Oneironaut Zero: Dreamwalker Chronicles

09/26/2011
Dream One:
"Lucid Juggernaut"

The very first thing I remember is sitting on a couch, during the day, with a few friends. Without warning, a thunderous banging noise came at the front door. Someone apparently had a battering ram and was trying to bust into the house, while we were inside. Immediately, we all scrambled, taking up our guns and preparing for a firefight. However, with the loud banging becoming more intense, some of us were able to see just how many people were out there...and how many guns they had. We were not about to stick around and be slaughtered, so we all bolted out the back door, scrambling through the neighborhood and catching faint glimpses of hundreds of these heavily-armed thugs, raiding all of the houses in the neighborhood. We were being fleshed out, and our territories were being seized by this faction.

Before we were able to make it out of the neighborhood, we were cornered by a patch of these thugs. I don't believe we had our guns anymore, and they ended up robbing us for everything we had in our pockets. We could do nothing but stand there and fume over how we were being humiliated by these goons, and how helpless we were. After cracking a few jokes, they sent us on our way. However, after a few short steps, I finally realized how crazy this situation was. I figured out that I was dreaming, and I couldn't be more ready for revenge.

I turned around, mid-pace, and began walking back toward the thugs, whom had just robbed us. I didn't care how I did it, (or that it really didn't matter, because this was just a dream), but I was about to get our damn stuff back! Lol. They all watched me as I approached, waving my hands back in my direction, and yelling at the armed men to bring it on. Accepting the invitation, they all started firing at me, simultaneously. At first, I began to let the bullets just slam into me, while I continued walking toward them. I had to clentch my fists and brace forward, because they bullets were actually a bit painful, but I tried to just push the sensation out of my mind, while I stalked twoard the men. When it finally became too uncomfortable, I took to catching most of the bullets in my hands, which also stung, but was still effective. However, the men just continued firing, and even with a good level of lucidity, it was beginning to get a little overwhelming. I was still having a good time, though, watching them sh!t bricks when they saw how they couldn't really stop me with all that firepower.

An idea came to mind. Focusing my intention to use a little telekinesis, I brought my hands in front of me, fingers curled toward on another, as if I were palming a basketball. With the men continuing to fire away at me, I drew all of my attention to the empty space between my hands, and 'willed' all of the bullets to be drawn to this void. The bullets immediately ceased hitting me, and I could literally see them being collected, in this empty space between my hands, as if there were a powerful, invisible magnet floating there. (I had gotten the idea from the Mech Suit scene, in the movie District 9, where the Mech used some sort of technology to catch the bullets in mid air, and collect them into one, floating spot.) Then, once I had a good mass of bullet heads collected in this space, the men finally stopped shooting. They stared at the hovering bullets with awe, and were obviously loss for words. Smiling, I quickly flung my hands out in the direction of the gunmen, launching the spent bullets out of the space between my palms, like buckshot from a gun (which is also what the Mech did, with the bullet tips, in the movie). It was just awesome, and I'm surprised it worked, so effortlessly. The first wave of thugs dropped like stones, and more moved in from around the neighborhood. I basically ripped through them all, using their own weapons against them, but eventually losing lucidity. I was able to keep the control for a bit, but the bullets began to take their toll on me, and I could feel myself dying. Still trying to fight through the sensation of having my energy drained from me, I eventually had to succumb. I ended up dying in the street, seeing myself in the third person as a female friend from my group clutched me and cried.

(There was a strange transition here, that might have been a completely different dream, where some girl, that might have been the same one, was going down on me in a public place. I remember being lucid here, for a moment, but still a little embarassed that people were watching us and walking right by us, even though I knew they were DC's.)

The dream then transitioned again (or there is just a lot I am missing), and I was now in some scenario where I believe I was a police offer. I had lost my lucidity again (but, again, I don't feel like it was a separate dream). My female companion from earlier was still with me, and she was acting as my 'partner'. We were in some similar situation to what had happened back in the neighborhood, in that we'd set up some kind of presence in this huge, multi-level office building, but were run out of it by this larger faction. This time it was more of a shadow organization with lots of money, modern security, and lots more firepower than even the thugs from earlier.

Having failed our first confrontation with these new gunmen, I remember us walking back out toward the parking lot, pissed off at having not been able to bring the group down. Once again, just on the verge of retreat, I realized I was dreaming once again. My disappointment instantly turned to mischeivous glee. Without saying another word, I reached into an open trunk and grabbed a handgun and immediately began to storm my way back into the tall office building, and up the stairs, toward where my squad had just been forced out of. I don't remember much of the battle, but it went pretty much like my rampage through the neighborhood, with guys emptying clips into me, and me just refusing to go down. I remember a specific corridor, where I tried shooting my gun, but it was just like a BB gun, and not doing any damage. Annoyed with this, I walked toward the nearest shooter - allowing his bullets to rip into me, on the way - and proceeded to try to pistol whip him and the guy next to him. Unfortunately, I got that 'sluggish' effect, and was not able to get any power behind my swings. The more intense the fighting got, the more I could feel my lucidity slipping in and out. I remained lucid enough to remember that I had died, during the last rampage, and I became anxious about whether or not this would happen to me again, now. I was able to survive this time, though, keeping myself calm instead of allowing the energy-draining sensation to creep back into me. Once I was done having my fun, I walked back down to the rest of my team, completely unharmed, but still riddled with bullet holes and bleeding from every inch of my body.

