Visions in the Dark

Dream starts off with me in the downtown section of city I do not recognize. The streets are empty of cars and people. It is daytime but the sky is dark with fast moving, stormy clouds. It is not raining but very windy. I have a portable radio with me and the news report says that there is a severe tornato warning in effect. In the distance I can see several tornados twisting and crisscrossing along the horizon and they are coming closer. Every door I try to shops or homes along the street are locked and I start to panic because I cannot find any shelter.

At the end of one street I can see a park with a cement wall bathroom facility. Thankfully the door is unlocked and I can go inside. There are five stalls and I hide in the middle on and cover my head, fearfull that the windows will shatter and drop broken glass all over me when the tornados hit. The sound of the wind howling increases to an almost deafening level and the building starts to shake as the tornados approach. The windows shatter and part of the roof is ripped off as they hit. Everything that is not bolted down gets sucked out of the hole in the roof. I have to cling desperately to a metal bar above the stall door to avoid getting sucked out myself, though I fear the worst when the bathroom stalls begin to shake violently and start to unbolt.

The tornado passes and there is sudden silence. I have a permanant marker in my pocket and I write "This metal bar saved my life" on the bar that I clung too desperately. I turn on my radio again and the news report is saying that more tornados are on the way. No longer feeling safe in the ravaged bathroom facility, I risk going outside to find a better place to hide. Beyond the park is a cemetary and a two storey church. The door has been shaken loose by the storm and I can slip inside. The inside of the church looks like any other except for hundreds of vinyl records laying on the pews and altar. I think that coming here was a bad idea because those vinyl records would be deadly projectiles if airborn, but I cannot leave because several tornados are closing in rapidly.

The church has a basement and I go downstairs to find a place to hide. I am surprised to find that there are four people already taking shelter down there. There is a black couple dressed like they just stepped out of the seventies, a Hispanic man in grey business suit, and an old hippy man with long grey hair in braids and a long grey beard. The black woman introduces herself as Cleopatra (or Cleo for short) and her partner introduced himself as Ben. I cannot remember the suit dude's name but the Hippy introduces himself as Leo as he is rolling a joint from a large bag of marijuana that he is carrying.

I ask the hippy why he is rolling a joint at a time like this and he says "If I'm going to die, man, than I'm going to die high as a kite, man" which amuses the black couple and myself. The Hispanic man scoffs and tells the old hippy that he is wasting his time. I mention that it is funny that Cleo and Leo have such similar names.

The building begins to shake as the wind howls wildly. A tornado hits and debris and vinyl records start flying down the basement stairs. We are all huddled in the far corner behind a cement pillar and are safe from most of the debris. There is a huge crack and crashing sound from upstairs and we discover after the tornado has passed that the church has collapsed on itself. There is enough room for us to slip out of the collapsed building though and get out alive.

I listen to the radio again and hear that the storm is far from over and Cleo points out more tornados in the distance that are approaching. The Hispanic dude gets scared and runs away by himself, ignoring our pleas that we should stick together. The old hippy says that he has a storm shelter within the city in the industrial section but it is far and we'd have to find a car to get us there. His Westfalia microbus just happens to be sitting on a side street near by and it is undamaged to we get in and drive through the back alleys to the industrial section of the city. Along the way we have to dodge many other cars scrambling to get out of the city before the next tornado hits, including a blue semi which almost runs us off the road.

Leo's shelter is located between two large factories and when we go inside we find other people who have taken shelter there, including a mother with two children, some vagrants and a man who is passed out in the middle of the floor. Leo closes the door and we all listen to my portable radio and wait out the storm (as Leo rolls some more joints and passes them around). The announcer on the news says that half of the city has been destroyed by tornados and that they are still coming. No one knows when the storm will end.

The dream ends about there.

Dream starts off with my dad and myself at a giant church which is also a busy tourist destination, though the denomination is not clear. The building is square and seems identical on each side, and it five several stories tall. The outside of the church has bricked pathways that encircle the building and each each side (compass direction) of the building is painted different bright, solid colours. I cannot remember all of them but recall that the south side of the building was painted dark blues and either dark purples or greens. The crowds are made up of many people of different backgrounds, as well as non-humans. There are alien like creature that look like they just stepped out of a science fiction film like Star Wars, while others are antropormorpic animals, dressed in human clothing. No one is bothered by the wide range of non-human creatures, as this is quite normal in this dream world and though I am not bothered by it, I do take note of it because in the dream I have never encountered non-human civilians before.

