VivianVector

Really potent dream state. I had been drinking at a party that night, but I had still never experienced dreaming quite like this, alcohol or no. There was no REM rebound either, dreaming began almost immediately.

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Lying back into the hammock, still a little intoxicated from the party, I begin to drift into sleep. I am in a room off to the side with some other people who have turned in for the night, while in the lounge room a small group of party-goers keep going strong. My eyes shut, the music doesn't bother me.

I am flying over a fantastical modern city. Huge buildings stretch up into the sky, incredibly detailed. The way my three dimensional perspective shifts is incredibly realistic. As I have experienced before, the movement itself causes the visuals to solidify rapidly.

I am wandering through this dreamworld. I find myself in a penthouse apartment of sorts. There are many well-dressed, influential people here. Some hold glasses of champagne, others speak in hushed tones. It seems that there is an event of some description on. The rooms are vast and the decor minimalist. I am definitely amongst the upper echelon of society, but there are distinct underworld currents here and powerful ones at that. Women in stunning dresses sip at cocktails, a man deals cards at a table, and there are people coming and going from an oriental meeting room. I try to peer inside but the security is eyeing me suspiciously.

I wander into a side room. There are people here being 'sold' for exorbitant amounts of money, but they are all very keen to be here. There's roughly half a dozen of them, dressed in white robes, male and female and all glamourously beautiful. They aren't slaves or prostitutes as such, more like high-status consorts whose loyalty is bought, trophies to be displayed. There are a few people bidding here. By entering the room, I have unwittingly entered myself in the auction, but I am not at all dressed or prepared for such an event. A price is named for me. It is low compared to the others, but still in figures that I could not expect to see in my lifetime.

A pixie-eyed man, one of the actual party-goers from the waking world, leans over and speaks to me.
"Not bad at all, but I will attract a much higher sum."
He did, of course. He wasn't gloating so much as stating fact, this was their profession.
"What other purpose is there to life than to be as beautiful and glamourous as possible?" He believed that it only made sense for everyone to aspire to this ideal.

It was then that I had a 'false awakening' in the apartment. I get out of the hammock and stagger into the lounge room. The party-goers are still up, awake and energetic, but very aware that they are dreaming.
"This is what we do," the pixie-eyed man explained. "We go out exploring this world at night. We thought that as you were here, we would try to wake you up as well."
It had worked for me, but all the others who had turned in early were still sleeping in the room I had left. They were too deeply asleep to be pulled into the dream.

They began to explain that they went by aliases while dreaming to protect their physical identities. It made sense to me, except that the pixie-eyed man had been making quite the name for himself as a rogue lucid-awakener by the name 'Anderson'. I got the Matrix reference. It seemed he had been pulling a lot of people into his dream adventures recently. I recalled seeing his name at an earlier time, somewhere in another dream, and warned him to be careful.

It was too late. Eyes were already upon him and his group. An illuminati-style organisation had taken interest in his activities and decided to put a stop to them. Their methods involved misleading and blinding individuals with familiar glamours. They wouldn't even know that they had been restricted to only existing within their own personal dreamworlds.

We had to flee, running out into the corridors. Desperately trying to escape the clutch of our pursuers. The party was split, we were forced to break up into smaller groups and head out into different directions. But we kept getting lost, funnelled only down the paths that the organisation dictated. And then we would awake again in that lounge room. Lights off, only two of us this time. We'd look at each other and run out into the hallways. Awakened again, this time a couple of others. We were all confused, scared, frightened. Awake again, and again, and then I opened my eyes.

I was physically awake this time, lying in the hammock. The very people I had been dreaming about were in the lounge room outside, dancing and doing shots. But I could't hold onto my waking awareness and fell back beneath the waves. Awake again, same lounge room, but this time I was alone.
I ran out into the hallway, none from the group in sight. I followed the paths through the building desperately, and finally this time I came to a location I had not seen before. The hall curved around into a room with an alcove and a tall window looking out over the cloud-shrouded buildings beyond. The city I had seen as I flew over it at the beginning of my journey.

I stopped, looking out over the breath-taking view. I became aware of two figures that had been waiting here. One was a man, silent, clothed and hooded in black robes. I had a sensation of knowing him, a name; the Angel. The other was a man in a simple work suit. He was from the organisation, or at least knew of my predicament. It appeared they had been speaking before my arrival. The man from the organisation approached me and began to converse with me. He explained that given the circumstances, I would be free to go.

The dream shifted and time was lost. I found myself walking through a busy train station. There were escalators and shops, commuters going to and from platforms. I wandered around, perhaps keeping an eye out for anyone I may know, but I needed no goods or transport.

