend the event later with everyone.

Refilling my water bottle earlier this morning triggered another memory

I'm in a small apartment or dorm room with another person. She is kneeling at the wall bedside the door, using a small laptop. I set wrapped gifts and baskets down on the bed, the only other observable furniture in the room. They seem to be for me or us.

She comments that she didn't expect so many offerings. I tell her I just wish I knew who they were all from so I could have a better understanding of what I did to deserve them. I pick up one, a metal water bottle similar to one I use in waking life, and feel it in the familiar way I would sense Tone. It gives me a texture and a vague sense of the person who it once belonged to. The texture reminds me of stroking a snake. The impressions are a sort of firm, decisive tunnel vision. A kind of clarity of purpose. They feel familiar to dream me. Like a word at the tip of my tongue.

Roommate hears me mulling over this out loud and reasons that it may be someone I've met or already know, but these Tones are a side of them I haven't seen before. I agree, and then hear movement outside the door. It passes quickly, and when I look out I see two more gifts laid on front of the door. I bring them back in to roommate's amusement, and I complain about how complicated this is getting.

01/11/20

I drive in the middle of a night to a little neighborhood in the woods. In one of the houses I meet up with a group of people to sneak into a nearby amusement park. We walk there through the woods and find a back entrance to what looks like a warehouse (disapointed I didn't catch that massive dream flag, but here we are.) The door has no handle on the outside, but I recognize that it would respond to the right set of coded behaviors to unlock. I set my bag on the ground on my left side, unzip the largest pocket with my left hand and spread it open with my right, then stand up to face sideways and push the door open with my right hand. It opens, and as I walk through it begins automatically closing. I have to trust the rest of the group will be able to follow my lead.

some memory skips here, and instead of a park we're in a large outdoor shopping mall. It's daytime now, and the place is packed with visitors. We are looking for a famous movie theater, and after asking around I find out that it's next to a Ford dealership. My view shifts to third person, rising above the mall, and I get a bird's eye view of the layout of the place. The dealership is right in the middle, and the lot where all the cars are takes up a large chunk of the total mall space.

memory skips again, and now I'm jumping into a large fishtank display. The environment shifts as I enter to look like a shallow underwater lake bed. I find my way to a sort of large metal bar hanging down from the surface, and I'm attacked by some kind of beige-white giant eel. It doesn't seem to be very agile, and I'm able to position myself between it and the bar to stay out of its reach and fight it off. I encounter another type of eel, this one red with spiny segmented plates. These red eels maneuver much better, but seem less aggressive.

I find the remains of a dead red eel, and I use it and the metal bar to fashion a sort of serrated club by wrapping the eel tightly around one end of the bar and desiccating the eel's body (through means I don't quite remember, but it felt quite natural and practiced in the dream) to make it a more reasonable size. With the weapon, I swam up and out of the water, finding myself in a small rocky archipelago. From sea level most of the islets are just sheer cliff faces with a few canyon-like passages eroded into them. They create a maze-like environment.

There are two other people on the islet I emerge beside, guarding a small stone podium with a metal, rectangular object resting on top. They tell me there is someone here trying to steal it, and they can't leave it, but there is a device on an adjacent islet that helps keep this object safe that also needs to be guarded. I navigate to the device, and find it being shut down by a man in formal attire. He tries to fight his way past me to the first object, and I use my eel club to defend myself. It turns out to be a bit flimsy, but instead of outright breaking it instead becomes flexible at the head. I use it like a flail to beat back the man, and eventually he falls onto a rocky outgrowth, either unconscious or dead.

The two men who were defending the metal object approach him and carry him away. I talk with one of them about something, but I can't remember exactly what as I begin to wake up.