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Awake Non-lucid

I'm in my school's drama studio. It's a large, open grey space, with blackout curtains and lights everywhere. There are tables set out in it. There seems to be a cliff at one end.

A boy I don't know stands on the edge. The people of my class watch, silently. I look over the edge of the cliff and see a clouded, rushing river. I turn to the boy;

"Are you gonna jump or what?" I ask impatiently. He shrugs.

I leap off the edge. I land in the river. It's muddier than I thought. I climb out, and make my way back up to the studio. When I get to the top -a dank smell clinging to my hair and dripping wet- there's a woman at the door. She says I have a piano lesson.

Oops, I forgot about that. I grab my bag and make my way to my practice room, seating myself on the stool. Three women are cramped into he room. One has red hair, and sits quietly. The other two look old and stern.

"I'm taking this lesson today." Says one of the women. "Where is your music?"

I take my folder of music sheets from my bag. Taking them out, I realise in anger that they're the wrong ones. One is called "Po Po" and the other "The log".

"I don't have them, but I can play them from memory."

The woman scowls. "Well that's not good enough! Sit down right now!" I sit. This is usually around the time when I look uninterested in what the teacher is saying. A surefire way to piss them off. So I hold my hand up, inspecting my nails, picking bits of dirt out of them.

As expected, this angers the woman. She leaves for a moment. I decide that she's a grouchy cow and I'm not putting up with it. "Listen, pal. My piano teacher's a bit of a bitch as it is. I don't need you, someone I don't even know, coming in here and nagging at me. Especially when, let's face it, I can play all my pieces and this lesson lasts half an hour." I snarl when the woman gets back. I smile at the red haired girl. "I'm guessing you're a student, who's working with this old hag. I don't envy you, love."

The old womans face grows red with anger. She's truely furious. I hold in a laugh. "You have a severe attitude problem young lady. Get out of this room."

I leave, looking around to find my music teacher. When I find her, she smiles sympathetically. Something hits me. With horror, I realise those people were my examinars. "You sent them to have a lesson with me? Why didn't you tell me!?"

My back slides down the wall, and I huddle down, crying. I have well and truely screwed up my exam.

I'm guessing this dream came from the fact that I have my music exam next week () and I don't feel totally prepared. Also that I hate my piano teacher, she's a bit of an impatient bitch and I would absolutely love to tell her. I refrain myself though...

Bitch fight

Dreamed that I was some young woman at a bar where some other drunk girl didn't like me for whatever reason. I remember fighting her, slapping her and then doing a few kung fu moves on her.

Asuka is the boss

Had a dream that I left my work and the woman boss was following me home, I was thinking, "Why would the boss follow me home? oh yeah It's Asuka!

non-dream / dream / lucid

Eu estava em casa, na piscina, com alguns amigos. Lembro que Gabriel e Vinícius F. estavam ali. Estavámos simplesmente conversando e percebi que os irmãos da minha namorada (Vidal e Sofia) estavam do lado de fora da piscina (qeles têm uns 4 e 6 anos, acho). Estranhamente, eles estavam extremamente pequenos (do tamanho da ponta do meu indicador), e eu mal conseguia ver seus detalhes (como o rosto), mas eu sabia que eram eles. Vidal subiu em uma havaiana que estava ali perto, apoiada na parede, enquanto Sofia ficava brincando com a minha mão. Eu virei para meus amigos e falei que era estranho o fato de eles estarem no tamanho "atômico". Eles riram como se isso tivesse sido uma piada muito engraçada.

