non-lucid

Morning of September 20, 2007. Thursday.



This entry contains two of several dreams of this date.

My most recent “Lost” dream has something to do with robots, mostly all female scientist robots. There is one scene where one is working in a lab, but does not have a human face, only a curved sheet of metal. Others do not even have that, but do have a “head” of sorts. There are some unusual encounters where I mostly interact with a couple female robots at a time, mostly touching “hands”, perhaps testing the sensors, yet they do not have any skin, either; all the working parts are mostly showing and turning about, similar to a skeleton with bits of wire and small gears here and there - yet somehow, there actually seems to be some sort of potential for these robots to have human feelings (both emotional and tactile).

Another dream involved an idea of an ancient spacecraft being buried somewhere and a man hunting for it in relation to a symbol. The appearance of the spacecraft supposedly has something to do with the apocalypse (which primarily foreshadows the end of the dream and little else). He had seen it before and had drawn a picture of it. Another man joins him in looking for it in the area which it has been determined to be. This is a hill (common emergent consciousness feature) near a small town. The spaceship rises from the ground while the men are standing in an area nearby. It is very similar in design to an old-style orange juicer. It glows a brilliant white and makes a loud but somehow musical roaring sound. This dream is very vivid and seems to mean something even after I wake for a short time (and of course it does have meaning - that I am waking up). I cannot be sure if it is being flown by beings inside or is some sort of glowing energy that shifts slightly. There is a very intense feeling as it roars off.

My first dream above is simply a rendering of robots in connection to the “artificial” nature of the dream state, that is, as different from reality. It is similar to a glitched-out apex lucidity dream but this dream is entirely non-lucid.

My second dream here (which is similar to, and with the same meaning as, “Spaceship Stratum” from 1978) is simply an extended waking transition metaphor as most dreams are on one level. A UFO is typically the conscious mind, rendered as a UFO for several reasons; one, the unconscious mind as the dream self is not seeing directly through the conscious self’s eyes so renders it as potentially “alien”, and two, a UFO is usually “above” the unconscious self and so represents “rising” (waking up) conscious awareness (though cleverly here is rendered as being within the unconscious self’s “territory”, that is, buried in the ground at first, which implies cooperation between the dream self and conscious self with no liminal space inherent), and three, emits light and represents waking from the dream state (light of day as metaphorical for waking consciousness), and four, is a flight symbol (main dream state metaphor as dreaming itself is “flying”) leaving the dream.

I can add a three-layered fifth validation here with this particular dream. This UFO looks like an orange juicer. An orange can represent the conscious mind (in reference to associations with the sun - which represents light of day and the conscious mind and wakeful awareness, most especially the “Sunkist” label). Also, when people wake up to have breakfast, they often have orange juice. Since the potential with an orange juicer is to watch liquid getting lower and going down into a glass or other container, we also even have the “water getting lower over time” as the waking mechanism (except that here, it is orange juice).

Or, I could go on and list many other layers and metaphors that validate the above meanings; for example the play on “Sunkist” as in “kissed” relating to Sleeping Beauty being awakened. Or, I could stop here.

Morning of September 6, 2007. Thursday.



The first part of this dream concerns columns (under the foundation) of a newer high school - it seems as if it might be the one at Kepnock, though the building in my dream is completely different at ground level. There is a discovery of human bones inside the columns (almost as if there had been an implied archaeological interest), and there is concern over how this could have happened. However, there is this very clear feeling that the new school, for some reason in my dream only, was apparently built in also somehow involving the death of certain families or teenagers and the government “covering it up” (no pun intended) - an idea of which was possibly borrowed by the low-rated movie “The Haunting” from 1999.

Later on, though, the original columns seem more ancient and seem to be part of some sort of ancient plumbing system in which water and debris is “backing up” into the building, which draws in more archaeologists and such. There is something eerie about the entire affair. There are sets of columns that read something like “ITSBE”. There also seems to be some sort of religious awareness (early Christian Italy, or some such) but I am not quite sure or focused enough to determine what it is.

A little later, when I am awake, my wife tells me that the drainage system has been overflowing and that water keeps coming back out, which is the first time this has happened at this address, the problem being relative to street level access, so this was a precognitive layer.

#1) First dream takes place in some sort of aquarium museum place and I am there with my parents. Even though most of the displays are situated indoors, my parents and I are dressed in winter clothing. I cannot remember anything about the beginning of the dream but I thought the end was significant though I do not know why.

