memorable

Last night I had a strange dream.

I’ll start at the interesting part: I stepped through a portal into another world. I opened my eyes and saw that I was standing upon a shaggy hill, covered in a grey, dead grass. In the distance there was a hardpan desert, blowing with thin dust. Right before me, there was a creature, almost shaped like a man. He was skeleton-thin, with long limbs. His muscles hung like pockets of flesh from his bones, and his skin was loose and veiny. He face was hollowed, with a fleshy snout and hanging grey hair. His overall appearance was dull and colorless, such that he might blend right in with the desert behind. Despite his appearance, I was not afraid of him.

When I came through the portal, he looked up at me with empty sockets and said, slowly, “It’s only hard dust out here.”

We looked at each other, each obviously curious about the other. After a while, he spoke again, “Can I touch your face?”

It was a strange question, but I could tell he had never seen a being like me before and was curious. Taking his bony hand, I pressed it against my cheek.

“It’s firm,” He said, sounding suprised, “Can I touch your neck?”

Now I was getting a little creeped out. However, I didn’t want to offend this strange being, and so I started to take his hand to press it against my neck. As I did so, however, he stopped me.

“Let me touch it myself. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Hesitant, but still not wanting to offend, I consented and he touched my neck, putting a little more pressure than comfortable on the pulsing vein there.

Next he asked, “Can I touch your heart?”

I assumed he meant my chest, but now I felt scared. I tried to scramble back away from his outstretched hand, but my foot slipped on the dusty hillside. As I fell, his bony hand caught me in the stomach, pinning me to the ground with force. I could feel his skeletal finger digging into my belly button.

“Ooh!” He called out in delight, “There’s more here!”

At that moment, I knew that he intended to eat me to feed his skinny, malnourished body.

June 24, 2011

Notes
Staying at my grandmother's house currently. Slept a really long time. Kind of a crossover from World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King, probably elements from reading too many fantasy novels.

Entry 013
I'm in a restaurant, and at first I'm eating by myself. As time goes on, though, I see a large group of people sitting to my right. I walk over to the group and realize that it's the entire Jackass cast. I sit down at the head of the table and join in on their conversation. They're so funny I'm practically breaking down in laughter. I vaguely remember going to the bathroom and something about Gene Simmons being in there or something.

----

Now I'm wandering around some kind of deserted island nation. The ground is flooded with a thin layer of water about 2 inches deep, but my feet never seem to get wet-- It's as if I'm walking on top of the water. I see two girls here, both of them tall and skinny wearing athletic clothes. They appear to be sparring each other. The shorter of the two is obviously winning. I walk up to the shorter girl and challenge her to a boxing match. She's obviously several years younger than I am, so I'm not worried. She puts up a good fight, but I win.

Just as we finish our fight, I notice a huge ship as large as several mansions cutting through the water nearby. Suddenly the water around us becomes very deep, and I fall in, unable to see the bottom. As the ship passes by I begin to be pulled toward the rocky cliff behind me. There's some kind of whirlpool forming there, apparently caused because someone pulled out some kind of key stone in the cliff wall.

I'm swimming as hard as I can, but the whirlpool is too strong. I know I won't make it. Just as I'm thinking this I spot a loose rope coming from the side of the massive wooden ship. I grab hold and pull myself up to the side of the ship. Cut into the side of the ship is a platform with a metal dragon sculpture over the top of the entrance. Walking into the side of the ship is almost like walking into the belly of a monster. I pass through a hallway and eventually come out into the belly of the ship, which is apparently some kind of coliseum.

There are seats everywhere, and the area gives off a kind of ancient feel to it. The thick wooden columns and seats remind me of the viking era. Even though the coliseum is apparently ancient, all of the seats are equipped with modern-ish devices. One such device is a bone arm rest which has rolling letters with which to enter book titles. Why book titles? Not sure.

There is one section of seats in particular with glowing red glyphs above them, but these are empty. Only potential competitors are to sit here. As I look around I notice in the center arena a giant throne at one end. Upon the throne is a man with full polished steel armor, black cloak, hood and glowing blue eyes. In one hand he holds a massive, glowing blue sword, and I understand this is the "Lich Sword", a sword imbued with the power of the dead. This man is the king of this realm, whatever it is, and only the winner of the coliseum gets the opportunity to fight him and potentially take his throne.

At once I see the first match is going to be boxing. The first competitor enters the ring, and I see it is the girl I challenged and beat earlier. Without really thinking, I jump down into the challenger's seats and am teleported into the arena. Again, the battle is a bit of a challenge, but I still win. I'm teleported back to the seats before a kind of magical forge. The forge glows with a yellow light and a sword, similar to the king's Lich Sword, spawns there. I take it. This is my first prize-- the "Earth Sword".

