Morning of August 21, 1976. Saturday.
The image above is identical to the typewriter table I had, mostly metal, but with a plastic drawer that often got stuck.
One of the only lucid nightmares that I have had in my lifetime involved falling asleep again before eleven o'clock in the afternoon, with the sun streaming through the windows but not directly near me. My father was working that day (it was a Saturday) and my mother was either still in town or out in the garden at the time. The more "nightmarish" nightmares (rather than just "bad" or odd dreams which did not really scare me to any real extent or leave a strong impression as with this one) happened mostly in broad daylight, sometimes with the sun's rays shining in through the curtains or windows (as in the case with this one) and maybe based on the body's "need" to get up and do things, so tries to make my dream state "hostile" to the body. This is contrary to what I have read (the world is full of nonsensical "facts" about dreams, often written by people who appear to never have experienced dreams in their life - and yes, I know that everyone dreams). I read that people supposedly only have nightmares "in the dark", which has proven to be primarily the opposite for me, as is often the case with what I read - about a lot of things.
This one started out thanks to the longest sleep paralysis I have ever had - about thirty to forty minutes or so, and it was during this time I woke up several times, going back into a very lucidly aware dream state. My head was "buzzing" off and on for a long time, but there was no "out of body" type sensation at any point. I was asleep on the couch in the middle of the living room, facing east, my head to the north. Normally, sleep paralysis was a good thing, as it gave me a familiar awareness of being able to meditate or speak (spiritual or sexual) affirmations in a blissful state to manifest whatever dream I wanted to incubate - and it always (or almost always) worked at various stages in my life - and the state can bring "more real than real life" sensual expressions.
The main focus involved two pieces of furniture that the sun's rays had been shining upon here and there in real life, but somehow creating a nightmarish shadowy/gloomy effect. One was a chair, somewhat like a bentwood chair in appearance, but more modern, looking much the same as in real life and starting from the exact same position from near the partially open curtains as in real life at the time. The other was the very small green metal typewriter table on wheels, with the built-in bendable lamp with the conical green metal lampshade (see photo - it is the same as I had). As the sun went behind the clouds now and then, but still keeping the room light enough to see all the details as I drifted in and out of lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis, either the chair or the small table would "walk" towards me in an ominous, menacing way at a particular time. What came the closest to me was the small green typewriter table, its lamp being the "head" and the bendable part being the "neck" of some sort of miniature surreal killer "giraffe" as it moved towards me, appearing to "study" me (with the light bulb "face") and I was hearing its groaning and clacking "legs" and "feet" upon the tiled floor. As the last energies of sleep paralysis wore off, I finally caught myself staring at the chair in the room in real life (although when it was walking, it did not have as much a menacing presence as the small table). It did not move of course, but still looked the same as from my dream, facing directly towards me in perfect perspective and still holding a creepy, "suspicious" mood. This was rather fascinating for me, especially as it was the only time I dreamed of "walking" furniture to my memory in this way. It was almost like a game, though, where I would open and close my eyes to "test" whether or not the furniture was really "alive" somehow.
As I have said before, I do not believe in dream symbols all that much because the majority of my non-lucid dreams often use literal precognition and postcognition, but I chalk this one up solely to over-stimulation (via some natural chemical produced by my teenage brain at the time) during sleep paralysis based solely on what I was seeing in the environment at the time and nothing else. To attempt to find meaning in a dream such as this (again, based solely on a form of "eyes open" dreaming of the real environment), or any sleep paralysis event, is ridiculous for a number of reasons.
My wife has also had a lucid nightmare with this same theme, yet she was watching the upright electric floor fan "walking" towards her on its otherwise flat-to-the-floor four "legs" and moving its "head" (the actual fan part) in a very similar way as the "giraffe" event with the small table with the bendable lamp (in a seemingly menacing "observing" way) as in mine. Interestingly, though, I have not ever reached this state in any other form of conscious dreaming or photo projection - may have something to do with the lack of endorphins in some types of sleep paralysis.