As my parents and I were leaving the aquarium we stepped outside into some sort of courtyard. There was a waist-deep, square-shaped pool in the center and it had four square styrofoam floating things in it. The styrofoam things wear painted to look like rocks and had a elaborate "V" design carved into the very tops. There was a fat old man wearing a bright yellow waterproof rain pants and a white A-shirt standing near the far edge of the pool. He had a long, narrow black stick in his hand and seemed to be looking for something underneath the water.

I approached the edge of the pool and saw a young seal hidding underneath one of the floating styrofoam rocks. The seal would surface for a moment and look around, then use its teeth to pull off guaze bandages from its body, before quickly swimming back underneath the styrofoam. My parents didn't seem to notice and kept walking. I tried to ask the old man about the seal but he ignored me and kept scouring the water for whatever he was looking for, which I assumed was the seal. I watched the young seal surface and pull of some more bandages before the dream ended and I woke up.


#2) The second dream takes place at Lake Whittaker, a trailer park where my parents go every weekend in the summer. The dream seems to take place a few years ago when my parent's trailer was situated at the top of the hill by the lake side. I remember stepping out of the trailer and looking to my right. There is garbage and debris spread across the neighbouring trailer's lot. People I don't recognize from waking like are standing around looking at the mess. Even though it appears to be summer, everyone is wearing winter clothes. I walk up to the nearest person and ask where the mess came from. He says "It was a bear."

I think that is odd because bears are not native to the area. I go back into my parent's trailer for something and even though I am only inside for a few seconds, when I go back outside, the mess on the neighbouring lot has been cleaned up and the people who had gathered are dispersing. There is a bit more I think, about trying to find someone who will help me find the alleged bear or something, but I cannot remember now.

There is an old farmhouse and barn in front of me. I can see an older couple working in field out back. I am not sure which, but the couple is either just really old fashioned pioneers or menonites. There is a doorless shed by the east side of the house and I wandered into it. Along with an assortment of old fashioned farming implements, homemade brooms line the far wall. I ask the old mennonite man if I can buy one when he comes over to see what I am doing tresspassing in his shed. Instead I am hired (or forced?) to become a live-in-maid to keep the farmhouse clean.

The mennonite couple disappear and a new couple appear as owners of the farmhouse. They are still older, but they look like they come from the Victorian era. I cannot think of anyone whom the lady of the house (the Mistress) looks like, but the man of the house (the Master) looked very much like Christopher Walken. The outside of the farmhouse looked the same, as did the barn, but the doorless shed disappeared and a long covered porch now wrapped itself around the east side of the house.

The inside of the house was still mainly Victorian/Edwardian era but seemed to have some seemingly out-of-place modernizations scattered randomly about. Though the house wasn't all that large, there was another maid who lived there as well. We usually worked together and while I was relatively pragmatic, the other maid was extremely superstitious and constantly tried to convince me that every creak, or misplaced object, was caused by ghosts. I did not believe in the ghosts theory and tired to argue that the house was old and prone to creaking and that objects get misplaced all the time, but the other maid would have none of it.

The other maid and I were asked to clean out the sothern rooms of the farmhouse because the Master wanted to convert them into a variety store. It was at this time that I started to see unusal things happen, like curtains move when there was no breeze, electrical cords pull themselves from the wall, and doors open and close by themselves. In the main hall, drops of blood fell from the ceiling and pooled on the floor. No matter how many times the other maid and I cleaned up the blood, it always reappeared the next day. Most frustrating was the fact that the Master and Mistress of the house never experienced anything strange, nor saw the blood, and would dismiss our complaints as nonsense.

I was now convinced that the house was haunted afterall, but was still not all that creeped out until the drops of blood from the ceiling became bloody bootprints that appeared decending the stairs and entering the southern rooms. At one point I was cleaning something in the main hall and heard footfalls on the stairs. I turned and saw not the Master as I was expecting, but the bloody bootprints. I quickly tried to duck into one of the adjacent rooms, but the double glass doors either locked of their own accord or jammed. I quickly spun around so that my back was pressed up against the glass doors and the lights in the hall began flickering. The temperature in the room dropped dramatically and I could see my breath. I was frozen in terror as I watched the bloody bootprints slowly and ominously stomp towards me. I cowered and shut my eyes, but just before they reached me, the sound of the footfalls disappeared, the room temperature returned to normal, and the lights stopped flickering. The glass doors behind me swung open and I made a hasty exit from the main hall and ran into the other maid, who saw everything from the other side of the glass doors.

