lucid

Woke up from a lucid dream, a long and clear one. First I was in a school, then at someone's house and then walking around outside. I was wandering from scene to scene experimenting with interactions and conversations, at one point playing with a cute monkey that started to morph into a creature whose head opened up into a bunch of teeth (at which point I said nope and tossed it away).

Often when I reach a certain level of lucidity and active control I either smoothly transition back into normal dreaming consciousness or it fades to black and I wake up. In an attempt to avoid this and stay rooted in my dream body I started taking deep, concentrated breaths while I looked around. As I walked I found I had headphones in with each earbud playing different sounds, one music and one radio, and wondered whether one of the sounds was coming through my sleeping body's ears because it was so clear. I took them off in the hopes that keeping things simple would prevent my mind from being overworked and allow the dream to continue taking shape. It was a bright summertime scene; the grass and leaves were green, the sky was a clear blue and there were people in exercise clothes jogging past me on the sidewalk.

It all looked perfectly normal and real. I stopped as I surveyed the scene and said "my mind is creating all of this." Then I walked a few more steps and the dream faded to black, leaving me back in my body in bed with eyes closed.