Summerlander's Blog

[Summerlander]

Date: 25/03/2022
Bedtime: 4am
Awakening: 7am
Return to bed: 7.30am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 12pm
Phase experience: The Full Stomach Experiment

DREAM STATE

Taking Daisy (my former neighbour's daughter) to school. We are both on bicycles but suddenly I am on a skateboard without wheels and struggle to keep up with her in a playground full of grassy knolls, sand dunes and rough terrain in general. I pick up the skateboard and run after the girl, fearing I might lose her as she goes into a train station and down a flight of stairs leading to a platform on foot (her bicycle disappears). A tanned commuter is coming down the steps right behind me and speaks to me but I can't remember what was said. Daisy finally halts and speaks to the stranger briefly as though he's familiar.

Me, my wife, our kids and my mother get inside a black vintage Citroen and ride to the city for sightseeing and perhaps do some shopping. My mum is driving (she doesn't own this type of car in real life) and turns on the radio, causing Limp Bizkit's song 'Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)' to blast from the speakers. We all start singing along to the chorus and swaying to the rap-rock beat, but I soon find myself unable to sing properly as my voice becomes muffled.

Me and my wife take turns in playing a virtual reality game where we have to control a space probe and make it crash on a particular planet of our choice. I'm trying to avoid the red planet Mars and then aim for Jupiter in a bid to make the spacecraft enter its Great Red Spot. I enter the Jovian atmosphere by heading for the stormy bullseye which grows in size to become a gigantic, warm-coloured cyclone. The centre of the storm is like a peaceful vortex and soon it is just me descending into the cloudy funnel like a solitary astronaut. The deeper I go, the less realistic the atmospheric surroundings become and the more I feel like I'm traveling through a simulated tunnel, the end of which is dark and the swirling patterns leading to it increasingly display white tendrils and blue wisps among the dominant fiery colours. Soon, my hands touch the whirling clouds, leading to my death in the game and suddenly I'm no longer a participant as I find myself looking at a screaming avatar on a screen, perishing in Jupiter's storm with a red caption that reads 'Game Over' and I laugh it off with my wife.

WAKING STATE

I wake up to the sound of my alarm and make sure the kids get up for school. I feel quite tired after experiencing a bout of insomnia and return to bed having used the loo with no intention to enter the phase state. I fall asleep almost immediately.

DREAM STATE

Me and my family decorate and change the layout of the living room, which looks different. There is a lot going on: walls being painted, furniture being moved and oddly, cement being applied to the floor. My wife, my mother and my oldest sister (estranged in waking life) block me into a corner of the room with a sofa and decide to go shopping. I can't move but I am busy doing something where I am. My youngest son Alfie is about to enter the room and I tell him to stop as it is a hazardous environment. He reaches for the light switch and I start panicking, thinking he might get an electric shock. Then, I notice the switch has been cemented over but don't find it odd—instead I tell my son, 'Alfie, you can't turn the light on because mum's gone over the switch with cement!' He teases me about threatening to touch it with his finger and I get slightly annoyed.

Scene shift: Me, my wife, my mum, my sister and someone else are walking together outdoors on a pavement when I notice a social contradiction—me and my estranged sister haven't spoken in years and yet she is walking next to me! Am I dreaming? I check my right arm tattoo to find the simplistic picture of a woman resembling the Virgin Mary instead of a dagger going through a skull with a ribbon displaying my wife and kids' names spiralling around them as is the case in real life. I rub the erroneous tattoo with one finger to see if I can smudge it and find that it looks surprisingly permanent, but at this point I already have enough evidence to convince me that the world around me is an illusion. 'I'm definitely dreaming!'

PHASE STATE

I look at my oneiric, make-believe family members and none of them look right. Their faces are strange and somewhat vacant. The fourth person is a complete stranger and all of them stand before me like slightly animated mannequins. I laugh and tell them they look fake. To the one resembling my sister I say: 'What the hell are you doing here?' and to the strange bald and chubby Latino man, 'And who the hell are you?' I deliberately pick a fight with the random with the intent to practise martial arts. We fight over and around stationary vehicles and he's giving me the right resistance: good at sparring and blocking! Feeling satisfied with the training, I fly away and pass through the wall of a house nearby to encounter an interior similar to my living room in the real world. As I explore the environment, it takes me a few seconds to recall my plan of action, and I remember the experiment of 'eating to feel full' as I go through the ceiling, which feels treacly around my torso. Half way up the loft, I think of ceiling as edible and find that the wooden floor near my mouth tastes like crispy, condensed candyfloss. I continue to pull myself upwards as I chew part of the floor above the ceiling.

I find a metal tube akin to an elongated thermos flask on the floor of the loft and start pulling proper pink candyfloss out of it, immediately stuffing my face with the woolly edible. I spot a bed in the middle of the loft and sit on it, continuing to eat lots of candyfloss from the long, metallic flask—amounts that I would not be able to cope with in waking life. At this point, I treat the source of the fluffy, sugary substance as capable of providing limitlessly—a magical bottomless pit! I jump to the middle of the bed to crouch as I swallow as much candyfloss as I can in fast succession. My knees come to rest on the mattress as I gobble up what's on my left hand whist pulling more candyfloss out of the flask with my right hand. As I stuff my face, I notice two freestanding, full-length mirrors—one in front of me about three feet away from the bed, and the other to my left; but none of them display my reflection initially, they only appear to convincingly reflect the loft environment without my presence.

I wish to see myself eating, so I look at the flask for a moment then back at mirrors—according to the frontal and profile reflections, I am a huge, bald, chubby and cute baby greedily eating a lot of candyfloss. My reflections' movements match my own, giving me the impression that I have really turned into an oversized baby. The profile reflection begins to reveal blonde tufts of hair on an enlarged head. I gaze at the frontal reflection as I continue to munch and, as I savour the fluffy sugar, I tell the baby I see: 'You look ridiculous!' I start wondering what the reflection would look like if it got mad at me. The baby inside the mirror continues to mimic my movements but morphs into a frowning Gollum-like creature, gradually becoming slender and his tufts of hair grow longer and darker. I've been chomping on limitless candyfloss since I arrived in this loft and I still don't feel full. I would be feeling sick by now if I had consumed this much candyfloss in the real world! Try as I might, I cannot reach that feeling of being stuffed. It's not normal.

WAKING STATE

I wake up on an empty stomach and don't feel full in the real world either. I feel no different. I jot down my sleep experiences and go about my day.

[Summerlander]

Date: 23/04/2022
Bedtime: 3.30am
Awakening: 8.45am
Return to bed: 9am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 12pm
DILD: The Microscope Experiment


DREAM STATE

I'm in a nightclub and feel like going for a pee so I walk towards a public toilet. As I head for the urinal, I sense that I'm being followed at close proximity by a lanky Oriental guy. This individual declares himself to be gay and begs me for sex. When I decline, he tells me he can't be held responsible for what might happen when I undo my trousers to urinate. Shocked and feeling a bit freaked out, I exit the toilet and decide to report him to the bouncers, but once I hear these burly men discussing how they've manhandled a few homophobes out of the nightclub, I feel apprehensive. What if they take me to be homophobic once I tell them about the man who solicited me for sex in the toilet?


WAKING STATE

I dash off what I remember from dreaming, making a note of how extremely unlikely the nightclub situation would have been in real life and the strong emotions about it. I also realise the uncritical assumption I made in believing that I would be thought of as homophobic for spurning a gay pervert. In real life, should such a scenario present itself, I'd like to think I would be astute enough to explain myself with the clarity that calling out inappropriate behaviour does not make me a bigot. I use the loo and return to bed a few minutes later with the initial intention to enter the phase indirectly. I fall asleep with the experiment in mind.


DREAM STATE

I'm an onlooker at a nocturnal rodeo and I witness a man getting knocked out by a thuggish cowboy. The moustachioed father of the unconscious victim rushes to the scene in a fit of rage and attempts to hit his son's aggressor, but a group of people restrain him. Then, in an exasperating turn of events, the thug and his cronies beat up the father. On top of this, the police arrive to unjustly arrest the crying and bruised old man despite the fact that he and his son were the ones who were brutally assaulted. The sun comes up as the cops force the cuffed victim into a police car. Is this really happening? I gradually pull my right sleeve up to check my tattoo—it looks accurate at first glance, but then I turn my forearm slightly when I notice a curious addition: an ink depiction of the Virgin Mary's countenance which contradicts what is true in real life. I'm dreaming!


PHASE STATE

I'm standing next to a stable and the rodeo crowd is no longer present. In fact, not a soul in sight, as it were. Before me is a vivid, rural landscape at the crack of dawn. (Realism: 100%) I bring the palms of my hands to about six inches from my face and start peering at the creases, imagining that my eyes are microscope lenses. My skin turns into a beige canvas, so to speak, which comes to dominate my field of vision and, as I zoom in, its creases begin to resemble gorges enabling the flow of peculiar sperm-like swimmers of a dark pigmentation. I no longer feel like I'm looking at my hands, having acquired a bird's-eye view of a weird but captivating landscape—a world which isn't the cellular topography I initially expected. I'm eerily drawn to the craggy terrain below, which becomes increasingly defined with my approach. The bizarre sperm-like creatures turn out to be squid-shaped machines similar to the Sentinels in The Matrix, gliding through canyons in a vast desert.

As soon as I land on rocky terrain, the sky quickly darkens, turning overcast in a matter of seconds. A few mechanical squids fly above me and I take off to give chase over a mountainous grey landscape. I see someone walking alongside a precipice and decide to allay my curiosity by landing next to the character in order to strike up a conversation. Upon closer examination, I see Gerald, my best man! 'What are you doing here?' I ask. 'Let me show you something!' He replies enthusiastically. I follow him as he walks ahead visibly excited. The surroundings begin to resemble Richmond—where my in-laws used to live—and a conversation between me and Gerald becomes defocused; I fall asleep.


DREAM STATE

I'm walking down Manor Road and my best man is apparently taking me to his house. We arrive at his outdoor dwelling—where he literally doesn't have a roof over his head and I don't think to question it—and all his furniture and possessions are exposed to the elements. He shows me shelves stacking books, CDs and DVDs. I spot The Matrix collection: 'Have you seen all of them, Gel?' I ask. 'All of 'em!' He replies. He appears to have exactly the same interests as me! I see Black Sabbath records and his stereo is playing 'Whole Lotta Love' by Led Zeppelin. I don't remember him being into good old classic metal music.

We go for a walk again and come upon the bottom of a cliff with a rusty ladder extending all the way to the top. Gerald begins to climb the ladder and I follow, finding the situation extremely precarious. Once he reaches the top, he stands in my way of climbing up from the ladder, making me hold on to it for dear life. Experiencing extreme vertigo and trying not to panic, I try to see what's taking him so long to move out of the way; I even think about asking him for help. I am now paralysed with fear, observing Gerald with his back to me, lifting a grate from the dusty ground for some unknown reason. Scene shift: A man dressed in rags is accused of being abusive on the streets of what looks like the fictitious Walford in EastEnders. Actor Brian Conley, who plays Tom Cotton, defends the poor man, believing him to be the victim of defamation. Another citizen thinks the raggedy man is guilty and Brian Conley becomes annoyed. I'm inclined to side with the celebrity, pointing out that the accusations are just hearsay and that there is an absence of evidence against the accused. I subsequently urge bystanders to give the raggedy man the benefit of the doubt and listen to his version of events before jumping to conclusions. The unkempt man begins to speak.


WAKING STATE

I record my lucid dream and make note of the potential and recurring oneiric cues which can be exploited in the future to promote dream consciousness. Curiously, this is the second time I experience vertigo in a dream so it could be the beginning of a dream pattern. Fights/confrontations, pursuits and celebrity meetings are recurring themes.

