Carabas

I'm observing a time period when humanity's living on only one planet. Everywhere else has grown too cold to support them. I'm watching one man chase another into space, and he's thinking something about fuel. I'm thinking about my own choice of focus, a little amused - in a time period like this, I'd expect my focus to be on someone's epic struggle to save humanity or something to that effect. But that doesn't interest me here; this last world is going to fail regardless. I'm interested in this man's more personal struggle.

I'm lying in my IRL bed, looking out into the hall, and I seem to see movement, as if there are several small creatures on the floor. It's too dark to be sure my eyes aren't playing tricks on me. I reach for the lamp - as I do so, I think I see one of the maybe-creatures-maybe-tricks-of-the-eyes come into the room and look up at me - but the lamp won't turn on. Although I'm aware the bulb could just be out, I suspect this is a dream.

To test it, I will myself to float up into the air, but nothing happens. I close my eyes to test whether I can see through them anyway, and I can't (in fact, after closing my eyes here, there were no more visuals for the rest of the dream). But I'm still convinced this is a dream. As one more test, I reach up and touch the ceiling, sure that it won't be solid. I encounter solid material, but it's spongy, my finger sinks into it, creating a depression, and then reaching some limit - the material breaks, creating a small hole. For a second I consider whether this might not be a dream and I've really poked a hole in the ceiling. But I keep digging at it until I create a larger hole, large enough for me to pass through, and I climb up into it. As I pass through, I find I'm now moving downward, not upward - and this makes me wonder if opening up this hole was really a good idea. I have a vague thought about moving down into a basement which stores unpleasant things. But once on the other side, I become aware that I'm lying in bed, and that I've woken up.

Fragments from later (insomnia's been killing me this past week and my recall's a mess):

A desert in a futuristic setting. I'm talking to my wife about some intrigue going on within an elite group of all-female guards who work for us. They're slaves, and I'm thinking about the tensions created by relying on people while keeping them in slavery.

Different scene, same POV character. I'm in a small spaceship, with the pilot - a good friend who works for me - to my left, and a boy whom I'm kind of mentoring sitting behind us. I'm explaining to the boy about a weapon I'm expecting our enemies to use, something that increases the heat of a star. It's related to the lifespan of the star, and the boy deduces that since the star in this system is very young, the effect will be very great. He sounds horrified, but I'm not feeling particularly concerned; it's just one more thing to take into account.

As Homestuck's Dave, I've been teleported somewhere else, leveled up some insane amount due to timeline shenanigans, and then was teleported back home, to Bro's apartment, in the middle of the same game we were playing when I was yanked out. I'm really annoyed, because now I'm way beyond Bro's level and I'm not okay with that. I'm looking at some kind of selector switch, trying to figure out how to scale it back from a dealing-with-the-fate-of-humanity level to a hanging-around-the-apartment-with-Bro level.

I'm looking at six cards laid out in two rows. They show ravens and swords, black ones and white ones of each. One large white figure is flanked by two smaller black figures, and vice versa. They're labeled, and I hear the text out loud, "Light and Shadow, Occidanto et Icandis."

(Woke up. Noted that my subconscious Latin is terrible. Went back to sleep.)

A little after a scene in which L. appeared, I'm thinking to myself that I'm going to have to tell M. that she was here, when it occurs to me that that's impossible, I must have been dreaming.

Immediately after that thought, the sheriff from Twin Peaks walks in. He complains to me about this demon thing - all these people involved in recent suspicious events have been blaming it on demons, which is ridiculous, he can't figure out what's going on. He leaves the room, and I follow him. In the next room, there are two other people. One of them has something sticking out of the center of his forehead, like a horn, or like he's been stabbed with something, and I realize he's the source of this rotting smell. I also realize he's supposed to be dead, and the sheriff's been harboring him.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm reading a news article covering ongoing research on the inside of an ancient spaceship that's been unearthed. The scientist in this article says she's discovered that humanity developed on this planet based on the human image displayed inside this ship, not the other way around. I find it bizarre that this claim is being presented in a major credible news source, as opposed to tabloids and conspiracy theory type sources. Then it occurs to me that the presence of an ancient spaceship, which the article treats as an already-established, commonly-known fact, is also pretty bizarre. I start to look up more information from other sources online, but out loud, I talk about the article with someone else, who, without reading it, dismisses it all as nonsense. I try to stress to her that what's really bothering me as unusual here is its presence in a major newspaper.

