non-lucid

This dream takes place in was a normal looking town except that there are no people around and the sky is perpetually overcast. There was a lake or river or something that the town was situated on and the water was always choppy and murky. I appeared as my dream incarnate Kalima and was wearing a lavender coloured dress, a grey hooded cloak, and had red hair.


I was travelling with Gandalf the White, Legolas, Frodo and old Bilbo Baggins, and two other figures whom I can no longer remember. We were trying to make our way through the abandoned town but it was very dangerous because there were orcs and an assortment of other monsters roaming around. According to Gandalf the White, we were looking for some sort of portal that would take them back to Valinor.

I had a bit of magic, but the world we were in didn't follow the "standard" metaphysical rules and whenever Gandalf or I tried to cast a spell, the results would not be as expected. Eventually the group had to rely on brute strength to fight the monsters we came across, which left me at a major disadvantage because I had neither the physical strength nor a weapon to defend myself with.

The group and I went down one tree lined road and came across yet another group of monsters. During the fight, I hung back and hid between some houses while the men fought. I don't remember seeing exactly what happened, but at some point Legolas' bow broke and he abandoned it. I lagged behind the group and picked up the bow. I scratched some runes into bow and it became a lightning whip. I caught up to the group as they encountered yet another group of monsters in a park filled with willow trees. When I used the whip, it cracked like thunder and scared the monsters away.

The men went on their way without even looking at me and I did not follow this time. I wandered into a small, white house and found a group of children huddling in the basement. This surprised me because I thought that the town had been abandoned. The kids said that they were hidding from the lightning and thunder and I tried to explain that it was only my magical whip.


I cannot remember how they responded because I woke up.

Mom, Aunt Jenny, six-year old neice Miranda and I are going up huge, snowy mountain. I think my Dad, brothers and cousin Peter are there but they stay at the foot of the mountain for some reason. There are three plateaus where climbers can stop and rest, or catch a red tram that goes from the foot of the mountain to a chalet at the second plateau. There is a stop at the first plateau where people can take a bathroom break in a facility that has been carved into the mountain side.

My mom and Aunt Jenny go on ahead while I am left with Miranda to walking up the first part of the mountain (which is also the least difficult). At the first plateau we have a quick rest and watch people getting on and off the tram before continuing on our way. Because the mountain becomes dramatically steeper, there are stairs cut into the side of the mountain to assist people who decide to walk up. We are almost at the second plateau when Miranda slips and begins to slide down the mountain side. I throw myself after her and act as a human sled so that she will not be hurt. We slide all the way back down to the first plateau on our butts (well, my butt actually). Miranda thinks it is great fun but I am sore and frustrated.

It is very late in the afternoon and soon it will be dark, so rather than waste our time trying to climb again, we agree to take the tram. We quickly go to the bathroom (we only have two minutes before the tram leaves), get on and ride it up to the second plateau, where Mom and Aunt Jenny awaits us in the chalet. I want to stay there for the night but Mom and Aunt Jenny say that Miranda has school in the morning and they take the tram down the mountain. The entire family leaves and since I no longer have a ride home, I decide to continue climbing the mountain myself.

The next day I am eager to continue on. Since the tram does not go up any further, I have to climb the steep stairs that have been cut into the side of the mountain. The climb to the thrid and final plateau is the longest and hardest, but it doesn't seem so bad because there is a steady line of climbers trudging up the mountain. I see a few people fall or slide off, but since there is nothing I can do to help them, I have to keep going. I reach a peak and grab the slippery ridge just as I lose my footing. I cannot see what's on the other side but I assume it is the final plateau because I can see what appears to be a wooden roof. A hand grabs mine and pulls me over the ridge and I find my self under a small gazebo where an elderly lady with pink coloured eyes is drinking hot cider with two old men. One of the men is completely blind and the other has one eye missing.

Behind the small gazebo there appears to be a small town where many people are walking around. The buildings are just shells (four walls and a roof), with padded floors. There are no windows and no doors so the buildings offer little shelter from the elements, though I suppose they were better than sleeping outside. People can buy, sell and live in these building for as long as they want. I cannot see what or where the source is, but there is a steady and abundant supply of food. The little town sits in the shadow of the summit, and many climbers think it is so great that they forget about reaching the top and stay in the town instead. I have grown tired of the mountain and want to leave. I have lost my desire to reach the top but neither do I want to stay in the town. I buy some skis and start down the other side of the mountain from the plateau town. The view is exhilarating but the decend is long, isolated and dangerous. There is no one attempting the decent but me.


I was only half way down the mountain when the dream suddenly ended and I woke up.

There is a punk or rock band doing an interview while walking through a dense field along a small, shallow creek. I am a camera operator trying to keep up with them as they walk and talk. I follow one of the spiky haired dudes into the creek and try to keep pace without getting my camera wet. As we trudge through the creek it slowly becomes wider and at one point (and quite suddenly) deeper. The band and other camera operators disappear as the sun starts to set and I am left to struggle out of the creek alone.

