Carabas

During a string of fairly uninteresting dreams, I escaped out a window and found myself lucid. I was looking at a dark mountain range in the far distance, and hearing a voice saying "Aurora, awaken." Aurora apparently was me, which I thought of as an odd choice of names; I associated it with Sleeping Beauty. I thought of this place as the abyss. I attempted to create a bridge, but found I was altering the scene as a whole instead of individual elements; I saw scenery representing my bedroom around the edges of my vision. I stopped the attempt to alter the scene and exited back through the window instead.

Recent dreams included a brief appearance from Bai Suzhen, and some good scenery - a trek along a lake covered in snow, watching fireworks in an amusement park.

Today's:

Sometime in the 1700s. Two women talking, one sitting in a chair, the other kneeling in front of her and holding her hands. The walls seem covered in gold and mirrors, with double doors in glass and a row of large windows opening onto the hallway. The windows shatter when I walk down the hall towards the doors - I'd only meant for the doors themselves to break. A cautionary sign. The woman who'd been in the chair is standing when I walk through the space where the doors used to be, shielding the other woman. She calls me Conte.

Two kids, a girl and a boy, are playing a video game. The boy's character has just hit something in the throat with a lead pipe, and the boy has an odd sensation of experiencing the same thing - not pain, more like a memory of someone hitting him just like that, in the throat and then in the side. As a disembodied observer, I'm thinking that's a pity - even after we finally managed to create a peaceful timeline, the deaths from the other timelines are still affecting them.

A nightmare involving a creature called the Sandman whose facial features are fluid, constantly slowly changing; and then a false awakening in which the Sandman creature is approaching my POV character's bed.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm walking around the grounds of a mansion where I've been staying. Talking to someone, he's looking at something behind me and says, "Look at that, straight out of a painting." I turn around to look. The sky in the distance is yellow-tinged and nearly completely covered by these two dark slabs of storm clouds, like solid walls. The opening between them makes me think of the parting of the seas. The water beneath those clouds is being tossed up in such a way that it's revealed an old and famous shipwreck, it's been pulled out of the depths. Another ship, a modern one, is thrown out of the sea by the winds, and it crashes straight through one of the massive floor-to-ceiling windows of the mansion.

(A false awakening mostly about trying to describe that last scene, then actually woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm looking after an enormous, shaggy black 'dog' - more like an enormous wolf - that belongs to my neighbor. Most of the dream revolves around playing with him and petting him. When I go to feed him, his water is kept in a intricately curved copper tube, almost like a French horn.

As Kang Chi in modern times, I meet Yeo Wool. She remembers me. We're both shocked. I have a false awakening in which I try to tell IRL friend S. about that dream, and then go on to a few IRL-based scenes - trying to find a place to park in NYC, and trying to form words out of a jumble of letters.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

In the past. Kang Chi and Yeo Wool are meeting up in this hut in the mountains outside of town. They have to separate, and they're being very loudly upset about it. It's just before dawn, and as a 3rd person observer, I'm thinking they must be waking people up in town, they're so loud.

Kang Chi's lying on his back in that town at night, looking up at the full moon. It looks massive, taking up most of my field of vision. He's meant to be meeting Yeo Wool soon and traveling somewhere together, but he's convinced himself she won't come anyway - there's something that's happened between them or something she's involved in that's on his mind, but he's not thinking about it directly. He's talking to himself out loud, convincing himself that she won't come and he should just leave on his own.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

Kang Chi's delirious, standing outside somewhere on the edge of that same town and calling for someone he calls brother - not a literal brother. Yeo Wool's trying to get him to move, but as he starts talking like this, she remembers a time in the past when they were in trouble in this same place and Wol Ryung had helped them. He and Kang Chi had called each other brother sometimes - it's partially a reference to being the same species, and partially acknowledging each other as close while sidestepping the complicated family issue. So she realizes that, delirious, Kang Chi's calling Wol Ryung for help. Wol Ryung's dead.

Kang Chi and Yeo Wool are traveling together in a very distant place. Yeo Wool's wearing modern clothes - no one else is. They're surrounded by soldiers carrying spears and a froglike nobleman on horseback - not a human being. The two of them raise daggers to their own throats, threatening to kill themselves rather than let the froglike man capture them alive.

As Kang Chi, I'm outside and looking through a window at Yeo Wool. There's a luna moth on the window.

And then two IRL-based scenes - catching and releasing an insect, and a visit from an IRL sister's friend.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

In modern times, Kang Chi's at a studio where they're filming a movie or a show, and a woman is talking to him, sounding very irritated. Without naming any names, she makes it clear there's been rumors going around about someone who works here being viewed as violent, potentially dangerous. Kang Chi's thinking this is about Yeo Wool - she's recently become nonhuman, and the adjustment period can be rough. Which makes this his responsibility. Without specifically naming names, Kang Chi tries to get the woman to confirm that it's Yeo Wool she's talking about. But Yeo Wool's just appeared at the end of the hall, and the woman says to ask her himself and stalks off.

And then an IRL-based scene involving studying Agamemnon.

I went semi-lucid during a nightmare - a scene involving IRL characters - and wanted to change the scene in order to get away from the nightmare. I had a false awakening - possibly two, memory's vague on this point - either way, I eventually wound up in my IRL bedroom, lucid (now unsure on whether or not I lost lucidity in between).

The room's dark, and I'm frustrated, feeling trapped. I've got the impression I'm stuck in some in-between state, not dreaming properly (whatever that means) and not able to wake myself up, and I'm trying to escape this state. I'm thinking about lack of control, and I look at an object in my hand and turn it into a sword, thinking of this as somewhat pointless, and thinking something about the way the dim light affects this. I find myself moving along the ceiling, as if I'm held up there against my will. There are two windows, and I manage to claw my way over to one while avoiding being pulled toward the other. I slide it open and tear out the screen (I was thinking something I can't recall in detail, something about the way the window responds to my actions by opening or not opening due to it being a part of a dream rather than a physical window), and with great effort manage to crawl through the window.

On the other side, I'm floating over water, surrounded by cliffs and hills covered in snow. It's night. There are wooden buildings and people outside, dressed in clothes from at least a few centuries ago. My perspective is moving, but I'm still partway in the window; when I look behind me, I can see the window hovering in midair. I'm moving toward the town center, and I can hear people talking - not a language I understand, but from some of the words I catch I believe it to be German, or some variant of it. There's some event about to take place, I believe it's something religious, some ritual.

I enter a building. Memory goes spotty here again, but eventually I wound up speaking with an old woman who gave an impression of beauty and power. To her left was a woman sitting asleep in a throne, dressed in a costume that could have been straight from the LotR movie elves - I specifically compared it to a costume while I was looking at her. I wondered if she was Julia. (It's unusual that it's something I wondered about, as opposed to just knowing.) The old woman was telling me about her plans, including something she was going to discard, and I requested that she give me that thing. She was surprised but amused and granted my request, but afterward I thought of this as a missed opportunity - I became distracted by the thing she gave me, I should have just listened and followed along with her.