Bike ride through a crowd to the park

I went for a bike ride up towards the park near our house. There's usually not many people on the tar bike path that runs alongside the main road, but on this ride, traffic on the road was completely stopped, and a lot of people (college age and adults) were just sitting around on the path, some with bikes on the ground near them. Most were facing towards me as I came up the path, and though it looked like some important (planned or unplanned) event was going on, and some people looked eager to inform me about it, I just kept biking through and past them.

Later, I was coming out of the park, this time in my car. I was coming out of a parking lot towards a traffic signal to my left, and preparing to make a left turn. The traffic signal was a wire with two side-by-side single lights.

As I left the parking lot, the lights turned yellow, but I decided to dash out. Just before I crossed under the lights, the one on the left turned red. I was a little worried there might be oncoming traffic. Needless to say, I was a little startled when my alarm went off at that exact instant.

Thunderscream

Several summers ago, when I was living in Lake Ridge, I was in the middle of a dream (the bulk of which I can't remember) in the morning. Outside, it was raining heavily. In the dream, someone right in front of me, practically in my face, was getting ready to scream.

And just then, as I woke up, a huge roar of thunder came from very close by.

I have a hard time believing that the coordination of the dream scenario and the real world lightning strike was a coincidence — people screaming in my dreams is, in itself, a pretty rare thing, and to be perfectly timed to a very close lightning strike (also somewhat rare, though not as rare during the summer) is... Well, I think I can come up with a couple possible reasons for it.

One possibility is that the lightning struck brightly, and I registered it unconsciously through my eyelids while still asleep, and somewhere deep down, I knew there should be a really loud noise following shortly thereafter, for which my dream world constructed the image of someone getting ready to scream.

Another possibility is that I woke up to lightning and thunder, and only after waking up did I imagine that I had dreamed of somebody about to scream, but for whatever reason, the chronological order of the memory was quickly scrambled.

I guess the third obvious possibility is that there was no real correspondence between the dream and the events going on outside my window, but the salience of the experience caused me to assign more meaning to it than was really there. A good point of evidence why this could be the case: I can't recall ever having had another experience quite like this.

Spinning chamber, and "Freedom From Glory"

I (female) was lying on the ground, face up, in the central part of a weird dark spinning chamber, maybe 20-30 feet in diameter. I could vaguely make out a few reflections of myself on the outer edge of the room, as well as a few reflections coming off triangular mirrored columns closer to me. Due to the movement, the reflections were mostly indistinct.

Although I was lying down, I was moving my feet as though walking (or skipping/running). As I spun around, I kept catching sight of one clear reflection of me. This reflection was walking / skipping / running the perimeter of the room at the same rate I was spinning, and she was always facing to my right, so I saw the right side profile and never much of the face. She duplicated the motion of my legs, even though I was lying down and not really walking. When I moved my arms, she did the same.

For some reason it bothered me each time I saw my reflection looking away from me. (That might bother me a little in reality too. I'll leave it up to you to imagine a situation where that happens.)

I noticed this song going on just as I was about to wake up:


"Till you earn your freedom from glory, glory...."

And the "glory, glory" line repeated for a while before I realized there was even a song going on. My brain pieced together the beginning of the line (or made it up (which might be the same thing)) as I was waking up. I recorded this demo of it later in the day, because I'm tired of writing down dream music in text notation that people are unlikely to really appreciate :)

Smanblue. Another (almost) lucid dream.

I was walking around some kind of a huge, open convention center/department store with Calbert and Jared G. As we walked through an open lane, I was mentioning something to Calbert about what I was dreaming about earlier, and even mentioned something about "this dream".

Of course, at this point, I went, "duh", and started paying very close attention to what was going on around me. I knew that previously when I had realized I was dreaming, my pulse would start racing and I would have a very hard time staying asleep. This time, however, I felt somewhat calmer.

Still, I was trying to come to terms with my surroundings, so that I would have a basis for what was in the dream before trying to consciously mess with it. I glanced all around... I remember seeing extremely tall shelves, like you would see in a BJ's or Sam's Club, but even taller; but the walls and ceiling were white, like a department store.

I caught sight of a box that Calbert was holding, and written on it was the word "smanblue". I repeated it to myself, loudly, a few times, desperately trying to stay attached to my surroundings. "Smanblue. Smaaan...bluue... SMANBLUE!!"

Then I woke up. I think. No sleep paralysis this time.

Another lost song :\

I had a dream where I spent what felt like several minutes composing, singing, and mixing three or four measures of a new song, which sounded pretty catchy, although the lyrics seemed a little trite. The drums and vocals were snappy. Wasn't a sound that I typically try to create. I think Greg was listening along with me. Then I woke up.

And two seconds later (before I even had a chance to try running the song back through my head), I already had an Air Supply song stuck in my head, effectively dispelling my recollection. Blergh.

Dream song's frustratingly false familiarity

One dream I had was, in its entirety, set to a song which was very vivid and interesting as it played. It sounded like country-influenced indie music... Maybe like Jenny Lewis. The general scene of the dream was outdoors in a western desert-arid place, outside a building whose purpose I'm not quite sure of. Might have been a restaurant or tavern or travel center. As the song played, the "camera" of the dream moved around different parts of the outside of the building, as if it were a music video.

Annoyingly, as the music was playing, something in my mind was telling me, "Ah, this song. I've heard this before. It's definitely not anything completely novel which you should be trying to commit to memory." So, when I woke up halfway through the song, I was utterly unable to recall how it went.

