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10/01/10



I'm framing a wall; it's laying down on the plywood floor. I have a cordless air nailer in my hand, and I'm adjusting the studs for the wall and nailing them in place. It's repetitive work, meditative.

A high-pitched laugh echoes through the half-framed house. The outside walls are up, casting long shadows in the evening sunlight. It's fading, getting darker.

I stand up slowly and turn around. Without taking my eyes from the floor, I lift up the air nailer and fire - one, two, three precise shots into the darkness.

The laughter ceases.

Scare Factor: 2/10

Note: the previous "Air Nailer" dream was #89.

08/17/10



I'm in a nightclub, laughing at something a woman is saying. We have to shout to be heard. There are strobe lights, black lights, and coloured lights changing in time with the music. It's great fun, and utterly normal. There's a lot of alcohol involved.

I spot the tattoo while I'm sitting at the bar. A woman walks by, wearing a top that reveals her torso. There are Chinese characters tattooed above her navel and to the side, which translate in my mind to "Transformation". I leave the club.

The tattoo represents a group that I belonged to in a previous life, a school of martial artists. I need to find out what the hell they're doing here, in my city.

It's daylight. The group has rented out the local campground, and set up a temporary building. When I step inside, I find that the interior is open and airy and entirely out of place. It's set up like a dojo martial arts studio, with hardwood floors and paper windows along the back. The students are lined up, practicing their forms. An old man stands at the front of the classroom. I step into the midst of the group, beside a young woman whose hair is pulled into a high ponytail. I flow through the familiar movements, as easily as I did centuries ago.

We come to a stop, and I turn to the woman beside me. "Master Lin," I say, inclining my head respectfully.

She laughs, and the rest of the group files out of the room, following the old man. "Am I a Master?" she asks, eyes twinkling. "You are here to see Princess ___, yes?" She says the name of the princess, but my mind automatically translates it to the English "Blossom".

I meet her in front of a waterfall. She's on the other side of a narrow stone path, caged on one side by a raging river, and on the other by a treacherous fall. Her long hair flies free in a gentle breeze, and her silk gown flows with the air currents. She turns to look at me, smiling, and I read trickery in her bright aura.

End Recall.

Scare Factor: 2/10
Rating: 5/10

Hey, Subconscious! China =/= Japan.

07/12/10

Do motorcycle chases ever end well?

I hop on my motorbike and speed toward the highway, mindful of being chased. It's been far too long since someone tried to kill me.

I pass my exit, turn sharply onto the next ramp. I'm going against the flow of traffic. I don't have time to do an RC, but since this is a dream, it's the perfect time to try out a trick from Saints Row... go against traffic, and it's harder for anyone to catch up to you.

At least, I think it's a dream. I'll risk it.

I'm pedaling my bike up a hill.

I take a sharp turn onto the exit, shift gears and find myself on the open highway. I speed up, watching the colours blur around me, faster, faster! Something's wrong, though. I'm on the right side of the road, going the right way! There goes my advantage.

I'm catching up to a row of semi-trucks. I focus on them, trying to force the images to turn around and come this way -

A truck hurtles toward me. The grill gets bigger, and closer, and I swerve into the far lane. The truck drives by me, honking. I skid over the pavement, tumbling head over heels. When I've stopped, I find myself staring up at the blue sky, trying to calm my breathing.

I get up and pick up my bike. I hop on. It's still running, but it's going really slowly up the next hill.

Someone taps me on the shoulder.

I spin around, catch the faintest glimpse of a man with curly hair before I'm back on my bike and pedaling fiercely down the exit ramp. This feeling is elation; I'm speeding down the steep ramp without a care for the wall that's suddenly appeared before me - what?

I brake and abandon the bicycle on the ramp. I'm inside of a mansion, which I know is the headquarters for my enemy. I peer around the corner, and snap back. There are two guards inside. One of them might have seen me.

