Dream 511 (LUCID DREAM)

'Killing Cowboys'

Dream date:  21 October 2015

I don't remember the previous scenes from this dream, so the report starts with the only part I do recall, which was the lucid part. Therefore, this isn't actually the first scene of the dream, only the short part I remembered, as I woke up from it.

Scene 1: Halfway inside a Bookshop (Day)
I was standing in the doorway of a bookshop. The bookshop was old-fashioned - the walls were lined with shelves from floor to ceiling and all the books looked dated and sepia brown. I could see that it was a sunny day outside. 

The shop was being attacked by beings, which looked like cowboys, although I knew they were monsters. They were human in appearance, but gave me a sense of fear and dread. I could not communicate with them in human language - they were silent and threatening, as well as being a lot larger than the average human male. All of these cowboys (there were between 5 - 10 of them in total) were dressed in brown clothing, typical of the dress worn by cowboys in Western films and had large heads, with facial hair. I cannot describe them in detail, as other than their size and the fact they did not speak when I was trying to communicate with them, they looked generic and typical (I have included an image, below, to illustrate). I was saying: 'Why are you here?' and 'Why are you coming to get me, when I haven't done anything to you?' - words to that effect. I felt that I was being unjustly targeted by the cowboys.

Looking back on the dream, I got the impression the shop was being 'attacked' by the cowboys and that they were after me for an unknown reason, but actually, they were pretty passive. They didn't move fast or do anything violent. In fact, I got the impression we were all standing still and static.

One of the cowboys pulled out a gun - a pistol or revolver. I punched him in the head and he fell to the floor (dusty blue tiles, I saw at this point) and lay prone. I wondered if he was dead and whether I would be in trouble for murder. I then spontaneously and suddenly became lucid. There was no need for me to perform a reality check and I felt exhilarated and excited, which prompted me to remind myself to calm down, as heightened emotion might lead me to prematurely end my lucid dream. I said: 'I'm lucid now, so I know you can't harm me - you're just dream characters!' 

Someone - unseen, but not a cowboy - a male dream character who was with me in the shop, said: 'You'll have to prove it to them!' I then turned around to the cowboy who was standing directly in the doorway behind me. I reached up and poked my finger (index) through his cheek. The cheek was soft and my finger impaled it easily, as if it was made of a liquefied jelly substance. I started laughing and said; 'Is this proof?' The cowboy whose face I had impaled did not move or react in any way. I withdrew my finger and pushed it through his brain, making him fall to the ground, dead. I then said to the other cowboys who were surrounding me in a wide circle within the bookshop: 'I could kill you all easily!' I felt powerful and superhuman. None of the live cowboys did anything - they were still just standing there, still and silent. I started walking towards all of them, poking my finger into their brains to kill them. I managed to kill about 2 or 3 more in this manner, but then felt the dream starting to 'black-out' and fade, signalling the fact I was waking up or losing lucidity. Before I had a chance to try and stabilise the dream, I woke up!

TIME: 00:30 - 09:00 hours (I woke up from this dream)

LUCIDITY: Fully Lucid via DILD (Dream Initiated/Induced Lucid Dream)

• Spontaneous DILD, no induction technique/method used
• Lucidity triggered by dreamsign (absurd action)
• No reality check performed
• Strong lucidity/clarity
• Relatively weak stability (dream did not last long enough for me to use any stabilising methods in good time)
• I am unaware of the approximate percentage of this dream was lucid as I have forgotten all of the non-lucid elements. Lucidity lasted approximately 2 - 3 minutes

SPECIAL NOTES: None of note

Dream Information:

• None of note

Dreamsigns:

• The lucid dream situation was a dreamsign, but I did not need to reality check

Recurrent Dream Themes:

• Bookshops 

Potential Day/Dream Residue:

• The day before this dream, I had watched a Nigella Lawson cookery show and seen her study which has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, containing many old books, some of which Nigella was discussing with her viewers
• The day before this dream I was discussing movies with DL and mentioned 'Westerns' and how I think this is a genre that I most closely associate with Americana

Waking Thoughts & Emotions:
This was exciting as it was a 'natural' or spontaneous lucid dream. However, since I have forgotten a lot of the dream - most of it, except for the lucid parts, I am a little disappointed.