(There was another transition after this, which might have been a different dream, but I don't really feel like it was. It didn't really tie in with the theme from the previous, though, so I will just label it as a separate fragment, even though I'm admittedly not sure whether it was a seperate fragment, or just a continuation of the dream.)

Dream Fragment Two

I was with JH, and we were leaving my house (which was actually the house where the ex and I used to live, years ago). My mom had just come home (though she didn't actually live in that house with us, in waking life), and I had to break away to speak to her for a moment. All I can remember about talking to her was catching her on the front porch, and seeing that she was wearing a very nice, red dress, and really long hair.

09/19/2011
"Hoverbikers"

I don't remember very much of this one, but I was in what seemed like a Final Fantasy type of setting, and in a motorcycle chase, much like the one that Cloud had against Yazoo, Luz and Kadaj, on Advent Children. However, in this dream, we were actually on hover-bikes, that were a lot like the bikes in the game Jet Moto (which I saw an ad for, just the other day). There was one specific moment, that I remember leaning back on the bike as I soared down a steep, declining highway at breakneck speed, feeling like I was riding on a rocket.

Later, we found out that there was some sort of big conspiracy going on, and the cops of this Midgar-like town were killing off newcomers, to keep them from learning some type of secret. The last thing I remember was trying to escape some part of the city that was just crumbling down around us, while being bombarded with explosives.

09/20/2011
Fragment
All I remember is that I was a Broly type of character, and I was brawling with another really powerful villain. We were flying through the air and firing energy blasts at each other. We were also tearing through buildings like during the Z-fighters' first encounter with Broly, on the The Legendary SuperSaiyaJin DBZ movie.

09/15/2011
Dream Fragment One
All I remember was that I was in a house that I thought was my own. I walked outside, and it was night time. Looking to one side, I noticed that the outside of the house was definitely not my house. For one brief moment, I realized that I had no idea where I was, and that this had to be a dream. Unfortunately, I woke up immediately after this realization.


Dream Fragment Two
I was driving around, downtown somewhere, with MJ. We were just hanging out for a while, but I don't really remember too much that went on.


Dream Three
"Friends 'til the End...and Then Some."

This was a really strange dream, and I'm not sure if I can remember the exact details, because it was kind of confusing. I was not actually a participant in this dream. I just seemed to be watching it. Apparently, there were two middle-aged women, who were extremely close friends. One of them - a brunette - really reminded of Rosanne Arnold. The other woman - blonde - was being abused by some deadbeat dude, and ended up getting critically injured by him. (I don't believe she died, though.) Later, her friend had done something to the man, in order to get revenge. I can't remember what it was, but she definitely put him in his place. She might have killed him. I'm not sure.

However, the twist came when the brunette woman was sitting in her home one night, and she picked up the phone to call her friend. My disembodied perspective came in on the conversation, as she was sitting on her bed and explaining to her friend about how she avenged her friend and 'got the bastard' that critically injured her. Suddenly, I could hear her friend on the phone. Her voice was filled with sorry, and it seemed so much more like she was talking to herself, rather than talking to the friend who was telling her about how she's gotten the man back for what he'd done. I could hear the blonde's muffled voice through the phone, sobbing to herself about how much she misses her friend (the brunette), how she wishes she was still alive, and how she hated the man that killed her beloved friend.

The brunette was visibly shocked by this. She called into the phone "hello?? hello??!", trying to get clarification, but it seemed that her blonde friend couldn't hear her. It was if the phone call was not actually happening, and she was just somehow listening to her blonde friend talking to herself. Then, the brunette began to piece together what was going on, and my perspective followed her recollection as if it were a movie flashback. It showed that the brunette was actually the one who was attacked by the man in question. I saw a quick flash of her getting struck down by him, and then another flash of a funeral service. The brunette woman was in an open casket, and her blonde friend was standing nearby. My perspective then switched back to the brunette, in her room, still clutching the phone. The realization came to her (and me, of course), that she was the one who had been killed, and that everything that had happened after her death (killing the man, talking on the phone to her friend) was all just fabrications of the afterlife that came with her apparent inability to accept the fact that she had died. My recollection of the dream faded as the woman was just sitting on the bed with the look of complete shock on her face, trying to make sense of just what the hell happened to her.


Dream Fragment Four
I was laying on a couch. On the couch with me was the brunette from the previous dream. The blonde was sitting on a nearby loveseat. Having no idea that I was still dreaming, I was explaining the previous dream to the two of them, as if they were my waking world friends. They listened intently, while I recounted all the details.


Dream Five
"The Undead of Winter"

(Another crazy one, and I have the feeling I'm missing a lot that went on, before my initial recollection of the dream begins.)

I was in an enormous mansion, along with some friends. The first thing I remember is that we had done something we weren't supposed to do, and ended up unleashing a horde of zombies from deep within the mansion. Once they were unleashed, they just began streaming out of every door and hallway, in absolutely insane numbers. We all ran for our lives, trying not to get lost in the building. I remember the final stretch of hallway, leading toward the exit, and ducking and dodging all of the flailing, undead arms that were reaching out for us as we passed.

