nightmare

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.

Work

A friend from work tells me he that one of the headlights on his car died and he needs a new bulb, but it's really expensive. He shows me an aisle of metal shelving full of white bulbs, that honestly look more like candles. The one he needs is $81.60. I want to help him pay half, even though I don't know him very well. I don't think he'll take it, so I awkwardly offer him $20.

Wanting

The first part is a little confusing. It was an odd mixture of television and Destiny. I see Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake. Mila is a sorceress, to save Justin and his party from death, she shrinks them so they are only a foot tall, and moves them from harm's way. o.O

I'm standing in a pool, the water is waist deep. My sister is next to me, eagerly answering texts on her phone. I'm jealous of her, and frown down at my phone. There's a dull ache in my chest and behind my eyes that could easily turn to tears if I let it. I want Ruadh to talk to me, like he used to. I think about texting him that but I know he wouldn't answer, or would pretend he never got it. He still pretends he's my friend, despite how easily he lies. I drop my phone in the water and the force of my wanting makes me believe I hear his text tone, I dive after it. I actually feel the weight and wetness of the water all around me, though I see myself in third person as my hand darts out to retrieve my phone. There is, of course, no text.

Broken Teeth

I make my way through a derelict building. All the windows have long since broken, the walls and floor are stained black and green. I'm supposed to meet my family, they'll be back soon. My teeth feel strange. One of my canines starts to break. I feel uneasy as I remove part of the tooth. To my horror, when I close my mouth, all my other teeth immediately fracture and fall apart. I have a mouthful of tooth shards. I start to spit them into my hands, then onto a table along with a thin yellow liquid like bile. It feels like I'm vomiting teeth. I can't breathe. All that's left in my gums are ragged stubs. I wonder insanely if a dentist can put my mouth back together.

Off to the side I notice a female dentist bent over a woman on the dentist's chair. The room is cast in a weird sick-green light. The patient leaves and I approach the dentist.
She's not precisely human, which is fine. I have no money, I might as well make a deal with a demon to fix my mouth. But for her to do me a favor, I know I have to do one for her. I climb into the chair. She has wide, almond shaped eyes, the pupil is black-red, the sclera is marbling blood-red. Her brown hair hangs straight just past her shoulders. She's crouches over the leg rest of the chair and bares her teeth at me.
"You think you can...entice me? Being beautiful?" I know she has a thing for pretty women, and while I might not feel pretty, maybe my offer will be enough.
I reach out and lightly touch her knee and she closes her eyes, smiling a little. Then, she says wistfully. "Alas...I don't take such favors from clients."

There's an eternal moment, where I am left wondering what I can do now. That was all I had to offer and she didn't want it from me. Do I have to live with my broken mouth? I can't let people see it...

I took a nap and had sleep paralysis for most of it, I attempted to become lucid but didn't quite make it.
As with most sleep paralysis, dreaming and waking were blended together, so that for the dream I was laying in my bed, but the room around me was slightly different. For one, there was a very tall man in a black suit, with a dark blue dress shirt standing beside my bed. I only got a glimpse at part of his scalp, since he covered his face with one hand. The other hand knocked against my knee, startling me anew ever few seconds. It was very unpleasant, trying very hard to become creepy. Then I realized he used the tapping for emphasis while speaking.
"Mother has died. Mother is dead. Mother is dead."
My voice came out sluggish, "I'm sorry." He tapped my knee again. "Please stop that."
The man paused and then repeated, obviously grief stricken, "She's dead."
I managed to lift my hand to catch his pale grey-white fingers before they tapped again. He ripped his hands from my feeble grip, seeming wild and angry.
"I asked you to stop that."

There was also something about finding the head of a doll in my blankets. I picked it up and smoothed down the hair, it had those eyes that blink when you tilt it. I was waiting for it to blink on its own.
Then I saw a tangle of thread that became a spider, crawling under my blanket.

