Travel preparations in both worlds

Busy with preparations for my 5 day trip to Amsterdam. I bought the train ticket several weeks ago at a super special offer - not anticipating that it would be ""winter"" during this time around Germany and the Netherlands - Dutch news site "Het Parool" wrote that it's the coldest August in 30 years! Summer clothes can definitely stay at home, let alone a swimsuit. No bike tour to the beach this year, I guess...
At least one activity I had definitely planned anyway won't be affected much, which is another visit to Museum Vrolik!

Amsterdam also has a huge public library, 7 stories high, and unlike in Germany there's a lot in English language (and anyway I can read a little Dutch too), so that's where I'll probably spend much of Tuesday which is forecast to be the rainiest. There are also two entirely English language book stores I know. So it will likely become a more quiet time than at other occasions when I usually ride an average 30 to 40 miles a day... of course, I guess I'll rent a bicycle anyway since public transport is just inconvenient and not exactly cheaper. And a true Amsterdammer rides a bike, rain or shine. :)
I hope I'll be able to use the little outdoor gym I discovered on at least one or two days, weather permitting, else push-ups & Co. in the dorm will have to do.

A rare illusion of summer, caught on my balcony during a brief spell of sunshine

I'm still undecided on what I'll take along to read, perhaps nothing at all since I'll pretty sure buy at least one book there anyway. Museum Vrolik has a publication too which is very expensive but I'd so love to have it...
I haven't quite finished Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming yet but only not quite, so I feel it's somehow not worth taking it along for only the remaining few pages. So far I have a somewhat mixed opinion of the book, for the greater part positive, it provides truly valuable insights and also exercises. As for the negative part, I was a bit disappointed that even Stephen LaBerge partially seems to display the materialist attitude that dreams are "all just inside your head", or a product of the brain. But maybe I've become just a bit too sensitive toward the quarrelsome materialist view so that I feel irked whenever I sense it near - in any case, LaBerge perfectly makes up for this semblance in earlier chapters when toward the end relating the wisdom of Tibetan dream Yogis who treat all of life as the same: dreaming or waking, it's all just a dream anyway. And I feel this is the perfectly correct view. "Reality" is the reality you experience at any given time, whether dreaming or waking; there is no such thing as an "absolute" reality besides what is experienced.

A second negative aspect on the book to me was how some people misuse lucid dreaming for the stupidest things... like practicing skiing or, even much worse, rehearsing a business conference. Maybe it's just that I can't imagine how such things could ever possibly be of enough importance to anyone as to waste a precious lucid dream on it. Business is something I've never understood anyone could be sincerely interested in. That's probably the reason why I have no money...  More importantly, since I'm still struggling for even a rare lucid moment I may be a bit like a starving person outraged and uncomprehending at someone else throwing their precious bread out to feed the pigeons with it.
All in all, I'd rate the book 4 stars out of 5.

I now have at least some memory of my dreams nearly every morning, or when I wake in the night, which is already some progress compared to earlier times. But the other night I dreamed about my good (dream) friend Freddy Krueger, and I'm puzzled that this didn't trigger lucidity since anyone familiar with the Nightmare on Elm Street movies can tell that whoever meets Freddy has to be dreaming, by design!

Somebody in a Facebook group related to have successfully built a permanent lucid dream environment for themselves which they can re-enter at will, and things there are just progressing as they would in a city in the waking world between visits,and the person said they hoped to be able to move there permanently in the afterlife. This is pretty much what I have in mind to do, except that I don't want it to be so much a home as in "human habitation". It actually bothers me to be so much bound to my home and my possessions here - I like the place where I live, I still love my awesome new bed, and of course my sweet sharkies. And I'm even so much a creature of habit that I travel back to Amsterdam each year because I miss it. But it does bother me a lot to be so bound by possessions and habits. The shark spirit in me wants to be free and roaming a vast, infinite ocean as my home. So my idea of a "home" on the other side would be more like a vaster realm of belonging, a surrounding reflecting my inner being, and the connection to my familiars, above all to my Master.

My bed with sharkies