I see my family's old 1986 Westfalia sitting a distance away, near the edge of a dirt road. Still soaking wet I drop the camera and get into the vehicle, where I find myself with Dad, Mom, and brother Ryan. It is dark now and we seem to drive around aimlessly. I cannot see where we are going. Ryan is doing something to annoy me (but I can't remember what) and I feel angry. We pass small towns or buildings in the dark that are adorned with lots of bright lights and decorations). We are supposed to drop Ryan off somewhere (he is to meet up with his friend James, I think) but he disappears from (or exits) the van before we find the destination.

My parents drive past a few more small, brightly lit towns and then back into the dark country side. They suddenly turn off the van's headlights and drive in the dark. I can still feel (and vaguely see) the backseat that I am sitting on, but otherwise am completely surrounded by darkness. I can no longer see or hear Mom and Dad, but I assume they are still there because I can still feel the vibration of the van moving (though I can no longer hear the vehicle's engine as well).

The darkness surrounding me feels thick and heavy and I feel like I am being suffocated.

Morning of May 27, 2007. Sunday.

This was a very weird and vivid (but not what you would call lucid) dream about primarily my right hand being continuously injured and each finger almost coming off at different times during the dream.

My fingers (all four, but not including my thumb, which remains okay in the dream) somehow get cut by paper I am reading from, I believe - to where it causes all of their flesh to detach from the rest of my hand near the middle of the joints.

(I need to point out that the bone is never damaged or detached, just the fleshy areas, although it does seem at times like the entire finger may come off, but that does not actually happen.)

The sensations are extremely vivid and realistic in every sense of the word. There is not as much blood as one would expect and a couple times, I think of wrapping bandages around them. I even try to manually push the severed flesh back around the finger bone and it actually works for the most part.

It is very weird as the dream draws to a close; somehow my fingers (their flesh) perfectly reunite with the flesh they had somehow torn from, almost like a strong magnetic pull that “melts” the flesh back together and at the same time, having a sort of flowing effect (hard to explain), almost like pouring a glass of water into another but more of a sort of jelly-like rejoining.

Just prior to fully waking, my hand is perfectly whole again (better than ever) although it is very cold (and slowly coming back to life) and with a chalky powder around the fingers where the worst damage was. Of course, no scars will result, since the flesh flawlessly “melted” back together again.

Morning of April 19, 2007. Thursday.



My family and I are back at the apartment we used to live in about two years ago. However, our mentally disabled neighbor (to the south of us in real life on Barolin Street, in the halfway house) lives across the street in a semitrailer, but there is only a vague scene where he appears making some sort of loud animal noises as he does in life, but only for a short time. The semitrailer seems to be completely empty but he still lives there. (In real life, he had shouted gibberish at random times day and night , so it is possible he shouted once or twice and it became part of my dream.)

There are not many buildings around other than the four-block apartment complex we live in in-dream. The other three units have not been lived in for a long time, and I get this strong feeling that the whole area is going to eventually become part of a new development project within a month or so (this aspect turned out to be precognitive as well as the other precognitive layer described below). The area is completely different to real life, though. The four-block set of units is actually right on the edge of a cliff in a sort of triangular section with our apartment seeming the most safe. Actually, the ground has fallen out from underneath a couple of them already, making them unsafe. The apartment we live in is actually closest to the slightly curved road and there is the idea that the other apartments are not even safe enough to walk around in now. There is also a newer road below, part of it going directly under the apartment complex area. I soon notice that I can actually look through the window of one of the empty apartments and look down and see through gaps in the floor and down to the road below, where I notice a truck passing underneath.

I have a strong awareness that the owner of the place has not done any maintenance for a few years. I am also aware that there are stoves and refrigerators in the other apartments, but in poor condition. I put my hand on the outer wall of one of the apartment units, and there is almost immediately a rumbling, and dirt falling from everywhere around the unit. The whole apartment unit collapses down off from the cliff to the more solid ground below. It is about four stories down. This - from one brief touch of my hand.

I start to become more concerned about our own living area. Surely it must be fairly safe? A woman of about forty appears at around the same time I start to wonder about our apartment. Sure enough, when I start to open the front door, our whole apartment starts to fall to the ground below.

However, all is not lost. The woman has a cardboard box, and, with no logic or sense whatsoever, manages to safely catch all of our belongings in the box before the dust settles. The idea that even a small portion of our belongings would not have fit in the box (let alone being able to be caught as the whole building was falling) never even crosses my mind. I am just glad we still have all of our possessions with no damage whatsoever - and of course, we also managed to fall from the cliff (staying in standing position) without being injured as well.