Not only did the other maid quit after that but the bloody bootprints following me around the house became a common occurance. While it did take me a while to get used to, I eventually figured out that if I made no attempt to run from the ghostly follower, or try to clean up the bloody mess, the ghost would soon leave and the bloody mess would eventually disappear on its own.

I was standing in the southern room at one point, brainstorming ideas for the variety store, when I was summoned by the Master. I went to his private study in the north end of the house and when I got there, he lectured me on how no women in his household should leave the premises without a male escort. I realized at this time that I had never so much as stepped out onto the porch in all my time of working there as a maid, let alone leave the property. I got angry and shouted "There is my escort!" I pointed to the bloody bootprints that followed me into the room and the Master finally sees them for the first time, but says nothing.

Almost immediately after the lecture, I began to see ghosts in and around the farmhouse. The first is a little boy in a blue coat and white shorts, playing with an orange ball, near the pond at the front of the house. One Sunday I am sitting with the Master and Mistress and their guests when I get up and go into the kitchen for something. When I return, there is an old man sitting in my seat. He looks exactly like the character Oscar Leroy from the show Corner Gas (baseball cap and all). I recognize him as a friend of the family in the dream and he starts telling me about how it is his birthday. I realize that the old man is a ghost and I exclaim outloud to the Master and Mistress that their friend is dead, but everyone in the room just looks at me like I am crazy. Some get angry because they think I am being disrespectful since they know that man I am talking about and that it is his birthday.

I beg the Master to call the family of their friend but they wil not. The ghost of the old man gets up and asks me to follow him outside into the front yard. I do so, and the family and their guests follow me to see what I am up to, though I suspect it is just to observe me because they think I have lost my mind. The ghost of the old man tells me about how he died peacefully in his sleep, and as a hearse drives by in the distance, he points to the completed variety store at the southern end of the house and to says "Never stop writing down your ideas." The ghost then fades away. I walk over to the pond (though it looks more like a muddy pit at this moment) and stare quietly into the murky water. The Master comes over to me and finally says that he will get someone to call the family of his friend, to confirm his condition, because no one else yet believes that the old man is dead.

The Mistress runs out of the house and proclaims that their friend is dead and that it was self-inflicted. While everyone reacts to the news of their friend's suicide, I walk away saying "He lied to me!" (about how the old man said he died). Later, the Master, Mistress and guests are sitting around talking about how strange it was that someone would want to kill themselves on their birthday, but no one seems particularily upset at the loss of thier friend. I am disturbed and upset at their apparent apathy.


The dream ends there.

The birthday-suicide thing is something that I had been ruminating about for a few days because I struggle with suicidal ideation as a result of clinical depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

I'm at home and it is night time. All the lights are out and I am in the kitchen standing by the front door in my night clothes. I can hear people walking around the house and I am sure they are going to try and break-in. I am scared because I am home alone. A flashlight beam shines in the kitchen window and I hide in the hall space between the front door and garage door. When the flashlight beam disappears, I quickly glance around the hall wall and look out the kitchen window. I cannot see the intruders, but I hear their footfalls going around the house towards the back. In the front yard I can see a white Aveo. The vehicle is nowhere near the driveway and has been backed up onto the lawn and almost into the garden. Though it is dark, I can see that the car has torn up the lawn pretty badly and there are deep mud tracks gouged into the grass.

I turn my attention to the backdoor and dash through the house to make sure it is locked. I can hear the intruders walk up onto the wooded porch and approach the door. I crouch down as far as I can and hope that they will not see me with their flashlight beam. The door handle rattles once and my body tenses and my adrenaline rushes. I feel light-headed and like I have butterflies in my stomach. The intruders slowly walk off the porch and I can hear them head back towards the front of the house. I run as fast as I can to the front hall and go into the garage. There is a crowbar on the seat of my dad's boat and I grab it for protection. I go back into the kitchen hall and wait for the intruder's next move, but I can no longer hear their movements. I am afraid that they may have heard me open the garage door and are planning to attack me.

Dream fragmented, I can't remember much.


- can't remember any of the the beginning, but it was lengthy.

- driving in Mercedes on parkway outside of city with with mom and dad.

