Visions in the Dark

I am outside in a semi-arid landscape near a concession building with a large knarley, leafless tree nearby. There are no clouds in the sky and the sun is setting but from somewhere in the sky lightning eminates and strikes at random places around the concession building. I am staning a few meters away but I get the impression the the lightning is trying to hit me. I am able to dodge many strikes easily but it is getting closer and closer. A huge bolt comes out of nowhere and strikes the large knarly tree, splitting it in two and setting it on fire. The lightning mysertiously stops and I go into a nearby tent to sleep for the night.

The next day the remains of the tree and consession building are gone and in its place is a large excavation pit where a young black man with an afro and brown sweater over a white long sleaved shirt and excavating something. His partner is a Latina woman with long black hair, brown shorts and black tank top. We know each other in the dream somehow and they ask me to help them. The have half uncovered a metal framework of some kind and the man is telling me that it is an ancient Hindu temple that was made with metal pillars instead of stone.

The woman starts to uncover some floor tiles and I help her. After many hours we have uncovered system of beautifully decorated floors that have brightly coloured mandalas and other Hindu designs on them.


The dream ends there.

I was younger in this dream and had shorter hair then I do in waking life. I did not need glasses as my eyesight was perfect. I wore a long robe that was a light brown or dark tan colour. I did not remember the specific reason for having to break the mandala seals, but in the dream I knew it was something I had to do.


I was in some sort of magical place, a fantasy-esque temple of some sort, perhaps. This place had multiple levels and each level had a magical seal that was guarded by a powerful being. Starting at the bottom, I had to fight the guardian of that level to break the seal and only then could I progress to the next level. When the guardian was defeated, its body disappeared into the glowing mandala seal on the marble floor, before flashing brightly and dissolving completely. The path to the next level would appear as a circle of light above where the mandala seal had disappeared. For some reason I would also become more powerful when I defeated the guardian, like I absorbed its physical and magical powers when it died or something.

I do not recall the details of guardians one to four, but I do not think they had any significance. I think I vaguely remember a few of these guardians appearing as character from classic monster movies, but I cannot be sure as my memory of them is fuzzy. All I do remember is defeating them with easy, breaking the seal and moving on to the next level. I breezed through the first four guardians, though I maintained a serious concentration on what I was doing, even as I became more and more powerful.

The fifth guardian was not so easy. I was shocked to discover that it was non other than my patron goddess Sekhmet, in her fiery war goddess form, leonine head and all. She could have easily killed me, being a goddess and all, but she did not. Instead she played with me like any feline does before they consume their prey. Sekhmet bit me several times and tore off chunks of flesh from my body. At one point she tore off my entire right arm. She ate all of the peices of me that she took.

Every time Sekhmet bit me or ripped something off my entire essence; my mind, body and soul, were consumed with such an intense burning that I could think of nothing else but that sensation. I stop short of saying it was painful, because while the sensation engulfed my entire being, it also felt that I was metaphysically connected to everything in the universe when I felt it, if that makes any sense. I did not hate Sekhmet for doing this and it seemed that I loved her more and more, despite the burning, as she slowly consumed me. After she took my right arm, I was willing to surrender myself to her, to be completely consumed, and indeed that is just what I hoped Sekhmet would do.

Instead, something happened that I can not longer remember unfortunately, but I not only regained by lost body parts (and completely healed of all injury) but my regeneration seemed to surprise Sekhmet, who had, for the moment, ceased her attacks. Not surprised as in upset surprised, but more that she was either impressed by it or she just expected it or something. Either way, she just smiled a secret smile and the fight continued.

Again I cannot remember what happened next, but somehow I bested Sekhmet and won the fight. I am not sure if I actually defeated her with my own strength or if she let me win. She disappeared into the mandala on the floor (with another one of those secret and knowing smiles on her face) and I was offically complete my quest. Despite my victory and though it was something I knew I had to do in the dream, I felt absolutely devastated at what I had done, as I felt that I had just killed my patron goddess. I collapsed on the broken seal were Sekhmet has disappeared and laid there and cried.

After a while I reluctantly got up and walked through a gate that had appeared at the far side of the chamber. When I walked through I found myself in an ethereal plane where everything was magical and dreamlike. There were solid objects I could step on, but most things were colourful, transparent and glowing. It seemed to be perpetual night there but the stars shone like every colour of the rainbow. I seemed to be alone there, but I felt as I did when Sekhmet had been biting me: connected to everything in the universe.


I wandered around in that ethereal magical place for some time, but the dream eventually fades.