Interestingly, this dream has turned out to be precognitive on two levels and exact in terms of some of the imagery; a day later, there was something about houses in Canada falling in the same manner as in my dream, and it was something I had not been thinking about or had seen on television recently up to the time of my dream.

There's a small town in the middle of nowhere it seems. There are small, one-storey homes built closely together throughtout the town but a thick fog makes anything beyond the town all but impossible to see. What vegetation can be seen is overgrown. Debris litters the street. Everything has a very "Silent Hill" feeling or looks downright ghetto. I'm in a large vehicle (a bus, I think) driving around this fog encased town looking for something or someone. There are people on the streets and they go about their business like any small, sleepy town would. They do not seem to notice the fog, or just don't care about it.

In the middle of the dream there is this scene that seems to repeat itself over and over (or I am unconsciously doing the same exact movements over and over) but everytime it starts up again there is different "background" music. I cannot see where the music is coming from. It seems atmospheric, almost like the music was born from the very air particles that I was breathing in.

I stopped the bus and got out because I was frustrated with feeling "stuck" and tried to find my way on foot. There was some incident in the street, but I have fogotten what transpired now. At one point I wander into an alleyway behind some buildings and turn around just in time to see the bus I was previously on run down and crush some poor woman in a pink sweater and beige pants (I didn't get to see her face so I don't know she is but I think it is my mother because of how she is dressed). The bus did not stop or slow down when it hit the lady and drove right into a brick wall, compacting the front of the bus like an accordian, and I assume, killing the driver.

At first I was horrified and tried to run away from the grisly scene, but then something compelled me back. I felt sick to my stomach when I returned, especially when when I noticed a group of people and their children approaching. I tried to stop them from viewing the horror, but I woke at about that moment and remember no more of this dream.

Morning of March 19, 2007. Monday.



In this dream, I am in a public area, and in a different country. It seems it may be the northern area of Syria. A lot of people are around. For some reason, Sam Neill, the actor, is there. He has a large boat to help people escape from the coming war. There is also a girl (from Tel Aviv?) with him. She is wearing a Star of David patch on her dress or blouse, but is told to take the symbol off, as she will not be safe in any part of the world with any group of people (during the war) if she keeps it. I believe she takes off the patch and puts it in a pocket or wraps it in a scarf. There is also a teenage male on the boat, but he plays such a small role, I am hardly ever aware of him.

A Syrian man (about forty years old) approaches me. He asks me where I am living, and for some reason, I state that I am living on the Saudi Arabia / Iraq border, which seems quiet and suitable in my dream, curiously enough. He informs me that he will go and get a gun for me to help protect myself as I am leaving the country. I wait outside and overhear him say something about me being gullible in my belief that he would do this, but the word is not “gullible”, it is something else I am not sure of, a short word which seems to express a few ideas at once, something to do with word play on “assaulting” (assaultin’) and “sultan”, I think. There is a point at which a large cloud of black smoke rises in the distance.

I later see a large television on display to the public and the news is on, showing scenes of smoking, damaged buildings with text (lower on the screen) “Beginning: World War III”. However, the news announcers seem very calm. I decide to go on the boat to “escape”. There are only very few people on the boat with Sam Neill as captain.

The “logic” of my dream makes absolutely no sense with regard to travel. The large boat is able to travel over land and even through buildings. In fact, somehow, during a couple similar or “reset” scenes, we even manage to get through a narrow checkout in what seems to be a small grocery store in Australia. At times, we are on water, but there is supposedly no flood to justify how the boat goes through different buildings to different countries or travels as it does.

We knock aside some military vehicles, one being a colorful semitrailer truck. It is not clear to me who is doing the most fighting or even what the war is about. It just seems that every country is at war with every other country and even different armies of certain countries are against each other.

We go into a whirlpool and we go down through a subterranean system of rivers, which are almost perfectly round. There is some concern that we will reach a dead-end and not be able to go back. At one point, we go through a palace in India where I notice intense-appearing women that gaze at us suspiciously - and the boat even goes down the front flight of stairs before going back into a larger body of water.

Finally, we end up in an area in which I am trying to work out if we are just west or east of Canada. It seems more like it is near Alaska, on the west side of Canada. There is a smaller cylindrical iceberg in the water, which is where I will be living until the war is over. The area is peaceful and beautiful. I expect to see airplanes or smoke along the horizon, but everything is clear and blue here.

Morning of March 4, 2007. Sunday.

Dream #: 14,685-02. Reading time (optimized): 2 min.



I am with my youngest son at a grocery store, which seems like the store closest to where we live, to the north, but perpendicular to how it is in real life. It is possible that the rest of my family is there and shopping in another part of the store.

