The book of mars

BOB Token

I'm after a magic token buried in the lake. It is called a "BOB token" (maybe after Twin Peaks?)
It grants the user unlimited power.
I work at some pizza joint kind of place, and the founders were the last folks to use it years and years ago. They made their business, then buried it in a warded section of the lake in town.
I go at dark. It's easy enough to find. But I have to perform some kind of ritual to unlock it. Don't remember the specifics, but I'm busy underwater for a while..
Too long. Birdie, my wife's IWL coworker, swims toward me, trying to get it as well. Fuck.
I grab it and swim away. My wife is waiting for me and I tell her to SWIM, SWIM! THAT WAY! Not our planned route, just the most direct, easy way away down the river.
It is Easter tomorrow, and this town celebrates by sending Norwegian flags down the river on little boats. They're all over the water and we crash into them. I'm on my wife's back as she propels us through them and I hope they don’t hurt her.
We get to the shore. Birdie is not far behind us.
Then I realize.
My wife is against me. She's with Birdie. Fuck. They both want the token.
I pretend to not know and we go into a convenience store through a hole in the side of the building, thinking we're hiding from Birdie.
She comes in, then I run.
I have the token. I don't care. I'm invincible now.
I have no shoes. It is winter, and night out. I run through town. Some town, not real, but in the dream it is where we live. The streets are old cobblestone, full of mud and shit and snow and I get it all over my feet but I keep running.
Eventually I find our dog, Goose, and grab him and bring him with me. They're the enemy now and we are going to get out of this together.
I run through town with Goose and eventually stop to breathe. I've lost them. I have the token.
I'm outside a building. Record store / radio tower. We need a place to be, maybe they..? I look at the window and yes: apartment for rent. But it's scribbled out, already taken. But…
I become lucid, knowing suddenly that I can just decide to make it free if I act right.
We go in. The folks in the record store eye the dog, and my dirty feet, but whatever. I go up to the counter. One side is record store, one side is the radio tower dude. Their vibes are so different: nerdy vs punk. A customer in front of me finishes and I inquire about the apartment.
They say yeah, it's empty, the last person just left all their shit in there so you're free to use it for now, no charge if you want to help empty it.
Fuck yeah. They give me some keys. But where's the door? I wander the store, eventually find a stairwell near the entrance.
I go up… (The dog has disappeared from the dream now, lol)
It is very sketchy. Super low, unfinished ceiling. Attic vibes. Terribly ugly carpet. A set of washer and dryers are stashed in a corner. A super old jukebox. I marvel at the detail for a sec like I always do in dreams… my brain inventing this shit. Neat.
I find another small stairwell and then the apartment. It is a single room, no kitchen, no bathroom, insulation walls, no windows, yellow carpet, scary, ugly.
No thanks. I wander around instead, get lost in a maze of similar rooms. Kind of scary. Eventually find the way back down.
Outside, Taylor Swift is giving an interview.
I wake up.


Glitch World

I'm in a place similar to the last dream.
Cartoonish maze-like, video game-like world. Circular looping roads rise up through the sky, land on brightly colored platforms, repeat around. Many folks are doing this, like it is a museum piece. Not amusement park vibe, though.
I'm on one of the cars. It hits a huge white cartoon building and falls from the tracks, down into cartoon cloud sky abyss… my dream fear. Abyss, falling.
Oh. But I'm dreaming! It's ok. I'm still afraid but talk myself into confidence and just hover, then fly up to the buildings again.
Flying! Yes! My goals. The comp. Let's do it. I can remember my 3 step goals.
1. Flying. Got it.
2. Eat dream food. Ok!
I land on top of the structures, which on the very top are covered in sparse vegetation. From this height, I can see they all go on for infinity in this massive white space. I look at the little flowers growing… that doesn't look edible, lol. Small purple lavender-like buds, dandelions. Umm. Hm.
Oh! I'll try to manifest something. I put my hands behind my back and think "APPLE!" and.. Nothing. I do it again, nothing. Ok. I'll just eat these weird flowers.
I keep walking and find something that looks like a huge radish pushing out of the ground. Perfect. I pull it out and it is actually an apple growing out of the ground. Funny how dream intentions work.
I take a bite… Ew. It is mushy, like a super soft apple but no sweetness. Well, at least the task is done.
I keep walking, looking at the flowers and enjoying the weird cartoon dreamscape. Then on one of the building tops I see an ancient machine, kind of like a retro car but covered in neon green spaceship lights. Super derelict and run down. Cool! I begin to fly over, but then I remember my other goal, and my current personal goal.
3. Teleport!
I don't really know what to try now. I failed just trying with what makes sense to me, kind of imagine-running-starting toward it, close my eyes.. Some force of will… But I do that again. I almost feel something push, but I open my eyes and haven't moved. Damn. My other idea is to summon an item, a staff maybe, or find something to help me.. But I really feel pulled to keep trying the blink/push move. And fail again.

