nightmare

Not such great recall last night, not much time to write about it, either

1) I was in a dystopia where the people weren't zombies, but pretty quickly became the living equivalent. I was lost and unable to make it to work or anything that I'd normally do in a day. At last I reality checked and became lucid, but I had so many false memories and such a bad environment that I didn't even attempt to simply recover the dream and turn it into something good. Instead I went inside a house, climbed up to the highest window, stepped out on the ledge, and then used my mind to shut the window on my heels, thus knocking me off to my death below, and effectively waking me up.

At least I can mark another LD on my sig from that!

(SIDE NOTE: I'VE OFFICIALLY BEEN INTO LUCID DREAMING FOR A YEAR NOW! )

Well, I've kind of been absent from this DJ for a while again, but hopefully this time I'll really for real be coming back. I keep on saying I'm coming back but then stuff comes up, I know

Anyway, last night I had a really vivid lucid dream, that, although not very epic, was rather interesting. For one thing, it's the first truly lucid dream I've had in a very long time...one where I actually stopped what I was doing and examined my environment, amazed at how realistic it was, but fully aware that it was all completely non-existent.

The dream began as a nightmare-ish experience. I was in my house, but everything was darker than is natural for just being night-time. I could hear screams and the sounds of what I knew would be hideous-looking beasts in the distance. Watching. Waiting. For me.

But then I looked down, and saw that I was not myself, either. I was one such creature, with leathery, tar-black skin, and a voice that mutated and sounded creepy when I spoke. Instantly I realized it was all just a dream, and I decided I would get the heck out of there before something attacked and woke me up. Besides, I didn't like being an ugly monster anyway . I walked up to the nearest wall and tried to phase through it. Having been a while since my last lucid dream, I didn't immediately have enough sense of dream control to move through, but eventually I managed to force my way through the wall and out to the other side, where I suddenly was caught up into a vortex and sucked away from the house into pitch blackness.

I wasn't waking up, however, and I knew it. I was simply moving to another, better place in the dream world. I watched as the leathery black skin peeled away, revealing my 'real' self beneath. My voice returned to normal as well. Next thing I know, I'm falling into a large gray box of a building, and it was basically empty to begin with. I tried creating a few things in it, but I was frustrated to find that I could barely control anything. Whatever I changed would erase itself and just fade away to the way it was before.

"What's going on here?" I asked myself.

My answer was approaching fast...literally. My sister flew up overhead, creating things to fill in the space around her as she went.

"Oh great!" I called out. "How'd I end up in your dream?"

She just laughed and kept on flying.

"I don't know, but have fun!"

I shook my head and began to fly off, wishing I had a totem like the one in Inception that I could use in other people's dreams. All of a sudden, though, I fell to the ground.

"What was that?" I asked my sister, who was still flying around.

"I just made a rule." She said. "To fly in my dream, you have to be in a sitting position."

"That's stupid! Why'd you do that?"

"If you're going to be in my dream, I might as well have fun with you."

"Yeah. Real funny."

I flew off (in a sitting position) and basically just explored the area and talked to the DC's in my sister's dream. It was interesting to carry on a conversation with DC's that weren't from my own subconscious. They spoke very differently than I'm used to having DC's speak, and often didn't make any sense to me at all.

In spite of minor annoyances it was an enjoyable night, overall. Plus I think I've got something going with MILD now, so hopefully my lucids should return to being much more frequent.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

A friend of mine was dead.

That's what the phone call that started it all was about. Of course I rushed to the scene of the crime as soon as I could so as to learn more about what happened, but it honestly didn't do me much good. All anyone knew for sure was that one moment my friend was alive and well and the next he was laying in a pool of blood, several knife wounds all over his body.

No one ever saw the killer. He didn't even leave fingerprints behind, so there was no good way to track him down, either. This, of course, made the last person to see my friend the primary suspect: Zachary Quinto. He was literally dragged to the scene of the crime and the police attempted to identify any sort of evidence with him.

They discovered the cuts on my friend's body matched the width and length of a knife owned by Mr. Quinto, but when they produced said knife, Zach didn't seem to recognize it. He didn't appear to be bluffing, either; he was genuinely shocked that a long, brown knife had been discovered on the floor of his home, caked in blood.

Quinto was promptly arrested, and I was asked to leave while further investigation was carried out. I was by no means satisfied, though. The next day I paid a visit to the police office to inquire about their discoveries. They told me that evidence against Quinto was insufficient and they would be letting him go later on that day, and also that the knife they found belonged to a mysterious killer known only by the alias "Knife-baby". The killer's targets seemed random; just whoever was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And this time, chance had it so that the Knife-baby killer's choice was personal.

I set out on a quest to find out just who this murderer was and bring them down myself, or otherwise set them up for arrest. It didn't take long before I met up with Quinto, who was planning to do the same thing in order to clear his own name.

We went all over the globe together, following the tiniest and most confusing trails of clues, hoping that sooner or later we'd find our guy. Sadly, the biggest help we got was the frequent news reports of the Knife-baby killer's latest victims. After enough people had been killed, we were able to line up their locations on a map like a 'connect the dots' picture and plot a line to predict where the killer would be next. The location? A research building in the Amazon jungle.

Quinto and I approached the building from a ways off, not wanting to alert anyone of our presence by the sound of a vehicle. After hacking through security at the back door, we began to make our way through the hallway, keeping our eyes peeled in all possible directions.