I got out of bed, my feet heavy. I made it to the patio door and stepped outside onto the rough, wet concrete. It felt so real, but my vision remained dim. I walked out to the front gate, waiting for something to tip me off that I continued to dream, nothing did. One of my eyes remained closed. I put my hand over it, worried that the neighbor I could see standing across the street would think me odd, with one eye stuck shut.

I 'woke' in bed, and made my way out to the patio door. This time it looked different. There was a 3ft, red wooden door where the doggy door usually sits. I opened it and tried to go outside, but I was too big to fit. Of course.

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.

Here I go. =/ Maybe I should have prefaced this with something: This is one of the most awful nightmares I have ever had. The first part seemed normal, and then my subconscious decided to twist it into something disgusting. I'm almost impressed. -.-

We are in a long wide dining hall, the walls and floor are worn wood. There are long tables with plank seating. I'm wearing a billowy

white blouse with khaki riding pants and knee high boots. I am a young women with chin-length dark brown hair. I sit down next to a young man who has short medium brown hair. His features are perfectly shaped, high wide cheek bones, a constantly smiling mouth. I am seventeen, he is eighteen. I am in love with him and sometimes I am certain he knows it, as my best friend he knows me well enough to understand. Sometimes I think that he loves me too but he has always been so careful. A friend of ours named Robert has recently returned home from a long trip comes to sit with us. I don't remember where he went but it had been years since we had last seen him. Adam, the friend I am in love with, gets up to follow Robert. Watching them leave makes me feel a little sad.

"Hey, Deidre, come and look at this." Adam calls. I go to him, smiling. This part is pretty strange. He shows me a man that isn't who he

claims. Adam narrates that it is a golem controlled by magic and enchanted to look like someone we know. Somehow we see straight through it and so we see black eyes set in a bald clay-gray head, slope shouldered, wearing a faded quilted black tunic. As soon as it walks up to us we greet it like it really is the ambassador. It responds with a proper greeting, but follows that with an unintelligible scramble of words.

"See?" Adam says, we all share a secret smile as the golem walks stiffly through the crowd. It was sort of like we were on

stage and that whole scene was an aside to the audience, we ignore It and follow Robert out of the hall like we encountered nothing out of the ordinary.

There is a garden courtyard between wings of the house. It is night and a single wrought iron lamp post stands in the middle over bench on a dais. I find Adam sitting on the bench. He is obviously upset but he won't tell me why. I remind him that we used to play here as children and he nods absently, pretending he is fine.

"Hey, Addy." I say in a consoling tone, "Whatever it is, you can tell me." I drop to my knees next to the bench and slide my arms around his waist, resting my cheek on his thigh.

Here I come back to myself a little and I am no longer Deidre. Holding him is peaceful and familiar. It reminds me of Liam and for a time I put aside the character of Deidre and close my eyes to savor the moment, smiling in contentment. He's wearing a faded black button up and black pants, I notice out of the corner of my eye. I can feel Adam becoming more upset and my understanding of his character overlaps with my interpretation of him as Liam. Adam cannot reciprocate Deidre's feelings for him because he is in love with Robert, and at the same time I can feel Liam as he is trapped in the form of Adam, wanting so badly to reach me but locked in the confines of the dream, so that it is not possible. I want to tell him that it is alright, that I know about Robert, I want to tell him that I know he is not Liam, but that doesn't matter because for now he feels like him.

Adam hesitantly strokes my hair and my dual-nature snaps apart so that I am once again Deidre. I know he is trying to force himself to

feel something for me other than friendship. I sit up and give him a brief hug, I realize then that he's fantastically drunk. I help him stand and we stumble to the far side of the courtyard, by the time we reach the heavy stone threshold he is crying freely. We fall down in a tangle of limbs and he sobs pathetically that I should not help him at all. He ignores my protests to the contrary, telling me that he is in love with someone else.

"Is that someone else Robert?" I ask. That stuns him into silence. It makes me sad that he'll never fall in love with me, but I know he can't help it.

....and then the dream takes an ugly turn.

