Zukin's Dream Journal! <3

The Underground

I was with my sister and we were on a road trip. We were somewhere out west, but the landscape was very strange and barren. It was mountainous, yet deserted. The tall cylindrical mountains were red and orange, but a green mist hung overhead. Above the mist giant creatures made out of rock were roaming.

We drove up to the end of the road. Two canoes were waiting for us. It was the middle of the night, but my sister said that it was safe, because the giant rock creatures wouldn't eat us. I put a leg in the water, and realized that it was an immediate drop off.

We canoed out into the blue midnight water, with the red mountains looming above us and the green mist hanging in the air. Once we were out in the middle of the lake, we dived from our canoes into the water.

We kept swimming downwards until we saw a city. The city was forged out of the red mountain rock and the people looked very strange. The city was based inside of a circular trench, and in the middle stood a platform were people were gathered. The people were wearing skull masks and looked like reapers and orcs.

It became immediately apparent that the city was in a war. The halls of the city flooded with battle cries. My sister and I were ignored by the passer-by fighters as if we didn't exist. During that time, I was able to get a glimpse of the human inhabitants. They had blue holes in their skin, like in the Matrix, as if they could be 'plugged in' to something.

I was separated from my sister when it was discovered that we were in the city. I was climbing around in the vents, when I met a homeless man. He was very strange, and offered me some even stranger advice about the city.

I was at the beach with my mother. We were fleeing though, someone was after us.

Later in the dream, I was in the car with my mother. I received a text on my phone. I flipped it open to find a very mysterious text. Many more kept coming.

The texts were threatening. They threatened revenge, told us to watch our back, and expect our lives to be in ruins by the time they were finished with us.

They sent us pictures with people who had their faces burnt in acid.

I wanted to call the cops, but my mother said that it was probably just some angsty teenager. We kept driving home. I was a little shaken up, but my mother said it likely wasn't anything to worry about.

A few minutes later, my father calls my mother's cell phone and tells her that when he went outside he found his car had its windows smashed open and everything was torn up. He drove it irregardless, and then it blew up a few miles later. The car had been hijacked.



We immediately stopped the car and turned around. We realized that they had been stalking us for some time and now could recognize our vehicles and target them out. We needed to immediately get off of the country road and somewhere safer.

They kept sending us threatening texts. I was trying to pinpoint who these people could be and why they were after us. From their texts, I could tell that they were teenagers/young adults and were gothic.

Awhile later, my mother and I decided to try to come back home again. We parked the car in the garage and turned off the engine.

"Wait...listen," I whispered. I heard the creaking of the floor above us. I heard talking. We weren't alone.

"We need to go. We need to call the cops," I desperately whispered. We tried to start up the car, but the engine stalled. The car wouldn't start. The car had made so much noise it was clear that our perpetrators knew that we were home.

"Hide," I whispered. We hid in a staircase. I pulled out a gun and my mother's eyes widened. I am normally a nonviolent person, but when my loved ones are in danger I will fight. I was ready to blow their brains out. These criminals had caused us so much distress. I couldn't imagine ever losing my mother, so I was very ready to protect her.

I tried to call 911 on the cell phone. The dial tone was so loud. I heard footsteps creeping up the stairs.

I could feel their presence lurking, becoming closer and closer to us.



A figure appeared before us. I aimed my gun at him only to find that it hadn't been reloaded. Fuck.

He smirked and raised his gun, paused, and added, "you don't think I'd let you die so easily? No. Your deaths shall be slow and painful."

He turned around and left.

We needed to get the fuck out of this house.

But our escapes were blocked.

In the process of running, my mother and I got separated.

I found myself alone in a small foyer between two stories. I heard small bombs exploding and could hear the the cracking of burning wood. The house was on fire.



A figure emerged from the shadows and called my name.

"...Hello?" I called back.The figure of a young adult appeared. He had scruffy black hair. A white, cotton T-shirt and ripped up jeans. He had dark circles around his eyes.

"Zukin. I have been watching you, my love," he whispered.

"Who are you?" I pleaded, backing into a corner.

"My name is Arcane. You've broken my heart so many times and failed to even acknowledge my existence. All I want is to be with you, but there are so many people in the way. And so I realized; the only way I could ever have you completely to myself, the only way you could forever be mine, is if we died together that way."

He grabbed my hand but I quickly pulled away.

"Time is running out," he pointed out. The fire was beginning to engulf the exits and I could hear the morphing and crying of the burning, warping wood.

"In any afterlife, or lack thereof, I would still never be yours. You're a psychopath," I exclaimed. A hurt look crossed his face.

"I thought you were different," he whispered, "Normal people call me a psychopath. It's only the misunderstood who understand me. I thought we could have a life together. I've dreamed of it for so long. All I have ever wanted is you in my arms, I would be so good to you," he revealed.

He had the saddest defeated look on his face, "Please. I understand now. You clearly don't want me, and I will accept that. I only wish I knew that from the beginning so that I could have stopped all of this. But there's no time left now. Please, take my hand."

He collapsed to the ground in agony. I told him that we could change all of this if we acted now and made our escape.

"I'm too heartbroken to carry on," his eyes dazed into the distance, longing. I tried to grab his hand to pull him up, but he refused. He really did seem physically weakened. I needed someone stronger to carry him out of the burning house.

"Arcane, please try to get up," I pleaded one last time. The ceiling was beginning to collapse from the fire.

"There is one final bomb that will explode soon. You need to leave before it detonates. Leave me here, go, carry on," he whispered with a voice full of despair.

I couldn't just leave him here, but there was no way I could convince him to go with me. I opted to find someone stronger to carry him from the house.

"Arcane - I am coming back for you. Please, don't give up yet. We can change all of this," I pleaded.

"Promise you will come back for me?" He looked up and added.

"I promise," I whispered back.

