Death's Other Kingdom

I didn't meant to be gone for so long, but life hit me really hard toward the end of last summer and I was therefore already behind when school had started back up. I think things are finally at a point now where I can focus on dreaming again.

06.02.2015

The End Cave (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I'm in an incredibly large cave, though it does not look like one, camping with my mom, brother, and Cheyenne. There is a wide, rushing river cutting through the middle, with a forest on the side opposite from us. Near the forest is another family of campers. There is something terribly, terribly wrong with this cave.

Cheyenne wakes up frantic in the middle of the night from a bad dream. In the dream, she saw Jesus standing on the other side of the river. He had no eyeballs and he was drowning little children in the river, one by one, like some perverse baptism.

I decide that we need to leave this cave immediately. There is a terrible, heavy feeling in the air, practically suffocating in its intensity. We should not be here. We all run back outside through the small entrance. It feels so good to breathe outside air again! Outside, everything feels normal and calm once more. Unfortunately we've left all our belongings inside and my mom insists that we go back to get them.

The sickening feeling returns at once upon our entrance. I feel physically ill, with an almost unbearable dread of some great unknown. I'm having to support Cheyenne to keep her from falling; she's barely conscious and not responsive. Just as we gather our things, a great howling comes to us from the other side of the river. A pack of coyotes emerge from the forest, though they appear as large as wolves.

Half the pack surrounds the family on the other side of the river, the other half crosses over to us. We run, and despite my assurance that coyotes don't harm people, they begin to attack. I am bitten numerous times as I fight them back from the entrance while the others do everything they can to block it off. The entire time we can hear the other family's screams of agony as they are eaten alive by the pack.

03.27.2013

Coughing up Roaches (DILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I am in a classroom at my old high school with two annoying kids who were freshman back when I was a senior. I take a nap, and when I wake up the entire school has undergone some kind of demonic shift.

My first sign that something is terribly wrong is when I begin coughing up roaches. I am coughing and hacking, with huge live roaches spilling out onto the floor. One of them crawls out of my mouth and scurries up my face to hide in my hair. I am disgusted, but not quite as disturbed as I should be.

Some time passes and I am deep within the belly of the school, in a dungeon-like area filled with row upon row of drying racks. On the racks are the decaying corpses of goblins. I am travelling with a live goblin, and I feel sorry that he has to see all of this. The ceiling is very low, so we are walking hunched over.

We make our way through the seemingly endless expanse of dead goblins, when the ceiling begins to collapse. We quickly evade the falling rubble until we come to an area where the ceiling is a bit higher. There are still rows and rows of drying racks in this area, but at least we don't have to hunch forward to walk anymore. Unfortunately, there are also Giants guarding this section. I imagine that they are on high alert due to the collapsing ceiling, so we flee the area as quickly and quietly as possible.

Along the way, these red bamboo creatures called "Rod Foxes" begin chasing us. I lose my goblin companion, but I make it out of the drying rack area and hide from the Rod Foxes in a classroom. There are a few students in there who are former classmates of mine. One of them looks out the door and says that a teacher is coming. This is a problem, because all of the teachers have become demonized. My classmate says that if we just do as we're told, he won't hurt us.

The teacher enters the room and tells us to sit in alphabetical order. We comply immediately. He then slams a putrid goblin head onto my desk and says that I must eat it, because it's "tea time."

I refuse to eat the goblin head and end up slashing the teacher's throat with dual knives. (Not sure how I acquired these.)

More time passes and my cockroach problem has gotten worse. I can't stop coughing, and the roaches are crawling out of me at an alarming rate.

Somehow I manage to stop coughing. There is a painting of a castle on a nearby wall, and I become lucid while admiring it. I decide that I will go into the painting and explore the castle. I manage to get into the painting, but the night is so dark that I can barely see.

I wake up shortly afterward.

12.19.2012

Double Death Tragedy (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Alex has come down with some horrible illness after we've locked ourselves in one of the buildings on campus. Her grandfather and (nonexistent) brother are with us. We can hear people in the hallway who aren't supposed to be there, but they don't come to bother us.

Alex is having very violent spasms, yet she assures us that she'll be fine. Her grandfather pulls me aside and tells me that Alex is definitely going to die. I am shocked. In the short time I've known my roommate, she has become like a sister to me. I can't believe she is going to die.

But she does. She dies right in front of me.

I briefly wake up. I am relieved that it was only a dream. However, I have not moved or opened my eyes, and by the time I try to I am already stuck in sleep paralysis and then pulled back into the dream.

I leave the room that we were in, thinking that Alex is still alive. I am going with her brother to investigate why people have been trying to break in. As soon as we walk into a large common room, a bee stings me on the neck, temporarily paralyzing and blinding me. When I am able to move again, her brother informs me that a ninja girl had broken in and done something. We are not sure what, but we know that she was working for our enemy.

We split up to investigate. I come upon my mother, who is sitting with a large group of people. "Have you come for the final visitation?" she asks me in an eerie voice.

I am thinking, "Visitation...? But... Alex didn't really die. That was just a dream. Right?" Confused, I go back to the room where she was to check on her. A horrifying sight greets me: Cheyenne is lying there, dead.

I run from the room, crying, trying to find out what happened. Everyone present is too weird and crazy to answer my questions. An old man with horrible, blistering red flesh is dragging himself around the room, ranting crazily. His fingers and toes are all melded together, making his hands and feet look like flippers. He crawls in front of me and says I am too polite, just like my mother. (wtf?)

I go find my mom again. She says I don't have to be here if I don't want to be, but I don't even know what is happening and I am so distraught that I can barely think straight. All I know is that my heart feels like it is torn to shreds and I can't believe I will never see her again.

Finally I wake up, because my dream crying is making me breathe oddly in real life.

11.29.2012

The Lost Tribe (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Note: Before going to bed, I was reading Tears of the Desert.

I am living among a somewhat primitive tribe in unknown lands. One of the girls is dying of a horrible parasitic infection, and as per custom, her family is sitting in a tight circle around her, keeping her in a sitting position. The girl has large holes in various places on her body from which hundreds of disgusting white insects pour out. By being at such a close proximity, each of the family members risks infection. I watch as the girl slowly dies.

A guide is explaining to me that the family will continue their vigil for about five more minutes, after which time the girl's body will briefly re-animate in some kind of post-death movement that is the mere memory of life. Sure enough, the girl soon raises her head and opens her white, clouded over eyes. The family rises and takes this cue to bury her.

Later, I am talking to the deceased's mother, who is a friend of mine. She is barely able to contain her grief, and I cautiously give her a hug to try to comfort her, though the fear of infection is prevalent in my thoughts.

Some sort of evil deity is cursing the village. I hold council with him, hoping to persuade him to look upon us more favorably. He laughs at me and says that if I want to save my friends I'd better act quickly. I realize he has caused some catastrophe back in the village, so I run as fast as I can to find out what has happened. There, I find several of my friends trapped in a pool of grey liquid that looks similar to concrete. They are struggling to stay afloat-- if any of the liquid gets on or in their face for even a moment, it forms a tight layer over their skin and suffocates them. I do my best to pull them out of the liquid, but some of them slip from my grasp and die.

After all of the villagers are out of the pool, I have a talk with a girl who is like an older sister to me. I tell her which deity is to blame and we decide we MUST do something to stop him. He overhears and curses us both personally. He says he will be willing to leave the village alone if we find a way to stop him, but in order to do so we must reach a nearby city by sunset. If we do not accomplish this, I will be struck by lightning and my sister will suffer some similar horrible fate.