Things to Run Away From Really Fast

07/21/10

I try to figure out this teleporting thing. Hazel helps out.



The scene drifts into focus. I'm sitting on the cool, freshly trimmed grass outside the Ixburg Inn. My surroundings are hazy, and I feel half-asleep.

It's one of those late-morning, about to wake up dreams. I dig my fingers into the soft grass and soil. I'm dreaming, I tell myself. I'm lucid.

I stare at the yellow metal siding of the warehouse beyond the fence, trying to remember my lucid goals. I can't remember the first one, so I go down the list until something pops out at me.

#2. Find Hazel.

I feel for my phone in the front left-hand pocket of my jeans. The colours around me start to grey out, and I slowly lower my hand to the ground. I grab fistfuls of grass and breathe deep, watching the sky get brighter and bluer as I calm down. Sunlight beams down from the sky. I'm facing the other direction, toward the back of the motel rooms. There are apple trees beyond the fence.

I slip my hand into my pocket (left-hand, right-hand, there isn't any difference) and pull out my phone. I think I should try this method one more time before I give up on it.

Leaning against the red fence, I mash seven random digits into the keypad (one of them is an "8") and hold the phone to my ear. It rings twice.

"Hello?" says a female voice on the other end.

"Hazel?" I ask. "Are you asleep?"

"Obviously." She seems amused.

I shake my head. I'm still not sure this is really Hazel. "Want to try to meet up?"

"Can you teleport?"

I hesitate.

An impatient noise from her end of the phone, and Hazel is standing in front of me. The chin-length black hair is her dream-avatar's most distinctive feature, and I doubt it's what her hair looks like in real life.

We're standing on the other side of the fence, drifting slowly westward without my knowing. A DC lurks at the periphery of my awareness, and I think it's a childhood friend.

We discuss the best way to get back to her dream. I explain an idea I've been putting together, that instead of opening a portal or a door, I just need to imagine the new setting and drift slowly into it. The danger is in how easily this could trigger a false awakening.

Hazel says she wants to try something. She touches my forehead with two fingers. I fall back onto the tall grass, frozen in place. I can't move, and the scene is fading into black. I'm not worried, though. She starts talking, describing the setting of her dream.

I pop back into existence between one second and the next. I can still hear the words, but they sound like nonsense. I'm surrounded by orange wooden cabinetry, and I think I'm in a basement. The narration starts to describe the exact kind of cupboard exists across from me, and I snap, "Okay! I get it! I'm here!"

I'm sitting down on a bunk bed when Hazel appears again. The dream destabilizes.

I "wake up".

I'm in the basement of a church, or maybe my late grandma's house (she was a minister). I'm trying to find a bible, because the narrator has apparently been quoting bible verses at me.

I'm flipping through the book, but I don't remember the order. "Where was Ecclesiastes, again?

"Near the end," says Grandma.

I mutter something about having had these memorized at one point.

The dream ends.

I'm the commander of a fleet of ships, taking shelter in an empty harbour. A woman with long, blonde curly hair stands beside me, asking about the clouds on the horizon.

"Those are pure ozone," I tell her. "They're poisonous, but they won't come up onto the coast."

"I wish we could go out to them," she says wistfully.

Looking at the swirling mass of dark clouds, I almost agree with her.

Hazel. Scare Factor: 3.

Haaaazel, you're being all mysterious and otherworldly. Stop it.

Also: Facebook, guys? Really?

Friday, July 2, 2010

Teleporting is hard.

I'm standing by a river. The sky is bright blue, and the dry grass is long and yellow. I'm looking up at the sky, staring at an illusion that's some kind of sculpture, a clue into my quest during this dream. (This was a long and meandering dream, but I don't remember most of it.

I'm the producer for a play. It's going well, but during the middle of it, Harley Quinn and the Joker show up and start dancing. The crowd cheers, and I'm not sure if this is part of the play or if the characters actually showed up.

"Write as if it was my plan all along." - written in journal

There's a parkour club in Quickton. I tag along.

---

I'm Harry Potter, fighting Voldemort. He sends me into an alternate dimension, and I have to get back to my friends. There are death eaters in the buildings around us, raining down stunning spells as if they're snipers. "If you get hit seven times, you're dead," says my companion. I deliberately get hit by stunning spells, counting, and they send me back to the previous dream.

The windows are leaking. We have to stop it because the magic could get in. We're holding the building against Voldemort, but it's going to be destroyed soon anyway, so we do a quick job. Hermione staples stucco wire under the windows, and I use an air nailer to keep the frame in place. The way that I'm holding it in the dream would probably break my hand IWL.

I'm either Harry or Voldemort, fighting the other one. "Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus!" I shout, matching the other character spell for spell, effectively blocking them. I realize I'm probably Voldemort. "Avada Kedavra!" Seriously, these spells are kind of hard to remember.

---

One of Ben's friends, a guy my age, is pissed because I just told him off for something. He throws a few punches my way, but always misses. He attacks me in earnest, throwing punches hard and fast. I block them easily, redirecting them in circles. One punch hits me, but I barely feel it. The guy is getting more and more frustrated.

Finally, my brother pulls him off me, and we go rob a grocery store.

---

FA. I wake up in a house that resembles my rental in Squamish. Ben and my cousin Reg are in the basement. I look at my right hand and count my fingers. They're blurry, and my fourth and fifth fingers keep fading into one another. Weird. This doesn't feel like a dream. I try to remember a more dependable RC, and pinch my nose. I can still breathe, but shouldn't I be able to anyway? No, wait. I have my mouth closed. I really am dreaming. I wonder if the boys are gonna go all nightmarish on me.

I think back to my lucid goals. 1) Talk to a DC on a phone. 2) Find Hazel. 3) Teleport. I go to pick up the landline, but change my mind and grab my cell phone beside my bed. I call someone; I don't remember who. I talk to them and hang up. I type into my contacts for Hazel, but the number isn't there. I phone information, ask for Hazel. The woman on the other end tells me crabbily that there are a lot of Hazels in the world, which one do I want?

"The one from DreamViews, obviously."

"This number is not in service."

It's night outside. My mom is sitting in the car, apparently waiting for Ben. She has some weird emo-style haircut, and I'd be more weirded out if I didn't know this was a dream. I use telekinesis to lift up the fringe over her eye, checking for zombieness. Obviously, I'm not completely lucid. Ben leaves the house, catches a ride with my mom.

Reg is still here. I have my hand outstretched, focusing on wherever Hazel might be. I'm trying to draw myself there so I can teleport. I turn around briefly.

"How do I teleport?" I ask the DC.

"How the hell should I know?" asks Reg. He pauses and sighs, "Just... stay like that for a while. Until you wake up."

"Or it works?"

"Like hell."

The dream starts fading into different solid colours, and I wake up back in the Squamish-room.

I hand check again. Most of my fingers are missing. I pinch my nose. Still dreaming.

I go outside and there are a bunch of dogs on the porch. There are also a bunch of people talking about their pets.

Telephone, Take 2. Scare Factor: 2.

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

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

"What are you doing?" asks my dad.

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

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

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

---

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

---



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The woman shrugs and disappears.

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

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

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

I wake up.

Like a Surgeon. Scare Factor: 2.