non-lucid

I was in the mall, I was looking for some piece of jewelry that would help me have a source of dark energy IWL since that is where I really need more help keeping myself stable and under control. I have a stone that holds some, but I was thinking I should find something better. As I walked through the mall I looked at all of the various stores, clothing stores, toy stores, video game stores… the video game store almost got me distracted but I spotted a gift shop at the last minute and went there instead.

The clerk inside was a shady looking person that looked like the kind of person who would be selling dark energy, but he turned out to be merely stupid, not evil. I asked if they had jewelry, and he kept trying to show me shirts with fake gems studded all over them. I specified that I wanted earrings, bracelets, necklaces… he took me to more shirts, he didn't seem to be getting the picture at all. After giving a brief look around the store I left quickly as the man continued talking behind me, saying something about the bathroom and a low flow toilet that kept the water clean with sanitation crystals so it could be used several times before being disposed of… um… I hadn't said anything about a toilet…

I continued walking through the mall for a while longer, I was beginning to think I would never find what I was looking for, so I went to a restaurant and ordered a soda. I had some more money, and I wanted something to eat, I felt I should buy something healthy… a salad… but I wanted something fattening… donuts or a hamburger… so I balanced it out. I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and a few other vegetables on it, but then I went ahead and cheated by ordering one donut. I walked down the main path in the mall, eating and drinking as I went, for some reason fumbling with my sandwich, soda, and donut instead of just sitting down to eat… I finally decided I had to sit down to eat, found a bench, and sat down while I continued to eat. It was all tasty, I finished and took a deep breath, I was still disappointed to not have found any jewelry. Then I saw what I was looking for.

I walked across the main corridor to a jewelry store which had been right there in front of my face the whole time I had been eating. I looked at the jewelry in the cases, some of it was pretty, some of it was butt ugly, but then I saw gems that looked like they could hold dark energy. I asked the salesman about those, he said they were black diamonds, which I have never even heard of let alone owned. Since they were diamonds, they were very expensive, and I couldn't afford any of it. I was so disappointed. The salesman seemed to look down on me for not being able to afford the diamonds, he mocked me, but his mocking turned out to be helpful. He said that cheap people like myself should stay down at the other shop where they sell only the crappiest jewelry to the lowest class of people. Hearing there was another store, I wasn't even mad at the insult, I thanked him, which drew a confused look, and headed in the direction he had pointed.

I moved down the main corridor of the mall until I found the shop the jewelry salesman had indicated, then I went inside. This store was actually selling a lot of things, and there were two levels to it, it did seem to be more of a gift shop than a jewelry store. I went upstairs to the jewelry display. The first thing I noticed was some smoky quartz earrings that were a very reasonable price. I would prefer not to get earrings, though, since I usually can't wear them for long without having my earlobes get irritated and itchy. I wanted something I can wear all the time. I looked for a bracelet, since I already have a pendent as well, but there was very little selection. I found a couple of bracelets, they were plastic pieces of crap, didn't have any gems in them, not even fake ones. I spotted a couple of stones that got my attention, there were two black stones sitting on the counter that were sparkling vaguely, I instantly knew those would be perfect.

I asked the clerk if they had any bracelets or other jewelry with that kind of stone in it. He said no. I asked if one of those could be made into a piece of jewelry. He said no, they're not for sale. He seemed rather rude. He turned and walked away without another word. Without thinking about it much, I pocketed one of the two stones and left the store quickly.

I was back in the main corridor of the mall, I felt the stone in my pocket and I could already feel its dark energy, it felt good. I thought I had better leave before someone came after me, so I looked for the nearest exit. When I got outside I realized that since I had come out the wrong door I didn't know where I had parked. It was dark out, many of the parking lot lights were out, but I had to find my car. I looked around the parking lot a while until I finally spotted my car. I was almost to my car when I woke.

Note: Having not have accomplished any of my goals from last night, those goals just carried over to tonight aside from the fact Nomad warned of a Templar attack last night and there was no such warning about tonight. Unfortunately, I was not successful in entering a WILD…

I was in a city, moving around amongst some buildings. It seemed I was in a neighborhood at the edge of a downtown area as there were both single family homes and a few tall buildings around. I was there with Tigress and MoSh, and we all had large caliber weapons with us. Since I'm not familiar with fire arms I'm not sure exactly what kind of gun I had, but I know there were shotgun shells involved… and another kind of bullet… my knowledge of guns stops with pointing them and pulling the trigger. >.< The reason for the weapons was quickly revealed as zombies came from around a corner and at us. As I said above, I know how to point a gun and shoot. So I did that and fired at the approaching zombies, aiming for the heads. The heads literally exploded as the bullets hit their mark. I found I was actually a better shot than I had realized, so far I hadn't missed a single shot.

Tigress, MoSh, and I entered a tall building where we knew there were people trapped on an upper level. We had to fight our way through the building and up the stairwell to the tenth floor where the people were trapped. They had become trapped as they had been trying to escape, but the stairwell was completely blocked by zombies and they hadn't had enough ammunition to even try to get through. The three of us shot our way through the zombies until we got to the tenth floor door, then we went onto the floor. Someone pointed a gun at us, but then showed their obvious relief when they saw we weren't zombies. We told them that the path to the bottom floor was clear of zombies now so they could get out of the building and to the shelter. They quickly left. I wondered if there might be anyone else on the level, and apparently Tigress and MoSh had the same idea because they continued searching. I went with her to cover them and to help them look.

Upon opening an office door I saw a man in the corner, crouched there with a clearly wounded leg, he raised his gun reflexively and fired. He saw we weren't zombies at the last minute and pulled the gun to the side, which caused him to shoot a golden retriever lying at his feet. He shot the dog three times before he stopped shooting, then yelled in horror and grief, and started sobbing over the dog. The dog was just injured, not dead, so I went over and healed the dog right away.

The man had been bitten by zombies several times, and it was surely only a matter of time before he turned to a zombie. He said he knew that would happen and he wanted to die before he turned. I put a bullet in his brain before we took the dog and continued searching. There were only a couple zombies left wandering around on this level, and we quickly dispatched them. The dog searched out several more survivors in the building before we heard a loud roaring noise from up above. That sounded like our cue to get out of there. The rest of us went back down the stairwell and into the main lobby area. The survivors ran out the door and disappeared into the night, no doubt heading for the shelter, as the crashing sounds from above got louder and closer. The dog had its hackles raised and was snarling menacingly at the elevator door.

With a loud crash and a blast of dust and debris a huge creature hit the bottom of the elevator shaft and crawled out… or at least part of it crawled out… this thing was like nothing I have ever seen before, it is really hard to even try to describe it. But as close as I can come, the thing coming out of the elevator shaft was like a long tentacle with a mouth in the end, that mouth was filled with razor sharp teeth, and it was pretty clear that the main mass of the monster was still partially up the elevator shaft… Well, no matter what the whole thing looked like, Tigress, MoSh and I opened all up on the thing with all the firepower we had, I found my gun also fired grenades as I shot the grenades up towards the damaged wall where the main mass of the creature would be. There were many explosions, I wasn't sure who had shot what, and finally there was a huge and messy explosion within the elevator shaft, the thing let out an unearthly screech of pain or anger or both… and then the entire building started to shake. Tigress, MoSh, and I barely got out of the building before it collapsed in a massive cloud of dust and debris.

Now the three of us split up to search through the neighborhood for any other survivors. We stayed together for a while because the dog was leading us to everyone who needed help. As we found a few more dogs, we split up to search faster By the time we reached the other end of the neighborhood I alone had rescued 12 people, 15 cats, and 10 dogs. Somehow the cats and dogs knew to stay with me, and the three of us came back to the shelter being followed by all of these people and animals. The golden retriever with us seemed quite pleased with itself at having led us to all of those people and animals. I was petting some of the cats when I noticed everything seemed unstable, I was beginning to consider doing a reality check but I woke up before I could.

Note: I didn't sleep very well this night, I actually only got around 4 hours of sleep for the entire night. I remember several fragments of dreams, but others have told me that I showed up in other dreams which I completely don't remember including an epic fight with Xildron, a shared dream with Walms, possibly a shared Voyager dream with MoSh… Here are the non-epic fragments I remember…

*Pirates of the Caribbean*
I was in a bar working there as a waitress. Somehow this didn't seem strange enough to trigger a reality check even though I have never worked in a bar for a single day in my life… Well, I thought it was completely normal as I fetched drinks and passed them out to a wide array of drunk people amidst a lot of loud talking, boisterous laughter, cat calls, and obnoxious comments… I noticed that the bar was not like a modern day bar with rock music and flashy lights, instead it looked like an old time pub off of an RPG. I had just finished passing out a round of beers and I was heading back for another round when the bar tender, also my boss, signaled me to come over. The bar tender was an older man with a friendly face, although his face was showing clear displeasure now. My first thought that he was upset with me was put to rest when he said the problem was pirates. He said there were two particularly drunk pirates who were arguing with each other and being especially loud and obnoxious, they'd had a bit too much rum, and they were bothering the other customers. I glanced at a group of men in one corner who had insisted on calling me a lot of nasty things and thought the pirates couldn't be worse than them… the bar tender told me to throw the pirates out.