[Summerlander]

Date: 05/05/2022
Bedtime: 3.15am
Awakening: 7.10am
Return to bed: 7.20am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 11.15am
Phase experience: The Insertion Experiment


DREAM STATE

I'm queueing behind a man in a shop. I'm next to be served but actress Julia Roberts jumps in front of me. She briefly looks back at me and I shake my head in disapproval before saying with sarcastic chivalry, 'Go ahead, you first!' Scene shift: I'm playing computer games with my wife in my youngest son's bedroom. Suddenly I'm by myself and several screens surround me, allowing me to switch from one game to the next without wasting time. I tend to select fighting over racing games. Suddenly, I'm inside one of the games—which takes a life-like appearance—and I observe people sink into walls with water flowing over their composite-stone surfaces; it seems that whoever gets too close to these peculiar walls ends up literally flushed away, vanishing into their deep gaps. The environment is like a gallery and people are warned to stay away from the walls. I pose for a picture with actor Cuba Gooding Jr. and the photographer accidentally reverses into a wall. I try to save the man by attempting to grab him but he gets flushed away pretty quickly.


WAKING STATE

I wake up at the sound of the alarm and make some notes in my journal before getting my son up for school. I realise that I keep dreaming about celebrities lately, a theme which could turn into a potential dream cue. Playing computer games in my son's bedroom never happens and I also identify two instances of mechanical weirdness, such as, multiple screens and the subsequent flushing system on slippery wet walls observed after the impossibility of suddenly appearing inside a life-like game. Feeling tired, I return to bed.


DREAM STATE

At a nightclub a stately Rastafarian in dreadlocks insists that I stand in the corner of the dancefloor. This makes me very angry, especially when he refers to me as 'bitch'. I vehemently refuse to do as he says but he continues to press me so we lock horns and I end up killing him by bashing his head on steps at the edge of the dancefloor. I hear calls for security and scram as guards walk in my direction and call the police. Frightened, I exit the building, noticing that I am completely covered in blood. I meet up with my friend Musaddique who promises to help by taking me to his house. When we get there he tells me his door is the fourth one from a brick wall, but I see that the fourth one is blocked by a fence, so I ask him if he is sure and he appears confused. Weirdly, he starts counting doors before telling me that perhaps it's the third one. 'Do you not know your house?' I tease him before we enter the house and meet his family—which consists of his parents, his grown-up sister and some little siblings. Scene shift: It's time to go and, coincidentally, the back door of Musaddique's house allows direct access to a train station platform.

I am kindly given a travelcard so I can get a train home. As I head for some barriers beyond which some information screens are visible, I hear Musaddique and his sister calling me. I turn around to see them running towards me. They want the travelcard back because, as it turns out, they will need it. When I hand back what they gave me previously, I notice that I have two blue travelcards made of plastic, making them resemble my citizen card. I find it a little strange but reason that they must've given me two passes by mistake. They turn around and presumably start walking back to their house. I reach for my wallet and realise that it's missing so I panic. How will I get home now? I can still see the siblings walking at a distance and rush after them in the hope of borrowing some money to get home. Suddenly the platform is bustling with people and I lose them. 'Where are they? They were just here!' I think to myself. Feeling lost and confounded by their sudden disappearance, I begin to wonder if I'm dreaming. It's the only explanation ...


PHASE STATE

I no longer worry about anything but feel curious when I see Musaddique get on a train with the crowd. (Realism: 100%) The sliding doors close but I pass through the carriage like a ghost, encountering some resistance as I do so. I can see inside the train as I hover near the ceiling. A semblance of Musaddique and the rest of the passengers look up from their seats. Wondering about what reaction I might get, I say to Musaddique, 'Don't bother with the travelcard! This is a dream!' Musaddique and the passengers start hooting with laughter as if they had been actors all along in some Truman show and I just got 'punked'. I feel like I'm surrounded by tricksters as I stand in the aisle thinking that I must be careful not to get sucked into a dream plot.

I remember the Insertion Experiment and quickly lift a white shirt I'm wearing to plunge my right hand into my belly. As I watch my hand getting gradually absorbed by my torso, I make the following observations: there is some resistance, there is no blood, and there is no pain; as I wiggle the hand inside my tummy to feel for organs, I encounter a vacuous pressure—there is more feeling in my hand than my stomach area and no organs to be found. The environment begins to fade and I wake up eager to record my observations.


WAKING STATE

I scribble some notes and recall the previous dream. Fights and confrontations in dreams are also quite common where strong emotions like anger tend to flare up. Being pursued by the police is also an extremely unlikely situation accompanied by feeling terrified of being captured. Each dream seems to come with at least one scene shift and there are some long-term memory-based elements such as Musaddique—a friend I have not seen since secondary school. I also need to practice being more critical of suspicious events such as Musaddique not knowing exactly which house door is his.

[Summerlander]

Bedtime: 8pm
Awakening: 1am
Return to bed: 1.05am
Awakening: 8am


DREAM STATE

I'm sharing a large tent with a group of people and they are asleep. There is rice and meat cooking on a steel frame on the floor. I start eating all the food with my hands and it is delicious. I exit the tent and see a lot of schoolchildren hanging around a field and a nearby block. It feels like I'm in a school playground. Someone from the tent runs up behind me to tell me that rats are trying to get to the food. Scene shift: Me and my former friend Darragh meet Raj (local butcher) and some of his mates at a pub. We have a philosophical conversation about Hindu gods and suddenly Darragh engages in a drug deal while I sit on a stool by the bar.


WAKING STATE

I wake up feeling tired and use the loo. I note the unusual situation of camping and finding food cooking on a weird contraption. There is also the social contradiction of fraternising with Darragh and Raj. I return to bed and fall asleep pretty quickly.


DREAM STATE

I wade sewage under a bridge and worry about encountering rodents. I'm concerned with rats again. Something very familiar about this theme. Where am I? Why am I here? I'm dreaming!


PHASE STATE

I look around as I walk along a road and everything comes gradually into focus. (Realism: 90%) There are characters trudging on the pavements like zombies. Glancing at the tarmac road, I spot some rainwater next to the kerb; not far, over the narrow stone channel, a drain comes into view. The grating is fuzzy at first but it soon becomes clear with my approach. (Realism: 100%) I remember that I have an experiment to perform. What is it? The insertion experiment! I begin to push against my belly with my right hand but I'm unable to go past the skin barrier—there is too much resistance! My stomach appears to be impenetrable. Why can't I do it?

The zombie people are getting closer and soon I'm surrounded. They start gripping my arms and I get scared so I wrestle them off me. More come out from under the bridge and I run down the road. They give chase and mock me with hoots of laughter. I stop running when I realise there is no need to run because this is a dream. I try my belly again but the mob continue to grab me. 'Leave off!' I shout whilst wrestling them off me. Catching a break and with enough space, I try a different tactic to break through my tummy by using my nails to bore through the skin and rip it open. As I tear my stomach open, I feel pain—it's not excruciating but it's enough to make me stop in case it gets worse. I look at my torso and see two holes and something weird poking through them like two black organs ballooning out. I wake up.


WAKING STATE

I realise I executed the wrong test, remembering that it was supposed to be the guitar experiment. I wonder if the zombie mob was my subconscious mind attempting to impede my mistake as, theoretically speaking, a 'part of me' knew that I had already performed the insertion task on a previous occasion. The conscious me, however, didn't have access to the memory of that previous lucid dream. It is also possible that the mob attacked me because I initially thought the people walked like zombies.

[Summerlander]

Date: 22/05/2022
Bedtime: 2am
Awakening: 5.53am
Return to bed: 6.10am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 8.15am
Phase experience: The Guitar Experiment


DREAM STATE

I'm walking towards a nighttime wilderness in England with my former schoolmate Javed and a Sri Lankan punter from my former days as a bookie; both men are willing to have a friendly fight and I'm the umpire reminding them to play by the rules and that they are not to get seriously injured as they are both family men. We jump over a brick wall and the fight is about to commence when I spot what look like a couple of Kodiak bears approaching from a distance towards the men. Eventually, the ferocious beasts catch up to them and both faint; I hide behind a tree as I believe the would-be fighters are about to be devoured. The animals are not bears at all as I see that they have a larger and quite uncanny presence—they remind me of a cross between a lion and a rhinoceros but overall redolent of the demonic hounds in Ghostbusters. I am petrified and in awe of such creatures which are not officially known to exist. I hear fingers clicking and the beasts freeze next to the unconscious men. Not far, I see Judi Dench (the actress who plays 'M' in 007 films) standing in front of a building that wasn't there before which I take to be a top secret facility. I immediately get the impression that she controls the hellish hounds and, approaching, she snaps her fingers again. Huge mandibles grip the men's limbs and a jerk accompanied by crunch rouses them back to consciousness. I am taken aback by this nifty trick as the men scram in panic. It isn't Javed running alongside the Sri Lankan punter; it is now Bob Hoskins. I furtively get away and encounter my friend Lizzie Bowman in the wilderness who also witnessed Judi Dench's hounds. We run together and there is an impression that we must know where to tread because England is now swarming with lions and there is the added challenge that they move around. It feels like a precarious memory game.


WAKING STATE

I record what I can remember and note potential dream cues such as the social contradiction of Javed and my former customer, stark elements from my past, the unlikely situation of being the referee of an agreed upon fight in the wilderness, seeing celebrities, shapeshifting, impossible monstrous animals and the threat of lions. I also identify schematic associations by my dreaming mind, e.g., the night before I dreamt of a giant Venus flytrap similar to the one in the film Little Shop of Horrors which happens to star Rick Moranis who is also in Ghostbusters. I return to bed with the intention to enter the phase state and fall asleep.


DREAM STATE

Me and a group of people are sat around a table. It is my understanding that this is a therapy group session and it is peculiar that every male—myself included—is topless and we have to present the females with instances of child abuse and domestic violence. A male psychotherapist interrupts the session to announce that there's been a mix-up and some of us are in the wrong group—I happen to me one of the misplaced ones. I am invited to leave the room for a break before embarking upon finding the right room. One side of the room is missing a wall and I use this wide gap to jump down to a dark underground sewage system resembling one I encountered under a bridge in a recent lucid dream. This is somewhat familiar! What am I doing here? I'm dreaming!


PHASE STATE

I tell myself I no longer need to re-enter the building behind me in order to look for the new therapy room. Everything is a very elaborate illusion. (Realism: 90% gradually making progress towards 100% as I rub my hands.) It feels like a nighttime environment but I am now in a tunnel and I see light at the end. I glide towards the arched opening revealing a daytime, urban environment where I come upon a river—beyond it, near the horizon, I see a pillar-shaped mountain that reaches all the way to the clouds, making for an odd panorama. I struggle to recall the experiment I'm supposed to execute and believe I foul when the surroundings fail even though I strenuously rub my hands in order to heighten tactility. I'm in bed, apparently having woken up, and tell my wife that I just had a brief lucid dream but failed to remember the experiment. 'Next time!' she says. I look at my hands and they look normal but I decide to do a reality test nonetheless by pushing my right index finger through my left palm; the digit goes through my hand at a push! I'm shocked to discover I just had a false awakening and start deepening the phase by rubbing my hands as the realism is now only 35% that of the real world and the bedroom replica got darker since I falsely awoke. I reach for my electric guitar in the corner of the room and realise it is a lot smaller than it's supposed to when I pick it up. The instrument is still in its case, which I struggle to unzip, so I decide to play it by pressing the strings over the nylon fabric. As I feel the strings through the gigbag, I hear the electric wailing sound of the guitar even though it's unplugged. I start randomly shredding on the fretboard (which is something I struggle with in real life) to produce a surprising classical rock sound in the style of a musical prodigy like Yngwie Malmsteen. My experience is more tactile and auditory than visual at this point. (Realism: 70%) I revel in the elaborate solo I'm producing until the environment fades and the sound peters out.

