I was at a part that was taking place in a large mansion. I noticed that a door seemed odd to me and realized that it could only be opened by a spirit. When I separated from my body to investigate further, I was aware of both my body and my spirit and could still control them both. This was apparently something that was out of the ordinary, but I didn’t think much of it because apparently I had trained to do so. In any case, I opened the door and immediately realized that if I closed the door, that my spirit would become trapped inside the room. I had my body hold the door open for me while I investigated.

Inside the room was an alter and various trinkets. There were also odd little spells scribbled onto strips of paper that lined the walls. It was obviously a room put together by the girl who lived there and it was designed to trap spirits so that she could use them as her play things. It was at that moment, that the door swung closed, flinging my body away from it. I knew I was trapped. I saw, however, a portion of the barrier preventing my escape was missing from a small area in the ceiling. I jumped up towards it, reaching through the ceiling to grab a cross beam to pull myself up.

The girl was apparently alerted whenever someone entered the room and immediately began pursuit. She realized that I had escaped, was astounded, and followed after me through the ceiling. I ran along various beams, trying to get away, but she was fairly quick. For some reason, I could see through the walls. I suppose the spirit senses are different from the senses of the body. I saw my father doing masonry in one of the rooms and decided to take refuge with him, perhaps she wouldn’t try to attack or detain me if there was a witness. I fell through the ceiling, landing next to my father. I became visible and immediately started helping him lay the masonry.

We were having a trivial conversation that I can’t remember when she fell through the ceiling and also became visible. I pointed her out to my father, saying “you see that gorgeous blonde girl over there? Well, she’s absolutely head over heals for me because I was able to break through some barriers of hers. The only problem is that she’s completely bat-shit crazy.” My father replied with “Nathaniel, you need to stay away from the crazy ones, but you are right, she is good looking.” She didn’t hear any of this. She then approached us and said “Hey, keep in mind that we’ve got that thing going on in thirty minuets, so you better get ready.” I winked at her and she strode off. I then followed after her.

She cornered me and attempted to do bind me with a spirit rope. The rope passed through me. I told her “There is nothing you can do to effect me in this form.” She seemed annoyed an interested at the same time. As we turned a corner, we were confronted by a large man, at least eight foot tall and built like a line backer. He wore a suit and looked very serious. It was her father. He looked down at us and realized that we were holding hands.

He saw me and my slight frame, decided that I was weak and asked his daughter while looking straight at me “Who is this weakling? Are you now taken to picking up strays?” I responded to him, “There is nothing you can do to affect me in this form, we’ll see who is weak.” This apparently enraged him, so he attempted to punch me. It was as if he were punching a force field around me. Green light rippled from were he struck the field. His spirit separated from his arm such that his spirit could not breach the shield and his arm only breached the shield a few inches before coming to a stop. He pulled back in shock, looking at me with contempt and disbelief.

I then noticed something out of the corner of my perception and rushed forward at him. With my left hand I seized what was flying straight at him, a flaming arrow made of shadow. All he saw was that I rushed him, and that my left hand appeared to burst into flames. He thought I was threatening him. He looked at me with contempt, and a hint of fear, then strode off quite angrily. He didn’t notice the arrow in my hand, or the note that was attached to it. As he walked off, I woke up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think this has potential to become a series of books/games/movies. Such abilities could produce some interesting dynamics as well as cool fight scenes. On another note, I’ll be looking out for cute blondes just in case. @.@

I just had an amazingly vivid and detailed dream. In the dream I went to some sort of gryphon tour. Monks in an old abbey nestled in a cliff that overlooked a lake raised gryphons. They would hold gryphon rides around the cliffs and a little ways over the lake for a few gold pieces. All proceeds went to the care of these amazing creatures and any excess went to maintaining the abbey.

When saddling up, I was told that my gryphon liked to fly high and fast and didn’t particularly like staying in the line. I was told that it was alright because he was the best flyer of the bunch and no harm would befall me. He needed a strong rider, however, to keep him from wandering. We where also told that the lake was full of magical creatures and that it was also part of a vast strip of troll warring ground. If we where to see a troll, we should alert the entire group so that we could return to the safety of the abbey quickly.

I remember flying next to the cliff face with craggy rocks below and a large shallow lake to my right. As promised my mount preferred to soar higher than the rest, who maintained a set distance from the surface of the water for safety reasons. I decided to enjoy it. It really was a spectacular experience.

My gryphon soared higher, riding an updraft, but we fell back from the rest of the group. The riders that where behind me passed below and began to fill the gap in the line that my absence created. After climbing some distance into the air, my mount decided to dive. We didn’t go straight down, but at a steep angle back towards the group whose heads we would then fly over at more than twice their speed.

I glimpsed something out of the corner of my eye towards the center of the lake. Amongst some trees that grew in a particularly shallow area of the lake was a white flash of light, as if someone had pointed a mirror towards me. I decided to investigate.

I turned the reins and my mount and I began to approach the trees. We had to fly very low in order to get under the sparse canopy of these trees. As we rounded the largest of these trees I saw something amazing, a unicorn! It looked me directly in the eyes but as we rounded the tree and a trunk blocked it from view, it seemed to vanish. All this time my attention was to right, not in front of me. As a turned forward again I saw a low hanging branch and immediately ducked.

I remember this so vividly, I could feel the feathers of the gryphon pressing against my face, the smell of dust, straw… and a bit of manure that such stable animals tend to smell of. My mount dove and turned slightly to dodge the branch. We had to go so low that the gryphons legs and portions of its right wing went under the water. I even remember feeling the water splash over my right shoulder and the cold created by the wind that was passing through my clothing as we flew higher once again, returning to the group.