Suddenly, I'm transported back into the ring. I was foolish. This is far from over. The same girl I just defeated reappears, only this time with a team of other people and a giant black panther. She and her team jump onto the panther. I realize I've been tricked. The girl was an agent of the king, purposely luring me into joining the tournament. I mount my own panther, but without a team. I don't think I can win.

I wake up.

April 25, 2011

Notes
Hardly slept last night. Went to bed at 1:30am, woke up screaming for my mom. Took me awhile to fall back asleep, not sure when exactly. Woke up finally at 6am. I rarely have outright nightmares. Creepy, ominous, yes. Horrifying? No, not really. If I ever have a nightmare I usually will become lucid and then either stop/change the dream. Although I did do that this time, it was really late and the nightmare was practically already over. Also, three dreams inside of each other. I could make an inception joke, but honestly I'm still creeped out. My dream self didn't realize they were dreams inside dreams. Motifs of nothing, I've never had a dream quite like this. Also, I had dreams this weekend but they weren't too interesting seeing as I lost sleep. Also I wasn't home, so I didn't bother to write them down anyways.

Entry 010
I'm in Dr. Clark's room. We have some huge essay to write, it's due in 30 minutes, but I'm so tired. I lay my head down on my desk and fall asleep.

I'm in my bed, except I realized later that it was on the wrong side of the room and exact to my old bed back home. I'm half-asleep, my body is already paralyzed and my mind is mostly unconscious. As I'm lying there, about to enter a deep sleep, I feel something on my back. It feels like a hand. For a minute I don't feel particularly worried about this. The hand is running over my back, slipping lower until it runs over my ass. I feel uncomfortable. Then I can feel nails digging into me. I realize there is no hand, but the touch persists. I realize the hand belongs to some kind of demon, and that its intention is to murder me. My body is still paralyzed. I try screaming, but all that comes out of my throat is a strangled grunt. It's not loud enough for anyone to hear. I know that I have to stand up and get out of here. I try to stand, but I can't. I fall to my knees and drag myself to the door. Along the way I see something out of the corner of my eye. It's a little man, about as wide and tall as a bowling pin, dressed in clothes like Charlie Chaplin with white pasty skin, frizzy black hair and huge, staring, yellow eyes. I open the door and drag myself to the hall. I try screaming more, but I'm still not able. I think I see my mom on the couch, but it's dark. I get to the couch, someone's there. I'm safe. I relax, fall asleep by the couch.

I wake up. I'm in bed. Something is touching me. Repeat of the last dream, but as I reach my door this time I think "My bed is on the other wall. Didn't I just have this dream?" and I realize I'm dreaming. My dream self, however, is still panicking. It's screaming at me to get the hell out of the room. The will of my dream self overpowers my lucid self and I fling the door open. There's a blinding white light.

I open my eyes. I'm screaming. My mom is in the doorway.

April 22, 2011

Notes
After forgetting my dream last night, had 3 dreams tonight, one lucid. Went to bed at around 1am, woke up several times but eventually at 1:30pm. Great dreams tonight, some of the typical weird stuff that happens in my dreams. Attempted control at the end of the lucid dream, almost succeeded, blocked by some creepy projection of myself. Very memorable at the end of the lucid, very unsettling. Reoccurring people, which I've never noticed until I started this journal, and of course my dog Riley shows up again. Motifs of weird adventures, futuristic settings, otherworldly experiences, school, etc.

Entry 009
My first dream begins in a house. It's my house, only my room specifically seems to be bigger, with a really strange wall shape. The room sits kind of like a townhouse, on the second floor of some other apartment and only loosely attached to the main house. The atmosphere inside is just like my room-- books scattered everywhere, clashing color schemes and fabrics, random nic nacs on every surface. I'm sitting by the window, looking out at the street below. There's an eclectic shop across the road, filled with antiques and dried squid hanging from the ceiling (what?). I see a friend walk into view, maybe Sejal, maybe not, I can't really remember. She waves, I wave back then open up the window and jump down to the street. We go inside the shop for awhile. There's an old woman who looks like some kind of cartoon gypsy or one of those old fortuneteller machines sitting behind the counter, watching us like a hawk from behind her round spectacles. We leave and I go back up to my room, only to find everything either gone or covered in a white sheet. My mom comes in and said she did some "cleaning" and that she's packed up all my stuff for me to go to college.

---

Another dream in similar setting to the first, only without the previous one ever happening and with the place that was my room now being a classroom. We live in some futuristic world, with tall white skyscrapers and even a couple flying cars here and there. Despite all the modernity, there are still places like the antique store with dried squid cramped along the narrow paths between buildings.

I'm walking, then I stop at a towering building meant for residential apartments. On the first floor I can see Burell, but I'm not here to see him. I am at a different floor in the building. I ring the bell and Donahue answers. There are already some students waiting inside. I get the impression that we always have school in these residential apartments for some reason, even though the classrooms are more like personal houses of the teachers than classrooms at all. We have a lesson, but I'm hardly paying attentions. My gaze keeps shifting to the wide, floor to ceiling windows which give a panorama view of the world outside, flying cars and all.