I ran out of the burning building and cried for help. I told one of the firefighters that there was still someone left inside the burning house who could no longer walk and he needed to be saved.

But as soon as those words came out of my mouth, the bomb in the house exploded, leaving only wreckage.



I was struck with sorrow.

After several hours, only ashes remained. I searched through the wreckage for any sign of life. I found Arcane's body, depleted of breath. His skin had remained untouched by the fire, but his spirit was long gone. He was lifeless, his body full of sadness as someone who hadn't had their promise fulfilled.

I was watching a movie with my mother. It was an abstract, independent horror film. It was disturbing in a very unusual way and it was black and white.

I become a part of the horror movie. I am now the main character.

I'm in a dark room. It's so dark I can't even see the walls. All that I can see is a little girl playing with a doll. But there is something standing behind her. It has long claws and burnt, black skin.

It reaches around her, she screams. The creature crushes the little girl's bones with his strength, and squeezes her until blood begins to drip out of her like a squeezed orange.



His black claws are so long that they encompass her entire body, squeezing every last drip of life out of her.

I am surrounded in the dark by this horrific creature. I run into the darkness.

I witness many deaths from this creature.

I find myself in a small castle. A symphony is playing in the middle of the room. There isn't any audience, just the symphony.

I listen to the man who plays the cello. The sound of his cello reverberates on every wall and comes back to my ears as perfection. He seems to lead the symphony with the melody of his cello.

I sense a change of atmosphere.

I am standing next to the staircase, above the symphony. I had been watching the man with the cello for so long that I had forgotten about the darkness, but felt it again.

I looked to my left and down the stone hallway. For a moment I thought I saw a presence. Things were turning black and white again, and the symphony began to slide their perfect melody into something darker.

"Not the cello player, not the cello player!" I think to myself, longing for whatever is coming to avoid him and his enchanting music.

I don't know where the creature is, but I can sense that it is getting closer.

I hear footsteps to my left. But then I hear them to my right.

I quickly glance to make sure everyone in the symphony is still alive, but when I look back up I see the darkness is beginning to return.

"Not the cello player, not him!" I scream in my mind.

I hear the clawing of the creature's claws against the marble. But I still can't tell where he is. I can feel him approaching. I hear his groan.

He appears below me, having crawled up the staircase's wall.

"It's not him I want, it's you," his raspy dark voice echoes towards me from the lowest layers of hell.

I paralyze in fear.

"And - It's you that is the monster, my dear."

Truth hit me like a bullet. It was me that had killed all of those innocent people, but I blocked that memory from my mind and replaced it with something that I could reason with. Because I had committed crimes only a monster could live with.

"And so I've clawed my way up from hell to drag you back down with me," the angel of darkness sneered.

I immediately woke up and was frozen in heavy sleep paralysis. My room was warping around me.

I slipped back into the darkness and continued to run, darkness chasing darkness.

I woke back up to sleep paralysis and eventually managed to get out of it.

Art Credit

I was a young girl, around 10 or 11 years old. I slept in the same room with my sister and every night really strange things would occur. She would sleep walk and talk, but the things she said were really disturbing. It was as if she became someone else at night.

So, every night I would have to resist her attacking me.

One night, she whispered to me, "Stop resisting. The plot needs to move forward."

I thought about this for a moment. What a strange thing to say.

But what if she was right? Every night it felt like we were going in circles, the same thing all the time. It really did feel like our "plot" was getting stuck because I kept resisting her.

"Fine," I whispered back.

She smiled and took her knife and put it against my neck. She slid it across the skin while pushing down, I felt my adrenaline rushing and my skin breaking.

A few minutes later, I was dead.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Where's Lizzy?" The store manager asked.

"I 'unno," I replied back. I was now a young boy, around 12 to 14. Apparently Lizzy was my sister, and all of us worked in a family business alongside the road in the middle of nowhere.

"She was supposed to be here an hour ago," my father vented.

A man came busting through the door with a wild look on his face and stammered, "Lizzy...she's dead!" He didn't look related to us. He kind of looked like Chuck Norris.

Everyone was in a frenzy.

Later in the night I was standing outside on the road. It was pitch black outside.

I was the only one standing here. There wasn't anything here for miles but crops upon crops.

I feel like I've been here before.

An eerie light was coming from the horizon. It was getting closer and closer and closer.

In the light I saw a silhouette of an angel walking towards me. He was rather tall and his wings were spread out.

As he got closer I could see him more clearly in the ominous light.

He had long silver hair and silver wings.



"I'd hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I am not a good angel," he said in his deep voice, "however I think it fair to alert you as to what is happening on our plane."

I feel like I've been here before...

"Your sister fell victim to a dark angel, but not in vein. It had to happen - to let the plot progress. You see, on our plane there is a war between the good guardians and the bad guardians. I am on neither side, simply a messenger."

His voice had a strange scowl to it.

"And since you're family will be torn in the middle of the war, you should meet some of the guardians that are on your side."

I had a strong sense of deja vu. I have definitely been here before. I feel like I've dreamed this dream several times over.

"Meet the first Guardian - Change."

The Guardian was a small tree. The tree was luscious and green, but as I continued to look at it the branches slowly withered away, the leaves became dry and crisp, and the tree died. I felt an overwhelming sadness.

"Meet the second Guardian."

This Guardian was simply a square, metallic portal. I wondered what it represented.

"And the third Guardians - Love and Care."

Love and Care were and old couple holding hands. They radiated with pink energy. They put there hand out to shake and when our hands met I felt elated with unconditional love.

"And lastly - a close friend of mine."

He appeared behind me. He had wings like the messenger angel, but he looked dark and full of strife.

He reminded me of Vincent Valentine.



Woke up right after that. I really feel like I have had this dream a few times before, but I just didn't remember it.

I was hanging out at a grad party. I was kind of sad because, in the dream, my boyfriend died. And the one before him died as well. So I really wasn't in the mood for a party.

