DarkestDarkness

10th May 2021

Dream:

I'm on some cliff-top in a surrealist environment. There are many cliffs which are mostly straight up vertical and the height of mountains and the cliff I'm on is the same. There's a blue (cyan tinge?) but desaturated sky. I fall down to a lower rock platform on the side of the cliff but then I use drilling tools like the ones from DRG, quickly making my way back up through the rock. I make a guess as to where I'm going (based on some environmental factor?) and there are some parts where there are large swiss-cheese-like holes and openings in the cliff that I avoid.

I then find and head inside some structure which has some hallways within. There's a clay-like tone to this structure? There are also some window openings in the walls but they are sort of perfectly squared off and have no glass or frame, but I don't recall wind or anything of the sort. There may be some lights inside the structure but I'm not sure. Then, there's a counter just by a hallway corner.

On this counter-top, I place two kitchen knives. One is like our metal bread knife and the other is like one of the coloured knives, about the same depth, so probably the magenta one? Some dream characters appear behind me and they seem to be passing by, but other characters are just idling around. I interact with the passer-bys and they ask me casual questions, which I answer. They fit into the archetype of some of my black friends from school, but they are not these friends specifically. We just know each other in the same way.

Then I move away from the counter. Someone shows up, I think AM (mom's friend L's daughter) But her skin is not as pale white as I recall it (don't notice this specifically in the dream?), her hair is darker and more like mine and she's a bit chubby. I say something about waiting "fourty years for my wife" and think about how different she looks. She sits and reclines on top of the same counter from before, her feet are bare.

11th May 2021

Fragment:

Something about being with a big group, in a subway. Queen Elizabeth II is with us and is a part of our group. We board a train (looks like L subway) and the passengers who are already inside are staring and openly voice that they can't believe that it's actually the queen. She takes a seat and I sit beside her. I talk to her and tell her some story from my life, from years ago. She doesn't reply to anything I say and I interrupt myself remarking "you've probably heard it all before I suppose", realising that she is just that much older than me and must have heard and known the life stories of hundreds or thousands of people.

---

Notes:

- The night before the 10th, I was practising anatomy drawing and there was a woman in a reference image that fit the same typical appearance as what AM appeared like in the dream.

- In the fragment's dreaming context we were on some kind of tour and the subway was a connecting point to get to somewhere else.

- When I woke up, I think I had lingering feelings and found myself surprised at the dream passengers' shock for seeing the queen. In the dream the whole context felt absolutely normal and day-to-day.

- I don't think I've dreamt of Elizabeth II before. In the dream she was much like my paternal grandmother in some respects, possibly even physically, but as a character she seemed tired, worn out.
-- This probably comes partly as a result of having heard of the prince's passing but also a general curiosity about old age, partly mixed with my own feelings about how it must be very wearing to lead a life that is meant only for duty.

5th September 2020

Dream:

One of several long ones. At a version of the clinic I'm registered with. I see a receptionist in a narrow hall and ask about whether they are still doing appointments. She said that appointments have to be booked nine days in advance, at least.

Then I proceed to the waiting room anyway. It's different from how it should be and a whole lot bigger. The room is packed, reminds me of an airport. It's well lit with natural light.

I try to find somewhere to wait and become aware that I'm wearing a dust cover mask. it feels like it keeps slipping down and uncovering my nose, which bothers me. Only a few other people are wearing masks of any kind at all. The vast majority is not, I don't feel that this is right but I feel there's nothing to be done about it and carry on. Eventually I find a little corner around a pillar. I think of sitting down at a chair but I remember thinking I don't want to be as close as everyone else is to each other. So I just lean back against the pillar.

At some point I realise I'm wearing one of my black t-shirts and the trousers I have typically been wearing lately. My mask slips off again, and I adjust it again. This time I try to make the upper strap stay in place better. I simple consider this recurring thing to be the fault of my choice of wearing a second version I found of the mask at home. (This would have been a good RC moment)

I see people come and go, in and out of appointments and the hall. I have thoughts about whether I'll be able to hear my name called from here.

Then as I'm waiting, around the corner I spot two black guys are having an argument with each other, they are at opposite ends of the area. Something about a game, but not? One of them is more calm than the other but is also upset. He's chunkier and nerdier in some sense. He has a cap, dark navy colour. His skin is about as dark as the cap, reminds me of Franklin from GTA5 but darker. The angrier guy is taller and is much closer to where I am, he is well built and again partly reminds me of Lamar, but no cap?

