An account

This is the first of two lucid dreams from the morning of September 6, 2013. Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid Lucid #143: This Life or the Next I am sitting on a carpeted floor with my oldest son <PERSON> There is an IT guy here that I used to work with (who we will call "<PERSON>"). The interesting thing is that <PERSON> is trying to sleep hanging upside-down from a light fixture like a bat. I believe that he is doing this in order to induce a lucid dream. I tell E that it is not necessary to go to such lengths in order to have a lucid dream. Talking about lucid dreaming makes me wonder whether I am dreaming, so I nose pinch and become lucid. I get moving immediately, walking to the adjacent room, which is nearly featureless apart from a deep, square-shaped window. It looks like it is daylight outside, and I am up a bit off the ground, maybe the 4th or 5th story. I phase out through the glass and the scene changes to nighttime. No, it is daylight, I think and the scene changes to early morning. I am flying over a quiet town where all of the buildings are one or two stories, all shorter than the one that I just emerged from. The oddball in this whole scene is some kind of football stadium. (American football.) I fly toward the field to find a football game going on. I want to change the scene to the Colosseum, and I have this idea that I will start reciting a line from Gladiator to help the scene form the way that I want. As I am flying down toward the field, I recite <PERSON>' badass line to Commodus about how "I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next." By the time I land on the field, I have transformed into a full gladiator outfit and I am holding a gladius. The football players on the field mill about in confusion. I announce that "this place needs to turn into the Colosseum." I wave the gladius around my head a little bit for emphasis. The football players seem a little put off by this and begin to wander away from the field. Nearby there is an old man in thick-framed glasses holding a microphone. Over the microphone, he declares that "there is been a little problem on the field, folks." The scene is not transforming the way that I want, so I focus on the ground, thinking that I will turn it to sand and work from there. The floor of the football stadium is made of some kind of bright blue carpet. I rub my hands over it for a while, willing it to become sand, but it stubbornly refuses. I stand up, wondering what to do. A young woman, short, Hispanic, mid-20s, walks nearby. I am trying to formulate some kind of leading question to get her to help me but the fact that I am confused and the fact that she is distractingly good-looking are making it tough for me to know what to say. Plus I am self-conscious that I am dressed as a gladiator. I am too tongue-tied to say anything. As she walks away, I examine my surroundings again and notice that the stadium has transformed into an open-air restaurant, putting me even further away from my goals. Okay, new idea. I step outside to a quiet street with a trickle of pedestrian traffic. I imagine that the Colosseum is over the next line of buildings, then I start flying again. As I am gaining altitude, though, the dream ends.