Carabas

(Dreaming hasn't been a focus lately, but: )

I'm floating in a void full of clouds and stars, and recognize that I'm lucid. A destination comes to mind - not one I'd planned in advance, it's an impulse. With that thought, I have the impression I've changed direction, moving closer to the earth - slightly negative connotations here; not bad, just frivolous.

I'm in a bar; it serves as a front room for my actual destination. There's conversation, people sitting around at tables; the bartender's a heavyset and balding man. Asks what I want to drink. I believe I'm not physical enough here to either drink or pay for anything, but refusing to order anything isn't acceptable, so I ask for a water. I'm thinking about the unusual vividness of this scene. The man to my right, clearly a regular, starts talking to me and the bartender, talking about the guy who owns this place (the person I came here to see) and the way things are done here; I'm going to have to set up a tab before I can order anything, even water. The bartender asks to see my phone in order to give me the owner's number. I take it out, but the screen's showing what I think of as the real world, in contrast to this place. I'm concerned about the bartender seeing that and recognizing that I'm out of place here. I hand him the phone anyway. He programs the number in without seeing anything out of the ordinary and hands my phone back.

The image on the phone, my 'real' world, is showing a woman with dirty blonde hair, winter clothing, knit hat, walking on a narrow street at night, the outskirts of a small city maybe, lots of greenery around on this particular street but the sense that there's a much more heavily built up area within walking distance. She's talking to someone, male, a friend or a sibling. The scene shifts so I'm there with them. They walk, they talk, they're being followed by something other than me. There's a sense of the dream becoming a nightmare.

As they entered an apartment building, I made the mistake of reacting to the other thing following them, thus letting it realize I was aware of it and attracting its attention. It attempted to latch onto me instead, and in the next scene it's taken on the role of my younger sibling (not one of my actual IRL ones), inserting itself into a role in my dream the same way it had been playing a role in that woman's dream. There was a brief moment where I accepted it as my sibling, before I remembered. It was very shocked when I hurt it in the process of removing it. "Ow, ow, you're hurting me!" "Get off of me, then." It did, and I woke up.

(Though not lucid, this first one was about dream control.)

I've finally figured out how to work with this house. I've begun simply telling it, out loud, what I need from it - not exerting any effort or willpower, just a statement. "House, we need x thing," and the house takes care of it itself, without any effort on my part - simply informing the house what's needed instead of trying to control it. Amazing what a difference clear communication can make.

I'm talking to a servant girl in a room about the size of a closet where she both works and, I'm surprised to learn, sleeps. I ask if she'd like her own room, which of course she does. "House, we need a spare room." I walk out the door and find a new room's appeared, though it's dark and half-finished and covered in dust. "A nicer spare room." Now it's something suitable for living in - and I don't think I looked away, and there didn't seem to be any transition. One moment it had the first appearance, the next moment it was completely different. The girl explores the new room, exclaiming over it. There's a little bundle of fake white roses in a bowl of sugar.

There's what I think of as a wildfire at the edge of the house, just small patches of burning grass but I know it'll grow if I'm not careful. I have the impression this is the result of carelessly reshaping things, creating vulnerabilities around the edges. I have the house stop the fire, and though the fire's stubborn, it goes out as I walk towards it.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

A servant girl came running into a room at the back of the household after hearing one of the other servant girls shouting, but I grab her at the door and stop her. I can hear voices outside, and I recognize the voices of some soldiers who were causing problems with that second girl earlier, somewhere more public. They were reprimanded. Clearly they resented it and want payback. Realizing this, I admire the girl who came running to help; she's small and only armed with a kitchen knife and completely outnumbered, but she doesn't hesitate. Very noble.

Unfortunately for both of them, I'm in a hurry, so I'm not going to let her go help her friend. I'm just here to track down an object that belongs to me and which was stolen long ago, and which she stole from its most recent owner - a leather journal with a star on the center of the cover.

She showed me her room where it was hidden and ran off as soon as I released her, and I start looking through the journal, full of brief observations and sketches I'd drawn. I stop at the sketch on the last page, Jules sitting in a chair with his head tilted back. I feel like there's something foreshadowing about this. And while I'm looking at it, I hear an old man's voice as if he's looking over my shoulder. He makes a comment that makes it clear he recognizes Jules, and then asks me, "Did you follow me?"

I came across a mirror lying on the floor, remembered the TOTM and went lucid. The mirror's rather small for this - I take hold of the edges and pull it wide enough to stretch out on top of it. Initially, unusually, the mirror showed me my reflection - I focus on the background behind it, and it goes black. I briefly imagine stars in that blackness, but don't actually see them; that acts as a trigger, and I sink into the mirror as if it's liquid.

On the other side, I'm walking out of an apartment building into an alley. I have a thought that this is supposed to represent somewhere in Wyoming; but looking around at the buildings, the vending machines, this definitely looks like Japan. I wonder if that's just my mind filling in the setting with familiar memories, or if this is actually meant to be Japan; I keep walking, figuring it'll work itself out, and I had no particular goal here anyway.

