Summerlander's Blog

[Summerlander]

Date: 08/01/2021
Method of entry: deferred indirect
Bedtime: 1.45am
Awakening: 6.25am
Return to bed: 6.35am
Awakening: 8.30am
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: Morpheus
App: Phaser

Waking state

Upon my first awakening, I remind myself of my plan of action for lucid dreaming and use the loo. I return to bed and spend a few minutes relaxing and peering into the darkness behind my eyelids. Curiously, a random visual impression of moving a glass of water with my hand emerges in my mind, which causes my finger to twitch in reality. Subsequently, I fluctuate between wakefulness and shallow dream states; there is a vague dream involving a dialogue with Asian shopkeepers.

Phase state

I find myself standing in the backgarden of my house and the gate is ajar. An old man wearing a brown cardigan is peeking in. I'm taken aback by the realism at first but understand the situation to be hallucinatory. I see the old man slowly continuing along the pavement. I run up behind him and take flight above his bald head. 'Whoo-hoo! I'm dreaming!' I soar into the night sky in my excitement and plunge back to the earth at full speed. 'I must meet Morpheus!'

I'm lying in bed in darkness but manage to vigorously rub my hands in front of my eyes until I see luminous digits. I keep rubbing them until the dark void materialises a scenery behind fully-fledged hands. I walk through a mountain pass, as though travelling through a Transylvanian mountain range, with dark green foliage on either side, leading to a little castle. I run towards the medieval structure until I reach its entrance.

There are two massive doors and I knock on both. I step away for a second to examine a wooden gate with my fingers, I notice that a patch of ground by the entrance to the castle displays a chesslike pattern which feels like marble to the touch. Looking up, in the distance, the horizon is concealed by a foggy, nighttime landscape redolent of Minecraft, with a hint of lunar light but no moon in sight.

I draw my attention back to the doors and focus on the left one because its wooden surface is now displaying a vibrant red. I bang on the red door whilst shouting, 'Morpheus! Morpheus! Are you there? Morpheus!' My voice echoes. The door finally opens to reveal a towering character resembling a cross between an Arthurian knight and a jester. His head and neck are covered by a helmet and his pale, friendly countenance is marked by a distinct proboscis. 'Are you Morpheus?' I ask him as I rub my hands to prevent a premature end to this experience. 'Well, yes, my child!' Comes the British reply in the sound of an old man's calm voice. 'Come in.'

I step inside to find a humble abode with some pottery and strange objects on shelves. Morpheus heads for an open kitchen. I notice that his outfit is now displaying more white fabric than before. What an extravagant lord of dreams! I think that he looks and sounds nothing like Lawrence Fishburne from The Matrix, but regard him as my Morpheus nonetheless, so I request the obvious for a reaction by saying, 'You got any pills for me?'

Morpheus opens a refrigerator, reaches for what I presume to be pills, and hands me two little sweets of a pale blue and red colouration. I take both. As I chew them, the taste reminds me of sugary tablets that my kids have offered me before. 'Come and sit, my child', he says, leading me to a round table semi-surrounded by a padded couch. He sits down first and I reluctantly follow, suddenly becoming aware that remaining still for prolonged periods might end the phase experience. I rub my hands to maintain the realism but feel like expressing my concern to what now feels like a profoundly wise character: 'Morpheus, maybe I shouldn't sit. I could wake up!'

But Morpheus seems unconcerned. Instead, after briefly regarding me with oddly pale-blue eyes and a furrowed brow betraying slight incredulity, the oneiric lord gives me a cryptic reply: 'You know, child ... Your sympathy knows no bounds.' He looks away and begins to fade. I stop rubbing my hands as I begin to lack confidence in maintaining the phase state. I wake up satisfied with having met Morpheus.

Waking state

I suppose I could re-enter the phase by lying still and waiting for imagery to come, but I hear my youngest son entering the room to get ready for his remote lessons on the laptop. I record the experience on my smartphone.

[Summerlander]

During the day, I remembered that over Christmas my mother mentioned having watched the Merlin series—making me wonder if my Arthurian Morpheus partly originates from that conversation, which took place about two weeks ago, now! ^^

[Summerlander]

Date: 13/01/2021
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Bedtime: 4am
Awakening: 8.25am
Return to bed: 8.40am
Awakening: 10.30am
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: winning lottery numbers
App: Phaser

DREAM STATE

There is a civil war and a gang of michievous yobs grabs me. They look like they want to rape me as they start dragging me away from public view. Struggling, I manage to break free and suddenly—realising the implausibility of the situation—I become conscious of dreaming.

PHASE STATE

Turning to face my assailants, I'm surprised to find a mob of grotesque and life-size, amoebic humanoids sluggishly moving towards me; some of them resemble infuriated gingerbread men. I take off in flight but find resistance, making me hover a few feet above dozens of smirking slimy heads. Inadvertently, I gravitate towards the ground but manage to control the fall enough to pick a large gap in the menacing crowd below, giving me a chance to use a patch of pavement as a springboard to take flight again towards the sky. I leave the monsters behind me partly due to fear and, as much as it would have been interesting to face them, I realise there is a plan of action to recall—I can't afford distractions from a former dream.

Flying is difficult over a busy metropolis in broad daylight; gravitation makes its presence felt and I gradually descend at a considerable distance from the slimy horror. It feels like I have taken a massive leap over the city, like a superhero. I bounce off the ground again and land on a flyover, touching a metal railing, beyond which lies a bustling urban landscape, with people and vehicles going to and fro. On the flyover, there is a man in a suit, carrying a briefcase and talking on a mobile phone. Glancing in another direction, more people are visible going about their business and I realise that none of them wear masks and behave as though there is no pandemic; I feel like I've gone back in time, to the old world pre-Covid-19.

There is a massive building, resembling a much wider version of the leaning tower of Pisa, looming over the other side of the flyover. I fly towards it like Superman and go through one of the intermediate windows to find a dark bedroom environment unlike mine in the real world. I attempt to remember what I intended to do once I found myself in a lucid dream, but subsequently tell myself to remain calm and to not force it. Avoiding hesitation, I levitate towards the ceiling and go right through it like a ghost, encountering a mild, frictional force. I emerge from the floor of another environment with more light. A quick glance makes me realise that I am, yet again, enclosed in a bedroom a lot smaller than the first, consisting of patterned green walls and its entire floor is a pink quilt. Once again, I go through the ceiling to reach the upper floor.

The same mild resistance as I emerge in different surroundings is perceived. This time I am in a palatial interior. The nearest objects are a couple of vases and a table full of stationery that I knock on the floor with no sound. I rub my hands and notice that they look normal. I proceed to touch the green plants stemming from the opulent vases, feeling the stalks and leaves of realistic fern and one of my lucid dreaming intentions finally comes to mind: 'I want the winning lottery numbers!'

I break the vase with a smashing sound as I quietly repeat my intention, not concerned with the mess I made on the floor as I know this to be a dream. Sprinting up a staircase as I wish to see the winning numbers, I enter an upper-level room, coming upon a large desk with drawers. I open a drawer and pull out a jewellery box with a crumpled yellow paper inside, unfolding it with some difficulty and frustration. I make out the following numbers printed on the flat piece of paper: 67918467. Mission accomplished. I keep repeating these numbers as I expect to wake up from the phase state.

WAKING STATE:

I immediately record the numbers obtained in my lucid dream while they are still fresh in my memory. Then I proceed to mnemonically reconstruct the rest of the phase experience. Preceding dreams come to mind, too.

[Summerlander]

Date: 01/02/2021
Method of entry: indirect
Bedtime: 1am
Awakening: 4am
Return to bed: 5.30am
Awakening: 9am
Return to sleep: 9.30am
Awakening: 11am
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: brief balcony OOBE

DREAM STATE

The environment is a dark train station at night. I feel lost and use lifts as instructed by a Russian worker. Somehow I'm Scottish and I'm given instructions to obtain something and get home. I'm waiting to meet with Sylvester Stallone who is also Scottish. A lift leads me to a daytime surface. Me and the actor, who is also Scottish, are about to share a delicious meal which includes bread that I prematurely taste before sharing it with him. I wake up at 4am.

WAKING STATE

I use the loo and make love to my wife. I get a glass of water from the kitchen and talk to Stacey for a while before making an attempt at the deferred direct method. I feel tired and end up falling asleep.

PHASE STATE

An awakening occurs but there is movement. I fluctuate between the techniques of listening in and visualising a mirror. Visual hallucinations come and go and I hear the sound of an old man's voice singing. Strong vibrations follow and I feel like something is drilling into my skull. I think about separation but don't dare to move in the mistaken belief that I might ruin my progress. I fall asleep. Following a lapse in consciousness, I come to in the kitchen, in the early hours of the morning, standing by the sink. My daughter is coming downstairs apparently after getting ready to go out shopping with my wife. I'm back in bed, realising I had experienced a false awakening. I fall asleep.

DREAM STATE

I'm viewing a scene resembling an outdoor ice-skating party at night. Three drunk women encounter David Bowie by chance and briefly carry him in the air. One of the women sings instead of speaking, as she states that she happens to be looking better than the celebrity—who actually looks phenomenal as Ziggy Stardust—and, as this one politely skates away, the singing woman makes the act sound poetic. Soon after Bowie disappears, many ice-skaters in the crowd slip and fall. I wake up at 9am.

WAKING STATE

The alarm for doctor Maxwell's call for Stacey goes off. I turn it off and rub my wife's back when the doctor finally calls her. After the call, Stacey gets ready to go shopping and explains that Melody's school might ring while they are out. I go back to sleep around 9.30am.

PHASE STATE

Upon awakening, I move my arm slightly but subsequently lay inert in bed with a desire to enter the phase. I try the phantom-wiggling technique using my index finger. There is a sudden twitch of my digit and I'm not sure if it was real or phantom. I hear the sound of mild rain in my head and get the sensation that I'm rubbing my index fingers against my thumbs. I begin to increase the friction with my phantom digits, intensifying the realism, but I still feel like I'm lying in bed. I want to separate from the lying position but lack the courage to boldly move; nevertheless, phantom rubbing is maintained. Simultaneously, I imagine that I'm already standing, and pluck up the courage to rub my hands together. At this point, rubbing hands feels real but I'm somewhat horizontal in a dark void.

I continue with my vigorous phantom motion until I'm amazed to discover that I am now standing, blind, in what feels like my bedroom. I start dancing and spinning like a dervish around the space where I think there is a bed, all the while rubbing hands and eventually ending up in front of the bedroom door, which gradually manifests in front of me without my robe and clothes hanging in front of it as they do in reality. I feel tempted to go through it, but decide to look back at the bed and see if there is a body lying in it; as it happens, I only see a raised duvet, blue just like in the real world.

In that moment, I decide to levitate and begin to float over the bed in a reclining position, observing my bare torso, grey boxer shorts and legs. In the background, curtains are partially drawn, revealing the door to the balcony and a compelling exterior world. I glide right through the ostensibly solid barriers, observing as my legs and the rest of my hovering self pass through them like a ghost. I move past the balcony railing and come to hang several feet over the middle of our road. The panoramic view is dominated by a pale sky cropped by a familiar neighborhood and identical parking spaces with a few stationary vehicles below. I start hearing my smartphone ringing in my ear and think, 'It's ringing in the real world!' before my perspective suddenly switches to lying in bed again.

WAKING STATE

I continue to hear my phone ringing before I even open my eyes. At first I think it's my wife ringing to tell me that she's about to get a cab home, but I'm dismayed to find that it is only an unknown number. It's 11am and I record my sleep experiences.

Notes to self: Remember to separate from the body without hesitation no matter the outcome next time the phase state is achieved; celebrities are a recurring theme in the dream state and can potentially trigger lucidity.