A few of my fellow riders had apparently thought it seemed like a good idea to ride out above the lake as I had. Two women glided over the surface of the lake laughing as they coaxed their mounts into skimming the surface with their feet. I was flying over to join them as I passed what looked to be a small grey moss covered boulder to my left. However, I realized that it was no boulder the moment it began to move, raising from the water to reveal a massive 50ft tall troll. It saw the two women, bellowed a deep and angry cry and bounded straight for them with a large wooden club, which it had obviously dredged from the bottom of the lake, brandished wildly above its head.

I snapped the reigns and my mount dove quickly by the trolls head, whipping around its face. This diverted the troll’s attention to me and the women where free to fly back towards the abbey screaming to alert the others. They didn’t really need any warning, however, as the troll was more than big enough for everyone to see.

The massive beast took a wild swing at me, which only glanced my right shoulder. The force behind it was still amazingly powerful and a large splinter of the club had broken off and pierced the skin, embedding in my shoulder parallel to the surface. The troll thought he had done me in and was now off again after the women and the rest of the group. I folded my right arm into my lap and took on steering with my left hand as blood trickled down my elbow. I directed my mount to once again dive at the head of the troll.

This time we immediately rose high into the air after the dive. The troll crouched down into the water to about shoulder level and then jumped high into the air, flailing this massive tree trunk like it was a twig and we where mere flies. This time he missed and we continued the strategy. We would fly down by his head and immediately soar upwards. The troll couldn’t jump up fast or high enough to catch us and he was sufficiently distracted to allow the rest of the group to fly to safety.

We continued this process several times until the troll apparently came down upon some submerged trees. One pierced his foot and calf which immediately stained the water black with his blood as he fell into the lake. He did not resurface while I watched and I supposed that he swam away towards the shore. I didn’t much care, now that my adrenaline was waning, I could feel my arm throbbing with pain and my eyes becoming blurry from the loss of blood which had now stained the gryphons feathers crimson in a trail from its wing down its right flank.

As I approached the abbey, everyone was cheering until they saw my ashen face and the trail of blood on my mount. When we landed the gryphon lie down and thrust his wings out to allow me to dismount easily. I still found it difficult to remove myself from the saddle because I was quite week. From there I stumbled through the abbey, seeing all the horrified faces was worse than the injury itself.

I finally collapsed on a wooden bench when a fat friar approached me. He took my wet jacket and folded back my clothes to reveal the wound on my shoulder. The piece of wood from the trolls club had completely submerged into the skin, leaving a long bulge along my shoulder at least two inches wide and four inches long. A few splinters remained lodged in my clothing and I remember smelling them to see what they where.

I recognized the odor at once as Yliewh-Yliewh, or BaneShot (of course that’s something the dream just made up). This particular tree, when submerged in a swampy environment harbors moss and algae growth that somehow petrifies the tree, hardening it. It also imparts powerful antiseptic qualities into the wood. Actually, it just about killed everything, including people in large doses. In small doses, however, the toxins worked quite well at fighting infection. The trolls often used these petrified trees as weapons due to their amazing strength, not realizing that they could heal as well as harm. Generally speaking, if you could survive the toxic effects of the stuff, you could survive the injury.

I asked the friar to fetch me some clean linen, some gray moss, boiled water and two bottles of brandy. Luckily, they where about to make some soup and a large pot of boiling water was brought out to me quickly, as where the linen and brandy. They sent a young monk down to the cliffs to gather some moss which hung thick from the trees that grew along the cliff side paths.

I took several large gulps of the brandy. I could feel it stinging my throat as it warmed by cold body. I ripped my right sleeve completely off, then wrapped it around my shoulder above the wound, pulling it tight with my teeth. The friar looked at me in horror, I knew he thought I was as good as dead. I remember him saying “the swamp water has gotten into the wound, you’ve lost too much blood, and the fever is already setting in. Whatever you’re planning will just hasten your end.” I yelled at him to leave me and not disturb me unless it was to give me the moss.

I awkwardly poured the steaming hot water over my shoulder, which quickly washed away the blood and muck from the area. I then took several more gulps of the brandy before pouring it over my shoulder which burned much worse than the stinging in my throat.

I then loosened my belt and wrapped that around my shoulder as well, right over the torn sleeve. This would make a tourniquet that I would tighten with my teeth. The leather belt in my mouth also served a dual purpose, I would have something to clench my teeth on for the next part. I pulled a dagger from my boot, dunked it in the hot water then took several more gulps of brandy before pouring the spirit over it as well. I then took the belt in my mouth, pulled it tight and after a few sharp breaths I made a clean cut just above the entry wound and at least twice as big. I then took the blade and inserted it into this wound to push the splinter deeper, then prying it so that the tip would now come out of the incision I had made. With the butt of the dagger, I pushed the top of the splinter until I had enough to grab with my hand. I then slowly pulled it from my shoulder, my teeth straining under the force of my bite. I could feel every last bit of it, as I often do in my dreams. Even as I write this, my arm still aches.

