Recent DJ Posts

30th August 2020

7:20

Dream:

Last part mostly. Not too interested in full recall. Was walking around somewhere with someone, an old schoolmate, maybe C? We're talking about buildings for some reason and then there's no transition but we're in "China" and I see Chinese soldiers in what looks to be a kind of ceremonial uniform.

Covid times in the dream. But nobody is wearing a mask, not even myself or who I'm with. We're at some exhibit building and it involves going down a long set of stairs underground. People don't seem to be respecting distancing rules and through all of this I'm getting casual contact with random people and I'm touching my face, for some reason. I become concerned, but feel that because there's nothing I can do now, I just carry on.

Eventually we leave back up the stairs. Even the soldier and the attendants don't care about distancing and contact, this bothers me on a very basic level. My dad then appears at some point and complains about it all.

Some transition and then Deus Ex themes and fighting Paul Denton, but I'm still myself? Before all of this, I remember roaming cobble pavements late at night?

I make note of the fact that it's the past, I just have this knowledge in the dream somehow, something like the 60s? Don't know exactly but some cars have unusual UV headlights or something, because everything that's got white on it lights up bright because of the UV headlights when cars go past sometimes. I distinctly remember old-styled cars and lorries.

There's a dog walker at some point while I'm walking along the pavements; we try to avoid each other and I'm on the grass.

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Notes:
- There was a very loose and casual link, I think, between the Chinese soldiers and Deus Ex, since there are several levels in the game that take place in China. It was also a game that I played back when I knew C.
- Dad's appearance seems to just be a reflection of some of my own thoughts but besides that his behaviour was mostly as I might expect it to be.
- The covid themes in this dream I think were mostly part of a subconscious digestion of my own processing of certain situations in waking life.

We had a bit of a tidy yesterday and I had somewhat strange sleep because of a supplement I took that I even forgot I had around; but I'd also forgotten why I'd stopped taking it. I had extremely vivid dreams but unable to really stay asleep. The first two fragments were from some of the awakenings and were actually really quite long and detailed dreams, just as the third, but I didn't memorise enough of them since I didn't write them down when I had them.

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Dream Fragment:

Was in my old home area. For some reason I managed to get a job as a secretary for some important person (politician/businessman?) and I was being interviewed by a woman with tied up hair and glasses; very similar to the secretary in the original Deus Ex game, come to think of it.

For whatever reason I was using an alias, a French name going just by "Sís", even though I was uncertain myself how I should pronounce it. I remember being asked about speaking French, and I said (roughly) in French that I could speak the language poorly.

I remember the room I was in was office-like but sort of well decorated as I'd expect for my native region.

Dream Fragment:

I wasn't a character myself in this dream. It was more like watching something. It was in China or a place like it and I was seeing inside an office at a business skyscraper. Two men were discussing (in English) about how a brand new government law was going to make everyone's life hell, basically. They could see it being announced on a TV at their workplace. Everyone was becoming afraid of speaking to anyone else but most people were uncomfortably relaxed in a sense, seemingly they felt safe in this place anyway.

I remember one of these two men making a comment saying "I don't even want to take anyone in my car with me anymore."

Then there were some scenes outside, scenes of traffic and of dead vegetation/landscapes. It was a gloomy day-time throughout this dream.

Dream Fragment:

I am somewhere underground, at some kind of mixed restaurant/convenience store place. I'm with my family, and I'm making small talk with the shop lady. She's interested in my phone and asks if I can get her some extra ones of the same model. I say sure, but then question if it's worth it. I tell her that if I get them at a "brand new price" there's nothing in it for either of us. Before she can give me a reasonable idea of what the agreement would be, my phone "rings" (vibrates, more like, I think).

It's an old friend, someone I haven't spoken to in over two years in waking reality. Da is calling me and I try to answer but somehow I tap something that says "delete contact" right under "accept call"!

Feeling frustrated by the fact I just made such a mistake I try to get the number back somehow from the log and then try calling back. He answers and I try to speak but he can't hear me.

I walk outside from this shop, still underground and take a left and then a right and go up some stairs. I'm outside now. I don't remember what it looked like exactly, but get the feeling of "arid".