"Hey," says a voice from beside me.

I jump and turn around. Shego is leaning on the wall next to me, filing her nails.

"You coming to girls' night?" she asks boredly, "We can get an action movie in if you're there."

"Sure," I say, risking a glance at the guards around the corner.

"I never saw you," she says, rolling her eyes.

I pick up my bike from the ramp. It's a stunt bicycle at this point. I peek around the corner again, looking at all of the interesting obstacles that are in there.

Minutes later, I'm ramping through the lobby of a movie theatre, being chased by out-of-breath security guards.

Zero CCs. Scare Factor: 3.

07/10/10

I'm an employee at a convenience store or pharmacy. I have to restock the book section; there are fewer books on the shelves every time I look back at them.

I grab a box from the back and open it up in the comics aisle. It occurs to me that I have no idea what went where, or even which books were out here to begin with. Rather than call my boss over such a trivial matter, I happily start arranging my own favorites on the shelf.

Oddly, the comic books seem to be about 15x15 inches across, and the shelves are sized to fit them. Even in the dream, I think this seems a little off.

Later, I find out that Quickton has enacted a new law: hair colour has been declared illegal. I immediately dye my hair blue.

---

I'm at a lake. A girl dares me to swim under the dock and pick up a pebble she just dropped in. I jump into the water. Beneath the surface, it's perfectly clear, and I look around, exploring the caves and crevices that make up this underwater world. Finally, I grab the odd-coloured stone - it's pink or purple - and head back to the surface.

Standing with a group of people in the woods, I watch Dumbledore give a speech about a competition that's going to happen. It's similar to the Triwizard Tournament from the fourth book, but more people are involved. Each of the houses gets representation, and there are a whole bunch of different areas - including chess tournaments - that not everyone will be competing in. Furthermore, you can be selected to represent a house that you're not a part of.

I'm Harry Potter, and obviously, I'm in Gryffindor. I already know how the rest of the dream is going to turn out, though; I'm going to be chosen for Slytherin. There's no other possible outcome.

I observe Hermione freaking out over something, but I'm feeling very calm and cold, and so I leave her be. I'm much more interested in the competition.

Later, as myself, I talk to a family friend at the campground I spent most of my summers in. It's windy, and she's worried about their tents flying away. I tell her that the storm is about to get a lot worse. I know this because I'm from the future.

"Are you absolutely sure?"

"As long as I don't step on any butterflies."

Butterflies. Scare Factor: 1.

ETA: I took this as a sign that I should die my hair blue today. So I did.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

I scrutinize my real life appearance for effectiveness as an assassin. I conclude that I will easily be able to infiltrate the corporation.

I get an apartment in Halifax that's mostly identical to my old one. Apparently I'm subletting from someone else, though, as I keep finding old-lady clothes around the place. It's also furnished, which is nice, even if the furniture is ugly as hell.

I'm Dean Winchester. I help Sam choose a truck and trailer so he can go drive off into the prairie sunset. The theme of this dream is basically that it's time to let Sam go on his own. This is a much more peaceful scenario than the Supernatural finale.

I'm a guy with a mullet, driving a semi-trailer. I'm about to be accused of a crime I didn't do, and I'm trying to skew the evidence in my favor before they think to come after me. Maybe I had an in-dream premonition, or maybe I'm on another dream-loop.

I'm mad at the really cold weather, then I'm mad at the really hot weather, then I'm mad at the really cold weather, and oh my God, that really is freezing. Warmth now please.

I'm living with my second cousins, and also fighting my brother for one of the basement suites. His friend gets it. Damn.

One of my cousins finds out something about my character (I don't know what), and she takes her sisters and leaves.

I'm driving along the highway, now, but the lane I need to be in keeps changing, and I'm cutting people off. I end up at a McDonalds, because there's something I need to pick up there.

I'm inside. The place is empty, and isn't being used as a restaurant. Something about a box. I check my inventory and see a vat of cotton that I have to sell later.