Just then the young monk arrived with the moss, saw all the blood that was now quite profuse and immediately passed out. I gathered up the moss, placed it over my shoulder, and then wrapped the whole thing up tightly with the linen. I also used some of the linen as a sling to keep my arm in place. The Baneshot fragments that where surely still in my arm would hopefully help stave off any infection from inside and the moss should help prevent infection from the outside. I then took the splinter that I had just removed from my arm, rinsed it in the hot water and cut a small piece of it off to crush into powder against the stone floor. I mixed the powder with the remaining brandy, swirled it around and drank the rest. The remaining unopened bottle I would save for later. I then propped myself up against a wall, closed my eyes and immediately fell unconscious. When I opened my eyes, I was awake in my own bed, my arm aching from such a realistic and vivid dream.

A few things fascinate me about this dream.

1. I was able to ride a gryphon, that was pretty cool.
2. I saw a unicorn!
3. I fought a troll.
4. I was actually able to think clearly enough in the dream to at least seem to know what I was doing when tending to the wound.
5. I was able to stay asleep through being splashed with water, attacked by a troll, and the pain of cutting a large chunk of wood out of my shoulder.
6. I can’t believe that I was able to deal with all of that blood. I’m hemophobic (afraid of blood) in waking life and normally wake up from dreams of blood because it manages to access a deep and primal part of my brain that screams for action. Not this time.

All in all, a very cool dream, and an interesting story. It might make a good part of a larger novel… perhaps if the gryphon flight wasn’t for tourism… although I’m not sure what else it might be for.

As far back in the dream as I can remember, my wife and I were doing detective work somewhat like the TV show Psych. We where investigating something having to do with a movie and had been given free run of the set. So in order to get where we needed to go, we basically stole a car from the set, a big Hummer. I don’t think we where going anywhere in particular, just trying to find out what was down this one highway. While driving up the road we came up on odd cloth screens, suspended by thin metal frames, that blocked the road. However, you could drive straight through them because they where only connected to the metal frame at the top. I specifically remember them being red, but reflecting orange as they ruffled in the wind, almost as if they where made out of velvet.

Then from the other side of the highway, we saw one of those screens moving in our direction. It was connected to a small vehicle that had a camera on the other side, filming cars from straight ahead as they moved down the road. I said to my wife, who was driving “Crap! We’re running onto a closed set for a movie, in a stolen car! And it’s their car!” We also happened to pass several police officers who seemed to be talking about the movie. Luckily, they didn’t seem to notice that we where really out of place. I suppose a lot of strange things where happening in the town with the movie being shot there.

We passed through another one of those screens immediately turned off onto a side road and ditched the car. We began walking as casually as we could so as not to draw attention to ourselves or our stolen vehicle. As we walked we passed by several strange shops on our right. One of these shops happened to be a pet shop specializing in snakes, specifically pythons. Looking through the window, we could see large clear plastic tubs that contained bright green and yellow pythons that just sat there lazily, sometimes shifting positions slightly almost like a person who is asleep would shift to get more comfortable.

The next shop was a rattle snake shop. I remember having a discussion with my wife about the snakes. She didn’t like them and mentioned something about them laying eggs inside you like in the movie aliens. I plainly told her that they didn’t lay eggs in people and even if they did, the eggs don’t eat anything… but the snakes might, once they hatch. We then went into the rattle snake shop, which I suppose was what we where looking for. It was rather dark and dusty inside with a concrete floor and wood paneled walls. Sunlight streamed through a few sparse windows showing the sheer amount of dust in the air.

Upon entering the store, we saw the store owner, a plainly dressed guy with dirty blonde mullet, sat on an old wooden chair, handling a very thin, but long, rattle snake (it was about as big around as a little finger, but about four feet long). To his right, was a dark green tub full of adult rattle snakes and in front of him was a tub which I knew contained baby rattle snakes. However, they looked like just the adult snake rattle and pure white. They just sat in the tub rattling occasionally and writing around like very large maggots.

I jokingly asked my wife if she where afraid of snakes, knowing full well that she was. In a somewhat defiant move, she grabbed the snake from the shop keeper. We where both very surprised by this, myself and the shopkeeper, and he was about to say a few words when the snake writhed around and leaped down to the ground, slithering away. The shop keep ran after it with a pole (the kind with the funny bent end for catching snakes) and a net. However, he only managed to chase it back to me. The snake ran around my leg and climbed up me. It went around my neck and then down inside the collar of my shirt. After running around my stomach area for a few seconds it turned back upward, opened its mouth to put its fangs against my throat right at my jugular (but it didn’t puncture the skin). The shopkeeper asked me if I had anything to eat. I asked why. He said that she could smell that I had low blood sugar and that she didn’t like it. If I didn’t eat something, she might bite me. None of us had anything, so the shop keeper had to slowly sneak up on the snake and snatch it away.

I then turned to leave but my wife pointed out that I had something on my face and neck. The snake had left venom on my face and neck like ink splotches from an exploded pen. In fact, they looked exactly like that, large black splats on my neck and a few streaks on the side of my face. The area where they touched my skin felt numb and tingly. My wife produced some napkins from her purse and handed them to me to wipe myself off. It was while I was wiping myself off that the snake leaped from the mans arms, turning into a cat before it landed. The cat had a medium length gray coat with brown diamond spots on it’s back and bright red eyes. The shopkeeper was a little afraid, because it was coming towards me again. Although, this time, it merely rubbed against my leg. The cat looked up at me and mewed, revealing two long and thin fangs amongst it’s regular cat teeth. The shopkeeper told us that the snake was magic. He wasn’t sure why she was able to transform or what she really was, but she did have those two forms and could change at will. I rubbed the cat’s head and scratched under it’s chin before we left the shop.