There is an unknown woman whom I think works there. She is pretty and about thirty. It first seems as if she may be Italian, but she has a South American appearance as well. Her skin is slightly dark, and she seems to have an elaborate headpiece with bells or little silver balls on it. Later, I am unsure if she is a worker or someone who came into the store to talk to us. She reminds me slightly of a gypsy and also of my wife.

She thinks my son is either carrying or is in contact with the spirit of her grandfather in addition to another. She wants to ask my son a question. She whispers it in his left ear (something that I would never agree to in real life and it even feels wrong in my dream at first). She seems to be performing a ritual, mostly only a chant-like acknowledgment of my son’s “powers.” I feel a bit uneasy and unsure of what is going on. It almost seems I am only there to take my son back home so that he will not get lost.

I bow to have my son speak a name in my left ear rather loudly and clearly, but still somewhat like a whisper, but also seemingly meant to reassure me.

The name is “Akna.” (Is that the mysterious woman’s name?)

“Akna” does not sound familiar. A few thoughts go through my head. Acne? What is the word? Akna. Why Akna? Is it the last name of an unknown family member? I wake up, somewhat annoyed, as my dream did not seem to make sense regardless of how vivid it became.

---

In Inuit mythology, Akna (“mother”) is a goddess of fertility and childbirth.

Akna is also the name of a goddess of motherhood and birthing in Maya mythology.

---

My wife had a baby recently and needed to have a C-Section. I certainly do not remember reading or hearing about “Akna,” though.

Zsuzsanna told me our son had been doing some unusual songlike chanting before going to sleep, with a lot of m, n, and k sounds. My dream date matches the date circled in my her journal (though I had not seen it) about when she thought she would have our new baby (though it was earlier by C-section). Zsuzsanna has a theory that my dream is a result of her regret over not having her baby at the “right” time, but I have no regret and am glad she got through it. At this point, I also am wondering if it was our baby son implied as older in my dream, or our next-youngest son, although I think it was our next-youngest.

---

Original dream dated Feb. 23rd, 2007:

I dreamed I turned into a man who was coal black on one side and snow white on the other. I was trying to give a reading of a poem for class, but one side of my body took over and the poem came out completely wrong. The side that took over was the side that was capable of being ONLY completely literal and rational. My professor gave me an F.
I was angry, so I decided to go harass her. I went over to her house and found out that she had a side-business dry-cleaning underwear, but for some reason all of the underwear was red and made of wool.
She was still sleeping, so I decided to freak her out by taking a shower. She had some Fructis shampoo that I liked a lot. At one point, she woke up and argued with me because she needed to get into the bathroom.

This is one of those long, detailed, epic-like dreams that my subconscious seems to produce every now and then.


The dream takes place in a post-apocalypic world where small populations of people often battle each other over limited resources. Technology has been reduced to horse-drawn carriages and flint-lock pistols. There is a man who lives away from the fighting and he works in a forge underneath a damaged bridge by a wide river. The Swordmaster, as he is called, made swords (duh!) and armour. He had a reputation of being a ruthless fighter and a loner, and had no known friends or relatives. He sold his creations to whomever could pay, choosing not to take sides in the frequent battles.

The dream starts with a young girl (about eight years old?), with black hair and green eyes, wandering into his forge (I think her name was Jeyna, or something like that). The Swordmaster tries to scare her away, but she seems unafraid of him and interested in the swords that are on display. I cannot recall the conversation they had, but the Swordmaster eventually bribes her into leaving by giving her a delicately crafted knife for free. The dream takes on a kind of montage effect and shows Jeyna returning in secret several times to watch the swordmaker at work with great fascination.

The dream skips a few years. Jeyna flees to the forge because her hometown has been destroyed and with nowhere else to go, she begs the Swordmaster to take her in and teach her how to make swords. He challenges her to a deal and though she is able to deflect a few blows, Jeyna is utterly outmatched by the Swordmaster. However, he is impressed with her skill and determination and agrees to take her on as an apprentice, but warns of his sudden moods and ill temper. Between teaching her how to use the forge, the Swordmaster also teaches Jeyna some swordfighting skills.

The dream skips a few more years to when Jeyna is a young woman. Despite his cold, emotionless demenor, the Swordmaster has grown quite attatched to Jeyna and become very protective of her, though he tries not to show it. While working in the forge one day, and while the Swordmaster is out, the forge is raided by bandits looking for supplies. Jeyna tries to defend the place but the bandits are armed with long-range weapons like bows and spears and she is captured. The bandits are about to kill Jeyna when a group of soldiers on horseback and wielding flintlock guns and rifles show up and chase the bandits away. The captain of the soldiers tries to recruit Jeyna, telling her of how much of the population has come together to live in peace, but says that she can only join if she can use a gun. The soldiers then ride off in pursuit of the bandits.