The dining hall is inside and outside at once, so that the far end has no wall and lacks a ceiling. At the enclosed end in the corner is an

ivory colored couch. We have a female friend over, she's sitting on the back of the couch and I am kneeling on the cushions with the front of my body pressed to the back of the piece. I have something gross on my hands that I get all over the top of the couch, and when I get up I realize I have left a large water stain where my body had previously leaned. A courier arrives with news from our father. ((because, you know, we're siblings, and in case you weren't paying attention that means I'm in love with my brother, who is in love with our older brother...eeeeeee)) It is a letter for us and a small wooden crate filled with nesting fiber. There is a necklace in the envelope, it has two overlapping pendants, a crescent moon and a dagger. Robert hands the necklace to me and I put it on, when I lean over the back of the couch the dagger pricks my chest and I rub at the wound absently.

The courier is not a physical person anymore. Robert is standing nearby reading aloud a letter we have received. The letter explains

what happened to our father, how he went mad then raped and murdered a woman, he says something about the contents of the crate being cursed, and that it will spread to all our family. As he is saying this, I'm holding the necklace away from my skin, looking horrified. Adam though does not believe it. He is to enthralled by the crate to pay attention and neither of us are watching him. He thrusts his hand down into the crate and comes up with a handful of sand and a tiny stone artifact. The effect is immediate. The sclera of his eyes goes black, the irises turn orange/red, like flame. Black growths force their way out his skin along his cheekbones. He holds the artifact up over his head and a mad grin splits his face grotesquely.

"Adam?" I slide off the couch and begin to back away from him. He is too distracted by this new development that he doesn't notice me.

Yet. He stalks around the room, Robert seizes his arm to stop him and becomes cursed just as quickly. I know what they will do to me because of what is in the letter. Never mind that Adam is gay and a day before would not have touched me. It no longer matters because his mind is gone and his body under the control of the rage. I run for the door in the corner that leads out to the deck stairs. He gives my shoulders a shove and I stumble. I feel his fingers slip under a gap in the back of the waist of my pants, he tugs lightly. Almost tentatively. I scramble away but he is still hovering over me.

Spoiler for One of the rape parts, if you would rather skip it.:

Now I have a choice, I have a split second of lucidity and I think "It won't be rape anymore if I stop fighting. I know he isn't Adam anymore, but this is the closest I'll ever be to him, and so what if he beats me to death after? Then I won't care anymore."
I pretend that his hands on my waist don't make me feel sick, the greedy skittering of his fingers on my hips when I unbuckle my belt.
At first it isn't so bad. I don't feel anything one way or another, I just ignore his animal-like grunting and uncomfortable stab as he moves. After a few minutes he becomes wildly violent and I decide I made a mistake, that I really can't endure this, I fight my way to the wall. There is a button there on a touch screen that I can push to stop the simulation. So I do.

I get a do-over. I see Adam pull the figurine from the crate, and his transformation. I immediately dart for the door and make it halfway down the steps before he tackles me straight to the ground. I scream and struggle out from under him, fighting around to the front of the house.
Then there's something about the golem trying to attack us, and me and the others trying to throw flashlights at it, but the things are too heavy and not good for throwing at people. (O.o) The yard we are on is clearly the front yard from the house in MA. Except the grass has a blue tint and the sky looks more like a ceiling painted blue.

Spoiler for Second rape part.:

There's a break. I am out on the yard and the end of it morphs into a wall where there's almost an enclosed pool (I don't know, my dream layouts are weird). The curb is more like the edge to a public pool. We are waiting for help, someone has called the police and fire department. There are people sleeping everywhere, mostly men. They were all naked, and when the curse takes effect they are suddenly all uh...erect. They feel like time bombs to me. That if I wake them they will all be on me and then I will have no hope of surviving. I might get raped, but I am going to live damn it. A chubby young man begins to catch the curse and changes. At first he looks confused and distracted...then he notices me. I make a run for it and he chases me, I vault over the wall at the end of the yard and try to flee to the corner of the pool where the stairs are, but he leaps down with surprising agility and slams me into the wall. My head feels like it is going to split open and and I become disoriented. He flips me over, hands clumsily fumble with my nightgown. He's too heavy to knock off of me. My best bet is to wait until he's...distracted.

