memorable

I'm standing outside of a huge gold and white castle. The front doors alone are bigger than anything I've ever seen, though I feel familiar with it as if I've lived here my whole life. Inside, the first room is grand, empty, and shiny. To the left, the castle blends in with the dirty outside streetscape; markets, classrooms, and living quarters become one with the castle, as though it had been abandoned and is now being repurposed. I have fleeting memories of sleeping in bunkers below the castle or walking outside in the snow, seeing the castle's golden spires in the distance, meaning this is most likely what I know as home.
Venturing deeper into the castle's grand halls, I come across a small, empty room, with a hole in the ground. I walk over to the hole and see it's filled with water, though I'm not sure how deep it is. I see my reflection, some sort of white, featureless creature wearing blue robes.

The next day, I go to the market. I squeeze past overgrown shrubbery to get to the old stone staircase that leads to the produce stalls. At one of the stalls is an old owl-like creature wearing long brown rags and a broad-brimmed hat. He has his wrinkly talon hands resting on the table in front of him, which is littered with shiny trinkets, fresh vegetables, and other goods. I walk up to him and begin to barter for a handful of carrots or some other carrot-y-looking food, and after a while of arguing I give him some coins and he fills my bag. I take off down the very narrow street, bustling with life, and go up into a sheltered area. The first room I pass through is a kindergarten classroom, where I stop to watch for a moment. 3 tiger creatures are arguing in Mandarin, all wearing quite nice clothes. One has a baby on her lap, and I assume the other two are also mothers of some of the smaller creatures I see sitting at the back of the class. I continue going through other rooms, though I can't remember much after this.
I end up back at the well in the ground. I toss one of the carrots in. After a moment, I hear a deep rumbling coming from within the well, and water splashes up out of it. I return to the bunkers for the night.

I wake up in complete darkness, floating aimlessly, quickly realising I'm underwater. I start panicking, certain I'm going to drown here. Then a light appears above me, and I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up and see a glowing boy with white hair, a white shirt, and a very long tail, and he's smiling at me. We're talking like we've met before, though I can't remember much of this part, other than I'm slowly floating up and I have faint flashes of some kind of scripture in my mind. It feels like whatever's happening is very important. I start reciting something and I suddenly understand why I'm in the well (of course, can't remember that either). As I get closer to the top of this body of water, the boy's tail begins to curl around me as it gets thinner and thinner, until I've reached the end of his tail. Then it splits in half, and he runs the inside of his tail along my face as a sort of goodbye. I reach the top and am blinded by light, I feel completely at peace.
And then I woke up.


This was such a cool dream, I wish I could remember more of it!

My wife and I had recently decided we wanted a change of pace, and moved to live in the woods. Our house was big enough and was completely removed from the rest of society, secluded and peaceful. As far as we knew, we lived alone out there. A few weeks after moving, I had started to hear a tapping noise coming from outside. I assumed this was from trees outside banging into our walls, as it often got windy out there. Over the course of 2 or so months, the tapping got louder and louder.

We wake up one morning before the sun had risen and I say goodbye to her as she heads off to work. I sit in our room as I listen to her car pull out of our gravel driveway and drive off. A few minutes later, I hear knocking at the door. I'm thinking maybe she had forgotten something, so I answer it. But no one's there. I try to see through the darkness and fog of the early morning out to our driveway, but I don't see anything parked. I look to my left and spot our black dog laying on the veranda playing with his toy, so I assume it was him who had just been scratching on the door. As a soft rain starts to fall, I go back inside.

I close the door. Inside the living room, I hear that familiar tapping on the window, now the loudest I had ever heard it. Like a knock. These taps were too evenly spaced together to have been from any kind of tree being blown about by the wind. The rain is picking up now, coming down hard on my tin roof. Suddenly, from the other wall of the living room I hear that same knock. Outside I see the dark silhouettes of trees surrounding my house thrashing and waving back and forth in the storm's howling wind, and paranoia starts to fill my gut. I try to calm my nerves, reminding myself that I am the only thing out here. As waves of hail and rain come down on my house, I walk back to my bedroom.