[Summerlander]

Date: 04/02/2021
Method of entry: indirect
Bedtime: 1.15am
Awakening: 2.30am
Return to bed: 2.35am
Awakening: 5.30am
Return to bed: 6am
Awakening: 7.40am
Attempt: successful
Duration: 1 minute
Phase experience: diving headfirst

WAKING STATE

After a couple of awakenings during the night, I return to bed around 6am with a strong intention to enter the phase. I relax on my back whilst rehearsing my plan of action in my head, and after a brief period of mild hypnagogic hallucinations, I fall asleep.

PHASE STATE

I come to feeling like I'm lying in bed but space is weirdly pitch black and ostensibly empty. The pale outline of two overlapping circles, similar to 'The Phase' logo, begins to emerge before my eyes. I think that I must be in the phase state so I decide to separate from the perceived bed by abruptly getting up. The room is dark and I can barely make out the bed in which an apparently disturbed and half asleep wife sits, gazing at me incredulously.

The phase is clearly shallow and I remember my instructions from Project Elijah. I close my eyes and plunge into the floor headfirst. Despite the dark void, I make out faint ripples as I go through where a floor should be. As I count seconds, I notice that I'm falling downwards at the speed of a snowflake. I think that I might foul if I remain passive so I end up swimming in dark space in a bid to increase the speed of my fall.

Just before I roughly reach 15 seconds of falling, I imagine that I'm about to land on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, but the new ground proves to be that of another replica of my bedroom, and the phase is deeper than before to that of 80% of the real world. I'm standing by my bed's footboard and grab its metal rail which is much higher than in reality. The rail feels pretty solid and the bed becomes visually sharper; as I hold on to it, my feet lose contact with the floor and I playfully levitate in a horizontal position.

Curiously, I involuntarily gravitate to my right, gradually sliding along the bed footboard until I lose contact with the object and continue to glide in mid-air, in the same position, towards the balcony—passing through the curtain barrier and leaving a quasi-accurate bedroom environment to inevitably meet the outside. As soon as I come into contact with the external world, I feel a distinct drop in temperature and the pale sky is so bright it dominates the visual field. I unexpectedly foul.

WAKING STATE

I'm lying in bed feeling slightly cold and uncovered, suspecting that my wife might have inadvertently exposed me as she turned in her sleep. I notice that the room is slightly brighter than the replica in the phase. I proceed to record my result. It is possible that as my wife uncovered me in her sleep, I was made to gravitate towards the outside world in the phase and hence the drop in bodily temperature and subsequent foul.

[Summerlander]

Date: 07/03/2021
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Bedtime: 2.30am
Awakening: 7.55am
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: Clams, cocktails and bells

DREAM STATE

It's nighttime and I'm in a strange town with family and strangers that I take to be friends. Lions and tigers—some of them white—roam everywhere, freely accessing people's homes. Some residents are devoured, others happen to be out, but their pets are attacked. I witness events inside these homes by looking through windows. The felines can climb to great heights but I discover that flapping my arms enables me glide towards otherwise inaccessible locations on building structures. Eventually, I no longer see the need to flap my arms as I find that it is easy to stay afloat. Realising that my act of flying is impossible, I exclaim, 'I'm dreaming!'

PHASE STATE

I fly through a gigantic tunnel that astoundingly contains an entire Chinatown. Everything is vividly colourful and vibrantly lit. The environment displays 100% realism. There are several restaurants and bars on either side in rows that extend all the way to the other end of the tunnel, and despite the crowd that ostensibly explores this place, nobody bats an eyelid about my flying. I land on a stool as I see an Oriental character behind a sushi bar, apparently taking orders. He looks at me as though expecting me to order something and I yell, 'Give me some clams!' He turns around to fetch them. In that moment, as I rub my index fingers against my thumbs for a background sensation in order to maintain the lucid dream, it occurs to me that I need him to hurry up because time in this state is precious, so I add, 'Now!' The man slides me a plate of open shells containing a salmon-like substance. The fish is tasty but I clearly did not get what I ordered. Instead, what was served doesn't even exist in the real world. I smile at the friendly dream character behind the counter and politely say, 'Thank you!' Excited and feeling accomplished at having managed to eat something that activated my taste buds so well, I move away from the counter and fall asleep.

DREAM STATE

Me and a group of youngsters are trying to evade big cats that appear to have escaped from a zoo and terrorise a neighborhood. An aggressive tiger cub, however, charges towards us, but I manage to knock down a tree and with its trunk I manage to keep the animal at bay. A hooded member of my group jumps on the wooden log, while it's on top of the feline, and kicks it in the snout. Me, my wife and our kids (who appear younger than in reality) are sleeping over at my sister-in-law's house (whose interior also differs from the real thing). She has tiger pets and we are all extremely uneasy about them, so we avoid running into them in the house. Triggernometry comedian Francis Foster, who happens to be present, agrees with me by saying, 'You would think so, wouldn't you?' when I worriedly moan to him that tigers naturally turn into psychotic killers if they are hungry and therefore we shouldn't mix them with kids who use the toilet in the middle of the night. We decide to go down the pub for a drink and he's turned into The Inbetweeners actor James Buckley. We arrive at what I recognise to be the Chinatown tunnel from my recent lucid dream and immediately become conscious of dreaming again.

PHASE STATE

Entering Chinatown, this time from the opposite side of the tunnel, I recall Project Elijah's task and wish to hear 'Jingle Bells' as I spot Christmas festivities taking place around a lively bar. As I walk towards dancing barmaids pouring drinks redolent of a scene out of the movie Cocktail, I hear Christmas bells ringing and an instrumental, jazzier version of the song, with a strong bassline, ensues and resounds through the environment. I jump over the counter and start dancing with the barmaids, keeping to the rhythm and absorbing the physical sensations which feel absolutely real. I can even hear the friction of their dresses rubbing against me while the music plays in the background and also help myself to a prepared cocktail. As I down the drink, I taste the exquisite sweetness of a fresh beverage and detect a hint of orange flavour with a distinct alcoholic kick. Well sated and reflecting on the taste sensations, I wake up refreshed just before 8am.

WAKING STATE

I record my sleep experiences while they are fresh in my memory and use the loo. It seems like I have a lot to record but I am excited about the result. I see that I have exceeded an hour of being up when I check the time, so I forego returning to bed in order to re-enter the phase.

[Summerlander]

Date: 13/03/2021
Method: dream consciousness
Bedtime: 2.30am
Awakening: 6.08am
Return to bed: 6.25am
Awakening: 8.10am
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: Titanising the dream world

DREAM STATE

I'm in my house with my wife and an unknown guest downstairs. I'm asked to check on 'our baby' (there is no baby in waking life). As I go upstairs, the house resembles my mum's in Canning Town. I hear a beeping alarm and a baby crying in a partially lit cot. I think the baby is so cute and just want to pick him up and cuddle him. I also feel a bit scared entering the dark bedroom as I suspect that paranormal activity is likely to take place. There seems to be a false memory narrative that the bedroom is known to be haunted.

WAKING STATE

I wake up just after six in the morning and jot down remembered dream events. I use the loo and do a reality check by looking at my hands and counting fingers. I also concentrate on a single digit for ten seconds in case anomalous behaviour manifests. I return to bed almost twenty minutes later and lie down with the intention to directly enter the phase. I rest on my back and experience some hypnagogic imagery but end up turning to my side and fall asleep with an image of the moon Titan in my head.

DREAM STATE

Me, my wife and my daughter are sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a strange house and there is a fireplace nearby. I console my daughter as she seems to be upset. My wife gets up to do something and I follow to see what she is doing, but as I'm walking through this strange environment, I realise I'm dreaming.

PHASE STATE

As soon as I become conscious of dreaming, I start to touch everything in sight as I recall Project Elijah's task of deepening the phase. Palpating the laminate flooring and intricate details of a wall increases realism. I feel the lumpy surface of a white wall and how realistically solid it feels. I imagine Titan on the other side and start pushing through this pale surface with the palms of my hands. There is a lot of resistance but the wall gradually becomes more fluid and begins to give way. It feels like I am pushing against a gooey, elastic surface which stretches to a considerable distance of about six feet ahead, as I continue to push through, before it finally gives way and slides through my dream body; I can feel its tangible phantom barrier fade behind me.

I'm finally outdoors on the other side, finding myself touching sandy ground strewn with pebbles. As I explore the partially lit soil with my fingers, I imagine I am touching the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, but the environment is more like a beach at night, and as I run towards a dark horizon, I notice that the sea is conspicuously absent. The sand beneath my feet appears to reflect ultraviolet light out of nowhere as the sky above is completely black. 'I'm dreaming! I'm dreaming!' I joyously shout, making sure that I hear the sound of my voice. I stop and turn around to see where I came from, as I vigorously rub my hands until palpable friction and heat is experienced. About fifty feet away, amidst blue dunes, I see a chapel with bright yellow light oozing through arched windows from within. Its entrance is wide open and several dream characters resembling children pop out and run in my direction. I think to avoid them, fearing a potentially distracting dream plot that could cost me my lucidity. 'I can't get distracted! I'm dreaming!' I tell myself.

The nighttime beach begins to fade but I refuse to let go of the phantom sensations of proprioception that remain. I absorb the tactility of the earthy ground beneath me and even get down to roll around on it, like a pig in a sty, until I emerge in a brand new, crystal clear environment emulating the interior of a temple. I touch every surface in sight in order to bring maximum sharpness to the surroundings and stabilise the lucid dream. I wander through a spacious hall whilst wishing to attain an alien landscape that resembles Titan more closely than the last beach-like terrain. I open a varnished wooden door to find, surprisingly, a smaller hall composed of green walls with more identical mahogany doors. I keep pushing open several doors encountering identical halls with more doors, making me feel like Neo in the Matrix, trapped in an architectural maze. I find the situation, hilarious!

Eventually, I reach the exterior world to encounter a daytime desert displaying a few buildings that protrude from sandy dunes. Colourful wispy clouds adorn a light-blue sky and a pale sun is visible. The vivid scenery is quite surreal and beautiful, but still closer to a terrestrial landscape than a Titanian one. Once again, I remind myself that I'm having a lucid dream to maintain focus. My wish to experience Titan appears to alter the sky before me as the sun turns red and the clouds that encircle it shift to a fiery orange adorned by other warm hues that make the atmosphere even more interesting. I start flying and the ground below quickly turns into a fully-fledged city with crowds of people filling its streets. I have a personal joke in my head: 'This is a very populous Titan!' The sky darkens to a deep ultramarine and I feel like I'm flying only dozens of feet above a multitude of dream people in Times Square, New York. It looks like a massive protest in the streets below!

As I hover over a sea of human heads, I recall my desire to practise martial arts with Bruce Lee, but a group of Asian men in the crowd below will do. I start fighting with them once I descend close enough for physical contact, but they soon become difficult to handle as they make a few attempts to grab me, so I take off upwards and look back to see them looking up and jumping as they appear unable to fly after me.

I plunge into the horizon and close my eyes in order to translocate to another fight arena. I land in what looks like the interior of an American motel, in the lobby area, and enjoy beating up a gang of hoodies. My punches are so powerful that every time they land on my opponents' faces, the impact of the blows produce a lot of blood—it's gorier than Mortal Kombat here! The hoodies pull out knives on me but the blades end up embedded in their bodies rather than mine. I'm better than Scott Adkins! I fight them up and down a staircase and feel accomplished as I watch their bodies drop. I'm confident, rock solid, and feel extremely hard as a man. My opponents are all lying on the floor, defeated, as I make my way out in style. Before I push a swinging door open to access the outside, I see a blue mask hanging on its knob. 'The pandemic has reached the dream world!' I joke to myself before waking up refreshed.

WAKING STATE

I really congratulate myself on this one! Great success with the palpation test, showing that it works very well in deepening, as well as maintaining, the phase state.