I believe I have woken up. I get out of bed and walk towards the balcony door to part the curtains and check what the whether is like. It looks dismal outside: the sky is grey and overcast. Beyond the neighborhood, I make out a strange cloud formation. The more I peer at it, the more the sky turns pink and the more a fiery cloud manifests in the shape of a wide column with a cauliflower-like top. That is weird! This mushroom-shaped phenomenon looks like an atomic bomb has gone off! Could it be that I just had another false awakening? My index goes through my palm again, confirming that I am still dreaming and I open the balcony door. (Realism: 100%) I want to play guitar again but the corner of the room where the instrument is supposed to be, to my left, is too far from me. I don't want to waste time so I reach behind the curtain to my right expecting to find a guitar there. To my surprise, I find my old V-shaped guitar, which I sold years ago, leaning against the wall. I start playing a melody similar to the first solo in the song 'Master of Puppets' by Metallica. Curiously, each note I play simultaneously causes the now fiery sky to reverberate. I'm awed by the beauty of the sounds and the colours before me before all my senses fade and I wake up for real.


WAKING STATE

It is worth mentioning that I have some experience with music as an amateur piano and guitar but I must say that in the phase I played more confidently and easily reached the level of a virtuoso. This experience won't turn me into a great guitarist overnight, but it has, at least, inspired me greatly.

[Summerlander]

Date: 22/07/2022
Bedtime: 3am
Awakening: 7am
Return to bed: 7.15am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 10.30am
Return to bed: 11.10am
Method of entry: indirect
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 12.30pm
The Slapping Experiment


DREAM STATE

Me and my family are socialising with our Muslim neighbours next door and we show them an album full of pictures of Asian friends (no such album exists in the real world). The Muslim 'man of the house'—husband and father to quite a few kids—announces that we are welcome to visit his mansion in Hounslow. Scene shift: We are driving in Hounslow at night to meet our nextdoor neighbour who is hosting a party at the mansion there (which doesn't exist in real life). When we get there, I see that my neighbours have quite a few peculiar dogs outside on the front garden. Upon closer examination, I notice that the critters have several red eyes covering their heads, a mutation I regard as odd but not completely abnormal. We happen to have our puppy with us, who happens to look nothing like Gizmo (our Jackapoo pet in waking life) and we hold him tight as he seems scared of the mutant dogs. Somehow we drop Gizmo and he is immediately attacked by the mutant canines, causing him to yelp and bounce around to and fro. While my wife manages to rescue our pet from a sustained attack, me and my mother spot a litter of mutant puppies which we begin to collect.

Scene shift: On the roof of a scaffolded skyscraper, me and my mother use meat cleavers to hack the puppies in half—causing them to divide like cells. Every puppy hacked right down the middle turns into two and our goal is to produce as many mutant puppies as possible for sale. I soon discover a caveat: striking the middle of their bodies is the only way to make them multiply, but if we miss the spot and hack off a limb instead, the whole body turns into lifeless red meat—with the chopped off body part morphing into a slice of steak. This process begins to strike me as quite magical and, as I'm feeling puzzled about how it happens, I start to question reality and come to the realisation that I'm dreaming.


PHASE STATE

I take off to fly over a vast, daytime metropolis. As I soar through the sky, I realise I can't remember my plan of action, however, I feel like reaching the highest point in the city has something to do with it, so I head for the tallest structure I see in the distance and quickly reach its rooftop, where I encounter two men, one of whom is Keanu Reeves dressed up as Neo from The Matrix, the other is a burly chap ostensibly looking for a fight. Neo, as a conspicuous onlooker, sports his dark long coat and iconic shades; the khaki pullover-wearing stocky fellow, on the other hand, makes a lunge for my arm as soon as I land, gripping it tightly. Feeling the pressure and strength of the man's move, I briefly remind myself that I'm dreaming and take the opportunity to engage in combat, using my belief in super strength to launch him off the rooftop.

I come across an entrance which gives access to lower floors via a green staircase and come upon a kitchen where I explore some opulent cutlery and crockery with my hands. I return to the staircase, which is now a different shade of green verging on yellow, and continue downwards to an even lower floor whilst rubbing my hands and reminding myself that I'm dreaming. The interior of the building is uncannily vibrant and colourful and I manage to reach a palatial lobby before waking up. Duration: 40 seconds


WAKING STATE

I scribble my sleep experiences and catalogue dream cues, starting with scene shifts such as suddenly being on a skyscraper after the Hounslow mansion. I note the social contradiction of socialising with neighbours that I don't even know well enough and the identity anomaly of thinking that I have an album dedicated to Asian friends when I don't in reality, which is just as unusual a situation as driving to a mansion that doesn't exist and having a dog that looks nothing like mine. Conspicuous impossibilities are recorded as potentially strong dream cues such as mutant dogs with multiple eyes and puppies that divide to multiply like cells when hacked with blades.

After making sure that my youngest son Alfie is okay, as he took a nasty fall at school and hurt his knee to the extent that he can barely walk, I return to bed and cover myself which raises my body temperature to a slightly uncomfortable level but I feel too tired to move at this point and fall asleep.


DREAM STATE

I am sitting on my bed in my room when my son Alfie comes in and starts drinking from an old bottle of water on my wife's bedside cabinet. He seems oddly parched and desperate to gulp it all down. I tell him to stop because the water is old but it seems to fall on deaf ears so I physically stop him. I offer to fetch him a fresh glass of water and notice that he is still desperately thirsty but remains oddly silent.


PHASE STATE

Apparently, I open my eyes as I lie on my side near the edge of the bed and notice that the floor is messy with clothes scattered all over the place. Amidst the clutter, a little mouse scurries across the floor and disappears into a wide hole in the floor that shouldn't be there. 'What the hell is going on?' I think to myself as I gape at the gnawed carpet rim surrounding the hole. I fear the rodent will eventually come out and climb on the bed and I wish to deal with it at once. Suddenly, everything goes dark and a pulsating hiss manifests in my head as I realise what was just experienced was a false awakening.

An eager push-up away from the bed causes me to hover above it. The bedroom is dark and dim—indicative of a dream environment requiring intensification. (Realism: 40%) I land on the carpet near the doorway and promptly exit the bedroom and can make out a slightly brighter but hazy hallway. (Realism: 50%) I start slapping my face but find it hard because an invisible force around my head repels my hand like a protective, magnetic shield. I feel the need to be extra forceful in order to break through the barrier and ensure my palm lands on my cheek. The first hit is very light, as the invisible halo's repellent force causes my forearm to swing in slow motion, and causes my sleep mask to drop over my eyes, blocking my already poor sight. I immediately remove the mask and discard it but the hallway is no clearer than before. I force another slap which appears to bring about complete blindness in the eye that was almost hit.

I continue to slap myself, managing to swing my arm slightly faster and hoping to restore my sight, but hitting my face only begets a gradual loss of vision in my other eye. (Realism: 20%) Slapping myself a total of eleven times exacerbates and completely destroys the last modicum of visual perception, so I squeeze the banister as I go downstairs in the dark, doing my best to keep tactility alive as I stomp into the living room and towards daylight seeping through its curtains. My phantom body feels hot, like I'm wearing a thick boilersuit, making me surmise that such impression must be the result of my sleeping body being wrapped in a duvet in the real world! I tell myself that there is nothing I can do about this now as it is more important to stay lucidly focused and remain in the dream world.

I pass through the curtains like a ghost, with a strong wish to have better clarity outside, to emerge on the other side where my back garden is bright and colourful in broad daylight. (Realism: 95%) I run across the turf and jump over a brown picket fence (different from the blue one in the real world) with ease, exiting my property to land in the middle of the road, noticing that there are no vehicles in sight. As I jog down the road, the environment fades (realism: 10%) but I protest by stomping on the tarmac and grabbing the shoulders of another jogger who is running ahead of me. I squeeze the athletic man's shoulders over his white t-shirt as I continue to stomp on the road, actions which ostensibly restore and improve upon the vivid detail I enjoyed when I left my oneiric abode. (Realism: 105%)

I release the Mo Farah lookalike and let him run ahead of me as I spot Alfie jogging next to me, apparently better and his leg in good condition—no doubt, I think, a subconscious manifestation from wishing him a speedy recovery in waking life. My son overtakes me and soon reaches the other jogger, who shapeshifts into an Arab-looking man of lighter complexion, a phenomenon that makes me smile because it betrays the hallucinatory nature of my surroundings. The sky above is clear and blue and I feel like I'm running through a vibrant countryside; a beautiful scenery full of well-groomed trees and a shimmering river running parallel to the road we are on. Needless to say, this breathtaking environment no longer resembles anything like the area where I live in reality. I see Alfie turning left towards the river and doing a U-turn in order run along the riverside in the opposite direction. I wake up. Duration: 1 minute 35 seconds


WAKING STATE

I record everything before checking on my son playing on his console in his bedroom. I feel that slapping myself in this lucid dream seemed to sabotage the goal of intensification. It didn't seem to work for me at all as I feel that perception only improved because I decided to leave my house replica to seek a brighter external environment.

[Summerlander]

Date: 08/08/2022
Bedtime: 3.05am
Awakening: 7.30am
Return to bed: 8.10am
Method of entry: indirect
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 10.15am
The Aging Experiment


DREAM STATE

I'm in a cafe and there is a freezer available for customers to open and select from a variety of frozen pizzas. I saunter towards the freezer as I think about having a pizza, all the while hearing an effeminate man who looks like Tom Allen carping about the service. I open the freezer and find a metal tray with a jacket potato, a portion of beans and melted cheese on it, in front of a stack of pizzas. I hear the Tom Allen lookalike moaning about the food he was served previously which, according to him, was so bad that he had decided to discard it in the freezer. Disgruntled with the man's insolence and lack of regard for others, I get a towel and use it to pull out the tray, sensing that it is still piping hot with my shielded fingers. As I plan to throw the tray in the bin, I notice that it is identical to one I've got at home. I can still hear the camp fellow demanding a high standard of service, an ironically sanctimonious drivel coming from someone with no decorum and basic hygiene. His gall is rubbing me up the wrong way and, as I get ready to reproach him, I wake up.


WAKING STATE

I jot down what I can remember and use the loo before taking the dog outside for a poo and a wee. I reflect on some of the potential dream cues that had presented themselves in my sleep, such as the oddity of having a freezer with customer access in a cafe and coming across a tray which was identical to one I own. The situation was also unusual because I haven't been to a cafe in ages and it's not everyday that one encounters an insufferable stranger who is a dead ringer for a comedic celebrity. I return to bed feeling tired and fall asleep on my stomach despite the uncomfortable heat.


PHASE STATE

Apparently awakening with a pulsatile hiss petering out, I wonder if getting up will break what I believe to be a trance close to the phase state. The bed beneath my body feels so real and the hiss is quickly replaced by shouting and screaming which appears to be coming from outside my house. Have I missed the window of opportunity to enter the phase? And what the hell is going on outside? It sounds like a brawl seriously escalating into grievous bodily harm. I hear a woman crying! I decide it doesn't matter how real it sounds because, if there is one thing I learned from false awakenings and lucid dreams, is that seeming doesn't make it so. I boldly get out of bed and walk around it in the dark, apparently wearing my sleep mask. Removing it from my head reveals the sight of a bedroom environment partially cropped by a dark veil—like the edge of the mask is still obstructing my vision even though I had just chucked it away. (Realism: 80%) I start rubbing my hands together, confident that vision will improve and it does as I walk towards the bedroom door which happens to be closed. (Realism: 100%)

I pass through the door like a ghost and remember my task at this juncture. Going through the door causes my vision to fleetingly go dark and I can make out some wood fibres within. Sight is immediately restored on the other side, where I come upon the hallway and facing my reflection in the mirror—which is mostly accurate except for my hair being spikier and my countenance displaying white face paint in a peculiar design covering mostly the left side and going over my eye. I look like I've got unfinished clown makeup on. I am also wearing clothes I don't have in the real world: a black jumper and leather trousers.

I start pacing back and forth, towards and away from the mirror but always facing it in order to prevent a foul and to see how my reflection might change as I wish for senility and infirmity according to the experiment. So far my odd reflection appears to be copying me, so much so that when I take too many steps backwards towards the bedroom door, I see the mirror doppelganger's body reverse into it and almost getting 'swallowed'. I start playing with the act of sinking my limbs and torso into the door and back out again whilst observing my double do the same in the mirror world. I find it amusing to see my hands, forearms and knees disappearing and re-emerging on the door's pale surface, with my face always sticking out so that I can see what's going on in the mirror.

