A week in December of 2006 was a week of vivid lucid dreams for me.  Two of these dreams stand out enough to get included in my dream journal.

The first dream started as a normal enough, although a rather odd, dream.  Since it was just a normal dream at this point, I don’t recall where we were going, or why.  About all that I can recall is that she was driving, the road was dirt and rough we were high on the side of a steep mountain, and the vehicle was a four-wheeled rig of some sort. 

We stopped at a service station in a small mountain town, pulling up in front of an old fashioned general store. Carrie went into the store to get something, I stayed in the car.  While I was waiting, I decided to get out and stretch my legs.  As I walked around the car I noticed that the wheels had been removed.  The car was sitting up on blocks, and there were just brake drums and disk brakes where there should have been wheels. At first I started to get worked up to find out who had “stolen” our wheels, but then it dawned on me that it was so bizarre that I had to be dreaming.  At that point I “woke” up in the dream.

While I was standing there contemplating what to do now that I was in a lucid dream, Carrie came out of the store.  I called to her to come have a look at the car and wheel problem.  She started to fuss about in normal dream mode, but I suggested to her that she settle down and take advantage of the opportunity to practice with me in my dream.  Her response was that it couldn’t be a dream, because if it were she would be aware of it.  I stuck out my hands and asked her to do the same as a test.  We both could plainly see that I had too many fingers, the extra fingers on my hands being a sure indication that we were in a dream.  Her hands looked normal, so I suggested to her that she might need to find another means of determining when she is dreaming.

We talked about the odd state of affairs for awhile, and I then pointed out that during our waking time she had expressed interest in learning about lucid dreaming.  I said that this was a great time to do some practices, which we then proceeded to do.  We decided to do a few dreaming exercises.  One of the first was to move about using intent.  We settled on a place just outside of town as our target and “intended” ourselves to the new place.  (This practice is a way to move without moving.)  We focused our intent on moving to this new place, and then we were there.  We practiced a bit with more moving around, with observing the details of some of the things that were there, and other mundane activities.  Mainly, it was just a practice of learning to more fully observe our surroundings while in a dream.  We then decided it was enough for our first time practicing together, gave each other a nice hug, and said goodbye.  I then woke up. 

The second lucid dream of the week was with my older (dead) brother.  I hadn’t dreamt of him for several years, so was surprised to run into him again.  In this dream he appeared to me while I was working in the back yard of my place.  We shook hands and made a little small talk.  It was nice to see him and talk a bit, but I finally got curious and asked why he was visiting me this time.  I told him that I thought he had gone when our mother had died.  He said that he did, but that he was missing working on things.  He said that he came by to ask if I would fix up my barn/shop a bit so that he could come by and work with me now and then.  He said that he wouldn’t be a bother to me, but that he would enjoy just working along with me now and then.  I told him that I planned on improving the shop anyway, and that he was more than welcome to come by and play if he would like to do that.

Then I woke up from this dream into yet another dream.  The location of the new dream was the same as the first one in my back yard, but in the new dream I was talking to a friend/neighbor Mark telling him that I had been talking to my brother and that I was looking forward to working with him.  We chatted a bit about that for awhile until I said, “Oops, that is going to be a problem, I had forgotten that my brother is dead.”  Mark said that sounded like a problem all right, but maybe something would come of it anyway.  I then woke up in my bed.

These are just a couple of odd little dreams. I don’t know if they were just goofy dreams, or if there is something about reality tied to them.  At the time I believed that these two people (Carrie and my brother) were actually with me in my dreams.  Of course dreams do that, so there is probably no special significance to either of them other than that these folks and activities were on my mind.