After the soldiers leave and the Swordmaster returns and Jeyna has filled him in on what happened, the Swordmaster gives his apprentice directions to a trustworthy and neutral gunsmith that lives a few kilometres south of the forge. Before she leaves, the Swordmaster gives to Jeyna his strongest and most cherished sword. It is a rapier with a white and gold handle and the Swordmaster says that the sword is the best made in the world. Though curious as to why he is passing on the sword to her, Jeyna takes it without question and sets out across no-man's land alone.

The Gunsmith's shop is unmarked and located right between two colonies of people that often fight each other and Jeyna has to find it without being seen or caught. When she does find the place, the Gunsmith, a fat, bald man with a thick curling mustach, scoffs at her request for a gun. He claims that she cannot afford his creations and that he only shares his weaponry with soldiers, not children. Jeyna tries everything from threatening him to begging and the Gunsmith just gruffly laughs at all of her attempts. Finally, Jeyna gives up and goes outside, loudly cursing the Swordmaster under her breath. As she starts to walk away, the Gunsmith runs (or waddles, being fat) outside and chides her for not mentioning the Swordmaster before, as they are old friends. The Gunsmith gives Jeyna his best weapon for free and tells her that she is welcome back anytime to learn how to use the weapon. He also says that she and the Swordmaster to come and visit some time.

When Jeyna returns to the forge, the hour is very late and the Swordmaster is no where to be found. It is only after a couple of days that Jeyna becomes worried, though she is afraid to leave to forge unguarded. Jeyna continues to work the forge until she runs out of resources, which the Swordmaster had always provided before. Only when all of the goods had been sold and there was nothing left of value in the forge or shop, did Jeyna contemplate leaving. She was torn between searching for the Swordmaster, or trying to find the group of soldiers who had tried to recruit her. The Gunsmith suddenly shows up for a visit and while he can provide her with the location of the soldiers, he has no idea where the Swordmaster would be.

The dream gets fuzzy here. There is something about Jeyna searching along the riverbank and running into some of the bandits who raided the forge before. They are unarmed and with their children, bathing and washing their clothes at the water's egde. There is a lengthy conversation about something before Jeyna leaves and returns to the forge. As she is going back she sees two people fighing in the wasteland in the distance and when she gets closer it turns out to be the Swordmaster and the Gunsmith. They are in hand to hand combat and both are battered and bruised. Jeyna runs between the two and tries to seperate them, but the Swordmaster pulls her sword from it's scabbard and violently cuts down the Gunsmith. Jeyna stands in shocked silence while the Swordmaster wipes the sword clean and walks away from the bloody scene. He does not return to the forge and disappears again.

Jeyna does not return to the forge and goes to join the soldiers instead. The dream becomes fuzzy and I cannot remember any more.

In the dream I appeared as I looked at about age 11 or 12. I was with my mom and dad and we were in our old 1986 Volkswagen Westfalia. We were driving down an urban street that was lined with old Victorian and Edwardian style buildings, as well as many trees. In the dream, this was supposed to be our hometown of London, Ontario, but the areas we travelled through looked nothing like any area of London that I recognize. I don't remember many of the buildings, but one stuck in my memory for some reason. It was a three story bulding made of dark grey bricks and a black tile roof. The front door was a dark red and there were vines growing up the entire front side. This building sat opposite of a three-way intersection and I recall noticing it the first time my parents and I drove past it because my dad had to make a left turn. Though it had a unique and vaguely farmiliar look in my dream, I cannot recognize it as anything I know in waking life.

My parents and I drove out into the country, though it did not look like the country surrounding my hometown (as I know it in waking life, anyway). We drove for a long time and came to a thicket of trees which seemed to have a picnic area in the middle. My dad drove the van towards the picnic tables but the westfalia got stuck in some mud that we had not noticed before. My parents got out of the van and walked towards the picnic tables and it was then that I noticed an old man in a blue uniform. He looked like a thin Captain Highliner. I walked amongst the trees while my parents talked to the captain. I found a little stream and noticed something moving in the water, but my mom called me back to the van before I could get a look at what it was. As we drove out of the grove (and almost got stuck in the mud again) I watched the old man walk towards the little stream with a blank expression on his face. He waded into the stream before the van turned onto the road and I could no longer see him.

We drove for miles again, past farmland and forests. I noticed that we travelled fairly far without seeing a single building. Soon though, my parents spotted group of white houses and they wanted to go check them out. Parking the westfalia behind one of the houses my mom and dad got out of the van and started snooping around. I was afraid of being caught doing something illegal so I stayed in the van. When my parents had not returned for a long time, I got out of the van and went to look for them. From the window of one of the white houses I could see someone looking at me and I was afraid that they were going to call the police on me for tresspassing. I started back to the van but I suddenly heard a group of people laughing and carrying on. Following the noise I came across my mom and dad and some strangers on the front balcony of one of the houses, opening champagne bottles and having some sort of celebration. The old man in the blue uniform was there as well. Apparently it was his house and he had just won it in a sweepstakes or something (and that is why everyone was celebrating?).