It didn't seem strange to me that he was asking a woman to throw out two drunk pirates… I knew I could handle them just fine. I went to the pirates he had indicated and pulled the first one to the exit door, physically lifted him up and threw him out where he face planted in the dirt in front of the pub. I threw the second pirate out shortly later, and he face planted right near the first one. It was then that I recognized the pirates… the first one I had thrown out was Jack Sparrow, the second was Barbosa, both from Pirates of the Caribbean.

I went out and deliberately threw Barbosa into several more face plants, thinking he deserved it. I then went and helped Jack Sparrow up. I knew the authorities were coming and would arrest both pirates… I helped Jack Sparrow away from the pub so the authorities would not find him, they would find only Barbosa. Jack Sparrow was coherent enough to ask why I had come back to help him, and the only response I could come up with was to say I had wanted to help him because he is hot…


*Pirates of the Caribbean II*
At the beginning of this dream I was watching a television show that had a small town on an isolated island. They believed if any of them were to leave the island they would be killed by the savages in the outside world. The main character was a young woman who dreamed of leaving the island. It seemed like a much overused plot. As I was watching, however, I found myself in the movie in the role of the young woman. I was outside of my house on a seldom used dock during the night watching a full moon reflecting off of the calm ocean water. I was dreaming of other places when I saw something out there, it was a ship. The ship sailed close to the shore and a man swung from a rope attached to one of the masts and landed on the dock like an acrobat of some kind. I was staring in amazement at that as I saw the man was Captain Jack Sparrow. I couldn't help but think he was hot and fantasize about sailing away with him on that ship to far off places and adventures. But why was he really here? My father came out of the house and yelled at me to get inside the house. He didn't seem to have noticed Jack Sparrow or the ship, I figured he hadn't even looked outside to be sure I was actually there. I quickly went inside the house. Later that night when I was lying in bed trying to sleep there was a tap at my bedroom window. I went over to the window to investigate and, much to my surprise, Jack Sparrow was outside trying to get my attention. I opened the window to see what he wanted, I was just happy to be able to see him again before he left. He said he could tell from the moment he saw me gazing out over the sea that my heart yearned for adventure, his ship was short one crew member… he wanted me to come away with him. And I wanted to go, I really wanted to go, but what would my family think? The door to my bedroom slammed open and my father was there with a furious look on his face, he said I should know better than to associate with out world pirates, and if I was to be seeing a man he would choose that man for me… and that made my decision for me. I told my father it was too late, I had already chosen, and he would not control my life… I climbed out of the window and headed for the ship with Jack Sparrow as my father behind me cursed loud enough for the entire island to hear.

*Going On a Holiday*
I was with my friend Alicia and her mother. We had a fun trip to a nearby lake all planned out. We were packing some things up, the trip we had planned included a couple nights of camping and a lot of hiking and playing in the water. It was going to be so fun. While Alicia and I were packing our stuff I wondered if Tigress and Silver might want to come. I thought about asking Alicia if that was ok, but I didn't want to feel like I was imposing by inviting two more people along. Should I ask if Tigress and Silver were even interested? No, I wanted to know if they could come before I presented the idea to them. Alicia's mother was driving the car full of stuff, Alicia was navigating, I was in the back seat. Alicia's mom couldn't drive, Alicia couldn't navigate. Instead of pulling into the car port for the night, we almost ran into my car, turned around somehow, and then somehow ended up three blocks from the house and pointed in the wrong direction. Alicia was mad at her mother, her mother was mad at her, and it ended up with Alicia's mother telling Alicia if she could do better then she should drive. Alicia took the wheel, Alicia's mom got in the back seat with me. We were heading back to the house, taking the long route since Alicia still couldn't navigate, and Alicia's mother placed her hand on my bare leg, I was wearing shorts. Much to my surprise, Alicia's mother started creeping me out when she started massaging my thigh in a sexual manner… uh… I moved her hand off, but she just put her hand back on my thigh and resumed the massaging… This was more than just a little disturbing, lesbian sexual advances from my best friend's mother?! Wtf?!

*Don't Try to Fix Me; I'm Not Broken*
I was in a typical RPG style town that can be seen in pretty much any RPG on the market. A lot of the people there were under mind control, they had been corrupted by dark energy. The enemy responsible for doing that to them was already dealt with, but the people were wandering around like zombies now. So I was going through the town and using healing spells on the people I found who had been infected with dark energy. I was just one of a team of healers doing this, it was a large town and a large number of the people were infected. It took a lot of repetitions of my healing spell songs, but finally it seemed I had found and healed the last infected person in the area of town I had to cover. Once the healing was done all of the healers were to meet back in the town square to confirm the healing process was complete. So now I returned to the town square where I found I was the first one back. It was still early, though, so I wasn't going to get concerned for the others until they were quite a bit later. Soon enough they started filtering back in.

All of us were now talking to each other about how the healing process had gone and how many people we had healed. In spite of being the quickest back to the town square, it also turned out that I had healed the most people. This had been decided on purpose since apparently they all thought quite highly of my healing abilities. We were all talking when one of the healers, a young woman, took a closer look at me. She looked both shocked and worried at the same time, she said I should have mentioned I had been infected. I asked what she was talking about, I wasn't infected with anything. She said she could see dark energy inside me which I had surely gotten from being around so many infected people. She said they shouldn't have put such a large amount of the load on me, it was apparently too much since I was now infected with dark energy. I told her I wasn't infected, I was fine. The dark energy inside me was stable and completely under control, it wasn't a threat to anyone. The other healers didn't seem to understand that or maybe they thought it was impossible to control dark energy, I used to think controlling dark energy was impossible, because now they started doing healing spells on me. Their healing energy was deliberately trying to purge the dark energy out of me, which I didn't really want, but I figured I could get more. Then their healing spells were making my dark energy go unstable, which was not good, so I couldn't let that continue. I told them to stop it, they weren't listening to me and only intensified their healing attempts. I focused on creating a force field to block their healing spells, and they all looked at me as if I was crazy. I told them to stop trying to fix me; I'm not broken! I told them I control my dark energy, not the other way around!

Note: Tonight I have noticed that my list of goals doesn't seem to be shrinking any even as I complete some of my goals… I'm adding them as quickly as I can complete them! First was to pick up MoSh and do some training with Vegeta, who has said I can use my WILD's for other things and try to train in a DILD, but I don't trust my DILD's to be consistent enough to make sure I get any training in. This training session was a lot like others, so I won't go into extreme detail, just to put we did some speed trials to continue increasing our speed, then trained with swords against each other, together against one stronger opponent, and together against a large number of opponents. Vegeta said both of us are showing a lot of improvement in a short period of time. Other goals included the continuing attempt at a shared DDO dream, finding Xildron, and the next task of the year which is showing humans how to make fire. My WILD was taken up with Vegeta, the rest of the night was fragmented, but here it is…

*Xildron*
I was lucid and I was working on my goal to find Xildron. I don't remember the beginning of this dream nor how I became lucid, and that really isn't important to the part of the dream I remember, anyway. I was in the break room at my school surrounded by other students. Dennis was bugging me. He was saying something about opening interdimensional portals in games. I told him I could open a real interdimensional portal, but he didn't seem to believe me. I really didn't care. Nick was saying there are only two dimensions to work with and he had already seen both of them. I also ignored Nick as I focused my mind on finding Xildron. I focused on the description Walms had given me about Xildron… I focused on both the description of the human Xildron had been changed into at the same time as I focused on the dragon he was supposed to be. I realized I didn't even know for sure what kind of energy he used, dark or light… I had been assuming Xildron used dark like Walms, but then again everyone knows what three words make up the word assume… ass-you-me. I focused more on the description and the situation than on the energy form since I wasn't sure. I was only vaguely aware of Dennis and Nick bugging me and asking what I was doing, I heard someone say I looked constipated… and finally a portal opened. That left the people around me all stunned. I ignored their stupid reactions and went into the portal, hoping to find Xildron on the other side of it. I exited the portal and had a look around. I barely got a chance to register that there was a red sky before I was hit in the face with a huge blast of energy that pushed me back through the portal. Witchblade formed instantly to protect me, but I was still pushed back into the break room of my school where both Dennis and Nick had been peering into my portal after me… and of course I crashed into both of them with intense force, slamming them through the next wall… and they had no Witchblade to protect them. I stood up and saw Dennis and Nick were sprawled at weird angles on the floor, they looked dead. My only thought was, "What the fuck was that?!"

