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.

09/15/2011
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.

12/06/2010
"Invasion Evasion"

(I watched Skyline, for the first time, last night. It was an 'ok' movie, but the visual effects were tight as hell.)
The earliest thing I remember was being in a camp-like atmosphere, with a few friends, in a trailer. Someone had a dog; like a lab mix or something, and I was playing with her, rubbing her belly. After a short while, the dog began to get really agitated and started glaring at the door. Some creepy shit happened, where a person came to the door and then turned into an alien, and we had to escape the trailer. I believe we pushed the creature into the bonfire and burned it, but this part is all really hazy. Soon after, I was alone, and running through the streets. The major attack had already begun, and there were larger aliens - dozens of stories tall - walking amongst the buildings and roadways. The city was completely destroyed and, no matter where I went or tried to hide, these things would always find me. The creatures that were too big to fit inside the buildings, would send out these long tentacles (like the ones in the movie), and snake them through the buildings to find me. I ended up dying, over and over, in this dream. Every time the tentacles would find me, they would either pull me back into the main body of the alien, or just splatter me all over the place, wherever I had been hiding.

After respawning a couple of times, I knew I had to get out of the city, so I began to make a bee-line toward the edge of town, sprinting as long and hard as my body would allow me - and I remember being able to run for miles, without losing steam. But these tentacles were relentless. An alien could shoot the tentacles from its "hand", and the rope-like appendages would literally travel for miles - seemingly to endless distances - through the air, to chase their target. Again, I died quite a few times, while trying to escape the city; simply respawning again at the beginning and continuing to run, taking another route. There were times that I would try to steal cars, and some of them would have this "gunk" on them. Whenever I drive those cars, the "gunk" would begin to spread around the outside of the vehicle, trying to 'cocoon' itself in this alien sludge. I would see this happening and have to bail out of the car, before it completely encased me. What's more, is that some of these droplets of "gunk" would actually spring to life, and form whole aliens - each maybe 10 feet tall and built like bipedal elephants - which would then join the chase. Running from these things kind of felt like maneuvering through the game Prototype.

It was like I was the only person in the city, and this entire alien force was centered on me, the whole time. There were just so many of them, and I was beginning to feel hopeless. After having to repeat this scenario, over and over, upon each death, I just wasn't feeling very confident that I would ever get out of this Hell. Suddenly, thankfully, just as despair was kicking in, I realized that this all had to be a dream. I was still on the run, though, as these things just weren't letting up, and anytime they would catch me, they would just annihilate me before I could do anything about it. Still respawning after each death, I took to flying, instead of running. It took me a little while to get up to speed, in my flying, as this dream was very vivid, and I was having a hard time manipulating it. I tried some telekinesis on the pursuing tentacles, but wasn't able to affect them.

Once I got the hang of flying, though, the flight/chase sequences were absolutely sick. The easiest way I knew to keep my speed up, was to imagine myself as a missile. The thing was, though, that these tentacles were just as fast, so just because I could fly, didn't mean that I was getting out of the city an easier. I was empowered by my lucidity, though, and was more having fun with it, than frantically fleeing for my life. I weaved through the city at breakneck speed, an expanding trail of tentacles, following closely behind me. It was one of those zigging, zagging, dizzying, high-tech chases that you would see in any major, sci-fi blockbuster - just screaming through the sky, with impossible agility. Sometimes I would land on the street, to gain my bearings - pivoting and then launching off in another direction, just as the tentacles whipped passed me and then arced around to follow once again. I remember being chased at just the same height of some of the tallest rooftops, and then dropping toward the ground, head first, to try to throw off the oncoming appendages. I was going so fast that there was a single moment, there, where I worried about 'what happens if I'm not able to pull up, in time?' Even though I knew that I was dreaming, I wasn't really looking to slamming headfirst, into the street, so I pulled up on my own trajectory, as I could, nearly skimming the ground and then continuing to rocket down the street, the tentacles still keeping pace at every twist and turn. I also recall that the aliens could talk, and they all spoke with the same voice - as if it were a collective consciousness - which reminded me something of the Joker, from The Dark Knight.

I don't really remember whether or not I ever made it out of the city. I don't think so, though.