One of my coworkers noticed this, and came over to talk about it. We had a lengthy discussion, and decided to meet up the next day as well.

This went on for awhile until we became relationship status.

At that time, I started hearing a woman's voice in my head. She was narrating my actions.

This creeped me out.

The entire dream would have reminded me of Stranger Than Fiction if it were not for the fact that I realized that this woman was also following me.

"Why are you following me?!" I asked her.

"I would like to see how my story is going to pan out," she responded, cooly.

"Excuse me, your story?"

"I'm writing a new tragedy novel. And you are the main character," she explained.

Fuck. Tragedy may be my favorite genre, but I never wanted to be the main character in one.

"If I'm the main character, can I at least know the plot?" I asked.

"Wouldn't that ruin things?"

"I think I deserve to know," I whispered angrily.

She hesitated and then replied, "You are the main character of my new tragedy novel. In which you will have 5 lovers, and slowly each one of them will die. I see that you have made it to lover number three."

"And you are going to sit here and watch me suffer?"

"Yes, to capture the emotion, of course," she responded as if this was a casual, everyday occurrence.

I stared at her short, brown hair that was done into a pixie hair cut. She was only an inch or two taller than me. If it weren't for the two men following her, I would have socked her in the face. What an insensitive bitch.

I thought about ways that I could derail her plan. My current boyfriend, who was now lover number three, was probably already destined to die.

But, perhaps if we could run from her then she wouldn't be able to witness the plot. Which would mean no story for her to capture. And maybe then she would give up.

I ran with this idea. Literally.

I took my boyfriend by the arm and ran. I was trying to explain things to him along the way. Trying to piece together the puzzle and trying to escape her view.

I decided that our best bet for now would be to hide in the back of a shop in town while we were out of her view. I predicted that if she couldn't find us then she might look elsewhere, and then we could make a cleaner escape.

My boyfriend and I ran through an alleyway and I opened the door to the back of a shop and...What the serious fuck?



It looked as if we had just opened a door straight into the world of Das singende, klingende Bäumchen.

At first, I was stunned. And then I was still stunned. But we had to keep running.

And then a rhino came out behind the bush and killed him. Just like that and it was over.

I wondered if I had played right into her hands. I wondered if, perhaps, it was actually essential to the plot that I knew the storyline so that I could attempt to avoid it and therefore cause the deaths anyways, spinning it full force into a tragedy.

That insensitive bitch.

I walked out of the strange room and back into town.

I thought to myself, you just watch. I'll ruin your story. I won't fall in love with anyone. I'll keep to myself and your story will be toast.

So I did just that. I shut out anyone who tried to talk to me. I hurt their feelings. It was hard, but I had to. I had no other choice.

The hardest person to shut out was an old friend of mine. I could tell he was deeply concerned. This wasn't like me at all.

He pleaded to me to tell him what was wrong. It was so difficult to hold back. My voice yelled hurtful things towards him, but my eyes pleaded for forgiveness.

"Zukin, I don't care what it's about. You know you can tell me anything."

I had to say something that would make him leave immediately, because I didn't know how much longer I could hold back these tears.

"You don't listen or care, you're insensitive just like everyone else and I wish you would leave so that I never would ever have to see your face again!" I thought that would do it.

He hesitated for a moment before responding, "that's okay. I will leave once you tell me what is bothering you. And then, if you still want me to leave, I will."

Fuck.

This man was determined to know the truth. He was playing right into the author's hands. I couldn't hold back the pain any longer so I rationalized it with: it will all be okay as long as we don't fall in love.

So I told him everything. He was shocked and then reached over to give me a hug. I felt shivers run down my spine. I already knew this was the beginning of the end for him.

I immediately wanted to take back all the words I said. I wished I hadn't given into the pain. I wish we had never even met so he wouldn't have to experience this fate.

I knew somewhere, the author of my story was watching from a distance and smirking. I had played right into her hands again.

I immediately knew that we had to get out of her sight. I feared that we would have that same fate as the last lover.

I felt as if she was following right behind me, smirking. I knew that she was getting steadily closer, ready to watch closely as the fourth lover died. She was ready to leech off of the pain and suffering.

Before making any impulsive decisions, I tried to plan our route of escape carefully. This time there wouldn't be any errors. We would be in control of OUR story.

We escaped to my house. I was planning on us hiding in the basement until she had left. I knew the basement well of any dangers. I knew exactly what to avoid there, and exactly how to escape if needed.

We opened the door to the cellar and...What the serious fuck? Again?



Both of us were instantly trapped in the same world as my last lover and I had been trapped in. This was creepy as shit.

"Be careful, there will be something in the bushes over there waiting to attack you," I whispered to him.

We slowly passed the bushes before an alligator emerged. It snapped its jaws at us threateningly.

"RUN!!!" He yelled, trying to prevent the alligator from attacking me.

"It's after you, not me!"

"JUST RUN!!!" He demanded.

I followed his demands and ran through the pathway, worrying about him all along. The pathway slowly transformed into the hallway of a house.

I wondered where on Earth I was.

There was a door at the end of the hallway. I opened it and hid inside.

After a couple minutes, I heard the door squeak open. It was him! He had made it out alive! I nearly screamed in joy. Her plan had failed! We were escaping and we were going to make it out alive.

"Where are we?" He whispered. The room was dark, with only a little light beginning to come in from dawn.

I flipped the light switch on.

We were standing in a little girl's room. And the little girl was laying on her bed, looking over at us - horrified.

I quickly put my hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming and whispered, " you have to promise us that you will be quiet."

She nodded her blonde head in obedience.

I had a weird feeling that this little girl was the author's daughter.

We stood there for a few minutes, debating on what to do next.

And then the door slowly creaked open. My heart pounded before I realized that it was one of my coworkers.

"...Why are you guys in here?" She questioned, completely puzzled.

"We're just hiding, we'll be gone soon," I whispered.