My wife wanted to go back to the car, but I reminded her that we couldn’t and that it was probably swarming with police officers by now. As we walked past the shopkeeper’s two cars that where parked out front a black sedan drove slowly down the road, rolled down its windows and a man with a machine gun began firing at us from the moving vehicle. I crouched down and immediately began to chant (as I often do in my dreams to stop an advancing threat), my right arm outstretched, my left arm around my wife, who I had forced to the ground. I now realized that the scene, which had been a desert scene before was now covered with snow. I only noticed this because the bullets kicked up snow in front and to the sides of us as I whispered to my wife “not a single bullet with touch you.”

I remember thinking that we where on the right track if someone was trying to kill us. The car began to drive away but as we stood up, unharmed they noticed and backed up to try again. The man with the machine gun produced a rocket launcher now. My wife was rather flustered and didn’t notice that they had come back with bigger weapons. She mumbled something like “you’re right, I wasn’t hit. How did you do that?” I really only had enough time to tell her to stay down as I began the chant again, in the same protective pose as earlier. The rocket was shot directly at my head and I swatted it away with my right hand, my left never leaving my wife. There was an explosion off in the distance behind me, but I didn’t turn around. I remember thinking “at least it was far enough away that it didn’t hit the shop”. My gaze was locked on the man with the weapons. He threw the launcher down and picked up another one.

This time, several men stepped out of the car, some with rocket launchers, some with machine guns, all aimed at us. They all began to fire their weapons at us, bullets and rockets coming at us faster than I could think. I dug deep to find the energy to pull this next stunt off. This part I saw from third person, as if I where watching a movie. all the rockets and bullets were diverted upwards, their paths curving as they neared what seemed like a protective shield around us. The men attacking us looked up in astonishment, seemingly bewildered by their new direction, some dropped their weapons. My right hand, this whole time was moving as if it was directing this flock of deadly projectiles. As they moved upwards, so did my hand extend towards the sky. Then, I moved my hand down sharply and their path curved to changed course again, this time coming straight down, right towards the bewildered attackers.

They didn’t have enough time to react, the projectiles hit their car and the surrounding area with lighting speed and explosive force. There was no trace of the men, just the charred wreckage of what used to be their car. The rest of the dream is really fuzzy. I remember talking with the snake hander again. He had been bitten by one of his snakes on the neck. His skin was flushed red from his head to about halfway down his chest and he couldn’t feel anything but the searing pain. But he assured us that he was immune to the venom because of the number of times he had been bitten and he would be alright. He was staying with my wife and I because he was sure those same men would go after him as well. It wasn’t long before I woke up.

The things that I thought where particularly interesting where as follows:

1. There was a lot of color in this dream. Apparently color dreams are rare and I never thought about it until recently, but I dream in full color all the time and can specifically remember the colors therein. I made a point of mentioning the various colors for this reason.
2. The transforming snake was really cool and an interesting idea.
3. The way I deflected all those deadly projectiles as if they where nothing was really cool. I would love to see something like that in a movie. All I knew was that they were going to kill me and my wife and I wasn’t going to allow that. I didn’t want to kill them either, but they didn’t seem like they where going to stop until either we where dead, or they were. Such cool abilities aren’t anything new to me, however, as I can do stuff like this all the time. Although, usually not as cool and cinematic. That was my “Knight in shining armor” complex showing through. I have control over my dreams, so of course I would control them such that my wife wasn’t harmed in them… and that means deflecting bullets, swatting away missiles and blowing up a car full full of mobsters.
4. The most surprising thing however was that my wife handled a snake! Never, in a million years would Mary EVER handle a snake like that, let alone a poisonous one!

I hope you enjoyed that, I know I sure did. I’ll try to at least post my dreams more often. Even if I can’t come up with substantial posts, I still have dreams almost every night. They’re usually fairly strange and at least entertaining.

The blade of Venom’s Bone:
The first dream I can remember where I pulled a sword from myself was one where I was running away from a giant spider, through some caves trying to save my brother. I lost my brother but I got out of the caves where I met some strange guy who specialized in demon weaponry. He showed me a fang a demon spider and said it had great power. I held it and swished it around in the air a bit but I accidentally pricked my leg with it. I pulled up my pant leg to see the damage. It was a tiny purple spot; I knew I had been poisoned. I have magickal powers in my dreams so I attempted to solve the problem. I put my right hand above the wound and began to focus energy at it. A light started in my palm and blood began to come to the surface of the wound. But then the wound began to grow and something started to come out of it. Slowly and quite painfully a gray sword was coming from my leg. It started at the tip of the blade and slowly worked its way out. The hilt was particularly painful but after that the rest was easy. It was a long sword made of something very similar to bone. It was grey and shiny, like slate, I knew it was made out of my own bone growth. It was both light and strong. I made a few cast iron blades materialize, I just grabbed them off my back. In my dreams all I have to do to make something is to concentrate on what I want to get, reach into a place beyond my vision and grab that object. I could use shadows or just move other objects out of the way but I prefer reaching behind my back for small items. I gathered these weapons and decided to find my brother. I remember a ghost town and I remember fighting a huge demon with my sword but that’s it. This particular blade had the ability to cause rampant demonic bone growth around the area of whatever it cuts (assuming that it’s an animal its cutting). Essentially if you cut someone with it, their bones would grow spikes that would shoot out from an area. The area affected was proportional to the depth of the cut. Of course, I was immune to it as where the spider demons from which the original fang came from.