There was a royal baby, Herbert, who was locked away with his mother and a small staff in an isolated section of the castle for 8 years, after some disaster with his father. Now they're allowing a few more people to enter, including myself. They're still referring to him as "the baby", although it's been eight years, and now I see why - he's sitting in a high chair, being fed by his nurse, treated as if he were an infant in every respect, and apparently he's never been taught to walk, talk, or feed himself. The queen, clearly mad, is referring to herself as Herbert - I think of this as reflecting a desire to take control of the late king's power.

Most of the small group allowed in behave like sycophants, fawning over them, but after we leave, I speak with two of the other people who were allowed inside, both of them as disturbed as I am: two cat-like creatures, brother and sister, one a doctor, the other a scholar or advisor of some kind. They're cat-sized and they walk on all fours, but they're different enough in the face that they're not quite capable of being confused for actual cats; they're striped black and brilliantly dark blue, and they come from a place called Cheshire. They're very kind, very intelligent, very soft-spoken. The brother says that he believes the child carries some infectious disease that affects the brain, and this is what must have caused the disaster with the king eight years ago. Now it's clearly infected the queen as well. He intends to return tonight to examine the boy more closely. I'm thinking no, he's wrong, it's not a disease that the boy carries but madness, and I have a clear mental image of madness as some kind of spirit attached to the boy. I have the impression that I already know how this will end, that this is the past, I'm seeing a tragedy play out and have been forbidden from doing anything to change it. Suddenly realizing, I exclaim out loud, "the Cheshire Cat!" I'm horrified by this revelation, the idea of the madness that will take over this kind and soft-spoken doctor, and I'm so disturbed that the doctor and his sister become concerned; although I try not to say anything more, my exclamation has surprised them, and it's clear that I know something.

I'm climbing a road up towards the mountains, through a landscape covered in snow, along with the two cats and several other people, heading away from the castle. There's an announcement over a system of loudspeakers, the queen's voice stating "We order you to the tower to be arrested." The announcement goes on to scold us, alternately addressing us as if we were children or saying we've dishonored our esteemed positions, and then says "Now place your life squarely in your master's hands!" Obviously we have no intention of turning ourselves over to be arrested, but the path to the mountains takes us right past that tower.

I'm in a store that sells various forms of blades, among other things, and my attention's caught by an iron mask with a strangely curved dagger set into it, removable. (After I woke up I realized the dagger's shape was inspired by F/SN.) The mask's face seems very narrow, but I believe that the mask's features will fit themselves to the wearer. The eyes are particularly narrow and I don't see any holes to look out of. There's a long and narrow stylized beard that reminds me of ancient Egyptian art, which would cover the wearer's neck, and the mouth is designed to look as if it's been sewn shut. I like it.

I'm distracted by the sound of more people arriving outside. There's a brief confrontation but they dismiss me and the people I'm with as not threatening, which irritates me. There's some debate over whether this post-apocalyptic, breakdown-of-society situation we're in will last, or whether things will return to normal in a few days.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

There are three astronauts who've said or done something that their bosses wouldn't approve of, and they've ceased broadcasting in a way that implies they're dead or soon will be. But when I talk to someone who wasn't watching their broadcast live, I find she's got a different impression of events, she believes everything's fine, and some reasonable-sounding excuse has been given for why the astronauts are no longer broadcasting. Their previous broadcast has been censored or changed.

I'm playing a piano, using sheet music for a jazz tune I'd never heard before. The sun's going down, and the light gradually darkens until I can't make out the sheet music in front of me.