"From who?"

"It doesn't matter. Just promise us you won't let anyone know that we're here," I urged.

She looked at us with a blank stare for a moment and then murmured a hesitant agreement. She closed the door and left.

We thought we were safe until the door creaked open again. It was the author.

My coworker was standing behind her.

"I see you've stumbled into my daughters' room," she smirked, "thought you could run, aye?"

We didn't answer her. I exchanged glances with my partner. He looked horrified.

"Well. It looks like your actions, Zukin, have lead your partner to his untimely demise. You were going so strong, too. How unfortunate," she sneered.

Her daughter then took out a pocket knife. I lurched in front of him, shielding him from the knife.

He pushed me back, trying to protect me.

"Dammit, you don't understand! She's trying to kill YOU not me!" I screamed, still trying to protect him from the knife. I knew she wouldn't kill off her main character just yet.

He pushed me back just as her daughter stabbed him in the neck with the knife. I let out a defeated scream, devastated.

In tears, I looked up at the author and cried out, "are you happy now?"

"Quite. But our story isn't finished yet," she exclaimed, "Get up."

I refused.

"We have yet to reach the climax," she smirked.

I prayed for the energy to leap out and punch her in the face, but I was hovered over my dead lover. Mourning.

Her assistant grabbed me by the hand and dragged me out of the room. He threw me into a car where the four of us drove off.

I wondered what the climax of the story was. She said I was going to have five lovers. I had exhausted four already.

If we were about to reach the climax, then the climax would be with my fifth lover. Our love would undoubtedly be stronger than all four lovers put together, thus the fall would be much worse.

Even though I didn't even know this person yet, I knew that if our love was going to be that deep, then I would give anything for him. Including my life.

I thought about ending it.

If I committed suicide, then I would save his life.

But, could suicide actually be the climax of the story?

I knew I had two choices. I could either 1. Wait it out, fall in love with the fifth lover and then watch him die or, 2. Commit suicide and save his life.

I wasn't sure which storyline the author had in mind, but I decided to be safe and go for the second choice - suicide.

We pulled over at a gas station to stop for gas.

"Do you want anything to eat?" She asked me.

"Sure."

"What will it be?" She asked.

"Let me come in to the gas station and take a look at what they have," I plotted.

While the author her two assistants payed for gas at the register, I took a look around. I pretended to be looking for something to eat, but in reality, I was looking for anything that I could overdose on.



I hid behind the isle and opened up a large packet of pills and shoved all of them into my mouth as fast as I could. The more - the better. I didn't know how much time I had left before they would come around the isle and see.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" The author screamed and threw the bottle of pills from my hand.

It's too late for you now, I thought. And smirked back at her.

"You fucking prick!" She shrieked.

I had swallowed more than enough needed for death, I knew that for sure because I had already gotten half way through the second bottle.

"You've ruined my novel! Fucking asshole!" She stomped around before grabbing me by the hair and throwing me onto the ground outside.

Sleepiness was beginning to overcome me, I felt a sense of dread as death approached, but I knew that in the process my reasoning had been correct, and by killing myself I was saving the life of a person I would have loved immensely and otherwise given up my life for.

I felt everything slowing down and getting black as death approached - and I knew that I had won.

If the first sign of craziness is going crazy in dreams then I'm screwed.

Cut Cut Slash Slash

I was in Dread's room. Dread, Jin, and I were watching TV.

I start hearing voices.

They are voices of demons talking to me telling me that they are going to kill my friends.

What the serious fuck?

The voices of the demons tell me that they are coming. They tell me that there are three of them and there isn't any escaping my fate. They will kill my friends and then me.

I want to leave.

Dread and Jin ask me what's going on, but I'm too ashamed to tell them.

I look around the room. I'm seeing faces everywhere. They don't exist but my mind is picking up on patterns and translating them into faces.

I see the face of a burnt doll in Dread's closet.



I want to leave now.

The doll smiles wickedly and tells me that it is the first demon and the more powerful of the other two.

Dread and Jin take me back to my parent's house, sensing that something wasn't right with me.

When I come home, I find that we are celebrating someone's birthday. I look out the window of the front porch and see two little kids playing together. They are probably three or four years old.

When my mom sees them, she invites them inside. I instantly sense that there is something malignant about these children. The little girl is playing with a lighter and the little boy is just standing there strangely.

My mom puts the cake on the table. The little girl takes out her lighter and tries to light the candles.

I'm freaking out. I'm convinced that the little girl is one of the demons that the voices had talked about, and that she is a pyromaniac and wants to light the house on fire so that people die.

Everyone is telling me to calm down but I can't. I want the two little children to leave. I want everyone to leave. I want to leave.

I feel like there's something wrong with my brain. I can't tell if I am so delusional that my reality is completely warped or if what I am experiencing is true intuition telling me to leave. Nothing makes sense anymore.

After the birthday party, the little girl kills Dread and Jin. At least that's what I perceived to happen.

I run down the stairs and tell my mother that I am leaving now. I can't take this anymore! I don't know where I am going but it at least won't be here!

She gives me a strange look.

I try to explain what just happened but she looks completely perplexed.

I'm not even sure of what just happened, but I'm in a total state of disarray.

I get in the car.

But not before checking it twice.

I'm completely paranoid that the little demon boy is following me. I'm still seeing faces everywhere so I can't tell what's real or not. I catch a glimpse of a face in the trunk. The little boy was trying to come along with me.

I removed him from the trunk. He then killed my mother.

If I wasn't experiencing a psychotic break before, I was now.

I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't know what was real or not. Voices were screaming at me and luring me into places. Everything wanted to kill me. I wanted to kill myself before the last demon could kill me.

I took a bottle of sleeping pills and laid down on my bed hoping it would all be over soon. I just wanted to die.

I watch as the last demon comes up to me. She has grown from her original doll size to the size of a large child. Her face still looks burnt and contorted.