*I Have a Gambling Problem*
I was supposed to go to school. I didn't feel like going. I had some extra time, and I wanted to do something else. The last thing I wanted to do was show up early for a class I hated. My ethics class was where I was supposed to be going, and it was the last place I wanted to go. I stopped at an arcade, thinking maybe there was a video game in there that might distract me for a bit and get me relaxed before I had to go to that horrible class. The arcade was huge, rows and rows of arcade games, all making beeps, buzzes, other strange noises, and loud music. I walked down the aisle and saw numerous games that I really wanted to play, but there was only one problem… the games were all so expensive! I had some money, but I didn't have nearly enough to get any significant play out of any of the games. Maybe one play and then I would be flat broke. I continued wandering through the arcade, feeling more annoyed rather than more relaxed as I had intended, and then I found a slot machine. Weird… I looked at a few of the units and noticed something weird about one of them. The cover to the wheels where the symbols showed up was cracked. It was just possible to get something in there… I was able to push a pencil through and move the wheels with the eraser part… and select what symbols appeared. Hmmm… I put some money in and pulled the lever. The colorful symbols flashed by on the wheels until they finally stopped, with a spot where I knew I had won nothing. I moved one of the wheels by one symbol so that I would at least win something. Money came out into the tray; it had accepted the new position as the final position even though I had cheated! I looked around and did that a few more times. Each time I did it I managed to win a small amount. I didn't want to get greedy with this since I was cheating, but it seemed they were also cheating by charging such outrageous prices for their games. I collected my quarters and then I stopped… I hadn't even thought about there possibly being video cameras there… what if I had been seen? Might security guards be coming for me even now? Shit! I practically ran down the aisles and between the game consoles and out into the parking lot, half surprised that I made it all the way. I got in my car and left, expecting to be followed at any minute…

*Down With the Sickness II*
I was at my new job, which strangely enough, was at a lab doing research work even though my education is in computer operations and game design. That didn't seem strange to me in the dream, though. It seemed completely normal. I was looking through a microscope, watching a virus… the virus was on the viewing slide with some blood cells.

Small pieces of the virus kept breaking off, and then those pieces touched another cell, that cell became a viral cell. That meant it spread very fast, and in almost no time at all it had consumed every single healthy cell on the slide. There were people who had this virus. My goal was to help find an antidote… a vaccine… something that could save those who were sick and prevent more people from becoming sick. It was one nasty bug, I had also discovered it is easily transmitted from person to person, or to other animals, through the air… it was airborne… and just inhaling a single cell could prove fatal since it reproduced so quickly. This virus was so easily passed from one person or animal to another that merely having the virus land on your skin can prove fatal since the virus immediately attacks the skin cells… I put on a biohazard suit and went into a treatment room where there were people with various stages of the disease, we were trying different treatments that looked promising, but nothing had worked. I returned to the lab after checking on the patients. When I took off my biohazard suite, I found there was a hole in the suit… right over the left elbow… there was no way I could have not been exposed. I looked at my arm, I was sure that was where the infection would start… and there was nothing to be done for it. I went to the sink and scrubbed the area with anti-viral soap… but I was sure that wouldn't help, my cells were already being infected, it was just a matter of time before I would die… or maybe not! My first thought was to just give up, but that wasn't going to happen. No chance. I would resist this sickness through sheer strength of will! I was not going to die!

Note: These are some dreams where I don't remember the entire thing from beginning to end, these are basically fragments that I remember.

*Damned Templars!*
I was in my front yard and I was lucid, though I don't know how I became lucid, I just was. I remembered the goal I had was to locate Xildron so I could try to heal him and change him back to his dragon form. The portal I opened was directed to locate Xildron, it took a few minutes, but it finally opened and I went into it. Everything was going normally until there appeared to be some kind of explosion right in the middle of my wormhole, and I was thrown out of it and onto a gray dusty surface like that of the moon. I immediately jumped up and looked around to see where I had landed. It didn't look like Earth's moon at all, there was a bright blue star shining in the sky, and I could see a giant ringed planet that the moon was orbiting around. Another thing I saw was that I was completely surrounded by Templars, several of them were chuckling at me, a few others looked annoyed, a couple of them looked like they were scared… Those assholes had interrupted my search for Xildron!

I was really too pissed off at them to think about what their reason for stopping me was, whether it was deliberately to keep me from reaching Xildron or if it was not related to that search. The Templars moved to attack me, and I attacked them at the same time, forming Witchblade into a sword and cutting the first couple that came at me clean in half. The ones who had been laughing were no longer amused, the ones who looked pissed were attacking me more aggressively, and the ones who had appeared afraid had actually turned around and run for it. I took care of the ones attacking me with a blast of flames that tracked in on each one of them. The Templars were all consumed in flames, tendrils from Witchblade reached out and grabbed the ones running away, wrapping around them and crushing them to death. Those stupid Templars always get in the way at the wrong time!

*So Very Angry*
Alicia and I were walking through the swap meet looking at the various things that were for sale there. Most everything I saw there was junk, something I wouldn't take home even if the seller paid me to take it. The reflection of sunlight off of metal drew my attention into a jewelry shop. Alicia followed me as I went inside to browse the items that were for sale within. Trash. That's what they were selling, shelves and shelves of trash, plastic rings, candy necklaces, kid's jewelry that was so obviously fake that it wasn't even funny. So what was it that had drawn my attention from so far away? Just then, I saw the sunlight reflecting off of a piece of jewelry on a display near the outside of the seller's stall. I went over and looked at what turned out to be a bracelet with beautiful blue stones around it. There was a second silver bracelet there that looked like a southwestern design. I thought I might want one of those. I wanted to browse a bit more. I looked around the rest of the booth, then came back to choose a bracelet, the blue one. Both were gone. I asked where they had gone. Alicia said she had bought them. Both of them?! She said yes. I got pissed, I was yelling at her and saying she had taken everything worth buying in the store. She said it wasn't everything… I asked the shop owner if they had any more decent jewelry. She said no. I yelled at Alicia some more about taking all of it, I was pissed… I yelled at her a lot more, told her she should give me one of the bracelets since I had found them first, hand over the blue one, you bitch! You selfish bitch! Alicia turned and left the store in tears, leaving me thinking I had been too hard on her over a small issue and wondering why I had gotten so angry.

*Don't Brush Your Hair With a Toothbrush!*
I was in an apartment with a man, I don't know who he was. I had the idea it was a temporary arrangement due to some natural disaster. I watched him get up one morning and go into his bathroom. He didn't close the door because he wasn't using the toilet. I saw he was grooming himself. He shaved most of his beard off, leaving only sideburns there. Didn't he know those were out of style? It didn't really matter. I wasn't the fashion police… The man made a strange face of frustration as he tried to get his sideburns to lie down properly and was totally unsuccessful, the more he messed with them the more they wanted to stand up. Finally he got a smirk on his face. He took his toothbrush from a drawer, wet it, and began brushing his sideburns with his toothbrush… um… yuck… I wondered why he was doing that, although it became quickly clear that the attempt was a success. He smirked as he made the hair lie down exactly how he wanted it to. He then proceeded to brush his teeth with the same toothbrush… definite yuck. I left to the kitchen to make some breakfast. A short time later, the man came out and asked if I could please fix him eggs, since I do such a good job. He smiled broadly… and all of his teeth were covered in rot… yuck! I told the man he shouldn't brush his hair with a toothbrush unless he wanted the lice to eat his teeth.

*Down With the Sickness*
I was in my bedroom getting ready to go to school. I rolled out of bed and went to the other room. I had my breakfast as usual, heated up a frozen egg, cheese, and sausage muffin, then went around and hugged on each of my cats. They were all soft, cuddly, and sweet as usual. There was nothing going on that even vaguely indicated this was not a completely normal day. That is everything was normal until I went into the bathroom to take care of doing my hair for the day. I noticed it looked strangely out of place, not like it normally does first thing in the morning. My hair is short, so there is usually very little to be done with it to make it look good enough for my liking. This time it was all hanging at weird angles… Oh, well. I would have to wet it down before I could brush it properly. I splashed water on my face and head, then started brushing my hair. Huge chunks of the hair were coming out on the brush! This continued until the entire crown of my head was bald, completely bald. The rest of the hair seemed firmly attached, but the crown of my head was bald! I tried hopelessly for a comb-over like some men try to get away with, then I looked at my scalp to see it was red and irritated, covered with strange soars. I could only stare at that and wonder over and over, "What is wrong with my body?" I was clearly quite sick, I didn't want anyone to notice, but I was sure I would have to see a doctor about this one.

Note: Tonight I really don't remember anything other than some fragments. My WILD successfully went to another training session with Vegeta, although the one difference here was that MoSh came with me. There were also a few other fragments, but they seemed pretty nonsensical and they were also non-lucid, but here is what I remember.

*Vegeta's Class*
My WILD started with me in my inner world. Instead of going directly to Vegeta's class, however, I opened a portal and stepped through into MoSh's inner world where I found myself looking at yet another unfamiliar house.

