• Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views




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    1. Futures

      by , 02-06-2015 at 10:47 PM
      There's a teenage girl who's come to me to learn her futures. I've spread them out like cards on the table, and as I hold my hand over one depicting a man she could be married to, she says she wouldn't mind that one so much, that wouldn't be so bad. I have the impression that she doesn't feel she has a choice in any of this - she might want to know what the options are, and she might have her own preferences, but someone else will be making the decision, not her.

      With that in mind, I move to one of the futures on the outside edge, the more unlikely options. It's labeled Dreamer. I see her lying on a couch with an arm thrown over her head, looking at the ceiling, wasting away. Her clothes are glowing green like an absinthe advertisement. Since I think of her as wasting away here, I conclude that this is a future she wouldn't want and start to move my hand away, but that vision version of her stops me. She sings, "I listened to my dreams." This is important to her. It's not something she regrets. "They taught me how to feel." Behind her there's a glass window opening onto a balcony, from which I can see a river and the stars. There's a whale swimming through the clouds, adding to the fantastical nature of her possible future.
    2. Florence

      by , 10-19-2014 at 08:48 PM
      I'm someone playing cards with three other guys, and one of them mentions the (some surname beginning with T) manuscript. It's this anonymous collection of old medical notes. A few copies have been made of it, but it was never published, so it's very rare. I tell them a bit about that manuscript - I love having the chance to do so, I enjoy sharing stories from the past a great deal.

      During the war, it was an open secret that T. was seeing a certain woman. He always used a nickname when he mentioned her to others, but everyone knew. (As I'm saying this, I'm seeing an image of myself playing cards with T. in the past, much like the scene with these men now, both of us in uniform; and then an image of that woman walking down a street.) And she'd often go to his room to make use of his typewriter. (I'm seeing a typewriter that doesn't actually make sense for this time period.) For whatever reason, when he left to return to England those notes she'd been working on were mixed in with his typewriter and his other things. He didn't make it back to England of course, and when his things were eventually recovered, that anonymous manuscript was naturally associated with him. But the identity of the author of the T. manuscript is Florence Nightingale.

      This doesn't get the reaction from the other card players that I'd been hoping for - I get some odd looks but mostly they just seem bored. They change the subject, talking about pharmaceuticals. I'm disappointed - I'm reasonably certain Florence is still a household name, recent enough and well-known enough that I'd thought they would find this interesting, even though they were all born well after her death. It's always an isolating feeling when this happens - no one much cares about old dramas. But at least they only see it as the eccentricity of a history buff, and I don't have to worry about them seeing me as a threat.

      Updated 10-19-2014 at 09:04 PM by 64691

      Categories
      non-lucid
    3. Unfinished business at Sleep No More

      by , 03-08-2014 at 11:30 PM
      I've just walked back into the McKittrick Hotel. It's the middle of the day, so the place is mostly closed, but there's a guy at the front desk who tells me the owner has died. I climb up a few flights of stairs and come to a room with an old glass bottle hanging on a rope from the doorknob, with a red liquid like blood inside. Hanging next to it there's a card with a series of about 10 questions about the purpose of your visit. One of the questions mentions Maximillian, and reading it, I realize that each question is a reference to a different riddle to solve or mission to carry out, each given by a different resident of the hotel. If a visitor has completed one of these riddles/missions but didn't have a chance to report back before the end of the night, the hotel will permit them to return during the day, to wrap up unfinished business.
    4. Cards, aliens, and cannibals

      by , 02-11-2014 at 01:15 AM
      I'm reading cards for an off-duty cop or detective - it's about his case, and it's not official. The Hermit - that's the criminal. The Emperor - that's him. And then a minor card that indicates cooperation between the two of them, and things going smoothly.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      I'm talking to this alien I'm traveling with and my first instinct is to call her Red - she's red from head to toe - but I stop and think about how nicknames work in alien cultures. Best case scenario, everyone's going to wind up calling me Pink, not sure I'm up for that. Me and another alien head outside on some errand, crossing this huge field, and as we're walking I ask him about nicknames. He says, "You don't want to say my name?", and I don't know how to interpret his tone - maybe bewildered, maybe hurt, maybe I've just accidentally proposed marriage, I don't know. We're still crossing the field, but we've wound up walking on top of/sliding down a pile of giant, motionless serpents.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      There are these people trapped in a cabin on a mountain by a group of killers, and they're wondering if their two friends who left earlier made it off the mountain okay. The scene changes to a group of people standing around a car parked near the base of the mountain, across a field of tall grass - the killers, a 'family.'