To avoid getting sidetracked, I take slow steps towards the mirror whilst rubbing my hands and wishing to get old again. My reflection's face produces many wrinkles and starts to resemble Keith Richards, but my body stands in defiance in the mirror and looks quite muscly under the dark clothes. The partially painted face in the mirror is the only thing that creases with a spell of instant aging, everything else remains the same. Despite managing to make my reflection appear facially older (a wrinkled but tough version of myself, i.e., like a tough old man), I fail to feel old and weak myself. Suddenly, I see the Russian-British comedian Konstantin kisin coming up the stairs. 'Hi, KK!' I greet him feeling slightly amused by his presence. 'What are you doing here? Get the fuck out!' He nonchalantly replies in a strong Russian accent. I watch him walk past me and into my bedroom before waking up.


WAKING STATE

I open my eyes, feeling excited by what I remember and slightly invigorated by having successfully entered the phase—contrary to the objective of this experiment. I pen my experience and rise out of bed with an ease that many elderly people cannot muster.

[Summerlander]

Date: 26/09/2022
Bedtime: 1.30am
Awakening: 7am
Return to bed: 7.30am
Method of entry: indirect
Attempt: successful
Final awakening: 10am
The Energy Experiment


DREAM STATE

I am finding it difficult to move around on stony debris in the aftermath of an earthquake. I jump from slab to slab as I painstakingly try not to fall through the cracks below. The ruins I'm on are very precarious and I seek a stable floor whilst climbing upwards, attempting to reach the safer upper floors of a partially destroyed building. I see people higher than me who appear to be safer than I am.


WAKING STATE

I wake up and go downstairs to the living room with Gizmo, my Jackapoo dog. I make notes on the unusual situation I have just experienced in my dream and, after making sure my dog goes out for a poo in the back garden, I fall asleep with intention to enter the phase.


PHASE STATE

I get up with full vision and realise straight away that the sofa is more extensive and positioned the wrong way around in the living room. Despite being aware of the obvious contradiction in the layout of the room, I put a hand through the sofa to confirm that my surroundings are phantom in nature. I spin around slowly to scan the environment, noticing that the living room is larger here than in actuality and the back door is ajar just as I left it before falling asleep on the sofa in the real world. As I access the back garden, I recall The Energy Experiment and, as I stand on the green turf, I summon a surge of energy within me and tense up instinctively, which causes me to levitate off the ground whilst I simultaneously observe that the fence is higher than it should be. It is also brown instead of blue and it is erroneously picketed. As I lift off the ground like a helium balloon, I experience vibrations and my heart feels like it's rising up my throat. The sensation is scary and a little uncomfortable—akin to when I jumped out of an aeroplane at 13,000 feet for a tandem skydive once. I get realistic palpitations and my blood pressure feels high.

As I rise above the fence, the surge of energy is begging to be released and I propel myself towards a set of buildings on the horizon beneath a clear blue sky. I glide through the air like a bullet as I realise that my street doesn't exist where it would be in the real world—instead there is a vacant, earthy field before remote blocks of flats which quickly increase in size as I approach and their intricate details grow in my field of vision. The windows blow up in scale, too, but I end up going through the brick wall of a building like a bullet through fog, landing me in a dark room. Before I can thoroughly explore its dark interior, it fades and I wake up.


WAKING STATE

I spend a few seconds somewhat convalescing after undergoing the cardiac intensity caused by summoning the surge of energy. I feel tense and my heart is racing like I've been on a rollercoaster. I get up from the sofa and dash off a few notes before lying down again with the intention to re-enter the phase. I manage to relax fairly quickly and lapse in consciousness.


PHASE STATE

I come to with my eyes shut and feeling perpendicular to my sleeping-body axis, which I find suspect. I struggle to get up and feel a strong hand gripping mine, pulling me up to stand as I simultaneously regain my sight. My helper stands before me dressed in black and looking like a cross between the actor Alex O'Loughlin (who plays Steve McGarrett in Hawaii Five-0) and Daniel Love (lucid dreaming researcher and author of 'Are You Dreaming?'). We hold hands and I squeeze his in order to intensify tactility. Unlike the grey walls of the living room in the real world, what I see is an interesting motif composed of indigo tendrils against a white background surrounding me. I move towards the partition that allows me access to my eldest son's bedroom, finding his door wide open, and let go of my helper's hand. I cause myself to feel energetic and proceed to ardently destroy his console, flat screen and desk; my fervid movements producing realistic smithereens and shattering sounds.

Like the Tasmanian Devil cartoon, I smash through the window—taking part of the wall with me—and find myself outside the house perambulating a high street busy with oneiric denizens. I grope members of the crowd before clocking a row of flowerpots and vases on the pavement to my right and stroke the china and terracotta. I scoop up some dirt from one of the flowerpots and eat it, feeling nothing but insipid, crunchy grains in my mouth. Almost immediately and never ceasing in zing, I leap on to the shoulders of a bulky bystander to bite his bald head—which tastes and feels like hard toffee. I soar into the air from the large man's shoulders and rise above treetops in a massive leap that lands me at the fringes of a beach resembling Croyde bay in Devon, England (where I went on holiday last month). I see a crowd of people wearing straw hats and sandals ambling towards me, prompting me to spiritedly announce, 'I am your God!' as I levitate before them. I wish to make them all levitate with me but only one woman does so. Whilst in mid-air, I notice that the sea is missing and there is only shallow sand beyond the shore and my experience subsequently comes to an end perhaps due to my energetic excitement.


WAKING STATE

I wake up experiencing goosebumps and a high heart rate but nothing that makes me worry. I record my experiences, feeling somewhat cheerful but also vowing to avoid the surge of energy invocation that led to uncomfortable palpitations whenever I enter or find myself in the phase state. My hybrid helper is ostensibly apprehended in hindsight: I like the heroic character Steve McGarrett in Hawaii Five-0 and punk band Radio Birdman do a tribute song to the show called 'Aloha Steve & Danno' where a particularly salient lyric passage is, 'Steve I want to say thank you for all you've done for me'; and then there's Daniel Love, whose book I read fairly recently, had some good tips about the practice of lucid dreaming—hence the character amalgamation offering a helping hand!

[Summerlander]

Date: 28/10/2022
Bedtime: 4.40am
Awakening: 9am
Return to bed: 9.45am
Method of entry: indirect
Attempt: successful
Final awakening: 11am
Phase experience: The Blowing Experiment


DREAM STATE

I'm in a gymnasium and a brawl is unfolding. Two Asian blokes that I know from university display antisocial behaviour and an ostensibly unbeatable martial arts prowess. They typically thrash and kill people with a phenomenal flying kick and chains attached to their ankles are used as weapons to viciously lacerate the underdogs. Now it's my turn to muster enough strength and pluck up the courage to face them. The sniggering young fighters are scornful of me and I am frightened and not so sure of myself but feel that I must put an end to their evils or die trying—running and leaving them to run amok is not an option. In that moment, a righteous notion tells me that I must face my fear and judges me if I dare take the easy option. I freeze and my thinking is along the lines of, 'What kind of coward would I be if I just let them go on a murderous rampage and run for my life?' I believe that it wouldn't be a life worth living if I allowed such a destructive force to continue and feel momentously overwhelmed. A deep realisation sets in that the noble and dutiful thing to do here is to confront the enemy.


WAKING STATE

The Asian students in my dream were as young as I last saw them twenty years ago like I had gone back in time. I also note that they had been jumping to impossible heights during the fight. I lacked the necessary critical thinking here to realise that I had been dreaming. The strong emotions experienced here were a deep dread and anxiety and a subsequent moral indignation towards the wrongdoers. I exit the bedroom and take the dog downstairs to let him out before lying down on the sofa to enter the phase. I fall asleep.


DREAM STATE

I am looking at the gate in the back garden and notice several spiders crawling out of the woodwork. I feel creeped out and trapped in my abode. Scene shift: I wake up in my eldest son's bedroom but there is no partition separating it from the living room. My son walks in from the back garden carrying bags that apparently belong to my mother who is in her car outside and, as I am told by my wife who subsequently enters the room, has come to visit and needs us to go with her across London to a Housing Association meeting for representation. 'What is it about?' I enquire whilst peeved that she sprang that on us.


PHASE STATE

I apparently awake on the sofa and open my eyes to find myself holding a peculiar, transparent object over my chest. This object is square-shaped, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, seemingly made of plastic and could potentially encase a mini portrait that could go with a keyring. From this nonsensical experience I infer that I am probably dreaming but still feel like making sure, so I try to bend the solid object which suddenly becomes supple and malleable enough to also be stretched. I get up and realise that the environment is pretty much set, just tending to lose focus intermittently. (Realism: 90%) I hold my hands up to my face and blow on them, feeling a stream of air on my palms like I'm blowing the surroundings a kiss as I slowly turn to complete a 360° revolution, and inhaling to blow again and again in succession when it feels like I might run out of breath. The environment is a less cluttered replica of the living room in the real world and doesn't seem affected by the stream of air I'm producing. I notice some pen marks on my hands which are gradually erased when I blow on them again. I feel I've exceeded my blowing time and exit the room to explore an altered kitchen where apparent objects are sharper in a brighter ambience. (Realism: 105%)

The first thing I notice in the kitchen is a sink so large that it resembles a sizeable tank filled with water and crockery. The more I approach the enlarged sink, the bigger it seems to get. My waist magically passes through the edge of the worktop with some resistance until I am in the sink-tank submerged in fresh water up to my chest and feeling realistically wet. I can see that the tank extends like a swimming pool beyond the speckled window, a barrier that I also magically traverse with little difficulty. There is another glass pane to go through before I reach the outside as I wade a 3ft-long gap inside a double-glazed window as though I've shrunk. (I am also aware that in real life the kitchen window is not double-glazed.) I traverse the second glass pane and realise that I am on an upper floor of a scaffolded building which is contrary to my ground-floor abode in waking life. It is striking how surreal my unfamiliar situation is from my lucid perspective. The stony balcony overlooks a vast field populated by groups of people before a forest under a pale sky and the scenery is unlike the green and Crane Park outside my front door. I notice that some people—men and women of various features—stroll alongside the scaffolded block of flats.

I divert my attention from the nearest circumstances to gaze at a cluster of people in the distance heading for the woods. I glide towards them and hover just over their heads, causing a black man to give me the middle-finger salute. I feel irked by this and immediately descend upon him, prompting him to adopt a fighting posture. Another figure identical to him approaches to provide backup and my attempts to strike them are thwarted by an invisible force. Having landed before them, I feel completely vulnerable and exposed, but I telepathically threaten them—somehow making it clear that if they attack I will fight back. I turn around and walk in the same direction as the rest of the group subsequently becoming paranoid, believing that the twins will attack me from behind, so I turn around and surely enough one of them is about to as he runs towards me with ire in his puckered countenance. I notice that the unfolding event is soundless and remind myself that the confrontation, and everything else for that matter, is an elaborate illusion. Curiously, I still raise my arms to defend myself, a move primarily compelled by instinct and an irrational fear that makes me think, 'Just in case!' I know, however, that he is me and appease the oncoming figure by saying, 'Sorry I upset you!' He stops, shakes his head with an air of reproach, and walks away. I wake up.


WAKING STATE

I didn't have a plan of action other than The Blowing Experiment in mind. It's worth mentioning that I have tried this experiment once years ago and found that the stream of air I blew on my hands filled a dark void with a bright and colourful bedroom environment upon separation from my perceived sleeping body. The stream of hot air blowing from my mouth on that particular occasion acted like invisible spray paint creating my surroundings. But this time this exercise didn't seem to have much effect other than magically erasing ink on my hands. Realism only increased once I stopped blowing and entered the inaccurate kitchen replica, which was far more defined than the living-room interior. This difference in depth didn't seem to me to relate to the preceding action of blowing on my hands but it could still have been a delayed reaction to it. I cannot, however, make a definitive connection when I bear in mind the post hoc ergo propter hoc ('after this, therefore because of this') fallacy.