I forget their words to each other. I become curious if the angrier guy is going to get physical or not in his anger, he does a little, gesticulating violently but seemingly out of frustration, then letting go of the subject and simply walking away. Then when he's left a large number of people follow behind him.

For some reason, I eventually leave too. I'm outside, it's an unknown street. I remember a sandstone bridge over the road, it's daytime. Eventually a very full bus goes past, after I'd already crossed the road.

There's a white girl, with curly hair (what colour?). She's on the other side of the road, I feel I know her somehow in the dream. I forget exactly what happens next but then I'm going around on the back of a bike or something. Streets remind me of native country.

Eventually I/we arrive somewhere. It's a house along a row of impressive houses with a typical local look with sandstone features. There's an open courtyard. Reminds me of Hei's place. Then I'm on foot and it seems to be on a hill/cliff, overlooking a semi-populated area. That girl from before is now sitting on a bench here, naked? She gets up and walks toward a ledge wall and I walk up close. Then, looking down from over the low-ish wall, I see a baby cat trying to climb a tree from lower down to get to us.

Fragment:

At a beach place, overcast day. There's a big bridge over this bit, really high up. Some rocks at the base of one of the support pillars. It's like a highway overpass? There's writing in Arabic and maybe Hebrew, but also a third language which glyphs I don't recognise or recall.

---

Notes:

- I remember the dispute between the two guys was interesting to watch. Looking back at it now, it seems like it was some kind of metaphor for internal debate and the fact that many of the other vague dream characters left with the angry guy kind of reinforces this idea for me.
- The mask slipping off on its own is something that I found was happening with some face coverings I tried to wear because of the virus situation. It doesn't happen at all with dust cover masks but this seemed to have slipped by me in the dream.
- The second fragment may have been because we recently re-watched Prince of Egypt, a film I didn't remember very well at all anymore.

9th June 2020

Catching up on DJ again.

Dream:

(last part, my original notes sort of start at the end but cycle back to this point in some way)

Was in a WoW-like game or reality. There was this nest on a cliff I had to reach from this insanely long ladder along another cliff face. I wasn't sure how high I had to climb before I'd be able to make the jump towards the nest.

At some point I jumped and I remember sort of gliding a bit, eventually reaching the nest. I remember noticing a book covered in twigs and small bones. I looked this up on a popular WoW database to read comments on either the book or this location. Then I wiped it clean (from what? dust?) but don't recall what happened after that.

Some guy riding a bear mount? Not sure. Then I remember myself, taking off the ground on a nether drake. I flew up a bit but not that much. There were Shattrath guards following after me through a forest that was not like Terokkar next to the city. The guards were throwing hammers of wrath at me as they pursued, most hitting me but doing little damage although this was whittling my health points away.

I knew we were still in the Outlands because there was a cliff's edge, and nothing but void beyond and below; I remember the characteristic Nagrand-like sky. I rode my drake over this threshold of sorts and from past the edge, looped under the floating land mass, hiding there with my drake in some sort of underground cave area...

I saw blood elves fly over and away on their bloodhawks toward the endless horizon and void. The distraction worked and I lost them. Then I left the bottomless "cave" underground and went much higher than before. Something was happening and a massive black dragon was appearing and the sky also dramatically changed to darkness and red tones. There was some NPC shouting something, but I don't remember what. I remember having passing thoughts about Deathwing and Alextstraza and how they looked feral with their "old/out of date" models.

Then I remember flying toward the dragon and at some point jumping off the back of my drake and landing on a platform (on the dragon?). There, I found blocks like in Boundless. Interesting patterned blocks, like mosaic and celtic twist patterns on stone and they had red and black colour schemes. I began to "vein mine" the blocks the vein mining technique eventually stopped working and so I gave up on harvesting these interesting blocks.

The next part I remember, I had ended up on a red dragon's back. We fly over mountains and cliffs and from here I spot the nest and jump off, gliding through the air somehow and trying to land on the nest. Instead, the winds lead me to the ladder.

