Eventually I will evolve this into an "About Me" page of some kind. For now it is a list of example dream segments which I think are notable.
Examples
I am often in scenarios as if I'm being revived from cryonics or being simulated, as in Sour Grapes of the Future...
He handed me something in a bowl, and began to speak:asian man: "There is something you need to understand about showing people Future Things. You have to be careful. It's a lot like if you are dealing with someone who has never had a grape before. When you give them their first grape you must be 100% sure it's not a sour one...because if it is sour, then every time they're asked if they want a grape after that they will say no."
Whenever I can, I try my best to see if there is knowledge to be brought back which could be useful to science, like in The Facet Logic of Linear Time. I try to establish how I got to a place and who the people think I am, and then if they tell me something that I don't understand I just keep asking...
me: "Have you heard of schizophrenia? Or lucid dreaming? Do you know what it means when I say 'I am asleep somewhere'? From my point of view, I entered your world moments ago and will wake up shortly in my own reality."manager: "You are confused because you try to model that these things are happening in a simple sequence. You have a constructed idea of linear time, and it isn't actually working like that."me: "Can you explain to me how time actually works then? It would be great if I could take some testable information back. Some kind of scientific breakthrough would be very helpful if I were to make it on the basis of talking to you."manager: "That will be difficult to express in your... what you call... 'Facet Logic'."me: (confused) "Facet logic?"manager: "Umm... I need to translate..."His accent got heavier, and he paused.manager: "The 'physics'?"
Indeed, the science of the dream world can be frustrating to have explained, such as when I was trying to figure out how audio was being produced in My Claymation Audiopad Lesson...
me: "There's no speakers and no mixer. I don't see how volume of the waveform I'm getting in my head can be controlled. How is the audio stream being represented? What's the limit of how loud it can get before it can't get louder, and it clips?"man: (waving his hands) "No, no. There's no limits like that."me: (skeptically) "Then I don't see how this can possibly be working. Whether carried in a sound wave or not, all information needs to be transmitted though a substrate."man: "No it doesn't. It's not analog, it's not digital, you can't really think of it that way."me: (frustrated) "There's got to be some way you can explain this to me. I've heard this not-analog-not-digital argument before, but it's just makes no sense. Where is the darn stuff STORED?!?"He paused to choose his answer carefully.man: "In our expanding minds."
Generally I have a lot of Matrix-type experiences suggesting Earth is a technology-based "game". But at some points, I also run into a lot of more typically 'religious' or 'spiritual' answers to some of my questions, as in Extended Visit to the Ether...
I ran into a couple talking about someone who wasn't in the room. I understood them to be speaking about a person in the material world.girl: "She's probably taking a bath right now."me: "Ok. So how are you connected with this person?"girl: "We're married. Every spirit is married with a body."me: "So you're married to a body...but, you've got some kind of body here too. Who's YOUR spirit?"girl: "There is another spirit above me, and a spirit above them..."me: "Ok great. So what the heck am I? I mean, do I have a spirit, or am I the spirit? Because I don't remember this place too well...am I passed out on the floor 99% of the time? And why is it I seem to be the only one of us who can relay information back and forth? Is my spirit anything special or powerful or do I have badass friends?"Suddenly a copy of a Dave Gahan album titled Overconfident appeared on the bed. No such album exists AFAIK.couple: "He's your brother."me: "You mean, spirit brother?"couple: "Yes."
Sometimes when I ask questions, issues of the legality of contact are brought up. One of my most memorable examples of that was when I was talking to some people who looked like the sketch comedy group Kids in the Hall...
I looked Dave straight in the eye.me: (exaggeratedly) "I'm. Asleep. Y'know."Dave Foley's face was now very strange, with black eyes and a hat, and deformed a bit like Freddy Krueger, though less scary. My staring proceeded.dave foley: (equally exaggerated) "Yes. We. Know. In. Fact. We. Are. Not. Supposed. To. Talk. To. You."me: "Why not?"dave foley: "Firstly, because of the fact that you all are drugged and basically unaware of the forces of evil--it's considered a bad idea. Secondly, there are certain biases which exist in the community."He lowered his voice and whispered.dave foley: "...and there actually are some lawsuits going on right now."
Impersonation and the idea of using celebrity identities come up often. So just as there is a LiveJounal for Jesus, I take any appearance of a famous person with a definite grain of salt. Here someone was impersonating the author of Harry Potter in Psychokinetic Potential of 1 in 15...
I smiled back but tried to keep pace with the guide. He stopped at a closet and gathered some items, it said "J.K. Rowling" on the door.me: "Wait, that name...that's the author who wrote the Harry Potter series?"guide: "That's correct."me: "I've not read any of the books but they are popular where I am from. The author is depicted as an English woman. Why are you taking things out of her closet? Do you feel this identity is yours, hers, stolen, shared?"guide: (shrugging) "You should re-evaluate the question of if there's any such thing as truth or not. I'd argue that truth is more about knowing what makes a 'good' lie, and what makes a 'bad' one."
Interpretation
If I were to take a solipsistic perspective, I could say that these entities with which I am speaking are all generated by my brain with no minds of their own. I do not feel that way--at least, not any more than everyone I meet while I am awake is a figment of my imagination! :P
My feeling on this matter differs from the one expressed by laboratory-validated lucid dreamer Alan Worsley. After a lifetime of working with lucid dreams he concluded "I believe that the virtual characters in dreams have no minds of their own." Though I deferred to the experience of trained researchers like him around the time of my first lucid dream over ten years ago, I have concluded that it is simply not useful to model everything that goes on in my dreams as being less real than the waking world.
Despite that philosophical issue, I acknowledge that our mind is indeed able to build complex projections onto inanimate objects. Tom Hanks projected a personality onto Wilson the Volleyball in Cast Away, and I don't think that's too far off from what can happen...it's certainly more likely in dreams. But if we aren't going to be solipsistic about everything, we have to measure for signs of "otherness". I've decided it's there in my dreams, but you'll just have to draw your own conclusions from the body of data I've written down.
Favorites
Here are a few dreams I like to start people out with:
Outreach
Though my focus has been trying to bring back some kind of alien gift or solution to an unsolved problem, it hasn't happened just yet. So on various occasions I've tried some internet outreach to this world. Interest has been surprisingly limited--but I think a large part of that comes to what a comedian I saw said: "Nothing's more boring than to hear about someone else's dream...unless you're in it." :) However, I hope you enjoy the journal and please don't hesitate to contact me about the material.
Note
If you found this site because you are new to lucid dreaming, PLEASE read my warnings about "New-Age" and "Alternative" literature. Although experiences like mine (and perhaps yours) challenge existing dogma about dreams, the solution is not to abandon critical thinking!