An account

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid Lucid #115: Sandwiches for Skeptics I DEILDed during this dream and wound up really scrambling the beginning. Pity. Anyway, I think this was a DILD. I remember something about a prison, finding my way through an office building, and being attacked. Somewhere along the way, I find Wife and my oldest son <PERSON> memory becomes very clear here: It is morning and I am walking through an empty, gray city with Wife and our oldest son E. I hold E's hand as he bounces and scampers beside me, pointing and jabbering excitedly. We pass under a bridge and walk up a sloped street. All around us are gray vacant lots, brownstone tenements, and the occasional piece of newspaper carried on the wind. The one swatch of color is a bus stop to our left that bears a beautiful ad for Arby's. Below the Arby's logo it reads, "Sandwiches for Skeptics". I find this very amusing but also really unlikely to be the new Arby's slogan. I tell Wife that "I will have to google that later" but she does not respond. I run my fingers over the sign, appreciating its detail. There are even some air bubbles underneath the paper as if it was not pasted down all that carefully. I take my time with this, thinking that it can only help to draw me into the dream. Task of the Year occurs to me. I am fired up about going to <PERSON>, and I imagine that it is out there, just past the vacant lot and a row of buildings. As I do, I see little sprays of water coming up from over the tops of the buildings. I am amused that the "graphics" for this water are absolutely terrible. The little puffs of water look like repeated, low-resolution particle effects with no animation. Okay, enough thinking. Time to fly. I consider summoning NewArtemis to join us but then remember that I need to stay focused -- I am already trying to bring two DCs with me. A summoning is pushing my luck too much. I take to the air, still holding E's hand, and his reaction is surprisingly subdued. From the ground below, I hear Wife say, "Oh okay... bye, guys!" "Just follow us!" I shout back to her. There is no reply, though, so I focus on flight. Looks like it is just me and E now. As we fly high enough to look over the tops of the surrounding buildings, I see that the entire city rest atop a huge mesa that rises high above an ocean. At the edge of the mesa I see a waterfall -- <PERSON>! <PERSON> are a long way off, so I focus on flying faster and faster. We get up some good speed, but the dream is starting to feel thin and insubstantial. All I can think to do is speed up, but I am not fast enough. We are still about a quarter mile away from the falls when I feel the sensation (real or imagined) of my eyeballs moving around and I am awake. I relax and go for a DEILD. I quickly enter a new dream scene, flying again, but this time as an observer with no dream body. I am on a long, spiraling slope built out of stone blocks. The sides are unwalled and I can see that this tower stretches far above the clouds. I slide smoothly upward along the slope, making at least 3 full revolutions. I am aware that I am dreaming but I make no attempt to exert control. I am content to just know where the tower leads. I keep spiraling upward and either lose lucidity or slip into the darkness between dreams...