Eventually, one lesson ends and the majority of the students file out of the apartment. Only myself and a couple others are leftover, and we're all given instruments. We practice for awhile, then Donahue says something about us "being ready". Apparently there's some kind of festival around a bonfire today (something that seems strangely uncivilized for a nation with flying cars, but whatever...) and they need musicians so that the dancers have a beat. I leave, stop in at the antique-squid place again.

When I come out of the shop I look up at the sky and see it's getting dark. I have to hurry to the festival. Someone or something is with me all this time, but I'm not sure what it is. When I (we?) get to the festival, all of the other musicians have already taken their places in a horseshoe of black chairs set upon a hill. I kind of lurk in the back of these chairs, but never sit down or play. I have an ominous feeling, like something sinister is happening. I see Donahue front and center playing a tuba or something like that. The people around the fire dance.

As I'm walking back to the building, Burell sees me and intercepts. As we walk back together, I tell him I have some strange feeling about Donahue and the festival. Burell then tells me that I was right to, then reveals some dark past of Donahue's; why we have classes in his apartment, why there's a festival, why we were made to play music in the festival. When we get to the building, Burell slips in to his apartment on the first floor. As I'm standing there, staring at the place where Burell was standing only a second ago, Donahue sneaks up behind me and taps me on the shoulder. Is something wrong? He smiles.

--

Final dream. I'm lucid. I'm in some kind of futuristic world, an underground society connected by dim, floating lights and wide tunnels of whooshing air used to travel. I've just moved in to a new, comfortable home and I'm inviting people over for a party. We're playing video games, watching TV and talking; just generally having fun. Eventually, however, some neighbors come over to complain. They're already holding a grudge against me for not inviting them, and so they want to interfere in our fun. I invite them in and I get some impression that I shouldn't have. Riley is here, and she's snapping at their heels. The floor is made of large multicolored tiles that light up underneath your feet and I can see myself backing away, lighting yellows, purples, reds, as they move forward.

The dream gets fuzzy here, I think I may have temporarily lost lucidity, but I get the impression they severely beat me up and that one of them rapes me.

When the dream comes back to me, they've switched my new home in to some kind of place of indoctrination. A bunch of brainwashed kids are sitting around me, my previous party guests, all wearing bathing suits, raincoats, tutus and other bizarre clothing. Occasionally a new person tries to enter the room and join us. If we find them attractive we let them in, and if we don't we beat them to a bloody pulp. One fat little girl in a purple bathing suit tries to come in. The room tenses. There's no way we can let her in.

Just as we're about to strike, I stand up and shout "NO". I'm wearing some kind of cosplay or costume with a tutu and a crown. It's very scanty. I run to the front of the room and tell the girl to quickly leave, and she won't get hurt. This action seems to somehow snap the rest of the people in there room out of their daze. I notice the original neighbors look furious. I also notice they don't seem to have human forms any longer, but are more like purple shadows with glowing eyes. I run out of the house with them chasing me. Somehow I am faster or more quick-witted than they are, so I can easily escape. The problem is how determined they are. They never stop chasing me for even a second.

I come to one of the air tunnels people use to travel in this world. There is a slight breeze coming down the tunnel, and floating in the air are things that look like orange lifesavers used on boats. I jump into the tunnel and the wind catches me before I drop to the bottom. I'm still slowly heading to the bottom, however, and I realize that you have to grab the lifesavers for the tunnel to effectively work. I somehow control the wind with my mind to blow harder, and then I'm swinging from lifesaver to lifesaver like a monkey, the wind at my back driving me down the tunnel.

I do this for a long time, sometimes running through crowds of people at entrance to a movie theater, one time skating down an underground waterfall. I have to keep running or else I will be caught. Eventually I'm just walking through a crowd, aware that my enemies are far behind me. My lucid mind starts to wander. I remember that I need to try and control my dreams sometimes, and then I remember that one of the tasks of the month was to gather some flowers, and so I decide to create a field of red flowers. I see a door up ahead and open it. As I do a field starts to spawn ahead of me, an endless field of roses and poppies and other, unidentifiable flowers. I look back and the door is gone. I realize that there is some kind of presence with me. I look to my right and see a carbon copy of myself, grinning malevolently. "You can't control this." She says. I fall flat on my face in the field, and I can feel myself losing the dream. I try to feel the texture of the ground, like I've heard can stabilize the dream, and for a second it works. I can feel myself getting a grip back on the field. Within seconds, however, my twins face is between me and the ground and she's laughing at me. "It's already gone," she says. She's right. My eyes are flickering open, and I'm getting glimpses of my bedroom and the field alternately for a couple seconds. I try for several minutes to re-enter, but all I can see is my own face glaring at me, laughing.

I wake up.