[Summerlander]

Date: 27/11/2022
Bedtime: 4am
Awakening: 9am
Return to bed: 11.15am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Final awakening: 1.15pm
The Scratching Experiment


DREAMING

Watching the Triggernometry podcast on an iPad as I walk with my wife by a beach in broad daylight and the hosts on the screen mention that they have interviewed the neuroscientist Sam Harris in Spanish which I think is formidable as they have never conducted an interview in a different language before and they announce the future release of other celebrity conversations that were conducted in English. We walk over to a tall building by the coast where my mum is now apparently residing (not so in real life) and I try to contact her on the intercom to invite her to come with us to a restaurant but she's not answering. Scene shift: I'm just with my wife at a restaurant by the seaside, indulging in delectable, seasoned rice with crunchy chips and a succulent steak. Scene shift: back to being outside my mother's 'new' residence and trying to contact her over the intercom. She answers this time, telling me that she was asleep, and I offer to take her to the same restaurant, recommending the food that we have already eaten.


WAKING

I note that quite a few unusual elements were taken for granted in the dream that I woke up from. Triggernometry never conduct interviews in other languages and I don't own an iPad. The scene shifts spell disjointed dream scenes and yet I fail to notice the lack of logical continuity. Also, my mother would never move to live by the sea as she fears floods caused by climate change. I watch part of the football match between Japan and Costa Rica before deciding to go for a two-hour nap with my wife, setting an alarm to wake up and get ready to go shopping.


DREAMING

I falsely wake up to my wife and daughter getting reading to go out and tell them I'm coming with. My wife teases my daughter—who seems desperate to visit the local newsagent—that she is only accompanying her up the road and coming back. My daughter chuckles and insists that her mum accompany her all the way to the shops. My wife then proposes that I imagine a strange scenario: 'What if tigers invaded our back garden?' I walk over to the window and make the coincidental but startling discovery that a couple of tigers are resting on our balcony. I tell my wife and she bursts out laughing, revealing that she decided to prank me with realistic, soft toy tigers. Suddenly, a 'real' coincidence occurs! From the balcony I spot a man walking an adult tiger and a cub in the neighbourhood and the feline duo invade our garden which, unlike in the real world, is contained by an incomplete picket fence. 'Can you believe it, Stace? You were just saying about tigers invading our garden!' I incredulously remark to my wife.

The tigers leave but then I notice a scaffolded block of flats that shouldn't exist standing opposite my house, and Michelle (an Irish lady who walks her rottweiler in the neighbourhood) megaphones a protest against the owner of the tigers from one of the top floors—telling the neighbours how dangerous the animals are and how their presence is 'not normal'. Inside, I absolutely agree with her and hope that the authorities get involved. Glancing back at our garden I notice weird creatures passing through the fence like shadowy ghosts. The strange animals approach the house walking sideways and I see that they resemble black otters with bodies like that of rhinos. 'What the hell?' I exclaim at the uncanny sight. Now a large ape is climbing up the gutter pipe on the side of the house and my wife weirdly removes part of the balcony railing which resembles a baby safety gate in her hands. The balcony is exposed and I experience vertigo. 'Babe, what the hell?!' I question her actions as she exits the bedroom.

I'm alone and, to my trepidation, the ape is poking its head through the railing gap. I fight the colossal primate with a broom I happen to be holding but the animal reaches the balcony door handle with an unusually long arm and swings it wide open. I poke at the ape's face with the broomstick and manage to pull the door towards me but the animal pulls it back, making me lose balance and almost defenestrating me in the process. I manage to compose myself and focus on poking the primate until it lets go of the door but, just as I pull it towards me, a hairy arm gets in the way of shutting it. I decide to exit the bedroom, closing the door behind me before the ape has a chance to climb over the balcony railing. The hallway displays another door where the wall mirror should be and I notice how vividly colourful the home environment is. I realise the strange door—made of wood, glass and displaying red and blue blotches—shouldn't be there and wonder what's going on. 'Have I somehow gone to a parallel universe? Or ... Am I dreaming?'


LUCID DREAMING

I push the blotted door open and enter a messy workshop—spacious, including desks, a couple of workbenches with vices attached, and an easel. (Realism: 110%) I walk barefoot over what looks like shards of glass glued to a marble floor. Opposite the doorway is a row of fluorescent windows denoting external daylight and the other walls are covered with irregular-shaped mirrors where I can see my realistic reflection from multiple angles. I notice that my new haircut is accurate and on display. At this point I am moving slowly and doing a revolution in order to inspect my surroundings. I don't feel the need to perform deepening or maintenance techniques as the workshop appears hyperreal and stable. I recall The Scratching Experiment and see that only my arms are exposed as the rest of my body is covered in black pyjamas. I start scratching my arms but feel only the pressure of fingers and warmth rubbing against my skin and no expected sensation of nails tearing into it. The qualia that goes with scratching is ostensibly incomplete. The environment remains the same. (Realism: 110%) I start scratching my face—noticing my reflections around the room doing exactly the same—and it feels like my face has been numbed by anaesthesia. Despite scratching hard, I have almost no feeling other than fingers pressing against my countenance. The hyperreality which encompasses me remains in all its glory.

I feel it's time to end the experience so I stand still, expecting to awaken but nothing happens. The environment, with it's strong illusion of solidity, remains. Momentary shock ensues and develops into a slight panic attack. 'Am I stuck in a lucid dream?' I become extremely emotional, fearing this thought to be true, and rush to the doorway—thinking that somehow it might help—and back to the hallway that still exists within my oneiric abode, albeit inaccurately as the staircase is now on the wrong side. I am desperately missing my wife and, almost crying, I call out her name, expecting her doppelgänger to emerge from downstairs and whose presence I believe would be enough to allay my angst. Perhaps the Stacey replica might be able to help! Nobody comes up the stairs and the realism of the banister is frightening. Suddenly, I hear my alarm going off and the next thing I know is that I am back in bed. Duration: 50 seconds.


WAKING

I open my eyes, relieved to be free and breathe a sigh of relief before making notes. For starters, lucid dreaming was completely unexpected. In hindsight, this appears to have been an unusual experience—not because of its duration, but rather, the fact that I couldn't terminate it by becoming immobile, which has always proved to work. In fact, my experience has always been that it is harder to remain in a lucid dream and very easy to let the dream world collapse. I can only speculate about the reasons why this time it was different. It could be that I wasn't quite done with REM sleep and it is also rare for me to nap around midday. A number of atypical factors coupled with physiological parameters could have resulted in what happened. Perhaps there is something to be said about my psychology at the time, too, in particular, the role fear might have played in preserving the borderland state compounding REM sleep and consciousness. What do you think happened?

[Summerlander]

Date: 05/01/2023
Bedtime: 2.25am
Awakening: 5.10am
Return to bed: 5.20am
Method: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Final awakening:12pm
The Return Experiment


DREAM STATE

I am in the living room of my former address with my family and in the company of Anthony, an old acquaintance that we have not seen in ages and we are all sat on the settee looking at a music-making app on an iPad. I think about sampling some heavy metal tunes but then I notice that Anthony has already been spending too much time on the app when I stumble upon a long list of recorded hip-hop soundtracks with quirky titles. Scene shift: Anthony is no longer present in the room and I'm talking to him on the phone which is also a vape that I occasionally suck on and suddenly I can't hear his voice which prompts me to shout, 'Anthony! Anthony!' At that moment, my mother walks in which makes me feel uncomfortable because the two fell out with each other (in real life) and I am well aware of this and fear that she might confront me about talking to him on the phone-vape.

Scene shift: We're in a beautiful snowy forest under a pale sky and snow-capped mountains are visible on the horizon. There is a long frosty train stationary on a track that I observe from several angles—including a bird's-eye view—and I am subsequently told by my mother that she signed me up for a job to clean and defrost the carriages before running the transport. I feel slightly annoyed that she signed me up for such responsibility without consulting me first and my wife remarks that it will take ages to remove the ice from all the carriages. The kids begin to play in the snow and I notice something peculiar about the sky: I had thought that it was daytime but the whiteness above us is turning into a diaphanous mist barely concealing stars that threaten to light up the firmament like a Christmas tree. The more I look at these stars, the brighter and more colourful they become and my frosty nightmare is turning into an astronomer's dream. 'I must be dreaming!'


PHASE STATE

I walk through snow and notice that I don't feel cold in the slightest. The trees and the snow in front of me are gradually losing focus but I rub my hands and deepen my tactile sensations, resulting in the augmentation of visual clarity. The firmament is adorned by a breathtaking collection of stars resembling a richer version of the Orion constellation and it is hard to resist this celestial allure. I lift off the snowy ground, enthralled by the stellar spectacle before me, and start flying towards Orion's belt, which, in my heart, promises to reveal wonderful alien worlds. The stars shine brightly and I feel like space can be reached but, as the mist clears and the cosmic sight ostensibly comes to the fore, I recall The Return Experiment. I immediately stop in mid-air and wish to return to my sleeping body, simultaneously recalling the physical sensations of lying in bed prior to falling asleep; the starry firmament quickly fades to darkness and my consciousness gives rise to tactile data indicative of lying in bed.


False awakening: Gizmo, our pet dog, is rolling on the covers, apparently trying to get my attention and I feel the urgency to take him downstairs and let him outside lest he soils the carpet in the bedroom. I dash downstairs with Gizmo, noticing on the way that the safety gate at the top of the stairs is unusually open. I enter the living room and rush to the back door to let the dog out before waking up for real to my surprise.


WAKING STATE

I jot down some notes on my sleep experiences and list potential dream signs which could trigger lucidity in future, such as the social contradiction of having Anthony as a guest at my former address which is also a temporal anomaly—not to mention the mechanical weirdness of a 'phone-vape' (and I don't even smoke or vape in real life). There is also a discontinuity regarding dream events which is followed by a stark contrast in the environment and unusual context where I come to realise that everything is nothing but a very elaborate illusion.

[Summerlander]

Date: 18/01/2023
Bedtime: 4am
Awakening: 7.10am
Return to bed: 8am
Method: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Final awakening: 9.30am
The Wardrobe Experiment


DREAM STATE

In a chic restaurant where people have to dive in a pool-sized tank to fish for their seafood. Me and mother have fun catching a few oysters, crabs and lobsters underwater and subsequently discover that people are vomiting at their tables after having eaten. We reckon it's food poisoning and blame the owner, a blonde middle-aged man with a German accent who tells us his food is top quality and it is the customers' fault for being sick. I feel uncomfortable at his complete disregard for his patrons.


WAKING STATE

I scribble some notes on the dream just experienced. The situation where customers have to dive in a pool to catch their seafood is weird enough and unpleasant confrontations are becoming a regular theme. Feeling a little groggy after using the loo, I return to bed and fall asleep almost immediately.


DREAM STATE

I'm in Canning Town, at my mother's humble abode. Mum shows me inside her sofa where she planted a razor-sharp, butterfly-shaped clip which she claims will deter guests from damaging the springs when plonking down on the sofa as the object could lacerate their skin and hurt them. Despite vaguely realising that placing a seat cushion over the sharp clip will guarantee a tear in its fabric—thus causing what is supposed to be prevented in the first place—I let my mother do it, accepting this strange oneiric koan as rational.

Scene shift: My mum has a guest who happens to be the new boyfriend of one of my cousins who lives in Luxembourg. (This individual doesn't exist in waking life!) We greet each other and he proceeds to tell me about a pack of lies and rumours that he heard about me which I impute to my estranged sister. At this juncture, I feel miffed by what I learned and my daughter walks in with my cousins wondering if what's been said about me is true and I'm more than happy to set the record straight once they sit down. (The sofa is neater and the living room layout is different.)