non-dream / dream / lucid

Eu estava indo pro shopping da minha cidade com uns amigos (provavelmente com Gabriel e mais alguém). Quando cheguei lá, vi Paulo Felipe, Enrique e uma garota que eu não conhecia. Cumprimentei eles e percebi que, no chão, havia um círculo amarelo (onde caberiam umas 50 pessoas nele) e, no meio desse círculo, havia uma máquina (como se fosse aqueles caça-níqueis). Enrique estava com um controle preto na mão que parecia ser dessa máquina.
Peguei o corredor da esquerda (e estranhamente me lembro de ter passado por uma escada rolante) quando meu professor Álvaro apareceu e começou a conversar comigo. Em um momento, ele me perguntou o que eu iria fazer de faculdade (estámavos andando em frente ao game-world). Eu disse que estava pensando em fazer Engenharia Mecatrônica, logo depois me corrigi e falei que queria fazer Engenharia Elétrica. Haviam dois garotos na nossa frente, eles olharam entre si e riram.
Andando pelo shopping, percebi que haviam mais desses círculos pelos corredores, e que no centro deles haviam atrações diferentes. Na parte onde há as escadas rolantes havia outro cículo também, e haviam 3 garotas brincando nas escadas (elas subiam e desciam pelo corrimão, mas caíam no chão várias vezes e ficavam reclamando).

Some Fragments:

My ex keeps putting my bed covers over top of his BBQ, covering the meat he is cooking there. I keep telling him to stop, but he doesn't, saying that he likes the smokey flavour he gets when he uses my bed covers as a lid

Owen is visiting and we're trying to figure out what would be the best job for him. I am looking in his online profile to get some ideas, but I feel like I'm trespassing or snooping.

My son is sat at a large table with all kinds of fruit and veg on it. We are testing each to find out which he likes.

Flies in my Nose!

I have a sickness of the eyes and I can't seem to focus properly. Blurry, I go up to the doctor and they tell me it will be expelled soon. I sit down in a dentist like chair, or rather, I lay back, as they turn on a big overhead light. I ask them what it means that 'it will be expelled soon' and they tell me that 'it' is an insect that is in my nasal cavity. Sure enough, one tiny fly like creature comes out of my nose in a stream of liquid, then another. I am told that this happened because of the cubed tobacco I have been eating. I think of where I got it, and I see Teddy from Gray's anatomy eating it too. I picked up the habit from being around her, I rationalize.
The doctors collect the flies to send to pathology.

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Good morning! I felt like I had to make up for lost dreamtime, so getting lucid and doing awesome things was on my schedule. After doing a WBTB I managed to do it. The mantra was: "I'm dreaming"

01.00: Sleep

07.00: WBTB 20 minutes

07.45: Fragment
*I'm showing my WoW characters to a coworker.

07.45: Using all senses MILD
I'm petting my mom's dog Igor at her house. "He's loyal as long as there's food" someone tells me, not sure if I heard it all in my head. I get up and walk out the door, it's freezing cold outside. I head towards the parkinglot and then decide to go back, it's too damn cold. I decide to do a RC. I count seven or more fingers. That can't be right... I recount them and this time I can't even keep track on which finger I am on. But it's too damn cold for it to be a lucid!

I need to stop thinking there are limits to a dream, I usually incorporate pain and cold in my RC's as I experience them daily, never in a dream. I have no particular task in my mind except stabilizing the dream with my senses. I grab a pinetree and smell the air. It's cold and doesn't smell much. I head back to the house and run my hand against a truck standing in the middle of the road. I find a snickers bar in my pocket and take a bite. It tastes like regular snickers.

I realise I've forgotten hearing and start singing "Land of down under". My sister Malin shows up and I throw the half-eaten snickers bar at her. It hits her head and I laugh happily. I'm behaving like a crazy man and I start singing on another random tune. I find some bark strips and throw them at her as she's going inside again. They all hit her head and we both laugh. I head towards the parkinglot again and spot some dog pee in the snow. I wonder if it would stabilize the dream if I ate some. Pushing the thought aside I remember a small village being ontop of a hill behind the forest infront of me. I start flying on the spot and go five or so meters up. I fly right into the thicket of pine trees. Everything becomes alot darker once in the forest and I start crawling up the hill, touching moss and pine needles.

My hoodie gets pulled over my eyes and everything goes black. I refuse to let the dream go and franticly try to get the dream back by imagining touching the forest floor. Suddenly I can see again, I'm still in the same place. I let the needles prickle my skin and I yell at myself to stabilize. It works great! I start climbing once again and after a minute or so of climbing, I can see the top. The trees all change into something more fitting a warmer country. Gravity seems to be weaker but I don't care. I'm in no hurry and I jump from rock to rock as I climb higher.