I try not to focus on what he's doing, and I try not to laugh at him, because even in the thrall of the curse he is inexperienced and can't

even effectively rape me. His movements are inconsistent, but the slack jawed expression he wears disturbs me. When he shifts his weight for a better angle, briefly freeing my arms, I reach up and slam my palms against his ears. He cries out and falls backward. I stand up and knee him in the face as hard as I can. I can hear people moving around on the other side of the wall, but they are talking so I am certain that they are not cursed men made monsters. I mount the wall and see female police officers everywhere. They are cataloging evidence. The worst part is there are children laying down at the edge of the pool. Some of the more unfortunate ones have lived through the experience. One blond-haired little girl with blood-shot eyes stares at me, too injured to move. The children laying on each side of her are either dead or asleep. Olivia Dunham talks about the signs of assault and rape, pointing to various pieces of evidence before pulling a sheet over piles of battered bodies.

There's a lapse, it is some time in the far future. Because I was one of the first cursed and I am a woman I have lived ages longer than I should have. I'm in a sanctum of sorts, there are priestesses who serve the Cold, they are called Whisper Mothers and Sisters. Their garb is almost like a nuns, except the wimple is shaped differently and their robes are in layers, slashed black over robes with white underneath.
They were responsible for subduing the entity before my father unwittingly unleashed it so many generations ago. It went curiously quiet after the event at the pool, laying in wait for the proper time. Now it has begun again. I hesitate then get the Whisper Mother's attention.

"Mother..."

She continues to pace.

"Mother?"

Distractedly she stops, clutching an elaborate cross that hangs around her neck. It is silver and has a ruby at its center. "Yes, sister?"

"What caused the Emergence?" I ask.
"I don't have time for questions, Lady." She responds.
"Is it true the madness began with a stone artifact?" I ask.

Then she truly looks at me. The servants of the Cold value truth and clarity above all things. They may seem harsh, but they are a product of the world in which they were raised. Her eyes sharpen and she purses her lips in worry.

"Yes. A stone artifact fed by the fire of shame."
"Please, I am only curious if there is a way to stop It from happening again?" I ask.

She paces the width of the sanctum. There is a heavy weathered wood railing and something like a decorative bulkhead bisecting the end of the room. "Truth may be enough to stop it, and the blood of the repentant. So, tell me." Her eyes flick to me, cold with recognition and accusation. "Are you repentant for laying with your brother Adam?"

"I never lay with Adam." I say, dropping my eyes. I suppose that allowing him to rape me counts.
She narrows her eyes at me. "You are a liar, Deidre."
"Yes." I agree, feeling the weight of my shame. "Yes."
"Still, there is something we can accomplish, the others are on their way here."

My view pulls out a little, viewing the scene from overhead. From here I can see the walkway outside, and the great circular stained glass gate where a Whisper Sister waits and an assassin in black and red leather armor is stealthed by the entry way. No one will get by, the Servants of the Cold must be protected.

I see a distortion in the air, a heat wave. A spark and a cruel laughing mouth inside a cooling lava face, horns curling back over its

head. Its flame tongue licks the air. Silent in its passing it steals in through the door, scorches on the wood mark its path across the floor, it slips in like a ghost and alights a touch upon her brow, and when the creature passes she has turned to ashes on the ground. Screams from inside filter out to where I stand, all within have died before they could lift a hand. I can hear the Whisper Mother inside, screaming wild negations and questions, "Why this, why now after all this time?", It has saved her for last.
The sister outside shrieks in a desperate forlorn way when she realizes that all the women inside are dead, the assassin at the door wrestles her away and they flee together.

