Sweven

Standing
Concentric rows of vehicles enwrap the house we once called home. The tiny house still standing tall it will not fall despite cracks in cinderblock feet. It hurts our hearts to see the green constantly swept neath blacktop sheen. We should stand too, against the creep, but our feet are not so tough.

Boxes
All smiles and waves, shadow and shades, he drives through rooms of my humble home. His vehicle? A cardboard box. He is the one. Amused by his strange intrusion, attempt to catch and question him. He slips through floors, races on walls, splits and appears on ceilings. He stops, but once, and waits. Ask him to teach me to drive a box between dimensions. His straight lipped smile disheartens me. "I can't. Not until you see that there is no box." He speeds away, still haunting the halls of the box that holds me home.

The end is nigh. Ghosts flutter by pre ravaging the earth and each other. My heart is light. Wade untouched through human streams and near death screams. Long to see it, our hellish end. Sun arms bend, whip, and stretch to embrace us, one and all. Suddenly pulled aside and stuffed under earth. Here we should survive. But with a passion as raw and as rapturous as first time love, ache to see the sky. I escape. Long to see heavenly streams of fire blaze across a blackened sky. It is breathtaking. Beautiful. Sole, step high. Love the light. Reach for shining Armageddon arms sent to love us to death.

I seem to have misplaced a couple of days worth of dreams. Will add them when they're found.

22nd

Runner
Seary runs away backward. "Come back!" I yell. He laughs and runs. Catch him mid street. He is a young woman. Enraged at having to pursue, I slap her in the face three times. With broken obedience, she follows me to the sidewalk. Witnesses don't admonish my violence.

Basslines
It's Duff from Guns and Roses. Catch him. Walk. Talk. "Have you heard my solo stuff?". "Of course," I lie. He asks if I like the bass from tow or undertow better. Lie again. We carry on a half fake conversation about basslines.

Flatlands Camp
No hills, trees, or other vertical elements except for tents and their people dotting the landscape. A campground of absolute flatness. A boring spot to settle. On the bright side, when it is dark, the starfield will be spectacular. Live for the night.



23rd

Hypnagogic
Grocery aisle made narrow by wire bins
Wall of computer monitors stretches across my field of view
A very tall narrow building, only the width of a room
A limping man with a dog whom he slaps at lightly
A woman's neck compresses, she's a head on shoulders
Someone carries too many grocery bags through a crowd

Art Stock
Stock art supplies in some store. Mybur's children happen through. Give extra supplies to them. They talk about an art show they joined. Luc said he painted a tree. Mys says she painted a sunset. We wish there were more art shows for youth.

Knocking
Midnight knock on a front door. Navigate shadow to answer. No one. Back to bed. Knock on the back door. Navigate again. No one. Then a rain of random knocking, windows, walls, roof, doors. See no one. Call 911. Digits are disorganized. With bat and my longest blade, await. Back door creaks open. Stranger steps in. Slash and stab. He screams. Bash and bludgeon. He falls. His dying words, "It was just a prank." Now wait for whatever will fall.

A Hand
Mybur's children find me again. Steer me to their art. Show me to their mom. She and Dohaw lounge neath an oak. A stone summons me, a petrified, coiled leaf. It softens, uncoils. A strange shape is revealed. Turn it upside down to see a flattened, mummified baby hand, wrist bones exposed. Go to the gallery to notify whoever needs to be notified. They take the hand. They take, too, the the giant ostrich plume I didn't know was mine. Return to oak. People are gone. Sit. Pick through the leaves for further parts.

Feb 17th

Plane Sight
Sky shakes straight above the house. A passenger plane is stuck in space, so low that we can see the face of the pilot pleaing, "Help." Instead we plan to run, fearing the plane will plop onto our roof. Peer outside. Plane has shifted. Still, it's still, nose angled high. Everything will be alright.

New Stars
Low north west horizon holds a gift. There shines a new spattering of stars like an elongated lyra. A new constellation. Research its name. Nothing. Look outside again, the constellations are diamonds and strings. Their names shimmer beneath. 'Wood elf' is the new stand of stars. There is nothing more to be learned.



Feb 18th

Tygen Beam
The world is a warped mess of woe. Caught in a roaring undertow of frothing words and slippery time, I flail. Amidst the stale ebb and flow of suffocating same ol same ol, a flash of golden hour grin. Little arms open wide. Ringlets, clutched in a little fist, bounce with every step. He is bald. He is beaming. For a while the tide draws away. We sing. We dance. We play.