I wondered if the house really keeps changing or if my perception of it is screwed up for some reason. I paused to look at the different house for only a short time before going up to the front door and knocking on it. I surveyed the surrounding area while waiting for MoSh or Asuka to come to the door, noting that the rest of the area seemed to remain mostly consistent from one visit to the next one. The door opened and MoSh came out, he appeared ready to go. The big question was whether or not he was lucid and if he would remember any of this dream. Looking at the house one more time, I asked MoSh why his house kept changing. MoSh gave me a strange look as if he thought I was completely mental. I decided not to pursue the matter any further and opened a portal to my inner world just outside of Vegeta and Serena's house. Vegeta approached MoSh and me as soon as we exited the portal, seeming to survey both of us as we entered. He took a closer look at MoSh before saying we should get to training, he knew the exact thing MoSh needed to work on. As I have indicated, I don't remember the training itself very clearly, which Vegeta doesn't seem to see as a problem.

*Computer Fish*
I was at a computer store browsing various laptops that were on display. It wasn't myself that I was looking at laptops for, I was looking at the laptops for a friend, though I no longer remember the name of the friend. I poked around at a few laptops that I didn't think could be used for much more than paperweights, they were just too old and slow to be used for anything worthwhile. Even the internet would run at a snail's pace on one of those. I wondered why the computer store I was in even bothered keeping those old dinosaurs on display at all. After searching for what seemed like forever I finally found one computer hidden in the back corner that looked like it was at least somewhat decent. I knew the friend I was shopping for didn't need a top of the line model, but he did want to be able to surf the internet at a decent rate and maybe have a couple other applications running at the same time without crashing the whole system. The computer was password protected, so I started entering guesses until a salesperson came over and gave me the correct code. But now the computer was stuck at a fish screen saver…

The screen saver was teeming with fish of all colors and sizes; I quickly became distracted from my computer shopping as I manipulated the screen saver to produce more and more outrageous fish on the screen. The salesperson came back and said the computer was for serious customers only and asked me to leave. I knew how to modify the screen saver now, so I thought I could continue playing with it on my home computer.


*Indestructible*
I was walking with my friend Alicia down a dark and creepy alley. A light on the back of a building flickered and went out as Alicia and I passed it; I couldn't help but wonder what we were coming this way for at all. The alley way wasn't really much of a shortcut, shaving only a very short distance off of our trip, and it was very creepy.

We were near the end of the alley when several big thugs stepped out of the shadows and boxed Alicia and me in. Alicia was hiding behind me and whimpering, clearly afraid of what the goons might have in mind. The dim light from the moon reflected off of a blade that one of the men was holding up to show us. He said if we handed over all of our money and jewelry then no one would get hurt. One of the other goons stepped forward and accepted Alicia's purse as she willingly handed it over. Checking my pockets, I realized I didn't have any money or any valuables at all on me. My purse was at home on my bed where I had forgotten to pick it up before leaving to meet Alicia at the park. When I told the thugs this, however, they didn't seem to believe me. The look on the face of the goon in front of me could have curdled milk as he came forward and said he would have either my money or my blood. When I told him I didn't have any money he motioned to the other goons who grabbed my arms while he drove his blade into my stomach all the way up to the hilt. I reflexively doubled over in anticipation of pain, but the pain didn't come. The thug did a double take at the confused look I gave him and stabbed me several more times. No pain, no weakness, no nothing. I started laughing at the man, asking him if that was really the best he could do. He stabbed me in the chest several times, then proceeded to stab his buddy on my right as if thinking somehow the knife wasn't working properly. His buddy fell over, bleeding with a shocked look on his face, bleeding out right in front of us. A look of terror crossed the thug's face as he turned his back and ran down the alley screaming like a little girl, leaving his other buddy still looking perplexed.

I was on what looked like a movie set. It was made to look like the interior of a Star Trek shuttle, or at least that's what I thought it looked like at the time. I was there with a man. I don't remember who he was. I was talking to the man about various Star Trek episodes. We were talking about an episode where there had been a traitor aboard the ship and that traitor had caused a lot of trouble, including the death of one of the crew. I was thinking of a part of the show where the guards should have spotted the traitor before he even got on the ship, but for some reason they had completely missed the obvious signs. The man and I were discussing various ways the traitor could have been stopped, various times that the guards should have caught the traitor, and a few plot holes that we found. The man laughed and said he liked figuring out how the story might have been different if things had been done differently.

I walked through the set of the Star Trek ship and up to the main control panel. It was somewhere around here that I realized that this was no simple movie set… this ship was real! This would be a fully functional ship! I found I seriously wanted to jack that ship. I told the man I was with that I was going to jack the ship. He asked if I wouldn't get in trouble. I said only if I was caught… which I wouldn't be. I sat down at one of the navigation chairs and looked at the controls. Um… I didn't really have any idea on how to work the controls. After I sat there looking retarded for a bit, the man sat at the other control station. He pushed a few buttons and the ship powered up. I said I didn't know he could operate a Star Trek ship! He said he has seen so many Star Trek episodes that he can. He maneuvered the ship up, turned it around, blasted a hole in the wall, and then flew through it. We were off to the skies, off to explore the stars!

Or maybe not… the ship couldn't do anything more than hover! Lame! And it hovered until we were surrounded by cops at a dock. There were water ships there. And we had no choice but to land. I cursed my luck that the ship I jacked had to be a piece of crap. The man said he had told me I would be caught… I pulled a Gibbs on him. The cops came into the ship and said we were to get out immediately. We both climbed off of the ship. But we weren't getting arrested! The cops said we were needed for a top secret operation. Awesome! The cop said if we could figure out how to operate the Star Trek ship so easily, then they had need of us. My heart dropped. I hadn't figured out anything. It had all been my friend. The man with me put his hand on my shoulder and whispered. He said not to worry… just bluff my way through it. He said he would be sure I learned what I needed to know if I didn't figure it out on my own. After all, I was the one with the nerve to jack a space ship in the first place, so I was partly responsible for us ending up here.

The man and I both got on one of the sea ships there. We were separated, but not by far. We were just on opposite ends of the deck near the bow. I could still see him, and he could see me. Someone said something about preparing us for ocean travel. For some reason that preparation involved hosing us down with a fire hose… Wtf? We were both sprayed with water until we were thoroughly and completely drenched. I had no idea what that had to do with anything… it seemed really strange to me. I wanted to ask someone why we had to be wet. But there was no one paying any attention to me. I looked off the ship and saw nothing but ocean. Where had the land gone so fast? We had been docked just minutes ago. I looked everywhere, thinking we might have turned… no sign of land. Weird… I was looking for the land when I woke.

Note: I fell asleep with very little in the way of goals tonight… MoSh had said he was going to come over to do a healing on me, although I told him I felt ok. But then a little extra positive energy never hurts anything, so I figured if he wanted to do it, we could share some positive energy, most likely with Basara involved since he usually shows up whenever someone mentions the idea of healing. Unfortunately I was not successful in entering my WILD this night.

I was in a clearing in a forest. I could see there were buildings around, it looked like a small town was hidden amongst the trees. I wondered where I was. I didn't even consider the idea I might be dreaming. I noticed that there were quite a few people around, and then I noticed they were Templars. What the fuck was I doing in a Templar base? I figured I didn't want to be there, so I went to leave. That was when I noticed there was a big guy on either side of me holding onto me tightly. Their grip was like iron, and I could not make them budge to get free. I was a prisoner of the Templars… that couldn't be good.

I heard another Templar say they were ready. One of the big guys holding me forced me to the ground so that I was lying on my stomach with my face in the dirt. I felt someone lie a long wooden pole on my back, and I was quickly bound tightly to that pole. When the large Templars moved away from me I couldn't move at all except to turn my head and look around a bit. They turned me over onto my back and ripped my clothes off… I called them a bunch of fucking perverts. I was now naked and tied to a metal pole… I could hear people around me laughing and jeering.

The Templars then stood the pole up and I realized I was bound approximately in the middle. I saw they had a fire ring in the middle of the clearing, a rather large one. It was long and fairly narrow, there was a rotisserie stand on each end of the fire circle, and a pan sitting on top of the wood that looked like it was there to catch the juices of roasting meat. It looked a lot like the picture here, except the pan was on permanent metal legs and the fire pit and pan looked long enough to accommodate a very large piece of meat… or a person…

It was about then that I realized what they might be planning to do. Since I believed that was my waking life, this resulted in a feeling of ice cold fear at the pit of my stomach… I fought against my bonds, desperate to get away now, to avoid what it seemed they had planned. The bonds were too tight… I couldn't budge them even a millimeter. And my worst fear was confirmed when they carried the pole I was on over to the fire pit and placed it where the spit of the rotisserie would go with me hanging on it, looking down into the black pan. There was a quantity of grease in the pan, which was hardened right now. I was noticing every little detail… a fly stuck in the grease and trying to get free, but it was no more able to move than I was. Templars preparing to light the fire. This couldn't really be happening. I think I might have done a reality check if I could have even moved in order to do one… I found I kept repeating the word 'no' over and over, and I was ashamed of the fear I heard in my voice.