I write everything down and look forward to more adventures. The whole experience seems to have lasted a long time, but to measure duration more accurately, I use a stopwatch as I recall and relive my actions in the phase. It's almost two and a half minutes of nonstop lucid dreaming.

[Summerlander]

Date: 13/03/2021
Method: dream consciousness
Bedtime: 2.30am
Awakening: 6.08am
Return to bed: 6.25am
Awakening: 8.10am
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: Titanising the dream world

DREAM STATE

I'm in my house with my wife and an unknown guest downstairs. I'm asked to check on 'our baby' (there is no baby in waking life). As I go upstairs, the house resembles my mum's in Canning Town. I hear a beeping alarm and a baby crying in a partially lit cot. I think the baby is so cute and just want to pick him up and cuddle him. I also feel a bit scared entering the dark bedroom as I suspect that paranormal activity is likely to take place. There seems to be a false memory narrative that the bedroom is known to be haunted.

WAKING STATE

I wake up just after six in the morning and jot down remembered dream events. I use the loo and do a reality check by looking at my hands and counting fingers. I also concentrate on a single digit for ten seconds in case anomalous behaviour manifests. I return to bed almost twenty minutes later and lie down with the intention to directly enter the phase. I rest on my back and experience some hypnagogic imagery but end up turning to my side and fall asleep with an image of the moon Titan in my head.

DREAM STATE

Me, my wife and my daughter are sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a strange house and there is a fireplace nearby. I console my daughter as she seems to be upset. My wife gets up to do something and I follow to see what she is doing, but as I'm walking through this strange environment, I realise I'm dreaming.

PHASE STATE

As soon as I become conscious of dreaming, I start to touch everything in sight as I recall Project Elijah's task of deepening the phase. Palpating the laminate flooring and intricate details of a wall increases realism. I feel the lumpy surface of a white wall and how realistically solid it feels. I imagine Titan on the other side and start pushing through this pale surface with the palms of my hands. There is a lot of resistance but the wall gradually becomes more fluid and begins to give way. It feels like I am pushing against a gooey, elastic surface which stretches to a considerable distance of about six feet ahead, as I continue to push through, before it finally gives way and slides through my dream body; I can feel its tangible phantom barrier fade behind me.

I'm finally outdoors on the other side, finding myself touching sandy ground strewn with pebbles. As I explore the partially lit soil with my fingers, I imagine I am touching the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, but the environment is more like a beach at night, and as I run towards a dark horizon, I notice that the sea is conspicuously absent. The sand beneath my feet appears to reflect ultraviolet light out of nowhere as the sky above is completely black. 'I'm dreaming! I'm dreaming!' I joyously shout, making sure that I hear the sound of my voice. I stop and turn around to see where I came from, as I vigorously rub my hands until palpable friction and heat is experienced. About fifty feet away, amidst blue dunes, I see a chapel with bright yellow light oozing through arched windows from within. Its entrance is wide open and several dream characters resembling children pop out and run in my direction. I think to avoid them, fearing a potentially distracting dream plot that could cost me my lucidity. 'I can't get distracted! I'm dreaming!' I tell myself.

The nighttime beach begins to fade but I refuse to let go of the phantom sensations of proprioception that remain. I absorb the tactility of the earthy ground beneath me and even get down to roll around on it, like a pig in a sty, until I emerge in a brand new, crystal clear environment emulating the interior of a temple. I touch every surface in sight in order to bring maximum sharpness to the surroundings and stabilise the lucid dream. I wander through a spacious hall whilst wishing to attain an alien landscape that resembles Titan more closely than the last beach-like terrain. I open a varnished wooden door to find, surprisingly, a smaller hall composed of green walls with more identical mahogany doors. I keep pushing open several doors encountering identical halls with more doors, making me feel like Neo in the Matrix, trapped in an architectural maze. I find the situation, hilarious!

Eventually, I reach the exterior world to encounter a daytime desert displaying a few buildings that protrude from sandy dunes. Colourful wispy clouds adorn a light-blue sky and a pale sun is visible. The vivid scenery is quite surreal and beautiful, but still closer to a terrestrial landscape than a Titanian one. Once again, I remind myself that I'm having a lucid dream to maintain focus. My wish to experience Titan appears to alter the sky before me as the sun turns red and the clouds that encircle it shift to a fiery orange adorned by other warm hues that make the atmosphere even more interesting. I start flying and the ground below quickly turns into a fully-fledged city with crowds of people filling its streets. I have a personal joke in my head: 'This is a very populous Titan!' The sky darkens to a deep ultramarine and I feel like I'm flying only dozens of feet above a multitude of dream people in Times Square, New York. It looks like a massive protest in the streets below!

As I hover over a sea of human heads, I recall my desire to practise martial arts with Bruce Lee, but a group of Asian men in the crowd below will do. I start fighting with them once I descend close enough for physical contact, but they soon become difficult to handle as they make a few attempts to grab me, so I take off upwards and look back to see them looking up and jumping as they appear unable to fly after me.

I plunge into the horizon and close my eyes in order to translocate to another fight arena. I land in what looks like the interior of an American motel, in the lobby area, and enjoy beating up a gang of hoodies. My punches are so powerful that every time they land on my opponents' faces, the impact of the blows produce a lot of blood—it's gorier than Mortal Kombat here! The hoodies pull out knives on me but the blades end up embedded in their bodies rather than mine. I'm better than Scott Adkins! I fight them up and down a staircase and feel accomplished as I watch their bodies drop. I'm confident, rock solid, and feel extremely hard as a man. My opponents are all lying on the floor, defeated, as I make my way out in style. Before I push a swinging door open to access the outside, I see a blue mask hanging on its knob. 'The pandemic has reached the dream world!' I joke to myself before waking up refreshed.

WAKING STATE

I really congratulate myself on this one! Great success with the palpation test, showing that it works very well in deepening, as well as maintaining, the phase state.

I write everything down and look forward to more adventures. The whole experience seems to have lasted a long time, but to measure duration more accurately, I use a stopwatch as I recall and relive my actions in the phase. It's almost two and a half minutes of nonstop lucid dreaming.

[Summerlander]

Date: 15/03/2021
Bedtime: 3.30am
Awakening: 8am
Return to bed: 8.02am
Method: dream consciousness
Awakening: 10.35am
Attempt: successful
Phase: violins on the beach

DREAM STATE

My wife dresses up a mannequin that sits in an office chair; gradually, the mannequin starts to resemble a person. The house we are in is strange but I take it to be normal. We leave the house together to go somewhere (unknown) and it looks like it's about to rain as a storm brews in the grey sky above. I look up and see a dark cloud looming behind us as bolts of lightning appear and are not followed by thunder as you'd expect in waking life. I find this strange and become lucid.

PHASE STATE

The menacing clouds begin to part despite sparkling with lightning. I run towards the edge of a precipice and daringly leap to fly over an exquisite coastal village that could pass for the gracious kingdom of Aragon, with curious and apparently medieval turrets and cathedrals, and the architecture as a whole displays many khaki, serrated juts of limestone. Myriad structures cover a vast plain by a cobalt sea. I land on a sandy, tropical beach with a view that is absolutely vibrant and breathtaking.

The weather seems to reflect my high spirits—with a clear blue sky overhead—and I walk among sporadic growths of green foliage whilst rubbing my hands. I start to run through this colourful, tropical landscape and try to remember my task from Project Elijah. 'What did I plan to do first?' I ask myself, beholding the inviting realism that surrounds me. My memory fails me so I decide to explore what's before me instead, running towards the sea like I'm in a virtual reality game. I hear the surround sound of violins resembling The Flower Duet by Léo Delibes. The enchanting music adds to the heavenly atmosphere of the place and makes me very happy.

I start flying again, this time over sea waves, as a tsunami looms ahead. I dive into the water to re-emerge in the air, like a leaping dolphin over the surface, hearing the realistic sound of fluid turbulence and feeling fresh droplets collide with my body. As I dance with the sea, even the splashing seems ideal and perfectly chaotic. I continue to glide towards the horizon, where sky a sea appear to have no divide. I get the urge to explore underwater and plunge to the depths of the seascape. It's murky as I go deep, with only a few hazy flashes of blue and green light adorning an increasing darkness, and I succumb to hesitation and thoughts of waking up unexpectedly, which is exactly what happens next.

WAKING STATE

I open my eyes and jot down my experience, wishing it hadn't ended prematurely. Notes-to-self: 1) Always have a plan of action ready in case dream consciousness is unexpectedly achieved; 2) Remember that the Project Elijah task is to see an angel and eat flatbread and drink from a pitcher of water; 3) Go to bed earlier—I know I had more ordinary dreams preceding my lucid dream, but memory of them is elusive.

[Summerlander]

Date: 23/03/2021
Bedtime: 2am
Awakening: 7.45am
Return to bed: 7.55am
Awakening: 9.45am
Method: indirect
Attempt: successful
Phase: men in black and the ghostly water

DREAM STATE

I'm in a library and I pick a book on human anatomy. Suddenly, the environment is a theme park structured like the inside of a human body and I occasionally obtain a bird's-eye view of the full anatomy. I finally feel like I'm overseeing a giant with an open torso, and end up poking his heart before stabbing it with a metal rod. Subsequently, I oversee what I perceive to be a quantum gun; as though having X-ray vision, I see many possibilities depicted inside its intricate cannon in the shape open-ended stars alluding to multiple, superimposed bullet trajectories. The gun is now the bird's-eye view of warship.

PHASE STATE

Upon awakening without movement, I attempt separation from the body, finding that it is hard to escape from the bed without getting pulled back. I feel trapped in the sleeping position and can hear myself breathing, but I notice that my arm appears to hang unnaturally off the bed. I phantom-wiggle it and yank myself up from the edge of the bed; as I stand, I know I'm in the phase because I'm blind whilst having a sense of where the bed is, so I walk around it and start deepening by rubbing hands. The door of a bedroom replica emerges in my field of vision and I choose to open it, rather than pass through it, by squeezing and pulling its metal handle—imagining an angel waiting for me in the hallway. To my dismay, there is nobody around in an environment defined by vibrant colours, but I discover a massive mirror where my youngest son's bedroom door should be.

I notice holographic stickers on the mirror frame. As I rub the surface of the wooden frame and follow my hand with my gaze, I can see that the shapes of the stickers are visually incoherent. In the mirror I find a distorted reflection of myself with an enlarged head, no eyes, and pouting lips. I go through the mirror expecting to meet an angel inside, but encounter great resistance as I gradually pass through it, lose vision, and foul.

Back in bed and eyes shut, I start rubbing hands and simultaneously sit up. It feels like I've just uncovered my wife but I'm blind when I try to open my eyes, so I know it's the phase state and not the real world. I make out curtains in front of the balcony door and pass through them to find myself looking at a pale sky and an intricately vivid neighbourhood below. I jump off the balcony and experience a breeze, as I fall slower than I would have done in the real world, to land on the nextdoor neighbour's silver car parked in her driveway. I dash to her front door and open it, wishing to find an angel inside, but there is nobody around, only a staircase surrounded by rust-coloured brick walls. 'Angel! Where are you?' I shout, hearing my voice echo. I go up the stairs and lose consciousness after opening a grey door with access to an upper floor.

DREAM STATE

Me and a couple of men sit around a wide desk and one of them wears distinctly square-shaped sunglasses. The sombre room we are in appears to be defined by candlelight and I'm being interrogated on some past performance that I'm having trouble recalling. 'Where do you think you go wrong?'—they ask me. 'Why do you keep fouling?' I get the sense the men in black are trying to help me remember something and finally the penny drops as the word 'fouling' resonates in my lucid head.

