ErraticHopper

Fragment: looking down a gently lit stairwell at school, sound of girls chattering below.

Me and my best friend from primary school are in a café (restaurant? Eatery?), waiting for another friend who I haven't seen since primary school. It's a small, narrow, high room built entirely of light-coloured planks, roughly hewn. There are large gaps in the wall like floor-length windows, but with no glass in them. I can see outside on a sort of market scene. There's a shop serving lots and lots of lovely-looking baked goods for pretty low prices, I can see their menu even from this far. I don't know what's on the menu of the place I'm in.

We sit at a table - also made of planks, it's what you might find in a hipster café, sideways-box seats on both sides and a white runner in the middle of the table. My friend and I are chatting while sitting next to each other. I look to my left and see a classmate from my current school sitting at a small table, on a school-style chair with a thin cushion, drinking a cappuccino. I go to the bathroom and when I get back she's moved to my table and is sitting opposite my friend. We all talk for a while before she leaves.

More time passes, I don't know how much, but it feels infinitely long as we keep waiting. He's really late. The light outside is still as bright as ever so we keep talking, discussing him, how long it's been, talking to each other.

Finally he arrives. The two of us have almost finished eating (when did the food appear?). He sits opposite, we all greet one another joyfully. For some reason he's wearing a black suit - not the most likely dress for another person my age. I'm delighted to see him.

I'm sad not to remember any of our conversation, since I know there was one. I really need to work on recalling speech! Anyway, after a short time of discussion, I get up and go to the bathroom again. When I return, he isn't here anymore. She tells me that he's already left. It's only been a short time since he came.

"But he only just arrived!"

"Well, you'll see him again. He said to say goodbye to you."

"I wanted to talk to him more. After all, he's my friend, too. And I've missed him..."

The view out of the window is different to before. I can see the back of the bakery shop. There's a bar bending around a corner piled high with giant, glistening canelés and other baked goods to be sold.

I love Sailor Moon. Does this count as a scary dream? I wouldn't call it a nightmare...

I am Tsukino Usagi (the main character of Sailor Moon) - appearance-wise, at least. It might be better to say I'm alternately watching her and being her. She has one sister and a father who is very controlling and doesn't let her go outside. But one evening, somehow, she manages to leave. As I'm walking down the street away from the apartment, I see my father outside a pub on the adjacent street. He is talking and drinking in the warm light and doesn't seem to have noticed me, so I continue walking at the same speed, head down, to avoid attracting his attention. As soon as I'm past the street corner and out of his view I run as fast as I can into town. It's dark out, and there aren't many people about, however the night this time has a dark brown sky rather than a blue one. It reminds me of an old photograph and imparts a sense of finality.

Some time later. I can see inside the apartment while not being there. Usagi's father is there seething over her disappearance while her mother frets, her younger sister (who looks a lot like another character) sits on the floor at his feet. I get the feeling that they are all afraid of him. He vows to find Usagi and bring her back.

Usagi goes to hide in various places. I see her inside a closed shop, a single dim light overhead. Her wristband glows (when did that appear?) and some waves radiate downwards from the lamp. I know instantly that they are transmitted by her father and he now knows where she is. I feel a terrible foreboding.

I don't remember much after that. I feel that she ends up being caught but continues to plan another escape.

I'm not sure if this dream is scary so much as unsettling. It's been years since I had a proper nightmare.

For a moment I see myself: a tall man, dressed in black and with black hair. I'm not myself in this dream, I am him, seeing everything through his eyes. I don't feel like a girl anymore.

A street at night. It's wide enough, paved evenly, though the slabs vary in colour and shade. The streetlamps give off a low, cool white light that's like moonlight. The sky above is dark blue without a single star.

In the middle of the two-lane road is an industrial-looking island, a tangle of thick pipes and ducts that come out of the ground and go back in again, twisting over one another. It's confined into a strict rectangular patch of ground. In the light the curves of the metal are glinting dully. I walk with quiet but sure footsteps onward, past railings and railings and railings, black and gleaming along the length of the street and around the corner. As I near it, eerie music starts playing from one of the corner houses. The house is purplish-grey and has three stories and a basement. On the first floor only the house's corners are missing and covered with a thick dark grey mesh. From here a bright purple mist is wafting out from inside. A purple van in front of the house reads in bubble letters above the windscreen: 'Ultra Shelibatology'.