WBTB, back to sleep...

I enter a dream. I'm at a library, in a city, maybe Seattle? There's guards who pat me down, but then let some others in. Why? Oh, they're regulars.
I go in. I'm walking the shelves when I remember books! Books is a dream sign - yes! Is this a faint visualization? No, it's a dream!
I look to the shelves, so excited, and pull a big book out. Large format. It's a symbology book, all the symbols from some ancient culture. Fuck yeah. Each symbol is created using two or three stick-like figures, but someone has gone in and used pencil to make them all doing obscene things like smoking and fucking. OK then. I put it back; the shelf was ILLs.
I'll go upstairs to the fiction section. I have an idea that this library is an amalgam of two that I know IWL, maybe Seattle and somewhere else, but this is a false dream memory really.
The place is super busy. Lots of folks, and seems like a class of kids as well. I look around, trying to find exactly what I want. Cool short stories. But where's the fiction? So much garbage, non fiction, Christan-themed children's books (though the cover was so cool in memory…) I'm low lucid, because I would be delving into any of this had I my full memory. Oh, well.
I find a tiny shelf of some fiction on an end cap. One of the books is an old mystery writer short story collection, but a massive gilded cicada has bored a hole in each book. I yell "Staff? Any staff?!" and someone comes over with a black knit cap on. (Again, low level lucid, or I'd have loved to speak to any of the many DCs here..) I tell him about the books. He seems like he's seen this before and thanks me.
Something about Chase being here.

I'm with my (dream)friend, a girl, kind of sporty wearing a flannel, at UMF but its not UMF. We're here for tryouts for this... game/thing/college/class.
Its being held down in the Roberts parkinglot, which is busier, with a building in the center. I pass Michelle Darling, hello.
There's a group of ppl who made it and those trickling out who didn't. The test is like, throwing these darts or catching them or something sporty.
She fails. But on her way out she catches one, but it doesn't count. I don't know if it counts or not.
I don't know how I pass, but I do. Eventually all the winners are left and are being guided away toward wherever we're going.
I look for her frantically, I don't want to be alone, but I know she's out.
In the crowd of people I see Rebecca! I have a dream memory of knowing she wanted to go back to school. I get in with her group and say hey.
We're stragglers. There's this big fat happy boy. I say something about my friend (another person, a winner) wants to go to this college thing to dismantle religion.
Everyone laughs.
Eventually we go to where we're going to be for the next like, 6 months.
Its a crystal cavern-turned-school. The cavern is the school. The crystals are super powerful. (This is some Hollow Knight bullshit).
The cavern is kind of 2D and there's a 'flat' back to it, even though it LOOKS like it goes deep. I wonder if we'll unlock it.
We go "right" into a huge chamber and are told some stuff, don't know. Its an important room.
We're herded into a crystal-cavern cafeteria-esque small room to the "left" of the flat center room and sit at tables. Its like everyone had been here before but I'm one of the new kids, even though we're all new: I'm like an hour late to the game or something. I ask the fat boy if I can sit next to him.
"OOO, your body!" referring to all my current bruises and scars. "Yeah I got too drunk camping." "This is my first time being drunk!"
I realize this is why they brought us here: a woman hands out a menu with only drinks. Mostly wine. He orders more wine. Chelsea is behind me and orders Coffee Brandy, but she calls it WBTB (lol). I have that flash-urge of "fuck sobriety" but I consider getting a coffee. Its like 2.98, the cheapest coffee and cream option. Tons of crazy chai coffee stuff, but all very expensive.
My vision flashes outside of myself and I see this crazy cackling headmistress kind of deal, and like a cinema/movie, I know she's got secret/subversive plans based on the "shot" of the scene. She's behind the flat part of the center room and zoom-slips through the crystalline hole. She lands on the outside of the cavern to the "right" -- we didn't know there was a behind. She punches the crystal and it super-charges something. This is "bad" ... she's not telling anyone she's doing this, she has some evil plan here.
My vision flashes again to a group of girls being shown the cavern for the first time. You can see the flash on the edges/seams of the room.
"WOAH," they say. Their faces are like half-drawn anime, I can see those vertical+horizontal face lines artist do, and I toggle the horizontal on and off with some dream-watcher power (not the me of the dream, the me of me/myself dreaming) and I realize they look half-drawn because the flash is so bright.
Then it subsides and I see their normal faces.
Flash back to me going back into the cafeteria room with everyone. The wine is being served.
"I think I forgot to order somehow" I say and the waitress/teacher (there's only like, 2 teachers here, she's one of them) sighs and says they can put in a last minute order for a price. Well, I guess, sure.
I ask her if she lives here year round, half knowing she must not, but just curious.
"Oh, no. This place is inaccesssible half of the year."