The city is being evacuated. I have to hurry. I go upstairs, blue and red lightsabers drawn. I wonder if my cousins could have been party-members if I hadn't scared them off. Oh well, I'm still near the beginning of the game.

I enter one of the offices and fight the people inside. I win.

RPGs. Scare Factor: 1.

July 1, 2010

Happy Canada Day, fellow Canadians.

People who walk into your life and claim to be a long lost relative are not to be trusted.

Sam and Dean are on a hunt with yet another member of their missing family unit. Let's call her Sue. I think I'm Dean for most of this dream.

The three of us are after a ghost. Sam's in danger, but Sue pulls him out of the way.

It turns out she's a demon. She uses a variation on the Enochian banishing sigil (for angels) to send us careening straight into our respective heavens. "Oh, I'll be fine." She says, "I'm going the other way."

From the third person, I'm watching Dean in his heaven, fixing cars. This weird tentacle being made of energy shows up and acts as the MS Office paperclip. You know the one.

Dean's becoming increasingly annoyed by the little helper. Meanwhile, I'm trying to force myself/him to remember what's going on so we can get out of here and find Sam.

---

I'm in Quickton, taking lessons from a guy with a rusty red truck so I can become a driving instructor. I'm driving the truck, and a guy makes fun of me for it. Then we go protest something outside of Tim Hortons.

I'm driving down grid roads with the truck. I'm going to meet someone. I have to pull over to take a piss, but I decide I should wait until I wake up.

I'm living in a house that I'm helping my parents build. We've already moved in, but we haven't finished building the second floor. My bedroom is up there, so a lot of climbing is involved.

FA. I wake up in the basement of my house in Ixburg. There are little bugs crawling over my blanket. They're about a centimeter long and they look like cockroaches crossed with shrimp. I try to ignore them, but I don't like them.

I'm a ten year old boy in boot camp. I have an upper bunk, and the ladder to get there is probably twelve feet tall. I'm having the time of my life. There's a warning on the top step of the ladder. It says that if you let your kids climb on this, you're a bad parent. The ladder falls backwards and catches on one of the other beds. I'm still hanging on.

I'm telling all my DCs that I've just had a brilliant idea. You know that holographic keyboard?



We should make a box the size of a rubix cube and project games from it. It'd be brilliant. I conjure up a prototype and place it on the desk. Then my POV runs through various games in full-screen.

Cousins. Scare Factor: 2.

In which insane and bloody doctors offer to change my appearance.

I'm picking up floor joists by myself and placing them in a third layer over the existing ones.

"What are you doing?" asks my dad.

I set down the thirty-foot piece of wood and gesture like it should be obvious.

"We already did that," says Dad, "We don't need any more."

I look down, and realize that he's right. Oh.

---

I'm driving around Quickton, driving around all the cars that are parked haphazardly in the middle of the road. Did I mention that DCs aren't allowed to drive anymore?

---



I'm wandering around Ixburg. It's night, and my surroundings feel very real. I look at my hand anyway, count my fingers. I count five, but my pinky finger is just a stub, and I know that I'm dreaming.

I go through my mental list of lucid goals, and decide that I'll try to find Hazel. Only, I know exactly how this phase of the dream usually works out, so I decide to send her a message instead.

I pull out my cell phone and send a text, asking where she is. I immediately get a reply. I put the phone to my ear and hear a female voice telling me that she's at the zoo. I tell her to stay there; I'll try to come find her.

"I'm lucid, I'm lucid." I mutter to myself, going over to the church doors that I'm standing near. I pull them open, thinking, Lions and tigers and bears...

I see a faint blue light, but when I step inside, I'm still in Ixburg. I sigh. Obviously I'm going to have to work on that "power of belief" thing. Whatever, the door thing has never worked for me.

