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My First Lucid Dream (circa late '97 or very early '98)

Date: 7-Nov-1997/15:16+3:00

Tags: , , , ,

Characters: me, clone

Note This is my first memory of having a lucid dream that I decided to document, just for the record. It is easy because I remember it so well. I did not have any kind of a journal at the time, but I discussed this with many people, so the story has stuck in my mind. I've approximated the date.
On a very dark night, I was visiting the house of a friend I'd had an awkward semi-dating relationship with in High School. She was telling me what it was like to own a house she'd bought recently... and that things were going well with that experience.
me: "That's good news, but... hold on. How did I get here? I haven't seen you in years, and you live in another state. I didn't drive here, did I? No. So...the last thing I remember was... uh... uh..."
She disappeared during this speculation, and then there was another person in the room. He was sitting in a chair kind of far away, and looked exactly like me (or how I see my reflection in mirrors, anyway).
clone: "That's because you're dreaming, and so the last thing you should remember is going to sleep. Hello there. I'm... I'm... well, hm. I'm you!"
me: "What?! How is that possible?"
Though he looked totally like me, I put some emphasis into looking at his face. When I did, his eyes popped out like cartoon eyes--simple black dots in white circles. Yet the rest of the face still registered to me as normal.
Note It was a rather frightening thing to see a cartoon layer popping off of an ordinary human face. Many years later when I saw the movie Waking Life, it used animation to emphasize similar morphs and pops in people as you looked at them.
me: "Your eyes... they... that's scary."
clone: "Hey, wait, don't panic! Let's take your mind off it. I've got an idea... do you see that rock? Why don't you use it to break this screen."
I looked away from his freakish face to see what he was talking about. The room had been completely black moments before, with nothing but us and his chair. Since then there had appeared a big heavy rock and a large-screen projection TV (the bulky, freestanding kind). It was showing some kind of TV program I couldn't make out.
For some reason I couldn't walk or coordinate very well. So from far away, I clumsily lobbed the heavy rock at the screen and it missed.
clone: "Don't let your worry about breaking the screen stop you. Try another rock, but this time throw with confidence and know you're going to hit it."
My second try smashed the screen, despite the fact that I felt no less uncoordinated. Sparks flew... smoke came out... and pieces of glass came crackling out the front. The picture was dead and the room was all dark again.
Calmly, he stepped up to the control buttons on the television underneath the broken screen and flipped a switch. There was a blip as it changed channels to some kind of sports game--and somehow simultaneous with the change in channel the the screen was repaired. All the pieces had vanished from the floor as well.
clone: "Good work. But it's enough for now. You probably want to talk to [friend's name from earlier]. I've got to go."
The female friend from high school reappeared, and we were outside of the house she had been showing me. The black room and my clone were gone.
me: "I don't get it, who was that? Where is this house located? Will you know about this when I wake up?"
She seemed confused as well, and we both began to float up into the sky somewhat uncontrollably. I didn't feel scared, but I was very excited to see what was going to happen next. As it turned out, the rushing upward in altitude just resulted in me waking up.
Note I immediately bolted out of bed to use the computer, it was around 5:30 or 6am. Going to the internet I typed in "dreaming when you know you're dreaming" on Altavista Search. That is when I learned the term 'lucid dreaming' and a bit about its history. 10 years later I'm sure many of the pages I was reading then are gone from the web, but I did find The Lucidity Institute. I was jittery and sweaty, and it really felt like something major had happened. I distinctly remember being startled and scared by one of the pictures used to illustrate a "demon dream", which was simply a very scary demon face--I can't find this photograph on Google Images now.
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The accounts written here are as true as I can manage. While the words are my own, they are not independent creative works of fiction —in any intentional way. Thus I do not consider the material to be protected by anything, other than that you'd have to be crazy to want to try and use it for genuine purposes (much less disingenuous ones!) But who's to say?