nightmare

I’m at home, where it’s pouring raining outside, to the point that the entire driveway and sidewalk outside my front door is flooded with about a foot of water. I’m still by the front door though, waiting for an important package to arrive. While looking outside, I see an open and plugged-in laptop out on the lawn, and worry that someone left it there in the rain. After a while, the water starts to recede a bit, so I can finally get outside to get the package from the mailman. I can’t walk too far out though, as there’s a ton of grub worms all over the sidewalk, and I don’t want to walk across them barefoot.

I’m riding in a train, but then me and some other guy jump off at this futuristic train station-kinda thing. Apparently, it’s a “sorting station”, which sorts cars that are heading to different destinations. One train comes in with cars going to two different destinations (marked red and green), and without the train stopping, all the green cars are disconnected and roll down another track, where a second train is waiting to take them to their appropriate destination. I’m really interested in the technology behind this, but I’m cut short when a police car shows up, responding to a call about 2 people jumping off the train. My accomplice grabs me by the arm, and we hide in a small alcove just off the train tracks.

I’m at work. My boss is trying to hook up some network cables, but the only available wall plug is near the ceiling, so he’s walking precariously on the edges of the cubicle walls to get to it. I watch out of curiosity, secretly hoping something funny happens. As soon as he plugs it in, however, there’s a bright flash, and suddenly everything’s back to how it was a few minutes earlier. I initially think I just had some weird deja vu, but I realize that everyone around is looking around confused like it affected them as well. The entire room seems a lot brighter though, and I wonder if some major catastrophe happened. There’s suddenly another flash, and all of us are sent back in time again. It happens a couple more times, but each time some of the cubicles are missing and the walls look more run-down. After the 5th or 6th flashback, there’s a loud screeching noise, and all the lights cut out. There’s a moment of silence as everyone tries to figure out what is going on.

Suddenly, the phone right next to me starts to ring, which scares me at first. I slowly pick up the phone. There’s a ton of static on the other end at first, before a demonic voice tells me that I’m now cursed and will die in 7 days. I start getting angry at the person on the phone. “Do you think this is f***ing funny? Do you think you can f***ing scare everyone in this building for giggles? Well listen here, you little s***. I’m not afraid of you. I’ll never be afraid of you, because… because I’m dreaming!” I hang up the phone and turn to see some guy who seems to emanate darkness from his body. I apparently have to fight him, but the fight scene switches to a 3rd person view. It looks very much like an old Game & Watch game I used to play, where you have to move up and down on your side of the screen and try to shoot energy to hit the person on the other side. After a few seconds, I end up getting hit first, which causes me to switch back to first person, where I am absorbed by darkness. As it surrounds me, I feel an intense pressure pushing all over my body. It’s hard to explain, it feels sort of like the sensation of water pressure when you go really deep in a swimming pool - but much more intensely painful. I’m almost consumed by it, but I remember I am dreaming, so I tense up and unleash all my energy at once. Rays of light flow out of me, cutting through the darkness and relieving the pressure on my body. Instead, the light takes over the guy I’m fighting, and he falls to the floor in pain. I stand right over him and start taunting him. “You thought you could stop me with darkness? I am the light of the world… or at least the Italians.”

I’m in my high school gymnasium. There’s a ton of little kids and parents around to watch some kind of wrestling event on a large projector screen at one end of the gym. I’m helping out with getting stuff set up, including fixing one of the large fluorescent bulbs. A maintenance guy who’s helping me lowers the light via a cable from the ceiling. Instead of replacing a bulb though, we have to replace some weird thing that looks like a large spherical clump of soap suds. Apparently, the sudsy “bulb” is made of some special material that reacts with a gas that’s output from the light socket, producing a bright light. The reaction also makes the sudsy material super light, which makes it stay in the socket without any restraint, as long as the light is always pointing down. I go to adjust the “bulb”, but I accidentally knock some pieces of suds loose. The maintenance man looks at me disappointed since I just ruined that bulb, but then pulls another one out and gently puts it in place. I watch as it starts to glow, and soon have to turn away because it’s so bright.

Taking a break from the SSILD challenge (mainly because I fell asleep last night before I could do the cycles, but I still had a LD) to share this amazingly terrifying yet still pretty awesome lucid nightmare I had last night. Probably one of the most memorable dreams I've had in years.

The dream started with kind of a commercial for Home Depot talking about all of the services they offer, like free delivery and haul-away, and "the knowledge and expertise to get things done" (not sure if that was actually there, but I know that's on the real commercial...). The final scene of the commercial showed the parking lot of Home Depot. In a very cinematic transition, the logo, phone number, and other info at the end of the commercial faded out as I walked towards the store. I was heading there to get my dad something for his birthday. The store wasn't like a normal Home Depot where everything was inside. Instead, all the products were outside under different tents that said "Hardware" and "Plumbing" and all the different departments at Home Depot. I went over to the hardware tent to find something that my dad would like.