I pass the house and walk through many more residential streets, across main roads; everything is dark and cool and quiet. Until when passing a garden square I catch sight of a man inside, watching me. He has light hair sticking up in tufts and his whole face is obscured in the dark except his staring eyes. Our eyes meet. Another person walks by in front of me.

The school bathroom. I'm washing my hands in front of the mirror. When I try to enter the only stall, the door is locked, but I can hear people talking inside. Annoyed, I go into another bathroom. There are two stalls in here, but one seems to have been replaced with a blank wall while the other is also occupied. I bang on the door and hear a surprised noise from inside, so, feeling guilty for disturbing them, I turn to leave the room. But this time the door feels extremely heavy and it takes me a long struggle to get it open. As I'm pulling at it my vision seems to black out and I reel back from the effort. When I finally stumble out, I feel so disoriented, it's as if my mind is trying to pull away from my body.
Finally I enter the third bathroom. By now I feel dizzy and can't see properly. Just as I get my bearings enough to register that there is a free stall I also see that someone else has come in after me and is about to enter it. I feel a sort of sinking despair and hopelessness at this. I stammer something out about how I was about to go in there. She takes a step back and offers to let me go first, but I, feeling sheepish, hurriedly refuse and resign myself to waiting.

At no time in this dream - nor when I woke up - did I feel I needed the toilet. It's not one of those dreams that I often hear about. Strangely, this is the third time I can remember dreaming about being in an eerie and somewhat surreal school bathroom. All looked different but all of them left me with a similar feeling of disorientation and unhappy confusion.

I remember being in a place that seems like an American-style cartoon town. Red barns (like Applejack's) surround a small square and wide dusty streets. They are big, each two floors and then a high barn roof. I have a brief image of being inside one of these, on the first floor. The floor was of light wood boards and the room was large and fairly empty. I feel that there were wrought iron spiral stairs down to the ground floor - though those would be rather out of place in a barn.

Outside there seems to be a small market going on. In the square I examine goods displayed on a wooden table. There are other people milling around, as well.

I was half-asleep when this one came to me. It's mixed in with details of what I was reading when I dozed off and I can remember a bit of a story!

I am in a boarding school - the buildings are somewhat old. All are built in different colours of brick as far as I can see. I'm eating lunch at a small, square table in the large canteen - a little ways off I can see a white brick pillar capped with brown bricks, and beyond it a broad vague expanse. A girl is sitting across from me, but she's nobody I know. She's eating a hot dish - it looks to me like white rice covered with a thick layer of tomato sauce and then sprinkled with walnuts (would this actually taste good???). I notice and register that our school should be a nut-free one, but pass it off thinking that perhaps she brought her own food. I am allergic to nuts.

A teacher (who I recognise) approaches us and sits near our table. As she's talking, for some reason I decide to try a bite of my companion's dish. Chewing absentmindedly, I suddenly remember that I can't eat nuts and spit out the one in my mouth. I see it's been slightly chewed and I feel myself start breathing faster as fear bolts through my body. Meanwhile, the teacher has left some time before without my noticing. Hurrying up to my dorm room I tell myself that this is just a panic reaction and I'll be fine, since I didn't even swallow.

I arrive at the door to my room. The dormitories are laid out along open-air walkways which form a square around a central courtyard and rise for several levels, all in the same white and brown brick: the balconies are white, capped with brown. The walls of the building are brown. A blond-haired boy steps out in front of me and begins speaking, but I push past him and begin heading back downstairs - when I realise I was in such a rush that I forgot to pick up my EpiPen. So I run back, get it, and go back to lunch. But I never suffer an allergic reaction.

Later, a Christmas celebration. Most of the school is crowded into the brown-brick church. It's Victorian-style and reminds me of the chapel on the grounds of another well-known boarding school. Organ music drifts across the snowy churchyard to our ears as we wait for the service to begin. I am outside the church, skipping the service with my friends, the chilly air chafing harshly against my face, and the snow still falling.

I've been lazy about editing my journals for posting so I've got a bit of a backlog now. Four more dreams waiting to be posted - including this morning's journal! Nothing lucid yet but it looks like my recall is improving, so that's good. Perhaps I'd better move on to trying some lucid techniques soon.