There is a a small castle or fortress to the north of the church, that is much bigger and made of plain grey bricks. The whole place is set upon a cliff and a tan brick wall keeps people from falling off the edge into a churning ocean. Between the pathways and buildings are elaborate and beautiful gardens filled with many fragrant flowers. It is forbidden by law to touch or damage the flowers and benches are provided all along the cobbled pathways so that people can sit and admire them.

Along the pathways themselves are many sculptures, both abstract and figurative, that seem to have nothing to do with religion, made in a variety of different media. My dad and I are between the north end of the church and the fortress, looking at a brown (bronze?) sculpture. My dad asks me "Do you see him?" and points up. There is a little figure of a burly, bearded man dressed as a lumber jack and carrying a large axe over his shoulder. The rest of the statue itself looks like a crude replica of the Eiffel Tower. My dad is reading a plaque on the side of the statue about what it represents. I leave him to have a quick look around and encircle the church (and thus discover its different coloured sides) before I find my dad on the east side looking at some plastic, light blue and white triangular peices that are slightly curled, that I think are supposed to represent waves of water or something.

I am feeling impatient because I want to leave the crowded pathways and look inside the church, for that is I thought we had come there for. Eventually we do made our way inside, through the south entrance (as that is the only one open, the others are sealed). The inside seems warm and inviting, everything is made of wood and it looks like a simple cottage with a long hall down the middle. To the immediate right there is a small dining room where several (Christian) nuns sit around a dining table in front of empty plates and glasses made of fine porceline. They are dressed casually (wool sweaters, cotton skirts, slippers) and their nun headresses are grey, not black. They at first ignore us and the stready flow of people coming in and out of the entrance. I notice, and point out to my dad, burning embers on the dark brown wooded floor of the dining room, which the nuns have not seen or simply ignore.

We begin to stamp the embers out, as some of them are quite large and could possibly cause a fire, and only then does one elderly nun take notice of what we are doing and joins us in our stamping. When the embers are out she provides no possible explaination of what could have caused it but takes us on a personal tour which ends at a cramped but homely kitchen at the end of the hall. Many of the rooms along the way are sealed with heavy wooden doors and I cannot see inside them, while others are open, though windowless and dark and look mearly like the inside of a chapel with rows of pews and alters filled with candles, some burning and some not. Despite this there are not religious icons or statues anywhere and the only indictation that the building is a church so far is the casually dressed nuns walking the halls.

The elderly nun (who looks like the mother from James Cameron's Titanic) takes us to the second floor which is a special priviledge that the rest of the tourists are not afforded apparently, and it is much different in style the the main floor. Monks in brown cloaks wander the halls silently and avoid making eye contact with anyone and go out of their way to walk around. The walls and floors are made of plain grey bricks and there are many twisting passageways along the hall that go either up or down, yet do not contain stairs and hare been paved smooth and flat.

I ask the nun why this is so and she merely responds that it is to accomadate the many tourists in wheelchairs or those pushing strollers. She also mentions that the basement levels can only be reached by these twisting passages. At the end of one hall there is a large bay window and to the left of that there is a large red curtain from which silent monks enter and leave. A black man with a white turban, dressed in a dark blue robe decorated with silver five pointed stars and crescent moons, stares silently out of the window with a very sad expression on his face. He glances over his shoulder briefly and makes eye contact with me, before quickly looking away and returning his sad gaze out the window. I have a strong desire to speak with him, as I sense he holds much wisdom, but I do not because he seems so sad and unapproachable.

To the right of the bay window, there are two of the twisting passages, one going up and one going down. From the windowless passage going down an eerie green glow eminates. The passage going up has a single wooden frame window with a vase of daisies and seems more welcoming.

As I sit there and contemplate which passage I would like to take, the one going up (consciousness, the easy path) or the one going down (unconsciousness, the harder path) a tour group emerges from the passage going down. It seems to be a group of children lead by a middle aged man but they are all wearing radioactive protective suits that cover there whole bodies and trudge with great weariness as if their trek has been long and arduous. The sight of them needed such protection to explore the lower realm kind of scares me into impulsively running for the passage leading up. I quickly look over my shoulder and notice that dad is gone, as is the man at the window, and the hall is empty of monks, but the nun remains and smiles warmly at me, but she says nothing. Despite her reassuring glance, I scramble up the ascending path with no thoughts or expectations in my mind, like a scared animal being chased by something unseen.

