Visions in the Dark

Dream starts off with me living back at home with my parents. They are bugging me to find a program to do over the summer or get a job. There are several artist's groups listed in the community newspaper but I am reluctant to apply because I don't think I am good enough. My parents take me to an intake session for one of the groups and I bring along a soapstone carving that I made, which looks like a mermaid sitting on a rock. The meeting takes place in a cave in a remote mountain range for some reason. The room we are in is chisled from black obsidian and is dome shaped.

The judges like my carving and one of them says that carving soapstone is really hard (even though in real life it is not) and ask me to step into the middle of the room. There are camera's planted throughout the room and they want to take my picture in the nude. I refuse, even after all the men are aked to leave, but somehow my mom convinces me that it is for the best. After the pictures are done my father and brother Ryan want to see them and I become upset and try to destroy the pictures because I don't want them to see me naked.

As this is happening the judges and my family leave and some archeologists come in carrying some old bones. They place them on the platform in the middle of the room and start taking pictures. A white wisp of smoke emerges from the bones and transforms into a ghost of a man from about a century ago. He is angry and flies around the room wildly. I am the only person who can see him and when he realizes he can talk to me he tells me that he was murdered and that his killer is still roaming free. I try to explain that is impossible because many decades have past and his killer is probably dead now but the ghost will not believe me.

The archeologist's take the bones away and bring in a partially decomposed body of a child. When they take pictures of it the spirit of the dead child awakens and tells me that she was murdered by a pedophile. I feel bad but don't really know what to say and the ghost child goes on to tell me that the murderer has proof of the crime on their computer and she wants me to find it. I try to explain that would be impossible but the ghost evaporates before I can finish speaking.

The body is taken away and I am left alone in the obsidian cave as the doors are locked and lights shut off. When night has fallen the walls of the cave suddenly show that I am deep under water (though still in a cave) and a variety of sea life is circling the dome as if I were in an underwater observatory or something. Not just normal sea creatures but mermaids and weird looking sea monsters swim by as well. I go up to one side of the dome and find that I am slip through it as if walking through a thin layer of jello and I am now out in the water. I can breath despite being underwater and I start swimming around the cave trying to find my way out.

There is a faint glow of light out of a narrow shaft that leads upwards and I follow it until I surface in a small cennote. There is a redheaded woman standing on the side and she helps me out and I find myself near the top of a mountain. On one side there is an ocean and the other side is a flat life-less plain that goes off to another mountain range in the horizon. The redheaded women tells me that the old mountain range was crushed underneath the new mountain and that this one will suffer the same fate when a new mountain appears.

The dream ends there.

I am travelling with a male companion who has short black hair and is a sorceror of sorts. His name starts with an "M" but I can't remember his actual name from the dream. I am a sword fighter and the two of us are travelling the world to learn new skills to compensate the things we already know. In other words, M is trying to find someone to teach him close combat skills and I am seeking to learn magic. M and I have learned all we can from each other and need to find external sources to teach us more.

We are Japan during the feudal era and are both dressed in Japanese inspired treveller's clothing. We are walking along a cobblestone path through a forest towards some early Edo period buildings that we can see ahead of us. It seems as if everything is in technicolor. It is night but the stars shine so brightly that it is not dark at all. The tree leaves are in magesnta and purples and everything with color is very vivid. As we get closer to the buildings we come to a fork in the road and we meet two young women, a young man dressed as a monk and his pet, a small flying orange fox, who are coming down the other path and heading towards the same buildings that we are.

M and I tell the other people that we are looking for someone to teach us. One of the young woman tells us that they are going to see their sensei and we cantag along if we want. We follow them to the largest of the buildings, a shrine on the edge of what seems to be a small village. The inside of the shrine is like a large cave. There are three large stone platforms (two on each side and one in the middle) that rise above what looks like a lake of glowing red lava below, but it does it smell like sulfur, so I wasn't sure what it was at first.

On the center platform is a large Spirit or God. He is wearing royal looking kimonos underneath samurai armor. He has long white hair and beard and pale purple coloured skin. He introduced himself as "Akashi" and before M and I can tell him why we've come, he tells us that we have different paths to follow for our training that that we will have to seperate. This upsets both M and I because up until this point we have always done our training together.

Akashi tells M to follow the group of people we met on the cobblestone path, for they are all trained in close combat and can teach him much, but I am to stay with Akashi because my training is going to be harder and longer. The Spirit God produces a fist size blue stone that is reminiscent of a outline of a pair of lips and with a wave of his hand it grows to in size until it is as large as me. I am bound with magic rope to it and M gets upset to see me tied up. Akashi says that while bound to the blue stone I will not become uncomfortable, hungry or tired, and that he is going to send me into another dimension where time passes much more quickly. There I will be able to observe and learn from other spirits for what will be an equivalent of many months, though only three days will pass in the physical world.

