Recent DJ Posts

As mostly my IRL self, I'm following a news story about a court case. The girl on trial is a minor, but the people involved in the case keep talking about her as if she's an adult; there's racial connotations. Her outlook is not good. As not-exactly-my-IRL-self, I'm thinking this is an injustice. I've allowed them long enough to work this out themselves, they've had their chance; I'm going to step in and remove her from this ridiculous trial. There's a connotation here that this means dropping everything going on in my life. I'm nearly out the door when IRL-self stops to wonder exactly what I think I can do.

I'm standing in a dimly-lit, brown-toned library where I'm meeting Mazikeen for the first time in a long time. The dreamer part of me is critiquing the way the dream is representing her half-alive half-dead status; the parts of her without skin are tinged green, and it crosses over her body, so that her left arm and right leg are dead. I think of this as a clumsy representation of the life/death mix. The character part of me is remembering seeing her a long time ago, when she'd just been made immortal and she'd been elated about it, saying that she'll be able to continue to serve as long as I need her. I'm wondering whether she'll think what I'm doing now is worth serving - or rather, what I'm not doing now; I've abandoned certain ambitions.

I'm on a lake. In the lake, there's a small island; there's an enormous tree whose roots cover almost the entire island; at the base of the tree, there's a standing mirror, silver in color this time; and in front of the mirror, there are two steel bars. There's a steel vine covered in thorns that's wrapped around the bars in an arch, serving as a lock. I unwind the thorny vine and remove it. The mirror's open now.

Traveling through the basement of a ruined mansion, where the walls have crumbled so much there's a sense of open air and greenery, there's a painting of Joan of Arc commissioned by the woman who used to own this estate, and I'm pleased to see she had it painted so that Joan resembles the commissioner herself. This would be considered disrespectful, which is why it was hidden away in the basement.

I'm in an open, airy, bright library where some event is going on, some new release that's drawn in a lot of upper class, scholarly types. It's interrupted by a woman who's some kind of monster I'm familiar with, delivering a hostile message to me and leaving again. She frightened most of the people into backing away. I'm thinking, although these things are hostile and my automatic reaction to them is equally hostile, they only exist because of my "tainted blood," which was what originally created her kind, generations back; thinking about that, there's a shift in attitude, I start to pity them. They're essentially my responsibility, though they're not aware of it.

I'm standing outside my IRL local library with two women. One of them needs to get something from inside the building, without getting caught. There's only one person inside to avoid being seen by, that and hiding her face from the cameras, so it seems fairly simple, but she's still worried, and she's standing around working out various plans. This seems to be something she intends to do on her own, she's not asking either of us for help, and the other woman with us is just waiting impatiently off to the side, but it seems to me this would go a lot easier and faster if I just went ahead and took care of it myself. After all, unlike her, I don't show up on video, and it'll be much easier for me to avoid that person inside - they're mostly walking around the main area near the door, so I'll just go around to the side of the building instead and walk through the wall.

The section of wall I phased through comes out in the fantasy section, off in the corner of the library and out of sight. I'm looking around at the fantasy books, and thinking about how I used to eat this stuff up, and about how much more difficult it is for me to get lost in a book now. I'm aware that the quality of the books hasn't changed, it's my own mindset - but I somehow feel sure that if I look at one of these books, now I'll find one I can get absorbed in. I pick one up and flip through. The paragraph I'm looking at now involves characters named Maedhros and Fingon - I recognize the names from Tolkien, and I note this as odd, since this isn't a Tolkien book. These aren't meant to be the same characters either; the author seems to have just stolen the names for his own characters.

The dream scene changes to a scene from that book. One character is explaining three weapons to another, and he's making a big deal out of a knife that secretly contains some kind of poison. He says there are two options with this - a whole dose inside will kill instantly, but "a thousand light touches... well, depends on how you define death." The scene changes; he's meeting a small group of people in a forest, one of them a queen, and they're coming to some agreement. He secretly places small doses from that poison in each of their drinks, which will give him some power over them - to his mind, this is simply making sure that they don't back out of the deal they've made. After they drink, they instantly realize what's happened and regret making this deal, but it's too late now.

I've just arrived on the edge of a cliff, out of sight, and now I'm following a path through the trees into town. I'm shocked by the state of the place. Although visually, I-the-dreamer didn't actually see anything that looked unusual - it was night, the streets were empty, there wasn't much to see but it seemed like an ordinary small town - I had the impression that I-the-character was looking at foulness or decay, something along those lines. I hear a conversation like a voiceover, it's not part of this scene - I have the impression it's something said later, as if what I'm seeing is a flashback related to that conversation. In the conversation, I'm saying, "I saw-" and someone else cuts me off, saying "No. You didn't 'see.' You corrupted." They sound angry. That is to say, whatever's wrong with this town is due to my presence, or at least the person speaking believed so. Visually, I'm still walking through that town, and a woman appears in the street, shining or glowing, wearing white robes, and after a moment I recognize Erana. I'm very relieved and run to her; she's not looking at me, she's looking around at the town, looking like she's mourning.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

That same town, relatively early in the evening, when there are still people in the streets. I'm walking together with a married couple. I'm looking at two shops next to each other, and I'm remembering when the man I'm walking with praised this town to me, telling me I should come and visit him and his wife here, talking about the brightly colored buildings and the many-colored tiles on the roofs. I'm looking at the faded paint on these buildings and trying to convince myself that maybe it looks better in sunlight, but I don't think so. I mention this to him, and he brushes it off, vaguely implying that I'm misremembering what he'd said, or that he'd exaggerated, and that it's not important. I start to press the subject, asking his wife about the state of the town.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm walking on a dirt road just before dawn, sky's bright. The ground to my right drops off sharply into a valley which at the moment is filled with rising mist, and I'm stopping to enjoy the sight. It's very beautiful.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

A mother and daughter in their library, the mother is standing over a book lying open on a stand, and the daughter is behind the stand, trying to get a look at the book. She holds up a candle to try to read, but her mother tells her you can't read it like this. The mother puts out her candle, and all the other lights, and when it's pitch black the book starts glowing. As a 3rd person observer, I'm thinking something about how this makes perfect sense for a book about darkness. The mother is focusing on the book and saying "I shan't flee from you around here, mortal." The light from the book flares up so brightly I can't see anything else.