When we finally made it outside, we found ourselves in a snow-white clearing. It looked like this mansion was secluded out in the Alps, or something, with the tundra-like setting all around us. The zombies continued to flood out of the mansion by the thousands, and we had something of a stand-off, out here, because it seemed like all directions were blocked by impassable landscape. I remember having some sort of contraption in my pocket that helped point me out to where any potential weapons were. However, with the zombies beginning to box us in, there was no way that I could get to any of them. They eventually closed in on us, and I remember dying at least once.

Before I knew it, I was back inside the mansion. We had just accidentally set the zombies free (again), and they were filling the mansion again, while we made our second escape. With some awareness of what had happened, the first time, I pulled out my 'weapon-finder' much earlier, on this second run. As soon as I exited the mansion, I took a sharp right and dashed toward a crowbar that the gadget had directed me to. I picked it up and began bludgeoning the creatures back, as best I could. There were far too many of them, though, and they just kept on coming. We continued to be pushed back to the rough terrain, as we had before, but we somehow figured out that these zombies only advanced on us when we were looking at them, and whenever we would turn our eyes from them, they would either freeze up, or wander about aimlessly. (I also remember something about music being involved, and how music being played also caught them to wonder around at random, instead of toward us. It all felt like a zombie-apocalypse game I tried out the other day on the PC, where the zombies wouldn't come close to you, unless you were moving around and drawing attention to yourself, but a little different. Can't remember the name of the game, though.)

Using this knowledge of how to stun them to our advantage, the last thing I remember is our group working together to stun them and toss grenades into the fray, when there were enough of them in a single spot to maximize damage to the horde. However, we knew that we just did not have enough resources to take them out, and they continued to stream out of the mansion in numbers that didn't seem to show any signs of dwindling.

09/03/2011
Dream Fragment
I don't remember very much of this dream at all. I was being held at gunpoint, by a group of women. We were in some old treasure room, with ancient maps on the walls, and all kinds of trinkets on the table. I remember that I had knowledge of a key which opened a secret compartment of this room. While the girls were trying to find the way to get to the next section of their scavenger hunt, I discretely checked any nooks and crannies for something that might have held the key.

Later, I remember being on rooftops, in the city. For some reason, I (and a few others) were having to glide between these rooftops with parachutes; essentially 'hopping' from rooftop to rooftop. I can't remember what for, though.



09/05/2011
"From Supernatural to Superheroes"

(I really wish I remembered more of this one.)

I was with one of my exes, in a hotel. There was a lot of normal stuff that went on in the beginning of this dream, but I don't remember very much of it. Soon, though, we were getting attacked by werewolves. I remember then charging into the various hallways and rooms of the hotel, and then anyone who was mauled (but not killed), would become one of them. I also had a dog. Something like a lab, I believe. It stuck with me, throughout the dream, but one of the werewolves ended up getting it's hands on the animal. I remember the werewolf's face as it sneered at me and bit into my dog, ever so slowly, glaring at me. It was actually taunting me, slowly sinking a single fang into the dog - just enough to where it was sending the message to me that my dog would be turned into one of them.

Later, I was back up in the hotel, and the werewolves were no longer in the picture. Instead, a giant robot had torn the roof of the hotel off, and was attacking us all from above. The robot was huge, and resembled a Sentinel, from Marvel Comics. My mom was in the scene now, and she was trying her best to hide from the metal giant that was tearing our room apart; ripping through the concrete foundation as if the building were made of tightly compact dirt. Finally, I realized that I was dreaming. Even though I knew she was a DC, I couldn't stand to see my mom so horrified. I threw my hands up above us and creating a green dome of energy, which acted as a force field. The giant made a couple of attempts to attack, but could not get passed the barrier. During this stand-off, I had somehow gotten word that the Avengers (or various Marvel superheroes) had arrived, to help fight the metal colossus. I heard one of them talking about how Spider-Man was inside the robot, tearing it apart from within. I thought this sounded like an awesome idea.

I moved to the massive hole in the wall, still on some high level of the hotel. Not quite caring whether or not there was something to anchor myself to, I flicked my hand out like Spider-Man and visualized the web leaving my arm. It worked without effort, and I swung across the gap between myself and the robot, and drove my feet into its chest - smashing my way into the belly of the beast. Inside, the first thing that came to mind was Spider-Man's 'Maximum Spider' hyper combo. (I had been watching Marvel vs. Capcom 3 vids all day. Lol.) Mimicking the movement, I shot myself all around the inside of the robot, tearing through wires and parts, bouncing around within its center, like a BB in a tin can. Once confident I had done enough damage, I jumped down into the street, where a bunch of people were standing around in the hotel parking lot, watching the mayhem. I went over to talk to some girl, when a car suddenly came speeding through the parking lot, skidding around corners and almost hitting all of us. I noticed that the man had a toddler in the backseat, and this instinctively pissed me off. (Just the other day, I saw a guy blow through a stop sign with a toddler in his car, after peeling out of the liquor store parking lot.) Using telekinesis, I slammed a downward force onto the hood of his car from a distance, trying to stop it, but only causing it to bounce. I did it again, more forcefully, the car bouncing even more violently, seeming as if it were about to shake apart. Throwing my fist down toward the ground again, I gave one more forceful TK command. This time, I guess it was more intense than even I had intended. Not only did the car's front end smash down into the concrete, but the entire car burst into flames, as if I had purposefully lit it on fire with pyrokinesis.

The last thing I remember is having a distinct sense of 'oops', before waking up.

