false awakening

False Awakening
Lucid
Non-Lucid

Sometimes I can't recall the actual order of the dream because it all feels the same. Anyway. I'll tell it in the way that makes the most sense. Jack always wears blue and black, though this time he also had a grey vest. He appears in uniform, police or military. He has dark hair and pale skin. He's always my friend but is sometimes more.
I wake up in my house but it feels strange. I can't figure out why exactly but I know I don't like it. It's like having a word on the tip of your tongue. Anyway, I get out of bed and I wander down the hallway. I glance over my shoulder and it's only when I realize the master bedroom is swapped with the other bedroom that I know I'm dreaming. There's a subdued sense of relief and I make my way to the front door. Instead of being on the east wall it's on the north end, and it feels so damn familiar. I know I've been here before. I push the front door open and frigid winter air greets me. I'm delighted when I find it's snowing. I can feel the air and the sharp bite of the snowflakes melting on my cheeks. There's a white crosshatch gate. I open it and climb out onto a massive snowdrift, laughing and spinning in a circle. My neighbor crosses the lawn and I wave. He gives me a small smile and ducks his head against the icy wind. This does nothing to dampen enthusiasm and I throw handfuls of snow into the air in wild exultation.

Suddenly I am back in bed. I experience a moment of vertigo as I sit up. It's only when I realize that the two bedrooms of my apartment have switched places that I know I'm dreaming. Still, it is a distant realization. I move toward one of the two closets and look inside, there is an old washer and dryer set in there. I back out and see Jack there. I should be clear though, I only know it's Jack in retrospect. I have been doing this a lot lately. Depression makes me indistinct and so my recurring dcs are indistinct. I know him because he is wearing blue and black, as Jack always does, and because he feels the same way. He's the right build, though I never see his face.
I recognize him, standing in front of the other closet. He is mine.
He shows me the new washer and dryer set in the second closet, though I have already seen it. It's like a game. I turn to kiss him and get an impression of pale skin and black hair, also very much Jack.

There's a lapse. A very stark lapse. I'm in a dim hospital. Jack was a police officer who was killed on duty. All of his friends gather in vigil around the room containing his body bag. I can't quite believe he's dead and I wander away from the sober scene, all those uniforms gathered in chairs around the room. That is the only reason I survive.

The hospital is so very still in the late hours of the night. Dim. Quiet. The recently dead become quick, nimble zombies pouring down the hallways in waves. I hear them before I see them and have a moment of intense annoyance and disbelief. Of fucking COURSE there are zombies. Why the fuck not.
I run away. I realize I'm barefoot. I can feel the doors under my hands as I push them open, and the rush of night air that greets me. And the sound of the undead pouring out in my wake. I almost lose my lucidity and think I have to find MY car. Then I think "No, you're lucid. ANY car will work. PICK ANY CAR." I don't get to find out if that is true. I run for a car, the zombies coursing around me like I'm a wide river stone. I pull a car door open---

My vision...fluctuates. I try to focus. It's hard to say how I do it. It feels like I'm looking up, like I'm willing my eyes to close? I find myself in a motorcycle shop with a familiar blond, bearded man in a leather vest. I immediately start to cry. "Where am I?" I ask him. "How did I get here?"
I move around the counter as I ask these questions, my eyes straying to the tv mounted on the wall behind him. I ask but I already know that he saved me from the onrush of zombies. He asks me if I've seen a certain documentary, or heard of a series of experiments. I know of it in a distant way, but it still feels like I'm lying when I say I've seen it and he seems to know it is a lie. He explains that the undead are everywhere and they managed to pull me here, though it is unclear if I will turn.

I'm really only posting this because I found it interesting.

I don't recall ever having a more gentle transition from waking to dreaming than what I experienced during my nap yesterday. I was drifting between fragments, constantly shifting, but not restless. I turned over and closed my eyes. In closing my eyes, a new scene became visible on the back of my eyelids. I knew at once I was staring at a wall, and that I was laying on a floor. My hold seemed tenuous like I was at risk of losing lucidity, but the dream was odd that way too. I had many lapses in which I found myself back in bed, and when I closed my eyes the dream reappeared in the same gentle way, but my dream self was confused and worried that I was 'blacking out again' and that if I was blacking out I wouldn't be able to hunt packs of fury when they raged through town. We called zombies Fury. O.o

I don't remember much, I remember quite a few lapses. I know the room I woke in had three fireplaces and there were many small indicators that would have allowed me to become lucid, but I never pursued them. Like, thinking that this house had two kitchens just like my grandparent's house when I was a kid. I realized that wasn't true and experienced a panicked moment of vertigo and a fading to the clarity of the dream, which my dream self took as the edge of a blackout, so I backed off. Or thinking that the man in the room with three fireplaces was my grandfather, and then wondering how he could be my grandfather since both of mine are dead.
And the fact that there were bears hanging out on the deck.

