Looking around at the snow-covered landscape surrounding the car, I am filled with the thrill of my success. I get out of the car and my feet crunch in the ice. I'm standing in a parking lot near the same exact buildings I saw in my last dream. I walk around behind the car and immediately do some exercises to ground myself in this new body so I won't wake up: run in place, spin around with my arms out, look closely at my fingers as I wiggle and articulate them. This was crucial during these first moments because I could still vaguely sense my body-in-bed, and focusing on it would have woken me up.
I walk over to a nearby field covered in snow powder. Children run to and fro in play. Oh my fellow dreamers, lucidity is a special kind of ecstasy! Just walking, feeling the muscles and tendons move beneath the skin, feeling the snow crunch underfoot, smelling the clean cold air, hearing the children's laughter.... Ordinary things are transformed into the most magnificent things you have ever experienced! This is no exaggeration.
With childlike glee I leap into the air and fly around overhead. The children scream with delight. I swoop down and give rides to one or two at a time. I mentally imitate a hang-glider and the aerodynamics of my flight become exactly that, though I am still just a human body with arms outstretched.
After a while I land and decide I'm tired of the cold. I long for more a tropical setting, but I'm not sure how to get there. It occurs to me I could try to WILD again from within my current dream but I need a detailed description of where I'm going so I can focus on it. I ask a woman to describe for me a tropical place that she's visited. She says, "How about the north shore of Siberia?" Interesting suggestion but not exactly what I had in mind. I ask her if she really thinks that's tropical and she says there's a microclimate there that's very similar to Southern California. Somehow I don't quite believe her. My friend Rolf approaches and I ask him for a suggestion. He suggests Hawaii and the woman says she's also been to Peru. I think the conversation becomes a distraction from my real intent and the dream fades as I wake in bed.