Level of Lucidity (1-10): 4 | Dream Signs: Encounter with Deceased Relative, False Awakening, n/a, n/a, | Mood: Anxious

   In the beginning of the dream, I find myself visiting in a house full of strangers, though in the dream I seem to be acquainted with them.  This is like the gatherings of friends in a house I used to experience back in college.  I meet a man who is very distraught about a female acquaintance that has recently passed on.  He's a rough/rugged man but was moved to tears and was embarrassed for it, yet desperate for consolation.  I have a sense that this was the day of her funeral, and that this man sought me out because I was known to have contacted the deceased before (minor truth). 

   I tell him that no special help is needed, that he only needs to speak the words in his head or out loud to the person, "like a prayer", and they will hear him.  (I don't personally know if this is true but wouldn't we all prefer it to be true?)  However, to comfort him, I say that I will attempt to relay a message on his behalf, for which he seems genuinely grateful.  He tells me her name or nickname was “Goodie” (Brown or Lawrence?).

  Later, in the dream I settle into an upstairs bedroom that I claim as mine, and go to sleep.  I have a dream within a dream, in which I am visited by 2 spirits who inhabit the house.  The first is an older man in old western attire, holding a rifle.  He has piercing eyes, that stare straight ahead, and he scans the room with his head until his eyes lock with mine.  I'm a little anxious, but then calm and ask him who he is.  He says his name is Hank, that he owned this house, and I recall earlier hearing the story that the current homeowner’s father was this man, who had shot and killed his other son in a rage in the very room I now sleep in.  At this time, the son also enters the room, armed with a rifle.  Hank explains that he shot his son not in rage, but in fear, because the son was “a powerful stack” of a man, and was in a rage himself over something.  The son agrees, and loads his rifle.  I become slightly lucid (1 out of 10) and say to them both “There’s no need for you to enact this scene over and over”.  My concern for them registers, and the old man takes the shell from his gun and pries the bullet out of the top of it.  He says the scene must play on, but maybe they don’t need the bullets anymore.  The son does the same.  I sense this is a major step for both of them.  They then reload the disabled bullets.  I don’t stay around for the final showdown, but move on trying to become more lucid.  (I’m now slightly lucid in a dream inside a dream, something that seems to happen to me occasionally.  )

   I recall in my nested dream that I had a task to relay a message to someone.  I can’t recall her name at all.  I go downstairs to ask the other dream figures.  The first guy I encounter indignantly says “You should have remembered” and will not help.  I ask another, a beautiful black girl, who is very warm and helpful, and gives me the name again.    I thank her and move back upstairs.  I encounter dream figures milling about upstairs, and I have the sense that they are sitting in a waiting room between this life and the afterlife.  I ask them to help me relay this message, but none of them knows Goodie.  I turn to the dream itself and announce “Goodie, I didn’t know you, but I met someone who did.  They send their concern for you, are very affected by your passing, and cared for you very much”.  I get nothing back, but assume it’s mission accomplished.  I wander about the waiting room, and encounter the father/son again, sitting side by side, talking, and taking target practice shots from a shooters bench, their rifles aimed downrange instead of at each other.  Hopefully, that's progress for them.  I then think maybe I can contact my Father (living) and meet up with him in the dream.  As I’m about to do this, I see a lady passing by who looks really too much like my mother.  (It Is one of my dream goals to contact my deceased mother while lucid) I become more lucid (5 out of 10) I turn my attention to her and she seems fairly unaware.  I say “Don’t you know me?”  There is no recognition at first, then she comes alive and recognizes me.  Yet, something is off.  She now seems much _too_ eager.  I devise a test, asking if she remembered the name of a dentist on xxxx road who she went to and was good friends with.  (in real life the person in question was her chiropractor).  She does not.  Then I amend the question saying there was also a chiropractor practice there.  Again, she cannot give me the name, but instead trys to sooth and override my objections.  It now seems like she is trying to ensnare me or keep me here through my intended goal.  I sense an evil intent behind this character, wearing my mother’s visage.  I decide to leave the dream, and spin/spiral upwards and away, and decide to wake up.

   I awaken back in the upstairs bedroom of the house from outer dream 1 (false awakening) and having to go to the bathroom (apparently true in real life).  I stumble to the dream bathroom, and take care of business, when I start hearing voices.  Distant, from another room, conversation, and dogs barking.  More and more voices.  I realize I’m still dreaming and probably needing to go to the bathroom IRL.  I finally wake up.

  Next time, i'll try another planned method of exit, because the spinning just prolonged the dream after all.