ENORMOUS post follows. Read only if you want to know way too much about the fucked-up mind of VSM.
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I guess I've been experimenting with Lucid Dreaming. It's actually not what I'm trying to do, but for whatever reason, I can now do it to a degree. Or at least easier without waking up. (Re: At all. In the past, if I ever thought "I'm dreaming!" I'd lose all control and wake up.)
So I was in this mall. It wasn't even MY mall. And I was having a conversation with someone I used to know, I guess a friendly acquaintance. And I was telling her that I always liked her and that she was very attractive, but I was never really attracted to her. (Which is all true. And really bizarre, when I think about it. Why not?) Sometime after the conversation, my memory of the dream fogs up some. I don't remember if it was monsters or just murderers, but someone was attacking everyone in this mall. And I remember running away from this thing into the parking lot and looking for dad, who I figured was obliviously waiting in his car. Shortly after I thought of this, I spotted my mom's jeep in the back of the parking lot, and sure enough, my dad was inside of it.
Here's where the dream goes somewhat lucid. I pieced together that it was a dream. Not because I was in a mall that wasn't my mall. Not because I couldn't remember how I even GOT to the mall. Not because I had an overly personal conversation with someone I don't currently know very well. Not because the public place I was in was under attack by horrors. You might think that it was because, when I started to run, I was running faster than I usually can. Maybe it was my dad driving my mom's car instead of his own AWESOME car. You might even think it was because, as soon as I wished for my dad, there he was. And only that last one may be true. But the real clincher, as batshit crazy as this is, is I remember thinking "Dad would never park there" Which is ESPECIALLY ludicrous because...... I'm damn sure he would. It's insane troll logic. Or at least insane dream logic.
So instead of immediately waking up at the "I'm dreaming" moment, I focused and managed to close my thumb and middle finger on my right hand. I thought, "Ah-ha! I didn't wake up! This must be a lucid dream!"
So I was wondering around the parking lot after this, totally blowing off my dream dad. (I'm an insensitive prick, apparently.) I wasn't concerned with whatever was chasing me, because I was pretty sure that, if nothing else, I could force a scene change in my dream. My control over the dream felt very..... limited. But there was enough to be confident in my safety. It's sort of like being an apprentice wizard or something. Like, you know you don't have any formal spells like the big boys do, but when push comes to shove, you're the most powerful being in the immediate area.
In the parking lot, I ran into another old acquaintance of mine. This one unfriendly. And also a girl. I apparently dream about an awful lot of girls. Be prepared for a trip into loneliville. Anyhow, she was really, REALLY beat up by whatever the hell was attacking us all. She thought she was dying, but dream or no dream, this was a really melodramatic point of view, because it seemed like just a few broken bones to me, with no real bleeding or damage to her trunk. And her head-wounds seemed limited to her face.
She was begging me to take her to the hospital. And I remember thinking to myself, "Oh no, I can't drive!" Like it was some kind of a big deal in my crazy semi-lucid dream world. Eventually I assured her she'd be OK, and I started running my hands over her injuries, which healed her.
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Somewhere in here, I lost control again, and I found myself in a speeding car with a couple of my friends, who wanted to go out clubbing. I was happy to be with them, but I was afraid (ashamed?!) because I didn't tell my parents I was going out with my friends, and when I looked at the clock, it was around the time they'd be coming home from their weekly romps in Canada. (I somehow correctly guessed the day in my dream.) I had to borrow one of their cell-phones, because I knew calling home would be the responsible thing to do. And I didn't have my own cell phone. Because I was in the mall, and I only really take my cell with me if I'm going to an appointment/class or if I go out with friends. I wouldn't take my phone to the mall.
..............I remembered that I was at the mall, and that I just CAME from the mall. And despite my dad being there and probably knowing I was hanging out with my friends, dream-me thought it was prudent to call him. Weird. Eerie.