Void Rapier:
The second dream that I remember pulling a sword from myself was one where a creature from the void attacked my family. At one point it sent a void tendril through my heart… intending to kill me. However, it did no such thing. After the tendril was removed I placed my hand over the wound and immediately pulled out a thin dark rapier. It was no thicker than a blade of straw but it managed to be able to cut through walls, pillars and pretty much everything it touched by absorbing all matter that it came into contact with. I forget the rest of the dream.

Cyber blade:
This particular weapon I pulled from my heart without being attacked first. It had the power to transform anyone it cut into a giant fighting robot… Voltron style.

The Genesis Blade:
In this dream I learned of an entire mythology that surrounds me. I don’t remember the actual dream… but I remember the mythology just fine. Apparently, the first true swordsman also created his own swords. As it is considered by the samurai, the soul of the swordsman is his sword. The first sword ever created was the genesis blade, which was also this man’s soul. After the swordsman’s death, the blade disappeared never to be recovered. When I was born, my soul was actually a reincarnation of that sword. In my head, between the two halves of my brain, lies a dormant version of the genesis blade. It grants me the ability to transform any injury into a blade. Also, my body acts as sheath to countless blades as well as to the genesis blade. Essentially, I am master of all bladed weapons and can control them at will. My soul is a sword, my body the sheath. When I use the abilities of the genesis blade to their fullest, the blade will grow and protrude from my forehead like a giant unicorn horn… with the hilt of the sword protruding out from the base of my skull like a rigid pony tail.

Bloodleter:
During the same dream where I learned the mythology of the blade, I was commissioned by a vampire to craft a blade specifically for him. I required that he give me a single fang. I simply took that fang, pressed it into my own neck and as before I placed my palm over the wound, pulling from it a dagger which I named the Bloodleter. This small dagger had a very organic and boney appearance with little skulls and bones and things around the hilt and guard. From tiny holes in the guard and blade flowed a trickle of blood. Essentially every time the blade drew blood it would create a magical connection that caused the victim to bleed from the blade. The victim would essentially be wounded for life and no matter how far they where from the blade, the blade would drip with their blood until their death. I scooped up a handful of sand, blew some fire into it and molded the resulting glass into a flask that acted as sheath for the blade. This caused the blade to slowly collect blood to help curb the vampire’s thirst.

Generic Energy Blades:
Here recently, I’ve been able to draw generic energy blades from myself. That is, the blades are made of pure energy and their color represents the element they are made from. The most common elements that I work with are those of the void (black) which absorb all energy and matter that it touches, the well (white) which is pure and massive amounts of energy which pretty much burns and obliterates everything it touches, and venom (green) which makes whatever it touches rot and disrupts it’s energy. All the generic energy blades look like a combination of fire and lightening in the shape of a sword. They grow when I focus more energy into them and they disappear if I let them go.

Those where the major blades that I’ve created. There have been others but they’re not much worth mentioning. If I have any more dreams of my pulling blades from my own body… trust me, they’ll make it in here. This is a particularly odd ability of mine… quite frankly, I’ve never heard of anyone else doing this in their dreams. I’ve also never seen a TV show or movie that featured such an odd ability. I might end up writing something about this… or perhaps adapting it to a game idea. In any case, I think that accurately covers everything I’ve got to say on the subject.

Type to you later,
~Nathaniel

The only prerequisite to being able to control your dreams is that you realize a few things:
1) that you realize that you are dreaming
2) that you realize that everything that occurs in this world occurs because your mind invents it
3) that you realize that you have control over this world because this world was built by your mind.

Essentially once you realize that its all in your head, you realize that you can do whatever you want. Often the only limitation is your ability to suspend your own mind’s concept of reality. For instance, we all know that walls are solid. If you run straight at a wall you brain will expect you to hit it and it will react on instinct. In the dream world, you must override that instinct in order to run through that wall.

First I’m going to start off with an anecdote, then I’ll give some tips.

I have been controlling my dreams for a while now but my subconscious does not seem to like being controlled. It used to tear control back by randomly activating portions of my brain that I do not have conscious control over… such as my sense of balance. Once I was thrashed around for a while, I would eventually relinquish control of the dream back to my subconscious. However, because I kept at it my mind has come to realize that I will do whatever I want in my dreams and I will continue to fight with it if it opposes me. So instead of fighting, my subconscious eventually decided to allow me to use every ability that I would normally need to be lucid dreaming in order to use… while maintaining control of the dream. By that I mean that I never realize that I am dreaming, but I can still do some rather fantastic stuff. For a relatively comprehensive list of my dream abilities, see this page.

There are a ton of other abilities but that list can give you the basic idea of what can be accomplished through lucid dreaming. These abilities grow and change every day and quite often I acquire a completely new ability that is added to my repertoire. In the world of our minds, we can possess all the power of a god because we have completely control over that world. In other words, there is no limit to what you can do in your dreams once you learn to control them.

Tips for realizing you’re dreaming:
The first hurdle you’ll encounter in lucid dreaming is the ability to realize that you are dreaming.

Dream Recall: First, if you can’t remember a dream, you won’t be able to tell whether or not you where able to control it. Keeping a dream diary can be extremely useful for this. When you wake up, do not move a muscle. Find your last memory from the dream and ask yourself “how did I get to that point?” This will trigger you memory to sift through the dream backwards. Run through the story several times, seeing if you can remember anything more. Then get out out bed and write it down immediately! If, like many, you take a shower immediately after waking, this is also a good time to think over the dream before committing it to paper (or in my case, a blog). I certainly suggest using a blog as a dream diary, it’s just easier than writing it down… and you can share it with everyone, which is even cooler.