I can't tell if I am hallucinating or not.

With a small burst of energy, I shove the remaining sleeping pills down her throat.

Fuck this. I don't feel like dying tonight.

I don't have any weapons except safety scissors. That'll do.

With all of my force, I stab the safety scissors into her skin. I can barely rip her skin. The safety scissors aren't sharp enough.

She laughs wickedly.

I shove her to the ground and start stabbing her with the scissors. I want to cut her heart out. I don't want this to be the way I die.

She just keeps laughing maniacally.

She tells me that even if I manage to kill her she will just come back for me again. And again. And again. And again.

She has been partially disfigured by the safety scissors but it's not enough. I'm feeling the effects of the pills. Shit. The pain began to build up and I was going in and out of consciousness while she continued to laugh.

Fuck you.

With the only energy I had remaining, I shoved the scissors through her heart. She was silenced.

And so was I.

I was at a daycare of sorts. We kept having many recesses in which we were all supposed to play outside together. I was being strange though, and kept stealing plates from the kitchen. I would take them outside and eat them.

After chewing on pottery for a few minutes, I decided to take a nap. I laid on the grass and rested against the brick wall. Several groups of students walked past me before I managed to fall asleep.

I awoke in a dark cellar. I was in the cellar of the daycare now. I walked back up to the front lawn where the other children were playing.

Something seemed off, so I did a reality check. Indeed, I was dreaming. And of course, at that moment, everything seemed to heighten in clarity.

I had no lucid goals though. I wasn't sure what to do in this dream.

For a moment, I stood there on the street with nothing to do.

I flew up into the air and into the clouds. They were so beautiful and defined, full of life even though they were inanimate.

But no, I had done this before.

I flew back to the ground and landed on the sidewalk, still wondering how I should spend this dream.

And then it came to me. How would my dream respond if I asked for transcendence?

"Take me higher," I whispered.

Instantly, without my doing, I rose into the air.

Everything morphed around me. Not into anything new, but into hyper clarity...that's not even the right word. Everything surrounding me became a kaleidoscope pattern, but yet nothing changed at all.

"Higher" I whispered.

This soundtrack began to play and I began to move forward:



I can't exactly describe how I felt. It was similar to that of tripping - but more intense.

I was moving forward without my doing. The street ahead of me was coming towards me.

I was about to fly straight through a billboard, but I wasn't afraid. I simply passed right through.

"Higher," I whispered.

Everything began to move faster. I zoomed out of the city and in the process left my body behind.

My consciousness was now flying warp speed through the Earth (que really fucking epic music).

I was flying so fast through country roads, wilderness paths, and scenic highways that I could only perceive them as the rapid progression of pictures. A billion pictures flew past my eyes per second.

"Take me higher," I dared.

I surpassed the warp speed that I was already traveling and my consciousness was risen into the universe.

In front of me was a massive black hole. It was beautiful.



Holy shit.

And I was flying towards it at warp speed.

Could I go any higher than this?

I felt my consciousness being ripped apart as I reached the singularity.

"Higher," I whispered, at the last moment possible.

The last thing I saw was a tear in either the fabric of the universe, or the fabric that held my mind together. Or both. It pulsated orange.

I woke up in my bed at my parent's house. I felt heavy.

But this still felt like a dream.

I got up out of bed to write this in my journal. The time on the clock kept changing. I had known it all along - I was still dreaming. Yet, I was very paranoid about forgetting the last dream that had just occurred.

I ran up the stairs. My mother was washing dishes.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

That was a really good question. What was I going to do now? I felt like nothing could surpass what had just happened, and I didn't want to forget it either.

"Maybe I'm just going to sit on the porch and enjoy nature or something," I asked.

"You have a lot you need to do, you shouldn't be wasting your time right now," she scorned.

"It's a dream," I flat out told her.

"One of these days you're just going to lose it," she warned.

I rolled my eyes and ignored her and proceeded to the porch.

There was a white rose growing against the warped siding. I sat down beside it. I could feel its warmth.

I wanted to experience again what happened earlier, but every time I tried I got a blazing headache. I decided to just let it be, and woke up for real.



I just reread through that again and I have to admit that my description of that dream does not do it any justice whatsoever...

I was walking through the park. There were a lot of people with fishing rods. I assumed that they were going down to the river.

I kept walking until I came to a narrow dirt path. I took it and walked up the hill.

At the top of the hill, the trees ended abruptly and opened up to a small peninsula on the lake. Waves were crashing against the rocks. On the grassy peninsula was a house. It looked rather new, but there wasn't anything, or anyone, inside.

I stood hiding in the trees looking at the house.

I've been here before.

"It's just a hologram," the voice of a little girl says. I look down and see a little girl looking up at me. Sitting next to her is a strange creature. It looks like a skeleton with a dark robe on. I didn't pick up on any terribly malevolent energy from it.

"How do you know?" I return, and look back at the house.

"There's no entities in it. In the other dimension that the house exists in, there are many," she replies.

Before she even spoke, I knew that she was right. I remembered a dream I had before where I was on this same peninsula and looking into the windows of the house. There were many, many entities there.

"We're in the hologram," she states.

"How do you know?"

"Peel away my skin to find your demons underneath," she chanted. Her skin began to peel off. The creature next to her reached for the back of my heel with its skeleton fingers.

When it touched my heel, the skin rotted away to reveal bone.

"And when those who pray for other reasons pray, they shouldn't be disturbed. For those who pray for evil should not notice if something around them were to change," the little girl continued to chant.

Her sentences slowly lost cohesion to meaning and my reality slowly peeled apart.

The last thing I heard before waking up was, "she hasn't even ate a damned near rail today," in a southern boy's thick accent.

My friend and I were hanging out. We had just woken up from a long night of partying.

"Where were you last night?" She asks groggily.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"You left for like, several hours, we couldn't find you."