I look under the bed, the space between the frame and the floor too small for anything to fit underneath. The closet, full of clothes. Under the desk, nothing but lint and dirt. I go to check behind the curtains. As I start towards the window, I hear footsteps coming from the front porch and my heart starts racing. I pull the curtains back, and peer ever so slightly outside. The sun had started to rise, light creeping across the forest floor. I squint to see who is out there.

A warm wave of relief washes over me as I see my wife and I's dog, toy in mouth, bowing at the front door, his dark coat drenched in mud and rain. He notices me watching him from the window and runs over excitedly, whining at me. His puppy dog eyes put a smile on my face, as I'm reminded that everything is as the way it had always been. I walk back to the front door, but hesitate for a moment. I recall my wife telling me not to let the dog in the house after it had been raining, as he'd get our carpet dirty. But hearing his whines, I tell myself she'd let it go just this once, and I open the door to let him in, quickly shutting it to keep the rain out. I sit down on our doormat and hug his muddy fur as he jumps about in my embrace. He shakes himself clean, now safe inside the warm house. But still his whining quickens, coming out in loud gasps as he drops his toy. The dog turns and takes my hand in his mouth, shaking it urgently. His whines are so loud, it sounds like a faint scream. I pull back from him and look into his beady eyes. As he stares back at me with a fearful expression I try and ask him what's wrong, but he continues to scream. Then his black eyes look somewhere behind me, and his gaze turns wide and white. In the reflection of the door's wood, I see two large, yellow eyes, staring right back at me.
And then I woke up.

----

I'm not the best writer but I tried to capture the absolute terror I felt last night after being awoken by the first real nightmare I've had in years. Couldn't go back to sleep after this one.

My wife and I had recently decided we wanted a change of pace, and moved to live in the woods. Our house was big enough and was completely removed from the rest of society, secluded and peaceful. As far as we knew, we lived alone out there. A few weeks after moving, I had started to hear a tapping noise coming from outside. I assumed this was from trees outside banging into our walls, as it often got windy out there. Over the course of 2 or so months, the tapping got louder and louder.

We wake up one morning before the sun had risen and I say goodbye to her as she heads off to work. I sit in our room as I listen to her car pull out of our gravel driveway and drive off. A few minutes later, I hear knocking at the door. I'm thinking maybe she had forgotten something, so I answer it. But no one's there. I try to see through the darkness and fog of the early morning out to our driveway, but I don't see anything parked. I look to my left and spot our black dog laying on the veranda playing with his toy, so I assume it was him who had just been scratching on the door. As a soft rain starts to fall, I go back inside.

I close the door. Inside the living room, I hear that familiar tapping on the window, now the loudest I had ever heard it. Like a knock. These taps were too evenly spaced together to have been from any kind of tree being blown about by the wind. The rain is picking up now, coming down hard on my tin roof. Suddenly, from the other wall of the living room I hear that same knock. Outside I see the dark silhouettes of trees surrounding my house thrashing and waving back and forth in the storm's howling wind, and paranoia starts to fill my gut. I try to calm my nerves, reminding myself that I am the only thing out here. As waves of hail and rain come down on my house, I walk back to my bedroom.

I look under the bed, the space between the frame and the floor too small for anything to fit underneath. The closet, full of clothes. Under the desk, nothing but lint and dirt. I go to check behind the curtains. As I start towards the window, I hear footsteps coming from the front porch and my heart starts racing. I pull the curtains back, and peer ever so slightly outside. The sun had started to rise, light creeping across the forest floor. I squint to see who is out there.

A warm wave of relief washes over me as I see my wife and I's dog, toy in mouth, bowing at the front door, his dark coat drenched in mud and rain. He notices me watching him from the window and runs over excitedly, whining at me. His puppy dog eyes put a smile on my face, as I'm reminded that everything is as the way it had always been. I walk back to the front door, but hesitate for a moment. I recall my wife telling me not to let the dog in the house after it had been raining, as he'd get our carpet dirty. But hearing his whines, I tell myself she'd let it go just this once, and I open the door to let him in, quickly shutting it to keep the rain out. I sit down on our doormat and hug his muddy fur as he jumps about in my embrace. He shakes himself clean, now safe inside the warm house. But still his whining quickens, coming out in loud gasps as he drops his toy. The dog turns and takes my hand in his mouth, shaking it urgently. His whines are so loud, it sounds like a faint scream. I pull back from him and look into his beady eyes. As he stares back at me with a fearful expression I try and ask him what's wrong, but he continues to scream. Then his black eyes look somewhere behind me, and his gaze turns wide and white. In the reflection of the door's wood, I see two large, yellow eyes, staring right back at me.
And then I woke up.

