Feb 16th, 2017 – Watched Black Panther last night which influenced my dream which I became lucid in. Nice African theme though so loved it.

Watched Black Panther last night which influenced today’s dream. I didn’t start off lucid so a portion of the dream I was unaware that I was dreaming. In the dream I a friend invited me to this Black Panther party where people are celebrating the movie.

We drive there in my car and I noticed my brakes were soft, I was having a hard time slowing down but managed to make it to the party. My friend has tickets to get in and he hands me one. We stand in this line to enter the building and I notice many African people celebrating the movie by wearing tribal outfits, very colorful, very nice.

The wait in the line up wasn’t too long, there was a doorman checking tickets and he lets us in. The party itself was really nice, there was a food spread of all these African dishes from Sadza, Muboora, Muriwo, fish, goat and other dishes. I walk by looking at the food all laid out on this long rectangular table with a table cloth with orange and black triangles and artwork.

There were four African female dancers dressed in orange outfits with thick jewelry on this stage and I stopped to watch them dance for a bit which I thought was very fun and interesting. Then I noticed Chadwick Boseman dressed in the Black Panther outfit without the helmet. People we walking up to him for autographs but this made me do a reality check.

The deep immersion a dream causes is this high-quality of reality where it appears so real, and it’s a real skill of perception to break through the immersion. Seeing people I know I’ll never meet in real life, often celebrities trigger my reality-checks. The main ingredient is thinking and questioning the current situation presented in the dream content.

“What is he doing here? What am I doing here?” I started to question. I noticed that everyone short of one other person what African and there was only one other white person who was an elderly man. “I must be dreaming.” I thought. And as soon as I pull in the key word, “dreaming” I started to laugh and realized that is exactly why I am seeing Chadwick as the Black Panther. I remembered going to the late showing of it and thinking about the movie and it’s cultural portrayal of Africans which obviously front-loaded my dream with the images.

I was still by the food table and because I taste in dreams as real as in waking life, it’s often a delight to eat food. I grab a plate and start putting some food on it. There was this really nice corn bread, and it was delicious. I liked how the dream had African cuisine. It’s been quite a while in my waking life since I had some, like over 8 years now. And the food in the dream certainly invoked those memories. One curry dish in particular tasted really good.

Having this second life opportunity to be self-aware and conscious during a dream this real is great. Just enjoying the experience as is with full knowledge it’s merely a dream is liberating and blissful.

This African man approaches me and asks me what I thought of the movie. I told him I loved the scenery and special effects. I won’t get into spoilers but talked about a few things I would have liked more of.

He then switches the conversation over to the fact I was white and asked me why I thought I belonged in the current party. I could have just told him it was a dream, and asked why he though he belonged in my dream but instead I was curious about this now racially polarized line of questioning. “Is it because I’m white that you think I don’t belong.” I asked.

“Yeah, you don’t see to many of your kind here do you?” he replies.

“So I am white right now, that doesn’t mean I’ve always been this way.” I tell him.

He looks at me strangely, “What do you mean?”

“I’m not as locked in to the immersion of being human as most, my first experience as a human was African, and three more successive lives that followed were also, until I moved into other experiences” I tell him.

He doesn’t buy it. “Now you are talking crazy!” he complains.

“No I’ll show you.” I tell him as I focus on my deep memories of myself and pull forward one of my former identities changing into an African male. “Now do I belong?” I ask him.

He is just stunned, his jaw drops and his face is in shock. “Who the hell are you?” he asks.

“Nobody important.” I tell him, but the focus to shift my dream avatar into another self-memory was very hard to maintain and I shifted back to my current self, just easier and more natural to how I currently experience myself. It also impacts my lucidity as it takes away from being also keen on that focused attention of self-realization.

The switch back further confuses him and he just stands there. I feel dizzy and disorientated myself, and in a bit of flux so I need to ground and re-focus. I put my hand on this pillar and calm the noise down until I am fully self-aware.

While I am standing there the only other white person comes over to talk to me. I’m still a bit in flux and grounding using the pillar trying to avoid dream drama that might pull me back into the unconscious immersion. It’s very common for dreams to use dream characters to create drama that can shift my attention so I loose wakeful focus by becoming distracted so I don’t want to engage the dream character.

He’s talking to me but I am not focusing on what he is saying and he gets very angry and yells at me, “What, you won’t talk to be because I’m Gay?” and that snaps my focus his way. But now I am back in a more balanced state.

“No, god no. I was very dizzy and loosing consciousness. I was just re-focusing myself” I tell him.

“Oh I’m sorry, I thought you were ignoring me because I’m gay.” he replies.

I look at him, and he’s definitely dressed the part. “You are who you are, who am I to judge.” I tell him.

He introduces himself, but I can’t recall his name. Sometimes I can remember a dream characters name after an introduction but not this time. Completely blank.

Even portions of the conversation at this point are a bit muffled, side effect of trying to re-stabilize most likely. We talked for a bit and then he gets into querying me for my sexual orientation. I told him I like woman, but don’t put a lot of emphasis on my sexuality these days as it’s not something that is driving my interests. He wanted to know if I ever wanted to be with a man but I told him it’s not something that interests me. I had no interest.

I tell him “I find sexuality to be one of the least interesting parts of my experiences. Sure it’s fun but there are so many other things I enjoy, more simply just meeting new people and making new friends.”

“What are you most interested in?” he asked me.

I smiled and said, “Dreaming. I really enjoy dreaming. Like this dream I am having right now.”

He gives me this tassel, and it’s funny because it’s you know for your man part and tells me to put it on. I look at the thing and shake it watching all the small leather strips flap. I start to laugh. “I am not putting this on.” and I pass it back to him.

He seems offended and a bit sad. But I see some comedy in it, being a dream I still want to be nice and respectful but I don’t like to let them get weird. This was getting a bit weird for my liking, so I told him to see if he could find my friend for me. Sometimes re-directing a dream character is a good way to switch the drama they create. Off he goes into the crowd.

I was still struggling to remain lucid though, the dizzy feeling was back and I kept feeling like I was fluctuating or pulsing. I wanted to stay in the dream, wanted to just enjoy the rich cultural unique qualities presented but the fluctuation was due to waking up. Should have known, would have grounded. But that is how all dreams end.

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