Anyway, many times when I began to lose focus and 'black out' someone would offer me their hand and it would ground me in the dream. I also remember a disturbing conversation with a childhood friend, who I shared the house with in which she points out that I've been suicidal for a while, and she noticed because when I would go out to hunt Fury, if I stepped into the pack I would look left, then look right, and then look right again. She explained that I did this so that if an attack came from the left, I would not be forced to defend myself and I could die.
"Would that be so terrible though? Maybe I shouldn't come back." I reply.


Sometimes, when I am in a dark mental space, my subconscious will save me from it by giving me a soothing dream. I have talked about them before. They instill in me a sense of well being, and even if they don't make me feel good, I no longer feel as bad as I did before I slept.
This one was lovely but very short.
I found myself running along a familiar road, like I was coming off the highway. It was crowded with trees. At the start of the bend, there is a guard rail and a sign marking the merging of the lanes from two on the left side, to one. So it will be a regular two-lane road. I'm confused when I see a car coming at me in the lane that should be going the other way. I jump off the road into the brush and it is only three quick hops before I take to the sky. I rarely have big lucid epiphanies they are subtle realizations. I will notice something is off, or I will look at the sky and think that I want to be there, and then I am.
Anyway. I take to the sky, which is a sweet, green-tinged blue. Many feet of the ground I find rain that is waiting to fall. There are hundreds of individual droplets. I rise, softly turning through the suspended rain. I can feel a cool breeze on my skin, easing the stitch from my brow, and the kiss of rain on my face and arms. I take a deep, slow breath. It's so beautiful here.

I would like to know why I have so many false awakenings. I've grown used to it but it seems...unusual.

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.

Non-Lucid
Actual Waking
False Awakening
Lucid
The dream setting is uninteresting, I'm facing the wall and I see the edge of the pillow and the face of the mattress. There's a vague sense of unreality that makes me think I'm dreaming, to test it I press my hand flat against the mattress and push. My palm breaks the surface like it is a pool of water and I reach down past the mattress into a strange place that is infinitely black.
Something drives me to a lighter sleep, it feels like waking but isn't. My boyfriend comes into the room and lays behind me, it makes me uncomfortable but I can't tell him to stop. He says something about going to the store and gets up. I can hear his keys jangling.
I descend once more, for a moment I'm confused about whether or not I'm awake. I press my hand down into the mattress, past it into the dark. My knuckles brush against a metal bar, then I feel a hand grip mine. At first I am startled and frightened, and I rip my hand free. The force of my extraction jars me almost unto waking.
I have some awareness that I'm not yet awake, I see the same view of my wall, the edge of the pillow and the face of the mattress. My mind sinks a fraction and I thrust my hand into the mattress. I immediately feel a small hand (about the size of my own) grip mine. It slips away so I reach further, this time with both arms clear up to my shoulders. My left cheek and ear descend as well, once my ear clears the mattress I can hear a woman screaming. Sometimes wordlessly, other times for help. I can't speak but I try to pacify her, all the same. This works for about two seconds. I have one of her wrists, I can make the shape of her arm. There is a very dim source of light nearby. I catch a glimpse of her face...and then she recognizes me.
"YOU!" She yells, it's accusatory and terrified, threaded with uncertainty for my motive. She wrenches herself from my grasp and, heart hammering, I retreat. I can't give up though. What kind of person would I be if I just left her there, all alone in the dark?
So, once more, I reach down. My knuckles brush the metal bar then her wrist. Her wild struggling and screams echo hollowly in the cavernous maw. I rear back, pulling her out through the mattress and collapsing backward, pulling with all my strength.
Honestly I was expecting to find Saja but she...is entirely different, if familiar. She is tiny, like Saja. Bird-boned with a pointed chin and high cheeks under ice blue eyes. She has light red-brown hair to her shoulders. I notice that she is naked, but while obviously feminine, her body could have belonged to a mannequin for all the details I didn't assign her form, and for all the notice I take of said nakedness. She's trying to catch her breath, laying there gasping. She seems...disgusted with me, but I don't know why. I glance away and then back at her, and she's suddenly gone.
Then I realize she's fused into my back, and her arms are hanging under mine. EEEEEEEEEE....WHYYYY?
I decide it's time to leave!
I take off down the hallway and out into the yard. (I used a door!) I reach up to grab the top of the brick privacy wall and climb up. While I'm doing it I wonder why I didn't use the gate, and decide that it's easier to stay lucid if I do things a different way. I get distracted by my (the woman's) extra arms flailing around....

There's a moment of vertigo and I wake briefly, this time for real, though I'm confused because my view is...the wall, the edge of my pillow and the face of the mattress.