Akashi opens a portal to the other dimension and the blue stone to which I am tied floats through. When the portal closes, Akashi instructs M to follow the group back into the forest where he can observe them fighting monsters and demons and says by the end of the three days M will have the same level of combat skills as they.

Three days pass and M and the group return to the shrine and find Akashi fighting some demons who have forced their way into the physical realm from another dimension. The group helps the Spirit God fight off the demons but when it is all over Akashi tells them that he expended a lot of power fighting the demons and he now does not have the energy to retrieve me from the dimension he sent me to. M says that he has lots of magic power to spare, since he didn't use it while combat training, and offers it for Akashi's use. The Spirit God absorbs M's power and sends the small flying fox into the small portal opening. The flying fox chews off the ropes binding my hands and feet then magically grows to the size of a lion so that I can ride on his back.

Some of the spirits that I had been observing and learning from all those months try to follow us through the portal but Akashi tries to stop them. They become angry and attack the fox and I before we are all the way through and try to drag us back into their dimension. M and the group help them fight them back while Akashi sits back and watches approvingly. Akashi then closes the portal and gathers us all on the center platform where praises us all for our skills.


The dream ends there.

The dream starts off with my parents and I at a cottage harbour resort in Long Point Ontario, in which we used to vacation every year in October. I am standing in the gravel courtyard looking out over the boat launch. The day is a bit chilly, but sunny and bright, and I am wearing jeans and a large, poofy white sweater. There are some random DCs around, as well as people I know from waking life, but I cannot remember what exactly I was doing. For the most part of this dream I think I was peeking into the old cabins that I have not seen for a long time and trying to talk to the DCs that look like people I used to know there.

The details of this part of the dream are fuzzy but it eventually turns into what looks like an 8-bit or 16-bit RPG. The scenery changes and I am no longer at Long Point but in a small square world. I am floating above it and looking down on a world map, which looks like this:



Interestingly, the world is a similar sepia tone like the map and there are very few variations in colour. The grass sways in the soft breeze and the water sparkles, but all in yellow and brown tones. The land parts of the world are lush with long, thick grasses and flowers, but I do not recall seeing any trees. When I say it was a square world, I mean it looked like this place existed entirely inside a box. There was no sun (though it was bright like daytime) and there were crudely painted clouds on the walls and ceiling of this strange square little world.

I am suddenly in a large field in the lower left hand corner of the world. In the far distance I can see something gleeming as if it was glass reflecting in sunlight. I become semi-lucid and float in the direction of the flashing and come across a group of funny looking DCs racing flying teacups around a bay. A pudgy DC motions towards me to join him in his teacup, but I am just content to watch. The pudgy DC was wearing a one-peice longjohn pajamas, a striped scarf, large googles on his head, and leather gloves with the fingers ripped out. The other DCs wore a similar smorgasbord of unusual clothing combinations.

As they continued to race I noticed another flying teacup approaching from the northwest. It seems to be coming from a large fortress situated in that part of the world. The teacup is black and is being driven by a muscular, clean-shaven man who is wearing a tight fitting body suit. He has a stern expression on his face and is carring a large black whip. The other teacup racers become nervous when he approaches and some fly away in a panic. To the others that stay, the man in the black teacup challenges them to a race to a large whirlpool in the middle of the ocean and back. The oddly dresses DCs agree but I get the impression that they do not have a choice.

The man with the whip flys over to me and pulls me into his teacup. I lose my semi-lucid state and can no longer control my actions. The race starts and the black teacup shoots past the others, gets to the Whirlpool, and makes it back first. Because the other racers never return from the race and I do not know what happened to them. The man then drops me off on a narrow cliff and sends me on my way. I walk for a while and see a cat rolling around in the soft grass just ahead of me. Unlike the rest of the world which is sepia toned, the cat is grey and white in colour. She looks farmiliar, but at that moment I cannot articulate in which ways.

A new DCs appears behind me but I ignore him and continue petting the cat. She looks me in the eye and starts purring. It suddenly hits me that this is my first cat Bambi. I become excited and become fully lucid (because I know that she is dead in real life). I turn to the other DC and say: "Look! Look, it's Bambi! It's Bambi!"