I didn't remember leaving them, but I also didn't remember...a giant chunk of time from last night. I started thinking about the possible reasons as to why I wouldn't remember last night. I've never been one to drink to the point of blacking out. I know self control, and never go that far.

"You were with some guy, who worked in the theater," she adds quietly, "he was wearing a red mask, and was really weird."

I remembered.

I remembered a theater. I remembered him and his strange demeanor. I remembered being trapped.

I recalled that he had been wearing a red dragon mask and a strange red dress suit combination.

"I think I left something there," I responded.

"At his house?"

"At his theater..." But I couldn't recall exactly what it was. All I knew was that some form of malicious deception had taken place.

I recalled the route to his theater, which was located off the side of the street. It was an old theater with a deep mahogany stage and bright red curtains. I navigated my way there.

I instinctively didn't want him to see me. I wanted to take what was mine and leave.

The problem was that I didn't really know what was mine. I was here on an instinct, blindly following intuition.

I hid in the rooms behind the theater. I could hear people talking, and was sure that I recognized his voice among the group.

I navigated my way to his stage room.

Against one side of his room was a red bed. Next to it was a chest. I felt like what I needed to get at was in the chest.

There were a bunch of books on his bed about stage and theater theory.

I quietly moved towards the mahogany chest.

I heard the doorknob twisting.

FUCK.

I jumped on his bed and quickly began to pretend to be reading his book about theater theory.

The door slowly creaked open.

"Well, look who's back," he said, as a malignant smile slowly crept onto his face.

I was flooded with memories.

"What you reading there?" He asked sarcastically.

"This...erm, your book...on...the theater of theory...I mean, the theory of theater...I find it really interesting."

"Well then, you can have it," he responded.

His eyes darted towards the mahogany chest.

"Fuck you," he sneered in a savagely threatening tone, and with a hint of wicked intentions he locked the door behind him.

Spoiler for Sleep Graph for Feb 23th:

There is going to be a "history graph" tomorrow (in my Thread-DJ (click)). It won't be totally interesting because I haven't been marking my dreams with the app or actually using the reminders, but it will be a start for what's to come.

I was with Dread and I was lucid. We were in a video game palace room. The room was kind of small, but it had a porch. From the porch, I realized that this room was suspended in air. Some of the walls were made out of leafs, other glass, and some marble.

Dread was lucid as well. We were enjoying each other's company , but this annoying woman was invading our space. Somehow, we knew her name. Her name was Angel.

She kept trying to get in between us and/or kept trying to focus the attention on herself. We eventually managed to push her out of our dream.

I was playing around and showed Dread how I could pull energy out of myself and watch it suspend in the air. My energy was made up of two different elements: Feminine and Masculine. Words were written within the energies, and we watched as they slowly changed and morphed.

At one point, Dread got too excited and woke up. I knew he'd be back in a few minutes, so I spent some time fixing our palace. Some of the marble blocks were falling out of place, so I'd try to push them back in. It was difficult because they wanted to remain where they were, so they'd just snap back into their incorrect positions.

When Dread came back, I snapped to where he was, which was slightly different in terms of scene.

He rekindled my lucidness and we started talking about our dreams together, and the leafy palace.

Here I am not sure if what I said was a product of false dream memory, or if it was really true: But basically, I remembered that this was a common occurrence for us - that this lucid dream of a leafy castle was not the first, second, or third time that we have been here. That this happened often, but the dream memories usually were lost from deep sleep and stress.

I'm not sure whether to believe myself or not. I find that when I am closer to the dream state, AKA experiencing HH or about to enter a dream, I can recall dreams that I had forgotten before, which are verifiable when I wake up.

It was my turn to get too excited, and woke up.

Spoiler for Sleep Graph for Feb 18:

86%
I think I figured out how to mark my lucids/dreams on the graph, but I can only do it when the actigraph is still collecting data.

I sat down in my chemistry discussion class, glad that I hadn't been late. I was kind of tired though, and briefly closed my eyes.

As soon as I opened my eyes, I was somewhere else.

I was in a room that was dark. I could barely see in front of me. I realized that if I had been awake a moment ago, and I am asleep now, then I must be dreaming.

I looked around.

I was in a dark, dilapidated room. The floor boards were creaky and covered with dust and debris. The window was boarded up. There was barely enough light for me to see the other end of the room, but I could make out two doors on two adjacent walls.

Through one of the doors, people were walking into the room. And through the other door, they were walking out.

They seemed not to pay any attention to me.

I was dreaming though, so, hey, it didn't matter, right?

I attempted to change things up but was instantly met with a firm opposition from where I was. It was a really strange feeling, because when I try to alter a scene and fail, I know that the source of failure originates within myself.

But, it actually felt like the room where I was ITSELF did not want to change. As if it was totally static. And I got this weird impression that it wanted to keep me there.

Intrigued, I began to try to make contact with the people who were randomly passing by. They acted as if I didn't exist.

I watched where they were coming from, and I watched to where they were going.

Each person came from a door that represented different scene, or a different dream. But they all left through the same door, the door that represented reality.

I could hear the thoughts of all of these people's dreams.

But I couldn't leave this strange plane that I was stuck in. It almost even seemed as if it was growing darker and darker.

I tried to open the door to leave, but it was jammed shut.

I tried to teleport, I tried to summon, I tried to trick myself, I even tried to wake myself up - nothing worked. It was VERY strange.

I really wanted out of this strange, dark room.

I observed other people and how they moved like zombies. I decided that when the time was right, I would run through the door when it was opened by another person.

Waiting for the opportune moment to leave, I sprung towards the open door...

And woke up back in the previous dream.

I was sprawled out across the floor, and people were staring.

"Was I sleep walking...?" I asked.

A few students nodded while another whispered under her breath, "more like sleep screaming."

I looked at the clock, and realized that the class period was finished.