After what seems like forever I reach the top. I'm standing on a flat mountain overlooking a huge forest. There's a broad dirt road going through the top of the mountain and I spot several houses further down the road. I start walking and check my pockets once again and find a lighter. I fill my hand with gas and light it. A small fireball stings my hand but I ignore the feeling. I remember trying to play around with fire but always failing back in the days. I make a fist-sized flame appear in my hand. I watch it flicker for a second before I reach out with my hand towards the first building in line. The small metal chimney in the middle of the roof (which has an inwards tilt) starts burning. I light another fire in my hand and stretch it out at a wooden house further away. The house starts burning like a torch instantly.



I am satisfied, but not entirely. How about having some dream sex for once? The road ends up ahead infront of two houses. It's getting darker and I intend to get laid. I walk towards the building on my right and look at it. It's completely dark inside, but I force the dream by imagining someone being at home. A few meters away I see blue light which must be coming from a TV on the top floor.

I enter the dark house and head up the winding stairs infront of me, silent as a ghost. There seems to be two rooms on the top floor and the left door is slightly open. I push it open and TV light illuminates the room. A girl in her twenties is sleeping in a bed with a blanket over her body, she's very cute. I start removing my clothes silently. The dream feels stable enough still and I can feel my pulse quickening. I don't intend to do anything she doesn't want to, but I know she will be willing anyways, it's just a dream. I try to remove my pants but they get stuck at my ankles. I struggle to get them off for a second. BAM! Awake.

10.00: Fishing
I'm watching a movie where my friend Jonas catches a pike. He's in rather shallow water and there's a crowd of people standing on the shore cheering him on. He gets it out of the water and heads up to the dock. I walk up to him (apparently in the movie myself now) and congratulate him on his first pike. My brother Martin shows up and his friend. They start arguing and I spot a plastic tub with dead fish in. I weigh them each in my hand, all of them spiky. My brother seems to have caught quite alot today I think for myself. It's time for us to go fishing. I head out in the water and Jonas shows up with a strange, pink flower on the hook. "Look what I caught!" he tells me excitedly. "Put it back before anyone sees you! That's just a plant dummy" I tell him and worry about how the crowd would react.

He gets disappointed but throws it away. We swim further out and soon a few more friends appear. Jonas wants to fish for more plants but I tell him that's a bad idea. I feel like swimming under water and head down a few meters then swim like a fish for as long as I can. When I break the surface again I'm at the mouth of a river. I feel dizzy and have to take huge breaths. The rest of the group catches up with me.

10.00: LHC-Nuke
I'm at my computer. My old computer is hooked up to my new one and I'm trying to play some game through the new one on the old one. I get bluescreen and it's really messed up. Suddenly I'm playing a new Battlefield game. I'm in a tank and I'm blasting away. The tank has some new kind of missiles that doesn't explode right away but sticks to the target for a second or two first. I eliminate an entire camp with my tank and soon I'm left with nothing to destroy. I have two missiles left though and I wonder if I could shoot one out into the sky and make it blow up. I rightclick and then hold both buttons. The missile gets controlled for a while before it blows up on the sky.

Suddenly I'm ingame. A bunch of friends and Monica are there. I shoot the last missile up into the sky and it explodes, a shockwave rips through the sky and change position of all clouds. "Look! Isn't it awesome?" I ask Victor. He doesn't really care. The shockwave doesn't go away right away but keeps on rippling through the sky. Another blast gets my attention. I see a bright light over town and realise this is the day they're launching the new LHC. I can see an enormous rocket being lifted to an upright position. It must be several km away. "What should we do?" I ask everyone. I suggest we split up, I want to play some computer games with G. "I don't even like you, I never have haha!" he tells me. Wtf? I'm hurt and take off on my bike. I go up on a hill and turn around to see if Monica's following me, she's not.