Then I said there must be some agreement we could reach that would allow me to get out of this. A couple of them laughed. But one of them said there was. He said if I could present one of my friends to take my place, they would gladly roast up my friend instead of me and I would be free to go. One of my friends? He said yes. Any of them would do. Either Nomad or MoSh would be their first choices… but if I presented them one of the others I have shared dreams with it would be sufficient, too. Markus, Tigress, or even Loaf… someone laughed that they could have toast… just choose one and teleport them here and I would be free to go while my friend was executed in my place. I told them they had to be kidding… there was no way I would betray a friend like that… I knew perfectly well I could never live with betraying a friend in that way, so in spite of my fear I told them to go fuck themselves. The Templar said it was my choice, and told the other one to go ahead and light the fire under the pan.

I didn't really notice anything at first. Then the pan was heated and it was getting a bit uncomfortable as the heat was rising off of the pan and into my face. The heat continued to increase, an intense and dry heat that made it feel almost like I was on fire. How long could this last? Wouldn't I get heat stroke and pass out from that heat before long? They let the fire die down a bit and the heat faded to a lower but continuous agony. For some reason it seemed to be imperative that I make no sound to let them know the pain I was in, so I kept my mouth tightly closed so I would not let an involuntary cry or moan or pain escape. I saw as the grease below me melted and the fly was consumed by the heating grease, killed. Another thought I was having was that the heat would burn through the ropes that bound me to the spit… then I could get free… but they were thick and sturdy ropes that didn't seem to be suffering from the exposure at all. A Templar came over and looked at me, then he poked something on my leg with a long fork, causing a sharp and excruciating pain… somehow I knew he had just popped a heat blister… that area of my leg was now in much more pain than the rest of me, and other parts of my body felt like they were beginning to blister, I could actually see a few blisters starting to form on my breasts… When would I finally get heat stroke and pass out?!

Another short while… and several more popped blisters later… a Templar came back over. I was expecting another popped blister… but instead he had a cup, which he used to scoop some of the now sizzling grease out of the pan. He proceeded to pour the sizzling grease all over my back… where it burned unbelievably hot. The Templar poured a couple more cups of blazing hot grease on my back, laughing when I was unable to contain a cry of pain… these assholes were basting me! And even after he walked away, the grease on my back was continuing to cause an unbelievably intense agony… it seemed I would surely pass out, but somehow I didn't… even though I wished I would, prayed that I would pass out or die from heat stroke… Instead I just hung there in agony, all hope seemed lost…

"Raven!" I heard a familiar voice and forced my head to turn, although that caused heat dried skin to crack and bleed, bringing with that another wave of pain… I someone standing off to my left a ways, and a portal opened behind him. My sight was fuzzy… I wasn't sure who it was… He continued talking. "It's time for… what the FUCK?!" Apparently he had taken a look around for the first time since arriving and noticed things were not as they should be. I wanted to call out to the man for help, but my throat was too dry and cracked to speak… and all that came out was a small squeak… As I have stated, my mind was really foggy from the heat and the pain, but I heard some cursing, a demand to release me, and then a fight. I saw movement to my right and the man who had just arrived shoved one of the Templar's faces into the hot grease in the pan below me. When the Templar's face came out it was covered with blisters and the Templar was screaming in pain. I heard more fighting, some Templars screaming about something… a loud hissing sound like an angry cat or snake… and then silence.

The man from the portal returned. He took the spit I was tied to away from the flame and started untying me. Every time he touched me it was excruciating, but I did my best not to let him know that because I knew he was just trying to help. Once I was free I found I couldn't even stand on my own… my legs were about like spaghetti… The man supported me, holding on to me as gently as he could… I heard him say he would get me healed up as good as new. He could heal IWL? Wow… I wondered if there was any possible way I could get him to teach me to do that… but even if he couldn't, he had already done so much by getting me free of the Templars. He lied me down in a soft area of grass. Even as soft as it was, each blade of grass was like a steel blade cutting in to me… I once again did not let him know how much it hurt. He was trying so hard to be careful.

The man sat down near me. I could hear him playing a guitar. I could feel healing energy come from that guitar. Soothing healing energy… it felt like a soothing healing salve had been applied to my entire body, and it felt wonderful. I tried to open my eyes and see who it was that had saved me… but I was so tired. Completely worn out. But he was playing a guitar to create a healing effect. I only know two people who do that. Basara and MoSh. And I couldn't see Basara shoving a Templar's face into burning grease under any circumstances, unless he had seen what they were doing and completely snapped, so I was assuming it was MoSh… I tried to ask the man if he was MoSh… "You… MoSh?" He didn't really answer that, he just told me to rest… when I fell asleep here I would wake up and be safe in bed. Safe in bed? Was this really just a nightmare? I let myself relax and slip into sleep. I could find out for sure later if it was MoSh who had come to find me. I fell asleep and woke up.

Note: Here are a couple of non-lucid fragments I remember from the rest of the night… they really don't make a lot of sense at all and sound rather retarded, but I have been posting everything, so here they are:

*Archery Competition*
I was in my house. I was practicing archery right there in the house. There were targets hung on the wall and there were several other people there with me, also practicing their archery skills. I was doing pretty well, hitting the target on most of my shots. I fired a few more and then realized I was out of arrows… crap. I asked someone to get me more arrows, and he came back with crap. He said he couldn't find any arrows, so he had found a bunch of junk. He handed me several pencils, a couple of knitting hooks, and an awkwardly shaped stick… um… I wasn't sure how I was supposed to practice archery with that. I put a knitting needle in my bow and fired. Of course it wasn't easily aimed. The knitting needle embedded itself in the head of another archer. He reached back and pulled it out. He looked irritatedly at me and said I should watch what I was doing before I hurt someone. A thick pus was oozing from his head wound, but he didn't notice or didn't care… Somehow I found some arrows to shoot and went back to practicing with arrows. Maybe shooting knitting needles had thrown me off, because my first arrow missed the mark majorly and stuck into our flat screen TV! I went over and pulled it out, needless to say there was a hole. I found the missing pieces and was trying to put it back together like a puzzle… would the cracks be noticed? Probably… then I would have to pay to have it replaced. Damn… I don't have that kind of money!

*Parking Maze*
I was in a data center like in the hospitals where I used to work. In the dream, I still held a job there. I was getting off work now. I left the office and met James, my ex boyfriend, outside the office. In the dream I guess he wasn't my ex… we headed down the hall and to the elevator. This was the beginning of the weirdness… the elevator didn't go down, only up. We went up about five floors, then we had to find another elevator that would take us to the parking level. What a pain. We got to the parking garage. That, too, was confusing. I knew I had parked on the 3rd level of the parking garage, but I couldn't find stairs that led there. James and I looked endlessly. We were getting mad at each other for being lost. He said I can never find the right path… I told him we had been following his directions. He didn't have a response, and we finally found my car. Now to get out… which proved to be even harder. The parking structure was a maze of up and down ramps, dead ends, and loops that were easy to get stuck in. James said it would be quicker for him to walk. I told him to get out and do so, then. He didn't want to get out. I finally found the exit from the parking garage, but there was a giant sinkhole blocking the road. I knew there was another exit, but we would have to find that one… which promised to be a huge pain in the ass…

*Grand Theft Yu-Gi-Oh*
I was in my car driving down the road. It was a bright sunny day, and there was not much traffic. I had time to kill before I could go home. I didn't want to get home before my mother expected me. If I did, she would have me doing chores or cleaning or doing some kind of manual labor. I didn't want to do that. I saw a collector's card shop and decided to go in. I parked and went inside. There were so many different kinds of collectable cards. Many of them were from CCG (collectable card games) such as Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering, etc. There were cards from sets I had never heard of. I saw a few sample cards… and it looked like a deck with those would be unstoppable. All cards were guaranteed to be tournament legal (at least until they became more widely known and might be banned), extremely rare, and neigh impossible to lose with. They were also extremely expensive. I wanted them. I thought I could go to the next Yu-Gi-Oh tournament and wipe the floor with my ex boyfriend, who sometimes plays in those tournaments. I thought I could at least kick ass in the tournaments. I started slipping packs of the cards into my purse. I took quite a few, though I don't know how many. I walked out of the store. The owner of the store was trying to stop me. I was sure he had seen me steal the cards. I reached for my keys to leave… I couldn't find them. Damn! Of all the luck. They were probably buried under stolen Yu-Gi-Oh cards. The shop owner caught up with me. I was definitely busted. He handed me my keys and said I had left those inside. I thanked him, and made a note to myself that after I won a couple of tournaments I would be sure and bring money back here for that shop since the owner had been so nice.