And so I get a sense of the Flame. A vast, calculating mind that cares for nothing at all, its singular dream is to burn the world to

cinders and scatter the ashes in the wind. It wants only to consume, take, until everything is gone. And it will. It will.

False Awakening: I rise to another layer of sleep and think that I am awake. After all, my boyfriend is playing Skyrim on his computer just like when I fell asleep. He notices I am awake and comes to kneel on the bed. He kisses me but the idea of doing anything like that after a dream about rape is not at all appealing. I tell him to stop and I mention the rape dream, but he keeps touching me anyway not realizing that it is uncomfortable and unpleasant.

Then I really wake up. Thank God.

Forgot that I never copied this to my Dream Journal even though I made a post about it. I may as well add another while I'm here.

Co-worker acting Strangely - 12/14/2012

I don't remember how the dream began. Like many of my dreams it took place in one of my childhood homes, except that the wall dividing the two bedrooms at the end of the hall is gone so that it is one big room. A co-worker of mine (I'll call him K) is intentionally scaring people. But not in a leap-around-corners kind of way. More in an extremely-creepy-I'm-intending-to-murder-you way.

I'm watching him from the end of the hall. He's wearing ancient Chinese armor. It's all brown and black, the front and back are dark brown tiles linked together, with black plating underneath. He's wearing kind of a conical helmet with a face on the front, and a face on the back. The armor is designed in such a way that it's very difficult to tell which direction he is actually facing in. K is moving around the two people at the other end of the hall, twisting and sliding and bending like a contortionist.
This is about when I become aware it's a dream. I go to the other end of the hall, though he really scares me. I see that he's pulling a small bronze knife with a triangular blade from inside his armor. I can see another one. I make the choice to steal it as he's twisting around the man at the end of the hall. I believe that this is my only chance to stop the horror of K. So I grab the knife from inside his armor and stab him in the neck. The blade goes in, but he is bloodless. He takes the helmet off and removes the knife from his neck. It slides out like his skin is a sheathe. K slides the knife back into his neck and pulls it out several times, grinning at the three of us. I'm horrified.

The dream skips scenes. I'm standing at the start of the hallway again. I am very tired and I can see my bed. I'm really looking forward to sleeping. It has a tarnished brass frame and stark white sheets. That's when I realize K is laying in the exact middle of the bed, his presence deeply dismays me, though now he's just wearing a white t-shirt. The armor is gone. I assume he's not playing the creepy guy anymore, and see that as a role, a costume. I'm afraid, but I'm tired and I just want to rest. I walk to the bed and pull the sheet back like I'm going to lay down, but then I just stare at him. I can see the bloodless slit in his neck where he was keeping the knife. It really unsettles me. I go into the black doorway across from the bed, knowing it's my parent's bedroom. I realize the couple inside are not my parents, and I don't really know what I expect them to do about my problem. But, like a frightened child (that's even how I identified this action in the dream), I wake the man by lightly touching his foot.
"I don't know where I'm supposed to sleep....K is in my bed."
"It's alright, don't worry about it." The man says.
"But I'm afraid."
The man doesn't respond, I know he's gone back to sleep. I return to my bed. K rolls over and sits up. I just look at him warily.
"It's okay if you lay down." he says.
Reluctantly, I get under the sheets. I'm still afraid. He tries to reassure me that he's not going to kill me, but as he says it he pulls the bronze knife from under one of the pillows and casually slips it into the slit in his neck. He grins. I'm not reassured at all...

I honestly don't understand. As a person, K doesn't scare me. We're even work friends. On top of that I very rarely have nightmares, so I don't know why I had this one. Nothing has happened at work with K to trigger it. ((In hindsight this is hilarious. At the time it was true, I didn't really have nightmares for a long time. I've had many lately =/))

A man in a suit is talking to a young man with a narrow face, black eyes and black hair. He's giving him news of some inevitable event. The guy reacts childishly, beginning to protest in a high, frightened voice. "No, no, no, no, I don't want to. I don't WANT to. No, no, no."
The man in the suit frowns at him, thinking that obviously this person is more child than man. He had expected a more mature reaction. The kid looks dead-eyed, and for a second I wonder if he's pretending to be scared. Then I realize I've misinterpreted his wooden expression, he's terrified.