The DC seems to know who I am talking about but is indifferent, which frustrates me. I try to make him care but I cannot. He says something about a cave on and island in the north and that I will be safe from the Bad Guy if I go there. He then says that the Bad Guy lives in a fortress to the north-west. I pick Bambi up, cradle her in my arms and leap off the cliff. I can fly, but only for a short distance before I start to slow down and lose altitude. Once I am on solid ground though, I can jump up or make a running leap and fly for a short time again. I repeat the process several times until I have crossed a small bay filled with islands and reached the entrance to the large cave in the north.

This dream starts off on some sort of island. There is one small town near the north side of the island, but it is a very poor slum. Most of the houses are small trailers or huts that are dirty and barely standing. The town is surrounded by a temperate forest and the entire island is elevated several meters above the sea level. Because there are only steep cliffs along the sea sides, crudely constructed wooden piers and ladders have been built to allow access to the water. It is never explained why or by who, in the dream, but the little island is subject to frequent air raids.


I am standing outside of my hut/trailer and I am looking at the clear blue sky. I can hear an air raid siren blaring through the town, and even though I can not see where the sound is coming from, I know what it means. I can see black dots in the distance and they are rapidly approaching the island. Everyone in the town is scrambling to find shelter, most heading for the forest because they know that the slum town is the target of the on coming attack. I run into the forest also, but still feel exposed being so close to the town and head for the closest pier on the seafront. I am hoping to escape the attack by boat.

When I am at the outside edge of the forest (at a cliff that overlooks the sea) and I can see the on coming attack planes. There are about 12 of them and they are flying in a diamond formation. Most of the planes look like WW2 bombers, while two or three look like sea planes. All of them are painted entirely black except for the wing tips which are painted bright red.

I am afraid that I will be seen and scramble down the cliff side and underneath the long wooden pier. I remember that the wood of the pier was dark brown and smelled like it was rotting. The planes suddenly decend rapidly, break formation and start bombing everything in sight that is moving. My plans of escape by boat are thwarted when several people attempting a similar escape in their watercraft are obliterated by the attack planes before they can get very far. The very end of the long pier I am hidding under is blown apart by a bomb and I am too afraid to move from my spot.

I cannot see what is happening to the town but I can hear a constant barage of bombs, planes wizzing close by and screams from people in the forest behind me. To my right I suddenly see one of the sea planes land in the water and come towards the pier that I am hiding under. I panic and try to climb up the cliff but it is suddenly muddy and I slip down and into a large cravat. There is an outcropping of the cliff that I can hide under and I do so.

While still aware of the sea plane coming towards me, I feel something hard in the mud below me and thinking it is a rock, I dig it out. It turns out to be translucent yellow stone about the size of my fist. It's not shiny and cut but I think it is jewel and I put it in the pocket of my tattered pants. I try to adjust my weight in the mud underneath the outcropping but doing so causes me to slip out from my hiding place. I grab onto something that I think is a stick to steady myself and discover that is a cylindrical, translucent red stone. There are actually three of them sticking out of the mud but I only grab one and stick it in my other pocket.

The sounds of the air raid have stopped, though I can still hear several bombers flying overhead. The sea plane reaches the wooded pier and because I think I can be seen I make another attempt to climb up the muddy cliff. I am successful this time and dash into the forest. I do not look back and see the face of the enemy. The forest is thick with smoke from things burning and I am quickly lost. I run towards where I think the town is and trip on several bodies or body parts. I do not see anyone alive along the way.

I do eventually find the town but the damage doesn't seem to be as bad as I thought it would. My home has been destroyed and I scurry between burning ruins and debris until I find a trailer that is elevated off the ground with cinder blocks. I crawl underneath the trailer and dig a small hole. I rip off a peice of my shirt and wrap the yellow and red stones in it, which I then bury, believing that they are valuable or will be useful to me later. I remain hidden under the trailer, even after I can no longer hear any bombers flying overhead.

People start emerging from the forest and return to the town. I don't know any of them nor do I feel anything for them. Even at the beginning of the dream I felt very detatched from the other people in the town. I watch from my hiding place as people try to find anything valuable to salvage or their loved ones. I am chased from my hiding spot when the owner of the trailer returns and yells at me to get lost, probably thinking that I was going to try and move into his place or something. I make a mental note to retrieve the stones later.

I don't know if it is the next day or later in the week but the dream skips ahead a bit and I am talking with someone in the middle of the slum, most of which is still smoldering ruins. There are a few people trying to rebuild but many people don't see the point since they know the island will probably be bombed again in the near future. The young man I am talking to says that there is a man who lives in a cave on the other side of the island who grants wishes or something to anyone who brings him rare or precious items. I remember my yellow and red stones (having forgotten them until now, apparently) and wait until night to try and dig them up.

