Visions in the Dark

I'm in England in a busy downtown disctrict. I have no idea how I got there but I know that I must get to the airport so I can get home. I wander the street for a long time but I cannot find my way out of the downtown area and seem to be going in circles. A red double decker bus comes along and I get on it, thinking it will take me to the airport, but instead it goes toa huge shopping mall and drops everyone off.

I go into the shopping mall and wander around a bit. I pass a two storey McDonald's resturant that is closed and dark. There is a museum in the center of the mall that is showing ancient chinese art. Some of the art are sculptures of giant leaves done in jade and a green crystal stone, though some of the leaves are missing peices like parts of them have corroded or rusted off like it was made of metal.

When I leave the museum I am in the basement floor of the mall and for some reason I am in my pajamas. I am feeling hungry and head for the food court, which is on the far side of the basement floor of the mall. Many of the fast food resturants are places I have never heard of serving food I have either never seen before or do not like. There is a Burger King and a Diary Queen, but they are closed for some reason.

I order a hot drink from one of the resturants (coffee I think?) and as I am waiting for it to be prepared I see my dad and my eldest brother appear in line for the same resturant. I am happy to see them and hope that they will take me home. At first they don't respond to me, then later say that they are not here for me and we get into an argument about something.

I cannot remember how this dream ends, but I woke up feeling so upset that I was nauseated.

I dreamed that my two brothers, my father, myself (at a younger age then I am now) and a few other men I do not recognize were by the sea side somewhere warm. There were no roads but narrow chanels for small boats and canoes to navigate.

My dad tells me and one of my brothers that he and the other men are going a head in another boat and leave me and R in the first boat. R makes me sit in the back ignores my complains that the back of the boat is sinking. I was arguing with him to let me sit up front but he ignored me and soon i'm up to my waist in water. My father and my other brother came along in another boat and got into ours. All the older and heavier men were sitting at the front of the boat, yet is was only sinking and below water at the back where I was sitting.

After complaining and whining I finally convinced my father to let me switch places with them and they all went into the back and I went into the font. The back of the boat suddenly became boyant and the front of the boat sank and I could not lift it above the waterline to help steer. I remember feeling angry and frustrated and sick of it all, like I expected this to happen all the time and I was tired of it.

Eventually I found a small boat of my own and got out of my father's and brother's boat and tried to make my way through the maze of channels on my own. My both didn't sink this time, but I had no control and would often get pushed backwards by incoming waves or the tide. Even though I couldn't really go anywhere, I was happier in my own boat for some reason. I remember at the end of the dream missing my mom and wondering where she was, and being upset that I could not get to her because I had no control over my own little boat.

I am at a public fair of some kind. I don't know the place but there is a large circular Romanesque building in the center and rides and consession stands surrounding it. The circular building in the center is multistoried and I am on an elevator going down to the ground floor. There I meet someone I knew in public school, J.P, though he looks older. He is lost and trying to find his way somewhere. I help him orient himself and he goes on his way.

I am there for army training and see the group that I am supposed to be in and start following. The group is led by Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire and he is weaving us through thrater seat aisles and pillers around the building and various rides and events outside. After we have completed a circuit we start again but this time jogging. The rest of the group seems fine but one other girl and myself soon start to tire and have difficultly keeping up.

After the second circuit is completed Lieutenant-General Dallaire starts the group running. Halfway through the circuit I am too tired to run anymore and fall behind, losing sight of the group. I am outside of the circular building and near a large inflatable male lion that is coloured black. It is laying down but it's mouth open as if amidst a might roar. I feel disheartened already because of failing to keep up with the group and falling behind but also feel equally small and pathetic next to this mighty lion. I sit down on a folded metal seat nearby and mope.

Sometime after I have caught my breath the Lieutenant-General and the group rounds and corner and approaches me. I stand up and apologize profusely to Dallaire but he only responds by asking if I am ready to go. I do not understand and he says that he "never leaves a man behind." I protest and say that I am not good enough but he responds that I won't know if I give up trying. I am feeling a bit refreshed after my rest and agree to try again. The group starts off again at a jog and as I follow I look over my shoulder at the inflatable lion and see that it has changed colour to a bright and luminous golden. For some reason this gives me confidence to press on.