My parents had one glass of champagne before returning to the van and heading home. The trip home didn't seem nearly as long as the trip out there, and I don't recall seeing the picnic grove on the way back. When we returned to London, it again was the strange London with all of the Victorian and Edwardian building. When we came to the three-way interesection and my dad turned, I watched the vaguely farmiliar dark grey, three story bulding grow smaller and smaller in the rear view window. When we were some distance away I saw the dark red door swing open, but I woke up before I could see what was behind it.

I dreamed that I was sleeping on my bed. I woke up in the dream and saw that there was a small rectangular mirror beside me. I picked it up and tilted it towards me but intead of my reflection, there was a reversed image of a transparent male figure. I knew immediately that it was a ghost and it startled me because it looked like the figure was hanging over me and about to strike or grab me or something. It freaked me out so much that I woke up for real!


This is not the first time I had a dream like this. In late November or early December (2006), I had a dream where I was laying on my stomach on my bed and a male, bearded ghost walked into my room and placed his hand on my right shoulder. That too startled me into consciousness. I had forgotten about that dream until now because I had not written it down at the time.

Freaky!

The dream starts off with my family and I inside a volcano. The chamber we are in has a marble floor and display cases, against the walls, all around the room. It looks like a museum display for an ancient native culture, and in fact my family are there as a part of a tour group. In the south end of the chamber there is a set of stone stairs that lead up to a fissure, refered to as the "Offering Hole." On every third step of the stairs is a large guardian totem. There are five in total and they have been carved out of black obsidian. Beside the stairs are two native crafted containers that have five peices of gold in them.


The tour group (of about twenty-five people, including my mom, dad, two brothers, sister-in-law, two neices, and I) is led up the volcano and into the chamber. Despite being built inside a volcano, the chamber is not that hot at all. The tour guide warns everybody against touching the gold at the base of the stone stairs, lest the volcano spirit become enraged, and the stone guardians awaken to seek out and destroy the thieves. We are all led up the stone stairs to view the "Offering Hole" and while most of the group is distracted, someone takes that time to steal two peices of the gold. The tour guide is alerted when two of the stone guardians come to life, forcing everyone back down the stairs. The culprits are quickly apprehended and removed from the chamber. The theives were a man who looked like James Bond and a woman who looked like a stereotypical Russian spy/femme fatal. The two stone guardians return to their specific steps when the gold is returned.

When everything has settled down, two young women in the tour group are offered a chance to don native costume and participate in an offering ritual. They are asked to put two long and narrow straps of leather in their mouths. The thin straps seem to be attached to something across the room, but I cannot see to what. The young women have to ascend the stone stairs with the offering of fruit and meat held above their heads, and not let the straps fall out of their mouths. While the rest of the tour group is watching the ritual, I follow the leather straps across the room to see what they are attached too. It turns out that one strap is attached to the gentials of a male statue while the other strap is attached to the genitals of a female statue.

As I am making this weird discovery and the rest of the tour group are watching the ritual, someone else takes that time to steal all five peices of gold and escape the chamber. When all five of the guardians start to move and the crime has been discovered, the tour guide panics and tells everyone to run for their lives. In the confusion of everyone trying to escape the wrath of the volcano spirits, the two women participating in the ritual either fall, or are pushed, into the "Offering Hole."

My family and I escape down the volcano safely, and find an expansive, dark, gothic town. There is some sort of freakish goth parade going on and I ask my dad for the digital camera to take some pictures. As I wander the streets looking for a good shot, I end up losing sight of my family and becoming lost. I wander for a while in the dark and eeiry alleyways and streets and when I start to get cold, I go into a building that looks like a store. It is empty of people, but there is a stage with bright red curtains at the back. On the stage I see my cat Bambi, whom I know must be a ghost (because she died half a year ago) and she appears to be transparent. Regardless, I was happy to see her and took a few pictures with the camera. Despite being transparent and ghost-like on the stage in front of me, Bambi appeared completely solid and lifelike in the photos.

I hear some voices outside and turn away for a moment. When I look back at the stage, Bambi is gone. I go outside and see my family being heckled by some goths. Once back together we find the main road and follow it out of the dark, gothic city. The area outside of the city is snow covered and very unlike the environment around the volcano. I looked back the way we came and I can still see the volcano looming over the goth city. (I feel that I should have become lucid at this point, but I did not.)

I tell my family about seeing Bambi but no one believes me until I showed them the photos that I had taken. Even after seeing the photos they do not seem interested or excited and just want to meet up with the rest of the tour group. The remaining people in the group were now waiting at the base of a snow covered hill. There was some sort of building at the top that we had to get to, but the hill was steep, slippery, and in some areas large boulders and sharp rocks portruded out of the snow.