After all the intense dreams of the previous month, I felt almost as though I needed a break. Didn't stop the weirdness though. Reading back over it is kind of sobering. Be assured I had plenty of mundane dreams as well!

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A sudden startling image of one of my friends standing in my back doorway. Highly detailed, as though I were right there.|
"I can hear everything you are thinking," he says. It was weird. Weird enough for me to tell a dream character in a later dream of the night about it.

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I am with my blonde host sister, although she does not exist in the waking world. I regretted not spending more time with her over the years, even though I had always regarded her as one of the shadow ones.

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I was in the countryside on a peaceful night. I looked up to see that we were mid-way through a lunar eclipse, but we were viewing it through some sort of rift or portal in the sky. As the moon passed and the eclipse ended, the warp collapse and the moon disappeared. Then, all of a sudden, I was catapulted into the air with great force and began to soar over the starlit countryside.
"I am dreaming," I thought, but within moments I had awoken.

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A tension in the air. I walk past a hooded man in sorrow outside the barred window of a sleeping woman.
"I visit her in her dreams," he says to me. "Is this wrong?"
"No," I say, "but she will never know you beyond that."

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Entity dream for certain. My room looks completely real, but it is like a strange sleep paralysis has fallen over me. I could move, but only barely, and parts of my body felt numb. I became aware that I had an extra set of arms. I investigated my body awareness and realised that I could not move one of the sets. I rolled over and bit down into one of their fists. I heard a male voice scream out in pain from within my head.
There was a shift, and I was in the bathtub of my parents' bathroom. The lights were out but the room was illuminated by the warm glow of a candle. It was incredibly realistic, as though it had been ripped straight from my memories.
'This is wrong,' I thought, and the dream shifted back to my bedroom. I was in my hammock, but could still hear the hollow slosh of the bathwater. I felt the presence return, invisible hands touching me. I encouraged the presence to approach, I was in the mood for games.

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Truly strange cognition. At one point in the night I recall waking and visiting the bathroom for a glass of water. Upon returning, I was convinced that I had to perform all my actions in reverse. It was integral to remember that in this world it was different. I even believed that everything I had been doing up to that point had been in reverse, and that therefore I was succeeding.

Writing everything out like this in short summaries is very therapeutic. Recurring character is recurring.

I am drifting over the water. I am dead. I am missing my other body, but what is it? Invisible, impossible, immortal. it is the body which grants me power.

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A single note, at the bottom of one of my journal pages. 'I don't remember why we were in the submarine'.

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Hypnagogia. A single voice on the edge of sleep.
"Fall back into my tentacles."
"Excuse me!?" I stammer, but darkness envelops me.

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I am walking with my brother, advising him about some personal struggles he is having. I get him to a read from a poetry book that he has been assigned for school. I haven't read it, but I'm surprised at how good the content is, and relevant to his problems. I tell him to read one passage a day and meditate on its meaning.

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He's under house arrest. Had we been stealing things? I feel like it must have been for a good cause.
Eggs! Oh man, I want some eggs. He is quickly forgotten in my pursuit of eggs.

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A man and a woman have kidnapped me, ferreting me away into the nearby forest. They need time to cast their teleportation spell, but a warrior woman has followed us looking for me. I manage to sight her through the trees. She looks exactly like me. Perhaps I should have struggled. The spell is cast and the dream shifts.

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I shift, and find myself in a forest. He is here with me, the Sentinel. There isn't a doubt in my mind that it is him. We smile at each other and talk a little, but mostly there is just a silent knowing.
I have to climb a tree. One of the branches is on an incline and is long, sturdy and straight, but it is broken right up near the trunk. I am small, perhaps it will hold my weight a while, but not for long. He watches me, giving the occasional word of advice. He feels I should abandon that path altogether and climb up the smaller, but more secure network of branches to the side. I think that I can make the best of both.

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"It's 5:70pm," someone says. For some reason, it doesn't strike me as odd.

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I am walking down a street, but I can empathically sense everything about the occupants of the houses without seeing them. One of my friends arrive, so I tell him all about it, forgetting that it is quite normal for a dream.

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We are soldiers in a five-man squad. Zombies attack. I climb to elevation and use my rifle to pick them off. It does not take us long to dispatch them, but our commanding officer informs us that we cannot move on until we find our final party member who has gone missing during the raid. We look around us but cannot see him. Other squads past by and radio messages are sent out, but nobody knows where he is. I think about what I know of him to try and work out where he could have gone. All I know is that his name is Horse, because he is a horse.