08/23/2011
Dream One
"Autobots Abroad"

I was Optimus Prime. The other Autobots and I were being summoned by the humans' governmental leaders, to be shipped off to far-away worlds, individually; each distant planet harboring some sort of elite Decepticon 'monsters,' that we were going to have try to destroy, before they came to Earth. There was a lot of contempt for this mission, because we didn't think the humans knew exactly what we were going up against. These weren't any ordinary Decepticons. They were ancient badasses, and even I wasn't sure we would stand our chances against them, on our own. For some reason, though, we had to do what the humans told us on this one.

I got to watch the others depart - even able to see their landings from a disembodied perspective - watching them crash down onto their assigned worlds like fallen meteors. There was a particularly nasty customer left for me, and I was the last one to be shipped away. I don't really remember much of the flight through space, but I do remember first seeing the planet that I had been dispatched to. It looked like almost any other planet, though I can't remember what color it was. Its one unique characteristic was an enormous storm cloud which literally sat 'above' the entire 'northern' part of the planet. It was like a cloud hovering over a snow globe, in that it truly seemed as a separate entity from the planet, itself - like an ominous growth atop the sphere, black and forboding, and seemingly poised to eat the entire planet whole.

I don't remember anything about actually landing, or facing off against the Decepticon giant.


Dream Two
"Soap"

Friends, family members and I had been taken at gun-point. There was this little faction of forgettable villains who were going to use me in their scheme to help spring one of their associates from a local prison. Apparently, their plan involved fitting me with some device - which was disguised as a bar of soap - and having me trojan it into the prison. I don't exactly remember what the device actually did, but what I do remember is that they were planning on getting it into the prison by shoving it up my a$$. As one might imagine, I was not down for this.

They, however, didn't really care about my opinion. I was told that, if I didn't comply, they would kill all of us without question. I was chained up by my arms, and some woman stood before me (looking a lot like Emma Frost from the new X-Men movie). I could see the plans for the device, printed on the wall behind her. She moved in closer to me, bringing her hands up and snapping on a pair of latex gloves. I knew that this was not going to be pleasant. Suddenly, though, I realized that I was dreaming! I was just completely creeped out by this situation, though, and the first thing that I did with my lucidity was instinctively cause myself to wake up.


Dream Three
"Market Melee"

I was an employee in a grocery store. There was quite a bit that had gone on, already, that I don't remember, but I soon became aware that there was a faction of ninjas and other assassins coming to kill me. I can't remember how I found this out, but I remember walking through the aisle, pushing a stock cart, while explaining to my older, female boss about the killers that were coming for me. She had been walking with me, accusing me of stealing beer from the freezer. Shortly after the accusation, though, she admitted that she found out it wasn't me, but Keifer Sutherland (who was apparently a co-worker) was the guilty party. Again, most of this part I've forgotten. Soon, though, I had become lucid, and anticipating the insurgency.

I don't remember much about when the assassins first started showing up - only that they were mostly a bunch of generic ninjas. I thought about my previous dream, and figured that the assassin concept might have been left over from my prison-scheme escape. They would attack in small groups, but I was just completely outclassing them with martial arts. And there was one female ninja, in particular, to whom I remember giving a vicious spinning heel kick to the face, and at one point, I was walking around the store with a pair of padded nunchaku (like the ones I have IRL, only black instead of white) taunting my attackers with a practice toy.

I remember one break I took, between skirmishes, to rub a stuffed bear on a nearby shelf, taking in the texture and using it to try to solidify the dream state. It worked a bit, but then I got into more fights, and my clarity began waning. At one point, I almost completely lost the dream. I could feel my waking world eyelids, and I tried to keep them from opening. In the dream, things were fading to black. I relaxed and held my eyes closed, but moved my ('real') eyes, as if looking around the room, trying to bring the grocery store environment back into view. After a bit of focus, and taking a brief look at my hands, things were much more vivid again.

There was a short break in the fighting, shortly after, and what seemed like an intermission in the dream. I was no longer lucid, and riding in a car with a girl who seemed to be a mix between my baby's mom and MJ. Apparently, this girl and I had an infant daughter with each other. She looked a lot like my ex's (MJ) daughter, and even had her daughter's lazy eye, but her eyes were a bright, almost neon green. In the car, I saw the mother being really rough with the baby and, when I went to say something, I noticed that it was just a baby doll in her hands, and the child was safe in her seat. Soon, we were back in the grocery store - baby and all. What I had come to find out was that this baby was rather advanced at her age, and some of the gestures she did, like waving and smiling, were just really surreal to see coming from a kid as little as she was.

Some time around here, my mom had showed up in the dream. I noticed that there were a few strange men following me. Until this time, I had forgotten about the initial onslaught of ninjas, but I was quickly reminded by the shadowy figures looming behind me. I remembered that I was dreaming, and this faction was apparently still after me. I left the child with my mom and drew my followers up near the front of the store. A few stray girls from around the store began to follow along as well, like groupies, which I thought was funny. Now that we were up near the check out counters, I turned to let these guys know that they'd been following me long enough. These particular guys were much more like thugs than ninjas (and kind of more-closely fit the look of the goons from the previous dream), one of them dressed in leather with a biker's vest. We had one particular exchange, where he kept telegraphing that he was going to throw a foot sweep. I kept waiting for it, and when it inevitably came, I hopped over it and twisted at the hip with a roundhouse kick to his face. I remember looking down at him and seeing a pool of blood forming beneath him as he lay there. It looked strange, though; like a crystalized liquid. I reached down to it, and actually picked up the whole red puddle at once, as if it were made of glass. When I got it a few feet off of the ground, it instantly turned back into liquid and splashed down on the ground in front of me.