I speak again, and Da hears me now. I ask, "Hey, how are you? It's been a really long time." He says "I'm ok, I guess." He makes some sort of ironic and witty but also serious remark about how I hadn't been in contact. I try to explain that I did try communicating over the last two years, but that every time I did, I never heard anything back.

We get into small talk and his behaviour over the phone seems more normal, less upset as it seemed like initially. I can hear he's playing something on a console. "Is that Tekken you're playing?" He doesn't answer immediately, concentrating and then says he'll be finished shortly and then we could do (whatever it was) that we were going to do. I quickly realise internally that it couldn't be a Tekken game. All the sounds are too sort of retro and synth-like.

I remember pacing around outside while on the phone, something I do anywhere whilst on the phone. Everything feels vivid and somewhat real despite the fact that the place I'm at looks somewhat alien. The structure of this place on the outside is some sort of hard compacted sand and I'm on some kind of platform. There are metal beams or girders somewhere as part of the structure, but I forget the details now.

It's kind of daytime, but there's a strange light. I don't remember anything else now but this fragment was only the second half of this dream.

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No notes for now.

non-dream dream semi-lucid lucid false awakening


With a group of amateur spies who volunteered to keep an eye and report on the leaders and regimes that threaten the world. I mostly spy the Chinese government's tentacles abroad, but had a chance to infiltrate the Brazilian government and they are with crazy ideas. The president picked up Trump's idea of nuking hurricanes and he shows me excited a bomb they have ready to use in the next extreme weather phenomena. There seems to be no one around him smart enough to see the stupidity of it. Instead they are all so proud of their tech.
Back to headquarters they don't wanna believe me but someone else confirms my story with complementary info. Meanwhile some colleague is on the phone with a Chinese dude we are monitoring, and she claims he invited her to lunch and there will be no time for us to set up a mission to go with her. She has to go alone. We are all listening in silence, but we almost blow it, with our whispering - we cannot believe she really will go out with this guy.

Was on a vacation in china. I was super aware of the surveillance state and lack of freedom. There were cameras everywhere. Like seriously, every couple feet you'd see a tiny camera watching you, tracking you, reporting your every move to God knows who. First me and my family were taking a nice drive through the countryside. We saw some beautiful houses in the mountains. Very green, just great land. We saw some really weird animals we weren't used to seeing. I think we even saw some kangaroos, which is odd since I don't think they're native there. We came across what I assume was a private community. It had nice brick roads and was walled in, with houses surrounding the inside. We saw marquee display with red words and I at first assumed it would be telling us to leave, but it just pointed out a particular person who was 11 minutes late to work. I guess he was going to be receiving some punishment and they needed the community to know...Later on we went shopping, and I was interested by the variety of items at the store. You could find things you wouldn't find normally. Not sure quite how to explain it. They only had 1 kind of mac and cheese, or 1 brand of shoes, and stuff like that, but because of the lack of choice they were able to provide a much more dense selection of items to purchase. I noted how everyone kept to themselves and didn't talk. It was as if they were afraid to say something they should not. It reminded me of 1984, how even their thoughts were closely monitored. I had no issue recognizing other tourists, as they were all much more outgoing and willing to communicate. They didn't have the fear that the normal citizens had.

At some point during conversation with the tourists we found ourselves in a restaurant. It was a buffet of some sort. I don't remember much here, but eventually the staff all quickly cleaned up, turned the lights down, and left. We took that as a sign to leave, but we weren't exactly in a rush. My brother and I had already made it to the car, but my parents were inside walking out talking to people. I guess it took too long, because something really bad happened. The tires on our car suddenly inflated, and the car quickly reversed a few feet. I looked over at a camera facing directly at us, and felt a sense of dread and helplessness. We went after the car, but it took off toward a mountain, drove off the parking lot and exploded into the hillside. I loudly shouted at the camera asking WTF, but quickly realized that it was not smart to question the government. I then heard over loudspeaker that I was to remain still while the authorities arrive. I start to run but then a turret started firing at me from under the camera. I dodged the bullets miraculously and hid behind a planter. Within seconds the planter was destroyed by the bullets and a man spoke over the speaker and told me they have plenty of bullets and I have nowhere to hide. The dream ended.