When I fall back asleep, I am still in my room, the woman lays nearby. I remember my initial purpose when laying down for a nap. I wanted to get answers out of Liam, I wanted to try to find him to ask about the whole wanting me to die thing. So I repeat his name in my mind, a low mantra, and extend my right arm down into the darkness. I don't feel hands this time, much to my disappointment, but a scene lays itself out for me. It's a warehouse with two large, dim, circular light fixtures. They reveal a pool table and a vaguely familiar man with chin length dirty-blond hair. He wears a loose white shirt and one of the harnesses from Maze Runner. I see their story clearly, that I was once friends with them. The man I see is a serial killer ((*annoyed sigh*)), who at this point is wearing a very convincing person suit. The woman believes they are good friends, but this is before he betrays her and confines her forever to the Dark. He turns his eyes very slowly up to meet mine, jarring me to a lighter level of sleep. You know, this isn't the only time I've gone looking for Liam and found a serial killer instead. What exactly are you trying to say, subconscious?

Once more I find myself in my room, laying in bed. The woman is not here anymore, as far as I can tell she is no longer fused to my back. I rush down the hallway, out the front door and into the patio. I use the gate this time, because it's standing open, to get out to the driveway. The wind blows my hair across my eyes, annoying me, but I'm worried if I try to brush it back, the motion will wake me up. So I turn my face against the wind and let the next gust do it for me. The dream starts to break apart and I stop walking, hoping it will stabilize. That only makes it worse.
Keep moving,my subconscious whispers, it'll force your brain to keep creating images., I take my own advice and continue to the end of the driveway. I feel flush with pleasure when everything settles back into place. I want to see how far I can get and how different this is from reality, before I wake up. I get to the end of the cul-de-sac and there's an unsightly gap between the houses, the lawn there is all churned mud, and beyond that the landscape drops down. I can see a great city reaching out across the horizon, as far as I can see. But before that is a messy highway. Hmm.
I trip in the mud.
My leg jerks violently, interrupting the dream. I wake briefly.
Oops.
When I slip back under, I run outside and this time decide to go left. The street is much more interesting in this direction. I actually think I've visited this in a lucid before. The wind presses my glasses to my face...wait, I haven't worn glasses in years. It feels like when I use to fall asleep with them on. But I'm dreaming, I don't need glasses. I try not to think about it too hard, because that's what usually trips up my lucid commands. I instead blink slowly, and think about not needing them and POOF. They're gone. I grin, taking in the wide street, lined with trees. The next cross street is also wide, but there are white and red bricks in 3 ft walls at the edge of the sidewalk. I see a man riding either a golf-cart or a bicycle, it's hard to tell. He's an older gentleman, wearing mostly white, with a white beret and a plaid undershirt. He uh...notices that I'm lucid and grins. He then makes a show of reaching into his pocket and pulling out a coin. He throws it at me and I raise my hand to catch it (even though he's pretty far away) but the wind makes it go wild. I see it whip past and I see it, willing it into my hand. I feel the sharp slap of the coin against my palm and hold it up in triumph. He throws his head back and laughs, then gives me a thumbs up and a finger-gun, buddy-Christ-style.
The interaction makes me feel light, happy, and unspeakably amused.
I turn to continue exploring the street, but only make it a few more yards before waking.

Non-lucid
Lucid
False Awakening
I've fallen asleep on the couch in the middle of the day and this is what I got.

I'm in my house, laying on the couch. Everything is in its place and it all feels right. My boyfriend comes into the room and starts to pick a fight with me, it was over something really stupid but I can't remember what it was. He leaves the room, still fighting with me from another. I feel compelled to follow him but instead I roll over and go back to sleep.
I'm in my house, laying on the couch. everything is in its place and it all feels right. My boyfriend is in the kitchen, talking to me. I get up and the world shifts around me. It feels sluggish and my vision keeps warping the room. I walk into the kitchen,
"Hey! This is really weird. I think I'm still asleep."
"Let's watch Supernatural." He says, walking past me into the living room.
"Didn't you hear me? Something weird is happening."
"Are we going to watch this or not?" He asks.
I frown in response, bothered by how he's ignoring what's happening to me, but I follow him. He sits down on the couch with his coffee and waits for me to put in the dvd. I seize one of the cases and put it down with more force than is necessary, annoyed that for some reason I'm expected to do this. Why can't he put the damn dvd in the player? I put it in and turn on the tv. I look at the screen, the play menu keeps blending with an episode making it hard to watch. The then realize it isn't Supernatural but Beauty and the Beast.

"Sorry, this is season 5 of Beauty and the Beast."
"Let's watch it anyway."
"You want to start at the end?"
"Sure."

