Amurehna

Non-Lucid
Actual Waking
False Awakening
Lucid

I left work early today and took a nap before my guitar lesson. I slept from 2:30pm to 3:58p, waking myself up two minutes before my alarm. I spent 10 minutes after that just laying there, waiting for the world to feel less strange and my blood to stop pounding in my ears. I had...11 short dreams? I can't decide if I like the false awakenings because they allow me to practice lucid skills, or if I hate them because they're creepy. And I never have one.

_____I'm in my room, it looks just as it should, but I can hear music playing somewhere in the house. When I turn over to listen, there's a deepening of sorts and I realize that there can't be music playing because I'm home alone. I see movement out of the corner of my eye, through the open door and it startles me into a lighter layer of dreaming. I'm confused, thinking I'm awake. I can't find my phone to check the time, it feels like I've been asleep for hours...
________I find myself out in the cul-de-sac. I take the sidewalk, walking along the curve, the image dims and intermittently is replaced with darkness, I know I'm close to waking and try to stabilize the dream. I once told myself that I should keep moving to give my brain something to work at, if I stop then the images stop and I'll wake up. I don't follow my own advice, and close my eyes to concentrate. It doesn't work.
_____I hear music again.
_____I'm pulled back under and when I leave my duplex, my control is steadfast. The world is bright and it's warm outside. I cross the street, curious about the open door in the duplex on the other side. I try to ignore the creepy man in a black fedora and trench coat eyeing me from one of the inside-curve driveways. He disapproves of my actions. I smile at him and continue on.
Going into the other house supplies a new storyline for me to walk. [B]Immediately inside there is a set of raw-wood riser-less stairs leading to the upper level. There are young girls everywhere, showing up for a party. I know I'm not invited, the two girls are best friends and they're popular, I'm not. I feel a spike of shame for inviting myself, but continue up the stairs. I can see them on the upper level, one is blond with blue eyes, the other has brown-black hair. They look familiar but I can't figure out why. I don't want them to see me, I'm certain they'll be mean. There are other girls everywhere participating in different activities. A smaller girl storms up the stairs, surprising me. I stand there, unsure what to do. Worse, the Birthday Girls appear, and tell the smaller girl they want to play a trust game. She's enthusiastic about participating. The game is stand on a higher step and lean back onto the hands of someone lower down. Then you walk up the stairs that way. Their eyes meet mine only for a moment and I'm so worried about what they'll do. I get out of the way for the blond to push the smaller girl up the stairs, but trip and fall backward. The brunette catches me and walks me up the stairs, giggling. I start laughing too, relieved that they have decided to be kind.
_____Drawn back to my room, there are other people in the house. I consider them family but they aren't people I know. There's a tall man with black hair and a bushy beard, an older man with steel grey hair pulled back into a tail, and two women. I don't recall much about this one. I realize they shouldn't be here and decide to go outside. This time I turn left, I see a cheetah running through the neighborhood and I can tell people are afraid of it, so I tell it to run away. It starts to but, I change my mind. It would be fun to run with a cheetah, I think. So I yell for it to come back, then immediately regret commanding it to do anything. I would rather it had chosen to be at my side.
_____I desperately try to check the time but my phone isn't working right. I'm at it for a while before I realize I'm still dreaming. I attempt to still my panicked heart and instead close my eyes, focusing my mind back and down. I open my eyes when I hear music. The song has clapping at the beginning. The room is...different. I'm laying not on the bed, but on a green chaise lounge set very close to the floor. The curtains are open now making the room very bright. The bed is under the window, the foot of it very close to the open door. I realize it isn't a song playing, but a man singing. The familiarity of his voice draws my eyes to the doorway, he's coming down the hall. He will be here soon. Liam.
Saja lays on the bed dressed how I often see her when I become her in my dreams, in an ivory ankle-length shift. She isn't resting, but she isn't awake either. She's paralyzed. I see her briefly from above, her head tilted back, lips parted, eyes slightly open but rolled up. She has one arm pinned to her chest like she's suffered a stroke. Liam appears in the doorway, just like I remember him, though he actually seems...happy. He's singing a song to Saja, I know it's a message, to correct the awful thing he said to me before, about wishing I/she had died with the others. The lyrics: "I'm here with my beautiful wife, in our wonderful life together." Liam is carrying a tray with tea and a bowl of water with a washcloth on rim. His eyes shift briefly to me before alighting on Saja.
"Are you Walking again, dear?" It indicates he's aware of my presence. Meaning that I have dreamwalked to this scene, and I am myself and Saja as well.
It is difficult to move, my mouth feels so stiff. I groan a reply, loathing the spit that runs from the corner of my mouth. "Noooooo." I manage to sound playful in my denial, slightly sarcastic. I don't want him to scold me for dreamwalking here to see him. He smiles down at her contorted form, one knee is bent, her right foot is up by her hip. He sets the tray down and draws her body out straight, covering her with a blanket, she's broken into a cold sweat. He takes the damp cloth and gently wipes the corner of her mouth, humming to her all the while.