This was around 11am-1pm yesterday. I woke up and decided to self-cancel my classes and I’m happy I did that.

I woke up and was looking around before closing my eyes again. While sifting through my thoughts, I could feel my body getting warm and it felt like I was high in a sense. This was the beginning of a dream but I was aware so I decided to try to take it lucid. The first scene I thought of was in the middle of the blue sky. This was probably the case because one of my starting points for a lucid dream is a small plane for skydiving where a person is in front of me yelling for me to jump out of the plane. I know it’s intense, but the intensity makes it easier to spring into lucidity.

Anyways, I was imagining being in the middle of the sky but I believe because there were no other objects it wasn’t working. I could see blue in front of me and blowing by me like a blizzard. That went away so it was time to imagine a new dream scene. Another common dream scene I use is my bed at my mom’s house. Sure enough, my vision is now spinning in my room as I’m trying to stop spinning. The spinning stops and I’m now standing on my bed. I look down at my hands and start to rub them together so that I can feel friction. I do math, “2x2 is 4, 4x4 is 16.” I walk over to my window and pull back the curtain. Outside is daytime but quickly turns to a bright nighttime, meaning the sky was dark but everything was very well lit up.

I look up at the sky and notice the milky way galaxy is very clearly visible across the sky. I’m thinking in my head “woah.” There are 100s of stars brightly lit in the sky. In between the stars I can see labels like “AGC” and “CAC” which to me seemed like undiscovered planets and galaxies that have purpose and importance to us. Then, I noticed the map of the US pasted behind the milky way galaxy. I turned around and started to walk to my door when I fell. The dream collapsed.

Getting the dream back and running, I was now on a street in a city I thought was Richmond. There were two story buildings made of brick to the left and right of me. I’m on the right side of the street on the sidewalk. I start to walk down the street and see signs hanging above the street coming off of the buildings. Most of them were in another language like Chinese or Japanese. I still thought I was in Richmond, so I decided I wanted to go find Hibachi box which I thought was on the other side of the street and down a bit. Before that I was rubbing my hands together and doing math again. Running to a building with a sign above, I see a small ramp that leads up to a slightly open garage door and a lit room inside the building, lit blue. Looking up, I see the sign is now “GEICO” in red letters. After that, I walk down the street a little bit more and to the left is this building that was a shower and bathroom system.

Now, I think I’m in China. Someone behind me asks to me “ni hao ma?” which means how are you and I turn around and say the same thing back to them smiling. In the shower system was a room of people who were naked or had towels around them waiting in line to shower. Further down was a room with people waiting to use the bathroom, male and female.

A dream character knocks into me and the dream collapses. I get the dream back and now I’m walking past the shower and bathroom system again. My vision sees inside the shower room and there are people who are naked. My mood starts to get very turned on and I now want to go talk to a girl. Walking down the street, to the left of me is a long line filled with people my age. At the end I see a group of three girls talking to each other. I hesitate but then go up to the girl facing away from me. She was wearing short blue jeans and a floral pattern shirt that was black and a reddish/orange. She had dirty blonde hair that was wavy and blue/green eyes. She looks back at me and smiles. We start dancing together. A few seconds in I realize my generation’s way of dancing is stupid and I lose interest. I walk down the street further and see a bunch of people waiting to cross the street. Looking both ways, I can see massive buses and cars flying by very quickly. All of the looking around caused the dream to spiral and collapse.

Again, I got the dream back up and now I’m on the other side of the street. I’m now walking on a beach with a ocean to the left of me and big white hotels with balconies and pools to the right. I’m looking at the ocean and the waves are very big and crashing. Up above me I can hear music playing and I conclude I’m playing a playlist from my spotify from my phone. I take out my phone and hit the next button and hear different songs. One of the songs is not a real song that I recognize but it was some sort of guitar or strings going up in notes.