It bothers me because I realize he doesn't care at all about the story, I wonder if that extends to everything we watch together that I suggest to him. Everything goes blurry and I hold my head, waiting for it to stop.
When it does I'm laying on the couch. Everything is in its place and feels right. I experience a moment of vertigo but it passes. My boyfriend comes into the room and picks a fight with me, and then storms off outside to mow the yard. The front door is open. I move to follow him and run into a small desk pushed against the wall beside the door. I resist the urge to overturn it. It seems extremely stupid that we have a computer right here, and that it's not even centered on the desk. As I move it into the middle I realize why we had it offset, it's sort of...school desk shaped. It's got an uneven side that reminds me of a bottle neck.

"Now I'm questioning everything!" I hear him say. "If you've lied to me about this, what else have you lied about?"

It still seems like a really stupid thing to make him call our relationship into question. I roll my eyes. He starts working and I go into the garage to fix something. The garage door is open and right at the edge of it I can see he's talking to his dad who, per usual, has asked when we're getting married.

"I don't even know if I want to be married now!" He snaps. As he says it he lifts his head and shoots me a look. I'm deeply offended.
"REALLY? Right now? Right there on the yard?" I snap back. He ignores me. Fine. I leave the garage and as I step back into the main part of the house I have more vertigo. This time the unreality of the situation strikes me. Besides, wasn't it raining when I fell asleep?

I shake my head, annoyed, and go to my room to get my shoes. Everything looks as it should, except the colors are more vivid. Movement is easy, like I could jump or fly if I wished. Like I'm weightless. I put on my shoes and jog back out to the living room. I look out the open door and the tree on our patio has large white flowers, near the center it becomes dark pink. The shape suggests an orchid. I decide I'm wasting my time standing here arguing. I run out onto the patio. Why stay here when I can do whatever I want? I look up into the sky, an elegant branch full of flowers hangs down just out of arms reach. I can do anything. I crouch and then leap skyward. At first all I can do is grab the branch.

"Let's try that again." I say, then jump again.

I feel weightless and full of energy. I climb the branch hand-over-hand like it's a rope, I notice there is fruit mixed in with the flowers, they look almost like already cut quarters of a peach but they are dark brown. They smell wonderful. I release the branch and jump down to the roof of the house, fruit in hand. As I walk, I eat. I briefly see the house from overhead. When I see the layout it feels like I've come home, though I've never been to a place like it.
It's got a wide, flat, tan roof. There's a lower section of roof over part of the patio, hugging top right corner of the house in an L shape. I can see the dark vividly green grass, more like moss here. The trees lining the wire fence, hiding everything beyond it.
There are many animals on the roof. I startle several birds. A raccoon-like creature regards me warily. I drop a piece of fruit at its feet and will it to eat. It does so reluctantly.
Anything. Anything. What will I do? I do not want to fly. Besides, the dream has made the boundaries clear and if I have to focus on flying and creating something knew outside the fenced area I'll probably wake up.
I scout the edges of the roof and smile when I see the gate. Of course, my way out.
I drop lithely to the grass below and lope to the gate. I try to walk through when light pink bands of energy repulse me. I frown and look at the guard who just appeared.

"Hey, you wanna let me out?" I ask.
"We're under orders to---"
"To let me out?"
He frowns at me, nonplussed that I'm being difficult.
"Listen..."
"Nooo. YOU listen. I live here, I can leave if I want. If anything happens to me I promise I won't throw you under the bus."

He very reluctantly unbands the energy and allows me to go through. As I'm stepping out to the clear faintly pink bridge beyond I think

"Well, this is new and interesting." Since it isn't remotely like anywhere I've been or imagined, and doesn't match a game I've played. I waggle my fingers at him to say goodbye and then I run across the bridge, then up a ramp. I'm almost out, thank god.

There's an arched doorway ahead. I duck inside and immediately see the rectangle of bright light on the other side of the room, the next and final doorway. A tall man in red robes blocks the light and glares at me.

"What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm leaving." I say, glaring at him.
"So you'll just throw it all away? You know what's expected."
"I don't CARE. I don't want any of it."

I notice a wall, it rises out of the floor at a slant, on the other side of it are lit candles and pictures. An alter for my sister's family, an alter for my brother's. I know this means that they have long since died, but they have done their duty to continue the line, by bearing children.

"They need your children. They will be the most adept."
"I. Don't. Care. I want to leave."
"You can't defy me this way! Do you know who I am?"
I glare at him over my shoulder, absently picking up one of the pictures. "Do you know who I am? After all I've been through, everything I've done for this miserable little world, all I have LOST. You can't make me stay."
"Oh? And who are you?"
I am speaking as Saja even though I have not become her like I usually do. "Are you saying you can't tell?"
"It doesn't matter, I still have to stop you."
"Go ahead and try."