- dad turns off road and onto elevated monorail/train track.

- real train coming. We get out of car and mom and dad go down to ground.

- I pick up the two tonne Mercedes by the bumper and hand it down to my dad! It's as light as a feather, though in the dream my thought was that it was "light as a wicker basket."

- mom and dad disappear when I get down to ground. I am now in some sort of sidewalk market. The streets are empty until four Native American people appear, surrounding me.

- greeting/bowing ritual with four natives. I think there were two Innuit and two Ojibway. Ritual consists of me standing between the two Innuit, linked arm in arm, and bowing down on my knees to the Ojibway. Repeat same bow a second time only linked arms with Ojibway and bowing on knees to Innuit.

There are two shop keepers (a husband and wife) who seem really creepy and insist I view their wares. They hover over me at all times and are very intrusive. Their shop is outdoors and consists of only two large bookshelves loaded with vhs tapes, dvds, and many different versions of the Bible. The couple will not let me leave until I buy something. Because I cannot see anything I am interested in, I try to stall by picking up some chinese sweet and sour chicken balls which are sitting by a coffee maker on a little table betweeb the bookshelves.

The shop keepers get upset that I am eating chinese food because it is "not very christian of me." I tell them that I am not a christian and they get extremely angry, but just then other customers arrive and start browsing around, taking the shopkeeper's attention off of me. I look through the dvds hoping to find something interesting and notice that almost all of them are in foriegn languages. I eventually find a nature documentary in english on tigers (my favourite animal) and hastily make a retreat from the little outdoor shop. It is not until I am quite far away from there that I realize I did not pay for the dvd, which I find amusing.

I cross a large field until I come to a road. I follow the road and it leads into a temperate forest. I walk for a long time until I see a large big box department store in the middle of the forest and go in. The place is huge but I do not see anyone around. I walked past the eletronics section and picked up a set of headphones that has a super long cord. I put the headphones on and have the overwhelming desire to plug them in. I feel that I cannot leave the big box department store until I do so.

I came across a large stereo system and try to plug the headphones in, but I cannot find the outlet. An eletronics department attendant suddenly shows up and plugs them in for me. I walk away from there, even though the headphones are still plugged in, and head towards the exit. The cord is long enough to let me make it to the other side of the store. When I exit the place, I discard the headphones and cross the small parking lot to a large highway that leads out of the forest. There are no people or cars anywhere in sight.

I follow the highway for a long while before it dissapears around a large hill. I do not follow the road anymore and walk straight up the hill. There is another hill beyond a small plateau and I can see some sort of walkway or bridge at the entrence of some sort of park. The bridge looks as if it is made of bronze and has art nouveau designs all over it. I walk under the bridge and see that the park ahead of me is some sort of zoo or animal sanctuary. I turn around and see that the bridge has disappeared. The hills are gone as well and it seems that I am on an island as all I can see is water behind me.

The animals of the park are not in cages and roam around freely like the people. I am afraid that I am going to see someone get mauled, but the animals are content to ignore the humans as long as no one bothers them. I see another hill and walk towards it (I am constantly going "up" in this dream). A white male lion chases a yellow male lion down the hill towards me. Just as I fear that I am going to get run down, the yellow lion turns suddenly. The white lion barely misses me as it attempt the same turn to keep up with his target. I lose sight of the lions behind some trees. I realize that there seems to be no more people or animals around and I feel like I am alone on the island.

Suddenly, a huge anthropormorphic rhino wielding an axe, appears out of nowhere and starts chasing me. Despite its large size it is incredibly fast and I have no time to think about what to do other then run. Because I am not fast enough, and I tire quickly, the giant rhino quickly runs me down and I get an axe in the back. I die but I don't die. A reset screen appears infront of me, like a videogame, and I am given the choice of choosing a new character, or continuing as myself. The two other character choices are large muscular men in loincloths. After a brief WTF?! moment on my part, I select "myself" and get ready to run again. I am placed back at the part where the rhino appears out of nowhere and I automatically turn and start running. I can hear him closing in behind me but I jump and grab a low hanging tree branch and scramble up as fast as I can. This gives me a chance to catch my breath and plan my next move.