The dream changes. I am suddenly in the castle north of the church, in a grand passageway that while still twisting upwards, is decorated with artworks and elegance befitting of a royal building. It is also much wider, does not slant so steeply and is lighted by large windows bordered by elaborate tapestries. People still wander the halls, but instead of nuns and monks, are woman and men dressed richly in Renaissance fashions of courtiers and aristocrats. A few of them saunter by me and sneer as they do so. I am not dressed as finely as they and instead have on a simple brown dress with a grey undershirt and light grey apron. I have read hair and know immediately that I have transformed into my deam incarnet, Kalima. I look out one of the large windows and can see the square, multicoloured church still surrounded by gardens and sculpures, though the cobblestone pathways are empty of modern-looking tourists and filled with merchants and vendors, peasants and aristocrats, human and non-human alike, bustling around in a budy medieval townscape.

I cannot consciously recall the previous part of the dream now and though I can sense that I do not belong here, and feel out of place, the farmiliarity of everything I am seeing makes me think that I have always been here. I unconsciously grasp at something hidden underneath my collar: a small silk bag containing a polished peice of jade hangs around my neck on a thin strap of leather. I keep it hidden because I feel that if anyone saw it, they would believe that I had stolen it, as it would seem too expensive for a mere peasant as myself to own such a thing. Beyound sentimental and material value, this peice of jade is magical and allows me to see beyond the constraints of the physical world, as well as grant me some minor magical powers. Through the Jade I can see the Truth at all times, and if someone were to discover it and take it away, I fear that I would be rendered powerless and blind.

Touching the Jade, I can feel its power, which pulsates with a warm but sharp electrical current, even through the rough cotton of my shirt and the thick silk bag that contains it. It jars my consciousness and I suddenly remember what I am supposed to be doing, though the sudden awareness is fragmented: Meeting friends. Finding and freeing a captive lion. Saving a King. I cannot compel the peice of Jade which, while still apart of me, is like an entity all unto its own, to show me more and I know that it reveals only what I need to know and it is up to me to figure out the rest.

I decend the winding passageway down to the main floor of the castle and meet a group of people whom I know are my friends. We came here out of curiousity at first, to see the castle, though later for an important task revealed to me through the Jade. My friends, who are all older than me by a few years, know of my power, and trust and protect me with great care. They are all humans except for one, who is a small antropormorphic ant like creature (about two inches tall) who is very wise and acts as our teacher and guide. He usually rides on someone's shoulder, since he is much too small to keep up with us walking on his own, and he greatly fears being crushed to death by being stepped on. All of us are orphans and outcasts and we have no one else in the world save for each other.

We find a lion in a cage and release it before the guards and discover us. We make are way through the lower parts of the castle and it is confusing and maze like. We are captured by some guards and brought before the King. My peice of Jade suddenly sends me a message about the King's life being in danger. I try to tell him so but he doesn't believe me. The lion captors have some how recaptured the lion and now use it as a weapon, making the poor creature attack and kill anyone it comes across, and beating it severely if it does not comply. The captors are just outside of the throne room when a soldier comes and tells the king what is happening. He finally believes me that his life is in danger and I use my magic peice of Jade to create and illusion so that my friends, the King and I can escape. We follow a secret passage revealed by the King behind the throne and it leads to the outside of the castle, but over the ocean and we have to jump into the water.

When I get out of the water I am seperated from my friends in the crowds of people outside the castle and for some reason my peice of Jade transformed me into a lion. I am immediately captured by the cruel lion tamers, who take my peice of Jade without which I cannot revert back. The King meanwhile regroups what soldiers he has left and surrounds and captures the would be assassins. I discover that I am able to revert back to human form under my own power and so not need the Jade. My friends and I are rewarded and we are no longer poor peasants. My friends take up residence in the castle, but I feel out of place because I vaguely remember my dad looking at the art outside of the castle and I leave to "find my way back home."


The dream ends there.

The dream I had last night took place in an abandoned church. The building was made of stone, which was badly worn by weather, and had many places where the roof had collapsed or a peice of wall had fallen in. The layout of the place consisted of one floor with a staircase that led up to a platform above the altar in one corner of the building. Even though it was daylight outside, the inside of the church was very dark.

I was walking with my mom and dad and a few other people I do not recognize down a dirt road in the middle of what seemed like nowhere. The sky overcast and grey, but bright. When we came upon the abandoned church, my dad wanted to go inside and take some pictures with his digital camera. I felt something "evil" about the place but for some reason I was compelled to follow him in. Everyone went inside except for my mom, who waited outside.

As soon as I walked into the abandoned church I knew it was a bad idea. The darkness that filled the place was not natural and seemed to be filled with ghosts or monsters or whatever unseen malacious entities would lurk in the dark places of an abandoned church. The invisible beings seemed to use the darkness as a cover. These creatures began pulling at my clothes and hair as soon as I crossed the threshold but my dad nor the other people seemed to notice anything.