A few people show up and they're whistling. I can't do that, would make her seem like some kind of dog. Another loud blast sounds, this time much louder. A bright light appears on the sky and it's quite beautiful. I go down the hill again at great speed. A car almost hits me and at an intersection I break with the entire bike. I slide in the snow for a while before stopping. "Babe!" someone yells behind me. Monica appears on her bike and she falls into the snow. She's crying out loud and got snot all over her face. Poor thing I think as I comfort her. I left her all alone when it's night out. I'm such a bastard.

10.00: Fragments
*I'm visiting a doctor for my wrists. "Anything that's wrong with you?" she asks me. "Well, not now but I'm always hurting somewhere" I tell her.

*I'm at work and telling a few coworkers about my lucid dream I just had. They laugh and shake their heads and laugh as usual, but when I come to the sex part they actually listen, before I tell them nothing happened. HAH!

10.30: Wake up

Amount of sleep: 9½ hours

Supplements: None

That's it! Quite a cool night. The lucid was pretty sweet as I was bouncing around like I was on the moon the second part of it all. I guess I did a DEILD and induced the same place successfully. That was probably the longest lucid I've had to date.

Keep on dreaming, HARE BRA!

This time I failed again to grasp the fact that I'm dreaming properly.

I'm having a long dream about school, I the early parts I only remember fragments. I'm in a gym with other kids, running laps counterclockwise. Later, I sit at a table outside with PT and two girls from school. One was the same year as me, the other one below. She wears a big hat, I can't see much of her face, but I know who it is. We talk about graduation and other stuff. Later, I am lying on a couch and relaxing, talking with another guy about DSA. There's going to be a party at night, I'm wondering if I should go there. I decide not to go, go talk to the person responsible for DSA. Apparently I'll be going to the southcoast of australia, to watch and study whales. I take my bike and ride home (it isn't my real home). There, I fall asleep on my bed.I wake up, in front of me is my laptop. I think "maybe this is a dream", but I fail to think it out further. I look at my glowing laptop, dreamviews is on. I hear my father outside the room, I don't want him to notice me. He comes in and tells me "what are you doing, go back to sleep". I do so, and wake up in my previous dream.While awakening I think "that really was a dream just now". I go back to school to ask how the party was. I see cars transporting big musikboxes and washing mashines, and think "that was a big party"

13.03.2011

Crashing Cars & Smoking Soldiers (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Dream 1

I meet an old famous actor, who appears to be married to my former elementary school teacher. Both persons are, despite their role in my dream, unknown to me in real life. They are about to leave for a movie premiere in which the old famous actor plays a leading role. I'm invited to join and we quickly embark in the actor's shabby car. Our surroundings are urban, with a lot of room for green and the season feels like summer. We make a short stop to pick up another person. A man, who quickly replaces the actor at the steering wheel. We continue to make our way to the premiere, but when, shortly after leaving the urban environment, we are driving up a hill, our driver loses control over the vehicle and we crash. The car is total loss, all occupants however are unharmed. The police arrives at the scene and informs us that all movie material, which was apparently stored in the back of car, has been lost.


