This dream was sort of a hit-and-miss but still fun. Before sleep, I planned to become a dragon. Nothing special but I wanted to relax and as a dragon I have every opportunity in doing so! ---- It started with me dreaming about being on holiday somewhere in Greece. I went back to my hotel after a long day and went to sleep. Lightning struck, and it was so loud that I heard tinnitus from it. My vision became blank. The last flash of existence I saw was a tsunami that wiped all land as far my eyes could see for that split second. I was dead. I “woke up”, strangely enough, still in the hotel room – it was in ruins. The sun was shining, but the world was nothing like before. Once outside, there was another human, a lot smaller than me. He told me that the world has seized to exist and thousands of years later became re-inhabited by people like him, and that somehow, I survived for thousands of years to make it into this brave new world. Using a laser pointing device – rather out of place for the time period we seemed to be in – he gave me a tour around the city, which looked rather medieval. It was nice to see, but at some point, I gained awareness I was dreaming. Realizing I wanted to change into a dragon I simply took a left turn while he kept walking straight ahead. I kept taking turns making sure that I’d lose him. The world had small pathways branching out in all directions, and even though I did lose him out of sight, I could still hear his voice talking in the background! It didn’t matter, though. I found a small house with an unlocked front door and opened it. To my surprise, the first thing I saw, was a toilet made of clay! It seemed embedded into the floor (also made of clay). “What the… who puts a toilet here!” I thought, startled by the sight. The toilet itself was non-functional, there was no way to flush, it was just a bunch of clay shaped like an ordinary toilet, but in reality it was just a hole in the ground. Remembering my goal, I had to be quick to go to a different world, to make sure I wasn’t going to be found. When doing lucid dreaming stuff, I rather break up the old dream first to make sure that the situation doesn’t escalate when things don’t go the way the dream wants it to go. Armed with the memory of my original scaly goal, I dived into the toilet head-first, sinking down deep in the crust of the earth. Everything turned dark. It took a while, but once I got out, I was in yet another completely new, unrecognizable world. But this one looked far more futuristic – big, modern buildings, malls, yet with a tiny shred of fantasy-vibe to it. People walking in all directions, being busy, yet everything was sparkling clean. It was a true behemoth of urban utopia, genuinely happy but busy people, commerce, and pride. While I rather not grow up in a world encompassed by mass consumerism, this somehow felt “just right”. It was… different. I’ve never been to this dimension in my life before and that’s what made it more interesting. Looking to my left was a gigantic mall with a big LED display showing an ad for a new kind of “healthy bubbly drinks” made of vegetables. I wanted to try one, and was about to walk into the mall to buy such drink, but then I saw something even more fascinating. Right ahead of me, was a bench, but not a usual bench. Oh no, this was an attraction. Art mixed with magic. I saw a female sitting on one side of the bench, and right next to the female, another female who looked just like her sat in the exact same pose but the opposite direction! There was a sign next to the bench, it read: Symmetry bench ===== Meet your opposite self! “Oh my God that’s cool!” I yelled. The female probably saw me, and demonstrated it even further by putting an arm around her backwards self. The copy did the exact same thing. It was really cool to see. When she walked away, the copy did so too, and vanished out of view. Magical artifacts in this seemingly capitalist-heavy world is probably why it gave such a good vibe for me. Encountering such a cool bench certainly helped to put the smile on my face that I still have to the very moment of writing it down right now in the waking world… I returned to the sign, and walked into the mall underneath it. Sadly, right before entering, and seeing the shop that sold these wonderful drinks, I was out. ---- There I was, laying in my bed. My sleeping mask firmly fit over my eyes, preventing me to see anything. Disappointed that the dream ended already, I sat up in my bed. I couldn’t even turn into a dragon! I put off my sleeping mask and was about to get ready for the day. Except it didn’t. The mask stayed firmly on my head. I even felt the band of the mask still stuck on my head! “What the hell?”, I thought, trying it again. And yet, it was still stuck even though I felt myself touching the band, and pulling it off my head! “Sleep paralysis”, I thought. That’s the only explanation I had for this. Sleep paralysis often goes hand in hand with very nasty hallucinations. Being a lucid dreamer for 20 years, I am no stranger with sleep paralysis, and I almost never have any issues with them. Normally, I just wait it out. I lay down, take a breath, and keep trying to move until I actually wake up. But that would never result in a new lucid dream. So now I was caught in a crossfire – am I going to risk going into a full-blown nightmare by moving when I really can’t, or am I going to play it safe, and wait it out? I decided to go the scary route, and began to do the very thing I always advised myself never to do: move. Getting up from my bed was seemingly impossible, but I kept pushing. While pushing the slightest hint of fear with each step I took to my window to the back of my mind, I managed to make it. As I climbed up, I turned in the dragon, jumped out, and flew away. I landed somewhere just outside my house. I made it! With a sense of relief flowing over me, I tried to fly again, but no matter how hard I tried, nothing worked. I tried again and again, but nothing seemed to get me off the ground. I looked down at myself, seeing thick red scaly arms and legs. “Still a dragon”, I said softly to myself. “Why do I have so much trouble today?” I tried flying faster than the speed of sound (something the dragon body can do) and that too didn’t work. Time to find a higher point. I went into my grandpas house which is right across the street. Once inside a bunch of children ran after me. Annoyed and with every muscle in this strong body I pushed the door closed as the children kept trying to barge in, and the children were left outside. “What are those kids doing here?!” my grandpa screamed from the living room. Apparently, he was awake. “I have no idea, just ignore it!”, I yelled back at my grandpa. He seemed not disturbed by the fact that his grandson is now a larger red dragon. I went into his backyard and climbed up the shed. “You sure this will work?”, my grandpa asked, who was now down in the garden as well. “I don’t see why not”, I replied, standing on the edge. I jumped and spread my arms, and flew away in circles, yelling “weeeeh it works!!” But the fun quickly ended as I landed back in his garden! Just as I was about to climb back on his shed, 2 children climbed down, resulting in an annoyed expression on my face. One child was bigger and older than the other. The other was so young that he just was able to talk. “What is it…” I said, followed by a big sigh, knowing full well that I couldn’t avoid these children this time. “We are your biggest fan!”, the bigger child exclaimed. “You are the coolest dragon!”. While I was praised, the younger child jumped happily around me, clearly happy to see me. I have never seen these kids before, not even in other dreams. How did they know me? The older kid took a mug out of a backpack and held it in front of me. He also grabbed a sharpie and asked if I could sign the mug for him. “Uhm, sure”, I said as I stared at the blank mug and held the sharpie in my claw. “Shit I don’t have a signature as a dragon!” I thought. Quickly, I came up with some circle that had a curl inside. I gave the mug and the sharpie to the child and was about to climb back up the shed when the younger child began jumping around me with another mug in his 2 hands. “My little brother wants one too!”, the older child exclaimed. “Oh my god this never ends”, I thought with a sigh. I took his mug as well, and got nervous… “Shit I forgot what I drew on the first mug!”, I thought. Luckily, the older child still held his mug in his hand and with a quick glance, I was able to replicate the signature on the mug of the younger child. With that, I returned the sharpie and the mug and climbed up, this time for real. The younger child screamed from below. “If I scratch at the mug, the signature goes away!”, he was about to cry. “Then stop scratching at it!!” I screamed, fully frustrated now, and that’s when I woke up, this time, not in strange worlds, and no sleep paralysis! ----- While the dream ended quite frustrating, I didn’t feel like that at all, it was fun, and enjoyable. I didn’t think I had fans in the dream space!