He has strayed from the door. I drop the picture and dart past him. He grabs my shoulders and pushes me off to the side, as I'm rounding to face him.

"Prove it then." He says, drawing his hand back up over his head.

A pinkish-purple energy orb appears in his palm. He throws it at me. I hold out my hand to stop it and absorb it into my palm. It tingles. He looks surprised, especially when I throw it back, but now it's faintly disc shaped and white. He grabs it but instead of absorbing the energy it spreads all over his skin and flickers orange like fire. I charge toward him.
"Ah.Oomeht.Kaelish. Oruk-ti. Ah.vet.MAH." I say it with quiet conviction. I hold my hand out and try to snap to ignite the stuff on his skin (a la Colonel Mustang). But the priest grabs my hand in his fist, making it impossible to move my fingers. We grapple for a tense moment.
He looks disconcerted.
"Didn't you hear me?" I ask.
We end up saying the words together, and I'm amazed that I remember them perfectly.
"So you're an angel, makes no difference to me. You cannot leave."

Spoiler for Random racy scene between myself and another woman. I'm amused to realize she's about Liam's height. My subconscious has a SERIOUS problem.:

Aaaaand then it gets weird. I have no idea what happens here. The camera pulls out and I no longer look like myself but Brienne of Tarth and the man is now a woman with long honey blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. We stand there, holding onto each other. It's kind of an embrace.
"My place isn't here." I say. She agrees with me and we study each others faces. I know she will allow me to go. First though...
I separate from the scene again and Bree leans forward and kisses the girl squarely on the mouth. Watching, I'm really confused why that's happening. WTF?
Then they start to make out. Suddenly I'm the girl with the ponytail and she is bearing me to the ground, settling between my legs and grinding against me. It feels amazing, and real and sharp.

The world wavers and I wonder why the pleasure should feel so real. I tilt my head back and I come to the conclusion that it's something that's happening in the waking world. Even though Bree is sitting back on her heels, I can feel a head on my chest. I run my fingers through their hair, it's long and smooth. My boyfriend, obviously. I allow myself to wake up.

Except that I don't. He sits up and smiles at me. I'm disappointed that he woke me before I could finish the dream and I don't really feel like having sex. He gets up and I follow him into the kitchen. The front door is open. Suddenly a girl I used to work with, Brittany, who has chin length red hair, comes through the door. I'm confused, because if I'm awake the gate should be locked.
I experience another moment of vertigo and I go to greet her like she's supposed to be here.
She smiles, looking radiant. "Hi! Sorry to drop in on you like this, I just wanted to see if you were going to come to the gathering tonight?"

"Of course we are."
"We can just all head over there together then! Here, let me introduce my husband to you."

Her husband comes in through the door. He is at least 6'5", which is gigantic next to my meager 4'11". I stare up at him. He has blue eyes like Liam and his hair is even a little red, though red-blonde. I'm am suddenly intensely jealous of Brittany. Then I'm distracted because another giant comes through the door. This one is an older man, all around big, a little overweight. He's at least 7 feet tall. I wonder how he came through the door without ducking. I shake her husband's hand, ignoring the familiar flush of tension as I regard his height and how similar his build is to Liam's.

For some reason the party is on our lawn. There are a lot of people milling around. I walk outside and I start to feel sick. I stagger back inside and lean over the trash can at the end of the counter. It's tall, about chest high. At some point it turns into a garbage disposal. I feel like there's something in my throat.
I reach into my mouth and start to pull out long ropes of...something. It looks a little like hair with strings of meat and some white stuff. A couple of women come inside and stare at me. I'm embarrassed that they're seeing this. Obviously there's something wrong with me. I grab another handful and pull it out, dropping it into the sink. I cough.
One of them says something I can't remember. Then she asks me if I'm okay.

"Oh yes. I'm fine." I say sarcastically. "Sure. Just stand there and watch, that's fine."
They keep staring at me. I cough and grab another handful from the back of my throat.
"This is what happens when eat meat and you haven't had it in a long time." She says.
"But I haven't."

More vertigo as dream memory replaces actual memory, and I remember a steak I ate earlier. Maybe she's right. I think I'm done for now. As I leave the kitchen I realize one of my back teeth is loose. I'm horrified when I spit several molars into my palm. No no...no. Well, I'll have to go to the dentist...at least I make enough money now that it won't be a problem. I lay down on the couch, feeling dizzy.
I wake up for real this time and am vastly relieved to have all my teeth.