I'm standing by a mirror and idly playing with my appearance, going for "more masculine" and "more feminine", back and forth, changing faces at random. My skin is starting to feel stretched too tight, though, and I step back from the mirror.

A scalpel slices across my cheek, drawing blood. The girl holding it dances back, twirling happily around the room. I watch, unconcerned, as she and another, identical, girl come up to me and place their arms over my shoulders.

I don't remember exactly what they say, but the consensus is that my shapeshifting abilities leave something to be desired. Amused, I allow myself to be led over to the bed and handcuffed to the headboard. The twins step back and make a grand gesture toward the door.

An older woman appears, seemingly armed to the teeth with surgical tools. "I can help you gain any appearance you wish," she says.

"What," I say, taunting, "No anesthesia?"

"It's a dream. You don't need it."

I pause for a second, and seriously consider the offer. "Nah," I say, freeing myself from the handcuffs with a thought. "I got this."

The woman shrugs and disappears.

I stand up and walk over to the closets that are in the room, looking for a grey suit. I don't know why I'm looking for a grey suit, I just feel like wearing one. I try to make one appear in the one of the two closets, but fine-tuned dream control isn't my forte. I'm better at the "mass slaughter" kind of thing.

The twins continue to try to be helpful, but I ignore them.

I go over to the wall and stretch out a hand. I'm trying to dissolve the dream, reach through the Void, and pull up a new location. I see spots where my hands are, and I think it's working. I reach forward - my hand bumps off of a very real, very solid feeling wall. I try again. It's not working.

I wake up.

Like a Surgeon. Scare Factor: 2.

I'm wandering around Quickton. There might be some kind of business convention going on. I temporarily will a giant tower into existence over the highway, to defend/attack something.

My old high school. There are teachers and students milling about in the hallway, and I'm standing outside near one of the entrances. I'm hooking fingers and toes into the brick of an inside corner, climbing onto the roof. At one point, I'm near horizontal, and climbing in dreams is so much fun.

Apparently there are some parkour and climbing classes going on in June (in the dream). I want to sign up, but there are people trying to kill me, and I'm trying to lay low.

Climbing Classes. Scare Factor: 1.[/QUOTE]

I'm river rafting with a group on the backs of whales/fish/squid/leeches. The creatures swim down the river with one side of their bodies facing up, which turns from pink to silver in the sunlight. They turn over after a while, so we have to stay on top of them.

My creature is about to turn over, so I jump onto the shore and let it. I throw one smaller creature back into the river where it got caught somewhere. I watch a kid's creature turn over and throw him into the water. He comes up on the other side, laughing.

I'm back in the water, swimming on my own. I'm wearing running shoes, which really limits my swimming ability. We'll be hiking later though, so I can't go barefoot.

An enemy is on the shore, aiming something at our group. I'm swimming through fairly deep water, but I jump up and land a flying kick on the henchmen, knocking the gadget aside. There's another one farther into the forest, and I rush at him -

shift

I'm driving through one of the main intersections in Quickton. The stoplights facing me are blinking orange, the adjacent stoplights are blinking red. I drive through the intersection, thinking about the DC I'm trying to help / is helping me.

I'm biking down one of the pathways near my house. I wonder how I'm going to meet up with her again. On impulse, I pull out a blaster and shoot two Star Wars-esque red laser blasts into the sky. I consider that we should have used that as a signal. I shoot a couple more just to see what the range of visibility is.

The signal starts coming up elsewhere in the city. Sirens go off. Uh oh. I stow my blaster under my jacket (it's too long to sling across my back; the barrel pokes up under my collar) and quickly pedal home. I do have to wonder how video game characters manage this.

I end up in an oh so messed up version of my backyard. I'm setting my bike against a fence and am about to haul it over into my half of the back yard (it's a duplex), when, for no apparent reason, I realize that I'm dreaming.