----

I'm not the best writer but I tried to capture the absolute terror I felt last night after being awoken by the first real nightmare I've had in years. Couldn't go back to sleep after this one.

I'm in the car with my dad and we're driving into the town that I grew up in. As we're driving down the streets, I look around and notice how much it has changed. The school I used to go to is all new and so much bigger than it used to be, the roads have been updated, everything is so much flashier than it used to be. There are new shops and houses all over the place that I've never seen before. We park in the parking lot of the shopping centre my dad and I used to go to every week, and we enter in through the back way that we'd always use. For the most part, it looks the same.
I'm excited to see the people that I grew up with again, considering its been about 3 years since I'd been here. In the grocery store, each aisle is littered with teenagers talking and messing around with each other, but there isn't a single kid I used to play with. I recognise some of the faces, being kids who live in my new town, but none of the ones who went to my old school. None are kids who I'd shared classrooms with. I realise it's been so long that I've forgotten the faces of everyone who made my childhood what it was. I go back to my dad whos in the self checkout and dejectedly tell him none of my old friends are here.
We walk back through the rest of the shopping centre to the car park. I look around, the shopping centre is the same. The neighbourhood and the school and the people might've changed, but this mall is the same as it always was. The $2 store, the fish and chips shop, the spices store, it's all the same. And then I woke up.

Also, tomorrow is my birthday

I'm in a new, high-tech startup digital art gallery with a friend. It's small, with a reception desk straight from the entrance, and only a few metres of space on each side. There are fake vines hanging from the ceiling and windows, and fake plants lining the brick walls, giving a very sort of indie cafe look.
There are screens displaying impressionist artworks, mostly Claude Monet. My friend and a few other visitors in the building are looking at these works on the huge screens, and as they do that I begin to take a look around the building. To the right of the reception desk, tucked away in a corner, is a little shelf with a couple of small screens showing fan submitted artworks, each with their own paragraph long descriptions next to them. Most of the drawings are children's drawings submitted by their parents, or amateur paintings/sketches done by visitors. As the drawings cycle through every couple of minutes, I absentmindedly read their descriptions and pick out my favourites from each cycle, until one catches my eye.

It's a small, vertically long sketch with limited colour. Down the middle of the page is a sidewalk with hopscotch on it, outside of a cafe with tables and chairs out the front. On the other side of the sidewalk is lush, green shrubbery. Sunlight is streaming through the leaves and pouring onto the sidewalk in little white splotches. At the top of the sidewalk strolls a young girl in a long white lace dress, with brown hair and a white sunhat. At the bottom of the sidewalk, where the hopscotch is, is two lion cubs playing, one with a sun for a head, and the other with a moon. It is the most beautiful artwork I have ever seen.
Then I look closer at the drawing and see it's been done completely on lined workbook paper, with nothing more than a blue pen and some coloured markers. I'm stunned. Something so engulfing had been done by some student, doodling in their notes, without a thought about it.

As I stare at the drawing, the cycle reloads again, and another takes its place. I panic, I don't want it to go yet, I have to find it again. I try to find an author's name, but the descriptions have cycled out. I go to the gallery's website and find a list of all the authors that had recently been displayed in the fan corner, and find the artist's name. I'm so happy that I get to see it one more time, and then I woke up.

I was actually quite mad that it was a dream. The whole night I thought it was real, and I was just as worried when I woke up that I'd lost the drawing again as I was in my dream, even more so that I would never be able to find it because it wasn't real. But then a few hours later I realised that the artwork I was so obsessed with came from my mind, in my imagination, meaning I would be able to recreate it. I'm so lucky to have the ability to create art, I wish I could live forever so that I could dream and create and dream all over again.