Suddenly, all went black. I heard a noise like a muffled explosion followed by the feedback of a thousand echoes. It hurt my ears, so I put my hands over them while crying out in pain...and as I fell to my knees, the light came back on, and I was on my knees before the dead body of a scientist who worked in the facility. Blood was everywhere, and knife wounds were clearly visible in the corpse's back. It was then that I noticed my hands were wet, so I pulled them down, away from my ears, and was horrified to see that my own hands were also caked with blood, and I held a long, brown knife in my right hand.

Quinto was unharmed, but backed up against the wall, and breathing hard. He was clearly freaked out by the whole thing. When he got his breath back, he stared at the body, and at me.

"You...you...you're the Knife-baby killer!" He said angrily, charging at me and pinning me up against the wall.

"What? Think about what you're saying! Why would I have killed my own friend, framed you, and then come all this way with you just so I could turn around and show you that I was the one all along? Do you really think I'm that stupid?" I replied.

Quinto let go and backed off, huffing with frustration that we'd missed the killer again.

"So how does this work?" He asked. "Does the killer ever actually kill anyone? Or does he just use us as proxies?"

"Wait a minute, so you're saying you did kill my friend?"

"You know that's not true! I saw what you just saw! Blackness, then that noise, then a dead body sitting at my feet, and a long brown knife and blood in my hands. But I got rid of the knife; I got rid of the knife!! The killer obviously wanted me to be framed...that's why he put the knife back in my house! And now he wants you as well. Maybe that's how he handles people who have leads on his location. Puts them in prison by false accusation."

"Then let's follow him, before he gets away!"

We turned back to the door we'd come in, and found it still wide open. There was a moment of self-hatred, thinking we'd just created the killer's escape route. That was the final straw. We charged outside just in time to see a black figure running into another building a short ways away.

"There he is!" Quinto pointed.

The chase was on! We smashed through the door to the building and kept running, absolutely determined not to let this guy get away. We were gaining on the figure, who was still black as a shadow even up close, and then we followed him around a corner...only to hear a scream and see the Knife-baby killer throwing himself over us, knocking us both to the ground.

When I got up, I was no longer in the building, Quinto was no longer there, and the Knife-baby killer was completely out of my memory. The dream continued on as a rather typical false-awakening.

Still no lucid dream, but it's cool non-lucids like this that make me not mind so much

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Well, I'm getting pretty tired of not having decent lucids, so I'm going back to the constantly-RC method. I'll keep trying WILDs here and there cuz they're so much better when they work, but I'm not getting them to work consistently enough for me.

Since an important part of DILD is dream recall, I thought I had better write down what I remember of last night.

I wasn't actually in the dream; it was like a mental movie. There was a guy (I think his name was Martin) who was staying in a room at his girlfriend's house because he had no job and no money. The gf was some sort of psychiatrist or something like that, and was trying to get Martin a job with her, but he needed specific training before he could. So he got the details, packed what little he had, and headed off to different locations for the training.

It wasn't but a day after he left that his gf got a phone call from her boss. "You may want to tell Martin to look elsewhere." She said. "We've found someone for the job." Martin's gf was shocked. "And this person has all the necessary training for the position?" She asked. "Well...no." Boss replied. "Actually, she has no training at all. But she's got what it takes; you just have to see her with a patient! I think she'll end up teaching us, not the other way around." Now the gf was really distressed. Not only had the spot for Martin been filled contrary to previous plans, and he was getting training he couldn't afford without getting the job as well, but it was all happening for someone with no training! After a brief silence, the boss added, "You should probably meet her. Could I send her over to your place tomorrow? I think it would be a nicer place for a chat than at the office." "Uh, yeah...sure."

Next thing I know, the scene 'cut' to a different person. It was yet another girl (pretty sweet way to dream, right?) who lurked in the shadows (ok maybe not) and was watching Martin's girlfriend's boss at her desk. At first there were other people there, talking to her, but as soon as they all left, the lurker woman walked out and started speaking in commands. "You will not hire the new girl. You will tell her there has been a mistake and she cannot work here." As she spoke, the boss's eyes seemed to roll back in her head and black streaks appeared in both of them, swirling around. I could tell the boss was being controlled. But fortunately, the newcomer appeared just then. She was a pretty brunette that wore glasses; nothing at all like the other, rather dumpy people in the dream. "Let her go!" The newcomer shouted. Her words seemed to throw the evil woman back with a force, and she ran off first chance she got. The boss's eyes returned to normal. "What was that?" The boss asked. "I was totally unable to control myself!" "I don't know," the newcomer replied, "but I don't think we've seen the end of this one."

Again the scene 'cut' to a different location; this time a public phone in a train station. Martin was calling his gf. I can't remember all their dialogue, but she told him about the job no longer being available, and meeting with the newcomer the next day. She said that the whole thing sounded weird, and if possible, she would try to convince the boss not to hire the new girl because of her lack of experience. But still, it wasn't much comfort to Martin. He knew that without a job, he was financially screwed.

