Visions in the Dark

I'm at a public park in Shanghai where some kind of festival is going on. There are many rides, attractions and fast food vendors. I am my dream incarnate Chun-li, who is usually Chinese, but I know intinctively in this dream that I am half Chinese, half Japanese, and this is something I have to keep a secret because at this point in time the Chinese and Japanese have very tense relations and there is great suspicion between the two nations in my dream.

While there is not yet war, trade and immigration has been halted and anyone who is Japanese is immediately exiled or extradited to Japan. The same thing happens in Japan to people of having Chinese descent. People like me, with half and half relations, keep quiet because of the fear of being rejected by both countries. I greatly fear being exiled to Japan because I have lived in China my whole life and would not know where to go or what to do in a foriegn country.

I am with a small group of friends (who know of my half blood and keep it a secret) and we are watching acrobats doing tricks on giant trampolines. Afterwards we watch some fireworks and then go to check out the food vendors. The park is open all night but many people have left and few people are still around. Mostly the campsites containing the vendors families and supplies are still active. The moon is full and directly over head. My friends and I go down one road at the edge of the park and find North America food vendors containing stores like KFC, Taco Bell, a few pizza places and Burger King. One of the vendors between all of these North American vendors is a food store selling Japanese style food and sushi, though it outwardly passes itself off as a fish and chips joint. We are surpised at this and dare to order some food from there. The vendor is very kind and quietly gives us are meals (I order sushi pizza and an eggplant handroll) and we sneak off to a picnic table in the now dark park to eat our forbidden food. I become nervous because I can see some of the Chinese vendors across the street watching us.

The next day my friends and I are at a mall complex doing some shopping when we hear the news that Japan and China have declared war with each other. Many people in the mall have gathered around a large audio/video display which was previously selling automobiles but has been switched over to report the breaking news. The reporter says that the two countries armies have met in the Sea of Japan, not shots have been fired yet and there seems to be a highly tense stalemate with neither side yeilding their positions. The report then reads a breaking bulletin that people of Japanese decent, no matter the degree, are now labelled as enemies of the state and are to be arrested immediately. I feel dizzy and sick to my stomach when I hear this, and have to sit down for a moment because of weakness in my knees.

When I gather myself I leave my friends and run all the way up to a second floor department store where I know works a half Chinese half Japanese fashion designer. We know each other as acquaintences but he is not happy to see me. Because of his open and flamboyant personality (he's gay and dies his hair blond) he has never denied being half Japanese and now he knows he will probably be arrested because of it. We sit on a display counter in his store and listen to the news report coming from the floor below as it reports the breaking news that the two country's navy vessels have begun firing at each other and several ships have been already sunk. Almost everyone in the mall is now gathered around the giant television to watch.

Suddenly my friends come up the stairs and run to us. One of them says that we should start a protest for peace and that we could have a fashion show as a fund/awareness-raiser. The fashion designer is pleased with the idea but says he will probably be arrested soon. My friends give him encouragement and they start fussion over details like location, participants and the such but I kind of phase them out and listen to the live reporting of shell fire and bombs now on the Chinese coast far south of Shanghai. The dream skips ahead a few days, the fashion designer's store is a hive of activity. We have found hundreds of people to join in our war protest and dozens of people willing to participate in the fashion show fund raiser. The fashion designer has not been arrested but he and his store is under constant servaillence.

This dream ends here and I get up to use the washroom. It sort of continues after I fall asleep but there are some differences.

I am in the mall from the previous dream, planning a fashion show with my friends, but we are no longer in China and there is no war with Japan, but the gay fashion designer is still here, though he is now just Japanese, and he is arguing with one of the other designer's of the show, who is a Chinese woman. They each want the show to be influences by their countries of origin and argue like cats and dogs about trivial details like colour themes and placement of artwork. Several of my friends are watching the arguments with bemusement as we help set up.

One of my friends is a brown haired girl named Lily. She suddenly leaves the store and we cannot find her. A young man with blond hair shows up and asks me and some of my friends to join him outside, were we find Don Cherry about to start a tour of the city in what looks like an Apache helicopter. On one side of the Apache is a smaller version of the copter as some sort of escape vehicle. It seems normal to everyone else but I cannot understand why the helicopter has a helicopter on it.

The blond man gets in the mini copter and detaches it from the big one and lands it on the mall's patio roof. Don Cherry and my friends get in the big Apache and take off. I am too freaked out to get in either copter. When they are gone Lily suddenly shows up but I notice that something is odd. She has no idea about the fashion show she had previously been helping set up and she started talking about the public park festival from the previous dream, which in this dream, was not supposed to exist.

The blond man tells me that there has been a tear in space and time and that there are now two Lily's in this world. The doppelganger Lily doesn't belong in this world and her presence here threatens the existence of the real Lily, who is stuck in the past. The blond man gets into the mini copter and there is a brilliant flash of light and he and the machine disappear. The doppelganger Lily is very shallow and airheaded and keeps asking me vain and repedative questions.

The big Apache carrying Don Cherry and my friends return and are happy to see Lily, but they don't notice that this is obviously not the real one. I can hear the blond man's voice in my head saying that space/time is shifting so that all the abnormalities that came through the interdimentional tear are becoming normal. Things will only return to normal if he can find the real Lily and return her to this space and time.


I cannot remember the end of this dream.

It is late in the night and their is no moon. I am wandering through some abandoned warehouses that have the floors ripped up. It lookes as if their is an excavation going on because there are deep pits and excavation tools laying around, but the building is dark and there is no one around. I wanter outside and come to a platform beside some train tracks. I don't know if the tracks are in use because they look old and are over grown with grass and stuff but a small train does arrive and I get on one of the passenger cars. All of the cars of the train are open to the outside or are roofless, more like tram cars or something.

