Dream: "This is Dreamland!" LUCID

Dream 20021028, 4:30 AM:

This dream starts out with me and one companion. We are flying over this place that seems like a computer simulated landscape; it’s very cartoon-like, with trees and little shaped hills of varying shades of green. I know that it’s a dream landscape; I spend the entirety of the dream from this point forward in a low level of lucidity, with occasional higher peaks.

We begin exploring this area. It seems like the entire place is only landscape, and most of it seems sort of sketched in, as if it will be finished out later with more detail. Trees are just sort of blobs from above, and the hills are sort of regular and appear like they were manufactured on some sort of grid, like if you looked long enough you could catch them repeating.

We go down closer, and I think that if I get far enough down, I ought to be able to land, or at least explore the surface regions. It seems as if we split up and explore, because I remember calling to my companion and saying, “Hey, come check this out!” I find an area that seems like it’s down amongst trees, or almost like being in a kelp forest. Light filters down from above. Everything is only patterns of light and dark, though – it’s as if the area has been reduced to its highest and lowest lights, with no details. I see only patterns of light, no trees or anything. It is darkly colored, lots of greens and blacks and browns, with some oranges and yellows in the lit areas.

There is a brief gap in my memory. Then, the landscape seems to have solidified, and now I have two companions instead of just the one. We are walking around in this big building, which appears to be built out of dark gray stone. I see a bunch of big industrial buckets; they remind me of the stuff that I get my bulk oils in, large white buckets with lids and handles, with labels around the front. I walk around a corner, and I see my companions waiting in a long line. I tell them about the buckets, and explain that “The amount of Nazism that will come from them is plenty to kill us all.” They get kind of freaked out. I don’t know what they’re waiting in line for. I explain that I have an idea to get us out of here; I’m going to try spinning.

I realize that if I spin and they are left here, it could go badly for them; I feel close to both of them, and want to bring them along with me. So I explain that I’m going to stand between them and spin, and when I stop I will put out my hands, and they must grab on to them, and then I’ll open my eyes and the scene will change. I close my eyes and spin, and then slow to a stop and put out my hands. Each hand gets grabbed, and I know that they are with me, and I open my eyes. The group of people in the line is gone, and the room has changed somewhat. We decide that we want to see how to get out of this building (it seems kind of boring – I want to see the world above, it seems we are underground) and so we start running along looking for stairs. We find some, and go up several short flights until we come out on the surface. There is a young man and an older woman here too – they have just come out of the underground as well, and they stop and sit on a park bench. He has his shirt off, and is breathing hard as if he ran a long ways. I think for a moment that he’s cute, but just walk on. We walk along a wide, landscaped pathway, lined by high bushes on each side. The path winds down toward a big lake, and looking over the lake, I see… a pteranodon (from last week’s dream, “Alto Rialto”). I realize that we’re in Dreamland, and I feel very excited. I point to the pteranodon, and tell the group that is with me, “We’re in Dreamland!” Without my noticing, the two guys have somehow become about half a dozen or maybe more people, with a couple of old women, and I don’t remember the particulars of the others. There are big fishes and such in the water, too, and I know that it can be dangerous to be out in it without a boat.

The space that we’re in seems contradictory. Part of the time, it seems like we’re standing by the edge of the lake, with open sky above. Other parts, it seems like we’re under a shelter with no walls, other parts still it seems like we’re inside a building. I start explaining to the people how to interact and get along in Dreamland. I feel very excited through the whole talk, partly because we can have so many adventures here, and partly because I recognized dream elements from the prior dream, and that almost never happens for me. I explain to the group that it’s best for them not to get separated from their partners. One older woman who seems to have been with me in a previous dream pipes up, saying this is important. She has a little brown bottle that I think is medicine. I then explain that they need to watch their imagination – since this is Dreamland, imagination can make things happen. “If you start thinking that the murder is behind the pillar…” and then I realize that I probably shouldn’t have used that example, because I know they are all visualizing that now. I have an image of what appear to be waiters moving forward in a line under water; they have big napkins in front of them, held out in one hand. I hear a rumbling sound, and then look to my left where it’s coming from, and there is a big sliding pocket door there. I slide it open, and it’s a big dining room with large wooden tables. It looks like the wait staff have just begun to set it for a party; the tables are arranged, but have no silverware or plates. I wake up (for real), my heart pounding with excitement.