I'm abroad in a different city. I'm sure this is some mainland European country, though it somewhat reminds me of English country towns. The buildings and walls are built of large irregular cobblestones while the streets are paved in the uneven way that's so common in Corsica (to the detriment of my shoes). I catch sight of a large set of wooden double doors, black, wide but not as high as those I see in Italy and France.

I'm guided to the house where I'll be staying by two men. They both wear glasses and seem nerdy, I think they are a gay couple. In retrospect, I'm quite sure the two looked exactly the same - that, or I saw only one and imagined the second. The two are friendly and I remember them talking and laughing with me. They have brown hair.

I meet two more people later on. One is a businessman - broad-shouldered, black suit, cold expression and an office full of heavy dark wooden furniture, thick books and leather upholstery. He reminds me greatly of a character from one of my favourite series. I don't remember the other.

At one point, I'm wandering the streets in the evening, light spilling out of restaurant windows which display scenes of people leaning towards one another talking, cutlery resting loosely between gesticulating fingers, red wine swilling about in glasses, unfinished dishes on the table. I can almost hear the hubbub of hundreds of conversations jostling to make themselves heard.

Not much today. I was half-asleep while noting down the dream and too tired to write much - editing it later I've almost forgotten the rest.

I dream of waking up, blissfully slowly, snug and warm and surrounded by bright golden light. It's the kind of light that makes you want to sleep. More accurately, I'm being woken by someone - a man, smiling - who? I don't feel that he and I are close. I lie in a three-quarter bed - a wrought bedstead in shiny gold metal, with sheets and covers in two shades of pink. I think that if Princess Peach's dress were a bed, it would look like this. It is in the centre of a large, bare, bright room. Although there's nothing here I feel warm and safe.

The above is what I remember now, after 10 PM - having woken up at 5:30 AM. Soon after waking I wrote this:

"I dream of two people who are waking me up (separately) at 6 and after 6. I remember they gave me gifts."

Sadly I've forgotten those other details.

I also remember a car driving along a dark road at night, the sky is a deep rich blue. None of the usual trees growing beside the road either. I have a view over a wide open space. The car is a very stylish old sort and of a colour between pink and maroon. It's open-topped and the windows rimmed with silver metal. The license plate only has 6 digits although they all have 7 over here. I remembered the plate when I woke up and now I only remember the beginning: MV0. Actually, I think the second part was BKZ. I am inside the car, seeming to view it simultaneously from several points of view. I'm not driving - there is no driver. I can feel the cool night air and the low rumble of the engine. Looking up at the clear sky fills me with calm and peace, as though I am all alone in the world.

My childhood friend's house. This house is small (ish), old, rickety and crooked. It has some charm to it. There are several articles of furniture in lime green, enough to form a colour theme. From the kitchen, with an oven squeezed against the wall on the uneven wood floor, carpeted stairs rise up twisting round against the walls. The treads of the stairs are sunken with age.*

After we climb some way up the bizarre stairs, we get to the top, our heads almost bumping against the ceiling. The stairs finish in a dead end, the banister folding neatly around to form a balcony of sorts. Beyond, seemingly attached to the ceiling, are a large partly-open leather bag, its zipper facing towards us, and an irregularly shaped red box with a centre clasp opening. He tells me there are two spare rooms at the top of the house and he has the bigger one (his parents have the other). They have high security. To enter his room, which was once his grandma's, one must be his grandma or a trusted individual and say the correct password. I don't know any password and feel uncertain as I squeeze my head and shoulders into the opening of the box. But the next moment I'm inside the room and so is he.

His room has light grey carpet, a heavy old wooden table in the centre of the room surrounded by half-height bookshelves. A tall window in the corner opposite the entrance is framed by heavy floor-length curtains. The view outside is of a bright white sky interspersed with pale clouds.

I don't remember what we talk about but later on he has to go talk to someone else, another girl. I leave the house. But soon after I go back in. I'm jealous. I'm surprised at myself for feeling this way - for in real life, I don't have the slightest crush on him. I creep back up the stairs until I am again in front of the strange double entrance. From the further one (to his parents' room) I hear voices. That's where they went. I once again insert my head and shoulders into that box to enter his room while holding a small, dusty old blue cloth-bound book. I crouch down and place the book on his table trying to be as quiet as possible. I lean against the wall intending to listen in, but I don't hear anything.