The group eventually starts to run again and this time I am able to keep up for the whole circuit. The running comes to an end at a clearing on the tarmac outside of the circular building where a small stage with a red curtain backdrop has been set up. Many civilians have gathered around and in the crowd I can see my father. Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire gets up on the stage and starts introducing the runners, giving them little medals and declaring that they have completed the recruitment process and are now officially in the army. Everyone else goes first and I am last.

When it is my turn the Lieutenant-General gives me a metal, says I have completed my training and then adds that I have a special significance in completing this because I persevered in the end and made my father proud. Dallaire notes that I am now in the army at the same age that my father joined the navy and that our proud family militay history will continue. I am confused by all this and though happy to have completed the training I still don't feel that I am good enough to be in the army.

The dream ends there.

In this dream I am living back at my mom and dad's house,I am in my old bedroom and it is the morning of my birthday. My dad and brother wake me up like it's the first day of school. Dad says that it is his last day off before he has to go back to work (even though he is retired in real life). For some reasons he says this twice.

My brother give me some music CDs and three DVD versions of the same movie, which is a back to school comedy. He puts one of the DVDs on and turns the volume up loud to wake me up. They leave and I groggily get up and notice, against one of the walls in my room, neatly wrapped presents are stacked in a big pile to the ceiling.

I try to turn off the t.v my but instead of shutting it off, the power button only turns the volume up louder. None of the buttons on the t.v seem to work properly and I am tired and frustrated but I eventually figure out to turn off the DVD player instead. Somehow, this fixes the t.v. and I can finally turn it off.

I crawl back into bed and have a dream with a dream where the cartoon character Little Bear and his father are walking through a forest. They are both carring hunting rifles and dressed in hunting vests and hats. They talk about morality and ethics in mainstream religion (specifically Christianity, I think) but from a "bear's point of view" until they come upon a clearing and see a human male chopping down a large, healthy looking tree. Father Bear shoots the man dead and Little Bear makes a remark about all the blood. Father Bear tells his son (cub?) that the killing was justified on religious grounds because the man was defiling the forest, or something like that.

I wake up from the dream within a dream finally get out of bed. I look out the window and see the neighbour (with whom my father has a real life feud) tearing up the front lawn with his car. He is driving in big circles and leaving deep muddy marks.

I get dressed and head outside. The neighbour and his car are gone, but the lawn is still ruined. My dad is outside standing in front of three fold out table upon which are many short sleeved t-shirts. The make and style of the shirts are all the same, but each shirt is a different colour. The entire spectrum of the rainbow is represented. My dad's attention is drawn to the shirts, though he does acknowledge me when I first come outside, but he doesn't seem to notice the sorry state of our front lawn.

Dad starts to talk to me about something but I can no longer remember what and I woke up soon afterwards anyway.

This is the second dream I had on February 7th, 2009, but I can only remember it in fragments.


- fishing with dad and several other men in a small bay or lake?
- trying to find a good fishing spot while avoiding large cardboard like ships.
- something about one being sponsered by a school.
- find a fishing hole which is lit by the sun
- dad and I see a swordfish at the same time
- swordfish grabs my hook and takes off dragging me into the water behind it.
- I do not let go and am dragged all over the bay
- dad tells me to hold on and grabs for my rod as I pass by.
- the fishing line breaks leaving dad with the rod
- but I grab the line at the last minute
- and the sword fish continues to drag me around the bay
- the fish starts to tire
- a crowd of people has gethered to watch
- i cannot remember the end of this dream

Dream starts off with my dad and myself at a giant church which is also a busy tourist destination, though the denomination is not clear. The building is square and seems identical on each side, and it five several stories tall. The outside of the church has bricked pathways that encircle the building and each each side (compass direction) of the building is painted different bright, solid colours. I cannot remember all of them but recall that the south side of the building was painted dark blues and either dark purples or greens. The crowds are made up of many people of different backgrounds, as well as non-humans. There are alien like creature that look like they just stepped out of a science fiction film like Star Wars, while others are antropormorpic animals, dressed in human clothing. No one is bothered by the wide range of non-human creatures, as this is quite normal in this dream world and though I am not bothered by it, I do take note of it because in the dream I have never encountered non-human civilians before.

