nightmare

I remember a few things from tonight's dream; the first was a scene in which I was the Master Chief, upon a grey-green ship out in the cosmos; I remember a battle earlier, in a long, trapeze-shaped corridor with grooved rails to either side; it seemed to be some kind of hangar. From a first person perspective I was engaged with small metal satellites that fired lasers; everything was a blaze of action; there was a comrade to my left whose features I can't recall, but I myself seemed to be piloting a very small ship or maybe mechanical suit, firing out purple quasar blasts at every opportunity. It was quite intense, but indistinct. After I had gotten clear of the hangar, I flew out into the empty void of space; something was odd about it, as if it seemed more cluttered than space ought to be; I few past a perfectly spherical rock that looked like a little planet or moon. I was bigger than it. I continued on, the stars tiny white dots against a sheet of blackness. Just after the moon, I saw a great churning void of purple light, like a ball of energy tangled and knotted around itself, shifting constantly to try and disentangle itself; it was so bright, a whitenes burning at the heart of it. I received an order from Cortana to go into it, and I saw that there were three enemies I must be assassinate; one of was a leader of the typical "Arbiter" type Covenant; he had a golden orb in his skull, much like the "Metalheads" in the Jak and Daxter series. I then saw a panning view of a brute leader in a space-station with a similar orb in its skull, and then finally, floating meditatively by a great arched window with a view to the void of space, slightly cloaked in darkness from one side, and turned away, looking left, away from the window, floating in his hover-chair. Something was threatening about him, and I heard Cortana say something along the lines of "God knows how we'll fight a prophet" or words to that effect.

The dream scene shifted, and this time I was looking through my collection of PSP games. For some reason "Daxter" seemed most prominent (maybe something to do with Metalhead reference from earlier). Something was unusual about my room; it seemed mostly devoid of furniture except for my bed and a wooden, two-tier shelf made of the same material as my desk, which was not present. The desk was supported by two small wheels on either side, and held a vast collection of video games that were all mixed up and had no particular order. PS2 games were placed next to little PSP cases, other cases were simply placed on top of the row of cases (I remember seeing Tekken 3 there); I felt slightly annoyed at how disorganised the desk was, and went downstairs. The porch door and front door were both open. The notable thing about outside was that it had been snowing; a light dusting by the looks of it, but enough to cover the ground (We never get much snow in my part of the country). A bald man with pale eyes and an expressive face seemed to be standing guard. He wore a black fleece with some indiscernible company name on, black trousers, and had a walkie-talkie clipped onto his jumper; I asked him how long it had been snowing, and he told be it hadn't been snowing for very long, using that phrase "Just a dusting." My friends Lauren and Lee were getting into a taxi, and I waved goodbye to them. This part had me in a third-person perspective, and I looked oddly hunched, my legs in an odd position, as if they were giving me bother; they drove off, and the dream scene shifted again.

This time, the scene took place in a toy store with pinewood floors and pinewood shelves; although it was a toy-store, all of the shelves seemed to hold indistinguishable black CD cases rather than toys, but that's what I had the feeling the place was. In this scene, I was wearing a black jacket and sunglasses, and occaionally saw myself from a third person perspective, but for the most part it was first-person. I was in the left-hand corner of the shop; the only one of my companions that I can recall was a fat farmer-looking fellow with a grey yard-brush moustache, great bushy eyebrows, no chin, and face that would likely quiver and turn purple when enraged. He looked a little like the late Richard Griffiths. He wore a typical farmer's cap, khaki trousers, a dark red V-neck jumper and carried a double-barrel shotgun. This scene was particularly scary, as it contained a doll. A gigantic, towering, glassy-eyed doll with slow, shuffling movements. It had pigtails, a creepy, dainty face, black glassy eyes, and turn-of-the-century children's attire.