Note: The rest of the night was filled with fragmented dreams, and they are all listed out here:

*Tower Defense*
I was on top of a tower. There were four of us there, and one of the other three was Tigress. I didn't recognize the other two people, but they were men. The tower was circular and quite tall. I could see far out over the surrounding area, which included a cleared meadow area and then a thick forest. The meadow was too circular to have been natural, so I figured it had been cleared to provide a defendable area. The four of us were covering all four directions from the tower. Tigress was on my right. We all had bows and arrows. Enemies were storming the tower. We were picking them off with our arrows. The enemies were firing arrows back, but it was proving harder for them to get their arrows up to the top of our tower than it was to shoot arrows down from the tower at them. I was surprised at my own accuracy. I glanced to my right and saw Tigress was also picking off enemies with deadly accuracy. The fight continued for a while, and was actually rather boring. The enemies seemed to be slowing down, and it was shortly after picking off the last enemy and seeing there were no more enemies coming that I woke.

*What Goes Around Comes Around*
I was in a subway tunnel. I was walking along the walkway at the side of the tunnel. The path was there for maintenance purposes. I saw there was a subway intersection ahead where two tracks merged into the one. There was a young man on the path with me. He was using a hot glue gun to form words on the wall of the subway tunnel. The words were not very visible, but they would be raised off of the wall slightly. He was doing that when another young man came over and got all kinds of pissed off at him for that. The second man grabbed the glue gun from the one who had been using it on the wall. The second man shoved the hot glue gun in the first man's mouth and pulled the trigger, filling the first man's mouth with hot glue. The first man's cries of pain were muffled. The second man kept adding hot glue until it covered both the first man's mouth and nose, then he dropped the first man onto the ground and watched him suffocate. The killer laughed and kicked the victim a few times as the victim suffocated. The killer headed down the path towards the intersection. He stepped out to cross to the other side of the intersection. Right as he was in the intersection, two speeding subway cars, single subway cars, collided there in the intersection and crushed the killer between them… The car operators somehow got out of there uninjured, there was no one else on board either car… only the killer had been killed. Well that was karma for you…

*Metallica's New Member*
I was at a Metallica concert. I had a ticket to get in. I went inside the arena. It wasn't a very large arena, and I felt I was very fortunate to have gotten a ticket. I went to find my seat, but my seat sucked. I thought maybe I could find another seat that hadn't been filled. Maybe someone had been unable to attend. I walked through the seats and saw most of them were filled. The concert was about to start. I saw an empty seat. I sat down, it was only five rows from the stage. The concert started, and it was loud. I watched as the band members came out on stage. Lars Ulrich was on drums, James Hetfield was on guitar and singing, Kirk Hammett was on guitar, and then the fourth member came out… and it was MoSh! I did a double take! Wow! MoSh had joined a band! And not just any band, he was now the fourth member of Metallica! I thought that was awesome, I would have to congratulate him after the show. And this meant I know one of the members of Metallica! I could meet the rest of the band, too! I was so excited while I watched the concert. MoSh was rocking! He did a solo part way through the concert… my only thought was wow! The concert ended, and I was headed to the entrance to back stage to see about talking to MoSh, I told the bouncer to just tell MoSh that Raven was there to see him. The bouncer didn't believe me, but I saw MoSh back there and he waved at me, telling the bouncer to let me through.

*Winter in June?*
I was in my normal house. I left the house to go get the mail. The ground outside was covered with snow! In spite of the fact I live in a desert and this is the middle of summer, I didn't think to do a RC in response to the snow. I threw a couple of snowballs at a large cactus. I threw a few at the house. I hit my mother with one of them. She was not pleased. She told me to stop messing around and go get the mail. For some reason our mailbox was so far away I would have to drive to get there. I left the house in my car. It really was a long ways to the mailbox. I drove down a couple long streets and made several turns before I realized I was hopelessly lost. I figured things must look too different being covered with snow… and so I wasn't recognizing the place. I didn't want to admit to anyone that I had gotten lost when looking for my own mailbox… so I kept looking for it, and I figured to explain why it took so long I would just tell everyone I had gotten stuck in the snow.

Note: The rest of what happened in this night consists of dream fragments. There are several fragments here, and I am listing them all together.

*The Simpsons*
I was watching an episode of the Simpsons on television. Bart Simpson was sitting in his bedroom working on some kind of a computer. He was laughing as he typed things in. The scene shifted to the Simpsons living room. Suddenly I was sitting on the couch between Homer and Lisa. Marge was in the kitchen doing something, Maggie was on the floor sucking her pacifier, Santa's Little Helper was curled up and sleeping, I had Snowball II on my lap purring. I watched the news. Kent Brockman was giving the news.

"So rest assured, my fellow alcoholics," Brockman said, "The next shipment of beer is already on its way. In other news… uh… you really want me to read that?! Ok… not that this is news… everyone knows that… alright! I'm reading it! In other news, Homer Simpson's butt has been assigned its own zip code, and is now officially known as the largest ass in the world. Better watch out if that one farts! Hahaha… um… you don't seriously want me to do that, do you? But seriously… Alright! Yes, I want to keep my job!" Brockman climbed up on the news desk, turned his back to the camera, dropped his pants, bent over, started mooning the camera and bobbing his butt in rhythm to My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas… "My butt… my butt… is smaller than Homer's butt… My ass… my ass… would fit up Homer's ass…"

Homer was getting madder and madder. He finally turned off the television and went upstairs to Bart's room. Lisa and I were following, looking to see the train wreck about to happen up there. Homer barged into Bart's room and snatched the laptop device from Bart, telling him it is wrong to mess with the news and to stop making that poor reporter look like a fool… Homer took the device and went back downstairs. He set the device on the coffee table. He watched the news a bit more, it was the weather… and then went back to Kent Brockman. Homer kept looking sideways at the laptop. He finally picked it up and started typing on it and laughing like a kid.

"And today in sports," Brockman was saying, "… uh… come on, people, seriously? Alright, alright… Highlights in sports today include a new contest that is all the rage here in Springfield. The person to drop the most scorpions down Ned Flanders' pants will receive a special trophy commemorating the length of time it takes before Flanders is able to sit without pain."

"Hey, Homer!" Bart said, having just come downstairs, "How come you get to play with it and I don't?!" Insert canned laughter here…

*Nexus of Worlds*
I was in a hallway. I was walking down the hallway, and I could see there were doors on both sides of the hall. All of the doors looked the same, and the hall appeared to go both ways from where I was without any sign of ending. It looked like a typical office hallway. But there was no end in sight. I walked down the halls for a ways and looked at one of the doors. I wondered where all of them went. I opened a door and found myself staring out into the vastness of space. Stars, a distant galaxy, a comet flew by… and amazingly there was no pressure change, I didn't get pulled out into the vacuum… I closed the door and went to the next one. It opened into a human rainforest. There was something in the trees approaching fast… I closed the door. Another door led to a raging flame. Was the building on fire now? I shut the door and kept going… Another door led to a scorched desert… the next to a cave… and the next to… waking up.

*Book of Darkness*
I was in my bedroom. I was lucid. I was sitting on my bed looking at what appeared to be an ancient book. The book was locked closed tight. I wanted to get the book open. I looked at the book very closely. I was looking for some kind of keyhole or lock that was keeping the latches in place. I couldn't find one. I wondered how I could possibly get it open… I played with the latches a bit, but it was getting nowhere. I thought maybe I could ask Q. When I thought of him, Q appeared as if I had summoned him. He looked at the latches. He said those were energy locks. They would only be released with a certain energy flow. I wondered what the book would want… I tried to use a flow of stable dark energy to prove I could control that energy once I had it. The book vibrated in my hands but didn't open. I tried light energy, to show the book I had not given myself completely to darkness… the book vibrated some more, but nothing else happened. I thought maybe I had to use both dark and light… show I can control dark but hadn't gone completely over to it. The book was vibrating quite violently now. Was it going to unlock? Would I finally see inside? I got so excited I woke myself up… Damn!

*Criminal Mindlessness*
I was in the living room of a house I didn't recognize. I looked around. It was a very nice looking home, although it was a bit cluttered. There were kids' toys around, a couple of game systems plugged in to a big screen TV, some of the games lying around, a half finished glass of soda on one of the end tables. I wondered where I was and how I had gotten there… I was about to sneak back out before I got in trouble when I heard a scream from the basement. I headed down the stairs to the basement. The basement was an unfinished basement, with the wall beams still visible. There were people tied tightly to those beams… five of them, all naked and gagged. A man, a woman, and three kids that looked to be around 4, 8, and 12 years old. The youngest one was crying openly, it was a little girl. The 8 year old was also a girl, the 12 year old was a boy. There was a large and ugly man pacing in front of the people. There was a pile of charcoal around each of the prisoners. And the man wasn't just pacing… he was squirting something at the coals… it was lighter fluid. The psycho took out a match and prepared to set the charcoal ablaze. All of those details had really only taken me a second to see, and that was all I needed to see…

"Hey!" I yelled to get the asshole's attention, "Why don't you pick on someone who can fight back?"