I cut through a shopping area where people are eating, listening to them talk, no one saying anything particularly interesting to listen in on. I'm uncertain whether I'm visible to others; my initial impression had been that they couldn't see me, which is how I preferred it, but there do seem to be a few people here and there who notice.

Out of the shopping area and onto a main street, there are Christmas lights in the trees here. I cross the street and find the sidewalk's lined with little garden plots, blocked off by ropes - some kind of display, or some kind of competition maybe. One such plot holds a tree that fascinates me - it's white, not much taller than I am, gnarled, no leaves, and covered here and there in pale green moss with small blue flowers. Very beautiful.

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.

As Louis, being seen as a vampire by someone who I didn't want to see that, fleeing the scene, and Lestat finding this much more funny than I think is appropriate.

Discussing a military operation, looking at a map of what is essentially much of India and Southeast Asia, although at this point in time - meant to be 6th or 7th century or so - the countries and their borders are significantly different than in the present; we're primarily discussing a trade route at the moment, but I've also been having a disagreement with the man in charge about our manpower. While discussing the trade route, we receive word of 500 archers spotted approaching from the north, in addition to the army we're already facing. I am significantly less confident about our ability to handle this than the boss is.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

As some manner of religious authority, I'm performing a ritual to help a group of people, a sort of blessing or summoning, making something sacred. At the start of the ritual I have to offer up whatever spiritual virtue I possess as a sacrifice; this will leave me vulnerable until the ritual's complete, so I'm relying on the two people who asked for my help to accompany me. With the offering made, we step through a portal.

This takes us to a dark and dusty room, a place I'm familiar with. I summon light into my hands, with an effect much like a dim flashlight. In the middle of the floor there's a large trunk full of false panels, something a stage magician might use; at the moment it's lying open so that all its tricks are clearly visible to anyone who might pass through. I didn't leave it like that. There are a few objects on the shelves of the room that weren't here the last time, indicating that someone other than me has indeed been using this place. This is something to worry about. I close the trunk properly, and we continue.

A brief memory gap - after the dark room, we came out into a field at night with a river off to our right, and what we did here I can't remember; but then we came to the cliff at the opposite side of the field, and the view here was so fantastic that I briefly went fully lucid to enjoy it. I'm looking down on an immense lake so still that I can see stars reflected here and there. In the far distance, there's an immense grey statue of a falcon submerged in the lake so that only its head is above the water - but that small part of the statue above the water is at least the height of a two or three story building.

Continuing the storyline, this is certainly the appropriate place to perform a sacred ritual, so I begin a prayer - something about the lake filling with stars. But before I get very far, that river off to our right rises in a flood. The two people with me are afraid, but I'm thinking this is convenient - we'll just ride that water down to the lake.

The river sweeps us over the cliff, which is great fun, and when I sink under the water of the lake I can see a group of hammerhead sharks swimming far below. They don't seem to care about us. Surfacing, although we've all separated, we're all making our separate ways toward that falcon statue.

Along the way, however, I bump into a seal; it considers me and then swims on. And then into a shark; the same happens again. And another shark, and this one seems more interested in my presence; and another that I have to physically shove away; and so on; I'm not concerned about my safety - though I am worried about the other two - but I become so busy fending off sharks that I can't continue to the statue.

Recent dreams included an appearance from Inanna and Dumuzi.

Today's:

Avoiding direct sunlight, I made my way into a bar where I'm surprised to find a certain man - I'll refer to him as my friend. That's a lie, but it entertains me and disturbs him when I adopt a friendly attitude. I sit down and address him by name, and say, "I thought you were going back to Australia."

"This is Australia," he says.

That explains a lot. My aim is terrible, but at least I've got him to serve as a guide now. But to my surprise, he's not at all impressed by seeing me here. I'd really expected more of a reaction. We talk at cross purposes for a while, until he says that he'd thought I'd disappeared with yadda yadda event - I realize he believes he's talking with the hallucinatory version of me who'd been with him for a while. I'm surprised that lasted so long, it wasn't intended to. I explain to my friend that I'm not his hallucination, I'm the real thing. He doesn't seem to believe me.

I sit down at the bar and wait for him to come around, and watch the sun go down through the window. A woman comes over and sits down next to me - on the bar itself, not a stool. We explain pleasantries, and she says a few things that don't make much sense to me until I recognize this as the opening moves of a mating ritual. I start to tell her that I appreciate the intention but our species aren't compatible in that way - and now my friend's hurrying me out the door. Oh good, it seems he's accepted that other people can see me.