Me and my cousin's boyfriend start talking about lucid dreaming and he suggests going for a nap together in order to induce and share a lucid dream. We get up and, as a joke, he recommends using the clotheslines on the rooftop as a makeshift hammock. (When he cracks this joke, I observe a rooftop that doesn't exist in the real world and at this point by mother's house is radically different.) We move to a different room where we can nap on another sofa with the intention to lucid dream.


PHASE STATE

Scene shift: I am standing outside a tall building, next to my cousin's beau, and aware that I'm dreaming. He suggests entering the building to explore its interior and at this point I still believe he is a real person sharing the dream world with me; it's not until I go inside and start flying upwards that I realise the man also isn't real and he suddenly is nowhere to be found. I continue to fly upwards, going through the first ceiling and rising through the floors as I closely follow a ventilation chute that leads me all the way to the roof where daylight is exposed.

To my surprise, I find that the metallic chute continues beyond the roof, extending towards the sky and seemingly going through a pale cloud. I follow the tubular structure all the way to the cloud—partially climbing and mostly gliding upwards alongside it—to discover that what I thought was an atmospheric shroud of mist feels like a polystyrene barrier. I begin to believe I can't go any further but remind myself that it is all an illusion: 'What am I thinking? This is a dream! I can do anything here!' So I imagine a hinged square hatch sealing an opening in the celestial ceiling right next to where the ventilation chute disappears. I push the polystyrene area where I want the hatch to exist and it gives way, revealing a square-shaped gap that enables me to climb through and access the environment immediately above: a hallway in an unfamiliar house.

Curious about what else I can find, I continue my journey upwards—towards and through another ceiling by pushing open a thicker marble hatch—and emerging in a slightly illumed loft bedroom where I spot a brown wardrobe, remembering the experiment I intended to execute. I imagine that the wardrobe contains simple red dresses (no haute couture or anything fancy like that) and immediately rush to open it to see if it's true. Inside I find several shelves and not enough space between them for full-length dresses to hang, but there is one child-sized t-shirt in red and white.

'This isn't exactly what I hoped for!' I think to myself before subsequently closing the wardrobe to open it again whilst insisting on the same wish, this time finding several different red and white t-shirts hanging in the narrow gap between shelves. I shut the wardrobe again, discovering to my surprise that its doors are now glazed and enabling me to see the apparently unchanging contents through glass, so I look away and return my gaze to find that the doors are back to being opaque. I think about a red dress in the wardrobe and open the doors once more to find a couple of hanging t-shirts but then I see a red garment folded and resting on a shelf. I pick it up and unfurl it, revealing a full-length, silky red dress. I am happy as I feel that mission has been accomplished and wish to report it in the real world. The environment fades.


DREAM STATE

I falsely awake at my mum's house, on a sofa with my cousin's new boyfriend (who doesn't exist in reality) and I'm excited to go in the living room to tell everyone that we succeeded in having a lucid dream. I see my dream journal resting on a coffee table and notice that the cover displays a patch of several warm colours. I reason that I must have decorated it before but don't recall it very well due to having recently woken up. I tell Stacey that the experiment was a success before waking up for real.


WAKING STATE

I jot down the experiment and further notes on my sleep experiences. I make a note on my tendency in dreams to explain or reason away the weird or illogical—such as my mother's out-of-character ploy to safeguard her sofa from damage or the strange patch of colours displayed on the cover of my journal which should have alerted me to the hallucinatory nature of my surroundings. Also, contrary to the dream that led to lucidity, I do not believe in shared dreaming. Seeing my Luxembourg cousins is also listed as rare and having heard that rumours were spread about me conjured up strong emotions, a common oneiric feature that I have previously listed as a cue to perform reality checks.

[Summerlander]

Date: 27/01/2023
Bedtime: 4.30am
Awakening: 8.10am
Return to bed: 8.30am
Method: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Final awakening: 10am
The Langoliers Experiment


DREAM STATE

It seems I am living in a parallel universe where I romantically meet my wife for the first time in a mansion that externally resembles the White House. (In reality, I met her in a pub on my best man's birthday.) We enter the premises with interest and then we fall in love at first sight. There is an estate agent who is pretty much a rotund version of actress Shona McGarty (who plays Whitney Dean in EastEnders) and me and Stacey end up buying the house together on the spot, signing the contract in a bedroom that is pretty identical to ours in waking life. I am so happy and jovial that I even dare the estate agent to reach for her pen as I hold it above my head for a lark. Scene shift: Stacey applies mascara and foundation on my face whilst informing me about a new law where the government requires everyone—men and women—to use cosmetics in order to conceal senility. I exit the bedroom to look at my face in the mirror and find that my appearance has been improved dramatically.

Scene shift: I am jogging in a car park and an old couple driving away look at my make-up and say, 'That's one way to do it!' I smile and look at my reflection in a car window; I look great! Scene shift: I am at my former address and smoking a roll-up in the living room. (I haven't smoked in years in real life but the taste of a cigarette is quite vivid and realistic here.) My father-in-law Tom shakes his head at me in disapproval and I retreat to the hallway before deciding to exit the house through the front door. Once outside, I find myself in the back garden of my current home address and, puffing away and looking up at the evening sky, I notice that Orion's constellation contains more stars than it should and all of them display faint, aberrant halos—like they've been painted on a celestial canvas. 'That's not right!' I remark. 'I must be dreaming!'


PHASE STATE

I leap over the wooden fence and begin to fly over an aesthetically superior version of the neighbourhood in the real world. I am still smoking and vertically running in the sky over streetlights, roofs and treetops. I savour the realistic taste of tobacco in my mouth and witness the starry version of Orion gradually fade: the stars evanesce first until only the halos remain for a few seconds before following suit. The sky dims and I feel myself lying in bed but refuse to believe such sensations are real, so I abruptly stand up and find myself in darkness. I rub my hands and legs, building a strong sense of a body whilst yearning for the previous scene. An outdoor environment comes into view similar to the back garden of my house and I leap over the fence again, hovering in mid-air at a vantage point high enough to allow me a great panoramic view of a much better and colourful version of my neighbourhood under a crepuscular sky. The view is breathtaking; I'm enamoured with the way the streetlights glow—making me feel like I'm three-dimensionally experiencing a brilliantly painted world.

As I fly over this oneiric town, I try to remember what I experimentally set out to do. I think about exploring space, hoping that something will jog my memory, and, as soon as I ascend, an odd impasse is discovered: the zaffre sky is nothing but an expansive ceiling stretching over all the little houses as far as I can see—like the whole neighbourhood is suddenly inside a massive depot! I push against it with my fingers, feeling solid plasterboard, and further exploration of this surface reveals pendant ceiling lights which I enjoy swinging on like Tarzan using lianas in the jungle. Suddenly, I recall the experiment: I'm supposed to act like a Langolier (a fictional creature from a horror story by Stephen King) and eat everything!

Since I can't seem to penetrate the celestial ceiling with my hands, I dig my teeth (which feel like sharp fangs) into it and manage to fracture the plasterboard surface. Dry chunks of gypsum fall in my mouth but taste like cork when I chew them. Hoping to find something more palatable, I descend to land in a sports bar, under warm light and not a soul in sight, where I proceed to eat chairs and snooker tables with alacrity. Every object so far tastes like dry cork and I leave remnants of them behind as I swiftly move towards the curtains of a theatre stage. I feel like I can bite and swallow drapes endlessly even though all I taste is super-dry fabric. 'Surely I can do better than this!' I think to myself as I'm not feeling like much of a Langolier. 'I need to aim big!' So I entertain the idea of eating the fabric of space itself as I exit the sports bar and find myself observing a rural nightscape.

My mouth is agape and I stretch it wider at a rate disproportionate to my body. If I could look at myself feeling the way I do at this moment, I would not look human. My mandible almost touches asphalt! With my giant mouth I start chomping on thin air—tasting nothing—and witness a portion of the road and a section of the sky vanish, noticing the pixelated edges of what's left of the scenery against a dark, atmospheric backdrop. Like a demented Pac-Man, I move forth to continue to eat what's left of the environment made of visible light until only a dark void remains. I wish to report my success as a Langolier and subsequently wake up.


WAKING STATE

I must remember to do a reality check if I find myself smoking and for the last couple of nights it seems that I've been 'reliving' false memories involving places I've never lived at, where a fox attacked puppies, and feral animals have come for me, one instance making me lucid because a hissing cat looked abnormally monstrous as it chased me over a concrete wall and turned docile when I asked it what was wrong (a Dick Tracy character subsequently approached and continued to pacify it for me). Another instance where I became lucid is when I was in the back of a cab with my wife and the vehicle was on a collision course with a massive lorry. Just when I thought a crash was imminent, the cab drove under the lorry and I could see its moving chassis overhead and massive rolling tyres on either side of us by the windows—a scene that made me correctly conclude I was dreaming, causing my wife's cavalier doppelgänger to tell me, 'Yeah, yeah ... We are not real! I know ... Whatever!'

I always record my sleep experiences and it has wonderfully improved my recall, enabling me to familiarise myself with recurring themes and identify dream cues. Lately, I've been reaching dream consciousness regularly and often unexpectedly. I find that a journal can do wonders for getting to know my dreaming mind and the lucid 'aha' moments have been plentiful. I find that the more I write, the more I remember ordinary dreams. Recalling lucid dreaming for me is a doddle because the experience itself has that much more of an impact on memory.

[Summerlander]

Date: 14/02/2023
Bedtime: 4.30am
Awakening: 8.10am
Return to bed: 9am
Method: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Final awakening: 11.30am
The Talking Experiment


DREAM STATE

Carry-Ann Moss is at the Hollywood Walk of Fame dressed up like Trinity, her heroic character in the movie The Matrix. The actress is smiling and looking radiant as a crowd takes pictures of her and I hear someone remarking that she is now rated as the sexiest woman alive. I feel privileged to be observing a Hollywood star up close. Scene shift: I am running in somebody's strange garden in daylight and feel terrified at the sight of a pride of lions basking in the sun. One of the lions spots me and runs towards me as I try to climb over a wooden fence as quickly as I can lest I'm eaten alive by the feline beast.


Actor Shane Ritchie is a guest at our house. Things appear to be going well until suddenly my wife is not happy with the actor and wants him gone, so she orders him a cab. I walk outside with Shane even though it's raining cats and dogs in the back garden. The daytime sky is grey and overcast. The actor expresses a pensive sadness, making me feel sorry for him so I ask Stacey to cancel the cab and invite him to stay the night. Shane is very thankful and gives me a big hug. I go back inside and walk through the living room and the hallway, noticing that the front door is open. I exit the house to discover a neighbouring house where it shouldn't be and its door is ajar. It's also nighttime now and it's not raining anymore. I recognise that the external surroundings are not right and become lucid.


PHASE STATE

I enter the strange neighbouring house and run up a spiral staircase bathed in warm yellow light. I hear the clomp of bare feet on wooden steps as I move upstairs, rubbing my hands at the same time to maintain the realism of the unfamiliar environment. The upper floor is a sombre hallway displaying a row of closed doors but one is ajar and the light is on inside. Upon entering the room, I find a zombie-like, curvy woman in the nude surrounded by a few large, freestanding mirrors. I feel extremely horny and cannot resist the urge to have sex with her. I look down and see that I am wearing brown trousers, and when I try to pull them down, I'm met with some resistance before succeeding, only to encounter another layer and then another. 'I just want to expose my penis!' I think to myself in frustration.

Finally, a long phallus protrudes from khaki and white garments on my person, so I grab the female zombie from behind and start humping her, ostensibly causing her to moan with an animalistic, baritone voice. As I penetrate her bottom, I look at the mirrors to find my disfigured reflection, with a melty visage, humping thin air—as though the character I'm embracing has no reflection! Nevertheless, I continue with the sex act until suddenly losing vision; only the tactility of banging a human backside remains which gradually turns into a force gripping and squeezing my body harder and harder. Soon, there is only a weird cloud of tactile sensations restricting me in a dark void. I cannot let this phantom world vanish completely, so I start spinning and rubbing my hands. Vision restored.

