Graywolf

(I become lucid in the 10th paragraph, not counting this one. I guess I should start doing that color-coding thing.)

It's the 1960's and I'm part of the civil right's movement. There's a rivalry between me and woman who's got the stereotypical tan safari clothes on, and keeps trying to kill me, treating me as if I'm a rare animal to become a trophy. I keep encountering her, fighting her, and narrowly getting away, until one night, it's me and a whole bunch of other people in the civil rights movement (I think it might have been some kind of gathering or meeting) in a room, and the safari lady comes in and shuts the door, trapping us and herself. There's so many of us that we overpower her quickly, and we gravely consider killing her, because that's the only way we think she'll stop trying to kill us (I didn't even remember the police existed at this point - though I honestly don't know how much the police would have done for civil rights activists in the 60's). While we're holding her down, she smiles/grimaces at us, saying that we've won, and we should kill her, because otherwise, she won't stop until we're all dead. Three of us are holding her down and another one hits her hard on the temple, killing her. I'm basically weeping at this point. There is a long moment of solemnity and sadness felt by everyone in the room at this point.

However, everyone slowly brightens, and decides to celebrate instead, because apparently this was a huge step in gaining equal rights. There's partying, and down the hall they're making hamburgers with a bunch of different crazy ingredients. Since I know food often makes me feel better, I go down there and check it out. There's one person standing at the only hamburger-making space available, making hamburgers for the two or three other people in the room. They request hamburgers with nutella, peanut butter, this stuff that is like strawberry-flavored nutella, and more. I pick out a reese's peanut butter cup brand peanut butter (which is sweeter than regular peanut butter) and some chocolate spread of the same brand. However, I can't really get the chef's attention, and I feel ignored and unwanted (feelings I struggle with in real life.) I trudge back to the party room and sit behind the couch. I sit there because I want to kind of "hide" behind the couch, you know? That's where I want to be while I sulk and feel bad about myself. However, I find that the floor is too uncomfortable. I get up and lie down at the edge of the couch with one leg up over the corner of the back of the couch. I'm not really upside-down, but I am in an awkward position. I fall asleep.

In my dream-within-a-dream, I'm hanging out with Finn and Jake from Adventure Time. I don't really remember much, except that I can stretch (but not expand) like Jake, and whenever I consume certain items, I get bigger. My plan is to eat a whole bunch of these items, getting really big, and then squashing myself back to normal size. This way, I can "expand" like Jake whenever I want to (being limited by how big I can get myself from eating things). I'm having trouble finding anything I can actually eat. Finn comes over to say something to me, but right at that moment, I'm looking at a menu that projects from my forehead (like Pearl in Stephen Universe) and I see a button that says "descend from above" or something like that. I say, "hmm, what's this do?" and I press it before Finn can say anything. Objects start falling fast from the sky in blue streaks. I say, "oh, well, that makes sense." But they're hitting and hurting people (nothing serious), so I feel bad about it. I go to collect one, and it turns out that I can consume these (I don't say "eat" 'cause it wasn't really the same thing)! I pick up as many as I can, but it isn't much, and very soon the shower ends and the remaining grounded objects disappear. I have one more use left on the button, so I use it again.

But this time, to collect them all and protect the people who got hurt by them last time, I stretch myself thin over the whole area, catching every single falling-star-thing. I'm satisfied. Finn comes next to me, and we're standing on a hill, alone, watching as the rest of my body catches the falling stars. Finn says, gently, "Hey man.. are you ok?"

And I say just as gently, "Yeah.... Yeah, right now, I think I am."

Then I wake up from my dream-within-a-dream back into my regular dream. It's light (when I fell asleep it was dark). I sit up. There are still a few stragglers left from the party, talking, eating their last bits of hamburger, and getting ready to leave. I get up and realize that the party was in my living room (though different from my real one save for the window and two couches). When it was dark, I didn't realize just where we were. I walk down a road downhill and I see this crazy-looking roller coaster. A guy who presumably works for whoever owns it enthusiastically comes over to me, tells me how amazing the ride is, then "shows me a video" of it in action. When he "shows me a video", what really happens is that my view is suddenly placed in an empty seat of the ride. As he describes the ride to be in false enthusiasm (the kind you hear in commercials, y'know?) I at first am only watching the view while standing where I was, but eventually, it feels like my body is actually on the ride. It kind of goes like this until I AM on the ride.