      I switch to the POV of the father figure of the group, and I'm looking at the two young boys with us who are new to the family, keeping an eye on them. Not too worried though. Someone spots a figure moving out of the forest and into the field - the figure shouts to us when she sees us, waves her arms to get our attention. I'm thinking, huh, we missed one. We'd found a guy in the forest earlier, I hadn't realized there was still another one out there. That was sloppy.

      Me and those two boys go to meet her, and she starts talking about how she needs a lift. Walking her back towards the car, we get to the part of the field near the road where the tall grass is all flattened down from what we'd done earlier, and there are a few things, plastic bags and such, scattered around on the ground. She's looking at the things on the ground and looking a little uncomfortable, she asks what we were doing out here. Having a picnic, one of the boys says. The rest of us laugh. It's technically true.
    5. The Cheshire Cat - We're all mad here.

      by , 02-09-2014 at 12:22 AM
      As Homestuck's Dave, I've been teleported somewhere else, leveled up some insane amount due to timeline shenanigans, and then was teleported back home, to Bro's apartment, in the middle of the same game we were playing when I was yanked out. I'm really annoyed, because now I'm way beyond Bro's level and I'm not okay with that. I'm looking at some kind of selector switch, trying to figure out how to scale it back from a dealing-with-the-fate-of-humanity level to a hanging-around-the-apartment-with-Bro level.

      I'm looking at six cards laid out in two rows. They show ravens and swords, black ones and white ones of each. One large white figure is flanked by two smaller black figures, and vice versa. They're labeled, and I hear the text out loud, "Light and Shadow, Occidanto et Icandis."

      (Woke up. Noted that my subconscious Latin is terrible. Went back to sleep.)

      A little after a scene in which L. appeared, I'm thinking to myself that I'm going to have to tell M. that she was here, when it occurs to me that that's impossible, I must have been dreaming.

      Immediately after that thought, the sheriff from Twin Peaks walks in. He complains to me about this demon thing - all these people involved in recent suspicious events have been blaming it on demons, which is ridiculous, he can't figure out what's going on. He leaves the room, and I follow him. In the next room, there are two other people. One of them has something sticking out of the center of his forehead, like a horn, or like he's been stabbed with something, and I realize he's the source of this rotting smell. I also realize he's supposed to be dead, and the sheriff's been harboring him.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      I'm reading a news article covering ongoing research on the inside of an ancient spaceship that's been unearthed. The scientist in this article says she's discovered that humanity developed on this planet based on the human image displayed inside this ship, not the other way around. I find it bizarre that this claim is being presented in a major credible news source, as opposed to tabloids and conspiracy theory type sources. Then it occurs to me that the presence of an ancient spaceship, which the article treats as an already-established, commonly-known fact, is also pretty bizarre. I start to look up more information from other sources online, but out loud, I talk about the article with someone else, who, without reading it, dismisses it all as nonsense. I try to stress to her that what's really bothering me as unusual here is its presence in a major newspaper.

      There was a royal baby, Herbert, who was locked away with his mother and a small staff in an isolated section of the castle for 8 years, after some disaster with his father. Now they're allowing a few more people to enter, including myself. They're still referring to him as "the baby", although it's been eight years, and now I see why - he's sitting in a high chair, being fed by his nurse, treated as if he were an infant in every respect, and apparently he's never been taught to walk, talk, or feed himself. The queen, clearly mad, is referring to herself as Herbert - I think of this as reflecting a desire to take control of the late king's power.