I don't see a reason not to leave the bike where it is. I decide to play along with the dream and get rid of the gun, so I walk into the garden shed and hold the blaster up along the wooden wall. The wall folds out and clamps onto the gun, and when it folds back you wouldn't even know that we were stockpiling an armory. Then I stare at the inside of the shed for a moment, marvelling at the detail and how real this all seems. I can feel my body, the scratch of the jean jacket I'm wearing, my feet on the ground.

I shake myself out of it. I had plans for a lucid, right? I was going to... meet Walms. Right. Now, how am I supposed to get there?

Stepping out into the bright sunlight, I extend my right hand, intent on peeling through the layers of the dream. Something goes wrong; I can't feel them.

"What are you doing?"

There's a guy my age standing on the lawn in the back yard. Short blond-ish hair. Let's call him Derek (I haven't used that name yet, have I?). He doesn't look much different than I do in dreams. Similar clothing, too.

"You know what?" He says, when I don't answer, "I don't care. See ya."

Derek jumps through a hole in the lawn. It's shimmery, like a puddle, but it doesn't reflect the blue sky above. It reflects a different sky with a setting or rising sun, shot through with pink.

I jump through the puddle.

I hit sand on the other side, startling Derek. "Um, hi." I say.

"I wasn't expecting you to follow me," he admits.

"Yeah, well..." I look around, taking in the view. We're standing on a beach, looking out over a sunset. "Huh. I think I have a [desktop wallpaper] like this."



We spot another puddle in the sand. "You coming?" he asks me.

I nod.

We jump. The other side is more blue-tinged. It's still sandy, but everything is underwater.

"So, you've gotta be looking for something, right?"

I try to answer, but the words come out garbled.

Derek rolls his eyes. "You know this is a dream, right? You wouldn't have been able to follow me otherwise. You can still talk."

I take a breath, feel cool air enter my lungs. Breathe out, breathe in. I try again. "I'm looking for a guy who calls himself 'Walms'".

Derek looks at me, incredulous. "You don't even know where you're meeting him? Jesus. I could take you to a place, but I don't think I can help you find someone you don't even know."

False awakening. I feel the dream fall apart around me, and become aware of my body lying on the bed. There is bright white light everywhere, and I can still feel the remnants of the previous dream around me.

I fade back into the dream. I'm back in the dream-warped backyard, sitting on the lawn. Derek is standing beside me. I swear, if he rolls his eyes any more, they'll stick like that. I go over where I left my bike and lift it over the fence. Derek says something.

[I]Puddles. Scare Factor: 2. Reaction: Okay, Mr. Negativity.

There's a wedding or a funeral in the family, and we (the "kids") are getting ready. I'm in a store, wondering if I dare to wear a tie. I do, deciding on a light blue dress shirt. I go over to the mirror to try it on, but I can't pull it closed over my breasts. Damn it, I think, annoyed, I shouldn't have to deal with this in my own dreams.

I'm in the Ixburg apartment, doing a hand RC. Everything is slightly blurry. It's hard to move. The RC worked, and "I'm lucid," I repeat to myself, "I'm lucid, I'm lucid, I'm lucid." I look in the mirror of my bedroom door, and see a dark grey blob standing where I am. I peer to the side, and the blob doesn't move. I see myself, currently male. I have dark brown hair, longer than it is now. I'm wearing dark clothes, a black dress shirt unbuttoned over a t-shirt. No ties, apparently. Thank God. I see strange things in the background, and open the door before I get freaked out and this turns into a nightmare.

I walk out of the apartment, fighting to stay grounded as everything blurs around me. I keep RCing and muttering that I'm lucid, until I'm halfway down the stairs and looking out of an east-facing window.

The town has transformed itself once again, this time into what looks like a creepy green-tinged matte painting. The entrance to the building, which juts out into the gravel parking lot, is in ruins, and the entire field beyond is covered in water. About fifty yards away are a set of stone steps, leading up to a square stone arch. Someone is hanging from it, arms stretched into either corner, feet hanging above the ground.