I look to the left of me and there’s a tall lifeguard stand with a buoy on the side. My friends mamba and dave are there sitting in the sand in front of the stand. I look at dave and calmly with a smile say “this is a dream.” She smiles back and nods “yeah” kinda of like “…duh.” I look back at the ocean as a country song comes on the speaker. I try to skip it but it won’t. I get frustrated but it’s not working. Turning around, I look up at the balconies on the hotels. An MGMT song comes on that’s dark and sad. The sky turns dark sort of like a storm. A massive guy in a tiki mask grabs me by the leg. He uses a cleaver and makes a small cut in my left leg and it felt like my leg was going asleep.

I ended up getting back to that dream but it wasn’t lucid anymore, the guy eventually cut my entire left leg off.

I really don't remember much on how this started but somehow from the sky we were transported to a place of red armor roof tops and grey slated buildings. Upon arriving, we ( a group of people who I do not know) could hear explosions and shooting from pretty much all directions. Then the people that I was around all ran away. I didn't knew where to go or what to do. That's when I heard someone yell something in what I suspect to be in chinese.

That's when you could see a huge bomb land and shook the entire area for a good minute. People kept running and almost bumping in to me. That's when I saw a man in grey trying to shoot people. After killing a few people, he see's me and attempts to take a couple rounds at me. I somehow manage to not get hit but very quickly it partial became clear to me that I wouldn't get hurt. I said it to myself in my head that I am dreaming. Upon realizing this I made an attempt to get shot so that the shock of it will wake me up. I also was curious to know what the dream would make me feel once I did take a bullet.

Before I knew it, I had a false awakening and was lying in my bed with my lucidity gone. When my eyes open this weird looking sharingan was present for about 5 seconds with in my eye sight. I got up from the bed and could see a few people and what look to be my father running. I could tell by the design that we were at the entrance of an airplane. People were rushing through the hall way to get on to it as everyone had this feeling the entire area was going to blow up.

The door's open and was quickly closing itself, leaving anyone who did not get on to it fast enough screwed. I had miss the first one but fortunately got the chance to get on the second one.

Bed 9:45 - 3:40am

Took a 2hr nap or so in the afternoon.

3 cool dreams.

DR 1:
I'am in a big house. Large floor plan, lots of windows, carpets. Nobody lives there now, we are hiding there. I'm looking into the next room that sits lower than where I am, at huge amount of boxes with supplies and I wish there was some beer. I look closer, and of course, lots of boxes with beer. Someobody calls me over to taste some of it. It's expensive and rare, so we sip it from whiskey glasses.

Now I am outside, in a new neighborhood. I tell the cabbie to turn by the Walmart. As I look at the distant hills, someone yelles out "they are coming". The alien worms are invading. I see a cloud that resembles the poison gas cloud in Hunger Games. I don't see any worms but I'm not gonna wait and find out. They are coming to kill us.

I start walking by a tunnel, trying to remember how to get back. I need to find a guy in a hospital. After long thinking, I figure out his name is Dr.Green. He is suppose to be a partner of character named Vic from a video game GTA. I'm looking closely at people passing by. I see them in great details, their faces, clothes. But since I don't know this guy, I am asking them "are you Dr. Green?". When danger comes closer, I follow few people that enter their living spaces after punching in the code in a keypad. I walk in and apologise for the intrusion. They tell me not to worry and just stay safe there.

DR 2:

I'm somewhere outside near some major road. There is a turn to the left and road turns into wooden lanes, almost like at the bowling alley. The lanes are separated by walls. Signs above the lanes say which place it leads from and where it's going. They are bicycle lanes. One sign says "from china to rest of the world". I'm joiking with someone when I say, "haha, I wanna see someone in China to go visit their gramma in Korea on a bike".

I get on one of the lanes and ride a bike.

DR 3:

I'm in an artificial lake with concrete sides. It's rather small, maybe a size of 2 rooms. Someone else is there with me. I look in the water and we are standing on a small boat that sunk. I realize we are in the lake at Universal Studios. I look up at the huge board which is right above me to confirm location. Someone from the shore tells the guy he is not swimming right, he should be more in the water. I look in the water and see the dark shadow of the boat and how dirty the water is with debris. The actor next to me puts his face in the water. I push off and start swiming to the side. A fin swims by me and that confirms I'm at the studios. It's an animatronic shark from Jaws, programmed to swim in circles on the edge of the pool.