I yelled at, as we'll call him, Vernon, and he shot at the doll as it shuffled towards us soundlessly from the opposite corner; the bullets did not seem to have any effect. We ran to the other end of the shop, and it followed, then ran back to the other side when it got there. It bent down next to the CD rack on the right-hand-side of the store, exposing its rump, and I had the overwhelming urge to kick it. I did, laying a shoe right in there. It rose, turned around soundlessly, and grabbed me. With that, it opened its terrifyingly huge mouth to reveal human teeth, and bit into my hand; I screamed even though it wasn't painful; I felt only a slight pressure, as one cannot feel pain in dreams, I've noted. Next, it bit off my little finger, and then finally began to claw at my shirt, ripping it open, and bit into my stomach to consume my insides. It was at this moment I realised, if you are bitten by it, you become like it; everything went black and white as the room swirled around me, and I saw a brief glimpse of myself shambling towards the others like a zombie, still in black and white. The primary emotions of the dream, as I must record them, were of course annoyance, anxiety and outright fear, and at one point a sense of empowerment that came fro kicking the giant doll, but that was very quickly replaced again with fear. I would rate its vividness at a 6/10, and I did not become aware, perhaps only slightly just before waking up, I would my awareness at a 2/10. That's all I recall of tonight's dreams.

18th October 2014:

Note: These entries are ripped straight from my personal dream journal, so if any descriptions seem odd, it's usually something to help me personally remember what I'm referring to, not to easily describe it to others

Tonight's was a very intense and unusual dream. Though some of the first details are (at current) a little fuzzy, I will do my best to record them. The first thing that happened was a panoramic view of a large stone cliff, like a massive slab of rock layered with green lichen, against a blue sky with soft, fragmented clouds. My Dad was there, and was, I think helping me around; the old red Polo may have been there too, perhaps with Dad driving towards the cliff edge (with me inside it, in the back seat).

Next I saw a brief scene of Raziel running with his energy-sword attached to his arm, through a grey-tiled kitchen with wooden doors that reminded me much of the crudely rendered doors from Soul Reaver; he was running through a kitchen with massive old metal ovens, which filled much of the room to either side of him, and seemed to be of a 19th Century design. A few apples rolled off the counters of the ovens and onto the floor as he ran, making his way to the door to the right at the opposite end of the room.

In the next scene, I was in a dimly torch-lit chamber in a castle, standing, the dream camera focused on my face, against the wall with my hands in shackles; I was still Tyrion Lannister, and I knew Peter Dinklage's character to be "me". Cersei Lannister screamed something at me, her eyes squinted in fury and her red dress, flowing as she moved, was embroided with gold, the Lannister colours. An official, male stentorian voice asked me (or words to this effect) if I pleaded guilty, and I believe told me that I had a chance to escape my fate. However, I pleaded guilty to whatever the charges were that were placed against me, and looked to the other end of the square chamber, where an identical dwarf to myself was standing in ragged linen robes, and I admitted to being the same person as that dwarf, a dwarf called "Scar"; some instinct told me that he was me from the future or something, and that we were one and the same person, as identifiable by the fact that we were both Peter Dinklage. The guard by the door, a noble looking sort with white stubble dressed in extravagant armour of gold and crimson with a crested, arching helm (he looked a little like Barristan Selmy beneath the armour) banged the tip of spear on the ground and said something along the lines of "Tyrion Lannister; you had the chance to free yourself from this fate, however you have pleaded guilty, and you are sentenced to death."