At first, I think it's a woman, but the scene shifts into someone I'm pretty convinced is Walms. At this point, Walms is down from the arch, probably having escaped the bonds (or rescued someone else from them). I have to hurry if I want to catch up to him.

I look down at the uneven ground and sigh. I don't suppose this will count as a skyscraper? But no. Maybe I'll do the flower thing later. I throw myself off the building, feel my speed building -

Pause, as I consider where to land.

Full-speed, I crash into the remains of the entrance, numbly feeling my ankle bend at an impossible angle. I stand up, feeling no pain, and head east toward the blurry archway.

There's no one here, unfortunately. I sigh, and look beyond the arch. There's a whole bunch of people milling around on the lawn beyond it, so I consider trying the flower task. I pick up a flowering piece of the clover weed that runs rampant around Ixburg, and scan the area for someone my age - most of the people here are elderly.

I focus on the piece of clover in my hand and it turns into a violet. The colours shift and blur and it becomes a rageddy, fushia thing. The flower shifts into a perfect bunch of green and I concentrate, pulling a pink rose-bud from the centre.

I spot a woman my age exiting the Quickton college. She couldn't be a supermodel, but she has long, blonde hair, and something else draws me to her. I hand her the rose, smiling. "This is for you," I say, and turn away.

"Wait!" she says. She looks like she's about to say something important. "Are you Israel."

I don't know what she means, and I answer honestly. "I don't know." I say, and walk away.

I'm play fighting with a dog, probably a Great Dane. I realize that I'm losing lucidity, so I concentrate and RC and start saying, "I'm lucid."

Everything is blurry as I walk into a building and do a hand RC. I can see all five fingers, but they're all attached between the index and middle knuckles. I see a guard, and -

shift

People are talking about animals in pairs. Apparently, there are two such animals that signify love. What about dogs, I want to ask snidely, but I'm not actually there. Jackson thinks the sign might apply to him, but O-Neill scoffs and starts making fun of him.

shift

FA, I scramble for my dream journal, but there's a bunch of different notebooks beside my bed and I can't find the right one. I'm lying on the bed when I realize that I'm dreaming. I push into the waking world (for the first time) so I don't forget the dream.

Dream Goals. Scare Factor: 2.[/QUOTE]

This is not a lucid dream.

I'm parked in the local Walmart parking lot, waiting for a woman in a grey minivan to back out so I can leave. I look into the car and recognize someone from the forums, who I'd assumed was a guy. I don't remember who I thought she was, but I remember deciding she was a dreamer. She had short hair somehow braided close to her head, and dark skin. I guess she looked a bit like Naiobe from Matrix.

I think about meeting up with Walms, but I'm not lucid; I think all of this is happening in real life. I think I'm meeting him later.

There's a man lying on the pavement in the middle of the parking lot (behind my car). The manager (of Walmart) doesn't know what to do, and ambulance/police are on the way. The man might have raped someone? We decide we need to move him and I lift, hooking my hands under his arms while the (female) manager lifts his legs. We carry him into the lobby and lay him on a bench. The girlfriend is waiting, and he wakes up briefly and says something to her.

Possibly another dream entirely: Walmart bathrooms are converted to sleeping places for $15 a night. Carpeted, the toilets are gone and the stalls are wood. I exit the stall and find red lockers being brought in. I chat with the girl in charge of the program, but decide that I'd really rather leave. Unfortunately, the building's on lockdown until morning. I plot my escape.

After a false awakening I don't remember, I wake up. Probably. I'm dead tired and know I should RC. I flip open the curtain and count five fingers. Then I collapse back into bed and fall asleep.

Fragments. My dad talking about one of our cousins.

Walmart. Scare Factor: 1. Reaction: I think I'm catching a flu bug.

The dream takes place several years (decades?) into the future.