PHASE STATE

'I'm dreaming!' I exclaim, simultaneously rising from the desk in front of me and studying the environment that is increasingly resembling my bedroom in dim light. I set my gaze on a chest of drawers with a lampshade radiating orange light. Upon closer inspection I see three glasses of water next to the glowing object, as though my subconscious mind had decided to manifest part of Project Elijah's task. I pick up the nearest glass and, as I pour the liquid down my gullet, something odd happens; I cannot feel it! It is as though the water vanishes as it enters my mouth, and yet, my hand holds an empty glass after the act. I drink from the other glasses and observe the same odd phenomenon. I realise that meeting an angel should take precedence over drinking water and wonder if the insubstantial drinking phenomenon was my subconscious mind's funny way of showing me that.

I feel grateful for the men in black having guided me in the right direction and, when I look back at the desk in curiosity, I see two dark figures turning into swirling black holes before disappearing into thin air. I exit the room through a doorway, looking for an angel, but run into a gloomy, deserted swimming pool hall. 'Angel! Where are you?' My voice reverberates around the place. In frustration, I hesitate as I think about taking a dive in a swimming pool.

I foul and perceive myself to be on the wrong side of the bed; I can hear male voices in the bedroom and sense a presence. I sit up and open my eyes to find the men in black pacing up and down an inaccurate replica of my bedroom and talking unintelligibly. I realise I'm still in the phase, but something is wrong: I'm terribly constricted and believe I must pretend to not know I'm dreaming in front of these men or they will render me unconscious and end the experience. With some effort, I escape the bed and attempt to sneak out of the room as I see that they are not taking any notice of me. Alas, I wake up with movement and it's time to get up.

WAKING STATE

I've done a similar experiment in summoning an angel for Michael Raduga before and succeeded (in encountering a hooded figure with wings) but this time I simply couldn't find one in the phase. It might also be a good idea to start using a second bed for lucid dreaming just to make sure fouls are not being caused by my partner moving in her sleep.

[Summerlander]

Date: 29/03/2021
Bedtime: 3.30am
Awakening: 7.15am
Return to bed: 8am
Method: indirect
Awakening: 11am
Attempt: successful
Phase: counting, swimming, sexual palpation
Duration: 3 minutes 35 seconds (stopwatch)
Realism: quickly reaching 100% with deepening
Experiment Count: 90 'seconds'

WAKING STATE

I wake up in the morning with vague dream impressions of being at a Michael Raduga seminar. I use the loo and review Project Elijah's task of counting in the phase before returning to bed to fall asleep with an intention to catch a natural awakening.

PHASE STATE

Upon waking up without movement, I get up from the bed to stand in a dim and poorly lit bedroom. (Realism: 35%) Vision is hazy and the brightest source of light seems to come from where the balcony door should be. I strenuously rub my hands together—feeling an emergent friction and warmth—until I see them with great clarity before beginning my count out loud. I walk around the bed, noticing that the lampshade on the bedside cabinet radiates a weak, orange light. The object closely resembles the one in the real world and touching it feels as I would expect it to feel. (Realism: 100%) As I move towards the curtains and a partially visible balcony door, I become aware of the muffled sound of my voice and try to raise it as I count. I pass through the curtains with some resistance and leap from the balcony, forming a parabolic trajectory that lands me on tarmac about fifty feet away from the house.

I appear to be on the main road, in a vibrant, alternate neighbourhood which gives me the impression of being a virtual amalgam of where I currently live and where I used to live as a prepubescent child. I feel slightly nostalgic. The sky is defined by a rosy dawn with a beauteous, surreal blend of orange and blue strokes—an exceptional sight which can barely be captured with words alone. I believe I had been counting slightly faster than the speed of seconds since the start of this experience, so at this point I slow down a little but continue numerically onwards near the thirties while rubbing hands as a background sensation. I glance back at where my house should be and what I see is a far more simplistic structure that is radically different to what would be found in the real world; contrary to the architecture in waking life, it is a single beige appartment block with no balconies (surprisingly) and very few windows—despite standing taller, albeit narrower, than the real residence—and its centre is made of rectangular glass panels vertically dissecting the building.

I feel exhilarated to be in a deep phase, surrounded by a colourful and realistic town under strong twilight. I start running down the main road, with a tendency to accelerate my counting exercise, at times feeling like a child wanting to reach the highest number before it's over to then remind myself to not get overly excited. The environment gradually becomes more picturesque and less urban, making me want to take flight. I glide over roofs and treetops with ease, continuing the count as I make my way towards a horizon defined by a much brighter blue sky and the hint of a shimmering sea. I land on a grassy knoll by a pebble beach and behold mild seawaves hitting the shallow shore. As I run down the knoll to reach the water, I realise I'm on a collision course with a barbed wire fence, but I carry on towards it, blurting out numbers even louder once my body hits the wires to encounter some resistance. I stubbornly persevere, stretching the fence like a bunch of elastic bands until it finally gives way by going through me. Having reached shallow water, I hear myself sploshing all the way to a deeper end. I feel wet but not cold (it's just right), and as the refreshing waves hit my chest, I spread my arms and deliberately levitate to about a hundred feet above sea level in order to subsequently take a massive dive. Whilst rising in the air, I'm counting slower than normal seconds and trying to adjust to something more temporally realistic, but it's hard to ascertain the right pace.

The plunge back to the sea temporarily interrupts the count, but I calmly resume as I experience underwater turbulence. I rise to the surface to undulate like a dolphin between sea and air as oncoming waves grow and become more challenging. The sea appears to partially bend to my will as waterspouts encircle me for a few seconds before giving way to desired chaos. The counting is undoubtedly retarded as I jubilantly dance with surroundings entirely dominated by turbulent seawater. Once again, I take flight towards a calm blue sky—increasing the speed of the count—and descend on shallower waters, where I start sploshing towards the beach, occasionally using my hands to scoop up pebbles and shells from the ground beneath short, oncoming seawaves. These marine objects feel realistically solid to the touch apart from glimmering under sunlight. I dropped them all in the water before reaching dry land. Gazing inland, I spot people milling about pale buildings resembling a college campus garden square, which piques my interest as well as my sex drive. I get briefly sidetracked by the idea of having sex with a female character in the phase, which causes a considerable interval of counting measurable by a few seconds, whereby translocation to the garden square occurs and I run into a canteen nearby looking for a single woman amidst ostensibly male students.

I get a grip and resume the count as I exit the canteen to access other rooms within the building. I'm about to reach the eighties—possibly counting faster than I should—as I run along a corridor displaying rows of identical doors on either side, eagerly hoping to run into the opposite sex. Ahead of me, a door opens and a seductive, intellectual woman holding a dark folder, appears. She has straight, shoulder-length brown hair and hazel eyes behind dark-rimmed glasses; she sports a cream-coloured waistcoat and knee-length skirt; her silky white top is partially unbuttoned and her tall figure somehow implies that she's on high heels. She also looks like a teacher to me. We immediately embrace and start ripping clothes off our bodies to engage in upright, penetrative sex. The sensations of having sex feel absolutely real and the rhythm of the intercourse helps me to slow down the count to something closer to—I believe—real seconds, as I blurt out the numbers in loud moans of pleasure (the only way I could maintain count during this emotionally charged episode). I reach orgasm and end up pushing the astonished character to the ground before covering her with large amounts of semen, counting the last few seconds with each eruption as I stimulate an incredibly large phallus in slow motion. The environment fades and I wake up in bed thinking of 'ninety'.

WAKING STATE

I jot down the experience, which thankfully seemed to last a long time, but I feel confused by the fact that I only counted 90 'seconds' when the phase lasted over 3.5 minutes according to the stopwatch. If it were possible to take a real clock to the phase, the number of seconds it would have accurately registered would be 215. I understand that most of the time I was probably off the mark in counting seconds—and there was a 'sizable' gap during the experiment—but never expected to be off by about 125. Nevertheless, it seemed to help in maintaining the phase state. Apologies for the explicitly graphic description towards the end!

[Summerlander]

Date: 01/04/2021—02/04/2021
Bedtime: 7.30pm
Awakening: 11.55pm
Return to bed: 3.45am
Method: indirect
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 11am
Phase experience: nightly forest Okorogheye

DREAM STATE

Me and my family live in a strange neighbourhood and there are reports of a murderous monster at large who breaks into people's homes and kills them. At night, we are all lying on the floor and aim to remain still as it is understood that, like a tyrannosaur, the creature is unable to see stationary objects. We have a black cat that won't stay still and keeps meowing. We worry about the animal.

I pull the blinds of the kitchen window down in the same strange house that I take to be my normal home. I serve mashed potatoes and corned beef and quickly run upstairs to tell my wife dinner is ready. Upon returning to the kitchen, I notice that the corned beef is missing and wonder who stole it. I leave the house to get more corned beef but can't find the shop, so I head back to the house, but before I can reach it, I wake up.

WAKING STATE

I jot down the dreams I recall and watch a program on TV about police officers arresting criminals. Before returning to bed to sleep, I use the loo and watch an episode of the Lucid Dream Portal podcast about living a lucid life. It's a brilliant Q&A by Daniel Love about lucid dreams and the concept of lucid living. Quite insightful eloquence that starts by mentioning a young and depressed generation currently subscribing to flimsy, fairy-tale tosh of shifting their focus to alternate realities as they access hybrid phase states of the brain which are often responsible for autoscopic hallucinations and lucid dreaming.

Despite being the target of fierce vitriol by the online community of 'reality-shifters', expert lucid dreamer Daniel Love shows compassion for these misguided youngsters, making it incumbent upon adults to teach and guide them in order to safeguard against worldviews divorced from reality which might ultimately prove to be harmful—especially once such beliefs are hijacked by cultish, charismatic and self-interested individuals seeking to form esoteric movements for personal and distinction (as we have seen with New Agers and the 'astral projection' concept).

Once in bed, I toss and turn for a bit and finally lose consciousness laying on my side. When I come to, I realise I haven't moved and make out strange sounds.

PHASE STATE

At first I think it's raining outside, but as the sound grows louder, it starts to resemble strong static in my head. 'I must separate from the body!' I think to myself. It appears that I'm laying on my stomach, so I use my arms to push against the bed in order to rise up, but get sucked back down. I almost give up, but suddenly I realise that I could just roll over and out of bed, so I do exactly that to stand in a dark replica of the bedroom. There is moonlight coming from the windows and I open the balcony door and get ready to jump and fly away. Just as I'm getting ready to propel myself from the railing, I pause in doubt: 'What if I'm awake and about to jump to my death?'

I turn to the open door and push against it with my fist in order to see if I can make my arm go through its white surface like a ghost. My arm slides through the object with little resistance, proving the surroundings to be phantom in nature. I waste no time in jumping off the balcony to quickly acquire a bird's-eye view of neighbouring houses under an ultramarine night sky. I fly well beyond the River Crane to find that, unlike the real world, the landscape is defined by forest all the way to the horizon.

I land amidst trees, feeling grass and twigs beneath my feet, as I consider the possibility that this out-of-body experience might provide some clues on how to find Richard Okorogheye, a young man with sickle cell disease who has been missing in the real world for almost two weeks. I walk through the woods but neglect to maintain the phase, which leads to falling asleep, vague dreaming and finally waking up.

[Summerlander]

Date: 17/04/2021
Method: dream consciousness
Bedtime: 4am
Awakening: 11.11am
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: Uzai

DREAM STATE:

There are people walking around an indoor swimming pool. An anaconda emerges from the water, opens its mouth and a white lotus flower blooms instantaneously; however, I deem the creature to be a threat and warn people away from it. I feel flower is a ticking time bomb about to unleash something poisonous, and in that moment, someone approaches it in curiosity and gets impaled by a fencing sword-like spike which emerges from within. The poison oozes from every orifice of the victim.

I'm the observer of a botched robbery in a depot. An alarm sounds and the police arrive as the criminals make a dash for the door. They leave behind a bag of money and, as a participant, I pick it up with a feeling that I can keep it for myself and get away with it. I walk out of a Homebase store with Lizzie Burrows—an acquaintance from my university days—apparently having been shopping there. A bald man resembling the actor Scott Adkins approaches me in a confrontational manner; I take him to be one of the robbers wanting the fruits of his spoils so I decide to swing for him in a bid to knock him out. I find that he is quite agile in dodging my fists and raises his. The fisticuffs is a challenge and Lizzie, who stands nearby, is visibly worried.