"Ahhh," the man said as he smiled at me, "More fun." He threw the match into the charcoal. The coals didn't burst into flames as I had expected, the flames stayed buried in the coals. The coals were heating up to red hot, and the heat from the coals was burning the people's feet and lower legs. The people were screaming through their gags and struggling pointlessly against their bonds. The man said the music of their screams was perfect for killing to. He came towards me, he was muttering about what he was going to do to me… cut me apart? Let me burn with the others? He said he would have to be inventive with someone foolish enough to walk in on his play time. He said I was making him all hard, so that was the first thing he wanted… he came towards me rather quickly considering his size. He reached out for me and I easily dodged to the side. I wondered what I was going to do now that I had his attention… if only I had a weapon… but then I did! Out of nowhere a sword appeared in my hand. Awesome! I didn't know where it had come from, but it would do great. The man looked quite shocked… and that was also how he looked when he died. Shocked, as my sword ran him through the chest. I went to get the people free. It was a nasty setup. The coals below their feet were smoldering and putting off a lot of heat which was burning their feet and legs badly. They weren't tied to the beams with rope… they were tied tightly there with barbed wire! The barbs were digging into the prisoner's skin in many places. I scattered the coals from their feet first… then I found a wire cutters and cut them free as carefully as I could. The woman seemed oblivious to her wounds as she grabbed each of her children and then her husband in relief that they were all still alive. She then came over and hugged me tightly, thanking me for showing up at the right time. I thought their wounds must be very painful… I was wishing I could do healing IWL. I was thinking about Voices from the Macross Plus soundtrack. The song played… I sang it… and their wounds healed! Wow! Maybe if I wanted it badly enough, magic would work for me IWL! But that hope was crushed when I woke.

Dream Fragments:

*My Green Thumb*
I remember being in MoSh's inner world. There were people working on the construction of a house. In the dream I knew it was MoSh's new house. Somehow being there with MoSh didn't tip it off to me that I was dreaming, though. I was walking around outside the house, stopping in various places and planting flowers and other plants. I would then sing to them. I wasn't thinking it was going to do any magic, I was just thinking I have heard repeatedly that it is a good idea to sing to plants to make them grow faster and better. And it was definitely working. I wondered how anyone could have an excuse for not having a beautiful garden when just a bit of singing would do that well. Trees grew tall, flowers bloomed, grasses grew… I was leaving a trail of green plants and colorful flowers behind me. I was hoping MoSh would be pleased when he saw what I had managed to do with his garden and yard.

*Homework*
I was sitting on my bed doing homework. I had a piece of paper in front of me instead of a computer. I was writing down a series of complex equations. My assignment was to solve them. I started working on them. I was not having any trouble with the problem. I came up with the answer I was confident in. I moved on to the next series of equations. This one was even longer and more complex. I had no doubt in mind I could solve it. I started solving it and my pencil broke… shit. I would have to sharpen it. I got up and went to the electric pencil sharpener we have in the other room. I sharpened the pencil and took it out. The pointed end was now completely flat. The pencil sharpener had eaten the tip off of my pencil! Wtf?! I tried again and this time the pencil practically disappeared into the pencil sharpener. And it still wasn't sharpened. I wondered if I had enough confidence to do my math in pen…

*Shrooms*
I was in the DDO village of Korthos. I looked around and thought that was strange. I looked down at myself. I was wearing armor like one of the DDO characters. I was in DDO! Wait a minute… that wasn't right… DDO isn't a virtual reality system… The only way DDO could be this real is if I was dreaming, so I did a RC and found out I was dreaming.

I wanted to go with Tigress on this DDO dream. I wondered where she was. I thought maybe I would have to go get her. But I spotted her almost right away. I wasn't sure what character I had, but she was in the form of Envee… one of her characters that is a rogue. We left the town. Tigress said she had a quest. So I followed her for a while and we reached a cave. We went inside and wandered around for a bit, killing some kobolds as we came across them. The kobolds seemed pathetically weak. We came into a large chamber that was filled with large mushrooms. They were huge. We wandered into the mushroom patch, which was more like a forest. We wandered around for a while, seeing no sign of another way out or of any enemies. The forest of mushrooms was more like a maze. And we were completely lost in it. I thought climbing up one of the mushrooms might give one of us a view of where the exits were… but how does one climb a giant mushroom?! We were still wandering through the mushrooms when I woke.

*Congratulations!*
I was in a bed, and I knew right away something was not right. I didn't recognize the bed. I rolled over and there was a man there I didn't know. He was smiling at me. I saw nothing in his eyes but love. Nothing about him looked hostile or creepy except the fact he was a stranger and in my bed. We got up, and it was clear he thought he was my husband. Husband?! I wanted to figure this out. It never occurred to me that I might be dreaming. The man and I went to the car and he drove us for a ways. Apparently we had an appointment. We went into a building. This was a child welfare agency… I wondered why we were there. A woman led us back to her office. She looked over a paper for a while before she spoke. My 'husband' looked very anxious. She finally spoke. She said she had reviewed our application. She said from what she could see we would make great parents for some children in need. Children?! My 'husband' said that he still wanted a set of twins if there were any needing parents. He said he really liked the idea of twins, and that would also ensure the twins weren't separated. The woman said she had found just the kids. She went out of the office for a short time and then returned with two girls. The girls were perfect twins of each other, even dressed identically. They had dark hair pulled back into pony tails and blue dresses and blank looks on their faces. They looked to be about five years old. My 'husband' went over and hugged them both, saying they looked perfect, we'd take them. I was annoyed that he had never asked what I thought…

Note: A few more fragments of dreams from last night…

*Government Goons*
I was flying around, it seemed like I was continuing the previous dream. I still didn't realize it was a dream. I felt like I had spent quite some time using these powers I had discovered to help everyone. I had averted several disasters, stopped some assholes from releasing a bio-toxin that would have killed every living thing within a 100 mile radius of where it was released, cleaned up some pollution that was harming a group of whales and sunk a whaling boat… basically I had earned myself quite a name (even though they didn't even know my name) as a hero all around that planet. I received a call from help from a building, something about setting off a dirty bomb… so I went to check it out. When I got there, however, there was no bomb, no threat, just a bunch of idiots in suits. Government lackeys. One of them said he hadn't known how else to get me to come. I was annoyed at him for the false alarm. He said he had to talk to me, it was important. I figured I'd listen a bit… He continued talking and basically said he wanted me to work for the government. Um… no. I said I would like for him go over to the window I had broken to get in and jump out, but was that likely to happen? The office was on the 54th floor of a skyscraper… The man said for me to be reasonable, there was a lot of money in it for me. Money? He was pissing me off. I wasn't interested in money! What would I need money for? I told the jerk to go fuck himself. I headed for the broken window. The man was behind me, demanding that I stop. He grabbed my robes (I was dressed as an Assassin) as I was taking flight, lost his balance, and fell out of the window. I realized that when I heard him screaming on his way down. I looked just in time to see him hit the ground with a sickening THUD noise. He was, of course, dead. So he had walked to the broken window and jumped out after all…

*Eegee's Pub*
I was on the street in a downtown area. It was a normal looking city, could have easily been any city in the US or in multiple places around the world. I was feeling kind of hungry. I wanted something to eat. I went around a corner and I spotted an Eegee's sandwich shop there. A nice sub sandwich sounded good. I looked in my pocket and saw that I had some money in my pocket. I had a twenty dollar bill, so I went into the Eegee's to get some food. Inside the restaurant I looked around at the posted ads on the walls to see what kind of sandwich looked good. I was wondering what drink I wanted with it. I saw a poster for drinks. There were several kids holding various alcoholic drinks. I saw my mother was in the Eegees. I asked her if kids should be used to advertise alcohol? My mom said it was no big deal since the kids were drinking the virgin forms of the drinks.

*We All Scream for Ice Cream*
I was in a mansion. It was clearly obvious that the people living there had a lot of money. Everything was so fancy. I wondered why I was there. I wasn't lucid, and I was hoping I wouldn't get in trouble for trespassing. A man came downstairs. He looked right at me… then away. Either my presence there was completely acceptable or he didn't see me at all somehow. I followed him. He went into a dining room. He sat down at the end of a large dining table with two children. A boy and a girl. He rang a bell, and a maid brought them ice cream sundaes. Those looked delicious. The man passed one to each child, kept one, then asked the maid what she had brought for herself. She looked confused. The man said in this job, she would have to get used to things. When he asked for food to be prepared, she was automatically invited to join them in eating it. The hired help was always invited to take meals with the family. The more, the merrier, was what he always said. The maid looked a bit uneasy, but she went and brought back a sundae for herself. She sat down with the others to eat it. At first she looked really uneasy, but soon all four of them were talking like a happy family.