The Library is falling apart in the absence of a Librarian. The Library itself is a vast compendium of past knowledge, mostly accessible through computers. It's a surprisingly busy place, in this future, filled up with mostly young people, but it's dying.

I already know how this is going to end. I slam open the door of my house (the library is inside) and walk out. It's a well lit night, and snow is falling lightly from the sky.

"OKAY!" I shout at the sky, "I'll be your fucking Librarian!" I pause at the flicker of a curtain across the street. Most people would think I'm yelling at God or something, but I'm actually communicating with a highly advanced intelligence that has full control over... never mind.

A question forms somewhere in my mind, asking what it would be like to stay in this one place for years, contrary to everything that I am (a traveller). Stubbornly, I continue to assert that I'll do the damn job if I have to - time is fluid in this place, anyway.

I don't receive an answer.

---

I'm in a location I dreamed about last spring. It's almost identical. The local aquatic centre is fused with a rock climbing gym, which we don't have here in Quickton.

In the dream, I'm wondering why I thought we don't have any rock climbing here, since we so obviously do (we don't).


Map


Colour of the walls

Silence in the Library. Scare Factor: 2.

I hop on a bus with a duffel bag and a backpack, headed out to Halifax. I arrive at the hostel. There's a book sale in one of the rooms. I gravitate toward the back corner and recognize the cover for a Sherlock Holmes collection. I open it up, pleasantly surprised to find the book full of illustrations. I head over to another corner by the windows and flip through a few children's books for reference. The illustrations in every book are watercolour and ink or acrylic and ink. They have a grainy, spooky tone to them and some of the watercolour scenes are brilliant. I pick out a few and head to cash.

"You've got two books there?"

I glance down at the pile in my arms. "More than that," I say.

She rolls her eyes. "I'm charging you for five, then. Your total is $4.25."

I hand her a five dollar bill and get three quarters back. Looking at the pile again, I realize that there's actually six books, but one is only a few torn out pages. Fair enough, I decide. I head back to my room to pack.

I'm looking at a shelf full of food and wondering when I found the time to buy all of this. I pack it away (bread goes squish) along with the books. It's a perfect fit, but I'm going to be annoyed travelling with all this luggage.

Chel, a girl who was a grade above me in high school, arrives as I'm leaving. We have an excited conversation involving the odds of meeting up on the other side of the country.

I decide to stop in Quickton before heading to Vancouver. For a break in a long goddamn bus ride, if nothing else. The bus station by the Westin is suddenly a part of Ixburg.

***

In Quickton, grocery shopping. Sprained left leg, hobbling along, wondering where my crutches went. I limp along on my left ankle after I get tired of hopping. It hurts, but it could be worse. I talk to my late grandma.

***

Still in Quickton, I'm on trial as a witch. The woman accusing me is a made up character who, apparently, went to high school with me. I spend most of the trial resisting the urge to burn her alive via dream-powers. Apparently that wouldn't help my case much.

I'm defending myself; no lawyers allowed. I catch the woman in the middle of a lie and ruthlessly pounce on it, drawing out answers that prove she wasn't where she said she was. Something about flowers that are yellow and in a pot. Daisies, probably.

I'm not sure if my argument's had any effect on the jury yet, so when the Judge asks me about the green lightsaber they have in custody, I immediately reply, "My lightsabers aren't green." I consider summoning my dual sabers to the courtroom, but again, supernatural powers are not what anyone needs to see right now.

I go into a tangent, wondering what my colour actually is. Purple is tempting, and I've always been partial to red and blue, but orange is pretty close and I'm not genuinely Sith-like (far too dogmatic for me). I don't really like orange much, though. I swing a couple orange sabers around in the hallway just to try them out.

I'm sitting back in my box with my arch-nemesis a couple places down, wondering if the trial can adjourn for the day. It's almost five and I'm bored.