It was the following day, then, and the newcomer was knocking at the door of Martin's gf. She was suddenly in an apartment now instead of a house. "Come in." The reply to the knock came. But it wasn't Martin's gf's voice. The newcomer opened the door, and found Martin's gf standing there, motionless, black swirls in her eyes. Next to her was the evil woman. "Now you listen to me." The evil woman said. Martin's gf robotically spoke the same words at the same time; it was like their brains had been connected, and the evil woman's was the dominant of the two. "Do what I say, or she <Martin's gf> dies." The newcomer was strangely able to resist the mind-controlling power of the evil woman. "You don't have to live this way." She told the evil woman. "I can help you." The evil woman laughed, which also made Martin's motionless girlfriend laugh in an emotionless and robotic tone. The two laughs combined were chilling. "Help me? I'm doing this for you." The newcomer raised a single eyebrow in confusion at the evil woman's saying. "I'm doing this for her!" She continued, pointing at Martin's gf. But then something really weird happened. The evil woman looked not just in my direction as the spectator, but at me, even though I wasn't there. I could feel my real body for a moment, but then it got sucked in, and I was standing in that apartment room, also motionless and unable to move of my own accord. "I'm doing it...for him!" I then felt my eyes rolling back into my head, unstoppably, and black swirls began to cover my vision. But then I heard the newcomer start panicking. "No! Don't!" She cried. "He controls the dream; if you control him, you'll kill us all! We can't exist without him being the one in control!" The evil woman snapped back (the gf still saying all of her words at the same time: "Idiot! We'll stop existing as soon as he wakes up!" Then I felt myself uncontrollably begin to say the same things as the evil woman as well. "If I take control of him, we can continue existing forever! None of us have to die! I'm saving us all!" But at the same time as the evil woman was talking, I was thinking about what the newcomer had said about it being a dream. Pretty soon, I realized...it was a dream! Summoning all my energy into one panicked move, I thrust my head forward, said, "Not today!" (which the gf said at the same time as me, this time) and with one jerk of my head (the only thing I could move), I broke the dream like a pane of glass, and woke myself up.

Such a weird, weird concept...a DC being afraid of dying, and thereby attempting to take control of my mind so I wouldn't wake up?? I don't think I want to dwell on that one...

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Ok, well I'm not supposed to say too much about this, but I've been on a secret mission with LDing lately, but for some reason every time I try to do it, if I'm getting near lucidity I get kicked out of lucidity, and the dream always ends up a nightmare

Last night's nightmare was particularly memorable...I think if I get the chance I'll even turn it into a movie scene.

I was in my room, and at first, everything was normal. But then, I noticed something strange...there was a worm on the ground. Then I turned around. There were a few more. Turned and looked around again, more worms, and even bigger and thicker now! "Well that's weird...how are they getting in here?" I said. Then I felt a sharp pain in my leg. I pulled the leg on my pants up so I could see, but quickly wished I hadn't. About 5 of those huge, thick worms had bitten into me and were now entirely in my leg, eating away at it, visible through a top layer of skin. The other worms were coming near me now, too, and I was surrounded. I dashed for the door, but multiple worms got into me after that, all eating away at my legs and arms from the inside, not to mention the disgusting sight of having a worm bulging through your skin. I may be a guy, but I still screamed. The door slammed behind me, I ran for the nearest person and begged them to help me get the worms out. "You're going to live," they told me, "but there's only one way to get those worms out." "Well do it already! please!" They reached down and pinched one of the worms on my leg. It let out a little, sickening cry and then rushed up through my leg towards my head. It felt so weird and disgusting...but not nearly as much as what happened next. After the worm got up to my head, I started choking and gagging, and then I coughed really hard, and blood came out along with the worm. Then I looked down and saw how many more worms were all throughout my body. There were easily 30 left for me to cough up that way, and then I still had a whole room full of them to deal with! Or so I thought. I turned and looked and saw a million more of them flooding into the house from the outside. There was nothing left to do but run! So I ran for the closest windows and tried to smash it and get outside. But I couldn't. The worms were coming closer, getting into the room, devouring the person who had just helped me. I had only a few seconds left...

...and then I woke up. Man that one really freaked me out! All day long I've felt like I'm feeling those things getting into my legs and arms, even though I know they aren't there...it was just so creepy!

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

I just lived out three months of my life last night. It was the worst dream I have ever had in my entire life. If it were a movie, it would be rated R, or higher. By necessity, I have recorded foul language, but blocked out certain characters. Sorry it is so long, but it's hard to record three months at once and keep it short.

I was first aware of the dream when I became lucid. Oh, that I had not! I tried leaving the building I was in and going to Pandora, I tried using telekinesis, I tried doing everything, but even though I was lucid, I could do nothing. I was as limited in this dream as I am in real life. I couldn't even wake myself up. There were a couple others in the concrete and steel-piped room, but they simply watched me try to go through the wall as if it were expected of me as a newcomer. I shouted out in one final attempt, and only succeeded in hurting myself.

“No point in trying to escape.” An old man in the room said to me, slowly and depressed. “From this point on, all you can do is your best. The tests...will not be easy.”

I held up my hands, giving up. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

The old man sighed. “Then...there is no hope for you.”

Just then, I saw a light on the floor; a door was opened behind me. Guards came in, wearing gas masks and black army uniforms. The leader said, “Take that one” as he pointed at me. His voice was deep and forbidding; he didn't have to shout or emphasize his words because it was obvious from his voice alone that no one would dare challenge him.

I didn't react to them at first. I figured if they grabbed me, I could just phase through their arms. But when they grabbed me and I realized I couldn't do that, I panicked. I fought and kicked and punched, but nothing I did could get me out of their iron grasp. “Sedate him!” The guard on my right hissed. “What? Sedate? No, no, no, no!” I watched in horror as the lead guard came into view with a needle and slowly pressed it into me. Things started fading. All was black.

I woke up momentarily in my bed and RC'd it to be real, but I couldn't stay there for long. It was like something was pulling my mind back into the dream, and it was soon successful. When I was back in the dream, I was just waking up from the sedative. I RC'd again and found myself dreaming, but lucidity again did nothing for me. I was trapped. The dream was totally realistic. Even my vision wasn't perfect, and as in real life, if I closed my eyes, I saw little spots. I was really there in mind and spirit, and now body as well, in the greatest possible sense. I sat up, depressed.