There was one more opponent that I remember, after the 'biker.' He was dressed to the 9's in a blue tuxedo, slick black hair tucked under a matching top hat. He stood confidently with a magician's wand in one hand. From inside the leather vest of the downed biker, I removed a shoge. I knew I had no experience with a shoge in waking life, but since I was dreaming, I wasn't the least bit worried about it. I began whirling the chained weapon like a pro, using a few generic wrist twirls, and the weapon became a bladed blur. As nonchalant as could be, the magician raised his wand and began spinning it in front of him, between his fingers. I unleashed a barrage of swipes with the shoge - still rotating it around in something of a figure eight - but he blocked every motion with the effortless twirling of his wand as if it were a baton.

This stand-off was the last thing I remember.


Dream Four
"Dirty Pool"

I was on a high wall, on the backside of a power plant or something. Murky water/waste was running out of a tube below me - set high in the wall that was standing on - and falling down into a run-off pool. Todd and I were messing around on top of the wall, telling some jokes that I can only remember had something to do with Jean-Claude Van Damme. In the middle of one of my impersonations of him, I ended up falling over the railing nearest to me. Somehow, on my way down to the dirty water, Todd caught me by one leg and pulled me back up onto the wall.

Below another section of this wall, there was a wire-mesh platform suspended over the pool. There was a commotion, and we moved over to get a closer look. Two fighters were circling each other on this mesh, with a crowd of onlookers around them. I can't remember what he was doing, but something tipped me off that the fatter, shirtless fighter (apparently the reigning champ) was cheating. I started yelling accusations at him from my perch, and he was getting visibly annoyed. After 'winning' his fight, he finally called up to me, challenging me for running my mouth, and not coming down to fight him and prove that I had room to talk. At first, I just waved him off. I might have caught the guy cheating, but I'm not stupid, and I know that this guy had the size to just destroy me. Just when I was wondering how to get out of the situation with some dignity, I realized that this had to be a dream. Immediately, my timidness disappeared. I smiled down at him and jumped over the railing, from where I was standing, dropping down toward the mesh platform. It was a good 20ft drop and, halfway down, I tried to levitate before touching the mesh. I wasn't able to pause in the air, but I landed without even bending my knees, with the platform giving just a bit under my weight. It was a relaxed stance that felt a little awkward, but I held it, because it made me cool, as if showing off that I was completely unfazed by this dude's challenge, or the superhuman leap I had just taken.

Unfortunately, I don't remember much of the blow-by-blow, during the fight. All I can remember was that the guy was so slow and sloppy, and I was just completely destroying him. He would lunge and swing and flail - but not hit anything - and I would just be all over him, slinging quick combination counter-punches. I ended up winning, but don't really remember anything after that.


Dream (Fragment) Five
All I remember is riding a folding chair down Palm Springs Road, in Altamonte, like it was a luge. The road was on a steep incline (which it's not, in waking life), and I was just zooming. It was so much fun and intense. I didn't have any brakes, so I had to lean left and right as hard as I could, at breakneck speed, trying to dodge traffic. There was one time where I was unable to hold my line around a sharp turn, just as an 18-wheeler was coming around the corner, toward me. Careening out of control, ended up going under the bed of the truck, and sliding out the other side before the rear tires had a chance to run me over. That's about all I can recall.

08/22/2011
Dream One:
"Escort Servicemen"

I was a soldier, during a modern war, and we men were going through some trial, where we had to choose wives from a crowd of random women, and prove ourselves worthy of them by escorting them through this sort of 'bonding' exercise. That exercise consisted of leading them into a hostile area, reaching a checkpoint at about 100 yards, and then escorting them back to our camp. The twist was that we men were given blast-resistant suits, and the women were made to remain in their civilian clothing. With our flack suits, we men had to shield our prospective women with our bodies, while escorting them across the killing field, constantly maneuvering ourselves to block the bullets and explosive blasts barreling in on us from all sides.

The conditions were hellish, moving from cover to cover, but getting tagged by all kinds of ammunition, while we staggered through the explosions, bullets zipping by our ladies' uncovered bodies. We did our best to traverse the field, but I watched many couples die in their attempts, either blown apart by ordinance or gunned down by shots to unprotected areas. The smoke was blinding, and the explosions were disorienting, but my future bride and I had finally made it to the end of the field. This was like the hornets' nest, and the resistance greatly intensified. I don't even remember the moment at which we hit the checkpoint and began our way back, but we were soon huddling back toward camp, fighting off the continued barrage.

It was then that I noticed that I couldn't feel the woman in my padded arms anymore. Looking down at the hollow between my arms, I saw that she was nowhere to be found. Immediately, I knew what happened, stopping in place and turning back to face the checkpoint. It was now being swarmed with enemy combatants, and I knew that I had somehow lost her in the fray. For a moment, I tried to muscle my way back toward the checkpoint, but I was getting hammered with heavy machine gun fire and RPG's - smoke trails streaming out from the 'hornets next' and detonating on and around my huge, cumbersome flack suit.