We all go home for the night. I've been released into the custody of my parents, so I'm walking into a bigger version of their house, kicking off my shoes as I go. I'm picking up a piece of paper that might be an assassination contract a la Assassin's Creed. Unfortunately, without some serious creativity, I won't be able to collect on it. I'm supposed to stay here, after all...

Witch Trials. Scare Factor: 2. Reaction: I think I was completely guilty of everything I was accused of.[/QUOTE]

I'm walking along a path by the river in Quickton. There are a large number of orangutan/dog/otter hybrids about, and the locals have been warned to stay away from them. One that looks like a great dane approaches me and jumps up, trying to lick at my face. I laugh.

Shift.

I practically fall out of the truck when we reach the police station. "It's okay", says Kate Beckett, "You're safe here."

My POV switches to Beckett, who's trying to solve the mystery of the invisible animalistic murderer. I'm now interacting with myself ("Sam") as the character Kate Beckett. I note that we don't have much ammo.

An Asian woman stumbles toward the safety of the police station. Already, she's bleeding from numerous slashes to her torso, which look almost like claw marks. The monster must have followed us here.

Sam mysteriously disappears, and we assume the worst.

I interrogate people who are the collective head of an international company. Someone sabotages the elevator, almost killing one of them.

They upgrade security.

The elevator is sabotaged again. I almost catch the culprit, but I have to stay in order to save the people inside. I catch the chain of the machine used for sabotage, and pull it up to a floor where they'll be able to get out.

The Chairman of the company is killed. The CEO chooses to reveal his identity.

The murderer decides to talk to me. It's Sam, complete with all my lucid superpowers. Apparently, I was the murderer all along. I'm watching myself give a villainous monologue. From a third person perspective apart from Beckett's character, I'm very surprised.

Murder Mysteries. Scare Factor: 2. Reaction: Did not see that coming.

I'm working on a short-story adaptation of this dream, minus the identity confusion. It was actually a lot of fun.[/QUOTE]

I'm walking around a version of the grocery store in Ixburg which I've seen before. Produce by the entrance to the southwest, ceiling-high shelving running east-west all through the store like a warehouse. I'm looking for strawberries.

Still in the grocery store, I'm now a different character. I'm an employee and also some kid genius version of myself from an alternate timeline that I can't recall the gender of. I help someone with a difficult problem. They try to complement me, but I tell them, "Hey, I just work in a grocery store."

I don't and never have in real life.

Now I'm in a strange mix of Halifax and Quickton, where the rivers cross through the city, forcing roads to follow bridges and riverbanks. It's topsy-turvy, and hilly, and it's a bright, sunny day.

Various members of my family, including aunts and uncles, are waiting on the patio section of a restaurant, looking at menus and hoping someone will get around to serving us eventually. I'm looking at the menu, unable to find anything that's vegetarian, but the menu itself is really hard to decipher. A waitress shows up to say we're supposed to be ordering right now, but they're really busy, so is it all right if we just wait a bit?

My mom, another woman (possibly Sandra, my mom's friend), and myself go to check out another restaurant. When we get there, we notice that our other group hasn't been served yet, either. It's a lose/lose situation, I guess.

Sandra is driving. We cross a bridge and are headed downward on a slight slope when, from the passenger seat, I notice a truck heading toward us has suddenly flipped into the air without warning. "Whoa." is the collective consensus. Sandra hasn't slowed down and I call her on it. The truck is still flipping, and it's starting to roll into our lane. As we get closer, the truck flips up into the air again, and we zoom safely underneath.



"Nice timing!" I say to Sandra.

I'm still in the Halifax/Quickton hybrid, zooming across the city at a bird's eye view. I think about karate classes once a week, and the fact that I keep moving from city to city, changing up disciplines and instructors. I'm a martial artist, I think to myself, I need to take my training into my own hands. A flash of me running down a dirt trail.

City-Fusions. Scare Factor: 1. Reaction: I think my subconscious is trying to tell me something.