Dream 2

I have arrived at a militairy airport in an unknown country. I'm part of a student exchange program and I'm being escorted to the rest of my group by a soldier. While casually going through my pockets I discover three bags of weed. I quickly realise that the chances of this being legal in this country are very slim. I decide to carefully move the bags from my side pockets into my boxershort, which unfortunatly does not go as smoothly as planned. The tightness of my trousers does not allow the bags to go in more than a couple of centimeters, which is barely enough to keep them from being visable. We come to a halt on a field and I can see a soccer match is taking place. Soldiers, wearing black/white attire are playing a friendly match with my classmates wearing their everyday clothing. The soldier and I watch the game from a distance and I try to keep up with the game, the soldiers seem to be winning, but under the circumstances I'm having difficulties remaining calm and concentrated. My breathing is steady, but my heart is racing and I'm starting to break a sweat. I try to comfort myself with the thought that there is no reason for the people here to suspect me possesing weed, but an unexpected hand on my shoulder crashes my train of thought. 'What are you hiding?' The soldier looks me in the eyes, searches me and quickly discovers the three poorly hidden bags of weed. The soldier is a young guy, probably still in training, about my age and doesn't look like a bad guy. I however realise that I'm in a very bad situation. Caught with drugs in an unknown country, not knowing what will happen to me. Who knows what the penalty for possesion is in these parts of the world? The soldier observes me, shakes his head, and reaches for his pocket, grabbing a red, empty pack of cigarettes. He opens the pack of cigarettes, puts the three bags of weed inside and returns it to his pocket. He looks at me and says: 'I think this is the best solution.' I look at him in disbelief, and as I come to my senses I quickly agree with him and express my gratitude. 'Come.' He says. 'Follow me.' We leave the field and make our way to an area with multi-storey buildings. I ask the soldier if it won't be troublesome for me not to report to my group, he informs me that they'll be leaving shortly for a demonstration of some sorts, nothing I would mind missing. We enter one of the buildings, a school, judging by the students and teachers making their way through the corridors. Moving through the building we end up in a darkened room, filled with smoke and the distinct smell of weed. Sitting on some mattresses and cushions are three guys, each enjoying a smoke. I keep my distance as the soldier starts a conversation with one of them. The soldier wants to know if it is possible for him to buy some weed. Probably not the first time he's here, seeing how the sitting guy eagerly presented his stash before the soldier had even finished his sentence. The soldier continues by asking for a price, receives an answer, and in return presents the weed he confiscated from me, offering it for a price based on the price he just learned. 'Roelf?' One of those guys knows my name? I move forward to see who it is that knows my name, and discover that one of the guys chilling out is a friend of mine. 'What are you doing here?' He asks surprised. I explain the situation to him, and in return ask him what it is that brings him here. He tells me that he's been stuck here, waiting for his cellphone to recharge, unable to contact home and succesfully arrange transportation.

U took 100 mg Seroquel at aroun pPM and I crashed by 11. I woke up once to my 18 year old trying to get smokes from me. Apparently, he and his sis were cleaning. I keep them under my mattress so I got him one. he wanted me to see the progress but I was too out of it.

I don't recall the whole of the stories of my dreams

I had broken my wrist [Thnkas "Royal Pains"] and I was trying to scam a brace off someone. I was a younng guy in this dream. My mom eventually got one for me. It was a large, so when no one looked, I switched it out for a small.
After a drawn out story line which I've forgotten, my brother calls me out. I briefly became a girl for a sex scene.
My brother chased me to the ocean. We struggled for awhile. I thought I would drown but then I was swept up by both my brother and the current. Fish kept nibbling at my flesh and I wondered why my brother wasn't affected. He rode the waves as though he had a surfboard, then surfed the surface of the shore, still dragging me through the water. We nearly knocked down a random DC while flying by.

Then the dream merged into an earlier version. I was tring to make Jehovah's Witnesses extinct for some reason. I looked for incriminating files. I was supposedly helping the couple but I was just using them for accesss. The man couldn't take it anymore, so he climber on top of a tower and planned to jump to his death. His wife was already all but dead from the shock (they were very elderly). I told my mm I could carry her to the top and have her "jump" with her husband.
While waiting for the perfect chance, I saw her ion a bench with my mom and placed some bottle of booze in her hand.

That's all I recall/. I woke drenched in sweat,

I was in a mountainside cavern talking with two females about the fight going on the valley below, after while we left cavern and it was snowing outside, i asked were they going to need transport as i was planning to jump down the cliff(which was bout 800 meter long (half mile) drop).
They said that they were okay and would be there with their own ways, there i remembered that they would anyways appear there (half-lucid logic).
jumped down the cliff and started dropping real fast but would not bother to open the parachute, so dropped to the valley floor.
I went with scouting unscathed and ended up at big ice wall without finding anyone in the way, so i shot an grappling hook from my left arm to the ice walls top parts and started climbing but i gave up before the top because i thought this must the edge of the scene coz its so hard to get there.