Last night bed around 8:30pm - 3:20am

DR 1:19am

Long at detailed dream of me hanging around the China - US border. Mountainous region with high mountains, steep with lots of greenery. Kinda like the Asian "dragon teeth" mountains. I'm wallking around the town, lots of people. I look up at the chinese and american flags on top of the mountain, side by side, just feet from each other. I think "so that's already China there". I take some pictures.

Afternoon nap today.

I'm at work (ugh). Walking fast, with purpose, as I normally do. There are boxes and carts and I'm organizing others how to put them.

I'm outside of a bus full of people. I hear that someone is being a bully in the back of the bus. I get on in the front and tell the driver that I will get on in the back door, to wait for me. I get on, grab the bully by his shirt collar and drag him off the bus. People are happy.

I'm in the lobby of a fancy building. I'm together with a woman and her 7 year old son. All I remember is that her son has an Arabic name. Not much later the son is gone and it's just us and some other people. There's a turnstile to enter a certain area of the building and there's an entry fee to be paid.. or actually more like an exit fee. Just like when parking your car. We're here to pick something up or to talk to someone, so I feel like it's unnecessary for both of us to go in and pay the fee. Eventually I go in. There were 2 guys at the turnstiles, one of them some kind of enabler / smooth talker.

I walk into the 'restricted' area, which is a big Chinese themed establishment, mostly coloured red. I walk around a bit with the smooth talker with me. The woman I was with is nowhere to be seen. The guy thinks I'm here to buy drugs, which I'm not. I forgot my real purpose, but I do tell the guy that I'm not here for drugs. The guy finds it implausible. Eventually I bring my face close to the guy's face to let him know that I'm not looking for drugs, but if he's got stuff, I'm interested to know what he's got. Hopefully he doesn't think I'm a cop. I remember at this point that I had one ring on each hand, two different ones. I walk and see a group of guys and 1 girl from my elementary / high school. I'm quite surprised. Here, in China? These are the people whom you'd expect to amount to nothing, so it's surprising to meet them on the other side of the world. The smooth talker greets them, I kinda awkwardly wave from a distance.

I continue walking around. I remember the left front tooth on the bottom being slightly loose. I push it back in, but do so a bit too far, pushing it further down than the other. I eventually manage to get them on the same level. I came here for nothing and now my tooth is messed up as well, because I came here. There are some seats which look like airplane seats. I'm holding a blanket which I intent to throw on the seats, but instead just drop on the ground. In the mean time the smooth talker is telling me about how impressive this place is and that it's all a facade for illegitimate business established by his boss, whose name I've forgotten. Even my 'friends' are part of the 'make it look legit'. I walk over to a table and sit down. Meanwhile a man picks up the blanket I've thrown down. I take out my laptop. My background image has the same checkered grey pattern as one of my boxershorts, including the buttons. I ask the man where my girlfriend is. The woman is not actually my girlfriend, but I feel it's easier to state it that way. A sliding door opens, showing a hidden room. The boss, who is some slick dude, is in the room with the woman (who has now changed appearances) and another girl. They're on a bed. Nothing is happening yet, but the woman I was with does look sorta busted. I know the other girl is someone's girlfriend. The guy is holding a big, black smartphone and it seems to be opened on a Whatsapp conversation. He gives "my" girl his phone, I suppose for her to insert her number. They end up making out. Throughout the whole ordeal she looks at my once or twice with a look that tells me she feels sorry for me / guilty, but hey, irresistible rich guy. I keep a straight face throughout.

I'm in China at this normal hotel place I've been at in another dream. I get lost in the city and I end up with a bike that holds a roof and my belongings with it over me. I hang my bike up on it like a branch. Eventually, I want to visit my favorite food provider Noodle Lady so I try to round up my friend to go to her but we're getting chased from the cops. We hide in an alleyway and my friend IRL who lives in China meets up with us and gives us the info. of another girl to help us escape but I wake up.

