In addition to the 50 mg of 5-HTP, I added 12.5 mg of diphenhydramine to help me sleep.
In my first dream, the setting started out as somewhat familiar – the loft, warmly lit, lots of people - mostly this dream group. There was a festive fell to the gathering; very chatty and active. An armoire was delivered. It was very large. I had some large insects living in my knee. They were creating poison which could be collected from the pus in the wounds. I was wiping up the poisonous ooze, not necessarily upset, at first, but it gradually became quite disturbing and at that point I woke up.
After my pee break I went easily back to sleep (thanks to the diph) and in the next dream session I was trying to create these art pieces and was working on logistics. This was a continuation from the previous dream session. I could see finished pieces and felt pretty confident in them, but needed to finish more of them.
In the next bunch there was slightly less familiarity to the dream settings. I was at a bank and had some very complex transactions to do. The man I was dealing with showed me a code word I needed to write down along with my signature to verify authenticity. The word was "Challel", or something like that, with lots of tall looping letters. I did some signing of things but before I was done the "teller" (?) got a phone call from his wife. His children were with him. I was watching them while he spoke on the phone and a very young boy with an innocent face, maybe 3 or 4, was muttering to himself, saying extremely vulgar things about some woman. I grabbed him and asked him, "What did you say?" The situation evolved into a whole inquisition into the boy's dirty language and his exposure to sexual situations. It was too much drama for me so I watched from the sidelines while a whole tribunal was formed around the subject; a dozen or so people sitting at a long table to discuss the boy.
Perhaps at that point I left that scene to go outside. Even less familiarity and logic. I was on a street at night. There were people out and about and it seemed like a friendly atmosphere, though strange. I met a man and his old black dog and the dog and I hit it off. The man was totally fine with me taking his dog's leash and walking off with him. The dog was really happy to have someone walking him and he started to run. I ran, too, and in striking contrast to most dream-running experiences, it felt really fluid and light, effortless and even exhilarating.
I have a snippet of memory of seeing the Cirque du Soleil, and noticing some extraordinary costumes, all of them blue and sparkly. The costumes and set were all matching.
Overall, extremely colorful visions, long and elaborate sessions, very vivid. There was a dark, sort of night-clubby, saturated tone to much of what I was seeing, punctuated with occasional more sunny, crisp, summery scenes. Very pretty for the most part, except for the part about the bugs in my knee. Not terribly surreal - in fact upon reading over this summary, there's a lot in there that corresponds with what's going on in my real life. The overall "prettiness" is what stands out, and the experience of running without the usual ineffectualness.