Later i was in a city with same two females raiding a military base, thats where my self awareness got high enough for spontaneous LD.
I noticed that i didnt have any kind of weapon so i started to throw enemies to walls with telekinesis, after a while i remembered that i had planned to wild this night but i had failed coz sudden awakening of my parents.
So i teleported of the scene and ended up in my fathers old home.
I walked trough the house and saw some "things" i was supposed to do later in the failed WILD but i would not do them yet coz they were too unstabilising to the dream(as they were sexual in nature).
I went outside and walked to the road to start flying and to find "The Receptionist"(Self designed DC created for causing LDs, one of my support and control system DCs)
It was snowing and it was cold so i raised the heat level and pretty soon all the snow was gone and it was cloudy and windy weather.
I wasn´t able to fly with few tries and there was pretty strong wind so i raised it to really extremely high wind speed and jumped of the bridge was standing on to the wind.
Wind carried me really fast upwards to the clouds but dream destabilized after i hit the clouds.

Damn it would have been awesome to fly above the clouds in such cloudy, rainy day, better luck next time.

Lucidity:A
Vividness:B
Control:B

Friday, March 11, 2011

I only remember being surrounded by blackness and then stating "I am dreaming." I then became lucid, but immediately awaken.

This one was a little fragmented

Thursday, March 10, 2011

I am driving my car in a dark, maybe rainy, area. I run someone over with my left-front tire. The fear and adrenaline feel very real at this point. I suddenly have a thought that I just ended another person's life by accident and, by extension, my own life is now over.

Now I am in a two-story bar. There is a bar and dance floor on the first floor and I am looking down on it from a railing above. The area I am in contains a bar and is populated by people with whom I work (though only in the dream world, I do not recognize them as real co-workers). I am watching a couple of co-workers form a giant line dance on the dance floor below. One of them, a guy I know as Mike, jumps behind the downstairs bar and starts stealing bottles of vodka and drinking a few of them right there.

Upstairs, a blonde woman, who appears slightly old than I, begins a provocative conversation with me. She is definitely flirting. She winks at me as she says something salacious. Her husband is with her and he looks like a moron. I get the distinct impression that I do not like him at all, nor him me. He seems completely oblivious to his wife's advances towards me.

Now I am sitting in the middle of the street. More specifically, I am sitting in the middle of an upward sloping street. My dream co-workers are all sitting around me as well. On the cross street below us a musical version of Uncle Tom's Cabin is being played out by a group of unfamiliar people. We all appear to have gathered to watch it.

I awake and perform my RC.

Not sure if anyone has ever heard of a mesmetron before, but I am able to build them and use them in my lucid dreams! I have run around using one in New York City. So much fun! Has anyone else ever had any kind of engineering type dreams like this? I have made other things but the mesmetron is by far the most fun.

A Mesmetron is a hypothetical device which allows the user to override brain patterns of who it is fired at effectively mind controlling them.

I haven't been following goals or keeping up my recall lately. I have had a few spontaneous LD's though, so that is giving me motivation to step up my practice again.

Falling Peacefully
Method DEILD
Lucidity C
Vividness C
Control C
I transition into lucidity from a brief waking. Or it could have been a false awakening, I can't be too sure. But I'll call it a DEILD. I am laying in bed, dark and quiet. I begin to feel the sensation of falling through the bed and into empty dark space. I open my eyes and turn my body upright. I feel the cool breeze of air as I fall and it's quite pleasant. I try to will myself to teleport to some place. I focus my intent on appearing in my office. But nothing happens. The effort causes me to wake up briefly.

I remain still and DEILD chain back into sleep. Once again, I feel like I am falling through the bed and into empty dark space. This time, I decide to just go with it and enjoy the experience. I see a few twinkling dim lights like stars in the distance. Then it seems like either they are getting closer or I am falling faster because they start the rush past me as I fall. They seem to be on a solid wall is closing around me.