---

Notes:
- I think it was in this dream; the area in which I found the bear mount rider was something like the WoW zone Grizzly Hills, with tall pine-like trees.
- The way my original notes were made have altered my memory of how the dream's chronology worked out but at the same time it has created a nearly perfect cyclical flow of the dream which did lead me to remembering details I otherwise may not have recalled that morning.
- The black dragon may have appeared before I thought of Deathwing, but I believe the two would have come in tandem regardless of which appeared first.
- This dream involved a lot of flying or gliding and basically high altitude locations with little solid ground to speak of. In the dream and game worlds I don't typically ever have a fear of heights, despite the fact that in reality they make me feel uncomfortable as I become highly aware that a mistake could cost me, fatally so even.
- Over the last few months I have had passing thoughts of the Burning Crusade and about nether drakes, so this dream probably came about as a materialisation of that or as a self-feeding experience.

Went back to a half sleep after waking in the morning. Had a small moment of lucidity, the first one for quite some time. Made note of as much as I could before I had to get up to help with something.

---

Dream Fragment:

The only dream I can vaguely remember before my first awakening. Something about a character that walks around some snowy place, finds something and goes back to the past in a pretty stereotypical UFO. Lands at the same place and stumbles on the snow and becomes sort of blue? I expect him to meet himself again but he doesn't, instead meeting an old man. They talk.

They have a discussion about time travel and the past. The man is skeptical but then the other character says something that convinces him and the man states "it's 1976" and the other one says "I came from 2070" or a similar year. He tells the man about how in the future the knowledge of the past, after a certain point, is just unknown. He tries to convince the old man of this by stating facts about history, going back, up to the point where he simply didn't know anything else.

Dream:

As I fell back asleep slowly, the dream seemed to progress quickly. I was half aware of my real body at a few points and the clarity of the visuals varied quite a bit. I was with H somewhere.

There was this guy and his dad, they weren't very happy with each other. The son was dating a teacher, a woman, at his school. Then she found out that his dad was married and that mattered for some reason.

I remember walking outside, near these people. They sort of became part of the background of what was going on and I notice the area is by a large river, or sea. There are quays and the area looks like a port or dock. It's sunny and there are a few large white clouds in the distance.

Me and H, we walk towards a building closer to the dock area. I don't remember walking in, but we're inside. It's a large room, much darker than being outside but there are bits of sunlight here and there, but I don't notice where they come through. There are quite a few people here, this feels like a lobby, or waiting room, for departures?

On the right-hand wall, there's a massive hole and strange rocky formation. I approach it and notice how smooth it is. I look inside, it looks perfectly smooth and the rock is a yellowed off-white but there are tinges of green here and there. There are smaller but perfectly smooth and rounded holes on the rock. It reminds me of pumice and it made me think that lava made this hole. I visualise that happening? Not sure.

I walk outside, as there is a door or passageway next to the hole. This wall of the building was actually some sort of dark tinted glass, and I could already see from inside that this side was some sort of canyon.

There are paths along either side, but there are no connections between these paths except for the lobby place. The rock is all the same as the one from the "volcanic hole". I remember looking at the cliff tops higher than us and noticing the sky looks green-ish. But as I walk here, I realise, wait, how was that hole there? It just wasn't right. I half realise I'm dreaming and at this point I feel my real body more, but in the dream I check my hands. Although they appear normal, there seems to be little detail and I realise I'm dreaming.

The realisation is quickly overpowered by a bunch of random actions, my level of lucidity actually being very low. As if it were a game, I start placing a prop over and over again, along the canyon path I'm on. The prop is a study desk with drawers, with a chair too. H then tells me we don't need them for some reason. My dream awareness starts to go again at this point. I start smashing the chairs against the edge of the cliff and throwing the stuff down the ravine. It all hits the ground too quickly for how deep this place looks and I complain out loud to H "this is a dream, that's a deep canyon, the chairs shouldn't be dropping a metre and then smashing, that's too quick!", half with the expectation that something would change about it, but nothing did. We keep smashing and throwing the furniture for a while, after which I've lost any amount of awareness I had left and we return to the dream plot.

At the end of the path is a similar building. We go in, and it's dark. Again it also had an entrance on the other side of the canyon where the second path was. Inside it looks like someone's private office. Well decorated and tidy, the walls had a mix of plasterwork and floral motif patterned wallpaper.