No sign of Lizzie and the aggressive robber. I am apparently walking home from Homebase under a crepuscular sky but the road ahead is long, unknown and mostly defined rows of well-groomed trees on either side. 'If this were a dream I would simply wish to be at the end of this road and it would happen instantly,' I think to myself and on further reflection, 'Hold on ... I AM dreaming!'

PHASE STATE

I rub my fingers together and achieve greater environmental realism, before excitedly leaping to the uppermost part of the nearest tree. I see other vivid green treetops ahead and use them as platforms to land on. As I overlook the road below, I see a tall and slender black man wearing a dark overcoat walking on the pavement and remember my Project Elijah task of initiating a conversation. I immediately descend onto the pavement and, seeing that the man continues to walk ahead, I holler, 'Hey, you ... Stop!'

The man turns around and starts walking towards me. As he approaches, he gradually dwindles in size and begins to resemble a schoolboy. His face reveals huge round eyes that look so unnatural as to match the psychedelic nature of the lucid dream. 'What is your name?' I ask him. 'Uzai.' He replies as I notice his lips moving. (Sounds like 'use-eye' but I instantly think of spelling it as I did.)

The character shrinks further and morphs into a dwarf-sized squirrel, but I still refer to it by the name I was given: 'Uzai, what are you doing here?' The form is now transmuting into a dark brown canine, its shape reminiscent of a fox pup that begins to snarl in a threatening manner. I feel briefly apprehensive about being bitten, but remind myself that it is a dream and decide to integrate with the snarly being—thinking that it must be a part of me—so I gently place my hand inside its mouth. As soon as I do this, the creature's growl turns into an 'Aha!'

Surprised, I withdraw my hand, feeling that Uzai is about to impart some wisdom. He's becoming more human but retains his huge psychedelic eyes. Gazing at me, he points to the sky and, with a soft childlike voice, says: 'There's a land waiting for you far, far away.' I am so surprised and excited about this interesting result that I deliberately cause the scene to fade in order to wake up and record the experience in detail.

WAKING STATE

Deliberating over the phase experience, I wonder if the name 'Uzai' is a subconscious amalgamation of 'You use I' (as in, 'Use me for Project Elijah's experiment!') but there is no certain way to discern the roots of the character's response. I also note that the statement about a far-away land is not so much a proper reply to my second question about Uzai's purpose as it is an enigmatic announcement.

[Summerlander]

Date: 19/05/2021
Method of entry: direct
Bedtime: 3.30am
Awakening: 7.15am
Return to sleep: 12.15pm
Awakening: 12.30pm
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: Wohey of Stacey

WAKING STATE

I wake up at the sound of the alarm, feeling very tired, having slept for barely four hours. It's time to take my youngest son to school. I drop him off and return home an hour later to have breakfast in bed with my wife Stacey while we watch Melissa McCarthy's new film Thunder Force on Netflix. My eyes feel heavy and I am on the verge of zonking out halfway through the film when Stacey turns Netflix off and suggests that I take a nap while she carries on with the house decoration. I briefly think that it would be nice to have a lucid dream before falling asleep almost immediately.

PHASE STATE

I come to in a strange, dimly lit house interior and notice that I am standing in front of a fireplace. (Realism: 45%.) I know this poorly formed environment is not real and requires some deepening, so I rub my hands as I walk towards a doorway. I can hear my hands rubbing as well as my deliberate stomping on a wooden floor. I also believe I can hear the sound of the TV in the real world—as unintelligible voices from a news channel—superimposed on the dream world. I get the sensation that the walls surrounding me mark what's immediately behind my skull, and what lies beyond is the noisy, objective world which could potentially disrupt my subjective, phantom experience.

As I walk through the doorway and into a fading corridor, I do my utmost to stay grounded in the phase state—focusing on the sensations produced by palpating my phantom body and arching over to rub my surprisingly bare feet. I have neglected the notion of potentially interfering sound waves from physical reality and stubbornly persevere in maintaining the phase. Blind in one eye, I make out a dead end ahead of me in the form of a solid brick wall, which I magically penetrate with my body. There is some resistance; I feel like I'm going through gelatin and sinking my head into the malleable barrier darkens my vision. I aggressively struggle with an invisible force for a few seconds until emerging in a vibrant, indoor environment (realism: 105%).

I am surrounded by pristine colours sharply defining a furnished hall displaying doors leading to promising places as I remember Project Elijah's text experiment. As I move towards the nearest white door, which happens to be ajar, I deliberately shout, 'Yes! Yes! I need to find a book to read!' in order to activate my hearing in addition to the tactility of my footsteps and a well- established sight. Upon entering a partially untidy room, I notice a black and yellow book—identical to a Dummies book—amidst a few objects on the white, silky cover of a king-size bed.

I pick up the thick book, noticing its surface reflecting light from a nearby window, and pay attention to the standard, white text on the dark section of its cover. It reads: 'Wohey of Stacey'. I glance around the room as I repeat the words and look back at the book cover to find that its yellow parts are gradually turning orange and the black is changing into silver. I open the book halfway through to find pages replete with text; focusing on the side that rests on my right hand, the following words stand out to me: 'Sexually Stryked'. I become aware that the last word appears to be a misspelling of the word 'strike' and ostensibly, an erroneous past form of the verb, such as 'struck'.

Mission accomplished. I proceed to jump out the window and begin to gradually fall, in low gravity, onto a platform attached to the cream-coloured side of the building and right next to a massive crane. Landing softly on a metal surface, I realise I'm not alone: a colossal, faceless figure wearing a construction helmet with a prominent headtorch, and sporting an orange high vis vest, approaches and pushes me off the platform with one hand. Once again, I gently fall onto a lower rooftop resembling an orange bouncy castle. I take off in flight to move between and explore peculiar structures of limestone buildings under the sun, in a generally mundane, urban landscape. I see a pumpkin-shaped dome, not rigid but fluttering in a breeze like a tent cover, and as I attempt to land on its top, I end up falling through it to find myself at my previous address. I fall asleep ...

DREAM STATE

I'm engulfed in a vague plot that makes me believe I never moved and still live at my former house. Stacey appears to be doing something as she kneels on the green carpet of the hallway upstairs. Her buttocks are up in the air and she begins to twerk provocatively as she holds onto the banister. As I'm about to make love to my wife, I wake up.

WAKING STATE

I open my eyes and recall the whole experience. The TV is still on but there's no signal. I'm not sure if the text I read in the phase state was complete gibberish or partially laced with some meaning. Sometimes the words strike me as infantile, perhaps originating from a childish aspect in my subconscious, and the more I think about them the more associations grow rife. 'Wohey' could represent two sentiments: 'Woah!' in admiration of my wife and 'hey' to get her attention. Surmising further, 'Stryked' in reference to sexuality could mnemonically reflect that recently we went on strike from making love due to sore neck and backache on my part. The word 'try' is found amidst the apparent misspelling and seems to make a lot of sense when we will try to have sex when aroused despite concurrent discomfort.

[Summerlander]

Date: 08/06/2021
Bedtime: 2am
Awakening: 7.15am
Return to bed: 9am
Awakening: 11.50am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: The Garfield bird
Duration: 40 seconds

DREAM STATE

I'm riding my bicycle with my youngest son Alfie on my back with his arms wrapped around my torso. As I ride on a pavement, my son begins to loosen his grip and wobbles unsteadily on the seat before falling off and hitting the ground. 'Ow!' Alfie shrieks as I immediately stop and get off the bike to see if my son is okay. He struggles to get up, trips over his own footing, and lands headfirst under a car parked next to the pavement. 'Ow!' Alfie shrieks again as he pushes himself up with both hands on the floor. Just as I approach my son to lend him a hand, he reaches for the vehicle's chassis and cuts his finger on something sharp. 'Ow! Ow! Ow!' Alfie cries out even more distressed than before as blood spews from his index. 'So much bad luck!' I think to myself, noticing that I do not recognise the environment. Despair quickly turns into suspicion about the circumstances: 'Am I dreaming?'

PHASE STATE

The surroundings are out of focus so I rub my hands together whilst wishing for visual clarity. The summery weather is marvellous and I'm standing on the side of a dirt road with green vegetation and trees cropping a vivid blue sky. (Realism: 100%) There is no pavement, no bicycle nor parked vehicles, and my son is no longer present. I turn around to see where I had originally travelled from in my dream and find a mansion a few yards away from me on the same side of the road.

I remember Project Elijah's cat experiment and immediately make a dash to the front garden of the palatial house ahead. As I turn the corner of a grey brick wall, I imagine that, on the floor immediately behind it, I'll find a piece of paper with the picture of a cat on it; but all I see is an outdoor, patterned tiling. I turn around to find a metal letterbox next to a white picket fence and immediately check its contents, expecting to find the cat picture.

I reach inside the object and pull out a folded sheet of paper with the pencilled words 'It's time to be creative' on the side that's directly visible. I stay on the move and enter the mansion whilst unfolding the paper. The sombre interior of the house doesn't seem to match its grand external appearance, and the vividly orange form that marks the sheet of paper in my hands is far more captivating: it's a cartoon somewhat resembling Garfield by Jim Davis, but this character appears to be a cross between a cat and a bird—where its head and cheeks are mostly feline, but its bright yellow upper lip ends up taking the shape of a cute beak.

I find the image inspirational and don't really care that it does not resemble Project Elijah's cat in the slightest; it is a finished piece of comic art! When I review the text, I find that it has changed to an italicised, 'We are creative'. As I enter a dark room barely lit by sunbeams coming from a curtained background, the environment collapses and I'm back in bed.

WAKING STATE

My wife is urging me to get up as we have work to do. I jot down my sleep experiences and reflect on them, realising that the dream I had was playing out my fears associated with giving my son a lift to school on my bike; I had, after all, taken him to school just before returning home for a nap. Those fears were psychologically brought to the fore with hyperbole during REM sleep. The brief phase experience served as a reminder that there is no such thing as an artist's creative block with lucid dreaming available for inspiration.

[KennyCool91]

It's always refreshing to read your experiences

[Summerlander]

Cheers, KennyCool91!

I just had another one despite the fact that I went to bed drunk last night. I'll post it here soon in detail.

[KennyCool91]

Looking forward to it

[KennyCool91]

Check your inbox I sent a message to you

[Summerlander]

Date: 19/06/2021
Bedtime: 2.30am
Awakening: 8am
Return to bed: 9am
Method of entry: deferred direct
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 1pm
Phase experience: peering clouds underwater
Duration: 45 seconds

WAKING STATE

I wake up hungover—undoubtedly paying the price of drinking beer during the England vs. Scotland match— and desperately needing to use the loo. Still tired, I return to bed an hour later, cuddle my sleeping wife and close my eyes with 'Heaven' by Bryan Adams playing in my head. Thinking about the song leads to imagining flight above clouds; eventually, I notice mild and suggestive hypnagogic imagery apparently reifying my imagination.

PHASE STATE

'My God, it's happening!' I passively think to myself as I contain my excitement lest the hallucinatory forms dissipate. Before me, wispy clouds materialise and begin to visually define space as the dark void gradually turns blue. With alcohol in my system, I wasn't expecting this; the environment keeps getting brighter and I resist rubbing my hands together—like I usually do in order to deepen this state—opting for the peering technique instead, as I begin counting the fifteen seconds as instructed by Project Elijah.