Then, it seems as though I am falling through a narrow tube and these dim lights are just specks on the tube as a fall through. It's like a tube ride at a water park. The tube starts to angle slightly instead of straight down, so now I am sliding along the tube rather than just falling. All along, the experience is pleasant and I'm just curious about the whole thing. The tube gradually angles more and more horizontal until eventually it is level. My sliding slows and eventually I stop at one section of the dark tube. I'd say I've been falling for about 5 minutes.

I crawl in the tube, looking at the sides. There's still a soft breeze of air and I don't feel trapped. But I'm looking for a way out. I feel a panel along the wall and remove it. It's like an electrical fuse box. Inside, there is a small lamp with two cords that plug into some sockets in the wall. I pick up the lamp and move it to shine down the tube to get a sense of where I am. But in doing so, I pull the cords out of the wall and the lamp turns off. I feel around to fit the two plugs back into the sockets. In the dim light, I sense that some are color-coded in red and other's black. I try a few different combinations of plugs and sockets until one works and the lamp comes back on.

I turn to look at the other side of the tube with the help of the lamp. I find another panel and I remove. Behind it, there is just empty space, like the tube is suspended in space and this panel is a way out. I think to crawl through but it's too small for me. But as I'm thinking about this, I seem to fall through the bottom of the tube, as if a trap-door opened under me.

I fall for a moment and land softly in a field of long wild grass. It's still mostly dark but a bit lighter here. I can see well enough around me as if the moon is shining down in the middle of the night, though I don't recall looking up to see the moon. I take a moment to reflect on the dream and how calm and quiet it was. I am alone in this dark field, but I don't feel lonely or afraid. It's pleasant.

I was talking to Ben about him visiting us in America and us visiting him in Australia. There was a canyon in Australia that I was particularly interested in seeing, but for some reason, he wouldn’t talk about it. We went through a list of reasons why it was a bad idea – too far away from Brisbane (either twenty-five minutes or five hours, he never specified which), food for the trip, silly things like that which are rarely the biggest factor in planning an international trip. He and another Australian guy debated how well the car would hold up on such a long drive. We were in some kind of virtual reality world. Ben had spent a lot of time converting image data to 3D models of scenic places in Australia, but he wouldn’t let us see them… I was confused, so I pressed this a bit. I finally told Ben flatly that I wanted to see the natural beauty of Australia, and I would see it with or without his help. He wouldn’t talk to me or Nicole after that. We got involved in some kind of weird mind meshing game where we turned Ben’s brain into a marble and rolled it around in our thoughts, making him rethink his decision. He eventually decided he would cooperate with us after all. As we learned, the only reason he had argued was because he thought my request to see the sights in Australia was my way of criticizing his appreciation of nature. Since it was settled, we apologized and settled our disagreement. We missed each other’s company too much to hold out alone anyway. Ben made what was supposed to be a bold statement, then – he would buy a bike in Australia and ride it proudly to show the world how much he loved natural beauty.

The dream jumped. Ben and I were meeting up at a restaurant and hotel. We were all going to stay there together. One of the employees at the restaurant, a woman with blond hair in a sophisticated, black uniform, asked if I needed any help. I declined any assistance; I was waiting for someone, I said. I stood in the middle of the busy restaurant as waitresses zoomed back and forth between tables. I observed that the hotel was separated by a swamp-like stretch of gooey, red organic tissue. I dared not step on it. I asked the blond woman from before how I should cross it. She pointed out a narrow path made of stone that led across. All of this was clearly a reference to Althea’s swamp in the Sword of Truth series. I thanked the woman for her help as Ben appeared in the distance… He was riding a bicycle! When he approached the restaurant, he hopped off the bike. He asked me which coins he was allowed to use as payment in America.

“The American ones,” I laughed.

“The quarters, dimes, and nickels, then…?” he asked, nodding.

“The pennies, too!”

“No…” he said in sincere disbelief. “Really?!” He came into the restaurant after paying some kind of bike fee. Even inside the restaurant, he rode that bike everywhere. He nearly fell in the living swamp water as I was showing it to him. I warned him about it… At best, the water would just creep us out. I didn’t want to find out it was deadly and acidic. Anyway, we went to the winding stone trail. Naturally, Ben had to ride his bicycle over it. He nearly fell in twice; one of the stumbles put most of his weight over the edge, but Ben somehow floated to safety. I asked if he was feeling alright… He was having a lot of trouble with balance. Although he assured me he was fine, he seemed very dizzy… He started coughing and eventually vomiting bile. I invited him to sit on a bench with me and rest before we continued onward. He accepted the offer. I took photographs of the swamp.