I like roller coasters, but I don't like this one. It went so fast and hard that the weird corkscrews hurt my back, and we went upside down in violent ways that lasted too long that hurt my neck. I tried multiple methods of sitting in that seat, but no matter what, the coaster kept hurting me. Finally, it ended and we all got out. I noticed while on the ride that I seemed to be the only girl on the whole coaster. As we got out, guys were coming up to me and asking who I was, where I had come from, etc. Non-maliciously. They were just curious, since they had all come together and suddenly there was this stranger on the ride. I felt my usual stress and vulnerability as I was crowded by a bunch of older (early 20's) men, and I made my excuses and left. However, one of the guys followed me, because he wanted to talk to me some more. We go into a room and he says something (I don't remember what), and I respond in a male voice. I try to act normal, but inwardly, I'm so happy and relieved. I didn't really know I was in a dream, per se, but I knew enough that what was happening wasn't real in some way. I happily took on my role as a male, stress and fear melting away. It felt very nice to talk to a guy without worrying about the usual stuff.

So I don't remember how it transitions, but I have this sentient object whose name I think was Sally. Sally can transform into different objects, but she rarely listens to me. I have her with me as I go to the entrance of this really fancy mansion with a closed gate. There is a tiny pond in front, outlined in rocks and surrounded then by a fancy driveway/walkway paved in shiny, smooth, white stone, the irregular shapes fitting together so you could hardly feel the cracks with your fingers. A butler passes by on the other side of the lake, leaving the mansion - I assume after a day's work. He glances into the pond and says, "oh, a turtle," and keeps walking. I, however, look into the pond, and say excitedly, "oh! A turtle!" It's a large (too large for a real one of its species, truthfully) musk turtle, and it's sitting just under the water on the rocks, so I lean over and grab it without getting very wet at all. I set it down on the pavement and look at it, and the butler guy briefly comes over and looks at it to, interested.

There are some shenanigans with Sally that I don't really remember. She's a serious "person" and doesn't let me use her for much riffraff. At some point, me and I think the guy I met earlier, are at the door of my grandparent's house. We're there to visit my parents and grandparents because it's apparently "the holidays". It's not anything like their real door or house. However, the door has lights on it that spell out something about cutting hair or a barber shop, so I rationalize the differences by figuring that they just took the door from my grandpa's old barbershop and used it as their own. (This doesn't explain the house's differences, though my grandpa really did own a barbershop not long ago). For some reason that I don't remember, I voluntarily have Sally turn into a chain and choke me. I walk away from the door and explain to my friend that I'll be right back, but I obviously don't want my parents to see me while Sally is choking me. When she stops (I don't remember where she goes, but she's with me somehow), I go back to the door and we knock. We're quickly greeted by my grandparents, and we come in.

The inside is very reminiscent of my other grandparents' home, but smaller. In real life, my other grandparents no longer own that home, but I don't find anything odd about it then. It's very nice and warm and all-around feel-good. I greet my grandparents, and I see my mom sitting on the couch with the dog/cat carrier we have next to her on the couch. I see our old dog running around excitedly on the ground. I greet and hug my mom, and I think about how sad it is to see the dog. I always end up seeing her alive in my dreams, and on special occasions like holidays we'll revive her, but she died a while ago, so it's very sad. I think that that doesn't sound right. I think, how do we revive her on special occasions? Wouldn't the body be quite broken down by now? Then I realize that we don't ever revive her on special occasions. She's really dead for good, and this is therefore a dream. I do a reality check (hold my nose and breathe in) just to make sure, and I'm correct. I stand up and face the wall, about to leave. My parents say something about how I shouldn't go yet because I just got there, and I say something like, "Sorry, no, this is a lucid dream, bye~!". I do a reality check as I'm leaping away through the wall, just to make sure it's a dream and I'm not really ditching my parents.

It should be noted that when I was visiting them, it was as if I was in my early 20's and living alone, so I really was just "visiting". In reality, I'm in my teens, and I'm still living with them.