Thankfully the stones are still there and I make my way along the island's outer edge to try and find the cave. The full moon is large and supplies ample lumination for me to find my way. The muddy cliffs give way to icy formations that are just as difficult to traverse. I slip several times and almost drop my stones in the sea, which seems to have gone calm to violent and frothing the farther I get from the slum town. The sea is also freezing and I assume that is why the cliff face is covered in ice.

I feel like I have been walking forever, and indeed the sun starts to rise before I see the cave in the distance. The icy cliff gives way to sand, but not before I pluck a peculiar looking stone from the frigid ice. It is similar to my yellow and red stones, being translucent and about fist size, but is a bright blue. I put it in with the others and continue on my way. I am happy to reach the sand because it is warm and soft, though I have to avoid being sweapt away by large waves that are crashing onto the beach. The tide must be coming in or something because even when I walk directly away from the sea, the waves still reach my feet no matter how far inshore I go.

What looked like a cave from a distance now looks like a large door made of gold and encrusted with shining jems. There are gold and silver gears and chains surrounding it and there does not seem to be a door handle. I think at first that it is some sort of puzzle but before I can get much further in my thoughts, the gears start turning, the chains squeak and the door swings open. It is all dark inside and I cannot see anything at first, but with the sea level rapidly rising behind me, I do not hesitate to go inside.

I am exhausted and cold and am hoping that this journey has not been in vain. I feel my way through the dark until I find a wooden door. I open it and am stunned by what I see behind it. It looks like a standard, modern day home (kitchen to my right, living room dead ahead, bedroom to my left), but everything is made of precious material and jewels. The walls are solid gold, the light fixtures are made of crystal, the carpet under my feet is soft and luxuriant. I am appauled by the excess of the place, thinking of the utter poverty and slum conditions in which my town on the other side of the island exists.

As I walk towards the large high ceiling living room. A tall, handsome, muscular man (in his late 20s/early 30s) comes out of no where and greats me. A woman appears by his side and offers to make me some tea. She seems kind of "empty," and does not even look directly at me. She is forcing a smile. I can not see them, but I can hear children playing somewhere. Still overwhelmed by the opulance of the place I forgot what I had come for, even thought I still clutched the stones closely to my chest. Despite their apparently welcoming demenor, I do not feel safe because everything feels "fake."


The dream ends there.

I had two dreams this night but I can only remember minor details about the first one.


#1) The first dream took place in a vast plain. There was a giant half woman, half snake creature that was battling another creature that I could not see clearly. The serpent woman was talking one hell of a beating and there was blood everywhere. I do not remember anything else, not even how it ended.


#2) The second dream had me walking down a long cave-like tunnel. There were many rooms along the way that were like classrooms or workshops in a college. I was not in this place alone as there were many people participating in the classes and workshops. Most of the people were young adults and I did not recognize any of them as people I know in real time.

Passing through the first few rooms was uneventful, but in one workshop there were many bandsaws and other electric wood cutting tools that were tightly cramed together, making it very difficult to get past (and I had to get past them to get the the next room). All of the electric tools were on, adding to the danger. I did make it through, but not before almost running into and knocking over a table saw.

Another room I came to was empty of desks or tools, and the floor was made of a very smooth, reflective marble. There was a lady standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by many handsome young men lounging about on pillows. She was tall, graceful and very elegant looking. Her skin was a porcelain white and she had very long vampire-like fangs coming out of her mouth. She did not saying thing, but I got the sense that she was the caretaker of this cave-tunnel place and protected the people inside.

I was not afraid of her, and she made no threatening gestures towards me. She just smiled at me, then turned to a young man laying on a pillow and reached for him. The lady took him in her arms and opened her mouth. The young man stroked her unnaturally long vampire-like fangs for a moment before she leaned in and bit his neck. The price for her protection I suppose, but I did not see what happened next because I was anxious to move onto the next room.

I walked through a doorway and found myself outside. I was at the base of a mountain and there was a river in front of me that was draining into a vast ocean. In the river I could see parts of my family's Westfalia floating down the river. I panicked and dived in. Despite the size of the peices, I grabbed them without problem and easily pulled them to the rocky shore. A shadow fell across me and I looked up the see the procelain-skinned vampire lady and the young man she had bit smiling softely at me. I felt silly and said it was stupid to love a car so much that you would risk your life for it, but the lady said it was because I had a good soul and a lot of love to give or something like that.


When I had this dream my family was about to sell our 1986 Volkswagen Westfalia and I was sad because I had a lot of good memories in it. I have been from one end of Canada to the other in that vehicle and I miss it, even though I know that it was "just a car." I think this is why I jumped into the river in the dream to retrieve the Westfalia peices - I was reluctant to see it go.