Numbers are all kinds of screwed up in dreams. I find that if I really focus on them, lucid dream or no, they eventually start to make sense. But it's very, very hard. I remember a lot of times in older dreams where if I look at numbers or letters, I can't read them and I keep trying to make sense of them, but nada. For whatever reason, this doesn't always clue me in that it's a dream, or at least give me some degree of lucidity. Trying to actually DIAL a number was impossible. I called a wrong number on my first friend's phone (he doesn't even have a cell!) and kept dialing my home number wrong, and I eventually told him his phone sucked and asked the second friend for HIS phone. I wanted a phone more like mine, so he gave me a phone that was exactly like mine. (His real one is nothing like it.) After failing with even a familiar phone, I tossed it in disgust and thought, "Fuck it, I'm dreaming. They can just worry about me." (WHY DID THIS MAKE SENSE?!)
There was a part with a casino and playing arcade-style games. I remember it lasting a long time, but my memory of it is soooooooo faded. I don't know why some of the memories are jumbled as all get out, and others are really vivid. I also vaguely recall something in this part with playing Poker. Another bit with dioramas, and a THIRD bit where I was running through walls to escape bouncers. Fuckers didn't know I had intangibility and X-ray vision in my semi-lucid dream. Shows what they know.
I remember being in a lab somewhere. And my mom and an older (literally. She's 40something) friend of my sister's were making confections together. I didn't even know that the friend could bake, but her cupcakes were delicious, albeit sloppy. In this lab, this one woman was making horrifying plant/spider things, but acting like it was the best thing ever. And she had friends who agreed with her. I thought they were all crazy and that these things were dangerous, but they wouldn't listen to me. Eventually, this giant ball of spider/plants "Hatched" for lack of better word, and started coming after me. I remember running away from them (All the way to my front porch from wherever the fuck I was.) before I realized, "Hey, wait a second. I can make them disappear." Except I couldn't. So I thought "OK, then. I can change them." So I changed them....... into big damn ants. BIG DAMN ANTS. I thought something along the lines of "Augh! This is also horrifying! Why did I think this was a good idea?!" And eventually just forced it to change scenes, because, MY GOD. BIG DAMN ANTS. Seriously. Why would I even DO that?!
All this typing is making my memory really fade. There was something with these three girls that, in my dream I knew very well, but in reality, they don't exist. I'm not sure of the real details. I think I had a full-fledged "Date" with all of them, that turned out badly, because I kept feeling guilty because I was semi-lucid dreaming. Like, I always knew that I could make the date go wherever I wanted, but kept ending the date, because it felt unethical. Weirder still, I think these were the creepy science-lab girls, so maybe I have a fetish for people who unleash horrors of vermin upon me. I'm so gonna get crabs when I'm older.
The third girl (fourth?!) liked me without me lucid-prompting her to, so I was happy. But by this time, I was fully losing control of my dream, and she kept changing into random objects. And I do mean random. I think she ended up as a half-eaten box of chocolate donuts. Poor girl. Yet another friend SAW me with my half-eaten box of chocolate donuts, and accused me of stealing HIS girlfriend, who 1)I don't even like, and 2)Is not a half-eaten box of chocolate donuts, nor a brunette, which is what I'm pretty sure I started with. Anyhow, I'd lost control of the dream completely at this point, and he was chasing me for REVENGE of some sort. I remember going blind and still navigating my way around, but eventually, I screamed "WAKE UP" because I was so frustrated I couldn't control my dream scenes any more.
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You'd think it'd end there, but OH NO. See, I couldn't wake myself up completely, which is a problem I sometimes have when I sleep on my back. I'm prone to...... whatever it's called when your mind perceives an object as another object when you're either just falling asleep or just waking up. So I saw this shadow dance by from my fan, and I thought it was something jumping down to get me. So I started myself fully awake. I HATE when I do that. I think having terrible vision makes this problem worse, because everything is so goddamn BLURRY when I wake up. Everything could be anything.
Total time spent dreaming? TWO HOURS. Dear God.