9 - Dream

 4/29/2022

Where to start... I don't recall anymore exactly where the dream started. I remember seeing myself as Liliwai, in Labyrinthos (FFXIV), inside the forum's hangar for the spaceship that takes you to Ultima Thule. Where the ship usually was it was filled with a round area with a bunch of forum members (NPCs) behind a large, curved desk, handing out tasks. There were a bunch of other players/people around and I was trying to set up my hotbars for my alchemist so that I could accomplish the next few days easier. It felt like I was preparing to do a new set of crafting quests recently released. My vision kept flipping sort of between what Lili would actually be seeing and what looked like the UI for the game itself, because sometimes I would see, and be thinking about, the hotbars and gear, and sometimes it would feel more like I was -in- Lili's head, seeing the world as he would have been seeing it.

The scene flipped about several times. A moment flying through Elpis on the back of the little red dog Fenrir miniature mount I used on him for the longest time. I saw that as if from the outside, watching a movie. Then I got the sensation of having turned the quests in and resituating my hotbar set up a little more to make the next day's set of quests take less time.

The dream was pretty benign up to that point. While playing with the hotbars I recognized, consciously, that I was dreaming but I didn't seem to take any control over it. I had just continued to watch to see what would happen and, at some point, had fallen back into 'believing' what was going on.

I must have come back out of it, because the next part was deliberately me. Or at least it felt more like I was in control of what I was doing, consciously choosing what to do and where to go.

I was still in Laby, in the hangar area, but now I was lying on the ground with my head very close to a brick corner of the wall. I noticed how cool the bricks felt just from the proximity of them. My cheek was against the floor and I could feel the hardness of it, though all of the sensations were sort of through a gauze rather than being 'waking world' level of feeling. 

I remember thinking - because i could still hear the milling about of people - that someone might come up and try to kick the back of Lili's head into the wall. Usually that sort of thought would shift my awareness from first to third person, but it didn't this time and I felt I should probably move if I didn't want to tempt that happening.

I vaguely remember getting up. Next 'real' memory is of walking down a quieter side hall in that big, round room. Away from the crowd of people and into an area that felt almost like it was off limits, or would have been, if a Forum member had found me. In a way it felt sort of like walking beyond where the game walls would usually let you go, though I never felt like I had to push past anything.

I was taller now, more like my waking body height/self. I came to a door and it looked like there was a bit of a map. Symbols were on it instead of words, and it looked like if I went through the door I was facing, my hands on the push-bar handle to open it, I would have to go down a long hall to what looked like a bunch of crafting stations being depicted. There were pictures showing a soft of 45 degree angel (rather than top down picture) of a distilling set (alchemy), a loom and spinning wheel along with mannequins (weaving), and more indistinct images that I, at the time, recognized as the rest of the different crafting paraphernalia. 

I remember thinking it a little odd, since crafting stations weren't used in the game. They're used in EQ2, though. I remember thinking that and feeling like things had taken a little bit of an eerie turn. I tried to set the emotion aside, more curious about what was happening than anything.

I went through the door and started down the hallway. On my left hand side, about a third of the way down the long hall - I was a decent distance from the door I'd come through (it had shut behind me), maybe 4 or 5 yards from that door - there was an open door with light coming out of it that was brighter than the light in the hallway I was walking in.

I remember starting to feel a little tired and then I was lying down on a bench in the hallway against the opposite wall from the door with the lights on inside. It felt like I was covered with blankets - like the blankets from my waking world bed - and that I had no top on with my upper body exposed to down beneath my breasts. Not really uncomfortable or cold, just felt a little odd.

I turned my head to gaze through the doorway across from where I was lying and saw there was a bed in there. It looked sort of like a hospital bed in a way. No foot or headboard. The foot of bed was facing me and there was someone lying on it. At first it was mostly an indistinct shape - a body covered by blankets sort of like I was. 

nothing about any of this felt creepy, or weird, or scary at first. Then the head of the person started lifting as if trying to see who was outside their door. I recognized matt's head, when he sleeps with his sweatshirt and beanie on. I couldn't tell if he had his glasses on - I usually can't when he's wearing the beanie - but the black band of the beanie covered his eyes as usual, and the grey hood of the sweatshirt sat over the top of it all, just like I've seen in the waking world. It seemed like he was groggy, because he didn't move very fast, and I couldn't tell if he could see me or not from under the beanie.

I remember starting to feel a little creeped out now, and then I woke up,. It felt weird, waking up, because for a moment I couldn't tell where I was or what was 'real'. It lasted only a moment, like a flash of a second, before the waking world made sense again and I realized I'd had a bit of a lucid dream. 

I sit here now wondering if it -was- a lucid dream and wondering if I can do it again. It's been a while since I've remembered a dream at all, and this one happened as I was practicing trying to astral project.

As it stands I don't care a whole lot, yet, whether I accomplish leaving my body or lucid dreaming. Either way, right now, I merely want to explore my consciousness and see what more I can learn. My current goal is simply to learn myself and the universe better, see what abilities I can unlock within myself - healing, at the very least, would be nice, and is a current goal. Ultimately, I think it'd be fantastic to become Dr. Strange. Not the character himself, but to possess those sorts of abilities. Fantastical and silly, some might say, but I get the deep sense that magic is -very- real, and I want it back.