The rhino cannot follow me up the tree but he circles it a few times before getting the idea to strike the tree trunk with his massive battle axe. I feel somthing in my boot and pull out a small combat knife. I jump out of the tree while he is distracted and circle behind. I stab the rhino in the small of the back with the knife, which cripples him, and he can no longer chase me. I walk up the hill and find myself surrounded by many lions lounging about. I assume they are male because they all have thick manes. In the distance I can see a white temple or castle and there is a large, black, winged dragon wrapped around the tallest tower.

I was walking through the hallways of what looked like my old high school. The halls and classrooms were filled with students, some I recognize and some I don't. It was the last day of school or something and everyone was just hanging around and socializing. I didn't see any of my friends and just wandered the halls aimlessly.

For some reason there were pepperoni pizza absolutely everywhere! On desks, in glass display cases, on the floor, in cabinets and closets; just everywhere - and no matter how long the pizza sat wherever it had been placed, it stayed hot and crispy!

I remember eating a few peices and thinking it was the tastiest, cheesiest, greasiest, most amazing pizza I had ever eaten! It was so good that I really thought it was real in the dream, but I did not become lucid at all. The dream ended as I was enjoying a particularily big and cheesy slice.


I have never woken up craving pepperoni pizza so badly in my entire life!!

The dream starts off in a large department store of some kind. There is a model train set that is so expansive that it encircles the entire store. The place was empty except for a group of people that I was with. We all looked like Jim Henson muppets, but none of his creations, just original designs from my psyche. I had dark purple skin and like purple frizzy hair. There was a girl muppet with pink skin and bright orange hair pulled back in a pony tail. I think her name was Jenna or something, and she always had with her a clipboard with which she was constantly observing what the other muppets were doing and jotting down notes.

We had the run of the store at first, but were then gathered together and put into small groups of four or five. Jenna gave us tasks to do but I cannot remember what any of them were. These tasks basically has us running around the store looking for things or analyzing things we found. Thought not a task assigned at first, eveyone was eventually relegated to finding the source of a rotten smell. Everyone could smell it, and it smelled like really bad cheese, but no one could figure out where it was coming from. I checked myself, and even though I wasn't the source, I was afraid, for some reason, that the smell would be blamed on me.

Another muppet inspector appeared. This one was also female but had blue skin, wavy red hair and big yellow glasses. She had with her a handheld machine that could pinpoint odors and was systematically checking everything in the department store. While we waited for the second inspector to finish her job, all of the muppet groups gathered together near the front of the store and started talking about a wedding that was about to happen. I had no idea what they were talking about but a bride and groom did walk through the front door of the store at that moment. The bride and groom looked exactly like Disney's Jasmine and Aladdin, except dressed in modern day wedding clothes. They were not muppetized like everyone else in the dream.

Anyway, Jasmine complained about the rotten cheese smell but Aladdin didn't seem to notice as he was too busy flirting with inspector Jenna. The second inspector came over and pointed the odor detection device at one of the muppets that had been in my group. The accused muppet (who had green skin and spiky yellow and orange hair) started flipping out and several of the other muppets had to subdue him. Out of nowhere, a dark blue, badly damaged old pick up truck appeared in one of the department store aisles and the accused muppet was thrown in the back and the truck drove off somewhere.

Everyone headed over to the model train station and told Aladdin and Jasmine to get on the train. I don't remember exactly what happened, but suddenly the bride and groom were hand sized toys and were being attached to one of the model train cars with duct tape. The muppet trying to tie them to the car kept getting an electric shock and could not place the car on the track properly. I got frustrated and stepped in, aligned the train car wheels on the track and the train started moving by itself. The toys were not properly secured and started slidding off the model train and getting zapped with bolts of blue coloured electricity shooting out from the tracks. Toy Aladdin's face was melted off and I noticed that the Jasmine toy was missing the lower half of her right leg just before the dream ended and I woke up.

There is a some sort of family gathering in a small house. I think it is my grandma's old house, but I am not sure. There are many people , some I recognize as members of my family, and some that do not resemble any person I know in waking life. There only seems to be three rooms; the kitchen, the living room, and the basement. The kitchen does not have a table or chairs but there is a green sofa against one of the walls. The living room is sparse as well and only has a white loveseat and a large screen television. Needless to say, most of the people in the house were standing as they socialized.

There were some people in the kitchen preparing food and some people standing around with drinks. I was in the kitchen but I was not preparing food or drinks, nor was I socializing. I didn't want to be there and I felt very tired and bored. I sit down on the green sofa, curl up on one end and start to drift off to sleep. I can hear my dad come into the room and everyone starts asking him what's wrong with me, as if they can sense the fact that I don't want to be there. I cannot hear exactly what my dad is saying except that he is going around the room and apologizing to everyone.