The next scene was by far the most memorable. This scene (as it seemed to be part of a continuous story, so I'll call it that), took place in a massive, lava filled circular arena; in the middle was a raised circular platform with a mesh-floor border, and then, in the centre of the circle, wood. A shaped slab of rock serving as a table sat in the centre, which I can only describe as "Christmas-Pudding shaped"; it reminded me of the larger slab of rock at the beginning of tonight's dreams. I was sat on (I think) a smaller slab, and next to me was Renly Baratheon, though for whatever reason, I thought that my name was Tyrion Baratheon , and that he was my brother. He sat resplendent in his green and gold battle armour, a great helmet with curved horns sat above his head; technically it should have been antlers, but the dream didn't seem to get this detail correct. Set before us were two plates with biscuits on them: A couple of cookies and a shortbread. A wavery-voiced announcer, Pycelle, I think, said over some kind of loudspeaker system (there's no other way his voice could have been as loud as was) announced that the convicted had been given meals to reflect where they had come from, I, from the Dornish Marches apparently, (perhaps I had been helping out in Dorne or something), which I for whatever reason agreed with. Apparently light, crumbly biscuits also passed for Dornish cuisine. As for Renly, I don't remember where the dream said he was from, so I'll just assume it said Storm's End.

We had a frank chat before our impending deaths; I offered Renly one of my biscuits (three light, crumbly biscuits were to be my last meal) but he refused. I only remember a few actual snippets of the conversation, but I'll record them as best I can. The scene gradually shifted to my bedroom, but we were still sat on the stone chairs before the stone table. I said "You know, we Baratheons have Targaryen Blood." Renly had looked astonished, and asked how far back that was. There was a tiny wise-woman on my bed (Tiny; she was probably about the size of a rat), wearing a frayed blue-grey robe and walking with a gnarled stick (or should I say twig). She seemed to be portrayed by Rosemary Harris. She told us that our ancestry stretched all the way back to "Fingers Targaryen"; I asked her how many children he had had (I presume to get an idea of how much the family line could have branched out between Targaryen and Baratheon), and she told me that he had a great many sons. I grinned and replied "He must have had his fingers in all the pies." This provoked a great laugh from Relny, and I smiled; we felt close as our impending deaths approached. The wise woman disappeared, and I finished my biscuits. I think I then asked Renly something along the lines of "Didn't you already die in 2010? What was it like?" however, I don't remember the answer. Eventually, as the hour of doom approached, I found myself hugging him, weeping, and crying. "I love you, man!" I had said. He then slumped backwards, his legs bending back behind him below the knees. I ran to him and shook him, pleading with him not to leave the mortal coil, and picked up from next to his corpse a small black-bordered console with two knobs, its main body coloured like fire. It had a small, dim display with red lettering on it showing the amount of time I had left to live: It was not long. I pleaded with him "What's it like?! What was it like?! Will I see you there?! What do you see?!" but there was no response.

It was then that I remembered I had to tell everyone of my impending death; during this time I saw a brief image of me scrabbling for my phone in the dim back section of the caravan, the light of day streaming through the open door, but a moment later, I was back to the feeling of scrabbling for my phone in the world I had been in previously with Renly; I had to tell everyone that I was going to be dead in the morning, and began to write the lines, something along the lines of "When you all wake up tomorrow, I will not be here...", however I did not finish, and snapped awaked, shouting "No!" as I realised my death was approaching. It took me a while to shake the feeling of the dream, and it was one of the more vivid ones I've had since restarting this journal. That was everything I can recall of tonight's dreams.

((I'd advise not looking this up if you don't want sort of Season 3/4 Spoilers! I thought I would post this as an example of the kinds of panic-ridden dreams I have on a semi-regular basis; I had never had a nightmare that felt as vivid as this, though I never became lucid.))

21st June 2014:

Tonight's dream was particularly unpleasant. I am writing this a lot later than when it actually happened, but I still remember the basics. In this dream I was Reek, from Game of Thrones, not Theon, but Reek. Luckily, though, I still had my manhood. For some reason, Ramsay Snow had taken me to a museum, a huge, grand place, with beige marble steps leading to its glorious entrance; inside were high domed ceilings, and esteemed works of art; everything was the same marbled beige, with a hint of orange; it was a very regal colour, I thought. I was led along by Ramsay by a chain on my neck, and once the brief tour was concluded, which I actually saw little of in the dream, I was thanked for my obedience, and Ramsay said that there would be a reward for me when I got back, to which I replied "Thank you, master." meekly. As we went outside back onto the cliff, which somehow floated in the air like something out of Avatar (yet it had none of the lush vegetation, only short green grass and steep, grey, rocky sides that formed a point beneath the landmass, like a floating pinnacle), I realised that a rescue attempt had been staged by Brienne of Tarth, Asha Greyjoy and what appeared to be an identical twin of Theon. I don't recall what happened to Brienne or Asha, but I know that the clone of Theon was knocked off the cliff (by an arrow to the chest, I think), which he fell from wordlessly, and I did not see him again. I knew I could not allow myself to show my dismay to Ramsay, or he might think me disloyal, so we continued back to where we were intending to go; I don't know how we got off the floating cliff, though.

In the next scene, I was sitting hunched up beneath in a tight corridor surrounded by mesh fences; the floors were made of a rough, splintery looking wood, and behind the mesh fences there didn't seem to be anything, so I can only assume that they were spacious holding cells, or maybe they were just there to make the corridor uncomfortably narrow. Set into this corridor was a huge iron door, locked and bolted, but I think I could hear screams coming from inside. Ramsay spoke to me threateningly about my "reward", his sadistic half-smile on his face. I insisted pathetically that I was loyal and that he promised he wouldn't hurt me, but I knew then that I had been wrong. I knew that something terrible was happening to the man behind that door, and that I was next. I knew that he was going to chop my manhood off. I had no choice but to run. I sprinted through the cramped corridors as fast as I could, and felt the exasperation as I had to squeeze through narrow openings, through tight walls of spikes and rollers lined with the same sharp implements; every time I had to cross such an obstacle, Ramsay caught up with me a little more, but I kept going, and going, and going. I came to a large marble staircase, sensing that I had reached the less shabby part of the castle, nearing freedom. I bumped into a wiry, frumpish serving woman in sweeping skirts, with her white and grey hair tied into a neat bun. I began to cry weakly for help as I neared the exit, until finally I emerged out into the daylight, or at least I think it was day; I don't quite remember. I stopped the first man I saw, a smart looking gentleman with a fine moustache and a posh Southern (British) accent that suggested lordliness. I rambled that Lord Ramsay was evil, that he was going to chop off my manhood, that he had to alert the authorities, that he must do something, but the man seemed positively nonplussed by my desperate pleas for help, and simply said: "I can't help you there. Lord Ramsay can do as he likes." I should mention that outside, the exterior of the castle where I had been kept looked very much like the rocky, barren land that had covered the floating museum-cliff.

Seeing no other option, I ran until somehow, I ended up on the main high street of my city. I began to feel hopeful; I was losing Lord Ramsay, but perhaps one of his lackeys would catch me; no doubt he'd have them combing the area for me. I had never felt so desperate in a dream before, and I felt my real life disability setting in (I walk with a limp), yet I continued running, panting raggedly. Then, my legs gave out, and I fell to my knees, still I kept moving, crawling along the ground in a desperate struggle for freedom; if I could reach the statue of St. George and the Dragon a short distance away (even though it was in the wrong place in the city during this dream) I knew I might be further away. As I had been running down the street, I had glimpsed Lord Ramsay, and heard him shouting "Reek! Reek!" which only enhanced my desperation. It was then that my legs had given out. I must have been running for what felt like 20 minutes.

I managed to reach the monument, only to be stopped by Jaime (an old school friend of mine, surname omitted. ); he had apparently become an agent of Lord Ramsay's, and he said in a matter-of-fact tone: "Sorry Reek, but I'm going to have to take you back." I felt angry and betrayed, and swung at him, having managed to stand up, but all the strength had gone out of my arms. I knew that it was useless to resist, and that Lord Ramsay would take me back to the Dreadfort. It was only then that I woke up, agitated, but also relieved.