I was going to give you some back story on Saja and Liam, but it seemed incredibly stupid when I typed it out. I often become Saja and almost every time I have a lucid dream I go looking for Liam.
Lucid
Non-Lucid
False Awakening

The layout of my house is huge. It also seems to share something of the more important houses I have lived

in. It is also, in part, Lowe's. I'm making my way down a wide hallway with cream-yellow walls and dark walnut trim and flooring. This part looks a little like my house in MA. I take a right at the end of the hall, the next one has a heavy dark walnut door with little lanterns on either side. I open the door and outside is the Lowe's parking lot. There are racks of flowers on either side, and then standing placidly between them is a team of horses hitched to a small wagon. It's a string of six. Well, I guess they're ponies. They are all paints, and only one of them is black and white, with black flecks all across his coat. I look at that one fondly. All the others are variations of chestnut and white.

I decide I want to ride one. I almost choose the last one in the train but he's tethered at the back of the others,

so I pass him by and walk to the less pretty first horse. This one is mostly chestnut and has very little white aside from a diamond marking and some white in his mane. The top of their heads are even with mine, making them fairly small.
I'm pleased by how small they are because I'm short, and I can climb onto his back without standing on something. I straddle the pony and grip his mane. He starts walking forward. The dream feels more vivid here, like before I was just on the edge of lucidity and now I've found it. I start experimenting with control, using my mind to change his path since I don't have any kind of reins. The parking lot is cold, there's some snow on the ground, and few cars. I lead the horse back toward the door and slide to the ground. I pat his neck. Something startles me, and I can't actually remember what. I run inside and slam the door, then take off down the hallway. Hoping that they didn't see me, and that if they did I'll be too far into the house for them to know where I've gone.

There's a lapse, I'm in the same building but this time it looks more like Lowe's. The aisle is also open

to the outdoors. A co-worker is talking to me. I stare at the wall behind him trying to figure out what's different about it. What's there that shouldn't be?

"....Did they put a bathroom here?" I ask, a little incredulous. This is one of my aisles after all.

"Why yes, it looks like they did." He says. I stare at the blue wall, which is just like the stalls in the bathroom. I can see the

seams now.

"There's no handle on the door, must not be finished."

Somehow I know this is the Women's stall, and there's a Men's room a couple aisles over. My co-worker wanders off outside and again I feel like I'm on the edge of lucidity, then pushing into it. It's a beautiful day out, and suddenly I wonder what the exterior of the building looks like. I run outside, feeling unnaturally fast. This section is actually a second floor, set higher than the main part of the building. The concrete is new and yellow-white. I run along, rushing past my co-worker who says something I can't remember. I fling the door open and run inside...

Another lapse and I'm in a hospital-like section. I'm here for tests? I think? I need to go to the bathroom

first. I walk down a long, wide hallway. It feels deserted. At the end is a bathroom. I can't figure out what's weird about it, despite the fact that there aren't stalls and there are just chairs by the sink. At first I think the chairs are toilets, until I sit down on one and realize it is, in fact, a chair. The cushion is yellow, wider at the front lip and more narrow by the back of the chair. I frown at it, I really need to go.
The room is kind of C or [ shaped. I go further inside, it's all white-pink tile with pale pink stalls. Finally!
The bottom of the stall panels are tall enough for me to duck under. I go into the first stall and am disgusted to see flecks of urine on the seat. I hear someone else come into the bathroom, and I'm suddenly embarrassed. Even as I'm doing it I wonder why. I duck under the wall and go into the next stall. And then into the next one. Which...puts me in a kind of mail room. It's dimly lit and there are bags as tall as my hips full of mail, with people rushing in and out. An old man with white hair is directing them.

"Trying to find the bathroom?" he asks.

"Yeah.."

Behind him I notice the wall is the side of a stall. He gestures to it. I smile and duck underneath. It puts me on the far side of a

string of stalls. When I turn the corner I'm walking with a tallish black girl, wearing a green t-shirt, her hair is pulled back into a fluffy bun. I feel a moment of vertigo. I hear myself say that I'm Saja and that 'd been looking for her everywhere. What had I just been doing? Something odd happens here, my vision doubles and I'm standing a couple feet from the black girl and a slightly taller willowy woman with long brown hair. I've separated from the woman, like I'd just been inside her. I can see the back of my head, the wavy black hair. I've become Saja.

"Hey!" I call after them. The girl in the green didn't hear me, but the other woman tenses and when I call

after her again she glances at me, whip quick. Then pretends I don't exist.

"Hey, I KNOW you!" I say. She looks extremely uncomfortable and leaves as quickly as she can without breaking into a run.

The girl in the green looks startled, and suddenly I become real to her. The woman had been pretending to be me.

"Who are you? What just happened?"
"I am Saja."
"Do you know her?"

"Yeah..." I say something I can't remember. I look up at her. I'm little next to her, she's almost a head taller than me.

We walk out of the bathroom, next to it is a kind of study with a long table. It's dim and cozy, dark red walls, a banked fire, bookshelves lining the walls.
"

Can you use magic?" She asks me curiously.