* I have forgotten large parts of this dream. If I recall anything further, I will record it below.

Dream 510

'Unwanted Baby'

Dream date: 12 October 2015

Scene 1: Interior of a House (Time Unknown)
I was in an interior of a house - not one which I can recognise from real-life, but it felt familiar in the dream, although I did not see enough details to describe it, other than to say it was well-lit and there was dark red velvet furniture in the room. There were various members of my family around, including my mum.

I was naked - at least my torso and midsection was. I did not feel ashamed or uncomfortable. I could see my body in the third-person - I may have been looking at my reflection in a mirror. Although my body had not changed (from what it looks like in real-life), I was aware that I was pregnant and that I did not want to be. It wasn't that I didn't want a baby at all - just that the timing was wrong and I was planning to go away on a holiday with (an unseen, unnamed male) and did not want to be pregnant at this time. I was asking if it was possible to stop being pregnant for a few weeks to adjust to the situation and then make a decision when I came back from the holiday. My family were telling me that this was not possible, but it might be possible to ask a doctor to 'freeze' the size of the baby so that it stopped growing for a while and I could forget about it until I was ready to continue. I felt a bit stressed and anxious about the situation and the decision I would have to make.

I went over to a table in the room and saw there were some packages on the table - which were meant for me. I opened one of them, which was wrapped in brown paper. It was from my nan and contained Japanese ingredients and sushi. I felt pleased.

Scene 2: A Residential Street (Day)
I was then standing on a normal residential street (not one I recognise from real-life). My nan was a few steps in front of me. She turned around and started screaming. She did not seem upset or angry and I could not make out what she was screaming. Her face was contorted into a grimace - but I did not sense negative emotions or a dangerous situation. I felt calm and viewed this as ordinary behaviour.

TIME: 23:00 - 08:00 hours (I am not sure when this dream took place)

LUCIDITY: NO

SPECIAL NOTES: NONE OF NOTE

Dream Information:

• None of note

Dreamsigns:

• Being pregnant

Recurrent Dream Themes:

• None of note

Potential Day/Dream Residue:

• I regularly see feminist articles about how childless women should not be questioned about their decisions or stance regarding reproduction or fertility - as well as many pro-life v pro-choice debates online - almost on a daily basis. The fact I am a female who is often asked questions about my plans to reproduce and take an interest in other women's views on the topic, this may have influenced this dream
• This dream took place shortly before my birthday - hence the packages - in real-life, my mum had sent me a brown envelope which contained all of my birthday cards, including one from my nan. This was on my kitchen table downstairs in real-life, at the time I had this dream
• My nan knows I love Japanese culture and cuisine and often buys me sushi 

Waking Thoughts & Emotions:
I didn't have any particular waking thoughts or emotions about this dream as I do not see the subject matter (fertility and motherhood) as particularly problematic in my waking life. It may also be that my birthday was approaching, which made this subject emerge in my dream.

Dream 509

'Snowy Monoliths'

Dream date: 3 October 2015

I haven't been able to update my Blog for a while because I haven't been able to concentrate on my dream practices. Basically, I had to do a number of extra work-related activities relating to the start of university term and the arrival of new students: including welcome events, kitchen meetings and 150 individual student meetings in residences. I also had to write a 12,000 word chapter of my thesis, prepare for two classes I am teaching this semester (in topics I have never taught before), and start a new Masters degree-level class which comes with a lot of homework!

So, I failed to record my dreams in a timely way and as a result began to fail to recall my dreams when I woke up. I only remember one dream clearly, so I will write off the other dreams which I can only remember tiny, disconnected, vague fragments of, and just concentrate on recording the one I did manage to recall. Instead of doing my usual analysis of the dream (as I still have lots of studying and lesson preparation to do tonight!) I will just write it up in a more visually-entertaining way, and hopefully resume my dreaming and blogging in the very near future!