The more I closely examine the pale wisps, the more they turn into fizzy strands. More realism is spontaneously added to my experience as I'm now moving through fluid—as opposed to airy—space which offers some resistance. The illusion of moving through celestial space is shattered and totally replaced by aqueous submersion. Since entering the phase directly, realism went from nought to around 90% in a few seconds. I look down and see my bare feet walking on blue mosaic tiles and the impression that I'm submerged in a vast swimming pool is almost complete; I look at my hands and see a confusing superposition of digits over wide, spade-like palms which seem to correct themselves the more I peer at them.

I am surprised at the fact that the peering technique has worked well in deepening the phase. The environment feels 100% realistic and I even squat to feel how solid my toes and legs are. I feel completely naked as I walk and breathe underwater. The blue vista that extends beyond me is adorned by near-static, humanoid figures. Upon closer inspection, they appear zombie-like and female; they are wearing swimsuits and I wonder if I'm still naked. As I look down to inspect my genitals, I discover a gap between my legs and my torso, as though I'm wearing invisible underpants—the variegated blue ceramic that makes up the floor can be practically seen through my crotch.

I immediately look up from this anomaly to see where faint beams of light are coming from only to have my vision severely impaired by dark stains—as though mud is suddenly covering my eyes. I know there is no point in wiping my eyes because I'm in the phase, so I fly upwards like a rocket, imagining that my sight will be restored once the surface of the swimming pool is reached. I jump out of the water to find a bright hall displaying a peculiar architecture: the floor around the pool is a light-brown tiling; the ceiling and surrounding walls make up a single brick and glass dome resembling a giant, enclosing spider; and the vertical glass panes reveal an urban nightscape.

I run towards a wall and pass through it to find myself in an inaccurate replica of my bedroom, stopping for only a couple of seconds before deciding, without a plan of action, to run into another wall; this time, only a chunk of this illusory barrier goes through me while a great portion of it gets knocked down—making a mighty mess before I arrive at my son's pseudo-bedroom. I go through another wall and emerge on a fast-moving train, running through a gangway and noticing that the carriage is packed with sitting passengers on either side. I sit with a few characters, hoping to get some information out of them, but I end up losing focus and fall asleep.

DREAM STATE

I'm on a train, sitting with strangers but I know them because I'm in a plot involving spies. I have come to warn a group of travelling Native Americans that they are all being spied on. 'Look around you!' I tell them in my paranoia. I spot a suspicious man staring at us from under his hat from another seat. He realises I have got him sussed and seems to be reaching for a weapon. I wake up.

WAKING STATE

I get up and record my sleep experiences, feeling less hungover and surprised at the unexpected phase experience which had more mnemonic impact than the vague, spy dream before awakening. I will be using the peering technique more in the future as it seems to work.

[KennyCool91]

This is the kind of detailed experience I'm hoping to have in the phase. You mean you only use palpation for deepening not peering?

[Summerlander]

I've only ever used peering briefly at the start of hypnagogic imagery and only a handful of times in just over a decade of practice. Once environments gain some realism, I tend to employ tactility—like rubbing hands—because it just seems so in my face with solidifying the phantom world of the phase, if you catch my drift. But I think I might test peering further. Maybe a combination of both techniques for faster results towards realistic sharpness. My theory is that the simultaneous reinforcement of vision and tactility will expedite the deepening process. And maintaining for that matter.

[Summerlander]

Date: 24/06/2021
Bedtime: 1am
Awakening: 7.15am
Return to bed: 9.30am
Method of entry: direct
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 1pm
Duration: 2mins 53secs

WAKING STATE

After a school run and having watched a podcast on YouTube, I return to bed with the intention to directly enter the phase. I relax laying on my back, which is not a sleeping position for me, and observe my thoughts come and go in a meditative exercise. My mind gets lost in thought several times but instances of hypnagogia restore my wakeful focus and simultaneously cancel the visual illusions that manifest during the state. In my relaxed attempt, I aim to fall asleep, but it doesn't take long before a pulsatile hiss amplifies in my head and I take the opportunity to separate from my perceived body position by getting up.

PHASE STATE

The loud sizzling in my head indicates that I'm in the phase state, but I have doubts upon getting up and opening my eyes because the bedroom looks 100% realistic. I see my mobile phone resting on my bedside cabinet and it appears to be made of rubber. 'Did it melt under a sunbeam?' I ask myself. I pick up the object and squeeze it; it feels malleable—like a phone made of tar—and my fingers go right through it. Despite entertaining the possibility that I simply got up in the real world and that my phone might have melted under natural circumstances, I decide to perform a reality check, just in case, by pushing my index finger against my palm. To my surprise, the digit impossibly passes through my phantom hand, confirming the surroundings to be a very elaborate illusion.

I push open the balcony door and jump on top of the balustrade in order to jump. There is a moment's hesitation—because in waking life the fall would kill me!—but I remind myself about the nature of what is perceived. Moon-like gravity helps me to land softly in the middle of the road (an impossible feat that would probably shatter my ribcage against the wooden fence in the real world). The sky is overcast and the neighbourhood is pretty much identical to what actually exists. During a gradual take-off to fly towards Crane Park, I notice a heavyset woman, donning a large hat, gawking at me in apparent disbelief. I continue upwards, going over the tallest trees I've ever seen which are part of a vast forest that looks nothing like the actual Crane Park. After a jolly, untrammelled flight, I eventually land in an interesting market square teeming with characters. I feel a bit lost and fall asleep.

DREAM STATE

I'm in a taxi cab with my family, following a road up a hill. There is some kind of commotion taking place outside as the driver travels carefully. There is armed police and military on the streets and people run around in a state of panic. I hear shots fired and we duck slightly inside the moving vehicle. I get my wife's attention to what I witness ahead of us: an armed squad fired their rifles and subsequently break into a house. We move past it and I wish for the cab driver to speed up so that we can all feel safe again.

PHASE STATE

I wake up with my wife asking me if I'm okay because apparently I'd been weirdly talking in my sleep. I get out of bed as she speaks and decide to test reality by pushing a finger through a palm again just in case I'm in a false awakening; as my index anomalously goes through my hand, the truth of the phase is clear. I waste no time in going through a wall behind which I expected to find my youngest son's bedroom, but I find a strange elongated room with bunk beds redolent of what I used to sleep in as a teenager. Near the bedroom door, I see my daughter sitting in front of her mirrored make-up desk. 'Hi, dad!' As I ignore the filial doppelgänger, I remember Project Elijah's task of attempting to recall my last dinner. 'Salmon, potatoes and salad!' I say aloud, believing the recollection to be accurate.

I pass through the yellow door of the strange room and emerge in a posh foyer. As I head towards a mahogany door, believing it to be the exit, a tall man in a dark overcoat tries to stop me. The top of his head is bald and he sports bushy sideburns; his countenance resembles that of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's. 'Son, where are you going?' I'm not in the mood to socialise with this character and I fear that a mindless plot could develop, potentially sidetracking me from the goal of flying. I push the front door open—causing it to swing outwards—and exit the building, but the man continues to pester me as he follows right behind. 'Son, come back!' I turn around and wave my index finger to make him levitate a few feet off the ground; he looks petrified so I magically put him down and grab his collar before growling, 'I'm not your son!' I leave him visibly shaken on stony steps in front of the strange house I had just exited. I feel powerful.

I glide through roads and an alley with a couple of beggars before encountering the familiar market square where I'd lost focus earlier. I run through another alley whilst rubbing hands together to maintain the phase. At the other end I find a gorgeous parkland with a few people milling about under a clear blue sky. I run and propel myself into the air, gaining some distance from the ground, but soon a loss of control causes flying to become curvilinear, and a nearby white building warps with my impending approach—making me feel like my presence refracts the light from objects in close proximity. Just when I think I might crash with my legs higher than my head, I begin to somersault in mid-air, which is accompanied by the realistic sensation of witnessing sky and ground trading places consecutively. Eventually, I land on my feet, over green grass, and notice a grinning Halle Berry lookalike staring at me. 'What's your name?' I ask. 'Power!' Came the reply. I glide towards her and we engage in an amatory embrace before I wake up.

WAKING STATE

I make notes about the experience and realise that my last dinner recollection in the phase state had been accurate. I also feel happy that a deliberate attempt at the direct method had been successful.

[Summerlander]

Date: 08/07/2021
Bedtime: 3am
Awakening: 7.15am
Return to bed: 9am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: non-Rubik's cubes
Duration: 1 minute

DREAM STATE

I'm driving a car with my wife as a passenger. I lose control of the vehicle and bump into a parked red convertible, making it move forwards a considerable distance. I worry about dents and witnesses, including the potential appearance of an angry owner. I think about moving the convertible to its original position but I find myself driving and losing control of the vehicle again. Another accident almost ensues but I brake just in time and notice that I may have to reverse in order to avoid damaging a van that I'm nearly making contact with.

I'm looking out the window of my bedroom which overlooks a back garden like the one at my old address. The sky is overcast, it's raining and an intruder climbs over the fence to land on our muddy ground. He has a moustache, long dark hair and his body is wrapped in black bin bags. I'm getting ready to call the police but he jumps over the next fence on to the next garden. Suddenly, I'm outside, in the garden, and looking back at my house, which is all blue and looking nothing like what exists in reality. 'What am I doing out here? Am I dreaming?'

PHASE STATE

I jump up in the air to see if I can levitate. To my surprise, I remain suspended in mid-air. 'I am dreaming!' (Realism: 100%) I continue to rise away from the ground, watching the blue house diminish in size as I gain distance. 'Woah!' I exclaim with excitement as I rise like a helium balloon to an altitude of hundreds of feet before remembering Project Elijah's experiment. 'The Rubik's cube!' I immediately descend towards the blue house and pass through a side wall (avoiding the roof) and subsequently find myself lying in bed with no sight. I get up immediately and open my eyes in a dark version of my bedroom. The phase is shallow (Realism: 10%) as I can barely see anything. Tactility is stronger than vision for sure and I rely on the old hand-rubbing technique to deepen my surroundings. I make out shimmering outlines defining hands that look washed out. I notice a curtain to my side and pull it in order to allow sunlight to flood the room. Everything becomes much clearer with bright colours. (Realism: 105%)

I see the wooden bedside cabinet in front of me and immediately open its drawer to find a concoction of strange objects inside, including a cube with only one face resembling an unsolved Rubik's cube. This particular side of the object displays green, yellow and orange squares; the other faces display cartoons similar to Tweety from Looney Tunes. When I try to pick up the cube, it almost comes undone as it appears to be a manifold of interconnected plastic squares malleable to the touch. With my palms, I manage to reassemble the object into a coherent cube and put it back in the drawer before closing it. I reopen the drawer expecting to find a solved Rubik's cube but encounter something else: this time there are two sturdy cubes (slightly bigger than the first one) made of hard plastic with white straw-like edges. Their transparent faces enable me to see the 3D objects that reside inside them. One of them contains little toy dragons and the other holds a mixture of shelled creatures resembling the 'spinies' from the Super Mario game and cute caterpillars that at first I take to be toy worms. I take a few seconds to examine the objects before remaining still in order to wake up and remember the encountered objects in as much detail as possible.

WAKING STATE

I record the experience and realise that no solved Rubik's cubes were found. In fact, the objects I encountered couldn't even be described as Rubik's cubes—just cubes of a flamboyant kind. Some of the 'spinies' reminded me of turtles and I wonder if some forms were influenced by what I read before bedtime. I read about Zeno of Citium and Stoicism which might have triggered thoughts about Zeno of Elea and his paradox involving Achilles and the tortoise. This is only speculation, of course.

[Summerlander]

Date: 15/09/2021
Bedtime: 2.45am
Awakening: 7.15am
Return to bed: 9.15am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Awakening: 11.30am
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: The Relative Experiment
Duration: 55 seconds

WAKING STATE

I return home from a school run with a strong intention to enter the phase state and carry out the experiment set by Project Elijah. I feel too awake when I lie down on my back so I decide to relax and meditate.