I smile a little, walking over the threshold behind the girl. "I am magic."
There are people gathered around the table. A male dc sitting across from us is trying to influence the dream by telling them all 'my' story.

"How do you know anything about her? Your family is broken, disgraceful. Thieves and murderers, all. Why, your father could

come in here right now and murder us all--slit our throats where we sit." I can feel the others start to believe him, but what's the benefit of being lucid if I can't change anything.

"That sure would be a trick, wouldn't it? Considering he's dead." The man is staring hard at me, and it takes me a minute to

realize that I'm lying. "I killed him myself, murdered the bastard in his sleep."
Another moment of vertigo, the man is smirking at me, like he wanted me to say all that. "No wait." I amend. "That isn't my story at all. You want to hear my story? All of it?" He rolls his eyes and leaves the table. The green t-shirt girl and a few others sit down. I remain standing.

"Have you ever heard of the Serpent?"

The all give me blank looks.

"Alright then, I'll tell you about It." I try to decide where to start. I try to tell them about Ru-em, the province I'm from in

the Midlands, and how our culture developed, how we learned to plant and harvest. Then I shake my head, trying to clear it. That's not where I want to start. "There is a creature, on the edge of existence. It moves from world to world, consuming all in its path." Someone rolls their eyes at me, bored. The girl in the green t-shirt is rapt.

"It's massive, as big as the sky." I can see it, the purple-black scar against a clear blue sky. How the world shook. "Ancient.

It crashed through our reality and into the earth, and down into the Spirit of our world. Which it would eat until nothing remained."
I move around the table, to a smaller one in the corner. The girl and a couple others follow me. I sit down and they take the seats across the table. There's a small spiral notebook.

"It wasn't really serpent-like." I pick up a pen and begin to draw. "More...like a--" I think a slug, but decide not to say that out

loud. "Like a whale and a manta-ray and--"

"And a worm?"
"Kind of like that, yes."

She stares down at my small drawing, the ridges by the tail fin. "It looks scary."

"It is." I pause, thinking that no one wants that horror to visit their door. I look down at the paper and decide I want to write

something down. I open a pen and write "Saja is magic."
It's clearly legible, actual words. The ink is a little thin, but I can't have everything.
I tug at the cap of a marker and worry for a second that this effort is going to wake me up. The dream wavers as I pull off the cap and settles again when I set marker tip to paper.
"Liam is alive." Instead of black, the words come out pale translucent green. The tip has split so the letters, while I know what they are, blur together.
I try to write it again, but the tip is still messed up. I stare at the notebook and smile. What am I doing here, playing these little games? I could be off looking for Liam. I leave the table and then the room, when I reach the hall I start to call out for him.

"Liam! Liiiiiaaaam? Are you here?" I call out several variations and my eyes are drawn to a window. For some reason the blinds

are on the outside. 1" aluminum blinds. I see blue eyes and then a smile through the slats. My heart pounds with excitement. It's never been so easy to find him! The man opens the window and I rush to meet him. I pull up short as he's trying to dip inside. It's not Liam. Not even close.
He's scrawny, medium-height, with gray-brown hair and sharp blue eyes. His teeth are crooked and yellow, he's dressed all in black. Skull-cap, jacket, jeans. All black. I frown at him.

"Who are you? Where's Liam?"
"What d'ya mean 'where's Liam', Liam's dead."
Panic grips me for a second but I refuse to believe him. "You're lying, he can't be dead. I would know."
"Wooould you?" He has an accent, faintly Scottish. "From all the way over here?"
"I would."
"I don't know what to tell you, swee-heart. He's definitely dead. Been dead a long time."
"Stop saying that!" I yell, twisting my hand into a fist in his jacket. "He isn't dead!"
"Suit yerself. Don't say I didn't warn ye." He laughs at me, I hate how amused he is at my expense.

I'm in my bed. I can hear talking in the other room, thinking my boyfriend is watching something on his computer. I get up, decide to ask him if he wants something to eat. The voices get a little louder and I distinctly remember hearing them on the episode of Revenge I watched before laying down. I approach his door, which is cracked open. I wonder if he's watching Revenge, something he never watches. I go inside. His bed doesn't look right, it's all gold and red. There's a woman wearing blue striped shorts and a white tank top curled up along his legs near the foot of the bed.
What? I frown at the form huddled under the blankets. He turns restlessly and it's not my boyfriend at all.

"God damn it, I'm still dreaming." I say, surprised. The man blinks awake and startles into a sitting position.
"What are you doing in here?"

Before he can even finish the sentence I glance to the wall behind me. It has a wide window, I recognize it as one of the rooms from the building. I grin and run to it, open it and shove the screen out. I throw myself out and land in the hallway down below.