From time to time I hear noises. I hear his parents come back home and move about below, and try to hide against the thick curtains unless they hear me. But they evidently don't, so I come out. Then I hear him returning to his room. I start to hide behind the curtains again but I realise I won't be able to stay hidden for long while he's here. So I bravely stand up as he enters. He sees me, is surprised for a moment, but laughs. I tell him, embarrassed, that I'm only there for the book. But his teasing eyes say he knows that's not the truth. Blushing hotly, I say goodbye and leave his house, hurrying away down the road.

*It need not be said that his real house looks absolutely nothing like this.

Day 3 (Tuesday 31.10) is not one I'm comfortable sharing, and I also remember very little of it. I experienced the dream as an invisible observer and played no part in it. Today's I remember a little better, but it is still two fragments. I believe I unexpectedly became lucid at the end.

A white, pink and grey house. It's a modern bungalow. A relative (grandfather?) of mine lives here. In the large kitchen-living room is a counter, black granite on top, pink sides. A variety of kitchen utensils on top of it include a shiny silver, tall teapot. Full-length windows wrap the side of the room that faces outside. It's snowy out there, some shrubs and spiky winter plants peeking through the snow under a blank white sky. I see that there are two small steps down from the glass door in pale beige stone. I remember running in and out of the house, hiding some objects or my own self in black and grey halls and behind doors. However the dream was overall a calm one. I remember sitting curled on the floor, reading. I remember modern white metal baskets and filing cabinets, supermarket bags full of clothes, and some piles of clothes on the floor. I remember conversation and a casually dressed man with longish dark brown hair and a small beard on his chin. I remember cooking, walking on a snowy road to get here. All the other recollections are too vague to be put into words. Faint fragments of emotions, flashes of images and indecipherable, tenth-of-a-second beeps of sound and glimpses of movement. I feel sorry to have forgotten what I feel was an eventful and interesting dream.

Later. A white box room, no windows or doors. Someone is in here with me. Suddenly I become aware that I am dreaming. Elated to have achieved lucidity, I want to test the limits of the dream and see what I can do. I think: 'how about flying?' and move my arms a little away from my sides. Then I am spiralling up into the air towards the ceiling of the small square. I can look down at the same time as I see myself from above, looking upwards to the ceiling. I feel an incredible rush of joy and lightness while my companion is looking up at me. But it's short lived. As I'm about to go through the ceiling I feel the dream slipping away from me. The scene itself seems to break away from my consciousness and spiral downwards into blackness until it disappears.

While losing my dream I saw my bedroom, with lights on, appearing. I don't know now if I woke up or fell into a deeper sleep. I remember waking up later, to the sound of my alarm, in darkness.

I'm in a large butcher's shop with an old-fashioned feel. It's really big, laid out like a supermarket, full of meat - and not cold. I remember that, from the street, the windows looked dusty and the shop dark. The interior is black and dark green, and it feels like I could get lost in here.

The owner of the shop approaches me. A bald, genial old man. He talks to me, saying how happy he is to have a customer, and sells me some meat. He jokes that I should come back if the place's still in business - as it will likely close down soon. I protest against this idea, but he tells me that it can't be helped - he rarely has customers. Then he indicates a tall shelving unit full of packets of pink meat and admits he doesn't even know what is in them.

As I'm about to leave, he insists on giving me several items of antique/vintage furniture in the shop.

Later, I return home with purchases. This doesn't look like my road, the pavement is raised a few feet above the road with a railing running alongside. The houses are wider and without the usual stucco on the ground floor. I am laden with old furniture as well as shopping bags and some pink chinaware. I see my parents near a parked car. This looks like a normal car from the outside, but inside it's big: four seats in a row.

My parents have shopping bags too, for a picnic: several buns for each of us, olives, focaccia, vegetables and some other stuff. We talk to the other family inside the car. There is a police car with doors open in the middle of the road and the whole street is quiet - something's off.

Close by is a very small car. A pair of legs stick out from under it at an odd angle, crushed by the car body. "Terrible, isn't it?" I hear someone say. I approach and peer through the windows. The passenger is crumpled over their seat and driver cannot be seen in the dark interior. I knock on the window and the passenger stirs - a young boy in a puffer jacket, looking annoyed with me. Then the driver looks up as well and moves his legs. I see the car has eyes and is red plastic. Just two boys in a toy car. I've woken them up and I hurry away.