The wall at the other end of the room, behind a desk and so on, seemed solid, but as we approached, it smashed or crumbled. On the other side is a lobby full of people, at a lower height, but not much. I talk to H, but don't remember what we said exactly, except that I expressed some concerns about dealing with these people. They were university students. There were a bunch of signs and notices in the room, mostly about events?

I decide that we can proceed and I step over the rubble and walk down a small ramp made by the rubble. A girl, not much younger than me, sees me and when I comment something to H she says "well we don't want you here anyway, you look like a scary punk!". I feel complimented and somehow her comment made me feel more confident. I approach her and put my hands on her shoulders and smile, in a half attempt to scare her a bit more and in a half attempt to thank her.

I then walk away towards a corridor that took a right turn on the opposite side of the room, but I don't remember any more details.

---

No notes for now, quite tired.

Two dreams, turned mostly into fragments after getting up from bed. I think there was a third one, but I must have forgotten it.

---

Dream Fragment 1:

I don't know where I was, it wasn't a familiar place at all, but there was some kind of square and a market. There was a town or city feel to the place and I remember it was day time, although everything looked a bit dark or murky somehow.

There was this woman with blonde-ish hair and a fit look (V) whom I know online from a game, though I've never met her in person. She was showing me around? I remember her grabbing me, by the arm or hand and for some reason in the dream this made me visibly uncomfortable. V noticed and asked me what was wrong or whatever. I explained that where I was originally from, physical interaction even with strangers was commonplace, but since I have been living elsewhere for some years now, I had sort of become estranged from the feeling and it was a confusing situation somehow.

Next thing I remember is something about a big cruise ship. I went down some steps, avoiding a queue for said ship, with no interest at all in getting on, having passing thoughts about a waste of time it looked like, due to how crowded it seemed like it was going to be.

There is then a transition of some kind.

Dream Fragment 2:

I remember being with H. We're on the road, H is driving; it looks like the type of countryside I'd expect to find here. It was day time, but the sun was close-ish to the horizon, I think more setting than rising, and it was also cloudy. Everything looked a bit desaturated.

There is a transition and now we're at some sort of lodge. My mom and my dad are there and we're having a look around. Nobody else is around, and the place is littered with what I can only describe as cultural artefacts from many different places. For some reason I take no particular interest in them however. I remember my parents talking, probably with me, but don't remember the content of the conversation.

There are stairs that go up and next thing I know, I find myself going through several upper levels of this lodge. One of my siblings (L) is here and we are both going up the stairs up to a point when we're not inside the house anymore, and it's a cliff. There are still steps, made of rough and weathered stone. As we go up the steps, the incline gets sharper, and this random girl with a massive backpack is also climbing these steps. At first I get past her but as I get nearer a flat bit at the top of these steps, she overtakes me.

Next thing I know, I expect to be at the flat bit and that there would be more to climb. I expect that the cliff on the other side would be gentle based on what I felt the formation was like, but no. This was the peak, and it was like a sharp peak.

Up here, there was a large but flat rock, on which L sat in a precarious way as always and I could see lots of things below, fields, towns, other mountains. I felt the height we were at was impossibly high for the amount of climbing we'd done, but my legs were shaking and I felt giddy from my irrational fear of heights. At first L tried to get my attention so I wouldn't look down, but that didn't last long. I remember seeing parts of this mountain we were on, looking toward the left. There were large and ancient man-shaped stones along certain parts of the ridges, almost like steps but which were really more like foundations for fortifications.

I couldn't let go of the rough stone steps. The way the flat bit of rock was connected meant that there was an extremely narrow part of dirt or rock and I just felt it was risky to try and get there. I wanted to go back down and eventually I did. I remember being at the main part of that lodge again, but the rest of the dream is missing.

---

Some notes:

• V looked exactly as I would have expected but though we had some conversation, I have no idea what her voice was like, or if it was accurate.
• H's presence in the second dream was quite short, but so was the presence of my parents and the random girl that was doing the climb too.
• When I was at the peak of that mountain, there was a cold feel to being there, although I don't remember actually feeling cold. But everything was quite bright, it was clear and sunny and I enjoyed that on some level, but the sort of physical stress I was feeling due to the fear of heights made the experience remind me of several situations in my childhood.
• During that part of the dream where I was climbing, I remember clearly thinking; "I'm sure I've dreamt of a climb like this". In actual reality, I don't think I have had a dream like that before, but again, the experience was similar to some I had in my childhood.