I land at the foot of a concrete staircase. At the top is a door with a sign above it saying who is broadcasting inside and has radio station numbers.
I can hear them through a speaker by the door. "Just like Jack and Ron except, me, obviously like Jack, doesn't have a problem clearing the saliva from my throat." It makes his voice sound less thick. A man comes outside and notices me listening, he tips his hat to me but my eyes kind of slide around him. He's tall, wearing a black ball cap a dark green t-shirt and black knee length shorts.
A tv screen on the wall at the top of the stairs flickers to life. It features a short blonde woman who looks vaguely like Amanda Bynes, wearing a bring pink uniform and hat, standing under a spotlight in a black room. She is trying to act out their radio show and is getting mixed reactions.
I frown, what am I doing? I was looking for Liam. I find I'm standing in front of the tv, I head back down the stairs. The hall there ends in a glass door with a metal bar across the middle. I push it open and rush outside, calling for him. The dream feels brittle, like it's about to fall apart. The walls are...papery. Thin. A man on a motorcycle rushes past me and stops. He flips up the visor and for a second he looks exactly like Liam. I rush to him and him to me. He pulls of the helmet. The closer he gets the less he looks like Liam. It takes me a second to realize it though.

"Are you him?" I ask.

He looks puzzled. My heart sinks a little when I realize he's a stranger. "No, you're not, are you."
He smiles apologetically.
Wouldn't he be here if he were alive? Maybe he really is dead. The man from earlier moves up beside me.

"I told ya."
"Stop it." I snap.
"Tried to warn ya." He says. The buildings to either side of me are beginning to break apart, like sand in the wind.

I realize I am close to waking and I try to focus to hold it together a little longer.I ignore him. Even from here I can see muddy black waves crash through a line of structures, tearing them to shreds and beginning to flood the parking lot from 3 sides. I stand and observe.

"What do you think will happen if I let it have me?" I ask, I feel a little hopeless and wrung out. What's the point of anything if

Liam is dead?

"Likely you'll die."

I stare at the water. It's consuming the building closest to me.

"Here, step on that." The man shuffles a large thin piece of blue foam board at me. "Fat lot of good it'll do you."

He then escapes back the way we came. The water lifts the foam board, it starts to float away under a black truck. I step onto the corner, and it rises with the water. Water takes the path behind me, it's too late to run now. The board won't last me long, there's no way it can stand up to the raging water. Cool air blows the hair back from my face. The board is swept from under me and I remain in the air. I flap my arms like a bird and rise above the water, deciding I'm not quite ready to die. People beside the front of the Lowe's/Hospital/House are pointing up at me in awe. The water is receding, leaking away from the parking lot. I see a small group beside what looks like a...firetruck shaped like a four wheeler. I direct myself toward it, the police officer there is tall and fair skinned. He has bright blue eyes and I can see a little red under his hat. He holds his hand out to receive me as I alight on the top of the ladder extending from the top of the four wheeler. He helps me down. The top of my head barely reaches his shoulder. He looks strikingly like Liam but I know it isn't him, this man is only an echo. He knows exactly who I am though.

"You look just like him, you know."

He takes it as a compliment and smiles a little. "Thank you."
The police officer/Liam Echo turns away from me and speaks to the small group of survivors.

"Let's head inside where they are waiting to treat any injuries." He touches the brim of his hat when he glances at me, and then

his eyes rest on a legless woman in a wheel-chair with an IV drip. He says it's a miracle she survived. Given her health problems, the quality of her existence, I wonder if it might not be kinder if she had died. I'm not mean enough to say it though. He leads them inside, there's an emergency room bay just over the threshold.
Beside the door is a table. I walk to it. I notice there's an egg sitting in the middle of it. I pick it up and it slips from my hand, cracking against the table. It makes a noise like breaking, like it's boiled, but when I shake it I can hear the yolk. I test it between my hands and cracks spider out from the palms of my hands.
Now I'm curious. I throw it at the ground and the shell breaks away, but the yolk remains egg-shaped. Tough but still obviously a liquid. I begin to laugh, the revelation hitting me like a stone. I'm extremely delighted.
Of course, this is the message my subconscious wanted to send. Though the egg looked fragile, it could never actually have been broken.
I pick up the yolk, thinking to show the police officer. He seemed like he would enjoy a neat epiphany like this.

"Hey! Check this out!" He turns to face me and I throw the yolk. He isn't expecting it so he misses entirely and it breaks in

the most awkward spot. The crotch of his pants.

"Oh...I am so sorry! I just....wanted...to show you the egg!" I start laughing again, he looks a little amused and bewildered

and embarrassed. I leave, my last view of him is him trying to brush away the yolk. I decide it's time to wake up.