The dream jumped. I had a false awakening in Nicole’s bed. The room looked as it did before she rearranged the furniture. I understood that this room was connected to the hotel from before. I kept hearing sounds like a squeaky bike outside. I tuned it out as I relaxed in bed. It was a bright, new morning… Nicole stirred and immediately asked about the strange, periodic bouts of squeaking. I told her I would check it out. The next time we heard it, I saw up and looked out her window. In the street was a metallic figure attached to bike wheels – one big, one small. It cycled freely down the road. I figured out what was going on instantly and ducked out of view.

“You can’t be serious…” I said, mostly to myself. “Get under the bed! Now!” I urged Nicole. She and I managed to squeeze under the bed together. It looked like it would be easy for the robots to detect us if they checked the house; the bed seemed higher up than it actually was from our low vantage point. Anyway, the moment I saw the human-like design in what otherwise could’ve been an interesting vehicle, everything came into place. I knew it was an artificially intelligent robot. The fact that I heard several on the street – but no cars, frighteningly enough – indicated that they were large in number. I suspected they had built up their forces in secret and overwhelmed our society. They hadn’t checked our room while we were sleeping, I decided, or we would be dead. Our robotic overlords had no reason to allow us to live. I explained all of this quietly to Nicole. We watched, terrified, as a robotic sentinel walked past our door on its metallic legs. They didn’t have feet – just long, narrow legs. I wished I had Apheri.

Once the coast was clear, we knew we had to get Ben. Nicole and I went to the bench outside where he stopped to rest the previous day. A fleshy cocoon surrounded it now. I gestured for Nicole to follow me in. It was empty… I didn’t want to imagine what the robots had done to him when they found him. Order is a disturbing foe… We heard the squeaking of metal joints as a robot sentinel approached the cocoon. Nicole told me to hide, but there was nowhere to hide! I prepared myself for a fight. The robot raised its arms when it saw me and opened fire. Bullets filled my body. I tackled the top-heavy machine and tumbled with it into the murky water outside. Nicole gasped, fearing the electricity would kill me as the robot’s body began to crackle. Fortunately, it didn’t. The robot turned into a small bug on my arm. I crushed it with a finger, but like a cockroach, it seemed to come back to life despite seemingly fatal injury. I crushed it again, and it took flight. It bit me, injecting nanobots into my body. I couldn’t destroy it.

“They’re immortal…” I laughed uneasily. What was I going to do? I basically resigned myself to my fate. I couldn’t fight this… I couldn’t imagine how, but the robots had conquered us overnight, and they would exterminate us without fail. I saw them marching toward us. “Go hide, Nicole.”

“What about you?”

“I have something to do… It’s our only chance.” My body was full of bullets. There was no way I would survive – but maybe I could save Nicole.

The dream jumped. I was walking around in tunnels built in a Minecraftian style. I was just above bedrock. Everywhere I looked, I saw robots mounted to the floor or ceiling. When the first one saw me, a white laser trained itself on my forehead. Intense battle music started playing. Inspired by this, I ran for my life as bullets rained on me. I turned away from the few that were shooting me and nearly fell to my knees when I saw hundreds of robots staring at me. There was no escape. They had me trapped. I ran for my life past one of the three in front of me. It shot a boomerang sword at me, cutting off my left arm. Blood spurted out.

“No way…” I choked. It shot the sword again after it returned, taking off my head this time. The bloody head rolled as my body slumped forward. I heard Nicole commenting on how cool the weapon was. I saw her standing by the lighthouse on Sailor’s Isle (Skies of Arcadia). She practiced throwing the sword. It was nearly Apheri’s length and probably just as heavy, but it moved through the air like a phantom.