There is a a small castle or fortress to the north of the church, that is much bigger and made of plain grey bricks. The whole place is set upon a cliff and a tan brick wall keeps people from falling off the edge into a churning ocean. Between the pathways and buildings are elaborate and beautiful gardens filled with many fragrant flowers. It is forbidden by law to touch or damage the flowers and benches are provided all along the cobbled pathways so that people can sit and admire them.

Along the pathways themselves are many sculptures, both abstract and figurative, that seem to have nothing to do with religion, made in a variety of different media. My dad and I are between the north end of the church and the fortress, looking at a brown (bronze?) sculpture. My dad asks me "Do you see him?" and points up. There is a little figure of a burly, bearded man dressed as a lumber jack and carrying a large axe over his shoulder. The rest of the statue itself looks like a crude replica of the Eiffel Tower. My dad is reading a plaque on the side of the statue about what it represents. I leave him to have a quick look around and encircle the church (and thus discover its different coloured sides) before I find my dad on the east side looking at some plastic, light blue and white triangular peices that are slightly curled, that I think are supposed to represent waves of water or something.

I am feeling impatient because I want to leave the crowded pathways and look inside the church, for that is I thought we had come there for. Eventually we do made our way inside, through the south entrance (as that is the only one open, the others are sealed). The inside seems warm and inviting, everything is made of wood and it looks like a simple cottage with a long hall down the middle. To the immediate right there is a small dining room where several (Christian) nuns sit around a dining table in front of empty plates and glasses made of fine porceline. They are dressed casually (wool sweaters, cotton skirts, slippers) and their nun headresses are grey, not black. They at first ignore us and the stready flow of people coming in and out of the entrance. I notice, and point out to my dad, burning embers on the dark brown wooded floor of the dining room, which the nuns have not seen or simply ignore.

We begin to stamp the embers out, as some of them are quite large and could possibly cause a fire, and only then does one elderly nun take notice of what we are doing and joins us in our stamping. When the embers are out she provides no possible explaination of what could have caused it but takes us on a personal tour which ends at a cramped but homely kitchen at the end of the hall. Many of the rooms along the way are sealed with heavy wooden doors and I cannot see inside them, while others are open, though windowless and dark and look mearly like the inside of a chapel with rows of pews and alters filled with candles, some burning and some not. Despite this there are not religious icons or statues anywhere and the only indictation that the building is a church so far is the casually dressed nuns walking the halls.

The elderly nun (who looks like the mother from James Cameron's Titanic) takes us to the second floor which is a special priviledge that the rest of the tourists are not afforded apparently, and it is much different in style the the main floor. Monks in brown cloaks wander the halls silently and avoid making eye contact with anyone and go out of their way to walk around. The walls and floors are made of plain grey bricks and there are many twisting passageways along the hall that go either up or down, yet do not contain stairs and hare been paved smooth and flat.

I ask the nun why this is so and she merely responds that it is to accomadate the many tourists in wheelchairs or those pushing strollers. She also mentions that the basement levels can only be reached by these twisting passages. At the end of one hall there is a large bay window and to the left of that there is a large red curtain from which silent monks enter and leave. A black man with a white turban, dressed in a dark blue robe decorated with silver five pointed stars and crescent moons, stares silently out of the window with a very sad expression on his face. He glances over his shoulder briefly and makes eye contact with me, before quickly looking away and returning his sad gaze out the window. I have a strong desire to speak with him, as I sense he holds much wisdom, but I do not because he seems so sad and unapproachable.

To the right of the bay window, there are two of the twisting passages, one going up and one going down. From the windowless passage going down an eerie green glow eminates. The passage going up has a single wooden frame window with a vase of daisies and seems more welcoming.

As I sit there and contemplate which passage I would like to take, the one going up (consciousness, the easy path) or the one going down (unconsciousness, the harder path) a tour group emerges from the passage going down. It seems to be a group of children lead by a middle aged man but they are all wearing radioactive protective suits that cover there whole bodies and trudge with great weariness as if their trek has been long and arduous. The sight of them needed such protection to explore the lower realm kind of scares me into impulsively running for the passage leading up. I quickly look over my shoulder and notice that dad is gone, as is the man at the window, and the hall is empty of monks, but the nun remains and smiles warmly at me, but she says nothing. Despite her reassuring glance, I scramble up the ascending path with no thoughts or expectations in my mind, like a scared animal being chased by something unseen.