I wake up when I feel someone sit on the other end of the sofa. I sit up and see that it is Uncle Doug. He is making rude and offensive jokes about women and everyone in the room (which I notice at this point is all male) laughs along with him. I am disgusted but I cannot think of anything to say. Uncle Doug turns to me, grabs my arm and asks if I am "cool" with the jokes he is telling. I scream at him not touch me and to stuff his misogyny up his ass. He gets embarassed and apologizes and asks if I am offended, and even though I am, for some reason I say no.

Everyone starts to head down stairs and I get up off the green sofa so that it can be carried into the basement. I start washing dishes because I am too pissed off to talk to anyone. Dinner is being served in the basement and everyone is down there, but I refuse to join them because I still feel raw about the incident with Uncle Doug.

I climb up on the kitchen counter and look out the window, but instead of seeing a backyard at groud level, the view is from several storeys up and I am looking down upon what appears to be a train station. There are many people walking around or just standing on the boardwalk as a passenger train very slowly pulls out of the station. Out of the corner of my left eye I see a frieght train appear out of nowhere and slam into the back of the passenger train at a great speed. I watch in horror as the frieght train cars pile up on each other and onto the boardwalk, violently crushing some of the people who had been standing there. I feel helpless because I cannot do anything but neither can I look away, even as people continue to be crushed and mangled by the crashing trains.


Then the vividness of the terror and sheer graphic nature of the train crash woke me up.

I dreamed that I was back in grade six. The classroom was empty except for me and the teacher Ms. M. For some reason I was naked and all embarassed about it, but there was nothing around I could cover up with. Ms. M told me to stop being so worried because she had seen other naked women before. I was all wierded out by her comments and even more so when I noticed that she was wearing only a white Victorian style nightgown. There was something happening in the hall outside of the classroom but I cannot remember any more of this dream.

20.07.2007

(Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

There is a sandy island or archipelago off the coast of a mainland. The population isn't very large. Life used to be normal there. Now, a few generations later, people don't know about the sun. There is only the sky, which sometimes is very dark with stars, and sometimes is light enough to see. But they don't make a distinction between day and night, there is only "the sky".
A visitor is surprised at this and finds out that it is actually the mainland people who, in order to punish the islanders for some reason, years ago, modified the orbit of their planet so that the islanders could never see the sun, while the mainlanders could still enjoy a low sun. The visitor put things back right, and the islanders, many of whom where on the beach, facing the mainland (which is too far to be seen), are amazed at the appearance of this light ball and the heat that is emitted from it. I am one of them, and I take off my jumper (but keep my yellow tee-shirt) to go swim in the sea.

20.07.2007

(Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

A man and me (unconscious of being me) leave a pub at night. There is a fight with a werewolf, as there is a full moon, and the authorities come and arrest him.
I tell the man (that I haven't known for a very long time) that I am a werewolf too. He asks why I haven't changed into a werewolf, and I explain that there must be some trigger: anger, fear, an emotional of physical shock... He takes me in his car and suggests taking me away from the authorities (which are seen as somewhat threatening).
I fall asleep, and I have a vision of him waking me up by tapping my arm, and that it will trigger my lycanthropy.

This dream take place somewhere in a middle eastern country but I do not know which one. The area was very poor and all the buildings were made of local materials, like mud bricks.


I am about quarter of a kilometer outside of a small poor city. It is about midday and very hot. The atmosphere is arid and no vegetation of any kind can be seen. Clusters of people in varying degrees of Islamic or Western clothing surround me. Some people are sitting, some laying down, some standing, but no one moves very much or talks loudly. Everyone is of Middle Eastern decent except for a small group of people with whom I am following. I do not recognize anyone at first and they slowly make their way towards the city in the distance.

Several men from outside the group are staring at me with angry or contemptuous expressions and I uncomfortably look around to try an figure out why. I soon realize that all the women I see are covered up with burkas or hijabs, save for the two or three non-Middle Eastern women in the group I am with. I get the impression that I am the only one being stared at and I lower my gaze though I am angry and frustrated that people are staring at me.