“Welcome back.” I heard a voice say. When I looked up, I saw a middle-aged woman with curly red hair standing there. “I'm Dr. Grace Augustine.” She said.

“Doctor...so you're not being tested too?”

She smirked, and then began to work some computer machinery as she spoke.

“Oh, I'm being tested. We're all being tested, save the big man himself. Here.”

She gave me a cup of water, which I took gratefully.

“Who is the big man?” I asked after a swig.

Grace stopped for a moment before answering.

“That is a very dangerous question. Honestly, no one really knows the answer. No one's ever seen him, not anyone from this level. Some believe he's in disguise undergoing his own tests, but I know better. I may not have met him, but I've spoken with him, and believe me, he's not in this for a science experiment. There's something much deeper at hand. Anyway, for lack of a better title, people around here call him the G-Man.”

“What are these tests? What are they for?”

Dr. Augustine handed me a clipboard with papers on it detailing an organization called the “D.N.A.”

“The DNA is a human research organization of the government.” Grace explained as I skimmed the pages, disappointed that the text wasn't changing like it should in a dream. “It's to...study human behavior; put people in a series of varying living conditions and see how their environment affects them.”

“Well,” I explained, “I'm a Christian; I doubt they'll find my living circumstances to change me in the ways they expect.”

I could tell Dr. Augustine wasn't convinced.

“We'll see about that.” she said as she pulled a nearby lever.

A steel bulkhead door opened behind her.

“This way to your first room.”

I got up and followed her down several dark hallways. The walls and ceiling were made entirely out of pipes, and the floor of a paneled steel square, with metal grating lining the left and right sides. One of the pipes was leaking, spraying steam out into the air and giving the area a very creepy atmosphere. Finally we reached a door.

“And this,” said the doctor, opening the door. “Is your room.”

Inside was a small room that looked very much like a little house's living room. It was smaller than the average hotel room, carpeted bright red and walls left white (and peeling at some points). Basic appliances were there, such as a television and a refrigerator, but they were old, small, and very outdated in appearance. Three people were in there, one a guy a bit taller than me with blonde hair and a thin face, and two girls, one an equally taller red-head and the other a shorter brunette. All of them looked to be about my age. They had the TV going and honestly seemed to be enjoying themselves. Their presence definitely cheered the whole situation and made me think that maybe there was some positive aspect to all of this.

“Food will be brought to you once every day.” Dr. Augustine explained. “You must ration it out for yourselves and save each of the portions in the fridge.”

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

“How long do I have to be here?”

“One month.”

“A month!? You gotta be kiddin' me, you can barely walk around in this place!”

“You have a backyard. Just don't try to go beyond the fence. Now get in there, or I'm going to have trouble with the boss.”

“Alright, alright!”

I walked inside.

“One month.” Said Dr. Augustine as she closed the door behind her.
I just stood there for a moment, silent, not believing the situation I was in. I RC'd again and found myself to still be dreaming, or at least, not in my normal body. Honestly, I don't know where I was then. It was all too real. I took a couple steps inward, and the guy there turned and looked at me.

“Oh, hey! The new guy's here!”

The girls waved and said 'hi' as well. I just sat down on the floor next to the guy, since no chairs were around.

“So how long'a you been here?” I asked.

“Three months.” The guy said, with the girls nodding their agreement with the guessed time.

“Huh, what? I thought we were only supposed to be here one month?”

“No man, that was you!” he said as he put his arm on my shoulder. “You're the one we've been waiting for! The test setup isn't complete without a second male. Here, check the paper.”

He flipped through my clipboard until he came to a page on test 1.

“'This test must be conducted regardless all circumstances with two males and two females. The government reserves the right to keep an incomplete test's subjects in their environments until suitable additions have arrived'.” I read. “This is crazy! I didn't even sign up for this.”

“Nobody does.” The brunette said. “And yet...everyone does. Look at the last page.”

I did, and there was a signature on the dotted line. My signature. I couldn't believe it.

“I...I didn't do this!”

“Everyone who is born signs their signature there from simply being alive.” The guy explained.

“Great. So what are we supposed to do?”

“Didn't Grace tell you?” the redhead chimed in. “Live on rations for a month. It's not much, but we can definitely live on it.”

“Is there really no way out of this?”

To that, no one spoke for a long time. Finally, the brunette broke the silence.

“Only a few have tried. They wanted to climb over the fence. No one knows what happened to them, but they never came back, and the government will act like they never existed if you ask them about it.”

“Outstanding.”

“Well hey,” the guy suggested. “How about we play a game? You know, loosen the tension.”

“Sounds good to me.” The brunette agreed.

“What about you?” The redhead asked, looking at me. “You in?”

I sighed.

“Why not...nothing else to do.”

So we played a game of monopoly, and learned each others names. The blonde guy was Truman, the brunette was Mia, and the redhead was Danielle. I didn't know them, but I don't think I really needed to in order to understand that they had something. They had been living in semi-poverty for three months, and they were the happiest people I'd met in a long time.

The days went on after that. As Grace had said, food was brought in once every day, and we had to ration it out and save what we could in the fridge. Even though there was little, everyone simply learned to think of the other three before themselves. There was no selfishness in that little place, which I think was supposed to be part of the test. To prove one or another of us to be selfish and in the process despise the others. But it never came close to happening. Every day we read the Bible to each other and it was our greatest source of encouragement. We were about as much a family as could be.