The dream changes. I am suddenly in the castle north of the church, in a grand passageway that while still twisting upwards, is decorated with artworks and elegance befitting of a royal building. It is also much wider, does not slant so steeply and is lighted by large windows bordered by elaborate tapestries. People still wander the halls, but instead of nuns and monks, are woman and men dressed richly in Renaissance fashions of courtiers and aristocrats. A few of them saunter by me and sneer as they do so. I am not dressed as finely as they and instead have on a simple brown dress with a grey undershirt and light grey apron. I have read hair and know immediately that I have transformed into my deam incarnet, Kalima. I look out one of the large windows and can see the square, multicoloured church still surrounded by gardens and sculpures, though the cobblestone pathways are empty of modern-looking tourists and filled with merchants and vendors, peasants and aristocrats, human and non-human alike, bustling around in a budy medieval townscape.

I cannot consciously recall the previous part of the dream now and though I can sense that I do not belong here, and feel out of place, the farmiliarity of everything I am seeing makes me think that I have always been here. I unconsciously grasp at something hidden underneath my collar: a small silk bag containing a polished peice of jade hangs around my neck on a thin strap of leather. I keep it hidden because I feel that if anyone saw it, they would believe that I had stolen it, as it would seem too expensive for a mere peasant as myself to own such a thing. Beyound sentimental and material value, this peice of jade is magical and allows me to see beyond the constraints of the physical world, as well as grant me some minor magical powers. Through the Jade I can see the Truth at all times, and if someone were to discover it and take it away, I fear that I would be rendered powerless and blind.

Touching the Jade, I can feel its power, which pulsates with a warm but sharp electrical current, even through the rough cotton of my shirt and the thick silk bag that contains it. It jars my consciousness and I suddenly remember what I am supposed to be doing, though the sudden awareness is fragmented: Meeting friends. Finding and freeing a captive lion. Saving a King. I cannot compel the peice of Jade which, while still apart of me, is like an entity all unto its own, to show me more and I know that it reveals only what I need to know and it is up to me to figure out the rest.

I decend the winding passageway down to the main floor of the castle and meet a group of people whom I know are my friends. We came here out of curiousity at first, to see the castle, though later for an important task revealed to me through the Jade. My friends, who are all older than me by a few years, know of my power, and trust and protect me with great care. They are all humans except for one, who is a small antropormorphic ant like creature (about two inches tall) who is very wise and acts as our teacher and guide. He usually rides on someone's shoulder, since he is much too small to keep up with us walking on his own, and he greatly fears being crushed to death by being stepped on. All of us are orphans and outcasts and we have no one else in the world save for each other.

We find a lion in a cage and release it before the guards and discover us. We make are way through the lower parts of the castle and it is confusing and maze like. We are captured by some guards and brought before the King. My peice of Jade suddenly sends me a message about the King's life being in danger. I try to tell him so but he doesn't believe me. The lion captors have some how recaptured the lion and now use it as a weapon, making the poor creature attack and kill anyone it comes across, and beating it severely if it does not comply. The captors are just outside of the throne room when a soldier comes and tells the king what is happening. He finally believes me that his life is in danger and I use my magic peice of Jade to create and illusion so that my friends, the King and I can escape. We follow a secret passage revealed by the King behind the throne and it leads to the outside of the castle, but over the ocean and we have to jump into the water.

When I get out of the water I am seperated from my friends in the crowds of people outside the castle and for some reason my peice of Jade transformed me into a lion. I am immediately captured by the cruel lion tamers, who take my peice of Jade without which I cannot revert back. The King meanwhile regroups what soldiers he has left and surrounds and captures the would be assassins. I discover that I am able to revert back to human form under my own power and so not need the Jade. My friends and I are rewarded and we are no longer poor peasants. My friends take up residence in the castle, but I feel out of place because I vaguely remember my dad looking at the art outside of the castle and I leave to "find my way back home."


The dream ends there.