Common themes: Often there are common themes in dreams. For me, I am lost and confused in many of my dreams. When I become extremely lost or find myself overly confused I stop and think about it for a while. Often I can realize that I’m dreaming simply by this theme. Lately, death, fighting, and conflict have become common themes. Since these things do not occur very often, or to the extreme degree that they do in my dreams, I can often realize I’m dreaming when I begin to fight.

Recognizing oddities: In your dreams you may experience odd things such as meeting Jesus Christ, or being chased by zombie turtles. If you realize that you are trying to find a magic kumquat for your gorgon employer… you might be dreaming.

Reading: For most people it is extremely difficult to read in your dreams. A simple dream test is to attempt to read a book. If the words make no sense… or the sentences read something like “monster pink turgid monkey mass flared my inner most quantum pizza”… you might be dreaming. This particular trick doesn’t work on me however… because for some odd reason, I can read just fine in my dreams… or at least the dream does well enough to convince me that I can. This particular technique was actually used by Batman in eppisode 26 “Perchance to Dream” It works well for many people.

Associations: You can also make mental associations. For instance in Star Trek Voyager “Waking Moments” the character Chakotay uses lucid dreaming techniques to combat an alien that has invaded the dreams of the crew. He uses the image of Earth’s moon to allow him to realize he is dreaming. Essentially with this technique you simply choose a common object and produce an idiosyncrasy associated with it. Every time you see this object, you ask yourself “am I dreaming?” once it becomes habit, you will begin to do the same thing in your dreams. The only difference is that you will realize you are dreaming in those cases.

Another tip is to constantly remind yourself as you are falling asleep that you want to control your dream. Repeat in your mind “I am going to lucid dream tonight. I will control my dreams.” and just keep thinking this over and over again. You will fall asleep with it fresh in your mind and hopefully this will aid in your remembering to attempt controlling the dream.

A search on the net for “reality tests” will also reveal quite a few other techniques for realizing that you are dreaming.

Tips for controlling the dream:
It is important to note that it is very difficult to override your natural instincts. We are all hard wired to understand certain things about the world. Most surfaces are solid. You cannot walk through walls. Bugs are icky. Fire burns. etc… You must find ways around this in order to get what you want.

For example, I have found that I cannot make items appear from thin air. My mind cannot seem to convince itself that items can materialize from nothing. So in order to accomplish the same effect, I will reach beyond my field of vision (like behind me, behind an object, or into my pocket) and pull out the item that I’m looking for. In this instance it is important not to think “I want to get this object.” or even “I will get this object”. You must be certain that the item is already there and when you close your hand, that it will be grasping the specific object you’re looking for. Another good example is that I cannot walk through walls in my dreams. If I can see it, then I know I can run into it. So if I walk backwards towards the wall, while concentrating on passing through it, I can do just that. When I want to teleport from one location to another or one time to another, I simply close my eyes, concentrate on where I want to be, and fall backwards… through the ground. I usually land on the ground in the place I was thinking of.

The tip here is that your mind works on a few basic principles. The thing to remember is that ALL reality is filtered through your perception. When you dream, it is a world built by pure perception. You must find ways to alter your perception to achieve the desired results. For instance, If I look through a hole in a fence I can see to the other side. Once am can “perceive” the other side of the fence, I can shift my perception so that I am actually on the other side of the fence. This is why I must reach out of my “perception” to pull something into my line of sight. It’s all about shifting your perception.

It is often quite useful to use skills you’ve seen on television in order to accomplish your goals. When watching television/movies your mind temporarily suspends reality and you learn to accept the rules and laws of that universe. It is then easier to copy, for instance, the energy blast techniques from Dragon Ball Z than to invent your own moves. Some of my favorites are taken from wrestling and kong fu movies like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Less is more:
When controlling your dreams it is important to realize that the more conscious you are of your state, the more awake you will become. If your consciousness becomes too strong you will not only be aware that you are dreaming, but that you are laying on a bed asleep. As a rule, if you can feel the bed underneath you, you should stop controlling the dream because it’s about to turn into a daydream. Daydreams, of course, are not as interesting because they seem less real. Also, dreams are usually your brain simply trying to sort out random activation of various parts of itself. Because of this, dreams are often quite random and this uncertainty makes them more interesting. A dream that is completely under the control of the dreamer can become boring and stale. The subconscious mind is much better at creative thought than our conscious mind.

Why Control a dream?
1) To adjust the outcome (escape from the monster, date the hot chick, heal a wounded friend)
2) Explore your own mind. Your subconscious hides quite a bit in there, it’s fun to poke around.
3) Experience things you couldn’t in waking life (I personally have killed myself several different ways just to find out what death might be like… Groundhog’s Day Style).
4) Act out your fantasies. If you always wanted to go to some tropical island and have a romantic fling with a well tanned local… by all means, go for it.
5) Overcome phobias. Fight back against those giant spiders, torch some zombie clowns, etc…

That’s about all I’ve got for now. Hopefully, this is of at least some help to someone out there. I have spent quite a bit of time learning how to do this on my own only to find out that there are tons of resources online for lucid dreaming techniques and the like. If you like to dream, this is definitely something worth checking out. If you’ve got any comments or questions on this article or on lucid dreaming, feel free to comment on this post. If I don’t know the answer, I can find it out.