The train doesn't go very far and stops in front of what looks like a college or university. I get off and wander around the building and note that despite it being the middle of the night, there are many students and people around. I find my way inside and realize that no one can see me. I look down at myself and I am transparent like a ghost. I suddenly realize that I am dead and remember that I was murdered not long ago and I want someone to find my body so I can be at peace.

There is a commotion with several of the students and they rush inside of the building. I follow them to the expansive library where many people have gathered and are watching a news report about the bodies of hundreds of murdered students being found in mass graves in a swampy area not far away. The police are unable to explain how so many students could go missing and be murdered without any evidence of who is behind it. Everyone on campus fears that a serial killer is on the loose and many people are afraid to leave the school grounds.

While I do not become aware that I am in a dream and am able to consciously control my actions and I start to fly. I move through the walls of the college and high up into the air. I come to a beach along a river where there is a pink radio station with a large antena a top of it. Anong the beach are power line towers that are oversized and take up much of the space along the beach. There is a helicopter circling the radio tower while trying to dodge the over sized electrical towers. The copter is using its search light to scan the beach and the people who have gathered on it as well as the radio building itself. I can hear people on the beach saying that they think the killer is nearby or something.


I follow the river and come to a lake where there are many coast guard boats transporting bodies found in the swamp on the other side of the lake. There are many police officers and heavy earth moving equipment. There are many hole in the ground and open graves where bodies have been found. Some of the bodies have been loaded into the back of trucks or onto boats for transport to the police station (or morgue or whatever).

I cannot see nor sense my body anywhere so I fly back to the college and it has changed shape. It now looks like an old medieval castle with two circular towers on the outside and a courtyard in the middle, though it is still being used as a school. I fly inside on of the towers and find a young man sitting alone trying to meditate. I try to get his attention by moving things around the room like pushing a chair and blowing papers off a desk, but the young man is so deep in concentration that he does not notice. I fly through the walls of the building to the other tower on the other side. It is a conference room of sorts and many people have gathered to discuss the murders and watch updates on a tv.

Again I try to get people's attention by moving stuff around and while people notice the unusual happenings, still no one can see me. A few people do acknowledge that there is a ghost in the room but someone points out that is obvious because off the mass murders taking place.
I try to get people's attention some more but the dream eventually fades and I never find my body.

It starts off on an island beach resort where many people are enjoying the fine weather and warm water. I am relaxing on a beach towel not far from the water and I can see a family of four in front of me. There is the father and son, who are caucasian, and the mother and daughter, who are oriental. The father is playing with the children at the water's edge and the mother is watching from their beach towel not far away.

Seaweed started drifting to shore in vast amounts and many people start rushing out of the water. Some of the seaweed has jellyfish hidden inside and they are stinging whoever happens to touch them. The father ignores the seaweed and continues to allow his son to play while the daughter responds to the mother's call to get out of the water. Eventually, the frustrated mother gets up and rushes over to her son and pulls him to shore, where she cradles him in her lap and fawns over him for a bit. The father and mother begin to argue. For some reasons the father has not seen the jellyfish and has not acknowledged all the people rushing out of the water. He is angry because he thinks that the children should be allowed to continue to play in the water.

Just then there is a voice over a loudspeaker telling everone in the army to gather in a nearby parking lot. Just after that sirens start going off all over the resort. Apparently I am a soldier, even though I am on vacation, I am being enlisted to fight. At the parking lot all of the soldiers who have gathered are told that we are under attack - but the sky is clear and there are no signs of "enemy" activity anywhere, (unless you count the mass amounts of seaweed and jellyfish washing upon the shoreline). The soldiers are given weapons and ammunition, split into groups, and most are sent into the forests to "hunt down the enemy."

My group consists of 16 men and I (the only woman) and there is a wide variety of nationalities represented. Our orders are to secure the area as the civilians are escorted to safety. Chaos ensues when smoke bombs and gunfire errupt from an unseen source. There are people running everywhere and some of the commanders from the soldier's units are either killed or run away. Some of the members from my group (including the commander) get seperated from us in the smokey chaos. The rest of us commandeer a school bus and directs civilians to get on. It takes a few trips but we seem to get all of the civilians in the area to a nearby airport where an airbus is waiting to take them to saftey.

Before the last airbus leaves I hear something odd and run off on my own into a nearby forest. There is a helicopter trying to take off from an akward angle on a hill and I cannot figure out it managed to land without hitting any of the surrounding trees. There are two men in the cockpit and they look like they start to panic when they see me. The copter begins to lift into the air and I duck because I am afraid of being hit by the blades as the craft straightens out. When it is off the ground and starts to ascend gunfire errutps from a nearby bush and damages the underside of the helicopter, but does not stop it. When the copter is gone, a muscular black man steps out from behind the bush. It is the commander of my unit and he asks me to come along with him. I agree and report that all of the civilians have been evacuated and the vacation resort has been secured. He gives me a strange look but says nothing.

We walk down the hill, through some thick bushes and straight into what looks like a zen garden. The men from my unit are all sitting on benches that encircle the rock garden and seem happy to see me. The commander asks me if I remember everyones name and to point them out if I do so. I think it is a weird request but I comply and am able to name every single member of my group except one, a black man with long dreadlocks. The man with the dreadlocks laughs at me and says in a thick jamacian accent: "My name would be "Johney Oh" in english and it rhymes with cloud". I still cannot remember his name and the whole unit finds it very funny.

I am told that when I dissapeared into the forest that I had dissapeared for several months. The "enemy" could still not be found and everyone wanted to know where I had been. I tried to tell them that almost no time elapsed between running from the airport to coming across the helicopter in the forest, but no one believes me. The is a bit more with my unit on an aircraft but I cannot rememeber most of it. The dream ends soon after anyways.