Finally, caught a glimpse of her, through the smoke and flames, she was being hanged. I can't remember if I actually saw her, or just a silhouette, but I remember the image of her dangling from the noose, before being cut down and then impaled on a spike, as if to be propped up for show. At this point, I knew there was nothing I could do and I turned to make my way back to camp, feeling absolutely horrible about my failure...and still getting rocked by explosions and assaulted with gunfire. On the way back, I found another woman on the ground. Her protector had been killed, and she was down in the dirt, completely helpless. I lifted her to her feet and shielded her as I had done with the other woman, guiding her the rest of the way back to camp to meet up with the rest of the survivors. I don't remember anything that happened when I got there, though.

Dream (Fragment) Two:
I was on a stretch of dirt road which ran alongside a highway - the two roads separated by a chain-link fence. I had to get from one side of the dirt road to another, on foot, and there were a few people with me. The thing was, whenever we'd try to get across this stretch of dirt and grass, we would get killed by some psychopath who was roaming the area. Then, we would have to 'restart' at the beginning of the stretch, and try to take another route, or move through a little more quickly to try avoid the killer. I remember that he would kill really disturbing ways, and I recall one time having my entrails carved out of my body with a spoon.

There was also a female voice narrating the entire dream's details, like a commentator on some 'shocking video' show. That's about all I remember of the dream, though. I don't know if I ever ended up getting passed that stretch of road.

Dream (Fragment) Three:
All I really remember was that I was skateboarding with some old friends. I've never been all that great at skateboarding, but I was rather impressed with myself, in the dream. I pulled off a few ollies and one flip trick where I stood the board up vertically and balanced on it, but for setting it back down on the wheels.

07/12/2011
Dream Fragment One:
There was some type of art contest going on. I remember rummaging through some of the entries with EH (a really attractive friend of mine, whom I seem to be dreaming about quite often, lately). It took forever to get to mine, which actually turned out to be of noticeably less quality than many of the others, but it was still somewhat decent. I could have sworn that I had more entries to show her, but it turned out to be only that one. Later, I was sitting on the floor, and she was straddling my lap with her arms draped over my shoulders. I was kissing along her neck and we were whispering some things to each other. My (deceased) dad was asleep in the other room, and we were trying to keep quiet, so as not to disturb him, or anyone else who was in the house. Later, my ex, MJ, and friend, J, came over. I was telling J about the amazing time I'd been having with EH. We all know each other, and MJ was talking with EH. I could tell MJ was plotting something. She came back over, beaming to me about how her and EH were now 'best friends,' and I had a feeling that this was, somehow, going to lead to trouble.


Dream Two:
"War on the Water"

I was a part of (another) special military force (on some G.I. Joe type shit), caught up in an enormous firefight, in a village with high grass surrounding it. The enemy was a guerilla force, which was very skilled in hiding in the bush and using camouflage. They would pop up in random places, and we'd have to be quick to react. I remember having some weapon that fired hundreds of tiny spikes into the grasslands, blindly, to take out whoever might be hiding in them. One guy cornered me with a rocket launcher, around the side of a building. He was too close to fire on me, though, and I ended up throwing a grenade actually into his mouth (somehow), and diving around another corner just before he exploded. (I had watched the end of one of the Rambo movies, yesterday, which had the whole 'hiding in the high grasses' war scene in it.)

Then, we had to chase down some of the leaders of this enemy faction. We got down to the water, which seemed more like an enormous lake than an ocean. They had a boat in the marina, and they took off down the water, running pretty-much parallel to the shoreline. We had boats of our own, and were about to get into one model, when we were presented with another, upgraded model. This thing was bad ass. It was like a futuristic rocket-boat - all black - that skimmed on top of the water and had boosters on the back. When they started it, it sounded like a jet engine. This boat just soared across the water at an amazing speed. A few miles down the shoreline, we came up to a landmass that jetted out from the coast a little bit. There was a short skirmish with some of the enemy, here - one of whom didn't look human, but like some human/beast hybrid that had long black spines that stuck out, down the back of his head. During this fight, some of my teammates had been abducted. The ship that the enemy had been on suddenly submerged and dropped down into a watery tunnel that led beneath this landmass. We were about to follow, when one of my other crew members said that we needed to go back and get the other ship that we'd left behind, as well, just in case something happened to this one. He convinced me by telling me how deep they were going, and how horrible a death it would be to drown, simply because we didn't have a back-up ship. I was sold.

Soon, we were racing back, in the jet boat, to where we'd come from, weaving through some of the other ships along the coast. Back where we had docked, it took us a moment to find the other ship, but we soon had it - along with some reinforcements, and were headed back to the mystery land mass. We never quite made it, though. Along the way, we were intercepted by these large, ethereal creatures. They reminded me of Hindu Gods/Goddesses. They were each identical, aside from the fact that they were different colors. They were very large - some 40 feet tall - and seemed to have a sort of glow to them. They had multiple arms, and each one held a very large, curved sword in it. The entities were all clearly female, and had light wisps of translucent gowns fluttering around them. They gave us some type of threat, as they floated there, on top of the water, but I don't remember much of what they said. It seemed that their mission was to stall us there, though, so I don't know if they were working with the enemy or not. After talking for a while, they asked an enigmatic question; whether or not we'd noticed how the water level had been rising, as we were talking. Looking out over the horizon, I could see a swell. The water was definitely rising. But why? I got a really bad feeling.