Some kind of time skip, and I'm on "leave" from the school, like a vacation or something.
I'm in Walmart in the back room. I came here very much on a mission. My job is like an assassination. I track people down with my team and tell them to go to jail or we'll kill them. We hunt out people who get away with bullshit.
I'm walking and I don't know who my target is until I do (the first person I see: I can feel the dream being made up as I go along).
Its Torrey. I feel bad, some part of me who knows it was random. But he sees us, my team and I, and knows what's coming.
I threaten him. I don't remember the exact words but I make the offer, tell him we know what happened.
"We have a graveyard for you all set up. Westskull or Eastskull cemetary, your choice. But I'd rather you atone. YOU MUST ATONE FOR YOUR SINS AND GO TO JAIL."
He's getting really nervous but refusing. He doesn't want either. He tries me: "How do you know, you have the paper?" "Yes, I do" "So you were in the cop car when it happened? I doubt it" and true doubt flashes on his face, but I know what my job is and I know I'm right, so I press onward. YOU MUST ATONE!!!
A roll-up door rolls up and a truck is parked out there. I have to get away from the situation, and I know my dream makes it up that I can dive under the truck like its my get-away vehicle, so it is (That dream faculty!). I do, and I'm nervous it won't work, that I'm making it up and he's going to get me, but the car rolls away and I'm unharmed as I'm dragged out of the building underneath it. In the parking lot I hop up into the cab.
I see my buddy, the driver, and know I'm safe. He has a super-long lens camera. I take it so he can drive.
We getaway. I fuck with the camera, but it won't stop zooming/adjusting. I go to turn the zoom off, but the body is super-blank.
"Simple camera," I say. "Yeah, it's probably not good." I finally take some shots. They look good. "Nah, it's great."

i am in skyrim.
i am in skyrim! this is cool. i don't know its cool because i'm just living my life
as a character, probably, but i am myself otherwise.

i jump, rock climb, trying to get to "markarth", a place in the game i've been to,
but in this dream i have not, and its entirely different than the game (of course, its a dream)
i jump from a ledge into the water.

beneath the water's surface, the ledge is carved out with a big mechanical heart.
old, old, very cool, very intricate. i'm close.

i jump onto the bridge in this water pool. this is the way to markarth.
i make my way, and find the city alive with people.
tons and tons of folk, dressed in every day clothes, but otherwise the time period/alternate world is accurate.

i'm with heather now. we explore.
she tells me adam and sarina are coming. huh well um okay yes sure.
outside a window, in some other part of the reality dream scape, i see them walking toward us.
except they are children. they are 5 years old. adam is a boy even though he's young.

this is a joke, and i am not happy about it.
i whine whine cry child cry cry. i'm upset. heather, why?
okay they walk in- look normal. act normal.

we explore the city together. find a door marked "nintendo blue gamecube only" huh
some kind of connection cord is necessary to do something strange...i don't know.
didn't know the details in the dream + didn't care to find out. adam comments on it.

we go into a library/thrift store combo. i escape to the children's section
i am alone,
i am happy.
but i want heather with me.