Return of the evil saxophone

Evil saxophone returned. I was standing in a train car on an Amtrak-style train, near the door to the next train. The general atmosphere of the train was.. dark gray. My back was to the wall, with the door to my left. I was pondering something or other, and it suddenly registered with me that there had been the faint sound of a saxophone in the background. As I focused, it got louder, seeming to be coming from the other side of the door. The tune was going "glory glory hallelujah". I suddenly went rushing away through the air, in kind a wavery, snakelike swirling motion, or like the swirl of a balloon letting its air out, towards the other end of the car.

Awoke with sleep paralysis, which I tolerated for 15-20 seconds before trying to budge out.

Lucid books without titles

Coming back from bathroom on 2nd floor down to basement room (reminiscent of old town house family room). Just as I came off the stairs, realized I was dreaming, had maybe 7-8 seconds of lucidity. Walked to bookshelf, tried to see what was written on book covers, but did not see any text. Felt like breadth of environmental awareness kept narrowing into the book covers I was looking at, and I didn't have the ability to look back out and do other stuff. Woke up with (not scary) sleep paralysis.

Floating quasi-lucidity

Feeling of sleep paralysis roughly coincided with near-lucid ultrashort dream. Envisioned flying (more like floating) in a dark, stark, rusty-metal colored room. Could only see the floor and bottom of one wall-floating no more than 3 or 4 feet up, in "superman" (belly-down) orientation. Didn't think of any methods to strengthen the dream, and quickly fell back out to sleep paralysis.

Sleep paralysis++

Conscious paralysis before falling asleep. Woke up to wear it off. Woke up several times during the night, each time looking at my hands. At least one time, my hands (particularly the middle and ring fingers) seemed a little off, as did the view out the window, but I'm pretty sure I was awake but slightly discombobulated. Couldn't recall particular dreams.

Lucid blast in the elevator lobby

Gonna be a rough night. First dream, a half-black girl is standing very close to me, face to face, introducing herself, with some totally bogus name starting with an E. Some kind of barebones building's elevator lobby. As soon as I realized how impossible the name was, I realized I was dreaming, but quickly drifted awake (temporarily paralyzed for 15 seconds or so... yuck). Accompanied with the shock out of sleep was some kind of quick, crescendoing mechanical hum. May have just been in my left ear.

So colorblindness is communicable?

In Appalachian music classroom, people are complaining about various symptoms but I don't seem to have anything. Then the color fades out of my vision in about three seconds and I wake up to the feeling of an air bubble popping in one of my veins (more like the feeling of hitting the one nerve above the elbow on the inner side ... aka funny bone).

-

Dad tells me he's glad I was named Donald, because HE had such a boring name. (!)

Girl on the bus; mountain tunnel. Dance?

On the bus, a girl: medium-tall height, brown hair, window seat, straight white smile.

"What're you, some kind of dentist?" says a guy nearby on the bus. Glad he said something so I don't just feel dumb in the silence.

Mountain road pull-up to the bus tunnel, coasting uphill, I get out, go through the tunnel on my own. Successive tunnel doors begin to close as I walk through them, but I eventually get out.

-

"How'd you get up there?"
Dance. "I'm starting to not suck so much." "Nah, you're really pretty good."

-

Woke up with a DDR song stuck in my head.

E 3 1 0 0 B 1 3 1 3 3 G 2 2 2

That's the one.

A meeting with adventurers, a frolic in the front yard, a throbbing ear

Something like Lord of the Rings atmosphere. I've come to a lodge or meeting ground some miles from the foot of a lesser mountain. I have a story to tell to the people meeting there, which is very relevant to their lives. I wander into their sitting circle (on the floor). A certain Avent (young fellow) is answering a question about his name (whether it is a family name, if it has to do with his adventurous disposition). His answer seems affirmative. Then, it is his turn to ask something of another person in the circle. It goes on in this fashion. I grow restless, stand up (I was sitting to the right of Avent) and go outside.

At this point the storyline starts to break up. The yard outside the lodge turns out to be our front yard at home. I am so ecstatic to see it that I dive and tumble partway down the hill and start rolling around merrily. The front way of the lodge and to the lodge's left (upstreet) are lines of conifers. But as I look longer, it becomes our street and the houses across and on Wainscott.

I've moved out to the street and am looking (from upstreet) back at the house. It is notably different from our real house. I remarked to myself how nice it would look if the palm trees were accompanied by small standing pools of water. Then I remember we have a swimming pool (we have always had swimming pools at our house). It is near the street at the bottom of our hill. I go in for a minute, then come back out. During the time outside I've given some thought as to how much longer till summer (it seems to be March or early April).

I come back inside and look in the mirror. My hair is wet but interestingly sleek. The middle looks combed up while the sides fall down onto my forehead and in front of my ears. Mom notes that I look handsome. She goes on to ask me about the difference between the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring and the forest part. (credibility?)

I tell her to hold on. My right ear is absolutely throbbing. I go to the mirror and try to get the water out of it (from the pool) but it doesn't seem to be working. I can see the skin under my ear throbbing and I can hear the thumps of it.

(I woke up to find myself in an odd position, probably the cause of the sound (my heartbeat) -- my right arm was asleep.)

She turned the corner and I felt trouble comin' on...

Flaming Lips (?) song: A woman is driving, running from the cops. Comes to my mechanic place or something (in western desert/rocky area) and I let her hide... "She turned the corner and I felt trouble comin' on..."

- more: "She found a hiding place.. I knew that she'd be safe, but, I wasn't sure what I had done.."