It was then that I noticed a little girl hiding behind the curtain at the far end of the room. I immediately knew she was an orphan. She was hiding in the walls and attic of the house for shelter, stealing food from the family to eat… but what she really wanted was a family. So she just stood there, looking longingly at the happy family eating ice cream, silently crying. I was also certain that if the man were to see her he would welcome her to the table to share ice cream with them. I found out no one could see me at all… but I could have some effect on things. Just enough to create a draft which blew the curtains away from the little girl, revealing her hiding place. The man spotted her, and she immediately looked terrified. The man took what was left of his sundae with him and slowly approached the girl. He was trying to coax her out. He finally set the dish of ice cream down and backed away, still encouraging the girl to come out.

Note: I have never actually been to Houston, but the pattern of my dream and what I saw fit pretty close to the paths I have marked on these Google Earth maps. It was a very vivid dream and I remembered it very clearly.

I was sitting on the couch watching some kind of documentary on television. I watched it for a few minutes and realized it was about pilots involved in stressful situations such as equipment failure, bad weather landings, etc. They showed an airliner flying toward Houston. The plane was flying over thick clouds. It was a very calm scene, nothing seemed to be wrong there. I got closer to the television and touched the screen. My hand moved through the screen and into the show… uh… well, this should have been good reason for a RC, but instead I thought this was just a new form of interactive television. I pushed my way into the television and the next thing I knew I was flying outside in the air, keeping up with the airliner with no difficulty, and approaching Houston.

The clouds below were what represented the dangerous situation for the pilot of the plane. The plane started to slowly descend through the clouds. I followed suit. I slowly descended into the clouds. This dream was so very vivid that I could feel the small beads of moisture that the cloud was made of. They were cool on my face and exposed arms. I was surrounded by fluffy whites and grays. I lost track of the plane in the clouds. As I descended down below the clouds I could feel larger drops of water. Now I was out of the clouds and into the rain. It was raining rather hard in Houston. The rain sprayed my face and arms, and it still felt good. I was thinking I had just come from a baking hot Arizona day into this pleasant rain storm, of course it felt good to me.

I was able to pick up following the plane again. It headed in towards the Houston International Airport… which I looked up and found it to be called the George Bush International Airport… The plane circled the airport a few times and then came in for a careful landing. I didn't see any sign of problems at all. I wondered why that should've been stressful… but then again, I hadn't been on the plane. They might have had equipment failure along with the storm. After the plane came to a complete stop at one of the gates, I got bored of watching the planes and flew off in what I felt was north or north west. I flew in and around some small buildings, not sure what they were. I was just flying in the rain and having fun. The rain was beginning to slow down a bit now. My flight path carried me over an intersection where there was a rail road crossing.

As I flew down over the intersection I saw a car in the middle of the tracks. Both of the gates were down, and the car wasn't moving. There was a train approaching in the distance. Now if that wasn't just a Murphey's Law moment… I landed near the car and looked over. There was a woman in the car trying in vain to start it. Ok… a cliché moment of a car getting stuck on railroad tracks with a train coming… and now the driver was really going to be too retarded to get out and just abandon the car to save her own life? She finally got out of the car as the train approached. I thought she had finally gotten a brain, but she instead went to the back seat and started struggling with something. What was going on? I went over to her and told her she had better get out of the way… a train was coming… She said she knew, but her baby was stuck in the car. Wtf? I looked in the car. There was a kid in a car seat. The kid was securely strapped into the car seat. The mother was struggling with the belts holding the car seat into the car and the belts holding the child in the seat. None of them wanted to come free. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my knife, popped it out, and cut several of the belts quickly… and then the mom took the child out. We both got out of the path of the train just before it plowed into the car with a loud CRASH! The car was dragged a short distance down the tracks and then tossed aside, a total wreck.

The woman didn't seem to be able to stop thanking me over and over again. She wanted to know who I was because she said everyone would know me as a hero… but I don't want to be known by anyone… so I took to flight and left her standing there in the rain with her kid. I flew north, following some kind of a highway, the rain slowed to a stop.

The air was still cool and crisp. I flew a good distance. I flew until I saw smoke that was not too far off. I headed in that direction, which involved turning to my left for a while. I flew over a lake, and then there was an area of forest. In the area of forest there was a fire raging. I wondered how the fire had gotten started. A bolt of lightning? I hadn't seen any lightning… a careless camp fire or a carelessly disposed of cigarette butt? Maybe, but with it being so wet I didn't see how the fire could have gotten started. Arson? Maybe, but why? I figured it didn't matter how the fire had gotten started… I was going to check it out and figure out how to help stop it.

I flew down to an area not far from the fire. There were animals fleeing the site of the fire. I was hovering over them as they headed away from the fire as quickly as they could go. I could also see the fire approaching. I saw some animals had gotten trapped by the fire… I didn't want them to get burned. I flew in and grabbed a few small animals and got them to safety… but there were animals too big for me to lift. Deer… there were several deer… I flew back and lifted a fawn. It was surprisingly easy to lift. I took the baby deer to safety. I lifted mom… also surprisingly easy… and dad… a sizable buck… also easy to carry… I moved some more animals out, snakes, squirrels, deer… some animals I don't remember what they were, a few of which were rather ugly… but this wasn't helpful… the fire would still catch up soon… getting rid of the fire was the main goal.

I wondered how that could be done. I landed near the lake. I could still see the fire from there. If only I could move water as easily as I moved the animals… I tried to lift up a section of water… and it worked. The water lifted in a small sphere. I did only a brief double take (and no RC) before gathering a much larger sphere of water and carrying it to the site of the fire. I dropped the huge sphere of water over the fire. The sphere immediately broke apart and doused the fire in a huge puff of steam. It never occurred to me that I was dreaming… I thought this was easily explained by the fact I had finally developed my telekinetic powers. That was enabling me to fly, enabled me to lift heavy animals, and transport water. I was flying away from the site of the fire when I woke.

Note: And the rest of this night was taken up with a couple of fragment dreams, both of which were unfortunately non-lucid. I really need to improve on my RCs!

*Outer Realms Software*
I was sitting at a computer. Tigress was sitting beside me, both of us were talking about a video game we were working on. The part of the game we were working on would have a town located near a dungeon. The strange thing about the dungeon was that it wasn't stable… it was constantly changing and rearranging itself. Passages would adjust themselves, dead ends would open up, passages would close off… so each time the player entered the caves it would be a completely different layout. This would be cool, because each trip down there would be new. I was figuring this could be easily done with a random maze generator. I was looking at the screen trying to think if UDK (Unreal Development Kit) could be used to generate a random maze. I would have to Google that.

The next idea we had was to have some characters in the maze that weren't evil. While there would be merchants in the town, the maze we were planning would be big and the player could easily run low on supplies. Then it would be a pain in the ass to have to leave and come back since the entire maze would've changed again. So to fix that there would be random goblin merchants wandering the maze. These merchants would sell the same items as the town merchants, just at an inflated price. Their excuse for the inflated prices would be that the dungeons are dangerous, thus it is dangerous for them to be down there selling stuff. In fact they most likely sell to both the player characters and the enemies alike, and are probably in very little danger, it is most likely the fact these goblins are just greedy that makes them charge so much. Tigress and I talked about the rules involving the goblins for a few minutes.

After Tigress and I were done talking about the goblins, it was time to start doing something. I was looking at a blank screen. It was ready for me to start coding. But what to code? Would UDK handle a random maze? I would need custom models… maybe I should start there first? But making really good models just takes so long… maybe I should just make place holder models and use them for the initial build. Yes, that would be good enough. Before I could even launch the 3D modeling program I woke.

*Watch the Way I Navigate*
I was in a car with Tigress. We were driving down the street rather fast. That didn't bother me since I have a tendency to speed myself. I had the feeling we had just left the Pima Community College, West Campus, and now we were driving down Speedway. Tigress was taking the street name very literally as we flew past other vehicles that were barely moving compared to us. I also noticed that she was beginning to drive erratically. She was swerving all over the road. I looked over and noticed for the first time what Tigress was doing while she drove. She had her laptop opened on a make-shift stand to her right, a cell phone pinned between her shoulder and her head as she talked on it, a piece of paper on the center of the steering wheel where she was drawing a rough map, and she was steering with her left knee. Talk about distracted driving. We were rapidly coming up behind a pickup.

"TRUCK!" was all I managed to say as I saw the impending wreck. Tigress looked up and swerved around the truck. She asked if I could grab something for her, it was in her backpack. I said I was too busy watching the way she was navigating… That brought to mind the lyrics of a song called Feel Good Inc. by the Gorillaz, "Yo, watch the way I navigate
Hahahahahhaa!" And I was watching as Tigress was navigating directly towards a stopped bus…

"BUS!" I cried out. She swerved around the bus. She said I was getting way too worked up over those little things. She said she really needed that hard drive from her backpack, so could I please get it. I was just happy to be able to put my head down for a bit so I wouldn't see the impending doom…