Sun Dog
A child in the surf, in the sun, on the sand, content with a family that is not mine. A horse of a dog pins me. The creature is massive, fur clotted and matted. Foam slops from its fangs and slaps onto my face. Is this how it ends? It barks. I bark. It woofs. I woof. It arfs. So do I. And just like that a monster is befriended. I sit. Beast stands over my head, about to mount my face? Try to move but am locked in place. A rib cage splits and spreads over my head. Locked in the cavern of an empty dog torso. There is a growing light. It blooms into a tiny sun. "Beware the sundog," I mutter. Break myself away from the hollow being. It bounds one way. I bound the other in search of my fake father and mother.


19th

Flicker Man
"Thought and environment shape our bodies, our hearts, our minds. We are masters of our own wellness or illness," preaches some white haired man. He talks of genes, and twins, and unbelievable things that somehow still make sense. De-aging as he speaks, he flickers from a real man and an animated Bob Belcher.

Driven
Engine roaring. Wheels spinning. Finally free of the unplowed drive, I drive. First is second. Owl flies over, kitten in claws. Feathered lands and feasts on the furred. Attempt rescue? No. It's too late. Around the bend charred blackened bones of the newest homes still smolder. Investigate? No. It's too late. Meander on to meaningless songs and finally find the market. I do not find the natural kind of medicine that I seek. Keep seeking.

Abducted
Wear sandals in the slush and snow. Shards of white don't sting my toes. City bus passes. Charter bus passes. Finally a school bus, with flapping curtains over the windows, sloshes to a stop. Get on. It is only me inside, aside from the doctor-driver. He holds a needle up and grins. Try escape but the aisle is too thin. Stabbed. Numbness. Dumbness. Am caught and flopped into a seat. It is like sleep paralysis. I can fight it. I can escape. I lay and fight.

Blisters
Dofran is ill. "Check my back," he rasps. There are scattered patches of blisters full of red fluid. Recoil. I've not seen such a blight before. "No doctor. No clinic. No hospital," he says. "Well, you can't stay here," I counter. He lays upon the couch. Red, gooey splotches smear about it. Run for my phone. Try 911 but get random homes. Dofran's brother knocks with offerings of books and food. I tell him of his brother's plague. He lugs his brother, fast, away. Try to use my phone again.

Autobiography
The writer's circle shares their souls. I love the way they weave their words. Except for one, whose autobiography is mess of misery. He whines of a girlfriend that does not cook, clean, or obey commands for sex. Circle leader asks if he does anything for her. "No," he snips, offended. Circle leader suggests rewriting but from his girlfriend's point of view. Autobiography agrees. We move on to sweeter songs.

Lucid Rangers
Gathered around grandmother's old tv, we await some new show. It's like Power Rangers but more gritty, forged more for adults. There is no story to be seen. Mind meanders until I hear, "Reality check NOW!" The characters each perform a different reality check and transform into super heroes. They each are expert with one lucid ability. One is the fighter. One is the flyer. One can fold reality. They fight through waves of nightmares, collecting more lucid dreamers along the way. Of all the times they yelled, "Reality check NOW!" I didn't reality check once.

There was another couple of dreams but I didn't write them down in the middle of the night.
Very grateful for another great batch of recall.

Tyson Typer
Caught in a cubicle maze. Placed at the front beside Neil deGrasse Tyson. I read his emails. He dictates replies. He spells out levels of stars. Feel a shine from within. There comes a lull. Silence settles. Boredom soon after. Our combined desk is a table stretching to the edge of a play room. Children enter and run wild. The table between us is filthy. NDG will not let me clean it. It is not our job. We just sit and watch. Spin in my seat. Ride it across the floor. Coworkers join the chairodeo. Cubicles vanish. We spin, roll, crash, laugh. This work is not so bad.

Hide or Flee
We are packed and prepared for an escape long overdue. As the car is loaded we see strangeness in the west. The sky blinks hellish scarlet. Distant booms announce some doom. Machine guns stutter, sputter closer. "Into the house. Hide.," I say. Everyone obeys. To the basement we crawl and cower. Blip. We are packed and prepped for an escape long overdue. As the car is loaded we see strangeness in the west. The sky blinks scarlet. Booms and stutters tromp closer. "Into the house. Hide," I say. But before they can obey I order, "Stop! I think we did it wrong last time. We need to escape. Get in the car. Go!" They obey. We leave the spilt blood sky and the wails of war behind.

From the 13th

The mess is endless In the underworld. There is only time to sleep or to clean. Never is there time to rest or to dream. But wait, cleanliness and unchained light are everywhere found. Disbelief sits me down. Only in dreams are my chambers so clear. Reality check.