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I am in a fantasy game world. A quest giver keeps telling me to take a Potion of Patience and sit still for a while. I should have taken their advice.

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I'm walking, but my vision and cognition are still very hazy.
"Sentinel? I wonder if you can hear me," I say.
"I can always hear you," he replies, a voice in my mind. My attention is piqued.
"Let me go somewhere quieter away from all these people so we can talk," I say. A nice idea, but I am distracted easily. There are people listening to music, and I dance and sing along, thoroughly enjoying it. When I feel I have spent enough time intruding on their space, I turn around. There is figure concealed by shadows smoking and observing in silence. I thank him for letting me enjoy this time, and move on.

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The kingdom is fleeing at the behest of the Queen. A bushfire approaches and threatens their lives. The young royal advisor frantically suggests that we should check on the Watchers, the entities which look over our kingdom, before we leave in case their loyalty should wander in our absence. I go up to their chamber, overlooking the town. The walls are carved stone and the room is well lit. The door opens before me, bidding me entrance. On a stone plinth sits a thick tome. The Book of Kings! I am excited to see it in person. The Watchers fill the pages with information when they wish to communicate with the royals of the kingdom. My mother may be the Queen, but I am not of royal blood. This is a great honour. I sit down, filled with anticipation. The advisor returns, freaking out that we should become trapped in here by the Watchers and never allowed to leave. I snicker under my breath.
"Just approach the door and it will open for you," I say aloud. But in my head, I think 'Or rather, they will open it for you'.

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I'm taken to a bar by some friends. One by one, people from my past begin to arrive. It feels as if this has been arranged.
We go outside to observe a ceremony. Hundreds of people are amassed on the banks of a river as a a boat comes through and the ritual begins. Everyone begins to glow red or blue and their abdomens look like interlocking fingers. Each chooses a partner and merges with them, before disappearing and ascending. One boy approaches me, but I ask him to keep his distance. Eventually they all disappear, and only a small number of us are left behind. They will return when the journey is over and they have seen what was intended.
I seek out an older woman inside the tavern. She is the lover of a wise old Indian man. I ask her about the ceremony, but she does not want to say too much, and I do not want to appear ignorant. She says that the ritual requires the ingestion of a certain mushroom, and that they will return after its effects end. I ask her if she ever joined in the ceremony before, and she tells me that she has not.

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Hypnapompia. My cat is meowing, but it sounds more agitated than normal. My half-dreaming mind translates it into words as I border on the edge of sleep.
"I'm sorry if I have offended your personality as a lion," she says in my dream.

This dream was fun, and one of many that featured friendly serpents.

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One of my friends was looking for information on Rakshis. I assumed that she was referring to Rakshasas from Hindu mythology, and I excitedly suggested that I may have a book about them in my library. She pointed to a book in front of us, and we flicked through the pages together. This book featured information about the Egyptian pantheon. We looked through for information on Horus, or 'Hortet' as he was called here, but found very little that was specific. I turned to look at the cover, and the title illustrated that the book was about the esoteric significance of sexual love or energy as it was expressed between different mythological figures. Interesting enough, but not what we needed. I did have a book that would be more useful to my friend, but it was not on this plane, so I shifted us both over.

We appeared in a vibrant, high-detailed world. We were in a a great, high-ceilinged, conical, brass structure. Grated metallic platforms lead over a bubbling stream which ran through the building. It was lush with vegetation and sun-kissed pond life. We were standing before the exit. Light poured in through the opening, and the stream flowed gently out and down the hillside beyond. Forested hills rolled away towards the horizon beyond. My friend knelt before the book and scanned through it. I recommended she find what she was looking for as soon as possible as we could not stay in this place long.

Already, I could see the spiky backs of crocodiles bobbing in the stream, waiting for their moment to emerge. I told her to run back through the building and leave, and she obeyed without question. I was now there with my friend the Sentinel in the form of a dark slate-grey serpent. The enemy was approaching now and we were in danger. I scooped up the snake and ran back across the platforms to the elevator in the centre of the conical building. It would return me to my own world. The elevator was quite open, ringed with ornate brass bars to keep the occupants from stepping off the side. I dashed inside and closed the gate behind me. I wanted to take the serpent with me, but after I released my grasp on him, he slipped through the bars of the door. I felt anxiety rising that he would be crushed by the mechanics of the elevator and that I would only be able to look on helplessly. Despite my fears, he was perfectly fine, slithering around the bars without difficulty.

The enemies approached as the elevator descended. I knew they were there, but I could not see them. As I slowly descended from view, I saw the serpent coiled and reared up, cobra hood open, defending my path from our pursuers.