The younger of my two older brothers asks me for the camera and I reluctantly give it up. The tour group slowly ascends the hill and makes it about half way when the path is blocked by a huge pile of snow. Everyone in the group, including my family, stands around and complains about the cold or the tour in general while I try to dig a path with my hands. No one seems interested in helping me and I have to do it alone. When enough snow has been removed so that we can pass, my brother (who is in possession of the digital camera) runs past everyone else to the top of the hill and smashes the camera against a rock. The camera does not appear to break completely, but I am upset because I think I have lost the picture of my cat Bambi.

I run and try to catch up to my brother but he disappears into the building at the top of the hill. I cannot find him when I go in, though I do find the camera on the floor in one of the rooms. It appears to only have sustained structural damage but I notice something weird when I review the photos: though my cat Bambi appears solid and lifelike in photos, in images taken of my youngest neice (earlier in the tour apparently) she appears ghost-like and transparent while everyone else appears solid.

Dream starts off in a land of monsters, which is ruled by a short, ugly orc who lived in a white and green marble castle. Because of a civil war going on, everyone is trapped in the castle, including a beautiful human princess who was seeking shelter from the fighting. It is not made clear in the dream why the Princess was in the land of monsters in the first place. The Orc King and the Princess had names in the dream, but I forgot what they were upon waking.


The Orc King lets the Princess into his castle and makes her stay in a cage that is suspended above the throne room. The only way into the suspended cage is up a rusty ladder that is leaning against a pillar and then balancing on a tightrope. Though he tells the Princess that she is not a prisoner, the king will not let her leave the castle. The ugly, little orc also makes his lustful desires for the beautiful Princess be known, but she rejects any and all of his advances. The king is dissapointed, but respects her wishes to be left alone. Before he leaves, the Orc King has the suspended cage lowered to the floor and tells his servants to meet every demand that his beautiful human captive makes, as long as it does not involve leaving the castle.

The king leaves the throne room and goes into a cave below his castle. There is an old orc witch who lives there and she tells the Orc King of a powerful magic item that is owned by the father of the Princess being held captive upstairs. The Orc King immediately begins to plot holding the young woman randsom in exchange for the magic item, but the witch warns that the Princess has some magic power of her own and will enchant and destroy the king if he is not careful. The Orc King tells the old witch of his sexual desires for the Princess, which have been increasing every minute to the point where he was beginning to wish that he was human, so that his beautiful young captive would recieve his advances. The orc witch is horrified at the kings confession and flees the cave in disgust.

That night the ugly ruler of the orcs laid upon his bed and was just falling asleep when the Princess appeared in his chamber. She splashed a cold, silvery liquid on him immediately it began to feel as if it was burning off his skin. The Orc King screamed and writhed in pain on the floor, but as quickly as the pain had come it was gone. He stood up and realized that he had been transformed into a human. The effect was temporary and wore off when the sun rose, but not before the Princess finally recieved the king's lustful advances. For many nights afterwards the Princess returned to the Orc King's chamber at night and splashed him with the strange water that transformed him into a human, and every night she came to him the king fell more and more in love with the Princess.

When the fighting in the surrounding area suddenly stopped and it was safe to venture outside, the Princess wasted no time in escaping the Orc King's castle and fleeing to her own kingdom. The king was heart broken but he did not pursue her. That night as the king sulked under the light of the full moon, he suddenly felt a searing pain and was transformed into a human again, even though the Princess and her magic water was no where around. He hid in his chamber until susrise when he expected to revert to his normal self, but when he did not, the king snuck out of his own castle and went to find his beloved Princess. His heart and mind desired nothing else now except to be with her.

The transformed king searches for a long time, but eventually finds the Princess. She is surprised to see the Orc King in his human form and is more so when he asks to marry her. She accepts and as a wedding gift, the father of the bride gives them the powerful magic item that the Orc King once plotted to obtain. (For some reason this powerful magic item looked exactly like an old-school typewritter.) The new groom asks if he can take the magic item to his kingdom, to restore peace, and the Princess and her father agree. The older king insists on going ahead though, not knowing that his new son-in-law's kingdom is a land of monsters. Taking the magic item with him, the old king leaves the newly weds to be alone.

The Princess and her new groom try to catch up to the old king after consumating their marriage, but when they are about half way between the two kingdoms, the Orc King suddenly reverts to his ugly, little self. He is distraught because he believes that his beloved human bride will have nothing to do with him while he looks like a monster, but the Princess comforts him and does not leave. The Orc King asks his bride if she has any more of the magic water but she shakes her head no. The Princess tells him of a magic fountain within a cave that will fulfill any one desire if he bathes in the water, but the Orc King has to journey to find it on his own. The Princess then returns to her own kingdom to wait the return of her new husband.