Still, I came to feel something special for Mia. I didn't say anything about it to her. I didn't have to. Every time I went to bed I knew she'd be there the next day and that I'd spend every moment with her, so why complicate things? It wasn't like she didn't know. Once, Mia fell terribly sick, to the point of death. We were told that medicine would be exchanged for some of the daily rations, and I volunteered to give mine up so that Mia could get better, which she did. By this point, I was actually beginning to get beyond acceptance of my life and actually enjoy it this way. Every day was...was very pure. It was all about putting others first and living life to the best possible way for the sake of everyone else. I figured out that Truman had feelings for Danielle, and although it would have been very easy, nobody slept together. We kept to our own corners of the room at night and didn't cross any boundaries. It was a kind of life that I would have lived for a long time.

But a month is just a month. Eventually the day came when Dr. Augustine visited our door and told me to say goodbye to my friends. I was very glad at this point that I had said nothing to Mia; it would have made things even harder. I told her goodbye the same way I did the other two; with nothing more than a hug and a word. It was very painful to be torn away from them, but guards were there to assist if I didn't comply of my own free will.

When I was outside and the guards saw I wasn't fighting, they walked away for Dr. Augustine to handle me.

“Why do this?” I asked, frustrated. “Why pull me away from them?”

“Your test was for one month. Boss's orders. I don't make up the rules, kid.”

We walked a bit farther and no one spoke.

“You're going to have a break today.” Grace said. “Back in the room you started in.”

“Why? Why not get the tests over with?”

“I told you I don't make up the rules.”

I went back inside the concrete room and sat on the concrete bed. It was like a prison cell.

“Great. So I'm here. What now? Just sit and take a break?”

“No.”

And then something really weird happened. As Grace said,

“The boss wants to see you.”

My environment faded into total darkness, and Grace morphed into a guard, emitting a blue glow that was painful to look at. Her voice changed to that of the guard as well, giving an eerie feeling about me. Then the guard disintegrated and was taken up into the air. I screamed in fear and tried to run, but I found myself colliding with a wall in the darkness, falling down, knocked out.

Again I woke up for real, but was pulled back into the dream by a force other than me.[/COLOR

When I woke up in the dream, I was in the piped hallway. I took one small step and heard my foot echo all the way down the hallway and around the pitch black corner. Then I heard a gut-wrenching scream, and a dead man limped around the corner. This was no Half-life zombie; this guy was really dead and decaying, and walking towards me. I turned and ran into the darkness of the corner, found a stack of boxes over to the side, and tried to knock it over to block the way. I saw the dead man round the corner, keeping after me. The boxes were too heavy...but then, just in time, they fell, and with another sickening cry, the dead man admitted defeat. I heard him walk away, and then I was left alone, my heart pounding, sure that another of them was going to end up being right behind me, against the wall as well.

“Well, well, well.”

The voice startled me so bad that I thought there was a zombie behind me, but it turned out there wasn't.

“Who are you?” I called out.

“Who am I?” The voice replied, slow, quivering, and dry, sending chills up my spine. “The question is: who are you? That's why we're doing these tests. To discover you. Isn't that right?”

I got his point, but I didn't like it. I remained pinned to the wall, heart racing. The voice laughed wickedly.

“You see? Your eyes are blind. You speak of understanding, but you do not know what you are talking about.”

“What are you talking about?” I finally gathered the courage to say. “What was that last test for? Why did I have to be pulled away? I was living right, and I had the truth.”

“You are looking for truth, and right. But you do not know what you speak of. You may have passed the first test, but I wonder, was it you, or was it the others around you?”

“They were good people. They don't deserve to be imprisoned by you!”

“I didn't put them in prison. You did.”

“I would never do such a thing!”

“Oh,” the voice replied, undaunted. “You don't know what you would do. It's Murphy.”

“Murphy as in Murphy's laws?” I mumbled so quiet that no one could hear it.

“Yes...somehow your pathetic human was the only one to understand. It doesn't matter what you believe, or where you are. Sooner or later, you will give in. It's all...just...a matter...of...time.”

I especially hated the way he said that last part.

“Now, go. Your next test awaitssss.”

Suddenly, the dead man broke through the boxes and ran after me. My legs froze; I couldn't make myself run, I was so afraid. But then, a blue light shone around him, and as I fainted, I could see my environment reverting to the lab with Grace Augustine.

I briefly woke up in real life yet again, but yet again was pulled back asleep.

I awoke in the dream with the doctor waving a light over my eyes and saying my name, trying to get me to come to. When I finally did, I sat up on the concrete bed and RC'd. I tested to be dreaming.

“What the h*ll was that? Get me out of this right now!”

“I can't do that.” Grace said. “Come on. It's time for your next test.”

I was taken outside, which looked a lot like Pandora, honestly, save I wasn't in the midst of trees. The testing facility was all up on a plateau, overlooking a forest, with an active volcano in the far distance. The sky was red and orange from the sunrise. I was led through various gates that required the doctor's authentication, and eventually came to a tree.

“Here you go.” said the doctor. “Test number 2.”

“Huh! A tree? Are you kidding?”

“Nope. For the next month, you are to live here. There's shelter already built for you towards the top.”

“Who's in it?”

“No one. The point of this test is to see how you behave for a month when you are alone. Food rations will come out once a week...”

“What!? Once a week?”

“...but there are weapons in the tree house for you to hunt your own food.”

“Great.”

“Trust me, you'll want to learn how to fight well. You think all the animals are stuck on the ground? Think again. Now go on.”

I looked around me. There were guards at every possible exit and escape. The fences were of latticed barbed wire. It was comply or die.