PHASE STATE

I am resting on my side with my eyes shut and hear a male 'radio' voice in my head. It's reassuring me that together we can overcome any problems and ended with, 'Don't worry, I'm always here if you need me ... I've got your back.' I feel like I have discovered a strong ally from my subconscious and take the voice seriously enough as a possible helper that I might wish to summon in the future. As I remain still, pondering about the nature of my own mind, I fall asleep.

DREAM STATE

Me and my wife are in the back of a red convertible, speeding down a motorway under sunny weather and facing the rear end of the vehicle as we watch a long stretch of road from our backseats. Our chauffeur, who seems to be a good driver, is unknown. Suddenly, I notice a naked man holding on to the side of the car. I leap in his direction and, fearing he might be trying to hijack our ride, attempt to kick him off it. The nude character proves to be quite agile and swiftly jumps to the bonnet and holds on for dear life. I begin to cautiously approach the miscreant in the hope that I might be able to strike him but this one moves to the driver's side. He holds on to the side mirror and struggles with the driver; wasting no time, I come to the rescue, managing to push him off the vehicle as it grinds to a halt with sirens growing louder.

The police is right behind us and the naked outlaw makes a dash for a barn on the side of the road in order to hide. 'There he is!' I yell at the cops as I give chase so as to not lose sight of the fugitive. I enter the barn and glimpse him escaping through a gap in the next splintered wall. Rushing to the gap, I break loose planks of wood in order to widen it and become astonished at the rustic vista beyond as I practically stand on the edge of a gully. 'Where did he go?' I look down and see a river shimmering in the sunlight. 'Am I dreaming?'

PHASE STATE

I plunge into the river from a great height without any regard for safety as I know I'm dreaming. The water feels just right. When I resurface and begin to swim along the steep riverbank, I notice that the scenery has turned into a vibrant, picturesque village. The riverbank is now a row of buildings and I leap out of the water to grip the plastic sill of a third-floor window, climbing upwards and turning my head to behold the rest of my surroundings and knowing that I am supposed to do something for Project Elijah. That's it! This is my opportunity to encounter my deceased mother-in-law Sandra and communicate with her for 'The Relative Experiment'. I glide away from the windowsill as I make out a building that stands out from the rest: it's an impressive black silo, clearly cylindrical and wide enough to remind me of a giant bin, but majestically adorned with gold-plated lines and a cross. The entrance is guarded by the figure of a black man wearing a cassock and I immediately take the structure to be a church.

'That's where I'll find Sandra! She's inside the church!' I go over the priest's head and fly all the way to the top of the silo, revealing it to be open and offering me direct access to its interior. I gradually descend to find myself landing between rows of pews and an altar, next to which is an open coffin. I hear the unmistakable coughing of my mother-in-law and witness her figure sit up from the ebony casket. Despite her strikingly realistic form, I am not scared even if a part of me emotionally entertains the possibility that I might be in the presence of Sandra's spirit. In fact, I want it to be her, but I also want to know exactly what I'm dealing with here. She looks and sounds so real! Her trim silver hair, her facial features and her familiar voice are on the money! She is well groomed, sporting a silky blue shirt and her frame is strong and healthy—contrasting her gaunt appearance in her final days. She seems distressed as she coughs and appears to be clearing her throat. When she is done, she looks up and bursts into tears before we have an emotional cuddle and sit next to each other by the altar to engage in the following conversation containing the questions I had planned beforehand ...

Sandra: 'What took you so long?'
Me: 'I'm here! How can I make Stacey happier?'
Sandra: 'Look after my girl!'
Me: 'I will, no worries. So ... What is your afterlife like?'
Sandra: (Cheerfully) 'Oooh, I've been to the moon! I've been to marvelous places! I can go anywhere! I've got mushrooms ...'
Me: (excitedly thinking of magic mushrooms and that Sandra might show me what she experienced via psychedelics) 'What? Let's take them!'
Sandra: 'Come, come!'

She gets up and takes my hand, leading me towards a doorway revealing another room with a few people gathering around a banquet characterised by a lot of fruit. Before I can enter the room with Sandra, I wake up unexpectedly.

WAKING STATE

I dash off key observations about my lucid dream and reflect on the experience. It is not the first time I meet Sandra, or deceased loved ones for that matter, in the phase state, but it is always an intense and emotional experience. Seeing and talking to them fills me with joy and I always act as though it is really them. Deep down, I want such figures to really be them and not mere products of my mind.

In hindsight, Sandra answered my first question regarding my wife as I imagine she would. Undoubtedly, my mother-in-law would want me to look after her daughter in her absence from the realm of the living. To the second question, Sandra replied in a manner giving a strong impression that I was really engaged in a dialogue with myself. I didn't realise it at the time, but, retrospectively, the fact that my mother-in-law said she had been to the moon coincides with my original plan to meet her, which was, 'Fly to the moon and find Sandra there.' And affirming her ability to go to marvelous places and anywhere she wants parallels my attitude to lucid dreaming and its possibilities.

The very first thing Sandra said to me in this experience, which was ask what took me so long to meet her, can tellingly reflect my internal dialogue after finally manifesting the conditions in which to execute this experiment. The mention of 'mushrooms'—which I instantly took to be the fungal growths containing psilocybin—in the reply to the afterlife question also seems out of character for the real Sandra and more pertinent to my own experience with psychedelics in my twenties. I often imagine deathbed visions to be akin to psychedelic trips brought about by the release of endorphins!

Nevertheless, there is a desire to believe that such experiences are encounters with the spirits of loved ones who passed away. Deep down, with all the emotions that this experience brought forth, I reluctantly refuse to dismiss, altogether, a scenario where I have communed with the real Sandra—who had access to personal memories of experimenting with magic mushrooms and used it to convey to me what her afterlife has been like—however improbable it is.

[Summerlander]

Date: 20/11/2021
Bedtime: 1.30am
Awakening: 8.45am
Return to bed: 9am
Method of entry: deferred direct
Awakening: 10.30am
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: The Mona Lisa Experiment
Duration: 50 seconds

WAKING STATE

I wake up to feed my mum's Yorkshire terriers and leave them to play in the back garden before returning to bed to try the direct method of entering the phase state. Because I feel tired, it is easy to relax on my back—which is not my usual position to fall asleep in but ideal for reaching hypnagogia under the circumstances. Before long, a series of fleeting images manifests until a perceived lapse of consciousness.

PHASE STATE

I become aware of standing in a living-room replica, realistically surrounded by Christmas decorations, and remember to look for the Mona Lisa portrait for Project Elijah. I go through the back door like a ghost in order to access the garden where I believe Mona Lisa is to be found. What I find, instead, is what appears to be a basketball court with some characters milling about and no Leonardo da Vinci painting in sight; however, the surroundings brick walls display colourful graffiti. I focus on a particular wall replete with complex art and fail to detect anything that resembles a portrait—and even after looking away and back at the surface to summon the Renaissance picture, hardly anything changes. I carefully move along the wall in order to examine it carefully and come to a central square about the size of an A2 canvas containing geometric shapes; as I tilt my head, I begin to make pictorial sense of it—the image depicts a vehicle headed downhill and appears to be partially cropped by a shrugging cartoon character that can be best described as a clueless bald man pouting.

I return to the house expecting Mona Lisa to be present in the living room but I encounter an altered interior dominated by more graffiti. I ascend from the floor and pass through the white ceiling with plans to access an imagined upper level containing da Vinci's masterpiece but find myself floating in darkness instead. Due to a cold, I begin to hear my laboured breathing and snoring in my sleep, which immediately strikes me as paradoxical because I am awake and hovering in a dark, phantom space. I'm losing depth of perception so I start rubbing my hands and notice the sound it produces getting louder. I also slowly spin in the void in order to create a vestibular sense and preclude sensations of lying in bed. A vertical column of white light emerges a few feet away and appears to moderately define a sombre bedroom environment in which I perceive myself to be facing partially drawn curtains.

An edgy man in black resembling the actor Dennis Haysbert (who plays the troubled President David Palmer in the TV series 24) is restlessly pacing up and down next to the bed and mumbling incoherently. My judgement is askew here: even though I take the man in black to be a hallucination, I believe I can get a head start in recording my sleep experiences by rushing to my bedside cabinet to get a pen and a piece of paper. As I sit on the bed, and before I can open the drawer, the neurotic man in black approaches and sighs exasperatedly. Surmising this figure to be a frustrated aspect of myself, I hold his hand and invite him to take a seat and relax. 'I can help you!' I say as I take both of his hands. The man squats down in front of me and sardonically replies, 'Really?!' I get the impression that he has no faith in me when he gives me a wry smile. Suddenly, he grips my hands and his countenance takes a devious turn; dreadful, malevolent eyes leer at me—his physiognomy now similar to Tony Todd's when he played the demonic Candyman back in the '90s.

As I try to break free from the grapple, he cocks his head to the side to reveal an extra almond eye on his cheekbone. I assess the situation in Jungian terms and regard the aggressor as possibly representing a shadowy aspect of myself which I have perhaps been denying on some unconscious level and now an opportunity presents itself to potentially address my dark side, as it were. This view, however, doesn't allay my fear in the slightest and wrestling with this figure is proving too much to handle. 'You need to be gone!' I shout as I shake the shadowy monster off me, making it magically vanish in an engulfing dark background. Now I feel a presence behind me and an arm wraps itself around my torso. I want to believe that I'm perceiving my wife cuddling me in the real world as I am still shaken by the unpleasant encounter with the man in black. I briefly wake up and my sleeping wife has her arm around me as suspected and wished for. I can hear the dogs barking in the back garden, making me a little annoyed with the noise they are making in the neighborhood. I'm tired and fall asleep.

DREAM STATE

I am at a crowded Canning Town train station in East London. As I walk around, the surroundings morph into a Tate Modern gallery displaying exquisite metal sculptures and Bauhaus images in mostly black, white and blue (a lot less colourful than the graffiti art I'd seen earlier). There is a frustration in me as I'm not quite sure what I am looking for but I know it is not what I see. I exit what appears to now be Twickenham Stadium and my wife and children—who are a lot younger and smaller than they ought to be—happen to be with me. Suddenly, a heavyset Asian man appears to have been kicked out of the stadium and does not look happy. In his irascible state, he cursed at a group of men in high vis vests and I move the kids to safety. A rottweiler, chained to a bollard, constantly barks and snaps at the enraged man who threatens to punch the animal. A couple of bystanders restrain him before he has a chance to hurt the dog but subsequently let him go when he appears to calm down. A crowd carefully observes him and he begins to feel like a potential terrorist. He picks a fight with the group of workers and the police turns up. I wake up to the sound of barking.

WAKING STATE

I reflect on my experiences and jot them down, noting that I could not find Mona Lisa in the phase state. In hindsight, the subsequent dream state reveals cues—such as absurd environmental changes and my kids being the wrong age—which I failed to recognise in order to promote consciousness of the true nature of its events. I do suspect the terrorist in the dream reflected my anger at the barking in the real world, which needs to be recognised and kept in check. Time to see to the dogs.

[Summerlander]

Date: 14/12/2021
Bedtime: 8pm
Awakening: 12.10am
Return to bed: 3.15am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Awakening: 7.05am
Attempt: successful
Phase experience: The Pinch Experiment
Duration: 45 seconds

DREAM STATE

I'm enjoying dancing with strangers at a party in a strange house. Adjacent to the dance floor, there is a kitchen where something is cooking and a staircase. Me and my wife explore upstairs and are delighted to meet a prominent figure in the world of political activism. 'It's John Foucault!' I say to my wife, not realising that in waking life the name is Michel Foucault, who died decades ago and was not a slender black man constantly surrounded by acolytes. Suddenly, a rabble of angry Foucault opponents break into the property and the flight of stairs between us and the incoming threat is barricaded. Just as I think there is no way out, we are ushered to an open window and manage to escape danger. I am now walking by myself through Crane Park and find this continuity incongruous with the events that preceded it. The trees and herbage enfold the footpath in a peculiar way and the stream characteristic of Crane Park is nowhere to be found. I recognise that I am dreaming.