I now needed to find my way to lab class, which has always been a challenge for me.

I kept walking...And couldn't find it. The more I walked, the weirder the scenery became and the more lost I was.

Obviously, I did have a lucid, but I can't figure out how to mark it so on the graph.

This dream was HYPER-vivid.

I'm standing at a bus stop. It's dark outside. It's cold. And it's raining.

"That asshole stood me up," a girl remarks, pissed off.

"Can't you just teleport to him?" Her friend replies.

"Fuck, I can teleport here and there, but not TO him."

She demonstrates to her friend how she can teleport around the area.

"I don't know how to teleport to where he is," she whispers, shamefully.

"Then we'll just have to leave without him. Screw him!" Her friend calls out.

Around this time, another girl enters the scene. The two girls start walking away and I feel inclined to follow them. I feel stuck to their presence.

The fourth girl tags along with me.

It's raining really hard outside and I can feel the rain seeping through my shoes. My socks are getting really wet. I can hear the squishing of water, and it really bothers me.

All four of us girls walk into an entirely new scene. It's daytime outside and it's snowing now.

One of the first girls smirks as she looks out past the sidewalk and into an abandoned lot. The lot has piles of snow buildup.

She turns around at us, smirking, and says, "I hear a girl committed suicide here. They say she left hundreds of suicide notes and buried them in the snow. Everyday she would make a new note, hoping that someone would find it and respond to her cry for help."

We start walking over the hilly, snow covered terrain.

Before my eyes, I can almost see the sad hills bursting out with her suicide notes, unable to hold back their paper tears any longer.

"I think they removed most of them," the other girl remarks and sits down in the snow. We sit down with her.

She casually brushes off the snow from the ground and reveals a letter that must have been left behind.

She opens it and grins, looking to her friend who seems to acknowledge her.

"I should have known before," she says, grinning, "that all of this really doesn't exist."

"Yeah? And?" Her friend encourages her to go on.

"And that really, none of you exist apart from my own mind," she continues, "that I am the main character of this narration, and all three of you are just the supporting roles here."

Her friend smiles at her discovery and adds, "Except me."

"Right," she replies, though I sensed uncertainty.

A character in the dream determined that I was a dream character in her dream, and it DIDN'T EVEN REGISTER WITH ME. WHAT THE FUCK.

I am now one hundred percent convinced that we could actively be senseless dream characters in other people's dreams. Because her telling me that didn't even phase me in the slightest. That's messed up.

"I think we have some things that we need to attend to," her friend adds after a moment of silence.

"Right! If he doesn't come to us, then we should find him instead," The Lucid Girl replies.

I eventually gather that The Lucid Girl and her friend are searching for her exboyfriend because he wronged her in some way. The fourth girl, who will be named later, and I are so far just tagging along.

We leave the snowy remains of the realm of the hills who are bursting with paper tears and come upon a castle almost hidden in the snowfall.

We walk through the garden and into the front door. It seemed easy enough.

Until everything went HORIZONTAL.

"WOAH!" All of us suddenly scream. Instead of walking on the floor, we are walking on the walls!

"I think it's a trap to deter wanderers," her friend announces, "if we keep walking it should go back to normal."

We walk through the next door. Gravity returns to normal, however the surroundings of this room look worse than the first.

"He's been here. I sense it," the fourth girl, who has been relatively quiet up until now, whispers.

The room is dim. It has a checkerboard style floor, but the only things in the room are a broken TV and a ransacked armoire. The television is buzzing with static. One of the girls turns it off.

The room is dim and dark. The vibes here are not only strange, but disturbed.

"He's definitely somewhere in this castle," the fourth girl adds. I can feel that she seems to be bursting with psychic energy.

"This place is a maze."

We walk out the front door and summon a ladder to access the second floor through the window, as we can't find any staircases which lead up to it.

The second floor is darker than the first.

"I feel as if he's not the only one in this castle," The Psychic One whispers. Indeed, I feel it too. There is a dark energy here. And it's lurking all around us. Following us.

I hear a strange noise coming from a nearby room. I split from the group to investigate it. The noise leads me to a bathroom and towards a drain. I watch as the drain regurgitates water and green muck.

The other girls wonder where I am and find me standing here in the bathroom, puzzled.

"What's wrong with that drain?" The Lucid Girl asks.

"Don't go near it," the Psychic One whispers darkly.

"Why not?"

"That drain reeks with dark energy. Whatever entity is living in that drain will pull you down with it," the Psychic One replies.

The two other girls listen to her warning, but not closely. The dark energy coming from the drain lures them closer. The drain gurgles as it spits up water and green muck.

I can't take what I'm about to see. I try to pull them away from the drain at first, but their curiosity is peaked. The Psychic One tells me not to bother.

I run from the room, knowing also what is about to occur. And I don't want to see it.

I run out of the bathroom and past one of the mainrooms where the Psychic One is standing.

"Wait!" She calls out, but I run past her.

I run out to the garden where we came in. I am perplexed to find that it is night time.

And before me are hundreds, if not thousands, of twinkling fireflies.

They buzz before me in the garden where the morning glories bloom on a white trellis.

The fireflies surround me. They unite as one and become a beautiful blooming flower, which takes me on its petals and floats into the air.

I fly on the petals of the flower higher and higher into the sky and they lead me to the highest point on the castle - a single tower.

I see as the Psychic One becomes alarmed at my disappearance. She runs out to the garden and another army of fireflies takes her away.

They fly her across an ocean of lava and gently set her down on a single island amongst a sea of lava. On the horizon she can see a castle. It is a different castle. It is the enemy castle.

Both of us are concerned as to whether the fireflies were trying to help us on our journey, or if they are just another curse in the castle.

Got awoken right then.

Um...I blame this dream on reading Oneironaut's dream journal before bed...

There were some DV members in this dream, but I am just going to leave it vague.