“Listen...I'm not supposed to tell you this, but after this test you'll get to see Mia again.” Dr. Augustine told me. “One month. That's all you have to endure. Don't kill yourself now!”

I looked at the factory as if it were the embodiment of the G-Man and the voice I had just heard.

“Son of a bit**.”

But I climbed up the tree then—for Mia.

I don't know that I want to or even can go into details about that month. It was horrible. Weather was hot, water was scarce, and so was food. The weapons were all hand-made and very pitiful. I had to sharpen each blade and tweak each arrow for balance before even attempting to use them. Of course the initial rations of food were not good enough for the week, so I had to go hunting. That didn't go so well. I was wary of every creature at first, trying to fight without being hurt, but one strange creature ended that attempt by biting the back of my arm.

“Ow! S**t!”

I then beat down the animal and tore at it with all my might, taking out my anger, temporarily forgetting all about the meat. I pulled it by the tail back to my tree, leaving streaks of dark blood on the dirt and grass. By that time it was night, I was sore, tired, and too hungry to go on. I barely was able to climb back up the tree to sleep. I didn't RC...I didn't want to. I knew where I was, that dream or no dream I couldn't change anything about my situation. I thought about Mia, and cried. Thinking of her made me want to read the Bible, but I could not, because I didn't have one with me, and my mind was too dulled and emotional to recall any memorized verses.

I ended up falling asleep that night with rain pouring through the leaky roof of the wooden tree house. About the only good thing about it was that it cleaned the wound on my arm.

The next day, I got out of the tree to find yesterday's kill completely devoured by other creatures.

“D*m* it!”

I spent the day hunting, and this time I got the meat from the kill right away, made a fire, and tried to cook it as best as possible. It tasted horrible; tough and dry, with no seasoning or spice to it at all. But it was food. I couldn't appreciate it, though. Not doing it for myself. There was no love in that; only hatred. Hatred for the G-Man, hatred for the pesky animals, hatred for my situation, even hatred for myself. By the end of that month, I was as much an animal as the beasts that I killed. My muscles were all huge and solid, my hair long and rough, and my mouth foul. I didn't pray, I didn't think about the Bible...all I thought about was Mia during the day, and the G-Man and the dead man during the night. Many times I was afraid that I had heard the cry of that demon in the night, when it would turn out to be a bird or some other creature.

It was only a month, but it seemed an eternity.

Finally the day came where I climbed back up into the tree house and found Dr. Augustine there. She was examining some pictures of Mia I had drawn on tree bark and hung on the walls.

“Excellent work.” She said.

I glared at her.

“I ought to kill you.”

“I don't. Make. The rules. Besides, you get to see Mia now, because I'm going to take you to her. You should be happy to see me again.”

“I'm happy just to see another living soul again! I've been here alone for far too long. I just wish it didn't have to be you or anyone associated with the d*m* DNA.”

“Tough luck. Come on, buddy.”

I was taken to a car with the DNA logo on the side, put in, and driven to what Grace said was my third and final test environment.

When we got there, I looked out the window to behold a huge mansion.

“And that is your new home.” said the doctor.

“You serious? It's fu**ing huge!”

“And this time, no rations.”

“What!? How am I supposed to live? There are no animals in this place!”

“No rations. You get ten million dollars to spend however you wish; on food, clothes, whatever.”

“You're kidding.”

She shook her head.

“Holy s**t!” I laughed. “Well this will be a breeze after living in the woods for so long.”

“Well good luck, then. Here's the key. The place is yours. After one month here, we're shipping you back home. Make the most of it.”

“Yeah, seriously!” I said, taking the key and dashing out the door.

When I got inside, the place was incredible; three stories high and hundreds of rooms on each floor. There was a fountain in the middle of the entrance area, and huge stair cases on both sides. Mia was there, and saw me come in from the top of one of the stair cases. She called out my name, and I called out hers, and we ran to meet each other.

“What happened to you!?” she asked. “You're filthy! And your clothes...they're all torn up!”

“They made me live out in a tree house for the past month! A d*m* tree house! Rations came only once a week; I had to hunt for the rest.”

“You poor thing! Come on, let's get you to the shower. There's clothes and everything you need up in the master bedroom.”

She led me upstairs and to the room she spoke of. It was an amazing place; the bed was big enough for someone 9 feet tall to comfortably fit in, and the accommodations in the bathroom were just as extravagant. Mia was just about to leave so I could get cleaned up, but I turned and put her hands in mine before she could.

“I'm afraid that if I let you go I'll never see you again.” I said.

She smiled.

“I'll wait right outside. Not a step farther away.”

“Thank you.”

It was great to get cleaned up after a month of filthiness. After a shower in the bathtub with jets and floor lamps, I trimmed my hair and shaved in front of a fifty-foot mirror. I never could get over the fact that was a multimillionaire and this was my new home for the next month. I didn't care, though. I knew how to live without money at all. It was Mia that I cared about.

When I went into the bedroom to get dressed, I noticed a PDA on the bed. It hadn't been there before. I picked out an outfit and tried to ignore the device...but somehow it grabbed my attention. I touched the screen, and it turned on. A man with a gnarled, wrinkled face wearing a suit appeared on the screen. He was hideous. I didn't even need to ask to know he was the G-Man.

“You son of a bit**! What do you want with me?”

“Careful. Don't forget who gave you all this, and Mia.” He said in his usual, slow and devious manner.

“Who the h*ll are you, really?”

He ignored me.

“I'm here to tell you about this device. This is what you will use this month to do everything.”

“Like what? Why would I use s**t that you and your half-a**ed guards sneaked into this place?”

“You will use it to make purchases.” He continued, undaunted.