I'm standing in the reception of a large building with my older sister. The building's some sort of mix between a hotel, a mall, an apartment complex and a few other kinds of establishments. Every other inhabitant of this building resembles some kind of humanoid creature. The reception area is a huge hall with gold plated red walls, lined with extremely intricate decorative pillars and skirtings, and the floor has some kind of shiny marble pattern.
After she speaks with the lady at the counter, we make our way to the elevator. Inside the elevator is a person in a grey trench coat and a large black dog, standing in front of a full-wall mirror. I select floor 15, and the dog jumps up and starts pressing all of the buttons to which the trench coat person starts apologising profusely for. After we assure him it's nothing to worry about, we get off at our floor.

Floor 15 is reminiscent of the second floor of a large shopping mall, except every shop is closed and a heavy mist coats the air as moonlight shines in through a fake skylight. I look over a railing into a dark, bottomless pit, and a sense of dread washes over me. My sister and I make our way to the furthest corner of the shopping mall, where I can see bright lights flashing in contrast with the eerie dead mall. The only shop that's open is a casino, alive with loud noises and blinking signs, although I can't see a single person inside. My sister goes in and I wait outside, sitting on a small square couch in the middle of the mall near a few other "people" doing the same. I look at them, some with their heads replaced with eyestalks, some tentacles, as they all stare down at their phones or books. An inactive crane game catches my eye, and I notice there's a dead arcade just across from the casino. I feel completely empty, hopeless, and hungry. And then I woke up.

Had two dreams the other night, one non lucid and one lucid! It's been a veeery long time since I've had a proper memorable lucid dream, I only wish this one was as fun as all my others have been.

Non Lucid:
Not really a lot happened in this dream, but it was disturbing nonetheless. I'm sitting on my bed, shirtless, looking down at myself. I notice a few faint bruises forming along my torso, and wonder what I'd done to myself. I shrug it off as me being clumsy, as I do easily bruise all the time, until I look back down again. The bruises are getting darker and larger in real time, going from pale brown patches to dark, almost black, purple bruises that cover majority of my body. I can't do anything but stare in horror as the black trauma on my skin is slowly beginning to become indents, as if it was loose. Then, I'm watching as the skin is rotting off of my body. I'm becoming a corpse before my very eyes, and all I can do is watch.

Lucid:
As soon as I fall asleep, I'm thrown into a sterile white corridor, surrounded by a team of people. Some of them are carrying clipboards and wearing all kinds of equipment, while a few others have stage makeup on, like they're straight out of an action movie. We're walking quickly down the corridor and everyone's talking as if something important's going on. Instantly, I know I'm dreaming, but I'm completely freaked out by the fact that I'm in a place I don't recognise, surrounded by people I've never met who are all acting like I'm important. Not only that, but I look down and realise I'm not in my own body. I suss out the situation and, as I'm listening to what the people around me are saying, figure out I'm in the body of an actor who's got a very climactic scene to shoot in about 5 minutes.
As we continue walking down the corridor, I grab another actor who's in the same scene as me and try my hardest not to sound crazy. I'm trying to explain to her that I'm not the actor they're looking for and instead someone who's asleep, who got mixed up in the situation, and that I need her help. And for some reason, she believes me! Either that or the person I'm pretending to be has got a sense of humour. She tells me no one else on the team will believe me, so I've just got to play along, but she'll help me to the best of her ability.

We then enter a room, with the producers walking off leaving just the other actors and I by ourselves to do a last minute run through of the script before the big scene. I remember trying my hardest to concentrate to change the dream, because at this point I'm so unbelievably stressed out over the fact I'm not myself and I'm about to ruin the biggest moment of this tv show because I have no idea what's going on. Usually trying to switch to another dream works, but this time I just find myself stuck. I go up to the woman who I was previously talking with and start begging her for the script, because if I'm going to bomb this I might as well make an effort to look like an actor. Another actor overhears me and comes up to me confused, telling me that I should definitely not need the script by now because we're just about to get on set. The woman makes up an excuse for me and goes and quickly gets a script for me to read my lines from, but as the two of us are looking at it, she tells me this is an old version of the scene. All I remember is freaking out, before waking up. I never got to get on set.


The first dream honestly did not bother me like I now think it should have. When I first woke up after it I didn't even bat an eye, but after writing it out I realise it's a lot more gruesome than I gave it credit for. And in the second, it's honestly kind of pathetic that I spent my first long lucid dream in the past few months stressing over an imaginary problem that I knew was happening in a dream, before waking myself up from the amount of stress I was in. I've really got to do counselling or something....