Carabas

I'm floating in the sea with a small oxygen tank and no other equipment. The water's clear and empty - I'm wishing I could be snorkeling on a reef (unusually, there's no visual image to go with this thought; it was blatantly inspired by this site, though) and thinking about freediving (this thought did have images to go with it). Back on the shore, I get into a hot spring with some IRL acquaintances who are talking about drinking, and about a storm coming.

'Julia' has reshaped herself into 'Jules' and I'm meeting him at a university cafe. He tells me he led a rebellion. They all died. Now he's lost his taste for bloodshed, except in the comfort of our own bed. I tell him he's much better at this than I am - whenever I've tried being female I've wound up overcompensating with strange obsessions for guns or fast cars.

OUAT's Rumpelstiltskin, Belle, and three fairies are sitting around a cramped table discussing storming-the-castle plans, theoretically - but the conversation defaults to the fairies badmouthing him for screwing things up in their absence. Belle leaves to go speak to two people locked up in a dungeon, at least one of whom she'd put there herself after he tried to attack her, and her attitude towards him has an odd lack of awareness of being locked up as a bad thing; she's spent so much time locked up in one way or another herself she sees it as normal.

Setsuna/Alexiel speaking to Sara/Belle, saying that after freeing her from 'beyond the end of time,' why do you think of death.

A vague fragment about the three main characters of Zelda leads into me being told by a girl (presumably representing C., this dream is blatantly inspired by her, I've never played this series) that normally she'd recommend someone start with a different game, but for me, the characters and storyline in this one are perfect. On screen, the villain closely resembles Rothbart. The game so far has been one long cutscene, to the point that my IRL sister watching with us (who presumably appeared because of Rothbart - I associate that movie with both her and C.) is surprised to be told it's a game and not a movie. When I look back to the screen again, it looks like a Disney movie.

I'm standing in a clearing filled with men in armor and horses, near some trees. The guy I'm talking to is psyching himself up, saying he can't get excited about fighting unless it's (the particular people we're about to fight) - with anyone else, why bother? I refer to Alexander, the man we're following, as "the undiminished king."

A woman in a modern setting believes she's being punished, looking up at the sky and addressing her father the storm god, "What have I done?" - but what she saw as a punishment was meant as a message, about a friend who she's separated from.

1st person, as a wolf, a woman stroking my jaw and debating out loud whether to leave me in that form.

A teenage boy having guilt-induced hallucinations about a man he'd hurt, seeing him with a face burnt black and empty holes for eyes, I can see the wall behind him through the holes.

A book with an illustration of a red circle covered in black markings has gotten soaked and the markings are washing away, and the boy who damaged it is apologizing, but the girl who owns it is saying it wasn't the real deal after all, if it would run.

A fragment of dialogue: "And you will be trusted with it. Again."

(Woke up at 7:50 am, after getting to bed at 4:30 am. Back to sleep.)

I'm reading a multi-volume autobiography. This particular chapter is describing a vision the author had at a young age, and what he thought about that - not about the content of the vision, but the act of having one.

A man is being held captive by a coyote god, or rather a coyote spirit which has temporarily become a god, taking on a human but coyote-headed physical form. They're surrounded by baby spiders acting as helpful servants. This man had been searching for his wife, refusing to believe the reports of her death, and his search led him here.

As Haruka/Onikui, I'm chained in a cell, with Minamoto Raikou standing over me with the keys.

(Woke at 9:04. Back to sleep.)

"They had more passion, ordinary things; and it didn't do to tempt the passions of ordinary things in passing." The thoughts of a woman who had a man over to eat together with her mother and her daughter, flirting and enjoying it, but with this thought in her head.

(Woke at 10:28. Back to sleep - but I woke up roughly every half hour after that, and I kept running into that problem where, half-awake, I think about writing a dream down and mistake that thought for having actually done it, and so forget the dream. Nonetheless I wound up with two more pages of notes, mostly too dull to bother writing out in detail.)

Very dull dreams from the rest of the night included discussions of my control issues, a man taking the shape of a three-eyed bat with a green-and-gold mask, watching the sunset, farm work, bear hunting, anatomy studies, a vampire movie starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan, the death of Mickey Mouse while he was nobly saving Donald Duck, my IRL civilian sister as a military police officer in training, a werewolf-hunting father and daughter giving a werewolf shelter in their home, and a sitcom about hobbits with fangs.

3rd person, following a blond guy named Colin. He's frustrated with his relationship, and as he's lying in bed, he decides to invade the dream of an ex-boyfriend. The ex, a kind of hippie-looking guy with curly hair, is in another relationship now and doesn't want to cheat, even in a dream, which Colin thinks of as ridiculous but also part of why he's fond of this guy, so he just transforms himself to look like the ex's current boytoy.

But a stray thought about the failed relationships he's had since this guy causes the dream scene to change to show those relationships. (Meaning my dream, not Colin-and-his-ex's dream.) For a while he'd been hooking up with a demon, who was a real sweetheart but they never managed to turn it into anything more serious than occasional hookups. Then for over a year he'd lived with this guy who works at the expat bar, and Colin can't believe he put up with that guy for so long - great lay but massively uncomfortable with witchcraft. He would never even set foot in the basement where Colin worked, and he'd make these 'in the closet' jokes about 'broom closets' and then explain the joke every time, hahah, closet, broom closet, witches, get it - what a douche. Colin thinks he should've done it the other way around - hookups with the bartender, move in with the demon.

There's this rich and powerful old woman who sends her goons to fetch me and Julie. One of the guys working for her warned me that she's got a thing against shapeshifters like us, and I'm pretty sure we're in danger but Julie's already gone with them. She's not entirely right in the head, off in her own world most of the time, so I don't know if she can read the atmosphere, realize there's a problem here. When we get to the old woman's place, she's lying on a bed with more goons in black suits around her, but she stands up to greet us. There's a line of tiles in the floor inlaid with zodiac designs leading from the door to her bed, and it's important for ceremonial reasons to step only on that path, like the old woman does; but me and Julie just walk naturally, sometimes on and sometimes off the tiles. The old woman makes casual conversation as we approach, pleasantries, and I worry again whether Julie will be able to recognize this as a dangerous situation, but when I look over at her, Julie's got a knife in her hand. She looks happy.