The screen changed to illustrate what he was talking about.

“I have made hundreds of bookmarks for you. Web stores, magazines, everything is all right here for you at the touch of a button. There's even vast adult web content available at low prices.”

“I'm not interested in adult web content.”

“We shall see.”

And with that, he was gone. Mia knocked on the door.

“Is someone in there with you?”

I turned to look at the door.

“Oh. No! No, just talking to myself.”

When I looked back down at the device, the G-Man had made it automatically switch to one of those bookmarked adult web pages.

“D*m* it!”

I tapped the home button on the PDA and shoved it into my pocket. Then I opened the door for Mia.

There was something about the way she turned to look at me that made her stunningly beautiful in the red dress she was in.

“Mia...there's something I have—I need—to tell you.”

“You can tell me anything.”

“Mia...” I took her hands in mine again. “I love you.”

I saw a tear form in the corner of her eye, and then she threw her arms around me.

“I thought I'd never get the chance to hear you say it!”

Things went very well the rest of that day. Mia and I went exploring the huge house, uninterrupted by anyone else. Since many rooms were empty, we also did some shopping. Well, I did, anyway. I told Mia I would order things; I didn't show her just how. See, I couldn't delete the bookmarks on the device, and I didn't want Mia to find them and think that I had put them there. So a 70-inch plasma screen TV, a water slide for the backyard pool, paintings by famous artists, you name it, all came in without Mia ever knowing just how I was ordering.

It would have been a good month, except for the fact that Mia and I got so caught up in riches that we left behind the Bible and God and lived for ourselves. We couldn't leave our estate because guards would stop us, so marriage wasn't an option, and therefore, rather than make the right choices, we simply started sleeping together. But our love was quickly turning to selfishness, and so more and more those bookmarks became a temptation for me.

Eventually, I resisted no more. I thought Mia was on the other side of the mansion, so I pulled out the device and opened the first bookmark in the list. Not ten minutes later, Mia came back and found me there with the device. And yes, she did think I had put the bookmarks there. But that hardly mattered now; I had given into them, which was a far worse deed.

In the middle of our argument over the issue, blue lights shone from us both, and we were taken to the cement place I had first arrived at. Grace wasn't there, the G-Man wasn't there, but we could hear his voice.

“You claimed to love this woman, but look at what you did!” His spine-chilling voice shouted.

Then we were transported back to the first test room.

“Remember what you were? Look at yourself now!”

This time, only I had the blue light. Mia grabbed for me.

“Mia! Don't!”

She didn't have time. I was transported to the dark hallway with the pipes, and I was utterly alone, standing beneath the only light in the entire place. Behind me I heard the cry of the dead man again, but when he rounded the corner, I saw not just him, but an army of dead men behind him.

I swore and ran away. They advanced behind me, faster and faster. I took twists and turns down the hallway, but at one point I had three options. Back, left, or right. Behind me was darkness and dead men, so I turned left. To my horror, more dead men swarmed in on that side of me as well. I screamed and ran, the decaying, limping bodies crying out after me.

I began to realize as I ran that even the bright moments had been deception the past three months. It was all a trick, all a lie, and I had given into it all. I had been weak and easily decieved, I had become the very thing I hated, and now I was about to be destroyed by the very thing I feared most.

I was lucid, but I couldn't wake up, I couldn't fight, I couldn't flee. The worst fear I've ever had set in as I realized that as far as reality was concerned, this was real, and there was no escaping it.

There was one last corner for me to go around, but when I did, the army of dead men was already there. I was trapped this time. Quickly, I searched for more boxes, and found them, but knocking them over did no good. Hundreds of zombies were on both sides of me this time, and they were very strong. I held up the walls with my own hands and feet, but I knew I was only prolonging the inevitable. I couldn't hold them off forever, and there was nowhere else to go. They reached their decaying hands through holes in between boxes and clawed desperately at me in the darkness.

Cusses and swears came from my mouth, and then the G-Man joined in the racket with his wicked laughter.

“You wanted to find right and truth.” He said, still slowly, his voice still quivering, and chilling as ever. “Well, you found it. Or should I say...you found them.”

“What!? These are you. You!”

“No, these are you.”

I finally began to understand, but I didn't want to.

“No, no, no, no!” I cried.

“Yeessss.” The G-Man hissed. “Every one of them is a work of yours; a tragedy. Weren't you a Christian? Then look around you.”

The armies of dead men began to cry louder and beat harder against the walls of boxes.

“You see? All there is...is tragedy. So much for Christianity.”

“This can't be right. This can't be true. This isn't. It isn't!” I tried to convince myself, and control the dream. It was no use. I was still pinned, growing weaker by the moment.

That speech seemed to crush everything about me; like the past three months had all been a sick game played just to prove to me that I would give into temptation if put in the wrong environments for enough time.

Suddenly the pressure against the boxes eased, and the zombies were gone...or so I thought.

A moment later, their faces came into view by the thousands, all behind one gnarled and twisted face of an old man that appeared right in front of me.

“Tragedy is all that is, and that is what makes it right. It's Murphy. It's all...just...a matter...of...time.”

With that, the G-Man snapped his fingers, and all was snuffed out in darkness. I wasn't in body then, but spectating, and I zoomed out and saw a briefcase being closed over my clipboard of papers. When it shut, the ten stars on the DNA symbol lit up.

“We have his DNA now. I just hope it was worth doing to the poor fellow.” A rather heavy government worker said as he picked it up.

The G-Man was sitting behind a desk, which I saw as things continued to zoom out.