I knew something huge was coming. It was just a sudden assumption that turned into an unmistakable awareness. I told everyone on my team that we needed to get out of here - now. These entities were not about to let that happen, though. As soon as we attempted to vacate the area, they attacked, swooping and diving all around us, throwing their enormous blades at us, which rotated around and returned to them like boomerangs. One of them launched a blade at the jet boat I was piloting. Instinctively, I launched myself high into the air, my vessel being destroyed beneath me. Now, boatless, I dropped back down toward the water. Suddenly, though, I stopped. I was hovering - practically standing on the water. I realized that I had the ability to fly! This immediately affected the battle, and I was now flying and fighting and dodging these things and their flying swords. Feeling just on the cusp of lucidity (yet I don't think I ever quite realized I was dreaming), I also began using telekinesis, myself, realizing that - once one of those oversized blades came spinning in toward me - I could mentally deflect it and send it whirling off in another direction, guiding it with a wave of my hand. I also quickly picked up on the ability to loosely control the paths of these weapons, offensively, sending them flying back toward the entities and trying to do them in with their own swords. The fighting was extremely fast-paced, like fighter planes dogfighting over the water; dipping close to the sea and then changing course at breakneck speeds. The rest of my unit continued to fire their weapons from their vessels, unless they had already been destroyed.

Ultimately, though, we just weren't making any progress with these things. The huge swell in the water was just getting bigger and bigger. The swell then turned into a wall of water heading toward us. It was a few dozen feet high, and I could see that, after it, the rise in water level would be completely overwhelming. 'Standing' on the surface of the water, once again, I quickly increased my altitude in just enough time for the wave to pass beneath me. On the back side of the wave, the water level was now practically touching my feet again, and I looked back toward the shoreline just in time to see the wave smash into the rest of my crew and the passenger boats in the area, immediately capsizing them and washing them away. I looked down toward my feet to see an enormous black shadow forming. Something massive was surfacing beneath me. I pivoted on the water and shot off in one direction, the surface of the water speeding off into my peripheral vision. I could see that this shadow was following me, though, moving just as fast as I was. Again, I went even higher, arcing up above the water and looking down below.

Finally, my pursuer appeared - bursting out of the water with jaws wide open. It was as if Godzilla, himself (the 1997 version) came jumping out of the water like some sort of leviathan. (It was, without a doubt, the largest sea monster I can recall ever dreaming.) I frantically increased my speed and the gigantic teeth snapped closed behind me - so close that I actually had to tuck my legs and then kick off the monster's closed maw to fly even faster. The only thing I ever saw was the head because its incredible size blocked any possible view of the rest of its body. This colossus just continued to chase me - diving in and out of the water and keeping pace with me - repeatedly snapping its teeth within just feet behind me as I tried to fly faster and faster away from it.

I don't remember the outcome of the chase, though. But damn that was intense.

07/09/2011
Hammered. I remember Nothing.

07/10/2011
Dream Fragment One:
(I know that there was a lot that had gone on in this dream, but I can really only remember a small section of it.)

I was with a group of people, in a tall, hollowed out building. It was like a barn, really. There was a tornado coming, and we were all strapping ourselves down, so that we would not get blown away, once it hit. It was a lot like the end of the movie Twister, actually. We were tying ourselves to leather straps which hung from the ceiling. I had a rifle or shotgun with me, and had a make-shift holster for it, that was slung over my back. It was a really long and cumbersome sheath, much like the one for my great sword.

The winds picked up and the twister came through. I could see the torrent of weather outside, through some seemingly wide-open hole in one corner of the building. At one point, we were actually suspended from the floor by these straps, with our feet unable to touch the ground. It was all pretty intense, but ultimately nothing too noteworthy happened.

The last thing I remember is going back outside, after the twister had passed, and all of us having to jump over a chain-link fence, in a rush to get...somewhere. I dunno.

Dream Two:
"Outside the Octagon"

I was in some nightspot which looked like a cross between a dance club and a game room. At the far end of this place, there was a separate bar, which I believed was some sort of VIP affair. Nonchalant and curious, I made my way over to this area, making sure that no one was watching, and then I slipped through the doors. I found myself in some pretty slick strip club, picked out a seat near the stage, and watched the show for a while. They had some hilarious 'audience participation' games, where people got to go up on stage and do ridiculous things to win money and whatnot. Somehow, I ended up getting picked to try out for a massive mixed martial arts tournament that was coming up. (I don't remember much about how I actually got picked for it.) I got up on stage, along with a few other guys from the audience, and waited to hear about what to do next.

Time skipped ahead and I believe it was the following day. I was being ushered into this arena, and there were literally hundreds of dudes signing up for this tournament. There was a sign-up room set up in what looked like a normal high school gymnasium, where a certain number of guys in different weight classes had to be chosen by other guys, to fight against. It didn't matter who chose who, initially, as there was going to be another stage in which everything was to be evened out, somehow. There were guys of all builds and social groups; thugs, nerds, rockers, hillbillies. Everyone. So many of these guys were huge, though - definitely out of my weight class, and I'm not exactly 'small,' myself. I'm no professional fighter, though, so even when I saw some of the smaller guys, I paid attention to their demeanor and attire. I tried to steer clear of the smaller Asians, wearing their gis and dogis, knowing that their sizes could be very deceiving. An old co-worker of mine, VS, showed up in line. He was actually behind me, but shouldered his way passed and gave me this trouble-some grin before moving off to stand in front of a guy that he'd apparently already sized up. I thought about giving him shit about pushing passed me in line, but I had seen the way the staff of this event had been handling those people that made too much of a scene, or didn't follow directions. At one point, one huge official took a trouble-maker to the ground and began beating his face in, on the floor. I can't remember what it was the guy did, but it was pretty trivial, so I decided to keep my mouth shut and not rock the boat. Finally, I found someone who looked like he might be a decent - but fitting - challenge, and went to go stand in the line forming in front of him.