A slightly disturbing dream, but with all characters displaying a lot of agency and independence. The Sentinel also makes an appearance, a speechless recurring entity who seems to only appear in times of danger.

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I was sitting by the side of the road in my hometown with two friends. We were watching a television signal, using road signs to change programme, but the device was not always sensitive to understand our commands. We stood up and walked along the northern side of the river. I was only a child, and my two companions were comprised of my younger brother and the young daughter of a family friend.

I saw a list of names scroll through my mind. One name in particular I recognised; Yosif. We happened to be walking past his house. It was white weatherboard at the top of a hillside garden overlooking the river. He came out to greet us. He looked to be in his late forties, but took good care of his physique. He was of Mediteranean background, with olive skin, slick dark hair and a slight accent. I placed him in my memory; he had been a GP at a medical clinic a few towns over whom I had visited many years back. Despite being certain of this information in the dream, I know of nobody named of this description or profession in waking life.

Innocently, I told him that I had seen him once when I was unwell. He looked uncertain, but my young friend confirmed my memory. He invited us into his house, telling us that the television signal was much stronger inside. We laughed and followed him up through his garden. He took my brother's hand to help lead the way. I didn't know this man well and didn't really feel like spending time in his home, but I wasn't suspicious of him and didn't want to be impolite.

From the road, his home and garden seemed to be thriving, but walking up through the windy brick paths it became apparent that it had fallen into disarray. Weeds struggled up through the dry earth, the grass was left dying, and the few standard roses still remaining were losing their leaves. Even the house itself was not looking healthy. The white weatherboards were dirty and some had rotted away. He picked up my friend and rested her on his hip, leading us through the garage behind his house. He opened a wooden gate for us, and held it open as we walked through. The dream characters of my brother and friend merged into a single 'child' entity, and the third position of our trio was filled by a young man whom we knew and trusted. He always appeared in dreams to aid me in times of danger, often long before I had even become aware of the threat.

As soon as I stepped through the door, I felt something was wrong. It was naught but a high-fenced pen. I turned to object to Yosif, only to see the door being closed behind me. I kicked with enough force to stagger him and made my escape. Yosif was distraught that I had spoiled his game. He started busying himself about the house while crying and tearing his hair. I hid nearby in the garden. I heard a woman's voice from inside his house, but she was speaking to me telepathically. I was annoyed at first, believing her to be his well-meaning but ultimately complicit wife.

"He drowns the children in a deep puddle beside the fence. Sometimes, he likes to submerge his own face in the water as well so that he can share in their experience." She told me. "The weeds in the puddle are a greater hazard than the water itself. The children choke on them."
On this information, I rushed over to the puddle and started to clear all the vegetation, raking the mud below. The water was grey like run-off and I couldn't see below the surface. She cautioned me against trying.
"Afterwards, he buries their bodies beneath the puddle so the other children have to look at the faces of the dead while they drown."

Disturbing, to say the least.

She told me to go and stay out of sight while she made a phone call and then rushed from the house across to the neighbouring property.
"I'm coming with you," I said, and cut across the garden to join her. I assumed she was going to call the police. I was relieved my older friend had appeared and been caught as well. He wouldn't go down easily, and may intimidate Yosif long enough for the cops to arrive.

I followed the woman into her home, an impressive mansion. There were many well-kept sprawling rooms devoted to displays of cultural artefacts which were open to the public. It was much like a small museum. She ducked into a side room and began to speak hastily on the phone. I looked around. This area contained many pieces of Japanese origin; scrolls of calligraphy and maritime implements. There was a scale model of an ancient Japanese whaling ship which caught my attention.

I noticed a man in one of the rooms with an attendant. He looked to be her adult son; spiky blonde hair and well-built. He had a tattoo of lettering in black and red across his chest. As he was putting on his robes, I saw this his right hand and most of his right leg were missing, but he still had his foot and could move it at will. When he had finished dressing, he looked quite scholarly, and I followed him from his room.

"Excuse me, but could you tell me what this place is?" I asked.
"This is the Temple of Apollo," he said, unsure as to how I could be here without knowing where I was. The artefacts in this room definitely had a more European flavour, but I didn't notice anything distinctly Hellenistic.
"Oh, I didn't realise given the asian influence in the other room," I said and walked off. He followed curiously.
"This wasn't here yesterday. They must have changed it," he said.

The museum was quite intriguing and had many patrons. There were model ships and spaceliners, bottles of googly eyes in every size, and fantastic pieces of antique art; a conglomeration of humanity's existence.