I dreamed I was sleeping in my parent's bedroom in the middle of the day and was awoken by the sound of someone sipping from a soda can somewhere in the hall. I roll over and see it is my dad and I quickly get up because I am supposed to be cleaning the house, not sleeping. As I get out of the bed piles of clothing and empty boxes appear on it and it looks like someone is in the middle of packing or something. I walk around the bed to the large brown dresser on the other side of the room and open the sock drawer. On the inside is an old radio that is playing electronic music and I turn it off. My dad gets angry that I am going into his dresser and I walk out of the room without responding.

I go into the backyard and look over the green chainlink fence that overlooks the forest behind the house. Just out of my reach and laying in a pile of sticks and leaves, is an envelope filled with american currency. I do not know how much is there but I figure it is a lot because the wad of cash is quite thick. Suddenly two of my neighbours appear, one to my left and one approaching from the other side of the fence and coming straight towards me. I try to not draw attention to the money (hoping I can pick it up once the unwelcome guests leave) but the person on the other side of the fence beelines for the envelope, picks it up, and throws it into a deep hole that has appeared nearby. I am upset that the money is gone and stare after it into the hole, but it is so deep I cannot see the bottom. I angrily ignore the neighbours, even when they try to talk to me.


The dream ends there.

I made some rice crispie treats for the holidays and had this dream right after.



My father and I were at an indoor confectionary market, sampling many different kinds of foods,and we came across one display that was serving the rice crispies I had made. I remember thinking in the dream, "Oh hey, those are my treats!" and feeling glad that other people were enjoying them too. I was a tad upset that I had to pay for a peice of something that I had made, though I said nothing and handed over the money for the treat. My father and I grabbed some and ate it gulped it down before moving on to the next display.

There is a some sort of family gathering in a small house. I think it is my grandma's old house, but I am not sure. There are many people , some I recognize as members of my family, and some that do not resemble any person I know in waking life. There only seems to be three rooms; the kitchen, the living room, and the basement. The kitchen does not have a table or chairs but there is a green sofa against one of the walls. The living room is sparse as well and only has a white loveseat and a large screen television. Needless to say, most of the people in the house were standing as they socialized.

There were some people in the kitchen preparing food and some people standing around with drinks. I was in the kitchen but I was not preparing food or drinks, nor was I socializing. I didn't want to be there and I felt very tired and bored. I sit down on the green sofa, curl up on one end and start to drift off to sleep. I can hear my dad come into the room and everyone starts asking him what's wrong with me, as if they can sense the fact that I don't want to be there. I cannot hear exactly what my dad is saying except that he is going around the room and apologizing to everyone.

I wake up when I feel someone sit on the other end of the sofa. I sit up and see that it is Uncle Doug. He is making rude and offensive jokes about women and everyone in the room (which I notice at this point is all male) laughs along with him. I am disgusted but I cannot think of anything to say. Uncle Doug turns to me, grabs my arm and asks if I am "cool" with the jokes he is telling. I scream at him not touch me and to stuff his misogyny up his ass. He gets embarassed and apologizes and asks if I am offended, and even though I am, for some reason I say no.

Everyone starts to head down stairs and I get up off the green sofa so that it can be carried into the basement. I start washing dishes because I am too pissed off to talk to anyone. Dinner is being served in the basement and everyone is down there, but I refuse to join them because I still feel raw about the incident with Uncle Doug.

I climb up on the kitchen counter and look out the window, but instead of seeing a backyard at groud level, the view is from several storeys up and I am looking down upon what appears to be a train station. There are many people walking around or just standing on the boardwalk as a passenger train very slowly pulls out of the station. Out of the corner of my left eye I see a frieght train appear out of nowhere and slam into the back of the passenger train at a great speed. I watch in horror as the frieght train cars pile up on each other and onto the boardwalk, violently crushing some of the people who had been standing there. I feel helpless because I cannot do anything but neither can I look away, even as people continue to be crushed and mangled by the crashing trains.


Then the vividness of the terror and sheer graphic nature of the train crash woke me up.

The dream starts off with me standing in the middle of a roadway, looking up and watching two aircraft circling overhead. The first aircraft is a bi-plane and the second aircraft is a glider. One of the planes is chasinging the other, though I can no longer remember which one was the pursuer and which one was being chased.