I leap through this grey-white void with light snowfall around me, and I find myself on a city street, empty except for one dog. I don't remember exactly what happens, but the dog is sentient and if I recall correctly, it (he) recognizes me as another dog, and tells me to "come on". Obliging, I get on all fours and run after him. I'm pleased with my ability to do this since it's so hard in my dreams to shape my body into one that can actually run like a dog. I'm not quite perfect at it. My legs are still a little too long and I have to run on the tips of my fingers, and I can't go very fast. My dog friend (who seemed maybe like some kind of husky, iirc) told me to hurry up, and I told him that my legs were too long. Understanding, he and I go up to a building that specializes in plastic surgery for dogs. We go in and I explain that I need my legs shortened, my arms elongated, my fingers shortened, and the "pads" on both my hands and feet to be more pronounced, all so I could run better/feel more like an actual dog. The two workers there (who were also dogs - I don't remember one of the breeds, but one was a female poodle. The one I was talking to was a male - maybe a bulldog? He was kind of stuffy) talked to me about what I needed done, and my friend went ahead and requested some improvements too, but I don't remember what. He asked us our breeds, and my friend said "husky". I had kinda thought before that I felt sort of like a great dane (though I wasn't that big, iirc). So I was going to say that, then I remembered the heart problems great danes have in real life, so I didn't feel comfortable saying that. I thought huskies were cool since they were "closer to wolves", so I said, "half great dane.... half husky." The dog I was talking to seemed to accept that begrudgingly, with a sort of "sure, okay, whatever," air.

(At some point as we're in there, another dog flies in w/ a helicopter type of contraption attatched to her back (like dogcopter from Steven Universe) and frantically says something about how she (or maybe it was one of her pups) NEEDS an operation NOW. I'm disappointed because I assume that'll take precedent instead of my own problems, but somehow I am still able to be immediately tended to. I think 1-3 of her pups might have flown in with her? I don't really remember much. The poodle that was working there was white-furred, and I think this was a black-furred poodle.)

We go to downstairs to his desk, which is lit only by a single naked bulb swinging from the middle of the ceiling, and a small desk lamp. The basement is mostly storage, with a small area near the stairs cleared away of boxes to make room for the desk. He sits down and slides over something that's sort of like the ink pads you press stamps into (or now that I think about it, more like those pads you press your keys into to make a copy). It was dark-colored and just wide enough for what he asked us to do. He told us to give him the prints of all four of our paws. My friend did it first, but then it busted our enemy! I think it might have been the safari lady again. My friend fought her as I quickly made the prints for my paws. There was another print that my friend had made that I don't remember him asking for, and I tried a few times to replicate it, but I had a hard time (I think I got it the last time though, thankfully, since I didn't have any more room left the make prints). I then turned to fight her. We were both struggling, but then, the plastic surgeon dogs made their move! They somehow did it remotely. As I was fighting, I felt the skin of my legs pinch together as if they were invisibly marking where they were going to operate, and the same sort of thing happened with my other body parts that needed modified.

Then, I felt my legs snap-crunch shorter, and my arms elongated in an abrupt fashion. I was getting better at maneuvering and fighting the lady, then. My fingers shortened, my pads got more pronounced. Whatever my friend asked for happened to him to. After that, we went from struggling to dominating, and we kept fighting, pressing our enemy back. It felt very cool. I think when my modifications were complete, I thought triumphantly and half-jokingly, "now.. I am a DOG!"

Unfortunately, I didn't get to experience much more fun as a dog, because I woke up. However, right before I did, (and I knew I was waking up soon), I remembered about the task of the month. I very quickly grabbed a green rubber toy crocodile from one of the storage boxes and set it down on the ground. I assumed it was sentient, so it was. While it was looking away, I scratched it across the side of its snout, and then as it looked back, I pointed to my friend and said, "He did it!" He looked at me incredulously and said, "What??" I knew it wasn't much, but it would have to do. Then I woke up.

I felt kind of "fuzzy", and I squinted into the warm, sunshine-colored room, not wanting to get up.

...And then I woke up for real, because apparently the first time was a false awakening.

PS: Bulldogs aren't healthy breeds either, iirc. It's kind of odd to say that here but I feel like I should. At least english bulldogs aren't. I don't know much about the other kinds.