"I'm dreaming. Of course!" Reality check again and laugh. "Yes. This is a dream." Sing of running down a dream to keep lucidity alight. Run upstairs. Shake the doors. Punch the windows. Charge the walls. Escape escapes me.

Voices resound below ground. Perhaps they know the way out. Down the stairs. Kayji and Seary are playing games there. Seary's voice runs nonstop, a sharp sound lopping away my lucidity. Snap! Shove Seaery down. Push his head ever down until it is lodged fast in the floor of cement.

Silence.

Thoughts return. "Kayji, this is a dream," I share the secret.

She simply replies, "I know."

"I can't get out of the house. Maybe you can get us out. Where do you want to go?"

She stands, and grinning, chants, "Bee and PuppyCat! Bee and PuppyCat! Bee and PuppyCat!"

"Lets go!" I take her hand. Run up the stairs. Chant our escape. Go no where fast. Re descend to the underworld. How to get out? Call a character from the show, "TEMP BOT! TEMP BOT! GET US OUT!" We remain un-rescued. Spiral in thought, an idea ignites. "Kayji, you have a bell on your backpack! Ring it. See what happens."

Kayji does. A feather light envelope flutters to her feet. She snatches it up and rips it open. "We have a job!" She jumps for joy. My own heart jumps with her.

Dark falls upon us. We roam the echoes of a gigantic, abandoned room. Shadows seem restless. The floor is like flesh. Unease knots within. Reality check. Once. Twice. Three times. Yes still dreaming.

A hole erupts in the floor between Kayji and me. It widens and contorts until a gulf, like a festering wound, convulses between we two.

"Temp Bot!" Kayji greets the gaping, infected chasm. The hole opens and closes, flapping disease. She hears its words. They are undistinguishable to me. "Come on! We got a job!" She calls and leaps toward the hole. She hovers, hand held out. Wary, reality check again. I sigh, "Okay. Lets see where she sends us." Take the leap. Clasp her and plunge into roaring dark. Fear flutters the heart. Anticipation frazzles the brain. From shadows PuppyCat's voice echoes a mystic song. We fall... fall... fall...



Asking a dream character where they would like to go was interesting. I think I'll do that more often.

12th

Bridges
The way is as winding as the river. There is no way across but for the overpasses we slip under. We do not want the highways. We see, sometimes, slender fingers of sandbar poking into the river. Sometimes the fingers nearly poke the wanted shore. These are not the way. They are bridges to other worlds from which crossers never return. We wander on.


13th

Wired
The world rests. She is snug and warm under the blanket sent. All are forced to stop. But I can not. My fondest dream awaits. Tunnel up through a crystal quilt. Scale the nearest electric stilt. Run cross wires, current-less. "Come down from there before you get hurt!" mother's voice rings from all around. I can not. I call back, "No! There's dreams to be caught!"

+ 1 lucid dream


Hypnagogic
-Wiggling lights like aurora borealis shine then warp into tidal waves
-See knocking, it looks like spotted snakes

11th

The Hand
A hand gently wraps my sleeping ankle. This is a dream. Find the calm. Let the hand lift and land where it will upon my phantasm flesh. Ghost hand glides over genitalia. Wake.

Locked
Sit up in a stranger's bed. Frantically glance for the ghost hand. It was just a dream. A little lucid dream. Flop back to bed. Sleep paralysis crushes. Find the calm. Through it shines lucidity. Lucid but locked, "Wake."

Too Early
Sit up in my own sleeping realm. Reality check. Not a dream. "I will remember these dreams. I will be lucid soon." Lay. Inhale. Close my eyes. Wisps of light like a spiral galaxy shifts before me. "I'm dreaming." I whisper and open my eyes.

Sit up in bed. "I AM dreaming," Shadows see me smile. Arise. I will fly. Denied. Recall a goal. Denied. Walk through a wall into abandoned night. Look for a tree. None. The scene shivers. It is too early. Sleep is shallow. Must sink deeper.

Drift down into the dark. Cross legs. Close eyes. Attempt to anchor into the scene. Instead, I float. Softly drift in the weightless dark. Hold my position. A thought occurs. Do I drift in dream space? Or am I still and dream space drifts around me? A wash of vertigo. Wake.


It was too early in the night.

11th

Market Madness
Creativity is magic. Venders display their wizardry. Now comes introductions. One young wizard weeps and runs. Stop the world to seek him. At the back door lumbers a man, face half hidden, gun in hand. Bar the door as best I can. Announce the coming threat. The world scatters. Shelter neath shrubs. A second gunman joins the first. They flee. Wizards reconvene and discuss safer spaces. A man, as Caucasian as can be, rants stupendously that the white race is the ruin of the world.