PHASE STATE

The environment is not necessarily more colourful upon my lucid realisation, but the landscape is certainly highly defined under a bright blue sky and the ground increases in realism when I scoop up rocks and sand with my hands. (Realism: 100%) Almost immediately, I recall the pinch experiment and look for my wife who had been with me prior to my lucidity. Gliding through the dirt track towards where the party house from the precedent dream might be found, I bring tactility and sound to life by churning up the soil with my hands. It feels like I'm on an invisible skateboard, playfully scarring the dirt track as I go, until I realise there are no houses ahead, so I decide to slow down and check behind a bush for my wife. 'Stacey?' She remains absent and all I see is twigs and leaves. Back on the dirt track, gliding through it at appreciable speed in the opposite direction and causing stones to collide and spark as a result, I see a perpendicular road ahead and take a right at the end of the park.

I access the nearest house, expecting to find wife there. Approaching the cottage-like structure, I see that its front door is already wide open and run into it; inside, I find myself in a waking-life bathroom replica, where Stacey's doppelgänger is perched on the sink. 'Alright, babe?' she says. 'Let me see your shoulder!' I reply, wasting no time as I roll up her short sleeve. I pinch my pseudo-wife as hard as I can on the right shoulder and, even though she remains indifferent, I worry that somehow I might be hurting my wife in the real world. 'It's okay,' the doppelgänger says, 'It doesn't hurt.' I make sure the pinch is strong enough that it would surely bruise someone if it were performed in waking life, simultaneously hoping that I won't find a bruised wife upon awakening. My curiosity about what is happening in the real world probably causes me to foul. I wake up.

WAKING STATE

I record the experience and check my wife's shoulder, explaining to her what the Project Elijah task entailed. She reveals that she is not bruised, confirming that actions in the phase state cannot have a direct effect on the external world. I suddenly remember, however, that Stacey has a booked appointment for a Covid-19 booster later. When I ask her which arm she prefers to have the vaccine injected in, she coincidentally says the right one.

[Summerlander]

Date: 22/01/2022
Bedtime: 3.30am
Awakening: 8am
Return to bed: 8.05am
Method of entry: deferred direct
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 9am
Phase experience: The Pill Experiment
Duration: 35 seconds

DREAM STATE

Me and my wife have moved to Albania and we walk down an alley with rows of doors and windows. There is barely any space between them and we comment on cramped residents must feel living there. We reach our new home, which feels like it is at the end of a dark tunnel next to a dead end. Our landlord is an apron-wearing Albanian woman in her 30s with a strong accent and she takes us upstairs to show us around. When she turns we get an eye full of nakedness—her back and buttocks are exposed. I wake up.

WAKING STATE

I get up to use the loo and return to bed after a few minutes in order to enter the phase and execute Project Elijah's experiment.

PHASE STATE

After a period of relaxation and imagining impossible movements whilst lying down, my legs soon bend and sink into the bed, which is conspicuously impossible. I aggressively get up and look around. It's dark and I can barely make out the bed. (Realism: 25%) I start touching the mattress and the bedframe and shout, 'Clarity! Clarity!' expecting vision to improve, which at this point can be described as a bright background obscured by dark patches.

I start spinning in a bid to get rid of them and when I stop, I find myself standing at the bottom of a strange staircase in an unfamiliar environment. (Realism: 95%) The dominant green walls remind me of The Matrix: Resurrections which I saw with my son at the cinema on his birthday. I rush up the stairs, going up in a spiral, listening to my footsteps and describing the surroundings and my actions out loud, noticing that my voice is muffled.

I reach an open window and climb on the ledge in order to jump and fly away to a vast blue sky but then I recall Project Elijah's task; I look down and realise I'm wearing grey pyjamas with pockets so I reach inside one of them and feel two pills. I grip one and it appears to be elongated, which I subsequently discard because it differs greatly from the NZT pill in the film Limitless. I grip the other one and pull it out of my pocket without seeing what it looks like but it's round to the touch so that's good enough for me.

When I swallow the pill—expecting to experience superconsciousness—I briefly acquire the secondary perspective of observing myself from a few feet away squatting on the window ledge with my head tilted back and gulping; subsequently, I'm back in my squatting body staring at a blue sky being consumed by a multicoloured cloud of pixels that ends up taking over my field of vision. The effect is over in a few seconds before everything fades and I foul.

No superconsciousness was experienced and what had followed the act of swallowing the pill had been purely visual.

[Summerlander]

Date: 18/02/2022
Bedtime: 3am
Awakening: 10.40am
Return to bed: 10.50am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 12pm
Phase experience: The Amputation Experiment

DREAM STATE

I'm roaming over a beach with a group of lucid dreaming enthusiasts and cross over to an adjacent train station platform, making for a weird landscape juxtaposition where the sea abruptly ends and a railway begins. Both contrasting sceneries are deemed to be 'lucid dreaming workshops' to be used for practice. The platform is sealed by ultramarine blinds on both ends which are lifted by porters whenever someone wants to enter or leave the premises. A couple of trains zoom past the station and beyond the sealed platform I am suddenly in a wheelchair, moving through a park with children running around and alongside a row of houses with dark alleys. A particular alley has a deep but narrow gap in the ground—a potential deathtrap reminding of the series '911' because of the danger scenarios depicted on the show.

WAKING STATE

I use record the dreaming experience and use the loo. I return to bed just before eleven o'clock in the morning and attempt to enter the phase directly but end up falling asleep next to my sleeping wife.

DREAM STATE

I'm dining at a restaurant with my mother and she steps outside to smoke a cigarette (she doesn't smoke in real life). Eventually I say goodbye to her as I spot my eldest son and wife looking for me a few tables away and they exit the restaurant prematurely so I rush after them so we can all go home together. Now I'm an observer (rather than a participant) and a short man is facing me like I'm a camera and talking about how most people get freaked out by oversized hands. He attempts to shake hands with random members of the public like he is the star of a prank show. Most people avoid the little man's disproportionately big hands but an old man grips his wrist and points out that his fingers have skin-coloured extensions attached to them, revealing the hands to be a lot smaller.

As a participant, I'm trying to avoid an acquaintance who keeps following me in a strange town. I go through an alley and squeeze into an aperture of a building in need of repairs in order to lose the individual on my trail. I keep running straight until I exit the building from the other side and now I'm flying, finding myself gliding through a beautiful garden. 'I'm dreaming!'

PHASE STATE

I glide through a garden path with brightly coloured, conifer leaves on either side, displaying unusually vivid orange and yellow hues. As I move through the garden I hit the narrow foliage with my hands and hear the realistic sound of clashing. There is no green in sight but I feel like I'm in the most beautiful autumn scenario as the warm colours of the plants and trees around me are exquisitely vibrant. The garden, under a clear blue sky, feels like a labyrinth. As I try to contain my excitement and think of a plan of action on the spot without hesitation, I remember Project Elijah's task. I see a gap in warm-coloured shrubbery with crimson tinges and go through it (hoping to find a blade), coming upon a vast playground with slides, swings, see-saws, spring riders and jungle gyms. A few feet away rests a wooden merry-go-round with a few tools on it.

The first tool I pick up is a pair of pliers which is discarded in favour of what resembles a small tenon saw with a bizarre blade that appears to be sharp enough for the job. With this strange tool I sever my right index finger with in one fell swoop. There is no pain, no feeling of any kind, and no blood. I look at my hand and see a stub of a finger with an edge that seems to have healed instantly; I can also move all my digits including the stub. Then, I look at the surface of the merry-go-round to see the rest of my index twitching slightly until it stops dead. I try to remotely move it on the wooden surface but I can't even feel it let alone control it. The severed half of my finger that is now completely separate from me won't even move telekinetically. It is nothing but a dead piece of meat that no longer belongs to me.

As I move away from the merry-go-round to explore the environment, I feel a jolt and foul as my sleeping wife bumps into me.
Duration: 25 seconds

WAKING STATE

I jot down my dream recall and reflect on my fabulously unreal experience at the oneiric playground. I had absolutely no idea what would happen before the test and no expectations as far as I can tell. Next time I plan to enter the phase state I must return to a separate bed so as to not be disturbed and that way I will have time to execute other steps in my plan of action.

[Summerlander]

Date: 17/03/2022
Bedtime: 2.30am
Awakening: 7.40am
Return to bed: 8am
Method of entry: dream consciousness
Attempt: successful
Awakening: 10am
Phase experience: The Body Check Experiment

DREAM STATE

At a shopping centre, me and a number of people are trying to evade and hide from a pride of lions. I experience intense fear as the big cats seem to be all over the place and almost impossible to avoid. We start climbing decorated walls in order to reach large shelves as the environment starts to resemble a museum interior. It's only a matter of time before someone dies in front of me. We reach a high shelf but a poor woman on its edge is pulled and devoured by a giant feline beast. I am terrified as I find this situation to be an absolute nightmare.

WAKING STATE

I record the nightmare and make sure the kids get ready for school before using the loo. I return to bed and put my sleep mask on with the intension to enter the phase directly. I experience some fleeting hypnagogic imagery but eventually have to move from a supine to a side position and uncover myself as my body temperature rises to an uncomfortable level. I fall asleep.

DREAM STATE

I'm part of the Mafia and my gangster pals are with me at a hideout. We are listening to our butler who is trying to give us good advice about evading our enemies and doesn't seem to stop talking. He is a grey gentleman with a very English accent. Somehow, the old man ends up getting shot by an enemy so we carry him and flee the hideout before getting in a mini and driving off. Covered in blood and not looking good, the butler is dying in the backseat of the car. We need to get away and bury the body somewhere.

PHASE STATE

Scene shift: I'm lying in bed experiencing hissing in my head with accompanying hypnagogic imagery that seems to last a couple of minutes before I lose consciousness.

DREAM STATE

I'm in the backseat of a speeding car with my wife. The situation is a hot pursuit where the gangsters are driving away from their rivals. I tell them to be careful as they nearly crash into a truck and reassure Stacey that everything will be alright. It dawns on me that the situation is extremely unusual and I ask, 'Am I dreaming?'

PHASE STATE

My wife is still panicking next to me about the precarious driving and I grab her by the hand and tell her that she should no longer worry because it is all a dream. (Realism: 90%) I open the car door and I'm ready to jump out but I'm suddenly back in bed with a pulsating hiss in my head. The experience is fully tactile. (Realism: 15%) Suddenly, my legs begin to float and fall on what feels like my sleeping wife lying next to me. My body rests on the bed only from the waist up and I find this odd. I decide the experience cannot be real and I push against the phantom bed, causing me to start hovering over it. A dimly lit bedroom environment comes into view. (Realism: 65%) As I float 5ft above the bed, I can see my sleeping wife on her side and next to her the hint of a second body completely covered and lying dormant. I'm having an out-of-body experience.

I remember Project Elijah's task and begin palpating my body all over and counting fifteen seconds in my head. This causes the environment to become sharper immediately. (Realism: 95%) As I rub my arms, I land next to the bed with my bare feet on a highly defined carpeted floor. With one hand I part the curtains to bring more light into the room while the other hand rubs my neck and head. (Realism: 100%) The bedroom door is open and I'm about to exit into the hallway but my sleeping wife kicks me in the real world and I wake up.

WAKING STATE

I realise I can't re-enter the phase state because time is getting on and I must get up for other commitments. I'm a bit annoyed with myself because I had said that the next time I tried to enter the phase after waking in the morning, I would return to a different bed to prevent being disturbed during a phase experience. As a result of neglecting that preparation, I didn't get to fulfill what would have been the next step after the task: to time-travel to the future (subconscious futuristic concept for artistic purposes).