“Trust me. All of it is in that DNA. Right and wrong, good and evil...it's all pointless and meaningless...a fabrication of fragile, disgusting humanity. With this DNA, we have the ability to decide for ourselves what is good, and what is evil.”

“You better be right.”


And then I woke up with a start. I might need to illustrate this a bit, since just reading it is not nearly as scary. I've never felt so scared, so betrayed, so deceived...I became a wicked, wicked person, not all that unlike who I really am, just less bridled. It's a very sobering story, especially since the G-Man's face and that line “It's Murphy. It's all...just...a matter...of...time” are not unfamiliar to me. I saw them both early on as a little kid. I called the G-Man “the gray man who stands next to my bed and brings dreams to me.” And he said that line more than once before.

If there's not something of the devil involved in all this, I don't know where it came from...

EDIT: A couple illustrations can be found here. I didn't spend too long on them, but the first one is pretty accurate, and the second one is exactly right.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

(Sorry there was no entry yesterday...really there was nothing to report, but what really happened is I just totally forgot )

Tried to WILD last night...it was my first attempt to do so for a little while. I figured that by taking a short break from trying, I'd increase my chances of success. I was right.

It wasn't long (about half an hour) before I was in SP in full, seeing tons of increasingly vivid HI, and feeling myself slipping into the dream state, still maintaining the proper level of consciousness. But then something weird happened. My eyelids started to quiver, and then they nearly opened--for real, not in the dream, like I was expecting--I successfully stabilized them, but not without losing the HI, and weakening the SP a bit. I tried just waiting for more HI to come, but when it did, I never reached the dream state, and it just disappeared within a few seconds.

When I opened my eyes and admitted defeat, it turned out that a couple hours had passed in this dreamless sleep paralysis, which felt really strange, because even though I had been conscious the whole time, it felt like I had actually slept for a while. I mean, it was kind of cool, being conscious while being asleep, but I'd much rather have lucid dreams than spend all night just waiting for the night to be over!

It was doubtful that WILD would succeed after that, so I tried just to DILD. Problem was, my sleep schedule was so messed up by that point that it took me a very long time to get into a dream state; I kept just slipping back into that waking sleep. When I finally did dream, it was like my vision was blurry and my hearing was bad; all that I could get out of the dream was a couple people standing in front of me, telling me things that I couldn't hear well enough to understand. I couldn't make out their faces, either. But suddenly, one of them put their hand on my shoulder and turned me to face a holographic image. In that moment I saw that I was in some science lab like the one from Avatar. "I suppose you're one of them, now." The person said, pointing to the image, which I saw was a group of Na'vi. "You better get in your body."

That's all I remember. I guess I've officially jumped on the bandwagon of Avatar dreaming...maybe I can actually go lucid and visit Pandora again sometime

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

11:14pm

Went to sleep without well-set intentions. "Maybe I'll WBTB...I'll set an alarm for 4:30am. I'll leave my PC on so I can get o DV if I decide to get up." It was still too much 'up-in-the-air', though; I made no firm decision about following through. However, I ended up awakening at 2:21 having already been in REM, so that WBTB failed from the outset, but helped me guess a better time to set the alarm for. Another issue was that having my PC on meant a blue power light was flashing in my eyes all night long...it ended up working on me like a Nova Dreamer and influencing my dreams. For sake of time I'll only put one of them on this dream journal; I've already got the other one written down elsewhere. (yep, I'm still sticking with two dreams recalled every night, but they are increasing in clarity very rapidly now, and I can remember details from them for longer periods of time.)

The first dream began in a dystopia, an island that was mostly covered with water. Still, the water was not too deep for construction. The Vegas-like place was mostly up on stilts, with bridges for roads and sidewalks. In this town, I watched as a spectator as a warning rumor spread around that the water had become mixed with too many chemicals and would explode in one day, causing near-atomic reactions. Many heeded the warning and evacuated in time, but several foolish, wild party-ers remained behind to have 'fun' without the others around to talk bad about their lifestyle. As this went on, the setting sky turned red and orange, reflecting blood in the water. The parties went on. Finally, however, one girl realized something was wrong and pulled her boyfriend out to the docks. "What's going on? Let's go back and have fun!" He said. She paid no attention, but tried to find the fastest boat she could. She made her choice and then proceeded to untie it from the docks. "I think the rumor about this place is right!" She said. "We have to get out of here before something happens...I just know something is going to happen!" The boyfriend didn't seem to care. "Oh come on, let's just go back." "No!" She persisted. "Please! Let's just leave now! We can come back if nothing happens!" A little boom echoed in the distance, as if the beginning of a chain reaction explosion had begun. The boyfriend jumped into the boat with his girlfriend and they tried to speed away before it was too late. They barely made it out of the docks before the entire island combusted and exploded, destroying everything in its path; radiation was very intense. The blast radius was far too big for the two people to escape, though. It caught up to them and destroyed them in the most gruesome way I have ever seen. These weren't your normal Quake gibs...all hair was instantly disintegrated by the radiation, limbs were blown off, bones ripped apart, and entrails exposed. Never before had I witnessed human beings so mutilated. And as if that weren't bad enough, the dream 'rewound' itself and 'played back', showing this scene over and over until I woke up none too soon.

At 4:30am my alarm went off, but I had already had two dreams at that point so I figured the WBTB thing would never work at that point anyway. I only lost sleep from having a nightmare and now being woken up by the alarm. My mind had never asked questions about the possibility of being asleep during the dreams like it did the previous night, and all in all it felt like a lucid dreaming epic fail

Maybe I'll WILD this afternoon to get myself back on track...