I walked through a few aisles until I finally got to the back of the tent where I saw my mom and dad also browsing. "Great," I thought, "now my dad will see what I'm getting for him." I went up and talked to them, and we talked as we walked down another aisle or two. I then realized that the two of them were handcuffed together. "What are the handcuffs for?" I asked. Neither of them answered my question, but instead they walked away like they didn't even hear it. As I looked around, I realized that all of the couples were handcuffed together. I didn't understand what this was for, but it didn't seem to be right (or legal), so I decided to investigate.

I snuck in through a large sliding overhead door into the employees only area. Inside was this big room with several cargo storage containers in a row towards this larger part of the room that extended out like a very large warehouse. I decided to get on top of the containers so I could get a better idea of where I was. I got on top of the first one, and then ran from one to the next towards the large room. After about 7 or 8 of these containers, I heard this robotic male voice say something like "Crushers Initiated." I saw in front of me a large spiked crusher flattening each cargo container. I assumed that the cargo containers would be moving towards the crusher at a slow pace, which would give me plenty of time before I had to get off. Then I saw a second crusher crush the next container, and soon more and more crushers worked their way towards me, quickly picking up speed. I turned around and ran as fast as I could from one container to the next trying to outrun the crushers. I jumped off the last one just in time and fell onto a large conveyer belt. I heard the robotic voice say "You're not getting away that easily." I then saw a crusher at the end of the conveyer belt, and I was rapidly speeding towards it. I quickly rolled off the side of the belt before I got crushed. There was then a flashing red light and a siren. I expected people to come after me, so I ran in the first door I could find to get away.

Little did I know that I had just set foot in an elevator. I turned to try to go back out, but the door had closed and locked. I was in this small room, when suddenly the wall opposite the door turned into a large screen. The robotic voice seemed to have a sarcastic, biting tone to it (kind of like a male GladOS) as it said, "I hope you feel proud of yourself. Because of your negligence, 26 people have died." The number 26 appeared in big red numbers on the screen. "Now comes the fun part," the voice continued. "I'm going to ask you simple yes or no questions. Answer any of them right, and I let you go. My sensors can also read your fear, which will cost you dearly." I felt my blood pressure rise, and there was suddenly a buzzer as the elevator car quickly dropped. After a while it stopped, and the voice said. "We're now 10 floors down. I'd advise you to keep your cool, as there are only 100 floors." The first question came on the screen. I don't even think I got a chance to look at the question before the ceiling started to close in above me. I then heard the buzzer again as the car dropped again. This time it took me much longer to get under control as the ceiling continued to come down. I was pretty much on all fours before I pressed my answer on the screen.

The ceiling stopped. The elevator screeched to a halt. "I did it," I thought. The voice then started to laugh. "That is so incredibly wrong," it said. The entire screen went red. "And now, due to your ignorance, 64 people have died. I hope you're happy, you incompetent fool." The buzzer sounded and the car started dropping again. "He's playing with me," I thought, "This can't be happening." I had a whole psychological battle with myself for about 15 seconds as the car continued to descend. "I have to get out." I decided to try to wake myself up by blinking really hard and willing my eyes open. Then I realized, "Wait, if I'm lucid enough to know I can wake up, then I'm lucid enough to control this dream."

"Wait, what?" the voice said. I felt this surge of power go through me. I was the one in control now. With heroic strength I pushed the ceiling back up. "Stop, what are you doing?" I reared back with all the power I could muster and punched through the door of the elevator. The doors flew back as sparks flew. I ran into the hallway, where there were now flashing red lights and a loud siren. I ran down the halls (which looked kind of like the halls of the Death Star) towards any exit I could find. The computer wasn't giving up without a fight, though. Two turrets suddenly came out of the walls and started shooting at me. I watched as the bullets bounced off of me. I was invincible, and there wasn't anything that could stop me. I took out all of my anger and rage against this demon computer as I punched the turrets so hard that they sailed down the hallway and exploded. I ran further until these two electrical nodes came out of the walls and shot electricity at me. This time it didn't so much hurt as somewhat paralyze me. I fought against the paralysis enough to punch the wall next to me. I hit so hard, all of the electricity in the entire hall started to falter. The lights kind of flickered as I ran down the rest of the hallway.

I finally got back to the room I started in with the crushers and cargo containers. As I ran towards the open overhead door, I heard the voice say, "Lockdown in 3, 2, 1..." The door quickly closed just before I could get under it. I punched one last time, knocking the door off of its tracks and leaving me enough of a hole to escape. I continued to run, not stopping for a second to look back. The tents that were outside were gone - it was now just an empty lot. I ran for the far end of the parking lot, which had a hill that led up to the highway. The "adrenaline" started to wear off. I started to feel less rage and need to trash everything and more calm and happy that I escaped. I ran towards the hill and saw these rusty metal rungs leading up the hill. I climbed these until I got to the top of the hill, and then the scene went white and I woke up.

So yeah, that's probably the first time I've had a nightmare have a happy ending. It also seemed to end almost perfectly too, with a great sense of closure. I should write a book...