I'm standing in front of a row of elevators with reflective gold-colored doors, and in a sort of voiceover I'm hearing what sounds like an article about a scientific study of reflections. There's a lot of information that sounded reasonable at the time but didn't actually translate to waking life - for example, your eyes perceive this angle of motion and expect an impact that never comes, causing tension, and resulting in your attention focusing on this or that minor detail. As I get into the elevator, the article is saying something about there being two different ways to think of reflections which both carry different benefits, and it goes on to explain the two ways. I find this interesting and decide to experiment with switching to the other way of thinking, which is viewing your reflection as a separate person, even expecting it to talk. Acting on the article's advice, I address my reflection on the mirrored elevator wall. My reflection's a great deal taller than me, and completely covered by a hooded cloak. I find I like him - or it - a great deal.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

Some vague fragment involving briefly passing through an exhibit to do with planets, and something about Artemis.

There's a woman who's determined to hold onto the hand of some monstrously deformed figure who keeps trying to shy away. She's thinking about how she's been through some kinds of transformations in the past herself, so it takes more than some monstrous appearance to frighten her off. The monstrous one's thinking something about Cain, and something about two angels, one in favor of allowing the other's creations - humans - to develop variations of themselves (which is to say, to have children); the one who created them was opposed; and now he's found his downfall in a relationship with a human, which wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for that decision, allowing the humans to develop into new variations.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

There's a man who's been running through the halls of a house and now reaches a dead end, a study with a portrait, which I briefly thought was a mirror. A man who's been following him at a walking pace comes into the room and starts talking about the portrait, and about the history of the man in the painting, who was - is? - a vampire. He says, "They forgive him the very thing he (something)," and then something about "fell." Meanwhile the man who'd been running is stumbling around the room with his hand over his stomach like he's been injured, saying "Please!" There's a resemblance between him and the portrait.

Friday: A mountain "full of fog, 'wolves' and 'sheep'", where a woman who'll wind up becoming a historical figure is setting out to show the other side that some of their 'wolves' have deserted and are now helping her guard the 'sheep.'

Today: A guy in space, traveling toward Earth along with many, many other ships in some kind of race, the ship he's in seems made up of many different old parts, pieces are falling off along the way but he seems to have expected that. He's full of rage. There was something to do with lots being drawn, and his younger sister had been one of the winners, which would have meant she was safe and wouldn't have to take her chances in the race with the rest of them, but her parents (from whom he's estranged) had convinced her to give up her slot, that she must live or die and "become ashes" with them, so that they wouldn't be separated in the next life and lose her forever. She told him about this as he was looking over her ship for her, and he found something wrong with it, something that had been sabotaged, that would prevent him from communicating with her after the journey even if they both survived. He fixes it, and is furious.

Still the same storyline - there's a woman somewhere "left behind", the place all the people in the race and the lottery were abandoning. She wakes up with a gun next to her - not hers - and sees someone who says something to her. She, outraged by what he said, says "I don't look like a nice person to you?", and shoots him. Her logic being that if he couldn't recognize a good person when he saw one, he must be a bad person. As she shoots him, her face changes in some subtle way, something to do with her teeth, and I'm aware that in this place, now, people physically change to reflect their actions, and this is part of what the others were escaping from.

A conversation between a man and a woman in a bedroom as she's tying sheets together into a ladder, preparing to escape:
He: "I thought you might have missed it."
She: "Missed what?"
He: "The window."
She: "I can't miss the window. You're my destiny - war."

After an incident with a robot - it appeared human and was programmed to act as a caregiver to a group of four kids, something had gone wrong with it and put the kids in danger. Now someone's complaining to someone else about it - one's in law enforcement, the other's in politics, not sure which one is which. The one listening to the complaint responds, "I believe I oversaw the (something). And (something) to call in some backup." But when she says 'backup', she's not talking about something official. I see an image of two guys, not in any kind of uniform, one's scrawny and one's a little overweight, they have some connection to photography, possibly the press - they're the 'backup' she was referring to.