It was the next semester at college, and I decided to be proactive this semester and join a club. The club was stationed in our dormitory, and it met nearly everyday in a dark office room.

Everything was fine at first. The club was just a meeting place for people with similar interests.

Over time, the club began to centralize its power until it developed, basically, into a cult.

The cult was headed by a man, who was often influenced by another woman in the club.

She reminded me of Bellatrix.

The cult took a dark turn for the worse when the woman announced that it had always been her fantasy to kill a person, and then dissect them.

Thus, the cult rapidly evolved into a murder-cult.

Everyday, the ring leader would order the members, who were lower in power, to find a victim. They would lure the victim into our dark, stone room, where the ringleader would then usually slit his or her throat.

After killing the victim, they would set his or her body on the table and cut apart the innards.

When they were finished, they ordered their members to dispose of the corpse in the abandoned highschool down the street.

A few of us realized that this is NOT the club that we had signed up for!

One of the girls decided to stand up against the members who were abusing their power. She told them off and said that she was not only leaving this group, but calling the cops.

The next day, when we came to the club/cult meeting, we found her corpse on the table. It had been made known to us that if anyone dare leave this cult or step out of line, this would be the result.

The situation kept getting darker and darker. The ringleader had suspicions that people were on to us. They would give us strange looks.

One gloomy evening, when the ring leader and several of his followers were in engaging in the mutilation of their most recent victim, I was finding myself barely able to take this anymore. I knew that there had been a silent resistance forming, but all of us seemed powerless against them.

I knew that any minute, I was about to stand up and scream at the top of my lungs. There was a fire growing inside me.

I was merely seconds from telling them off when a student walked in the door, which the ringleaders had forgotten to lock.

"Oh, wrong classroom," he muttered at first. But when his eyes caught sight of the mutilated corpse on the table he took a few steps back and ran out of the room.

"Make it look like nothing happened here!" The ringleader ordered, suddenly. But everyone was too paralyzed to do anything about the situation. The members who had little power, but were involved in the group enough to struggle for more power, were the only ones who had decided to actually follow the orders of the ringleader. They disposed of the body and cleaned up the crime scene before the cops arrived.

I decided, from that day on, that I was done with clubs. Never again.

I went back to my dorm, realizing that I would probably need therapy for the rest of my life to get over that. Rumors were already spreading all over the school about a cult that would kill and mutilate people.

My room mate caught wind that I had been involved in this cult and pushed me down the stairs while yelling about how wrong it is to kill twenty-two people. I wanted to tell her that I had nothing to do with the slaying of these people, but I knew that that statement was false. If I could have worked up the courage to alert the authorities even after the first slaying, twenty-one people could still be alive.

I was already hearing about the arrests of the ringleader and his closest followers, and I knew that they were coming for me too.

I looked out my dorm window, and wished that a blue-purple feather would fall down from the sky, and I wished that I could sprout beautiful blue-purple wings and just fly away...

I woke up in my dorm room. I felt as if I had woken up too late. I wanted to look over to see if my room mate was still sleeping.

I turned my head over and tried to open my eyes but I was having a lot of difficulty. They felt glued together or something!

I managed to look down finally for a brief moment and saw that my room mate's bed was empty.

I looked up and suddenly she was screaming in my face!

Startled, I jumped out of bed and did a reality check.

Six fingers - Dreaming.

I looked around the room and wondered what to do in this lucid dream.

I thought about flying, but considered that I should do something else.

I realized that I really should have came up with some more lucid goals while I was still awake. Perhaps I could visit the MDRC as I had been planning to months ago, before I got distracted by something else?

I just wasn't really too sure. So I stood there for a moment just thinking about how I should spend this dream.

I thought about jumping out the window and flying off, but then I also thought about how this MIGHT not be a dream, though I was pretty sure it was. I looked out the window. I was pretty high up.

I turned back around and noticed that there were strange pajamas hanging on our door. They were silk and had bat wings on them. I didn't remember my room mate having these.

Swimming also crossed my mind. It would be pretty cool to do that too.

And then, I got a good idea.

Dream drugs!

I decided to drop dream acid.

The room around me expanded outwards like a fun house mirror.

I walked to the mirror and looked at my reflection. I looked really weird. I stared into one of my eyes.

Slowly, my reflection began to twist around. Everything but the eye I was staring into began to swirl and orbit this single eye until it morphed into intricate circular patterns.

The old shared dreaming class had gotten together again. We were trying to prove that there was a parasite attacking us. A research team had gotten interested in our idea and invited us to participate in a controlled setting.

The parasite would only attack us while we were sleeping. While we were asleep, it would appear in the physical realm and cause chaos.

The researcher divided us up into partners and split us off into rooms. The rooms were old solitary confinement rooms that had been semi-converted into something barely acceptable. The door had not been converted from its original form, and thus would still lock us in. We would need someone to unlock the door for us if we wanted to leave.

The researcher had prepared a presentation the next day to prove or disprove the existence of this parasite. If no findings were found, then she would tell her colleagues that we were loonies.

I was in the room. My partner had dozed off but I couldn't sleep just yet.

There was a picture of an alien hanging on the wall. I watched it's face transform before my very eyes, as if I was tripping out.

I knew that the parasite had been unleashed in this room because my partner had dozed off. I didn't want to stay in this room anymore! I couldn't fall asleep if there was some freaky ass ghost thing walking around!

The parasite appeared in front of me and started laughing and I felt powerless. She began to attack and the other shared dreaming students appeared in their dream-bodies in front of me. She was surprisingly powerful and mindbending, but we took her down.

I woke up the next morning, excited to tell the researchers what happened. I attempted to open the door to leave, but remembered that I was locked in. I looked at my watch, it was 9am!

The researcher's presentation started at 9am, and if we could not leave the room to tell her what happened, then she would regard our experiment as failed.

I knocked on the door trying to be let out, but no one ever came and I had to remain in the solitary confinement cell.