The room environment returns slightly altered. There are less freestanding mirrors and additional furniture. I remember the experiment I'm supposed to be conducting where attempts to converse with an inanimate object must be made. I clock some mirrors with shady reflections near the now-closed door and decide to stay away as my reflection would be too anthropoid to talk to. Next to the door is a wardrobe displaying a peculiar mouth-shaped escutcheon plate around a keyhole. 'Hello?' I commence. 'How are you?' The metal escutcheon moves slowly, like a pair of lips out of sync, to reply for the first time in the form of a deep, breathy whisper: 'How...you...doing?' Trying to establish a conversation, I follow up with, 'Good. You?' This time the furniture fitment responds with a quicker, unintelligible whisper and again the 'metal lips' appear to be out of sync. 'Come again?' I enquire. Now it's silent and the object remains immovable.

I exit the room to look for another object to talk to and go through what appears to be the same previous dark hallway to push open another door, behind which is a small kitchen where I spot several electrical appliances on a worktop by a sink. I look at the taps, thinking that they might talk to me, but there is no reply after I say hello. Next to a radio is a black kettle which I try to converse with, starting with 'hi'. From the radio's speaker comes an electronic voice: 'Hello!' Somehow I take it as the kettle talking to me through the radio. 'What have you got for me?' I say. And the voice replies, 'I'll make you a nice cup of coffee.' Happy that the voice is clear and intelligible, I continue: 'When?' And the object responds, 'On your birthday.'

The environment shimmers so I rub my hands whilst rushing to the hallway and up some stairs that weren't there before. I maintain the environment by remaining active and continuing upwards until what feels like the top of a tower is reached, encountering a workshop with a peculiar sculpture tall enough to almost touch the ceiling. This sculpture, amidst a welter of objects, can be best described as treelike with a brain-shaped crown made of a gazillion white filaments. When I approach the sculpture, the crown hairs oscillate and begin to display multiple colours before a tannoy voice announces that the 'coloured hairs code for what makes the colours of the dream world possible'. The whole thing looks like a giant, oscillating plant giving the illusion of blowing in the wind. I reach to pull out some threads which curl to resemble cotton in my hand and taste like candyfloss in my mouth.

There is a freestanding mirror apparently reflecting the rest of the colourful room and I avoid going near it lest I become tempted to talk to my reflection. Next to the mirror is a chest of drawers with a portrait frame displaying a holographic cartoon dinosaur which appears to change colour constantly and whose head moves to follow me around the workshop. I say hello to the little stegosaurus in the picture—now exhibiting orange skin and green bony plates on its back. Suddenly, the creature jumps out of the picture and leaps towards me, as though wanting to bite me. I manage to grab it, noticing the animal puffing up to almost the size of a football in my hands, and subsequently throw it out of an open window.

Outside, daylight reigns over an urban landscape and I am shocked to see a flying Joker-like character quickly approaching the window to hurl the little dinosaur back inside. The hovering clownish figure appears to be malevolent, leering at me with penetrating hazel eyes and a mischievous grin, and I find his ostensible sentience spine-chilling. Having caught the dino, I hurl it back, causing the evil clown to come through the window as though intent on attacking me. He's got dark, spiky hair and a pale countenance; his teeth are pointy and his clothes are black. Feeling afraid, I deliberately wake up.


WAKING STATE

I have noticed that the objects I managed to establish a conversation with barely exhibited any movement, as though anthropoid forms are easier to converse with. This may be due to the fact that in waking life inanimate objects never talk back (unless they are robots) so my oneiric mind doesn't produce such scenarios as readily or as convincingly.

[Summerlander]

Date: 27/03/2023
Bedtime: 4am
Awakening: 9am
Return to bed: 9.30am
Method: deferred direct
Attempt: successful
Final awakening: 11.30am
The Hyperconcentration Experiment


DREAM STATE

I look out of my bedroom window and panic because my mum's car, which should be parked right outside the house, appears to be missing. I urgently tell my wife that the car appears to be missing to make sure that I'm not going mad but she reassures me that the vehicle is still there when she looks. Looking again from the balcony vantage point, I can see that it is indeed behind our back garden fence which is brown, picketed and so high it almost conceals the vehicle.


WAKING STATE

I jot down the dream and realise that in the real world, the back garden fence is blue, lower and not picketed. The dream was a manifestation of a fear I currently have: that my mother's car might be stollen right under my nose while I'm supposed to be looking after it for her. I return to bed after letting the dog out for a wee in the back garden. I easily relax my body and keep patiently bringing my focus back to a single thought every time I notice my mind wondering. Eventually, a perceptual shift occurs defined by a kind of eerie stillness and a darker visual field ...


PHASE STATE

I feel myself to be in a horizontal position, my body apparently still resting on the bed. Feeling heavy, I start gradually sinking into the mattress and falling at lunar gravity. Somehow I briefly acquire the ostensible perspective of being under the bed and surrounded by the boxes that are found there before sinking into the floor. After falling a good fifteen feet, I vertically land on stony ground in a strange basement where a living room should be. Subsequently, vision is lost and regained once I start rubbing my hands together and demanding clarity. The basement displays narrow windows through which sunlight filters in. I feel the coarse brick wall beneath beaming apertures before my hand wilfully sinks into it. I continue forward, passing through the illusory barrier in order to access the outside environment which turns out to be an inaccurate replica of my neighbourhood under a crepuscular sky.

Recalling what I set out to do, I scrutinise the tip of my index finger whilst standing still: it appears to have a fiery aura of warm colours where a nail should be, which suddenly blends with a rising dawn in the background. As I observe the glowing extremities of my digit, it involuntarily turns to a horizontal position—dragging the rest of my hand with it—with the other fingers and thumb folded and gradually morphing into the face of a grinning feline whose mouth is largely contoured by the fleshy folds under my index. Subsequently, I experience a dual apprehension within this odd observation upon the realisation that I can select between focusing on seeing folded fingers and a hand in the shape of a Cheshire cat's countenance or the animal's head shape with a hint of knuckles on a fist.

False awakening: I believe I wake up in my bedroom and excitedly describe to my wife the results of the experiment. To illustrate, I show her my right index and folded fingers, attempting to explain what the cat face looked like, at which point I begin to see two glowing eyes on the side of my hand and a hint of a grin. I don't find anything odd about this—possibly because I become absorbed in frustration with how different the malformed feline face is from what was observed earlier—so I end up casually telling my wife that what transpired from the experiment wasn't quite like the new manifestation.


DREAM STATE

There is a knock on the door and my wife tells me vapes are being delivered. She opens the package hands my youngest son a vape, which isn't right because he's underage, but my wife somehow allays my confusion by telling me that the banana-flavoured one is appropriate for children. I start vaping myself and making smoke circles in front of him for his amusement. Scene shift: I'm climbing a shelving unit in the living room as my wife tells me to fetch a 'present'; near the top I find what I think is a blue box full of toothpaste tubes according to images on it, but when I open the package, I uncover a massive chocolate Santa, instead, which I place on the coffee table to share out.


WAKING STATE

Upon entering the phase, I came across a basement environment which I suspect was influenced by a film that I watched before bedtime. As regards the experiment, it seems that standing still to scrutinise my finger led to a false awakening where I fell into the plot of an ordinary dream. Dream cues that should have been obvious were illogically ignored—from my impossibly warped hand to my youngest son vaping.

[Summerlander]

Date: 08/05/2023
Bedtime: 4am
Awakening: 9.30am
Return to bed: 10am
Method: indirect
Attempt: successful
Final awakening: 12.30am
The Double Reading Experiment


DREAM STATE

I am at a beach with my family. Me, my wife and my eldest son run towards the sea under a clear, blue sky and try to surf on a board. The seawaves get higher and higher as they come until eventually there is a tsunami heading our way. We run towards the shore as the water quickly swallows the sand and instantly fills a hole that my nephew had just dug—he had his back to us but swiftly turns around and appears to be flabbergasted. I urge him to start running. Scene shift: I'm observing an altercation between three people and one of them falls in a bath and drowns after the other two leave. Scene shift: Outside, the house where the man died has been cordoned off and a woman asks me if he was murdered and I confidently state that the death was accidental.


WAKING STATE

After letting the dog outside, I practise mindfulness meditation for a few minutes before returning to bed. Feeling tired, I select 'rain and thunder' sleep sounds on YouTube and place my phone on my bedside cabinet before falling asleep shortly afterwards without any intention to reach the phase state.


PHASE STATE

I come to lying horizontally on my stomach, apparently in bed, feeling a bit confused and suspecting that this is a wakeful recovery from a lapse in consciousness. My right leg sinks into the bed until it touches the floor, a glaring impossibility indicative of the phase state. With one foot already firmly on phantom ground, I waste no time in getting up to stand in a very dark version of my bedroom. I rub my hands together and demand clarity but it's still dark. There is light coming from slightly parted curtains and, realising I can hear rain drops probably from my phone, I fly out of the window towards daylight outside in the hopes of keeping the phase afloat and, admittedly with some faulty logic, to get away from what I take to be a potentially disruptive noise coming from the real world. I hover over a blurry neighborhood under a pale sky as the sound of rain persists, distracting and making me believe it's interfering with the depth of the phase. (Realism: 30%)

I rub my hands in mid-air whilst trying to remain positive about improving the quality of my experience in this state. I look back at my house and see a slightly hazy bedroom interior, paradoxically exposed to the external world, as though the walls and ceiling are missing or like I've got X-ray vision. (Realism: 65%) Recalling the double-reading experiment, I re-enter the bedroom and reach for what appears to be a smaller version of my dream journal resting on my bedside cabinet. (Realism improvement despite the continuous sound of rain: 80%) I open the booklet and see the italicised word 'description' written on an otherwise blank page. I look away at the corner of the room where my TV would be (it's missing) and gaze back at the open journal to find a smaller word in the same font and too fuzzy to decipher. (Realism rapidly declining—unstable phase)

The environment begins to evanesce and I frantically rub the journal in my hands in a bid to improve the quality of the experience and maintain the phase state. My attempt to amplify the senses doesn't seem to be working as the sound of rain is overpowering and ostensibly drowns out my phantom world—reinforcing my pessimistic view that this experience is doomed. Subsequently, my senses tell me I'm back in bed but I refuse to believe that I've woken up even though the sound of rain from my phone is incessant. I immediately roll over, somehow propelling myself out of my sleeping body position with such force that I end up outside after going through the balcony door. I land on the tarmacked road, ostensibly environed by my familiar neighborhood, and discover Post-its strewn all over the ground. (Realism: 90%) Immediately I recognise that this is another opportunity to perform the double-reading experiment with a lot more clarity, but the pieces of paper prove to be devoid of writing when examined closely.

I leap back to where I expect my bedroom to be, swiftly entering a tenebrous room where my journal is nowhere to be found. The darkness seems to amplify the sound of rain which, once again, reminds me of my phone playing the sleep sounds audio in the real world. (Realism: 70%) I make out my wife apparently asleep on the bed and glide away from the window and towards the wall on her side in order to go through it for a surprise setting. On the other side of the wall I come upon a pebbled beach and walk towards a fairly calm and realistic sea. (Realism: 95%) The daytime sky is overcast and the mild, frothy waves somehow appear to match that persistent sound of rain I'm sure originates in the real world. I squat down to play with the sand in order to perfect the depth of the phase state. (Realism: 100%)

Deciding that another book must be found so that the experiment can be conducted once again, I turn around to head back home and find that it is now just a beach hut; I enter it and recover a replica of my bedroom where a wife-like character is roused from sleep and enquires about what I'm up to. I begin to explain but then remind myself that there is no need to engage with a hallucination and avoid the better half figure lest I risk slipping into an ordinary dream state. I rush to my bedside cabinet in the shadows in order to find some reading material. I can still hear rain as I open an empty drawer and notice the sound increase during the process of waking up.