The dream started on JMU's campus on our quad. We were playing some sort of throwing game where if you messed up you got electrocuted. I kept winning and didn't have to get electrocuted, but I wanted to know what it felt like so I purposely messed up. The thing that shocks people was a car battery with wires that hooked us up to it. It shocked me and I felt this very unnerving feeling that caused me to sort of jump up and down quickly several times. I walk on a path next to the quad and see my friend Austin who I say hello to. IRL him and I saw each other yesterday and said hello. Then, I'm over by this field thing, sort of like a theater with it starting low and going higher. There were trees to the right of it. People were standing in this gradually sloping field looking up to a stage that was very high. In my mind I was about to perform, but my job was to grab a rope and swing on it. I start from the back right of the field which is higher and right next to the trees. So, I grab this very long rope and start swinging over the crowd, higher and higher. The crowd is cheering me on but I don't know how to slow down. I let my feet sort of dangle and I kick some people in the crowd. Then, my path is over on the left of the stage and swinging towards my starting position on the back right of the field where the trees are. I manage to kick my feet on the ground where less people are and I come to a jumping halt at the trees. I go behind where the stage is and climb a really high amount of things to get to the top. When I'm there, it's a padded platform which is sort of walled on all sides except for one which has an opening with the rope there ready to swing. My mind thought I was some sort of host to a show. Now, this area is really high up in the air, I mean miles on miles in the air. I think there are people on the ground watching me. There was that one feeling you get when you are really high up in a dream that was freaking me out. I started to slip backwards out of the opening. My hands grasp the edge for a half second before I fall very far down. I think 'wow am I really dying at this show.' Then, I'm up on the high stage again looking down. Someone says that I need to use the rope to swing down again, and without any hesitation, I grab the rope and swing down to the ground.

At some point I'm in this broken up house looking at a sort of water slide contraption that is really small. I was supposed to fix it for this girl who I don't know. There's a ball that moves down the slide and apparently to fix it you have to let the ball catch at the end in some hole thing.

Do you know those dreams about someone you really like that can be about whatever and it doesn't really matter what actually happens in the dream, but it gives you a feeling that it was all about her and when you wake up you have strong feelings for this person? Well, this happened to me. So after I'm fixing the water slide contraption, I'm down on a lower part in an open area. It's like a water park. I'm in a pool of water that turns into a water slide that goes down and further along a path with buildings and trees on either side. I'm in one pool and I look to my right to see this girl who I like a lot named Dana floating in another pool. Both of these pools empty into a water slide. When I notice her, I act like I don't see her and look another way because I don't know if she's seen me or not. We both empty into this slide that is pretty much a down hill lazy river. She grabs onto me and we sort of piggy-back down the river which turns left into some overhead structure thing. Ultimately, it turns into another pool that has some block thing out of the water in the middle which turns it into a pool that goes in a circle. We get there and then turn around. She starts to swim away from the pool and I wrap my arms around her like I'm hugging her from behind as we swim back up the stream. I know nothing big happened with her in this dream but it still made me miss her a lot when I woke up.

I had a dream I was in China but I can't really remember much except that I think there was some sort of rock concert going on. At some point, I fall into this cart thing that has my friend Katharine in it. She says something that disappoints me so I turn towards her friend CJ and talk to him about something. I remember ultimately wanting to go find a woman who sells noodles who I call Noodle Lady IRL back when I went to China this past summer.

Setting loosely based on China some centuries ago, vaguely Ming dynasty. Two men have been speaking to a human woman about a book, but they're interrupted by a human man who is a friend of hers, of sorts - he offers to join their expedition. He has some manner of expertise to do with this book they're looking for, and if he comes along, the woman's presence would be unnecessary. The leader of the two at first is ready to agree, this would be much preferable.

But the human man then says, why should his cut be only 10%? Make it 100% - he'll keep the book himself, but translate it for them. To his mind, this would be a better deal for all of them, he expects this to be accepted. But the leader of the two is offended by his presumption and kills him, abandoning his human appearance in the process - his eyes are covered by a cloudy grey film, his teeth are fangs on both upper and lower jaws. I'm remembering a year earlier, when that human man had been doing something in a place where many books were stored, directly above where this man had been sleeping in the ground for a long time. The human woman, watching him kill her friend, blames herself - she was involved in something that happened in a market a year ago, when this man woke up.

