An account

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid Lucid #17: Doorway Troubles We are throwing some kind of huge party at our house. Our den has expanded to an impossible size and is filled with rows of picnic tables, with friends and family all around. I feel the mingled excitement and vague anxiety that I always feel hosting any sort of event. It is fun visiting with the guests, several of whom I have not seen in quite some time. "S", a friend of mine, grabs me in order to inform me than an "associate" of his has inexpensive cruise tickets that he would like to sell me. S's associate is a rough-looking character with a plug earring installed in each of his wobbling earlobes. He carelessly dumps his wallet out on the table, telling me that the tickets are "in there somewhere". I find his driver's license, which is covered with uncomfortably personal information, such as the fact that he is an "Atheist" who has a "Vasectomy". I find a strange little zip-lock bag filled with strips of paper that have different people's signatures on them. It feels creepy to me and I wonder why he would have such a thing. I joke nervously, "A little weird, but at least it is not a bag full of women's hair or something." When I look up to gauge his reaction, the scene has shifted. I am now surrounded by a handful of well-dressed police detectives. They chuckle at my comment and I realize that I am also a detective and we are working together to solve a crime. Fortunately, I still have strong recall of the previous dream scene, note the strangeness of the transition and I become totally lucid. I stop in the middle of a sentence I can no longer remember and say, "And now I am lucid." I nod politely at my new colleagues and get up to leave. The detectives step aside for me and I see that I am on the ground floor of a glass office building. Through the glass I see a street scene, cars and pedestrians passing by outside of the building. I walk past a busy cubicle farm, taking in my surroundings and ambling slowly toward the exit. Clarity is high and I feel super-aware, like the master of my domain. I feel so confident that I have no urge to stabilize. Out loud I say, "This is my lucid dream. It will go at my pace and nobody will control it but me." I feel calm and unstoppable as I walk toward the exit. A woman enters from the street and I nod a greeting. She smiles back and I note that although she is a stranger to me, she looks every bit as real as a person I might encounter during a day at the office. After the woman passes, I step calmly through the exit. There is a flash of light as direct sunlight hits my eyes and suddenly I am awake. The calmness is still there at first but it evaporates quickly. My pulse is high (although not as high as my prior LD waking) and I wonder whether that just started. It is inconceivable to me that I felt as calm as I did if my sleeping body had such a high heart rate. The lucid portion probably went just over a minute. I would have of course preferred a longer lucid, but every lucid dream (especially a high-clarity one like this) feels like a real victory!