WAKING STATE

I confirm that my phone is still playing the sound of rain next to me on my bedside cabinet. I get up and dash off some notes on my sleep experiences and the double-reading experiment. I also make the observation that I had dreamt about a tsunami at a beach with my family and the re-emergence of a beach as a surprise setting in the phase as though a mental schema linking my wife to such environment was still cerebrally in place.

[Summerlander]

Date: 26/06/2023
Bedtime: 4am
Awakening: 7.30am
Return to bed: 7.40am
Method: deferred direct
Attempt: successful
Final awakening: 9.30am
The Recalling Experiment


DREAMING

It's a dark night and I'm part of a brigade searching for an unknown enemy. Next to me, armed and wary of danger lurking in the dark, is the actor Bruce Willis. Suddenly, we observe the infantry being attacked by an invisible agent; petrified soldiers begin to levitate and haemorrhage from every orifice before being dropped from an altitude of fifteen feet by a mysterious force. Me and Bruce look at each other before running for our lives. We hide in a cave-like shelter and keep quiet, hoping that the enemy won't find us. There is a mutual agreement that we are no match for the invisible enemy who wiped out the infantry. We are probably the only two foot soldiers left. We lie down on a mattress on the floor and hide under the covers. I feel hot and sweaty.


WAKING

I feel hot and sweaty as I wake up to the sound of my alarm. I get my son up to get ready for school and, exhausted after having had a bad night, I return to bed. Lying on my back and relaxing, I wonder if I'll be able to have an out-of-body experience. I keep imagining standing at the foot of the bed and looking back at myself lying asleep. After a couple of lapses in consciousness (or so it seems), I succeed in reifying the thought of being out of bed.


LUCID DREAMING

It feels like I am actually standing next to the footboard and partially facing a wall which I proceed to rap in order to deepen my phantom environment. My wife rises from under the covers and asks me what I'm doing. 'I'm lucid dreaming!' I excitedly reply and begin expatiating on why it is amazing and deserving of joint exploration before pausing at the realisation that I've been talking to a figment of my dreaming mind. Tapping the wall appears to intensify the environment and the grainy surface melts like a white marshmallow as I press it with my fingers. At this point, I remember the recalling experiment (as part of a plan of action) as well as the previous nightmare where, as a foot soldier, I witness my brigade getting killed by an invisible agent.

I make an attempt to delude myself (according to this counterintuitive experiment) by entertaining the idea that the nightmare where the infantry perished was real and that I must've been knocked unconscious and carried to this bedroom replica by the invisible agent. Not feeling confused in the slightest about what's real and what isn't despite trying to contrive a confabulation, I also feel the need to tell myself that waking life memories were implanted in my brain by the enemy. This still doesn't seem to be enough as my sceptical mind emphatically rejects self-delusion for lack of evidence, so I tell myself that the enemy is conniving, that absolute certainty of any world being 'real' is impossible and that what I need in this situation is a leap of faith.

I penetrate the melting wall to find a peculiar staircase adorned with a myriad of glossy beads (instead of my youngest son's bedroom as would be the case in the real world). The stairs appear to reflect weak sunlight coming from arched, stained-glass windows displaying complex mandalas and I scuttle downstairs with the purpose of somehow finding and confronting my mysterious enemy. Before I can reach the exit of the building I'm in, however, I suddenly feel myself to be back in bed. Refusing to give in to these dispiriting sensations, I wilfully interpret them as the enemy magically pulling the wool over my eyes before forcing myself out of bed to glide out of the window with blurry vision.

I land on paving slabs in broad daylight and begin stomping the pavement, producing echoey footsteps that help me to intensify the scene. There is a hyperreal quality to the esplanade before me as I run alongside a concrete wall—at the end of which is the looming suggestion of a beach hiding behind it. I glance at my bare feet and notice crystalline water in the gutter running counter to my direction. I look up and see a man in black watching me before disappearing behind the wall towards the beach. I feel I must reach him as he might be able to lead me to my enemy. Reaching the end of the wall to access the beach (it never occurred to me to go through concrete as a logical shortcut), I come face to face with the figure wearing a black trenchcoat and a fedora hat. He's a dead ringer for the actor Ed Harris but his eyes are uncannily blue and his gaze chillingly penetrating.

'Where is the enemy?' I demand as I display my infantryman persona. 'The wizard is in tower,' the man in black softly replies as he points to a lighthouse on a rocky promontory beyond the sandy beach. I waste no time in gliding to the top of the lighthouse, entering an empty garret overlooking a calm sea and cloudy horizon. Where is the 'wizard' who wiped out my brigade? Perhaps he is invisible in this very room. Could the man in black at the beach be the real enemy? I leap from the lighthouse and descend on the beach next to a stall that wasn't there before. The Ed Harris lookalike is there, apparently polishing an amulet and a few trinkets are on display. 'Are you the wizard?' I enquire. The man in black appears to be smirking as he turns his back on me before vanishing into his little shop as the beach fades.


WAKING

I dash off some notes in my journal in conclusion of this experiment. In hindsight, my lucidity was solid enough to maintain the knowledge that what was unfolding wasn't real. I never came to fully believing what I wanted to believe for the sake of this experiment. The most I could achieve was entertaining a what-if scenario, which is surprising because in many past experiences what usually takes effort is countering the loss of lucidity and preventing the manifestation of ordinary dreaming. Most of the time it felt like I was pretending to be a soldier looking for answers to see how it would influence the phantom world of lucid dreaming. Curiosity of what would happen if I entertained a mere hypothesis is what drove me. Deep down I still knew that I would eventually wake up to the real world where my family and everything I care about exist.

[Summerlander]

Date: 24/07/2023
Bedtime: 3.40am
Awakening: 9.35am
Return to bed: 10.30am
Method: deferred direct
Attempt: successful
Final awakening: 12pm
The Suffocation Experiment


DREAM STATE

I'm out with my father Donald Trump, who wants to bond with me despite our political disagreements. We are sitting outside a café in broad daylight when people walking past recognise the former president and start mocking him for his mannerisms and indiscretions. Trump smiles nonchalantly as if he's not bothered by the negative feedback but I feel uncomfortable. The more I look at my father, the more I feel sorry for him and my emotional compassion wells up. I realise I still love him and want to reassure him that not everything about him is bad. 'Cheer up, dad!' I tell him. 'I am very proud of everything that you have achieved—I mean, you managed to become president of the United States of America!' His smile widens. Trump is happy.


WAKING STATE

I wake up realising the glaring identity anomaly: Donald Trump is not my father. Maybe a part of me wants to empathise more with disagreeable people and wishes to truly understand them to the core; as I write down the dream I wonder if it was the result of having looked into metta or loving-kindness meditation a few days ago when I decided to study Theravāda Buddhism. I let the dog out to do his business and use the loo myself. Then, I read my dream journal before returning to bed with the intention to enter the phase. It seems to take me a while to relax and I wonder if I spent too much time awake. Have I blown my chances? I toss and turn before settling on my side.


PHASE STATE

I hear a pulsatile hiss in my head and recognise there's a strong possibility here that I might succeed. I wait for this sound to peak to be sure that a good connection to the phase state is established, like I'm tuning into a different channel. Suddenly, I acquire a horizontal perspective of my bedside cabinet and I can see my mobile phone, on its stand, with a bright and colourful interface; crystal-clear vision switches on even though my eyelids were shut throughout induction. I reach for my phone, which feels solid to the touch, and bring it closer to my face to find that there is no text on it; gripping the object with both hands, I decide to try to bend it. The phone becomes malleable and I watch the multicoloured light on its supple screen stretch and bend. I am now quite sure I'm in the phase beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I discard the phone and get up to scan the bedroom as I rub my hands. Recalling the suffocation experiment, I begin to hold my breath with the idea of maintaining breathlessness until I wake up. I notice an extremely tall man in black standing by the door, observing me; his bald crown and grey horseshoe hairline makes him appear to be an old man, albeit a strong one. At this point, the sensation of holding my breath feels absolutely real, like soon I will need to resume breathing because the situation becomes increasingly desperate with each passing second. The man turns to the door, indifferent to my experiment, and as soon as he swings it open, I chase after him, gripping his arm in the hallway. This doesn't stop him as his black-sleeved arm easily comes away from its socket and the one-armed figure disappears as he walks down the staircase. I am still holding my breath and can't do it for much longer; I desperately want to breathe.


WAKING STATE

I am back in bed, relieved to be able to breathe again. It felt like I had been holding my breath in my sleep. It appears that the very nature of this experiment leads to a premature awakening as waking in this context is pretty much synonymous with being able to freely breathe. My dedication to this experiment made the wish to wake up win out over my usual desire to prolong the phase state.

[Summerlander]

Date: 20/11/2023
Bedtime: 1am
Awakening: 9.30am
Return to bed: 9.40am
Method of entry: indirect
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 11am
PHASE experience: Looking for Claudio in Miami

DREAM STATE

I'm apparently at my siblings-in-law's house which is radically different. My brother-in-law Gary has shrunk and he looks like the renowned atheist and political activist Matt Dillahunty, sporting a horseshoe hairline and looking much older—he can barely walk around the house properly. 'Crikey, he got old!' I think. I decide to use their toilet which is comically in a large dark shed. It is saturated with cobwebs and I see a jumping spider. I can't relax as I clock the critter moving. Suddenly, I hear a low moan in the dark and then a shadow moving. I am terrified as I think of Slapped Ham videos of ghosts and run out of the loo to get the others. I try to tell my wife what happened but she doesn't seem to want to listen and readily dismisses what I experienced as some kind of illusion. I believe I'm waking up.

PHASE STATE

I sense someone walking around the bed and it's not Stacey. Am I dreaming still? A pair of arms helps me out of my body. Rubbing hands as I stand in my bedroom and vision is blurry. I rush to the balcony and about to jump onto the street below but before I do so I make my index finger go through the palm of my right hand to make sure I didn't get up for real and hallucinate the arms. I jump down on to the tarmacked road but don't get far.

Back in bed but I refuse to believe the sensations are physical and act as though they are phantom. I roll over starting with my head, rest of the body follows and then out of bed. Dreary neighbourhood landscape outside. This time I don't have to jump from the balcony as it is weirdly almost at ground level.

I'm running through the streets in my neighbourhood, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do. I see a brick wall ahead and it's a dead end. I know! I'll visit Claudio Soprano!! Before I go through the wall I briefly see his face smiling at me.

Multiple locust-like tree leaves in my face on the other side of the wall. These leaves are small and oval-shaped and crop my field of vision as I glide ahead, making them brush past my face. It's raining. Dreadful weather, overcast day. I'm running over a grassy area next to a body of water with some trees around. 'Is this Miami?' I think. I turn away from the body of water and glide, the land appears to shift but it is still the same look. I see two buildings that resemble hotels, not next to each other but separated by other buildings. As I glide along, the first hotel displays a red label, the second a blue one with lights. I am unable to discern their names. Where the hell is Claudio?

The scenery changes slightly. The city I behold is amazing, with some highly reflective skyscrapers. I appear to be outside a train station and I see what appears to be an outdoor chip shop. There is a woman with a funny hat serving people. Is it called 'PSDO'? Why is it hard to read the damn label? 'Picola's chips'? I'm inside the station now. It's hustling with people and I am now walking like I am one of them walking the same way. The environment sharpens dramatically as I feel the sensation of walking with great realism.

A pugnacious brown-skinned Native American with a fat nose keeps hustling me and making me angry. He dares me to punch him and I take a few swings but I can't hit him. He appears to be a good fighter. I feel the urge to spit on him in order to make him mad and cause him to come closer, but I feel disgusted with myself for wanting to do it. Strange... My lips keep puckering uncontrollably but no saliva is produced and I keep dithering like my body wants to do its own thing and face the Native American aggressor. I am losing interest and wish to find Claudio.

WAKING STATE

Back in bed. I wonder if I really went to Miami or if I tapped into the minds of Miami citizens. Was there a fight at a train station between two men in real life? Was one of them a Native American? Or was it all a figment of my imagination reified in a lucid dream state?