Belle is in the kitchen of someone else's house, someplace that has servant quarters, and she's found a jar of a certain weed that's been spilled - it's not something that should be used for cooking, it's dangerous, causes disfigurement. The implication in finding it spilled across the counter is that a servant was carelessly exposed to it. It's said that it only affects those who say rude/cruel/insulting things while holding it - a physical disfigurement to reflect a disfigurement of the soul. She calls Rumplestiltskin to dispose of it safely, and to look into what it was doing there.

As he removes it, he looks around the building and sees old photos and negatives of him and Belle among various trophies that the owner of the house has collected - there's a sense that these photos are things that were stolen from him. He looks at one in particular, a moment when he'd stopped Belle from saying that she loved him. He regrets this, and says he would listen now. She says, "I would have meant it then." And wouldn't now, is the implication. But she stops him from moving away from her by grabbing him roughly by the hair.

She tells him her plan is to find her ideal world this time, with the money that Regina left her, and with him, as they're stuck together due to a previous deal. He reminds her that he's no longer capable of appearing human, which will cause difficulties in many other worlds. "I'll work with it," she says. A previous deal requires him to leave at least a piece of himself in this current world, and I see an image of his hand chained to the sand, in the surf.

It's been awhile. Hello. Just got back into the lucid dreaming world.

Last night I had a very odd dream. I know there was more before this, but I can only remember up to this point. I was riding with my family in the car. There was a helicopter circling a UFO up the road. We continued to drive right under this. When we did, the UFO crashed, leaving a massive track of mud on the ground and over to the other side of the road. The UFO was no longer visible. When this happened, it turned the world back into the 1990's. I'm 18 years old, and don't remember much from the 90's myself. I was 10 years old in this dream after the crash. I had a massive craving for a cigarette, so I see a guy in some flannel, kinda like a grunge kid. I go up to him and bum an electronic cigarette. Some stuff happens that I can't remember. I end up on a playground in the middle of the woods with a really good friend of mine I met in high school. I didn't know him when I was 10, however. I kept trying to chase after him because I was lonely and knew no one else at the park. I finally catch up with him, and open this Chinese box of cigarettes. I pull out this strange package in the box of cigarettes, which ended up being a home-built electronic cigarette yet again. It was covered with a waxy wrapping paper. I finally opened it and then more stuff that I can't remember happened. We ended up in my friend's house, which was right by the woods with the playground. My friend's house has a fish tank with strange fish in it. His mother came up and was saying unintelligible things. I went into my friend's bedroom and he wasn't there. I walked outside to see him running away. That's when the dream ended. This is the latest in a string of STRANGE dreams. Keep dreaming, dreamers.

A phrase: "Catherine, and the first dream of a 2000 year-"

There had been a queen long ago named some variation on Selene - I admired her, and I've been looking after all the generations of her descendants ever since. In a few rare circumstances I'll even take one of her descendants in and raise them myself. Some resemble her a great deal, others don't - I think about bloodlines. Now one of her descendants is in love with me, and she's upset that I've told her I would be happy with a platonic relationship or otherwise, leaving the decision entirely up to her - she wants me to feel more strongly about it. She says if I would be happy with a platonic relationship, I can't really care about her. But I've been a presence and an influence in her life since she was born, and I foresaw this moment before she was born - I've had too much influence. I want to influence her as little as possible in this at least. It has to be entirely her decision.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I've had too much to drink, and I'm making my way back to my hotel room with some woman, past the now-abandoned maypoles in the lobby, litter from the party on the floor. My vision's blurry, and I have this mental monologue about how I must be getting old if the drink's messing with my vision like this. She pushes me onto the bed, and my vision blurs more - through that blurred vision, her hair's much longer now. Also she has wings, white feathers. Fuck, I know this demon. There goes my night. She sits on the edge of the bed and tells me she wants what I promised her on the night I abandoned my child. I have a memory of taking him (? I think it was a him) to a border of some kind and making him cross, so that he'd be safely out of my reach. The demon's crawled onto the bed now, and when I tell her she's out of luck, the thing we got that night is already gone, she phases her hands through my chest, squeezes and twists something inside that shouldn't be squeezed or twisted.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

Setting's a fantasy version of ancient China, a king in his bedroom talking to a priestess all in white via a vision in a mirror. He was telling her about people who will be coming her way, intending to use a sacred object in her care. But she's saying that what they want isn't possible - they've misunderstood its purpose. The portal it opens can't be used to take them to the divine realms. She says, "(something) and onyx must not overlap."