At one point the invisible monsters grabbed my ankles and left arm and lifted me in the air above my father. He did seem to notice at all, even when I was lifted near the roof, and I found myself unable to scream. I struggled wildly but could not free myself from the invisible hands that held me. I remember feeling more angry then scared and gritted my teeth and sort of half-snarled at the darkness. I don't remember how I got out of there but the end of the dream had everyone walking away from the abandoned church as I lagged behind. I looked over my shoulder and saw many pairs of glowing red eyes looking out at me from the darkness.

I had my second lucid experience on this night! I only had very limited control, but I do believe that it is an improvement because in my first lucid experience I had no control what-so-ever.

The dream takes place about a block from where I live. There is a church with an expansive parking lot near the corner of the intersection and all of the outdoor scenes of the dream take place there. All of the inside scenes of the dream take place in what is very similar to the halls of the public school that I attended as a child. Even though, in reality, there are many apartment buildings, stores and a cemetery in the area surrounding the church and the road it is on, in the dream there was only thick, dark forest.


At the beginning of the dream I was inside wandering the halls of the school. It was night time and it should have been closed but I saw former classmates and teachers around as well. There were no classes going on and everything seemed very random or downright chaotic. The was some sort of parade thought the halls and people where dragging pieces of electronic equipment or walking with baby animals through the halls.

Someone walked by with six kittens on a leash and I could not see the person's face, but I remember thinking that the kittens were cute. I also saw someone trying to pull a baby elephant along but still did not realize that I was in a dream. I did not attempt any RCs because it just did not occur to me at the time. I saw an old schoolmate of mine named J.P and I decided to follow him.

We walked down a long hall and went outside. Rather than the school yard we walked out into the church parking lot. There were several parked vehicles as well as cars driving past on the road. J.P sat down on the front step of the church and looked at me and said something. Though I can remember the sound of his voice, I cannot remember what he said to me. I walked over to one of the parked cars (a light grey or white, two door hatchback) and thought that I would drive home in it. I started the car and pulled up the the street, but I swerved out onto the road without slowing down or stopping and I cut off at least two other road vehicles.

It was then that I realized I was in a dream, because I knew what I had just done was very illegal and not the proper way to drive. The first thing I did with my lucidity was put the dream in "reverse" and go back to the point of entering the vehicle so I could attempt an exit from the parking lot with the proper driving technique (what can I say? I am neurotic like that). The second attempt at driving was as well as could be but I turned around and returned to the church parking lot because I wanted to try and speak with J.P again. As I pulled in and parked I saw J.P going into the church. I ran to catch up with him and when I went through the church doors I found myself in the public school halls again.

This time however, the hall was very long and very wide and there where several former male classmates from my grade 7 and 8 years sitting all along the floor. The majority of them seemed to be working on bike or engine parts and their hands were all greasy. Some of them looked up at me and laughed (they used to pick on me and tease me relentlessly) but I ignored them and continued to follow J.P until he too sat down and started working on some greasy mechanical stuff.

I don't know exactly what happend but I lost my dream control, even though I was still aware that I was in a dream. I am guessing it is because I wasn't really doing anything special with my lucidity except follow people to see what they would do, rather than attempting things myself.

I turned around and saw some random former schoolmates exiting from a classroom door and going outside. I was pushed by an invisible force (I was fighting to regain my dream control at this point so the invisible force was probably my subconscious trying to move me along) to the door that the students were exiting. It turned out not to be a classroom but a small, single stall bathroom. It was dirty and empty and the fluorescent light was flickering ominously.

As the male classmates all stared at me, I went into the bathroom and attempted to do my business, but the door would not close properly (neither did the stall door now that I think of it) and I felt embarrased and "on display." I finished as quickly as I could and tried to wash my hands, but the taps spewed some disgusting brown liquid. I got out of there as quickly as I could and went back into the hall to find that all of the male schoolmates who were sitting on the floor laughing at me - except for J.P, who just looked at me with a sad expression on his face before returning to his greasy work.

I remember running for the exit doors because I was upset and embarassed but the the faster I ran towards the doors, the further away they seemed. I acknowledged that my dream was turning into one of those weird stretchy hall dreams, but I did not have the control over my body to stop myself from running. The only thing I could think of doing was saying to myself over and over again "This is cliche and boring. This is cliche and boring."


The dream ended there. Only after I woke up did I realize that I should have been said "more clarity" or "more lucidity" rather than "this is cliche and boring." Oh well, next time.