Another Oneiromancer Log by Sperwer

[Sperwer]

Took 2 caps last night. Three noticeable effects.

1. Became very relaxed within about 20 minutes and fell asleep more quickly than usual.

2. Dreams were more vivid than usual. More color and some unique alteration between full technicolor and black and white. Also a unique auditory element; in the past sound was more of an abstraction - just the idea of sound, really (ditto previous olfactory elements); last night it was full-on sound track for a couple of the dreams; smells were still abstractions.

3. Somewhat enhanced recall.

No dramatic improvement in quality of feeling of rested-ness in the morning.

The dreams:

A. As expected, first up was an action flick. Started out as a continuation of my meeting earlier in the day with my pal from the Filipino Scout Rangers, with the two of us informally reviewing his unit, as we in fact had, then talking out loud about some of our experiences and other old friends as we walked around the training camp. The full dream mode commenced when we started talking in more detail and about feelings, something we ordinarily don't do. Our walk morphed into an armed patrol with his guys up a ravine where we engaged a group of guerrilla fighters in a firefight. That quickly morphed again into a reprise of an engagement in which I actually participated 45 years ago and which started to play back in black & white! In that firefight my augmented squad had sprung an ambush on an NVA unit, which turned out to be much bigger than we had been led to expect - at least half a company. Since it was much larger than the killing ground could accommodate, I had to order fire before they were all inside. It also meant that if their commander were smart, which I assumed, he would try to outflank the long leg of our ambush position (a steep bluff on the other side protected us from that direction), so I and a couple guys peeled off to head off the flanking move. All of that was pretty accurately reflected in the dream. As we ran along through the long grass in the dream, though, Creedence Clearwater's Run Thru the Jungle suddenly started playing over the sounds of the M16s, M60, M203, Claymores and AKs. Then we engaged forward elements of the would-be flankers and my RTO was shot through the hand, and I stopped for a bit to wrap up his hand. (This hadn't happened in the real event, but the guy involved later did plug my wound when I was shot in another fight later in the war.) We then kept on and managed to keep up a rate of fire that dissuaded the enemy from continuing. There were a couple of final one-on-one encounters with laggards that were up close and personal and ugly enough (and the more gruesome details of which hadn't shown up in previous dreams about this event), and suddenly back in color, and that (along with BPH-induced nocturia) woke me up.

B. I don't remember ever having had a dream that involved totally fantastic elements - flying, monsters, etc., although I probably had some as a kid. But last night was an exception. It featured a woman with some Rosemary's Baby sort of powers that were pretty disconcerting. I should have written it all down when I woke up from it, because now I've forgotten the details. Nothing sexual, though.

C. I had at least 2 more dreams last night, but have also lost the details for having failed to note them down when awakening.

I usually wake up briefly after every dream, but this is usually as much to do with BPH-related nocturia as anything in the dream. But it does tend to take a bit of a toll. This morning it seemed less, but it's too early to say much for certain on that score.

No unpleasant sides so far, so tonight I'll bump up to 3 caps to test tolerance.