Saja and Wolf, Shame and Separation 02/05/2013
Part of this is going in a spoiler because it's sexual.
The beginning is much less clear than the end. I'm traveling in proximity with a group of people. It feels like we are on foot, going in the same direction but not actually together.
There's a long lush green field. They sky is gray overhead, but I've always liked how vivid the world looks following a rain spell. There are a couple of people flying kites. From the back, I recognize Walter Bishop. We end up riding bikes down the length of field , careful not to run long black hoses. I had a reason for doing that, but I can't remember it now.
We arrive at the house just before nightfall. The house feels old and rundown. The walls are wood paneled, the carpet dingy white. A few feet from the front door is a large mattress and a chair at the foot of the bed. I stand by the chair. A middle-aged man with curly black hair going gray, decides that the thing to do now is have sex.

Spoiler for grossness. :

Everyone except one woman and a couple of the men object. On the left half of the mattress is the man's brother, laying with a long legged blonde woman. She is only wearing a light blue button-up. He opens the shirt, spooning behind her. I catch the eye of the other man laying on the right half of the bed.
He eyes me lustfully. I just stand there, uncertain, unwilling. All around the house, people are pairing off. I feel like I have to do it too, and at the time, I almost want to.
"Take off your shirt, pants and bra. Leave on the that jacket and your panties."
I do as he says, leaving myself barely clothed now in white panties and a fuchsia duster that hangs to mid-thigh. He holds his hand out to me and I walk across the mattress on my knees to take it. He pulls me down in front of him. I feel a surge a disgust.
"Yes, that's nice." He croons as I lay down on my side. When I move the sweater pulls open. I'm pretty sure I don't want to have sex, especially with all these people around. He tries to convince me otherwise, telling me to watch the others. My eyes skate over the blonde and his brother. He's calling our attention to her arousal.
The man starts to touch me, pressing his lips to my neck and fondling my breasts. He slips a hand down between my legs and whispers to me. This goes on for a long time, but he doesn't take me. The whole thing feels like a mockery of something, and I can't put my finger on what it is. Like there's a deeply buried memory similar to what the man is doing, but this time I'm revolted.

A fierce-looking woman with red-blonde hair stands at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, looking disgusted. She beckons to me. I'm relieved I have a reason to desert the bed, I feel unclean. She goes to the window and peers out through the slats of the blind. It is late and the End is on its way. Unhealthy light flashes through the slats.
"They've started to gather. It's almost time."
"The others are out there?" I ask, intrigued. She glances down at me and I'm acutely aware that I'm mostly naked. I pull the sweater closed and cross my arms to keep it that way. "Is Wolf with them?"
"Who?"
"Our leader." I start to feel stupid. "The one who brought us here." I feel like I've made a mistake and it worries me.
"Oh. Him. I haven't noticed." She pauses. "So...you think that he orchestrated all of this." Her tone makes it sound like he's a low-brow brute and that my suggestion is entirely ridiculous. I'm offended for him, and for myself.
"No, the Spirits told him what to do."
"Oh, of course they did."
I wonder if 'Wolf' means nothing to them but I can't think of another name to call him. I sink into a chair that's angled slightly away from the window. She doesn't realize how deeply her lack of reaction has affected me. I ask about the first person I can think of.