In the parking lot outside the bar, I stop and stare at the stars. I'm absolutely in awe of them. I call my friend by name, and ask him, "What am I looking at?" Seeing them in this unfamiliar arrangement is astonishing. He doesn't seem impressed by them, and I can't figure out why - this arrangement must be the one he grew up with, the one he spent so much time trying to get back to, so he should appreciate it. Seeing them through an atmosphere creates such an amazing effect. There are a few wisps of cloud adding to the view - and for a moment a patch of stars appears to be moving, but then I realize there's a children's toy floating above our heads in the shape of a translucent butterfly, distorting the view. I look down at the kids - they're looking at the toy, not the stars. My friend is trying to hurry me along through the parking lot, and I try to impress upon him how moving this is. "Do you know how long it's been since I've been down to earth? Any earth?" He remembers, he was there, and he is not interested in reminiscing.

Short note from an earlier dream today: reading a description of "laurel leaves, called apollon," in which the author acknowledges that they cause strife but states that it's merely like the rebelliousness of an adolescent, and that they are indisputably sacred to Apollo.

There's a man, some kind of ruler, lying in his sickbed, potentially his deathbed. He's speaking to two servants to either side of his bed. Circumstances are forcing him to return to a place he'd once tried to conquer many years ago, but had been forced to turn away from at the last minute. His servants think returning now will be a disaster, given his health. But he's inspired. He says that when he first marched on that place, he'd felt he was approaching the height of his power. As though if he'd reached that place, he also would have reached his dream of creating something that would change the world. I want to use the word 'technology' here, but that gives the impression of some new gadget - what the ruler is after is something as revolutionary as the invention of writing. His statement makes one of the servants focus on the symbol the ruler is wearing around his neck. It's a gold star with 14 rays, arranged much like a jack, the toy, or like a three-dimensional version of a compass rose. I, disembodied, think of alchemy.

There's a white horse and rider walking through a hall of the palace. An extremely agitated servant is trying to get them to leave, but the horse and rider brush him off. They walk through a pair of wooden double doors, into a room where the ruler who'd been in his sickbed is now up and in military uniform, going over maps. The setting looks significantly more modern than I'd thought in the previous scene, maybe as late as the 1800s.

The ruler reacts about as you'd expect when a stranger on a horse walks into your room. The rider asks, "Don't you recognize me?" And his face changes - now he's identical to the ruler. "Though when we last spoke, it was more..." And his face changes again, growing younger. Very little changes, really - skin's a bit tighter about the jawline, mostly. The rider reaches up to feel that jawline, and compliments the ruler on how well he's aged. Perhaps that's the result of easy living. This is sarcasm - an accusation. The rider says "we" expected greatness from the ruler - but what has he done with their gift in all this time?

The rider says, "We convene in the morning. I expect you there." And he leaves.

I'm lying in my IRL bed, looking out into the hall, and I seem to see movement, as if there are several small creatures on the floor. It's too dark to be sure my eyes aren't playing tricks on me. I reach for the lamp - as I do so, I think I see one of the maybe-creatures-maybe-tricks-of-the-eyes come into the room and look up at me - but the lamp won't turn on. Although I'm aware the bulb could just be out, I suspect this is a dream.

To test it, I will myself to float up into the air, but nothing happens. I close my eyes to test whether I can see through them anyway, and I can't (in fact, after closing my eyes here, there were no more visuals for the rest of the dream). But I'm still convinced this is a dream. As one more test, I reach up and touch the ceiling, sure that it won't be solid. I encounter solid material, but it's spongy, my finger sinks into it, creating a depression, and then reaching some limit - the material breaks, creating a small hole. For a second I consider whether this might not be a dream and I've really poked a hole in the ceiling. But I keep digging at it until I create a larger hole, large enough for me to pass through, and I climb up into it. As I pass through, I find I'm now moving downward, not upward - and this makes me wonder if opening up this hole was really a good idea. I have a vague thought about moving down into a basement which stores unpleasant things. But once on the other side, I become aware that I'm lying in bed, and that I've woken up.

Fragments from later (insomnia's been killing me this past week and my recall's a mess):

A desert in a futuristic setting. I'm talking to my wife about some intrigue going on within an elite group of all-female guards who work for us. They're slaves, and I'm thinking about the tensions created by relying on people while keeping them in slavery.

Different scene, same POV character. I'm in a small spaceship, with the pilot - a good friend who works for me - to my left, and a boy whom I'm kind of mentoring sitting behind us. I'm explaining to the boy about a weapon I'm expecting our enemies to use, something that increases the heat of a star. It's related to the lifespan of the star, and the boy deduces that since the star in this system is very young, the effect will be very great. He sounds horrified, but I'm not feeling particularly concerned; it's just one more thing to take into account.

All the stars are falling. At first it's just a few shooting stars; then the sky's full of them, as if every star in the sky is moving, and there are more stars than I've ever seen. It's incredibly beautiful. I'm thinking it must be the Pleiades (I'm reasonably certain the dream got that mixed up and actually meant the Perseids), and thinking about how in previous meteor showers the sky was always clouded over, so this is my first time seeing the whole of the 'Pleiades.' I see the image of a ringed planet form in the motion of the stars, filling up the sky.

I try to get someone, a woman, to come and look at the stars with me, calling it the greatest sky show or light show, and she says she's seen plenty of light shows, local fireworks displays, and doesn't need to see any more.