When the group of people I am with are nearing the small city, someone from behind me says that we should avoid going there because American soldiers are about to initiate a fight with some insurgents. I cannot see who said that and the group of people continue on their way, even when I hesitate. Some tall building near the center of the city suddenly explode and sand and debris flys everywhere. I can hear bombs and gunfire but am not scared. I remember feeling more annoyed then anything.

I head back out into the desert where the dream started and suddenly it is nighttime and I am back with the group of people I had been following before. This time however, my mom and dad are with the group and we are being lead by a tour guide somewhere. The group stops for a moment under a large wooden frame, on the egde of what looks like a dry creek bed. There is a wooden billboard that is half standing and half collapsed and a young boy in a white shirt and red baseball cap that is climbing over it. Tangled barbed wire fence separates the group I am with from the creek bed, but I find a spot that I can jump over without getting caught or cut on the barbs.

I start toward whats left of the billboard because I want to climb too, but my mom stops me and tells me that I have to stop acting out and behave or I am going to get kicked out of the group. I reluctantly and begrudgingly rejoin them just as the tour guide leads us between some more indescernable wooden structures until we reached a tall, elaborate building with a large tower in the center. I get the impression that it was a mosque or something but I am not sure.

The tour is stopped and everyone is interrogated one by one by several men in clerics robes. I cannot remember why we were being questioned or what the questions were, but if we answered "correctly" then we were allowed to continue on with the tour. When I was being questioned I kept my head down and did not make eye contact with anyone. I figured that there was no way these men would allow me to continue on because my face was uncovered and every man in the room was staring at me because of it.

They did let me go on, however, and I immediately led up the narrow spiralling staircase of the central tower. The stair went up about six or seven stories and the entire way was intricately handpainted with natural scenes. At the very top of the stairs was a circular room that looked like an art store. There were display cases containing paintbrushes all around the outside and a Middle Eastern woman in the center giving away free art supplies. She was uncovered, dressed in blue, very pleasant and greeted my parents warmly. I noticed at this point that no one else in the group had been let into the tower. I was intrigued with an elaborate painting that encircled the entire room and studied it intently as my parents and the woman in blue talked. When the woman tried to offer my father some paintbrushes, he told her to give them to me because I was the artist in the family.


I do not remember anymore because I woke up.

This dream starts off on some sort of island. There is one small town near the north side of the island, but it is a very poor slum. Most of the houses are small trailers or huts that are dirty and barely standing. The town is surrounded by a temperate forest and the entire island is elevated several meters above the sea level. Because there are only steep cliffs along the sea sides, crudely constructed wooden piers and ladders have been built to allow access to the water. It is never explained why or by who, in the dream, but the little island is subject to frequent air raids.


I am standing outside of my hut/trailer and I am looking at the clear blue sky. I can hear an air raid siren blaring through the town, and even though I can not see where the sound is coming from, I know what it means. I can see black dots in the distance and they are rapidly approaching the island. Everyone in the town is scrambling to find shelter, most heading for the forest because they know that the slum town is the target of the on coming attack. I run into the forest also, but still feel exposed being so close to the town and head for the closest pier on the seafront. I am hoping to escape the attack by boat.

When I am at the outside edge of the forest (at a cliff that overlooks the sea) and I can see the on coming attack planes. There are about 12 of them and they are flying in a diamond formation. Most of the planes look like WW2 bombers, while two or three look like sea planes. All of them are painted entirely black except for the wing tips which are painted bright red.

I am afraid that I will be seen and scramble down the cliff side and underneath the long wooden pier. I remember that the wood of the pier was dark brown and smelled like it was rotting. The planes suddenly decend rapidly, break formation and start bombing everything in sight that is moving. My plans of escape by boat are thwarted when several people attempting a similar escape in their watercraft are obliterated by the attack planes before they can get very far. The very end of the long pier I am hidding under is blown apart by a bomb and I am too afraid to move from my spot.

I cannot see what is happening to the town but I can hear a constant barage of bombs, planes wizzing close by and screams from people in the forest behind me. To my right I suddenly see one of the sea planes land in the water and come towards the pier that I am hiding under. I panic and try to climb up the cliff but it is suddenly muddy and I slip down and into a large cravat. There is an outcropping of the cliff that I can hide under and I do so.