"Is Saja with them?"
She gives me an uncomprehending look. "Could you check? She's..." I briefly describe her, she'd be small with curling black hair to her waist. I'm on the verge of tears now, my voice is thick with emotion.
"No." She responds, looking outside. "Maybe they just haven't arrived yet." She says it like she's just trying to make me feel better.
I completely lose it. My sense of purpose, my hope for all this to be over. The belief that my instincts were right just crumbles to nothing. I feel shame and revulsion for letting a stranger touch me so intimately and in front of others.
"I left for this?"
She doesn't understand what I'm talking about. I realize that she has forgotten all of it. Who we were, what we did, all that we left behind.
"I left Home so that some disgusting perverted stranger could feel me up? I left Liam for this?" I'm crying hysterically now. A different woman tries to comfort me but she has recently left one of the men and I can't stand the thought of her dirty hands on me. I've pulled my knees up to my chest and I'm hugging them as I sob nonsensical questions. The idea that we've come to this has broken me.

02/21/2013 Unsettling, Liam

This dream is unsettling because it was always difficult enough to walk around with this guy at work, because of how much he reminded me Liam. My reasoning mind kept me from thinking about it too much and after repeatedly working with him I had conditioned myself to ignore it. I had never dreamt anything like this with him as the focus and it made me very uncomfortable. For anyone who is hasn't been following along, Liam is a vivid DC who often appears in my dreams. He's tall, with copper or auburn hair and blue eyes. I'll leave the description at that.
I'm sitting on a dark blue couch pressed against a wall of dark tinted windows. It is night outside, it has a very...after-hours feel. Beside me is someone I used to work with who reminds me of Liam.
A pretty young woman sweeps out of the place, calling over her shoulder about meeting him later for coffee. He looks troubled, tense, unhappy. As I am about to ask him what's wrong, he speaks into the stillness.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to tell my wife." He says.
I smile sympathetically and pull my knees up onto the couch.
"I guess that depends on your intent. If you're going to coffee because you have feelings for her..."
He cuts me off with a humorless laugh. "You think this is about her?"
I freeze, unsure what I should do or say. Does that mean I'm the problem? Even in the dark I can tell he keeps glancing at me, deeply troubled. He averts his eyes, bowing his head, thinking how difficult this has become. He's trembling with the effort to...stay contained. To not cross a line. After a long moment, he reluctantly reaches over and touches my knee. This forcefully reminds me of Liam. I blush furiously, trying to stifle the rush of emotions that beset me. I sit very still. He starts to withdraw his hand when I pull it back by linking my pinky and ring finger with his, very aware of the weight of his hand and the pounding of my heart. He desperately wants this and doesn't at the same time.
I release his hand and rise to my knees beside him. I'm wearing a faded green tank top that I haven't seen since I was in high school. He presses his hand flat against my abdomen. I realize that this is the closest I will ever come to being intimate with Liam and decide to revel in the moment. He looks up at me. Faint light from outside illuminates the left side of his face and turns one eye into a shining pool. He looks so much like Liam that it hurts. He reaches up with his free hand and presses his palm to the left side of my neck. Again, I think of Liam. He draws me down and brushes his lips below my right ear. I lose track of everything.
Something forces me awake.

Non-lucid
Lucid
I'm traveling with a woman, her eight year old son and a research intern who also happens to be our translator. We're going into a third world country collecting stories on demon possession. When we arrive we don't believe any of it. It all feels like...we're just tourists instead of researchers.
Our translator/intern has gone ahead of us. We are both Caucasian women, he looks a little middle eastern. The house we approach is adobe style, all stark white stone. As we mount the stairs we see the women of the house gesturing to something on the floor. I can see a vague red mark, they have covered it in sand. They say that after their daughter read the inscription she began to act strangely. They warn us not to look at it too closely. The intern crouches next to the mark. An unnatural wind violently sweeps the sand away and up into his eyes. Startled and hurt, he bends over the mark, and has no choice but to look at it.
He covers his eyes and stands up, assuring us he is alright.