Overall, the atmosphere was just insane. Everybody was hyped, and there were ring girls passing booze around to everyone - even us potential fighters. There was standing room only, in the bathrooms, and they even had ring girls refilling our cups with free beer, while we waited in line to take a piss. Afterward, we had to go through another check point, where people were checking our IDs. There was this really attractive girl checking the IDs for my line, and when I got to her and pulled out my wallet, it took me forever to find my ID. I just kept digging through my wallet and pulling out everything but my damn ID. She was cool about it, but getting visibly irritated because I was taking so long. Finally I found it, and she let me through. We moved through another hallway, and I could feel the adrenaline mounting. I was beginning to feel so pumped up - like I could take on the world. I began bouncing around while I walked, getting the blood flowing. I realized that I was bouncing higher and higher. Before long, I was bouncing over the entire crowd and almost touching the elevated ceiling. I only thought this strange for a mere moment, and was not able to induce lucidity. Also, while moving down the hallway, I developed the ability to slide along the ground, with my feet. It felt like there was a lot of sand on my feet and I was just trying to stop really quickly, from a fast pace. However, I could tell that I was sliding for much longer distances than seemed normal. It was fun, though, and I was having too much fun with it to think much about it. I even heard one of the guys behind me talking about it like "Whoa...how the hell is he doing that??" I looked back to see the guy trying to copy me, but I noticed that his slide was much shorter - and more realistic - than mine. (Still, not enough awareness to induce lucidity.)

Another line. I don't even remember what it was we were waiting for, this time, but it was like being at a theme park and waiting at the turnstiles, with hundreds of people milling about, around me. I met this gorgeous chick, who was standing in line in front of me. (I didn't even stop to think of why it was now a co-ed line.) She was short, thick in all the right places, and had long brown or black hair. She looked Latina, but I can't be sure. We were conversing for a bit, and I asked her if she was single. She smiled and said no, but then seemed to hesitate a little bit and finally added that her boyfriend was back home in Missouri. This raised my interest a bit, and just as I was about to talk to her a little more, some dude came from out of nowhere and put his arm around her neck and shoulders, guiding her away from me. The authoritative way in which he did it - and the submissive way which she responded - seemed like the guy might have been her older brother, or guardian, or something; like he was trying to keep her out of trouble. My best friend T was suddenly behind me (which I didn't realize as strange, since he hadn't been in the dream, before then), and he gave me a nudge. He noticed, just as I did, that the girl kept looking back at me - numerous times - as her supposed 'protector' guided her off to a different corner of the arena.

02/09/2011
"A Flood Runs Through It"

I was in the woods with MR and other friends. He and I were playing our electric guitars (in the woods?), and mine - for some unknown reason - began breaking apart in my hands. Even before that, I had tried keeping up with him, but just couldn't get the right tones. The weather turned ugly, really quickly, and the rain soon came pouring down. We all had to run for cover, which was a roofed pavilion or something, right down an embankment from us. Not able to carry everything at once, I ran down to the pavilion and put my guitar away, and then had to run back up to get my amplifier and gig bag (leaving me to wonder why I didn't just put my guitar in the bag, in the first place).

On the way back, I realized that I was now wearing roller blades. I was surprised by this, and didn't know why the hell I was wearing roller blades in the middle of the woods. The rain was coming down in buckets, though, and I didn't have time to stop and take the skates off. I knew I had to get my amp before it got completely ruined, so I trudged along through the mud with the skates on, ready to ascend the embankment.

Suddenly, a flash flood swept down the embankment toward me, muddy water crashing down around everything, and practically burying me where I stood. I dug my feet in to brace myself, the water now about waist high as it ran down the hill around me. Just up ahead, I saw my amp and gig bag floating down this torrential stream, toward me. They were already completely soaked, but I thought there might still be hope of saving them. Then, off to one side, I could hear one of my friends' dogs, yelping. It was stuck on some perch that was just barely sticking up over the surface of the rushing water, obviously terrified, and I knew it wouldn't be long before it was completely overcome by the surge. Forced with a decision, I decided to save the dog, digging my skates into the soft grass submerged beneath the flood. I stomped over toward the dog, picking him up and holding him to my chest with one hand, trying to keep my balance with the other. The flood proved to be too strong, though, and I was swept down the hill, swimming as hard as I could, while keeping the dog above water. Ever try swimming in a flash flood with roller blades on? It's fucking hard.

I was carried down the embankment, and toward the pavilion. The structure was elevated from the ground, on wooden beams, and the water was rushing down beneath it, just a few inches of space between the surface of the water and the actual floor of the pavilion itself. Trying not to get swept beneath the building - and possibly drown - I grabbed one of the wooden beams, hanging on for dear life while the current tried it's damnedest to force me under the building. It was Hell. I feared the worst, feeling like I wasn't going to be able to hold on much longer, staring into the blackness beneath the building, horrified that I would soon be swept into it.

I woke up before knowing the outcome, though.