The dream either skips a bit, or perhaps I have just forgotten the sequence, but the Orc King travels for a long while before finding the magic fountain in a far away land. He washes himself in the water and his ugly green skin melts off and he is transformed into a human again. Unlike the previous transformations, however, this is a pleasant experience and not a painful one. The transformed king rushes back to his land and finds that not only has the fighting between the monsters increased, but his father-in-law has been viciously murdered and the powerful magic item stolen. Because none of his subjects recognize their king in human form, he is attacked whenever spotted and has to sneak around as much as possible.

The transformed king find his way to his castle and spies the orc witch in the courtyard. She appears to be in possession of the magic item. When she sees her king, the witch immediately recognizes him and hands over the magic item without a fight. She also gives the Orc King an amulet and says that his loyal subjects will recognize him as long as he wears it. The old orc witch then falls over in pain and blesses the union between the Orc King and the Princess before expiring. From her dead body a white bird flies forth and disappears into the expansive blue sky.

Actually, though the king has many loyal subjects who respect his peaceful rule, there are equally as many monsters in his land who resent being ruled by a human. A bloodthirsty rebel faction kidnaps and kills the Princess and the transformed king abdicates his throne in his intense grief. His land breaks out in violent war again, but he does not care. The Orc King buries his beloved bride on a hill between the two kingdoms and then lays down on her grave and dies of despair.

The dream starts off with me nine months pregnant with twins. I am lost and I have nothing to my name, and I wander aimlessly down a long stretch of road in the middle of nowhere. I walk for hours until I come across a little farm that seems vaguely farmiliar. I do not see any hydro lines or cars and it is soon aparent why: I am on a Mennonite farm. The Mennonite couple who answer the door are the same ones whom I remember from my youth: they owned a small store that they ran out of their house, close the the trailer park my parents and I went to every weekend in the summer. I have forgotten their names now though.

When the couple saw the state I was in, the husband rushed to hitch up the horses to the carriage and they took me to the nearest hospital, which was in a small town a few miles away. The showed great concern for me and even waited with me until I had been admitted. The Mennonite couple said they would come back the next day to check on me before they left. The hospital was a huge 5 story building that towered over everything else in the tiny town. It was strangley disproportioned compared to the area it was in, like it would be a hospital found in a busling metropolis, not a sleepy, country town. Despite its size, the hospital was unusually quiet and there seemed to be no one around.

A male nurse in green scrubs greeted the Mennonite couple plesantly but barely looked at me while he filled in the admission forms. The nurse still wouldn't look at me when he brought a gurney in for me to lay on and show the Mennonite couple out. As soon as the couple was gone the male nurse strode right past me and did not even acknowledge my presence from that point on. I was wisked away to another part of the hospital.

The female nurse pushing my gurney parked it in a hall outside of some rooms that had no one in them and I asked why I could not go into one of those rooms, but she ignored me. I was left alone in the hall and even though I could see all of the normal equipment that are in hospital halls, there was absolutely no one around. No nurses, no patients, no custodial staff: no one.

I layed on my gurney until I became restless and cold and got up to try and find someone. Just then three male doctors walked through some double doors at the end of the hall and came up to me. The one in the middle had a file that they were all looking at and discussing. I tried to get their attention, and though two of them glared at me for a second, none responded to my questions. When the three doctors were done reading the file, they finally addressed me, but said that, despite my condition, they had no rooms available for me and said that I would have to sleep outside in the grass.

I kind of stared at them dumbfounded and demanded to know why I had been admitted as a patient if they was no room - which I knew was a lie because all around me I could see rooms for patients that were completely empty, though ready for use. One of the doctors shook his head and said: "We have room for patients, just no room for you."

I broke down into bewildered tears as I was pushed to a pile of straw in a grassy spot by the hospital's main entrance and asked to get off the gurney. The female nurse threw a thin blanket over the straw and then turned around and went back into the hospital. I couldn't believe what was going on but I laid down on the pile of straw because I was exhausted and defeated. I could feel my babies kicking from the inside, as if they knew something was deeply wrong as well. I remember wishing that I was dead as night came, because it was so cold and the thin blanket did nothing to keep me warm. Only once or twice did a nurse come out to check on me, or offer me a sip of cold water.

When the sun began to rise it woke me up because it was right in my eyes. It was a bit foggy and everything was covered in a light frost. I was shivering violently and my lips were blue but I was much too weak to move and seriously thought I was going to die there. I suddenly felt some warm hands lift me up and I was tightly wrapped in a heavy blanket that smelled like barnyard animals. I opened my eyes and saw the Mennonite couple, who demanded to know right away why I was not in the hospital.

When they heard of my horrible treatment at the hospital, the Mennonite couple take me in their carriage back to the farm, insisting that I can give birth in the comfort of their home. I don't rememeber much else from the dream though I do know that I woke up before giving birth.