Once I had made it outside the air was clear and I seemed safe. All the other students either boarded yellow school-buses or got in cars or on their bikes to head home, but I realized I was much too far from home (over ten miles it seemed) for a bus so I had to walk. The prospect was daunting and made me feel lost and alone.
Then I woke up. I was back in prison (Federal "death row") and all was quiet. I thought about the dream and realized it was an odd combination of real and fictional elements from my past, my "childhood" to be precise. The high school was not the same high school I attended as a boy, neither was it in the right location for the high school I did attend (Lakes High). But, it was in the right city (Tacoma, Washington) and the house I was trying to go "home" to in the dream was the right house I lived in at the time (8513 Lawndale Ave.). I vaguely remember another rival school at the location of this school in my dream, but I only visited it once in real life for non-school related scuba lessons at its pool after school hours (lessons that I signed up for at a local scuba shop and paid for myself with my paper-route money at the time).
This was not a particularly unusual dream, so I dismissed it, shifted my position on the bunk to make myself comfortable, and went back to sleep. I then had the exact same dream all over again! I even woke up again a few moments later at the same place in the dream (trying to get home and feeling anxious about the distance!).
I've had many recurring dreams before, but never back-to-back like this. So I thought about the details a little more carefully this time as I laid on the bunk in my cell, but still saw nothing unusual or out of the ordinary about it. So, once more, I made myself comfortable and went back to sleep. And once more I had the same exact dream!
But, this time, instead of waking up while trying to get home, I "woke up" in the dream (became aware that I was dreaming, or "lucid") and at the same time I became conscious of the fact that this was the third time in a row that I was having the same dream! Then, instead of waking up for real in prison, the dream actually became even clearer and more detailed. So, I thought to myself, what should I do? I knew that if I continued in the direction I was going --- toward home, over ten miles away --- I would be doing the same as always and accomplish nothing in the process.
Let me explain: Not only was this a repeat-dream, but the desperate attempt to get "home" on foot from so far away was in fact a recurring dream theme that I have been having for at least the last year or so. The location and circumstances that I am trying to get "home" from in these dreams is usually different, but in every case I am a long way from home and on foot and alone. And also in every case that is how the dream ends, and I wake up feeling lost and alone ("lost" in the "lost cause" sense, as I always know where I am, just not how I am going to get home!).
So, this time I wanted to do something different that might solve the recurring puzzle. I have used lucid dreams in the past to solve other recurring dream "puzzles"; which is usually a simple matter of confronting the source of fear in the dream, such as jumping from a high place, or fighting back against an attacker. In this case it meant turning around and heading back toward the volcano/high school, which is exactly what I did.
I was only a block away, and when I got back to the school, I saw a couple of buses out front still waiting for all their students to board before leaving. I approached one of the buses and asked the driver through the open front boarding door if he was going anywhere near Lake City, where I lived (in the dream and in reality, "Lake City" was the name of the neighborhood area I lived in as a boy in high school, so if I could get there, I could get home easily). The driver said, no, but he was going in that direction as far as the Lakewood Plaza.
That was great news! The "Lakewood Plaza" was a shopping center only a mile or so from Lake City! It was in fact only a short distance from the end of my paper-route (in reality) when I was a boy. So my problem was solved, as was the dream "puzzle", and I woke up (back in prison again) feeling relieved and at ease knowing I would to be having that problem again anytime soon in my dreams.
I should note here that according to some literature (books) I read in the past about lucid dreaming, solving a problem like this in a dream also resolves a "mental block" of some sort in reality. So perhaps I have learned something here about how to "get home" in some psychological sense. In fact, I believe I have!
[J.D. February 14, 2019]
