Dream Journal
August 22, 1998
I came to in the living room of THIS apartment. I had been downstairs taking pictures and writing notes on the nature of time and the mind. I was reading something in my mind — some kind of instructions. The meaning seemed to come through faster than the words could convey and thus the words seemed to shift as I read them. Later I tested my dream state by looking for something to read. I opened a book and it was all blurry and I hastily concluded that this proved my dreaming state.
I looked out through the set of three windows. The clouds were really interesting (though the sky’s clear in the waking world). I wanted to go outside, but each window I opened revealed a screen covered with spiders and webs. Ugh! I couldn’t go through that. At times it seemed that the yard of Blaine House was down below. I knew I had just gone to sleep and was OB or dreaming. I remembered something I had recently read in a book, and thought “So I shouldn’t be able to leave this room without shifting bodies.” I willed myself to the room’s entranceway. My body took a few steps and tipped to the right onto the sofa. There was a weird in/out sensation and then I got up again and walked through the entranceway into the kitchen.
I went downstairs to the pool table room of Blaine House, now all rearranged. Dan and Rox were there. Dan couldn’t see me but Rox could and was thrilled. We mind-talked but not too successfully. She could see me as a light haze. I told her to draw what she saw and I put a piece of paper by her because she wasn’t getting it. She went to the couch and I danced about. She had some of my pages of notes and photos from earlier and started reading them. I didn’t want her to and went to see what they said. There was some writing about time, then some doubt about being able to get lucid or OB. I felt myself upon reading it that I was losing a grip and fading out. I was disappointed that Rox didn’t finish her drawing.
So, back in bed, I wondered if I should wake up or go out. I knew getting out from here was easy and I tried a little but decided instead to wake and write it down.
This was a pretty low degree of lucidity with many hallucinations.
Reading in Dreams: Reading can be a good test of being in the dreaming state.
Lucidity and Projection: The spider webs may have been my interpretation of the screens on the windows, followed by the projection of the spiders. If you’re in the near realm, everything is locked into physical reality, but we add our own projections.
Doubt: Interesting that as I read about my doubt in being able to get lucid, I lost my lucidity. Suggestion is very powerful in the dreaming mind.
Exiting to Blaine House: The upstairs apartment we were living in was a somewhat new home for us. I’m semi-lucid, in the near realm version of our apartment. I can see the yard of Blaine House outside rather than the apartment’s yard. When I left the apartment, I felt an odd sensation (exiting the body) and exited down the stairs to the interior of Blaine House. This appears to be the body-as-house metaphor where I exit my body as I exit the house, and appear in Blaine House, my astral home base.
Doing Research: Here I’m walking around my apartment, out of body and partially dreaming, casually doing what comes naturally to me — writing down notes about my observations on time and the dream state. I’m testing things, doing research, trying to learn as much as possible.
Failure to Communicate: I tried to get her to draw me, and handed her a piece of paper, but she appears to think the paper was my notes and photos and began reading them. That’s what it then became, as I was able to read them.
Semi-Lucid OBE: I’m walking around semi-lucid in our apartment on 5th Street. The desk where I spend a lot of time is near the set of three windows — this is likely where my astral body moved to while I slept. I experiment to see if I’m in the dream state and determine that I am, though my context doesn’t extend to my full waking self, or I would have been a lot more excited.
Being that the exterior of Blaine House is outside, this room appears to be taking on the role of my Blaine House bedroom, a common representation of my physical body.
Here I remember reading that you need to move from the etheric to the astral body to leave your house, as the etheric body can only go a short distance from the body. I mistakenly apply this to the room I’m in, but this does lead to a dizzying “in/out sensation” at the entranceway. This sensation is familiar — it sometimes feels like simultaneously getting larger and smaller.
After this I walk through the kitchen to the stairs, and end up going down the stairs to the main floor of Blaine House. I’m still dreaming within my body.