At first the aircraft are life size but they flew into a giant department store and suddenly become toy sized, where the chase continued. I followed them into the department store but eventually lost interest in watching the chase. I wandered the many aisles, looking for something, though I was not sure at the time for what. While I was going through the store, I could still hear the sounds of the toy sized aircraft and caught a glimpse of them on occasion, weaving between display stands and shoppers.

I came across a lawn mower that I thought my dad would absoultely love and pushed it half way across the store to the cashier when I suddenly realized something that had to do with my dad (cannot remember exactly what though), before returning the mower to the place I found it. I also realized that I could not get the lawnmower home because there was no way for me to carry it home on my bike, which was waiting for me outside the store all of a sudden.


All throughout the department store I remember seeing a little blond boy darting between the aisles and hiding behind things. I am not sure if he was watching the aircraft chasing each other, or if he has any other significance. He does not look like anyone I know in waking life, but every time I saw him in the dream I "felt" something, though I am not able to articulate what.

I was in some sort of boarding school for the arts. I do not remember any specific details of what the above ground levels looked like, but I do remember that the teachers were very strict and for the most part downright cruel. It was private, and not one designated a Christian school, yet strict Christian values were the rules of the school. Since I am not Christian I kept my spiritual designation a secret and went on with my studies (much like I do in waking life actually, because it is nobodies business but mine). I do not remember much of the classes but near the beginning of the dream I got caught by the head mistress of the school when the pentacle I wore under my shirt slipped out.

The head mistress was old and wore a black victorian dress and had a perpetual scowl on her face. Her greying black hair was always up in a bun and she wore a large silver cross around her neck. As soon as she saw my pentacle she grabbed me roughly by the shoulder and started dragging me along, yelling that I was an "un-godly child" and heathens like me do not have the right to make art, or something like that. She took me to the far end of the school and pushed me through an old door, which she promtly locked behind her.

I stumbled down some stairs in the dark and found myself in the decrepid lower levels of the school. It was not like a traditional basement in that it had many little rooms and a long spiralling hallway, (more like a bunker?) I quickly discovered that the lights and plumbling still worked. Each of the little bedrooms I explored had two beds and a dresser, and there were personal items from the previous occupants lying about, though everything was covered in dust or falling apart because it seemed that no one had been down there for a long time. One things that caught my attention was that each and every bed had an afgan blanket on it and they were all different by colour and pattern.

At first I was alone and upset in that place but I occupied my mind by exploring the rooms and going through the personal belongs. I realized at some point that a lot of the items I went through belonged to teachers I have had (most were actually teachers I have had in waking life), and I got the sense that they had been imprisoned in that basement-bunker too.

Then I discovered a room that I shall call "the Pit." It was like a second basement because it was lower than the bedrooms and it was more diamond shaped than square. There were no stairs down, the entire Pit was illuminated by a light source that I could not see, and there was water gushing down all sides of the bare concrete walls and draining into a small drain in the center of the room. Up until this point I had been alone in the basement, but near the center of the Pit, on his hands and knees, was George Stroumboulopoulous.

He was on his hands and knees pushing a stream of water into the drain. He looked up at me and said something (but I cannot remember what now) and then he went back to directing the water (which wasn't really necessary because the water was going into the drain anyway). He made not plea to be rescued, or make any attempt to more from were he was, so I left him alone and explored some more bedrooms.

I came across one room that kind of startled me because the dresser seemed to contain artwork that I had done in the past (in the dream - there was nothing I recognized having done in waking life). The art was really good and it seemed to be past the artistic skill I have now, but I checked signatures and writing styles and the art was definately mine. I also found indications of my past teacher who had overseen the creation of this art I discovered - but it was no one I recognize from the dream or in real life. He looked sort of like DJ Carl Cox, though that description might be a bit off because the dream becomes a bit fuzzy at this point.

When I was done exploring that room I walked out into the hall and ran into my father. I was surprised and not really happy to see him and I knew the feelings were mutual. He started talking to me about something and we got into an argument (Ha! Just like real life!) and twice he had to restrain himself from exploding into a rage (something he does a lot in waking life too).


There is a little bit more of the dream with some other people showing up while my father and I are fighting, and something more about the Pit but I cannot remember more than this.