at high school
i was signed up for psyche/history(same subject here)
christian shows me where to go0
"you know my dad"
"no?"
"the clown-"
"yes everyone knows him"
"hes the teacher, my dads the teacher
he's an easy teacher, he doesn't make you do anything"

in the classroom, a collage i did (not in waking life) is taped to the whiteboard.
it is a canyon with a white square with a title on it taped onto the canyon.
i think of how badly they put it together, (as if it came in pieces)
i did not know how they got it though.

he says take your seat. i go to one
well, its the wrong one so i move all my stuff to the only other seat
between emma and rae (its current time though, not past)
it is awkward. adam is sitting in front of me.

emma talking to person in front of her (female): 25 dollars for a mullet is outrageous
me: its only 15 in waterville. (i say this very hesitantly. i only want to respond, not to form any kind of relationship or further conversation.)
her: still a rip off.
i agree.

adam is taking a ring out of an elaborate box.
its for trans prom.
rae: adam, no one even likes you.

a long line of kids my age outside of my work place.
holy shit a gun? no- a lighter, no worries.
pehry passes joints around.
were gonna be here awhile.
moving along, all of a sudden i'm alone.
my surroundings have changed now that i "look up"
i'm in a borders books/clothing store, asking people where the line went.
dirty looks, still lost, think about taking small sketchbooks but i have a dream conscience.
we were supposed to see the abandoned building-
oldest submerged bathtub and dead bodies
(i can "see" what it looks like)

in an ice room. ice skating room...ice everywhere.
with my grandfather.
i touch the ice. "this is a dream"
not lucid. i just know.
touch it, break it, prove to myself.
laughing "this is a dream!"
but if i becoming lucid i "know" i'll wake up (would i have?)
so i don't.

intergalactic battle.
me (not really) vs the lady with goggles to see the energy of things.
she has an overlord, controlling the "spaceship"
that i get glimpses of thru some metaphysical window.
i am in a house in the attic, the spaceship is outside
being built/constricted. some are opposed (me), some are for.

on another field, i have bunny feet to battle-
she has bunny feet to counter me.
many identical beings are watching us -
they look different with her goggles on (i dont know how i know).
they float.

i lose this battle and my "team" are sent to the next level-
a hell.
it looks like the surface of the sun;
fire, explosion, CME etc.
"wait, why dont we feel it

im part of a staged audience
being filmed. we're in the wrong kind of stage hall though. this one is just for speeches.
i start yelling about how we should be in the right one and leave.

on a wintery soccer field with my brother. we kick around soccerballs.
when you kick them, even tap them, they go flying in whatever direction you want them to go.
i'm lucid.
i kick the balls, and it feels awesome, like i'm david beckham.
like i have all the soccer skills in my dreambody, i'm just really good at the sport.

my brother and i walk around the fence of the field. i follow him.
i try to tell him he's dreaming but i dont think he hears me or something.
he climbs up on top of a garage. i follow.
from the peak, i can see a huge black wolf (in a totally white snowy background- easy to see)
i get afraid but remember its a dream.
my attention makes her walk over to me. i get a little afraid.

i tell her its a dream. disappear. go away.
when i say this, she says it too at the same time.
"those tricks dont work on me, i'm not like that" she says and laughs,
and a wolf laughing is quite scary.

she disappears and i instantly lose lucidity.

jack kerouac tells me how to listen to all the poetry he and his friends wrote
i can hear the beats
and the bongos.

i am looking at a sims 2 look down/walls down layout plan of a house-ship.

the ship is originally concrete, i think. my dad buys it and i am now in my body (as opposed to the viewer). i am in the ship house.

the white concrete walls are now an organic skin material, mushy and kind of like memory foam.
the house is designed to float, so it sails up, up up. very high up, i am in the ship and can see out of it.

below me are suburbs and trees.

i am back on ground now. some time passes and i am asked to enter the ship again. its not a family ship/house anymore. i am with several other kids my age.

ram dass gives me "be here now" volume 2, the sequel. he tells me not to be afraid and to read the book as the ship floats up.

the ship is more organic now, having completely transformed into something different than a house.

another ship is in front of us. we watch it take off- it jumps into the sky very high and is not seen from where we stand on the ground. i'm really scared.

in the ship i read the book. it might have been called "the negative nature of the universe". this isn't supposed to be a bad thing, though. more like yin yang, the taking over of one thru cycles.

the ship shoots up. my body feels very strange breaking physics like this, i feel like we might have gone faster than anything we as humans have made before could go.