Thanks for reading,
Type to you later,
~Nathaniel

I started to go back to my room when the door that led to my closet slammed shut. When I opened it, I realized that it led to a garden instead. I walked out into the garden, simply soaking in the beauty of it all. I eventually came to another door which I knew would lead me to the young man’s father. But I wanted to go home so I started back. However, when I turned around I was confronted by a stranger. He simply stood in my way and would not let me pass. I told the man to let me pass but he would not move. It was then that I decided that I would pass him by force. (cool new dream ability coming up) I flexed both arms and immediately darkness consumed my left hand and bright white light consumed my right. It was like balls of energy that radiated their color. Of course black represented the void, all that touched its darkness would be drained of energy. The white represented the well, all that touched it’s energy would be seared and vaporized by the sheer amount of energy being expelled.

The stranger flexed his arms and both his hands produced similar balls of energy, but they where green, which in this case represented venom, or poisonous energy. Anything touched by this energy would rot, spoil and disrupt its energy. I countered by flexing my back muscles. Six orbs of green light appeared behind my back (in two columns of three) which where attached to me by silver chains. They connected me to the venom element which not only made me venomous, but also immune to venom.

A cool martial arts battle ensued. He would shoot blasts of venom energy at me and I would absorb it with my left hand, my venom orbs would glow brighter, and then I would shoot a blast back at the man from my right arm. We where perfectly matched and I could not seem to overpower him. I reached out with my left hand and created a tendril of the void energy. Like a whip, it slashed out at the stranger and coiled around him. I began to drain him of his life energy. While he was weakened I lunged at him, aiming to punch him full force with my right hand and obliterate him with an energy blast.

However, he reached out and grabbed my right arm, and then my left. This created some sort of messed up metaphysical circuit. Essentially I was pumping him full of energy with my right arm and draining it with my left. The energy simply ran in a loop. This felt really strange, like I was being electrocuted and it felt as if the entire universe was going to shake to pieces. Arcs of black and white energy where shooting off in random directions, obliterating everything they touched. The garden was falling to pieces all around me. It was about then that the stranger threw me back and the connection was broken.

The green orbs disappeared from his hands, he stood up straight, dusted off his suit, and said, very plainly “Are you not going to help that young boy’s father?” I was rather shocked to discover that this man only wished for me to help this young child out. I said “NO! I’m not, I’m going back where I came from!” He replied with “I really must insist that you help this man.” and with that he motioned to the door behind me, which opened as if in response to these words.

Behind the door was a hotel room that overlooked a city. I walked into the room, the door closing behind me, to discover that it must be a very expensive room. It was high up and I could see for miles. The furniture looked very expensive and like it was created by some famous designer but didn’t really look that comfortable.

Out of the window, I noticed some train tracks. There was a passenger train coming down the line and I noticed that a man in one of the windows was the young boy’s father. I ran and jumped through the window, which shattered around me. I fell towards the train very quickly, I had obviously launched myself from the building with much force. I powered up my left arm (with the dark energy) and sent out another void tendril which I grabbed onto a billboard with to slow my descent. The tendril snapped and I moved like I was going to punch the top of the train. Instead the void energy transformed into giant claws which gripped into the roof of the train. I dented it slightly upon landing and my dark claws punctured the rooftop. I focused the void energy and the roof of the train froze as I drained it of all the heat energy I could manage. I powered up my right arm with white energy and punched the roof. This caused the roof to shatter into tiny pieces, raining down upon the people below.

I fell down next to the young boy’s father, grabbed him with my right arm, shot out a void tendril (spiderman style) which grabbed onto something in the distance and pulled us both from the train like batman with his grappling hook gun.

It was then that I woke up and had to go to work. It’s unfortunate, I really wanted to see how that one would end. I would imagine that more crazy fights where on their way… but I never got to experience them. The coolest thing about this dream was the fact that I got to travel through vast amounts of space by transforming doorways into dimensional portals. I also found it totally awesome that I was using those crazy abilities (orbs of energy, the void and the well). That was totally awesome! I don’t know where my mind gets this stuff but it sure is cool. I may have to do a piece of artwork… perhaps a photo manipulation to illustrate that scene. I figured you might get a kick out of that. I sure did.

Type to you later,
~Nathaniel

However, data that the plane collected showed that the power output was way down (it wasn’t a missile base, it was an unmanned power station that simply resembled one). By that time, though, we knew too much and they couldn’t let us leave. We had discovered that they where over mining the chemicals there and that the resources would be completely depleted within seven years. The company knew this but didn’t want to inform share holders, who might back out and revoke their funding. In any case, we wanted to leave but they wouldn’t let us. In fact they pulled guns on us.

That’s when I remembered that our plane was jacked into their database and security system. I simple said “Computer, defend us.” and suddenly a ton of guns and robotic arms sprung to life from out of hatches in the ceilings, walls, and floor. The automated powerplant had been repairing the plane all that time and as we got onboard to leave, I woke up.

Upon waking, the only thing that came to mind was “Top secret eye drop city? What the heck?”
Figured it was worth sharing anyway.

Type to you later,
~Nathaniel

I had a very wild dream this morning. It could very well turn into an interesting book/movie/TV series/game. In the dream a group of people started trying to develop a new and unique operating system for computers. However, they began work with incorporating technology and the human consciousness. The first thing they realized was that if they got people to unify their thoughts that they could communicate telepathically. Eventually they discovered that getting enough minds to work in unison gave the group the ability to use certain psychic/metaphysical abilities. In order to facilitate the unison of minds, they developed a chip that could easily be installed in the back of the neck. This chip allowed the person to “connect” with everyone else who wore the chip. Essentially this produced one collective mind, or rather used everyone in the “network” as a node in a biological super computer… which resembled one mind. This made them all super smart and by directing their thoughts on one purpose, they could use abilities like pyrokinesis, telekinesis, etc… The name of the chip was the Sine (Not sure why… I think it had something to do with the signal it transmitted). There was also a biological agent that they had to infect a person with in order for the chip to work properly. Some where resistant or immune to the virus that made up this agent, these people formed the resistance against the Sine.