I was in a strange house - it looked like a normal family home, but it is not one I recall from real-life, although it seemed familiar in the dream, as if this was my actual childhood home. I was with my cousin, HM. We were looking through some items (perhaps in suitcases or boxes?) and I found a photograph of us when we were children. I was standing up, in the right; HM was kneeling at my feet in the left. We were both wearing jeans and anoraks and it made me recall an actual childhood photograph of us (see below) which exists, although in this dream photograph, HM looked like a 1990s teenager and I looked like an old man with a black beard and a wrinkled face.

HM and I were then in a kitchen - it may have been the kitchen of the house that we had been in a moment before. It was a long room, with bright lights. A counter ran for the entire length of one side of the kitchen and the appliances were all on the other side. HM and I started looking through drawers - and found a number of family heirlooms - or at least things from the past which had been saved for nostalgic reasons. One of the items was a bridesmaid's headdress - a flower crown, which in the dream had been for the wedding of HM's mother, VF. There were some other items in the kitchen drawers - some things relating to HM's younger sisters, SAF1 and SAF2. 

My mum, HM and another person - perhaps my stepdad - all went outside. It was night and the sky was black. The entire landscape was covered in thick, white, undisturbed snow. We were all dressed in clothes suitable for a snowy winter - thick jackets and scarves, gloves, hats, boots etc. My mum was dressed in blue. We all approached a monolith which was standing - in isolation - in the middle of the snow. There was nothing else around. My mum wiped some of the snow off the monolith, which was rectangular and about 6 foot tall. I think it was made of stone. There were words on it - my mum was getting us to read what the monolith said. It seemed significant, but I have forgotten. I don't think I recalled what it said after waking, and I have no memory of ever knowing in the dream either. 

I was then reading something on a piece of torn, sepia paper. It said something like: 'Sienbenenview' or similar - I cannot recall what. Every time I looked away from the paper and read it again, it seemed to say something different, but instead of me recognising this as a dreamsign, I took it to mean that I had misread it or kept making mistakes. I think I re-read it 3 - 4 times and on each occasion just told myself that I wasn't able to read properly anymore and needed to re-check everything to make sure I was correct. 

I then realised I was dating someone - it was a celebrity, perhaps Noel Fielding? I can't quite remember, but I do remember thinking: 'He is a better boyfriend than I thought he would be when I saw him on TV'. I also had the sense that he was part of a double-act and that I was glad to have ended up with this one. The male celebrity boyfriend was definitely someone with dark hair and a weird sense of humour, which was what attracted me to him, but he was actually really nice with a charming personality, which was what surprised me. We were together in an interior scene (perhaps a house again) and I was feeling positive about our relationship. 

I was then back in my old workplace and in an office which was where the business (a criminal defence law firm) was operated from. JA - someone I am no longer friends with who used to also work alongside me in this firm - came over. She was wearing a grey business suit, with pinstripes. She was being civil, but also cold. She said there were 2 jobs and both she and I needed to do one of them each. One job was to go to a sentencing hearing at Norwich Crown Court. The other one was to go on a prison visit to HMP Peterborough. The Crown Court is walking distance; the prison over an hour by transport. I assumed JA would take the prison visit since she can drive and has a car; whereas I do not drive and have to rely on public transport. JA said I had to do the prison visit. I accepted this fact, as in the dream, she was my superior and I had no way of overruling her decision, even with clear logic. I then noticed - as JA walked away - that the 'boyfriend' was with me in the office, sitting to my right in an office chair, a short distance away. I said to him: 'You can come with me on the bus because it's 10 to 5 (i.e. 16:50 hours) and I finish work at 5 (17:00 hours)'. I meant - 'you can come on the bus to the prison with me, since by the time I leave it will be outside of my normal working hours'. My boyfriend agreed.

I saw a mutilated cat. It was white with some ginger fur on it's face and paws/tail. Someone picked it up and showed me. There was no blood, but there was a big hole in it's belly and the cat was quite flat. I cannot really remember the context of how this happened i.e. where I was and who I was with. I think there was some sand on the ground, which might have meant we were at the beach. 

TIME: 00:00 - 09:30 hours (I do not know when this dream took place)

LUCIDITY: NO

SPECIAL NOTES: NONE OF NOTE

My aunt (VF), my cousin (HM) and I - in my the garden at my nan's house in Sheringham, c.1986