There's a lapse.
When I come to, the house is dark. The intern has stolen the boy and has tortured his mother into madness. My vision is grainy, black and white. I have some trouble moving, but the choice is mine. Dream story-line says that I stay where I am until he comes to threaten me. I'm laying on the floor a few paces from my friend. The intern slithers up next to her and hisses something into her ear. She gives a whimpering little scream and, satisfied, he crawls away.
I claw my way to my friend's side and huddle next to her. Lucidity saves me from being truly frightened. I'm on the edge of a screaming madness, I try to comfort the woman by taking her hand, when my fingers curl around hers, her head lolls toward mine and I only just keep myself from recoiling violently. Her head is...all, wide open mouth with tiny round eyes. The image scares the hell out of me. She keeps making noises somewhere between sobbing, laughing, and screaming. I remind myself it's just a dream, over and over. This litany is the only thing that keeps me from going over the edge. I tighten my grip on her hand and whisper to her until her visage becomes somewhat more normal.

There's a lapse and I've risen to another layer of sleep that is slightly less terrifying. I am crouched with my friend underneath the porch. We can see a small, hairless, emaciated child looking at us from a few feet away. I urge her to move more quickly. It follows us.
"Shit, the creepy child is following us..." I mutter.

I rise to another layer of sleep that is more confusing than scary. It turns out that everything that just happened to me is a play put on by a boy who looks remarkably like a brown haired version of Chucky from the Rugrats (o.O Holy crap I haven't thought of that cartoon in a long time), I see his picture on the wall.
I'm standing on a darkened stage, there's a bright red curtain and a spotlight trained on the center. I'm so glad it isn't real.

I'm standing outside my childhood home in Massachusetts, the front lawn isn't as long. It's a bright lush green. The trees that stand between my house and the neighbor's are impossibly tall, like a wall instead of woods. A girl meets me outside, we talk a little bit.
"Strange things happen around here sometimes, though." She says.
"What do you mean? Seemed ordinary to me."
She laughs at me, "You really don't remember?"
"What?"
She tells me that when I was sixteen I disappeared for four days without warning and then reappeared unexpectedly with no memory that I had gone, that for the four days I was missing strange things happened, centered around a carved wooden chest. Somehow the idea that I can't even remember any of the events surrounding that deeply disconcerts me.
"We found it again you know. It came back." She makes the chest sound like a living thing.
"Can I see it?"
She leads me into the house across the street. It's dark inside, but I can hear people moving around. In the dining room that connects the kitchen and the living room is the chest. I come around the corner, following the girl. She shines a flashlight onto the floor near the chest, drawing my focus to the light. I give her instructions to change where the beam falls. She is being dense about it, finally it shines near the foot of the chest.
I'm actually surprised by how vivid it looks, how real. It stand out from the dream like a real photograph next to an animated one. Live against the darkness. I start to feel a kind of buzzing, it's low and frightening and sets my teeth on edge. The box stands open. It is golden mahogany. The latch is broken. The lid stands open a few inches. There is a double-chevron pattern repeated 8 times, 4 each on either side of the square center emblem that I can't remember. I really don't want to look at it. The girl grins at me in the dark.
"Do you want to see what's inside?" She takes out a stack of chips. They look like dull dented metal and bone, with carvings on the front. "We can play the same games you played before."
I shake my head and back away. I hear the clack of the chips as she sets them on the floor, one by one. It jars me awake. I'm having a faint case of sleep paralysis. I feel heavy and keep trying to doze off. I move my head every time I start to drift because I can feel myself returning to that room with the chest. I finally manage to turn over instead of just move my head, and when I fall back asleep I'm sitting in a folding chair in a wide alley. The chairs are in two groups with an aisle down the middle. Seven rows of five on each side of the aisle.
Christina Aguilera dances into the alley with her body guards, wearing a black fedora, a white halter top with black suspenders with black shorts, fishnets and tall spike-heel black boots. The music starts and she dances quick impressive steps, I can tell she's lip syncing but it doesn't bother me, it seems she would have to choose between singing and dancing and this number is all about the dance. It becomes more clear she's lip syncing when the recording keeps going and she skips moving her mouth on a part.
An idiot across the aisle looks surprised and says "I THINK SHE'S LIP SYNCING!"
I roll my eyes. Someone else mentions she looks good for being 40...o.O