While still aware of the sea plane coming towards me, I feel something hard in the mud below me and thinking it is a rock, I dig it out. It turns out to be translucent yellow stone about the size of my fist. It's not shiny and cut but I think it is jewel and I put it in the pocket of my tattered pants. I try to adjust my weight in the mud underneath the outcropping but doing so causes me to slip out from my hiding place. I grab onto something that I think is a stick to steady myself and discover that is a cylindrical, translucent red stone. There are actually three of them sticking out of the mud but I only grab one and stick it in my other pocket.

The sounds of the air raid have stopped, though I can still hear several bombers flying overhead. The sea plane reaches the wooded pier and because I think I can be seen I make another attempt to climb up the muddy cliff. I am successful this time and dash into the forest. I do not look back and see the face of the enemy. The forest is thick with smoke from things burning and I am quickly lost. I run towards where I think the town is and trip on several bodies or body parts. I do not see anyone alive along the way.

I do eventually find the town but the damage doesn't seem to be as bad as I thought it would. My home has been destroyed and I scurry between burning ruins and debris until I find a trailer that is elevated off the ground with cinder blocks. I crawl underneath the trailer and dig a small hole. I rip off a peice of my shirt and wrap the yellow and red stones in it, which I then bury, believing that they are valuable or will be useful to me later. I remain hidden under the trailer, even after I can no longer hear any bombers flying overhead.

People start emerging from the forest and return to the town. I don't know any of them nor do I feel anything for them. Even at the beginning of the dream I felt very detatched from the other people in the town. I watch from my hiding place as people try to find anything valuable to salvage or their loved ones. I am chased from my hiding spot when the owner of the trailer returns and yells at me to get lost, probably thinking that I was going to try and move into his place or something. I make a mental note to retrieve the stones later.

I don't know if it is the next day or later in the week but the dream skips ahead a bit and I am talking with someone in the middle of the slum, most of which is still smoldering ruins. There are a few people trying to rebuild but many people don't see the point since they know the island will probably be bombed again in the near future. The young man I am talking to says that there is a man who lives in a cave on the other side of the island who grants wishes or something to anyone who brings him rare or precious items. I remember my yellow and red stones (having forgotten them until now, apparently) and wait until night to try and dig them up.

Thankfully the stones are still there and I make my way along the island's outer edge to try and find the cave. The full moon is large and supplies ample lumination for me to find my way. The muddy cliffs give way to icy formations that are just as difficult to traverse. I slip several times and almost drop my stones in the sea, which seems to have gone calm to violent and frothing the farther I get from the slum town. The sea is also freezing and I assume that is why the cliff face is covered in ice.

I feel like I have been walking forever, and indeed the sun starts to rise before I see the cave in the distance. The icy cliff gives way to sand, but not before I pluck a peculiar looking stone from the frigid ice. It is similar to my yellow and red stones, being translucent and about fist size, but is a bright blue. I put it in with the others and continue on my way. I am happy to reach the sand because it is warm and soft, though I have to avoid being sweapt away by large waves that are crashing onto the beach. The tide must be coming in or something because even when I walk directly away from the sea, the waves still reach my feet no matter how far inshore I go.

What looked like a cave from a distance now looks like a large door made of gold and encrusted with shining jems. There are gold and silver gears and chains surrounding it and there does not seem to be a door handle. I think at first that it is some sort of puzzle but before I can get much further in my thoughts, the gears start turning, the chains squeak and the door swings open. It is all dark inside and I cannot see anything at first, but with the sea level rapidly rising behind me, I do not hesitate to go inside.

I am exhausted and cold and am hoping that this journey has not been in vain. I feel my way through the dark until I find a wooden door. I open it and am stunned by what I see behind it. It looks like a standard, modern day home (kitchen to my right, living room dead ahead, bedroom to my left), but everything is made of precious material and jewels. The walls are solid gold, the light fixtures are made of crystal, the carpet under my feet is soft and luxuriant. I am appauled by the excess of the place, thinking of the utter poverty and slum conditions in which my town on the other side of the island exists.

As I walk towards the large high ceiling living room. A tall, handsome, muscular man (in his late 20s/early 30s) comes out of no where and greats me. A woman appears by his side and offers to make me some tea. She seems kind of "empty," and does not even look directly at me. She is forcing a smile. I can not see them, but I can hear children playing somewhere. Still overwhelmed by the opulance of the place I forgot what I had come for, even thought I still clutched the stones closely to my chest. Despite their apparently welcoming demenor, I do not feel safe because everything feels "fake."


The dream ends there.