____The previous scene slips away and I am back in bed. I know I'm still dreaming because everything feels heavy...and also because one of my friends from work is sitting by the bed using my nightstand as a table, her back to the wall. She is writing on a yellow legal pad, I can only make out one section that is all X's and 0's, but she pressed down so hard on the paper, obviously in a state of distress. I'm not sure she knows I'm there yet I'm certain I can comfort her anyway. I stroke her hair and tell her it will be alright.
"You're right, you're right. M's the dead one. I'm still here." She says, referring to her husband who passed away a few years ago. I continue soothing her. Eventually she pivots to look at me, becoming an old woman with her white hair back in a short ponytail.
She begins to tell me about what will happen next, but in the past tense like she's lived through it herself and wants to spare me the confusion. "Then the storm swept in from the sea. Everything changed after it obliterated New York City...and he arrived. The_____." I lean closer to hear her better but it doesn't help. I don't understand a single word she says to me, it's all gibberish.
"Wait, I can't understand you."
"Of course not, dear. It's here." Her watery eyes fix on something over my shoulder as terror steals over her features.
Very slowly, I turn. Behind me, looking like a terrifying mix of Mrs. Trunchbull from Matilda and the police sketch of Penelope from her suitor who saw her and flipped the hell out. The woman is thick but tall, with her hair in a bun, wearing Trunchbull's uniform...her eyes are black with no sclera under a rage-contorted brow. Her mouth is perpetually open, showing sharp needle sharp teeth...this thing leers down at me and starts to reach her hand out.
Nope.
I force myself into another layer of sleep and for a moment I think I'm awake. But my body is so very heavy. I can't even turn my head and for a moment I worry that something burst in my brain and I'm as paralyzed as Saja now. I struggle to move and when I see my deformed hand, I come to the relieving conclusion that I am in fact still dreaming.
____I find myself in a room like mine, but all the furniture is gone. There are long windows running the length of the room, very close to the floor. The whole room is painted dark purple. I can feel it looming behind me. I run at the mesh covered window, thinking I'm lucid enough to push through it but I am inhibited by my panic. Instead, I use the door. I think I hear the door open and call for my boyfriend to help me, but I realize that he isn't home. (Progress!) The apartment is laid out like my duplex but it feels higher off the ground, when I escape out the front door there is a black porch and awning, all modern lines, set against the purple building. In the distance I see a massive storm brewing and know that it is what my friend was talking about. I stand with 5 others, watching the horizon.
____I'm standing in front of the family from earlier. I'm trying to explain what's happening to me, but they just think I'm crazy. Behind them, the wall has disappeared and I see a train.
"There's a train."
"A train in our kitchen? You're hallucinating.."
"No I'm NOT. I'm...lucid."
"Obviously you're not lucid."
"I mean I'm dreaming."
They just look at me.
_____More music.
_____I rise to what I think is waking, but quickly realize I'm still dreaming. I'm starting to panic again, this round of dreams is extremely disorienting. I close my eyes and focus, putting my hands together against my chest, fingertips pressing together. I focus back again. There's a deepening and when I open my eyes I am sitting on a wooden examination table. The room is cluttered, tables against every wall and all surfaces covered with tools and stacks of books and papers. There's a frameless doorway at the top of two narrow steps. A creepy old man with round spectacles puts a q-tip with a long stem in my ear. It freaks me out and I cringe.
He picks up another one. I realize then that I'm a child. "Raise your arm, now." When I don't, he pulls my arm out straight and presses the q-tip to my armpit. It feels so weird, almost real. It gets weirder.
Liam appears in the doorway. While he isn't the cruel-faced man I've become acquainted with, neither is he quite the man who spent the morning singing to Saja. I still love him though. All versions of him. His outfit should have looked ridiculous...instead it was...eh, fantastic. The garb was vaguely...Musketeer? A capotain with a wider brim, his copper hair hanging to his shoulders. The material of his clothing is multicolored but by large these many colors suggest purple with threads of gold, green and blue. It's a long doublet.
His mouth set in a grim line, he looks so tired. I wonder if the person I have become in this scene is his child.
He confirms this by saying, "Hop down from there, son. It's time to go."
The kid hops down from the table, leaving me there to stare at the old man and watch Liam and 7 year old son leave the shop.
The old man looks at me. "You know you can't be here alone, you've gotta leave too."
He's right.
I jump down off the table, running to the window just in time to see Liam turn a corner. I press my hands to the glass but I cannot slip through it. The shopkeeper suggests I use the door, I run to it and pull it open, I can feel the metal frame against my hand as I rush out into the alley. The streets here are confusing and narrow inlaid with dark grey cobblestones. I go to where I last saw Liam but it's a dead end, he must have gone a different way. I stop a familiar looking woman who has her hair pulled back, wearing a white tank top, a long bronze necklace, and a leather satchel over her shoulder.
"Have you seen a tall, red haired man?"
She blinks slowly at me and resumes walking.
"Hey, wait."
"No."
"He'd have a child with him?"
"Haven't seen him. Stop talking to me."
____I think again that I am awake, just to find that I am not. I am worried I slept through my alarm and have missed my class. I feel like I've been asleep a very long time. I can't do this anymore. I lay there, the room doesn't feel right at the edges, so I know I'm still sleeping...but I'm so close to waking, I know it. I fight through several layers of fragments, where I look at my phone or can't find it or can't move. The dream is like a pool of tar, refusing to let me go, continually trying to drag me under. I protest violently, mentally wrenching my arm out from under the pillow. It takes too long for it to really happen. I force my eyes to remain open. I'm laying on my stomach, I raise my head and sluggishly toss the blanket aside.
I manage to final wake up, roll onto my back, resisting the draw of sleep and finally check my phone. It's 3:58pm.