Sky Tidings
Storm clouds stalking. Outrace the rage. Halted by the serene shores of a mirror lake. At its horizon two suns set in harmony. "Take a photo! This is a rare atmospheric phenomenon," I cry. Kayji shoots. Behind us beams a rainbow of vertical stripes. "Get that too! This is even rarer!" She shoots again. Night is a jolt. Upon the lake fireworks dance as if ordained by a certain grey wizard. Reflections upon the lake make double magic. It is enough to wipe away the worry of scourge and storms.

+ 3 Little Lucid Dreams

From the 9th

Gafar

The world is strange. Sentient colors, succulent laughter, sensual scents of food and drink ebb and flow in festive tides. The extravagance is too sweet for souls as bitter as this. Wander away from the fabulous fray.

"You have been challenged to a duel," a twitchy man greets then twists into the crowd. Give chase through worsening worlds and into the belly of a trippy brick beast. Cheerers roar aside. Behind a table I abide.

The other door belches wide. In spills a bloated beast of a man. Recognize his local celebrity face. Gafar. Before any words are laid Gafar waves his arms, thrusts hands my way. An invisible bus slams into me. Fly backward through the doors.

Shock stings stronger than pain. Stand and charge into the belly again. Clarity shines. Know without knowing that this is a dream. Wave my hands. Spin. Thrust palms at Gafar. My invisible strike is soft. His laughs heartily while he force whips me up into ceiling and then down into the floor.

The earth shakes. There is no pain but the sting of shame. Stand. Inhale. Serenity. A river rises into my feet, fills the hollows of my bones. "You will win this... this is your dream." Acknowledge the absolute truth. Lift my hands. The blimp of Gafar bobs into the air, limbs swinging, voice singing with rage.

A grin. A nod. A flick of my hands. Gafar crashes into brick and slops onto the floor. He deflates like a softly stabbed balloon. "This is my dream," I proclaim. The crowd rocks and roars. They boo and hiss. I smile and proclaim again, "This is my dream."

Two men burst from the crowd, "Come on!" I am captured and carries along. "She's coming. You have to hide!"

Pride tempts me to stay. Curiosity bids me go with the flow. The pair lead me back to luxury. Crush ourselves into a closet. Then comes a distant clicking. And then a clacking as her heels rage closer. Curiosity boils, overflows. I must know! Step out and straight into her path.

She is Gafar's sister, all pretention and wrath. "How are your teachers?" she purrs through the wickedest wrench of a grin.

"Fine," is all that can be said. It is the only word left in my head.

Her shark smile spreads. She twists. She clacks violently on her way.

My closet companions, now a trio, cheer the confrontation. I am only caught up in confusion. "This is my dream. What did she mean? What does this mean?" Try to find her again but am lost in the scene.

10th

The Taken
They depart, giggling and glowing like the spring. To the base of the mountain they fly to meet virtual dreams in real life. They vanish. KayJi's phone tells that she is six hours to the north. A flood of panic. A cry to deaf police. Where to begin to find the lost before their end?

The 9th

Singer
Settle into the safety of bed. A stranger face slips through the curtains of my window. His break and enter lullaby does not send me to sleep. Still, I let him sing.

Hypnagogic
-Too many cars crammed in a driveway
-A sea of cheerleaders
-A solitary small child runs down a dark snowy street
-"Don't you know?" someone asked. I turned to see who
-To someone familiar of face I say, "I know you from waking life."


One lucid dream to be added later.

The 8th

Brightness
Faces are friendly. Laughter is warmth while we sit within the east. Sky grows heavy. Clouds fill with ash as they rage in from the south. Rush away home. Here, sky is unblemished. Tiny blooms dot the lawns. Crystal, streetside rivulets run. Walk with Jaytee to where love still lives. World simmers brighter. Lend him sunglasses. Stroll along singing a mirthless song, "The futures so bright we gotta wear shades."

Lioness
A day waning. Lioness roars. Spirits scatter like storm sent wind. Most run away. A few run to. Lioness sings. Those who hear are granted wings. We soar into the ever bleeding heart of the west.

Perfection
Her children stay small. She keeps them in cubbies of sparkling crystal. They are the projection of happiness and health, of fortune and wealth. Can't stand the shine of their pseudo perfection. I hit the holey road.

Hypnagogic
A square pan full of burnt food from which black ash rises and drifts