      Most of the small group allowed in behave like sycophants, fawning over them, but after we leave, I speak with two of the other people who were allowed inside, both of them as disturbed as I am: two cat-like creatures, brother and sister, one a doctor, the other a scholar or advisor of some kind. They're cat-sized and they walk on all fours, but they're different enough in the face that they're not quite capable of being confused for actual cats; they're striped black and brilliantly dark blue, and they come from a place called Cheshire. They're very kind, very intelligent, very soft-spoken. The brother says that he believes the child carries some infectious disease that affects the brain, and this is what must have caused the disaster with the king eight years ago. Now it's clearly infected the queen as well. He intends to return tonight to examine the boy more closely. I'm thinking no, he's wrong, it's not a disease that the boy carries but madness, and I have a clear mental image of madness as some kind of spirit attached to the boy. I have the impression that I already know how this will end, that this is the past, I'm seeing a tragedy play out and have been forbidden from doing anything to change it. Suddenly realizing, I exclaim out loud, "the Cheshire Cat!" I'm horrified by this revelation, the idea of the madness that will take over this kind and soft-spoken doctor, and I'm so disturbed that the doctor and his sister become concerned; although I try not to say anything more, my exclamation has surprised them, and it's clear that I know something.

      I'm climbing a road up towards the mountains, through a landscape covered in snow, along with the two cats and several other people, heading away from the castle. There's an announcement over a system of loudspeakers, the queen's voice stating "We order you to the tower to be arrested." The announcement goes on to scold us, alternately addressing us as if we were children or saying we've dishonored our esteemed positions, and then says "Now place your life squarely in your master's hands!" Obviously we have no intention of turning ourselves over to be arrested, but the path to the mountains takes us right past that tower.

      Updated 02-09-2014 at 12:43 AM by 64691

      Categories
      non-lucid
    6. Fairy tales, words and music, cards

      by , 01-05-2014 at 11:51 PM
      There's a woman having a sort of Cinderella transformation - rags to ballgown - but she doesn't seem in the least bit impressed by it. I'm vaguely annoyed at her lack of reaction, but on with the show. She enters a throne room and asks something of the king, who says "But first answer me this. When did you become the Evil Queen?" She doesn't know what to make of this. She says, "I'm not a queen." "Your father is dead," says the king - her father was also a ruler, she became queen the moment he died. The king here holds out a collection of brown papers. He says it's something her father had been putting together the night he died - last night - something urgent, something for her, since she'd been away on this mission.

      I'm looking at a book containing a moving image representing En - a small boat on a river, stylized lotus flowers, a lot of gold paint. The color's faded and chipped in places, but still beautiful.

      A musician's writing a letter to a friend of his, trying to comfort his friend, and he's thinking about how limited words are, how it can't replicate the sort of things he'd do if he was there in person, even the simple act of putting on a familiar tune. He goes to the gramophone and puts on the tune he was thinking of, and sits to listen to it before he continues writing, thinking that perhaps the feeling he gets from this song will come across in his words.

      A couple. A blonde woman is laying out cards on the floor in five columns, representing the guy's past relationships; he's lying on his back next to her, not looking. She observes that his two longest relationships followed the exact same pattern: lasted the same amount of time, ended the same way, with the same warning signs beforehand. She says based on that pattern, if (event) happens at (time into relationship), he might as well bail immediately.

      One of the shorter columns is unique in that every card represents things going well, and she wonders why he'd split up with that guy. Privately, she's realizing that he ended things shortly after he'd had some non-romantic encounter with her, and she's wondering if she was the reason for the split. But out loud she just points out how odd it looks that they broke it off considering it seemed to be going so well. He teases her, saying "yeah, I'm starting to miss a bit of swordplay" - part of the joke here is that the guy in question also did something involving literal swords - and she hits him, lightly, on the arm; then she puts the cards down and straddles him, and says something along the lines of "Not like that. I mean, you had a different dynamic than you did with anyone else. Not in a good way. I mean, I liked him, when he was alive - oh, god." He's laughing at her. What she'd been trying to say by 'not in a good way' was that although the two of them clearly got along, they hadn't seemed really emotionally attached, but she's stumbling over this conversation. He assures her, yes, the guy in question had indeed been great when he was alive - teasing her about her reluctance to sound disrespectful of the dead - he was lovely and wonderful and all that, and she's also lovely and wonderful and all that. There's a lot of laughing from both of them over how ridiculous this conversation is.