Speaking with Jareth, I end a sentence with "god!" A general exclamation, but that's not how he takes it. He replies, entirely serious, "Don't call me that." I didn't, but good to know your arrogance has some limits.

I'm singing the title role of Don Giovanni, wearing a mask that covers my entire face, even my mouth. Reminds me of the McKittrick. While on stage, I switch places with someone else, identically dressed.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm swimming in a pool with a woman who's offered to grant me a wish. To do so, she tells me I must go to Thailand and walk into the jungle in a certain place until I reach an abandoned building. Here, I must draw one of two specific symbols in the dirt. It doesn't matter which one I choose, what matters is the reasoning behind my choice. Whichever I choose, she'll draw the other. She'll stand at my back, using those two symbols in some way, during which time I must not turn to look at her or communicate with her in any way. Success depends on her understanding why I made the choice I did.

A young man runs out of a house, pursued by several women wearing black and red. Shortly afterward, inside that building, I come across three young men, and I ask, "Which one of you sprinted out of here looking like Orpheus with the Bacchae on his heels?"

I'm looking over some photos of the new cast at the McKittrick. (Side note - last time I dreamed of Orpheus, he was in the McKittrick-as-underworld.) A new storyline has been added in. The photo I'm looking at now shows the woman at the center of that new storyline, sitting on a stool at a diner counter - sad expression, short wavy blonde wig, purple dress, purple purse on the counter. The character's female but always played by a male actor. In the background behind her, there's a man in a suit slouched in one of the booths, watching her. He's a sort of sycophant character, sleazy, untrustworthy, but entirely loyal to her in his own way.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

Edwardian England, there's a heavyset, motherly woman gently pushing a sick young woman back down into her bed, over the young woman's protests - she's feeling much better but she's having a hard time thinking straight enough to make herself understood. At this point she's just saying, "No, no." The light from the window is hurting her head, it's much too bright. I'm sympathetic about that, but mostly I'm relieved to be able to see her like this at all, relieved that she's all right and that the connection that lets us see what the other's doing is now working. I haven't seen her in some time.

I see images representing all the other people I have those connections with, with an image representing this woman now added to the end of the line. There are maybe two dozen images here, older connections as I look back farther. The most recent image, aside from that Edwardian scene, represents someone I just saw recently in person, pleasant feelings. As I look farther back, there's one image that instantly brings up feelings of irritation - we don't keep in touch, we've never been able to understand each other, and just this brief visual reminder of her brings up that old frustration. There's a few places where an image should be there but isn't - the woman whose death I dreamed of recently, the roses that turned to ash. And at the other end of the line, the very first two: the first, a woman with a long red braid, a sword in her hand, standing in a snow-covered forest. The second, a more symbolic image - a variety of colorful butterflies hanging in the air against a dark background, two trees just barely visible in the darkness. And a little bit apart from the last of those images, a simple black image to represent me.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm lying on my back in a field hospital in 20th century China. There's a young woman treating me, wearing a uniform, with her hair tied up in two braids. I've been enjoying speaking with her. I haven't been enjoying whatever's in that IV. I'm thinking about the woman mentioned in that previous scene, with the roses turning to ash.

Still in China, I'm in a small boat that a middle-aged man is steering by pole. I've hired him to take me and an old woman back to her hometown, though it's been flooded and abandoned for a very long time. The old woman doesn't live in the present anymore. Her hometown is the place where I last saw that woman with the roses, though that was a long time ago and I don't know if I'll be able to find anything useful there. I haven't been back to this part of the world since before this area was flooded. I focus on the ruins of a building I recognize, as the boat passes underneath.