The Sine didn’t care about anything but making the connection stronger and increasing their power. They only ate to sustain themselves but skipped “civilized” steps such as slaughtering and cooking their meat. They did have certain nodes who worked solely improving current or creating new technology but for the most part, the rest of the Sine spent their time trying to expand “The wave” by “recruiting” more nodes. If you where resistant to the agent they could still enslave your mind but you couldn’t think for yourself and thusly couldn’t actually act as a decent node. These people where used for hard labor. Individuals who the Sine found to be completely immune to the agent where killed on the spot. Imagine a world where technology has gotten to the point to where people ignore all things civilized and essentially become beasts and machines. There is no love, only power. The entire world was rather post-apocalyptic in appearance except for the few automated Sine cities. They used robots and the enslaved to maintain them.

Alright, on to the dream:
I was part of the resistance. I was completely immune to the bio-agent and could not be enslaved or converted. I operated alone simply because traveling in large groups attracted the attention of the Sine and could prove dangerous. As one person, I could hide better, and maneuver through their society much better. I used a modified Sine chip to transmit a signal that made the other nodes believe that I was another node. However, I was completely autonomous. Essentially, my mission was to hunt down and kill certain key nodes in the network. I did this by hacking the Sine network itself with the modified chip. From there I would hunt these people down and try to kill them. It was difficult though because they had super powers and I did not. They also where able to instantly call for reinforcements and I was only one man. This meant that I often had to kill a node before they knew they where dead. This meant that I had to sever their heads in an instant and by surprise. In order to facilitate this I had several katanas and a razor whip (a whip with several razor sharp barbs that if used right could be wrapped around a human neck and pulled in a manner that decapitated them).

In the dream my wife was resistant to the bio-agent and had been exposed to it before. However, they didn’t capture her for a while. Part of my mission was to track her down and release her from the network. I finally found her doing housework in a run down place in the middle of nowhere. There where five Sine that she tended to and I somehow had to disable her chip and get her out of there before everyone else discovered our escape… which would be difficult because the Sine would notice if a node was dropped.

So, I infiltrated the house. Luckily I had managed to steal an experimental cloaking device but the sine where still able to detect me psychically. I snuck up on my wife and managed to disable her chip by using one of the katanas, it happened to be an electrified katana and worked well enough for knocking people out and disabling chips. I didn’t get to remove the chip, however, and one of the Sine was coming down stairs.

I quickly hid behind a bookcase and enable the cloaking device. The Sine came down and saw her laying on the floor. He picked her up with his mind and turned her unconscious body slowly in the air to examine her. I quickly came out from behind the bookcase and with a flick of my arm I managed to decapitate him with my whip. I grabbed up my wife and made a run for it. However there where still four more Sine in the area and they all detected the dropping of two of their nodes. They all came to investigate. I attached the cloaking device to my wife and hid her so that I could fight without distraction. I prepared that just in time to have four Sine approach me in this run down building. One of which was powerful enough that he was able to fly through the window.

I immediately threw a katana at one of them, who managed to stop it with his mind. I pressed a button on my belt and it exploded quite forcefully, killing him instantly. I knew that I had to end the battle soon and get out of there before a whole horde of Sine descended on me. A cool kung fu battle ensued which was quite interesting considering the three others could use telekinesis and spontaneously make things explode. My modified chip shielded me from direct attack but that still meant that they could chuck flaming furniture at me. After fighting for a few minuets I threw down a few pellets of some kind of poison. It produced a cloud of dust that knocked out two of the three Sine. I was somehow protected by something that I bit down on just after throwing the pellets. The last Sine was strong enough that he actually was able to project a field around him that repelled the toxic smoke. We fought for quite a while, with things flying everywhere. I started using both the electrified katana and the razor whip but it was fairly useless. This guy was way too powerful. Then all of a sudden he started twitching and convulsing and then he just stopped. I didn’t know what did it but I wasn’t going to take the time to investigate. I rushed him and cut off his head with the katana.

It was then that I saw that the cloaking device was disengaged, my wife had her eyes closed very tightly and had a look of extreme concentration on her face. I rushed to her and when she saw my confused look she said in an exhausted voice “I hacked his mind, there’s something wrong with my chip.” She then passed out. I quickly ran around and severed the heads of the unconscious Sine. Gathered up my wife and ran.

Apparently when I electrified the chip, I managed to somehow cause certain circuits to overload and burn out. The disabled circuits allowed my wife to use the Sine system but not be controlled by it. Essentially she could now hack the system, temporarily disable nearby nodes, and even use their special abilities. However, by doing so, she alerted all nearby nodes of her presence; a sort of double edged sword.

I was taking my wife to a resistance researcher. I hoped he could develop a way to modify more chips for the bio-agent resistant individuals to produce more people with the same abilities as my wife. However, it was on this journey that I woke… the first thing that came to my mind was “THAT WAS AWESOME!”

I think that dream could easily become a movie, TV series, or game. The premise is relatively unique although it seems to borrow from several other stories from the same genre. In any case, I thought it was cool enough to share.

Expect much more,
Type to you later,
~Nathaniel