someone says we are going to a certain ocean in the galaxy.

we go there, and then further out. we go out of the galaxy, into deep universe.

the ship is clearly a defense for us. there are things near the ship trying to attack it or something. it seems hostile.

the bottom of the ship shot out some sort of eerie ethereal line of something. it attacked the other things attacking us.



i woke up sometime, at 3:30. i was very awake.

i am in a living housemansionbuilding.
it has many rooms that change. the house doesn't know how to make a real room.
the living room looks like a gallery. there are a few chairs, some tables. but it's not a living room.
it's just stuff. me and someone who's with me point this out.
we try to escape. the house says its intentions are friendly.
we don't care, this isn't real. we want to be where things are real again.

i'm in a foreign place that is currently in a lengthy cultural war with the people who live here.
there are two sides. but i don't care about that right now.
i'm in the forest, walking along trails with my cousins. it's hot and we wanna swim!
there is a perfect path towards a perfect lake. it's beautiful, the water is clear and blue like the oceans.
i run into the water. i know it wont be cold, it will be perfect: it is. the bottom is soft sand.
i close my eyes and experience the lake, feeling everything about it.
by the time i open my eyes, my cousins are running back out of it.
we are surrounded by trees, but thru them we can see in the distance, past some marsh lands, that we are being watched by one side of the war, the dangerous side.
i run out, thru the woods, the woods turn to sand, the main beach.
something is happening. everyone is doing something with the waves.
they are animated, and dance like fire before they crash. i want to ride them...
everyone is in the shallow water watching this happen.
then, they remember the game they're playing, they remember the war...
i am taken along in a "room" (a surreal mix between the feelings of "inside" and "outside, there are walls, but i am outside too...dreamy)
there is a guy watching me. he wants me to play with the game he made.
it is a carnival game, a giant shell game, rigged to his favor i bet. it is three cabinets.
he puts a crystal in one, closes it, and they swap/rotate/move places very fast.
then they open, and there is a button fashioned out of a domino inside.
"press one" he says. i'm scared. he knows that, and calms me down. he is not a fighter. he doens't care about the game, just his job.
i press the first one. the bottom of it dissolves and there is nothing inside.
we play again, and again. my cousin comes to see me.
somehow, we leave. we escape or are let free.

we go to the supermarket.
for a long time, we walk around and have a bit of fun.
then, everyone starts leaving immediately. the cultural war has spread here. people are taking sides.
one section is completely run by one side. the other side left. we decide to leave too.
i find my parents and my other cousin. we steal some bread and leave.
we begin walking home.
we find out the bread is actually hot chocolate and we can't eat it. we're hungry though.
my dad needs to use the bathroom. he goes thru a tunnel to a convenience store and comes back.
we keep walking....

i am with a group of people. we are connected via friendship, or maybe circumstance, but not necessarily blood.
maybe blood too. i can't tell, or maybe i can't remember. we're not all related though. there's about 6 of us.

this epic i awoke from is fragmented, and i carry over only pieces, like a drunk night's morning. they are probably not in chronological order, but i'll try to make it make sense.

scene one

i am in the woods with the group.
we are together, but spread out over the trail. i can see the last person and the first person.
we are looking for the "bad guy" of the story. he's some king but only the word applies, he's not royalty or at least its never talked about. for some reason we know he is in a "cold room", which is a specific thing.
quite all of a sudden, and i mean ALL OF A SUDDEN a train cuts thru the middle of our group. i can't see the rest of the people, and one lady is missing. she might be my grandmother, but that's a 50/50 chance.
the train goes by, or somehow we all re-group with the train still going, and after everyone thought she died, she is here, fine, shooken up but alright.
i think to myself how we really have to be careful because the trains can come from anywhere, anytime. there are no tracks.

scene 1.5

we all go to the train station. the train hasn't arrived yet. there are two hobos who are waiting for it, to jump into the boxcars and go. there's a third man, standing and staring at us. well fuck, that's the guy!
someone says his name is "dale" or something with a D....the train arrives. he was on the other side.
me and someone else go into a boxcar just to see how it is.
it is pretty much the inside of a VW, two facing seats inside a rectangle box. kinda nice.
we get out and the train leaves. no dale and the hobos are gone.
my mom is with me, or maybe she's part of the group. she uses my phone to call someone named dale.
"wait no, now he'll know my number and know where i am!" she called the wrong dale, i had two: some guy, and THE EVIL GUY!

scene 2

we are outside a supermarket. we are coming up with some kind of plan. we go in, and everyone scatters.
time goes by, maybe i do my part in the plan, i don't know. after some time, i start to panic.
where is everyone!?? i run thru the aisles, and there is a feeling like i'm being chased or watched or waited on.
i see a boy i know who wasn't part of the original group but was part of this plan. he's running around with his cart empty, so i go up to him. he talks to me and i help him put a lot of wine in his cart.
i hold a broom. it's part of a plan.
we escape now, and run out the door. the alarm goes off, and they chase us out for a second, so i throw the broom at them. "yeah i stole it, here have it back," is what the action meant to say. they didn't notice the wine.

scene 3

i am running, running running up a hill, towards a bingo hall. i am with someone else.
we run up to the top of the hill that it's on finally and hide. we are going to try and track down where the cold room is, where dale is.
i go into the hall and it's a store. i take a magazine and when i come out and open it i realize its 300 pages of models. boring. i text heather. my mom's here. we're going to look together.

scene 4

i am in the cave/forest/dungeon/tunnel/room. the final one. the-boss-key kind of room. we will find the cold room here, and dale, and defeat him or whatever we're doing.
we are all spread out in this long room. its like mountains and forest inside a cave, inside a building.
i climb thru some of the obstacles for awhile. its just a hunt for a long time, dream-time too. climbing and climbing.
then, behind me someone yells they've found it!!! what? i'm pretty much at the entrance.... she's behind me even further. how'd we miss it?
seriously, how'd we miss this: at the beginning of the room, there's a secret ledge. there are footholds but they have no depth so they don't look real. well, they are. she climbed up 'em and at the top is the cold room!
which isn't actually a room. it's a cylindrical hanging piece of cloth, and i guess dale is inside that. and it's probably cold in there...because that's what someone told me.
well, okay, looks like i'm gonna be the one to confront him first. i grab a ribbon thats hanging from the ceiling and swing over to the ledge, grab it, and hang on. i climb up, and talk to dale.

his voice booms, like thru a loudspeaker. it is just like wizard of oz. a big big boomy death voice...actually a man behind a curtain. well actually...dale gets to talking, and the voice is completely female afterawhile. whatever?
dale asks what i want to eat, and i say a grilled cheese please...i get it, and eat it, and it's good.
now he confronts my mom, who's sitting at the entrance.
lobster! duh....he sends her lobster. she's eating, and then dale makes it rain electricity all over her.
what. what. what. what. he just killed my mom!!!!
it's still raining, and i don't want to live without my mom, so i jump from the ledge onto the floor where my mom's sitting.
i get struck by electricity balls already accumulating on the floor and more from dale. the feeling is crazy.
my whole body is conscious of every other part of my body, and i can feel my skeleton. i am my skeleton only.
i crawl to my mom, and close my eyes.
then i open them. i'm not dead...this just feels really cool. she slowly opens hers, and she's not dead, but she's worse off than i am. we sit together as dale addresses my dad now.
i don't remember what he asks to eat, but he doesn't get struck or anything bad. just eats.
after dale asks everyone in the entrance what they want, he talks to me. (he's talking in a male voice for this now, before it was very female).
he says something about music to me. recently i have wanted to try my hand at an instrument in waking life because i've never really studied music, or how it all works, or really listened to music with a musician's ear.
he talks to me about this, and scolds me by saying how i've never listened to real music.
he offers me more lemonade, which i guess i had a glass of with my grilled cheese. i say no...
my mom says "that's like a GOD and you're not accepting more of the food he's producing on his own by magic???"...shit, put that way, i realize i'm an idiot.
he offers my dad more watermelon and he lets me have a piece, now that i realize what this food is. (somewhere along the lines, dale became a neutral figure, not good or evil, and very magic...)
the watermelon is the worst i've ever had. it's chewy and without water.

i dreamed all my teeth fell out. i was afraid of the bloody mess, but there wasn't any, just holes in my mouth.

i was given the option of calling into work indefinitely to help fight this ongoing playful war between some factions that hated eachother but only in a pretend kind of way. they kept it up just for the fun of the fight.